I know that I read only Harry Potter fics because I don't particularly care about other fandoms. You can't force interest in something you don't care about. THAT wouldn't make sense.

 

Ring of Gold is so long that you lose interest, the writing and plot is good but it gets boring after a while.

 

Quick question about this story: how prevalent is the BTVS-crossover business? I never watched Buffy other than an episode here and there, and as a general rule, I don't read crossovers. [Before anyone starts in, I'm not far enough along in The Dresden Files yet and don't want it spoiled for me, and other fandoms simply hold little interest for me, especially TV shows]

I love reading well-done Dumbledore, the number of which has seemed to go up lately (huzzah!), but I have zero interest in any Harry-Buffy interaction of Harry-goes-to-Sunnydale bullshit, so if that's the case for this fic, I'd like to know now, before I invest any time in it. To each his own of course, but as I said, crossovers just aren't my thing. Well, other than a really, really good Harry-Calvin-&-Hobbes crossover I read a while back; that one made me all misty-eyed...

 

Three chapters in, and there's squat. The author sums it up as such:

I guess it's one of those "wait-and-see, and maybe hope it doesn't happen on a large scale" things.

 

Re: Journey in the Dark.

At the moment, it's slightly above average, but I'd still rate it 3.

There are a number of small annoyances that really accumulate into an average, rather than good, read. It's rushed. Most characters are completely two dimensional (Zacharias, prime example) or OOC (Viktor). Friend!Malfoy is heavily implied to occur in the near future (best part is that's the old Harry-is-the-one-in-the-wrong style). Related is Narcissa sending Dobby to help Harry out (let's just ignore Dobby repeatedly hitting himself for betraying his masters). It's unexplained why Hermione didn't believe Harry, and then Harry randomly forgives her (but not Ron). Spell discrepancies (people knowing or not knowing spells they should or shouldn't).

The author, like Ellisande said, needs to slow down a bit. Explain things properly.

I've got it on Alerts, but something needs to change for me to give it any higher than a 3.

 

I'll agree with most of what you said. The fic certainly seems similar to a few GoF remakes, but I think this is on the higher end of the scale. There is still the potential that the story could crash and burn, but, so far, I think the author has done a good job with the pace and character interaction, especially Dumbledore and Ludo Bagman.

I can overlook most of the things you've mentioned specifically as problems. I never liked Zacharias' character, and I don't think it's too OOC for him to act the way he does. We don't really know that Krum wouldn't have been friendly to Harry had Harry actually made the effort in canon. Friend!Malfoy/Helpful!Narcissa, well yeah, you've got a point on that, but it doesn't kill the story for me right now.

Why Hermione didn't believe Harry is a little annoying, but, again, it's not a deal breaker for me. As for why Harry forgives her, but not Ron, I think it's because Ron actually knew what the first task was and didn't bother to tell Harry. I'd be pretty pissed off if my friend, even if we were fighting, didn't give me a heads up in a life or death situation.

Finally, I don't mind the spell discrepancy thing to much. Mostly because I enjoy reading fics where Harry actually learns magic and doesn't just suddenly become a god. I'll allow the small discrepancies as long as it doesn't go overboard.

Tl;dR: 4/5 at the moment, but could still suck.

 

In which Snape befriends an old grey donkey, and life is gloomy, as usual by Plenty O'Custard.

Snape and Eeyore share the sorry tales of their lives. Harry Potter/Winnie-the-Pooh one-shot crossover set during TSS. Not sure how in god's name this isn't a disaster (vaguely sympathetic Snape + A.A. Milne), but it's one of the funniest stories I've read. Very droll. Take five minutes and read it.

 

That should be i the WTF fics thread >_>

 

Unless he's seriously almost recommending that. In which case I have a serious problem with him...

 

Pistols at dawn.

With any luck I'll finally be able to check "acquire dueling scar" off my bucket list.

 

This is definitely worth checking out. It incorporates some original twists on a Harry after 4th year has just ended; there is a large focus on dueling and politics, and Harry is competent enough. The dueling scenes are a highlight in my opinion; they're not the best I've seen, but they're definitely entertaining and believable. It almost reminds me of jbern's "The Lie I've Lived".

The main problem I have is that some of the characterization (like with Voldemort and Dumbledore) is slightly off and two-dimensional. Along with that, I think the author gets tired of saying "Harry did blah" and tries to change things up by using phrases like "the teen" or "the green-eyed teen". However, this just makes it sound a little weird.

The author is enlightened enough to realize that relationships at that age are transient, so none of the relationships Harry has/will have are going to be twoo wuv or anything. Romance isn't really a focus, which is good for this particular story.

I'm hesitant to outright say this deserves a 4/5, but I think it does deserve at least a 3/5 (if not more). What do you guys think?

 

@ Sesc: The H/Hr stuff, so far, isn't prominent at all. And if that's your major concern, you can check out an author's note at the end of its last uploaded chapter for a note on that relationship. Also, Harry dates Parvarti (somewhat realistically), but there isn't really any fluff to speak of. It's an interesting story, worth looking into when it's updated again, and fairly solidly written to this point.

That said, the author really needs to learn the difference between the words 'piqued' and 'peaked.'

 

It's not a bad, really, but it sorta fails to be grabbing. It has a lot of nigglingly annoying little things. The Duel scoring bit for example reminds me of the judging BS from the Tasks and how dumb that was (Though arguably that makes it believable since we have canon evidence Wizards love to apply retarded ass judging to their contests instead of objective measures)

I'm in a little disbelief that Harry is so good at magic after one summer half spent with Remus and Sirius, and the whole plot with the DADA teacher came off as pretty clumsy (unless it develops new twists after chapter 9). It delivers on entertaining dueling and competent!Harry though, so I guess you can't complain that much.

 

My problem with this fic is that it has the same and quite easy to recognize plot along with story telling, which is generally common for any other new member of ff.net who has read several Indi!Harry stories and decided to give it a go
Most people call them cliché, but I call them simply "annoying read".

I "(winced)" every time Harry used "Aunt Andi" or "big sister Tonks", and only "(tiny winced)" when he kept on correcting people for calling him Potter when his "new" name is Potter-Black...

3/5 for it could be much worse.

 

Death Eaters of Hogwarts is a decent story. What I like most is the fast pace. The author is not afraid to skip things and I like that. Otherwise this story would probably have lost my interest already.
Somewhere between 3/5 and 4/5 seems alright.

 

I just started reading this series and finished the first book. It is well written but a lot of it requires a pretty big suspension of disbelief.

Mainly

Spoiler

The Brotherhood. God this organization pisses me off so much. In the first book they are pretty much all powerful and capable of doing anything to anyone; from infiltrating ministries to launching large scale attacks on whatever (such as Gringotts). They have spies everywhere, are able to hunt you down across Europe, commit widespread destruction, havoc and brazen daytime murders, and yet besides the main characters and some minor backround characters, somehow NOBODY knows about them. It defies logic. It's like the author read a bunch of bad conspiracy novels (ie Dan Brown) and haphazardly tossed a bunch of ideas together hoping that it would somehow work, which it really doesn't.

There are a lot of other problems I have so far with this series, but that is definitely the main one. I'll probably still continue with it just because it's better than most fics, but it's probably not library worthy.

 

Harry Thunderer and the Uru Hammer by JBean210
Summary: During the Battle of the Department of Mysteries, Harry chances upon an unusual artifact - a giant's wand. But is that what it really is? Of course not! It's a weapon even more powerful than the Elder Wand. How will Harry use it? And who else wants it?

This concept intrigues me, and the story is fairly solid in parts. The canon rewriting is quite shaky however, I skimmed large chunks of some chapters because of lines taken directly from the books.

This story may yet reach its potential, with Loki in the game and all, but for the moment it definitely belongs here IMO.

 

Or you really live in the moment.