FINAL FANTASY KISS BATTLE 2021!
HELLO FRIENDS????? Remember those fandoms we all used to be in? and producing things for? Well, baby, it's time for a nostalgia run, so buckle up your chocobos and get ready to roll. We haven't done a Kiss Battle in years and ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lassarina and I for one think it's TIME TO DO SO.
This event is open to everyone, even if we aren't DW circlefriends! (feel free to friend me too; i promise i'm not crazy that's a lie). If you aren't on DW, you can still play via anon or OpenID!
The Kiss Battle is simple. Players leave prompts in comments under each specific fandom, using generalized fandom nomenclature: a relationship of some sort, and a concept to inspire other players.
- For romantic relationship kisses, we use X / Y
- For platonic relationship kisses, we use X & Y
- Absolutely open to relationships with more than 2 people involved! X / Y / Z (/ A / B ...) welcome to this party!
- Prompts can be a word, a sentence, an image, a song lyric; it's a suggestion, rather than a request
- it's a kiss battle! there will be smooches!
Players then go looking for smoochin' prompts they'd like to fill. Fills can be fic, art, interpretive dance, whatever you're inspired to; they can be filled in a responding comment, or as a link (to AO3, tumblr, etc). FILLS GOTTA HAVE A KISS IN 'EM. IT'S A KISS BATTLE. What counts as a "kiss" is up to you, though -- you can be creative!
- Fills should use the comment header to let people know what the fill is; please use a format like "X / Y, (title), (rating), (any content warnings that might apply)"
- "Aerith/Tifa, memorial, G"
- "Cloud/Squall, just in time, R (blood)"
- Prompts can be filled multiple times! Don't worry if someone got there first; we love Two Cakes up in this event! The more kisses we get, the better!
- You can fill as anon if you want/need for any reason
- You can of course crosspost anywhere you'd like
It's a very simple game, and is meant to be played in good faith without anybody being a shitbag about pairings or characters. We're all too old for this.
FANDOM LINKS Fandoms with compilations and expansions should fall into their titled macrofandom. For example:
- FFXIII also includes FFXIII-2 and Lightning Returns (FFXIII-3)
- FFX also includes X-2
- FFIV includes the After Years
If you need to specify a certain microfandom / singular canon, please do so in the prompt or in the comment header!
FINAL FANTASY I
FINAL FANTASY II
FINAL FANTASY III
FINAL FANTASY IV
FINAL FANTASY V
FINAL FANTASY VI
FINAL FANTASY VII
FINAL FANTASY VIII
FINAL FANTASY IX
FINAL FANTASY X
FINAL FANTASY XI
FINAL FANTASY XII
FINAL FANTASY XIII
FINAL FANTASY XIV
FINAL FANTASY XV
FINAL FANTASY TACTICS
FINAL FANTASY TYPE-0
FINAL FANTASY RECORD KEEPER
FINAL FANTASY BRAVE EXVIUS
BRAVELY DEFAULT
FINAL FANTASY SPIRITS WITHIN
OTHER FINAL FANTASY CANONS
FF CROSSOVER PROMPTS
MAKE FRIENDS! If you're interested in meeting more FF fandom people, this comment thread can be used as a friending meme! Tell us a little about yourself, which FFs you've played, favorite characters/ships, and look around for new friends!
You can also join the Final Fantasy Old Folks Home Discord and come gripe about those kids on our lawn and the old days where you had to level grind by hand lmao. Open to all FF fans!
BLITZ KISSINS If you already know what smooches you want to write, you don't need to wait for a prompt -- just comment into the relevant fandom thread with your kiss!
REMEMBER It's only fun if everybody plays, so if you leave a prompt, try to fill someone else's!
Re: FINAL FANTASY TACTICS
Sydney/Hardin, partners...?
Sydney/Hardin, An Offering of Souls, PG (canon typical tragedy/anticipated character death)
In Müllenkamp's time, to be the one who proclaimed the sun's fall beneath the horizon at the very height of summer was a rare honour. Leá Monde's sons competed to be the one who climbed to the city's highest vantage point, the highest tower of the Great Temple of Kiltia, or so Sydney was told as a child. He only remembers staring at the temple ceiling, impatient and overly tired, waiting for one of his father's friends to announce the sunset seen only with the eyes of his soul.
Sydney took up the responsibility when he revived the practice for his Müllenkamp, the lone scryer in their number. They need not fear the priests now, but nor can they trust a body to the Cathedral's crumbling architecture, or their reduced numbers to what remains of the Temple beneath it. At least in the keep's courtyard they can see the sky, and it is a large enough space for the revelry that comes as they celebrate the lengthening nights.
Under the cover of darkness and merriment, Sydney steps close behind Hardin, a careful grip on his shoulders lest Hardin's body should lose its balance as his soul returns.
"Are you well?" Sydney asks.
"Well enough," Hardin says, one hand kneading the back of his own neck. "I am stubborn but not fool-hardy."
The Cardinal's activities this Yuletide past cost them a score of souls they will not see again, but you would not guess it were so from the tide of shouts that have taken up Hardin's call of "last light" around the growing fire. Sydney told them to not spare the wood this year, or the wine. At this year's end, the revelry is much needed.
"You are the strongest among us, but you do not need to take it all on yourself. You have a partner," Hardin says, laying his hand upon Sydney's metal one. "Though you may need another if you wish to join the dancing. You could not last year, and I wanted..."
Neither man moves to join the dancers wreathing the fire.
...Partners, Sydney thinks, like a question he has never thought to ask. He and Hardin do not put names to what they are. Or so he thought.
"The Duke is ailing. He will not keep the legacy from you much longer." Hardin's weight is warm against Sydney's chest. Without the support, he would be swaying on his feet. "This may have been my last chance."
When you have need of me, Hardin's heart whispers, your Phantom Soul will be true and fast.
Sydney's heart stops.
It is true that a would-be successor must cede his Phantom Soul to the Dark. It is true that the Duke's succession from his own father cost him his first wife. But the legacy remains no longer with the Duke. Sydney thought the lie fitting, once upon a time, that Hardin should not assume he could ingratiate himself and so become Sydney's successor.
They have not always been friends, or lovers, or... partners. Their history is built layers of lies on half-truths, too many to excavate in the short time they have left together. Not if that lie is the rock beneath Hardin's loyalty.
Not if it may not yet be a lie. There is little indeed that Sydney will not sacrifice for his father's plans.
He has not told Hardin that his gift can no longer see ahead to another winter. That he cannot see ahead to the next turning of the leaves. Instead of a thousand possibilities, Sydney now dreams of only one death, in fire and blood. And alone.
Sydney presses his lips to the arch of Hardin's neck. "The dancing I have in mind is best in private."
Hardin's teeth are bright as he laughs. "I am well enough for that."
---
...Much darker/more dysfunctional sequel pending?
Re: Sydney/Hardin, An Offering of Souls, PG (canon typical tragedy/anticipated character death)
And dark, dysfunctional, and sequels are all welcome here, of course. Very very much so. Not that I expect that to be surprising. ;)
Re: Sydney/Hardin, An Offering of Souls, PG (canon typical tragedy/anticipated character death)
Somehow in all these decades, I'd never stopped to really think about what Hardin must have thought would happen in Lea Monde and once I had the idea I was charmed.
R&G seem to think Hardin expects to be Sydney's successor, but the more I looked at it, the more it looked like Hardin thought Sydney would be the Duke's successor. (And yes, noticing that Guildenstern is very clear he needs Samantha's soul *and* that he loves her, at that point you mentioned... it doesn't make sense that Merlose would know about the Phantom Soul needing to be 'true and fast' when she apparently knows little else about the ritual, but we know she can see John's heart and... yeah, it's not hard to imagine what Hardin might have thought his role would be, is it?)
I love a Sydney who is both fiercely pleased by Hardin's devotion and a little guilty about it at the same time. Not guilty enough to take advantage of it, though, clearly.
The sequel/continuation is: well, Sydney may believe that they won't survive long enough for Hardin to find out and call him on lying about this but... what if they did? (Sequel will have more kissing, less canonical character death, but also more kink that will require #consentissues as a tag, so I'll probably link here and post on AO3.)
Re: Sydney/Hardin, An Offering of Souls, PG (canon typical tragedy/anticipated character death)
And yeah, agreeing on your plot points here. Hardin clearly was thinking they were trying to wrest control of the city from the Duke, and then Callo asks what Sydney will do with that power and his soul has no answer to give. Oof. Meanwhile Rosencrantz can't imagine why a man would be loyal to anyone unless he was going to get something out of it, and Guildenstern might be able to wrap his head around it if it ever occurred to him that Sydney's "flock" is just as loyal to Sydney as Guildenstern's men are to him and the cardinal. Or, you know, not unlike Samantha. So of course they'd assume Hardin is the obvious choice. (Heck, in one of my fics the entire rest of the sect thinks Hardin's going to be his successor, and when it comes up Hardin's like "wtf NO.")
This got me thinking a lot about what Sydney might have told Hardin immediately before canon about what exactly he claimed the plot was. Because mostly when I have tried to get anything out of Hardin about that siege, what he gives me is "You want me to kidnap a little boy? I mean, yes, I would protect him with my life and it's likely better than what will happen to the rest of his household, but I am to kidnap a child and take him into Leá Monde?!" No idea if anything will come of it other than scene fragments I may or may not work into something though. =)