What are you reading?

[Brian]

Both had their issues, but I liked Bungle much more than its sequel (unfortunately).

jbern seems to like a focus on male heros enjoying casual sex, which, yeah, could be turned down a lot, and also the idea that most wizards aren't good in combat because they aren't willing to be vicious enough, which tends to give his protagonists an edge because they're still 'good' while abusing that.  If you can't skip/gloss over the sex scenes (I pretty much had to), then he may not be the author for you.

Just found a link to this fic, and it's by the Oh God, Not Again author, which seems promising:

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6635363/1/When_In_Doubt_Obliviate

Premise being a much younger Lockheart finds a child Harry and raises him as his own....

[Arakawa]

Premise being a much younger Lockheart finds a child Harry and raises him as his own....

Ah, I remember that one being amusing, particularly the lessons on Lockhart family values....

[Yuthirin]

Premise being a much younger Lockheart finds a child Harry and raises him as his own....

I am immediately both intrigued and horrified.

[Ebiris]

It's been ages since I read bungle in the jungle but I do remember the (spoiling because I can't recall how early it comes up)

Spoiler: ShowHide

lost city full of undead accessed by banking teleporter

to have been a fantastic setting and one I'd love to play/run in an RPG one day.

[Dracos]

The setting is fantastic.  There's really lots about the local environment that Jungle in the Bungle sets  up that is worthy of notice.

[Ebiris]

May as well give another rec while I'm here.

Hit the Ground Running
"The Horcrux in Harry's head wakes up and begins talking to Harry long before he's ever heard the name Voldemort."

You've probably seen similar summaries, no doubt accompanied by "independent!harry, manipulative!dumbledore, harry/harem" and the like, but this isn't that. Voldemort in Harry's head may or may not have any genuine sympathy for Harry, but he has an extremely vested interest in his own survival, and so gives Harry occasional help while mostly directing him to take actions that'll help him survive/figure out what went wrong when the killing curse rebounded/acquire a body of his own and various other plans.

What really sells it is that bereft of any actual power or resources, Voldemort has to rely on being convincing when he needs Harry to do something, and Harry being the innocent child that he is mostly goes along with it in a good natured sort of way. It's not quite there but I get a certain Blackadder vibe from Voldemort's overreaching and self-centred scheming while limited to the help of one dubiously talented minion - I find myself rooting for him because for all that he's unapologetically evil, he just seems so harmless. Pinky and the Brain might be another comparison better suited to American readers.

Unfortunately it hasn't been updated in a while and is only half way through year one, but I'd recommend it for a chuckle.

[Arakawa]

Premise being a much younger Lockheart finds a child Harry and raises him as his own....

I am immediately both intrigued and horrified.

Needless to say, it relies on one of those good-naturedly incompetent Dumbledores to make that even remotely possible....

[Anastasia]

Have you ever read a fic and come out of it not sure what the fuck?

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6612113/1/Love-Hina-Outsider-Looking-In

I just did. It's Love Hina through the lens of a different Keitaro that focuses on Keitaro, Kitsune and Naru. The other characters are there but varying degrees of background after the first several chapters. Great if you want to see Naru start as a bitch and end up...well...

Spoiler: ShowHide

Having a full on breakdown with possible suicide looming by the last chapter.

I feel it's well written and I'm not that attached to Love Hina, so radically hacking at the setting doesn't make me blink. I have no idea how this would play to fans of it. Nada, zip, zappo. I couldn't relate to Keitaro in this fic, as his personality type doesn't mesh with me at all. Nonetheless I found it an engaging read. Just don't ask me what I think about it, since I'm really not sure what the fuck.

[Jason_Miao]

I couldn't relate to Keitaro in this fic, as his personality type doesn't mesh with me at all. Nonetheless I found it an engaging read. Just don't ask me what I think about it, since I'm really not sure what the fuck.

Tried reading it, up to halfway through ch 3.  The protagonist feels like a Keitaro-suited SI to me, although I also haven't read anything LH related in years (I think the last was the Bri's Ranma-LH xover back when he was still writing it, so I could give C&C) so I may not recall the finer points of Keitaro's character.

Also, random Japanese in fics is irritating enough.  Random Pakistani words, when then gets corrected to Japanese...

[Arakawa]

What really sells it is that bereft of any actual power or resources, Voldemort has to rely on being convincing when he needs Harry to do something, and Harry being the innocent child that he is mostly goes along with it in a good natured sort of way. It's not quite there but I get a certain Blackadder vibe from Voldemort's overreaching and self-centred scheming while limited to the help of one dubiously talented minion - I find myself rooting for him because for all that he's unapologetically evil, he just seems so harmless. Pinky and the Brain might be another comparison better suited to American readers.

Unfortunately it hasn't been updated in a while and is only half way through year one, but I'd recommend it for a chuckle.

I dunno, to me head!Voldemort comes across as more creepy than that. (Are the headaches a form of conditioning?) He gets Harry compliant to the point where 'of course, we can easily hatch another basilisk' doesn't elicit much reaction beyond dread that they probably will wind up hatching a basilisk.

Edit: it is hinted on the other hand that the living conditions in Harry's head have softened Voldemort from 'totally inhuman' to just 'pretty damn evil and arrogant'. So in that sense, I'm rooting for head!Voldemort against Quirrelmort at the very least.

Still an interesting story.

Also, random Japanese in fics is irritating enough.  Random Pakistani words, when then gets corrected to Japanese...

...

My brain fuses are imploding.

[Rayearth]

Just found a link to this fic, and it's by the Oh God, Not Again author, which seems promising:

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6635363/1/When_In_Doubt_Obliviate

Premise being a much younger Lockheart finds a child Harry and raises him as his own....

Oh good, a Sarah1281 story. I liked a bunch of that author's Naruto stories, particularly It's For a Good Cause, I Swear!, which is also a humourous time travel fic. I think I'm too used to running into Naruto time travel stories that are all serious and similar to Nightmares of Futures Past, so that story felt more refreshing than it should.

[Ergoemos]

May as well give another rec while I'm here.

Hit the Ground Running
"The Horcrux in Harry's head wakes up and begins talking to Harry long before he's ever heard the name Voldemort."

This story hints at, but dances, one of my biggest sticking points in the Harry Potter universe. Harry Potter was abused, mistreated, malnourished, and isolated as a child, yet the most, I don't know, "troubled" part of Harry is that he tends to whine a lot when he gets older.

I get it, its a book for children. You can't have an emotionally broken and possibly half-feral child be the center of books or stories and have him be the chosen one and have him make friends and be a normal child.

Still, maybe its just a result of me reading the first few books of Bio of a Space Tyrant (not a recommended read and very very grim) or even just Ender's Game, around the same time in my pre-teens. Ender had a mostly supportive family, but an abusive brother and happened to realize that a lot of people were shouldering the weight of humanity on his shoulders. It showed. He was not, by almost any standard, a normal, well-adjusted child.

Even within the Potterverse, Neville was ostensibly treated better than Harry (I seriously doubt his grandmother forced him into a cupboard, starved him regularly, and forced him to do manual labor from a young age). Neville was, on the other hand, far more "troubled" than Harry ever was.

It's just made it very hard for me to read the books ever again, nor follow fanfiction that uses the same origin as the books. It breaks my suspension of disbelief every time.

Sorry for the rant.

On topic, the story is pretty well written and I plan on seeing past the first chapter, just because the concept intrigues me.

[Jason_Miao]

Oh good, a Sarah1281 story. I liked a bunch of that author's Naruto stories, particularly It's For a Good Cause, I Swear!, which is also a humourous time travel fic.

Heh!  I posted about that one a year or two ago.  I still reread it whenever I run across a particularly bad "I must time travel in the past and change NOTHING...because changing nothing is totally the point of me traveling in the past" fic.

[Yuthirin]

Unfortunately it hasn't been updated in a while and is only half way through year one, but I'd recommend it for a chuckle.

Got updated 3 days ago. :D

[Ebiris]

Yes... yes it did. I must have been thinking of something else when I noted that then.