Thank you.

Hahaha, that was mean! I wonder what that silver sphere was, and why you cut it.

It is weird, how this story is in aspects more horrifying than Bluer Shade of White, yet in others it is the reverse.

Adored it.

I read many less or more dark Christmas tales, but this takes cake. Maybe not most brutal, but certainly interesting.

Interesting

This is the strangest utility function...

Clever little story. Could have been pushed a further

But, yeah; Xiu Yang asks "Santa?" Or, more specifically, "Old man Christmas?" (Chinese version of Father Christmas).

I like the non-reproducing immortal entities, but why in the world aren't the elves going to help people? And how did they manage to separate CS from Santa's happiness?

I guess the elves take longer to learn things, especially since they aren't used to free will, so usually if they only live until 60 none of them live long enough to think much about CS.

Why aren't they having kids anymore? I know it isn't necessary, but do they just not want kids?

Actually, scratch that - I don't like the immortals; they're scary. They've seen the Rwandan Genocide and they still won't help the children even though it might happen again. And now they're immortal and likely can't be killed and are scarily overpowered.

Dear Daniel LC,
In case you missed it in the story, and were incapable of figuring it out through her name, Li Xiu Yang is Chinese. Not Japanese. Her name is not in romanji because romanji does not exist in China; her name is in pin yin. And her words are in characters, or Han Zi. Not "kanji" because, once again, that doesn't exist in China. Don't pretend you understand Asian languages; it's offensive.

Why do I read these things at one in the morning? Why oh why do I listen to Eliezer Yudkowsky?! I don't think I'm going to sleep tonight.

Very interesting fic by the way. Great concept, could have been drawn out more, it seemed a bit rushed, but well executed.

awesome story.

In case anyone's wondering, Li Xiu Yang said "Santa Claus?" There's a trick involving Inspect Element that can be used to copy text from .

Why is her name in romaji, but her question in kanji?

I find it odd that Charles can't guess which toys are backups. It seems pretty obvious to me. It's all of them.

That's incredibly awesome.

In the last chapter, there is text which is not in English. I'm not going to pretend I can understand it, which is why I rely on Google Translate. Unfortunately, this website does not allow me to copy/paste text.

I'm fairly certain the text is something innocuous like "Santa Claus" or "What's going on," but there is a part of me that is required to think it might be the one phrase or word that explains the entire ending. And so, because copy/paste restrictions are only clever enough to stop the very elderly - I'm off to go find out.

I'm just annoyed at FF for making it such an effort.

(Interesting story btw!)

I'm getting very hopeful that this isn't marked complete. This just screams for an epilogue!

This will either destroy the world or the elves have evolved enough to know common sense and actually get it right.