I rather enjoyed this! You're right in saying that it felt like it could have been a tad bit longer - the story would have been better for it as a whole, I think.

But even still, there's fun to be had with what there is. I found Mort to be pretty hilarious at times, even if the humor doesn't land one hundred percent of the time.

Still - it's a fun read and a good way to kill an hour or so. Grammar is good too!

A solid 3.5/5 from me. There's just a little tiny something missing that keeps the story from being great, you know?

 

A nice piece. I like the Rita/Luna relationship and the Dumbledore. I like the light touch handling of Sirius and Remus. The concept of an accidental animagus transformation is also interesting & different but somehow I find calling it "MacFusty" devalues that. Using the Goblet to trap Voldemort rather than Harry is a change too.
I agree 100% with the other reviewers though, there's something missing that prevents it from being really good in spite of all the things I like.

 

I think the major problem - and source of all the other problems - is that while the author limited themselves when it comes to length and scope, they should do so as well when it comes to theme and genre.

The first half is a "mystery" of the monster, that is slowly transforming into a bit of fluff, with little scenes of awesomness, when the monster fights. And that part is awesome, easily 4/5, "touching" 5/5 even, because it gets so many things right. Mostly: Luna, Hagrid, Remus voices, Angry Sirius (which is 159% better than the usual FF Sirius), and Dumbledore! While Dumbledores voice (vocabulary) was a little off few times, the emotions arecompletely spot on - the bad situation he was in, after the war, etc. That part was superb.

But then, that completely changes in the year 4 and it's replaced with bad, almost crackish humor, uninteresting TWT, and it's just… 2/5, because the language/grammar isn't awful and Rita has nice characterisation.

All in all, 3/5, and I'd say it would be much better, if the core theme stayed at getting to know monster, solving his problem and the relationships between protagonists, with Voldemort being in the background, just to provide a dash of action and awesomeness.

 

Without reading, I have to say I have a problem with the title not being a real word.

 

Let's break this down:

Grammar 4/5: Outside of the obvious "error" in the title, it's perfectly readable.

Prose 3/5: Due to the nature of the piece being more a series of interlinked snapshots from an AU, it's very curt. It reads almost like an outline. That said, what's there is interesting, and each character does have a voice.

Characterization 4/5 I'd say that this is probably the strongest element of the story, as is. Harry's character is surprisingly well fleshed out for how little actual dialogue he gets. That said, I do think Harry come off as way too balanced, way too quickly considering what the point of divergence is. The stand out bit is that both Dumbledore and Voldemort are handled exceedingly well for what basically turns into a fix it fic. Voldemort in particular has some great lines towards the end. Skeeter's character is... fun, but some of the AU elements there are a bit expansive, if you're a canon purist. Sirius and Remus are pretty poorly characterized for the amount of screen time they get, and Luna is my least favorite viewpoint in the story. She's too normal. Hagrid, on the other hand, is fantastic. It never descends into outright bashing, but you're always made acutely aware that the author has strong opinions on the characters. That's probably the most frustrating bit reading this.

Plot 3/5 Well, like much of The Mad, Mad Reviewer's stuff, it's kind of a fix it fic. That said, this really isn't a oneshot so much as a series of vignettes from a story that TMMR is clearly not going to write. I like Harry, Hagrid, and Sirius' arcs, I think that Luna's arc could easily be made to work with a bit of revision, and Dumbledore does an admirable job of royally screwing everything up while still feeling realistically powerful. However, for all of the interesting development in characterization, this story wraps in a convoluted, poorly thought out trap for Voldemort so that there's no doubt he's dead.

Average: 14/20 to 3.5 out of 5

That is exactly what this piece deserves. It's got a lot of really interesting ideas, but it is a fundamentally unfinished work rife with dumb cliches that drag the whole piece down. That said, it's a fun read.

 

I actually liked this story back in 2011/2012 when it was still in Terrible Ideas Bin of that author, it ended with Sirius finding out about Harry I believe and after reading this I think it should have ended there.

There is huge tone shift in third year and the fourth year reads like a completely different story entirely. Not sure how to explain why I feel this way... Maybe the more proactive characters, whereas before they were not being proactive as much? Or the "good side" having a lot of things going their way with no difficulties? Or maybe the story does not know what it wants to be and the tonal shifts are too much? Like I said not really certain.

That said I like the motive of the story, there are some interesting twists like the one with Rita, but I cannot in good conscience rate it more than 3/5.

 

Shades of Worm in what happened to Harry here, it was a very trigger event-esque situation and resulted in a sort of Case 53 reminiscent power with a lot of fiddly details and strange implications. (I think the first incarnation of this in 2011 or whatever probably predated/samedated most of Worm though, obviously)

I really loved it through the first three years, it had a bit of a jaunty tone but there was a lot of seriousness to it too to keep that grounded. The tone shift definitely hurt, to the point that I'd almost say it ruined what had been developing. Overall it's a 3/5 in my book.

 

I'm a bit late to this party, but I'll leave my two cents.

It was enthralling and almost unique for the first 2/3 of the story. There is an unsolved mystery. We know Harry is 'Mort,' but we don't know how or why. The fic is really good at both building suspense and creating interesting new relationships, especially between Harry and Luna.

Then year four happens. I won't spoil it for anyone, but the tone shifts radically and we descend into inferior Rorschach Blot territory. It was very jarring, and probably reflective of the fact that it's a NaNoWriMo story. With a different ending, it could have been great.

4/5 for the most of the fic, 2/5 for the ending.

3/5 on the whole.