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Xenoblade Chronicles first released in 2010. In said game, Melia is 88. Therefore, in 2022, she would have her 100th birthday. Does this make sense? Not really, but I got inspired by it anyway.
This is probably the most non-linear I've ever written a story. Since none of the segments are really related to each other, they could be written in any order. This was a good thing, because the premise meant a hard deadline of 2022-02-22. (Feb 22 is what I'd established in previous fics as Melia's birthday.)
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| Chapter | Wordcount | |
|---|---|---|
| Full work | 20 089 | |
Notes & Trivia
- The background of the cover art is the list of years of Melia's life, starting with Entirnima 232 and ending with Melia 11.
- I really like the idea of how I communicated the thoughts of a character that doesn't know a language. I was originally worried that readers wouldn't understand what was going on, but decided that Melia doesn't either at the time, so it works.
- Melia then advances to speaking/thinking in fullwidth letters. The roots are there, but the appearance and timing is alien. Only later does she learn capital letters and proper punctuation.
- I tried to make Melia's description of ether very strange by blending senses and illogical words together.
- Because of the distinction between "Mother" and "mother", it was necessary to juggle sentences around so that "mother" never started one. Only much later, when the difference has stopped mattering, does it happen.
- The film of the 24th birthday is Atlantis.
- In hindsight, the Melia I write has always had some autistic undertones. By the time I got to this fic, I'd noticed, so I made it more blatant with some of the earlier birthdays, such as hating to touch certain textures and having a strong interest in words for its own sake.
- The mentioned bow arts are all from the Zelda series.
- Every named star of the Rhapsodist constellation is indeed either an artist (or author or composer) or an epic.
- Kallian is thinking of The Beatles' When I'm Sixty-Four.
- No horoscope in fiction has ever been incorrect. The change "greater than all the rest" is Entirmina dying, and the "important future event" is related to Shulk's birth.
- Melia wonders if the ages of 25, 50, and 75 were picked as age categories just for being cool numbers rather than good numbers. This is in fact exactly what I did, and that is exactly the point, that the ages are completely arbitrary.
- On the 83rd birthday, Melia considers going to an odds-and-ends shop. She doesn't, but if she had, that's where Möbius starts.
- The detail of Tyrea's age is based on unused affinity chart data in FC, which has her marked as being 119, 30 above Melia (presumed 89 in FC). But because it's unused, and many other such entries are clearly placeholders, I'm not taking it as gospel. So instead I'm keeping to my own age for Tyrea, and explaining the difference via intentional misdirection.
- Yes, the Homs are starting to invent Christmas. Don't worry I'll make sure it doesn't get too bad.
- This is technically the longest single chapter of any of my works.