I tried for the third time to read this today, and I made it up to around chapter 18. At this point, it was revealed to be possible to cast spells with circular breathing (breathing in through the nose while breathing out the mouth).

In real life, the technique is used by holding air in the cheeks and forcing it into some wind instrument while breathing in the nose. For whatever reason, the idea of talking/incanting like this finished off my greatly weakened suspension of disbelief.

Aside from that, everything is bad and I'd like to point to everything bad that previous people have mentioned (and to disagree with anything good or redeeming). 1/5 for the first eighteen chapters.

 

Why go to the trouble of circular breathing? In a simplified way, voice is made by air moving through your windpipe and you can speak while breathing in or out. You can in fact talk continuously while breathing in and out.

It seems like that's a microcosm of the fic- overthinking things and trying to be clever but failing horribly, with some child grooming thrown in.

 

Always a pleasure. As I said already in an earlier post, the story has stuff which I also don't like or makes no sense. So until dying breath is definitely a bit far-fetched from you. I just found in that instance the argument dumb that you compare a different society to another society and then you say it is different and due to that wrong. And I am like, "Yeah... that was an intended change for the story's sake" and it felt like the user did not see that because he was too clouded with his anti-whatever view. So I tried to point that out more in detail. Whether it worked, is anyone's guess.

Though, I love the discussing. If you find it amusing to read, then I am fine with it. I believe that is also the point of this forum, being able to talk about stuff in a civilized manner. Since you are a mod(?), if you don't like that behaviour, then tell me so and I will stop. Additionally, I am wrong with a lot of stuff and I like it if people tell me that I am wrong because I can learn it the correct way. F.e. I learned that not all prophecies get fulfilled in canon. In what limitations this story does feature it, is currently unknown. Most fanfiction though take the route to fulfil, even if it might take cliche-like millenia. Head-canon vs canon Always 50:50.

And to show you that I am not defending until my last my breath:

- The author tries to make this story very light-hearted while introducing dark themes and due to that he does not portray stuff correctly. The over-sexualized Luna is there for fun, but looking at it from a logical point of view, nobody sane behaves that way. The trigger for that is mostly rather strong sexual abuse and it has to be treated over years. The same with the prostitute who was abused over years. That's not portraying it correctly. "It happened, I'm fine now because of nothing." It does not work that way at all. If you're aware of that, you literally cringe while reading it.

- The story is extremely one-sided, despite throwing in some random opposition here and there. It is indeed Gary-Stu, and it shows. If something goes wrong, the problem gets usually resolved within the chapter, or the next one. All he does is win, win, win, no matter what, as DJ Khaled once said. If you're into that? Okay, there is a lot of that, but sometimes it is also too much as seen on several occasions.

- The author tries to add A LOT of stuff into the story, thinking ahead, combining, whatever. But it does not always work out. As seen already with the circular breathing example. For that example, in theory, it sounds okay. But as pointed out there is a huge difference between using wind instruments and doing that or trying to talk. Or the one dragon scene at the beginning for some weird tension, where he had to hide in a cave and make a fidelius of all the possible ways to deal with the situation. Wasn't really needed, sometimes less is more.

- Child soldiers. It exists, but usually only after extreme brain-washing. That is not portrayed correctly at all in the fic. Even if the society lets every idiot have a very dangerous weapon, it would not explain the devotion the girls have in any logical way. They could simply say, fuck off you weirdo even after all the things he did. "I manipulate you guys intro trusting me, then tell you the whole truth and you guys will follow me like devoted puppies...." No, just no.

- The extreme trust the Greengrasses have in Harry after one single duel? Or the Lovegoods randomly dropping by to marry off their daughter? Nope, nope, nope. The author took the easy way out here. Let's trust this 8-year-old completely. There is totally nothing wrong with it, nope not at all...

- The Potters abandoning Harry? With all the information so far? Not believable at all. Yet, with more information? Also not. But was needed for the story's sake and the author still tries very hard to make it believable. It won't work though no matter what he adds. Even if one argues: "But he went to a real blood-related family..." Like why the hell would you do it? You are rich, have the money and some old-fart can out-argue your own child? Nah.

- Everybody, from each side, is manipulating with weird and weirder master plans. Is it logical? Nah, not at all.

I still love reading the story though. It is in my eyes extremely unique and I doubt I will find anything of that calibre again to read again if one ignores Prince of Slytherin. I would love to be proven wrong though.

@Sataniel
I don't get the problem with the cores you have. In this story, it is used so that a wizard is capable of using magic. It does not have anything to do with how strong the wizard is, but more with how long a wizard can cast. Winning through outlasting, more or less. The magical power itself seems to be more linked to the soul in some way, considering that Harry and John could take their magical power with them with the time travel. Normal canon time travel takes the whole body back in time, but here, next to the knowledge, it also seems to have the magical power linked to the soul and is only possible through deities, and thus is somewhat regulated. Else I have no idea how to explain the magical power with the information we have so far.

 

Thots:

1. Whew, DLP is a rambunctious group; two people discuss something you will get three opinions. But NOBODY wants Anarchy having mod powerz. He's a nice boy but imagine having a mod named anarchy.

2. A Retarded Romp that somehow works; I (aka everyone that matters) still hold to my initial assessment, and sfu, you give some examples of them. Most of it though I have no problem with and unironically enjoy the bits of Harry/Lord Slytherin engaging in some overly complex scheme - esp when to his credit there's usually a little trick or two inserted that's not drawn attention to right away (Harrying giving the Grangers a plum pudding, for instance). I could do w/o the Luna stuff though; fanfic blurs a lot of shit that can be gotten away with bc it's not a visual medium and things can be mentioned without being explicit - which you kinda get with the other girls. Luna goes too far but the burned out eyeballs chapter dialed back a bit on her MarySue nature, so hopefully that can dial this back as well.

3. Sfu, it's nothing personal to the story per se; the topic of magical cores et al has been played out for over a decade, the discussion has happened time and time again on this forums, and the general sense is that the trope is found wanting. While LeadVonE subverts enough tropes (or else just dials them to 11) that I genuinely enjoy this story, the less said about cores the better. I think even more than the trope itself, it's just not fun to read about magic as a scientific process, or approximating one. It's not magical.

This applies to potions being reduced to chemistry (or even worse, 'cooking'), cores, muggleborns being squib lines (canon, i know, i know...), etc etc

 

I feel like I'm being gaslighted by this thread.

What the fuck. How did anyone get past these first few paragraphs

 

Did i wake up in an alternate world where the taste of all the people i look up to became SHIT

i mean you in particular taure

clarification edit: how did anyone read more than like a chapter of this

edit2: AND YOU, PALINDROME!!

 

It's the same reason people like (or now, liked) For Love of Magic. There's just nothing being written these days. Remember when things like Wand and Shield, By the Divining Light, Dementor's Stigma, The Unforgiving Minute and Unatoned all came out within a year of each other and you could still look forward to regular updates from On the Way to Greatness and HP&BWL? Yeah, that was 6 years ago now and it's been downhill since. I'm following a single story, and this one isn't it.

 

When I read it I skipped the first several chapters.

 

Fair.

Not only is the fandom shrinking as we move further in time from the books themselves, but the new blood more oft than not hasn't even read the books.

We have shifted from a fandom with at least the saving grace that everyone in it was - if using the term flexibly - literate, to a fandom of people who enjoyed some movies.

 

This is one of those stories that I read in secret. You know like a functioning alcoholic I just need some Harry Potter fanfic to keep me going, and this is close enough.

Also I'd just like to say I enjoyed all of the movies, even though I cried publically when Dobby died.

 

I can't remember what the last work of "original" fiction I read was. Ever since I started on HP fanfic two years ago, it's become the bulk of my reading. It just hits the spot and once you run out of the good stuff, it's easy to just read whatever's not entirely terrible, so long as it's doing at least a few things you like. It's a good way to get immersed into a familiar world I love and then I read till I fall asleep every night.

Having said that, I stopped reading this story mainly for its pacing issues and the harem, which is more annoying than anything else. Too many bland characters. I'd also prefer if the author would flat out not use that many bad tropes instead of masochistically trying to subvert as many as possible, like The Sinister Man.

 

Hmm. I think that over the years we've stopped being appropriately guilty about our guilty pleasures

 

Ur my guilty pleasure dromeo owo

 

You can't just say things like that and not tell us what it is.

It's a My Little Pony fic, isn't it.

 

Shadow of Angmar

 

Shit. I was hoping it was something good I didn't already have on the list.

 

How did you guys get past the title and the summary? I certainly didn't. From all the reviews I have read, I don't think I am going to either. Seeing 'deities' fate and destiny in the summary was enough to make me stay clear of it. It sounds too similar to Malachite something or the other, which was another thing I hated. Also PoS.

 

You need to be a sucker for stronger-than-canon Harry. That's a fair majority of the ffn readers, especially the casual readers. Next, you enjoy tropes like time-travel or WBWL and you start to read it. You think it is one of those power-wank fests, but you get pleasantly surprised that it is actually not and more thought-out than you would have ever imagined.

And there is this thing with the long title. It seems like it catches the people's eye easier, and that itself is insane. People notice the title first, book covers second. An extreme marketing strategy on a website that allows very limited marketing?! Anyway, you see the author having a steady bi-weekly update schedule and BOOM, the story gets famous.

Thus it is definitely not a story for everyone. It exists, a lot of people will read it, and slowly creep up to be known by every fanfiction reader, at least by its name. Whether to be absolutely loved or completely detested, will depend on the reader.

 

Marketing strategy lol.

We’re looking for a good story not... something marketable to a large fanfiction audience zzzzz

 

You have here very interesting as well as unique OCs and an awesome worldbuilding, which the author tries to stay true to. The story itself is also great. Book 1 though is more of a prologue. Book 2 instead gives the reader a multiplot storyline converging into a 5(?) chapter finale which itself had an interesting conclusion. Planning the heist, the heist, the dueling tournament, one thing after the duel and finally the stone.

Cons are obviously the one I already mentioned above, plus the misspellings which need to be addressed at one point. The writing does get better with time because the author already stated that he wants to use fanfiction to better himself, but has still a long a way to go. Thus you'll also see that the author does experiment with different writing styles. The latest chapters though have minimal mistakes because people on the Discord server pre-read stuff at least. But you'll find tons before that