Hello. I'm Luna Manar, and I write Final Fantasy VIII fanfiction.

Note to new and returning readers:

There are a few things you need to know about what you see on this page.

First, my old fanfiction is old. It doesn't represent my current writing skills, and so, over time, I'm going to start taking some of it down and re-writing or otherwise editing the existing fics. Before you panic, I'm not planning on depriving the Internet of Ace of Spades or All For One or From Squall With Love. I will be revising them. Any stories I do take down, including old versions of things I rewrite, will be archived somewhere, and I'll link to that location on my profile. So don't worry. I update my profile at least once monthly (and have been for a while) and I will make sure to give fair warning when something's about to be taken down so people can download it if they would like to.

Second, I really am serious about finishing this project, and I finally have the space and time I need to do that. I already have quite a bit of it outlined and scripted. It's a lot, but I'm pretty sure I can finish it all, given a few years. So you can expect fairly regular output from me from here on, possibly even more regularly than in the early 2000s. I know it's a long time after FFVIII debuted for me to be bothering with fanfiction of it, but I hate unfinished projects and I have a very clear idea of what I want to do with this one. There's a lot of content, so anyone who's interested will hopefully have a lot to look forward to.

Third, a brief rundown of what I have planned: I will continue putting out plothole-filling one-shots like Ace of Spades, Lights in the Sky and Second Chances, and I am also going to completely overhaul and rewrite the unfinished chapter pieces I'd started, with a few exceptions. The Dying of the Light (which is going to be renamed), In Love and War, and All For One will all be redone from the beginning. I want to stress that I have made a very concerted attempt not to remove the things people liked about them, but there will be some changes and I understand that this may disappoint some people. That's why I will be archiving the old versions and making them available.

Along with the one-shots, I have a total of 8 (yes) chapter stories planned out, all of them set in a single timeline. As in the past, I abide mostly by the English canon (Zell likes hot dogs, Angelo's a boy ok, you convinced me, girl Angelo it is), although I take some liberties with game mechanics to make them mesh better with story mechanics. I have done my absolute best to avoid running wild with OCs and each story, even the post-game ones, stay as closely relevant to the game itself as possible.

There were a lot of incomplete thoughts, unanswered questions and unexplored ideas in FFVIII; I want to explore those things in a detailed and hopefully creative way. This is as much something I'm doing for myself as anything. With any luck, some other people will enjoy it, too.

Anyway, enough talk from me. Go, read things!

Read my stories in Italian! Please look for Luna Manar on EFP - translations by the wonderful Alessia Heartilly!

I can also be found on AO3 under Luna_Manar, and DA under LunaManar.

If you are looking for some of my OLDER stories, you can find them on my G-Drive here: Old FFVIII Fic Archive Please note that since Google's last update to Drive, if you attempt to open an HTML file in Drive it will only show you the raw code with no formatting. To see the correct formatting instead of garbage, download the file to your computer and open it.

To read Miles to Go, the FFVIII short comic collaboration I did with Skribleskrable, see here. (NB: Links no longer work due to FFN's link purge, but if you just go to my tumblr--user name is lunamanar--the comic will be one of the posts listed on the "popular posts" display at the top of the page. Alternatively, you can view the individual files on my G-Drive here.)

11-02-2017

I'm settling into my new work schedule finally, and might be getting to a point where I have time and space to write again. I'm sorry for the absence, but in the wake of last year, I just needed a lot of time to recover. I've still been writing, but I have finished nothing, so in this upcoming year I'm going to try and focus on getting something done, even if it's just a small one-shot. We'll see what happens!

02-15-2017

So...2016 happened.

So much has happened since the last update, I...don't know where to start. I guess the short version reads thusly:

- I applied for a promotion in my company
- I got the promotion; the stipulation was that I relocate from North Carolina to Delaware
- Moving has been a very long, drawn-out process and nothing about it has been easy. I've been training full-time all the while.
- Other...things, happened. My life is very complicated.
- I have been writing, but I don't have anything completed to show.
- To be perfectly honest, my heart is in a lot of knots right now. I'm having a rough time. I know I'm not the only one. I'm doing what I can to take care of myself.
- As soon as I have the energy to post anything, I promise, I will. But this year...god. I don't know what to say about it. Never in my life have I looked at the upcoming year with such dread. I'm trying not to think too hard about it. I'm trying to just live my life so I can find the headspace to write.

I'm sorry. I'm giving all that I've got. You'll see me when you see me, I guess. I'll be around, though. I'm not going anywhere.

03-15-2016

This past month has been incredibly busy, so I don't have much to report at the moment. I'm writing where I can, and I have three or four one shots close to completion, but I can't say when I'll actually have time to finish them this month. Right now I'm taking it a day at a time, so until things slow down a bit, that might be the way it is for a while.

PINNED: 08-23-14

New readers: thanks for reading. Please be aware that most of what's here is very old and I'll be cleaning it up and rewriting a lot of it.

Returning readers: I feel like I owe you some bit of explanation for my absence. In 2010 when I posted Lights in the Sky, I was planning on coming back to finish what I'd started with my FF8 fiction. Shortly afterward, life became suddenly very hectic and stressful and did not stabilize until recently. Thankfully, that seems to be over, and I can finally get to work on this very large unfinished project that has been looming over me for years.

I'm not stopping with this one story. I have several one-shots in the pipe in various stages of completion. I plan to revisit and update many of my old fics, including but not limited to All For One and In Love and War. There will also be new chapter stories and in-game plothole fills.

For those interested, here is a longform update on my plans. These are one-shots that will be rewritten/updated:

-Second Chances (will be updated)

-Ace of Spades (needs just a few small tweaks) Done

-Falling Forever (will be updated)

-The Camping Trip (will be rewritten entirely and given a new title)

-The First Watch (will be rewritten entirely and given a new title)

Chapter stories that will be rewritten:

-The Dying of the Light (will be given a new title)

-In Love and War

-All For One

There are a couple fics here that are just not what I want and will eventually be removed from this page. I WILL STILL MAKE THEM AVAILABLE, just not here. They are:

-A Stone's Throw Away

-The Stars Will Cry

-The Password (ETA: I know a lot of people liked this one. It will show up again in one of the chapter stories I have planned, it just won't be a one-shot anymore. I'll leave it up until that happens)

-The 23rd Hour

-Judgement Day

-The Birthday Present (This one may get a rewrite/retitle, but I'm not sure yet.)

Finally, Lights in the Sky and Ragnarok are staying where they are.

Among the new material I have mapped out is a followup to Ace of Spades. I can't say when that one will be completed, but people seem to like that story so it seems worth hyping. I hope you enjoy the new material and that you find it to be an improvement over the old stuff. Again, I will not be destroying any of the old stories; the ones I take down and old versions of the ones I rewrite will be archived in a place yet to be determined, and I will link to them on this profile. So if you like those better, they are not going away.

Thanks again for reading. It's nice to be back.