Title: Lord Hadrian James Potter Black (and 6 others) and the Senile Old Fool
Author: Arellan
Rating: T
Genre: Humor/Parody
Status: Complete
Library Category: Humor
Pairings: H/Harem
Summary: Lord Hadrian James Potter Black Gaunt Gryffindor Slytherin Hufflepuff Ravenclaw Peverell is confronted by the manipulative old coot about his heroics against his opponents. How will our edgelord hero fare against the headmaster's machinations? An exaggerated parody of fanfiction tropes. Dark!Harry Grey!Harry Manipulative!Dumbledore
FF.Net Link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/136489...er-Black-and-6-others-and-the-Senile-Old-Fool
AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25419313/chapters/61646380

As you can probably tell from that ridiculous description, this is a somewhat mediumform (a bit under 16K words) series of scenes poking fun at the various fanfiction wanky tropes about an overpowered Harry. It's not like it's a new idea, but this is a fairly recent fanfic so it addresses a lot of of the various nonsense. Some running gags -- Harry is always called "Lord Hadrian James Potter Black Gaunt Gryffindor Slytherin Hufflepuff Ravenclaw Peverell" with it always spelled out, even in dialogue, and both Dumbledore and Voldemort are called stupid nicknames that always change.

The story also includes, naturally, Mugglewank, Slytherinwank, Pop Culturewank, Goblinwank, and "Harry m'boy" etc. It's also kinda repetitive but some lines were legitimately laugh out loud funny. Just keep in mind it's all intentionally pretty stupid, and it's also complete so you have a specific endpoint. Probably something I'll forget in a few months, but it's pretty funny right now.

3.5/5

 

Tried to read it. If it's supposed to be a deconstruction, a parody, an exaggeration or whatever ... I don't know. It's not funny or interesting to read.

Like, maybe it's badly written on purpose. That's not a point in its favor though? It's just walls of text with tropes. Is that what a parody is?

 

YMMV - I will admit I skimmed some of the more repetitive segments, but I found enough funny instead of pointless.

 

First chapter hurt, the second was skimmed, and random jumping showed just more of the same.

I'm on the side of not funny, and would happily just leave it be, but since this is a "review" thread… two stars.

 

Honestly, I'm coming around to thinking parody stories about common fanon cliches are, if anything, worse than the cliche fanfiction they're lampooning. They're just as creatively bankrupt, and a whole lot lazier, since they justify their own bad writing just by falling back on the idea that it's all a joke.

To actually succeed, a good parody story needs a lot of the same virtues as a good story played straight. Tightness, in particular, but also enough variety to keep itself from getting stale, and actual readable prose generally. This lacks all of those things, so I'm giving it 1.5/5, rounded down to a 1.

 

I don't know about this one... I get what the author is trying to do, but I don't really understand why they felt the urge. The constant use of Harry's titles make it unreadable past the first chapter, once the novelty has worn off.
I think that if taken a bit more seriously, this sort of satire could really have worked, if it had been published five or more years ago. As things stand - I wouldn't bother with this one, unless you enjoy reading trash fics.

1/5

 

I think there is a space in the fandom for a good, humorous deconstruction of indyHarry tropes, but I don't think this is it.

The approach here simply seems to be to take an indyHarry trope, amp it up to 11 and write it in a deliberately bad way to communicate to the reader that it's parody (presumably necessary because merely amping up the tropes could very well read as just another indy!Harry fic...). For me that isn't all that funny.

What I think would work much better is a fic that's written in a non-absurdist ways but which repeatedly sends reality checks in indy!Harry's direction. Basically indy!Harry only he exists in a realistic, non-wanky, relatively canon universe, so nothing works out for him the way it normally does in indy!Harry fics.

My personal enjoyment of this is a 2/5 but I can see how others would appreciate it more so I will say 3/5.