Dragondance: An Altered Course 9: It is not down in any map; true places never are: On AO3
Summary: The incarnations of the primordial spirits that created the world chose as their Light Warriors the following: an aimless vagabond, an amnesiac old man, a pretty princess with more courage than sense, and a foundling pirate. The world is doomed.
Chapter summary: The search begins for the Earth Crystal. Problem is, no one knows where to go.
WARNING: This fic has Faris/Lenna in a romantic relationship. Also warning: As I played this game before there was an official translation, and as I find that the GBA version injects jokes where there weren’t any, I use my own translations. This fic reflects that. This fic also reflects information garnered from Japanese FFV guidebooks and cards.
Dragondance: An Altered Course 8: What will at length remain but one little heap of ashes: On AO3 // ff.net.
Summary: The incarnations of the primordial spirits that created the world chose as their Light Warriors the following: an aimless vagabond, an amnesiac old man, a pretty princess with more courage than sense, and a foundling pirate. The world is doomed.
Chapter summary: The Light Warriors are in a race against time to save the Fire Crystal, and themselves.
WARNING: This fic has Faris/Lenna in a romantic relationship. Also warning: As I played this game before there was an official translation, and as I find that the GBA version injects jokes where there weren’t any, I use my own translations. This fic reflects that. This fic also reflects information garnered from Japanese FFV guidebooks and cards.
Hey, so I have all these secondary publications for Final Fantasy V and, being a massive nerd for the wealth of human cultures and how they're shaped by interactions with other peoples, environments, and disasters, the extra lore sets my imagination alight. This post is, therefore, a lot of wild speculation based on 1) data in the secondary publications that are only glossed over in the game, if not missing entirely; 2) both informal and formal education in human studies (history, anthropology, geography, etc), and growing up as a child of an archaeologist. So... wild speculation and primarily written to encompass my fanfics, but using the real world to inform it.
While it's only a small fragment of my ideas, it's still a lot. I'm sure no one will read it, but thank you to those who do. Content warning for people being people and not pure icons of virtue applies.
I haven't had time to draw in a long time. I still don't, but I needed something else to do while listening to teleconferences. Faris and Lenna, for my big farilenna novel, 15 years later.
Dragondance: An Altered Course 7: A storm for every calm: On AO3 // ff.net.
Summary: The incarnations of the primordial spirits that created the world chose as their Light Warriors the following: an aimless vagabond, an amnesiac old man, a pretty princess with more courage than sense, and a foundling pirate. The world is doomed.
Chapter summary: Questions abound and Faris would rather deal with none of them.
WARNING: This fic has Faris/Lenna in a romantic relationship.
Also warning: As I played this game before there was an official translation, and as I find that the GBA version injects jokes where there weren’t any, I use my own translations. This fic reflects that. This fic also reflects information garnered from Japanese FFV guidebooks and cards.
Meme. Filling out for FFV, Faris/Lenna specifically, because I don’t get asks anymore that aren’t about a fandom I left back in 2016. Or at all ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. This is pretty much entirely for the post-game part of Dragondance. So, there will be spoilers for the maybe 2 people here reading it, and that’s behind the cut.
Note: Dragondance is split in 3: game novelization, 5 years after the game, and 15 years after the game. Krile finds sky dragon eggs during part 2 and gives them to Faris and Lenna, and these dragons grow up to become a mating pair. Part 3 has a small side bit of Lenna just deciding she wants kids.
☾ - sleep headcanon - Alone, Faris will roll over a dozen times before finally settling down to sleep in the same position she always does. She won’t if someone’s in bed with her. Lenna loves snuggling and will always curl up with Faris.
★ - sad headcanon - Lenna, being 4 years old at the time, never actually formed coherent memories about Sarisa that she can recall consciously. What she does remember is being compared to the ideals people around her had of Sarisa and resenting it. By the time she was 12 and lost her mother, she’d forgotten completely that she’d had a sister until the game happens and she discovers that Faris has the same pendant as her.
☆ - happy headcanon - Every now and then, Lenna and Faris spar to keep up their sword skills and it almost always devolves into tickles and rolling around on the grass being adorable.
☠ - angry/violent headcanon - Being a pirate and familiar with the dark underbelly of humanity, Faris has well-informed fantasies of violence against people who really get under her skin. She just never actually acts on them.
✿ - Sex headcanon - Lenna genuinely tries to keep quiet when she has sex in her own bed because she keeps that aspect of her relationship with Faris secret, but this only results in the cutest little squeaks. Faris is not verbal during sex at all.
■ - Bedroom/house/living quarters headcanon - Faris got Lenna’s old apartment after the events of the game and never really got around to decorating it. As a result, it’s a bit spartan. Lenna changed her father’s apartment a bit when she moved in, but ultimately just brought her things with her and gave Faris their father’s things. The ancestral home in the island of Telos is where they really have a place set up exactly to their tastes.
♡ - romantic headcanon - Faris adores Lenna and will do everything possible to keep her happy and feeling loved. This often results in little gestures that can be dismissed by outsiders as just sisterly affection, and sometimes in grand gestures that are harder to explain away. Lenna soaks all of it up. Because Lenna knows that Faris grew up touch-starved, her gestures are subtler and mostly involve cuddles and gentle touches.
♥ - family headcanon - Ahaha. Well. They have an extensive family, largely due to a Queen of Karnak a few hundred years back deciding to marry off her kids to everyone with a crown as a way to unite the free states and kingdoms against the Lonkan Empire. Only a few of their family actually know about their relationship: the current Queen Polymja of Karnak and a cousin they hired to help care for the dragons.
☮ - friendship headcanon - Butz has been a great help to both of them while they were still working through the early stages of their relationship. Years after, Faris and Butz get around to best friends status, while Lenna has Krile to talk to about matters that Faris never quite gets.
♦ - quirks/hobbies headcanon - Because she grew up with pirates and learned the sailor’s arts and crafts, Faris prefers to spend her idle time carving something up. The family retreat on Telos has a lot of scrimshaw and wood carvings as a result. Lenna reads, though she keeps the naughtier books at Telos.
☯ - likes/dislikes headcanon - Lenna is completely senseless about dragons. Sky dragons specifically, but she’s just as happy to befriend any other sort. She does not enjoy embroidery, but will cut and sew her own clothes if she has to. Faris hates politics, but she’s better at it than she wants to admit.
▼ - childhood headcanon - Lenna was a tomboy as a child and her hair was much shorter than it is in canon. She was urged to grow it out and “grow up” after her mother died, which was something she still resents. Faris spent her shore leave as a child learning to steal.
∇ -. old age/aging headcanon - Faris dies fairly young at roughly late middle age, because she had a hard life and it took its toll on her. Lenna steps down as queen shortly afterwards, leaving Tycoon to her twin daughters and the parliament for retreat to Telos with her dragons. When Lenna does finally pass, it’s at the age of 105 and with the knowledge that the love between her and Faris brought the sky dragons back from extinction--their dragons would not have been so fertile and productive if Lenna hadn’t been in love with Faris.
♒ - cooking/food headcanon - Lenna can’t actually cook, she doesn’t have the patience. Mostly Lenna leans vegetarian, unless the meat in the meal is something she hunted herself--this is because at least then she knows the animal didn’t die in pain. Faris can cook and isn’t bad at it, but she doesn’t care at all about presentation/plating and only makes an effort if she’s cooking for Lenna.
☼ - appearance headcanon - Faris is always going to be a crossdresser, even long after the entire world knows she’s a woman. Her clothes are just a lot fancier as unofficial king of Tycoon. Lenna likes to dress more modestly for court, and in revealing things and lingerie for Faris.
ൠ - random headcanon - Lenna, in a fit of impulsiveness, went one day to the Fire Crystal and just asked for kids. Daughters, if you please. She certainly wasn’t going to have them the usual way. The twins are just slightly genetically-remixed clones.
◉ - Any other question of your choosing - Sometimes Faris will dye her hair, dress like a Walse dandy, and sneak into masquerades just for the chance to dance with Lenna in public. No one else ever catches on.
Dragondance: An Altered Course 5: We’ll sweep through the air: On AO3 // ff.net.
Summary: The incarnations of the primordial spirits that created the world chose as their Light Warriors the following: an aimless vagabond, an amnesiac old man, a pretty princess with more courage than sense, and a foundling pirate. The world is doomed.
Chapter summary: The Light Warriors run into trouble trying to find the king's sky dragon.
WARNING: This fic has Faris/Lenna in a romantic relationship.
Also warning: As I played this game before there was an official translation, and as I find that the GBA version injects jokes where there weren’t any, I use my own translations. This fic reflects that. This fic also reflects information garnered from Japanese FFV guidebooks and cards.
And here’s the FFV version of the meme I’m sure no one will ask me about. This includes characters who were technically bit npcs (that one joke pirate in love with Faris, the queen of Karnak) but had little in the way of characterization apart from a few lines and tantalizing hints in the books.
Fun fact: I’ve had these OCs for 20+ year and am reusing them for Dragondance and other current FFV works, but they’ve gotten a bit of a modern polish now--Ridha is no longer related as closely to canon characters, Ben’s interest in Faris wanes because he’s gay and Faris says she’s a woman, Yllesia Karnak is now Polymja Yllesia Karnak and a bit more hot-headed than she used to be due to some statements from the books.
* Note: because Ridha is intersex and nonbinary, and always has been, their pronouns are often fluid. Usually I’ll use they/them, but also he/him. I should note, for the internet concern trolls, that not all intersex people identify as nonbinary, and not all nonbinary people are intersex. Ridha just hates being pressured to conform one way or the other, especially given who his parent originally was before I realized how fucking mary sue that was.
What OC has the biggest family? How do they get along? Polymja has a Habsburg-grade extended family, which she doesn’t always get along with. The one exception is Lenna, whom she adores.
What OC has/is a mentor? Expecting any of these people to be mentor-grade is a tall order. Ben’s fairly good at being quartermaster, though, so he might work out as one. Ridha, being a young cousin on the Highwind side, wants to be a dragon scholar for a family that lost all its dragons and most of what they can do is lecture from books they absorbed.
What OC has a huge group of friends? Ben is probably the friendliest of them, which makes him great quartermaster material.
What OC has a small, close group of friends? Ridha gets on best with smaller groups of people and would be at home in the Ancient Library
What OC has, like, one friend? Polymja is a queen who had to fight sexism to get her way and is not very inclined to trust people.
What OC is the Mom Friend? Ben, haha.
What OC really needs the Mom Friend around? Ridha, being a young teen in a family that mostly went insane after the Dragon War slaughtered the dragons 50 years before, could really use anyone attentive. So, naturally, they cling to Lenna once Lenna adopts them.
Which OCs are an old married couple (literally or figuratively)? I’m cackling over any of them being with each other. Ben’s gay, Polymja’s lesbian, Ridha is still trying to figure themselves out, and Merrick hates everyone and is old enough to be Ben’s father.
What is your favorite platonic relationship between your OCs? None of them are really that connected.
What is your favorite familial relationship between your OCs? Given that Ben was Ridha’s father in the original, um... that, I guess? But they barely know each other in the revamp.
What is your favorite romantic relationship between your OCs? None of them is ever going to be into each other.
Which two OCs are the most different from each other? Polymja and Ben. Polymja likes to go her own way, Ben is always going to be a quartermaster at heart and think of himself as one of the crew.
Which OCs complement each other the best? Given that Ben used to be Ridha’s dad, er... them, I guess.
Which OCs get along the best with each other? Ironically, given that Merrick often borders on being a cantankerous bastard at the best of times, that would work well with Polymja’s distrust of everyone who isn’t family. However, they’ve never even met.
Whch OCs get along the worst with each other? Merrick is such a crotchety old pirate captain that he would never get on with Ridha, who’s largely independent.
Which OCs don’t know each other, but would get along great if they did? Polymja and Merrick. They’d appreciate each other’s distrust.
Which OCs don’t know each other, but would hate each other if they did? tbh they all have better things to worry about.
Which OCs would make the worst couple? Not to worry, they’re all such different ages and orientations that it won’t happen.
What’s the strangest way two (or more) OCs have met? The only two to have actually met are Ben and Merrick, and Ben was a deck hand on Merrick’s ship up until Merrick had a heart attack. My OCs tend to serve the story.
Which non-related OCs have known each other the longest? Ben and Merrick
Which OCs knew each other the shortest time before becoming close friends? New version: Ben meets Ridha postgame and kinda adopts him
Which OCs spend the most time together? Ben worked on Merrick’s ship for about 10 years
Which OCs have fought with each other the most? None, really? Of the two that actually knew each other for very long, Ben knew his place on the ship and it was to follow the captain’s orders, and Merrick was the captain.
Do any OCs have friends they haven’t met in person? Pre-internet society. Nope.
Do any OCs have imaginary friends? Except for Ridha, they’re all adults
Does OC have a hard or easy time making friends? Ben has the easiest time making friends because he knows he has to go along to get along.
How did OC meet their best friend? A nice lady in Tule told Merrick that Faris needed a companion her age, and Merrick’s pilot had an available nephew. And yeah, 5-year-old Faris did not want a babysitter, but she and Ben did get to be friends eventually.
How did OC meet their worst enemy? King Gelon of Tycoon decided to marry his daughter off to some country bumpkin instead of Polymja, who was princess of Karnak at the time. She met Alexander during the meeting over how to punish Gelon for conquering Walse and disliked him for being chosen to marry her crush since.
How did OC meet their significant other? If OC does not have a SO, do they want one? Merrick met his husband in a pub brawl over... who even knows anymore.
How does OC get along with their parents? Version 1 Ridha worshiped his parents. Version 2 doesn’t get the parenting he needs, so he latches to his cousin Lenna.
Does OC have siblings? Do they get along if they do? Do they wish they had some if they don’t? Merrick lost his much-loved siblings in the conquest of Carwen by Gelon Tycoon and has hated the royal family since. Polymja used to have a brother she didn’t like very much, but he died of mysterious circumstances (mysterious as in: please look up Charles II of Spain, because I find the Habsburgs fascinating in a trainwreck way)
Does OC have or want kids? Ben might want kids, but he’d have to adopt. Merrick considered Faris his child and gloated over the fact that he managed to steal a child of Tycoon and claim her as his own.
Is OC/Would OC be a good parent? Ben would actually be a great dad.
What is something unusual OC has bonded with someone over? Polymja encouraged Lenna’s tomboy streak as a child, as she was one herself
What is the most important relationship in OC’s life? Merrick actually did get to become slightly less of an asshole with Faris in his life. Something about having responsibility for someone who had no options.
How has OC been affected by their friendships? The only reason Karnak and Tycoon got along at all was because Polymja was willing to set aside her animosity with Alexander for the sake of his wife and their daughters. Maybe Polymja may have never consummated her love for Lessandra Tycoon, but they were always very close before Lessandra died of complications from Habsburging.
How has OC been affected by their family relationships? Ridha vs2′s parents being distant because intergenerational war trauma is a hell of a thing, they’re a very private person and has trouble trusting people until they’ve proven themselves.
How has OC been affected by their romantic relationship(s) or lack thereof? Ben’s love for Faris is, yes, a running gag in the game. But even after it fades, he’s still a loyal friend and will follow her to the ends of the earth.
Who does OC consider they have learned their most important life lesson from? Merrick learned not to be such a bastard from Faris, so there’s that. He might blame her family for his family’s death, but she had nothing to do with it.
Who motivates OC? Lenna moves Ridha to open up and accept people into his life
Who would OC do anything for? Polymja would have done anything for Lessandra. She will do anything for Lessandra’s daughters, Lenna and Faris.
Who would OC do anything to not have to deal with? Merrick wants absolutely nothing to do with any sort of royalty, thank you. Royalty’s nothing but trouble.
How does OC meet most people? Generally, Merrick meets them either in a pub or when he’s boarding their ships to assess his winnings.
How long does it take OC to open up to people? Most of them, very slowly. They’ve all got a bit of trauma, but Ben is probably the quickest to open up because he recognizes the need for community.
How much do OC’s friends know about their private life? Merrick kept the fact that he was a trans man to himself, his husband, and Faris. That’s it. When he died, Faris took charge of dressing the body to keep anyone from finding out.
How does OC act differently after they know someone better? Ridha can be very talkative and friendly when they finally get to open up with someone. Ask them about the Highwind clan’s dragon lore and they’ll go on for hours.
Who is OC’s favorite person? Lenna is Ridha’s favorite person, because she’s so sweet to them and gives them the attention a teenager really needs from a parental figure.
Who is OC’s least favorite person? Polymja absolutely loathes the king of Walse for being a little shit when they were kids and dismissing her love for Lessandra as something she’ll grow out of once she finds a man. Actually, the quickest way to get on her shitlist is to ignore that she’s a lesbian and suggest she find a man.
Is there anyone OC used to be very close to, but no longer is? Polymja and Faris used to have a whirlwind affair that died quickly.
What aspects of OC have, consciously or unconsciously, come from someone else? Ben gets his ability to stand up for himself from Faris’ frequent adolescent clashes with Merrick.
