Letters from the Girls (63)

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I'm trying to remember if it was a conscious decision to have the letters be written only by the girls on the cast, or if that is just what happened.  And I can't remember in the slightest.

I knew I needed another letter from Tifa, because it had been a while since I'd done one of those and Tifa basically sends a letter to Cloud from every world she stops on that has post (which is pretty much all of them).  Plus, it was just fun to have her write one from Traverse Town where he totally was recently.  And then make references to everything.

The letter from Aerith was just about necessary.  It's furthering the plot where Aerith wants to go see Radiant Garden and has asked Zack for help.  I think originally, she was just going to ask him when he swung by next, but that was before I started doing the letters, and it didn't make sense for her to wait, so that got changed.  Meanwhile, as I'm writing that, I can make casual references to the holidays.  Which I'm doing again, now.  Teehee!

Then there's Rinoa's letter, which was also somewhat necessary because I knew Rinoa wasn't going to be able to swing by Traverse Town for a bit because of training.  She's got lots to do and she feels she only has so much time to do it, (we've gotten past the point where she's going to burn up from the inside with power, but anyway).  Yeah, so there's that letter.

And then, I decided to do a letter from Kairi.  Apparently, I have a thing assigning letters to students.  I guess it's cause I had pen-pals when I was a kid? Probably something like that.  Only because Yuffie had to do one too, but she wrote to Cloud.  Kairi wrote to Sora, and was adorable.  And I did a picture of her letter, because look at that adorable handwriting! Kairi, in general, is just so darn adorable, sometimes I don't know what to do with myself.

Anyway, so a deeper explanation about how come there hasn't been one big holiday bash together.  Lemme take down some current ages in here so I don't have to keep flopping around... Rinoa and Leon are 21, making Aerith 19.  Kay.  The two major couples at this point, Zerith and Squinoa basically met 4 years ago.  For those first two years, Squall and Rinoa were away saving Rinoa's world.  Zack was dealing with Genesis during that time.  He dropped by to see his parents one year, and ended up spending the other with Angeal.  The following holiday is after Angeal's death, and Zack probably forgot about the whole thing entirely.  Aerith didn't want to drag him back for the holidays because he was clearing his mind, so the gang in Traverse Town had a quiet one with the addition of Leon now that he was back.  Rinoa was busy dealing with excess Sorceress power.  And, the next holiday is actually the one that's coming up.  Ha! I knew I could figure this all out.

So, if you haven't noticed, I'm going to have a holiday sequence in the Prequel.  We're a few chapters away from it right now.  I'll post it closer (wow, I almost said close it poster) to Christmas.  If I have time (read: when I'm done with the next 6 essays, 1 short story, and 2 finals), I'll do a somewhat AU holiday sequence with Sora and the gang set sometime during Betwixt and Between, probably.

I'm kinda in a super holiday mood, if you haven't noticed from my Axel icon with a Santa hat on Tumblr.

Oh my gosh, my holiday sequence could involve Sora dragging Riku to Christmas Town.  I've been meaning to do that.  Oooh! That's exciting.

But back to my holiday mood, even my D&D group is doing a Christmas special this coming Friday.  (Of course, given how the group is south of the equator, it's totally going to be Christmas in July in Pleasantville (Pleasantville has nothing to do with being south of the equator, just the town we're in...) Anyway, but yeah.  This is exciting.  It keeps me sane during the last push of school.

I'll be posting a little slower, like every 4 days instead of every 2, only because I just can't keep up with everything I want to do for any given chapter.  But, I'll probably pick back up again once the break starts.  Though, I'll be wanting to catch up on writing, too, so I'm not entirely sure.

Well, enough of me jabbering.

No spoilers on what's gonna happen for the holiday sequence.  :P

Teaser Quotes:

"Fire in the hole!"

"You have got to be kidding me."
"You can say that again."

"Stick close.  We can watch each other's backs."

"How did it go?"
"It went."

"Can people have darkness?"
"What do you mean?"
"Can someone's darkness manifest into its own separate person?"

AND A CHRISTMAS VIDEO!

Vincent's Magical Cloak (Prequel ch40)

Vincent probably hates me right now.  His tag for me on tumblr is Vincent the Vampire.  Heheh.

Link to the chapter

Link to the tumbl

Anyway, this chapter marks the beginning of Zack's healing, slash the end of the current giant feels fest that we were on.  I say current, because I can almost promise you that there will be more fests of feels.

Anyway, I'm not quite sure when I decided that Tifa's father was just going to be this absent, uncaring, backwards-ish figure, that just sort of happened.  According to everything I remember from the game/what I've read on the wiki, mostly he just didn't want Tifa hanging out with Cloud because he blamed Cloud for Tifa getting hurt on Mt. Nibel.  I don't think he had any other fault than that.  However, once I started writing him, he ended up being someone who didn't want Tifa to fight, partially because he doesn't want her to get hurt and partially because he doesn't think girls should fight.  He also doesn't feel like it's proper for girls to go out on adventures so.... But Tifa had to drag him home for dinner to tell him she was leaving.  Yeah...

It does go into my vast-array of parent portrayals, however.  Like, Kairi's biological parents are just legit gone and her grandmother died, but she doesn't remember her real parents so her adopted ones on Destiny Islands are just her real parents.  And they're kind and accepting, supportive people.  Sora's parents are a bit spacey, I feel, but they love their son.  Riku's dad's a dead-beat goner, but his mother sure stepped up to the plate and filled the role of amazing single parent.

Not sure where Aerith's dad ended up... did I declare him dead? I don't think he would have left... he probably passed away.  Aerith's mom didn't survive Radiant Garden's plunge-- but she was a lovely woman before then! Leon's mom died in childbirth and his dad's a bit of an absentminded dude with a big sense of wanderlust.  (He's at least redeemed himself.)  Cloud's dad is dead but his mom is supportive (uh-oh, I seem to have a lot of supportive mom's... actually, Sora's mom's a worry-wort and his dad's the carefree one, still though...) I think it's 'cause Riku's mom is just going to support Riku to the ends of the earth anyway, Aerith's mom was just knowledgeable and nice and Cloud's mom was like, "go do your thing, have some food!" (Very much like Aerith, actually...) And then there's Tifa's dad, who wants to constrain her, but can't because Tifa's too darn stubborn.  Oh, and then there's Zack's parents: his mother is a huge Zerith shipper and just wants Zack and Aerith to settle down somewhere and then there's Zack's dad who's totes supportive of his son going out and killing things.  And then Rinoa's dad is (oh eff... maybe I'm not so diverse as I thought...) because Rinoa's dad is somewhat like Tifa's dad in the manner of controlling and her mother's dead so nothing can be done about that.  However, Squeenix set me up for some of this stuff... So... yeah...

Anyway, rar and I spent like, half a morning discussing how long it would take to legit walk from one place to another, trying to extrapolate miles and terrain and whatnot.  It involved quite the map search of FFVII.  This was about when I was beating Crisis Core, too, so I was actually calculating things as it was ('cause Zack and Cloud on a motorcycle and all.)

by darcywilliam on dA

But anyway, let's talk about Vincent for a bit, shall we? I have a lovely picture of him! (Excellent cosplay, actually).

I didn't actually include Vincent in the original outline.  It was only when one of my readers asked if I was going to include him that I even thought about a cameo.  And I figured this would be a great opportunity.  Because, why the heck not? Tifa can totes meet him on the road.  (I'm sorry, my roommate says 'totes' a lot and I appear to have picked it up.)  But yeah, Vincent and his magical cloak are totally on the job for helping.  I've also determined that Vincent's cloak can take him from World-to-World if he so chooses.  Tifa's off-World transportation will come later.

And yeah, Vincent met Zack shortly after Zack left Gongaga, I feel.  Before Genesis interfered, that's for sure.  But Vincent never actually spoke with Zack, because Zack (like usual) was on his way somewhere and wasn't really stopping.  And it is just amusing that Tifa runs into him later.  (Though, her running into Zack and Aerith in Gongaga was certainly more planned than her running into Vincent.)

Excuse me while I be weirded out for a minute that Zack and Cloud haven't met yet.  Okay.  The minute is over.

I think that's all... so... yeah!

Fight Against Adel in Rinoa (ch30)

Link to the Chapter: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9446325/30/What-s-all-Gone-on-Before

Link to the livetumbl: http://magiksbrain.tumblr.com/tagged/ch30/chrono

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.

So, yeah.  That's all I have to say.

Letters Between Aerith, Leon, and Cid (27)

Link to the chapter: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9446325/27/What-s-all-Gone-on-Before

Link to the live tumbl (it was live): http://magiksbrain.tumblr.com/tagged/ch27/chrono

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.

The Final Fight Against Genesis (25)

Link to the chapter: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9446325/25/What-s-all-Gone-on-Before

Link to tumbl: http://magiksbrain.tumblr.com/tagged/ch25/chrono

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?!?

If you want to know specifically the Axel/Saix feels I'm having, go read the last few chapters of All the Pieces.  Actually, I'm referring specifically to chapters 88 and 89.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6772185/88/All-the-Pieces-Lie-Where-they-Fell
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6772185/89/All-the-Pieces-Lie-Where-they-Fell

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:)

Aftermath of the Fight (20)

(with Genesis)

Link to the chapter: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9446325/20/What-s-all-Gone-on-Before

Link to the livetumbl: http://magiksbrain.tumblr.com/tagged/ch20/chrono

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.

Review Responses:
KKBeckett, that's spoilers :P  You'll find out.

Video:

The Fight Against Edea (ch19)

Fanfic Link: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9446325/19/What-s-all-Gone-on-Before

Livetumbl link: http://magiksbrain.tumblr.com/tagged/ch19/chrono

And the truth comes out.  Leon didn't ACTUALLY do anything against Maleficent.  Quistis is a bit ticked (rather understandably), but Leon does his job.  Well, sort of.

It's not really his fault that Edea aimed an icicle right at his chest (ala the end of FFVIII disk 1).  (Excuse my snark, I was reading a snarky walkthrough to ensure that the battle I'm referring to really ended disk 1.  You fight Edea at the end of disk 1 AND disk 2.  Yay.)

But enough about FFVIII the game, back to the story...

I tried not to make the battle sequence too long, but rereading it, I'm wondering if I made it long enough.  Oh well.  There will be more battles.  Trust me, there will be more battles.  It also occurred to me that Leon didn't do much this battle.  Of course, the original plan was to not physically attack her, so he was left with pretty much nothing because Leon actually doesn't know too much magic at this point.  He'll get better.

Well, sort of.  At some point, why do you need magic when Quistis and Rinoa know all the magic? I'm referring to story mechanics, actually... in-game mechanics, I gave Squall loads of spells.  Because, he needs them!

Oh, for anyone new, I tend to use Leon/Squall interchangeably when I'm just talking.  When I'm writing, I try to remain consistent.  As in, everyone calls him Leon except for Rinoa.

Anyway, backtracking, to get back on track...

Leon's all like: "This is your Sorceress? I thought for a moment it might be Maleficent.  Oh well, she needs to die anyway."
And then Quistis is like: "What do you mean you didn't properly deal with your last Sorceress? I thought you knew what you were doing?"

Quistis isn't happy with Leon.

Anyway, they battle Edea and after the whole icicle-through-the-chest thing, instead of being captured and
jailed like in the game, Rinoa basically has a Limit (though she uses Squall's gunblade for it) and nearly kills Edea.  This causes the transfer of powers between the two, instead of the later fight like in the game.  Now that I think about it, I'm not sure why I'm describing what I did versus what the game did.  I know that what I'm doing is different (partially because FFVIII is long and partially because I haven't played it in years and when I wrote the timeline, I was basically going off on memory and wrote a condensed version.  Yup.)  Then there's the fact that I want to add the KH spin to it, hence the possessing and the plunging into darkness motifs.

Actually, I think originally, I wasn't going to use the icicle-in-the chest, so Leon would have been awake to make the executive decision to move everyone off the float, but then I used the icicle thing and Quistis decided that everyone should be awake before they moved.

 by ~tomuyu on dA

So, the two pass out because...well... transfer of powers.  It'll happen every time.  Quistis and Zell are surrounded by two passed-out women and a bleeding-to-death Leon.  Yup.  Quistis heals Rinoa because she knows Rinoa's not crazy (spoilers: at the moment).  And then she still has to have Edea healed to answer questions.  But Edea's fine now because Ultimecia's not possessing her! Woo!

It's about here that I decided that Ultimecia and Xehanort should form a fanclub for possessing and Genesis should join.  What is it with KH and needed vessels? Well, it's mostly Xehanort, but still.

But anyway, Ultimecia's now back where she belongs at the end of time (for now) and she's stewing because her plan failed.  But she's not even a main objective right now, they've got other things to figure out.

Hmm, I'm not sure if I have anything else to say...

Okay, well... video!

Yup.  Another one from me.  I had a thing with this particular Linkin Park album and how it relates to Axel.

Currently, I'm of the opinion that the new FOB album is AkuRokuShi.

Like, seriously....

The Fight for Zack's Life (ch18)

Part 1 anyway :P If you know Genesis, you know this isn't over.

Fanfic Link: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9446325/18/What-s-all-Gone-on-Before

Livetumbl: (short but amusing tags) http://magiksbrain.tumblr.com/tagged/ch18/chrono

by *K-Koji on dA

So, I somehow ended up including Genesis.  I didn't originally plan to, because I know he's a hard character to write for (and he is... I've been pulling from gamescripts, as you can probably tell.)  However, I still ended up doing it.  Mostly because I liked the idea of Genesis wanting to use Zack for a vessel, in true KH fashion.  So, I ended up keeping Genesis.

I liked the idea of Genesis being crazy and being aware of it.  Because, my opinion, Genesis is fairly self-aware in the game as well.  So Genesis is crazy and he knows it, but he also knows that he wants to try and use Zack to make his own degradation stop.  (Not that it actually would, but in his case, he thinks its worth a shot.)

So he shows up all crazy and wanting to make a vessel out of Zack, and he forces both Angeal and Zack to fight him.

Yay fight scenes! Tell me if you have any advice for those, I'm still working on perfecting a fight scene.

Poor Angeal kept getting knocked out.  Because Genesis wants to get to Zack, and he's forfeited his friendship with Angeal because Angeal's not helping him.  And Angeal just didn't do too hot this time around.  That, and the slash across the back was a low-blow.  However, in a rage (limit) Zack plunged his own sword into Genesis' shoulder.  (Not an uncommon attack, but I totally got the idea from Cookie.)

So yeah.  Somehow, I ended up tackling the Genesis arc and the FFVIII arc at the same time.  Granted, the FFVIII arc will span many more arcs after the Genesis one, but they ended up starting together.  Heh.

I know... I know... more from me... but... NAMIKU!

Zack versus a Relationship that Doesn't Exist (ch13)

The little twerp actually thought for a moment there that Aerith and Leon were a thing.  It was super cute.  And obviously not true.  Zack's jealousy was thankfully short-lived.

Link to the chapter!: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9446325/13/What-s-all-Gone-on-Before

Link to the livetumbl: http://magiksbrain.tumblr.com/tagged/ch13/chrono

Not a whole lot there this time around... it happens.

Anyway, so this chapter is basically just a continuation of the last chapter's Zerith feels.  This is where Zack and Aerith ACTUALLY become a thing and it's super adorable.  Because Zack's all like "I think I like her *doesn't know what to do*" And Aerith's like "He's really sweet and nice, I like nice people... but I don't know what to do..." And Leon and Cid are both like "JUST KISS!"

Not really, but practically.  Zerith has a fanclub and the leader is Leon.

And then there's Yuffie, who's just like "WHY DO YOU INSIST ON LEAVING ME BEHIND! I LIKE YOU PEOPLE!" (Yuffie generally speaks in caps in my head.)  Granted, I know Yuffie and Zack don't particularly get along in Crisis Core... but Yuffie gets along with Zack in my canon, because Aerith likes Zack and Yuffie likes Aerith.  (Aerith's like, her favorite person, this is FF canon).  So, yeah.

But yeah, first date, pink ribbons.  Adorable.  I'm really glad I decided to split the last chapter and this chapter into two chapters, because it was originally supposed to be one.  But yeah.

Unfortunately, then Zack has to leave.  He's still a mercenary.  Granted, the Genesis business is going to

by *jameson9101322 on dA

change things a little (you'll see), but he's not one to be tied to one place for long.  But he's now officially a satellite to the FF gang in Traverse Town.

And hush, I know, I just posted a chapter about Zack and I'm posting a picture that lacks Zack.  However, this picture is cute and depicts the FF gang at their approximate ages right about here.  Ish.  Thereabouts.  It's cute.  Also, this artist does a LOT of art.  It's all really neat.

Anywho, so I'm aware that Zack should be squatting more, and I'm having conniptions about it.  Murr.  I just don't know how to incorporate it quite yet.  Every scene I've got with Zack he's doing other things and not squatting.  (sigh.)  The most squatting I've seen Zack do is when he's at Costa del Sol.  (I'm simultaneously playing Crisis Core.)  I'm also running missions to postpone my death.  It's cute.  "Let me just sit here right outside the Nibelheim reactor and run misssions.  Yup.  Totally."

So, review responses!

Yes, KKBeckett, Aerith and Zack need to look out for each other.  It's actually more of a "Aerith, make sure that Zack doesn't get in trouble" than a "Zack, make sure Aerith doesn't get hurt" kind of thing.  I love that about them.

Frankly, I just love Zerith.

That's all for now, have a video! (More Zerith!) (CANON Zerith)  I was super excited by all of these when they started showing up in my DMW.  They show up for every character, but I like Aerith's and Cloud's the best.

Zack Feels (Prequel Ch7)

What's funny, is this particular chapter didn't even give me that many Zack feels.  But the Zack plot arc as a whole gives me a lot of them.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9446325/7/What-s-all-Gone-on-Before

by *chibiasta on dA. (she does a lot of
cute FFVII art if you want to check
it out!)

I knew from the beginning that Zack was going to meet Angeal shortly after he was out on his own (past Olympus Coliseum) and they were going to become fast-friends.  Granted, that friendship isn't quite there in this chapter, but it will grow.

Originally, it was just going to be that Angeal was going to agree to help Zack become a better fighter and keep Zack from falling into the darkness.  (I was going off of Zack's dealings with Hades back in Olympus.)  However, I later nixed the darkness idea, figuring I have enough people dealing with it and Zack doesn't need to be one of them.  Zack can have an awareness, sure, but struggling with it? Nah.

Then the Genesis plot arc merged in.  I wasn't sure, initially, if I was going to include Genesis, because I've heard he can be a pain to write for.  (He is, I have future chapters that include him).  But I wanted to include him nonetheless.  Genesis was how I explained the black feather at the end of the Birth By Sleep secret ending.  Genesis is, I believe, the only person in Crisis Core to have black wings? I could be wrong... I totally could be wrong... I haven't actually FINISHED Crisis Core (kill me later, I literally am working on it.)  However, it made for a convenient person, and then Genesis morphed into a villain for Zack, kinda like he's a major antagonist in Crisis Core (though, it's still mostly Hojo's fault, but whatever).

So, this chapter was born out of those facts, basically.  And I really do like how it turned out, actually.

I even livetumbld it a little....  http://magiksbrain.tumblr.com/tagged/ch7/chrono

Though, I warn you, there's only a couple posts there.  I got into the livetumbling swing in later chapters.  Though, I periodically drop out of said habit.  *shrug*

So, Review Responses:

KKBeckett: You're in for a wild ride with the Genesis arc, it's a feelsy one :P  And I'm glad you like my Angeal inclusion.  Also, Zack's just awesome.

And, as usual, have a video :)

Because I love the Piano Guys :)