SCHWA'S FINAL WORDS

Years and years ago, I got totally into the game FFTA. I mean seriously, it's a great game, and there's a great concept for it too. But my obsessions tend to last a long time then die off all the sudden, and that was the case with FFTA as well.

Years later, I got addicted to the game Chrono Trigger, beat it, and then, because I was in a "different" mood, decided to look up some fanfics for it. I found a few... but for some reason I decided I should check out the FFTA fanfics too. Looking through them, I found one I really really liked... and now I'm like, "You know, I'm a good writer, I should really try my hand at this."

Thus, Moogle Comfort was born (though I thought of the name as the very last thing). Thing is I actually only had a tiny portion of it planned out in my head initially, and that was the part with Tucker coming into Ivalice. I didn't know what Tucker was going to DO once he got there. In fact, the fic never intended to be a love story between a human and a Moogle... You good writers out there know what it means for the story to "write itself" once you're far enough along, right? That's what happened here.

So, realistically I was making most of the story up as I went along, though by the time I was done I was sure to edit earlier parts as the puzzle pieces of the plot fit together in my mind over time. I'm actually kinda impressed with how it turned out at the end with Clivia. Don't know why that in particular stands out so much, but it does. P

Anyway... I had the whole story finished before I started posting it to . The reason I stopped posting the rest of the chapters is actually because I lost faith in myself as a writer... my first Review was to blame for that. Now just so we're all clear, IceyTheFox is a pretty awesome dude... But that review he wrote after just two chapters scared me shitless. (A friend of mine read it and thought IceyFox was a college professor. I wouldn't be surprised if he were.) The review mainly said two things: My writing style did "too much telling, too little explaining", and that I overemphasized the obvious, such as Molly being a Moogle.

Well, I won't go onto a rant about this... I actually agree with both of those things, but to be honest, I can't help it. At all. It's how I write. I'm Autistic, and I see the world in a black-and-white way, hence the first point he made... Though don't get me wrong; as I wrote this story, I did indeed have an extremely vibrant vision of whatever was happening. Some people like this kind of writing. Some don't. That's pretty much the case with all kinds of writing, really. My friends loved it (by friends, I mean the two friends that go to this site too... not some random friends that adore everything I do, so don't get the wrong idea XD), and they're pretty critical on the subject of writing. So the Review I got from this guy... It crushed me, and I lost all faith in myself as a writer. Even though he also said in the review it was also "pretty good", I missed that bit because I was so upset about the first two. (Blame my Autism again for the tunnelvision.) I kid you not, I didn't write anything again for 6 months or so.

So my half-finished (as far as you all knew) fanfic lay on the site, eventually forgotten, cutting off at the part where Molly's dad died. Wonderful.

It wasn't long before I started having memories of this whole ordeal, and that it started bugging me that I never posted the other chapters... I wanted to finish posting the story, but I was afraid to, because I was afraid I'd lose interest in my current obsession with the computer game I'm designing and it would get put on hold again. (I can only focus on ONE thing at a time, no matter what. It's the Autism again.) The final straw, however, had to do with Phoenix Wright.

You heard me. I found some YouTube videos of the gameplay of the third game, and I loved it so much I wanted to read some, you guessed it, fanfics. In the PW:AA section, first page, there's a short fic that has to do with Valentine's Day, but what caught me wasn't the fic, it was the author. Amycake. Her name was Amycake! :D I always love cute usernames, so just out of curiosity I read her Bio she wrote.

That did it.

Her bio inspired me... From what I gathered, nobody she knows in real life supports her writing works, but she was brave enough to join the site and post them anyway. She has more guts than I ever will, I'll say that much... But that did it. I decided right there to finish posting the other chapters. So I went over them all again, rewrote some parts (including removing two full chapters), and started uploading.

Now, um, about some of the characters... I named the main character Molly because Molly is an innocent, pure name. I was mainly thinking of the third Pokemon movie when I thought of this, but in reality, every Molly I've ever known from stories and such was a pure hearted girl. I know this Molly kind of turns dark later on for a while, but again, the story wrote itself in time, so...

Yinns is actually one of the characters I roleplayed with online for 3 years, though I only used Yinns for less than 1 (instead I used different characters). He's actually nothing like the first Yinns. The only similarities are that he's a Moogle Gadgeteer and that he's an airship pilot for a past war.

Theodore, April, Alastor and Elliot are just supporting characters; I didn't get them from anywhere, except for that I eventually made April into a giggly schoolgirl type character. Kinda. To be honest she was actually half-based on a member of this site. But I won't say who... She can probably figure it out. Anyway it was in a good way, so hey.

Mickey's personality is based on my ex-military Aunt in real life, but Mickey swears and curses more than the Aunt does. I hope that doesn't offend her. :S

Tucker's personality was hard... I tried to get inside the mind of a neurotypical video-game nerd as best as I could. He's not based on me... He's based on a little of every male video gamer I knew in high school.

Then of course I had to put a Golden Chocobo in the story, 'cause they're kewl... :3

The last thing I want to say is about the fight at the end. Why does Molly kill Rose? It's symbolic more than anything. Molly was losing everything in her life due to one unlucky mishap after another... Winning that life-or-death battle wasn't going to make the bad luck stop, which was probably just coincidence, but she needed to beat the one who killed her dad so she could get over her losses. Hope that clears stuff up.

Okay, one last-last thing. :P This story... I wrote it because of a vision. I wanted everyone who reads this to see the same kinds of beautiful things I do when I close my eyes every night. Maybe a human falling in love with a Moogle is a little weird, but you know, maybe it's not. ) I know it's not the best story in the world, but I put all my soul into it just for you, and it's my hope that when you read this, you feel the impact of that soul energy full force.

I don't own Final Fantasy Tactics Advance... All the characters that show up in the fic, except for the Bangaa Totema, are non-canon, but all the special attacks, locations, items, etc. ARE canon, and I don't own it. I just like to write.

I think that'll do it. Aspies forever! --Schwa

P.S. Let me know what you think of the story! You can do it in a Review, obviously. ;)