Title: Fate's Favorite
Author: The Fictionist
Rating: T
Genre: friendships/Drama
Main Characters: Harry Potter and Tom Riddle(The story is written mostly in the point of view of Harry but, occasionally the author will have a chapter in Tom's point of view)
Chapters: 151
Words: 315,509
Updated: September 22, 2012
Published: Feburary 2, 2010
Status: Complete
Library Category: Alternates
Pairings: None
Summary: You always get the stories where Harry goes back into Tom Riddle's time, then either stays or gets sent back. End of, unless he tries to make Voldemort good. But what if thing's went differently? What if, just once, someone followed a time traveler back?
Link: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5725656/1/Fate-s-Favourite

In Fate's favorite you get to see harry's life turned upside down by a teenage Tom Riddle. You go on a journey with them as they grow their friendship,save each other lives,and create their own future all the while trying to keep time line from imploding. The reason why i think this story belongs in the library is that it lets you explore the mind of Tom Riddle and experience a more cunning and intelligent Harry. Many authors have tried to write stories that explore a friendship with these two but none as well or realistic as this story does. It makes you laugh with the characters, cry with the characters, and feel anger when the characters do.

 

The story moves in such a way that I can't quite tell what is happening. The dialogue seems like its trying very hard to be funny, but i did not find it funny at all. It seems like these time travelers show up, one of them is Tom Riddle, and then everybody proceeds to stand around and talk for awhile, vaguely talking about events that apparently occurred when Harry went back in time. The story then goes on to tell, and not show, a large amount, and has several lines that annoy me for some reason i can't quite put my finger on.
Like "Well, not his. But from his time. Crap. Not his time. The past - that was all he meant." This line seems to imply something, but I can't figure out what. Futhermore it brings to mind a character trait that i hate a lot, the characters that say something like "I didn't save you because i like you or anything". I forget what that is called, but I dislike it strongly.
Then the "drama" and dialogue when Harry's past friends meet his present friend is more annoying then anything else. Apparently its supposed to show how much of an asshole all of Harry's past friends are, but it just annoys me. What is exactly is the point of having a bunch of time travelers from the past go to the future only to immediately start acting like idiots. Also the reader is told that Harry and Tom are friends, but they seem to hate each other.
Into chapter 3 the dialogue continues to annoy me, and I find it neither funny nor interesting. I'm going to stop reading here, I've read enough. The premise is kind of interesting, but if you want to tell the aftermath of a time travel story, why not tell the time travel story instead? The characters discuss it a lot, and it sound way more interesting than this. I'm going to give this story a 2/5, because it is well written spelling/grammar wise, and has some interesting ideas, but was neither funny nor entertaining to me at all. I can tell a story is good if i am tempted to read the next chapter, and with this fic I had to force myself to read even up to chapter 3.

 

If you read the Authors Note she warns you that the beginning is more tell than show. When you read further into the story they show you more and it gets way more interesting. Also if you want to read the actual time traveler story she has a prequel called " Past Player" that tells you the story about what happened when harry was in Tom Riddles time.In addition, Harry and Tom Riddle are actually friends however they act the way they do because its the teenage dark lord. Do you really expect them to have a normal friendship? At any rate, later in the story their friendship is explored more and you understand how their friendship really works. Last but least, they're not acting like idiots when they get there. In reality as soon as they step into that time Tom's plotting. In this story there are plots inside of plots inside of plots which are revealed later in the story. The first few chapters are really only an intro to set things up. I would say you have to wait until chapter 12 or a little later to see the plot start to come out which isn't alot considering the story is 151 chapters long.

 

Is this slash? I skipped forward to get an idea where the story goes. Chapter 70 starts with Tom pulling a crying Harry into a hug and calling him "darling".

 

This is not slash!! Tom does that as a joke since it rumored that they are a couple and also because it usually annoys Harry. If you read the Author notes she says that they are NOT a couple and has no intention of turning it into slash.

 

I read up to about chapter 29 before I started skipping ahead to see if it got any worse.

This is, at best, a guilty pleasure. The one thing it does well is keeps up an irreverent internal monologue that would be great in a superior story. The plot is nothing more than a loose chain of events. I would say this story was all style and no substance, but there's really not enough style to call this stylish.

1.5/5 but I'll round up. There's a lot worse out there, and this can be mildly entertaining if you are willing to ignore the weak writing, but I wouldn't suggest this for Almost Recommended.

If the author reads this, don't take this review too harshly. DLP is a very tough crowd and the review is for their consideration. I'll leave a more constructive comment on the FF.net site.

 

I read the first chapter and that was more than enough- ugh. Pseudo- jokes, pseudo cool Slytherins, rather weak technical writing... 2/5

 

I've read this. It was pretty clear to me from the start that this isn't something for the DLP library. It is definately a nice guilty pleasure, but that's it. The focus is too much on the whole dynamic between Harry and Tom, and on how much "better" Harry is than the other boys when it comes to dealing with Tom. Basically it felt like a fan girl's romance story without any actual romance. There are places for these kinds of stories but the library isn't one of them.

2/5

 

So I read it, or at least the first 20 odd chapters of it.

First things first, its not bad. It has no syntax errors and other than the odd typo the spellings all fine. It has a plot or at least something resembling it and its not your typical slash, mpreg Harry has Tom's baby either.

But here's the thing, its not good either. What little plot it has is fairly unbelievable, Tom's characterisation seems way off to me (though that's personal preference) and some canon characters are completly ignored in favour of the fast forwarding Slytherins.

Fundamentally, as some of the other reveiwers have said, its guilty pleasure writing - the kindof thing I'd read if I just wanted some sugar for the brain. But that's not what DLPs about.

2/5

 

Exactly my thoughts. That's why I wasn't able to get even through the first chapter. I mean I get that the great Tom Riddle was there. But still... They just time-traveled. Would they really simply stand in the middle of a Great Hall surrounded by strangers and joke around? Without a care in the world? Or fear of being experimented on by the Department of Mysteries?

 

I've read this before, and I'll just say that it might belong as 'almost recommendable' but it isn't library-worthy.