Disclaimer: I don't own either the book or movie versions of the Lord of the Rings, nor of most anything else mocked herein.  I also don't own the boarders, who belong to Ant, but if he wants to try and make something of it, I say "just bring it".  That said, this work sufficiently resembles that of Tolkein that it's an exaggeration for me to even claim authorship in the first place.  Note that while this fic is a parody that follows the books more closely in than the movies, it may well contain spoilers for both.
 

THE BOARD OF THE RINGS: THE WAR OF THE RING

Book Six

 Ciara: *bleep* this!  *shines the flashlight in the eyes of the gremlins, clocks them with it while they stagger around, disoriented*

 Ciara bursts into the door of the dungeon, expecting a fight, only to see that mass carnage has preceeded her.  She looks around, expecting
 to see gremlins fighting each other over Heather's stuff, only to find that they aren't fighting each OTHER, but rather running from a common
 fear....
 Heatherosa: CAAAAAAAR!
 Ciara: HEATHER!  You cut that out, you big ole TRAMP!
 Heatherosa: *regards Ciara quizzically* Caaaar?
 Ciara: No, Heather, NO CAR.  Now cut it out and come down here so we can finish destroying the One Ring, and get out of GA's stupid fic.
 Heather: You really think he'll make the mockery stop?
 Ciara: Probably not, but if we're lucky he'll get tired of it and go away for a few months again until he gets another bright idea.
 Heather: Okay, let's go.

 And so, Ciara returns the One Ring to Heather, and the two set of for the banks of the Charles River.  The way was long and hard, for there
 was not even one Denny's in the 10 blocks or so between Harvard Square and the river, and the Ring bore ever heavier and more of a burden on
 poor Heather, though she would accept no help in carrying it.  And indeed, were you reading Tolkein's original, we would go on for
 another 50 pages about how much it sucked to be in the land of Mordor, and how Frodo and Sam were running out of food, and struggling, and
 leaving all their armor behind, etc etc etc, but honestly I thought that, and a decent portion of Book 4, dragged when Tolkein was writing
 it, and he's better at this than I am.

 So, instead we will take you to the very banks of the Charles itself, as Ciara and Heather at long last enter the park next to Memorial
 drive, and have only a short way to go to the water itself.  And so, they sought out a way to stand high above the water, cause that's
 really much more dramatic, and in Tolkein's original, you can read several pages on how steep it was as the climb Mount Doom, but let's
 face it, the MIT bridge just isn't that impressive a climb.  And so, at last, the two stand in the middle of the bridge, above the water,
 looking down.

 Ciara: We did it!  Now just throw the ring in, and we'll be free!

 Heather takes out the ring, on a chain around her neck, and weighs it in her hand slowly, as she looks out over the water.
 Heather: No.
 Ciara: What?
 Heather: The ring is mine!  That idiot GA stuck me with it so he could mock me every episode of this fic, and how he wants me to destroy it?
 Well I say I deserve a souvenir!
 Ciara: That's the ring trying to use its dark power to influence you!
 Heather: I don't care!  The Ring is mine, I claim it!
 And with that, Heather puts on the Ring, and immediately turns invisible and disappears.

 *Harvard Square*
 A raging battle continues between those boarders still standing and all the remaining gremlin hordes of the 1969 gremlin.  Anthony
 surveys the field of battle, and knows it does not look good.  Talia struggles to rally troops of the Main Board on the right flank, as
 Buhbuhraven sets up tables for the spoiler board folks in the center, and Arieanna rallies her family and others from the AAS board on the
 left, but still, the number of gremlins is too great.  Ant is preparing to order what may be the board's final charge, when
 suddenly, a loud, clear voice that none would ever deny rings out over the battlefield.

 AnGeL X: Creatures of the Night.... ARISE!

 Silence falls over the field for a second, and AnGeL X's voice is joined by a second.

 Kurupt: Creatures of the Night.... ARISE!

 And a third.

 Rivana: Get up, you *bleeping* pricks, MOVE!  Or I'll execute every mother-*bleeping* last one of ya!

 Her two companions look at her, shocked.
 Rivana: What, don't I get to make Pulp Fiction references?

 The call of all three leaders of the CotN is undeniable.  Slowly, inexorably, all the members who have fallen on the field rise to their
 feet, with renewed strength.  Moreover, the ranks of the boarders swell as every member ever to join the Creatures of the Night appears
 to the board's desperate defense.  The tide begin to turn, as the grenlins stand no chance against the united CotN, over a hundred
 strong.  Larry, the imfamous boazor, and spokesman for the gremlin, stands up to make a speech but is struck down... from behind.

 1969 Gremlin: This spokesman is no further good to me.  You think you'll WIN, boarders?  I can feel the power of the One Ring... MY
 RING... once again, it wanders the Earth, and it wants to be found!  Soon, shall it return to me, and then I shall use its power to travel
 back to midnight on Dec 31, 1969, where I shall have over thirty years to prevent today's defeat from ever happening!  You have NO chance to
 survive....

 Suddenly, the Gremlin's voice trails off, as he senses a familiar power... that of his ring, and within the confines of his own kingdom.
 Only in that moment does he realize his true danger, and for the first time, the Gremlin is filled with fear.

 '69 Gremlin: NO!  *begins to run off towards the Charles River*

 *The MIT Bridge*
 Ciara looks around frantically, trying to find her now invisible Master, but it appears impossible until suddenly...
 Bracken: The Precious is miiiine!  Give it to us!

 With that, Bracken leaps through the air, somehow sensing the invisible Heather, and wrestles with seemingly empty air.  Ciara is
 unsure what to do, until finally, suddenly, Heather reappears and Bracken holds up triumphantly, the One Ring.

 Bracken: Preeeecious!  Preeeecious!  It is mine once again.

 Bracken begins jumping up and down for joy, and indeed might have fallen off the bridge into the Charles, destroying the Ring once and
 for all, except for the fact that the City of Cambridge sorta doesn't want people falling off their bridge to their demise and suing them,
 so they put in guardrails.

 Ciara: Hey, you think THAT's special, look at this, TWO shiny dimes! *throws two coins onto the ground*
 Bracky: PREEEECIOUS!

 Bracken immediately drops the ring and pounces on the coins.  The ring bounces once and falls off the bridge towards the water.
 Bracken: Hey, wait, you're Canadian like me.  These are CANADIAN dimes!  NOOOOOO, MY PREEEEECIOUS!

 And with that, the One Ring hits the water, and is destroyed forever in a brilliant flash of light.  The 1969 Gremlin, who was just nearing
 sight of the bridge, screams with horror as he feels his power, the only thing that has sustained him all these years, fading away, and in
 a burst of light, he is gone.  When the light fades, the three figures are left standing on the bridge, alone.

 Bracken: My precious... *sobs*
 Heather: Oh, alright already, here, have an AMERICAN dime.
 Bracken: PRECIOUS!  *rubs Heather vigorously*
 Ciara: Think it's over?  Think GA's done mocking us all now?
 Heather: It's over, Ciara.  It's over.

 *The Burren, Irish Pub on Davis Square in Somerville, MA, December 17th, 2002*
 The boarders celebrate in the aftermath of the victory, as the gremlins proved easy to destroy with their leader gone.  The pub's
 resident songstress, a nice girl incidentally, gives up after asking several times for any requests NOT from the Buffy musical or by the
 band "Dingoes ate my baby".  Digitalis and Robin have started their long-awaited grudge match, which occasionally gains and
 loses extra participants, as the Two Troikas also duke it out.  Anthony looks around, and shakes his head.

 Ant: You know, I don't know why I agree to do these things anymore. Not like GA ever does anything for me in them.

 With that, Bluerose and Zoey walk in.
 Ant: Hey, what are you kids doing here?
 Bluerose: We have come to announce the arrival of our mistress, Kuzibah.
 Zoey: And the one and only Grim ,_,_), .
 Ant: Kuz!  Grim!  How's it going?
 Grim: Good.  We're getting heralded now.  *smiles, slightly behind his sunglasses*
 Ant: Cool.
 Kuzibah: Oh, and we've got another member of our party.  Here's her lady in waiting now.
 Ruby2: *announces* My lady, the Blushing British Rose, Sophie.
 Ant: Rowr.  I take it back, Green, you're alright.  See ya.  *leaves*

 Jojo shakes his head as Ant departs.
 Jojo:  You know, I don't see the point of these big battles.  GA always has us win as a result of some dramatic last minute heroics.
 Like he thinks it's actually possible to write one's way out of ten to one odds.
 DWS: There's an old saying.  "THE PENIS MIGHTIER!"
 Jojo: Uh... That's "The PEN is mightier."
 DWS: MAYBE FOR YOU, TREBEK!
 Jojo: *sobs* That does it!  I quit!

 With that, Jojo storms off, breaking up the festivities as most of the female cast chases after him, beating down on each other along the
 way.

 GA: *shakes head* This is what I have to deal with.
 DWS: Hey, what did I do?  Ooooh, fabric!  *runs off to quilt*
 F=j: So, Grn, I never got it.  Why did you move up here, so close to Cambridge?
 GA: Well, evil one, the ground that the Gremlin made his home shall always bear the taint of evil.  Someone had to stay here and keep
 watch over it.
 Talia: That sounds like an excuse to cover your choice of grad school...
 J.A.I.T.: Excuse me, GA, there's a perspicacious man here looking for you.
 GA: *relieved to get out of explaining that one* Thanks.

 GA wanders over to the side of the bar, where a bearded man with glasses is reading the complete 50 page print-out of the Board of the
 Rings saga.

 Man: Oh, so you're the chap responsible for all this?
 GA: Yeah, that's my... hey, aren't you....
 Peter Jackson: Yep.  Interesting work you've done here.
 GA: I was pretty fond of your version as well.
 Peter Jackson: You've made some interesting choices here.  Not sure I agree with all of them....
 GA: I know how you feel.  Guess that's why we each did our own.
 Peter Jackson: Indeed.  Good stuff, though.
 GA: Thanks.  But, uh, if you don't mind my asking, what are you doing here?
 Peter Jackson: Well, the cast and I were pretty tired since we've been promoting The Two Towers, and we figured with it opening tomorrow,
 we'd take the night off.  Then I heard about this "Board of the Rings" party, and I thought it's be nice to spend the time with some of the
 real fans.
 GA: The entire cast of the LotR is coming here?
 Peter Jackson: Yeah.  You don't mind, do you?
 GA: I'm not so much upset as concerned for your safety....
 Peter Jackson: How do you...

 His voice trails off, as he sees Jojo, running, a pack of boarders chasing him, and pummeling each other to get at him.

 Peter Jackson: That's the kid who played Legolas, yes?
 GA: *nods* Yeah.
 Peter Jackson: They're going to tear us apart, aren't they?
 GA: Yuh-huh.
 Peter Jackson: Good god, man!  You've got to help us!  A distraction, anything!
 GA: Alright, I'll tell you what.  I'll tell every boarder in the greater Boston area who wants to join a group to go see The Two Towers
 that they should talk to me.  If we can snag tickets, we'll go to a midnight show.  That way, some of us should be gone before your
 friends arrive.  The rest is up to you.
 Peter Jackson: Thanks.
 GA: Any time.
 Peter Jackson: So, pretty relaxing, don't you think?  Resting at home, knowing your big project is all done?

 Jojo runs by, and hides behind Sheepy.
 DWS: Jojo, jojo, jojo.  You're such a Boarders Layer.
 Jojo: If this keeps up, I'm going to be a Boarder SLAYER.
 DWS: THAT'S NOT WHAT YOUR MOTHER SAID, TREBEK!
 Jojo: WHY YOU!!!
 Then, they realize that the crowd has noticed them, and both have to take off.

 GA: *nods* Yep.  I'm home.

 THE END
 (stay tuned after the credits for special edition DVD author's commentary)
 CAST

 The Fellowship:
 Frodo - Heather
 Sam - Ciara
 Aragorn - Anthony
 Legolas - Jojo
 Boromir - Hazel
 Merry - Bowen
 Pippen - Laura
 Gimli - Da Wonder Sheep
 Gandalf - Green Armadillo

 Bilbo Baggins - Xander's Woman
 Butterbur, innkeeper at the Prancing Pony - JodithGrace
 Glorfindel, Elven Prince - Grim
 Elrond - Kuzibah
 Arwen - Sophie
 Elves of Rivendell: (Kuzibah's posse)

Zoey
Bluerose
Ruby2

 Surleigh
 Seventh Swan
 Dawnmeister
 Robin

 Mo
 Digitalis
 Rosmary
 Pouncer

 cazadora
 Dawnmeister
 Lanna de la Rosa
 Evil Olive

 Drusilla
 SteffiG 

 J.A.I.T. 
 LTG 
 Buffychick
 Weakest Link
 Wwolfe

 Jana
 Leora
 Mandikins
 Masher
 Silver Sunset
 Flan

 Chasarumba
 CanIBeBlind2
 Sekhmet
 Windy
 Arieanna

 Kurupt
 Rivana
 

 Super special edition DVD director's making of the fic commentary!

 Late last year, for the first time in my fic writing career, I bit off a project that was more than I could chew.  Those of you who've been
 cheering me on this whole time may try to take issue with that, but to you I point out the fact that you're reading this in mid August
 instead of mid January stands against you.  Fellowship of the Board was an easy fic to write.  It had a small cast, and with very few
 exceptions, was based almost shot-by-shot on the movie, since with very few exceptions, I agree with the choices Peter Jackson made to
 shorten his movie down to three and a half hours.  (The exception being the scene at the ford, perhaps my favorite in all of literature
 as written, and one of few I could think of that suffers a net deprovement from the added rowr of Liv Tyler.)

 Not only did I have both a book and a movie to work with as a basis for Fellowship, but it's an easier story to write to begin with, as it
 features a much smaller cast than the armies of the later parts.  Moreover, my choice to finish the entire tale in the same six book
 format Tolkein used committed me to parts that were usually double the length of chapters in my other fics, sometimes up to 10 pages per
 part.  These factors, combined with a very busy time for me IRL as I visited grad schools and tried to finish a stubborn senior thesis
 project, made it far too imposing for me to continue my fic at that time.  So I did something I never had before - I set aside the
 keyboard, and gave up, and even fled the board itself.

 But, come mid-summer, the urge to finish my work came again.  Right after I graduated in May, I saw Fellowship once more on the big screen
 in a second run place, along with the added Two Towers promo footage they attached to the film a few months into its run.  As August hit,
 and my moving to Boston was all settled, there was hoopla surrounding the release of the Fellowship DVD, which seemed exciting despite the
 practical fraud New Line is committing by releasing in August a DVD that tells you that you need to buy a second, more expensive one in
 November to get the actual added scenes.  Seeing a chunk of the movie playing at the Virgin Megastore on Newbury Street, I felt the urge to
 continue.  And then, logging into AIM for the first time in a while, I immediately got a message from Hazel, to whom I'd promised a greater
 role after her seeming "death" in book 2 without telling her what it was, asking about the fic.  That, was two weeks and close to 40 pages
 ago.

 Of course, the task remained daunting, and a seven month lay-off added new challenges.  Many of the original castings were based off
 continuity of my older board fics and the now-defunct board family, which meant that some of them hadn't been around much when the fic
 STARTED.  Now, those folks were even more distant, and there was a whole generation of new boarders who I hadn't met before and who may
 or may not have heard of me or large portions of my cast.  I was pretty determined to try and make this work accessible to EVERYONE,
 not just an inside joke for those of us who've been around for over two years.  (I also had the minor problem of winding up at the heart of evil for grad school, necessitating a new locale for the final scene, but oh well.)

 The result was the largest casting call I've ever conducted, resulting in a cast of over 60 with a cast LIST over a page and a half long, all of whom had speaking lines at least once in the fic.  Everyone who replied, everyone who asked me about the fic, and a few folks who did interesting posts as this
 thing was being written got a role, and wherever possible I put people in the Middle Earth faction of their choice.  I tried my best
 to pick up the new running gags of the board, and to harness the potential of surprizes that presented perfect casting opportunities
 (for example, I had no idea what to do with the "path of the dead" plot until the AAS kids invaded us the night before that part came
 out).

 Of course, it was hard to start writing again, but once I got going, things moved along so quickly that this fic was finished within
 basically a week of writing time, much sooner than I'd expected.  I'd like to credit my notes, some back-of-my-mind scripting during the
 off-time, or perhaps even being vaguely good at this after 200 pages of fics, but that would deprive other folks of their proper credit.

 As I explained to Bill Shatner in Book Five, Tolkein's work is alive today precisely because he wove it out of the myths and legends of the
 whole world.  The Witch King's Macbeth-like weakness (as his slayer, Eowyn, hides her true identity in Shakespearean form), Denathor's
 despair at seeing the black-sailed ships of the enemy much like Aegeus's despair that in their haste to flee Crete, the ship carrying
 his son Theseus back safely forgot to change the black sails of mourning (causing Aegeus to fling himself into the sea from his
 citadel at Athens, a body of water known thereafter as the Aegean sea) and many many more all strike our hearts beacuse they're stories
 that were already there.  We begin to see similarities to the stories we know in battles where the heroes must hold on for hours with no
 hope until finally at the chosen hour help arrives, much like Lancelot's battle against a foe whose strength doubled every hour
 until high noon, when at last it abated and he could be defeated, Boromir's stubborn refusal to go down even knowing he has received
 mortal wounds, and the Frodo's incredible race against time and the Nazgul to safety at Rivendell - which may not be based on any specific
 tale, but when forged from such raw materials with such skill as Tolkein commanded is more magical than anything George Lucas could
 ever create.

 None of which in any way detracts from Peter Jackson's incredible rendition of this epic.  Not only is this film the occasion for my
 current fic, but it also in my mind suceeds at capturing much of the magic of Tolkein's work.  While the specific choices Jackson made, and
 will probably make in the later parts, are not always those I would have in his place, his work presents a spectacular vision of the work
 which I expect to enjoy through the end.  The Nazgul and the Balrog are every bit as frightening as one might expect, and while the sheer
 sizes of the armies the Fellowship fells in small skirmishes are a bit much, some scenes like Boromir's death even exceed their literary
 renditions (Boromir's last stand occurs off-camera in Tolkein's book). There must inherently be changes in moving a tale from book to film,
 and a film of playable length at that, and Jackson has done marvelously.  An extra shout out, and occasionally curse, goes to
 Howard Shore, whose kick-ass Fellowship theme has been for better or worse stuck in my head for the past two weeks.

 So, there you have it.  I did it for the book, the film, the board, oh yeah, and for myself.  This story is my favorite ever told, and is
 likely to stay that way unless the Matrix sequels deliver even more than the high standards I expect of them.  As much as the logistics
 were occasionally night-marish, the actual writing was easy, because I've read these books many many times, and could only dream of paying
 homage to them and evoking a small fraction of their drama, magic and excitement.  I hope you have enjoyed the ride.

 Green Armadillo
 [email protected]
 August 20th, 2002

 P.S. And I meant that part about Boston LotR movie gatherings!
 
 
 

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