KJ

Title: Beached
Fandom: Kingdom Hearts (with canon from Birth by Sleep 0.2 and KHII)
Rating: G
Wordcount: 1525
Characters: Aqua, Rikku, Yuna, Paine
Spoilers: For Birth by Sleep, particularly BBS 0.2
Notes: Written for the current round of ladiesbingo, to the prompt Elves, Fairies, Pixies and Brownies. I had various ideas on this one, then remembered that fairies are canon in the KH universe and came up with this bit of idea.

On AO3

Have some short fics I haven't crossposted here yet, including my stories for this year's Kiss Battles and some Tumblr memes. All links go to AO3.

Kiss Battles

Title: Learning to Lose
Characters: Lulu, Yuna
Prompt: "They get closer and closer to the end, and Lulu doesn't know if she'll be able to see the thing through when they reach the finish line."

Lulu thought she knew what she was getting into.
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Title: Five Years and a Hundred More
Characters: Larsa/Penelo
Prompt: She sees he's grown up.

Dancing at the five-year anniversary of Larsa's coronation.
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Title: Visitor
Characters: Flemeth/Solas
Prompt: The Old Days
Notes: Major, major DA:I spoilers.

Flemeth has an unexpected visitor in the Wilds.
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Other Flashfic

Title: Minor Acts of Sedition
Characters: Malika Cadash, Sera
Prompt: "I have one word for you: sing-a-long!"
Notes: I haven't completed the quest this story references, so apologies for any missteps with canon. But I think it should be close enough. No real spoilers.

When Maryden the bard sends reports of scandalous songs being sung, Malika Cadash has to hear them for herself.
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Title: A Different Life
Characters: Blackwall/Malika Cadash
Prompt: n/a
Notes: Written to dive a little deeper into a conversation that Malika and Blackwall never properly had about his past. Major spoilers for Blackwall's personal quest.

A conversation put off too long.
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Title: Good Company
Characters: Alistair/Sereda Aeducan (pre-ship), Duncan
Prompt: "Are you flirting with me?"

Alistair, Sereda, and a lighthearted moment at Ostagar.

Some of you may remember the long meta post about Final Fantasy X-2 and some of the criticisms commonly made of it that I wrote a few years ago. ladybusiness asked me to update and repost it, and it's now up!

In Defense of X-2: 2014

Five fics in five fandoms: Ace Attorney (yes, again), Dragon Age, Final Fantasy X-2, Final Fantasy XII, and Marvel Cinematic Universe.

All links go to AO3.

Title: Immersion
Fandom: Final Fantasy X-2
Prompt: Phobias
Rating: G
Summary: Rikku can only think of one way to beat her fear of thunder and lightning. Rikku & Brother

Title: In the Kingdom of the Blind
Fandom: Ace Attorney
Prompt: Coming of Age
Rating: G
Summary: After the events of Rise From the Ashes, Miles Edgeworth contemplates the life of a prosecutor. Spoilers. Also inspired by a prompt from a Tumblr meme: "Druxy: Something which looks good on the outside, but is actually rotten inside."

Title: A Song of Spring
Fandom: Dragon Age 2
Prompt: Songs From Childhood
Rating: G
Summary: Bethany and Carver Hawke remember home. Warden Twins AU.

Title: Not the Strangest Thing We've Seen This Year
Fandom: The Avengers (MCU)
Prompt: Dragons
Rating: G
Summary: The Avengers do battle with a most unexpected foe. Clint Barton, cast.

Title: Measurement
Fandom: Final Fantasy XII
Prompt: Pioneer
Rating: G
Summary: Drace satisfies her curiosity about Ffamran Bunansa, newest of the Judges. Spoilers. Also inspired by a request for Drace from the Chocobo Down database.

Awhile ago on Tumblr, a fic meme went around about writing shortfics based on randomly-chosen songs. I wrote one series for Sereda Aeducan/Alistair (also on AO3), and enjoyed it so much that I bookmarked the idea for other couples.

Accordingly, here's a Paine/Nooj version. This is on AO3 as well.

( 10 fics based on 10 songs, behind the cut. Not necessarily in any kind of canoncial order, or even all compatible with each other. )

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. )

Happy DOINK! reveal, everyone! I totally scored this year, receiving not one, not two, but *three* awesome fics based on my prompts, one regular gift and two Moogle Fluff stories:

Compromise by lassarina - FFXII, Ashe/Balthier post-game.

There the Bones of Us May Lie by justira -- even more Ashe/Balthier, this one set during the game, right after Ridorana.

Warrior's Flame by Jessicamariek -- FFX, Rikku and a proper Al Bhed mourning ritual for Tidus and Auron.

I adore them all and highly recommend that you check them out.

As for me, I wrote two gifts this year:

On the Sidelines - FFX-2, Paine and Lulu. "On Yuna's first visit back to Besaid, Paine and Lulu have an opportunity to get to know each other a little better."

Dreams & Obligaions - FFXII, Ashe/Basch. "Ashe and Basch have been carrying on a secret relationship ever since the war ended. But changes will soon force their secrets to come to light, and Ashe and Basch must decide how to proceed."

Looking for more? The full collection is here. Enjoy!

An appropriate day to finish up my replay, since it was announced that the upcoming FFX remaster will include FFX-2!!! And it will be the International version which means extra boss battles and Last Mission!!!! I will finally be able to play Last Mission. You have no idea how excited I am about this.

I meant to write up a little more about my replay as I went, but I being more motivated to play FFX than to write about playing FFX. :) In the end, I didn't really have any amazing revelations, but I did have fun.

Observations ( behind the cut: )

Somewhere along the way, I realized that I'd decided to replay FFX-2 next. I just can't step into Spira without wanting to spend as much time there as humanly possible. Let's see if I can resist starting it 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.

Yes, indeed, we are doing a second round of Mega Flare this year, and signups open today! Check out all the details at megaflare_ff. Whee!

As long as I'm here, I might as well finish up the 30 days meme. I've noticed that pretty much no one has managed to draw this out over 30 days, and I see why; most of the questions are too short-answer to really justify a whole entry, and neither do they really invite discussion or debate. But I hate leaving projects undone, so here we go!

Day 21 – Favourite Final Fantasy pairing/ship.

If you have to ask, then you haven't known me very long. The answer is Paine/Nooj. First, last, and always.

More recently, I have also gotten really into Ashe/Balthier and Ashe/Al-Cid, the latter of which is sadly underrepresented in the fandom.

Day 22 – Favourite Final Fantasy summon.

Bahamut in Final Fantasy X. Not only does he kick ass in battle, he's integrated into the story in a way I haven't found another summon to equal. Also, I think his design is beautiful, especially his fayth statue.

Day 23 – Least Favourite Final Fantasy mini game.

The aforementioned butterflies are way up there. Also, monkey matchmaking. Really, Squeenix? Really? I also never got anywhere with the Calm Lands publicity game.

Day 24 – Best Final Fantasy quote.

"This is your world now."

Day 25 – Final Fantasy game you plan on playing (old or new).

Top of my list is Final Fantasy VI. I started it last year, set it aside because I got stuck on a boss battle, then got distracted and never picked it back up. I really want to finish it, though. I'm also looking forward to Versus, if it ever gets finished.

Day 26 – OMG WTF? Final Fantasy moment.

In Final Fantasy VIII, when you learn about their past in the orphanage. That bit of backstory stretches my credulity and breaks my brain. I don't know why that particular thing, of all the ridiculous coincidences that happen in every Final Fantasy game, strikes me so, but it always has. Particularly Irvine's reasons for not 'fessing up. I mean, what?

Day 27 – Best Final Fantasy storyline.

FFX, hands down. I love the story and the way the game tells it.

Day 28 – First Final Fantasy game obsession.

I think I have to give FFX-2 the nod over FFX, if only because that was the game that pulled me into being active in fandom.

Day 29 – Current Final Fantasy game obsession.

Dragon Age Final Fantasy XII. The more I read and write, the more drawn I am into the characters and the universe. So much possibility for interesting futures.

Day 30 – Saddest Final Fantasy character death.

And once again on getting drummed out of the fandom, but my answer to this question has to be Tidus. That ending scene, where Yuna tries to catch him and falls on the deck? Ouch. The way he faces the end of his existence with such calm and grace, never complaining, never angsting about it. He does what needs to be done, and then he says goodbye. I get misty, every time.