in reply to Andre Louis

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JamminJerry

I am going to read this one. did you ever read this one?
The Pawn turned Queen

Author:
Cyan93

Summary:
What does one do when they realize they're a pawn? Harry is going to take any good opportunity to escape the playing board. It just so happens that the way he does it, ends the game! Harry is a human hybrid! His two separate DNA strings only viable because of magic, shunting it into a human Animagus form. When he finds out, he escapes his fate.
Total chapters: 58

fanfiction.net/s/13781615/

in reply to Andre Louis

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JamminJerry

I am going to be reading this one. it sort of sounds like one I have read most of called Harry Potter and the Game of Life by Abadashery. summary: Harry's plan to let Voldemort kill him has backfired as there was no Horcrux in his head. Instead Fate is one grumpy deity and decides that if Harry wants to play games well then she'll give him a game to play. A fresh attempt on the Life is a Game genre! Powerful!Harry. Fling!Harry Work in Progress! Rewrite of Chapters 21 and 22 in progress. Stay tuned!
sadly it looks like it has been abanded as there hasn't been an update sense 12/16/2020.
Unknown parent

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MariahL

@devinprater @BrailleScreen I read this one where harry was blind and his magic was a physical manifestation. I don't know why it gave me this bad taste in my mouth but something about that whole story irritated me. The way it was written made me feel like someone was talking down to me and the primary focus was on how Harry was going to make it around hogwarts and how his magic would help him and comfort him. Every chapter there was always a problem. It might have been a small problem, but it was always written into a dramatic thing that would usually take an entire chapter to solve.
@Patrick W
in reply to MariahL

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JamminJerry

did you ever read Harry Potter and the Guild of the Night Series? in my opinion that is a good one. here is the summary of the first one, just in case you haven't read that one before.
Summary: Harry suffers a terrible injury at the Dursleys that leaves his ability to face Voldemort in doubt. But with the help of
Remus Lupin and a mysterious new teacher he has a chance to become more than he was before. Features a grudgingly neutral Snape and
a Ginny who knows what she wants or rather who she wants.
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x0

@BrailleScreen @MariahL @devinprater Kaleidoscopic Grangers at least isn't like that, it's got a blind trans Harry with a magic sense but the author talked to actual blind people to learn the ins and outs of things like Braille and ensure the representation wasn't ableist just realistic. Hogwarts has a fucking lot of stairs, you know. And being blind isn't the focus it's just an occasional obstacle like anything else.
@Patrick W @MariahL
in reply to x0

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Mikołaj Hołysz

@x0 @BrailleScreen @MariahL @devinprater I found the focus on stairs really puzzling. I mean, sure, they can be annoying sometimes, especially if they don't follow modern architectural conventions, but I find them much less of an issue than they are in this fanfic. There are a lot of other actual problems that aren't mentioned at all or just barely, like their food system where you basically have to find and take whatever you want.
@Patrick W @x0 @MariahL
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Mikołaj Hołysz

@x0 I think uneven stairs and trick stairs were just a thing historically. I've read in a book somewhere that there were defence implications, castle residents would know that a stair was uneven but enemies would trip up. Not sure how true this is, definitely might just be a myth / something the book author invented.
@x0
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x0

@miki Most of the time when we think of stairs, we think of them as being uniform. On different staircases, some are narrower, wider, steeper than others, but they're all roughly the same size and shape. By the descriptors, that's not the case here. Possibly just ware and tear from a thousand year old stone building that's had waves of students constantly going up and down them? Or actually bad architecture. Unsure, but that's why she sweeps instead of simply finding the edge like you're supposed to.
@Mikołaj Hołysz
This entry was edited (1 year ago)
in reply to Sean Randall

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James Scholes

It could be said that I'm too picky, but this really rubbed me up the wrong way in the first chapter:

"Sirius was expelled two days later.

His wand was ceremonially snapped, ...

At least he had his O.W.L.s. He was still a qualified wizard, still able to purchase a new wand to replace the one that had been confiscated."

WTF? I don't mind the departure from canon, but it screams "I had an idea, what would be the quickest, most convenient way to gloss over its biggest pitfall?", and entirely negates the magnitude of the wand being snapped in the first place. If he had killed Snape, who would they have given the pointless bits of wood to? @FreakyFwoof

@Andre Louis
This entry was edited (7 months ago)
in reply to James Scholes

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Sean Randall

@jscholes Nah I disagree here.
ceremonially snapped. Like making a gun never fire again, it's the idea of that particular thing not doing magic, not the person. There's a lot of liberties in the fic as a whole. As a Harry story its not. As a potterverse, it's niche. But as a war story, perhaps even as an example of the Agent Provocateur genre, it's excellent.
@James Scholes
in reply to Andre Louis

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Sean Randall

Not finished this yet but grippingly-written.
Everyone knows Dementors can take souls, but nothing says that they have to keep them. After the Dementor attack in Little Whinging ends disastrously, Harry must find a place for himself in a new world, fighting a different sort of war against the nascent Voldemort.
Words:
409,773
Chapters:
45/45
[The Second String - Eider_Down ]](archiveofourown.org/works/1546…)
in reply to Katy T

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James Scholes

@SeveraSnape There's a huge difference between not wanting to read sexually explicit smut with relationships that don't do it for you, and not wanting to read a work of fiction where sex isn't the main focus because some people in it are gay. If someone is "squicked out" by the latter, they're homophobic.

As Sean said, how people run their fanfic archives is their business, and I'm not directly accusing anyone in this thread specifically. But the community seems to have a thinly veiled discrimination problem, and it stinks.

@cachondo @FreakyFwoof

@Katy T @Sean Randall @Andre Louis
in reply to James Scholes

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Sean Randall

@jscholes @SeveraSnape I also can't imagine using plaintext now. Authors use italics a lot in fiction and txt is very much a lossy format. I exported to txt in the 90's when I had no choice, but losing a table of contents, formatting and the benefits of compression make ePub my clear lead for storing ebooks. Not as easy to search, though, and there's no clear winner for accessible reading on windows either.
@James Scholes @Katy T
in reply to Andre Louis

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Andre Louis

@cachondo @jscholes @SeveraSnape As for tables of contents, I think I'm one of the strangest people, I actively refuse to look at them. I usually search the book for 'About the' and read from there. I don't want to know how many chapters it has in case I remember it and then know how long the book is.
I *hate* spoilers, hate knowing how many pages or how much there is left in a book or file to read, it really, really bugs me.
@James Scholes @Katy T @Sean Randall
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James Scholes

@cachondo Separately from one's reading preferences, I view txt as an objectively bad format for archiving. It's the ebook equivalent of storing your music in 128K MP3 instead of FLAC, because of how much data is lost and then impossible to get back unless you have some cast-iron encoding scheme for things like metadata, chapter markers, and so on, and can write tools to use that scheme. So even though I use it in Voice Dream, I keep the EPUBs which are just a richer source of data. @SeveraSnape @FreakyFwoof
@Katy T @Sean Randall @Andre Louis
in reply to James Scholes

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Sean Randall

@jscholes @SeveraSnape Agreed entirely, of course. This is why the braille authorities have spent the last 18 months working on an eBRF spec.
My first portable eReading device only supported the ascii range, incidentally. I didn't notice the loss of smart quotes so much, but the lack of dashes and any sort of apostrophe became quite annoying after a while.
@James Scholes @Katy T
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Sean Randall

@jscholes @twynn @SeveraSnape traditionally, yeah. I think fanfic skews the measure because, at least historically, covers were generic, fan-art was linked separately and the density of the text was far higher than traditionally published novels. More people make ePub out of fanfic with automated tools, or even copy paste, than by using design tools for a published author.
So with longer works compressing to smaller fanfics because more of them is written text rather than publisher-backed media, you end up with ePubs that are smaller than their text counterparts by a wider margin.
@James Scholes @Timothy Wynn @Katy T
in reply to Andre Louis

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Sean Randall

@tspivey @jscholes @SeveraSnape so many of my life hours in my daughter's toddler days were spent waiting for either her to finish an activity or the public transport to get us where we couldn't work.
So many of my days going to job interviews were spent sat on a bus, or waiting for my time or other candidates.
and so much of my guide dog training was about going places hours away that the need to read was pressing.
Carting a laptop about would have been possible, but difficult.
I found Rockbox so I could have accessible access to more than one book at a time, only need to charge after a good handful of books, and keep my phone's battery for GPS, camera or other more outdoorable uses than reading.
it's a couple of inches through the belt loop of my jeans, clipped onto the pocket of my dressing gown or whatever and is always to hand for me.
@James Scholes @Tyler Spivey @Katy T
in reply to Tyler Spivey

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Sean Randall

@tspivey @jscholes @SeveraSnape I've switched to different input for the phone. now, I have cheap glasses with little above-ear speakers. or I fall back to a single earbud. I got airpod knockoffs (same shape and size, 10%the price), if I need in-ear. I'm a bit of a traditionalist and only use my phone for necessary things rather than leisure things most of the time.
@James Scholes @Tyler Spivey @Katy T
in reply to Andre Louis

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Andre Louis

A thoroughly engrossing read that I've just finished. Haven't been able to do much else for the last few days, other than be enthralled by this. Thanks to @cachondo for pointing it out to me.

Title: The Second String

Author: Eider_Down
Summary:

Everyone knows Dementors can take souls, but nothing says that they have to keep them. After the Dementor attack in Little Whinging ends disastrously, Harry must find a place for himself in a new world, fighting a different sort of war against the nascent Voldemort.

URL: archiveofourown.org/works/1546…

@Sean Randall
in reply to Andre Louis

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Andre Louis

Title: The Will of Gill (Harry Potter)

Author: DragonField

Summary:

A 16-year-old boy wakes up in the bed of Gilderoy Lockhart, in the body of the man himself and receives quite the warm welcome. Watch as he carves a path through the Wizarding World and learns esoteric magic, uncovers ancient secrets and solves magical maladies all the while enjoying himself to the max. This entire world will submit to his will, The Will of Gil. SI.

URL: archiveofourown.org/works/4554…

The Will of Gill (Harry Potter) - Chapter 1 - DragonField - Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling [Archive of Our Own]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
archiveofourown.org
in reply to Andre Louis

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Andre Louis

Title: Don't Be Stupid

Author:
Lynskiwrites

summary:
When Harry Potter was 8, Severus took him from the Dursleys, but never stopped hating and mistreating him. The time has come for Severus to learn the consequences of his choices.

archiveofourown.org/works/3852…

Don't Be Stupid - Chapter 1 - Lynskiwrites - Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling [Archive of Our Own]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
archiveofourown.org
in reply to Andre Louis

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Sean Randall

@simon the only downside to me using my mp3 player is I have to convert what I want before I use it.
I do have eloquence on my phone, but when I'm out my phone is used for everything apart from reading: navigation, tickets, camera, scheduling, comms.
Having a tiny player on my belt or in my pocket that always has enough battery to at least finish 1 book is amazing.
Rockbox is so customisable, too. DO I want to have to expressly continue at the start of the next chapter? Should I keep a list of bookmarked points for later? I have different volume and equaliser presets for noisier environments, etc. Oh and I have a very bad but sometimes useful voice recorder and access to the FM radio for news bulletins
@Simon Jaeger
in reply to Florian

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Sean Randall

@zersiax @simon I read at a computer for many years, probably because I used a scanner to get book pages into it to begin with.
But having a child to carry about and spending months traveling day arfter day for job interviews meant I couldn't work in that way anymore. Even when I'd take a laptop on the bus or whatever, having a single earbud in and a device I could pause and resume within seconds became incredible.
at nearly 800 wpm I'd get a chapter done while my daughter was using the toilet sometimes, or if I was waiting for a train connection etc without having to pull anything out of a bag.
@Florian @Simon Jaeger
in reply to Andre Louis

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Andre Louis

This one's courtesy of @fastfinge, so thanks for that. Basically couldn't put it down and other than leaving my house to gig, haven't stopped reading it the passed few days. Now I'm eagerly awaiting a new chapter.

Title: Harry Potter and the Art of Getting Your Shit Together

Author:
MsStarryNightSky

summary:
It started, for Harry, with two words he wasn’t really expecting to hear as he sat on a park bench in Surrey. His summer so far had been, in a word, awful – but the one bright side had been that even though his friends were seemingly ditching and ignoring him, everyone was ignoring him. Including the Dursley's. And then, on a park bench one afternoon, Harry hears someone behind him mutter under their breath.

“Ah, shit.”

archiveofourown.org/works/5931…

Harry Potter and the Art of Getting Your Shit Together - Chapter 1 - MsStarryNightSky - Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling [Archive of Our Own]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
archiveofourown.org
@🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦
This entry was edited (3 months ago)
in reply to Andre Louis

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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦

(A/N: I did my laundry before writing this chapter! Then after posting, I'm going to eat a cheese sandwich. Please comment, review, follow, admire my cat, sign up to my Patreon, join my Discord, and subscribe to my YouTube! Disclaimer: The author, hereafter defined as "me" or "I", does not own any of the intellectual property belonging to the original author, hereafter defined as "them" or "they". This story, hereafter defined as "the fanfic", is an act of fair use. The author requests that they indemnify me from everything everywhere forever.)
in reply to 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦

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James Scholes

@fastfinge Additionally, the author politely requests, nay demands, that the reader not take any element of this derivative work based on someone else's copyright and reproduce it, distribute it, store it in a retrieval system, transmit it in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, download it to their e-reader, translate it, talk about it in anything other than glowingly positive terms, or use it to train artificial intelligence or machine learning systems, without the prior written permission of the author. The author reserves the right to remove this story and all traces of it from the public internet at any time, and thereafter pour mean-spirited scorn on any Reddit commenter who shares it as a PDF.

Please buy me a coffee!

@FreakyFwoof @JamminJerry

@Andre Louis @JamminJerry @🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦
in reply to Andre Louis

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James Scholes

Absolutely! I think we're all old enough to remember when every single chapter started with something like this:

Title: "The Phoenix's Path" Chapter 1/40
Author name: DragonScribe
Category: Action/Adventure
Sub Category: Romance
Keywords: Ron, Neville, Weasleys, OC, Luna, McGonagall
Rating: PG
Spoilers: SS/PS, CoS, PoA, GoF, OoTP
Summary: In the summer before his sixth year at Hogwarts, Ron Weasley discovers he's actually rather brilliant at something other than chess and eating. Quite shocking really, even his mum had to sit down. As he bumbles his way into actual competence (much to everyone's surprise, especially his own), the Death Eaters decide NOW is the perfect time to target the Weasleys. Brilliant timing, that. What follows is a rather mad year at Hogwarts involving exploding cauldrons, accidental heroics, and Ron repeatedly putting his foot in it with spectacular results. Canon-based with some OC. SHIPS (for those who are worried about them): R/OC initially, then very strong R/L, H/G and N/H
DISCLAIMER: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Author notes: Many thanks to my amazing Brit-picker, Selkie, and my beta readers Ravenclaw5, Moonstone, Phoenix and Quill! You may notice references to things in the Harry Potter films (which I love!), such as the ginger highlights in Ron's hair which is actually in Rupert Grint's hair (Rupert has freckles on his arms too – I may work those in at some point in the story). Spells you haven't heard of, I made up, with the use of an English-Greek dictionary online. The name of a battle in Scotland that occurs much later in the story is completely made up, as is the location, again with the help of an English-Gaelic dictionary online. The names of some of my original characters have interesting derivations. If you have any knowledge of Celtic languages, you might get a kick out of them (and I'll explain their meanings in my Author Note's in the chapters in which they initially appear). I hope you enjoy my story.

@fastfinge @JamminJerry

@JamminJerry @🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦
This entry was edited (3 months ago)
in reply to Andre Louis

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Mikołaj Hołysz

@simon Ah.

I'm cursed in that regard, AO3 claims that I'm in the invite queue when I try to sign up, that I'm not in the invite queue when I'm trying to check my position in said queue, and that I don't have an account when trying to reset my password.

I have indeed tried to sign up once, but never got the signup email.

I'll have to do it from another email address I guess.

@Simon Jaeger
in reply to Andre Louis

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Andre Louis

Not finished reading this yet, it is most excellent indeed.

Mischief Siriusly Managed

Author:
JollyHippopotamus

summary:
A man who's dedicated his life in the pursuit of some measure of equality in law - even through darker means. Suddenly finds himself in the Magical world. In place of one man who could have changed so much had luck been different. He had the name, the blood, the money, the reputation. What could he do with such a boon? Only there is one... Slight problem.. OC/SI into Sirius Black.

archiveofourown.org/works/5014…

Mischief Siriusly Managed - Chapter 1 - JollyHippopotamus - Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling [Archive of Our Own]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
archiveofourown.org
⇧