Anyway, have a slightly related picture of Rinoa and Squall, yes, they're on the Ragnarok, but this picture, okay? Where he's holding her and all... yeah...
So, yeah, I had a ton of feels in this chapter and some of them were not okay.
Rinoa was just a bucket of feels and so was Squall, but he's trying to hide them because he's Squall and that's what he does and just... ugh!
But Rinoa's having the... "I know Adel's dead but I just can't quite believe it yet and everyone must think I'm dangerous and I would have been better off frozen, do you seriously care about me enough to rescue me and oh my gosh I was possessed I just feel gross and icky and no one likes me now and I should just go get frozen because that's what's best for everyone and..."
And Squall's like... "I have to know Adel's gone but there's a part of me that doesn't care because I think I love you but if love isn't the right word than I'm not quite sure what is, but I've realized I don't want to live without you so I think you're stuck with me and oh dear, why are you crying?"
BUT HE FLIPPING SLAMS ON THE BRAKES AND THEN HE HOLDS HER AND OH MY FEELS.
Sorry, for subjecting you to that. I have feels, I'm sorry.
Is there anything I want to say that isn't deep fried and covered in feels? Nope, not really. My outline basically says that Squall goes and gets Rinoa and then they come back and talk about how they're going to go after Ultimecia. The feels came later.
Though I have a completely different set of feels for the second half. The second half is "Gosh, Headmaster Cid, why are you such a presumptuous jerk?" I like, did not mean to write him that way, and I know he must have some redeeming qualities because he IS Edea's Knight, but... like... he's so presuming. *rolls eyes* But then Quistis and Edea make up for it because they're both willing to take on Ultimecia's powers if it makes it easier for Rinoa and Rinoa is kind of shocked because she didn't expect that from them. Mostly because she's having self-confidence issues. Those will get solved later.
Um, so Review Responses:
KKBeckett: Um, maybe it was a reference to Aladdin? I guess it was. There's no itty bitty living space involved though. But Rinoa practically has phenomenal cosmic powers, so... And basically, the rest of that is my feels in general. Quistis is awesome and Rinoa needs a confidence boost. Yep.
Have an oddly appropriate VOCALOID Video:
I have feels about this song, too. They are similar to rar's feels. Anywho, have a nice day!
So, somewhere along the lines, I decided I wanted to include a chapter that had pre-Organization Larxene (I guess Arlene?). Mostly because I happen to like the canon where the Organization is just WAITING for her to turn into a Nobody because she has so much potential. But she's doing pretty good as a Somebody. So good, that she landed herself the second-to-last spot in one of the Olympus cups.
I thought about Xigbar being the last person in the cup, because he's keeping an eye on her, but then I figured that would be too much, so I cut Xigbar and threw in a Guard Armor, because it didn't really matter anyway, because that's the battle Angeal comes and helps with. (Which is why Larxene wasn't last.)
So anyway, I started writing backstories and stuff for her and it was not okay. I'm not even sure how she wormed her way into the story at all (as the livetumbl will attest to.)
All I had originally planned was Zack looking for Angeal and he winds up in Olympus Coliseum because that's where Angeal's gonna be and Phil ends up forcing Zack through a cup because that's what Phil does. That's all I knew. But then all the Heartless battles would get boring and monotonous, and then Larxene happened.
Fun fact, Zack saying "bitter taste" upon finding Angeal missing and his mother recently having passed away is a direct reference to Axel saying the exact same thing after the final battle in All the Pieces and Saix dying. I'm not sure if it was intentional, but I definitely realized it after the fact and figured I'd make mention of it here.
Another fun fact, what Zack's got equipped is the exact same thing that I had equipped when I was going through Crisis Core as I was simultaneously writing this chapter/playing the game.
Also, rar went through some cups in Olympus in KH1 to help me determine just how easy certain Heartless would be for Zack. It was pretty amusing and fun.
The Crisis Core soundtrack was super helpful for me when I was writing this chapter. It's super handy for just about the next several chapters I write with Zack (having all of them written, I can say this with utmost confidence.) You'll hear more about it, I'm sure. Or you won't, 'cause I'll have forgotten.
Also, Zack was giving me feels prematurely and it was not okay.
Review Responses:
So Zack has exactly what he needs... for now. At the moment, at least. And yes, yes, that is Larxene. Most definitely. I don't know how, it just happened.
Have a very Zack-related video! (for some reason, it won't let me embed it, but Tto12 is awesome (so is ARS), so you should click on it.)
So, this is the chapter where Leon finally decides that he's going to go after Rinoa. Goodness, that took some persuading. (Actually, it really didn't. Edea basically just had to tell him what he needed to do.) Anyway.
Literally, this is what I had written in my outline:
Leon, Zell, and Quistis were forced to go back to Balamb without Rinoa, but with Laguna. Despite everything Laguna said, there was no retrieving Rinoa. After agonizing about this for a while, Leon takes it upon himself to go rescue Rinoa. He realizes that he cares about her a lot, maybe even to the point of love. Edea coaches him a bit about Sorceress Knights and he goes off to rescue her. On the way, he realizes that he loves her. He brings Rinoa back to herself and she gets the two sets of Sorceress powers under control.
Yeah, so that happened.
by *Mar-ka on dA
Well, it kind of happened like that. That particular portion of the outline hadn't been updated since I decided
that Adel's consciousness wasn't going to die yet. Originally, Rinoa just lost control of the second set of powers, rather than Adel having anything to do with it. But, aside from that modification.
What I do wish I had done, was maybe make the fight against Adel take a little longer. Reading through it again, I feel like I shortened it by too much to keep it in a chapter length. I don't know. Anyone else have any thoughts on that?
Despite that, I'm glad I included the Adel conscious in favor of Rinoa just losing control. It make Rinoa the only girl who gets possessed, sure, but that's one girl out of a load of boys who have trouble with "shadows" (e.g. Rar's Sora, Riku and Cloud (and kind of Zack).) *not spoilers because of AtP and BB*
Though, it does make this sequence a little bit darker than originally planned. Whoopsies.
Then, to piggy-back off of what the livetumbl has going on... I *love* the sarcasm that Leon's got going on. "I'm going to go visit it as a tourist attraction--no, I'm going to try and rescue her, you dumbwit!" The second half of that post refers to Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog. Because sarcasm, that's original.
Then, in those last moments, he's just so mushy. And he's never been more grateful that Rinoa's always called him 'Squall' in his life. I made sure that Adel always referred to him as 'boy', and it's not until Rinoa's truly herself again that she calls him 'Squall.' Heheh.
I rather like the letter chapters. I've written quite a few more, actually. They're pretty fun. I think this is the only one I'll do with multiple short letters. A lot because formatting is a pain. However, I did make this happen:
I imagine that these would all just be sitting on her bedside table as she gets to them and responds to them. It was fun picking out fonts for the three of them. The handwriting for Zack is actually my own, modified for my character Tristan from my book. So, yeah. That's exciting.
Anyway, there's a lot going on in the chapter, though some is summary.
First we've got Zack's letter to his parents, which is modified from an actual letter he sent to his parents in the games. Right down to the girlfriend part. Heh.
Then there's Tifa, who's just sending a letter to every single town on the Planet, trying to get a hold of Cloud. Unfortunately, he's not going to be getting any of these letters anytime soon. And it's kinda depressing when you think about it.
Anyway, then there's Leon telling Quistis that he's off to find Rinoa. Rescue Rinoa. Whatever. And it's oddly like Riku telling Alpha he's heading to Hollow Bastion from rar's universe. That happened fairly recently, didn't it? Or has he been in Hollow Bastion for a while, now? Anyway, Leon at least left a note, as opposed to Riku, who just sent a Joseph.
Then there's Zack being adorable. He's so proud that he came across that book for Aerith, because he knows she's been looking for one for a while and he's just so happy that he can help. And he misses her, and he loves her and OH MY GOSH STOP BEING ADORABLE YOU TWO. SHEESH.
And then there's Angeal. And he's doing a thing. And it's not okay. Rar and I are in agreement on this.
Take your guesses now.
Oh, and yes, Yuffie apparently misses Leon. I threw it in there as a bit of a random tidbit, but yes, Yuffie misses him. Sort of. He'll get back and she won't be too happy that he doesn't let her get away with things, but yeah, she misses him.
So, these snippets were only loosely plotted out. I knew that the Aerith/Zack/Angeal section was going to be short because writing a whole chapter on them researching would be boring to read after a while unless I had them run into someone and I like the idea of them going in and out with no one noticing.
Leon being restless at Balamb Garden is also a short sort of thing, considering he's just going to go gallivanting off to go rescue her in the next chapter or two and that's a whole sequence.
The Rinoa sequence got abridged because I needed to include the snippet with Cloud. But it worked out, honestly, in my opinion.
by ~xxx-TeddyBear-xxx on dA
And then there's Sora, Riku, and Kairi, who never have long chapters, just snippets. And that's cool.
(I am aware that picture has nothing to do with the chapter, but I love this debate. One of these days, I will write Sora and Riku in Christmas town.)
I feel really bad for Zack, I'm shattering his world around him, and while it's hardly different than what happens to him in the game, it's still sad to watch.
Leon's just being adamant about going and rescuing Rinoa, which is good, because he needs to. (And admit he loves her while he's at it.)
Rinoa's sequence, on the other hand, got super dark super fast. I wasn't aware she was going to start ramming herself into walls in an attempt to beat Adel out of her. When I wrote that I was literally like... Rinoa... what are you doing?!?!?!? Yeah. I wasn't expecting that.
And poor Cloud. He literally has the worst luck. And he's just in the Realm of Darkness, walking, and it's rather saddening.
I determined that Riku's dad went missing sometime before he was eight. I'm not sure how far before, but based on how Sora assumed Wakka was teasing him, it might have been recently. Maybe not. No real telling.
Review Responses:
KKBeckett: Yes, Angeal needs to stop thinking that he's a monster. Ugh. It's annoying. And yeah, Leon should admit that soon. Should being the operative word. Rinoa's doing exactly what you think she's doing and it's not okay. Yes, poor Cloud. And yeah... Riku... just... don't punch people. But... yeah...
Also, I'm obsessed with this song at the moment. Heh.
So, I'm not quite sure what gave me the idea to do letters, but I fell in love with it as soon as I wrote them out. I think it was because I knew that the characters were writing letters back and forth to each other, so why not exemplify that? As the liveblog said, I'm using them to almost summarize things that would take longer scenes to work out otherwise, but I still get a great bit of emotion, because I'm actually in these characters heads.
Yes, this time around, there was a lot of summary involved, but I think that'll change in the future. I'm intending to write a lot more letters between the characters as the story progresses.
by ~venardhi on dA
And, since I can't really find a good picture of letters, have an awesome cosplay of Cid!
I think this is the first point in which Aerith's initial worry about Zack starts to show. Because, honestly, she's just sitting off to the side as she's watching Zack cope with both the fact that he killed someone and the fact that his friend is dying. This is also where Aerith vows to do whatever she can to help Zack. Because that's who Aerith is. Also, Aerith's been writing letters for a long while. She writes to Zack because she loves him, and Leon because she loves him--but in a different way. She just wants Leon to come home, and at the same time, she wants Leon to follow his heart (especially where Rinoa is involved.) Aerith's a huge Squinoa shipper.
Leon, of course, responds to every letter Aerith sends, when he gets the chance to, anyway. He's busy killing Sorceresses! Well, sort of. Aerith ends up being the first person he admits to that he might actually like Rinoa. Of course, he hasn't quite admitted it yet, but he's gotten really close. (While he's doing that, he's being super adorable and it's just so feels-inducing.) Meanwhile, he's also struggling with his feelings towards his father, and he just wants some answers, which is why he reaches out to Cid.
Cid, of course, never writes letters. He only wrote one because Leon wanted a response and Aerith pestered him to do it. This particular letter of Cid's gave me so many feels and it was not okay! Because Cid is a father figure to Leon, it's just not the most obvious relationship in the worlds. But Cid really does want the best for Leon, as a weird mixture of an older-brother-father-figure-ish-thing. The age difference is something I haven't quite figured out, but, all the same, ugh, Cid, feels!
I really love how the different styles showed up. I think I really pulled that off. Aerith's very detailed in her letters. She wants to let the people she's writing to know exactly what's going on. But, outside of that, the letters become a place where she ends up voicing her most inner thoughts.
Leon, on the other hand, doesn't really have a logical order to his letters. They're very stream of consciousness, because he's still trying to figure everything out as he's writing it. The letter writing is a way that he organizes his thoughts, which ends up making the letters unorganized. However, for the things he does know and has figured out, he ends up being very brief, because why waste the time otherwise?
Cid's style is a lot how Cid just talks. In this particular letter, he was telling a story, so I can't really narrow down if all of his letters are/would be like this. All the same, he doesn't write letters often, so, he probably has a lot to say (even if it's only one one particular subject) when he does write letters.
Anywho, that's all I have to say. This vid is awesome.
So, once again, I've got a chapter that's split up into four sections. The FFVIII arc takes up half of it, then I have Denzel's birth slid in as well as the ending sequence involving Lea and Isa (now Axel and Saix.)
I do feel bad for Zell, because he's kind of just standing there awkwardly while everyone else figures out their next move. Laguna's super apologetic after what happened and he wants to make it up to Leon and Leon's just like "go away, I never liked you anyway."
So, this is where I start being super mean to Rinoa though. Originally, Ultimecia was supposed to come and absorb Adel's powers before Rinoa could get to them. This would then of course spurn a ton of "oh crap, we have to kill her before she kills us all now!" But as I was writing, I got to thinking that I liked the idea of Adel trying to make Rinoa a vessel again. I thought "oh crap, that's mean", but I just couldn't resist! Once I had it worked out, I was super in love with the idea, so it stuck. It spawned this in my outline:
"Before they even leave Esthar, Rinoa suddenly loses control of the second set of Sorceress' powers. Adel's consciousness overpowers her and Rinoa is essentially possessed by Adel. She starts destroying Esthar. Esthar police come and lock Rinoa up in the containment facility."
So, yup, that happened.
Outside of that, I decided to give the chapter with Denzel's birth as a marker for where we are in the timeline, more than anything else.
by ~G-a-t-i-n-h-a on dA
Same thing goes for Lea and Isa. Though, they have a little bit more plot involved. This marks when they're found by the organization, specifically Xigbar. I also tried to show Lea's apprehension about the whole thing. Lea and Isa's friendship is still intact though, at this point. For now, at least.
Anyway, let's do review responses.
archsage from chapter 25: Yes. Oh dear is right.
From chapter 26: I'm glad you're finding things to be getting more and more interesting. To answer your question about locations of other people: Marlene isn't born yet, Vincent and the others are around. (I know, so specific, huh?) Other than that, no, I haven't read that particular fic, maybe I will when I get a chance.
KKBeckett: Yes, Leon would really like it if Laguna stopped helping. Not that that's going to happen anytime soon. And, yeah, Axel's a little over it all.
Anyway, this video is just for fun and giggles. There was a post on tumblr that highlighted the piece of music (one that my cello teacher had hanging on her wall for laughs). My friend (who doesn't play music) was talking about how that should be possible. But... it's not. It's just... not. Not for one person playing everything.
If you look at the timestamps on those, it's because one is a liveblog, and the other is more thoughts that I added later. Heh.
So, anyway, I could give you a beautiful epic picture of Zack fighting Genesis. However, I'm going to give you this photo instead:
Photo put up by ~Rinoafox on dA. Because while, yes, it has absolutely nothing to do with the chapter, it's absolutely hilarious. Because, seriously. Hojo. Go die.
Anyway, moving on.
I outlined absolutely nothing for this chapter. I just knew there would be a final confrontation with Genesis. At the time when I was writing this, I had yet to actually beat Crisis Core, so I went and watched the final battle on YouTube because it wasn't like I was spoiling myself, I knew what happened anyway after watching rar play it. (Why did I just try to type "R" and leave it at that? Rar is not a dead Replica...) Okay then. Moving on.
Of course, as soon as I'm done writing this chapter, I go up against Genesis anyway (not the final battle, but the one you have in between the battle in Modeoheim and Banora. Anyone remember what I'm talking about? I forget. It happened in a cave of sorts. Oi.)
Anyway, the syringe with the boosted degradation, not entirely sure where that came from. It just happened. So... yeah.
But no, the parallels between Axel/Saix and Angeal/Genesis were NOT OKAY ON SO MANY LEVELS. MY GOSH. UGH. CAN YOU...? CAN YOU NOT?!?
Yeah.... those chapters. Ugh. Feels. Not okay guys, seriously.
I'm trying to remember what Zack was having a problem with... I think it had something to do with not striking Genesis when he's down, or perhaps just killing Genesis in general. Zack was trying to be honorable and it was like, no, Zack... you need to kill him. You can't save him. THINK OF AERITH.
Anyway, that's pretty much all I have to say about that for now.
Review Responses: (I may just have a lot here)
KKBeckett: Oh, don't mind Genesis, he's only trying to bring about Angeal's demise. But yeah, Angeal's okay for the moment. Zack... well... we'll get to that.
MoonlightStar: (chapters 1-16):
I shall respond to the questions that don't get answered later so I don't spoil you.
So, yes, Yuffie's a lot younger than Leon. I won't be shipping the two. I tend not to ship across game. Just as a personal thing.
Rinoa will eventually meet Zack. They don't tend to speak a whole ton, now that I think about that. Huh. Food for my own thoughts.
Anyway, you okay? You appear to be having a lot of feels.
And that's that for now. Have a video! (Because I can't think of anything else right now, have one of my current obsessions:)
I'm actually super sorry that I haven't been posting/updating the blog. I literally don't have time and it's not cool. Stupid school. I mean, I get it... I need it... but... ugh.
Link to the livetumbl (which I filled in earlier this evening in my abundant spare time (don't let it fool you, I actually didn't have any, I was doing that while I was eating dinner)): http://magiksbrain.tumblr.com/tagged/ch24/chrono
by `Ahr0 on dA
I'll admit, the picture on the left technically depicts events that have yet to occur, but this is the chapter where the picture fits best. And when I stumbled across that picture (while looking for OTHER pictures, I fell in love with it instantly. Heh.) I just love Squall's face.
So anyway, I knew all along that Rinoa was going to be the one to recognize Laguna as her mother's mercenary, considering she's the only person in the room who can actually make THAT connection. Squall, however, gets to realize that the man in front of him is actually his father. And he's not super happy about it. I mean, think about it, your father figure disappeared before you were even born and now you're finding him 18 years later? Yeah. No. Thanks for nothing, dad.
However, this is also the chapter that features Laguna's story. So, my story in a story. It's similar to Laguna's story in FFVIII, just with the addition of extra Worlds, really. I realize now, looking back on it, that it's completely dumb for him NOT to have finished that letter, but... Laguna's a very emotional man and in his grief, he simply didn't finish it. Or something like that. Because, that's what had to happen. I swear, this is FFVIII's doing, not mine. I'll continue on with Laguna's sob story in a couple of chapters (when I get the chance) mostly because that's when the rest of this goes down.
Quick Review Response, Kiros and Ward will likely not be making an appearance. They may make a cameo much later in the story, but I make no promises. I've got a ton of characters to deal with already. Heh.
Anyway, have another Vocaloid video: (I'm in a mood)
(So, going with the fight theme, despite there not really being a fight in this chapter, I got lucky there was a fight earlier in Traverse Town. (Obviously, I don't plan the blog titles as I'm writing the chapters.) However, 'fighting' is a very prevalent theme in this current section of chapters.)
Basically, the only thing that I liveblogged was that I hit 50K. (Officially novel length!) And the Zerith chapter is just so adorable that I didn't blog anything about it because I was too busy dying of cuteness.
So... yeah.
Basically, I wasn't really sure initially what was going to go on in this chapter, I just knew that Zack would be visiting (as he does occasionally) and he and Aerith would go do something. I also made reference to the fact that they write, because all throughout this, the two of them are writing. Aerith is also keeping in contact with Leon. So, yeah.
But somewhere in there, the Zerith feels took over and it was adorable.
This also marks the point at which Zack occasionally takes Aerith out for an afternoon or an evening and shows her exciting or pretty sights. He's usually pretty good about not taking her places where Heartless will ruin their plans.
I also mention here that Zack shows up in Fifth District. In the future, he'll start showing up right outside the hotel again. It becomes a habit. See if you can spot why. (Look in future chapters, or start guessing, I'm game for guessing!)
So, um, yeah, let's do Review Responses.
From SpiritDreamWarriors: Yes! Zack and Aerith are adorably romantic! However, I can't tell you what happened to Cloud just yet. You'll see in upcoming chapters.
From archsage: I will admit outright that writing for Yuffie is hard. She's just at an odd age that isn't full of the childlike innocence that we got in Kairi, but she's also not old enough to be a reliable narrator. I will get a Yuffie chapter in here eventually, however, promise!
From KKBeckett: No, Genesis is not responsible for the darkness. Ansem is. No one recognizes it yet, however. Yes, those are Emblem Heartless. They're a thing now! And, Zack and Aerith ended up on the shores above Atlantica (aka, Prince Eric's castle.)
For your other comment, I'm going to go on a little bit of a spew about...
It's so weird to me that Leon's gone for as long as he is! I never intended him to be gone for so long, but to properly incorporate the FFVIII arc, it got stretched out over a span of a couple of years. Which means Leon is absent from Traverse Town for a couple of years. It is WEIRD. Let me tell you. What's also weird, is that Zack and Cloud haven't met yet. I mean, I took individual plot lines from Crisis Core and put them in a completely different order... but Zack hasn't met Cloud yet and that's ALSO weird to me. (I may have several other conniptions about this later, just wait.)
But for now, that's all. Have a video! (This is not the one I had next in my blog video queue, but it's quite the gem...)
I'm actually doing a thing where I'm not livetumbling what I'm writing right now because I'm so far ahead and spoilers, and it takes more effort to livetumbl what I'm writing. However, I'll still make posts under tags for each chapter later with my thoughts. Because little snippets of thoughts are funny.
Erm, if you didn't know, a Can't Escape chapter went up! Link in the previous post.
Um, yeah, so, this chapter!
Leon is mostly just like "oh my gosh guys, must you be all dumb-sounding!" Because, Rinoa and Zell both drive him up a wall. Quistis is quiet, he likes Quistis. (Shh, Squinoa shippers, that'll happen later.) Of course, then he's super impressed with Rinoa lying her face off to get them in there. And then when Zell starts flirting, he's all jealous. Yup. That happened. He just squashed it. (That didn't make it on the tumbl, huh...)
Anyway, I contemplated several different ways for them getting to Adel without help from the president of Esthar, because that scene happens later! (I mean, I could have moved them around... but I had already planned it out this way...) (That, and the tourist idea was super funny and amusing.)
by ~retamal1990 on dA
But yeah, Quistis and Scanning is a thing. (I never really used the Scan spell in the game *shrug*). Anyway, Quistis is actually super quietly badass during this whole scene because she's orchestrating what will go on, keeping track of everyone, and all that jazz. She doesn't have to worry about Curing anyone, because that's Rinoa's job, but she does think to add things to Rinoa's barrier when Adel keeps using the Quake spell. Anyway, yeah, minor Quistis appreciation paragraph.
So, anyway, a while ago, back in Betwixt and Between, I talked about Flexors, and how they can cast magic from all ends of the spectrum. All Sorceresses are Flexors. Sure, Adel is basically an evil Sorceress, but that doesn't prohibit her from casting spells like Holy and Ultima. Just like how Rinoa's a good Sorceress and that doesn't stop her from casting spells like Meteor and Flare. Aerith, however, is not a Flexor, so while she can have a basic understanding of black magic, she is a white magic caster. (Shh, I'm aware that elemental magic technically counts as black magic, but I say it's elemental magic. Also, I'm not sure where Gravity fits in. I suppose it's technically dark, but it's use in KH in general throws me off.)
Yeah, okay, so I realize now (as KKBeckett points it out) that Leon basically got knocked out during the ends of the last TWO Sorceress battles. Granted, Edea was trying to specifically kill him. Adel was just trying to kill them all. Zell passed out, too. Anyway, yeah, Rinoa saves his life the first time, and Quistis gets him with a good Curaga during the second one. Meanwhile, Rinoa's angrily throwing magic at Adel until she dies.
And then Rinoa passes out. Which is a thing that happens when you absorb another Sorceress' powers. In my canon, that is.
Review Responses:
archsage from ch21, I PMed you about that one, because that answer is highly spoilerish.
archsage from ch22, go ahead and beat FFVII first since you have it on steam. But FFVIII is pretty fun (in my opinion). Though, I will grant the story can be a tad confusing.
KKBeckett: I'm glad you think Rinoa's sassy!
archsage from Can't Escape ch61: congrats on being review 200! And I can't really tell you who's going to meet up first. (i mean, i know, just spoilers.) I mean, just on rar's end, we have an emotionally unstable Riku and a darkness-ridden Sora. Should be fun either way!
First of all... new blog theme. I was getting tired of the old one. And these colors are a nice change. However, if it's hard for any of you to read it, just let me know, I'll make adjustments. The blog is for you to read, after all.
Anyway, so, I posted a Can't Escape chapter yesterday. Super fun!
Anyway, my thoughts, (I'm sure rar will post hers separately. or maybe she has already)
Anyway, I vaguely remember her discussing how she needs to get Riku's arm injured and then we discussed dislocating, and how he'd almost fall off a cliff and all that jazz.
by =SaiyaGina
And while he could have hauled himself back up, I remember mentioning in passing something about vertical dark corridors. (Which, somewhere along the lines became my Axel's specialty). So, I casually joked about sending my Axel over there.
And so it happened.
Idk, I really enjoyed this. It was a bit strange, trying to figure out where this plays into my universe, considering I'm working on a prequel. And it had to be believable, and there needed to be a reason for Axel to be going to ANY Hollow Bastion in the first place... (however, this didn't turn out to be very hard at all.) Once all that was taken care of, it was really easy for the starshard to take him to the wrong universe.
And Axel's not dumb, he figured it out pretty quickly. Mostly because he ran into Riku. And Riku looks super different between universes. Considering there is now close to a 2-year age gap going on.
Cue Axel saving Riku's butt and it's now super awkward.
Yes, Peach, I can guarantee you that it was awkward. Probably for both of them.
Honestly, I'd suggest checking out rar's fic's blog (http://rarmastersftpverse.tumblr.com/) for other interesting information (including character interactions) regarding this chapter and the sequence going on in her fic in general.
And yes, KKBeckett, wouldn't it just make things so much easier if they were to meet? *laughter*
But yeah, this sequence was fun. Axel is so much fun to write for. I don't really get a chance with the prequel, because that's all boring Organization stuff and I'm mostly focusing on the FF cast as it is. But getting back into the swing of Axel and making loads of references and little jabs was fun.
Rar's surprised I didn't censor them. Please, Riku and Axel? Yeah... uh-huh.
Anyway, I think that's all I have to say on that.
As usual, have a video! (I found this one when my roommate said that this song would be really good a capella.)
I am aware that that blog post title only applies to one quarter of the chapter that I just posted, but it's really the only fight that's going on in this chapter (as opposed to gearing up to the fight against Adel and Cid's fights against libraries and bookstores. Neither of which make good blog titles.
And the truth behind why Rinoa had magic in chapter two comes out. Adel tried to possess her. See, when I wrote the chapter, I hadn't quite decided whether or not Rinoa was a Sorceress or not. I think in my head, I assumed she was, because she needed to be for the chapter for the plot I already had in place to function. It was only later that I decided that Rinoa wasn't a Sorceress yet because, I liked the transfer of powers idea and there really was no other way (that wasn't ridiculously complicated) that I could work it out.
But, in the game, Rinoa doesn't become a Sorceress until Sorceress Edea almost dies and transfers her powers. In my canon, here's Rinoa exhibiting Sorceress powers before she'd even MET Edea, so I decided to go with the possession (or attempt of possession) route. Because, it's so Kingdom Hearts. It really is. Okay, well, it's so Xehanort, but still.
The raw magic, as explained by the chapter, came from an attempt of possession by the Sorceress Adel, who was trying to possess another girl in order to free herself from prison. Rinoa seemed like a good enough candidate because of her connection to one of Galbadia's generals. However, the full possession attempt fails because of the safeguards around Adel's prison.
Rinoa was then able to use magic for about six months while the residual Sorceress power slowly drained from her system.
Cue everything between chapter 2 and chapter 21.
Rinoa decides that now is as good of a time than ever to mention that she had magic before, answering just about all of Quistis' questions as well as getting some of her own answered by Edea. Meanwhile, Leon and Zell are just like "okay, whatever".
Moving onto Cid! (I wonder if this is going to be a long blog... probably not... because I really only am going to ramble on and on about the Sorceress part of this chapter)
See, I knew that Cid researched, I just was never quite sure when, so I decided that I would explore in a chapter snippet when he's researching. So look, there he is researching gummi ships (because, face it, they're more stable than star shards). This also marks when he decides to start collecting gummi blocks.
So back to the Sorceress plot... Everyone makes plans to fight Adel and while everyone's like "oh, it's a super good idea for Rinoa to do this", Leon's the only one who's like... "Who decided this is a good idea? This is not a good idea! Rinoa, you could die!" (Leon loves her, it's a thing, but he doesn't admit it yet and he won't for a while.) And then Edea's like, "Well, you're going to need a Knight..." And because Leon's in love with Rinoa, he agrees to it without really thinking about what he's getting into. And he justifies it by saying he's just trying to keep her from doing something stupid, when really, he loves her.
That's not spoilers, it happens in the game. The him loving her part. Not the Rinoa absorbing Adel's powers. Though... I'm forgetting who absorbed those in the game, I think it might have been Ultimecia... the game was very much like "We have to kill Adel so Time Compression can start" and there wasn't a lot of "who's absorbing that power?"
It was while I was writing this part of the chapter that the lone post on the livetumbl came up. See, I was plotting things that happen upon Adel's death and I was wondering if I was being a bit mean to Rinoa, but then I figured that a ton of crap happens to the game. Of course, then I wondered if I was making her character useless, which led to a huge brainstorming session in which I could both be mean, and still have a good character. Yep. That happened.
And then, stuck at the end of the chapter, is Cloud's fall into darkness. I knew from the beginning that it wasn't going to be like other's falls into the darkness. His descent (because, it's kind of a descent, since he does eventually end up with a shadow (not spoilers, it comes up in Betwixt and Between)) isn't really his fault. He just wanted to adventure, and then he was unfortunate enough to be on a World as it fell into darkness. He will then be IN the Realm of Darkness for a while, and he won't be the same when he comes out. I won't say too much, because I haven't even written all of that yet...
So, yeah, wow, long blog post...
Review Replies!
KKBeckett, I answered most of your review above in my rant lol. But yes, that's what happened with Rinoa, and yes, he totally LIKES her.
And Cid's feels are so adorable! He's secretly a Zerith shipper.
As for Cloud, and that World being plunged into darkness, I suppose it's technically Xehanort's fault. Though, I'm pretty sure this one was Ansem or Maleficent.
Have a video! (From Geek Week on YouTube not too long ago)
It's been a while since I wrote this one, so gimme a sec to gather my thoughts...
Ah yes, this was one of the chapter that came together as I was writing the fic, not when I was simply outlining. Because, the only thing on the outline is that Aerith's making herself a staff and practicing Holy magic.
Which turned into something much more when I fleshed it out. Sure, Aerith's fashioning her staff, but she's nowhere near practicing Holy magic (though, I did make reference to her wanting to learn it, it's just that's chapter 29 and she's on chapter 4). (Fun fact, I labelled the chapter numbers by viewing all the different white magic spells on the ffwiki.)
Of course, I knew that Zack and Angeal would end up at Aerith's place, given how Zack's response to someone being super injured is to take them to Aerith. Yup. It will come up again. Heh. This was that coming to fruition.
And of course, at some point, someone (this time it's Angeal) has to take their shirt off so Aerith can heal a gaping wound on their chest or back. (This isn't really a running thing with the games, but rar and I have it in our fics where it's a thing. *coughcoughRikucoughcough*)
And no, she hasn't bashed any Heartless on the head (yet) with her staff, but trust me, it will come.
Also, headcanon, she has a library.
I wasn't sure what picture to use, because I couldn't find one that I wanted... but here's one of Angeal and Genesis that I think is really cool... It's by ~koroe on dA.
I think it's a bit tragic that Aerith tries to see if she can fix the degradation, but her magic can't do anything about that, and Angeal knows. And Zack secretly wishes that Aerith could just fix it, but he knows that she can't and so he doesn't say anything about it because he doesn't want to put a strain on his and her relationship.
I did make a happy reference to Crisis Core with Angeal saying that Zack is lucky that his life is more important than Angeal's sword. I really loved that line in the game and was rather eager to include it.
Also, Aerith's thought process when Zack is recounting how he let Genesis live, but did still stab him in the shoulder is a reference to Firefly, where Mal is talking about how he's a good man for not killing the man he's dueling (I forget the episode, but it's an early one). However, then he stabs the man again and says that "well, at least I'm okay", or something to that sort. That's what I was thinking of when I wrote that. Hush, it might be a stretch, but it's a connection that my mind made.
That's all I really have to say about the chapter.
