Hmm, could be interesting to see a contest where authors search for shitty quality fics and then try to write their own versions and see who can display the greatest increase in quality without completely discarding the original story.

 

Kinda sounds like Jbern's planned Tonks/Harry fic only with worse writing?

Time travel, Tonks/Harry pairing, Harry is a Metamorph etc.

 

There were at least 2 other stories with the same concept before JBern's.

 

The author's explanation for the OOCness is mediocre... but workable if you can accept that reasoning.

Meh.

The story has been done before, time travel, shitty DOM backstory, shitty name. The Harry/Tonks interaction is really the only good thing about this story, and thats only because after making Harry completely OOC, he's just a male version of Tonks.

Fic is meh.

Chelsey is pretty much the only one writing decent Honks fics nowadays anyway.

 

Hardly. No-conflict romance, ship-kind of story with a snail-paced plot that seems secondary to the romance part. There should have been a huge blow up between Harry and Tonks after the New Year party. Didn't happen. I mean, the grown-up Tonks is being attacked and she sends Harry to fetch reinforcements. Instead, he stays back and tries to save her all by himself. That's an action right here that should have ended in their death. After that Tonks' mental age seemed to take a steep nosedive in my book. A pity.

 

Have you actually seen the shit that's being written for Honks nowadays? Apart from a select few, there's very little out there that qualifies as "Good".

You also seem to be assuming I was talking about her bigger stories, Halfblood Auror or Renegade. I wasn't. I was in fact referring to her one-shots and smaller stories like What Everyone Missed (Which is really only good if you're looking for mindless fluff). I also just said it was "decent", not "Good" and certainly not "Mind bogglingly awesome."

Good new Honks fics aren't exactly easy to find, so I'll take decent when I can get it.

 

While my previous recs were shit (I was drunk), I would like to recommend 'Professor Riddle and the quest for tenure' by Zalgo Jenkins.
www.fanfiction.net/s/8706297/1
I promise it isn't shit.

 

It's interesting, I'll give it that. And it's starting to form a plot, or so it seems, but I'm getting a strange vibe from it. \maybe because the tone seems like crack or parody.

 

It's a very strong start, but I'm not sure if he wants to go humor or with a more serious tone. It's very difficult to have a solid, even somewhat dark tale with non-black humor in it (Pratchett is a master of the art) but this story just doesn't quite mesh well. It might be due to having the "real" politics and the funny parts drastically separated. That said, he did damn fine when working on the politicians and in Riddle's interaction with Bella. I'd like to see more of those rather than the throw away jokes about peer review. I feel like they're great for a side tale, but they don't quite jive with the flow of the story.

 

I liked this. It clearly has dark things happening, but it's not taking itself too seriously, trying to be edgy in the lame overdone indy!fic way. This makes it easy to read and refreshing.

The relationships between Riddle, Bella, and Nagini are fun to watch, and I thought the classroom scene was a very good opening. I'd like to see more interplay with the students. Hopefully the author manages to get a decent balance between Voldemort's double lives, and doesn't shunt one into the background.

Still short, but in a few more chapters I'd readily suggest this for the Library.

 

Here's a fic: Times of Trouble. It's by the author of The real memory.

The hook: Harry, Hermione and Neville are sent back in time through the exploding time turner cabinet in ministry battle. They end up in 1892 and Harry and Neville end up going to Hogwarts with Dumbledore.

Good: Dumbledore appearance to be a child in this story. Harry doesn't have a "plan", his actions change history and he freaks out when it happens. Hermione is not with Harry and Neville. While that might seem as an odd thing to put in as a good thing these type of stories get ruined by the know-it-all Hermione.

Bad:Author forgets that slytherins are children as well. The author suffers from an inability to come up with OC names, as all of the professors and people of importance in the story share names with canon characters. It gives the impression that the wizarding world consists of around 15 families. It's still short and the update rate is rather atrocious.

I loved this story went into it expecting an uninspired time travel fic, but what i have seen so far gives me great hope for what could come of it.

 

There aren't many stories about this time era and most aren't complete or even good so I can understand that it's interesting. But I don't think it will go anywhere because of the slow chapter output and seemingly unfocused plot concept.

 

The King of Limbs by Zeitgeist84.

Summary: "After the war, I thought it would be easy. Work with the Aurors, get married, have children. Buy a big house, play Quidditch with the kids—be a family man. But, well, you know how it goes. Terrorism. Drugs. MI-7. England. And of course, here I am, stuck in the middle of it. Some things never change, I guess." Post-DH, EWE. HP/HG

Status: WIP

Words: 154k

Rated: M

Chapters: 14 so far.

I found it this morning searching trough FFN and finished read it a couple of minutes ago. The plot is interesting enough. We have a war damaged Harry, 22 years old and high ranked on the Auror Department, who can't find a reason to be happy with his life and is a drug addict. In the mean time, drugs and crime are bringing down the Ministry of Magic while a Cold Wizarding War between East and West threats to escalate into war. Harry in the middle of it all, tries to stop it.
The characterizations are ok, I think. The author needs a beta urgently but the prose is sound for an AR fic.
Searching for the fic here I found the author to be a DLP member.

 

I think it's more about that the setup isn't complete yet. The Hermione bit of the story just came up in the last chapter. And the Harry bit feels more about setting up the changes in Albus than being the entire plot.

But you are probably correct that I'm too hopeful and the fic wont go anywhere.

There is one problem with detective fics. They make no damn sense in the HP universe. For example Helene getting off because "there was not evidence to convict her". Was there not enough evidence for truth serums, compulsion charms, legilimency, vows or oath's?

This type of fic has to ignore so much of what is implied, or even directly shown, in canon that it creates a problem. It even might stoop into committing the cardinal sin of the better HP fics and denigrate the HP magic system into a purely combat one.

And there being a group of people more powerful than Voldemort doesn't help the story any.

Other than that. The story appears well written, planned out and doesn't indulge in any cliches. Hell it might even earn a spot in the library.

 

We'll just accept that you're wrong and move on.

With regard to King of Limbs... eh, it's okay, but nothing really jumped out at me with regards to it. Seems a perfect fit for this thread for me.

 

The canon HP world offsets this with Polyjuice, Animagi, the Imperius, Occlumancy, possession, resurrection, the ability to tamper with memories, Oblivation, magical travel into and out of closed spaces in multiple ways (Apparition, Portkeys, Phoenix travel), magical devices, and the breaking of causality (Time Turners and, to some extent, prophecies). If you can't make a proper detective/mystery story out of this, then you aren't trying hard enough.

 

Slight note: Time-Turners as portrayed by Rowling don't violate Causality. Causality is (magically) preserved in the universe when a Time-Turner is used, with the resulting path being calculated based off the resulting path of whoever's using the Time-Turner.

More simply, the universe self-computes around Time-Turners and time isn't linear. Ugh.

 

Well, I saw time-turners as not an actual time machine but just something that allows you to be at two points at the same time. From there it explains why you can do something like save yourself. If you would use a time-turner then you already did.

 

Of course they break causality because the ordering of events becomes observer-dependent. Case in point:

Harry comes across a door. Normally, this door would be locked, but when he tries to open it, he finds it's unlocked. He enters, spins back his Time Turner, unlatches the door from the other side and goes on his merry way as his future self approaches the door.

Alternatively, from the standpoint of an external observer, Harry appears suddenly on the other side of the door, turns back to unlock the door, then walks away as a copy of him approaches the door, opens it, enters, and then disappears.

From the first perspective, Harry's opening the door (cause) allowed him to be able to unlock the door (effect). From the second perspective, Harry's unlocking the door (cause) allowed him to be able to open the door (effect). What Time Turners do not do is enable one to go back and change the past. That's a slightly different beast, however.

Things could get more bizarre, incidentally. There's nothing in canon stopping an entity from simply appearing out of the aether, committing some act, and then spinning a Time Turner back to the point when the entity first appeared. A crime committed by such a "virtual" entity (borrowing the terminology from quantum field theory, where virtual particles, in effect, do the same thing) would, in fact, be the perfect crime.