Soul Bonds are canon. Sure, not in the way most shippers think of them, but still.

 

*coughHarryandMyrtlecough*

 

Ok, I have a question. The problem is some of this terminology doesn't have a strict definition.

Is soulbond and just bonds being used interchangeably? Can soulbonds be a subset of bonds?

Because I don't mind bonding.

From what I'm seeing, the objection of soulbonds is that either the relationship becomes perfect and unassailable, hence boring reading, and also perhaps the predetermined destiny aspect of it.

I like bonding because it's seems like a deeper form of marriage but doesn't necessarily have those aspects. I imagine the relationship could be attacked or ended and if that's the case, it'll be 100x messier and raw emotionally than any normal human marriage. Hell, imagine being in your bond mate's mind and witnessing firsthand and as it happens as they fall for another person (especially if they themselves are too stupid to recognize that they're falling in love with another in time) and how that'll fuck up a person/relationship for life. Or what if Lucius and Narcissa are bonded, and she sees him doing acts she finds deplorable but it shouldn't affect a normal marriage because he could just lie to her... and all the angst/chaos that results from that as she either twists into something evil herself or slowly goes mad.

There's just so many ways bonds could fictionally come about and therefore different consequences to them.

Will their children be in black & white or in color?

 

Stop pinning movie shit on canon damn-it

 

Pulling this back a little but my slightly hazy recollection of Iron Council by China Mieville is that it features a gay protagonist and a non- or not very explicit sex scene. It's well worth a read, though if you haven't read the rest of the series you should probably start with Perdido Street Station, especially since it's one of the best books of the last decade.

 

Why don't you tell me...

 

Half-Blood Auror updated; pleasantly surprised. Oh, there's some indie!shit in there, mostly to do with Umbridge, but the Tonks interaction is going pretty well - especially since he's drifting from Hermione and Ron, and Dumbledore seems to recognize that.

 

Harry is whining a bit too much for my taste in the chapter.

 

It's the opposite for me, I always thought the skepticism everyone (read: Ron and Hermione) shows concerning Harry's suspicion of Malfoy is an underused plot point. I'm not even talking about taking this as a premise for yet another Indy fic, just use this conflict to introduce a couple of small changes or just tension in general.

Even after Harry was proven right nothing came of it in canon, it was understandably overshadowed by Dumbledore's death.

This is one of the things that annoyed me most while reading HBP, even if you ignore the fact that several students were inducted into Voldemort's ranks during the first war, after everything that happened in the previous books Ron and Hermione should not have readily dismissed this out of hand.

 

fixed that for you

As for Half-blood auror, I definitely enjoyed this update. I am a little fearful of the Umbridge-trial because that seems a little cliche by now.

 

Read Half-Blood Auror. I'm not really sure what to think; H/T has never been one of my favored pairings, so I wasn't biased for it going in, and I'm not really convinced one way or the other going out. I do especially like the way Dumbledore is written, which gives me hope that the fic has legs.

 

Harry/Tonks has always been a guilty pleasure for me. That's what the half blooded auror is shaping up to be for me.

Also question, do we have a guilty pleasure thread?

 

This thread is basically a guilty pleasure thread. They're stories that can be enjoyable, but are not worth recommending to the library. "Barely Readable to Almost Good".

If your guilty pleasure stories won't even fit under barely readable, they definitely probably should never see the light of day.

 

My definition of guilty pleasure is the latter lol. Really mad romance fics mainly.

 

I'm of rather mixed minds about Half-Blood Auror.

On one hand, it's not canon-rehash, and the Malfoy problem is getting some serious consideration.

On the other hand, chapter 2 absolutely reeked of Indy!Harry shit, and I really don't like Stonewalling!Dumbledore. Making no concessions whatsoever is counter-productive to his plans.

 

I agree with T3t. Chapter 1 put me off a bit as well, with the pre-OotP meetings between Harry and Tonks, but I do like how there seems to be a steady build towards a relationship.

 

The problem is that we don't really know how Dumbledore would react to Harry reaching out beyond his regular 'boundaries'. In the books, it ends up looking like Dumbledore has produced a very specific path for the dominoes to fall in, and dies before anyone is able to really question it because it doesn't come to light.

Making concessions could negatively impact how he wants things to go, therefore his best plan might be to try to railroad Harry back into line. Obviously this isn't how it's going to go in this story, but it's somewhat feasible as a character motivation.

Alternately, you can look at Dumbledore's "second chance" ideal, where he always wants to get people to turn back to the Light. This can be overplayed, but from Dumbeldore's POV is there any chance that Harry, at this point in the story, wouldn't just say "fuck Malfoy" and get him sent to prison given the opportunity? They _hate_ one another.

Dumbledore can't just come out and say that, as that would only fuel the antagonism between Harry and him, as well as giving weight to Harry's belief that Malfoy is up to something. "I'll handle it" is basically the only response that has any chance of working, and Dumbledore doesn't seem the type to concede his ideals... ever.

 

Uh, what? He can tell Harry part of what he actually did: he set Snape on Malfoy's case. This both appeases Harry and deflects suspicion off any greater plan.

 

The Rebel and the Chosen was one of the best romances I've read in HP fandom, because that genre is so terribly low on quality fiction.

There's Contemplating Clouds, which is an easy #1 and one of the best romances I've read in any fandom or otherwise (though I admit I haven't read a large amount of romances), and Rebel and Chosen at #2 because it's the only other romance I could stand reading.

There are some other stories with believable to semi-believable side-romances like Jbern's stuff and that one vampire-smut story Forever Knight, but real take-it-slow and develop the characters romance is so hard to find. For a canon rehash(bolded for emphasis as a qualifying statement), Rebel and Chosen was so amazingly entertaining that I am nearly as excited for Half-Blood Auror as I am for updates to Joe's/Santi's/WaterMage's/Ryuugi's fics. If the author has a real divergence with interesting story planned and also manages to develop a slow romance, I'll be super happy.

That's probably just because I read Contemplating Clouds again and I am on a romance kick.