Now I’ve started to carve my own little niche in the FF7 fanfic society I thought it was about time to say something about myself.

The original FF7 was one of the first games I played on the brand new PS1 I received for Christmas back at a tender age. Come Boxing Day my parents had to tear me away from it! I’d never played an RPG before and was totally blown away by the character development and plot complexity, not to mention the awesome graphics (for the time anyway!).

I was quite excited upon hearing about Advent Children when it was being made. However, when I did finally get to see it I have to say I was a little disappointed. Not enough dialogue and far too much fighting on over-sized motorcycles. Still they resurrected Rufus which I was quite pleased about (man had the best-lines of the whole film!).

I’ve watched bits of ‘Dirge of Cerberus’ and ‘Crisis Core’ and try to incorporate details from the games into my own fictions. I don’t understand ‘Kingdom of Hearts’, I looked it up on Wikipedia and thought it was a joke...

I’ve noticed people tend to define themselves on their profiles according to their favourite pairings. I have a couple of fav pairings, the most obvious one being Rufus/Elena which appears to be quite a rare combination.

I like most story types: Rewrites of the original FF7 story(though twists, alt. view points are always good), prequels, sequels, side-plots, even OCs (after all it’s not healthy for a character to spend their entire life hanging out with the same 7 or 8 people!).

One thing I can’t stand though is when an author takes the characters from FF7 and puts them entirely out of context, into another dimension with new backgrounds, personalities etc but just keeps the original names. Y’know what I’m talking about, all the fictions which start off- ‘Meet Aeris, the captain of the cheerleading squad at Midgar High. Now meet Cloud, secret-agent/vampire/pop-idol star. Will romance blossom or will evil Principal Sephiroth expel them both?’ Nooo, no, no, no! Don’t the original storylines/characters give you enough to work with without you having to ramble so far away from canon?!

Anyway, yes, that’s my little rant.

Things that are inspiring me at the mo':

1. Period novels, especially Charlotte Bronte's 'Jane Eyre'- My current story 'Rebuilding' owes much to this novel in terms of character development and inspiration. A lot of the scenes and interactions between Rufus & Elena are inspired/stolen from the conversations between Mr. Rochester & Jane. I'd also recommend the recent BBC dramatisation, a little over the top at times but the chemistry between the two leads is amazing- I often watch clips on youtube when stuck with writer's block as a means of motivation.

2. Terry Pratchett's Discworld series: Okay a little lighter than Jane Austen I admit, but Pratchett is great fun and I both love and admire the intricate world he's created and populated in his books. Lord Vetinari is a personal all time favourite character; if I could ever write my Rufus to be as clever, cunning and cool as the Patrician I would be a happy bunny.