Final Fantasy Fun

(Crossposted on aulu)

New chapter up! This one plays with all the characters a bit.

Title: Resurrection III: Stolen Fayth
Chapter 16: Sacred Stone
Word Count: 2338
Rating for this chapter: G
Summary: Yuna and her Guardians reach the Ronso village and a much-needed haven before the last leg of their journey. Lulu makes a poignant discovery.

Whew, yet another chapter that felt like pulling teeth to get it finished. Plot and scenes between more than 3 people are very hard for me. I think this works, though!

Chapter 15: Desperate Measures.

It's messier than ever... the Latest category registers an error, everything's been moved into sub-archives that are equally hard to navigate... yow.

I haven't been over there for several weeks, between everyone throwing things at each other, ficwad's convenience, and the excellent reader/writer community supplied by LJ. It's funny. I started out planning to write lemons on AFF. That's the one place I'm not.

In other news, just to note it:

new chapter of Resurrection III
Chapter 13: Sisters

New drabble (NC-17) on pyre_flies, which will be entirely predictable and possibly boring to readers who know me, but the theme for this challenge was "patterns". This is the pattern that I've fallen into and will have to break the next time I write a good sex scene.

SPEAKING of which, would people stop writing hot springs/pool scenes? (j/k) I had one planned for Gagazet before I even started playing X-2 and discovered they were canon, on the theory that snow and a hot tub would make a pleasant setting for something or other.

Guess I'll just have to write it really well, so that I don't sound like all the rest of you.

I am very pleased to have wound up with an outline and at least part of the next chapter of R3 written. Which doesn't guarantee a thing, with my frequent problems, but at least now I know where I'm going. I expect about 3-4 chapters til the end of this arc. Then I shift gears to Zanarkand, and hopefully a bit more Auron-focused, though Lulu is so much easier for me to write that I can make no promises.

To think my first draft of R3 was 3 chapters long.

What's so frustrating is that I can see images perfectly in my mind, but I can't make them appear on the page.

Oh well. The following is VERY rough illustration of the chapter I'm writing right now. Just about worksafe, but snuggly.

"A few hours of peace..."

Fyre byrd asked a question while reviewing chapter 10, and it happens to be something I've mulled over a lot, so I can't give a short answer. Therefore I'm answering her here. It's always a risk that too many author explanations will kill symbolism, but hopefully this will help.

Her question:

I have to say that for me the opening section was disorienting. But, here it is, another of my prejudices - so take what I say with a grain of salt, please and realize it is only my opinion. I am extra hard on dream-sequences - because actual dreams are so rarely like the ones in stories. I just found this dream a bit too solid and real and not at all dream-like. I was confused (granted not for very long) over what was happening. So my question to you is this: what purpose does this dream serve in the story? I am not sure precisely what effect you want it to have here. Is it to keep the reader in suspense? Does it have some kind of symbolic meaning? Is it just to show that Lulu and Auron's bond remains strong in her subconscious even though her waking mind is currently shying away from him due to recent traumatic events?

( my response... )

muggy_mountain suggested in a review that Auron's got all these internal monologues even when he doesn't speak.

I am beginning to find a small challenge. Since Resurrection III is anchored around Lulu's first pilgrimage, it makes some sense to tell the story from Lu's perspective. Also, as I said, I find it easier to write Lulu's thoughts than peek into Auron's skull.

I am badly-overdue for an intimate -- not just physically, but personally -- scene. I've been keeping Auron and Lulu from being able to talk to each other ever since this story began, in various ways: Lulu constrained by a promise to Yojimbo, Yojimbo eavesdropping, the need for Lulu to set feelings aside and focus on getting them past fiends, their friends nearby. Absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that. Before I started this story I was writing lemons where they just jumped each others' bones for lust, not love. I was having trouble with getting them to talk to each other. NOW they bally well have motivation and material for a heartfelt conversation.

So anyway, I'l totally winging it and I'm not sure what I'm doing next. I have a few ideas for that conversation. However, it was going to be from Lulu's perspective. That's what I've been writing. Muggy's remarks got me to thinking, though. What if I tried an interlude with Auron? Before I go on, stop and drop the camera inside of his skull, see where he is in all this? I'm thinking just one chapter where we find him wrestling with what's happened.

So, here's my question. ( Auron-cam? )

Wordcount of all the discarded and unused and reworked drafts of the next chapter which currently lie on the cutting room floor: 9369

Wordcount of the next chapter, which still needs a few more concluding paragraphs: 3190.

I believe that we need to rename plotbunnies plotelephants. Maybe then they would not propagate like rabbits, bounding in all directions and getting munched by passing coyotes.


Thankfully, I think I've finally settled on one particular plotbunny, and have received one tolerably pretty scenic momen t from the Muse. It came to me as I was waking up, and it's one of those set pieces where it flashed into my head as a vivid painting. I hope my description did it justice. I'm no good with plot, spotty on characterization and dialogue, tend to reuse gestures overmuch -- but oh, yes, I love over-wrought scenery with a Tolkienesque passion!

I wish that I could write scenes with more than 2-3 characters without feeling like a novice juggler. Greek tragedians had the right idea. 2, 3 talking heads, no more!

I also wish, in retrospect, that I hadn't put myself quite so firmly into Lulu's head for this saga. I love her. I enjoy writing her. But I know there are more Auron fans than Lulu fans, and there's probably some readers saying, "shut up about the mage, already, we want Auron yumminess." He's such a reserved figure that he keeps being enigmatic in the corner.

Hm. Except I'm writing for my own enjoyment, not simply for readers. I am not a great fanfic writer -- discovering what else is out there has been a very humbling experience. So I should just play. Lulu pleases me as a person. Auron pleases me as a...hero, that's not quite right, but it explains why I sit inside the skin of one of them, and love the other.

I was beginning to worry that following through the Yojimbo plot would kill off my lemons. I still need quite a few chapters before I can get to anything lemony again. Hopefully it'll be worth the wait!

Psyche's story is told in Apuleius' The Golden Ass. It's a long romance.

The early part is in an odd way the paradigm for the Beauty and the Beast story. Psyche, youngest and most beautiful of three sisters, is carried off by Cupid. She winds up in a castle with invisible servants and never sees her husband, she only feels him at night. He commands her never to look upon him. Eventually he lets her invite her sisters for a visit, but they are secretly jealous of her wealth, and sow the seeds of doubt: what if her husband is a horrible monster? So she lights a lamp while he is asleep and discovers he's not a monster, but a god; unfortunately hot oil drips on his shoulder, and he flees.

Then we get the wicked stepmother story. Psyche yearns to win her lover back, but she has to undergo several awful ordeals first. Aphrodite won't give up her son easily. All the ordeals are supposed to be fatal, but Psyche keeps getting aid from unlikely places. The ants help her sort a bag of mixed grains. An eagle helps her get water from the Styx. I can't remember what helps her pluck wool from the golden carnivorous goats (another odd staple of Greek myth).

At any rate, the last task is for Psyche to go into the underworld and retrieve a box which Aphrodite had loaned Persephone (or possibly the other way around). Psyche gets past the ferryman and Cerebus and faces all the dangers of Hades alone. On the way back, however -- as Aphrodite had intended -- Psyche can't resist a peek in the box. She is killed instantly.

Cupid can't stand it any longer. As a god, he's not supposed to become too attached to mortals -- he has duties, he is NOT mortal. Zeus' idle flings are the only acceptable form of immortal/mortal intercourse. One isn't supposed to fall in love with them. But when Psyche finally dies for him, he throws all that to the wind, swoops down, scoops her up in his arms, and restores her to life, duties be damned.

I have been thinking of Orpheus and Eurydice all along while writing the Resurrection story, but I see a few faint parallels with Psyche's ordeals as well.

Like most archetypes, though, there's a great many differences too. :)


The odd thing is, I'm suddenly taking a very deep and thoughtful class on psychology and the Orpheus myth and the way Orpheus continues to manifest in poetry and life to this day.

Why do my one chapters keep getting longer and longer until they turn into two? Oh well.

Chapter: "Orpheus"

Next Installment of Resurrection III posted on Ficwad

A bit of a breather after the last few chapters. Woot, the dialogue muse was being good to me.