This is one I don’t usually think about, but it’s canon: a real possibility that LeBlanc and Nooj wound up together. (For a while.) The storyline about Baralai fighting feelings for Yuna is also incredibly sad. I also hit the one-shot where he was first dealing with those feelings at the end of the game.

The later parts of this with Nooj are complex, interesting, and unexpected, because I was expecting resolution. They don’t arrive at it easily, do they? I’m running into the same problem, despite one of many items on the cutting room floor which wound up in lip lock. They just… have all these pieces that go way beyond an easily-forgiven gunshot, once the cause is explained. Or maybe the truth is simpler: it’s easy in fantasy to imagine forgiveness once you know “it wasn’t his fault,” but deep down, it happened, you lived with the ghost-memory of a Nooj who shot you — and he with the memory of shooting — which were real experience, and can’t be tossed aside.

And they were complicated people even without that.

Sorry to be wandering away from the story, but you’ve got me thinking. At first I wasn’t quite satisfied by the the odd arc of this piece — it starts OUT with happily ever after, resolution, completion, but shifts to a quest where answers gained turn out to be not enough, and by the end, nothing seems fixed, and nothing seems gained. Quite the reverse of the usual direction for a fantasy story!

Of course I realize this is only a snippet, and I should be poking about “Guardians Legacy” to find more.

Anyway. What I was originally gonna say, only I felt like it was too shallow because it was latching onto “my” part of canon: I was utterly and completely enthralled by the simplicity of the Lulu/Paine conversation. I loved the way Lulu both is and is not stepping effortlessly into the role of confidante for Paine as she was for Yuna — different because Paine is a more focused, reserved, and guarded person, and because she has no emotional ties to this woman. Interesting to see how Lulu can still serve that role for someone who isn’t in any way a little sister, but only an independent soul with some overlapping traits. I like the way your portrait shows the similar notes and the big differences in the way they are.

Hmm. Nooj’s comment about how Paine was the watcher reminds me of Lulu too. Both of them watchers, with a lot more insight into people than they let on.

Feh. Come to the end of my trains of thought, but anyway: I loved that conversation, and could hear every line of it in their voices, which is what I love most in fanfic.

I greatly appreciate your assembling your work in such an easily accessible place and in such an easily read format. I am quite enjoying revisiting your oeuvre. ;)