How did I end up here?

How did I end up here?

HOW DID I END UP HERE?!?!?

It's the end.  The END.

I mean, I knew this was coming.  I knew I was going to end it with a wedding.  I've known that for five years.  Okay, maybe four.

BUT I PLANNED THIS OUT FOUR YEARS AGO.

I knew, that the end of everything, I would end it with a wedding.  And that Xigbar would crash it.  But that was all I knew.  Rar and I joked about it.  Because after AtP, when Xigbar was still alive, I joked that he'd come back and crash the wedding at the end of the next one.

Because I'd only ever planned on writing two.

Look at me now, I've written four.  Five if you include Can't Escape.  (I don't count Plan Beta as anything but drabbles and fun experiments in plot.)

When I sat down and outlined Remnants, when I had a pretty solid idea of who my main enemies were (how Xehanort was back, what was going on with Larxene and Marluxia, what Xigbar was up to), I planned it out through the end.  Yeah, I changed out a couple of worlds here and there, electing to include Corona and Arendelle instead of recycling Atlantica and Beast's Castle.  But I knew there'd be a wedding.

Initially, and I might have said this before, but I might not have, it was supposed to be Donald and Daisy's wedding.  Because they were the only couple who I figured would be getting married.  (I hadn't really considered much about the FF characters.  I had always entertained the thought of continuing on and writing FF7 as if the KH characters might be a part.  But that got scrapped sometime when I was writing the prequel and struggled to rewrite FF8 and KH1-2 and make them interesting.)

For the record, I changed the wedding-to-be-crashed to Aerith and Zack's wedding about when I realized Zack was going to propose to Aerith.  I liked the way it was going to flow.  Let's see, do I still have the original conversation with rar...

Oh look, I do! And it involves Cloud/Hades stuff as well.  Bonus!

rar: i feel like us discussing potential Cloud and Hades ideas requires something more in depth than tumblr, so I'm messaging you
magik: probably
rar: I mean i still replied to you on tumblr but idk if we need to go more in depth
rar: anyway i'm cool with you using the idea {for Hades to send hellhounds after Cloud}
magik: woo! i just think... hades is the type to hold a grudge and Cloud did blow him off
rar: yeah exactly
magik: and now that Hades doesn't have Maleficent in his hair and pretty soon, he won't have Disney Castle, either
rar: yup
magik: and especially if Cloud shows back up in Olympus, Hades will be reminded of his grudge
rar: yuuuuuuuuup especially since he's LOOKING for like something to do or someone to use now that his plans have failed, right?
magik: yeah.  i am loving this Cloud arc that i'm putting together.  Cloud'll have to deal with Heartless and hell-hounds
rar: oh yeah
magik: because while Hades may be bound to Olympus, his hell-hounds won't be
rar: nooope they won't

So that's that... and here's some stuff as to other characters that were getting included

magik: and of course, i'm going to incorporate Denzel here pretty soon
rar: OOH!
magik: which may have nothing to do with the hell-hounds
rar: of course
magik: and i may have to drag vincent in because i love this line i just got: "These ones aren't too bad, some of them have three heads."  "A three headed dog needs a three barrelled gun"
rar: that's perf, you may have to drag vincent in... just for that
magik: yeah

And now for the wedding part:

magik: i'm contemplating Zerith disappearing for a bit
rar: ye?
magik: and then coming back and they've actually eloped... and everyone's all like...
rar: AHA
magik: "And I wasn't invited?"
rar: man I feel like Aerith would've wanted a ceremony tho... tho maybe not? mabye she is the kind of person who'd wanna not make a big deal out of it?
magik: i think that's exactly it.  though at the same time... UGGGG everyone's just geting married at the same time!!! aslgdkasdgh;
rar: IDK??? WHAT TO DO
magik: what if... i could replace donald and daisy's wedding for Zack and Aerith's....
rar: you could maybe do that
magik: their wedding was technically a place-holder... i just needed a huge ceremony...
rar: mmm
magik: the thing with donald/daisy was that i wasn't going to write the ceremony... just the reception... i could do that still with zerith
rar: you could
magik: aerith would alternate between wanting everyone in the ceremony and thus she'd have no one in the audience
rar: she would
magik: or only having one person in the ceremony so that there could be an audience... and zack's just like "I don't care, I could marry you on the moon with one witness and the justice and i'd be happy"
rar: he would
magik: hmm... if i did that... and xiggy crashed it i... heh... if he actually showed up during the ceremony... i think Aerith herself would murder him
rar: uhoh... that's not a good thing?
magik: it's amusing
rar: but probably not good for your plot
magik: honestly... it's like having your riku murder larxene... just so long as there's a remnant left to vessel or not to vessel sora, i'm good

Ima pause there for a second... This was EARLY in the planning stages.  I was still writing the Disney Castle sequence.  Pretty sure Rar was still working on Dead Inside.  We hadn't begun to write the Larxene Sequence.  Rar also didn't know all of my plot yet, as you'll soon see....

magik: honestly tho, i think xiggy would just sit in the back because "why would i want to interrupt a show like that?" {which got changed to:  "Snuck in quietly and didn't want to ruin the show.  Good show, by the way! Wouldn't interrupt that for the Worlds!"}
rar: that's good. and he probably would. (everyone would notice tho) also you're norting Sora???
magik: he could cloak himself.  idk about norting him yet
rar: oh you did say "to not or not vessel"
magik: maybe there's a way xigbar could mask the smell of darkness that lingers
rar: (I missed it) yeah maybe?? he'd probably have to... tho i think canon says the org cloaks help hide your "scent" in general but whether or not that's true
magik: darn Riku and his sense of smell
rar: yeah unfortunately i can't remember if--oh yeah it wouldn't work... he definitely says "you reek of darkness" to one of the Org members (i think Vexen ha) and they were wearing the cloak so... the cloak wouldn't do it
magik: he'd have to have a special cloak
rar: yeah
magik: or something like it... some sort of spell he bought off the blackmarket labelled with "protection" so it would end up blending with the ones that Aerith and Rinoa throw up

I realize now that Xigbar totally still managed to sneak in and see the wedding and no one noticed him.  Probably because everyone was too distracted.  But I was still in the planning stages at the time of this conversation.  I also will mention that at this point, I was still anticipating that the wedding would happen and then I'd nort Sora (assuming I norted Sora, which I did end up doing obviously).  Because the plan was: wedding, Xigbar fight, Xehanort fight where Sora gets Norted.  I changed it to Sora getting Norted beforehand, then six months later wedding, Xigbar warning, and Xehanort fight.

magik: Rinoa: "you're the bride, stahp!" Aerith: I'm not letting anything happen to my wedding!"
rar: yeah this could work
magik: but anyway... i think i like this idea

I'm actually gonna stop talking/ranting/reposting convos at the moment.  This post is getting long and I have more to say about the wedding that's gonna take more than one post apparently.  I'll come back tomorrow and post more, yeah?

Halloweentown (Chapters 89-93)

So this whole section starts with Axel sitting in the Gummi ship as they're all on their way to Halloween Town.  Yes, they're totally on their way to Halloween Town to go to Christmas Town so that Sora can prove to Riku that Santa exists.  That whole thing started as something that I honestly think was suggested in a review in AtP and I literally did not get around to it until now.  (Yet again a thing that was supposed to go in Betwixt and Between but didn't.)

The arc obviously expanded out after that.  It got placed this far into the fic because it wasn't a huge major plot point that needed to happen any specific time, and especially after I decided that this was where Marlynort was going down, that influenced my decision to put it here.

So, Axel on the gummi ship.  I think one of the most interesting things that came out of this chapter was Axel contemplating what time had done to him versus Leon.  Leon's still on everyone's minds after almost getting Norted in Traverse Town.  This gets the wheels in Axel's brain turning a lot because he's had several close calls with Xehanort as it is already.  Plus, he knew Leon from when they were kids on Radiant Garden.  So that's gotta be trippy.

Giving everyone new outfits for Halloween Town was interesting.  I wish I could draw better to do those... but it literally takes too much effort for me to do that right now.  Sad day.  If only I had more time.  If you want to do that though, feel free.

Anyway, then the HB gang talking about going and getting kids for the school.  Denzel is adorable.  Just saying.  Also, sticking Yuffie on a team with Leon is just amusing.  Because Rinoa's obviously not going to go because her arm hasn't quite healed yet.  Plus, Yuffie deserves to go places, I've been writing this whole thing so long where she always gets told no.  Denzel knows she gets told no a lot.  But here we go, Yuffie getting told yes.  Yay!

And then, Aerith and Zack discussing wedding plans.  And Yuffie just quietly listening in, kind of grossed out by the whole thing but at the same time rooting so hard for them it's not even funny.  And Denzel's just so surprised at how many Worlds there are.  And I actually think Yuffie does go and travel the Worlds a bit after Hollow Bastion is restored.  Not that I'm going to write that far.... (I say that now... and then we'll see where I am in two years.)

And then MINNIE AND MICKEY FLUFF which is honestly what I live for sometimes oh my gosh.

And then we've got Terra, Aqua, and Ven getting a nice break and a vacation.  With Ven all like "This isn't quite the life that I dreamed of... but this is basically the life I dreamed of."  Beautiful.  I love giving them a break because they've had such a hard time.  My babby's oh goodness.

And then we're in Christmas Town.  With new outfits again (though these one's you've probably seen examples of all over the interwebs.)  And then, they don't see Santa for long when Marlynort shows up.  And then things get real.  The line "Well, Santa, either we destroy your entire office, or we break a window" is probably one of my favorite lines.  And Santa's just like "Oh break the window."

Cue fight sequence.  It surprisingly wasn't a long one.  I could have probably made it longer, but I always struggle with whether or not it's good to write long battles with loads of detail, or shorter ones with a comparable amount of detail.  I don't want you guys to be reading battle forever.  So, I settled on a shorter one with a few Combo name drops and the whole focus being on whether or not Namine was going to be able to Shatter Marlynort.

But she was.

A++++++++ to Namine.  Overcome girl!

Then, switch gears to Cid and Shera talking about rebuilding his workshop.  Bringing back loads of things.  Woot.  Tifa and Aerith talking some more about the wedding because that's what happens when there's a wedding on the horizon.

Ah yes, then Kuin running into a Remnant.  That obviously wasn't going to be a big huge deal because the Remnant knows he can't get Kuin because of who she is--flexor, perfect balance of light and darkness--so he doesn't try.  He honestly just wants to stay clear of her because he knows she wants him dead.  But they have a little battle and then he disappears.  I wasn't super clear on whether or not she killed him--but you can assume she didn't.  Because the Remnant's a jerk.  Not that it'd matter, because he'd just respawn.

And then Marlene's first day of school and running into the Moogle Girl! I couldn't resist!

Then we have aftermath of Namine shattering Marlynort.  And I tried to do a good job showing what it would have been like for her... but honestly... *I* don't know what that would have been like.  It's not like I have those powers or anything.  So I (like every other writer) made my best guess.  Based on what I've described Namine's powers as... it did require her to be picking and prying through the memories enough to have a good grasp to shatter.

I decided that Namine shattering him was an appropriate way for him to go.  After their history in Castle Oblivion and what Marluxia has become and who Namine has grown into.  It was fitting.  So hey, Marlynort is gone.

And I know I'm halfway through a chapter here... but the next bit goes straight into Castle Oblivion.  Which is the next arc and thus next blog post.  So I'll see you for the next blog.

Twilight Town Feels (Chapters 53-57)

I'm breaking off this arc at 56 and not 58 because of what 57 is.  Jsyk.

I think originally, the Twilight Town arc wasn't going to be anything big.  Like, it was initially just going to be amusing because Cloud and Tifa are there on business with Barret and Marlene and Sora and the gang end up interrupting.  And it would all be fun and games.

And then I was putting in the Remnant's side of the story and placing important bits of the Larxene Sequence that I'm sure you're all dying to hear my thoughts about but I won't say anything about yet (I have things to catch up on!)... When I started placing the villains' sides of the story I realized that Twilight Town was going to be so much more.

Because that is where the Remnant successfully norts Marluxia.

And I don't care if you saw it coming or didn't see it coming.  I like the way it all played out.

Because first we've got the funsies of Cid building them a new ship.  (not initially planned, but then that blizzard in Arendelle happened and it just sort of went from there.)  This is then followed by the mundane act of clothes shopping and then food and chatting with Hayner, Pence, and Olette.

Then we have Cloud and Tifa going to talk to Barret and Marlene.  I almost forgot to include Denzel in this scene, and had to go back and rewrite the first half of the chapter to include him! I felt so bad! But he needed to be there and the scene certainly benefited from it.  Denzel and Marlene's interactions!

And then we've got Axel's POV with a really blase attitude towards the Remnant battle.  That is, until the Remnant goes for his heart.  And this isn't the first time that Axel's had his heart played with by Xehanort.  Xehanort played with Axel's darkness levels back in AtP.  Axel knows what's going on, but he doesn't even have room to be scared.

But Axel is saved because Larxene and Marluxia show up and the Remnant picks a new target.  Axel's a stubborn target for a plethora of reasons.  And Marluxia proves to be an easy target.  And the success of the norting gives everyone else a feeling of hopelessness.

Then, we interrupt that programming to see Aqua, Terra, and Ven in the Pride Lands.  This chapter was literally designed to give Aqua some time to think about what Xehanort had done.  That, and suggest that Xehanort is the reason why Scar turned into the person (lion) he did well before the fic's events.  'Cause it was fun.

Then I switch to Xion and the aftermath of Marlynort's existence.  I don't know where the name Marlynort came from, but I probably coined it in a conversation with rar and then it stuck.  Then Xion got to be the one to name him.

And then we get into the seriousness that is basically them all saying if they're nort, they need to die.  Like in a zombie film or something.  There's not much to say about that.  I think it speaks for itself.

A+ tooting my own horn:
-Riku saying they have enough munny to buy a house
-Kairi keeping everyone on track
-Roxas worrying about weird things because he's trying to be all normal when he knows he's not
-Roxas knowing more about Twilight Town than anyone else because he has data memories of growing up there that while aren't real, give him a pretty nice layout of the place in his head
-Tifa and Cloud being intentionally vague about their relationship
-Barret yelling at Sora and friends because they're "annoying teenagers"
-Barret saying that Leon's got a bad business model
-The line "The reason for Hollow Bastion's problems and at least thirteen other ones"
-Roxas being protective over the residential district and Cloud being protective over his bike
-Marlynort
-Larxene calling Marlynort a bastard
-Marlynort monologuing

Arendelle (aka Frozen) (Chapter 41-52)

My longest sequence yet, pretty much entirely because I split the group in two and did alternating POVs within the main group to get more story.  I had story with Elsa and also one with Anna.  I split the group firstly in the most logical way I could think: Kairi, Namine, and Roxas with Anna; Sora, Riku, Xion, Axel with Elsa.

First I wanted to split up the couples because there always is someone who freaks that their counterpart is not there.  I wanted to send Axel to Elsa because of the contrast in ice and fire.  I also wanted Riku to have the opportunity to talk to Elsa about dark pasts.  Sora's great at bringing even the most stubborn person to a place where they'll talk.  And I couldn't just have all the boys go one place and the girls another, so Xion went with them.  Plus, that enabled me to have fun with the Xion-Axel dynamic.  I love their friendship.  It's fantastic.  This split allowed Namine and Kairi to become suspicious of Anna's "I just met him but I want to marry him" antics, and also allowed them to be terribly suspicious of Hans, but Roxas, who misses those social cues, would be rather oblivious to it.  It also allowed for Roxas and Kristoff to kind of bond in a weird way over how women behave weirdly.

Of course, after they all meet up in Elsa's ice castle, everyone gets to talk to everyone.  Namine and Elsa talking is particularly a necessity.  (That and Namine fixes Anna's memory issue--something that I didn't think solved in the movie.)  Then, when the guards come in and everyone gets split up again, it doesn't stick with the original splits, because I thought that would be weird.  Granted, Namine and Xion were the only two that swapped, but that's how the battle ended up lining up.

Me doing a Frozen story was in part because I knew Frozen was popular and it fit well into the Kingdom Hearts universe.  The other reason I did it was because I thought that the original story of Frozen had a lot of plot holes in it that putting it into the bounds of Kingdom Hearts could fix (granted, the movie itself could just have parts rewritten to be better, but this was my golden opportunity so I took it.)  And I stuck pretty close to a story that Kingdom Hearts got a hold of.  The most major difference I think was Hans' ability to use Fire.  Something that I added because I saw a tumblr most months ago postulating that Hans might have fire powers, due to him always wearing gloves and how that would make for an interesting plot twist.

The biggest things that I chose to "fix" were Anna and Elsa's relationship to each other, the events in the ice castle, and Anna's trip to the trolls.  I wanted some real stuff to be solved in the trip to the ice castle, not a whole bunch of people not listening to each other.  Namine fixing Anna's memory and informing Elsa about it was also part of it and obviously something that can only happen in my canon.  Even without that, some sort of explanation about why Anna can be told now would have been nice as far as the actual movie went.  I took out everything unnecessary regarding the trolls (which was most of it as far as the middle of the movie was concerned.)  All that needed to happen was the bit about true love--no obnoxious shipping songs, no bunny trails, just straight-to-the-point moving the plot forward.  Fluff is nice, obnoxious shipping songs are not.

And I'm sure ya'll hate me now because I've critiqued Frozen.  But I don't care.  I rewrote this to make myself feel better about some SERIOUS issues with the writing.  Come on, Disney, you're better than that.

And during all that I also have Cloud being more of a reasonable human being instead of his broody self.  I'm not sure why he started acting happier, but he did.  He started taking blows as they came instead of worrying about the next sixteen of them.  Even Hades' hellhounds didn't put a damper on his mood.

Then I also have Terra, Aqua, and Ven poking around on Kuin's homeworld.  I was thinking of a place that they could go to learn something about Xehanort and I remembered that he'd taken particular offense to Kuin's people so there was as good a place as any.  They also had the overlaid negative feelings because negativity was a motif for this part of the fic.  And Terra being able to recognize them was great.  And then they run into Kuin--they run into Kuin more than anyone else this fic, go figure--and they talk some sense into her.  Kuin's not been doing so hot because the events of the past 20 years are catching up to her.  And the three of them are so great, they convince her that working together is better than not working together.

Ima take a moment and talk about Axel's relationship with Xion.  I'm not sure if I've mentioned it before, but I'll mention it again anyway.  I love their friendship.  It reminds me of me and a friend of mine actually.  The age difference (his and mine and the apparent age difference between Xion and Axel) is definitely something fun to play with.  It's almost brother-sisterly, but at the same time it's very much friendship based.  And they just poke so much fun at each other it's great.

I also love Xion's reactions to the World around her.  Because her time in the Organization didn't really give her a good idea of what any of that was.  And then she went to Riku's place and spent all the time that anyone else would be sleeping reading books and so she has a bit of a skewed sense of reality and it shows up in funny moments.  Like when the trolls started mentioning true love.

And just when you thought we weren't going to deal with a Remnant for a while, I throw one at you and he tries to Nort Aqua.  Obviously it's not effective because Aqua's heart is strong and she puts up a great struggle (and Kuin very nearly becomes a huge coward) but Aqua now has a bit of Xehanort's memories to paw through and a lot to think about.

Then I've got quiet expansions in Hollow Bastion.  Not taking too much time out of the story to go over minutia, but the school foundation has been found, Space Paranoids is being expanded (I half wanted it to include something like int he world of Wreck it Ralph, but I didn't have the time to do that in the fic as a whole.)  Additionally, the magic is returning to the place, and everyone's quietly taking bets as to what Zack is up to.  Oh, and Cloud's perkier.

Things I'm down with:
-The idea that there are some Worlds not touched by Heartless
-Sora channeling Goofy
-Riku insisting to Elsa that he's seen worse
-Xion being blunt
-Sora, Riku, Xion, and Axel helping Elsa get control of her powers
-Cloud getting better
-Cloud trying to get rid of the hellhounds by stopping random places inside and outside the Betwixt and Between
-Kristoff being shocked that Roxas, Namine, and Kairi have seen worse and weirder than his current situation
-Terra's ability to recognize that negative feelings were probably a result of external forces
-The line "butt singed through the ice yet?"
-Axel flipping Xion off
-Namine downing an ether before she gets down to business
-Axel setting fire to a staircase
-Aerith just casually saying Denzel can stay (but meaning it very seriously)
-Yuffie telling Denzel that "they'll tell you when you're older"
-Sora somehow managing never to wake up in prison until Arendelle and Riku's bafflement about that
-Xion wondering why Kairi uses "perhapsy" words
-Xion expecting Anna and Kristoff to kiss because that's what happens in the books
-Kuin deciding to go after Xigbar with utmost determination
-Xion correctly assuming that the others are in prison though having no way of proving it until later
-The line "Hey Sora, how about you come find me and save me the trouble of finding you."
-Axel telling Elsa that not feeling is not cool, because he would know
-Them all poking fun at Hades