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[ a b o u t m e ] My name is Katie. Hi. *wavewave* If you don’t care about me or how I came to be such an avid Vincent fan or the site’s history, move along. And don’t worry, you’re quite forgiven. I have mostly gone by Raven on the internet, although I have also been known as XLilRavenV (AOL FFVII Discussion forum screen name c.1998-99), LucreciaValntine (AOL screen name c.2000-present), ravendovev (livejournal), Sindelle Xaryne / Sindelle’s player (Dragon’s Gate, c.2002-05), Ravynne (WoW - Sargeras Horde c.2005-06), Jady/Jadyy (WoW - Demon Soul Alliance c.early-mid ’06 / Terenas Alliance c.Jan. 2007-Feb. 2008), Cinnanilla (WoW - Terenas Alliance c.Jan. 2007-Feb. 2008), and Akaiya Tenshiko (Vanguard: Saga of Heroes - c.summer-fall ’07). These days, I may appear as Raven or Ravynne in several FF7 or Vincent-related areas, such as Advent Children.net Forums, Dirge of Cerberus Forums, other people’s fansites, and on my artwork. On deviantART, I am ~RavynneNevyrmore. I am currently 23 years old and was born (December 5, 1984), raised, and live in Boston, MA (USA). Unfortunately, I have little to no personal knowledge of Japanese—Italian and Latin were my two languages in high school (which I graduated from in ’03)—although I’ve been considering learning it since manga and Vincent Valentine are my passions. I’ve attended a few semesters of college, but never finished my degree for graphic design. If/when I do go back to school, I hope to take up Japanese as well. =) I first played FF7 in 7th grade, 1997 or 1998, when I was about 12 or 13 years old, and as my first RPG I immediately fell in love with its story and its world, abandonning my former hobby of that time—online roleplaying. In 8th grade (late ’98) I wrote my first FF7 fanfic. It was terrible, badly written, and only for the amusement of myself, my best friend, and the FFVII Discussion forum which I frequented in AOL’s gaming section. It basically featured Aeris coming back to life, which everyone thought was a happy miracle, but she was actually possessed and reanimated by Sephiroth’s spirit. Actually, it almost sounds better than it was written. It was really horrible. But for each chapter I narrated in the first person from a different character’s point of view, and when I found myself stumped by Vincent I decided to delve deeply into his character and the awkwardness of his relationship with Lucrecia (who in my fic he had located again and persuaded to stay with him), and unexpectedly found myself utterly fascinated by him, the pair, and their tragic story. He has become my favorite fictional character of all time since. Hell, I like him better than most real people. The first time I played FF7, I never obtained Vincent as a character. A few months later (first half of ’99) I wrote my second fanfic, a 16 chapter “novel” titled Children of Jenova, which is still on this website despite how much I’ve outgrown it since. I never read it because it makes me cringe. If you’ve read it, and had a smiliar reaction, I’m sorry. It’s about Vincent and Lucrecia (who were both considered immortal in the fic due to the large amount of Jenova cells in them preserving their bodies) 500 years after FF7, and their teenage daughter, Celine. Don’t ask me why they had their only child like five centuries after getting together. (Or I should say their second child, since in the fic Vincent was the father of Sephiroth.) An unfortunate circumstance made it necessary for the family to move to Nibelheim, which sparked an interesting series of events. Well, “interesting” in a relative sense. Seriously, it’s your typical shitty 14-year-old girl fanfiction. I’ve tried writing other fanfiction and even original stories since, but was plagued with writer’s block for a good few years. Peasants rejoiced. Angels sang. I’m sure it was for the best. Eventually the FF7 discussions dwindled more and more, and I returned to AOL roleplaying for a few years in high school. The endless competition of who wrote the most elegantly and with the prettiest font became tiring and by college I had left AOL to roleplay in an old MUD instead, Dragon’s Gate. I continued to less actively tend Raven’s Haven, which I had started sometime in ’01 or ’02 to gush about Vincent and display all my crappy artwork. However, when my brother introduced me to World of Warcraft around Christmas ’04, everything else became all but dead to me for about a year and a half. I was heavily into the game, chilled out with my brother, and made some good friends until general leadership drama rattled the guild we were part of and I got stabbed in the back by some of the people I had considered friends. Naturally, I lost my affinity for the game, although not before having a good, non-raiding, pressureless time on a new server with some of the better friends I had made. WoW and I have had an on again, off again relationship, punctuated by trysts with other MMOs such as Vanguard - Saga of Heroes, but my interests in Vincent Valentine and expressing my stories through art is once again full time. I also moved to Atlanta with my boyfriend for a year or so, but we moved back to Boston in October ’07 and I’m currently [ a b o u t t h e w e b s i t e ] On October 13, 2006, in honor of his birthday, Vincent’s prominent webshrine on Raven’s Haven finally broke away from my main website and became + crimson shroud +. The project took about three weeks (every day) and was sparked by the release of Dirge of Cerberus and what I like to call “Vincent 2.0”—the new, redesigned Vincent Valentine that we see in Dirge of Cerberus and Advent Children. This new Vincent Valentine not only sports a voice, a new gun, and leather duds, but also more depth and detail than we were previously given with his 1997 version, which played a very minor, disposable role in the game that had previously featured his only, easily overlooked appearance. As such, new things have been revealed about Vincent. There is new information to be taken in, new symbolism to be interpreted. (New life-like FMVs and CG images to drool over. ^_^ ) There is a new Vincent Valentine—one who no longer exists predominantly in the minds of his fans on the internet. And the man deserved a new website. I hope you enjoy + crimson shroud +, and that you find it to be informative and thought-provoking. There’s nothing I love more than a good, well informed discussion or portrayal of Vincent Valentine (except, perhaps, this video), so if you find yourself with an itch to have some intelligent conversation about Vincent, Lucrecia, Hojo, or some related aspects of the Jenova Project characters (Gast, Sephiroth, Grimoire), feel free to drop me a line. =) |