This is easily enough fixed, or avoided, really.

If you want to fix it, you pick whichever way you think will work to end the nightmari--er, ideal--life JKR gave Harry and company through the epilogue. You have here a Harry who apparently got good enough to rise from general auror to Head Auror, which is a point to build on.

If you want to avoid it, and still use most of canon through DH, you write an EWE [Epilogue, what epilogue?] story, picking up after the final chapter to write your tale. Here, an author could leave out the part where Harry hides the Deathly Hallows, or go the route followed by the Obsidian Warlocke in his story The Meaning of Father and make up a reason that the Hallows can't be separated from the Master of Death, or keep returning each time they are.

Sure, characterization and such from both HBP and DH leave a bad taste in many readers' mouths, but there is a lot there to build on, too. It's all about creativity and the desire to write it, imo.

Anyway, that's just my two cents.

 

Not necessary. It's been brought to our attention. I'm not gonna go and give false impressions, as its still kind of being discussed, but everyone likes the idea of doing something.

You'll be notified if/when something is decided to be done.

 

Okay, first off I'm going to get the positive out of the way and say that I think a competition would be an excellent way to increase interest in the genre.

From here on out however, I'm going to take a shit (figuratively speaking) on this thread.

I think some people need to take off their nostalgia colored glasses and realize that the majority of those old Dark Arts stories were barely even legible, let alone good.

The original popularity of the genre was created as backlash against HBP, and unless JKR decides to re-release that book I don't suspect we'll ever see that spike in popularity again.

As has been previously mentioned, the 'Dark Arts' genre has lost popularity for a reason; most of the stories in this genre were incredibly juvenile and had Harry as nothing more than a murderer and a rapist. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy fics such as Oedipus Flower and Equal and Opposite, but they are exceptions in that despite following these notably bad cliches, they didn't appear to be written by a mentally handicapped thirteen year old.

It should also be noted that despite the decline in the popularity of this particular genre, that most of the quality stories in the fandom overall are both relatively recent and built upon what was learned through the largely failed Dark Arts 'movement'.

There is indeed a future for the Dart Arts genre, but even exploring the less extreme (and better written) facets will likely yield only niche popularity regardless.

The genre simply never was nor ever will be very popular on its own merits.

Finally, while I mentioned that I thought the contest would be a good idea, blind judging simply isn't feasible. Sorry Perspicacity, but myself (and many others) would be able to recognize your writing along with many of the other DLP favorites.

 

Sometimes I think that reading comprehension is a lost art...

Firstly, I never said that the genre began with HBP, merely its popularity. It is quite frankly untrue that that most of the Dark Arts fics in the Library came prior to HBP. Were there good stories in the genre prior to HBP? Without question. Were the ones that followed more popular? Let reviews and discussion be the judge of that.

It is built upon. Many of the authors writing the stories that are currently popular either started in this genre or were influenced by the writings of authors that did. Please note that I said largely (you seemed to have missed this word) failed... considering that this is a thread about how no one is writing in the genre anymore, this is fairly self evident.

While there is no doubt that DLP is a niche, how many of DLP's authors post exclusively on Patronus Charm?

Check the Library, the forums, and any site that hosts fanfiction, and then tell me that Dark Arts is a popular genre.

 

You realize we run that right? Not sure exactly what you meant by this statement.

And the genre was large well before HBP, OOTP's ending was pretty much the holy grail for it. I read plenty of fics that had him Dark as early as PoA, with Sirius taking him on the run.

 

I appreciate that you bothered to read my post before commenting on it... unlike others.

Yes, I realize that it is run by DLP. What I meant was that most authors also post on fanfiction.net (among other sites), so that they reach a larger audience as it were. If they didn't mind having only the niche audience, what would stop them from posting exclusively on Patronus Charm?

Again, I didn't say that the genre started with HBP; however, the fics with most reviews, discussions, and that are held up as examples of the genre were published after HBP.

Since I wasn't around for this site's creation, I am unclear on the exact details of its origin. What I am aware of is that going by the member list, there were only 55 members prior to HBP's release. While growth can be expected of any quality website, the rate of incoming members directly following the release of HBP seems somewhat peculiar unless you take into account that that was indeed when HBP was released. Considering that the Dark Arts genre was the original flagship of DLP, this increase in membership would seem to indicate increased interest in the genre following a certain unnamed event...

 

Content control. For a long, long time it was private, and shitty stuff didn't make the cut. If the author already had it on FF in many cases, they didn't bother to reup it to PC, there was no point to. PC is Raven's attempt to have somewhere for folks who don't want to use FF.net to go, among other things. It's not meant as a replacement or exclusive site.

I used to prune members pretty constantly. At one point I think I took out around 2,000 members who hadn't logged in in 90 days or more. I think it's safe to say I've pruned out a fair more members then we have now. I stopped awhile back out of boredom with it.

Since you didn't have to sign in to read, the prunee's just lurked. Couple that with board software changes, our member count is extremely different then what you actually see from registered users. There were several hundred users pre HBP going by member id's, and considering we came into being a few months before HBP released, we experienced a huge surge when we started advertising the site or word of mouth, and when school went back in we always get huge jumps.

After the garbage that was HBP I know there was a flood of fics that came out to try to replace it. Same thing happened with OOTP. Once HBP came out, folks stopped trying to pretend OOTP didn't happen, or change it, and they moved to altering HBP. Some are doing it with DH now, but mostly I think a lot have just stopped bothering.

 

Yes, those are some of the hurdles that Patronus Charm has faced, but I was specifically replying to Xiph0 and his assertion that authors wouldn't mind writing exclusively for the DLP audience as a niche is all that they need ('Dunno where you think you are, but DLP is a niche itself. Hi!'), and that after admitting that DLP is niche, he disputed the overall popularity of the genre ('Oh good lord - again, welcome to DLP.'). (Yes, I realize that bringing in Patronus Charm, probably wasn't the best thing for my argument, but it's what I thought of at the time.)

Forums typically have software changes, and have members pruned, which is why I mentioned that I was initially unsure of the details. Please don't misunderstand, I don't doubt the how the merits of this forum increased its membership, merely that it was aided by the disappointment that was HBP. Thanks for the actual background by the way.

The emphasis (in my mind) following OOTP was indie!Harry rather than Dark Arts (though this doesn't mean that there weren't any Dark Arts fics), but at this point all I'm liable to get is insults in return for anything I say.

Well, I'm done for the night, but don't expect me to respond to this thread again as all I'm likely to receive are flames, and I just can't be bothered to care. (Actually, on second thought, if people would just like me to delete the contents of my posts in this thread, just let me know, so I can clear the filth out.)

 

We didn't gain popularity by being the 'site of dark arts fics', though that was an aspect of it. Most people knew DLP -and this was a self-proclaimed title, mind you- as very honest, if harsh critics of Harry Potter fanfiction. I joined for that reason back in 2007 because I always saw biting reviews for shittastic stories signed with DLP at the bottom, not to mention my twin brother was exploring it for similar reasons.

And you're just plain wrong about the rise in popularity of the dark arts genre. Anyone who read fanfiction back in 2005-2006 knows that it was the big era for dark arts fanfiction, mixed with indy!Harry and all of its cliches.

How did your point go from:

1. Dark Arts fanfiction was most popular after Half-Blood Prince.

to

2. Popularity on DLP was aided by the general dislike for Half-Blood Prince?

Maybe we aren't misunderstanding you. Instead, you're just talking out your ass.

More so, it was only after DLP really took off -which had more to do with dedication of individual members and Pottermania than any hatred for a particular book- that we broadened out of our little niche. More amazing writers, more crazy plot ideas, and even other fandoms to work in all accumulated into what is now Project DLP. I really don't want to go back, though I definitely wouldn't mind more good fanfiction to read.

 

Unfortunately, most of the dark!Harry fic's on ff.net these days seem to be piss poorly written slash, with Harry becoming independent/OCC in the worst of ways and thus a butt pirate with either Draco or Snape/generic self insert.

A contest which -as a welcomed side effect- would help counter-act the yaoi hordes would be worth having, just on that merrit alone.

I also agree to the 'blind' contest option, and would also gladly participate in one should it be held.

 

I would be willing to be that in a blind judging with a dozen or so authors participating, most readers would have a harder time of it than you think. (I am perfectly capable of writing in past tense, as my story in the Dark Arts section of the Library shows).

Even if a handful of us do figure out which story is Amerision's, say, which is Vash's, and which is Joe's, is it really going to matter? We just got new dark fantasy stories by Amerision, Vash, and Joe. That pretty much would justify the effort hosting the contest right there. Along the way, we may even discover a new talent or two, someone who may not have been willing to jump into the fray otherwise. There is evidence for this, by the way: over the years, the TGYH thread has probably led to more new authors than anything else on the site.

 

Blind judging would fail: Vash's story will have intricately expository incest, Joe's story will have fruit flavored females, Persipacity's will have some oddly appealing squick, Amer's will have a sister that you may or may not put to the test, Jon's will blue ball you from here to Kathmandu, mine will have Voldemort a la pokemon that Harry uses to defeat everything.

And before I forget, Sesc's will have Daphne Greengrass.

 

Imma pull a line from Pers' book and just say that I coudn't care less because that would mean that there's going to be a new dark fantasy story by Vash, Joe, Pers, Amer, Sesc and you.

That thing sounds interesting enough that it could even make me pull my fucking head out of my ass and try my hand at writing, too (reserving last spot here already...)

 

Screw that, even I'd jump into the fray if the word count requirement was short enough.

 

Lol, it'd be amusing if part of the contest was that people had to try to write according to another person's style.

 

Blind judging is the way to go. I might try too, despite DLP not caring for my first fic too much. Who knows, maybe I can do better this time.