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I think I'm insane for this, and nobody agrees with me.
Or if they do, they love me for it.
See, long ago I was toying with the idea of bridging all the games in which Cloud has cameos, since he has so goshdarn many. But I couldn't quite figure it out, and so I dropped it. Apparently, though, Cloud found it somewhere, and fell absolutely in love with it. So one night, long after I'd completely forgotten about the idea, Cloud pretty much drops a truckload of ideas and concepts on my head. While I was trying to sleep. Thanks, Cloud.
So I was up late musing it, wondering why the hell I was doing so. It's been a month or so since, and new pieces are falling into place all the time. It followed close on the heels of another crossover idea, which I have since abandoned due to crack content but which made perfect sense to me at the time... and whenever I told people about these ideas, the first one (Fake/Gravi/Ehrgeiz - I was having a Seki Tomokazu fanfit) generally got reactions along the lines of "Alyssa, we love you, but put the crack down", while the Cloud story got reactions of "Write that now, that's awesome".
Anyway. XD;
Basically, after all is said and done in FF7, Cloud finds himself having strange visions of a girl who looks like Aerith. Terrified that he's having delusions, he first turns to Tifa for help. But he's ultimately unsatisfied by her advice, and, despite his fear that he may be going insane, sets out to see if there's any truth to his visions.
Turns out there is. Apparently, he's got the bizarre and unheard-of ability of 'transcendent divination': the ability to see into other universes. Thanks to his excessive exposure to Mako, it's manifested into a usable talent, but he has very little control over it. Furthermore, he can only see into a few universes, and they seem to share a common link - each of them contains a man who looks just like him, and lays claim to the name of Cloud.
Long story short: The personas of Cloud, Tifa, Yuffie, Vincent, Aerith, Sephiroth, and Zax have all somehow splintered apart, and now physically exist as alternate versions of themselves in many different universes. This, however, messes with the fabric of the multiverse something awful. With the help of the super-ubiquitous esper Shiva and the godlike sword Ehrgeiz, Cloud gets the unenviable task of wandering the dimensions to round up these splinter selves and reunite them with their original selves to avoid a multiversal catastrophe. This is made more difficult by the fact that there are splinters of people from FF8 and FF10 as well...
Conceptual shiznat:
- The Ehrgeiz was forged by a magician/swordsmith who aspired to make a sword that would give its wielder the power of a god. The espers got wind of this, put their collective feet down, and started trying to think of ways to screw it up. Godlike power is too much for mortals to handle, and the threat needed to be minimized. In the end, they sent a warrior from Nanaki's tribe into the Ehrgeiz's world, bearing Materia to offer the swordsmith. The smith selected a piece of Shiva's summon Materia, and mounted it in the hilt. What he didn't know was that his sword would only have godlike power in the world where it was created - by introducing a foreign element into the sword, the espers had successfully crippled it, making it very powerful in two worlds, but godlike in neither. The other Materia that the warrior brought were left in a town that borders on all dimensions.
The warrior was Django. He is the ultimate keeper of the Ehrgeiz, and uses its power to guard it. Winning the Ehrgeiz from him is a difficult and impressive task.
-The three split-off Clouds correspond to parts of his personality in the game. FFT Cloud is the confused, manipulated Cloud; KH Cloud is the Cloud who loved Aerith; and Ehrgeiz Cloud has Cloud's teenage, pre-Nibelheim-mission mentality.
-I'm still working on why the others have split off.
-Espers exist outside of dimensions as we know them, and extend themselves into our dimensions. The Ifrit of FF7 and the Ifrit of FF10, while separate entities in their own right, are both extensions of the same esper. The core consciousness of an esper knows everything that all of its extensions have learned - so the core Ifrit knows all about Sephiroth and Seymour. Espers are very much like gods, and work to maintain multiversal order through their branching - they can exist in multiple universes because that's the way they are designed to exist. Bahamut is the king of espers; he would have assisted Cloud personally, but has too much else to do, and so sends the competent and ubiquitous Shiva to help.
-No, I don't know why the espers don't just drag all the plural selves back to their original universes. I'll work on it.
-Cloud's power of transcendant divination does in fact originate from his Xenogears-quoting while he's in a Mako coma, if you were wondering.
Basically, I want to build up this story from pieces that Square has left lying around. I don't want to have to make up anything that can't dovetail perfectly with the established canon of any of the games. I want this all to be something that could conceivably happen without having to be an AU. Every concept is derived from the way things are in FF7/FF8/FF10/FFT/Ehrgeiz/KH. I want nothing to contradict.
The annoying part is that I need to see FFX-2 and KH2 before I write this, for the reasons mentioned above. And KH2 will be years in the making. (It's a fair bet it is being made; that's why I'm not gonna just start writing as soon as I get and finish X-2.)
Anyway, questions? Comments? Helpful criticism? Open forum here, darlings.
By the way, here's a teaser pic. http://www.freewebs.com/zenithgreywords/cloudteaser.jpg
If the link kicks you back to the LJ, it's Freewebs' issue; it'll work if you just enter or copypaste the URL directly into your hotbar.
See, long ago I was toying with the idea of bridging all the games in which Cloud has cameos, since he has so goshdarn many. But I couldn't quite figure it out, and so I dropped it. Apparently, though, Cloud found it somewhere, and fell absolutely in love with it. So one night, long after I'd completely forgotten about the idea, Cloud pretty much drops a truckload of ideas and concepts on my head. While I was trying to sleep. Thanks, Cloud.
So I was up late musing it, wondering why the hell I was doing so. It's been a month or so since, and new pieces are falling into place all the time. It followed close on the heels of another crossover idea, which I have since abandoned due to crack content but which made perfect sense to me at the time... and whenever I told people about these ideas, the first one (Fake/Gravi/Ehrgeiz - I was having a Seki Tomokazu fanfit) generally got reactions along the lines of "Alyssa, we love you, but put the crack down", while the Cloud story got reactions of "Write that now, that's awesome".
Anyway. XD;
Basically, after all is said and done in FF7, Cloud finds himself having strange visions of a girl who looks like Aerith. Terrified that he's having delusions, he first turns to Tifa for help. But he's ultimately unsatisfied by her advice, and, despite his fear that he may be going insane, sets out to see if there's any truth to his visions.
Turns out there is. Apparently, he's got the bizarre and unheard-of ability of 'transcendent divination': the ability to see into other universes. Thanks to his excessive exposure to Mako, it's manifested into a usable talent, but he has very little control over it. Furthermore, he can only see into a few universes, and they seem to share a common link - each of them contains a man who looks just like him, and lays claim to the name of Cloud.
Long story short: The personas of Cloud, Tifa, Yuffie, Vincent, Aerith, Sephiroth, and Zax have all somehow splintered apart, and now physically exist as alternate versions of themselves in many different universes. This, however, messes with the fabric of the multiverse something awful. With the help of the super-ubiquitous esper Shiva and the godlike sword Ehrgeiz, Cloud gets the unenviable task of wandering the dimensions to round up these splinter selves and reunite them with their original selves to avoid a multiversal catastrophe. This is made more difficult by the fact that there are splinters of people from FF8 and FF10 as well...
Conceptual shiznat:
- The Ehrgeiz was forged by a magician/swordsmith who aspired to make a sword that would give its wielder the power of a god. The espers got wind of this, put their collective feet down, and started trying to think of ways to screw it up. Godlike power is too much for mortals to handle, and the threat needed to be minimized. In the end, they sent a warrior from Nanaki's tribe into the Ehrgeiz's world, bearing Materia to offer the swordsmith. The smith selected a piece of Shiva's summon Materia, and mounted it in the hilt. What he didn't know was that his sword would only have godlike power in the world where it was created - by introducing a foreign element into the sword, the espers had successfully crippled it, making it very powerful in two worlds, but godlike in neither. The other Materia that the warrior brought were left in a town that borders on all dimensions.
The warrior was Django. He is the ultimate keeper of the Ehrgeiz, and uses its power to guard it. Winning the Ehrgeiz from him is a difficult and impressive task.
-The three split-off Clouds correspond to parts of his personality in the game. FFT Cloud is the confused, manipulated Cloud; KH Cloud is the Cloud who loved Aerith; and Ehrgeiz Cloud has Cloud's teenage, pre-Nibelheim-mission mentality.
-I'm still working on why the others have split off.
-Espers exist outside of dimensions as we know them, and extend themselves into our dimensions. The Ifrit of FF7 and the Ifrit of FF10, while separate entities in their own right, are both extensions of the same esper. The core consciousness of an esper knows everything that all of its extensions have learned - so the core Ifrit knows all about Sephiroth and Seymour. Espers are very much like gods, and work to maintain multiversal order through their branching - they can exist in multiple universes because that's the way they are designed to exist. Bahamut is the king of espers; he would have assisted Cloud personally, but has too much else to do, and so sends the competent and ubiquitous Shiva to help.
-No, I don't know why the espers don't just drag all the plural selves back to their original universes. I'll work on it.
-Cloud's power of transcendant divination does in fact originate from his Xenogears-quoting while he's in a Mako coma, if you were wondering.
Basically, I want to build up this story from pieces that Square has left lying around. I don't want to have to make up anything that can't dovetail perfectly with the established canon of any of the games. I want this all to be something that could conceivably happen without having to be an AU. Every concept is derived from the way things are in FF7/FF8/FF10/FFT/Ehrgeiz/KH. I want nothing to contradict.
The annoying part is that I need to see FFX-2 and KH2 before I write this, for the reasons mentioned above. And KH2 will be years in the making. (It's a fair bet it is being made; that's why I'm not gonna just start writing as soon as I get and finish X-2.)
Anyway, questions? Comments? Helpful criticism? Open forum here, darlings.
By the way, here's a teaser pic. http://www.freewebs.com/zenithgreywords/cloudteaser.jpg
If the link kicks you back to the LJ, it's Freewebs' issue; it'll work if you just enter or copypaste the URL directly into your hotbar.