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In the beginning, there was an idea. Like many ideas, the core is simple: a fanfic in which Melia secretly gives Shulk a present. Also like many ideas, it bears little resemblance to the final product overall. But this is not necessarily a bad thing.
The original premise for the fic that turned into RSS went something like this: The setting is the prototypical "living space where everyone in Smash Bros. hangs around while not doing fights". The fic opens with Melia thinking she's successfully snuck into Shulk's room. She puts a gift of unspecified nature on the desk and turns to leave. But then she notices the control panel on the wall next to the door, seeing that Shulk's left it open to the "guest list". Naturally, she sees herself and the rest of the party on there, and realises she never "snuck" in, because the list allowed her free access. The list only shows five people at a time, so she scrolls down to ensure the entire party is there, only to find it's way longer than expected: it not only also includes a bunch of NPCs, but a bunch of people known to be dead. She sees the rest of her family on the list, which removes all doubt that this gift was the right thing to do.
As the idea developed, the unspecified gift became a birthday gift. This made the Smash Bros. setting too roundabout, so it was moved back to be purely XC1-based. It was about at this point in the process that it turned into more of a shipping fic (which wasn't intended at the start).
Some time after completing the fic, I had the idea of an epilogue, and put it in. But since then, as my other fics have progressed, I came to conclude that it doesn't fit with everything else. So I'm calling it "decanonised". It's still up, so the content isn't lost, but it's no longer "correct" in terms of the larger series.
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| Chapter | Wordcount | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Operation | 3 892 |
| 2 | Celebration | 2 850 |
| 3 | Revelation | 6 224 |
| 4 | (decanonised) Epilogue | 2 734 |
| Full work (w/o ep.) | 12 966 | |
| Full work (w/ ep.) | 15 700 | |
Notes & Trivia
- This story probably has a good chunk of early-installment weirdness, but I generally only edit for corrections, not content.
Ch.01
- One of the few content changes made was to namedrop the Ponspectors. The fic was written before XC1DE and thus FC, so they were originally just generic map-making Nopon.
- The "invitational skills competition" mentioned is of course Smash Bros.
Ch.02
- The symbol on the Monado is "スマブラ", the Japanese for "Smash Bros." (literally "suma-bura"). It keeps the pattern of "the idle symbol is what the Monado can harm" and reinforces the idea that it's a completely different Monado than those used in XC1.
- The idea that Shulk doesn't know what a telegraph is, while the Defence Force uses radio, is intended to be a piece of worldbuilding. With the geography and geology of Bionis, the Homs tech tree is pushed towards wireless early.
- Riki's last line in section 2 has a couple of Smash Bros. in-jokes. "moves to show" is based on "show me your moves", and "easy money" is a piece of trash talk that was big at the time (Bizzarro Flame at Apex 2015).
- For the most part, I've tried to go back and remove the word "Entian", which is not the proper adjecive. But "Entian Ale" is a proper name, so I left it.
Ch.03
- The name of the Red Star (i.e. Mars) evokes the object of the same name from the Bionicle mythos. The Joyous Star is Jupiter, in case that wasn't also obvious.
- Shulk's birthday is August 19th, the day XC1 was released in English (in Europe).
- In hindsight, there should be no way that Melia doesn't notice Shulk with her ethersense the moment she approaches her house. There's the early-installment weirdness. I guess we have to chalk it up to distraction or something.