Author's Note: I would like to establish that I am NOT trying to insult anybody who might end up feeling
hurt by this story. I am not criticizing any particular story that I read. I am not criticizing 16-year-old
twentieth-century American girls (after all, I was one myself only two years ago.) I am not even criticizing
the genre – I'm sure that there are some excellent stories out there that insert realistic non-canon heroines.
I am simply spending my spare time writing something which I consider to be funny. Please don't be
offended.

Disclaimer: This is fanfiction.net. Therefore this is fan fiction. Therefore I do not own J. R. R. Tolkien's
characters. Therefore I do not deserve to be sued. And if anyone, including me, attempts to make money
off of this fic, lawyers will chase the plagiarist down and poke out his or her eyes with a purple fountain
pen. So there.


MIDDLE-EARTH MEETS MARY-SUE


If asked, Mary Susan Smith would have said that she was not an average 16-year-old twentieth-
century American girl. Of course, statistics show that over seventy-five percent of teenagers consider
themselves "above average," so that isn't really saying much. (Please note that I (I being ME, the author,
here engaged in breaking the fourth wall (do you call it 'the fourth wall' in a story, or just in comics?) by
talking to my audience (provided that I have an audience (not likely)) said twentieth century. Not twenty-
first century. Mary Sue (as her friends like to call her) has not seen FotR. Please excuse my nested
parentheses too. (Tolkien didn't nest parentheses. (But I'm sure that you already guessed I wasn't Tolkien.
I think I said so in the disclaimer. If I didn't … well … I'm saying it now. Don't sue.)) Back to the story.)

Anyway, whether average or not, Mary Sue had never touched Tolkien's masterpiece in her life.
Well, that's not strictly true. While at her best friend Mary Jane's house, she had tripped on Mary Jane's
little brother Larry Stu's copy of LotR, but since she was wearing shoes, she didn't technically touch it. So
even if it's not STRICTLY true, it is TECHNICALLY true.

Right. I can see you all yawning now. On with the plot.

Even though she had not read LotR, she was somewhat familiar with Middle-earth. (Mary Jane's
little brother liked to talk. A lot.) And she was interested in seeing the movie someday. She had seen
pictures of the actors on the 'net and thought that elves were really … cool. Larry Stu – a perceptive child
– had overheard a conversation that went something like this:

"Ooooh, aren't elves just the COOLEST things ever?"

"Oh, yeah, that Legolas guy is sooooo *hot*!"

Larry got very little sleep that night. Philosophical questions tended to keep him awake, and no
amount of pondering could reveal to him a way in which something could be both "cool" and "hot."
Unless it was an icecube sitting on a lighted burner. Not that he'd ever PUT an icecube on a lighted burner.
No. Certainly not. They couldn't prove anything.

However, this is not *The Life and Times of Larry Stewart Doe, Born at an Early Age to
Unsuspecting Parents whom He Did Not Know and Who Afterward Claimed Not to Know Him Either.*
(Author's Note: However, if enough interest is expressed, I may release this interesting manuscript for
public perusal.) This is actually *Middle-Earth Meets Mary Sue.* I'm not saying it's any more interesting
. . . but that's what it is.

There was no possibility that she would NOT take a walk that day. (Sorry. It was a toss-up
between this and "It was not a dark and stormy night.") The weather was gorgeous. The sun shone
benevolently – though really, what with all the talk about ozone rays … but I digress. The azure sky was
dotted with fluffy white clouds that Mary Sue privately thought looked an awful lot like her little sister's
fluffy white bedsocks. The fresh breeze meandered through the trees practically radiating peace-and-
goodwill-toward-all-mankind.

The trees, I must say, were in a park. The park was a *special* park. It had the incomparable
distinction of being the park where Mary Susan Smith (and her best friend Mary Jane Doe) took daily
walks to discuss the cuteness, geekiness, and general incompetency of the boys in their high school.
Unless, of course, they were discussing Larry Stu's latest peculiarities.

Since I don't want to bore anyone any more than they are already bored, I think I will omit the
conversation between Mary Sue and Mary Jane. Suffice it to say that they were talking with great
animation and volubility. Then . . .

Gray clouds scudded over the sky. A flock of ravens sped overhead, one harsh cry breaking the
sudden stillness. (Mary Sue and Mary Jane did not notice; they were talking about Ken Parker, the weird
nerd with glasses.) Thunder crashed in the distance, and despite the wind's sudden acceleration in miles-
per-hour, the trees around Mary Sue and Mary Jane became perfectly still. (Mary Sue and Mary Jane did
not notice; they were wondering how Ken Parker, the weird nerd with glasses, would look *without* his
glasses.) There was a sudden brilliant flash of blue, gold, crimson, green, silver, white, and scarlet light,
casting off eight-sided sparks into the still air. Mary Jane did not notice; she was preparing to artfully angle
the conversation toward Ken Baker, the cool geek with contact lenses. But when conversation experienced
a sudden drop in volume, Mary Jane was finally forced to realize that something out-of-the-ordinary had
occurred.

It took her only 27.6 seconds to deduce the source of the conversation's sudden awkwardness –
Mary Jane, also, was one of those above-average girls. Mary Sue, Mary Jane realized with a thrill of
horror, had vanished into thin air.

(This phrase, incidentally, had puzzled Larry Stu for months. Air wasn't really all that thin – not
compared to, say, space. And anyway, how can a gas really have measurable proportions? Something
can't be thin if you can't measure it. But, as I said, this is not *The Life and Times of Larry Stewart Doe,
Born at an Early Age to Unsuspecting Parents whom He Did Not Know and Who Afterward Claimed Not
to Know Him Either.*)

Another 7.2 seconds consideration informed Mary Jane that the disappearance of her best friend
had coincided suspiciously with that flash of light. Hence …

"Omigosh!" Mary Jane gasped. "ALIENS!!!"

* * * * *

However, as all of my discerning readers will have guessed, Mary Sue (henceforth referred to as
Mary, since there is no longer any chance of confusing her with Mary Jane) had not been kidnapped by
aliens, or even abducted by a UFO. She had merely been wrenched through the broken fabric of space,
time, and reality. She had been catapulted into Middle-earth.

Mary Sue blinked. Instead of strolling down a well-trimmed path in a well-kept part at the side of
Mary Jane, she found herself standing in a gloomy tunnel made by great trees leaning together, gnarled and
twisted with age, hung over by ivy and lichen, bearing only a few black leaves. Tangled boughs and
matted twigs blocked out almost all the sunlight; in the dark distances, red or green eyes could be seen,
shining briefly in one spot, then in another. As a finishing touch, ropes of cobweb looped nearby trees like
ill-made nets.

Mary did not panic. She had, after all, recently won an award for being Remarkably Level-
Headed and Sensible. Being sensible, Mary promptly realized that she was no longer in America. To sum
it up, she was Somewhere Else. Probably somewhere rather nasty, judging by the spiderwebs. Mary
reached for her pocket to make sure that she still had her comb and her pocketknife.

Level-headed or not, Mary jumped slightly when she realized that her pocket had vanished. As
her eyes (beautiful blue-green-gray ones with silver striations and really long eyelashes, in case you didn't
know) adjusted to the stifling darkness, she realized that instead of her jeans and sweater she now wore an
extremely attractive (and extremely impractical) silk dress, some really cool boots (complete with knife-
holders), a silver-gray cloak with a star-shaped brooch, a silver necklace with a star-shaped pendant, and, at
her side, a long, sharp, perfectly-balanced-yet-feather-light sword with a star-shaped hilt. Er, no, I mean,
the hilt had a star-shape engraved on it.

A few more moments inspection further informed Mary that her hair (dark as the night, yet with
entrancing silver-gold highlights like the light of the sun at noon) had grown about three feet and somehow
managed to intricately braid itself during her 0.06-second transit through the rift of space, time, and reality.
While exploring the braids with her slender pearl-tipped fingers, she brushed up against one of her ears . . .
and felt a pointy tip.

Pointy ears?! Mary gasped faintly in the oppressive stillness of the forest, and a black squirrel
blinked at her sympathetically. A passing fugitive, short as a hobbit, skinny as a spider, dark and silent as
darkness save for two big pale round eyes in his thin face, paused in his stooped scuttling to stare (with his
pale, telescope-like eyes) at the beauteous vision on the path. Mary noticed him out of the corner of her
eye, but was too distracted by her discovery to attempt speech with the long-armed, long-legged, long-
fingered, large-footed, skinny-necked creature. Instead, she gasped again. All was clear. Only elves had
pointy ears; elves only existed in Middle-earth (as Larry Stu had told her many times); therefore this was
Middle-earth and she was an elf.

Being an intelligent, enlightened twentieth-century girl, Mary instantly knew what had happened.
Her inner elf-self had been released, and she had been transported to her true home.

If only her true home had cars.

With a sigh, Mary Sue began to walk.




NEXT on MIDDLE-EARTH MEETS MARY-SUE: Mary-Sue meets Middle-earth!!! Featuring guest star
LEGOLAS (Greenleaf), son of THRANDUIL (King of Mirkwood), and various ORCS (Yrch) of DOL
GULDUR (Fortress of the Necromancer). What will happen next??? Tune in tomorrow for the NEXT
exciting episode of MIDDLE-EARTH MEETS MARY-SUE!

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