The Null Device

The deleterius Memorable Posts list is a veritable trove of all that is inane, retarded and simply wrong in the world of Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter fan fiction; and is very entertaining to read, in much the way that the Darwin Awards are.

The various teen-angst subcultures are well-represented, with Tathiel the multiply-pierced Mordorian Elf/Vampyre, who seduces Elrond whilst having a fling with Grima Wormtongue (who, in this story, is terminally shy, sweetly awkward virgin, and really a nice guy deep down), Christa, the irritatingly bitchy teenage goth with bad attitude, whose Aura of Smooth prevents her from being decapitated by the Tolkien characters she abuses, Candie, the bad-ass Avril Lavigne-quoting skate-punk member of the fellowship, and this Harry Potter-universe ad for US mall-goth clothing chain Hot Topic:

In the begging of the summer she went to a muggle mall in London. While she was there she found a store called "Hot Topic". She went in and fell in love with the clothes. She had been what you would call a prep all her life but now she had found out what punk was.

(Hot Topic in London? And to think that had they done some research, they could have had her just go up Camden High Street. Oh, and replace "prep" with "townie" or something.)

Meanwhile, key characters from Middle Earth offer group hugs for alienated self-cutters; meanwhile, Bilbo is warped into contemporary America, only to be adopted by the teenaged Mary Sue, who calls him "Elijah"; and Melissa and Joy smash up Middle Earth - with a car. And then there's this all-powerful Mary Sue, who's loved by all sides, wiser than Gandalf, and gets to slap Galadriel around; oh, and she has a horse named Kyouryoku, who came from a village of "Ramen elves", I kid you not. Then there's this horribly convoluted Harry Potter/LOTR/Sandman crossover. And who could go past this piece of wish fulfillment by a 38-year-old "bardess", who has herself going to Middle Earth, charming everybody to her will and having hot sex with Haldir, with them becoming ancestors of Socrates, Confucius and Tolkien.

It's a sobering thought that, as you read this, in candle-lit suburban bedrooms all over North America, pizza-faced teenaged girls in size-XXL Hot Topic fishnet tops are pouring her fantasies about Legolas ("OMG he's so hott!!!1!") and angst about their lousy non-pony-buying parents into their PCs, thus endlessly replenishing this cornucopia of pure shite for future visitors.

I haven't had a chance to look through the Potter ones in great detail, except that there are a lot of über-k3wl American exchange students/teachers who introduce those stuffy Brits to things like punk and goth that they haven't heard of over there yet. For all I know, someone could have written a Harry Potter story in which all the characters are furries, like, Snape is a snow leopard or something.

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Concept of the day (via Found): The Mary Sue story. This is a piece of fan-fiction which is obviously intended as the author's wish-fulfilment trip, features a character who's an idealised version of the author getting to hang out with their favourite Star Trek/Harry Potter/Lord of the Rings characters; the Mary Sue character usually has an Aura of Smooth which causes other characters to trust them and/or fall in love with them for no stated reason, or do other out-of-character things, and often is ridiculously cute, smart, talented or magically endowed, and/or consumed with a very contemporary teen-angst. And, more often than not, has long raven-black hair and exquisitely pale skin.

Or, obviously, Galadriel's secret love-child (Aragorn's unacknowledged daughter) who runs off to join the Company of the Ring, sorts out Boromir's problems, out-magics Gandalf, out-fights Aragorn during the melodramatic scene in which she reveals her true identity, demonstrates herself to be so spiritually elevated that the Ring has no effect on her, and wins Legolas' heart forever.

As you can expect, Mary Sue stories (most of which are probably written by people in the lower reaches of the Geek Hierarchy) are ripe targets for mockery. There is a LiveJournal community dedicated to examining the most egregious examples of Lord of the Rings/Harry Potter fanfic and ripping them gleefully to shreds here; some of the examples (like "Kairi", the raven-haired elf whose abusive father is in league with Sauron, or, indeed, this, or this) sound thoroughly cringeworthy. Anyway, go and read it; it's a laugh-riot.

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