lokifan

GUYS. I wanted you to be the first to know. I’ve fallen in love.

Their name is Final Fantasy XV.

I’m? In a?? Video game fandom??????? IT IS SUPER WEIRD. I DON’T EVEN OWN A PS4. I CANNOT INTERACT WITH THIS CANON THE WAY IT’S MEANT TO BE DONE. I AM REDUCED TO YOUTUBE PLAYTHROUGHS AND VERY PASSIONATE TEXTING WITH MY FRIEND WHILE HE PLAYS.

Let me explain.

So I am very aware I’ve barely posted recently -- about three times a month since March, and this last month it FEELS like I’ve barely posted because it’s almost all been about wider-world stuff. (And even then, I’ve been so quiet given what’s happening? Because British politics right now is BANANAS.)

This is mostly because I’ve been working a LOT, and playing pretty hard too. I really want to do a catch-up post on all the RL things, and also about a bunch of the fannish things I’ve been doing (not so much on the writing of fic, sadly -- it’s been pathetic) and etc. Buuut right now I need to tell you about Final Fantasy XV because it is EATING MY HEAD.

I don’t think I’ve ever been this emotionally compromised over a fandom. I cried down the phone to

son_of_darkness (aka

bestchocobro/

sodsta) for the better part of an hour over the ending, and was only comforted when we made kinkfic plans.

It’s really very much all

son_of_darkness’s fault.

A month ago he came down for London Expo cosplaying as Prompto, one of the four main characters from the game. I came to the Expo for a night, met some cool people he knew through the fandom and had a great time. Busy weekend then I saw him the Monday afternoon before he left, and he showed me vids and cutscenes, and told me heartwrenching details about his fave’s life, and had had his best Expo ever with people from this fandom. I was intrigued enough to, in a spare moment, send myself his fic bookmarks from his laptop.

And then I started to read. At this point I’d barely an idea of the canon. But the fic was AMAZING and super-dark and kinky and there was intense hurt/comfort and funny adorableness. And I followed some AO3 links and then found the dreamwidth kinkmeme.

At which point:

At that point it’d been a week since he’d introduced me to this madness. Two weeks later he was visiting London again and we stayed up until 5am on a Friday night watching the leads’ backstory anime and continuing my watch of a playthrough and discussing all the ship combinations and our character feels. At one point he played the theme song and I had to lie on the floor to recover.

Another week and I finishing watching the playthrough with him, both of us on Youtube at the same time. At about three a.m. on Friday night he advised me to NOT watch the last hour right then, because we could not deal with those feelings. I was kind of ‘lol ok mate’ and we finished it the next night, and I called him crying near-hysterically. IDK, traditionally when you’re in your mid-twenties and you call a bestie crying on a Saturday night, the boy who broke your heart isn’t a sarcastic prince from a Japanese video game, but I guess that’s how we do now.

Just to make it clear: I DID NOT KNOW THAT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN. I’m enough of a n00b that I didn’t even know about the Final Fantasy reputation for tragedy, and

bestchocobro kept it INSANELY SECRET and the fandom appears to have taken some kind of unholy vow of silence, or at least is hoping ignoring the pain will make it go away, so I DID NOT KNOW. I was already a mess over Noctis. I MAY NEVER RECOVER. (A dom mutual friend of ours scolded

bestchocobro over Facebook for being so greedy as to break me in an unfixable manner.)

The minigame that just came out is getting its own post.

Now I’m watching sidequests on Youtube and my head is fizzing with fic ideas in a way I’ve never experienced outside HP. It’s weird being in such a boy-heavy fandom -- Supergirl and Pretty Little Liars are so different, even if I’ve got used to Avengers -- but the girls are cool and interesting enough to give me several het ideas and a couple of femmeslash ones, despite the central focus on the four main bros and their deep bond.

It’s so great. Like, it’s incredibly awesome as a canon, and it kinda fits my fic interests and skills (dark kinky porn, romantic kinky porn, and punny banter) to a T. Plus I love reading hurt/comfort, and I’ve barely written it ever but I just signed up for a

hc_bingo card because I do wanna write more h/c and this canon is RIDICULOUSLY good for it.

And these CHARACTERS. I love them ridiculously much. There’s this enormous muscled bro who’s so kind and connects with people, and lashes out against his prince when their friend is seriously hurt, and his whole family legacy is shielding the king but it’s impossible. And exasperated, sarcastic, fond, kind Iggy, who cooks for them and is the prince’s adviser and strategist and mum friend, and so hardcore and so practical and so lovely. (He reminds me of Giles in a lot of ways, including the sudden darkness of what he’s willing to do to protect his warrior.) Both these guys are so young and trying to take care of their prince, who’s even younger. Prompto, the best friend, he’s funny and makes awful puns and takes selfies with the daemons they fight; he’s the prince’s only friend from outside the courtly world and he gets crushes on all the girls and he’s screamingly vulnerable. His parents were never home, he was a fat (and self-hating) & friendless kid, he worries that he’s worthless and is desperate to earn his place. That his origins with the enemy nation will be discovered and his friends will reject him. And then the villain tricks his best friend into pushing him off a moving train.

SPEAKING OF. OMG, the main character, Noct. He’s a sarcastic little bitch, and he sleeps all the time, and he hates vegetables despite Iggy’s best efforts, and he has back and leg pain from a daemon attack as a kid, and he had this miserable lonely childhood even as the other kids were desperate to glom onto a prince. And he yearns to play games at the arcade and eat junk food and be a normal kid but he never whines about it. He’s so scared that he won’t be enough, that he won’t be heroic or brave enough to do his duty, but he is, of course he is, he doesn’t flinch. *cries forever*

I LOVE THEM. I want to write h/c for their pain and dark porn for their encounters with the amazing, amazing villain. He’s super manipulative and clever and totally wins through his defeat, and he likes emotionally torturing the heroes and touching their faces and being super-sleazy. He’s a delight.

I have fallen HARD for a new fandom, guys. Not leaving any of my old ones, of course, but WOW.