May 13-14
Change (PM (SS))
Today he’s sitting in the dirty foyer by the mail boxes. Someone’s broken into them again, the locked boxes twisted by a crowbar or an ice pick, something that they could wedge in and yank on. There’s a dark stain on the carpet that wasn’t there this morning, and it squishes under her feet when she steps inside. The whole place stinks like blood. Slick glances up at her, holding up a stack of envelopes. “I got your mail back.”
I can’t decide if this counts as considerate because he paid at least that much attention to her interests or not at all because it’s really obvious and all it really involved was murder which Slick does for fun. Both?
this time toppling him onto the bed. Slick
In her bedside drawer
Looks like something went wrong here.
I really like how you’ve set up the relationship here – Slick is the one getting everything he wants out of life, which makes sense for his city, but PM’s able to keep control in her own sphere rather than getting shoved around by him.
The Troubles of a Legitimate Businessman (SS (PS))
Well, it’s nice idea, but it doesn’t feel like it really works. PS’s crew did manage to take out the kingpin on their own and while help might be nice, there’s a big difference between summoning someone who isn’t currently doing anything and going to someone who’s currently doing the same sort of criminal stuff. Jack perhaps needing their help with English is a bit more believable, but if they can’t handle DMK, how would they be able to do anything against English anyway? And there isn’t any explanation for why, of the three criminals, PS feels his best bet is to throw in with Jack – because the other two are demons? because Jack’s the least destructive to the city? because Jack’s actually in the city next door, and PS doesn’t care about what happens there and just wants the local mob in his area off his back? because Jack’s body count tends to involve other criminals and maybe the other two target innocents more? There really needs to be a reason why he’d pick one established criminal to help out while going after other established criminals. Especially when he doesn’t seem to have any handle on the guy, since going in and showing off his knowledge was obviously just going to piss Jack off and he didn’t seem able to figure that out even as Jack got progressively angrier.
Screwing up the card bit was a nice callback, though.
Bootleggers and Broomsticks Ch1 (Jack (DD, CD, HB, Snowman, PS))
“I told him,” she told the heavy boy in Gryffindor colors, just across the aisle from her, “not to run with scissors. He lasted five minutes.”
That’s hilarious.
“Such language. Hm. But at the same time, tenacious and brave, stubborn, willing to fight for what you think is right, and who you think is your friend … yes, very loyal to your friends, especially that Droog boy.”
Yeah noooooooooo.
Two out of three iterations of Jack have gotten the other three killed. Exactly one iteration has mourned a death, and it was Bec Noir mourning Jade (after, you know, brutally murdering CD for following the order he gave).
Jack’s defining trait is ambition. He is literally willing to burn everything and kill everyone to get what he wants or, failing that, to prevent other people from getting what they want. Yeah, he fights for what he thinks is right – because he defines right as him personally getting what he wants or killing people for getting between him and that.
I feel like this is the core problem you have with your AUs. Yeah, Jack in Hufflepuff would definitely be different and could be pretty funny, but that alone isn’t good enough to stick him in there, you have to actually work at it. And wanting Jack to be less of an asshole is understandable, but again, need to work at it.
I mean, we know the hat doesn’t necessarily weigh up your traits fairly. It can make weird decisions. It could just be so pleased that Slick-iteration Jack has any sense of friendship after a long line of Noirs that were perfect 100% ambition it sticks him in another house to cultivate that. And then from there you could work at developing Jack into someone who cared about his friends.
(Also, the fact fanon thinks Slytherin is cool but Ravenclaw is second best and Gryffindor is the off-limits hero’s house doesn’t mean this makes in-universe sense. No version of Jack cares about knowledge, so he wouldn’t consider that a valid backup house. This is the guy who yanked open the safe because he felt like it. If his family gets into any other house on occasion, it’d be the house of the brave with the occasional poor grasp of consequences, because that’s him as well, it’s just less so than all consuming ambition. Plus why would he want to be in Snowman’s house?)
(And why on earth did CD get into Slytherin anyway? It seems like you’re doing a lot things just because it’s unexpected regardless of the character, but that almost makes less sense than Jack’s placement.)
Bootleggers and Broomsticks Ch2
He crosses his arms. “A mud – uh, Muggle-born wouldn’t understand,” he stammers.
Oh, come on. He has no brain to mouth filter at all and it suddenly kicks in for the one word everyone gets up in arms about? If you don’t want him saying it, just avoid the word entirely and everyone can just assume muggleborn has whatever pejorative weight fits.
Well, Jack’s misery continues to entertain, and interesting to get a look at the other kids.
Bootleggers and Broomsticks Ch4
Hm. The thing is, you’re mostly asserting they are friends rather than showing it. Although you’ve got Jack and Droog knowing each other beforehand, Droog’s relationship to Jack bears no resemblance to their canon setup, so even that needs more work to show why they’re friends here, and the other two seem to have just fallen in line because that’s where they’re supposed to be. And Jack really has been doing nothing but whining, so it’s not like he’s brought anything positive to the table, like plotting to get out after curfew or anything else to put him in a leader role where he could be doing something useful for them.
Bootleggers and Broomsticks Ch5
Ms Matilda Paint, age 11, remembers the first time Jack Noir ever talked to her. It was the first night at Hogwarts, on the way to the dorms, and she told him to shut up about how horrible it was that he’d been sorted into Hufflepuff. She remembers it, not because it was love at first sight
Oh god no.
They’re eleven. Love at anything should not be on the radar yet. If you want to set up all the ships, start platonic and lay groundwork for what could be years down the line, don’t rush into things.
And really, the only explanation for Ms Paint liking Slick in canon is that she doesn’t mind him being a stabby shithead in the first place.
“I suppose that was sort of rude of us,” she mused. PM spluttered.
“Rude of us ?” she managed. “How was that rude of us?”
Ms Paint shrugged. “He was just trying to say hello, I guess. Maybe he wanted to apologize for the other day?”
“No!” PM shook her head. “Don’t fall into that trap, Matilda. He’s a nasty case – you’ve seen the way he’s acted since day one! And you wouldn’t know this but his family .” She made a disgusted noise. “Ugh, his family. Rotten apples, all of them; it’s a wonder he didn’t wind up in Slytherin like all the rest of them.”
Ms Paint looked thoughtful. “But what if that’s the thing?” she wondered aloud. “What if that’s why he was acting the way he did – his family? He was so upset about being in Hufflepuff, but maybe now that he’s away from them -”
This is really not going anywhere good.
Look, in canon, PM hates Jack because Jack is a bad person who does bad things. Here, you’re shifting it to PM is a jerk who judges people by their family. And instead of explaining Ms Paint/Jack by having her be the sort of person who actually likes Jack, you’re doing it by having her think he could be fixed if everyone’s just nice and doesn’t judge him, which brings us back to him being a bad person who does bad things and people having very justified reasons for not liking him.
If you want Jack to not be a bad person, you need to address that part, not everyone else’s reactions to it. If you just want the ship, in canon she’s fine with him constantly stabbing the guy who was trying to fix him up, so just making her think his behavior’s cool would do it for you.
Bootleggers and Broomsticks Ch6
The suddenly forbidden forest seems like you ran out of plot and just threw it out there. It doesn’t make sense Jack wouldn’t know there are real monsters when he’s wizardborn (If you wanted to go with Jack pointing out the nonsense parts of wizarding life, he’d have to be a muggleborn.) and there doesn’t seem to be a reason for it beyond that it’s forbidden. I mean, there’s valuable unicorns in there, he could be plotting to murder them and sell their parts or something useful like that. Or planning to smuggle in a murderspider egg and let it lose in another house’s dorm. Or anything, really.
Really, this all seems like you needed to decide where you were going with it earlier. Like maybe Jack would be better muggleborn and generally raging at how stupid wizard stuff is, and explaining his hate for his house just by knowing what the four house’s attributes and general stereotypes were supposed to be, but you can’t have him acting like that after spending previous chapters making him a pureblood. And if Ms Paint is supposed to be a love interest you shouldn’t be introducing her by having her find everything about Jack annoying and try to set things up with him trying to be nice to her.
Jack’s characterization in general seems like it’s more what you feel like than really built off canon, with the loyalty thing being the most obvious stumbling block but the rejection of ambition is probably just as bad – Jack doesn’t have clear overall goals as a result, and since he’s the lynchpin the rest of the cast revolves around, that’s impacting everyone. His personality is dramatic but never really gets in the way of things – even the one character he pissed off is making excuses for him even before he’s done anything to make up, and then he has no problem with a heartfelt attempt at an apology as soon as he realizes how he’s screwed up. He’s losing points, but no one cares about points (and even the other characters who care don’t seem to be holding that against him for more than a line). And it doesn’t seem you’re actually showing him develop character despite throwing him into an unsuited house but just saying that no, he’s always loyal and here he is being loyal, and really, even ignoring whether that’s valid characterization in the first place it’s just not as interesting as showing him actually dealing with Hufflepuff values and maybe changing, instead of just raging about the name until he wears himself out and moves on to other things. You went through all the trouble of sticking him in a weird house and yet you’re not using it for anything but complaining.
The fact you seem to have stuck the rest of the cast in houses mostly based on where they wouldn’t be expected doesn’t help matters, since it just muddles the characterization further. The kids themselves are sort of entertaining divorced from canon comparisons, better than the rather dull Harry Potter cast, but they’re not really established enough in their own right to carry a story without the help of canon, and they’re getting pushed around to try to put them in the right fanon relationships at the same time which really doesn’t help them stand on their own.
Interesting idea, botched execution is pretty much the watchword for AUs in the fandom.
Or really, so much fic in general. Half the time they don’t even try to make a real plot in the first place.
PM (SS)
SS (PS)
Jack, HB, DD (CD, Snowman, PS, PI, AR, Fin)
One of three.