Had a long and detailed reply typed in, but forgot to check the box and lost it when I went to preview it. >:-<

I loved it. It's not without a few minor flaws, which have been touched on already. Still, one of the best character pieces I've read.

4.5/5 rounded up to 5/5

EDIT: Thought this post was a little light on details/review, so voila! Edit time.

So, I thought that the plot device to bring everyone together at the end was cliche and contrived, but in the larger scheme, it doesn't really matter that much, since as I said above, it's a character piece, not an action piece.

Yes, this story would work in any number of fandoms, but in my opinion, that's a plus rather than a negative in this instance; the story revolves around a family, not magic. Magic is simply a backdrop. I don't want to read lots of stories like that, but on occasion it's nice.

I liked that Harry was shown as not just competent, but more than competent. He's very good at his job but not super!Harry. Possibly the best line in the piece was in this snippet:

I LOL'ed.

I wish there hadn't been so much forgiveness, but Ginny is the kids' mother after all, and I guess everyone wanted to put it all to rest after a while.

I actually thought the smut parts were well done, and it was nowhere near "50 year olds getting it on" as someone so eloquently put it.

As for the gay business, it was low-key enough for me to easily overlook, and I thought it was handled well. One thing no one has mentioned is that Kingsley was also portrayed as gay, and I've never seen *that* before.

Again, 4.5/5 rounded to 5/5.

Oh, and Alexxy? STFU.

 

The following is more bullshit. Regardless, it is my reasoning behind the post that you have cited. I put this in a spoiler tag, because it's a real bullshit that nobody needs to read. I'm not being sarcastic.

Spoiler

I know personally only one faggot and he's merely an acquaintance (a nice person and dresses normally, but the arse-hole had flicked my nose when I asked him about practicality of his... mating habits. I digress), and I also know one suspected in faggotry. That makes two total in my 27 years on this Earth. Also, I assume that it's unlikely that faggotry is passed down father-to-son, for obvious reasons. In the story we have two faggots who are practically from the same family. That makes two too many. And how old are they? Teenagers? I thought that they don't discover their illicit desires until they're much older and through much experimentation. They don't grow up knowing that they're fags in the making. And last (which makes the worst reason, but strongest in driving me to make a post - naked truth here), is I have personal issues against the "author" which I won't address here of course.

tl;dr; me != tolerance.

 

Wow Alexxy, I didn't realise you were this much of a complete dick. You best be trollin', Russian.

 

The forgiveness crap at the end kinda killed the story. Nobody can be thatbuddy buddy with a spouse who was committing adultery with a kid's friend. Maybe it was just meant to show how obnoxiously decent the characters are.

 

Go die in a fire.

Facepalm button is completely inadequate. We need a "Complete Moral Outrage" button.

 

Alexeyy - first you try to defend Jigokuno when he shat in my WbA thread (a spectacle that led to an epic beatdown that ended up in the Hall of Shame), and now this. Congratulations on confirming my complete lack of respect for you.

You can kindly go fuck yourself.

 

Gio should do a beatdown thread on Alexeyy.

 

I would not be opposed.

 

IIRC, he did. In the thread.

Slightly more on topic, it appears that now we know why you didn't care if you got banned because you wanted to tell everyone that Gio is mean.

 

Whoa, I... Wait, what?

I'm not so much surprised that there are people genuinely this stupid and hateful. Rather, I'm surprised that someone would actually think that it's a good idea to spew bullshit like that.

 

I say what I think must be said. My vitriol in the above post was overboard as it was written in a moment of passion. But I don't regret this because, first, it let the people here know who I really am (yes, quite an unpleasant person under the surface), and second, I found that I may be totally wrong in my opinions on the matter and that I should withhold my comments until I reevaluate them. All in all, it was productive.

 

End of digression, back to story, thanks.

 

Read this recently while looking for Harry/Luna stories. The story is... difficult to rate.

On the one hand, it's technically well written. I thought the smut scene was fine, I didn't think the slash inclusion was that bad, and Draco Malfoy's notes were pretty funny. And the Harry/Luna interactions seemed pretty good. The Potter children also seemed fairly well characterized.

On the other hand, I just don't believe that Harry would take what Ginny did lying down and I can't possibly see the ending the author wrote, where everyone reconciles. And of course, there's a cliche moment where Scorpius "redeems" himself because the plot demands a convenient unifying disaster -- and so Harry ends up reconciling with Scorpius. And apparently, that's enough for the Potter family to be comfortable with Ginny shacking up with someone half her age.

And Malfoy's son to boot!

Harry's a pretty willful person, in canon, and we see strains of it in this fic. If the universe decided to give him a massive "Screw you" in the form of his wife having an affair with his ex-rival's son, Harry must have the patience of a proverbial saint to not cut Ginny and Scorpius out of his life permanently.

Ron and Hermione are virtually absent from this fic, which is bizarre considering how close Harry (and Ginny) are to both of them in canon and in the epilogue. Where are the rest of the Weasleys for that matter?

There's also no exploration of just why Ginny felt that Harry wasn't enough for her -- there's hints at that she loved the Boy-Who-Lived, rather than Harry Potter, but she apparently loved the Boy-Who-Lived enough to have three children fairly spaced apart in years. What the hell happened between the two of them in recent years?

Frankly, the resolution of Ginny and Scorpius' relation to Harry and the rest of the Potters inspires something close to irrational rage in me. Some might argue that proves that the fic has an emotional impact, but I think it has it for the wrong reasons.

Anyway, I can see the sequel now: A Life So Very Much More than Extraordinary, in which 40 year old Scorpius Malfoy has an affair with Lily Luna's daughter, leaving Ginny Malfoy out to dry. Wouldn't that be a blast to read?

 

THIS.

/10char

 

Having re-read it today, I think I'm going to have to lower my rating. The transfer of affection to Luna seems rushed (at least, working on the assumption that it will be a lasting romance, and not a short-term fling), and the reconciliation at the end had me rolling my eyes. I still think it's worth including in the Library, but definitely not 5/5. Probably closer to a three, but I chuckle at Draco's notes more than I should, so let's call it a four.

 

By the way, the fic is on AO3, which is much more preferable to LJ.

I also forgot to discuss the utterly ridiculous scene where Ginny arrives at Harry's flat to talk about her fears about her relationship with Scorpius now that she's divorced Harry. I almost quit reading the fic right there. The entire section felt incredibly surreal to me and I was hard pressed not to physically face palm.

To put it into perspective, she's seeking advice from her husband of 20+ years that she just divorced on how to approach her new relationship with Scorpius, the person she left Harry for and had been flagrantly committing adultery with. She doesn't approach her friends or colleagues for advice -- she goes to the man she screwed over.

Harry's reaction to this, rather than laughing in her face and shutting the door, is to try to comfort her. Like I said, Harry apparently has the patience of a proverbial saint on a level that stretches credulity. Actually, I think even a proverbial saint would be more than a little put off by the gall of his ex-wife to approach him on relationship advice regarding the man she committed adultery with.

And then, after all that, when Ginny is exposed to Harry's more-than-saintly patience, she starts to reconsider whether or not Scorpius was the right one for her after all, and tries to seduce Harry back. After all that -- screwing around behind Harry's back, calling him the child, divorcing Harry and shacking up with his ex-rival's son and the man her daughter had an eye on, she then tries to screw over Scorpius to seduce Harry back? As if everything would suddenly be okay?

That entire scene -- along with its buildup from before -- is as if someone took the fanon Ginny found in Weasley bashing fics and tossed her into a epilogue-compliant setting, wrapped in a technically well-written package, without any of the expected consequences. It's odd in a way -- it's because the fic is so well-written technically speaking and the Harry/Luna scenes seem so well-done that the entire Harry/Ginny/Scorpius mess and its resolution seems all the more ridiculous.

Again, what the hell.

 

This is fucking hilarious. I haven't been on this forum in months, and I think the only thread i ever started gets resurrected on the same day.