Round Up: Minigame

[corpsebrigadier]

I finally tried out this whole flash exchange business. Despite being a relative exchange n00b, I've gotten rather into all the ritual of elaborate letters and lots of deliberating my way through nominations/requests during sign ups, and I wanted to break from that a little. When I found out there was a video game themed flash going down, I thought I'd bite, as most of my fandoms are--in fact--video games these days (which is honestly... really odd given my pre-corpsebrigading fannish life).

In any event, it was really refreshing to have something brisk and low stakes in which I could flex my creative muscles without the ability to make things into too massive a production. I'm not sure if I'll try another, but on the balance, it was a really cool experience and I got a super neat gift.

My Gift

"Growing Cold" by Laylah (Vagrant Story | Grisson & Neesa & Tieger, Teen, 0.8K): I recently got into Vagrant Story, as people noticing my continuing obsession with FFT and its sad religious zombie man suggested that maybe--just maybe--I might want to give some other Matsuno games a try. Those people were right, and I've been jonesing for fan content for Vagrant Story's sad zombie for a while now. This exchange delivered. I was the recipient of a lovely, evocative examination of somebody grappling with both the horror of their own death and their subsequent descent into madness, which is just A+ relevant to my interests content.

My Works

"Come to Dust" for HP_Lovecats (Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem | Anthony/Ellia, Teen, 0.9K): I ended up encountering two really interesting rarepairs for this exchange that I had never really considered before and had yet to be wrangled. As somebody who seems to be forever obsessing over niche characters and ships, it was really fun to give writing them a go. This was my take on two zombies/ghosts who never actually meet one another in the obscure video game canon from which they hail: which is pretty much the exact sort of rarepair I live for. This piece features a lot of meditations on fate and time and being a tormented revenant doomed to wait for your purpose in history to be at an end.

"El Ganso Diablo" for thedevilchicken (Monkey Island/Untitled Goose Game | Guybrush Threepwood & Murray & Terrible Goose, General, Art): A horrifying image of a man beset by evil.

"Local Fauna" for chacusha (Final Fantasy VI | Gau & Ultros, General, Art): FF6 characters as Animal Crossing characters, being cute and wearing appropriate T-shirts where applicable.

"Mask" for neosaiyanangel (Final Fantasy VI | Shadow/Locke/Terra, Explicit, 2.2K): Another rarepair I hadn't considered before; this time a Shadow POV piece about a threesome with Locke and Terra, rife with all sorts of contemplations about the characters' respective relationships to the past.

"Northern Lights" for youjik33 (Earthbound | Jeff Andonuts/Tony, General, 1K): A brief, sort of goofy first kiss story for my favorite ship for my favorite feel good game.

Other Neat Stuff

"First Contact" by fayharley (Neko Atsume | OCs & Pepper, General, 1.9K): A tentacle alien is assigned to observe and study the Neko Atmuse cats; really adorable

"Vertabrae" by Piinutbutter (Antaomy | The House, General, 0.4K): A chilling, second person piece that functions really well as a standalone horror story (I'm unfamiliar with the canon, but I'm probably buying the game now.)

Comments

[shinon]

Man, I considered doing this exchange, but somehow the thought of nominating/requesting/offering freeform tags purges my memory of every fictional device or trope I've ever enjoyed.

Anyway, that Jeff/Tony piece is charming as hell.

[corpsebrigadier]

Thanks so much! Re: freeforms, I'm slowly starting to acclimate to them, but they're such a weird thing to handle. They were technically optional here, but they were obviously meant to be a shorthand version of a letter/prompt and that's a really strange thing to try to translate into so many under-100-character tags.

[reshiel]

Wow, that is a lot of writing (and art) for a flash exchange, and mad kudos for getting all of that done! And finding new rarepairs off exchange requests is the best.

[corpsebrigadier]

Thanks! It turns out that end of semester was a great occasion for finding means to make all manner of stuff in the service of procrastination, and "I hadn't thought of that" rarepairs for canons I know are like catnip to me.