[FF] Tsukihime: Of Leaves and Lilac

[Dark Pulse]

Well then. Shall we resume?

A bit of a note, before I shamelessly plug a little bit of my own work here.

While I won't be posting the entire chapters here (merely linking to them, as they're being posted on Fanfiction.net) consider this the official "home away from home" for it. I would absolutely love to hear what you think about it, on this site or reviewing the story over there. One reviewer (and indeed, one of my beta readers) mentioned posting it here, which I had planned to do all along, and as I said, I'm feeling gutsy, so I'm doing it here two weeks ahead of my originally planned date.

And since there's no silly 255 character synopsis limit, you'll get a much better summary:

A year after the events of Tsukihime, 17 year-old Tohno Akiha is still living life the way she always has - a student by day, and master of Misaki City by night. Even with all of the events that occurred last year, her life has, for the most part, remained steady and consistent. But, can she remain this way forever...? Re-Rated M for Graphic Violence/Sex. WARNING: CONTAINS GRAPHIC DEPICTIONS OF SEX, VIOLENCE, AND PHILOSOPHY. Updated every Sunday.

Be warned: This story will be long. At posting one chapter a week, it will not be fully "finished" until November 2011. It is very certainly novel length, and the (finished in rough draft) story on my hard drive is some 815k of pure text and totaling in, currently, at 151,642 words. As I revise each chapter before publishing it, this number grows - a realistic final count for this will be, at 3500-4000 words per chapter... anywhere from 262,500-300,000 words.

That would be, on average, 3500 or 4000 words per chapter * 75 chapters. Not counting an epilogue.

So if you like short little stories, this isn't for you. If you don't like characters played very close to how Nasu originally wrote them, this isn't for you. If you don't like the fact that Tsukihime contains violence and sex and that my story will likewise have it, this isn't for you. If you haven't beaten the game in its entirety - that is, the Kohaku path - this isn't for you. I don't want to ruin the game for anyone who hasn't played it... that said, considering this site's purpose, I think that will be virtually nobody at all, but who knows, there might be some poster here who's played Fate but not Tsukihime.

If none of this bugs you at all, you're certainly more than welcome to read it.

As stated above, knowledge of Tsukihime and having fully beaten it is pretty much a must. PLUS+DISC and Kagetsu Tohya are bonuses, but not required, although the story does focus very heavily on characters from them. Events that occurred in these stories can be considered to have happened in mine.

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Arc 1: A Non-Existent Life

- Friday, October 25, 2002
Chapter 1: Autumn Night

- Saturday, October 26, 2002
Chapter 2: "Akiha's nap has to end!"
Chapter 3: Scrambled Slice of Life
Chapter 4: To Good Friends...
Chapter 5: Blood and Emotions ~Oil and Water~
Chapter 6: A Dish Best Served Au Gratin
Chapter 7: The River of Dreams

- Sunday, October 27, 2002
Chapter 8: Super Alchemist Grand Archmage Citrina!
Chapter 9: Drawn Together
Chapter 10: What's love got to do with it?
Chapter 11: Memories of Red
Chapter 12: Badmoon Rising
Chapter 13: Interview with a Badluck Vampire

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Arc 2: Reassembling a Shattered Soul

- Monday, October 28, 2002
Chapter 14: Westminster Quarters
Chapter 15: Neapolitan Blues

- Tuesday, October 29, 2002
Chapter 16: Rainbow Sky
Chapter 17: Confessions of a Teenage Kojin Saakuru
Chapter 18: Fretfulness
Chapter 19: A Crisis of Self-Existentialism
Chapter 20: Emotional Abstracts

- Wednesday, October 30, 2002
Chapter 21: ......Atonement
Chapter 22: Under the Shade
Chapter 23: Sweet Home
Chapter 24: Through the Dreamscape, Black Nightmare Reality

-Thursday, October 31, 2002
Chapter 25: Skein of Akiha
Chapter 26: The Way to a Man's Heart...
Chapter 27: Fringe of the Lunatic Dawn

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Arc 3: Yin-Yang Dualism

- Friday, November 1, 2002
Chapter 28: A Lust for Life
Chapter 29: Strange Friends, Stranger Relationship
Chapter 30: Blind Side ~Under Blue Sky~ Part I
Chapter 31: Blind Side ~Under Blue Sky~ Part II

- Saturday, November 2, 2002
Chapter 32: An Existence, Evergreen
Chapter 33: A Reflection of Clarity
Chapter 34: Another New Me
Chapter 35: Two Will Be As One
Chapter 36: Dreamer's Dream

- Sunday, November 3, 2002
Chapter 37: Vicissitudes of Consciousness
Chapter 38: Every Artist has a Price!
Chapter 39: The More Things Change...
Chapter 40: I Won't Become The Thing I Hate!
Chapter 41: A Moment In Time, Frozen Forever
Chapter 42: An Excess of Divine Material Energy
Chapter 43: An Excess of Divine Material Energy Part II
"Chapter 44": April Fools' Day Gag 2011
Chapter 44: An Excess of Divine Material Energy Part III

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Arc 4: Purity of a Pollinated Mind

- Monday, November 4, 2002
Chapter 45: Cerulean Life, Azure Dreams
Chapter 46: Inner Shade
Chapter 47: The Name for Thinking by the Window is...
Chapter 48: An Image of Infinite Clarity and Beyond

- Tuesday, November 5, 2002
Chapter 49: Uncharted Territory
Chapter 50: Two Unexpected Gifts
Chapter 51: Sweet Dreams are Made of This
Chapter 52: Conversation with a Partitioned Mind
Chapter 53: An Epiphany of Passionate Ardency

- Wednesday, November 6, 2002
Chapter 54: Fountain of Youth
Chapter 55: 10,800 Seconds of Eternity
Chapter 56: Cordis Confessione
Chapter 57: Two Sides of the Sword
Chapter 58: Yin and Yang ~Black Side~
Chapter 59: Yin and Yang ~White Side~

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Arc 5: Arise From the Ashes

- Thursday, November 7, 2002
Chapter 60: Time's Anxiety
Chapter 61: Foregone Absolution
Chapter 62: Spiritual Stew
Chapter 63: Yellowed Pages

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Please leave all criticism, both good and bad, either as a review on that site or here, whether you love it or hate it; both are equally important and valued by me. I am more than happy to discuss the story, if anyone desires it, but be advised - as it's pretty much finished, what you say here isn't going to have very much of an effect on how the story ultimately flows. This is not a work-in-progress technically; this is something I hammered out in three months. (Well, really four, but the last month I've been wonderfully lazy on finishing the final dozen chapters.) The rough draft is complete; now it's just polishing up each chapter before I publish it on a weekly basis.

I look forward to the praise and hate.

And so, it begins.

[Tobias]

At some point, I intend to mainline this fic in its entirety, but I keep putting that off till we get closer to that nov deadline.

[Dark Pulse]

It's going to be brutal if you wait until then to read it.

Especially if you intend to do that with my future projects... which will make OLaL look... well, small.

[Dark Pulse]

And here's our first update at our new home.

Akiha sees off Seo Akira and Kohaku, after treating Seo's injured legs a little bit with some ice and conversation. But her thoughts begin to turn inward upon herself...

[eddyak]

That last chapter... Can't help but think Shiki at the end there is just a dream.

Also

WHAT IS WITH THE ELLIPSES

[ItsaRandomUsername]

Wincest cometh? Who knows...

[Dark Pulse]

That last chapter... Can't help but think Shiki at the end there is just a dream.

Also

WHAT IS WITH THE ELLIPSES

I like them. But to get more than three (to indicate a longer pause) I have to alternate between three periods and the ellipsis character. It's a ff.net limitation.

The same limitations prevent me from using ?! or !? without resorting to modification - it will remove the second character for some reason.

It is, to put it bluntly, fucking retarded. Do you see why I prefer my PDFs now?

Wincest cometh? Who knows...

I know. And the answer is...

Spoiler:

[eddyak]

I get you like ellipses, but in that second half of the chapter, there were more ellipses than sentences!

[Dark Pulse]

I get you like ellipses, but in that second half of the chapter, there were more ellipses than sentences!

Perhaps there's a meaning to this.

Think outside the box...

[Dark Pulse]

It's Tsunday! And you know what that means.

Chapter 43 is here... and with it, the pairing probably everyone expected.

...Until the end, anyway.

[Kratosirving]

[Dark Pulse]

Poor Batman. That was probably a good cup of Joe.

Not that I drink that - I'm a tea drinker, myself.

[Kratosirving]

All I can imagine right now is Satsuki running out from feelings of betrayal from both Akiha and Shiki, as well as WTFincest?!
.
.
.
Or we'll have a threeway (highly doubtful)

[GlanGR]

It's been a few hours and I'm STILL "lolwut"ing.

[Dark Pulse]

It's been a few hours and I'm STILL "lolwut"ing.

What, is this that hard to believe?

[Pata Hikari]

Darn it Len.

[mangafreak7793]

It sort of felt Akiha went on a acid trip?

[Dark Pulse]

It's called "It was an April Fool's Gag." And it had good effect from the reviews.

Anyway! Onto the REAL Chapter 44. With Akiha and Shiki busted in the act, by Sacchin... surely interesting things will happen...

[Kratosirving]

...Interesting my ass. (pun intended) That was COMPLETELY unexpected...and enjoyable.

[Dark Pulse]

So I'd hope, heh. I actually am short of my target goal by 65 words. Writing passes went like this:

Rough draft: 1856 Words
Second pass: ~3000 Words
Third pass: 3688 Words
Fourth pass: 3945 Words

FF.net inflates the word count due to the crap I put in... and also because it counts things like punctuation as "words." Ah well... It wasn't easy. Usually, I can find more places to fit stuff, but I simply couldn't fit anything more in it anymore. And while I'd normally double arc-ender lengths. The April Fools gag basically alleviated the need for that, heh.

PDFs of the first 3 arcs will be up soon.