Sorcerer Hunters Fan Fiction ❯ A Brother's Love ❯ Author's Notes ( One-Shot )

~Author's Ranting~

 

.........

 

Wow, I actually have tears in my eyes as I write this ^_^. Because it means, dear reader, that A Brother's Love is now OVER! No longer will I write of Radish or Celery (much as I'd like to, their stint in this fic was somewhat finalistic, don't you agree? ^,^), no longer will I just be sitting there in class, or on the computer, or anywhere, and suddenly come up with an amazing idea on how to make xx scene better, or xx idea more credible... fue, like Future Echoes, this is also a fic I will miss writing ^_^. For the past couple of months, I've been doing nothing BUT. Ah, but it's over now...

 

Normally in these things, I always talk about the music I used for inspiration, etc... this one will be no exception, heh. The bands I'd like to thank most would be Tatu and Evanescence... and while I'm on that subject, I might as well go on a big This Is How This Fic Came Into Being...

 

It all started on the 28th of February, 2003, a friday, in a spanish lesson. And I was blissfully not paying attention to Miss Harvey (as she was then, she's now Mrs Smith) as per usual, I was sitting there doodling, again, as per usual. Randomly, the idea popped into my head, what would Marron look like with a contrary triangle? So I drew him with one. Then the thought occurred, "Wouldn't Marron kick ass if he was a Sorcerer?", so I drew him a little more, then with this other guy, who would eventually become Radish (though he looked a lot different). That breaktime, I ran to the Memorial Garden, yelling to everyone there that I'd had a brilliant idea for a fanfic, and I just had to write it down immediately before I forgot it. I tried leaning on people while I wrote (not many decent surfaces to write on in the Memorial Garden), eventually Erin let me write on her, so, thanks Erin XD. Everyone was like "Oh, I guess it's an idea to do with gay sex, isn't it?", and I got all affronted, "Is everything with me always to do with gay sex?!"... "Yes!"... originally, oddly enough, I wasn't planning the fic to be yaoi (!), but the fic was very simplistic, in the beginning. Essentially, the first plans were something like "Sorcerer people show up. Tell others that Marron's a Sorcerer. Turns out his life was a lie. Angst.", something like that. However, to those who've played Final Fantasy 7, this might sound a liiiittle familiar, so I thought it might need a little tweaking.

 

By the time I got home that night, I'd decided that we'd have a Sorcerer dude who wanted Marron, and so convinced him he was a Sorcerer. The idea clearly needed to be refined a little, but where to start?

 

Well, with character names, of course ^_^. Somewhere along the line, I decided to have two brother Sorcerers, so, on the night of the 28th, I went online and decided to seek a little advice. I already settled on Celery's name, Celery Salt sounded good, but I couldn't think of a name that would easily go with that. So I asked Beckychan and Achan at the same time (they were both online at the time) what food they thought of when I said "Celery" (word association, yay). Both said Carrot ^,^. That name was, obviously, not usable, so I asked them what else they thought of. When they both said "Radish" (I was asking Achan on IRC and Beckychan on MSN), I decided that that had to be some kind of sign, and decided that Celery's brother would indeed be called Radish. And you know what radishes are like, have you ever had a really peppery one that like, burns, it's so peppery? Maybe the name lent itself to our little pyromaniac's personality a little.

 

Anyway, after that, I was still excited, and I was even more excited now I had names for these people, even if I wasn't totally sure what I was going to do with them. So I proceeded to tell Sachan of my Wonderful New Idea, since she was one of the few people I trusted with New Fic Ideas ^,^. However, she proceeded to form a strong dislike against it, which was something of a kick in the teeth, (usually I like to show Sachan all my fics in progress as they go along) but at least it made me hellbent to make the fic good, even if she didn't like it.

 

The months went by, school and such sucked in most of my time, and after getting the plans written out and a few paragraphs written, the fic was a little abandoned, but like Future Echoes, just because I wasn't writing it didn't mean I wasn't thinking about it. One saturday night I was randomly taken by the urge to write, and I wrote the beginning mission in Qeran, and writing about it, I was suddenly taken in by it; it was one of the first things I'd written in a long time that was less yaoi-and-angst and more action, and it sparked at me, that was when I realised, this fic was gonna be fun to write... however, still it lay unwritten to until about may/june time; that was when I really started to write to it, often to the point of excluding many of my other fics... despite it not exactly being a popular fic of mine (I'm still convinced I'm writing to an audience of somewhere in the region of about... two, here), it sparked my imagination, and I did really enjoy it. Amusingly, I didn't realise when I was writing that mission in Qeran just how big of an impact on the plot the Farra Kinju and Aboros would have. Yes, that's right. Originally, Aboros wasn't even gonna be in it, he was just going to be a name, y'know? I had fun coming up with placenames and magic names and such, much fun ^o^

 

Around then was where Tatu and Evanescence had their big inspiration-lightning-strikes type things upon me. Yes, I know Tatu is a band compromised of two russian lesbians, but still I think of yaoi while listening to their songs ^_^;. I've got it bad. It's hard to explain, but... while listening to All The Things She Said, I came up with some of the basic premises to the story ("I keep asking myself, keep wondering how, I keep closing my eyes but I can't shut it out, want to fly (her) away where the sun and the rain, washing over my face, wash away all the shame" - Celery watching Radish manipulate Marron for the first time, for example)... man, tracking down my exact thought process would take way too long, but essentially, that song was me coming up with the story and developing it (music helps me develop ideas...), "Stars" always struck me as being quite a sensual song... and... that beginning bit, the scene before Radish died, with Marron kissing his hand and such, that was what I always had in my mind when listening to the beginning of Stars. Also, "How Soon Is Now" was always a Radish song for me, "You shut your mouth, how can you say, I go about things the wrong way... I'm human and I need to be loved, just like anybody else does", I always imagined Radish having one of his Emotional Outbursts at Celery like that.

 

While on the subject of Radish's Emotional Outbursts, originally, when Radish got pissy at Celery near the end of the fic, it was going to have Radish hit out at Celery and be a big shock-shock thing, oh my god, Radish attacked his brother kinda thing... but it'd been developing all the way through, that Radish really wasn't that gentle with his brother in the first place... which was when I decided it'd probably be more 'shocking' as such if Radish didn't attack his brother, or harm him too badly, a severe contrast to what he usually did.

 

Anyway, for the first little while of writing, Tatu kept me going, Tatu kept me inspired, Tatu kept me writing.

 

THEN I heard Evanescence.

 

It was a slow process; first song I heard was Bring Me To Life, I loved it, but it didn't exactly inspire me any (though these days, I have a lovely mental image of demonic!Carrot and angelic!Marron going along with it that I keep trying to draw, but keep failing miserably to...). My friends were all "*_* Evanescence *_*" though, so, on a whim, I decided to look out for more of their songs. That was when I got (the Origin version of) Imaginary. That is a true ABL song for me. You know the chapter with the trippy dream sequence with the field and the angel wings and all of that? That all directly came from Imaginary ("In my field of paper flowers, and candy clouds of lullaby, I lie inside myself for hours, and watch my purple sky fly over me", "Let me stay, where the wind will whisper to me, where the raindrops as they're falling tell a story", "If you need to leave the world you live in, lay your head down and stay a while... though you may not remember dreaming, something waits for you to breathe again..."). That part of the story was the closest I ever came to writing down my pure thought processes when it comes to songs and writing, and yes, it's very trippy, but that part of the story, I'm especially proud of. Hell, I even managed to get Sara to read that one scene, and she liked it ^o^. At that point, I wasn't planning to have any more trippy dreams, but as Marron's mental state was flying all over the place anyway, I figured that I might as well.

 

As for other Evanescence songs... Imaginary was the one that inspired most, but other songs played their part as well. "Away From Me" is a Radish song (during the chorus, I get a mental image of him doing one of his big inferno things, gives me chills if I play it loud enough)... "I hold my breath as this life starts to take it's toll, I hide behind a smile, as my perfect plan unfolds... but oh god, I feel I've been lied to, lost all faith in the things I have achieved..." *stops before she ends up just writing the whole song out* When so much helped, it's so tempting to just type the whole song out, "Look at this, isn't it a great song?", hehe. But see, Marron was a lie Radish created... and does Radish want to be lost in Marron, or Celery lost in Radish? *Listening to that song at the moment* I love it a lot.

 

"Taking Over Me" didn't directly inspire me, but... "You don't remember me, but I remember you... I lie awake and try so hard not to think of you... but who can decide what they dream? And dream I do... I believe in you, I'd give up everything just to find you, I have to be with you to live, to breathe, you're taking over me..."... that song certainly helped with the Marron and Carrot aspect of the fic, anyway.

 

The other song worth mentioning was one that helped me late into the fic; I think everyone's heard My Immortal and knows how beautiful it is, but... yeah. It's beautiful, and so sad... during Celery's talk with Carrot, I listened to My Immortal. Also when it was building up to Celery killing Radish (though I wrote the actual killing part in silence, tearful silence)... man, that song's just so pretty.

 

Ah, yes. So music definitely played it's part in the conception of this fic.

 

It's amazing how much just naturally comes along while you're writing, and once you think of something, you wonder how you managed without it before... as I said, Aboros was never supposed to be there, the Farra Kinju was never going to be a big thing, and Marron wasn't going to have his trippy dreams, etc. Can you even imagine what the story would be like without those things? I can't ^,^

 

Maybe it went a little heavy-handed on the magic and all, but as Beckychan said, it helps give it... ack, I forget the word. C... c... c something. Like credibility, but I'm not sure it was that. Ah, it'll come to me later. I was actually a little unsure at the Aboros thing, kinda being a bit Final Boss Is Revealed At The Last Moment ala Final Fantasy, but... otherwise, I'd never really been quite sure what I'd wanted to do with getting Marron back. I'd always had it planned that Celery would eventually kill Radish (though I didn't plan to have Celery talk to Radish's corpse like that, that was a bit disturbing ^_^), and I knew that Marron'd go good eventually, but I was never sure how, even after listening to All The Things She Said and having the mental image of Marron attacking everyone then Carrot running to him and kissing him... I wasn't sure. Even more than halfway through the fic, I still wasn't entirely sure how I was going to end the story. Above all else, the whole Kiss Of The One True Love (or brother, whatever) thing didn't rest easy with me, since it's much cliché, y'know? Then I was reading the SH manga, volume 8... I was looking at that, and it was kinda like "If Akahori uses cliché then... why not?", but I still wanted it to be somewhat credible... so, with remembering what happened to Crepe in mind, a few scenes before writing The Final Battle, I decided to have Marron kiss Carrot since he knew that Carrot would absorb Aboros' power. Originally I'd thought to have Carrot kiss Marron, but I couldn't figure a way to have that work, okay, so Carrot's been missing Marron, but why would Carrot just randomly kiss him? Having Marron decide to kiss Carrot worked better with the mental battle thing Marron'd had going on with Aboros, rather than Marron Has Mental Battle followed by Carrot Randomly Kisses Him. Besides, Carrot kissed him later on, so that makes up for it ^^

 

I think the epilogue works okay, though I wondered at much length at how far to go with our favourite brothers. "I love you and want to bonk you!"... "Cool, I feel the same way!" just didn't feel right. Okay, so Carrot's feeling unsure and Marron's got feelings for Carrot anyway (I always take that for granted, *shame*), but even so, I don't know if Carrot'd come right out with it. I think how I dealt with it worked, but I went over the whole idea of it a lot in my head before I wrote it at all ^_^

 

Also (one of the things that convinces me that not many people are reading is the total lack of outcry/flaming/anything at all on this matter), there's the whole matter of, well, what Radish did to Marron... it was totally random, I didn't plan it, and afterwards, I sat there and wondered if I should really keep it in... rape is one of those things used so often in yaoi it's become cliché itself, almost, and that in itself is pretty bad, I mean... rape? A cliché? It's not a happy little "Oh, I've been raped, oh, character B is comforting me, ah, I love them happiness" thing, it's a bad thing, and normally not something I'd especially want to touch on, and not with Marron... I don't know. A lot of Carrot's fans are diehard and don't seem to have any issues with him getting raped/abused/tortured/tied upside down by Sacher wearing scuba diving kit and being spanked with rolled-up copies of playgirl, but I've never been able to understand that mindframe (come on, I mean, Sacher? In a wetsuit? With a snorkel? I really don't wanna know what he does with the snorkel afterwards)... though... I guess I put Marron through a lot, so... well, I don't know. I'm just hoping it didn't end up glorifying/dumbing the matter down any, 'cause... well, y'know. It's not pleasant. For a long time I debated having nobody else know about it, (I mean in the fic) simply because I didn't know quite how Carrot would react/didn't know how to handle having Carrot know... and when I wrote him crying, I thought "Carrot, crying? Would he cry?", then I was like "Damn, of course he would, this is Marron it happened to...", and... well, yeah. Note that Gateau never found out about what happened, though.

 

Moving swiftly on... what else is there... ah, Hazelnut and Olive, Hazelnut and Olive, Hazelnut and Olive XD. I was amazed with them, because... they're heterosexual XD. How many heterosexual characters do I have in my fics? ^,^... well, Sirius and Dota were also in this one, but you know what I mean. I want to draw Olive, I have a good clear image of what she looks like in my head, but I doubt I'd be able to draw her if I tried ^_^. Ah well. I tried drawing Aboros (came out quite bish, too... must scan) and the guy doesn't even APPEAR in the story, apart from as a spirity disembodied thing ^^. So maybe I should try drawing Olive, too. That said, I can't draw Hazelnut, he never turns out right. He's supposed to be a kind of quaint knight-chivalry-honour kind of guy, and I tried to make him kinda regal when he spoke... Olive's more a normal Parsoner kind of girl, a bit pretty, a bit quiet, and I couldn't resist bringing back the Brazil couple for the epilogue ^^

 

Also, thinking of Sirius... I was so psyched, I managed to have Sirius, Dota, Eclair, Kahlua, Shiffon and Cinnamon all in the fic, whew! Characters that get little fanfic scope, though I still want to write ShiffonxKahlua. Or KahluaxShiffon, whichever. Did you know Kahlua does actually have a second name, like the others? But I think it's only mentioned in the novels (I read it on a Japanese site)... his last name is Milk. Kahlua Milk. This amuses me >3... *makes immature puerile comments on Shiffon drinking Kahlua's milk*... those characters are a little more difficult, since they're not in it so much (well, not so much in Dota's case, with Dota, it's more of a case of there's not much to do with her more than she's hard to write...), it's harder to have their personalities and styles defined... Eclair doesn't help with her changing personality with like, every appearance in the manga ^_^;. I just figured that Kahlua and Shiffon would be kind of honourable (in a different way to Hazelnut) to different degrees... and a little Milphey and Shiffon interaction, that was also fun ^_^. Cinnamon wasn't in the fic too much, but honestly, I think anything with her is going to be hard to write anyway... I'm just happy I managed to get Sirius doing something in the fic, that makes this the first fic of mine to have Sirius in (to my knowledge. Except for that english coursework piece, where Sirius' role got edited out anyway) ^_^. Whenever I mention Sirius around non-SH peoples, they all go "What, the Harry Potter one?"... *sigh* No, not the Harry Potter one. I need to read Order of the Phoenix, don't I? ^,^

 

Also, I didn't know whether to mention it or not, but I might as well... I know some people self-insert themselves, and one person I know *cough* had a fic where she was going to self-insert her whole family, but... self-insert houses?

 

Yes, Celery and Radish's house was based on a real house XD. Not my one, though. See, the grandparent owns a house up in Scotland... and it was kinda based on that. I haven't been there for so long, I miss it... it turned out a little different, though... the upstairs, at least, is much different, and there isn't a hot bath in the attic. Nor are there magic books all over the place, and Celery's greenhouse is actually the garage (it had a wasp's nest in it once), but... the apple trees and the river and the river shore bit and the bridge and the downstairs layout and everything, that's all there. Writing this fic made me all nostalgic for that place, because it's so pretty and relaxing, used to visit every year, but we stopped a coupla years ago. But that's not important at all, I'm just rambling here~~

 

Anyway, I'm running out of things to say. The author's rambling is longer than some of the scenes in the fic preceding that, which shows just how much I have the capacity to ramble ^_^;. Plus I'm starting to feel quite tired now, so maybe I'll take a little rest. I also need to spellcheck and chapterize this thing, since, at the time of writing, it's not chapterized ^.^... so... yeah. It was a blast, basically. And I hope you, you there, you reading this right now, enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it ^o^. And if you enjoyed it, why don't you tell me you liked it? *hinthintPartypoppl@aol.comhinthint* >3

 

So... that's that ^,^

 

~Tabi~

Friday, August 08th, 2003

5:38pm

In bed, on the laptop

Wearing a pink velvety dressing gown

Loathe to finally finally finish writing to this

I'll stop eventually, promise

...

... Hee ^,^

*must stop using little smiley faces so much when she writes*

*There's as much chance of that happening as there is that Tabi'll stop misusing tildes~~~*

*Or that she'll stop writing pointless nonsense to the end of A Brother's Love*

... okay, end now~.