"But do not despair. You can still write fanfic. All you have to do is enrol and pass The Official Fanfiction University of Middle-earth. OFUM offers a wide range of subjects as diverse as Evil Is as Evil Does 101 taught by the esteemed Sauron himself and Poetry 202 with highly acclaimed author of 'Merry Dol and Dong Dillo: How to keep your neighbours out'; the one and only Tom Bombadil. Our esteem teaching staff also includes other well-known residences of Middle-earth. Upon successful completion you will be given a license to write LotR fanfic. All clear?"
The Official Fanfiction University of Middle-earth is a fanfiction making fun of bad Tolkien's Legendarium fanfiction, and the Genre Popularizer of Official Fanfiction University. Plot: Bad fanfic writers are brought to Minas Tirith, to learn writing better stories at OFUM.
You can visit its home page
and read First Year (FF.net link, AO3 link and Second Year (Lotr fanfiction link, A03 link.
Tropes:
- Abhorrent Admirer: No character canon — except for Gimli and the Dark Lords — wants anything to do with their fangirls.
- Alliterative Name: The characters attempt to get rid of the urple with something called Wormtongue's Wonder Wash. Surprisingly, it works.
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: "Sauron would going to roast her for breakfast. He would make her grow long pointy nails. He would flunk her." (OK, the latter might be pretty bad for a fangirl, who'd have to leave Middle-earth.)
- Author Avatar: Miss Cam is a stand-in for Camilla Sandman.
- Brain Bleach: Lobotomies, mindwipes and the like are on high demand due to the staff's "learning through mental scarring" teaching methods.Legolas: I was chased by Elvea and Sauronette when one opened just in front of them, and they fell down into the Uruk-hai breeding caverns.
Elrond: Oh, so that was the loud-pitched scream I heard about 'need acid to remove my eyes'? - Clingy Jealous Girl: Arwen and Eowyn. May God have mercy upon your soul if you are a Aragorn or Faramir luster who decides to act on their impulses.
- Companion Cube: Toey the toe ring, BreadLegs, RollFeet
- Completely Off-Topic Report: It happens when Lina's roommate mistakes Lina's list of random elven-sounding names for her "How To Conquer Middle-Earth" essay and gets it delivered to Sauron. Fortunately, the Dark Lord mistook it for a kill list.
- Cool and Unusual Punishment: One punishment involved having to write lines in "Urple" ink, Urple being a colour described as a combination of pink and purple in the worst possible way. It's very hard to write when looking at the ink is painful. Or listening to Bombadil poetry for a whole day.
- Did Not Get the Girl:
- Averted with Gimli.
- Played straight with Legolas.
- Enemies List: Parodied. Lina is supposed to write a "How to Take Over Middle-Earth" essay for Sauron's class, but she accidentally hands in a list of make-up elven-sounding elvish names she was writing down with the -hopeless- purpose of wooing Legolas (long story). Fortunately, Sauron thinks it's a kill list -"evil in its simplest form"- and Lina passes.
- Evil Versus Evil: Morgoth vs. Sauron. They are always arguing and fighting about who is the best Dark Lord.
- Eviler than Thou: Morgoth vs Sauron
- Fangirl: Many of the girls at school, of course.
- Fate Worse than Death: In Middle-Earth, torture IS worse than death."I think Kenna is missing too," Fawkes replied. "She hasn't slept in her bed. I just hope she has been killed and not abducted."
Kat nodded. Death at OFUM meant spending time at the Halls of Mandos before being sent back (though getting a few lessons first, of course). Being alive could quite often mean a fate a great deal worse. - Fictional Colour: Urple
- Fisher Kingdom: Type 2. All of the attendants were human on Earth of course, but if you enter "elf" under "race" in your enrolment paper, you'll become an elf as long as you stay at OFUM.
- Good Is Not Nice: Elrond assigns a crap-load of homework, and is prone to temper-tantrums when someone gets their facts wrong.
- Love Makes You Evil: All of the Legolas fangirls are willing to stab each other.
- Most Fanfic Writers Are Girls: But you knew that already.
- Odd Friendship: At the beginning of the second year, Thranduil and Denethor have bonded over being portrayed as abusive parents by bad writers.
- Parental Sexuality Squick: Legolas doesn't want to hear about his parents' romantic escapades."Is it any wonder we get written as bunnies, doing everyone at every opportunity?" Legolas said darkly. To his amazement, his father only smiled.
"Alas, they do not realise that since we do not arrange marriages among Elves and marry only when we are most certain it is love, we like to enjoy the rewards of such a strong love. Your mother and I have enjoyed..."
This time, Legolas put his own hands over his ears and blocked the rest of the sentence out. Some things were the same, be you Elf, Human or Balrog. There were mental images concerning your parents that just weren't right. - The Prankster: Merry and Pippin, the Urple Bandits.
- Rhymes on a Dime: Lina, after eating cursed Valinor Vegetable Soup.
- Rouge Angles of Satin: A Running Gag. There are many mini-balrogs in the OFUM, named Grimli, Gimly, Aragon, Bromir, Borimir, Marry, Gandolf, Gandlaf, Bormor, Pippi... apparently they spring to existence when someone spells a Middle-earth's character wrong, or so. It's a convention adopted by a very similar series.
- Sadist Teacher: Morgoth and Sauron, unsurprisingly. Also Elrond.
- Spin-Off: OFUs now exist in Redwall, D'ni, The Hidden Leaf village, and several other multiverses.
- Take That!: Aimed at Microsoft and Yahoo in Chapter 14.
- Tempting Fate: Lina has a day where most things go wrong, spends it resisting the urge to ask "What else can go wrong?" because she knows if she does something else will, until one thing too many does and she lets it slip. She then cries out she didn't mean it...to no avail.
- Trapped in Another World: To Middle-earth, of course.
- Yaoi Fangirl: Many of them, but they'll be very disappointed.
- Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe: Parodied. During Grammar Booth Camp, Dwimordene teaches Elizabethan English to the students while reminding them it is their fault that they are doing this. She would much rather teach them to speak and write modern English properly, but since they insist on using older forms of English that Tolkien didn't even use...Dwimordene: "If you can't use older forms of English properly, stick to contemporary English forms—Tolkien used those, too, you know. [...] You know, we wouldn't even be working on this but for you lot. Who talks like this, anyway? Aragorn, maybe twice in the entire trilogy. The Mouth of Sauron, once Eowyn, once. Not many characters use older forms of English, and they barely use them at that. I'd much rather discuss the common, erroneous substitution of the contraction, "it's," for the possessive, "its." A far more basic mistake, yet the egregious misuse of older English is so blatant that it causes headaches."
