It recently occurred to me that I was coming up on the one-year anniversary of the day I sat myself down and stuck my neck out with Meteorfall. I don't know what I expected, but to say that I never thought I'd get this far would be an under-statement. But here we are, 60,000+ words in and almost to the Mythril Mines. In other words, we've got a long way to go. But to focus on the future, I have to settle the past.
Attentive readers may have noticed that I enjoy making thousands of tiny edits to previously published chapters. But a year later, it's time to start locking some stuff in. So in honor of Meteorfall's first birthday, I'm rolling out new editions of all the old chapters. No more edits, no more tweaks or re-writes. No more leaving half-assed writing to be fixed later. What I publish over the next couple days is canon, set in stone.
So if you're a new reader, welcome! If you're an old reader, welcome back! You couldn't have picked a better time to re-read Meteorfall. Some chapters will go mostly untouched. Others will include new dialogue, new scenes and descriptions. Some will be largely if not entirely rewritten. Hopefully all of them will be better than they were.
As always, I want you, the reader, to let me know what you think. The feedback I've received so far has been constructive, thoughtful, and really encouraging, and I hope that trend continues in the future. So in honor of all the fans who continue to indulge my obsession, I present Meteorfall: Legacy, Writer's Cut.
Final Fantasy VII is far from a perfect game, but it's my favorite, you guys. I played it for the first time when I was 13 years old, and it captivated me from the opening sequence. Over the next few years, I played the living shit out of that game. I bred a gold chocobo, got every Enemy Skill, held every item/materia in the game (at one point or another), beat the Weapons, read every line of dialogue, got every ultimate weapon and learned every Level 4 Limit Break (including Aeris'). I was so obsessed that I even did a playthrough recording every single word of the game script. That script was the progenitor of the document you are (hopefully) about to read.
When I was 15, I read through that script I had worked so hard to transcribe and came to a realization: the English translation of Final Fantasy VII is atrocious. Everyone's favorite example is the infamous "this guy are sick" line, but the whole game abounds with such errors. The number of mistakes and instances of bad writing is so severe that it really impacts the ability of the game to communicate its basic story. This poor communication led to misunderstandings that range from innocuous (wait, didn't Reno die in the Sector 7 plate crash?) to pivotal (is Sephiroth controlling Jenova, or is it the other way around?).
So I sat down with a pen and a web browser open to the Final Fantasy wiki and went to work. Finally, at about the point where the party invades the Shinra building to save Aeris, I gave up. If I was going to fix Final Fantasy VII (and I sure as shit was), I was going to need a different approach. At the time I was in a creative writing class at my high school, and I thought if I was going to practice writing something, it should be something I loved. So I sat at the family computer and wrote the worst Opening/Bombing Mission scene nobody will ever read (a lofty claim, I know). It wasn't until several years later, when I was in college, that I took another crack at the project I had lovingly dubbed Meteorfall.
The following is a dramatic re-telling of FFVII. While I have not yet completed the story, I fully intend to carry the reader all the way from a desperate terrorist attack all the way to a massive magical duel for the Planet. As much as I respect the source material, it is not a purist interpretation. The characters you love (or may not love in some cases) are all here. Everyone from Cloud, to Rufus, to Bugenhagen will be represented in some fashion. But as I was writing, I became aware of a particular weakness in the narrative: no current members of SOLDIER play even a small role in the story. To address this issue, I made the contentious decision to create (dun dun duuunnnn!) an original character, Fran Dysley of SOLDIER, to serve as a foil for Cloud throughout the story. This is the most significant change I made to the original narrative, but it is by no means the only one. Still, I tried (and still try) my hardest to stay as faithful to the source material as good story-telling would allow.
For those of you who are still reading this, thank you for sticking with me through this self-indulgent, over-explanatory introduction. I don't own the world, the story, or any of the licensed characters created by Tetsuya Nomura, Yoshitaka Amano, and the team at Square Enix, and this work is strictly for stroking my own ego (as is my right under the fair use clause of Title 17 of the US Code). While I own neither the characters, nor the story, the way I'm telling the story is totally my own, and I retain all the rights to Meteorfall itself. Comments and criticism are very welcome! So, without further ado, I give you Meteorfall.