Just a few short comments on Alternate Reality fiction before we begin, in case some of you have never been exposed to it before. Alternate Reality fanfiction features the same characters and locations from a game/tv show/other fandom and "twists" them around, giving the genre the nickname "twisted."
Dark Empress is my ongoing piece of Final Fantasy VI fanfiction, exploring what could happen if events/characters from the game were shifted to produce different results. As such, you may find occasionally that some characters' actions might not quite mesh with those in the game, or neccessarily what your perceptions of those characters might be. This is half the fun; finding those things about your favorites or least favorites that make them different and unique. However, it does sort of pain me to write people "out of character", so for the most part if you see someone acting oddly, there will be a reason for it.
Finally, I've been working on this for a long time and will probably continue to work on it for a long time. I'm posting parts of this initial version here to get opinions, so any feedback would be appreciated. Enjoy the fic.