Yeah, I noticed the dates thing, too, and was a little puzzled by it - I mean, I get that Minerva's age is never actually mentioned in the books, so her birth year is not quite canon, per se, but a quick glanc at the Lex tells me she was actually teaching at Hogwarts by 1956, and that is canon, because that's what she tells Umbridge in OotP. My only thought is that maybe the author is unaware of the existence of the Lex and the ease with which these things can be checked. It did jar me out of the story a little (incorrect ages of characters - especially older women made younger - is usually one of my pet hates in fic), but since it was only momentary, I managed to get past it. I think my disbelief suspended for the carrying Severus home thing (wild, subconscious magic can explain a lot) - that or the image of Minerva looking like some ancient warrior goddess, barefoot in her singed green tartan dressing gown stole my brain and ran away with it.
My main quibble was actually the jumping back and forth between Minerva and Harry without any special page breaks to indicate that was happening. I always find it jarring when a story's POV shifts mid sentence or without a double paragraph break or anything to indicate some kind of shift. I was going to put that in my review, but then I didn't. I probably should have.
And I see what you mean about the adjectives - my first instinct was 'whoah, way to purple, hit backspace' - but I persevered, and actually by the end I thought it really kind of worked for this story. Like, it's a fairly cumbersome read, you know? There are a lot of words and images there to process, and it takes some effort, but in a way that just reinforces the feel of the story, because it wasn't terribly easy for them, either. I rather enjoyed the feel of that, the reinforcement of the story's mood in the physical construction of the story itself.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2010-11-24 02:54 pm (UTC)Yeah, I noticed the dates thing, too, and was a little puzzled by it - I mean, I get that Minerva's age is never actually mentioned in the books, so her birth year is not quite canon, per se, but a quick glanc at the Lex tells me she was actually teaching at Hogwarts by 1956, and that is canon, because that's what she tells Umbridge in OotP. My only thought is that maybe the author is unaware of the existence of the Lex and the ease with which these things can be checked. It did jar me out of the story a little (incorrect ages of characters - especially older women made younger - is usually one of my pet hates in fic), but since it was only momentary, I managed to get past it. I think my disbelief suspended for the carrying Severus home thing (wild, subconscious magic can explain a lot) - that or the image of Minerva looking like some ancient warrior goddess, barefoot in her singed green tartan dressing gown stole my brain and ran away with it.
My main quibble was actually the jumping back and forth between Minerva and Harry without any special page breaks to indicate that was happening. I always find it jarring when a story's POV shifts mid sentence or without a double paragraph break or anything to indicate some kind of shift. I was going to put that in my review, but then I didn't. I probably should have.
And I see what you mean about the adjectives - my first instinct was 'whoah, way to purple, hit backspace' - but I persevered, and actually by the end I thought it really kind of worked for this story. Like, it's a fairly cumbersome read, you know? There are a lot of words and images there to process, and it takes some effort, but in a way that just reinforces the feel of the story, because it wasn't terribly easy for them, either. I rather enjoyed the feel of that, the reinforcement of the story's mood in the physical construction of the story itself.