Rynling R&D

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Like 2024, this year was mostly about figuring out how to make good art, as well as how to find a place for it in the world despite being shut out by gatekeepers. Next year I will continue to challenge the gatekeepers! In the meantime, I’ll keep cultivating the most beautiful garden I can outside the wall.

Here’s to lots of green and growing energy in 2026. 🌿

Fall or Fly
(Final Fantasy XII, Gen, 1765 words)
https://archiveofourown.org/works/76044226

Creators haven't been revealed yet, but I want to share a link to the story I received for Yuletide this year, which is set on the beautiful Phon Coast of Final Fantasy XII.

The nameless first-person narrator is searching for treasure on the beach but runs into some of the area's hostile fish/T-Rex hybrids only to be rescued by Penelo, who recently fell from one of the Purvama islands floating over the ocean. It's a lovely little adventure!

Like I say in my comment on the story: Here I am in the northern hemisphere, patiently waiting for the sun to return, and along comes a lovely piece of writing that's all sea breeze and sunshine. This is exactly the tropical fantasy vacation I need in my life.

I finished the story! It is not "good," unfortunately. I'd place it more in the range of "thoroughly mediocre." Still, it is written, and that's what counts.

I'm the sort of person who likes my smut spiced with the dread of being doomed by the narrative, so this story is a present to myself. I think I'll post it on the Saturday before the solstice in celebration. I love endless cycles of sex and death and rebirth. 🌿

For me, the fantasy of this story is “what if the people pushed to the margins are actually very important,” which is something I’ve been thinking about lately.

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But also the fantasy is, like. What if tech oligarchs actually cared about culture and education. Imagine that lmao.

I wrote this as a reply to a comment on my Legend of Zelda fanfic novella What Dreams May Come, but it's worth sharing here as well:

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Specifically, if this is what happens to a society sustained by a torture nexus, perhaps it makes sense to disable the torture nexus. Idk man. When it comes to the torture nexus (ie, capitalist imperialism), I think it's important to tell stories about what a joy and a pleasure it is to destroy the loathsome thing.

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If I'm being honest, though, I'm totally onboard with the idea of Link being evil. Like, not just a primal force of chaos, but actively evil. That would be super fun to write. Also he and Ganon should fuck about it.

But first I need to get over myself and finish the fic in front of me. Wish me luck, I guess.

I’ve been doing some Final Fantasy VII lore research for my Aerith story while trying to figure out the timeline of events prior to the beginning of the game. Like, how old was Aerith when she and her mother escaped from Shinra in the Remake timeline, and when was she first introduced to the church in the Sector 5 slums, that sort of thing.

What I ended up finding, on an absurd level of detail, was Cloud’s timeline. He was recruited by Shinra when he was 13, and he left for Midgar a few months later, shortly after he turned 14. Apparently, recruitment at this age is common, as joining the military is like going to high school. If 14yo kids don't join Shinra in some capacity, this is when they find a job and start working full-time.

Not much to say about this, besides damn. That’s fucked up.

Also, apparently the game uses the Western calendar dating system, with Cloud having been born in 1986. It’s weird to think of him being my age, but I guess FFVII is technically historical fiction set in 2007.

To my Phoenix Down Exchange partner,

Thank you so much for offering to create a story for me!

I love explorations of how characters are shaped by their environments, and I want to dive deep into fantasy worlds to get a sense of what it’s like to live there, from wholesome to horror.

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Please allow me to expand on my requests...

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It's difficult to say for sure, but I think I like this game. If nothing else, my crush on Aerith continues to grow with each passing day. I'd like to write two short fics:

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> I just feel like Shinzo Abe is watching a little too closely.

Come to think of it, I would absolutely write RPF of Ghost!Abe jacking off Ali Khamenei while he tries to get people to breed. Xi Jinping and Mike Pence can come too.

I'm joking, but only a little. This seems like it would be a fun story to write, and I hope the FBI agents assigned to my case would have the courtesy to leave kudos.

Anyway, here's a true story: I used to live in the beautiful Woodley Park neighborhood of Washington DC, and my apartment building was along the route that Mike Pence's motorcade took home to the vice presidential manor. My building was also right across the street from the Omni Shoreham Hotel, which is where a lot of foreign political leaders stay while on official diplomatic trips to DC. During the week when Xi Jinping was in residence at the Omni, I wrote a 10k-word RPF fic about Mike Pence making a clandestine visit. I never did anything with that extremely cursed piece of writing (obviously), but it should still be on a flashdrive somewhere. If anyone ever needs to blackmail me, though, there are probably better stories to use.

ETA: I don't mean to flex about my zipcode in DC btw. My apartment building was rent-controlled, government-assisted housing. Which is to say that all the trashy fanfic I wrote in the late 2010s was partially funded by Uncle Sam himself.