All That Remains Chapter 16 Commentary

Read it here

ATR ch16 tumblr tag

I forgot to mention with chapter 14 - Remnants chapter 68--the first scene--is relevant to the crossover/Larxene/Revenge sequence, so be sure to check it out!

Fun fact about this chapter! This chapter, or, the scene at the end of it ((Larxene vs the HB gang)) is the scene that made magik decide to make this sequence canon. Before this scene, it was nothing more than an.... actually incredibly elaborate AU that I'd been tossing around for myself, and LOVED TO DEATH but knew since it would inevitably end in Larxene's death and that was for MAGIK to decide and not ME I couldn't consider it canon.

But after this scene she was just like "Yeah. Let's do it." and I was REALLY really REALLY excited.

This is also my favorite chapter of the sequence.


I'm sure I have a ton of playlists I can post, but, today, have another song:


It's a really neat remix of Imagine Dragons' "Who We Are".

Now, time for other chapter notes:



The ORIGINAL original draft of this scene went a slightly different route, in which Larxene went to grab Riku only to encounter the Wall Aerith had cast on him (for those of you who haven't played FF7, a Wall completely prevents physical/magical damage), and then she turned on Aerith, but Leon had cast a Wall on Aerith, and then everyone was just throwing around protection spells for each other.... (Namine was also there)

Buuut this route was better.

This route, was, actually, spurred by a prompt from fuckyeahcharacterdevelopment @ tumblr-- You can see the prompt and my response to it (the first draft of this scene) here on the ftpverse askblog

That prompt was of course later written as a full scene, sent to magik, and later rewritten again for continuity and what not so that it would actually work within the context of All that Remains.


In the process of writing this (or perhaps it was rewriting?) I remembered that we hadn't quite had a recap of Riku's relationship with Larxene. While a paragraph summing it up doesn't explain everything, I'm pretty confident it + other clues given in context so far that new readers will have a general idea of what's going on. Old readers, obviously, don't need the recap, or not an extensive one.

OKAY BUT RIKU HAVING SEVERE FLASHBACKS TO THE BATTEL AGAINST NAMINE BACK IN DEAD INSIDE WHEN LARXENE LAUGHS AT HIM

“C’MON. FIGHT BACK.”

GOSH

G O S H

I still cannot believe Aerith doesn't flinch when Larxene prepares to strike her. I always flinch. I have flinched every time I've read back through this scene. And Aerith doesn't.

In my notes I asked "how many times has Riku fallen for that?" but the question is less that and more "how many times has Larxene used it?" because Riku has fallen for that every time. Every. Time.

In the original draft of this scene, Aerith's Holy stripped away some of the wall around the door. Then I started questioning the structural integrity of their house after that, and wasn't sure how easy it'd be to fix, and so decided it would be easier if Larxene went through the window.

However, now that I'm thinking about it again, there's a two week gap between Part 1 and Part 2 of All that Remains and that probably would've been enough time for them to have fixed it without me having to deal with it. Oh well. Too late now.

ANYWAY THAT'S IT REALLY I WILL HAVE THE ORIGINAL DRAFTS UP EVENTUALLY, PROBABLY ALL AT ONCE FOR THE ENTIRE SEQUENCE