He who laughs last: the Battle of Azanulbizar from a rather unpleasant PoV. Originally written for the May 2012 Lotr-gfic Challenge.

Also at MPTT and AO3

Chapter 29, Feast, is published: on Midsummer's Day in Middle-earth, romance is in the air...

As always: enjoy! and thank you to my betas for a sterling job:-)

Well, that was a proper bonsai* move from Takuma...


*as in "I've seen more intelligent last lap maneuvers from small trees"

I spent yesterday walking about 15 kilometers through forest and heathland. It was fun, as well as fairly warm.

( Here be trees, sand, heath, wet dogs, large photos... )

...when you're a cat ( Read more... )

At least I didn't have to think long about my first project for the chainmail starter kit I got at the Elf Fantasy Fair last month.

My pretty but unfortunately not very durable Weta replica chainmail key fob fell apart recently.
( Read more... )

I wrote these two drabbles for recent birthday requests at HASA. They'll be posted at AO3 and MPTT too eventually.

Anything at all?( Read more... )

Patience( Read more... )

Okay, so either this pigeon understands at least one very relevant property of glass, or it lacks any sense of self-preservation... ( Read more... )

Today's Remembrance Day in the Netherlands.

In honour of this, Janis Ian's version of Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye, the anti-war original of When Johnny Comes Marching Home (there is of course a lot of debate about which version came first, and I don't really care).

I'd recommend just listening to the song. I don't say this lightly: some of the images are very graphic. Of course, the song itself already has me in tears.

( embedded youtube version )

...be with you!

Having originally posted a WiP snippet on LJ for a meme, I've finally reached the point where I consider this story far enough along to post the first chapter. Therefore, without further ado, Becoming can be found here.
Summary: A young sentry challenges a stranger coming up the road.

Since I entered it in the HASA Story Pledge Challenge, it will be posted only at HASA for now. I hope to post the second chapter this month as well; finishing the story before the end of May may be slightly too ambitious *g* but if the muse be willing...

Cute alert...

(  Here be kitties  )

I'll just huddle here behind the curtain where you can't see me...

She'll probably be renamed as soon as I have a better idea, but for now it's Lidewij.



There will also be better photos once she emerges from behind the washing machine...

She's about a year old, a foundling from the shelter; friendly, but a bit shy: she likes being petted, but picking her up is a big no-no. She has a kink in her tail that may be from an encounter with a door. The first meeting with Pixel was very friendly, so I don't foresee large problems on getting them to share their space.

To indulge your inner twelve-year-old: 'Dull' twinned with 'Boring'. The comments are a LOL and a half...

Today was the Elf Fantasy Fair, and though it was rainy and a bit colder than I'd have liked, it was still great fun as usual.

( photos )

I've been playing Diablo II for about ten years, and for the last five or so, awaiting Diablo III. Now III is finally here (and yes, the pre-purchase copy is sitting on my harddisk, and will be installed as soon as it's possible to do so on May 15), but this weekend there's an open beta, so I'm now downloading that. Of course, I won't have as much time as I might like, since I'm going to the Elf Fantasy Fair tomorrow, and Sunday I may watch the Bahrein riots Grand Prix thing...

Still, it's nice to have a go *g*

Pixel has been getting less hyper-clingy and more back to normal over the week. I do think she needs feline company sooner rather than later though (i.e. within a couple of weeks), partly because I work full-time and she spends a lot of time on her own. She's also so active that it's good for her to have another cat to play with again (which is after all why I wanted two to begin with...), rather than me crawling around on the floor to entertain her all the time.

So the final B2MEM story that I was going to write was going to be a drabble series. The first drabble is currently 692 words long.

I think I need to rethink this thing...

Chapter 28, Silence, is published: in which Arwen reaches a decision.

As always: enjoy! and thank you to my betas for a sterling job:-)

Bert's seizures became so severe and frequent (and didn't respond to /any/thing)
that the vet saw no other option than to put her to sleep.

Bert may have epilepsy - she had her second seizure in two days this morning. Could be because of an infection she has at the moment, but it could also be the real thing.

B8: Arrow (not called)

Arathorn took an arrow to the eye
Not something you want to try
It stings when you do it
He said, I have to admit
A most unpleasant way to die

Unnamed quadrabble for:
O64: Talents and Skills: Baking
G59: Textures: Pebbled
N39: Relationship: Interracial marriage
Also used for the March Nuzgûl of the Month at HASA ("Death: Write a story where Arwen discusses the thought of dying with one other person")

Characters: Arwen, Elladan, Elrohir( Read more... )

was Bert's turn for spaying coming up.

She's a lot more easy-going about the cone than Pix was, but Pix is more relaxed about the plastic-headed monster wandering about the house...

( photos )

One of my stories that is in need of a rewrite is "Foresight", and apart from it being an overly melodramatic mess, I also have to change the way the Grey Company fights on the Pelennor.

Off the top of my head, I'd say that most people tend to write them fighting on foot (as indeed I did here). While I'm not uptight about having to be absolutely canonical in every minor detail of every story *g* upon re-reading the Battle of the Pelennor Fields I cannot escape that they ride.

In the book, when Aragorn and Eomer meet, they dismount for a quiet chat in the middle of the battlefield:

And so at length Éomer and Aragorn met in the midst of the battle, and they leaned on their swords and looked on one another and were glad.

But they remount before going on:

‘Nor indeed more timely,’ said Éomer. ‘You come none too soon, my friend. Much loss and sorrow has befallen us.’
‘Then let us avenge it, ere we speak of it!’ said Aragorn, and they rode back to battle together.

And at the end...

Aragorn and Éomer and Imrahil rode back towards the Gate of the City,

*sigh* and it's not as if I didn't take this detail into account in other stories... which probably explains why I've been failing to sort this one out for so long. I can write the battle on horseback, but that would mean scrapping the death scene, and removing most of the point of the story.

Why, if it's April, am I still sitting here knee deep in notes and books, trying to research a bunch of B2MEM prompts for a story?

Meanwhile, on the balcony,( Read more... )

8235 words written
76 finished prompts
42 finished stories
31 days
21 prompts in progress
21 unclaimed prompts
9 renders
5 prompts in one story
2 existing stories to be revised
1 extra prompt written
0 bingo