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Weekday one on week of “Trying To Have A Week of Staycation” -- afternoon update.

tl;dr: Going okay, brain full of brainiac things which is awesome, but overall things could be better. Motivationally-enviously eyeing some of your lovely Tumblr themes and, in one case, a highly customized gorgeous DW theme and thinking about how I need to clean up my neglected slum-lord Tumblrs and DW.

(yes, I know how to CSS/HTML with some Javascript. No, I am fucking lazy/busy/idk ... so I subject all of you with shit aesthetic.)

Okay, real update:

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Enough random ramblings at my end. How’s your day going?

[x-posted on tumblr]

Life required too much of my time for the past 2 weeks, which meant almost no gaming either on mobile devices or on one of my larger gaming devices. But gaming did occur, and starting tomorrow I'll also add a What I'm Playing Wednesday post to my weekly posting schedule -- a post that isn't about mobile games BECAUSE WE NEED MORE GAMING LOVE ON DW. :D

I'll also start x-posting these to Tumblr effective immediately.

Okay. Belated Mobile Gaming:

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seventhe came up with this idea and with my painfully overbooked life, mobile games is where it is at for me until summer. Although given the number of old faves that have been re-released on mobile, mobile gaming might become my primary gaming platform for a while? TBD.

Dissidia Final Fantasy Opera Omnia (DFFOO) has been my main mobile game in 2018 on my iPad Pro. Between the nostalgia factor each time I recruit a character (any character!), my general sense of joy regarding the soundtrack, and the lighthearted feel to the story, this game is my current happy place.

After a slow start late in March and on-and-off gaming whenever I could squeeze in the time, I finally caught up last week and finished Chapter 7. I have also played the bits for some of the extra recruitable character story lines that aren't part of the main chapter sequence. I haven't yet inventoried who I am missing but I have recruited 39 of the characters so far. Of them, I have only managed to level up ten characters to level 20 or higher. Only four characters -- Yuffie, Tifa, Cloud, and Yuna -- are developed far enough to hold their own in difficult battles. For instance, Yuffie is at level 38 / crystal strength 24, and Tifa, Cloud, and Yuna are pretty close to her in level. Vincent and Setzer are catching up. I have lucked out on item draws via gems won through level grinding, giving me quite a few 4 star and 5 star weapons and armor that have bonuses for specific characters. AND JUST LIKE WHEN I BEGAN FINAL FANTASY RECORD KEEPER DURING THE DIRGE SPECIAL EVENT LAST YEAR, my item draws in DFFOO are suspiciously friendly to Vincent. I had most of Vincent's 5 star gear long before I started Chapter 7. Oh, and, lololololololol, Chapter 7. It is very much all about how the FFVII gang thinks that Vincent can get a little stupid when he wanders off on his own, away from his friends. Overall, the cuteness factor in DFFOO is seriously high. Not sure any of the intent behind the characterization in each of the story chapters would make much sense to someone who isn't already familiar with this characters from their respective numbered FF games (e.g., what is going on with Vincent yammering about His Sins(tm) and what he is actually trying to do) but the main gist of each characters' personality comes through for everyone I have collected so far.

Unlike some of the other "collect all the characters / grind in battle" mobile games I have played, DFFOO speaks to me because the battles require tactical play if you want to max your score and win all of the rewards. But you can also just plow your way through and accept whatever score you get. For the first few chapters, I was really just making sense of how the battle mechanics worked.

Now that I am caught up on the main story line played at normal mode, I'm ready to grind grind grind. Plan for upcoming week+ is to start replaying the main story in hard mode and also grind away in daily/limited time quests. Not sure how much time I will have but I want to get at least my top 4 to 6 characters high enough for very difficult battles.

Final Fantasy Record Keeper (FFRK) was my main mobile game on my iPhone from when I first downloaded during the Dirge of Cerberus special event, after

auronlu pointed it out to me. So, when was that? August 2017? I think? I need to get back to FFRK but haven't had time.

When I last left off, I was in that uncomfortable place where my main party of characters have excellent gear but were at still at a middling level and FFRK really doesn't have any strategy/tactics in the battles. Either you are tall enough to win the hard battles or go grind some more at mid-level battles until you are tall enough. I still have a lot of grinding ahead...

Final Fantasy Brave Exvius (FFBE) <-- started this a few weeks back and hardly had any time to put into it past the initial tutorial and set up. I still haven't really figured this out. Some day? Because more grinding. More collection. More final fantasy nostalgia joy.

Sometime in the future... I need to replay all of the old Final Fantasy games that have been released for mobile (FF1 - FF9, minus FF8. Why did they not release FF8?! I need my silly military high school drama and endless hours of triple triad! I wouldn't mind doing a long slow series of me playing through various old FF games and posting a Let's Play blog with meta. Although I need to do that for Dirge of Cerberus first ... summer.

...

(as for other things, my life will continue to burn the candle at both ends for the next few weeks. sad sigh. will catch up with things here and on Tumblr as I can)

I am writing an epic thing and I am looking for some style inspiration to see how other writers (and other media makers) have handled EITHER of the following two things:

1. Music -- a character “understands” their emotions/feelings/innerworld through music. I have this highly introspective character with middling-low emotional IQ who spends a lot of time listening to music, noticing synchronicities between his life and that music, and making sense of his confused emotions and thoughts through other musician’s lyrics and instrumentation. While I can very easily imagine how I would show these scenes if shooting a movie or writing a graphic novel/manga, I am looking for various ways that authors have done this in prose. That said, all recs are welcome, even if not a prose novel or short story. Thus recs for movies, manga, etc are welcome too.

2. Limerence -- a character is overcome by the mental fantasies and physiological sensations of being overcome with limerence (= extreme infatuation). Pretty much what it says on the tin, and bonus if most unrequited.

Here’s what limerence is. Key bits are obsessive intrusive thinking/fantasizing about future possible events with the person such that the fantasies are set in realistic everyday events rather than merely sexual, and, more importantly, the physical sensations of being in extreme limerence (from wikipedia): “A condition of sustained alertness, a heightening of awareness and an enormous fund of energy to deploy in pursuit of the limerent aim is developed. The sensation of limerence is felt in the midpoint of the chest, bottom of the throat, guts, or in some cases in the abdominal region. This can be interpreted as ecstasy at times of mutuality, but its presence is most noticeable during despair at times of rejection.”

Writing a state of limerence is very mental thus very much suited to prose fiction therefore, a lot easier for me to imagine and write (and I have managed to write it in a prior novella with said character). That said, always looking for other ways that writers have handled it.

Obviously, while not required, big bonus if any of the media examples of 1 or 2 feature a character with a similar temperament/personality as the character I am writing -- LOL -- SEE ICON HEH HEH. ;D

{x-posted on Tumblr}

Okay … so the big question still remains. Do I include the prostitute mini-subplot?

The scenes aren’t written. Only somewhere in one of the outlines.

Monsters!Vincent has a complex, messy, confused, lonely sexual/relationship history prior to the bang bang, shoot shot, (un)dead.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

From age 17 through 27, there is a long string of failed relationships plus one night stands (the one night stands never call him back), marked with dry periods of “purposefully not getting involved with anyone.” It’s all one long mess of bad communication in which fantasies and/or sex are substitutes for actual communication.

I have outline for a subplot where mid-20something Vincent, while working for Shinra but before the fateful assignment in Nibelheim, befriends a sex worker and those scenes (at least, in my head, as they are yet to be written so I dunno how they’ll end up) are really just … whistles … melancholic, I guess.

As in, meets a sex worker, pays for the sex worker’s time. Ends up befriending the sex worker (from his POV, possibly from her’s too but left indeterminate), falls for the sex worker despite her having a steady boy friend, thinks himself better than the boy friend, doesn’t fully accept that He Is Really Just Paying For Her Friendship+SometimesSex. (and then it just ends when he moves to Nibelheim).

…

Thinking that I want to keep it. Didn’t realize this until I typed this out and realized that it needs to end WHEN he moves to Nibelheim and that entire mess sort of sets up him for the bigger mess he gets himself into. (cough: Lucrecia)

Hm.

Crossposts: https://vieralynn.livejournal.com/228224.html

This is also on Tumblr over here

...

So... I have a year of on-and-off writing for Monsters. Pantsorama. Pantspalooza. Pantstastic. Pantsing Pantsy McPants.

Don’t ask how many words. (Hint: it’s a 6 digit number). Words include drafted scenes, outlines, character notes, drabbles and other short stories that stand on their own, prompt stories (some need to be finished & posted >_<), and various research notes ... so many notes. omfg. And meta conversation notes too.

THE PROBLEM: IF I ATTEMPT DO ANY MORE OUTLINING AND ORGANIZATION WORK, I AM GOING TO SCREEEEEAAAAAM.

The larger problem: I’m a tired, exhausted, doesn't-get-enough-sleep, works long hours, has a shitty commute, just doesn’t have time for nonsense, oh sooooo tired, emotionally worn out from work and just wants to write smexy prose person who really cannot schedule high energy mental time for BIG PICTURE ORGANIZATION of the epic amount of stuff in my scrivener binder unless I take a month of vacation and when I take a month of vacation, it isn’t going to be for this. (sadly).

So, I have a very non-linear story and I am trying to figure out how to just sit down and WRITE IT pronto. Note: write means all of the following:

(1) Write fresh new scenes into the final draft

(2) Copy-paste previously written scenes into the final draft, editing as needed

(3) Editing the whole damn thing, as needed.

(4) Post post post post post post post. Cough. POSTING stuff. So, perhaps, whenever I have the next 5 chapters in final draft mode, put those 5 into an edit-for-posting queue which gives me some buffer to make changes as I continue to work forward but, otherwise, anything in the editing queue is almost ready for posting.

The REAL PROBLEM is this: Sob. The story is so nonlinear. HOW TO DO THIS???

Well, I’ve spent a year trying to put all of Monsters into my head. Yes. Into My Head. The current goal is to just barf it all out (via cut-n-paste and fresh new writing). In a professional fiction world, I’d barf first, fix later. ...but this is fanfic. ;) Thus the goal of having a posting queue with approx 5 barf chapters at a time, which allows me to direction-correct a little bit up ahead before committing to posting.

So, here’s the deal. (oh, this is Monsters, FFVII, fanfic, epic. but the nonlinear problem could apply to any story, even an orig. deets behind the read more)

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In addition to an anniversary prompt fest for Monsters’ main ships, hit me up on MBTI-related thoughts regarding characterization and how I am attempting (lol…) to use MBTI cognitive function ideas to model unhelpful behavior that ends up putting characters into conflicts with themselves. [EVIL GRIN]

Really, anything from “how the hell does this even work?” to something far more specific, even how did I make these type decisions.

I have been thinking about writing on this topic but ever time I try, I just end up with a random word pile in my scrivener so… ask away.

FWIW, while one can make different argument for each of the characters, within Monsters I am most definitely treating the following characters as the following types:

- Vincent (Turk!Vincent & undead!Vincent) - INTJ, as an increasingly unhealthy one until he bottoms out into severe dysfunctional INTJ-lost-in-shadow-function-land by the time Cloud meets him. By the end of Monsters, he finally becomes far more functional/healthy/realistic.

- Yuffie - ENFP, who hits a bottomed out super dysfunctional space at a very young age, shortly before she joins Cloud’s crew in FFVII:OG. By the end of Monsters she is definitely starting to grow up (age 21).

- Lucrecia - ENTP, whom I write as a typical(???) ENTP until she becomes emotionally stressed, destabilized, and circles around the drain in a way that is depressingly dysfunctional ENTP, I think… D:

- Hojo - ISTJ, who starts off as an ISTJ style scientist with some unpleasant quirks that, when put under pressure, goes to shit. And all of that is before he becomes a Crazy Scientist™ with full on avoidant personality issues.

- Other characters open to interpretation…

Yesterday on Tumblr I keyflailed & squeed about how today is the one year anniversary of my novel-writing lovefest with the most perfect plot bunny for me to write: Even The Littlest Monsters Cast Shadows Long and Tall -- a FFVII fanfic novel about Lucrecia, Vincent, & Yuffie, plus Grimoire, Hojo, Avalanche, etc.

The story, as planned, unpacks and plays with a beautiful mess of implications and eyebrow-raisers in the cheesetastic Dirge of Cerberus plus other related bits of the FFVII franchise, with all of it viewed through the lens of a gamer/writer who worked as a bonafide Scientist(tm) with a couple of decades of comparable experience (corp+academic), and who is capable of incorporating (fictional?!?) social commentary on post-colonialism, the problems of corporatism-and-science (including when mixed with governmental goals), high achieving professional women’s anger, popular media and identity, and all the horror both literal and figurative.

Plus, well, Vincent is (unintentionally) hilarious despite the whole concept driving him being depressingly sad.

Sigh. MONSTERS. After pants’ing my way to a very large number of messy words, I am in that horrible terrible (boring, lol) phase of TRYING TO ORGANIZE/OUTLINE THE GIANT MESS I CREATED ALL OF LAST YEAR. :D

And to make things more fun while in this terrible organization phase, I am open to prompts all this month! \o/

So, here is an awesome list of prompts and these are the Monsters ships I will take for any of those prompts:

-- Yuffie x Vincent

-- Lucrecia x Vincent

-- Lucrecia x Grimoire

-- Lucrecia x Hojo

Leave a comment below or use my tumblr ask box : just give me a prompt number from that list plus a ship and weirdshit will no doubt result. :D

Day 3 - Post at least three recs for fanworks you did not create.

This is a placeholder until Annual Travel is over. Cannot easily post links when on cell phone and not in a place where fannish noise on my laptop is not appropriate.

Have been digging cynical night doodles (cynicaln on Tumblr) art over the past year.

Snowflake Challenge

Day 1 - In your own space, talk about why you're participating in Snowflake and, if you’ve participated in the past, how the challenge has affected you. What drew you to it? What did you take away from it? What do you hope to accomplish this year?

I don't think I have done this challenge in the past but I have read other people's posts in prior years. Participating will be touch and go for me because the first half of January overlaps with the tail end of annual travel but this year I am giving it a try, posting in batches whenever I can.

Fandom nudged me into the habit of spending time in early January assessing goals and planning writing projects, so why not add a little bit of fandom positivity into the mix too by participating in this challenge? This challenge seems like a good way to meet new people and reaffirm connections with fandom friends.

Last year I dove back into one of my original Old School fandoms -- Final Fantasy VII -- which inspired me to write and post a novella and a bunch of short fiction, do a lot of headcanoning, and partially draft a fanfic novel plus other in-draft stories, all FFVII. This year I want to organize the partial novel draft, write the chapters, and start posting it. Also want to finish and post some of the shorter stories that I started last year. Time allowing, I want to organize my various FFVII fannish stuff (headcanon, inspo, recs, etc.) somewhere on the web AND finally do my Dirge of Cerberus Metapalooza.

Mostly this year I look forward to more sharing of headcanon and co-worldbuilding with other FFVII fans *and* with people who have decided to take a peak at FFVII canon merely because they find the discussion/brainstorming/creativity/characters interesting.

Day 2 - Share a fandom memory.

One of my favorite things about fandom is how fandom harnesses our collective creativity and makes fictional worlds feel a little more real and a little more lived in. I love the collective approach to world building that occurs when people in fandom share headcanon about a canon's characters and world. Many of my best fannish memories center around conversations with other people in which headcanon is swapped, canon extensions are co-built, and character motivations are picked apart collectively. The collective creativity is what keeps me here.

[Originally posted on tumblr over here]

Okay. NOW I am ready to have that low-effort characterization discussion.

If anyone (plural!) is interested, just leave a reply and let me know if you have some time soon or not for a couple of weeks.

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As a bunch of you know, I have a very large FFVII WIP that includes a sizable character arc for Vincent (told in 1st person POV). The WIP also includes other character/plot arcs.

There are a bunch of things itching my brain regarding how I want to handle and interpret certain aspects of Vincent’s canonical presentation, specifically:

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Even The Littlest Monsters Cast Shadows Long and Tall [Part 4] (just like how Star Wars stars out of order)

One Minute to Midnight, FFVII, Vincent POV, 20k words, complete (despite wanting far more baking as speed written right up to deadline...is2g the title wasn't selected as my personal angst of when it got finished/posted)
Vincent, Yuffie, Tifa, Marlene, Cloud, Cid, Reeve, Lucrecia, Chaos

Tags: Friendship, Angst, Questions, Past Relationship, Phone Calls & Telephones, Bittersweet, Immortality, Demons, Monsters, Canon-Typical Violence

Summary: Vincent has always had a difficult relationship with the concept of time.

Immediately after the events in Advent Children, Cloud convinces Vincent to take a break from wandering the furthest reaches of the planet's hinterlands. Vincent agrees to temporarily help people in Edge rebuild their lives. Meanwhile, Vincent has spent the past two years searching for answers to questions that he still cannot name, all of those questions revolving around the monsters that haunt him, particularly Chaos. While staying in Edge, Vincent decides what he needs to do. Luckily Marlene made sure that he carries a phone.

A Vincent Valentine POV story told through slice of life scenes and flashbacks as Vincent struggles with immortality, a sense of purpose, and a deep seated fear of Chaos.

DW-only A/N: At some point I'll go back in and revise/tighten and increase depth... Likely to get a major revision after EtLM Part 1-3 go up regarding what needs to be said where (regarding story facts that need to be introduced to reader and might get moved earlier)

[20,000 words on AO3]

Title: Rosso Got To Hold A Natural Wonder of Perfection
Characters/Pairings: Yuffie/Vincent
Rating/Type: G
Word Count: 100
Challenge: Prompt: #24 - Deadly Sin: Envy on ffvii_100
Author's Note: The origin for "But Coveting Thy Neighbor's Property..."

Read here

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Ongoing series archived here: http://archiveofourown.org/series/730290

Title: Envying Unconditional Love Was Never Yuffie’s Sin, But Coveting Thy Neighbor’s Property…
Characters/Pairings: Shelke, Yuffie/Vincent
Word Count: 200
Challenge: Prompt: #24 - Deadly Sin: Envy at ffvii_100
A/N: Occurs sometime after Dirge of Cerberus

Read here

Title: Spillage From One Of A Thousand Tiny Cuts
Characters/Pairings: Lucrecia, Gast
Rating/Type: T
Word Count: 100
Challenge: Prompt: #24 - Deadly Sin: Envy at

ffvii_100

Read here: https://ffvii-100.dreamwidth.org/159430.html

Title: In the End She Got What She Wanted the Most
Characters: Lucrecia/Vincent, Lucrecia/Hojo, Chaos, Grimoire
Rating: M
Series: FFVII Original Game, Dirge of Cerberus
Tags: Dysfunctional Relationships, Lack of Communication, Extramarital Affairs, Pregnancy, Science, Power Dynamics, Sex
Summary: Fifty one-sentence snapshots of Lucrecia's thoughts about Vincent from the moment the meet until she says goodbye.

Read on AO3.

Crossposts: http://vieralynn.livejournal.com/227114.html

Title: The Sin of Inaction Has Old Roots
Characters/Pairings: Vincent Valentine, Grimoire Valentine
Rating/Type: G
Word Count: 100
Challenge: Prompt #23 - Deadly Sin: Sloth at

ffvii_100

Read here: https://ffvii-100.dreamwidth.org/158586.html

Crossposts: http://vieralynn.livejournal.com/226923.html

Title: Forever Her Greatest Desire
Characters/Pairings: Lucrecia
Rating/Type: G
Word Count: 100
Challenge: Prompt #22 - Deadly Sin: Lust at

ffvii_100

Read here: https://ffvii-100.dreamwidth.org/158179.html

I made a note in a friend-locked post about working on Even the Littlest Monsters (ffvii fanfic novel, Lucrecia/Vincent, Vincent/Yuffie) has been an interesting experience because it mirrors some of the problems I wrestle with when writing original fiction -- namely the issue of how to write complex female characters. I decided to unpack this further with more of my thinking while planning/structuring Monsters, although I need to state upfront that this is a bit of a rambling info dump. The act of writing this helped me think but editing it heavily so it is readably by anyone passing through isn't gonna happen. ;)

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So, another episode of writing about writing --- Writing Unapologetic Female Characters. (Mostly about Lucrecia, but Yuffie is in this too)

( Well -- this dumps a lot of headcanon and analysis and a few plot points for Monsters but, really, it is about writing unapologetic female characters )

Title: Lucrecia Crescent, Ph.D.
Characters/Pairings: Lucrecia
Rating/Type: G
Word Count: 100
Challenge: Prompt #20 - Boot Camp/Training in ffvii-100 on DW

Read here: https://ffvii-100.dreamwidth.org/157320.html

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Title: There’s Always One in Every Group
Characters/Pairings: Tseng
Rating/Type: G
Word Count: 100
Challenge: Prompt #20 - Boot Camp/Training in ffvii-100 on DW

Read here: https://ffvii-100.dreamwidth.org/157026.html