van_champion

 Well. 

So, one of the reasons that I had been so vague about my location after 2023 onwards was that I had moved somewhere -- well, bascially, we could no longer afford the apartment in central Richmond. We were housed, but I didn't want to have any problems follow me to the new place, so I was largely dutifully scuttling to work and back. While I cleaned up and reorganized a few aspects of my online life, I didn't get into posting, and I wouldn't risk calling attention from any lingering elements seeking to restart old feuds. (There are not, thankfully, many of them -- but one is enough.)

Anyway, In May of 2026, I moved again. Long story, but I am quite a bit further north now. Still nicely employed, paying pre-COVID rents again, and having a quick perusal of my resources. Now, I'm still divesting old papers that don't seem as important, taking shovels to two of my email accounts, and all sort of other projects going on. But even more good news -- there's only two names left on the Book of Grudges. One is paying me wergild and doesn't know it. The other....well, there's very little I can do about them. I left a few files with my brother, just in case. 

Also, I will never pay for Di$ney media again.

But enough of old grudges! Every bit of living well spites my enemies far worse than any trash review I could put on Goodreads, so: I am also a virtual real estate mogul! 

Atlas Earth passive income: 1 cent (US)/day

It's a start, certainly.
So, I'll figure out how to get out of survival mode now. It is, at last, time to stretch out. I took an opportunity already, now I have to rebuild as well as prune. (Thankfully I got decent at landscaping during my missing time....)
   

 You know what I miss?

Japanese stationery sets.

I used to collect a few different sets, for correspondence with various people, and save some sample sheets and small envelopes. Bears, penguins, and the like, sometimes anthropomorphized and sometimes not.  

Given that postal correspondence may come back in vogue, I started looking around for similar. Daiso had very serious minimalist sets, Muji is more for journals, and there is a stationery shop still at the Vancouver Public Library Central branch -- but it was not open despite it being during the hours of operation listed.

Perhaps I will look online, or perhaps there is something on Alberni or Robson. 
And possibly, the tastes have changed, and I won't find any style I like -- but I would like to know. 

The Fall of Númenor: and Other Tales from the Second Age of Middle-earth by J.R.R. Tolkien

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


The three thousand, four hundred and forty-one years that comprise The Second Age of Middle Earth are often skipped over by casual readers of the Tolkien Legendarium. In all fairness, even the Professor himself was known to tell publishers that this was a Dark Age with little to be said about it.

But the origins of that infamous Ring whose loss, retrieval and ultimate destruction would dominate the Third Age has its place in this time. The decline of the High Elves (and their attempts to arrest same), the rise of the human sea-power of Númenor (and the Second Fall of Man that leads to its destruction), the creation of the Ringwraiths, and the "First Darkness" alluded to by Gandalf long years afterwards that covered all but a few redoubts east of the Great Sea - all take place in this time.

And with the recent streaming television series attempting to write on some of the blank spaces in the Tale of Years, it was, perhaps, high time that the extant canonical writings of the Second Age from the Professor's own hand be (re)collected from The Lord of the Rings' Appendices, 1980's Unfinished Tales, and various correspondences and placed into one volume.

It may, for some, be considered a source or companion piece to said aforementioned series -- certainly the doomed quest of one show-unique Elf may serve as a counterpoint to the grand dreams of Celebrimbor or the concerns of Galadriel and Gil-Galad, and may provide some clues as to how Sauron's quiet buildup was achieved between 1000 and 1700. But while complementary views may be found, the Tolkien Legendarium was not originally a transmedia franchise, and this book is not necessary (though it is certainly helpful) to understand "The Rings of Power", neither is the show required to make sense of this book.

Indeed, except for the long middle saga taking place around SA 700, and dealing with the Númenorean prince Aldarion and his restlessness in a world thought to be at peace (though his father the King soon learns otherwise), this volume is mostly a more detailed recitation of The Tale of Years' account, expanding upon the point-form notes to provide details of the movements of Elves, Men, Dwarves and Orcs (the Halflings are unnoticed by chroniclers until roughly 1000 in the Third Age) from the ruins of drowned Beleriand into the lands east of the Blue Mountains. The short-lived flowering of Eregion, the splendor of Khazad-dûm, the founding of the Black Tower, the glory and folly of Armenolos the Golden City -- all are explored here.

We also, in discussing Eregion, Lindon, and the making of the Three Elven-Rings, get into a debate as to whether the Elves experienced a more subtle fall (theologically speaking) than that of humanity (the second of which we see in this book, and the first is obliquely mentioned in the Silmarillion, but falls somewhat outside of its focus), one which Sauron was initially able to exploit, until his desire for control led him to open warfare instead.

This work is perhaps not essential for understanding the history of Middle-Earth, but it does make for a handy reference for those wondering how and why one gets to the Last Alliance and the disappearance of the One Ring that would cast such a long shadow over the subsequent age....



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Now that my work is getting a little bit quieter (though there are still more people going through it than at the beginning of the year), I had thought to craft some essays to set the record firmly crooked on some things I find important. I was a bit distracted today, however. Canadian-based Star Wars Youtuber Corey's Datapad had some questions about the later career of former Imperial Senator, key Alliance to Restore the Republic figure, and New Republic politician Leia Organa, Princess of Alderaan. With the loss of the planet, what exactly was her constituency in the latter two organizations? (Her inheritance, of course, is a bigger-scope and tangiential question, even without the Noghri in the mix.)

Anyway. Have a relaxing summertime political discussion before that sphere gets too weird, as we attempt to figure out George's galaxy-building.  

 So, about three years ago, a new phase in Star Wars tie-in publishing was launched. I was a bit intrigued by it: especially as YA genre fiction has been largely doing after-the-end Crapsack Worlds for a while now. Though I think they should have gone further back along the timeline to establish their setting -- perhaps the Kymoodon Era (15 000 years before the films) or the Waymancy Storm conflicts (about 11 000 years before the films). But more on lore another day. 

Anyway, using Imgflip, I couldn't help but riff on the overarching title for this new and ambitious transmedia project:




Yes, that one (if you've seen it) is.... well, I can't copyright it, as Silent Bob belongs to View Askew Productions and Star Wars, of course, is still firmly in Disney's grip. But this was my take on the title. 

 It only just now occurred to me that now I could, at least in theory, title my ongoing work "49 Going On Dead"....

Except, of course, for the fact that mbarrick thought of that first. Also, I don't *feel* "Going On Dead" at all. Rather more like "I Should Be Dead, But Thankfully Am Not. Now What?" Which is a little too wordy for a journal title.

I am dealing with the effects of my father's passing, and that has inspired me to make preparations for my end. And some affairs have in fact been put in order. But I don't plan to leave, not right away. And some things... came back. More on that later.

This is how sad my fannishness can get. 

For the uninitiated:

The Transformers fiction, right from the start, never had a singular canon, even with Marvel producing both a comic and a cartoon series for Hasbro. (One of the reasons for this is that Marvel Productions (the studio arm) and Marvel Comics were barely on speaking terms through the 1980s.) As time went on, and we had increasingly divergent storylines (such as Toei's post-1987 anime) and sequel series that were vague about just what storyline to which they were serving as a sequel (such as Mainframe's Beast Wars Beasties), and into the 2000s various relaunches along the lines of "Everything's the same except for the fact that it's all completely different", things only got more and more complicated. 

So a classification scheme was rolled out, grouping universe into clusters such as "Primax" for Generation 1/2 content or "Tyran" for the live-action movies. Universes where the Transformers exist only as fiction were referred to as "Quadwal" -- I'll give you a moment to guess what that's referencing. 

But no-one ever assigned a universal stream to our own universe, though we have a "mirror"-type negative polarity universe charted. 
So, I went and did the math. 

 ... granted, there was only a 1% chance that I was going to die on the operating table, but even so. 

So. 5 days prior, I spent the day only mostly dead.

I can walk short distances, sleep only 2 hours a night, and I haven't had much appetite. Until today. Craving noodles. 

Things are going to be weird from here on in, but I knew that already.