Zero No Tsukaima Crossover Fics Thread

@Amitakartok: OK, so... Have you read The Foundation Must Be True yet?

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Only the first two chapters yet.

Its rigid adherence to canon so far is... mildly irritating. And judging from the chapter titles, this isn't going to change.

The Stations of the Canon explicitly states that it's a case of Tropes Are Tools. Don't treat it as an inherently bad thing, rather judge it by how it's executed. Besides, can you think of any reasonable justification for deviating from those stations? And hey, at least some of said stations are things that many people want to see what would happen if someone other than Saito Hiraga was involved in them, e.g. the duel with Guiche, which sadly seems to be something that will not happen in AhrounDragon's Queen of the Void.

IMO, the results of The Foundation Must Be True sticking to the canon's stations are very good.

edited 2nd Sep '17 8:09:37 PM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

No shit, tropes are tools, and this is one goddamn rusty tool. Do you think people would be complaining if the tropes ARE executed well? The first few chapters of vast majority of ZNT crossover fic is almost completely predictable, and shit, there are so many of them that don't even go that much further after beating Guiche.

The derivation of lack of creativity IS a legitimate concern in starting any ZNTX fic.

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

In a large portion of these fics, you can just change the names and you wouldn't notice any difference. In a few, that's actually literally the case, as they seem to have just copied the text from the novels and substituted the names. In many where there actually are notable differences, there's little reason for the fics to actually hit the stations, but they do it anyway. And yeah, a huge number of them just end when they've run out of the common stations.

It's the same trend as, for instance, with the type of Ranma ½ fics that were written with a small change that was supposed to have as large of an effect as possible. That trend is that there are tons of aspiring writers who have ideas of what could be fun (what if this character or this change?), but can't really write on their own, so once they run out of established plot and things actually start to deviate, they have nothing more to write.

Which is why I like the fics that deviate a lot to begin with. Overlady is a good example. I remember one where Patchouli was summoned by one of the bad guys (forgot who), rather than by Louise.

There are a bunch where the summoning is somehow reversed, and Louise gets punted into another world instead.

Sure, The Stations of the Canon isn't a bad trope. What's bad is that 90% of everything is shit, including the remaining 10%. That goes especially for low entry-effort fics that use tropes like The Stations of the Canon.

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Honestly, I'm feeling sorry for Guiche at this point. There gotta be very few characters who have been beaten up by so many characters from so many universes, because if you think about it, most of the ZNTX fics ARE created to just beat up Guiche.

edited 3rd Sep '17 12:43:05 AM by dRoy

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

If people are so hung-up on reusing the exact same plot points, they could still at least do things like mixing up the order of said plot points or something. But reading the exact same plot over and over and over again is effing boring. That's why I don't usually read ZnT fics.

@dRoy:

"Predictability" isn't necessarily a sign of bad execution. Unless we are using different definitions of the term, I think you need to reevaluate your standards.

So they became Dead Fics? There's a large list of possible reasons for why that happened that extends far beyond "The writer ran out of ideas."

One... I'm not sure what you mean by "derivation" here.

Two, assuming that a fanfic being "predictable" and adheres to The Stations of the Canon is a sign of "lack of creativity" on part of the writer is, to be blunt, a sign of false correlation.

Let's be fair: By real-life standards, Guiche's narcissism, seemingly compulsive womanizing and consistent aversion to committment to his true Love Interest would mark as an asshole who needs to be taken down several pegs. Combine that with him being a noble who looks down on commoners, and it's understandable for people to perceive him as having a pro-classist mentality.

Of course, a sign of a good fanfic is to capitalize on Guiche's Jerk with a Heart of Gold aspect by putting him through Character Development in the wake of a humiliating defeat at the hands of Louise's "commoner" familiar (presumably one that is even more humiliating than the one he got at Saito's hands in canon). And that's exactly what The Foundation Must Be True does with him.

@AnotherDuck

... And you're citing such badly written fics, why?

Yeah, see, just like you have an interest in seeing the plot of a fanfic deviate from the stations of the canon it's based on, some people don't see a reason to deviate in the first place — whether on particular stations or all of them — and thus don't bother to do so. A storywriter typically writes a story in a particular way because that is what they want to see being written.

Also, just like how you're critical of the commonplace adherence to the stations of the canon, you'll find some people (maybe even many) who are just as critical of those who deviate from the stations of the canon too much (how much is "too much", of course, is subjective). And they can have very good reasons for criticizing such excessive deviation, e.g. if there are Watsonian/Doylist factors that make such deviations nonsensical (at least, without inventing counter-factors that don't come across as weak handwaves).

And that is a good reason to harp on non-deviating stories, how?

See, Overlady is a case of a fanfic where the very premise involves upending the standard progression of the ZNT plot. I mean, exactly how is the plot supposed to maintain its course when Louise had abandoned the academy before any of the stations had a chance to manifest? And especially when the characters she's now with — namely, a horde of (comically) Evil Minions who see her as an Evil Overlord in the making — are anything but good for doing so in the first place?

That can be said of any fanfic trope, though. All I'm getting is that The Stations of the Canon are unfairly being the subject of harsher criticism and scrunity than your average fanfic trope, which is really annoying to me.

@Amitakartok

The thing is, from what I understand of ZNT, most of the stations that The Foundation Must Be True hit so far have strong Watsonian reasons to not be changed.

• Longueville/Fouquet is not stealing from the Tristain Academy's vault for shit and giggles, she's working for Reconquista, and thus is presumably on a time table.
• Count Mott arrives to the academy for reasons completely unrelated to anything that happens in the academy. If anything, any unusual business in the academy short of a clear disaster situation would only have a chance of making him arrive sooner than canon, on account of the royal government in Tristania having developed an interest in knowing what's going on in said academy ASAP.
• The Familiar Exhibition is, by all accounts, a pre-scheduled event whose timing is solely tied to the Summoning Ritual event. The writer will have to invent a plausible reason for changing its timing.
• With the Familiar Exhibition, of course, comes the arrival of Princess Henrietta as an overseer. Again, the writer will have to come up with a solid reason if they want to make her arrive at a different time, or for her to not secretly visit Louise in the dead of the night.
• And finally, with Henrietta's arrival comes news of the threat of Reconquista looming towards Tristain after the rebellion in Albion, Henrietta's impending marriage to Albrecht of Germania to secure a strong alliance in the face of said threat, and Henrietta asking Louise and her familiar to help protect said alliance from being preempted by securing a scandalous letter in Prince Wales of Albion's possession... which, of course, is complicated by Reconquista having a spy in the form of Wardes, and thus leads to him freeing Foquet from prison to help in his attempt to ruin the mission (from within on his part, and from without on Foquet's part).

About the only major event that doesn't have a fixed timing is the altercation with Guiche and the subsequent duel, and even then there's a strong Doylist reason for putting it before all of the above mentioned events: He's small fry compared to everyone but Mott, and even then Mott is morally worse than Guiche, so it makes sense to make Guiche's event come before Mott's.

It's only "the exact same plot" if you deliberately ignore any changes caused by the different choice of familiar. Or if you're reading a badly written fanfic whose writer is under the mistaken belief that Louise's new familiar would not change anything in the plot, often resulting in blatant OOC-ness of the inserted character. Or if your standards for "not boring" are unrealistically stringent when it comes to "change this part of the original story"-type fanfics.

edited 3rd Sep '17 7:00:02 AM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

He's a narcissist, so he needs to be beaten up. He's an arse, so he needs to be beaten up. He's a womaniser, so he needs to be beaten up. Is that how real life standards work?

Because this is the single largest concentration of such fics I've found so far, whether you count by percentages or pure numbers. I'm citing what's representable for the topic.

Yeah, see, I have an interest in internally consistent fanfics. What I described was when they're specifically not internally consistent. They break their own consistency just to follow the pattern of the source. I have no problems with fics following the source plot somewhat if it's actually reasonable within the context of the fic, despite how you try to paint me up otherwise, but what I was specifically referring to was when it doesn't make sense.

It's a good reason to harp on fanfics made by writers who don't make an effort to be creative. I don't harp on non-deviating stories for being non-deviating.

How is it unfair to describe a trope as being present more often, relative to other tropes, in badly written fanfics, when it's more often present in badly written fanfics? No matter how neutral tropes are, a cookie cutter pattern attracts far more people who don't really care to make much of an effort while writing their fanfics. Less effort means lower quality fanfics, on the whole. The trope's not bad. What's bad is the kind of writers it attracts.

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Something on my end that helps a lot, when a fic is otherwise hewing too closely to the canon for my liking, is when character dynamics are very different from in canon, even though a lot of the same kinds of events are still happening.

This seemed like the right place to put this, so without further ado: I know almost nothing about this series, but how do you think canon would change if Louise summoned an [[Adorkable]] Genre Savvy Mad Scientist Eldritch Abomination?

97% of all fandoms are comprised of sane, reasonable people. The remaining 3% are here, on this wiki.

That depends entirely on the character, and even further, entirely on her actions. There's no answer to how it would change the canon, but there is an answer to, "How would you change the canon given this character?"

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Well, to make a long story short, he's part of a group of OCs I have called the Narrators, whose goal is to make every story into a single giant Mega Crossover. The other seven would probably show up after a few days, probably in the middle of the fight with Foucault. Somewhat uniquely, this time they don't have extensive prior knowledge of the series in question, so they have no idea how to influence things to provide the most crossable outcome. But before that happens, Louise would probably call Cerulean (his name) stupid. You do not, under any circumstances, insult Cerulean's intelligence. It would probably end with a Mind Raped Louise gaining a Lovecraftian Superpower. Also, due to familiarity with This Very Wiki, Cerulean deduces Louise is a Void Mage almost immediately after learning about the magic system. And, because he has no social skills, announces this very loudly. In public. So yeah, the political landscape would probably be in a huge state of upheaval.

edited 10th Sep '17 1:23:10 PM by Thewizzardpineapple

97% of all fandoms are comprised of sane, reasonable people. The remaining 3% are here, on this wiki.

I recommend Loopholes, in which Louise summons TABITHA to be her familiar.

Or there's The Familiars of Zero, where Louise summons a different familiar in every chapter. My personal favorites are Chapter 34 and Chapter 38.

edited 15th Oct '17 12:42:03 PM by fruitstripegum

One thing that strikes me is that the duel against Guiche practically always happens, even for characters who'd likely try to talk their way out of he situation by trying to frame Guiche's accusations as affronts to the girl who asked him where Guiche was. Something like:

• Familiar asks by which right he should deny an answer when a noble lady asks him a question
• Depending on which rank we give to her family (appears to be unstated according to what little info the wiki gives me), one of the two pulls rank; this could either disarm Guiche (if her family is higher than his) or give him the high ground, in which case a predominantly Lawful Familiar would apologize rather than go forward with the duel.

Of course, that sounds a lot less cool than "Familiar kicks Guiche's ass".

Another thing I noticed: No one in the multi-fic above actually manages to save Wales' life, not even the otaku who knows the murder is coming! They all leave the body in enemy territory rather than burn it, too. The Stations of the Canon run strong with this one.

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

Ooh, you just made your query a lot difficult with that filter.

-sighs-

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

Dude, there are better ways than mass bumping a lot of threads.

Which are what? All fanfics recommendation thread is too vague and my last post got ignored. Most big fandoms have their own threads so I had to post there and considering that this forum is half dead, a bit of bumping won't hurt anyone.

It's not good etiquette, and a mod-able offense. The reason I didn't call for the mods was because I suspected you didn't know, so I wanted to tell you straight up.

And another thing? You have to deal with these threads having low traffic. Not every has an interest in fanfiction. I don't care one ass about Familiar of Zero, I"m only here because it's the most recent post you made.

Edited by VeryMelon on Jul 28th 2019 at 10:17:34 AM

I spent the last three days binging A Familiar Void. If you like Hollow Knight, I recommend it. While the grammar is questionable at times, the action is nice and it tends to eschew some of the failings I complained about above.

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

Oh man, the last time there was an extensive discussion in this thread was over five years ago. Time sure flies past...

Since this thread was necro'd, I might as well as say this one.

During those five years, I have become a professional, pay-per-chapter webnovel writer. And I gotta say, Unfamiliar still holds a spot in my heart, more than just as a Familiar of Zero crossover fic. I think it's such a shame that among 99% of all ZNT crossover fics that never end up finishing, this fic was one of them.

...Well, once I'm done with serialization of my current fic (an Alternate History fic involving US Navy, btw), I am going to write an isekai webnovel inspired by Unfamiliar.

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.