Title: Soul Scars
Author: ShayaLonnie
Rating: M
Genre: Romance/Hurt/Comfort
Status: Complete [64k words, 21 chapters]
Library Category: Romance
Pairings: Many (each chapter a different pair)
Summary: "Scars can come in handy." — Magic gives the gift of a soulmate. Separated by war, alliances, beliefs, and blood, but connected by skin. What if you shared the scars of the person that magic has given you? What if you really, really wished that you didn't? "
Link: FanFiction.Net

Found this one on a reddit hpfanfic thread. I wouldn't normally read past page 1 of anything labeled romance/hurt/comfort, but I'm glad I did, with this one.

Each chapter explores a different pair of people, and their situation with soulmates. Soulmates have a phenomenon called 'soul scars', where any scar you get is reflected on your soulmate, for at least a certain amount of time. This serves as the main plot device for exposing the pairings - unique injuries that leave their own scars. Some of them are unconventional, some are predictable, some are wish fulfillment, but they're all done well.

No grammar issues, no unbearable tropes (in fact, this fic subverts the idea of soulmates itself for the most part) - it's generally a warm read, and a lot of interesting mini ideas are explored, such as more than one head of house.

In my opinion, this is soul mates done almost-right. This fic explores the idea of soul mates from different angles, and answers a lot of questions - are soulmates 'destined' for each other? Are they 'right' for each other? What does it take for soulmates to stay together? How do you play the hand you are dealt? Does the presence of a soulmate necessitate action, and if so, to what end?

And each chapter takes a slightly different perspective to all these questions, with different people in different situations.

Warning - Not all of them end the way you'd expect, or the way you want.

Rating: 3.5/5. It was pleasant, and had a couple of nice ideas. But there wasn't anything that made me go WOW. I want to say 4, but I can't, and it's definitely better than a 3 with all the ...interesting...ideas.

 

You know, this sounds like a daft idea, but I'll give it a go, leave thoughts as I go.

I don't like that it's a series of shorts. Each chapter is about a different pairing, and has absolutely massive timeskips. However, I'm not sure how the author could really have done it differently, considering they don't actually have a story they're writing here, just mild fleshing out of a vague idea.

Ron says that nobody teaches about soul-mates, because it's sacred and saved for family... But he doesn't seem at all bothered by it, like soul-mates doesn't carry the same connotations. If it's something to find your "best possible partner", I would've thought there'd be a really widespread 'barcoding' or something that you'd do at seventeen or whenever, if not just write out "hello my name is Roonil Wazlib and I am a fifth year Gryffindor at Hogwarts. Who are you?" because apparently ink carries across.

Chapter two introduces us (very quickly) to the fact that soul-mates aren't always romantic. So what are they? My understanding has always been "best possible person to be your partner or closest friend", but it seems to be treated so blasé here. Three tells us that not everyone has them, and there can be a large age gap. We also see that apparently some people do communicate clearly to get messages to or find each other, but the viewpoints don't do it because they're all idiots.

The author has a bad case of "Draco in leather pants" syndrome. All the bad guys get good guy soulmates, everything works out sort of okay, and we paper over the racism and hatred. Which, you know, would be fine... If there was a story there. Instead, we get small snippets added on to scenes from canon. Not many of the pairings really make sense, and the premise itself doesn't seem thought through at all.

I mean, the soul mate thing seems to be really important - it's treated as a precursor to betrothal... And yet, some who know of them don't believe in them, there's several mentions of people marrying non-soul-mates. And it's fair enough that sometimes the soul-mate thing is just being BFFs or something, but that doesn't explain why they wait to sort things out.

They make this big deal about how much your soul-mate fits with you... And then the pair don't get on. Ever. They hate each other enough that they never start to like each. Or someone has multiple soul-mates. It's lazily thought out. Some of the pairings are so completely random as to make no sense whatsoever. The characters have no interactions in canon, and then nothing is added now, either, and it's just "heh, this'll be a dramatic reveal!!!".

Later chapters get better, as the author gets into the swing of it more, but it's still all a bit disjointed.



Overall, the story is crap. The idea could have been good, but didn't seem to be thought out much. The author's obviously put planning into the pot - there were a few references to things going on a few chapters before they were written, but they haven't actually thought out the changes this would make to the world - you can tell the idea came from tumblr, as a wish for real life, rather than something that developed within a fandom. The author's writing isn't bad, and I didn't notice any glaring typos, but that's just basic writing.


It's a shame, because there are some decentish ideas that seem to have come up in the writing of it, but the author just seems to want to redeem as many tortured souls as they can, and give everyone a happy ending.

2/5, and that's at best. Maybe 2.5, but I can't round it up.

 

IIRC the author did this 'chapter a day for a month' thing for this fic. Obviously there was planning done beforehand, but it's not possible to work everything out if you've got a deadline every single day, what with jobs and school and what have you, so we got this.

I enjoyed reading some chapters, others less so, but the novel idea of soul scars was a good one. The problem here is that the concept isn't well defined, so you're left with a bunch of non-specific contradicting stuff. With this style of a different POV and pairing every chapter and no real plot, it all feels drabble like, while I feel like an actual story based on this idea of soul scars could have been really good. It just leaves you feeling a bit let down by what could have been versus what it ended up being.

All in all, it's worth a skim, and if you see a pairing that grabs your interest at the start of a chapter, there's plenty of worth-your-time stuff there, but the fic's a 3/5 at best.

 

I made it to chapter 12.

Honestly, I probably would go further, but I'm too busy at this point to keep reading.

It's not... great. There are moments where I cringe because the soul bond trope bothers me, and the whole "you're predestined to love someone" idea is sketchy at best. The characterization of Slytherins is far too... bright and cheerful and pretty unrealistic as far as I'm concerned.

There's also the problem that when every chapter is essentially a different "pairing" of soul-bonded people the story tends to get repetitive and a little boring at times. I mean, some of the characters do have their own unique quirks and personality traits, and that's great, but there are times where it just seems like the same thing is happening over and over again.

Finally, since practically every major character in the story appears to have a soul bond with someone, it kind of makes relationships and dating rather useless and likely nonexistent at best. Every relationship in the story would become shallow and unsubstantiated.

Like, I get that the Charlie chapter was meant to be a counter to the idea that soulbond=love + marriage, but that general idea still remains true. And for a story that tries to stick as close to canon as possible with soul bonds, well, the whole dating is irrelevant is pretty problematic.

But there's a couple gems in there as well. If you can accept that soul bonding is a thing that happens, then the soul scars idea becomes pretty poetic actually, although I'm not sure how writing on skin works as a "scar." It takes the whole connection idea to a whole new level.

I'll give it a 3/5. I feel like I'd keep reading if I had the time. It certainly wasn't bad, but it wasn't great. It probably belongs in Almost Recommendable.

 

I read the first and second pieces, and then started skimming them to see if anything interesting popped up. By and large, they were fairly identical, which on a concept like this was fairly sad. It's a fun twist on an old cliche and was underutilized in the extreme. The author also has an annoying thing for slash and redemption that does more to turn this back into the cliche it came from than anything else.

On that note, there were two of these snippets I loved and one I simply liked.

The Harry / Daphne piece was so underdone it was like watching someone grind out raw burger meat onto a bun, and I find that the only reason I like it was that it was Daphne. (I'm a sucker, I know). She couldn't have written to him when he was a kid? "Hey uncle Vernon! I've got a friend! She's my right hand, wanna meet her?" Something, please.

I also have to say that when Harry started writing on his hand, I thought he was going to legitimately carve words in his hand. You know, soulscars not soul-please-draw-a-dick-on-me. I suppose the lack of masochism was why I started skimming.

As for the actually entertaining pair of snippets, I loved Charlie Weasley's, and McGonagall's.

Charlie's was simply heartwarming with a dash of tragedy thrown in at the end. It does a spectacular job in exploring this possible friendship, and doing it well in few words. The characters also feel natural and as true to their canon selves as I can remember.

McGonagall's snippet was not quite as well done, but as compared to the others, it evoked some truly unique feelings. The 'Miss me' towards the end was genuinely "creepifyin'."

2.5/5 because I want someone to take that Harry/Daphne and make it glorious.

 

I agree with everyone here I made it for about ten chapters and quit. The problem is that I went into the fic looking for Harry and Daphne unfortunately the slew of other soul bonds running around got annoying really quickly and there really wasn't a whole lot of Harry and Daphne in the ten chapters I read 2/5 from me.

 

This makes a lot of sense from the skim through I did of the fic.

It feels more like a writing exercise than it does a story, a quick poke at an idea that wasn't intended to necessarily be fully fleshed out or even good, just exploration of concept.

In that regard, it's not terrible, truly.

It's just not anything special, and that makes me a little sad because I have a soft spot for decent writers that explore overused tropes/cliches and try to make them work well.

This just really isn't that.

 

I tried a few. Several. Disappointing is the best word for it. That's because the potential is there. A few stories at various fandoms have done much better jobs at similar concepts. This was just ... not good. A few flashes of potential here and there that were squandered.

I want to give it 2/5 for at least being decently written but that's never been enough for me. This just did too many things wrong, had too many holes and contradictions and terrible tropes to go higher than 1.

 

Saw this on the review board, and with little time investment required at 64k words I thought, well why not.

The premise that the story bases itself on - that people have soulmates and can communicate by "scarring" requires some suspension of disbelief. It was easier to mentally frame this as an AU given that completely new mechanics from the canon books were introduced.

As a whole, the story doesn’t not fully explore all the implication of this phenomenon. Why do people not actively seek out their soulmate? Is there even a point of casual dating? What does this mean about determinism and free will? Yes, there are explanations given in the story but they are honestly not convincing. The main complaint is that logically, his phenomenon would drastically affect social customs in magical society. This story however does not reflect this, instead having a canon society with this “soul scars” thing tacked on.

The story structure becomes repetitive, almost drabble like focusing on different pairings. Aside from the Charlie chapter, interest was lost very quickly.

Borderline 2/5 - The idea was interesting and does have potential but the execution is lacking.