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Be werry werry quiet....
Horticruxes
#26
I want someone to know about vodoo dolls and apply that to a Horticrux. I reckon a piece of soul is going to be loads more effective than a strand of hair.
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Re: I'm shoked and dismayed
#27
Quote:
"What kind of pathetic, sorry excuse for a wizard uses a WAND!? What are you, Tinkerbell?"
How curious. I have almost this exact line in my notes for the Harry Potter Step...
-- Bob
---------
...The President is on the line
As ninety-nine crab rangoons go by...
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Re: Horcruxes
#28
Quote:
I want someone to know about vodoo dolls and apply that to a Horticrux. I reckon a piece of soul is going to be loads more effective than a strand of hair.
Ooooooh, I like that.
Oh, and it's "horcrux". "Horticruxes" are enchanted objects that hold soul fragments strictly for plants.
-- Bob
---------
...The President is on the line
As ninety-nine crab rangoons go by...
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....twisted and evil...
#29
>>> Second, that line from Scenario #5 reminded me of one of Vlad Taltos' proverbs -

Oh, you just had to go there.

I still wonder just how I got manuvered into being stuck with this. I'd like to say I know nothing about raising kids, but that's not true: hell, dispite being an assasin for most of my adult life, I probably had a more sensable childhood than, say, Morrolan E' Drien.
Not that this is saying much, Morrolan is a Dragonlord. Probably spent his formative years learning how to slaughter a dozen people at a sitting for kicks, raised out of the empire or no.
So, anyway, this guy shows up with a kid just old enough to have hair and says, 'He's got a destiny' and dumps him on Morrolan to train, and by Morrolan, appearently, he means us, us meaning Aleira, Sethra Lavode, and me.
Vlad Taltos. Adoptive father. I tried to imagine it for a second - white picket fences, schoolyard games, domestic bliss.
Then I came to my senses. My kind of domestic bliss involves knowing where you keep your Morganti Knives, and if the kid was going to be trained by me he was going to learn all the important things - stealth, seduction, swordplay, assasination, sorcery, witchcraft, the works.
And I sure as hell wasn't going to leave him to be raised by Sethra Lavode and Morrolan, Vampire and Elvish nobleman responsable for burning a number of otherwise innocent villages in sacrifice to his gods, respectively.
The first thing I did after hearing of the whole situation was go and talk to my grandfather.
Noish-pa was singularily unhelpfull.
"Vladimir." He said in that excessively patient voice he only uses when it's clear (to him) that I'm being an idiot, "To raise a child, you will need the help of your wife."
I didn't want to bring up (again) that the last time we met she'd almost tried to kill me - again. I was pretty sure grandfater wasn't in a mood to listen to my marital problems.
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Re: Horcruxes
#30
Everyone knows a real wizard uses a staff, six-foot long. Mere wands are for amateurs.
As far as Voldemort knows though, wands are the only option. Potterverse wizards know of nothing better, which is why I find crossovers that put more powerful forms of human magic in the same world less plausible. Certainly the wizards could have been kept ignorant of the other magics, just as the muggles have been kept ignorant of wizardry, but that means multiple conspiracies of silence - and when the conspiracies multiply believability starts to fade.
Of course, this doesn't stop such crossovers from being funny, nor does it apply to wizards from the wider multiverse. Still, stories where powerful non-Potter wizards visit the Potterverse and jeer at the locals' pitiful magics can be rather reminiscent of Victorian gentlemen visiting some far-flung province and jeering at the natives' pathetic ways - they can't even fly without a broom/build a steam engine. It all depends on how good the writer is at handling the power imbalance.
The target makes a difference too. It's one thing to mock Tom Riddle to his face, quite another to mock Arthur Weasley.
The horcrux is an old idea - Koschei the deathless did much the same thing. It may not be much by itself, but it does give the wizard time. Given 10,000 years to study magic, Voldemort might actually become as dangerous as his legend paints him, but he doesn't have enough patience for that.
Now we've seen his mother's family though, it's not surprising he's not too smart.
However, while Voldemort isn't that dangerous in himself - the wizards could easily have disposed of him if they weren't just as shortsighted (e.g, in Philosopher's Stone, use a age line to keep the kids out, trap Voldemort with the Mirror of Erised, turn him into a toad for transport, then toss him through the veil) - he is symptomatic of a greater danger, one much harder to fight.
Wizarding society is too small to sustain itself in isolation, especially in competition with the vibrant muggle society next door. Fewer people means many fewer geniuses, and much less capacity for innovation. The smartest wizard in the UK is, at best, 1 in 100,000 - there are about 500 British muggles at least that smart, some much smarter, and they have the advantage of working with their peers.
Wizarding society is sick, a sickness which spawned Voldemort, and for which he proposes the wrong cure. Doug can take out Voldemort easily enough, but can he, or any hero, solve the larger problem? It'd certainly be material for an interesting story.
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Re: Horcruxes
#31
Well, technically speaking, Doug can't take out Voldemort, if the relevant portion of The Prophecy is taken more or less literally. For my purposes, simply to keep Doug from waltzing in, dusting Voldie, and waltzing out again, I'm assuming that The Prophecy is literal and moreover, that there is a weight of enforcement behind it -- the local equivalents of a small group of young ladies we all know and love. Doug can make Voldie's life a living hell, if he wants, and he will go through the ranks of the Death Eaters like a wildfire through a dry field, but in the end it will be Harry -- suddenly synthesizing a whole bunch of little things Doug has taught a large number of Hogwart's students into an unexpected and untried idea -- who takes out Voldie in the end. (Even if Doug does try an end run around the Prophecy...)
As for the larger problem, Doug doesn't even see it -- or if he does, he can't do anything about it. He will simply teach -- and he will teach outside the bounds of existing Wizarding knowledge and prejudices. "Here is another way magic can work." And imagine what that does to young minds willing to explore options. Doug won't change the world. But the children whose future he changes will change the world.
And now we're wildly off the original topic, so we will either let this thread of thought die a quiet death, or transplant it to a different topic.
-- Bob
---------
...The President is on the line
As ninety-nine crab rangoons go by...
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Re: Horcruxes
#32
Very often, any attempt to force the outcome of a prophecy only results in getting the outcome you don't want - see Voldemort. Such is the divine sense of humour.
Anything Harry, or any of his adoptive parents, do with the deliberate intent of fulfilling prophecy would then be guaranteed to backfire, helping Voldemort instead, just as everything Voldemort does rebounds in Harry's favour. Meanwhile, the fates sit back with a pizza and enjoy the fun.
This might be one of those times when ignorance is safer.
New ideas from Doug, or other dimensional travellers can jolt wizarding society out of its rut, but that's not a lasting solution - and then there's the possiblity of the muggles undergoing a Vingean sinularity, which would definitely need a different thread to do justice to.
Back on the original topic, I wouldn't leave Harry with the first Doctor - he abandoned his own grandaughter on a post-apocalyptical Earth, for her own good, and the sixth is a little tempermental, but any of the others would be a good choice.
Hand Harry over to the third Doctor, during the Unit years, and he'll grow up familiar with guns and gadgets, giving Voldemort a nasty surprise - Time Lord technology won't be impeded by merely human magic.
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Re: Horcruxes
#33
Well, at the very least, Time Lord technology is Sufficiently Advanced. Actually, I rather think it woul dbe fun to introduce Ace to the Twins, in a Dr. Who/HP cross. Perhaps not for anyone else around them, but from the other side of a monitor screen, fun. The real match I want to see from that is Daleks vs. Death Eaters, though.

Moving on back to alternate parents for Harry - what about the ship's AI from Andromeda? With added robot body or Trek-tech solid holography, but a High Guard raised Potter would have an admirabe set of morals, one of those keen collapseable staves, and best of all, orbital fire support. The only problem is that high magic zones (like practiaclly any major wizarding locations) block sensor sweeps beyond direct optical, and sometimes even that, as well as futzing practically any form of technology inside them.

Or, two is better than one, right? I'm sure Kei and Yuri could figure out something despite that pesky magic turning their son's (well, Mughi did a lot of the more annoying bits) blast pistol into just another hunk of metal and plastic.

Zero no Harry?

Who's that dark haired kid who stowed away in the Mach-5's trunk with the monkey?

Marvel's Power Pack? Or maybe Pete and MJ wouldn't mind a boy the same age to raise with May-Day? (If accidental magic can make a zoo display window dissappear and teleport a kid up onto a roof, surely it could let him stick to walls, and when Dad makes that look like it's normal...)

Vegita... that would be bad. Developing even as much as a normal human (the "nonfighters" like Kuririn, Tienshinhan or Yamcha) in terms of a late-DBZ personal energy supply, and then having his blood taken to revive Moldyshorts with that kind of added power... bad, bad, bad. No.

What if it turned out that K1 and the goddesses were out when he came to see if they'd take in young Harry, but Tamiya and OOtaki happened to come by, hoping to dragoon K1 into another somewhat ill-considered project, and Tamiya turns out to have a soft gooey center, and they get excited, and things get a bit crazy from there...

...I mean, it's gotta be better than that Onizuka guy, right?

...and I keep trying to think of any way that Sir Integra Wingates Hellsing could be induced to take on a todder, and failing, unless she too has a deeply buried cuddly side that just wants to coo over a baby, espescially if she doesn't have to do the part where its a small, noisy, stinky, four-hour (at best) limit alarm clock. Giving up her cigarillos... now that would be the real battle. Sommehow though, I CAN just see Alucard playing ariplane with a toddler, only a very slightly disturbing aspect to his grin, (mainly form the pointy teeth) because his "airplane" rides are the BEST! He really flies! Walter would probably have more of a direct influence in terms of Harry piccking up successor style abilities, though.

Yomiko would probably be a little too absent imnded, but if Harry was placed with the three sisters from RoD TV, same age as the youngest, that could work.

- CDSERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
For the next 72 hours, Itachi intoned, I will slap you with this trout. - Spying no Jutsu, chapter 3
"In the futuristic taco bell of the year 20XX, justice wears an aluminum sombrero!"hemlock-martini
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows
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....twisted and evil...
#34
> I probably had a more sensable childhood than, say,
> Morrolan E' Drien.
Morrolan would be a better father for Ron (or possibly Carrot Ironfoundersson) than Harry. He was more than a hundred years old, a foot taller than anyone he'd ever met and had never had to shave. He still needed someone else to explain that he was an elf.
I'd quote the relevant passage, but it would take - Paths of the Dead is Brust writing at his most deliberately verbose. (It's absolutely splendid though).
D for Drakensis

You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.
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Hossenfeffer
#35
I see someone already beat me to the idea I had for Scenario 11: The Dirty Pair. Darn. Oddly enough, I play a freeform RPG where my character is *married* to them. BOTH of them. And no, it's not because he's some sort of SI super-stud, it's mainly because the Universe just *loves* watching how he manages to survive this.
And someone else parallelled my thoughts about the Nanoha option -- Yeah, Lindy was the best bet to end up Harry's adoptive mother, though Mrs Takamichi could wind up a close second. Either way, Harry would grow up with a positive plethora of aunts and a couple really cool uncles.
Custos Sophiae raised an objection about "forcing prophesies." Cool as the idea of Moldy facing Ranma, or Nanoha, or the Gunsmith Cats is, that really wasn't my intention. The *primary* intention was to give Harry a good, caring family environment (you note I didn't put 'stable' in there anywhere). Well, okay, that was secondary -- *primary* was just to have fun with the concept. Creating an UberHarry was on the *bottom* of the priority stack. Instead, I wanted to re-insert a Harry with lots of training, maybe a few handy weapons, and most importantly a strong family background onto Platform at the beginning of the first book, *without* any tag-alongs from home (not that I'd totally rule out any visits, but in the end it's *Harry's* universe, and *Harry's* destiny). Giving Harry copies of the entire series to read before going to Hogwarts would be "forcing the prophesy," but I don't think that giving Harry a better family (and about as much foreknowledge as he would have had growing up in the Wizarding World) and letting things progress naturally from there would be.
Eh. Just my thoughts on the matter.
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Re: Hossenfeffer
#36
Life with the Doctor certainly wouldn't be stable - safe, so long as Harry stayed inside the Tardis, and he would be well cared for, but the only constants in the Doctor's life are his enemies. His companions, his face, and the Tardis itself are ever changing.
This might be a good thing, not because of any souvenirs he might bring to Hogwarts, but because of the mental attitude it would encourage. A stable life may not be the best prepration for the turmoil of Harry's Hogwarts years.
Life with Ranma wouldn't be stable either but I can't really see him staying out of Harry's life post-11 (unlike the Doctor, who hardly ever revisits old companions). Dumbledore may be able to keep Ranma out of Hogwarts, but he's still the kind of loose canon who would tangle up Fate's tapestries, much to her annoyance.
Harry's 11 years with Ranma and Akane could make a great story, of course, and potentially very funny too, but I can't help thinking about what happens after Harry starts Hogwarts.
Pick Belldandy, and the prophecy certainly won't be a problem. As an aspect of Fate herself, she knows how to handle them safely. She's at no risk of the ironic fates so common amongst humans who tamper with the things. But enough of that digression.
If stability were your main criterion, where better than Rivendell, a safe hundred years before the end of the third age. Aragorn makes a pretty good advertisement for the place.
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re:Hossenfeffer
#37
Quote:
And someone else parallelled my thoughts about the Nanoha option -- Yeah, Lindy was the best bet to end up Harry's adoptive mother, though Mrs Takamichi could wind up a close second. Either way, Harry would grow up with a positive plethora of aunts and a couple really cool uncles.

My take on this if Lindy did adopt Harry, he's might end up following "Uncle" Chrono's career. Think about it At age 10, Chrono was already an "Enforcer". A full-fledged agent/Childean combat mage of the Time/Space Agency. If Harry has the same potential, by age 11 he's already has experience in physical and magical combat. Now, if you want "upgrades", there's the "Valkan" magic system. It's a toss-up on whether he learned the Takamichi style or not, since it is a "family" style. That wuld be a given if he were adopted by the Takamichi's.
An advantage is that the his "family" will be close by, since crossing dimensions shouldn't be a problem for the TSA.
So the questions are:
Who in the Potterverse can stand up to this Harry? (Take a 10 year old Chrono as a base)
And dropping him in into Hogwarts?.it'll be like sending somebody from the 21st century into Edo-era Japan...be interesting as hell.
How would Hogwarts react if they ever learned there is another magical civilization that is much more advanced than them?
__________________
Into terror!,  Into valour!
Charge ahead! No! Never turn
Yes, it's into the fire we fly
And the devil will burn!
- Scarlett Pimpernell
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A scenelet...
#38
"...the Death Eaters and Voldemort stared at the gaping hole that had just been blown through the thick, stone walls of the ruined castle that was their current base. A figure all of them knew and loathed stepped lightly through the opening, followed closely by three others.
'Well, if it isn't the Death Chokers. I don't think you've met my family. These are my adopted parents, Zeb and Deety Carter, and this is my uncle, who taught me everything I know today, Lazarus Long, the Eldest of the Howard Familes.' His eyes narrowed. "And now, Moldieshorts, there's a small matter of a prophecy that needs fulfilling...'"
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Re: A scenelet...
#39
If stability were your main criterion, where better than Rivendell, a safe hundred years before the end of the third age. Aragorn makes a pretty good advertisement for the place.
I suspect that version of Harry would have a very different (and probably strong) reaction to House Elves and their treatment in magical society.__________________
I feel like I'm diagonally parked in a parallel universe.
___________________________
"I've always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific." - George Carlin
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Re: A scenelet...
#40
How about what Dumbledore said he wanted for Harry: a loving home with no ego. Akira Fudo and Mikki maybe. ^_^
Sho Fukamachi and Mizuki Segawa
or maybe
Tinnar Tia Reel and Tabibito. Loving enviorment and magic is common on Coil Island, but not overpowering. Although it would be an odd enviorment to grow up in.--------------------
Tom Mathews aka Disruptor
--------------------
Tom Mathews aka Disruptor
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Re: Horcruxes
#41
Quote:
I reckon a piece of soul is going to be loads more effective than a strand of hair.
I actually used that concept in the Jack of Shadows snippet I wrote twenty-five-odd (very odd) years ago. The book had (this is canon) powerful mages who were unaware that they had souls, that those souls were separate from their bodies, and that every time they reincarnated, they were leaving their souls behind in an area anybody could get to. I simply provided a guy who'd figured that out and searched out the souls of likely enemies. "I assured Ruthven of that by handling his soul with something less than delicacy."
Although I never spelled it out in the snippet, I also felt that having an enemy mage's soul in your possession would give you what today I think we'd call a trap door into his operating system, so my (anti)hero could use his adversary's own power against him. Perhaps somebody who's computer-savvy needs to call that possible aspect of a horcrux to Harry's attention.
-----
Big Brother is watching you.  And damn, you are so bloody BORING.
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Re: A scenelet...
#42
Quote:
How about what Dumbledore said he wanted for Harry: a loving home with no ego. Akira Fudo and Mikki maybe. ^_^
And then Satan destroys the world, recreates it out of grief, and Harry is reincarnated as a supporting character in Violence Jack and/or Devilman Lady?
Quote:
Sho Fukamachi and Mizuki Segawa
I want to steal that idea for Superdimensional Warrior Guyver. I want to, but I won't. [Image: smile.gif]
Can you imagine Harry loaded to the gills with Rifts-spec spells and a Rune weapon or three, on top of a spare bio-booster?
--Sam
"This is graveness."
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Re: A scenelet...
#43
Quote:
I want to steal that idea for Superdimensional Warrior Guyver. I want to, but I won't. [Image: smile.gif]
Can you imagine Harry loaded to the gills with Rifts-spec spells and a Rune weapon or three, on top of a spare bio-booster?

Well, what is Rifts? (I know a Palladium game, but beyond that I have no idea.)
Go ahead and use it if you want.
As to Harry meets Guyver? Watch the Anime Addventure. (I'm going to be pushing the boundries quite heavily on what can be posted.)--------------------
Tom Mathews aka Disruptor
--------------------
Tom Mathews aka Disruptor
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Re: A scenelet...
#44
Rifts is an RPG set four hundred years in the future, three hundred years after a limited nuclear war accidentally overloads Earth's ley lines and unleashes cosmic catastrophe, raising the ambient mana level to unheard of proportions and creating permanent dimensional gates to a million other worlds, most of them unspeakably hostile and filled with demons.
It's a techno-magic post-apocalypse grossly-overpowered freakshow, and a great place to put a story in. [Image: smile.gif] But my dumping Sho and Mizuki there was complex enough without adding Harry to the mix. (Maybe in an omake.)
--Sam
"Oedipus is hurt and last night I almost had a lucid moment."
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Re: A scenelet...
#45
To give an idea of the magic level in Rifts - as of Pantheons of the Megaverse, it was canon that there are only six worlds in all the realities known to the gods with that level of ambient magic. There's so much magic that parts of the local landscape randomly phase out and are replaced with pasrts of other worlds, in some places at least.
And thanks for the link to your Guyver fic, I'd remembered it, but seem to have not saved a local copy, and couldn't find it to do so now.
- CDSERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
For the next 72 hours, Itachi intoned, I will slap you with this trout. - Spying no Jutsu, chapter 3
"In the futuristic taco bell of the year 20XX, justice wears an aluminum sombrero!"hemlock-martini
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows
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Re: A scenelet...
#46
Oh Palladium's version of Orguss--------------------
Tom Mathews aka Disruptor
--------------------
Tom Mathews aka Disruptor
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Re: A scenelet...
#47
Since Sho and Mizuki in this fic hail from 1985, that's exactly the conclusion they're going to arrive at. [Image: smile.gif]
--Sam
"At least the sky isn't a standing warp field..."
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Re: A scenelet
#48
There really isn't enough good Guyver fanfiction out there (that I've come across, anyway) and this is really a neat idea. I really hope you continue it sometime. Two great tastes that go great together!
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