#fireseeds

As I write more of Fireseeds, and talk more here about my writing process and choices I make for my story, I’ll have a LOT of complaints about the fic Embers.

It may even come across sometimes like I hate the fic.

I want to make it ABSOLUTELY clear that I LOVE this fic. If I hated the fic, I wouldn’t have reread it numerous times and in fact, be rereading it now as I think about Fireseeds. I certainly wouldn’t be writing Fireseeds if I hated Embers! The reason I have so very many complaints is in fact because I do love the fic and have read and reread it and the little parts of it that irk me get dragged to my attention over and over again. Nothing is perfect, even the things I love most.

If I hate a fic, I usually just stop reading it. Usually forget about it completely. I might complain for a day to a friend or family member, but the irritation passes as the fic is no longer in my attention.

When I got to a key moment in Wynn’s arrival where a spirit is influencing the other characters and decided Wynn can feel it, I was echoing moments from Wynn shlepping her way through the desert with Vash and co, trailing after Knives and his growing collection of Plants. Feeling absolutely ill from her ability to sense the foul energies he’s putting off.

In this case the energy she can feel isn’t quite so poisonous to her system, but it is intense and a great shock.

It’s going to have further affects on her as the story progresses though. Embers is a fic full of spirits and their influence. I’m still wrapping my head around how to handle the spiritual system underpinning the world in Embers. I’ve already decided Wynn’s magic is NOT the same thing as Spirit. They’re compatible, but not the same. Which is actually good for Wynn or me giving her bending would interfere more with her magic. :p

Her magic will likely be weakened, though. This is something I’ll say again when talking about her various AUs but.

Wynn’s two “starter” worlds -- Minecraftia verse and Book verse -- are absolutely SOAKING with magic. Magic is so thick it forms actual fluid pools of raw mana some places. Random peasants can stumble into learning cantrips, though more advanced magical skills take study and practice. When traveling to other worlds, Wynn’s ability to tap into the magic around her is dependent on the amount of magic that’s... loose. That’s in the air and earth and nature around her.

In FMA, it was severely reduced and she was mostly reliant on her internal magic stores. She kept large magical stunts for emergencies because she just didn’t have the power, and it would leave her drained for a while. She did show off in front of Roy though just to tease because SHE can create fires in the rain. :p Only very late in the plot does she suddenly gain a bunch of extra power, as she starts talking with the folks from Xing -- particularly Mei -- and is clued in that oh. Most of the magic in this world is tied up in ley lines. Once she knows to look for those, she can tap into them and throw around spells as powerful as she could at home, as long as she’s close enough to one.

In Trigun Wynn’s magic was catastrophically reduced. There are no landlines. There is no natural loose magic. Wynn isn’t just reduced to her internal stores but those stores also refill extra slowly. The planet is DEAD. Wynn only feels a little relief hanging around Vash. For headcanony reasons, he feels both magically gross to her, but also like a tiny spring in the middle of nowhere -- not enough for drink freely, but a few sips to keep her going. Which is why she chooses to follow him, at first.

I’m going to be running her in Fireseeds as a bit better than FMA. Her magic is partially reduced. She’s fairly reliant on her internal stores. There’s loose magic around, but so much of it is tied up in the spirit world and isn’t accessible to her. Like trying to get a drink when most of the water is soaked up into towels. She won’t get the horrible effects of chronic mana depletion she gets later in the Trigun plotline. Even if she overexerts herself.