edit/changes made to keep tone the same throughout

A study of Artemis Fowl's progression and development as a character, of his roots and what could have caused such a jaded little outlook of that endearing Irish boy as shown in the first novel.

Mostly speculation on my part, do feel free to read through the ramblings of one absent-minded fangirl with nothing else to do with her time but randomly scrutinize the character of her most beloved book series, of which the graphic novel, coincidently, is fervently clutched in this author's very hands upon the posting of this fic.

On the Brink of an Oyster

When Artemis Fowl was three, he was dismayed to realize the preconceptions of the people around him (sticking him with imbecilic children, who do they think they are). When he turned four, he had eagerly taken in the praise and awe that his abilities had on those very same people (because you knew you deserved all of it). When he turned eight, Artemis no longer accepted that innate childish desire to please everyone and everything because he'd begun to think that he knew everything the world had to offer, and was disappointed with what he saw (the world is your oyster and it failed to serve).

When Artemis Fowl was nine-years-old, he finally learned that he knew absolutely nothing at all, and this was the period of his life that the implications of his intelligence truly sank in. He realized that he was alone. He was alone. His father was never coming back, the one person who had known exactly how to treat his young heir. Perhaps, not with kindness a son sought from his father, but Artemis Fowl senior, at least, offered some sort of companionship. Even if that companionship often came hand in hand with some sort of cutthroat business tycoon mentality lesson.

At least then he wasn't alone (you don't want to be alone).

The last words he remembered flinging at his father was that he would never follow in his footsteps and that his research, enterprise, and legacy could all 'go to hell,' an abhorred and disgusting phrase that he had picked up from Juliet and used gladly to hurt his father.

It'd worked.

A year later and suddenly life brought no pleasure to Artemis and he grew disenchanted. And he had only been ten years old. His worldly views were jaded, and he ceased to be pacified with the inept attempts of condolence and empty promises from an incompetent world that took his only role model away from him (you know that they don't really care about you hurting, don't you). It was a slap of reality for Artemis Fowl the Second to realize that he'd been had.

The world was cruel. It was only fair to be cruel back.

He began to embrace his father's work and he found that he liked it. It gave him purpose (a reason to lash out).

Artemis Fowl liked purpose, likened it to a lifeline in this (dull, monotonous) world that suddenly felt less than before. It gave life not meaning, but worth (because that's all that you can afford now, isn't it).

He wanted his father to be there when he would raise the Fowl family to greater heights because that meant that if he only worked hard enough, if only he were determined enough, his father would finally come home to see that his son was worthy of the Fowl name (your father will finally be unashamed).

Were Artemis to become strong enough (good enough), maybe then he wouldn't be a disgrace to Artemis Fowl senior...and the older man would come home to stay (wouldn't leave you ever, ever again).

Because if Artemis did nothing but wallow in the helpless precociousness of a child than he had nothing to work toward, no reassurances to tell himself that as long as he did this...his father would eventually come back (denial is such a wonderful, wonderful thing).

The heir to the Fowl legacy felt that without some sort of goal, he could no longer delude himself into thinking that there was hope to be found. He was in denial, and pray that the fool who dared to wake him from his masochistic and self-inflicted illusion would be prepared for the wrath of Artemis Fowl the Second.

In this aspect, he didn't mind being just like some pathetic human because the little boy that he once was was still in there somewhere, crying from the sheer revelation of what it truly meant to be a genius in this despicable world (and you realize that you truly were one of a kind).

Artemis didn't glorify gold. Had it not specifically been held in the Fowl fortune in large quantiles, and consequently lost, he wouldn't have bothered with it. It was a pride issue. Not even his father's tasteless motto could have spurred him enough to have exploited the People to the extent he did, all solely for the sake of gold. No, he most definitely did not glorify gold (never gold).

He glorified his vision. And he was never letting go.

Butler worried about him sometimes. Always in that gruff, discomforted manner. It annoyed Artemis yet couldn't deny the relief he'd always feel to see his bodyguard right by his side (and you really like that feeling and wish it'd never go away), and after his first fairy incident he began to...change.

It embarrassed (scared)him. Artemis was embarrassed because the subtle yet profound effects the fairy kidnapping ordeal had on him were blatantly obvious to him. And he didn't like it (you are so afraid).

He didn't want some silly fairy girl to knock around his head acting as a most ridiculous impetus for change. His own prisoner, to boot. His very identity relied on his criminal genius...and if they took that away (you wouldn't know where you'd end up)...

And another year passed. And then another. And another. Until Artemis Fowl finally realized what he had refused to acknowledge before:

Heliked these changes. He liked these ideals. He liked his new personality, his new life, his new vices and expectations, and surely that familiar spike of anticipation for a new adventure found nowhere else but with fantastical fairytale creatures that somehow ended up as his most dear friends...

Friends? He had friends?

The jaded persona he'd adopted so young no longer held true. It cracked, it shattered, and the bits and pieces that were left behind held together, so fragile...all the while allowing new pieces to be glued in place, so permanent a fixture in his psyche, it was almost as if...

As if he had become a new person altogether.

Artemis Fowl did not like the unexpected. He would've been even less pleased to find things so dramatically different from his calculations.

But, he reflected suddenly, what would it do to start expecting the unexpected and finding that as the new status quo? Would he end up tagging the new state of predictability to be long suffering and ultimately not worth it in the future, or would he abhor the thought of going back to the previous way of things in which that predictability would be a welcome relief only to become a cage of ennui and sheer boredom that would do nothing to fail to utilize his worth and never challenge him to the height of his capacity...?

It was such an inane line of thought that he had to laugh.

This, too, was done easily; he really had changed.

"Artemis! You promised!" (and you don't know why you had done so)

He could feel slight reluctance, most hesitance, but the strangest urge to comply.

He knew what he could have done. He could have easily rejected the offer as haughtily as he could, but that no longer appealed to him in matters such as these.

The easiest thing, he knew, was to just choose.

It was far too difficult a thing when he was so set in his choices and ways, so confident and easy in what he knew to be true, in what he believed in. So easy to allow habits to take over and mindset to convince him of his idiocy and let him be back on his merry way to misery.

It was only with slight hesitance that Artemis Fowl complied.

He did not quite know what this...expedition entailed, but it was sure to be tiresome, boring, and generally pointless, but it was new. And he refused to shy away and be cowed by such a challenge. Especially from one of his own.

Surely there was something...worth learning. Perhaps new interactions he'd previously only read about, only to come alive right in front of him. Almost like a most educational movie, though Artemis found those to be quite tedious and hard to bear.

He most definitely was not able to exactly pinpoint exactly what the gleam in Juliet's eyes really meant.

An irrational forty-eight minutes later, coupled with numerous car mishaps and near misses with common passerby, served nothing but to strengthen the sudden rash sense of premonition Artemis developed within the course of those forty-eight minutes.

But still, he was content at least.

(but you can't help but wonder when the fairytale ending will go away)

fin

Artemis's voice is inspired by the writing style of tsubaki-hana, a most rabid Uchiha family ficcer who has one of the most distinctive Uchiha Mikoto characters around. Feel free to read, "Long Live the Queen", which entails Uchiha clan history, if you happen to be a fellow Naruto fan.

On Artemis: I believe the ages I've pegged him with at the very beginning of this oneshot, along with their descriptions, are apt. I do believe that Artemis was in denial of a variety of issues for a long, long time until fairy world exposure snapped him out of it. I also believe that Artemis Fowl is, singularly, one of the most jaded and disenchanted characters in contemporary children literature, and thus the last line of "Oyster" is exactly as ominous as it sounds.

Keeping all of these in mind is how I wrote "Oyster".