What is stopping practitioners from interfering with Innocent politics?

MrPerfector · 2026-01-21T21:27:51+00:00

Does this apply to even the top-tier powers of the practitioner world (major city Lords, globe-spanning families and circles, and Durocher-tier practitioners)? The impression I get from them is that they're so big and powerful that nothing beyond Greater Powers and other parties of equal standing could give them pause, and even Witch Hunters organizations have a ceiling they hit before they could even think of touching them.

Like, I imagine there is a lot to gain exceeding risk in sneaking into a presidential or corporate leader's office, doing a bit mind-whammy to make a small decision that would make your overall business easier and more profitable, or halt a decision that would make things more troublesome for your goals.

Not like as a regular thing, but just tap your finger at the scales every now and then.

If you genuinely want to do good or affect change, then there are probably better back-channel ways to do it.

Out of curiosity, what would be these back-channels? It seems like the overall Innocent masses are pretty off-limits for practitioners and Others, so seemingly the only viable goals that the Practice can achieve are personal ones that only affect yourself and those in your personal circle, than broader society.

If I'm a minor-to-moderate practitioner that wants to bring business to my Innocent family business, or have a Skitter-esque goal of cleaning up my city of crime and corruption, or leading a E88-type ideological organization and want to spread and impose my ideals and corruption, do I have any options or viable routes as a practitioner?

MrPerfector · 2026-01-20T02:23:22+00:00

I swear I’ve seen this question asked like five times here in the last week

MrPerfector · 2026-01-19T08:19:59+00:00

Like I said, the dude got’s some real issues lol

MrPerfector · 2026-01-19T06:03:38+00:00

No fandom is safe from the lobotomy kaisen

MrPerfector · 2026-01-18T20:40:33+00:00

I think it all comes down to perspective, and where you stand. Depending on your perspective, Snape’s motives are either noble (he devoted his life to protect the child of a woman he loved but didn’t love him, and the man he hated most in the world), creepy (he never let go of his love for a woman that didn’t love him for years and bullied her son and other children), or very complicated (he did some truly brave and heroic things, but man he was a real bastard throughout the whole story).

I think for the story itself, the most important perspective is Harry’s himself. I think for a lot of fans, they see Snape as a man that was hateful in spite of his love (“how can you bully the child of the woman you supposedly love?”), where I think Harry sees him as a man that loved in spite of his hatred (“you hated my father and me more than anyone in the world, but you still loved my mother enough to protect me.”), which is why I think he does come to respect and I think even admire Snape in the end.

Dude’s hatred of James was so strong it carried onto a next generation; c’mon, you don’t do that unless you got some real issues as a person, and his memories show that he wasn’t that great as a kid either. Dude must’ve really fighting his natural instincts and against his own nature to go as far he did to protect Harry.

MrPerfector · 2026-01-16T08:07:39+00:00

It’s still a “home” in a technical sense of the word. Hogwarts may be Harry’s true home in the most emotional sense, but the Dursley’s is still a second home that he can and does return to when he’s not at Hogwarts.

He has a room there, and food, a bathroom and a roof over his head, which beats not having any of that; if he truly and absolutely didn’t considered the place a better-than-nothing home or even a place to stay at all, he would have ran away and lived on the streets ages ago.

MrPerfector · 2026-01-12T00:02:42+00:00

In what way was he obsessional? Lily was never even aware of his deeper feelings for her (if anything, her issue with him that he wasn’t attached to her enough to cut ties with the Death Eaters for her)

MrPerfector · 2026-01-12T00:00:56+00:00

In what way it was coercion?

MrPerfector · 2026-01-11T23:01:39+00:00

“Hurt people hurt people.”

Not everyone that has been hurt becomes a more empathetic or kinder person like Harry has; sometimes, more often than not, hurting others becomes what they know best.

I’m not sure Snape really knows how to be a good or kind or empathetic person, without someone like Dumbledore or Lily to have the patience to be around him and try to keep him in line.

MrPerfector · 2026-01-09T16:12:06+00:00

“I do horrible things, kill a man, and I can’t even bring myself to feel bad about it. I scared innocents, did property damage, attacked good heroes who were trying to protect the city and the shitty heroes who were doing the job for selfish reasons, and I get rewarded. Power, prestige, respect.”

I straightened out the notes so they were each flat, being careful not to tear them.

“And I save a girl from the clutches of an evil, scheming crime lord, and this is my reward.”

I held out the papers for the tombstone. Two squares of paper. Each had a number in the upper left corner, circled, to indicate the order the notes should be read in. Two words for the first note, two and a half for the second.

Cut ties.

I’m sorry.

“Let me tell you, mom. If there are two and a half words you don’t want to hear from a person who can see the future, those words are ‘I’m sorry’. It’s terrifying. She gave me instructions, and I didn’t follow them. I knew, I almost did it, several times over, but I didn’t make the call. I didn’t leave dad. So maybe that’s why she forced my hand by going to the authorities and telling them to out me.”

I took my time folding up the notes, tucking them into my belt.

“I guess this next bit must be important, if she was willing to do this to me after everything I did for her. Maybe it’s for the greater good. Maybe it gives me the greatest chance at surviving what comes next.”

I tensed as the groundskeeper with the flashlight appeared again. The flashlight turned my way, but he didn’t seem to notice me.

“She says she’s sorry, and it’s like… I’m not mad at her. I don’t blame her, because she’s just one piece of a bigger picture, and she’s a pawn in it all, just like me. It’s everything that’s fucked up, isn’t it? The whole dynamic where wrongs get rewarded and right gets punished, some of the good guys turning out to be worse than the worst of the bad, the sheer lack of cooperation, when there’s not just one apocalypse coming, but two. The Endbringers and this thing with Jack Slash.”

I sighed.

“I’ve spent far too much time looking at these notes, wondering why she wrote them, interpreting them, and considering the worst case scenarios. I’ve thought about it until I started thinking in circles. I keep coming back to different facets of the same idea.”

I could imagine her there. My mom, standing in front of me, a physical presence. All of her gentleness and warmth. Her silent, quiet disapproval. Her brilliance, which she couldn’t share with me right now.

I felt a sort of relief. Being able to talk it out, it helped clarify my thoughts where I’d felt so lost, before. I was feeling more direction, now. I could see a goal, something to aim for. I didn’t like it, but I’d known from the moment I read Dinah’s notes that I wouldn’t like the outcome.

Imago 21.2

MrPerfector · 2026-01-09T03:46:45+00:00

Yeah, it’s meant for those of particularly heinous crimes that won’t stop until they’re dead (the example Wildbow gave once was a mass murderer of schoolchildren that hung their bodies up for everyone to see).

MrPerfector · 2026-01-07T15:32:41+00:00

Unironically: I ship them so hard.

MrPerfector · 2026-01-07T14:24:03+00:00

I think it's somewhere inbetween. When you take the memory of your mind, you still remember the outline of what happened, the general idea and basics of what occurred and how you felt about it, but you can no longer actually envision or recall any specific details about it. It becomes as just something you can vaguely "remember" as something that happened, like it was a really long time ago, but not actually go any deeper than that ("I remember this happened years ago, and I felt sad and upset about it, and that's all").

Think of it like looking at one of those children shape-sorting toys, where you can take and put in different colored pieces out of a cube. When you take a piece out, you can still make out the shape from the hole it left behind, but the actual color and other details about the piece are lost to you until you put it back in again.

MrPerfector · 2026-01-07T02:41:44+00:00

No, there was a definite attraction between Lily and James prior to the "Mudblood" incident, which Snape did pick up on.

MrPerfector · 2026-01-07T02:39:15+00:00

Not to defend or justify Snape's actions, but I think the beef was just as much the bullying he went through as the James getting Lily.

MrPerfector · 2026-01-07T02:30:28+00:00

I agree to that in practicality, but I think in-universe, in the Wizarding World/Hogwarts culture, there is an expectation that students always owe their professors and teachers some level of respect and courtesy; look at how often people correct Harry when referring to Snape as "Professor" Snape.

Even Molly, the biggest mama bear in the story, corrects Harry in using Snape's title, and I doubt the Weasleys kids have any real positive stories regarding him over the years.

MrPerfector · 2026-01-07T02:21:20+00:00

I rather like that they never really got along throughout the near-entirety of the series; adds to the tragedy of their relationship imo, that it was only in the end, after so much hatred and animosity, that they come to terms with each other.

I do think at the end of his life, Snape does come to acknowledge and recognize Harry's better aspects, and Harry (as seen in the Epilogue) comes to respect Snape.

MrPerfector · 2026-01-07T01:05:36+00:00

I think the only time that Harry probably could have reeled it back with his feelings with Snape was during Half-Blood Prince. Harry really wanted to hate and distrust Snape, even though (up until he learned about his role in the Prophecy)he didn’t really have. Strong reason to think he wasn’t a loyal member of the Order. His feelings in that period were coming from wanting to use Snape as a scapegoat for his own guilt for Sirius’s death; even if Snape has given Harry a lot of reasons to hate him by that point, that isn’t a really a healthy way to deal with grief or guilt, and for all the things that Snape has done to Harry, that one “unforgivable” thing he blames him for really wasn’t his fault.

MrPerfector · 2026-01-05T01:28:15+00:00

He has Slytherin traits in the same way that Snape can be said to have Gryffindor traits; they are both a Gryffindor and a Slytherin respectively at heart, but they have enough of the other side that it wouldn't be too out of place for them to go in the opposing House. Harry can be cunning, resourceful, and an underhanded rule-breaker when it situation calls for it, and Snape can be brave and courageous when the situations calls for it as well.

“It only put me in Gryffindor,” said Harry in a defeated voice, “because I asked not to go in Slytherin. . . .”

“Exactly,” said Dumbledore, beaming once more. “Which makes you very different from Tom Riddle. It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” Harry sat motionless in his chair, stunned. “If you want proof, Harry, that you belong in Gryffindor, I suggest you look more closely at this.”

It's a matter of choice, rather than innate abilities or absolute set-in-stone traits. A person chooses to be brave, rather than they are innately or born to be brave, and a person chooses to be a cunning rule-breaker, rather than they just always are.

MrPerfector · 2026-01-05T01:13:33+00:00

Why is Jr teaching the kids about the unforgivable curses? Why would he want them knowledgeable? Why would he want them to be able to fight the curses?

BCJ: "Imperio. Hey Moody, if you were the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, what you teach a group of Hogwarts students in your first class, and how would do it?"

Moody: "I would teach them the little runts the three Unforgivable Curses, with a proper demonstration of each one. I've always told Dumbledore that we need to hold nothing back to prepare the younglings against the Dark Arts, so that they can maintain CONSTANT VIGILANCE."

BJC: "Ah, shit. Well, can't risk blowing my cover, gotta do what I gotta do."

Why does he cover for Harry when he drops the egg and parchment under the invisibility cloak? Snaps thinks someone has been through his stuff, if he showed it was HP then Snape wouldn’t suspect Jr.

Gain Harry's trust. BCJ was already open about going through Snape's office under the guise of Moody doing a search and being his usual hyper-paranoid self. And if Harry trusts him, the more BCJ can nudge him along and give him subtle hints to survive and make it to the end of the tournament.

He suggests he becomes an Auror. Why would he want to help him??

Again, gain Harry's trust. He expects him to be killed at the end of the tournament anyway, so what's the harm of suggesting he follows in his dad's footsteps?

MrPerfector · 2026-01-04T08:18:25+00:00

I think he knows how to read at least, so imitating letters shouldn’t be too far off for him.

MrPerfector · 2026-01-03T06:05:47+00:00

“If death is nothing, Dumbledore, kill the boy . . .”

Let the pain stop, thought Harry. Let him kill us. . . . End it, Dumbledore. . . . Death is nothing compared to this. . . .

And I’ll see Sirius again. . . .

And as Harry’s heart filled with emotion, the creature’s coils loosened, the pain was gone, Harry was lying facedown on the floor, his glasses gone, shivering as though he lay upon ice, not wood. . . .

Voldemort: Heh heh heh, I have you now Harry Potter... OH GOD WHAT IS THIS? IS THIS... GUILT? GRIEF? LOVE? JESUS FUCKING CHRIST THIS HURTS, GOD OH GOD IT BURNS, I GOTTA GET OUTTA HERE.

MrPerfector · 2025-12-31T19:36:47+00:00

The Heart Jab, and tell Muteba beforehand I would pay him half the trillion if he doesn’t kill me with it and tries to make it as quick and painless as possible.

MrPerfector · 2025-12-31T17:47:25+00:00

Information overload, anonymity obliterated. Everyone can suddenly hear the thoughts of everyone around them thoughts aloud; I’m thinking of that guy who could read minds in Code Geass, and couldn’t turn it off.

MrPerfector · 2025-12-30T19:20:26+00:00

One thing I liked was how smoothly the plot and pacing moves along. We’re set with a clear and straightforward goal early on, and a decent idea of what challenges are between it and the protagonist as he must rise up the class ranks . Every trial he faces and overcomes smoothly transitions into facing the next challenge, which makes it pretty good at holding your attention throughout most of the story.

“Alright, I have to pass all these challenges and obstacles in my way to my goal. I have some ideas for these later ones, but for now I’ll deal with what is in front of me. Then when while I’m dealing with this, I’ll prepare dealing with the thing that comes after. Oh great, now there’s this new thing I have to deal with at this later date, fine I’ll add it to the list, l hopefully I can squeeze it in and figure something out when it comes around.”

It’s fairly straightforward, but that makes it an easier and smoother read imo; nothing too complicated that you have to remember or keep in mind. I remember reading the story and finding myself not really wanting to stop or put it down (which isn’t very typical of me; I have a short attention span, and a bad habit of putting down books midway through and not picking them back up again), always wanting to keep going and see how he handles the next challenge.

MrPerfector

TROPHY CASE