If you're seeing this on the day it comes out and haven't read the Epilogue, go ahead and take a step back to read that before coming here. I posted two chapters, technically.
So, wow.
First of all, I'd like to thank all the fellow authors who stood by me and beta read Aberration's chapters, or were just around to talk and shoot the shit with. DestructionDragon360, Stormtide_Leviathan, Bobcat18, Mixed Valence, Seafra Yeager, and Narwhal Lord. All of you guys helped me to complete this thing, and I couldn't imagine doing it without you.
I'll be honest with you guys, I never expected to finish this fic. I mean, I know I always said I would in all those other ANs, but saying something and doing something are two different things. I'm glad I did. I really am, but that's just what I thought. I never finished a fic before now. For the longest time it felt like this distant goal that would take forever to reach. But here we are, at the end of it. Crazy, huh?
I've only seen one Awakening SI be completed, and that was years ago. I guess I can count myself among that elite, eh? Not to toot my own horn or anything. I'm still riding the high of writing the last chapter of this fic, so I'll allow myself to be little facetious.
Before we get onto the Questions and Answers, which were all given to me by users on our Discord server, let me just say thank you.
Thank you for going on this journey with me. Thank you for following me through this absolute shitshow. I know this isn't exactly an exemplar of fanfiction, but the response I've gotten over the past year and a half has been nothing short of outstanding. Whenever I write a sequel to this, if I do because who knows, maybe my whims will change, and I'll just keep this fic as its own thing, hopefully it'll continue to be fantastic. I guess we'll find out soon.
Anyway, I've got a couple questions down below from people on our Discord. I'll be putting a link down below to visit it. I'm sure it'll provide valuable insight, yeah?
QnA:
Why did you choose the name Alex?
Because my own name is a corruption of 'Alexander'. I wanted to keep him close to me when I was first writing the fic, but also different. Alex was never really the same as me; I based him on past-me in a way, what with all that 'all about me' mentality he had towards the beginning. He grew out of that just like I did, but I'd probably de-emphasize that part of him if I wrote those beginning chapters now. I distinctly remember a friend of mine wanting to slap him in the face multiple times while she was reading the early chapters, heh.
It wasn't until later that I realized that Alex was a very common OC/SI name. lol
What sorts of ideas did you consider for the fic but ultimately discarded?
I have at least three outlines with discarded ideas on them. Some of them are a lot more fucked up than what eventually made its way in. For instance, did you know I'd tease Alex/Lissa throughout the fic, until after the battle with Plegia when Alex would say some hurtful bullshit on his way out? Yeah, that kind of thing. Alex was going to be an incredible jerkass, much more than he ended up being during that time.
That whole phase he had after Donnel's death was supposed to extend across the entire timeskip, which ya know, thankfully didn't end up happening. Khadein was originally going to be longer until I got seriously sick of writing it. I'm glad I went that route too.
Those of you who read Whispers and Songs as well as this fic might be familiar with this one: Alex was originally going to meet Cordelia before she went to the border. That would've led to a very similar arc in that fic where Alex essentially let her squad die because he refused to say anything. Thankfully, I didn't go that way lol, our fics are already similar enough as is. Besides, I liked the fluffy, In Media Res relationship that came out of it.
There're all sorts of little plot points that didn't end up happening, like Walhart originally surviving, and Cervantes playing a bigger role, but in the end I didn't follow through with them. I like to think that it streamlined the fic and allowed me to finish easier. Fun times!
Other than the entire Khadein thing, what were the biggest roadblocks you hit while writing Aberration and how did you overcome them?
Funnily enough, starting and continuing it were huge roadblocks at first. Khadein was hell to write, yeah, but at least it didn't result in my only hiatus just after I uploaded Chapter 2 back in May of 2019. I was a bit overwhelmed then, and I kept flipflopping between continuing the fic or ending it right then and there while I was still ahead.
As you can see, I eventually got past that. I thank Dragon Age: Origins and replaying Awakening for that. Who knows what could have happened if I decided to stop at Chapter 2?
What lead to the inclusion of Khadein?
I wanted something to fill in the timeskip, and I'd been reading a lot of Lovecraft at the time. Hence why all the Khadein chapters are named after stories by Lovecraft. Not really anything else to say about it, other than it was hell to write at the time. I don't regret writing Khadein; most people seem to like it, even if I don't, but I would not want to repeat that process.
One last thing that I remembered, the Shepherds were originally going to visit the ruins of Altea during the timeskip at one point, which probably evolved into what Khadein would become.
If you were to give Alex and Cordelia another child from the past-future, what would they be like?
I do wish I did this, if only so Severa would have a sibling to banter with. They wouldn't have much impact on the plot but it'd be cool nonetheless.
From a gameplay standpoint, the child would be tied to Alex, even though he's not really all that important to the plot. The kid would be Alex and Cordelia's son, would have Cordelia's hair color like Severa, and would probably be a Cavalier. It'd make sense for them to have multiple future children in hindsight, considering the nature of their relationship, but I like to believe I did alright with the tools I gave myself.
What made you determine who lives/dies; why Donny, Stahl, Frederic, etc?
I examined who would have the most impact in that moment. Donny died so that Alex would grow a pair, Stahl died to set the tone of the Valmese War, Frederick died to throw people off Alex dying, etc. I never killed anyone for no reason; doing that would just make people apathetic. They wouldn't value the characters at all if they knew everyone was dropping like flies.
I guess I might as well say that halfway through the Valm arc, I seriously relaxed on the amount of characters that would die. Originally, Vaike and Noire would die during the Valm arc, and Laurent, Tharja, and Libra were going to die along with those who already did during the final arc. Lotta death, huh? Thank fuck I didn't decide on that. The fic was dark enough as is without me going George R.R. Martin on the characters lol
Did you consider killing Cordelia and/or Severa at any point?
Not really, no. From the onset, Cordelia was always going to survive. My goal was to make Alex and Cordelia's relationship as fluffy and healthy as possible. Hard to do that when one of them is dead permanently. Never considered killing Severa either.
Has anybody asked why you ultimately decided on Cordelia after changing ship plans a couple times?
So, for some context here, originally Cordelia wasn't the relationship I was going to have for Alex. From Chapters 1-2, the planned pairing was going to be with either Cherche or Sumia. Both of those relationships could work, in all honesty. The only issue is that Cherche wouldn't appear for two years in-story, which would be the time Alex absolutely needed some emotional/romantic support, and Sumia, while she could provide that, also didn't leave a lot of room for development. She'd essentially solve Alex's problems long before they became problems. That's just the person she is.
Not to say Cordelia didn't do that; she did, it just happened a lot later. And to have a story, you kinda need conflict. I chose Cordelia in the end because she essentially hit a sweetspot: she appeared soon enough that she could provide the support Alex needed, and she had her own problems, very serious problems but not crippling, that Alex could help with in turn. Also, Severa provided another source of conflict in that respect, what with her own issues. We can see how both of them turned out.
Their relationship, I'd like to think, was a highlight of the fic. I believe that to have a functional, healthy relationship, the two people involved have to make themselves better for it. Alex and Cordelia definitely do that for each other.
As a quick sidenote before I move on, there were several possible relationships Alex could have entered. They are: Cordelia (obv), Sumia, Cherche, F!Robin, and Lissa. All of them could have done what Cordelia ended up doing in the fic, but Cordelia ended up winning out.
What was Future Robin and Alex's relationship like, and how did it change after the Table?
This question is very complicated. I don't mind answering it because it's the end of the fic, but sometimes even I have issues putting it all together in my head, lol
The thing is, Future Robin wasn't all that different from Present Robin, even with the amnesia. It's just that Future Robin had less compunctions about making questionable decisions. This led to a great betrayal, from Alex's perspective. It's not worth getting into details about it, considering it doesn't really matter by the time of the fic and is only referenced in the handful of scenes Verrat and Grima had with each other, but safe to say that there's a reason Future Robin's face is a scarred mess.
When you're trying to stop the Fell Dragon from destroying the world, no matter the cost, you make questionable decisions. Robin believed he was doing the right thing. Alex would disagree, and in the end, it led to Chrom's death, Cordelia's death, and the birth of Verrat. Hence why Verrat blames himself for practically everything, why he believed he was responsible for everything bad that had happened. Good thing he found redemption in the end, eh? And now Future Robin and Future Alex are finally at peace.
Did you feel like you made progression as a writer while writing your fic? What was the hardest part you wrote that you felt any pride in? And what was your main inspiration to write the fic and the way you write?
Multi-layered question here, but I don't mind. Yes, I absolutely made progress as a writer while writing Aberration. At least I hope so, lol. I like to think the ending is better than the beginning, at any rate. The hardest part I wrote that I still have pride in is easily the battle of Ylisstol. The response from those three chapters were phenomenal. I loved it! And lastly, what mainly inspired me is twofold. For combat, I was mainly inspired by Dark Souls 3 and Dragon Age, since I was playing those games while writing. From a narrative perspective, I was inspired by, surprisingly enough, Halo and Mass Effect. Funny how that works, huh? You can definitely see the Halo influence with some of those quotes.
What possible pairings did you have in mind for Robin before settling on Tiki?
This is a hard question to answer, really, because I've had Robin/Tiki in mind for longer than half the fic. For the longest time I didn't even think about it, at least until I got to the Valm arc. I think I remember entertaining the thought of Say'ri for a while. In those early chapters, I remember thinking I was going to go Robin/Cordelia. Ironic, considering how their relationship in the fic was cold at best and outright hostile at worst after the battle at Dolorous Guard. Which hurts even more because when I play Awakening, I usually go for Robin/Cordelia. I mean, it's obvious I took several of Alex and Cordelia's early relationship cues from it.
If Alex had crit quotes, what would they be?
I actually thought about this more than once. Every Awakening character, barring Emmeryn I think, has three critical quotes. A while back I made a sheet detailing what all of Alex's quotes would be during in-game events. It's over a year old and outdated as hell by now but I might as well put some of those here. The crit quotes would be as follows:
"Not on my watch!"
"I'll tear you apart!"
"You're boring me!"
Had a lot of fun with those quotes lol.
And those are all the questions I got. I had a lot of fun answering them!
I guess this is the end, until the sequel.
It's hard to believe that it's all over. The fic, I mean. When I first started this fic, I was at the absolute tail end of my first year at college, we were planning on getting a St. Bernard puppy from a breeder nearby, and there wasn't a hint of COVID in sight. Fast forward a year and a half, and the world has flipped on top of its head. That puppy we got is now fully grown and a lovable pile of floof to boot, and the world is currently in the throes of one of the biggest pandemics in memory. At least, at the time of writing this. You future people are probably looking back on this and laughing, and honestly, I can't blame you.
I wrote those early chapters of Aberration while that same St. Bernard puppy we got slept at my feet. I don't know why, but that memory has always stuck with me.
So yeah, I don't think I'm going to prolong this any further. Lord knows this thing is already long enough for no reason, lol.
Here is a link to our Discord server: discord .gg/9XG3U7a
I hope you guys have a wonderful rest of your day, and thank you so much for coming on this journey with me!
