A Small and Passing Thing by Lindelea
Antane · 3 September 2011 · Chapter 56: Thoughts of the Future
It's good that Frodo has someone to talk to that has experienced something similar to what he has and they can strengthen each other against the darkness that lingers in them both. Namarie, God bless, Antane :)
Antane · 3 September 2011 · Chapter 55: Echoes out of the Past
It's dreadful that it has taken me two years and a half years to get back to this but I began yesterday once more and enjoyed the previous chapter and this one. Poor Frodo! You show his torment well. Namarie, God bless, Antane :)
Antane · 8 March 2009 · Chapter 46: While Samwise was Away
Freddy's getting better but Frodo's worsening. But they are still there for each other and I'm glad to see your filler of that scene. Namarie, God bless, Antane :)
Antane · 8 March 2009 · Chapter 45: The Wizard's Curse
I hope this is the beginning of the end of Freddy's troubles. Saruman tried so hard, but you can't stop love or virtue of Elvish gems. Namarie, God bless, Antane :)
Antane · 8 March 2009 · Chapter 44: Tea with Mistress Lobelia
Well, wasn't that an interesting little tea and chat, especially with Lobelia feeling the healing properties of Arwen's gift and Frodo's remarks about the Ring, the least of Rings. Namarie, God bless, Antane :)
Antane · 8 March 2009 · Chapter 42: Stuffed to the Gills
Now that's scary but thank God Merry and Pippin saw through it! Namarie, God bless, Antane :)
Antane · 8 March 2009 · Chapter 40: Thoughts of Home
This is a nice switch - Freddy taking care of Frodo! :) Namarie, God bless, Antane :)
Antane · 8 March 2009 · Chapter 39: Of People and Places
That's our Sam! :) Love it, love it! He must certainly would have jumped down a dragon's throat. Love Freddy's comment on that. Sam did learn a lot about his 'place' on the Quest - and it was right where he's placed himself since he was 9 - at his Frodo's side, who was master, and became best friend, then brother, then child and neither of them see any reason to change once they are back home. Namarie, God bless, Antane :)
Antane · 8 March 2009 · Chapter 35: Seeing the Old Year Out
The book has begun! :) Love the discussion here about the beginning and interesting that Estella knows about the Ring too. Namarie, God bless, Antane :)
Author's reply
LOL, and thanks, about a year late! I just now saw this review, but I certainly appreciate your taking time to respond. Hope you'll forgive the long delay. (It took me a number of tries to actually start reading FOTR. The Long Expected Party chapter was so very long-winded, I wondered if anything would *ever* happen. Now of course, with my fascination with hobbits, I could re-read it many times just because I find it so interesting. LOL!) God bless, Lin
Antane · 8 March 2009 · Chapter 31: The Lockholes, Revisited
Oh, this is not good - all these hobbits with post-traumatic stress! :( But they have each other and if they just keeping talking about it, as only one can to those who experienced such horrors themselves, that will help. Such burdens can be carried if one is not alone in carrying in them. Namarie, God bless, Antane :)
Antane · 8 March 2009 · Chapter 30: So Much to be Done
So much to be done indeed! I feel for Freddy's continued torment but Frodo is the right one for both their sakes to be there to help him. Hope you are loving all these reviews! :) Namarie, God bless, Antane :)
Author's reply
O Antane, yes, I am loving all these reviews. I've been sick in bed the past three days, and only up a little while tonight, but reading your reviews has been very heartening and I hope to answer every one of them when I get some energy back. Many, many thanks. God bless, Lin
Antane · 8 March 2009 · Chapter 25: Midnight Snacks
The treasure is even more of one if he chooses to remain with one beloved cousin and not go to the other is even more so and I love the little confidence builder he gave to Sam. Namarie, God bless, Antane :)
Antane · 8 March 2009 · Chapter 23: ...and Lost, Again
A treasure indeed and that treasure learned how to do lead others from his own treasured one who led him through his own darkness. They teach us so much! Namarie, God bless, Antane :)
Antane · 8 March 2009 · Chapter 21: Sticks and Stones
A frightening time for Freddy but I'm glad Frodo is there, loving him as always, and Sam is there too, despite his memories. Namarie, God bless, Antane :)
Antane · 8 March 2009 · Chapter 18: Of Gossip and Gardeners
I love the idea of Bilbo telling Frodo bedtime stories! :) Namarie, God bless, Antane :)
Antane · 12 February 2009 · Chapter 16: Dreams of Home
Isn't it wonderful to hear in these chapters Frodo laughing! Thank you! *hugs you* Namarie, God bless, Antane :)
Author's reply
Oh, yes, I'd hate to think of Frodo as dragging himself around and moping from the time he returned from the South until he left from the Grey Havens. I don't think he did, actually, because Sam didn't seem to notice anything much wrong with him until they were on the way to the Grey Havens, as I recall. Namarie and g'night, and may He richly bless you as well.
Antane · 12 February 2009 · Chapter 15: Another Pause
he patted the Red Book. 'Good night, Mr Frodo,' he said softly. 'One of these mornings I'll be seeing you.' I love it! Another sweet, loving thing to say. He's ready to leave but I'm glad he's spending some time here too with his family. Namarie, God bless, Antane :)
Author's reply
Yes, he's very much looking forward to seeing his Mr. Frodo. I think it's some consolation for losing his Rose. And of course he'll be seeing her again one day.
Antane · 12 February 2009 · Chapter 14: Pouncing on Fredegar
’He’s grown a bit,’ Frodo said. Just a wee bit. :) Like Frodo has grown just a wee bit. Well, if that's not an understatement! Ha! Namarie, God bless, Antane :)
Author's reply
Very nice use of subtlety! Well done! *g*
Antane · 12 February 2009 · Chapter 8: Suitable for Hobbits
Ah, well, he’d faced Shelob. Surely Lobelia could be no worse. :) Kinda put things in perspective, huh? That was a lovely thing Lobelia did. Namarie, God bless, Antane :)
Author's reply
I think Lobelia's good came out at last, and I'm only following JRRT's hints in "The Grey Havens"... You're right, it was a lovely thing.
Antane · 12 February 2009 · Chapter 5: Pause
’I think I’ll just spend a few more minutes with Mr Frodo before I turn myself in' *sigh* What a sweet, loving thing to say and he'll soon be spending much more than a few minutes with his treasure. Love it. *hugs them both* Namarie, God bless, Antane :)
Author's reply
He certainly will be! But I fear he'll also miss his loved ones. Not exactly split in two; Frodo promised he wouldn't always be. But perhaps occasionally thinking on those left behind and wondering.
Antane · 12 February 2009 · Chapter 4: A Little Fall of Rain
Since two people in the last couple weeks have recommended this story to me as a must read, here I am! Love your prologue and how much a gentlehobbit Frodo is to Lobelia. *hugs him* Namarie, God bless, Antane :)
Author's reply
Nice to hear from you! Ah, yes, Frodo is always a gentlehobbit. (The one time I wrote him as irritable and snappish, Jodancingtree pointed out that he was OC. Which was funny, because in that story he was actually *supposed* to be OC!)
Celeritas · 21 January 2009 · Chapter 70: Pause, and Full Stop
After engaging in many discussions concerning Frodo with a various authors (and I believe you were party to the GFIC comm one) I was pretty much informed that I HAD to read this fic (which I had not done, even in my early lurksome days) if I wanted to know anything. And so I have. I really enjoyed your innocuous introduction of the "physically ailing" Frodo, and I also loved that he 1). once had a genuine hope of recovery, and 2). always fought and was never emo about the whole thing. He has to be one of the most British fandom Frodo's I've come across, and is not too different from mine (not having an eyecolor described helps, as I am firmly and obstinately in the brown-eyed camp). As for those darker aspects of the Lockholes and the Troubles: wow! Not entirely sure if I agree with you about the hangings and the torture, etc., largely because it didn't make it into the book (which you explained, but whenever authors try to do "excised from the Red Book" texts I get wary) but it was really well done, and it worked. The idea of Saruman still having a working spell on Fatty, even after he's dead--marvelous! *chills* And I liked the relationship between him and Frodo that you outlined, and the fact that Fatty actually did heal and get married. And good for you to end on a note of hope as well (I'm a sucker for well-written reunion-fic, and that gave me just the right taste). So thank you for managing to write (and write so well!) such an influential story, and making it so easy for me to enjoy! ~Celeritas
Author's reply
Thanks for the good words! I wrote this story because I was dissatisfied with the idea that Frodo left because he was depressed or emotionally distressed. It just didn't make sense to me, and I so admired Frodo (from the book; I'm not as thrilled with the movie portrayal--EW might be ethereal-looking but the movie Frodo was weak and cowardly, among other things) that I couldn't see him sailing West because he just couldn't cope. A physical reason seemed more likely, and though not stated outright if it were carefully managed it could fit in with the portrayal of Frodo in "The Grey Havens". You have a good point about the Lockholes. JRRT only shows the hobbits as starved to weakness, though he also says that the ruffians, as things grew worse in the Shire, were beaten as they were taken to the Lockholes, and that is where the idea of beatings came from. Hangings are less likely, obviously. I think there I was influenced by the RL reading I was doing regarding occupation by hostile forces, shell shock, internment/concentration/prisoner/work/death camps; memory of a visit to Dachau; and close association with someone studying Middle Ages law and enforcement (something new learned every time we got together for coffee *shudder*). I did not make the Lockholes quite as awful as Dachau or (reportedly) common practices during medieval times, but I did have in mind that the ruffians might have seen hobbits as not quite human (something Saruman would probably have encouraged), and treated them accordingly. I have to write toward a satisfying (for me) ending, which usually means upbeat, or I would suffer terminal writer's block. As it is, it can be difficult to write through the difficult parts of a story, and only looking to joy at the end keeps the story going. I'd really rather write fluff, I think, but it would not be half so satisfying in the area of character development, which fascinates me. ...only to find, reading JRRT's Letters shortly after completing this story, that he really did mean for Frodo to have to leave Middle-earth because of psychic wounds, not physical. Aargh. So in writing, despite staying just as close to canon as I could, this story ends up, in the strictest sense, AU. Ah, well. It was interesting to write, anyhow, and generated some stimulating conversations with readers. I tell myself that it might have happened this way. I am looking forward to becoming acquainted with your stories, especially if Frodo as you write him is more book- than movie-version. (I admit, "my" Frodo is not necessarily blue-eyed, though I leave it open in my stories for the sake of readers who *do* see him thus. When I write of him, I don't see EW but rather Frodo as I imagined him years before the films came out.) Whew, this is turning into a chapter. Thanks! Author Reply: oops, not that the ruffians were beaten as they were taken off to the Lockholes, but that the ruffians beat the hobbits they were taking off to the Lockholes! (who knows how many such mis-steps I've taken in this lengthy reply, as I was interrupted three times in the writing... ah well, if there are any more gaffes, I don't have time to find them now and be distressed by them) Hope this finds you well.
Nienor Niniel · 29 August 2006 · Chapter 70: Pause, and Full Stop
Ah, fantastic! I fear you are getting used to my praise, but what else shall I say? There are so many things I like about this: more Good!Lobelia (in a canonically possible way, too), an insight in Frodo's suffering from the aftereffects of the Ring, more of Freddy (Saruman's curse made me shudder, as did the Nazgul nightmare), Sam and Rosie getting together... the list is much longer. The insight you give us on Hobbit society are fantastic: they have different classes and observe them, yet in times of need things might well be the other way round, but when the trouble is over, all is back to normal. The notion that not all should be recorded in the Red Book to keep the hobbits' innocence is a very good idea, too. If Butterbur had forgotten this letter for too long... just imagine! I rather like the ending: A proper goodbye for Sam, and even a reunion. I really enjoyed this! Nienor
Author's reply
Funny thing about praise. I fear one never does get used to it. In fact, the welcome mat is invariably out. It is nice to hear what you took away from the story, and food for thought you found chewy. Glad to hear you enjoyed it!
Queen Galadriel · 6 November 2005 · Chapter 99999: Background Information / Story Progress/update 11/13
Lindelea! What a wonderful, beautiful, fabulous, sweet story!!!!!!! Yes, I'm still here, and I'll never joke about the length again, because just now I feel a strong inclination to complain that it's too short! LOL! I won't though, because I can sympathise with the feeling of having a story wrung from me (see "The Last Days). Not yet, Chapter 1 needs a LOT of work yet. But really, this is one of the best post-quest stories I've ever read, and now I see how Larner connected her little network of stories with this. The language is superb, the characterization wonderful, and the whole story just perfect. I love, love, love Estella! We share a stubborn streak and the desire to do the opposite of what we're told :-). I do think the "class" system is most unfair, and I pity her from having to turn from the lively Tilly to a "fashionable young lady." I also like the insight into Freddie's character. He's so often overlooked. Very, very good work! Bravo!!! Namarie, and God bless, Galadriel
Author's reply
My goodness, you made it all the way through! Congratulations! (Sorry, here I am joking about the length again.) Thank you for your encouraging comments!
Larner · 16 April 2005 · Chapter 70: Pause, and Full Stop
I liked this one. Very nice.
Author's reply
Huh, funny, I never got this review in my email box, last year when you wrote it! Just now saw it! *hug*