Other Halves and Other Tales

Other Halves, And Other Tales is a remarkably good Kingdom Hearts work. It's now an AU fic because it (and its sequel, Paint The Sky With Stars) were written before Chain of Memories and Kingdom Hearts II, and it describes the lives of most of the Square Enix characters in Traverse Town after the first game is over. There are several original characters by the end, but they avoid being the Spotlight-Stealing Squad too much and share the limelight nicely with the original characters. A lot of it has to do with the romantic pairings (Sora/Kairi, Riku/OC, Aerith/Cloud, Leon/Yuffie, and later a brief Cid/OC), but it shares space with plenty of humor. You can find it here.

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This work provides examples of:

• Author Avatar: Author notes reveal that Zephyr has a lot in common with her. It's notable because these notes are needed or we'd never know; Mary Sue is conspicuous by her absence.
• The Bechdel Test: Lampshaded. Why do we always end up talking about men?
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: Leon/Yuffie.
• Buffy-Speak: All of the characters and the narrator tend to mix crude speech with an excellent vocabulary and grasp of the language.
• Can't Hold Her Liquor: Zephyr gets woozy after one sip of Leon's drink. In fairness, said drink was implied to be a Gargle Blaster, but still... one sip.
• Cerebus Syndrome
• Curtain Fic
• Deadpan Snarker: Zephyr, although everyone takes a turn.
• Fainting: Cloud gets hit with an emotional faint in the end of Paint The Sky With Stars (for reasons completely unconnected to Jenova cells or getting trampled by Cerebus. The reason? Aerith's pregnancy.
• Hotter and Sexier: Sora and Kairi's relationship. It's not intended to be erotic, though, instead being mostly Played for Laughs.
• Lime
• Loads and Loads of Characters: All the Final Fantasy people who appeared in Traverse Town (including Cloud, who shows up in the credits) get A Day in the Limelight in addition to appearing normally, with special attention for Squall and Yuffie, and there are several OCs as time goes on.
• Mundane Utility: Sora plays tag with the Summons.
• Older Than They Look: Zephyr, but only by a couple of years.
• Pair the Spares: Part of the premise of the original oneshot.
• Running Gag: Cloud and Aerith cannot get any privacy.
• Sequel Creep: It was originally a oneshot.
• Sickeningly Sweethearts: A number of the characters joke that Sora and Kairi are this, but they're not actually presented as such.
• Sorry to Interrupt: Everyone on Cloud and Aerith, as mentioned above, but it happens to other people.
• Team Mom: Aerith. Well, she did hold that role in the game.
• Tongue on the Flagpole
• Tsundere: Zephyr, in spades. Yuffie gets shades of it. Leon's the male version.
• Two Lines, No Waiting: Several of the stories; the first deals with setting Riku and Zephyr up and with Leon and Yuffie's rocky relationship, for example.
• Weddings for Everyone: Cloud and Aerith at the end of the first fic, Leon and Yuffie at the end of the second.