Home Alone: Forgotten in Formenos by Dawn Felagund

I suppose this is how Feanor and Nerdanel lost that year's Parent of the Year Award. But you do a good job piling up incidents - the attic exile, the storm, the miscounting, the chaotic, middle-of-the-night departure - that show how they could make a mistake like that without being uncaring or incompetent.

This is delicious!

I love the visual humor of the crazy shape-shifting, and the way you've adapted all of the elements of Home Alone to a Silmarillion setting without losing the movie's flavor.

Kudos for giving the twins a reality check that groceries don't haul themselves into the house and magically transform into hot meals, an essential life lesson everyone should learn asap ;-)  

The transforming shadows are an especially nice touch!

Also, the lament over the fate of the peaches, after the previous mess-making.

I love Anaire's line about the hand cream. Also, kudos to Nerdanel. It's great to see her conviction prevail over everything else.

This was an enjoyable chapter! I like the fact that Iniðilêz knows, when the Valar do not, that Melkor's release will end in another rebellion - not because he is better than they are but because he is worse, and so he understands Melkor's nature better. I also like the idea that the Elves, being formed by Eru, have an innate guardedness against evil that they don't have to learn. Rings true to Arda.

It amuses me somehow that they have so much trouble breaking Feanor's locks. And if they're frightened at the thought of meeting Feanor, they had better hope they're not around when Nerdanel gets back.

I got a kick out of Feanor locking himself into the coat closet. Honestly, I think he's on to something. I also liked the abridged story and how much Tyelkormo enjoyed it.

Oh- I HD to stop and say how I laughed over this:

Metaphors are lost on Dušamanûðânâz. He is a metaphor for so many things himself that perceiving their aesthetic employment is rather like knowing the actual sound of one’s actual voice. “I like cognac!” he exclaims, though he’s never tasted it. He is thinking of Campari.

I love these two- just wonderful descriptions, characterisations. Howlingly funny!

Have to stop and say how funny this is- but I am unsurprised with your comic genius- but THIS:

Tyelkormo reads from one of the abridged novels. He is the only one who seems able to tolerate them, and the smoke. He likes the directness: how something happens, then something happens because of that, and so on—the same straightforward cause-and-effect of a stone plonking down a hillside. Írissë drops next to him and heaves a sigh.
After being ignored for several seconds, she follows up with, “Aren’t you just a little worried about them?”
“Who?” It takes Tyelkormo a moment to wrench is brain from the story, where a sword-girt hero is fighting a slavering wolf in such pared-down language that the book might be an instruction manual on how to slay a wolf in heroic style.
“Your brothers.” After a moment of no response: “The Ambarussa. They’re so little.”
“Since when do you care?” he asks. The book is getting good. In fifteen dizzying words, the hero’s head is in the wolf’s mouth.

is truly hilarious and I am cacklinhg away to my husband's concern, so much I cannot speak for a moment and he had ot read it himself. He is giggling too now.

WOnderful.

Meanwhile, Iniðilêz and Dušamanûðânâz have taken up residence in a stone cottage and hung out their shingle, advertising
JEWELRY
CLEANED
FIXED
BRITENED
in what they hope lends them enough of an aura of respectability to avoid suspicion. They are both wearing the robes and insignias of Aulë once more, although how one serves Aulë—the local deity of handicrafts—to “clean and briten,” much less repair, jewelry with hands that end in a pair of fleshy flippers, goes politely unquestioned.

I just LOVE these two- they are the most wonderful villans! Love the 'briten'!

Oh BRILLIANT! I really really love Dušamanûðânâz- weirdly.

Ahhh- didn't realise I'd caught up! The Wight is going to be the secret hero of course - I hope- might well be Rumil I think, who  you had in AMC but was different. Can't wait for the next update of this hilarious story- I have never seen HA but this is so brilliant that I might actually go and watch it!

Your description of Tyelko being the onyl one who can bear reading th eabdriged version is hilarious and perfect! I can tell you are a teacher of naughty boys who love the idea of an instruction manual on how to kill a wolf- 15 words and the hero's head is in its mouth! Brilliant. The rest is brilliant too but that needed mentioning on its own:)

Oh I love this story- love the hopeless stupidity of Inidilez and Dušamanûðânâz (love the silliness and length od his name), the way Dus keeps morphing into weird things that are completely inappropriate for his situation, and the Ambarussa's lovely mix of sensibleness and childlike daftness. Great story. Loving it.

I love your footnote for the names! I have not written Silmarillion stories I really wanted to write because I am a coward when it comes to naming OCs.

Author's Response:

I am too! A hangover from the earlier canatic days of Tolkienfic, when such a mistake seemed to carry disproportionate consequences. I've developed a bit of a fuck-it-all attitude; I'm not interested in the linguistics part of the fandom and will give it my best, and if someone can do better, they should feel free.

OMG! "the tears in her voice"! Even Nerdanel does that! Maybe I shouldn't be so hard on myself for letting bratty little boys hurt my feelings. (You are so good at writing families.)

Author's Response:

Kids are MEAN! I have definitely had my feelings hurt by children a fraction of my age.

I really like your use of the Third Person Omniscient point of view. I have always been terrified to use it because of early warnings about its difficulty. You make it look easy. It's particularly useful when writing Finwean family fics with other significant characters--an army of characters indeed!

Author's Response:

Ah yes, I got those warnings too as a young writer! The PoV that seems like a cop-out (getting to be in everyone's head! no thinking through how to show everything that needs showing through a limited point of view!) but is the Most Difficult Out There. I also avoided it for a long time, though mostly because I like the intimacy of a first-person or limited PoV.

Honestly, I think of this as my storytelling voice. I pretended I was telling it out loud, and that PoV seemed to just follow. It's a very different style than my usual.

I love your descriptions of these shape-shifting Maiar. I can see the writhing and puffing and insect-like scuttling and it's deliciously entertaining.

Author's Response:

Ah, thank you, this is good to hear! This was fun to write but also one of those things that I worried might not be as effective as I wanted. But since I was leaning pretty heavily on the shapeshifter's changing shapes to make the story work. (I don't even remember that awful name! I never did learn to spell it and copy/pasted it every time I needed it. :)))

Oh Fëanor, what are you up to in there? 

Oh, that poor Wight! I love how you've seamlessly translated that lonely old man from Home Alone to a perfect, canonical Tolkien character so he can play his part as he does in the movie. You avoid that saccharine-sweet holiday atmosphere by giving him a properly dramatic backstory with real problems that won't miraculously be solved come christmas morning. 

And then there's that colorful battle plan. It's marvellous, down to the Tengwar-ish font. It looks done by children, but extremely talented, clever and determined children, and it fits the story perfectly. Delightful!

Author's Response:

Yeah, I can't do saccharine sweet! :D This story is about as close as I can get, and you'll notice it is not without some darker hints from the villains about what they'd like to do to the twins if they capture them ... (Which is actually Home Alone canon too! That scene near the end where they hang up Kevin by his sweater on the door is pretty graphic for a kids' movie!)

Part of what I like about the Home Alone movies are that, while Kevin nudges the outcast adults to take brave steps to change their circumstances, there is no miraculous kid-saves-the-day ending for either of them (the old man in the first movie or the pigeon lady in the second), and Kevin receives no accolades for his involvement either.

I LOVED making that map! The letters are based on a calligraphy script I developed to be reminiscent of the Tengwar, I structured it as much like Kevin's battle plan in the first movie, and then just had a helluva good time illustrating and coloring it. Thanks so much for letting me know you liked it too! :D

I laughed out loud at this chapter. His globular ass! His teensy feet! The final tour jeté!

Again you've perfectly captured the essence of what made the movie such a classic: it's just that funny (even to grown-ass adults!)

Author's Response:

I actually added the dance sequence over the broken glass in the final round of revisions. I hesitated because I worried people wouldn't get it. I just loved the visual it created when I imagined his capering around as dance moves. Then decided, to hell with it, I always assume my audience is intelligent and capable of using their Google-fu! People can look it up if they need to. :D

This never occurred to me, but Quildë makes an excellent point. In both the movie and this story it makes no sense that a mom should feel more guilt over accidentally forgetting her child, than a whole van full of fathers who deliberately left their families for the holidays.  

Go Nerdanel!

Author's Response:

Yes! John Candy's character berates himself but is the definition of a flat character: He shows zero interest in changing. Actually, having dug a little deeper with Quilde's character, it's a pretty insightful conversation that illustrates how women hold themselves and are held to a higher standard than men. It's kind of surprising that it was permitted in an early '90s script for a Christmas movie. I remember being fairly young and reading something somewhere--I was too young to remember where or by whom--that the "maladjustment" often attributed to wives and children who were expected to pick up their lives over and over again to follow the career paths of the patriarch without choice or protest or question, or who were expected to shape their lives to his needs, should be reconsidered. The one who should be seen as emotionally lacking is the one who expects other humans, especially loved ones, to pick up and shape their lives to serve his whims. That stuck with me for probably close to 30 years now! Funny how I didn't even think of that influencing this scene here, but it doubtlessly did.

In the movie, the father is no ball of fire either. He sits in an apartment, speaks mangled French on the phone, and eats shrimp. He eventually takes the Friday flight that was effortlessly proffered when they first arrived in France. Why is he not following up relentlessly with the local police? (Well, that whole plot point--about the police showing so little concern over a rich white kid left home alone--has always seemed a plot hole to me, and both the father and the police's passivity is essential to make the story work. But it does shovel the responsibility and the blame unfairly onto the mom.)

I've probably said this a couple of times by now, but I love your descriptions of Dušamanûðânâz' shape shifting. It makes him seem both laughable and menacing, which is exactly right. 

The pendulums and Palantiri trap is Very Fëanorian, and well thought out.  

And my inner seven-year-old is simply delighted by the combination of farts, poop and piranhas. This kind of visual humor again perfectly matches the movie. 

Author's Response:

I worried again that I was using too much bathroom humor! :D One of my more memorable comments over the years came from someone who stopped reading my novel AMC because the characters peed too much! Part of why I decided to include this was that I am too wimpy to have my sweet Ambarussa do to the thieves in my story what Kevin did to the thieves in his. My husband and I joke that Kevin probably went to jail in later years for his sociopathic tendencies ... I'd much rather the suffering they inflict be of a milder variety than trying repeatedly to catch the invaders on fire. Part of it was that I teach middle school and so have a high tolerance for childish humor.

The idea for the pendulums came from the Poe story "The Pit and the Pendulum," and I thought it seemed very Feanorian too!

These bees must be the equivalent of that huge spider roaming the house in the movie. i like them a lot better! You clearly know a thing or two about bees. 

Carnistr is welcome to install his laundry delivery system at my house!

Author's Response:

Carnistir's housekeeping inventions, including his laundry system, has come up in a few stories now. I think the germ of it came from the Anne Tyler novel The Accidental Tourist.

When my husband and I moved to Vermont, we moved into a singlewide trailer which had about half the square footage of the rancher we sold in Maryland because it doesn't have a basement. One of my favorite things about our new house is that the washer is right in the kitchen, so I no longer have to go into the basement and forget laundry down there far less often! I had to rewash clothes more times than I care to confess because I'd forgotten about them and they'd gone sour ... That hasn't happened once since moving here. So I appreciate the bump in quality of life from not having to haul laundry around! :D

You're right! The bees are the equivalent of the spider. The part of the movie where Kevin puts the spider on Marv's face is one of my least favorite ... not because I'm afraid or grossed out by spiders but because I actually adore spiders and dislike seeing that one put in harm's way! :D I'm always grateful that it got away and hope it was safely recaptured and returned to its Good Life with Buzz and regular meals of mice guts.

Because of that, in my version, I wanted the bees to be terrifying but never in harm's way. I'm a beekeeper, so I do know a lot about bees and definitely used that here to build what I hope was a tense scene for my villains but a little kinder to my animal actors! :D

Ahhh, and now they're smashing large amounts of glassware! (inner seven-year-old squees in delight)

"Many people, in such circumstances, would be overcome with regret at their choices. But they are Fëanárians. What is done is done."

Exactly! 

Author's Response:

That full-send attitude will get them into some trouble in years to come ...

But I do imagine they moved forward by, well, moving forward! This is actually a lesson I try to teach my students. You cannot change what is done; you can only do better next time.

(Unfortunately, the second part of that was a little harder for the Feanorians to master ...)

Olorin's magical housecleaning ... I'd like some of that, too! Young Gandalf is a great police officer, and you've kept him true to character. 

The Wight's departure is perfect: hopeful, but not sugery. He's going on a dangerous journey and there's no guarantee,  but he's going to try and reach his own family ... just perfect. 

Well done, Dawn, and thanks for giving us a wonderful Tolkien-themed holiday read for years to come!

Author's Response:

Thank you so much for reading and for leaving so many comments! The comment count was at 42. I've been checking in daily. I refreshed the page and ... 51! Wow! You made my day. :D

As you know, I don't do sugary. ;) What I wanted to do there was to suggest that there is a layer of life that the twins simply aren't aware of. The Wight is someone they've built up in their own minds to epic proportions as children do. To their parents and older brothers, he is just someone in need of a little kindness whom they have the opportunity to help. They're getting a glimpse of that other layer, of that different perception, now. I think the movies hint at that too. Both the old man and the pigeon lady are grappling with very adult problems. Kevin helps, in his way, as much as he can for an elementary-aged kid. I don't doubt that his kindness to them helped them. (In the final days of my dog's life and right after we put him down last week, my memory kept going back to one of my students who has really challenging life circumstances and how he came up out of the blue and gave me a huge hug before leaving on December break. Such a small kindness but it meant so much to me when I needed it!)

Young!Gandalf is probably the character in this story most worthy, imo, of his own "deleted scene" spinoff chapter! :D

Thank you again for reading. I'm so glad you liked it. <3