I recall attempting to read it a few years ago, never got into it. I'll give it another shot I suppose.

 

A lot of things, but I'll take a guess and say you're talking about why I haven't read that particular fanfic yet.

Because the summary didn't intrigue me in the least bit. Yes, quite shallow of me. And I've been proven wrong often enough that the summary doesn't exactly present the fanfic, since it is so very, very short in comparison.

I admit I even avoided "The Lie I've Lived" too for a while because of the summary. And then someone told me a bit about it and I just read it all in one go.

 

E.C. Scrub's When a Veela Cries is solid writing for this pairing and has a pretty original storyline.

 

Didn't even know that existed. Cheers.

Btw Odran, while I don't necessarily think Wastelands is flat out better than Lie, it's definitely worth your time. Joe has a unique style and his insane Harry makes for a really entertaining narrator.

 

I've tried reading HP and the Wastelands of Time before, but it failed to impress me. Harry in that story doesn't really feel like Harry. Instead, I only saw some strange guy that has a problem with his own invincibility. Also, there is not much left of Rowling's work. In WoT, Harry just travels around the world, does... whatever it is that he needs to do, and Harry Potter world suddenly disappeared, and left some strange world that has little to to with canon. I normally applaud some originality, but this is too much.

I also don't like The Lie I've Lived. I don't really know why, I just don't like it. Maybe the fact that I saw James instead of Harry didn't help any.

His Angel by durararaaa remains the best Harry/Fleur in my head.

 

His Angel is shit. I can say this purely based on the title of the fic.

 

Radmar... You're going to burn in hell for what you just said.

 

Hey, everyone needs their own gilty pleasure.

 

I forget... why is Hermione not quite friends with Harry in "His Angel"? I remember it has something to do with his relationship with Fleur, but it's been a long time since I took a peek at that.

And as for "When a Veela cries"... that one was hilarious with the amount of angst and drama. Especially the shit that Fleur expects of Harry, like immediately knowing everything about Veela, marking him via some magical means and expecting him to act up on it despite not knowing anything about the process or what the fuck it's supposed to mean.

 

His Angel is the fluffiiest and most Cliché fic (of the romance variaty of clichés, of HP clichés nothing beats The Merging) I've ever read. It's much more like a romance novel than HP. But it's well writtem, with solid writing, and solid characters (if completely clichés and fluff).

Lies is the best Harry/Fleur fic I've read and one of my all times facorite, it was also my first High Quality fic.

I really like Wastelans, but something in it made it impossible for my to really love it, I've found too ambitious and confuse, it lost it self in it's epicness. But it's a very good fic nonethless.

 

It's a sad state of affairs when wastelands and the lie i've lived are still considered 'top' stories of the pairing... Radmar is right with what he says (and it's something some of us have been saying for years now). Wasteland's worst enemy is it's own plot, and the lie i've lived is only Harry in name, since it actually reads more like James/Fleur. But that's the problem with the pairing, in that people need gimmicks to make it work (and I still don't think it really works in those situations.)

 

Wastelands remains my favorite fic of all time, so I'm biased. It's the fic that got me into fanfiction. Also, Joe is a boss.

As far as the best Harry/Fleur, when I consider it objectively -- I'm not really sure there is one. Wastelands isn't really about Harry/Fleur, it's just there; it's a story that happens to have H/F in it instead of an H/F story. Lie I've Lived is okay, but I'm not super attached to it.

Harry/Fleur is an interesting idea primarily, I think, because of the difficulty of writing it effectively -- but sadly this severely reduces the amount of quality fics out there.

 

My complaint about it is that there's no real plot, and hinting at all sorts of awesome things that will never be properly explained is the laziest way to establish a setting possible. It's a very fun ride if you can just embrace what it's going for, but I realized about halfway through that there was zero chance of it ever coming to a satisfying conclusion, and I was sadly not proven wrong. It's bad enough when a story's author has no idea where the story is going, but with WoT I was left with the impression that Joe didn't have any more idea than I did about what the significance of the events that had already happened were.

There was a good chunk in the middle where I was hoping Voldemort would just show up and kill both of them and end the competition over who can be the least likeable character.

Still kinda rooting for Fleur dying even after the awful drama was resolved.

 

Fundamental category error. TLIL is the best James Potter/Fleur story that's ever existed :3

 

The cafe drama was especially amusing. What with Fleur going all indignant and spouting stuff like:

While she's pushing him away. Then there's that scene where she rushes off to his room and starts sniffing at his clothing that was left behind before he popped off to Durmstrang.

Had it been James, he would have fucked every friend of Fleur's or just every female surrounding her in order to make her jealous.

 

All you guys bashing on TLIL, I have this to say. Yes, HJ was far from canon Harry. But he was not James Potter. The fact that he is not, in fact, James Potter is proven time and time again. It is a central part of the plot.

The whole point of the story was that HJ is both, but neither. Find something better to hate about it.

 

Update your story!

 

I rather be right than wrong, but I rather be funny than right.

Do consider this. Had that character been either Harry or James Potter and not Harry and James Potter, the characterization would be been a million times better.

 

Do consider this: I disagree.

Shocking, isn't it?

 

Primary reason I hate it is because it stuck in my mind so firmly that I still remember it, even after these two years that I have read it last time. I still remember most parts of plot and parts that I hate the most are stuck in my mind in the front. Every single damn time that I hear "The Lie I've lived", or "jbern", I am reminded of it. It is frustrating. It is also only story that affected me this much.

TLIL is not the worst story that I've read. Far from it. But for reasons stated above, i will never be able to read it again.

Btw, is TLIL that story with incredibly annoying (and constantly swearing) sorting hat?

I agree completely.