The WordSpring

Title: Made of the Missed
Fandom: Final Fantasy VII
Characters:Zack, Aeris.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 230
Notes: Several years old, found it on a flash drive I hadn't checked in a while.

( The Lifestream finally takes the last of Zack. He has one regret. )

A very Merry Mishmash to you all! I'm ever grateful for your company and wish you all the best for the season. I wish I could have done something a little more Christmas special for you too, but with my family 'tis the season for mayhem! XD

Have a great one!

-Ard

I finished my NaNoWriMo an hour or so ago, so now I can go back to writing SOLDIER porn.;p 50093, my first NaNo win ever and a real first for me to turn off the editing voice for a while and just let the plot roll. I hope that's not carpal tunnel syndrome I feel setting in. And I'm tired, but in a good way.

In other news, one should not whack a Terry's chocolate orange against one's own head. It's not the chocolate that will come undone.

Title: Prey and Predator
Fandom: Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core
Characters: Sephiroth, Cloud, Genesis, Angeal/Zack.
Rating: PG 13
Word Count: 1523
Summary: A desperate search-and-rescue mission goes awry, forcing Sephiroth to reconsider his first impressions of the situation and the cadet he dragged into it.
Previous: 0

( He is tolerable; but not luscious enough to tempt me. )

Title: Prey and Predator
Chapter: Prologue
Fandom: Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core
Characters: Genesis/Sephiroth, Lazard, Angeal/Zack, eventual Cloud/Sephiroth, Genesis/Cloud/Sephiroth
Rating: PG chapter, R overall
Word Count: 1175
Notes: For the extremely patient and generous lene_de.
Prompt: SOLDIER Monster Hunt
Summary: A desperate search-and-rescue mission goes awry, forcing Sephiroth to reconsider his first impressions of the situation and the cadet he dragged into it.

( It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a Sephiroth in possession of a friend-with-benefits must be in want of a love. )

I don't like Cloud/Tifa.

I don't hate it. I don't have a problem that it exists. I understand the reasoning why they work together as a couple. But as a pairing they do nothing for me. They don't float my boat. Not my cuppa. The thrill isn't there. I'm sure we all have our little things that work like that, the things that are popular with others that just leave us feeling flat. Cloud/Tifa, to me, is vanilla ice-cream among fandom's wild array of flavors, and I've always been a chocolate girl.

Give me a choice between chocolate and vanilla ice cream, chocolate will always win. Show me something convoluted and strange, like a handpacked combo of Bailey's and Tiramisu in a waffle cone, I'm on it ('twas delish, btw). Show me something that might even be a little painful, like a super sour lemon sorbet, I'll give it a go. I'll try every new flavor once. But good old-fashioned reliable vanilla? Meh. It's too plain. Too simple. To easy. My tastebuds lean another way.

Obviously palates differ. There are people out there to whom a good Cloud/Tifa fic is like heavenly summer berries and cream. And there are some people who just flat out love vanilla above all else. I'm not one of them, never will be.

Even so, it's not that vanilla has no place in my life at all. Sometimes that smooth, simple sweetness is the perfect background to something more convoluted on top. Can you imagine Peach Melba served with Mint Chip ice cream? Or Rocky Road? Big as my sweet tooth is, I don't think that's quite my thing. To me Cloud/Tifa as a backdrop pairing to other plot works wonderfully. Even an exotic new twist on the old vanilla cone, like this fic, where Cloud's a lawyer trying to help Tifa get custody of Denzel in a messy divorce, can grab my interest and keep me coming back for the occasional scoop.

I love that the pairings that thrill me most on their own generally require a certain amount of effort to make believable, more than Cloud/Tifa for sure. That's part of the appeal. But trying to mix that kind of relationship wrangling with certain other plots can end up detracting from one or the other. It's too much of a good thing. White chocolate raspberry truffle deserves to be savored for its own sake. To those who have successfully mingled such flavors into a complex dessert, I salute you, but for the most part of my experience, less is more.

So you're more than welcome to your vanilla that to you may or may not taste like butter pecan, CloTi fans. I've already got my own favorite flavors and there's plenty of room in the shop for us all.

*This screed owes its existence to thoughts on yaoi and Haagen-Dazs.

Title: Red Light
Fandom: FFVII: Crisis Core
Characters: Genesis, Angeal
Words: 1935
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Drama
Contents: Prostitution, threats of violence.

( Genesis has a hobby that Angeal doesn't like and the solution isn't much better. )

I've never put down in words my own experience of 9/11. The 'real me' still maintains only a rather bare semi-professional presence online. 'Ardwynna' was in her public infancy after years of anonymous lurking in fandom and I wasn't sure yet how much of my non-fandom life I wanted to attach. My 9/11 experience certainly wasn't the most harrowing and some of what I think about it is likely to get a certain kind of person very angry. But for my own sake more than anyone else's, and for the possible benefit of 'Bob', as I call my potentially-personal CIA internet tracker, I'm recording my own little sliver of experience here.

( I was on a university shuttle bus heading to Calculus 1. )

Title: The Mission (27): Deep Ground
Fandom: FFVII: Crisis Core
Characters: Sephiroth/Cloud, Genesis, Angeal/Zack
Rating: NC-17
Contents: Fisting, voyeurism.
Word Count: 3916
The Mission: Prequel | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26

( How SOLDIERs handle separation. )

An inquiry into what appeared to be a simple ad to rehome some dogs yielded a puppy scam. The breed and names were different and there were some very nice and very stolen pictures of puppies sent along with it. The story did tug my heart, I won't lie, but things were odd - the insistence that 'you and i' pay shipping costs, the poor spelling and grammar, placing an ad from somewhere in Africa to the local papers. Even the email address seemed unprofessional before I asked but the ad appeared to be a local rehoming and people here are notoriously unsavvy about making an email fit for business so it wasn't an immediate dealbreaker.

What really stood out to me was the whole shipping pups from somewhere in Africa. I know the pet import regulations here. This 'next day' delivery thing would simply never happen. I started to wonder exactly what the hell kind of 'Diplomatic Courier Service' could possibly exist that would deliver a dog from an African country the next day and bypass the six months in Government lockup. The first thing to come up was confirmation that this is one shady venture. It's an utterly new one to me.

This makes two efforts into adopting a dog that have gone nowhere. The first wasn't a scam, just not a good fit. I'm tired of this. We've got two adopted dogs so I'm fine with actually buying a third. I'm going straight to a breeder and I'll willingly put down some cash for a pup we can choose in person and raise to fit the family. I'm sure we can remember where we put a certain German Shepherd breeder's number.

Title: Floor Sixty-Six
Fandom: Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core
Characters: Cloud, Angeal/Zack
Rating: R
Word Count: 1916
Notes: A help_japan auction fic for slower_pen.
Prompt: Something with Angeal, Zack and Cloud.

( Some say that floor is haunted. )

Title: Sundari
Fandom: FFVII
Character: Aerith
Rating: G
Notes: Art practice, long-hard-week recovery and scratching an old, old idea off the 'To Do' list all in one.

Aerith in a sari, right this way.

We get our share of wildlife passing through the yard but this is definitely one of the cutest!

The dogs were trying to nab it but it put up a good talon fight and came out beak-clicking in warning but unharmed. I got there in time to shoo the pups off and we parked the little guy in the front yard so his parents could come pick him up. There's no sign of him now, so I hope he's safe.

Title: Small Town Secrets
Fandom: Final Fantasy VII: ACC
Characters: Tifa, Cloud, Denzel, Marlene.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3150
Contents: Conversations with troublesome implications.

( Cloud confesses why things between him and Tifa can never be the way she hopes. )

If I had a zillion dollars
do you know what I would do?
Buy a herd of Shetland ponies
dye them pink and green and blue
Make some purple, white and yellow
Tie some ribbons in their hair
Then I'd paint a pretty shape
on every single derriere.

Title: Biological Warfare
Fandom: Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core
Characters: Genesis/Angeal/Sephiroth/Cloud/Zack.
Rating: R
Word Count: 1721
Contents: Bathroom humor, Genesis airing a secret talent, guys acting twelve.
The Mission: Prequel | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24

( Trouble in bed. )

Title: Felis sephirus
Fandom: FFVII: Crisis Core
Characters: Genesis/Sephiroth, Angeal.
Rating: G
Words: 287
Notes: I was working on the next Mission chapter and this came out. >_>

( Sephiroth spills something big. )

Title: Devil
Fandom: Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
Characters: Cloud, Tifa, Marlene, Denzel, ???.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2611
Notes: Don't worry, I am not abandoning 'The Mission'. I'm a little low on energy for plot-wrangling lately. This is just a one-shot diversion that wanted out of my head.

( The strange things that follow Cloud all his life may be of his own paranoid making. Or not. )

After nearly two years of living out of boxes, I have things on my shelves again! It's been a nostalgic trip to all stages of me. I feel like I haven't seen my books in forever. The biggest surprise (and relief) was my box of porn. I had taped up all my adult-rated yaoi manga and hidden them away in the bottom of the heaviest trunk. Then I completely forgot that I did it. I've spent the last year looking frantically for the box that used to reside under my bed. The thought that it had been moved to some other part of the house without my knowledge and was floating around for any unsuspecting individual to find sent chills down my spine. Despite moves towards more liberal attitudes, old time religion still rears its head around these parts. Having somebody else find that box would not have been pretty. Anywho, box is found and will be secured someplace where I hopefully won't forget it again.

( Me and my childhood book collection. )

At any rate, my books are back out where they belong and I want to hug them all!

Here we go! The writing was complicated somewhat by my having to lie on my side for stretches with the ear drops, but my bite is improving. Thanks for the well-wishes!

Title: Pudding
Characters: Aerith/Sephiroth
Fandom: FFVII OGC AU (Marriage!verse)
Rating: G
Word Count: 100
Prompt: Ear infection
For: masamunes_song

( Daddy Seph ponders childhood. )


Title: Flutter
Characters: Seph/Lazard
Fandom: FFVII Crisis Core
Rating: PG
Word Count: 100
Prompt: Wing!kink
For: white_jenna

( Desire even in death. )


Title: Lucky Girls
Characters: Genesis/Cloud
Fandom: FFVII Crisis Core
Rating: PG
Word Count: 100
Prompt: Something Mission!verse. ^_~
For: kel_fish

( Oh, Gen, you and your kinks. )


Title: Fever
Characters: Genesis/Sephiroth/Cloud
Fandom: FFVII Crisis Core
Rating: G
Word Count: 100
Prompt: Mission!verse. Cloud getting sick and needing to be babied.
For: robonun

( Cloud and the Common Cold. )


Title: Composure
Characters: Lazard, Sephiroth, Genesis.
Fandom: FFVII Crisis Core
Rating: PG
Word Count: 100
Prompt: Anything at all
For: animekittysama


( Sephiroth knew how to keep it together on the field, but this was different. )


Title: Smiling Don
Characters: Don Corneo, Cloud, Tifa, Aerith.
Fandom: FFVII OGC
Rating: PG13
Word Count: 100
Prompt: Don Corneo, anything at all.
For: askaram27

( *insert whistling theme here* )


Title: Well In Hand
Characters: Tifa, Cloud.
Fandom: FFVII AC
Rating: G
Word Count: 100
Prompt: There are girls who are good, and there are girls who get things done.
For: dragovianknight

( Had it up to here. )


Title: On The Bridge
Characters: Genesis, Sephiroth, Cloud, Zack
Fandom: FFVII Crisis Core
Rating: G
Word Count: 100
Prompt: Mission!verse, cosplay
Notes: Because I missed Cloud’s birthday, which he shares with Gene Roddenberry.
For: sabriel

( Beam me up, Sephy! )