Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha Fan Fiction ❯ Movements ❯ Ending Thoughts ( EndNotes )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

One of the main purpose of this story is to act as a prequel to the another fanfic in the planning. Ideally, it should link up to the world I've established in my previous work, Vegrandis Magister Ferociter.

That should be a pretty big clue on one of the seven. That would also mean that I would have more incentive to overthrow that hint.

Below I will explain certain themes and issues I came across in the process of writing the fic. Please note that I was typing this while the story has yet to be completed. I find that doing so helps me concentrate and see things in a new angle.

Crossover references

In my usual style, be it good or bad, I tend to end up with plenty of references to other fandoms, not just anime. One of the more obvious linkages for this fic would be Full Metal Alchemist. Kudos to Terthna for being able to identify most of the references in her review.

Gabriel is a student of Merdiana Magic Academy, the exact same academy Negi attends. Usually I imagine him to be around Negi age. Almost all his standard spells were spells which Negi had used before, such as the magic arrows. The rest are either latin gibberish I made up or creative utilization of alchemic possibilities. Saves my time on making up new spells.

Professor Dante, our dear villain was previously a character from Full Metal Alchemist. Her fate was never fully explained in the anime series so I decided to assume that she survived by doing what Edward did, escape to Terra through the gate. Unlike Edward, she discovered magic and combined magic and her alchemical knowledge to re-create alchemy. Still looking for the Philosopher Stone and a new body. In fact, right from her first appearance, many hints regarding her true origins had been selectively released. How many can you spot?

The orangutan friend of Yuuno is a character from the Discworld novel series. Better known as the Librarian, since both of them acts as the guardian of 'Infinity Libraries', it would be fun for them to meet each other.

In the very first extract, the one from TSAB's classified folder on Terra, all the 'Class A Logias' were references to other animes. Sentient dolls refer to Rozen Maidens. The deck of cards refers to the Clow Cards of Card Captor Sakura fame and the Holy Grail refers to both the King Arthur version and the Fate/Stay Night version.

Mother

Before I actually started writing the fic, I actually thought through what I want to portray within. I know I want the fic to concentrate on Fate and an aspect of her character. Friendship with Arisa, ambiguous relationship with Nanoha, the mother-daughter relationship with Admiral Lindy came up as possibilities.

The theme of friendship did make its appearance here, most strongly between Arisa and Fate. There are so many shipping fics in this fandom that frankly, I decided not to join the brawl. In the end, I decided to mainly focus on the motherly love angle, about Fate's craving for a real family.

Testarossa family

Then came the plotting on how to get the story going. I want Fate to come into contact with local magic, partly to set up for some form of a sequel in the future when even more different types of magic will clash with each other. I hit upon creating an OC for that as I originally wanted a pure, non-crossover fic.

First, the character of Gabriel. His original name was to be Alastoir, the closest male name that looked like 'Alicia'. I know, bad... so I dump it for something simple. Then Gabriel Lucius came into mind. Lucius would make a good magic sounding name, connecting to Harry Potter lore. Nah, too Gary Stu sounding. So it's just Gabriel. I always call him Gabe for short.

In the first version, Gabe was trying to save his sister. I shall name her Katerine. Cos' I'm always fond of the incest angle.(I'm reading 'Kana' at that point of time so...) Makes his motive even more taboo. His sister is suffering from some incurable disease. He's trying to save her. To do so, he embarked on a series of magical crimes to seek out a magical cure.

Later I thought about the issue of parents. With Gabe flying around causing trouble for everyone, what the hell are they doing? A girl in a wheelchair is also too 'Hayate'. So in view of the 'mother' theme I'm trying to build up, I changed the sick person from 'sister' to 'mother' when I was writing Chapter 2. Yes, when I was writing chapter 1, all the 'her' actually refers to the sister. To add to Fate's problems, I made her the alternate dimension version of Precia Testarossa.

And thus, the Terran Testarossa family was formed.

Alchemy and the Philosopher's Stone

Since the Nanoha series tend to feature some form of an ultimate artifact, I agonized over it for quite a while. Gabriel needs to save his mother. With what? I thought through all the possible magical myths, legends that I can use before turning to other fandoms.

The Holy Grail of Fate/Stay Night. Possible but requires me to place the entire Magi war into the picture. Too confusing. Dragon Balls? Never liked that show and too Jewel Seed liked.

The Philosopher's Stone came up. It was almost perfect. After all, within Full Metal Alchemist, part of the origins had been Ed and Al's original quest to revive their mother. The death of hundreds of TSAB troopers would also make for good impact.

Finally I need a villain. Time to look through the rogue gallery of FMA. Shou Tucker? Out. Physicist in FMA movie? Possible but lacks that immortal feel to him. He's got to be like hundred plus by this timeline, if he had survived.

Dante... she would be old, but she's almost immortal. Plus she knows the Philosopher's Stone. How to make it, how to use it. So Dante got 'dragged from her grave' to perform one last dastardly act of villainy. Oh joy.

The rest of the story, I make them up as I go along. Thinking one, two chapters ahead and changing them as I go along. All I know when I truly started typing even the first chapter was, that Fate should get captured at some point of time and Fate accept Admiral Lindy as her mother in the end.

Titling

The original title for this fic is 'Movements of Fate'. A silly pun on Fate and Fate, somewhat symbolizing both 'Fate moving in strange ways' and 'Fate being the focus character here'. Later I dropped the 'of Fate' part to leave just 'Movements'

'Movements'. What exactly are we talking about here? Think it like a chess game with a lot of factions. Everyone is making a move towards his motive. Fate made her move. Chrono made a move. Everything, their decisions and interactions would result in the final conclusion. It is all about different people with different agendas making different moves that changes each other in the end.

Influences

Let me count the list. Especially for the battle scenes, my influences come from what I happened to watch recently. I wanted a 'Darker than Black', spy noir feel to the night scenes with Gabe as the spy like character, hiding in the shadows and doing ambushes. Rooftop battles illuminated by the skylight.

Then I watched Spiderman 3 and so I included plenty of smashing windows, falling debris and cast members engaging in melee in mid air battles.

I'm pretty sure Pirates of the Carribean also influenced my writing somewhat. Probably more towards the plot but I know it's there. Bits and pieces of it in the battle scenes like the three-way at the end.

Berserk Nanoha was modeled loosely on Berserk Simon from Gurren Lagann. Gabriel too received part of his character development from the same character. Part of Gabriel's characterization also came from Professor Snape of Harry Potter fame. Dante had a bit of Voldemort and Umbridge in her.

Probably many others too but these are the more definite ones that I know influenced the writing.

Fate's love interest

None. Really. I know it is basic human instinct to seek out love in everything they do, that's why most fanfiction are romances. But there are not supposed to be any pairing in this fic. No Nanoha love, no Chrono love, definitely, definitely no OC love... No yuri, no straight. (That probably hurts my review count by quite a bit, given the large goldmine of rabid romance-obsessed fanbrats in this fandom.)

My point is that although it is most tempting at many points of time to add these little AxB parts into the story, the main focus of this story is about family, the relationship between Fate and Lindy and so on. Any hints you think exists remains your imagination.

As of this, my stand is that canon FTW. But as long as canon has yet to catch up, what ever floats your boat.

And if you want romance, *self pimping time!* read my <In Lieu of Perfection>. A Pokemon romance fic!

Use of Terran technology

Come to think of it, Fate and gang could have used all those nifty psychic communication or TSAB teleportation and such. So why use of planes and phones? Franky, no special reason except it felt more normal. To justify myself, let me come up with a impromptu logic here.

You need magical support to perform those party tricks. That meant the Asura and all. But they were here without much HQ support... Ok, I give up. Teleportation will simply be too powerful a device. So I'm making everything manual okay? I'm going by the theory that they need to be in their magical robes if they want to do those magical tricks and they are not. So there!

Plus, if I don't nerf them, the story would end by the third chapter when Nanoha, Chrono and Arf magically teleported towards Fate's location and do a bind together. Gabe captured, story end. No fun.

Sequels

Most likely, but no promises. As I started of saying, part of the motive of the story was to link up with my previous fanfic, 'Vegrandis Magister Ferociter'. Within this universe I'm plotting, different types of magic co-existed with each other. The legend I had spun within also need seven people, seven local genius in whatever field they are in. 'Movements' should adhere to the rules and continue to build up on this universe.

Someone from this fic would most likely go on to play an important role. Who and what role would only be answered when I finally get to writing that story in mind. In a couple of years time from now... For all we know, I might end up using it as a game story instead...

Somewhere deep in my mind, I also kinda feel like writing a “Burning Arisa” fic. Given how I've set up the end, I can easily use this story as a stepping stone for the next one. Probably can throw in hot tsundere romance for myself.

Finally I had many thanks to Tsukiyasou for doing the beta for me. Better than a word processor spell-checker. Greatly appreciated. Do check out her fics.

It has been an extremely fun (though extended) time for me to write this story. Even though it did not garner as much reviews as I would have liked, but the quality of some of the reviews more than made up for the lack of quantity. Perhaps in the near future, I shall return once again to this fandom and to entertain the few appreciative readers there. For now, I shall return to my Livejournal until the next idea struck. Thank you for reading and good bye for now.

KC Komicer