HD Smooch Fest 2012 - Week 01 Recs
HD Smooch Fest Recs - WEEK 01
I don't have time to now to properly rec them, so mostly this will just be a weekly list of the fic/art I enjoyed reading. Hopefully I will find time to properly rec them all, because each one of these desrves some appreciation.
Note: This is the HD Smooch Fest, so FLUFF & SMOOCHYNESS are key words, and usually you can add mellow & a meandering pace (or the opposite and everything happens super-fast) to that list to. That means that you have two kind of great fics here: the "this-is-just-brilliant-fic" and the "this-is-a-great-smoochfest-fic". Both are nice reads, but the first one is just a great fic all-round while the latter is an ok to good fic that does have some faults but one easily overlooks them because it fits in perfectly in the smoochfest J.
So if a fic is not on here it is either because I have not read it yet (and I will when I have the time) or the prompt/sum. didn't appeal (i.e. it just isn't a me-fic topic wise) or because it descended into the realm off super-over the top sacchariness - I love fluff and sweetness even to cavities inducing levels but not to all-my-teeth-promptly-fall-out-levels.
Post 08 - 03-05-2012 - Fic: Malfoy and the Menagerie - PG-13
Sum: The Mirror of Erised ends up in a menagerie tent, and Draco ends up learning a great deal about his deepest desires, and a little bit about magic.
MY OPINION:
Post 07 - 03-05-2012 - Art: Cops and Robbers - PG-15 - Implied Switching
Sum: Draco wants the combination to that safe and he'll get it, one way or another.
MY OPINION:
Post 04 - 01-02-2012 - Fic: Cock and Bull - R - Top!Harry + implied switchingSum: Harry Potter has retreated to the Muggle countryside. Draco Malfoy must make war reparations. Hermione brings them together. Will the fur fly, or will Harry and Malfoy learn to get along?
MY OPINION:
The prompter asked for a farming fic and a farming fic is what she got and it was a good farming fic even. But if the author kept to the prompt's suggested timeline, and nothing indicated that she didn't, then I found it a bit hard to believe how mature and settled in their jobs everyone was, since they would be between 19 and 21. Harry really is a farmer and an experienced one in this fic and I can tell you from first-hand experience that if you did not grow up on a farm, you are still a newbie at farming even after spending an entire year on a farm. Plus little villages are friendly places, but they do not embraces you completely into their fold after just a year or so. So just imagine them a bit older and it does work.
Plus Harry and Draco's interactions are also a bit too smooth, they don't really change. There is progression in their relationship and the author depicts it well, but the feel and tension balance is the same over the course of the entire fic. This fic starts of mellow, stays mellow and ends on mellow note. I'm not saying that is necessarily a bad thing, but the feel & tension balance the author evokes here are just not completely my thing.
There is both relationship as well as "plot" development and the author does do it well. Although it doesn’t read rushed, their relationship progression does seem a bit quick when you start thinking about it all. I liked HD interaction and the interaction with the OC and the animals. IC? Well besides both being rather mellow, I would say they were fairly IC. Authors always choose certain character depictions, but I can definitely see that hers were rooted in canon characteristics.
The writing itself was also good, a good balance between text blocks & dialogue. And I liked that it was from Harry’s POV, I generally like being in his head.
This was a good fill of the prompt and while this fic won't make the Greats-list it was a nice mellow fic that meandered at a good country-life pace.
Post 03 - 01-06-2012 - Fic: Coffee Date - PG-13
Sum.: Bad coffee, an old scarf, and stalking Draco Malfoy. This had become Harry’s life after the war.
MY OPINION:
Post 02 - 31-05-2012 - Art: The Surprise - PG-13 (implied Top!Harry, mention of Preg!Draco)
Sum.: How many surprises can one expect during a surprise party?
MY OPINION:
Post 01 - 31-05-2012 - Fic: Salt on the Western Wind - R, no anal penetration so no Top or Bottom
Sum.: When the war isn’t quite as over as it first appears, a guilt-ridden Harry is sent to a mysterious safe-house. Among sandwiches, insomnia, and Mills & Boon, he discovers something quite unexpected.
+ worth mentioning this fic is 60,500 words long.
MY OPINION:
This was an amazing opening fic, simply because it is absolutely brilliant but also because it really embodies this year’s theme: thrust.
I’m knackered right now, so I’ll rec this when I’m more awake.