How To: A very Tolkien-esque Advent Calendar

Still need a advent calendar, but don’t want to spend a lot of money? Then I’ve got a great solution for you! Ok, sorry guys for this info-mercial type of tone, but some of you really won’t have to spend a single cent on this advent calendar. Really!

I’m not that much into that Christmas hype, so my seasonal decor and rites are very minimalistic. So last year, I decided to turn my copy of ‘Letters from Father Christmas’ by J.R.R. Tolkien into a very simple advent calender. All I ended up doing for this was dividing the letters into 24 days, put numbered sticky tabs into the book and viola, my Tolkien-esque advent calender on a budget was done! Why 24 days, you may ask. The answer is simple, im many countries in Europe, the big Christmas celebration, where the gifts are exchanged, is on December 24th.

I’ve enjoyed this Tolkien-esque advent calendar so much that I decided to turn it into a dradition and do it every year from now on.

Now, if you’re interested in recreating it yourself, here is how I divided that short book into 24 days.

• Day 1: Letter 1920
• Day 2: Letter 1923
• Day 3: Letter 1924
• Day 4: Letter 1925
• Day 5: Letter 1926
• Day 6: Letter 1927
• Day 7: Letter 1928
• Day 8: Letter 1929
• Day 9: Letter 1930
• Day 10: Letter 1931
• Day 11: Letter 1932 Nov. 30th
• Day 12: Letter 1932 Dec. 23rd.
• Day 13: Letter 1933 Dec. 2nd
• Day 14: Letter 1933 Dec 21nd
• Day 15: Letter 1934
• Day 16: Letter 1935
• Day 17: Letter 1936
• Day 18: Letter 1937
• Day 19: Letter 1938
• Day 20: Letter 1939
• Day 21: Letter 1940
• Day 22: Letter 1941
• Day 23: Letter 1942
• Day 24: Letter 1943

 

Do you have any bookish or Tolkien-esque advent calenders? Why not share it with the rest of us?

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The ‘All About the Reading’ – Tag

I’ve just stumbled upon this tag watching one of my all time favorite booktubers and since I’m only reading books these days (haven’t watched a new film in months), this tag spoke to my soul. Before I begin with the questions, I tag everyone who is keen to answer some or all of those questions.

You can watch the video that inspired me over here: Why I Read | All About the Reading Tag by Books by Leynes.

All about the Reading – Tag

1.What do you look for most when you pick up a book? A) A beautiful writing style B) A character driven story C) A plot driven story
When I pick up a book, the only thing I initially look for is, as in the case of Leynes, that it tells me something I don’t know. Whether it is telling me an adventure I haven’t read about yet, a way of portraying characters and their developments, or a unique way of writing, I want to be exposed to new ideas. The rest, plot, character construction, or quality of writing style comes later.

2.What are your pet peeves in books?
Plot holes and authors making use of tropes out of sheer laziness. If you’re using tropes to dismantle them or as a form of satire, then that is awesome. However, if you’re using a trope because you can’t think of another way to describe a character or scene, then that is lazy.

3. If you could print one quote on your wall, which one would it be?
As I’m looking around my room, I’m realizing that I already have a quote in my room, however, it is not on my wall. A while ago, I painted the famous line “Not all those who wander are lost” from Tolkien’s poem about Aragorn on a pillow. There are two reasons why I chose this rather overused line. For one, yes I’m a basic white girl that likes to travel so as a basic white girl I have to do what we all basic white girls do, find some ‘inspiring quotes’, plaster them on an lovely, but basic looking image and pretend that this alone will make things ‘good in life’. Ok, all jokes aside, my life was never straight forward with a clear and easy ‘graduating from school to find a job, buy a house and have a family’ -type of path. My life has been and still is a zig-zag journey leading me, sometimes, back to where I’ve already been. So that line is just a nice reminder that its OK to not have a straight forward life path. Anyhow, I digress.

4. Which genre would you like to explore more?
Ancient literature, non-fiction, and folk tales from all over the world. As I’ve said, I want to be exposed to new ideas and I’ve been neglecting those three genres way too much.

5. Was there ever a movie adaptation you liked better than the book?
Oh, that is a touchy subject. For one, I have to out myself as a member of the minority that doesn’t think that “the book is always better than the adaptation”. Having said that, I’ve been avoiding some of the recently released adaptations so I’m not very up-to-date. Now to answer the question, I have to admit that I enjoyed Kenneth Branagh’s adaptation of Henning Mankell’s Wallander novels more than I enjoyed the actual novels.

6. If one of your favorite books would be adapted or get a new adaptation, which book would it be and which role would you like to play?
That is an oddly specific hypothetical scenario, but here we go. If The Lord of the Rings ever receives a new adaptation (I’m looking at you, Amazon), I’d love to play a random Hobbit in the background or alternatively an Orc. Honestly, I really don’t care about what I’d play as long as I’d be a part of it. I’m not an actor, nor do I possess any talent in that regard what-so-ever so just give me a random role as an extra Mr. and Mrs. Amazon. I’m willing to play an Orc in exchange for coffee.

7. A hyped book you wouldn’t recommend at all?
A recent disappointment was Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London. Several of my friends love this series while I was utterly bored and annoyed.

8. A book that highly influenced your life and way of thinking?
Similar to the Youtuber Leynes, where I found this Tag to begin with, I have to say Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita. The ability to lure the reader into such a story, and even make the narrator seem likeable at times, just by through Nabokov’s stunning use of works is one of a kind and deeply affected me on how to see and interpret novels.

Now, this is not a single book, but rather than an entire genre, but non-fiction books deeply affected me and the way I read. When growing up as a kid, I’d either read fairy tales or non-fiction books. It got to a point where I was so intrigued by what non-fiction books could teach me that my father only got me non-fiction books as birthday presents for several years. This, I guess, explains why I’m putting such an emphasis being exposed to new ideas when reading books, fiction and non-fiction, in general.

9. Are you a fan of re-reading books, do you do it often?
I love re-reading books, especially my favorites. It allows me to either re-live an adventure or re-evaluate what I’ve read in a new way.

10. Which book title could easily be the title of your life?
I really like the title of Witi Ihimaera’s play Woman far Walking.

11. Which book should be required reading for everyone?
None, to be honest. What is ‘required’ to read as a means of learning changes all the time and far too often ‘required readings’ in school consist mostly of books by dead white men.

What about you? How is your reading going so far in 2018? Leave a comment down below.

 

Selfmade ‘Today in Middle-earth’ – Moleskine Journal

Several years ago, Moleskine release some beautiful Hobbit edition of its notebooks. As a lover of Moleskine notebooks and all things Tolkien, I had to get one too. While I loved every notebook in this Hobbit series, I settled for this notebook in pocket size.

Yet, until recently, I didn’t knew what to use it for. I wanted to use it for Middle-earth related stuff, but I was also too afraid to use it in case I ruin it. You know, the usual struggle every stationery lover has.

A few days ago, as I was thinking of #middleearthmarch I somehow got THE IDEA: Why not use that Hobbit Moleskine notebook to write all Middle-earth dates down?

If you’re like me, March will make you wonder ‘What exactly happened that day in Middle-earth’? The entire year is filled with important days in Middle-earth, but March is, without a  doubt, one of the busiest months in Middle-earth. So whenever I wanted to know what was ‘going on’ in Middle-earth, I’d search the internet. Now, I don’t have to browse the world wide web, I can just grab my Middle-earth Calendar notebook and look up what is going on.

How I created my ‘Today in Middle-earth’ Moleskine Notebook

The most pressing question some of you now might have is ‘Where did you get all the dates from’? The best resouce on the internet is, by far, The One Ring.Net’s ‘Today in Middle-earth Calendar’. It is the most extensive and structured calender I’ve seen so far. No need to reference dozens of different hopepages anymore.

Section 1: LOTR events month on two pages

For my own, analogue version, I created two sections. A ‘month on two pages’ featuring Lord of the Rings Events only and a ‘Chronicles of Middle-earth’ section featuring all dates and events. The LOTR  events only section allows only for the most important event on each day. It serves me as a quick overview. My ‘Chronicles of Middle-earth’ section is the one section I’ll use as a detailed account of events.

Section 2

My system of colour-coding events

In order to make things organized and clear, I’ve decided to colour-code the events in my ‘Chronicles of Middle-earth’ section. Black stands for events  significant to LOTR, blue are events of importance to The Hobbit and purple encompasses miscellaneous events such as Tolkien’s birthday. All in all, I used up about two-thirds of my notebook. Depending on your handwriting or added decoration, it my be different for you if you decide to re-create it.

Section 2: ‘Chronicles of Middle-earth’

I’m not gonna lie, at times it felt tedious to write everything down. However, for the most part, I’ve really enjoyed the process. I’d put on Middle-earth inspired music and pretend to be a Gondorian historian. Now that I’m finished I’m desperate to re-read LOTR again!

Have you done anything similar? If now, what do you think of my little project? Leave a comment down below!

Disability & Pop Culture: An Amputee’s Point of View

Whenever you think of disabled characters in pop culture, you’ll probably think of Geordi La Forge from Star Trek, Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader from Star Wars, and maybe of Forrest Gump and Lieutenant Dan from Forrest Gump. Disabled characters, whether they have a physical disability, an intellectual disability or have a chronic illness, are far and few inbetween in pop culture. There is a greater variety of vampires, ghosts, and aliens than disabled characters (or any other minorities for that matter).

I was born one-handed (don’t worry, I have no difficulties with typing this) and for the longest time, the only characters in film, tv, or books that looked like me, and by that I mean characters with missing limbs, were Luke Skywalker, Lieutenant Dan, and the occasional villian such as Darth Vader or Azog from The Hobbit. Naturally, most of them immediately became my favourite characters of that film or tv show regardless of whether they were good guys or even well-written characters. Seriously, no matter who the characters is, I’d get excited beyond words just to see someone ‘like me’ on screen, even if it was murderous Orc.

Me, a few years back.

A statistic by the Media, Diversity and Social Change Initiative from 2015 revealed that “just 2.4 percent of characters in the top 100 movies who spoke or had actual names had disabilities. That’s a significant gap between fiction and reality, since the Census Bureau has found in 2010 that 56.7 million people, or 18.7 percent of Americans, have disabilities. ” I’m sure the numbers will be the same for many other countries as well.

Here is a detailed breakdown of what this study uncovered:

Characters with disabilities appeared in 55 of those 100 movies. And of those characters, 61 percent had physical disabilities, 37.1 had mental or cognitive disabilities, and 18.1 percent had communicative disabilities. Characters with disabilities were overwhelmingly male; just 19 percent of characters with disabilities were female. Characters with disabilities were likely to be relatively marginalized in the movies in which they did appear: 10 of the 100 top-grossing films from 2015 featured characters with disabilities as leads or co-leads. Of the 11 movies that Smith and her colleagues classified as ensemble, two featured characters with disabilities as part of the core ensemble. (Source: washingtonpost.com)

The number of disabled actors on film and tv is similarly small. In fact, whenever I see a disabled character portrayed, I automatically roll my eyes thinking “ah yes another abled-bodied actor”. The exceptions to this are characters with dwarfism or down syndrome. These are the only examples that come to my mind where disabled actors are always chosen to portray a character that has the same disability as them. When it comes to other disabilities, more often than not, an able-bodied actor is chosen.

Luke Skywalker

I can still remember, years and years ago, when CSI: Las Vegas came out how I reacted with cynicism upon seeing the Coroner Dr. Albert Robbins walking with a crutch. Even more so when it was revealed the character of Dr. Robbins is a double-amputee. Only later did I found out that the actor portraying Dr. Robbins, Robert David Hall was, in fact, a double-amputee himself! Over the years my interest in CSI: Las Vegas dwindled, especially after the departure of actor William Petersen, but I kept on watching it just for Dr. Robbins. Finally, I’ve found a character whose disability was just one aspect of his personality and not a walking-talking stereotype, nor a villain.

For most of my life, I didn’t really think about this issue in-depth. I just accepted the low numbers and sometimes terrible representation without question. However, as I get older and started my academic career in culture studies, with a focus on literary studies, I began to think critically and eventually began a Ph.D on disability in literature. For a year now, I’ve been reading and researching books and short stories in science fiction featuring disabled characters and let me tell you it wasn’t very easy. Not all summaries online will tell you that a book or short story deals with disability issues. Some books, I’ve stumbled upon by accident on amazon while browsing for another unrelated book.

Lieutenant Dan

Initially, I intended this to be a brief “x amount of disabled characters in Science Fiction” – list. However, I realized very early that this is not an issue I can summarize in just a few sentences, hence, my Ph.D project. I could go on an on in this post, but it is too long and to “here and there” already. In other words, I want to write more blog-posts discussing disability in pop-culture. I don’t know, nor can I promise anything, how long this series will be or how frequent these type of posts will be. However, I will try, at the very least, to contribute a bit to the discussion of disability rights. I’m over 30 now and if a few random posts here and there end up helping a young person growing up with a disability to feel more confident and find characters that “look just like themselves” then I’ve succeeded.

So what’s next up? A short list of science fiction books and short-stories I’ve recently read that feature disabled characters. Moreover, there are numerous movies, tv shows, or books with disabled characters that I haven’t watched or read yet. So I think it’ll be nice to give brief reviews of my first thoughts on these characters.

It is your turn now. What are your thoughts on this issue? Do you have a movie, tv-show, game, comic, or book featuring disabled characters that you absolutely love or hate? Leave a comment down below!

5 Fandom Friday: Five Magical Potions to Always Have in the Cupboard

We already covered Fictional Foods That We Want To Try in an earlier post, but fantasy offers us even more interesting options when we look at potions. Let’s face it, if we had access to effects like these, we would keep them stocked at home for when we need them!

With that in mind, I’d like to share Five Magical Potions to Always Have in the Cupboard.

#1 – Lucy’s Cordial from Father Christmas

The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe

Lucy’s Cordial from the Chronicles of Narnia requires only a few drops to restore health to someone on a battlefield, so even though it probably falls into the category of a standard health potion, it certainly lands on the powerful end of the scale. For me, the most important potion to have on hand is a healing potion, and I have always wanted this one after having The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe read to me as a child.

#2 – Felix Felicis

Harry Potter

Sometimes, you just need a little luck! Felix Felicis (aka Liquid Luck) can be toxic if used in high doses as it can cause extreme recklessness, but if you use it sparingly and only when needed, you are likely to be successful in all of your endeavors while under its influence.

Screen capture by @NWPlayer123

#3 – Energizing Elixir

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Imagine being in the middle of an exhausting task and suddenly regaining stamina as though you had just begun. The Energizing Elixir from Breath of the Wild comes in handy when you’re climbing a cliff or swimming, and having easy access to this potion in the real world could give you just what you need to finish what you started when fatigue sets in.

#4 – Draught of Peace

Harry Potter

The draught of peace can soothe anxiety and calm agitation. You could use it yourself when you feel stressed about public speaking or a frightening situation, or you could share it with your loved ones when they just need a moment of peace from their worries and cares.

#5 – Morgause’s Tracking Potion

Merlin

Technically, the tracking potion was used by the bad guys (namely, Morgause and Morgana), but you could use it for good! I get uneasy when someone wants me to follow them instead of giving me directions to our intended destination, and this would make it as simple as following their trail. Assuming it worked on animals, you could give one to your pet to see just what they are getting their little paws into.

Honorable Mention: Egg Shen’s Potion

Big Trouble in Little China

“Drink this, you will see things no one else can see. Do things no one else can do!”

 

These are just six potions from a handful of properties, and we’re sure that there are plenty more excellent choices. In the comments below, please share what you would always keep in stock!

You can check out all of our past 5 Fandom Friday posts here, and we’d love to know if you have any suggestions for future topics!