|
Step 23: Resolving Subplots
With any luck, you have finally gotten all of that romance out of your system and lost all desire to think of more locations for dates. So if you chose Option B last chapter, now is a good time to advance the plot. Yes, that means that, in spite of the combined efforts of you, your muses, and the Gods of Fanfiction to stall this puppy for as long as possible, it's time for you to make this fic go somewhere. I'm afraid that your old tricks won't work anymore. No longer can you churn out pages and pages of the same hackneyed old romance scenes bogged down with purple prose, with different names and hair colours substituted for different characters. Now you must put actual effort into your fic, and come up with ways to resolve all of your loose plot threads!
I hear what you're saying right now. "Is it too late for me to choose Option A?"
Fine, then. Give up on this fic. You know, no one will say anything if you let your magnum opus fall to the hundredth page of the FF7 section and fade into obscurity. Leave those loose ends untied, and quit while you're ahead. Let Cloud and Aeris never retreat into the sunset and produce children with telepathic powers. Let Sephiroth never recover his memories. Let Jycellaemynthia never find out about her past. Let Tifa continue to plot to keep Cloud and Jyc...sorry, Aeris apart. As long as your fic is unfinished, none of your characters will ever get the closure they need; they'll hang forever in limbo, and their story will never end. And when you're not in control of their lives, who knows what will come tomorrow, or the day afterwards? Maybe one day, Tifa will actually succeed in dropping an anvil on Aeris's head. Could you live with yourself if that happened?
No, there was a reason you resurrected Aeris that went deeper than the fact that Cloris is your OTP. You wanted to right wrongs, to reward the characters you liked and torture those you hated, to give your favourite characters the happy ending they deserved, all in a neat little package with a bow on top. If you abandon this now, you might as well have left Aeris's corpse back at the bottom of the lake in the Forgotten City as food for the fishes.
So now is when you start to set things right.
"Just wait and see," chortled Tifa gleefully. "In fifteen seconds, Aeris will pass through here on her way to visit a poor homeless person and give him cookies. But little does she know that she's about to have her own visit...WITH DEATH! Reno, are you ready?"
"Sure thing, Teef. I've got the marble."
"Ah, what a brilliant plan, Reno. Remember, when Aeris walks through the doorway, and I give the signal, drop the marble in the tube which leads to the cup which will tip over and spill the water into the bucket that will then pull down the lever which will nudge the button which will turn the gear which operates the hamster wheel which will make the hamster run out and bite the rope, which will release the weight, and DROP AN ANVIL ON HER HEAD! MWAHAHA! No one can stop us now..."
"Tifa, what are you doing?" cried an outraged voice.
In horror, Tifa turned around, and saw Jycellaemynthia, her charcoal eyes burning and smouldering with a scorching and fiery fury like two things that are really hot. In spite of her noisy animal posse and the huge beacon of light that she emitted, she had managed to sneak up on them unnoticed.
"I heard you just now, speaking such foul words about our poor comrade who has returned from the grave, and plotting her demise. Tifa, how could you? You're supposed to be her friend!"
Tifa forced a laugh. "Ha ha, Jacell...Jysall...whatever-your-name-is, I have no idea what you're talking about!"
"Don't lie," she responded. "I have everything you said on tape recorder. Bluebells!"
Jycei motioned to the kitten, who carried a small tape recorder in his mouth. At a nod from his mistress, he pressed the PLAY button with his cute little furry paw. The words "...and DROP AN ANVIL ON HER HEAD!" were repeated on an endless loop.
Doing her best to fake an expression of bewilderment, Tifa racked (AN: Hee hee, get it? Fake? Rack? BURN!) her tiny brain for possible excuses to bail her out of her predicament, to no avail.
"Well," she managed, "we were just going to..." With a hideous plastic grin, she placed an arm around her cohort. "Reno will explain it all to you. Isn't that right, Reno?" she hissed, digging her fingernails into his shoulder blades.
For a few instants, Reno stood frozen in terror. He opened his mouth, only to close it again. Then he turned around and sprinted toward the doorway.
"Hey, come back here, you coward!" Tifa screamed after him. "I'll kill y-"
"What was that?" they heard Cloud call from downstairs.
"...and DROP AN ANVIL ON HER HEAD!" Tifa's recorded voice blasted back at full volume.
Cloud, Aeris, Barret, Red XIII, Cid, Cait Sith, Yuffie, Vincent, and the international news media emerged from the basement.
"What was that about anvils?" asked Cloud.
"It seems that Tifa has shown her true colours," uttered Jycellaemynthia reprovingly.
And they listened in astonishment as Bluebells played the cassette for them.
Aeris looked at Tifa as if she were seeing her for the first time in her life. "Tifa, is this true?" she whispered, her voice full of disappointment. "I...I trusted you."
Tifa said nothing. She looked from face to face, seeing contempt in their eyes. Bluebells snarled at her. She backed away.
"Well?" Jycellaemynthia asked, the very picture of the angel of justice, her crimson eyes flashing dangerously, her waist-length auburn hair like a magnificent cape falling upon her proud shoulders. "What do you have to say for yourself?"
"Eep," said Tifa.
Poor, poor Tifa. Everything has gone wrong for her today. Her best-laid plans have blown up in her face, her friends and roommates have lost their faith in her, Reno has left her out to dry, and the story of her betrayal will be on the front page of newspapers around the world tomorrow morning. It can't get much worse for Tifa, can it?
"Oh...ugh..."
Leaving the reporters mystified in the hallway, the gang rushed to the bedroom, where Sephiroth was clutching his head and shuddering. Beads of sweat glistened on his forehead.
"Oh, what's wrong this time?" snapped Jycellaemynthia, causing her friends to exchange scandalized looks at how she had spoken to her beloved.
He raised his head and met his girlfriend in the eye. For the first time in months, Sephiroth looked truly carefree. "My heart...it feels suddenly pure! I...I think...yes, I've finally purged myself of darkness."
Sephiroth stood up and examined his surroundings with the curiosity of one who has just been born. His gaze lingered on Tifa, who had been too busy thinking of ways to get out of the mess she was in for Sephiroth's comment to have registered. Perhaps she would claim that it was all a practical joke, that was it, and that the anvil had been made of Styrofoam. Or maybe that she and Reno had been rehearsing for a play! By the time the full weight of what Sephiroth had said struck her, it was too late. Tifa opened her mouth, but before she could say anything-
"Hey, don't I know you from somewhere?" said Sephiroth, his eyes flashing in recognition. "You were the one who gave Cloud Mako poisoning and told me that Aeris would be on the altar that day I killed her, weren't you?"
Think again.
Congratulations, you have now resolved your very first subplot! So after all of this time; so much effort; so many ridiculously ill-conceived nefarious plots; and thousands of dollars spent on weapons, books, anvils, hamsters, and hair restoration treatments; Jealous Evil Villainess Tifa's diabolical schemes have finally been exposed, and she'll never sink her claws into Cloud, so neeners on her. Aeris agrees not to press charges against Tifa for attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder, aiding and abetting a genocidal maniac, or dealings with organized crime syndicates, on the condition that she leaves the Villa and Costa del Sol forever. And as Jealous Evil Villainess Tifa walks out that front door, humiliated and disgraced (and mumbling all the while that she has been framed, and that it's all Reno's fault, and that he's dreaming if he thinks he's getting his free drinks now), she walks out of your characters' lives forever...
Well, perhaps not forever. After all, no soap opera villainess ever stays gone for long.
Step 24: The Bonding
Now it's time for you to give yourself a pat on the back. Because of your brilliant plotting and matchmaking, you have fixed the broken ending of Final Fantasy VII and brought happiness to all your characters; even if it was only by creating totally different characters that have nothing in common with their in-game incarnations and naming them "Cloud" and "Aeris", it's still quite an achievement. You...oh, sorry, Jycellaemynthia is together with her second choice for a love interest. Aeris now has a pulse. Cloud is finally angst-free. Tifa has gotten her just deserts. Sephiroth is now safe from temptation. Even everyone's two favourite optional characters have found love. Everyone else...well, you don't really care about them. But Red XIII has now become an expert in Go Fish.
It is possible that your readers might have missed the point that you are trying to make, which is that all of your characters are happy. Very, very happy. Totally, completely, exceedingly, blissfully, anthropomorphically...well, you get the point. So if you want your readers to figure this out, you had better make it glaringly obvious that your characters are all drowning in pools of bliss. Trust me, your readers are not very bright. If they were, they would have left reviews that were longer than your chapter titles. Forget about subtlety; they will never figure out that Cloud, Sephiroth and Vincent are made for Aeris, Jycei, and Yuffie, respectively, unless you hit them on the head with one of Tifa's anvils. Preferably one with a huge sign on it that says, "EVERYONE IS HAPPY!"
"Oh, Aeris," sighed Cloud, caressing her unworthy face with his rough, yet tender, fingers, and almost making me swoon. "You're my entire reason for living. If it weren't for you, I would have been lost forever."
"What a coincidence!" gasped Sephiroth. "That's the exact same way I feel about my darling Jycei." Sephiroth slid a powerful arm around Jycellaemynthia's fragile waist and kissed her on her fair, ivory forehead, which was much softer than Aeris's, and was also less oily.
Cloud gazed into Aeris's eyes romantically. Sephiroth gazed into Jycellaemynthia's eyes romantically. The four of them sighed.
The silence was broken with the sound of a PHS ring. "Oh, I'll get it!" said Jycei, picking it up.
It was Yuffie. Jycei put her on speaker-phone so that everyone could hear her kind words.
"Oh my god, like, Jycei, I just called to say you totally rock for setting me up with Vinnie-poo!" she squealed.
"Aren't we so happy together, my little Yuffie-wuffie?" Vincent's voice, crackled and distorted from static, broke in. "Oh, Jycei, thank you so much for helping me realize that I never really loved Lucrecia, and that Yuffie is the girl for me. You've brought sunshine into my life."
Jycellaemynthia nodded sagely and closed her eyes as if she were meditating on some deep metaphysical conundrum. "Indeed, my children," she declared, "that is the nature of love. It is a powerful force that binds together two people's souls at the sacred spirit who have been chosen by the fates to do their bidding and dawn in the collective essence of a burning fire that expels its positive energy to the beating hearts of passion and angels and cries out to the lonely voices of the Planet to transform two into one."
For a few moments, the others were speechless, contemplating her cryptic words of wisdom, which offered so much profound insight into the true meaning of love.
"Ooh, I've got an idea!" exclaimed Sephiroth. "Why don't we do each other's hair?"
"I'll go bring ribbons," said Aeris cheerfully.
So now that all of your favourite characters are all together, and all living happily ever after in OOC bliss, and all using the word "all" all too many times in one sentence, your massive Aeris Resurrection Fic is now...complete! All you have to do is add the little "The End" at the bottom of the page, and you're free to write that Rufus/Tseng/OC plotbunny that you've been fantasizing about for weeks! YIPPEE!!!
...Not quite. Sorry to burst your bubble, but there are a few loose ends you have left untied. For example, do you remember all of that foreshadowing? Not to mention that mysterious villain who made its appearance in Step 13? Oops, looks like I neglected to tell you that it would all come back to bite you in the ass later. You've got a long way to go.
Step 25: The Cryptic Scene Involving the Mysterious Supervillain and Generic Evil Henchmen
The Midgar Zolom frolicked happily in the swamp, cooling itself off in the mud. Today had been a good day; the serpent had polished off a couple of plump chocobos, and while it still had a few pesky bones and feathers stuck between its teeth, it was feeling very satisfied. It stretched its tail out luxuriously. Perhaps now would be a good time to take a nap-
It let out a cry as the jaws clamped down upon its tail.
The Midgar Zolom thrashed and flailed desperately, mad with agony and terror, unused to being the prey instead of the predator. But its tail was throbbing, caught between the sharp teeth and strong jaws in a vise, and the thing, whatever it was, was pulling it downward. It was losing the battle, the water level now came up to its mid-section, then its neck...The Midgar Zolom let out one last squeal before it sank to the bottom of the swamp forever.
At the edge of the water, three handsome men with silver hair that shone in the moonlight watched the scene, each with an identical cold sneer on his face.
"Enjoy your meal, dear," whispered Kadaj, his tone reverent, almost loving.
"Yes, I hope you enjoy it," agreed Yazoo.
"As do I," said Loz.
You haven't actually seen Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, yet, and its plot can't even exist within your fic's continuity because Sephiroth has been redeemed, Aeris is alive, and Cloud is no longer angst-ridden. But you want to show how "hip" and "down" you are with FF7 fan culture by giving cameo roles to interchangeable bishounen characters with stupid names and no personalities. Of course, you could have appeared even more hip and down with fan culture by reading a plot summary of the film so that you'd know, at the very least, how to characterize the SHM--but hey, research is for nerds. Just say that your version of events is how it should have happened in the movie. I offer this advice to you purely out of the goodness out of my heart, with no ulterior motive, and in no way because I can thus continue to avoid spoilers for Advent Children and write this guide with no knowledge whatsoever of the movie beyond the trailer and a few blurbs on message boards.
For an instant, the black water was tranquil. Then the thing emerged from the swamp, rising inch by inch from the murky depths like a bird hatching out of an egg, except the creature wasn't a bird, and the swamp wasn't an egg. As the creature's huge form drifted toward them, creating a cascading trail of ripples streaming in all the directions of the compass like the bridal train of a beauteous young maiden (if that young maiden happened to be drowning in a swamp), the servants kneeled down.
Then the creature, the wise Leader, spoke, with the force of thunder shattering the silence of the night, the sound waves sending violent tremors along the delicate surface of the muddy, murky, watery water. "My children, it has been a long time since I have seen you last. But here we are, together again, and soon we shall win this war."
"Yes, we shall," agreed Kadaj. He remained in a kneeling position.
"Absolutely," said Yazoo, also prostrate.
"No doubt about it," said Loz, likewise.
The Leader trembled with something that would have been laughter, if such a beast had been capable of laughing. "But ah, now is not the time for warm reunions. Did you find the one of the red rose, yet?"
"Yes," said Kadaj, standing to his feet. "From far and wide, we have heard rumours of her legendary kindness and powers."
"It was child's play to follow those rumours to her home in Costa del Sol," giggled Yazoo, his eyes glinting maliciously.
There was silence for five seconds. They all turned expectantly to Loz, who had missed his cue. "Um..." Loz managed, at a loss for words. There wasn't really anything else to tell the Leader. The other two had pretty much nailed it. "Um...yeah. Right on. That's what happened."
"Good," the Leader croaked. "It won't be long now. I shall come to power again, and a new era of suffering shall begin." Using two powerful appendages to hoist the heavy, ponderous body to which they were attached onto land, the creature slowly crept up the bank to join the three silver-haired men. "Are you ready, my children?"
"Absolutely ready," said Kadaj.
"Totally ready," said Yazoo.
"Never been more ready," said Loz.
"Excellent." The Leader had not appeared so pleased in millennia. "Head to Junon Harbor as quickly as possible. We shall meet again in Midgar. But first, capture the girl, and bring me...the seedlings."
Next part: I'm not even going to attempt to write this preview until the next chapter is done. I know I'll just get myself into trouble.
Previous part
Back to introduction
~Evil Mina
|