[ SECRET POST #4836 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #4836 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.



__________________________________________________



02.


__________________________________________________



03.


__________________________________________________



04.


__________________________________________________



05.


__________________________________________________



06.


__________________________________________________



07.


__________________________________________________



08.









Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 08 secrets from Secret Submission Post #692.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

01. https://i.imgur.com/OMBqQqs.jpg

[morieris]

Any recs?

[(Anonymous)]

I kind of feel the opposite way, tbh: I liked the way the Voldemort thing was handled and growing-threat feel throughout the last couple of books (although it has been ages since I reread, admittedly), but it was the smaller-scale character stuff that felt really anticlimactic to me, with so many easy roads out taken.

[(Anonymous)]

I feel like the books were pretty much exactly what I expected them to be, but I've always been in it more for the world building than the plot or characters. The end result is the same as you though, I prefer fics to the actual novels by far.

[(Anonymous)]

Same anon, wanted to add: and although the world building never stopped, it did slow in the last couple books, and it's understandable one person only had so many ideas. Fic writers added onto that world and ended with even taller skyscrapers.

[(Anonymous)]

I think it was sort of implied that as he got more powerful, more people would join him, and he didn't really have a clear end goal in mind. Killing Harry wasn't his big plan, it was something he knew he needed to do to make sure he couldn't be stopped. I think not knowing what the world would look like if he succeeded was the scary part.

I think the way the world in the books is written imposed some limitations, too. There wouldn't be a normal to go back to if all the muggles had been enslaved or something, because then the secret would be out.

[(Anonymous)]

The books never really had him or his people really going into the muggle world, though. the movies did that one thing better. In the books, they stuck to the wizarding world. And yes, they probably would have gotten there eventually later, but a "later" threat isn't there on the page. I wanted to see an actual threat to the world at large, not just the wizarding world.

[(Anonymous)]

I think the books lacked 2 things; a reason for magic to exist and Voldemort's endgame.

I've seen fics put more effort into going "this is where magic came from and why purebloods were intent on defending their right to have it only be them."

Like HeartofAspen's This Too is Sacred: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17593790/chapters/41471165

Or EnigmanticRose's The Brightest Black: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6237706/chapters/14292628

Both Hermione/Draco fics... that's my corner.

Yeah, okay, Harry had a personal stake b/c Volde was trying to kill him. Same with Hermione, she's a muggleborn. They want to kill her. So, Ron should have been the Pureblood viewpoint/voice. And... he wasn't. Sirius could have been that too. But.. again, he wasn't. So, yeah, what was the end goal, what would it do to magic if Voldemort succeeded. Why are the families important. Those are the conflicts/stakes that really after book 4 she needed that development editor for and didn't have.

I'm reading a lot of indie right now, and LOTS of books need that development edit. Someone to push the writer to answer those big questions. I'm not surprised fandom takes that next step especially if the book is already halfway there.

[(Anonymous)]

1) Nonnie, I love you, as that ship was my gateway drug and Hermione eventually became my fandom bicycle, but I digress...bless up for those recs... (I will gladly take any more you have, and I'll admit lately time travel fics with her meeting a young Tom Riddle are my jam)

2) It's really interesting to ask those questions, and a s a reader, I think there were moments where those questions popped up, but there was so much happening they were pushed aside. I really like the idea of exploring things that were only hinted at.

3) I'm curious as what you're reading. You sound like your make a good editor, or I the very least someone who I might send work to for feedback! What else are you reading?

[(Anonymous)]

SA

Aww, blush, nonnie. I err, keep a bunch of Draniome finished fics from AO3.

Rewriting Destiny by MayaWrites95 is a good time travel story. https://archiveofourown.org/works/13232688/chapters/30268506

Anything by SenYinLu or Rainsrabble is generally good. Out of Hand by Kittenshift is funny. https://archiveofourown.org/works/11730543/chapters/26430156

One way to look at fanfiction is as editing, like development editing. And it's the fun type that gives us free things to read!

To answer #3, I'm part of the indie author community on twitter, so I've been reading indie SFF books. (I started a booktube.) If you like SFF, so far I can recommend for YA Magical Realism, Rebecca M. Horner's Sun's Guard: Ten. For Dnd Adventures: Sean R. Frazier's Call of Chaos. Fanfiction style biker werewolf adventures, Ginny O.'s Heaven's Heathens series. And for nerdy scifi: Lindsey Buroker. (Though, she has tons of books.) If I get more of a following on my channel/twitter, I might offer development editing. But that really requires a reach I don't have.

It's currently indieapril, so if you search that hashtag on twitter, you'll find LOTs of threads of people advertising their books.

[meadowphoenix]

i mean, i don't understand why those things were necessary. like what is anybody's stake in superiority and power, lmao.

[(Anonymous)]

usually control driven often by fear. Something only peripherally addressed in the series due to Harry's limited omniscient viewpoint. But not knowing how magic works, or why it exists, I can only come up with a bunch of theories as to what Voldemort was going to do if he won or if there was a bigger endgame to control magic and how it manifested.

Most of fandom agrees that it was going to be dystopian levels of bad though.

Big stake: "the magical world ends as we know it"

Epic stake: "Magic is destroyed completely."

It's framing and tension, imo. Almost anything would have been better than half a book of camping.

[meadowphoenix]

oh, okay, I think where I disagree is that there's a missing part considering the scope. what we get as an endgame is authoritarian rule of the magical uk, which considering that we never seriously get away from the uk makes the stakes appropriate to all actors involved, including purebloods on both sides. it's weird to me to think that purebloods like ron don't have a motivation here. the conflict voldemort uses is an extant conflict already visible with the hogwarts founders. that conflict is already relevant to the magical britain voldemort is born into, and it already has a context (muggle witch hunting) which makes sense to have been the beginning but not a lasting impetus. the framing follows the endgame completely, and I'm not sure what adding post-win would have done, beyond raise the stakes in a way that necessitated expanding the scope of the books to outside britain...which isn't foundational, imo.

frankly, the fic from GOF on was amazing with expanding the scope beyond the uk, but i'm betting that it doesn't feel like you're missing something if you read those books 1-7 without interacting with fandom. i can completely understand preferring the larger fic takes tho.

[author_by_night]

Never thought of it that way before. Voldemort seems pretty epic to me? What is true is that his character was always quite cartoony. IMHO at least. Also, we don't really see a lot of the efforts against him as it's limited to Harry's perspective, whereas I fanfic tends to focus on multiple POVs. Or at least it did back in the day.

[(Anonymous)]

I sort of get that, it took a long time before Voldemort really felt like more than just a threat to Harry and whoever was around him - it was given lip service, but not really dwelt on or shown until near the end. And there are some epic fics out there where the danger seems more visceral and immediate and the scale seems bigger.

But, at the same time, I also kind of like fics where Voldemort is disposed of pretty handily because of his deficiencies.