Disclaimer—NO! I AM NOT writing another disclaimer. Anyone who thinks I
believe I own any of Tolkien's work should be boiled in his own pudding and
buried with a stake of holly thru his heart……..oh, wait, that's
Scrooge……..still, the sentiment stands!! I don't wanna and you can't make
me! So there! Nyah!
How to Avoid Screwing Up the Canon
As Mary Sue led the hobbits towards Mt. Doom, some very large, very ugly doubts began to grow in her mind. For one thing, it struck her as vaguely obscene to be leading the hobbits, instead of following them. After all, they were the canon characters. She was just a trumped-up underemployed single mom with fangirl tendencies. Just because she indulged the fantasies in the privacy of her imagination didn't mean she wanted to LIVE them. Hell, she didn't even write her own fanfic, just read and sneered at everyone else's. She thought the slash very interesting, when it wasn't stomach-turning, the angst a good way to vent frustration in a "misery loves company" sort of way, the parodies mildly amusing as a rule, and some of the "fill-in-the-gaps" work was actually good. But she loathed the self-insertion fic with a mindless fury, and the teenybopper crap she shared her name with was even worse. Most of that was positively unreadable, nevermind something she wanted to be stuck in. Yet here she was, hip-deep in a nauseating combo of the worst fanfic had to offer. If this kept up, she'd be in danger of outshining the hobbits. Once that happened, Mary Sue was convinced her soul would be sucked into Crap Fanfic Land and lost forever.
Still, she didn't seem to have a whole helluva lot of choice in the matter. She looked over her shoulder at the hobbits trailing behind her. Sam was so sturdy and resolute, Frodo nearly bent in half by the weight of the Ring. She wondered how the hell they'd ever make it all the way to Doom without her.
The sheer arrogance of that thought brought her up short. "Good God!" she muttered to a nearby rock (the rocks of Gorgoroth were rapidly becoming her best friends and confidantes) "I really AM turning into a Mary Sue! Shoot me now!"
"Pardon?" Sam asked. Mary Sue looked at him, startled. In her musings, she had forgotten the hobbits might hear her. Frodo was too deep in his personal struggle with the Ring to listen to her, but Sam's sharp ears caught everything she said. Dammit, this was going to be harder than she thought.
"Nothing," she replied. Sam looked doubtful, but didn't pursue it. "I think we should stop and rest for a bit,' Mary Sue said, changing the subject. "Frodo looks like hell, you don't look any better and I need something more substantial than Mordor water in my stomach before I pass out."
Sam was still suspicious of Mary Sue, but he did agree that Frodo, at least, needed a rest. There was no way he was going to admit his own weakness to this stranger.
Frodo simply stopped when the others did, flopping down onto the ground without comment. He seemed to sag into himself, sitting there hunched up with his head on his knees. Mary Sue's heart went out to him. He was even more pathetic that Tolkien had described.
Sam was busy breaking out the lembas. There was precious little left, and dividing it among three rather than two would not stretch it any. Particularly when the third was a Big Person. Still, his master had said share, and share he would. That didn't mean he had to like it, though.
He broke one of their few remaining wafers in half, put half back and broke the other in thirds, one bigger than the other. He gave the bigger piece to Frodo, a smaller to Mary Sue, and put the last piece away. He could do without for a bit longer.
While Sam was seeing to the food, Mary Sue got out the water. Her Jose Cuervo bottle was a bit more than half full, and she still had the full flask, but she was as worried about water as Sam was about food. She knew damn well there was no water on Gorgoroth, or Mt. Doom either. She didn't trust the plot hole or Deus Ex Machina or stroke of luck that brought her the first tiny puddle to repeat itself. So she took the tiniest possible sip, barely wetting her mouth, then passed the bottle on to Sam. "Go easy with it," she whispered as she took her portion of lembas.
Sam shot her a look that plainly conveyed his thoughts—"How stupid do you think I am?"—but once again held his tongue. Though there was still no love lost between Sam and Mary Sue, they had an unspoken agreement to keep open hostilities to a minimum, for Frodo's sake.
Eventually, Mary Sue settled down to chow on her miniscule morsel. She glanced at Frodo, who now nibbled forlornly at his food. She then did something that began to lessen Sam's dislike of her. She got up, touched Frodo gently and softly said his name. Once she had his attention, she handed him her tiny piece of lembas. "You need this more than I do. You're the hero of this story, not me. I'm just along for the ride."
"I don't feel much like a hero," Frodo muttered, his first words in hours.
"You are. Trust me on this one. I know more about it than you do, and you're the hero," she reassured. Something about this hobbit brought out the maternal in Mary Sue. She suspected it was the dark hair and big blue eyes that made him look so much like her son.
A pang of homesickness crossed her heart as she thought of her Little Monster. She had to think of something else before she started crying in front of the hobbits. There was NO WAY that was going to happen. Not in this life!
The first thing to come to mind was her earlier doubt. Something had to be done about that, before she screwed up the plot continuum by more than her mere presence. Hell, that alone could be bad enough, if word got around!
"Actually, that reminds me of something I wanted to discuss with you both," Mary Sue began. "When you two get back from all this…."
"IF we get back," Frodo interrupted gloomily.
"WHEN you get back," she continued, shooting him one of her Looks. Honestly, Frodo's tortured pessimism was heartbreaking and dramatic on the page, hell, it was heartbreaking and dramatic in person, but it got damned annoying, damned fast. "It's very important that you don't mention me. Not to your friends, not to Gandalf, not to your kids 20 years from now, not to anybody, ever. I was never here. Anything I do, someone else gets credit for. I cannot emphasize enough how important this is!" she said.
"Why?" Sam wanted to know. Mary Sue's giving Frodo her food may have softened his antipathy toward her a little, but that didn't mean he was ready to give her the keys to the cupboard, so to speak.
"Because," Mary Sue started. Then she paused. If there was one thing years as a Dr. Who and Star Trek fan had taught her, it was Never Give Out Too Much Information. Tolkien wasn't her only fangirl fixation, just the current favorite.
The hobbits looked up at her expectantly. She honestly had no clue what to say. She couldn't tell them the truth, so she fell back on that age-old Mom Standard. "Because I said so!"
Neither hobbit looked happy with that. Sam certainly wasn't buying it. Even Frodo, normally so wrapped up in his own misery, looked rebellious. More was needed.
"Look," Mary Sue said, relenting a little. "It's too complicated to explain right now. Let's just say that I know more about this shit than you do, and trust me, I'm not mentioned anywhere by anyone. So when you tell your story, leave Mary Sue out of it!" She glared down at the hobbits until they both nodded.
"If that's the way you truly want it," Sam said slowly. He wasn't sure if her refusal to take any credit was noble or suspicious. He decided to reserve judgment until he saw how things played out.
"That's the way I want it," she replied firmly. Since the matter seemed settled, she stood and dusted herself off. "What say we get our asses in gear? We still have a ways to go," she said, looking off toward Mt. Doom.
They had made good progress that day. The mountain was much larger now. Fumes from it stung their eyes and lungs. The gloom was omnipresent, and the stink worse than ever. Little tremors ran under their feet, annoying Mary Sue and hurting the hobbits. Nobody was looking forward to going any farther, but they must before night fell and they had to sleep a little.
Wearily the hobbits got up. Frodo was stiff and slow, not even straightening all the way. Sam was in better shape, but still hurting. Mary Sue just felt like shit on a stick, and looked the part as well.
She passed around the water one more time. Then she took a stick of gum for herself, and forced one on each of the hobbits. "Chew it, it'll keep your mouth moist for a while," she instructed. Damn, these little bastards really DID bring out the maternal in her!
Sam looked dubious, but put the gum in his mouth anyway. As he chewed, he smiled in surprise. "It's sweet!" he exclaimed.
Mary Sue grinned back. "See, Sam? I'm not so bad after all," she joked. Sam didn't reply.
Frodo mechanically put the gum in his mouth and chewed. He didn't say anything but Mary Sue thought he looked just a tiny bit less hopeless. It was probably her imagination.
"Be sure and keep chewing that until it loses its flavor, then spit it out," she said.
Sam looked up with a guilty start. Mary Sue laughed, knowing he'd swallowed it. She gave him another piece. "Don't worry, it won't hurt you to swallow it, that's just not the way it's done. Though on second thought, a lump of gum in your stomach may fool it into thinking there's food in there, so go ahead and swallow once the flavor's gone. But chew until then!" God, teaching hobbits how the wrong way to chew gum! How much more absurd could this get?
"You ready?" she asked. Sam nodded. Frodo looked distantly at the mountain, fiddling with the Ring. Mary Sue sighed. She really wished Frodo would snap out of it and smile just little, but she wasn't in that part of the story. Since there was no helping it, she bowed to the inevitable and started off. Sam trailed her and Frodo trailed Sam. Mary Sue wasn't any happier about leading now than she was before, but there was nothing she could do about it. She only hoped that at the end of all this, the canon wasn't TOO screwed up.
How to Avoid Screwing Up the Canon
As Mary Sue led the hobbits towards Mt. Doom, some very large, very ugly doubts began to grow in her mind. For one thing, it struck her as vaguely obscene to be leading the hobbits, instead of following them. After all, they were the canon characters. She was just a trumped-up underemployed single mom with fangirl tendencies. Just because she indulged the fantasies in the privacy of her imagination didn't mean she wanted to LIVE them. Hell, she didn't even write her own fanfic, just read and sneered at everyone else's. She thought the slash very interesting, when it wasn't stomach-turning, the angst a good way to vent frustration in a "misery loves company" sort of way, the parodies mildly amusing as a rule, and some of the "fill-in-the-gaps" work was actually good. But she loathed the self-insertion fic with a mindless fury, and the teenybopper crap she shared her name with was even worse. Most of that was positively unreadable, nevermind something she wanted to be stuck in. Yet here she was, hip-deep in a nauseating combo of the worst fanfic had to offer. If this kept up, she'd be in danger of outshining the hobbits. Once that happened, Mary Sue was convinced her soul would be sucked into Crap Fanfic Land and lost forever.
Still, she didn't seem to have a whole helluva lot of choice in the matter. She looked over her shoulder at the hobbits trailing behind her. Sam was so sturdy and resolute, Frodo nearly bent in half by the weight of the Ring. She wondered how the hell they'd ever make it all the way to Doom without her.
The sheer arrogance of that thought brought her up short. "Good God!" she muttered to a nearby rock (the rocks of Gorgoroth were rapidly becoming her best friends and confidantes) "I really AM turning into a Mary Sue! Shoot me now!"
"Pardon?" Sam asked. Mary Sue looked at him, startled. In her musings, she had forgotten the hobbits might hear her. Frodo was too deep in his personal struggle with the Ring to listen to her, but Sam's sharp ears caught everything she said. Dammit, this was going to be harder than she thought.
"Nothing," she replied. Sam looked doubtful, but didn't pursue it. "I think we should stop and rest for a bit,' Mary Sue said, changing the subject. "Frodo looks like hell, you don't look any better and I need something more substantial than Mordor water in my stomach before I pass out."
Sam was still suspicious of Mary Sue, but he did agree that Frodo, at least, needed a rest. There was no way he was going to admit his own weakness to this stranger.
Frodo simply stopped when the others did, flopping down onto the ground without comment. He seemed to sag into himself, sitting there hunched up with his head on his knees. Mary Sue's heart went out to him. He was even more pathetic that Tolkien had described.
Sam was busy breaking out the lembas. There was precious little left, and dividing it among three rather than two would not stretch it any. Particularly when the third was a Big Person. Still, his master had said share, and share he would. That didn't mean he had to like it, though.
He broke one of their few remaining wafers in half, put half back and broke the other in thirds, one bigger than the other. He gave the bigger piece to Frodo, a smaller to Mary Sue, and put the last piece away. He could do without for a bit longer.
While Sam was seeing to the food, Mary Sue got out the water. Her Jose Cuervo bottle was a bit more than half full, and she still had the full flask, but she was as worried about water as Sam was about food. She knew damn well there was no water on Gorgoroth, or Mt. Doom either. She didn't trust the plot hole or Deus Ex Machina or stroke of luck that brought her the first tiny puddle to repeat itself. So she took the tiniest possible sip, barely wetting her mouth, then passed the bottle on to Sam. "Go easy with it," she whispered as she took her portion of lembas.
Sam shot her a look that plainly conveyed his thoughts—"How stupid do you think I am?"—but once again held his tongue. Though there was still no love lost between Sam and Mary Sue, they had an unspoken agreement to keep open hostilities to a minimum, for Frodo's sake.
Eventually, Mary Sue settled down to chow on her miniscule morsel. She glanced at Frodo, who now nibbled forlornly at his food. She then did something that began to lessen Sam's dislike of her. She got up, touched Frodo gently and softly said his name. Once she had his attention, she handed him her tiny piece of lembas. "You need this more than I do. You're the hero of this story, not me. I'm just along for the ride."
"I don't feel much like a hero," Frodo muttered, his first words in hours.
"You are. Trust me on this one. I know more about it than you do, and you're the hero," she reassured. Something about this hobbit brought out the maternal in Mary Sue. She suspected it was the dark hair and big blue eyes that made him look so much like her son.
A pang of homesickness crossed her heart as she thought of her Little Monster. She had to think of something else before she started crying in front of the hobbits. There was NO WAY that was going to happen. Not in this life!
The first thing to come to mind was her earlier doubt. Something had to be done about that, before she screwed up the plot continuum by more than her mere presence. Hell, that alone could be bad enough, if word got around!
"Actually, that reminds me of something I wanted to discuss with you both," Mary Sue began. "When you two get back from all this…."
"IF we get back," Frodo interrupted gloomily.
"WHEN you get back," she continued, shooting him one of her Looks. Honestly, Frodo's tortured pessimism was heartbreaking and dramatic on the page, hell, it was heartbreaking and dramatic in person, but it got damned annoying, damned fast. "It's very important that you don't mention me. Not to your friends, not to Gandalf, not to your kids 20 years from now, not to anybody, ever. I was never here. Anything I do, someone else gets credit for. I cannot emphasize enough how important this is!" she said.
"Why?" Sam wanted to know. Mary Sue's giving Frodo her food may have softened his antipathy toward her a little, but that didn't mean he was ready to give her the keys to the cupboard, so to speak.
"Because," Mary Sue started. Then she paused. If there was one thing years as a Dr. Who and Star Trek fan had taught her, it was Never Give Out Too Much Information. Tolkien wasn't her only fangirl fixation, just the current favorite.
The hobbits looked up at her expectantly. She honestly had no clue what to say. She couldn't tell them the truth, so she fell back on that age-old Mom Standard. "Because I said so!"
Neither hobbit looked happy with that. Sam certainly wasn't buying it. Even Frodo, normally so wrapped up in his own misery, looked rebellious. More was needed.
"Look," Mary Sue said, relenting a little. "It's too complicated to explain right now. Let's just say that I know more about this shit than you do, and trust me, I'm not mentioned anywhere by anyone. So when you tell your story, leave Mary Sue out of it!" She glared down at the hobbits until they both nodded.
"If that's the way you truly want it," Sam said slowly. He wasn't sure if her refusal to take any credit was noble or suspicious. He decided to reserve judgment until he saw how things played out.
"That's the way I want it," she replied firmly. Since the matter seemed settled, she stood and dusted herself off. "What say we get our asses in gear? We still have a ways to go," she said, looking off toward Mt. Doom.
They had made good progress that day. The mountain was much larger now. Fumes from it stung their eyes and lungs. The gloom was omnipresent, and the stink worse than ever. Little tremors ran under their feet, annoying Mary Sue and hurting the hobbits. Nobody was looking forward to going any farther, but they must before night fell and they had to sleep a little.
Wearily the hobbits got up. Frodo was stiff and slow, not even straightening all the way. Sam was in better shape, but still hurting. Mary Sue just felt like shit on a stick, and looked the part as well.
She passed around the water one more time. Then she took a stick of gum for herself, and forced one on each of the hobbits. "Chew it, it'll keep your mouth moist for a while," she instructed. Damn, these little bastards really DID bring out the maternal in her!
Sam looked dubious, but put the gum in his mouth anyway. As he chewed, he smiled in surprise. "It's sweet!" he exclaimed.
Mary Sue grinned back. "See, Sam? I'm not so bad after all," she joked. Sam didn't reply.
Frodo mechanically put the gum in his mouth and chewed. He didn't say anything but Mary Sue thought he looked just a tiny bit less hopeless. It was probably her imagination.
"Be sure and keep chewing that until it loses its flavor, then spit it out," she said.
Sam looked up with a guilty start. Mary Sue laughed, knowing he'd swallowed it. She gave him another piece. "Don't worry, it won't hurt you to swallow it, that's just not the way it's done. Though on second thought, a lump of gum in your stomach may fool it into thinking there's food in there, so go ahead and swallow once the flavor's gone. But chew until then!" God, teaching hobbits how the wrong way to chew gum! How much more absurd could this get?
"You ready?" she asked. Sam nodded. Frodo looked distantly at the mountain, fiddling with the Ring. Mary Sue sighed. She really wished Frodo would snap out of it and smile just little, but she wasn't in that part of the story. Since there was no helping it, she bowed to the inevitable and started off. Sam trailed her and Frodo trailed Sam. Mary Sue wasn't any happier about leading now than she was before, but there was nothing she could do about it. She only hoped that at the end of all this, the canon wasn't TOO screwed up.