There isn't much to say that hasn't been said by someone else before.
I'm a 21 year-old in college. Now a Kansas resident (I've lived in Illinois, Massachusetts, Ohio, and New York) having just moved from Florida. I enjoy anime, movies, video games, music, and reading.
I used to hate books, absolutely loathed them, and I couldn't read until damn well into second grade. (I was a bit of a slow child...) Then, somewhere in the middle of sixth grade, my grandparents got me a book, and I had nothing to do, so I read it. And I haven't stopped reading since. I started writing about seven years ago, and it's the only thing I think I do with any amount of skill. I've written for a multitude of fandoms (Gorillaz, Harry Potter, The Slayers, Yu-Gi-Oh!, DragonBallZ, The Phantom of the Opera, Pirates of the Caribbean, Hellsing, Labyrinth) and I putter around with some original works as well. I'll be the first to admit that I'm not in touch with reality and I'm a hopeless dreamer, but I prefer it that way. There is a difference between being mature and being boring. I just wish more adults could see that, maybe life would be more fun that way.
Favorite Animes:(In no particular order) One Piece, Hellsing, Argentosoma, The Slayers, Bandit King Jing, Outlaw Star, Azumanga Daioh, Read Or Die, PaniPoni Dash, and Yu-Gi-Oh!
Favorite Movies: Addams Family, Bedazzled, Casper, Dogma, MirrorMask, Labyrinth, The Mummy, The Phantom of the Opera, The Prestige, V for Vendetta, Mystery Men, George of the Jungle, Clue, anything with the Muppets in it, Coppola's Dracula, Batman, Star Wars (original trilogy), 10 Things I Hate About You, Big Fish, Sweet Home Alabama, Just Like Heaven, Sleepy Hollow, Drop Dead Fred, Happy Gilmore, Pirates of the Caribbean, all Mel Brooks' movies, X-Men, Disney Classics, and Hook.
Favorite Video Games: The .Hack// series, Final Fantasy VIII, KingdomHearts, Capsule Monster Coliseum, DragonQuest VIII, and TheSims2.
Music: I listen to mostly alternative, movie soundtracks, and classical. The Dresden Dolls, Jason Webley, Vermilion Lies, Rammstein, Dream Theater, She Wants Revenge, The Offspring, The Killers, Danny Elfman, John Williams, Hans Zimmer, Beethoven, Bach, Vivaldi, Bloc Party, Arcade Fire, Barenaked Ladies, Muse, Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars/David Bowie, and others.
Favorite Books: The Black Jewels series, The Vampire Chronicles, Dracula, Faust, The Dark Highlander, The Immortal Highlander, Spell of the Highlander, Treasure Island, The Phantom, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Good Omens, The Artemis Fowl series, Harry Potter, The Princess Diaries, anything by Terry Pratchett, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Classic Fairy Tales, and Peter Pan.
Fun Facts and Things You Might Have Missed About:
My previous and current account:
According to this profile, I have been a member of Fanfiction since 2006. This is not true. I had an account previous to this, established in 2001, where I originally began writing.
I stopped writing fanfiction for nearly 3 years (a time which I utilized to begin writing original works) before I created this account. Though my old account still exists, I felt the need to distance myself from those stories because the maturity of the writing style and plot construction are lightyears apart. I created this account for that purpose and because I loathe the idea of deleting my old work. Though I cringe to read it, and much of it is unfinished, I think it's important to remember who we have been in order to decide who we will be.
No, I will not directly give out my previous pen name. It embarrasses me to no end. If you find it on your own (and kudos to you if you do, because it's pretty well hidden) then I'd be more than happy to talk about those stories with you, but please don't judge me by those standards; I am not the novice I once was.
The first fanfic I ever wrote was for Gorillaz, back when this site used to have a music section. I can't remember what it was called, but I want to say it might have been Holy Shnikies. After that I wrote 2 or 3 Harry Potter stories, 2 Slayers stories, and then a bunch for Yu-Gi-Oh! Out of all those stories, I only completed 2, and not very well at that.
This pen name (Ergott) was originally MW Ergott, a shortening of Wilhelmina Mathias Ergott which was a pen name I had created to co-author a supernatural, correspondence-based story with a friend of mine. Unfortunately, the idea fell through once we both got to college, but my vampire fascination did not, which was what led me to write Renfield Wasn't Crazy.
Yes, I am a woman. No, I am not from England or Canada (I was born in Illinois and have never been off the continent), I just have a preference to spell certain words in the Queen's English. Like dreamt or burnt.
Renfield Wasn't Crazy:
Renfield was my favorite character in Dracula (the novel I mean, because in most of the movies they make into Igor which is funny but totally inaccurate), and it struck me that the few people who even mention Dracula in the Hellsing fandom typically compare Seras to Lucy or Mina. Personally, I think she's more of a Renfield.
This story really came about because I was unsatisfied with most of the Hellsing fandom. Few people even mentioned Dracula, and those who did were more inclined to present the Hollywood version rather than the literary version. It bothers me to no end because, HELLO- ALUCARD! How can you dance around Dracula when he's one of your characters?!
Renfield really wasn't crazy. Read the book if you don't believe me. If you have read the book and STILL don't believe me, then wait for me to continue the story so that you can hear my theory.
YES, I do plan to continue this story, after a vigorous rewriting of the first few chapters. No, I have no idea when that'll be.
Rimkus (the name of the underground coffee shop that Seras ducks into) is actually the name of a construction company. I have this little foam construction cone with their logo on it. At the time it was just staring me in the face, so I named the cafe after it.
There's no such thing as Cromwellian poetry. Cromwell actually tried to suppress the arts and many poets found themselves in jail because of it.
This was actually the first story that I wrote in third-person perspective after nearly six years, and now third-person is my natural style of narration.
There is a review for the first chapter from someone who simply called themselves The D. This was actually a close friend of mine at the time, and the person who originally encouraged me to write many years previous.
Wedding Dress For Sale:
My English teacher was trying to make the point to us that the smallest details can make a mind whirl with thought. As an example he told us about a classifieds ad that he had read, "Wedding dress for sale; size 6, never worn." It was the "never worn" that caught his attention, as well as my own. What had happened in that woman's life that she had never been able to wear her own wedding dress? I'm not entirely sure how I started thinking about it being Sarah's dress, but the story started to unfold itself that way.
The first half of the story was written in the library on a sheet of loose-leaf paper.
I am fascinated by idea of a drunk Jareth. Throughout most of the movie he's calm and controlled, so I always kind of wonder what he would be like intoxicated when all those things are stripped from him.
Beyond Her Eyes:
My hobby, aside from writing, is wondering about the tenuous differences between fantasy and reality. I've always been of the vague opinion that if you believe in something hard enough it can happen. I blame Peter Pan for this.
All my one-shots seem to have a psychological edge to them. Though I like to take this story literally, on a metaphorical level I suppose it could be about the gradual descent into madness.
This story was actually based on an idea that I had had many years previous for a novel called Shadows in the Dark. It was a story about a boy named Aaron who had somehow become the portal between two very different worlds. Through his dreams and nightmares he was slowly giving the other world the power to break out into our own.
Twisted Every Way:
Named after a song from The Phantom of the Opera (my longest standing obsession); strangely enough, it was a song that I never liked until just a few years ago.
I encouraged the readers to think about who the specter could have been, since I never named them in the story. Most people chose Sarah, which was logical and fit the best. Technically, I did write it with Sarah in mind, but I also gave consideration to the fact that it may have been a wasted Jareth simply torturing himself with the things he couldn't change, and the things that were changing that he couldn't stop.
Mirror:
With the possible exception of Wedding Dress For Sale, all of my one-shots are abstract because I seem to have trouble conveying a story in so few words. For as short as my chapters generally are, the stories themselves tend to be rather long and complex.
"So... Jareth IS Andre, yes?" Alright, now here's the thing that always bugs me about stories where Jareth puts on a human glamour: THEY ALWAYS MAKE HIM LOOK LIKE HIMSELF! But we clearly know that he can do better than that because of that scene in the tunnels where he was disguised as a beggar. If he REALLY wanted to trap Sarah, then he's going to blind-side her, give her the rush from where she least expects it. Remember the mirror scene: when Jareth ambushed Sarah the only person she saw in the mirror was herself; ergo, whatever it was that had ambushed her wasn't actually real. But when her and Andre were leaving the shop, she caught a glimmer of blond hair in the mirror. So yes, Andre is Jareth. The "Jareth" that we see in this story is really just an illusion.
"I was captivated, and might I add it's nice to see someone able to write J & S as teenagers and not have the dialogue be cheezy and outdated..." This was actually the first time that I've written a story taking place while Sarah's still in high school. It's definitely a concept that interests me- the mundane meets the fantastic -but I've always avoided it in the past because of exactly what was just said. I was born at the tail-end of the 80's and went through high school only a few years ago, so I always figured it would be kind of hard to get the dialogue and the atmosphere right. (This is half the reason why there were school uniforms.)
"I'm curious as to how Sarah would have reacted to that! Seriously...add more." I should have expected that; it always seems to happen when I write short-stories. Perhaps, one day, I'll write a follow-up but, for the time being, I'm afraid Sarah's reaction is simply beyond the scope of the story. Thank you very much, though.
Originally, Andre (this was before I actually named him, when I was still just kicking the plot around for ideas) was really just going to be a mortal classmate that was unfortunate enough to focus his attentions on Sarah. Then he turned into one of Jareth's friends who was going to date Sarah and be as nasty as possible so as to push her into Jareth's arms. Then Andre was actually Jareth himself, and the person who looked like Jareth was his friend. Eventually, I just cut out the middle man, so Andre is the real Jareth, and the Jareth we see is just magic.
No, that saying about mercury mirrors is not real, as far as I know; I just made it up. Everything else I said about mercury is true though.
Dramatic Orchestrations:
I started this story after only 2 months of my first viewing of Labyrinth, and originally wrote 1 chapter in advance of what I was posting (on the theory that I would have a backup if I ever hit writer's block or didn't have the time to write). I think that system lasted all of 4 chapters before I couldn't stand it anymore.
I watched the movie every other week for the first half of the story to keep my characterization accurate, and listened to Bowie music to get a better idea of how to structure Jareth's dialogue.
D.O. was actually based off of Orsus, a short story that I had planned out but never seemed able to write. Orsus was a story about a girl whose dreams manifested in the form of a vampire. As you might have guessed, what I plan and what I write generally end up being two very different things.
All Jareth and Sarah interaction was supposed to have taken place in dreams. They were not supposed to meet face-to-face until the sequel. (Yep, there was always going to be a sequel.)
Jareth's past was supposed to span the entire story. When it became clear that it wasn't going to, I wasn't really sure what to do. I thought about discontinuing his perspective, but decided to go out on a limb and used chapter 13 to transition from the past to the present.
Hadrian, the human Prince, was intended to be a romantic rival, but that part of the story never panned out because Jareth was making a mess of things without anyone's help.
I never intended to mention Sarah's family at all, with the exception of a couple of cameos from Toby. Jareth's family wasn't supposed to make their appearance until the sequel, but Oran barged in and demanded to be written. After that I told myself that the single cameo would be it for this story, but the Royal family refused to stay put and pretty much took over the last quarter of the fic. (If you hadn't noticed, I never gave Jareth's family a last name.)
Imm and Laim were actually created before this story, and I didn't intend to use them- I was going to give Jareth a sister and a few cousins. Then it became clear that the Twins had no intention to sit on the sidelines, so I put them in. I also briefly considered changing their names, but could never make anything else stick. (No, Laim is not a typo for Liam.)
Leshia, Jareth's mother, is a Leshii- a forest demon. They're known for kidnapping people to take care of their (the Leshii's) children. Out of anyone in Jareth's family, she is the only one that I've ever had a distinct mythological species in mind for.
I know nothing of Celtic mythology, so thank you all for your kind words about my diligent research, but it was really just blind luck.
There was originally going to be a scene in the story where Jareth took Sarah Christmas shopping in K'shent Mier (Jareth's capital city, remember?).
In the back story, where Jareth confronts the first woman to wish a child away, she recognizes him as the king who inflicted horrors upon those of "Dun Rih". Dun Rih is a combination of 2 places, Dun Loreag (which I've probably spelled wrong) from the .hack// video game series and Ebon Rih from The Black Jewels Trilogy.
There were two sets of shadow people throughout the story. The first set was from the beginning chapters- the phantom dancers, and the second set was in chapter 17 (I believe)- the children shadows that invaded Jareth's Study. They are all Hadrian's children- children who were wished away to the Labyrinth, all of whom Hadrian rules over. Children here is a misnomer, because some of them are actually full grown adults but they all came to the Labyrinth as children. The reason that they are only seen as shadows was because they could not bring Sarah's sleeping mind fully within the Labyrinth without her consent.
In the same chapter that Sarah encounters the shadow children, she also runs into the invisible entity that heals her hand. This was the Labyrinth. At the same time that it was talking to her, it was also communicating with Jareth, who was asking it to take over his place at Imperial Court so he could focus his attention on Sarah.
The entire story spanned about 1 week. This is a problem with most of my stories, in that quite a lot happens in a very small amount of time. Why, I hear you ask? Because I don't like slipping in phrases like, "A week had passed." I feel cheated when other authors do things like that. I want to know what happened in that week. My narration tends to follow the characters very closely, the largest lapses of time only being a few hours.
Jareth's Study is another subtle homage to The Black Jewels Trilogy. Kudos to you if you know who's Study it really is.
Jareth is a person. I feel kind of stupid saying that, but it's something that a lot of authors seem to ignore. He has a past, a present, a future, and not everything about his life has to do with Sarah. I enjoy seeing an obsessed Jareth just as much as anyone, but there has to be a balance somewhere. Also, I'm a firm believer that you can't truly understand a character until you've seen their past, which is why my chaptered pieces always feature some kind of backstory.
25 chapters. That's how long it was supposed to be; 5 distinct phases to the plot, each being 5 chapters long. I should have known better because, no matter how I plan things, the story inevitably wanders off to do whatever it feels like. Sometimes it feels like I'm trying to train a cat: you love them and they're affectionate, but they don't listen to a word you're saying.
Bodice Ripper:
I got the idea for this story while I was still writing Dramatic Orchestration, which is why I had to write this before I could move on to Listen For Thunder. It all came about because I started reading romance novels (Karen Marie Moning, to be specific, though I read many others now).
Originally, Jareth was just going to be a normal man. After a few chapters I decided that it wasn't going to work that way, so I had him in the mortal realm because of the Wise Man, who was actually trying to help him reunite with Sarah. Frankly, I have no idea HOW the Wise Man turned into the bad guy, but he did, so I had to rush in Didymus and Hoggle to balance out the plot.
Liz Carver was often referred to as being impish. This is because she WAS an imp... or at least she was going to be. In those miraculous 2 days where the Wise Man wasn't evil, Liz was going to be his emissary/matchmaker. Once the Wise Man went evil, I really didn't have any justification for her to be from the Underground, so she went back to just being Sarah's best friend and was never mentioned in the story again.
Byron wasn't going to be in the story at all, because original characters make me nervous. Then he popped himself in, so I planned to use him as a romantic rival; he disagreed with that as well.
Don't you ever wonder how Jareth became the Goblin King? It's so easy to just say that his father was the Goblin King before him, but it can be so much more interesting than that. In this story I really liked the idea that he had been human and made the same mistake as Sarah, only it ended differently for him.
Bunbury is from Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest". He doesn't actually exist, he's an imaginary friend that Algernon uses as an excuse to avoid certain social engagements. Essentially, Bunburying is just to lie, which is why I told people not to look too much into my use of the name.
Stone soup (mentioned in passing in one of the later chapters, in the context of actual food) is a wonderful story in its own right that ought to be read.
When I was little my family used to stay at Samoset Resort every Thanksgiving, near Rockport, Maine. Owl's Head is a lighthouse that my father and I visited one year and, unfortunately, it was a foggy day so the foghorn was quite loud (that is a massive understatement). (There was actually going to be a chapter wherein Jareth invaded Sarah's home because the foghorn was driving him crazy.) Around that time I also lived close to Boston, so this story was basically set in my childhood, which is a little disconcerting to admit considering what the story is about.
Vivaldi, the music that Jareth played in his car, is one of my favorite composers, and often one of the things I listen to while I write.
The story that I originally learned about flower language from was a Hellsing fanfic, titled Eyes.
Nasturtium is edible, Monkshood is poisonous. Also, I had NO idea that Monkshood was another name for wolfsbane. I consider that choice kind of ironic now because, at the time, I was reading werewolf stories that featured wolfsbane (or aconite, by another name) rather prominently.
I actually messed up Jareth's timeline in this story. There's a 2 year discrepancy that I can't account for. Jareth is established as being 28 at the beginning of the story, which means that 10 years previous, when Sarah was running through the Labyrinth, he would have been in stasis at age 18, which is a lie because he was in his twenties when he wished Byron away. Oops?
And as long as we're talking about discrepancies, here's another one: At the beginning of the story I said that Sarah lived about 5 miles from Owl's Head, but after Jareth moved in it was suddenly only 2 miles away.
I plan to write an alternate ending as well as 1 or 2 follow up stories. Sarah's daddy is gonna hit the roof.
People keep asking me why Sarah never called the cops on Jareth, to which I reply that her phone lines were down (which WAS in the story). I'm then asked why she didn't use a cellphone. Because this story takes place in 1996! Yes, cellphones existed but they were expensive and not nearly so widely used; for someone like Sarah, who's taking care of constant repairs around her home, the cost simply wouldn't be justifiable.
Listen For Thunder:
Why 5 years after Dramatic Orchestrations? Two reasons, really: first is that I'm bad at writing small children, so I wanted Toby to be markedly older, and second was that I like even integers. The first story was about 5 years after the movie, so this story is now 10 years after the events of Labyrinth. Despite this, Sarah is 24, not 25, because she was 19 in D.O. This is not a continuity error or a subtle bending of the laws of physics, it all just has to do with the time of the year.
The Twins weren't going to be in the story until later. Are we starting to notice a pattern here?
My version of Sarah:
For me, Sarah has always been the hardest character to write. We see her in a very contained situation, so I often find it a little hard to gauge how she may react to certain situations. Through the movie we have a great idea how she reacts to the fantastic, but not such a great idea of how she handles the mundane.
I don't like to make Sarah a total brat. I do give her brattish qualities, because I think there's an inner hedonist in all of us, but for the most part I stay away from that. People need to be able to relate to the characters in order to sympathize and enjoy their story, and it's really hard to relate to someone who's throwing a hissy-fit every couple of paragraphs. For the most part, I go in for a very understated, analytical sort of Sarah.
I rarely ever see her as an actress, though I really can't say why. If I ever had her go into the theater at all, I would see her as more of a director than anything else.
You may have noticed that I write Sarah's Labyrinth friends as sparingly as possible. This is because Hoggle and Didymus both have abnormal speech patterns, and I'm not a dialect writer (I'm usually a bit bugged when people do it in their own fics because it either contradicts how they spoke in the movie or it just sounds plain silly). I find it really hard to figure out how they would say what I want them to, so I mention them, but generally don't write them.
My version of Jareth:
First of all, as previously stated, I like to give him a past. Generally, something complex that has inexorably shaped him into the man he is today.
Yes, I do seem to have a fondness for tearing Jareth into multiple people. I tend to think of Jareth as being separate from the Goblin King; they're two different characters in my mind. The Goblin King is the guy we see in Karen's bedroom at the beginning of the movie; he's cruel, sarcastic, mocking, and sort of like a nightmare vision. He's the generally the one with all the magic. Jareth is the one that we see in the Escher Room at the end; he's a little lovesick, perhaps still a little mocking but overall displays a wider range of gentler emotions, he knows how to beg and sweet talk. He's the man, pure and simple, with all the wants and desires of a man.
I like to characterize Jareth in strange ways. For example, in the DO/LFT universe he is fond of cooking. I also think he may be a rabid coffee drinker, cranky in the morning, and a little too fond of brandy. He probably loves ice-cream and doesn't care too much for chewing gum. Let's face it, for as much as we love him, he didn't really have a lot of screen-time in the movie. There's this whole world to him that's completely unexplored, so I like filling in the gaps with small things that are a little quirky. (I bet you he even wears reading-glasses when he's looking something up!)
I picture a younger Jareth as having continually scraped knees and bruises from falling out of trees or roughhousing with his siblings and/or friends.
What species is my Jareth? I don't really know and it changes from story to story. He's simply magic incarnate; sometimes that takes the form of a specific mythological creature and sometimes it doesn't.
My Jareth does use contractions (things like 'can't' and 'don't' instead of cannot and do not). He uses them in the movie, so I feel justified in using them in my writing. You'd be hard pressed to find someone who didn't speak with contractions, and I honestly think anyone who tries to write Jareth's dialogue that way just makes him sound silly.
IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENTS
September 11, 2008:
Hey everybody, I just thought I'd drop in and give you all an update. Things are coming along really well for Listen For Thunder, the story is progressing quite nicely; the first story of The Never Series is still in progress, but hopefully will be ready to be posted soon. I'm working on chapter eight of LFT as we speak, and I'll do my best to get it out by tomorrow. If I don't, it'll have to wait until after the weekend because Sunday is my birthday and my father and I are going to see Les Miserables on Saturday.
September 16, 2008:
Alright, here's the inside scoop. You know how I've been promising The Never Series ever since June and have yet to deliver? That's because it's turned into a monster. I figured, for the first story, I'd just do something along the length of Mirror, about 5000 words or so; it's more than double that (making about 1/6 the size of Bodice Ripper, and the longest one-shot I've ever written; approximately the length of 4 or 5 of my standard chapters) and I'm still writing in the spare moments I have between chapters of LFT. I was hoping to get it out by this weekend, but that probably won't be happening since school is keeping me busy. Hopefully, I'll have it posted by October but, failing that, I hope it'll be no later than Halloween.
October 12, 2008:
I am deeply sorry about the two week delay that seems to being going on for chapter 10 of LFT! It's been a combination of writer's bloc, other projects, and mid-terms. I have fall break in just a couple of days, however, so an update should be heading your way soon.
Currently looking for anyone who may be willing to draw some fanart to accompany Dramatic Orchestrations, Listen For Thunder, Wedding Dress For Sale, or Bodice Ripper. Interested? Send me a message!
A little art to go on:
Sardave did a wonderful drawing, called Crossing paths, from chapter 11 of Dramatic Orchestrations. You can find it here: http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/57294482
Here is my own rendering of Sarah's dress, from the later chapters of Dramatic Orchestrations. http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/57420131
I got bitten by the drawing bug, and came up with a loose interpretation of what the stone imp from chapter 38 looks like. The orginal sketch turned out better, mostly because it didn't get mucked up with an amateur's attempt at watercolor. Anyway, take a look, it's not perfect but I still rather like it. http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/59640419
Fireshifter did a wonderful drawing of Sarah's dress. http://fireshifter.deviantart.com/art/Sarah-s-Green-Dress-73344800
Miffunebunny drew an astounding interpretation of DO's chapter 34, In the Hall of Mirrors. http://mifunebunny.deviantart.com/art/In-the-Hall-of-Mirrors-68691151
I'm beginning to think that dress was quite popular, because Aytheria also drew a wonderful picture of it, in her scraps at deviantart. http://hexe-cobalt.deviantart.com/art/Sarah-Fanart-for-Ergott-70569399
I believe that's it for fanart so far... if you know of anything I've missed, or have something of your own you'd like to share then feel free to contact me!
New Link: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/jdbfangirlharem/ This is the proud home of the Jareth/David Bowie Fangirl Harem, started by flamethrowerqueen. There aren't very many of us so far, so please feel free to join!
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