Well, I certainly can't answer for anybody else here, but when I FIRST began writing him, I had even less than Dirge to go off of - just FFVII. (And truthfully, Dirge doesn't add much - if anything - to his character anyway.)

I studied what brief lines he had in FFVII, what mannerisms he had - like tossing back his cape - how he spoke, his relationships, etc. Especially his relationships. He's most closely associated with Lucrecia and Hojo, and from there I focused on what Hojo and Lucrecia were like, and gave special attention to his infatuation with and/or love for Lucrecia.

As far as writing him goes, I tend to look at how he is at the end of the game and go from there. He's quiet, but not overly so - despite what some people might think based on his appearance and character design - and he actually has a sense of humor, though it's extremely dry and... well, it's dry.

One of the often-cited examples of his "humor" is the North Corel train scene where Cid and co. have to stop the train from smashing into North Corel. If Vincent's in your party (and that's always the key to understanding his character, because if he's not present, you won't hear what he has to say), the scene will play out like this:

The train exits the reactor.

Cid: "Looks like they're takin' off with the Huge Materia in that train!"

Vincent: "...go after them?"

...later...

The party gets to the front of the train.

Vincent: "Hit the brakes, chief."

Cid: "I KNOW, already!"

Unfortunately, this scene also provides many an author with an excuse to make Vincent and Cid butt-love each other. What can ya do?

Anyway.

I also noticed that he's cold... but again, not inhumanly so. By game's end, he begins to warm up to Cloud and friends. Cloud even mentions that he's a cold guy, and he responds, "Cool? Hm... I guess that's just how I am. Sorry."

Many people also seem to get caught up in the ideal of him being self-loathing and just downright emo. Again, watching (and playing... countless times...) through the "Lucrecia's cave" scenes, I got the impression that, initially, yes, he did sort of abhor himself. Blamed himself. All that stuff. And, to be honest, that still seems to linger some even through the end of the game and beyond (it certainly hasn't gone away in Dirge). However, it clearly seems like Vincent is a bit more personable by game's end than he was when you initially find him.

So once I established his basic character traits, I was able to do whatever I wanted. If a story is set 50 years after the game (like one of mine is), then I just consider what he goes through in those fifty years and how he's affected and changed.

Even if I'm writing an AU (which I am), I simply take his core personality and transfer it over and mold it to fit the world he's in.

...that all said, the only bit of advice I could give you that'd be legit would be for you to get someone to proofread (or "Beta-read," if you prefer) your writing of him. Give you some pointers based on what you actually have of him.

EDIT:

If you're one to take the Compilation into account (which is valid, in its ways), then Vincent's character actually does NOT seem to have changed much from when you first found him. He's still cold, he's still blunt, he's still boringly self-absorbed, but by the end of DoC, he seems... well, I can't say much because I've blocked out everything about that game. But it seems the creators have decided to keep him fixated on Lucrecia, and to that end, they've decided to inject her into a nine-year old girl.

So Vincent could very well be a pedophile. He won't be stuck on Lucrecia anymore per se, but the fact that a part of her is still alive and easy for him to cling to - part of her personality is stuck inside an equally cold and emotionless girl who's right at the cusp of puberty and rediscovering her emotions - coupled with the fact that he still clearly has feelings for her even by game's end (and it's unclear whether he's really let go of her and his feelings for her) makes it so the interplay between him and her (Shelke) could be very interesting. And disturbing.

But anway...

EDIT 2:

On the other hand, of course, it also seems as if he and Shelke form something more akin to a close not-so-family/not-so-friend relationship. They certainly know more about each other than anybody else does. I can easily see him as acting as a sort of "emotional guide" to her, as ironic as that sounds. And she, in return, acts as an "emotional guide" for him. Or perhaps simply as a close friend to him. They're certainly capable of letting their guard down more in front of each other than in the presence of anyone else.

I would really hope that Vincent and Shelke wouldn't have a romantic relationship- I always assumed that Vincent took on a sort of guardian role to her- doesn't she say at some point she wants to reclaim the lost years of her life? I thought that would be her childhood. They obviously understand each other but a romantic relationship would just be creepy. And, let's be honest, boring.

There were two great fics on here dealing with the Shelke/Vincent/Yuffie issue- 'Feathers of Faith' and 'Wings of Woe' by DaikanSnowdrop but I can't seem to find them anymore. :( Anyone know where they went?

I didn't really like DoC either. Even with the VincentxYuffie interaction the game just felt flat.

For a good picture of who and what Vincent was in game, I'd recommend using Vincent as a main party member in the first Wutai quest. Not only does he have the Vincent version of a gran mal conniption fit in the immediate aftermath of the theft ("Inexcusable."/"Seems as though all she was after was our materia."/"We can't just let her get away. She ran to the North..."/"We must go after her and retrieve our materia back."), he flat-out tells Corneo, "I don't care what you are doing, so much as the idiotic way that you are doing it" [emphasis mine].

This to the guy who wants to forcibly marry, if not immediately rape, two women--one of whom might have been a colleague, in another life, and the other of whom is or was a comrade.

I could go into a long ramble about what I think that means, but really, the best way to write Vincent is to get to know him on your own. We'll all come to different conclusions. Everybody writes a slightly different Vincent. DustTraveller writes an exasperated badass with a self-hatred complex, a ruthless streak, and some old-fashioned sensibilities. Rose Flame writes him as an externally controlled, very troubled man who either doesn't entirely understand himself, is face-down in the Denial Bucket, or both... while I tend to write him as a recovering profesional psychopath with a dry sense of humor he never shows and a guilt problem roughly as persistent as the Lifestream.

Those are all completely valid approaches, provided they're consistent within the story and make sense in context. Blowing a gasket should DoC!Yuffie make fun of the fact that Lucrecia wrote her doctoral thesis in poetry? Depending on how he flips his lid, spot on. Getting all witty and sarcastic about it? Less so, unless he has a pressing reason to be subtle about how displeased he is, and I bet he's going to be bringing it up at the first available opportunity.

(Kaj: I have to admit my favorite bit of Vincent humor is still, "Hmm...hwa ha ha ha...It's only a matter of time for us.")

When does Vincent say that? I must have missed it!

Also, if you have Vincent in your party during the pagoda sidequest and talk to him afterwards when Godo asks Cloud to take Yuffie with them, he says, 'alright, you can come,' to Yuffie. Sounds like grudging forgiveness, or at least acceptance to me!

Seriously, you didn't know he said that? It's one of his more famous quotes. For some reason, a lot of people think it's a really cool turn of phrase.

As I mentioned, he says it if he's in your party during the first Wutai sidequest. His little conniption occurs if you talk to him and keep talking to him in the immediate aftermath of Yuffie's theft and then he aims that particularly heinous little quote at Corneo once you get to the top of Da Chao (though the exact timing escapes me--I believe it's when you first get to the top, but I'd have to go grab my copy and replay to make sure).

Ah, no, the 'hwa ha ha ha' one. I've never heard him say that one. I've had Vincent in my party in Wutai before.

Thanks for the advice! I have played through the Wutai part, and you do get into his character more, but I wish he had more of a personality.

On another note, I have read a ton of Yuffentine, and no one seems totally sure if he has an arm under his gauntlet or if it's a prostetic. I know you put it as one in Sunshine in Winter, Nagia, but is there a site that would tell you if he does or not for sure? I don't want to write where he has an arm under there if he doesn't.

One of the best writers on this site, Mengde, wrote a story in which his arm was real and the gauntlet simply that - a gauntlet.

Some authors do that. (One of the reasons given is that the glove actually does look like a glove in any FMVs he's in.)

Others have written it as a prosthetic.

I choose to treat it as his arm. Not as a prosthetic limb, but as simply his arm. (There is a world of difference between the two.)

The point being that there's no official word on that, so you've got all the freedom in the world. You could say that it's actually his two pinkie toes tied together with part of his internal organs and reinforced with a bit of pixie illusion dust and no one would give you grief.

When I write Vincent, I make the gauntlet a protective device of his arm, as in, that the arm itself is too sensitive after all the experimentation to be left without protection (I sometimes tie this sensitivity to his transformations, but more often, it was just the arm taking most injections/was used for blood-work/compatability experiments with tissue/DNA and so on). So you can also have some weird mixture of both.

I sometimes find myself basing Vincent's sense of humour of Milgasia from Slayers. (Here's an example scene from Slayers NEXT: Heroine: *fights with anti-heroine inside a magical space where Milgasia is their guide.* Milgasia: Careful, if you step off the road you'll be lost for all eternity! Heroines: *Stops fighting.* Hehehe, just kidding! [Or something of that effect.] Milgasia: It's already too late. Heroines: NOOOOoooo!!!! *Doom, gloom and panic for a minute or so.* Milgasia: *Totally serious* Just kidding. Heroine: Work on your sense of humour!/That wasn't funny!)

Basically, people would believe Vincent because he doesn't sound like he's kidding most of the time, and I can kind of see how his sense of humour drives others batty, even if it only shows up a few times. It also seems like a kind of humour you would pick up with the Turks and Avalanche.

So, everyone, if you give Vincent a sense of humour, what kind do you usually give him? (Sarcasm, irony, bluntness and so on.)

Chigiri: I didn't write "Sunshine in Winter;" that was Guardian1. Also, as Kaj-Nrig said, there is no statement on whether or not it's a prosthetic or a gauntlet. Personally, how I write it varies depending on canon. Generally, if the fic is set in original game canon, I treat it as a prosthetic, and if it's in Compilation canon, I write it as a gauntlet. Sure it, looks more like a gaunlet in Compilation -- but Barret's gun arm grows a hand in Compilation canon, so you could make a case for it either way.

As for humor, the most common sense of humor I've seen in fic!Vincent is dry sarcasm. I have to admit, I kind of prefer him that way.

Well, Damn, I feel retarded now. I read it ages ago, on an old computer. Sorry for the stupid mistake. And I apologize to Guardian1.

Sheesh, this is what I get for staying up too late at night...

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