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batshieroglyphics · 4 months ago

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AO3 Scene Breaks - Final Fantasy Style!

Following from my set of FMA scene breaks, I've been working my way through my works to add scene breaks that are both screen-reader friendly, and just generally more fun.

This batch is for my Final Fantasy VIII and Final Fantasy X fics (not including the crossovers, those will be a different post). This has been shared previously with my patreons here. (The below is basically copy&pasted from the Patreon post, they just got it a few days sooner.)

Image descriptions are either in the image alt text, or shared below, if tumblr wouldn't let me add alt text. 🙄 Most of these are larger versions of the breaks used on AO3, but I don't have larger saves of the first two, so you're getting the smaller versions.

[Image Description: Final Fantasy 10 logo of Yuna sending bracketing the Zanarkand Abes logo; all are in colours of blue and yellow /end ID]

Final Fantasy X line break, which I actually created...last year? Ish. It's the Zanarkand Abes symbol, the fatter version that Tidus wears on his shorts, between mirrored versions of the Yuna sending logo for the series in the original sunset ombre.

[Image Description: Seymour Guado's chest tattoo bracketing the Zanarkand Abes logo; Seymour's lions are black outlined in purple, the Abes symbol is dark grey outlined in teal]

I also created an alternate, which is the thinner Abes symbol that Tidus wears as a necklace between Seymour's chest tattoos, which I'd halfway through to use for a Tidus/Seymour fic, although I prefer the above for Crooked Wings, and I haven't really done any other FFX fics that require scene breaks and have them as main characters.

Not actually using this one anywhere, yet, but one of the holiday card ficlets for this year is a non-shippy FF8 piece, and I seem to recall it having a scene break, so I decided to make a break that could be used no matter the ship. In this case, the Balamb Garden yin-yang symbol with the white halo. With, I think, light grey outline? So it can be seen against a white background.

Standard Seifer/Squall shippy break of the Balamb Garden yin-yang between Hyperion and Revolver. The Hyperion I ended up using is the 'costume' Squall has in Dissidia, because I'd otherwise have had to use the pixelated version from the base game. And that wouldn't have looked terrible in the small scale, but the pixelated base game version of Revolver doesn't have the Griever keychain and the embossing on the blade is...a disaster, so I ended up going for two higher-def gunblades, even if Hyperion's handle is wrong. Highlights of red around Hyperion and blue around Revolver were mostly because of my long-held headcanon that Seifer leans more towards fire (thanks fireball in the opening scene spar) and Squall leans more towards ice magic. Which meant this scene break worked very, very well for Zyxt, where the two blast Adel's Tomb in space and end up inheriting her magic.

This one is 100% created for my Sorcerer!Squall fic, Silver Wings, because there was no way I wasn't going to find a pair of spread wings and recolour them silver for this fic, come on. And then the Griever necklace in the centre, because of the backstory this fic attaches to it.

For Noblesse Oblige, I wanted Lion Heart as a sort of nod to how advanced Squall is, that he's already done all this before, and the crown for the title's meaning, that Squall (and Seifer, to a large extent) are the nobility of Garden, having been some of the original students and, in this fic, very much paving the way for generations of SeeD.

For Sins of Our Young, I knew I was going to go with the gunblades again—they're really the best way, I think, of implying about Seifer and Squall's relationship without using the character images, which I was sort of half-consciously avoiding—and I crossed them at the handles. But I wasn't certain how to bring in the implication of the title—namely, the 'Sins' bit. I tried finding blood drips or splatters I could add to the gunblades, but I wasn't really coming up with the vague image I had. The bloody hand print wasn't terrible, didn't hate it, fully intended to use it, and then I remembered I had a sort of dripping font and decided to just type 'Sins' and recolour it red. So, the left one is the version you'll actually see used in the fic.

For Kissing It Better, I honestly thought about just using a line of kiss marks, lol, but then I did a quick re-read of the fic and remembered the bit about Seifer giving Squall the Griever necklace, so I decided I'd just use that charm again. And then a calligraphy swirls line break I stumbled across got re-purposed as a sort of necklace chain, because I wasn't having a lot of luck, otherwise.

I actually almost used the gunblades with the Balamb Garden yin-yang for Broken For the Scars I Forgave, except, part of that fic is that Garden isn't really welcoming for them, after canon, so they have to find somewhere else to go. Too, Rinoa's relationship—both the Sorceress/Knight bond with Squall, and the friendship/mutually-hated persons thing she has going with Seifer—is...so important to this fic. And I wanted to recognise that. So, gunblades crossed at the hilt in front of Rinoa's Shooting Star.

#Bats creates fanfic line breaks #final fantasy 8 #final fantasy viii #final fantasy 10 #ff8 #ffviii #ff10

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fulgensun · 5 years ago

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[ When I discovered the FFX Ultimania Omega book had not only a long novelization of the whole story and trivia lists, but also snippets of the original plot and even parts of that original script and scenes (together with authors’ interviews and explanations) I knew I had to look more into it ! Points finger at it -- I want it haha. Admittedly, it was one of the first things I did concentrate on the moment my copy arrived, months ago by now ! Because so little of it is contained on the eng side of the fandom, it seems, that even the wiki had incomplete versions of these original parts of the script...

Honestly, I was surprised and baffled at the described snippets -- the ones similar to Tidus the plumber HH I guess that’s one known fact, but so much more was contained there... and all was deleted for a total change of the story-- but looking back at it now, I can’t help but wonder just how different the whole atmosphere and story would have been ! It’s something widely described and explained in the Ultimania... I have not seen anything like that ever posted anywhere, nor here or on other websites or wikis. While this won’t be a word-by-word translation of the script in the book, I feel - having a FFX centric blog like this, posting these little gems here, so that people can read them too, could be an amazing thing to do ! If these snippets can make people dream (ah...) or imagine how things could have gone, but don’t have the resources to know it since it’s all kept in an old book in Japanese, then that’d be awesome !

To make things look better, I guess I’ll keep part of the post under a read more -- !

REGISTAN

Before the book arrived, all I could find in the web, translated here and there, was the description of Tidus (the plumber yeah HHH) in Registan (the old name for Zanarkand) swimming around, meeting his group of friends at the Dome/Shrine of Registan and even fighting monsters underwater, where he’d also see a calm Sin passing by. The Dome was both a gathering place for citizens and a holy place -- with an altar and pictures of Yevon around, people would pray him for good health but it’s not considered a true religion as Yevon doesn’t seem to ask for anything in return. The Hymn (of the Fayth) would resound inside it.

In the end, they discarded the name Registan because a true city has that name - even though Zanarkand is based on the real city of Samarqand. Tidus was also described not as easy-going as we know him now. The script continues. Tidus, trying to hurry towards the Dome to meet his friends, would have met a group of soldiers fighting monsters in the street. They were supposed to be elite, chosen fighters, whose commander would shout orders at them. The commander being Auron ! The soldiers’ performance did attract a crowd; among them, Auron notices a man covered in a black cloak staring back at him and starts chasing him. The script reveals the cloaked man is, in fact, a Guado ! Tidus doesn’t notice this last part, and keeps rushing to the Dome... but he’s late, his friends have left already.

I have discussed in a HC post before how Tidus is able to cook. Well, that is something the original script had planned to show the player (so that we could feel nostalgia and closeness too, of Registan/Zanarkand) and something I inspired myself to, for said headcanon: there would have been a scene of him, cooking abundant meals at home (still a boat).

SIN ATTACKS

The next snippet tells of Tidus, some other day, entering the Dome. As he does, he notices a group of men in black cloaks exiting the Dome. A second later, panic settles. Announcements broadcast the same news and people start running and screaming: Sin is landing on Registan. As alarms invite people to evacuate the area, Tidus notices Auron outside the Dome helping people flee; Sin is indeed approaching the Dome area -- its body is scarred, pyreflies seeping out of it as many arrows and spear pierce its body. Sin opens its many eyes and stares at Tidus, before blinking, closing all its eyes except for two, brown-coloured pupils and keep staring at the boy, calmly.

Soldiers, in the meantime, keep attacking the still beast. Hurt, Sin tries to retreat back in the sea, destroying many buildings in the process and whatnot... but the men in a black cloak from before (the Guado), who have witnessed the whole scene, suddenly start following the monster. The script informs the reader the tallest cloaked figure is, indeed, the leader of these Guado, Seymour. Auron and Tidus follow the totally-not-suspicious bunch.

A very interesting thing I noticed... the script also has the dialogue of Auron and Tidus chasing Seymour and the Guado, who seem to want to do something to Sin. Auron DOES have his ‘This is your story’ moment ! And all is still supposed to be Tidus’ tale and flashbacks. The fact it all carried over to the game we know was nice to notice.

THE GUADO

Instead of Baaj as we know it, Tidus would have later arrived in a small lone island, most likely after having touched Sin. Exploring it, he would have found a video-sphere -- a scene of a mother and child would have played: the two would be conversing, but the language they spoke would be incomprehensible to Tidus. He would have also found human remains, buried in said island, of - he thinks, the same mother depicted in the brief video. The script reveals the language would have been the Guado’s native one. Tidus would have accepted the creepiness of it (’This place gives me the creeps’), grilled some fish and waited for someone to rescue him HAHA (it is also revealed he’d spend days alone, stranded in there...)

Here too, I kinda had some very familiar vibes of the whole situation. If I think of a hypothetical Guado language, a mother and child, desert abandoned island and all, the story of Anima and Seymour in Baaj comes to mind. Not to mention the script reveals the dialogue of mother and child would have become understandable once Seymour’s intentions etc were to be discovered by Tidus -- confirming the child in the video is most likely a younger Seymour (and probably that we would have learned the language of Guado as we do now with Al Bhed’s ! )

MACALANIA’S MUSICAL

This is my favorite. Do you remember those animal-like forest creatures you see in FFX, playing instruments around Spira, greeting even Mika and Seymour in Luca and encouraging you to catch butterflies ? Those are what nowadays remains of this original snippet of script, according to Kitase himself. The idea was to give Yuna an idol-like appeal (I guess they still had no idea what X2 would have done ahah) and this scene was a good example of it, together with the wedding ceremony, Toriyama confirms.

The pilgrimage party would have passed by Macalania during a peculiar festival: people of all races would gather in the woods to commemorate and celebrate the figure of Yunalesca, all sponsored by the Temple of course. Seems like a traditional festival, if you think about it, full of lights, magic, happiness, etc. There would have been a stage built in the forest, depicting a corner of old Registan and people would sit there, waiting for the programmed musical number to start (the musical band would be composed of the beings I described earlier !) Yuna would have been chosen to play as Yunalesca -- the script describes her as breathtakingly beautiful, dressed as Yunalesca (I supposed the bikini was not planned to be Yunalesca’s official attire... I hope so). The Guado would have built, with magic, a ‘fake-Sin’ prop to be used during the recital... but as the scene of the Final Summoning did approach, the Sin-prop would have started causing panic by growing bigger and bigger (turns out it was all Guado’s plan) so manacing and real-looking people would freak out and its giant size would destroy the stage and the lights. In complete darkness, a weird light would appear on stage. This light would shape itself into a precise figure: High Summoner Baska (YES, his original name was supposed to be Baska, later changed in Braska), Yuna’s father.

The audience would start yelling his name with joy, calming down, before a man yelled: “Do not fear Sin, for Baska has returned!". A violent wind would arise and the figure of Baska would disappear. Tidus’d then turn around and find out that man who just talked was Seymour. Angered, he’d yell: “That’s a fake! It’s a Guado illusion!” The script goes: people turn around to glare at Tidus, since Baska is a very loved figure among Spira’s people. Yuna remains still on the stage: “True, my father died ten years ago!”. People would turn their anger at the girl, asking if Baska had been Sent after his death. Yuna cannot lie and confirms his father could not be Sent to the Farplane, and that he may be a monster. The crowds protest: “So, are you going to kill your own father?! We don’t need you as a Summoner!”. Yuna would fall on the stage, probably overwhelmed by those hateful comments.

What does this make me understand ? Guado are seen as magic experts, they help with the festival but yet find a way to add their own, weird personal touch to the musical. Also Yuna probably does not know what truly becomes of a High Summoner after their death, and probably thinks that, by dying and not being Sent, her father became a rancorous monster (by now, we know that Summoner performing the Final Summoning probably do not need to be sent: Braska didn’t receive one and is still present in the Farplane in X and X2).

Also, it’s worth mentioning the holy spring scene would have had Yuna screaming (much like Tidus does in Kilika) all her frustration and helplessness at her destiny, crying against Tidus’ chest. There is no mention of the kiss, but I cannot be sure about it as an idea: the script for the holy spring scene stops as she buries her face in his chest and weeps. Being there an affection system, if you hadn’t bonded enough with Yuna, Kimahri would have consoled... and that, kids, is why Kimahri still is present in the holy spring / kiss scene in FFX ! It’s a nice reference.

The last snipper in the Ultimania is the party facing Yunalesca. I find the scene really similar to the original -- she calls them fools, asks who will take Jecht’s place. She calls human beings weak creatures who find new ways to substitute the dead ones and reject peace. She does try to attack Auron too, but he dodges her attack and the battle begins. Outside the Dome, much like in the game we know, Sin is watching them. But in the original script, he did carry people of Registan on his back. Why? Kitase and Nojima explain Registan was supposed to float above Gagazet (Fayth Scar weird column of water, anyone?). Before the final battle, the player would have had the chance to do a sidequest, in which Sin would have helped you carrying your Registan friends in Spira... yea, crazy. Tidus would have been briefly taken home again and helped his old friends, all carried on Sin’s back to Spira. But once they did decide on Registan/Zanarkand being a dream, the sidequest disappeared. ]

#ffx #final fantasy x #Final fantasy x ultimania #meta tag.#[ the fact i don't have an analysis tag ]#[ or proper meta one is embarrassing hhh ]#[ bless... bless the ultimania ]#[ like... if this doesn't make you curious!! ]#[ i wished more was explained BUT it's still a lot more than what I ever expected ]#[ beware long post under cut because i can't contain myself ]

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