Rehabilitation Part 9.3: The Will to Kill
"I have a confession of my own."
He looked at the rising sun. He was consciously aware that they weren't in the astral plane, and that he hadn't cast any privacy wards. And yet…
He turned to look at Luna. In her Night Court sessions, she was a patient conversationalist. Like so many times before this one, she was waiting. She was listening with deep focus. Whatever he said next, so long as it was honest and not meant as a distraction, she would listen. She would process. She would question for details. And then she would produce a true, original analysis.
He spoke.
"I used to be a Dark Lord," he said simply. He didn't know what to say after that, so he waited for whatever response would come. When none did, when she only gazed at him with raised eyebrows, he asked, "Do you want me to go on?"
"Yes," she said at once. "But… I do not know how helpful I can be if I cannot ask any questions."
His own eyebrows furrowed. "Why can't you? That doesn't seem like something your Vow would stop."
"It would qualify as 'prying', would it not?"
"Ah," he realized. "I suppose it would. Then it's finally time lift that restriction."
She smiled, and he felt a significant amount of stress simply vanish from her emotions. "Could you please explain what you mean by 'Dark Lord'?"
"If you're looking for the exact details, I'm physically- well, I suppose I'm magically incapable of telling you."
"A Vow?" she asked. "Or a contract?"
He shook his head. "You remember what I've told you about Obliviation?"
"The memory wiping spell?" she asked. Then her eyes widened.
"There is a reversible version," he said before she could leap to any conclusions. "I have not Obliviated myself, but it is true that I no longer remember all of the finer details. I arranged that I won't remember until after I cast the Patronus Charm."
The frustration returned (on her end), and she asked, "Why would you do such a thing?"
"You once said to a petitioner that if a wrongdoer were to feel the wrong they've done, they would likely seek suicide. Since that seemed to be the direction this was going, I did not wish to take any chances. Suicide will be impossible when I'm free. Unless…"
He just that moment noticed the Dementor method. He frowned at the realization. His wayward student was right. His mind does have a tendency to not think about the possibility of his own death.
"Well," he said to Luna. "I suppose it won't be impossible. But it'll be more difficult on the other side…"
Would it be more difficult, or would a Dementor make it easier? He forced his mind to think in a way it normally didn't. Luna patiently allowed him to think on the fly.
If he was truly set on suicide by Dementor, he'd only need to prevent Mr. Potter from destroying one or two for a brief time period. So long as he arranged for it to be destroyed after he died, it wouldn't count as a broken Parseltongue promise.
No, getting back to the other side would not necessarily make suicide more difficult. But was that relevant to what he wanted to talk about, or…
"In any case, the deed is already done," he finally settled on saying. "The memories will be inaccessible until I cast the Patronus charm. So to answer your question, I can't fully explain what I mean by 'Dark Lord' because even I don't remember everything."
Luna stared at him for a time, possibly waiting for him to say more, then she spoke. "But there are things you are willing to discuss that you haven't before? Things you do remember?"
"…Yes."
"And you don't wish to go to the Astral Plane before we discuss them?"
"I wondered that myself," he said in a thoughtful tone. "My mind seems to think it is time to speak, and doesn't seem to care that there's a small chance of eavesdroppers. I'm usually better at knowing my own motivations, but that's all I'm getting."
"You are feeling an incredible amount of sloth?"
"That's a good way to put it," he nodded. "About security charms, at any rate."
She nodded back. "Do you know, or can you guess why you feel that way?"
"Perhaps a full night's sleep has put me in an unusual state of mind. Or perhaps…" he considered. "Perhaps my mind is already set against me," he said after a pause, "and I'm already on the road to self-destruction. Not that I think this information will destroy me, even if it gets out, but if the habit continues…"
"That is a plausible interpretation," she allowed. "On the cynical side of things. The positive interpretation is that you finally trust me, and by extension you trust my room's wards, so security seems like a true waste of time and effort. Does that sound accurate?"
"Hm… security does seem like a truly pointless action. I couldn't say if that's the reason."
She nodded. "Then I shall take a page out of your book. Since your own sense of self-preservation might be compromised, I think I shall insist on our privacy. Will you allow me to take us to my Astral Plane? Or do you wish to stay here? Or go to yours?"
"I don't mind," he shrugged. "I suppose mine would be easiest, since I could use it to show what I do remember."
"Do you still feel sloth at the thought of relocating for that purpose instead of security?" she asked.
"I do not."
"Then please take me to yours."
He did. With phoenix travel. Which he hadn't told her about before, or about the fact that you could reach the Astral Plane that way. But he was in a revelatory mood.
She took a moment to process it. Then she seemed to take another moment to think about it. "You've sacrificed a phoenix clone?"
He smiled. It was so refreshing that he didn't have to explain such things.
"Yes," he confirmed. "I can cry at will, rebirth my dead body in a fashion different from what you've already seen, and bypass standard teleportation wards. I'm probably a magically inspirational singer, though I haven't tested it, and there's an avian voice in my head that screams at me when I consider what you would call 'evil' action. If the Changeling sense hasn't already forced me to have what you call a 'conscience', the phoenix has. When I'm in the body of a pony, at least. When I'm not, I can't access the power. Otherwise I would have teleported from this place," he gestured around at his astral plane, "to the human world, which is how I think my pupils escaped. The phoenix won't let me test that theory."
Luna was blinking rapidly. She asked a few questions that caused him to reiterate what he'd just said in different, drawn out sentences. He had put a few large and new concepts in one short explanation, he conceded.
"I also believe that this qualifies as a 'morally neutral' means of attaining deathless immortality," he said at the end of his reiterations. "But I have to carry out the rituals personally to make it permanent, and I doubt your sister would approve. Furthermore, despite my changing perspectives, I won't risk the Stone falling into another's possession."
He then explained the Stone of Permanence. She's bound by Unbreakable Vow not to use the information against him, and while that fact hadn't felt sufficient for disclosure before, it does now.
"When did you add the phoenix to yourself?" she eventually got around to asking. "As soon as you arrived in Equestria?"
He shook his head. "Much later. The exact date would have been the day after Mr. Silver left."
"Just before your sabbatical?"
"Yes. It was the cause of my sabbatical. I needed time to think."
"About?"
"My future, as I said back then. It took a few months, but I finally decided that my future was to learn the Patronus Charm. I decided that even if I was coping with a situation I didn't like, I would give it my all. It is in my interest to learn it, and it's in my interest to finally have a strong motive pushing me forward." He paused in brief consideration. "And I'm glad I'm not on the ticking time-bomb known as 'Earth' while I do it. There's truly no better opportunity, so I might as well seize it."
Luna thought about it for a time. "I understand," she said at last. "Now I would like to bring this conversation back to the 'Dark Lord' part."
He nodded.
"Can I rely on you to remind me of the Stone later?" she asked.
"Probably not," he replied. "Without going into too much detail, it would be stupid to allow the Stone's existence to become known or suspected. If you're imagining how to use it for the benefit of your nation, you should stop."
"I will not try to take your property from you." She cast an alarm spell that would go off some time in the future – known to the caster, but nobody else, so he couldn't say when she set it to remind herself to talk about the Stone. Probably during his next shift, if he had to guess.
"Now," she said, and met his gaze. "About your past as a 'Dark Lord'. Many ponies would call you 'dark' to this day, and you are currently close to a lord in the legal sense, so I'm assuming you mean you were once a Dark Lord by human standards, not just by my sister's standards?"
"I was referring to my own standards. But by human standards too, yes." His tone developed a twinge of distaste. "And by pony standards as well, though I've said it before and I'll say it again, your standards are pedestrian. All the more so if your sister would say I currently deserve the title. Discord and Chrysalis are mild in comparison to human Dark Lords."
"I agree," said Luna. "Modern ponies have little direct experience with violence and darkness thanks to my sister, and I am extremely happy that is the case. But I am not my subjects. My standards are not pedestrian," said the Princess of Night. "I have seen the depraved depths of intelligent cruelty. My sister has seen it as well, but I think I am in a better position to tolerate your past, whatever it may have been."
Riddle grinned. "Even as your sister considers herself the kind and generous one?"
"She is kind to kindness," Luna said. "And she is kind to obedience and subservience to her authority, which she sometimes mistakes for kindness. She has trouble with disagreeable ponies, but since she hasn't encountered all that much outright disagreement in the past thousand years, she is long out of practice dealing with them. She is also out of practice with evil; for her it has been a thousand years since Sombra. For me it was like yesterday. So she is quicker to label evil as such, when it falls outside modern tolerable standards. And finally, true Generosity demands that she not be generous to evil. Otherwise Generosity would be twisted to serve evil."
"Honesty does not come with those blind spots?" Riddle asked.
Luna shrugged. "It has blind spots of its own. It encourages me to keep digging until I reach true honesty, which can bring about a dangerous habit of curiosity. Sometimes I should stop digging and start being honest back. But Honesty at least allows me to look past disagreeableness and darkness. It allows me to look at you. So, without embellishments, what do you mean when you say 'Dark Lord', and what was your motive for becoming one?"
He spoke of what he remembered, and she listened.
First he spoke of history. Not of himself, but of human history, of Mao and Hitler, of Stalin and Mussolini, of mob rule and lynching, of famine and gas chambers and gulags and police states and guillotines and nooses. Muggle tortures evoked more visceral reactions than magical ones. With the Cruciatus, you just see and hear screaming. With starved rats eating exposed intestines of living victims, you see and hear much more.
Wizards viewed it as 'crude' and 'disgusting'. Voldemort often used muggle punishments in public for exactly that reason. Though he didn't mention Voldemort to Luna just yet.
He then went further back, speaking of Genghis Khan and his many exploits – both strategic and sexual. He spoke of Vlad the Impaler. He spoke of humanity's intimate relationship with slavery. He spoke of the Aztecs, the Native Americans, and the Australian Aborigines. He spoke of torturing and killing children to appease the gods (nothing magical, just muggle superstition) while the parents cheered. He spoke of scalping. He spoke of penile mutilation as part of the standard coming-of-age ceremony.
Her disgust, both internal and external, at his explanation of the finer details convinced him to move on to magical horrors.
He first spoke of Baba Yaga and the Dark Evangel as examples of what dark individuals can accomplish. He next pointed to ancient Italy, and indeed Atlantis itself, for what incompetent and reckless individuals have wrought. He then spoke of how incompetent and reckless muggles had finally gained control over true power.
And then, finally, he spoke of Voldemort, who was at least not incompetent. Who had objectively saved the world, though the world didn't know it. Whose secret goal was to prevent the world's destruction. Whose original goal was to be defeated by a 'Light' lord, at least until reality hit him square in the face.
"It must have been really bad," Luna interrupted, which was unlike her.
"Beg pardon?"
"You would not be saying all of this if… my fool, how bad was it?"
"That's an open-ended question," he remarked. "Especially since we have different standards."
"Then I'll simplify it," she said. "Do not rape. Do not murder. Do not assault. Do not enslave. Equestrians today call them the 'big four', with theft as an important fifth, and we take violations very seriously."
"I can think of a few exceptions," he remarked.
But Luna shook her head. "The current Captain of the Wonderbolts was barely allowed to maintain her position after attempting to assault you, though there were many caveats – remedial training, lessened pay, and a promise that she will apologize to you once she can truly mean it. The only reason you were not involved in the process, and the only reason she got off that lightly, is because she did not actually lay a hoof on you. Blueblood was immediately jailed and stripped of his nobility for his actions, as you know. So were the rest of the abusive nobles, once their deeds came to light. Your pupil was submitted for review after his less-than-peaceful tiara-tipping and drink-spilling at the Cute-ceañera of a young filly. The complaint of assault made by her father was only dropped when sanctions would have been required of his filly as well, who had apparently provoked the reaction through severe bullying. Twilight Sparkle promised to discuss it with Silver Wing, and that settled the matter."
"I didn't know about the last one," said Riddle. "You reviewed those cases personally?"
"You sparked my curiosity," Luna pointed out. "They were matters of public record, and I wanted to know more about you, so I kept an open inquiry. I was informed about any public fusses the two of you got up to."
"Not three?"
"Memory Sunshine would object to being put into the same category as you and Silver Wing."
Riddle grinned and chuckled. "She would, wouldn't she? Well then, what about the library book I borrowed and returned outside of operating hours?"
"An edge case," she remarked. "More mischief than true criminality. But have you returned to that library to see if you are still allowed to check out books?"
He blinked. "I have not. Interesting…"
"In truth," said Luna, "they probably have not revoked your membership. But they would be within their rights to do so." She huffed conclusively. "Now. Getting back on topic. The human world does not have our standards, which is why I'm going straight to the big four. Don't assault. Don't rape. Don't enslave. Don't murder. We'll go one by one."
She then said that she herself had violated three of them as Nightmare Moon. That she could remember, at any rate. Assault, slavery, and murder. Forcing guards and servants to unwilling service wasn't the tipping point for her. It was the murder of a guard which caused enough inner turmoil for Celestia to have an opening.
"In that case… it would be those same three for me as well," he confessed. "That I remember," he echoed her phrasing. "And I know that I arranged for the fourth to be violated, though I don't think I raped anyone myself. I'm fairly confident of that, even if I can't remember."
"Was it a reluctant violation?" she asked. "Or did you at least regret it afterwards, like I regretted my murder?"
"For some, yes," he said. "The Dark Lord role encompassed many things. I was reluctant to reward my servants by arranging for their sexual desires to be met. It was… distasteful… or perhaps pathetic, that they needed my help on that front."
"Meaning… love potions?" she asked tentatively, as if fearful that it had been that bad, and even more fearful that it had been worse.
He sighed and called forth memory.
He showed her the Death Eater application interview that had been the most memorable of the bunch. He'd gone so far as to Legilimise the genial man, and when that confirmed the man's casual words and requested reward in more detail than Tom Riddle had cared to know, Voldemort put on a smile, welcomed the man to the Death Eaters, and gave him the accurate and disturbing alias of 'Mr. Friendly'.
"Were they all like this?" Luna asked darkly. He could feel far more anger from her than usual.
"Not upon induction," he answered. "Less than a tenth started out as pedophiles. And by the end, I'd say no more than half had developed that vice. Some were dutifully married, and others… hmm… I don't remember if I watched the revels directly, but I remember a few Death Eaters being mocked afterwards for being unable to 'get it up'. I also remember being asked if I would ever participate, and I remember declining. Out of disgust, privately, but outwardly it was a simple and forceful 'no'."
Luna took many calming breaths. "Did you find anything else distasteful?"
"Oh, a good number of things. I was reluctant to kill Yermy Wibble. He was a good journalist, worthy of true respect, and it's a shame that he was replaced by the likes of Rita Skeeter. But the role of Voldemort demanded it be done. In private, I gave him and his family the courtesy of painless and unforeseen deaths, even if I ensured that the public believes otherwise, so I can confidently say that was a reluctant act."
There was silence for a time.
"There are so many things I'd like to say," said Luna. "It is taking all of my life's experience to say the most important two words instead."
"That being?"
"Go on."
He blinked, then considered. "Hm… I could go on about minor reluctancies, but nothing major comes to mind."
"Very well. What were you not reluctant to do?"
"I was not reluctant to enslave my servants, or torture them for failure," he said at once. "Even now I remember doing it. I didn't lock those memories away. It was their choice to come to me, their choice to take the Dark Mark even knowing they would be tortured for failure, and most of them were already what you would call evil, as you've already seen. Many started out with some amount of innocence, and some managed to cling to small vestiges of their own. Some had codes they would not violate. Most would not harm their own families, for example. One man I called 'Mr. Honor' for his code."
"What about murder?" she asked directly.
"By the end of it they were all ruthless killers. Voldemort accepted no less."
"And you yourself were one as well? Or did you stick to ordering such things?"
"I was almost certainly the most ruthless. Again, I don't remember everything, but… hm…" He considered his next action carefully. Then, he spoke. "Perhaps it is time I told you about the Killing Curse. That would be the best way to explain. Unless you already know?"
"The Killing Curse…" she echoed. "There are many curses that can kill… indeed most… but I've never heard of one where it's in the name."
"I suspected as much. Do you at least know of basilisks?"
She shuddered. "Yes. None have been created in five hundred years, according to my sister."
"But you know of their properties?"
"Yes," she nodded. "Gazes that kill instantly, magic-immune scales, impossibly deadly and corrosive venom, to name a few."
"Good," said Riddle. "Then this will explain the Killing Curse quite well."
He drew up a memory of his final moments with Slytherin's Basilisk and let it play. They watched as a giant snake with impenetrable, magic-resistant skin was slain in an instant with a gesture, two words, and a flash of green.
"It is nearly unblockable, nearly unstoppable, and works every single time when it hits anything with a brain."
"'Nearly' unblockable?" Luna asked.
"Recent discoveries have forced me to add that addendum," he admitted. "It goes straight through all known shielding charms. It goes straight through solid matter. It's always been known that you can block it by putting another living being into its path, but such a tactic is practically impossible to implement in a true fight, unless you have a convenient enemy you can shove in the way, or you are willing to betray your comrades. It was called unblockable and unstoppable, and the standard tactic was to dodge. And while everybody else still believes that it can't be blocked, Silver and I now know of an exception. Dumbledore and I know of two exceptions, actually, but that one's irrelevant." He paused to see if she was following.
"This is related to my question about your willingness to kill?"
"Very much so," he said gravely. "Ordinarily, the spell is cast with hatred. You have to truly want someone dead, and the spell uses that emotion as fuel in the casting. Especially hateful wizards can cast it five times in succession before their hatred runs dry. But a few rare wizards in history could cast it as much as their magic allowed. Since I'd acquired Ravenclaw's Diadem by the time I first made that observation in Sixth Year, I was actually smart enough to ask myself 'How?'. How did the Dark Evangel do that? She didn't seem to be a witch who had acquired ancient, lost lore. She would have been more powerful and more wise if lore had been the source of her power. She didn't seem to have any outside help at all. She was an average Hogwarts student in terms of grades, so it was probably a problem that could be solved with average intelligence. What secret had she seen for herself about the Killing Curse? What puzzle had she solved? What question had she answered? Or, perhaps, what did she realize after using the Killing Curse the normal way for so long? Was it a matter of experience? It took me longer than I care to admit to ask myself the correct sequence of questions that finally made the answer obvious. The question I asked myself, whose answer will answer your own question, is this: What is deadlier than hatred and flows without limits? Once you see the answer for yourself, you will know about my willingness to kill."
"I see," Luna said simply. "You were able to cast the Killing Curse that way?"
"Easily."
"Are you still able to cast it that way?"
"Yes," he answered without pausing to think.
"When was the last time you used it?"
Now he did pause to think. "On a sapient being? Chrysalis."
"That is well before you began to see true progress," Luna pointed out.
"I suppose."
"Do you mind if we test it right now?"
He frowned. "What would that accomplish?"
"I'd like to see whether your magic agrees that you still do not care."
"That wouldn't be a good test."
"Why not?"
"Mr. Silver can cast it this way, and he clearly cares. I suspect I will always be able to cast it, even if I become 'caring'."
Luna blinked. "Silver can cast it?"
"As long as it's not directed at something sapient," Riddle explained. "And he claims he will never cast it unless his Patronus is available to intercept the bolt if it goes astray."
"He can cast it while his Patronus is active?"
"Surprised him too," Riddle said with the smallest of smiles. "So we could test it now," he offered. "The Astral Plane is likely infinite. Even if it isn't, you know the advanced Patronus, so we can test it without fear. I just doubt that the test will reveal anything new."
She nodded, then asked him to test it anyway.
After a small amount of set-up, a flash of green collided with a glow of silver-white.
Luna sighed. "So… your goal was to prevent the destruction of the world because you lived there," she summarized. "You believed that Voldemort was the best way to accomplish that goal. You did not care about the lives of others, but you did care about your own. And your own happiness never once factored into the equation?"
"Correct."
"And does it now?"
His eyebrows raised. "It is the equation, is it not? I become happy, I cast the Patronus, I leave."
"That's not quite what I meant," she said in polite pushback. "Suppose you were able to go back to Earth right this instant," she offered. "Suppose we could wave a wand and grant every one of your wishes, whatever they might be. Would you want to be happy then? Or would you go back to being Voldemort? Is he who you truly want to be?"
"I…" he paused.
The plan had always been 'yes,' even if he had to abandon the persona and make a new one, or do everything privately. But now…
"I certainly intend to become Voldemort the night of my return," he said for a start. "To set a few things in motion. At the very least, to set up his seeming defeat at the hands of the Boy-Who-Lived."
"Would you go back to your old ways permanently?" Luna pressed. "If you were unbound by magical restrictions on your free will, would you still engage in wanton murder?"
His eyebrows furrowed heavily. And not because he was afraid to answer the question one way or another.
"I honestly don't know."
"Would you at least hesitate to do it again?"
"I think so…" He certainly wasn't going to do it for more Horcruxes now that he understands fencepost security.
"Would you murder because you are merely annoyed?"
"I don't know."
"Would you murder if you had what you thought was a good reason, or a good excuse?" Luna asked.
"I don’t know," he repeated. "Not for certain. I think I would have to be presented with the annoyance. Or the reason."
Stats
Page generated in 0.031 seconds
Total duration
1,033 users online
1,877,317 hits today, 2,244,100 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Nice, I've been waiting to see this!
And it was every bit as great as I hoped.
Now to wait for Luna's reaction
and the possibility that Tom left the dementors alive so he can kill himself
I wonder how she'll react once he's finished telling the story
Interesting. Luna had a pretty reserved reaction to Tom’s past. However, I (believe I) recall Celestia’s signature being present on Tom’s magical contract back when he had the Hogwarts’ staff and co. sign it, meaning she must have learned or come close to learning something important about Riddle. If she does, especially about anything concerning Voldemort, I think her reaction will be a lot less measured.
Some of the old brutalities you think exist only in myth, legend, folklore and aincient history, and then you get an article in the news about children carrying out such acts.
11365526
Sometimes people forget that most of human history is ugly. And the really sad thing is that a lot of that ugliness isn't even inter-tribe conflict or warfare. It's done by the people, to the people, 'for' the people, often at the behest and self-interest of the most powerful - like the priest class, as exemplified by the Aztecs.
And the underlying machinery of the human body hasn't changed much since then. If humans did it back then, they're capable of doing it now.
11365895
Oh, Pirates of the Caribbean? Yea, I forgot about that curse.
11365889
Collisions in orbit are actually a serious concern. There's only so many geo-synch orbit slots, and every country that can afford to put something up wants one. Even outside of that, there is a serious need to track all the debris out there, and collisions with the ISS are a constant worry.
In reality, there's an old argument: if space is infinite, then won't any ray in any direction eventually hit a sun? If so, why isn't the night sky filled with stars?
The answer is a combination of dust (which was not know when the whole "space is infinite" idea was first proposed back in really ancient times) plus the slight but non-zero expansion of space over time (which results in "gaps" as you go farther out / farther back) plus the whole "even if space is infinite, time is not, and the expansion effect causes distant suns to recede out of the visible universe". So yea, it's not the case that every missed killing curse eventually hits a planet.
Just the thought of, what if it happened here, *once*, and we got all the "struck down by gods" mythologies from that.
EDIT: And I forgot to put this on the proper chapter page when I replied, so of course it will go onto the last published chapter.
"Curse you FimFic the platypus!"
Oh, voice changing was just an assumed "has to", if he's playing a role. Whether that's good voice acting, or just an unmentioned spell, it's a given that he has to keep the different voices.
11367256
Sure. That's probably true. But the question is, what does an observer see?
The observer sees person A not sending a message to B.
Is it that there is an other requirement?
Or is it that one of the existing known requirements fails?
11367412
Well, sure. He said what he did for performative reasons. I try to leave it open-ended, in case I change my mind later. The key to serial production is to NOT write yourself into a corner wherever possible. When I leave the details open to interpretation, I can change course if the story requires it.
wow this chapter is a hug information dump and at the same time ask so many questions.....
i love it.
Now that I am all caught up, I'm curious about "Autumn Glory", the unknown signature pony on the contract.
What were the names of the two "pony" changelings that were Luna's guards that had to reveal their nature, and afterwards were told to go back to their guard duty?
11367973
Autumn Query*. Don't know exactly when I'll introduce that character. And the changeling guard names were Viridia and something else I don't remember. From the R. Part 6: Chaos chapter.
https://fimfetch.net/story/1010501970/wizard-ponies-dear-reader-deleted-and-future-scenes-from-hpmor/1
deleted unfinished sketch . hpmor crossover mlp
11370392
I'm always hesitent to click on suspicious links. Why does it say 'fimfetch' instead of 'fimfiction'?
11370400
fimfetch is a website with saved (delete) fanfiction. You can Google this site and manually enter the name.
I was hoping that I had enough reputation here to overcome the stereotype of " hacker"
11370410
I made no specific accusations. I only stated the honest truth that I'm suspicious of clicking on strange links. Especially when they come with no descriptions attached. You added 'deleted unfinished sketch' and so on through the edit function. It was not in the original version of the post. And when it comes to the internet, I tend not to rely on 'reputations'.
That said, I skimmed through the sketch. It's a decent outline, but far too scattered to make much sense of. I like a big dramatic scene as much as the next guy; it's how I write my stories. I think of a great scene, then work my way TO that scene. But if it's JUST the scenes without the necessary build-up, it falls flat for me. Like telling the punch-line of a joke without any build up.
11370701
this is an ironic (not) funny comment. not an insult.
there is a bit of background in the author's past stories, but not so much
11370997
I wasn't trying to be ironic, funny, or insulting. I wasn't trying to be polite, conciliatory, or gentle. I wasn't trying to be mean, rude, or harsh. I was being as straightforward as I could be.
But come to think of it, I simply should have stuck to my blanket policy:
I strive to AVOID reading things based on direct recommendation. I hate feeling obligated to read something. Whenever I DO read from a sense of obligation and the thing I'm reading isn't absolutely amazing, I tend to actively resent what I'm reading. That's what happened here. So, yeah. Now you know.
11371046
I tried to be ironic and funny.
Oh, that's good. if I recommend groups instead of individual stories, will this solve the problem?
11371048
Even as I wrote that, I had been sorely tempted to write 'avoid consuming content based on recommendation', but I thought it would be too technical.
11371306
due to google translation, I don't see much difference
Are you doing ok? Do you need help? (editing / proofreading / etc?)
11389532
Doing fine. Hopefully not famous last words, but I think I'm about to start uploading again. And it was a productive hiatus, too; I actually spent a lot of time writing future chapters. By doing that, I finally located the source of discomfort, the reason I WASN'T uploading.
There was a line in one of the next few chapters-to-be-uploaded that would have forced me to write the story a certain way. Now that I've actually gotten to the point that line was referencing, I decided not to write it that way, so I changed the line, and now I feel fine about uploading it.
11410757
Woot! Good.
Nothing like having a small buffer so you know ahead of time what the consequences of your writing will be.
I suspect I've thought of a way tom could fake a patronus. Maybe he could use the hivemind
"on" should be "an"
No basilisks in the show but there is a cockatrice in Stare Master (S1)
Author, you are really, like REALLY good at describing feelings indirectly
Damn! Quite the deep Chapter, guess Sombra or Tirek will end the last kill.
With Tirek being the biggest threat metaphysical and literally, I hope it's him.
Sombra is a far lesser Voldemort in my oppinion.