Title: The Amplitude, Frequency and Resistance of the Soul Bond
Author: Council
Rating: T
Genre: Romance/Humor
Last Update: March 29, 2014
Library Category: Either Romance, Humor, or General
Pairings: Harry/Ginny
Summary: A Love Story that doesn't start with love. A Soul Bond that doesn't start with a kiss. Love is not handed out freely. Love is earned. When Harry and Ginny are Soul Bonded, they discover that love is not initially included, and that it's something that must be fought for. H/G SoulBond!RealisticDevelopment!EndOfCOS!GoodDumbledore! Trust me, you've never seen a soul-bond fic like this
Link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9818387/1/The-Amplitude-Frequency-and-Resistance-of-the-Soul-Bond


This Story, to be blunt, is the first and only Soul Bond story that I ever actually liked, for a wide range of reasons.

1. The Humour. I suggested putting it there for a reason. Dumbledore in particular is awesome as a Hilariously Insane person. Harry in a dress is just as hilarious as it sounds. And, more importantly, I now know the real purpose of a rubber duck.

2. They don't immediately fall perfectly in love immediately after getting a Soul Bond. If anything, they spend quite a bit of time absolutely hating each other because of it. The Love/Hate thing culminates at the Yule Ball, where... yeah, I won't spoil that for you.

3. No Arbitrary Cool Powers. They don't get to be better at Magic, develop smarter brains, or discover they have three different Animagus forms. The Soul Bond does change both of them, but it doesn't make them more powerful. Quasi-sharing each other's mind actually made their school work suffer for quite a while, until they could figure out a study system that left both quite exhausted initially. They start to see through each other's eyes every now and again (which does create awkward situations for both teenagers). They even start to blend their morning ritual. But my personal favourite change is that Harry... well, let's just say Harry hates Ginny's Aunt Flo.

4. They actually do develop a relationship, with the key word being "develop." After a while, they really do develop a friendship, then something of a romance. Even though I'm personally not a big fan of Romance stuff, I actually rather liked watching the two of them together.

I decided to get around to posting this after a certain Awful Fic was posted in the Review section. That got me thinking: if that shmuck seriously thinks that garbage is good, maybe I should show him what a real Library-Worthy Fic looks like.

 

Oh look, one of those "deconstruction" fics. It starts off with them already telepathically communicating with each other. I'm not pleased, amused, or willing to go any further.

 

"SoulBond!RealisticDevelopment!EndOfCOS!GoodDumbled ore!" seriously?

"the first and only Soul Bond story that I ever actually liked" - Error of Soul by Materia-Blade is a similar concept https://forums.darklordpotter.net/showthread.php?t=23829 (unfortunately it is WIP, with extremely low update rate).

I will not rate this story, as I am not willing to start reading yet another WIP.

 

Oh come on, I actually expected this to at least be better than the nearest competitors.

Which shouldn't have been too hard.

And it's first few chapters are worse than most of them.

There's a joke about Oreros and Aurors which is beaten to the ground, and then repeated a few times, all in a single chapter. Also, the slogan of the 2008 marketing campaign is thrown in. (I'm not sure how popular Oreror were before 2008 in UK, but I'd say it's plausible there have been some for sale, however Harry would know.)

All in all, the popular references are a decade off course. For example, an Australian show, started in 1992, is referenced by Harry in 1993, thus:

I suspect that's a guaranteed trend that will continue forever on.


On the bond front, it ties to be sarcastic with the consequences, but the Harry-Ginny conversations are half-terrible half-trying-too-hard. Quips and wordplay of irrelevancy and stupidity are abundant, and the silliness of it all is only topped-off by Harry wearing a dress and running through Diagon Alley.


It's a tough life when you try to write a deconstruction and a parody, and fail at both.

It's not too terrible compared to some other Soul Bond stories and that gives this one a wooping 2.25/5.

I'll probably read a bit more, but it's value for me is turning out as "so badly done it's funny" rather than actual amusement from the jokes, but if you like the silly way this fic behaves, and enjoy the sort of jokes born of silliness...

Heh, maybe I'm reading too much into it, but if you come to the fic expecting a silly story, it could probably qualify as an almost recommendable.


Well, at least it isn't overflowing with most of the cliche's just some of the prank related ones, and still rather tames ones at that. With loads and loads of other cliched stories around, that has to count for something, right?

 

Nauro, it's worse than that... Oreo (not Orero) sounds nothing like Auror. I don't even know where this joke is coming from.

One of the most annoying things was that in their mind conversations is that sometimes you can hardly tell who is talking. Most of these times you'll realise by the end. It's too much effort to read something like that.

The story is not plot-heavy (unsurprising from the label Romance/Humor in hindsight) and the conversations between Harry and Ginny are sometimes repetitive. It is a silly story, you must just look at Ron for that—this may just be the first zero-dimensional character I ever seen ("food"). Further, the plot is better than I was expecting in terms of originality.

Overall, it was good enough to keep me going; 3/5.

 

Wow, really? You all think it's that bad?

I do admit, it isn't the best in the first few chapters. But it does get better. I would recommend reading to Chapter 5. If you still don't like it after that, then oh well. My personal favourite chapter, for a wide range of reasons, is Chapter 11. I will never look at a rubber ducky the same way after reading that one.

In retrospect, Ron isn't exactly the best character in this Story. He isn't particularly involved in anything other than food. Having said that, I think it's compensated by Harry and Ginny. They and their relationship is rather fleshed out pretty well.

And about the Mind Conversations. Yes, they do get it immediately. No, it is hardly a good thing for either of them. And I'm pretty sure the Author deliberately made it kind of confusing whose thinking what, because that's what it's supposed to be: a confusing mesh of thoughts between two people who, in a way, share a mind.

And as for the "Error of Soul" story, I admit to be cautious about reading it, since it is technically Harry/Hermione (nothing against Hermione, I just hate the Ship). But I will give it a shot, and see where it goes.

 

I will admit, that part was a bit unnecessary. But they certainly make more impressive changes later on. The First and Second Task of the Tournament were more than enough to compensate for it, even if they had their own problems.

 

Probably better in Almost Recommended or Guilty Pleasures. 3/5. Not horrendously terrible, but certainly not worthy of the library.

Readable, got a chuckle or two out of me, but the writing is pretty immature.

 

Ok, so I tried reading "Error of Soul"...

only to read Umbridge being a good character? This video sums up my feelings on the matter.

Seriously, I don't care if it's trying to aim for originality or avoiding Bashing, there are some things in this world that should never be done. And to do this one, he actually downright changed Canon so that Umbridge didn't try to kill Harry with the dementors.

So no, I do not think it's a good story. I could reluctantly attempt a Harry/Hermione story, but making Umbridge a good character is a step or three too far.

 

I've recommended this before in the "Almost Recommended" thread, so me liking this story isn't particularly startling.

The tasks they've done so far the TWT in this fic aren't simply a rehash of the canon tasks, which are quite frankly dull after having to read for the nth time of the same shit, over and over, no matter how much the methods for solving them may differ. So yeah, kudos to the author for that.

Also, I think this is one of my favorite versions of Dumbledore.

 

I have always liked to read competent Umbridge and Fudge fics. Unfortunately there are too few of them. Though to be fair, the reason I like that fic is due to the soul bond. Anything else is just extra.

 

Really? I quite enjoyed that plot twist. It was original and logical to the story, considering that 1.) Voldemort knows about the bond and 2.) knows what would happen to Harry should Ginny perish.

I like this story. Quite a bit, actually, as I mentioned in Almost Recommended. I've marked it as one of my favorites on ff.net and have been keeping up with it. It's certainly the best soul bond fic I've ever read, which is faint praise to be sure, but I think it's an outright good story.

I like the story because it doesn't do many of the things that typically make soul bonds so damn infuriating. For starters, it isn't a cheap excuse to get the two romantic leads involved, but rather a plot point in and of itself. They didn't fall immediately and hopelessly in love (which would be creepy since they're 12 and 11 at the beginning), and in fact outright dislike each other at the onset. It's shown to be a major hindrance at times, which many people have pointed out should be the natural result of such a connection. It's only in the latest chapters that they've begun to show an attraction for each other.

As I mentioned in AR, the characters in the story act as they should. They feel like actual people their age might if they were thrust into this situation. This is a far cry from the usual soul bond fic where the bonded characters act poisonously lovesick and you nearly get a sugar high just by reading the words. Additionally, neither Harry nor Ginny dominate the other, instead acting independently and more or less how their canon selves would act (though it's hard to tell that in Ginny's case because, you know, she had no canon self...). And Dumbledore is just amazing. The writing is technically adequate, if not spectacular, which certainly improves matters.

Now, I'll grant you that this isn't standard DLP fare at all, and I doubt it'll get into the Library, even though I feel that it should. Still, I recommend that people give this a chance and go into it with an open mind. As for myself, I stand by giving this a 4.5/5, rounded up for voting purposes. It's a good story that's an original take on a shitty concept, and perhaps is the best proof that any idea can potentially be done well.

 

Cleaning out my belly button lint was a better time waster than this. Quicker too - wished I had chosen more wisely.

For whoever was talking about Oreos - apparently they were only introduced in 2008. I found it surprising, as they were rolled out to China in 1996. This snippet is from an article I found about the launch:

It made me laugh, as I could picture any number of my British friends saying the exact same thing.

 

Da faq?

Spoiler

He stops Fleur from kissing him