Disclaimer: I don't own Final Fantasy VII, Google, the SAT's, eBay, Harry Potter, X-Men, Wal-Mart, Square Enix, or Snickers.
A/N: Be forewarned. This entire fic is utterly useless and ridiculously idiotic. You have been cautioned.
HOW TO MAXIMIZE YOUR FF7 FANATACISM
When it comes to the world of Final Fantasy VII, there are four different kinds of fans out there. Fan No. 1 is a little boy. I will name him Bartholomew. This kid has eight different save files on his copy of Final Fantasy VII, and all of them have the same main party members: Cloud (only because he is a mandatory character), Tifa, Yuffie and Aerith. He's never actually beaten the game; the farthest he's gone is Aerith's death. Bartholomew is a naughty little kid who has a perverted preference for hot video game chicks, namely the universal hentai goddess Tifa Lockhart. When he is not playing out the Gold Saucer date scene with Tifa for the eighty-second consecutive time, he's usually on the computer Googling How to get Tifa naked on FF7, Nude Aerith glitch, or Tifa Hentai pics. He has an entire three-ringed binder filled with sick little images that I'd rather not describe, and his cell phone wallpaper has a picture of Aerith posing in a hot pink bikini. Oh, he was also one of the bastards who sent letters of complaint to Square Enix regarding their distaste in Tifa's new attire in Advent Children (he was hoping for some CG hotness with Tifa in that tight white tank top and the scandalous miniskirt). All in all, Bartholomew is a social outcast who locks himself in his room to watch every Tifa scene in Advent Children over and over again until the DVD player explodes and impales him in the gut with shrapnel.
Fan No. 2 is a seventeen-year-old girl named Alex who has four bookshelves packed with manga and Fan Art sketchbooks. She is a HUUUUUGE fangirl of Final Fantasy VII and screeches gleefully whenever she thinks of Cloud Strife's dead sexy self. She is a proud supporter of the fantasy relationship between Cloud and Tifa, but also enjoys a bit of Yuffie and Vincent. Alex has three character shrines on the web, one for Cloud (Oh. My. GAWD!), one for Vincent, and one for Sephiroth. Her bed dips down at the weight of all the Chocobo, Cloud and Moogle plushies, and she regularly attends every Square Enix Fan Convention, regardless of location and time. She has written over 10,000 posts on three different FF7 Fan Forums, and was also the winner of the 2004 Final Fantasy VII Fan Art Competition. Alex turns eighteen next month.
Fan No. 3 is a college sophomore named Takahiro. Taka has beaten Final Fantasy VII over seventy-nine times in the past ten years, fourteen of which were the SCIENM challenge (Solo Character, Initial Equipment, No Materia Challenge). Taka lives in North Dakota, but has connections in Japan, so it wasn't hard for him to get his hands on Before Crisis. He beat every chapter and mission without a single character death. On August 15, 2006, Taka was the second person in the United States to purchase a copy of Dirge of Cerberus, and ended up beating it in twelve hours that night. He plans on taking a vacation to Japan next month to buy the Crisis Core PSP bundle. It'll take him at least seventeen hours to complete, not including all of the side quests and hidden missions. Taka's currently majoring in Computer Science, and plans to work at Square Enix in the future to work on the Twentieth Anniversary Final Fantasy VII Remake.
Finally, allow me to introduce you to Fan No. 4. He is twenty-two, weighs 182 pounds, stands 6' 3'' and sports dirty blonde hair. He is the ultimate Final Fantasy VII veteran. He's also single. There are six levels in the world of FF7 fandom.
Lvl 1 Dork: those who simply played the game once and enjoyed it thoroughly.
Lvl 2 Geek: Bartholomew is currently a Lvl 2 FF7 fan.
Lvl 3 Nerd: those who beat FF7 over 5 times, and played through all four of the Gold Saucer date scenes. They have raised a Gold Chocobo and obtained the Knights of the Round.
Lvl 4 Fangirl: Alex
Lvl 5 Loser: Takahiro
Lvl 6 Jenova's Homeboy: that would be me.
You know you're a Homeboy when you can play Aerith's Theme Song in every key on the piano. I have every FF7 midi file on my cell phone, every mp3 on my iPod, and every cutscene from every FF7 game (Compilation included) on my laptop. I have over twenty-five Final Fantasy VII t-shirts, and I was voted SCA president for writing an entire speech with only FF7 quotes. The walls of my room are six inches thick from compilations of FF7 posters, and I have spent over three thousand dollars in the past decade on FF7 merchandise. Want me to name a few?
Sephiroth's Masamune? Kid, I have eight different kinds in eight different lengths that weigh eight different weights and are made out of eight different materials.
Cloud's Buster Sword? Puh-leeze…not only do I own the fuckin' Buster Sword, I have four different Cloud outfits in my closet. I have six different shades of color in Cloud wigs, and even wear the same kind of underwear he does.
Materia? You know that box of materia Cloud keeps in Aerith's church in Advent Children? I have twenty of those boxes.
Chocobo/Moogle Plushies? Son, I have a life-size Chocobo sitting in my kitchen. And I poop out moogles.
Limited Edition Collector Sets? Let's just say that I have a Limited Edition Dead Aerith's Body lying in my Limited Edition Vincent's Coffin in my closet.
If that isn't enough to convince you, let me tell you that I also have Jenova's head in my freezer and I'm currently saving up to purchase the Shera. I already bought the Highwind two years ago.
Have I impressed you yet? You say you want to know what it takes to maximize your Final Fantasy fanatacism? You want to upgrade yourself from a lowly little dork to a venerated homeboy? Then allow me to share with you my personal testimony.
On September 7, 1997, I purchased a copy of Final Fantasy VII. I saw the light, and my life was forever changed. Two weeks after I saved the world of Gaia from Sephiroth and Meteor, I began to spread the gospel. Dressed in the SOLDIER outfit and armed with nothing but the Buster Sword (that I bought off of eBay) and a copy of FF7, I began to roam the streets of my neighborhood, telling them, "Aeris loves you. Play Seven." Of course, I was persecuted many times for this act of love, but I persisted, walking even father down the street than I had the previous day, knocking on two more doors and spreading the light with more families than I had before.
Two years later, I began to write fan fiction and posted them on the internet. My works touched the hearts of many, and through strenuous efforts and many sleepless months, I had managed to post over 70 fics in a single year. On January 12, 2000, Square Enix gave me the right to post my works without a disclaimer. The certificate is currently framed and hung up on the wall near my Limited Edition Biggs and Wedge poster. I continue to write fan fiction to this day, and eight of my works have been published in hardcover with the Square Enix license. I own Harry Potter's soul.
I believe it was during the middle of 2001 when I decided that I needed to take a step further in my efforts. I needed to bring Final Fantasy VII to school. There was an SCA Officer Election about to take place in the coming months, so I nominated myself president. In the following weeks, I spent hours upon hours making posters with cut-outs from FF7 Instruction Manuals, posters, images from the web, etc. They declared various messages such as AVALANCHE Needs Your Vote and Stop the Mako Production, Vote for Me! But it wasn't until the day of the election that I was able to directly reveal the glory of FF7 to my school. I wrote a speech that consisted entirely of Final Fantasy VII quotes, and after a breathtaking revelation that lasted a whopping four minutes, I was given a standing ovation and a roaring applause. The next week, I won the election by eighty votes. Oh, and the underclassmen started calling me Sephiroth, and let me skip in the lunch lines everyday.
In 2002, I became a junior in high school. This meant I would face the SAT in coming months. Much to my dissatisfaction, my mother enrolled me into an SAT Prep Course and paid over a thousand dollars a month to "help" boost my scores. After the third month of enduring all the bullshit, I dropped out of the course and decided to take matters into my own hands. There had to be a cheaper way to prep for the dreaded exam. A thought flashed across my mind and revealed to me three words: Final. Fantasy. Seven.
Ever since that night, I played at least three hours of the game daily, studying everything it had to offer in knowledge and wisdom. I played mostly with Nanaki, since he was the wisest of the group, and made frequent visits to Bugenhagen to learn about science and nature. Rufus and Reeve gave me insight on business and competition, while Vincent and Sephiroth helped increase my vocabulary. In May of that year, I scored a 1590. Apparently, they subtracted 10 points because in one of the questions, I had scratched out the word God and replaced it with Gawd. Bastards.
The next school year, Halloween popped up pretty soon since I was a senior and skipped every other day. I was pondering who I would dress up as this time, since I had already been Jenova once, Vincent twice, Cloud once, and Heidegger once, but this time, I wanted to try something crazy. I heard that my next door neighbor was going to be Wolverine from X-Men, and wear those pathetic little cheap ass plastic claws they sell at Wal-Mart, so that gave me an idea.
It was tough but for three weeks, I did nothing but do absolutely nothing and ate the most fattening expired potato chips they sold at the local gas station. I gained twelve pounds in under a month! When Halloween Day finally came, I painted myself brown, shaved my head and amputated my arm with a chainsaw. Then, I went to Old Man Sasaki and asked him to make me a prosthetic machine gun, so he did. It was about two hours before the Trick-or-Treating started when I realized that I had sliced off the wrong fuckin' arm! Barret's damn prosthetic was on his right arm—not his left! At least I was cussing like him. It took me another half hour to stitch my left arm back together, saw off my right arm, and attach the prosthetic, but as soon as I was done, I was out trick or treating.
Instead of saying Trick or Treat like most people did, I said what I thought Barret would say in my situation and screamed out stuff like, "Give me your fuckin' candy before I blow your god damn brains out, Shinra dog!" or "There ain't no getting' offa dis train, you stupid bitch (which actually had nothing to do with Trick or Treating)!"
I think I received two Snickers that night.
In 2002, I started giving piano lessons. Most of the pieces I taught were the more popular songs such as Aerith's Theme, Ahead On Our Way and One Winged Angel. It's ten dollars an hour if you're interested.
In 2003, I became a freshman in college. My roommate was this chemistry major named Ichstervaknonia, which was just ridiculous, so I called him Hojo for the whole year. I introduced Hojo to FF7 in the first week of school, and he later told me he was going to name his son Aeris because he was touched by his character. I tried to tell him that Aeris was in fact a woman in the game, but he told me I'm a sick freak and that I'm going to burn in the ninth level of hell along with Judas Iscariot.
Hojo and I attended numerous parties that year because the purpose of college is obviously to get drunk and laid at wild parties. We ran into hordes of girls, each of whom was very different in appearance and personality, so we started rating girls by FF7 names.
Hojo: Hay, check out zat Elena ova zare. She makes my panties tingle.
Me: Dude…Hojo, watch your mouth. We call those boxers in America.
Hojo: Who gives a bitch? Ooh, zat Elena is zo hot.
Me: She's obviously a Scarlet, dude. Elena's the dumbass blonde girls.
Hojo: Vell, I am still looking for a Teeva.
Me: Tifa. Enunciate the F.
Hojo: Tell me eef you find any Teeva's tonight. I'm going to ask Elena eef she iz single.
Me: Dude! Over there! It's an Aeris! Pink one-piece and everything!
Hojo: God demmit, you sick bestard! Aeriz iz a man, you homo!
Me: Hojo, you disgust me.
Hojo: I'm not zee vun who sinks men are attracteev.
Me: Dude, that girl over there…you think she's worthy of being Tifa level?
Hojo: Hellz no, boobeez are too small, you eediot.
Me: …
Hojo: Holy sheet!
Me: What?
Hojo: Look! Ova zare!
Me: Where?
Hojo: Zare, you dom azz! Itz zee hottest cheek I've eva zeen!
Me: What's her rating?
Hojo: Itz foocking Lookretzia!
Me: Who?!
Hojo: Lookretzia!
Me: Lucrecia?!
Hojo: Yez! Lookretzia!
Me: Jesus Christ, Hojo…Lucrecia's fuckin' sixty years old and stuck inside a crystal.
Hojo: I sink zat iz sexy…
Me: You scare the shit outta me, you know that?
In 2004, Before Crisis came out, which was totally fabulistic since it was the first of the Compilation series based on FF7. The only problem was that Squeenix had no intention of releasing it in the States. Luckily, Hojo knew this Computer Science major from his physics class and apparently this guy was like a hardcore hacker. It took him a few weeks, but somehow, he managed to download the game onto my laptop, and Hojo and I didn't get much sleep that semester.
In 2005, I pirated the newly released Japanese version of Advent Children. I don't think I've ever cried so much in my life. I watched that damn movie so much that I could tell you the number of hairs on Cloud's head and the amount of times Loz says, "Kasan wa?" I pretty much learned the Japanese language because of that movie.
Two months later, I developed a severe case of Geostigma.
Or actually, I didn't, but I have a similar black puss tattooed onto the left side of my body.
Remember when I said that Fan No. 3 Taka was the second person to purchase a copy of Dirge of Cerberus? Well, I was obviously the first. In 2006, Vincent Valentine's story was revealed to the curious fangirls and homeboys all across the globe. There was a lot of negative feedback concerning the game, and people criticized it for being a shameful insult to the original Final Fantasy VII. Shortly after, a massacre ensued. (Let's not forget that I still have that machine gun prosthetic attached to my arm)
In case you're interested in how I look, I have spiky blonde hair like Cloud, crimson contact lenses that give me Vincent eyes, and Geostigma puss tattooed onto the left side of my body. I have Barret's prosthetic attached to my right arm, and often wear the high-top sneakers Yuffie displays on Advent Children. I also wear Cid's goggles on Mondays through Wednesdays, and Rude's sunglasses on Thursdays through Saturdays. On Sundays, I wear Rufus's white suit.
In the future, I plan to resurrect Aeris Gainsborough from the Lifestream, start an electric power company called ShinRa, and take over the world. I will then destroy the universe with Emerald Weapon. Because that, my friend, is how to maximize your Final Fantasy VII fanaticism.