#I wrote it. changed a plot point. started to rewrite it. changed ANOTHER plot point

[aaaaaaaaagenloser]

(Tw: kinda transphobia? Use of it/its for a character who hasn’t declared what their pronouns are yet. Arguments over whether a character is a person or not; that ties into the pronoun thing here. Bonus points for descriptions of canon-typical gore yipeeee)

An update from after writing this: oh this. Got. This one got away from me?? I think I started this at 4 minutes past the hour. It is now 43 minutes past the hour. shitt.

Update; it is now 17 minutes after the NEXT hour. 26 minutes after th last update. I have seen god in the past hour and she shook in fear of both my power and audacity. I have lunch with my family scheduled in like 6 hours and I have not yet slept. This wasn’t meant to be as long as it is but I was possessed and this is the result. I may edit it and make it smoother later but I’ll make that a separate post, I want this sleep-deprived chunk of words to be here as like a monument to the fact that I could have been playing stardew valley during this time but I chose to do this instead

TLDR: long ass story ahead written by a sleep-deprived and hyperfixation-driven author. Who is now going the fuck to BED

“We can’t just keep it! What if it has a tracking device? It won’t let us fucking touch it so there’s no way of knowing it has one unless it leads them right to us!”

“Ok, I hear you but think. That hasn’t happened yet. It’s been about what, three days? and that hasn’t happened, and they haven’t been violent towards any of us at all. They haven’t tried to go back either, so there’s no risk of them telling or leading Showfall where we are.”

“Why do you keep calling it ‘they’?”

“Well they can’t be an “it” now can it? …wait.”

“Ok can we figure out the gender of the thing in the other room after we figure out if it’s a threat to us or not. It’s not even a fucking person, you remember what those things did to you back there, don’t you?”

“Those people were not themselves, they were just doing what he wanted them to do—“

“They’re not fucking people! Those things are all part of Showfall, just like Hetch was! It’s just waiting for the right time to turn us in, or pull some shit on one of us like they did before.”

“They weren’t… they weren’t in control.”

“Yeah like fuck they weren’t, I saw it fucking happen!”

“You can’t just… Ok. Sneeg. Stop. You don’t speak for me, the one who, oh I don’t know, was the one that shit happened to? They were being controlled just like us—“

“No, no, not like us. We were wandering around and not knowing what the fuck was happening. None of us knew what was happening. We just went along blindly. Those things—on purpose—dragged you to that stupid wall and sewed wires into your hands—“

“Shut up, Sneeg—“

“No you shut up! You didn’t see it fucking happen! I saw them and Bitchface literally hold you down until you passed out! They were fucking choking you, they fucking—they nearly fucking killed you with just their hands, that’s not a little suggestion in the back of your brain, that’s on purpose! That is fucking deliberate, that is a thing those machines chose to do! You don’t remember, you weren’t conscious when they fucking stapled you to the wall and strapped your head in—“

Sneeg glanced at Ranboo for a moment in-between pacing as he ranted, and the far away look in their sibling’s eyes shut them up immediately. Ranboo was still present, thank fuck, but they were looking at their brother like he was holding up a knife to their throat.

“Fuck, Ran, okay, okay—I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have… shit. Do you need Charlie?”

“You don’t know when to shut the fuck up.”

“…okay. Okay. I’m sorry. Do you need me to get Charlie?”

“No, I’m fucking fine.” It did not sound like he meant that at all. His voice was less steady than before. “I don’t want him to worry about our… hitchhiker. He’s worrying enough about… well, everything.”

“The fact that it’s here, so close to us is the reason I’m trying to get you to see, Ran. What if it turns on him? What if it does that shit to him when we aren’t there?”

“We will be there.”

“And when it tries anything, we can kill it?”

“Sneeg!”

“You wouldn’t kill it, even if it hurt our fucking brother?”

“Of course we wouldn’t keep them around if they did that, could we at least just… just leave it behind? …wait, no, they couldn’t take care of themselves. If we had to leave it behind, maybe we should…”

Silence lingered for a bit too long.

“We should what, Ran?”

“…Sneeg, I was about to say that killing it would be a mercy.” The Hero laughed. “Doesn’t that sound familiar?”

The Taken didn’t reply.

“We have to help them. I don’t… I don’t want to be on the other end of a mercy killing. I don’t want to hurt anyone anymore.”

“Okay. I’m—are you okay?”

“…m fine. It’s fine. Just. Can you stop acting like they’re any different from us? Please.”

“What do you want me to think then?” His voice was softer than it had been a few minutes before.

“Just assume that they… that they were someone. Just like we were before. And they didn’t… they didn’t do anything on their own, it was all Showfall.”

“Okay. Fine. Let’s assume they were controlled, they didn’t mean to, so on and so forth. Why haven’t they talked yet.”

“I don’t think any of the drones even could talk. Wait, should we really be calling them a drone—“

“Shut the fuck up, Ranboo, we have got to figure out what to do with it. It probably doesn’t even know what is happening, what the fuck does it matter what we call it.”

“It matters to me! Do you want me to call you by your title? Do you want to call me by mine? …No? Then why are we treating them like all they are is what Showfall made them? We had lives before, we were someone, so they must have been too. They might not realize it, or… or act like it, but they used to be someone. They are a whole person, Sneeg. We have to help them, we can’t just leave them behind because that would mean we are giving up on someone just like us, and we cannot give up on each other. They… they would have hurt us by now if they were going to. And Showfall hasn’t found us since… you know, which means there aren’t any more trackers.

…okay, Sneeg?”

“…okay. If it,” he sighed at the look Ran gave them, “if they try anything, we have to leave them behind. I’m not letting a dumbass puppet be the reason we get taken back.”

“If they—ok, whatever, you’re not understanding. You can’t say one of us somehow wanted to be controlled, and they’re a ‘puppet’ but those rules don’t apply to the rest of us—“

“There is not an ‘us,’ Ran! That thing isn’t like us!”

“Guys?”

A sleepy voice shut the two of them up instantly. They had a split-second conversation with their eyes before looking to their brother. ‘We aren’t done talking about this’ ‘You’e absolutely right, so later?’ ‘Later.’ ‘We’re telling Charlie nothing happened?’ ‘Of course.’ ‘Ok good plan.’

“Why are you two fighting? I’m tired, can we please go back to sleep?”

“We weren’t fighting, we were…”

“…talking about plans for tomorrow. And you can go back to sleep.”

“I don’t want to be by myself.” Charlie looked at Sneeg pointedly, who sighed to Ranboo with a playfully annoyed expression.

“Well I guess I gotta go be a teddy bear again.”

“Have fun”

“Absolutely not.”

Charlie punched Sneeg in the shoulder lightly for that, who just giggled in response and led his little brother back to their room.

Which left Ran by themselves.

Some nights, he would join them, but some nights Charlie couldn’t stand to be anywhere near Ran, and the three of them had made a silent mutual agreement that Charlie trusted Sneeg more than he did Ranboo.

…Ranboo was okay with this. He wasn’t hurt by it. He didn’t cry on the nights he slept by himself.

He didn’t wish he could be the one Sneeg comforted sometimes. They were just fine.

They were fine, which is why they went to the living room where their… well. Their hitchhiker? They weren’t exactly a brother, or a sibling, more like a fourth wheel on a tricycle. Or a flyaway hair. Okay, maybe Ranboo needed to get tbr fuck to sleep, alone or not.

But he found himself in the living room, where their hitchhiker slept. Or, didn’t sleep, as they seemed to not need to. They would sit on the couch and stare idly at the tv. That was what had started the whole conversation with Sneeg in the first place; Ran wanted to leave some kind of entertainment for the fourth person so they wouldn’t be made to sit in the dark for hours. Sneeg took this remark as a perfect opportunity to explain all the reasons why the former drone should be abandoned, but Ranboo would have fucking none of it. Maybe the couch potato (shit, he really needed to come up with a name for them—) didn’t seem to sleep, barely ate, and stayed still unless actually verbally told to move, but they were still a person. Ranboo was sure of it.

Their hand wandered up to the fresh scabs where their mask had been. The fourth person had a mask, one that hadn’t been touched. Despite usually staying still, the person—(Ranboo thinks they might just call this person Couch for now. Maybe it’s not accurate, and they’re tired, but it’s something. C, for short.)

C would back away any time the others would try to get near them. And they did in fact try, but despite how creative or sneaky they got, C always ducked away. It reminded Ranboo of the drone who had followed them with a camera, always one step away and never letting the Hero get too close.

The mask turned to Ranboo, who stared back quietly. C hadn’t talked at all, so Ranboo didn’t expect them to suddenly start now. He wasn’t even sure if they understood what was said to them, but Ranboo wanted to try anyways. Better to be polite.

“Do you like the show that’s on? I think it’s called Lucy, or something. I don’t know, Sneeg said it was funny. And it didn’t seem, uh- scary or anything.”

The mask didn’t speak.

“If you want to change it, the remote’s right there, um, I showed you how to use it before. And there’s like, instructions drawn on there. You can thank Charlie for that one.”

…

“I think I’m going to head to bed.”

…

“Fuck it, can I stay here?”

The mask still didn’t speak, but the head hidden behind it tilted a bit at the sudden change in tone. Ranboo took this as an absolute win.

“So I just. I don’t want to be by myself. And I don’t think you sleep, I mean if you just sleep when everyone else is asleep that’s cool, but also if so how do you even? function? on that much sleep? It really isn’t that much but to be fair you don’t do much so maybe you don’t need it. …do you sleep sitting up? And just somehow wake up when we get close? I know, um. Sorry about that, again, we were just worried your mask had a tracker like mine used to.”

Ran laughed nervously. “I think I did convince them that it doesn’t, so that should stop now. If um. If we make you uncomfortable you still don’t have to be touched, it’s, it’s fine.”

Other than the head tilt before, there wasn’t a reply.

“Okay, since. You can’t talk, I’m just gonna… I’ll sit down beside you. On the couch. And if you don’t want me to be that close you can uh- you can leave. Or like, get up, and then I’ll leave. This is the only room with a tv, so I’ll let you stay here, but I can’t tell if you want me to be here or not, so. Okay, sorry, I’m rambling. Just… move if you want me to leave, okay?”

Ranboo waited for a response that didn’t come, then sighed. “Okay.” He kept his hands up and open while sitting down, waiting for a few moments before tucking his feet under himself to get more comfortable. “I’m just gonna stay here, okay? Like I said, just move if you want me to leave.”

The mask had tracked them to where they sat now, but the person—C—didn’t make a move to leave. Ranboo turned their attention to the tv, keeping an eye on their couch partner in their peripheral vision. During a moment of audience laughter in the show—I Love Lucy, they remembered—C turned their head back to the television as they had been before Ranboo walked in.

Seeing as how C (they needed a better name than that—) didn’t speak, this was the closest Ranboo could get to being told “you can stay here.” So they did. A few episodes later, his head was on the arm of the couch and his eyes were closed.

Five turned its attention to the Hero, who was now asleep. He had said it was a person, which was almost hilarious. And the Taken and the Hero seemed to think it couldn’t talk? They had to know it needed to be given permission first: any handler of a Drone or Prop knew that basic rule. It would wait until permission was given: it knew how to obey. It wasn’t meant to speak to a superior unless it was told it was allowed. It would wait.

…in the meantime, it studied its handler, the Hero. The other Actors, their two other handlers, called him ‘Ranboo’ but Five knew that wasn’t his actual label. The Hero was his character in the last show, and so that is who he was. Five didn’t know if Actors had a number, but he had been called the Hero in the script, and so the Hero he will be until the script changes.

It hoped to get new instructions, a new script for itself, something, soon. It was tired of simply watching the Actors go about their incredibly off-script show. It was sometimes told to participate, and since no other superiors were nearby, it had to obey its current handlers. But it was told to participate, to stir eggs, to help clean the kitchen, to attack small webs in corners with a stick with soft spikes on the end. Those sorts of things weren’t it’s usual directive, and so it found itself…

It didn’t resent its handlers. They were doing their best, and they at least knew that they were meant to give it orders. It simply wished they were familiar orders. It wished the Hero had told it to play dead, or play chase, or play camera, or caught, or prop. It would even listen if it was told to power down until needed. At least then it wouldn’t have to be conscious in this boring and unfamiliar set.

.

Y EA I know they probably don’t like tvs. Shhhhhh. I didn’t think about that until like. I had already written the tv part. At this moment it is 55 minutes past th hour and I want these characters to go the fuck to sleep so I can go thr fuck to sleep /lh

And yeah Five only uses “he” for glran. That is intentional. It’ll be talked about and shit later. Something about being put into a role, something about showfall being transphobic, something something I want to go to bed

Powering down = “sleeping” for a drone. Different but similar. I’ll explain how it works later?, anyway The others hav e told Five to “sleep” but it doesn’t understand because it is only ever told to “power down” so it’s like error.sleep_not_found and it stares at them like “bitch you said the wrong. Thing. You’re supposed to know how to control me so you don’t want me to power down I fucking guess” and it’s gonna be really funny after that miscommunication is taken care of.

If you remember the Five Gets A Cold And Wants To Throw Hands With Everyone post, this is wayyy before that. These motherfuckers are fresh out of showfall. Don’t ask how they got a house. I’ll figure it out

I am! Tired! I’m not proofreading this!! Goodnight please give me your thoughts if you have them. I need to know I didn’t sacrifice tbis much sleep in vain /nf /lh (I appreciate words but you are Not required to give them. Love you have a good nigt/p)

#five the genloss blorbo #let’s not talk about how many tries it took me to spell unobserved. let’s simplynot #update like 5 years into me writing this: i also cannot spell the word peepohe it would seem #that. that was meant to be the word People. you can see m #h my point stands #it is late as fuck yet I Have to make this. it has to exist so I must make it exist #I’m hamilton writing like I’m running out of time but I’m writing g #writing 51 essays in which assorted characters get the physical and/or emotional shit beaten out of them #and me running out of time is running out of sleepy. I am a sleep y man #take a break and get away says my pillow. I am Hamilton my pillow is upstate and this goddam mess of a short story I am trying to write is M #this story is Mariah Reyndolds leading me to her bed . #I haven’t slept in a while and I’m hyperfixationed on Hamilton so that metaphor makes. 0 sense #if you’re reading this far I’m so sorry. have a cookie! and fun fact an old lady held my hand and s #she said my (Very Androgynous!!) haircut is perfect. she used those words #i almost cried right then and there. genuine compliments from people make my fucking day . ok I need to go back to editing thisthing now #I wrote it. changed a plot point. started to rewrite it. changed ANOTHER plot point #so now I’ve got several s #several layers of Oh Shit I have to untangle #im. making my own goddam escape au apparently????? it won’t make any fucking sense but I will explain it later. #and! feel free to ask questions!’ and tell me if it make’s absolutely 0 sense #I do in fact want to be able to tell the story in a way you will understand. so ask questions! give a feedback! /gen /pos #I accidentally. deleted a tag so whatever I was going to say is fucking gone now. oh I think I memerbr #they are out of character ye. I’m sleepy and I’m making their escape au up as I go. #so far I have 1) the box scene was somehow Worse #2) they kidnapped Five (yippee!) #3) Charlie is the most traumatized out of the three. I don’t. I don’t know why. #I think that’s mostly because I didn’t feel like writing a conversation between Three characters. so my brain was like this : #why isn’t Charlie here? sleeping. why are these two not including him in conversation? protectiveness. #why protectiveness? he is the most upset out of the three of them and the other two have basically taken up the caretaker role. great plan #great plan hit the showers. I have reached. max tags. shit oh well back to writing tumblr says so!

[friendlybowlofsoup]

Another Update

Hello Friends,

I have a rather long (but optimistic!) update to share with you all today. As many of you are probably tired of reading these kind of posts, I have a TL;DR here, but I did want to share what has been on my mind in that past half-year that I haven't been here.

It has been rough, and busy as always, but I think I'm finally facing myself and my project for the first time in a very long time.

TL;DR (it's actually long, I have a lot to say (*_ _)人)

I soul-searched and decided to stop compromising on my own feelings with regards to this project. I gave in to everything I wanted to do.

Plot changes, which means some character changes, which means some of the demo is outdated.

GotRM will be switching over to Twine.

----

OH MAN DID I SUFFER THE LAST FEW MONTHS

After my previous update, I hunkered down and really analyzed how I wanted to proceed with GotRM as a project. Because even prior to that post, I had already been going through long periods of hiatuses (which you are all aware of), and while I didn't lie about school taking up my time, I was also harboring a growing dissatisfaction with my own writing that really killed my progress for a long time.

So after everything had settled, I sat down and forced myself to peel apart my work. I know I said I would answer asks, but I uninstalled all of my social media and put aside this blog to focus. I made a note of all the things I liked and didn't like, and I made a list of things I wanted to change or improve on. The biggest point was that I also looked at my efficiency during actual writing sessions: how much of my time was spent writing vs. fighting with code? How could I change that?

And after a lot of deliberation, I figured there were a few things I had to change from the ground up, summed up in four points:

My working style was super incompatible with grad school. I can't spend 20-30 minutes scrolling up and down CSIDE checking code or looking for narratives while also jumping between chapters to make sure events line up. As this story grows, the more difficult it becomes to keep track of all the branches, so I needed an alternative working method, which I am adhering to now, and it prioritizes efficiency.

I hated the way I was tracking and coding stats in-game. I have griped so much about coding stats, and I have adhered to such a rigid style that I really felt trapped whenever I was confronted with balancing them out. So I'm throwing that to the wind and redoing how I utilize and convey them. Player-side, this decision doesn't change much since I never fully utilized stats in the demo anyway, and the stats page with indicators will still exist, but I'm getting rid of stat bars and how I treat stat checks.

The story I want to write now is different from the one I started out with. I've known for a while that GotRM was becoming far more than the tiny, wishful novella that I wrote as a teenager. I held onto that old story for a long time, but there's just so much I want to change that I realized I'd been clinging to a story I no longer enjoyed writing. So I spent the majority of the last few months rewriting GotRM from scratch. I redid some worldbuilding, I changed a lot of plot points, and I fixed a lot of characters' backstories accordingly. This meant scrapping stuff from even the demo, but that turned out to not be the biggest issue because:

I wanted to branch away from ChoiceScript. Honestly, I never really cared about getting officially published, but the camaraderie in the forums and on Tumblr were why I committed to CS and CoG. However, ultimately, I really want the functionality that other tools can offer GotRM, and so after a long internal debate, I will be switching over to Twine. Fortunately, since I was rewriting everything anyways, this has been relatively painless, and passage mapping has made everything so much neater. I am trying my best to make it up to chapter 2 before I release the new demo, so please look forwards to that!

And so yes, I am still here, chugging along.

I love this game and this story: it's been my creative escape for as long as I could remember, and you can imagine how frustrated I was when I realized I was starting to dread working on it.

I am forever learning more about myself and my writing style, and this is simply more of that journey. Thank you everyone for sticking around, for joining the discord, and for checking up on me--that I have all of you has truly been a dream.

Hopefully more updates to come soon! I understand that there may be questions about these new changes, so please ask away! I will (try) to release some asks that I've been working on in the drafts too, but I will wait until at least tomorrow to release them so that this post doesn't get drowned out immediately.

And as always, with a lot of love,

FriendlyBowlofSoup (Mei)

#writing update

[orchidyoonkook]

Do you have any tips for new writers/accounts to get popular???

Hello!!!!!

SO:

I was a shit writer for a very long time cuz I never wrote. But one day I wanted to change that so at 19 I made up a story and wrote down all my plot points and then did a DEEP DIVE on Pinterest of all things collecting every bit of advice I could. I’m talking ideas, how to do this, how to not use the word said, how to start sentences. How sentences should flow and their lengths, big uncommon words. EVERYTHING.

Anything and everything I could get my hands on. 

And on top of that I’ve been a reader for forever. I have so many books I don’t even know how many I have. And so I use that knowledge when editing. I don’t read it from a writing POV after I write it. I turn into a reader and think about how I would feel about it from a readers POV and if something doesn’t work. I fix it.

I have a small background in script writing from my college days which definitely helped a bit. But if you’ve ever studied script writing you know it doesn’t really help creative writing outside of structure.

And when I write I’m someone who writes until I think the story is done. Not the arc. Not the characters. But the overall story of what I’m trying to portray. I don’t actively think about putting the climax of the story here or some foreshadowing there. I write intuitively if that makes sense. I try to sense out what feels right. And some of that comes naturally, some of it doesn’t and I have to work on it.

Me and @violetsiren90 were actually talking roughly about this last night. Our differences in how we write and how my advice from her last fic that I edited had already helped her with her new one cuz she can now see all of the little things that I pick up on from my style of writing versus the times where she tells me why she writes in that specific way and why she will be keeping it as is. Vi if you wanna add anything in the comments I’m forgetting, by all means feel free.

Most writers will tell you to practice. To tell you to write something even if it’s just a sentence everyday. But that didn’t help me. The stuff on my blog are the very first things I’ve written for myself ever. I didn’t write in highschool or college outside of what I was forced to write and my one story that the Pinterest board was initially for.

For me it was about researching style and reading posts like these from other writers, being confident in your style and learning what rules to break and when to break them. It was about reading over your work a hundred times and to be impartial when you read so you can fix the mistakes that won’t work.

The benefit of writing is you can go over something you’ve written a hundred times until you think it’s ready. A thousand times. I can go back and rewrite that first story if I want too. Nothing can stop me.

But don’t get me wrong. I go back and read all my works on here from time to time and I still constantly find things I would change now. Word changes. Phrasing changes. Everything. But that’s just another sign of improvement. Writing is a constantly improving art form. There is no limit. Only growth.

And the last thing I do is write down everything. I have a TERRIBLE memory. So I write down every single idea. On a scrap piece of paper. In my phone. On a computer. In a notebook. Cuz you never know when you’ll use it.

My most recent story, The Devil Wears Valentino, I got the idea for that name sometime in the immediate aftermath of Valentino Yoongi. I was in the shower after watching the devil wears Prada and my mind just connected the two. And then it sat unused in my notes all until the week before Halloween 2023. I would’ve forgotten had I not written it down. But there it was right when I needed it, a gift from past me. And here we are.

As for popularity, dude I have no goddamn idea. I don’t even think I count as a popular/big blog. I utilize the HELL out of aesthetics, formatting and tags and I’m nice. That’s my spiel on that. Aesthetic. Format. Tag. Kindness. Talent, sure. I guess. But writing is one of those things, ESPECIALLY in fic, where it doesn’t have to be the best cuz folks just wanna read their comfort character or person in the same scenarios over and over again. Source: I do that. And I’ve read stories that don’t have the best writing. But the story was good, or vice versa. People are way more forgiving on here.

I didn’t come on here(tumblr) with the intention of writing let alone giving writing and popularity advice. I just wanted to read and support people and then the community I’ve built for myself has just grown and grown and I’ve been so incredibly fortunate, which is where kindness comes in.

Leave reviews and like and reblog stuff. Tell people how much you love their work. Let them know you write too. Create friendships with people who wanna support you. And people who you wanna support. Community is the base of everything.

#this was WAAAAAAAAYYYYY to long but I hope it helps #I’m not a very conventional writer so idk how much it will help #Yoon on writing #asks #anon #ms.mailbox 📬 #writing #writing advice

[floraracoon]

Gems of Dupont - Rewrite

Since it's been bothering me these past few days, this is a list of how I would rewrite a fic I wrote last year, called The Gems of Dupont on Ao3 if I were to do so.

Spoiler Warning if you want to read the fic then read this

Premise: There is a group of students who while anonymous, are known to have a lot of power. Namely, they have a history of getting rid of unsavory figures in the school or associated with it. Their current targets are Marinette (stalking, minor abuse of power, and her actions towards her 'rivals'), Adrien (bystander, actions as Chat Noir towards Ladybug, etc.), Lila (obvious), Alya (misinformation, slander, and something else), Mme. Bustier (bystander, emotional manipulation, poor teaching methods), Mr. Damocles (fraud, neglect, etc.), and Fu (facing the consequences of his own actions)

Problems: A scene that I did not flesh out enough to show the reasoning behind it, too many characters involved in the takedown, illogical plot points, involving characters that make no sense, and moving too fast due to me losing interest but not wanting to go on hiatus or abandoning the work.

The Rewrite:

Establishing the Gems -

The sign of the Gems (a wreath of gems on Mme. Mendelieve's door) is shown, causing rumors to spread through the school

Adrien, Alya, and Lila ask what they are, giving them the full explanation

The Gems are a group of six that every year go through and gather evidence of people's wrongdoings, before giving them to those that would cause the most change. This most of the time results in someone leaving the school. When they are done, gems are left where the person sits. Each gem represents something, and while there are six Gems, there are more gems.

Chloe scoffs out loud while Lila internally scoffs. Chloe thinks she is immune, as she has never been hit before. Lila scoffs because she thinks she hasn't been caught, to begin with.

Cut to a group chat, where two people are arguing over the nicknames they have in the chat. "Eye candy" seems particularly frustrated and claims they bring something more to the team than their good looks.

Safety Measures -

We see a week pass, with people becoming more and more anxious waiting for something to happen. Some sign that this wasn't a fluke. The first week is always when it is that they send out the warnings, where are the warnings?

But one day, as Nino walks in, having not arrived with Alya due to her running off to record an akuma fight, he finds a note sitting on his desk. The note contains a list of numbers and timestamps. A small doodle of a gem sitting in the corner.

On another day, Rose finds a small slip of paper that has Prince Ali's phone number on it, also with a small doodle of a gem in the corner

Luka opens a note left on his bed. He finds the chords for a song, with no lyrics. Each page has small annotations of cherry blossoms in places where lyrics would be, and a doodle of a gem in the bottom corner.

Kagami is surprised when a note falls out of her locker, with a message in brail saying "He hesitates, where is his backbone?". A gem is engraved on the page

The first -

Alya is the first to go down. After a fight between her and Nino that results in their break up, she learns that her parents got a similar note to the one that started the fight.

The numbers and timestamps were coded for different videos on the Ladyblog. The one for Nino was instances where Alya endangered him and those around him. The fight was about her recklessness, and her want to get up close to akuma fights with little regard for her safety.

The one her parents got, however, was every single time she had endangered herself.

The two of them were busy with work often, so they only really watched the videos Alya sent them. Often those were the ones where she stayed safe for the most part or had a lot of views.

So they opened her blog, to investigate what these timestamps were, only to find their daughter once again throwing herself into situations she shouldn't have. Along with countless posts trying to figure out the identities of people who were trying to protect the city and a single post that had them questioning her integrity.

The next day, Alya was pulled into distanced learning. She was also grounded until further notice, with no blog posting for one day per timestamp listed.

Will continue this post tomorrow, as this is getting really long

#mlb rewrite #mlb fandom #mlb au #mlb fanfic #alya cesaire #nino lahiffe #rose lavillant #juleka couffaine #luka couffaine #adrien agreste #marinette dupain cheng #lila rossi #chloe bourgeois #fanfic #fanfic rewrite #miraculous ladybug #gems of dupont

[argentnoelle]

do you have a process for editing fic?

I do! :) The details can change up depending on the story, but the most important bit for me is making notes along the way. I make so many notes, on anything I want to change or don't like or want to add later... either in the same document if it's a short fic, or in a separate document if it's a long one.

I do a lot of editing as I write, so if I'm writing a chaptered fic I'll usually read through & edit the previous chapter before starting to write the next chapter, since that also reminds me where I was at tone/plot/themewise... for big changes that aren't something I can or want to work on till the end, I put that all in the notes document and then eventually knock out each point I made notes on—maybe a scene I wanted to expand, a setting detail I needed to change, or a theme I want to make sure is drawn through the story. And then right before I post I usually go through & proofread the piece one more time.

If I have a scene I'd like to add in but I'm not sure if it'll fit the story or where to put it, sometimes I write that in a separate document and then save it aside to see if I can piece it in later. And if I have a scene that I wrote that I liked, but that didn't seem to fit the flow, I'll cut the scene and save it in another document. Either to put back in somewhere else, or to take apart and use sections of when I write future parts of the story.

I usually start writing in the order the story is intended to be read, chronologically if it's a chronological story, non-chronologically if it's a non-chronological story, but since I constantly re-read my stories as I write them, I'll also add in scenes or sections later. For example one of my Batman fics, Bring Down the House, was originally half the length it turned out to be—I wrote the whole story, up to the very last scene, then went through and re-read the story and wanted to slow down the pacing, and ended up adding scenes all over the place, even adding a whole subplot that wasn't there originally. And in one of my post-season 2 Black Butler fics, The Contract, I wrote a whole intro where Ciel meets an original character, that ended up just having bad pacing and not really feeling as intense and interesting of an into as I hoped it would be... so I ended up "skipping to the good parts" and taking that intro scene, chopping it up, and revealing it over flashbacks in increments, which worked so much better.

If I'm having a lot of difficulty with a piece or chapter, I'll highlight or bold the parts I like and put a strikethrough what I don't like, so I can see at a glance what's working and what isn't and what needs to be done to smooth out the flow, and then I'll start making changes from some part that isn't the beginning of the chapter, removing the extra formatting until the whole thing is done. I don't do that often, only when I'm really stuck on something.

One of the questions I'm always trying to figure out when I edit is "what's the best form for the story?" which includes point of view, pacing, chronology, & narration. I don't really do line edits for the sake of it, I edit to bring the story to its best "form"... the style the story should be told, in order to best bring itself across. So sometimes that means many rewrites and moving things around like puzzle pieces, but other times, if I know from the start the answer to all those questions, I end up not editing very much at all!

[semi-imaginary-place]

FFXVI Rewrite

Read this in one long post

Read this in parts: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5 .

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FFXVI Rewrite Part 1: Introduction, Prologue, and Return to Phoenix Gate

I decided to rewrite FFXIV and point out some of the game’s more glaring flaws, play with some ideas. In addition to plot changes and overhauling the lore, some of the general changes that should be made include tighter more efficient writing, fixing the pacing, and cutting most of the filler and fetch quests and focusing in on the main plot. There are a lot of words used to say a whole lot of nothing and it sounds nice because the voice actors do a good job but the dialogue lacks substance. At the same time players aren't given crucial story information in the main story leaving many important plot points under-explained to the point of audience confusion. I also want to improve character writing and develop inter-character relationships. For Jill as a character, It feels like the writers just forget about her. Not that Clive gets much good development either, he gets some in the first arc with Cid and then stagnates afterwards. And then the writers had the bad idea of starting a half assed character arc about Clive trying to do everything on his own at the same moment they take away Jill's agency and sideline her for the rest of the game.

FFXIV's prologue also acts as its demo, as such it is not only the first chapter to the story but also a piece of advertisement, and it is incredibly successful in being an advertisement. The FFXIV prologue is a hypebeast, it's a spectacle and one of the most exciting things I have seen in a long long time. However this strategy of front loading the game and making the best demo comes at the cost of later story and pacing. We don't get to see much of how 13 years of military slavery has affected Clive. The end confrontation between Ifrit and Phoenix means that Joshua re-entrance to the plot and his reunion with Clive must be pushed further back in the story. With the prologue FFXIV wrote itself into a corner and the story only continued to fall apart more the further the game progressed.

Such is the difference in medium between short form stories like the prologue, movies, OVAs, animated shorts, and so on, and long form stories like JRPGs, books, tv shows. That different format of stories makes different characteristics more successful in one over the other. Short form by nature must be compact and efficient, it is structured to be quickly complete both in story arc and emotional payoff. Long form is about the build, slowly weaving many things together, setting things up early to pay them off later. When you apply the strategy and mindset of one form of story to another, it tends to fail. Take BBC's Sherlock which attempted to use short form format for a longer series, this is why the first few episodes are quite good but as the series goes off the story falls apart, you all these teasing plot threads that go nowhere because the whole show is written like it’s a one off. The problem with FFXVI is that it tried to have its one shot and then attach a full game to it, and that can work but in XVI's case it made a lot of the story beats in the first half of the game clunky. A common problem with the buildup strategy is that instead the beginning of a story can end up slow and boring, the anime Tatami Galaxy is an example in that when it all comes together at the end its great but the beginning is real slow. So I started thinking about how to fix these problem and rewrite FFXIV and sadly I cannot think of a solution that does not cause additional problems.

Starting the game with Phoenix vs. Ifrit in the Fallen ruins is fine but have the first chapter of the game follow Clive's day to day life as a slave to the imperial army. Make it dull, strip him of dignity, make it bleak, make it miserable. Interspersed with the bleak reality of his life are snippets of the joy and liveliness color of Clive and Joshua's childhood telling the events leading up to Phoenix Gate. Through these two stories establish the setting, the nations, the politics, the balance of powers of Valisthea. The game already does a good job of establishing Joshua and Clive's relationship so all that is added here is the contrast between the lively teenager Clive was with the worn-down man he is now. At the end of Chapter 1 Phoenix Gate happens, and Clive wakes up still an assassin, still a Branded, still fighting a war with a knife at his throat, still not having achieved his revenge.

The game handles timeskips poorly, neither the 13 year nor the 5 year timeskips feel that long, time doesn't feel like it is passing during those times. Very little changes during the 5 year timeskip from the relationships to the politics to the characters as people. I'm shortening the timeskip from 13 years to 10 years which makes Clive 25, Joshua 20, and Jill likely somewhere in between. I'm doing this because it never felt like 13 years to begin with and to better explain Joshua's lack of involvement in those years. Joshua probably took a year or two to become a functional person again after his mother betrayed his nation, killed his father, and his dear older brother tried to kill him. Afterwards he's still just a kid what can he do and I think it takes him years of introspection and research into eikon and Ultima to come to reconcile a berserk Ifrit mauling him with his loving brother Clive. At 20 Joshua is only now capable enough, knowledgeable enough, powerful enough, and mature enough, to try and save Clive. To make it more interesting Joshua on some level still fears Clive and Joshua feels immense guilt over this and that he hasn't saved Clive earlier. This nicely ties into the themes of guilt and justice present in other characters often over those they could not save, like Clive, Dion, Harpocrates, Jill, Otto, Theodore, Isabelle, Quinten, etc.

I'm cutting out most of that mysterious hooded figure in Clive's head, it’s just confusing and it adds nothing Just have like a shadowy figure with glowing blue eyes and keep the glowing blue eyes be a consistent part of Ultima's every character design or something.

Beginning of Chapter 2 is where the original game starts with Clive on a mission to assassinate Shiva. Now because of a different Chapter 1 the round table scene actually makes sense because the player knows who these factions are. In my rewrite however not only is Cid looking to interfere, Joshua is using this as an opportunity to free Clive as well from afar. Throughout Chapter 1 build up Clive's discontentment as he remembers his past, so that in Chapter 2 Clive isn't just committing mutiny because he maybe saw his childhood friend, he was already planning on leaving and that he's not killing a single person more for Sanbreque and Jill is the last straw. Also have Jill represent an act of free will and also all his yet unfinished business. The drawn-out Chapter 1 also allows Clive's assassination unit to be humanized to drive home the brutality of his life and the injustice of the Branded system. If he's going to fight Clive is going to fight because he chooses to not because he's part of the same war machine that occupied his home and branded him. Instead of Cid it is Joshua that saves Clive and secures his retreat although Joshua keeps himself hidden from both Clive and the audience not ready to face Clive and using a nondescript flame. It is as Clive is running and encountering more Ironblood that he runs into Cid.

One thing that should have been explained better was Clive's status as a Bearer. During the prologue and during his childhood we see no hint of Clive being a Bearer, it is only after being enslaved by the Sabrequois army that he receives a Brand. It is strongly established and mentioned many times that one is born a Bearer. Which raises the question, was Clive ever a Bearer? I also wonder what the mechanics/magical physics difference there is between a Dominant and a Bearer, it seems to be that there is little objective difference as both are magic users without a need of crystals. Instead "Bearer" is a class term as Dominants are too militarily/culturally important to be branded. This also implies that Rosaria is a holdover of the older magocracy that used to rule Valisthea. I suspect that although he was a hidden Dominant Clive would never have been considered a Bearer especially since the Active Time Lore states that it’s common practice in Valisthea to test babies at birth for being Bearers. Rosaria and Archduke Elwin seemed more tolerant so maybe he wasn’t tested but I think it is more likely he just wasn’t born a Bearer. This would help to explain Clive's behavior in the game, he might have been branded but he never really acts like he sees himself as a Bearer. If the Bearer test just tested for magic Clive’s Dominant status might have caught him, but it is even more likely that either Anabella had him branded just to make his life even more miserable or that the imperial army didn't care that his fire magic was from The Blessing of the Phoenix as the First Shield of Rosaria, Clive could use magic thus he was a Bearer, they certainly didn't care. I wish the game had added a line or two about this to clarify the situation.

Which brings us to the next question I had about the game, how eikons and transfers of eikonic power worked. The game establishes that both eikonic power can be shared (Joshua and Clive, Barnabas and Sleipnir) but also that power shared means the Dominant will die or go berserk if they prime (Jill, Hugo, Dion (although he didn't go berserk either)). The game is wildly inconsistent about the mechanics so I'm going to overhaul this all so that there's some internal logic. First change is that sharing eikon power is not a death sentence for the Dominant but it does weaken them. Honestly this was just done as an excuse to take away Jill's ability to fight and be an active character and I will always resent this (doesn't even make sense since Dion does it anyways), and Torgal could absorb eikonic aether just fine. Dominants can usually share their power with one person though many choose not to for various reasons, I'm going to call these people who share power with Dominants "Vassals". A line should be added in-game about how it is Rosarian tradition for the First Shield to receive the Phoenix's fire and be their Vassal because that's a little detail we were missing and players only learn about this by reading the Active Time Lore. Although this is complicated by Clive being Ifirt's Dominant and Phoenix's other half so Clive isn't quite actually Phoenix's Vassal it's more complicated than that. Leviathan doesn't have a Vassal because their Dominant went rogue. Jill does not share her power until after she has come to terms with her past and realized that she does not have to shoulder her burdens alone that she shares her power with Clive. Cid wants humanity to be independent of magic so I can understand why he didn't share Ramuh's power (if it was anyone it'd probably be Dorys except that the cursebreakers seem to have formed because of the destruction of the original Hideaway). Due to changes in Waloed's writing Barnabas inspires actual loyalty in his soldiers and Sleipnir is his vassal. Another change I am making is that Terrance is Dion's Vassal in this rewrite. Benedrikta and Hugo both love their own power so they aren't sharing with anyone.

As per an overhaul to the Waloed section later, Benedrikta's characterization is altered so that power is her primary motivation. Her desire for Cid's love remains and it is tied to her desire for power but Cid is no longer her primary motivation. I'm not sure what to do with her. I think her having a breakdown and going berserk could still happen even with the lore changesjust because of the emotional stress. Benedrikta staked a lot of her identity and self-worth on her power and Clive defeating her ripped that all away from her. In addition, this is the first time Clive unknowingly absorbs an eikon so that could have affected her ability to summon Garuda, add to this the threat of being raped by bandits and sold as a slave and I’d say that’s enough for most people to go berserk. Another idea is that the Garuda fight happens because Benedrikta decides to hunt Clive down because she cannot live with the dishonor of losing to some no name Branded and she would rather die giving it her all than lived and lost.

Clive's fights against Benedrikta and his traversal of the Fallen ruins of Phoenix Gate happen mostly the same. This part of the game of pretty good so I see little reason to change it, Clive struggles with the realization and crushing guilt that he is the Dominant of Ifrit, he was the one that killed Joshua and all the people of Phoenix Gate, and how in his quest for vengeance he has been unknowingly chasing his own shadow the entire time. In the dungeon scene Clive can keep his underwear, and afterwards Cid, Jill, and Clive and discuss eikons, how odd it is more Ifrit to exist, the other mysterious Dominant of Fire that they are chasing.

With Clive's acceptance we are switching PoV to a Joshua playable section as he seeks to stop the end of the world, setting up Ultima as well as the worldbuilding and mechanics of aether and eikons. This part is optional I like the idea of it but I don't know if I like the idea so much as to include it. These will be a series of short playable segments as Joshua explores ruins and tries to piece together, aether, eikons, history, Ultima, Mothercrystals, Bearers, Dominants, and why the world is hurtling towards disaster. This is also to set up the red herring of how the Mothercrystals might be feeding Ultima so that when Joshua rejoins the party he will corroborate Cid's hypothesis.

FFXVI Rewrite Part 2: Jill, Clive, and Joshua, Changing the Timeline

I want to continue Jill's established character as someone who gave up everything from her dignity to her morals to protect the women of Rosaria. She too is being crushed under the weight of her guilt of what she did under the Ironblood but she would still be determined to protect the people she had sworn to protect. While Clive is running around chasing Joshua and coming to terms with himself, Jill is plotting a rescue effort to Iron. This then comes to an intersection with Cid's plans to destroy the Mothercrystals. For Clive, he has just seen first hand what a decade under imperial rule has done to Rosaria, he sees its people standing up for their nation, and so him contacting his uncle Byron isn't only reconnecting with the only family he has left, it’s not only about stopping the Blights, it's about Rosaria and reclaiming for Rosarians the lives and freedom they had lost. I also do want to add to this section a quest where Cid tests and confirms that crystals are leeching aether from the land and causing Blight. Clive and Jill can also open up and bond over their shared crushing guilt. Both of them have killed large amounts of people with their eikons (though more deliberately in Jill's case), both of them of have been exploited as tools of war by their conquerors/captors. So while Clive is running around, at some parts Jill is pursuing her own agenda.

The next chapter is the assault on Iron and emancipation of the Rosarian women at Drake’s Breath. Clive is still the player character; it is plot important that Joshua and Clive are the only playable characters because Ifrit and Phoenix were once one eikon. However, while Clive might be the player and perspective character, Jill is the main character for this section, her actions drive the plot here. The party splits with Jill securing an escape route for the women with Torgal while Cid and Clive cut a path for the Mothercrystal and cause a distraction for Jill. They meet back up at the Drake’s Breath and Jill kills the priests like she deserves. During the boss fight Clive has to run around stabilizing the area and escape route while fighting off minor enemies while Jill fights the boss in the background. Additionally, Jill is the one to strike and break the Mothercrystal. Iron makes better sense at a first assault because the main power struggle in the game is between Dhalmek and Sanbreque, with Waloed waiting for a hint of weakness in Storm. Meanwhile Iron is more of a side player and so their weakening does not affect Valisthea's power balance as much as going after any of the other Mother Crystals. Jill reminds me of one of those bulls that been raised in iron shackles, the adult bull is more than strong enough to break free but because it was too weak to do so when it was younger, it stopped trying. Likewise, Jill's shackles are not of iron but they bind her all the tighter and this arc is about her breaking free and remembering that she is powerful both literally and metaphorically.

I'm changing the Mothercrystal lore in the game. Ultima came into conflict with the dragons in ancient times. In a last bid to stop Ultima, the Eldest Dragon shattered their body into the Mothercrystals to act as a seal on Ultima. The Mothercrystals drain aether from the land in order to power the seal on Ultima, but as the land is running out of aether the seals are weakening. The Blight was an unforeseen side effect of the seals. When Ultima breaks free, they then repurpose the accumulated aether from the crystals to power to their world creation spell. There used to be 8 Mothercrystals total. Now there are just 5: Drake's Breath in the Iron, Drake's Head in Sanbreque, Drake's Fang in Dhalmek, Drake's Tail in Crystalline, Drake's Spine in Waloed. Even on the map on the official FFXVI website other unknown structures can be seen in central Ash for example, 3 Mothercrystals have been lost to time. The Ten Thousand Tomes confirms Dzemekys Falls is the former location of a Mothercrystal, Drake’s Eye in the Northern Territories, Drake’s Horn in Southern Ash. The relatively recent fall of Drake’s Eye in addition to the spread of the Blight is what drove the Northern incursions into Rosaria, resource scarcity driven conflict, the exact same conditions that Elwin used to justify his proposed invasion. For Dzemekys I’m keeping that humanity angered Ultima and were smote but I’m changing that it was a Mothercrystal and changing the location of the last Mothercrystal (Drake's Wing? Drake's Claw?) to perhaps eastern Ash, islands off the coast of Ash, or central Storm near where the original Hideaway was.

When Drake's Breath is destroyed the first of the seals on Ultima is released and the beginning of the doomsday apocalyptic phenomena start happening although slightly differently in this rewrite. First is the activation of Fallen ruins, second the activation of the robots, third the wraiths, fourth more and stronger fallen and aether creatures as well as the beginning of aetherfloods. Then finally when the 5th and final Mothercrystal is destroyed and the final seal broken, all hell breaks loose and the apocalypse is unleashed upon Valisthea, aetheric storms cloud the skies and aetherfloods spread across the lands. Unlike in the game where the sky changes and the aetherfloods appear after the 4th Mothercrystal (Twinside), here the changes happen after the 5th (Waloed).

Like in the actual game when the First Mothercrystal's heart is destroyed, a portal opens with a partial Ultima that the party fights. As the party is overpowered but before Cid can go sacrifice himself, Joshua intervenes saving them but is unable to kill Ultima. I am dropping Joshua sealing part of Ultima inside himself because that had no effect on the story, that plot thread went no where in the end. Joshua as well as the Rosarian women are returned to Rosaria where they are reunited with their families, Joshua and Byron included though Joshua hides from the other Rosarians. This furthers the Rosaria subplot we seen in the game with Martha and Eastpool and the Guardians of the Flame.

A change I am contemplating is reinstating a party system into this story. This game doesn't feel JRPG enough, where's my party system? These would be AI controlled characters but players would be able to choose how many characters besides Clive are active at once with a maximum of 3. Some characters will be unavailable for certain parts of the game like Jote would not be available for eikon fights. Clive is your classic JRPG sword boy the main damage dealer. Jill is the true all-rounder with physical and magic attacks. Joshua is the healer and he's like wet tissue, he has decent magic. Jote is the tank with some support abilities but little offense. Cid is another damage dealer with big hits. Torgal is the only character that can't be incapacitated, he attacks, he heals, but most importantly he's a good boy (unlocks magic later in the game). I never said the party was balanced. Or maybe not, implementing this would be a pain as FFXVI isn't character focused so explaining why party members aren't there sounds annoying.

In this story the brothers are reunited much earlier so that their relationship can develop. Clive and Joshua's relationship is the core of the game The game starts and ends with them. Their relationship is what kicks off the plot of the game from Ifrit berserking to Clive seeking revenge unknowingly against himself. They are plot critical with plot critical powers, that Ifrit and Phoenix are the eikon of Fire split into two beings and the intended vessel to cast Ultima. And yet despite the relationship being at the center of the game, so little is done with them. Joshua is away for most of the game with Clive not knowing he survived and after they are reunited nothing is done with them. The earlier reunion gives time for Joshua and Clive to reacquaint themselves with each other. The last time Clive saw Joshua he was a 10 year old boy, the Joshua before him now is a man and in many ways a stranger. Clive never got to be there as Joshua grew from boy to man, he will have forever missed that part of his brother's life. And not only did Clive think he has lost Joshua, he thought that he was the one who killed him. The same murder against whom his quest for vengeance has been his sole reason for living for the last decade.

Another reason for the added time before the timeskip is to develop Jill and her relationships. Jill is also weighed down by massive guilt over the things she has done for Iron. Before Drake's Breath she is much more closed off and her arc with Clive is mostly about lost childhood friends because just like Joshua she and Clive are now very different and very traumatized. So pre-Drake's Breath it is about stumbling when this didn't before because they don't fit together like they used to and learning to reacquaint themselves with each other. After Iron, Jill finds closure in dealing a massive blow to Iron, killing the zealot who tortured her and enslaved the Rosarians, and freeing the enslaved Rosarians. She begins to open up after this and bonds with Clive over their shared experiences. In many ways during the missing years Jill and Clive's experiences have been similar though Jill's have been worse. Both were kidnapped as children and enslaved as weapons of war, forced to fight for the very people who enacted violence against them. To both their masters Jill and Clive were expendable tools to be exploited until no more use could be squeezed out of them and they died of overwork. Both of them see themselves as monsters over the many deaths they have caused as Dominants. The difference being that Clive fought to stay alive so that he could complete his revenge against Ifrit while Jill fought in what was probably a futile effort to protect the Rosarian women and children she had sworn to take under her wing. Jill also killed on a much larger scale in eikon battles and was likely treated worse given she was given no armor or equipment and her clothes were in tatters. Clive and Jill were also treated as subhuman by their oppressors. For a decade Jill shouldered the role of protector and champion all on her own, but through Clive and Joshua and most importantly Cid she comes to terms that she need not fight on her own, and with that realization she makes Clive her Vassal because together they can do more than each would have done alone. So before the timeskip Clive gets Phoenix as a teenager, Ifrit when he returns to Phoenix Gate, Garuda after defeating Benedrikta, Leviathan after proving himself worthy to its Dominant, and Ramuh at Drake’s Head as Cid’s dying wish. One place to put Shiva would be at the end of the first part of Jill’s arc here during the lead up to Leviathan, but there’s another place I am considering.

The next arc I am completely making up because not having Leviathan in the game throws off the elemental balance on a meta level and having all 8 would be significant in Gnosticism. Joshua is following a lead on someone who might know of Ultima, the Dominant of Leviathan and semi-rogue champion of the Crystalline Dominion. I am making this arc for several reasons. The unexplained absence of Leviathan/Dominant of Water while also establishing 8 eikons and elements was always strange, why bothering establishing 8 elements and corresponding eikons if its never explained what happened to Leviathan, and Leviathan is a classic Final Fantasy staple so it's strange that it is missing. I also always found the Crystal Dominion's neutral zone reasoning to be a bit weak, for example in real life Switzerland has a reputation of neutrality because of its difficult geography and history of shooting down all aircraft regardless of affiliation, there has to be something to back up the Crystaline Dominion because just crystal export. Giving them a Dominant gives them the military power to back up their sovereignty, and their Dominant flying the coop also significantly weakens their position and further explains Sanbreque's later invasion. Leviathan's Dominant of Water is hanging out in the Southern Isles fighting sea monsters for fun and so this offers the opportunity to introduce Cid as a master engineer as well as introduce Mid and the Enterprise. The game never establishes Cid as an engineer, we only hear about it after he's dead from Mid and that is such awkward storytelling as well as a missed opportunity. The build up to Leviathan is Joshua tracking down the precise location while Cid and Mid build the Enterprsie together. We only meet Mid after the timeskip in the actual game and we don't know how old she is. Aso, she's adopted so getting the ages just right isn't that important, and kid genius is already an established character archetype so what's one more. This would necessitate a younger model for Mid but I think it is worth it. In this story Mid builds the seaship the Enterprise here with Cid to create a callback in the final arc when she builds an airship of the same name this time without her dad. Leviathan's Dominant couldn't stand the Crystalline Dominion but is the opposite of cooperative and things escalate to a fight with Clive at severe disadvantage since priming puts the ship in danger of burning and sinking. I'm not a fight choreographer I don't know maybe they evaporate all the water in a shallow sea and then beat up Leviathan. However, she would rather die than stand down, but as she dies she spits they are fools if they think getting rid of crystals will solve all their problems. With Leviathan’s fall, Twinsides’ position weakens as they can no longer pretend to have the protection of an eikon.

Next is Oriflamme and Drake's Head, things happen similarly to in the game with Sanbreque breaking treaty to invade the Crystalline Dominion and abandon Oriflamme. This is Ultima's second appearance as another of their seals is released and they grow in power. Stronger now Ultima makes a bid to take possession of Clive and Ultima, once again he is stopped but this time at the expense of Cid. Cid dies later in this story than in the actual game because he's a great character and I wanted more time with him, to build his relationship with Mid, to show his engineering prowess instead of just being told. Since Joshua joins earlier in this story the more time allows Cid to help mentor Joshua too, in reckoning with his father's dream and legacy and how despite Rosaria falling, Joshua can honor his father's work by helping the Hideaway and Bearers. This extra time before the timeskip has also allowed Clive and Joshua to reconcile with each other. They have each lived 10 years apart from each other with only their memories, they are both changed men and it would have taken time to reconcile the old and the new and form a new relationship. The sovereignty of Rosaria is no more, both of them are nameless outlaws out against the world, and they have both seen much of the world. The children they were no longer exist and now they have to stumble through all that together.

In the game, the 5 year timeskip was mostly pointless, it had very little effect on anything, so little changed that a lot of things felt frozen in time. Thus, I am greatly reducing the timeskip to about 6-12 months. The expansion of the pre-timeskip period was partly to establish Clive's major relationships like Jill and Joshua so then when the timeskip happened change could be seen. In this story whereas before the timeskip those relationships were just starting and we see the first few steps of development, after the timeskip they have solidified, Clive has settled into the new Jill and the new Joshua. Removing the 5 year timeskip also removes Joshua's inexplicable avoidance of Clive which happens in the original game. So sorry no dilf 30 something Clive, or at least not in the main story. Clive is about 26 by this point. Despite aging the characters down especially after the timeskip I think the story still works partly because most of the characters are adults already but primarily because the amount of trauma and hardship these characters have gone through would have aged them.

FFXVI Rewrite Part 3: Rosalith, Dhalmek, and Twinsides

Hugo Kupka's destruction of Rosalith happens mostly the same as in the actual game. It is the parts before that have slight changes as the Rosalith storyline was developed a further by this point in story. The original game never goes all the way to do anything with the Rosalith situation. The game establishes that despite the many long years, people still hold Elwin's reign as a golden age and have rallied around the symbol of the Rosfield Archduke as a symbol for all they have lost. The subplot I want continues what is already in the game with Rosarians rallying with this attack and then later with the further erosion of the Empire of Sanbreque. They take Elwin as the symbol not that Rosaria is the Phoenix or Archduke but take his philosophy to heart that it is Rosarians that make up Rosaria. So as Sanbreque falls apart after the destruction of Drake's Tail, Rosaria revolts and takes control of its own borders, setting up its own defenses against Akasha in the absence of imperial soldiers. Of the nations shown in the game Rosaria seems like the most receptive to Cid's ideologies so in the game I would have like to see a closer working relationship between the Hideaway and Rosarians, like real progress being made, especially after the timeskip and Hugo's death. There was also a real missed opportunity in the actual game with Clive here in not making something of the fact that the invasion of Rosalith is the first time in over 18 years that Clive has been back to his hometown (that we know of). Does he feel guilty or responsible for their suffering under Sanbreque and now Kupka? In this rewrite, this moment means something to Clive, Joshua, and Jill. For Clive and Joshua this is the moment they can no longer look away from Rosaria, they cannot out run their pasts or its people, even if it’s from the shadows they will fight for Rosaria's people.

Having Jill be inexplicably unable to resist Kupka who she fought on equal grounds with during the start of the original game, was extremely contrived and a terrible blow to her agency as a character, it was done for the sole reason of making it a plot point that she needed to be saved. I don't see why they couldn't have fought there and skipped the whole dungeon and rescue the damsel section. Even better since Kupka's goal is to have Clive watch his loved ones die, have Kupka ambush and capture Clive first since Clive is the bigger threat and it works for Jill's character since it is established that she will surrender to save another even when she is strong enough to save herself just like she did with Iron. Really the original scene would have been fine if they're framed it differently as a well coordinated surprise attack immediately putting eikon suppressors on Jill or had her prime only to be outnumbered by a unwearied Kupka and battalion. I haven't quite decided what to do with Joshua here, I think he would stay with Clive so perhaps as bad as his health is he did less fighting, stayed to the sidelines, and slipped away with Gav. I do like the idea that Clive doesn't fight Kupka alone and that Jill beats Kupka up too. In the original game it should have been Jill since Joshua hadn't joined yet but here Joshua got to know Cid too. With everyone exhausted from the battle Sleipnir can fend off a tired Jill.

I also think the Invasion of Rosalith is a good place for the conclusion of the next piece of Jill's established character, that she was taken as a child from her family and kept as a political prisoner in Rosaria with the possibility of being shoved into a marriage alliance with a Rosfield. In the original game no one would ever know that she isn't originally Rosarian because the game never does anything with this aspect of her backstory. Really except for one line in a end game quest with a lot of requirements, there is no hint of greater complexity to her childhood. Jill was wasted on FFXVI. Jill should be allowed to resent Rosaria and Elwin who took from her the sovereignty of her nation, her family, her people, her future, her political power. So how to reconcile what Rosaria did to Jill with the Jill willing to give up everything to protect Rosarians? One way to revolve this is for Jill and us to not treat this as a problem of factions and retribution but of justice and protection. Jill sided with the Rosarians because even if they had invaded others they did not deserve to be invaded and enslaved, no one deserved to be invaded and enslaved. This is a question of universal justice not of nations or politics. This poses Jill as somewhat as a savior which complements her in game actions, Jill's goals are to stand against injustice, protect the weak, and fight for those who cannot. This also aligns Jill's goals with Cid's ideology and provides reasoning for why she's committed to Cid's and the Bearer's cause. This also sets up Jill and Clive as foils in that both are pursuing ideals of justice but Clive is focused on revenge and punishment and Jill is focused on protection of the weak. These themes of justice are developed as early as the Rosaria sections of the game but are brought together here. While justice played a part, Jill protecting the Rosarian women was also probably a coping mechanism, doing so gave her a role and a reason to live. Seeing Kupka's invasion reminds her on the Ironblood invasion of Rosalith 11 years ago and of Rosaria's invasion of her homeland though she was too young to understand it. And in seeing the violence, her belief is cemented in the commonality of humanity, that all people are deserving of justice, and that no one should be invaded or enslaved.

Jill seeking universal human rights and justice regardless of faction also puts her at an interesting contrast to much of Valisthea which widely xenophobic. In the actual game Clive got absurdly lucky pre-timeskip that he met Cid and his network, friends of friends of friends who all want to help him and let him into the network. He’s out here collecting pokemon badges and those badges really do make the difference between night and day. Clive would have gotten nowhere without Cid and his network or network of favors. Part of it is the widespread and open bigotry against bearers but a lot of the towns just hate anyone who isn't a local in general. I find it interesting how local politics and the favor of local leaders (the tokens) are more powerful than many townspeople's bigotry against bearers. And then Jill through her character arc here begins seeing beyond all this to the greater picture.

I’ll be honest I forgot that in the actual game there was a section where Clive couldn’t summon Ifrit because he could still use the Ifrit abilities in gameplay so this really only affected cutscenes and really this had little plot impact since the writers didn’t want to ever portray Clive as weak or helpless so I only remembered that this happened at all when I read through my notes. That would be one change I’d make to the game, during the Ifrit-less section don’t allow Clive to use any of Ifrit’s abilities or maybe not any of the eikon abilities so that the players can experience what it means to live on stripped of a power you once had. Let’s say that Ultima’s possession attempt partially succeeded at the confrontation at Drake’s Head, taking away Clive’s ability to prime and leaving him helpless and Clive being powerless was why Cid felt the need to step up and defend him even if it cost him his life. This also better explains the power dynamics in the Rosalith invasion rewrite since Jill is the actual powerhouse during this confrontation because Clive can’t prime. Here Clive really is once again playing back up to Jill while she fights and he would love that.

In the actual game Clive gets a mini character arc later on about how he’s been pushing himself too hard, sacrificing himself too much, and been trying to do too much by himself and its poorly done and comes off as cheap especially since this is the same point in the plot where Jill gets permanently sidelined and Clive immediately goes off to continue doing things on his own. If there was any place to do that it would be here in the Dhalmek arc, about accepting that weakness isn’t failure, that relying on others isn’t weakness, that no one can no it alone, and that we are all stronger together. If Clive is going to regain Ifrit here it is only going to be through Jill, Joshua, and all the friends he has made along the way. This is the other point at which I was consider having Clive gain Shiva’s power in a literal case of regaining his power through his friends to parallel his emotional growth, in that the addition of Shiva and maybe a little help from Phoenix is what jumpstarts Ifrit and allows Clive to once again prime. It is only through Clive accepting his own helplessness and the help of others that he regains his power, the power to help them in turn.

The next arc is the Dhalmekian infiltration to kill Hugo Kupka which turns into also destroying Drake's Head. Aiming for Dhalmek's Mothercrystal instead of Waloed's is a terrible political decision as it radically changes the power balance of the region, making Sanbreque the only major player left on Storm. In this rewrite this is a purposeful mistake to contrast the more calculated, wiser, and more strategic choices my Cid to Clive's more thoughtless choices. This is Clive's first Mothercrystal without Cid. Jill will also be priming and fighting Titan Lost because she deserves more action time, having her be in recovery after would explain her absence in the next eikon fight, and because Jill has as much a bone to pick with Kupka as Clive does. Ultima doesn’t show up here since they’ve figured out the party is destroying the Mothercrystals and that only helps them.

In the lead up to Twinsides there is still a bit of Mid's ship adventures though less than before since her arc will be concluded at Origin. I like the idea of the Mid section but its execution was slow and painful. the idea was to characterize Mid and give her closure over the death of her father after all she has had to lose her father not once but twice in her short life. However, in this rewrite Mid was introduced before the timeskip and the Enterprise already built with Cid, so here Mid is struggling with what to do now and through the efforts of Clive and the rest of the Hideaway they inspire her to seriously look into a pipedream she had daydreamed about with her father, that of airships. Mid comes to realize that Cid's legacy isn't one concrete thing, it isn't the Enterprise, its all the people of the Hideaway, its every Bearer they've helped, Mid realizes that Cid's legacy is also her and so she shouldn't be afraid of changing the Enterprise because using the Enterprise as a platform for new technological innovation is exactly what Cid would have wanted.

A major lore change is that the Fallen weren’t modern humans like the party created by ultima and gained sentience after ultima went to sleep, in this story the Fallen were the society ultima was a part of. The lead up will also include more Ultima archeology and history with Joshua as the party seeks to understand why the Fallen ruins have awoken and become aggressive with aether wraiths. They find writings that tie Greagor to Ultima as well as research into transforming draconic aether into eikons.

I rather like the Twinside arc, it helps that the lead up includes the most political intrigue in the game which I think the game could use more of, and that this section focuses on Dion arguably the best written character of the game. Maybe some earlier scenes in the game with Terrance and Dion discussing the geopolitics of Valisthea, Terrance badly need any characterization. The Bahamut fight is also my favorite fight in the game so I would mostly like to keep it the same. The only thing I’d change here would be changing Zettaflare to like Exaflare or something, keep the attack the same but change the name, Bahamut isn’t even the final boss it doesn’t deserve something that should be as plot central as Zettaflare. The first major change is that since Joshua will be a party member through the Twinside section, it will be made to shown how Clive and Joshua's relationship has changed. Joshua is also the one to know Dion, in the game Clive was ready to leave him for dead, so Joshua will play a prominent role is this arc between Dion and the Mothercrystal being central plot elements here. The brothers are in need of some more heart to hearts. So far their relationship development has been about them reacquainting themselves with each other after a decade apart but now they can move towards true friendship and brotherhood. And so, this emotional connection strengthened here parallels the fusion of Phoenix and Ifrit into Ifrit Prime in the Bahamut fight, the emotional narrative and plot enhance each other. I would like Clive and Joshua to begin confiding in each other and understanding the guilt and burdens the other carries.

Clive and Joshua have such an interesting dynamic and it’s a shame the game sets up something so interesting only to do nothing with it. Clive and Joshua are both very similar and very different and act as character foils to each other. Their personalities are wildly different but their goals and burdens are very similar. Even from childhood the two brothers are tied together by strong mutual admiration and jealousy. Joshua thinks the world of his older brother, that Clive is the coolest, Clive is strong and brave and everything Joshua is not. He thinks Clive is more deserving of Phoenix and Dukedom because everything Clive has he earned of his own merit. Joshua has the open affection and love of both their parents, Joshua is the one that is doted on and cared for. Clive loves Joshua, but Joshua is also a reminder that he's been passed over as firstborn because he does not have Phoenix. Clive loves his brother but their relationship is not only that. Joshua is the lord his has sworn his life to serve and protect so their bond is not only that of brothers but of lord and knight, and this is one of Clive's core motivations throughout the game. In the actual game too, we see that Joshua has thar exact same core motivation as Clive, throughout the game his main goal is to protect Clive from Ultima's machinations.

In this rewrite as a furthering of the themes of guilt I am adding a further parallel. We see in the actual game that Clive is crushed under the weight of his guilt because he thinks Ifrit killed Phoenix at Phoenix Gate, in the dungeon cell he begs Cid to kill him because he cannot live with it, the whole story arc leading up to Clive gaining control over Ifrit deals with this. I do like how through the game Clive learns of even more people he's killed like Lord Commander Murdoch trained him and taught Clive what it meant to be a Shield of Rosaria, he might even think he killed his father since they separated before that point and everything was incinerated. Unlike in the game, here Clive isn't magically over it even after he comes to terms with being Ifrit's dominant and going berserk. To parallel Joshua is weighed by a lot of guil. Joshua on some level still carries the trauma of Phoenix Gate which included the beheading of his father as he tried to protect Joshua, the betrayal of the nation to be his responsibility at the hands of his mother, and his brother going berserk and almost killing him. Joshua feels responsible for his father's death. Joshua feels responsible for Phoenix gate. Joshua feels guilt over his abandonment of Rosaria in favor of pursuing Ultima and protecting Clive. Lastly without the the special regenerative abilities of Phoenix anyone else Dominant or no would have died, and that first death experience never left Joshua, on some level he is still afraid of Clive and Joshua hates that part of himself and feels immense guilt over it, blaming himself for not saving Clive from the Sanbreque army sooner. In this new timeline Joshua is about 20 here so most of this really is just in his head because what was some kid going to do against the Sanbreque Empire.

As mentioned previously, in this version of events the apocalypse with the eternal dark sky and the aetherfloods do not begin with the fall of Drake’s Tail, the 4th Mothercrystal, instead the fall of Drake’s Tail has a lesser effect with an increased number and appearance of stronger Fallen enemies and aetheric enemies (wraiths, etc.) as well as more recorded aetheric instability. Like in the original game Twinsides wipes Joshua out for like a month, that fight likely did permanent damage to him and his health suffers for it.

FFXVI Rewrite Part 4: Overhauling Waloed and Barnabas

I was dissatisfied with Anabella's character in the original game. She's built up as this greater antagonist on par with Barnabas and implied to have a connection to Ultima and the greater working of the plot and then all this comes to nothing as Ultima has possessed Olivier and is the actual mastermind. Additionally, Anabella highly parallels Ultima as they are both the demiurges of Gnosticism, evil and controlling creator figures that see their creations as wholly belonging to and existing for their sake. To Ultima and Anabella their creations are not independent of them, their creations/children should have no independent will, they are the ones who make decisions and their creations obey. This like all the themes in FFXVI is underdeveloped and I intend to change that by deepening the themes of free will, creation and creator, master and slave, existence before essence, and the weight of choice.

In this rewrite I'm going to keep Anabella just as reprehensible and classist as she is in the actual game but I'm going to give her more agency as a character and this is where things really change. Here Olivier has not been possessed, Anabella think him Greagor a god incarnate and convinces the Emperor but he's really just a spoiled dependent boy. In the scene where Dion goes berserk it is Anabella that triggers it not Ultima. Anabella goads him and Olivier not really knowing or caring what is going on but of course his mother is always right joins in and goes a step further. Dion kills his father just like Anabella plans and as she plays victim screaming that he's a kinslayer she hurls an Ultima imbued shard of the Mothercrystal at Dion. The crystal connects Dion with the Mothercrystal and floods him with aether with combined with his instability causes him to go berserk. As the city burns there's a scene of Anabella riding off in a carriage holding Olivier and smirking. Then Phoenix flies overhead locked in battle and we see Anabella falter as she stares up at Phoenix.

During the first week of the game’s release, I was speculating whether Anabella was Clive's biological mother at all (or if Elwin was Joshua’s father) given the strange and tense family dynamics of the Rosfields as well as how dissimilar Clive and Anabella look. However, since finishing the game and coming to understand that Anabella was designed as a foil character to Ultima, it does make more sense that Clive is her biological son. For both Ultima and Anabella Clive is their failed creation, the one that went astray. They are both interpretations of the Demiurge which in Gnosticism is the creator of the material world, the material world being fake and an evil prison to keep people from the true holy spiritual world, so the Demiurge is the evil controlling god trying to keep humans from true existence. In this rewrite I want to enhance the existing themes in the game from its Gnostic symbolism, to that of the relationships between creator and creator, master and slave. Making clear that Clive is Anabella’s son enhances these themes. Anabella doesn’t hate Clive because Elwin cheated on her and is forcing her see proof of their unequal status and powerlessness every day, Anabella hates Clive because she feels she owns him as his mother and that he has failed her arbitrary and impossible expectations by daring first to not manifest the Phoenix and then to dare have positive attributes and overshadow her younger son who did manifest the Phoenix. Anabella hates Clive for incredibly stupid, self-centered, and petty reasons.

Now comes the hard part where I break the original FFXVI’s plot across my knee and throw the whole thing out the window because the Waloed section through to the end of the game was a mess. First let me discuss what the writers tried to do and how they failed. King Barnabas was intended as Ultima’s successful creation to foil Clive as the failed creation. Clive asserts his independent will, his desire to live on his own terms, and that he will throw down all shackles forces upon him. Barnabas has forfeited his will and individuality for a life of religious devotion as Ultima’s puppet. Conceptually this isn't bad, the problem is in execution. Barnabas ended up being incredibly disappointing and boring as a character. For all Ultima and Barnabas' discussions of severing the ties of consciousness between Clive and his companions, they don't do anything or pose any sort of narrative threat. There are no stakes to this arc beyond a distant feeling that the world might end. Ultima shows up and has pointless conversations with Clive that go nowhere, establish nothing, and do nothing to progress the plot or stakes. From a character motivation standpoint at this point of the game Clive is doing exactly what Ultima wants so there’s no reason for Ultima to keep talking to Clive either. FFXVI tries to portray religious extremism and fails miserably. The game does little to establish religion and belief as a main theme in the game despite it being present in the background, the says nothing meaningful about religion and the only thing mildly interesting to happen, happens in an easily missed sidequest for the Undying.

Originally, I did consider trying to build off of this foiling of the slave to religion vs. the free man but to make it work actually involves changing more of the plot than the alternative and it just kept writing itself into a corner. A lot more would have needed to be done with religion earlier in the game, perhaps exploring how the different culture’s in Valisthea had different belief systems and interacting with how their various beliefs, theologies, and philosophies play out. They also could have had a story arc about how religion is used to subjugate, indoctrinate, and control people. More could have been done tying Ultima to the major religions of Valisthea like how Greagor is actually Ultima. Ultima and Barnabas should have followed through with those threats to sever the bounds of consciousness and started killing off the entire cast. The Hideaway should have been invaded and destroyed and the hub area lost. Otto, Mid, Vivian, Harpocrates, and eventually Gav, Jill, and Joshua. This would all have had massive gameplay and story implications and at that point I thought this was too much work for something I’m doing for fun, it’s not like Squeenix is paying me to fix their writing problems.

The solution I decided on completely flips Barnabas’ character and ideology, and ironically that changes less of the story than trying to stay true to the writers’ intentions. In this rewrite Barnabas still foils Clive but in the completely opposite way he does in the actual game. Here Barnabas is also a proponent of free will but in contrast with Clive’s more community minded approach to raising people up, Barnabas’ meaning of free will is the ability for him to impose his will over other people. Cid and Clive respect the rights and wills of all people while new Barnabas only respects his own will. Because Waloed no longer serves Ultima, the invasions of Dhalmek and Kanver here are due to Tharmr’s global conquest ambitions and to a lesser degree him shoring up resources to take on Ultima.

Barnabas here is in some ways a Übermensch, he is someone who has transcended all measure of human morality to create his own values to live by, someone who commands, creates and strikes his own path instead of obeying or following, someone powerful who’s power comes from them and not society. This new version of Barnabas has ironically cast aside religion and gods much like an Übermensch who Nietzche’s speculated would rise in the void of faith after the fall of Christian morality, to rise above humanity and gods both as a new being. As a critique of the concept, this Barnabas is also a self-centered and violent tyrant with no care for others, delusions of grandeur, and dreams of conquest and subjugation to bend lesser men to his will in a might equals right world. Benedrikta found Barnabas’ veneer of power alluring as she too desired power while Cid initially optimistic of the new world order Barnabas was trying to forge eventually grew disillusioned and bitter at his disregard for other people. Of note is that Barnabas does not have Ultima’s magic anti-aging serum in this version of events, the similar lack of aging was why I suspected Anabella to be similarly involved early on but that just ended up being a plot hole in the original game. There are two options to deal with this, first that Barnabas is an old man in his 60’s adding a layer of desperation to his conquests though that would not explain the lull in activity in recent years in in the actual game is explained by his contact with Ultima. The other option is that the timeline is changed so that the conquest of Ash is more recent.

Similar strongman archetypes to this new version of Barnabas can be found in the Chaos Heroes of the Shin Megami Tensei main games especially the early games, and in Walhart from Fire Emblem: Awakening. I want to discuss Walhart further because this Barnabas has ended up being a very similar character. Both are ruthless dictators seeking to take over the world who will destroy all opposition with force, they see themselves as the strongest, both refuse to bow to or worship anything. They would both unite the armies of the world to destroy the evil gods who would seek to end the world and the party defeating them ironically makes it easier for the evil god characters to destroy the world as the party just removed one of their obstacles for them. This focus on power and individual merit while deemphasizing position and background likewise justifies Waloed as the only nation accepting of beastmen into its military ranks. Barnabas doesn’t care who you are he care what you can do, it’s how outlanders like himself, Cid, or Benedrikta rose so high in the ranks.

The next arc will be Waloed and the destruction of the 5th and final Mothercrystal, Drakes Spine. With the nations of Storm in shambles, the war machine of Waloed rumbles and they prepare a full-scale invasion of Storm. The party must scramble to unite factions that were just at war with each other to prepare for the full-on invasion. They aim to strike the heart of Waloed before the war ships launch hoping to throw Waloed into disarray. The plan is to split the party with one group rallying around Kanver to make a stand while another infiltrates and destroys Drake’s Spine. By this point Clive and Ifrit have gotten famous or perhaps infamous as the most powerful man on Storm and Barnabas is coming to challenge him directly as such Clive will be at the front of the defense hoping to kill Barnabas and dissolve his empire. Joshua will be leading a small party into Waloed and the one with the most experience with Mothercrystals. Joshua will then become the main playable character during this section with cutscenes showing Clive organizing the people of Storm and forming a rapport with Dion as another man who’s eikon went berserk and destroyed the people he’d sworn to protect they are both knights who failed. The rest of the party hasn’t quite been set in stone but I think Gav and Jote would go with Joshua and that Clive would send Torgal to look after Joshua. Ash isn’t quite as desolate as it is in the actual game but between the conscriptions, the heavy taxes, the blight, and the increased monster activity (Fallen, spectres and wraith type enemies) it is still pretty bad in Ash. As such getting to Drake’s Spine will involve a lot more stealth than it does in the real game but they get there as its garrisons have emptied for war and make their way to the heart of the Mothercrystal. This section of the game introduces the Circle of Malius which worships Ultima and part of exploring Ash is Joshua going to those ruins and learning how their teachings say that Ultima created humanity and that humanity should serve because it is their destiny and purpose. During the Waloed section there’s a brief cutscene of a pan shot of Anabella and an escort party walking through Fallen architecture.

While Joshua makes his way through the fortress to the Mothercrystal, the fight for Kanver begins and at the climax of both events Clive faces off against Barnabas at the same time that Joshua meets Sleipnir in Drake’s Spine who was ordered to stay behind because Waloed suspected something like this might happen. Gameplay then switches between the two battles with eikonic titans Ifrit and Odin clashing and splitting the sea, while contrasted to Joshua and Sleipnir dueling with rapiers across the crystal floor. As the Vassal of Odin Sleipnir is more than enough to hold off Joshua and Joshua is forced to semi-prime to stand a chance, further risking his health. Sleipnir here is not an egi and extension of Odin, instead he is a normal human man who believes in new Barnabas’ ideals and is loyal to him. Eventually both Joshua and Clive manage to kill their opponents, on screen it should be a split perspective for the final blow with both Joshua and Clive striking down their opponents at the same time.

The Barnabas and Clive fight is a battle of ideals. Both characters are proponents of free will and that people should be able to live on their own terms but they have wildly different interpretations as to what this looks like implemented in the real world. Inevitably some person’s terms will clash with another person’s terms. Barnabas sees this as a matter of individual strength, that one must be strong to be able to decide their own life, to rise beyond the masses and take life by the reins. The rule of the jungle where the strong have the power to do whatever they want, and if the weak want change than all they have to do is become stronger. Clive is more cooperation and community minded; it is about everyone lifting each other up to a better life. There’s the paradox of tolerance in that if a community tolerates intolerance for certain people that community will become as intolerant and bigoted as possible, so to maintain tolerance and equal rights intolerance must not be tolerated. To ensure the rights of all, some times limits need to be put on people, especially limits on the rich and powerful. I do wish the actual game had engaged with Clive’s life experiences more because he’s seen first hand the social determinants of health and how society treats those it doesn’t care about, the least protected. Another change is that I would make the Barnabas Clive fight much more exciting. Anticlimactic fights are fine but they have to be done with purpose (as I intend to do later), a fight is anticlimactic to contrast it with other fights or to drive home an emotional point in the narrative, but the lack of excitement in the original fight serves no purpose, its just boring. Some ideas I have are for the fight to be over the water with Odin cleaving the ocean into several parts and Ifrit hoping between and boiling away parts of the ocean to clear a path. I’m not a fight choreographer but this fight needs to be big and as flashy and impressive as the others in the game.

FFXVI Rewrite Part 5: Origin, Ultima, and the Ending

With the last Mothercrystal destroyed and the final seal on Ultima broken, the apocalypse begins. The sky breaks apart into dark roiling aetheric stormclouds casting the world into eternal gloom. Aetherfloods spill across the lands poisoning all life and turning it akashic, the remaining crystals fail. There is no nation left standing in Valisthea. The one force that would have fought against Ulima’s rule Waloed is in disarray. The greatest champion fighting for free will was Banabas who is now dead. Congrats on making things worse! Isn’t free will and making choices great? The party much now scramble to figure out what is going on, all the while the realization of how badly they messed up slowly dawns upon them. Like in the actual game’s post Twinside section, the party scrambles to recover from the Waloed attack while also fending off compounding problems of starved beasts, Fallen machines, akasha, and wraiths. Now though Origin has also risen into the sky destroying all hopes of salvaging Twinside. The party travels around Valisthea piecing together the deteriorating situation with the destruction of the Mothercrystals and wonders if this is what Ultima wanted since they stopped bothering them several Mothercrystals back. Doomsday cultists start popping up. In particular will be the savior cult the Circle of Malius who are much the same as the are in the actual game striving to make all people akashic as they see it as the ultimate pure state free of mortal burdens. This formerly suppressed underground faction now runs free now that Barnabas is gone.

I really do like most of the sidequest storylines especially Dion and Harpocrates’ quest, however a complaint I had was that their placement right before the final boss dropped the pacing off a cliff. In this rewrite the last section is being expanded so there is time added here for Clive to rally people and finish their storylines so that the finale can be uninterrupted. This includes the final part of Jill’s character arc where she reckons that for all that she has talked big and tried to help people, she herself still does not quite know what it means to live on her own terms, but she thinks she is finally starting to understand. Jill wants to travel the world, to help the people out there who don’t know how to fight for themselves yet and to find herself. In the actual game the Jill-Clive romance is primarily hindered by Jill’s poor writing having tried to fix her writing here I have no objections to the romance anymore. However, I was never a fan of romances and am of the mentality of that if it isn’t needed it shouldn’t be included. For example, in Tales of Arise the relationship between Alphen and Shionne is the center point around which the rest of the story revolves and while it could have been a friendship instead of a romantic one, there is no Tales of Arise without Shionne and Alphen’s relationship. This is not the case for FFXVI, even in this rewrite Jill is not the deuteragonist (if anyone it’d be Joshua), as such Jill and Clive’s relationship is not central to the story and really while I’m not opposed, I feel a romance just gets in the way of the story, if there’s to be any romance I would rather it just be implied or optional. Dion and Terrance should still kiss because that is bold and revolutionary in a way the portrayal of any straight couple isn’t, also they’re side characters so it doesn’t matter this story isn’t about them. Before the final dungeon is also the time to show how life without magic sucks. FFXVI sort of glosses over this very briefly but I think this point should be integrated into all the final storylines, without magic people have no safe drinking water or fire, disease begins running rampant, industry grinds to a halt, and food production halts so people begin starving in the streets in mass, and Clive has to see all this knowing this is what he’s done to people.

The party eventually learns of Ultima’s plans to destroy the world and enslave humanity by flooding them with aether and turning every living thing akashic. At the same time, they record increased aether concentrations gathering around Origin, as the Blights worsen as Ultima repurposes the same draining mechanisms as the Mothercrystals, He turns the very chains that bound them into his servants. Instead of loredumping via a ten minute monologue at the end of the game, now would be a good place to drop bits of lore and worldbuilding like how in this version dragons, frostwolves, and such were the original inhabitants of the world. Ultima is the last surviving active member of the Fallen whose ancient civilization made all the ruins encountered across the game. Ultima and the Fallen brought humans to Valisthea and created eikons by enslaving the power of the land’s original inhabitants. Eikons are a phenomena of the recent centuries and a sign that the seals were weakening.

As a lover of JRPGs I found it immensely disappointing that Origin was just some cutscenes and not a full dungeon so I’m making it a full dungeon in this rewrite. Ultima is trying to draw in Clive and possess him anyways (as well as the combined Ifit-Phoenix fire eikon) so they would try and cut off the rest of the party. Dion is able to break a hole in Origin that Clive enters into with Joshua, however Jill is cutoff, and under constant assault she seals the hole after them to stop pursuit. In addition, the Fallen forces are marching from Origin to turn every person akashic and Dion and Jill are needed to hold them back. As such Dion and Jill as the two that can fly stay outside to stop pursuit of Joshua and Clive, as well as to try and contain Ultima’s forces from murdering and or turning everyone on the continent into akasha. This would be a nice scene to show all the factions of Valisthea that Clive has met and negotiated with coming together to ward off extermination. Like the Trinity Accord can actually be something meaningful as a defense accord rallying humanity’s last remnants. Origin will be a classic final dungeon boss gauntlet with no way to exit until the player beats the game. Every set of floors (5? 10?) will be a boss as Ultima seeks to weaken Clive.

During the ascent to the top or Origin the final secrets of the game are revealed and the lore scattered throughout the game brought together. To reiterate, the Fallen drained the resources of their homeland and turned it into a wasteland, their civilization collapsed and the survivors fled upon the mothership Origin to a new world. Coming to Valisthea, they came into contact with the native lifeforms such as the dragons and began a war of conquest for control over Valisthea. The Fallen made eikons out of draconic aether to use as war weapons against the dragons themselves thus why eikons are elemental themed. Eventually the Fallen with their eikons and advanced technology kill most of the dragons but not before most of them were killed as well. As a last resort the last remaining dragons sacrificed themselves to seal the last Fallen away the Eldest Wyrm’s body fragments, becoming the Mothercrystals. The Mothercrystals much like dragons themselves have a strong connection to the aether of the land and while not ideal, a side effect of the Mothercrystals is that they feed off of the land’s aether to power their seals. Because this was a last ditch effort it’s full of problems including that the seals take an unsustainable amount of aether and after the land is drained of aether the seals begin to fail. Mining and using crystals sped up the breaking of the seals as well as the spread of the deadlands as the Mothercrystals drained the lands to fuel the seals. Ultima is the last active Fallen who awakened as the seals weakened. The reawakening did not go as he hoped as the other Fallen only remained as aether. Ultima seeks to flood all of humanity with Fallen aether made of his people’s souls to truly reincarnate them, replacing the original aether of the world with Fallen aether. Origin now acts as the focal point amassing aether and releasing Ultima’s forces.

At the top floor of Origin Clive and Joshua find not only Ultima but Anabella and Olivier. Anabella and Olivier transport to Ultima’s eden space ship which is revealed to be the red star Metia; Origin acts as the connecting point between Valisthea and Metia. Ultima reveals that the Fallen are the true humans of this setting. The original humans created soulless shell or dolls for them to later fill with their own aether, reincarnate, and thus save their civilization. All the characters the player has met were these husks created by the true humans, the people of Valisthea were never meant to be people on their own with wills and thoughts. Similarly, Mythos like in the actual game was the chosen vessel for Ultima to fill with the eikons, ascend to godhood, and power the casting. But like most plans, things have gone wrong and now created fights Creator. Ultima tells Clive and Joshua that they and their brethren were only ever imposters wrongfully claiming the title of humanity their masters: the true humans. As creations of humans, they belong to humans, their wills exist only as an extension of the true humans’ wills. “In Ultima's eyes, mankind's greatest sin is the awakening of free will—his servants straying from the path their creator laid out for them and forging one of their own. However, Clive contends that this is a sin by which Ultima is equally stained—and indeed, if humanity is indeed Ultima's creation, does not their every action, every emotion stem from him?” (Mysteries of the Realm: Sin).

Clive and Joshua face Ultima in his Ultimalius form as in actual FFXVI for stage 1 of the final boss fight. After beating Ultimalius, Ultima transforms Stage 2 is a giant kaiju eikon battle is space. Like in the Bahamut fight, Ifrit and Phoenix combine, however where Ifrit Prime was an incomplete fusion, this time the fusion is in full and the true Eikon of Fire emerges: Adonaios v2.11 (other possible names are Sabaoth and Belias). Ultima uses the beta testing version Adonaios v1.8; 1.8 comes from the incorporation of all 8 elements plus Ultima, 2.11 comes from Adonaios having to be split into two but left unfinished by Ultima for Clive to collect the remaining eikons. In game Ifrit Prime just looked like the Ifrit model with 2 feathers glued on, Adonaios v2.11meanwhile looks like a 50:50 fusion a molten red eikon with wings, horns, a feathered tail, and a jagged beak. Adonaios is slimmer than Ifrit but overall bigger with the feathers. Adonaios v1.8 meanwhile looks like the figure on the murals, a fusion of all 8 eikons and elements however it is falling apart at the seams even as Ultima fights with it because it’s an abandoned draft version. Late in the stage 2 fight Clive and Joshua are losing and draw upon the remaining power of the eikons of whom only Bahamut and Shiva are left. This drains the remaining eikonic power from Jill and Dion, grounding them and making the Valisthea fight hopeless, the Ultima fight now all or nothing. Stage 3 of the final boss fight takes place aboard Metia. Metia was an alien spaceship all along, but more accurately it is a control satellite from which to coordinate the revival of humanity. Clive, Joshua, and Ultima have all mostly used up all their power in the previous stage. In this final stage of the fight Ultima transcends and returns to his original appearance that of a human, Clive and Joshua are no longer fighting some strange monster but someone they would recognize as human. In stage 3 Clive cannot semi-prime. In the end Ultima is killed and his species is now extinct.

Joshua and Clive are exhausted from climbing Origin as well as the consecutive boss fights but begin to relax with Ultima dead, and then Anabella steps out. Anabella thought she could outplay Ultima by siding with him and then taking over, and now she sees her chance. She steals all the power that Ultima had been siphoning into himself to cast the spell, and redirects it all into Olivier to turn Olivier into a god and who will rule the world, doing what Ultima failed to do. It fails because playing god is a bad idea, Olivier’s body cannot handle the power and it begins mutating him into a deformed humanoid abomination with multiple arms and eyes, bodies seemingly trying to grow out of him. So, the true final boss is mercy killing a child who is falling apart and turning into an abomination but doesn't know it, as he cries that it hurts and begs you to stop. Olivier cannot be allowed to live as they will destroy the world. and the aether is warping his mind and he becomes less coherent as the fight goes on, regressing from full sentences to just screams. Ascended Olivier doesn’t really fight back, he flails around and lashes out when attacked but attacks aren’t particularly aimed at the player and he’s mostly crying and shaking on the ground in pain. Ascended Olivier has a very large health bar and the story will not progress until he is killed, the last save point is before reaching the top floor or Origin. In a game full of epic boss battle, the last is anticlimactic by design, there is no epic music just silence, there is no challenging gameplay, only attacking a child. The gameplay is boring, its grueling, and that’s the point. Clive kills Olivier and then there’s just Anabella.

Much like the Fallen were the creators of modern humans who sought to control their creations and saw them as an extension of themselves, creations that deviated and refused to submit to their will and thus were failures. So too is Anabella a controlling creator who deemed her children failures for not advancing her goals, hating and discarding them to try again with a new child. Olivier was supposed to be her ultimate creation, perfect and subservient to her with no will of his own. The parallels between Anabella and Ultima exist in the actual game so it was disappointing her role ended so early and nothing was done with this parallel. Here is this rewrite, the large-scale destruction of the world by Ultima is paralleled with the destroyed Rosfield family and this final confrontation with Anabella. Anabella is not a warrior, without her soldiers and pawns she doesn’t have and martial power, she is more or less powerless to her fate at this point having discarded all her cards and bet everything Olivier. Clive (and the player) are then given the choice to “do nothing”, “kill”, or “spare” Anabella, Clive after all was the one who suffered the most from her. If “kill” is chosen, then Clive kills Anabella. If “spare” is chosen, Clive walks away but not before Joshua steps in and kills Anabella because even if Clive can forgive her Joshua can’t. If “do nothing” is chosen Anabella kills herself unable to reconcile with a reality in which she has lost.

Clive and Joshua use the last embers of the eikonic power remaining to shut down Primogenesis and Ultima’s plans, landing the Metia at the base of the crumbling Origin. The closing shot is of gang standing together overseeing a ruined Valisthea as the camera pans showing the aether storm clearing, wraiths evaporating, and fallen machines deactivating permanently. The deadlands are still around but a new sprout is seen growing. The credits sequence plays over a scene of Mid yelling to hurry it up she wants to see stoves and water purifiers in every village by the end of the month, shots of people is Valisthea figuring out how to live without magic using technology and innovation, the main characters are seen helping repair efforts. The end card says 4 years, meaning FFXVI takes place over a total of 16 years, from the beginning of the game and Phoenix Gate to the end of the game and Origin. Sun light is streaming through a window as Clive writes in a book which he closes to the title “Final Fantasy XVI by Joshua and Clive Rosfield”. As the timeline is changed here so that Clive is younger for the duration of the game than he is in the real game, his older model can be used here. Clive is using his non-dominant hand here as his dominant hand has been partially petrified from his fight with Ultima. On the desk is a photo of Clive and a bedridden Joshua.

The game’s themes could have been better integrated into the final section of the game. If FFXIV wanted to tell a story about choice, then they should have made Clives’ choices have weight and consequence. If he wants a society free of the Mothercrystals then the game should have showed how he ruined the lives of many many people by destroying them. FFXVI would have benefited greatly from more moral dilemmas like that. There should have also been exploration of the concepts of creation, ownership, makers, what makes someone human. One missed opportunity was not bringing up the relationship between art and artist, is art an extension of the artist or its own thing. The references to Gnosticism were fine but the concepts could have been clearer. There are also just a truckload of small problems and inconsistencies in the game like how Charon is said at one point to have a wide variety of customers across the continent while at another point is said on exclusively trade to the Hideaway. There’s a sidequest about how Murdoch’s nephew joins the Hideaway because he admires Clive and then the game forgets about him (just like they forget about Jill) and only remembers him again to put him on a bus, thus having no interaction with Clive. A lot of worldbuilding is just badly done. I love mysteries but making things misleading and obscure for no reason is not how to do it. So much of it was unclear or convoluted or just pointless even after reading the completed The Thousand Tomes that I just threw the whole thing out and wrote new lore for this reimaging of FFXVI. If a change is not specified than it is the same as in the actual game. I wrote 85% of this in Jun-Jul of 2023, then stopped for lack of motivation. I only finished this for the sake of finishing it because I don’t care anymore. I’m done with FFXVI and it’s poor writing.

It says something that it ended up being easier to throw out the later 1/3 of the game. In earlier drafts I did originally try to make canon work like Barnabas being one of Ultima’s devout and purifying Waloed by turning it all akashic, or Joshua’s probable death at the end of the game. Like it would have made more sense for Barnabas and Ultima as they are portrayed in the actual game to methodically hunt down and kill every person or named NPC Clive has ever talked to, slowly isolating him from his humanity by breaking every connection he’s ever tried to make. But of course, this removes the cast from having a role in the rest of the game and makes it impossible to keep the rest of the game the same. This rewrite ended up being pretty happy and optimistic because that’s the spirit of the original game. FFXVI in the end is pretty optimistic, which I have mixed feelings about. FFXVI tries have an upbeat uplifting ending and message while also wanting to be a dark, gritty, edgy Game of Thrones knockoff, and while this is very possible for a work to do, FFXVI did not succeed in meshing these aspects into a consistent whole, XVI ends up feeling inconsistent or disjointed. So while I did eventually decide to uphold XVI’s optimistic spirit I did consider another possibility leaning into more of the darker ambience. With the rising of Origin and fight to climb the tower, every major character either is killed or sacrifices themselves for Clive to reach the summit. The Cursebreakers buy time of the ground with their lives, Dion finally gets the absolution of death he has been seeking for Sanbreque, Jill joins Clive and Joshua in the tower but sacrifices herself to hold back the tower bosses and all of Ultima’s forces chasing them up the tower. During the second stage of the final Ultima fight to turn Ifrit Prime into Adonaios v2.11 and truly fuse Phoenix and Ifrit, Joshua who is already dying burns himself away allowing Clive to have all of Phoenix’s power. Clive thus kills Olivier alone, and faces Anabella alone, his fate left ambiguous.

#ffxvi #ff16 #final fantasy xvi #clive rosfield #jill warrick #joshua rosfield #barnabas tharmr #anabella rosfield

[winkle-pickers]

🦈🎁🚀 for the ask game! (If you're still doing it ofc)

Omg YES, I am doing all ask games in perpetuity 😂💞 Thank you for checking, and I'm delighted to answer!

🦈 Which character is the toughest to write?

I think last time I answered Jounouchi, and that is still true to an extent, but oh my god BAKURA. I just tried writing my first Bakura fic recently. Like yes I know being mysterious and strange and (deliberately?) confusing is like his whole thing, but if you haven't been steeped in the Bakurae/Ishtar side of the fandom for the last 20 years...it's a lot of meta to catch up on. A LOT. So many good takes, many in direct opposition to each other, many of them equally compelling despite that. WHEW. I tried my best, I hope I didn't write an offensively wrong Bakura, everyone's gotta start somewhere right?!?! ᕙ(⇀‸↼‶)ᕗ

🎁 Have a piece of a WIP you want to share?

Ooooh, yes!! A little Kaibros character study from years ago that has been languishing in my drafts, that I'm re-working and may actually publish someday. I'll stick it under a readmore, tell me what you think!

🚀 Do you like to outline your fic first or create as you go?

Unfortunately, I don't have the kind of brain where I can sit in front of a blank document and think a story out in bullet point form. I desperately wish I did lol. But alas I must charge in headfirst and get a few thousand words in before I have any idea of where I want things to go. Sometimes (often) I blast through the entire thing without outlining. Sometimes I hit a snag somewhere and realize I done fucked up and need to put myself back on the tracks.

And then there was the time I got 100k words into a YGO/Zelda crossover and realized oh no i think this will be MUCH more than 100k and wrote a very rough outline, then another Zelda game came out halfway through the fic and I had to spend a solid month rewriting my outline to accommodate lore from the new game, and also I somehow accidentally turned the whole thing into a huge ensemble cast with multiple concurrent plot threads balancing both YGO and Zelda character arcs, Hyrulean politics, and an imminent multiverse collapse. My Scriv file now has a 120k word planning & research section. (Oops.)

tl;dr I have exactly one fic that is well outlined and the rest are me doing the writing equivalent of a Leeroy Jenkins. congrats if you get that reference and are ancient like me

ANYWAYYYYSS thank you for the ask!!! Kaibros snippet under the cut 🐉

“Come on, nii-sama,” Mokuba pleads. It comes out weirdly desperate, more pathetic than he’d intended. “This is so unfair. It’s unfair enough that I don’t have parents, and it’s even more unfair that you won’t tell me-”

“You do have a parent.” Seto's reply is so sharp that it makes Mokuba flinch.

“I know, I know,” Mokuba replies, irritated at the pedantry. “You’re my parent legally. But you’re not, you know...I just want...”

Mokuba realizes as he’s talking that he’s said something terribly wrong. The change in his brother’s face is minuscule and significant and makes his stomach flip in shame. He trails off, the words curling up and dying as they fall off his tongue.

“Please go to bed,” Seto says. His tone of voice is so perfectly even that Mokuba gets up and leaves without another word.

Mokuba doesn’t go to school the next day, opting instead to stay in bed and stare at the wall. Seto either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care.

For the first time in years, he cries. And then he thinks about the fact that it’s been years since he last cried. Mokuba spends so much time wondering what the fuck is going on in his brother’s head that he’s maybe neglected to turn the same scrutiny on himself. And he’s maybe leaned a little too far into his role as the ‘normal’ Kaiba - the charming one, the easygoing one, the one who exists to balance out the bombastic, powerful force of nature looming tall at his back.

But who had cried - just once - after Gozaburo hurled himself from the top of the Kaiba Corporation building, and who had watched the coroners wheel away the black-draped gurney with impassive, bone-dry eyes?

#asks #ask game

[mcalhenwrites]

Spoilers for Seasons ahead. I know it's not available to read anymore, but I am going to ramble about what changed in the story.

1: Originally, I wrote five names down for the children, but I was thinking of narrowing it down to three. By the time I had everyone's names available, I had already figured out a bit about each child. I already knew they were immortal, so I thought, "Well, I could keep all five of them, and two are grown up now." 2. Shannon was almost the youngest, but then I imagined him growing up on his own. I wonder if subconsciously, this is where I pulled Bee's dislike of Shannon from, since this meant competition for the youngest slot. :') 3. I didn't know they would be Seasons until I sat down and started pouring the first chapter out. I just knew I didn't want them to be vampires. I'd given that plenty of consideration, and as much as I can dig some vampire stories, it wasn't fitting for Seasons. 4. Vivian was the first character made for this story, although he didn't have a name for a long while. The story started to unravel months later, when I did name him. 5. Early on, like before I even had five chapters written, I had planned for Vivian to redeem himself a little faster. (His character had other plans in mind.) This included him doing things to help Sophie, who wouldn't forgive him for everything, but he would go out into his garden, make a child, and hand her over to Sophie with no strings attached. I quickly realized his character was far too controlling and possessive to ever do that, however, and for a long time, I wasn't sure who would birth Odessa for Sophie. 6. I almost made it someone random, because originally, I wasn't sure I wanted the character who gave Sophie a child to be Cole. That's the best fit, though, without inserting more characters into an already hefty story. 7. Seriously, Seasons wasn't supposed to get to 350k. (And now I'm adding chapters to smooth over some transitions and show other POVs, and it's going to be worrisome how long it is.) 8. The plans for a sixth Liddell child were actually pretty late in the story. I think I was nearly halfway through writing it when I said, "What if Vivian had another child, years and years later, and showed he could do better?" I wrote several more chapters before I finally started taking the idea seriously. It started off as a "what if" but eventually, I started rewriting the ending chapter and liked where it went. 9. Until he walked in the door at Phineas's orchard with an infant, I had no idea what gender the child would be. Surprise, it's a girl! 10. I had vague plans throughout the entire story as I wrote it, but a lot of them changed or altered in some way. Mostly, however, I wrote this as if the story were telling itself to me. That's usually how I do most stories. They surprise me during the writing. The characters seem to take over my brain and do their own thing. (This is how Hazel quit his job at the beginning of Rascal instead of getting fired over the plot events, and I had to figure out how to finagle the plot back into the fucking story...) 11. Also, Vivian was going to hit one of his adult children (likely Shannon) and cause a fiasco. I eventually omitted it. Someone would have murdered him at that point. Sophie, probably. Then my story would've been in shambles and stopped there. 12. Shannon's whole breakdown in the basement was planned somewhat in advance, but getting him into the house was hard and took a while to figure out. The original version of the chapter where he takes Howie home did not include their encounter with that stray dog that resembles Bailey. I added that for further pressure on his trauma. I'm a monster. :) Anyway, I thought that was fun to talk about. It's fascinating to think about what changed. :D

[fireblossumdraws]

For those interested in reading Emblem of the Siren

this is a psa, personal notes, and revisions to be seen in the new and revised chapters in the works. What has changed as far as characters, plot and the creator (me! )

As some of you have known as I have hinted multiple times, that the fanfiction has been up for years and has not received an update other than disclaimers. That's because my only use for it by this point has been as a crude outline for the rewritten version. Which I don’t want to hide either, even if I would like to because of it’s bad attempt at crass subject matter and traumatic concepts that could have been detailed more tastefully. I was an angry kid when I started writing. Thanks to receiving tons of therapy and life development, I feel that I can tackle those subjects from a more realistic standpoint rather than the sheltered worldview that I used to have.

With that being said, certain characters will not receive the significant changes, evil or not. And there will be a list designating who to expect that from and why.

Key characters that will receive no changes in the updates:

• Ostegoth (he deals, he smokes, we love ostegoth in this house and he does no wrong in his choices to pinch a coin/relic!)

• The Lord of Bones and subjects (He is an abusive monarch in cannon. I don’t think I could really rewrite it without sacrificing any personality traits and same goes for everyone else. I gotta keep the plot spicy somehow *shrugs* he keeps his satisfying end.

• Draven (the evil characterization does not suit him at all! For someone as neutral in the story, he’s a mentor and a bro, will remain that way in the update)

List of characters receiving drastic changes:

• Genevieve (Even if the basic layout will remain the same, [Which I will entail in a bio later on!] girl needs a confidence boost amongst other things. I wrote my oc without any experience in the industries that she were in on Earth and I unfairly wrote it out as something that she should be ashamed of. A similar backstory has been made with room to overcome and develop through. I am also adding certain flashbacks as well to highlight her character)

• Vulgrim (overly misogynistic, no chill, not cool. He will have more significance late story to demand changes in his character now)

• All Makers ( some changes of certain terms that could be considered misogynistic (in Thane’s case, thankfully they never made the final cut) but they are written as cinnamon rolls that need not a change other than their butchered dialect. Sorry for those, European readers.

• Death (he is emotionally ambiguous unless it concerns those he cares about. Though, he will be given the least amount of changes within the plot the way it is, but interactions are the main concern. I thought the intimate lines throughout the story were great work and somehow I was commended for them. However, the ones that are close without intimacy such as the first encounter and up to chapter 12, came across to me as far too cold and even the later scrapped chapters after that were the same. It was another situation of traumatic projection that I've long figured out how to handle. His personality is the same, a rude old one with a dark and mysterious emotional wall. One that's breakable with the proper writing and warmth. Y'know, like Fury. Only worse 🙃)

With all of that being said, the fanfiction will remain up to read. I cannot keep u from looking up the outdated version. But know this dude, How to write more ethically came along as well. I am willing to try again.

Doing that in writing this story in comic form in the meantime of the actual writing!

Have a variant for getting this far! 🥰

Thank u!

#Darksiders 2 #darksiders death #emblem of the siren comic #darksiders #boostable #dust darksiders #karn #draven darksiders

[asexual-fandom-queen]

Fanfic Writer 20 Questions

I was tagged by @nixie-deangel to do fanfic writer 20 questions, so let's dive in! Tagging @42wallaby-way-sydney @fatherofthebride @coldtomyflash to participate, if they are so inclined.

How many works do you have on AO3? 72

What's your AO3 word count? Just shy of 366,000

What fandoms do you write for? I started out doing most of my writing for The Flash/Arrowverse, but most recently have moved on to writing primarily for Stranger Things, Ted Lasso, 9-1-1, and Teen Wolf

What are your top five fics by kudos? 1. Turn And Face The Strange (Stranger Things, Stoncy) 2. All On The Line (9-1-1, Buddie) 3. Givin' Yourself to Me Can Never Be Wrong (The Flash, Coldflashwave) 4. Hands On Me (I Think I Wanna Let It Happen) (9-1-1, Buddie) 5. House Like a Homecoming (Stranger Things, Poly Monster Hunters)

Do you respond to comments? I do! I kinda never shut up about how important comments are to a fandom's ecosystem, so when I get them, I answer back!

What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? I don't usually end fics in full angst mode, but maybe the fic with the most bittersweet ending is Unfair. It's a SethKate (From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series) fic set in the aftermath of a sex pollen situation that leaves them both hurt and vulnerable. But there's still that nugget of hope, because they're hurt and vulnerable together.

What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? If I'm going for not just pure fluff factor, but how satisfying the happy ending is in the context of the rest of the fic/the source material, I would say Maybe We'll Get Forty Years Together which is a Jamie/Keeley/Roy future fic set during their wedding where Jamie has a chance to hash things out with his father.

Do you get hate on fics? Every once in a blue moon. I write a lot of polyships, and sometimes those polyships are an amalgamation of two sides of a ship war, and people have opinions about that lol. But generally, no.

Do you write smut? What kind? Sure do! I'd say it's what I write primarily. Generally, I write smut with feelings, or angsty smut. Sometimes it's definitely just smut for smut's sake though, which is also fun! I'm a big supporter of being horny on main.

Do you write cross-overs? I don't. The closest I've gotten is writing an AU based on another tv/show. I don't dislike them in principle, I've just never written one myself.

Have you ever had a fic stolen? Yes! Someone stole Taste of Your Lips (I'm On A Ride) and changed it from the original pairing of Zari/Amaya from Legends of Tomorrow to a Lauren/Camilla RPF and posted it on Wattpad. I'm very grateful to the person who messaged me on Tumblr to let me know, because the thief did take it down when I confronted them about it.

Have you ever had a fic translated? I have, and it's really cool to have been asked. My Buddie fic Exploration has been translated to Chinese.

Have you ever co-written a fic before? Not exactly. I was part of a multi-creator rewrite for season 2 of Legends of Tomorrow, which involved re-plotting and re-drafting as a group, so you could technically count Episode 2: Crisis and Faith.

What's your all-time favourite ship? I'm actually gonna have the dumbest answer for this question because it's a ship I've never written for, probably never will, and don't even really read, but it's Frank Castle and Karen Page from Daredevil/The Punisher. Their dynamic is just exactly what I want out of a ship. No notes.

What's a WIP you'd like to finish, but doubt you ever will? I have an Abby/Buck/Eddie fic that's on permanent hiatus that I almost certainly will never finish, especially because, in working on it, it started to splinter off a lot of ideas and dynamics and scenes I actually want to use for an original novel someday, so I don't see myself ever completing it. I would like to finish that novel though lol.

What are your writing strengths? I think I always feel most proud of my characterization being pretty on point, and I get enough comments to that effect that I don't think I'm just making that up. I also think I'm good at writing in small details that seem minor but make an impact.

What are your writing weaknesses? I fizzle out! I don't have good stamina to go back to something if it's gonna take me more than one sitting to write, which is why most of my stuff falls in the 2-4k range. I also lose steam without feedback and encouragement. My educational background is in creative writing, and I've been a long-time member of fandom, plus part of writer's groups even before then, so the idea of writing being a solitary thing is kinda wild to me.

Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic? To each their own for this. For me, personally, I'll use a word or a very small sentence I'm reasonably confident is correct in a fic, but for longer sentences, I would write in English and just indicate it was said in another language in the dialogue tag. Plus, even if it was a language I do speak fluently like Frech, it doesn't mean readers do, so I think English is still the way to go.

First fandom you wrote for? So, if we're talking first fic ever, we have to go back to when I was five and six years old and I would make little "books" out of folded index cards where I'd write stories about Sailor Moon or Cardcaptors. My first fic on the Internet was back in my FF.net days, and it was a Kyoya/Haruhi fic for Ouran High School Host Club. My first fic on AO3 was actually a multi-chapter Sterek fic that was never completed and that I've since taken down. The oldest fic of mine you can still find posted on AO3 is a multi-chapter Coldflash fic We Could Keep Things Just The Same, the first chapter of which was posted on February 24th, 2016!

Favourite fic you've ever written? I still feel like I've never topped There's a Menace In My Bed; Can You See His Silhouette. There are some edits I might go back and make with my extra eight (EIGHT!?!) years of writing experience, but the core of what that fic accomplishes? The delicious angst? The emotional minefield of dubious consent/sex pollen/fuck-or-die? The smut as character study? The caretaking? This just hit on a lot of things I like, and I'm really proud of it even all these years later.

#ask meme #tag game #about me #fanfiction #writer

[clairelsonao3]

Happy STS, Claire!

My question for you today is:

If you outlined your current wip, are things going to plan or have there been surprises along the way? Things that no longer fit or additions you didn't expect?

If you're discovery writing, is wip going in the direction you thought it would? Has anything gone rogue and taken you by surprise?

Feel free to combine if you're doing both!

Happy ST ... what day is it today? Anyway, thanks for the ask, Anna!

So, I've recently determined that I'm actually not a plotter, or pantser, or a plantser, or even a discovery writer. I'm a secret fifth thing (myself!)

Usually, in general, I do outlines in my head. My brain usually thinks in written words, so I can visualize an outline "written" in my head almost as easily as if I actually had written it out on paper. But for Act III, I actually wrote an outline, which I do sometimes when the plot starts to get more complex with more moving parts. And still, sometimes I just throw everything the fuck out and do whatever I want.

It's whatever works for me at the time. I just remind myself that people don't see what's going on below the surface, just as in a play (sorry for another theatre comparison, I feel like I do that a lot) they don't see what's going on backstage. If they did, they'd probably be a bit concerned/horrified.

So yes, sometimes that means surprises. A lot of them. Concerning GSNBTR, I recently cut a whole elaborate, outlined scene that probably would have taken up 3 additional chapters had I chosen to include it, and ultimately I was like eh, I don't really wanna write this, so I didn't.

Characters have evolved so they're pretty much unrecognizable from their earliest forms, usually because they start talking to me and telling me not to write them the way I'm writing them.

One particular secondary character was killed in the outline, then resurrected in my head, then killed again, then resurrected again. I'm still not 100 percent sure what's going to happen to them, and at this point, writing it into the outline doesn't matter because it will just change again.

Also, as you know, I write out of order, and I've probably rewritten the final chapter 3 times already, and I know I'll rewrite it again because I know when I get there, it'll probably have to look completely different.

#sts #asked and answered #my writing #gsnbtr #writeblr

[merrilark]

20 questions for fic writers

Thanks for tagging me, @i-seeaspaceshipinthe-sky!!

1.how many works do you have on ao3?

Only 2 after I purged and changed my username. I used to have around 10 or 12, I think, but I was embarrassed by my writing and deleted them. Sorta regret doing that. :x

2.what's your total ao3 word count?

1,044! They're both quick one-shots.

3.what fandoms do you write for?

The fics before I deleted everything were mostly Doctor Who and Sherlock. The two there now are for Bad Samaritan. Fics I'm currently working on are for Doctor Who, Misfits, Bad Samaritan, The Umbrella Academy, Red Riding, and Wanted: Dead or Alive.

4.what are your top 5 fics by kudos?

LOL. Well, seeing as I only have two still up, my most kudos'd fic is my Whumptober prompt fill focused on Sean. :)

Before I deleted everything, though, I'd say that my most kudos'd fic was a Doctor Who AU where Rose met Simm!Master. It was also, now that I think about it, 90% whump.

5.do you respond to comments? why or why not?

Always! I love chatting with other people. :)

6.what is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Not posted yet, but it will almost certainly be my Bad End AU for Bad Samaritan in which Cale does actually kill Katie and Sean becomes Cale's new project.

7.what is the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Deleted this one, too, but it was a slice of life kind of fic about the Tenth Doctor and Rose going out for chips before heading off on their next big adventure. Fluff and silliness all around. Maybe one day I'll rewrite it.

8.do you get hate on any fics?

No, but I did get a weird comment on a Teen Titan fic where someone started talking as if their OC was part of my fic, then began roleplaying with themselves in my comments. It was really weird lol

9.do you write smut? if so, what kind?

I dooooo, but I'm too shy to post it. Maybe one day. Usually the smut I write is pretty emotionally charged, whether it's happy emotions or sad/angry/whatever... I'm not often too interested in writing PWP (or at least, not to post lol)

10.do you write crossovers? what's the craziest one you've written?

I loooooove crossovers. I haven't written too many crazy ones, though. I guess the most tonally jarring one would be a Doctor Who/Red Riding or Doctor Who/Bad Samaritan WIP I tossed around for a little bit before deciding that it was more fun for me to think about than actually write.

11.have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I'm aware of!

12.have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope!

13.have you ever co-written a fic before?

A few times! One I love the most is an Umbrella Academy fic that was supposed to pick up immediately after S2. Me and my friend had planned on finishing it and posting before S3 but life got busy and it's back in WIP hell.

14.what's your all time favorite ship?

I'm too much of a shipper to answer this question LOL. I can't possibly pick just one.

15.what's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

All of them. D: I simply cannot get over the fear of being bad or boring. It's like hitting a brick wall every time I try to finish or post.

16.what are your writing strengths?

People have told me that I'm pretty good at understanding the psychology of characters that I write and that makes me happy. It's my favorite thing to sink my teeth into.

17.what are your writing weaknesses?

Pacing is hard for me, and just getting plots out onto the page is hard. I know what I want, but getting a character from point A to point B in an interesting way is like pulling teeth. Which is insane because that's such a necessary thing lol

18.thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

No opinion! Write what you want.

19.first fandom you wrote for?

LOL probably Sonic the Hegehog when I was 9.

20.favorite fic you've written?

Unfortunately I do not have one. :x

Most of my favorite writing has been with other people through roleplay. I think that's where my writing creativity tends to shine. It's just a little sad it's not something I can easily share with others.

---

Tagging! @salvador-daley, @jozstankovich, @crabstick, @elliethesuperfruitlover, and I am totally blanking rn so actually anyone who wants to! sdkfls sorry! long day

#merri mumbles

[skullchicken]

heyyy you can help me out if you like because I have choice paralysis about which project to work on while I take a break from my other projects ;_;

More Info/Synopsis under the cut!

(Sorted from how long they've been rotated from most to least so far)

Action/fantasy webtoon about a cursed school where students turn into monsters:

The class clown turns into an actual monster-clown, the sporty girls become cheerleader-zombies, the annoying little elementary school brats turn into screaming dolls and the teachers turn into boss monsters.

The only three people seemingly unaffected are Miyako (metalhead, bff of Cally), Cally (goody two-shoes, Miyako's bff) and Achintya (nerd, unrelated). With the former two, the reasons seems because they're not quite human themselves. But what's up with that shady little nerd? And he seems to know more than he lets on...

Whatever the case may be, they must lift the curse before things escalate.

Okay, so, imagine a Shounen Manga, except the demographic is all genders and women are people. Miyako, since she's secretly a demon, takes after a typical shounen battle protagonist, while Cally is a fairy and falls more into the magical girl mold. As for Achintya... he's complicated.

Shadowrun-action-romance-novel about fixing malicious DRM on cyberware, m/f

Working title: You owe me

A story about maliciously designed cyberware, trust-issues, debt, being in your twenties, guilt and a wrestler-elf and hacker-dwarf being dumbass idiots who pine for one another and secretly think the other person is the best thing since sliced bread. Slow-ish burn.

The good news is, I have like a hundred pages already written. The bad news is, I would have to rewrite a lot of it because my writing process has changed a lot. But let me say no more, take a gander at our romantic leads, ladies, gentlemen and those that lieth betwinxt:

64.media.tumblr.com

64.media.tumblr.com

He is wearing a gorilla mask for plot-reasons.

Webtoon fantasy/romance remake of a story where a girl marries the carrot king

There is an german fairytale written by the guy who also wrote the nutcracker which is bonkers and hilarious and I'd looove to adapt it into webtoon format. I wrote about it here: click meee

I would update the story so it takes place in modern times and deals with the issue of aesthetics versus being... (think e.g. cottagecore versus actual farming) in short "it is fine and dandy to dream, in fact it's very important... but if you're too keen to only believe what you want to be true, you're gonna get duped."

But most importantly it would give me ample reason to draw a carrot with a handsome anime-face.

Shadowrun-mystery-novel about the worship of dragons (Blackout Sequel)

I wrote a shadowrun short story about loneliness, vulnerability, yakuza and mysterious lemon cake. I have ideas for a sequel - granted they are quite nebulous as of now, but I'm confident I'm reaching the point where I can start fleshing them out. This time around the story would be longer and more involved. The theme would be the worship of dragons, not just in the literal sense, but also in how people relate to power.

We would also see how the relationship between Hanne and Amanda progresses. I personally wish friendships would receive as much attention and nuance as romantic relationships and here I would attempt such a thing.

Webtoon-action-romance about the housing market and identity, f/f

Anansi and Muu meet, one day, via the matrix, when they stumble upon each other trying to get entry into the same matrix club. The reason they're here are quite different. Muu, a corporate princess, just hit her thirtieth birthday, only received presents she didn't like and has a minor crisis about it. Anansi, who is a technomancer, is always on the run and here to meet a Mr Johnson.

While Muu's journey is, at first, internal, as she starts to try out different avatars to figure out who she even is, Anansi holds on for dear life as a squatter and, gets screwed over with the payment and sets out to find that damn Johnson to make him pay one way or another.

Their paths in life are quite different, yet they keep running into each other and, despite everything, find themselves drawn to each other.

And then it turns out their worlds are not as far apart as suspected.

I would be quite excited about this one because I've never written a f/f romance before, despite being very, very bi (granted I've also never finished writing a m/f romance, but still). Mostly I just really like the characters and I think the story would be solid and not too convoluted... as mine tend to get sometimes :,)

... but I'm equally excited to do all of these! What do you say?

#posting this AGAIN again because I am too stupid to make functioning polls hfgishfkhlfkrhfe

[creamsickle-writes]

Hi Cream!! For the ask game:

21. Would you ever collaborate with another writer for a story?

29. What's your revision or editing process like?

63. Something you hate to see in smut.

:3c

21. Yes and I have done so before! In the second part of Forbidden Fruit, I collaborated with my mutual and friend @littleblueeyedmoon and I would love to collaborate with other writers as well!

(I’ve also worked with other writers over the years but moreso as an editor/with them editing my work)

29. SO it’s very long and complicated but basically every time I reopen the doc I’m working on or write a large chunk of a fic, I reread whatever I wrote. Sometimes it’s fine and I just keep going, other times I just move around a few things, and sometimes I just rewrite massive chunks of the story. This happens multiples times for every fic because I am a perfectionist lmao

Once it’s done and I read it over and think “yeah, the plot is good and everything went the way I wanted” I plug it into grammarly so it suggests commas, periods, and other little grammar things. This is the last time usually where I read my fic from start to finish before posting but I usually don’t change too much at this point in terms of plot of story progression.

From there I post! And sometimes this is the point where I finally come up with a title 😅

63. Something I hate to see in smut, hmmm…. I don’t love when the characters climax at the same time during a fic. I mean it’s fine every once in awhile but I remember that used to always be how every nsfw fic I ever read was written. It kinda just takes me out of it unless it’s supposed to be romantic or if, say, a dom was making their sub hold out until they came, you know?

Also, I don’t really like using the word “member” idk I probably did it once or twice when I exhausted my other synonyms but like… it just reminds me of fanfic I used to read ages ago 😭

OH AND SPEAKING OF WORDS IN SMUT I HATE: CUNNY.

Any time anyone ever says that word in any fic, depending on how good it’s been so far, I either close the tab immediately or skim read the rest to make sure I never see that word again

God, it took me forever to answer that last question but as soon as I remembered that word I knew exactly what bothered me the most

#cream's corner #I just hate that word!!!

[amyisherenowitsokay]

Ooh, another one came to me when I sent the technology one.

In going back and reviewing the original MHNY trilogy plot, story, everything built between characters etc, what did you do? What did you decide to scrap, to keep, or to repurpose? You said you're aiming to branch away from 2 and 3 with something different, and disliked how you kept yourself to following the plot beats of the original first, right?

What does that clean slate look like? What pieces in Re:1 act as the catalyst to those further down in Re:2&3? The largest ones are obvious, (obviously) the big glaring plot changes. Are there more subtle ones? (don't have to say if you want to keep em a secret.)

Or, just, what things thru all three stories made you die inside and scream why did you write that? (I feel like you have a list.)

I'm gonna answer with spoilers because I'm having a good time answering these. These are HEAVY spoilers for the direction of the fic. As Re:MHNY2 is currently aiming at a Spring release date, I feel more lax about it's secrets, but still. If you don't want to know, don't look.

CW// Mentions of sexual themes, explicit themes, the briefest of mentions of non-con as a theme

This is a really fun question in particular, because it was really something I wrestled with just in the conception of this fic series so many months ago, going back and forth with "do I want to do a rewrite? and if I do, knowing I had a second chance, what would I fix?"

I'll fully admit there are people who remember my fics better than I do (I am looking respectfully at @rllybritrlly whenever literally anything about From Your Memory gets brought up). That meant I really needed to reread my original fics to even remember all the details, what I wrote about them, read my cringe tween A/N's, etc. As Re:1 was the baby that started it all, I really wanted to pay as much homage as possible to it. Also, even so many years later, I still liked the overall plot, even if I felt the details could've been better executed, and I could've done without the various problematic themes. I think I've given the lengthy answer before, somewhere, but the short of it is mostly these major points:

I didn't like the weird sexually exploitative relationship between Zim/Gaz with the kissing/touching. Additionally, I knew I could make the inevitable ZAGR kiss way more dramatic if it was roped into the climax instead of just randomly thrown in the mix in problematic ways from the mid-arc. I LOVED writing the kiss in the rewrite, and it was actually one of the first scenes I rewrote, even before officially announcing/confirming the rewrite.

I didn't like Gaz and Dib's relationship. I love cruel, troubled Gaz, but I don't think it benefited the story to make her so constantly dismissive of Dib, to the point where he was sometimes written like an afterthought. I think IZ as a whole benefits from the complex relationships the characters have with one another, and the Re:MHNY series could benefit from developing those changing relationships rather than stagnating on them.

I had no idea when writing the original MHNY that I was ever going to do a sequel, or the direction of the finale. It was originally a one-and-done until I think the second-to-last chapter, when I decided I had more to write, and liked my readership too much to give it all up with a one-hit-wonder. Now that I know where the finale goes, I really wanted the opportunity to drop more lore, hints, and foreshadowing. The biggest example is Tak, whose name I basically borrowed as recognizable since I was too lazy to make a one-off OC, and only after-the-fact found a way to reweave her back into the third installment. Tak's fate is not going to be the same as it was in the original, and also, in the first rewritten fic, we got more insight into her personality. Not a lot, granted, but enough where the reader would be able to notice changes later on.

Discerning readers may have noticed that I kept the same amount of chapters in the rewrite as I did the original. If you compare chapters 1:1, a lot of the bigger themes parallel one another. Gaz is still ensnared by alien parasitic technology in chapter 1 of the rewrite as she was in the original, albeit in much bloodier circumstances. Zim's motorcycle/car chase in the original in chapter 6 is paralleled by the chase in chapter 6's rewrite, even though the circumstances are vastly different. Zim feigning a long-term, committed relationship in chapter 17 of the rewrite is a big nod to the original, in which Zim bartered for Gaz's life on the premise that they were more together than they really were, even with the kissing/touching premise they had with one another. Additionally, the theme of 'Zim hacks the Valkian ship' stays, even if it's once again executed under different circumstances. The details change, yes, but ultimately the Valkians are still slaughtered. That dedication I made towards keeping Re:MHNY1 as 1:1 as possible was a fun challenge in its way, but it's not going to happen in the sequels.

Regarding Re:mhny2 and Re:mhny3, I will only be borrowing the most basic of premises. As announced earlier this year, Iggins is still in the next fic. However, his differences are major, and a closely guarded secret I have only really shared with I think my internet bestie and my boyfriend. Again, anyone not looking for spoilers may want to skip this ask.

Some sneaky secrets are how I left whether or not Gaz went back to finish the tournament ambiguous. Additionally, that unlike the finale of the original MHNY, Gaz and Dib do not ever have another 'on-screen' discussion after she's rescued. Zim and Dib do, yes, but Gaz and Dib do not. There's a joke in Ch 20 about Zim showing up in his living room with cocoa, but the nature of any sibling conversations, if any even occurred, are also left deliberately absent and/or ambiguous. It's noted that they spent the majority of the aftermath resting, and really not a lot else. The most screen time Dib gets is being thrown out of the operating room in the flashback.

Unlike the original, where Tak was originally just used as a throwaway name-drop when I was too lazy to make an Irken OC or find another way to justify why someone might call to warn Zim about the Valkians, or even know who he was, I currently know Tak's fate in the rewrite, and I knew it when I wrote it, too, which means I got to sneak in that little ominous line of the Tallest when hearing her report in Ch 20.

“Now,” he said, doing his best to shrug off the strain of morning. “Go get that she-Irk again.”

A discerning reader might also have noticed Professor Membrane is not brought home, and never told what actually happened. Aside from some angsty pining from the Membrane siblings, his personal involvement ends when Dib abandons him at his conference and comes home for Gaz. That being said, there's also an interesting few paragraphs that have been brought up and pointed out to me individually before on Discord, and that other readers may have picked up on as well from Ch 18 that are going to be important to the sequels.

She hated this. She hated hiding herself behind veils of cynical wit and aloofness just to survive—to barely endure while she festered inside. She hated her father, drilling into her how uncomfortable people could be around her. That scaring people was wrong. That friends and admiration from peers were so very important. Don’t be angry, Gazlene. Be motivated! Don’t be frightened of change! Embrace it!

Zim had never demanded change. Zim had only ever ripped out the honesty, the worst parts of Gaz that she had buried under years of practiced apathy, and embraced them with open fascination. Sick. Accepting. Conniving.

You killed an Elite, his voice whispered, a caress on trembling limbs.

She had. She remembered every vivid detail like a flash bomb. The fear. The rage. The burning resentment. The same theme over and over. That she never should’ve been there. She never should’ve been here . That something had tried to take her life over nothing . That she had every right to fear for her life. 

The flashbacks that left her breathless. The fear, genuine, and yet underlied with something she dared not admit to even herself. Years of her fathers conditioning cushioning the awful truth of his daughter. She was just a teenage girl—once a child—who should never have been formed this way.

His son had inherited his father’s bravery and passion to learn, and twisted it into a dangerous recklessness. A need for pursuit and answers at all costs.

His daughter had inherited her father’s calculating practicality, and it had mutated into a vicious willingness to do the very worst thing for the necessary reason.

You killed an Elite, she heard once more. 

But this time, a loathsome truth followed. 

And you want to do it again.

As trademark as Gaz's viciousness is throughout the IZ series in general, and in this fic, her strict restraint being pinned on her father's discipline may seem out of place with only this fic to go off of. While it can definitely be read as a standalone, it does (deliberately) give the reader pause. Professor Membrane praises Gaz in the series for being his favorite child, not for being a menace to society as a whole, so where's this coming from? Why are Zim and Professor Membrane playing devil-and-angel-on-her-shoulder in her (concussed) brain? And notably, if that's their assigned role, where Membrane is the voice of restraint, and Zim the voice of rationality, then it should be noted that Zim's voice won. This should leave you asking why that is, and if that's always going to be the case.

A funner teaser is some foreshadowing I dropped throughout the story about what mating is going to look like in this fic. I wrote a lot of what I wrote about sex, love, and marriage under a heavy veil of religious indoctrination, which distorted and I think damaged the potential creativity of my writing. Virginity-cultural stigma somehow shoe-horned its way into my fic, and I don't really want that to happen again, which means there's going to be a lot more lewd scenes leading up to a sexual relationship. We're not just gonna have our characters go from making out to full penetrative sex. That's skipping quite a few bases. I've expanded behind the scenes a lot more information about Irken culture/mating, and while penetrative sex has been established as off-limits until such a time as our two heroes may deign to bind themselves to one another for eternity, I am not going to leave you hanging in the meantime. Some hints however about what mating looks like in the rewrite have been dropped, such as this nibble in Ch 9.

As he'd briefly gone over with the human girl, irken rituals of courtship were far different than any found on Earth. There was no religious entity or documentation, and the ceremony required complete isolation for at least three days.

and

He could never have that with Gaz. For one thing, she had no PAK. Well, she did, but it didn't actually count. Any attempt to encode the PAK was pointless, and furthermore, the PAK wasn't integrated to her brain the way it was to Zim's, or any other Irken's. It held no influence, and no significance to her decisions. While Zim's PAK may bind him for eternity, the human wouldn't be bound by anything other than the whims of her fleeting, mortal affection.

I outright name the ceremony in Re:mhny2, and also plan on further establishing teasers here and there about what's in store.

Skoodge is also a big teaser in himself! Skoodge is a competent invader and a traitor to the Empire, whom Zim has explicitly expressed allyship towards. He is definitely going to be important later on.

Regarding what a clean slate looks like for the sequels, I'll go ahead and name some big ones off the bat. Again, spoilers.

In Re:mhny2, Iggins is ultimately the antagonist, but whether or not he's the or even a villain is going to be something I look forward to watching readers debate about. That's what I mean by clean slate. Iggins was inarguably the bad guy and a major shithead in the original sequel. In the rewrite, Iggins may be a shithead, but what I really disliked about the original was how one-dimensional he was. Additionally, I think it's a more interesting story not for the protagonists to overcome the antagonist in a linear journey, but for the antagonist to grab the protag's by the neck and drag them into the mud with them. What if the hero's journey isn't upward, but one where simply keeping afloat equates success? What if not drowning is the victory? Metaphorically speaking, Re:mhny2 is going to start with fearless characters and end with characters who never look at the ocean the same way again, and are wizened for it.

Whereas the original was just kind of 'watch these characters be badass and mercilessly inflict pain on a bad guy' Re:mhny2 is basically going to be a lot of character self-reflection. I love the IZ characters for their flaws, but we're not going to get real, raw growth out of them if they're not forced to take on their own misdeeds and mistakes by metaphorical knifepoint. Re:mhny2 is going to be about them and the knife. And by them, I mean all 3 of the main cast, plus Iggins.

Re:mhny3 is similar. I'm excited to write about Iggins, but I am ecstatic to get another shot about a Zim-pocalypse. Enter the Florpus gave me so much new source material about what Zim successfully taking over the Earth, even for a short while, would look like, and I'm grateful for its contributions to the finale's development. Zim is still going to take over the Earth. Why, how, and under what circumstances is drastically different, and since its release is much farther out than the sequel, I will restrain myself to only give you this single, but eye-opening question when I talk about major, complete deviations from the plot. I have always regretted my impatience with MHNY3 for many things, but mostly one:

Wouldn't it have been a much more interesting story if Gaz really didn't know what was going on?

I'll just leave that thereeeeee.

For your last question, and one that makes me laugh to even look at, I do have a mental list. I'm pretty sure this'll be the first time I've ever written it down though.

Here are my top ten cringe moments from the original series as a whole, from cringiest to least:

The entirety of every sex scene I ever wrote

Ever writing the phrase "And they hadn't even done anything yet!" during a sex scene -- this is so ingrained in my cringe that I can, even now, tell you exactly where it is in the fic, the context, and wrote it without even needing to reference the phrasing

Implying Iggins would SA Gaz while she was under his thrall, and incapable of consenting (for concerned readers, non-con is not going to pop up in my stories again, and I apologize in hindsight for any discomfort caused)

Zim and Gaz's sexually transactional relationship, especially while Gaz was 14

Gaz getting married when she was only 18 (Gaz is already going to be 18 in the sequel, and will probably be in here early-to-mid twenties in the finale)

Dib being used as a punching bag for Zim and Gaz to be cruel to for cheap gags

Making the Tallests simps for Zim for really no reason other than that I was a simp for Zim and wanted to give him nice things lmao

Tak just sort of popping up out of nowhere as a maid, and blatantly borrowing the themes of servants being 'furniture' from the anime When Seagulls Cry/Umineko

That fucking weird ass segment where I had Gaz have prophetic nightmares (?) in the third one, and wander around a castle like some sort of haunted Victorian child. Really the whole castle scenes themselves were cringe. Get rid of the castle. Wipe it from your minds.

Making Gaz and Zim essentially infallible, unbeatable, and just boring in how completely dominant they inevitably were to any problem that arose. It just sucked the tension out of every situation because I got too bored or impatient with scenes that otherwise could've been much more interesting than they were.

This ended up a lot longer than I anticipated, but I hope I answered everything sufficiently!

#amyisherenowansweringyou #iz #iz headcanons #long post #very long #much answer #zim #gaz #ravenfollower13 #invader zim #fanfiction #zagr #ao3 #re:mhny series #re:mhny #re:mhny2 #re:mhny3 #ask me a question and i shall write you a novel

[semi-imaginary-place]

FFXVI Rewrite Part 1: Introduction, Prologue, and Return to Phoenix Gate

I decided to rewrite FFXIV and point out some of the game’s more glaring flaws, play with some ideas. In addition to plot changes and overhauling the lore, some of the general changes that should be made include tighter more efficient writing, fixing the pacing, and cutting most of the filler and fetch quests and focusing in on the main plot. There are a lot of words used to say a whole lot of nothing and it sounds nice because the voice actors do a good job but the dialogue lacks substance. At the same time players aren't given crucial story information in the main story leaving many important plot points under-explained to the point of audience confusion. I also want to improve character writing and develop inter-character relationships. For Jill as a character, It feels like the writers just forget about her. Not that Clive gets much good development either, he gets some in the first arc with Cid and then stagnates afterwards. And then the writers had the bad idea of starting a half assed character arc about Clive trying to do everything on his own at the same moment they take away Jill's agency and sideline her for the rest of the game.

FFXIV's prologue also acts as its demo, as such it is not only the first chapter to the story but also a piece of advertisement, and it is incredibly successful in being an advertisement. The FFXIV prologue is a hypebeast, it's a spectacle and one of the most exciting things I have seen in a long long time. However this strategy of front loading the game and making the best demo comes at the cost of later story and pacing. We don't get to see much of how 13 years of military slavery has affected Clive. The end confrontation between Ifrit and Phoenix means that Joshua re-entrance to the plot and his reunion with Clive must be pushed further back in the story. With the prologue FFXIV wrote itself into a corner and the story only continued to fall apart more the further the game progressed.

Such is the difference in medium between short form stories like the prologue, movies, OVAs, animated shorts, and so on, and long form stories like JRPGs, books, tv shows. That different format of stories makes different characteristics more successful in one over the other. Short form by nature must be compact and efficient, it is structured to be quickly complete both in story arc and emotional payoff. Long form is about the build, slowly weaving many things together, setting things up early to pay them off later. When you apply the strategy and mindset of one form of story to another, it tends to fail. Take BBC's Sherlock which attempted to use short form format for a longer series, this is why the first few episodes are quite good but as the series goes off the story falls apart, you all these teasing plot threads that go nowhere because the whole show is written like it’s a one off. The problem with FFXVI is that it tried to have its one shot and then attach a full game to it, and that can work but in XVI's case it made a lot of the story beats in the first half of the game clunky. A common problem with the buildup strategy is that instead the beginning of a story can end up slow and boring, the anime Tatami Galaxy is an example in that when it all comes together at the end its great but the beginning is real slow. So I started thinking about how to fix these problem and rewrite FFXIV and sadly I cannot think of a solution that does not cause additional problems.

Starting the game with Phoenix vs. Ifrit in the Fallen ruins is fine but have the first chapter of the game follow Clive's day to day life as a slave to the imperial army. Make it dull, strip him of dignity, make it bleak, make it miserable. Interspersed with the bleak reality of his life are snippets of the joy and liveliness color of Clive and Joshua's childhood telling the events leading up to Phoenix Gate. Through these two stories establish the setting, the nations, the politics, the balance of powers of Valisthea. The game already does a good job of establishing Joshua and Clive's relationship so all that is added here is the contrast between the lively teenager Clive was with the worn-down man he is now. At the end of Chapter 1 Phoenix Gate happens, and Clive wakes up still an assassin, still a Branded, still fighting a war with a knife at his throat, still not having achieved his revenge.

The game handles timeskips poorly, neither the 13 year nor the 5 year timeskips feel that long, time doesn't feel like it is passing during those times. Very little changes during the 5 year timeskip from the relationships to the politics to the characters as people. I'm shortening the timeskip from 13 years to 10 years which makes Clive 25, Joshua 20, and Jill likely somewhere in between. I'm doing this because it never felt like 13 years to begin with and to better explain Joshua's lack of involvement in those years. Joshua probably took a year or two to become a functional person again after his mother betrayed his nation, killed his father, and his dear older brother tried to kill him. Afterwards he's still just a kid what can he do and I think it takes him years of introspection and research into eikon and Ultima to come to reconcile a berserk Ifrit mauling him with his loving brother Clive. At 20 Joshua is only now capable enough, knowledgeable enough, powerful enough, and mature enough, to try and save Clive. To make it more interesting Joshua on some level still fears Clive and Joshua feels immense guilt over this and that he hasn't saved Clive earlier. This nicely ties into the themes of guilt and justice present in other characters often over those they could not save, like Clive, Dion, Harpocrates, Jill, Otto, Theodore, Isabelle, Quinten, etc.

I'm cutting out most of that mysterious hooded figure in Clive's head, it’s just confusing and it adds nothing Just have like a shadowy figure with glowing blue eyes and keep the glowing blue eyes be a consistent part of Ultima's every character design or something.

Beginning of Chapter 2 is where the original game starts with Clive on a mission to assassinate Shiva. Now because of a different Chapter 1 the round table scene actually makes sense because the player knows who these factions are. In my rewrite however not only is Cid looking to interfere, Joshua is using this as an opportunity to free Clive as well from afar. Throughout Chapter 1 build up Clive's discontentment as he remembers his past, so that in Chapter 2 Clive isn't just committing mutiny because he maybe saw his childhood friend, he was already planning on leaving and that he's not killing a single person more for Sanbreque and Jill is the last straw. Also have Jill represent an act of free will and also all his yet unfinished business. The drawn-out Chapter 1 also allows Clive's assassination unit to be humanized to drive home the brutality of his life and the injustice of the Branded system. If he's going to fight Clive is going to fight because he chooses to not because he's part of the same war machine that occupied his home and branded him. Instead of Cid it is Joshua that saves Clive and secures his retreat although Joshua keeps himself hidden from both Clive and the audience not ready to face Clive and using a nondescript flame. It is as Clive is running and encountering more Ironblood that he runs into Cid.

One thing that should have been explained better was Clive's status as a Bearer. During the prologue and during his childhood we see no hint of Clive being a Bearer, it is only after being enslaved by the Sabrequois army that he receives a Brand. It is strongly established and mentioned many times that one is born a Bearer. Which raises the question, was Clive ever a Bearer? I also wonder what the mechanics/magical physics difference there is between a Dominant and a Bearer, it seems to be that there is little objective difference as both are magic users without a need of crystals. Instead "Bearer" is a class term as Dominants are too militarily/culturally important to be branded. This also implies that Rosaria is a holdover of the older magocracy that used to rule Valisthea. I suspect that although he was a hidden Dominant Clive would never have been considered a Bearer especially since the Active Time Lore states that it’s common practice in Valisthea to test babies at birth for being Bearers. Rosaria and Archduke Elwin seemed more tolerant so maybe he wasn’t tested but I think it is more likely he just wasn’t born a Bearer. This would help to explain Clive's behavior in the game, he might have been branded but he never really acts like he sees himself as a Bearer. If the Bearer test just tested for magic Clive’s Dominant status might have caught him, but it is even more likely that either Anabella had him branded just to make his life even more miserable or that the imperial army didn't care that his fire magic was from The Blessing of the Phoenix as the First Shield of Rosaria, Clive could use magic thus he was a Bearer, they certainly didn't care. I wish the game had added a line or two about this to clarify the situation.

Which brings us to the next question I had about the game, how eikons and transfers of eikonic power worked. The game establishes that both eikonic power can be shared (Joshua and Clive, Barnabas and Sleipnir) but also that power shared means the Dominant will die or go berserk if they prime (Jill, Hugo, Dion (although he didn't go berserk either)). The game is wildly inconsistent about the mechanics so I'm going to overhaul this all so that there's some internal logic. First change is that sharing eikon power is not a death sentence for the Dominant but it does weaken them. Honestly this was just done as an excuse to take away Jill's ability to fight and be an active character and I will always resent this (doesn't even make sense since Dion does it anyways), and Torgal could absorb eikonic aether just fine. Dominants can usually share their power with one person though many choose not to for various reasons, I'm going to call these people who share power with Dominants "Vassals". A line should be added in-game about how it is Rosarian tradition for the First Shield to receive the Phoenix's fire and be their Vassal because that's a little detail we were missing and players only learn about this by reading the Active Time Lore. Although this is complicated by Clive being Ifirt's Dominant and Phoenix's other half so Clive isn't quite actually Phoenix's Vassal it's more complicated than that. Leviathan doesn't have a Vassal because their Dominant went rogue. Jill does not share her power until after she has come to terms with her past and realized that she does not have to shoulder her burdens alone that she shares her power with Clive. Cid wants humanity to be independent of magic so I can understand why he didn't share Ramuh's power (if it was anyone it'd probably be Dorys except that the cursebreakers seem to have formed because of the destruction of the original Hideaway). Due to changes in Waloed's writing Barnabas inspires actual loyalty in his soldiers and Sleipnir is his vassal. Another change I am making is that Terrance is Dion's Vassal in this rewrite. Benedrikta and Hugo both love their own power so they aren't sharing with anyone.

As per an overhaul to the Waloed section later, Benedrikta's characterization is altered so that power is her primary motivation. Her desire for Cid's love remains and it is tied to her desire for power but Cid is no longer her primary motivation. I'm not sure what to do with her. I think her having a breakdown and going berserk could still happen even with the lore changesjust because of the emotional stress. Benedrikta staked a lot of her identity and self-worth on her power and Clive defeating her ripped that all away from her. In addition, this is the first time Clive unknowingly absorbs an eikon so that could have affected her ability to summon Garuda, add to this the threat of being raped by bandits and sold as a slave and I’d say that’s enough for most people to go berserk. Another idea is that the Garuda fight happens because Benedrikta decides to hunt Clive down because she cannot live with the dishonor of losing to some no name Branded and she would rather die giving it her all than lived and lost.

Clive's fights against Benedrikta and his traversal of the Fallen ruins of Phoenix Gate happen mostly the same. This part of the game of pretty good so I see little reason to change it, Clive struggles with the realization and crushing guilt that he is the Dominant of Ifrit, he was the one that killed Joshua and all the people of Phoenix Gate, and how in his quest for vengeance he has been unknowingly chasing his own shadow the entire time. In the dungeon scene Clive can keep his underwear, and afterwards Cid, Jill, and Clive and discuss eikons, how odd it is more Ifrit to exist, the other mysterious Dominant of Fire that they are chasing.

With Clive's acceptance we are switching PoV to a Joshua playable section as he seeks to stop the end of the world, setting up Ultima as well as the worldbuilding and mechanics of aether and eikons. This part is optional I like the idea of it but I don't know if I like the idea so much as to include it. These will be a series of short playable segments as Joshua explores ruins and tries to piece together, aether, eikons, history, Ultima, Mothercrystals, Bearers, Dominants, and why the world is hurtling towards disaster. This is also to set up the red herring of how the Mothercrystals might be feeding Ultima so that when Joshua rejoins the party he will corroborate Cid's hypothesis.

Read this in one long post

Read this in parts: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5 .

#ffxvi #ff16 #final fantasy xvi #final fantasy 16 #clive rosfield