Seconding this. Dahlia was truly awesome. At her height, she was what Voldemort wants to be when he grows up. Hell, all the OCs are awesome.

It's a shame that this appears to be abandoned.

Spoiler

Dahlia turned her face skywards. The moonlight lit her pale skin, ignited in her green eyes. She unfurled her black wings and the pinions gleamed like ebony knives. In this open space she seemed to shroud the entire sky. A sudden darkness descended, and Harry felt a familiar tug on his middle as the world fell away from under his feet.

"Come, my friends," he heard her say. "The Morrígan goes to war."

 

Ehh. Still a search, moved just to be safe.

 

I second this. It was pretty entertaining despite the few problems it has, probably a 4/5 from me. Of course, the HP/HG in this is annoying, though that's probably just me not liking the pairing to begin with. It's almost finished though. I can't imagine it going more than 2 or 3 more chapters.

 

Without the shameless shipping, "The Other Boy Who Lived" could have been a much better story. As it is, the author is obviously biased and it's showing distastefully. Still much better than many, though that's not saying much.

 

The permanent tension is such a great part of the story that so few other fics are able to do because it makes you feel like you are actually in the characters shoes - which is in a war, one of the tenser places to be.

The characters are actually pretty different from one another and if you don't think Kemester is the one of the best OCs ever to appear in fanfiction I'm not sure what to tell you.

I'm not really sure how you can say that the characters don't plan their actions as most of them have plans within plans influenced by their own motives rather than all fighting for the same objective - like in most other fics.

And this is probably the fic that requires the most thought on my part to read while understanding everything (and I'm sure I'm missing things). It's not deep or insightful (what fanfic is?) or anything but it weaves realistic character interactions with an engaging, topsy-turvy plot.

Easily one of my favorite fics of all time so far.

 

Okay, while I do appreciate the defence of my work, I will whole-heartedly acknowledge that it's not for everyone. I'd like to think that as a whole, though, it's reasonably paced, considering there are those chapters one could consider breathers (12-14, 20-22, 29, 32, 34, 36-37). I think the real problem here is that my update rate, particularly with recent chapters, has really slowed, which means that most of the action in the finale chapters (which I'm currently at) feels breakneck. I think as a whole, it would work better, but I can apologize to my readers for that. I think that also holds on the 'plot twists' being random - simply because my poor update rate doesn't allow for the choreographed twists and mystery to be as effective, simply because long-time readers won't remember everything I wrote.

But yeah, I kind of strongly disagree with the Michael Bay comparison - namely because Renegade Cause is unpredictable, isn't overloaded with comic relief, and does have characters that extend beyond raw stereotypes. And to be honest, if you're trying to read it with your brain off, I can safely say that you might be missing some of the things you're criticizing it for not having.

But honestly, samkar, if you have questions or problems about the story, take to the thread - believe me, I really want the feedback. And hell, I've got three more chapters and then I'm done, so maybe things will read much more to your liking when you can read it as a completed work.

But that also being said, I wouldn't recommend my fic in this thread, because it can really be inaccessible (the fact that I have a drop-off of about 100,000 views between my first chapter and my second on ffn.net is damn proof of that). This comes down to one of the reasons the Santi's got more chops than I do when it comes to writing, pure and simple - he can appeal to a wider audience.

 

I think it's still pretty good. Not phenomenal, and there are a TON of spelling errors (at times I wonder if he even used a beta for it - Sirius is spelled wrong for a good chunk of the story, for example), but enjoyable.

I think I have a version somewhere with most of the spelling errors corrected, if anyone's interested.

 

I didn't criticize the tension but that the tension seems to confuse a lot people to not look closer. Like explosions or ridiculous helicopters in M.Bay films are used as a glue element to hide the story telling limitations in scenes.

Sure, the hard boiled character work I enjoy too.

If you pay attention to the actual plot elements it's like jumping from plot twist to the next one while in between the reader never really gets that the character thinks about what he does. It just happens as if everybody works under Liquid "Luck".

Let's look at the last chapter, the Malfoys flee and just by a magic twist Voldemort knows where Malfoy's secret hole is and arrives a few mins after they arrive there. Convenient, isn't it. I think he could have created the tension without compromising any believable timeline and priorities of the characters. And the story is full of such kind of problems.

Character X does a move and Character Y(usually always Gary Voldemort Stu) knows that X does something and counters it right when it's opportune or Y does something without knowing about X's plans but everything works out right at the same time. Bottom line, the characters act plot driven. What hides a lot is the curvy random plot turns.

What's so unusual about the story is that the characters itself are really well done, it's just how they operate inside the story's framework where it gets far too 1 dimensional from my pov.

I enjoy Con Air too but I would never claim it's a great film.