T. K. Arispe

 I was sitting around and doodling last night, and I ended up drawing one of the characters from a series of Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift fanfics I wrote during and after college. I loved the original Final Fantasy Tactics Advance and played it to death*, so when they released a sequel, I was over the moon. When I learned that the world of FFTA2 is actually the same as that of Final Fantasy XII, it drove me to research the overall lore of Ivalice and I ended up incorporating a sizeable amount of FFXII stuff into the fics (not the least because Basch fon Ronsenburg is best pony and that's why he makes a lot of cameos), so they're sorta a little bit FFXII fics too? But I haven't bothered to keep up on any new Ivalice-related stuff so you won't see any of that in the fics. It's complicated arrrgggh.

Anyway. The fics center around an overworked college student from modern-day Earth who finds a Grimoire and falls into Ivalice a year after the events of FFXII (and implied to take place after the events of A2 as well, since A2 appears to happen shortly after FFXII). She helps found a clan and becomes a White Mage, and over the course of her adventures realizes that she loves life in Ivalice much more than her strugglebus Earth life, so she ultimately destroys her Grimoire so she won't ever have to go back.

That's all in the first fic; in subsequent stories the heroine marries the clan's resident boar-troll pirate, pilots magitek armor, has a run-in with a Scion who's not happy about her changing her fate, and recruits a gaggle of quirky clan members along the way. I haven't written any new fics lately, but they were fun to work on.

So this is Coele (pronounced "seel"), one of the founding members of Clan Excelsior and the clan's brute muscle. (Yes, she looks like a tween girl, but as a gria, she is insanely strong and can easily heft that broadsword around.) She's spunky and energetic and believes clothes shopping solves any problem, but sometimes she can get carried away with her enthusiasm, like when she appointed herself the main character's wedding planner and tried to orchestrate the most elaborate, expensive, and stressful wedding ever (thankfully her plans were thwarted).

I may eventually put the fics on this blog like I've been doing with my Neopets stuff, but I'd like to get through the Neopets material first. My editor's been really busy and hasn't been able to get back to me with Return to Lynwood yet, but I'm hoping that will happen soon. (Although I guess if people are interested in the FFTA2 stuff, I could start putting that up here.)

*It drives me crazy when people hate on FFTA for the sole reason that the tone is more lighthearted than the incredibly grimdark Final Fantasy Tactics. Not everybody prefers narratives that are gritty and tragic, and in fact one of the main reasons I enjoyed FFTA was because it's substantially lighter than the usual Final Fantasy fare. 

At any rate, a kid-friendly story isn't automatically shallow and uninteresting to adults. FFTA actually has a really compelling plotline about a group of troubled children whose dreams come true when their world gets merged with a fantasy world, and the main character becomes embroiled in a moral dilemma when he realizes that if he succeeds in returning the world to normal, his friends will lose their perfect lives and have to return to their former challenges. Ultimately the kids learn that the solution to their struggles isn't to escape into a fake world forever, but to face reality, overcome their own weaknesses, and have the courage to make things better for themselves. I think that's a great message for any age group.

Although, as I write that I realize that a good number of my narratives share a theme of a character finding themselves in a fantasy world, realizing they like it way better than the world they came from, and finding a way to stay there. But I tend to write about that because I'm speaking to people who aren't happy with running the rat race, and are struggling to find meaning and fulfilment when it feels like everyone's telling them they're not allowed to want anything that doesn't fit the mold. 

I believe everybody came to this life with a purpose and a mission, and it's okay to listen to your heart and figure out for yourself what that purpose is, even if you wind up doing things outside the box and contrary to others' expectations. I underwent massive amounts of stress and health issues earlier in life before I finally realized that what makes me happy (and prevents the health issues) is using my time and energy to create things for people to enjoy, and being there for my family. I didn't go into engineering like my math professor wanted me to, because I knew that line of work would make me absolutely miserable. I have to do what's right for me. Because if you don't do that, you're not just hurting yourself--you're hurting everybody else who could have benefited from you living your most authentic life.

(At any rate, now I putter around with fake engineering in my fiction, so that counts, right?)

Still, I feel like the plot of FFTA sends a good message to people who struggle with engaging in unhealthy levels of escapist activities like video games, streaming TV, and talking to ChatGPT instead of real people. Unreality may seem like an appealing and serviceable alternative for the challenges of real life, but at the end of the day, it's not real life, and your real problems will still be there until you take the initiative to do what needs to be done to fix them.