Building Faith
is a The Dresden Files Self-Insert Fic where the author, after dying too soon in his life, takes on the role of Original Character Faith Carpenter, twin sister to Molly Carpenter and daughter of Michael Carpenter.
Faith partially remembers both her previous life (as a guy) and the books (which he was a fan of in his previous life). However, this does not mean it is a Fix Fic: rather, it simply adds yet another cog to the messy situation that is the Dresdenverse, and makes some things better and others worse, particularly as Faith and Molly develop their magical abilities.
The first series (Building Faith) is complete with there's been three full stories, three mini-stories and two short interludes.
- What is Known: Runs parallel to Death Masks. Teenage Faith begins to deal with the trouble that is only remembering bits of the books, while other problems begin to bleed into her own life... sometimes literally.
- Finding Faith: Eight-year-old Faith has gone missing, and only Harry Dresden can find her.
- Faith's Truths Finding Faith, from Faith's perspective.
- Fools Rush In: Around the same time Dead Beat. Tasked with buying (and destroying) a copy of Die Lied der Erlkönig, Faith finds the seller dead and herself accused of his murder. But it turns out that there are things out there that never appeared on the books, and she might lose that which she holds dear...
- Fire Work: Happens between What Is Known and Fools Rush In. Now Harry Dresden's apprentices, Faith and Molly not only learn about magic, but about the job of being a private eye. Much to everyone's surprise, Harry gets a client on the Fourth of July weekend: Uncle Sam, the Personification of America, needs Harry to recover his top hat, before July 4th ends...
- Mother's Insight: Told from the point of view of Charity Carpenter, it deals with her life from her time at the cult to the post-Fools Rush In situation.
- Wish for Wisdom: Concurrent with Proven Guilty. Faith and Molly are back in Chicago, and are helping some friends of theirs with the Splattercon!! horror film convention. When someone gives cinema owner Mr Pell a brutal beating, and the only potential suspect is Molly's boyfriend, Faith will have to swallow her pride and accept her mentor's help with this adventure...
- Boom Camp: Takes place after Wish for Wisdom. Faith and Molly attend the Warden training camp in order to improve their evocation abilities, and they make friends with the Warden apprentices there. However, Faith knows disaster approaches, and everyone will have to be on their guard, lest death take them all.
- Field Trips Faith and Molly chaperone Alica's class on a trip to the Sheed Aquarium. Not the aquarium trip from Small Favor, though Ivy appears.
The second Twinned Thought is in progress, one ongoing full length story.
- Under Water: Minor talents are going missing in Chicago, and Faith's old girlfriend Beka asks Faith and Molly to investigate. Concurrent with White Night, but this time Faith and Molly are involved in the main plot.
Building Faith contains examples of:
- Blow You Away: Faith and Molly both use wind attack spells - and can cast combined wind attack magics.
- Creepy Twins: Invoked briefly by Faith and Molly when they meet Harry during What Is Known to creep him out for fun.
- Faith and Molly are this to a lot of people if they aren't intentionally being distinct.
- Debt Detester: Much like in canon, faeries dislike being in debt with anyone. Faith forgot this part when she told Mab about Nemesis and how it is affecting both Maeve and Leah and tried to tell her it was for free.
- Early-Bird Cameo: Esteban and Esmeralda (the Eebs from Changes) make an appearance in What is Known. And they appear to have suffered an early Death by Adaptation as a result.
- Gender Bender: Male author becomes a girl. The typical confusion over this change does not happen, though - although the author does complain about female puberty issues.
- Hive Mind: Faith and Molly spent a few days at this level of syncronization right after the soulgaze.
- By Fools Rush In they can deliberately recreate the effect - and prefer to leave it up almost all the time.
- Noodle Incident: The events of Finding Faith are referenced several times during What Is Known.
- Oh, Crap!: The number of times Faith thinks (or feels) this is huge.
- Open-Minded Parent: Michael and Charity Carpenter are shockingly chill about Faith and Molly's hive minded twin shenanigans.
- Resigned to the Call: Faith and Molly are forcibly recruited into the Venatori during What Is Known.
- Secret-Keeper: Molly first, and then Michael and Harry, eventually learn the truth about Faith.
- Self-Insert Fic: The author becomes a character in the Dresdenverse.
- Spared by the Adaptation: Terry and Tina Trailman survive the ghoul attack at Camp Kaboom here, thanks to Faith remembering that it was coming in time to save them.
- Drea Becton and Ken survive Splatter Con.
- Shock and Awe: Faith throws lightning around in battle - a lot.
- Shout-Out: When Thomas Raith makes his first appearance, he tells Faith "Come with me if you want to live."
- Stupid Sexy Flanders: Faith literally thinks this when she meets Thomas.
- Supernaturally Delicious and Nutritious: Vampires would really, really like to have a taste of Molly and Faith, since the girls are virgin, twin practitioners. Even Thomas is tempted.
- That Man Is Dead: While Faith remembers her past life semi-clearly, it's clear that she just thinks of herself as Faith Carpenter now.
- The Stations of the Canon: Zig-Zagged. Canon events up through Proven Guilty happen largely the same but off-screen, but Proven Guilty is largely replaced by Wish For Wisdom since Faith's actions kept Molly out of the Black Magic. Under Water is equivalent to White Night but fundamentally different since Madrigail Raith is already dead. Word Of God indicates things will fly off the rails from there.
- Time Stands Still: Faith's power allows her to slow her perception of time to a crawl.
- Took a Level in Badass: Faith and (presumably) Molly took a huge jump between Wish for Wisdom and Under Water, judging by Faith's ability to deal with a couple Red Court Vamps without some of her foci in the action prologue of Under Water.
- Twin Telepathy: Faith and Molly can share each other's feelings and, if they are close, can speak in their minds. This initially leads to some trouble when they can't think of themselves as different individuals, although it gets better.
- Wham Line: At the end of Wish for Wisdom, Faith and Molly drop one for Harry."Harry, you and Susan have a daughter."
- What Could Possibly Go Wrong?: Continuously. You would think Faith would eventually learn what a bad idea it is to say or think this.
