The Girl Who... really didn't just live after all, I guess. · 1:11am Oct 21st, 2023
Pardon the twisted title up there, but I couldn't resist. I am, after all, talking about TGwDJL: The Girl who Didn't Just Live... but also died.
That's right. TGwDJL died an early grave... and I have no idea how it took me this long to figure it out, but the reason was that it's actually a multi-crossover, and tried to focus too much on the third source- that is, the Sequence & stuff. It would've been fine if the Astrium had been left small-volume as a gimmick; it would have been fine if they never entered the Void (on screen, at any rate); it would have been fine if all the Sequence scenes- including Ginny's discovering her Obelisk- had been told from Hermione's perspective. It would have been fine if I had put MUCH less energy into developing a world that isn't even mine.
On a recent reread, I lost interest in my own story at around chapter 13... because there was already too much focus on the Sequence. But, I really liked the happy-go-lucky Hailey... so while AHH (A Hogwarts Harmony) is (ostensibly) a rewrite of TGwDJL (but kinda not really)... we'll probably see another rewrite of TGwDJL anyways, which actually follows the same Hailey-is-a-Goddess idea as this one, but does it better. I liked the happy-go-lucky Hailey that was primarily mental powers and minor magics that already exist... and being completely and totally overkill from time to time, like when she derailed 3/4 of the Hogwarts Express by accident, after throwing a would-be murderer at the wall at a few times the escape velocity of the Earth. Though I think I could redo that much better by having her throw at the floor instead...
Anyways, since I'll be continuing with the idea that all the stories in the rewrite chain are alternate universes, this one's going to have to push a little further out. Hailey said she's the only one in the multiverse, after all... but she also said the Omniverse is literally unlimited, so I merely have to cast my anchor into a different, nearly-identical multiverse that Hailey has never heard of, but that's amazingly similar... up to and including having its own ancient death god reincarnating into a baby girl named Hailey, albeit with perhaps an even darker history... It'll make it a bit harder for Hermione Greeter/Gate/Impossible to make their visits, but...
So... There's a few things I'm not sure of, and I'm curious for your opinions:
1. Should "Royals" be:
- A. Super politically powerful, as in TGwDJL,
- B. or only have their magical Powers, and therefore not be called 'Royals' but perhaps 'Supers' or something smarter (see Hailey in Accidental Invasion).
2. Should I:
- C. Involve muggle royalty at some point,
- D. or leave them out?
3. Dumbledore!
- E. Good Dumbledore, as (attempted) in TGwDJL (and prior), who always acts for the best and honestly had no idea he was being fed false information;
- F. Grey Dumbledore, as in AHH, who has good intentions but takes the wrong path to get there;
- G. Evil Dumbledore. I'll warn you, I can't write truly evil characters to save my life, so it's more likely to be pseudo-Evil Dumbledore.
4. Voldemort! We all know I like writing GoodVoldemort, and therefore that I'm going to set it up for his Dark Lordiness to not be his fault (somehow), but how should she reincarnate? (We also all know he's going to become a girl, because that's just what I do...)
- H. Ginnymort! That's what we had in TGwDJL, and also in AHH, though by different means.
- I. Hermiomort! So far only appears in AHH and isn't really working all that well, but that might be because the story is focusing so much on ... hang on, that part hasn't been published yet, but it's not Hermione or Voldemort at all.
- J. Another character! AHH added Astoria Greengrass, and while I think there's potential in that, I kinda squandered it. Only female characters allowed, and no, Hailey is not allowed to also be Voldemort. OCs are allowed, up to and including one of mine, Princess Arienne.
- K. MultiMort! That is to say, multiple reincarnations/incarnations, all Good, with different identities (ex. AHH with Ginny/Hermione/Astoria). I think a max of three is probably good, though I could make a case for four; I don't want her to go to Hogwarts before Hailey (but same year is OK), and I also don't want any of them to have been conceived after Harry Potter Day.
If you're worried about Ariel, don't be. TGwDJL had plans for the Phantom to become Ariel during the Triwizard Tournament; AHH has plans for spoiler to become Ariel during spoiler, and this new rewrite will probably have something similar. Ariel is here to stay, and as always, will start her life as a part of Voldemort... but exactly how she comes to be will be decided later.
Yes, Voldemort will still be an Eve in her new life... or one of her will, at any rate. It's just going to be muted into the background, so it doesn't turn the story into a twisting vortex of confusion that just happens to look like a portal into the Void, but I think there's potential in giving her those powers. Mind-bending potential, to the other characters at least- and not just because even with an ancient death god around, she- and the Sequence- are still crucial ingredients in the performance of the Galaxy's Brightest Patronus, and therefore the rescue of Sadarina's kind... though I think the first patronus will be just Hailey this time around, and you might be surprised just how much happiness an ancient death god like her can harbor.
So, I'm finally done flapping my fingers at my keyboard. Would you care to poke yours a bit to tell me your thoughts on this matter?
I think the hard part is that much of the Harry Potter plot is fueled by a cascade of events that big sweeping changes to the world as well as a little bit of thought at the right time and place change everything. I think Hailey needs to not become the strongest being in existence in the first half of the story. One of the reasons why the Accidental Invasion worked so well is Hailey didn't become the god of everything so early.
5751997
The multitude of plotholes in the Harry Potter universe doesn't actually play into it that much: I simply rebuild the world and forge new reasons and so on. Accidental Invasion lived because it relied on comedy and broke all the rules that weren't related. Hailey explained the multitude of issues it had in Chapter 82 or so, and her becoming magically powerful... actually wasn't one of them.
Her using that power, on the other hand, was.
In the end, TGwDJL showed us all that it's OK if your MC is the deadliest goddess in existence, so long as that little fact doesn't actually matter to the story. Divine violence won't solve every problem, and as Hailey said in that story, there's a reason death gods never lose their tempers, and it's not because they're also the deadliest.
Well... it is. However, if they lose their temper, the target of their ire just drops dead, and that's it- they can't properly exact their revenge. Or maybe they lose a valuable friend in that person, who just ticked them off a bit too much... So of course, death gods (good ones, at least) would tend to have a massive amount of self-control and self-restraint, which Hailey didn't quite have in TGwDJL, but which she would still have as a little girl, even without knowing about her past... and that self-restraint would tend to keep her from doing anything 'big' that might save the day twenty-four hours early, because... well, sure she could kill the basilisk by dropping a bit of Divine Violence on the Castle and surrounding grounds, but there'd be a lot of collateral damage- and her also being a Goddess of Life acts as the perfect balance to mean that she views unnecessary deaths in general, not just of those she cares about, to be bad. Possibly even including the unnecessary death of the Basilisk...
5752025
Hailey in Accidental Invasion didn't really surge in power until chapter 33-34 which end of movie 2 and didn't reach god levels until chapter 49 which was the start of movie 4 which gave time to build up plot and stakes. That's what I meant by early. With each story I have noticed the power escalation rises so fast that by the end of the first movie Hailey has gotten too strong and garnered too many overpowered allies.
5752028
She was powerful from the beginning, in her spell repertoire, she just didn’t use it…. Well she did, it just wasn’t very visible. She used it for the Student Instructor Program, which set a precedent of her using her power, so each time she got more, she had to use it…. Which led to the collapse of the story, which all started with forcing her to go out of character by teaching classes at the very beginning. Without that, a majority of the power would have gone unused…. We’d still have certain curbstomp/“divine violence” scenes, but the rest of the story would hold together better if the whole plot wasn’t built around having one of its core characters doing something that’s so out of character from (next to) the beginning.
My goal is to fix that. And yes, very slowly introduce new powers. In TGwDJL, Hailey commented on discovering a new power every other week- and allowing that to happen in the first place was a literary mistake. It must be much, much slower than that for a story like this to work/last long-term.
5752033
I think each new ability needs to be mastered before she learns a new one so she doesn't break the plot at least immediately. Sure some of the low tier powers could be quick to master but the overpowered ones should take longer.
5752040
For an approach like Accidental Invasion, yes... though it would also have the issue of her being a genuine eleven-year-old. For the ancient goddess way, they're powers she actually already knows full well how to use, she's merely suppressed her knowledge of them... which means that from the moment she realizes she has any given power, she has full command of it. The challenge is to bring those powers in, and pick which ones, in a way that doesn't make it seem like she's getting a new one every Tuesday. And of course, have her... not use them to begin with, except for making Silver's necklace, I really liked that one. It was even done really well- that was a power that she really only used once for the entire story, and even then it was offscreen... As far as I'm concerned, the story consists of only that which came before the point where I started going like "story sucks but posting anyways" in the A/Ns.
Just found your stuff, and specifically this story which I really liked, so it's kinda sad it's dead.
I can see where you are coming from about the Sequence stuff, but it did work in the rewrite, and since it seemed like you probably weren't going to include the iris visit in the rewrite anyway, you could probably just have treated it kinda like hailey's deityhood, and as such kinda just had it as a source of sci-tech.
... Though I can also-also see that with the amount of power available that most conflicts probably seem silly on a reread or thinkback, which is honestly a fair enough reason itself...
Anyway! Despite that bit of sadness, I'm deffo still gonna read a lotta your work in the coming days~
I even skipped sleep to binge this one already~