109 Readingdangerously's random ramblings on Rapturous Rhapsody
So, what's this?
It's only the mad ramblings and self-reflections of a fanfiction author. I do this whenever I finish any sort of project, reflecting on my thought process, ideas, and what went wrong and right. I am always looking to improve, and self-reflection is important to that process.
Since I actually released this story, I decided to also release this. If you are uninterested in the semi-coherent ramblings of a two-bit author or a deeper dive into Rapturous Rhapsody, then feel free to skip.
If you do decide to read it, fair warning that this a word vomit soup, completely unedited and following my train of thought off a cliff. I had planned on releasing it on Monday, but I just kept writing and writing and writing. Here we are, Friday, and even now, I still feel like I have too many thoughts that just need to be written down.
First of all, I guess I should talk about the high-level 'concept' of the story. The goal I was trying to achieve, in as much as it could be considered to have 'one goal.' Realistically, this is only the 'story' goal, not the a bunch of other, more IRL goals.
I wanted Rapturous Rhapsody to be a Soulsborne fanfiction with a superhero storyline.
Basically, I wanted the story to be structured like a comic book, with comic tropes, characters, and the like, but the core story to be inherently Soulsborne-based.
I wanted a Dark Souls-Bloodborne-Elden Ring story, using their themes and characters, without retreading those games themselves. Time and time again, I tried to convey certain themes, tones, ideals and moods that tied to those games.
As for the superhero aspect, part of it was to give a Waifu Catalogue-based story a sense of challenge, but also because I appreciated the dichotomy.
Superhero worlds, even at their most grim and realistic, are based on 'exceptionalism.' Either through character, power, or circumstances.
Soulsborne worlds, on the other hand, are very clear that PC is in no way exceptional. They are nameless, faceless, replaceable dregs. The complete opposite of exceptionalism.
I think the Waifu Catalogue embodies that idea perfectly. Some schmuck, due to multiversal bureaucracy, is given power and set loose to fulfill their every wish, all under the corporate backdrop of mundane, banal, interdimensional slavery.
That is the high-level concept of Rapturous Rhapsody: A Dark Souls story in a superhero world.
Now, where to start?
I guess at the beginning.
First off, as mentioned a few times in the story, Rapturous Rhapsody is based on a one-shot I wrote and never released. The Waifu Catalogue was relatively new back then, and I remember reading a few stories based on it.
Most of them were porn, but a few had some novel concepts, so I decided to poke around with the Catalogue for the hell of it.
I sometimes do that when I find interesting prompts or challenges as little brain teasers. I ended up fiddling with it a few times here and there for a week or two before seeing something that really pulled my interest.
For those that don't know, or it's been a while since you read the early chapters, every World is assigned a Tier, which determines the number of points you get at the beginning. From there, you can use points to purchase people or abilities.
Obviously, it's not perfectly balanced, even now, but back then there were a bunch of different rules and ways to game the system. The modern-day Catalogue is almost completly different than what it was then.
Right away, I found something that was wholly broken: Soulsborne World was considered Tier 9, the second highest, giving it a huge amount of points to start. While that might makes sense in a broad scope of lore, we are talking gods, dragons, and the ruin of civilizations, it also fails to understand the central conceit of Miyazaki's works.
Souls games are designed to be beaten.
The entire premise of pretty much every one of them, from demon souls to dark souls, to bloodborne, to Elden Ring, is that some random, no-name scrub with no ability, through sheer perseverance, can overcome everything in their way.
Souls games have a reputation for being difficult, rightly so, but they were all designed in such a way that anybody can beat them if they put forth the effort. The most challenging is bloodborne, only because it demands faster reflexes, but even that can be mitigated by gaining knowledge of your oppenet.
So, if naked Joe Schmoe with a toothpick can beat Gwyn, Lord of Light, because of skill, what do you do when you throw in someone overpowered, like, say, a Tier 10 Dragon or any number of OP waifus.
A simple prompt, see how much I can min-max this oversight, ended up being a 10K one shot that I wrote while bored one day.
Cut to a few months later, its june of 2022, Elden Ring is out, and I decide its time to try my hand at publishing a story of my own. Before I do anything original, I want to practice and get feedback. Fanfiction is the way to go.
But what to write?
I have, at time of writing this reflection, 11 story ideas bouncy around in my head. Some are fanfiction, others are original works. Some I've written parts of, others are just ideas or concepts.
Long-term readers will know that I will never release anything until I know how it ends. Part of it is my frustration with serialized releases not ending, not just fanfiction but other serialized products, like TV shows, book series, or manga. Another part is I find it easier to write if I know what I am writing toward. If I have a beginning and an ending, then I know I can fill in the middle.
So, looking to grow and challenge myself as a writer, I thought about what would be an interesting story and concept, while also being a challenge.
Then, I had the idea of taking that old short story and trying to create a compelling narrative around that.
It would be challenging.
It would be entertaining. (Or at least I hoped so.)
It would give me plenty of characters to practice with.
I decided to do it.
The first step was to recreate the catalogue descriptions as best as I could since I had lost the computer with that story and the first version I had filled out.
Once I had that as a starting point, I needed to decide what World to put my story in.
I am against world-hopping in stories in general, except in special cases, because at any point, there is no reason for the characters not to just leave their World, grow stronger in another, and come back with the power to solve all problems with out-of-context powers. I knew I wanted to keep the main story in one singular World. That World had to be challenging enough to pose a risk to even Tier 10 beings.
Enter the DC-Marvel-Worm hybrid.
Comic worlds are inherently obsurd, filled with all sorts of powers, characters, and story lines for me to play with. On top of that, three of the initial 10 'waifus' I chose came from comic worlds. That would give me something to play off of and act as a tether of sorts to keep the characters in one World.
With a world established and a starting point, it was time to choose how I would end the story.
The antagonist was easy. Darkseid is such a perfect villain for someone whose elements were 'life and freedom' that I felt it too perfect not to use him. I'll go over him more soon. But an antagonist is not an ending.
I thought about it for weeks, tossing around ideas, from some great showdown fight to an elaborate scheme to some great unity, a coming together of disparate peoples to beat him back. Some of those ideas did make it into the ending in small ways, but I eventually decided to go another way.
I had decided to play with comic book tropes since it would be in a comic world. Not necessarily comics as stories, though there were some, but comic books as a medium.
And one of my favorite aspects of comics is the 'origin story.' Not necessarily as a 'backstory' but more like 'pivotal events that shape this character forevermore.'
The best stories in comic, in my opinion, are those that take the core conciet of a character and challenge it. Their endings tend to be when the character, after being confronted with this challenge, must decide whether to stick with who they have been, or adapt to who they need to be.
There is no right answer. I've seen great stories where the character made either choice.
But I decided I wanted Mikael to face that same challenge. Over and over again.
And the ending needed to reflect that inner challenge rather than the outer one.
So, I set my ending as 'Mikael doubles down on his convictions, not giving up who he is even after everything it has cost. Only then can he overcome the challenge, even knowing it might cost more in the future.'
World, beginning, and ending in place, I set out to create a story.
Step 1: Break the Catalogue
The Waifu Catalogue is, inherently, a tool for wish fufillment fantasies. I wanted some aspects of that in my story, sure, but I also needed things to not always go the way my characters wanted. Little things like cameras not being covered with Information Defence.
For a while, I just read through the Catalogue and came up with countermeasures. Some were easy, like opening a portal and making it invisible to get around information defence. Others were a bit more challenging.
Mind, Addiction, and Stress Defence would completely no sell any challenge the soulsborn worlds would pose to Mikael, so I eventually settled on the concept of using the Defences as a 'Reward' for clearing those worlds. That was the Doyalist reason, at least.
The Watsonian reason is that Death, because she wouldn't be able to control Mikael, would have to incentivize him to doing what she wanted instead of running around the multiverse and getting killed.
Death was also a major part of breaking the Catalogue.
I knew early on that I'd use the patron system, though it was DLC at the time rather than a part of the core catalogue. I also knew that Death would be the one I'd choose. Not only because it would give the 'waifus' a bit more depth, coming from bad-end worlds, but also because the concept of Death being the patron of a dragon of life had some symmetry I'd want to play with.
Death as a character was... difficult. I tried to get into the mindset of a being that is an omniversal concept yet is still inferior to The Company. I wanted them to be this figure in the background, not really a character but an incentivizing force that acts in a way that regular people can't understand.
Death never lied in this entire story.
Not once.
More than that, she straight up told Mikael who and what she was their first meeting. I wanted her character to be something that only really makes sense, if at all when looking back from The End.
Anyway, got sidetracked a bit.
Step 2: The Origin Story
Those who read my first few author notes remember that I had initially considered Volume 1 a prologue of sorts. 'The prologue that never ended.' It wound up being 150K words instead of the 25~50K I expected.
I made a few choices with it that I feel are important to reflect on.
Firstly, to not have anything from Mikael's perspective in the Dark Souls worlds.
One, because I didn't want to rehash stories or plots that others might already know; two, because I wanted to practice writing a variety of characters; and three, because I wanted to see if I could convey Mikael's character through an outside perspective.
Man, I got a lot of hate for that.
So much of the response for those first three parts was hating on Mikael for being all depressed or the girls for their general lack of 'doing' anything. I'm not going to lie. It sucked.
Still, looking back, I stand by it. Not only because I do think it gave me a better grasp of the 'waifus' and practice writing their characters, but also because I still think too much of fanfiction, especially self-insert fanfiction, is simply a repeat of canon events.
Still, I took those complaints into mind as the story moved on to Elden Ring.
I think, for many people, the Elden Ring arc is still their favourite to this day.
I can see why, and I hope you can forgive me if I spend longer on it than other parts.
It is largely free of the complicated world-building that came after; it was a world almost everyone had played due to the game's popularity, its few fights were 'small scale' instead of the crazy power battles of superheroes, and it was a defining time for Mikael.
Not only did it introduce two fan favourites in Ranni and Melina, but it also represented a time when Mikael's core values were starting to come into focus.
I decided to write the Elden Ring chapters, largely from Mikeal's perspective, for a couple of reasons.
First, the game was still fresh in my mind. Second, its characters would hang around longer and play a role in Mikael's continued development. And third, there actually was a story to tell there. Up until that point, Mikael had largely been travelling alone. It would have been boring to go 'fight another hollow/boss/monster, die, repeat, win.'
The first chapter of Desolation was a positioning device. Both so we could get a closer look at the World, but also to understand who Mikael was when not around the 'waifus.'
The second chapter onward was when Mikael's 'story' really started to grow. Not only does he begin with his first-ever attempt to leave the prison world, one of his first acts of agency, but he also starts to have an inkling that something is wrong with himself. Somewhere along the way, through all the battle and pain, 'Freedom' has become the goal, rather a step toward his goal.
Mikael's begun to Rot.
In Mikael's haste to be free, to protect his 'self,' he's begun to warp and change. It's understandable, nobody can go through what he did and not change. But he hasn't realized it at this point.
Chapters three and four of Desolation were from Ranni's perspective.
Once again, there were a few reasons for that. First of all, she's such an interesting character. Even ignoring the miss-translation of her ending sequence, she's a juxtaposition of a character.
For one, she clearly loves Iji and Blaidd, as well as her mother. She risked her life, after hiding and pretending to be dead for centuries, to protect Ranalla. Not all of them, though. She's clearly willing to work with distasteful beings like Selvus and never mentions Adula at all.
She's also one of, if not THE, key figures that led to the War of the Shattering. It's a toss up between Marika and Ranni who bore the most responsibility, though one can't argue the time before was any better. The Golden Order just had a nicer veneer, but all the problems were still there.
Anyway, I digressed again.
Ranni's chapters.
I wanted to portray how batshit insane the actions of PC are in Elden Ring from a local's perspective. Nobody had ever done what the PC does and defeated these infamous demigods. The closest is Vyke, and he never touched the more powerful ones like Radhan or Malenia. I also wanted to parallel Ranni's journey with Mikael's. Those two chapters became an almost microcosm of Mikael's time in prison.
Then comes one of my most controversial decisions (at the time, at least): Melina's sacrifice.
First of all, Mikael's journey in Elden Ring almost perfectly mirrors my own experience, and the way to 'save' Melina is so out of the way and specific that I realistically can't expect him to have discovered it. More than that, Mikael has an entirely different context from the one we do. He was looking at the World from the Dark Souls perspective, where the PC is a bearer of flame that ends up burning.
Secondly, from a narrative point of view, Melina's sacrifice is the catalyst that fully confronts Mikael with the truth: In trying to save 'himself,' he's lost 'himself' along the way.
Unlike later, when Emma dies, he sees no hope of getting Melina back. Melina, who he loves and is sure the feelings are entirely his own.
It is Mikael's nadir, his lowest moment. Melina is Mikael's Uncle Ben, his Thomas and Martha Wayne. Only, it is a willing sacrifice, one that was not needed but came about because of Mikael's fundamental issues.
Before Elden Ring, Mikael would have been a loner. After losing Melina, he would have been a villain.
Which leads to the chapters after her death. Here I wanted to futher hint at Mikael's true character.
He's not a hero. He's at his lowest point and taking that anger out on the World through violence.
He's not a monster. He channels that violence to further his goals rather than devastating easy targets. A monster would have returned to places they've been and torn a bloody path through those they knew they could beat.
Melina's death is the moment where Mikael reaffirms his humanity.
Until now, he's been moving forward toward Freedom, but her loss forces him to confront what that Freedom has cost.
And he can't handle that. He's only human.
So, he rages against the World.
Then, Millicent.
Millicent's views are almost completely opposite to Mikael's. Where he does everything to cling to life, to his 'self,' she would rather die on her terms. Where he'd rather use tricky and 'dishonourable' tactics if it meant victory, she'd rather fight by herself against overwhelming odds rather than dishonour herself in the way Malania did.
Millicent's entire life was one of suffering, unlike Mikael, who has very clear memories of a time without it, yet she is the nobler one of the pair.
Her promise forces Mikael to stop. To throw himself against a Wall if he wants to continue on his journey.
Not Malania. The Wall is never another person, place or situation.
We are our Walls.
Mikael cannot move on until he breaks his Wall.
Dying was never his Wall because he could not die for good.
Surrendering is not his Wall because he cannot remain still.
Malania is not his Wall; he could have defeated her with tricks aplenty if he had wanted.
No, Mikael's Wall, just like all Walls, is internal.
It's only when we choose to give up, only when we choose to lay down our swords, only when we stop trying that our Walls win.
Mikael's Wall breaks.
He's able to accept what he's become—not just know it, but accept it. He accepts the fault, the blame. The choices he's made have led to this, and he has to live with it.
And finally, step forward in the right direction.
Mikael, at this point, is a half-finished product. A new weapon that needs to be sharpened. An amour that needs to withstand blows to prove itself.
He's formed his core personality. Now, to be complete, he needs to refine it. To prove it is what and who he wants to be.
Everything after this can be seen through the lens of challenging that conviction that forms in the final battle with Malania.
Letting Ranni into his heart is a challenging but manageable step.
Bloodborne is the first true test.
Emma Frost. The woman he Mastered. The woman he trusted. The woman who betrayed him. The woman he loves but is convinced the feelings are fake.
Mikael has to let Emma into his mind, the one place he considers his true 'self' more than any other.
A lot of people have asked why Bloodborne affected Mikael so much.
The simple truth is that Bloodborne tested every aspect of Mikael.
It is such a short time, both for him and for us. Only one chapter. But so much is condensed into that time that it resonates with him for the rest of his existence.
The first reason is that everyone he kills actually stays dead.
These are not the wandering people of the Land's Between, cursed to never experience Destined Death. Nor is it the undead of Dark Souls.
These are regular people who've turned into monsters because of beings far more powerful than them, because of being deceived by institutions that promise salvation and provide damnation.
In every being that he killed, Mikael sees what he is and what he has become.
And he cannot help them.
The only thing he can do is offer them a swift death. The mercy he has been denied.
Secondly, Bloodborne reinforced his helplessness in controlling his own mind. Even when he tried to loose himself to the bloodlust and go beast, he cannot. He can't die and can't lose his sanity to forget the fear and pain.
Thirdly, Bloodborne is the crystalization of all the choices Mikael has made until this point. A reaffirmation of his humanity once more.
A hero might have simply waited for Emma to be summoned, unwilling to kill the people of this World. They might have simply run through the city, killing the Old Ones but leaving the beasts alone.
A monster would have killed without distinction. Innocent or guilty, infected or not.
Mikael enjoyed the violence, make no mistake, but it was always violence with purpose. And that led him to his decision to 'save' the World of Yharnam. In every World until then, he had tried to provide a happy ending to those he could. He wasn't always successful, but he tried.
In Bloodborne, he tried to save a world.
Even amongst his fear of the inevitable confrontation with Emma, his helplessness at his own mental state, and his rage at his being confined, Mikael still tried to do 'something' to help people.
Mikael cannot stand still. His ego, his arrogance, his wanderlust, his ambition, his desire for improvement. All of it. A million reasons and more. Mikael, as a character, always needs to be doing something.
Because if he does nothing then what purpose is there in being alive?
But 'something' is not always good, or right, or successful.
And those feelings haunt him. They always will. Because he wants them to.
Because Bloodborne is when Mikael is 'himself' for the first time since the cell. It is the crystalization of the man he has become throughout his journey. Flawed, with holes to fill and healing to do, but whole as a character.
Mikael is, at this point in time, complete. He's passed the first tempering of his convictions.
And the story begins here.
Step 3: Create a Comic Book story.
There are certain tropes in comics I wanted to play with, and Volume 2 is the peak of that, in my opinion.
First and most obvious is the notion of 'Heroes Vs. Heroes.' It's almost law that any new character on the scene must battle established characters in order to determine relationship and power dynamics. Whose stronger, who has the moral advantage, etc.
The epilogue to Volume 1 is pretty much that.
Volume 2 is establishing a status quo. You know? The baseline of day-to-day that the Rogue gallery interrupts. I deliberately set up Volume 2 to be a 'Monster of the Week' sort of framework. While there were hints at a grander narrative, each section is an almost entirely self-contained story.
The first part, Emancipation, is the story of Mikael and his Family settling in. Not just on Earth but with each other. They are learning of their new dynamic and their new World. They are dipping their toes in the outside World, but almost wholly focused on their own plans.
The outside World, however, is still reeling.
Emancipation is the time when Mikael's position as an Out of Context problem is in full effect. He came to this World with certain preconceived notions and plans, and right away, both he and the people of Earth find their plans axed. They have to reach equilibrium.
Throughout all of this is the narrative backdrop of Superman and Batman and the impending death of the former.
This was my first time playing around with the theme of 'What is a hero?' It would remain one of the largest themes throughout the story, but this is the first time I present a definitive 'This is a hero!' type character.
Superman is unambiguously a hero, at least in this story. That doesn't mean he is without depth, but there is no doubt that he does what he believes is the 'right thing.'
And Mikael? He very much does not.
Between them is Diana. She is torn between a world familiar and foreign to her, friends she thought lost and the Family she has gained.
All three parties, Diana, Mikeal, and Superman, know that the latter is almost certainly going to die to Doomsday.
Superman, the hero, decides to face that death head-on to save others.
Mikael, the cowardly human, bides his time, willing to let others fight and die rather than risk his own Family until he is sure they can win.
Diana is the propelling force that changes things. She straddles the line between utilitarian like Mikael and heroic like Superman.
Diana makes a decision, a rash one, but the right one.
She fights.
I think, in any waifu catalogue story that wants to be more than porn or blank wish fulfillment, there needs to be a point where the 'Waifus' stand up to the MC.
It doesn't necessarily matter who is right in that argument. What matters is that these characters, even if they are in love, are still their own people. They have their own lines they won't cross and their own battles they'll fight, with or without the MC.
Emancipation is all sides learning of the new status quo while Furlough is all sides learning how to play nice with each other.
Mikael and his wives are learning to compromise while he learns to work with the people of this World. This also begins what I think of as the beginning of connections. Mikael, slowly and hesitantly, starts to reach out beyond his immediate Family.
And that leads to some great interactions with this World. Whether it's his interview, his time with the Titans, or his connection with Batman. All of these moments are important, not just for the end of the book, but also to tether Mikael to a 'real world,' one not made up solely of people he loves.
And then the climax of the arc.
I will say, of all the 'battles' of Rapturous Rhapsody, Mikael's mental battle of plans with Trigon was my favourite to write. It also represents the moment when the 'heroes' of the Family put their trust in Mikael's way of doing things while he starts to act overtly heroic. (Don't let him hear you say that.)
As I said, Volume 2 Part 2 is when the characters compromise.
Part 3, Probation, is about 'day-to-day life.'
One of the more controversial Arcs, the suicide squad, arose from two questions I posed myself.
How do I show the day-to-day life of not just the Family but also the people of this World?
And:
What is this World doing to try to stop/hinder/understand Mikael and his Family?
I've already explained much of my thought process for those chapters in those chapters themselves, so you can go read it there, but I will say this marks the first time Darkseid succeeds in a plan against Mikael.
In case anyone was wondering, he managed to get the animals off the Island because he is looking through the eyes of the Suicide Squad, thus can use a Boom Tube to create a portal from the outside in to their position. The Squad themselves cannot escape because of Mikael's preparations, but the animals of his Island are not marked.
They wouldn't be able to pass the Jewel themselves, even with help from the outside, but the Boom Tube passes that hurdle. It took a few tries before Darkseid succeeded, and many of the 'invaders' were secretly controlled by him, but I chose to show only the successful mission.
Part 3 also introduced the Parliaments of Earth.
I had known from the get-go that I wanted to use them in some way for Mikael's growth. They, like the Phoenix Force, represent 'Life' in their own universes, and I wanted that to be a factor in who and what Mikael would eventually become.
To be honest, until the very end, I was vacillating on whether Mikael would merge with the Phoenix, the Parliaments or both. While I knew I eventually wanted him to be 'free' of them, I struggled to figure out the mechanics of how it would happen.
It was actually as I was writing the 'talk' with The Green in the last arc that I recognized the potential of what I had already established.
Avatars of the Parliaments are influenced by their element but also influence the elements in turn. Mikael will never accept the former, but he would accept the latter.
The Parliaments themselves wouldn't care, as they just want to continue. They have no sense of 'self' to worry about. Hell, they wouldn't have cared if Darkseid took over Earth if he let them continue to grow and thrive. Why would they care who ruled and who didn't?
So, yes, for all its controversial parts, I still consider Volume 2 part 3 to be one of the most important parts of the story as a whole. It sets up characters, plots, and threads that shape the rest of the narrative.
Also, I love writing Medea the Cat(?).
This leads to Volume 2, Part 4, Tribunal.
Let's see, I've already gone over the in-story reasons for the character's actions, so I'll skip it here.
Instead, let me go into the reasons for my choices from an author's perspective.
First off, I wanted to finish Volume 2 with a very clear message: 'Someone is doing this!'
It was almost a James Moriarty-esque situation. There are individual crimes with individual bad guys, but it all feeds back into a grander plan that the characters do not understand.
Secondly, I wanted to give as many of the 'waifu's' as possible a moment to shine. While Rapturous Rhapsody is, at its core, Mikael's journey, I wanted to give everyone a highlight moment.
Mikael's views mirror mine. (Obviously, he's partly based on me.) I hate damsels in distress and I wanted to make sure every one of these women had a moment to prove they were not that. They are each capable of self-sufficiency and are certified badasses in their own way.
I especially loved being able to get creative with their powers. Either their Elements, Semblances, or something that made a reader sit up and go, 'wow, they are all broken.'
Robin's, in particular, I am proudest of.
Taking her concept of 'flowers' to the extreme, she is the sole member of the Family that Darkseid would never have been able to kill.
Out of the entire Family, before Mikael's ascension, Nico Robin was the only one who was truly immortal.
Part 4 is the first time since landing on Earth that Mikael really feels challenged. Not a challenge from the gods but a challenge to his way of life.
Sure, he's achieved a happily ever after, but now he realizes that he has to fight for it. Not just 'comic book fight' but 'people are targeting me fight.'
He will always have to fight for it.
There will never be a time when he is not challenged, at least in his mind.
And he is reminded of the other option he knows he has.
At any point, he can choose to Free himself of 'himself.'
But he chooses not to, even if he is starting to get tired.
Compared to Bloodborne, or what comes later, it is only a small challenge to who he is and how he's chosen to live, but it is the first one in a while.
Which leads to Volume 3.
Part 1, Consequences, is the payoff for a lot of small storylines. Not just the hints of the Phoenix and Melina stepping into her own, but also the lesser acknowledged parts of comics, like the effect these cataclysmic battles have on day-to-day life.
I love taking these grand stories, these world-shaking plots, and zooming in.
We go from looking at the forest to looking at one particular blade of grass. It's a grounding, a sense of realism that is so often lacking in comics.
Worm is, unironically, great for that (at least early on).
I wanted to show with this part that, even after the battle is won and all lives that can be saved have been saved, the World still goes on.
Victory is not the end.
Next is part 2, Obsession
This is, in my opinion, when Darkseid and Mikael's plans are at their most directly confrontational. They are concocting plans, countering the other's plans, and playing off each other.
Mikael has better aides and meta knowledge, but Darkseid is more powerful and has the home-field advantage.
Mikael's one mistake, at least at this point, is underestimating the effect of Heartbreak. In his mind, the Phoenix Force is more important, whereas Darkseid is more conscious of Mikael because (at this point in time) he believes he is responsible for Heartbreak.
The X-men part of the story, with Madelyne Pryor and Baby-Cable was kind of a natural continuation of Sinister's experiments. I like to have characters inform plots whenever I can. Sinister has gained the Old Blood, but he is not a different person. He still wants to achieve his goal, so why not try and 'repurpose' a failed experiment.
And Darkseid would, of course, want to test Mikael's powers since he can't directly control him.
Only, he didn't expect Mikael to not actually fight more than a spar. Nor did he expect Mikael's meta knowledge to extend to being able to accurately lock on to Sinister as the true culprit right away.
So, Darkseid uses the opportunity to learn about the Old Blood while Mikael uses it to discover the extent of the infection. Poor little Sinister is caught in the middle. (please note the sarcasm.)
All while Darkseid's true target, one of the leaders of the largest galactic empires, is called to Earth to 'deal with the Phoenix Force.'
Gladiator is the bait on a hook, not only for every other space-faring race in the universe but also for his fellow New Gods, whom Darkseid knows raided a Shi'ar World recently looking for traces of him.
Part 3, Dream, is the calm before the storm.
It is the unravelling of Mikael's dream, the illusion he has propped up. Despite all his new power and all the help he can now call upon, he is still just as helpless as he always was.
He can't stop the Old Blood for good. He is still forced to be a hunter, and slowly but surely, he is becoming more isolated. He still has his Family, but those connections he's tried to build have been cut one after another.
And it is unequivocally his fault. Without him, there'd be no Old Blood.
It is a grim reminder of his origins that, for all his power, Mikael is the same person who first appeared in Bloodborne.
He is so tired.
But there is light at the end of the tunnel. They discover the enemy's identity. Darkseid.
And a new Dream is born.
Defeat the big bad, the rival, and overcome the new Wall. Maybe even find an acceptable way to reach Tier 11 in the process.
After that, they can rebuild, and he can free those who are controlled and return to his happily ever after.
Which leads to the finale.
Volume 3, while separated into parts, is my attempt at a comic 'event' type story as a whole rather than the serialized monster of the week format of volume 2.
Throughout the entire volume, from start to end, Darkseid looms over the story from the background. He's a malevolent force, a shadow the characters chase but remains out of their reach. And they are not the only ones. Some, like Valeria, help the main cast, while others, like Odin and the Parliaments, oppose Darkseid but aren't necessarily on the same side.
Quite a few people have pointed out that I 'introduced' Darkseid late and didn't give him much screen time and that hurt his impact as a villain.
There is some truth to that.
I have been aware of him from the get-go, so I actually feel his actions and plans were drawn out, but to readers, it seems like he showed up only at the end to be 'the big bad,' and then the story stopped.
On the other hand, I never wanted Darkseid to be complex in anything but his plans. I wanted a simple villain to contrast with Mikael. That pureness, I think, is the key to Darkseid. He doesn't have a sympathetic backstory or complex motivation.
Darkseid wants to dominate, kill, and rule. That's it.
In short, Darkseid is a dick.
Evil because he is true to himself and nothing more.
I did want to show an aspect that is usually overlooked in comics, though. How smart he is.
Darkseid has plans within plans and, with the home field advantage, he should realistically never lose except for when the author needs him to.
So he didn't.
His plan went perfectly.
And Mikael lost.
I won't lie. A huge part of Volume 3's ending was structured in the way it was because of the feedback I received from the ending of Volume 2. Not the ending itself, I had always planed it that way, but the way I portrayed it.
Instead of going very granular, with individual battles and victories and defeats like I had in Volume 2, I decided to brush over all but the most essential conflicts for the story's sake.
And, in doing so, I feel I overdid it. In my efforts to keep things from dragging on, I feel like I missed a chance to give a few important moments the impact they deserved.
A few come to mind, such as Valeria turning against Melina or Glynda's fight with Strange and her students.
I also brushed over the days Mikael was healing, waiting for Emma's return. Looking back, I think that would have been the perfect time to really dig in to the daily horror of living in a bad-end world. If I had done so, I feel that the scene where the people of the World choose to fight would have had more impact.
Still, we reached the end.
As for the ending itself, I wanted to do a few things.
First, I always knew Mikael's 'Breath' would be the Fires of the First Flame.
For those not caught up on their Dark Souls Lore, the Fires are not just a representation of 'Life' and civilization but of disparity. Of choice. Between Light and Dark, Life and Death.
Before the First Flame, nothing changed. Nothing grew or died. It was only when the Age of Fire began that people could be free to individuate.
That representation, on top of his history with it, meant I could think of no better fire to qualify as 'Mikael.'
Medea has been playing with the idea of a similar system to Bonefires since Volume 1. It is the perfect way to counter the Company's use of the Warranty Plan, and it does not contain a curse of undead that came about because there is no true age of fire. It's just a powerful spell.
From the get-go, I knew I wanted to turn a 'Bad-End' into a 'Good-end.'
In comics, there are often worlds that end, where the heroes die or fail, and those worlds serve as origin stories for characters joining the main timeline.
Think 'Days of Future Past' or 'Dark Knight Metal.'
Those have always fascinated me because of their inherent dichotomy in their natures. They are proof that heroes don't always win. Only those of the 'mainline' comics will eventually return to the status quo.
So, I wanted to play with that concept a bit. How do you turn a Bad End into a good one?
First is recognizing how much it would suck to live day-to-day life in a comic world with no power. So, do you remove powers? No, then all you are doing is levelling the playing field. That's not a good end; it's just our World.
So what do you do?
You give everyone the choice of what end do they want. Are they content to rest, or do they fight on, even if life is difficult?
That, I think, is the only good ending we can ever get. One we choose for ourselves.
Throughout the entirety of Rhapturous Rhapsody, I've tried to covey the dictionary of death (the end of life, not the character.) It is something to be feared, to run from.
Mikael's entire goal can be viewed as a struggle against death. Death of the mind from mind control or death of the 'self' through external alteration.
But death itself is just an ending. Not good. Not bad. It just is. It can be an end of hope, ambition, and dreams. But it is also the end of pain, despair, and suffering.
Mikael's entire life since the cell has been walking that line.
This brings me to the second thing I wanted to do with the ending: Mikael's conclusion.
Not in power, but in character.
Melina's death was his lowest point. Period.
When Emma dies, he has some hope of getting her back, whether through Warranty Plan or other tricks throughout the multiverse.
But Emma's loss forces Mikael to make the choice one final time.
It is his last test, the final tempering of the blade, the crucible he must pass through to be not just 'complete' but 'whole.'
So, once more, he must make the choice.
Does he give up his 'self' to gain the power to ensure he never feels this pain again? Why live if only to suffer? Because even if he truly lives forever, there will come a time when those he loves will leave him.
He will never be free of loss, of pain, of sorrow unless he 'Frees' himself.
Even after becoming 'Existence,' that remains true. Some day, his wives or someone else he loves will desire the peace of death. And he will let them go. He will give them that choice. Even if it hurts.
Giving in would be easy.
He's tired, worn down by everything. Everyone else in this World has given in to the bitter truth. Life doesn't have a purpose. Why can't he rest? Why must he always get back up?
But, once more, Mikael chooses to face his Wall.
He refuses to rest, refuses to give in to the inevitable fear, the sorrow, and the pain. Because if he does, he loses everything that comes with it.
The love, beauty, joy, and laughter.
He chooses to live.
And always will.
And that gives him the petty, pathetic, and all too human vindictive streak to fuck Darkseid over one last time.
Which is how he wins.
Mikael's story is finished before he ever becomes 'Existence' or defeats Darkseid.
That is why everything after that is the 'epilogue.'
The final thing I wanted from the ending was to completely negate the idea of a 'reset to normal.'
One thing I absolutely hate in comics is the bullshit surrounding continuity and retconning. I don't really have a problem with a multiverse or characters coming back to life, but the idea that 'this event never happened' pisses me off.
No. It happened.
The characters who died there are dead. Just because someone who looks like them is here doesn't mean that they are the same character.
We are made of our memories and our experiences. When a writer decides, 'Hmm, I don't like this story. It never happened.' it is, to me at least, them creating wholly new characters.
Which is fine.
I love alternate takes on familiar characters and stories. I read fanfiction, after all.
But don't try and pass that bullshit as 'what really happened.'
Mikael, at the end of RR, could have reset the World. He could have forcefully brought back everyone who died, rebuilt everything destroyed, and erased all memories of the event. Or he could have just gone back in time.
But he doesn't. Because doing so is no different than killing the people who experienced the event and replacing them with 'acceptable' versions.
Everyone has to live and die with the choices they make. That has been a consistent theme throughout this entire story. Whether it is the right choice, an easy choice, or an impossible choice, they need to live with it.
Now that I've followed RR from start to finish, I want to look back on a few topics that weren't covered.
First: Characters.
I won't go over all of them (I'd never finish), but a few really stand out.
Diana: I wanted her to be an opposite of Mikael in a lot of ways, a sort of representation of the women in his life and their difference from him. She is a capital H heroine. The quintessential hero, whereas Mikael is a civilian who gained power.
Diana is the last to fall in love. She shares the same element but almost wholly different view on it. It is her order that condemns him to burn for thousands of years, yet also ensures the Family will actually survive. Diana is the one who alerts him of Emma's plan.
Yet, for all that, I wanted to show her that feelings don't really care about that kind of impediment. It's not that 'opposites attract' but that even when we argue with a loved one, when we fight when we want to hit them, we still love them. We still see their admirable traits, those parts of them that draw us to them in the first place.
Mikael loves heroes. He loves that his wives can stand up to him. He loves that every single one of them is with him because they choose to be. He loves Diana.
Diana loves humanity. She loves the potential of them. She loves the ideals they can embody, the rising above lesser urges. She loves Mikael's convictions. She loves that, after everything he has been through, he has not let it turn him into a villain. She knows people like that. She knows how easy it would to give in to pain and vengence. Diana never wanted Mikael to be a hero.
Diana loves that Mikael has remained 'Mikael.'
Emma: Oh boy, where to start with this one.
First off, she is one of those parts that are a holdover from the short story, but she is one of the best ones. I think, if I had decided to change the decisions on the Waifu Catalogue choices, she would have been removed and the story would have been lesser for it.
While there is another 'villain' among those initial 10, Medea is a character that can work really well with Mikael. Emma Frost, on the other hand, is the only one of the initial 10 who would actively work against him, if only for her self-interest.
So, I was at a crossroads with her character. Do I use a very 'heroic' version of her (even her 'good' portrayals are very self-serving), or do I take it as a challenge?
I ended up doing a bit of both. I asked myself, 'If she really were to work with Mikael, would that be better for them both?'
Emma, in this book, is the single most die-hard Mikael simp to ever exist. Yet that does not change who she is. She still causes 'problems' because she is still Emma Frost (Don't let her hear you say that.) She thinks like Emma Frost. She acts like Emma Frost.
All that has changed is that Mikael is her #1 priority, instead of everything else. And even then, that stems from a selfish root, of feeling his Mad Love for her and the power he held.
If Diana is 'Opposition', then Emma was designed to be a 'tragic support.' Someone who works with Mikael, but both of their characters will forever keep them from seeing perfectly eye to eye.
Which is a good thing.
Yes-men, or Yes-women as the case may be, are very boring. Both to write and in a relationship. Emma and Mikael might never see eye to eye, but that is the beauty of it. Even if they disagree on most things, both of them will support the other in every way they can. A different kind of love and relationship than any of the other wives.
... Looking at how much I've already written, I think I'll only lightly touch on the other characters.
The Family: I've already gone over how I wanted to give all of them at least one moment to shine and how I've tried to convey their own characters when I could.
The only thing I will also touch on is how much Rapturous Rhapsody is also about trying to give a 'Waifu Catalogue' story a somewhat realistic romantic dynamic (One that doesn't involve mind control, at least.) I wanted to convey the relationship (both romantic and not) between the women when I could to give a real sense that this is a family, not just 'women with Mikael.'
The Heroes: Giving a large amount of screen time to even a handful of heroes would have bloated the story even more than it is, so I chose a few to focus on. I've already covered Superman, but I do want to mention Batman a bit.
As a 'hero,' Batman is obviously one of the ones Mikael can identify with the best. Combined with Diana's friendship, he was a perfect connection for Mikael to form, representing the heroic community's relationship with the Family.
He is also very fun to write.
The World: I wanted the World to be a character in its own right. The nations, their leaders, the people living their daily lives, all of it. So little time is given to superhero worlds, most of the time, lost in the larger-than-life stories and characters.
I use Taylor for this, mostly. Some wondered if she would have some great, secret purpose in the finale. Some larger power than her seemingly simple (if useful) one.
No. Taylor Hebert was exactly as she appeared to be. Just another face in the crowd. A woman trying to get by in a world filled with people with powers. Not all powers are useful. 99% of them would be useless or hindrances rather than boons.
Those were some of my favourite parts of Worm, not when it got Grim-derp, but when the banality of life was so obvious.
Of course, hero fights cause traffic. Certainly, repairs will take a while. Insurance rates will increase. Small momentos are lost. Online friends will disappear, and you will never know what happened to them.
And the helplessness of it all will set in.
I tried to put myself in the mindset of someone living in the middle of an ongoing natural disaster.
You might survive. You might not even be damaged. But for how long?
I think I wanted to show that everyone faces these struggles, not just heroes and villains.
But I think that wraps up the characters. (Or at least some of them. I do want to finish at some point, after all.)
Second: Themes.
Themes are important to me and, thus, important to my stories. I love stories that have something to say and can convey that message through their characters and plots.
I mentioned it earlier, but if there is one major theme of Rapturous Rhapsody, it is the juxtaposition of Life and Death.
Death is not bad. Death is rest. Death is peace. Whether you believe in an afterlife or not, death is the cessation of 'life.' It is an end. One that terrifies us, but we will meet no matter what. So we run from death, even as it will one day let us lay down and rest.
Life, on the other hand, is often terrible. Even ignoring the greater issues facing the World today, just day-to-day life wears us down. The constant effort to just get out of bed in the morning, the exaution we all face when a situation goes bad and we have to deal with it. Life is a struggle. Every second of every day, it is a battle.
Yet in life we find possibility. We chase hope, love, and laughter. It is only when we are alive that we find joy in company, in games, in comics, in silly wishfufillment stories.
The dead are at peace, but only the living can laugh.
Dark Souls, I think, is a great way of expressing that contradiction. If you look around the internet you can find plenty of people talking about how it helped with their depression.
I've never been clinically depressed myself, but I know people that have.
All of them, every single one, tell me how tired they are. Just living is exhausting.
Many cannot gain the strength to get out of bed in the morning. More than that, they don't see a point in doing so.
Why do anything when there is no point in life?
They've gone hollow.
I think that is why Dark Souls resonates so well, because everyone who plays it, who wakes up in that cell in the Undead Asylum, can be categorized into two catagories.
Those who listen to the rumours, the 'git gud' comments, and who don't believe in themselves. Those who, after losing over and over again, give up and never play again.
These are the hollows. Those who've lost the will to continue.
And then there are the others.
Those who, despite the challenge, despite the bad reputation and the frustration at constantly losing, choose to get back up and throw themselves at the Wall.
These are the Chosen Undead.
They are not chosen because they are special but because they choose to keep going.
They refuse to go hollow.
I want to clarify that I am not making a value judgemeng on playing and beating Dark Souls or not. I am perfectly aware that the genre is not for everyone.
Some people do not game for challenge but for escapism, role play, creativity, or any number of reasons. Nor do I think one should blindly throw themselves against any challenge they find. There are tons of games out there where 'difficulty' is used as an excuse for bad game design.
But Dark Souls is designed to be beaten by anyone. That is why it is such a good metaphor.
I suppose Rapturous Rhapsody can be considered a 'Dark Souls Fanfiction' because I tried to capture that essence with the story.
So, looking back, what would I change?
First off, I think I was too ambitious for a first work. There were too many story threads, characters, themes, and plots to juggle for the first story I completed and released.
Second, serialized releases. My complaints with serialization are numerous and documented, so I won't go into them.
I chose to set a specific deadline (Fridays, once a week) in order to force myself to work. I do most of my work under pressure and these consistent deadlines are a big reason I was able to maintain a consistent schedule.
But the story suffered for it.
I had less time to edit, I was constantly at the whim of any IRL bullshit I had to deal with, and I didn't have time to make sure everything remained consistent.
Going forward, I think I'll need to strike a balance in my future Fanfiction work. A consistent release date, but only starting to release it once I have enough chapters saved up to give me the time I need.
That has worked really well for On The Bench, my other story, and I think I'll keep it up in the future.
Finally, and my greatest mistake, was remaining beholden to the first short story that started this all. While the challenge of working around it is fun, it led to too many extraneous characters. The number of 'waifu's' could have been cut in half, and the story would have been better off for it. (No matter how much I love them all as characters.)
Not only that, but there were also too many power sets, worlds, and settings that would lessen the enjoyment of most people. Unless you are essentially me, you won't be familiar with all the Fandoms I used for this story.
If I were to rate this story:
As a story based on the Waifu Catalogue, 9 out of 10
As a fanfiction: 7 out of 10
As a story (compared to published works): 5 out of 10.
Final self-rating: 7.7 out of 10.
But that is just me. Some of you would rate it higher, and some lower. That's fine. We each enjoy different things in different ways. There is no one story everyone would love.
Certainly not this one.
Overall, I am pleased with what I created for my first story. Rapturous Rhapsody may not be perfect, but it is mine.
Even if we ignore OTB, RR still represents an enormous investment of time and effort.
762679 words (not counting ANs) over 675 days, averaging about 1130 words a day. This is not counting time editing or cut content.
And this was all while working a full-time job, losing it (twice), finding new jobs, moving four times, and a few natural disasters along the way.
Sometimes, I look at the numbers, do a bit of math, and bask in the surreality of it all.
For those interested, here is some crunchy data.
Questionable Questing: At the time of writing, the final chapter has 550 likes.
(QQ doesn't give any other metrics that I am aware of, so I am only going to numbers that I can verify. There are probably plenty of readers who don't Like, which is fine, they just aren't included in my calculation.)
Sufficient Velocity: 231 watchers.
Royal Road: 206 followers.
Scribble Hub: 793 readers.
Fanfiction net: 1103 Followers
Archive of Our Own: 1103 Kudos (a funny coincidence with FF)
Webnovel: 389 readers (Of the finale)
4375 verified readers.
While I know this number doesn't account for those who dropped off and any overlapping readers between sites, it also doesn't account for those who shadow read, so I'll just use it as an educated estimate.
Assuming all my readers read about 300 wpm (on the higher ends of reading speed, but you all are awesome, so I'll take it), that means that between all sites, there were around 1,312,500 minutes spent reading Rapturous Rhapsody.
21,875 hours.
911.46 days.
2.5 fucking years!
I have, through a shitty waifu catalogue fanfiction, sucked up 2.5 years of the human race.
My evil plan is complete, and there's nothing you can do about it! MWAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
In all seriousness, you guys are awesome. I've improved a lot over the years, but I still have a long way to go. I want to shout out a few of my readers here.
First: Prolu on QQ. The first comment I ever received.
Second: Those who PM me. I won't share their names, since it was private, but you know who you are. I often go to those conversations and well wishes when I found myself loosing motivation.
Third: Mr. Dyeus and ravelt on QQ for their images and Epub links for the books, respectivly. Ravelt has already created a full epub of RR for those who want to download it and read offline.
Fourth: Neo_Infinity, who made an effort to comment on almost every chapter on almost every site I posed on.
Fifth: Himera and TheCenterAct on QQ for their omakes.
Sixth: Xagnam, also on QQ, who turned Ranni's speech in the Epilogue of volume one into an audio track using an AI version of her voice.
Finally: To everyone who has liked, commented, followed, or generally engaged with Rapturous Rhapsody. I was able to finish this story because I knew you were out there and your every comment helped me improve and push over any Wall.
We've had our ups and downs. Good times and bad.
We all face our Walls every day, and will continue to do so every day until we can rest.
I hope this rapturous rhapsody, this story with its rise and falls, has engaged, entertained, and enraptured you, even if only for a moment.
To everyone, I hope you face the challenges of your life with a laugh, a pun, and a middle finger.
Don't you dare go hollow!
