best fic all of time. i tghink jk rowling shuld mke dis the real gobble of firer. the hat is clearly tejh bsnest charchhter nd harry n fleur six is so hawtl.

 

I really, really tried to give this fic a shot, but the extreme vulgarity from an angsty Sorting Hat just killed it for me. Like someone said, it'd have been better if it wasn't so extreme. About the only thing I liked about the fic was the Lily/Remus romance, and I only liked that because James comes off as an absolute asshole to me.

2/5.

 

Yeah, I'm not one for such extreme vulgarity either. I forget my reaction upon my first perusal, I'm sure I was horrified. On subsequent reads the shock factor isn't present so it's easier to take, the crudeness doesn't outweigh as much the comedy of the reactions from everyone else.

(Or maybe years of fan fiction have inured me to obscenity. )

I have the opposite view. Adultery is adultery; Lily and Remus were clearly in the wrong, even if Lily felt that she was being ignored by James. I didn't like that aspect of the two characters at all.

Still, there aren't many stories that reverse the 'Saint Lily' trope, and the affair was used to give an excellent twist to HJ's relationship with Remus; rather than have two unexciting 'best mates' routines with Sirius and Remus the author was able to steer somewhat clear of a straightforward "Reunion of the Marauders, full steam ahead!" and keep both we readers and Remus wondering how he would be treated by HJ. Which made Remus's death all the more poignant as he and HJ had seemed to turn a corner towards rapprochement.

Nothing close to that for me. HJ is a hero, a good person through and through, and half of that is James. The composite character knows that James was no saint ... but arsehole? Other than the man-whore thing I quite liked what we saw of James in the story.

 

Extreme vulgarity? Horrified? Wut. Are you guys 12yo that got your mouth washed with soap one time too often for saying a bad word?

 

On the contrary, cursing for its own sake stopped being cool once I was past the age of twelve. Giggling at someone saying shit, fuck, cunt, and piss it out your ass loses its thrill when you're past the stage of rebelling against society and your parents because you're a little edgelord.

 

No, now that I'm an adult I just don't tend to hang around folk who say lots of bad words. That's one of the benefits of growing up and leaving the school yard and the school yard mentality behind. You haven't noticed?

So when I first read "The Lie I've Lived" the Sorting Hat's vulgarity was all the more shocking because I was plunged back into schoolyard silliness. It's that 'shock factor' which adds to the story's memorability on the first read and the humour on noting the other characters' reactions (yeah, I agree with McGonagall/Hermione/Rita/...) on the subsequent perusals.

 

Harry James is the most pretentious character I have read in the fandom. I absolutely hated him by half the fic and the Hat for example, I've seen called "hilarious", but I just can't take it seriously at all. All of its dialogue feels like it was written by a twelve year old who has just discovered swearing. Never mind the assassination of the Twins Gryffindors etc. Jbern is one the worst authors in the fandom.

 

I thought the rules about necroing didn’t apply to the library? It’s not like there’s so much action in these forums that he’s pushing active stories off the first page. The fandom is so dead that the bottom of the first page are posts from last year.

None of which is to say that that “review” isn’t a joke.