#lily and the art of being sisyphus meta

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

Hi there, Sisyphus fan. I’m curious if there’s a reason for the change of death being uncle vs brother. The idea of brother puts him on much more equal footing with Lily and it’s a neat detail so I was curious

Anon's referring to The Heart of the World by me (@janedoewrites) and the original fic Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus.

And thank you! Glad you like it.

He's still referred to as "uncle" in the story, it's to make more explicit the fact that, as Elliott Tylor over there was born from the same alternate dimension parents, and raised in the same way, he's biologically more of a 'brother' than he is an 'uncle'.

It's to underline the "wow, we're kind of the same person, huh" that was more self-evident in the fic because we knew exactly where "Uncle Death" had come from and what he'd been doing.

[therealvinelle]

Odds of Tom starting a communist revolution if he was sorted into Hufflepuff ?

... I'm guessing this is a reference to @theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin's taken down fic Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus, in which our main character is living in Muggle Britain in 1985 and, on hearing about Lord Voldemort who led a violent political uprising, says "Ah, so like a communist!"

There's a running theme/joke in that fic of various incarnations of Tom Riddle being nicknamed for major Soviet figures (Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin), but the Tom Riddle of that fic was never actually a communist. He just gave up on correcting a stubborn five-year-old.

I for a series of reasons don't see Tom Riddle ever becoming a communist, in part because he grows up at a time where Bolsheviks are those dangerous lunatics who think everything is fine and dandy in Soviet Russia and we should do the same thing here, in part because I don't think the core tenets of communism would appeal to him in the slightest.

If the Wizarding World was susceptible to the ideology he might claim to be a comrade, but they famously already have their pureblood ideology so he doesn't have to go through the steps of creating class consciousness among wizards and inspiring a class war. Wizards who, having magic, can duplicate, summon, conjure, and transfigure what they like and as such lack the basic motivator for a class-based uprising, which is having nothing to lose and everything to gain. There's a reason why the French peasants rebelled and the modern working class doesn't even though the wealth distribution is even worse now, and that reason is living standards.

Better to use a pre-existing, readily accessible to wizards, ideology, even if he's to use something other than pureblood supremacy.

As for whether sorting would make a difference- honestly, so many things would factor in there that the best I can say is, "Write the fic!"

(Important note: Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus was taken down as Muffin wrote an original version of the book under the pseudonym Jane Doe @janedoewrites. Buy it here!)

[theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin]

Hey we have muffin in Tom Riddle’s time. What if instead you were born in 1980 as a witch (muggleborn or otherwise whichever you prefer)? How would you deal with the messes during your Hogwarts years?

Also thank you so much for all your fun metas and fics (which is how I found you - Lily and the art of being Sisyphus is still my fav) with @therealvinelle!

Oof, I don't think I would, to be honest.

Most of Harry's adventures are things he sticks his nose into that he really shouldn't be. (Especially first year/fifth year). As a rando side student it's not really my business and liable to get me killed. I think at most I'd try to interfere with the diary/prevent deaths and petrifications in 1992. Then of course I'd have the diary and no way to destroy it but I guess that's on me.

Otherwise, I stay out of Harry's way and probably drop out my seventh year if I'm able.

(And thank you!)

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

I've just finished Heart of The World and it was delightful! Frank the vampire minion and that mystery of his missing boss forever going unanswered is truly a tragedy.

I've not looked at any Lily and Sisyphus stuff but gathered Ilyn originated from Snape at some point in the development process. I truly enjoyed the "They put him in charge of children!?" realisation, but what had you decide he was going to be notorious as a warlord primarily for blowing things up with fire? Ilyn's hilarious retrieval mission blowing up cars, setting a house on fire, abducting a child and then not commenting on the most convenient portal you've ever seen form works brilliantly naturally, but when did you know that was the direction you were going?

Your remarkably nuanced handling of the very fraught political tensions among factions was very cool to see. It ends up making you feel bad for essentially everyone in some capacity (maybe not Questburger, he seemed like he was doing quite well for himself).

The Heart of the World (by me!) @janedoewrites

Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it so much! Really, this is very high praise indeed and I'm not only flattered but very glad to hear that I did what I set out to do successfully. (And yes, Questburger's done great for himself, at least so far.)

And that's a very interesting question.

So, Ilyn obviously started as a Snape counterpoint, same as Elizabeth is clearly what Hermione was, Theyn is clearly some mix of Dead Last and Neville, so on and so forth but he deviated in a large way very early/had that personality when he got introduced as a character in the first draft.

I don't think there was ever a draft where he hadn't set Lily's house on fire for no reason and was always this very taciturn/stoic/least talkative person you can ever find. @therealvinelle who helped with a lot of the editing maybe remembers better than I do but I think his characterization was set very early and the big surprise for me writing when it worked out and for her on editing is that he and Lily end the novel on very good terms.

I actually don't think characters changed that much in general between drafts. They changed a lot from the fic and in the outline for obvious reasons, the primary one being that they had different backgrounds now, different roles in the story, and that would inform who they were as people and how they best served the story but once they were decided on early in, they didn't change much in terms of personality. They've been very stable. The one who changed the most in a nitpicky manner was Lily herself who was made more... noble I suppose is the word for it in part of things happening or not happening to her in her youth, and being with the Tylors who are just absent versus the Dursleys who are present and awful. A lot of things about her and her lines changed between drafts and it took a bit to settle on just what her personality would be like with these changed circumstances and events.

But yeah, Ilyn's pretty much always been Ilyn, which is great because I love him and other people better like him because he's not going away any time soon.

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

Does Lily from the art of being I don't know how to spell that word love wizard lenin

Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus and the shameless plug of The Heart of the World which is the OG version of the first portion of the fic (more to come).

The short answer is yes.

Among other things, the story is about Lily's fundamental and unrelenting love for Tom Riddle in spite of everything. It's not really a romantic love (Trotsky has his... things, which is part of the reason it got the tag, but Lily's too young and Lenin doesn't see her that way for obvious reasons), but it is one the driving forces of the story and the main thread.

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

I just finished The Heart of the World, literally a day after receiving it. It's so good! I love the way that you reinterpreted the characters in the fic so that you can still see them in the characters of the book. I'm also intrigued by Death-who's-not-Lily.

I have a couple questions. First, how and why did you decide on Iff, Theyne, Wheyne, and Annde as the humans' names? Second, Lily doesn't really get along well with Snape, if I remember, so why does she get along with Ilyn now?

And finally, when is the next book coming out???

Oh my god, look at you go! Thank you, I'm very flattered and glad you enjoyed it.

And now, your questions.

The Names

So, a fun fact, I hate naming characters and things. It's generally not something I have that much interest in and am not that attached to. Sometimes, you get a really great name and you're never letting go of it for that character, and sometimes you could honestly call them "Boy with Stick" and be done with it.

I now needed a lot of names and I wanted readers at a glance to be able to know, generally, which character belonged to which group. Which meant I needed themes.

There's a hilarious anecdote to be told where @therealvinelle on editing, wanted to go all out and come up with real, non-existent, but believable names for characters where you can tell a whole lot about their society by naming them.

I, um, said "Uh, these people will have backwards common English names. And these people will have QWERTY keyboard smash names. And these ones... Fuck it, he'll be Questburger."

So as for the human nobility, Lily got her name first, as Iff, the idea being a stupid joke/pun that isn't funny on my end where "iff" in mathematics is short for "if and only if". What it gets at is that Lily, as we see her, is the product of a very particular chain of events, that we're in a very particular world, and that there's something to follow that "if and only if" that is integral but that we're currently missing.

But then I have to come up with names for everyone else. And so we got the House of Prepositions and Conjunctions. Very serious they are.

Theyn was next up, as the next central royal character, and his name has a similar "har har but not really because it's not that funny and kind of weird" theme to it where the idea is he's "then BLAH", you're always waiting on something to occur with Theyn, unwittingly passing over him for the more interesting context in the sentence. He's there to set up something else, and by himself feels incomplete/not that interesting. Poor poor Theyn, even the universe doesn't think he's interesting or important.

Annde was next as he's the next important character we meet from this background after Theyn. Similar joke with him, he's "And... And?" You're waiting for the rest of the sentence with him, you can't end a sentence on "and" nor can you start it on one. He's just there to fill the gaps, to not be that important, and oh look a spoiler.

Wheyn (the regent) was next and was in part because a) I needed a name b) he's a bit of an inevitability in the universe. When one has a shake-up in a monarchy that holds all the power/isn't a constitutional monarchy, there's always going to be backstabbing nonsense and power plays. Wheyn is an unimportant inevitability, one that shocks no one (except Theyn, poor Theyn) and the answer to "When blah happens expect rain".

Which leaves us with, I believe the last, Whye, Lily's father. Him it's a similar gag but three-fold. There's the "WHY?!?!?!?!" in that no one really understands why he gave up the throne, married a sun elf, and scandalized absolutely everybody. Then there's "why?" as Lily's reaction, she's ambivalent about her parents and not sure how she should feel about them, and shields herself from feelings of abandonment by telling herself she's indifferent. As a result, she tends to approach any information about her parents with a "why should I care?" and gets very uncomfortable when anyone brings either of them up (and there's also that every character so far has brought up Lily's mother much more than her father leading to that question of "why are we talking about him?") Then there's the fact that there's a question to be asked that implies he has some kind of an answer to it a "why?" drifting off out there somewhere in the backgrounds.

And that's all the human nobility from our fantasy universe so far. (Elizabeth is noticeably an Elizabeth and sticks out like a sore thumb.)

Lily and Ilyn

The short answer is that Snape and Ilyn are different people fundamentally. They're in similar roles, took similar actions for various reasons, but they're very different as people.

And that goes for a lot of the things in the book. Elements of the fic remained, and some elements of HP, but not as much as people probably suspect even with the things that are very clearly taken over (believe it or not, I would call Elizabeth and Hermione different).

As for the long answer, well, for other people read the book and I hope it's explained.

When Next Book?!

I'm flattered but I don't know yet. Have to write it then edit then cover art and all that jazz.

I'll let people know.

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

What would happen if Frank the vampire met the cullens. What would their thought on one another be.

Anon's referring to The Heart of the World (written by me @janedoewrites) or else the original fic version Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus.

Though the answer would depend what version we're talking about here. In the fic, Frank is a bit character, who really doesn't do much and isn't all that important in the story. More importantly, he has a bit of a different personality under the hood and a very different backstory.

He wouldn't have many thoughts on the Cullens. They're clearly not what he understands to be vampires, maybe have been cursed by some wizard to be what they are, and he supposes it's nice for them and all that they can eat animal blood and choose to prance around with the humans. Sure, guys, have fun.

In terms of the Cullens with Frank, they wouldn't think much either. Frank at a glance resembles most vampires they know of in the Twilight world. Not physically, he's very weak and has no great powers, but he eats people and even vampires who play at being gangsters isn't so far out of the norm. Sadly, Frank's pretty par for the course in Twilight, he's almost not worth commenting on.

When you're competing with the likes of Laurent from Versailles, Astaroth ne George the Conman Vampire, Boris the Fake Russian Bureaucrat, the entire Denali coven--nothing you can do will really make you stand out.

In terms of the novel version...

I imagine Frank would hold them in great contempt. The whole thing about Frank is that he views the night elves as a cursed clan who by their very nature are doomed to violence, murder, and cannibalism. Frank has decided to confront this by embracing it as much as possible, leaning into it as far as he can go, and being very up front about it. He gladly not only supports but effectively runs an institution out of the suffering and destruction of others because he knows he is "the bad guy". This isn't a good coping mechanism by any means but it's the one he's chosen and the one he feels spurred to take by his nostalgic extremely misplaced sense of nationalism.

He would view what the Cullens are doing, integrating into human society, pretending they're not man-eating demons, weakening themselves on animal blood, and telling themselves they don't have to eat sentient beings as avoiding a fundamental truth about the world and themselves that will (and does) inevitably end in bloodshed anyway when they unintentionally eat people then try to pretend that doesn't happen.

"You are a fucking man-eating demon, eat people," is what Frank's sentiment would be about all of this.

The Cullens in turn--

The thing is Frank's so contemptuous he wouldn't even hint as much to them. they're not even worth explaining this to, If Edward's hearing this, it's in Frank's thoughts, but it's also not the sort of thing Edward would be able to parse well. There's a lot of nuance there, and unfamiliar and unexpected philosophies, that I don't think Edward would recognize especially from a few stray thoughts.

I think they would view Frank as a typical, dubious, vampire who can't understand why the Cullens would waste away like monks and deprive themselves of the one pleasure in life.

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

Hellooo. Some time ago, I read a fanfic of yours where Lily appears in the Twilight world and starts killing vampires. What was the reason she was exterminating them for?

Anon's referring to this fic.

And this has been haunting you for years?

In that fic? It's because she was turned as a part of the newborn wars and so concluded that vampires are a bloodthirsty war mongering monstrous race and she was really really really pissed at being turned.

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

Does Lily being "The Death of this universe" mean that when she dies (takes the train) the rest of her universe dies too? Like a solipsism kind of thing, or is it just a title?

The Heart of the World by me (@janedoewrites)

Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus by me

That would be spoilers, anon.

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

So I was talking with a friend recently about HP fic and I was telling them about Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus (which, let me tell you, trying to explain the key points/moments of that fic from memory is both delightful and horrific in the best ways) and there was one thing I wasn't sure of when I was trying to remember how it ended - did Dumbledore tell Neville that Lily was a horcrux? I feel like I remember it being implied but I wasn't sure if it happened and if that was why Neville did the whole fiasco in the cave.

Yeah, it's a fic that uh... was hard for me to summarize (readers will remember I held a contest because the first summary was that bad).

As for your question, Lily as the narrator never finds out explicitly. What she notices is that Neville reports to having remedial Potions lessons, that he becomes standoffish and distant after second year, and that he later confesses to her that he knows about the horcruxs and Dumbledore's been preparing him to destroy them.

Then, Lily is murdered by Neville without fully understanding why.

Basically, behind the scenes, yes that's what happened. Neville was shown the memories of Tom Riddle, but instead of being prepared for destroying himself as a horcrux, he was told that Ellie Potter was a horcrux and no longer existed as a person. What he'd thought was his friend, by the time they hit second year and she clearly opened the Chamber of Secrets, had to have been fully taken over by Riddle.

Neville not only has to kill her to destroy Voldemort, doing so would be a mercy as Ellie's not at the wheel and hasn't been there in years.

Lily, of course, was not privy to all of that.

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

What would happen if Lily (Sisyphus) met Azrael (October)? Say, during Lily's mid-Hogwarts phase and sometime after Ubik's formation, maybe Azrael ends up in the train station when Lily is visiting Death?

Alternatively, what is Azrael was the version of Harry/Death that Lily met originally when she died the first time?

October and Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus (though anon's very late to the party on the latter as I took down the main fic for reasons).

Boy, do I have an Ao3 Series for You.

Azrael Shows Up

Well, mid-Hogwarts is... a little too vague for me to work with, honestly too vague, Lily's characterization changes a lot depending exactly what it is.

Though, honestly, I don't really have much to say.

In both cases I don't think Azrael would do much of anything except judge everyone. Azrael's significantly younger than Lily's Death in terms of life experiences and has yet to learn to actually back off. He's still very attached to the idea of having once been Harry Potter and very much in the mindset of "I should have done X differently".

In other words, he will not be able to take Lily, who is actively aiding Tom Riddle, sitting down in the way that Death can.

Lily would not like the man as he proceeds to tell her what to do when, from what she can tell, he did a poor job of it himself.

In terms of where she meets him first, we'd get something similar where Lily would likely cut off contact sooner/more thoroughly as he'd make it very clear cut she should not be aiding Wizard Lenin in a way even Uncle Death doesn't (who was sort of :/ about the whole thing but didn't really push any buttons). Azrael would be very firm on telling Lily who she can be friends with (Ron?????), what she should be doing, and trying not to act disappointed (but sort of doing it anyway) when she doesn't do those things.

But he wouldn't really get up to much.

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

What would Frank think of Spike?

I assume this is Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus or else The Heart of the World (by me, @janedoewrites)

We've touched a bit on Frank before and that weirdly they are very different despite the similar roles in the fic and the book.

So this gets a similar "depends which version, yo"

Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus

Frank would mostly just be raising his eyebrows thinking "kids today" as Spike embodies the ideal of a young punk who just wants to get into murdery trouble with absolutely no grand plan.

Buffy vampires are of course very different than what I assumed vampires were in an HP setting, but Frank would mostly just view Spike as generally unhelpful to absolutely everyone trying to make it by.

Worse, he's clever, so you know it's not just him being stupid. He just wants to be a pain for everyone.

Frank chooses not to associate with him.

The Heart of the World

Frank here would be much more "get off my lawn" in a very forceful manner. He has his enterprise going, he likes the way it's going, he has spent a long time building this up and has made any inroads into places he wants to go. He will not have Spike running around, eating people, and fucking this up for him.

Spike can do that anywhere else, literally anywhere else, far away from Frank and be useless and provocative elsewhere!

Frank is tired of this bullshit and doesn't need it.

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

What if Harry had Ellie/Lily’s powers?

Anon's referring to Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus (currently offline for reasons I won't get into)

And that's kind of the premise of the fic, anon. There is a parallel world to Ellie Potter's in which Harry Potter has the same or near the same power, he just didn't realize it out of a willful blindness as well as a dash of stupidity.

If Harry Potter had the same level of powers, he wouldn't know it, because the only spell Harry can think to use is Expelliarmus.

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

i dont know if this has been asked before, but is October a continuation of Lily and the art of being a sisyphus? like “lily” at some point in time after taking the train, goes back to see tom?

Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus and October.

Actually, haven't gotten this one before but the answer is no.

It's more a parallel universe than anything else as Uncle Death is both older and probably even at the stage of life Azrael's currently in was uh quite different personality wise. Similarly, Azrael is not Lily nor her state of mind after taking the train (obviously we're not getting this far in the fic but she's... not doing great emotionally and weird shit happens next).

Azrael is essentially a younger Master of Death, out of the box Harry Potter, than Uncle Death is who is missing a few key life experiences that Uncle Death had that made him who he is with Lily.

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

just want to say I find it hilarious that tom from man who would be king and diary tom from Lily and the art of Sisyphus somehow came up with the same backstory of calling both lilys their cousin. Out of everything, he relegates to calling women his cousin as a form of connection, oh my god. Like is this a backstory that tom has on hand or what lol

The Man Who Would Be King by me and @therealvinelle and Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus by me.

Honestly? Yes, that is the backstory he has on hand.

Tom's mother died in childbirth in the orphanage, as a result, he cannot have a younger sibling. In both stories, the women in question were younger than he was. This means a sibling's out of the question.

On the other hand, his uncle Morfin survived for longer, was a known scum bag, and it's not entirely implausible that he went around having sexual relations with Muggles (in Lily Evans' case) or whoever (in Ellie Potter's case).

That's about where the reasoning diverges though.

In Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus, Trotsky wants to be closer to Lily than anyone else and cement the relationship they don't have. He needed her to be physically and emotionally dependent on him, which is why he turned her into his 'cousin' as she was too young to be anything else. He does it entirely for emotional manipulation purposes.

In The Man Who Would Be King, Tom finds himself in a position where he has to out Lily without her dying. If he claims she's his secret wife, then why did he pimp her out to James Potter and YOU MEAN HE MARRIED A MUDBLOOD?! If she's his sister, why is she so much younger? Making her Morfin's daughter points to a very plausible origin, gives reason for why Lily would attend Hogwarts as a muggleborn not knowing she was a halfblood, gives reason for why Tom himself would be ignorant until his actions drastically changed (e.g. Godric's Hollow), and stops anyone from readily killing her. It's a believable excuse of why he'd suddenly have her around and want neither her nor Harry Potter dead.

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

do you not want questions on lily and the art of being a sisyphus now that heart of the world is out?

I'll answer if they're in good faith.

Though really, I know my opinion doesn't count, but the book is actually better.