localchocobomerc

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ULTIMATELY CLOUD IS A LONELY PERSON WHO FINDS PEOPLE TO LOVE, WHO LOVE HIM FOR REAL!!!!!

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-played ff7 in a dissociatey state, could tell it was Good in a distant way, barely affected

-recovered enough to feel things

-cant even listen to the soundtrack at work without literal gut wrenching!!! IT HURTS AND IT'S BEAUTIFUL

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I tried telling someone about this yesterday and they felt it was very bleak, but it doesn't feel that way to me:

I really like what final fantasy 7 has to say about failure! I read it as showing how much defining something as just a failure and assigning blame exclusively to the fail-er depends on removing it from the stream of causation and isolating it from context...

For instance:

1. Zack's failure to get him and Cloud to safety after escaping the Nibelheim lab. This is an easy one, because who looks at what he did and calls it a failure? It's obviously incredible that he made it that far AND was able to protect Cloud enough. But his goal was for both of them to make it, and he couldn't do it. I don't think he felt like he failed overall (thank goodness), but another person might have. Which, in context, and looking at the effects of the attempt, is ridiculous.

2. Cloud's failure to keep an independent sense of self after Zack died (after being tortured for years, after being impaled, after losing his mother, Tifa, and his hometown, all in succession). Maybe the not-that-rare attitude of blaming him for this is a fault of the OG script, which I think makes it sound like more of a reasoned choice than it is, whether through translation error or through Cloud being the only one to really talk about it after he realizes that's what happened (and blaming himself for it). Regardless, it is a failure, in the sense that Cloud definitely wouldn't want to forget Zack, never mind construct a false self from pieces of his memory, but he did. Looking at all the causes of this, and the effects (including both vulnerability to external control but also the ability to be present with Tifa when they met again, and to continue to function as the situation demanded), it just starts to feel too simplistic to view it as a failure only.

The story is full of people trying to protect each other and themselves and not being able to, or not being able to in the way or to the extent they wanted, like failing to:

- Keep the sector 7 plate from falling

- Keep the Black Materia from Sephiroth

- Save Dyne

- Save Aerith

- Save Zack

- Stop Sephiroth from calling Meteor

But if you look at each of those things in context, they both have many causes besides "I wasn't enough" and more effects than just "the loss I couldn't prevent." And in most if not all cases, making the attempt achieved other good things, like saving Marlene or giving Zack the chance to see that it wasn't all for nothing... Things that really matter a lot. Ultimately, saving the rest of the planet besides Midgar is another one of these... a good thing grown in the rubble of failure.

I just feel like, as someone well acquainted with failure, this game is saying it's worth trying and continuing to try after you fail, and that's not bleak to me at all.

[localchocobomerc]

commission art for @ totos_headset on twitter

fanfiction Parched Rivers Run by skadii on ao3

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Plug is a little possessed by an ancient alien but he's chill

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coming out of my cage and they’re shouting oh fuck it’s loose call for backup i repeat call for backup subject has breached containment area

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Dad bod Zack Fair save me......dad bod zack save me please

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*enters my own password* "i'm in"

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yay i love drawing yayyyy

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“average piece of media contains 5 positively depicted queer characters” factoid actually just statistical error. average piece of media actually has 0.5. Audio Dramas Georg, which is the gayest form of media alive & contains 300 queer characters per show, is a statistical outlier adn should not be counted.

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Was crisis core really supposed to be all about Zack and Cloud's relationship...... Are you telling me there's a world where we had that.................

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i could actually write a dissertation on how final fantasy vii and its sequels/prequels are the gayest pieces of media i’ve ever consumed. and the amount of people that absolutely refuse to acknowledge that cloud is gay and even get viscerally angry when it’s brought up makes me so angry. literally the entire events of the main game are catalyzed when cloud loses his bestie boyfriend. we play more than half of the game as a cloud who has cannibalized his boyfriends psyche because he loved him so much.

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kill 'character did nothing wrong'. nurture 'character did everything wrong and i was whooping and cheering the whole time'

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Reckless boy~

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Reach In, Reach Out

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All I want...is one thing. To keep the others safe. They mean so much to me. So, please...tell me how to do that. I'm begging you.

FINAL FANTASY VII: REBIRTH (2024) SQUARE ENIX

[localchocobomerc]

Sleepy cuddle pile