Closing Remarks

I'm highly amused and somewhat disturbed that what was originally intended as a twelve-chapter experiment unexpectedly evolved into an eighteen-chapter emotional roller-coaster ride with one epilogue, two endings and several drabbles, some of which are still bouncing around inside my skull waiting to be written.

This fic took me a lot of places I never expected or even particularly wanted to go. It's the first actual mpreg I've ever written - although I suppose I dipped a toe in the water with "Dietary Intervention" - but it's also the first darkfic and the first serious multi-chapter piece I've ever written for any fandom, One Piece or otherwise. And it's also the first time that I included so many OP characters other than the Straw Hats themselves. Ironically enough, I never planned for Trafalgar Law to appear in this fic, and he not only ended up playing an integral role by assisting the crew with the laparotomy, but he kept COMING BACK even after he was technically no longer needed.

Suffice to say, that's a heck of a lot of firsts for one story, so I hope I did them all justice, genres and characters alike.

An enormous amount of research went into writing this insanity, and the One Piece Wiki was an indispensable source of information for character development, while Wikipedia provided information on everything from abdominal pregnancies and laparotomies to katana maintenance to methods of burial at sea and ship design to post-traumatic stress disorder. I'm a stickler for being well-informed on what I'm writing about, and hopefully I was able to get the point across without throwing in too much technical jargon or at least working it into the story in a tolerable way, such as with Chopper and Law's medical expertise.

xxx

I want to take a moment to thank those of you who took the time to leave reviews and comments as this fic progressed, especially those of you who replied to every or almost every chapter. I loved hearing your feedback and knowing that you weren't regretting taking a chance on such an odd story! While I relied heavily on my beta's input for keeping everyone in character - or at least as IC as they could be given the situation - he's my husband and therefore not an entirely unbiased critic, so your feedback was crucial in helping me determine whether or not I was doing it right.

In thanks for your time and thoughtfulness, I'd like to make the following offer: prompt me with something Crossfire-related that I either didn't cover or glossed over while writing the fic. It can be from any point in either the original version or the alternate ending, EXCLUDING THE EPILOGUE for reasons that will be explained in the following section. Zoro with weird food cravings, a Monster Trio conversation about the giant bombardier beetles- hell, even more Sadi or Admirals, if you want. Hit me with a topic and I'll draft a drabble for you.

If you haven't yet reviewed and would be willing to do so, more feedback would be awesome- and while you won't be able to see me, I'll do little happy dances in appreciation.

xxx

I've had quite a few questions from readers regarding the last chapter, namely requests for details about the final battle and the closing scene of the epilogue.

Sorry, but the final battle is deliberately vague, because I was more interested in the end result than anything else. All you need to know is that Luffy finally took out Akainu and succeeded in claiming One Piece before Law got his greedy hands on it, and the Straw Hat crew made it through mostly unscathed, although they're all a bit banged up. So far as Mihawk goes- did Zoro beat him using only one sword or did he get his ass kicked and then win in a rematch sometime later? Your guess is as good as mine.

Obviously, Sanji's dream has been realized because - as Zoro reveals when he's complaining about the sea kings - the Sunny's currently traversing All Blue, but so far as Robin finding the Rio Poneglyph? You can decide if it was on Raftel or not. XD

Regarding the original ending vs the alternate ending... my beta and I like them both for very different reasons, but we agree that the slightly angsty bittersweet one fits the story a lot better than the happy one. Feedback's been mixed about 50/50 so far as what you guys think, both here and on my LJ, and that's fine by me, as long as the alternate ending at least made you laugh and you don't think I'm totally mental for writing it, breastfeeding and scrotums and all. Trust me; I was questioning my own sanity while I was editing, and I had a moment of pure terror when my beta started reading, because while my husband's super open-minded, I wasn't quite sure what he'd think...

Hell, I had a moment of pure terror when I posted the thing here and saw the first hits start popping up.

xxx

Finally, just in case anyone's interested and wants to check them out, here's a list of songs that popped up with increasing frequency on my iPod playlist while I was writing this fic, quickly turned into an impromptu Crossfire FST and often directly influenced the story's tone and mood. While they haven't been separated into any particular order other than alphabetical by artist/band, it's pretty obvious what falls under pre-Impel Down, post-Impel Down and the epilogue and/or alternate ending... and I guess I don't really need to mention that a lot of these are insanely depressing.

Brandon Flower's song "Crossfire" deserves a special mention, as it not only gave me the title for the fic but also became its unofficial theme song. Specific chapters inadvertently got their own themes as well, and you may recognize some of these if you're reading my song-based drabbles. Odds are pretty good that many if not all of these may find their way into that project. The majority of these are LuZo- or ZoLu-centric, although there's a few that I consider all-crew material. Sorry, this list is kinda long.

Adam Lambert - Aftermath

Adam Lambert - Sleepwalker

Angels & Airwaves - The Adventure

Bullet For My Valentine - Forever And Always

Chemistry - Period*

Cold - Ocean

Coldplay - Fix You

Colour The Sky - Sour

Hedley - Perfect

Iris - No One Left To Lose

Iris - Sentimental Scar

Iris - Sorrow Expert

Jack's Mannequin - Dark Blue

Kris Allen - Live Like We're Dying

Lifehouse - All In

Lifehouse - All That I'm Asking For

Lifehouse - Better Luck Next Time

Lifehouse - Broken

Lifehouse - By Your Side

Lifehouse - Crash And Burn

Lifehouse - Days Go By

Lifehouse - Everything

Lifehouse - Had Enough

Lifehouse - Somewhere In Between

Lifehouse - Storm

Lifehouse - Undone

Lostprophets - Always All Ways (Apologies, Glances and Messed Up Chances)

Nickelback - Someday

Owl City - Meteor Shower

Rob Thomas - Mockingbird

Skillet - Awake And Alive

Snow Patrol - It's Beginning To Get To Me

Switchfoot - I Dare You To Move

Switchfoot - Your Love Is A Song**

Teen Hearts - Victim Of Love

The Afters - Runaway***

The Afters - We Won't Give Up

The Click Five - All I Need Is You

The Decemberists - This Is Why We Fight

The Letter Black - Hanging On By A Thread

The Museum - Let Love Win****

The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus - Your Guardian Angel

Thirty Seconds To Mars - This Is War

Three Doors Down - It's Not My Time

Three Doors Down - It's The Only One You've Got

Three Doors Down - Your Arms Feel Like Home

Thriving Ivory - For Heaven's Sake

Tokio Hotel - Love Is Dead

Trapt - Forget About The Rain

Yellowcard - Breathing

*Japanese language version - I know it's a Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood opening, but whenever I hear it, I inevitably picture Crossfire-based opening animation and promptly want to scream in frustration, because I don't have the kind of skills necessary to produce such a thing. It would be totally epic too, with a clip of Surume slamming into the first Gate and sneaky spoilerish flashes of Zoro using Asura...

**Chapter 3, epilogue, alternate ending; pretty much anything mushy. I hear this at work all the time and it drives me crazy.

***Damn song makes me teary-eyed every time I hear it, because it's totally about Chapters 16-17 with Luffy breaking down while Zoro wanders around Water Seven in the rain. I'm listening to it as I type this, actually, and listening to it literally hurts.

****Epilogue and/or alternate ending; also gives me the sniffles.

Also, I swear, Lifehouse was THE band for depressing, heart-wrenching songs that made me inclined to bang my head against my computer desk.

xxx

Once again, thank you for taking the time to read and keep reading despite my bizarre ramblings, and thank you for your feedback. Hope to see you guys around FF and LJ; I'll likely be focusing on much smaller projects - including Encounters and miscellaneous drabbles - while I give myself a breather and decide on an appropriate topic for another multi-chapter fic.