Stories of Arda - Lord of the Rings Fan-Fiction Archive


	About Us News Resources Login Become a member Help Search

Healing the Long Cleeve by TopazTook	10 Review(s)
Larner	Reviewed Chapter: 12 on 8/5/2005
The staff being where it rightfully belonged could be very suggestive, and I'm glad she chose the marshmallow game. That is WAY too late for the two of them to begin kissing, you know! Author Reply: Yes, umm, I seem to have gotten the idea from what reviewers have said that there’s quite a strong feeling out there that this is too late for them to begin kissing, LOL. (Of course, this story is what it is.) Glad you liked the marshmallow game, which I did as well. Could the placement of the staff be suggestive indeed? Really. Hmm. [Blinks innocently.]

Alayna the Tallest Hobbit	Reviewed Chapter: 12 on 1/17/2005
I loved the games! I hope Diamond managed to put Pip back into his fun-loving mood and I hope his mood stays there. "he had kissed his wife." Squee! I'm glad. Alayna Author Reply: Glad you liked the games; they were fun to write about. That's what she's working toward, is to put Pippin "back into his fun-loving mood" -- but I think he's a bit in shock at the end of this chapter. :)

Auntiemeesh	Reviewed Chapter: 12 on 9/22/2004
Yay! Diamond is proving a very clever young hobbitess. I loved the idea of party games instead of dancing, and the she led up to that last game very well. I hope that kiss helps Pippin feel better. Looking forward to more, as always. :) Author Reply: I'm glad you liked the games, and the lead-up to the last one. I think we all feel somewhat better after that kiss: hobbits, marshmallows, and kissing -- what more could you want? I'm glad you look forward to more, and I deeply apologize to you and to all readers/reviewers for the unanticipated delay in posting Chap. 13...darn real job!:(

Nina the powerwriter	Reviewed Chapter: 12 on 9/20/2004
I read this late last night, and once again, it's late. Forgive me if I make silly ramblings ;) Yay! They kissed! I didn't expect that, at least in this chapter :D Hmm...sounds like Diamond had a little more planned than just a friendly game. She's like a silent spitfire. I sure hope Pippin feels better soon. It's sad seeing him down! Interesting games. It's fun to see old traditions in modern writing. Enjoyed it, please keep writing, I'm asking nicely, please do...okay I'll leave now. Author Reply: Oh, trust me, I am well versed in late night silly ramblings. (Time for me when this chapter was originally posted? Midnight on Sunday.) So you didn't expect the kiss? I'm glad: doing the expected gets so...predictable. :) "Silent spitfire" is a great description of Diamond (as witnessed also by her slapping the kitchen lass in the last chapter.) Diamond is working on cheering Pippin up. That was a big reason for the games, which I'm glad you enjoyed. Researching them was fun, too. Besides just being themselves, they also had symbolic meanings, with the references P and D made to "my father bid me..." in the first one, and the "winner takes all" aspect of the second one (which is called "Put and Take"), as well as potentially even more interpretations. I can't help myself: if something has more than one meaning which supports the story, I just have to use it in favor of something with just one meaning, LOL ! The marshmallow game was fun because Diamond would never truly initiate a regular kiss with Pippin, and -- it's Pippin, so it's fun to be a little playful. I will keep writing. Thank you for asking nicely. :)

FantasyFan	Reviewed Chapter: 12 on 9/20/2004
Now this is real progress in their relationship! A few chapters ago, Diamond realized that Pippin was courting her. Now here, not only does Peregrin get to kiss his wife, but he's also realizing esactly how planned it was. That's got to have him seeing her a little differently. I am enjoying the slow unfolding of their relationship. Perhaps next they'll have a real talk? Author Reply: I think Pippin's perceptions of Diamond have changed slowly throughout this story. This adds more information that needs to be processed into that. Glad you're enjoying the "slow unfolding of their relationship." They will talk at a certain point. I rather enjoyed the kissing, myself. :)

pipspebble	Reviewed Chapter: 12 on 9/20/2004
He had kissed his wife. Well it's about flippin' time! SURELY now they will take it from there! You are so clever for - ahem - stringing this out. :-) Author Reply: Glad you liked the "stringing out." Perhaps you appreciated the foreshadowing in the previous chapter as well, when they "swapped spit" via the pipestem they both sucked on. ;) As for taking it from there, you know, a really evil author could point out that the Family Trees say Faramir wasn't born until 1430, so there could be two more years to play with here. A really, really evil author could write it so that he was born in Foreyule [December] of 1430. = == : 0 ;)

Ariel	Reviewed Chapter: 12 on 9/20/2004
'Bout bloody time... Heheheheh Ariel Author Reply: Glad you enjoyed. (Put your head on at a different angle and look at some of the other potential definitions of words used in the first two games, and maybe you'll be even more...satisfied. ;) )

Marion	Reviewed Chapter: 12 on 9/20/2004
Sorry for the weird sentences in my last review; this is what happens when you don't proofread... Just wanted to add: oh what tangled web we weave, when first we attempt to decieve. Or rather: oh what tangled web we weave, when we don't tell people what is really bothering us. Diamond is constantly afraid that anything she does is being construed by Pippin as 'disobedience' or as 'not worthy of the Thain's Heir' and Pippin is convinced that his scars make him ugly and 'ruined' and he thinks that Diamond has some 'female complaint' which would make it impossible for them to have sex, even if they both wanted to. The problem of course is that they both live within their own frame of reference. It never occurs to either Pip or Diamond to think that the other might have a different frame of reference than their own. Of course, Diamond's ideas are not shared by the rest of the Shire. The North-Tooks ARE peculiar. And she IS learning - slowly. But oh, how I wish that Pippin would TALK to his wife more. They both tend to assume that the other knows what they mean. Well, according to the old saying; to assume is to make an ass out of U and me (Ass-U-Me)... Author Reply: Yeah, when you post at midnight on a Sunday night and realize you have a 9 a.m. meeting the next morning, you tend to gloss over the proofreading as well and miss things like citing the correct title of the book with the appendices in your footnote, so I understand. Ahem. Fixed now! Communication, as another reviewer said earlier, is a big part of any marriage even today. At some marriage-building sessions my husand and I went to in our first year of marriage, the presenter called the "frames of reference" you refer to "the tapes that play in your head." We all have them, and we can't completely get rid of them. But, at the marriage encounter weekend that we went to before we were married, everyone was required to stand up and solemnly swear to her or his future spouse, in turn, that we could not read minds. Just goes to show that that's still an issue in our day, as well. (Through various church, etc., events, we ended up renewing our vows three times within the first year and a half of our marriage. I think we're well-stuck. :) )

Marion	Reviewed Chapter: 12 on 9/20/2004
You know, this story reminds me of the movie 'Yentl'... Where Hadass has been raised from birth to become one day a compliant wife and mother. Yentl (dressed as the boy Anshel) first bitterly observes how bland Hadass is ("here only thought is to please him" "no wonder he loves her, what else could he do, if I were a man, I would too") but, when Hadass and Yentl are forced by circumstances to be married to each other, Yentl finds out that Hadass is a more interesting person, be it a gentle one, then she ever thought possible ("she's the wonder of wonders") I'm glad. So many romantic LotR fics these days are foolish projections of 20th century projections of American teenage values. Your fic, however, feels real. Real people are more complicated than the simple distinction 'good' or 'bad'. I started out being exasperated by your Diamond, but slowly, like Yentl and Hadass, I'm starting to appreciate her. And slowly, like Hadass, your Diamond is learning things about herself, is unfurling, is ALLOWED to unfurl. I feel rather sorry for Diamond's parents actually... So overwhelmed they were by the honour done to their house, that they forgot they had a daughter called Diamond instead a 'future wife to Captain Peregrin'. Your story has many layers.. I like it. Muchly. Author Reply: Wow. Another comparison of this story to a movie I've never seen. (There was a mention of Eddie Murphy's "Coming to America" in a review of an earlier chapter. And I know I'm culturally underfed; "Yentl" came out when I was in high school, and I didn't get to it then, and haven't got around to it since.) So, obviously I'm older than a teenager. :) I'm glad you're enjoying my romance writing -- this is the first one I've written (unless you count the brief Paladin and Eglantine romance posted here on SOA that serves as background for my universe, and as practice for my first posting). I actually do think that the teenage Mary Sue's serve a sort of developmental purpose, but their vast proliferation among everyone besides the author and her friends is one of the aspects of the Internet I could have done without. A quote from another fandom best describes what I've been trying to do with Diamond: she "keeps unfolding like a flower." You are very astute for tapping into the "no one is all good/bad theme": if I could attribute these song lyrics, I would, "there is no black or white, but only shades of gray." (It's not either the Biohazard or the Dan Fogelberg songs I found when I did a google search.) And, finally, FINALLY, someone who feels sorry for Diamond's parents! Woo-hoo! They, like this story, have their own complexities.

Lyta Padfoot	Reviewed Chapter: 12 on 9/20/2004
Loved the bit about Pippin's gifts. So like a male! I have relatives who do that - my dad likes to make his gifts in the woodshop and he makes everyone the same thing (though he uses oak or pine for friends and cherry, walnut, or maple for his kids). I love your chapter titles, featuring various aspects of diamonds. The kiss was sweet. Poor Pippin and Diamond, falling in love is wonderful but hard on the nerves. Author Reply: Glad you like the chapter titles: researching aspects of, and phrases relating to, diamonds has been one of the fun parts of this story. I'm actually coming at the gift thing from the other perspective,LOL: my birthday is in November, and throughout my life I've gotten comlaints from some family members about it being too close to Christmas. I think, of course, that it's quite handy to be able to ask for whatever I particularly wanted but didn't get for my birthday for Christmas. :) Perhaps the trick with your dad is asking for something specific -- preferably a larger project that would be difficult to do in a production run for everybody else: blanket/steamer chest? dresser? entertainment center? Glad you liked the kiss. Falling in love is hard on the nerves, LOL; perhaps that's why there's all those stereotypes about people stopping eating, etc., as they fall!

Return to Chapter List