#need to develop mary's brother... he has an irish name and he dies just before the story starts but idk much else abt him yet

[transthadymacdermot]

Dearest followers I regret to inform u that I am once again adding to my collection of Little Guys (fictitious peasants)

[ourplaceinthecosmosphff]

Chapter 1. The Case Against Fairytales

'his eyes across a room tangled up in her imagination they had spent a lifetime together by the time he said hello' atticus

My brother died the same way he came into the world: silent, eyes closed, changing my life as I knew it. 

We spent our whole lives trying to convince anyone we could that we were as regular as they were, but here's the first fundamentally different thing when you are royal: the meaning of the word ‘everyone’. 

In our case, we usually mean anyone in the country, most of the international media, and at least a sizeable majority of the world's population. It's not that everyone knew us... it's just that enough people did. Enough for it to be easier to call them 'everyone'. 

When my brother Louis was born, mom had been rushed to the hospital in the middle of a Sunday afternoon. The press was notified, they promptly set up camp at the hospital entrance, and the people started prayer campaigns to the safe arrival of their new prince and heir. Everyone rejoiced at his arrival. I remember, I was there. 

At three years-old, it felt like everyone was every single person in the planet. It was mostly just the people in our country; to everyone else, his birth was a quick, short line of announcement, maybe some notice to the fact that the newborn baby boy was taking his older sister's place as heir, and not much else. 

When he died, everyone was every single person in the planet. The second thing fundamentally different when you are a royal: from a very early age you must learn that tragedy sells more than joy. And in any constitutional monarchy country, a royal family is merely another commodity.

A few people talked about my early graduation from University. A lot more people talked about my boyfriend breaking up with me. There were a few articles about my little sister's victory at the ice-skating junior final. When she fell on her face in front of the cameras while attempting a risky move, she went viral. When my brother came into our lives, a few people took notice. 

When he left us, everyone did.

---- ---- ---- ----

I, too, am a victim of culture appropriation. Since the dawn of time, from the moment humankind developed communication skills, there has been storytelling. And for the past few thousands of years most stories that parents tell their young as they tuck them into their blankets every night, have been about my culture. As far as that goes, it is not the most damaging kind of culture appropriation. But I have a duty today, and I will not shy away from it. I am sorry to say I must, and will, shatter the beautiful image of fairytales that kids have been fed for so many years now. 

I know what you are thinking – oh, boo-hoo, the poor little princess girl; is life too difficult in your beautiful palace with all the money a person could ever need? And yes, I know. I am not a victim. The same colonialism that placed my ancestors, and therefore, me, in the position of privilege and power I am in today has created many more actual victims around the world. But that is also why I must tell this story the way it was always meant to be told: truthfully. With all the weird, awkward, awful, bits and pieces that fairytales tend to skip. 

Fairytales would, for instance, skip straight to the grand, majestic welcome ceremony between the Queen of the United Kingdom and the King of Savoy in a sun floored courtyard with guards on tall, furry black hats strutting around, standing in a red-carpeted dais, with a handsome prince making eyes at me. But in my story, we will start with the train. 

That’s right, in modern fairytales you don’t take a lovely carriage ride to a neighboring kingdom. You take a train there – a commercial train, if you can, because modern times beg for demonstrating to the masses that the Monarch isn’t throwing money around. We were trying to highlight the easy routes of access to our neighbors to the northeast, and so we took the ferry across the Celtic Sea to Hugh Town Island and from there, Eurostar number 2 train that made a quick stop in Penzance, UK, and then went straight to London. 

The train ride isn’t comfortable – even if you have a first class private car. It’s bumpy and crowded and a terrible place to spend three straight hours. On that particular morning, I was in our car with my father, his household secretary Auguste, my private aide, Cadie, and a few other staff members. 

In fairytale world, when a princess does not look the part, there is usually the appearance of a fairy godmother who sings a nice song and magically transforms her into a Proper Princess™. There is no fairy godmothers when you are a real princess- real ones, sure, but they are not magical-, but you do learn from an early age what a Proper Princess™ should look like, act like, and sound like, and god forbid you don't. 

In the train that day, I heard all that was keeping me from being Proper™ from Auguste, who was in many ways the exact opposite of a fairy godmother. He had all the menacing authority of one, with none of the charm. He also didn’t have wings or a sparkly wand; he had greying short hair, and thin, small, reading glasses that he always pushed down to the tip of his nose to look above, which made me wonder what was the point of the glasses at all.

Before our arrival, I had to change my lipstick, which was too dark, my dress, which was too short at the daring height of above my knees, my shoes, which were open toed and therefore wrong, and finally, make sure to brush my hair once more.

My parents never subscribed to the idea that we were forbidden to do anything. They were raised on stern rules and heavily traditional costumes and wanted their kids to live more freely. So, growing up, they revolutionarily told us that we were free to be whoever we wanted to be – in private. In public, we had an obligation to be Proper™. After all, as I heard repeatedly growing up: royals don’t make mistakes, we make history; and history remembers.

So, yes. I, a grown, 25 years-old, law-school graduate, bar-approved acquisitions lawyer, changed out of my dress into a more proper one because my dad asked. Because as a princess, you’re never just yourself; you’re the country. And if your country comes from a Roman Catholic tradition, your hemlines must reflect that, no matter what century it is.

The country in question was just to the south of the United Kingdom, west of France, a large island named Savoie. The English call it Savoy, which is how it was pronounced anyway. It was originally populated by the Irish, but over the years it was conquered by the English, the Spanish, and the Portuguese until finally, in the 13th Century, it was conquered by France. It was bigger than Ireland, but smaller than England, and one of the biggest GDPs in the world, with a population of 49 million. Under the reign of Louis XV, however, France lost most of its possessions after its defeat in the Seven Years' War, and to secure Savoy, the king sent part of the court to live there and to reign in his stead as his emissaries. Louis XV's reign grew weak, including his ill-advised financial, political and military decisions, which discredited the monarchy and arguably led to the French Revolution 15 years after his death. France dealt with its dissatisfaction by revolting, Savoy however, secluded away at sea, decided to declare independence before the Revolution had even taken steam. The political leaders of the Island reached an agreement with the king's emissary, Prince Louis, the highest ranking monarch on the island; in exchange for support for the severance of all connection to France, he was then made King Louis I of Savoy. The Royal House of Savoy grew steady and strong by protecting its people and assuring them a freer, better life than the one they'd known under French reign.

A few years later, I sat on that train in front of the current King of Savoy. My father. 

“You look beautiful, Maggie.”

“Thank you.” 

“The other dress was beautiful as well. Just not for today.”

“Mm-hm.”

A moment of silence went by. I picked up my phone and checked my emails. There was one from Sophie with the subject ‘urgent!’ so I clicked in it feeling my heart race.

It read,

‘Marie, I’m sorry to bother you on your days off, but the depositions got moved up to Monday and we can’t find the notes on the manager deposition, you were the one who did them. Is there any chance you have a copy and if so can you send them to me? Enjoy England! XO Soph’

Sighing, I put down my phone and quickly found my laptop on my suitcase. I turned it on as I replied to Sophie’s email to tell her to expect my deposition notes shortly. 

“You know if we could I’d let you wear whatever you wanted.” Dad added as I logged into my computer.

“I do.”

I moved quickly through my folders realizing the most recent update on my notes hadn’t been uploaded to the cloud. Sighing, I logged on to the train WiFi and checked the storage service online. It didn’t connect.

“Honestly, darling, you look even prettier with this dress.”

I looked up, mentally wondering if the previous versions of the notes would be useful.

“This isn’t about the dress.”

I realized, then, that it wouldn’t matter anyway because I wouldn’t be able to send them to Sophie without internet. I looked out the window, realizing perhaps too late that we were in the tunnel, underwater. Of course there wasn’t internet.

“Well, what is it about?” Dad asked, putting his book marker back inside the page he was on and laying down the book to give me his full attention.

“Work, papa. I have a job.”

“Yes, and it’s your day off. Maybe you should try and turn off from work for the next few days?”

I smiled down to my computer, “maybe this is a conversation for another time.”

Dad adjusted his posture, looking a little taller, and looked around the room to Cadie and Auguste sitting in a booth nearby with our private hair and make-up artist, and dad’s footman, and personal aide.

“Excuse me, everyone, would you be so kind as to give us the room? Or, uh, the car? There is a little lounge outside, isn’t there?”

“Of course, sir.” Auguste said, jumping up immediately with the aide, and Cadie and Cass, the make-up artist, followed.

After they had left and closed the door behind them, I looked at my father. He lurched back in his seat and smiled at me. 

“Go on,” he said. “If you don’t scream I don’t think they’ll hear us.”

“Why would I scream?”

“I don’t know, Maggie. But I don’t know why you would be so passive aggressive, either. Can you tell me?”

“What do you want, dad?” 

In truth, I added the ‘dad’ at the end of the sentence to make it sound less aggressive, but as he stared at me, I felt uncomfortable not explaining myself.

“I’m here, aren’t I?”, I asked, tiredly. “I’m here, wearing a proper, long, not-slutty dress-“

“No one here used that word-“

“My toes will be perfectly hidden away when we arrive, I have hidden my ugly, evil legs under some stockings-“

“Really, Maggie, no one said your legs were-“

“My make-up is light and my hair is simple and non-threatening. I know not to smile too much or too little and to let the adults lead the conversation”, I said, the word ‘adults’ dangling bitterly from me lips. “And not to walk ahead of you, but always behind, taking your lead.”

“You make it sound so stiff and calculated.”

“And I have taken time off of work to be here.” I said. “All other Junior Associates are working overtime and through weekends to cash in as many billable hours as possible to be promoted to Full-time Associates, and instead I took off four days to travel with my dad.”

“Work, for work!”

“So, again, what do you want? How else am I not meeting your expectations?”

I spoke calmly, gently, and as low a volume as I could just to confront his joke not a minute before about how if I didn’t scream the others wouldn’t hear us. I made sure to be as poised and contained as I could. He heaved a sigh.

“I’m sorry you had to take time off work.” 

I waited, as he stared in his usual lovingly, patient way. I smiled, more as a peace offering than genuinely. 

“You know very well they won’t fire you.”

Still, I was quiet, smiling as sincerely as I could. 

“And I know that isn’t fair, but there’s nothing I can do about it. So tell me something I can do and I will.”

“Okay.” I said, nodding. “I want your honesty. Don’t treat me like a child you need to protect, don’t patronize me. All I want is an honest answer.”

He adjusted himself in his seat and cleared his throat. “Alright. Go on.”

“Why am I here, papa?”

He blinked, seemingly confused. I could tell he expected a harder question.

“Your- Because your mother sprained her ankle?” he answered, still unsure. “What- do you mean philosophically? Why are any of us here, really? I don’t understand.”

I tried not to smile. “I mean I have a life. I am not your heir. Louis is your heir, it is his job to help you when mom has emergencies.”

He sighed deeply, finally arriving at the same page where I was.

“Your brother is in school.” He said. “And you are our oldest child. So, I’m sorry if it disrupts your life, Maggie. But you are needed.”

“And after school?” I asked “His graduation is in 6 months. Are you telling me that after he graduates university and moves back home, when he is starting his career, maybe moving to the capital, when you and mom have an emergency, you will call him up instead of me?”

He gave the table a sad smile. “If that is your wish, yes.”

“So that’s all, then?” I confirmed, suspiciously. “He moves back after graduation and you will give me the space I need?”

He smiled. “Is that what you want, then?” it wasn’t a confirmation. It was a tone of accomplishment. Of finally realizing what was it that I wanted, as if this entire conversation that’s what he had been trying to find out.

“I went to school for years. I interned for a year. I studied hard for the bar exams in America and Savoy. Yes, dad, I want to use the degree I worked hard for.”

“Okay, then. We will give you space.” He said. “Space from us, to be who you want to be. To be normal.”

I rolled my eyes, smiling, slightly amused at his dramatics. “That is not what I meant.”

“But it is accurate.”

“Papa...” I sighed.

“I’m just saying, sweetheart, I understand.” He insisted. “It’s why you went to America for University, it’s why you are based on the capital now. As long as you’re too close to us, you can’t live a normal life.”

“I can never live a normal life. We are not normal.”

“But you wish to try.”

I chuckled. “How?! You said it yourself, they will never fire me. My firm, I mean. Wherever I am, I am never just me and my degree and my career. People look at me and see you, as if I am you. I am their King. I am the Royal Family of Savoy. They’ll never take me seriously or afford me the same opportunities as everyone, because I am not everyone.”

He nodded, slowly, then sighed. “Yikes. You’re right. That sounds tough.”

“And I’m the passive aggressive one?”

“Job security and the attention of your bosses. That sounds awful.”

“Papa...”

“You want the space to dedicate yourself to your career without us pulling you away for royal work. Is that it? Okay. You got it. As soon as your brother is back from University, I will make sure you’re only needed for official events, and only if you’re not working.” 

He sounded serious now. Sincere as when he delivered the End of Year address every Christmas, which was meaningful. Getting dad to afford me the same seriousness he afforded his subjects was as much seriousness as I could get from him. Still, there was no mistaking the sadness in his eyes. 

“Even before his affirmation ceremony?” I asked, trying to sniff around for a trick.

The affirmation ceremony was meant to make clear to the country that an heir to throne had the seal of approval of the Monarch, and it usually happened when the heir was 21 years of age, to signify the Monarch believed in the event of a tragedy, the heir was ready to rule.  In modern times, it meant an heir was ready to start working as a full-time royal. Though my brother was 22, the family had decided to wait until he had graduated university to do his ceremony. 

Dad took longer than I wished, but finally, he nodded. “Yes. I promise.”

If you’re paying attention, then you might have noticed the math doesn’t add up. How come my 22 years-old brother is the heir when I said I am 25, the oldest child? Well, as with most fairytales, as well as with most of life, the problem is the patriarchy. For the thing is, though I was older than Louis by three years, because I was born a girl, he became the heir when he was born. So, at three, I went from future-Queen to lower ranking older sister. 

It wasn’t unusual, my father himself had two older sisters who were lower than him and his brothers in the line of succession. As a result we had older cousins who we outranked. I cared about all this at 25 the same as when I was 3: not at all. 

Absolute primogeniture law was passed in Savoy when I was 5, propelled by my birth and the new times. It was, however, not retroactive. This meant the law was changed for future births, not past ones, so all girls born after the law came into effect would be heirs in their own right, no matter how many brothers they got after, and all girls born before would go into history as having missed it by ‘just a bit’.

Louis and I, though, didn’t sit around having long discussions about who would be a better ruler. There has never been an instance in which we were arguing and I yelled something like, “first you stole my throne and now you stole my cookies! I hate you!”. For us this was just a little footnote in the family tree. A little fun fact to tell our future kids one day. And although I couldn’t remember what it felt like, I always knew it was much better not having to be the Crown Princess of Savoy.

---- ---- ---- ----

When we finally reached Penzance, the small town in the tip of the isle of England where sat the second Eurostar station, I was able to finally connect to the internet. My father left our train car to walk about with his security because he wanted to witness the new English policy of installing a check-point at the entry due to the immigrant crisis – a huge part of why we were there. While he did that, I sent Sophie my notes on the deposition, and answered some messages.

There was one from Louis, my aforementioned brother:

‘are you close?’

And one from our baby sister, Lourdes:

‘what do you think??!!!!!!!!’, with an attachment of two videos.

And, lastly, one from my mother, Her Majesty Queen Amelie-Elyse, back home with a sprained ankle.

‘Hope all is well! Let me know when you’re with your brother. Don’t forget to let your hair down before leaving the train!’

She didn’t mean it in a philosophical, have fun kind of way. She literally meant let my hair down, apparently it softened my features. 

I replied to her with a selfie, with my hair properly brushed and down, in preparation for the arrival in London, which was close now. Let Louis know we were almost there. And sent a quick, uncommitted ‘woah!’ to my sister, without opening her attachments. They were always the same: videos of her practicing. There was only so much ice skating I could watch in a lifetime.

My mom answered my text with, “why did you change your dress?!”

I sighed, getting ready to justify this decision as well, already anticipating she would argue that the fascinator wouldn’t go with this one dress, so I told her I already had another fascinator standing by. 

Growing up with fairytales they don’t tell you about the little annoying details. Characters who are annoying usually are the villains, the ones the Princess escapes from, usually saved by the prince. They don’t tell you sometimes, actually a lot of the times, the people you love can be equally as annoying. 

---- ---- ---- ----

When we arrived at the station in London, I was already wearing my disc fascinator in a light shade of blue matching both my lace dress, this time reaching all the way to my ankles, and eyes. We were quickly greeted by the Savoyen Ambassador to England in front of the press, and escorted into government cars towards Whitehall. 

The large parade ground was a traditional courtyard in central London that usually housed ceremonies related to the military and the royal family. When we arrived, the day finally was washed in a feeling of ceremony. 

The place was lined neatly with military guards, security barricades and the Scotland Yard Police kept watchers and paparazzi at bay, the press lined up inside to have the best view of all involved. As we arrived, the traditional 41 gun salute was already sounding on. A military band was playing. People waved and yelled hello as we drove inside. I suddenly knew what to do, as if my body had the gene for it. This was one thing that was definitely genetic.

I stepped out of the car delicately, smoothly, knees together like a proper lady, polite smile on my lips in thanks to the guard who saluted as I left. My father greeted a handler who escorted us to the front of all the lined guards, where three structures had been set up: one large one in the middle, with a red-carpeted stage and a large roof, the British Royal Coat of Arms in the center with the British flag to its right and the Savoy flag to its left. Decorative flowers and elegant plants here and there. Two smaller, simpler structures to both of its sides. Inside all of them, men and women in formal suits and ties and knee-length, appropriate dresses and hats. 

We walked the grovel path to the larger structure as the band played and the press, lined up in front of this platform, took their photographs. My father climbed the steps first, quickly being received by the small, elder, lady in a lavender overcoat and matching hat, impressive set of pearls dangling from her neck. She smiled as he lowered himself down to kiss both her cheeks warmly. 

The queen then looked at me and I approached, just as our handler told Her Majesty:

“And may I present, Her Royal Highness, Princess Marie-Margueritte of Savoy.”

I lowered myself in a curtsy, and as she extended her hands to hold mine, I also kissed her cheeks, trying to avoid knocking her hat with mine. 

“Welcome.” She smiled. “I hope the ride was forgiving.”

“Very comfortable.” My father told her. “Always surprising how fast it is.”

“Yes. You’ll remember, I’m sure, the Prince of Wales.” She said, walking us to the center of the platform where another two men awaited.

My father and the Prince of Wales greeted each other warmly, they were more used to running in the same circles – royal weddings here and there, international summits and meetings, or whatever it is they do. 

“We’re so glad to have you.” He told my father. 

“I don’t know if you’ve met my daughter, Princess Marie-Margueritte.”

Smiling, I curtsied to the Prince of Wales as he held my hand, before kissing my cheeks. 

“You brighten this day, Your Royal Highness.” He told me, before stepping closer to add, in a whisper. “Sorry you have been dragged to this.”

I giggled, “I’m happy to be here, sir.”

Straightening up, he noticed my father was already greeting the man behind him. “Hopefully we won’t bore you too much. I have tried to bring someone else closer to your age. Have you met my son?”

The handler didn’t know it, but there were no introductions necessary. And yet, all I could do was smile politely as we were introduced to:

“His Royal Highness, Prince Harry of Wales.”

I wondered, for a moment, if he would acknowledge that we already knew each other. 

“It’s a pleasure, Your Royal Highness.” Holding my hand in his, he brought my knuckles to his lips. 

The answer was, obviously, no. So I lowered myself again in a curtsy as an excuse to avert my eyes from his.

I couldn’t understand why, but I had been unprepared for him. With all of Auguste’s preparation, all the briefings, with all the preachings about my appearance, no one had prepared me for him. I don’t know if it was that, like me, he was one of the youngest there, or how absurdly, almost ridiculously tall he was, or maybe how the blue in his eyes contrasted with the red of his hair, but he just… stunned me. When he kissed my hand, his eyes traveled down my legs all the way back to pierce mine, igniting a wave of electricity down my spine I was unable to control. 

He leaned back, and there we stood, hand in hand, wordlessly. 

“You can follow the King, ma’am.” Auguste whispered behind me, his voice making me jump slightly, as I quickly pulled my hand from Harry’s, not before realizing he had something scribbled on his palm.

My father and the Queen were deep in conversation, with Charles besides them, as they reached the center of the platform to watch the guards. The Queen in the middle, my father to her right, and the Prince of Wales to her left, I walked forward to stand beside my father, while Prince Harry walked to his. 

We waited just a moment, and then the band started playing the Savoy National Anthem, and the British Anthem after it. A few words said, more ceremony here and there, and the Prince Wales formally invited my father to inspect the Guards, so they left together, accompanied by one of the military leaders to walk among the rolls of guards,  as the three of us stood behind to watch.

“I was sorry to hear about your mother, ma’am.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty.” I said, looking regretful, walking towards her, closing the gap left behind by the others. “She was sorry she couldn’t be here.”

“I hope it’s nothing serious.” Prince Harry interjected.

“A sprained ankle.” I explained, looking ahead. 

“Harry is also here after a small hiccup with the Duchess of Cornwall, my daughter-in-law.” His grandmother told me. “An illness in her family, nothing serious.”

“Hopefully I’ll have time to meet her before we leave.”

“Oh, I’m sure.” She nodded. “How did you mother hurt herself?”

“Horse fall. She was never very fond of Polo, I’m afraid this will drive her further away from it.”

“Oh, that is regretful.” The Queen said. 

Harry looked at me. “Do you play?” 

“I do, sir.” 

“Harry is very good,” his grandmother told me, “he will be the one playing with you in the charity match in the coming days.”

“I look forward to-“, I started, but Harry had started the exact same sentence. We locked eyes, and chuckled.

“You first.” I said.

“Please, I insist.” He responded, cheeks reddening.

His grandmother looked between us, and then back to the uniformed men in front. She then said, in a low tone, something I would spend a large part of the upcoming months thinking obsessively about:

“Be careful with him... He will charm you, but he is a heartbreaker.”

The words astonished me so much I looked at her, unsure she had actually said them. But she had, clearly, because Harry was also looking at her, quite shocked.

“Granny!” he complained, in such a whiny tone I broke into laughter.

“Do I lie?” She asked him, grinning. It only made him look more shocked. 

“Don’t ruin my reputation in front of foreign royals!” he said, in a low tone, before looking at me. “Specially such pretty ones.”

My giggle froze in my throat under his intense glare, and I could feel my cheeks reddening.

The Queen looked at me. “Oh, you’re blushing. It’s too late, I see.”

It was.

---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----

Margueritte’s outfit

The ask box is open! Let me know your thoughts? And if at all possible, like this page so I know you liked it? Thank you so much!

[A/N: Attention: by continuing to read you are accepting that some sad stuff is coming. You been warned. Thanks for checking this out! Let me know your thoughts?? thanks!!!!]

[A/N2: Hey! Nat here. I wanted to talk a little more about the story we are about to go on together.

In the upcoming chapters you will be introduced to the Royal Family of Savoy, a fictitious European country right below the UK, to left of France. When I first posted a fanfiction, FIUYMI, I made the main character latina, since that’s what I am, and I had previously felt that I couldn’t relate to other characters I had read. In this one, however, I decided I wanted to write about a fictitious monarchy, and I knew I wanted to make it as realistic as possible. 

As much as I wanted at many points in the story to make the character look more like me, the idea felt like cheating: Margueritte is a blood royal, born to a life of specific privileges and hardships, and pretending she could look like the type of people who don’t have white privilege would be trying to ignore a very real issue: all monarchies - past and present - existed, lasted and gathered riches on the back of people of color. Most of their descendants still carry white and wealth privilege because these royal families, however many years ago, supported and perpetuated colonialism and white supremacy that left countless countries and their populations still recovering today.

That is a legacy Margueritte didn’t chose, and which she also doesn’t have to face, but in this story she will chose too. As you’ll see, she finds herself in a much more influential position she thought she would have, and as such she realizes she has two options: she can stick to the message her family - and other royal families - have perpetuated for generations and keep her head high, mouth and ears shut, so their legacy can survive; or she can chose to be a modern Queen who will make the institution relevant again. I want to write about this because this issue is important for the times we live in, particularly after the way the Duchess of Sussex was treated in the United Kingdom.

What that will look like will depend on who Margueritte is as a person and whose advice she takes, and that is a journey I hope you’ll take with us =) ]

[ginnranger]

Character Information

 Clearly I have put more thought into some of these characters than others, but I will add to this as I write more and develop them more.

General Information -

Name: Ginn Ranger

Gender: Female

Nickname(s): Little G, Sweets (By Martin only), Lady Ranger (Martin), Little Ember (Past - hated),

Date of Birth: 1st January, 2002

Astrological/ Zodiac Sign: Capricorn

Ethnicity: English, Irish

Nationality: British

Species: Human

Sexuality: Panromantic, Asexual

Family: 

The Ranger family is an Irish descended family, residing in Liverpool City, then London. They are a poor family, but they get by well enough with what they have. Patrick and Mary had Ginn accidentally when they were 18. They got married when Ginn was 5 years old, when they were 23. They follow an ancient and rare tribal culture, known as Star Chasers, who believe the stars are the souls of their ancestors, and prioritise a person’s ability to fight.

Father: Patrick Ranger is a Northern Irish descended man who moved to Liverpool with his father when he was 10 years old, after the mysterious death of his mother. He was arrested and thrown in Juvenile Detention when he was 15 for assault and assist in an attempted murder, where he stayed until he turned 16. Once he was released, he was put on parole and pursued an apprenticeship and career in carpentry. He met Mary in the carpentry workshop, as she worked as the clerk in the shop. He is extremely creative, and blessed with artistic skills, like drawing, carving, and pyrography. He also enjoys music, and played guitar, until he had to sell it to scrounge enough money for bills when he was 25. His mother died mysteriously when he was 10, making his father even more neurotic than before, and forcing them to run to England and live with his uncle and cousin. He was disowned by his father at 17, when he started dating Mary. He has rusty ginger hair, styled messily, cut 4 inches at the sides and back, and 5 inches in top, having it fall over his right eye. The sides are tucked behind his ears. He has forest green eyes and light pale skin. He has a slim build, with broad shoulders and strong arms.

Mother: Mary Pendle (Later Ranger) is a Southern Irish descended woman whose family moved to Liverpool two generations before Mary was born. She completed A-Levels in Maths, Physics, and a B-TEC in Business, then moved on to do a degree in Mathematics and Finance in the university of Liverpool. She met Patrick at age 16, when she went to work as the saleswoman in the carpentry shop Patrick worked in. She worked so she could make her own money and run away from her abusive mother. However, she was disowned by her mother when she started dating Patrick. Her mother and her sister attempted to murder her after disowning her, but luckily, she managed to get into public eye before passing out to be taken to the hospital. Mary became pregnant aged 18 with Patrick’s child, so struggled a lot more with university than originally thought. She was diagnosed with Autism when she was 20, after one of her professors recognised some of the general characteristics in her. She has curly, messy, brown hair, that she usually keeps down, with a fringe swooping to the right, and cut to the middle of her shoulder blades. She has pale skin, with light freckles over the bridge of her nose, and bright, electric blue eyes. She has a skinny, curvy build.

Other family (s): Liyo Anand (Friend of Mary and Patrick, husband of Scot), Scot Lander (friend of Patrick and Mary, husband of Liyo), Amanda Lander (the mother of Scot, who took in Mary and Patrick when they were disowned, and helped them with Ginn when she was a baby), Gillian Pendle (Mary’s mother, never met), Finnley Ranger (Patrick’s father, never met).

Affiliation(s)/ Organization(s): When she is older, she helps Martin’s charity.

Occupation(s): Illustrator, activist

Appearance -

Height: 5’3”

Weight: 6st 5lb

Eyes: Heterochromia; right eye is electric blue, left eye is amber-brown

Complexion (skin tone/ conditions): pale, with light freckles on bridge of nose, and often had bags under her eyes. She had two large scars on her back, stretching from her right shoulder, down diagonally to the middle of her back, under her shoulder blades. There is a straight, thick scar on her left side, a slimmer scar on her right forearm, and a few self harm scars on her thighs.

Hair Colour/ Style: Rusty ginger. Cut short to the top of her ears, but often left to grow to jaw length, in a choppy and messed up style. She has a fringe swept to the left, covering her brown eye. It is mainly cut at home by her mother, but she will cut it on her own when she is going through a crisis. She had longer hair when she was younger, but she went through some traumatic experiences that made her cut it short to feel more in control.

Dress sense: She dresses in loose, baggy clothing, as she is very uncomfortable with being perceived as feminine due to trauma. She often wears an oversized khaki green army style jacket. Her favourite colour is green, so she often wears one of her many green tshirts, with all types of sleeve length. She likes black jeans and walking trousers, and often wears boots.

School Information -

Worst Class(es): English (Dyslexia), Sciences

Best Class(es): Art

Sport(s): running, gymnastics (no team, but very good) (Enjoys free-running and parkour)

Club(s): N/A

Status: Loser, outcast, art kid. When she becomes friends with the others, she moves up the social ladder

Trivia -

(Random facts about them, future job, etc.)

Random Facts:

Favorite place: top of Anglican Cathedral. likes to be outside, so is happy anywhere she can see the stars at night.

Hobbies: Drawing, animating, running, parkour.

Past events: As a child, she was never able to connect with her peers, for reasons she could not understand. This made her so lonely, she was manipulated into entering a bad crowd, but she only ended up gaining scars on her back, trauma from sexual and physical abuse, and more trust issues. She says the only good thing she got from those experiences is her excellent judge in character and her ability to fight.

Medical/Psychological history: She has a rare medical condition (Hemovenenum [blood poisoning]) that requires 1-2 injections a day in order to keep her steady and alive. This makes her have heart attacks, and makes her immunity severely low. Needs at least two check-ups a year. She developed PTSD and depression from the traumatic experiences as a 12 year old. She developed social anxiety after so much rejection by her peers as a child.

General Information -

Name: Martin Williams

Gender: Male

Nickname(s): Mart, Tin (by Ginn), Master Williams (By Ginn)

Date of Birth: 25th October 2001

Astrological/ Zodiac Sign: Scorpio

Ethnicity: Spanish, Black

Nationality: British

Species: Human

Sexuality: Bisexual

Family: The Williams family is new money rich. Martin’s father, Conner, invented a new printing press machine, as well as more sustainable paper and ink, patenting it and creating his own printing company. Mr Peterson’s magazine was the first to invest in Conner’s company. This happened when Martin was 4 years old. His mother’s side is Spanish, and father’s side is black. They are all extremely close, having family gatherings a lot and doing many of their hobbies together. Their main connection is their love for music, all of them playing a different instrument and writing songs together. Martin and his two brothers love to run and venture through nature, parkouring through the wilderness.

Father: Conner Williams is a British black man, who despite his money, is very down to earth as he remembers what it is like to struggle. He is a caring CEO, and makes sure every employee has a good wage, great conditions, and an excellent experience in the workplace. He likes to help people, and is very generous. He enjoys music, and taught Martin how to play different instruments. He has dark brown eyes, thick curly black hair, and a thin, neatly shaved beard.

Mother: Elena Williams moved to England when she was 20, her family following her six years later. She is an interior designer, and works with Zack Peterson, advertising herself and putting simple designs in a section of his magazine. She is a caring, unbothered woman who does not care what people think of her, she just lives her life how she wants. She taught all her children Spanish, plays piano wither family, and taught Martin and Valeria how to cook. She had long, wavy, mahogany brown hair, reaching almost to her butt. She likes to keep it down, but if needed she will put it in a pony tail. She has large, russet brown eyes, and sun kissed skin.

Conner and Elena were the youngest couple in the group of parents, until Mary and Patrick joined them.

Other family (s): Dominic (eldest brother), Mateo (older brother) Valeria (younger sister), aunts, uncles, cousins, all four grandparents

Affiliation(s)/ Organization(s): a charity he volunteered in from 14yrs old.

Occupation(s): the same charity he volunteered in

Appearance -

Height: 5’7” (age 15), 6’2” (adult)

Weight: 11st

Eyes: russet brown, sparkling, often bright and happy.

Complexion (skin tone/ conditions): Dark skin, but closer to his mother’s lighter shade than his father’s

Hair Colour/ Style: Mahogany brown. Ordered messy, like he had spent several minutes gliding his fingers through his hair, methodically spiking it up, then brushing it forward, leaving bits sticking up. Every portion of his hair was cut to a similar length, apart from the front, which was slightly longer, dropping lightly in front of his right eye

Dress sense: Martin’s dress sense is often describes a grungy by his friends. He wears loose fitted tshirts, slim fit, dark coloured jeans, with bright coloured trainers. Depending on the weather, he switches between wearing button ups over his tshirts, zip up hoodies, and pull over hoodies and jumpers. His hoodies are all oversized and baggy.

He has been described by his teachers as ‘looking for trouble’, as his crooked smile makes him look like he is planning something. Really, he is thinking about something funny.

School Information -

Worst Class(es): sciences, art

Best Class(es): music, English

Sport(s): gymnastics (likes free-running and parkour)

Club(s): band, debate club

Status: disruptive one in class, but means well

Trivia -

(Random facts about them, future job, face claim, theme song, etc.)

Random Facts:

Favourite place: mountain tops, his paternal grandparents’ living room

Hobbies: music, making videos, anything to do with social justice

Past events: a few generations before, Martin’s ancestor “Andrew Williams” and Ginn’s ancestor “Hailey Ranger” were friends in the Army. Ginn and Martin bond over this. Martin was excluded for two weeks after he punched the PE teacher for discriminating against him.

General Information -

Name: Alex Peterson

Gender: Male

Nickname(s): Domer

Date of Birth: 14th November, 2001

Astrological/ Zodiac Sign: Scorpio

Ethnicity: English

Nationality: British

Species: Human

Sexuality: Bisexual

Family:

The Peterson family is descended from people who were more than able to get themselves into The Dome after the Nuclear War. They are a rich family, living in the rich city centre of London. Zack Peterson inherited his business from his father, like his father did before him. They are a well respected family in society, so image is everything to them, however, they still remain pleasant and kind people.

Father: Zack Peterson is the owner of a massive world-wide magazine, Wonder. He inherited it from his father, like his father before him, and he is obsessed with keeping his social image pristine and perfect, so he tries his best to make good connections and do good things. He loves writing, both fact and fiction, but is useless when it comes to DIY and housework. He has a Masters Degree in English, and a Bachelors in both English and Business. He has short blond hair, and vibrant blue eyes. He tends to wear suits, even when he is not working.

Mother: Sarah Peterson is a psychologist with a particular interest in child development and how trauma affects a young person. She is supportive and maternal, but is also image driven, so hides problems. She has long blonde hair, neatly cut down to her mid-back, that she usually keeps up in a braid or bun, and light blue eyes. She has a very feminine style, never wearing trousers.

Other family (s): Grandparents, paternal uncle, maternal aunt, cousins

Affiliation(s)/ Organization(s): Churchill’s Private Secondary school, Parliament (adult)

Occupation(s): Politician

Appearance -

Height: 5’9” (age 15), 6’2 (adult)

Weight: 10st

Eyes: Cornflower blue

Complexion (skin tone/ conditions): pale but healthy. As an adult, he would have bags under his eyes a lot.

Hair Colour/ Style: light blond. Shaved sides and back, with a classic side parting, favouring the right

Dress sense: Alex likes to wear button up shirts with jeans, trainers or canvas shoes, with smart casual jackets.

School Information -

Worst Class(es): Biology, physics, maths

Best Class(es): ICT, History

Sport(s): Rounders

Club(s): Photography, rounders team

Status: nerdy jock

Trivia -

(Random facts about them, future job, etc.)

Random Facts:

Favourite place: Gardens and parks, his bedroom, the lounge in the Peterson home

Hobbies: photography, editing, photoshop

General Information -

Name: Louise Mitchel

Gender: Female

Nickname(s): Lou,

Date of Birth: 2th April 2002

Astrological/ Zodiac Sign: Taurus

Ethnicity: White

Nationality: British

Species: human

Sexuality: Bisexual

Family: Louise is the eldest child of three in the Mitchel family, with twin brothers, who are 6 years younger than her. Her parents married as they are secretly gay, and they think they hide it from their children and friends, but fail terribly, as they fool no one. Still, they refuse to break up until their incredibly religious parents die.

Father: Parker Mitchel is a lawyer. He is secretly gay, and often stays out late hooking up with men. Laila honestly could not care less.

Mother: Laila Mitchel is a speech therapist. She develops strong crushes on women very quickly due to her repressed sexuality. Mary Ranger is a particular weakness for her.

Other family (s): Jacob (younger brother), Thomas (younger brother)

Affiliation(s)/ Organization(s):

Occupation(s): Psychologist and counsellor

Appearance -

Height: 5’5”

Weight: 9st

Eyes: Sky blue

Complexion (skin tone/ conditions): Pale and pristine

Hair Colour/ Style: Light brown. Long (mid way down back), often kept up in a loose braid.

Dress sense: Louise likes to dress very feminine, wearing short skirts and neat blouses. She is classy, yet hot.

School Information -

Worst Class(es): history, art

Best Class(es): Psychology, English

Sport(s): N/A

Club(s): N/A

Trivia -

(Random facts about them, future job, etc.)

Random Facts:

Favourite place: her bedroom, libraries

Hobbies: sewing, makeup, dance

 General Information -

Name: Elsie Brown

Gender: Female

Nickname(s): El, Els, 

Date of Birth: 6th March 2002

Astrological/ Zodiac Sign: Pisces

Ethnicity: White

Nationality: British

Species: human

Sexuality: Straight

Family: her parents bonded over their similar names.

Father: Daniel Brown is a botanist specialising in fruit/veg baring plants to make them more efficient in harvest.

Mother: Danielle ‘Dani’ Brown is a marine biologist professor at the University of London. 

Other family (s): Jasmine (younger sister), Robert (older brother)

Affiliation(s)/ Organization(s):

Occupation(s): Primary school teacher

Appearance -

Height: 5’4”

Weight: 8st 8lb

Eyes: forest green

Complexion (skin tone/ conditions): pale, but slight tan. Darker than the other girls

Hair Color/ Style: strawberry blonde. Long and wavy. Barely ever kept up. Has a thick fringe swept to the left side.

Dress sense: Elsie likes to dress more conservatively than Louise, but still very feminine. She wears skirts down to the knee, with tights and simple dolly shoes.

School Information -

Worst Class(es): Art, music

Best Class(es): Maths, English

Sport(s): N/A

Club(s): N/A

Trivia -

(Random facts about them, future job, face claim, theme song, etc.)

Random Facts:

Favourite place: anywhere she can see water

Hobbies: making cloths, dancing

 General Information -

Name: George Groden

Gender: Male

Nickname(s): N/A

Date of Birth: 10th September 2001

Astrological/ Zodiac Sign: Virgo

Ethnicity: white

Nationality: British

Species: Human

Sexuality: Straight

Family: the richest family in the group.

Father: Grant Groden is a doctor and medical researcher in a private hospital. He is rather pretentious and class based, so has a slightly low view on the Rangers, but eventually he’ll get used to them

Mother: Molly Groden is a high class Interior Designer.

Other family (s): Diana (Older sister)

Affiliation(s)/ Organization(s):

Occupation(s): Doctor and Medical researcher

Appearance –

Height: 5’11” (15), 6’0” (Adult)

Weight: 11st 5lb

Eyes: Dark forest green

Complexion (skin tone/ conditions): more tanned skin than Elsie, but still not dark

Hair Colour/ Style: light honey brown hair, neatly combed and cut short, with a fringe

Dress sense: George likes to dress simple yet formal. he often wears woollen vests over button up shirts, and dress trousers.

School Information -

Worst Class(es): history, English

Best Class(es): all sciences, maths

Sport(s): N/A

Club(s): N/A

Status: stook up nerd publicly, but more relaxed with his friends

Trivia -

(Random facts about them, future job, etc.)

Random Facts:

Favorite place: Library, sitting under a tree with a book, museums

Hobbies: drawing, writing, reading

[batgirl-87]

For the MC + Jacob asks- how about 1 + 2 if you haven't done them already? :)

Thank you for asking! =) I have not done those ones yet!

(So this got kind of long…Hope I answered them well enough and I’m here to answer any more questions about my characters and their backstory =)  )

HPHM MC & Jacob Asks

1. How did you come up with your MC’s name?

Originally my MC’s name was Adira (based on another character I created for something and then never got to really use unfortunately) but then I decided to recreate my original HP character just in this new timeline. And as I developed this character more I knew I needed to have a more Irish name.

I wanted to stay true to the House of Black tradition (which I didn’t do with my original HP character when I should have but she originally was Sirius’ daughter and I doubted he would stick to their family’s tradition) and give her a greek/constellation name based on her Undine genetics, but much like Tonks wouldn’t go by her first name. And then seeing how her mother is French and Irish, and hyphenated names are common in French, I wanted her to have names that honored both those heritages and I wanted one to start with an ‘A’ for some reason. And I wanted one to sound like Adira so maybe that’s why I wanted the ‘A’ name? =p

After lots of research on names I eventually decided to just use my (omg I think my first ever that, tbh, I just alter as needed for most of my own main OC’s =p) original character’s name although I was trying to avoid it but changing the spelling (Kiara to Keira).

Hence Nereida Adelyn-Keira Black (Lafontaine - her mom’s last name and last name of the character I didn’t get to use for something else =(  She went by that until she embraced The House of Black side of her)

Nereida (Greek) - Nereids are sea nymphs, mermaids, etc. in Greek Mythology, daughters ofNereus and Doris, often accompany Poseidon. Can be helpful to sailors,symbolize the beauty of the sea, possessed melodious voices, depicted with redcoral crowns and white silk robes trimmed with gold

Adelyn (French) - Noble

Keira (Irish) - Little dark one/dark haired

Goes by Keira, Adelyn, Ady, Reida

So pretty much put way more thought into this than necessary =p

2. How did you come up with your MC and Jacob’s backstory?

As mentioned before, Keira was originally Sirius’ daughter (and with the name Kiara) but that wouldn’t work in this timeline because Sirius is like 13 years older than her and while I can see Sirius having some illegitimate child at like 16, 13 is way too young! Then the addition of Jacob, clearly couldn’t be Sirius’ kids. But I wanted her to still be related to Sirius, not just because Sirius one of my favourites but personality wise I, and therefore my OC =p, are very similar to Sirius and look wise she also looks like Sirius and a member of the House of Black and who doesn’t want to be a member of the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black?! (okay probably plenty of people actually…) And I already had this character created that I love and wanted to use who was related to Sirius.

Anyways, so I adjusted (because I’m flexible and adaptable!) my original HP OC to be Sirius’ and Regulus’ little sister; however, my original HP OC was actually part Veela, like Fleur, and, as I also mentioned before, I created this other character, Adira, for something I never got to use (can you tell I’m salty over it?) and she was part Undine so I made Keira part Undine because, yep, never got to use that character and I worked hard and was excited to so dammit it’s happening!!! Plus who doesn’t like to have something different and unique to them? (In my defense I had no idea MC in the game was going to be Legilimens which is clearly unique but I was never going to my make my character one so I will not feel bad and be called some mary-sue or some shit like that)

Therefore, Walburga couldn’t be her mother, nor did I ever want her to be her mother anyway =p (crazy portrait bitch =p) and since we don’t know much about Orion or his relationship with Walburga (I did lots of research people I’m not just bs’ing to get what I want) besides that they’re second cousins (ugh…) I felt it was completely plausible for Orion to step outside his marriage, especially if there’s a pretty young woman, since would one really be all that happy and comfortable being married to their second cousin? And they technically fulfilled their pureblood responsibility by getting married and bearing children so if he found another woman outside his family who he developed feelings for I could see him straying. However, he’s accustomed to a certain lifestyle and has an image and reputation to uphold so leaving his wife (if he actually wanted to) was not going to be an option, so even though his mistress got pregnant (twice!) he wasn’t going to leave Walburga. 

Maybe I also just like a good scandal and some drama? (House of Black and their drama, right? =p) Anyway, obviously to have them be able to attend Hogwarts they have to be from the UK or Ireland, right? And being of Irish and French heritage myself, (and I loved visiting Ireland and can’t wait to go back), I had them born in Ireland and live there for a bit but after their mom dies (partially because she’s part Undine and they give up their immortality and live shorter lifespans when they fall in love with a mortal, and I personally believe their lifespan gets shorter when they have children and pass down their Undine genes) they move to Canada with some close friends of their mom’s who unofficially adopt them (this is sort of based on a family I’m close to who I feel unofficially adopted by =p) Plus, although they love their ‘adopted’ parents and appreciate all they’ve done for them, it really solidifies Keira and Jacob against the world because they’re all each other really has now and makes his disappearance more angstful for her.

And maybe also because I have been teased for talking funny with a weird accent (don’t even get my started) I wanted to put my MC through the same thing (because we love torturing our characters) so if I had her grow up in Ireland and Canada she would also have a weird accent and talk funny compared to the other students =p

I also wanted her to move into 12 Grimmauld Place, maybe do some redecorating and remodeling, but mainly because I liked the idea of her taking it over after Walburga passes and making it sort of like this hangout/safe place for her friends, mainly Barnaby who pretty much hangs out there all summer between 4th and 5th year and officially moves in summer after 5th year, and making this once abusive, toxic, prejudiced household into a place where anyone was welcomed and could find sanctuary (probably much to the rage of Walburga’s portrait bahahaha). Plus it’s closer to Diagon Alley and her other friends than living in Ireland or Canada, obviously. 

Remus becoming her guardian while over in the UK was sort of something that just happened and wasn’t planned but I realized she probably needed someone over there since Jacob is gone, everyone on her mom side that she knows of is dead, and she doesn’t know much of the House of Black besides she is apparently one but they refuse to acknowledge her existence, and while she could just live in their house in Ireland they still have, and she is quite independent, an 11 year old living alone probably isn’t the best idea… (and I’m sure Andromeda and Tonks would take her in in a heartbeat but none of them know about each other since Andromeda was disowned so she doesn’t know really what’s happening with the rest of the family and all Keira knows about is Orion, Walburga, Sirius, and Regulus. She doesn’t learn of others, like Bellatrix until she sees the tapestry in 12 Grimmauld Place where Andromeda is burned off so still didn’t know about her and Tonks until Tonks told her Bellatrix was her aunt). 

So I honestly couldn’t think of anyone else to take her in and take care of her and then thought, well, Remus has nothing to do =p And since clearly he’s one of Sirius’ best friends knows of his illegitimate siblings (Walburga was going to find out, please, we all know that, but they did their best to keep that secret in the immediate family and not let it out but then Jacob has to attend Hogwarts and be a butthead and inform everyone he’s a House of Black bloodline because he’s done being some shameful secret and even when it’s proved he and Keira do have House of Black blood still not acknowledged from that family) and being a good person he can’t let some eleven-year-old live alone! And she is like Sirius, and Jacob is like James, so it’s sort of bittersweet like hanging out with his friends again…Plus I hate thinking of Remus living in poverty on the streets all alone all the time until he gets his job as Hogwarts so... We all know Remus deserves better! (I have like a whole thing about Remus and Keira’s relationship for another time)

Oh! And as for Keira and Jacob’s relationship with each other I sort of based in on a couple people who were like older brother figures for me, one good, close friend I have primarily, and I guess what I imagine having an older brother would be like? Honestly always wanted one so I get to create one I’ve always wanted =p (is my life sad and lonely, oh yeah… =p)

Thank you again for asking! =)

[margridarnauds]

6, 12, 23, and 45 please!

Thank you!

6. List your OTP from each fandom you’ve been involved in.

So, I have no idea what we’re talking about as far as levels of involvement, but here are the ones I read fanfic RELIGIOUSLY for back in the day. So, behold my shame. 

Cats (oh, my sweet, innocent 12 year old self) - Mistoffelees/Victoria. 

Phantom of the Opera - Raoul/Christine/Erik, tbh. I started off E/C, then shifted to R/C when I realized E was a trashfire, then went to R/C/E when I realized that I loved garbage after all. 

Van Helsing - Anna/Dracula. Which is impressive given I’ve never. Actually. Watched it. Sue me. 

Carmilla - Carmilla/Laura.

The Pirate Queen - Graínne/Donal, one of the first fics I ever wrote. (And then never published.) Yes, he is a garbage fire in the musical, but in my very specific rewrite of it, he wasn’t. Though these days, I kind of lean towards Tiernan/Donal or Tiernan/Gráinne/Donal. Garbage pirate OT3 is garbage. 

Dracula - The Countess (from Makt Myrkanna)/Lucy Westenra. The first explicit femslash I ever wrote, and it might very well never see the light of day because I do not forever want to be known as The One With The Blood And The Lesbians. Though, who knows? It might cleanse me of Printing Press. 

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (Yes. Really.): Twilight/Princess Luna. I keep telling myself that my AO3 profile’s eventually going to be nothing but period dramas, my (1) Terra Nova fic, and…a My Little Pony fic, along with various Barbie Movie fics. For old time’s sake. 

Terra Nova - Wash/Mira, due to @janetcarter‘s influence. 

The Flash - Barrison. Specifically, Eobard/Barry. In many ways, it was my prep for 1789 with the whole “I murdered your parent” thing.  

The Avengers - Loki/Tony Stark.  

Les Miserables - Valjean/Javert 

The Golden Compass - Mrs. Coulter/Lord Asriel 

Arthuriana - Galahad/Mordred

Star Wars - Reylo or Finnlo. I don’t particularly have a preference, just let Kylo screw one of his various archnemeses straight to the side of the Light.

Star Wars: Rebels - Kallus/Zeb. Oh. Another enemies to lovers ship. Who would have guessed? 

1789 - Peyrol/Ronan (Was there any doubt? If there was, I need to write more.) 

Revolutionary Maximilien Robespierre - Madame Roland/Marie-Anne. In progress, but A Ship for me. Mainly because I’m a contrarian little shit who writes things when people tell me I can’t and then gets attached to the result.

Brennus, Enemy of Rome - Ahmet/Nissia. Which…I still need to. Write. My fanfic for that one. So that fanfic for it exists.  

Lord of the Rings - Boromir/Aragorn

Friedrich: Mythos und Tragödie - Countess Orzelska/Wilhelmine and Fritz/Katte. Pretty much equally, though Orzelskine (?) Wilhelska (?) is starting to edge out Fratte. 

La Legende du Roi Arthur - Leia/Guinevere in the French and Morgane/Guin in the Takarazuka. 

Irish Mythology - Bres/Sreng. I will defend this one to the death and I will do it with citations and footnotes. 

Scarecrow of Romney Marsh - General Pugh/Dr Syn. Yet another one I. Need to write the fic for. 

Star Trek: …….. 

………You know, my favorite thing about Star Trek is that, regardless of shipping preferences, we can all find something to enjoy. Kor/Kirk. While I can’t speak for DS9 Quark/Brunt, my current favorite from Discovery has to be Michael/Tilly, which might very well be the single most wholesome thing I’ve shipped in a very long time. 

Ace Attorney: Phoenix/Edgeworth. 

12. Who is your current OT3?

Chauvelin/Percy/Marguerite from The Scarlet Pimpernel. I do not accept constructive criticism on this one. Because Percy/Marguerite are sickeningly sweet on their own, Marguerite/Chauvelin has That Sexual Tension in Where’s the Girl and The Riddle, and Percy/Chauvelin fulfill all my requirements as far as enemies to lovers ships are concerned.

23. Name a fic you’ve written that you’re especially fond of & explain why you like it.

I’ve talked a lot about Forgiveness being one of the very few things I’ve written that I’ve ever liked and the ONE thing that I feel…gets my idea of how L/R WORK together and probably shows off my style best, along with Fowl Play (WHICH HAS FANART NOW. WHICH I’M STILL NOT OVER BECAUSE MY BABY HAS FANART.) So, instead, I’m going to shift to Pour la Peine, which…is my messy, messy child in many regards, not the least because it’s so much longer + still isn’t finished. 

(Warning for various and assorted personal, squishy feelings, as well as cancer mentions)

When I first got the prompt from @fallenidol-453, it was January of 2018. Two months before, I’d received the news that my uncle had Stage Four Esophageal Cancer and my mother had moved from our house to his house to care for him, leaving me without her help for the first time in my life, which I deliberately kept as low-key about on here as I could be, given that, to be honest, dealing with the endless “I’m so sorry to hear that”s gets very exhausting after awhile and I was a college student with a schedule to keep. And he and I had a very…contentious relationship, despite the two of us being alike in many ways. Possibly because we were alike in many ways. And, by May of that year, he was dead. And I would learn shortly afterwards that my paternal grandfather had died in January, but no one on my father’s side had bothered to tell me. I spent a lot of time trying to deal with the stress of that time, juggling that with my schoolwork and my fanfic, which I tried to work on from the time I received the prompt onwards. (Tbh, I’d had the opening scene in my mind for awhile before, but I hadn’t had a larger plot + ending until the prompt.)

At first, I thought that I would publish it like I’d later publish Forgiveness, in one straight chapter, but as time went on and on and there became less and less of a shot of having it done any time soon, I ended up just publishing the first chapter and deciding to update it from there. And that chapter got a lot of ribbing from friends. “Her brother is dead” really came off as a very melodramatic first line, but I also decided, very early on, that I didn’t care about what the objective quality of it was; all I cared about was creating a snapshot of a time in my life, just like when I go through the stuff that I made when I was twelve and I laugh about the various and assorted OCs and questionable phrases but love them all the same because they’re my twelve year old self’s. And, where I was at that point in my life, writing Solène mourning a family member who she had a difficult relationship with while I mourned a family member who I had a difficult relationship with, it was the only line that felt right to me.  

There’s a lot of things with this one that I’m still not sure about. There’s a plot twist that I’ve tried to be quiet about for all this time (that I’ve probably been really terrible about keeping, tbh) and that is either going to be the Jumping the Shark moment or the defining moment of it, and I’m obviously not sure how that’s going to be received though I want to believe I’ve foreshadowed it enough to not make it too much of a swerve, I’m not sure how I feel about the ending, there’s a lot there that’s murky and probably more reflective of my writing a year ago than not, and I’m not sure about how I’ve handled the character dynamics given what we’ve got in canon or the dynamic I’ve put them into, or whether the choices they’ll make reflect THEM or what I WANTED them to do. Hell, with a few things, I’m not sure how I’m even going to GET to the ending. 

But, I’m really proud of how much I’ve had the chance to work with Solène and Olympe, I’m really happy with a lot of the work I put into sequences like the two chapters long March to Versailles, which involved looking into a LOT of personal accounts as well as secondary sources analyzing it, and I liked trying to flesh out Solène’s world. But, more importantly, of everything I’ve written, it and Le Cri are probably the most directly personal to me, and even though a part of me still says Her brother is dead is a hell of a melodramatic opening line, it fulfilled its purpose. And, tbh, sometimes that’s all a fic needs. 

45. What is your all time favourite fanfic? 

This is so hard for me, because there are so many fics that have left a huge impression on me throughout the various fandoms I’ve been in. In 1789 alone, I was thinking of at least two different fics at a given point, which is both fantastic and minorly stressful given how small this fandom is (one of which, incidentally, was Little Dove Heart, since that really gave me a huge push as far as Laz and his backstory and his characterization and his relationship to Artois, even if I tend to keep the latter more in the background). And there have been so many fics I’ve read that I’ll remember and go back to periodically, and that really helped me as far as looking at how character voices could be developed and how description would work and how to work a time period and a setting into a story. 

Overall though, I think I’m going to have to give it to Vae Victis, which is a work by @sineala‘s. I’ve never been quiet about my undying love for the Gauls and for Brennus in particular. Brennus is one of my historical favs, and I felt like this fic did a really, really fantastic job of bringing that much-neglected period of time to life and developing the characters on their own, without me having any background in the source material. With fanfic, especially with a more active fandom, there’s kind of an expectation that everyone knows the characters involved, so to be able to work in a different time and to get the reader fully invested in the characters and their relationship in their own right is a really fantastic accomplishment, and to be able to show the Gauls and Brennus (in what little time he gets, because my boi’s not the focus and I accept that) as three dimensional figures rather than a rampaging horde is always much appreciated. And it has a WORKS CITED page at the end, AKA the eternal key to my heart. 

[cntcrtainmcnt-blog]

I just finished my finals so lets celebrate with some new muses, yeah? Anyway, under the cut are intros for my 6 new babies, and they all need plots, so come at me with everything you want!! I’ll also be updating my wanted connections and wanted plots soon to include them(and my previous batch that still isn’t there either).

ALESSANDRA CARAVALHO is a 23 years old CISFEMALE who looks just like CAMILA MENDES. She has been described as PASSIONATE yet JUDGEMENTAL.

First of all, she’s been going by Sandy since she was 4, call her Alessandra and she... might not even realize it’s her. Sandra is also an acceptable name.

She was born in Las Vegas, her father owned a few casinos, a cabaret, and a hotel. So yes, she was rich, and they made a lot of money off the casinos. Her mother was a cabaret dancer her father met when he was only starting his empire, and they had her.

She’s always had a very strong artistic side, mostly regarding singing and dancing, but she opened it to acting later on.

Speaking of, she little forced her parents to sign her for singing, dance, and acting classes because she wanted to be the best.

She was in every production at school, performed in every talent show, she was the star of her high school without even being a cheerleader or dating the football quarterback.

She was about 15 when she got her first acting role in a movie. It was only a very minor role though, she really only had one line in the whole movie, but it simply confirmed she wanted to do that in her life.

She got her parents to get her an agent, and started auditioning for more roles, getting a few minor ones, but it wasn’t until she graduated that she got her big break. She was casted as one of the main characters in a musical, and her career kicked off at that moment.

She’s been doing appearances in many movies or TV shows, although since she only focuses on musicals, she might not been as recognized as just any other actor.

Moved to Kola about a year ago, wanting a seemingly more peaceful place to live than Las Vegas or Los Angeles.

EVAN RENDALL is a 32 years old CISMALE who looks just like HARRY LLOYD. He has been described as DUTIFUL yet SECRETIVE.

Ok Evan is... fucked. His parents owned a motel just outside of Kola, his mother gave birth to him at the age of 20, right there in the motel. 

Speaking of his parents, there was a 15 years gap between them, so after a few years, his mother realized she was still very young while his father was getting older so she just left, like that, and never contacted Evan or his father again.

He was then raised by his father alone from the moment he was 6, and with what happened to his father, he was made to believe women always only used men. That did change a little when he started high school, and realized the opposite was also very true, seeing boys use girls for their own benefit.

He kind of always knew he would take over his father’s motel at one point. So after graduating, he just went into administration in college because hey, that could help.

He never even left Kola, he’s always lived and studied there, never even took a trip outside the place, and has no interest in it now.

When he was 24, his father was working the desk one night when two women came to steal the money they had. His father resisted, apparently, since next thing he knew, Evan heard a gunshot, and by the time he arrived, his father was bleeding out on the floor and the money was gone. Despite the surveillance tape, they never found the two women, but it triggered something in Evan to see them.

He has since taken over the motel, but has developed it further than the simple 15 rooms it used to have. He included a few rooms a tiny bit deeper in the woods, for privacy purpose and for a quieter place. Not that useful though since the motel has been mostly deserted since his father’s murder, apart from a few people unaware of the story, teenagers wanting a place to hide, and cheating people.

Anyway, I would stay away from the place because Evan is... kind of a murderer now. Since he saw the two women that murdered his father, he keeps getting killing urges when he sees anyone that resembles them. So either short with wavy long black hair and blue eyes, or tall with blond hair and green eyes. In short, if you look like that and go to his motel, then chances of you leaving the place alive are next to nonexistent.

JANET MONTROSE is a 38 years old CISFEMALE who looks just like EVANGELINE LILLY. She has been described as RESOURCEFUL yet UNRELIABLE.

Janet’s had many names: Marie Stone(birth name), Layla Ambrose, Patricia Cox, Nadia Hunt, and the list goes on.

Her father died not long after her birth, so she was raised by her mother. She saw many men enter her life and then leaving, but none had quite an impact the way James did.

So anyway, because she was all she had, she’d give her anything she wanted, so she started acting classes when she was young. Her biggest dream was to become an actress. She took part in many school productions, even got a few roles on TV when she was younger, but it all came to an end abruptly. 

She was 16 when James, who’d apparently been going steady with her mother for a while, took everything they had. They had just gotten married, but over the night, he stole all the money in their bank, valuables in the house, and had disappeared without a trace. Authorities found no records of him, and he was never caught. Without any money anymore, they couldn’t afford her acting classes, and her dream was crushed.

All she wanted now was revenge. After graduating, she started scamming people with a small group of criminals. Having an acting background, she was quite good at playing a part and getting what she wanted.

But once she got the hang of it, she left her group behind to continue solo. She’d move from town to town, getting a new identity, and what she did, it was the same James did: marry, get all the money, then disappear.

That’s basically how she’s been spending her life, got married as many times as she’s had names.

She’s now in Kola under the identity of Janet Montrose, a secretary in a big firm, looking for her next target.

JIAN CHANG is a 24 years old CISMALE who looks just like CHARLES MELTON. He has been described as AMBITIOUS yet IMPULSIVE.

Jian is the adopted brother of Asia and Lee. He really, truly loves them, but being adopted, he’s always felt... different? Like he didn’t really belong with them.

It made him grow kind of a “i-don’t-give-a-fuck” attitude, just because he didn’t want people to know it actually affected him.

When he was in school, and realized he had the potential to accomplish big, that became his goal. Everything he does is in order to reach his big dream of having his own business and becoming rich off of it.

He actually tried to start up many small companies, but none really kicked off, so he dropped them fairly quickly. He does need money though, so while he works on developing his own business on the side, he works for a company just for the salary.

Would probably lie and manipulate you just to get something out of you, then drop you.

Definitely parties, and like, I’m thinking Skins meets Gossip Girl kind of parties. Drugs and alcohol run freely within some fancy party with people all dressed up.

Still, he knows his limits and he never goes over them. While he does party quite often, he is able to live without it, and is definitely not addicted. He just thinks parties are more fun that way.

KIERAN DOYLE is a 33 years old CISMALE who looks just like AIDAN TURNER. He has been described as INTELLIGENT yet DISTANT.

Oh boy oh boy, this one is a big mess.

So he’s irish, he was born and raised there. His family was in a the Irish Mafia, quite high in the hierarchy, so obvs he was raised with those things.

Few years forward, he’s studying forensic pathology because death is so intriguing to him, while also being a full member of the mafia, but mostly doing small jobs.

But when he got his big opportunity to prove himself, goes on a job for them, kills someone and BAM, witnesses he didn’t see. Obviously, cops go to you know, do their job. But his parents made sure the mafia would protect him.

So he gets shipped to their american branch, set in Kola, to avoid getting arrested here in Ireland. aND HE FUCKING HATES IT.

So he’s obviously still in the mafia(I’m thinking he might be a cleaner?), been here for quite some years now, a full forensic pathologist now.

Probs you’ll see him walking around in expensive suits but honestly, how can he pay that with his job?

Honestly, at this point he’s just like “fuck everything”.

MITCHELL WOODS is a 23 years old CISMALE who looks just like JOSH HUTCHERSON. He has been described as GOOFY yet RECKLESS.

SWEET SWEET CHILD

Mitchell is Forest’s younger brother, that he never knew about until he was 12. He does have a younger sister he knows about because... well they grew up together.

So anyway, even though he loved his childhood and was a happy kid and loved his family, he always knew his parents were hiding something? They were just so secretive about their life before they had him, something was off. And he was finally told at the age of 12, that he had an older brother they abandoned. 

In school he was... horrible. Well, he was good at pranking his teachers, but his grades were very bad. Always knew he would never go to college, so he just decided to have a good time in high school.

He was good at cooking though, and he enjoyed it, so after graduating, he decided to go to culinary school. His biggest dream now, after finding his brother, is to open up his own restaurant.

He moved to Kola right after culinary school because he was lead to believe his brother was here, and he found a job in a local restaurant as a cook. He got there around 6 or 7 months ago, so he’s still fairly new and doesn’t know the town that well yet.

[jamesharringtoncreativeworks]

Hi Jim,

I’m currently trying to create some characters for my book, but am having trouble. I just finished reading Drakin and was wondering if you could tell me who your favorite character is out of all the books you’ve ever written. It would be helpful if you could go through how you created that character. Thanks!

TLoki

Hi “Tloki”,

I think I may have covered this previously, but I can’t find the original post, so I’ll go over it again. I actually have two that I really love. So one comes in first with the other very close behind.

Let’s start off with the runner-up:

Mary Jane Kelly – Soul Siphon 

Mary Jane Kelly is actually not original, in that I didn’t create her out of thin air. Because Soul Siphon is basically a story about a group of undead warriors who do the bidding of a disgruntled angel, I wanted to have one character whose murder was fairly well known aka, someone who actually existed. I thought it would add quite a bit of color to the story.

I knew I had to be careful here. I didn’t want to be disrespectful to the dead and certainly didn’t want to offend anyone’s family.  So I went back over some of the most famous murders that people remember… The Simpson murders were too recent, the Manson Family murders still had family that would likely not be too happy about what I intended to do, plus both of those… well… I mean they kind of faded over time. I wanted something… for lack of a more appropriate term, more enduring in the murder mystery world.

Then I decided to go back to my own studies of the Jack the Ripper case in college. (Yes, I did recreational research in college.) There were five (potentially more) perfect examples of what I was looking for. All I had to do was pick one that fit the role I was looking for; Relatively young, female, unmarried. So I went through the canonical victims to see if any of them matched what I was looking for��

Mary Ann Nichols – 43 years old… too old, and based on her biography… a bit too run down for what I was looking for.

Annie Chapman – 47… again, too old. Married to a relative and had children… okay no. I know that was common back then, but… just no. Plus, she was noted as being depressed on had given up on like. I really didn’t think I could write her as the character I wanted to create.

Elizabeth Stride – 44 (yeah this was the pattern). Too tall, married… and so on.

Catherine Eddowes – I actually really wanted to go with her given the mystery surrounding her death and the ‘from Hell’ letter. However, again too old, the description of her is too vague, and I had very little else to go with in terms of her personality.

Mary Jane Kelly – At this point… admittedly I was ready to rule out the Jack the Ripper Victims. None of them fit the bill for what I was looking for. Then I re-read her bio… 25 years old, quarrelsome, known for becoming intoxicated and singing Irish songs. Possibly married, but never confirmed. Not exactly a prostitute like the others as she worked in a brothel. Yes, this I could work with.

There was just enough information on her to lay the groundwork for an interesting character. A foul-mouthed young woman, not afraid to speak her mind, and enjoyed a sip of alcahol every now and then. However, what about the rest of her personality? As a human being, there had to be more to her. Well… details on her life were extremely sketchy and most of them came from her ex-boyfriend, Joseph Barnett. So what was I going to do?

Well, Soul Siphon takes place in the modern day, so I literally had around 150 years after her death to work on character development.  Her backstory involved her being resurrected by the previously mentioned angel and imbued with immortality and powers reflecting how she died; She could shroud herself in the shadows, move silently, possessed super-human speed, and was extremely proficient with knives. She was then given leave to hunt down Jack the Ripper, whom she was actually able to identify. However, she spent a lot of her time trying to protect the other brothel workers from being roughed up in White Chapel. When she finally located Jack the Ripper, she failed to catch him and kill him. He alluded her for years before dying on a shipwreck, fleeing the country. She then came to find out that he was responsible for even more deaths. Her failure cost even more lives.

At this point, I added a level of regret and bitterness to the character as well as personality depth. I don’t want to give too much away, but she’s actually probably the least dynamic character in the book. That being said, as you learn more about her, you realize the character she actually has is very admirable.

I guess I really love this character because she was really fun to research and write. I don’t know if she’s anything like the real Mary Kelly, but I did my best to guestimate what she’d be like in that situation. I am actually thrilled with how she came out.

And with that… my favorite character of the ones I created…

General Xaphan – Damnation/Soul Siphon

So this character went through a lot of developement. After writing Divinity, I began to entertain the idea of writing a sequel but didn’t want to do a direct continuation of the original story. I needed a new story with new characters set in the same universe. So I set out trying to create the main character… and failed over and over again. I just couldn’t create the warrior angel that I truly wanted to.

After several failures, I decided to go back and look at some of the other stories I’d written that could never be published. I stumbled across the first full-length novel I’d written, which was a Star Wars fanfic: The Face of Evil.

The primary character in that story was the villain, Darth Malys. A young Jedi that had turned her back on the order. She was extremely powerful but had trouble controlling her energy, or her emotions. She was a competent warrior and brilliant strategist that nearly brought the galaxy to its knees.

I remember how much I loved this character, but she’d never really see the light of day outside of my circle of friends and blog posts. It was something I really regretted. At that point, I began to try to figure out a way I could actually use her as a character in my new book. Granted, a few things would have to be changed, but I felt I could make it work.

General Xaphan was born out of that character. I borrowed her name and backstory from Collin de Plancy’s Dictionnaire Infernal and merged that with Darth Malys. A relatively young, but capable commander and warrior, and a brilliant strategist. Instead of a fallen Jedi, she was an angel who sided with Lucifer when he rose up against the Most High. She completely believed in Lucifer’s cause to free their angelic brothers and sisters from an eternity of servitude and commanded his forces in battle. Though absolutely ruthless in combat, she viewed the spilling of angelic blood to be a terrible waste, and when attacking non-military targets, she’d offer the civilians a warning before the attack took place. There were no civilian casualties when the Celestial Temple burned thanks to her disobeying Lucifer’s orders and warning the inhabitants. She fought against her counterpart, St. Michael to a stalemate for eons until Lucifers forces were finally defeated. She fled and began a resistance movement in the Celestial World until she was captured and exiled to the underworld. Her time there made her angry. Eventually, Lucifer sent her to the mortal world to do some reconnaisance. To do this, she was given a human form and had her memory wiped. During her time on Earth, she became involved with a young Florentine Soldier, whom she married and spent several years with before Lucifer came for her. After the events of Divinity, Lucifer no longer possessed the ability to remove the human memories from her and instead simply restored her original memories, hoping they would overpower the human. The result was a fractured personality and a divided conscience that made it difficult for her to reconcile her existence. She wound up fighting with herself over whether she truly wanted to continue her role as Lucifer’s general or live out her days with the human she loved so much. That’s pretty much where the adventure begins.

I loved this character so much that I wanted to have a physical representation of her on the cover of the book, something I’d never done before. I knew I couldn’t use my concept sketches of her, but I had to figure out something…

Fortunately for me, one of my friends is a fairly brilliant photographer,  who specializes in dark and very mystical shoots. I had all but given up on my hope to create the character because I couldn’t find a model to fit the bill… that was of course until he posted one particular piece that I admittedly thought was absolutely awesome. The image is still one of the backgrounds on my computer:

The more I looked at the picture, the more I realized… wow, she actually looks a lot like what I’m going for! That face looked shockingly similar to some of the concept art I’d done. I went back and looked at the other photo he posted from that shoot…

Sold, this model looked the part. We worked the whole thing out and he returned with a great photo for me to use. Then I had the graphic designer I work with, Brett Warniers, create my character.

The results pretty much spoke for themselves.

After Publishing Damnation, I wanted to use this character again in some form, so I gave her a cameo appearance in my next book, Soul Siphon.

So there you go. Those are my favorite characters and how I came up with them. Readers, do you have a story with how you created one of your characters? Let me know in the comments!

Thanks,

Jim

  Readers,

Do you have a question about writing, publishing, my stories, etc? Please feel free to post a comment or email me.

jimthewritingwizard@gmail.com

I’ll use those comments to select my next blog post.

I have been writing for several years, have 4 published works, experience with publishing and independent work, so I can hopefully be of assistance.

Please note, I only do one of these a day and will do my best to respond to everyone, but it may take some time.

Also, feel free to check out my works of Fantasy and Historical Fiction, Available on Amazon and where ever books are sold. See the link below:

http://www.amazon.com/James-Harrington/e/B00P7FBXTU

Note: If you have read my books, PLEASE log into Amazon and post a review. I really love to hear everyone’s thoughts and constructive criticisms. Reviews help get my book attention and word of mouth is everything in this business!

Thanks friends!

Catch you on the flip side!

-Jim

Picking Favorites… Hi Jim, I'm currently trying to create some characters for my book, but am having trouble. I just finished reading Drakin and was wondering if you could tell me who your favorite character is out of all the books you've ever written.

[chemdrykawarthas-blog]

NDP Leadership 2017: The Rebel Yell Of Charlie Angus

Their round faces and bright brown eyes dot the bookshelves of Charlie Angus' Parliament Hill office.

The Northern Ontario MP knows each of their names, where they were from, and how they died. Most are from his TimminsJames Bay riding.

Courtney Koostachin of Attawapiskat died of a rare cancer, probably from the benzenes that contaminate her school's grounds.

Sheridan Hookimaw, 13, died by suicide. She lived in a two-bedroom, mould-infested house with 20 relatives in Attawapiskat, suffered several health problems, and was being bullied at school.

Sylvain Noel of Timmins died of cancer.

Trina Martin died in house fire in Kashechewan, a community that had no fire truck or fire-fighting equipment.

Christine Ellison of Wahgoshig First Nation died by suicide.

So did Chantel Fox and Jolynn Winter, both 12, from Wapekeka First Nation.

Months before the pair's January deaths, Ottawa had denied emergency funds for the Wapekeka First Nations to address a suicide pact it discovered among its youth. The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal later found that the federal government had acted so slowly in responding to Indigenous health-care needs that it had squandered "any chance of preventing" the tragedy.

Then, there is Shannen Koostachin, who died after a car accident outside of New Liskeard where she was attending high school. Koostachin lived with Angus and his family for a year while she studied.

A passionate advocate for the right to quality education for First Nations children living on reserves, she began a campaign that drew national attention. After her death, Angus continued "Shannen's Dream" to end chronic underfunding of Indigenous education; it culminated in a parliamentary motion and a new school in Attawapiskat. Koostachin's fight is the subject of one of Angus' seven books: Children of the Broken Treaty: Canada's Lost Promise and One Girl's Dream.

These boys and girls are some of the people Angus is best known for fighting for. Their struggles and their communities' struggles for clean drinking water, safe housing conditions, and access to education are the images that come immediately to mind when Angus' name is mentioned, former MP Libby Davies noted Friday in endorsing him for the party's leadership.

"I landed with Charlie because, well, he has this common touch, and smile, and fierceness that draws me along the political path ahead of us," she said.

Angus is not your typical MP. The former punk rocker-turned journalist-turned activist likes to note in his campaign material that he didn't own a suit until Jack Layton - the revered late leader of the NDP - asked him to join the party.

He bought one, for $100, and then ran and won a seat in 2004. That's when he became the voice of a blue-collar, rural, largely Indigenous riding that "had been abandoned by the insiders in Ottawa."

Having sat out the 2012 leadership contest to replace Layton (he backed a friend, Ottawa MP Paul Dewar), Angus said that he joined the race this time because the party needs an authentic voice.

"To me, the fundamental issue of our time is that more and more people are tuned out of politics. They don't believe that politicians speak for them," he said in an interview on HuffPost Canada's politics podcast, Follow-Up. "More and more people feel they are being written off the political and economic map ....

"I really believe the 2019 [election] will be [fought] over the question of who is the authentic voice for Canada, and that's where New Democrats have to place ourselves."

Listen to Follow-Up podcast: The Rebel Yell Of Charlie Angus

Angus is known as that MP who vigorously defends his people and his positions. He is partisan and isn't afraid to throw barbs, from calling Trudeau "Trump's poodle" to telling New Democrats he would have no trouble defeating a Liberal government, even if it meant giving the Conservatives power.

"I didn't get into politics to carry the plates of the Liberal dinner," he told New Democrats at the party's Saskatoon debate this summer.

He is passionate. He speaks plainly. And instead of getting into the weeds of policy, he tells stories about the people he is fighting for.

Matt Dub, a Quebec MP who is staying neutral in the race, said Angus brings something to the race that a lot of people can appreciate: "A more human side."

Angus' campaign prefers a simpler slogan: "I've got your back."

* * *

Charles Joseph Angus was born on Nov. 14, 1962, in Timmins, Ont. He was named after both his paternal grandfather, Charlie Angus, who died on the shop floor at the Hollinger gold mine six months before his birth, and his maternal grandfather, Joseph MacNeil, who broke his back underground at the McIntyre gold mine.

Angus was the second child. Kathleen, his oldest sister by a year, died this August. They have two younger siblings, Mary and Michael.

They all shared a house with their parents and paternal grandmother.

"It was a typical dwelling in Timmins, Ontario - a cramped, poorly insulated house built for the families of miners. My parents were born into such housing and probably thought they would die in such housing," he recounted in an article in "Compass: A Jesuit Journal" in 1997.

Money was tight and, as children of miners, university had been out of reach for his parents. Angus' father, John, left school at 16 or 17, on the advice of a math teacher who believed he could be spared working in the mines. Instead, he joined a brokerage office selling penny stock - work that Angus compares to working the local lottery system.

His mother, Anne-Marie, left school at 15 to work as a telephone operator. She took correspondence courses at night and became a secretary.

In 1964, the Kidd Creek mine, the biggest base-metal deposit in the world, was established outside of town. As luck would have it, Angus wrote, his father was friends with the crew that mapped out the primarily copper and zinc ore body, and he invested what little savings the family had into the mine.

"It was a good move. To celebrate, we moved into a new split-level modern home."

His father invested the rest of his earnings in a university education. At age 40, he went back to school, and became an economics professor at Seneca College, giving the family a "legitimate toehold into the middle class." They moved to Toronto in 1973, when Angus was 11.

Musical childhood

Angus describes his childhood as one fuelled by traditional music and sing-alongs.

The Angus were Scottish. The MacNeils were from Cape Breton. Both sides of the family loved music and kitchen parties.

On Saturday nights, Joseph MacNeil would host ceilidhs at their house in the Italian "Moneta" district of Timmins. The neighbours - francophones, Italians, and countless Scots and Cape Bretoners - would come over with food, Angus recounted.

"The deal was, we could stay up as long as we could keep singing. I learned all the old Scottish, Irish and Cape Breton songs."

That tradition followed them to Toronto. "It still forms the central event of any family get-together. At my recent sister's funeral, we sang in the church, sang at the grave site and then went back to my brother's, where we sang a long list of Celtic songs."

His paternal grandmother also followed the family to Toronto. It was "Granny Angus" who took Angus under her wing and taught him everything about politics.

"[She] was radicalized and traumatized by the First World War. She told vivid stories of the trenches and the wholesale slaughter of the young men from her tenement neighbourhood. 'You must always watch out for politicians who send boys to die,' she used to lecture me.

"She was a gifted storyteller and had developed tough working-class politics. She liked a good scrap. She was so worried about me going to school in Timmins as a little boy that she taught me how to box. Her uncle had been a bare-fisted boxer on the docks of Dundee. Turns out I wasn't much for the physical fights of schoolyard existence, but I learned how to use my wit and facility with language to survive the school yard."

Clash album was 'ticket out'

Angus hated Toronto. He vividly recalls the 12-hour bus ride from their beautiful home in Timmins to a small row house in Scarborough where seven family members would now live on top of each other.

"For my parents, our new home was just a more modern version of the housing they had grown up in. For my siblings and me, however, it was a major shock."

It was very loud in the house and then, when Angus was 15, he discovered his first Clash album.

"That was my ticket out. Because [of] the punk movement, suddenly there was colour in the world of beige and black and white, and it made me think, you know, maybe it is possible to just do something completely different."

He formed a punk band with a neighbourhood friend, Andrew Cash, and made a plan to quit school and go on the road. At 18, one year shy of graduation, Angus and Cash began touring with their band, L'etranger, a tribute to Albert Camus' novella.

"We were young intellectuals," he explained. They toured with the Dead Kennedys, Billy Idol, Violent Femmes.

They organized youth movements, participated in projects such as "Rock Against Racism, speaking out against the neo-Nazi movement. They sang to protest against apartheid in South Africa. They were rockers with a social conscience.

At the end of August 1982, Angus met Brit Griffin, a university student from Edmonton who had come to one of his shows. Sparks flew. They moved in together three months later, and married three years after that. "We are best pals," he said of his wife of more than 30 years.

In 1985, after three albums with L'etranger, Angus quit the band and opened a Catholic Worker house for the homeless in Toronto's east end.

He and Griffin were inspired by the story of Dorothy Day, a Catholic social justice advocate. "We dealt with men coming out of prison, runaways, refugees, drug and alcohol addictions. We had no background. No experience and no money. But we managed to raise the funds to put a down payment down and ran the house for five years until we moved up north."

In a Hill Times article soon after his first election, Angus recalled being robbed 10 times when he ran the house and having a man once threaten to murder him. "Every time we were robbed, the money would miraculously appear," he told the Canadian Catholic News.

While in Toronto, Angus joined another band, the Juno-nominated Grievous Angels, with whom he still performs occasionally today.

In 1990, Angus and Griffin moved to Cobalt in northern Ontario, "just as all the mines were shutting down, and the grocery store was shutting down, and the French school was shutting down, and everyone was saying it was a dying mining town, and said, 'Well, here we are.'"

By then, they had two daughters: Mariah, born in 1988, and Siobhan, who arrived that year. Lola followed in 1998.

They moved up north for "an adventure," Angus told HuffPost. "To raise our kids in a different place. And we fell in love with Cobalt. It is a wild, different place."

First, he worked as a chimney sweep and a roofer, despite being terrified of heights. Then, he and Griffin built barns.

"Then I decided I didn't want to do that, so we started a magazine. And so we ran the magazine for about 10 years and I became a journalist."

In 1995, the couple started the bi-monthly HighGrader magazine, devoted to Northern Ontario stories. A year later, they wrote a book about the struggles of the working-class community they now called home: We Lived a Life and Then Some: The Life, Death and Life of a Mining Town.

Angus went to work as a freelance journalist for the CBC and TV Ontario. "And then I ran the blockade on the Adams mine, and that was it. I was done. I was done on TV. I was done on CBC. [They] fired me that day."

In 1999, Angus started covering a proposal to dump Toronto's garbage and toxic waste in the closed-down Adams Mine near Kirkland Lake, Ont. He became a key organizer in stopping the project, which many feared would contaminate the area's groundwater.

The intense fight against the Progressive Conservative government of Mike Harris, who had amended environmental assessment legislation to help greenlight the project, taught him a number of "street lessons."

"I learned how to investigate. I learned how to study the opposition really well. We hired a private eye to follow Mike Harris to a meeting in a big Italian restaurant in North Toronto. Photographed all licence plates to find out who was at the meeting with him. And then we released it to the media," he said, laughing. He wrote about his experience in another book, the critically acclaimed Unlikely Radicals: The Story of the Adams Mine Dump War.

Blacklisted from traditional news outlets, Angus went to work with the Timiskaming First Nation on their land claim project. Then the Algonquins of Barriere Lake hired him as their negotiator in talks with Quebec's Parti Qubcois government in their battles to protect their territory.

I learned how to study the opposition really well.Charlie Angus

All the while, he was leading protests, manning roadblocks, and using HighGrader to mount opposition to the Adams Mine project.

In 2004, the proposal was finally dropped and the garbage ended up going to Michigan.

"The lesson I learned," he said, "is that we won those bottles because we built community. Bringing farmers and First Nation people together. Bringing blue-collar workers and urban environmentalists. Like, people who'd never work together .... I learned how to build on the smarts that ordinary people have."

It was during the Adams Mine protest that Angus met Layton.

"Jack kept asking me to run."

Eventually, Angus relented.

Angus has been frequently cited as one of the best and most effective members of Parliament. Soon after he was first elected, he helped expose the water crisis in Kashechewan First Nation. In 2005, he received national attention when, in the middle of the same-sex debate, the Roman Catholic diocese in Timmins threatened to deny him communion for supporting the Liberals' legislation.

"I never did go back to the parish ... but I have been welcome everywhere else," Angus told Power & Influence magazine earlier this year.

He won his seat in 2006, 2008, 2011 and 2015. After the NDP's disappointing third-place finish in the last election, Angus was one of the first MPs calling for a rethink.

"We have to start a complete rebuilding of the party, the brand and our identity," he told The Globe and Mail back in 2015.

Now, Angus is running on a platform to do just that.

"I don't believe status quo is good enough with our party, and I think we really need to have a vision, to talk about why we exist and where we're going," he told HuffPost.

"If we made one huge mistake in 2015, it was a belief that that it was our time. It's never your time. It's only your time if you make it your time. I think we were a little too careful."

The party became very centralized in Ottawa, he said, and very bureaucratic.

"We lost touch with our grassroots, and if there's a difference between the social democratic party and the other parties, it's [that] we really have to always be very tuned in to the grassroots, to the ordinary members, and we lost that."

The 2016 election of Donald Trump in the United States was a wake-up call, he said. He doesn't want to cede ground to "political arsonists on the right," he added, but blue-collar workers and the working class need an advocate who is in tuned with their priorities.

"The danger for the New Democratic Party is, you know, we love our policy and we love the latest issues and that, but back home, people are struggling to get by, their kids can't pay for their university, people who once had secured work are being downsized to permanent part-time and permanent contract work, and they're saying 'yes, so what do you guys have to offer?'

"I think I'm the person who can bridge the gap between the northern blue collar, the industrial blue collar, plus a lot of urban young people who are almost creating their own economy because they don't have the the possibility of permanent work ....

"I want to be a leader of a party that's fiery and feisty but also offering solutions to move us forward," he added.

Some of his key proposals include:

Reinvest a $4-billion surplus from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation into housing needs across the country (co-op projects, affordable housing rentals, new social housing)

A new national low-income housing benefit to provide low-income Canadians with financial assistance towards rent in non-subsidized buildings. He also pledges to end homelessness.

An Indigenous children's ombudsperson who can initiate investigations, respond to complaints and compel the federal government to act

A full audit of the Indigenous Affairs department and Health Canada's indigenous programs. Shift decision-making powers to Indigenous communities.

Legislative national caps on greenhouse gas emissions and a national carbon budget council that would advise the government on what those caps should be.

A new Crown corporation to help fund green infrastructure that would replace the Liberals' infrastructure bank.

During the leadership race, Angus has been criticized for not clearly stating where he stands on the Kinder Morgan pipeline. He has raised concerns about the approval of the project but hasn't said he opposes it. He told New Democrats at a debate in Vancouver that he is concerned about the transition away from heavy crude and what it means for those employed in the sector.

"How do we do that without just simply laying off 60,000 workers overnight, because that's not going to get us to our goal ... either," he said.

On another flash point, Quebec's Bill 62 - proposed legislation that would prevent women wearing the niqab or burqa from both providing and accessing government services - Angus has also walked a fine line.

He's "very wary of trusting politicians to tell women how to dress. Politicians will exploit these issues, exploit fears, exploit examples that are very, very rare to strike up fear." At the same time, he's sensitive to Quebec's experience of secularism arising from the province's Quiet Revolution.

"As national leader, I will certainly express my concern, but I also want to participate with progressive movements in Quebec," he said about any opposition that might build towards the legislation. "Let's see what these solutions are, and let's make sure that they are Charter-compliant," he said.

Angus said he's unsure why challenger Guy Caron, the lone Quebec MP in the race, decided to make it a leadership issue.

"We do respect the jurisdiction of Quebec, but Quebec respects the jurisdiction of the courts, and all laws have to be compliant with the Bill of Rights and the Charter," he said.

Of course, the province can always decide to invoke the notwithstanding clause.

'Leaders have to be bridge builders'

This week, Quebec NDP MP Pierre Nantel wrote an open letter saying the new NDP leader needs to respect the will of the National Assembly. The proposition Layton made to social progressives in Quebec when he asked them to join the New Democrats was based on that understanding, he told reporters gathered in Hamilton, Ont. for the party caucus and leadership showcase.

"I think it's important to recognize [that,] yes, Quebec went through a lot of trauma under the church, and, hey, I know what that's like," Angus said, referring to his troubles with his local parish. "I'm hopeful that the conversation in Quebec will play out in a way that is respectful of minority rights. And not using minority women for blaming for fear, and now that's my one concern and that's where I'll speak up.

"... Leaders have to stand up, and leaders have to be bridge builders. That's a huge responsibility, and that's something I'm trying to do in my campaign."

[jamesharringtoncreativeworks]

Hi Jim,

I’m currently trying to create some characters for my book, but am having trouble. I just finished reading Drakin and was wondering if you could tell me who your favorite character is out of all the books you’ve ever written. It would be helpful if you could go through how you created that character. Thanks!

TLoki

Hi “Tloki”,

I think I may have covered this previously, but I can’t find the original post, so I’ll go over it again. I actually have two that I really love. So one comes in first with the other very close behind.

Let’s start off with the runner-up:

Mary Jane Kelly – Soul Siphon 

Mary Jane Kelly is actually not original, in that I didn’t create her out of thin air. Because Soul Siphon is basically a story about a group of undead warriors who do the bidding of a disgruntled angel, I wanted to have one character whose murder was fairly well known aka, someone who actually existed. I thought it would add quite a bit of color to the story.

I knew I had to be careful here. I didn’t want to be disrespectful to the dead and certainly didn’t want to offend anyone’s family.  So I went back over some of the most famous murders that people remember… The Simpson murders were too recent, the Manson Family murders still had family that would likely not be too happy about what I intended to do, plus both of those… well… I mean they kind of faded over time. I wanted something… for lack of a more appropriate term, more enduring in the murder mystery world.

Then I decided to go back to my own studies of the Jack the Ripper case in college. (Yes, I did recreational research in college.) There were five (potentially more) perfect examples of what I was looking for. All I had to do was pick one that fit the role I was looking for; Relatively young, female, unmarried. So I went through the canonical victims to see if any of them matched what I was looking for…

Mary Ann Nichols – 43 years old… too old, and based on her biography… a bit too run down for what I was looking for.

Annie Chapman – 47… again, too old. Married to a relative and had children… okay no. I know that was common back then, but… just no. Plus, she was noted as being depressed on had given up on like. I really didn’t think I could write her as the character I wanted to create.

Elizabeth Stride – 44 (yeah this was the pattern). Too tall, married… and so on.

Catherine Eddowes – I actually really wanted to go with her given the mystery surrounding her death and the ‘from Hell’ letter. However, again too old, the description of her is too vague, and I had very little else to go with in terms of her personality.

Mary Jane Kelly – At this point… admittedly I was ready to rule out the Jack the Ripper Victims. None of them fit the bill for what I was looking for. Then I re-read her bio… 25 years old, quarrelsome, known for becoming intoxicated and singing Irish songs. Possibly married, but never confirmed. Not exactly a prostitute like the others as she worked in a brothel. Yes, this I could work with.

There was just enough information on her to lay the groundwork for an interesting character. A foul-mouthed young woman, not afraid to speak her mind, and enjoyed a sip of alcahol every now and then. However, what about the rest of her personality? As a human being, there had to be more to her. Well… details on her life were extremely sketchy and most of them came from her ex-boyfriend, Joseph Barnett. So what was I going to do?

Well, Soul Siphon takes place in the modern day, so I literally had around 150 years after her death to work on character development.  Her backstory involved her being resurrected by the previously mentioned angel and imbued with immortality and powers reflecting how she died; She could shroud herself in the shadows, move silently, possessed super-human speed, and was extremely proficient with knives. She was then given leave to hunt down Jack the Ripper, whom she was actually able to identify. However, she spent a lot of her time trying to protect the other brothel workers from being roughed up in White Chapel. When she finally located Jack the Ripper, she failed to catch him and kill him. He alluded her for years before dying on a shipwreck, fleeing the country. She then came to find out that he was responsible for even more deaths. Her failure cost even more lives.

At this point, I added a level of regret and bitterness to the character as well as personality depth. I don’t want to give too much away, but she’s actually probably the least dynamic character in the book. That being said, as you learn more about her, you realize the character she actually has is very admirable.

I guess I really love this character because she was really fun to research and write. I don’t know if she’s anything like the real Mary Kelly, but I did my best to guestimate what she’d be like in that situation. I am actually thrilled with how she came out.

And with that… my favorite character of the ones I created…

General Xaphan – Damnation/Soul Siphon

So this character went through a lot of developement. After writing Divinity, I began to entertain the idea of writing a sequel but didn’t want to do a direct continuation of the original story. I needed a new story with new characters set in the same universe. So I set out trying to create the main character… and failed over and over again. I just couldn’t create the warrior angel that I truly wanted to.

After several failures, I decided to go back and look at some of the other stories I’d written that could never be published. I stumbled across the first full-length novel I’d written, which was a Star Wars fanfic: The Face of Evil.

The primary character in that story was the villain, Darth Malys. A young Jedi that had turned her back on the order. She was extremely powerful but had trouble controlling her energy, or her emotions. She was a competent warrior and brilliant strategist that nearly brought the galaxy to its knees.

I remember how much I loved this character, but she’d never really see the light of day outside of my circle of friends and blog posts. It was something I really regretted. At that point, I began to try to figure out a way I could actually use her as a character in my new book. Granted, a few things would have to be changed, but I felt I could make it work.

General Xaphan was born out of that character. I borrowed her name and backstory from Collin de Plancy’s Dictionnaire Infernal and merged that with Darth Malys. A relatively young, but capable commander and warrior, and a brilliant strategist. Instead of a fallen Jedi, she was an angel who sided with Lucifer when he rose up against the Most High. She completely believed in Lucifer’s cause to free their angelic brothers and sisters from an eternity of servitude and commanded his forces in battle. Though absolutely ruthless in combat, she viewed the spilling of angelic blood to be a terrible waste, and when attacking non-military targets, she’d offer the civilians a warning before the attack took place. There were no civilian casualties when the Celestial Temple burned thanks to her disobeying Lucifer’s orders and warning the inhabitants. She fought against her counterpart, St. Michael to a stalemate for eons until Lucifers forces were finally defeated. She fled and began a resistance movement in the Celestial World until she was captured and exiled to the underworld. Her time there made her angry. Eventually, Lucifer sent her to the mortal world to do some reconnaisance. To do this, she was given a human form and had her memory wiped. During her time on Earth, she became involved with a young Florentine Soldier, whom she married and spent several years with before Lucifer came for her. After the events of Divinity, Lucifer no longer possessed the ability to remove the human memories from her and instead simply restored her original memories, hoping they would overpower the human. The result was a fractured personality and a divided conscience that made it difficult for her to reconcile her existence. She wound up fighting with herself over whether she truly wanted to continue her role as Lucifer’s general or live out her days with the human she loved so much. That’s pretty much where the adventure begins.

I loved this character so much that I wanted to have a physical representation of her on the cover of the book, something I’d never done before. I knew I couldn’t use my concept sketches of her, but I had to figure out something…

Fortunately for me, one of my friends is a fairly brilliant photographer,  who specializes in dark and very mystical shoots. I had all but given up on my hope to create the character because I couldn’t find a model to fit the bill… that was of course until he posted one particular piece that I admittedly thought was absolutely awesome. The image is still one of the backgrounds on my computer:

The more I looked at the picture, the more I realized… wow, she actually looks a lot like what I’m going for! That face looked shockingly similar to some of the concept art I’d done. I went back and looked at the other photo he posted from that shoot…

Sold, this model looked the part. We worked the whole thing out and he returned with a great photo for me to use. Then I had the graphic designer I work with, Brett Warniers, create my character.

The results pretty much spoke for themselves.

After Publishing Damnation, I wanted to use this character again in some form, so I gave her a cameo appearance in my next book, Soul Siphon.

So there you go.

  Readers,

Do you have a question about writing, publishing, my stories, etc? Please feel free to post a comment or email me.

jimthewritingwizard@gmail.com

I’ll use those comments to select my next blog post.

I have been writing for several years, have 4 published works, experience with publishing and independent work, so I can hopefully be of assistance.

Please note, I only do one of these a day and will do my best to respond to everyone, but it may take some time.

Also, feel free to check out my works of Fantasy and Historical Fiction, Available on Amazon and where ever books are sold. See the link below:

http://www.amazon.com/James-Harrington/e/B00P7FBXTU

Note: If you have read my books, PLEASE log into Amazon and post a review. I really love to hear everyone’s thoughts and constructive criticisms. Reviews help get my book attention and word of mouth is everything in this business!

Thanks friends!

Catch you on the flip side!

-Jim

Picking Favorites… Hi Jim, I'm currently trying to create some characters for my book, but am having trouble. I just finished reading Drakin and was wondering if you could tell me who your favorite character is out of all the books you've ever written.