All Purpose Negima Fanfiction Thread

I'd say, Marq... it's 99% wish fulfilment.

When it comes down to it, a lot of people identify with Shinji, because a lot of people were Shinji at one point in their lives. Well, a lot of the people who've watched NGE anyway.

'Badass!Shinji' is no different from all those Naruto stories in which he is super powerful and gets a harem.

Except Naruto already is superpowerful compared to us normal humans. And he has at least one girl who loves him for who he is and acts upon it when given the chance, even though she's too shy to actually confess it and he remained oblivious to it for most of his life. And he quickly (by real-life standards) gained undyingly-loyal friends within months of him officially becoming a ninja. And... Well, you get my drift.

Compared to him, Shinji has shit for a life and never gets better (not for long, anyway).

edited 30th Jul '15 3:48:27 AM by MarqFJA

Well, you completely failed to understand what I said, Marq. I'm not talking about the details you brought up, which are completely frikkin' irrelevant to the matter at hand.

Put about as subtly as an atom bomb, they both achieve the exact same thing. Having people identify with them. That's why you see so many fics that feature them as badasses with harems. Because they provoke a fuckton of wish fulfilment fics, written by people who identify with them and who write down their fantasies using them as a proxy.

FYI, this ties into why I think Shinji's a pretty good character: He is a normal, every day teenager, which makes him incredibly easy to relate to for most of the NGE-watching audience. The downside to this is that he's also used as a vessel for self insertion by a lot of people.

You know how in most harem fics in which the protagonist isn't an irredeemable monster, they wind up acting closer to Negi's personality than they do their original personality?

Think about it like this:

Shinji is what a lot of those teenagers are. Weak, both physically and mentally, cowardly, of average intellect, is practically a political non-entity, he's not particularly charming and as far as the crowd's concerned, just another guy.

Negi is what a lot of those teenagers want to be. Strong, both of will and physically, courageous, intelligent, powerful, both in the traditional sense as well as politically, charismatic and popular.

For a lot of people, they are Ikari Shinji, and they want to be Negi Springfield, so they grab Shinji and turn him into Negi, realizing their fantasies by proxy. Which is actually a fairly healthy way of dealing with stress, but we're not here to talk about that. There's also a frequent 'putting down' of the Negi side of the equation, to make them less special so the writer can make himself more special.

Of course, this doesn't apply to the ones which behave like monsters, but in that regard, I think that in a lot of cases it's less 'what they wish to be' and more 'what they truly are' filtering through, because that shows you what would happen should you put that author in an environment where their actions don't have consequences.

PS:

There are harem fics that are written by people who are not self-inserting and fulfilling their own fantasies. They're the 10% that doesn't suck. And it's really, really noticeable when that is the case, since they spend a lot less time trying to convince you how awesome their self insert is.

edited 30th Jul '15 4:32:22 AM by IAmNotCreativeEnough

I think the key difference between good harem fiction and bad harem fiction is this.

In bad harem fiction, the harem exists to serve the main character. In good harem fiction, while ideally the haremettes (of either gender) should aid the lead when necessary (otherwise they are horrible people who only care about themselves and the lead doesn't deserve suffering them), narratively, the epicenter (usually male) character is there so through him, the personalities of the harem members are defined and developed, not the other way around. You want your Tenchi story to help define Ryoko and Ayeka through Tenchi foremost, then Tenchi through Ryoko and Ayeka.

Bad harem fic skips this and makes the haremettes interchangeable talking props for the alleged hero's service. The interchangeable part is important too because the second key factor is, when writing a harem, no two haremettes should sound and act the same. They should be all separate characters with their own quirks and traits. They'll disagree and bicker with each other and with the lead as long as it's not enough to break the unity (unless you're aiming for a complete Deconstruction, and those are kind of one trick ponies). Other than one or two at most (because every human structure always has a few yes-men) they shouldn't be the 'hero's slaves or mindless adoring followers.

edited 30th Jul '15 10:24:18 AM by NapoleonDeCheese

Started rereading UQ Holder from the beginning. The first couple chapters got some solid lulz out of me.

I think it's kind of hilarious, how the introduction of the titular organization appears to be the most obvious point for when it starts sliding down in quality. Clearly, her sycophantic followers are all colossally bad influences, and Yukihime agreeing to come back after a few years in the country was just a colossally poor judgment call.

....funnily enough, chapters 6 and 7 were also around the time I initially started losing faith in Nanoha Force, before it then hooked me back in around 14~16.

.......wait. Jinbei was sent down to the labyrinth two years ago. Which is around the same time (probably slightly before) Eva left the organization. ...so then who, exactly, has been holding the reins during that time?

Skipping ahead in my musings a bit (currently in chapter 13), it actually makes a lot of sense that Touta comes across as being so impulsive/flighty and vague/indecisive about what he wants out of existence - it's kinda like he has the soul of a two-year-old, operating a 12-YO's brain and body.

I can see where it'd be annoying as hell to some people, but as for myself? The kid's so earnest about everything that it makes me .

Excuse me, while I briefly note that Misora shed/broke her nunly vows at some point or another. ...unless she wasn't high enough in the pecking order to have made those vows in the first place.

Touta is as smart/perceptive as the story needs him to be. Basically the only thing that he lacks in being THE bog standard shounen hero is being Book Dumb, but what he does and doesn't pick up on is so all over the place it doesn't matter. I honestly don't think Akamatsu knows what to do with him or the series half the time. The funny thing is he'd probably be a decent side-character. Him as the focus is pretty much a total bore.

UQ Holder went down the tube IMO was when it stopped trying to be its own thing and decided to become Negima 2.0.

Your argument fails because Chachamaru was in the same situation (EXACTLY the same! Descendant of Negi, raised to serve Eva, not human), and she wasn't anywhere NEAR as immature and stupid as Touta.

Ugh, I just realized that Touta is the What-if of Chachamaru's bad end!

But Chacha had smart mommies. Eva pursuing a career in school teaching is never going to beat that.

...Man, Eva as Mahora's new Headmaster would've been really cool (And kinda sweet in a way) if it had happened.

After she gets the curse broken, she decides Mahora's actually a pretty cool place if you can leave occasionally and don't have to take the same classes over and over? I can see it.

Mahora's a frikkin' awesome place to live in. You get to watch all important events in the world happen!

Plus the CGI is amazing!

I figured she'd leave for a few months/years to herself, realize that's boring as all hell, and eventually come back and take up the position at some point or the other. Finally being able to actually be in charge of the whole shebang and tormenting/mentoring the students would actually be kinda funny to see.

@Mage: Chachamaru was never canonically acknowledged (or out-of-universe, marketed) as a descendant of Negi, though.

She is though. Chachamaru is of the descent of Chao, who is of the descent of Negi. Logically, Chachamaru is Negi's descendant. That's logic, that is.

In the sense of Mega Man being Doctor Light's "son", yes, that's the logic of it.

However, IIRC that logic was never applied in-universe.

Then again, IIRC Chachamaru was credited more to Satomi than to Chao, in the first place.

Which would make Chao less a "mother", and more like a "midwife".

edited 2nd Aug '15 8:42:20 PM by EvaUnit01

That's so heteronomative, saying two women can't bring a child into the world together as a cooperative effort! This is the 21st century! Such an outdated notion has no place here!

Within five years or so, two women can start having kids together. THROUGH SCIENCE! So SCM's logic holds.

I know, I actually said that.

My logic ALWAYS holds. Because I DID THE RESEARCH!

And yet you still haven't provided evidence to refute my actual premise.

...it's really pathetic, the way I feel kinda proud of that.

You have no premise! So there is nothing to refute and I win!

TL,DR: Speaking purely out-of-universe, your reasoning is sound (talk about A Rare Sentence), and I don't dispute it.

I simply said that none of the characters within the universe of the manga ever thought of/realized that onscreen. Or if they did, then nobody ever saw fit to point it out.

Clearly, you must be immeasurably cleverer than both Ken Akamatsu, or any of the characters that he created.

I'm legitimately surprised that joke hasn't actually popped up in the series itself quite frankly.

If the reasoning is sound, it need never actually be vocalized in-universe. The concept of gravity is sound, so no one ever needs to explain why they can only walk on the ground.

Besides, we were never told Asuna's exact relationship to Negi either...

re:Asuna: I presume it to be "great-(times [x])-great aunt".

And while you have a decent point about sound logic not requiring a vocalization, it really seems like the kind of thing that somebody in 3-A would have pointed out (if only in an attempt to discourage Chachamaru from pursuing Negi due to [grand-times-x]-Parental Incest).

I mean, it is (among other things) a harem comedy that runs on lampshade hanging. So the fact that no note was ever made of it is, to my mind, noteworthy in and of itself.

The concept of gravity is elaborated on endlessly in your everyday life, pretty much every time you mess with change or put something down there's at least a little drop involved.

Sound concepts do need elaboration.