Title: Hope and Pain Author:Master Darth Warious – Lady of Chaos Media: Book/Movie Topic: Lord of the Rings/Star Wars Genre: Adventure / Fantasy / Romance / Hot Mess URL: Hope and Pain Critiqued by TacoMagic
Who’s ready for more Hope and Crawl!?
Bummer, we’re doing it anyway.
Last time Suerio died! Unfortunately it was only because her power had been absorbed by an even bigger Sue with a stupider name. Even worse, the new Sue is essentially the same character but with a wider array of what I’m sure will be situationally activated powers. Her prior incarnation slewn, NewSue promptly went hiking in New Hampshire, like one does when you learn that you’re the reincarnation of a “Sith Lord.” While hiking the stumbles upon the Fellowship of the Ring, who I guess also thought a hike through the White Mountains sounded like a nice distraction from the looming end of civilization. After exchanging mostly illogical and paranoid dialogue with the Fellowship for a while, NewSue decides to trust them be’cuz Gimly, and they decide to trust her because Suefluence, and they join up.
That leads us to now.
Chapter 2 – Mt. Caradharas
…
The mountain was covered in deep snow and the hobbits were complaining of frostbite on their feet.
Yes, one complains about frostbite. Necrosis is quite uncomfortable, after all.
Boromir and Aragorn are now carrying the hobbits, two each. A little while later, Shysa offered to carry one of the hobbits but was told that a Lady shouldn’t carry hobbits.
Wait, when the hell did she become a member of the aristocracy!? Sweet shit this Sue is a fucking genesis of random perks!
At least that is what Boromir told her. To this she replied, “You are being ridiculous! I can carry at least one of the hobbits. I probably have three times your strength! Heck I could carry all four!”
You’re a Sue, dear, you could probably juggle the hobbits with one hand while winning a lightsaber duel with the other. All while playing a guitar solo with your ass cheeks.
“You are a woman. Woman can’t be stronger than men!”
Holy crap, Wario, we get it! Sexist dude is sexist. Just knock your strawman over and get on with it!
“Oh yeah, punk? Why don’t you take me on and I’ll show you who’s stronger!”
You’ll feel the fell and terrible force of unearned power!
“That is enough from both of you!” Aragorn roared at the two. “If neither of you can’t behave, we will leave you both here on the mountain to fend for yourselves.
I think they’ve proven very well that both of them can indeed not behave.
Also, don’t make dad turn this fellowship around and go home.
We don’t need your arguing right now.
Later is apparently fine. Preferably while trying to sneak past an urok ambush.
Boromir, if she wants to carry a hobbit, give her Pippin so he can ask her questions instead of driving us insane.”
I do like how the hobbits are basically groceries or a full bookbag at this point.
Pippin, hearing this, immediately ran up to Shysa’s side and started talking.
Which he did while still being held by Boromir, somehow.
Wow! Now I get to talk to a Lady!” He emphasized the last part of his phrase so his friends could hear him.
Great, we now have a stand-in for that insufferable murder-bear.
…
I have to stop hanging out with Crunchy.
Shysa rolled her eyes and replied, “I am not a lady.
Not capitalized like the title for some reason.
If you ask the right questions you’ll find out why.”
Dude, they’ve met you for several minutes at this point. They should be sufficiently aware of your lack of genteel qualities enough to not need to ask you anything.
Then she had the hobbit climb onto her shoulders so she could carry him.
So once again the fellowship (and their new addition) started walking up the mountain again.
Hopefully leaving the pointlessness behind. Hopefully, but not expectedly.
*SLAM*
Parenthetically Speaking (of course): 62
Pippin bombarded Shysa with many questions to which she tried to answer to the best of her ability.
I really want to know the reasoning behind Wario always adding in the obnoxious schoolboy / street urchin character.
Fortunately she summarizes that so we don’t have to see any of those questions because exposition is ter-
“What are those things you have hanging on your belt?” Pippin asked noticing the three sabers hanging from her belt.
“These are lightsabers,” Shysa replied unclipping the double bladed saber from her belt.
Fucking hell, Wario, if you were going to show us this exposition session anyway, why did you summarize it first!?
Also, don’t exposit stuff you’ve already exposited at us!
“This one belonged to a bad person, called a Sith. We fought and I killed her.
Wait, is she talking about Suerio? She didn’t have a double-blade saber, did she? Not that I’d be surprised, but I don’t recall it being that speshul.
I took her saber as proof.”
No, you kept is as a souvenir. Proof implies somebody else asked/contracted you to kill her, which is objectively untrue given the prologue.
Shysa ignited the black and dark violet blades being careful of anyone around her.
I’d almost forgotten how stupid and tryhard the colors of that saber were. Almost.
“What new devilry is this?” Boromir asked from behind Shysa.
Okay, I’ll give Wario this one. The Middle-Earth folk definitely would react poorly to lightsabers, though I’m not sure if the word “devilry” is one that ever would have been used by them. I’d have to reread the books and I’ve got way too many other things on the to-read list for that right now.
Shysa deactivated the blades before anyone made the stupid mistake of trying to touch them and turned to face Boromir.
Because touching demon magic is definitely something people would just do.
…
Actually, I know several personally who would.
“This,” she waved the deactivated saber in his face, “is a lightsaber. A sword made of light.
Which, by the way, points out why a black blade is entirely stupid. I will post the Brown video again to belabor that point if I have to.
It is very powerful and if you touch it you can loose whatever you were touching it with.”
New plan! Touch it with the Sue!
Boromir scoffed at the idea, and pushed ahead of her.
Meanwhile, Pippin had grabbed a handful of snow from a high drift and was quickly making it into a ball. Shysa saw what he was doing and was struck with an idea. She grabbed some near-by snow and also formed it into a ball. Then, after taking careful aim, hit the top of Boromir’s head with the snow ball.
Pippin, liking this idea sent his snow ball flying straight into Gandalf’s back. Both snowballs hit their targets simultaneously. And simultaneously the two victims turned to find out who their attacker was. Unfortunately everyone else saw who did what to who and quickly pointed in Shysa and Pippin’s direction.
*Taco sighs heavily*
Yes, because if the fellowship really needed something, it’s pointless and misplaced whimsy!
Also, Pippin is pretty jovial for somebody suffering from frostbite. I guess he didn’t really like having feet.
“What was that for!” Boromir demanded.
The author cannot stand having any degree of dramatic tension, so instead she’s replaced it with childishness.
“For being stupid.” Shysa replied innocently.
I mean, that’s true, just not in the way ShySue intends it.
“And what have you got to say for yourself Perigrin Took?” Gandalf demanded.
“I was trying to hit Merry?”
“But I’m back here!” Merry said from his current position.
“We will leave both of you children here if neither of you can behave!” Aragorn yelled at the two ‘children’.
“We’ll behave!” the two troublemakers said quickly.
“Each of you stay on your side of the fellowship or God help me I’ll lead it off a cliff!”
As the fellowship continued up the mountain, the snow that had been falling increased heavily.
Oh it dided now, dided it?
A few hours more of their march a strange sound came from the darkness around them. A few hours more of their march a strange sound came from the darkness around them.
I will say that, thus far, the mechanics of the prose in this sequel have been worse than the original. I don’t know if that means she lost a beta reader or just got lazier with her own proofing checks.
Or maybe it’s just the impatience that comes with wholesale plot regurgitation.
Then Boromir called out for us to stop for the night. Gandalf told them that a little ways more and there was a shelter from the snow and stones.
Luckily there’s a little hotel just up ahead.
Err, maybe you should just camp instead.
They all sat down for a little to rest for awhile. Later, Boromir had to shake Frodo awake. “”This will be the death of the Halflings, Gandalf!”
Regurgitation, what a show, regurgitation, it’s time to throw,
up on the audience because we can’t write our own stuff!
Okay, so the meter is fucked there, but you get the idea.
Gandalf pulled out a flask of something and said, “Just a mouthful each for all of us. Elrond gave it to me at our parting.”
That’s what I’d tell somebody if I were trying to get them to drink my pee.
Shysa refused to drink it. “I don’t know what it is and I’m not going to drink it.”
Dammit, I just agreed with the Sue. I’m going to have to wash out my brain after this session.
“He said it is miruvor,” Frodo replied from his position next to her. “It will make you feel better.”
Shysa passed it to Pippin on her other side and said, “I have enough strength from this weather. For an elementalist, extreme weather is something of a sugar rush without the drop off at the end of its course.”
Remember, LoTR, not only is this original character way better at everything than all of your characters combined, but she could also beat up their dads.
Boromir asked to start a fire and Gandalf said it was okay. Wood and kindling were brought but no one seemed to be able to start a fire.
Huh, so now we’re both figuratively and literally going to stoke the Sue.
Gandalf let out a sigh and started to get up but Shysa said, “Let me try now.”
Gandalf nodded to the elementalist and Shysa used her fire abilities to start a small blaze. Once she started it, she caused it to grow and become stronger. The fellowship was glad and eagerly warmed their hands.
So now the Sue is redundant to Gandalf instead of being merely useless. Well, on top of being insufferable, anyway.
Towards morning, Shysa, the four hobbits and Gimli the Dwarf huddled together and talked.
Great, more exposition about the Sue, just what I always wanted.
“Shysa,” Gimli started, “do you know any dwarves back where you come from?”
“Den.” She replied.
It’s more of a Klivingchen, actually.
“Oi! What does that mean?” Pippin asked.
“Obviously it means ‘no’.” Merry told his cousin.
Yes. Obvious. Let’s got with that.
“I wish I did though. I’ve never met one until I met Gimli.” Shysa continued.
Meaning she trusted his word because of a wild passing BLUE?
“But I believe that dwarves are the more trustworthy race people hear about.”
Incorrect, but I now see this comes from heavy cultural romaticization and ignorance more than from anything else. Oddly, this is the most believable thing about the character so far. Sadly, I’m certain that this blind stupidity of the character was not intended.
“Oh I don’t know about that Miss Fett.” Samwise spoke up. “I think the elves are quite nice.”
“Sam is right. I’ve met some elves other than Legolas and they are very nice.” Frodo said.
In all fairness, none of these Hobbits ever pissed off an elf; not really. Meanwhile Bilbo liked elves, but had a more realistic view of what they were capable of.
Shysa sighed, and remembered some one from about five years ago then confessed, “I was shot by an elf once. He was trying to stop me from doing something stupid and I wouldn’t listen.”
Knowing that elves typically resist and fight evil would tend to ruin your trust in their word if you happen to be evil, even if it is EvilZero: all the brooding with none of the fattening atrocities.
“Then you deserved to get shot.” Legolas called over from across the fire.
While the conclusion there is true, shooting somebody for being stupid is not necessarily something laudable. If I got shot every time I was about to do something stupid, I’d probably have to get a frequent visit punchcard from the ER.
“See what I mean by elves.” Shysa gestured to the elf that had spoken.
No kidding! It’s only chapter two and Legolas is already angling for best character.
“Do you know any different languages?” Pippin asked.
“And while you’re at it, can you tell us of all the various ways that you’re better than everyone else?”
Shysa laughed and replied in Ewok, “Chak. Do you want me to teach some Ewok to you?”
“What is Ewok?” Gimli asked.
“It’s a language that small furry folk use. The furry people are called Ewoks and look like little bears.” Shysa explained. “You can insult big folk and they’d never know what you were saying.”
Which you can also do in your head without even needing to move your lips or make sound. That method has the added benefit of preventing you from sounding like a pretentious twat all the time.
The four hobbits, and on dwarf accepted her offer to teach them a new language, mainly so they could call other people names.
And thus the Suefluence acted as a carrier for an especially rude strain of douchebag, which quickly spread throughout the fic.
As Shysa taught her new students, Aragorn, Boromir and Legolas went to make a path so that they could get down the mountain. Gandalf was left alone to his thoughts.
“What an obnoxious woman, whyever did we ask her to join us in the first place?”
After awhile, the trio came back and everyone set off down the mountain. Shysa carried Pippin and Merry, one under each arm. Boromir carried Samwise and Aragorn carried Frodo. The fellowship traveled down the mountain and Gandalf led them on the way to Moria.
While Legolas ran down the hall.
…
A/N: Review me
This shit again? Okay, uh, you really need to work on improving your writing rather than just cruising along with “It’s been good enough so far.” Especially since it was never good enough.
That kind of inattention to self improvement actually led to this sequel to be worse than the rewrite of the first installment. Sure the first part had less substance, but the writing mechanics were more solid and your self-insert wasn’t nearly so flagrantly Sueish. Which is a weird sentence to have to write about Suerio. I’m sure a lot of that, though, is due in no small part to a lack of actual criticism of your work. Unfortunately this is all coming way too late to be useful to you in that way, c’est la vie. By now you’ve either moved on entirely from writing or tansitioned to other venues which hopefully have a more active/useful critical element.
Anyway, I know the riff is a bit short this week, but I’m going to break here because things are a bit busy for me at the moment. Next week we’ll be back with another chapter double-feature.
The Primevil is difficult enough as it is, what with the weaker dragon clones and AOE elemental attacks, but an AOE high chance instant death spell?
Meanwhile, in the 7th Dragon series, Insomnia (both versions) spams AOE Instant Death (and attacks again due to dragon boss mechanics)…and isn’t even a final/true final/super boss. Truly a spin-off of Etrian Odyssey.
Which, by the way, points out why a black blade is entirely stupid. I will post the Brown video again to belabor that point if I have to.
In fairness to Star Wars, sometimes Rule of Cool trumps actual Science in terms of stuff in universe (Darth Vader’s Suit is a retroactive example of this).
Library of the Damned 
I mean, you’re not wrong.
I seem to have lost a toe.
“Bad turn, old boy. Well, there’s nothing for it. Rub some dirt into the wound and try favor the other foot.”
This sounds like a line from a much better fanfic than what we got.
Unless she means it’s made out of “black light” in the sense of UV light, although usually those are only wielded by the absolute grooviest of Jedi.
Necrosis is quite uncomfortable, after all.
The Primevil is difficult enough as it is, what with the weaker dragon clones and AOE elemental attacks, but an AOE high chance instant death spell?
Meanwhile, in the 7th Dragon series, Insomnia (both versions) spams AOE Instant Death (and attacks again due to dragon boss mechanics)…and isn’t even a final/true final/super boss. Truly a spin-off of Etrian Odyssey.
Wha…? Zeus, what the bloody heck are you on about, mate?
My best guess is that there is an instant spell in Etrain Odyssey named “Necrosis.”
An AOE Instant Death Spell used by the final boss of the 6th stratum of the Etria games, yes.
Which, by the way, points out why a black blade is entirely stupid. I will post the Brown video again to belabor that point if I have to.
In fairness to Star Wars, sometimes Rule of Cool trumps actual Science in terms of stuff in universe (Darth Vader’s Suit is a retroactive example of this).
True enough, but as I’ve been known to say: Just because the canon does something stupid doesn’t give you an excuse for following its bad example.
You have have to, Taco?
I’ve had have a few times, but not’ve have had.
Oh hey! I can also speak alien languages!
You’re a complete petaQ, you Quo’Yab Puq