💜 To Imhotep, My First Movie Crush 💜

Had the passing thought the other day of like… that one scene in TEC where Fowl Senior has just woken up and Artemis immediately begins rattling off stuff about the family finances and like… I know how people usually interpret that scene but hear me out:

Artemis immediately doing so because he’s a kid and he’s been essentially all alone trying to keep all their finances secure (to save his father in the first place) and he’s worked so hard on it, and like… when a kid needs someone to fix something, who do they usually turn to first? A parent.

So Artemis starts rattling it off like “great we can both work on this now, cause now my dad’s here” and then five minutes later he’s thinking “shit!! my father’s doesn’t want to fix it!!”

Little Holly ! 🔥

… Yeah. You don’t wanna mess with her.

Round 2 of the Artemis Fowl fandom ask game

But this time, I asked my husband to answer 💜 I was curious to see what would his takes be, and I figured it was worth sharing the thoughts of my best acolyte in AF fanfic writing, my eternal partner in crime ✨ (calling him by his nickname Chat 😸 from now on for ease of reading)

the character 😸 least understands Doodah Day. Chat doesn’t understand what he adds to TLC, as to him in terms of character archetype and motivations he is just a pale rip-off of Mulch, with different “powers”. Honorable mention, also in TLC, Qwan : Chat feels that his character should have been a lot more prominent and developed, we never know much about him and he feels like it’s a missed opportunity.

interactions 😸 enjoyed the most Artemis and Foaly ! They are Chat’s all-time favorite duo, he feels like together they should be absolutely unstoppable, and even bigger besties than Artemis & Holly and even Artemis & Butler. Chat finds it sad that their duo is limited to a bratty-yet-friendly rivalry, “what wasted potential 😿". Well, in Pareidolia Agent (next installment of Artemis Experiments Weird), let’s just say Chat and I decided to work on that 😇

the character who scares 😸 the most Foaly ! Because, most like Tokita in Paprika, he is way too inconsequential and childish for the amount of intellect, resources and power he has. Multiple times in the books, catastrophes happen because Foaly pissed off the wrong people or didn’t anticipate that his inventions might be hijacked and used for evil. Even though he is ultimately a lovely lil guy, Chat feels that Foaly is so immature he is a timebomb waiting to explode, and an absolute danger to everyone.

the character who is mostly like 😸 Artemis, “because him and I have way too many flaws in common 😿” (which is kinda true tbh, déso pas déso mon amour)

hottest looks character Vinyaya ! Chat is an absolute sucker for long white silvery hair 🤍 (which he absolutely insists on telling everyone he once sported himself ! now they are still long but only blonde ^^)

one thing 😸 dislikes about his fave character Artemis lets himself be ridiculed to easily, especially after book 4 - worth noting though that Chat barely considers book 5 to 7 to be canon 😅 And this is one of the main reasons why (yes I sait 5 to 7, that is intentional - Chat has refused to read TLG and claims it simply doesn’t exist)

one thing 😸 likes about his hated character Chat absolutely loves the cold cruelty of Opal murdering Root. To him, she was the most ruthless we’d ever seen any character be in the series at this point, and Root’s murder shook the status quo in such a dramatic way, hinting at the series shifting towards a darker, more serious tone that he absolutely loved. It didn’t exactly turn out that way, but he still loves TOD for this.

a quote or scene that haunts 😸 Chat adores the first interactions between Artemis and Spiro at the beginning of TEC - how Artemis ruthlessly (and carelessly) mocks Spiro and threatens to completely ruin his career, then how the shift in power happens in the blink of an eye.

a death that left 😸 indifferent Vinyaya, “because it’s not canon 😾” - and because it felt so gratuitous, absurd and useless.

a character 😸 wish died but didn’t Chat’s hot take (that I do kinda share) : Butler should have died in TEC. Chat feels like Artemis learned his lesson too easily, with too little consequences, and that Holly’s attempt to revive Butler shouldn’t have worked this well. To quote : "Artemis’ fatal flaw is hubris, and he should have paid a higher price for flying too close to the sun ; here, his character evolves without having lost anything”. for those who have read Experiments Weird : no comments

😸’s ship that never sailed Chat isn’t a huge shipper, but after pondering he declared that Holly and Trouble should have been together after TOD. So @ionlymadethissoicouldleaveanask that’s a win for the Holly/Trouble truthers gang 😝 And that’s it ! Chat doesn’t have a tumblr but if his takes stir some conversation he’d read and respond with pleasure 🙂

Sometimes, questions are kind of like butter. You've got to clarify them.

OH MY GOODNESS HOW COME I ONLY SEE THIS NOW !!!!! Thank you so much é_è

You ever read a fanfic so good you want to make fanfic for the fanfic?

Because that's me with this.

Preach... 🙏🏻 I love Angeline with all my heart, but the books never really did her justice. She was a crucial part of the first book but then she just vanished once she was "cured" - which never sat right with me... call me grumpy, but I don't like the idea that magic can cure something so deeply rooted in the chemistry of the mind as mental illnesses (plural because I really don't think Angeline was simply depressed, the symptoms she exhibits in the first book feel really indicative of bipolar disorder and also schizophrenia). Only in my dreams is her struggle with mental health explored in later books... And TAC is absolute trash imo because it's a huge missed opportunity for more Artemis and Angeline bonding, acknowledging the trauma they both went through during Tim's disappearance... But, we got nothing. It really makes me SO mad to see that the most prominent thing the fowldom has retained from Angeline is the "randomosity" shirt and think of her as some superficial helpless mobwife é.è When Angeline's actually Artemis' most acute emotional and moral compass right beside Butler. So many fics that I otherwise enjoyed annoy me to no end with their portrayal of Angeline.

I'd have so much more to say about my darling, but I don't have the clarity of mind right now to expose all my thoughts in a comprehensible way (all my brain screams right now is FOOD. NOW) but I may come back to it later.

Angeline Fowl is the protagonist’s mother. She is also a wife. She is also crazy. This is basically the extent of what we learn about Angeline in the first book and she doesn’t substantially develop throughout the course of the series. Angeline represents two common tropes in fiction, the mother and the madwoman. While AF is undeniably a fantasy series, it is still rooted in our contemporary world, and so it is not unreasonable to expect a certain level of realism when depicting its mental illness or when depicting its secondary characters, in general. It's just so frustrating that Colfer really opened up such a big can of worms and then did nothing with it, or for that matter, her. :/

🧠

Let me reciprocate!

Your headcanons about Minerva, and your favorite headcanons about Angeline!

:3

Minerva, Minerva... The Minerva of my dreams is vastly different from the canon one. I always thought she would be a much more interesting foil to Artemis if she came from a different sociocultural background - what if the rich Irish boy faced a poor French girl from the Seine-Saint-Denis suburbs ? I think it would give her a different kind of grit, and also her motives for turning to crime wouldn't just be a Nobel Prize, but just... financial stability. For her and her family. I could develop more but I want to keep some surprises for my next fics :3 As for my darling Angeline, oh my. I tried to come up with a top 3 to keep myself in check ^^" 1) She's a fierce redhead 🔥 2) She had a musical career as the lead pianist of the jazz quartet The Silky Silfaka Lemurs 🐵 After she had Artemis she stopped playing in the band but she kept composing music. 3) Her favorite beverage is jasmine tea 🌸

so i've been rereading Artemis Fowl (series) again and even tho it was one of my favorite kids series I'm noticing some kinda weird or icky stuff that flew over my head before. Like damn if these books ain't just cyberpunk espionage magitek copaganda. Book 2 is literally about an ethnically motivated class uprising being put down by the police(who are framed as the good guys) because said racial minority/underclass is too violent and stupid to deserve better treatment in the prison system. and also too stupid and violent to have masterminded the plan for revolution themselves and needed one of the smart races to do it for them.

and any time there's a civilian presence in the book, they are depicted as either an antagonistic obstructive bureaucrat or a whiny caricature played for laughs. not totally sure if this is because these books were written while uncritically carrying over this kind of depiction that was historically the norm in its genres (police procedural), or if this is the author's own (conscious or subconscious) idealogical biases seeping in. might be both tbh.

anyway anyway the thing i actually wanted to bring up is that a really bizarre detail that stuck out to me during my re-reads is the way the different fairy races/species are characterized. there's 7(really 8) races/species of fairies who are disntint, and they have different traits and powers. So like there are elves who are good with magic, sprites who can fly, goblins (the aforementioned race that is too stupid and violent to be capable of organized protest) who can shoot fire etc.

Butt (foreshadowing lol) the one that was so weird to me is the characterization of gnomes, the last and arguably least of the fairy races in the artemis fowl series. they seem to make up the majority of the fairy population and a significant portion of background characters. bdon't get much screen time in the books because of not having any main characters who are one. They're sole defining characteristic?

Having enormous asses.

That's it. that's their whole thing. basically every time there's a gnome character depicted, the text goes out if it's way mention how dummy thicc the gnomes are and how their dumptruck rear ends take up too much room and keep blocking things and knocking shit over when they walk.

like there's also already a whole race of fairies (the dwarfs)whose whole thing is to be a never ending font of burglary escape techniques and fart jokes whenever the plot or author demand them. you would think having enormous asses would come in that territory, but no. it goes to the last group that we the audience don't really know or care about as much.

and i just don't really know what to make of that. that in coming up with fantasy races for his books, one of the most present but least prominent in tbe books' single defining and noteworthy character trait is having such fat asses that they block public pedestrian walkways (no really). i wish i knew what exactly the thought process behind (lol) that one was.

anyway hope i explained why it's so weird to me well, goodnight

Of course Artemis Fowl for the fandom ask thing :3

Thank you for the ask !! :D Here goes :

the character i least understand I already answered this one in a separate ask, but let’s interpret the question differently - and honestly, I don’t think I have one. I feel like all the characters in the book are pretty straightforward in what their goals, needs, motives and morals are, sure some of them are jerks but it’s understandable why they are jerks - and those that are more difficult to figure out, it’s mostly just because they are not that developed and mostly side characters.

interactions i enjoyed the most Artemis and Angeline in book one were so heartbreaking, in a good way. It’s really one of the things that drew me in the most when I first read the book. I loved the complexity of their dynamics, and was so sad to see it get mostly abandoned for the rest of the series :’( But outside of them, just everything Artemis and Butler. I love this duo with my whole heart.

the character who scares me the most If I were to run into him in the street, I would be terrified of Butler for sure. But as a writer, I think it would be Foaly ! I find him so difficult to write faithfully, it’s hard to do him justice.

the character who is mostly like me Angeline. Without a shadow of a doubt.

hottest looks character Pass. I just don’t think about them that way :)

one thing i dislike about my fave character The way Angeline is treated past book one will always infuriate me. Her character had SO much potential, all wasted in the name of a Randomosity shirt.

one thing i like about my hated character Tim’s backstory is so underdeveloped that I had a lot of fun trying to come up with something that would make him at least a little bit likable for future fanfics x’) And well, I’ve grown to be fond of the sociopathic pathetic wet cat I’ve forged through headcanons, spite and willpower alone ^^"

a quote or scene that haunts me “Non… parce qu’alors, je les verrais.” When Artemis, visiting Angeline in the attic for the first time in book one, offers to open the curtains after she told him about voices crawling all around her, she starts crying in pain, fear and desperation. That entire scene broke me, and this specific line stuck (sorry I didn’t feel like looking for the original English version). I guess it hit a bit too close to home somehow. But since then Angeline has been my absolute beloved, only topped by Artemis himself of course.

a death that left me indifferent Turnball Root. There were just too many things that infuriated me in TAC for me to care about his death. The love story also felt way too cliché and I couldn’t manage to become invested in it.

a character i wish died but didn’t I know she died eventually, but for me Opal should have been dead and gone after book 4. She had served her purpose and I feel like bringing her back twice was too predictable, unnecessary, and turned her character into a gimmick.

my ship that never sailed For some reason I really wanted Foaly to end up with Lilli Frond for a long time ?! I figured it would be interesting for Foaly to be the one to see past Lilli’s facade and reveal more depth to her character - and that would have also made for interesting interactions with Holly ! But oh well, why develop existing characters when you can create random ones mid-series ? ):

I love it when decision-making for writing a fic boils down to 'what's the most fucked up thing I could do here?'