ever on and on

[aria]

Aten't dead! In fact I have been posting to both tumblr and twitter with reasonable frequency, but my life in 140 characters or gifs with capslock commentary is not ... particularly in depth. So: hello! I am here to warn you all that Martin Freeman's face has hypnotic powers of suggestion, because my recent fannish activities have fallen into one of these two categories:

1. rewatch Sherlock/rewatch the Granada Holmes series/desperately seek post-Reichenbach fic/reread the Paradox series & all of Katie Forsythe's fic in a fit of madness/gaze upon Sherlock vids/curse the heavens that I have to wait so long for the next series

2. reread the Hobbit/flop about and make joyful noises about how fucking perfect Freeman's Bilbo is going to be/watch the Hobbit teaser trailer about a million times/rewatch all the cast bits in the Extended Edition Lord of the Rings DVDs/read all the Mark Reads entries of the Hobbit & what he has so far of Lord of the Rings/accidentally trip and fall into the first few chapters of Fellowship, which is fair enough as I haven't done a proper reread in three years

I am combating this White Dudes Doing Stuff thing by working on my novel that has basically one white dude doing stuff, and plenty of ladies and nonwhite dudes doing stuff, which is great! But the fannish channel is all hobbits and detectives right now. (Although no hobbit detectives! There seems to be a pretty low crime rate in the Shire, but I really hope there's a hobbit detective in Bree or something.)

Meanwhile I want to pull out something that I posted last time I was reading Lord of the Rings, because it was SUCH FUN, and it is the One Ring game! The One Ring game basically goes: think of (a) character(s) from a fandom other than LotR, and figure out what would happen if they were given the One Ring and charged to destroy it. So, for example: Neville Longbottom would destroy that sucker; Andrew Wells from Buffy would hide in a dark room with it and call it his Precious and be totally useless; Benton Fraser would TAKE OVER THE WORLD. &c. Give me characters! I will tell you what they do! Epic quests and evil overlords for all!

Comments

[srevans]

oh ok then obviously: Sherlock

(which of course means you have to account for John in the response)

[aria]

Oooh, that is -- actually quite difficult! Pre-John Sherlock probably uses the Ring to make people appreciate and understand him, and it consumes him; post-John Sherlock does his damn best to destroy the Ring, not because he viscerally understands that it needs to be done but because John says so and he knows that John understands this matter much better than he does. I think we might end up with a situation where it comes to the point of casting it into the fire and Sherlock can't make himself let go, but he'd cast himself in instead. I expect that at this point John would knock him over the head and chuck the Ring in, because John's good at last-minute saves like that. And then they go home in time for tea!

[such_heights]

oooh oooh what do you think the various members of the Pond family would do with it?

[srevans]

ahhhh why do I want to read this so bad

especially the tea. :)

[aria]

Hah well I ended up writing a weird LotR/due South fusion last time I did this meme, so strange fragments of a LotR/Sherlock fusion: perhaps coming your way! IT IS EXTREMELY POSSIBLE.

[aria]

Oh well River: ALL SHALL LOVE HER AND DESPAIR, come on, in the place of a Dark Lord we would absolutely have a queen.

Rory: he just soldiers on and gets it done! Unless of course their opponents realize that Amy is Rory's weak spot; if anything happened to her I have no doubt that Rory would suddenly stop thinking of the Ring as the evil thing to get rid of and immediately utilize it as the Ultimate Weapon to Get Amy Back, because as we well know, Ponds are scary when their loved ones are threatened.

Amy: might be an excellent unexpected best bet! Everyone would assume that she'd succumb to the Ring's power, but she's so ridiculously stubborn and resilient, she'd barge right through and get it done. I expect that when it came time she wouldn't be able to throw it in, but she'd get all the way to Mt Doom, at the very least.

[luzula]

Benton Fraser would TAKE OVER THE WORLD

Tell me more about this? *chin on hands*

[aria]

Ah! Well, you see, Fraser would understand that the Ring is evil and must be destroyed, of course, and he'd do his absolute best, but -- you know how Gandalf refused to take the Ring, even to keep it safe, because he'd end up using it from a desire to do good, and would in the process become terrible? That's exactly what would happen with Fraser.

(Also, er, I do not know if you have seen this, but back when my last Lord of the Rings reread collided with my enthusiastic new passion for due South, I wrote a tragically-unfinished fusion fic in which Kowalski ends up with the Ring; it is here if you'd like to see it.)

[such_heights]

YESSSS, OMG, I WOULD KIND OF LOVE RIVER AS A DARK QUEEN I MUST SAY. Because time is not the boss of her! Especially the younger she is, the more she'd obviously be all over that.

So okay now I am imagining Rory and Amy on a quest to Mordor and I actually think they'd do pretty well! Because I think that Rory by himself would absolutely get the job done but I'm not sure there'd be much of left of himself afterwards without Amy there to keep him human. And I think that Amy wouldn't be able to cast the ring into the fires by herself, because she has the universe inside her head and she knows she could use it to do so much good and save the world and keep her family safe, and she and Rory could wield it together, but if Rory was there with her he could talk her out of it, or just knock her out John Watson-style as you outline above.

But yeah, the instant either one of them was in serious danger, shit would get real. Oh, Ponds, I love you and your terrifying ways.

[aria]

YEP. And even Silence in the Library!era-River would probably take it, just out of sheer fascination, and possibly out of the belief that if she actually did get in over her head (quite unlikely!) the Doctor would be able to stop her. I LIKE THIS WAY TOO MUCH, in fact, I am really all over River + lots of evil magic.

Oh my gosh, actually Amy and Rory would do a really excellent impression of Frodo and Sam! Except without Gollum around to bite off Amy's finger, Rory just knocks her out and throws the Ring in. And everyone is okay! Or mostly okay. As long as Rory keeps his head that one time Amy gets captured by orcs.

Also RORY VS A GIANT SPIDER, OKAY, I AM STUPIDLY DELIGHTED BY THIS NOTION.

[alice_pike]

This One Ring game is the best thing I've ever seen, methinks. And I see His Dark Materials in your interests, so I'm giving you Will Parry! (And/or/with Lyra).

[such_heights]

OMG RORY AS SAMWISE GAMGEE IS PRETTY MUCH THE BEST. Because obviously Amy is Frodo with the special destiny and the not quite fitting in and so on, and the Doctor is Gandalf and is all 'er, I guess your boyfriend can go as well? huh' etc. And the Ring is some ancient Gallifreyan artefact and Saruman is the Master who believes it should rightfully be his and he wants to get back, and Sauron is Rassilon. And then, what, Romana is Galadriel and I feel like Martha is a Faramir-type but I'm not sure where all the other companions go necessarily.

... this shouldn't work remotely as a fusion. AND YET.

I think Amy and Rory's main problem would be fighting over who carries the Ring, because it's Amy's cross to bear, dammit, but Rory can't stand to see her go so loopy with it and besides he's a little better at dealing with all the associated awfulness. And also I think it would make Amy feel a bit invincible and so Rory has to keep pulling her back from the brink of doing something really reckless and getting them both captured, and all the while she's being basically awful to him, and frankly after a while he's more focused on saving her from this than he is on saving the world. But between them they manage it and then sail off to the Grey Heavens at the end and live happily ever after. <3

[luzula]

Okay, yeah, that makes sense. *nods* And it would kind of be the angstiest fic in the world.

And please do not hesitate to link me to delightful things like that! \o/

[gehayi]

YES TO ALL OF THIS.

And Sauron is the Black Guardian.

[travels_in_time]

I would just like to drop this here: http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/5880.html?thread=21203704#t21203704

[travels_in_time]

Sam Tyler. And also Gene Hunt. Together and/or separately, I don't care.

[gehayi]

Okay...what happens if the One Ring falls into the world of Batman? (I'd love to see how the women of the Bat-verse manage things. I rather heart Cassandra Cain and Oracle and Stephanie Brown.)

[srevans]

Also, the ring, defeated by Sherlock's powers of sarcasm, seemed to be having some sort of inverse effect in which Sherlock had become shockingly sweet.

fandom. why are you so gloriously goddamn silly.

[surexit]

Xander!

Or Ray Vecchio.

[anekdot]

TOPH, KATARA, SOKKA, OR ZUKO

[aria]

Eee this is delightful beyond measure. And yeah, Martha is for sure the Faramir character. She would not take that Ring if she found it on the highway! (But of course if she ended up charged with destroying it, she would destroy it. Mordor: kind of a cakewalk compared with the Year That Never Was.)

Oh my goddd though Amy and Rory! At the end! Sailing together beyond the confines of this world! FEELINGS.

[aria]

It is SUCH A FUN GAME, and would probably be an excellent conversation starter at fannish parties.

Will! I think he would actually be a really excellent Ringbearer; he's actually a lot like Frodo, in terms of being odd and quiet and doing what needs to get done. (We shall leave aside jokes about missing fingers, as those are probably in bad taste.) And Lyra would be the best of Sams -- if Will needed her to, she could take up the Ring for a short while and give it right back -- but if she was tasked with the Ring herself I ... suspect the world might be a bit doomed. Actually if Lyra was given the Ring she'd probably grow up to be very much like a more effective Mrs. Coulter.

...now I'm imagining Mrs. Coulter or Lord Asriel getting the Ring and THE WORLDS WOULD BE DOOMED.

[aria]

Ooh, those take some thinking!

Sam ... would do his very best and be a stubborn bastard about the whole thing, but he'd succumb to the Ring before the end, and I suspect he's more towards the stroking-it-in-the-shadows end of the scale than the taking-over-the-world end.

Gene, no one would ever give the Ring to, because they'd expect him to get corrupted right off. But actually he'd just barge right through and destroy it.

[aria]

I actually confess that my Batman knowledge is sketchy enough that I probably wouldn't provide very good answers. But I'm quite curious as to what they'd be! So if you'd want to give a few Batman characters a go, I'd love to hear it.

[aria]

Xander! Ohhh Xander. Let's be honest, he'd make jokes and pretend to be fine and do his best, and within a week he'd be totally doomed, crouching in corners and calling it his precious.

I -- suspect Vecchio would know himself well enough to just avoid having to take the Ring. But if he did, he would surprise himself greatly by getting all the way to Mount Doom before failing to give it up.