Unexpected side effect of working on FFXII and FFX-2 stories simultaneously: Baralai's voice ends up a lot more formal. I have to keep reminding myself that Spira's leaders are not nearly as verbose as those of Ivalice.

I'm actively playing with three stories right now -- one from the alphabet meme, "Aftermath", and an FF12 story that's been bouncing in my head for a couple of weeks at least -- and none of them are going particularly well. Too much atmosphere, not enough plot. This is a problem I've had before, but rarely with so many stories at once. I need to kick-start the bunny generators somehow.

Back when I first acquired the FFXII soundtrack, I noticed that one of the songs was called "Clash on the Big Bridge". The title was somewhat familiar, the song itself even more so, but it took some cross-checking with my Black Mages albums to discover that it was based on a battle of the same name in FFV. I hadn't remembered hearing it anywhere in the game, so I chalked it up to poor memory and moved along.

Then today, a hunt called "Battle on the Big Bridge" showed up in my queue, so of course I had to check it out.

( Minor spoilers for a hunt in the latter half of FFXII. And also for FFV, perhaps. )

I approve. It's a fun little nod to fans of the series, and I love that it takes one of the less-played games as its jumping off point.

I could be almost done with FFXII, but I'm doing hunts and sidequests instead. I'm pretty sure I've finished at least a few hunts that we didn't manage last time, mostly by good Quickening management. And I'm having enough fun poking around Ivalice that I don't have any desire to rush it, at all.

One question before we get into "spoilers-behind-the-cut" territory: Has anyone ever found the Espers useful, or am I just doing it wrong?

( Okay, here are the spoilers, through the return to Balfonheim. )

Was chatting with renay about fandom stuff, and we got to wondering something that really requires the collective consciousness of fandom. So, have a poll.

( How many fandoms? )

Please spread this one far and wide; I want as broad a sampling as possible. Also, my standard disclaimer: I welcome open and honest discussion, but I request that you not flame FFX-2 in comments -- flawed or no, I happen to be quite fond of it, so if anyone comes out with the burning hatred, the conversation isn't going to get very far. Thanks.

I got a last-minute tap to write a backup gift for ff_exchange, and it is now posted! "Political Considerations", a story about Ashe and Balthier and how they might manage to negotiate something of a life together, written for the lovely lassarina.

Five thousand words, the bulk of which were written in three days. And now there are other stories crowding my brain, waiting patiently, and not so patiently, to come out. Not just FFXII stories either, although there are certainly a share of those. I do suspect that this story single-handedly doubles the totally number of words I've written for FFXII. I suppose it's time to admit that I might actually be in this fandom, instead of just lurking around at the edges of it....

So I wrote two Moogle Fluff stories for ff_exchange this week (quickies to help tide over people who are waiting for late gifts): a Baralai/Gippal AU and a bittersweet Balthier/Ashe. Both of these stories came from bunnies that bit me hard and wouldn't let go, especially the first -- I spent a whole day at work thinking about it, writing down snippets so I wouldn't lose them, rushing through dinner so I could collect them into a story. That's a rush I haven't had in ages. Nice.

Lots of other nice stories and art over there, too, if you are looking for something to read. Moogle Fluff is almost closed, but the Chocobo Down prompts should be going up soon. Something for everyone! I know I'll be browsing the prompts.

Note that I have now written three stories this round, and two of them have been FFXII. I am getting more comfortable with writing in that universe all the time, and struck by more bunnies, and it's been fun. I figured the replay would help in that respect, but it's gone far beyond my expectations, and I'm probably only about halfway through.

Speaking of that replay... Have I really not updated since Jahara? ( Thoughts through Balfonheim. )

So, what have I been up to?

• I finished my assignment for ff_exchange! It's a Penelo/Vaan story entitled "Lines of Communication" and it can be found here. I'd never written Vaan before, and Penelo only once in a drabble, so it was my first time with this pairing, but I was pretty happy with how it came out. I'm getting more comfortable with FFXII every time I write it, and of course starting the replay was immensely helpful. I was glad that there was so much interaction between Vaan and Penelo at the beginning; it helped me settle their voices in my head, and reminded me just how much chemistry they have together.


• I got a handle on my out-of-control jewelry situation. For the last several years, I've kept all my jewelry in a nice box that I got for my BMC Alum work, and it just hasn't been working very well -- stuff gets lost, necklaces get hopelessly tangled, etc. So I went to The Container Store today and bought some clear plastic jewelry boxes -- a necklace stand, an earring hanger, and a small box with a lid, all enclosed to protect against cat incursions. Then I sorted everything out, including putting some of the stuff I never wear into storage. It's become clear, though, that I'm going to need at least one more earring stand for the first tier, especially as I am unlikely to stop buying jewelry! Probably a second necklace stand as well. Also, I'm rather dismayed by how many of my favorite earrings seem to have lost a mate. Such is life, but it's still sad. The box will find another life as a place to store hair stuff.


• I watched the first episode of Gilmore Girls, thanks to steluch, who lent me the first two seasons last night. This is a series I've been meaning to check out for years, so it's nice to have the chance finally. The first episode was certainly promising...


• I had a lovely dinner with friends on Saturday -- homemade fajitas, grilled corn, and miscellaneous coladas. Lime colada was probably my favorite, although I'm a little sad that we never got around to mixed berry. But others thought that berry and coconut would be an odd combo, and it could be that they're right. Fortunately, the blueberries made an excellent topping for S's tres leches cake.


• So when I started this entry, I had an idea that the list was going to be much longer, but everything else is way too dull (grocery shopping! laundry! Bubble Spinner!), so I'll just leave it here. ;) Have a great week, all.

Got to Jahara today. Auuugh elementals. I had forgotten how much trouble they are. At least I can still avoid them at this point. Also, were the Ozmone Plains always this hard, or did I just not level up enough?

So I have a question! ( Spoilers ahoy. )

Still having a lot of fun with this replay. This is such an enjoyable game. I should have restarted it ages ago.

Just got back from seeing Harry Potter. It was quite good, possibly the best of series so far, overall. Have to process before I'll have anything more to say, I think.

I also finished the final battle in FFIV, then watched the ending movie, then started with the new game plus (or whatever it's called in this version). Are you not supposed to get the opening CGI movie with the new game plus, or did I make a mistake, or does it come later? Mysterious. Anyway, this I will also need to process, but I liked it too, overall.

Finally, I made good progress in the FFXII replay. Just now starting out for the Garif. This replay has been both more fun and more compelling than I expected. I'm having to resist running downstairs to play right now, in fact.

I'll probably end up writing full posts for all three of these things eventually, since anything useful I could say about any of them would be filled with spoilers. Watch this space.

I took advantage of being home sick the other day to finally start my long-planned replay of Final Fantasy 12. The first time through, I played with T, which always means rushing through faster than I would like, so I wanted a slower, more thorough replay where I get all the sidequests and talk to NPCs and so forth. And this seemed like a good time because... well, let's just say, I have my reasons.

I'm now about 10 hours in, with about an hour or two of that pure leveling, just finished Leviathan, and here are some random thoughts ( some of which are spoilery for the whole game, so I'll cut it here: )

I've probably done this before, but not in awhile, and I'm feeling like a distraction. So...

Post one of my fandoms and the number of any of these questions (as many or few as you like) and I'll tell you the answer!

Note #1: "All" is absolutely an option.
Note #2: Fandom choice is wide open. If you pick something I really don't know well enough, I'll let you know and you can pick a fall-back.

1. The first character I fell in love with:
2. The character I never expected to love as much as I do now:
3. The character everyone else loves that I don’t:
4. The character I love that everyone else hates:
5. The character I would shag anytime:
6. The character I'd want to be like:
7. The character I'd slap:
8. A pairing that I love:
9. A pairing that I despise:
10. Favorite character:
11. What are my five favorite things about the fandom.
12. What are my five least favorite things about the fandom.
13. Who are my five favorite characters.
14. Who are my five least favorite characters.
15. What are my five favorite pairings.
16. What are my five least favorite pairings.
17. Which character are you most like.
18. What is my deep, dark fandom secret.

Title: Judgment
Fandom: Final Fantasy XII (OGC)
Rating: PG
Wordcount: ~600
Characters: Dr. Cid, Ffamran
Spoilers: Yes, many and significant.
Notes: This was written for the "Out of the Comfort Zone" meme and oh boy was this that. The prompt was "FFXII: Cid and Venat" from lassarina, and I hope this qualifies. I still feel like I don't know this game well enough to write for it, and I want to get a replay under my belt before I take on anything more serious, but to my surprise this ficbit came quite easily once I sat down and got myself writing. (Of course, that might mean that it sucks... Since this is such a new arena for me, comments and criticisms on canon violations, characterizations, anything and everything are more than welcome. I mean, such comments are always welcome, but today they're even more welcome than usual.)

( The newly-minted judge finished fastening down his breastplate and scowled into the mirror. 'I look ridiculous.' )

My long-planned fanfic archive is finally ready to unveil onto my unsuspecting public!

Writings of an Owlmoose

Not quite everything is up there yet -- I need to collect and post my drabbles, and the three long multi-chapter works, and a couple of other random things -- but I'm pretty proud of how easily this came together for the most part. There are a few things up there that haven't been widely and/or publicly available before, mostly commentfic and such; in particular, I pulled together all my offerings for the Trick or Treat Battle and Kissing Battle 2008 into two hopefully-tidy packages, for your consideration:

Trick or Treat
Kissing Battle '08

This is also my official announcement that I no longer intend to post new stories on FF.net, although I will post the remaining chapters of "Aftermath" there (assuming I ever finish writing the damn thing). Between the annoying way in which they present ads and the war on punctuation, I have been done with them for awhile, and I'm happy to finally have an alternative.

I do not, however, intend to stop posting on LiveJournal; short fics will be posted here as always, and I'll announce anything longer here as well as posting it on the archive.

Thanks to everyone who helped me put this together, especially bottle_of_shine for advice and encouragement! It is no exaggeration to say that I would never have done this without her.

This is both a GIP (my new default icon, from the webcomic xkcd) and a gratuitous website post.

So I pulled together all of the ficlets I wrote for the Kissing Battle and put them on a single page.

http://www.owlmoose.com/fic/oneshots/kissing-game-ficlets.html

Fear my crappy webdesign and oh-so-basic CSS skills! No, seriously. I consider this practice. A draft, if you will. Eventually it will be better (and have more than one page and a link to a place-holder index), I promise.

Anyway. Eight ficbits: two FFX, four FFX-2, and two FFXII. Be warned that both Final Fantasy 12 stories contain notable spoilers for the end of the game.

Before the game was released, when I first heard that Final Fantasy 12 would feature a real-time rather than a turn-based battle system, I was among the dubious, because I have always preferred games that don't require much in the way of hand-eye coordination. The first time I played FFX I made T do all of Auron's overdrives; that's how clumsy I was. I've gotten better with practice but I'm still not terribly quick. I do best when I can take my time. So I was concerned -- would I hate having to deal with real-time battles?

25 hours in (non-spoilery keywords: Welcome to the Jungle), I can say that the answer is an unequivocal NO. I love this battle system. It's the best one ever. Let me tell you why.

( Four reasons that the FFXII battle system rocks my socks. No spoilers, unless you count battle system mechanics and player-character names as spoilers. )

Today's non-spoilery keyword is: Leviathan.

( Of characters and leveling )

Short answer: I am liking it. Quite a lot, really. The playtime given is almost 10 hours but it's really been more like 8 hours, because there've been a number of times that we left the PlayStation sitting on pause for long periods of time, such as when T's sister called and wanted to chat for over an hour.

( Spoilers, oh yes. I'm past the mimics and just finished running errands. )