Ending Notes on
"Rufus and Cloud"
(Last updated: January 30, 2002)
Story Information:
Characters copyrighted by Squaresoft
Original concept by Tifa Lockheart (also known as Chifu)
Written by Athena
Started: March 29, 1998
Finished: May 20, 2000
Page length: approx. 125 pages (Times New Roman, 12 pt. font)
Dedication: To Amos, for giving me my first claim to fame. To Avram, for actually reading his sister's fanfiction. To Chifu, for her idea and permission. To Vivian, for never giving up on me. To Zach, for simply being there.
The Ending
I'm sure everyone wants to know why there was such a sad ending to RaC. I know my brother was wondering. Well, I would like to answer that with another question: Could a happy ending come out of a tragedy as bad as Shinra's? The character Rufus in this story was a lot weaker emotionally than I originally planned him to be, so a "I'll go on with my life and be happy" ending wasn't possible.
Personality Changes
The changes of personality were mainly seen in Heidegger, Scarlet, and Hojo. Why? I wanted readers to see Heidegger and Scarlet in a different point-of-view, instead of always seeing them as the ruthless and uncaring executives as seen in the game. I believe I gave Heidegger more of a personality in those Part 13 and 14 than any FF7 story. I mixed the two most common personalities of Scarlet -- her being a tramp and her being a maniacal bitch -- and worked from there. Hojo. . . I don't hate Hojo, so don't think I was picking on him. I gave him the personality he had because it was very similar to his video game persona; seemingly-sane in the beginning, then quickly degenerating into a cackling lunatic.
"Rufus Azul Shinra?!"
Some people must wonder where the heck I pulled Azul out of. There's a very good reason why I chose President Shinra's first name to be "Azul" (Spanish for "blue"). First off, if anyone has noticed, President Shinra wears a red business suit. From that, I was able to assume that his favorite color was red. Hence his son's name is "Rufus," Latin for "red." My next guess was that there's some Shinra tradition that had the men named after their favorite color. Thus President Shinra's name means blue, Rufus' means red, and Rufus' children (in my not-posted fanfiction) have names meaning white and black (in one not-posted fanfic by me, he has two sons named Shiroi and Kuroi [Japanese for "white" and "black"]). *gasps* It makes sense, doesn't it!?! I personally think it's the most ingenious thing I've ever thought of by myself. ^_^
Individual Parts Notes
Part 1: Meetings -- To be completely honest, I planned for RaC to be a short story (as in, one part). Somehow (I'm not completely
sure how), the story ended up spanning out to as long as it became, ending with fourteen parts and an epilogue. Other than that, there were no real notes to this part.
Part 2: Letters -- I've heard from fans (through e-mail) that inserting letters into the story was a brilliant maneuver. I thought it was something that hadn't been done in fanfics at that time, so I decided to take a shot at it. Apparently, it served to propel RaC forward, making it a favorite among readers. Even my little brother, Avram, took a liking to the story from there. This was where Reno showed up at first, and I'm very proud to say that I liked his first impressions into my story.
Part 3: Reunion -- This part was badly named, if I may say so myself; it reminds me too much of the events at the Northern Crater when, it fact, it makes in Midgar. Rufus' personality change made sense in my head, considering he had no contact with his only friends for a period of about four years. The telephone conversations replaced
the letters for this part, but didn't follow as strongly as the letters; the conversations were more . . . small talk
than anything else. (Can you tell I'm rambling? *_*)
Part 4: Sephiroth -- In the first draft, Parts 3 and 4 were supposed to be one large part. I changed this because I had wanted each of my parts to be eight pages in length. This changed at about Part 7, when I had to redo my RaC document when my computer crashed. AVALANCHE's appearance in the story was . . . greatly changed, I'm sure everyone could tell. Making AVALANCHE seem like the bad guys was completely unintentional at this point; I was still thinking about suddenly corrupting Rufus and having Cloud defect over to AVALANCHE. By the end of Part 5, I had trashed that idea.
Part 5: Junon -- The beginning scene with Rufus and Cloud was inspired by the thought of a mourning scene at the very end of the story. (Yes, I'll admit that I was already plotting the end of the story before reaching halfway through it.) At that time, I wasn't sure which one of the two Shinras
would perish, but I knew at least one of them would have to. This part was my attempt to return some humor to the story . . . but I think I failed there. ^_^;;;
Part 6: Jenova -- This whole part was written on a whim to get some action into the story. The battles against AVALANCHE and Jenova weren't as developed as I'd hoped, but I managed to get a good moment of drama in there, too. Rufus defending Cloud was a spur of the moment type of thing, but I kept the idea when I ended up liking it. ^_^ Concerning Cloud's questioning of the afterlife from Reno . . . that could very well have been foreshadowing of his ending.
Part 7: Spy -- I've read many fanfics about how Reeve ended up becoming a spy for Shinra. This part was basically my own take with that. I also wanted to give Reeve a personality that would be understandable, and he ended up becoming the caring, yet unknowing, father-figure for Rufus and Cloud.
Part 8: Words -- I think, by the time I reached this part, I was running out of material to insert into the story to mix with the actual events of the game. So, I made Cloud get a talking to from Reno and sent him off to Rocket Town in place of Rufus. I gave what little personality I could give to Tseng at this part; Cloud seemed more like the type to get conversation out of Tseng, as Rufus had a more business-like air to him. Rufus' "sudden recovery" at the end of the part was to give Cloud more comfort, when Rufus was actually still suffering. In my eyes, I saw Rufus as the type of brother that would sacrifice everything for his brother.
Part 9: Casualty -- This was the first of several parts that would have names that would give away the ending of the story. Tseng's death didn't come until the end of the part, but just about everyone knew he was going to die before reading. *shakes head* Anyway, this part developed Reeve and Elena, delving into Elena's thoughts a little and giving Reeve more of a character. I was actually pretty happy with this part. *grins*
Part 10: Insanity -- *gasp* I made it to the double-digits?! Holy Materia! *_* From the moment I wrote the first two sentences of the story, I knew it was going to be dramatic. How many people blinked hard when they read about Cloud's thoughts of Aeris? I know I did. The only major notes I can talk about here were the changes taking place fives years ago and the collapsing of the cavern. Since the mission to Nibelheim five years ago was completely uneventful, I had to change the story to fit that. So, as a result, Sephiroth didn't go insane at Nibelheim . . . he went insane at Gongaga. *_* As for Rufus' little accident at the end. . . Ummm . . . NO, I don't enjoy hurting him! . . . . Okay, maybe I do. Ever heard of the quote, "You hurt the ones you love the
most?"
Part 11: Conspiracy -- By the point of the story, I knew I would have to do drastic things to change the outcome of the game's events. The idea of using the Manipulation Materia was brand-new to me at the time; I found it a little unbelievable. But I wanted Hojo to somehow become the mastermind-evil behind it all, and it was even more unrealistic for him to suddenly have the ability to control Cloud with his thoughts. So, manipulating Scarlet, he got to Cloud -- and very effectively gained control of Shinra Incorporated.
Part 12: Execution -- I drew a blank writing this story; there really wasn't anything to write about with Rufus stuck in the hospital with a broken arm and a concussion and Cloud under Hojo's control. So, I improvised -- I took the talking straight from the video game script and changed it to fit the world around it. . . . Eh heh, I was lazy. -_-;;
Part 13: Death -- . . . This is another of those parts that had a name that gave away the ending. Thankfully, it didn't say who died. I'm sure the question that everyone wants answered is: "Why did Cloud die instead of Rufus?" Cloud died because he was, quite literally, the stronger brother of the two. Don't ask me how that ended up happening -- I wrote it, but didn't think at all. I found it much more tragic that the stronger brother would die, leaving the weaker to fend for himself. Quite twisted, eh?
Part 14: Terminus -- There were many things in this part that differed from the game, mainly caused by AVALANCHE not storming Midgar. I'd like to make it clear why they didn't parachute into the city: with Reeve taking Rufus out of Midgar, there wasn't anyone
to tell AVALANCHE that Hojo had taken over the Sister Ray and that they would have to save the day. So, I had Vincent have a one-on-one with Hojo, Heidegger showing up to beat up the scientist before Vincent dealt the final blow. It left me partly satisfied. ^_^
Epilogue: Buried -- I hated writing every sentence of the epilogue. I didn't want to end RaC, but it was inevitable. "All good things must come to an end." *sighs* The epilogue was a one-pager, written almost completely in journal form from Rufus' point-of-view. If you'll notice my subtle hints throughout the ending, you'll see that Rufus "buried" Cloud on August 19th (Cloud Strife's official birthday). Poppies, "his favorite flower," are one of the birth flowers of August. As for the epitaph . . . I wanted to end the story as sadly as possible. I think leaving with the two brothers' constant promise breaking is the most tragic way to leave RaC.
*sniffs* Just thinking about that. . . I think I'm gonna cry now. Waaaahhhhh!!
. . . And now, one last adieu to the famous (er, yeah) fanfic known as "Rufus and Cloud." *salutes* It was a long two years, but it's finally finished.
Back to Rufus and Cloud