Jen, The Sarah Saga, And Where She Went

[Leafonthebreeze]

OMG @ this thread I've never read past the 2nd post with the article before tonight

Yeah I just read through that whole thing. What can I say, I'm a messy bitch who lives for drama. But ffvii house is old news. SummonerYuna you say? I hear so many vague allusions to what went on there and I would so love to hear the whole story. Someone who was there should write their own "warning to the ffvii fandom" page and start their own legend that people can constantly come back to after years

 

[looneymoon]

Her encyclopedia dramatica page is easily findable. Though, it's worth warning prior to reading - it was written anywhere between 2004-2007. It was uh... a different time

I mean as cringe as it is, it does offer a lens as to how the discourse around her was, back then.

 

[Fangu]

Currently sick and bored I fell down the rabbit hole (again) and wow. Why is this so fascinatinggg

 

[Leafonthebreeze]

...well that was an interesting trip back to the year I did my GCSEs

 

[Erotic Materia]

Mine is equally cringe but yeah it was the early 2000's and I had a lot more hair back then XD

You have an ED page?

 

[ForceStealer]

I think basically anyone of any renown on ACF did... lol

 

[GamerSkull]

I read the ED article on Summoner Yuna. Wow. Just wow.

So what’s the lore? ACF was the proto-TLS? Or is it that everyone just migrated here when that went under?

 

[Rydeen]

I'm honestly kinda curious who wrote the ACF stuff on there in general. I didn't bring it up since it kinda slandered people that are still on TLS and last I checked it has socials on it that are still active.

Hilariously, I was not mentioned there, though I believe my contemporary with whom I destroyed the Spam Games section was.

 

[Gym Leader Devil]

Sometimes I wish I'd been around in the ACF days, known the truly old timers that long. Then threads like this one remind me how glad I am I skipped that whole mess

 

[GamerSkull]

So then I’m right in assuming ACF was separate and people just migrated over here when it went under?

 

[Rydeen]

So then I’m right in assuming ACF was separate and people just migrated over here when it went under?

Yes. I do think there was an interlude through FFOF, though, which was a splinter community forum that had formed when ACF was still up. I was pretty done after the fiasco personally and only came to TLS in 2013, five years after the fallout.

Sometimes I wish I'd been around in the ACF days, known the truly old timers that long. Then threads like this one remind me how glad I am I skipped that whole mess

It was chaotic. Fun hell, as they say, at least for me. I think a lot of us remember it fondly partially because of nostalgia, but also because it was bustling and a lot of us found community within the community. However, there was a lot of fucking trolling. A lot of us avoided certain parts of the forum because of the 4Chan level of toxicity and bad faith. The debate section and the FFVII LTD were also heated. My best memories generally took place in the clubs and in the Crystal Inc team (there were four private forums, or "teams" within ACF, that all had different cultures), wherein the trolling was nonexistent or limited, so we could all be stupid cringy teenagers with parasocial relationships in peace. There were some people that took parasocial to the next level though, like the admin, SY. Overall, there were a lot of different people there and a lot of factions, and drama ensued. And in spite of it all, fun times were had. I remember one year when my father went MIA on Christmas, I spent the day and night on ACF shitposting with my Crystal Inc people, and it was lit.

 

[null]

I read the ED article on Summoner Yuna. Wow. Just wow.

So what’s the lore? ACF was the proto-TLS? Or is it that everyone just migrated here when that went under?

Yeah. One day ACF went dark and never came back. Not sure if it was drama-related (not the first time) or SY forgot to pay the bills. The Outer God that stood up this site was ACF staff iirc. There were other refugee sites, but I think this is the only one still going.

ACF was like... well, the main sections and clubs were actually like TLS. A bunch of hardcore fans discussing FFVII, many of whom ended up here. Other parts of the site were like SomethingAwful. You never went into the Spam section without flame-proof riot gear.

Then you had these mysterious "teams". They were like underground members-only clubs and they did... actually I don't know what they were doing. Some kind of competition I think? But once in a while they'd erupt like a prison riot and hold mass protests. Some voices would rise above the crowd and sound off like Patrick Henry. It was actually spectacular to behold.

A lot of people used ACF like social media, which hadn't quite taken off yet. So the fandom weirdos you normally see on Twitter/Tumblr/Reddit lived at forums like ACF. Others came for FFVII but stayed long after they stopped caring, and were discussing literally anything but FFVII. Combine that with teenage energy and e-relationships and you had a recipe for a metric ton powder keg of drama. The weird thing is the place had a billion moderators and that somehow made it worse.

 

[Gym Leader Devil]

I have three kids, my mental health has caught up. Also, fitting in on ACF... compliment? Insult? Bit o' both?

 

[Rydeen]

I have three kids, my mental health has caught up. Also, fitting in on ACF... compliment? Insult? Bit o' both?

I feel like fitting in on ACF as a whole was close to impossible, since the community was so fractured and divided. Since you come off as friendly and mild mannered, I think you would've been non-controversial.

I definitely had moments that pissed people off and was a shameless cringe factory, though I was also literally twelve.

 

[Gym Leader Devil]

Welllll... Once upon a time I used to salivate in anticipation whenever someone said something dumb so I could argue and shit post at them for hours with an evil grin spread across my face I'm just old now.

 

[Rydeen]

Welllll... Once upon a time I used to salivate in anticipation whenever someone said something dumb so I could argue and shit post at them for hours with an evil grin spread across my face I'm just old now.

OK yeah you might've been in Somewhat Obsessed or potentially Fated Children then. Depending on the potency of your former edgelordedness.

I was actually a member of most of the teams at different points there. Technically you could only be on one team at a time. At first I was in Fated Children, but some members there were friendly with SO people, so SO people started joining while maintaining membership with SO and it became a whole operation/controversy. I did not have the social intelligence to keep up with SO without being burned alive, so I left and joined Crystal Inc. That one was my favorite probably. Idk what happened there but somehow I then ended up in the Renegades of the Apocalypse which I felt somewhat apathetic to. Either CI started dying or it got infiltrated as well; can't remember.

 

[Rydeen]

SO were basically the wild cool kids and ROA was the student council/teachers pets. And the teachers themselves were.. something. Everyone else was just trying to get through it, enjoy their cliques, and ignore the raging dumpster fire.

 

[Rydeen]

SO did have the best boobs and ass on acf thread which had to count for something

I'd always wondered what went on in the SO forum

Also, just randomly got a mental flashback of Mage sharing workout tips with me 17 years ago lmao. Yet I can't remember when my sunglasses are on my head.

 

[Gym Leader Devil]

Mage is memorable, it is known.

 

[Cthulhu]

It is known

Can't believe I've been around this shit for 20 years now, although I have to say, the 4 or so years that ACF was around felt a lot longer than the X years TLS has been around.

Anyway, I was sort-of staff on ACF, I was a moderator for a bit when I was 18 (lol), left or was fired because of drama, rejoined later for tech stuff... I think. I don't even know anymore lol.

Anyway, the main issue with ACF was that the leadership was mostly disconnected from the members, to the point where the leadership hired staff that was completely outside of the existing memberbase because... I have no idea why.

I think that one day the owner just had enough of all the drama and closed the site, also because her special interest changed from FFVII / AC to Cloverfield (and before AC it was Oddworld). At the time some of us were also active on FFOF, one of many spinoffs that were mostly attempted copies of ACF (mind you, ACF itself was a copy of something else iirc); FFOF wasn't serious at all, just a load of shitposts, BUT we also had some of the more dedicated (to ACF) members, it was like an ACF refuge where we could shitpost about it in relative private.

After ACF went down, some more people came to FFOF. One guy (Hito IIRC) was like "But I still have these translations I was going to publish", so I was like, well setting up a new website isn't too hard, I can do tech stuff me! Ravynne came up with the website name and made the initial designs, I registered the domain and set up Wordpress; we did emphasize we didn't want forums until the site was well established, buuut after a few months that was the case, lol.

We went from cheap $5/month hosting to somewhat less cheap hosting to a dedicated server or two-three and we're currently on a Hetzner VPS. We went from Simple Machines Forums to vBulletin 3 to Xenforo for the forum software. Front page has always been Wordpress, although there were a few redesigns done over time.

Anyway. I'm not even that big a fan of FFVII .

 

[Gym Leader Devil]

It's like getting the story of how R'lyeh was conceived and built, only way nerdier on all counts. I love it

 

[GamerSkull]

I have to wonder how the people involved in Final Fantasy House feel nowadays. I believe this story is from before the Compilation.

 

[Ryushikaze]

Her encyclopedia dramatica page is easily findable. Though, it's worth warning prior to reading - it was written anywhere between 2004-2007. It was uh... a different time

I mean as cringe as it is, it does offer a lens as to how the discourse around her was, back then.

I always thought several of those pages were if not self published, at least self edited.

I think basically anyone of any renown on ACF did... lol

Not everyone, but there were a lot of 'em.

Sometimes I wish I'd been around in the ACF days, known the truly old timers that long. Then threads like this one remind me how glad I am I skipped that whole mess

When it was going well, it was amazing. When shit was going poorly and you didn't have to care it was amazing.

Yeah. One day ACF went dark and never came back. Not sure if it was drama-related (not the first time) or SY forgot to pay the bills. The Outer God that stood up this site was ACF staff iirc. There were other refugee sites, but I think this is the only one still going.

SY went nutso about Cloverfield to an even more unhealthy degree and stopped being in love with Sephiroth. Plug pulled.

ACF was like... well, the main sections and clubs were actually like TLS. A bunch of hardcore fans discussing FFVII, many of whom ended up here. Other parts of the site were like SomethingAwful. You never went into the Spam section without flame-proof riot gear.

Then you had these mysterious "teams". They were like underground members-only clubs and they did... actually I don't know what they were doing. Some kind of competition I think? But once in a while they'd erupt like a prison riot and hold mass protests. Some voices would rise above the crowd and sound off like Patrick Henry. It was actually spectacular to behold.

I still feel like the teams were essentially a practical joke setup that never got a payoff, unless the eruptions were the punchline.

I have three kids, my mental health has caught up. Also, fitting in on ACF... compliment? Insult? Bit o' both?

Both at once, really.

I'm guessing years of therapy have probably helped

None of the people in FF house who most needed therapy are the type of people who would ever work with a therapist.

 

[HylianMogget]

“Well, it’s important to always remember one’s roots,” I say to myself as I spend time reading through the ACF Encyclopedia Dramatica pages. Also I read what I could find of the academic article.

I was on ACF for pretty much its whole drama-filled existence, but I mostly kept to the gfx section in the later years. That section’s not mentioned on ED, probably because it was (iirc) drama-free (the SotT stuff happened very early on in ACF's lifespan); it was a fun place. Funnily enough, ACF’s gfx scene actually owed a lot to SotT ripping sigs from Shinra Online (another forum) and the resulting cross-pollination, I think.

ACF essentially morphed into a truly unhinged combination of FF forum, /b/-esque spam section, and private team forums. Being on it was kind of a formative experience and I think did/does provide some real insight into things like community dynamics, internet culture, and fandom and fantasy.

As for the FFVII house saga, I'm only familiar with the very basics (essentially it was an abusive mini-cult? And then Jen went on to be similarly abusive in the Hannibal fandom, and is still out there somewhere?), so whenever this thread gets bumped I have no idea what's going on but I kind of enjoy being bewildered so I tend to read it anyways.

 

[looneymoon]

I was merely a very underrage year old lurker pearing in on all you lolcows

I did sometimes post in the shipping/character clubs. A lot of the main ones (Devotion and Faith) are carry over names from ACF. This was back in the day before portmanteaus took over for shipping purposes.