None taken. I was a 'a giant cockgobbling fucktard' like you put it.

And @T3t, not you too.

 

Man, just don't give a fuck. You lose if you start taking seriously what some guy says about you on a forum. If you're still alive here there's some reason. Keep the whining to yourself.

 

It comes when writers try to add historical texture to their stories by using Google, searching for 'merlin', and then add whatever random names pop up on the Wikipedia pages. (In this case, the story of how Vortigern, a former Briton warlord, with Ambrosius Aurelianus encountered two dragons at Dinas Emyrs.)

 

Re: the soul bond fic. It's all right. It is probably the best written soul bond fic I've read. But actually, it's the parts other than the soul bond that made me put it down after the first chapter.

The characters' traits seem to have been exaggerated to a cartoonish level (a look through the author's profile reveals a history of anime writing, so perhaps no surprise there. It also explains the stuff like falling over in embarrassment). Hermione in particular is something of a caricature of herself, I feel. They've really gone overboard on the study/intelligence front.

But actually, the thing that was the final nail in the coffin was Hermione's completely nonsensical OOC decision to not tell Madam Pomfrey her symptoms. It reeked of authorial fiat plot development - "I need Madam Pomfrey to not figure out what's happening to them - at least not until later - so I'll insert some completely arbitrary reason to avoid it".

But yeah, the soul bond mechanics and their reactions to it were written fairly well.

 

I like Error of Soul. Actually, I really like it.

There is a little exaggeration of the characters, but it's nothing I can't handle. There is no bashing, which is a plus, and the characters have interesting personalities. Umbridge is likeable, UMBRIDGE!

The best part is that there is a plot in the story, it's not just mindless romance between the two. There is something happening in Hogwarts, Voldemort has possessed more people, and Dumbledore is freaking kicking ass.

The soul bond is going to be very interesting as both Hermione and Harry like other characters.

Also, the writer WANTS to improve her writing. She wants critical reviews. I hope one of you guys will do so. I suck at actual reviewing, so many one of you guys can invite her to DLP or just give her some better tips on writing or how she can improve things.

4/5 at the moment.

 

Sorting Things Out? by Rumour of an Alchemist, Rated M

Title: Sorting Things Out?
Author: Rumour of an Alchemist
Rating: M
Words: 6,092
Genre: Alternate Universe, Humor, Tragedy
Status: Complete
Library Category: The Alternates (?)
Pairings: LE/SS
Summary: It's 1998, and Tom Marvolo Riddle has apparently won, so the Sorting Hat decides to travel back in time and *try* to do something about that.
Link:FanFiction.Net

I had trouble deciding which of the author's one-shots to post (there are several brilliant ones) and decided on this one because it's a very fun "What if" to read that starts off as humorous and then gets dark pretty quickly. What I liked was that it felt very plausible to me that, with slight deviations, this could be the result of the Sorting Hat manipulating events.

Some writers (such as myself) would turn something like this into a multi-chapter story. However, Rumour of an Alchemist consistently and concisely sums up "What Ifs" in well-written one-shots.

* Just to point out if the use of "sums up" didn't alert you to the fact, the writer's stories are like summaries extrapolating the aftereffects of certain changes.



Edit by Minion: Merged into Almost Recommended on request of the poster.

 

Are you trolling? I am assuming you are.

The story is bad and you should feel bad for posting it here. I read like three paragraphs and then skimmed over the rest. It is the epitome of telling and not showing. I don't think the author 'showed' one damn event in the entire story.

It is boring and uninteresting. The premise is absurd, the way the events turn out is worse, and screw you for posting a story with a Lily/Severus pairing.

 

I'm not trolling.

Yes, the way events turn out is far worse. That would be one of the points.

As for Lily\Severus - it's not even a major point of the story so I'm not sure what you're getting so riled up over.

I also enjoy it greatly when people read three paragraphs, skim the rest and resort to rage. Remarkably erudite and profound, aren't you?

That said, for any other readers of this post, I may have a bit of a bias towards this author (for reasons relating to an obsession with extrapolation and summaries) so I'd love some concrete feedback on why this does or doesn't suck.

Especially since I was planning on emulating the style at some point.

 

One, you clearly missed my point about the events being "worse". I meant that the events that took place themselves were even worse conceptually than the absurdity of the story, not that things actually turned out worse than canon.

Two, the author does not show. It makes the story bad. Period. Showing is how you engage an audience, make them care about the events that take place, and give us a connection to the characters. There is none of that here. It is written like a goddamn history text in places, and I don't know about you, but that sounds like bad fiction to me.

And three, I don't care how insignificant Lily/Severus is to the story. It is a bad pairing and author's should feel bad for writing it. I can't think of any exceptions offhand, but while I'm sure there's at least one I wouldn't despise with every fiber of my being, this isn't it.

If the author actually did something with the premise, then I could probably read or even like the story, but he/she didn't. The author vomited a bunch of words onto a text document and tossed it out there without ever thinking about whether it was compelling or not. It is bad.

 

Yeah, I'm with Brute on this one.

 

Meh. Flawed concept as the hat doesn't really do anything except sort. Why not just tell someone what is going to transpire? Or give someone worthy the Sword? Stylistically, aside from passive voice and lots of telling, the ending was quite weak. This really wouldn't be even Almost Recommended, much less of Library quality or the kind of style any aspiring writer should seek to emulate.

 

Thanks for that, it's very useful to know what about the story doesn't work for particular readers. Still (sigh) not sure why I like this author so much.

 

Try posting a story which you find 'good enough' for your tastes in the Almost Rec thread before putting it up for review.

You can find the thread in the 'Fanfic discussion' sub-forum on the main page.

 

Just couldn't get through the Soul Bond fic. Skimmed fuck out of it after the first chapter. Currently going to try this Family Bonds fic.

 

Hang in there with difficulty until Nicholas Flamel enters the picture. The character development after that is pretty good and the 'alchemy' is very well done.

 

Actually, I think this might be a pretty good style to emulate if you're trying to write an outline. It reminds me of the "phase outline" method described in this book about NaNo I read a couple times back before I started writing.

That's what it felt like to me; most of the paragraphs read like summaries of a scene. Not all of them, but every time I thought he was setting up an interesting scene, he'd just cut right to the result. For example:

Reading that, I'd expect an unpleasant conversation to follow, but we only get two sentences.

 

I want to bring this back up, and urge everyone who hasn't taken the time to give it more than a cursory glance, to go back and do so.

I admit that the start doesn't have the best of hooks, and there are some moments early on when I thought "Oh god". But the thing is, this isn't a soul bond fic with that being it's primary focus.

No, instead it looks like it will be an AU fic which just happens to have a soul bond involved. I mean, it's definite central to the plot, but in no way is it anything resembling a good thing.

Also, fair warning, all of the characters start out as canon, but some of the minor characters, think Fudge and Umbridge, get some personality changes. Now, they aren't just randomly thrown in there, there's a clear pathway where they go from canon to AU. And it's actually done surprisingly well.

I won't lie, I actually really like Umbridge in this fic.

Anyway, so far it has me completely hooked. I think it's definitely library worthy, and could easily turn out to be a 5/5. Right now, I'll hold it to a 4/5 and wait for another chapter or two before I put it up in For Review, as it's still not completely clear which direction it will go in.

Give it a go guys, it's well worth it. Don't let the Soul Bond turn you off. It's certainly more entertaining that Familial Bonds is so far.

 

I read the Error of Souls, and it's interesting. I'm just not sure where the soul bond thing is going, and what it's impact is going to be. The effect seems pretty extreme, if in the end Harry and Hermione will be more or less one and the same.

Also it seems like Diablo (Terror, a guy with a red stone through his forehead, Tyrael...) is going to replace Voldemort as the big bad. Don't really know if it's going to fuck the whole thing up or make it better.

All in all good so far, but can turn into a massive clusterfuck pretty much any moment. Fingers crossed.

 

Wait, I think I remember reading this, or attempting to. Does Albus use the Chains of Honor runeword (Dol Um Ber Ist) to banish/seal Tom's horcrux?

 

Yes. And this Diablo crossoverish thing is really the only reason I didn't throw it up for review. There's just too much potential for it to go completely bat-shit insane. If it doesn't seem to be going there once there has been some real action in the story, I think it will be quite worthy.

Here's hoping.