I started to read this and thought it was completely ripping off another fic until I realized this is the same fic I posted in Almost Recommended five months ago but the author changed their name from AlianneOfTortall to Deadwoodpecker.

It still 'feels' like a decent read and fails to capture my interest. Much like Nightmares of Futures Past. The fact that it's complete means I'll probably someday give it a shot, but for now I'll stick with watching re-runs of tv shows I've already seen.

 

Backwards with Purpose was a pretty middle of the road read, but its worth it to read the companion story The Book of Albus.

Which is surprisingly good.

Not to mention the sheer level of planning that must have went into these two fics for almost 400k words worth of story to fic together so well. This certainly isn't a write-by-the-chapter author.

EDIT: And despite what you may or may not like about Backwards with Purpose, "12" year old Harry trying to get into "11" year old Ginny's pants and getting caught by her parents. Hilarious.

EDIT2: Actually, now that I look back through this story and remember the pieces of it I'm going to have to go out on a limb and say you should slog through the story. It starts off average and gets better. The author has an amazingly broad and well written plot going on. One that you just do not see in fanfiction. Ginny/Harry aside.

 

That's basically what this fic is.

Taure, you said it yourself in the review. Nothing is different. The author basically rewrote canon. Granted, the characterization is ok, but I can't stand plotless stories (and because we already know the plot, that's exactly what this is).

 

You honestly have to get into 4th year before anything starts to get really drastic....then it just says a big FUCK YOU to canon.


This story was interesting to say the least. Obviously there were some issues with it but for the most part I found myself using up 4 hours. Which is always a good thing.


The H/G is very tolerable. As there really isn't that much of fluff in it. H/G just are and they don't even focus on it.

I enjoyed the Weasley schism and the fact that the author stayed true to Time philosophies. That just because you go back in time doesn't mean that everyone is going to be exactly the same. And Harry said it best, the Weasleys were just looking out for their family and didn't consider Harry as one of them.

Of course the last two chapters were filled with Weasley Love that I gagged and vomited at the same time.

That's right, I gahvomited.


Kudos to the stories length as it's great to sift through a novel length story and have it actually be done for a change



One thing I wasn't happy about was the Interludes. Maybe a few of them were necessary but there were an awful lot. I really don't need to read what every secondary character has to say about a certain situation. Also giving away some plot points by having Interludes that were set in the future was disorienting. It was hard to read a characters death and in the next chapter have them walking around again.



Dunno if I'm going to read BoA. I honestly don't need to cram my head anymore with time paradoxes..and apparently there are 7 of them. We'll just see though how it turns out if the Weasley love is still there than maybe not.

All in all a really good fic and a glimmer of hope for H/G and R/Hr, proving that shipping doesn't automatically fail the fic

4.5/5


Edit. Just started reading Book of Albus and I can't force myself to read this. As someone who recently lost his father when said person was young (late 40's), I started to read Albus' thoughts and I just can't do it. Maybe in a year or so I might but right now it's impossible. Let me know if it's any good though

 

There were things I like about the beginning and things I didn't like. My completely loathing for Severus aside, I just get bored with Fics where they cherry pic what to change and what not to. I don't know about anyone else, but I'd avoid attending school again with a passion.



The author gets points for the negative attitude towards Harry of the Wizarding world and especially the Weasleys. We need more fics were he's friends with Ron/Ginny and the parents and twins hate him.

I agree completely with the earlier post about Harry and Ginny getting caught being highly amusing.

The writing style is a bit dry at places, and while certain things are interesting, funny, strange from a plot perspective, the writing doesn't bring the story to life. It's extremely well written for FF.net and I would recommend reading it, but I wouldn't go out of your way to do so.

I'd say 4, but barely, and mostly because there are some semi-original plot points and ideas stuck in there.

 

I don't think people understand the rating system of 5 stars.

I think they need to be explained in a Sticky for rating fic in 'For Review'

 

I liked this fic. Characters are believable, writing is smooth, no serious spelling errors. Ginny, despite being Ginny, is pretty likeable character.
I actually read it pretty long ago, but I don't remember characters whining about killing enemies, thats a big plus. Or lack of huge minus, I really hate fics in which idiots won't even try to kill enemy throwing AK's on them.
I really liked idea of Sirius' bet, even though it led to an emotional moment >:/

Generally it's a decent read. Rated 3.5, voted 4.

 

I think different people have different conceptions, but I don't see why you think yours is the correct one.

The way I see things:

5/5 - Amazing fic, thoroughly enjoyable. Either no bad points against the fic, or the bad points that it does have are negligible. Perfect or almost perfect.

4/5 - Readable and enjoyable fic that is library-worthy. A story which is more enjoyable than not. The kind of fic you read and once you're finished you're glad you did.

3/5 - Story with some enjoyable parts and some not. The reverse of 4/5 - four is a story more enjoyable than not, three is a story with more unenjoyable parts. "Could have been good but for X" is a common phrase when discussing a 3/5 fic.

2/5 - Story with no redeeming features - there is no enjoyment to be found in this fic.

1/5 - Not only a story with no redeeming features, but should not even be counted a story at all. Humanity would be better off if this story were forgotten and never mentioned again. Should be outlawed by the Geneva convention. Perfect example: My Immortal. Also includes fics that aren't fics.

 

I was talking about fics like that one-shot that was posted in the Library and was deleted by the author after we criticised it for being about 200 words long and about 90% canon regurgitation, as well as full of spelling errors.

A fic that isn't a fic.

I think that it's implied that most people who try it fail, because of the complexity of the Potion and the fact that without their memories (and thus knowledge of what they're doing) they lose the willpower to continue, and just end up staying in their present time with no memories.

Also I should imagine it's quite rare knowledge, and even people who do read it consider it a fairy tale (like Hermione did).

 

As for the rating system:
The highest I'll give a story is 4-4.5 on first read. If I can go back six months later and reread it and it's still excellent, then I'll raise my ranking.

There's one story over in "Almost recommended fiction" that's waiting for me to reread it. If it's just as good the second time, I'll rec it for the library.

 

Taure, thats exactly the way I think the rating system is. And people are pointing out a lot of not so good things about this fic and giving it a 4 (which should be reserved for the 'Good and Enjoyable' fics).

 

Read it today:

Meh describes it pretty well. The "Always and Always" thing really got on my nerves after the 400th time it was said. It had some good "different" scenes but was too close to canon to pull it out. Summary fics put me to sleep and I passed out twice while reading.

The H/G thing wasn't bad, but edged onto fangirlish when Ginny's hair became flamelike for the billionth time in fan fiction history. But kudos for holding it there and not having her curvy and large breasted.

Weasley's didn't piss me off in this fic. I thought the characterzation was well done. It makes me wonder what this author could do with a great plot instead of rehashing old material.



3/5

Now for my vision of the rating system.

5 = fucking awesome. Little or no problems. This goes in my favorites.
4 = very good. I'd read it again.
3 = average, library worthy... barely.
2 = if I was alone, with absolutly nothing to do, and ran out of razors to cut myself with... then I'd read it.
1 = eye-gouging time. I've wasted valuble navel contemplating time. I've crapped things with more substance than this.

 

Frankly, I would rank this one around 3.5 or 4 in an actual review. At the same time I'd toss it a 5 to see it go into the Library, if only so the sequel can go up in here.

 

Wow, just wow.

I must admit, I was extremely bored, and decided to give this another go, I almost quit again, a few times, until about chapter 15, where it became really fucking good.

I honestly recommend all of you to just slog through the first 15 chapters, instead of, as most people imagined, it was rewriting canon, it was merely setting the stage for the events about to occur. And when they start occurring... god damn does the story become good. Of course, as Taure pointed out, there are a few plot-holes, in the story, but its nothing major, nothing exceptionally unreadable.

My favorite parts was, while there was angst, it wasn't about stupid shit, you didn't have angst about Harry having to kill people, you didn't have other people angsting about killing people, shit needed to be done, and it was done.

Spoiler

I also loved the fact that the author didn't shy away from writing dark stuff, forexample, Harry and some of the Weasley's going to Azkaban and murdering 19 death eaters in cold blood, then dropping them all over Malfoy Manor in retaliation for killing one of their own was fucking awesome.

While I usually hate the Weasley's and most H/G is badly written, I honestly believe that this is one of those fics that definitely deserves a place in the library, as a readable Harry/Ginny fic.

Oh, and also as Taure mentioned, the characterization was exceptional, none of the characters felt Mary Sueish, or Gary Stuish. As he mentioned, every character mentioned with regularity had a part to play, and they played it well.

I'd rate the first 15 chapter at about a 2/5 for intense crappiness, the middle of the story a solid 5/5, and the last three chapters a 3/5.

Overall, the story comes to a 4.5/5 for me. I truly enjoyed reading it.

Edit: I am going to be really pissed off if this fic gets binned because of people rating it very low, without finishing the fic.

If you don't finish the fic, post your oppinion, sure, but don't rate it imo. Not when people say that it gets a lot better later on.

 

Quoted for truth.

Seriously gals, give it a whirl. Can't be any worse than the time you spent reading some of the more... memorable parts of canon that you'll never get back, can it?

 

Ellisande, I got up to chapter 23 in one run before giving it up.

The fact that 32 year olds have to look to a 14 year old girl for everything.

Said 32 year olds have not made an improvement on their ability but have just been pretending to learn spells they already knew.

The fact that everyone thinks Harry is a dark (which obviously means evil) wizard and that faggot is still trying to save them all.

Never mind the fact Harry doesn't even have the skill to take down Cedric, but you have to go through 4 years of copy/paste before you even come to something original. Even then the original isn't all that good.

 

Fair enough Lincos, fair enough. I'll admit, the fic is not exactly DLP style. A guilty pleasure like Elvenlaughters I guess.

 

A guilty pleasure at best, IMO.

I read this one night when I was really bored, and had been searching other DLP members' favorites on ff.net. Perspicacity had it in his, and I linked from there.

For the first several chapters, I was hooked. It was a semi-original look at an overused plot device. Then I got bogged down with all the always and always lines. The quote was run into the ground so deep that it should be coming out in China sometime soon. That was only a minro flaw, to me. Then the whole world thought Harry was dark. Again. Another overused plot device.

And I was still okay with it at this point. When it comes down to it, Merlin should have been open-ended, we really shouldn't have been forced to see the kids they all had, and the last several chapters made me want to give up on fanfiction in general. I just thought it was a very depressing end to what was an otherwise decent fic.

Ellisande's spoiler box contains* one of the best scenes in the fic, if you ask me. That was brilliant.

It was still readable and had lots of enjoyable parts. So in fairness, I'm giving it a 3/5

*edited so a comment about "Ellisande's spoiler" no longer confuses Janus.

 

>> I believe that's why it was in a "spoiler" box.

But you should definitely go read the Book of Albus now.