MetaFic

I'm reading it and enjoying it.

What I would recommend is that you read her trilogy of stories Bound/Woven/Restored first, which will help you understand some of the background to Continuum. If I recall correctly, you won't find those on SIYE, but they are on FFnet: one assumes this is because H+G are not the focus couple, given that most other relationships I recall are canonical.

I must admit that I gave up on it when acres of text were spent going on about The Society! (cue: Dramatic music!)

Actually, now I know where David Cameron got his Big Society idea from. :p

Still if YOU are reading it, I might try again.

I think I found it from one of the rec's on here. I almost stopped reading at the part about The Society: just not my cup of tea...but I'm glad I gave it one more chapter. I think Mutt has some good character interaction going on: especially between Harry and Ginny.

If others liked Mutt's other works, I might have to give them a go since I'm waiting for my other stories I read to update. (hint, hint to Parakletos and rbackwards on this site...)

You need to look elsewhere, my friend :-)

...if by elsewhere you mean you aren't posting for quite some time, I suppose that means I'll have to go be productive. But if by elsewhere, you mean other sites hosting Sins, then I've probably already read it...and have to go be productive anyways.

Congrats on the Trinket, btw.

Six years in fandom and my first (almost) win. BTW, I once lost a vote on an H&G LJ site to a Ron/Harry fic so I suppose its progress :p

How can Sins lose to a story by an author who keeps repeating the same plot in every story she tells!

Some people have no idea about quality, plot, character development, context and.... well ic ould carry on here - but i think i have made my point

I have to agree but then siyes voting system has always been prone to bugs also the fact that Sin of the farther requires some very latral thinkin & in the case of any good au ignoring the story it based on treting the story itself as the canon universe which obvasly isn`t to evryones taste but then not was the winning story the fact that it also wone best comedy i found very strange as well but their we go.

To be fair, for once anyway, Sins isn't the most accessible story on the site, but i would agree with the 'apply, rinse. repeat' formula of some fics.

I agree that the system is flawed and I do laugh to see some fics win or be nominated in certain categories. I suspect that certain authors friends all make sure that their mate gets their vote and that its more akin to the dodgy handshake brigade than the quality of the fic. In fact, when I see St Margarets being runner up I'm even more convinced.

Still enough highjacking of this thread :-)

BTW it's Sins of the FatherS; the plural is important ;-)

BTW it's Sins of the FatherS; the plural is important ;-)

It's just Sins -as in a multitude of sins were cast in the voting this month

Later tonight.

So now the pressure is on everyone else…whatever pressure there ever is, anyway.

I wouldn't mind a facility for listing all of the "in progress" stories on here but I bet the authors would rather I didn't have yet another way of ragging on them ;-)

Off to go read it now...following a recap read of previous chapters. And you're right, NotACat: the pressure's on. Perhaps we should start listing all our fav in-progresses?

Off to go read it now...following a recap read of previous chapters. And you're right, NotACat: the pressure's on. Perhaps we should start listing all our fav in-progresses?

There are problems with that as sometimes the delay isn't down to the writer, unless you want the facility to add in ' chapter is with XXX and they've sat on it for two weeks' :p

busy! :)

Besides, I can't say anything. It took me many months to find the time to get this out.

You could have put it in the right order whilst you were at it! :p

right order for this story...

We only have your word for that. Methinks you have only Monkeys(∞-1) and thus your true story has failed to appear. It was the blurst of times indeed :p

...but as I am just a lowly reader, I will take your word for it. I know how busy life gets for me and I'm not trying to write on the side! So now I'll just go back to reread Phantom Limb from the beginning: in any order it needs proper attention!

(and sorry to get us so off topic...)

the one last monkey who's the instigator. :D

Ow, that hurts. I've had a few nominations but I always loose (sic) out to someone who's (sic) writing is far superior and thus there (sic) bound to win.

Not bitter. Not bitter.

You don't mean the sort of fic where Harry is stupid and/or a doormat, Ginny's going out with an idiot who is using her, and Harry puts up with all sorts of rubbish from her to be with her?

Hey, that sounds like a great read!

Actually my Harry is kind of putting up with stuff from Ginny, but it's for a different reason. I hate it when the author doesn't try to explain Ginny's personality at all and she's always slapping people.

Here's an excerpt from my next chapter referencing this very thing, after she's done that to him kind of casually:

“Do you smack everyone that you meet?”
“Of course not. Only the ones that deserve -”
“So, like, your brothers? Me? Your boyfriends?”
“Boyfriends?”
“You know… people who don’t want to smack you back.”
“Erm.”
“That doesn’t exactly make you formidable, does it?”
“Where on earth are you going with this?”
“Do you think I’d do that to you in return? Ever?”
“Well, I should think not.”
“So you’re kind of a bully to someone who cares about you?”
“What?” Ten to me.
“Is it because you’re short?”
“Wh -” She stopped herself.
“You also have a bit of a temper,” I said. My voice was as soft-edged as I could make it.
“Which unfortunately you like to stoke to an inferno.”
“It’s not that I like it.”
“Oh?”
“I love it.”

What about Bonds Of Blood And Magic? Anyone have a review for that one?

Well, that's going to get him snogged or slapped, no worries. I for one cannot wait to see which ;-)

…my only problem is the same I have with all long-running slow-updating stories: I have difficulty recalling what just happened (not to mention what happened before that) and going back to the beginning would take more time than I have available.

This story has a couple of features which make it stand out from the crowd. The way that Harry and Ginny arrive in their "situation" (see how I avoid spoilers there ;-) is rather distinctive and their dealing with that makes for some interesting times. There is also rather more than the usual uncertainty about whom Hermione is likely to end up with (not a frequent occurrence on SIYE in my experience), which provides some minor entertainment without detracting from the major drama.

Hope this helps…

So, you found your missing monkey, eh?

I think there should be a lot more putting Hermione in her place in this fic, there hasn't been nearly enough.

I'd actually like to see a continuation of the author's Twins Time-Travel fic.

A request for a review? How novel!

I'm a big fan of Duelist's Bonds of Blood and Magic. It's written quite well and it ticks a lot of the boxes regarding fiction I particularly enjoy: discussion of characters' motivation and psyche, bonds, etc. In my mind, the characters behave rather realistically given the situations in which they are placed and everything hums along. I'm sure I could think of some negatives given more thought, but I'd recommend it wholeheartedly nonetheless.

Yep. Living in my hair. Finally he will have his message heard.

Anyone who gets that reference has my respect.

Thanks, V, and my sincerest apologies for the thread-jack.

How about Betrayed by Deans Darling?

Is this the story with the text messaging on the Gringotts Galleons? That drove me nuts.

"Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside a dog it's too dark to read" Groucho Marks

Oh yes. They had leetspeak in the late nineties, right?

yeah, but it did wind Hermione up so I was more than happy to forgive that. :-)

See, I never could get into Bonds of Blood and Magic...I stopped reading it after the first couple of chapters. As I recall, the characterization seemed a bit off to me: especially Snape. But then, I don't usually go for Bond stories. (present company excluded)

Curious to know more about the Deans Darling fic: the summary certainly doesn't give anything away, and I had never come across it.

Bonds of Blood and Magic is one of the few stories where I always look forward to the next chapter. The premise is arguably one of the most original for a bond story since MoO.

MoO? That's not still being written, is it...? (ellipsis for dramatic effect)

/Would never stoop to asking for a status update. Nuh-uh. Never.

I enjoyed Bonds of Blood and Magic but I do definitely ahve trouble with the length of time between updates and so have stopped reading it. It's now too long to go back and start again to refamiliarise myself with every time.

Shockingly, it is still being written. Slowly, very slowly. But it hasn't stopped.

Sovran, your work is easily my favorite in the realm of fan-fiction so I appreciate the update, even if my remark was more of a litotes than a true belief in a stoppage of progress.

Funny. That's the same way I feel about the late Robert Jordan.

I gave this one a bash based on the positive opinions above. I thought some of the characterisation was pretty good, and even didn't have too much problem with Snape (usually a turn-off), but Ron and Hermione in later chapters were what really got me. Ron is sadly reduced to Mo-Ron and Hermione...wow, Hermione! I still can't work out whether the author intended to make her so utterly, utterly unlikeable.

I did like Auntie Muriel, though.

RR
_______________________________
Standing here in my Reckless Hat

I have been reading Bonds of Blood and Magic. It did hook me into it really well, the problem I have with it is that the there is probably 100K of Harry recovering from an injury. There is a lot of other plots going on that could be focused on and the story could be moving much, much faster. It has fallen into the trap of what the author knows. I am fairly sure the author either has medical training or watches a lot of ER and the like, because it is dense with medical terminology and procedures and recovery that sounds right but feels like it was modified.

The leet speak on the Galleons is ridiculous, and I am having a llot of trouble with the Hermione and Ron characters.

Do I recommend it? Yes, but I'd probably wait until it was complete before starting it.

- “Perhaps, in those days, there were a few among men, a few of clear sight and clean soul, who refused to surrender that word ["I"]. What agony must have been theirs before that which they saw coming and could not stop! Perhaps they cried out in protest

Oh, boy, I say in answer to my own question. Harry BFF with Draco, everyone lives in Hawaii, adoptions, brainwashing, shamanism (did you know that the plural of shaman is shamen? I didn't, and I think there's a reason for that. I think they have noodles almost named after them.) and just enough occasional abuse of the language to keep one on one's toes. I didn't buy it after a certain point, and even the author warns that if you don't like this sort of thing you should stop reading now. Did I? Mostly.

. . . just to toss in $0.02 on the Bonds/Blood/Magic topic.

The story felt to me as though the author intended to write ABC, and someone came along and pointed out that between A and B was this huge gaping plot hole where something was swept under the rug and the nearest couch was placed over that spot, followed by several characters with names along the sort of "Vinnie" and "Nunzio".

When the hole was noted, and received, it "feels" like that author Tried To Do The Right Thing by fixing it. The problem is, apparently, the fix took over the story. Is that what really happened? I have no idea. That's just how it felt. I gave up after a while, and said I'd wait for it to be finished, and then skim along to the interesting bits before reading again in a more proper manner.

I sort of have the same attitude toward "Unbreakable Vow", though for different reasons. The first chapters had a lot of things going on, a novel set of twists to a set of "known" plot lines making a wholly new approach, and captured my interest rather well. (Though credit over the pensieve bit would have been nice.) When I came back to it some time later, and caught up, the last few chapters were rehashing of the same theme/topic/angsty stuff from the first chapters. As much as I hate it when my kids say it, it makes me think: whatever. It was interesting to observe the internal thought processes and fears and hopes once, and having another PoV made it interesting twice, but at some critical point, progress ought to materialize. I kind of wondered whether it was a deliberate effect the author was aiming for, or just a side effect of the update frequency.

As for "Continuum", I glanced at it briefly. I didn't care for the original series by the author for the simple reason that I didn't want to read about a different group of characters than the central ones of the HP story. Some day I might go back and try them. Lacking deep knowledge of the author's other works, I'd say my gut feeling is that the author is deliberately trying to create a time paradox where the story "Continuum" plays out the necessary stages to *make* the other stories become "canon" reality, instead of what JKR portrayed. Apparently the author got flamed out for making the canon characters (it's set right after HBP's end and partly into DH) act completely different from the characters JKR constructed. If I bear in mind my guess as to the point of this story, then I'd say the convolutions and torturing of the characters makes sense and is about the only way to pull it off. If I ignore that theory, and just look at how she has Harry/Ginny/foo acting, then I'd have to agree somewhat with the flamers -- the author really did take characters that normally act A, B, C and turn them into J, K, L. Whether it's justified in the end probably depends on how much you like the other stories by the author that are being hashed out in this one.

Someone asked about "Betrayed" . . . I actually, way back when, set aside all the laws of decency regarding writing and forced myself to read the whole thing. If you can do so (and it helps to have a liter of Vodka nearby), there are some genuinely "new" ideas buried in there. As for the rest of it? Errr. No comment, other than you get what you pay for. Though I do wonder from time to time how an expert in counseling psychology and PSTD would feel about some of the content.

Parakletos, I apparently missed an award or something you won at SIYE. Congrats to you. I sort of dislike the awards system in general, but it's always nice to see someone talented win for a change. It puts the sheep-centric authors on their toes. :)

In my own state of affairs (admittedly murky), I cannot claim forward progress in my own work, so don't taking this as throwing-stones type of Sin. (I need to read the latest chapter of Sins, too . . .) I've made some progress here and there with the backlog, but it will likely be another month or two before we're ready for the beta team to heap abuse on me. Assuming they're still out there. I know my unintended year-n-change absence on most topics has left me re-reading whole segments to make sure I'm matching it all up properly, and I expect to get it a bit off in places. Sigh.

I'm just about caught up on obligations to other folk, have relocated an oddly large number of time zones and disturbingly large number of miles, and have recently come back online. In fact, I've been looking for my globe, so I could work out whether it would have been fewer timezones and fewer miles to go the *other* way around the world. Hmmm. Probably still in a box somewhere.

I'll also stand up and take the blame for MOO's present delay - at least the most recent bit of it. :) I can't take the blame for prior bits. That should be fixed in a few hours, thankfully. Having Internet access again is quite nice. Which reminds me . . . I need to pay the bill for this site rather soonesh. The yearly tag to renew and whatnot slipped my mind in the chaos.

Thanks for the praise, I actually managed to get 16%- enough to get second place, but I'm still waiting the call to help form a government.

But you must have some principles you wish to keep?

To be pure and noble in opposition or compromise in government? I'll stand by the Floo and await the call....

To quote the learned sage Ackbar: "It's a trap."

...to say that I ultimately ended up abandoning Continuum. It just didn't jive with me as the plot went on.

Another request: Harry Potter and the Ancient Shrine of Providence.

I'm of mixed feeling about using length as a basic predictor of story quality. While 400,000+ words certainly doesn't guarantee the author is any good at plotting, I have a hard time thinking a poor writer can make it that far.

That said, 400K is... significant... for a fic. Any good?

I've tried it and given up. Despite the author's assertion that its been properly beta'd I'd beg do differ. I can't remember what it was specifically that turned me off but I've no wish to revisit.