Title: The Legacy Preservation Act
Author: James Spookie
Rating: M
Genre: Family/Romance
Status: WIP
Chapters: 18
Words: 188,310
Updated: Sep 13
Published: Aug 26, 2014
Library Category: Romance (or maybe General?)
Pairings: Harry/Daphne, Neville/Tracy
Link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10649604/1/The-Legacy-Preservation-Act
Summary: Last Heirs of noble bloodlines are forced to marry in order to prevent wizards from becoming extinct thanks to a new law passed by the Ministry in order to distract the public from listening to Dumbledore's warnings of Voldemort's return. Rated M, so once again if you are easily offended, just don't read it.

Okay. It's been years since I last recommended something and I still am pretty skeptical about recommending this particular fic. I was about to post it in the "New and Almost Recommendable" thread but after reading Minion's "new rules" of that thread, I decided to post it here instead. And I couldn't find any mention to this fic anywhere in DLP - although the search engine and myself don't really get along that well.

Anyhow, the fic starts off pretty badly. And that almost made me give up. Even though the whole "magically binding marriage contract" thing is really cringeworthy, I wasn't particularly against the cliche in how it's posed in this fic. The main problem, in my opinion, was the execution in the beginning. The writing in the first 5 chapters doesn't really flow well, even though there are no major grammar mistakes.

If you can get past the initial chapters, the fic considerably gets better. There are some cliches, but it's pretty hard to avoid them nowadays. Harry's character is kinda annoying sometimes, but I guess it's part of the whole story's struggle. Daphne's character is, in my opinion, surprinsingly okay (okay being the exact word I look for here): neither very well written nor badly written.

I give it a 3/5, I guess. The last chapters were pretty nice and the rating can go up to 3.5 or even 4 if it continues that way.

 

This is not a good story. This guy's stories all read the same, even before his name change (was once munkeymaniac or something like that). He' written like 10 contract fics, and this is just a variation of the same idea, and it just doesn't go anywhere remotely new or interesting.

He shoehorns in a bunch of different ideas to try and make it seem different than his other ones, but it fails. He's got random generic lordship crap, really bad politics, Neville getting paired with Tracey (like in literally every other story he has ever written), and of course, Ice Queen. He went five chapters without saying that at all, then bam, there it is.

I have nothing positive to say about this fic, and the fact that it's labeled as Romance is a joke, and just reinforces the idea that the author can't think of a genuinely interesting way to get the two characters together.

I feel like I'm generous in giving this a 2/5.

 

I can't argue with that (and honestly I don't feel like doing it) but even though it's not a good story at all, it still made me read all 188k words without skimming through it.

Maybe some others will feel the same haha.

 

Barely halfway past the second chapter and already I'm seeing a lot of things which make it highly unlikely I'll enjoy the fic (and what do you know, I was right in that assumption).

One is the magical cores idea and that magical power can be quantified.

Two is how ridiculously easy the law for forcing people into marriage passed, with little to no opposition. I'm no fan of fics with extensive politics or anything of the sort, but I also despise the fics where it implies that all you require is a bag of gold and anything could happen.

Three is Unspeakeables removing the Horcrux from Harry with shocking ease. If they're so fucking proficient at their job, why the fuck were they absent before? Why didn't Dumbledore just pop over Harry to St. Mungo's and have them do some tests to see if he's got a Horcrux infection?

Just this alone doesn't bode well.

Oh and no proper division between scenes.

I'm not sure I can rate this even a 2/5, because it's absolutely terrible.

 

It's worse. A lot worse. Take every single cliche that plagues the HP/DG community and throw them into one fic, and you come out with this.

-edit- For posterity, I read this several months back and there was probably only half the chapters back then, and I can't imagine this have gotten any better.

 

Guilty pleasure fic. Nothing more

 

I second the replies posted so far, and have to add that this reads like an American high-school drama, complete with the horrible characterizations. Tracey and Neville is probably the worst part - feels like the author just shoehorned them in for no real purpose other than to provide Harry and Daphne a "beta-couple" companion. I cringed so hard the moment Tracey did her "word-vomit" thing and confessed that she had a crush on Neville - seriously, WTF?

 

I remember reading a couple of the authors stories a few years back and decided to give this a try despite the summary. I should have known better.

The first scene itself was enough to get me to stop reading. Not only does it sound entirely unrealistic, nearly every character sounds like a parody of the respective canon characters for a fic that aims to be serious.

1/5.

 

Maybe it's a very subtle parody of "serious" angst filled fics?

 

If it is, then it does a worse job of it than it does at being a serious badly-written fic, and should receive a 0/5.

 

Nah, who the fuck am I kidding.

 

I read magical cores, Lord Black, forced marriage. Looks like a recipe for disaster.

 

If you've never read a Harry/Daphne Marriage contract story before, go ahead and read this one.

Guilty Pleasure for H/D fans, nothing more.

2/5

 

1.5/5

Same old cliché betrothal fix. Nothing new.

 

My guilty pleasure fic right here. The author rewrites the same fics over and over, with different minor characters from canon who are basically OCs. This is definitely the best iteration of his attempts so far, but that isn't saying much.

2/5, if you like stupid forced romance fics (I do), you'll probably enjoy this, if not, move on.

 

I'm just going to use this as my review.

Munkeymaniac is an absolutely terrible author who writes the exact same story every few months.


1/5. He recycles the same terrible ideas and refuses to improve himself as a writer. However, I don't remember seeing any glaring grammar errors.

 

This fic would have been great in 2008. Back when hp/dg cliches were still fairly fresh and people (like me) liked tomato can romance.

The writing is technically strong, the characters are mediocre, and the plot is terrible as expected. But it does hit a bunch of nostalgia buttons. I'll probably do a full read while drunk.

 

The only one of James Spookie's stories that I'd even remotely consider putting up for review is "The Fourth Champion" IIRC which actually made me want to see the sequel (though I think it had brief mentions of cores).

Oh for rating 0-3/5 on the Guilty Pleasure scale for this fanfic depending on my mood and/or whether I treat it as a drinking game.

 

I second that.

The first couple of chapters weren't awful. But Tracey/Neville made me cringe, and it just got worse from there.

2/5