denotes art!Other Pairing recs
How Not to Date Blondes (1 - 13) by first_seventhe and rosencrantz
I will first start out by disclaiming. To list my caveats for this story I will have to out myself as a hypocrite and this is hard for me. I will suffice with the statement that my caveats are really just silly things like authors using certain phrases and/or words that ping me out. Also writing dialect, which sometimes makes the dialogue very hard for me to read. I am 100% Dialogue Bitch, I admit this and I am totally okay with the fact that a lot of people don't have my hangups (by a lot I mean all fans of Hagrid's dialogue in the HP books). But I thought I would put it out there.
Sure, FFVIII is text-based. FFVIII is wandering into Land of Retired and Obsolete Video Games, With Bonus Romance Clichés, which means every fan heard the voices of the character differently based on the visuals. So if lots of ' to shorten words or create slang bothers you, do what I did! Pull up the big fan britches, suck it up and read this awesome story, anyway. Honestly, there's picky and then there's me. I could never just take the awesome thing offered, I am a whore. I apologize.
Meanwhile, this story is, without a doubt, one of the funniest, most engaging, and interesting Final Fantasy VIII stories I have read since, oh, hmm, 2001. I think, honestly, there is something here for everyone. And yes, it's a romance, and it's a romance about Zell and Quistis and I know fandom has this weird desire to never read outside our OTPs OH NOEZ! and I used to suffer from it mostly because everything else was running the mediocre line or worse. This story just came along and blind-sided me. Zell/Quistis. I'm serious.
Stop laughing.
I wish I didn't have to explain why everyone should sit down and read 70,000 words full of puns, in-jokes, and glitter pens (okay, so the glitter pens have a bit part but whatever, okay? I connected!). But I know some people need to be convinced. Want adventure? Check. Want zany antics? Check. Want romance? Check. Want fantastic and revealing character development? Check. Want a plot that actually goes somewhere? Check. Want to sit at your computer, fist jammed in your mouth, on the verge of passing out from lack of oxygen because you can't stop laughing? Check.
I really feel we need more comedy of this caliber (and by "this caliber" I mean of course, boob jokes and penis-references) in our fandom. Because there's definitely more going on here than just Quistis and Zell hooking up (dear Sev and Enkida, WHERE IS THE SEX SCENE PLZ?). They build a hilarious world, founded on everything we know about the universe and they steal stuff from ours and I end up falling off my chair from laughing and scaring my cats so they refuse to come near me for an hour. And that's a sign of true talent, in my opinion.
Talent to make boobs/penis/pop culture references, that is.
Also, this story holds up to the pants rule: How Not To Date Blondes in My Pants.
Read it, love it. It's amazing.
--------------------
Pack Leader by sister_coyote
Today is the day Nay turns on her OTP and makes chaosraven want to beat her bloody. WELCOME.
Seifer and Fujin's relationship interests me. Where this scene occurs (well, where I think it occurs, if it actually occurs elsewhere I don't want to know, don't kill my dreams, guys), I can believe this Seifer and Fujin reacting in this manner to him, and it's very horrifying and fascinating all at the same time. There are some great lines in here and it really has an awesome punch for such a short piece. (Seifer/Fujin)
--------------------
Short of Now by irishais
Nay's reccing Seifer/Squall, get in the car.
I do it because I like the mood in this piece, a lot. There's the Hyne thing, though, and normally, that's just something that has me hitting the back button, running screaming in the opposite direction but I can brush by it for the atmosphere this piece has. I am sort of entranced by the movement and the sensation, and it gives hints but not the whole context, and that, when well done, is a huge selling point for me.
I mean, if an author can make me want something, anything, that's something to be admired. Doesn't mean they have to hand it over (she doesn't) but the fact that I yearned, well, I yearned.
...during a Seifer/Squall story. I'll just leave it at that.
To me, this is how Seifer and Squall would be—never comfortable, always butting at each other or pinning or challenging. Headstrong, both of them, which means any encounter they might have in my head would end just like this piece does. (Seifer/Squall)
--------------------
50 Sentences by edenbound
lasdhfsdfh; I don't know. I don't! Just—man, some of these were just very clever, and insightful, and any fic about Nida is awesome. Random pairing or no, they were very enjoyable. (Squall/Nida)
--------------------
Loophole by edenbound
It's pieces like this that really warm to the pairing by convincing me Squall is not an asshole. It really surprises me how people are surprised when I consider Squall a bigger jerk than Seifer—but he is. He has no friends and is close to no one, like Seifer is close to Fujin and Raijin, however unequal those relationships might me. He sets himself apart and is cold to everyone. So it's things like this that makes me go, "wow, he could be a caring guy given the right situation" in how he handles Seifer. It's just a really sweet story all-around, and the lines are so clear—how Squall respects Seifer this way, instead of disrespect, how he fights for him, instead of against him. This author is constantly leaving me pining for more from her stories, too, so this was welcome meal instead of a tiny bite, and I just fell in love with it. (Seifer/Squall)
--------------------
Sincerity Cowboy by first_seventhe
Oh, the story that got me back into one of my favorite pairings. ♥ I love this pairing so much, even though quite a lot of people say, "it's overdone" or "it's cliche" but frankly, I haven't found any stories dealing with the couple in ways I think the game left open for us. This is definitely one of those stories for me. I absolutely love Irvine here, how he worries. His interactions with Quistis are great, too, I can really see that sort of relationship between them after the fact. This was the first Irvine/Selphie good story I read after a long time away, so I have some sentimental feelings about it. I'm heavily a livejournal author and on livejournal for Final Fantasy VIII fandom, it was really slashslashslash for Irvine as far as the eye can see at the time I wanted a fix so I went through this huge withdrawal, gave in and then came to ff.net to wade through bad!fic. So when I found this story, I was like, "SQUEE!" As well as the romance here, I do like the plot, even though she is rough on herself about it. I really like Selphie, too. A lot of stories I read have Selphie as this bubbly person with no worries or troubles or failings and
