Dee Moyza

13. An AU thing

Special Order! It's an FF8 bakery AU featuring Quistis as the owner of a boutique bakery in downtown Dollet whose business is in danger of being siphoned off by the coastal megaresort owned by Seifer. The arrival of Selphie, the heiress to a munitions manufacturing company, could turn things around for Quistis, if an unfortunate mishap doesn't sink the bakery first!

Also featuring:

Zell and Library Girl as Quistis' employees
Rinoa as a bookstore owner
Zone and Watts as Rinoa's employees
Fujin and Raijin as Seifer's employees
Squall and Nida as Dollet police officers
Xu as the police chief
and Irvine as a competitive shooter and one of Selphie's best friends

14. Another AU thing

Evening Edition, an FF8 newsroom AU. Quistis has worked the anchor desk at BalambNine News for five years, and takes her job very seriously. But the arrival of a brash new co-anchor changes the dynamic of the newsroom and pushes her further from the kind of work she aspires to do. She weathers her frustration as best as she can, until international developments offer her a chance to do the job she loves, and reclaim her well-earned position in the process.

Featuring:

Quistis and Seifer as anchors on BalambNine Evening News
Rinoa as the meteorologist
Squall as a station technician
Zell as the sportscaster
Selphie as a roving reporter
Irvine as a cameraman
Xu as the director
and Cid as the station manager

15. A thing that involved intensive researching/practice

"Special Order," definitely. I tend to get irritated when I read stories where characters are supposedly business owners, but the story doesn't show them doing any of the actual work, and I wanted to try to avoid that as best as I could. I also wanted the orders that Quistis took on to be challenging, but not impossible. I researched baking techniques, bakery working hours, cake sizes/yields for crowds, and cake and cupcake recipes and flavor combinations, and I hope I was able to evoke at least a little bit of the work and dedication that goes in to running a small business, and the precision and planning that go in to making gorgeous and tasty desserts. I also had a ton of fun with it, so that was definitely a bonus! :D

7. A thing you made in a frenzy.

I can't recall having made anything in an actual frenzy, but I know that I do tend to draft short, smutty pieces more quickly than I do other stories, simply because overthinking that kind of subject matter ultimately does it no favors. In that respect, I think Good (Transistor, Red/Blue, rated E) tumbled out fairly quickly, just flowing on from the opening line to what I felt was the scene's natural end.

8. A thing you're currently still making

Ha. Hahahahahaha. TOO MANY WIPS! But in the spirit of this event, I'll pick one: "Crystal Mind and Magenta Feelings." (Sorry, no chick-a cherry cola.)

Some backstory: Years ago, I tried writing a story about Selphie's pre-Balamb Garden days, titled "Mercy." In it, I intended to introduce the GF that Selphie offhandedly mentions finding during a training mission in Trabia, and explore Selphie's relationship to that GF. I had named that GF Eir (Old Norse for "mercy"), and envisioned it as a Mesmerize with a significant glow-up.

( Now a quick summary of CM & MF )

9. A thing that you always look back to

"Dusty Boots," a little "article" I wrote for Timblr Maniacs, a blog that reimagined what kind of content one might have found in the old Timber Maniacs magazines from FF8. This blog collected in-universe articles, advertisements, and features of the FF8 world, and was an absolute blast to read and write for! Other than this piece, I have several others over there, and everybody's contributions were so wonderful and fun! It's a shame it didn't really take off with the FF8 fandom; I would love to see a project like this start up again, maybe even in an actual zine format.

1. The thing that started it all

I've been writing practically since I physically could, so I'll go ahead and list the first fanfic I wrote instead. It's no longer on any fic archive, but there's a copy here. I didn't quite trust myself to write about the major characters yet, so this was a ficlet about post-canon FF8 Biggs and Wedge, just to get my feet wet. :)

2. A thing you made for/with a friend

I haven't really done a coordinated collaborative project, with planning and delegated tasks and all that, but I do consider this picture to be a collaboration. I did the lineart, and iffylogic graciously offered to color it for me, and it came out looking amazing! Thanks, Iffy! 💕

3. Reshare the latest thing you posted

"Flowers on the Sill," an FF8 fic about Caraway and Rinoa trying to navigate their relationship post-canon. I wrote it for ficinabox, and I think it came out pretty good.

Nicked from Bluesky. Here's the original post.

It's supposed to work like an advent calendar, but 1) I didn't even see it until the 2nd, 2) time got away from me, 3) I'm still not too comfortable with using Bluesky, and 4) I never followed the rules of advent calendars, anyway. So, I think I'll go ahead and tackle these prompts in batches; three a day, starting tomorrow, should take me right up into the 24th.

( The list of prompts )

Taking part in Wanksgiving this year. Yesterday, I posted an original ficlet I had lying around, and today, I posted a fic with an, uhh, unconventional pairing for me. And because I was a little hesitant about it, both of these went on my secondary AO3 account, where they will appear after creator reveals next Thursday.

But, hey! Words!

Total words written since the last update: 3,196
Total words written this year: 19,623
Total days written since the last update: 1
Total days written this year: 8

(There's still time to contribute to the Wanksgiving collection, by the way! Come join me in the gutter! >:})

Recently, I picked up a pinch hit for ficinabox and knocked out a couple thousand words. The fic isn't great at the moment, but I have a few days to nip and tuck and pinch and tweak it into something I'm proud of. At this point, I'm just proud of having written something else so soon!

Total words written since the last update: 8,308
Total words written this year: 16,427
Total days written since the last update: 2
Total days written this year: 7

I recently read Comfort Me with Apples by Catherynne M. Valente. It's a short read, only about a hundred pages, but I found it gripping. Valente's prose is lean but lyrical, effortlessly sliding from sweet to sour as Sophia discovers the cracks in the façade of her seemingly perfect life. From the size of her house to the neighbors' fear that Sophia misinterprets as reverence to the unusual hostess gifts she presents to a trio of women who invited her to tea, the slow-dawning realization that something is very Not Right in Sophia's world drives the story. The beats are familiar enough, as are the symbols, but the presentation is where this story shines. It is, in a spoilery nutshell, ( Read more... )

Now, smarter readers than I might have put the pieces together by the time of the tea party scene, given the characters' names, but I am a bit slower and was just along for the ride, letting each little revelation hit me with its full weight. And the weight of Sophia's husband's casual, even flippant, cruelty hit me with the force of a train. It wasn't unexpected, it was just very ugly: the dismissiveness, the constant shift of responsibility, all of those things we have come to know and (sadly) expect from the worst kinds of people.

( Spoiler )

This story is painful but all too familiar, laying bare the entitlement some men feel toward their own happiness and women's bodies, the rewards they expect simply for existing, and implying that, according to the stories some of us have inherited (stories on which governments are currently being -- and shortly will be -- run), it has been there since the dawn of humanity, since the dawn of time.

What are we to do, then? It might feel hopeless, but I believe there is value in bearing witness to Sophia's story, value in learning to recognize the warnings and the clues left behind by women like her, so that someday, maybe, we can break free of these cycles of abuse and control, one individual at a time.

There is hope in the name of the next wife, for we know that she will destroy this perfect prison. She may not get far afterward, depending on whose stories one believes, but she will make that crucial first break. Progress, however incremental, still is.

Given the subject, it feels strange to say that I "enjoyed" this book, but I did. I thought Valente's mashup of legends and modern settings was brilliant, and infused the story with urgent relevancy. I loved the slow-dawning horror, I loved putting the pieces together, I loved the snippets of HOA contract that got stranger and stranger until they culminated in a God-given edict. Despite the fear and fury this incited in me, or maybe because of it -- I cannot deny that rush of hope and vindication I felt watching Sophia piece together the answer, even knowing her fate -- this quickly became one of my favorite stories.

RL has failed me. It is now time to go cannibalize a fanfic for original fic parts. To relax.

The drought is over. I have Written. Despite my uncertainty regarding exchanges, I picked up a pinch hit for trickortreatex, mostly to assuage my own guilt over defaulting on my assignment. Also, the prompts were juicy. Anyway, I ended up writing two stories but only publishing one, because the first one simply refused to play nicely. I was trying to be Deep and Serious with that one, but ended up scrapping it in favor of something more lighthearted.

I also received a fic that put a fun and unexpected spin on the prompt, which I enjoyed.

Anyway, oof. It's been a long, long time, but I finally have words to report! :)

Total words written this week: 5,108
Total words written this year: 8,119
Total days written this week: 2
Total days written this year: 5

(I think I'll go back to the Word Count goal for next year's GYWO.)