Two notes about the FF7 fandom…

[bard_linn]

I’ve gotten to be such a picky FF7 fic reader. XD I am very particular with what people take as “canon”. (Particularly those who haven’t played the game. At least go read a script! It’s the original canon!) And I’m much more particular about quality than just about ANY other fandom I can think of.

This leads to some interesting mental debates when I’m reading something because it all comes down to the CC issue – give CC or not? Most writers are like “yeah, I want it!” but when they get it they Aren’t Happy.

Secondly, BE hampers a lot of what I put on this journal. I think “gee, I should make a post about such and such”, realize it in some way relates to giving something away in BE, go “drat, not doing that”, then wander off.

Example? I got Roundabout started when I did because I wanted to use the same last name for Zack that we do in BE, but didn’t want it obvious who Cloud had gotten switched into…so I had to get it out before Zack showed up BE side.

Interesting how things interconnect. Or maybe I’m just a geek. XD

Comments

[lanerose]

Mmm... I'd like to say that I'm a complete canon-whore in FF7, particularly because I favor canon-based anything in most fandoms I'm in. The unfortunate problem is that most writers in FF7 barely even come close to canon. Canon in FF7 as a fandom is a sadly under-used, somewhat maligned little darling, which is a great pity because it's really quite brilliant. The "fanon" version of characters permeates people's perceptions of reality, which irritates the heck out of me. (On a related note, if you ever catch me out of canon, I charge you by virtue of our friendship to whack me over the head and ask me what I was smoking.) I have found that the only way I manage to read anything in the fandom is to set aside my canon knowledge while reading.

Out of idle curiousity, what do you consider to be canon? I very much hold the idea that canon per se depends on when a story is set. For instance, a story set pre-game should either be an extrapolation of game canon or a derivative of Before Crisis. A story set under a year post-game needs to have game canon alive in it, and preferably to have BC canon as well. A story set between a year and two years post-game should try to incorporate Dirge of Cerebrus, where possible, and a story set beyond two years out would therefore be responsible for covering Advent Children canon as well, unless the author explicitly chooses to be AU. Admittedly, these are arbitrary lines, and the key for all of it is really game canon, which to my mind is infinitely more important than Advent Children canon. ::shrug:: But I'm curious as to where you place your boundaries.

And I know the feeling. Many is the thing I have secretly been screaming about but holding off actually saying anything on until I finally get around to having it show up in Horizon. XDDD

It is funny how things interconnect. Which either makes you not a geek, or makes us geeks together. ::shrug:: Either way, we're good. ♥

[bard-linn.livejournal.com]

I hold canon as relating to the original game only, with a few translation issues (like Tseng really being alive...that apparently was a bad translation. Oh, and the spell names, which in Japanese were the same as in KH, for example)

Characterization is hard for FF7 because so many of the vary wildly, I think.

[icedark-elf.livejournal.com]

*is an AU whore and admits it*

I'm one of those horrible people, I know. I'm in the middle of playing the game, have watched others play it, and read the script. Then my warped little fucked up brain takes it and does what it does to all my fandoms.

*eyes the music she's listening to, which just sang "The Lord is my sniper, son, you leave me alone"*

[bard-linn.livejournal.com]

I don't mind "what if" AU's - I think of those as still being canon based, just a divergence.

Band AUs, High School AUS, AUs where the people's personalities are radically warped, materia is gone, who the heck knows what mako is and Midgar is a bar?

HATE. HATE WITH BURNING PASSION. I really feel that is just using the character's names/the fandom to get people to read what is essentially original writing.

[elanor-pam.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know XD I'm one that tends to get twitchy when something in a fic doesn't add up to my knowledge of canon, principally when it comes to characters and their personality (as factual mistakes can be much more easily justified and/or ignored, IMO). Yet, it's come to my attention that my vision of certain parts of canon is wildly different from other people - I can often ignore it, as my opinions seem to be in the minority, but it's jarring sometimes.

For example, many people seem under the impression that Cloud was the target of heavy bullying as a kid, from both children and adults, but I don't see that as being often the case. From my understanding, it seems he was more likely dismissed as the shy kid from that poor widow/single mother before the incident in the mountains, and studiously ignored as an unpleasant stain afterwards. Cloud seemed shy enough in the flashback that he was probably the kid who hid under his mother's skirt and looked at the other children from his yard; also, Nibelheim didn't seem to have enough children for a school, so I can't see him having many oportunities for being constantly bullied before the Incident. And he describes himself as "having a chip on [his] shoulder" after the Incident, so I always took it to mean that he responded to the least provocation and gave as good as he got, only with his fists, and got a reputation as troublemaker (which probably cemented the adults' opinion on him).

As for Tifa, I see her as being more of a goody two-shoes (as a kid) than anything else; there's really no canon I can give for this except for her behavior, but I picture her as constantly wondering why Cloud had such a short fuse, and who he hung out with, as he didn't hang out with the kids she knew... (one of my favorite pieces of extra[neous] canon is Tifa's diary from the two years before Sephiroth showed up - it was cut from the final game, unfortunately, but in it Tifa looks back and starts to notice how badly the villagers treated Cloud, in hindsight. She traces the behavior back to the year her mother died, but can't remember anything in that timeframe.)

........this came out ridiculously long. You can tell I like meta-thinking XD; my sister is ushering me out, though, so I'm cutting off here. (Is that a "Hurray!" I hear?)

[bard-linn.livejournal.com]

Constantly, probably not. Occasionally physically bullied? Quite possible and fitting in with how he is. Also, you can hardly depend on someone's self assessment of themselves (EXPECIALLY someone as messed up as Cloud). I mean, I thought I was the worst person at math in the world.

Now I'm teaching it. XD

Also, I'd like to point out that ostracizing IS a kind of bullying in a way, especially if the kids are deliberately doing it. I've BEEN the Cloud of the neighborhood. I didn't think it was at the time, but I've talked to some people and they agree it WAS.

We really don't have enough clear info to make a decision either way.

I won't get into Tifa. That's a discussion for another day when I'm not teaching. XD

[elanor-pam.livejournal.com]

Constantly, probably not. Occasionally physically bullied? Quite possible and fitting in with how he is.

...I thought that was what I said. XD;; Maybe I wasn't being clear. English is my second language, so... I just don't think it was anything hardcore, like kids ganging up on him to beat him up, throwing stones, anything like that. I can picture him being shoved in lockers, though. XD;

Also, you can hardly depend on someone's self assessment of themselves (EXPECIALLY someone as messed up as Cloud).

Since he says it in the Mideel brain-picking session, I took it as truth. Tifa also describes him as picking fights, so at least to an outsider he was the one initiating scuffles.

Also, I'd like to point out that ostracizing IS a kind of bullying in a way, especially if the kids are deliberately doing it

Now that I'm trying to picture it, it does seem that way. It explains why Cloud wanted acknowledgement, more than anything else; it also explains why he'd pick fights. Those kids can't ignore him if he's kicking their shins.

[kiraya.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean about the picky thing, heh -- despite AC being what got me into FF7 in the first place, I still tend to avoid most things that implement a lot of Compilation canon. What can I say? A little bit of retcon is all right, I suppose, but the extent to which Squeenix is doing it with FF7 bothers me. Also, the whole "not being very familiar with it" thing -- especially since a) I'll never be able to play BC even if they bring it over, b) it probably wouldn't really be worth it to buy a PSP just for CC, and c) I'm probably never going to finish DoC -- has always been an issue with me. I'm really not comfortable working with a canon unless I've read/watched/played a lot of it.

Though someday, I really want a good reason for Tifa to have hidden the truth from Cloud. There're no characters I out-and-out hate, really, but with Tifa it's hard to really empathize with her because of that misleading, especially when the brain's sympathies lie unswervingly with our SOLDIER boy(s).

And actually, I think that might be part of the pickiness. Most of the time I tend to stick to anything that largely features some combination of Sephiroth, Zack, and Cloud (and, to a lesser extent, Aeris) in it, and there are even some of those combinations I won't really read except under certain circumstances...

...and now I'm just repeating something I've told you dozens of times, so moving on.

As for the BE thing, you know I haven't been anywhere near as careful as you... though I don't THINK I've let anything major slip. (Probably helps that most of our readers don't watch my personal journal, though.)

[bard-linn.livejournal.com]

Well, you know my opinions on all of that. XD Good thing we're so similar with that!

(Truth.)

Tifa Apologist Warning: want to tl;dr about Tifa.

[elanor-pam.livejournal.com]

Though someday, I really want a good reason for Tifa to have hidden the truth from Cloud. There're no characters I out-and-out hate, really, but with Tifa it's hard to really empathize with her because of that misleading, especially when the brain's sympathies lie unswervingly with our SOLDIER boy(s).

Actually, even though Cloud is by far my favorite character, I feel very, very badly for Tifa's situation.

She strikes me as being extremely non-confrontational, which seems strange considering she's a physical fighter XD; but she's insecure and emotionally weak, unlike Aeris, who's ridiculously emotionally strong. (Considering Cloud and Johnny, I wonder if all Nibelheim kids were that way...)

Also, she only really started thinking about Cloud when he left Nibelheim; before that, he was only a neighbor who kept to himself and the other kids didn't like to play with. She started thinking back on him and ended up forming an image that didn't have much to do with the real one.

So, there was the big Nibelheim Barbecue, lalala, and she's had five years to stew over losing everyone and everything she loved, when suddenly she runs into this drooling mess in a gutter who looks at her and says HAY TIFA WAZZUP? and starts striking poses. It claims to be Cloud, but even though she had the wrong image of him, it was nothing like that one. She decided to keep an eye on him in case he did anything funny.

She only knew the extent of the mess in Kalm, but his story matched hers in everything except for his own presence (he even remembered stuff like the music sheet on her piano and Johnny's letter); what if she was the one remembering wrong? She put off confronting him about it and kept convincing herself that she should hold back and observe a little longer. (Here is where I really connect to her, because I'm also a chicken who'll put off having a heart to heart to keep a relatively peaceful status quo.) In Gongaga she finds out the Zack she knew really existed, though.

Here I draw from unused dialogue: in one of those extra books for FF7, there are scripts that didn't make the final cut for whatever reason. In one of these (http://community.livejournal.com/adventchildren_/785105.html), Aeris and Tifa discuss Cloud and Zack and whether they knew each other, and Aeris gives Tifa some encouragement. I wish it'd made the final cut, because I love the idea of Aeris and Tifa comparing notes on Cloud. (My OT4 is CTZA.)

So, yeah, she probably started gettingneurotic from the Temple onwards, and in the Crater she was probably a nervous guilty wreck, worse when Sephiroth butted in with his mindfucking of doom. Afterwards, all she could think of was to make up to Cloud by finding him, and then by changing his diapers. I'm being funny here, but guilt is never a fun thing to have, and Tifa must have been blaming herself for real and imagined things by then.

I guess my point is: she didn't know much about the kid!Cloud, but she knew and liked the messed up one, and helping fixing him probably helped her deal with her own guilt as well.

I like characters who forgive themselves.

/tl;dr

Warning: rambly.

[kiraya.livejournal.com]

Don't get me wrong, I do feel some pity for Tifa -- she's gone through a lot of hellish stuff. But as far as telling Cloud the truth... well, looking back on a similar situation (though with much, much less death and psychological trauma and supernatural mindfuckery) in my own experience, her motivations in not telling him seem as selfish as they are protective.

Finding out after five years that there's someone else left, someone who survived that incident at Nibelheim... I can't blame Tifa in the least for wanting to hold on to Cloud, his mental state at the time aside. I can understand her keeping things from him for at least a little while, until he settles down a bit -- the memories have to be at least as traumatic for him as they probably were for her -- and I can even allow for her not telling him immediately after Kalm, for the reasons you gave. I don't agree with what she did, not telling him then, but I can't honestly say there's no way I wouldn't have done the same in her situation -- because I probably would have.

But once they got to Gongaga and found out that Zack was real, that Tifa, not Cloud, was the one who was remembering correctly, she should have said something. After they met Zack's parents, Cloud asked her outright if she knew Zack, and she denied it, twice. Now, I myself am the sort of person who tries to avoid confrontation, but I know that when you're in that situation, when you're faced with a direct question like that and there's no way that continuing to lie will make things okay... that's really when you have to be honest, no matter how painful it might be. (Trust me, I've been there.) But she didn't do it, instead quietly worrying to herself for the next however many weeks or months they travelled about the possible consequences of telling him, whether it was better to risk hurting him with the truth now or having it all come crashing down on him later at some crucial point...

And then the Crater happened. And it all came crashing down at that crucial point.

And Tifa was probably overwhelmed with guilt, and yeah, that's why she went out of her way afterwards to do whatever she could for him, staying beside him so she could wipe up his drool -- because despite what Sephiroth's mindfuckery contributed, the severity of his breakdown was at least partially her fault. (Cloud points this out himself in one of the unused scenes in the Early File, after he's recovered his true self.)

She does get better, later. By the time AC rolls around it seems like Tifa's just about ready to move on... if only Cloud would, too. He's pretty much the only "family" she has left, and after everything they've been through, she's probably going to keep looking out for him for the rest of her life, even after she finally lets go of the last of her guilt.

...I guess all that rambling pretty much boils down to this: Part of why I have difficulty relating to Tifa is because despite her good points, I can see some of my own major flaws in her. I could've easily made some of the same bad decisions myself in similar circumstances, and let's face it: nobody really likes to acknowledge that about themselves, and it's damn hard to accept those flaws in others.

Re: Warning: rambly.

[elanor-pam.livejournal.com]

Cloud asked her outright if she knew Zack, and she denied it, twice.

Twice? I can't remember this part very well, only that she said something like "He reminds me of you, leaving home for SOLDIER". But it could be a knee-jerk reaction, at least on the first time. ("Did you steal from the cookie jar?" "NO!!" but she did.) And there's no debate on whether she should have told him the truth, because she damn well should have. Still, who'd throw the first stone? Admitting that Cloud wasn't there would be admitting that he was a fake, lying to her, plain mad - but he still knew all about Nibelheim. And how many Zacks out there left to join SOLDIER? Probably dozens every fifteen minutes or something. So she convinced herself to wait and see for just a little longer. Just a little. And she procrastinated just like Hamlet.

Part of why I have difficulty relating to Tifa is because despite her good points, I can see some of my own major flaws in her. I could've easily made some of the same bad decisions myself in similar circumstances, and let's face it: nobody really likes to acknowledge that about themselves, and it's damn hard to accept those flaws in others.

Actually, those same points are the reason why I do relate to her. I'd probably end up doing the same or worse; I'm the kind that, in a stressful situation, will just shove it out of my mind and tell myself that it'll fix itself if I go about my life as if nothing was wrong, closing my eyes and ears and mouth and mentally going "Lalalala". So, I guess the fact that Tifa blunders badly, makes a mess of everything and yet does what she can to make up for it afterwards make me feel a lot better about myself.