Today's post is about a Harry Potter fic called Harry Potter and the Sympathy of Souls by MorticiaYouSpokeFrench. I found it hosted on Fanfiction.net--specifically, it can be found here.
At just over sixty-one thousand words, I classify this as the "mid" range on length when I organize my bookmarks of stories. For those concerned with such things, this fic is also slash, as the main couple being focused upon is Harry Potter and Tom Marvolo Riddle/Voldemort. The fic also features the canon pairing of Nicolas and Perenelle Flamel. The story is complete in its nine chapters.
This story is a canon divergence story about true love and redemption through love. The story explores the concept of an adult standing up for their cause rather than relying upon a child to do their work for them along with exploring how to fix a broken soul.
This fic does have a small amount of angst, but as far as fanfiction goes, it is more in line with the Hurt/Comfort genre. The focus of that is more on Voldemort as he regains the bits of his soul that he had ripped from himself instead of dealing with the initial trauma that caused the fracturing in the first place.
It's actually a relatively fluffy piece and for all of its technically "novel" length, it is a really quick read with good feels and snark-castic one-liners. It's on FFN, and surprisingly follows the T&C for the site, so no smut and just a few kisses.
Go read this Intertwining Philosophies fic. You will not regret it.
Thursday, March 23, 2017
Returning with Expansion
Hi, Magi here. I'm the woman who reads that this blog is named for. I started the blog with the intent of writing my reviews and thoughts of the things which I read--because I do a lot of that. I fell out of the habit of blogging about what I was reading when I fell out of the habit of doing a lot of things.
Now I'm coming back to blogging, but I'm doing so with a different perspective on things. I realize now that not only do I read a lot, I also watch a lot of shows and movies in the same way that I consume literature--and make no mistake, I am including the fanfiction when I use that term. I also read a lot of nonfiction and I'm hoping to include breakdowns of those works as well. Additionally, I'm in the process of learning how to do the same with artwork and given the freedom of fanart on the internet and the little fact that I live in a city with three major art museums plus even more galleries, there may be some of those analyses which make it onto this blog.
Right now, I'm just going through my backlog of drafts and things I think are rather interesting currently. I have a plan for several posts about poetry in April (in honor of it being National Poetry Month) along with sketchy ideas for a few theme posts (short stories, author within a genre or fandom, etc.). If there's anything that you would like to see my take on, feel free to message the blog or email me with the word "Post Idea" in the subject.
~Magi [_P
Now I'm coming back to blogging, but I'm doing so with a different perspective on things. I realize now that not only do I read a lot, I also watch a lot of shows and movies in the same way that I consume literature--and make no mistake, I am including the fanfiction when I use that term. I also read a lot of nonfiction and I'm hoping to include breakdowns of those works as well. Additionally, I'm in the process of learning how to do the same with artwork and given the freedom of fanart on the internet and the little fact that I live in a city with three major art museums plus even more galleries, there may be some of those analyses which make it onto this blog.
Right now, I'm just going through my backlog of drafts and things I think are rather interesting currently. I have a plan for several posts about poetry in April (in honor of it being National Poetry Month) along with sketchy ideas for a few theme posts (short stories, author within a genre or fandom, etc.). If there's anything that you would like to see my take on, feel free to message the blog or email me with the word "Post Idea" in the subject.
~Magi [_P
Sunday, March 19, 2017
This Time for Sure
It's been a while since I've written about what I've been reading. If you followed my other blogs, you may have noticed that I had a rough few years. Between school and just dealing with life, I didn't have much time to write much of anything outside of papers and legal documents. I'm hoping to rectify that in the future. We'll see how that works out.
So let's dive right in, shall we?
This Time for Sure by Deejaymil is the story I have just finished reading. It is a Criminal Minds fanfiction that is hosted on the site Archive of Our Own (known colloquially as AO3). In this alternate universe (AU), Spencer Reid and Aaron Hotcher are similar in age and have a different first meeting. Seems simple enough, right? Well, buckle up, because the wild ride is just beginning.
Deejaymil describes the fic as the one where they managed to be remarkably silly for three decades. After reading the story, I have to say that I agree, but I would also defend them by saying they had a lot of growing to do and even more healing. She has wonderfully captured the downward spiral life can take when something traumatic happens. What happened (to both boys) is entirely believable and so are their reactions.
My favorite part of the story was how Spencer and Aaron were so co-dependent, obsessively so. Having lived in such co-dependency, I feel that she captured it perfectly. You feed off each other--both the highs and the lows. Towards the end of the story, Spencer says something that is so accurate: "When it was good it was all I’d ever wanted, and when it was bad I would have still burned for it." When you love someone that completely, that obsessively, it becomes dangerous, and it did for Spencer and Aaron at that point in their lives. They fell into a negative feedback loop and the only way to stop a feedback loop is to break the loop.
In a lot of stories, co-dependency is painted as vile or as the ideal. To see both the wonderfulness and the horribleness in the same story is my ideal. Because it can make you great or it can destroy you, even when your partner(s) are right there beside you.
From a writer's perspective, I love the bookend feel to the story. The story opens with two boys desperate to not be alone deciding to build a fort together and then beginning to write a story together. It ends the same way, two different boys equally desperate to not be alone (for slightly different reasons) deciding to build a fort together and then beginning to write a story together (following the advice of boys who have been there). The echo gives the reader both resolution and hope that there's going to be a happy ending this time for sure.
If you are looking for your next epic fic (word count is given as 131K+ words) to read, this one definitely has my recommendation. It is a real--oh, what do you call it if it's not a print book?--Sitting aside the linguistic void, it will keep you riveted until the very end, making you want to know what they will do next.
Saturday, March 18, 2017
Moana (2016)
Disney has been accused of many things over the years, and let's face it, most of those accusations do have merit. Fairy tales have always been meant to teach lessons and even with rewriting, that never changed.
As a mother of young girls, I have been really pleased by the evolution of the movies coming out. In The Princess and the Frog we saw a young woman working two jobs to make her dreams come true, even to the sacrifice of the fun that other people her age were having. After the magic, she still gets the dream she worked so hard for but she also got love and fun. In Brave we saw a girl on the verge of womanhood struggling against the social constrictions of her gender and the expectations of her mother take charge of her fate. After the magic, nothing has changed except the daughter and mother now are willing to work together on the marriage rather than against each other. In Frozen, we see two sisters, both desperate to be loved, find true love is the ultimate magic and is found in sisterhood.
In each of these stories, there is a romantic subplot. Love is portrayed as solving the problem. This love is focused, usually on a single person. Even when that love is found within a family member, the story is neatly wrapped up with a hint of the Happily Ever After of one of the main cast. Tiana marries Naveen; Merida is courted by the three princes; Anna and Christoff are moving in that direction.
Moana (2016) does not have a romantic subplot. Moana is not trying to escape a marriage for alliance. She's struggling with the expectations of her parents, and the weight of her people's fate, but the solution is not painted as choosing between two things. When she runs away, it is not because she never intends to return or that serving her people is unbearable. It is because there is something that needs to be done and she was the one chosen to do it. It was for her people that she left to start her quest.
For much of the movie, Moana is convinced that she is just a delivery system. Her quest was to find Maui so that he could be the hero by returning the Heart. Her grandmother told her that she had to be firm and declare herself to get him to act, and because a fifteen-year-old has nothing on a millennia plus demigod, that didn't work out as easily as she hoped. She still manages to get him to where they needed to be, even with a pit-stop to retrieve Maui's hook. When things go horribly wrong, she finds herself alone and without hope. Tala returns to offer comfort to her granddaughter and act once more as the sounding board Moana needs. When Moana decides to give up on the quest to return the Heart, Tala doesn't judge her or pressure her to continue onward. Just as we see from the scenes of Moana's childhood, Tala offers unconditional support and love.
Thus begins the best scene of the entire movie (and there are many). The name of the song for the sequence is I Am Moana and it says exactly what the scene does. Moana realizes that she is just a girl and she loves, yes, but it is a general sort of love. She loves her people and she loves the ocean. She loves where she comes from and who she is. As the music climaxes, finally Moana declares herself and claims her agency. She is Moana and this is her quest.
In the end, she saves the day. The "enemy" of the movie, whose dark destruction was insidiously creeping over the islands, is defeated, but in a complete turnabout of the average fairy tale, it is not by violence. It is by understanding and recognition that things may not be as they first appeared.
As a parent, I absolutely love this movie. I love all the messages that it tells my girls. I love how the story is crafted--and combining the various myths of Oceania could not have been easy, let alone and hold true to the spirit of those myths. The soundtrack is both beautiful and catchy, and I would love to see some of the "demos" from the soundtrack animated because they are just as lovely as the songs which did make it into the movie.
A final note: I really liked that the animals didn't talk but still had obvious personalities. I also loved that Moana kept talking to Hei-Hei, but instead of pretending that he answers, she acknowledges that she's doing it for herself because he can't understand. As a cat-mom, that really speaks to me because I talk a lot to my fur-brat and don't expect him to really answer.
As a mother of young girls, I have been really pleased by the evolution of the movies coming out. In The Princess and the Frog we saw a young woman working two jobs to make her dreams come true, even to the sacrifice of the fun that other people her age were having. After the magic, she still gets the dream she worked so hard for but she also got love and fun. In Brave we saw a girl on the verge of womanhood struggling against the social constrictions of her gender and the expectations of her mother take charge of her fate. After the magic, nothing has changed except the daughter and mother now are willing to work together on the marriage rather than against each other. In Frozen, we see two sisters, both desperate to be loved, find true love is the ultimate magic and is found in sisterhood.
In each of these stories, there is a romantic subplot. Love is portrayed as solving the problem. This love is focused, usually on a single person. Even when that love is found within a family member, the story is neatly wrapped up with a hint of the Happily Ever After of one of the main cast. Tiana marries Naveen; Merida is courted by the three princes; Anna and Christoff are moving in that direction.
Moana (2016) does not have a romantic subplot. Moana is not trying to escape a marriage for alliance. She's struggling with the expectations of her parents, and the weight of her people's fate, but the solution is not painted as choosing between two things. When she runs away, it is not because she never intends to return or that serving her people is unbearable. It is because there is something that needs to be done and she was the one chosen to do it. It was for her people that she left to start her quest.
For much of the movie, Moana is convinced that she is just a delivery system. Her quest was to find Maui so that he could be the hero by returning the Heart. Her grandmother told her that she had to be firm and declare herself to get him to act, and because a fifteen-year-old has nothing on a millennia plus demigod, that didn't work out as easily as she hoped. She still manages to get him to where they needed to be, even with a pit-stop to retrieve Maui's hook. When things go horribly wrong, she finds herself alone and without hope. Tala returns to offer comfort to her granddaughter and act once more as the sounding board Moana needs. When Moana decides to give up on the quest to return the Heart, Tala doesn't judge her or pressure her to continue onward. Just as we see from the scenes of Moana's childhood, Tala offers unconditional support and love.
Thus begins the best scene of the entire movie (and there are many). The name of the song for the sequence is I Am Moana and it says exactly what the scene does. Moana realizes that she is just a girl and she loves, yes, but it is a general sort of love. She loves her people and she loves the ocean. She loves where she comes from and who she is. As the music climaxes, finally Moana declares herself and claims her agency. She is Moana and this is her quest.
In the end, she saves the day. The "enemy" of the movie, whose dark destruction was insidiously creeping over the islands, is defeated, but in a complete turnabout of the average fairy tale, it is not by violence. It is by understanding and recognition that things may not be as they first appeared.
As a parent, I absolutely love this movie. I love all the messages that it tells my girls. I love how the story is crafted--and combining the various myths of Oceania could not have been easy, let alone and hold true to the spirit of those myths. The soundtrack is both beautiful and catchy, and I would love to see some of the "demos" from the soundtrack animated because they are just as lovely as the songs which did make it into the movie.
A final note: I really liked that the animals didn't talk but still had obvious personalities. I also loved that Moana kept talking to Hei-Hei, but instead of pretending that he answers, she acknowledges that she's doing it for herself because he can't understand. As a cat-mom, that really speaks to me because I talk a lot to my fur-brat and don't expect him to really answer.
Made in Heaven (1987)
I'm watching Made in Heaven with the girls for the first time today. Like all movies I make them sit down and watch, they complained at first but when I got them settled, they got caught up in the story of it.
Made in Heaven (1987) is a romantic comedy of sorts. It's the story of this couple who meet when the male lead dies. They fall in love in Heaven and just as they are about to settle into a semblance of life together, the female lead is sent to Earth to live. Unable to stand being without her, the male lead bargains for his own rebirth. By the end, you are inevitably yelling at the male lead to just turn around, to just look behind him.
Just as my girls were.
The story has the feel of real life. It is humorous without being cliche. The characters, even those we only see for a few moments, are just as normal as someone you'd met in your neighborhood. It makes you more invested in the lives and happiness of these characters. It's why you want them to be happy.
The lead song on the soundtrack, We Never Danced, is also incredibly dreamy and seductive. It lends the movie its romantic air just as much as the realness of the characters.
It's an older movie, but I really recommend it. For those parents out there, there is brief nudity (the male lead entering Heaven, and only from behind) and there's a suggestion of the couple having sex (referred to in dialogue as "making love"). If you are really concerned with things, this can be inferred as being what marries two souls together (either that or being in love at all).
Thursday, July 31, 2014
Terminally Incomplete (Spring 2014)
I have been reading several pieces, but they are all not complete and are slow to update. I have compiled a list of these stories here.
You are probably wondering by this point what I've been doing this summer, if this is for the spring. (Also why do I do this to myself when the last updates should be clear from the get-go?) Well, I've been working my way through my digital library, organizing the files, which takes a surprisingly large amount of time, as well as working through several one-shots and a large majestically crafted story that recently finished, but I'm only about a third of the way through. (Harry Crow by robst for those wondering what story to which I'm referring.)
- Falling in Water: This is a HP/Supernatural story with a Ranma 1/2 twist. The premise is on a family trip to China, Harry runs afoul of a supernatural element and uses accidental magic to apparate away. Happening to find himself in the Valley of Springs, Harry falls into the Spring of Drowned Angel. Because of the inherent power of the Angel, Harry is transformed into an Angel permanently instead of merely when dunked in cold water. This destroys Dumbledore's tracking devices. ...and there the story hangs. (Chapters: 4; Last Updated: 4/20/2014)
- Harry Potter and the Death Wish: This is a HP-verse story. The premise is Harry develops an obsession with death in general, and his death in particular. The angst run high as you would imagine in a story about a prepubescent child wanting to die. There's a fair turnabout of the expectations of characters along the good/evil spectrum as this author does not divide it into the factions of light/dark. The pairing for this story, if you want to call it that, is Voldemort/Harry. I don't particularly wish to call it a pairing, as there's nothing sexual about it now (as expected by fact that Harry is still a child) and this Voldemort is more possessive friendship...well, as much as one would expect for one's favorite pet. (Chapters: 14; Last Updated: 6/6/2014)
- Shifting Sands, Swirling Seas: This is a HP-verse story. The premise is that in a 'verse where BDSM is the norm, Sirius becomes the Lord Protector of both his godson Harry, and one Hermione Granger, who are both submissive. It is set in the Goblet of Fire time period, with a freed and cleared Sirius. (Chapters: 4/15; Last Updated: 11/23/2013)
You are probably wondering by this point what I've been doing this summer, if this is for the spring. (Also why do I do this to myself when the last updates should be clear from the get-go?) Well, I've been working my way through my digital library, organizing the files, which takes a surprisingly large amount of time, as well as working through several one-shots and a large majestically crafted story that recently finished, but I'm only about a third of the way through. (Harry Crow by robst for those wondering what story to which I'm referring.)
Saturday, June 28, 2014
With This Collar
With This Collar by Sierra Cartwright
I have just finished reading this novella. With This Collar tells the story of the introduction of a fiery and independent woman into the world of BDSM. She moves through her inner conflicts about the emotional and mental aspects of the kink to acceptance of her submission to the male dominant love interest.
What I particularly liked about this story was the fact that Julia did not sacrifice anything for her submission. She remains the same stubbornly independent woman throughout the story. Marcus didn't demand that she give up that fiery spirit that had initially drew his attention. He also didn't try to abuse her trust in him. Too many stories dealing with kink seem to give the message that BDSM must equate abuse. Miss Cartwright does not send that message. Instead, she has Master Marcus talk out conflicts with Julia instead of resorting to violent reactions when those conflicts arise.
I would recommend this story to others. I would especially recommend this story to people who are curious about how power exchanges work in real life. Technical manuals can only show you so much. A fictional story involving it would show it so much better. This is a good story in that measure.
I have another story by Sierra Cartwright. I am looking forward to starting that one.
I have just finished reading this novella. With This Collar tells the story of the introduction of a fiery and independent woman into the world of BDSM. She moves through her inner conflicts about the emotional and mental aspects of the kink to acceptance of her submission to the male dominant love interest.
What I particularly liked about this story was the fact that Julia did not sacrifice anything for her submission. She remains the same stubbornly independent woman throughout the story. Marcus didn't demand that she give up that fiery spirit that had initially drew his attention. He also didn't try to abuse her trust in him. Too many stories dealing with kink seem to give the message that BDSM must equate abuse. Miss Cartwright does not send that message. Instead, she has Master Marcus talk out conflicts with Julia instead of resorting to violent reactions when those conflicts arise.
I would recommend this story to others. I would especially recommend this story to people who are curious about how power exchanges work in real life. Technical manuals can only show you so much. A fictional story involving it would show it so much better. This is a good story in that measure.
I have another story by Sierra Cartwright. I am looking forward to starting that one.
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