Title: Accio Butterflies

Author: tearlessNevermore

Rating: T

Genre: ... Slice of Life?

Status: WIP

Library Category: General

Pairings: None.

Summary: Dropped alone in a world of magic that seems strangely familiar, I must take up arms to save the day-or I could just tell Dumbledore and let him deal with it? Yeah, I prefer that idea. A Harry Potter Self-Insert fic.

Link: https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/accio-butterflies-harry-potter-self-insert.657261/

(I couldn't find the for-review board anymore so just dropping it here.)

This fic is something I discovered recently and binged all 17 chapters in a day. The story hook is incredibly fascinating - the MC purchases a new shop in the wizarding world, in media res - and it's just very entertaining to read a perspective of the wizarding world that isn't a main character trying to solve all the problems of the world.

There are a few warning flags that DLP may dislike (or may not, given the general opinion towards that Fem!H/SS fic): It's an SI, the SI is genderfluid and has a learning disability, and it's closer to a collection of snippets than any specific plot.

It's an SB fic so use reader mode.

 

It's not the best fics ever, but it has some really good things going for it.

The characters are well written and the magic manages to stay close to the canon. It doesn't waste its time with 7 years of Hogwarts education where you never get to even the second year, instead presenting the most important events and moving on.

The main character doesn't try to act save the world on their own, aware of their limitations.

I really like their friendship with Dumbledore. This kind of relationship is something I would like to read in a fic with Harry as the main character, though for that to happen it probably would need to be a time travel one.

It is a SI fic though and not everyone likes these even if they manage to avoid becoming obvious Mary Sues. For now I would give it 3.5/5 for what it is, and round it to 4/5, if only because it manages to keep daily updates with a reasonable quality of writing.

 

I give this a 4/5. The writing is done well, it has a consistent, mildly interesting plot, and has me invested in the characters. That said, the plot leaves much to be desired. It's pretty bland, nothing earth-shattering, dramatic, or comedic really happens. It's a good character piece, I think, but not super good as an actual story. But what it does do, it does well.

 

I briefly discussed this fic on irc with Zombie. I gave it a try, it was mostly bland, a little wooden to read and the SI having autism didn't help. I quit before any genderfluid nonsense, thank god.

2/5.

 

Well, technically you didn't. The SI is never referred to using male or female pronouns, not even in the first chapter. It's something that was never brought up by the author or even mentioned in-story. It was pointed out by a reader and the author confirmed it after a thread discussion.

Yes, you read that correctly. The topic was never mentioned in-story. That, along with no mention of what Hogwarts house the SI is in and their friendship with Dumbledore (they are on first name terms) are major red flags.

The final kicker for me was the SI revealing their SI status to Dumbledore. That's one of my pet peeves in fanfiction.

2/5.

 

It's mildly amusing, and I enjoy the updates. I don't notice many errors with the writing, but the timeline jumps can be mildly confusing if you aren't paying attention - for the most part, the story is just fast-tracking through Hogwarts, but you need to actually read properly to figure out what year Poe's in.

Like others, the gender neutral thing threw me a bit. I have no issues seeing it, but everyone in-story just accepts the fact they should refer to Poe as 'they', which was pointed out (in-thread) as not being exactly consistent with Muggle 90s. It was noticeable enough that people had commented on it several times, so an explanation would have been appreciated, but at the same time it's the author's business, and I don't care that much. Also, 'hiding' Poe's house was stupid, and clunky. For example, at one point, Snape says "twenty points to your house", which doesn't mesh well with how points worked in canon.

Also, as someone else pointed out, Poe has no interest in joining in with canon. We had maybe one or two scenes with H/Hr/R included, but they've been quite happy to just let Dumbledore deal with everything. And their Dumbledore is pretty good - not infallible, but someone who comes across as a teacher who likes being a teacher, not a spymaster extraordinaire.

Poe is good at magic, especially for their age. But they practice a lot, because the Autism means they're starting from behind, and Poe just never gets out the habit of working hard. Normally, this would be pretty bad - taking what's called in-text as a "developmental disorder" and turning it into a superpower. For once, this actually does seem to have a negative impact on the SI: they make small mistakes with social interactions, and we are shown the effort they have to put in to get things to work.

And I think that sums up the fic, really. The author seems to know a lot of common pitfalls, and is doing their best to avoid them. But whilst "don't do shit things" is enough to stop your fic being terrible, it doesn't make what you've written anything excellent by itself.

The fic has issues, but I couldn't call it bad. 3.5/5, rounded up to 4/5.

 

Hell, it isn’t consistent today unless you’re on the internet.

 

Every time someone refers to the main character as “they” I have to reread the damn sentence because I thought I misread something.

 

Not a big fan. The school life really drags down what could have been an interesting look at adult wizard life. I will give points for the magic and effort involved, but the sheer effort the writer used to mask so many things for literally no reason really turned me off. 2/5