Kugane was lively, with constant foot traffic running through the Shiokaze Hostelry. Domina Mina was dressed in her usual attire: golds and blacks and pinks decorating her head-to-toe. Glamorous enough to be on stage but cool enough to stroll the street. However, there was no gig planned on this night.
When Mina arrived, the conversation started off easy just chatting about gigs coming up and calendars filling fast.
For someone who only started DJing in FFXIV in November of 2022, Domina Mina had already made quite the name for herself as Ineffabelle—a play on the term “ineffable” which means to be indescribable. It gives the performer some onstage mystique, backed by the intoxicating melodies and rhythms of her psytrance sets.
“I have started my own trance-focused night called Tranceport,” Mina said. “It’s on the second and fourth Friday of each month.”
Trance is an important genre to the long-time candy raver and music enthusiast.
“I’ve wanted to do this for awhile, because I think trance tends to be under-represented, especially in the [North American] scene.”
In February, Domina Mina—backed by DJ Gobbybeats and Orocina Aznable—had a soft-launch of the event series. It’s slowly gaining traction with groups like Lalapop! keeping track of the promotions each month for their club-hopping members.
“[W]hen I first entered the rave scene, many years ago, [trance] was the music that really got into my soul,” Mina said.
“I love just about every kind of techno and electronic music, but it was trance that really got me hooked on the rave scene.”
Unlike the direct percussive structure of techno, or the groovy bass of house, trance offers something complex and magnetizing in its approach to melody and rhythm.
As Domina Mina describes it: “Trance is about layered melodies and sounds—in most forms of trance, the drums are less prevalent and the melodies and chords are more important. It’s meant to take you to a different state of mind.”
But psytrance—psychedelic trance—goes even further in complexity. “The signature of psytrance is that the kick drum sounds clipped and staccato, not ‘boomy’ like in techno,” Mina explained.
The first time Mina got a taste of trance music was at her first rave, traveling an hour to a venue called Caffeine with some friends.
“You could hear the bass thumping from outside—boom boom boom boom—” For a first-time experience, a rave can be an overwhelming and exciting one. “I had never seen anything like it before.”
Imagine people dressed in the most colorful and audacious clothing with feathers and beads and glitter. A community of people imbibing on whatever, experiencing the thrill of life together, and doing so with more fashion accessories than even your trickiest FFXIV glam.
“I had never heard anything like [trance] before and definitely not on such a huge sound system,” Mina recalled. “One of the wonderful things [about the rave] was how friendly and welcoming most people seemed. You could be whoever you wanted, do whatever you wanted, and it was cool.”
It was around this time that the woman behind Domina Mina felt encouraged to explore who she was in the rave scene.
“I was very much intimidated by the idea of coming out and being myself for a long time,” Mina said. “Being involved in the rave/club scene definitely opened up a lot of that part of myself to where I almost couldn’t not transition anymore.”
Luckily for IRL Mina, she had a supportive group around her that embraced who she was as a trans woman. Support of which follows her to this day on the virtual stages she occupies in Eorzea and beyond.
As long as Domina Mina has been a popular DJ in FFXIV, her audience has known about her trans identity. She includes it as part of her info on her streams, she’s active in the community as another trans voice, and she regularly participates in events like Transfest as one of the spotlighted DJs.
“By the time I got to FFXIV I was already out, but I know the in-game scene here definitely helped a lot of trans folks find themselves,” Mina said. “In addition to the techno/rave scene, I was also involved in the goth scene back in the day, and they were also very open to it and very welcoming of me.”
Still it might shock some to know that Domina Mina, the FFXIV character, is actually not a trans woman canonically.
“Well, Domina Mina is definitely an avatar of my personality. I guess you can say she’s who I would be if I actually was a Lalafell in FFXIV. Or maybe, who I would like to be[…] Although I’ve played characters who are canonically [transgender] in game, Domina was born a girl Lala, and never had to transition, as I have envisioned her.”
Mina explained that by the time she created Domina Mina, she didn’t need to explore who she was as a trans woman through her character to know that experience or seek validation from it. Domina is a facet of the IRL woman, regardless of character lore.
The IRL Domina Mina has experienced quite a bit of life and is always hungry for more. Whether that means exploring a lesser known hamlet of the city she lives in or exploring new things through the avatars she maintains.
“Yeah, I’ve always been someone who wants to push the boundaries of my experience,” Mina explained. “Whether through travel, or new practices and different kinds of music, food[…]
"Some people live to accumulate possessions, some to accumulate achievements—for me it’s about accumulating experiences.”
Offline and online, Domina Mina is always exploring and reaching for community.
“In general, the party scene in FFXIV can be really amazing when it’s good. It’s not always good, but when it is, it’s really something special—especially when you step back and [realize] this is a virtual party going on inside a video game.”
Negative experiences are becoming rarer, though. Mina attributes that infectious positivity to one of her favorite groups, Lalapop! The club-hopping Lalafellan community has worked hard to spread positivity and make Lalafell regularly seen at these venues and events.
When managing her own audience and series like Tranceport, Mina tries to maintain that same civility and welcoming environment.
“One thing I’ve learned over time is to always have someone in chat who can sort of do a vibe check and sort of prompt people to join in the conversation…”
This includes always greeting new people publicly so they feel included in the event.
After working as a DJ at IRL house parties, virtual spaces in Second Life, and then taking a personal break for a few years, Domina Mina’s return to Djing and step into FFXIV was a leap forward for her career. Now, she’s focused on how she can continue to flourish in the scene.
“[A]side from just wanting to expand my skills and pull off better and better sounding sets, I guess it would be nice to build my audience more,” Mina said. “Basically to find the people who resonate with my music and are going to look out for when and where I'm playing and show up there. I mean it's already started but I'd like to make that grow.”
With time, she even hopes to do more sets where she can show her face and voice.
“Originally, I got started again here because I noticed there really wasn't much psytrance anywhere,” Mina recalled. She then said with a laugh: “Now it's a lot more common, and I'd like to think I had something to do with that, but maybe not.”
Regardless of how Mina might try to shrug off her influence, it’s safe to say with over a thousand followers on Twitch, and growing, her transient musicality certainly stands out in the FFXIV club scene.
“DJing has been one of the most satisfying things I’ve done in a long, long time,” Mina said emphatically.
“If I could find a way to make a living off it one day, well, that would be the ideal endgame for me.”
“Either way, I’ve really enjoyed the journey so far,” she added. “As long as I’m moving toward my goals, I can handle moving toward them gradually.”
The night had been a reflection of how far Domina Mina has come in music and in life—finding a love for what moves her and connecting with what makes others move.
Her passion for psytrance and building a meaningful community has already led to some amazing things for the DJ known mononymously as Ineffabelle.
To those who haven’t seen her live yet, she says: “I hope to meet you soon!”
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