Note: This is a sticky post to help you navigate my ongoing fanfiction serial. Scroll down for my most recent LJ entries. :)

Love Her and Despair is a dark AU sequel to Final Fantasy X answering the question: "What would have happened if Yuna had chosen the Final Summoning?"

( Fanvid Teaser )

Title: Love Her and Despair
Chapter 38: Venus/Mars
Final Fantasy X/X-2
Characters: Nooj, Baralai, Isaaru, Lulu/Auron
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2100
Navigation: Previous Chapter |
Map of Pilgrimage - Links to All Chapters

Our Story So Far: Sin has destroyed the fayth, and now only one thing can oppose it: Vegnagun, doomsday weapon from an ancient war. Auron and friends lure Sin to the Thunder Plains for a final showdown, where Auron hopes to distract Sin long enough to give Vegnagun one clear shot.
A/N: Boat image adapted from this photo.

( Chapter 38: Venus/Mars )

...since the pun from the kitten drabble jumped out at people.

(I've accused Sam of using this spell for years.)

ETA: This is another one of those cases where my LJ theme adds amusing emphasis. If you view this post by itself, Lulu's hand appears to be assisting the spellcasting.

Haven't been doing many in months, but I've got this little pile that's built up. Also a few not seen by larger community, only flist, so please pardon repeats.

SAMPLES:
       

16 icons:
[1] FFXII - OGC
[3] FFVIII
[12] FFX

Feel free to take with credit! ( <lj user=auronlu> ) 

( ICONS BE HERE )

X-post: Drabble originally written for ff_yuri_drabble comm.

Title: An Unusual Sin
Fandom: Final Fantasy X
Pairing: Yocun/guardian*
Prompt: Unexpected
Rating: PG-13
Words: 200
Spoilers: Through Zanarkand
Author's Note: *Obscure pairing is obscure. See this very short video clip of Lady Yocun and her guardian in FFX.

( An Unusual Sin )

Title: Not a Moogle
Fandom: FFX
Characters: Wakka, Lulu, Yuna, kitten
Rating: G
Words: 100
For: cygna_hime
Request: So Wakka finds a kitten. Adorability/angst/hilarity ensues.
Timeline: 8 months pre-game.

( Not a Moogle )

dagas_isa  -- writing under my very favorite icon of hers -- had an interesting and thoughtful post comparing Yuna and Nao of Liar Game. Much thinky thoughts were posted.

However, I must snip out this paragraph and frame it on the wall, because it's so obvious, and yet I never quite crystallized the thought:

Purple emphasis mine, of course.

So yeah. We have our Lucils and our Donas and our Elmas and our Lulus and our random blitzers and Shelinda the Token Doormat. We have rather more male than female characters being movers and shakers within the storyline. We have Unnamed Mother Syndrome for Rikku, Yuna, Tidus and Seymour. But in the world itself, as opposed to the cast we happen to bump into, it appears that women might pop up in any role.

Except. Deflation time. I see no female maester, no female leader of any group from Al Bhed to Ronso, until we get LeBlanc in X-2, who is not the most flattering leader-figure. Maybe Spiran women can be in any role -- military, religious, sports -- but there is still a glass ceiling?  Or do we blame that on game designers' allocation of PC/NPC roles?

It still looks to me like it would be a lot easier for Lucil to make maester (or meyvin) than it would be for a woman in our world to get signed as a free agent in Major League Baseball or acquire "President" as a job title.

Also, Bechdel Test. Flying Colors. There are conversations [not about men] between all female PCs, and between a number of NPCs and PCs. (Even the Marshmallow of Yevon).

This post is tangentially related to the whole "why are women not being written in fanfic" conversation being carried out in some other fandoms. One thing our canon has which some fandoms do not: Women. Lots. In many different roles.

Cf: LoTR.  (sigh)

Some months ago, I posted a comment in capslock_ff that wasn't capslocked. You know what the penalty is? One must create a Sephiroth/Barret fic or fanart as penance! Small wonder that I disappeared from fandom for months. So, anyway, in light of recent discussions, it seemed like it was time to pay my penalty.

 

Brace yourselves.

WHAT:FANART/PHOTOMANIP
TITLE: "Let Me Be Your Angel"
FANDOM: FFVII AC
WHO: BARRET / SEPHIROTH
RATING: PG-13

Click thumbnail to make head explode:



Base: Gack! from here.

Apparently, discussions are happening around fandom about the lack of female characters in fanfiction and a similar problem in original (published) fiction. They're also discussing the problem that one may become hyper-sensitive about making women too strong, too flawed, too anything because one is too self-conscious about perpetrating stereotypes. (Something I am not always careful enough about, la.)

I've only seen a few of these posts. I am flitting at the edges of the discussion, since (a) I use fanfiction and LJ  as a brain break (b) most of the discussion seems to be about lack of women in the m/m slash fanfiction community, where I'm not active. When I do speak up in those discussions, I'm afraid I sound too smug/preachy/insensitive. ("Well, just write them!" or "Hey, read some of ours, then...I know some authors who can show you how it's done!")

So I don't have many insightful things to say on that discussion, other than the fact that I'm very glad that people are having it.

Here's what I want to say.

Dear Flist.

I love you folks. Never do I have to look far to find stories with plausible and interesting women of many kinds. Yuri, het, gen, whatever -- women are an integral part of the stories you tell, and it would never occur to you to excise them. Those folks on my flist who write m/m also have many stories with well-developed female characters.

Because of you, I didn't realize that we might be existing in a somewhat atypical bubble of fandom/fanfiction where *gasp* women exist. (Although I'm not quite sure of that -- a wide-angle view of fandom is very dependent on vantage point).

I just wanna say...thank you for being! Keep writing! 

 

Title: Kindling
Fandom: FFXII
Characters: Fran, Penelo
Rating: G
Words: 300
For: owlmoose
A/N: I respect the pure drabble-form, but lately my 100-word drabbles have been too much plot in small space. So, flashfic.

( Read more... )

Title: "Inspection"
Fandom: Babylon 5
Drabble for: owlmoose
Words: 100

The airlock door opened. Boot heels pounded the deck. "Captain Susan Ivanova, Earth Force, reporting for—"

"'God sent you'?"

"—shipyard tour of the EAS Titans." Dropping the crisp salute, she thrust out a hand towards the unsmiling officer. "Commander Berensen. Pleased to meet you."

He stared at her, then shook hands.

"General Leftcourt did not mention where you'd earned that Purple Star. I'm impressed. Not many came out of that battle." Her voice roughened. "On either side."

He exhaled. "We both need a fresh start, Captain."

"Agreed." Her ramrod posture relaxed. "The ship?"

"Ready for your inspection, Captain. This way."





Note: Cmdr. William Berensen is from "Hidden Agendas" short story by JMS. So he's canon. I donno anything about him except this, which suggests that Ivanova comes to trust him fairly quickly.

All right, folks! Thanks to our gormless erstwhile literary critic, we have a new slogan! 

"Final Fantasy Fanfiction: Steamy & Ridiculous"

I challenge you to make an icon with this theme!

Here was my humble attempt. I know you can do better!


However, I did get a few good icons while trying to create the above montage.

         

But... WAIT! There's MORE!

sissyhiyah, this one's for you.

( The Instructor Trepe PINUP POSTER! )
 

 

Oops. I made a suggestion on lassarina 's LJ and forgot to repost. So, borrowing muggy_mountain 's editorial comment for this mene:

The first TEN people to comment in this post get to request that I write a drabble OR doodle of any pairing/gen friendship. In return, they have to post this in their journal, regardless of their ability level.* (Feel free to modify exactly what's being requested according to your skills.)

1. Braska, Jecht, Auron in Besaid, encountering mini-W, L and/or Ch.  muggy_mountain 
2. Captain Ivanova for owlmoose (leftover from old meme). Or  Fran & Penny.
3. Glorfindel/Maeglin for a devious person who's trying to pop my m/m cherry trekqueen 
4. Wakka finds an adorable kitten. (Huzzah, I need to write more Wakka.) cygna_hime
5. Reno/Rude with Reno in charge. (O.o;;)  requested by melchar 
6. Quistis/Xu (long overdue!) suggested by the madwoman with the bottle.
7. Ashe/Balthier for lassarina 
8. Catherine & Lulu for wired_lizard 
9. Lulu & Fran talking for saharasnow 
10. MYST: The Stranger first encounters THE BOOK. forovo_lexa 


*Or don't, I'm not policing you. :D

Fandoms: FFX with everything else a distant second, but hey, I should branch out now and then: FFXII, FFVIII, Tolkien's Middle-earth (i.e. including HOME stuff), MYST (except MYST V, which I still haven't played, d'oh!), FFVII (but I don't know it as well; I'm more familiar with AC and DoC, not old-school).

ETA: Okay, folks, that's all the M/M requests I can handle! You gotta ask someone else for those. :) 

Title: Love Her and Despair
Chapter 37: The Summons
Final Fantasy X/X-2
Characters: Auron, Isaaru, Gippal, Paine, Nooj, Baralai, Bahamut
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2500
Navigation: Previous Chapter | Next Chapter
Map of Pilgrimage - Links to All Chapters

Our Story So Far: This is it! Spira's defenders gather for an epic showdown. Lulu has received her invitation as the Guest of Honor. Auron is waiting for her. Old lovers will soon be reunited -- as adversaries on the field of battle!

( Chapter 37: The Summons )

Finish taking notes on this 340 page thesis.

THEN you are allowed to post the next chapter.

Grrrrrrrrrr.

(Dissertation carrot, la.)

(But I am excited, because I think I've got LHAD going again.)

So, I'm in... thank you renay and owlmoose for tugging me that direction.

--Interface is WORLDS better than ff.net and AFF, and it's still in beta. This is what I hoped ficwad would be, and wasn't: a place to archive all fic in one place.
--I love the fact that if you delete a fic, it emails you a copy, Just to Make Sure.
--Tags system is excellent.
--Giftfic system looks like a great idea.
--Only archive where you can use the tag and include fanart. Or LINKS. Thank you.
--Importer is still a little buggy, but it looks like they're working on it.
--Only downside is that AO3 isn't a place to get lots of comments -- yet. It is truly an archive. This may change as it grows.

Question.
A collection of drabbles and/or responses to a prompt comm:
--Post them as separate Works in a Series? I'm afraid that would spam the fandom index, but that way they'd be easier to find/search for.
--Or post them as chapters of the same work, as I've done until now?

( LHAD Meta-babble )

However, I have to use LHAD as a carrot to help me write dissertation. Not before. So. *goes off to work for several hours*

I think I just saw an inch of rain fall in the last 5 minutes. And here I thought we were about done with this week's monsoon.

Okay, okay, I take it back, weather gods. You have finally managed to produce enough rain to equal an east coast summer downpour.

Very impressive. There was even a modest attempt at lightning a moment ago.

(For someone from a rainy land who's lived in a desert for 12 years, I'm enjoying this "biggest storm in 25 years" entirely too much. I've seen deluges like this back east, but it's been a loooong time.)

... to get art commissioned from justira for the help_haiti auction!

*hopping up and down*

Justira's art is GOoooood. And has been getting even better, thanks to her posting one art every day for over a year now.

Reminder: my own humble means of helping Haiti is this article on Haitian Vodou which earns $ for the "Hope for Haiti" charity. Each visit helps boost the page's rank, and montly earnings (alas, only a few dollars unless it's one of the top 2000) are paid according to rank. 4% Amazon commissions come to it from any purchases made after clicking the Amazon links on that page. (This lasts about a day, or stops when you click on another Amazon associate's link to navigate to Amazon. I assume you need cookies enabled for that to work.).

Note that anyone can make an article on almost anything on Squidoo and set it to the "Hope for Haiti" charity (or any charity on Squidoo's list, vetted to make sure they are legal nonprofits.) Posting creative work or photos counts too, although if no one visits the page or clicks on links, it may not earn anything.  (Here's how I write webpages that target Google searches, such as, say, "Haiti voodoo".)

My article will remain up permanently, so while it may only earn $5-20 a month, it will continue to do so unless that charity severs its partnership with Squidoo. Which it probably won't, as I think over 100 pages have been built in the last to benefit that charity. Between all of us, I'm hoping we'll be bringing in over $500 a month!

Title: The Blue Word (originally posted here on ff_yuri_drabble)
Fandom: FFXII:OGC/FFX Crossover
Pairing: Fran/Lulu
Prompt: Shower
Rating: R
Words: 500
Warnings: Crack pairing is crack.
Author's Note: Actually, LJ prompted me write this. I'm not kidding! See Previous entry.

( Behind the falls... )