WHAT IS THIS IS IT THE CROSSOVER? (Can't Escape ch62)

Chapter

Why yes.  Yes it is.

This is the epic crossover you've all been waiting for? (Well, one of them at least.  I think ya'll were pretty excited to see Sora and Sora, too.  But Riku and Riku was always going to happen first.)

Rar and I have had this planned since... oh... Probably since AtP, about when rar was finishing up FtP and moving into Dead Inside.  We even had it written.

Except, reading through it, we realized that we had to rewrite it.  Basically entirely.

Things that stayed the same:

by Maulsypaulsy

Vexen dragging Riku to the other universe
Riku landing face-first in the sand
Namine being the first one to see him
The cast of characters
General chit-chat about recent happenings

Things that changed:
Everything else.

See, originally, before Dead Inside turned into the huge thing that it turned into, Sora and Kairi's plotlines were significantly less... erm... expansive.  (This is the short version.)  From my understanding, Sora had some trouble with the darkness, but nothing on the level of Shad, because Shad didn't exist yet, and Dead Inside actually took place in a lot shorter of a timespan, which meant that Kairi never actually left the Islands.  This made the Riku Replica super confused when he saw Sora and Kairi BOTH on the Islands.  (I may post the original scene when we're clear of spoilers.)

Repliku was also cockier and the meltdowns were still a relatively new thing.  As in, Vexen didn't even know they existed.  And Repliku was having a conniption about them because no progress had been made (which of course had to change because of the recent experiments.) I think we were also having trouble with Namine continuing to offer to help and he kept saying no.  There was also a whole thing where they got on a tangent about Replicas being their own people (we were on a Days kick) and we were having feels about Repliku being worried that his Namine would be worried that she was a Replica and not a "real" person.  That got cut because people's focuses changed.

Plus, we had to change some of the conversation, because things we projected would happen and things that actually happen do end up being two different things.  And, some things had to get cut because at the time we first wrote the crossover, we hadn't planned on Joseph and Axel being frequenters of the other universes.  And, since Can't Escape became a huge thing, we didn't have to cover a lot of the mechanics.  The people in my universe know about where Sora and Kairi in rar's universe are, because they keep running into each other.  Plus, Axel ran into Repliku recently.

Yeah, it was a whole big thing.

And, about the time when we were going to rewrite it, Namine was dumping loads of feels on me of things that she wanted to say to Repliku.  Which is where the first half of the chapter as it currently stands comes from.  The second half being a brief sum-up of the parts of the story that my characters don't know.

And, I think that's all I'm going to say.  There are more chapters on this to be posted, and I don't want to discuss everything to death just yet!

I think I'll do review responses for this whole sequence once I'm done posting :P

And... I think this is an appropriate video; Also, it's amusing:

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.

The Fight Against Adel (22)

Because, we needed more fights.  Actually, we did.

Link to the chapter: (I swear it's the chapter this time, not my fanfic profile) http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9446325/22/What-s-all-Gone-on-Before

Link to the tumbl (it wasn't live, I basically went in and added my thoughts afterwards): http://magiksbrain.tumblr.com/tagged/ch22/chrono

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!

And now for a video: (more VOCALOID stuff)