bleary-eyed monday

[dragonlady7]

Thank God for long weekends, or I would have killed someone.
Was home at a reasonable hour yesterday, but squandered the time I could have spent getting organized and caught up. What did I do?
I read Lord of the Rings fanfiction.
There's a site called Bagenders which contains the only fanfiction I ever read (I'm not above it, I just never make the time for it, and don't enjoy most of it). They're fabulous writers, and their material is funny and very, very witty, and rarely takes itself too seriously. Also, doesn't fall into the usual soap-opera fanfic trap. Nope... No soap opera-- it's a sitcom of the kind of comedic brilliance that never makes it to the small screen.
Earlier episodes had more of the silly amateurish wandering fanfic is prone to, but later ones are pure, flat-out genius. I'd call it parody or satire but the characters are so beautifully rounded and well-imagined that it doesn't fit. This is not mockery but fabulous and whimsical flights of fancy.
I've been reading since they were in the midst of the first series (they're onto a third now, increasingly brilliant), and I have to say I check it only sporadically and when I do and they've updated it, I read not only the new ones, but I also reread the old ones. Even ones I've read six or seven times still retain the power to reduce me to actual pain from laughing out loud so hard. The humor is thoroughly steeped in not only Tolkien (there was one great bit where Elrond's twin sons Elladan and Elrohir are stonedly punning about the Noldor and Sindar that reduced me to tears of laughter) but also the Goon Show, contemporary British television and culture, Monty Python, Shakespeare, John Donne, and other classics of English culture.
A warning-- they do intersperse the clean (PG or PG-13 rated) episodes with the occasional "gratuitous slashy interlude" that features, yes, slash fiction (mostly male/male, some interspecies). But these departures are as amusing as the rest of the episodes, don't descend into seriousness, and are both well-labeled and non-explicit.

Having said all that, I have to go back to work now. Oops.

Excerpts:
First episode, first series:

Sam really wished he [Aragorn] wouldn't do the stealthy ranger-of-the-north thing in the house, it really creeped him out, especially when Aragorn wore clothes to blend in with the wallpaper, and most worryingly they had never worked out how he managed to change his clothes between rooms. And the occasion when he had mysteriously appeared through the locked bathroom door to use the toilet when Sam was in the shower had been really too disturbing for words.

Gandalf, in episode 2, series 3:

"Elladan! Elrohir! Nice to know you still keep in contact with your family. No, no, you can't talk to your father right now. Why? Because I've just kicked him in the stomach and he can't breathe. Yes, I will tell him you called, and that you hope he feels better soon."

Same episode:

The car was eventually found, a flashy jaguar. The hobbits climbed in, and took full advantage of electrically adjustable seats so they could see out of the windows. Merry put the keys in the ignition and turned the stereo up.

"It's a long way to the Rijksmuseum, we've got a full tank of petrol, half a packet of biscuits, it's dark and I've found her sunglasses in the glove compartment."