N.B.- No profit is being made, this is the introduction chapter so it isn't Middle Earth yet and I in no way hold Jane's views on fan fiction! I am also very fickle when it comes to finishing my fan fiction stories and so I shall endeavor to finish this one! Reviews are always good, I like constructive criticism.

Plain Jane

London, The U.K, present time

Jane was feeling listless and restless and blamed this for the reason why she started reading fan fiction. The real reason, of course, was that she had run out of romance "novels". It was like an addiction really. She could spend hours and hours reading badly written stories where punctuation, grammar and plot were of no importance but innuendo and unrealistic love scenes were adored. As someone who had studied English literature at University she felt ashamed of her dirty habit, her sick need for a happily ever after story. This was clearly not real life and sugary simpering and two-dimensional men who could wield a sword and recite a poem (but not at the same time) did not exist and if they did, were probably psychopaths.

And still, she read.

Occasionally she weaned herself off by re-reading the classics and losing herself in the Brontes' world, where romance was a bit more brutal and less saccharine and the heroines were more complicated, interesting and less pathetic. The literary illusions made her think, the social commentary broadened her horizons, the witty dialogue made her laugh and she felt happy. It never lasted long, though. However much she wanted to stay away, the withdrawal symptoms became too much to bear. First she tried methadone – romantic films, or even Disney films about fairy tale princesses finding "true love" and she felt her IQ slowly dwindling.

And then one day, she stopped reading it. Maybe it was because her internet was cut off, or she was too busy with work, with life, had a real love life to lose herself in. Or maybe it was because she had grown up just a little bit, having realised that sensibility, the over theatricality of LOVE, was ridiculous, was just a facade and she opted for sense.

It was in her past now, she decided, where it shall stay forever. However, sometimes pasts have an irritating way of catching up with you.

It was a cold brisk April day and Jane was splashing through puddles on the way to her office on the high street, aware she was late but not too bothered. Her boss was too busy to notice that she was half an hour late, this week he and the other partners were in such a panic when pornography had been found on the office computers, and some of it contained bestiality, which had been leaked to the tabloids. Jane's boss, a thin, reedy man with a sickly look, called Clive, had spent the whole week doing various PR things and completely ignored Jane, which suited her just fine as she spent most of her time in the office learning French on her computer. Being a recent graduate was rubbish, as decent jobs were hard to come by and so Jane was working as a PA, which surprisingly, was not very taxing.

When she arrived at the office, the sky was cloudy and she was thinking that this would be an ordinary day full of a whole lot of nothing. She switched her computer on, responded to a few emails, made Clive a coffee, answered the phone, ordered more toner, felt terrifically bored and decided to read some fan fiction. She hadn't read any in months now but she had nothing better to do and no one was about, so why not? Ten minutes later, she was completely absorbed in a story about a stupid girl who had lost herself in Middle Earth and was annoying Boromir with her selfish 

and 21st century ways (typically, she thought, he would fall in love with her in the next chapter, which she found oddly satisfying), when Clive cleared his throat behind her.

She jumped and swivelled round. "Mon Dieu, Clive! What are you doing, creeping up on me, like that?" she cried. Clive, whose complexion was pale and watery, like a fish, stared at her for a second.

"I do apologise, Jane," he breathed. Jane shuddered, forgetting how eerie his voice was. "You may have noticed that our company is in a lot of trouble, what with the scandal and everything..."He grimaced as if remembering the whole horrible ordeal again. "At any rate, we thoroughly checked all the computers and those kinds of sites can never be accessed again."

"Good!" said Jane, "That kind of thing is really rather disgusting. And the sooner they find out who downloaded it all, the better."

"Yes..." said Clive, as if distracted. Jane peered up at him, confused. Why was he not going back to his office, she wondered. "It's just, our reputation is very important to us."

"Yes, I know," said Jane.

"And we checked all the computers, thoroughly," he continued.

"Yes, you said."

"And you spend, on average, thirty hours a week on a rather odd site called something like, fabfiction? I'm not sure, but it's not on, Jane."

Jane started, like a tequila sunrise, to turn colour and felt like she was emitting heat like a radiator.

"I come here to confront you about it and find you on the site again! I find myself questioning if you ever do any real work for this company at all?"

Jane felt this was a somewhat rhetorical question, as there never was very much work for her to do at all. Still, it was very bad for her that her employer had discovered this fact.

"And what's not bothering so much is that you are clearing wasting company time by being idle, wasting our resources, our time, our money...no it's NOT that," he insisted, fervently and angrily.

"If the tabloids find out that our employees not only use our working time to download sexual images of goats, but to read poorly punctuated stories about dragons and magic, then I fear we will have no clients ever again!"

Jane was horrified and shocked and utterly, utterly embarrassed, humiliated even.

"This will never happen again, you hear? Since this is your first warning, I shall let you get away with it, because I am such a nice person." Clive told her. Clive was not a nice person, though and Jane suspected if she didn't play this well, she may just be the scapegoat for all the company's problems. She nodded mutely, feeling wretched. Satisfied, he turned round and started walking towards his office. "They're not even good stories," he muttered to himself, "I don't understand it."

"They ARE good!" defended Jane, before she could stop herself. Clive turned around, his watery eyes angry and strode towards her desk where he leant into her, breathing all over her horrified and disgusted face.

"You are fired Jane Thomas! "

Two hours later, Jane sat at a bus shelter, in the rain and wind, her hair being whipped about her face like angry rat's tails and holding a soggy cardboard box with a stapler, a half-dead cactus and a few bits of paper in it. It was cold, it was wet and Jane was twenty-two years old and unemployed and it was all fan fiction's fault. And Clive's fault and the stupid, sick person who had downloaded pornography onto his computer at work and got her blamed for it.

She sniffed. Her lower lip wobbled. She drew her head up high and tried to ignore the looks of pity from the other people standing at the bus shelter, noting that the most pitying look was from a man who appeared to be homeless!

Even the homeless were happier than her. This was not a good day. Bloody, sodding fan fiction! It was only because of her sad, pathetic addiction to something so embarrassing that she had been fired. She wondered if Clive had planned it all along, the conniving weasel. She hated them and she was going to do something about it, she didn't want to be known as a pervert! It wasn't her that downloaded the pornography! But of course, she noted bitterly, no one would believe that someone who was twenty-two would read fan fiction and that was the real reason that she'd been sacked. Bastards, the whole lot of them. She vowed never to read fan fiction again! She had recognised she had an addiction, hit rock bottom and lo and behold! She was going to do something about it.

So she sat on the bus with the box on her knees, gazing out the window, planning to apply to another PA job tomorrow. As the rain trickled down the glass, she wondered why she was wasting herself working as a PA in companies that were going nowhere. She was smart! She should be able to do something better, shouldn't she? Why wasn't she doing something with her life! Bloody fan fiction!

As she arrived in her apartment, cursing with anger at being wet, at being jobless, at being humiliated, she promised herself she would never ever read fan fiction again! She HATED fan fiction!

"I HATE BLOODY FAN FICTION!" She yelled.

Big mistake, Jane Thomas, bloody big mistake.

What's going to happen next time? What will fan fiction do to Jane Thomas for her blasphemy?