#I love this universe in which every book written in 3rd person was originally fic

[kendrixtermina]

Further reactions to "The book of lost tales":

I appreciate that Idril canonically wears armor and does swordfighting.

I feel like I can actually imagine adult!Idril much better now like in armor and with open hair, distraught but ready to fight while babby Earendil does not yet realize the danger...

My first thought is that Earendil was probably cute in that baby chainmail. My second thought is OUCH, Idril and Tuor always made sure their growing baby had fitting chainmail cause they felt the apocalypse might get them at any moment. Imagine that, imagine them having the baby armor fitted every year or so :(

Its fun how much of the basic structure already exists but most of what you'd consider the main characters doesn't exist or is scattered across various minor roles The only Prince anywhere in sight is Turgon - Except for Team Doriath, theyre all accounted for. I suppose Maeglin is kinda there in name only with vaguely the same role & motivation, but looks personality and background all did a 180 since. Luthien is still pretty much "princesd classic" at this point, not quite the fearless go-getter from the final version - markedly this version tells Beren that she doesnt want to wander in the wilderness with him whereas the final one says she doesnt care and its Beren still wants to get the shiny so as not to ask this of her and also for his honor.

I mean in the finished version Id consider the 3rd and 4th gen royals to be the main characters (well, alobgside Team Doriath and the varioud human heroes) and theyre hardly here. Imagine the silm with no Finrod!

Feanor had no affiliation with the royal family whatsoever, and is also generally less super. He's just the guy who won the jewelsmithing competition, not the inventor of the whole discipline. Still seems to have been envisionad as a respected member of the community who gets called to the palace for crisis meetings and is listened to when he stsrts giving speeches. From the first he already has the backstory of going off the deep end (or at least growing disillusioned with Valinor) after a family member is killed by Melkor and theyre still the first to die, but its just some other rando unrelated to the royals

The situation regarding the humans is different - instead of Melkor leaking their existence, its Manwe who explains that the other continents were supposed to be for them eventually. So Feanor goes off on a tirade about weak puny mortals comes off as a more of a jerk unlike in the final version where Melkor barely knew about the humans and described them to the Noldor as a threat. On the other hand in this one, also very much unlike in the finished product, Melkor dupes even Manwe into being unfair to the elves as a whole. In this the final version is a definite improvement, both Feanor and the Valar come off as a lot more sympathetic and though still deceived he's partially right in some things at least, so you have more of a genuine tragedy rather than a simple feud

There is something to the idea of Commoner!Feanor tho. I guess some of this survived in his nomadic explorer lifestyle and how both his wife and mother (who arent mentioned here) eventually were the ones to get that background of being not especially pretty ladies who are not from the nobility but got renown, respect and acclaim for their unique talent and contribution to society, with each having invented things and Nerdanel also being renowed for her wisdom. Hes sort of an odysseus-like Figure in that sense. I suppose later developements necesitated that Maedhros & co. have an army not just a band of thieves, which means they needed to be nobles/lords. That said this being a society where artisans are very respected and half the lords have scholarly/artistic pursuits going, the gap was probably not as big to begin with as it might have been in say, medieval England. Esoecially since Nerdanel's father had been given special honor by one of the local deities and that the social order might have been a very recent thing in Miriel's time. One might speculate that the first generation of Lords started out as warriors during the great journey, or perhaps just Finwe's friend group.

Also found that bit intetesting where the Valar have to deal with the remaining political tensions and effects of Melkor's lies on the remaining population in Valinor... - i guess with the change of framing device it was less likely for news of something like this to reach Beleriand. That, or the existence of Finarfin and his repentance made this go smoother this over in later cannon

Turgon's go-down-with-the-ship moment reaaly got to me. Im half tempted to write a fic where his wife, siblings and dad glomp him on arrival in Mandos. I dont care that none of them exists yet in this continuity i want Turgon to get hugs

I love all the additional Detail that got compressed out in the shift from fairytale-ish to pseudohistoric style especially all the various Valinor magic insofofar as it is compatible with the final version - particularly love the idea of the connection between the lamps and the trees that is now integrated into my headcanon forever

Its actually explained what the doors of night are

If I had not already read unfinished tales or volumes X to XII where this is also apparent, this is where I would say: Ah so the Valar were supposed to be flawed characters. Manwe has an actual arc; by the time he sends Gandalf he finally "got" it. I think in the published silm the little arcs of Ulmo and Manwe are mostly just lost in compression/ less apparent when only some of the relevant scenes got in but not all

It occurred to me way too late that the "BG" chars are the most consistent because theyre at the start and most stories are written from beginning to end. Finwe doesnt get a dedicated paragraph of explicit description until HoME X but my takeaway was that he's described pretty much like I always imagined him anyways/ same vibe I always got from him... charismatic, thoughtful, enthusiastic, sanguine temperament, brave in a pinch but at times lets his judgement be clouded by personal sentiment (though that last bit is more apparent/salient as a character flaw once he became the father of a certain Problem Child) ...i guess this would be a result of jrrt having had a consistent idea of him in his head for a long time.

This means Finwe's still alive at the time of the exodus which is just fun to see/interesting to know... Interestingly he sort of gets what later would be Finarfin's part of ineffectually telling everxone to please chill and think it over first while Feanor simply shouts louder (which is consistent with his actions before the sword incident in later canon where he initially spoke out against the suspiciozs regarding the Valar) - but its not exactly the same, he's more active than Finarfin later in that when "chillax" availed nothing he said that then at least they should talk with the other Kings and Manwe to leave with their blessing and get help leaving (This seems like it would have been the clusterfuck preventing million dollar suggestion in the universe where Feanor is related to him and values him) but when even that falls on death ears he decides that he "would not be parted from his people" and went to run the preparations. I find it interesting that the motivation is sentiment/attachment (even phrased as "he would not be parted from [his people]" same words/ expression as is later used for the formenos situation), not explicitly obligation as it later is for Fingolfin (who had promised to follow Feanor and didnt want to leave his subjects at the mercy of Feanor's recklessness )

Speaking of problem children. It seems the sons of Feanor were the Kaworu Nagisa of the Silmarillion in that originally all they do is show up at some point and kill Dior as an episodic villain-of-the-week. And then, it seems their role got bigger in each continuity/rewrite... probably has something to do with the Silmarils ending up in the title later making it in the sense their story that ends and begins with them. They have zero characterization beyond "fierce and wild" at this point, though in what teetsy bits there is we already have the idea that Maedhros is the leader and Curufin is the smart one/shemer/sweet-talker, though not the bit where Maedhros (or Maglor, or anyone really) is "the nice one". Which I guess explains why "Maglor" sounds like such a stereotypical villain name.

"The Ruin of Doriath" was purportedly the patchworkiest bit of the finished product, but I never noticed and it actually left quite an impression of me upon first reading, the visual of Melian sitting there with Thingol's corpse in her arms contemplating everything thinking back to how they met... she had the knowledge to warn him not to doom himself but couldnt get him to understand it because he doesnt see the world as she does.... After reading this though I wish there was a 'dynamic' rendition that combined all the best bits like, youd have to adapt it to the later canon's rendition of the dwarves, have Nargothrond exist etc. But i mean that just makes Finrod another dead/doomed relative of Thingol's whom bling cannot truly replace, like Luthien and Turin. In the Silmarillion you could easily read it as just an "honoured guest treatment" but here and in unfinished tales I get the impression that Thingol actually did see Turin as a son.

Already you see the idea of trying to make the stories all interconnected but there is less than there will be (the human heroes aren't related yet and there is basically no Nargothrond, which is later a common thread for many of the stories - a prototype shows up in the 'Tale of Turambar' tho complete with half baked prototypes of Orodreth and Finduillas

O boi im not even through yet

[ann-spoon]

Fanfiction Writer Interviews!

I’ve decided to interview writers of Next Generation fanfiction, to see how such an open-ended universe can impact the fans. And whether or not social media or certain fans influence the way we view other characters.

Your Rose Weasley may not be the same as mine basically.

Today I’ve decided to interview Nessie or her ff.net username Nessie-The Pillow Biting Monster. She is also known as @anopheliamiratio

!!SPOILER ALERT!! This interview may contain spoilers for the fanfic so go away if you don’t want to read. Otherwise, the link is down below if you want to read the fic.

Link:https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7585004/1/James-Potter-and-the-New-Marauders

Q. How did you first get this idea of starting a Next Generation fanfiction?

A.That’s a tough one. It has been so long since I started planning this story. I always liked Next Gen fanfics, even in other fandoms. Back in High School, I finished Deathly Hallows and there was the Epilogue… it was screaming “Write a story about what happens next!”, didn’t it? In fact, my writing skills were hardly adequate to write Harry Potter fiction in English back then. So I scribbled down some stuff (let’s say the draft of chapter 1) and then started gathering information.

Q. How would you describe all the characters in 3 words? A. Witty, sneaky, mischievous?

Q. Do you feel as if your portrayal of these characters are different from what people expect? If so, tell me why.

A.I’m not sure. There’s this flawed logic that kicks in when I get to work with so “undefined” characters. There are a few things that “make sense” to happen, so I use them as a base. For example, James was teasing Albus in the Epilogue, so I figured he could be a prankster in general. Of course, readers expect this since it’s been done before. Ron said Rosie got her mother’s brains, so she should be smart. Right? But they told her not to let Scorpius beat her, so how about making Scorpius smart too? I’m sure all this has been said and done before too. I also started out by making Albus somewhat meek and hesitant. Those are things that “should” be done, according to my strange logic, so that I don’t develop people who are “out-of-character”.

A character doesn’t stay the same forever though, especially when you’re dealing with an 11-year-old. That’s just the first impression. People change, they develop. I used those as a base and gave them a twist. Rose is smart, but she’s older than her mother, loves flying, mostly pretends to follow the rules but has few (or no) second thoughts about breaking them. She’s a powerful character, inspiring fear ON PURPOSE to make sure she doesn’t get bullied in a hostile environment. 

Scorpius is smart but he’s better when it comes to theory and potionmaking rather than spellcasting. He’s trapped in his family’s expectations of a “Malfoy” but he also has those ideas about equality slowly growing in his mind. Albus gets more confident at school, where he learns things he’s good at. James gets in trouble from day one, so he has some life-threatening situations to deal with and they keep him from being the easy-going prankster he wants to be. I’m not sure if readers expect that. Perhaps they do. But labels aren’t nice. A character isn’t just smart or just a troublemaker, or anything else. Characters have levels. Hopefully, readers won’t figure all of the levels at once, so that they can be surprised further along ;)

5.Which character are you most fond of, or have a soft spot for?

A. Hmmm, not quite sure. When I started writing the story, I wasn’t alone. It was written by me and another 3 authors, good pals whose writing styles I loved. Each of us picked a different POV, which is why the story shifts from Albus to Rose and Scorpius and James between chapters. Past the 4th chapter I kept writing on my own, but until then I had only Albus’s POV. The rest of them were initially developed by my friends, therefore I tried showing Rose, Scorpius, and James in the light they had shed. Perhaps Albus has a little bit more of me in him because of that? But the character I truly adore is Lily Luna. I can’t wait until she’s old enough to go to Hogwarts so that I can show more of her.

Q. Is your story different from any other fics?

A. I can’t say. I haven’t read that many next-gen fics and the ones I did were… eh… well, they were abandoned after a while and they were mostly listing “slice-of-life” kind of situations. So this answer is going to be even more subjective than what I’ve said so far. The most blatant difference I can see is that I have a new villain in the story. He’s not Voldemort reincarnated, not Voldemort’s secret child, not Voldemort who didn’t really die AGAIN. He’s a new person with strange motives it took me lots and lots of brainstorming to figure out. He’s working in the shadows, plotting, setting his plan in motion. James is caught in between all along, but he can’t ask for help, not in his current situation. Everyone is disoriented by the way Timothy (the villain) has turned things upside down, and they don’t even realize it’s him – or anyone in general – that’s done anything strange at the moment.

I am well aware of the fact that I am following plenty of cliches. !Spoilers ahead! I know Albus and Rose and Scorpius got sorted into Slytherin. I’ve been intending to explain this all along and it will happen later in the story. Personally, I think they’re more of Ravenclaw material *cough cough* Not Slytherin *cough* I’ll leave it at that for now ;)

Also, I got some professors to retire. Did anyone ever consider most of those people taught the first generation, the second and fought in two wizarding wars? They NEED to take some time off. It’s not like I wouldn’t love to use the professors who were already perfectly developed by Mrs. Rowling, but it didn’t feel very logical. Since I got in the trouble of doing that, I tried giving a more… multicultural twist to the new staff, including the headmistress. This will lead to student exchange programs and other stuff that will probably be pretty fun to write about (and hopefully will be pretty original). Especially with all of the new school information released on Pottermore last year, I have even more canon facts to work with (I wanted to do this since before Rowling mentioned those, so when she did I was ecstatic).

Q. Do you feel as if the differences you’ve made was a daring decision that paid off? Especially regarding James Potter as the main character of this and the whole multiple points of views.

A. Yes, I think it has paid off. The story needs a plot to keep the readers hooked, not just to show how smoothly and awesomely the next generation excelled during their Hogwarts years. Children will be children and they’ll mess up multiple times. James is actually the perfect example of that. He’s not a model student, but he’s not stupid either. He’s a smart kid with a mindset on things totally unrelated to his studies. He’ll get in trouble along the way and he’ll have to accept the consequences.

The multiple points of views are kind of the remains of the original co-authored story. I switched the story to 3rd person and only left them there to indicate whom each chapter focuses on. I love juggling with four characters instead of just one though because each of them can have their own personal drama every now and then, or separate friends and stuff. I hope it gives the readers more insight into each character’s personal thoughts and personalities and breaks the monotony.

I should probably mention that the story’s title is also a little deceiving. I liked Rowling’s titling pattern, where she said: Harry Potter and … (something important for each book’s plot), so I wanted to have my titles along the same lines. All four of the kids are equally important to the plot, it’s just that James gets in the gravest situations, so his name goes first. “The New Marauders” encases perfectly Albus, Rose, and Scorpius so I let it so :) (!Another spoiler ahead! The New Marauders is due to the fact they’re trying to become animagi like the original Marauders).

Q. How does it feel to have such a wide universe to play around with? A. 

Wonderful. I LOVE playing around in another person's playground and the Harry Potter universe is so vast! There's an endless supply of pre-existing characters to pick from and there's plenty of room to create more when you need them. Especially since James Potter and the New Marauders is a next-gen fic, the freedom I get is tenfold one of the people writing about the first or second generations.

It's still a bit of a pain because there are a lot of things to take into consideration: We're in 2017 when Albus, Rose, and Scorpius go to school. 2017? Wait, it's 2017 just NOW, since this January! So everyone writing next gen fics so far might not have even considered what would be accurate or at least expected of the Muggle and/or the Wizarding world in 2017. As said, some professors need to leave the school. New students need to come. A whole new student body, consisting of 4 different houses and 7 different years! I have an excel file where I have all of the new characters' information written down to keep track of all the kids I've made. There's no other way, or things get super messy. And those kids (and professors) need to be well-developed or readers will get confused or bored pretty soon.

 love digging up canon details of the next gen that Rowling has shared and I'm obviously using them. (I should say I don't consider the Cursed Child completely canon so I used only what I liked from this one). The kids of the next gen mentioned by JK exist in my story and some of them are important and some are not. For example Lorcan and Lysander Scamander, the kids of Luna and Newt's grandson? Of course, they've gotta exist. Same goes for many other children. And also if JK has said what became of certain 2nd generation characters (eg: Ginny's career as a Quidditch player and then a sports reporter) I stick to this information. But there also need to be some originals, because unless the characters from the books multiply like bunnies, we can't have enough students for all of Hogwarts by just using their kids. In general, I have a love-hate relationship with these kinds of things. I love developing, but often get lost in it, or feel like I need to straighten out details and hold back from writing because of that. It's a toughie if you want to be accurate at least.

Q.. Choose a song that's the theme song of your whole fic. A. Rock Paper Scissors by Katzenjammer

Q. Would you say that your writing has improved during this duration you've been writing this fic?

A. Yep, most probably it has. As I already said, I conceived the idea when I was pretty younger and my English skills were very very undeveloped yet. There have been tremendous changes since the first chapters, although they might not be so obvious anymore because the first chapters have been heavily re-edited since I got back to the story last summer. 

10. Last but not least, what advice would you have for fic writers wanting to write a Next Gen story? Writing Next Gen stories is a great idea. There can be a million stories that look nothing like each other, so they're one of the awesomest categories you can pick, especially if you get discouraged when you see a story with a similar plot to yours. But there are some things I'd keep in mind if I were you: The timeline. Albus, Rose and Scorpius go to Hogwarts in 2017. What has changed until then in the world? Has perhaps the development of the technology affected wizards? Has it not? The plot. Why are you writing? Is there a kind of situation your characters will deal with or are they just studying witchcraft and wizardry in Hogwarts, making friends and excelling (or failing) in their studies? The romance. Oh dear lord, please pay attention to this! The kids are 11 when they go to school, PLEASE, it makes NO sense for them to have anything stronger than a childish crush before year 3! And also… You can develop dozens of convincing OCs, so don't have everyone pair up with their relatives (one or two cliché pairings are ok, like ScorpiusxRose or LilyxScorpius or something, but that's IT). The sorting of the Next Gen. Anything is possible, as long as you explain it properly. Albus can be Hufflepuff if that's where you want him and Scorpius can be Gryffindor or whatever. There's no right or wrong. Just give your readers a good reason for it ;)