This story is one of the best fanfic i've ever read. Your way of writing is exceptional and transmits the excitement to the reader. Can't wait for you to finish this story one day. 5/5

 

"Happy Birthday!" "Enjoy your party! You're only 10 once, so have fun!"

"You'll get your first work assignment tomorrow."

Gray Walls, impenetrable steel.
Suffocation! Condemnation!
Little hands groping in subterranean uncertainty.
Mommy? Daddy? Am I Dead?

Nay! Nay! Reborn into purifying fluorescence!
A face emerges, strong and male.

Father to me? Father to all!
Overseeing our lives, our eternities.
Harshness of discipline.
Harshness of love

Obedience my savior!
Larva to pupa, pupa to worker.
Buzz, buzz! One with the steel honeycomb.
10 lies within the 101, significant at last.
Till gray seeps from the walls to hair, to soul.
Then, eternal slumber, the sweet sleep of incineration.



10 years old and it just keeps getting better and better. I still come back to reread this every couple of months.

 

I just gave the story my 4th attempt (over the last 2 years) to read and stopped during chapter 2 once again. The writing is great, no doubt there, and I can see this being an epic story, also confirmed by the overwhelming reactions of the DLP reviewers. But I guess, it's just not my taste. It features a story not about a dark, evil or cruel Harry, or some bastard without emotions. This is crazy Harry x1000 and simply not appealing to me. I mean, I was with the Death Eaters on this one, almost screaming "Just die already".

 

I'm in the similar boat. Other things aside, the facemask was so ridiculously stupid and edgy that I can't treat this fic seriously.

 

Similar story on my front. It sat open in my “fanfic” browser for the better part of a year, somewhere around chapter 7 or 8. I just couldn’t get myself to continue, because I couldn’t bring myself to care about anyone. Harry and the universe in general were far out of my realms of expertise, comfort and, frankly, interest, so that most of the plot ideas never worked out for me. That being said, of what I read, I remember the writing itself as being of high quality.

 

I can see where you lot are coming from. I tried this story a few times and gave up. It just overwhelmed me.

But then I gave it another go after I'd gotten better acclimated to the Dresden-verse, and powered through the first few chapters.

It's now one of my favourite stories in the entire fandom, up there with What You Leave Behind.

Easy 5/5 for me. I'll do a proper review at some point, after I reread it.

 

I found Circular Reasoning in either eight or ninth grade, and here we are as I approach 26. I have to say, I'm a bit more critical after all this time. Swim's writing is still phenomenal, and his prose is among the best of the membership. Dumbledore in this story stands next to Shezza's as one of the best ever written. The mythological elements are interesting and novel.

With that said, it does drink a bit too deep of the grimdark kool-aid. The wait between updates used to be agonizing, but at this point it's not something that I'm anxious for anymore. When updates do come, I have to reread to make sure I know what's happening going in. The characterization of Harry makes sense given the backstory we're given, but it's not a Harry that I enjoy or root for.

I'm in too deep to stop now, and I can't imagine how dedicated Swim is to still be writing it after all this time. Nevertheless, I think I'll have to update my rating(circa 2011). A 4/5, and definitely a monument to prose. A must-read for anyone in the fandom, but I can't count it as a favorite anymore.

 

There is nothing wrong with dark, but the first chapter, aka the main reason why I can't get through that fic is just edgy. I will return to the mask thing because that's so absolutely absurd - there is no goddamn way to fool anyone even for a moment with a skin cut out from somebody else's face. Combine this with the very unconvincing setting and stuff like "dead zones" and it's something I would drop 1/4 of the chapter in at most if it wasn't so recommended. I got through that, but it was tiring enough, that somewhere at the beginning of the third chapter I just closed the card in the browser as nothing interesting, that could overcome my negative feelings in regards to this fic, happened.

I should probably try it again, this time without reading the first chapter.

 

I agree with @Sauce Bauss and @Zombie on this story. It has an unrivaled skill at pulling off the grim dark story aided by its unparalleled prose; for that reason, it is one of my favorites and is only held down by its slow update time.

That being said, my largest issue is the fact that after 200k+ words (two novels worth) we know next to nothing about the main plot. It seems as if the whole time Swim has been setting us up for something. This something, I’m sure, will be very well written, for Swim’s prose is easily one of the best I’ve seen in Fan-Fiction, but it does make me question why I am continuing to read. It seems that, in totality, nothing has happened. Things happen, of course, but since we don’t know Harry’s end goal (or Mab’s, for that matter) it doesn’t appear so.

This endless posturing, while enjoyable (a credit to the author’s skill), makes me worry about Circular Reasoning’s resolution. If after 10+ years and 200k+ words a reader has no idea of the story’s direction, it means the story is not near a conclusion. And while I don’t seriously believe pacing to be a pressing issue, it means the story Swim is trying to tell is too long and complicated for his productivity. As such, I doubt that we will ever see the resolution and, with this, get the full enjoyment of the story which is a shame since this is an easy 5/5.

 

This is something I hadn't given a lot of thought to. Look back on the fics that DLP used to love in that era. Harry Potter and the Male Veela? Pfft. Summer of Change? That was my crack, but it has not held up over the years, though all the cliches are cliches because it made them popular. The Lie I've Lived and HP and the BWL were both published around that time. The Denarian series. Bungle, To Fight the Coming Darkness, the Stranger trilogy, Hero trilogy. Really, the story of DLP classics in that era is a story of things that have not aged gracefully. The fact that this is still recommended so often, even today, means a fair bit.

It is worth remembering that CR went through a fairly comprehensive rewrite halfway through that. We've long passed the point where the original stalled, so the timeline isn't as forgiving at first glance as it might be otherwise.

 

But it worked, that's the problem. I wouldn't have that much of the problem with the scene if it was just "Harry is absolutely crazy, he doesn't realize this doesn't make sense".

But as I said, that was just a most glaring and memorable of my problems with the fic.

 

I'm a shameless fan of CR, but I'll happily admit it isn't for everyone. Beyond individual tolerance for the tone and content, the time between updates poses some very serious challenges when it comes to readability.

I'll only add two things to the discussion.

1) Bafflingly, I honestly believe Swim is going to defy every reasonable expectation for a WIP published in 2005 and actually finish this thing. I have no idea when it will happen, and I won't be surprised if it takes most of another decade, but I'm pretty sure it is going to happen. Progress is slow but shockingly steady.

2) I'm drifting farther into speculation here, but I not infrequently see people point out the directionlessness of the story while also(unintentionally?) putting their finger on exactly what's going on. Harry is a basket case, however formidable he may be, he lacks the insight, will, and general soundness-of-mind to overcome most of what he's up against. He wanders from immediate problem to immediate problem without much of a plan, and as many have noticed, it's a problem. Congratulations, you have found the plot.

(Oh, you thought it was about saving the world from bad guys with a side-order of righteous vengeance? Nah bro, it's all about like finding yourself and shit. )

Trolling aside, it is of course a multi-layered conflict. But in a genre where character development often amounts to leveling up, or coming to terms with one specific issue, I think readers sometimes pick up more about what's going on than they realize they know.

My optimistic two cents, anyway.

 

Doubling down, I ain't been wrong yet motherfuckers.