To Aru ... Fanfiction Discussion Thread

[Yu Ominae]

I sure would like to write a way for my planned story that would culminate in defeating Aleister and his plans with the city though...

[SmokinFerret88]

Can someone remind me what age a student in Academy City has to be before they can take part in the Power Development Curriculum? I remember it being mentioned somewhere that the student had to be a certain age before they could take part in it, but I forgot what that age-range was.

[The One Above God]

Originally Posted by SmokinFerret88

Can someone remind me what age a student in Academy City has to be before they can take part in the Power Development Curriculum? I remember it being mentioned somewhere that the student had to be a certain age before they could take part in it, but I forgot what that age-range was.

I think it was somewhere around 5...maybe

[allfictions]

Originally Posted by SmokinFerret88

Can someone remind me what age a student in Academy City has to be before they can take part in the Power Development Curriculum? I remember it being mentioned somewhere that the student had to be a certain age before they could take part in it, but I forgot what that age-range was.

Was it actually ever mentionned? Because I sure don't recall any such thing. The closest is Misaka's mom saying that she can't enter the program because of her age. Though whether that's because it's impossible or just because AC doesn't accept applicants as old as her wasn't said.

[Welsh_Dragon]

I think it's because she is an adult. When one reaches adulthood the brain stops growing/is fully developed and it can become harder to take in new and more complex information. As a child the brain hasn't/isn't fully developed so it is possible to implant more knowledge. This is why it is easier to learn a second language as a kid than as an adult.

[Itherael]

Well, I appreciate the input, guys. You rock.

Originally Posted by SmokinFerret88

Okay, so, looking for input here. Among the members of dark-side in Academy City, hell even in the light-side of it, which Canon Character(s) should make an appearance soon in ACWOD?

Excluding Mikoto for....reasons....

Well, well, my food friend, Captain Ferret. Why not make Sogiita Guhna appear? Seeing Kamijou's current position as a member of ITEM, I think you could arrange some unwanted interference from him in one of his jobs, by thus creating a possible funny scene with him and I would suggest, with Frenda or Kinuhata as well.

Another interesting possibility would be Musujime Awaki meeting the boy-

[allfictions]

Originally Posted by Welsh_Dragon

I think it's because she is an adult. When one reaches adulthood the brain stops growing/is fully developed and it can become harder to take in new and more complex information. As a child the brain hasn't/isn't fully developed so it is possible to implant more knowledge. This is why it is easier to learn a second language as a kid than as an adult.

True, and I just realized there was something to that effect in NT11:

While this is an extremely unique situation, the two of them will end up plateauing at around Level 3 if they are given the standard Curriculum.

We must prune one of them and focus on the other.

We must make the decision before they enter the harsh hormone fluctuations of adolescence to ensure their talent is not crushed.

[Welsh_Dragon]

^I am just happy I finally got to use what I learned in the developmental psychology class I took in college. lol

[rubix22]

How do I create an original character without wanting to punch myself in the face?

[Chaos2Frozen]

Originally Posted by rubix22

How do I create an original character without wanting to punch myself in the face?

Base him/her off of someone you know... Ideally someone you wouldn't want to punch yourself in the face with.

[tsunade666]

Based it on your own ideal person? Ideal hero, ideal heroine and ideal villain.

[agetreme]

Originally Posted by tsunade666

Based it on your own ideal person? Ideal hero, ideal heroine and ideal villain.

Wouldn't it be bad? I mean there is a potential that one might end up with a Mary Sue character if mishandled.

=

After a long hiatus from here, I am back in the mood to work on my To Aru project....which was like a year or months ago?

I am an insanely procrastinating procrastinator.....

Edit:

I got lazy with coming up with crazy and weird ability so I am going with: the Protagonist OC's power is basically...Save-Scumming. It fit into my criteria of:
1. could be mistaken as a low level (level 2) Esper with Precognition as ability.
2. Personality-wise, I can simplify it to: A really hardcore Gamer.... Resetting Game over and over again.
3. Technically not over-powered. (Unless you consider Knowledge is power...)
4. Fit into the idea of multi-verse (which the story has few elements of).

Question: How do you stop an Esper who can manipulate time? Manipulate as in Slow down time to a point where time appear to stop moving. None of the fancy time-traveling stuff except for that guy I mentioned above.

[rubix22]

Facepunching aside, I find it hard to create a character that feels like it "belongs" in a said universe. I've got a few OCs in my sleeve, but they all feel weirdly unreal. But I guess that's the nature of fanfiction. Maybe some feedback would help?

Originally Posted by agetreme

How do you stop an Esper who can manipulate time? Manipulate as in Slow down time to a point where time appear to stop moving. None of the fancy time-traveling stuff except for that guy I mentioned above.

This sounds like something that boils down to: Can Accelerator beat the Flash?

[Draco Spirit]

Originally Posted by rubix22

How do I create an original character without wanting to punch myself in the face?

Is a question I asked myself recently!

I've been working on a original fantasy fiction lately.. so everyone is OC by defaults. The worry in the back of my mind of course is 'please don't let this character by a Mary or Gary Sue' >.<

The way I'm handling it is by making sure every character personality got the obvious double edges and starting with archetypes... but not finishing there.

So to give a simple breakdown of one of the major characters.

Proud warrior Lady - Is a trained killer and a werelion. So fast, strong and clever when it comes to violence. Between her werelion nature and training, she's basically Cpt America with fangs and regeneration.

So I made sure her lycanthropy a proper curse. The more emotional she gets, the closer she becomes to becoming a out of control lion/human hybrid monster that will try to tear apart anyone she can find.

Result, she deeply disciplined and regimented, emotional stunted and has a deep insecurity complex at trusting herself (which I'm so abusing for plot pushing).

So for any OCs I start with a archetype and then flesh them out. Make sure they can be loved and hated in different lights.

[SmokinFerret88]

The tricky thing about an OC depends on their role. If its a protagonist, antagonist, or just a supportive character also plays a role into how they will function in the long run.

Personally, Yoshihiro Togashi is my role model when I make my characters for any of the three criteria I previously mentioned. Can't help it, he throws in some insight to not just one side, but all sides, and it create's perspectives that allow everyone to see that, while the hero's are good and the villains are evil, you at least get some depth to them. You see their reasons, their perspective, and as a result you can by some degree understand why either side is doing it for besides the whole 'world's in jeopardy, need to save it' or 'hate/don't care about the world, gonna destroy it' motives.

Admittedly though, I wouldn't worry too much about the whole mary sue / gary sue thing. No matter how good the OC is, the fact that is an Original Character automatically is gonna have someone claiming them to be either or. It's a stigma, you'll at least get one, but as long as you provide some proper balancing and they are well written, then I imagine nobody would have any serious complaints. I mean, I made 9 OC already, more in the works too, and I didn't see many people complaining about them at all during their run time.

So, as I said, as long as their role in the story is established, they're pros and cons are balanced and the writings good, nobody should really care or complain too much.

[agetreme]

So long as you balance out the Pro and Con, I think it would be okay.

I mention "mishandle" because a Mary Sue can be well-written in the hand of a really skilled writer. So.... it's not impossible just really difficult to do.

Originally Posted by rubix22

This sounds like something that boils down to: Can Accelerator beat the Flash?

My current solution is: You just need to stick something(a bomb or that Robotic Insect thing) on the Time Manipulator.

Reason: AIM field prevented the Time Manipulator from killing him/herself.... by normalizing time around the Ability User, creating some sort of barrier where time flow normally around him/her.

However, this is also a double edge sword: Time flow normally for the User which means the User is aging faster than normal person.

=

I am also trying to find a way to incorporated Esper with fun abilities: Trying to justify it as the School which is involved with my plot is interested in developing Esper with weird/interesting abilities.

Headmaster: "Even Turds can be shiny if you polished them hard enough!"

=
Mujin Sekai
Level 0 Probability Zero (Critical Failure):
An Esper whose power is just bad luck. This Ability ignore all probability and go for the worst and most illogical outcome. (Esper will always rolling Critical Fumble on the dice).

Fail at Luck so badly that everybody would end up rolling a Critical Fumble on their dice roll. The kind of bad luck that will result in getting 100 red balls from a box with only green balls (red paint fall into the box prior).

However this also make the Esper effectively anti-Majin Esper.

Level 0 because it is difficult to quantify/measure...also impossible to control and it activate at random....which make it ironic. A power that ignore probability can only be activated based on random probability.

Personality-wise: Lack in self-confidence (everything that the character do is doomed to fail...so badly that it defy logic) but have strong desire to help others however any project undertaken are doomed to catastrophe failure. Whenever the character proposed to help, probably an omen that one should stop.

Joke Character mostly.

=
Yomihara
Level 4 Flawless Estimation (Perfect Ruler):
The Ability-User is also insanely good with tracking Time.

Perfect Ruler (as in the tool used to measure things). The User is cable of estimate anything with Pin-point accuracy almost instantly so long as the User have some point of reference.

Also capable of preventing any Esper (including Accelerator) from using their power....by messing up with their calculation (so long as the Esper know what they are calculating) forcing them to constantly recalculate.

Esper's level is not Level Four because of ability to mess with Espers but Level 4 due to ability has military uses such as a Artillery observer or a super-long range Sniper. However this is also the Esper's limit, the furthest the Esper could go on the Parameter List.

Personality-wise: Suffer from Obsessive–compulsive disorder. At certain time, the Character need to perform a ritual of counting personal belonging otherwise the Character would suffer from a panic attack. This would prevented the Character from being useful in situation where the character's ability would come in handy...

=

Tokiomi
Level 4 Teleporter /(at least level 5) Time Control (Chrono-hand/Time Manipulator).
Esper is Level 4 is due to ability to teleport one self to a certain distance but the range and the weight leave much to desire.

Tokiomi always assumed that time-freezing is how teleporter get around.....

Time Control:
It may take a while to "warm up" (lots of calculation are involved) but once the calculation is done, within one hour, the Esper is capable of turning the power on and off as if pressing the stop button on a stopwatch.

Time Manipulator need to reset the calculation once every 1 hour...the Esper's 1 hour, not the world.

The maximum duration that the Esper's "freeze Time" could last is 24 hours.(This including the hourly recalibration requirement which can be done while time is "stopped").

Mentioned earlier: The character's AIM field function like some sort of Time-barrier in which time flow normally while the time beyond the Esper flow slowly. The character is capable of extending AIM field slightly beyond body but that is not a good thing because the character could use this to kill people.

(Think of it this way: the Brain is functioning normally but the heart is not pumping blood into the brain fast enough. Say, how long will a brain last without oxygen from blood.)

Personality-wise: Unmotivated like the Protagonist OC but even more apathetic than the Protagonist OC (who at least is passionate about games).

The Time Manipulator's ultimate/ end-goal is to be as lazy as possible and somehow still manage to get away with it (while still getting paid).

[LevelSeven]

Originally Posted by agetreme

So long as you balance out the Pro and Con, I think it would be okay.

it depends on the story,
making a OP char is nowhere close to "making a mary sue",
accel as example is OP and most of his fights in the LN are curpstomb battles, but the story focuses on his mind and his emotional/mental problems instead of "how easy can he beat them"...

actually, making a char with to much cons is like "anti-mary sue" where the char cant be used except in a highly favorable way for the said char,
every other way would simply look like bad writing or "plot wanted it" :/

to your power ideas :

My current solution is: You just need to stick something(a bomb or that Robotic Insect thing) on the Time Manipulator.

Reason: AIM field prevented the Time Manipulator from killing him/herself.... by normalizing time around the Ability User, creating some sort of barrier where time flow normally around him/her.

However, this is also a double edge sword: Time flow normally for the User which means the User is aging faster than normal person.

or let him "overload" his body while stopping time,
afterall, the manipulation of one of the most essential things in the universe and existence itself is bound to have a heavy drawback,

letting him caugh blood, organs failings and many kinds of cancer who advance but not kill him + having a "benjamin button"-body would be simple as side effect but also not really exaggarated

Mujin Sekai
Level 0 Probability Zero (Critical Failure):

cool name
but this char would die,
without "luck" and with the way you descirbed it, he would die before he even lived 2 days with that power,
having this kind of misfortune would surely let him get a heart attack or deadly wound by simply walking to a store for coffee

Yomihara
Level 4 Flawless Estimation (Perfect Ruler):
The Ability-User is also insanely good with tracking Time.

yeah, this sounds like a char from the dark side

Personality-wise: Suffer from Obsessive–compulsive disorder. At certain time, the Character need to perform a ritual of counting personal belonging otherwise the Character would suffer from a panic attack. This would prevented the Character from being useful in situation where the character's ability would come in handy...

having personality problems because of their powers reminds me on "Alphas" and i like it

Time Control:
It may take a while to "warm up" (lots of calculation are involved) but once the calculation is done, within one hour, the Esper is capable of turning the power on and off as if pressing the stop button on a stopwatch.

Time Manipulator need to reset the calculation once every 1 hour...the Esper's 1 hour, not the world.

The maximum duration that the Esper's "freeze Time" could last is 24 hours.(This including the hourly recalibration requirement which can be done while time is "stopped").

sounds like some good limiations
if this OC become a damsel in distress and needs to be saved than i see a good plot with a kihara who researched time travel and finally found a way to go back in time, via boosting of her esper ability into a "place" where she was by lvl5.9999, after that she dies but it is not like it cares the villian

(Think of it this way: the Brain is functioning normally but the heart is not pumping blood into the brain fast enough. Say, how long will a brain last without oxygen from blood.)

if im not wrong than i think it was around 2 minutes :/

if you need more joke powers:

-Absolute Luck
-> has luck beyond the logical "limits": char doesnt care about anything and views life and death like a boring game, he gets everything and doesnt need the slightest bit of effort

-Uncontrolled Dummy Check on Lvl5
-> char cant be recignized by ANYONE no matter what he does, not even machines recognize him, if he wants to take something he can take it, he is basically like a physical ghost only that he cant go through walls : char is walking around nude and does whatever he wants, has a view on others the same way as a human to a animal, like somethhing inferior in every possible way

-Stardust Platinum
-> char has a Stand similar to the ones from jojos bihzarre adventures, by changing the massive amounts of calculation he can create another stand but can only use one of them at a time + he still gets injured if the stand is injred the same way as the ones from jojo-verse, and the stands are invisible except for people who can see ultraviolet-rays : his power makes him believe that he is invincible and thanks to his versalite power he thinks he is omnipotent

[agetreme]

About Mujin Sekai:

The joke is: The Esper's Luck is so bad that even the Bad Luck failed to kill the Esper.

Bad Luck tried to kill Mujin!
Roll a 1 on D20.

Alternative explanation: The character is so jinxed that the character only live so as to suffer another bout of bad luck in the future.

=

Yomihara is not part of Dark Side. The Esper's use in the story is..... Time-keeping.

=

Will modify some of your suggestion but I got to go.

More weird power:
Level 3 Love Control (Charming Point):
A Narcissist who power allow him to mind-control Female (and Female only). Power doesn't work on Esper such as Mikoto and Misaki...because the power is actually similar in nature to Misaki's Mental Out...only more limited.

[TkMacintosh]

So, I found a good to decent Touma/Saten fanfic, but the only problem is that the flow of it starts out a little hard to get comfortable with, but you may eventually get past it and enjoy it as a whole.

Never the Twain shall meet

It's a rather fun story all things considering. I do like how much the author is attempting to insert Saten into Touma's life without completely and utterly screwing up the current time line as well as trying to keep the characters in character as much as possible.

[agetreme]

My last post from my note to get myself into the mood to write....

Spoiler for If anybody wanted to read...skip and ignore.:

[ANOTHER] Academy City:
An alternate version of Academy City where Magic don't exist.... In this version, the Academy City is run by a being called [A.C.].

Spoiler for AC:

Doesn't stand for Aleister Crowley but Abstract Computer....
Also known as Data Erudite Machine (D.E.M.). It is a powerful Super Computer that is capable of manipulate Events to certain extend......An Anti-magician Super Weapon which is the reason why Magician don't exist in [ANOTHER].

[PSIONICS]:

Spoiler for because of length:

[ANOTHER]'s version of magicans. Instead of using religion, they use some sort of Network (similar to Multi-Skill) to use their "magic".

The base concept is still the same: People without talent trying to do things that people with talent are capable of.

Through the use of an Impersonal Reality generator together with a powerful network Server. (Imitating Idol Theory....Deriving "magic" from a Source). a normal human being is able to use Esper's ability through Programs known as Psionics.

This allow Psions to have a large variety of powers without the same limitation as Esper (one person one power). However, Psions not only have to prepare their Psionics before hand (every Psionics have an access code), they also have limited number of use (The said access code expire with certain number of uses). In a sense, they are similar to DnD wizard.

The one major limiting factor that prevent Normal normal people from becoming a Psion is: It is difficult to get into. Unless you have the know how, programming a "Psionic" is not as easy as one think.... The Programming code are insanely complex and are getting more complicated with every updates. But if you are rich enough, there are Programmers who sell those programs at exorbitant price.

As of the start of the story, the Code manual which contain all the Codes for programming Psionic is at a whooping 103,000 volumes. There are no soft-copy due to some idiot deleting the whole things 15 years ago so one have to search it from a reference library in Academy City which only certain people with high level of security clearance can access.

Fortunately there is a "Search Index" (guess) who can allow one to find the code they need instantly. Not to mention....there is a special volume within the 103,000 volumes, refer joking as the Book of Law. Solving the puzzle within the "Book of Law" would allow Psions to gain the "Master Key Code" which allow unlimited access to all Server.

Finally
Sendou Hiromichi (Michi)
Level 2 Premonition (Precognition)
Able to predict events that would happen minutes before it occur with good enough accuracy(between 80 to 99%).

Due to his AIM, he technically experience it before... however since he could not remember everything....the accuracy is not very good unless he keep reloading (the rest is just unconsciously doing Statistical Probability).

The reason why Blind Poker System Test work for him because it flare up his gamer spirit.

[ANOTHER] Hiromichi (Hiro) actually DO have Precognition as his power rather than Save Point.

Spoiler for Save Point:

True ability: Save Point
Ability to "Save" and "Load". Active use of his power is basically Quick Save and Quick Load (which due to being unaware the true nature of his power, he could not use it consciously).

Secondary effect of that is the Esper is also capable of resetting possibility...by basically re-rolling dice by reloading from Save Point (AKA save-scumming). While this secondary effect is useless against Critical Failure's Possibility Ignore effect fortunately this ability actually help mitigate some damages that Critical Failure would have caused.

His AIM is an involuntary auto-save and load. This grant him immunity to mental attack and telepathy because his mind always auto-recalibrate itself (with information from the future) after a reset which happen often (due to his AIM).