Spoiler

Weird how there's a focus on dystopias so far. Sign of the times, I s'pose.

Dialogue is more or less on point. Not really sure about Gerald referring to his lycanthropy as "his inner wolf" - it's a phrase ripe for abuse that's shown up in a shitload of bad slash fanfics so I'm rather leery of it. It's not like cancer has your inner bloodcells braying for blood or whatever. (I'm not a doctor.)

If there's anything that dissatisfies me it's the concept of the New Ministry. How, who, what, why - questions principially unanswered. Apparently muggles take over the wizards and ban magic (???) but that makes no sense to me on any real level. But then not everything needs to be explained, so I'm not sure if this is merely a personal foible, or even really something that detracts from your fic, since I'm more curious than I am for most of the other entries.

3/5.

 

Spoiler

Ok this was good. I enjoyed it a TON! You managed to make me connect with the characters very quickly. It was well written, flowed, and I found myself wanting more at the end. The only thing that threw me slightly was the whole new ministry thing, since I dont think we get enough hints to figure out what happened. It might have made sense to be a bit more coy there. But that's a minor quibble, this was a great story. Nice details on his being proud to fight at hogwarts but then how he regrets it on the full moon. The whole way you had him dealing with the werewolf bite was the highlight to me

 

Spoiler

Overall, a decent attempt. Good job pulling me into the scene, and I very easily feel like I know the characters shortly after you introduce them. But then you switch to that internal monologue, and it’s a jarring shift. Feels to come out of nowhere and give the impression of man staring off into the distance while in the middle of a conversation.

On that topic, no dialog tags or descriptors on the short conversation. Easy enough to follow, as it’s only two people, but you’ll want to watch out for that. Also, a few occasional slips between present tense and past tense. Minor, but noticeable.

Overall – 3.5/5, mostly well written from a technical perspective, could have smoothed out some things around the edges

 

Spoiler

I like the idea that the Old Ministry is the one that Harry and Hermione instituted by winning the war but that it all went to shit anyway, and I enjoy some bits of your dialogue. I think this is well written in the most part, however, I think it fails my fundamental 'is this a story?' check. Nothing happens. He gets a potion to drink at the start, and drinks it at the end. He's in the same mood at the end as he basically was at the beginning. It's a conversation. It's exposition, and if it was the opening scene of a chapter where he's about to encounter the hinted at problem (of not doing disillusionments before leaving, or whatever) then that would be ideal. But it doesn't happen. Nothing happens.

There's one or two bits where you say is instead of was, and I can see why you do it. Excepting the bit about where he is still proud, I think you should keep to past tense for your it'ses etc.

This part here, I wasn't a fan of the beat, considering how the dynamic has been. It feels a different reaction than he ought to be giving. Besides that though, I don't think you can comma onto this, you need a full stop.

So yeah, liked the tone, but a whole piece of exposition without it affecting anything at all just doesn't do it for me. I like the backstory, but you need a front story too.

 

Spoiler

I liked this entry a lot! It was an interesting decision to choose the invention of Wolfsbane as the 70 year mark for this story. I also like your decision to frame the (illicit) purchase to reflect on the past.

Some more specific thoughts:

I thought this was a little awkward. Perhaps “on top of it”?

So why does G pay in Gallons if the Ministry is defunct and magicals are swept under the rug and disorganized? When I read at first I didn’t notice it because it’s the standard wizard currency. That’s nice since it delays our realizing how different the wizarding world is now, but in retrospect seems like it may be a mistake.

i thought this was a great way to do exposition since it also helps to characterize the dealer.

This made me think of the informant among the proles in 1984. I half-expected G to get busted.

The phrasing is a bit awkward here. I had to back up to realize you meant the statute fell just before the 30 year date mentioned. The last lines of the dialogue “if I recall...” seemed stilted to me.

Think you veered off course here. they sort of are his own since he lived through it all?

It’s cool that there may be plain-clothes Legilimens working for an anti-magic faction. I also like the take that this world could arise from victory at Hogwarts and not defeat although it makes me wonder what led to the Statute falling down—was this the ministry’s doing because they wanted to integrate marginalized groups more? Were wizards ousted by muggle tech?

 

Spoiler: Thoughts

I think I already said in another thread that this is my favorite story in the current contest, well reading it again only reaffirmed my opinion.
I mean it's excellent.
It leads your mind to wander, did the ministry collapse because it tried to do too much?
Does the new ministry block werewolves from getting wolfsbane so they wreak destruction on the muggles?

Gerald isn't particularly interesting but that doesn't matter because he's used to shed light on the new ministry.
The potion "master" is also intriguing:
"Grandpappy's improvements is no more than 30, though. Anybody telling you they've got the original recipe or any of the Old Ministry's files is a New Ministry plant or a con artist"
What a line!

5/5

 

Spoiler

The writing really pulls you in and the pacing is on point. I like the creativity of this. The fic does make me wonder about the New Ministry. I have a feeling it's run by muggleborns (outlawing robes) but I could be wrong. Though, with all these "modern improvements" (cameras) I wonder why they seem to have left werewolves behind. I'd assume Hermione would be involved in this New Ministry, and she's a staunch advocate for the less fortunate. All in all, I'd just like to know a bit more, so I have a more fleshed-out picture in my head.

 

Hello friends! So this was my entry. Wrote it the day before it was due, the day it was due I gave it two quick passes of editing (I think, it was a while ago). Each time I ran through it to edit it, I ended up changing or modifying some stuff about the New Ministry/Old Ministry because I couldn't get it just right.

What I was trying to convey was that around the time the internet really starts to explode (mid to late 2010s), the statute of secrecy crumples due to keeping their head stuck in the sand. The Old Ministry (run by the winners of the Battle of Hogwarts) gets taken over and subsumed my the Muggle government. Then, unfortunately, there's a whole lot of bigotry and regulation and tension for 30ish years which results in scenes like this being common.

I think my review of myself is pretty accurate. I'm okay with this being largely slice of life, or snap shot style. I'm working on a slightly longer one shot piece (different Fandom) right now and when I finish that up I'll probably make some edits to this and post it into WbA.

Thanks for all the kind words! I'm glad you all enjoyed it!