Trifles Make Perfection

Posted on 2013-05-10 by Stephan Sokolow

TL;DR: When you’re doing something creative, look for details which, with only minimal change, could greatly broaden your work’s appeal and staying power. (Also includes examples.)

Every now and then, I run across a creative work which frustrates me, not because it’s bad, but because the author made one tiny “unimportant”  decision that severely cripples either the story’s longevity or its appeal.

The most common example I run across is fanfiction where, aside from a few too many mentions of something like MySpace (as opposed to more generic terms), the story could easily last at least a decade or more without feeling strange. (Though breaking the atmosphere is also a common problem with mentioning things we recognize as contemporary brands in fanfiction since the source material generally occupies a different mental universe from what we encounter in day-to-day life.)

Hence, I appeal to people. When you’re doing something creative, please take a few minutes to think about what other people might care more about than you do. Ask friends to help if you can spare the time. I just don’t want to see good things fading into obscurity because of a minor oversight.

How about a more direct example. Two days ago, I was discussing musical tastes with a friend and, to clarify what she meant by “fan-song”, she sent me a YouTube link to a My Little Pony song.

Now, in order to get my point across, I need to be clear about my opinions. I have nothing against My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic but I’m not a fan either and neither of us approve of the Brony subculture. I treat it the same way I treat Care Bears… and some of my fondest childhood nostalgia relates to Care Bears but I don’t still watch it. MLP:FiM is a well-done show for people much younger than I am and, if my young self had access to it, I’d probably be nostalgic for it too.

Despite that, I’ve been listening to “Lullaby for a Princess” a lot. It’s a truly beautiful song and the lyrics are very cleverly phrased at times. (eg. “but such is the way of the limelight, it sweetly takes hold of the mind of its host”)

It’s relevant to this topic because, were it not for four uses of the word “pony” where other two-syllable words could readily have been substituted, it could easily transcend and outlive its fandom as a masterful expression of a common literary theme.

For those who haven’t had a need to google up the wikia page yet, here’s a little explanatory backstory: A thousand years before the first episode of MLP:FiM, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna ruled together, the elder sister with domain over the day and the younger over the night, both immortals.

Living in her sister’s shadow, Luna ends up feeling unappreciated and, one day, can take it no longer. Consumed by her pain and corrupted by how her emotions have fed into her magic, she refuses to allow the morning to come, determined to force the kingdom to appreciate the beauty of her domain. (as covered by “The Moon Rises“, which is also beautiful but was recorded before the fan group in question found a female member to do the vocals.)

Celestia is forced to choose her responsibility to her subjects over her love for her sister. With Luna refusing to back down, Celestia takes over dominion of night and banishes her sister to the moon for a thousand years to allow her emotionally charged self-transformation time to weaken. (“Lullaby for a Princess” is sung following this event, exploring Celestia’s guilt at her own blindness toward her sister’s pain and the responsibility she feels for how things turned out.)

Obviously, not all songs can be made more generally appealing in this manner. For example, “The Moon Rises” has a point where the lyrics include “the ponies of Equestria” and, even if I were to suggest a replacement for “ponies”, I can’t imagine an easy way to remove the kingdom’s name without weakening the lyrics.

However, in Lullaby for a Princess, the four uses of the word “pony” can be replaced very naturally. In the context of the song’s narrative, Celestia is just as much a “princess” as a “pony” and, with only a few seconds of thought, I can see that “no pony” could easily be replaced with “nobody”.

In fact, I think that such changes would make the lyrics more powerful for two reasons:

  • The song is about a sovereign regretting that she neglected her sister to the point where she had to banish her to protect the kingdom whose “limelight” she’d been blinded by. Referring to her as “a princess” rather than “a pony” supports the theme more strongly.
  • Compared to something like “nobody”, the one use of “no pony” feels a bit superfluous and impedes the immersiveness of the story for non-fans. (Sort of like fanfiction authors who include random bits of Japanese, not because they lack good English equivalents or because it aids comprehension, but because they think it’s cool.)

That’s not to say it’s not a beautiful song nonetheless. I’d still recommend it to anyone who can appreciate it despite its context, but it could have been so much more broadly appealing with such a small change.

To quote Michelangelo, trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle.

P.S. For anyone who likes those two songs, another fan did a cover of “Lullaby for a Princess” with modified lyrics named “Luna’s Reply“. Her voice isn’t quite as suited to the melody and, from what I read on wikia, I’m not sure if Luna’s un-corrupted personality would still exist in a state distinct enough from Nightmare Moon for it to be canon-compatible, but the lyrics are still excellent and the song is nice to listen to.

In case of dead links:

Update: Perfect Picture (MP3) by StormWolf is an excellent example of doing this well.

It’s nowhere near as deep as the ones I mentioned before, but it’s not supposed to be. It’s a catchy techno-styled musical summary of a famous fashion photographer who just happens to be a pony.

There’s nothing specifically restricting it to the MLP fandom because the lyrics focus on her character, rather than needlessly pointing out the fact that, like everyone else in the setting, she is non-human. From the lyrics to the musical styling, it’s a catchy musical summary of a character which also works as a catchy summary of a type of person if you have no idea who Photo Finish is.

That means it has a good shot at getting shared well beyond the fandom and surviving as “another catchy song” when MLP eventually wanes.

Update: ponyphonic has released another two noteworthy songs:

  1. A beautiful song named Harmony Ascendant which is effectively a prequel to “The Moon Rises” and “Lullaby for a Princess”.
  2. A bouncy country song named Applejack which does what “The Moon Rises” and “Lullaby for a Princess” almost did: Despite being a masterful tribute to the eponymous character, you could play it on the radio and people would never realize it’s a fan-song unless they recognized the title or, possibly, that “I will be your sugarcube” is a reference rather than just a cutesy nickname.

Update: …and again. This time, he takes what Applejack started and perfects it with “Shy Heart“. From the great cast he sourced to perform it, to the “heartfelt exploration of what it means to be cripplingly shy” lyrics, to the beautiful violin solos and what sounds like a faint hint of vocal chorus for accent during the beginning of the chorus, it is a strong contender for his best songwriting to date. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to hear it on the radio some day.

Posted in Otaku Stuff, Writing | 2 Comments

Making Coveralls work with PyPy and skip Python 2.5 on Travis-CI

Posted on 2013-05-01 by Stephan Sokolow

I have a couple of projects that get tested on Travis-CI and I just discovered Coveralls, a tool which integrates with it to provide a code coverage badge to go alongside your build status badge. (and is also free for open-source projects)

Unit Test Status Coverage Status

Unfortunately, it seems that there’s a bug in the current Python client that causes it to error out when submitting coverage data from PyPy builds. (It tries to grab source for compiled PyPy modules with no source available and then dies when it can’t).

Here’s the boilerplate I use to skip it on Python 2.5 (which it doesn’t support), make it complete successfully on PyPy, and omit things like the unit test framework itself from the report:

Posted in Geek Stuff | Leave a comment

How To Invert Your X11 NumLock LED

Posted on 2013-04-18 by Stephan Sokolow

TL;DR: numlockx off; xdotool key Num_Lock

I like to leave NumLock on all the time but, with my current keyboard, the indicator light is a blindingly bright blue. I noticed that the numlock light would sometimes get confused, so its behaviour was reversed (only on when NumLock was turned off) but I couldn’t figure out why until now.

Here’s the deal:

First, under modern versions of X.org with MPX support, the XInput system lets you have one or more master keyboard-pointer pairs, each which can be mapped to one or more physical keyboards and mice, called slaves. (You can examine this by running xinput in a terminal)

Here’s an example of what xinput outputs on my system:

⎡ Virtual core pointer                          id=2    [master pointer  (3)]
⎜   ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer                id=4    [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ ATI Remote Wonder II                      id=12   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ Logitech USB Gaming Mouse                 id=13   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ Wacom BambooFun 6x8 stylus                id=14   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ Wacom BambooFun 6x8 eraser                id=15   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ Wacom BambooFun 6x8 cursor                id=16   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ Wacom BambooFun 6x8 pad                   id=17   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎣ Virtual core keyboard                         id=3    [master keyboard (2)]
    ↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard               id=5    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Power Button                              id=6    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Power Button                              id=7    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Guest Barcode Reader                      id=8    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ CYKB23 USB Keyboard                       id=9    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ CYKB23 USB Keyboard                       id=10   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ zc3xx                                     id=11   [slave  keyboard (3)]

(For the curious, zc3xx is the button on the side of my USB webcam which triggers the Logitech software under Windows by sending a keycode that maps to the XF86WebCam keysym, same as on a multimedia keyboard)

Noteworthy implications of this design:

  • It’s possible to create more masters and move devices over to them. If you do, you get extra mouse pointers on your screen and, if your window manager supports it, you can have multiple people using several different applications at the same time on the same desktop.
  • Every master has a virtual slave called XTEST, which is used to inject events.
  • Each slave (physical keyboard) can have its own LEDs, but the mod2 modifier that actually controls NumLock behaviour is part of the master.
  • X11 doesn’t yet know how to force all the slave keyboards on a given master to share the same LED states. (Because, if you want to support all the different kinds of keyboards out there, it’s very complicated)

This means that, if you press NumLock on one keyboard, it will turn NumLock on/off for the whole master/slave grouping, but the light will only change on that one keyboard.

The problem I was having was that older versions of the numlockx command were faking a NumLock keypress on the XTEST virtual keyboard, rather than my physical one, and then pressing NumLock on the physical keyboard just toggled the LED and the modifier while assuming they were still in sync.

numlockx has now been fixed, but you can still trigger this mismatch manually if, like me, you want the light to come on when NumLock is turned off. Just use this command:

numlockx off; xdotool key Num_Lock

The first half puts both your NumLock modifier and LED into a known state (off) and then the call to xdotool presses NumLock on the virtual XTEST keyboard, which turns on the modifier and the invisible/imaginary LED on the virtual keyboard, while leaving the LED on the physical keyboard untouched.

As long as you only change your numlock state by pressing the button, they’ll stay out of sync until the end of your desktop session. Enjoy!

(Thanks to Peter Hutterer for explaining things)

Posted in Geek Stuff | 2 Comments

Error 400: The Web’s Most Under-Appreciated Response

Posted on 2013-03-09 by Stephan Sokolow

TL;DR: You should respond with Error 400 if the URL is malformed or the parameters fail validation rather than with Error 404.

If you’ve ever run a website which reports 404ed requests to the admin, you’ve probably noticed that, every now and then, GoogleBot gets it into its head that it can do a better job if it tries guessed, nonsense URLs to try to tease hidden pages out of your site.

The big problem is that, most of the time, it’s guessing such utter nonsense that you have to wonder about the competence of whoever wrote it. (Not to mention that it’s effectively punishing the whole web because some sites are poorly structured)

That’s where HTTP Error 400 comes in. Error 404 is so overused as a generic “nope” response that it doesn’t say anything about why the request couldn’t be serviced.

By sending Error 400, you tell the requesting agent that the request couldn’t be serviced, not just because nothing matched, but because the URL given doesn’t meet the minimum requirements to be tested for a match. (Sort of like if you were to write “If-Modified-Since: pineapple” in your HTTP headers)

That means that, if someone or something is trying to guess URLs, it at least has enough information to learn the constraints for URL validity so it can only try to guess ones that have the potential to exist.

Given that, you might be wondering how to implement Error 400 responses. The simplest solution is just to tie them into your URL routing and input validation.

  1. Did the URL router fail to find a matching route? Return Error 400.
  2. Did the parameters fail to pass input validation (eg. “bike” in an integer field)? Return error 400.
  3. Did the URL request an object ID that doesn’t exist? Return Error 404.
  4. (optional) Did the URL request an object ID that has been flagged as deleted (with no replacement on record) but kept around to preserve relational integrity? Return Error 410 (Gone).

With modern web frameworks, this is often ridiculously simple to concisely retrofit and, as with Error 404, you can still return custom human-readable messages.

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Schedule Importer for TaskWarrior

Posted on 2013-03-06 by Stephan Sokolow

I just wrote another useful little script. This one takes a CSV representation of any schedule in this form and imports it into TaskWarrior for easy time management

Week 1 Read pages 1-25
Week 2 Read pages 26-50
Do Exercise 1
Week 3 Read pages 51-75

The week column can contain anything. The script will warn you if it doesn’t recognize it but it’s really just using the presence of text in column 1 to mark the changeover to a new time period.

Using it is also quick and easy:

  1. Copy-paste the table from whatever format you got it in (HTML and MS Word tables work for me) into a spreadsheet tool like Excel or OpenOffice/LibreOffice Calc.
  2. If necessary, delete columns so column 2 holds task names.
  3. If necessary, alternate between Delete and the down arrow, rapid-fire, so only rows which mark a new time period have content in column 1.
  4. Save the file as CSV.
  5. Run the script like this: 
    python taskwarrior_schedule_importer.py ~/schedule.csv \
    --start=2013-02-01 --deadline=2013-06-30           \
    --project=EXMPL101 > ~/schedule.json
task import ~/schedule.json

All arguments are optional. By providing a deadline, you let script automatically adjust the definition of a week if there aren’t enough weeks before the given date.

If you want to use it for periods other than weeks, specify --increment=DAYS to override the default of 7.  The script will use the smaller of --increment and the value calculated from --deadline if both are provided. See --help for more details.

As usual, here’s the download link for if you don’t want to scroll past the embed. I’ve only tested it on Lubuntu Linux 12.04 LTS under CPython 2.7.3, CPython 3.2.3, and PyPy 1.9.0, but it should run anywhere.

(It was surprisingly complicated since TaskWarrior currently has a very primitive line-by-line JSON parser that reminds me of the parsers I wrote using things like sed and regexes when I was young and ignorant. Take a look at the last few lines if you want to see how I mixed json.dumps(indent=0) and string-formatting operators to securely and robustly get the newline use task import demands.)

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Sekirei Fics Which Fight/Fix Canon

Posted on 2013-02-25 by Stephan Sokolow

Last Updated 2020-09-10: Added an entry for Angry, Angry Wizards.

Since my last post on Familiar of Zero fics, it occurred to me that there is another series that’s not to my taste but which still manages to make interesting crossover fodder in exceptional circumstances: Sekirei.

Now, I don’t have anything against harem anime in general. I actually really enjoyed watching anime like Saber Marionette J and  Ai Yori Aoshi. They’re funny, the characters are entertaining, and I can just ignore the stuff that’s not my cup of tea.

The main problem with Sekirei is twofold. First, from what I’ve seen, it doesn’t really put enough effort into being engaging outside its target audience. Second, it runs right into several of my pet peeves.

I already wrote and discarded a ridiculously long post on this that was approaching rant territory, so I won’t go into detail beyond saying that most of them have to do with the author’s approach to things. (For example, it’s a story that combines romantic comedy and cute girls fighting in deathmatch-esque battle royales.)

Thankfully, unlike some stories, it does have elements which I’d find interesting under better circumstances. So far, I’ve found several cases where a good fanfic author has written something more to my taste. For each one, I’ll list it along with a brief summary of how it fixes the tonal problems and what makes it so noteworthy to me.

(If anyone knows of any other fics which manage to dodge the flaws in how canon handles things, please leave them in the comments. When written by a skilled author, I quite like the characters.)

The Fics

In Flight by gabriel blessing
Solution to Tone Problems: Generalized “heroically overcome” which manages to mute the darker implications of canon as a side-effect.
By the author of The Hill of Swords, this 630,000+ word (and still being extended) 762,492 word, completed fic drops post-canon Emiya Shirou into Sekirei as a replacement for the original protagonist. Like Hill of Swords, it’s well-written and, like Hill of Swords, it mixes things up by dropping someone much more experienced than the canon protagonist into the thick of things.
In fact, saying it’s well-written is a bit of an understatement, given how much work it takes to defy a status quo as deeply entrenched as Sekirei canon while still feeling truly good. Authorial skill aside, the reason this works so well is that post-canon Shirou is very well suited to the role of a serious literary hero in this setting. He takes the inherent issues with the setting seriously (rather than just facilitating a male fantasy like in canon) and the story neither tries to make excuses to justify canon nor tries to wave an authorial magic wand and fix everything. It’s just a believable character with a believable viewpoint and enough skill, experience, and conviction to believably subvert various aspects of the canon plotline without throwing things off the rails.
Combined with a slow, methodical approach to characterization and a narrative style that gives the solid impression that the author shares Shirou’s views on things, this means that I find myself trusting him to bring about something I’ll accept as a happy ending (after a narratively-appropriate amount of struggle) and, thus, I let my guard down. (It’s not foolproof, it’s not a perfect solution, and I’ve been burned on occasion before, but it’s a very good sign and it means that I enjoy the story in spite of my discomfort with some of the core elements.)
I don’t want to spoil anything but, in the novel worth of text between when I wrote this and the end of the story, gabriel blessing really shows off the amount of care he put into things, revealing some really masterful ideas for world-building and characterization. (Plus, having Minaka engage in a genre-savvy villain exchange with Shirou works beautifully.) Not only is this the best Sekirei fic I’ve read, it’s also one of the best Fate fics I’ve ever read.
The Wizard Ashikabi by plums
Solution to Tone Problems: Retcon to mute the dark undertones and add more hope, outmanoeuvre the antagonists.
Harry Potter crossover. This story really shows how interestingly elements from Harry Potter can be used to reinterpret things in Sekirei and it does an even better job than “In Flight” of considering Sekirei people first and aliens second. (Essentially, it takes lessons learned from Harry Potter Veela-bond fics and treats Sekirei as psychologically human but raised with a warped worldview… which, to me, not only makes them higher-quality characters from the literary theory side of things, but makes them deeper, more sympathetic, and it just plain makes more sense given who runs MBI.)
I also like how it reinterprets a lot of Sekirei elements in the context of Harry Potter magic (For example, Homura is an untrained metamorph with a problem) …especially the Sekirei-Ashikabi bond which helps to neutralize my biggest issue with it.
It does starts with tired old Harry Potter fanon clichés as a way to get Harry out of Britain, but those are over before the end of the first chapter and, aside from a slight hiccup in Chapter 3, it’s much better from then on, doing quite a few things I’ve yet to see in another fic, like taking its sweet time to even start on Sekirei canon and giving Karasuba some focus. Harry also does an even better job of defying MBI here than Naruto and Jiraiya have been in Michief Fragment Sekirei.
No One Left Behind by Syroc
Solution to Tone Problems: Intentionally force Sekirei to take off its rose-colored glasses, even if that means hurting characters in the short term.
This is a really interesting case. While it’s a spin-off of In Flight, it actually makes things even less pleasant. I won’t spoil things, but I will say that, for certain characters, it feels like it’s preparing to explore more depth of character than In Flight.
I like it because, as with In Flight, it doesn’t have the schizophrenic tone that I perceive as a sort of “dystopic comedy” and, at the same time, I get the impression that the author is casting the retained (and perhaps mildly reinterpreted) aspects I’m not fond of as challenges to be overcome rather than, as Sekirei canon does, as static elements of the context in which the story takes place. If so, it’s the first fic to focus some of the elements I hate head-on and directly challenge them, rather than tonally brushing them under the rug (out of sight, out of mind) or bringing in a crossover hero who can re-interpret them.
Broken Birds by Razor Scion
Solution to Tone Problems: Acknowledge that things are darker than canon wants to portray but completely reinterpret the villain’s motivations. (Also, it’s The Doctor. Being The Hero is what he does.)
An interesting story. It’s a Doctor Who crossover which explores Akitsu, Minaka, and Takami in more detail than anything else that I’ve read. However, the part most relevant to this list is that, rather than trying to sugar-coat the elements that grate on me, this fic throws them to the forefront, resolving my unease by acknowledging the tragic inevitabilities built into to the Sekirei concept. It has the odd flaw, but it’s definitely worth a read.
Starry Starry Nights by Fenschway
Solution to Tone Problems: What canon tone problems? The tone makes it obvious that this is a Wolverine story that happens to take place in  Shinto Teito, not a Sekirei story featuring Wolverine.
Logan/Wolverine wakes up heavily concussed (and temporarily amnesiac as a result) in a hole in the ground in a Tokyo, park being watched over by an alien woman named Akitsu. You can probably imagine where things go from there.
Logan ends up endearing himself to various people in his own unique way and, as his faculties slowly come back online, he starts to plan to screw with Minaka for reasons that are better discovered by reading the story. An entertaining, very divergent take on Sekirei with a lot of good character work too. In this case, it fixes the tonal conflict in Sekirei by playing everything serious and character-deep.
This story is like a better alternative to The Game Changer. It elaborates less on the Sekirei setting, but the main character is also a lot less likely to be called “boring” or “annoying”. It’s even got a Sekirei (albeit a more minor character) who uses her wits to keep her options open… which makes it only the second fic I’ve seen to do so. (Though, since she’s a minor character, it still doesn’t satisfy my desire to truly explore the character of a Sekirei who feels like she’s outwitting the status quo itself.)
It’s also one of those stories where the title was carefully chosen and the revelation of its significance has a good build-up.
The Ninth Sekirei Pillar by Arthain
Solution to Tone Problems: Embrace the dark implications. Show how dark things really are… assumably as a prelude to heroically overcoming them.
In defeating Madara, Naruto and Hanabi wind up thrown out of their own place in spacetime and wind up in Sekirei.  This story definitely gives a less than ideal first impression but it also has some very clever twists and, once it gets going, it does a very creative and thorough job of interpreting the nature of the Sekirei crest in terms of fuuinjutsu.
What earns this a place on the list is that it doesn’t screw around and try to whitewash anything. Not only does it kill (not deactivate) a named canon character for the sake of bettering the story, it resolves the tonal conflict in Sekirei by showing you just how much sadistic power lurks behind those innocuous-looking crests.

As for the ones which don’t make the cut, they are still fun and worth a read… they just don’t directly address the aspects of canon I dislike, instead focusing on giving them as little attention as possible while focusing on things I do enjoy:

Runners Up

Ashikabi No Shinobi by pokemaster12
Solution to Tone Problems: Recast the potentially problematic nature of the bond as a way to force open the walls around the immortal hero’s heart. Avoid stepping on any tonal landmines.
Naruto Crossover. Noteworthy because it’s the first time I’ve run across a fic which truly makes the Sekirei-Ashikabi bond something good rather than a neutral set piece or something bad.
It does cover a lot of the same major plot points as In Flight but it also does enough new stuff that I enjoyed it… for example, thanks in part to Naruto’s memories of Jiraiya, I’ve never seen a more amusing portrayal of Matsu.
A Soul of Fire by SatireSwift
Solution to Tone Problems: Mostly, just copying what works in In Flight’s tone mixed with rethinking certain specific botched canon events like Homura’s transformation.
A self-proclaimed spin-off of In Flight, this fic explores what might happen if Sahashi Minato grew up to be Kotomine Shirou.
It doesn’t really put much focus into knocking down the elements of the setting I find distasteful, but it does do a decent job of focusing more on the characters and it’s the first Sekirei fic I’ve found where our hero manages to set up a cold war between Miya and MBI after all but declaring open war on the Sekirei plan. (To actually declare war, the other side has to recognize you as a serious threat rather than just a guy with a temper.)
It also brings Rin and Sakura into the mix, decides to mix up the Sekirei-Ashikabi pairings a bit, and takes Homura’s malleable body in a refreshing new direction. All in all, a very entertaining fic.
The Wagtail’s Cuckoo by Syroc
Solution to Tone Problems: Focus on a plot that never intersects canon and keep the reader distracted from the problematic side of things.
A little timeline adjustment where, when Shirou doesn’t heal quickly enough, Emiya Kiritsugu takes him to a hospital… where he ends up meeting and later getting adopted by Uzume and Chiho. It doesn’t really fight canon directly, per se, since it simply keeps all the elements I don’t like as far off camera as possible, but it’s so rare for me to find something that’s short, sweet, and complete like this that I’ll toss it in the honourable mention bin for now.
Debt of a Sword by gabriel blessing
Solution to Tone Problems: Focus on a plot that never intersects canon and keep the reader distracted from the problematic side of things.
A masterfully-written concept outtake from In Flight (Shirou-Miya pairing) that’s such a joy to read that it’s definitely earned a place on this list. Completed.
Mischief Fragment Sekirei by Kestral on the Anime Addventure
Solution to Tone Problems: Frustrate the antagonists, ignore the bond and let the reader assume Jiraiya the seal-master will eventually get around to figuring out something.
This was the first I’d ever heard of Sekirei and it has some interesting potential. The basic setup is that Jiraiya and Naruto wind up in the Sekirei setting due to some Addventure fatesplit dimension-jumping plot device, the details of which are unimportant.
The potential comes about in how good Naruto and Jiraiya, the extra-dimensional ninja spy master and student, are at outwitting MBI on sheer paranoia and unknown skills, despite not being fully familiar with the abilities of the locals.
Unfortunately, since I wrote this list, it’s been increasingly focused on diluting the Sekirei elements to the point where I’m not sure whether it’ll be listed here much longer.
Wizards, and Aliens, and Faeries Oh My! by Vanathor
Solution to Tone Problems: It’s a Dresden files fic where Sekirei happen to exist in the same universe. What tone problems?
The arrival of the Sekirei ends up having ripples in the context of the Dresden setting and Queen Mab calls in one of her favours to get Harry sent to Japan to investigate why some of the Wyld Fae who usually ally with her have dropped off the map.
This story is barely started, but I feel it really deserves notice because of how much potential is in it if it gets far enough into its story arc and continues in the direction it seems to be going. (Think Soul’s Light but with The Dresden Files rather than Evangelion.)
Sekirei of the Leaf by lord of the land of fire
Solution to Tone Problems: I had trouble feeling any problems but it’s so different from canon that it’s hard to localize the reason… it probably has something to do with the Elemental Nations having so many other evils (even if you ignore the Caged Bird Seal) that it’s easier to reconcile the two when you bring the Sekirei to Naruto rather than vice versa.
I’m honestly surprised that I’ve only ever seen this done twice (and that this is the only good one), given how mobile a crashing spaceship is as a plot device and how much originality and creativity it allows you to add to the plot. (I don’t count the third fic, which just relocates MBI to The Land of the Moon in the Elemental Nations. It’s even less interesting than something stupid like teleporting Naruto to Shin Tokyo because Madara hiccuped while fighting him.)
In this one, Minato is still dead, Miya is the fifth Hokage, and Naruto is half-sekirei… and my main reason for finding it so entertaining is seeing what parallels the author managed to draw with canon in this hugely different setting.
Angry, Angry Wizards by sakurademonalchemist
Solution to Tone Problems: Mock the stupidity of canon and reinterpret things to be less dire.
Angry, Angry Wizards is a humourous crossover built around a 15-year-old Harry Potter who is clever enough to convince Cornelius Fudge to emancipate him and pay his way into banishment from England, and then winds up with Karasuba, Haihane, and Akitsu as his flock after it’s discovered that Minaka is his second cousin.
With Akitsu reacting to him after he hides her from her maliciously incompetent adjuster, Karasuba loving his jaded take on her behaviour and dark sense of humor, and Harry plotting a hostile takeover of MBI after becoming majority stockholder, the tone already helps to diffuse canon’s problems somewhat, and it’s not every day you find a story that mocks the stupidity of canon in this way without feeling like a cheap fix-fic.
What makes it relevant to this list is the unique mention that, in addition to all that, it reinterprets Minaka’s canonical behaviour by saying that he tolerates forced wingings because those bonds will be broken during the Sekirei Plan and the sekirei in question will have another chance to find their proper ashikabi. In line with that paradigm, the Sekirei crests are an artificial creation intended to encourage defeats without permanent injury.
Likewise, the problem with Homura’s situation is resolved like in several other fics… he was born a female with a metamorphic ability and “because Sekirei”, his gender identity has no nature component for or against it… just a lifetime of nurture.
I just wish it had gotten further in its story arc.
See also Flock Off!, which was inspired by this fic and is entertaining in its own right but doesn’t quite have the right elements to make the cut for this list.

Honourable Mentions

The Bloody Ashikabi by Arawn D. Draven
Just as Sekirei has flaws which make it specific to a certain male audience, this fic has flaws which make it specific to a certain Harry Potter audience. As such, I can’t recommend it generally.
That said, if your taste in Harry Potter fics does line up with this fic’s design choices, it’s quite engaging. However, what earns this fic an honourable mention is how it handles turning Homura female. (I run a gender-bending fiction index, so I’m no prude here, but bonding a guy to a straight guy without potential for divorce, and then resolving that by non-consensually turning him female is definitely not what I’d call sexy.)
In this fic, Homura’s situation is made more palatable by “revealing” the following details through various means:
  • The extreme gender imbalance is such a normal facet of the Sekirei species that, in the complete absence of males, some females will temporarily metamorphose into males in order to ensure a viable breeding population. (In other words, not unlike certain real-world amphibians and tropical fish, made famous as a plot point in the original Jurassic Park.)
  • Homura’s adjuster didn’t realize this fact and locked Homura into a form meant to be temporary. Homura’s nearly fatal issues with control were a result of his/her body’s attempts to forcefully return to its natural state.
  • After coming to terms with the more conscious objections to becoming female after having been raised male, Homura realizes that doing so has resolved a discomfort she never realized she was feeling… which suggests that, coupled with their natural gender-fluidity, Sekirei have much more subdued gender-identity instincts.
  • When two Sekirei bond with each other, rather than bonding to a human, the urge to obey cancels out and they’re equal partners in the relationship (Discovered as a result of Harry getting turned into a human-Sekirei hybrid as part of saving his life). While this still doesn’t make everyone equal in a multi-way relationship, since each Sekirei can only have one Ashikabi, it does allow one to imagine a less “teenage power fantasy” interpretation of the species as they would exist back on their home planet.
Harry Potter and the Freedom of Apathy
While it never got beyond the setup, Harry Potter and the Freedom of Apathy does such a thorough job of acknowledging the problems with Sekirei canon by reinterpreting them that I feel it deserves a place here.
Specifically, Sekirei used to have multi-way bonds between equals, and the removal of that was engineered in after the cataclysm that destroyed their homeworld to prevent inbreeding. The Jinki and Pillars were a system for allowing individuals like Karasuba to be stripped of their powers. All the dark and disturbing implications of the canon Sekirei bonds resulted when, having realized how widespread Sekirei genetics are in Earth’s population, Takehito botched an attempt to bring back classical winging without the Sekirei ship containing a complete set of the relevant Jinki-manipulation equipment.
It’s still canon, with all its faults, but it softens the blow a lot and justifies the presence of the injustices as “humans being humans”.

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Worthwhile Familiars of Zero

Posted on 2013-02-20 by Stephan Sokolow

Updated 2020-12-12: Added “Loopholes”

Of all the stories I’ve encountered, Familiar of Zero (or “Zero no Tsukaima” as I still think of it) is an interesting case. I’ve never really seen the appeal of the anime and, while I haven’t had the opportunity to read the light novels, I’m doubtful I’d find them to my taste.

However, despite that, I still think it can be a lot of fun if you throw in the right replacement for Saito (usually a crossover) so you can either keep the canon characters entertainingly off guard or delve deeper into their psychology and culture than what I’ve seen of the anime.

As such, here are the ZnT stories which I found interesting:

Note: This list is incomplete and will be amended as I clear out my reading list.

Top Fics

The Hill of Swords by gabriel blessing
Emiya Shirou from Fate/Stay Night. A very long, detailed story with some very satisfying insights from Shirou along the way and some interesting character exploration for characters like Guiche and Kirche. Completed and quite possibly the only high-quality crossover which manages to run long enough to adapt the entire ZnT anime.
Zero no Tsukaima: Saito the Onmyoji by SeerKing
Hiraga Saito is a freshly graduated Onmyoji, from an Earth where the void element faded away (siphoned away to somewhere they can’t follow without the very void magic they’re missing)  but there has been much more impetus to continue to innovate.
If you like world-building on the topic of how magic works and why Louise has so much trouble, this is the fic for you. Heck, this story has a lot of interesting novel stuff, and it’s also over a novel worth of text already.
Loopholes by DschingisKhan
Louise summons Tabitha from across the field (after she summons Sylphid, though that’s not really emphasized much) instead of Saito from another world.
This story feels so different from canon (but justifiably so) that I wrote a whole review for it to better explore what makes it distinctive.
Everything and Nothing by The Sage of Toads
An OC who is an Aether mage. When Louise attempts to complete the bond, it backfires and she becomes his familiar. The OC ends up mentoring her without anyone else realizing that aether magic and void magic are two words for the same thing.
Devil Bringer of Zero by Himitsu the Hunter
Ryoko and Ryo-ohki from Tenchi Muyo. An interesting mix of humor (mostly focused on Ryo-ohki) and serious character work (Ryoko and those around her). I especially like how this not only explores a Louise-Familiar dynamic which isn’t antagonistic, but manages to keep it interesting by mixing in other types of conflicts and setting up a friendship between Ryoko and Kirche.
The Left ARM of God by RealmOfEmptiness
Zeruel from Neon Genesis Evangelion in the “cute girl” form used for the Chromosome XX 10th anniversary figurines. That probably sums up everything you need to know about how the story plays out.
Zero Interface by Golden Arms
Ranma Saotome from Ranma ½. Simply put, Ranma is up to his usual foot-in-mouth shenanigans in Halkegenia. If you like your humor and character development to come from someone annoying as many ZnT characters as possible and surviving but you still want it well-written, this is probably your fic.
That said, it does have character development and normal interactions, so don’t think it’s non-stop slapstick. It’s also another fic which spends an interesting amount of time on Kirche.
it also helps that Ranma’s cursed form mysteriously changes. I won’t spoil how, but it makes for some very entertaining misunderstandings.
Zero’s Cabbit by Kytranis
Hiraga Saito… but one who stumbled upon Ranma Saotome Doesn’t Miyah! and got turned into a cabbit just before getting summoned. The set up is a bit silly, but the fic’s not bad.
The Shinigami of Zero by Fenikkusumaru
An OC cosplayer who becomes a real Bleach-style Shinigami when summoned. It does something interesting with Derflinger and it’s the first story I’ve seen where the idea is raised that maybe Louise botches all her spells because Void magic is too powerful to be controlled by ordinary means. It also spends more time on the Dragon’s Raiment (Zero Fighter) than any other stories I’ve read and it’s the first story I’ve seen to consider the possibility of re-creating the circumstances which allowed Siesta’s grandfather to cross over to Halkegenia.
I will, however, caution potential readers that other Bleach elements start to come into the story later on. It’s done decently, so it’s still worth a read, but you may be disappointed if you were expecting something less action-oriented and more along the lines of a character-centric pure Zero fic with a Bleach-empowered OC making things interesting.
A Happi Time by Granoc
Happosai from Ranma ½. Comedic without going full-out crackfic. Louise summons the perverted old fart but, at the same time, someone who has the potential to teach her (and commoners) to beat mages without using magic.
Dovahkiin of Zero by sayain673
The cross should be pretty obvious from the title. It’s actually been quite a while since I read this and I don’t remember many specific details. What I do remember is that it included mentoring and scenes I enjoyed for the comparative magical theory.
Surrogate of Zero by Charles Bhepin
Shinji Ikari, post-Evangelion… now more a cosmic horror shackled by a human mind than a human and with Asuka piggybacking along in his mind. A rewrite of Points of Familiarity.
Points of Familiarity by Charles Bhepin
Shinji Ikari, post-Evangelion. Same plot as Surrogate of Zero but done a little differently and with more than just Asuka tagging along. Abandoned but still worth a read.
Team Zero by Cataquack Warrior
Jesse, James, and Meowth from Team Rocket. This story is an interesting mix: a light-hearted balance between humor and serious stuff. Sort of like Pokémon with the odd dash of humorous fourth wall bending, actually.
It also presents a nice change since it’s rare to see Team Rocket as protagonists, they make good willing familiars, and they’re good at being comically well-intentioned, hard-working, loyal screw-ups.
New Familiar New Trouble by Lord of the Magi
If you’re going to read a Zero fic with an OC who always seems to be ready for whatever the setting throws at him, read this one. As with all stories that succeed at this, the author seems to understand that the entertainment must come from keeping the reader guessing about what the OC will do next and how they’ll stay unpredictable rather than whether they’ll succeed. For example, it’s the first fic I’ve seen where:
  • It’s discovered that Siesta is a first-generation mage
  • There’s a potion accident that temporarily body-swaps Louise and her male OC familiar
  • We finally see a familiar using conjuring tricks to impress at the familiar exhibition
  • A human familiar summoning a familiar of their own… and also getting one that isn’t ordinary
God’s Eye by MarksmanKNG
An OC classmate of Louise’s summons another OC as The Eye of God. Saito is also present as in canon. A good implementation of several novel concepts tied together in one fic. However, I get the impression the author’s experience with Zero no Tsukaima is from fan-translated materials since various names and terms differ from the usual. (eg. “Dragon’s Plumage” rather than “Dragon’s Raiment”)
Plus, as a side benefit of the author focusing on a pair of OCs who don’t replace the canon characters, there’s more wiggle room for them to be original as long as they succeed as interesting characters. (Canon characters have to work harder to retain familiarity in the face of being original.)

Candidates (Need More Chapters)

A Pet Wizard by Qaint
Harry Potter, during the summer after Cedric Diggory died. One of the few fics which explore Louise summoning someone who is then recognized as a mage. It’s also interesting in that it’s still cutting back to Dumbledore and crew in a manner that suggests they might find a way to intervene in some future chapter.
Mistress of Death by The Fanfic Stealer
Harry Potter, millennia-old Master of Death. This only has about 5,000 words so far but, if it’s continued, it could be very amusing indeed.
Dragonrider of Zero by The Dimension Crossing Mew
A Pern dragon and her rider who are lost and dying between. This fic is actually listed as complete, but the author hasn’t ruled out the possibility of continuing it. I’m listing it more for the feeling of potential it shows.
Alchemist of Zero by KitsuneSwordsman95
An Edward Elric who sacrificed his life to save Al rather than his alchemy. While it’s only 22,000 words so far, I already get the impression that the author has plans for both an interesting friendship between Kirche and Ed and an interesting “alchemy is (re)introduced to Halkegenia” subplot… probably including Louise learning alchemy since I seem to remember her being good at the theoretical side of her magical education.
Louise the Lyrical by MangamanZX
A 93-year old Nanoha. While not marked completed, this hasn’t been updated in over a year. It makes an OK oneshot but, if it is completed, this has the potential to become one of the best “summoned mentor/teacher” stories around.

Desired (Stuff I’ve Yet To See)

Louise becoming her own familiar
Either summoning or being summoned by an alternate universe double or making a copy of herself with memories intact.
…or, now that I think about it, her becoming master and familiar in one person. That’d be difficult to write since it’d rely heavily on exploring how it affects her as a person and the social ramifications, not to mention the need to create the magical implications from whole cloth, but it has a ton of potential to be interesting if the author can pull it off.
Louise becoming the familiar of a non-mentor
Possibly another human, but I get the feeling the most fun is to be had making fun of the familiar bond by making Louise familiar to an animal summon who either doesn’t know or doesn’t care that the familiar bond is backwards.
Louise summoning someone who is as stubborn as she is and refuses to come to some kind of agreement
I’ve seen this done in The Shinigami of Zero, but it didn’t last long enough to really explore the dynamic. I’ve also seen Emperor of Zero explore the idea of someone very independent who has their own plans very different from Louise’s but Napoleon’s too diplomatic to remain antagonistic.
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