Dea/Deus ex Machina
Part Deux: The Alternate Universe/Avatar Hypothesis
(Trousers Remix v2.4)
By Eline
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling owns the HP-related characters--you know this and I know this, right? Dea/Dues ex Machina, the Goddess of Plot-Devices personified, belongs to anyone who ever wrote fiction--I only gave her a tangible shape and an attitude to go.
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It was a day. An ordinary day, as "ordinary" as can be in the wonderful world of fanfiction, temperatures ranging between the "soggy, stodgy English weather" and "oh-screw-it-all-for-the-sake-of-the-fic-and-make-it-a-fine-day" zones with the probability of badfic on the way. Setting the scene is a harassed looking fanfic author, who is trying to find less cliched ways of doing so but is running low on inspiration at 1am in the morning (which is *the* standard time for writing fanfic). She settles for the anonymous safehouse in some anonymous town and stuffs in the characters hurriedly recruited for this silly endeavour.
And then the owl . . . Good grief! Do you know how much trouble it is to get owls? Or to get the approval from the authorities and animal rights groups before you can get them to work in a fic? Ahem, back to the matter at hand . . .
The owl came swooping into the window (of the anonymous safehouse in some anonymous town) and deposited a letter on the table in front of the two wizards seated there. Clearly this was time for yet another Harry Potter Fanfiction, one of the several thousands in which efficient and prompt owl-post was commonplace. (Just so that you, the reader, know that you haven't wandered into the wrong fanfic by mistake and faint from the shock. From seeing a postal service that doesn't screw up, I mean.)
"It's a letter from Harry," said the wizard known (on the Ministry of Magic's Most Wanted List) as Sirius Black (but elsewhere as "pookie" or "Snuffles") with a grin. Next to his obsessive plans for throttling/dismembering Wormtail very slowly on video, being a good godfather was next on his priorities-list. As rat-torture is still a rather nasty thought even for a good guy, chock full of potential for violence and bloodshed, we'd just like to remind all readers that this is a PG-13-rated fic because it's going to get even worst later on.
"He's keeping well, I suppose," said the other wizard, Remus Lupin, whose house it was that they were sitting in and having tea. (Which proved that being a werewolf or a convicted-but-innocent-ex-prisoner did not stand in the way of being perfectly mundane, dull, or normal.)
At this point, it was time for Sirius to read out the letter for the edification of anyone who was interested.
Dear Sirius,
Gryffindor won the match against Slytherin last week--we're mightily chuffed.
Oh, and before I forget--Ron, Hermione and I escaped certain death in the Chamber of Chamber Pots. We weren't hurt, but Wormtail got squashed by a shelf. He only got away just in time, but you don't have to worry about me as they won't try anything again so quickly.
Hope you're fine. Give Moony a pat for me.
Harry
"That's nice," Lupin said with the same strained smile people wore when presented with the achievements of some proud parents' sprog.
"Ah, but you have to interpret this as though you were a fifteen year old boy," Sirius said. "So it actually says . . ."
Dear Sirius,
I trounced Malfoy royally last week in our usual game of one-upmanship--but then again, I normally do. Hooray for me.
We escaped certain death via a plot device because we're central characters. And you're not to worry because I'm a boy and like all teenage boys, I have this tendency to shy away from different forms of affection or parental emotion--possibly because I have been deprived of said affection while I was younger.
Hope you haven't gotten caught yet because you're the only relation I actually like. Hi to Professor Lupin too. (I don't want know what you guys get up to. Really.)
Harry
"Ah, so everything's nice and normal then?" asked Lupin in the same way that people generally said "I have a bad feeling about this" and the oh-so-famous-last-words: "it can't get any worse".
"Yeah . . . At least he's not seeing Draco Malfoy and having truckloads of angst over dating a Slytherin."
It was then that the sparkles (as in the "Ooo, pretty!" kind of sparkles) appeared over the table and a leather boot appeared in the plate of biscuits.
Actually, there were two leather boots. One left one and a right one. A pair of leather boots, one in the plate of biscuits and the other narrowly missing the teapot in the shape of a supposedly jolly pink pig with a constipated expression (which Lupin got at a Salvation Army sale--being an impoverished wizard has its downsides, you know?).
Oh yeah, the aforementioned leather fetish-footwear was also attached to a pair of leather-clad legs. Which were attached to a leather-clad torso, above which hovered a face surrounded by a cloud of jade green hair.
Lupin recovered first and set down his teacup (with patterns of little yellow duckies on it--hey, it had been a mismatched tea-set after all) before he dropped it from the shock of having a woman dressed in the skins of two and a half butchered cows land in the middle of tea. "And what on earth is some strange woman dressed in leather doing on the table?" he asked. (Normally, he would have asked the visitor to sit down for a cup of tea, but he was not so inclined to be polite to uninvited guests who broke the biscuit plate with the pattern of cute little doggies on the rim.)
"Dea/Deux ex Machina," said the woman in dominatrix gear. "God/dess of Plot Devices, Arbiter of Angst, Princess of Plot-Holes. . . most certainly not at your service."
"Eh?" Puzzled by this introduction, the wizards contrived to observe the newcomer more carefully in case they had missed something the first time around. One never knew these days . . . what with the line between genders going all fuzzy . . .
"Oh please, not like *that* . . . There's too much testosterone floating around and so I'm female right now."
"Yes, but what are you doing *here*?"
"Oh it's another fanfic." Deus/Dea ex Machina sighed. "Again."
Sirius Black swore creatively. (You know he does, right? He's just the type to swear creatively.) "Dash it all, can't a wizard have a moment's peace?"
"Wait a minute, is this a *slash* fic?" Lupin asked worriedly. "If it was, they should've said earlier. I'd have gone regimental."
"You don't?" Sirius feigned surprise. "I do it all the time."
"Oh TMI!" said Deus ex Machina.
"So what *are* you wearing then?" Sirius asked innocently just after everyone had gotten their minds out of the gutter, thereby plunging them back in again to face the eternal question: boxers or briefs?
Lupin's face was the picture of tweedy, teacher-like horror. "This is hardly the time, Sirius . . . Unless it's a slash fic. Then this would be the point where the PG-13 rating would stop applying very quickly."
No, not a slash fic. If I was writing a slash fic then there wouldn't be all this digression. There'd be--
"Angst," Deus ex Machina muttered under her breath. "Truckloads of bloody angst."
And trimmed with Placebo/Depeche Mode/Nirvana lyrics for an angsty soundtrack. But I haven't tried that yet.
"Oh dear . . . One of those *fanfic* authors. Is it one of yours, or one of mine?" Sirius asked in trepidation.
"Hmmm--it's rather hard to tell these days . . ."
*helpfully points at Lupy Groupies tee-shirt with pride*
"Looks like one of yours . . ."
I'm not wearing my W.A.A.S. tee today . . .
"*What*?"
"That's Wizards/Witches/Weirdoes Against Anti-Snape-ism," Lupin said tiredly. "Guess which category she belongs to?"
"Another Snape fan? Well I suppose it's better than them torturing him with angst instead of us . . ." said Sirius with the air of someone who knew what truckloads of angst felt like applied repeatedly with trimmings of slash.
"Don't bet on it--it's that fanfic author with the thing for leather pants."
Sirius--
Robes: Check.
Hair: Fantastic.
Undies: Not applicable.
Sex Appeal: Oy!
Leather pants: You wish.
--Black just stared looked blank. "*Which* one of the fanfic authors with the thing for leather pants?"
"That one about Lupin and Snape liking Hendrix and starting a rock band," Dea/Deus ex Machina said with a snort.
"Oh really? *With* the leather pants?" Sirius asked with a growing smirk.
"Well if you must know--yes," Remus--
Tweedy, patched robes: Check.
Fur: Nope.
Tail: Not applicable.
Undies: Yeah, boxers.
Animal Magnetism: Affirmative!
Leather pants: We're out of luck today, ladies.
--Lupin said in resignation as Sirius gave a great whoop of laughter. "It isn't funny at all . . . All sorts of nasty, angsty things happen in that fic . . . not to mention hereditary lycanthropy. You can sober up now, Sirius," he said in a mildly disapproving way as Sirius found sitting on his chair increasingly difficult and had settled for rolling on the floor.
*A pause for Sirius fans to drool.*
"I mean . . . it's ludicrous to the point of hilarity," Sirius muttered through his teeth as he picked himself off the floor in an attempt to sober up. "I haven't laughed that bloody hard since Azkaban . . ."
Funny that . . . Everyone else said that too . . . *looks at co-author* Did we mean it to be funny?
"It is a *possibility*--unfortunately," Lupin admitted with shudder.
"Just like all those slash fics are possible--because of Alternate Universes," Dea/Deus ex Machina chipped in because she was feeling left out.
"Oh dear."
"Another subscriber to the Alternative Universe hypothesis."
Deus ex Machina looked up from filing her nails. "Hey, most people have watched Sliders, right? Alternative Universes aren't even a new idea. It's got something to do with physics or something--"
The Trousers of Time.
"Pardon me, but *what*?"
Trousers of Time. Pterry said so.
"Psycho-fangirl," Sirius muttered, not very amused at how some weirdoes liked dragging their favourite authors into fanfics.
"Oooh, sarcasm," Lupin said sarcastically.
"One more time--with feeling!" Deus ex Machina said, positively dripping with sarcasm to make a point that, yes, this was a sarcastic interlude. "You know, sarcasm, isn't that easy to spot sometimes without the actual term 'sarcasm' or 'sarcastically' hanging off the end of a sentence."
I haven't found a 'Sarcasm' font yet. I would like one though.
"Well, if they have fonts like 'Font in a Red Suit' and 'Hug Your Intern', 'Sarcasm' or 'Dripping with Sarcasm' shouldn't be a stretch," said Deus ex Machina as she tossed her tangerine-tinged hair.
"Oh dear . . . Not the Trousers of Time Theory again?"
"Indeed, it is the Trousers of Time Theory--Alternate Universes, branching off from one single happenstance and giving rise to a thousand other possibilities," said Lupin in full Professor-mode.
*Another pause for Lupin fans to drool over Lupin in full Professor-mode.*
"Sheeesh, fangirls . . ." muttered Deus/Dea ex Machina as her hair turned taupe.
"Hold on," Sirius demanded. "Taupe? Tangerine? What sort of colour is *taupe*?"
"Damned if I know," was the reply. "I don't think the author knows either."
There was a lengthy pause in which the characters recovered, re-read the past few pages and remembered what the heck they were talking about in the first place before moving along.
"Um, so what's this universe then?"
"The one with Gods of Plot Devices dropping in for tea?" Lupin asked.
"How about the one where everyone just sits around and has tea without interruptions?" Sirius was definitely peeved over missing his tea with biscuits.
"Is there such a universe?"
"Dunno . . . Anyone wrote that one yet?"
This can be the fic universe where everything's in florid prose . . . really--I can swing that . . .
"Oh the horror!" exclaimed Sirius, leaning backwards and drawing attention to the fact that his trousers under his wizardly robes girdled his lean, but manly loins just so.
This caused Lupin frown in his mild, yet strangely intense way. "Really--this is too much--" he protested, looking wonderfully anguished in a mild, understated way that drove women wild as they imagined the possible reasons for his muted angst. And we haven't even gotten to the part about how *his* trousers fitted yet-- "You can stop that right now!"
How about Victorian-Jane-Austen-Bronte-sisters style then?
"That out-dated writing style, while appearing erudite and genteel seeming, does appear to be greatly taxing on the readers who have to forge through the tangled morass of sentences without end!" cried Sirius, no doubt aghast at the sheer temerity of fanfiction authors who consistently torment their long-suffering fictional players and assorted beta-readers with heaps of unnecessarily long-winded and grammatically suspect prose; often inter-spaced with multiple commas and semicolons--not to mention tacked-on, redundant additions. "This is also causing many a difficulty in the thesaurus and dictionary department!"
"And they always have some male lead in overly-tight breeches!"
All right, even *that* was getting a little too much--my eyes are crossing from tracking that sentence . . .
"She hasn't lost all sense yet . . ." said Dea/Deus ex Machina as all the characters heaved a collective sigh of relief at being spared the tedium of excessive sentence construction and tight breeches.
"We could call this the fic-universe-in-which-the-fanfic-characters-are-oppressed," Sirius suggested. "I think we're definitely oppressed here."
"But fanfic characters *are* generally oppressed," Lupin said.
"No kidding--you *just* realised that?"
"Or maybe we should call this the most-blatant-avatar-insertation-fic-universe," Lupin said darkly.
*looks a tad guilty* Whoops . . . How did that happen? Heh . . .
"By Hoki*!" Sirius exclaimed, looking up in surprise. "It's true!" (*Hoki: God of Lame-arsed jokes and bad punning.)
"Busted," Dea/Deus ex Machina said. "It took you long enough to realise that."
"Well, if the leather outfit didn't give the readers a clue, the funny eyes and colour-changing hair should have tipped them off straight away," Lupin said, pulling out one of the thick, really dry and ancient looking books he kept around the place to maintain his D.A.D.A. teacher credibility. "I have a reference here in my Grimoire Fictus . . . The common avatar--one of the most feared and reviled creatures in fanfic--"
"Oh really? I must protest!" Dea/Deus ex Machina said.
"They also tend to be in denial," Lupin said to Sirius.
"Hoy!"
"It's just so sad," Sirius said, shaking his head.
"Firstly, not one of you two blokes (heterosexual/homosexual/bisexual/neutered or otherwise)--or your under-aged godson for that matter--have fallen for me--"
Thank goodness for small blessings," Sirius muttered. He had yet to speak to Harry about certain facts of life and was dreading that day, but he certainly hoped that the boy would have the sense to steer clear of women in leather until much, much later. Depending on his taste, of course.
"--And secondly I willingly admit that I am a Plot-Device created by the author solely for the purpose of these inane fics," she continued on regardless, "it doesn't mean that I don't have feelings, dammit!"
There was a short, uncomfortable silence--in which nobody had anything constructive to say--that was eventually broken by the faint noise coming from outside. (Of course, this was merely a poorly executed plot device just to keep the story moving when the author has run out of things to blather on about and the fic has stalled like a kiddie-sized broomstick with Hagrid on it.)
Lupin looked out of the window quizzically. "There's a mob of people out there. They look like they're out for blood," he said in a calm, matter-of-fact tone because he didn't believe in exclamation points even in life-threatening situations.
"How do you know?" Sirius asked, alarmed.
"I think the pitchforks and flaming torches rather gave them away . . ."
"Oh dearie me--time for me to make a quiet exit, stage left," Dea/Deus ex Machina said, apparently quite recovered from her previous hissy-fit. (Well, she *is* the Goddess of Plot-Holes and Plot-Devices after all . . .)
"So they're after *you*? Whatever for?"
"You don't get to be the Goddess of Plot-Holes without making a few enemies . . ." she said, stating the obvious. "Well, it's been nice, chaps, but I've got to run. Ta now." And she disappeared in a showy display of sparks that was typical of melodramatic avatars all over the place.
"Sirius--there's going to be an angry mob storming my house," Lupin said, showing his own flair for stating the obvious. "And I just paid the rent, too."
"I hope the landlord's got insurance--" Sirius began just as the front door burst open.
"Excuse me--did anyone see any Avatars of the Goddess of Plot-Holes around?" asked one torch-wielding mob-member.
"Funny coloured hair and leather?"
"Yeah, that's the one."
"She went . . . that way . . . somewhere," Sirius said, making a vague gesture in mid-air.
"Oh, that way . . . somewhere?" asked the first mob-member, making a similar gesture in mid-air.
"You've got it," Sirius said, hoping that the mob would take the hint and clear off. But due to the perverse nature of this fanfic, the mob does notice them.
There was a clatter as someone dropped their pitchfork as the mob stared at Sirius and Lupin. There was a definite sense of recognition between both parties.
"Sirius Black!"
'And Lupin too? I wanna see--"
"I have a bad feeling about this . . ." Sirius muttered.
"Yes, I know you and the fanfic author like Star Wars, Sirius, but this is no time to get nostalgic! They're--"
"The series fans and fanfic authors--I realised that," Sirius said in the calm, level tones of someone who is trying hard not to panic.
"I think running seems to be the order of the day . . ."
"Excellent suggestion, Moony--let's scarper . . ."
* * * * * * * * *
End of Dea/Deus ex Machina Part Deux
Yes, I should be working on "The Reckoning". But the temptation to kick the mickey out of myself was too much to bear. The phrase "Trousers of Time" belongs to Terry Pratchett, not me.