#old guard ff7 fandom

[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.

[sapphire-weapon]

The canon of RE is very confusing. I understand that ideas change over time, especially the more you flesh out and expand on the story and characters, but…yeah. RE can be a mess sometimes.

But actually tho. You're so, sooo damn right with this. RE is a complete goddam mess of a shitshow.

And I say that as someone with a fucking Final Fantasy VII url. FF7 is so much of a fucking mess that Gackt retroactively got inserted into it as canon. And RE still somehow manages to be worse.

I feel like it's my duty, as one of the Old Guard who's been in the fandom since before most new fans were even born, to try to make this labyrinthine clusterfuck of a series as easy and accessible as possible for new fans. And bad actors trying to dig up old promo materials or dev statements do nothing but muddy the waters and make shit that much more difficult for new fans.

Here's my street cred:

I have been so thoroughly entrenched in this series for actual literal decades that I actually own a physical copy of RE: Gaiden.

I don't fuck around LMAO

There is probably nothing you can tell me about RE that I don't already know, and my information is not secondhand or gathered from other fans. I know how this series works, because I watched it be released in real-time.

Use your fandom elders as a resource. If you see something on a post or a tweet somewhere and you're like "hey that's neat is that a thing?" don't necessarily ask the OP if you don't know them. Find a fandom old and ask them. It doesn't even have to be me. But do find one you trust and follow them.

@theggning is a good resource

@godtier is a good resource

@feelboss is a good resource

Just to name a few.

Some of them aren't currently actively posting about RE, but these folks are encyclopedias who have been in the trenches with this series for 20+ years. We're here to help.

[talesfantastic]

To those who are new (an open letter to FF7R fans)

I am not a Fandom Old, when it comes to FF7. FF7 is a lumbering beast that’s been around since 1997 - twenty three years ago! I have only been active in the fandom since... what, maybe 2009? A bit before, I think, because Crisis Core was still relatively new and that came out in 2007... At the time, I didn’t realize how big a deal it would become to me, so I didn’t keep track. The point is, I’ve been here long enough to be comfortable, but I still stand on the shoulders of those who came before. Some, I’m lucky enough to call friends.

I wanted to say, above all, welcome. Even though FF7R is not a part of the Compilation, it’s its own beast with it’s own quirks, there is overlap in settings and characters and events. You are breathing life into something that had become quiet, though not lifeless. You’ve also brought back with you a lot of fans who had meandered away - old faces I’m overjoyed to see, in the fanfic, fanart, and yes even roleplay communities.

This isn’t going to get deep, I wasn’t here for the worst of the shipping wars and drama as things were first unraveling, I leave that note for those who were there, who know their history, who can give you the proper warnings from a place of first hand knowledge. But, perhaps I can give you a little advice from things I have learned from my 10+ years in the fandom.

Canon is lovely, but it’s not the be-all-end-all, and some people - a lot of people - are going to prefer fanon, if for no other reason than the fact that FF7 - and apparently now FF7R - have inconsistencies in timeline and characterization.

As an example, I’ve roleplayed Lazard Deusericus (Crisis Core) seriously since 2012. He is a side character, an NPC, and a plot device with a face at best. But I have poured my heart into making a fully-fleshed out, 3D, real, coherent portrayal of this man. And in doing so? I’ve realized a lot of his arc conflicts heavily with his character, and had to make decisions on what parts of canon I was going to accept and what parts I had to rewrite for myself. This will probably happen to you at some point - and that’s okay! Welcome to the glory of AUs and Canon-Divergence.

The timeline is probably not going to make sense, beyond a surface glance. Maybe not even that. Like, I have not played FF7R, I have not read the Ultimania. But even just hearing the characters ages... well, look. This is not new. The Compilation timeline is a trainwreck, I say this with all the fond exasperation anyone can muster, but it is! Did you know there were even two different sets of years? Look into it sometime, if you don’t mind a headache. One of my good friends is OG old guard and I came in with Crisis Core and we regularly have to just... smile and nod at each other because we use completely different timelines. Not the events, per se, but like, what years they actually happened in. It’s wild.

And finally, the two I just have to tack on because I have already heard the rumblings start:

There is no “best ship” even if one ship is canon - in fact, while OTPs (”one true pairing”)  are fun, sometimes there’s a lot of relief in giving in and shipping as many things as you want. I, personally, do not have “a” ship. I have an armada.

On a side note, shipping wars are pointless, painful, and make you look rather childish. Not only that, but the fandom has been through it already, we’ve had the Cloti/Clerith/Clack/Sefikura debates already. Thank god I was not here for the worst of it, but I seriously don’t want to see it again. And really, neither does anyone else. Ship and let ship, okay? We’re all valid. Even especially the crack ships.

Also, and I don’t think this needs elaboration but it bears stating, do not character bash just because someone is “in the way” of your ship. If nothing else, it’s really hard to take people seriously when they do that.

You hating a character (valid) doesn’t make them a bad character, and doesn’t make people who like them bad. Like... let’s say Hojo. Hojo is a villain, he is amoral, he might even be a little unhinged at this point in the storyline - he certainly was out there in the OG. Feel free to hate him for the atrocities he’s done. But that hatred, that strong feeling that he evokes, says they did something right. He has the potential to be a fascinating character, in fact, and I hope they do that potential justice in the Remake instead of just a cardboard villain (again) but we’ll see.

This is getting long and I didn’t set out to be deep, so I’ll leave this here, and welcome other people to add on to it.

[silver-wield]

Hi, Clerith shipper here. I just want to apologize for the behaviour of my fanbase. I already say here, that I understand the reasons why Tifa is the one for Cloud. Basically, I don’t like Cloud being an asshole and living with a girl he doesn’t love. I see the lyrics of Midgar B, and yes, it resembles cloti. I’m very sad and hurt, cuz I feel that every step from the devs leaves Clerith more and more in the oblivion. I think C/A shippers, are just desperate right now because of that. I’m sorry.

Nonny, you shouldn’t have to apologise for your entire branch of the fandom being full of toxic assholes, racists and homophobes. If you’re a good person then you’re not part of that shit and shouldn’t be the one feeling bad for how they act.

It’s not your fault.

I say ship and let ship and that includes you guys. You like what you like and I’m not gonna sit in my corner telling you not to because I don’t agree with it. I don’t actually care what yall ship. 

My problem comes when our fandom branch - and others - don’t get that basic af respect back and then also have to deal with constantly defending ourselves and getting called bullies and other shit because we’re constantly defending ourselves. It’s tiring. I’m not even part of the old guard here and I’m tired. 

We just wanna ship in peace. Why tf can’t we? Why do we have to take up battered shields the moment any new info comes out? 

It’s not fair.

Yeah, I know that’s a childish argument, but it’s not fair. 

The devs didn’t mean to do this. They wanted players to love Aerith so her death hurt more. They never intended for her to be endgame with Cloud and because of the amount of shit they’ve had for 23 years they’ve been stuck in this limbo where they can’t change things because it gives them more merch and revenue and spin offs and cross overs and fanservice. 

FF7 is part of a business model first, after all.

Remake is our last entry. They’re done. Nojima wants to move on from it. So do the others. They’ve given it 23 years, and it’s not even been fair to them for most of it. They got trolled -- they still get trolled. They put up with it and stayed neutral. Now they’re at the end of the road they don’t have to stay neutral. They’re allowed to show everyone their preferences and how the game is gonna end. This all needs approval. Nojima wouldn’t be allowed to like tweets from his actual account if the suits weren’t ok about it. He’d get in trouble. They’ve relaxed the rules because they’re done with the compilation. The info in the official books needs approval, too. They can’t just print whatever like yolo. 

I wish I could say sorry to you that things aren’t going your way, but it was never like that in the first place. I am sorry so many people misunderstood and it caused all this aggro, but it wasn’t clotis fault either and we had to suffer a shit load of hate for it. Some people have grown up being hated for liking a game character. People’s mental health has been affected by it. 

It’s not the entire fandom, but the part of it responsible is the part that should apologise, but they’re also the part that’s full of assholes, so I won’t hold my breath. 

But we’re cool, nonny 👍👍👍

[breezeinmonochromenight]

So what’s the worst thing about being in the FF7 fandom for so long?

Being considered an ‘old guard’ fan bc of playing the original when it came out, and that I’m automatically not going to like the Compilation or nitpick the Remake to death bc I’ve been around for forever.

Or that I’m going to be condescending to new ppl or smth.

Honestly they’re a largely miserable lot and I can feel myself degrading when I’m lumped in with them. Just. Skin wrinkling and hair graying before your very eyes.

Gross.

[ungarmax]

fic author meme <3

tagged by @nd43taags and @androidsfighting thank you both!!

your name: zack. i usually use ungarmax (or ungarzack, if that's taken) for a username. there's a lot of stuff around that i've written under my old username rydia or rydiahighwind. i also have a ~naughty~ ao3 account but it's a secret.

fandoms you write for: currently, all taz balance. but i've been writing fanfiction since i was in grade school, so there's been a lot. my ao3 has fma, homestuck, and ff7 stuff on it, and my ff.net had everything from star wars to pokemon to metal gear solid and back again.

where you post: i don't really post much anymore, but if i'm gonna do it, it's gonna be on my ao3.

most popular one shot: i don't know if it counts as a one shot because it's over 20k words, but nothing gold is my most popular single chapter fic by a huge margin. i still can't believe how much people (still!) like that fic.

most popular multi chapter story: i only have one multi chapter story on ao3, and that's the ghosts in the halls. it's not very popular and i would just take it down, but someone specifically thanked me in the comments for writing about trans cloud strife, so i left if be.

favorite story you’ve written: i mean, that's gotta be the garden under snow. it's one of my least popular works on ao3, but i was very proud of how neatly i wrapped it up and implemented a theme of new beginnings being scary but also being good, i guess? and it really helped me to sort of...deal with how fma ended. like, don't get me wrong, i think it was the best possible ending, but it caught me off guard! so writing this was sort of a cathartic way of looking ahead in ed's life.

i’m kind of fond of the history books forgot about us too, mostly because i think i nailed the characterization pretty well AND my buddy @danshou illustrated it BEAUTIFULLY.

story you were nervous to post: i was really nervous to post that fic where taako talking to lucretia on her death bed and realizing he doesn't have to forgive her, and that she's still incredibly important to him. i don't remember what it was called because i deleted it, lol.

do you outline: depends on the fic. if i'm doing something longform, there's a 100% chance of me not finishing it if i don't outline it because that typically means i don't know where i'm going with it, exactly. i used to just write concepts - it'd be neat if THIS happened! - and then didn't have an ending in mind. short stuff doesn't need an outline, though.

how many of your stories are complete: i mean, i've been writing fanfiction since i was like 10, so, uh. i dunno. 6/7 fics on my ao3 are finished, and technically the last one is too, but i never bothered to edit the last two chapters because they were bad. on my ff.net, 27/36. that is not including the 100s of stories i’ve written that don’t make it onto the internet.

how many of your stories are in progress: i'm only really working on one right now, and honestly, i haven't touched it in a few months. but hey, my mom just died and my dad's in the hospital again, so i deserve a break probably.

coming soon: the little mermaid au! soon is a relative term.

do you accept prompts?: sure! as long as you’re not too impatient and you won’t be sad if i lose your prompt in my inbox somewhere.

upcoming story you’re most excited to write: i've got a beauty and the beast taakitz au lined up for this year's nanowrimo and i'm pretty excited about that!

tagging: @it-refused @a-big-apple @enemytosleep @bob-fish if y’all want to, and anyone else who i might have forgotten, because my memory is a sieve :D

[getvalentined]

So, we've put a lot of work into this project and would really appreciate a signal boost! Character-specific zines are always a bit niche, and Vincent in particular is a pretty niche character overall, so keeping up momentum through the course of preorders is both super important to the success of the project and much more difficult than if we'd gone with a specific pairing or chosen a more popular character.

Instead, we went the old fashioned route: no pairings, no wild AUs, just good, solid Vincent Valentine content. We've got a great mix of old guard fans and new recruits, with a wide range of ages and backgrounds, resulting in a great cross-section of Vincent's corner of the FF7 fandom. (Also, going the "old fashioned" route seems more appropriate for the character in question. 72 years old this year! Congrats on the tragic immortality, old man!)

All proceeds go to charity, so everyone on this project participated entirely for the love of the character. If you like Vincent Valentine—or know someone that does—please check it out!

Chaos Theory is AVAILABLE FOR PREORDER on BigCartel!

💀 60+ pages from 20+ contributors available in 5 bundles

⚰️ Preorders open thru November 13th, 2022

🧪 All orders include a digital copy of the zine

🩸 Physical and digital fulfillment is scheduled for early 2023

🦇 All proceeds to be donated to Bat Conservation International

@ff7zinenews

[getvalentined]

Oh wise and ancient elder of Veld fandom, I have a question for you. Do you know where the last name Dragoon came from? (I want to post a picture of Veld and that's his last name to me, but I don't want to be using it publicly if the OG inventor wants to keep it for themselves.)

AHAHAHA UHH YEAH ACTUALLY I DO

I DEFINITELY DO

I don't know precisely which of us it was, but it's from my first online RP group. I think Liz (crankyoldman on AO3) was the first to use it, as I'm like 99.999% sure she's the first person in western fandom to write him at all, but it might have been Drak (drakonlily on AO3), who is now Liz's spouse but was not at the time we were initially RPing together. Neither of them are really in the fandom anymore (they both fell out of public fandom in general for quite a while during college/university/grad school, came back to jump into FF15 with both feet, and are now pretty exclusively in the FF14 scene), but none of us ever really cared about the proliferation of that particular headcanon.

What's funny is that I actually use a different surname for Veld (Augustine!) to differentiate between work relating back to that group and work that's strictly my own, but at this point it's kind of irrelevant because the "Dragoon" surname is so ubiquitous. I tend to tag my work featuring the character with "Veld of the Turks" at this point.

You're absolutely welcome to use it, and people will presumably know what you're talking about, but it is utterly and completely nonexistent in the source material! It came entirely from a bunch of queer folks in their late teens and early twenties RPing/writing/drawing a sad old man online in the mid-aughts, but because we were the only ones doing anything with the character it just kinda became accepted as "correct."

(tmk Drak is also largely responsible for "Sinclair" being Reno's accepted fanon surname, but there's no canon on that either and she kinda regrets its proliferation; I originally used it as Zack's surname in like 2003, before I even knew Drak, but when Zack got a canon surname she fleetingly snagged it for use on Reno and it just...spread through the fandom from there by vectors unknown.)

[getvalentined]

I posted about this on the twits, but I'm gonna do it here too because it's not like this is limited to that platform.

Since I've been seeing my least favorite shitty FF7 rumor around again, friendly reminder that there are no "legal issues" between Gackt and SE delaying anything. Sources claiming otherwise say "trust me bro" when Nomura has literally said it was just the workload.

People who claim that delays in production of anything in the Compilation are because of Gackt are parroting a rumor that's been around for over a decade, which was started by people who used it as an excuse to be racist and homophobic under the thin veneer of frustrated criticism. The majority of hatred toward the character of Genesis Rhapsodos in early fandom, and hatred toward Genesis in modern day fandom from OG Purists, stems from this same place.

Why do you think these people always assert that Genesis' very existence "ruins Sephiroth's character," but never complain about Angeal? Why do you think they have no problems with Aerith having a Jenova-infused Angeal Copy in her church for years—something that should totally change her understanding of the Crisis, but doesn't seem to in any way whatsoever—and yet anything and everything Genesis does is treated as an unforgivable retcon?

It's an excuse to say heinous, horrible things about an all-but-explicitly queer character who is modeled off a real Japanese man, and that's all it ever was, but it gets a pass because they dress it up as criticism of the franchise. Then, when they inevitably start throwing out slurs, nobody cares because "it's just Gackt—I mean Genesis, everyone knows he sucks."

Yeah, you "know" because you let a bunch of bigots tell you he should be judged more harshly than any other character in the entire series because he's not white or straight enough. Because he's based directly on a real flesh-and-blood Japanese man, and to these people that makes him deserving of hate, because people like that shouldn't exist. Because the character is all but explicitly queer (and it is even more explicit in the original language and when accounting for some key culturally-specific literary references portrayed throughout the narrative), and people like that shouldn't exist.

You "know" because you never questioned why this character specifically is the only one it's "objectively and morally correct" to hate and belittle, even though everything he's supposedly hated for applies to multiple other characters throughout the series.

The character is loathed, and the actor is blamed for everything, because some old guard fans said that's how it's supposed to be in this fandom, and if you don't engage with things that way then you don't deserve to be here.

Very cool and normal behavior!

There are very valid reasons to dislike this character, mind you, and plenty of reasons to be critical of the actor. I'm not saying otherwise. I'm saying the pervasive and frankly disgusting fandom-wide hatred stems from the same place as the continued, repeatedly disproven assertion that Gackt is to blame for everything "wrong" with the Compilation and its development: bigotry. I know this because I saw these assertions come into being in real time when Crisis Core first came out. I watched the people saying these things post the most homophobic rants on their personal accounts, I watched people I considered friends get banned from LJ communities for referring to Genesis as Gackt and referring to Gackt with racial slurs.

And I watched them come back later, promising they were better people now, armed with new claims and new arguments that allowed them to continue to be hateful trashfires without getting in trouble. As long as they weren't overt, it was okay. If they slipped up and used a slur in the comments that was mostly okay, since it wasn't in the main post. Mods might lock a thread here and there, but those people got to stay. Their "criticism" was "valid," and thus their bigotry was validated.

Those same claims and complaints are still regurgitated today, only now it's by people who aren't racist and aren't homophobic, but don't realize that their criticism is horribly unbalanced because it was all born from people who were just masking hatred.

Even worse is when these behaviors are mimicked by people claiming to like the character, because the fandom taught them that this was how you're supposed to engage with him, because it's just Gackt—Genesis (I said Genesis!) so he's a piece of shit no matter how you slice it and he deserves to be treated that way. Nobody else does, and nobody questions it, because this is just how it's done.

I'm sorry to be the one to tell people this, but if you slap a bunch of gay stereotypes onto Genesis and then have the characters around him treat him like shit because of them, while implying or outright insisting that IT'S OKAY BECAUSE IT'S GENESIS AND HE SUCKS SO IT'S FUNNY, you are following in the footsteps of bigots. If you constantly refer to the character as "Gackt" like the name itself is a pejorative, you are following in the footsteps of bigots.

No, there is no nuance here. I don't care if you allegedly came to all these conclusions on your own—you didn't and you know it—except for the fact that actually that's worse, because it means that you did some kind of deep dive in the source material and came out the other side agreeing with a bunch of racist homophobes who are still spitting bullshit after over 15 years.

Do fucking better.

[sapphire-weapon]

thinking about how in the late 90s in fandom the only thing that you needed to do in order to become that Big Fic Writer that everyone knew about and everyone read was just to write something that was really, really long.

and that was it.

it didn’t matter what the content was, what the ship was, if it was ~problematic~ or even if it was very good.

it just had to be super fucking goddamn long and update on a regular basis.

DID YOU KNOW

that the Big Fucking Fanfic in early days of FF7 fandom -- the one that became so fucking popular and well-known that old guard fans all have a fucking breakdown at seeing the title written out anymore --

DID U KNOW

THAT THE SHIP IN THAT MASSIVELY MASSIVE FIC THAT EVERYONE READ BACK IN THE DAY

WAS AERIS/VINCENT

DID U KNOW THAT

BC NOW YOU DO

it was called “i know what lies beneath the snow fields” and it’s still on the internet

(am gomen to all of the old guard fans who are now screaming at their desks)

fucking IMAGINE a rarepair like that being the de facto fic that every single person in the fandom has fucking read in this day and age.

in today’s fandom, a fic MUST be of the most popular ship in the fandom, it must contain very specific tropes, specifically NOT contain xyz content, be properly tagged, contain the correct amount of warnings, AND the author still likely has to do a shitton of marketing and asskissing throughout the fandom as a whole

and then maybe

maybe

that fic has a chance of being 1/10 as ubiquitous as snow fields

i have written some Very Popular fanfics. i was briefly a BNF in two different fandoms due to my fics. and my shit could not ever, ever, ever even dream of touching how big these giant rarepair fics got back in the late 90s

and that was ur Ye Olde FF7 Fandome history lesson of the day