This is super exciting for me, because I’ve been drawing fan art about Final Fantasy games since the ’90s. I have perler bead art based on the sprites, I have a Buster Sword I built out of foam I dumpster-dived in the Lower East Side of NYC, I have cosplayed multiple characters, I have a tapestry with a classic “Chrono Trigger” scene that I made on my wall… and I have archival fandom stuff. Like we’re talking there’s an obscure fanfic from 1997 that’s basically Seinfeld humor plus Final Fantasy VII characters living on my external hard drive. It’s called “The Endowment” and it’s about Cid Highwind trying to figure out if Tifa’s breasts are real. I once won a Sephiroth figurine from a yaoi-themed story telling contest at a convention in 2007. I have a file from the ’90s where someone downloaded the entire script to “Final Fantasy V” (not even officially released in the west at the time) and then “MST’d” it.
One time, when I lived in NYC, I recreated the horned headdress that the Emperor wears in Final Fantasy II, and I ended up having to leave early because it was so wide and the room got so crowded that I couldn’t move through the venue in it.
I KNOW in-depth how weird and wonderful this fandom has been since the internet was new.
I’m also the kind of person who unironically says things like “if I ever get married, I’m walking down the aisle to ‘Interrupted by Fireworks’ by Nobuo Uematsu” (and, let’s face it… that statement is more like “I need to tell the whole world how much I love this music, this scene, and this entire vibe” than it is “I am interested in finding a partner and settling down.”).
I low-key wish I could tell 7th grade me that this was in my future! Like yup, keep being the weird kid and drawing fan art, this has a payoff…
Here’s one of my drawings from middle school:
My very first Final Fantasy cosplay (2004):
The “Victor Victoria” style cosplay that rocked every cosplay party in NYC:
Most video game content creation follows a specific formula– it’s things like Twitch streams and Youtube videos, mostly done by men in their early 20s. However, I can see why Square Enix would also want content from someone who’s older, queer, and femme. Although Square Enix is never explicit about this, Final Fantasy fandom actually tied in a lot with people in the ’90s and 2000s figuring themselves out. Maybe they were gay, bisexual, non-binary, transgender, or even somewhere on the asexual spectrum. Maybe they’re still figuring out exactly who they are decades later– or they might not even need a label or a category. “Final Fantasy” features a lot of characters who look like androgynous rock stars, and the stories are full of emotional intimacy between characters that went beyond conventional ideas around gender and romance (look at the story of Cloud and Zack, for example). It pushed boundaries in ways that media that was made in the west at the time didn’t.
“Final Fantasy” is also feminist in a subtle way, in the sense of women having their own lives and agency that isn’t always about the men around them. During a time period when most video games featured female characters mostly as eye candy for the male players, the “Final Fantasy” series already featured characters like Terra who have a deep inner life and an existential quest for meaning in a broken world (literally in her case– the entire planet gets re-arranged halfway through the game). The characters were designed to be beautiful and ethereal more than just “sexy”. They balance traditional femininity drawn in an Art Nouveau style with magical powers and the ability to summon ancient dieties. In a way, these characters were role models for me when I was 12 years old and figuring out who I was and who I wanted to be. They provided a completely different map of what it meant to be a woman than what society normally pushed– they showed a balance of traditional femininity and nurturing personality traits (many of them are healers) with autonomy and power.
Another outstanding thing about the RPGs that Square Enix produces is that they speak on a deep level to people who feel lost and overwhelmed emotionally. The combination of visuals, music, storytelling, and leisurely pace of the games creates a deep sense of escapism. The characters are usually sorting out questions of identity, memory, and the meaning of life while defending the world against an existential threat. Very often, the stories also revolve around people who are sort of loners finding a group that functions like a family of choice and finding a way to bond and trust other people again. Characters like Cloud Strife actually illustrated what the recovery process from CPTSD looks like decades before the term “CPTSD” entered the public consciousness and became a discussion online. And they balance that depth with action, surrealism, and even wacky humor. It’s been an influence on me since I was a kid for a reason!