Sounds like a great idea, and I'd love to read that. I am with Taure on the whole seducing thing though. I've never liked the dark romance fics as much, and don't think I'd be rooting for that pairing.

You have it well set up until that point. Siblings who did not grow up with each other, but with a lack of anyone else they're close to. Rather than Elise trying to seduce him in such a jealous and sinister manner, you can really make it a lot more cute and romantic.

Another idea to Taure's one would be if she developed feelings for him, which came out while seeking comfort in a moment of vulnerability and weakness. Harry'd naturally, not return her feelings. She'd immediately back off, but their interactions from then on would be awkward and tainted by the knowledge of her incestuous feelings. Eventually, Harry would cave. I've always enjoyed reading those sorts of awkward dynamics more than two people simultaneously developing feelings for each other.

I think a big thing you need to be careful about is the portrayal of the Black family. Fanfic authors love bashing evil, rich step-parents/parents way too much - making them cold, cruel and yet, completely incompetent. You definitely have a good reason for them to be cold to Elise, but don't forget to give them redeeming traits too (like, being super competent or intelligent).

Pacing and patience would be everything in this fic. As Taure said, don't let the readers know it was actually ever on the table as a serious possibility until after they're rooting for it.

 

Given how he described Elise to be, this doesn't really fit well with her personality. I can't see her being neither shy nor awkward, and least of all hesitant. Growing up with the Blacks would cure you of such things. Note, I'm not saying you should age her up mentally up to her 20s while they're still in their first few years at Hogwarts, but there will be disparity between how Harry and how Elise act in certain situations.

 

Eh, she's still a teenage girl. It doesn't matter what upbringing you have, everyone's insecure about something, especially when it comes to romance as a teenager. That's only magnified by the taboo nature of the relationship and the high likelihood that Harry would completely shut her down and be disgusted by her. No way in hell is any sibling just gonna come out and say "hey, brother, let's fuck", no matter how direct they may be normally.

 

I'd argue Elise may not necessarily have emotional maturity though, given she's never had anyone who she's cared about or who cares about her. I can imagine her being terrified of chasing Harry away with her feelings. I imagine she's be more likely to bury her feelings completely and not take the risk.

 

I actually never considered leaving behind some magical creatures so thanks for pointing out that it is hard to believe wizards are capable of taking every magical creature over to the new world. I'll definitely try to work something out regarding that.

The more intelligent races like the Goblins will jump at the chance to head over to a new world. Once there they, and other magical races, will leave behind wizard-kind to settle in distant corners that wizards won't come close to for any time soon. Some will be more successful than others. I'm considering the possibility of Goblins being forced to be a nomadic race constantly on the run from a race they stumbled across and provoked.

Magical plants will remain on Earth. Wizards can put muggle repelling charms on locations where large numbers of magical plants grow or even take them to the new world but there are too many for anyone to cover completely. I suspect that mandrake related deaths will crop up every now and then along with a few other things.

I've never liked the idea of muggleborns being descended from squibs so I'm thinking of changing it to magic randomly appearing in muggleborns as an explanation for them. Yes, there is an organization that monitors Earth. At the moment I'm leaning towards eleven being the age that they bring muggleborns into the wizarding world. While this is a vastly different wizarding world I feel that I can get away with having there be enough people that don't want to rip children away from their parents at a young age though I can easily lower it to ten or nine. The organization will be created by the Four Great Houses a century or two after they have moved over to the new world. Originally run by the great houses it will grow to include other wizarding nations. As for the politics...muggleborns are not well liked in the wizarding world for the most part. A sizable portion of wizards would prefer to leave muggleborns to fend for themselves on Earth but enough people still see value in the completely separation of muggles and wizards. In any case, this issue is a minor one at best. Wizards have more important matters to concern themselves with.

I do feel that exponential growth is unlikely to be as much of a problem to wizards than it is for muggles given that resources are not as big of a concern for them, wizarding farming methods for example are more than capable of providing all the food wizards would never, but I probably will place limits on new births like you did when the population has reached a sizable amount.

And I'm fully going to make use of that chance though I probably won't go too crazy.

Muggles finding a magical creature would be interesting. Perhaps a Bowtruckle? Nifflers might work as well.

Yeah, the world won't be neatly divided in four nations and you're right when you say that the political landscape shouldn't largely be the same as when wizards first arrived. Instead of the Great Houses being formed shortly after the Founders rise to prominence I should have them form over the course of a few centuries into their present state. The Founders could originally only create a Council that sets down some loose guidelines for Lords to follow and then have the Lords do anything else they want in their spheres of influence. It doesn't take too long before some Lords go too far and people realize that perhaps it isn't wise to give Lords such free sway. At this point wizarding society could be split up into four districts where like minded Lords govern the district as a council. Of course not every Lord will like having their power restricted. These Lords will break off and form their own nations. Some probably will end up being destroyed while others group up for mutual protection. There will also be groups of wizards, like the Japanese and Aztecs, that will not be interested in working together with others leading them to leave the rest of wizarding society to do their own thing from the very beginning. Back in the four districts, the Great Houses can slowly be formed into what they are by time Harry reenters the wizarding world.

To be honest doing it the way you suggested is how I would prefer to do it because I feel that I would be better at writing such a relationship. I was just unsure of how acceptable that might be to some people which is why my plan had Elise attempting to seduce Harry out of extreme possessiveness to make the relationship a bit more twisted to reflect the abnormal relationship. I'll wait a bit more to see how others feels about this before deciding which way I'll go.

I was planning on leaving the pairing unknown to everyone who hasn't seen this thread.
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Not sure if cute and romantic is the way to go with incestuous relationships or at least not in the beginning though I wouldn't mind going with such a direction.

If I don't go with a "dark/sinister" direction with their relationship I'll probably use something along this.

On this issue you don't have to worry. It isn't my intention to bash the Black family or anyone else for that matter. While the Blacks can certainly be cruel that won't be what Elise experiences or at least not intentionally. For the most partly those that raise Elise simply won't go the extra mile for her. Where they comfort their own children when they cry, with Elise the adults might simply tell her to stop making a fuss so they can proceed with the next lesson. Any insults thrown her way from adults are more than likely to be made when she isn't performing as well as they wish for. It'll be the children that show more cruelty. Even at their young age they learn prejudices against those with muggle blood in them. As a half-blood, Elise is an easy target for them. As the girls grow older most will begin to feel jealousy over Elise's ability and start to put her down to make themselves feel better.

Like Taure said...Elise is still a teenager. On the subject of romance with her own brother it isn't far-fetched to assume that she will be wary of expressing her feelings for him. Not when it runs the risk of damaging the most important relationship she has.

 

This is funny because it's true.

 

Sesc, when I express that I'm uncertain as to how acceptable the way I handle Harry & Elise's relationship is to my readers it isn't because I'm worrying about whether they will like the relationship or not. My concerns lie more along the lines of wanting to make my readers to feel that the relationship is very plausible regardless of how they feel about it. They could hate the relationship all they want but as long as they, I'm talking about the reasonable readers, can clearly see the motivations behind the relationship's start I'll be satisfied.

I have little experience with "Dark romance" but what I've read is certainly interesting (Amersion's Equal and Opposite qualifies right?) but I'm not sure of whether I'll ruin it or not towards the end. My preferences tend to lean towards romances that end on a positive note so there is a decent chance that I'll turning Harry and Elise's relationship into one that has genuine love between the two. I just have to figure out how I might do that without turning their romance into a more normal one. Perhaps their love for each other can magnify their more negative qualities? Something to think about in the future.

Heh, Elise probably will turn into someone that most normal people will call "unlikeable". As much of a positive influence Harry will have on her there is little he can do to prevent the growth of some of her more negative traits. Current plans have her becoming more of a villain than most of the antagonists.

You know, I was leaning towards having Elise prevent Harry from getting any girlfriends in the first place but the idea of Elise allow him to have a girlfriend only to manipulate said girlfriend into betraying Harry sounds absolutely delightful. Elise can use that betrayal to show Harry that she is the only female/person that Harry should trust.

Heh. Harry won't ever be "that dude who is there so she can be awesome and seduce him". Elise will be awesome (hopefully). And, if I take that route, she will successfully seduce Harry. But Harry will be awesome in his own right. He kinda has to be if I want him to overcome Voldemort, who is downright terrifying, without some bullshit.

I'm aware of just how much effort I'll have to put into this. At the very least it'll take a few years for me to finish the story assuming that I don't end up abandoning it.

I might just skip the first three years of Harry's time at Hogwarts. I'm working on creating new plots for the first few years at Hogwarts but so far none has really satisfied me. Unless I can come up with something that I'm happy with I'll just do a few chapters of the summer before Harry's first year and then skip ahead to the summer before his fourth year.

 

I think the greatest challenge will be to avoid baggage!Harry. The kind that believes whoever's mouth is moving at the time.

I guess what i want to say is, having Harry there simply as a tool for Elise's development is a bad idea. Harry should grow just as much, though in different ways. Just as Elise is getting better at doing whatever it is she's doing, so too should Harry grow into his own.

 

Perhaps being sorted into different houses would be a good idea? Having them attached at the hip would be a bit boring in my opinion. Whether you go for a manipulative Elise or not, Harry needs influence from other people. It'd allow him to develop separately from her, and even give a good reason for why she gets so jealous and controlling (seeing him make friends and relationships apart from her, without she herself being included in them).

 

It sounds like your Elise character's kind of dark and twisted.


When I contemplate the kind of girl Harry might go for (beyond simply blood), I think
of James and Lily and in your situation perhaps the reverse personalities since Elise growing up with the Blacks is going to be arrogant and proud or knowingly\unknowingly condescending while Harry, under the Dursleys, kind of more humble and a champion of the underdog. It's like James and Lily in reverse, sort of.

I believe there was a writer on DLP (Andr~?, tattoo avatar?) who was writing a AU where Harry went into another universe and met his twin sister? Some similarities there, it feels like.

Incest is a weird topic, beyond the cultural taboos, also the genetic ones (like in the wizarding world is the Pureblood issue with having enough kids related to too much incest? I can see it being a Pureblood custom that the Muggle born hate on and it adds to that rift). Is there a hemophilia or abnormal children (or squibs) result from incest?

I can imagine a young woman falling for an older brother kind of guy but seducing a guy like Harry who, if he's like in canon, lacks confidence and ambition and self-awareness...I don't know..why does she even want him? Other than a trophy or pawn, but even then...why not just use the sibling relationship. It seems like if she was that manipulative then she might want to cleanse herself of the half bloodness by going for a Pureblood and just pull Harry along with the family card because that is his utter weak point.

 

Andro. It's in WbA: https://forums.darklordpotter.net/showthread.php?t=25532

 

Thanks for the link, Nerox. The name is the same (Elise) that's probably what rang my deja vu bell.

 

Republic, making Harry be someone that serves as a tool for Elise's development is not something that I desire. Harry will grow just as much Elise does if not more so.

Jarik, that is the plan.

Lyrium, Elise is intended to be twisted and dark. I've settled on creating a dark romance, partly because the development of such a relationship offers more interesting possibilities than a more normal romance, and for that a dark Elise feels more suitable.

Do you mean having too many kids? If yes, the issue with having too many children does not really have incest as a big problem. In this world wizards are able to de-age themselves and continue to have children. There are wizards and witches over a thousand years old that able to have children. If they and everyone else younger than them kept on having children the population would grow at a rate that would become difficult to manage/sustain. A population growing too fast has a few problems.

I'm thinking about having sibling and parent-child incest result in a nearly 100% chance of resulting in a baby that is a squib. That should make it something undesirable to pretty much every wizard/witch.

My Harry won't be the same as canon Harry. He'll share a few traits with canon Harry but his experiences in the wizarding world will take him down a different path.

As for why Elise wants him...at first her motivation will be a desire to monopolize Harry in the current plan. Before Harry came along Elise no one that cared for her as a person. All the adults around her saw a useful asset and looked no further. They would even throw insults at her for being a half-blood from time to time. The children she interacted with would be crueler in the way children can be especially the girls who were jealous of her ability. And then along comes Harry. He genuinely wants to know her and develop the sibling relationship they couldn't develop before. Elise can't help but cling to him with all her might. Harry is the one bright spot in Elise's life and she wants to bask in his affection. In the month before Hogwarts two those will only have each other as the Blacks will be displeased at having another half-blood to care for. Elise will be perfectly fine with that. She comes to accept that they only need each other. Thing will change a bit at Hogwarts as Harry will make other friends. Having to share Harry's time and affections will be infuriating for Elise.

Perhaps if she had made friends things wouldn't be so bad but she doesn't desire friends. To her there are only people that can be used, people of no worth, enemies to crush, and Harry. As they get older Elise's possessiveness will only grow. When Harry begins to show interest in other girls and even gets a girlfriend Elise simply is unable to accept it. There is a possibility that she may no longer be the most important person in Harry's life or even having to share that position with someone else sometime down the line. To prevent such a scenario from coming to pass she will destroy Harry's relationship with his girlfriend because she can't stand it. From there Elise will decide to seduce Harry. As long as Harry remains interested in her it is unlikely that anyone else will have a chance of becoming his girlfriend and Elise fully intends to keep his interest for the rest of their lives.

 

Any idea on when you'll start writing properly? And will you post here in the WbA?

 

Only in AU. The only inbred hicks we see in the books are the Gaunts and everyone sees them as hicks (hell knows, that might've contributed to TMR being nuttier than a squirrel's john, besides his childhood).

It's a bad idea to call any violation of sexual mores (which change) or deviation from the norm pathological.

So technically, it wouldn't be incest (since she isn't his sister).

At least consensual one...

 

You say that, but then you say this:

In which I never hear what Harry thinks of things. Yes, you did mention brief resistance in your earlier post, but this is all about Elise, don't you see?

So, does Harry never realize what happened? Does he just fall for her plan and never finds out? Is he strung about at her tune simply because manipulative!Blacks is a thing?

How is your Harry not a tool if he only has things happen to him?

You mention that once Elise manages to corner and seduce him once, his resistance crumbles because 'forbidden fruit' is a thing. That gets a resounding 'meh' from me.

It seems to me like you want Elise to be the protagonist, with Harry a very important supporting character. It also seems to me that this is a huge pitfall, because I don't think your Harry will be liked very much and he needs to be just as important if this is to work out.

 

Sounds like someone has been exchanging PMs with Sesc.

There's a fine line you have to walk with dark romance which is almost impossible to get right. The problem is this: dark romance involves making your protagonist feel weak, manipulated, powerless. This can work very well (see Umbridge) but only if the reader directs their hate in the right direction (at the manipulating character). But what happens more often is that the reader directs their hate at the author.

This is because they will only hate the character if they feel like the situation is realistic, like the events flow from the characters. For a reader, realistic means identifiable. If characters start acting in ways they can't identify with, the author will be perceived to be artificially arranging events. Realism is broken and the author gets blamed for all the misfortune which befalls the protagonist. Worse, as empathy is the feeling which underlies all fiction the reader will feel like the bad things happening to the character are happening to them... so you've ended up in a situation where the reader is feeling personally attacked by the author. It's stopped being a story. The narrative and characters have broken down to unveil an author caught red handed in the act of cheating.

This all flows from two connected reasons. Firstly, readers cannot identify with characters making what they feel are fundamentally stupid decisions, I.e. continuing a romance with a toxic individual.

Secondly it's very hard to convey in writing those factors which in real life lead to people enduring such relationships, foremost among them sheer physical, sexual attraction and the compromises that causes. Another is the memory of a time when things were good and the hope that they can be that good again. So you have to successfully convey the good times first, making the reader love the pairing, before its dark side emerges. That is difficult to do and even harder to maintain through a betrayal.

 

Odran, hard to say at the moment. I do have a bit of free time at the moment to work on the fanfic but there's a lot of fine tuning to do before I feel comfortable with releasing any chapters. I'm hoping to get the first chapter out sometime in mid-December but it's possible that work/personal matters can consume my free time causing some delays.

Republic, the reason why been given little information about Harry is mainly because I don't want to give out too many details about the story. With Elise I wanted to know if her reasoning for wanting to pursue Harry would stand up to scrutiny. Were that not the case this thread would not have been revived nor would I have revealed so much about her.

Taure, I haven't discussed any of my plans with him through PMs but he has influenced me quite a bit.

You're right. Such a romance does appear to be ridiculously difficult to write. I'm not even sure if it is within my ability to do it any justice. Part of my desire to do a more "normal" romance was because I can handle/develop it without as strong a chance of ruining it.

Making Elise identifiable, at least when she starts becoming twisted and dark, will probably be akin to zigzagging through a minefield. There are quite a few places where I can drop the ball such as when I attempt to transition Elise from someone that just feels jealousy over Harry having to share his time and affection with friends to someone willing to destroy Harry's relationships with his girlfriends.

It's impossible for me to disagree with your points. What little dark romances I've read have had one or both of those problems.

A dark romance will certainly be difficult to write. No doubt about that. We'll see if I can get it to work decently or if I crash and burn.

 

Just keep making sure the motivation makes sense. Characters going evil because of "ZOMG BLACK MAGIC/DARK SIDE" is the worst kind of bullshit there is.