Besides all the horrible, drawn out fluff, oversensual atmosphere, emo!Harry, complete character OOCness that kills the reason people like Snape in the first place, the author's tendency to beat up on Harry, plot holes that have uberpowerful Harry losing to complete weaklings, inconsistencies, slash fangirl characteriations of every slashable male (Tough outside, broken and lonely inside), the complete cluelessness of everyone as to who the real boy who lived is, the slash, everyone's quick acceptance of the gay relationship Harry and Draco in a Medieval atmosphere, the overuse of certain phrases (For Conner, must save Conner, etc etc), things being blown out of proportions (ooOOOoooh, Snape told the Aurors that he was being abused, such BETRAYAL!), general wimp!Pussy!Harry,

whenever I read a story where a character at 14/15 declares that he is in love with someone, I will stop reading.

What does it take for people to understand that you DON'T FALL IN LOVE AT 14! Even IF you are gay. If you do, then you are clearly delusional and in need of a pastime, as I have never met a 14 year old who even wanted to fall in love.

 

It seems that every 14/15 year old that I've met that was in a relationship has believed that he/she was in love....Well, that's mostly the chicks, though.

It does seem strange that homosexuality is so accepted in Lightning's wizarding world. It seems that the only reasons anyone has a problem with it is the purebloods' wanting heirs.

 

I guess I was lucky when I was 14...

I realized it was all lust.

As for the people accepting homosexuality...this is written by an author who drools over Draco and Harry having nice fudgepacking sessions.

If she is going to write a series longer than canon with all this stuff, then a little thing like that isn't going to stop her.

 

A Weaver's Thoughts Upon the Saving Connor series

Excuse me? Listen I used to be blantly against slash and balked when i found it. Same with anything to do with Slytherin. I thought it was evil and wrong. After reading The Saving Connor series among others I became okay with the idea of a Slytherin Harry. I was still slightly opposed to slash intill a guy friend of mine 'came out' He was a lot nicer afterwards. So i became content with the idea. The emphasis of the tough guy with emotional problems is appealing because it makes you feel that even though he is strong physically he can lean on you for emotional issues. It makes the relationship feel like an equal partnership. Lightning's writing truly shows that not everybody you percieve to be good is always good, that the ones you think are bad aren't always bad, and that making someone a sacrafice and not aknowledge it as something, to train a child in a job most adults would break from being in, is truly the greatest evil.

I am the Weaver of Nightmares, Goddess of the Forsaken Sacrifices.

 

A tough guy with emotional problems to fix is a fantasy of 14-18 year old girls all over the world.


Lightning could have easly done the SAME thing without making it a Gay Pairing.

 

You just defined fangirl masturbation material to a T.

Big strong man who is a house of cards emotionally.

In other words -- good looking and wants to talk about feelings and stuff.

Lightnings writing might show that perception might not equal reality, and I agree with her on many of her stances on what things do/do not constitute freedom(s), and I am personally in awe of her in depth background info of pureblood stuff; however that does not change the fact that she spends ENTIRELY to much time with the other issues. As well as the main issues themselves.

The story gets lost in the white noise of socio-political-fangirly statement

 

Weaver: We don't have anything against homosexuality. Our acceptance or opposition to the idea is not on debate here. We are simply wondering how a vastly medieval society seems to take homosexuality in stride without so much as a blink.

I doubt all of society has undergone all the enlightening experiences you have gone through. People, especially in these societies are vastly xenophobic. Where has this important aspect gone?

The redemption thing is overdone horribly, as is the "they were never evil to begin with". Snape is a sadistic snarky bastard. Lightning shows him as a polar opposite. Where has his greasiness gone to? It seems like no one but Voldemort himself is evil at all in this story, and everyone is a closet fluffball.

And most of that is a dream. Perfect relationships with "support" and "balance" are boring and unrealistic.
Also, don't you find it suspicious that most of the supporters to this fic are female?

 

That's just female daydreaming. Girls sometimes take too seriously bullshit guys feed them to get under their panties. "Rough ruffian on the outside, gentle softie on the inside"... SNORT! Fat chance of that happening.

If I can bash harem fics, where all the girls are all too eager to become some stud's sex slaves and concubines, I sure as hell can bash fics that do the same thing with guys - turn them into the author's personal sexual fantasy, without taking into consideration logical characterisation and common sense in general...

 

Yes, and I can tell you from experience that it is NOT appealing to have a relationship with someone who has the emotional stability of a depressed puppy. It ruins the relationship to have your partner completely emotionally dependent on you.

 

^Actually I wouldn't mind that. If it got to the point where she wanted hugs and wanted to be held all the time...well, I guess it would be kinda annoying. But it's appealing to that dominant side I have.

 

Bump...

I read this series. And I'm still doing it - because it's the only thing around town that consistantly updates with fairly good writing on some days.

Battle Scenes: At first, I thought that her battle scenes were great. Lightning on the Wave is a master of suspense. She just has that way with words. Unfortunately, it seems that she's overdoing it nowadays. Personally, I think she's lost the atmosphere and skill she previously had. For example, she always uses the words And then.... Where before it was only at the best times possible, now it happens every paragraph. Eventually, you get sick of seeing those words over and over again.

Characterization: Lightning on the Wave is a master at showing the changes that happen to people. Her Harry changes greatly - by the 7th book he acts much like a commander should do. Unfortunately, the process of telling the change is where she fails. She tends to make dramatic emotional breakdowns the norm. This is especially pronounced with Harry. If I had a penny for every time Harry goes through a life-changing mental transformation...I'd be fucking poor as hell. But I'd still have a dime.

On the other hand, I think that she's created the best OOC characters ever - Evan Rosier and Indigena Yaxley. I've never seen original characters done so well.

Culture: I have yet to see anybody - except for a select few - do better at Lightning on the Wave than this. This is the part where she shines.

Plot: meh...It's okay. There are good parts and bad parts. For example, let's look at the defeat of Dumbledore. The good part is the unexpected use of the prophecy and Dumbledore's final thoughts. The bad part is his actual defeat. Harry just drains his energy. I mean, come on. That is the most stupid defeat of Dumbledore I've ever seen in my life. Another problem is the vates aspect of the story. It had so much potential, and it was a wonderful idea. But she completely ignores it in the later parts of the series. Quite a shame.

Length: This is the problem with her series. There are so many random subplots and useless filler that you easily get lost. A lot of things can be cut out - like that subplot where Harry rebels from the Ministry. Take that away, and you've just taken 200 000 words out. Then get rid of the H/D slash and you've lost half the story.

Filler: What I mean by this is the non-plot-essential-crap such as character interaction, humour, and romance. This is another part where Lightning on the Wave needs improvement. In my opinion, it's gotten a lot worse. During the early stories, I actually wanted to read this. But nowadays it's garbage. One aspect is the humour. In the second book, there were funny parts - Harry pranking Lockhart and his pet snake. But by the fifth book, it's all gone. There's no humour anymore. To put it simply, the filler is boring. Contrast Lightning on the Wave's filler to stories by TheJackofDiamonds or jbern where you're actually interested in the non-plot-essential-crap.

Belerdorhan's Special Guide to Reading Stories Like This: In stories where the filler / non-plot-essential-crap is boring, all you have to do is skip it. Fast-forward to the alliance-making, dueling, and attacking. It's like reading bobmin's story - Sunrise/Sunset Over Britain - where you ignore all that mushy/unneccesary crap and just read the parts where Harry actually does something.

Edit: 4.25/5

 

I haven't even finished the first story because despite my expectations from all the recommendations and great reviews, the atmosphere was done poorly, with the mushy pre-slash aura surrounding it all, and the writing that everyone praises so much doesn't seem as good as promised. I think that's mainly the problem with the series - everyone has good things to say about them, so you go into them expecting something excellent in every way.

That said, I'm going to try and read them again. A few people have mentioned this pureblood culture thing that she does very well...can someone give some examples? It seemed from the reviews here that that is the high point in her stories.

 

The mushy slash........*grasps at throat*.....can't breath!

::::

There is no story besides the slash here. Take it out and you have a bunch of contradictions and drawn out problems.

 

Sadly, I've given up on the series too. I read up till the slash started, couldnt stand.... Would have been nice if only it were straight...

 

This was a while back.

The biggest problem with it was that Harry never seemed to get any better. He was still a pussy at the end of the fifth (which is where I stopped). I can understand someone will be emotionally scarred from neglectful parents, but it is not fun to read about. Canon!Harry was neglected, too. If he had cried about it, I would never have read the books.

 

There are some extremely cool scenes in here, it has one of the better discoveries of the difference between dark and light magic, the rituals are great, and it has an interesting plot.

With that said, I abhor Draco, and I don't even really like LotW's version of him.

I haven't read through all of the comments, so I don't know if it was mentioned or not, but practically everyone in her story follows Kinsey's Scale, and there is a long stretch of time in which, if you hadn't read the summary for the first story, which I believe described it as Pre-slash, you wouldn't be able to tell whether Harry would go with Draco, Necromancer!Pansy, or extremely-badass-and-not-mannish!Millicent.

I have to admit the empath!Draco part really pissed me off. However, it has very interesting ideas, especially with the perverting of rituals, and the balance of magical power. It is . . . extremely aggravating that Harry is still in school, since he knows practically the entire curriculum. The angst is bearable (a'course, I thought that the angst of WoMo, (Promises by) Miss Laine, and Celebony's stories was bearable, so I suppose that I'm not the greatest measuring stick)

It has a very interesting view of politics and betrayal, and I'd probably still be reading it if I hadn't gone off to an island paradise for a few weeks, and then after procrastinating on reading it for several weeks realized upon coming back that I had around seven hundred pages of reading to do.

As many people have said, not a fic for many of the people on this group, but could definitely be bearable for some of them.

 

I remember reading up to the beginning of story five before I finally quit. I admit, I liked the fight scene and magical concept, but the characters, the fluffy slash and the many plots/sub-plots finally put it away for me. At the the beginning it was fine, but now the damn general characterzation killed it. I may re-read it though later when its finished.... much later.

 

I read the first two, tried reading the third but they got too long. Don't get me wrong, I like long fics, but the Saving Connor stories are ridiculously long. I have to give props to the author for simply churning that massive amount of updates. I was pretty much turned off by the slash, although I can tolerate some in small amounts, Not to sound homophobic, but it started to really sour the story in my opinion. Whatever people should formulate their own opinions on the story if they decide to disregard without reading it.

 

Don't fear political correctness. You don't have to like anything. There's nothing wrong with not reading homosexuality. We've had it shoved down out throats by everywhere that not liking slash and homosexuality automatically makes us evil and homophobic.

You're not any worse for disliking slash. Never forget that.

 

*Holds his breath*

*counts to 10*

"I will not revive THE GREAT GAY DEBATE"


"I will not revive THE GREAT GAY DEBATE"


"I will not revive THE GREAT GAY DEBATE"

*leaves thread*