Title: Forty-One Times Dead
Author: Ruskbyte
Rating: K
Genre: Humor
DLP Category: Humor/Parody
Pairing: Harry/Hermione
Status: Complete
Summary: Harry has an annoying habit of dying before his time. After one death too many, the Soul Reaper assigned to the case decides to take matters in hand and train the Boy-Who-Lived up to scratch. Good thing he's already dead; 'cause this just might kill him!
Link: Fanfiction.net

I enjoyed this a lot more than I did most of Ruskbytes other fics. At points I was on the ground laughing.

The only complaint I have is the Hermione pairing just bogged the story down unnecessarily.

 

So far it's the best attempt at this particular challenge.

For a moment I thought that ryskbyte will use Grim Reaper from Billy and Mandy, but I guess that Zaraki Kenpachi works as well.

Hermione, after Luna, is my second most favorite female character (or possible companion for Harry). However authors that try to write her usually turn Harry into brainless moron, who jumps whenever she says so (and never questions her motives or actions, she's Hermione after all!), or make her shine by presenting a world full of incompetent retards. Luckily ryskbyte dodged that bullet (or perhaps he was too lazy??) by practically omitting any interaction between Harry and the rest of the wizarding world, barely describing a few of his homicidal rampages.

I haven't seen Bleach, so far, but it seems as I'll have to rectify that as there are way too many references to it in fanfics or even on DLP not to do so... therefore there is nothing I can say about that angle of the story.

The obvious importance of the number 42 and how it rules the universe was a nice touch.

Since Forty-One Times Dead is a oneshot and a bit of a crackfic at that, as well as my overall positive attitude towards ryskbyte's writing I'll rate it as 5/5

 

Oh, wow. I was laughing out loud several times when reading this fic. The challenge and the premise are shit, but Ruskbyte delivers some good stuff.

4/5.

 

This has to be the worst thing that I've ever read of his work.

 

This. Utter shit, really. Even Ruskybyte couldn't save that premise.

 

Even the worst of his work is better than the majority of anything else I read. It's true the premise was pretty horrid, especially coming off a challenge, but the writing amused me.

4/5. Library-worthy, but nothing special.

 

If it's nothing special I don't think it should rate a 4/5.

To be honest I've never clicked the x button on any of Ruskbyte's works until this fic.

 

It's mediocre. First half was much better than the second. And after reading AN I couldn't not to think how much better it would be if Ruskbyte chose Aizen as Harry's personal shinigami.

Also it made me think about two HP/Bleach crossovers that didn't have update for a long time (at least long to me).

 

This was terrible, and to think that Ruskbyte wrote this is something else. Disappointing mostly, as I do like a lot of his other works.

 

Meh. Didn't have the kick that I expect from Ruskbyte. Usually his stories, even if they have their issues, are still really good in their own, unique way. This one just felt... generic. 2/5

 

Despite the fact that it's starting to look like I'm alone in my opinion, or at least in the minority, I really liked this story.

I think it succeeded in what it set out to do - to be a light-hearted, funny one-shot. It's listed as a parody, after all, so I wasn't exactly expecting a deep, thought-provoking tale or something completely mind-blowing.

5/5 from me, for the fact that it's great for a quick laugh and is probably the best story you could possibly hope for from the given challenge.

 

I think that it was...alright.

The homicidal!Harry did amuse me quite a bit later on, but I think that he spent too much focus/time (eg, most of the story) on the afterlife part of the premise, when it was intended to be the catalyst/launch-pad that sent Harry back to life (the prime focus of the challenge).

3/5.

I just wish that he would update either Culture Shock, Flying Without a Broom or Backwards Compatible soon. (Author notes/promises are one thing, but actions are another).

 

I did get one or two chuckles out of this story - it's not that bad. But it's not something I'd expect from Ruskbyte.

There isn't any twists in the story; after a dozen of paragraphs you can already guess the ending of the story.

2.5/5

 

The introduction to Kenpachi was uninspired. It consists of Harry being disoriented and clueless while Kenpachi scowls and complains about his ignorance - it's really just a standard-issue scene you see often in crossovers where one person from the other universe comes in and instead of taking care of matters, chooses to waste several lines of dialogue mocking the other guy and feeling annoyed. I should forgive it and move on, but it's made more annoying by the fact that Ruskbyte wrote it.

There's the throwaway Hermione as Harry's soulmate gag that falls flat. The old Douglass Adams joke is infuriating when I realized why Ruskbyte chose 41.

There's the one golden moment. I did laugh there. Were it not for that one part, I'd be giving this story a 1/5.

The last part is a feel good tirade bashing Rita Skeeter, Harry cruising through the Goblet of Fire tasks, and handling everything as he races to the story's conclusion.

A nod toward the merpeople-veela rivalry that sets up so many Harry/Fleur/Gabrielle stories (Which is pretty fucking retarded, isn't it, considering that merpeople are stuck in a lake with no way to communicate with other groups of merpeople and all veela have to do is stay dry. Naturally, credit for this plot device goes to Jeconais).

But none of this should happen because of the severe deficiencies of the premise. Why are sword-wielding Japanese spirits interested in Harry's case?

Even granting that, his training would be useless. Once he returns to the real world and is back in a non-spirit body where the weight of his sword means nothing, it should be too heavy for a scrawny fourteen year-old to lift, meaning Harry wasted several eons wielding a sword he can't use.

Ruskbyte actually acknowledges the area of fail he should have dealt with, but just bluffs through it. Bringing a dildo to fight Voldemort with would give Harry the element of surprise, but it's hardly the element of surprise you want.

I kinda want him to stop wasting time and get back to writing anything, anything else besides retarded challenges that feartheturtle wouldn't stoop to and the Billy and Mandy story he's already spent 50,000 words writing and rewriting.

Twisting things and trying to hammer something decent out, and only getting two laughs on average for all that effort, it's just not worth it.

This is nearly physically painful for me to do this, but I have to revive my short-lived proposal for a reviewing system (http://forums.darklordpotter.net/showpost.php?p=315141&postcount=36) in a way I never wanted.

I can't give this story even a Ruskbyte v2 out of a Ruskbyte v1, but have no other choice but to give this a:



Kinsfire out of Ruskbyte.

God forgive me.

 

I found the story really funny. I'd rate it a 4/5. This story is somewhat similar to the other story where he dies an awful lot of times, Hermione is his soul-mate, and he's supposed to be pretty old in personality by then (at least 40 I think), and he tells her about the whole story of dying so many times, her line to him is "Fuck your greater good, and fuck you, too!", then gets out of Dodge. Was really fucking funny. Does anyone remember what story this was? I can't remember.

 

Ruskbyte is going to be a victim of his own success here, I'm afraid.

The classic jab is that his work tends to be very good, but is forever unfinished, the one-shots being the breath of fresh air that gives you Ruskbyte quality, but with a story that is actually complete.

This story, unfortunately, is very mediocre for Ruskbyte, mainly because it follows this type of story's formula far too closely, with little to no Ruskbyte-spin to liven it up (the danger of some 'Challenges', of course, is that they can result in formulaic writing and a veritable clone army of challenge response fics).

Off hand, I noticed he used 'passed' instead of 'past' at one point (and turned Rei into Ree in his notes, which I'm sure is a typo... but one can't be too careful when it comes to my waifu).

I would have liked to see more out of Harry after returning to the real world, and less "get out of bed, go through a window" every morning. Still, if one's intention is to merely hit the highlights of GoF, covering them as briefly as possible while still getting the point across, then this story did that.

My biggest beef with this fic (other than the fact that it is neither Backwards Compatible, nor Culture Shock - though I am glad he at least mentioned them) is that Harry got thrown from a window a zillion times, and he himself threw others from windows more than a few... and yet Ruskbyte did not use the word "defenestrate" even once. Not once!

In the English language, there is a word that specifically means "Yo ass just got chucked from a window", which we scarcely get the opportunity to use in normal conversation, or even normal writing.

This story was the perfect time to employ such a brilliant word, yet said word made no such appearance in this story.

Son, I am disappoint. :facepalm

Unfortunately for Ruskbyte, his name comes with expectations that aren't applied to the typical rabble of FFN authors. His story wasn't bad, but it certainly isn't in the same class as his other works.

Then again, maybe it wasn't supposed to be. Even authors with good track records are allowed to write something just to get it out of their head so it will leave them alone, without being expected to churn out an epic.

 

While I see where you're coming from, I maintain that this is a bad story.

While I was writing my review I actually contemplated whether my disappointment was due to high expectations or whether it was objectively bad. I think it's the latter, because my expectations weren't all that high, despite it being Ruskbyte.

Evil Be Thou My Good and From the Abyss sit at legendary status. Then after that came Quo Vadis and a few cutesy stories that made it clear he's not going to the godly technically brilliant writer 100% of the time. Quo vadis: that's a story where your theory of expectations comes into play. It's good, but everyone expected more, considering it was a serious story in the dark slant Ruskbyte excels in.

You see, because of my foresight, I knew there would instances where Ruskbyte would be off his game. That's why I split the rating for the finest fanfics between Ruskbyte v1 and Ruskbyte v2.

Ruskbyte v1 is the Ruskbyte that is the boss, the Don of all Harry Potter fanfic writers.

Ruskbyte v2 is a mortal like the rest of us.

I don't expect absolute, consistent perfection over a span of years from a fanfic writer like Ruskbyte anymore than I expect Martin Scorsese to be perfect over ten films or Stephen King to write ten fantastic novels in a row. There are periods of mediocrity that are inevitable, little misfires that they trudge through when they're recovering inspiration.

This falls even below the level of "misfire".

My review system covered that possibility. Let me link it again: http://forums.darklordpotter.net/showpost.php?p=315141&postcount=36

 

Hehe. I wasn't so much asserting the theory that this was a good story that is falling prey to high expectations, so much as that it isn't that good of a story AND there are high expectations (for some people).

 

I'm going to run contrary to the crowd here.

I think this is great 'light' fare reading. To me, it wasn't written to be a masterpiece, but to be read as 'fun' and adhere to the guidelines of a challenge I hate. Seriously, I almost didn't read the story seeing it was simply based on Reptilla28.

That said, by emphasizing the slapstick humor element consistently throughout the story it worked for me. Did the story seem sparse when Harry returned to Hogwarts? Yes, but I don't think the story could have maintained it's coherency if Ruskbyte had gone in depth and dragged out the length of the story.

I liked it and would read it again.

4/5

 

I enjoyed the story. It's not some literary masterpiece, but neither is it so bad as to be unreadable. It's a relaxing read with very little in the way of tension or angst. Its plot is a bit on the terrible side, but let's be honest here: A Bleach Soul Reaper could beat Voldemort to death with a dildo. So the fact the sword worked so well didn't bother me in the slightest. The issues I see is the fact I finish the story and don't desire to read more, and that there wasn't a fight scene worth mentioning. Great fanfiction makes me want to the sequel, or imagine the sequel; this didn't. It's not terrible, though, and I really don't understand why people are claiming this is a fic on the level on Kinsfire. This, at the very least, remains firmly in the "Readable" category of fanfiction.
4/5
But I'm a Kenpachi fanboy, so take that for what you will.