KJ

Today's prompt is from spindizzy: "Do you have any thoughts on Nooj and/or Paine that you want to share? (I'm particularly interested in your thoughts on him being a deathseeker, if I'm honest.)"

( Spoilers and references to suicide behind the cut. )

Hey, who wants some old-school Paine/Nooj angst? Sure you do.

Title: Later
Fandom: FFX-2
Rating: PG (for death/suicide references)
Wordcount: 838
Characters: Nooj (Paine/Nooj)
Notes: Written for the second round of trope_bingo. The tropes used were deathfic and reunions, although it plays pretty loose with the latter. I don't usually warn for character death, but since that's the entire premise of this fic, I'll go ahead and put it out there this time. (I think I owe the world some fluff after this.)

Also on AO3

( The aide stood at the door to Nooj's office, her tanned skin ashen, her eyes over-bright with the terrible news. )

As requested by 3_2_1, here are my top five canon moments for:

( Auron )

( Nooj )

( Paine )

The Auron list is pretty solid, but the other two could be more variable, depending on my mood. And whether I'm thinking about "Paine" scenes and "Nooj" scenes, or "Paine/Nooj" scenes. Given my strong feelings about my OTP, I can have a hard time separating those out! Still, these are, at the very least, all moments I like a lot, even though it's also really easy to think of good stuff I had to leave out.

16. Do you write romantic relationships? How do you do with those, and how “far” are you willing to go in your writing?

Do I ever.

I'm kind of tempted to leave it at that, but that would seem to violate the point this exercise, so. ;) Yes, I write romantic relationships; I'd say a solid half of my fic is poking at a 'ship, one way or another. Paine and Nooj by far the most often, especially in my first few years of writing, largely because I find their dynamic fascinating. I have discussed this before, often and at length, so I won't go into all the details here, but it's safe to say that I'm not done turning over the rocks of this pairing yet, even if I don't spend as much time writing them these days.

I write plenty of other pairings, too, some based on requests, others because I see interesting possibilities to explore. I rarely write romance for the sake of romance; I write romance because I want to see how romantic involvement or UST affects the interaction of the characters. I have a hard time writing romance or UST between characters if I don't see a basis for it, either in canon or in their general personalities. Even when writing to prompts, I have to come up with a "hook" for a pairing, some reason that they would be talking, interacting, interested in each other, making out...

Which takes to the last part of the question: the porn. I do write sex scenes, but not usually very explicit ones. A lot of soft focus and fade to black. Partly it's circular: I don't write explicit sex often, so I don't have a lot of practice, so I don't feel super-comfortable in my ability to write them well, so I don't write them very often... I sometimes feel like I ought to get more comfortable, but most of the time, I feel that I can tell the stories I want to tell without them. My sex scenes are as character-driven as anything else I write, so unless I feel like the explicit details help show something about the characters or their relationship, I don't bother with them. There's definitely a place in my life for porn without plot, but I have no interest in porn without characterization, as either a reader or a writer, in original fiction as well as fanworks.

30 Days of Writing: Complete list of questions

First: the concert report. The Distant Worlds II Final Fantasy concert tour came to San Francisco, T and I went, and it was excellent. I've heard many of the Final Fantasy orchestral arrangements, but it's definitely a different experience seeing them live, surrounded by fans, with artfully-chosen clips from the games playing on a big screen. Highlights included "Vama della Flamenco" (a song I love so much that I replayed the Zidane-Blank swordfight at least a dozen times just so I could keep hearing it), the chocobo theme medley, and the "One-Winged Angel" audience sing-along, led from the stage by none other than Nobuo Uematsu himself.

A few cosplayers in the audience, although not many -- I saw a Yuna, a Cloud, a Terra, a White Mage, a dude in Moogle hat. Someone in line behind me for the ladies room mentioned seeing someone dressed as Quistis, which I am sorry to have missed. Probably the best costumes I saw were Zidane and Garnet dressed for the prom: Zidane with his tail peeking out from a suit that was about a size too big for him, Garnet with the hair and the crown and a poofy pink dress, a corsage tied to her wrist. Very cute; I wish I could have gotten a picture.

Anyway, it was a highly enjoyable experience, and if you are at all a fan of the series and/or the music, I really recommend going if you get the chance.

Okay, writing meme time.

4. Tell us about one of your first stories/characters!

I used to write fragments of stories when I was young, but I never got very far. In my head, yes; in my head I would plot and compose epic novels. But I didn't get in the habit of setting them down much, and by the time I got to college I had given writing up completely. I didn't come back to creative writing in any form until 2004, which was the year I spent mostly unemployed. One of my main leisure activities during that time? Playing, and replaying, Final Fantasy games. It was in the process of replaying FFX-2 that I was bitten by a plot bunny. And it bit me hard. So hard that the only way to get it to leave me alone was to start writing the scene that kept playing in my head: a conversation between Paine and Nooj, in which she forces him to confront the demons of his past. That scene was the seed that eventually grew into "Chasing My Past".

( Probably there's no need to cut for spoilers for a five-year-old fic, but I'm going to do it anyway. )

I think my favorite thing is that I settled into Paine's voice on the first try. She is, without a doubt, the first character I felt comfortable writing. The first character I really wanted to write, so much so that I was compelled to finally sit down and follow through on finishing a story for the first time in fifteen years. Other fandoms and other threads within Spira have claimed my writing attention lately, but I know there will always be more stories to tell about Paine.

30 Days of Writing: Complete list of questions

Title: Nightmares
Fandom: FFX-2
Rating: PG-13 (for mentions of violence)
Wordcount: 100
Pairings: Paine/Nooj
Spoilers: For Nooj's story
Notes: Written for the Alphabet fic meme (which is still almost wide open), to lassarina's prompt, which was "S: Solid, Paine/Nooj". The first true drabble I've written in a long time. I always forget what a satisfying challenge it can be to write to a strict word count. Also the first P/N story I've finished in awhile. It's always nice to get back to them.


( Sometimes Nooj startles himself awake... )

For several months now, I have been working on a super-secret project with bottle_of_shine; now it can finally be told.

The Pursuit of Happiness (or, Fifty Ways to Leave, Find, or Get Busy With Your Lover)
A collection of microfics inspired by 1sentence, co-authored by owlmoose and bottle_of_shine.
About 4,200 words.
Final Fantasy X-2, Paine/Nooj, NC-17.

First we never expected it to take this long; then we never expected to finish. But it is done! Hooray. Read and enjoy!

Sometimes, even when a story isn't perfect, you need to let it go. Especially when you've been poking at it off and on for months, and when as you read through it you find yourself making edits and then changing them back...

Title: Simple
Fandom: FFX-2
Rating: R
Wordcount: 3884
Pairings: Paine/Nooj
Spoilers: Not really.
Notes: Written as a follow up to "Where They Left Off" and secondarily for the painexnooj prompt "Reunion" -- which I chose, in large part, to make myself finish this story!


"Your people need to understand that we can no longer take just anyone!" Nooj banged his fist on the table and glared at Elma, who stared coolly back. "The League is changing, and--"

"Meyvn?"

Title: In the Shadows
Fandom: FFX-2
Rating: PG
Wordcount: ~1400
Characters: Paine, Nooj
Pairings: Paine/Nooj. Sort of.
Spoilers: Not for the games; see notes.
Notes: This is a metafic for bottle_of_shine's (most excellent and highly-recommended) story "The Damages of Loss", which was up to section 20 at the time I wrote this. My fic contains spoilers for that story -- definite spoilers through section 14, and vague hints for later segments. It also makes something plain that's only been hinted at so far. So bear that in mind before you decide what to read first. My story is set between the 14th and 15th sections.

I have been writing very little lately. I was starting to wonder if I was in a soaking-up period, given how much I've been reading and playing games the last few weeks. Then the first line of this story came to me while we were on Saturday's nighttime photo excursion. I wrote it down today so that I wouldn't forget it, and then the rest of this story pretty much appeared after it -- the first draft took me only a couple of hours. I'm fully aware that this could be jossed (i.e., completely contradicted by canon) in a manner of minutes, but sometimes a story demands to be written regardless.


( Moonlight casts the darkest shadows. )

The final chapter of "Promises" is posted at the usual location. Thanks to everyone who has come on this journey with us! We hope you found it a satisfying one.