Well, I was midway through Chapter Ten, and though it needed a heck of a lot of refining, I was reasonably proud with it.
Then the GBA version came in the mail.
The line where Impresario says he'll lose his job single-handedly Jossed this story, and even aside from that, that phenomenal retranslation, or maybe just playing the game for the first time in months, made my story seem hopelessly inadequate. And I was growing discontent in my choice to adhere to the It's A Small World After All axiom for quite some time. Then I reread from the beginning, and I realized I'd somehow strayed from the original intent, particularly when it comes to Stenden's character and Jidooran culture. I realized the cities, Maranda excepted, were more or less as the main characters had found them, necessarily making the story every bit as futile as Argument with the Tide. And reading all those secret conversations and, in Chapter Ten, elaborating on the secrecy procedures of the Returners' mail network, I realized the entire premise made no bloody sense – why would any Returner sympathizer need to visit the opera to learn what to do?
Given the above, I can't continue Song of Hope with any illusions of decency.
There are plenty of good ideas in here, though - Demeter, Albrook University, the Returners' escape from Vector, my history of Tzen - and I will scavenge them without mercy. There's a Setzer bunny that's been niggling at my brain practically since I first finished the game, but no promises – I haven't yet worked out how to make it surprising. Setzer/Maria took a lot of honing as I worked on Chapter Ten – romance is not my forte – but in the writing, I've grown quite attached to the pairing, and there's a one-shot in it.
I also have another Banon-in-the-World-of-Ruin idea in the making, but this time, I'll make sure it's complete before I post it. I don't seem to mix well with WIPs.
I apologize to those of you who had high expectations for this story, but Song of Hope, as it stands, cannot possibly live up to those expectations.
Buckbeak's Revenge