Title: The Quidditch World Cup
Author: TheEndless7
Rating: M
Genre: Romance
DLP Category: Romance
Pairing: Harry/Luna (slow start)
Status: WIP (35K words over one month)
Summary: After the war, things didn't go as planned for Harry. He tried to be an Auror, but it wasn't for him. Instead, he turned to Quidditch. Now, at the 2002 World Cup, he looks back on what went wrong and discovers what he always wanted.
Link: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6862426/1/The_Quidditch_World_Cup


Very fun read. Story takes place half in the 'present' of 2002 and half looking back on just after the war, but not in the fashion of irritating flashbacks, but rather Harry explaining what happened. Well written, no piles of errors making you want to gouge your eyes out.

I'm not sure if it's just because I really enjoy 'sports' stories like this or what, but I'm liking this one. It's done well, and Harry isn't the second coming of Jesus on a broom. It does a fair job of portraying people as actual people, and not Supermen too.

A warning: It starts out with a Harry/Ginny marriage, but never fear, things aren't all sunshine daisies and world peace. It's pretty clear that this is what would REALLY happen in most cases of marrying right out of school. Y'all will probably be satisfied with Ginny's portrayal. That said, she doesn't have horns or sacrifice babies in the night. 3.5/5.

 

The dialouge is atrociously weak. Somewhere in every line of dialogue he includes "said" or some other stand in.

That's the first eleven lines. The same thing continues in every single line of dialogue in the story. And the author basically shuttles through four alternatives. Not only is it technically terrible writing, it's annoying as fuck especially because it seems like almost every line because the story depends largely on dialogue.

The author also isn't internally consistent whatsoever. He says Harry is praised by scouts for his Quidditch skills "almost as much as he was for defeating the dark lord." He's compared to Viktor Krum. That's an amount of praise and hype that it's basically impossible to surpass.

But then on draft day, Ginny's the star and Harry's a wild card who might be a first rounder and that only because the pickings are slim. Huh? Make up your mind.

He also fails his canon. He says Harry didn't play Quidditch his 6th year because of detention. He says "the biggest knock on him was that Harry hadn't played organized quidditch seriously since his third year." Huh? Harry was the Captain that year and played in 2 of 3 games. That doesn't count as serious?

Back to internal inconsistency He says that Harry had "a year off from anything competive." But Harry is going into the draft the same year as Ginny, and it's after her 7th year. He worked as an Auror until Christmas of that year. So it's at least a 1 1/2 years off, more realistically 2 since pick up games don't count for shit. And going by what he said earlier about not playing seriously since 3rd year, it's been 5 years he had off. The author needs to make up his mind.

Then after only 3 years in professional Quidditch, both Harry and Ginny make the World Cup team as starters. I know it's for story purposes, but in terms of sports it seems incredibly unlikely. Harry someone only secures a basic contract. I'm sorry, but that's just not realistic. He's Harry fucking Potter; he's the most marketable person in the world. A retarded chimpanzee could have secured him a better contract than that. And Harry uses the same agency that apparently secured Ginny a fantastic contract. It's a patently obvious and stupid way to introduce conflict.

I think he mangles the characterizations as well. Harry comes across as more of a pussy and more obsessed with Ginny than he was even in canon. Ginny meanwhile insults Mr. Lovegood at his funeral. Luna is Ginny's oldest friend. There is simply nothing in her character that suggests she would mock or belitte Luna's dad at his funeral. It's simply to make us dislike Ginny, and a ham-handed way to push his Harry/Luna theme. Ginny moreover passes on both Hermione and Luna for her made of honor for someone she just met. Again, he's trying to force us to dislike Ginny purely by engaging in character bashing. It's tiresome and old.

And all this is just the first chapter. The story is atrocious. I wasn't surprised when I found out it's be the same guy who did Letters. He's just not a good writer.

Content is terrible, writing is bad and the sports aspects don't ring true.

1/5

 

Good fic, much better than his awful H/F. Characterizations are fairly good, writing isn't bad, etc etc. Bonus H/DG!

4/5 tentatively. If the H/L is done well, I might raise it to a 4.5.

Edit: Sniped by Tenages. Going to have to disagree with pretty much everything he said, mostly becaues it's all irrelevant. All of those are fairly minor inconsistencies/mistakes and don't significantly break the flow of the story. I think you're liking for a reason not to like it ever since you read Letters and was disappointed (I was doing the same thing).

 

You may have accidentally read a masterpiece and submitted a review to the wrong fic.

How does that NOT break the flow of the story?

Literally the entire opening is fucked because of the dialogue tags.

Then it's repeated two or three more times with entire sections falling into that structure that's impossible to ignore.

We're not looking for things to dislike, the dislikeable thing is the broad side of a barn we're standing two feet in front of.

1/5.

 

I can bash weak writing in Something Unforgivable because there's a grammatical mistake in every other sentence, and that's being generous. Admittedly his word choice is somewhat lacking, but to me that's far less annoying than actual mistakes in the writing.

It may not be quite as good as I made it out to be, but I've got a headache from the blazing I did last night so everything is either better or worse than usual.

 

If the story itself is decent enough, I can gloss over the technical parts that might detract from it. While the story isn't the greatest masterpiece you'll ever read, it's still a bit of fun. Focusing on all the nitty-gritty just takes away from what is otherwise a nice time waster.

 

Nope. I was right the first time. I decided to try to read the second chapter, doubting my better judgement.

Right after the first scene break we have this gem.

What? What the fucking fuck? They are going to have to travel by some means unless they buy a house within walking distance....and given they play for different teams that isn't possible. And let's be honest, only a moron would take muggle transportation over wizarding transportation. Not to mention, they CAN'T take Muggle transportation. There aren't going to be trains or buses to Quidditch fields. There almost certainly aren't roads either, not to mention neither one of them can drive.



They are wizards. They use wizarding transportation. And it's not like they can shorten the damn commute. They aren't muggles. Portkey, apparation, both near instantaneous. Distance doesn't matter. It's not remotely inconvenient and THEY DON'T HAVE ANOTHER CHOICE.


The author is retarded. Aside from the technical problems which are manifest, that's the story's fundamental problem. Nothing is thought through, he just threw up words on the screen. Minor details maybe, but he gets every single one of them so spectacularly wrong you just want to ask him, "How stupid are you."


You've heard of world-building right? This dude does the opposite.

 

Well that's all good for you, but as someone who was iffy on Letters from the start and knew it was only going to get worse by the second chapter or so, I'll say that this story's lack of quality has jack shit to do with me being 'disappointed' by Letters. Of course, same author makes me leery, but hey, I still gave this one a shot.

Suffice it to say, Tenages and Andro have it spot on. This is Almost Recommended material at best, so keep it away from the Library.

 

*shrugs* blame the pot. When the next chapter comes out I'll read it more closely and see if it's as bad as you all say.

 

Yeah, pot could have something to do with it..... . I just like the premise enough to disregard other annoyances.

 

Wow, for being high at the time, you responded remarkably well, and aggressively defended the work. I haven't read Letters yet, so this is the first work I have encountered from the author.

I have to completely agree with the others. The writing distracted me, it's just so frustrating trying to follow the plot. I'm far from being a technically competent writer, and so I may forgive occasional grammar mistakes that I can see is due to rushing the work, ignorance and carelessness.

This though, I have problems really just concentrating on it. It's how the author arranges the words that ruins it for me.



And yeah, blame the POT.

 

I like it for the atmosphere of the story. It feels like Keven Costner's "For Love of the game", though a chick film, I have to grudgingly admit I like this sentimental look on his life during the last game of his career.

But it's not really DLP material.

 

It's not even fanfiction material

1/5

Only because 0/5 is not allowed.

 

I let his other story Letters become a guilty pleasure for me because Harry/Fleur is rarely done, and is even rarer to find done well. It was decidedly average, but I gave it a lot of leeway.

I've never been too crazy for the Harry/Luna pairing, so this story gets none of the leeway Letters did. I find it to be a decent read, but only if you take it with a grain of salt.

Ginny's characterization is horrible, even worse than in canon. She is one-dimensional and the author makes her only redeeming quality to be her skills in bed.

Contrast with his characterization with Daphne, which I should have expected after reading Letters, she is completely Mary Sue. It's obvious the author favors Harry/Daphne as a pairing but refuses to write it on its own and force it into his fics where it doesn't really fit.

I also don't understand Harry's complete apathy towards playing the earlier rounds in the World Cup, as it would seem that would be the only part of his life that went right. Instead we see him commiserating his misery with two one-dimensional OC's that add nothing to the story but a way for Harry to flashback.

To top it all off, we barely see Luna up until this point. And when we do see her, she is out of character from canon with little explanation. This also brings me back to Ginny who, we were told, insulted Mr. Lovegood at his funeral. It all seems very forced to me, but at least the writing isn't the worst I've ever seen.

2/5