Title: Alexandra Quick and the Thorn Circle
Author: Inverarity
Rating: K+
Genre: Fantasy/Adventure
DLP Category: General???
Pairing: None
Status: Completed

Link: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3964606/1/Alexandra_Quick_and_the_Thorn_Circle

Summary: The war against Voldemort never reached America, but American wizarding society has its own problems. For eleven year-old Alexandra Quick, learning she's a witch will only be the first of many surprises. Canon-compliant, but all OCs and original setting.

It's an interesting story with a interesting OC with personal flaws. What I like about the story is the fact that the America wizarding society is not a carbon copy of the British wizarding world, nor is it simply a superior version of the wizarding world. It has its own set of cultural problems and doesn't have a need for the OC to meet up with Harry Potter simply becase they are set in the same world.

Despite all the cultural difference, it still feels like it is set in the HP world.


BOOK 2:

Title: Alexandra Quick and the Lands Below
Rating: T
Summary: Seventh grader Alexandra Quick returns to Charmbridge Academy. This year she will face bullies from another wizarding school, a secret Dark Arts club, and her father's scheming, but her most terrible trials await her in the strange and deadly Lands Below!


BOOK 3:

Title: Alexandra Quick and the Deathly Regiment
Rating: T
Summary: Alexandra Quick begins eighth grade at Charmbridge Academy angry and in denial. When guilt and obsession lead her to a fateful choice, it is not only her own life that hangs in the balance, for she will uncover the secret of the Deathly Regiment!


BOOK 4:

Title: Alexandra Quick and the Stars Above
Rating: T
Summary: Alexandra Quick is determined to cheat her fate and see justice done, but she faces a vengeful conspiracy and secrets she is not prepared for. She'll need the help of her friends, but even that may not be enough against the power of the Stars Above.

BOOK 5:
Title: Alexandra Quick and the World Away
Rating: T
Summary: Expelled from Charmbridge Academy, wandless, and fated to die, Alexandra Quick is still bringing trouble wherever she goes. Before she's done, her Solemn Quest will shake the Ozarks, her feud with old rivals and new enemies will shake New Amsterdam, and discovering the World Away will shake the Confederation.

 

Link would help.

 

In before link, sounds terrible

 

You can't be serious, reccing this. Honestly, you can't be serious.

I literally had it out with the author about this fic on Mugglenet, about how despite her ability to create an incredibly interesting take on the USA, complete with a well-crafted setting and historical background (and I'll forgive a lot of fics if they have that), there were still flaws in her story I could not reconcile.

How about a main character that is completely unlikeable and incredibly immature, even for her age? A Headmistress who gets away with doing things to the students that even Snape would get fired for? A set of support characters that do not evolve or change in the course of the story? And the one character I actually liked (the school janitor, a hippie-wizard named Journey) turned out to be the fucking main villain.

I didn't like the messages the author tried to convey through her story - which weren't helped by the fact that her writing was, like Rowling's, bogged down through incredible amounts of filler. Unlike Rowling, Inverarity's writing does not have the clarity or strength of dialogue that allows her story to remain entertaining. Perhaps it's because the entire fic is written through the perspective of a character that is immature, bitchy, stubborn to the point of idiocy, and is generally unlikeable. It doesn't help that I really tend not like first year fics.

Don't get me wrong, the author does create an incredibly detailed setting with a historical background that I only wish Rowling had given us to fill more plot holes, but this story was a chore for me to read - and any story that's a chore for me to read for the above reasons doesn't belong in the library.

2/5

 

I even went to seek this one out and wow. Blam this. Couldn't even read the first four paragraphs, America ruins everything that's good about Harry Potter.

2/5

 

I don't get it? Why do you even bother reading something this stupid? Do you people read everything? Harry Potter x America, Harry Potter x Assrape, Harry Potter x Fuck you.

Whatever happened to the old Harry Potter days? When crossovers were few and Harry was a wimp...yeah also went and searched this fic it is a piece of shit.

2/5

 

I believe that the OP needs to be introduced to Potter Law. Specifically, rule 1.

 

Everything's better... IN AMERICA!!!

 

Link for those unable to perform a simple search function:

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3964606/1/Alexandra_Quick_and_the_Thorn_Circle

 

The beginning of the story reads very naturally. Everything proceeds as I imagined it would if a witch was in America and trying to learn more. The author really tries to make a sense of mystery as the OC deals with skeptics and stalks the magical creatures.

Unfortunately, the OCs are irritating, which automatically killed the story. I tried to be more open-minded about OC-centric stories after reading the brilliant fic by Psuedonym Sam in the General section, but this one just reminded me why I hated them in the first place. Subjecting yourself to 600,000 words of this is the equivalent to injecting your testicles with acid which then dissolve into mush within the scrotum.

Someone could create a tale of a bunny rabbit made out of shit as it hops all over the place on an epic journey of self-discovery. It could be absolutely perfect, but it wold still be entirely worthless. The same applies to all stories taking place in America.

Abstained from rating, since it couldn't sustain interest long enough to reach the American Hogwarts.

 

I scanned through the first chapter to see what all the hate was about. I thought of something odd, so I did a word search. And then a search in the next chapter. And then the next. And the next.

The word "Voldemort" didn't show up in this story until chapter 16. Even then, it's only used once and in passing to talk about how the evil OC talked with other evil people over the course of his evil life. The word Voldemort is never used again.

The word "Harry" is NEVER USED. Period. That's right, in the entire 29 chapters, there is no mention of Harry Potter.

It gets a 0/5 because it's NOT HARRY POTTER FANFICTION! The author didn't even have the good grace to give characters Harry Potter names before everything is raped into deformity.


tl;dr = It sucks dickballs, kill it with fire

 

Holy shit. That is so Nazi, how the hell does he make a story like that so hilarious? Mein Gott.

 

So its throuh a fem! Ron's eyes? :awesome

Indeed. Despite the fact that I never bothered to give him a review (too busy fanboying); it is the pinnacle of OC fics. Dude just needs to update more. If only all writers had Shezza-update skills.

 

Lol, what are you seriously expecting? A 11 year old girl that's immature? Wow, that's so hard to believe. Oh wait, didn't Harry act like an idiot from time to time, rushing into danger despite the risk and surviving due to pure luck? Yeah, let's start hating the Harry Potter series!

It almost seems like you are expecting 11 year olds to acts like adults, or act like some sort of Beowulf.

America=suck? Funny when most of the people who read the stories can't even name me the flaws about this version of wizarding Americas.

And Harry isn't mentioned much in the series? Oh wow, for some weird reason, Harry must be around everywhere in the world right?

Some of the criticism down here is downright hilarious.

 

Nothing approaching the level of hilarity in your post, I assure you.

Perhaps it's because the entire fic is written through the perspective of a character that is immature, bitchy, stubborn to the point of idiocy, and is generally unlikeable. It doesn't help that I really tend not like first year fics.

Realism doesn't benefit the story when such a characterization defines the narration itself.

Silens already acknowledged the strength of her wizarding version of America. Unfortunately, she failed elsewhere.

 

Well, the author never pretend that the person is immature, bitchy and stubborn to begin with. Nor did the Author even pretend that Alexandra is even well like among her peers and the teachers.

Of course, if you are looking for some sort of escape fantasy story, you won't like to see a rather flawed protagonist and would prefer to see someone who is more "awesome but flawed".

On the other hand, if someone don't me reading a story depicts the protagonist as idiotic and acts just like an 11 year old, then there's not much things to criticise about.

Then again, it's still hilarious to see people bitching about a character being bitchy.

 

Self-honesty is a great virtue and all that, but it does not make the reading experience better. I don't mind bitchy or idiotic characters - but at least in the Harry Potter books, it only extends to the events, not in how J.K.R. writes. Here, it permeates the reading experience itself. That's what I meant by irritating, at least. There's no separation between the OC's characterization and the story-telling.

There is nothing preventing a flawed character from being likeable, just as there is nothing preventing a perfect character from being unlikeable. I recall Apropos from Sir Apropos of Nothing. He is a coward, a cripple, spiteful, cannot be empathized with, but carried a trilogy because he had wry wit and flair. Flawed but great to read.

Alexandra is flawed and infuriating to read.

And it's still hilarious to read about someone defending the literary equivalent of a chick flick. Continue the amused condescension if you wish.

 

He's getting defensive, oh, this is interesting... and here's a friendly tl, dr; warning for all DLP members who don't care to read me rant.

Basically, Andromalius addressed the main point here, but I'm going to add a few other things. As somebody who has written non-Harry centric fics (I'm still updating my Lily/Snape fic, if you must know - just don't tell Vash about it), I'm going to say that you want your protagonist to be relatable, or at least somebody you can understand. That's probably why a bunch of angsty teenagers like Alexandra Quick, and I was slightly put off by her characterization, because it was anathema to me.

One of the reasons my old fic Dealer Agent and its sequel The Broken River failed so badly was not because of bad dialogue or OOC-ness or even a ludicrous premise, but because the main character, the 'dealer agent', was a completely unlikable character. Besides being a cold and caustic bitch, she was also an angsty little cunt who spent years wallowing in her own misery and guilt before a lucky break wrenched her back on track. And then she still didn't change her behavior. Her characterization was haphazard and static, and funnily enough, most readers liked my other OC (Keith Shacklebolt, a squib brother to Kingsley who became a easy-going Muggle gangster) more than anybody else.

So let's take things back to Alexandra Quick, shall we? She's a character who, in my opinion, is far less likeable than young Harry Potter. Harry Potter, in the early books, was humble. He had a modicum of decency and he was genuinely a likeable character. Even when he did make mistakes or stupid decisions, they could be forgiven because he at least felt an element of remorse and guilt for his actions, due to the fact he had a working conscience. And one of the reasons I actually liked the early books was because Harry viewed the magical world with a sense of wonder and amazement, and through some truly superb description, Rowling conveyed that through his characterization. I still hold Goblet of Fire as the best of the series because of how Rowling opened up an entire magical world to Harry, and his marvel at being a part of it is so well written that one could empathize with Harry.

Alexandra, on the other hand, has none of those features that make her a character I can empathize with. She's whiny to the pont of annoyance. She's stubborn to the point of ridiculousness. She doesn't think before she acts. And to top it off, she has very little (if any) respect for anyone around her, and that includes the magical world - and considering Inverarity created such a magical world, I found this extremely disappointing. It's almost if the author took the worst elements of Harry and Hermione and fused them together to make a disjointed, utterly infuriating main character, one I cannot empathize with. And when the entire story is told through her point of view, the fic becomes a slog to read through, and a slog does not belong in the library.

Buddy, I'm going to give you a little piece of advice, considering you are new here. First off, recommending non-Harry centric fics is generally a bad idea, particularly ones that take place in America. OC-centric fics only work if there is superlative writing, well defined characters, agreeable characterization, and a riveting plotline, and this fic only has a bit of the first. There are other sites that will typically easily accept non-Harry centric works, but DLP is not one of them (hell, there's a very good reason my Lily/Snape fic will NEVER end up on this site, no matter how well-written it is - although most of DLP hates Snape with a passion, anyways).

The second bit of advice is in regards to the whole 'American' thing. As Andro commented in an earlier thread, Inverarity did manage to create a realistic American wizarding world, but the rest of the story did not work. A lot of site members tend to despise the commonly held fangirl belief that 'US is teh magical paradise!!!11!!', and I'm one of them. Mordecai can elaborate in far more detail on this than I can, so I suggest you PM him if you want to get in a more, in-depth discussion on this.

Finally, and this is a personal preference of mine, is about first year fics. A lot of fanfiction authors are beginning to take this route, and frankly, I'm not surprised. When Rowling capped off the series with HBP and DH, a lot of writers are feeling they have to go back to the beginning to restart everything - or, in Inverarity's case, create a whole new world from scratch. And all of these epic series (most of which are never finished, and the rest tend to dissolve into angst around the fourth/fifth year (see R-Series for details on that)) tend to start at first year. I tend not to like these fics because they lack a certain degree of sophistication in the part of the narrating main character. I'm not gonna lie, I'm a sucker for good intrigue and a story with mature and adult content, and that's visible in my writing. Frankly, I find it difficult and boring to read a story in which first year students bumble around. Philosopher's Stone had the single redeeming grace of having a cast of exceptionally likeable (and dislikable) characters, some superb dialogue, and a relatively short word length (at least compared to every subsequent story). This was one of the problems that a lot of DLP members had with Fidelius a few years ago (and I can't blame them) and that problem, I think, remains today. The first year story doesn't work for me, and when it's told though the perspective of an unlikeable character, and it goes on entirely too long (that story could have been several thousand words shorter, and she still would have made her point - honestly, how can some authors write so much goddamn filler?), I can't appreciate it.

/rant

Like it or not, my rating is still remaining at a 2/5, buoyed up only by some excellent setting creation (one of the few redeeming things about this fic, but I'm a sucker for history anyways) and passable writing. And this rating's not getting any higher - and this story's not ending up in the library.

 

Silens, you're doing it wrong. This is how you do it:

Bad, 2/5.