#the seduction of gaius baelsar

[miqolena]

AO3 is currently still inaccessible 2 me so i can't leave a comment directly on your fic there but i wanted to let you know that before the site went down i marathoned your gaiuswol fic in the space of four days. i overslept for work one morning bc of it. it was worth it and i am hoping i can read the new chapter soon 🫡

oh my god???? thank you so much!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm sorry my work prompted you to stay up and oversleep, but I'm so happy you liked it that much! Thank you and I hope Ao3 is back to rights soon too! I'm looking forward to your comment(s) 🥺💕

[miqolena]

I've told this story a lot but I love telling it so here I am telling it again.

I was 100% sure Cid was going to be my ship. I loved him soooooo much. When he showed up at the end of 2.5(?) to rescue Lena from the bloody banquet in the Enterprise I screamed, for example.

But I could never get an edge in. I never found that secret leverage that it takes to kickstart my passion and make me start creating. I wrote one tiny fic about her bonding with him over their mutual memory loss problems, and that's it. So I languished, not really shipping Lena with anyone, not really thinking of Lena as her own character at all really. She was just the avatar that I was experiencing the game through and that's it.

Enter 4.5 patch years later, and Gaius Baelsar shows back up in his first voiced cutscene. He attracted my eye even from his first appearance but his English voice... whew. I wasn't down bad yet. But it was only a matter of time.

Later still, enter 5.2 patch. He says this to Lena after defeating the Ruby Weapon:

"Even from afar your figure was unmistakable. As ever, an impressive display."

And in that moment I thought, Oh, he was watching her figure, was he?

There it was. The leverage. The spark. I shoved in and pried it open. My fanfic The Seduction of Gaius Baelsar was born at that moment. Over three years later it stands at 488,881 words and I have no intention to stop letting it grow. It is my sweet monster.

Sorry Cid.

Another fun question: Was there ever a ship for your OC/WoL that almost was? The one that just barely got away, that just didn't click like you wanted it to? Or perhaps ships that you DID have but ultimately changed to someone new? I want to hear some of those stories!

[miqolena]

Even 4 years later I still think about the context surrounding my first two chapters of The Seduction of Gaius Baelsar. Some of it wasn't established consciously then, and like Lena, I've arrived at it later.

I'm watching a video about gender and videogames and it references Ursula K. Le Guin a lot. And at one point there's sexual tension between two of the characters and the quote from The Left Hand of Darkness goes "For us to meet sexually would be for us to meet once more as aliens." And it may not be the intent behind the passage necessarily, but it got me thinking about how first-time sex is indeed a sort of second meeting between two or more people, seeing one another in a new context or with new intent.

For Lena, this was not the case. She never treated the people she slept with as new encounters or intimate connections finding pleasure together. Every person she slept with was the same to her, regardless of their gender, equipment, or circumstance. They were just an avenue to her getting off and having some fun. That's why she almost never slept with the same person twice.

Cheap toys grow old quickly.

But when she slept with Gaius, something sparked in her mind that she couldn't shake off even if she had realized it was there. The moments leading up to their intercourse changed the setting and contextualized Gaius' desires for her, an understanding she had never sought before but nevertheless arrived at then. And when she decided to return to him after the Diamond Weapon, it was based on a longing or a pity she couldn't even comprehend and explain herself, something she probably wasn't even aware of.

That second time was when she met him again as a stranger. She saw him as she never had before. There were so many moments of pause and interrogation, and not a letter of it printed on her conscious mind. It was the first bumbling step towards love and she remained oblivious.

Thank goodness the two of them stumbled into confessions eventually.

[miqolena]

Oh yeah I should post about this here too huh.

The Seduction of Gaius Baelsar chapter 66: "What Is Right" is now posted!

Lena is preoccupied with evaluating the rightness of her actions. Trust emerges as a contentious topic. The party returns to the void in search of Azdaja.

and here's a link to the beginning!

Enjoy and leave comments if you did!!

[miqolena]

Spoilers for my GaiusWoL fic, The Seduction of Gaius Baelsar, ahead (for both past and future additions).

Discussing my past and current methods and my future plans!

The Seduction grew a lot last year. By over 220%, in fact! And I intend to continue to let it grow into an even greater behemoth than it already is. With that said, I've never really talked about my writing methods publicly, and I've had people ask me about writing longfics. I thought I'd share a little about how I do what I do and talk future updates.

My Methods

To start, I want to introduce you to a software I've been using for I think about six months: Obsidian. The Seduction has grown into a monster and has many pieces to keep track of. I keep track of these pieces and add new ones with Obsidian. You can jot down notes long or small and connect them to other notes with backlinks. These connections show up as lines on a graph view.

If you're looking for something to organize your ideas, I highly recommend it! It's a fun little tool to write in. I storyboard chapters in my #Ideas hashtag as I think of more to add to them, and update info on characters as they develop. I still haven't gotten around to adding Carmilla yet. Whoops!

As for how to write longfics, or at least how I write mine - The Seduction is a serial fic, meaning most of its chapters are complete ideas with complete arcs in themselves. This is what a lot of fanfiction ends up being. In the past I normally just thought of an idea spontaneously and put it in as a chapter. Over time I've managed to insert recurring themes, overarching plot threads, or problems that the characters have to confront every once in a while - like Gaius' distrust of Lena's avatar, or Lena's habit of running away to be alone when she is traumatized. But mostly, chapters are open and shut books. I try never to end on a cliffhanger unless I have an immediate followup planned. Maybe someday I'll plan something on a larger scale, but for now, I'm happy doing this.

I draw inspiration from the game's lore and events and write down whatever I think would be applicable to Lena and her journey with Gaius. I toss around ideas with others and take in their feedback. I read books on occasion - not to copy, but to remember how to write well. Something about reading good, professional writing inspires me. And sometimes the best place to find inspiration is outside yourself.

My Plans

As for my future plans, you can see in the #Ideas cluster on the graph what I have floating around in the realm of possibility. There are a few things that aren't there... possible spoilers ahead!

I fully plan for Carmilla to be Lena's Thirteenth shard. I've hinted at it once or twice in the fic. If it turns out that Zero is the WoL's Thirteenth shard, I may pivot to Carmilla being Gaius' shard. Otherwise she will simply remain a very powerful voidsent, my OC donut steal.

I intend for Carmilla to be able to stay inside Gaius as a reaper avatar and separate from Lena as needed. No more holding hands every time they need to teleport. We have the technology. Yes, this means I want to write Gaius struggling with learning magic. I think it would be cute.

I want to bring Liran in on some sort of side adventure. Maybe 6.3 Tataru's Grand Endeavor? That would, of course, mean starting up the 6.1 and 6.2 plotlines in the fic.

I need to work toward establishing my timeline because I have, unfortunately, anchored myself in a particular point in time with my Starlight in Garlemald chapter. Now I need to know how much time has passed if I want to incorporate further seasonal events. Twelve preserve me.

And that's all for my State of the Fic address for now. Thank you for reading as always, and I'll see you on twitter and Ao3.

[miqolena]

The Seduction of Gaius Baelsar hit 505k words today. Half a million!

It doesn't feel like I've written half a million words. But then again, I can't even conceive of that number when I think about it. If I try to picture half a million apples or half a million pushpins I simply can't. At least with this I can click "display entire work" on Ao3 and get a sense of the magnitude of what I've done.

I'm very happy. I've done so much with what I love and I don't plan on stopping at all. I'm going to keep writing for Gaius/Lena and do what I love and I hope others will enjoy it too.

Thank you to all my readers and friends. Me and Gaius and Lena will see you in the next chapter.

[miqolena]

pinned post :)

Hi. I'm Lena, and so is my WoL. I've been playing FFXIV since 3.3 (2016) and I'm a GaiusWoL shipper.

This is a FFXIV-focused blog. I'll be posting gposes (both wolshippy and not), art (I'm a beginner, beware), and links to my fics hosted on Ao3. There'll also be reblogs of things I find interesting, funny, insightful, or beautiful.

Thank you for visiting.

Links

Carrd

Ao3 (The Seduction of Gaius Baelsar)

Twitter

[miqolena]

2022 roundup

Someone put together a little "Ao3 Wrapped" questionnaire on twitter, and I thought it was cute, but most of the answers to the questions for me would be "The Seduction of Gaius Baelsar" which would be boring. So I decided instead to reflect on the work I've done this year with approximate numbers.

The Seduction of Gaius Baelsar (431,940 words, 240k this year)

In Moments, Primal Desires (28,350 words, 7k this year)

Should've Worn a Mask (1,505 words)

With Fire All Around You (592 words)

I wrote 249 THOUSAND words this year. Holy crap. That's more than some published authors put out in a lifetime. When I saw The Seduction's 240k I couldn't get over the awe at myself. I spent this entire year fretting that this stint of my writing was over, that my inspiration was leaving me again for depression or lack of... something or whatever else - when in fact I was being more productive than I have ever been in my entire life. I can't believe it. What a time to be alive.

In the last steps of this year I also started on a visual arts journey. I think this year I've seized upon a creativity that I haven't seen since I was little, when I had no responsibilities aside from earning good grades. It must be even bigger than that; little me couldn't even dream of writing 249k words in a year.

I want to keep holding on to this going into the new year. There are new stressors entering my life, but I can't let them get to me. I feel like I've broken partway free of my life's tragedies. I've started running and I must not stop. I'll take breaks - it's important to take breaks - but I'll chug on.

Life is a marathon, but sometimes I get to sprint.

[miqolena]

An introductory post.

My WoL is Lena, an amnesiac who forgot everything after the Calamity due to being thrown 5 years into the future. She slept around incessantly and seduced Gaius Baelsar during and after the Sorrow of Werlyt. After a subsequent smattering of events running around with him, she married him by accident - a mixup that you can read about in the earlier chapters of my longfic detailing their relationship, The Seduction of Gaius Baelsar.

Lena is a headstrong woman who tends to think of herself before others, but she wouldn't be a good WoL if she didn't also field a willingness to listen and tend to the needs of other people. More on her backstory and personality can be found in the info section of my carrd.

I'll be posting gposes and OC lore on this blog. If you decide to follow, welcome and enjoy. Either way, thank you for reading.