FF8 FanFic: PuPu’s Saga

by Jeremy Chapter (Captainperi@email.com)

"I am a part of all that I have met;

Yet all experience is an arch wherethro’

Gleams that untravell’d world whose margin fades

For ever and for ever when I move."

-Tennyson, Alfred, Lord

Ulysses 18

Dramatis Persona Hominis

Laguna

Raine

Kiros

Ward

Ellone

Cid

Edea

Squall

Rinoa

Quistis

Irvine

Selphie

Jeremy Chapter

Red Line

Merali

Dante

Pearl

Mina

Seifer

Fujin

Rajin

Author's Extended Foreword:

Everything belongs to Squaresoft, Inc., not to me, unless I made it up.

This fanfiction picks up right where the game ends. If it interferes time-wise with any other fanfic, just treat the celebration at the beginning of the story as some other party that SeeD throws after Squall goes through Time Compression again to kill some other sorceress named Ultimecia during which Rinoa kisses Squall one more time because they both see another shooting star, during which Laguna, Ward, Kiros, and Ellone all just happen to be in Winhill again. If you know already who Laguna’s son is, then Setting 1 is not essential to the plot and can be skipped. This fanfic has many allusions to Final Fantasy 8 and 9, some of which are pretty profound. Those that have not explored the world of Final Fantasy 8 as thoroughly as others might miss some subtle clues while those that have explored the world too thoroughly can guess half the plot out right. Stuff that I made up wasn’t meant to be corny, corny as it might be. It is also a tedious reading until the tempo picks up in Setting 11 or so. Skipping to Setting 11 would ruin many of the hints incorporated into every Setting. Setting 8 was especially long and tedious (10 even more so), and I’m sorry for having ever written them. If you can get through that, I salute you. I don’t promise the perfect story, but I’m warning you how big a commitment you have to make to finish this beast. It focuses mainly of Squall, his regular groups (minus Rinoa), and two new characters, Merali and Red Line. I tried to keep the number of Settings focused on characters from the older generation and Seifer to a minimum. Dante, Jeremy, Pearl, and Mina are other additions I’ve taken the liberty to make. Raine Ishida (nanaki_17@hotmail.com) has a sequel to my saga and the idea of Mina belongs to her.

I realized that the length of this 61-Setting story (480+ single-spaced pages) would deter most fans from reading it, while even fewer would ever finish reading. In order to boost the interest and preserve the incentive to keep reading, I’ve begged the assistance of very talented artists two whom I shall give due and grateful credit for their pieces for each chapter. I tried a little humor in each Setting with the characters. Please excuse me if what they say is not what you would have liked to hear. I was just tired of reading countless stories of Seifer being a menace to society or Seifer’s sudden change of heart. I can’t take anymore mushy, too-perfect romance between Squall and Rinoa. I couldn’t stand Cid’s being able to chew Squall out after he saved the world. I haven’t seen too many people use GFs as more than just weapons of war in their stories (the exception being Kate (Wang) Lorraine’s "Claiming of Shiva" in which she incorporates lines like, "Oh, [Shiva] wanted this one. This one, she had to make her own."). I don’t think Rinoa’s new sorceress powers are that fun to read about. I’m mad at all the fanfics that leave the reader hanging and never get finished, especially with so many people, like myself, who have already beaten FF9 in Japanese. I think Ultimecia’s return or the repeat of the Lunar Cry is unoriginal. I hope to fix all this if you give me the chance. If the story happens to bore, disgust, offend, or annoy you in any way, don’t tell me about it because I don’t want to know. If you want another story, or a sequel perhaps, drop a line with any fictitious character names you would like to see incorporated in it, or any fresh ideas.

I think everyone secretly or publicly aspires to be the best, and if there is no "the best," then "a best." While I'm not as arrogant as Dante when he says in his Inferno XXV,

"Let Lucan be silent, where he sings

of sad Sabellus and Nasidius,

and wait to hear what flies off from my bow."

I will try my best to entertain you, the reader, because I think just maybe if try harder enough to gear my style towards emanating what Macrobius in his Saturnalia V praised as

"Now brief, now full, now dry, now rich…

now easy, now impetuous."

Forgive me, readers, for the next few pages are the best I can do.