thoughts on fanfiction, and a FF7 plotbunny

[edenfalling]

I think one reason I keep stumbling into new fandoms (where I mostly read and forget to comment) is because I have been trained by reading science fiction and fantasy. I'm used to holding back judgment and figuring out strange things. I can hold back and piece together canon backstory from the occasional mention in fics. And I follow authors -- meaning if someone whose work I like writes in a couple other fandoms, I'm likely to try reading those stories as well as the ones I have canon background for.

(This has the odd side effect of making me not care much about getting around to reading/watching the actual canon. Because there's no guarantee it'll be as good as the fic, see? And in the case of movies and tv shows, I'm particularly apathetic since I've always been focused more on words than pictures. I am not a visual person. And I grew up mostly ignoring the television -- I was already 10 years old before I watched anything that wasn't PBS or the evening news.)

Anyway, I've been poking around some Final Fantasy VII fic lately, and I've come to the conclusion that someone needs to write an AU story in which Zack survives. Then he, Cloud, and Aeris can restore Sephiroth's sanity, fight Jenova and Hojo, and slowly rebuild and restructure their world while gradually ending up in a nice, messy foursome. At which point they can have sex. (Lots of sex. In many and various combinations. Yay smut!) But there should also be lots of plot and character development and stuff.

If I A) actually knew the canon, and B) weren't such a lazy bum, I'd write it myself. :-)

Comments

[gakifang.livejournal.com]

There's one kind of like that, but Cloud and Sephiroth are lovers and get squooshed into one body by Gaia(or whoever...the planet) and there are many adventures and practically everybody is a clone, curtesy of Hojo. It's definitely AU and it's unfinished but rather good. I think it's called Bound...but I could be wrong. I am not at my computer so I can't really check. Ah, yeah, Bound by Quela on FFN.

[edenfalling]

Mmm. I looked at that, but there's something about the writing style that I can't get past. Too melodramatic and vague, maybe -- it just rubbed me the wrong way.

Besides, having Cloud and Sephiroth in one body defeats the purpose of a foursome. :-)

[gakifang.livejournal.com]

The last chapter I read, they had managed to figure out how to astral project themselves. Who knows, by the end of the story, they might have figured out how to have physical projections.
I found that story after reading some absolute tripe, so my comparisons may have been off. I should probably reread it soon to see if it was as interesting as I remember or if time was far too kind to the memory.

[edenfalling]

I looked at it again, and remembered what irritated me. It's the characterizations. The way she sees the FFVII world and story, and her take on romance, among other things, just... don't quite jibe with my preferences. It's fine for short stories, but I cannot read chapter after chapter when things strike me as slightly off. The irritation builds and after a while I just give up, no matter how interesting the plot is.