Title: Iris Potter and the Goblet's Surprise
Author: Autumn Souls
Rating: M
Status: WIP (55k words)
Library Category: Alternates
Pairing: Fem!Harry/Fleur
Summary: Iris Potter, the Girl-Who-Lived, gets thrown into the Tri-Wizard Tournament. Seeing the signs of a storm on the horizon, she sets herself on a new path. Featuring the beginning to a morally ambiguous and powerful fem!Harry, a new take on Ancient Runes, animagus transformations, five mostly unique tasks, and a good amount of humor. No bashing. First of a multi-part series.
Link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12568760/1/Iris-Potter-and-the-Goblet-s-Surprise

Fem!Harry AU which starts in medias res during GoF.

Particular positives:

- The friendship dynamic between Iris and Hermione.

- Iris' sexuality having some social complexity to it, without it turning into angst or bashing.

- Albus Dumbledore has a decent, if slightly absurdist, characterisation

- Iris being talented and exploring magic more.

- The humour is decent (but see below)

- Encouraging author's note at the start of the fic outlining the shitty tropes that are not being used in the fic

Problems:

- The humour is excessive to the point that the fic has a somewhat crack-like tone to it from the pervasiveness of comedic elements. I think the author intends to tone the comedy down soon, however.

- Though not a problem so far, the author may end up fellating Ancient Runes to the expense of other magic.

I think this fic has potential to be either a 3 or a 4, depending on how the author handles the tonal shift away from so much comedy. So I would call it a 3.5/5 at the moment, which I shall round up to 4.

 

I'm only on chapter two but I agree with the over the top humour. I feel it could easily be translated into an internal monologue instead of saying it out loud and feel more reasonable. It is funny though even if it diminishes the rest of the story.

---------- Post automerged 12th Aug 2017 at 00:52 ---------- Previous post was 11th Aug 2017 at 23:21 ----------

I don't like the animagus path at all. It feels convoluted for the sake of convoluted and not very magical. I am as a whole liking the story though.

 

Is there a reason why the author changed Harry gender?
I stay away from this kind of stories mostly.

 

Because it's fanfic and you can write whatever the Hell you like.

 

This reminds me of another fic, Measure for Measure. I forget if that one is in the Library or not, but Iris reminds me of that Harry because they both just happen to be totally bonkers and everyone just wearily puts up with it. That unfortunately seems to be most of the story so far, so I'd say 2.5/5, not sure which way to round yet.

 

fem!Harry seems to be the current fad. I'm not sure if it's indicative of the large amount of female writers wanting a female protagonist, or if it's a shift away from the normal Hermione wank, or perhaps something else entiretly. Either way, I've noticed either a massive amount of fem!Harry fics recently, or perhaps it's simply being recommended a lot more recently.

For me, it really has to be done for the right reason, and that's rarely the case. When the reason is because of a pairing, that's not the right reason. I'll give this story a fair shot, but a lot of what Taure wrote in his review isn't giving me high hopes, so I guess I'll have to hope the rune wank is really minimal. Fem!Harry/Fleur is of some interest to me I guess, so it's still Harry/Fleur and if I'm investing in the main character and there is a pairing, I would rather it be with a female since that makes it marginally more relatable due do how arbitrary genderswapping usually is.

 

I just read an entire chapter about buying a wand holster, changing the colour of Iris's wand and giving it a gem at the base, and buying enchanted rings that function like "find my iPhone". And entire chapter. Tell me why I should keep reading.

 

I was turned off by the interaction across the Great Hall before she even reached the other Champions.

 

I read this, and I enjoyed it. Taure is pretty much spot on with the pros and cons, so there's not much left for me to add. While it was good, the levity became a bit overbearing at times and Iris's tendencies to be a smart-ass were hit or miss for the most part. 3/5.

 

It's... not horrible. Iris is a little shit, but the dialogue is actually fairly accurate for fourteen year olds acting like fourteen year olds.

I mean typically most fourteen year old girls aren't nearly that obsessed with sex, so that does ring a little false.

That being said, when Iris isn't mouthing off, it's not half bad at all. In fact, the first half of chapter 2 was so much better than everything preceding it that I actually wondered if it wasn't like a TV Pilot - written and filmed 6 months before the rest of the show.

Plus seeing Iris get shut the fuck down is incredibly satisfying, and it happens with sufficient regularity that I'm convinced that Iris is actually supposed to be a little shit, and that's rare enough to be worthy of note, and indicative of character growth.

 

Read this one when it was posted last on the subreddit, and considered posting it here for review, but I don't see this getting any better than a decent time waster.

The author captures Dumbledore's whimsical side well, and even pokes fun at that overused eye twinkling trope. I'm half hoping they have somebody laugh mercilessly at a menacing death eater "turning on their heel".

But I digress - beyond the whimsy, this Dumbledore is not impressive at all. He's a nice grandpa. I suppose that's better than the caricature of the manipulative Dumbledore we all know and love...

Hermione was more annoying than anything else. Ron is more of a buffoon than usual. The swearing really is over the top.

AutumnSouls mentioned that Iris' animal form will have the ability to grow the more time she spends in it, and that it will be used extensively. At present, I find the alternative approach refreshing (at least that removes the "transfiguration prodigy" requirement), but beyond that, I will reserve judgement.

This is DLP-lite, and it doesn't presume to be grander than it is. It reads like what Harry Potter would have been like were it hosted on the CW, which isn't automatically a bad thing.

2.5/5, with the potential for more, but I would not be disappointed if not. I enjoyed reading this, in spite of all it's flaws.

 

Just read this for the first time. Overall, I found it to be a decent time-waster.

I'll admit to being guilty of enjoying a few things, namely: Fem-Harry's acerbic wit, (though this does go a tad too far sometimes)

Spoiler

Accusing Snape of Pedophilia was both incredibly jarring & disturbing

the scene in the chamber room after the Champions are selected (I'm a sucker for a Harry with a backbone) and at least an attempt at a somewhat complex personality for the main character (though it truly is debatable if a character's sexuality being different from the majority is enough to qualify as being 'complex').

Fic shows signs of it being a Super!Harry (Cor blimey mate, a Patronus at thirteen!) which, whilst an early warning sign for me personally, can be tolerable if done artfully. Too early to tell.

The author does a passable attempt at Dumbledore, though some scenes, such as

Spoiler

Dumbledore's monologue about Fem-Harry going on a shopping spree

ruined him for me.

Tentatively give this a 3/5 for now, with the potential for revision later.

 

I don't have very high hopes for this story. In places, the dialogue is quite sluggish (Dumbledore's monologue before the shopping trip), and Skeeter's articles seem off in tone. Further, there is a constant theme of bringing up abuse at the Dursleys and exaggerating it. Going by the references to a patronus at 13, I can only expect this to become a super!Iris sort of story. 3/5 for now, but the author has quite a few pitfalls to avoid.

 

I'm liking it, the character is fun. I miss fun stories.

 

I think the tl;dr here is that it's a quintessential guilty pleasure fic. It's no Pureblood Pretense, which is undoubtedly the best fem-Harry series of fics I've ever read. The latter is an Alanna the Lioness take on Harry Potter and it's fantastically interesting. While it's at times cliche with its magical theory, it always feels organic and in service to establishing a fundamentally different world. In all honesty, I should probably submit it for review on its own.

 

You're joking, right? ... right?

 

Did anyone else look through the author's favourites? No such thing as bad taste and what have you, but it does explain a thing or two.

 

Not at all! I take it you're not a fan? I'm actually re-reading it now, I adore the series. Though in large part that's partly out of nostalgia for the Tamora Pierce novels I read as a child.

I mean there are precious few fem!Harry fics that are out there and remotely readable. Taure's Alexandra Potter, this fic, the Pureblood Pretense. Probably a number of others that I can't remember right now.

This fic is somewhere towards the bottom of the list of readable female Harry fics, Alexandra Potter somewhere towards the middle, and the admittedly very AU Pureblood Pretense unquestionably at the top.

 

I've read the half of the first year so far. And I'm stuck because this fic is mind-numbingly boring. It has the same two bits of "drama" repeated ad nauseam (hiding gender, which of course is a core part and sucking at spellcasting, which is terribly annoying), it doesn't do anything interesting with potions, which are supposed to be important, actually, it doesn't do anything interesting. No wonder, that it ended up in the Trash bin.

EDIT to be on-topic: Tried to read this because of the intro, but everybody just rolling with Iris' behaviour made me close the fic in the middle of the first chapter.

 

A Long Journey Home and Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus (+sidefics) are the best female Harry stories.