Spoiler

A nice attempt at Luna, who must be in the top 5 hardest characters to do well. I never know if people go to far or not enough with her oddness.

Enjoyable.

 

Spoiler

Good stuff. I like this Luna: a little out there but not unpleasantly so. Not a Seer, not an idiot, not a kooky manic pixie dream girl. Her interacting with the, er, vitally challenged inhabitants of the castle was cute.

Beyond that, I don't have much to say. Pacing is deft, technical writing is good, I have no issues with your word choices anywhere. Maybe a bit more focus on the resolution? It happens in the final three paragraphs of the story, while a bit more time to give it more weight would've been good.

3.5/5.

 

Spoiler

A bit livelier Hogwarts than the one we met in canon but all for the story, I guess.

There's a strong focus on the motives that it sometimes feels as if the plot fell into the second spot for the sake of them. I recognize what you tried to do with a snippets of convo with a knight, and hint at the importance of the promise within this story, but there are others conversation until the end that made it somewhat hurried. There was enough space to build up the ending the way it deserved and make it more heavy on the reader. Heavy in a good way, that is.

There's a slight dissonance between Luna and the rest of what's going on in the story in a way that doesn't completely feels like Hogwarts at night, but then again it adds the charm to do story. It's a cute story, with beggining and end, all in all, and I enjoyed it for what it was.

 

Spoiler

Hi Luna, let's see what you're up to. The answer would be quite a lot, though nothing for any real length of time. I think you'd be better suited not jumping from the conversation with The Pontiff, to the Ginny sighting, to the eventual destination of the dungeons, and instead focusing on one or maybe two in a bit more detail. Slack should be cut though because the important bit of this story, the actual action, is in Luna's emotional state and the interactions are just ways of introducing and bringing about change in this. Still, even if it wasn't the focus, the rapidity with which each of the three sort of key interactions in the story were passed by felt very abrupt as I was reading.

And you'll like this section, because it's time for compliments. I've only read three entries so far, but this one has been quite comfortably the best written. You have strong dialogue, distinct character voices, good subtle management of emotions (which is very difficult), and some lines that actually made me smile for how they were constructed. You may snap for yourself.

I will say this Luna didn't quite match with my image of the character. She seemed a bit more... Self-pitying? She always struck me as an outsider yes, but an outsider with an ability to brush off the comments and prodding of others without much suffering from them. I'm not gonna throw a tantrum about your take though, because at the end of the day it's not all that important. This is a plausible characterization, if not the one I would employ, and she's consistent, which is more important.

Should be 'the' instead of 'a', no? Or am I misinterpreting your intent, and it isn't a unique figure that's always present there?

Spoiler: Specifics- half good half bad

Just a good line. An example of what I was complimenting in my paragraph.

This is confusing after the comma. I get what you mean (after a second read) but it would be a lot simpler as: "walking, but stopped when she didn't hear the sounds of the knight following" or something like that.

Just a damn good action beat. Clear image, characterizes, and sounds friggin cool.

 

Spoiler: spoiler after reading the posting convention here-in

i. I don't have any intention of voting on any of the other entries, I don't really have any interest of even reading them.

But this is the best one-shot, the best HP fanfiction short characterization that I've read in years. And I only clicked on it since it showed up on the DLP home page as the only un-read post.

Take that for what it is.

Magnificent.

 

Spoiler

Huh. This actually hit quite hard. I wasn't expecting that from the start, so well done.

It's a nice take on Luna, that feels believable given what we know about her in canon before she started being friends with Harry and co. I really like the idea of her only friends being portraits, and even those doing it at least somewhat out of pity. It's also an impressive amount of character and thematic work in what I assume is under the 1500 word max.

Technically sound, nothing major to critique, although I'm not sure 'dreadiness' is a word. Even if there had been though, I'm not sure it would matter; like I said, this actually has a decent emotional heft to it, which I really appreciate. Good job.

 

Spoiler

It's actually very nice to read about Luna in what I assume is her first year—with Ginny covered in blood and feathers from her chicken murders.

For me that section was the strongest, and I would like it to have been explored further.

Luna's run-ins with a Ginny Weasley possessed by Tom Riddle and carrying out nefarious deeds would be a sick short story, I think.

Echoing the previous reviews, I do think Luna comes across as a bit too self-pitying and her nerves over interacting with her classmates over breakfast, etc. does not feel like something she would be worried about. And it seems as though she at least has Ginny as a friend, so she's not entirely outcast.

I think even at eleven, she would be more independent and unrepentant about going after the things that interest her: the ghosts, the portraits, and (fake) magical creatures.

 

Spoiler

This was such a fun idea! But I feel like the author didn't do much with it.

I wish I could combine the two Luna stories in this comp together. #4 felt a little too simple, but at least Luna had a goal in that story. #2 was much more creative, but Luna had no quest.

Of all seven stories in this quarter's comp, I feel like this entry had the most creative choice of characters. Luna and a suit of armor go on adventures! What a lovely, fun little idea. But ultimately they had kind of a pointless (and, at times, a little dull) conversation.

That being said, their friendship was really endearing, and the author did a great job showing how they both cared for each other.

 

Spoiler

I'm in love with your castle come to life, I think you've made it rather lovely to read about. Well done! It creates a really nice atmosphere for the story, too. The gargoyle promising to guard her shoes with his life is so, so Hogwarts, that's one of the best throwaway lines describing canon Hogwarts I've seen in fanfic. Having visited rather a lot of Scottish castles/ruins in my time, I do shudder at the thought of taking my shoes off in one, though. Maybe the ones i've been to were too muggle.

I'm not completely convinced by the dialogue from Sir William. I've struggled myself when writing old-timey dialogue á la Nick and Sir Cadogan, I struggle and struggle and never feel like I nail it. However, your attempt doesn't ring quite true to me either, although I'd be hard pressed to suggest ways of fixing it. I'd say some sentences of his use too many words, though, they feel more cumbersome than archaic. On that note, there's a couple grammar things here and there but I'm sure you'll catch them yourself if you do an edit. There's a half-finsihed 'as far as' somewhere and way too much nodding around the mid-section.

I've not really read many Luna stories before this comp, but I'm now wondering if how writers portray her is almost as contentious as how they portray Snape. I see her very differently than you I can tell from reading this, which is unfortunate. I never feel as though this is Luna I'm reading about, although at the same time I think you've nailed a specific type of girl, a girl I've known quite a few of, and I'm sure many other readers can recognize her, too. It's a type that certainly deserves to be written about, but I can't for the life of me reconcile her with Luna. To me Luna has a very specific subset of self-confidence, the type that likely gives you an armour against potential bullies. She is convinced she knows more than them, that she has that special something they refuse to let into their life, so she wouldn't be affected in any normal way by bullying, instead she'd pity them a little for not understanding that they're missing out. Of course she would feel loneliness, and I think that sense you have captured here to my liking as well. But yeah, difficult to judge when I'm far from convinced by your characterwork, and that's so very important to this particular and very nit-picky reader. Anyway, might just be my tastes that are off or my headcanons intervening.

Other than that I would have wished for a little more story. You get full marks on description and atmosphere, but the review above mentions quests and I agree with that, the scene is all set for a nice, bitesized quest, the build-up is there but then we never get one, we jump here and there and nothing happens. Maybe I'd have felt differently if I'd agreed more with your characterization, I suppose there is a resulotion there, it just doesn't do what it's supposed to for me. Glancing at the other reviews, I think it did the trick for some, though, so good job

 

Coming back here just to claim this entry since I'm pretty sure it's the best thing I've written in the past year.

It's especially interesting to me because the sole idea I've had was I want to write something different, something I'd never write on my own in thousand years. And so I picked Luna and did my best to make action happen in her head instead of actual action, and what better way to show it than through a couple of different dialogues, right?

Reading through the reviews once again, I get it that the character isn't that canon for most of us, but that didn't matter to me much, as long as I accomplished what I was out for. The far bigger lapse, in my opinion, is that I was unable to round up the actual quest of hunting those vermin - and still have the kinda same resolution. If I remember correctly, I had some 200 words left, and I do remember trying to use them but whatever I put down just didn't do it for me, and I felt like I was destroying what I already had so I was like, screw it, and tried to think of the title that will help me make the lack of actual round up convincing. I think I did a good job of it.

It was really fun to write this though, however frustrating.