Line #20 FanFic/HomeWithTheFairies


1	-> ''To make a realistic girl-falls-into-M.E. story: Remind the readers that the medieval ages are a very different world than our own, and that we are completely unprepared to be suddenly dropped in them.''
2	-->-- author's note, chapter 3 "Where Many Paths and Errands Meet"
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4	''[[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6024634/1/Home-with-the-Fairies Home with the Fairies]]'' ([[http://archiveofourown.org/works/599365 AO3]]), by I. Mushi, is a DeconstructionFic that inserts a modern character into ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'', but is more realistic than [[FandomSpecificPlot other stories about]] [[TrappedInAnotherWorld girls falling into Middle-earth]].
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6	Maddie is a woman from America. She suddenly finds herself alone in a grassland, without knowing that this is Middle-earth. Now she's in "The Medieval Times Show You Can't Leave", and [[LanguageBarrier no one speaks English]]. The story is serious, with many tropes PlayedForDrama, but Maddie eventually makes her own adventure in this land.
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8	The story is now complete.
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10	----
11	!! ''Home with the Fairies'' provides examples of:
12	* AgentScully: The story dumps Maddie in Middle-earth. Maddie, who has no belief in magic, tries to think of a mundane explanation. A kidnapper drugged her and dumped her, but there are no tire tracks. Maddie is dreaming, but can sleep and dream. She is in a remote part of Canada or America, but no one speaks English. Maddie is not a FlatEarthAtheist; after finding more evidence, she accepts that she is in some fantasy world.
13	* AttemptedRape: To survive the first chapters, Maddie must accept food from strangers. One of these strangers tries to rape Maddie.
14	* CellPhonesAreUseless: When Maddie lands in Middle-earth, she has no cell phone reception. Maddie continues looking for reception, not knowing that she is in Middle-earth (a land with no cell towers). She stops when her phone's battery dies forever.
15	* ChekhovsSkill: In one town, Maddie learns how to ride the horse. Later in the story, Maddie is alone with a horse, and must ride to survive.
16	* DamselInDistress: Maddie is in a group of travelers when bandits attack them. They kill some {{Red Shirt}}s and kidnap Maddie and the others. Some of the prisoners later die. Maddie is lucky to be among the survivors.
17	* DeconstructionFic: The author's goal is "a realistic girl-falls-into-M.E. story".
18	* TheDungAges: In chapter 3, this is how Maddie perceives the town of Bree. It looks medieval, and it stinks, with "open sewers down the sides of the street" and "the retched filth lying in the gutters and alleys". It disgusts her, but the locals seem to ignore it.
19	* FaintInShock: Maddie faints when she first sees an elf, one of an InhumanlyBeautifulRace. Before she faints, she feels "a strange preternatural sense of both awe and fear"; the elf "looks so perfect it was painful". Someone picks up Maddie and moves her to a bed, where she either eventually falls into a normal sleep or remains completely unconscious until the next morning.
20	* FishOutOfTemporalWater: To Maddie, Middle-earth resembles TheMiddleAges. Maddie is a modern woman from America who doesn't belong in medieval times.
21	* FixFic: The insertion of Maddie changes the story, in more than one way. The big fix happens in chapter 17.
22	* FromDressToDressing: Maddie rips the sleeves of her dress in chapter 5 "Up and Out", to make pads to soak the blood from her own period. In this DeconstructionFic, ripping her dress was not trivial. "I had to use my teeth and rocks, and got some rug burns on my hands from all the pulling."
23	* TheHomewardJourney: From the beginning of the story, Maddie wants to go home. To find information, Maddie wanders around Middle-earth, rather than settle in one place.
24	* LanguageBarrier: In Middle-earth, no one speaks English. Maddie will take months to learn enough [[CommonTongue Westron]] to talk to others.
25	* LaserGuidedAmnesia: The magic that dumped Maddie into Middle-earth might also have blocked some memories, because [[spoiler:Maddie forgot about ''The Lord of the Rings''. She has seen the movies and read the books. Her memories come back in chapter 11.]]
26	* MementoMacGuffin: Maddie's old things become mementos of her home in America. The most important memento is her dead cell phone; it is the one thing that she never shows to anyone else.
27	* MundaneLuxury:
28	** Maddie misses so many things. From chapter 3 "Where Many Paths and Errands Meet",
29	--> Could I live in a place like this? Without plumbing (the outhouse was ''filthy''), electricity, microwaveable food, the luxuries I was used to?
30	** Maddie becomes homesick for 'soda, hamburgers, french fries, ketchup' in chapter 4, and a longer list of foods in chapter 6. Maddie can find one luxury in Middle-earth. In chapter 19, Maddie is happy to have butter.
31	* NobodyPoops: The beginning of the story averts this. Because Middle-earth has no modern toilets, Maddie must learn to use the open outdoors, then an outhouse, then a chamber pot.
32	* NoPeriodsPeriod: Averted for Maddie, who had to improvise a tampon.
33	* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: Maddie almost never uses her full name, Madeline Greene. In Middle-earth, none can guess that Maddie is short for Madeline.
34	* OntologicalMystery: The readers know that Maddie [[TrappedInAnotherWorld fell into Middle-earth]], but Maddie does not. She only knows that she is in a field and not in her apartment. Then she walks to civilization, but finds a medieval village, where [[LanguageBarrier none speak English]], and none know of America. Maddie discovers this fairy-tale world, but not why it chose her to come here.
35	* OutdoorBathPeeping: The bandits want to watch as Maddie and the other prisoners bathe in a stream. They all refuse to bathe, so this is a DefiedTrope.
36	* PointyEars: Maddie finds creatures that might be elves, fairies or nymphs. Maddie needs a glimpse of pointed ears (hidden under hair) to decide that they are elves.
37	* PlotArmor: Maddie misses several chances to die. In chapter 9, she lampshades how events always seem to save her life.
38	--> I wasn't even surprised by my luck of running into people in totally uninhabited places anymore. Something was keeping me alive here, because otherwise I'd have been dead outside Bree months ago.
39	* RedShirt: Some nameless characters die, because Middle-earth is a dangerous place.
40	* SacrificialLamb: [[spoiler:Baiard dies of an infected wound, and Maddie can't save him. Baiard was the horseman who escorted Maddie through Rohan. As a memorial, Maddie later claims to have a dead brother named Baiard.]]
41	* SuddenlyAlwaysKnewThat: Maddie throws a flaming torch at an enemy. It hits. How did she learn to aim? "I played softball in college."
42	* TrappedInAnotherWorld: Maddie is trapped in Middle-earth. She verifies her problem, when she sees maps of this world, and can't find America or any other recognizable country.
43	* UnreliableNarrator: Downplayed. Maddie is not trying to lie, but her misunderstandings affect the narration, especially in the early chapters, when the LanguageBarrier is still a major problem. For example, Maddie visits the town of Fornost, but it might not be Fornost; Maddie later uses the name "maybe-not-Fornost". Then in chapter 13, Maddie believes that Lord Kinsey will fire her if "gossip gets out", but this might not be true; Lord Kinsey might or might not believe the gossip. A writer's note on chapter 14 declares Maddie as an unreliable narrator.

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