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Jewels  by Lindelea 242 Review(s)
PSWReviewed Chapter: 27 on 3/1/2025
‘Lad always dies make the most stir he can.’ Well … that’s true enough, anyway. Fingers crossed that some good old morphine will help him along!

Author Reply: He does get bored easily and too often gives in to the temptation to stir things up. There's a certain stone that fell in a well, for instance. And a rather larger stone that fell from a high tower...

I remember when a sibling had pleurisy, the old-fashioned doctor prescribed something specifically for the pain in order to allow sleep and promote healing. I don't know what the treatment would be nowadays since opiates are not as freely given out as they were in the past.

Thanks!

PSWReviewed Chapter: 26 on 3/1/2025
I suspect Pippin’s not quite down for the count yet….

Author Reply: He's one of the stubbornest Tooks I know! It's difficult to keep him down, as JRRT showed multiple times in the original book.

(Thanks.)

PSWReviewed Chapter: 25 on 3/1/2025
Yikes - glad they found him in time! I’m sure it was different, traveling in the days when you didn’t know what kind of weather was coming. Now hopefully he can get this lingering cough kicked! (Though this being fanfic, I don’t necessarily expect it. ;-)

Author Reply: Unfortunately, this is the root of the troubles that will plague him for the next couple decades, at least up until Samwise returns from the South-lands with a cure from Treebeard. When one of my beta-readers, who worked in a medical field, read this, she said that the scenario I'd written would result in permanent lung damage, and was I willing to deal with that?

I hate rewriting. Isn't that silly? So I looked at my Fourth Age timeline, and I picked out Sam's visit to Gondor as the date when Pippin would be fully healed, and all the stories that followed Jewels were based on that reckoning. And I didn't have to rewrite Pippin's illness as an added bonus. Sometimes laziness has its benefits.

Maybe it would have been easier simply to rewrite this part of Jewels. On the other hand, a lot of character growth was possible based on that timeline, and Pippin's health problems posed a challenge (both for him and for me) that added spice to the stew, so I guess it all worked out in the end.

Thanks for your patience in listening to my thinking aloud...

PSWReviewed Chapter: 24 on 3/1/2025
Merry really couldn’t expect Pippin not to come for that anniversary…

Author Reply: He'd be perfectly unreasonable if he should expect such a thing! After all they've been through... (And if their positions were reversed, you know he'd be on the spot just as faithfully.)

Thanks!

PSWReviewed Chapter: 23 on 3/1/2025
What a lovely chapter, both sad and hopeful. I loved the ceremony - it’s such an important part of life, to remember those who have gone before.

Merry won’t know what to do without Pippin always close by!

Author Reply: Merry and Pippin seem like two halves of a whole, don't they? Kind of like the lyrics of a Disney song I remember a fragment of, they "finish each other's sandwiches..."

Thanks so much for reading and stopping to leave an encouraging word.

PSWReviewed Chapter: 22 on 2/27/2025
Ah… I hope Pippin and Diamond’s new thing doesn’t just make things worse for poor Merry …

Author Reply: I think that Merry loves Pippin so much, he'd never allow himself to mar his younger cousin's happiness. And Pippin understands, somehow, that if he doesn't live life to the fullest, Merry will only blame himself for raining on his parade – and Pippin certainly doesn't want that!

Thanks for reading and taking the time to comment. Sorry about these belated replies.

PSWReviewed Chapter: 21 on 2/27/2025
Dear Sam. He really comes through, doesn’t he? Such a terrible time for poor Merry - none of them deserved this…

Author Reply: Sam comes through, and so does Frodo, at least in his foresight in providing a written reminder of his love and care for Merry. I wonder if he foresaw this happening, or if he simply knew that all lives contain sorrow as well as joy?

(Thanks.)

PSWReviewed Chapter: 20 on 2/27/2025
😞😞 Well, this wasn’t a fun chapter. I’m so sorry this happened - and at such an awful time too!

Author Reply: No, it wasn't a fun chapter at all. And there will be some lasting pain, just as in real life. The only way I could get through this part of the story was to keep my heart fixed on the future joy that was promised in the story outline. (((hugs)))

PSWReviewed Chapter: 19 on 2/27/2025
Aw … why did this have to happen after such a fun surprise?? What a terrible end to the day!

Author Reply: It is indeed heart-breaking. I seldom go back and read these chapters, myself, when I'm trying to pin something down in a current WIP.

(Thanks.)

PSWReviewed Chapter: 18 on 2/27/2025
What a festive time! So many people and so much to celebrate!

Author Reply: This was one of the hardest chapters to write, knowing what was about to happen. I was sorely tempted to break away from canon and make the story AU. Aargh.

Thank you for reading and taking the time to comment!

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