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renay about fandom stuff, and we got to wondering something that really requires the collective consciousness of fandom. So, have a poll.
Please spread this one far and wide; I want as broad a sampling as possible. Also, my standard disclaimer: I welcome open and honest discussion, but I request that you not flame FFX-2 in comments -- flawed or no, I happen to be quite fond of it, so if anyone comes out with the burning hatred, the conversation isn't going to get very far. Thanks.
Do you consider FFX and FFX-2 to be a single fandom or two separate fandoms?
One fandom
20(66.7%)
Two fandoms
10(33.3%)
FF.net splits FFX and FFX-2 into separate, unrelated categories. If you were to post a story including both FFX-only and X-2 only characters, which category would you put it in?
FFX
1(3.2%)
FFX-2
7(22.6%)
It depends on who the main character/pairing is
20(64.5%)
It depends on another factor which I will explain in comments
3(9.7%)
If you were in an archive with one category named FFX, would you expect to find and/or feel comfortable posting FFX-2 fic there?
Yes
23(74.2%)
No
6(19.4%)
It depends, and I will explain why in comments
2(6.5%)
If you were in an archive with one category named FFX/X-2, would you expect to find and/or feel comfortable posting FFX fic that disregards X-2 canon there?
Yes
28(90.3%)
No
3(9.7%)
It depends, and I will explain why in comments
0(0.0%)
Do you consider FFVII Compilation to be a single fandom or a collection of separate fandoms?
One fandom
17(56.7%)
Multiple fandoms
12(40.0%)
Something else which I will explain in comments
1(3.3%)
Do you consider "Ivalice Alliance" to be one fandom or multiple fandoms?
One fandom
4(13.3%)
Each game is a separate fandom
10(33.3%)
The XII games are one fandom and the Tactics games are another
10(33.3%)
The XII games are one fandom, but the Tactics games are separate fandoms
5(16.7%)
The Tactics games are one fandom, but the XII games are separate fandoms
0(0.0%)
Something else which I will explain in comments
1(3.3%)
Which of these fandoms do you consider yourself to be part of? (just for informational purposes)
Final Fantasy
2(6.5%)
FFVII (any or all)
1(3.2%)
FFX and/or FFX-2
2(6.5%)
FFXII (any or all)
0(0.0%)
FF Tactics (any or all)
0(0.0%)
Please spread this one far and wide; I want as broad a sampling as possible. Also, my standard disclaimer: I welcome open and honest discussion, but I request that you not flame FFX-2 in comments -- flawed or no, I happen to be quite fond of it, so if anyone comes out with the burning hatred, the conversation isn't going to get very far. Thanks.
- Current Mood:
curious
Comments
Which, of course, makes no sense whatsoever.
Erm.
Thanks for answering the poll! :)
I gather that FF.net used to have only one category, called FFX, when X-2 first came out. I don't know exactly when or why they were split; it would be interesting to find out. I only know about the change because I once read an older X-2 epic that made reference to being moved to the "new" X-2 category.
My opinion on FFX and FFX-2 is the same as my opinion on FFXII and FFXII RW: the first game I listed in each case is the "primary fandom" and the second game is "canon extension," but they are still THE SAME FANDOM.
Additionally, this is more or less my opinion on FF7 Complication. FF7 is the main canon; AC, BC, CC, and DoC are all extensions of the canon, making it one giant-ass fandom that hopefully people will tag with whatever specific canon extension they are wanking on this week. (Yeah, my opinion of FF7 Complication, not high.)
That being said! While Vagrant Story, FF Tactics, Tactics Advance, and TA2 are all part of the "Ivalice Alliance," I consider each and every one of them to be SEPARATE FANDOMS, as they have few to no characters in common with FFXII/RW (TA2 has some cameos, but it's kind of like how I don't consider FF Tactics part of the FF7 canon despite cameos by Cloud and Aeris, you know?)
This disjointed commentary brought to you by someone who plays WAY TOO FUCKING MANY of these games.
I guess it is the characters that really sell me on whether I consider something the "same" fandom or different ones...
tl;dr I agree with
I grouped the non-XII Ivalice games together because I've never played them and don't know much about them, but after reading
The more I hear about the Tactics games, the more I think they probably do stand alone.
That being said, I actually do still think of X and X-2 as separate games, which is why I marked them as such in the poll. Probably because there was so much time in-between when I played them that I still mentally consider them separate entities.
I think it's an important factor, though definitely not the only one. It's why I keep getting the feeling that, for example, X and X-2 are "closer together" than XII and XII:RW. The FFVII Compilation fandoms, though, jesus. The thing with those is that the overall fan following is so strong that people will GET the other (major) installments anyway.
Because of this, I sometimes write FFX canon rules stories and throw in a couple FFX-2ers I liked.
I think FFX/X-2 is closer to being just, well, one fandom, but FFVII hasn't been a single fandom since AC came out and didn't settle whether or not Cloud was supposed to be with Aeris, Tifa, Sephiroth,
Barret, or a chocobo. Plus there are a lot of kids that have seen the movie, or played Crisis Core, but know nothing about the original game.Which means I have a lot of fun, basically. XD I really do like big fandoms mostly because I can have a little corner and write what I want.
If an archive had an FFVII category called "Compilation of Final Fantasy VII" with all the games, including Final Fantasy VII under it as subcategories, would that be okay? I pretty much agree with you about FFVII not exactly being the same fandom anymore depending on which fanbase you're talking about.
(Also, he should've ended up with Barret.)
(Disclaimer! In none of the following do I assert that no fans participate equally in all fandoms/canons; I'm just noting some trends.)
One point that I swear is 300% original and ALL MINE and I THOUGHT OF IT FIRST NYEH NYEH (except none of that is true) is speaking about separate fandoms as opposed to separate canons.
For example, X and X-2 scan for me as separate fandoms -- a lot of X fans seem to hate what they see as the much peppier X-2, and meanwhile a lot of X-2 fans seem to play there exclusively. They might know the X canon, they might actually like it, but they're only active in X-2. But X/X-2 scan for me as most definitely one canon.
The case for the Ivalice Alliance games feels very different to me, because some of the games have VASTLY different tones and, well, feels to them that has to do with the production teams behind them. The most relevant name here is, I think Yasumi Matsuno (I am not up on Squenix personnel lore, but
So in this sense, not only do the Ivalice Alliance games feel like largely separate fandoms, they also feel like separate canons to me. There's definitely a fair amount of intersection there, but again, I feel like more of that intersection happens down the Matsuno/not-Matsuno line. I know more people who are into both Tactics and XII (and sometimes poor neglected VS) but not the other Ivalice games, and (more rarely) I also bump into people who've played the Tactics Advance (and sometimes RW) games but not Tactics or VS.
This is where platform/availability issues come in for me, by the way, because the TA and RW games can all be played together, while Tactics requires either a PSP or a copy of the original (relatively rare), and VS is old and harder to find. So the divide in the Ivalice games works on both Matsuno and platform levels for me. XII tends to sit at the middle of this intersection, being by far and away the most major title, with a huge distribution and on a common platform, so a lot of people on both sides of the line seem to have played it.
[TO BE CONTINUED]
1) Platform smorgasbord. AND HOW. This seems to have a separating tendency, but this appears to be counteracted by...
2) Fan loyalty, a cohesive force. A hugely popular franchise, and people will go out of their way (and platform comfort zones) to get some of these installments. Cell phone games probably excepted. Except it seems to be that a large portion of the most loyal fans are people who joined fandom way after the original -- when AC was released, perhaps -- and it's these relatively new fans who seem to be driving the franchise now, which creates...
3) Divides with the oldest fans/OGC loyalists, who seem to regard a lot of the newer installments as needless retconning, angstifying, prettifying, and oh yeah, money-milking nonsense. So we have another separating force -- and one that kind of straddles the line between "separate fandoms" and "separate canons" -- because it seems arguable (again, outsider, outside) that the newer installments ARE separate canon. They're ostensibly about the same characters and all within a tight timeline, but the amount of retconning, judging from the complaints I see, is slowly approaching comic book proportions.
I'm a bit confused on this issue. X-2 certainly changed the world mechanic a lot compared to X, but we kind of knew that was coming based on X's ending, and no one's backstory was rewritten (well, except maybe Spira's, you know >.>). And while there is certainly a fair amount of grumbling about how X-2 can't be canonical, it seems like with only two installments and pretty tight links between the two games, the grumbling is not really as... prodigious as in the ever-expanding VII Compilation, where every new installment seems to tweak something from OGC and from whatever was released just before. The Ivalice games, meanwhile, reference each other quite a bit, but they are by and large separated by nice, safe, gulfs of time and distance and don't interfere with each other much (RW excepted). SO I am not sure what is going on canonicity-wise with FFVII Compilation. However, I do seem to see a fair number of...
4) Fans who seem to be part of the Compilation fandom as a whole rather than any specific entry's fandom. Another cohesive force! These people seem to pick and choose the bits of canon they find most awesome and make up a kind of personal synthesis-canon, and kudos to them.
... and those are my thoughts on yaoi.
Up next -- things that are actually relevant to fanwork-categorizing interests!
I think this would be pretty useful especially for VII and, to a lesser extent, for X/X-2. This is actually a point of... agreement/disagreement I have with how
I think I might come to this idea because of my history in anime/manga canons like Trigun and FMA. I have a hard time explaining this to people who haven't experienced such canons, but the anime and manga are VASTLY different. Not like "added some filler" different, but more like they both start from the same premise/characters and then go in WILDLY different directions. And in those fandoms I have definitely found a lot of most excellent stories that explicitly remain neutral about which canon they are set in. They could be mangaverse, they could be animeverse, but really they are just stories that start with the same premise/characters and go somewhere, somewhere neutral. And in those fandoms fans often (or used to, back in the late 90s/early aughts when I hung about there) label for animeverse, managaverse, or neither. Some of that was surely sloppy/lazy labelling, but a lot of it was truly just neutral.
Likewise, I KNOW (haha, do I ever) that a lot of the "unspecified" stuff for VII and XII is really just sloppy/lazy labelling -- but for VII especially, some of it just seems to be canon-neutral. I know one usual rule for labelling VII works is to label it with the most-recently released canon that it draws on, and this makes sense for spoilers. I am not sure how to handle that!
So since I know this poll has to do with how to categorize fanworks, here is my ideal system!
Sets like X/X-2, VII Comp, and Ivalice should have umbrella labels and labels for each subcanon -- but also the option to tag for the umbrella only.
But again, there's no real way to prevent abuse of the umbrella tag.
And yet!
I feel like such a system would provide homes for, say, a story with both X and X-2 characters but isn't deeply related to the plot of either game. Like, say, a story about Rikku and Gippal growing up together on Bikanel. It's set in the X timeline, but an X-2 character, and isn't really deeply related to either X or X-2. It could be argued to be an X-2 story, since it that is the most-recently released canon it uses, or as a crossover -- but I just see it as a Spira-verse story. And I think it's fair to treat a lot of stories this way -- stories that combine bits and pieces of various canons to make something that definitely lives in that world but in no particular canon. And it feels kind of... unfair... to treat stories like that as, say X/X-2 "crossovers". There are cases where I think a story could be fairly balled as both X adn X-2 -- for example stories that deal explicitly with the transition between the two games. I think it might also help maybe with how X-2 sometimes gets relegated to some bastard AU instead of a sequel. Fans who want to integrate X and X-2 can play in the umbrella canon, and fans who want to keep them more separate can play in the individual canons.
Likewise I'm sure there are similar cases for VII. It doesn't seem as dire in the Ivalice games -- again, they are by and large comfortably separated -- but it might still be useful there.
Haha, I am so sorry KJ >.>