Twin-Lance Verse

Nida absorbed as much of the atmosphere as he could. There he danced, in a place he could only hope to fantasize about as a boy, with a woman he never imagined he could touch.

The Twin-Lance Verse is a set of Final Fantasy VIII fan fictions which are set post-game and focus on the lives of (mostly) the main characters. As of this time, six stories exist and are meant to be read in chronological order, as events in earlier stories are often mentioned again later on.

Story order:

1. Darkened Ice
2. Leatherbound Secret
3. Red Strokes
4. Unsilenced
5. Iris of Thorns

Each chapter of What Lies Within seems to take place at various times in the series, and should probably be read last.

Spoilers below, which are marked.

Tropes used in Twin-Lance Verse include:

• A Day in the Limelight - Red Strokes focuses on Nida. Can't remember who he is? Most of the characters can't either, at least at first.
• The Atoner - Seifer, and also Edea to some extent.
• Babies Ever After
• Cold-Blooded Torture - What Seifer had done to him regularly in D-District until Ellone rescued him.
• Complete Monster - Gunther Audley, who is also Zell's biological father.
• Dead Fic - What Lies Within and Unsilenced are both unfinished and have not been updated in close to two years.
• Fanon - This series is likely where Nida's last name of 'Roe' came from. Stories by different authors have since used it.
• Heroic BSOD - Seifer freaks out after hearing that Ellone is pregnant with twins. He quickly gets over it, though.
• Moses in the Bulrushes - Cid and Edea Kramer are Selphie's parents.
• Pair the Spares - Averted compared to the majority of FFVIII fan fiction, since Quistis ends up with Nida, Zell with Fujin and Seifer with Ellone, instead of Quistis and Zell pairing off with Seifer and the Library Girl respectively.
• Jerkass Woobie / Stoic Woobie - Seifer. Considering what happened to him in-game and post-game, it's not hard to see why. He ends up helping everyone (including Squall) at various times despite claiming not to care and is completely overwhelmed at the fact that one of his twin sons nearly died that he breaks down in full sight of Squall and Kiros.
• Taking the Kids - The main plot of Leatherbound Secret, in which we learn that Irvine fathered a child before the events of the game, and the baby's mother suddenly wants custody of him.
• Temporary Blindness - Squall. Laguna also had it happen to him before.
• Where Are They Now? Epilogue - A few of the stories end years into the future and show how the characters are faring.