DOINK! Friending Meme!

[ffexchange_mod]

We’ve always wanted to have a friending meme for Doink, but... in an exchange where gifts are surprises, and gifters and recipients are big secrets, it never seems like the right time. So we’d like to have one now! No one has to worry about ruining the big reveal, and we all get to have fun and make some friends!

If you’d like to participate, we’ve prepared some text you can copy and fill out to tell the community a little bit about yourself, where friends can find you, and which parts of Final Fantasy fandom make you sparkle like a happy Megalixir. Feel free to fill out as much or as little as you’d like - we encourage everybody to share their fandom likes and loves, so that you can connect with like-minded fans, but it isn’t necessary.

The way to play is quite simple:

1. Copy the text, fill it out, and leave a comment! We’ll have two posts, one for LJ and one for DW - if you’re looking for new friends in both places, feel free to fill both out.
2. Scan the page and read about the Doink community! Does someone look interesting? Strike up a conversation! Make some friends! WRITE COMMENT FIC. Whatever you’d like!
3. Add folks to your various friend networks as you desire!
4. Repeat as needed.
5. Everyone wins!

Just two notes before we start:

• This is not exclusive to Chocobo Down participants, or to Doink participants. It’s open to everyone! So please spread the word.


• We hope this doesn’t really need to be said, but please stay kind, positive, and respectful of everyone’s widely different kinds of fandom love.

Enjoy!

<b>Name / Pseud</b>: <b>Journals (LJ, DW, etc) / AO3 username</b>: <b>Other places I’m looking for awesome fandom friends:</b> [other journals, Twitter, Tumblr, etc] <b>FF canons I’ve experienced</b>: [games played, movies watched, etc] <b>FF Fandoms I’m active in</b>: <b>Ways I participate in fandom</b>: [writing, reading, drawing, reccing, flailing, lurking, etc!] <b>5 characters I love and one sentence why</b> 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. <b>5 pairings I love and one sentence why</b> 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. <b> Themes, kinks, tropes that I really love to see in Final Fantasy fanworks:</b> <b> One ridiculous thought or question I have about FF and/or fandom, to start discussion with my new fandom friends:</b> <b>Anything else?</b>

Livejournal post

Comments

[seventhe]

I invented a rule about fights or misunderstands that states anything that can be solved with ten minutes of the characters actually talking needs more work.

WHY HELLO, ONE OF MY BIGGEST FANFICTION PET PEEVES.

[chaosraven]

Ugh, I know. It's such sloppy storytelling!

[sarasa_cat]

I second third your biggest fanfic pet peeve. (and I slap myself whenever I do it.)

BTW, Vaan/Noah and any comparisons of Noah and Seifer perk up my ears right away! Vaan+Viera BFFs too. What are your thoughts on all of those?

[chaosraven]

I have ALL the thoughts!

Vaan/Noah is interesting to me because of how much Vaan changes through the story. If they'd met at the beginning of the game, I probably wouldn't care because it would devolve into some kind of hate sex thing... I personally find hate sex pairings really boring. But they meet at the point in the game where Vaan's personal feelings have changed, first of all, and second, are less important to him. To the point where I wonder what steps it would take for forgiveness. They're only interesting to me in the context of Vaan forgiving Noah, usually subtextually through his actions.

And from Noah's side, too, he would regret that Vaan was hurt but I think he would still do it again because he did think it was the best way to avoid a war. So, it's not like he can literally apologize, but he can show the ways he's changed, etc.

Basically, I have about 4 wips dedicated to them and I hope I finish some of them someday.

As for Seifer, well. FF8 is kind of flaky in its storytelling but a big advantage that gives to fandom is that we get to chose how it makes sense to us. A good author can convince me equally that Seifer knew what he was doing, doesn't regret it, and got away with it in the end as they can convince me that he was brainwashed the entire time. I tend to think that it's somewhere in the middle. He probably knew what he was doing at first but then it gets farther and farther away from him. However, he's never going to be the kind of character who admits when he's wrong, he'll keep fighting for his erroneous cause until it kills him.

I see them both as having a lot of pride and stubborness. They both want to protect something that's more of an ideology at first but becomes manifest in another character by the end. I think they would both have inevitable regrets about the parts they play but would be unable (and are, at many points unable) to turn away from the course they've chosen. Also, both hot and blond. >D

VAAN AND VIERAS IS MY FAVORITE. I don't remember what made me think of it the first time, probably something about Vaan paralleling Balthier's trajectory as a sky pirate, but I realized that he actually meets and "makes friends with" a few different viera and either of them would make a really cool partner for him. Ktjn is the viera that asks his opinion about the choices she's made and depending on your answers, she either ends up in Migelo's shop or over by clan Centurion. She's the most obvious choice for his BFF, since you can either have her be more of a warrior character or more of a healer character. Both are interesting options! One of my Vaan/Noah fics has her running a shop on the Phon coast with Vaan.

The OTHER choice that I think would be really cool is Mjrn, Fran's sister. She obviously becomes really interested in the hume world, despite Fran trying to convince her that staying in the wood would be her best decision, given Fran's own regrets. I think it would be way cool to see her make a choice to explore the world, with Vaan as an obvious catalyst.

Neither relationship is really interesting to me if it's more than friendship... despite the way they dress, I don't think of the viera as being a really sexual people. They're a bit inscrutable for that to work for me. >D But I do love adventures and hijinks which they are clearly rad at (see Fran, etc).

Those are my thoughts for now! Tell me yours!

Yes, Seifer = Noah because they are both hot and blond >D

[sarasa_cat]

You do have ALL the thoughts! \o/

Vaan is sometimes under appreciated in fandom, methinks, because he goes through a few really big changes throughout the story. What you said about how Vaan has changed by the time he meets Noah makes me rethink of a change that happens really early in the game. It's when Vaan and Basch are in Rabanastre just after Vaan delivers the sword of the order to Vossler (who then gives it to Basch). When Vaan and Basch are walking in Rabanastre when Vaan says to Basch:

You don’t have to keep apologizing. Really, it’s all right. I know it wasn’t your fault. I see that now. You didn’t kill my brother. It was the Empire. My brother trusted you. And he was right.

It's interesting to think of Vaan starting to realize that the larger machine of war caused his Reks' death and that revenge against any one person is pointless.

I get a strong feeling that every death that Noah has seen, much less directly caused, has weighed very, very heavily on him. For this reason, I picture him projecting his own guilt onto others. In other words, Noah feels that other people should never forgive him. This sets up an interesting dynamic: forgiveness versus the refusal to accept forgiveness, and it's definitely the stuff of ongoing story conflict. :D

I completely agree with you that Noah will do anything (no matter how horrific) to stop a war or to minimize the impact of fighting (whatever happened in Landis when he was 17 left far too many emotional scars on him). I think this is another point where he and Vaan differ, at least later on for Vaan, because I don't think Vaan will agree that the ends justify the means when the means are really terrible (like assassinating someone).

Either with or without romantic shipping, I love the idea of Noah surviving post-game and living with Vaan and Penelo in Rabanastre. Forgiveness. Guilt. Atonement. Painful memories. Doubt. Rebuilding lives. Grumpy!Noah.

I hope you finish your Vaan/Noah WIPs & I'm looking forward to eventually reading them!! There just isn't enough of this pairing.

(I write post-game messy Vaan+Noah+Penelo genfic for the same reasons, although it also includes Penelo/Noah, rather than Vaan/Noah, which explores the same dynamic but with a different spin. I have a large WIP that needs to somehow come together...)


Seifer: Sometimes I think of Seifer as a young version of Noah. Pride, stubbornness, ideologically-driven, yes. The big difference I see between them is that Seifer was a problem student (failed his SEED exams, abuses his power in the Disciplinary Committee) whereas Noah was probably the overly serious straight-A student who then went on and very carefully did exactly what he needed to do to climb the ladder.


Vaan & Ktjn!! I have a soft spot for these two as either hunting partners or pirating partners. I'm okay either way: shipping them as an actual couple or just having them as BFFs but, either way, their friendship and shared curiosity about the larger world that is most important to them. Vaan and viera is definitely all about the adventure and hijinks! Plus, it's Vaan's way of showing off that he's just as smooth as Sky Pirate Balthier. XD

[sarasa_cat]

(BTW, mind if I friend you?)

[chaosraven]

Of course not! <3