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deemoyzaI'm sure I'm not the only one. Sometimes, you come across a fictional character or pairing or dynamic that just feels liberating to contemplate and write about, though exactly what you're being liberated from is unclear. I'm not a big shipper in fandom, so it's very little wonder why my current ship obsession never crossed my mind until I saw it in a prompt a few months ago, but after writing just a few short fics featuring it, something about it just clicked with me.
I'm referring to the pairing of Quistis/Rinoa from FF8, which has been an absolute joy to write, a boon to my creativity, and had positive little ripple effects throughout other aspects of my thoughts and emotions. I've wanted to write about this for a while, but it isn't an easy subject to articulate; however, sometimes the best approach is to dive right in, and that is what I'll do here. This post will be long, and a bit personal, so fair warning. ;)
I believe that the appeal of this ship to me stems from the fact that it is the intersection of three significant fannish and personal factors: a long-time favorite character whose personality I admire, a character on whom I subconsciously project aspects of my own personality and thought processes, and the expression of my own conflicted femininity. It's easier to parse each of these separately.
Rinoa is probably the easiest element to discuss, since I relate to her simply as one of my favorite video game heroines (one who held the top spot for almost 18 years). I loved her the first time I played through FF8, and subsequent playthroughs only reinforced that feeling. She was everything a nerdy girl like me wasn't—fun, playful, flirty, and devoted to a cause much larger than herself. I admired her passion for Timber's independence, and the way that she toughed out her early days with SeeD. I cheered her on in her attempts to get Squall to open his eyes to the good in the world, and I cheered even louder when she went back into Time Compression to rescue him from his own dark thoughts.
Does she have her faults? Sure. She can be immature, pushy, and impulsive, but not only did these faults make her more human in my eyes, the fact that she begins to remedy them throughout the story and tries to find a balance between determination and hubris made her even more worthy of my admiration. In short, for many years, Rinoa was the kind of person I wished I had the courage to be, or at least emulate, and any time I write her into fanfic, I relish the opportunity to capture a little bit of her free-spirited attitude on the page.
Quistis is a different story altogether. Because the game itself gives her such short shrift, she really wasn't on my fandom radar until a few years ago, when a silly random title meme led me to write my first multi-chapter fic and focus it on her. While trying to pin down her character for the fic, I realized that she really is something of a blank slate in FF8, with just enough characteristics to give the outline of a character. She's intelligent, a perfectionist, and holds herself to higher standards than she does others around her; she's also lonely and socially awkward, and despite having a freakin' fan club (admittedly comprised of students who only value her on a superficial level), is so desperate for connection that she mistakes a crush for affection and sets herself up for what may be one of the cruelest lines in the game.
So: girl with a promising future who can't quite capitalize on it, isolated from her peers because of that potential, socially awkward and given to bouts of melancholy and frustration? I could definitely relate. And because Quistis' story arc is abandoned so early, there was no canon definition for her character beyond that, and to fill in the gaps, I began to project some of my own experiences and thoughts onto her, and writing her not only became a catharsis, but also, frankly, a bit of a wish-fulfillment vehicle.
(This projection, incidentally, is one of the biggest reasons I chafe at fanon!Quistis, who is often portrayed as a kinky sexpot, far more experienced with guys than her bumbling conversation with Squall suggests. The other reason fanon!Quistis rubs me the wrong way is that it seems to be playing exactly into how the developers apparently envisioned her: a teenager's wet dream, and nothing more. /rant)
Basically, for me, writing Quistis has a similar function to writing Rinoa, albeit coming from an almost opposite place. While Rinoa allows me to tap into her free-spirited and playful persona, writing Quistis allows me to redeem her from her failures and self-doubt, and get a taste of sweet vindication, if only secondhand.
Together, they form a sort of idealized femininity for me, a formidable personality that can afford to be soft because she can cut like glass.
And here's where it gets a bit personal. While I have always identified as female, I've never really been sure how to express my femininity. When I was little, I vacillated between being dainty and being something as close to a tomboy as an athletically-challenged girl could get. I was smart and confident in my smarts, but horribly insecure about my social skills (sound familiar?). During my adolescence, I found a comfortable middle ground by expressing my femininity via cutesy and sporty styles and accessories, and to the extent possible for someone my age, I still hang out in that middle ground.
But adulthood hit me hard, with physically-demanding jobs and atmospheres that reeked of sexism, where I often had to work much harder than my male coworkers to prove my worth (at one point, I was the only woman in my department, and made aware of that fact almost every day). I was sent alone to rough neighborhoods at ungodly hours and expected to accomplish on my own jobs that the company would allocate to a two-man team. I hated this, but I needed the work, more so after my father passed away. In this environment, I learned to toughen myself, to hide my weakness and even my injuries, and slowly but surely, a kind of emotional callus grew over every aspect of my femininity.
Thankfully, I'm in a much more fair (and safe!) working environment now, but the callus remains, and I often have trouble expressing vulnerability, even in more positive contexts, such as developing new relationships. In this regard, I am incredibly thankful for the anonymity of sites like Tumblr, Dreamwidth, FFN and AO3, where I feel "safe" enough to actually let loose with all my fandom squee and general girly gushing. And I also find that writing about certain characters helps me tap into that, as well.
Earlier, I mentioned my first Quistis fic. Not only was that fic my first multi-chapter story, but it also featured my first attempt at writing a developing romance. While, in retrospect, my inexperience definitely shows through, it was such a delightful and cathartic story to write. Quistis slowly breaks away from Garden, taking on a research project in Esthar, where she not only learns more about who she is and the work she is truly capable of, but also meets several people who value her as a person, rather than a machine, one of whom eventually becomes a love interest. Total wish-fulfillment, but such a lovely thing to experience vicariously. During the writing of this fic, and for months afterward, I noticed that I was less ashamed of my own femininity, less determined to project unwavering toughness. It was a safe space to be a woman, and I enjoyed it.
Writing Quinoa just took this feeling to a whole other level. In this ship, I'm allowed to delve into the aspects of femininity of both characters, and remind myself that there is no one way, no right way to perform or embrace it. Being playful or serious or powerful or loving is just a single facet of the whole, and it feels good to finally see myself reflected in those facets. With these two, I could write about anything from battle preparations to battles to fears and hopes for the future to coming to terms with oneself to buying cute clothes and eating ice cream and loving on each other, and every one of those scenarios is an expression of femininity. And not a single one of them suggests weakness.
So I can have them dress up equal parts Delia*s catalog and Romy & Michele, and they'd still be the same ass-kicking women I've come to love. I can have them blow away a whole battlefield full of enemies, and they'd still be the same loving, playful women I enjoy.
So it naturally follows that I can toughen up when my life demands it, but still enjoy all the cute and fluffy and pretty things around me, and my enjoyment of those does not preclude me running large equipment or lifting heavy objects or protecting myself and my loved ones. It's a simple statement, one many people come to terms with on their own, far earlier than I did. But I think the difference was that I never had the time or security to test it out in real life, until recently, and got so scared of being perceived as weak—thus "useless" to some of my previous employers—that I constantly shoved my femininity down, to the point where I actually missed it but couldn't manage to bring it back to the surface.
In writing Quinoa, individually and as a couple, I am able to vicariously experience it again, in a safe environment that is totally within my control. And in so doing, I have been able to reclaim the pieces of it that fit into my life now, and reconcile them with who I've become over the past ten or eleven years, and finally begin to bring the disparate aspects of my identity together into someone who can be soft and tough and not apologize for either.
I mentioned at the beginning that writing this ship felt liberating, and I think I may have figured out that that is the feeling of breaking out of self-imposed restrictions and hypocritical definitions, and seeing a version of womanhood that encompasses everything I am, was, and can become.
(And I am now trying very hard to not apologize for being so sentimental. I won't...I won't. I'M NOT SORRY.)
I'm referring to the pairing of Quistis/Rinoa from FF8, which has been an absolute joy to write, a boon to my creativity, and had positive little ripple effects throughout other aspects of my thoughts and emotions. I've wanted to write about this for a while, but it isn't an easy subject to articulate; however, sometimes the best approach is to dive right in, and that is what I'll do here. This post will be long, and a bit personal, so fair warning. ;)
I believe that the appeal of this ship to me stems from the fact that it is the intersection of three significant fannish and personal factors: a long-time favorite character whose personality I admire, a character on whom I subconsciously project aspects of my own personality and thought processes, and the expression of my own conflicted femininity. It's easier to parse each of these separately.
Rinoa is probably the easiest element to discuss, since I relate to her simply as one of my favorite video game heroines (one who held the top spot for almost 18 years). I loved her the first time I played through FF8, and subsequent playthroughs only reinforced that feeling. She was everything a nerdy girl like me wasn't—fun, playful, flirty, and devoted to a cause much larger than herself. I admired her passion for Timber's independence, and the way that she toughed out her early days with SeeD. I cheered her on in her attempts to get Squall to open his eyes to the good in the world, and I cheered even louder when she went back into Time Compression to rescue him from his own dark thoughts.
Does she have her faults? Sure. She can be immature, pushy, and impulsive, but not only did these faults make her more human in my eyes, the fact that she begins to remedy them throughout the story and tries to find a balance between determination and hubris made her even more worthy of my admiration. In short, for many years, Rinoa was the kind of person I wished I had the courage to be, or at least emulate, and any time I write her into fanfic, I relish the opportunity to capture a little bit of her free-spirited attitude on the page.
Quistis is a different story altogether. Because the game itself gives her such short shrift, she really wasn't on my fandom radar until a few years ago, when a silly random title meme led me to write my first multi-chapter fic and focus it on her. While trying to pin down her character for the fic, I realized that she really is something of a blank slate in FF8, with just enough characteristics to give the outline of a character. She's intelligent, a perfectionist, and holds herself to higher standards than she does others around her; she's also lonely and socially awkward, and despite having a freakin' fan club (admittedly comprised of students who only value her on a superficial level), is so desperate for connection that she mistakes a crush for affection and sets herself up for what may be one of the cruelest lines in the game.
So: girl with a promising future who can't quite capitalize on it, isolated from her peers because of that potential, socially awkward and given to bouts of melancholy and frustration? I could definitely relate. And because Quistis' story arc is abandoned so early, there was no canon definition for her character beyond that, and to fill in the gaps, I began to project some of my own experiences and thoughts onto her, and writing her not only became a catharsis, but also, frankly, a bit of a wish-fulfillment vehicle.
(This projection, incidentally, is one of the biggest reasons I chafe at fanon!Quistis, who is often portrayed as a kinky sexpot, far more experienced with guys than her bumbling conversation with Squall suggests. The other reason fanon!Quistis rubs me the wrong way is that it seems to be playing exactly into how the developers apparently envisioned her: a teenager's wet dream, and nothing more. /rant)
Basically, for me, writing Quistis has a similar function to writing Rinoa, albeit coming from an almost opposite place. While Rinoa allows me to tap into her free-spirited and playful persona, writing Quistis allows me to redeem her from her failures and self-doubt, and get a taste of sweet vindication, if only secondhand.
Together, they form a sort of idealized femininity for me, a formidable personality that can afford to be soft because she can cut like glass.
And here's where it gets a bit personal. While I have always identified as female, I've never really been sure how to express my femininity. When I was little, I vacillated between being dainty and being something as close to a tomboy as an athletically-challenged girl could get. I was smart and confident in my smarts, but horribly insecure about my social skills (sound familiar?). During my adolescence, I found a comfortable middle ground by expressing my femininity via cutesy and sporty styles and accessories, and to the extent possible for someone my age, I still hang out in that middle ground.
But adulthood hit me hard, with physically-demanding jobs and atmospheres that reeked of sexism, where I often had to work much harder than my male coworkers to prove my worth (at one point, I was the only woman in my department, and made aware of that fact almost every day). I was sent alone to rough neighborhoods at ungodly hours and expected to accomplish on my own jobs that the company would allocate to a two-man team. I hated this, but I needed the work, more so after my father passed away. In this environment, I learned to toughen myself, to hide my weakness and even my injuries, and slowly but surely, a kind of emotional callus grew over every aspect of my femininity.
Thankfully, I'm in a much more fair (and safe!) working environment now, but the callus remains, and I often have trouble expressing vulnerability, even in more positive contexts, such as developing new relationships. In this regard, I am incredibly thankful for the anonymity of sites like Tumblr, Dreamwidth, FFN and AO3, where I feel "safe" enough to actually let loose with all my fandom squee and general girly gushing. And I also find that writing about certain characters helps me tap into that, as well.
Earlier, I mentioned my first Quistis fic. Not only was that fic my first multi-chapter story, but it also featured my first attempt at writing a developing romance. While, in retrospect, my inexperience definitely shows through, it was such a delightful and cathartic story to write. Quistis slowly breaks away from Garden, taking on a research project in Esthar, where she not only learns more about who she is and the work she is truly capable of, but also meets several people who value her as a person, rather than a machine, one of whom eventually becomes a love interest. Total wish-fulfillment, but such a lovely thing to experience vicariously. During the writing of this fic, and for months afterward, I noticed that I was less ashamed of my own femininity, less determined to project unwavering toughness. It was a safe space to be a woman, and I enjoyed it.
Writing Quinoa just took this feeling to a whole other level. In this ship, I'm allowed to delve into the aspects of femininity of both characters, and remind myself that there is no one way, no right way to perform or embrace it. Being playful or serious or powerful or loving is just a single facet of the whole, and it feels good to finally see myself reflected in those facets. With these two, I could write about anything from battle preparations to battles to fears and hopes for the future to coming to terms with oneself to buying cute clothes and eating ice cream and loving on each other, and every one of those scenarios is an expression of femininity. And not a single one of them suggests weakness.
So I can have them dress up equal parts Delia*s catalog and Romy & Michele, and they'd still be the same ass-kicking women I've come to love. I can have them blow away a whole battlefield full of enemies, and they'd still be the same loving, playful women I enjoy.
So it naturally follows that I can toughen up when my life demands it, but still enjoy all the cute and fluffy and pretty things around me, and my enjoyment of those does not preclude me running large equipment or lifting heavy objects or protecting myself and my loved ones. It's a simple statement, one many people come to terms with on their own, far earlier than I did. But I think the difference was that I never had the time or security to test it out in real life, until recently, and got so scared of being perceived as weak—thus "useless" to some of my previous employers—that I constantly shoved my femininity down, to the point where I actually missed it but couldn't manage to bring it back to the surface.
In writing Quinoa, individually and as a couple, I am able to vicariously experience it again, in a safe environment that is totally within my control. And in so doing, I have been able to reclaim the pieces of it that fit into my life now, and reconcile them with who I've become over the past ten or eleven years, and finally begin to bring the disparate aspects of my identity together into someone who can be soft and tough and not apologize for either.
I mentioned at the beginning that writing this ship felt liberating, and I think I may have figured out that that is the feeling of breaking out of self-imposed restrictions and hypocritical definitions, and seeing a version of womanhood that encompasses everything I am, was, and can become.
(And I am now trying very hard to not apologize for being so sentimental. I won't...I won't. I'M NOT SORRY.)
no subject
Date: 2021-05-19 09:52 pm (UTC)I thoroughly enjoy not only the potential for exploration and indulgence in fanfic, but also how it's encouraged! It makes me wish I'd gotten into fic a lot sooner than I did. It might have made the period I described above a little more bearable. And helped a ton with sorting out my identity!
And yes, Quistis deserves better from both canon and fanon! I swear, sometimes I think people see her whip as her primary characteristic. XD Let's give her the ending she really deserves!
Thank you again, so much, for the encouragement and well wishes! 💕💕💕 Another great thing about fandom is meeting others who understand what you're getting at, and are kind enough to offer their support! :)
Once again, I should've gotten into all of this a whole lot sooner!