Dumbledore's Army and the Year of Darkness

A Peccatis seems to be stalled again, with no real explanation. What's even more surprising is that there have been no posts of any kind on the main DAYDverse page for almost two weeks now. Has the "fandom" imploded? (And would this be surprising if it has?)

If he went where Rowling did not, then that is his choice.

He is his own writer, for good or ill.

And maybe he has been having either business, or unpleasantness on the net, or some such.

Somewhat more specifically, he killed off a character Rowling decided to spare - and mentioned in her Epilogue, though not as being actually present.

He had a little list, and he let the list be known, and he's been stalling about the next name on the list. I wonder if maybe he's trying to nerve himself up to it, or to come up with a way of avoiding it that won't play hell with his planned story.

Lots of fanfic authors kill off characters the author said lived.

Its obvious at this point he is not gunning to go for the light and soft ending, that he changed his mind some time along, so as to tell his own story rather than conform the ending to what Rowling did.

One of the few things I could commend about him.

I just hope he finishes A Peccatis, and then wisely edges away from the Internet.

Trouble is, he can't stay away from it. He's tried several times, and failed every time.

If he has not posted in a while, or some such, it could be his real life or online enemies have caught up to him.

While a cult leader is a deplorable person, I do not wish harm on him.

Nick: Apparently the problem is a breakdown (not a Creator Breakdown, just a breakdown), and he'll be back at it once he gets his meds adjusted and his head together.

That could take a while, all things considered.

edited 29th Feb '12 6:09:46 PM by Maven

He seemed to believe every bit of the cult propaganda he churned out.

Thus, I could make the case that he was never really all there. A possible cause would be some sort of harmful thing happening to him in his childhood that threw him into a fantasy world he tries to make everyone else fit into. There is no way for him to all the way integrate into society, because he has his own society in his head.

If he breaks at this stage, I'd say he might not come out again.

If he breaks at this stage, I'd say he might not come out again.

I'm sorta afraid of that too. Well, if he never finishes A Peccatis, for whatever reason(s), I've seen and captured an outline that tells how it was supposed to come out and Whodunnit. (No, of course it wasn't Hermione!)

With that in mind, I find it interesting that the break came at the point he was trying to nerve himself up to kill off Professor McGonagall He stalled for at least two chapters - and I could tell he was stalling - and then the crash.

I don't think the "harm" was physical, but I certainly wouldn't rule out psychological pressure to conform to gender norms that he was, or became, completely incapable of fitting into. It sort of smells like that. Transgenders have it bad even with parental support - and if the parents are the reverse of supportive...?

Hmmm, no wonder he was so drawn to Harry Potter fandom - Harry being a clear case of a boy whose (foster) parents were hellbent on squashing what he was and making him over into something he could never be. (Dumbledore was playing with fire - he could have wound up with another Snape, or worse yet another Voldemort.)

edited 29th Feb '12 8:22:43 PM by Maven

According to his ex-girlfriend (a surprisingly reliable source), his parents are very decent, supportive types. Thanfiction likes to invent grotesque and contradictory tales of extravagant childhood abuse, but it appears to just be a sympathy-gaining tactic.

edited 1st Mar '12 3:47:04 AM by Iaculus

She did mention once or twice, though, that they were "very religious" (same report from Colleen Doran, for what it's worth), and that they were coming to the aid of their "daughter" (even after he declared himself transgendered and legally changed his name). That doesn't sound to me like they even had a clue what they were dealing with. No I don't think they were Dursleys, but neither do I think they were all that understanding or accepting. (Granted, they may have gotten a haywired kid from the get-go!) But all this is speculation and of little value.

It just rings some alarm bells for me, because I know a few transgendered people and have met more over the Internet. Many of them have horror stories of how even the nicest, kindest parents simply could not understand them and kept trying to push them back into standard gender norms "for their own good". (A very rare few have had parents who let them explore their gender options openly and with full support, but even then it was never easy.)

This whole area is one that is only just beginning to be talked about - we're not even all that open about homosexuality yet, and this is a whole level of complexity beyond that. At present there's a lot of "anecdata" and not enough scientific study.

Yes, but at this point, does Thanfiction know what is real and what is fake? At an early stage, he might have been able to use this to set up his little cult, but now, its ripping his own mind into shreds.

Does he know he had done terrible things to his ex, or does he only remember her doing something to him?

Looking at the evidence, he may well have some sort of ugly mental disorder.

The Mc Gonagall thing could well be that he attributes living elements to story characters and unreal events. Him trying to kill her off would feel like he was killing a part of himself. She is the "maternal" identity in his head.

Those things together equal some bad stuff happening.

edited 1st Mar '12 1:37:02 PM by NickTheSwing

He's generally considered to have a particularly spectacular case of Narcissistic Personality Disorder, with a hefty dose of Münchhausen by Internet to wash it down.

edited 1st Mar '12 1:37:23 PM by Iaculus

Yeah, he's quite a mess. And as I said elsewhere, even if he eventually does manage to salvage himself somehow, it's unlikely he'll find much forgiveness.

I did some research, and apparently he appropriated an Irish accent from some friend of his ex.

This friend appears to be on the warpath over this.

He has a sizable cast of online and real life enemies. You could kinda pity the guy. His narcissism and head-in-the-clouds behavior never ends well for himself. If only he wasn't such a jerkass.

Problem is, he tends to do more damage to other people than himself.

So I managed to get to Chapter Four, and I'm really damn confused as to why this is considered a good fanfiction. I started reading it because it was recommended here, and it's hard for me to describe how much I dislike it. It's not that it's badly written, more the content. It's far too over the top for me, especially the lengthy emotional lovey-dovey speeches characters go on at a whim, but really everything in it is over the top, from the house characteristics, to descriptions, etc, etc.

I've read plenty of Fanfictions, and liked the majority of them, yet everyone seems to be raving about this one. Does it get better? Should I keep reading? What about it is so good to be titled with its own -verse?

Some people like over-the-top. Gurren Lagann is good testament to that.

edited 14th Apr '12 5:31:19 PM by CDRW

It's not.

edited 22nd Apr '12 5:16:10 PM by silver2195

I've read plenty of Fanfictions, and liked the majority of them, yet everyone seems to be raving about this one. Does it get better? Should I keep reading? What about it is so good to be titled with its own -verse?

Sheer quantity of output, I think. 2 1/2 complete Doorstopper novels, scads of short stories and fan art, and lots of footnotes. And that's not even counting the contributions from the rest of the collective!

The quality is emphatically YMMV. It would probably read better if all the serial numbers were filed off so we couldn't tell it was supposed to take place in the Harry Potter universe - it's that far off the mark in way too many places. (I've read worse, including some dreck that I don't know how it ever got published - and I DON'T mean fanfic!)

Thanfiction has a talent for telling stories. If he weren't such a meshuggeneh mess that he can't seem to roll his own, he'd probably be a moderately well off pro by now. But....

edited 29th Apr '12 8:14:58 PM by Maven

Actually, judging by orangeblossom's testimony, it's more that he adapted the fic from original stories he came up with to control his cult. So yeah, he can come up with original (or mostly-original) stuff. He just uses it for thoroughly ungodly purposes, then converts it into something more marketable when that falls apart.

So, he's like if Charles Manson said "Screw killing people, I think I am gonna write a story!"

More like a penny-ante L. Ron Hubbard, I think. Hubbard used to be a hack science fiction writer before he realized there was Big Money in running a cult.

edited 1st May '12 4:42:04 PM by Maven

Soo... Bizarro Hubbard?

So, is it a viable thing to read while I am waiting for Mister Yudkowsky to finish the next tranche of Methods of Rationality or not?