Title: Control
Author: Anomynous58
Rating: M
Genre: Adventure/Angst
DLP Category: Dark Arts
Pairing: Harry/Tonks
Chapters: 11
Words: 125,272
Updated: December 8, 2011
Published: April 3, 2010
Status: Abandoned
Summary: I'm sick of the manipulation, the lies and the deceit; sick of jumping to the tune of dark lords and old puppeteers. I'm cutting the strings. Innocents will pay in blood for my defiance, but I no longer care. I lost my innocence long ago. Dark!Harry
Link: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5866937/1/Control

I'm recommending the best new fic I've read in recent memory.

There are a few missteps, but they can easily be redeemed. I'll enumerate them here:

Harry being driven to the typical snap moment from overblown Dursley abuse. The manipulative!Dumbledore hasn't been explained yet. Harry manages to kill two Aurors despite no training at all.

These are more than outweighed by the positives. Right now it's in Azkaban territory, and it's a very good interpretation of the prison. There's a great sequence which depicts the process of the Dementor's Kiss.

Fantastic portrayal of Bellatrix in the newest update. The circumstances of their first encounter is interesting, and . The characterization isn't forced at all - she's unpredictable, "edgy", swerves from sanity to insanity without you thinking that the author is desperately trying to write her that way.

4/5 right now, for its imagination and strength of execution. Very close to a 5/5 in terms of style, which I don't say lightly.

Edit: Sesc, this is where you should be taking pointers for writing Bellatrix.


Checked by Minion, Nov. 25, 2012

 

Outlook; not so good. I may recall reading this summary somewhere before, and from the negatives you describe, it sounds like it's 3/5 material at best. For me, one character being well-described is never enough to bring up the rating (especially since it's a character I usually prefer to not give a damn about).

I'm thirty seconds into reading, and he's already bleeding all over the goddamn place cuz of Dursleys and blaming Dumbledore with his suprememly evil evilness.

Will edit if this destroys all my low expectations.

Naise. I rate it 4/5, because the emo angst at the start of the chapters is a lame introduction, but it does about everything else right (including Dursley abuse, although I still don't like it even with good reasoning).

The first and only Slytherin!Harry that I've seen that doesn't make a big deal of it, which becomes grating after reading it every time.

 

That's going to haunt my dreams...

I'm a little wary - I'm not a huge fan of really dark Harry, and there are a few cliches. But it's well written, and interesting, and the last chapter has some ridiculously awesome stuff in. I'm definitely going to be following it.

 

This deserves nothing less than 5/5. Epic shit. I just hope he doesn't abandon it.

 

These wise men have spoken. 5/5 Read this now bitches

 

It could end up being epic win or descend into fail.

I'll give it a tentative 4/5.

 

4/5 From me. Definitely one of best fics I've read lately. Also, pretty much what Sesc said.

 

-It's shit like this that makes me want to write a first-person story. It just brings you in closer to the action. I like the style and feel of this. Good stuff. 4/5

 

I'm not really understanding why Harry is some sort of clawed, winged, fanged thing in his mindscape, but I'm enjoying it none the less.

Also, it's very interesting to me that Dumbledore is uncertain about who is the Child of Prophecy despite Neville filling the role that canon Harry did, supposedly.

 

Okay... This story has promise. There's good writing. I love the flashbacks. I like the characterization of Tonks.

What I don't like: Cliched idiosyncracies of characters (e.g., Tonks, Umbridge, Dumbledore, and Moody-- must I see references to metamorphing, throat clearing, legilimancing puppet master, and Constant Vigilance all the freaking time... geez); Three-Part Prologue.

Hold on...

Three-Part Prologue!?!

Yikes!

It has the potential to be a good story and worth being in the library but the cliches are too much for me as is the 3-part prologue. The prologue's existence as is makes me think that this story is going to be excessively wordy (not that I'm against long fiction, it's just that a 3-part prologue makes me think of bad Robert Jordan-- I struggled to get through the lengthy prologue in Eye of the World). No official vote because it's way way way too early, but unofficially, it's currently 3.5 stars rounded down to 3 stars.

 

This fic is great. I can't wait to read the next update.

 

I think it just bespeaks ambition, and is at worst a superficial thing. If they were simply titled Chapters 1-3 instead you wouldn't be complaining about it.

 

Didn't like it at all. Spitting-in-rage!Vernon was always annoying and abandoned/abused!Harry got very old very quickly a very long time ago. At least it's a little original in that it's not a canon rehash up to the point where this story happens, though that is little consolation considering that we don't see what the hell changed for Harry to get sorted into Slytherin. Not going to rate, anyway.

 

Holy shit yes. This is shaping up to be awesome. As Sesc said in his ff.net review, this could attain Only Enemies level in term of Bellatrix characterization.

5/5 so far, hope the author doesn't screw up and keeps on updating.

 

it's been too long since I read a lengthy overall good fic. The only thing bothered me is that flame thing. I hope the author won't put more significance behind that than now.

 

You know, one indicator that this is a good fic is that it DOES have a lot of cliche's packed into it....and it works anyway. Some of those things I really don't care for: 1) mental shields and mindscape castles 2) sudden and unearned, instinctive magical mastery (cracking Dumbledore and Moody's shields, Flamma Negra ex machina, etc..

But, this fic succeeds anyway. Even the flashbacks are handled well.

 

Interesting story so far, as it diverges into a different plot. First person is rare as well and it's done quite well. Hopefully he'll continue updating, however the prologue doesn't seem like a prologue though.

4.5/5 for now since I didn't like the cliched and angst beginning, Vernon spitting in rage...

 

I hope you're right about the ambition, and you are right about the chapter titles. I know I wouldn't have complained as much as I have.