Title: Masters of Death
Author: Ruskbyte
Rating: M
Genre: General
Pairing: Harry/OC
Words: 15,394
Published: July 4, 2009
Status: Complete
Link: Fanfic Authors
FF.NET

A sort of twisted alternate of Something Grim This Way Comes. Where I assume Amanda has successfully corrupted Harry to her way of thinking. Dark but lulzy, with great characterization, especially with regards to the Malfoys. It was very refreshing to see a Lucius that was not 'Rawr! Mudbloods! Kill!' Although the fact that Harry and Amanda are having sex at the age of eleven was kind of weird...

Overall, not quite as well-written as Evil Be Thou My Good, but still an excellent read. 4/5 for me.



Checked by Minion, June 20, 2013

 

Can I get a link for evil be thou my good?

 

:| You lazy motherfucker.

http://tinyurl.com/ktfweg

 

I enjoyed this fic a lot. I've always liked the Final Destination movies, and Ruskbyte wrote the scenes with death very well. I'd like to see this expanded, but I'm not too optimistic that it'll happen.


Evil Be Thou My Good

 

Rusk sure likes to break some barriers.

Harry and the other just REEKED of Mary-Sue. The fic had a couple of points that annoyed me, but got better the further it progressed. And it was nice to read some multi-dimensional characters for once.

It's a intresting mix of ideas. It could work very well, or it could stay always a bit awkward. Too early to say.

For now, I'd rate it 4/5. And I'm definitely looking forward to the next chapters.

 

Isn't it complete? There can't be any new chapters.

4/5

 

5/5, easily. Really enjoyed this, just as I did with Something Grim This Way Comes.

It's much less of a blatant crossover than Something Grim, only Mandy and the 'enslaved' Death are brought in, as well as the obvious influence of Final Destination. Frankly, this is a fantastic piece of Fanfiction and it further cements Ruskbyte as one of my favourite, if sometimes absent, authors.

Yes, I suppose that it could be said that Harry and Amanda were a little Sue-ish, and if this were continued we probably wouldn't see all too much in the way of difficulty for the pair. Despite that, I wouldn't have this any other way. It was an absolute pleasure to read and I liked the characters. It's not perfect (the Hat's rather convenient knowledge stretched my patience a little) but I've yet to see a perfect fic.

Possibly the only real issue I had with this new Fanfic was when I first saw it, I thought it would sound out the death knell of Culture Shock.

Thank god.

Off-topic: I've never actually seen Final Destination, is it just another Hollywood horror flick with a clever The Omen-esque gimmick? Or is it, you know, good?

 

Hated it.

Grim was funny, it was why he got away with the rampant chaos in that fic. But this is just two mary sue teens in young bodies acting badass for the sake of it and pissing me off at the stupidity.

1/5 and If I could go lower I would.

 

This was unexpected. I re-read Something Grim before reading this and I'm not sure which I preferred. The first was much more parody and humorous, fitting the cartoon well. This was all dark and foreboding but once it got going, it really sucked me in. I'd love to see this carried further to some sort of conclusion, but I'm not sure what. They do have basically unmatchable power thanks to their "friend" but they're not what I'd call Mary Sues.

I know it's a one-shot and it's done, but I think I'd like to see both the Hallows and the Voldemort issues put to rest rather than just hinted at. Very nicely written, and well worth a read but in the end it's not quite satisfying.

I'm also completely overlooking the concept of stable, mature, sex-crazed lovers who are barely eleven. It's too ludicrous a point to debate.

4/5 that I'd likely round up if Ruskbyte ever took this one to a better conclusion.

Considering you liked this fic so much, I'd say definitely check out the movie. It's cheesy fun elaborate gory deaths and entertaining to watch unfold. The sequels add basically nothing to the first movie, but have some entertaining moments as well. Slasher films have killers and antagonists... Final Destination is just death claiming folks who "cheated" death in Rube Goldberg-esque ways.

 

3/5 It was nothing special.

 

It was entertaining, to say the least. I sort of like the concept of ruthless, cold individuals with death at their command, and the idea of the underage sex doesn't really bother me at all for some reason. The idea seems plausible in concept, with both his defense in the author's note and the general conception of American culture, and likely more so with some elaboration, and the idea adds a bit of depth to their character in the hedonistic tone it adds to the story. It takes a special kind of nihilist to dismiss death and use it as a tool and an amusement at the age of eleven, and I think that the idea of mindless sex and indulgence emphasizing that point in a rather humorous and visceral way. It also adds a certain soulless maturity to their interactions and lead to several laughs at both their responses to the situation and the apparent absurdity of it to begin with. The characters certainly aren't Mary Sues, given the depth of their thought process and characters, with great potential for development are further complexity. So he characterizations were good, the deaths amusing, the humor entertaining, and the implacably dark atmosphere engaging. I'm tempted to say that this is just great Ruskbyte work as usual, but there's one aspect of it that bothers me, that's been pointed out in this thread before.

While I'm fine with the idea of Super!Harry, it is actually one of my favorite genres to read casually, it's tricky to execute properly since all too often Harry falls into the rut of mindlessly abusing his powers in either the confidence that he will never be caught for whatever reason or that no one can stop him if he does. At this, it's still perfectly fine if Harry has some justifying motivation or mentality, as Ruskbyte executes wonderfully in From the Abyss. But the fact is, in this story Harry mindlessly abuses his power with Mandy without any real justification. The episode with Draco I both understood and enjoyed; Draco deeply offended him through blatant disrespect for someone Harry cared for, and so Harry punished him for his transgression. Fine. The subsequent death of Lucius was fine as well, since it is not only the logical continuation but reasonable given the apparent level of the offense.

But the death of Snape? While it worked nicely to round out the trifecta, Snape mildly insulted him, offered mostly respect for Amanda with a slight insinuation, and then he jumps straight to the trigger and kills him even after the pair agreed to use their power subtly in a foreign environment. At this point his character goes from entertaining and slightly reckless to downright retarded. It wasn't even as if Snape presented any obvious challenge to either himself or Amanda, and it would have been much more sensible and thoughtful, as well as reflective of his confidence, to try to either outplay Snape or bring him to their side. Not only that, the immediate, personal consequences of killing not only a head of house but also a professor seem as if they should be considered thoroughly before moving directly to action.

While the story as a whole was good, that moment simply threw off the atmosphere of the entire story and almost ruined it for me. The ending redeemed it slightly, not only opening it end but also demonstrating a flicker of that clever, planning personality that I feel is almost integral to properly writing this genre that was so gratuitously cast aside in Harry's decision to kill Snape.

My final verdict (eg. tl;dr) is that it was overall an enjoyable story with good elements despite a rare major characterization flaw on Ruskbyte's part. There is, however, great promise for improvement should he continue this story and continue to develop the subtlety that Harry displays at the beginning and end in spite of the fact that he momentarily shows a certain incapability for it. Regret for the decision would perhaps be a caveat as well.

I would give it a promising 3.5/5, rounded up to a 4/5 purely for the enjoyment of reading it, with the potential to be amazing given further development. But, I doubt that it will ever be continued and improved, so I think that in the end this will remain one of Ruskbyte's lesser, but nonetheless good, works.

 

I'll give it a 5/5 since it's only a oneshot. This should be considered the opposite side of the coin to "Something Grim This Way Comes", but still the same coin. All things considered, it's a dark humor fic and nothing more. If Ruskbyte intended to turn this into mulichapters, then the rating would go down... unless any subsquent deaths become more entertaining anyway.

 

I wasn't able to follow through on the logic behind some of Harry's actions. Why kill Snape or Lucius? The former didn't do much and the latter was busy grieving for his son.

 

Snape was understandable, as rusk said, everyone in the common room knew that he'd effectively given everyone the green light to pick on Harry and Amanda. Killing Lucius on the other hand struck me as odd. Rusk redeemed his character in many ways, made him seem more human than most authors every try to. So killing him seemed to go against the grain, but then it is his story.

Their high level of knowledge both about Horcruxes and magic also struck me as odd. The hallows was understandable, after all, they had enslaved death (though perhaps if the existence of the hallows was acknowledged, then the Grim Reaper should have had a corporeal form as mentioned (I think) in the Tales of Beedle the Bard.) Silencing, obscuring and locking doors and windows without wands as eleven year olds... that's just off...

The less mentioned about their sex lives the better. They're 11 and seem so comfortable with each other (and so damned horny) that they must at least have been buggering each other for a year. 10 year olds having sex is seriously a disgusting thought.

The story was, however, very well written. There was just about the perfect amount of description, enough to get you hooked into Rusk's universe, not so much that you get bored. The sequence of events leading up to the deaths were also highly entertaining and well done.

3.5/5 (rounded down because of the sex)

 

Using his mom to justify wanking to 11-year olds fucking was extremely transparent - and gay.

The characterization of Death was pretty damned awesome, top marks. Plotwise, it was a fairly predictable tale, and the other characters seemed...stale. Won't work as anything more than a one-shot, IMO. 3/5

 

No plot what so ever, but as usual Ruskbytes writing has that exquisite erie feeling that so few authors manage to create.

4/5 for me, would of been 5/5 if there had been a plot.

Edit: yeah, one shot please.

 

I couldn't get into it. It wasn't the natural born killers-esque fucking/killing behaviour in 11 year olds that got me, it was the lack of resolution to the story.

It was like, okay so they have power over death, okay they like having sex, alot, and sure they like to kill people. Now what? It seemed more like half a one-shot then a completed one-shot.

I felt like I read more about cold emotionless eyes and raging libido's and not so subtle hints about their sex life than I did about anything resembling plot. I'd like to see some kind of resolution even if it's 10 years later, or better yet, at their funerals, since they seem like a bunch of smarmy little sues.

I'd give it a 2/5 just because I didn't really like it, but then, it was decently written and better than anything else out atm there so i'll give it 3/5.

 

As a character exploration, it was great and I loved it. As a Ruskbyte story, it was, of course, well-written. As a standalone piece? I'm not sure how well it works.

 

I give it a 4/5. The way Russ wrote Death in the midst of Harry and Amanda was great, and he captured the feel of Final Destination.


If only he made this into a series then I'd gladly rate the one shot to a 5/5.