I had good expectations when starting "Hail, Odysseus" and I was extremely let down. All the characters are incredibly flat. Harry is the super tough sexy guy, Ginny is the damaged tough girl, Tracey is the flirt and so on...

There is no depth. My first hackles were raised when the Weasleys disowned Ginny for being sorted into Slytherin, if that does not ping your badfic radar I don't know what will. Then there was the animagus nonsense and the forest bestiality and after that I simply stopped reading the fic, there was no point. It can only go downhill from here.

If it does not, I will reconsider, but I doubt it. A very solid 2/5 for moments of originality.

 

I don't know about Hail Odysseus. It all feels like a common action film. The heroic protagonist, trained by a reformed villain, dives into the cesspool of evil everyone can see, yet no one cares about.

It's enough to waste some time, but you forgot half of it the next day.

 

Hail, Odysseus is blatantly terrible. The writer's passable skill notwithstanding, it's an abysmal clusterfuck filled with cliches. Malfoy rules the Slytherin's and is an absolute moron? Check. Bad Dumbledore? While the author attempts to hide it, it is most definitely there, and I am 100% certain he'll have some bad guy monologue as the story progresses, if he hasn't already (I quit reading after a certain someone was poisoned). Snape is now on Harry's side, and is actually likable? Check. Random good guys are now bad guys? This includes a good deal of the Hufflepuffs for Christ's sake, including the Head of the DMLE, Amelia Bones. Even the Ravenclaws seem to be pointlessly antagonistic.

And if there is one thing I hate above all else, it's Ginny. Not only do I dislike the character in general, but in this story, she is little other than a pissy fucking edgelord. And like others have said, she on bad terms with her parents, or her mother at least. I seem to have missed the part when she said her parents disowned her. It seems that Bill likes her at least, enough to teach her curses and dueling.

Quite frankly, this is another case of a decent writer who is a terrible author. If you can deal with those cliches, have fun, I guess. I wouldn't have put this in Almost Recommended, but to each their own.

 

It's not that they're bad guys, per se, but rather that what she does is motivated by politics, and consequently involves her niece in it.

But yeah, the rest of it is fairly valid. I also think the Daphne Greengrass matter was handled extremely poorly.

Until apparently Fleur showed up in his life and she turned him against her. Why? No one fucking knows.

 

The whole Fleur thing doesn't make a lick of sense. Why would someone who doesn't even go to Hogwarts care about petty house rivalries? Also, he parents didn't disown her, they're just very cold towards her now and are convinced that she was secretly always evil or something.

I can understand Malfoy near-ruling Slytherin though. He's a sixth year and his daddy is a high ranking Deatheater. It would be seriously different if he was a little firstie or something and ordering around people many years his senior.

Anyway, as gbbz said, I had hope this would be good, but it's gone down hill. Not to mention the author is weird creepy in some parts.

 

Fleur is a condescending bitch towards every major female character in canon, so they all hate her in turn. It makes perfect sense that Fleur would get jealous of the amount of time Bill spends with Ginny and would try to turn him against her. I can't really see why most of DLP insists on making Fleur the paragon of virtue. She is an arrogant stuck-up bitch first and foremost. In that respect, she is no different from Draco Malfoy.

Do we actually have any fics where Harry despises Fleur, or does he 'break her shell' each and every time?

 

What? I mean yeah in fourth year she is somewhat but she gets a lot better later on.(Not saying she's a "paragon of virtue) She's nowhere near Malfoy level and I honestly don't know where you get that impression from. There's also the fact that she isn't fleshed out very well like the major characters so her personality comes off as one-sided because that's what authors tend to do with peripheral characters.

 

I personally didn't see it, but it is probably just some female thing.

 

You sure about that? I can't say I've seen much evidence of this.

 

I don't remember that.

 

Doesn't she constantly (and by constantly I mean all the fucking time) put down Hogwarts in the favor of Beauxbatons and everything French? She turns her nose up at everything related to Hogwarts (and the English in general) like Malfoy turns his nose up at anything mudblood. It was OK the first few times, but it got really tiresome later on.

Plus, whenever she speaks to either Ginny, Hermione or Molly in HBP ( and Harry too before he saved her sister) she oozes condescension. Just like Malfoy, except in a slightly more subtle way. The thing is she is a 'good guy' rather than an antagonist like Malfoy, so she does not get called up on her shit as often. Also, she is more popular than either Ginny or Hermione here at DLP, so people just see them insulting Fleur rather than it being both ways.

TL;DR Fleur is a decent person to her friends and a complete, utter bitch to everyone else in general. Since Harry saved her sister in GOF, she is on good terms with Harry, leading most fanfics to portray her a nice, misunderstood person, when she is far from it. Malfoy is almost exactly the same as Fleur (he is an asshole, but he did try to save his friends in the RoR incident in DH), but our view of him is almost completely negative since he hates Harry.

At least, Fleur in Control is a complete bitch. TLIL Fleur is pretty good as well. Trying to get back on topic, does anyone know any good bitch!Fleur stories?

 

So she's French? I mean, I think that's what JKR was going for there, the typical French person looking down on England etc. But to be honest, she never was really that bad - just a bit stuck up, which isn't the end of the world. Doesn't really make her comparable to Malfoy, who is literally a racist Nazi youth wannabe.

Plus, we don't know all that much about Beauxbatons. To be fair, it could be a lot nicer than Hogwarts - we know that Hogwarts apparently offers the best education but that doesn't say much for the food or the accommodations. 1000 year old castles probably aren't the best place to live.

Ginny, Hermione and Molly - you mean the people who all seem to hate her for some fairly weak reasons? And by 'good guy' I assume you mean she never says anything racist, or tries to kill anyone, because then you would be a 100% right and it would be obvious why no one treats her like Malfoy.

I honestly don't understand your comparison between Fleur and Malfoy. They're not even remotely similar. I mean, I'm not saying Fleur is some pure white angel that fanon depicts her as occasionally, but I don't think she's going to start torturing kittens any moment. She has a bit of prickly exterior, but so do lots of people. Hell, half the time Hermione could be described as condescending or stuck up.

Edit: Plus, you seem to be ignoring everything about her marrying Bill after his scarring and how she and Bill protect the trio by hiding them at Shell Cottage, which suggest she seems to be a genuinely decent person. She doesn't hesitate a moment after her fiance is scarred the fuck up and possibly inflicted with a debilitating disease - that's a pretty decent person in my opinion.

So yeah, you're right in that we should probably get back on topic. But I had to say it because how dare you fucking insult my waifu.

 

Fleur looking down on British cooking is no different than Molly whining about Fleur's French food.

 

To be fair - anyone who has actually had British food has a similar opinion. For a moment of amusement - watch a Brit & an Aussie argue which is better: Marmite vs. Vegemite. For anyone who hasn't had the pleasure: a knife works well in scraping either off your tongue.

While it is cliche-filled, what would have made this story better is if it was about Harry/Draco/Viktor in Durmstrang, as opposed to the Harry/Draco/Viktor characters revolving around an OC in Durmstrang. Harry as a supporting character in his own story leaves me a bit uninterested in the effort.

 

You shut your whore mouth. Vegemite is gods gift to this earth.

 

Only A Boy by Riddell Lee FanFiction.Net
Summary: AR. Merlin has changed Camelot forever but while that part of his life is complete, destiny has a new task for him. Now he has to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, hide the fact that he's the Merlin, and defeat a Dark Lord that's messing with magic he knows nothing about.

It's a Harry Potter x Merlin crossover but other than Merlin being transported to Harry's time and having memories of his life as Merlin there isn't much of the Merlin saga in it. It's well written. So far about 200 000 words and the story is only in the summer holidays after second year, so it's moving slow. There are a few things about the characterization I didn't like all the time (the way Merlin handled Draco Malfoy; Merlin behaving a bit immature considering that he is actually an adult in a child's body e.g.) but over all it was a nice read. The way the author is handling the Quirrel situation is interesting and new.
Harry Potter doesn't exist, instead Lily and James Potter somehow stopped Voldemort (there is a backstory we don't know yet) there is also a different prophecy concerning Merlin. Last update was in August.

 

then what makes this harry potter?

 

It does kinda sound like this should have been recommended in the Other Fanfiction Almost Recommended instead of here.

 

If you're talking about Only a Boy:

The way the story's set up, Merlin is essentially filling the "role" of Harry Potter in the universe, while still clearly not just being Harry Potter with a new name and back story. It's still the Harry Potter universe- the same magical Britain, etc.- just without Harry Potter himself in it.

Personally, I've been following the story for a while and enjoy it, despite having never actually seen the show "Merlin". I'm not certain, but I think I might have first heard about the story elsewhere on DLP initially, too.

 

Oh give me a break. I know DLP likes to think that any Harry Potter story(the universe) needs to feature Harry Potter but it can be a perfectly good story without him. The universe is the main reason why I read any Harry Potter fanfiction and I sure as hell am not going reject something purely on the basis that it doesn't feature him. I would've missed several good stories if I did, though of course I've read some horrible ones as well.
If you honestly can't make the distinction then I feel sorry for you.