Title: Fractal
Author: OnTheImportanceOfLungs
Rating: M
Genre: Drama/Adventure
Status: Wip
Library Category: General
Pairings: ?
Summary: Just a glance, a glance at intention, a glance at misery, a glance at eternity. There are prices extracted from those who stare into the abyss. But for some, the abyss doesn't just stare back. A rewrite of The Wizard of the Kaleidoscope.
Link: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8545947/1/Fractal
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The literary equivalent of hallucinogens, this story is, for me, the epitome of awesome.
This is Lungs at his awesomeness, Lungs at his weirdest, but most importantly, this is Lungs at his most imaginative.
The exploration of magic and his characterisations leave me to give this a 4.5/5; give or take.

 

I've read Fractal, but every time I get to the first HP Wizard Duel I can't go any farther. It just makes me too mad.

Writing is competent but bizarre, and unlike Ched I am (un)fortunate enough to recognize all the different concepts from other series he's importing.

3.5/5, it's still pretty good.

 

I don't recognise any of the series, save for Dresden, so it seems nice and new to me.

But Yeah, I can understand. I had trouble at first, till I read Wizard of the Kaleidoscope against Lungs' advice to the contrary.

 

Eh, I've liked it quite a bit. Though you make it seem like he's taken concepts from a whole bunch of different series, but I've only recognized general Nasuverse stuff and Dresden Fae. Is there something I'm missing?

(Oh and Naruto, I guess)

 

It's good, in it's own way. Lungs is a great author, but he's kind of like Bourban: it's not something everyone likes, but those who do generally like it a lot. Fractal is a solid fic, but Lungs sometimes forgets we're not in his head as he writes, so things that make perfect sense require some explanation to the reader.

I prefer the Bond!fic, but still a 4.5 rounded up to a 5.

 

Pretty much this. Lung's fics make me the most confused I've been since Steven Erikson but its worth it.

He has some absolutly beautifull imagery in there and very complete world building, which sells it for me.

 

Don't be so hard on Lungs, writing a good HP/Naruto crossover is hard! Naruto/Fleur OTP :awesome

 

The rewrite reminds me of Hal Duncan's The Vellum.

I like this a lot. 5/5

 

I don't see this as a rewrite, and I think this is an absolutely fantastic story, I'm biased because Lungs is probably on my top 15 list of favorite people to hang out with in the world even though we only get together once a year on average.

Either way this story is the shit, read it.

 

Hi guys. I didn't really want this rec'd until another 70k-ish words had been written, but I think that the general tone of the story's pretty much there, and the plotlines that you can draw are as well, so I guess this is okay.

Personally, I am disappointed by this fic.

But I'm disappointed in nearly everything I write, ever.

The aim was to espouse different worldviews through different characters - reflect it both in their magic and their decisions.

I've only really succeeded with Astrid, in my opinion. /nospoilers

To me, though this Harry is miles and miles better than the one in Kaleidoscope and probably a bunch of my other fics, he's still too much of a shell for reader-insert for my tastes. This was the easy way out, probably because I'm writing fanfiction.

Daphne's characterization is inconsistent.

Spoiler

Draco's character shifts too rapidly/dramatically - I wanted to write a bunch of scenes showing that he wasn't quite completely utterly different but they were all scrapped because they were trash.

Some absolutely unbelievable things happen which are actually guided along by the magic that already exists in the universe.

Spoiler

Fleur and Lucius, just one of the many examples

Things like that are not really well clarified as inevitable, leaving someone to believe an implausible event as implausible.

Yeah, stuff like that.

I won't rate my own fic, not officially, but I think that the strengths are generally worldbuilding (what I do more than anything) and the magic system that I've built, which is so different from the "source" materials that I should have probably gone the extra mile and just renamed them.

But I didn't.

 

I feel like the parts with the kids need some work, but I really enjoy the way you've worked with Clocktower and the general feeling of well, magic, in the story.

 

Well, we're nearly 70 K+ in, so yeah...

Sorry if I recommended too soon, though. I thought this a fucking awesome fic - I'm biased, too because you actually sat down and helped me understand the complexities and figured that now, more than ever, would be a good time.

Now that we're on the subject; this fic is a nice break from all the other shit out there.

So my bad. Don't murder me, Lungsy..

 

4.5/5 for me, interesting concepts and an enjoyable read, but i felt you were juggling to many things. You must of took ideas from at least 4 different series from what i can tell. Anyway, i really enjoy the musical influence, but that's personal preference i guess.

 

Too many side plots. Too many ancient orders and ancient wizards. Too many special powers. Magical theory is crushed under a heap of bad engrish and Words That Don't Mean What The Japanese Think They Mean. (Fundamental forces of "Remove" and "Kaleidoscope"? What?)

2/5

 

Bad Engrish and Words That Don't Mean What The Japanese Think They Mean?

Are you referring to this or to the previous work?

I don't see any Japanese words. There are a bunch of words which are from the Indian subcontinent, but I guess everything beyond Turkey to the East is "Japanese" by default when you're uncultured?

 

Not Japanese words, but English words being used in ways that sound incongruous to a native speaker. I see it sometimes in anime, and I think it is the result of either poor translation, or authors using what is to them a mysterious and otherworldly foreign word, but is quite mundane to native speakers of the language. This often results in inappropriately humdrum names for things that are supposed to be epic beings or deep philosophical themes. For example, consider the "Angels" of Evangelion, or the "Proxies" of Ergo Proxy.

What kind of names are "Remove" and "Kaleidoscope" for aspects of magic which have supposedly been studied by wizards for thousands of years? A kaleidoscope is a 19th century children's toy.

That entire conversation with Dumbledore reads like an explanation of CHIM from the Elder Scrolls. It is either overtheorized or underexplained, or both. The result is impenetrable gobbledegook.

 

Just because those are the words Dumbledore used, doesn't mean they were always called that. They're just the terms that are the closest approximation to the ones used hundreds or thousands of years ago, or in other cultures. Sure, a kaleidoscope is a relatively recent toy, but the root words for the name have existed for thousands of years.

Regardless, it was all very clear to the meaning of each for me.

 

Each of those words are used because it represents some sort of higher concept - a load of connotations and raison d'etre which have been picked up over the years.

Sure, the Kaleidoscope may "just" be a child's toy, but can anything else describe the gently shifting fractals dancing in an incomprehensible geometric pattern short of an adventure with psilocybin? What does Creation mean to Western culture? How many ways can we interpret that strange word "Materials" - in a scientific sense? A colloquial sense? How many of those meanings apply and what can we do to truly understand them when the intricacy of the English language is limited by the paths already explored, the beautiful words of those whose job is to write - to write the strange, incomprehensible jargon which ushers from their minds and attempts to break it?

No one in the universe is an author, per se - their way of words is through practice rather than discovery. In English, "Remove" may be the best fit, because you'd lose or gain connotations with words like "Entropy" or perhaps earlier iterations of "Loss" - at some point in history, we might have known the rune as "Forget" or even "Run" - the primal urge to wipe something from the pages of history which can only be contained - and not truly described by a word so innocuous and not.

Remove.

It is the fate of an object to lose its place in the timeline, to be forgotten by the Muses which have woven their existence in minds, to be wiped away without a trace from that strange, stretchy fabric as though it were never there, would never be there - and it is the prerogative of continued existence to resist this Removal.

These words may sound strange to you, but to me, behind each of them is an idea, a concept, a reason to write. But it's more than that - it's proof. In terms of in-Universe things - by speaking it, by allowing it's existence, I have thus created it - no one who simply mentions it has the power to bring it into existence in anything but their mind - instead, they would need to have the know-how and the power to do so, but it makes me wonder why you'd read something billed as fantasy if you don't want to be moved by the majesty of magic, the sheer, discrete ways in which it breaks the laws and orders of the natural world.

 

I agree with Vegemeister at least as far as the naming convention goes. Anime has that terrible habit of describing powers and shit with some nonsensical cool sounding English name. Like a bunch of psychic cornhuskers being called Vectors. Shit like that.

To me, and to him, it reads like a terrible Japfag name thing being mixed into Harry Potter, similar to Sensei's and Harry-kun.