New Fanfiction, need some thoughts...

[Lilani]

Re: New Fanfiction, need some thoughts...

yay, lilani i made a character on Fairy server and i kept checking often for about 2 weeks and i even ran into Neokenshin @.@ But i didnt find you give me a time so i can find you on Fairy

Two weeks? D: I'm sorry, I haven't been on much lately because of work, school, and GaiaOnline (that site is more addictive than crack). Anyway, I responded to your PM, so I hope to run into you soon. What is your character name anyway, Ejospike?

[LilithAngel]

Re: New Fanfiction, need some thoughts...

Good work so far. The pacing and flow is really benefitting from your planning; it's very noticeable. One thing though, and it may be a minor plot hole, but one thing I noticed was Lilani was wondering how she's going to get to Jeuno, however, she's been to Jeuno before, as evidenced by the fact that she got a teleport from there in the beginning, and taking a chocobo at the Crag of Mea (indicating she has a liscence). Minor plot hole, or something else you have planned?

[Lilani]

Re: New Fanfiction, need some thoughts...

Good work so far. The pacing and flow is really benefitting from your planning; it's very noticeable. One thing though, and it may be a minor plot hole, but one thing I noticed was Lilani was wondering how she's going to get to Jeuno, however, she's been to Jeuno before, as evidenced by the fact that she got a teleport from there in the beginning, and taking a chocobo at the Crag of Mea (indicating she has a liscence). Minor plot hole, or something else you have planned?

Ah, no, I didn't plan that >.< That's the only problem with having a long delay between chapters in a fanfiction, you forget the information you've already covered and either recover it later or just contradict it. I'll go change that now...

Thanks

[Ejospike]

Re: New Fanfiction, need some thoughts...

on fairy my character's name is Macenxion

[Lilani]

Re: New Fanfiction, need some thoughts...

Then that's why I missed you last night, I was looking for Ejospike >.< I'll try tonight then, heh.

[Ejospike]

Re: New Fanfiction, need some thoughts...

Lilani! lol ok i was reading over one of your previous chapters, the second one i think and like 4 days ago i partied with a ranger named Miles! thats funny... im laughing at him because i remembered the name from the story and i completely forgot about it and he thought i was crazy

[Lilani]

Re: New Fanfiction, need some thoughts...

Alright, here we are, hot off the press, chapter four! Enjoy.

Chapter Four: The Dunes

The next morning—quite earlier than she would have liked—Lilani awoke to the persistent calls of Kenshin.

“Lilani…! Lilani...! Lani! Lililianiah?”

Lilani laughed out loud as she swiped the linkpearl off of her nightstand, “Kenshin, is my name really that ‘ard to prrronounce?”

“Yes! Goddess above…would you mind thinking up a nickname for yourself?”

“Hehe, how about just Ani. ‘Ah-nee.’”

“Sounds good to me, Ani,” Kenshin replied, and he stopped.

After a moment of silence, Lilani jutted her jaw, “Eh…so what was it you wanted in the firrrst place?”

“Oh yeah…I was just wondering if you wanted to head out to Valkurm Dunes with me. You did sound a bit lonely last night, and Darla and Ryden have already given it the okay. Whaddya say?”

“Hummmm…” Lilani groaned as she rolled out of her bed and planted her feet on the floor. She sighed, “I guess I can. How long do ya plan on staying there?”

“Um…until our meeting in Jeuno, I guess. It’d seem pointless to go anywhere else, since we’re already close.”

Lilani groaned again, this time as she stretched, and purposefully louder than before. “Ugh…I suppose I could run out therrre for you…”

“Great! Wait…do you have Tele Dem?”

A sigh, “Yes, yes…”

“Wonderful! Can we count on seeing you about noon then? We can meet at Selbina for lunch.”

“Hmm…fine if you say so.”

Kenshin laughed, “You’re not one for mornings, huh?”

“No, I’m not. I’ll ‘ave you know that I never got up to do things for my old linkshell. This is a mighty big favorrr I’m doing for you.”

“Ah, come on, it’s not that hard!”

“Oh? Have you ever tried to get a teleport in Windurst? I’ll tell you, it’s about as easy as getting a dhalmel to jump in tha airrr.”

“Whatever. As leader of this linkshell, I order you to get your lazy butt out of bed and on the next teleport to Konschtat Highlands!”

Lilani sighed, and drug herself off her mattress to do so.

She knew she would be gone for a while, so Lilani checked in with the gate guards to give permission to her Moogle to return to her mog house and watch over it in her stead. She also informed the Moogle in advance that she would be moving her things to Jeuno in about a week and a half, and gave him permission to move anytime before then if he felt so inclined.

Lilani decided that Windurst Woods would be the best place for seeking a teleport, for it had the auction house, and the highest percentage of adventurers. There were, in fact, a good two dozen adventurers lining the area. Hardly anyone acknowledged her presence, if they weren’t absorbed in auction house business, they were peddling their own wares to other bystanders. Lilani put two thousand gil in her hand, held it up high, and shouted in everyone’s direction, “Alrrright, I’ll give two thousand gil to the first mage able to teleport me to Dem!”

All motion stopped. Everyone took a moment to look over at the fire-headed shouting Mithra. Most just looked back the other way, some giggled to themselves and whispered to their neighbors, and quite a few men continued staring for their own reasons. Lilani, with not a speck of shame, only shouted louder.

“Three thousand? Four? Anybody…hello?!”

“I’ll do it for two if it’ll get you to shut up.”

Lilani turned around with a look of scorn on her face and searched for her antagonist. At first she saw nobody, but the Tarutaru cleared her throat, and Lilani looked down. It was none other than Poof, casually dressed in the garb of a mage, and impatiently tapping her foot. Lilani immediately recognized her, and didn’t know whether to react positively or negatively. “Um…no kidding?” she asked, much more quietly than before.

“No, you poorly dressed stooge,” Poof spat, glancing over Lilani’s clothing with scrutinizing eyes. “Just gimmie the gil and I’ll help you leave us in peace.”

Lilani couldn’t help but laugh at how extremely Poof was reacting to the situation, and handed the gil over with a true smile. “Here you go, thanks.”

Poof noticed the smile, and felt a bit bad about what she said. “Thanks,” she muttered as she quickly pocketed the gil. She took the liberty of stepping a bit closer to Lilani, to ensure that she would not be left behind, and began chanting the rather long spell. She kept looking up at her, and noticed she was still wholesomely smiling. She sighed the last part of the spell, lifted her arm, and they were off.

When the two opened their eyes, they were staring at opposite sides of an enormous, blue, spinning crystal. Lilani leaned around the crystal and waved to Poof, “Thanks again! Sorry for annoying you back therrre.”

Lilani walked down the stairs of the platform, not expecting an attention worthy response from Poof. However, Poof called back, in a tone Lilani hadn’t yet heard her use, “Yeah, well, forget about it. You’re not half bad, redhead. See ya ‘round.”

The words surprised Lilani, and she spun around to look back at Poof. By the time she turned around, Poof was already gone, most likely warped back to Windurst. Lilani shook her head, and went on to rent a chocobo.

It was quite a long ride to Selbina from the Crag of Dem, and Kenshin wasn’t making it any shorter. He was concerned for Lilani’s knowledge of the area, and constantly asked for her position.

“…Where are you now, Ani? Have you hit sand yet?”

“No, Kenshin, I haven’t. Although I do see a snowdrift ahead…”

“What?!”

“Just kidding! Goddess! I think I’ll know a deserrrt when I see one. I’ll tell ya when I hit sand.”

“…So, you’re close then?”

“UGH.”

When Lilani finally got to Selbina, Kenshin greeted her with a big hug as she sent her chocobo away.

“Ah, finally! We’ve been waiting ages for you!”

Lilani cringed under the sudden display of affection, however she trusted Kenshin, and hugged back. “It hasn’t been that long, silly. And besides, you were houndin’ me all the way up herrre, I couldn’t get a second without ya!”

Darla and Rydenel approached the two from the gates into Selbina. Apparently, they had chosen to wait inside.

“Lilani, wonderful to see you!” Darla kindly greeted, clasping Lilani’s hand with both of hers and shaking like a friend.

Rydenel was a bit more formal, “Hello, Lilani, it’s nice to meet you.”

Lilani was a little more than startled at the sight of Rydenel. He was an Elvaan. By no means was he similar to Geraldioux in looks—with his short blonde hair as opposed to Geraldioux’s long dark hair—however Lilani was still not ready to interact with any sort of Elvaan with any degree of calmness.

All she could do was stare for several moments, her eyes glazed over with horror. Ryden became uncomfortable, and Darla concerned.

Kenshin knew exactly what was happening, and was afraid of such a problem. He gently took Lilani’s hand and guided her to the gate of Selbina, bypassing Rydenel completely. He whispered in her ear inconspicuously, “Don’t worry about Ryden, I’ve told him you’re shy to men and don’t like flirting, so he’s on his best behavior.” He continued walking with her until they were well inside the town, and then stopped. “Are you gonna be okay?”

Lilani took a deep breath and focused more on Kenshin’s words than her memories. “Yes, yes I’ll be fine. Let’s…just go eat. I’m ‘ungrrry.”

Kenshin pointed to a small nearby restaurant and let Lilani take herself to it. He then went back to explain things to Darla and Ryden.

“Don’t worry about Ani, she’s just hungry and got a bit woozy there.”

Ryden looked at Kenshin suspiciously, “Really? She looked more afraid than woozy to me…”

Kenshin gave Ryden a hard stare, warning him to back off, “She really didn’t mean to, it embarrasses her and makes her feel weak. She prefers that nobody addresses it.”

Ryden stepped closer to Kenshin and stared straight down at him, “Whoever said I was going to address it? And, more specifically, whoever said I had to believe it?”

Darla didn’t know or care what was really wrong with Lilani, “Ryden, maybe we should just go to the restaurant and reintroduce ourselves to Lilani there.”

“You mean I need to reintroduce myself. I'm not dense, I still think it had something to do with me, but I guess we’ll see,” Ryden growled, holding his glare at Kenshin until he turned around and walked into Selbina. He never did like to be ordered around, especially when it came to his personality and behavior. Kenshin’s sudden overprotection of Lilani made him suspicious, and almost jealous, in a way.

The four all sat down at a round table in the restaurant, Ryden was across from Lilani, with Kenshin on her left and Darla on her right. They got their drinks, and for the first few minutes, awkwardly looked at each other and sipped lightly from their cups. Finally, Kenshin cleared his throat and opened the conversation with Darla and Ryden.

“So, guys, how should we work Ani into our party? She’s a…red mage?” He looked at Lilani for confirmation, and she nodded. “How about we have her support heal and nuke. She’s not well equipped for melee right now, after all.”

Ryden opened his mouth to speak, but Lilani cut in, with a little more than a whisper, “Actually…I can melee quite well with this gear. I brrrought a sword with me, and if it’s my armor yer worried about, just ignore it. I’ve never liked heavy armorrr, it’s too heavy and feels uncomfortable…”

Her voice faded off as she took another drink from her juice.

Kenshin nodded, “Alright then. Ani, are you okay with being a melee, along with support healing and enfeebs?” Lilani nodded. He turned to Darla and Ryden, “Are you two okay?” Both of them nodded, and Ryden took the opportunity to speak.

“I just wanted to tell Ani that Kenshin and I share main tank, switching off as we need. I’m a warrior, he’s a ninja.”

Lilani kept her cool, and was actually able to relax more, “Sounds like a good setup to me. Two tanks are always better than one.”

“And I am the white mage,” Darla chimed in with a smile. “I keep these two knuckleheads alive, and break up their petty arguments, from time to time…”

Ryden smirked, “Hey, our arguments are not petty. Remember when we couldn’t decide who should pull? Pulling is very important, whoever pulls affects the whole party and how things function!”

“Yes, but did you really have to spend thirty minutes sniping at each other, and another thirty pouting?”

“Pouting?! It was noon, and—!”

A chorus of “hush”es and “shh!”ing erupted from the other tables. Ryden hushed his voice before continuing, “It was noon, and have you ever been in the dunes at noontime? We’d have boiled like crabs before we could even find one to pull!”

Darla sat back in her chair looking at both of them, “Excuses, excuses. Either way, you have to admit, you two argue an hour for every two hours of successful partying.”

Kenshin smiled and held his glass up in a mock toast, “It’s just the way we do things.”

When their food came, much more went into their mouths than out. Just about all conversation ceased, except for the occasional beckoning for sauce or salt.

They all finally finished, and with full bellies, exited the gates of Selbina. It was just past noon, however that day was to be the coolest of the week, so they did not have to hide in the shade to wait for a cooler time to come. They decided to return to their place at Whitebone Beach and see how one more affected their successfulness. They decided to start off with Damselflies, however not before a short argument on who should pull.

“I think you should go back to pulling, Kenshin, you have shadows,” Ryden began.

“Well I think we should give Ani a chance to pull with Dia. That way both of us are here to take hate off of her if need be, and we’re both rested up and ready to tank.”

“A red mage, pull?! You’re joking! She’d pass out after two hits, and could never dodge anything!”

“Ryden, grow up. You know that red mages are sometimes asked to pull at higher levels. I want Ani to get some safe practice in on this so she’s able to do it properly when we’re not around.”

“Oh, yes. I’m sure she’ll appreciate being educated as a guinea pig!”

“How about I try pulling the firrrst one, see how I like it, and then I decide who pulls?” Kenshin and Ryden looked at Lilani, contemplating her idea.

Ryden was suddenly indifferent, “Well, if you’re willing to try…” Kenshin simply shook his head at Ryden, and gestured at Darla, giving her the go-ahead on casting buffs.

When they had protect and shell up, Lilani did a bit of stretching, and looked around for a fly. She spotted one about fifty yards away. She quickly took off and sprinted in its direction. When she was in range, she kept her eyes on it and quickly cast the spell Dia. Before the spell was even complete, the damselfly sensed the spell on it and turned her way.

Lilani had never really pulled before. When it came after her, she stood there and dodged it. It came back and went to tackle her, but she pulled to the side again.

After a few seconds of this strange dance, Lilani heard the cries of her comrades. She perked up her ears to hear what they were saying.

“Ani, come here! Run back to camp!”

“What are you doing?! Get back here at once!”

Lilani slapped her forehead for being so dense. She went into a full sprint to get back to camp, and beat the fly by several seconds. Kenshin and Ryden stepped ahead of her and unsheathed their weapons, ready to use provoke as soon as the fly was in range.

“What do you think you were doing back there?!” Ryden yelled, his eyes still locked on the Damselfly. “From what you said, I thought you had a grasp on what pulling was about!”

“Frrrom what you said, it sounded like mages are supposed to pull differently from rangers an’ such!”

“You’ve got that much right, you’re supposed to use spells as opposed to weapons! But no matter what you use you’re supposed to run it back to camp! That’s why it’s called pulling, you pull it to us!”

Just then the fly came into range, and both Kenshin and Ryden used provoke at the same time. They glared at each other for a moment before attacking. The fly chose to go after Ryden.

“I thought I was voking first!” Kenshin spat, casting a wind based Ninja spell on the fly to lower its resistance to ice. Lilani took that as a cue to cast blizzard, but because she didn’t have it, she chose to cast other black magic spells. She decided it might be best to lie low and not melee, in hopes that it would cause them to forget about her pulling mistake.

“You never said anything changed from what we were doing before!” Ryden shouted back, letting out a grunt as the fly bounced off of his hard scale armor. “So I thought I still had first voke!”

“Yes, but whenever we have a normal puller I always get first voke!”

“Our puller is anything but normal! Aaack!”

Kenshin was about to make a rebuttal when the fly made a direct hit to Ryden’s face. He cried out in agony, and Kenshin impulsively provoked.

The fly furiously slapped at Kenshin, but for the first three hits, shadows Kenshin’s exact shape and size flew out of the ground and took the hit for the real Kenshin. Darla and Lilani both cast cure spells to the second tier on Ryden. When Ryden was healed, the fly turned to the mages.

Lilani decided that it was her turn to take swings at the fly, and pulled her rapier-style sword out of her belt. She leapt in front of the fly before it could reach Darla, and slashed at it with accurate, lightning-quick motions. Before any of the three could blink, the fly was in three pieces on the ground, still twitching with frustration.

The two boys could only stare at Lilani, both with a bit of anger and confusion. Darla’s heart was about to pound out of her chest, and she sat down to rest her shaking legs.

Lilani was still breathing heavily as well. She noticed the boys look frustrated. “What?” she could only ask, not wanting to directly address any of her mistakes.

Kenshin decided to respond first, in a calm manner, “Ani, eh, we usually keep them alive for a while on purpose to get as much practice in as possible. Things looked bad there, but that’s what this partying is all about. Sticking it out when things are tough so we’re ready for even tougher situations later.”

Lilani internally kicked herself, “I see, I’m sorry, I was just tryin’t help…”

“No trouble at all,” Ryden interjected. “You know, except for the parts where you pulled without actually pulling and over-cured me.”

“Well, mister smarty pants, perrrhaps I haven’t done this in a while and was only lookin’ to make sure you didn’t get cut in ‘alf by an overgrown ‘ouse fly!”

“Well, miss accent, maybe I don’t believe you should be meleeing at all! You’re a pretty lady, I wouldn’t want to see a fragile creature like you get hurt…”

Lilani was flabbergasted at what she was hearing. On Vana’diel, in the cultures of the three nations, women are inarguably equal to men. Feminists and chauvinists alike are a rare breeds indeed, and Ryden just so happened to be the latter.

Lilani clenched her fists and gave Ryden a death stare, “Listen up, you slop licking pig! I’ll challenge you to a duel rrright now if you think you’re so tough! If you even think of insulting me in such a way again I swear I’ll make ya more acquainted with your insides than you’d everrr wish ta be!”

At this point, Lilani had her sword up to Ryden’s neck, and he was standing on his tiptoes to prevent it from going through his Adam’s apple.

Kenshin slowly approached Lilani from behind and gently put his hand on Lilani’s right hand, which was the one holding the sword. He began whispering in her ear, and his words slowly calmed her down. Eventually, she took a deep breath and sheathed her sword. She turned toward a tree she could rest under for a few minutes, as she was suggested to do by Kenshin. Before she walked away, she whispered something to him.

“Geraldioux said things like that.”

Darla followed Lilani over to the shade, and Kenshin approached Ryden. “Thanks, you may have just scared off a great addition to our linkshell.”

“’Great addition?’ She didn’t even know how to pull! And besides she’s a woman, she needs to just put down the sword and pick up a wand or something…”

Kenshin’s response was a swift right hook to Ryden’s jaw. Ryden staggered and rubbed it, appalled his friend would touch him in such a manner.

“Shut your mouth,” Kenshin said. “We’ve had this discussion before, everyone in Abandon is equal as long as they pull their weight. I’m positive Lilani will pull more than hers, she just needs time to learn. You were a newbie once too.”

“And once I considered you a friend as well,” Ryden mumbled, partially to himself. “But now I see you’re a different person as soon as a woman gets involved. I’ve had just about enough of this. I’ll play your game ‘til the end of the week. After that…well, we’ll see.” He looked over to Lilani, who was near tears curled up in a ball under the tree.

Ryden approached her. “I deeply regret what I said, Lilani. It was not my place to say it…I am genuinely sorry.”

Lilani peered up at him, “Is that you talking, or Kenshin?”

Ryden looked hurt, “Then, you don’t accept my apology?”

“I’ll accept it when I know it rrreally is genuine. Only time can tell that, so I propose we get starrrted again.”

She stood up, with unfaltering composure and all of her wits gathered. Darla took her hand for a moment, worried it was only a façade, but Lilani nodded to her and told her not to worry. Kenshin also asked her if everything was alright, and Lilani told him it was as well. Their discussion on who should pull was much more tranquil and calm this time, and so they all agreed Lilani should be given another chance.

Lilani did turn out to be a very good puller; she was able to dodge the monster’s strikes with ease as she could hear them keenly. She was also an excellent runner, and always arrived with plenty of time to spare.

A full week passed without further incident, and the drama of the past faded to almost nothing. Darla and Lilani both noticed that Kenshin and Ryden only spoke when absolutely necessary, however they did not want to upset things, and left it alone.

On the ninth day—three days before they were to set off for Jeuno—they all prepared to battle yet again. However, when they got to Whitebone beach, there were two distressed looking figures fighting in their usual place. It was a Tarutaru and a Galka, surrounded on all sides by six goblins, who were slowly closing in on them, knives and staves first. Without thinking twice, Kenshin, Darla, Ryden, and Lilani all bore down on the group, their weapons out first.

[Ejospike]

Re: New Fanfiction, need some thoughts...

/cheer nice chapter, are your members really like that? sounds a lot like my LS honestly... 'cept most are against Tarutaru front lines and elvaan black mages... /sigh, nice chapter, looking forward to the next one

[Lilani]

Re: New Fanfiction, need some thoughts...

/cheer nice chapter, are your members really like that? sounds a lot like my LS honestly... 'cept most are against Tarutaru front lines and elvaan black mages... /sigh, nice chapter, looking forward to the next one

I sort of dramatized the fights to really establish something was going on between them, but we pick on each other a lot like that It's quite entertaining, and I've found that with a lot of them, I won't have to drift far from how they really behave to get entertaining characters out of them.

Tarus in the front lines and Elvaan black mages...lol...that must be hilarious at high levels The Elvaan must run out of MP about the same time the Tarus run out of HP Doncha love race deficiencies.

And btw, I'll be sending you an email so that you can reply to it with your next chapter. And then you can be sure to have the right email from then on, hehe.

[Ejospike]

Re: New Fanfiction, need some thoughts...

sorry lilani, but yea it does go on a lot about taru/elvaan jobs and whos better... but eh....

[Ejospike]

Re: New Fanfiction, need some thoughts...

sorry lilani, but yea it does go on a lot about taru/elvaan jobs and whos better... but eh....

[Lilani]

Re: New Fanfiction, need some thoughts...

I owe you all an apology...I'm not very far into the next chapter yet ; ; I am quite busy right now. And by busy I don't mean "I have time, but I'd rather be playing video games." I mean "It's 10 PM on a school night and I've had a grand total of an hour to myself since the day began--which I used for homework." This week is a little less busy, methinks, so I'll start buckling down and hopefully get it done soon. Sowwie

[Ejospike]

Re: New Fanfiction, need some thoughts...

lilani! so you are still alive... lol how the heck did i double post... musta been an accident..

[LilithAngel]

Re: New Fanfiction, need some thoughts...

No worries, it's not like you're on any kind of schedule here.

This is one thing I've often wondered myself whenever I draft some fics in my idle time; would the people that live in Vana'diel see the world, jobs, abilities, and everything else like we do, or is it all a lot more detailed and involved? That is to say, when we (as players) see a Warrior use Provoke, we understand that he activated a job ability that'll be available again within 30 seconds, and that it generated a certain X amount of enmity, with the accompanying graphics to go along with it. However, is that the way the people of that would would see it? What would the Warrior do that would qualify as an activiation of Provoke? Yell, shout, bellow out insults and challenges (as most newbies to the job tend to put in their macros)? Would there even be a graphic in a real Vana'diel? I would imagine it wouldn't even be known as Provoke; most JAs probably wouldn't be so clinical as we know them, but more just natural abilities people who follow certain disciplines tend to exibit and know. They would use these abilities whenever they naturally felt they would be advantageous to bring them to bear. I would also imagine the concepts of "levels" and such wouldn't be a known thing; I noticed you tried to address this by referring to skilling up as "training".

The story is coming along great; just something I noticed, that's all. I generally wonder about situations like this myself, and wonder what it'd actually be like in an actual Vana'diel (I can imagine it wouldn't be as "tame" as it is now, regardless of how "hardcore" we can make it at times).

[Ejospike]

Re: New Fanfiction, need some thoughts...

yea i write stories as well and i have found it kinda hard to put the whole job/level/graphic thing in there, so i made other ideas kinda what Lilithangel said where certain things are achieved with training and new ideas. It's a completely different story from Lost and Almost Forgotten though, maybe just needs some adjusting to the new type of story. I know that happens to me a lot whenever i change story stuff.