#lifes a queue

Alright, as you may know from my intro post, Liz is kidnapped on her sixteenth birthday.

Originally she was supposed to flee after a group of radicals (they call themselves 'the black crown') tried to kill her. See, in my first draft Liz was meant to be queen once she reached a certain age (again, I played around with age quite a lot, and some other factors that could lead to her taking the throne sooner rather than later). Some ppl really weren't happy with that, because Liz has no magical power whatsoever. So even though she is the rightful heir they want her twin brother instead. Otherwise they fear that the magical population (Tehokans) will lose power and strength in favor of non-magical people (Voimatos). To save her life and find alliances, she flees to Belena, an independent city where only Voimatos live. It is run by the 'Council of Thirteen'. Although they are actually striving for a completely different system of rule, the prospect of an allied queen who also has no magical abilities is at least a promising start.

Almost all of that is still happening but the major difference is that Liz now was never meant to be on the throne in the first place. Her parents have decided that Tim is better suited to rule and keep the slowly crumbling peace in the kingdom. They claim that he is the legitimate heir and that Liz is simply not a strong mage, which is why she aims to become a fighter in the royal guard. Liz is generally treated rather subordinately. All in the name of protecting her of course. However, having to put up with yet another king who favors the status quo is not very popular with the Voimatos. Which is why the red alliance, an organization rooted in Belena, tries to intervene by killing all the primary heirs to the throne, aka Liz and her siblings. Their assassination attempt fails when Liz does not respond to their weapons, as she is not a Tehokan. They then decide to take her with them to obtain a political advantage. It think this idea has so much more potential and works in a much better way with Liz as a character. In the first version Liz would've had to leave her country, her people, her family. She'd have never chosen that. She'd have rather died, you know? But for her personal development and to gain a better understanding of the real world and their problems, it was extremely important that she left home. So someone (aka me i guess) had to force her hand a little. This way she still ends up in Belena and learns about what is really going on in the kingdom while also being in line with her character. It also allowed me to add a little (more) family drama which is something that I personally, as a reader and writer, love.

Okayyyy, that's it for now I guess. Let me know if you could understand my reasoning, if you'd have chosen similarly or if you'd have kept the first idea. Also, if you want to, tell me about your story, your character, or some of the changes you made, big or small (I believe that sometimes its the small decisions that make a particularly big difference in the end).

The Spiritual vs. The Biological: The Filum Aeternum represents a pure, sacred, and egalitarian connection created when the Creator split Sephiroth and Bianca's single soul at Creation. Conversely, the Alpha/Beta/Omega dynamics in this world are not a natural order. They are an invasive, predatory biological framework engineered by Jenova’s cosmic infection to twist Gaian biology into a weapon of conquest.

The Psychological Paradox: Keeping the romance alive post-madness while charting Bianca’s eventual descent into Sephiroth's cosmic delusion creates a harrowing dark romance. It shifts the narrative from a simple survival story to a psychological countdown where her human socialization and defensive instincts are continuously eroded by absolute biological gravity.

Why This Echoes the 1990s Film Species

This AU heavily mirrors the central thematic horror of the 1990s sci-fi film Species (which centers on Sil, an engineered alien-human hybrid driven by an absolute, single-minded biological directive to find a compatible mate and propagate her lethal species).

The structural and thematic overlaps include:

The Single-Minded Propagation Directive:

In Species, Sil is not malicious in a conventional human sense. She is completely ruled by a predatory cellular drive to reproduce. In my AU, Sephiroth’s descent into madness mutates his biology from a standard Alpha into a Solitary Apex—a world-consuming Alpha-Omega predator. His desire for Bianca post-breakdown is not born out of human sentimentality but a terrifying, ancient alien mandate. Because Hojo engineered Bianca (Project Nexus and labeled her Subject N) using S-cells specifically to serve as a permanent biological lock for Sephiroth’s mutated instincts, Sephiroth views her not as an external person to court, but as an essential, missing piece of his own biological machinery. He feels entitled to her because her entire celestial anatomy was forcefully re-engineered to be the definitive vessel for his cosmic lineage

The Inescapable Biological Gravity

Sil from Species possesses pheromonal triggers that instantly manipulate, attract, or paralyze targets. Similarly, my world treats pheromones as localized sensory pathogens. When Sephiroth enters his mutated state, his scent—infusing the winter-frost with the terrifying chill of the cosmic void—exerts an absolute, inescapable biological gravity.

When Sephiroth invades Bianca's nest post-madness, it triggers a profound psychological horror directly reminiscent of Species. While her conscious, rational mind screams in terror at the arrival of an apex predator, her chemically overridden body instantly halts its defensive panic because his overwhelming Solitary Apex scent convinces her primal instincts that the ultimate protector has claimed the space.

The Corruption of Divine / Primal Innocence

Just as Species deals with human labs tampering with alien DNA to create a monster disguised as a beautiful woman, Hojo tampered with Bianca’s pristine, foreign celestial anatomy. He used invasive S-cell infusions to degrade her celestial purity into Exocrine Scent-Slick (ESS) and chemical vulnerability, making her the perfect vector to anchor Sephiroth and eventually act as an Patient Zero (spreading Jenova's pathogen to both Heaven and Hell.

Canon-Compliance & Timeline Integration (FFVII Remake Era)

Timeline Note: These notes map out specific milestones from Crisis Core through the Remake era. While the events of Before Crisis and Ever Crisis do still occur within this AU's history, they are omitted here for the sake of tracking this specific narrative thread.

The Crisis Core to Remake Timeline Notes

The Pre-Fall Training: Before Genesis defected and Sephiroth fell into the Lifestream, Sephiroth provided Bianca with basic tactical and defensive conditioning, capitalizing on her innate magic.

The Slum Anomaly: Following the Nibelheim Incident, Shinra PR maintained a public narrative that Sephiroth's high-society Omega housewife was safely accounted for or mourning. In reality, Bianca used her nightmare, shadow, and illusion magic to mask her unique starlight-and-ozone scent profile, blending seamlessly into the volatile, Mako-choked underbelly of the Midgar Slums to evade the Turks.

Joining AVALANCHE: Seeking protection and driven to oppose the corporate destruction of the Planet, Bianca aligns with AVALANCHE. Her ability to cast defensive barriers and her residual military training make her an asset, while her hidden status as Hojo's "Subject N" remains a ticking biological time bomb.

The Dubcon Nest Intrusion: Placing the dubious-consent encounter towards the end of the Remake (the game and not the trilogy) timeline matches the escalating, claustrophobic dread of Midgar.

Dropping of the Plate: The chaos of the Plate's collapse floods the Slums with raw, unshielded Mako emissions, triggering sudden "hormonal weather storms" and intense cyclic crises across the populace. Driven by the environmental static and the proximity of Jenova's biomass, Sephiroth's manifested form hunts her down, violently overriding her sanctuary. She will reunite with Cloud and his party after this, but still not tell them about what really happen. They think it was a random Alpha and not Sephiroth.

The Shinra Building Abduction: When the party infiltrates Sector 0, the proximity to Jenova's headless torso acts as a massive biological radio tower, hyper-activating the A/B/O pathogen. Sephiroth utilizes Jenova’s physical form to assassinate President Shinra, torment Cloud with ancestral memories, and abduct Bianca right out from under the party's nose.

By having Sephiroth tear her away immediately before the Jenova Dreamweaver encounter, I establish a narrative parallel: the party is left to fight a manifestation of illusions and hallucinations, while Bianca is dragged away into a very real, biological awakening before the highway and 'the world beyond' (Singularity) through the portal that Sephiroth created. Still have to figure out where Bia is during this part.

The Psychology of the Post-Madness Dark Romance

To preserve the romance post-madness without diminishing the cosmic horror, the relationship must evolve into a mutually shared delusion. Bianca’s eventual submission should not be a flat, passive defeat, but a terrifying evolution of the Filum Aeternum.

The Shared Mindscape: Because the Red String of Fate permits telepathic communication and direct memory access, Sephiroth's fall into the Lifestream did not sever their link; FWC canon states that the red thread between them cannot be severed, unless by Sephiroth-Prime (The Main FWC Seph). The bond flooded Bianca's psyche with the staggering scale of his cosmic revelations. Post-madness, she isn't just hearing a madman. As Sephiroth's mind fractures under the parasitic weight of Jenova's pulse, he uses their soul-bond to peer into her memories. He is looking at Bianca's history of Heaven (Caelora) and her father Asmodeus's domain in Hell (Umbralyth), mapping his own world-consuming god-complex onto the divine and demonic realms she used to belong to.

The Incurable Scent-Starvation: Separated from him, Bianca's endocrine system naturally defaults to Nest-Rot, where her own exocrine glands saturate her environment with an acrid, agonizing feedback loop of concentrated chemical terror. Her eventual choice to join him becomes a desperate search for equilibrium. She surrenders to his madness because his dominant, freezing Apex scent is the only force capable of silencing the agonizing static in her own S-cell-infused blood.

The Devastation of Hell: When she finally succumbs and stands by his side, her transformation into a patient zero recontextualizes the romance on a cosmic scale. Their union ceases to be a localized corporate crisis for Shinra and transforms into an apocalyptic threat, as her retroactively leaking Jenovan-celestial essence begins mapping Jenova's punishing biological hierarchy directly onto the demonic legions of the Abyss, breaking the sovereignty of Asmodeus entirely.

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The White Camellia (Camellia japonica)

The white camellia is a perfect primary symbol for Bianca. In the Victorian language of flowers, it represents "consummate loveliness," perfected loveliness, and affection.

The Symbolism: Unlike roses, which can carry connotations of sharp thorns and passionate, loud romance, the camellia is structured, symmetrical, and serene. It speaks to a quiet, elevated grace and an unblemished nature.

The Deeper Meaning: In Eastern traditions, the camellia symbolizes longevity and faithfulness because the calyx (the green leaves holding the petals) falls away together with the petals when the flower dies, representing a bond that endures even in endings. This mirrors a steadfast devotion that remains intact even through hardship.

Lily of the Valley (Convallaria majalis)

A delicate, bell-shaped woodland flower that grows close to the ground, the Lily of the Valley carries a profound traditional weight.

The Symbolism: It signifies the "return of happiness," humility, and absolute purity. Because it blooms in early spring, it is traditionally seen as a sign of surviving the harshness of winter, bringing hope and sweetness back to the world.

The Deeper Meaning: Despite its fragile, innocent appearance and sweet scent, Lily of the Valley is entirely poisonous if ingested and incredibly hardy in the wild, spreading via an interconnected underground root system. This beautifully symbolizes a character who appears delicate or gentle on the surface but possesses an underlying, fierce protective mechanism and a resilient network of inner strength.

White Anemone (Anemone nemorosa)

Also known as the windflower, the anemone has deep roots in classical mythology, springing from the tears of Aphrodite.

The Symbolism: It carries dual meanings of anticipation, protection against evil, and fragile, fleeting beauty. In darker contexts, it can symbolize forsaken love or the weight of illness and grief.

The Deeper Meaning: The anemone closes up at night and opens its petals to the morning sun, bowing but rarely breaking in the wind. This captures a sense of emotional sensitivity: a character who feels the shifts in the world acutely, carrying a touch of melancholy or tragic grace, yet who remains inherently tied to the light.

White Stephanotis (Stephanotis floribunda)

Often called "Madagascar jasmine" or the "bridaliwreath," this star-shaped vine flower is renowned for its intense, sweet fragrance.

The Symbolism: It traditionally represents marital happiness, a desire to travel, and good fortune.

The Deeper Meaning: As a climbing vine, the stephanotis requires a structure to lean on to grow high, but once established, its vines become incredibly tough and tightly woven. It represents a character whose life is defined by deep, binding connections to others, whose strength is amplified by loyalty, and who brings a distinct, unforgettable presence (much like the flower's perfume) to any space she inhabits.

Edelweiss (Leontopodium nivale)

A rugged, velvety white wildflower that grows in the high, unforgiving altitudes of the Alps.

The Symbolism: Edelweiss symbolizes deep devotion, rugged purity, and noble courage. Historically, fetching an edelweiss flower required climbing dangerous cliffs, making it a token of daring and true love.

The Deeper Meaning: Visually, it looks soft, downy, and star-like, covered in tiny white hairs that protect it from the alpine cold and intense UV rays. This is the ultimate symbol for a "pure" character forced to exist in a harsh, cold, or hostile environment. It shows that her innocence is not a sign of weakness, but a shield that allows her to survive where others wither.

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