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lavender-lotion · 3 years

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Fanfic Writer Asks

I was tagged by @asarcasticwitch - thank you so much!

1) How many works do you have on AO3?

737, which is an ugly number :(

2) What’s your total AO3 word count?

1,890,054 words, which ... AH I might actually get to 2mil by the end of the year!

3) How many fandoms have you written for, and what are they?

thank you, ao3 dashboard for this handy list:

Teen Wolf (TV) (377)

X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies) (187)

Marvel Cinematic Universe (93)

Glee (29)

Young Justice (Cartoon) (11)

Kingsman (Movies) (9)

Original Work (9)

The Avengers (Marvel Movies) (8)

Criminal Minds (US TV) (7)

Thor (Movies) (6)

Deadpool (Movieverse) (5)

Weird City (TV) (5)

X-Men (Original Timeline Movies) (4)

Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga) (4)

Ragnarok (TV 2020) (4)

Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies) (3)

Teen Wolf (TV) RPF (3)

Iron Man (Movies) (3)

The House in the Cerulean Sea - T. J. Klune (2)

Venom (Marvel Movies) (1)

Stranger Things (TV 2016) (1)

Captain America (Movies) (1)

Fate: The Winx Saga (TV) (1)

Power Rangers Ninja Storm (1)

X-Men - All Media Types (1)

Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan (1)

Riverdale (TV 2017) (1)

X-Men Evolution (1)

Push (2009) (1)

4) What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

With You, I Belong

Mates and Marriage Proposals

The Perceptions of You and I

(baby) maybe that matters more

Breathing You In

5) What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

ughh so, fair warning, I have a lot of works. I definitely do not remember all of them, however I do have four works tagged as Unhappy Ending and then another nine works tagged Ambiguous/Open Ending, which is way more than I’d thought I had!

however, there is one fic that stands out in mind when I think about which of my works has the angstiest ending! Heed the tags :)

And Now?

Stiles Stilinski finds out who his soul mates are by setting one on fire.

6) What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

ughhhhhhhh I truly do not know???

7) Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the craziest one you’ve written?

I don’t write many crossovers at all! I have some mcu/teen wolf cross overs, I have a teen wolf/glee cross over plotted (that i’ll probably never write), but my strangest is probably this teen wolf/x-men cross over!

what-ifs (don’t fuckin’ matter to no one)

Teen And Up Audiences | No Archive Warnings Apply | M/M | X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)Teen Wolf (TV) | Logan (X-Men)/Sheriff Stilinski | Logan (X-Men), Sheriff Stilinski, Stiles Stilinski | Memory Loss, Telepathy, Mentions of War, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Child Neglect, Grief/Mourning, Telepath Stiles Stilinski, Telekinetic Stiles Stilinski, Nightmares, Cuddling & Snuggling

There’s somethin’ there. Somethin’ that has him sleeping curled up on his side with a pillow tucked to his chest, somethin’ that has him splittin’ up his food ‘fore he eats ‘cause he don’t need as much as a baseline. Has him turnin’ to tell someone shit that ain’t there. There’s just...there’s just somethin’ there that’s missin’ and it shouldn’t be missin’.

8) Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

sometimes! I don’t write a lot of smut because I actively dislike writing it, but the smut I do write is super super soft and sappy and full of emotions lol

9) Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I respond to almost all of my comments! comments i won’t respond to: negative comments, unsolicited criticism, comments that aren’t relevant to the fic itself, comments simply asking for more

I love love love responding to comments! I love every single comment that I get and I want to show how much I appreciate getting them, and personally I think responding to comments is the only way to do that! everyone has different comment philosophies, but for me, if someone is taking the time to comment on my fic like I so badly want them to, I think it’s important to respond to show my appreciation!

10) Have you ever received hate on a fic?

aha YEAH I DO. this past weekend I actually got a number of shitty comments and had to file two ao3 abuse reports for harrasment (: I love it

I am no stranger to hate comments. I write copious amounts of age difference fic. I write copious amounts of incest. I am not going to apologize nor am I going to feel bad for enjoying either.

11) Have you ever had a fic stolen?

ughhh I sure as heck hope not!

12) Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes! I have a number of them :) I always always do my best to make sure it’s linked to the original fic, AND that I add a tag noting that there’s a translation!

13) Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I have made a few attempts! the only successful attempt is there's nothing i wouldn't do to make you feel my love which is a collaboration with @flightinflame, not quite a co-write!

14) What’s your all-time favorite ship?

I am unable to answer this lol I don’t have an all-time favourite. mutli-shipping forever.

15) What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

god okay this is such a good question! imma ramble about a few so bear with me here! (i may have 700 posted works but I also have a few hundreds wips & ideas floating around in my gdrive, too)

gone & past - this is a starrish wip i’d started in 2017. I ended up deleting it from ao3 to rewrite it and never got there, but I have about 20k of content! I built my home, inside of you - thorki human au with college jock thor and high school dancer loki. i’ve got a start and nothing else Sheriff Stilinski Gets Some Sweet Sweet Lovin’ - massive wip where... well, the sheriff fucks his way through the entire pack. I want to write it but. trans allison au - this is an au where allison is trans and that changes the entire season 1 canon. it features stallison, petopher, and a looooooong ass outline that will never exist beyond my wips You Fill My Heart (With Such a Gentle Love) - this is a stetopher a/b/o au with pregnant omega stiles and alpha pair petopher falling in love. it started as a labour of love to someone I no longer have in my life. I have about 30k, a full outline, but idk. makes me sad to think about it they slipped briskly into an intimacy from which they never recovered - this is my big x-men first class rewrite that I honestly don’t think i’ll ever finish. I have a few thousand words, a full outline, but no love lost for cherik so. doubtful Physiotherapy (I'll Be Your Baby) - this was a fic I was SO excited about, and then it kinda flopped and stayed a wip because I didn’t have a plan or the motivation to finish it. it’s a winterspider human au with amputee bucky and science twink peter that I adore the premise of but who knows breathing you in chapter 2 - I have a massive second chapter planned for this fic but the first did so good so fast I am way too intimidated to write more in case everyone hates it lmao

there are more arjgoirjeg there are so many more but these are the bigger ones I can think of right now!

16) What are your writing strengths?

ughhhhh I hate answering this because I have, like, seriously bad imposter syndrome around my writing BUT I do think i’m able to weave poignant backstory into narration & i write strong, distinctive narrative voices!

17) What are your writing weaknesses?

literally I can’t write settings at all. I don’t know how people vividly describe settings but I absolutely cannot do that and it’s one of the reasons I haven’t delved into original fiction. I need to write the town my characters live in?? fuck that imma just use a location we’ve seen on screen & let readers fill in the blanks lmao

I am also shit at long fic. I don’t have the mind for long and interesting plots, and I don’t have the focus to write long fic (which is why every long fic i’ve ever posted has taken me literal years to complete smh).

18) What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I like it! both as a reader and as a writer. as a writer, I generally only use a few words, or small sentences that can be understood by context, and I generally don’t

19) What was the first fandom you wrote for?

the last thing I wrote and posted was this one:

Languish

It was a really, really hot Saturday, and most of the school was outback, enjoying the sun, not caring about the heat, and having the time of their life.

Everyone but Bobby, of course, who was melting away.

“I just want to remind everyone that I make ice. I am the Ice Man. I am not built for the heat and soon enough I’m going to melt away into nothing.”

20) What’s your favourite fic you’ve written?

this is another impossible question! I have a few I really enjoy, but I really don’t think I have a favourite that stands out above the rest!

i’m tagging: @4magicandmayhem @insertmeaningfulusername @midrashic @wynnefic @ikeracity @stronglyobsessed @elledelajoie @wolfnprey & anyone else who sees it and wants to do it! seriously! go ahead :)

blank questions below the read more!

1) How many works do you have on AO3?

2) What’s your total AO3 word count?

3) How many fandoms have you written for, and what are they?

4) What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

5) What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

6) What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

7) Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the craziest one you’ve written?

8) Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

9) Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

10) Have you ever received hate on a fic?

11) Have you ever had a fic stolen?

12) Have you ever had a fic translated?

13) Have you ever co-written a fic before?

14) What’s your all-time favorite ship?

15) What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

16) What are your writing strengths?

17) What are your writing weaknesses?

18) What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

19) What was the first fandom you wrote for?

20) What’s your favourite fic you’ve written?

#lavenderlotion #my writing #writing tag #writing meme

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ramblings-of-a-mad-cat · 3 years

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A hphm character tier list please!! Bonus point if added reasoning/ explanation!

Have a great day :3

I doubt there are any placements on this list that would truly surprise anyone, but let's go through the different rankings. I didn't name them, by the way. Those were the categories that were already offered. I could have renamed or recolored them I suppose, but I didn't wind up doing so. Let's go in ascending order.

"Avada Kedavra." Self explanatory. Three of these characters are absolutely evil and irredeemable pieces of trash. And then there's Lockhart. He's just here because he pisses me off. Granted, so does Rita Skeeter, but she doesn't ruin an entire dating quest. At least when she shows up, it's because it's a quest about her. Fenrir Greyback purposefully infects children and describes them as "delicious" so...yeah. I'd put him even lower if I could. Albus Dumbledore's placement is also not a surprise if you know me. I hate him with all of my hate. Patricia Rakepick is also here and I doubt I need to explain why.

"Send to Azkaban." They don't bother me as much as "Avada Kedavra" but I am still not a fan. The Volde-clown Boggart is personally annoying in presentation but also as a plot device. For Peeves, there is the Prank storyline of Year 5. Enough said. The Weird Sisters creep me out, Filch and Mundugus are generally annoying, I discussed Rita, and the Dementor literally calls Azkaban home. That leaves Wormtail. I don't passionately hate him but he's not exactly a good person either.

"Kinda Sus" This is where I placed all of the characters who I, for whatever reason, do not trust or otherwise find shady, the ones who give me a bad feeling. This doesn't have to be plot related either, for cases like Ethan Parkin or Madam Hooch, it might just mean that their behavior is sometimes questionable. Of course, this is also something of a joke, like putting the Red Cloak on the list. For someone like Moody, it's more obvious - everyone knows I don't trust him. Characters like Bilton and Madam Villanelle are technically on our side, but they could be spies. If a character is a known villain, but their agenda and the depth of their evil is unclear, like The Dark Witch and the White-Robed Wizard, they also go here. Jacob and MC being placed here is somewhat of a joke, but it's also somewhat meta. Jacob is like Moody, his intentions are still unclear to me. And the game keeps teasing the idea that MC may fall to the Dark Side.

"Do you even go here?" Wow, do you ever stop to notice how many characters HPHM actually has? And this tier list included all of them, even the ones I would never have thought of. I literally just used this category to place all of the characters who do not technically attend Hogwarts school, though in a few of those cases like Aurelie, it definitely came off as more amusing. Additionally, I used this ranking for all of the characters who could be considered forgettable. Either by the fandom or the game itself, such as the prefects and poor Elora Dunn. Look, if the tier list has to actually list their name in the picture so that I can remember who they are, maybe they don't need to make the list, that's all I'm saying.

"Don't care." Mostly interchangeable with "Do you even go here." Again, the cast is so huge, that I'm not going to go through every character that I placed here. These past two rankings can mostly act as a summation for the majority of the characters for whom I don't particularly like or dislike. Emily Tyler hasn't returned or been developed as an antagonist in a while, so I don't care. Trelawney giving another prophecy is boring and conflicts with canon, so I don't care. Cedric Diggory is one of the most in-your-face examples of fanservice I've ever seen, so I don't care. But again, not all of these are negative. I think the Red Cap is funny, even if his storyline is brief. I love seeing Dobby, Arthur and Molly. I always love seeing them. I could go on.

"Ok." For the characters who, when I look at them, my immediate reaction is a generally positive one. I could probably get interested in a fanwork about these guys. For many of them, there is great potential to be explored but it just hasn't happened very much. Diego would not have been this high a year ago, but he's been fleshed out. Characters like Andre, Duncan, and Tonks...whenever they're in the spotlight and get genuine development, I'm interested. It just happens so rarely. The same goes for the Weasley boys, for Badeea. Other characters go here because I personally like them, even if they aren't that relevant. People like Aberforth and Percy. But two people can wind up here despite being very different and my having completely separate feelings about both of them, like Alanza and Ben.

"Like." Everyone that I would probably write a fanwork about someday, if I could actually motivate myself to finish my current WIP. Talbott, Chiara, and Jae are genuinely interesting and compelling. They might not make my top five, but they would make my top ten. I will always love Flitwick and what HPHM has done for him, I don't even care. Keep in mind, this doesn't mean I condone everything that the character has done...Ismelda has a lot to answer for, but it doesn't mean she's not interesting. And Penny can be very interesting too, but usually only when she's put under intense stress. As heartless as it is to say. You may also be surprised to see Myrtle here, but similar to Flitwick, I just love what this game did with her. Some of these could rise or drop a ranking pretty easily too. Like in hindsight, maybe I should have switched Duncan and Myrtle. It's not a big deal either way, I guess.

"Must be protected at all costs." Self explanatory. For the most part, these are all my favorite characters in the game, and the ones who I would lay down on railroad tracks for. Another character who climbed higher over time is Skye. If it wasn't for how much people message me about her, I may not have gotten quite as invested. My love for Orion is well documented, Rowan is the reason I started playing this game, Beatrice was the breakout character of Year 6, and Tulip x Merula is my OTP for this game. I could gush about any one of these kids for six paragraphs but the bottom line is that they are my favorite characters. It is at this point that we have entered "top five" territory.

"GOD TIER ~ ALWAYS" Characters who reign supreme and are factually flawless. It's not surprising to see characters like Dennis and Fang up here because critters are, generally speaking, leagues above humans simply by default. We can also see her majesty Queen Bean ruling from the sky, guarded by her champion, the arbiter known as Erika Rath. You are entitled to your wrong opinion if you fail to see the divinity of these characters.

#Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery

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flightfoot · 4 years

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What's your favorite Rick Riordan series between Percy Jackson, The Kane Chronicles, Heroes of Olympus, Magnus Chase and Trials of Apollo? (or like, if you can't choose, what do you like about the series you've read?)

Trials of Apollo, no contest.

I liked Percy Jackson a lot, it was VERY well done. Percy was hilarious and relatable, but also just super awesome, his dynamic with Annabeth was fun to read, along with his dynamic with Grover, the quests had a lot of entertaining encounters, and it had some well-executed themes that tied in with the overall conflict nicely, mostly about how parents’ and adults’ negligence and even abuse can harm their kids, the overall effects of that, and just... generally trying to get the parents to shape up, as well as the effects of not respecting others in general, like with how the minor gods and by extension, their children, are treated by the Olympians. It comes up with Percy’s relationships with both Gabe and Poseidon, and most of the campers’ relationships with their godly parents, and that’s a MAJOR cause behind the entire conflict, and one of the major things that Percy tries to make better at the end of the last book.

Kane Chronicles... it’s been awhile since I read it. I don’t remember it having as prevalent a theme as Percy Jackson did, though there was definitely social commentary on racism, with how Carter was sometimes treated, and with how people had trouble comprehending that Carter and Sadie were full siblings, since while both are mixed, Carter’s pretty dark-skinned, while Sadie looks White. It was more of a background thing though, not a major plot point. I liked the characters and the plot fine, they were entertaining, and it was good overall - but it’s not a series I’ve felt a pressing need to reread either. Only real complaint I have about it is the romances centering around Sadie. Her and Anubis were kinda cute, but it would’ve been a lot cuter if she was older than 12-13, and he wasn’t a 4000-year-old god who looked, acted, and was treated as a 16-year-old. And then the whole thing with making it a love triangle with Walt who’s ALSO 16 and Rick’s method of “solving” the love triangle... look honestly I just would’ve been a lot more ok with the romantic shenanigans there if Sadie wasn’t a middle-schooler throughout it. Overall still good though, I’d be down for an adaptation of it, but it’s one of the few cases where I hope something IS flat-out changed to make the romances more palatable.

Heroes of Olympus is where I originally fell off of the Riordanverse. There was just so long between books and I could barely remember what happened between them, and with most of the books being like parts of the same quest (especially books 3, 4, and 5), unless you were constantly refreshing your memory of them via fandom, they were hard to follow, especially with several main characters and different character dynamics to keep track of. When I went back and read the whole set of them though, getting back into the series, it was WAY better, since I could read them as a coherent whole. I could tell he was struggling to juggle all the characters, but I thought he did a fairly decent job of it for what it was. I ended up liking all the characters - ESPECIALLY Leo, I thought he was great and relatable and funny, but I also wanted to hug him - and while the quest could drag on a bit at times, there were some interesting parts there. And Percy and Annabeth’s journey through Tartarus was GREAT.

The themes for Heroes Of Olympus overall were pretty much the same as with Percy Jackson, but with less emphasis I think. It was mostly just “the gods (mostly Zeus, really) are being crappy again, but this time we have enough support among ourselves to manage, except for when a god is technically required to defeat a Giant”. A lot more emphasis was placed on individual character arcs and circumstances, which I think was a good choice, since with so many main characters, they needed more concentrated character development in order to put them up to par with Percy and Annabeth. Plus it allowed Rick to still go into some different themes a bit, like racism with Hazel, trauma with Leo, insecurity with Frank, etc, in a way that felt natural and relevant. It helped that they were broken up into different books for their introductions, so not everything was dumped in at once.

The ending of Heroes of Olmypus... yeah the final battle with the GIants was lame as all hell, and honestly the quest ended up feeling a bit like busywork, but screw it, I did LOVE one part of the ending. The imagery of big, bad Gaia, who even Zeus is so scared of he just wants to hide away with his head in the ground, physically manifesting and being about to take everyone out, everyone losing hope... and then screaming as Festus appears and snatches her up into the sky as Leo gives a shit-eating grin and hurls fireballs at her while insulting her the whole time is just GREAT. I always giggle, and I honestly found it a lot more memorable than the Kronos fight, even if it was technically less epic. It seemed fitting for her to be taken out in such an embarrassing way, by the boy she’d personally taken the most from.

Magnus Chase... yeah that’s the only one I didn’t finish. Quick note: its been over a year since I tried it, so I’m operating off of memory here. I wanted to like it, and after reading through Heroes of Olympus (which i originally stopped reading after Mark of Athena) and Trials of Apollo, I was all hyped up for more Riordanverse... and was disappointed. The basic elements were there, and the writing itself wasn’t bad, but... well, I never really got attached to most of the characters this time, I didn’t find the quest very interesting, and... well, you see how I mentioned about the themes in the earlier reviews? I thought Rick bit off more than he could chew with Magnus Chase, at least with the first book. (I slogged through the first book, got a hundred pages into the second book to see whether Alex, who I’d heard a lot of hype about, could save it, thought Alex was only ok but not someone who saved the book, and called it quits).

So in Magnus Chase, Rick went DEEP into the social commentary on a lot of disparate subjects, trying to really tackle homelessness, child abuse (because no duh, that’s pretty much a staple, I think the only of his series that DOESN’T have major themes around that is Kane Chronicles), Islamophobia, ableism, and... I’m having trouble thinking of the exact term for it, but Blitzen was heavily looked down upon and derided for wanting to make fashionable armor and just being into fashion in general, so... I think it’s supposed to commentary on making fun of people for having interests that are generally seen as feminine? I guess? I dunno, it was definitely social commentary on SOMETHING, but I think the dwarves having their own particular culture here hurt whatever Rick was trying to say, since social commentary is very much tied to the culture it’s in, and we only have a small taste of dwarven culture, at least in the first book.

In any case, all these things are fine to do social commentary on, but when you’re trying to go in-depth and really address them, it helps if they’re more tied in with the overall conflict in the book, and if each issue has room to breathe. As it was, it kinda felt to me like the characters were being paraded from location to location to confront some different social issue. I just thought it was too much, too crammed into one book, and the overall conflict had pretty much nothing to do with that. Like, at the end of the book Rick tried to tie it together with some sort of “we’re a band of misfits” message, and... well, a message based on NOT fitting in with society, isn’t one that’s very satisfying or cohesive. And the individual issues, while there’s certainly cross-sectionality between, aren’t intrinsically linked, so... they just don’t mesh together very well. Not so many, all mashed into one book. Plus I just didn’t care for any of the gods, and the only characters I liked were Magnus and Sam. Blitz and Hearthstone... they were just sort of “there” for me.

I can see why people like Magnus Chase, and it’s not BAD by any means, but it just wasn’t for me. Maybe I’ll take another crack at it at some point, but I’m not super optimistic about it. As it was, I just ended up looking up the parts where Magnus met with Annabeth and read those.

Trials of Apollo though, I ADORE. Apollo was hilarious (along with the books in general), it had a pretty focused message about child abuse and abuse in general, along with how a privileged position can blind you from the travesties that are going on around you, or that you yourself cause, and I just thought the themes worked very well. Rick went more in-depth this time on the exact consequences of child abuse and the ways that a parent could abuse and manipulate their child, something that wasn’t covered as much in his earlier series, as those were more based around neglect. I’m a sucker for a good redemption arc, and I was really impressed with how it was kinda slipped in with Apollo. Like, he didn’t even know he NEEDED one, and the good guys weren’t especially pressing him on that point, it’s a realization he slowly came to over the course of several books. And you can clearly tell that he’s conceited and has issues, but isn’t actually malicious... and slowly the reader comes to the realization that he has hidden depths, that not even HE knew he had. It’s really interesting how he did some pretty bad things (or DIDN’T do, a lot of it has to do with inaction and just being uncaring), but he never comes off as being like, evil. He comes off as being an arrogant, narcissistic person at first, but then slowly finding out that beneath that is a lot of pain and trauma, and part of that persona he’s built up has been to deal with this. Watching him slowly change and grow and discover himself during the series, in a way he never had before... it’s just amazing to read. Also puts a nice cap on the Greco-Roman saga, in that the past two series had a heavy emphasis on how the gods didn’t care enough and had to have their hands forced a lot, and Apollo sort of acting as a stand-in for those other gods, showing that yes, they CAN change for the better - something that most of the gods, and even other immortals, didn’t think was possible, even as they did it.

Well that was super long. But yeah, I have strong feelings on the Riordanverse, and Trials of Apollo is far and away my favorite.

#ask #long post #percy jackson #heroes of olympus #kane chronicles #trials of apollo

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ploppythespaceship · 4 years

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So I watched the Artemis Fowl movie...

Usually I make a list of good things and bad things in my reviews, but in this I literally do not have one good thing to say. Artemis Fowl fails as an adaptation, and it fails as a movie. It’s almost incomprehensible how terrible this film is -- Percy Jackson looks competent by comparison. So instead of my list, I’m gonna just talk about why it sucked.

The Plot

The movie combines the plots of the first two books in the series, with a few elements from later books tossed in for good measure. In the first book, Artemis learns of the existence of fairies and takes one hostage -- Captain Holly Short -- in order to extort them. In the second book, Artemis’s father has been captured, prompting Artemis to team up with Holly to rescue him.

The problem with combining these two is that they are fundamentally different stories. The latter relies greatly on the former to be well set up. Additionally, both are rather busy stories that need time and focus to do them well. The tension of Artemis holding Holly captive works because it lasts for a significant portion of the book. The development of Artemis teaming up with Holly works because they have hated each other for over a book now. This does not happen in the film. Everything is rushed, leading to a jumbled mess that barely makes any sense.

Artemis’s father is captured by Opal Koboi (a villain from the later books who does little to nothing in this film), who demands that Artemis give her something called the Aculos (a mcguffin that the movie made up). Artemis then captures Holly, and demands the Aculos as ransom. But when the fairies have no interest in giving him this ransom, Artemis teams up with Holly. Because it turns out her father, Beechwood, stole the Aculos years ago, and Artemis’s father knew Beechwood. The fairies send in a dwarf named Mulch to break in, and he locates the Aculos in the Fowl Manor. Mulch then teams up with Artemis, and there’s a long sequence where everyone fights a troll. Once that’s done, Holly uses the Aculos to rescue Artemis’s father. The end.

If you’re thinking that this plot makes no sense, that’s because it doesn’t. Information is presented at the strangest times, making things impossible to follow. Not to mention that character allegiances are constantly shifting for no discernible reason. There is no reason for Holly to trust Artemis, or vice versa -- yet they declare themselves “forever friends” before the end of the film. I can’t even tell you why Mulch sticks around, he just does.

The movie is also terribly paced. Despite only being ninety minutes long, it feels like it drags on for an eternity. Alternating between Artemis and Holly in the opening creates a distinct lack of tension, making it impossible to stay invested in any one thing for too long. Topping the whole thing off is the movie’s framing device -- the story is narrated by Mulch, as part of an interrogation that’s never properly explained. This setup feels so unnecessary, and it’s actually jarring every time we cut back to Mulch growling his exposition at the camera.

The Characters & Actors

I cannot think of one character that has not been butchered by the writing, the acting, or both. All of them are terrible. And across the board, the acting isn’t terribly good.

Artemis Fowl

The titular character gets it the worst of everyone. In the book, he’s a criminal mastermind. He’s cold, calculating, and eerie. He behaves so much like an adult that it unsettles people. He isn’t at all interested in typical child things, instead focusing on his own lofty goals. He’s an utter genius, learning the existence of fairies all on his own and coming up with the plan to capture one himself. Though he’s sympathetic in his own way, he’s also not presented as a terribly good person. As a protagonist, he’s almost unlikable -- it’s not until later books that he learns to have friends and become a better person.

But in the movie, Artemis is about as generic a fantasy film protagonist as you can get. He’s a more or less happy child who adores his father. He likes surfing and skateboarding. He doesn’t learn about fairies on his own -- his father tells him about them. And while he’s shown to be intelligent, it’s nowhere near the genius level he should be at. He’s so watered down and uninteresting that he’s unrecognizable as the same character. Even accepting that this isn’t the book character, he’s just boring to watch. There’s nothing interesting or compelling about this random kid. Ferdia Shaw’s performance doesn’t help -- while I’ve certainly seen worse child actors, I’ve also seen far, far better.

It’s worth mentioning that some of the best moments in the books are when something rattles Artemis so badly that the walls come down and he acts like a scared little kid. These moments work because they’re rare. This movie tosses them at you left and right. I don’t know who this kid is, but it ain’t Artemis Fowl.

Holly Short

In the books, Holly is an adult woman working an adult job -- she’s a police officer. She’s also described as having medium dark skin, with the phrases “olive” and “nut brown” being used most often. So the decision to cast a fourteen year old white actress... it boggles the mind. In fairness, Lara McDonnell did a decently good job in the role. But there wasn’t much role to do a good job with. Holly is a very bland character, with all of her drive and fire from the book simply gone. There’s also a backstory tossed in about her father, Beechwood Short, which is implemented in the strangest way and only comes up when it’s strictly relevant.

Domovoi Butler

Oh, Butler. Artemis’s bodyguard slash best friend slash pseudo father figure. A tremendously important character in the books who is barely in the movie at all. His role is so cut down that it’s absurd. I guess Nonso Anonzie was doing a fine job, but he was hardly there enough for me to tell. All indication that this man is a tremendously important figure in Artemis’s life is simply gone.

Edited to add: I didn’t initially think of anything wrong with Butler being a black man for the movie, but after seeing some complaints from others... yeah I think making a character from a family that’s been servants to a rich white family for generations now into a black man is uhhhhhhhhhh. It’s questionable.

Juliet Butler

Butler’s niece, Juliet, is in the movie so little that I kept forgetting she was there. Which is a damn shame, because I actually really liked Tamara Smart from The Worst Witch already and thought she was an excellent choice for Juliet. In the book, Juliet is the only other child around, and about the only kid that Artemis will remotely consider an equal. She’s great to balance him out and keep him more grounded. In the movie? Eh. She has a handful of lines.

Mulch Diggums

As far as being accurate to the book, Mulch is probably the closest. Though the decision to make a dwarf character not actually short boggles the mind... my main complaint is that Josh Gad likes to improvise his way through scenes, and his style of comedy is pretty grating. It gets old, fast. Throw in the fact that he’s also growling all of his lines to sound different, and you have a character that’s nearly unwatchable.

Julius Root

Speaking of growling all your lines! Commander Root is played by Dame Judi Dench in this movie, changing the character’s gender. I really don’t mind that, and the characterization is largely unchanged. What I do mind is Dench’s delivery. All of her lines are growled in such a low rumble that it sounds like she’s been smoking for eighty years. It becomes impossible to take anything she says or does seriously when she’s speaking like that. Josh Gad even pokes fun at it in a scene with the two of them, saying that they sound like “hippos with a throat infection” -- the only line to get a chuckle out of me.

Artemis Fowl, Sr.

To round it off, we have Colin Farrell as Artemis’s father. And... he’s here, I guess. Farrell mostly sounds bored in all of his scenes and it’s incredibly easy to forget about him.

Angeline Fowl

But wait! A fan of the book may ask. What about Artemis’s mother? How did the movie do her? Surely they didn’t forget Artemis’s mother! And my friends, I regret to inform you that the movie did, in fact, forget Artemis’s mother. She isn’t present, nor is she even mentioned. A major part of the books, a major force to drive Artemis’s character, just... gone. Lovely.

The Production Design

The best word I can think of is uninspired. Most things are serviceable, but unimpressive, leading to the film looking very generic. I was especially disappointed with the look of the fairy underground. A combination of magic and technology has a lot of potential to look visually interesting. Instead, the fairy police just look like the E.L.F.S. from The Santa Clause. And once you’ve seen it, you’ll never unsee it. So you’re welcome.

Additionally, the action scenes tend to be poorly shot and edited. Everything is extremely fast paced with a freely floating camera -- this makes things nearly impossible to follow. Several times I said out loud “what just happened?” because I legitimately could not tell where things were in relation to each other, and who was attacking, who was being attacked, etc. Thankfully there aren’t a lot of action scenes, but the few that do exist are pretty bad.

There are also several sequences of Mulch unhinging his jaw to burrow through the ground. In the book, it’s mildly amusing, but it doesn’t at all translate to film. It’s horrifying in every sense. The CG looks rubbery and fake, and Josh Gad’s performance doesn’t at all sell it. If there were any change from the books I would actually welcome, it’s this one. There are plenty of other ways he could dig. But nope. They stuck to that one. For some reason.

In Conclusion

This is easily the worst book to film adaptation I have ever seen. Please don’t watch it unless you’re a fan of the book and want a laugh.

#personal #reviews #artemis fowl #artemis fowl series #artemis fowl movie

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boogiewrites · 6 years

Text

Mae Flowers Ch. 2

Characters: Alfie Solomons x Mae LeBlanc (OFC)

Word Count: 6600+

Summary: A modern, magical Alfie Solomons AU. After a soul awakening of her own, Mae LeBlanc, a natural born witch, as well as a sensitive and kind woman from New Orleans soul finally starts to bloom and calls out to Alfie’s, unbeknownst to her. Not believing in supernatural powers, she finds herself thrown into a new existence that is full of things she never thought possible, including magical powers of her own. Alfie takes her under his wing to teach her about her powers. As she grows and learns, so does he. They navigate her lessons together, come to terms with how lonely their lives have been without the other and face these very human emotions together. With a newfound friendship formed out of necessity, will the idea of a soul mate translate from a mere magical meaning to a romantic one?

Warnings/Tags: Language. Spooky Imagery. Mentions of violence, poor self image. Magic/Supernatural. Soul mates. Lots of environmental descriptors but bare with me.

Positive feedback is MUCH appreciated! Reblogs, likes, asks and comments feed me to write more! Let me know if you’d like tagged in my work.

Click on my screenname then go to Mobile Masterlist in my bio for my other works and chapters. (Had to do this since Tumblr killed links, sorry.)

Alfie drives over to the Westbank into the residential parts of town. Old and new houses, apartment complexes and shotgun homes. He follows the GPS to Mae's house and it looks how he thought it might.

A small colorful front, with a tall wooden fence around the sides and backyard. The door was a deep teal set against a faded yellow exterior. An awning over the front door, with a small porch, a stoop that was painted and worn. Flower pots of all sizes and in the color of gemstones and varied conditions sat on the stairs and around it. Wildflower boxes sat underneath windows with shutters of the same teal color as the door and fencing. It was quaint, comfortable and colorful just like she was, he thought it suited her well. He pulls into the small driveway, in the residential area with houses that look much the same as hers. It homed older houses with older owners that had fallen into a less than pristine condition, newer family homes with landscaped front lawns. But Mae's had a small patch of grass, closer to the road as he suspected the backyard would be where most of the bulk of the grass would be for a garden.

He carries Mae into her house, unlocking her door with a nod of his head. Finding the interior to be as warm and comfortable as she felt in his arms. He walks directly into the far corner of the living room. The large bay window seen from the front of the house is bleeding bright light into the room from behind a large and plush couch. The room is decorated in deep jewel tones, a teal sectional sits against navy walls, with a collection of warmer color throw pillows in bohemian and southwestern styles. A shaggy faux fur blanket was thrown haphazardly over the extended lounge end of the couch. Large potted palms sit in the corners, succulents in tiny decorative pots on the window sills. They carried onto the mantle of the brick painted black fireplace that sat like a huge room divider, sitting in a huge square column in the center of the large space of the living room and kitchen. A flat-screen tv rests on the opposite wall of the couch above the fireplace. A driftwood coffee table containing a large fern in a bright yellow pot, books on plants and herbs stacked with various remotes and cat toys.

He places her gently on the extended section of the couch, careful to place her head on a pillow and make sure none of her limbs are twisted.

He hears and feels his darkness rev and purr and push around inside him. "Yeah I know, me too." he sighs.

-"Been waiting so long."- it moans. "So soft. So much life. She glows like the sun. The companion to our moon."- It starts reciting its own strange poetry for its mate it's waited millennia for. It hadn't been with its light since the dawn of time he assumes, as he knows his darkness is so old that time isn't even relevant to it for the most part.

He recalls the dark horrors of primordial ooze and black endless voids and abyss when it had come upon him. He was impressed it was behaving itself. For so long he'd had to fight so hard to control it, making him do evil, terrible things. Deeds so bad he'd exiled himself for years away from civilization. But in her presence it was calmed, it rippled like water, it was happy and he'd never known his darkness to feel happy about anything. Except when he was digging through the insides of innocents. He shakes the old thoughts from his head, still feeling guilty even almost a century later and trying to make amends ever since.

He traces his fingers over her face and whispers calming words to help ease her anxious nature he sensed. He stands and takes in the room. Her house is very quiet. He moves soundlessly around the fireplace and sees a quaint little kitchen. Driftwood light fixtures, colorfully painted window and door frames in the same jewel tones that carry throughout the house. The kitchen is white-walled, sunlight from a window over the sink pouring in against the far wall. But the majority of light came from the two patio doors that led to her garden. A closed-door sits off to the left next to an open archway that goes down into a sunroom. He looks over the open shelves on the kitchen walls and is very excited to find tins of various teas lining them. Old jars of pantry staples sit across the wooden countertops, some he'd say were from his time possibly, he wonders if she inherited them or if she simply had classic taste. He finds a small, dinky metal kettle and starts on making her some tea. He figured he needed something to calm her, finding her windowsill full of herbs he could easily use to make something to soothe her.

He senses something alive in the house, something besides the plants. He turns, seeing a large white long haired cat staring at him from a short hallway between two doorways to his right. It swishes its tail and they both narrow their eyes at each other.

"Who are you, lad?" Alfie asks as the cat continues to sit and stare at him. "You must be with Mae." he says with a nod, going back to searching through the cabinets. "Not much for talkin' to strangers, eh?" he chuckles. "Must mean there's a little more to ya than being a common house cat."

Percival lets out a noisy huff of air, taking offense to the term common house cat. He lets out a low growl at Alfie. He could sense his dark energy and he didn't trust him. Although why he had brought Mae home and was now making her tea was a bit confusing if he wished her ill.

"I'm not here to hurt your girl." Alfie says, still not looking back to him. "I'm here to help her. You know she has powers, yeah? I'm here to teach her how to use them. I have similar powers, although I'm not a witch like her." he shakes his head, his fingers digging into a small tea tin.

Percy knew he wasn't a witch, he didn't feel like a witch, didn't have the aura. He lets out a typical meow.

"You can say somefin' better 'an at mate." Alfie grins.

He lets out another meow of the same tone.

"Fine, fine. You're protective, I understand. She seems like a sweet, soft girl I can understand your concern." he remarks as he looks at him with a sympathetic expression.

Percy moves to jump up on the kitchen island to get a better look at this new person that'd come into their lives.

"'Ello." he says, leaning back against the counter while the kettle fills.

Percy says nothing and continues to sit and stare as he had been.

"I'm Alfie Solomons. You're probably sensing my darkness. But I've had it for a very, very long time, yeah? We're in control, we're not gonna hurt Mae." he states again. "We're here because of her lightness. She's our mate, right? We've been lookin' for her since me 'n this darkness got together. So the last fing I wanna do is cause her harm, 'right?"

Percy tilts his head, content for now with his explanation. But he wasn't so sure what Mae, who had no knowledge of anything of their world was going to think about this.

Mae's eyes blink open and then widen as she finds herself at her home, which is not where she remembered last being. She sits up slowly, her head feeling a bit swimmy but she's quickly aware of that strange feeling in her stomach acting up again. This time it felt different, it was what she imagined a jolt of electricity might feel like. A humming in her ears she hadn't heard before, a warm tingling in her limbs. She wonders if she has a concussion. Her attention is drawn towards the kitchen. She hears the clang of something metal and the sounds of someone clearing their throat. Her eyes are the size of saucers again.

"Oh, shit." she whispers, eyes darting around the room, hearing movement and now humming and in a distinctly male tone coming from the kitchen. She moves slowly, trying to be as quiet as possible, feeling that vibration inside her intensifying and she reads it as anxiety. She sees her shoes have been taken off as they rest by the couch, which makes her brow furrowed in question. She peeks around the corner of the fireplace, see's the same man from her dreams in the kitchen, now recalling the man walking into her shop. Then she recalls fainting and rubs her head where she's guessing she hit the ground as if it might give her some answers. Why was he in her dreams? Was she having prophetic dreams now? Great, that's just what a weirdo like her needed, more weirdness stacked on top of everything else strange about her. Was she being kidnapped? Why was she at home is she was being kidnapped? Is this a hostage situation perhaps? Holding her for ransom in her own home. She recalls reading about Stockholm syndrome and makes a quick pact with herself not to fall into that sort of mess in her manic rush of thoughts.

She eyes the large cast iron skillet on the counter in front of her, and if Saturday morning cartoons had taught her anything, is that when you needed to knock someone out, that's the way to go. So she grasps the grainy handle in both hands, holding it to her chest because of its heavy weight as she tries to sneak up on him. Little does she know he knew she was awake the moment her eyes popped open. But as is in his nature, he wants to learn about how she reacts to the unknown, taking this as a learning experience about her. He can sense she's scared and he understands that much. But her reaction with violence surprises him. Perhaps it was his darkness being near that made her so bold and go for that method first. Maybe it was trying to mingle with her to even her out, make her less passive and more reactive.

So as he hears her deep inhale as she's about the bring the pan across the back of his head, he turns and stops it, putting his hand over hers as she's about to swing on him.

"Fuckin' 'ell girl." he frowns down at her short frame.

Her bottom lip juts up, her brow going low in surprise for his hearing her and being so calm about her attempt at murdering him.

"I ain't here to hurt ya." he says with that thick accent she heard in her dreams. "If I was would I be makin' bloody tea and layin' ya down all nice and comfy while you'd passed out?" he asks, his gingery beard jutting towards her as he spoke to drive his point forward.

Her large hazel eyes blink rapidly, taking in the new information, still wild and large and full of questions he could sense. Her mouth opens and her lips twitch but no words come out. He had a point.

"Now let's put this down, eh?" he says, taking the large black pan and setting it on the counter behind her. "I know you got a lot of questions, yeah?" he nods, his lips pouted out as he moves closer to her. "I know you've been dreamin' 'bout me 'cause I've been dreamin' 'bout you." his voice dips lower, but not in a threatening way. "Do you think there might be a reason for that?" he tilts his head and their eyes connect fully for a few seconds, that flame inside her makes her take a sharp inhale. What was this feeling? He reached out with tentative hands, putting them on her shoulders to ground her, depart a bit of calm energy into her. She feels it immediately, not understanding the source. Her muscles loosen, her heart rate slows and it's like the best anxiety medication she's ever taken. "Let's just breathe... calm down..." he says nodding slowly and she mirrors the gesture without thinking much about it, their eyes still fixated together.

She gives a quick but still unsure nod.

"We don't want ya gettin' all excited and burnin' down the place now do we?" he says with a smile that tugs back the corner of his mouth. Her eyes go wide again and he feels that spark of fear come back. She recalls being angry a few weeks ago. The flames in the fireplace lapping out wildly for a moment, catching one of the plants on the rug on fire, the singed piece of rug still black despite her scrubbing it. "Yeah, I know all about that sweetie, come now." he says, putting a hand on her back, moving her towards the round kitchen table that sat in the space between the bar top and the sunroom. "Try some proper tea made by a real Englishmen and have a sit down with me, hmmm?" he suggests with a kind smile and a nod of his shaggy head.

She still doesn't speak but another series of quick nods as she places her hands flat on the table top and stares with those big enticing eyes as he moves about her kitchen. He pours the tea from the kettle in such a delicate way it takes her by surprise. He'd chosen her favorite mug somehow, an old one of Bessie's, textured like tree bark and cream, a funky green and orange mushroom on the side that she liked to run her fingers over as she drank. He sits next to her, pulling the chair closer to her, taking a sip and motioning with the steaming mug for her to do the same. She was taught not to take drinks from strangers but what is proper etiquette for a stranger, but not really a stranger, who brings you home after passing out then tells you secrets you've not told anyone else? Where was the after-school special on that when she was a kid?

"It ain't poison." he says with a chuckle into his mug. "See? I'm drinkin' it too. No worries, love." he says in a soothing even tone.

Once again she responds in a nod, taking the mug into her hands and taking a sip. It was nice, she had to give him that.

"Best start with the basics, yeah?" he says with a quirked brow, taking a deep breath and setting the mug back own. "My name is Alfie Solomons," he says with an authoritative tone. "I've been tryin' to find ya for weeks but I think you know that." his eyes narrow almost playfully at her. "I know Cordelia and Fiona-"

"I'm not going to that stupid academy." Are the first words out of her mouth to him and he smirks at her stubbornness. She was going to need that.

"Now sit on back, darlin' I ain't here to try to get ya to go." he dismisses the thought with a sweep of his hand. "I just know 'em and they know you eh? I'm tryin' to create some familiarity here understand?" She nods and keeps her face harder than it had been. "I'm not a Salem witch, I'm not a voodoo priest or nuffin' of the sort like Maria who does your hair."

"What are ya then?" she blurts out, her brow lower and her eyes more curious than frightened now.

"Someone that has been lookin' for you for a very long time, love." he says with a softer expression, his hand resting out of the table. "There are some things I'm gonna tell you about yourself, yeah? And I need you to believe I ain't here to lie to you because you're not gonna believe it. I know enough about you just by how you've reacted to me bein' here to know you aren't naive."

Her lips purse at the compliment, her eyes finally leaving him and watching Percy jump up onto the table and join them. He seemed calmed as their eyes met, a slow lazy blink as he laid down. She took this a sign to proceed. "I'll listen." she says softly.

"You are a very powerful woman Mae." he begins, a finger tapping the space on the table between them.

Her face scrunches and he can tell she's already not believing him.

"I'm not on about no modern feminist rant here, love, just hear me out, please," he adds. "You're very powerful and you need to be guided by someone who knows what it's like. You and I are very similar, contrary to what our appearances might indicate. I'm here to help you understand that power." he pauses, watching her face and she's still listening, even if shes' taking everything with a grain of salt. "You are a natural born witch. But beyond that, you were born with a very special soul. A very rare and powerful thing, yeah? I happen to have the same sort of soul. You might understand it best as a...yin and yang situation. Your soul balances out mine you see. Your powers are complementary to mine."

His face is very serious, she can tell at least he doesn't think he's lying. But crazy people believed their own lies so of course, he would.

"I ain't crazy, sweetheart." he gruffs out, furrowing his brow and taking a sip of tea.

Her eyes shoot over to him and she stiffens. Can you read my mind? She thinks with a tilted head.

"Yes." he nods. "But only to prove a point." he shakes his head and looks up at her from under a heavy brow. She gulps noisily. "You can do it too. But you've not had any discipline, no one to explain the strange things that happen to...and that's why I'm here." he says with a sweet soft voice as his hand touches her knee for just a moment, trying to show her he meant her no harm. He wishes she could read his mind so she would understand how entirely the opposite was his intention.

"To help me with my..." her face frowns. "Powers?" she says with a solid nod of her head.

"Precisely," he says with a large nod. "You see, every so often there is a soul created that takes a bit of ancient power with them into creation, into this world, this...plane of existence if you will." he begins speaking with his hands. "You are one of these souls. I think the term white witch might be easiest for you to relate it to. You've been denying these power and they keep manifesting in inconvenient ways, yeah?"

He sees the realization come over her face as she hides her uncertainty with a long sip of tea.

"Things explodin' when you're angry, your wonderful gift with plants. How you speak to them and they flourish. How every full moon you find yourself almost uncontrollably amourous." he says with a cheeky tone and looking away with a quirk of his brow.

She lowers the mug and frowns at him, giving him a warning glance. There's no way he could've known that.

"I'm not tryin' to start trouble, love, I'm simply trying to ease your mind that I'm insane." he explains with another low swing of his voice, back to seriousness. "I'm here to mentor you. It's how this system works. Our souls need each other to balance the other out. And that normal, part of how the universe keeps it's balance, yeah?" he nods and looks to see her processing the information.

Something fluttering inside her tells her to trust him, even though anything she'd ever been taught should be telling her otherwise. She studies him, thinking he looks perfectly human, but so did she, and if she, in fact, did have these powers then he wouldn't look any abnormal than she did. "I...I don't know why but... against my better judgment I'm inclined to believe ya." she says with a sigh that slumps her shoulders. As her nerves ease, her southern accent comes out a bit more, her throat not feeling so tight and it causes a little smirk to come across his face. "But I ain't really sold on it." she adds with a furrowed brow.

"Right." he drags out the word, looking around the room for a moment, trying to think of how to prove it to her. "Ah." he says, grabbing a tiny succulent that sat in a homemade planter that resembled Percy, he waves his hand over and it withers and died immediately.

"NO!" she cries out, taking it in her hands as her breathing picks up and she stares at the plant. "Poor little thing..." she whines, her face entirely distraught, her mouth hanging open. She glares at him while stroking the plant and without her noticing, it starts to plump back up again. As she looks back down she drops it against the table, but only by a few inches and it thuds as a tiny flower that hadn't existed before starts to bud on it as it goes back to how it had been. "Oh," she says with a straight face, only her eyes moving over to him. "I...I've never done that before." she states quietly, her face still in shock.

"You need to start believin' in yourself before you believe in me, love, see? Ya powers work. They're charged with your emotions right now because they're not trained. I can help you with that. You might be hesitant to my being here, but clearly, your powers aren't, eh? We can feed off each other in that way." he explains, taking the plant and studying her handiwork before placing it back where it had been.

He sees her eyes going cross before they squeeze shut and she lets out a little moan, reaching up to touch her head.

"Right," he says with a wrinkling of his face in concern. "That'll happen at first." he says in an unintentionally condescending way. It'd been so long since he'd thought about what it was like to only be learning of powers that he'd forgotten how draining it could be.

She moans and he holds her shoulders as she slumps forward. "So tired." she rasps out, her eyes looking a bit sunken, as they look up at him like a little, injured kitten.

"You're learnin' but you're weak, love." he nods, rubbing her shoulder. "We can make ya stronger, but now let's get some food in ya and get ya to bed, eh?" he says with a caring tone again, patting her head before pushing her back in the chair as she rests her weight on the table.

He rises and moves to the fridge, angling himself so she isn't out of his sight. His darkness is already impatient to get back to touching her, letting Alfie know of its greed to connect with her. But Alfie feels the sadness that's coming from her that it's choosing to ignore in its selfishness.

As her head spins, the frown on her face is not only from the uncomfortable feeling she has. She'd never thought she could be special. Only Bessie and Charles had even told her she could be but she'd never believed it. So it turns out she actually was special and that felt like it should feel better than it did. If she was different, then that explained a lot but it also meant she could never fully blend in and disappear like she'd always tried to. So she had to form a new approach to how she lived, which felt incredibly daunting and made her head throb. Percy senses her pain and walks over and purrs, rubbing against her face.

Alfie leans against the counter with his hips as he mindlessly put together a sandwich for her. He sees the deep blues around her, can feel the confusion and sadness and he wishes he could take it away but it's all part of the process. It physically hurts him to feel her pain, he hopes he can show her what a gift these powers can be. How it can make her life easier and all the perks that come along with it. She had so much love to give inside her and no suitable outlets for all that life to escape and flourish. She must be so unhappy with all that confusion and pain from a source of love and life only needing to be properly expelled, used and focused. He takes solace in knowing he can help her. They've found each other now and the wait was over. His darkness does it's equivalent of wiggling in excitement at the thought. She seemed so very sweet and kind, a real ray of sunshine in human form and he supposes she very well could be. He swears to himself no matter how this goes he'll do everything within his own enormous powers to help her figure herself out, learn how to flourish on her own. Only that would lead to a better life for them both.

Her favorite comfort sandwich, bologna and cheese with lots of mustard and pickles appears before her. He refills her tea and sits next to her wordlessly.

"So..." she begins, forcing her eyes open and taking a bite. "Ya gonna be teachin' he, huh?" her face winces as she turns it towards his.

"That is the plan, yes." he nods.

"You said you were lookin' for me. That means you're not from here, right?"

"Right. I'm not from anywhere really, just got into town last week."

"Where are you stayin'"? she asks

"I've been at the Academy while I've been lookin' for you."

"Ah." she nods, taking a bigger bite, her strength starting to come back. She weighs the next thought that pops into her head before she expresses it out loud. "I can..." she tilts her head back and forth in uncertainty, "I can trust you right?" she asks with a weaker voice than she intends to.

"Of course, love. I said I'd never hurt you and I mean that. Hurting you is hurting myself and that'd be rather daft of me seein' as I've waited so long for ya and my soul has waited even longer than either of us could fathom." he says with an expressive face.

She nods and looks at the table as she chews another bite. "So you would like.. protect me basically? Teach me how to use this and keep me from hurting myself?"

"Yes, of course," he says earnestly again. "I know you can be a little clumsy." he chuckles and she smirks because he's right. "Not gonna let ya hurt yourself." he gives her a smile that feels genuine, the hesitation and instructional tone in his voice now gone and only that charm of his handsome face and accent remain as she feels an unfamiliar warmness spread through her body. She wondered if it was the light she was told about. Should I ask him to stay here? She asks herself, her eyes studying his. And as if she was hearing a voice that was carried downwind by a breeze, the faintest lightest 'yes' she hears.

"I have a spare room," she says, her head motioning to the closed door by the sunroom. "If ya... wanted to stay." she says blinking and looking away from him. "I mean... would that help? Make things easier for..." she motions her hand back and forth between them. "Whatever this is." she lets out a huff of a laugh with raised brows, her face no longer looking sad and he's thankful.

"It would make it immeasurably easier." he says with a grateful nod and another dashing smile that she's not used to receiving from men that look like him.

"I don't want you to have to stay with those witches anyway." she shakes her head and looks away again, taking another bite. "And it's not like I live that close to them," she adds. "Would hate for you to have to do that every day." she shrugs. "Plus this way when I blow up a cauldron or whatever you'll be here to help." she smiles and takes another bite.

He knows she's making excuses now but he doesn't mind. Her capacity for kindness is showing already, inviting to share her home with him. He wasn't going to ask to stay with her but this was the ideal situation. "I can help with that, yeah." he nods and lets out a little chuckle, much like the one she'd heard in her dream, she feels that warm feeling again, like walking into the sunlight after being inside in the air conditioning. It felt good and something was telling her this was right and it certainly wasn't her common sense.

She finishes her sandwich, still feeling extremely drained but no longer dizzy or in pain. She shows him to the room, switching the light on and revealing yet another cozy space. The walls were white, it was filled with plants. A shelf full of ivy rests the length of the wall over a soft looking bed with dark colored and mismatched pillowcases, blankets and sheets. A southwestern style rug in pinks, yellows and burnt orange rests across the floor at an angle, a blanket of the same color scheme but different pattern rest across the lower half of the bed. A worn wooden dresser rests under the window, plants in pots, an old metal fan, and an incense holder sit atop it. A nightstand with a lamp sits against the wall next to the bed. He sees a fireplace on the wall opposite the bed, giving a thankful nod as it would make his spellwork much easier to have it so close and with such privacy. Boxes with the names of her foster parents sit stacked in the corner.

"I can move some of the plants if you need me to." she offers. "This room gets really good light during the day so I put a bunch in here." she moves towards the window. "I'm sure I've got some darker curtains if you need them. This doesn't shield you at all from the sun." she shakes her head as her fingers tug on the sheer fabric. "I'll get the boxes out of your way tomorrow." she says with a kind but tired smile as she turns back around to look at him surveying the room.

"You can leave them, love, no problem at all. I get some curtains if it turns out I need them," he says with a dismissive wave of his hand. "No rush on the boxes either." he adds with a smile that reads as thankful. "It's a very cozy room." he nods with pouted lips.

"The bathroom is on the other side of house." she says walking out of the room and he follows. He sees the rectangular space. His eyes are first drawn to the old and large claw foot tub that had been painted yellow and hooked up to also function as a shower. The same navy paint on the walls as the living room, with white tile on the floor. A sink with a cabinet underneath, various toiletries rest on top of the small counter space. A large worn mirror hung above it with a golden frame that showed it's age. As was with the rest of the house, the plants had made their way in here as well. Leaves of eucalyptus hung from the silver hardware shower head, plants rest atop the makeshift wooden stands the fit snug around the tub, some of the leaves and branches falling down into it slightly. The shower curtain was shoved back and out of the tub, he took this to mean she took baths more often. A window with a bright paisley fabric cover keeps the view of the outside blocked. And old work of embroidery of a bouquet of flowers is framed and rests above the toilet. "I'll bring in a basket from my room for you to put your stuff in, there's not much room left under here." she says with her foot tapping the door to the cabinet under the sink.

"Much appreciated, love." he says, eyes still scanning the busy space. There was so much to look at in her home. She turns to open the other door, different from the rest as it was painted lavender.

"And this is my room." she says almost timidly. He feels the magic wafting out of the room as soon as she opens the door. The walls were a deep teal, a paisley purple rug covered the worn hardwood floor. A thick and plush mustard yellow comforter cover the bed, another faux fur, shaggy throw in strewn over the bed like the one on the couch. Her pillows are all mismatched, some with floral prints, some shades of purple. A fireplace rests in this room as well and he can feel the age in the house as he enters the room. The mantle is painted the same shiny black as the other fireplaces and pillar candles of all colors, widths, and sizes rest atop the mantle. Some in tiny silver platters, some melting down onto the wooden surface.

The room smelled deeply of lavender and seeing an incense burner next to a flat screen tv on her purple dresser he knew the source. A closet door of the same lavender color rests in the corner. A large chair next to a bookshelf sat next to it in front of a window with flowing jewel-toned fabrics and sheer panels create a blanket around the chair. A wicker clothes hamper and a stained glass lamp on the nightstand all fall within the same color scheme, the room full of all sorts of energy. A small table pushed into the corner with a runner across it, a worn little pink stool pushed under it with a laptop on top. Framed pictures of all sorts, from all time periods and mediums, cover the far wall, some she'd inherited, some from her weekend trips to the flea market. Of course, the room was not complete without a large palm overgrowing in the corner next to a standing mirror.

He felt his insides quiver. This was her nest, he thought. This was her safe space and her sanctuary and his darkness knew it too. The space wasn't as well lit as he imagined but it was night and he hoped he'd get to see it in the morning light, anxious to know what else it would reveal about her. She felt a bit exposed and vulnerable suddenly, there'd never been a man in this room before with her. But he took in everything with a look of awe on his face, she watched his thoughts pass over his face, eyes tensing, lips twitching.

She tried to read his thoughts, but of course, she had no real clue as to how to do it, but she still felt no maliciousness in him towards her. There was something under the surface, she could tell. Something about him was timeless in a way. He had said their souls were ancient, perhaps that's where the term old soul came from? Without the new explanation of there actually being souls at all, and now knowing they could, in fact, be old, she thought the descriptor on a more lamen's terms still made sense about him. He had an ease about him, the bohemian sort of casual and comfortable style to him. The messy hair, the beard, and jewelry. It would seem their aesthetics matched well, which she hoped was a good sign. for

"If you need anything, feel free to knock." she says turning to leave the room before looking back at him. "But knock first." she says with a stern nod of her head and he flashes another smile, happy to see her giving him boundaries. The lightness in her could make her too giving, too compassionate to the point of harm to herself and he was hopeful that this wasn't the case with her as she gave him a look that told him not to push it with her. "I guess we'll get ya a key tomorrow..." she says rubbing the back of her neck. "You have stuff with you or...?" her face contorts in question.

"I got stuff in me car, yeah." he nods looking towards the door. "I'll try to be quiet bringin' it in. You need to get some rest now though," he says with a wag of his finger at her. "Very important you take very good care of yourself while you're learnin', love. You can drain yourself and your health will suffer and we can't have that." he says with a clap of his hands. "So I will get my things, settle in, and we can convene in the mornin', eh?"

"That sounds good. I get up between seven and eight usually." she says, moving back towards her room. "So uh...goodnight?" she asks with a soft laugh for the unique nature of the very unusual situation.

"Goodnight Mae." he says with a nod and smile. "If you need anyfing, you come knock as well, yeah?"

"Yeah, no problem... uh...." he looks at the floor realizing she doesn't even remember his name. She lets out a laugh and rubs her head. "I'm sorry but I don't remember your name." she admits with a bitten lip and an apologetic glance.

"It's Alfie, love." he grins. "Alfie Solomons." he nods again. "You've 'ad a lot coming at you today Mae, I take no offense." he says with a hand to his chest.

"Thanks for that." she nods. "Movin' in and I don't even know your name. What a weird ass day." she shakes her head but she's smiling as her eyes shift around, trying to process everything.

"Things'll start to feel more normal again once we establish a routine, you'll see. It'll be fuckin' weird at first, I won't lie." he laughs and she's hit that warm feeling again, recalling her dream and the same sound she'd heard then as he moves towards her. "But we'll get through it together, yeah?" he responds supportively with a hand on her shoulder.

"I appreciate the honesty." she says sheepishly with a smile that reflects the tone.

"Ain't got no reason to lie to ya, sweetheart. Now you get on in bed. I can tell you're fadin' on me." his eyes almost twinkle at her as he motions to her door.

"Lock the door before you go to bed, please."

"I will. But if anyfing came in here, believe me, it'd regret it as soon as it met me." he chuckles again.

"Also good to know." she nods."Night Alfie." she says with a wave from her doorway.

"Night, Mae. Don't worry 'bout a fing!" he says loudly as he walks towards the door.

She lies in bed wondering what the fuck she was doing. There was a man in her house. Not just that but an attractive magical one that was apparently lethal and her... soul mate? She groans and rolls over to her stomach. Yeah, the term fit didn't it? She had too many questions but she knew she'd get answers as he'd already been very helpful so far. Well, helpful in the sense of turning her life upside down. But at least he was sticking around to help clean up the mess and make sense of it. She couldn't say she'd ever known any man to do that before for her. She decides to go to sleep on that hopeful note, wondering what she would dream about now that he had found her.

@jaegeeeeer @negansdirtygirl22 @brianaisasongbird @hardygal69 @emerald-bijou @captstefanbrandt @coolgh0st @tinastarkandco @stylishmileage

#alfie solomons #tom hardy #peaky blinders #alfie solomons x reader #alfie solomons x ofc #alfie solomons au #witchcraft au #supernatural au #alfie solomons modern au #modern au #alfie solomons magical au #writing #fan fiction #alfie solomons fan fiction #alfie solomons fic #alfie solomons fanfic #alfie solomons fan fic #alfie solomons imagine

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shoechoe · 2 years

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favorite non-jjba characters?

Yeah, I have some of those. I'll go through a few of the major ones

WX-78 (Don't Starve)

WX-78 is basically an evil omnicidal robot who hates all life. Contrary to what you may have perceived me as, I am actually WX-78 in real life /j. I play them the second-most often out of any Don't Starve character (with the first being Wolfgang. I also love that guy but I already made a shitpost about him once.)

Don't Starve characters aren't super complex (minus maybe WX's new backstory and rework that I could probably dig into if I weren't so lazy) so there's not really much to say here tbh I just like them so here is a compilation of some of my favorite WX quotes

2. Zim (from invader zim)

Zim is one of my favorite guys ever. He is a failure in the best way possible. He is the most absolutely pathetic yet bombastically fun character I could ever want as a villain protagonist. He is simply the best 10/10.

(To be honest, Invader Zim also has a pretty clear portrayal of a dictatorship society and class system, and Zim could be seen as a metaphor for a "misfit" (specifically, mentally and physically disabled) person that doesn't work as a functional cog in the machine, so he's societally shunned by every other Irken and eventually sent off to die by his overlords, but... maybe I'm looking into IZ too far.)

3. Yellowfang (Warrior cats)

Sorry to post my most cringe interests on my main blog but I figured I had to mention her. Yellowfang is my favorite Warrior Cats character. Basically, she's a ShadowClan-turned-ThunderClan cat (if you don't know what that means basically Warriors is set in the forest with groups of cats called "Clans" that divide the territory up and hunt and fight for each other. Yellowfang is a medicine cat which basically means instead of hunting and fighting she heals, treats injuries and interprets prophecies and messages from StarClan which is like the dead cat spirits that guide the live cats.) She is basically the cat equivalent of a raggedy old lady and I think that is very based especially since the medicine cat right before her was explicitly made out to be a young ""attractive"" cat that the main character got a crush on.

She also (spoilers, if you care about... Warrior Cats spoilers) had to murder her own son, Brokenstar, because he became a tyrannical dictator that murders babies. The scene where she murders him was strangely brutal considering Warrior Cats is a series rated for eight year olds (a lot of things in that book series are too brutal for eight year olds in my opinion but who cares I guess). She had to keep the fact that she was his mother a secret for a long time because medicine cats having any children or mates is a big taboo. Now that I think about it, a non-insignificant number of my favorite characters try to murder their own children... hmm.

Also now that I think about it Brokenstar and Diavolo are kind of similar to each other. Brokenstar is kind of like Diavolo if he was a cat and had no children and his reign was ruined by his mom instead (this is terrible im sorry)

4. I always remember my favorite Percy Jackson characters being both Annabeth and Leo, although since my memory on the series is so hazy and I have yet to reread it I couldn't really tell you much about either of them. Basically, Annabeth is the daughter of Athena (goddess of wisdom and battle strategy) which means she's gifted with intelligence and the fanbase likes to project their Gifted Kid Syndrome onto her (either that or she literally just has Gifted Kid Syndrome I couldn't really tell you). Leo is the son of Hephaestus and he can build stuff. I remember liking him because he had funny one-liners and I like mechanical things. I think Annabeth was my favorite because I liked to think I was an intellectual for getting straight A's in school. I figured I would just give this a mention since PJO is gaining relevance again.

There are probably some more favs but these are generally the main ones that come to mind (and I don't feel too embarrassed talking about... I really don't want to get into that one phase in my life where I was obsessed with Syd Barrett.) See if you can spot a common theme idk (spoilers the common theme is 'edgy')

#shoe talks a lot #not jojo related #asks #don't starve #percy jackson #invader zim #warrior cats

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omgleerps · 7 years

Text

where do [we] I go from here?

i’m laying awake at 3:46am still feeling so hurt and betrayed and it’s breaking my heart. I feel lost. I don’t know how to proceed or how to make this stop. ...

it shouldn’t mean this much but I busted my ass off over the last year and made, what i though, were solid friendships. i feel angry for one of my best friends but beyond that i’m angry as a rper. but i can’t walk away. i can’t because i’m afraid to lose the muse that’s been present with me over the last year and is stronger than i think any other muse has been. i can’t leave him. i can’t abandon him and that, i actively know this sounds weird but I can’t stop writing him and his journey because it’s not complete. I think that would break my heart.

however, i’m so lost on how to proceed. i don’t know how to, figuratively, look them all in the eye upon my return from hiatus. I don’t know how to sit on my couch feet away from my best friend and know she isn’t allowed to return to this world that we’ve talked endlessly about. it was taken away not just from her, but from me and the others she rp’d with. We’ve rp’d together for six years the same amount of time we’ve known each other. We met in college and bonded over a mutual love of Harry Potter and subsequently, Glee.

It was quiet literally the AVPM of Ron: “Where have you been all my life?” Harry: “Oh in a cupboard under some stairs.” We were actually in a shadowcast together of AVPM her as Ginny and me as Hermione, but that’s another story.

I knew she was the coolest person in the world and when we started to talk and learned we both loved Glee it was just kismet.

This is the first time I’ve been so deeply attached to an RP, it’s players, and my muse. Which is why I’m so hurt myself, feeling borderline betrayed by people I believe my friends. Who she believed to be here friends.

I have been rping since I was in about eighth grade. That was probably....(here comes my age) around 14-15 years ago. I started in AOL chatrooms (yeah the aol where you had to use dial-up and log into the internet, not just AIM but AOL circa 2002, look it up it was rough. i’m old af) I rped LOTR or Harry Potter and soon moved onto creating my own guestbook style Sailor Moon RP.

I ran that RP successfully for all of highschool. There were rough times and hard decisions were made and I had made some good friends doing that. It was where my love for RPing really took hold. Into college I continued to RP, this time moving onto forum RPs such as Proboards. I joined a few, but ultimately couldn’t find anything that spoke to me. I ended up creating a pretty well liked Narnia proboard RP with two of my good friends and college roommate at the time and from there I had an idea for a Percy Jackson proboard RP (as Percy Jackson became a huge new obsession just before the release of the first movie).

Needless to say if i wasn’t doing my homework in college I was running an RP (or two because I had a few going at once at one point), or I belonged to other Proboards rps. I discovered Tumblr rping during my last year and a half at college which is the same time I met my best friend. At this point, due to personal issues, I had dropped the majority of my proboards rps and my own were dying or dead. It was sad and rough.

When i discovered tumblr rping in 2012 I severed my relationship with proboards RPs in favor of this new medium. I joined my first Glee RP where I played Kurt. The RP was not staying afloat and the admin at that time asked if anyone would like to take over, and I stepped up. I wasn’t ready to let go of this new thing I found especially only after one short month. I had no idea how to run a tumblr RP or how one RP’d on Tumblr. It was completely different than a Proboards forum where everything is just Paras or F2f’s.

It was at this point I was talking with my best friend and mentioned roleplaying and feeling almost stupid for bringing it up because I just didn’t tell my friends about this stuff and our friendship was still so new. When she told me she used to RP Harry Potter but by passing a notebook back and forth with another friend I was like...fuck I hit the friend lottery. Season 3 of Glee was still airing and we both fell in love with a new character, Sebastian Smythe. I convinced her to join the Tumblr rp I was in and together we learned how to rp on tumblr and what worked and didn’t.

Looking back on that first rp it was rough af. But from that point we’ve RP’d together, either one on one or in groups. We had created a few of our own but we would find that Glee RPs are sometimes fleeting. Never the less we shared this mutual love of these characters and RPing. I love writing with her because she is a phenomenal writer and I can’t wait to have a signed copy of her best seller someday. (Cue her making a disgruntled noise and rolling her eyes at me when she reads this part...now cue her smacking me on the arm while she read that ;) ).

During a rough time in her life one year ago, I provided her comfort and a distraction by telling her of an RP i had just joined. I recounted the events of my character and his interactions with others and the crazy plots and how unique this RP was compared to other Glee RPs. I told her of plots I had started to build and I really think it made her feel better during that time. Toward the end of the summer of 2016 I managed to convince her to join. She was nervous, afraid that they wouldn’t like her application but I told her I would help. Once she was accepted it was great to be able to share an RP with her again. Our characters didn’t interact much as they were not fans of each other, which was perfectly fine. We just liked talking about this place and helping each other develop plots and I saw a change in her and it made me happy to see her happy again.

I won’t go into many more details from here on out but, when she was asked to leave just recently I watched as it broke her heart and also mine. I still can’t make sense of the decision and I’ve never seen anything like this (this type of expelling of a player) in all of my years of RPing.

What hurts the most is I believed we were family and now here I am at 4:30 in the morning as I finish this, not knowing what to do. I’ve rambled about things that may not matter hoping that I would be feeling better or come to a conclusion. I can’t type anymore angry words (i did a fair share of those) I can only type whatever ramblings come to my head trying to make sense of a unfortunate and unfair situation.

it’s one thing to want to remove a player from an RP, that’s your decision as an admin. However, do not say it is for the mental health of that player. You’re not a psychiatrist and trust me when I say if it was bad for her she would have left on her own. Just say the real reason and don’t act like you did it with her best interest at heart. I don’t believe or trust that for a second. You took away a person’s muse and expect them to be alright after they poured their heart and soul into something for nearly 10 months? Reverse the roles and how would that make you feel? Would that help your mental health?

If anything your actions made it worse. Just be frank and don’t save face as it feels like you’re doing.

I guess I did have some angry words left after all. That’s what makes me angry the most. They believe they did this from a place of caring. And I don’t understand that, not even objectively.

I get a lot of quotes from a book series I like ‘Sword of Truth’ by Terry Goodkind, but I find that a lot of the quotes are very relevant to real life. And one quote stands out in my mind and has over the last few days is this...

“The greatest harm can result from the best intentions.” -‘Stone of Tears’

i’m going to continue to feel lost while i make sense of this. And I know I can’t abandon my muse because, again, I can’t leave him unfinished in the middle of his journey. I think that as a writer it would be too painful. I just need a few days to myself to hope my head and heart clears, even a little.

I needed this post to get some thoughts out even if they aren’t the most coherent at times.

-Rachael

#get personal for a sec #rp stuff #rachael may ramble a little

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amorremanet · 7 years

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2, 10, 42, 47

asks for fanfic writers

well, no. 10 and no. 42 are over here, but!

2. things that motivate you

* The stereotype that autistic spectrum people are only good for STEM-related things. Like, for all of the folks on the spectrum who are good at STEM things, that’s great and I wish them all the best — but I suck at math and I can’t do anything science-related without turning it into, “how can I make a sociopolitical sci-fi critique out of this” or, “but do gay aliens believe in me,” so nah, I’m gonna pass on doing anything STEM-y.

I’d much rather give a big middle finger to everyone who has this ridiculous notion that autistic spectrum people are completely and utterly uncreative, and that we are only ever good for STEM things, and I’d like to do it by being successful in my chosen creative pursuits, please and thank you.

* Tangentially? Temple fucking Grandin. I don’t actually have any problems with her, herself — but I have a lot of problems with how allistic people hold her up as The One True Way To Be A Successful Person Who “Suffers From” Autism™ and how about fuck that, no. I want to be a successful autistic writer who is nothing like Temple Grandin, apart from both of us being white autistic women/dfab people who are going to be identified and treated as women by other people irl regardless of any wibbly wobbly messy gender feels on our part.

* Talking with people about my projects. On one hand, it’s a way of getting feelings kind of like validation. On the other, and way more importantly for me? I love getting feedback from people, or hearing the questions they come up with — like, on NYE, my aunt and I chatted back and forth about my novel while playing a weird card game with one of my cousins, and Aunt Kelly asked some questions that got me to put a few ideas I’ve been playing with into words more concretely, which was super-helpful — and I get a lot of motivation to work from getting jazzed up about things through talking with people.

* Totally a petty thing, but? Getting cranky with JK Rowling over all of the Good Ally Cookies she doesn’t actually deserve to claim, or all of the characters of hers who Deserved Better (lol, uh. today, my therapist learned that I get Upset about Percy Weasley very easily and about my longstanding hate-on for his parents, and bless her heart, when I went, “uh, I just over-identify with Percy Weasley a lot and there’s a good deal of projection going on here but I also don’t think I’m wrong,” she kinda smiled and nodded and went, “I can tell :)” — she’s great, I love her)

or how, even ignoring all of the #Problematic things about her body of work in the Potterverse, there’s SO MUCH GOOD SHIT in the HP series but she’s so clearly invested in the plot as she envisions it and the story she wants to tell for Harry, to the exclusion of all else, that she ends up completely short-changing basically every other character who is not named Severus Snape or Hermione Granger (most of the time, but not 100% of the time)

Like, I’ve said it before and I will say it until everyone is completely sick of me saying it, then I will continue saying it anyway: JKR views all of her characters — barring Harry, and sometimes Snape and Hermione — as plot devices more than she views them as characters.

She’s a bit better about some of them (Remus, Sirius but not as much as Remus, Ron and Luna but not as much as they deserve, Neville and Draco but not in the ways that they deserve)

but she’s really bullshit about most of them (this is not a complete list, but: Cho; Ginny; Cedric; Tonks; Fleur; Albus, Aberforth, and Ariana; Voldemort — not in that I need her to be sympathetic toward him but ffs, some 101-level consistency in his characterization would be nice; Kingsley; Percy; Wormtail; James; Lily;

Lockhart — “I’m not bitter about JKR’s ableism and victim-blaming with regard to Gildylocks,” I say bitterly, with a bitter expression, while hanging up informational posters about how bitter I am; Andromeda and Ted — deserved better, this is not a question or a debate, I want to say that it’s not even an opinion, but tbh, I know that it is, so hmph; Regulus; Barty Crouch Jr. because he is my Favorite and I can’t make this list without mentioning him;

Bellatrix — again, I don’t need her to sympathize with Bellatrix because how about no? but Bellatrix Black Lestrange is one of the shittiest villains I’ve ever read, in terms of HOW she was written, and I think a lot of the flaws in how JKR wrote her could have been remedied if she actually did anything to make Bellatrix a fully realized character, which would’ve made her a more effective and meaningful villain, and not a shrieking Saturday morning cartoon caricature;

Molly and Arthur — I’m not going into full detail about why I hate them today, you lot can just go read my tag on the subject if you want to know, and I don’t think that JKR’s “plot device first, people second” method of characterization is the only problem? But I think it’s a major contributing factor to The Problem Of Molly And Arthur, because she presents them as this image of Idyllic Domestic Perfection even when their actions and the internal fabric of the Weasley Family, don’t support that claim, and it sucks)

—basically, JK Rowling motivates me by fucking up a lot, because she was one of my idols as a kid and as a teenager, and she was a relevant and immediate source of inspiration because Oh My God You Can So Too Write Novels For A Living And Make A Difference In People’s Lives, and I’m not exaggerating when I say that she saved my life a few times, albeit mostly in indirect fashions…… but she fucks up a lot, and this is motivating for me because it makes me want to do better than her.

It’s not even exclusive to HP fic, either. Like, she’s one of my biggest sources of motivation to work on my novel and put thought and love and heart into making it the best that it can be — because I want to do better than her and even if I never have her kind of money (which lol, never gonna happen), I still want to beat her at something. Once I earn it, I will happily accept beating her at artistic integrity and commitment.

Is it petty? Yes, definitely. But hey, man, fish gotta swim, dogs gotta eat, and sometimes, I gotta think about my issues with JK Rowling to remember that I need to do better than her and motivate myself to do the work

* You know those, “do it for her/him” memes based on that one thing from The Simpsons that people make with their fave characters and/or celebs? Yeah, I kind of want to make one for myself with Oscar Wilde. Because there’s a lot about him that wasn’t ever perfect (he was a white guy in Victorian England, even accounting for his Anglo-Irishness, so…… yeah), and there are several points on which I don’t agree with him (like, for example: if you are such a shit to your wife that your boyfriend, who is so completely up his own ass that it’s a miracle he hasn’t found a way to Narnia, notices and calls you out on it? I’m kinda thinking that you might want to reassess how you treat people and stop being like that, bub)

—but I also want to be a fabulous gay Slytherclaw social satirist who uses that #aesthetic and the popular tropes of the day to do my own thing and redefine outside the box, and hey, if I ever get a, “wit and wisdom of…” book published with some of my coolest quotables in it? That would be an awesome bonus.

* “Okay, but seriously: how obvious can I be that Yael and Elizabeth are a big, ‘fuck you’ to Marvel about all of their queerbaiting with Charles and Erik before I can get sued for it? Because while Yael and Elizabeth are still characters in their own right, their original inspiration was, ‘hey, what if I flipped the bird to Marvel about all of their fucking queerbaiting with Charles and Erik, and did it with extra lesbians? that’s be pretty fucking cool,’ and I don’t want to be sued, but I also don’t want for my point to be missed here”

—or more generally, “I can’t die before I finish my novel, I have a lot of people to piss off and call on their crap through the magic of the written word *makes a sparkly rainbow with my hands like Spongebob going, ‘imaginaaaaaaaation!!! :D’*”

* So, there’s this one bit in Dry, Augusten Burroughs’ memoir about the early parts of his struggle with alcoholism and addiction. In his rehab, one of their assignments for group therapy is to write letters to people in their lives and feel their feelings about these relationships. He writes to Pighead, his best friend/“it’s complicated,” who is HIV-positive.

Reading the letter at group, Augusten finds himself crying, then shares the whole tangled-up backstory that he and Pighead have together, from how they first met on a phone-sex line, to how Augusten fell hard in love with him, to how they were friends with benefits and then he told Pighead that he was in love with him and Pighead plays the, “I love you but I’m not in love with you” card (that is verbatim what he says in the book, and the way Burroughs reads it in the audiobook kills me every single time), so Augusten dates other guys and tries to fall out of love with Pighead, only for Pighead to come see him first when his HIV test comes back positive and realize that he’s In Love with Augusten only, “after he became diagnosed with a fatal disease”

—which gives us the great line, “Part of me felt deep compassion. And another part felt like, You fucker.”

(Which is seriously one of my top ten lines in all literature, ever. tbh, it’s probably top five, but the top ten list would be hard enough to come up with to begin with, and I’d have to parcel things out into Poetry, Prose [possibly split into Fiction and Nonfiction, at that], and Dramatic Writing just to get it down to ten things on each list, and? It’s just a perfect line, oh my god)

At the end of it, Augusten has a moment with Kavi, another one of the patients at his rehab, who is addicted to cocaine and sex. Kavi tells him about how he left his lover who was HIV-positive after his diagnosis, so that he wouldn’t be the person getting left for once, and about how he feels like cocaine never leaves him. And we get: “Suddenly, I want to drink.… I don’t want to drink in a jovial ‘Highballs for everybody!’ way. I want to drink to the point where I could undergo major knee surgery and not feel so much as a pinch.”

I just.

There is so much about this section of the book that fucks me up so hard, but in ways that I love so much — and there’s a lot that I love about it for a lot of reasons, but like?

Speaking entirely with my writer hat on right now?

That part is just immaculately written. Every word is perfectly chosen, and they are strung together just right. Burroughs chooses the exact right images and scenes to characterize his and Pighead’s developing relationship, and his moment with Kavi, and it’s just

This part of the book makes me remember why I write. Because I have been reading and rereading this book since high school — I have had my battered up and taped together paperback copy with the yellowing pages since Easter 2005 — and this part STILL fucks me up, every. single. time. The audiobook version of it still fucks me up every. single. time.

Back in high school when I first read it, it hit me so hard because I had a habit of falling in love with girls who were straight and/or just did not like me back (and it would get worse, because the girl I was in love with who dared me to write D*rarry just to see if I could? Would go on to put me in the position of being her Girl Friday while I got to watch her love everybody but me, and praise the creative work of everybody but me, and go on about how two of her other friends were totally brilliant and misunderstood creative geniuses because they were incomprehensible and it was totally bourgeois for me to want to write to be understood but it was okay she knows I’m ~mainstream like that, but then still call on me — which made the whole Augusten/Pighead thing hurt so much more for me because I was kind of her, “I love you, but I’m not In Love with you”)

(I will say this about that relationship: I didn’t handle it well, either. I was petty and jealous, and waaaay more damagingly? I hadn’t yet grasped the idea that you sometimes have to just let people be messed up at you about the shit they’re going though without trying to fix everything for them, especially when there’s nothing that you can actually do to fix it. In retrospect, it’s kind of hilarious that I loaned her a copy of Perks of Being A Wallflower that I never saw again, because the whole idea that you can’t just constantly put someone else’s needs before your own and call it love, and the related concept that doing this is actually kind of a form of selfishness, in a way?

………yeah, that was VERY relevant to how I handled that relationship, and she rightfully called me on a lot of shit related to those ideas, and I spent a lot of time having an unfair chip on my shoulder because I was jealous on one hand, and indignant about how her other friends got to be Real Artists™ because their shit was incomprehensible but I got to be a Poser Artist™ because I wanted to be understood and not just fap around with some neo-Dadaist nonsense — and as seen here, I still do have a chip on my shoulder about Dadaist anything, but in fairness, I’d have that with or without any of this story because Dada is the worst — and I’m not saying that I was totally pure or innocent in anything here.

But at the time, I cried a lot over Augusten/Pighead feels because I felt that whole, “I love you but I’m not in love with you” situation and trying to fall out of love with someone only to crumble when they needed you and resent them for needing you but hate yourself for resenting them — I felt all of that so hard.)

My appreciation for this part of the book has evolved and changed over time, and it’s deepened — as I’ve learned more about LGBTIQ history, I’ve come to appreciate the context of the story more and gain more of a sense of reverence for the LGBTIQ people who came before me and actually fought through the early days of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and it has changed how I read this part of the book more than anything else (c.f., my passive-aggressive addition of the REST of the quote to one post of the, ‘deep compassion vs. you fucker’ part because I was really annoyed with a bunch of straight people who were reblogging it without the full context and acting like they actually had any idea what it’s like to be gay and in a situation like Augusten is with Pighead here) — and I just

The biggest thing about this part of the book that’s made it stick around for me? is that no matter how I’ve appreciated it at any point, and no matter which parts of it have been the most important to me at any given moment, and no matter WHY it’s fucked me up — it’s still fucked me up so hard every. singled. fucking. time…… but in a way that has always made me feel a lot less alone in the world

It’s sort of similar to something that one of my fiction profs in undergrad once said about creating characters: we were talking, in one of our biweekly one-on-ones, about a story I’d brought in with one of my more off-putting characters (his name is Emerson, he’s an abrasive little shit who does a lot of very fucked up things and was kind of influenced by the Kurt/Karofsky plot back in season two of Glee because that was happening on TV at the time and I had a lot of feelings about it that I didn’t have any other way to deal with because I didn’t want to write Glee fic about all of it. He was more similar to Karofsky than Kurt)

I was convinced that everyone would hate him (not least because he an asshole to basically all of the other characters and assaulted the guy he had a crush on while he was high). Instead, he was actually really popular and one of my classmates, who I admired because her writing was so lyrical and confident and she was a great person, said that she found herself identifying with him, especially during some of his worst moments in that draft. While I was boggling about this, Professor Lucy said that one of the reasons why Emerson went over so gangbusters in workshop was that, instead of going the route of creating a tabula rasa character like Stephenie Meyer wrote Bella Swan to be, I’d given him so many clearly defined character traits and behaviors

According to Professor Lucy, the specificity is what makes it easier for people to identify with characters and feel for them, because it makes them more fully realized. (The, “according to” is just for the sake of attribution because this is a point that I’ve taken to heart and that I do totally agree with Professor Lucy about.) And I feel that a lot with the Augusten/Pighead part of the book because it’s so specific and it’s so grounded and it’s so REAL

And that’s a huge part of why it’s always gotten to me emotionally, and why it’s stuck with me after all this time, and why it’s consistently made me feel less alone and irreparably freakishly weird

Anyway, this got way longer than I intended to get, but the ability to affect someone so deeply with your work — that’s a responsibility that I take very seriously when it comes to writing, with regard to all different aspects of how you can possibly do this with the written word — and this part of Dry is such a source of motivation for me because it’s such a great example, for me, of How To Do An Emotionally Affecting Writer Thingy Well

I use technical language like this because I am such a Serious Business Writer, oh yes I am

47. how many unfinished ideas/stories are you working on at the same time?

I usually don’t count, because it’s usually a lot and not all of them are really guaranteed to ever be properly finished, oops.

#memes for ts #mine: personal #actual about me #mine: writing #mine: asks #writing is hard #fandom shenanigans #actuallyautistic #opinions for ts #jk rowling is not a gift #about me: if i were psychic do you think i'd be writing #about me: slytherin pride #augusten burroughs #i just have a lot of feelings #alcohol cw// addiction cw//#Anonymous #asks for fanfic writers

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