Time-travel, sort of.
Oct. 4th, 2003 02:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
olorielI have to tidy up my room. My mother decided that since I didn't do anything worthwhile all the vacation (sic!) at least I should finally really clean up. Which means, not my usual tactic of putting all papers in one box (on top of all the old ones) and all the rest in some drawers, so they're out of sight, but real clean-up. So I sorted out the drawers and took them out and collected all the stuff that fell out behind them and was never seen again, I sorted through all my papers, I sorted through old magazines. I threw away all the copies from school that I only kept because I didn't dare to throw them away previously, I collected all my old exams - no reason to have them dispersed through the whole room. In my desk I found ancient stuff - "Welcome to class 1b, my name is Helgard Reininghaus and I will be your teacher for the next four years" sort of stuff. Booklists for grade three. Pictures I drew back then. Two stories I tried to write back then. One sounds rather like a parody, but I remember that it was meant seriously - Wickie (yes, the little viking), Babar (yes, the little elefant), Thomas (yes, my brother) and Christiane (well, yes, me) are out to become heroes, so they check some sort of "hero guidebook" (don't ask where I got that idea) and see there's a "Cave of 100 Dragons" nearby so they go and behead all the dragons (sorry to the dragons- I was young and did not know what I did!), or rather, Wickie, Thomas and Babar do so, for Christiane was very cowardish and always hid behind Wickie (she had some sort of crush on him, back then, you know). The other was about Ilachi, son of some pharaoh, very lonely 'cause he's not allowed to play with other children and therefore always on some adventurous trips on his own, getting lost in pyramids and stuff. I must have been in grade two when I wrote that stuff on our old typewriter. The spelling is very good, though.
It made me remember other stuff from that time - Geschichtenland, for example. That means "land of stories" and was, basically, my country, where all the characters from my favorite stories and some of those I made up myself lived and I was empress. My brother had another country of his own, and so had Stefanie, my best friend back then. I don't know how often I drew the maps of the world where these countries lay. I remember that we had some - well, today I'd say NPC - countries and of course the lands of a villain, Sabor (our lawn-mowing machine was made by a company named Sabor. As you will have guessed, my brother and me didn't like that lawn-mower much). Thinking back, Geschichtenland must have existed for quite a long while, for its capital was later named Chribaanika, which was a pun on the names of the girls in my room on the class trip to Bernau in grade 4. I know that my palace had Chinese-style roofs. I don't know, though, when it was that I left it for good never to return.
Of course, eventually Lyra Ca Siba from Dathomir, or Gil'hin, the Force-sensitive Twi'lek space pirate, or even Erica's adventures in Cimnarár or Muriel/Earcalime's sudden journey to Númenor are only heirs to Ilachi and Geschichtenland. My heroes may be more mature, and especially more what I would like to be like rather than what I feel I am like, but they are in the same tradition.
I also found the vocabulary-list of my first own language, Laconic, which I invented with my friend Franziska in grade 6. The only sentence I still know from that language (in which we could converse quite fluently, as much as its limited vocabular allowed) is "Lalamam bi fatsali alariaki", which means "You are an idiot"...
Seeing through that, one might have guessed that I would be someone to fall for Middle-earth and live action roleplaying, Quenya and mythology.
I remembered the many codes I tried to invent for the letters we wrote to each other in class (which was, obviously, not allowed, and when we did, teachers would read the letters out to the whole class, so we needed a code to make the meaning secret) - from changed letters to a whole script system of our own, some so complicated it was impossible to ever reconstruct what had been written there, others hard to de-code but easy if you knew how to do it. My earliest, dating back to grade one, was extremely primitive, consisting of only six different shapes and numbers. A would be a circle, B a triangle, C a pentagon, D a square, E a drop, F a star. G would be a circle with a 1, M a circle with a two, and so on. It worked well enough for someone who had just learned to write...
I found old scout fotos, from what back then was "the big adventure" for me, before I read Pam Houston and the Lord of the Rings - climbing, canoeing, jamborees, adventurous indeed, but lacking the last factor, the one of crossing the limit between courage and recklessness.
I threw away quite a lot of stuff, kept other stuff even though I had not missed it, but maybe I'll want to show it to my kids sometime, or to go on another clean-up induced time-travel another time.
I still hate tidying up. But finding those old treasures at least makes me see that maybe there is a point to it.
- - -
Ich muss aufräumen. Meine Mutter hat entschieden, dass ich, wo ich schon die ganzen Ferien nichts Sinnvolles getan habe (sic!), wenigstens endlich mein Zimmer wirklich ausmisten sollte.
Was bedeutet, dass ich nicht meine alte Methode anwenden kann, alle Papiere irgendwo zu stapeln (auf denen vom letzten Jahr) und den Rest in die Schubladen zu stopfen, damit er nicht mehr zu sehen ist, sondern richtig ausmisten muss. Also habe ich die Schubladen auseinandergebaut und den ganzen Kram zusammengesucht, der hinten raus gefallen war und dadurch jahrelang unberührt im tiefen inneren meines Schreibtisches lag. Ich habe alte Zeitschriften aussortiert und nur die Artikel über die Sachen behalten, die mich wirklich daran interessiert hatten. Ich habe die ganzen Kopien aus der Schulzeit weggeworfen, die ich eh nur behalten hatte, weil ich mich vorher nie getraut hatte, sie wegzuwerfen. Ich habe meine alten Klausurhefte zusammengekramt - sie müssen ja schließlich nicht überall rumliegen. Im Schreibtisch habe ich antike Sachen gefunden - "Willkommen in der Klasse 1b! Ich heiße Helgard Reininghaus und werde für die nächsten vier Jahre Deine Klassenlehrerin sein"-mäßig antik. Einkaufslisten aus der dritten Klasse. Bilder von damals. Zwei Geschichten, die ich damals angefangen habe. Eine liest sich eher wie eine Parodie, obwohl ich sicher bin, das sie damals ernst gemeint war - Wickie (ja, der Wikinger), Babar (ja, der kleine Elefant), Thomas (ja, mein Bruder) und Christiane (naja, ich eben) sind unterwegs und wollen Helden sein, also gucken sie in eine Art Heldenreiseführer (fragt mich nicht, wo ich das herhabe) und sehen, dass es in der Nähe die "Höhle der hundert Drachen" gibt, also reiten sie hin und köpfen alle Drachen (Entschuldigung an die Drachen von hier aus - ich war jung und wusste nicht, was ich tat!), oder vielmehr, Wickie, Thomas und Babar tun es, denn Christiane war sehr feige und had sich immer hinter Wickie verkrochen (in den sie damals verschossen war). Die andere handelte von Ilachi, Sohn irgendeines Pharaohs, der sehr einsam ist, weil er natürlich nicht mit anderen Kindern spielen darf, also muss er sich selbst unterhalten und erlebt Abenteuer in Pyramiden und so. Ich muss so etwa in Klasse zwei gewesen sein, als ich das auf unserer alten Schreibmaschine geschrieben habe. Die Rechtschreibung ist immerhin schon sehr gut.
Das hat mich an andere Sachen aus dieser Zeit erinnert - Geschichtenland zum Beisipel. Das war mein Land, wo die ganzen Leute aus meinen Lieblingsgeschichten und ein paar selbstausgedachten lebten und ich die Kaiserin war. Mein Bruder hatte auch so ein Land, genauso meine damals beste Freundin Stefanie. Ich weiß nicht mehr, wie oft ich die Landkarten der Welt, in der diese Länder lagen, gemalt habe. Ich weiß noch, dass es auch ein paar - heute würde ich sagen, NPC - Länder und natürlich das Gebiet eines Schurken, Sabor (unser Rasenmäher war von der Firma Sabor. Wie man sich denken kann, mochten mein Bruder und ich den Rasenmäher nicht sehr).
Im Rückblick muss Geschichtenland recht lang existiert haben, denn die Hauptstadt hieß später Chribaanika, was eine Zusammenschmelzung der Namen von denen war, die auf der Klassenfahrt nach Bernau in der vierten Klasse in meinem Zimmer waren - and Barbara, Angelika und Nina erinnere ich mich auch noch sehr gut. Ich weiß noch, dass mein Palast chinesisch geschwungene Dächer hatte. Wann ich ihn aber für immer zurückließ, weiß ich nicht.
Natürlich sind Lyra Ca Siba von Dathomir, oder Gil'hin, die machtsensitive Twi'lek-Piratin, oder auch Ericas Erlebnisse in Cimnarár oder Muriels/Earcalimes plötzliche Reise nach Númenor letzlich Erben von Ilachi und Geschichtenland. Meine Helden sind vielleicht etwas gereift, und vor allem jetzt eher so, wie ich gern sein würde, statt so, wie ich mich fühle, aber sie stehen in der selben Tradition.
Außerdem habe ich die Vokabelliste von meiner ersten echten eigenen Sprache, Lakonisch, gefunden. Lakonisch habe ich mir in der sechsten mit meiner Freundin Franziska ausgedacht, und wir konnten uns recht flüssig unterhalten, soweit es der limitierte Wortschatz erlaubte. Der einzige Satz, den ich noch kann, ist "Lalamam bi fatsali alariaki", was "Du bist ein Idiot" bedeutet...
Wenn ich mir das so anschaue, hätte man wissen können, dass ich die Sorte Mensch bin, die auf Mittelerde und Live Action Rollenspiele, Quenya und Mythologie fliegt.
Ich habe mich an die vielen Geheimschriften erinnert, die ich für unsere Briefchen im Unterricht erfunden habe (diese Briefchen waren natürlich verboten, und wenn man erwischt wurde, las der Lehrer den Brief der ganzen Klasse vor, also brauchte man eine Geheimschrift, die das witzlos machte) - von Buchstabenver- und -umschiebungen bis zu kompletten Schriftsystemen, manche so kompliziert, dass man das ganze am Ende überhaupt nicht mehr rekonstruieren konnte, manches schwierig zu entschüsseln, aber einfach, wenn man das System kannte. Meine erste Geheimschrift stammt aus der ersten Klasse und war furchtbar primitiv, sie bestand einfach aus sechs Formen und Zahlen. A war ein Kreis, B ein Dreieck, C ein Fünfeck, D ein Quadrat, E ein Tropfen, F ein Stern. G war dann ein Kreis mit einer 1, M ein Kreis mit einer 2, und so weiter. Für jemanden, der gerade erst schreiben gelernt hatte, war es geheim genug...
Ich habe alte Fotos gefunden aus meiner Pfadfinderzeit, von meinen damaligen "großen Abenteuern", bevor ich Pam Houston oder den Herrn der Ringe gelesen hatte - Klettern, Kanufahren, Zeltlager, durchaus abenteuerlich, aber ohne den letzten Faktor, das Überschreiten der Grenze zwischen Mut und Wahnsinn.
Ich habe viel weggeworfen und viel behalten, was ich nicht vermisst hatte, aber vielleicht will ich es ja mal meinen Kinder zeigen, oder noch einmal auf eine durch Aufräumen bewirkte Zeitreise gehen.
Ich hasse das Aufräumen immer noch. Aber wenn ich diese alten Schätze finde, macht es wenigstens einen gewissen Sinn.
- - -
It made me remember other stuff from that time - Geschichtenland, for example. That means "land of stories" and was, basically, my country, where all the characters from my favorite stories and some of those I made up myself lived and I was empress. My brother had another country of his own, and so had Stefanie, my best friend back then. I don't know how often I drew the maps of the world where these countries lay. I remember that we had some - well, today I'd say NPC - countries and of course the lands of a villain, Sabor (our lawn-mowing machine was made by a company named Sabor. As you will have guessed, my brother and me didn't like that lawn-mower much). Thinking back, Geschichtenland must have existed for quite a long while, for its capital was later named Chribaanika, which was a pun on the names of the girls in my room on the class trip to Bernau in grade 4. I know that my palace had Chinese-style roofs. I don't know, though, when it was that I left it for good never to return.
Of course, eventually Lyra Ca Siba from Dathomir, or Gil'hin, the Force-sensitive Twi'lek space pirate, or even Erica's adventures in Cimnarár or Muriel/Earcalime's sudden journey to Númenor are only heirs to Ilachi and Geschichtenland. My heroes may be more mature, and especially more what I would like to be like rather than what I feel I am like, but they are in the same tradition.
I also found the vocabulary-list of my first own language, Laconic, which I invented with my friend Franziska in grade 6. The only sentence I still know from that language (in which we could converse quite fluently, as much as its limited vocabular allowed) is "Lalamam bi fatsali alariaki", which means "You are an idiot"...
Seeing through that, one might have guessed that I would be someone to fall for Middle-earth and live action roleplaying, Quenya and mythology.
I remembered the many codes I tried to invent for the letters we wrote to each other in class (which was, obviously, not allowed, and when we did, teachers would read the letters out to the whole class, so we needed a code to make the meaning secret) - from changed letters to a whole script system of our own, some so complicated it was impossible to ever reconstruct what had been written there, others hard to de-code but easy if you knew how to do it. My earliest, dating back to grade one, was extremely primitive, consisting of only six different shapes and numbers. A would be a circle, B a triangle, C a pentagon, D a square, E a drop, F a star. G would be a circle with a 1, M a circle with a two, and so on. It worked well enough for someone who had just learned to write...
I found old scout fotos, from what back then was "the big adventure" for me, before I read Pam Houston and the Lord of the Rings - climbing, canoeing, jamborees, adventurous indeed, but lacking the last factor, the one of crossing the limit between courage and recklessness.
I threw away quite a lot of stuff, kept other stuff even though I had not missed it, but maybe I'll want to show it to my kids sometime, or to go on another clean-up induced time-travel another time.
I still hate tidying up. But finding those old treasures at least makes me see that maybe there is a point to it.
- - -
Ich muss aufräumen. Meine Mutter hat entschieden, dass ich, wo ich schon die ganzen Ferien nichts Sinnvolles getan habe (sic!), wenigstens endlich mein Zimmer wirklich ausmisten sollte.
Was bedeutet, dass ich nicht meine alte Methode anwenden kann, alle Papiere irgendwo zu stapeln (auf denen vom letzten Jahr) und den Rest in die Schubladen zu stopfen, damit er nicht mehr zu sehen ist, sondern richtig ausmisten muss. Also habe ich die Schubladen auseinandergebaut und den ganzen Kram zusammengesucht, der hinten raus gefallen war und dadurch jahrelang unberührt im tiefen inneren meines Schreibtisches lag. Ich habe alte Zeitschriften aussortiert und nur die Artikel über die Sachen behalten, die mich wirklich daran interessiert hatten. Ich habe die ganzen Kopien aus der Schulzeit weggeworfen, die ich eh nur behalten hatte, weil ich mich vorher nie getraut hatte, sie wegzuwerfen. Ich habe meine alten Klausurhefte zusammengekramt - sie müssen ja schließlich nicht überall rumliegen. Im Schreibtisch habe ich antike Sachen gefunden - "Willkommen in der Klasse 1b! Ich heiße Helgard Reininghaus und werde für die nächsten vier Jahre Deine Klassenlehrerin sein"-mäßig antik. Einkaufslisten aus der dritten Klasse. Bilder von damals. Zwei Geschichten, die ich damals angefangen habe. Eine liest sich eher wie eine Parodie, obwohl ich sicher bin, das sie damals ernst gemeint war - Wickie (ja, der Wikinger), Babar (ja, der kleine Elefant), Thomas (ja, mein Bruder) und Christiane (naja, ich eben) sind unterwegs und wollen Helden sein, also gucken sie in eine Art Heldenreiseführer (fragt mich nicht, wo ich das herhabe) und sehen, dass es in der Nähe die "Höhle der hundert Drachen" gibt, also reiten sie hin und köpfen alle Drachen (Entschuldigung an die Drachen von hier aus - ich war jung und wusste nicht, was ich tat!), oder vielmehr, Wickie, Thomas und Babar tun es, denn Christiane war sehr feige und had sich immer hinter Wickie verkrochen (in den sie damals verschossen war). Die andere handelte von Ilachi, Sohn irgendeines Pharaohs, der sehr einsam ist, weil er natürlich nicht mit anderen Kindern spielen darf, also muss er sich selbst unterhalten und erlebt Abenteuer in Pyramiden und so. Ich muss so etwa in Klasse zwei gewesen sein, als ich das auf unserer alten Schreibmaschine geschrieben habe. Die Rechtschreibung ist immerhin schon sehr gut.
Das hat mich an andere Sachen aus dieser Zeit erinnert - Geschichtenland zum Beisipel. Das war mein Land, wo die ganzen Leute aus meinen Lieblingsgeschichten und ein paar selbstausgedachten lebten und ich die Kaiserin war. Mein Bruder hatte auch so ein Land, genauso meine damals beste Freundin Stefanie. Ich weiß nicht mehr, wie oft ich die Landkarten der Welt, in der diese Länder lagen, gemalt habe. Ich weiß noch, dass es auch ein paar - heute würde ich sagen, NPC - Länder und natürlich das Gebiet eines Schurken, Sabor (unser Rasenmäher war von der Firma Sabor. Wie man sich denken kann, mochten mein Bruder und ich den Rasenmäher nicht sehr).
Im Rückblick muss Geschichtenland recht lang existiert haben, denn die Hauptstadt hieß später Chribaanika, was eine Zusammenschmelzung der Namen von denen war, die auf der Klassenfahrt nach Bernau in der vierten Klasse in meinem Zimmer waren - and Barbara, Angelika und Nina erinnere ich mich auch noch sehr gut. Ich weiß noch, dass mein Palast chinesisch geschwungene Dächer hatte. Wann ich ihn aber für immer zurückließ, weiß ich nicht.
Natürlich sind Lyra Ca Siba von Dathomir, oder Gil'hin, die machtsensitive Twi'lek-Piratin, oder auch Ericas Erlebnisse in Cimnarár oder Muriels/Earcalimes plötzliche Reise nach Númenor letzlich Erben von Ilachi und Geschichtenland. Meine Helden sind vielleicht etwas gereift, und vor allem jetzt eher so, wie ich gern sein würde, statt so, wie ich mich fühle, aber sie stehen in der selben Tradition.
Außerdem habe ich die Vokabelliste von meiner ersten echten eigenen Sprache, Lakonisch, gefunden. Lakonisch habe ich mir in der sechsten mit meiner Freundin Franziska ausgedacht, und wir konnten uns recht flüssig unterhalten, soweit es der limitierte Wortschatz erlaubte. Der einzige Satz, den ich noch kann, ist "Lalamam bi fatsali alariaki", was "Du bist ein Idiot" bedeutet...
Wenn ich mir das so anschaue, hätte man wissen können, dass ich die Sorte Mensch bin, die auf Mittelerde und Live Action Rollenspiele, Quenya und Mythologie fliegt.
Ich habe mich an die vielen Geheimschriften erinnert, die ich für unsere Briefchen im Unterricht erfunden habe (diese Briefchen waren natürlich verboten, und wenn man erwischt wurde, las der Lehrer den Brief der ganzen Klasse vor, also brauchte man eine Geheimschrift, die das witzlos machte) - von Buchstabenver- und -umschiebungen bis zu kompletten Schriftsystemen, manche so kompliziert, dass man das ganze am Ende überhaupt nicht mehr rekonstruieren konnte, manches schwierig zu entschüsseln, aber einfach, wenn man das System kannte. Meine erste Geheimschrift stammt aus der ersten Klasse und war furchtbar primitiv, sie bestand einfach aus sechs Formen und Zahlen. A war ein Kreis, B ein Dreieck, C ein Fünfeck, D ein Quadrat, E ein Tropfen, F ein Stern. G war dann ein Kreis mit einer 1, M ein Kreis mit einer 2, und so weiter. Für jemanden, der gerade erst schreiben gelernt hatte, war es geheim genug...
Ich habe alte Fotos gefunden aus meiner Pfadfinderzeit, von meinen damaligen "großen Abenteuern", bevor ich Pam Houston oder den Herrn der Ringe gelesen hatte - Klettern, Kanufahren, Zeltlager, durchaus abenteuerlich, aber ohne den letzten Faktor, das Überschreiten der Grenze zwischen Mut und Wahnsinn.
Ich habe viel weggeworfen und viel behalten, was ich nicht vermisst hatte, aber vielleicht will ich es ja mal meinen Kinder zeigen, oder noch einmal auf eine durch Aufräumen bewirkte Zeitreise gehen.
Ich hasse das Aufräumen immer noch. Aber wenn ich diese alten Schätze finde, macht es wenigstens einen gewissen Sinn.
- - -
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2003-10-05 01:40 pm (UTC)Nur, bei mir ist es dann so, ich sitz da, blättere und schwelge in Erinnerungen. Irgendwann hab ich dann keine Lust mehr aufzuräumen und stopf alles wieder in den Schrank. Bis ich mir dann irgendwann wieder vornehme "Alles mal in Ordnung zu bringen..."
:o)
-F-
no subject
Date: 2003-10-05 02:39 pm (UTC)Possibly embarassing myself badly....
Date: 2003-10-07 02:46 pm (UTC)A lot of what's in those boxes is old stories and drawings, old kingdoms of childhood-- things that existed between us and our brother privately, and which he gets angry about if I dare to mention them today. (Why? It was never shameful, save in the eyes of cruel peers...)
And even looking through them and cringing, I can see, and ^Ruka points this out too, how everything we write today is heir to our old creations, our old fanfictions-- the themes we repeat over and over, the symbols of our own myths. Is there such a thing as a collective unconscious? I don't know, but we know that some symbols draw us, strongly, without our knowing why, without our being able to point to any definite incidents that fixed them as powerful metaphors in our mind. They just are, and they bleed through into our writing, again and again. I wonder if we'll ever truly write them out to our satisfaction.
How strange that you had a land of stories too. we had one with our brother; it started out as a story about a group of children who escaped from Earth in a spaceship they found hidden underground, and went to found a country of their own on a new planet (the story in a very, very small nutshell; it went through many evolutions), and it eventually became... a sort of nexus of all stories, somehow; everyone from all the TV shows and books and games we liked ended up there, crossing ways with us (yes, we and our brother were in that world too, as the rulers of it... embarassing to think of in retrospect, a bit, as it sounds so egotistical). We had villains, too, and ended up doing as many stories about the villains as we did about ourselves, somehow.
When did we leave it? I don't recall quite... I have half a feeling, strangely, that if I could find the way, I could journey back there again, and find everything unchanged; or else things in that world would have gone on without us in our absence, and we would hardly recognize it, or they would hardly recognize us. Or perhaps they would... well, ignore my rambling if it makes no sense. c_c
Embarassing?
Date: 2003-10-08 02:27 pm (UTC)Yes, even though I like to tell myself that my writing is getting better and so on, the core of the story usually is connected or taken completely from those old stories.
I think you make perfect sense.
"The road that was straight is now curved...?" ;)
Date: 2003-10-08 04:57 pm (UTC)Sometimes, the trouble is finding out what happens next, finding out how to see it, because sometimes you just can't... I was very relieved when I heard that Tolkien said he 'waited to find out what really happened' before he continued writing his stories... that even for him, his creation was independent of him in some way.
Re: "The road that was straight is now curved...?" ;)
Date: 2003-10-08 05:11 pm (UTC)And I try to "wait and find out what really happened" now with a story of my own (Erica's). Lots of problems, because if the story doesn't want to reveal itself to me, I can't write it, and if I try to change something, I'm sure to mess something up that shows up later on. Gah. So I have to write and trust blindly and hope that it all works out in the end. So far, it did. Unfortunately, that also means that I'll have to kill my dearest favorite character. I know that and I know the circumstances, but I still lack most of the way to that point. Evil Story.
Re: "The road that was straight is now curved...?" ;)
Date: 2003-10-09 09:36 pm (UTC)just out of curiosity, and you don't have to answer if it's too personal, is Erica's story LOTR-based, or something else?
Re: "The road that was straight is now curved...?" ;)
Date: 2003-10-10 04:53 am (UTC)My LOTR (or rather Akkalabêth)-based one is the one with Muriel (where I still don't know how it ends. Three possibilities, two more likely than the other, and no idea which one it will be, though I suppose it will NOT be the "happily ever after" one :(). But I don't work on it much because I want to finish Erica first...
But now I'm curious. What is you fanfic about, and who is the main character? I love all things Númenorean!
Akallabêth fic.
Date: 2003-10-10 04:08 pm (UTC)It's a chronicle of her life, I suppose, as an 'outside observer,' beginning with her being taken as a servant for one of the King's Faithful. I have aspirations of being able to be among the 'other hands' Tolkien wanted, who would create stories about characters who didn't make it into his mythology... I often despair of my writing ever being good enough to honour his, but somehow, perhaps foolishly, I have elected to try. :\
Now I am going to embarass myself...
Date: 2003-10-13 01:45 pm (UTC)Muriel's story actually is a load of nonsense - she's coming from modern times (it starts 2002), but lands back in the Second Age with two friends by accident, gets to know Elendil and his family by accident, and (here comes the part for which I'd probably be killed by most serious Tolkienists) falls in love with Isildur and vice-versa. She lives through the last two or three years of Númenor and takes on a Quenya name (Earcalime, which is supposedly the translation of Muriel), and since she has the slight advantage of having read the Silmarillion (MS, again :P), she knows about the Downfall and, of course, joins the Faithful (which she'd probably done anyway because of her love for Isildur). Her friends, on the other hand, aren't that wise; one definitely joins Ar-Pharazon's men (he is convinced that Men do have a right on immortality), and I still don't really know about the other though I think he becomes a soldier, too. When the attack on Valinor draws near, Muriel tries to persuade the two not to go there but join the Faithful instead, but they don't, and the more I think about it, the surer I am that she is so torn in the end that she missed the ships and drowns in the Downfall, although I wouldn't haved grudged her marrying Isildur etc (no one knows who his wife really was, after all), but that certainly would be to much of Mary Sue. That wouldn't matter so much because I'm just writing it for my own amusement and not for publishing it anywhere, but I sort of know that she dies tragically in the Akallabêth. *sigh*
Ngah. Sounds stupid. Probably it is. Should've kept it secret.
Isildur, eh?
Date: 2003-10-14 01:47 am (UTC)I remember clearly one time when I was talking with Azusa about why everyone made Third Age MSes, usually with Legolas or some other elf, and asking why no one ever did Silmarillion Mary Sues, and I forget which one of us said that we'd really like to see someone do an Isildur Mary Sue at least for the novelty of it. Think that was me. *heh*
The thing is, here's the honest confession by which I might embarass myself: Not all "OFC hooks up with canon male" fics are bad by me. I don't think they're all necessarily Mary Sues. Sometimes it is just plain fascinating to see how the characters get together and interact (and god knows that with my mental conception of Isildur, being with him wouldn't be half bad... heh, silly me).
But when someone says a story -wants- or -needs- to be written, it's strange perhaps, but I don't judge it the same way as I judge a story where someone said they just wrote it for a lark or because so-and-so was "so hot." Thinking about your fic, I wonder... might there be a way to make the ending bittersweet without going to either extreme of 'happily ever after' or 'tragic end' which are both so much used? Of course, if neither feel right, if the story doesn't want to be written that way, then by all means, don't do it; but if it's still ambiguous, I don't see where this story has to be bad, just because people have done the same themes badly. (Not that I've ever seen a Second Age time-travel fic. Or much Second Age fic, period. Yes, I have a sentimentality towards it that's certainly undeniable, and anything having to do with Númenor...) god knows I'm often rather embarassed about Lomi's story and hoard it to myself, thinking it's sap that'd get me torn to bits and pieces by rabid purists if it ever got around. c_c
Aye, Isildur.
Date: 2003-10-15 06:32 am (UTC)Oh yes. Isildur and Faramir, those two hurt me most in the movies. With Faramir, I still hope he's going to look a bit better with the SEE and ROTK... but Isildur most likely won't show up again. *sigh* No setting it right. Poor man.
But thanks - I'm feeling somewhat batter about it now ;) And it's so good to find someone else obsessed with Númenor...
I still don't know about the ending, it's sort of hiding from me, but maybe I should search somewhere between the extremes, that's a good idea.
I agree that not all, as you called it, "OFC hooks up with canon male"-fics have to be bad - if they're well written and have interesting, vivid characters, they can be good. But I don't really trust my writing to deserve this description... *sigh*
Re: Aye, Isildur.
Date: 2003-10-20 10:39 pm (UTC)Yeah, I've heard a few reports about how they're going to give Faramir a more flattering portrayal in the final movie, and I can only hope it comes out that way. As for Isildur, I'm kind of stuck waving around "Disaster of the Gladden Fields" at everyone who thinks he's a bastard and saying "He was a HERO, dammit! Even Galadriel was tempted by the Ring!" :\
I've actually wondered from time to time if it would be worth it to make a Númenor-centric fanfic page/archive/thingy... but then, I wonder if it wouldn't be hypocritical of me because I'm not sure I'd ever feel comfortable putting my own stories on it. :\ But I suppose if there's anyone else out there who doesn't just view it as a minor part of the whole Middle-Earth mythos, it'd be a resource, at least... hmm... need to think about this some more...
(In any case, if you ever would feel comfortable showing me your fic, I'd feel honored... but then again, I would understand if you didn't want to, considering how jumpy I am about my stuff.)
Re: Aye, Isildur.
Date: 2003-10-21 11:44 am (UTC)I'd love to see such an archive. But of course, seeing as I am totally obsessed with Númenor, I'm hardly an objective outside source to ask ;). But if it's not merely a fanfic archive, but covers everything that's known about Númenor (little as it is, sadly, in comparison), why should it be hypocritical? (Though maybe it is hypocritical of me to ask for such a thing without offering to do it myself - but I so suck at website building!) Hm...
Hm... I really don't know. As for now, it's just a collection of notes and a few attempted drawings and some text... I'll see later. But if I ever feel like showing my stuff to anyone at all, you'll certainly be among them :)