You're giving them too much credit. I think it's mainly because the people who propagated them years ago wanted everything to be like Naruto, which is why you see them a lot in fics that also have a bunch of other things to make it more like Naruto. After that everyone did it because it was so popular they actually thought it was canon.

 

I read this and, honestly, it has problems. And, while no single one of them is insurmountable, they begin to add up rather quickly. Also, I can see where this story is almost certainly going, and it is disastrous.

Firstly (and while this has never been a game-breaker for me, because reading a 'realistic' rendition of an eleven-year-old's dialog would likely be tedious), Harry and his peers speak more like college students than preteen children.

Okay, so they're incredibly well-spoken for their age, that's not so bad, right? Well, maybe some of the time, but the second half of that issue is that they sometimes (and in the case of the OFC, Acquila, all the fucking time) also have reasoning, insight, and perception on a level that would make most adults look like idiots. In Acquila's case, you can up the reasoning, insight, and perception factor to Sherlock Holmesian levels of cognition and deduction. <appropriate smiley goes here >

When a discussion between your tween-age OC and Sirius Black comes across as a therapy session with a PHD psychiatrist and, well, Sirius Black, you may have blown straight past precocious and well into 'pre-born' Alia Atreides territory.

Even when all the other characters are sure the answer is 'A,' you can bet that Acquila will know the answer is 'B'; and, she'll be right: Like being the only one who thinks Quirrell is after the Stone, rather than Snape.

Secondly, and this is related to part 2 of the first part (heh), Acquila is (while not the worst I've seen by a long shot), a Mary Sue: An, at times, subtle one -I grant you- but a Mary Sue, none the less.

1. Related to a prominent character? Check (Sirius).
2. Tragic past, on par with any of the canon cast? Check (only the fact that the woman at the orphanage treats her well keeps her from being a typical "I can top Harry" Sue).
3. A past that ties in with Harry's or the prophecy? Check.
4. Obscenely smart, clever, and well spoken for a preteen (or anyone!)? Check.
5. Powerful and/or possessing a special power? Double check (said to be very powerful and her wandless abilities are apparently sufficiently impressive that Dumbledore asks Minerva to tutor her in their use).
6. Somehow manages to be admired/liked/loved/desired by people on both sides of the canon good/evil divide? Check.

It looks like you can also throw in the old Mary Sue knack for reforming bad guys, considering the way things are going with Draco. The only thing that's missing is Snape treating her like a daughter: Like Harry, his hatred for Sirius rubbed off on Acquila.

As to Draco: This is the source of more out of character behavior and relentless bludgeoning of the suspension of disbelief than perhaps anything else. From the very moment she meets Draco (except for transparently oily and insincere greetings to try and ingratiate himself with her), he acts like the contemptible little shit that he is.

She latches on to him almost immediately when she discovers he's a semi-distant cousin, since she grew up in an orphanage. But, he does absolutely nothing but relentlessly insult her best friend (Harry) using any method available, and Ron (by mocking his large family and lack of money), and hurl racist language at Hermione. He even attempts to get Harry and his friends expelled numerous times (and Acquila becomes fully aware of at least one of the attempts, after the fact).

Yet, in spite of all of that, she refers to him as one of her best friends, says she loves him as family, and trusts him. What? Why?

Except for an already out of character scene, early on, with her tending to his wounded hand (*cough* cliché hurt/comfort BS *cough*), and a much later scene where he confides in her about something, we are never shown one, single, solitary interaction between the two of them that does not solely consist of him being a racist, classist, asshole to her friends and a controlling dick with no regard for her wishes toward her.

We are never shown, on the page, any reason for her to be or continue trying to be his friend. None. Yet, she clearly sees him as even more than that, given the aforementioned "family/love/trust" comments.

Acquila's sole excuse for this is Draco being the only family she's ever had... except she soon meets Tonks, Andromeda, and other extended Black family members. So who needs to hang around with a completely worthless ass who tries to tell her what to do and bullies and purposely endangers her friends? By a few chapters in, she's not hard up for family anymore, and any real person would have told him to piss off by then.

Shit, even someone who still had no other family would probably tell him to piss off. Harry had family: It didn't stop him from wanting to never see them again because of the way they treated him.

All of this is on top of a bonus OOC factor: As I said before, she has been shown numerous times to be able to discern someone's thoughts/motives, with minimal observation/information (and even without any magical bond jiggery pokery). But she never once twigs to the insincerity of Draco's friendliness toward her, nor to Narcissa's motives, nor to the fact that Draco's initial overtures toward her were purely motivated by his parents' orders to befriend her.

So, in short, lots of telling instead of showing, plus out of character behavior, all in order to have her pal around with Draco. He'll probably end up a reformed bad guy, but always remain a jerk with a heart of gold oxidized tin, because Mary Sue always leaves a Pollyanna-esque trail of bad guys who just needed a little love and sunshine in their wake.

I guess you can add (literally) stupid levels of saintlike patience and charity to her list of traits an eleven-year-old is unlikely to possess.

The author just seems really desperate to keep Draco at the forefront of the story and close to the OFC, but either isn't willing to do the work to make their closeness the least bit believable, or has fallen victim to 'the silent killer': Confusing the vision of their story/characters that's in their head with what they've actually written on the page. They might be seeing it, and thinking we're seeing it, but we aren't.

Finally, the disastrous part.

Spoiler

This story, ever since Draco received his marching orders to woo and marry Acquila, is charging full steam ahead toward one of the most infuriating and cliché plotlines in the land of Harry Potter Mary Sue OFCs: Harry versus Draco for the hand of the Original Female Character.

In a way-too-large proportion of HP stories that star an OFC, it ends up being an all out, angst-ridden, slug fest between Harry and Draco, to see who ends up bedding and keeping the OFC (and who can be the most emo in the process). This is often filled with lots of back-and-forth, will-she-or-won't-she nonsense, where she just can't seem to figure out which one of the two boys she loves more.

Invariably this leads to a scene where she's already dating Harry, they get into a WWIII-level argument over something completely silly that the (female - what, you know it is!) author one-hundred percent pulled out of their ass, often with Harry behaving in a completely cruel and out of character fashion, in order to force down everyone's throats a reason for Miss Perfect OFC to be pissed off at him, and run straight into Draco's arms (or Krum, or an OMC, or any other smirking male jackass).

This typically happens right before a holiday or some such, so that the OFC has plenty of free time away from Hogwarts. Thus, she can be sequestered in some sprawling manor house, far away from Harry, where the 'other guy' can use every second of the day to creepily initiate 'innocent' physical contact, drill into her head that Harry wouldn't have treated her that way if he truly cared about her, and basically spend every waking moment trying to seduce the 'romantically confused' and 'captivated in spite of herself' OFC.

This bit probably gets capped off with an act of infidelity (if she even still considers herself to be Harry's girlfriend) that could range anywhere from a 'steamy' kiss that the OFC 'didn't want' and feels 'conflicted' about, yet also 'sort of liked', all the way to actual sex.

She may or may not end up back with Harry, and if she does it may or may not be permanent; you can be sure, though, that no matter the outcome, there is sure to be plenty of wallowing in angst on all sides (well, at least for Harry and the OFC, not for Draco - or whoever the competition is).

This serves the dual purpose of torturing the readers with chapter after chapter of amateur hour soap opera dramatics, and allowing the author to have their OFC (avatar) romantically/sexually involved with at least two of the major characters.

(Note, though, that I don't think this particular author will be introducing sex to the story any time soon, since the characters are still rather young. Not that this would stop some authors...)

Anyway... we already have Harry vs Draco in Black Bond, but the most recent chapter has Acquila (almost immediately after being given the 'birds and the bees' talk) accidentally and quite literally bumping into (the newly introduced to this fic at that moment) Cedric Diggory, twice within a relatively short period of time.

I could certainly be wrong about this, but I doubt the proximity of these two events is a coincidence, especially with Diggory more or less being number 3 in the canon list of eligible male students, as the handsome 'Mr. Perfect' to Harry's 'lead male hero' and Draco's 'lead male villain'. Diggory is a fangirl favorite for pairing with Hermione, OFCs, Harry, and many others.

Long story short: I've got a bad feeling that this story, which already contains many cliché annoyances, will end up throwing itself head first into the tedious abyss of melodrama as the OFC, Acquila, who is otherwise too willful, intelligent, and perceptive (for her age), acts completely idiotic and confused while her affections flit back and forth between Harry, Draco, and Cedric... despite her constantly making a point of labeling Draco as being in the relative/family member category.

But, hey, I could be way, waaay, off base.

One of the puzzling things, though, is how carefully the author seems to sidestep taking any one of the (many?) clichés too far. They tend to be employed either in a mild and almost subtle fashion, or employed in a new way.

Frankly, I can't decide whether it's accidental or intentional. I still take the pessimistic/realistic view that it's just waiting for a sudden and irredeemable nosedive into complete and utter formulaic shit.

Of course, there's a magical bond between Harry and Acquila, which may cause many DLP members to immediately 'hit the big X.'


Was my post too short? It feels kind of short...

EDIT: You know what, it was too short.

I would be remiss if I did not mention that the "Molly bashing" mentioned earlier in the thread was, in my opinion, not bashing. It was a reasonable adaptation and slight expansion on a scene where Molly pulled the exact same shit in canon. In the books, during the winter break, when Harry was at Grimmauld Place to celebrate the holidays with his rarely seen godfather, Molly decided it was the perfect time to blast Sirius for being a shitty example/adult/godfather, right in front of Harry, the kids, and a portion of The Order.

Would she jump in and ruin a birthday party with her big, fat, mouth if she thought she was in the right? Especially if she were prompted by her ready belief in a misleading newspaper article, as she was in this story? You're damned right she would!

Sorry, but that scene, in my opinion, was right on the money in regard to its handling of Molly Weasley.

Furthermore, the characters don't all dwell on it or bring it up every time Molly shows up. The next time they see her, it's obvious Sirius is still pretty angry about the shit she pulled, and his daughter is holding a grudge because, hey, he's her dad, but everyone else seems eager to tactfully move on (barring another outburst).

I'll also take this opportunity to point out that the author seems to have taken great pains to expand Sirius's character in a rather thorough and thoughtful way, beyond canon. Let's face it, a lot of what would be considered major characters got barely any page-time at all in canon, and Sirius was one of them.

His recovery from Azkaban is neither exaggerated, nor ignored. He does sometimes call Harry by his nickname for James (Jamie), but usually catches himself as he says it, or immediately after. He sleeps as a dog, more often than not, mainly to reduce the frequency/impact of his nightmares. He has a tendency to storm off and drink when something really pisses him off. He has doubts about his ability to look after Harry and Acquila. He's not rock solid, but he's not falling to pieces, either.

This expansion of his character, as with many aspects of this story, though, seems to be a double edged sword. Much of his new background turns him into a bit of a Gary-Stu (or the masculinized version of Mary-Sue of your choice), himself. Here, though, I think the good (expanded background) outweighs the negatives.

Another thing I think is handled well is his struggle to decide between giving Harry and his daughter more information about certain things, because he wants their trust and feels they have the right to know, or keeping it from them until they are older, for what are some equally and legitimately compelling reasons.

Every time he seems to have made up his mind, something new happens or he gets a new piece of information that makes him stop and say, "Well, shit! What the hell am I supposed to do now?" I feel that's a fairly realistic display of someone faced with a hard decision between two options that have equal chances of being right or wrong, with no way of knowing which is which until well after the decision is made.

Unless the author just has Sirius waffling as just another way to jerk the reader around, which is always a possibility.

There are good points to this story but, sadly, as is often the case, it's the shit that irritates me that I tend to remember most vividly (or at all).

 

So what you're saying is you loved it and would read again. Got it.

 

I could not imaging any one author that would be less than trilled to see such a well thought out review.

 

This story suffers from some flaws which keep it from being library-material (not the least of which is that it's too short to make a judgment) but the writing is good and it's moderately entertaining.

 

It's a good start, an idea I've not seen done before, and it probably would be worthy of the Library if it were completed.

The biggest problem with the story is its author, who seems constitutionally incapable of finishing stories. If history holds, we'll see about one more chapter and then abandonment.

 

The author claims to have not abandoned any stories, and that she cycles through what she writes depending on time/motivation. This seems to hold true as I've seen her update stories that have been left for over six months.



This particular story rubs me a bit wrong. Some things seem like your typical Indy Harry shopping trip (only done through a third party) and I'm not looking forward to the 'revelations' that are sure to occur in the Gringott's trip.

 

I really liked Dead Man Walking. It was a new plot, and its well written. But the setup for conflict between Regulus and Sirius seems like it might get annoying, and like Perspicacity said, I'm not convinced it will get completed. I'm still waiting for C'est La Vie to update.

 

I feel a bit meh about Dead Man Walking. I like Harry and Regulus's relationship, and it definitely kept me interested, but there were warning signs over the entire second chapter, especially the upcoming trip to Gringotts. It'd be a real pity if the author were to take the manipulative!Dumbledore route, which is what seems to be happening.

 

I generally like that author's work, but something about Dead Man Walking turned me off almost immediately, I just couldn't get into it. Mostly it's the presence of some immature cliches that feel very dated in HP fanfiction - things like calling the Order of the Phoenix "the Order of the Fried Chicken" and mentioning "Potter Manor," or the "Noble and Most Ancient House of Potter." The premise also fails to captivate me as it once might have, I can't get invested into the character of Regulus nor fathom why he would wake up from a sixteen-year coma and immediately take over his estranged brother's god-parental duties.

 

The thing about Cywscross, the author of Dead Man Walking, is that they write all characters the same. They are always just shy or full on sues. Despite this, the writing is usually good enough that the stories are enjoyable. Still, they use a lot of cliches and some of their stories I just can't get into - like Haven or Dead Man Walking.

 

I think with this author it's more a matter that the stories just aren't planned beyond the basic premise. Once they're set up, they just sit there, waiting for inspiration, picking up a few increasingly disappointing updates before abandonment.

You can tell this while reading because there's really no hinting at events to come, no sense that the story has a logical point to which it's driving. The author certainly has a base level of talent, but this inability to even attempt to finish anything is very annoying.

 

Funny, made me smirk. To reveal exact details would include spoilers, so you'll just have to read for yourself.

 

Moderately amusing.

 

Pretty funny. Definitely funnier than most of the crap in the Humor section of the Library.

 

That was pretty fun to read. Harry's reaction is golden. Nice find.

 

I hate the memo format... but Harrys reaction was the funniest part.

 

The ending was pretty funny, but I wonder how things would really have played out if all the destined recipients were told (in 1979).

 

Came across this One-Shot on tumblr. It's a nice Beedle The Bard style story about owls.

 

It didn't really make sense to me -

Spoiler

where did the whole 'intended recipients' thing come from? Was it somehow included in the prophecy? I think the writer has canon slightly confused - the names on the prophecy in canon were not 'intended recipients' to be sent copies of the prophecy, they were the people the prophecy was about.

If the writer isn't saying that the prophecy somehow came with a set of fucking SAEs for half a dozen canon characters, then they're saying some unspeakable worked out who the prophecy was referring to, which even with the unusually transparent wording of that prophecy would have been impossible for anyone except Voldemort, and even he would only have been able to come up with his own name. Oh, and then decided to send copies of it to all the people it was about, because that's Ministry policy all of a sudden.

Apart from that, or maybe because of that, I didn't find it very funny.