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Challenge #8

Talk about your creative process.

Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it.

Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so. Also, feel free to entice engagement by giving us a preview of what your post covers.

Okay, I can do this! But I'm creative in different sorts of ways, so I'm going to break it down by area.

Fiber Arts

I have 800 finished objects on Ravelry, so I've made a LOT of stuff. Most of the time, I see a pattern and go "OH THAT LOOKS FUN I WANT TO MAKE THAT!" and do. Sometimes I've made stuff for craft-alongs, like I used to be active in Dishcloth Weekly and Hat of the Month groups. And sometimes, I make stuff to fill a Nerdopolis theme (Nerdopolis is a crafting challenge on Ravelry where we get themes to craft to, like "Architecture" or "Cats vs. Dogs").

I do create my own patterns as well, and those have mostly come by because of fannish passion. The first time I recall making something from an mere idea is Olive, from Final Fantasy Brave Exvius. She was a very strong unit and I was lucky enough to pull her AND get her geared pretty well, and I just loved her and so I made her. I hadn't done many dolls or toys at the time, and I was more confident with crochet, so I winged a design with separate pieces for her limbs. It worked out okay, but she was BIG and FLOPPY.

I eventually had ideas to create more FFBE dolls. I adored Lasswell, for instance, so made him... and Lasswell adores Rain, so I had to make a Rain for my Lasswell. This time, I found a doll pattern designed by someone else and altered it for my use - the limbs are attached as you make the doll so it's much more sturdy. But the clothes were designed by ME. I pretty much took other patterns I was familiar with and used them as a guide, shrinking down the pattern considerably.


[Image Description: Handmade dolls of Rain and Lasswell. Rain's on the left and has a shock of blond hair. He's smiling and wearing a green tunic with a red kilt on his waist. Lasswell is on the right. He has long black hair and a serious look on his face. He's wearing a white shirt, black pants, and a flowing purple coat.]

I made more FFBE dolls, too, but then wanted to branch out into other Final Fantasies. I was showing off my latest FFBE doll in the Final Fantasy group on Ravelry, and the moderator admired the dolls but lamented that she couldn't crochet... and well, CHALLENGE ACCEPTED.

So I designed my own knitted doll pattern, utilizing knowledge I had picked up over the course of my knitting career. I made Rinoa from FFVIII (which I seem not to have a good picture of here on DW, and I'm running out of time so can't upload one at the moment) and eventually made Aerith from FFVII:


[Image Description: A doll of Aerith from Final Fantasy VII. She's got brown hair pulled back in a braid, and is wearing a pink dress with a flounce of lace at the hem. The dress is accompanied by a cropped red jacket.]

I'm pretty fearless with my crafting. Yarn is forgiving, and many mistakes can be fixed with some patience and practice. I continue to get excited and make things. It's not all fun, though - I'm currently knitting a cardigan for myself and well, I am a fluffy lady which means a LOT of long rows and it's tedious and feels like I'll never finish. But I persevere, because I want the end result.

(and I wrote this section last. I need to post it and get ready for Stitch Club! feel free to ask questions about my creative process if you have them!)

Fanfic Writing

I'm still fairly new to fanfic writing. Oh, I had thoughts of writing fanfic way back in the Sliders and seaQuest era but as far as I can recall, it was just thoughts and I didn't follow through. I did briefly play a character in an RPG on LiveJournal, and that was mostly fun except for when it was not (drama behind the scenes).

Back when I was playing that character, I was still able to daydream. So I'd be sitting on the train going to work, giggling because I was imaging my character doing silly things (we were a comedy RPG) and it was FUN. These days, it's hard to daydream, and so well, I didn't write fanfic for about ten years because I had no ideas.

Then came the Final Fantasy Kiss Battle in 2021. I remember asking if it was okay if I left prompts even though I doubt I'd write anything, because I do NOT write, and they said "sure!". But then I was reading prompts, and lassarina prompted "FFV, Bartz/Gilgamesh, duel" and well, my brain exploded: I had an idea!

So I opened up a Notepad++ tab and started writing. I shocked myself by not only completing that fic, but being the first that year TO post a fic. Here it is:

A Long-Sought Duel (676 words) by AltheaValara
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Final Fantasy V
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Gilgamesh/Bartz Klauser
Characters: Bartz Klauser, Gilgamesh (Final Fantasy V)
Summary:

Bartz finally finds what he's been searching for.

For Snowflake Challenge 5, visualjyushi asked how to start a story and that led to some really good conversations. This is what I wrote:

I got my start for A Long-Sought Duel partially based on the Kiss Battle prompt (FFV, Bartz/Gilgamesh, duel) but also by thinking about what a duel would be like. Duels are passionate, and it just so happens that Bartz is associated with the Wind Crystal, which is the crystal of passion. So I started with him feeling lackluster and missing passion in his life, and at the end of the short story, he finds it again.

I'm still having problems daydreaming, so I can't come up with ideas without some sort of prompt. But I am currently delighted by my Ladies Bingo card because I have ideas for SO MANY of the prompts, and have 5 WIPs already. I haven't worked on them in a while, so it might be time to do so tonight.

But yeah, most of my writing IS from prompts now. I have self-prompted a few times, like for this fic:

if you like it, then you should've put an earring on it (243 words) by AltheaValara
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Final Fantasy XIV
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV)
Additional Tags: Fluff and Crack
Summary:

The Warrior of Light's luck comes through once more in Eureka.

So I guess I *am* capable of coming up with ideas on my own. But yeah, I love a good prompt.

Neocities (Fanscripts)

Last year during Snowflake, I built the bones of my Neocities site and launched it live. It's a repository for my Final Fantasy story summaries and fanscripts.

I can tell you how I first got into writing fanscripts. I was heavily playing Final Fantasy Brave Exvius, a mobile game, and I felt its story was on par with the stories of the main 16 games in the series. And I realized: it's a mobile game, so someday it will be shut down and I will never ever get to experience the story again. That made me all kinds of sad, so one day I wandered down to our kitchen with my tablet, some paper, and a pencil. I made myself a cup of hot cocoa, then started replaying the story from the Room of Recollection, hand-writing down the story.

I finished writing down season 1 four years and four months later. It took 434 sheets of paper. But by gods, I did it.

I originally posted the story in a Dreamwidth journal, which was fine but not always the best for navigation (all my navigation links broke when I renamed the journal). I had name squatted on Neocities a few years back, and I thought well, let's put them there.

Working on Neocities is a delight for me. My degree is in math and computer science (I double majored), so I have programming in my background and it's been really fun to stretch that muscle. When I first started working on transferring the files over from Dreamwidth to Neocities, I was hand-coding the HTML because there wasn't much HTML in my original entries. That was tedious and time-consuming, though. Well, I know a bit of Python, so I wrote a Python script to process my files and automatically put in the HTML. The script doesn't make the prettiest HTML file and there's some tweaking by name I need to do, but it took a process that could take hours and made it less than a second to run the script, plus about 15 minutes to tweak by hand.

When I started working on the FFBE script, I did not have a computer of my own, hence handwriting the script. I'm so glad I was able to document Season 1, because I do adore the story. Unfortunately, the game did shut down about two years ago. When they announced End of Service, I valiantly tried to extract the Season 2 story from the game files, but I was not knowledgeable enough to do it. If I had been able to, it would have saved me a LOT of time and effort.

The game is gone, but it lives on at YouTube. So I've started going through the Season 2 videos and making a script for them. Some might argue it is wasted effort since the YouTube videos exist, but I think there's value in having a written script. For one, it may help fanfic writers because it'll be searchable--and that thought delights me.

I've expanded my efforts on Neocities and am now writing fanscripts for Final Fantasy XIV and Final Fantasy XI as well. FFXI, at least, is not so bad because Windower (a popular third party tool) can make logs of the game text as you play. Alas, it triplicates lines, but I have a handy Python script to clean that up.

Final Fantasy XIV, I started by writing summaries of the story as I played through each expansion and patch, but as I went on, those 'summaries' got longer and longer and now I'm pretty much writing a real fanscript for Shadowbringers. I might go back and do fanscripts for the prior expansions, too, if I have time.

Challenge #7

LIST THREE (or more) THINGS YOU LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF. They don’t have to be your favorite things, just things that you think are good. Feel free to expand as much or as little as you want.

Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it.

Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so. Also, feel free to entice engagement by giving us a preview of what your post covers.

+bursts out laughing+ Oh snowflake_challenge, how did you know I needed this? I am someone who too often seeks the approval of others (and then is disappointed) when really, it's my own approval I should be striving for.

I am not sure I would have been able to do this challenge a mere two weeks ago due to bad depression/anxiety at the time, but I've got some new meds that are helping, and life is turning to the positive again. And thus:

1. I feel I'm a strong writer.

I mean general writing here - I still need practice on fiction, but heck, even my fiction is, I feel, decent! But yes, I'm always being told that I write well, and I believe it. I have a knack for writing journal entries that flow well, with good transitions from point to point.

Sometimes I do draft entries, but TBH most of mine are stream-of-consciousness so I guess my brain likes organizing material into sensible chunks. I do find myself going back to previous sections to expand on a point or tweak a sentence, but mostly, they're written from top to bottom.

2. I'm getting better at acknowledging and recognizing my achievements.

This is important! No, I'm not perfect. Yes, I still have a HECK of a lot I need to learn about people-ing and adulthood and life in general. But I've come so far in the last few years. I've consistently kept up streaming on Twitch for almost five years now. That kind of consistently showing up is unusual for me. I'm still damned proud I even STARTED streaming in the first place, let alone kept it going.

I've also been employed since September 2024. Okay, it's only part time. But folks, I hadn't worked for TWELVE YEARS due to anxiety and depression. I am damned proud of myself for (a) finding the job opening (b) applying to it (c) with a KICK-ASS cover letter (d) doing well enough in the phone interview to be offered the job (e) staying employed this long (f) and not only that, but to be singled out to work on new projects because of past performance. This is huge!

One of the things I'm also getting better on is reaching out. I just had an incident at work where I had a question about what to do on an assignment, and in the past I would have REALLY procrastinated from saying anything, but I asked with minimal hesitation. THAT IS ALSO HUGE FOR ME.

3. I love my creativity!

I've always been drawn to creativity. As a kid, I wanted to be a novelist, and I liked to draw (even though I wasn't that great at it). I tried various forms of being actively creative, but what finally stuck for me was the fiber arts. I'm slowing down with them and my output isn't what it used to be, but it still tickles me to read question threads on Ravelry, or cheer on my teammates in Nerdopolis.

I love that I'm fearless with knitting and crochet. I'll try any pattern that catches my eye, even if it's a new technique. I love that I've designed my own knitted and crocheted dolls. I was so proud of myself when I figured out how to get a doll's dress hem to stop flipping up! And PLEATS! I've knitted box pleats! Probably never again, they are a pain, but I've DONE it.... in a pattern of my own design, having never done pleats before. Fearless? YUP!

I might have more to add to this, but for now, this is good. :)

Posting this EVERYWHERE because I am shocked I survived. No seriously, when the battle ended I thought I had died and the gems were coming out of ME, not Riku.

https://www.twitch.tv/altheavalara/clip/RelatedCarelessDoveAliens-xTavKVxdw_67NLp3

(Apparently I can't embed, so click to watch!)

Challenge #5

In your own space, create a list of at least three things you'd love to receive, a wishlist of sorts. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it and include a link to your wishlist if you feel comfortable doing so.

Cheerleading - I'm going through a period of high anxiety, and would appreciate kind words. Even just a "You can do it!" would be helpful. If you "know" me even just a little bit, I would not be opposed to hearing about one thing you like about me.

Icons/userpics for Final Fantasy games - I'm a BIG fan of the franchise, and would love some more icons from it. The icons don't need to be especially made for me! Any game/character is fine, but I currently don't have icons from FFI, FFII, FFIII, FFIV, or FFVI. Static icons only, please. Here's a list of characters from the games:
* FFI - unnamed characters. I am partial to the mages (Red, Black, White) but any job class would be cool.
* FFII - Firion, Maria, Guy, Leon. For minor NPCs, I like Minwu, Gordon and Scott.
* FFIII (DS remake) - Luneth, Arc, Refia, Ingus. For NPCs, I really dig Desch.
* FFIV - I am partial to Cecil, Rydia, Rosa, Palom & Porom
* FFVI - any character would be cool, but I especially like Terra, Locke, Celes, and Kefka

Fanfic Recs for the Final Fantasy or Kingdom Hearts franchises. I'm looking to read more this year, and I'd really like to start reading fanfic, so would appreciate some recs. I mostly favor short stuff but am not opposed to longer works.

Challenge #4: Rec Your Last Page

Any website that you like, be it fanfiction, art, social media, or something a bit more eccentric!

Oh boy, do I have a lot I want to rec today!

Fiber Arts

Nerdopolis is a crafting challenge on Ravelry (a site for knitters, crocheters, weavers, and spinners). I've been playing in its tournaments since its inception, and we're now entering our 12th year! The premise is pretty simple: you get several themes each round, and need to make something that fits that theme.

To use my favorite example:

Say we had a challenge relating to architecture. I choose to knit a pink arch lace bookmark. I first tie it to the challenge by saying the lace in my bookmark looks like the St. Louis arch, then I get Nerd Cred by saying the pink color of my bookmark reminds me of the Aurore armor set from Final Fantasy XI, which is also pink. Since I play on Team Co-op which is related to games of all sorts, Final Fantasy XI (a video game) is part of my team’s scope.

Getting Nerd Cred enters you into a drawing for PRIZES! It's a lot of fun, and I do recommend it to anyone who crafts a lot and is looking for inspiration. Disclaimer: I am a moderator in the group because I am the captain of Team Co-op, plus also the Rogue Leader (rogues are individual players not playing on a team.)

communal_creators is a group for ALL types of creativity, and runs a small challenge in the spring, with a larger challenge in the fall. We have writers, knitters, crocheters, weavers, bakers, vidders, kumihimo braiders, and more. It's a positive, friendly group full of people who love to cheer each other on.

KnittingHelp is a site I used a lot early in my knitting journey. I like it because the videos are clear and well-explained, AND she does both Continental and English knitting, which are the two major ways to knit (there are others). I'm a Continental knitter myself but can do English too, so it's been helpful to see those videos.

Planet June is a site for crocheters, especially those making stuffed toys. I love her invisible SC decrease! I've made a few of her patterns, and they are well written and clearly explained with enough photos for clarity without overindulging in them.

Pin Loom Weaving is a blog for those who weave on small looms such as the Zoom Loom or Weave-It. The blog's author has written some pattern books, too, and I've read one of them and was impressed. Pin Loom weaving is a fun way to get into weaving, and you can do some neat things with the squares.

Final Fantasy Fanfic

"Nero tol Scaeva Did Nothing Wrong," Insist Multiple People Despite Overwhelming Evidence To The Contrary (5147 words) by jonphaedrus
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Final Fantasy XIV
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Nero tol Scaeva, Cid nan Garlond, Vorsaile Heuloix, Guydelot Thildonnet, Sanson (Final Fantasy XIV), Alka Zolka, Surito Carito, Summoner Quest NPCs, Tahla Molkot
Additional Tags: Brooklyn Nine-Nine But In Eorzea, Based on a True Story, Resisting arrest, 4.5+ Spoilers, Visually Impaired Character, Arson Murder and Jaywalking, driving without a license, Screen Reader Friendly
Summary:

In a shocking exposé, Mythril Eye reporters reveal that the Eorzean Alliance refused to arrest Nero tol Scaeva (former Tribunus Laticlavius of the XIVth Imperial Legion and wanted war criminal) for breaking the law. Serpent Commander Vorsaile Heuloix insisted tol Scaeva was not guilty of any crimes he had been charged with for his arrest, but the public has yet to prove that!

Althea's comments: a fun romp that will have you cracking up and screaming "hey, it's That Guy!". It's a joy to see the minor NPCs have some time in the spotlight.

Shared History (907 words) by queenlua
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Aerith Gainsborough & Red XIII | Nanaki
Characters: Red XIII | Nanaki (Compilation of FFVII), Aerith Gainsborough
Summary:

"You know," Aerith said, in a teasing, singsong voice, "you could have spoken up sooner."

Althea's comments: A piece that has stayed with me. A sweet and tender moment between the two.

Black Mage/Red Mage, PG-13-ish by ghoulmouse, based on my Kiss Battle prompt: Final Fantasy I - Black Mage / Red Mage, only you understand my power

Althea's comments: A yummy fic that had me purring like a contented cat.

...I could probably rec more but I really need to get back to work, so this will have to do for now.