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

[lassarina]

Name / Pseud: Lassarina (sometimes Lassarina Aoibhell), frequently nicknamed Rina
Journals (LJ, DW, etc) / AO3 username: lassarina, lassarina, rose_in_winter (ficjournal), lassarina
Other places I’m looking for awesome fandom friends: Tumblr, lassarina, Plurk

FF canons I’ve experienced: The list I haven't experienced is shorter: FFXII Revenant Wings, the Crystal Chronicles games, FFIV: The After Years
FF Fandoms I’m active in: FFVI, FFIV, FFXII/Tactics are my big ones. I am intermittently lurking and/or posting in all of them, though.
Ways I participate in fandom: Reading, writing, lurking. I have plans to start reccing more as soon as NaNoWriMo is over.

5 characters I love and one sentence why
1. Celes - FF6 was the first FF game I played to completion, and Celes has always been fascinating to me in that she does not really get this emotions thing and she's just an amazing badass that I love.
2. Kain - I am fascinated by his obsession with honor and his weirdly flexible definitions of same, and really how "obsession" is his defining characteristic (though he wishes it was "honor.")
3. Balthier - Really, there's nothing not to love about fabulous sky pirates, but I like the cracks in his facade and how he's not actually as awesome as he pretends--the little weaknesses that make him more interesting.
4. Garnet - I love her quiet strength, her determination, and how she finds clever ways to do the right thing when that's more important than playing by the rules.
5. Seifer - he is a delightfully broken toy and is wonderful to poke with sharp sticks because he aspires to be more, but in a way that dooms him to failure, and for some reason that really does it for me.

5 pairings I love and one sentence why
1. Locke/Celes - they are terrible at talking to each other and they are both delightfully broken, but if they could ever get down to really communicating I think they'd be amazing together.
2. Ashe/Balthier - Snark forever, which is my critical weakness, and also I love them because it's so hard for them to work, as he cannot give up his love of the sky and she will not give up her duty.
3. Fang/Vanille - First of all, canon lesbian ship fuck yeah, and second of all I love how badass Fang is and how they act as foil and mirror for each other; Vanille's cheery attitude vs Fang's practicality is adorable forever.
4. Kain/Barbariccia - Wind is her element, and wind makes his skills work, and I love her inhumanity and when he doesn't give a damn because he's trying so hard to hold on to his honor and failing.
5. Lulu/Auron - They've both been here before and they know what's going to happen, and they are doing it anyway because they have to; plus bonus tragic ending makes me happy.

Conclusion: I love bittersweet and tragic pairings that never work.

Themes, kinks, tropes that I really love to see in Final Fantasy fanworks:
I love magickink. I am fascinated by knights and the choices they make in pursuit of their loyalties. I love snark, and rogues, and pirates; I love badass ladies who take no shit from anyone. I love meta forever; playing around with game mechanics makes me so happy. I also like exploring backstory and sidestories a lot.

One ridiculous thought or question I have about FF and/or fandom, to start discussion with my new fandom friends:
So, sometimes the game changes which Esper/summon/whatever is associated with a different thing. Are they all avatars of the same element, i.e. different faces? Do they transform between games? What's up with that?

Anything else?
Other fandoms I do include: Mass Effect and Dragon Age (mostly lurking but learning to write), Shin Megami Tensei (especially Persona but I lurk in other fandoms), the Magna Carta games, and an assortment of tiny JRPG fandoms. \o/

[liri]

It was Maduin's change from male to female between VI and IX that really threw me for a loop.

[lassarina]

Oooh. Good point. I found the Espers in FFXII/Tactics Advance to be really strange, given that FF Tactics itself had the traditional complement of summons in addition to the Zodiac monsters, and then those were missing entirely from XII. (Weirdly having been replaced by the bosses from other games in the series...)

[liri]

I really need to play more of the Ivalice games. So that was one of the reasons for the summons in XII? They struck me as really interesting (sometimes creepy) but... not really as Final Fantasy summons.

The Maduin gender issue could actually make for some really interesting VI or crossover fanfic, although my first reaction when I was playing was "WRONG, he's Terra's father!"