ATR ch37 - The end of Part 2!?

Oh, yeah, I forgot that it was a Kinda Big deal that this was the end of Part 2

I mean, it's not a huge deal

But long story short I was looking at my outline and going "hmmmmm there's a lot of stuff between now and endgame" and instead of having it be a 20 chap part one, a 40+ chap part two, then a 20-ish chap part three for end game, I might as well split this into (at least) four parts

And, I mean, Shad's reveal was the biggest thing happening (like Larxene was the biggest thing happening in part 1!)

I can't tell you what big stuff is going on in part 3, but trust me, it's gonna be good!


Site Update things

I wrote up a couple of webcomic recs!!! (If you take nothing else away from it, simply take please read Cucumber Quest from it)

I don't know if anyone remembers the AMV I made for the Namiku battle of Dead Inside, but I was watching it the other day and went "wow this is rly good but everything goes by so fast and probably no one knows how great this is"

Sooooo I went and did a breakdown of the AMV so you can appreciate how great it is. Nice!

The Ask FtPverse blog has had a couple of updates!! Check 'em out!

This isn't ~site update wise~ or anything but Riku's life story playlist finally got a tracklist w/ liner notes! Ayyy ((that happened bc I saw this art of him and started crying about how much I loved him, lmao, my first son indeed))



CHAPTER TIME!!! 
(No playlist bc I can't think of one off the top of my head ay)

Read here

there is a tumblr tag, but it only had two posts, both of which I'm going to talk about here, below

AGGRESSIVE SQUEAKING NOISES AS I REALIZE THAT SHAD AND AERITH HAVE INTERACTED AND THEY DIDN’T EXACTLY GET OFF ON THE RIGHT FOOT…

I MEAN….

AERITH’S PRETTY FORGIVING BUT…

MMMMMMMMMM THIS CHANGES THINGS

I’m screaming though I realize now that not only was SoShad link Seeing Each Other’s Thoughts early dead inside canon, but also, apparently, Sora’s already gotten images of Zack’s death from Aerith through Shad ain’t that something

I was going through old Dead Inside stuff (chapters 50/51 specifically) to be sure first off what exactly the extent is that Aerith knows Shad

But there’s this bit where Cloud goes to attack Shad and Sora gets in the way “oh, so you’re protecting me sora?” Shad asks “never” Sora replies and I’m SCREAMING over that because the roles are swapped later against Maleficent, and even BETTER is how Sora thinks of Shad now, how he’s defending Shad (not physically) and defending his right to be alive, and this time it’s not to protect Cloud from getting into a fight with Shad, it’s, just to protect Shad

ALSO

Sora tells Cloud in that chapter “he’s just darkness he’s just manipulating you” AND NOW FOR WHAT HE THINKS OF SHAD…..

I’M CRYING OVER CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT…

As was implied w/ the opening notes: I was going to write this under the premise Aerith was Pretty Chill about Shad, but actually,,,,,, 

DIch50/51—he taunts her about Zack, she watches him and Sora and Cloud fight in the dining room (the taunt about Zack stings the most)

CEch41/42—he doesn’t taunt her specifically, but she hears him argue with magik’s Namine, and she throws a cup at his head, and demands him to leave the house ((even if she didn’t have a strong friendship with mNamine or anything… that’s still a mark towards him being Evil Darkness))

DIch105/106—Shad uses Sora as puppet to (implied) taunt Aerith/Tifa/Leon (I think. I only can find for sure him going after Leon, but if he didn’t go after Aerith and Tifa as well I’m going to be confused) so, there’s that against him. Then he taunts Riku when he shows up and that brings Riku to the point of physically attacking Sora, and since that can be drawn back to Shad, well…..

DIch116—yelling sequence, he doesn’t go after Aerith specifically, but he does bait everyone else and Aerith can still hear them at each other’s throats so that’s ANOTHER point against him

DIch110—she doesn’t find out this was caused by Shad until ATRch35 but she does get Riku dragged back to her house bleeding out and radiating darkness and he nearly dies and that’s a blow to her, and a point against Shad, as I mentioned in ATRch35

SO YEAH UH THERE’S THAT

I mean she still ended up being kind of chill about him but it wasn't until after Sora put in a good word for him. (Aerith is forgiving, but there's a difference between "oh I don't care about him" and "I know him and I know he wasn't nice but if you say he's changed, well.......")

I had a moment of “am I operating on kh1 castle and kh2/ansem’s castle being separate places or not?” but then I decided to just frik it I guess they’re the same place whatever I don’t care enough to make the distinction anymore

Even wanted to say “god knows they have nothing better to do” except here we are again!!! with no deity in the ftpverse and Even/Vexen not being religious in the slightest!!!

FUN FACT!! While Sheto is a word of my own creation, the Latin word for shadow is, last I checked, Shato (or, it’s pronounced that??) SO THAT’S SOMETHING 

Though Sheto has 0 origins in latin I found it scribbled along with various other words which I think formed the Knight’s name in a notebook ((I just cant’ remember if it was actually Hydrx Knable Sheto ne fle Chatoi da and I just changed the meanings of the words from whatever I’d originally intended, or…. whhhaattttt…..))

This is an interesting note from my brainstorm:

Shad made Sora promise not to tell anyone about his love, and he only broke that promise to tell Kairi ((and perhaps now that Shad is revealed to be not dead, Sora regrets it, and perhaps he’d thought at one point he might have told everyone else, except now the secret does not solely rest on his shoulders, now the secret is not only his to tell))

This bit of convo was scheduled to Happen, except when I got to it it seemed silly to have Sora keep rambling, and it also seemed silly for Aerith to ask “so, he’s really changed?” because she believes Sora the moment Sora says that Shad has

But anyway here’s the bit of convo for you:

“I… I can’t say he’s sorry for what he did in the past. To you. to anyone, really,” Sora says anyone except me, (and Kairi, sorta, but no telling if that’s because he cares about Kairi or because hurting Kairi hurts Sora) “and I can’t make him apologize, but… if he’s sticking around, I’ll make sure he behaves. I can promise that. and before you say it, he’s not going to hurt me, not if he doesn’t have to. I’m more sure of that than I am of anything else, really”

THESE ARE ALSO IMPORTANT -- I know what everyone's schedules in HB are and I wanted to reference that but there just wasn't room for this because no one specifically in dialogue talked about how Namine/Riku/Aerith would help Sora do the research

But:

Aerith maybe saying something like “well I mean it’s not like we don’t have time to help you sure we have the restoration stuff to do now and there’s plenty of htat but we do have downtime we can help we were going to start looking to see if we could find any of Ansem’s notes anyway, figure out where he went—I’d ask Even, but, perhaps not today, we’ve been gone long enough….”

I'd also considered having Sora ask Aerith about names for Shad but since it wasn't Serious or Actually Important, I didn't see the point of forcing it

Sora asks Aerith “btw name ideas for my shadow” and she answers with “idk, I always thought Connor and Lucas were nice names but shouldn’t this be up to him”

Connor just, kinda, came outta nowhere

And not only do I think Lucas is a nice name and also Mother 3, but, it’s funny bc that’s what Shad is named in that one AU where he randomly came back from the dead and posed as one of Sora's children and had a severe crush one one of Namiku's children--er, Namiku's only child

Obvs I'm not writing that AU, but Aerith mentioning it was like Sora suggesting Shad back in chapter 32, since I'd considered it as a name for Shad at one point I Had to mention it

ALSO I'VE SAID THIS BEFORE but I do really have a new name for Shad I'm just not going to tell you what it is until it's settled in-story

also I will probably call him Shad/his-new-name interchangeably for a long time