Title: Throwing Out the Script
Author: Formulaic
Rating: M
Genre: Adventure / Romance
Status: Ongoing
Library Category: The Alternates
Pairings: Harry/Lily/Narcissa/Bellatrix
Summary: One year into Voldemort's rein, a confrontation with the Dark Lord catapults the Boy-Who-Lived into 1975. Will he be content to sit around and let the past repeat itself? Absolutely not. Time Travel. Not very HBP or DH compliant. Awesome!Harry. Eventual Harry/Lily/Narcissa/Bellatrix. Not a smutfic.
Link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9762328/1/Throwing-Out-the-Script

Well. I'm probably gonna catch some flak for this one, but I figure I'd better do it. I'd seen it recommended in the subthreads a while ago, but I couldn't find anything in the library or anything, so I said fuck it.

Anyways, onto the actual review. This story is... odd to say the least. It has some pretty obvious cliches thrown around, such as powerups from the Horcrux in his head or that Void thing he mentions in the second chapter or so.

However, I feel that this story subverts those tired tropes and turns them into something a bit interesting. Unlike most stories where Harry suddenly gains a powerup and can beat the crap out of both Dumbledore and Voldemort at the same time or whatever, its explicitly stated that Harry isn't a match for Voldemort - his confidence in victory only coming from his mastery of the Elder Wand.

Now, with the basics out of the way, what's this story all about? Well, as you can tell from the summary, it's a time travel fic. Voldemort does some wammy jammy magic ritual type thing and tries to seal Harry out of time, only for the ritual to be botched and Harry sent back to 1975, the year that Lily, James and Sirius all become 5th years in Hogwarts.

Harry wakes up naked, without a wand or his cloak, the resurrection stone somehow implanting itself into his left hand. Soon, he encounters Lily, and after an actually slightly interesting scene where the author basically pokes fun at all those fics where a gun toting Harry comes back and shoot Voldemort, goes off to find himself a proper wand. The story begins to pick up a bit after that, some interesting action and magical spells going on, as well as a refreshing - as in not littered with cliches - take on legilimency and occlumency.

The authors grasp on actual canon magic and extrapolating different things from that, I think, is very good. He uses old concepts along with some that he developed himself, which I think make a good amount of sense, to create exciting action scenes and interesting exposition upon magic in the universe.

In addition, I feel that the author has a good handle on writing Dumbledore and Voldemort - even if I feel that his Voldemort sounds a bit too much like Dumbledore in the dialogue department. Overall, I'd have to say his technical writing is very sound and overall pleasing, even if a few of his ideas are perhaps a bit tired.

Onto the cons. Well, for one, the story is quite short even though its been out for a near 3 years now. Only 4 chapters, and the last update was last year sometime, near October I think. So a quickly updating story this is not - though I think what is there is enjoyable enough.

Secondly, Harry is what you could call OOC, though I wouldn't really say its too bad. We definitely don't see him grow from the silent, even almost meek, Harry into what he is now. Something of a personality that I would expect James to have, even though I've felt Harry was always more like Lily than James. Perhaps this could be rationalized away by some of the Horcrux hi-jinks and his early mentorship to Dumbledore, but I think even those last two points would be offputting to some. Something to think about, for sure.

Thirdly, of course, is the rather ridiculous 4 way pairing above. I'm really not sure how the author is going to go about it - Harry has only met Lily in the past, so far. I've no doubt some have seen that pairing and either clicked that big red X or are writing an angry rebuttal below soon after this will be posted. In either case, it hasn't hurt the story yet, so I'll give it the benefit of the doubt - for now.

In any case, that's all I got to say. I hope you enjoy this fic, and correspond with the author even if you don't. I don't think this guy's the type to shun criticism, but I don't really know about that at all, as I've never even PM'd him. Just a feeling, but whatever.

In any case, with all of the above taken into account, and trying to disregard my own personal biases and opinions which make me want to give this story a 4.5/5, I rate this fic a 4/5.

 

Given that he ends up in a relationship with his own mother, I'd say it's pretty bad.

I just can't honestly look at this fic and rate it fairly at all because the pairing is one of the biggest red flags about how retarded this will (not may) turn out to be. I mean, really, a foursome, with those 3 witches?

It's only 4 chapters in, I don't think this is even properly long enough for a review of the fic, because it can go oh so many places from here and a lot of them would be fairly ugly.

Edit: Fuck it, rated it 2 stars after all.

 

I don't really understand why you would submit this for review. There's no story here yet, just some setup. With 4 chapters written in 2 and a half years, it's likely there won't be a story here ever either.

 

I don't know...

I read the first chapter. Found some interesting places.

A bit too early to judge, but on the other hand, I fear that this is shaping up to be a terrible ride, or at best and average ride riddled with problems.

2.5/5 rounded down to 2/5

 

This is basically a riff on Shezza's Harry Potter and the Future Remapped. There isn't really much here by way of plot to fairly rate here just yet, I think.

 

Oh man... do I want to dive down that rabbit hole? I recall it being terrible at the time, and I'm pretty sure the years won't have made it any better.

 

I just gave it a go. To note, I completelly agree with previous posters that such a deliberate choice in pairing indicates a measure of mental disrepair. Also, which could be a completelly unrelated matter, the author is some kind of Naruto fan, which marks him as wierd in my head.

Irregardless of the above, the fourth chapter could be a good one-shot. It offers brilliant insight into Dumbledore and Ollivander, it's light and humorous, very fun.

 

His Naruto story is better and a lot funnier.

 

Honestly, I can't help but agree, though I do still enjoy this story. But I hesitated on putting that up for review, as its basically been 2 years since an update. Normally, I would have just slapped this in almost recommended since I know that it disagrees with DLPs tastes, but I didn't feel like getting banned.