Thicker Than Blood - Chapter 3

[teekoness]

Title: Thicker Than Blood
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Cloud, Rufus
Summary: Cloud Strife never returned to Nibelheim. AU

Author’s Note: Sorry about the really late update guys. Life’s been crazy and Cloud refused to cooperate.

Previous Chapter

Comments

[licoricealsorts]

Intriguing and really well-written. Great characterisation, especially Tseng, and Rufus. So Tseng's a rotten pilot, eh? That kind of makes sense. Maybe he's the one who crashed the chopper outside Modeoheim in Crisis Core! Right now their relationship is the one I'm most interested in, partly because they're my OTP (though any kind of relationship between them is interesting) but also because they have this history that you;ve so carefully developed, which gives their interactions a rich depth that Cloud's, for now, inevitably lack.

Park was an excellent character, very sympathetic and credible with regard to his motives.

No hurry, don 't rush, but I do hope you keep updating.I'm looking forward to the next installment. Oh, by the way, there seem to be a lot of missing words in this text, and sometimes they affect the meaning.

[teekoness]

Thanks. Rufus is a character I'm fairly familiar with but Tseng was a great deal harder. He's a real bundle of contridictions. I very much enjoyed playing with the idea of Tseng being a lack-luster helicopter pilot. They never did explain why they crashed in CC.

I'm glad the relationship between Rufus and Tseng came through. At this time I'm not planning any romance, though I am getting the bizarre urge to write possibly-incestuous Cloud/Rufus.

With any luck I'll improve the depth of the relationship between Cloud and Rufus as well.

I'm glad Park is working out. While he only has a small part, I wanted him to be a properly realised character in his own right.

I'm horrible at proofreading. I really ought to find a beta.

[sinnatious]

Another chapter! It was worth the wait. A nice slow boil, I like how you're feeding us some details on the back story (essentially, what happened between Cloud going to Junon instead of Nibelheim). Cloud quietly contained reaction to the mention of Nibelheim was especially profound. Tseng's part was great, especially when he pointed out Rufus's reckless behaviour - could that be foreshadowing? Rufus is very in character too. It makes me simultaneously like him and hate him. It's a good combination

[teekoness]

The whole cover story for Nibelheim was originally going to be a monster attack, but it seemed to weak. I like the idea of turning Seph into a martyr while creating more hatred against the 'Wutes'.

I'm glad Rufus is coming across. I didn't want to fall into the trap of taking away his edge. If the readers don't occasionally want to strangle him, he isn't Rufus anymore.

Cloud's section was the main reason for the time lag. I had a hard time dealing with this AU's Cloud. He hasn't gone through Hojo's Torture Tube of Horror. So I had to remind myself he has to be a bit different, meanwhile he insisted on not talking at all.

[sinnatious]

In the previous chapter, there's still a mention of Nibelheim falling to monster attacks. That had me confused when you mentioned Wutaians instead.

[anonymous]

I really like how this is going!