I found the story very well worded, and interestingly put together. I found the take on Occlumency refreshing, especially with the slight dig at "easiest on the teacher" technique. It is nice to see a somewhat believable smart Harry, and a Dumbledore that, while Manipulative, doesn't fall to the too evil and bumbling to be believed cliche that we see all the time. Some of the writing rings as forced, such as the newspaper interview with Rita Skeeter, but the update speed and the well worded writing gives it a solid place in my story alerts.

Definitely NOT library worthy, but worth a read if you're looking for something interesting.

 

There are some definite flaws, and certainly cliches of the genre, but I enjoyed "The Well Groomed Mind" so far. It feels fresh and new in a way that few stories of the genre have managed in recent times, and thus far what cliches there are seem to be handled reasonably well.

 

As of chapter five it's basically just going down the checklist of awful overused cliches... but they're actually pretty well executed. It's like the author is going out of her way to show how to do overdone things well, and mostly succeeding.

In the first chapter it is established that occlumency helps one fight off the imperius curse. As Crouch Jr. is at least a decent occlumens, this suggests that he may have merely been pretending to be imperiused for at least some of that time.

 

I agree that the cliches are pretty well done, but since the author seems to be at least a moderately competent writer, it baffles me as to why he feels the need to use them in the first place.

Additionally, Harry's personality and level of maturity seem to swing wildly up and down, especially when he's giving his little speeches.

Still, a pretty good read, and it's something I'll be following.

 

In chapter 7 Crouch Jr. is suddenly also an expert in muggle education. The character is a sock puppet of the writer without any respect to the character's context and limitation.

 

I liked this story at first: it began brilliantly. But I'm now at chapter 7, and Harry is progressively more submissive, a total wimp. He didn't grow as a character. I suspect the author is a crafty slash writer who wants to slowly entice the audience to his ghastly ways.

Edit: to be fair, I don't really know what to think of this story. One moment it's really good, the next, it plummets down and starts burrowing. So (don't know what've gotten into me) but I've written down all the major points I cared about enough to list, and rated them on a scale from one to five. It totalled to an agreeable 3.4/5.

I know that nobody cares but here's the list I've made:

Spoiler

5 leading scene
5 Harry's mad night-long self-study
1 Harry's degeneration the very next chapter
1 Moody as Deus-Ex-Machina
1 no back-story for Moody
3 Magical disciplines and DNA
3 parcelmouths side-story
5 Daily Prophet retraction
5 character interaction during Rita's interview
1 Harry's submissiveness and how he always goes on about how horrible his home life was, how unprepared he is to live in a magical world, and about how many times Moody is shocked by what he hears.
2 Harry's complete isolation (aside from a few short scenes that involved Hermione) from everyone
1 his training regimen
1 slow or non-existent plot progression
2 no action scenes
5 Dumbledore's regime
5 Harry's file on Dumbledore and his regime
5 blackmailing Snape scene
5 Lily/Snape side plot
5 Yule dance scene
1 taking too much to to figure out who the fake Moody is
3 Legilimency
4 Hogwarts cover up
5 the Potters' marriage
3 Harry's secret safe stash
3 style sometimes resembling MoR or DisobedienceWriter: either long-winded, repetitive, or self-righteous
4 TV show on molestation and stages of child grooming
5 the First Task
3 intent-powered spells
5 McGonagall's role in school
3 magical names
3 guardianship and Wills
5 Harry and Fudge side-story (all three stages)
5 Sirius Black's and James Potter's deference to Dumbledore (and plot)
4 Harry uncovering Dumbledore's prophecy plot (and his showing of hands)
2 Dumbledore's Legilimency triggers

 

I got to the start of chapter 9 and gave up. This isn't really a story, this is the author showing off his/her superior intellect, and at first it was interesting; the paragraph or two about genetics, the explanation of what a healer is/does, those are great. But then the author spends the rest of the story bitching about how idiotic the rest of the wizarding world is.

 

Perhaps the thing that bothers me most about the story (and I admit I still find aspects of it to be clever and engaging, particularly in the first handful of chapters) is that a story that relies on ripping up canon for its inconsistencies really needs to ensure it has no unexplained, gaping holes of its own (like the Fake Moody backstory). And there's a smugness that comes across in Harry's and Moody's voices that just puts me off.

Still, it updates fast and is one of the better stories "almost recommended" lately.

 

The genetics was actually an interesting idea, though I felt the rarity of the MM gene was something that could've been expanded upon. Perhaps MMss is usually fatal to the embryo, and this is another cause of low pureblood birth rates: MM' x MM' gives you 1/4 miscarried (less a tiny fraction), 1/4 squibs, and 1/2 standard wizards, meaning pureblood "infant mortality" is ~50% from the get go.

Aside from that though, I found this largely to be a waste of time. It progressively got worse as it went on, and by midway through chapter 7 I just wanted to snap Harry's pretentious cowardly neck. And a blood oath not to play Quidditch? Seriously? Isn't that just a little bit over the top, Crouch?

 

Interesting fic surrounding a PTSD!Harry traveling to an alternate dimension where pretty much everyone is alive. It's not very long -- but that's one of it's perks. The writing is minimalistic, yet clever -- effectively capturing a scene the characters in as few words as possible. It's refreshing.

The fic focuses on Harry and Sirius' relationship (not as a pairing), but there is a plot (Voldemort's still alive and such).

It's still too early to be put up for review -- and, honestly, there's something holding it back from being library quality, though I can't quite put my finger on it.

Still, it's got potential.

4/5 at the moment.

 

There, I brought to attention the part the story focuses on. Interesting premise, but I finished drowning in the h/c trash when Sirius was comforting Harry as he retched into a toilet over his trauma. Also even if this had been readable 30k words in 3 years isn't exactly an exciting update rate.

 

Doesn't help that the PTSD just seems to randomly pop up at convenient times, each scene is just boring and undramatic, and all of Harry's secrets come out too quickly to add any sort of tension. Did not enjoy.

 

I tripped over a funny paragraph in Common Sense by DisobedienceWriter.

and it made me smile.

Don't interprete this as an Almost Recommendable for this story collection as I haven't managed to read everything yet.

 

Moving on... Definitely a promising read and I like stories that have some magical theory so that was good as well. PTSD was definitely not necessary in my opinion and took away from the story as a whole but overall I thought it was good enough for an afternoon read.

 

Exclusion
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8003129/1/Exclusion
Author: Maethoriel Raina PM
During his fourth year, Gryffindor house is not as accepting of Harry's participation in the TriWizard Tournament, and use an old tradition called exclusion to force him into complaisance. Harry finds out who his true friends are and uses cunning to get his own brand of revenge.
Rated: Fiction T - English - Friendship/Romance - Harry P. & Hermione G. - Reviews: 294 - Chapters: 5 - Words: 19,401 - Updated: 06-09-12 - Published: 04-08-12

Interesting work. This is a fanon trope I have only ever seen accompanied with high levels of teen angst and drama, none of which are located here. This isn't amazing work, but it is rather steady and good for a quick read.

 

The idea of a criminal trial where the jurors who vote to acquit get the same sentence if the majority vote guilty is so ridiculous that I don't think even the wizarding world is capable of it.

 

Exclusion was readable. Fairly meh all around, but a decent enough time waster. There's a few "so mote it be" bullshit moments, and the author has some problems with her commas, but it's pretty minor. I'd give it a 3/5.

 

From Exclusion

Seriously dude? You have no shame? tsk tsk.