(no subject)

I bought a couple GURPS supplements of new spells
Death and Artillery spells
and I now have so many nasty ideas for every college

my eyes went all 00

but they're mostly so nasty there's very little use for them as story parts, because boom, now there's death.

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(no subject)

I read a lot of fic about the theoretical bad guys
but it's seldom the outright criminal or villainous bits that I find most creepy
since the story usually notices those and is setting up a Problem that needs solving.

The creepiest bits are always when they do the romcom thing
where someone says No in clear and simple terms
but the other decides to Prove The Love by ignoring it.

It's not always the villain either.

Such poison, this idea.

(no subject)

I just realised why I hit a run of Harry Potter stories that are making me bored now
because they're all variations on the theme of 'Oh Harry, once again you are The Most Special!'
the most powerful, the best fighter, possibly some kind of hybrid creature... it's difficult to Mary Sue a protagonist in his own story, but these have really, really been trying.

that's not what I'm here for.

I read post canon stories, and a lot of that is, what do you do when you aren't special.
Everything prophesised has occured. Next year will not be like the last seven or so. He and his skills aren't ever going to be the sole lynchpin of the wizarding world again.

So, now what?

It's like being a gifted kid who realises that best in their class is big fish in the tiniest of puddles. Or being a child actor, I guess, where the thing they're known for is from when they weren't even sketched in in themselves yet. Everyone's expectations got set and that just isn't you any more.

I also quite like the ones that are properly post canon, post epilogue, the kids are all in Hogwarts, everyone is middle aged now, so what to do?

It's just that feeling of having run past the end of the map.
Now they've got to make ordinary adulthood work, past the story they knew.

And granted, ordinary wizarding is pretty extraordinary, and I like that
but there's a difference between an extraordinary world and an extraordinary person
and I am apparently uninterested in anyone being any more extraordinary than canon made them.

Just let them navigate from there.




... I have such a collection of middle aged losers who screwed up or failed big time once, the ones who find themselves in a new story but really surprised about it, having gone past the point they thought it was Over. HP doesn't obviously fit that, but Draco certainly does, with the Dark past that turned out to be a bad idea, and Harry did the dying thing and then had to pick up life again After, and really, they're in pattern there as well.

How do you start over, when you aren't who you thought you were, and the story dumped you out?




... is a story that I keep going back to from an assortment of angles, really.



Plus the enemies thing.

It loses all its zing if they just agree with each other before the story starts.



Eh, there's a bazillionty stories, I shall keep looking.

Games night success

Today I had had only 2 hours of sleep but we went to Games night anyway
and played munchkin
and I won :-)

met new people too.

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