The original fic? Think again!

I just found out this wonderful site and decided to join in

As for PoT, I DO think it is the "original" version of all cliched stories. How is it original? Because it was the first story which brought together different "existing" ideas into a single story. No, Ross is not the original author of all these idea's. If he were (and knowing the sort of egoistic person he is), he would have made a pdf file full of his original ideas and put them up as a "Guide". I don't think anyone can challenge me on this

Like someone mentioned before, almost all the idea's used in PoT had been done somewhere or the other. The point where Ross scores highest is that his reading speed is higher than most of us (in my opinionl, i.e.). He manages to go through lots of fics and he pens down a lot of ideas.

By the way, someone mentioned Ross was in Iraq. I don't agree. He said he was stationed in a submarine but never said it was near Iraq. And knowing the author, if he had been in Iraq, he would have made a post about it in his yahoo group (he made a post about how his house was affected by Katrina!). Also lets face it, someone who has been in Iraq doesn't come back and start writting fics within a couple of week's time!

But, there is no doubt PoT is an above-average fic. It would have been more enjoyable if the author had not gone into so many detailed descriptions. Also, it would have been more enjoyable had the author not been such a huge liar and didn't make such a big fuss about plagarizing.

As everyone can see, I am not the biggest fan of RossWrock though I like PoT to a "certain" extent.

Time to end my rant!

 

Amen brotha. I stopped listening to that arrogant asshole a long time ago. Whenever I post, he always deletes my messages. Obviously my messages are negative towards the shmuch, but realisticly they're truthful and never even meant to be slanderess. I guess the truth hurts his ego. "last one i posted i said don't expect an update, stop wasting your time asking for an update, beacuse if you havn't noticed, Ross has failed to post evertime he said he was going to post. He monitors his group like the gastapo. The whole reason this site rocks!!! Even his group is going to the shits, his guide isn't very good for one, and never updated, like his story. and the fics recommended there suck giant donky dick, in my opinion.

Edit: I'm tired tonight must fix some spelling.

 

Yeah, I remember reading the post very soon after he opened up the boards once again (for the n-th time!).

It sure does. I am finding tons of stuff to read from the references here

His guide consists mostly of fic's he likes AND, more importantly, those which don't contain ideas which he has used. That's something which we all would do, wouldn't we?
However, he went on to give them a rating. Now, that was a bad idea because some of the fics in his guide there are not just worth the rating he gives them. I don't seem to remember the name of one particular fic. It was the third part of a trilogy I think (a Harry/Cho ship) where Voldemort tries to manipulate governments and economy. He rated it very highly. That was very absurd to say the least!

DLP has a far far far ... better list of fics

 

The story is well done and worth reading. Ross needs to update when he tells us he is going to update. I think Ross is an ass hole myself he is a prick and needs to shrink his head so it will stop blocking out the sun. Pleas shrink your head Ross so earth dos not go in to an ice age. Get over your self your not god.

 

The last couple of posts are absurd. Comment on the story not make ad hominen attacks on the author. I and I'm sure many others REALLY could care less what Ross's personal situatuion and even LESS on what YOUR opinion about that.

No, I'm definitely not a mod nor am I trying to limit what anyone say. All I am saying is that you sound like fucking idiots when you bitch about HIS group and HIS guide. Wow poor you, the mean fanfic author FORCING you to read his guide, join his group and post messages there. (Yeah, that was fucking sarcasm)

Jeez, guess it's hard to imagine how Raven and Mid could not have gotten slammed by Ross and his fans if they ended up being lumped with bitching tards like you bunch.

--------

On topic. I remember eating the first 18-20 chapters of this in a quickie and I think I had already passed my H/G phase by then. The story plotline and flow as well as characterization were rather superbly done. But naturally this kind of story just isn't going to get a lot of applause here.

 

I liked it, plain and simple. I read it in my H/G phase, and I thought it was a tremendous effort. There were no bullshit powers granted by Queen Mab's dead nurse or some other inane character, and Harry didn't up and challenge Voldemort's strength and knowledge immediately.

There was some amount of intelligence on Harry's part, and some ingenuity (the 13th floor stuff) and that made it a better fic than most at the time. Most other H/G fics were stuck in the super!Harry phase, and despite Harry being able to wandlessly transfigure Hogwarts into an atom, they ended up as angsty peices of shit that featured lovestruck!Harry.

Now, after going through the cliches, i have to say that i probably wont like it if i reread it. That's why i won't reread it...it was a good fic, why ruin the memory?

And MrRiddler is right...don't make this about Ross. Its about the fic, lets not turn this into another StainedFuture topic.

 

It wasn't like we did not comment on the story. We commented on the story and said a little more about the author. After all, don't we, as fic readers, have the right to say something about someone who is constantly saying bullshit for the past 15-16 months?

We might sound like idiots but what we said is true. There might be a lot of "intelligent" people out there who are too weak to say anything about a particular author just because his fan club comprises of around 7000 people. And no, he did not force us to read his guide. We read it on our own free will and commented on it here. Why does this bother you? After all, aren't we saying to others "don't trust his guide as not everything is correct in it?". Isn't it similar to reviews of a story?

And I would like specify that this whole thread got started based on the posts the author made in his group. It's not like he updated his fic and this thread was started after that! When this thread was started, no one said "Do not start a thread quoting HIS posts in HIS group". If no one said that in the start, then no one has the moral right to stop us from commenting what else he has said in his group regarding the story and it's update schedule. Of course, not having the moral right does not necessarily mean the mods can't stop us, does it?

Also, I don't think there is anything mentioned in any rules section saying we don't have the right to say something against the author. Obviously if we said something in his favor then no one would have said anything. Anyway, if there is such a rule mentioned, then I would like to have a link to it and I would also like to apologize for the comments I made. If such a rule is not present, then I will stick to my comments.

 

Mmriddler I already made comments on the story in my past posts. why can't I make comments on the author? He is the one writing the garbage. Do you guys make comments on JKR. Yes you do. Yes I did read his guide and why can't I comment on that? If you havn't noticed, you can go into many different Yahoo groups and that stupid guide is there it isn't like the guide hasn't been distributed widly.

My honest opinion of the story is that its okay for the time it was written, although, there are tons of cliches that could fit three stories. Literally in less than 6 months Harry escapes Privet drive, his bird becomes a pheonix, he gets a 2nd wand, the Bassilsk is retreived, he gets in a series of battles, begins inprisoning Death Eaters in a chest that has 6 floors and is equal to 4 football fields, gets magical tattoos that have powers, gets ghost allies, I'm sure I missed alot of rediculous events, but i'm not going to reread this story because it is the wordiest story I've ever read.

Another thing, which is anoying, is people keep saying he came up with these cliches so they wern't cliche, Bullshit, I started reading his story at chapter 7ish and they were well used by that time. Trust me I started reading fanfic at the end of 2002. Look at his author notes he admits to some of them.

I've never flamed his group and only made truthful comments and the guy will just delete them. No skin off my back I could care less. If you judge the guy as a person, then you would know the guy is a prick more concerned about keeping his numbers than actually writing his story. He always comes up with shit saying my friend died, I got shipped off to somewhere unexpectedly because I'm in the Navy. I was sick this week, blah blah blah. What he hasn't realized is everybody has shit in there lives. He hasn't written a chapter in over a year. Everybody has RL issues, people understand when you don't post for a month or three, but when you make deadlines, and don't meet them, you should learn not to make deadlines.

 

About Ross-bashing... You have every right to attack the author of any fic, but I really don't see the point in it. However big of a jerk Ross is (or isn't) in RL, that doesn't change a thing about the quality of fanfiction. Furthermore, no one is paying him to write or post anything, so I don't see the need to expect some stellar level of commitment in return either. So, feel free to bash stories by attacking their authors and, on my end, I'll feel free to discard such reviews as biased and not take them seriously.

As for the originality of POT, there are conflicting claims about that. The undeniable fact is that some ideas were used a few times in some obscure fics, before Ross took them and pushed them into the mainstream. It's also the fact that some ideas were first seen in this story, at least to my recollection.

The best way to clear this up? Simple. If you think that some Ross's idea is a rip-off, then name a single fic where it has been used before POT. As a reminder, here are the things that Ross had made into Indie!Harry clichés we all know and love today (at least the ones I was able to think of right now):

- The whole concept of Harry training on his own, out of Dumbledore's or anyone else's influence (no mentor, no Auror training... just a bunch of books and a trunk ;-))
- Escape from Private Drive and trip to Diagon Alley using Kinght Bus.
- Griphook feeling honored that Harry knew his name
- Harry finds out that he has more vaults than he was aware of (Dumbledore's manipulation aspect)
- Harry’s vaults containing bunch of cool stuff other than money - weapons, books etc... including the letters from his parents/Sirius.
- Grand Diagon Alley shopping trip, including a visit to Knockturn Alley, for dark arts books and artifacts.
- Justification of Dark Magic (“it’s all in intent”, “you can use wingardum leviosa to kill a man” etc...)
- Fully-functional living space inside a multi-compartment trunk
- Untraceable, secondary wand, removal of tracking spells from the first one
- Radar watch
- X-ray spectacles
- Dragon-hide armor
- Hedwig turns into a Phoenix; Harry having a phoenix at all.
- Shopping in Muggle world for clothes, gym equipment, furniture and other cool (or not) stuff.
- Harry uses Fidelius charm to hide himself
- Portraits of Sirius and Harry's parents
- Usage of Time-turner for training purposes
- Dobby and Winky secretly working for Harry, under Dumbledore’s nose
- Magical tattoos
- Killer patronus (freeing people that Dementors had kissed)
- Twins making prank-like weapons for Harry and/or the Order
- Harry uses Basilisk parts from the Chamber, to create more cool stuff/armor for himself
- Harry getting his hands on Sirius' flying bike

That’s all I can think off right now.

Now, I know some of these ideas probably have been used before Ross adopted them, but this list is just too damn impressive for the whole Ross-the-master-thief theory to work.

Conclusion - say what you will about Ross and his fic, but the fact remains that neither this site nor the whole Dark&Independent!Harry community would have existed without his work... or at least they would have never developed to this level.

 

This was post number 6565 on Ross's group made on Sat Nov 13, 2004 7:57 am. This was my reply to a person's allegations against Ross ripping off some ideas. If you see the post, you will see me asking Ross to counter it. But no response came from Ross or his fans. I wonder why?

--- In HPPowerofTime@yahoogroups.com, "ealbistegui"
<ealbistegui@y...> wrote:
>
> Just for the record, I first encountered Harry going shopping and
getting magical tattoos in
> a slash story that has been on hiatus for so long that some of you
were probably not born
> yet when it was originally posting -- Harry Potter and the Mirror
of Maybe by Midnight
> Blue. A great story, for those who don't mind that sort of
thing. Even my husband was
> not grossed out, and that is saying somthing.
>
> Ellen
>

Now now...why are those people, who have been screaming mad about the
tatooes etc., have not responded on countered this post? I just don't
get it. Did Ross borrow the idea and did he acknowledge it if he did?
I really don't know but I am amazed that Ellen's post has not been
countered.

Neo.

Maybe not but that's my opinion.

I agree with this completely. Without PoT, things would never have been the same with HP ficdom. But still, acknowledging the truth doesn't hurt.

 

Mike's year of rebellion group. I think his story is/was called full pensieve or that might of been his fic name and his story had Sirius' bike in it with Harry cruising around on it. His story was before Ross's. That author had some brain cyst or something and I don't know how that authors health is fairing.

I think the fact that Ross put all the cliches in one fic didn't make it original or anything of the sort. I think the relationship between Dumble, the order, and Harry is the only real merit this story has. There have been other Indie Harry stories, but none had the popularity of POT.

 

When is the next chapter comming out? Or is this story on hold?

 

This is the library in a thread about a fic. How about leaving the constant continuous character attacks about promises for updates unfulfilled at the door? Or maybe in Fanfic Discussion or some other more appropriate place where you can look even more ungrateful and immature?

Now, I know I could probably take some time and knock off maybe a dozen or so of those ideas IP82 listed, but Ross has never claimed them all as original. He was inspired by other fanfics. That's the way fanfiction often works. It's not stealing or plagiarism (by my definitions) on this scale.

I suppose, being one of the first to collect all these ideas and write about them in this level of detail means he's going to get all the praise. And then, when he gets all the praise it's going to continue in this endless cycle of truly pointless backlash. But egads people. This is an above average WIP that according to the author is not abandoned. Now it's been like a year and a half since it was last updated. Why the hell do you all have so much to say?

Nothing's changed. Your growing irritation at not having an update or jealousy at his popularity is only going to get worse. I think we all get it by now. I think those of us who want to read this fic, have read it by now. I think most people know his yahoogroup and/or have seen his guide. We're not supposed to agree with his guide. They're his opinions. He made it because he wanted to put in reasons for recommendations and rate them higher or lower than a simple favorites list. Not to mention they are on various websites. Whoop-dee-doo. You can do the same if you want. It has nothing to do with the subject of this thread.

Frankly, when I see the people complaining about updates or calling Ross a prick, I'm not disagreeing with their statements, but I find myself sympathizing with the prick. It's all childish immature teenagers who've never had to work for anything in their life pouting and stomping their feet because they want more or because they're jealous. That's all that's left. There's nothing else to talk about. Unless he updates.

mfoolen, asking about updates is not the same as complaining about them. Of course asking in a thread that probably contains the answer is pretty lazy. The author Ross has said he's working on it. It's not abandoned, but it has been a long time since there was any sign of a new chapter.

 

I've never complained about updates all I have said is don't expect any even when Ross says there is going to be. Just using his track reccord it's about 0 and 8 or so. I'm just saying he should be honest with himself and to his readers when his story is going to update. He is a prick for many other reasons, which are pointless to bring up. Jelousy has nothing to do with my irritation with Ross he's just very arrogant, which is obvious if you're a member of his group. Although, even I sympathize with the guy for his very anoying members as well has his critics who constantly plauge his group, Craige AKA Smarty.

I use to follow his story until about a year ago then I could careless about his updates or his story, becuase the fact is there are many other better stories out that are updated on a regular basis. The only good thing about POT is the group of like 5K plus members, although some are members twice, including myself because of lost passwords and idiot spammers. The group members are the only thing that makes joining for the ability to communicate with other readers and find recomendations or lost fics.

 

I havent read much of this story so I cant say that if its good or bad but the 6 chaps that I have read were only about how Harry has a brainstorm and goes shopping. Im sure its nice that the story is detailed and all but 20k words or so just about how Harry goes SHOPPING is not worth it. I stopped reading then because I didnt want to read another 100k words about how he trains in the summer with everything hes bought. Maybe I should have read further but I dont like authors who stretch a simple point to 20k words. Of course just 'Harry went shopping' isnt enought but 6 long chapters is just too much.

 

How convienient..

Ross for the first one, you for the second one.. dont you agree?

Anyway, I started reading this when the second or third chapter was out...
It was one of my first decent fics to read, and i loved it...

The writing was good, the ideas original and well developed...
I didnt care about the Harry/Ginny, i was in my Harry/I dont give a shit phase...
I read everything that came up in my browser... As long as it was on ff.net, dont like the onther sites :-\
I eaven read slash at the time :S But I did NOT read Harry/Snape... Thats a line Im not crossing... Though i did read Snape as the daddy fics...

Anyway, Ross was probably the first with the trunk, one of the first with the wand and the first with Hedwig-Phoenix...
He found an original place to live for Harry... Moast just stash him in an "ancestral mannor/castle", being to lazy or uninmaginative to think of something original...

Now stop whining and go read "Sword of the Hero", "Albus Dumbledore and the Phoenix Feather", "Gentry Green" or "Elemental Genesis" if you want something "Original".... Those are probably the first of their kind, that everyone later copied and made their own verisions of...
There were a few other truly original but i cant remember wich ones :-\


Anyway.. STOP COMPLAINGING AND READ DAMMIT!!!

 

Yes, well, when you've read a lot of cliched fics first and then went back to read the stories that the ideas were copied from originally you just think it's cliched too no matter what. I know those are the first of their kind. Problem is I never read them before I read the other independant works. And most of them have atleast a couple of ideas from the original ones. I always read a couple of chapters of those originals and then I have to force myself to read. And I read not because of some sense of duty but for enjoyment and forcing myself wont make me anjoy myself. Anyway I hope you get my point

 

Unless you are an author...don't even start complaining.

Between high school, friends, homework, exams, and parties, I can barely keep up as it is.

This guy is in the fucking Navy.

The mere fact that he just doesn't give up is amazing.

So next time you blast an author about not updating...go write your own story.

It's not a walk in the park.

 

I know its not easy to write your own story... I've had sooooo many ideas for a good story.. then i sit down and try to write it...
Yay, i managed to brake 500 words... now what the hell should i write!?
And my mind just goes blank and i cant write anymore, even if i try later it wont work with the same fic...


Hmm...
He's in the Navy and write HP fanfiction...
That say quite a bit about him, if you ask me...

 

Hardly, have you ever seen jarhead the movie, do you know anybody in the navy for that matter.