Femgenficathon Story: Mind Killer, Part 2 (Charity Carpenter, The Dresden Files)

[gehayi]

Title: Mind-Killer
Author: gehayi
Fandom: The Dresden Files (bookverse)
Characters: Charity Carpenter, Charity's parents, Gregor, Siriothrax, Michael Carpenter
Word Count: 11,543
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I most emphatically do not own The Dresden Files. They belong to Jim Butcher, ROC Books, New American Library, the Penguin Group, and-for the next

Comments

[erastes]

Very very good - as usual. Perfectly canon and would slot in perfectly. I like the way that Charity made a conscious decision to change her life, not when the other threats happened, but when Michael came along.

[gehayi]

Yes, not a very feminist choice, that. But that's what she does in canon. (Though, to be fair, Michael is the one good spot in her life at that point, and the only person who hasn't betrayed her.)

[settiai]

Oh, this was a gorgeous look at Charity.

[gehayi]

Oh, thank you! I'm very relieved that people are actually reading it: she's not one of the more popular characters, from what I've seen.

[settiai]

Really? I'll admit that I don't really hang out in the Dresden Files fandom that much, but I've always adored Charity.

[zoe_chan]

This was absolutely wonderful. A great look at Charity's past, and just... wow. I loved every moment of it. It was beautiful and heartbreaking.

[gehayi]

Thank you so very much! I'm delighted that you liked it.

And...yeah. It is heartbreaking. I had to go for that--not only because it fit the short version that Butcher gave us, but also because if you enjoy reading urban fantasy about a wizard, it's hard to imagine someone willingly giving up magic to be ordinary. I had to show how hard and how painful magic could be and how many problems it could cause so that the audience would say, "Okay, yes. Charity had good reasons for giving up magic."

By the way, who's in your icon?

[zoe_chan]

Absolutely. And--like I said. Fantastic job showing that.

The people in my icon are Kailey and Gavin from Quest for Camelot. ^_^

[lareinenoire]

I literally just finished reading Proven Guilty earlier this afternoon and dived into this immediately.

You've taken the hints from the books and fleshed them out into a wonderful look at what made Charity the woman she becomes. It fits perfectly into what we know from canon, and the ending in particular is a great parallel to the decisions she makes in Proven Guilty -- it's a subtle change from running away from magic to consciously setting it aside, but you illustrate it beautifully here.

[gehayi]

it's a subtle change from running away from magic to consciously setting it aside, but you illustrate it beautifully here.

Thank you! Yes, it is a subtle change. I'm glad that you saw that; it was tricky to write. But for Charity, I don't think it was running away; I believe it was a moral choice.

And I'm VERY pleased that you like it, because you're a good writer and your opinion means a lot to me.

[kellicat]

I can't really be considered a Dresden Files fan, but I still enjoyed this story. I liked how you showed how horrible magic could be and why Charity had good reasons for giving it up. Too many authors focus on the shiny aspects of magic without noting the downsides of it.

This is the closest thing I have to a Gregor icon...

[gehayi]

Oh, thank you! That's what I was trying to show--that Charity DID have good reasons for giving up magic, and that the important part to her was having the freedom and the ability to choose who she wanted to be, rather than letting her magic change her into something she loathed.

I'm glad that the sheer horribleness of Charity's magic and the effect it had on her life came through as well; that was something that worried me throughout. I wasn't sure if what I was showing was coming across as bad enough.