Been lurking around these forums for a while now, so I figured I might as well post a fic I just read that I haven't been able to find posted before on here.

Title: The Toy Collector
Author: lightblue-Nymphadora
Rating: T
Genre: Suspense/Drama
Library Category: The Alternates
Pairing: Harry/Tonks
Status: Complete (about 11,000 words)
Summary: Harry and Tonks race to find a witch who is using Dark Magic to turn children into toys.
Link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7374045/1/The-Toy-Collector

The story appears takes place well past the end of the series, but it also takes place in an alternate universe where a lot of things are changed from canon, so keep that in mind when reading this.

In my opinion, this fic is actually quite enjoyable, reading much like a thriller novel. There's no visible grammar or spelling mistakes that I can see, and there's thankfully a lack of really annoying tropes like ancient houses and magical cores that normally ruin a lot of modern fanfiction. Definitely not an all time fic or anything, but something fun to sit down with if you're looking for a quick read.

I had a few other thoughts about the story, but they're pretty spoiler heavy with regards to plot points, so I'll leave them in a spoiler tag here:

Spoiler

The pairings in this fic are a bit weird and jarring at first (Ron and Pansy, Tonks and Harry, Hermione and George), and there's people alive that shouldn't be (Fred and Tonks), but these changes aren't terribly obtrusive beyond just being jarring when you first see them. Also, there's pieces of magic like "time sorcery" and "appearance distortion rituals" that aren't really mentioned in canon at all, but they don't take away from the story that much. My main issue with the story is how the villain just gave herself up for basically no reason and gave up the children to be reverted back to normal when they were so hellbent on "preserving their purity" or whatever and how it comes to a stop so abruptly as a result with little to no explanation as to why she does that. I still enjoyed the story though and it's one of the better fics I've read lately that I haven't already stumbled across around here.

3/5 on this fic, seems perfect for almost recommended

Edit: Link fixed. -Sesc

 

So I will give it a few points, for both being concise and technically sound.
But it's a large drabble and it shows it. Cool ideas are implemented, but the point of the story is missing. The emotional Arc of the story is less a roller coaster and more of a session of bumper cars. It leads up to a good confrontation, then abandons it for another subplot before it then goes back and tries to reverse justification for the second subplot.
Then it adds a flashback before a family scene?
So while I don't know what the author was trying to accomplish, they got a complete story that is concise and competently written. If the overall structure was repaired, it likely would make it almost good. As it stands a true 2/5, barely recommended.
Also, you linked to chapter 3.

 

Sorry, I had chapter 3 open to double check the pairings under the spoiler tag to make sure I had them right, fixed now. I definitely agree that it doesn't have as much heft as it should considering the buildup and ensuing events, but maybe my standards are also marred by how absolutely terrible so much of what is out there today is.

 

The link still leads to chapter 3 (even with /1/ written. Weird)

The mystery is nice but random new elements are annoying in a mystery story (to me at least), like that Time Sorceress thing or the Hogwarts village. The story as a whole has a lot of problems, however.

Style-wise, it reads like a 3rd-party account, there is basically no context nor emotion. Case in point: Ron. He had his daughter kidnapped, but the only emotional reaction is "he paced", I still thought he was one of the Aurors for most of the scene. I don't mind the different pairings, they're not relevant to the story, but things like Ron being a sculptor should be explained the second the letter calls him "artist".

Also I tend to dislike that the real investigator is that Seekins OC instead of the PoV character, because you don't see anything about his thought process. Well, actually the story is so dialogue-heavy you don't know anything about anyone's thought process so that wouldn't change much.

Structure-wise, Littlelucario is right that it lacks the element of motivation. Why was the witch doing that? Why did she stop? Why wasn't she bothered the Aurors reversed her work? No idea. Her reaction to the Seekins trap suggests she acts on impulse (she sees a kid and wants to "preserve" them), but she's much too organised for that.

There are also several slight inconsistencies, too: if she only intended to take Teddy and not James, why did the previous letter mention the two of them with the capitalization thing? When they find the first collection in chapter 1, the witch says she took her favourites with her. They only find the new kidnappees and nobody worries about that. Little things, but details are the meat of a mystery.

And finally, the Teddy arc is weird. Like the author didn't want to write a happy ending so they decided to add something tragic. The problem is that the emotionless writing is even more jarring than in the mystery part, so it falls flat. And am I the only one thinking the toy soldiers on the grave are creepy as hell? That's like putting a serial killer's signature on his victims graves.

Still 3/5 because it's a good starting point. It's like the dialog half of a good story, second draft should be adding the narrating half. Also, I actually finished it.

 

It's a good concept, but the execution falls flat. There's no emotion to the writing at all, and precious little character depth. The mystery is rushed and bland beyond the actual concept, although I did like some of the magic involved, like the cloud of butterflies. The whole thing is rushed, although I suppose that's less a problem of its own and more a side effect of the lack of emotion and character depth. I finished reading it about ten minutes ago, and I'm already struggling to remember aspects of it.

On the other hand, the technical side of things is OK, although not exactly impressive, and I do really like the concept. I'll give it 3/5, but it's given a little grudgingly.

 

A serial kidnapper that changes its victim into toys got me interested for a while. The problems I had with this fic are all pointed out in other reviews. The most glaring problem for me is the lack of emotion and personality among the characters. As a result, all the characters seem to talk the same way, which is pretty bad for a dialogue-heavy fic. 3/5 because I think it's close to average than poor.

 

There's no character depth. Nothing that defines Harry as Harry and Tonks as Tonks. All the dialogue sounds the same, and 95% of the story is dialogue.

As a mystery, it sort of works because you keep reading to figure out what the hell is going on. But:

Spoiler

An OC appears to solve the mystery, but doesn't really solve it. For some reason Teddy dies, but it's not clear why. Is it because he was a metamorphmagus in the middle of a change when the countercurse was applied? I don't understand the emotional point of this story. Everything is a brief sketch of what it should be. It's like a Law and Order: SVU episode condensed to 15 minutes and performed by high school students who have never seen the show.

2/5

Edit: I remember this author now. He/she wrote Like-Juggling-Snowballs-through-Hell, which was a more readable Harry/Tonks crack fic from years ago. Not library material, but I remember it having a few funny moments. Also worth noting: the author has written 369 stories for various fandoms. Yeah.

 

Yeah the amount of dialogue is excessive. I wish there were more descriptions, if only to even out how much dialogue there is, but that wouldn't fix the core issue of the story. Somehow, in a fic about a serial-kidnapper where the main protagonist has kids, I find myself not that interested. I wish there were more introspection on Harry's part so we get to know him better. Also, kidnapping 13 magical children in a month is a huge for the relatively small number of wizarding kids there are. In canon, there's about 40 total in Harry's year.

Spoiler

I do admire the writer's boldness in killing off Teddy though.

2/5