I haven't read too much of the stuff published in the last year, but from what I have --

The Fields of Summer is an very good Snape-centric afterlife story. Snape has to make peace with all those he had unresolved feelings for -- Dumbledore, James, Lily, Harry. The Snape-Lily conversation is fantastic.

pick it up, pick it all up and start again is a worthy sequel to The Changeling. One of the few stories that does post-war rebuilding and PTSD without it being trite. There's another sequel up, which I haven't read yet.

A Question of When would be well known, since it was written by a DLP author. A well executed twisted romance, without being too creepy.

Smoke and Mirrors is a very good story about gender fluidity, barely functional relationships and unconventional relationship dynamics. Features Sirius, Remus, Tonks and Ginny in various combinations. I loved Tonks and Remus in this -- infact, this is my favorite Tonks ever. It adds so much depth to the Remus-Tonks relationship, with all the implicit dysfunctionality of their canon relationship, and then some.

Relationship Counselling - Grindelwald wants to win Dumbledore's heart back, and keeps asking a captive Graves for love advice. Hilarious crack fic.

Heading Straight for the Castle- A rather enchantingly written Fairy Tale AU.

Which, in your opinion, are the best stories published in 2017?

 

Mine.

/thread

 

I'm gonna nominate Plotless'/Sophrosyne's The Half-Blood Romantic.

 

I enjoyed Wind Shear a lot

 

Oh no

 

It wasn't a very good year for fanfiction. If one were lax about dates, I would nonimate Harry Potter and the Chrysalis. In spite of its rather lackluster last few chapters, it is quite good.

In spite of its many flaws, I will have to go with The Many Deaths of Harry Potter, which could have been a lot more, were it better planned an executed. However, a story published and completed within a few months deserves a mention. It might not be *the* best, but it's the only one I can remember right now. So, I suppose it stands out.

Hunting the Grim is also well worth a shout. I haven't read the Half-blood Romantic yet, but there are very few great PoA divergences, and this is one of the few ones. Excellent characterisation. Almost as good as laventadorn's The Never-ending Road, which is saying a lot. (had it had more magic, it would've been in my top 5 with What You Leave Behind, Circular Reasoning and On the Way to Greatness). I would gladly welcome sequels of HtG. While very dark/sad, it was very good. In a way that canon would've been like, had Rowling had more of a spine.

Spoiler

That's how you kill Sirius and Remus.

 

Victoria Potter by Taure without a doubt the best new fic will probably end up in my top 3 favorites in the fandom with a promise of self contained yearly adventures with a full realized magical world and allaround great writing if he ever reaches the point.

Half-blood romantic was pretty solid until the last chapter where it jumped the shark for me.

Haven't really read anything else probably not much I missed really lost interest in FF will only read stuff highly recommended by DLP.

 

This year has been pretty dry for quality works, though it's been like this since like 2012. I guess I'd say "Getting Too Old For This" since I liked it well enough to put it up in for review, but it's definitely not the kind of story I want winning any time of "best" award for.

 

Oh Come On, it's not THAT bad, reminds me of an old fic (Whiskey Time Travel) that I liked very much.

 

Which is also more of a guilty pleasure fic than any thing else.
I mean I love the fic but there isn't anything special about it.

 

Try reading it again but this time jot down each time you read the words "stated" or any time a character frowns:

States 27 times in chapter 1
States 60 times in chapter 2
States 38 times in chapter 3
States 84 times in chapter 4
States 43 times in chapter 5
States 66 times in chapter 6
etc.

The author has no idea how to write with any subtlety and will always tell rather than show, and has impressively terrible characterization of pretty much every character in the entire story considering they all act either exactly the same or like an absolute idiot. Dumbledore especially seems to be a few cards short of a deck for the entire story and is constantly surprised by anything and everything. All that along with shitty "politics", poor pacing, bad fight scenes, the dialogue sucks and Bellatrix just functions as an author mouthpiece on blood purity.

This fic is just a remnant of 2007 fanfiction that had okay ideas and executed them with a sledgehammer. Poorly.

 

Hey this is pretty good. It's actually better than quite a few of the fics for up review, and ceartainly better than most of the ones in the Almost Recommended section. Weird it doesn't have its own thread. Anyway, had I not just read it now (in 2018) it would take my 2017 highlight too, so thanks for the rec.

 

Couple of stuff I follow:

Heliocentrism (Naruto) - A Minato-as-Gamer fic, it is brilliant as a deconstruction and hilarious as a story. Really unfortunate that it was published over a short period in January last year and has basically been dead since.

Walk On The Wild Side - Jaune-centric and one of those kicked-out-of-beacon stories, so some people might dislike it reactively; but the plot is good, the character interactions better, and the emotional depth best.

 

Thanks for the recommendation. I definitely enjoyed it very much. The best thing is that it just got updated.