It's a gaiden, focusing on the character Merkid, who was mentioned only in passing
I challenge you write a short story about Merkid for Dream Splash. I'm serious. Only do a chapter, one small chapter in the overall story you have in mind. A small slice that is content to it's own story, but could easily be fit into the larger mythology you've dreamed up.
If you sit down and write 1000 words, you could easily manage that in two hours or less.
You're right. I could probably do it. I also, however, have so many other, arguably worthier creative demands on such a tiny amount of available free time that, conscientiously, I have to decline. I am just on the cusp of being able to finally work again on my central projects; I can scarcely afford any diversions right now, no matter how much I might like to.
And sadly I've never been one of those types of prolific writers who can churn out a bunch of stuff, switch hats, and immediately churn out a bunch of different stuff. Some people can do it but I never could. My creative work is always a difficult birth.
... Fat Celes Final Fantasy VI fanfic ...
Now that's something I'd be interested in reading. That is so out there I'm intrigued. I must know more. Is it like a story about Celes being young and overweight (before she gets all fit and skinny as a magitek knight or whatever the hell she was)? Is it an alternate reality where events play out differently because she's large and in charge?
I must know these things.
Hah, yeah. I think I may have mentioned this in the Compendium way back when, but I'm very much an activist for fat acceptance and body positivity more generally. I'm also fond of fat partners and being fat myself (even though I have generally failed to actually get there over the years!). So it comes up a fair amount in my creative work, in a variety of themes.
The fanfic I have in mind is what I would bill as a definitive sequel to FFVI. So many fanfics--basically all of them--that tried to do a FFVI made the same mistake: They tried to outdo the antagonism of the original. They tried to make a bigger villain than Kefka. Or they tried to bring back magic and propose an even greater conflict surrounding it. And all of that stuff was doomed to fail. You're never gonna outdo the FFVI storyline in the FFVI universe, just like you're never gonna get a better Star Wars villain than Darth Vader. FFVI isn't something that needs to be topped or outdone.
Instead, what I think is the fertile ground for a sequel is to consider that the end of FFVI was unwarrantedly jubilant. People were so delighted when Kefka was defeated. The color palette turned green again. Hope was restored. It was as though the world had healed.
That's not even remotely realistic. When empires fall, and when something as consequential as magic fades from the world, and most definitely when the world is ravaged by a natural disaster, the recovery is extremely long, bloody, and grim. Kefka ruined everything. Cultures were uprooted, generations of people were wiped out...the social order than most of us depend upon for our very survival was utterly ravaged. Our heroes in FFVI liberated the world from a malevolent tyrant and force of chaos and destruction, but even that is child's play compared to rebuilding a broken world full of desperation, scarcity, poverty, incompatible opinions, and competing priorities.
So my idea for a FFVI sequel focused on the weight of oppression that came to settle on our heroes in the years following their victory. I figure the story would pick up roughly twelve or fifteen years after the conclusion of FFVI, and would center on Celes, the commander of the military of the largest remaining power in the world (Figaro)--a society with some semblance of normalcy compared to how things used to be, but nevertheless a land constantly wracked by internal upheavals, famine and sickness, and crime, and by external attacks, raids, pillaging, assassination plots, and even the occasional war. As a surviving general, instilled with great military knowledge--perhaps the most knowledgeable surviving military leader on the planet--she would have been virtually forced to take up the sword once again, if not personally then as a leader.
Celes' happy ending in FFVI was to find acceptance--to "be loved" as opposed to Terra's happy ending of being the one to
do the loving. People like that never truly achieve their sense of belonging. Their odyssey never ends. Even with Locke, and the support of Edgar and Sabin, Celes would have continued to be a lonely and withdrawn person, incapable of truly bonding with the world, because it's simply not in her nature the way it is for most of us.
I figure Celes would have gotten comfortable over the years, physically speaking, no longer having to fight to survive. But she would have remained aloof and seeking, and the stress of running a constantly besieged and under-funded military would have taken its toll, as stress eventually will do on anyone.
I've also intended this story to lack a comparable epic plot to FFVI itself, because, after all, the original can't be outdone. I want to focus much more on a handful of characters, and especially on Celes herself, who was always my favorite. I want to know and to tell her human story in this grim world she's found herself in.
This is where the "Fat" Celes angle comes in. It would be very clever if I were to say that the fat angle is a metaphor for the weight of oppression on her, and I'm sure one could argue for such a metaphor based on what I've already described. But that isn't actually where the idea comes from. Rather, my thinking is--as it often is for this stuff--that we don't permit fat characters to exist in our storytelling very often, unless they're old, villainous, intended to disgust, or intended to be comic relief. This is especially true of female characters. It's very rare to get a fat female protagonist. I want to increase the representation of a large demographic of our society--people who are legitimate and have a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness like all the rest of us, regardless of how many rolls of flab they carry.
Celes was always beautiful to me, and that wouldn't diminish (in fact it would only improve) if she were very heavy. Moreover, she's a natural candidate to be one of those people who fills out: a former athlete and military veteran whose physical labors and toils never ended. Many people like that end up getting heavy when they inevitably slow down later in life. We can also infer from her character design in FFVI that she appreciates luxury, refinement, and indulgence, which could be modified easily enough into a strong appetite. And of course, on top of all that the stress of living in this wrecked world, and running a constantly on-fire military in a country whose very survival remains tenuous, would certainly lend itself to some stress eating (and so in that respect we can say that the very clever metaphor is at least a little bit applicable). Hence, fat Celes.
I envision the story beginning with an assassination plot against the Figaroan royalty. Celes, who over the years has become overly comfortable and timid, and has always remained insecure, is so big and unfit that she can barely get around the palace, and the fear of the assassin being loose somewhere therein, and Celes being helpless to defend herself if she should be made a target, terrifies her, which in turn inspires her to stop living in fear and take back control of her life. And from there the story truly commences, to reveal the answer to the great question of what happened to her, Locke, Edgar, and some of the others after the end of FFVI.
