fic progress.

[shadowbrides]

I think I'm finally ready to post the first chapter by Monday, perhaps? That is, my reply to Aliana1's Bechdel fic challenge, which would be[Short summary under spoiler because possibly boring]fic about the misadventures of a female Sea-Captain in the 4th Age. She goes by either a ridiculous meaningless string of pseudo-Quenya or Markirya, which is not in fact a name at all but a word meaning "ark"

Comments

[pandemonium_213]

Oh, wow! Those are great finds (now bookmarked), and (selfishly speaking) timely, too, as I have a chapter under draft and planned chapters for The Elendilmir that will take the protagonist out on a whaling ship. My primary resource (and an excellent one) has been Melville's Moby Dick. I also took a little field trip down to New Bedford to check out the whaling museum, and when friends from California visited last May, we went on a whale watch (Stellwagen Banks) via the New England Aquarium.

The nautical terms resource is very cool and potentially very useful!

Thanks a million for sharing these!

and submarines apparently, which I only remembered thanks to Pande and have been trying to erase from my mind ever since because, well. No. Just No.

No, no, not submarines! This might be the passage (from HoMe V, The Lost Road) I mentioned:

At first (Sauron) revealed only secrets of craft, and taught the making of many things powerful and wonderful; and they seemed good. Our ships go now without the wind, and many are made of metal that sheareth hidden rocks, and they sink not in calm or storm; but they are no longer fair to look upon. Our towers grow ever stronger and climb ever higher, but beauty they leave behind upon earth. [emphasis, Pandë] We who have no foes are embattled with impregnable fortresses - and mostly on the West. Our arms are multiplied as if for an agelong war, and men are ceasing to give love or care to the making of other things for use or delight. But our shields are impenetrable, our swords cannot be withstood, our darts are like thunder and pass over leagues unerring. [emphasis, Pandë]

I don't interpret the aforementioned ships as submarines, but rather, as metal-hulled battleships driven by internal combustion engines (referred to as "infernal combustion engines" by JRRT and others). The next sentence surely sounds like JRRT's poetic lament about skyscrapers (Louis Sullivan, who must surely harbor the "eldritch alleles" of which Saunders and Fionn speak :^D, does not agree in the least), and the final italicized text recalls some sort of ballistic weapon. Rifles with bullets ("darts"), perhaps?

Anyway, that is surely a castigation of big bad technology through JRRT's mouthpiece, Elendil. JRRT also mentions "flying ships" that Men built in an effort to reach the Undying Lands in the same volume.

Completely agree that casting Middle-earth and Aman as solely pseudo-medieval sort of misses the boat, so to speak. ;^)

[shadowbrides]

Glad to be of use! I can't wait for more of the Elendimir ^^

Dunno if you've already incorporated something like that, but you might find this useful as well: http://electricka.com/etaf/muses/literature/readers_world/aids_for_readers/sailors_and_sailing/popups/tell_time.htm How sailors tell the time. Which is apparently differently than the rest of of us humble mortals.

And ah sorry, I misremembered! That was definitely the passage, yes. I don't know why I had this mental image of Númenóreans in submarines. Perhaps I dreamed about it or something like that, I tend to do that. Although if they did really have some kind of airplanes perhaps a submarine isn't that strange a thought...I'll admit it will probably take a really great fic to convince me of things like Zimraphel betting on motor/steam boat races though, but I'm sure it can be done. Until then I'm going to file that under 'ignore' haha, and put it in a cosy corner next to most of LACE and there being two Glorfindels. xP