ATE: Hey everyone! So I had this idea for some time and starting writing it back in late February of this year and decided to make a story for Final Fantasy XV. Basically, this is your classic OC ends up in video game/anime/book/movie cliche, but with a twist.
Originally I was only planning to post this story over on AO3, but I decided that I'd share it over here. I don't know how often I'll post chapters on this story, but I'll update whenever I get around to it. I hope you all enjoy this story.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to Final Fantasy XV or Square Enix. I only own my OCs.
What Sort of Isekai BS Is This?
~*~Chapter 1~*~
It was another day for Victoria where she found herself bored out of her mind. She had recently been laid off from a seasonal job due to hours being tight, which forced her to search for another job to apply to. Only problem was that—despite the numerous jobs available online—she had trouble finding ones she was even qualified for. As much as she hated the idea, she even applied to fast food jobs. But even then, she still hadn't heard anything from any of the places she applied to. What was frustrating was that when she did get an email back to her applications it was only to read that the potential place of employment had chosen to pass her over for someone else.
'"We encourage you to continue to apply for other positions." Yeah, right.' She thought bitterly.
It was pretty demoralizing to get emails that constantly rejected you, but what was worse were the jobs she applied to only to not hear anything back for months or even years. She remembered an instance a year ago where she applied to a bookstore, only to hear back from them more than 6 months later after she'd moved to another state to tell her that they'd picked someone else; to this day it was still something she'd found ironically hilarious.
What did she do when she wasn't applying to jobs?
She spent most of her time at home playing video games, which she'd been doing after being laid off during the first week of the new year. She'd played the Kingdom Hearts III Re:Mind DLC which caused her to play the PS4 version of Birth By Sleep; the last time she'd played that was back on the PSP, so she was surprised by the jump in FPS and graphics quality when she started a new game. She spent a good amount of time level grinding while alternating between saves for Terra, Aqua, and Ventus while "watching" (more like listening) Youtube videos to break up the monotony. Sure, she had fun for some time with it, but eventually she got bored again.
Halfway through that first month, she suddenly developed an urge to work out.
Now she wasn't the biggest fan of exercise, so it came as a huge surprise that she felt motivated to jump on the treadmill and walk for 30 minutes daily (while watching Youtube videos, which helped to make the process easier). This urge to be active continued to persist to the point that it felt weird to skip a day. It didn't hurt that she was gradually losing weight in the process, so that's a plus.
So aside from her new routine of job hunting, playing video games, and her daily walks, where did that leave her?
Bored, apparently.
It was on that particular day that playing Birth By Sleep wasn't as appealing as it had been so she saved her game before closing the application where she found herself staring blankly at the PS4 home screen (or whatever it was called, she really didn't care though).
Did she even want to play?
…
Oh, so now that decided to rear its ugly head.
'Hi, depression. So nice of you to visit. I didn't miss you one bit.' She thought sarcastically.
No wonder she felt bored.
She didn't feel like talking to anyone (who was she supposed to talk to when she didn't even have anyone to hang out with, and the only friends she had were the one she'd met online, but even then they had lives of their own), she had no need to leave her home (she didn't need to buy anything), so that left her with the internet.
Okay, that's something to work with.
Out of sheer boredom, she decided to go to Google, only to stare at the search bar.
What to search?
…
…
…
She started typing.
What to do when you're bored—
Ah, results from other people's searches.
"What to do when you're bored in class… At work… In school... At home… How exciting."
She picked 'What to do when you're bored at home' just to see what she'd get, only to frown at her anticlimactic result.
25 Relaxing Things to do When Bored
She rolled her eyes before reading the list.
1. Give yourself a manicure or pedicure.
Yeah, no.
2. Try out a new hairstyle or experiment with your hair.
She happened to like her hair the way it was. Why fix what isn't broken?
3. Take a bubble bath.
Nice in theory, but she wasn't going to waste water on that.
4. Try out a new facemask or beauty product.
No. Just no.
5. Doodle, color, or draw on some paper.
She didn't feel like drawing.
6. Do yoga (check out YouTube for tutorials).
No thanks.
7. Write a poem or write in a journal.
She couldn't write poetry to save her life. And why a journal?
8. Take a nap.
She wasn't even tired.
She didn't even bother to click on the hyperlink to see what else was on the unenlightening list.
Back to square one it seemed.
Getting up from her desk, Victoria went over to a shelf containing all the video games she owned, specifically the PS4 games that were organized alphabetically in hopes that she'd get some sort of spark of inspiration. Her eyes roamed the titles until they suddenly stopped on one in particular.
Final Fantasy XV.
The last time she'd played it was last year when Episode Ardyn came out, but other than that she hadn't really touched the game since the completion her first playthrough. It was strange how she felt compelled to play the game now of all times, but maybe it wouldn't hurt to play New Game Plus with the content from the Royal Edition she'd purchased years ago with that intention in mind. Without much thought she inserted the disk into the PS4 and booted up the game.
Upon starting New Game Plus she noticed how easily she breezed through enemies in the Leide region as she explored, though that was probably due to how over-leveled the Chocobros were from her last playthrough (their levels being in the 50s range). She even took on hunts (when they were available) that took place at night and realized how useful (and overpowered) the Ring of the Lucii really was whenever she encountered daemons (with the exception of a Red Giant which took some effort). Despite having a fair amount of gil from her last playthrough, she chose to repeat a few hunts just to get some more all while taking her time farming for AP via warp-strikes (thanks Warrior's Fanfare and Blitzer's Fanfare for the A Ranks on offense and time for the added boosts).
Victoria hadn't realized how much she missed listening the Chocobros' banter until they started talking as she explored the world of Eos. Having moved as places twice in one year didn't give her much time to make friends, but listening to how natural the interaction was between the heroes made her feel like she was hanging out with an actual group of friends, which never failed to put a smile on her face. Something she started noticing was that every time the Chocobros turned in for the night (either from camping or staying in a caravan) there were more selfies or group photos than usual, but she chalked it up to the randomizer of whatever algorithm the game used. It might've helped that she found the photos surprisingly endearing in a way. She still enjoyed taking her time traveling through Eos, Costlemark Tower and Pitioss Ruins being the two exceptions for obvious reasons.
Days passed as she continued playing Final Fantasy XV (after finishing her daily routine of applying to jobs and exercising, of course) and when she eventually completed Chapter 13. Though there wasn't much reason to do so, she replayed the first three DLC Episodes for Gladiolus, Ignis, and Prompto respectfully (she didn't see a need to replay Episode Ardyn since she'd recently played it last year). She admired Gladiolus and Ignis for their loyalty to Noctis as Shield and Advisor, and empathized with Prompto's insecurities and pushing through it despite it all; watching them struggle and succeed (in their own ways) was inspiring. Naturally, finishing all three Episodes took her around two days due to life being life and taking care of whatever responsibilities that were attached, but once the DLCs were completed she decided to play a bit of Comrades; she still thought it was silly how Square Enix made the DLC its own standalone app as opposed to making it accessible through the main game, but it was still their choice.
Victoria remembered being impressed with how detailed the character creation was in Comrades and how she managed to make her avatar look exactly like her (even down to her height; though trying to make hair look a specific color was still tricky) and she managed to complete the "main story" at around level 28 (that fight with Bahamut was challenging). There was much rejoicing when she unlocked the Hidden Harbor location and she continued leveling up her main avatar so that she could tackled the tougher missions.
And then there was raising Chocobos, which was a whole new level of frustration that didn't need to be a thing (again, what was Square Enix thinking).
After hours of training and resetting the game to bypass autosaving just to get the stats she wanted she chose to leave it alone in favor of creating a new avatar; seeing as she got some new cosmetics to work with from the hard earned gil she spent time earning she thought she could get creative. Going over to the man standing near the merchant in the boat and selected to create a new avatar; usually she would pick to create female characters, but this time she decided with a male character.
'Let's see if we can make a good-looking male character.' She mused.
With that thought in mind she set to work on the new avatar, starting on the face options, followed by hair, features, and voice before going into deeper details with the figure and facial structure options (which had a tendency of being time-consuming) until she was satisfied. She saved coloration for last to fool around with since that was something that took some serious thought on her part. By the time she was done she had a male character that was attractive, having auburn hair, green eyes, and light-colored skin; she also dressed him up in the Kingsglaive uniform, feeling that it was appropriate for the avatar.
"Something's missing…"
She thought carefully on what could be missing. It couldn't be coloration, and she liked how his face looked, but what was missing? It took her awhile, but she finally found the answer! Without hesitating she scrolled to features and finally added the final touch.
A scar on his right cheek.
"Perfect." She said. "Now for a name…"
For this she went to a website to look up name meanings, though not before pulling up a few pages from the Final Fantasy Wikia (specifically for some of the Kingsglaive members like Nyx, Libertus, Crowe, etc.) to get ideas for language origins for a name. Naturally, most of the origins of the names were mostly Latin (go figure), but she was surprised to see some Greek and middle English mixed in, so that gave her some idea where to start. She looked through the names with the those language origins in the search bar, but nothing really stood out to her.
Maybe look at Ancient Irish or Ancient Celtic for references. She looked up Ancient Irish to filter names out and immediately a named stood out that she clicked on.
Áedán
Gender: Masculine
Usage: Ancient Irish, Irish Mythology
Meaning & History
Older form of AODHÁN. This was the name of a 6th-century king of the Scots.Related Names
Other Languages & Cultures: Aidan, Aden, Aiden, Aydan, Ayden (English) Aidan, Aodh, Aodhán, Aodhagán, Edan (Irish) Aidan, Aodh, Aodhán, Aodhagán, Edan (Scottish)Okay, she'd go down the rabbit hole on this one and select Aodhán.
Aodhán
Gender: Masculine
Usage: Irish, Scottish, Irish Mythology
Meaning & History
From the old Irish name Áedán meaning "little fire", a diminutive of Áed (see AODH). This was the name of an Irish monk and saint of the 7th century. It was also borne by several characters in Irish mythology.
Related Names
Variants: Aidan, Edan (Irish) Aidan, Edan (Scottish) Áedán (Irish Mythology)
Diminutives: Aodhagán (Irish) Aodhagán (Scottish)Yes! This was the name she wanted!
Satisfied with her newly created avatar, Victoria decided to take Áedán on some missions to level him up, with the process made a lot easier thanks to equipping him with weapons she used for her main avatar. During missions she was fully focused on the combat, but whenever she went by Vyv she couldn't help but giggle and grin like an idiot at seeing photo of Áedán.
Not only was he attractive, but he was quite photogenic.
She couldn't help but laugh at this. Then again, all the photos taken in the game always made everyone look photogenic, so maybe it was par for the course.
For the next day or so she worked on Áedán until she was confident with her progress to take on some higher leveled missions. Sure, she had some difficulty on those mission, but the payoff in EXP, gil, and KWs was worth it in the long run. She hadn't realized how much time she spent working on this one character that it wasn't until she looked out the window and saw how dark it was, and the clock reading 11 pm only added to the fact.
Victoria managed to get to a stopping point, allowing the autosave to do its thing before shutting off the PS4. Pajamas on (consisting of a tank top and shorts), teeth and hair brushed, and contact lenses taken out, she went back to her room to get comfortable in her bed, but not before setting her alarm on her phone.
After all, she had more jobs to apply to in the morning.
ATE: Thanks for reading! The google result for the boredom thing was an actual result I got, and the name meanings came from a website called Behind The Name (a very useful site to look up name meanings and origins).
In case you were wondering what Victoria looks like, go over on deviantart, look up Aerith-The-Evenstar and look under the the folder labeled "Fan Art - Final Fantasy XV". You'll find it there. For some reason, it's impossible for me to provide links even when I'm spacing things out.
Feel free to leave a review and let me know what you think!