Title: I'm on TV
Author: Bar Calak
Rating: Unrated
Pairing: None (yet - likely to be smut in the future given it is QQ)
Length: Unknown (forum hosted)
Library category: The Alternates

Summary: A casual transmigration career building slice-of-life fic. With access to modern internet watch how the MC exploits foreknowledge to turn himself into an entertainment mogul over the course of decades.

This is wish fulfilment without any shame. The story of Harry Potter, as told through the lens of the movies, and the changes within.

I sneezed as an adult in 2022 and suddenly woke up as an eight-year-old in 1998. Guess it's time to take over showbiz!

Link: https://forum.questionablequesting.com/threads/im-on-tv-showbiz-si.25546/

This is a weird one but I am enjoying it a lot. It is not a Harry Potter fanfic in the traditional sense. It is a real life fanfic based around the filming of the Harry Potter movies.

The protagonist is a time traveller who has gone back from 2022 to 2000 with his memories of the future and continued access to the 2022 internet.

He uses his knowledge to obtain the role of Harry Potter, which he subsequently leverages to alter the course of the HP movies. In many ways it is a fix-it fic, only the thing being fixed is the poor decisions made in filming. Thankfully the author is pretty sensible about it and the character recognises the limits of adaptation, so it's not some anal retentive "everything must be exactly as it was in the books" approach. As of the latest update, we are mid-way through Goblet of Fire.

The other element of the story, which is still in its infancy, is the protagonist using his future knowledge and newfound fame to become exceedingly rich.

As of yet there is no romance but I suspect the protagonist is approaching the age where the author will start to include it. Take your bets here as to whether he bangs Emma Watson.

It's on QQ so you will need an account to read it.

Currently it updates a few times a week.

 

With Karen Gillian as Ginny. Who'd want to settle for Emma Watson?

 

Not to mention

Spoiler

Léa Seydoux

as Fleur.

 

I've been enjoying it as well.

 

It is certainly novel, and that is a great selling point. I can't predict where the story will go, I'm delighted to see how Bas fixes what he perxeices as problems while also explaining concessions he makes.
There is a lot of good technical jargon about how films get made, and that is really well done.
But I don't feel like the technical writing is there. It's entertaining, but the prose doesn't draw me in. I keep reading for the novelty, and now that I'm caught up, I'm not convinced I'll be checking it weekly for updates.
But the shear dopamine crash of it's newness makes it a highly recommended reading.

 

It's pretty good for what it is. An enjoyable power fantasy.

What I'm waiting is if he will be using the easiest way to get rich if you ever get back in time and have no starting capital. Get hundreds of thousands bitcoins for nothing in 2010 and sell them in their peak in 2018.

EDIT:
By the way, I don't have an account of that forum, but I found that the author has it on Royal Road.

 

This is the third (ish) IRL-SI fic I've seen on QQ recently.

I dropped the first, guy getting gamer powers, because it wasn't really going anywhere or doing anything, it felt like the whole thing was epilogue?
The second was badly written, to the point that even I struggled to keep on reading it.

This one is enjoyable. It feels like the writer has a plan, even if that is only 'remake the HP films but really good and bang hot actresses'. I'm following, and hopeful it stays decent, but the track record of this style is... Lacking.

 

I like this one. It's probably the best HP thing I've read in months. Which isn't really saying much to be fair.


It reminds me a bit of Player-Manager, where a usual progression fantasy trope is used to do some mundane real life stuff. It's a refreshing idea. I just wish there was a bit more of a focus on the acting itself. Though the fact that this is posted on the NSFW section of QQ makes me thing the author is just speed running to the bit where he can write smut.

4/5 for now

 

It’s entertaining and written well enough to at the very least be legible. I do like the novelty of it and the filming and production pieces are entertaining.

I made the mistake of scrolling through the thread, though. What the fuck.

 

Latest update is definitely a move in the romance direction. Perfectly happy with playboy Bas but I hope it doesn’t become such a focus that it displaces the meat of the story, i.e. the time travel progression fantasy element.

 

Paid the £4.20 for the extra chapters on the Patreon. 11 additional segments on top of those publicly available, some reasonably long (full chapter length), others more around half chapter length.

Original fiction rather than fanfic so I figure fair enough to charge.

I can confirm:

- Quality remains consistent with the currently public material.
- Smut is incoming, but it is reasonably well written (some odd word choices, but it's not generic, having character/setting interest and ties into the plot), and it is occasional rather than constant. Across the next 11 instalments, there are 2 sex scenes.
- The focus remains on the process of acting/filming/becoming a star.
- Alas, as of yet no interludes from other perspectives.
- The focus is going to shift to Fast and Furious for an extended period before returning to HP.

 

Not a choice I would make, but if someone likes cars, it's probably the best one since it will get very popular after HP is done. Personally I would wait and go for something else. MCU is tempting, easy success until 2019, but choosing which character should be replaced is hard. Or maybe try to fix DCEU and play Superman since he is already involved with WB?

And since it's WB and by extension HBO, GoT starts around the time HP ends. Jon Snow would be perfect if MC would be willing to get a lower salary. Or maybe even invest his own money to improve the budget of the early seasons and have final say how it will end? Maybe keep GRRM involved by convincing him to make it as a sort of "what if" adaptation with a different ending, but keeping the spirit he wanted it to have? Could work since he is Marvel Comics fan and would get it.

 

An HP adjacent story I can actually stand written in the year 2024? It must be a miracle.

And here I had written off the entire fandom to Ancient and Noble Daphne Greengrass drek.

Shame it's on QQ, the fic really doesn't need smut in it.

 

So far in the public chapters (14 across 24 posts), there's one sex scene, and it's a bit lacklustre. Not something you'd want to get caught reading at work, for instance, but it's 1k words.

 

The prose is ok ok, but the best part is Bas. He is genuinely funny and likable(getting a bit unrelatable now though) and keeps me reading.

I think the fic would have gained way more attention if there was not that unnecessary getting internet thing and smut. This needs a better title too.

Edit: 5/5.

 

Surprisingly well done and entertaining.

Him discussing the direction of the books with JK was a little too much but whatever. Also Goblet of Fire is considered the worst movie? I like it Voldemort alone sells it.

 

I like smut but the later inclusion on this makes it feel out of place and would certainly be better without. It's minimal enough not to really detract.

 

I feel like quality has gone downhill since the end of the Fast and Furious arc.

The story is really beginning to lack any narrative through line. We no longer have any real insight into Bas’s thoughts and plans. We get his moment to moment emotions but no real inner narrative or commentary on what is going on and what the future holds. That was what held the fic together in the earlier stages. The whole SI premise is slipping away somewhat.

On top of that, the writing has got much lazier. There is no longer any scene setting. We don’t have description of locations and barely any description of people. No narrative or transitions explaining what is going on or why. No narrative tracking the passing of time or telling us what Bas is up to outside of the short snippets we get.

All we now have with each update is a short dialogue snippet where we are dumped into the scene mid way through, get a bit of quippy Marvel-like dialogue, and then that’s it. Time skip and repeat for the next snippet.

Really feel that the author’s heart is no longer in it and they are only still updating to meet a Patreon schedule.

 

I concur. What I really wanted to see was how Bas would handle David Holmes (Radcliffe's stunt double who broke his neck). But seeing the most recent chapter of how he fixed a set accident from happening, and the total lack of caring on the authors part, I just don't care to wait.

 

I'm gonna have to agree with the last few comments. The further this goes the less charming it gets. I could overlook the inherent flaws of the story for the sake of novelty, but the MC is just becoming less and less likable, he never faces any real challenges, his thought process and interactions with others have become more and more crack-ish etc. Yeah, I get that the story itself was never meant to have higher stakes, but honestly reading how everything he touches turns to gold gets old after a while.