KJ

I've been a busy bee on Tumblr for the last week or so. The resulting fics:

Cinders:

Title: Wide Open Seas
Characters: Cinders/Tobias
Prompt: "Strikhedonia: The pleasure of being able to say 'the hell with it'."
Notes: Requested by liri. Post-game, Traveller ending.

On the road with Cinders, Tobias gets his first taste of freedom.

---

Final Fantasy XII

Title: Cage
Characters: Ffamran Bunansa
Prompt: "Strikhedonia: The pleasure of being able to say 'the hell with it'."
Notes: Requested by auronlu.

"Before anything else, Ffamran Bunansa got rid of his helm."

---

Dragon Age

Title: Day in the Sun
Characters: Carver Hawke/Merrill
Prompt: "Strikhedonia: The pleasure of being able to say 'the hell with it'."
Notes: Discerning readers will notice a theme. ;) I reblogged a prompt meme that consisted of obscure words; requesters asked for a fandom, character, or pairing along with one of the words. Independently, three different people requested the same word in three different fandoms. It was an interesting exercise in taking one concept and trying to to various things with it. This was requested by spiritofemby and is my first shot at this pairing.

While passing through Kirkwall on his way back to the Grey Wardens, Carver pays Merrill a visit.
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Title: Untitled
Characters: Alistair/Kasia Brosca
Prompt: "Cheiloproclitic: Being attracted to someone's lips."
Notes: Another Emby request.

Alistair has some insecurities about being king. But he can always trust Kasia to tell him the truth.
---

Title: Distant Early Warning
Characters: Duncan, Sereda Aeudcan
Prompt: "Brontide: the sound of distant rolling thunder."
Notes: Requested by rhiannon42.

While traveling to Ostagar, Sereda Aeducan encounters her first thunderstorm.
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Title: After the Fall
Characters: Alistair/f!Mahariel
Notes: Inspired by this photoset on Tumblr, which discussed a potential ending for Alistair/f!Warden that was too sad; I had to fix it. Since I don't yet have a Warden OC who made the Ultimate Sacrifice, this story features an f!Mahariel who only exists here; regardless, this my headcanon as far as the lore is concerned. Violence, canon character death. Written several months ago.

After taking his Calling, Alistair learns the truth about the Ultimate Sacrifice.
--

Title: Storms
Characters: Alistair/Sereda Aeudcan
Notes: Written for Aeducan Week on Tumblr. First Time fic for Sereda and Alistair. Part of the Fidelity universe. Takes some liberties with the First Night dialogue. NSFW.

On their way out of Orzammar, Sereda and Alistair wait out a thunderstorm in her tent.

I did the 15 Characters Meme on Tumblr last week -- create a secret list of 15 characters, take prompt request with numbers standing in for the characters, see what happens -- and had a lot of fun. My list was a mixture of characters from Dragon Age, MCU, FFX/X-2, and FFXII. Some of the results (mostly on Tumblr, a few crossposted to AO3):

Steve Rogers challenges Basch fon Ronsenberg to a duel.

“I’m not so sure this was a great idea,” Bucky said, looking over his shoulder to the other side of the clearing where Basch checked the straps of his armor. “He looks pretty handy with that sword, and I don’t know if you’ve ever as much as picked one up before.”

Steve shook his head, then hooked his shield over his arm. “I don’t see that I have much choice,” he said. “That army is threatening the whole platoon. If I can save everyone on both sides by taking out their general, then I’ll do my best with a sword.”

Natasha Romanoff and Tony Stark in a love triangle, competing for the affections of another.

Tony stared across the room at Pepper, not quite certain he’d heard her right. “You have… plans? With someone who isn’t me?”

“Contrary to popular opinion, Tony Stark is not at all times the center of the universe.” Pepper crossed her arms with half a smile.

Seven and Nine get lost and argue over directions.

Character Seven was Balthier. Character Nine was Tony Stark. You have no idea how much I love this prompt.

Recast Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy as characters One and Nine. Rewrite the failed proposal scene.

The role of Elizabeth Bennet will be played by Alistair. The role of Mr. Darcy will be played by Yuna.

Alistair, Yuna, Tony Stark, and Sigrun throw a surprise party for Paine and Ashe. Two surprise party prompts combined into one story.

“C’mon, they’ll be here soon!” Sigrun ducked down behind the Warden-Commander’s desk and gestured for the others to join her. Alistair followed with a grin, but Tony didn’t move from his spot by the bar, and Yuna wavered.

“I… I don’t know,” she said. “Paine doesn’t always like surprises. I’m not sure Ashe does, either.”

Sigrun and Ashe, unexpected travel.

This prompt slots neatly into my Wardens of Ivalice AU, as a missing scene from "The Joining."

Auron and Basch are accidentally locked in a room overnight.

Auron turned the handle one last time, just to make absolutely certain there was nothing to do — he couldn’t break the lock, or bust down the door. “It seems to be sealed magically,” he said.

“Then it appears we are here for the time being.” Basch slid down the wall to take a seat on the floor, and Auron followed suit, tipping his head backwards. “I don’t suppose you carry rations?”

Ashe cuts Basch’s hair.

Though any of a hundred servants could have been called to take on the chore, Ashe feels compelled to perform this duty herself. After the Strahl is safe in the royal aerodrome but before anyone disembarks, she requests a pair of scissors, and then she cuts Basch’s hair.

Paine is afraid, because Balthier hates Yuna.

“You really think they’d come after us?”

Paine turned her head sharply to meet Yuna’s eyes. “You know Balthier wanted that sphere cache. You know you beat him to it, snatched it up from under his nose. And if you think the Youth League was mad when we pulled that stunt with them…” She shook her head. “They’ll be after us, all right."

All written for prompts on Tumblr. Some on Tumblr, some crossposted to AO3.

Cinders:

Title: Untitled
Characters: Sophia/Prince Basile
Prompt: "Enamor Me: a fluffy drabble with characters trying to woo one another"
Notes: A ficlet rather than a drabble.

Three grand balls in a month? How long was it going to take Prince Basile to find a wife, anyway?
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Dragon Age:

Title: Untitled
Characters: Marissa Hawke/Fenris
Prompt: "Remember Me: one character trying to get another to remember them"
Notes: Follows the AU ficbit "Desperate Times" (Marissa Hawke loses the battle with Danarius and he takes Fenris in exchange for her life; she follows them to carry out a rescue).

Marissa Hawke twirled her staff and let loose one final blast of raw power, lifting Danarius up and flinging him into the cave wall.

Title: Good Clean Fun
Characters: Bethany and Carver Hawke
Prompt: "Amuse Me: one character tries to cheer another up"
Notes: Warden Twins AU.

Carver Hawke is in a bad mood, and his sister Bethany knows just how to make him smile.

Title: One Last Drink
Characters: Alistair, Sten
Prompt: "Drink Me: two characters drinking together"

"Just one drink, before you go.” Sten had responded to Alistair’s request with a single nod; Alistair hadn’t really been certain whether to expect him, but here he was.
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FFXII:

Title: Buttons
Characters: Ashe/Balthier
Prompt: "Zip Me: One character dressing another, or the other way around."

“Button me up, if you would?” Ashe leaned forward and swept her hair up off her neck.
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BBC Sherlock:

Title: Telephone
Characters: Lestrade
Prompt: "Mourn Me: one character mourning another"
Notes: Not a fandom I've ever written before, and I may never write it again, but who knows? I've only watched the series once, so please forgive any errors.

Five months, one week, and three days later, Greg Lestrade sat at his desk.

Title: Wardens of Ivalice, Part One: The Joining
Fandoms: Dragon Age & Final Fantasy XII
Rating: T
Wordcount: 26,909
Characters: Ashe, Balthier, Basch, Fran, Elissa Cousland, Alistair, Nathaniel Howe, Alim Surana, many others.
Pairings: Ashe/Balthier, Alistair/Cousland. For now.
Spoilers: For FFXII and Dragon Age: Origins. Includes characters from Awakening but no major spoilers. No references to DA2.
Notes: So here it is, unleashed upon the world at last: my giant crossover of doom. I've never attempted a crossover of this magnitude before, so I hope it works. Any and all feedback is greatly appreciated. Thanks to everyone who encouraged me to take this direction, and to all my IM friends who haven't played Dragon Age but put up with my babbling and idea-flings regardless. Enjoy!

Summary: Two years after war's end, Queen Ashe is confronted with a new threat: an invading darkspawn army, bursting from underground caverns throughout the world. Fortunately for Ivalice, Warden-Commander Elissa Cousland and her team of Grey Wardens are not far behind.

Link to story, on AO3

I have to admit it: I am kind of in love with this DA/FFXII crossover. It's starting to really work for me. And I am going to spam you all with a snippet that only half of you will half-understand. That's just how my obsessions roll right now.

Context: Grey Wardens have tracked a darkspawn horde to Ivalice and are recruiting from among the local populace. Balthier and Basch are among the first group of recruits for various reasons. Nathaniel and m!Surana (who is not "The Warden" in this universe, just one of their number -- f!Cousland is Warden-Commander) are about to board the Strahl for the first time.

( Snippet time! )

Considering how uncertain I was of this idea at first, I'm really excited by how smoothly things are coming together. Maybe not smoothly enough to have a rough draft in less than two weeks (who decided having such an early deadline was a good idea? Oh, right, that would be me), but certainly better than it was before. 13,000 words but with a ways to go, plotwise. So we'll see. But I am feeling hopeful, at least for tonight.

When I first became active in fandom, back in 2005, I was the very definition of "monofannish". I only wrote in one universe -- Final Fantasy X/X-2 -- and had very little interest in branching out. I would happily read fic in other canons, FF and otherwise, and I would write and talk meta for all kinds of sources, but when it came to creating fanwork, I was perfectly content to hang out in my own little corner. Friends would convince me to check out other sources, and I would often enjoy them, but never was I really tempted to start writing fic. And it's not as though I hadn't thought about it; once I got involved in fandom, I started looking at everything I read, watched, or played as a potential source of story ideas. But nothing outside of FFX and FFX-2 ever gave me anything powerful enough to be worth writing down.

Since those days, I have branched out a little, in that I am more able to take prompt ideas for fandoms I'm not really "in" and do something interesting with them: Sunshine, Star Trek, Babylon 5, other Final Fantasy games. But in all that time, I've only really discovered two new fandoms. The first was Final Fantasy XII. I played the game when it first came out, and wrote a few Kiss Battle and prompt meme stories, but I didn't get deeply into it in a fannish way until I replayed and, at around the same time, wrote three stories for the 2009 round of Final Fantasy Exchange. I was finally hooked, and I started considering myself a part of the FF12 fandom from that point on.

The second, and the first outside the realm of FF, was Dragon Age. I'm still in the first blush with this source, and I've only just started playing the sequel (about which more on another day), so it's hard to say yet whether it will last, but I have a feeling it will. Already, since finishing my first playthrough of Origins in April, I've published three stories, have several more in progress, and am devouring fic at a rapid rate. I haven't felt a creative rush like this since I first entered fandom, and it's got me to wondering: why? Out of all the games I've played since 2005, all the books I've read, all the movies and TV shows I've watched, why is Dragon Age the one that finally broke through? I've been thinking about it, looking for commonalities, and have come to a few preliminary conclusions.

1. I need a lot of compelling source material.
It is surely no coincidence that all of these canon sources are video games. And not just any games, but multi-hour RPGs, with tons of background detail, large casts, strong stories, and settings with complex history and culture. A game is many hours longer than your average movie, and unlike most TV series it usually tells a single coherent story, which I think helps me connect with the characters.

2. I need some gaps to fill.
This might seem to contradict the first item, but actually I think this is part of why games work for me as a source. Many books, especially series, will have the detail I need, but they don't leave as much unsaid, either. Games tend to elide a lot more backstory and character interaction, leaving me more room to play with the universe and the characters. I need a careful balance between Items 1 and 2, and so far games seem to hit it better than any other media. More often than not, I write a story because there's a question I need to answer. The more gaps there are, the more likely that many such questions exist.

3. I need a 'ship.
But not just a 'ship that I like. Plenty of sources have 'ships I like, even adore, without driving me to write about them. No, I need a complete and total OTP obsession, to the point that I need to know more about them, explore every facet, bring them together and split them up and reunite them and see what happens. First it was Paine/Nooj and then it was Ashe/Balthier and now it's Alistair/Warden, but the pattern is clear. (There are interesting similarities between these pairings, but that's another post, too.) This was the realization that came as the greatest surprise to me, because I write so much gen, and I sometimes look sideways at the focus of some fandoms on 'shipping. But it fits, too, because I am a character-driven writer. Even my gen tends to be character-driven. And romance can provide a lot of fascinating opportunities for character interaction. It occurs to me that, the times I've jumped into a new fandom, the romance has come first, and then as I've written those stories, new story ideas come to me: gen stories about the characters in my 'ship, different pairings, new characters. And so I branch out. It happened with FFX/X-2 and with FF12, and I imagine it'll happen eventually with Dragon Age.

So, now that I've gotten my tl;dr on, what's yours? What draws you to become fannish about a source, rather than just liking it a lot? Are there patterns, or is it more random? I'm curious to know if other people's experiences are similar, or very different.

Got behind, so I'll get ahead a little bit today.

Day 16 – Your favourite Final Fantasy limit break.

From a sheer "kicking monster ass" perspective, how can it possibly be anyone but Yuna? Grand Summon, Bahamut, Mega Flare, battle over.

Day 17 – Favourite Final Fantasy mini game.

I doubt you will ever meet anyone else in the world who will say this, but the answer is Sphere Break from FFX-2. I love number puzzles, and this is one I both enjoy and am good at.

Day 18 – Favourite Final Fantasy opening sequence.

Depends on what is meant by this. If it refers to the opening images before you load the game, then the winner, by a long shot, is FFX-2. I neglected to mention "Memory of Lightwaves" when I answered the favorite music question, which was a terrible oversight that I correct here; it is one of the most beautiful songs in the series, and I used to just let the credits run. And I love the images, too, the stylized representations of the different characters and events of the game.

On the other hand, if we're talking about the opening FMV that launches the story, my winner is Final Fantasy XII. Epic in scope, it introduces not just the story and the characters but an entire world.

Day 19 – Best Final Fantasy outfit.

I don't really have a good answer for this question. I like some of the FFX-2 dresspheres a lot -- Trainer, Berserker, and Alchemist come to mind. Some of the prettier outfits, like Lulu's, are entirely impractical for battle, but the practical ones can be boring. I guess I could be predictable and say Auron. Billowing red coats are always fashionable.

Day 20 – Best Final Fantasy hair.

This is even harder. I can come up with lots of bad hair, but good hair is much harder to come by. I guess I'll say Fran -- not exactly practical, but boy is in gorgeous. Lightning has lovely hair, too.

( The rest of the questions. )

The ff_exchange reveal has occurred, and now there is much more tasty Final Fantasy fic in the world than there was this morning, including the gift written for me, a most excellent FFXIII story about Lightning and Sazh. Check it out. :)

Hard Balance by wingedserpent

As for myself, I have two stories in the collection. Both on the lighter side, which made them very fun to write.

A Little Help, FFXII, a story about Reks and Penelo and how they might have met. Gen.

Lost & Found, FFX-2, Gippal/Yuna, on a dig.

Just like last year, I didn't get my act together to write any Moogle Fluff, but I am looking very much forward to the Chocobo Down lists! I always get great ideas from them. Although this year, it will have to complete with my newgameplus prompts, which includes much tastiness as well. An abundance of fandom riches! Just the way I like it.

My Valentine's Day offering: three stories written for the 2011 Final Fantasy Kiss Battle. (Still lots of awesome unfilled prompts over there, for anyone so inclined!) All posted on AO3, all rated PG.

Title: Stick to the Plan
Fandom: FFX-2
Pairing: Nooj/Rikku
Prompt: Secret Agent AU. (The prompt was actually for a different couple, but I saw it close to a Nooj/Rikku request and could not resist the combination.)

Nooj knew that working with Rikku was going to be trouble; he just didn't realize how much.

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Title: Wounded
Fandom: FFXII
Pairing: Ashe/Basch
Prompt: Healing

In a time of battle, healing comes in many forms.

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Title: Aperitif
Fandom: FFXII
Pairing: Ashe/Rasler
Prompt: "It's not his first kiss, but he's positive it is hers."

On the eve of their wedding, Ashe and Rasler take a moment for themselves.

Pick a character I write, and I will give you the top five ideas/concepts/other I keep in mind while writing that character that I believe are essential to depicting them accurately.

This is an interesting batch of characters for me to consider in this light: three different canons (sort of -- one of the X/X-2 characters appears only in FFX and the other only in FFX-2), all men, all secondary characters, all with few specifics from canon, all characters I have written more about, I think, than most writers in the fandom. In each case, I've had to take the tidbits canon gives us and run with them (although we know somewhat more about Nooj than the other two). Fortunately, that's one of my favorite things to do with a character. Writing minor characters is fun, for just this reason.

With all that in mind, and in alphabetical order (and with spoilers for all three games):

( Al-Cid (FFXII) )

( Kinoc (FFX) )

( Nooj (FFX-2) )

Original meme post here (DW) and here (LJ). More requests are definitely welcome.