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mark_asphodel So, back to the meme.
#5: Favorite Villain: If we're going with the penultimate Big Bad, the human sort, I have to say Rudolf. If we're going with the final, not-human, Big Bad, it's harder to say... Medeus (humans have it coming), Idoun (not what was expected) and Ashera (whoa) have their interesting points. Fomortiis and the Fire Dragon, not so much. At all. And if we're just going with a villain, any villain... I do have that soft spot for Caellach.
-x-
So, Harry Potter. Since people on the f-list are getting interested, I will present the following recs. These are not necessarily the "best" stories out there, as I have only read a fraction of what is available and my tastes are idiosyncratic, but these stuck with me.
"The Shipping Forecast"-- nothing to do with 'shipping! A glimpse of Snape as a lad looking to better himself. I really like this author's take on Snape, which was firmly in the "he's lower-class and possibly Yorkshire" camp well, well before HP7. This writer also wrote some interesting HG/SS and the only HP/SS I've ever liked, but she yanked her stuff off the 'net when she decided to go pro. Sad times.
"The Scarlet Pimpernel"-- A Percy Weasley redemption story that made me silly-delerious happy upon reading it. I mean, really, this sort of "behind the scenes fix-it" tale is precisely what fanfiction is about.
"Dark Gods In The Blood"-- My favorite of the SS/HG post-Voldemort epics. Sucks to be Harry, but oh well.
"Somewhere I Have Never Travelled"-- Another post-Voldy SS/HG epic, with time travel and stuff. There are parts I loved and parts, like the whole psychoanalysis bit with the healer from Newfoundland, that just tick me off. (Also contains some bonus HP/HG, which is Fine. By. Me.)
"The Prefect's Portrait" by Arsinoe de Blassenville. Marvelously entertaining, ingenious, Slytherin apologist BS. There's an illustrated version out there that's quite lovely. Ms. de Blassenville has a few other equally marvelous and ingenious works of BS out there that are worth a read if you can stand the deconstructionist stance, I mean canon warping.
A word on the SS/HG-- it was really kind of a subgenre unto itself, a very literary subgenre whose writers seemed, at the time I was following it, to be mostly adult women. It's a crack/AU pairing in its very inception, but the good writers recognized this and tried to run with it anyway. Hermione is, IMO, usually an author stand-in, or some kind of... I dunno, Jane Eyre stand-in subbing for the author. And Snape is a smoldering wounded romantic hero in need of a right fixing up. It gets old after a while, but after plowing through highly-touted and bloody ridiculous Harry/Draco stories, not to mention the complete works of Cassie Claire, the SS/HG was a nice change of pace.
There was also a SS/HG one with Hermione as a ghost (death by potions class accident) that was really sweet and moving even if it went kind of fluffy at the end, but the title eludes me and I never did bookmark it. Oh well. I was following some interesting Lupin/Tonks stories, too, but after the way they ended up in canon I lost the taste for it.
I also don't actively seek out HP/HG stories, but I do welcome recs on their behalf.
#5: Favorite Villain: If we're going with the penultimate Big Bad, the human sort, I have to say Rudolf. If we're going with the final, not-human, Big Bad, it's harder to say... Medeus (humans have it coming), Idoun (not what was expected) and Ashera (whoa) have their interesting points. Fomortiis and the Fire Dragon, not so much. At all. And if we're just going with a villain, any villain... I do have that soft spot for Caellach.
-x-
So, Harry Potter. Since people on the f-list are getting interested, I will present the following recs. These are not necessarily the "best" stories out there, as I have only read a fraction of what is available and my tastes are idiosyncratic, but these stuck with me.
"The Shipping Forecast"-- nothing to do with 'shipping! A glimpse of Snape as a lad looking to better himself. I really like this author's take on Snape, which was firmly in the "he's lower-class and possibly Yorkshire" camp well, well before HP7. This writer also wrote some interesting HG/SS and the only HP/SS I've ever liked, but she yanked her stuff off the 'net when she decided to go pro. Sad times.
"The Scarlet Pimpernel"-- A Percy Weasley redemption story that made me silly-delerious happy upon reading it. I mean, really, this sort of "behind the scenes fix-it" tale is precisely what fanfiction is about.
"Dark Gods In The Blood"-- My favorite of the SS/HG post-Voldemort epics. Sucks to be Harry, but oh well.
"Somewhere I Have Never Travelled"-- Another post-Voldy SS/HG epic, with time travel and stuff. There are parts I loved and parts, like the whole psychoanalysis bit with the healer from Newfoundland, that just tick me off. (Also contains some bonus HP/HG, which is Fine. By. Me.)
"The Prefect's Portrait" by Arsinoe de Blassenville. Marvelously entertaining, ingenious, Slytherin apologist BS. There's an illustrated version out there that's quite lovely. Ms. de Blassenville has a few other equally marvelous and ingenious works of BS out there that are worth a read if you can stand the deconstructionist stance, I mean canon warping.
A word on the SS/HG-- it was really kind of a subgenre unto itself, a very literary subgenre whose writers seemed, at the time I was following it, to be mostly adult women. It's a crack/AU pairing in its very inception, but the good writers recognized this and tried to run with it anyway. Hermione is, IMO, usually an author stand-in, or some kind of... I dunno, Jane Eyre stand-in subbing for the author. And Snape is a smoldering wounded romantic hero in need of a right fixing up. It gets old after a while, but after plowing through highly-touted and bloody ridiculous Harry/Draco stories, not to mention the complete works of Cassie Claire, the SS/HG was a nice change of pace.
There was also a SS/HG one with Hermione as a ghost (death by potions class accident) that was really sweet and moving even if it went kind of fluffy at the end, but the title eludes me and I never did bookmark it. Oh well. I was following some interesting Lupin/Tonks stories, too, but after the way they ended up in canon I lost the taste for it.
I also don't actively seek out HP/HG stories, but I do welcome recs on their behalf.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-28 10:07 pm (UTC)Most boring love interest.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-28 10:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-28 10:48 pm (UTC)I will check out the first because...snaep. Why not check out Snape stuff?
As for the rest, I think I'll read the books before I read the one about Percy-- because iirc he barely made a dent in my memory from the movies. I can't say that SS/HG really sparks my interest at all-- maybe it will if I pick up hints in the books!-- but I'll admit the ghost one does sound pretty interesting. At least, that's a curious idea. I can definitely see how appealing all HG/SS fics would be beside Cassie Claire and all the weird-ass shit hanging out in the fandom.
Years ago when I saw the first movie (but retained none of what I actually saw) I'm pretty sure I was shipping Harry with Hermione. And when I found out they didn't end up together I think I was pretty surprised, because I guess I expected it. And from the fandom I guess some of them might have expected it, too. I mean later, there were hints for Ron, so I could see it coming, but at first I seriously expected Harry and Hermione to end up together by the end. *Lol* Silly of me, I know.
Also, Fluff and Snape kind of frighten me when used in the same sentence. Though I do wonder how different he might have been had things gone differently for him in the past. Hm.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-28 11:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-28 11:54 pm (UTC)I really enjoyed that author's blog back in the day. She seemed cool, she was into posting delicious recipes, and even when I didn't like one of her stories, I felt they were all written "in good faith," so to speak. And you couldn't say that about all the heavy-hitter Potter writers.
She also had some pretty cool fic-responses to memes and trends that she didn't like. :D
no subject
Date: 2011-12-29 01:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-29 01:56 am (UTC)A positive role model, shall we say. I was fairly set in my ways by the time I reached HP fandom (2005, I think) but seeing this writer in action did make me feel there were sane people still out there.
My idol remains the untouchable Torch, fan-deity of an earlier era.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-28 11:57 pm (UTC)Hahah, no. That phenomenon was definite author-projection. "Well, Snape's a brooding tormented secretly-good guy, and he's really smart, so he needs a mature, competent, and smart woman... oh yeah, future!Hermione with a dash of Mary Sue will do the trick!"
I wish I'd kept a running log of my reactions to CC's Draco Trilogy as I was reading it. I wish.
but at first I seriously expected Harry and Hermione to end up together by the end.
The movies really, really seemed to be pushing it. Especially #3 and #4.
Also, Fluff and Snape kind of frighten me when used in the same sentence.
Oh, at that point in the story he'd been all fixed up and was a healthy and loving young(ish) man. ;P
no subject
Date: 2011-12-29 12:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-29 01:54 am (UTC)I wasn't expecting the "good ending" of the game to involve Roy sparing and rescuing her, and that did affect me. Even with me thinking "oh, they're borrowing from FE3 again," the exact way it was done was pretty powerful.
And it made me like Roy a heck of a lot more than I did. So it's not so much Idoun/Eden herself as the entire situation, which is genuinely moving IMO.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-29 03:29 am (UTC)Fomortiis (sp? I have no idea) was not only uninteresting in a story sense, but laughably easy to kill. Not impressed at all. :|
no subject
Date: 2011-12-29 05:49 am (UTC)So I wasn't the only one who noticed this! Eden, the clean slate for the new world.
I wasn't sure how I felt about Roy telegraphing to everyone that he was going to save her by pitying her... but then, I'm not sure how that could have been communicated otherwise and poor translation and so on. If I ever did a novelization that's probably something I'd change.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-29 11:55 am (UTC)I wasn't sure how I felt about Roy telegraphing to everyone that he was going to save her by pitying her
Very Lord of the Rings?
Anyway, a less overt way of telegraphing it might've been even worse in-game. I'm thinking of the way the "save the four princesses" angle was handled in FE3 vs FE12. One is a two-sentence, blink and you'll miss it, "hope you get the gist of it" exchange. The other is a series of cringeworthy dialogues featuring MyUnit as facilitator. :/