#bcff7

[getvalentined]

I love when folks ask me Fandom Old questions and I get to be like "Yeah, uh, that's from my old online RP group, no it's not canon at all, yes we just made it up, no we did not claim it was canon but the mid to late aughts were a strange time."

It's honestly a shock to realize how often this has happened. I mentioned earlier that Reno's fanon surname came from this same group, but that's not even the half of it. I once made a bunch of screenshot manips based on the most ridiculous ships anyone could think of—someone slapped a random line of text onto one of them and to this day it's used as a "cringe FF7 fandom" meme. I saw it on the twits a bit back and almost fell out of my goddamn chair.

If you've ever heard Scarlet referred to with the surname "West," read about Tseng fighting with metal fans, seen Elena's older sister being called Anna instead of Emma, come across Vincent portrayed as having a PhD in spite of being a Turk, or caught references somewhere to Grimoire experimenting on Vincent as a child, that started with this group. That was us.

One of the funniest examples of this, for me specifically, is that we don't actually know which arm Veld is missing? The fandom generally goes with his left because that's how I drew him in the first picture of the guy ever posted on devart way back in 2005, but it may very well be his right. I've seen people offer "proof" that it's his right based on a scene in the opening cutscene, but you can't tell there either, and with BC's graphics there's literally no way to tell on his sprite.

Hell, this year we found out everyone's assumed timeline of the Kalm fire is wrong, and that's our fault too because we made some assumptions about Felicia's age for an LJ RP that were entirely wrong. She's around Zack's age, not Sephiroth's! She's old enough to run with a terrorist group in BC, but she was a child when Kalm burned, and that happened in 1997—we know this because NPCs in Rebirth literally refer to the fire in Kalm having happened "just ten years ago." Veld has only had his prosthetic for three years when BC starts. (This also implies that, contrary to popular belief, Veld may actually be younger than Vincent. Vincent may have been the senior partner, and that's why he was sent to Nibelheim alone while Veld was left at headquarters.)

We were really wrong on this! But we were working with what we had. There's no canon evidence for the vast majority of these things (the most notable exclusion here is Vincent being educated) but we weren't claiming there was. We were filling gaps, and canon was so sparse that we had a lot of gaps to fill. So if it turns out that Veld lost his right arm, then I'll just have to start drawing him that way—because losing his left was never canon.

Tragically, there's nothing any of us can do to make people stop assuming these things are canon at this point; there aren't a lot of us still in the fandom, and it's not like any of us have those old chatlogs anymore. People from this RP group have DIED since those days. It's been over 20 years since most of us met, and around 15 since most of us were in a public fannish space together.

"Prove it," people say, and I literally can't. Do you know how many computers I've been through since then? 75% of the platforms we used no longer exist. This all started on a BBCode forum! There is no proof!

But...there's no evidence any of these things are canon, either, so maybe think about that? The Kalm fire, Tseng's weapon of choice, Veld's arm, character surnames—none of these are retcons because there was no lore there to retcon. We made it up for our specific purposes, and it escaped containment in an era when there was really no way to do online contact tracing.

It's just one of the weirdest feelings in the world to see younger folk arguing about A or B point in canon, about X or Y retcon—referencing something my friends and I thought up at like 10 o'clock at night on a now-defunct IM client in August of 2005, because we needed something to refer back to for a specific scene in an RP and the source material had nothing to offer.

Absolutely fucking bonkers.

[imssparrow]

Memories

by DepthCharge7

[gforcedrew]

#GAMERTAGRADIO 🎙 #GTR

#videogames #podcasting

1204

📻 #RadioPublic

Xbox Game Pass is helping Guardians of the Galaxy find fans

radiopublic.com/gamertag-radio-GMBLxj/s1!bcff7

🎧 #Audioboom

audioboom.com/channel/gamertag-radio

📹 #Twitch

twitch.tv/gamertagradio

🎞 #Youtube

A Podcast Story

story.gamertagradio.com

[lovecrazysaladcollection]

“

猿でも分かるFFまとめ

1987 FF1 1988 FF2 1989 FF1(MSX) 1990 FF3 1991 FF4, FF4ET, 聖剣1 1992 FF5, FFUSA 1993 1994 FF6, FF1&2 1995 1996 1997 FF7, FF7INT, FFT, FF4(PS) 1998 FF5(PS), FF7(Win) 1999 FF8, FF8(Win), FF6(PS) 2000 FF9, FF1(WSC) 2001 FF10, FF2(WSC) 2002 FF11, FF10INT, テトラマスターFF9, FF1(PS), FF2(PS), FF4(WSC), FF11(Win) 2003 FF10-2, FF11ジラート, FFTA, FFCC 2004 FF11プロマシア, FF10-2INT, FF1&2(GBA), FF1(携帯), FF2(携帯) 2005 FF4(GBA) 2006 FF12, DCFF7, DCLEFF7, FF11アトルガン, FF3(DS), FF5(GBA), FF6(GBA), FF11(Xbox360) 2007 FF12RW, BCFF7, CCFF7, FFTA2, FFCCRoF, FF11アルタナ, FF12INT, FF1(PSP), FF2(PSP), FF4(DS), FFT(PSP) 2008 DFF, FF4TA, FFCCLK, DCFF7INT 2009 FF13, FFCCEoT, FFCCLD, FFCCCB, 光の4戦士, DFFUT, FF1(VC, GA), FF2(VC, GA), FF3(VC), FF4(VC, 携帯), FF5(VC), FF7(GA), FF8(GA), FF4TA(WiiWare), FFT(GA) 2010 FF14, FF9(GA), 光と闇の戦士←New!

” - 暇人＼(＾o＾)／速報 : 『FF』シリーズ完全新作がいよいよ始動！原点に戻る2Dの美麗なグラフィック - ライブドアブログ (via gkojax)

[yutakororo]

Today is BEFORE CRISIS FF7 12th anniversary!!

[zukkin]

[askbcturks-blog]

I don't know if that's really you or not, Reno, but watch your tongue .. Shut up, Shotgun.

- Gun

[getvalentined]

Hey, long time lurker with a brand new account here! i was just reading an earlier ask you answered about why Vincent didn’t stop Hojo and Lucrecia and (of course) Sephiroth, but there’s also something that bugs me that I’m not sure has been addressed in canon or fanon. I like Vin and Veld as work besties in the 1970s and they’re also a ship of mine. Yet I’m not quite sure how to factor in how Vincent gets shot during his time at the Nibelheim Manor, is presumed dead, and Veld doesn’t even go to investigate until Before Crisis, when he finds Vincent in the coffin and tells him he’ll come back another time. I guess an answer I could come up with for myself was that someone higher up than Veld forbade him from looking into Nibelheim for all those years but I’m curious what your thoughts would be? :)

My take on this is actually very specific and headcanon heavy, since there isn't a lot of information on that whole time period—much less information specific to Veld—but I'll give as comprehensive a breakdown as I can!

Things we know specific to Vincent and Veld's situation:

Veld was Vincent's partner in the Turks

Veld did not know Vincent was dead

Detailed explanations on the certainty of both of these are under the cut, but they go into linguistics and translation disputes and context cues that will absolutely get us both lost in the weeds if I go into them here.

Other things that are moderately relevant to this explanation:

All victims of the Kalm fire were taken to Nibelheim for processing by R&D, including both Veld and Felicia (source: BC chapter 13)

In spite of being processed in the same location and even being utilized in the same experiment as Felicia, Veld didn't know that she survived, so it's very possible to hide people in there (source: BC chapter 13)

Veld did not know that Hojo had anything to do with Vincent's disappearance (source: BC chapter 19)

At the time that Vincent disappeared, Gast was still in control of R&D (source: OG FF7)

The Turks know absolutely nothing about the contents of the room in which Vincent is sealed (source: BC chapter 19)

Veld has multiple lines in BC that make it clear he's intimately familiar with the Manor, talking about how it still has a dark atmosphere and how unpleasant the place is. He also seems genuinely concerned when the Player Turk reveals that they were in there getting rid of old research materials on Tseng's order, although I think that's more because he didn't want his newer Turks finding out about what had happened to him if at all avoidable. (It was not avoidable.)

That familiarity with the facility, on its face, makes it really weird that Veld didn't know anything about what happened to Vincent. The only obvious way to reconcile this with him never finding Vincent (aside from the cop-out of "it's just bad writing") is that Veld chose not to look for him, he chose not to question his disappearance, he chose to forget him and let him fade into obscurity. This sounds really bad!

My take actually plays into this concept, and it while it could still be slightly damning for Veld, it's really just as much of a tragedy as anything else in that whole situation: Veld did look, but he started looking way too late.

In my headcanon universe, Vincent and Veld were together prior to the mission in Nibelheim. They broke up not long before Vincent left (the assignment itself is partially to blame for this, but that's long headcanon rambling I will save for another time), and the assignment was long-term enough that Vincent's reports were expected weekly for the first month, then monthly for the proceeding three months, and then quarterly after that. The assignment was slated to last roughly a year and a half, but could have gone up to three years according to Gast's estimations based on his previous efforts and the term of Project G.

But Veld had literally broken up with Vincent right before he left for this assignment, so he wasn't surprised when Vincent only sent two weekly reports, one monthly report, and then dropped into quarterlies from there. The reports themselves were still comprehensive, although Veld got the distinct feeling that Vincent was getting a little emotionally involved in the assignment—not that Veld could blame him, Vincent was requested for this assignment because Gast knew Grimoire, so Vincent was probably having a rough time being in close quarters with people who were so fond of his dead father. Still, the distance would be good for him. Let him get his head on straight.

In mid-1977, Vincent's report schedule faltered again. Veld had received one in April, a bit late—because Lucrecia was pregnant and she broke up with Vincent and married Hojo and he didn't know what to do, he didn't have anyone to talk to, but he didn't want Veld to know. One in September, at the very end of the month—because things were getting so bad, Lucrecia was so sick, Hojo was so aggressive, Gast literally didn't care—and in this report, Vincent said that there may be complications with the project that would require company attention, but he would let Veld know in his next report.

That report never arrived, because Hojo shot Vincent on October 24th, 1977.

Veld waited, because there was a schedule, and Vincent had been a bit lax anyway. No big deal.

At the end of December he received a missive from Gast stating that he would require escorted transport back to Midgar for himself and an infant, by no later than the end of January. Nothing from Vincent, but Gast didn't mention anything, so Veld thought nothing of it.

In mid-January, two Turks arrived in Nibelheim to help transport Gast and his team back to Midgar, and Vincent wasn't there. To hear anyone tell it, he hadn't been there for months. While phone lines were shaky so far out, they eventually made it through to Veld, notifying him that Vincent was missing.

They questioned the rest of the team, but their search of the facility was limited without clearance from higher-ups with that kind of sway. Veld could do a full search, he had the security clearance for it, but two lower-ranking Turks could not.

Lucrecia said that she didn't want to talk about it—she felt bad enough already. Hojo said the last time he'd seen Vincent was mid-October, and he'd just thought the boy finally ran off back to his kennel.

Veld questioned Gast when he arrived back in Midgar, finding that he was the most forthcoming and the least useful. Gast stated that he was under the impression that Vincent had returned to Midgar in early November; he'd been out of town for the last two weeks of October for a board meeting back in Midgar, discussing assignments for Project 0, and Vincent was gone when he returned.

All of them were lying.

By the time Veld made it out to Nibelheim to search himself, it was mid-February, and Hojo had moved Vincent into cold storage for the time being. Things were being shuffled around with the onset of Project 0 anyway, samples and subjects and materials being moved in and out, Lucrecia finally being sent back to Midgar for a much-needed postpartum recovery period, Hojo being given temporary control over the facility.

At this point in time, the Turks only had so much power. R&D was swiftly making itself the most indispensable department in the company, and Veld's search of the premises was always one step behind Hojo's relocation of materials. There was almost certainly one point where Vincent was held in a steel containment tank being relocated from the lower lab to the upper or vice-versa, and wheeled right past Veld without him knowing.

Veld, who knew how emotional Vincent could be and had now gotten the whole story of the regrettable whirlwind love affair from Hojo and Lucrecia, came to the conclusion that Vincent had gone AWOL. Could Veld blame him? He had been treating Vincent like crap since their own breakup—he hadn't been communicating, and even though he'd been able to tell that something was wrong, he never even tried to call and ask him about it. He'd been pissed off too, and left Vincent to his own devices...for over a year. On a separate continent. Of course he tried it with Lucrecia. Of course he left when that relationship fell through.

And Vincent was a good Turk, the best in the entire department, so he'd definitely know how to disappear. How to cover his tracks. Specifically how to hide from the current head of the department, who just happened to be his partner.

If Vincent chose to disappear, Veld would never be able to find him; since he never found any evidence of what transpired to lead to his disappearance, Veld could only assume that was what happened.

Almost thirty years later, he was horrified to finally get into that sealed room—the one Hojo said they used to store old furniture and facility staffers' more valuable personal belongings, way back in 1978—and discover that he'd been completely, utterly, devastatingly wrong.

But, once again, Veld had just waited too long to do anything about it.

—

Game content and dialogue sources:

Grimoire Valentine's BC playthrough

Flash PINK's BC script

Evidence that Veld and Vincent were partners:

The Grimoire Valentine BC playthrough translates Veld's line when explaining Vincent's identity as "We were partners a long time ago." I've seen this translation disputed, because the actual word Veld uses is 同僚 (dōryō), which is best translated as "colleague."

To my knowledge (based on obsessive linguistics research because I have a problem, I do not speak Japanese but I will spend hours researching exactly what specific terms mean within the context of a given culture), this implies equal standing within the company in question. Of course, this is in real-world situations, so we can't assume it applies 100% to FF7 canon—luckily, this word is used at one other point in the game, giving us important context on its usage within the department: in chapter 14, when Tseng thinks the Player Turk has been killed in Wutai, Yuffie asks how they know each other and Tseng replies "They're a [colleague]."

Tseng is vice director, meaning they're definitely not equals, so this could imply that this word is used more loosely among the Turks, thereby disproving the partnership between Vincent and Veld. However, since Veld uses the word 部下 (buka, "subordinate") to describe the other Turks in this same chapter, I personally feel that Tseng uses this term very intentionally at this point, and it's meant as an indication of his character. When Tseng thinks the Player Turk is dead, he refers to them as an equal. This is further implied by the fact that in the proceeding scene, when the Player Turk is proven to have survived, they continue to refer to him as Tseng-san, using the standard honorific, while Tseng doesn't use one in return to refer to them. Veld likewise doesn't use an honorific when referring to Tseng, but the other Turks do.

Back to Vincent and Veld's little reunion, though, I feel like Vincent's dialogue completely clarifies the intent: Vincent doesn't use an honorific or a title when referring to Veld. Every other Turk in the game refers to Veld as 主任 (shunin), with or without his name, which translates to "director." Meanwhile, Vincent refers to Veld by his name and his name only, and Veld doesn't refer to Vincent with an honorific either.

In their department, it's clear this isn't something you would do with someone who wasn't on your level. Subordinates get no honorific, sure, but anyone even remotely superior gets one—a practice that holds true well after Veld is gone, as Elena refers to Reno and Rude as "senpai" from her recruitment in 0007 all the way up to her appearance in Advent Children.

If either Vincent or Veld were ranked differently to the other, the lower-ranking one would use an honorific—but they don't. Names only. Add in the fact that they instantly recognized each other after almost thirty years, and the level of familiarity is undeniable.

Those men were partners, a long time ago.

Evidence that Veld didn't know Vincent was dead:

Upon finding Vincent in 2006, he isn't shocked to find him alive—instead, he refers to Vincent having "disappeared," specifically using the phrase 姿を消し (sugata o keshi), to describe what he knows to have happened. To my knowledge, this is an entirely neutral phrase with no implication of death or malfeasance, particularly within the context of Veld's dialogue, which makes it explicitly clear that whatever happened to Vincent, Veld did not believe it killed him.

His next line is something along the lines of "Did Hojo do this to you?" which I find equally important; he very quickly adjusts his assumptions based on the situation and what Vincent looks like, moving immediately away from the concept of a mysterious disappearance to something much more sinister, but he doesn't seem to have thought of that possibility prior to this point.

[getvalentined]

For the ship "ask" game: #'s 4, 7, and 8, Vin & Veld

4. What they do on date night:

Vincent and Veld don't actually really go out on dates, and they never really did. On those rare occasions they do go out, it's either getting kicked out for somehow cheating at darts in the seediest bar in town, or being dressed to the nines for a live stage performance with tickets sold out for the next year.

Usually, though, they stay home. Vincent burns popcorn and they watch bad movies, Veld reads on the couch while Vincent naps in his lap, that sort of thing. Their relationship was never very public in their younger days—very few people knew they were together at all, actually—and after they get back together when they're both in the WRO, Vincent tries to avoid going out in public altogether aside from work and regular visits to Seventh Heaven.

7. Which one is the worse driver:

Oh, Vincent. Hands-down, no question about it, Vincent. He's a terrible driver—when it comes to obeying traffic laws and the like, in any case. Get him above about 75MPH in a car chase for work and he's a wizard, but don't send him to pick up the dry cleaning or anything. Veld can do both, and is less likely to destroy the car in the process of either.

Vincent can fly a helicopter, though, and Veld can't, so at least there's that?

8. What they argue about:

On the sillier end, Vincent is terrible about putting his laundry in the hamper and always has been and Veld has been fuming and snapping about it for decades.

On the more serious side of things, before Vincent was sent on his assignment to Nibelheim, their usual argument had to do with Veld constantly "testing" Vincent to prove that he wasn't just playing around in the dirt with society's least wanted, something that Veld never really stopped doing even when Vincent proved himself sincere. Early on, Vincent was also extremely insecure—not in the "you were 17 minutes late coming home from work and that means you're cheating on me" way, but rather the "I know that I am never going to be good enough for this man because I've never been good enough for anyone and I need to understand that when he eventually breaks up with me it's my own fault" sort of way.

The big argument that led to their breakup was Veld finally exploding on how Vincent's background and upbringing made him unsuited to the department (regardless of his performance implying the contrary), thereby implying that he was unsuited to a relationship with Veld, and leading to Vincent going to Nibelheim immediately after getting dumped by his partner of 5-6 years.

After everything, their biggest arguments are over whether it counts as "a waste" for Vincent to eat even though he doesn't need to, getting Veld to stop some unhealthy habits and take his damn heart medication, whether Vincent actually needs to own more than three pairs of pants, whether sugar belongs in tea, whose turn it is to take out the trash, and whether either of them actually deserve the few years they have left together when they've both done so much wrong.

(For the ship asks game.)

[getvalentined]

Vinveld for 11– I'm so curious what you think tbh

11. Their first impressions of each other.

Vincent had a huge amount of respect and admiration for Veld right from jump just based on what he knew about what he did for a living and what he was capable of, with the fact that he was extremely hot being a fun bonus. He definitely referred to him as "senpai" when he first got into the department, and was eager to earn his approval.

Veld's opinion of Vincent was...far less complimentary right out the gate. He saw Vincent as some arrogant pretty rich kid just trying to look like a badass or attempting to piss off his dad, and wrote him off as not worth the time of day. When Vincent proved himself to be staggeringly capable and undeniably competent, Veld was pissed the fuck off and kinda wanted him dead.

See, when Vincent was about in his older teen years (I waffle between 17 and 19), he saw Veld (then somewhere between 20 and 23) sparring with another Turk in the company gym, and he was immediately infatuated. Beyond Veld's appearance falling squarely into Vincent's preferences in men—broad shoulders, strong features, bright eyes—he has this sort of carriage and confidence to him that Vincent finds very appealing. Turks also have to be both intelligent and dangerous, and Vincent knew that, which only added to his interest.

Years later, when Veld was in his mid-twenties, Vincent took the physical assessments to join the Turks. This was the first time they actually interacted, and Veld had his initial concept of what he expected from Vincent, what kind of person he believed he must have been—and Vincent blew that concept right out of the water by actually being really good at what he was doing. This left Veld feeling entirely out of control of the situation, as he's normally a good judge of character and has a gift for figuring out people's motivations and capabilities very quickly, as well as making him feel quite inferior. Most of Vincent's scores were the highest of anyone testing into the department, and only went up after he settled into his role as a Turk; as far as Veld was concerned, this wasn't how anything worked, and Vincent shook up his entire worldview.

People with prospects don't generally join the Turks. Especially not the attractive genius sons of world-renowned Junonese doctors descended from old nobility. And they particularly didn't join the Turks and turn out to be really good at the job. And yet, Vincent did just that, and didn't seem to understand why it mattered. Veld wanted him gone by whatever means necessary so that the world would start making sense again.

...He changed his tune, obviously.

(For the ship asks game.)

[getvalentined]

Veld and Tseng, pre-BC, caught working out by a photographer from a gossip mag.

An older piece drawn for a zine back in mid/late 2021, but I finally got it cleaned up today to put on INPRNT. The original version wasn't big enough (drawn to fit a half page in an A5 booklet), so I had to scale it up and smooth out some lines and colors etc. Cleaned up nicely, though.

✨ Get the print here! ✨

[getvalentined]

Uncropped version of my @turkspinupzine sidebar for February, which doesn't have a fun title (tragic), but is still a really fun picture! The cropped version in the calendar cuts off his arm, which is a damn shame because it came out really well with the glove over it.

This is actually an aggressively VinVeld picture, and not only because it's Veld as the image for Valentine's month (which is so good for my shipper heart). For anyone who participated in Vincent Week this year, you may recognize that flower as a red camellia; in the language of flowers, this essentially means "my heart is still yours," referring to a romantic relationship that fell apart at some point in the past, but one (or both) parties are still utterly in love with each other.

I'm a sap, and I'm not sorry.

✨ Clean and high-res on Patreon

[getvalentined]

The smaller of my two main pieces on @turkspinupzine, a collab with one of my best friends. Baby Tseng being a babe and Veld being the hot dad he was born to be. The moral of the story that goes with this piece is that you really shouldn't interrupt a Turk's training routine.

You can see a slightly different version of this up on Patreon (with the diffuse lighting removed for clarity), along with two different base sketches.

✨ Clean and high-res on Patreon

[getvalentined]

We are a luxury few can afford

[lovecrazysaladcollection]

“

猿でも分かるFFまとめ

1987 FF1 1988 FF2 1989 FF1(MSX) 1990 FF3 1991 FF4, FF4ET, 聖剣1 1992 FF5, FFUSA 1993 1994 FF6, FF1&2 1995 1996 1997 FF7, FF7INT, FFT, FF4(PS) 1998 FF5(PS), FF7(Win) 1999 FF8, FF8(Win), FF6(PS) 2000 FF9, FF1(WSC) 2001 FF10, FF2(WSC) 2002 FF11, FF10INT, テトラマスターFF9, FF1(PS), FF2(PS), FF4(WSC), FF11(Win) 2003 FF10-2, FF11ジラート, FFTA, FFCC 2004 FF11プロマシア, FF10-2INT, FF1&2(GBA), FF1(携帯), FF2(携帯) 2005 FF4(GBA) 2006 FF12, DCFF7, DCLEFF7, FF11アトルガン, FF3(DS), FF5(GBA), FF6(GBA), FF11(Xbox360) 2007 FF12RW, BCFF7, CCFF7, FFTA2, FFCCRoF, FF11アルタナ, FF12INT, FF1(PSP), FF2(PSP), FF4(DS), FFT(PSP) 2008 DFF, FF4TA, FFCCLK, DCFF7INT 2009 FF13, FFCCEoT, FFCCLD, FFCCCB, 光の4戦士, DFFUT, FF1(VC, GA), FF2(VC, GA), FF3(VC), FF4(VC, 携帯), FF5(VC), FF7(GA), FF8(GA), FF4TA(WiiWare), FFT(GA) 2010 FF14, FF9(GA), 光と闇の戦士←New!

” - 暇人＼(＾o＾)／速報 : 『FF』シリーズ完全新作がいよいよ始動！原点に戻る2Dの美麗なグラフィック - ライブドアブログ (via nagas)