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| Jewels by Lindelea | 3 Review(s) |
|---|---|
| Mirkwoodmaiden | Reviewed Chapter: 31 on 5/21/2025 |
| Lin! Estella Bolger?...Doesn't she marry Merry...Wait a minute here I sense an interesting storyline coming! I like it. "Estella asked to meet Merry and Pippin's ponies. 'You can tell so much about a hobbit from his pony,' she teased. Meeting each pony in turn, she ran her hand down the shining neck, took a carrot from her pocket to offer on her flat hand, and murmured an endearment in words that only she and the pony understood." Hmmm...I'm liking Estella...as Esmeralda says. This situation isn't her fault. "The north-Tooks arrived with a little less than their usual jollity. Farmer Took looked quizzically at Pippin, standing beside Estella as they waited to greet the arrivals with all the rest in the welcoming party. Pippin turned his eyes away from the hurt in Diamond's." Yes that is all Pippin needs right now, seeing Diamond's hurt along with his own troubles. *sigh* "'I must go and explain to Pearl and to Diamond. I'm afraid they've had reason to think hard thoughts about the lad since the invitation for the handfasting arrived, though they didn't want to believe it of him.' He sighed. 'Well, it's not the lad's fault, nor the lass's, either.' He shook his head. 'It's a bad business.' Saradoc could only agree." Paladin can be so unreasonable!!!! (((hugs))) MM Author Reply: A long time ago, when I was fairly new to fanfic, I had a friend who was constantly wanting me to throw Pippin and Estella together, in part because the two of them are so similar in terms of their inclination to mischief. (I don't remember if her fascination with the topic came about because she read this story, or if this story came about because of her hints! She certainly cheered me on as I was twisting canon relationships all out of whack before working out the tangles I'd introduced and putting them back together the way the family trees say they should be.) Unfortunately, I lost contact with a lot of people when I went back to work, and she was one of them. How I miss our conversations! I hope she is well but I have no way of knowing. Estella is supposed to be one of those frankly exasperating (and even exhausting) people who, nonetheless, you can't seem to help liking. She has a lot of energy, so I take her in small doses. For someone like Merry, who can be Entirely Too Serious sometimes, she's probably the perfect match (he can tone down her impulsivity, and she can distract him from his worries). Alas, poor Paladin. He's dragging a heavy load – facing all the demands of overseeing Tookland while lacking most of the necessary resources. Gaining access to Estella's fortune wouldn't solve his problems, but it could help, at least in the short term. He should just come out and admit to everyone that Tookland's treasury disappeared under the previous Thain. The volatile Tooks would probably not blame him and banish him for making such an admission because of all he did in keeping Tookland free from Lotho and his ruffians. But he can't trust that. In my early stories, I didn't do a good job of portraying him as someone saddled with unexpected responsibility who is trying to do his best while blindfolded and with his shoelaces figuratively tied together and one hand tied behind his back. So he comes off as unreasonable and tyrannical for no reason. I did better at revealing the underlying circumstances in the stories that came later. I think I came to understand Paladin better along the same timeline as Pippin coming to understand him better, if that makes sense? It's like this whole timeline of the Fourth Age Shire in the back of my head was spontaneously generated in one piece and has been slowly revealed bit by bit as the Muse (that creative impulse I can't explain) has spun these interlocking stories one or two at a time. I think I can pinpoint the ignition point as Chapter 25 of this story, when the person who was answering my medical questions told me that such severe symptoms as I was describing while writing the aftermath of the ice storm would result in permanent lung damage (and they went on to describe what life with such damage would look like for Pippin). At the same time I was pondering their feedback and trying to decide what to do next, I was idly reading through the Tale of Years and was reminded of Sam's trip to Gondor. As the idea of him bringing back the "cure" occurred to me, everything fell into place, including the impact of Pippin's chronic illness on character development for Pippin and all the people around him. I suddenly had a timeline stretching from Merry's birth until he and Pippin rode South! Later, the timeline kept extending further and further back until it reached all the way to the Fallohides in the Vales of the Anduin. (The Muse has remained fixed on Hobbits, however, and has not strayed into stories about Elves and Men and Dwarves except as they relate to Hobbits. I'm not sure why my brain has been oriented that way. It may have something to do with Hobbits' innate nature, as opposed to the kinslayings and rebellion and corruption that form such a large part of the histories of other races in Tolkien's creation. While Hobbits have plenty of conflict to deal with, for the most part, it seems to come from outside forces.) Sorry, I'm rambling again. I had better go in search of some protein to clear the fog from my head. | |
| PSW | Reviewed Chapter: 31 on 3/1/2025 |
| At least the north-Tooks understand. Or at least Diamond’s father does. How are they going to get out of this?? Author Reply: The north-Tooks understand even though they don't, really. Society in the North Farthing (as I write it) is much less rigid and constrained by tradition and social divisions and status-seeking than in the Lower Shire. This distinction is, in part, because Long Cleeve was founded 400 years after the Great Smials, enabling me to envision a difference in viewpoints and customs between different parts of the Shire. Let's just say that a 50-to-1 outsider is going to come galloping up on the outside of the pack (it's too crowded at the rail) and flash across the finish line well ahead of the rest of the ponies. In essence, winning the race on Pippin's behalf. Seems more fun than a deus ex machina solution, anyhow. | |
| Larner | Reviewed Chapter: 31 on 10/12/2007 |
| All right, Estella--I think it's time for you to show YOUR mettle! Excellent title! Hughes was up and down all day, and now I've told them to either straighten out this mess or come take their modem and let me get another ISP that is at least dependable, no matter how slow it might be. This is ridiculous! Author Reply: Ah, yes, you're right. I think it is time, too, and so does Estella. Am sorry your ISP is giving you such fits. *hugs* | |