Thanks. It should be fixed now.

 

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10006313/1/Ascension

This has a lot of problems (minor continuity errors, sudden outbreaks of stupid to cause conflict, a few spelling errors, magical cores...), but I wanted HP/Mass Effect, options are limited, and it's otherwise interesting enough that I read what's there so far. I'd estimate three or four chapters until the story's done, unless he uses the same story for the sequel.

Better HP/Mass Effect recommendations would be welcome.

 

Ascension is pretty much the embodiment of an Almost Recommendable fic. Grammar and punctuation is spotty to say the least, characterisation gets a resounding meh, and sometimes the plot is advanced strangely, due to Reasons.

Still, it's a readable HP/ME fic, of which there are sadly few.

 

Is that the one where Harry creates his own pocket dimension/space that's eventually turned into a habitat?

 

Yeah, that's probably the most offensive part of the story. It's an arbitrary, over-powered ability that Harry conveniently forgets when the plot needs him to, and the author didn't even try to explain why it didn't affect any electronics.

 

I recently encoutered crackfic that I liked - and by crackfic I mean story with extremely weird things, not endless pile of unfunny OOC gags without plot.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10287864/1/Biting-the-Hand-That-Feeds-You

"AU Start to Sixth Year. What do you do to stop a genocidal dark wizard? Try appeasement. If it sinks your entire economy, well... That just makes things more interesting. Humor/Adventure - Harry P., Hermione G., Luna L., Pansy P. - Chapters: 23 - Words: 120,263 - Reviews: 792 - Favs: 775 - Follows: 865 - Updated: Jul 6 - Published: Apr 21 - id: 10287864"

I am aware that as usually with crack, things that seemed funny to me will be considered absurd OOC unacceptable in any case by others so I post it here. There is also problem with almost completely unrelated plots going on the same.

First part completed, sequel is WIP.

 

I feel that the whole "magic affects electronics" thing gets played up waaay too much in fanon (I'll refrain from elaborating, since I've hashed this out more than once, here).

However, if the author of a particular story has already established that (at least in their AU) magic has a pronounced and deleterious effect on electronics, then they really should maintain their story's internal consistency by having it continue to do so, throughout.

 

lol, Should have read your elaboration first.

 

That was surprisingly good. The first few chapters come off as completely whacky humor, that works on it's own, but than the story develops a decent plot. Kept me engaged and entertained all the way through. The humor might not be to everyone's taste, but I quite enjoyed it.

Is the sequel up anywhere besides spacebattles? Can't stand the color scheme of that site.

 

I was looking for some new stories, found this. It's Harry Potter/Hobbit crossover:

Title: The Surprising Journey of Cassie Morgan
Author: TheFrenchBookworm
Pairing: none
Rating: T
Link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9080269/1/The-Surprising-Journey-of-Cassie-Morgan
Story Summary: A wise man once said death is but the next great adventure. Cassie never thought he'd meant it quite so literally. No romance.

It is very well written, and I like where it is going. I thought the main character is Mary Sue when I started reading, but I don't think this is the case now. Her past is revealed more as I read more of it. Also, there is no romance in there, according to summary.

There are also some downsides:
-

Spoiler

Main character is missing her long hair, two fingers, and half of her ear in chapter 10. She has also been mind raped by Galadriel further into the story. My main concern is that there will be nearly nothing left of Cassie by the time story will end.

It's my primary concern now.

-It's more based on movies rather than a book.

-By chapter ten, Cassie (=main character) has done two spells so far (one of them by accident). She also doesn't have her wand. Author said this:

Frankly, I don't believe him. This is one of main reasons why I don't like this story as much as I could've. Seriously, why include Harry Potter universe at all? When there is nearly no magic, author could just as well make it crossover with real life.

 

Just switch to Flexile Dark Standalone theme.

I do that and use a custom CSS.

Code:

/*Change the page width.*/

.pageWidth {
margin: 0 auto;
min-width: 940px;
width: 1170px;}

/* Member Card background color. */

.xenOverlay.memberCard {
background-color: #1B1B1B;
}

/* How see through do you want it? Lower for more, higher for less. */

/*.pageContent {
opacity: .85;}*/

/* Sidebar font colors. */

.sidebar .section .secondaryContent .footnote {
color: #c5c5c5;}

/* Categories */

.nodeList .categoryStrip, .heading, .subHeading {
color: #c5c5c5;
border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);
background: rgb(57,57,57);}

.nodeList .categoryStrip .nodeTitle a {
color: #c5c5c5;}

/* Section Headers */

.discussionList .sectionHeaders {
border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);
background: rgb(57,57,57);}

.discussionList .sectionHeaders a {
color: #c5c5c5;
}

/* Page Navigation */

.navTabs .navTab.PopupClosed .navLink, .navTabs .navTab.PopupClosed .navLink:hover {
color: #72A7C9!important;
text-shadow: none;}

.PageNav a {
background-color: rgb(30, 31, 32);
border-color: rgb(57, 57, 57);}

.PageNav a.currentPage {
color: #999;
background-color: rgb(30, 31, 32);
border-color: rgb(57, 57, 57);}

/* Messages */

.message .messageContent {
-webkit-border-radius: 5px;
-khtml-border-radius: 5px;
border-radius: 5px;
}

.messageList .message {
border-top: 1px solid #393939;
}

.message .messageText {
font-size: 12pt;
font-family: Calibri, Verdana, sans-serif;
}

/* Warnings */

.messageNotices li {
color: #DA6D6D;
background-color: #750606;
border-color: #000;}

/* Quotes */

.bbCodeQuote blockquote {
font-style: normal;
font-size: 10pt;}

.bbCodeBlock {
margin-right: 15px;}

.bbCodeQuote {
border-color: rgb(57, 57, 57);}

.bbCodeQuote .attribution {
background-color: rgb(57, 57, 57);
border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(57, 57, 57);}

.bbCodeQuote .quoteContainer {
color: #999;
background-image: none;
background-color: rgb(30, 31, 32);}

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color:grey;
background: -webkit-linear-gradient(top, rgba(27, 43, 60, 0) 0%, rgb(30, 31, 32) 80%);
background: -moz-linear-gradient(top, rgba(27, 43, 60, 0) 0%, rgb(30, 31, 32) 80%);
background: -o-linear-gradient(top, rgba(27, 43, 60, 0) 0%, rgb(30, 31, 32) 80%);
background: linear-gradient(to bottom, rgba(27, 43, 60, 0) 0%, rgb(30, 31, 32) 80%);}

/* Quick Reply */

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border-top: 1px solid rgb(57, 57, 57);}

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min-width: 5em;
text-align: center;}

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color: #C6C6C6;
border-color: #000;
background-color: #6A6A6A;}

/* Removed/Hidden */

.extraUserInfo, #flexile_header_content, .sharePage, #rightContentBox, #userBar .itemLabel {
display: none;}

/* Custom Background Image */

/*#content {
background: #000 url('http://i.imgur.com/xSktLiT.jpg') no-repeat fixed center;}*/

/* Custom Icon Image & Color */

.node .forumNodeInfo .nodeIcon, .node .categoryForumNodeInfo .nodeIcon {
background: #555 url('http://i.imgur.com/PJf6XqJ.png')!important;}

.node .forumNodeInfo.unread .nodeIcon, .node .categoryForumNodeInfo.unread .nodeIcon {
background: #aaa url('http://i.imgur.com/PJf6XqJ.png')!important;}

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background-position: 3px -107px;}

html .redactor_toolbar li a.redactor_btn_bbm_at_post
{
background-image: url('http://i.imgur.com/zmfBEm5.png')!important;
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The sections with /* */ around it are disabled but you can undo them if you want to use them.

 

I think this is pretty good so far. It's a bit short, but I love non-BWL!Harry fics. There are a few grammatical errors, but nothing that'll make you go crazy. I like how Harry is being written. I especially enjoyed a certain scene where Harry puts Hermione in her place about House Elves (none of that BS where Harry compares the wizarding world unfavorably to the muggle world in this fic)

 

That's a good one, Spanks. Interesting premise, so far. I wonder though if Harry would really join up with Voldemort in that fic, despite whatever hogwash he's dishing out to Theo and the bunch.

Also, kind of interested to see how Harry's gonna fare in the next chapter when learning about the more... mundane spells, rather than the ones he'd hoped to practice with the rest of the Slytherins.

 

Urgh, I hate this so much. It's one of those absolutely terrible tropes that come along with ranty Harry. It's up there with telling Neville to have more self-confidence the first time they meet, or the ultimate in shitty ranty Harry: going off on a lecture about not trusting all published works to Hermione.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure Hermione knows that something being in a book doesn't make it true. It does, however, carry more weight than the word of an 11-year-old child. Given that all the wizarding world knows what Harry looks like, clearly they know some amount of accurate stuff about him, even if "I haven't given any interviews!"

On the topic of House Elves, this is just one of those transparent attempts by authors to retcon an element of the HP world so they can bash a character for actions that were completely rational in canon.

Plus it's just done to bash Hermione/give Harry a convenient slave. I'm all for "wizards beat Muggles". I've argued many times that magic > technology and that wizarding culture is not "medieval" as so many people assume. But that doesn't mean you have to remove every element of social backwardness. Making slaves magically justified, making purebloods genuinely have special powers... these destroy the interesting elements of conflict in the wizarding world.

House Elves are slaves, and wizards are wrong for enslaving them. Making them somehow dependent on wizards' magic just takes that interestingly complex issue and makes it boringly simple.

Harry's treatment of Dobby is unendingly shitty. He only ever calls on him when he wants something. Harry calls Dobby a friend, but how often does he talk to Dobby as an equal? How often does he sit down and eat with Dobby? How often does he invite Dobby in on his adventures? How often does he think of Dobby as deserving his respect and attention? How often does he talk to Dobby about Dobby's life, opinions, thoughts?

Never. He even just gives Dobby an old pair of Vernon's socks as a present... that Dobby liked them is off the point with respect to Harry's character. The point is that Harry hadn't put any thought towards Dobby. As usual.

 

I see what you did there.

 

To be fair, Dobby is annoying. Even if he's a friend.

 

Yeah, seriously. Would you want to hang out with Dobby? He's pretty obnoxious, even if he has good intentions. He wouldn't be the greatest conversationalist by a huge margin, and I doubt they have too many overlapping interests. Considering how much Dobby fucked with Harry in the 2nd book - literally causing Harry serious physical harm amongst other things - I think Harry treats him pretty well.

Does Harry sometimes mistreat Dobby? Yeah, maybe - but it's not intentional and he treats him much better than most other wizards would in his place so cut him some slack. His reaction to Dobby dying proves he did genuinely care about him if nothing else, even if he was the reason Dobby died.

 

I agree with Taure about house elves, but putting that aside Just Another Orphan seems pretty good. It could still spiral into crap, but so far it is decently written with consistent characterization.

The weakest part of the story is the retcon of wizarding culture (Christmas and house elves) along with little information about Harry's development. He calls Hermione a mudblood even though his mother was muggle-born, which I always thought should require some character development.

 

The problem is we don't know if this Harry ever received a photo album with pictures of his parents, if he ever stumbled across the Mirror of Erised and saw his heart's desire.

There's a part of him that mourns the lack of parents, but he doesn't know anything about them. Doesn't have anything emotionally tying him to his parents. Maybe that will change with Sirius being introduced?

And in the end, he isn't calling his own mother a mudblood, but a know-it-all muggleborn whom he has no reasons to like or defend when he's surrounded by other Slytherins. To put it simply, there's no gain for him to treat her decently. That is, until this last chapter that the author currently has.

 

While I generally agree with Taure. The potter books are generally rife with shitty interactions. It's made worse by the fact that there is so much time not shown. We don't know what Harry does with that time in terms of Dobby. Harry and Dobby are friends not because they are shown to be friends, but because Harry says so. And like so many things in the series, what we are told is barely if at all supported in the books. Truthfully, I consider Dumbledore and Snape's treatment of Harry worse then Harry's treatment of Dobby and Harry named his kid after them. So obviously the moral compass of Harry is effected by something not written, or maybe it's my moral compass.

There isn't anything I remember from the books to contradict that House-elves benefit from the bond. Kreature and Winky seem to love it, while Dobby wanted to be free. But I agree, that pretty much every instance I've read that mentioned house-elves in need of Wizards is to bash Hermione at least. Although, the leaving the hats in the tower was just Crabbe/Goyle level stupidity on Herione's part.