Subject: Re: Hullo!
Author:
Posted on: 2013-01-14 11:59:00 UTC

Thank you! Er...what (or rather, where) are the wastes of the Circle of Lemmings? Or what are they from?

I'm not even looking in the Hobbit section much, because I don't want spoilers (a little silly, perhaps, seeing as I have read the book and thus know what happens), and I *still* managed to notice. Mainly because I had a sudden hankering to read some LotR fanfic and checked on AO3, where a bunch of Hobbit stories end up in LotR because they're marked for both fandoms. It's kind of annoying. And so I noticed the increase of fics pairing Bilbo with various dwarves. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but I don't think it was quite as popular before Martin Freeman (and a large number of costars playing dwarves) came on the scene. Of course, that's equally true for a lot of the LotR ships--I doubt they were quite as popular and widespread before the movies came out. Don't get me wrong, I adore the movies and all the hard work that was put into them--but they do tend to catch the attention of Suethors, among other people.

What gets me more than the increase of Suefics in general is the probably-a-Suefic that I checked out because it's basically the rewrite (without permission) of a LotR story, only set in the Hobbit, told in first person instead of third, and sounding a whole lot more like a Suefic. The problem is, the original story (The Awkward Adventures of Meghan Whimblesby) is a serious take/parody on the overdone 'girl falls into M-e' theme, which managed (is still managing, actually) to live up to the note in its summary of being 'a crazy spin on a Mary-Sue fic'. When you retell it with a girl named--I kid you not--Alexandria Millicent Fournier (who goes by Millie because it sounds more feminine, or something like that), using first person, and having her turn into a dwarf without a beard (the a/n at the bottom says she's going by the movie. I haven't seen the movie yet, but I googled some pictures, and as far as I can see, female dwarves DO have beards, they're just very, very thin ones. Is that accurate?), as well as being invited almost immediately to join the dwarves' quest by Gandalf (who she sends at least only about halfway out of character)--hold on, I think I've started making a charge list. I *think* that wasn't my intention...I mean, I'm not really sure this is even bad enough to PPC (although it's definitely heading there), I was just trying to make the point that when you rewrite a sort of Mary-Sue parody like this, you kind of get the Suefic it was parodying...and then, of course, we add plagiarism to the mix, under the banner of 'inspired by' the original story...Ugh. Sorry about the rant/ramble.

(As for post-movie phenomena--I took a quick look, and I think the fandom--or at least, Tumblr--has become obsessed with Kili. Whose hairstyle kind of resembles Aragorn's...just saying :) )

Ah well. New movies have always meant an increase in work for PPCers. I hope it doesn't get too bad with the release of two more Hobbit movies...

Thanks again for the lemming repellent :)

~DF

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