#{ in which Hojo did adopt Aerith }

[sephirthoughts]

Vincent Got a Phone

Vincent got a phone and then Aerith adopted him as her friend, and all kinds of other shit started happening and he's very tired.

ships: valenwind, background sefikura, background aerti

rating: not explicit yet but soooooooo close

Chapter 5: Shut the fuck up, Sephiroth!

“Wait, wait! Everyone calm down! He’s not here to fight! I asked him to come!”

This elicited stunned silence from the group, in which the sound of Cerberus’ hammer clicking back rang out very clearly, followed by Vincent’s deep voice.

“Care to elaborate?”

“Of course I’m going to explain,” Cloud said, trying not to stare directly into the triple barrel, that was now trained on him. “Sephiroth and I have been…talking. He wants to turn over a new leaf. He doesn’t want to be our enemy, anymore.”

“What the hell do you mean, he doesn’t want to be our enemy!” Tifa demanded. “Like that’s something he gets to decide?!”

“I know things have been complicated between us and him, in the past. That’s why he has something he’d like to say to everyone. Go ahead, Seph.”

The angelic, silver haired, six-foot seven-inch tall, black leather clad man stepped forward. “I am very…” He glanced discreetly down at a slip of paper concealed in his gloved palm. “Sony.”

“No—sorry!” Cloud whispered, elbowing him in the side. “You’re sorry!”

“Sorry,” Sephiroth corrected.

Tifa stared at him. “You’re…sorry. After everything you’ve done, you’re just fucking sorry?! You killed my father! Cloud, he killed your mother!!”

“Tifa, please, just hear me out,” Cloud said, in a conciliatory tone. “I know better than anyone what he’s done. That’s why you’ve got to trust me. It’s complicated, and I know it’s hard to understand, right now, but it really wasn’t his fault. He’s just as much a victim in all this as we are.”

“Oh, he’s a victim, is he?” she retorted. “Then who the fuck is the culprit!”

“Shinra.” Everyone turned to look, in surprise, because it was the normally reticent Vincent, who had now spoken for a record-breaking third time, in a single conversation. “When Hojo did this to us—made us into monsters—Shinra not only allowed it, they condoned it. They knew he was committing atrocities, and they stood by and watched, just like they always do. Because they will do anything to grasp more power. No matter who they have to destroy, to do it.”

“Exactly,” Cloud nodded. “The rest of you haven’t been in that place. You can’t imagine what it’s like. And what they did to me, doesn’t even compare to the torture they put Vincent and Sephiroth through. That’s why…I’m going with him.”

“Going with him, where?” Aerith asked. “What do you mean?”  

“First, we’re going to make Hojo pay for what he’s done. He’s responsible for destroying countless lives. But at the end of the day, he’s still just a cog in the machine. After we deal with him, we’re going to take Shinra apart, piece by piece, till not a single brick is left standing. I know this is sudden, and probably seems totally out of the blue, so I don’t expect anyone to help us. But…if any of you want to come with us, I’d be grateful for it.”

Vincent lowered his arm and holstered Cerberus. “I am willing put aside past grievances and cooperate with you, for now. Shinra owes us a debt of blood. I will see it repaid.”

“Well, shit. If Vinnie’s in I’m in,” Cid sighed. “If you’re lookin to take down Shinra, y’all are gonna need a ride.”

“Thank you, guys,” Cloud said. “I knew I could count on you.”

Sephiroth dipped his chin, to Vincent. “Thank you, father.”

Vincent silently returned the salutation.

“Father??!!” exclaimed everyone else except Aerith, who said, “Ohhh. I totally see it.”

“Uh…Vinnie?” Cid asked, uneasily. “Why’s Sephiroth callin’ you father?”

“Because he’s my son,” Vincent replied flatly, still looking across the table at Sephiroth. “But I didn’t know he knew that.”

Yuffie made a face. “So you…with his mother?”

“No. They used my genetic material, without my knowledge. Sephiroth was told his parents were dead. He was raised in a lab, like a specimen. Systematically isolated and tortured, brainwashed into a living weapon, and set loose to commit war crimes, at the age of fourteen. When he learned the truth about his origins, he had a psychotic break, and under the influence of Jenova, defaulted to the only thing he’d ever known: violence.” Vincent turned his crimson eyes on Tifa, one flashing with a hint of gold. “Given that context, Ms. Lockhart, would it not be fair to say that perhaps, he is not entirely culpable for what he has done?”

Tifa lowered her head, biting her lip in anger and frustration, and Yuffie wrapped comforting arms around her.

“Look, I don’t expect anyone to process all of this, instantly,” Cloud spoke up. “I know it’ll take time to accept. But I asked you all here tonight, because I didn’t want to keep hiding this part of my life from the people I care most about.” He slipped his hand into Sephiroth’s and they interlaced their fingers. “I’m not asking for your blessing, but it’s important to me that you all know where I stand. Because Sephiroth and I are—uh. We’re…together.”

“Oh, ho ho!” Aerith chortled, whipping out her phone to type something on it.

“Ah-ha! That’s why I seen ya goin’ into that love hotel!” Cid asserted, swaying in his tipsy vehemence, but finding himself immediately steadied by a gauntleted hand on the small of his back. “You two musta been meetin’ up, on the sly!”

Cloud looked his way, unhappily. “You were spying on us, Cid?”

“Tch. Hell naw. I don’t have time for that shit. I was mindin’ my own business and I saw ya standin’ right there on the street, out fronta the place. Y’ain’t exactly easy to miss.”

“Tell me one thing,” Vincent said sternly (with his arm still around Cid’s waist). “That night at the Mega Karaoke. You didn’t fall into the door, at all, did you?”

Cloud laughed sheepishly. “Uh. About that. We thought that was our room. Seph was being kind of…playful and pushed me inside. When he saw you guys he poofed, so you didn’t see him.”

“Wow, you two were in such a hurry to get down, that you mixed up the rooms?” Aerith smirked.

“It’s not like it was our fault! That karaoke place should be prosecuted, what kind of assholes have a room 8B and a room B8? What is your numbering system, even?”

“Well, damn,” Yuffie remarked, raising her eyebrows. “Cloud really recruited a world-class supervillain for team good-guys, just like that. How good is that bussy?”

“How good is what?” Vincent asked, looking alarmed.

Aerith giggled gleefully and kept tapping her phone screen.

Tifa was still glaring at Sephiroth, who didn’t appear to notice, likely because his serpentine eyes hardly ever left Cloud.

Cid was rubbing his stubble, thoughtfully. “Does this mean Cloud’s gotta call Vinnie father-in-law now?”

“Never,” Cloud said.

“Please do not,” Vincent said at the exact same time.

“This is fucked!” Tifa shouted, giving everyone a second jolt. “You’re fucking mentally ill, Cloud! This guy is a mass-murderer!”

“Why are you acting so shocked about it?” Cloud asked, frowning. “You’re the one who said you already knew all about us.”

Tifa faltered, taken aback. “I what?”

“That day I ran into you and Yuffie, hiding behind the flower cart. Don’t you remember? You pretended it was a hypothetical, but you said your friend was dating someone who was bad for them and might get hurt. You told me you saw us together, and everything.”

“I wasn’t talking about you!” Tifa said, practically beside herself with exasperation. “I was talking about Aeri and Mr. Valentine!”

Aerith looked up from her phone, wide-eyed. “Eh? Who and who??”

“There’s no use pretending anymore, Aeri!” Yuffie said, pointing a righteous finger at her. “We saw you with Mr. Valentine at the Mega Karaoke.”

“Uh…huh,” Aerith replied drily. “Well, to be fair, you actually saw me with Cloud and Vincent.”

“I saw you and my father alone, together,” Sephiroth interjected. “You were embracing one another.”

“Shut the fuck up, Sephiroth! This doesn’t concern you!” Tifa fired back.

“Yeah, and stop calling Vincent your father, it’s weird,” Yuffie poked her head out to add, then ducked back behind Tifa.

Vincent, meanwhile, had withdrawn his arm from around Cid, and was standing there looking stricken. “You…you all thought that Aerith and I were…together? Cid? You too?”

Cid scratched his head. “Uh. Well, ain’t ya?”

“I confessed my feelings to you, three nights ago,” Vincent said, lowering his voice. “Do you believe I’d have done such a thing, if I were attached to another person? What kind of man do you think I am?”

Now it was Cid’s turn to look gobsmacked. “Y’did what, now?”

“I told you how I feel.”

“Well…yeah. About Ms. Aerith. Didn’t ya?”

“About you! You rejected me. You told me you’d support me but you needed time. You seemed upset and you left rather abruptly.”

“That’s cause I thought you were talkin’ about bein’ soul mates with that little girl!” Cid said, throwing his hands up in vexation. “No offense, Ms. Aerith.”

“Well, offense taken! A lot of offense taken!” Aerith returned, planting her hands on her hips. “You all thought Vincent and I had something romantic going on? And no one even bothered to ask us about it??” She turned her flashing green eyes on Tifa and Yuffie, who flinched visibly. “And I bet it’s all because you two troublemakers started meddling, and confused everyone.”

“In our defense, it was all Tifa’s idea,” Yuffie declared. “She bullied me and made me go along with her crazy scheme.”

Tifa looked theatrically offended. “What?! You shitty brat, I barely bullied you at all!”

“So, thanks to you two and your little witch hunt, Cid and Vincent think they’ve been rejected by each other,” Aerith continued. “And along the way, you managed to scare Cloud into coming clean about his actual secret affair, so now we all have to sit here, watching him be lovey-dovey with mommy-issues mcdoomsday, right in front of our salads! No offense, Sephiroth.”

“None taken,” the heretofore extremely volatile superhuman replied, causing everyone to turn and look at him in disbelief. He straightened up and crossed his arms on his impressive chest. “I thought it was funny. Also, a fairly accurate characterization.”

“Aeri, um…about the Mr. Valentine thing,” Tifa ventured. “We didn’t just pull that out of thin air. You two have been in each other’s rooms a lot, lately.”

“And going out together in public a lot, too,” Yuffie concurred.

“And, again, I did see you embracing in the karaoke room,” Sephiroth put in helpfully.

“Shut! Up!” several people said to him, in unison.

“Yes. I admit it. I was hugging my friend. Fucking sue me!” Aerith retorted, growing surprisingly heated, to the point where her eyes began to glisten and turn pink at the rims. “Girls who are just friends can hang all over each other, all day long, but people suddenly become such puritans, when it’s a man and woman! And just for your information, Ti-chan, you should be more concerned about me going into your room, than Vincent’s! Because I AM A LESBIAN!”

With that, Aerith kicked a chair out of her way and stormed off.

“I’ll…go talk to her,” Tifa said, and hurried after her friend.

“I think we, as a group, need to work on our communication,” Cait Sith said sagely, from the chair beside Cid’s.

“Gah!!” Cid yelped. “What the—where the hell’d you come from?!”

“I’ve been here the entire time,” the feline automaton said, sounding wounded. “The rest of you noticed me, didn’t you?”

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence, in which everyone (except Sephiroth) suddenly developed an engrossing interest in the carpet or the ceiling tiles. It was into this bewildering atmosphere that the waitress descended, like a suspenders and bow-tie clad angel of mercy, with her notebook and a jaunty smile. “So, how are we all feeling about entrees, this evening?”

Thus it happened that our motely assortment of weirdos (minus Aerith and Tifa) sat down to an awkward, but relatively congenial supper, with the man who’d been the primary antagonist in most of their lives, for the past several years, at least.

If they had any suspicions, however, regarding their erstwhile arch-enemy’s real motives, they were at least somewhat allayed by the disgustingly adoring way he focused on Cloud, as if the young man were his sun and moon, and he could see nothing else.

Cid and Vincent, meanwhile, mostly drank in silence (whiskey based cocktails and red wine, respectively), because whenever they did speak, they kept bumbling and being over-polite to one another, in their mutual discomfiture. Pretty much everyone was relieved when dinner was over. Except Sephiroth and the cat, who seemed entirely immune to embarrassment.

“So, Sephiroth,” Yuffie said, eyeing the monumental man cagily, as the party strolled out of the restaurant. “Are you still, like, batshit insane?”

“Yes,” Sephiroth replied. “But I am…working on that.”

“Are you planning on killing any of us?”

“No.”

“Bearing in mind that destroying the world counts as killing us.”

“I have given up global genocide,” Sephiroth said, glancing at Cloud. “My lover is rather attached to this world, as it turns out.”

“Welp, good enough for me. As long as I never have to hear you say the word lover again, welcome to the team,” she pronounced. “With you on our side, we can totally rail Rufus Shinra’s ass!”

“Seriously, work on your phrasing, Yuff,” Cloud groaned. “It’s getting ridiculous.”

“Huh? What did I say? Cloud! Get back here!!”

“So, uh. We probably oughta talk,” Cid said to Vincent, after they separated from the others.

“I suppose we should,” Vincent agreed, casting a sidelong glance at him. “Shall we go to the hotel garden?”

“Or we could, uh…we could go to my room,” Cid mumbled. “Y’know. Have a cup of coffee, or whatever.”

Vincent paused, scrutinizing him closely. “Are you still drunk?”

“Yeah, kinda,” Cid admitted, flushing pink, under his crimson gaze. “That’s the only reason I got the balls to be talkin’ to ya, right now.”

Vincent arched a black eyebrow. “I trust you are aware what asking a gentleman back to your room for coffee implies.”

“Tch. We’ve shared rooms about a hundred times, Vinnie. Am I supposed to be worried you’ll think I’m a slut?”

Vincent’s crimson eyes glowed a little more intensely, but he looked away quickly, to conceal it. “Coffee it is, then.”

They were already at the walkway intersection, between their two rooms, so Cid led the way, as casually as he could pretend to be—which was to say, not very. Vincent was always just his buddy Vinnie, to him. He fit in the Vinnie category and did Vinnie things, and that’s how it was.

Now that he was looking at his friend from a different perspective, he was suddenly, keenly aware of Vincent as a whole entity, outside their friendship. As it turned out, Vincent Valentine was an extremely intimidating man.

Before he became an actual monster, Vincent had already been a highly trained killing machine. Underlying his general aura of somnolent malaise, Cid was aware of the cold calculation and hyper-competence of the Turk.

Physically, he was a superior specimen. Tall and slender, but agile and astonishingly fast. Despite his ostensible indifference, and tendency to fall asleep standing up, Vincent’s whole being was suffused with quiet ferocity. Cid had seen the man snap out of his apparent ruminant state into decisive and deadly action, enough times to know that Vincent’s languor was a predator’s grace. Like a panther in repose.

And all of that was before one took into account the literal demon under his skin, looking out from that gold ring in his crimson eye, awaiting its moment to burst loose its bonds and drown the world in darkness (which idea Cid found a lot sexier than he probably should have).

His hands shook with nervousness as he unlocked the door, so much that he fumbled and almost dropped the key. But miraculously, he managed to recover, and they got into the room without him making any more excessively embarrassing blunders.

Cid’s room had a sort of steam-punk aesthetic, somewhat like the inside of an airship. It featured exposed brass pipes and other unnecessary but interesting embellishments, and the bedframe had been constructed from the actual fuselage of an old plane.

It had those awful, modern, overhead lights, too, but at the moment, it was lit only by the two lantern-style gas lamps on the wall, on either side of the headboard, so the illumination was warm and diffuse, and not troublesome to Vincent’s eyes.

Vincent took a seat on the distressed leather sofa, in front of the steamer trunk, that served as a coffee table, while Cid set about brewing a packet of hotel-provided coffee in the almost laughably small hotel-provided pot.

“So, uh. About the other night,” Cid began, after he’d placed their mugs on the steamer trunk, and sat down beside Vincent. “I said it already, but I’m sorry for actin’ like a jackass. I misunderstood about as bad as it’s possible to.”

“It was an understandable error, given that there were outside parties interfering,” Vincent replied charitably, blowing the steam off his mug.

Cid shook his head. “It’d be easy to say I had everything all wrong on account of them girls tellin’ me a whole lotta nonsense, but that’s a cop-out. There ain’t no changin’ the fact I made assumptions and didn’t ask ya myself. It’s my own fault. Also, I didn’t know you were…I mean. I never thought to ask, and you never told me. About the, uh. The umbrella.”

“No more umbrellas, please,” Vincent said, with a grimace. “Euphemizing and speaking obliquely is what caused all of this mess, in the first place.” He set his mug back down and looked Cid in the eye. “Cid…I like you. I like you in a romantic, non-platonic way. I’ve never felt this way about a man, and I have no idea how to label or define it. I only know that it is. And it is not a short-lived infatuation, or the impulse of a moment. I have felt this way for quite some time.”

“So…when ya said all that stuff about a person bein’ the missin’ part of ya, and how y’could spend every day with ‘em and never get tired of ‘em…”

“I was talking about you.”

Blood roared in Cid’s ears. He felt his heart pounding and his throat was suddenly dry. He’d thought what Vincent said had sounded a little dramatic and overwrought, the other night, but it struck the ear very differently, now he knew it was about himself. He yanked his goggles off his forehead and tossed them on the trunk-table, then pushed his hands back through his hair.

“You seem troubled by the idea,” Vincent said quietly, from where he’d receded into his cloak, concealing all of his face inside his high collar, except for his scarlet eyes.

Cid scratched his head. “I just…uh. Hoo, boy. I can’t help thinkin’ there’s still some kinda mixup. Y’sure ya like me? Like, wouldn’t you be happier with some fella your own age?”

“Ah. You did mention the age difference as an obstacle, before.”

“I ain’t sayin’ a obstacle per se,” Cid attempted. “I’m just thinkin’ about a few years from now, when you’re a little older. Y’might change your mind about what ya want, and start havin’ regrets.”

Vincent’s black brows knit in confusion. “When I’m older?”

“Well, cause like, I’m in my late thirties. That’s the settlin’ down with a long-term partner phase of life, y’know? You’ll understand once you get to be my age.”

“Cid. I’m fifty-seven.”

“Right, like I was sayin’, when you—” Cid blinked. “Ah…ha ha. I think I’m goin’ deaf, you said twenty-seven, right?”

“I said fifty-seven.”

“What the high-flyin’ fuck you mean fifty-seven?!” Cid sputtered, gesturing wildly with his coffee and nearly splashing it all over himself.

“I mean I’m fifty-seven years old.” Vincent tilted his head questioningly. “You do understand that Sephiroth is in his thirties, correct? And that he is my biological son?”

“Listen, I’m gonna be honest…I figured they grew him up super fast in one of those pods, like in the movies.”

“No, he grew up at the usual speed. Which does mean that I have a son who is nearly your age. The idea of age differences seems to bother you, quite a bit.”

“Oh, that?” Cid waved his hand dismissively. “Nah, I was talkin’ about kids in their twenties, all fresh-faced and dumb as shit, just startin’ out in the world. Who gives a fuck about a couple decades, between old-ass men like us?”

Vincent very nearly smiled. “You only call yourself old because you enjoy thinking of yourself that way. Whereas, I am quite literally an old man.”

“Come on, Vinnie,” Cid chuckled. “Ya can’t say you’re an old man, with that face, and expect me to take ya seriously.”

“Then…you like my face?” Vincent asked pointedly.

“Tch. You kiddin’ me? You’re so fuckin’ gorgeous I can’t believe you’re real, sometimes,” Cid said staunchly, then realized he’d revealed more than he intended, and became shy (and suddenly understood the appeal of having a cloak to hide in).

Vincent scooted closer, his leather armor squeaking against the leather on the couch. Eyes like scarlet embers glowed in the dim light of the gas lamps, regarding Cid with bloodthirsty intent.

Cid rubbed his hands together and chuckled nervously. “You’re…ha ha. You’re lookin’ at me like a hungry wolf, Vinnie.”

“Cid,” Vincent’s deep voice said softly. “I’m going to kiss you.”

Cid swallowed hard. “O—ok.”

He felt the cold claws of a metal gauntlet, as Vincent’s fingertips rested lightly on his cheek, turning his head. Vincent leaned in closer. So close his black hair brushed against Cid’s forehead. He paused. There was a bit of muffled jingling, as he awkwardly unbuckled his high collar. Then lips softer than any woman’s could’ve ever been were pressed against Cid’s.

Whatever he’d thought it would be like, to be kissed by a man—and his best friend, at that—all his preconceived notions were blown right out the window, when those lips pushed his apart, and Vincent’s tongue slid forward to caress his.

Sage-smoke and leather, and a hint of old books. That’s what he smelled like. He tasted like whatever heaven’s made out of. His tongue was domineering and devastatingly skilled, licking and thrusting and rolling over Cid’s, till he was clinging helplessly to Vincent and gasping for breath, between intense barrages.

He felt more like a chaste woman being ravished by a pirate captain in a romance novel, than he’d have liked to admit, but it felt so fucking good. How come no one ever told him how amazing it was to be on the receiving end of a man’s unrestrained desire?

It occurred to him then, that he could touch Vincent, too. Not that he hadn’t wanted to, it was just that, to lay entirely unworthy mortal hands on this divinity seemed almost blasphemous, so he hadn’t yet worked up the courage.

Steeling himself, he slipped a hand around Vincent’s narrow waist and kneaded the small of his back. To his utter astonishment, Vincent threw a knee over and straddled him, settling his weight on his lap, decisively closing any remaining space between their bodies.

Emboldened by this spectacular result, Cid worked his fingers into Vincent’s heavy, silky hair and tugged gently. Vincent moaned into the kiss and let his head move easily, at Cid’s direction.

Cid’s brain short-circuited, unable to process a reality in which Vincent might like to have his hair pulled. He tried again, a little harder, and was rewarded a breathy gasp, along with feeling that lithe body shudder against his.

The tables turned, then, and Cid was the aggressor, holding Vincent by his hair, invading his mouth, licking and sucking his perfect, pale lips, kissing him like the world was ending.

At long last, Vincent broke the kiss, leaving Cid overheated and dizzy—and so hard he could barely think. A clear thread of saliva stretched out between their lips and snapped, as they drew back, just enough to look at one another.

Vincent’s long, almond-shaped eyes were hazy and heavy-lidded, and his crimson irises were glowing, nearly all gold. His parted lips were wet and swollen, and very slightly flushed. The tip of his tongue traced over his elongated fangs.

“Ha…holy fuck, you’re beautiful,” Cid panted, sliding his hands up onto Vincent’s hips. “The hell you doin’ fuckin’ around with a scruffy bastard like me?”

“Beautiful,” Vincent murmured. Then he stiffened, staring into the middle-distance. The golden embers in his eyes dimmed and darkened. Seeming disoriented, he pushed himself up from Cid’s lap and stumbled back a step, nearly tripping over the steamer trunk, and upsetting a mug of coffee, in the process.

“Vinnie? What’s wrong?” Cid asked, confused and alarmed by this abrupt reversal.

“I—I can’t,” he said hoarsely. His eyes darted around manically, but didn’t seem to focus on anything. “It’s not your fault. I thought I could, but…I just can’t. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Wait, wait, Vinnie hang on,” Cid said hastily, jumping up to stop him. “Don’t run off, let’s talk—”

It was too late. Vincent had already dispersed into a whirl of crimson and vanished.

“—about it.” Cid gave a heavy sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose. “God…fuckin’ damn it.”

THE AUTHOR HAS SOMETHING TO SAY cat cameo!

one more chapter to go!!!!!!!!! will our intrepid heroes resolve their problems and go to pound town???? (yes they will)

link to prev. chapter

[icharchivist]

Well, that post was a rollercoaster

I didn't know Aerith's mom wasn't her real mom, I was wondering about that

And wait, Hojo did WHAT

I mean, what didn't he do, but also. What

Delighted to show you pain </3

i didn't post the screenshots of her backstory so it's true it might not have been clear but, yeah!

Aerith's real mom was named Ifalna, she was the last of the pure blood Ancient (also called Cetra), and as such she was experimented on and stuff. But one of the scientific that was supposed to connect with her developped a romance with her, and they had a child together, and Professor Gast (said guy) eventually had them moved in another lab away from Shinra in order to have them into more humane conditions, away from Shinra. But obviously it didn't last and when Gast was killed Ifalna ran away with Aerith, but was heavily wounded in the process.

She managed to drag herself and Aerith to the Sector 5's slums' train station, but Ifalna was dying.

The same day, Elmyra, a kind woman who lived in sector 5, had heard that her husband, that had been deployed for the war, was supposed to come back. So she came to the station everyday, growing desperate when he didn't return with others armymen, and feeling more and more lonely as it's been years since she last saw her husband.

But he never came back, and instead one day it meant she found Ifalna and Aerith. She approached them to try to help and Ifalna just begged her to take care of Aerith, so that no one would hurt her, before dying.

Elmyra was confused on what to do and this child had just lost her mother and was crying, and she says she was /so lonely/ that she didn't see any other alternative to the situation than taking Aerith with her and adopt her like her child.

And so Elmyra and Aerith had each other, and grew like real family anyway. Aerith being part Cetra, had a specific connection to the Lifestream, the river of life in which souls return, the blood of the Earth, and she was able to tell Elmyra that her husband died, but passed her last words to Elmyra.

it's only weeks later that Elmyra leant the death of her husband and knew Aerith was telling the truth, and realized what exactly she was supposed to protect Aerith from, and so she dedicated her life in taking care of Aerith, who is the only family she has.

Meanwhile Shinra couldn't kidnap Aerith straight up, they needed her consent to be able to access her power, and it's why the Turks have regularly visited Aerith to keep an eye on her, without straight up taking her, until she made a deal with them in order to protect Marlene and now she's prisoner of Shinra.

so, yeah Elmyra was Aerith's adopted mother who took good care of her all along.

But yeah, Hojo is the Head Scientist of Shinra, responsible also for making Sephiroth who he is, he had his hands deep into the research about the Ancients, so he was also eyeing Aerith to experiment on her all along, to bring her back to the labs he considered she belonged in.

And the brand new infos from the Remake is that he made sure to recover Ifalna's body to keep his experimentation going -- which 100% tracks with how Hojo has done his experiments all along.

but it's so fucking disgusting </3

[im-totally-not-an-alien]

Final Fantasy 7 prompts #70

1. Time traveler au where everyone remembers, and I mean everyone!

Hojo? Incredibly curious about this new phenomenon and is hunting Cloud like a Zolom slithering up to a Chocobo

Sephiroth: Also hunting Cloud, although for entirely different reasons

Genesis full on tackle-hugged Angeal to the ground and not even a half hour later the scene repeats with the puppy

Random people on the streets scream and cry in delight at seeing thier loved ones for the first time since The Plate/Meteorfall/Geostigma took them from the world of the living.

Its a mess.

2. Cloud was never a selfish man. At least, he never considered himself to be. But standing here, aiming a gun at a sleeping man's head, he couldn't help to feel like he was.

3. Cloud sniffled, staring at his campfire as the wind blows at it. Its as if the wind god himself is trying to snuff out the only comfort he had left. He didn't mean to betray the group, he swears.

Not that it meant much.

(Au where Cloud never got mako poisoned after giving Sephiroth the black materia and swam away from Tifa, losing her in the lifestream)

4. After going through yet another tragic event, his mind shuts down. He fell into a coma (again) this time within the lifestream

Now its up to Zack and Aerith to save him from himself by entering Clouds dreamworld and spending time with him in hopes of convincing him to leave. They didn't count on Cloud not remembering what happened in the real world, nor for Cloud to have been given everything he had ever wanted.

Zack struggles with the morality of taking Cloud from a happy dream world and dumping him back into a bleak reality

5. Yuffie dumped a bucket of water onto Cloud, prompting the blond to grab a bucket of his own and chase the ninja through the jungles of Wutai.

Playtime was cut short however, when Yuffie fell into a hole in the ground. It was covered by large ferns and plant life, completely obscuring it from view. Still, she was a ninja! She should have seen this coming.

Cloud also feels a bit foolish for also falling in while looking for her.

They wake up and climb out of the hole, and head back to Godo, expecting nothing to have changed, only to find they-

A. Had been missing for 20 years

B. Are in an alternate reality

C. Have time traveled to the past

(Take your pick)

Cloud has no time to feel down, not with his precious annoying baby sister around. Someone has to keep the princess safe, and thats not easy when she's her own worst enemy.

(I intended this to be a fun sibling fic)

6. Before Crisis Shinra gets reports of a silver haired woman with reddish purple eyes dragging an unconscious blond man around like a stuffed animal.

Aka Jenova herself has come out to play

7. Sephiroth comes out of the labs much more woozy than normal. He doesn't think much of it at first, and by the time he realized he was in trouble, it was too late.

Genesis came into the Generals office to complain to the silverette about Shinra, only to find Sephiroth spacing out and acting rather...odd.

"Sephiroth," the redhead asked gently, "Are you...high?"

Sephiroth blinked slowly at him, and the commander couldn't help but to feel it was a greeting of some sort.

The silverette smiled before saying. "I am higher than you, yes."

"Thats not what i- Wait. Did you just make a joke?!"

Or

A certain blond trooper walks in holding paperwork for the general, who proceeds to pick up the smaller man and coo at him.

This somehow culminates into Sephiroth saying, "I know. I should adopt you!" Before spinning the young man around in the air like one wood a toddler.

Clouds confused shout was audible a whole two floors down, catching the attention of the honorable commander and his puppy, who went to investigate.

(Inspired by a dream I had of Sephiroth holding a struggling Cadet Cloud and saying "This is my son now." To Angeal)

8. Genesis munching on popcorn while watching Cloud beat up Sephiroth for the umpteenth time.

He even has the audacity to cheer for the blond

9. General Sephiroth encounters a child who is dressed up like him when out on a walk.

He talks to the child and leaves the situation feeling much better about himself.

(I need some wholesome Sephiroth fics)

10. Kadaj as a cat loaf

11. Sephiroth and Cloud have a shared dream about them being happily married and Cloud being pregnant.

The moment Cloud wakes up he barricades the doors and windows.

Sephiroth...well he doesn't know what to think about this situation. He's kinda just staring off in a daze.

He attributes it to trauma and neither ever bring it up.

12. Time traveler Cloud, but with all of Jenova-fied Sephiroths abilities. The problem is that Cloud has seemingly little control of these abilities, leading to Cloud being very tired and the writer being very amused.

13. Sephiroth rescues a blond fae from the rubble he was pinned under.

This was how he gained his silent stalker. The man never spoke. But his calming smile said enough.

14. When Lazard discovered there was two red clad men, who spoke in loveless quotes, he had to fight the urge to bang his head onto his desk and groan like a teenager. When he found out there were three of the man, he actually did just that.

Finding out there was only one Angeal was a bit concerning, especially since these other two worlds were supposed to be further along in the timeline. Thankfully, Zack hasn't seemed to change much in either. Then again, the one carrying the mako poisoned blond seemed wary of everything. Strange.

Strangest of all were the Sephiroths. One refused to come to this meeting, stating that it wouldn't be worth his time, which shocked the entire board of directors. Nothing they did or said seemed to faze the once dutifully obedient man. Luckily, Shinra still had thier own Sephiroth on thier side to protect itself if necessary...and the people too if they were lucky.

The third Sephiroth only commented something about searching for clouds or some such nonsense.

Lazard couldn't help but to feel disaster looming on the horizon.

15. "I'm pretty sure they would trade everyone here for a single corn chip if I got hungry." The blond deadpanned. "They're heartless."

Yes, food good. The voice interjected. Nutrition. Survival.

Cloud wanted to tell it that he didn't even like corn chips, but talking back to the voices in your head is usually considered to be a bad idea. Even if they're real.

Especially if they're real.

Aka the J and S cells mutate and begin communicating with thier host.

Cloud is not pleased.

Bonus: Sephiroth and Cloud reacting to your fanfiction.

[cloudywolfgearhead]

This is going to be long, because I am...a rambly motherfucker, apparently. And words get away from me. Sorry in advance.

The trio were Sephiroth clone...remnant....things. Supposedly. From what they said. They were looking for their 'Mother,' Jenova. They have been causing problems for months at least, showing up to wreck shit, steal shit, or kidnap people, then vanishing back through the Lifestream to do.......whatever the fuck it is they do when they're alone. I don't know. Their intent was to bring their 'Mother' to the Lifestream, so that she could reunite with their 'Father.' Which is where Sephiroth started getting really goddamn weird. He took this shit personally. Extremely. Straight up mauled one of them to death while the other one there bolted, I assume to search for whatever remains of Jenova were around. The third was holding Rufus hostage nearby to keep the Turks busy I assume, which was shitty of him because the dude was in a fucking wheelchair, goddamn. While their summon, some kind of Bahamut I haven't seen before, throws a fucking tantrum in the city, mind you. All the shit we spent so long building is getting the fucking Godzilla treatment. So the rest of us are working on dealing with the summon. Sephiroth is going to track down the wild bastard who bolted after he destroyed the short haired one. Reno and Rude are trying to get to Rufus, because holy shit, how long can he stand up there before he just. Falls. And we know the fucker holding him up there won't keep him from going ass over tea kettle off the edge, as Aerith put it. I spotted Denzel in the middle of all this shit going on. Unarmed, looking like he just snapped out of a trance because Tifa just got injured, I assume to protect him because of how close she was. I'm a bad fucking influence, apparently, because my boy spotted Tifa on the pavement and decided he was going to punch the shit out of this goddamn summon. I wish I was joking because I am 90% sure I felt my heart stop for a full thirty seconds that felt like hours because this fucking kid...MY fucking kid. Zack managed to get between him and the summon to keep him from actually getting in harm's way, thankfully, and we eventually kill the fucker, right? So things are better? No. While we were fucking distracted and I had a heart attack because my adopted kid wanted to throw hands with a summon that is as big as the Weapons were, Rufus apparently reveals he had the Jenova part the bastard trio were looking for. And he throws the thing. Off the building. Which doesn't even faze the one he's with, dude just leaps after it and Rufus finally falls off the fucking roof because he was weak as shit from Geostigma and I'm pretty sure he figured he was going to die up there anyways, he gets his ass saved by the two Turks who weren't trying to climb the goddamn building to get him instead of like...getting the helicopter or whatever. I don't really know what the hell those two were thinking, but. Y'know. They're them. Realize around this time we've lost track of TWO of the bastard trio. mid-cut and long hair bastards are straight up gone. Short hair is literally dead, no worries about him. Sephiroth took off after the long haired one, so we assume he's good there, get his ass, whatever. But where's the other one. Midpoint-bastard took off for fucking Midgar. Stole Zack's motorcycle, actually. I'm not particularly thinking very much about things like 'go as a group' and 'strength in numbers' and whatever, because I am kind of pissed off, so I just...hop on Fenrir and follow his ass. Turns out the long haired bastard went for his own motorcycle, and he spends a good long while keeping me from getting at his stupid brother before some dorks in a helicopter decide to give me a hand. I am...pretty sure that pissed him off, because after I managed to get back on the middle brother's trail, I am pretty sure he fucked up their helicopter. I'm sure they survived because they're fucking Reno and Rude, there is absolutely no way they would die there after all the shit we've all been through, and when I see them again I'm going to be torn on whether to thank them or kick their asses. Took literally thirty seconds

for us to get to re-meet Father after that, because the fucker decided to basically sacrifice himself immediately after I caught up after absorbing whatever the fuck part of Jenova was in the thing Rufus chucked. So, recap...Zack's worn down because he dealt with a LOT from the shitty bastard summon, the others are exhausted because we've been running around for two full goddamn days, and I'm basically the only one close to this shit happening and am full on prepared to square up on my own, because like hell am I going to just let Hojo show the fuck back up and destroy shit. I don't know how many minutes it was that I had to deal with fighting him pretty near solo before Sephiroth just fucking shows up out of nowhere and basically quarters him in five seconds. I didn't see him get there, but he just...poof, there, fuck you. He is absolutely goddamn livid. I have seen that expression on him once before, and it was right about the time I got stabbed in the gut and then knocked his ass into the bottom of a reactor. So, naturally, I am...concerned. Try to get him to calm down a little. Doesn't work, because apparently Hojo did not die. It takes another several minutes of the both of us straight up mauling his ass, Sephiroth getting shot by the long haired fucker, and me basically deciding I am going to just end this shit with overkill so he maybe will fucking stay dead for once, then we can deal with the long haired one. Finally kill Hojo's ass. Vaporizes into nothing while complaining loudly about how it's not possible. Long haired bastard keeps shooting while Sephiroth turns attention to him fully, gets in closer to try and strike back. And he fucking... Have you ever wondered what happens if you use like, thirty types of materia at once? Because I have seen what happens now. The answer is 'it explodes.' In a big way. So...I'm barely standing. Sephiroth is fucked up, and is NOT standing. Long haired bastard is dead. Short haired bastard is dead. Midpoint bastard is barely clinging to life after the spectre of Hojo leaves him. Starts talking about betraying Father, how could you, so on and so forth. Well...Sephiroth doesn't really respond beyond glaring because I'm pretty sure he's gonna need some heavy healing after this shit and moving probably hurts like a bitch and he's not...used to that. And it starts to rain. Not, like...normal rain. Apparently somebody told Aerith what...was going on. Who they were bringing back, what Geostigma was caused by, who knows what they said to make it click for her, but. She summoned it. Healing rain powered by the lifestream. Was worried for a minute that it'd heal midpoint bastard, but he just sort of...gave up. Gave Sephiroth a ride off of the plate, since he kind of would've had to walk. Was uncomfortable, but he seemed to appreciate it. Regrouping with the others at the church Aerith spent time at a lot, since we all...know where that is.

[secret-engima]

Hibari Kyoya reborn into the FF7 universe??? Who is he reborn as??? Cloud??? Sephiroth??? Zack??? AERITH????

*stares off into the distance*

*stares even more*

*cackles evilly*

Genesis.

No, come back, sit down, lemme explain (oh no a new ramble). My first impulse is Sephiroth, but if that happened the world would burn in fire and law of the wild allegories and no one would be able to stop it because Cloud probably wouldn’t even be BORN yet or something. Gene-bari grows up as an eccentric child of loving, rich parents, and promptly decides that his home town of Banora needs more discipline and set off on a one-bby rampage to take over his town. Which he succeeds at, because Science Experiment With Hibari’s Soul.

Meets Angeal, a young boy already filled with dreams and morals and ethics and honor and generally all the things Hibari has no time for and decides that Angeal would make a GREAT replacement for Kusakabe.

Angeal is just pleased to make a friend that will spar with him (even teaches him things, because he quickly realizes Gen is a GENIUS and knows way more than he lets on to the adults).

Banora quickly learns to fear Genesis and praise Angeal because Angeal is literally Genesis’s only non-violent braincell here, and Genebari is fond of the omnivore and so can actually be talked out of a lot of things by Angeal (Fluffy Carnivore has rubbed off on him, much to his annoyance, and now he WANTS a ... what’s the herbivore word for it ... FRIEND at his side and will do anything to keep Angeal there).

It’s a really good thing Angeal has ironclad morals from like- age 4 because otherwise the world would Burn.

Hears about Sephiroth, the darling war hero and weapon at age way-too-young-Hojo-you-hack and of COURSE wants to meet and fight another potential predator. Angeal takes this to mean Gen wants to join Shinra. Gen bares his teeth at the thought of taking orders from anything, but if it means more fights ... and Shinra is already powerful, once he gets in, it wouldn’t be too hard to work to the top and be able to TRULY reinstate the disciplinary committee of his previous life....

Very well. He will deign to join Shinra. From there he will take it over (Angeal just laughs at Gen’s declaration, because Angeal is a boy and hasn’t QUITE figured out yet that Genebari can do quite literally whatever he intends to do.

Somewhere along the way between that event and joining, Angeal tentatively suggests that Genesis learn to use terms other than nature ones when talking to other people. Angeal understands him but some people might get confused and a commander is always clear, right?

Genesis, not wanting to learn but seeing the logic, randomly picks up a book to read because reading words is more tolerable than listening to blithering herbivores. The book he picks up turns out to be an epic poem called Loveless.

Years later Angeal will quietly tell Sephiroth that the frequent poetry quotes is Genesis ... attempting to speak somewhat normally. When Seph gives Angeal a look that is befitting that statement, Angeal shrugs and just says that Gen has always been a ... off the wall thinker.

They leave and join Shinra the day after their birthday that makes them the eligible age and all of Shinra’s lower ranks quickly learn the new order of life. Namely that Genesis is Terrifying and can and will fight anything and WIN (after terrifying all his classmates, the Soldier 2nd drill instructor decided to try sparring with the brat to humble him, the Soldier 2nd ended up getting both arms and his nose broken before Angeal could drag Genesis off. This gets Attention.)

Genesis nearly murders the entire science division over the mako treatment thing, but Angeal talks him into it. Genesis, who’s soul still has Cloud Flames, enhances his immune system during every injection to the point that would normally make his immune system eat his body from the inside out, but instead just steamrolls right over the Jenova parts of the formula and subsumes the mako to make his Cloud Flames EVEN STRONGER.

Live in terror Shinra, this monster is thine own making.

Of course, with Genesis leading the way, winning people over through terror and awe left and right and Angeal gaining a horde of devotees through his ability to keep Genesis from murdering them all, the two rocket up to first class in a timeframe that almost rival Sephiroth’s. Sephiroth is, obviously, curious.

He challenges Genesis to a fight.

It is only AFTER he finds himself wheezing on the floor of the utterly demolished training room, bruised and cut all over and with one arm that is Very Definitely Broken does he understand why Angeal solemnly, seriously said he would ensure Seph got a proper funeral.

To be fair, Genebari is only slightly better off, because what Seph lacks in experience he makes up for in talent and stubbornness.

Yes, Genesis decides as he grins past his bleeding nose, split lip, and multiple lacerations, THIS new minion will do VERY nicely.

To sum up a VERY long story short, Genesis ends up climbing the ranks and then cheerfully manipulating, murdering, and charisma-ing his way to the president’s position of all Shinra by age 23. Casually plops Vice President Shinra into the ruling chair on the unspoken (threatened) agreement that Rufus can have the money and glory and run all the usual stuff, but only on Genesis’s guidelines. Genesis would take the chair but that would mean no more fighting and well ... HIBARI. Kusakabe did all the paperwork for a reason in the last life.

Also Cloud ends up being Genesis “secretary”. Angeal, Seph, and Angeal’s new puppy Zack all know that Cloud is really Gen’s apprentice/pet and thus the Smolest, deadliest thing on Gaia to ever breathe, Tonberry included.

Genesis gleefully murders Hojo and Hollander and puts a moral scientist in charge, adopts all of Deepground as his “pups”, and saves the world when he signs off on giving Reeve complete control of HOW Shinra electric gets its power and Reeve promptly starts a slow but stable transition away from Mako energy and to alternate sources.

Also Genesis tracks down Jenova’s corpse personally after finding Hojo’s references, sets it thoroughly and totally on fire (Cloud Flame enhanced materia, so no surviving that) then backtracks to the Mansion to investigate and finds Vincent.

Genesis takes one (1) look at what is CLEARLY an immortal vampire and lunges, because he’s always wanted to fight one for reals and this is his chance.

Vincent, after nearly being murdered by Genebari, somehow ends up following this madman home where he finds Lucrecia’s son happy, stable, and in charge of his beloved SOLDIERs (Lazard is now vice president) and his old friend Veld still running the Turks, this time with actual failsafes in place to prevent corruption in Shinra. Vincent ends up getting smacked repeatedly over the head by Veld (who’s family never died btw) and dragged off to become co-head of the Turks because DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH PAPERWORK YOU LEFT ME TO DO. DO YOU???

Aka that time Hibari got reincarnated and proceeded to save the world by accident because he wanted to Fite People and reinstate his Disciplinary Comittee.

Also Genebari takes one (1) look at Aerith and immediately declares her a “Baby Omnivore Sky” and dotes on her like a distant big sibling. Aerith just rolls with it because the planet is basically sobbing in relief for all he’s done, and besides that he introduced her to Zack (more like dragged Zack down to the church, plopped him at her feet and declared that “I have been informed that females enjoy doting mates, so I have brought you a suitable one. He is well trained and very affectionate, but needs to be exercised several times a day or else he gets bored. I recommend sending him on errands or monster hunts to make him more placid and suitable for your smaller home”)

So yeah, that’s how Aerith got her boyfriend.

[sometimesiwritetoo]

So death has been an important part of the VII story. And I kinda wanted to go deeper into it and talk about it because I think everyone kinda knows that death is important to Final Fantasy VII. But I haven’t seen a lot of talk about it.

Barret is a good first example of this. His story basically starts after Shinra kills most of the people in his home town after they believe the residents were the ones to sabotage the reactor. From my perspective I think that throughout the first disk Barret was acting out or revenge, even though his stated motivation was for the planet. It’s not until he sees Dyne again, and sees that Dyne’s hatred has consumed him enough to threaten Marlene, that he really contemplates his motivations. I think it’s after Dyne’s death that he genuinely is motivated to protect the planet for Marlene rather then getting revenge against Shinra.

Tifa is shown that when a person close to her dies she becomes reckless. Her mom died and she got hurt. Her father was killed, and she attacked Sephiroth only to get hurt again. I think it’s more a mark of her intended character progression that she didn’t engage in the same dangerous behavior after Aerith was killed. Aerith’s death clearly affected her and she is motivated by it, but she’s not as reckless as she was before.

Red XIII’s anger at his father is due to his assumption that his dad fled when the Gi tribe came and killed his tribe. In order to come past that hate and learn the truth he had to see what hate did to the ghosts of the Gi tribe. That way he can appreciate his father’s sacrifice and mature enough to follow the group and save the planet.

Vincent obviously is based off of vampires even though he’s not necessarily a textbook example of one. Arguably his story starts when he’s shot by Hojo and experimented on before the game begins, and he’s motivated to follow the group because of the chance he’ll run into Hojo. Depending on your viewpoint of vampires and death Vincent’s arc starts when he dies and ends when he kills Hojo.

Yuffie’s a little more abstract I think. She doesn’t seem to have as strong a connection to the literal meaning of death, but more the death of the Wutai of the past. She was either very young or just born at the end of the war (don’t quote me on the timeline) and so has lived and grown up on stories of Wutai’s greatness. So she’s a kid who doesn’t fully understand what death and war are because she has never experienced it first hand, she’s only really lived in the aftermath. And part of her growth is coming to understand that her father’s choices were to protect the people of Wutai.

Cid also is a bit more abstract. So he starts the story after he became close to achieving his dream of going to space and having that fail. He basically had to choose between Shera and his dreams. So his dreams are “dead” in a way. He thought there was a chance he could obtain his dreams when he was under the impression that Shinra would restart the program. When that wasn’t the case he followed Cloud and co., and achieved his dreams with them. It’s during this time that he realized Shera was right, and is able to forgive her (man I cannot wait to see how this gets adapted in the remake).

Man, where to begin with Cloud. There’s that whole incident with Tifa that impacted him at a young age. Then there’s the death of his mother and the many people in his village prior to the game. And then there’s Zack’s death. Arguably the most impactful death for him prior to the series and one that really fucked with his mind considering how he adopted facets of Zack’s personality, and took Zack’s place in the initial retelling of the tragedy. Then Aerith’s death, which happened at a time where he was being manipulated by Sephiroth and couldn’t really trust himself or his memories. The lifestream represents many things including a sort of afterlife. Or where people go where they die. So in order for Cloud to be able to recover he kind of had to put to rest whatever part of himself that latched onto Zack. He had to accept all of the death he’d experienced up to that point and process what he’d been through.

Some might say that Cait Sith/Reeve haven’t dealt with death. But I really think that Reeve chose to betray Shinra because he saw the plate crash. He also was probably also aware of the many other activities the former president of Shinra was up to. His change of heart probably didn’t happen overnight, but the plate crashing was the point of no return.

Aerith is the last of her kind after her mother died. So that’s how she starts the game. The last of her kind wanting to learn more about herself and the now dead civilization she descends from. So every step of finding herself involves speaking or learning from people who’ve long since passed. I also don’t think it’s a coincidence that she was killed in the forgotten city. In the end she’s able to prevent more death from her place in the life stream.

[whetstonefires]

Sephiroth, 1, 2, 5, 9, 12, 16, 20. I find your take on him so interesting! (And kind of sad too...)

Oh gosh this is so many! Haha okay, here goes.

1.Their physical weak spots

Huh. He’s programmed to be literally impossible to damage in the one actual fight in the Nibel flashback, the dragon. I theorize this might have been his first-level Limit? But of course you can’t use a Limit unless you’ve been injured first. (Apparently they reversed this in the Remake which is a major thematic change and I don’t like it? Anyway tho.)

So on one level his physical untouchability is part of his trademark and there’s a temptation to say ‘none’ and be done with it.

Normal human weak spots, I imagine, he’s not as alien as all that. The throat is the throat, I mean. His disinclination for wearing shirts may suggest an indifference to thoracic damage, but between his tendency to not get hit at all and the existence of healing magic that doesn’t necessarily mean much.

The vertical pupils which can dilate much further than normal would make him particularly vulnerable to flashbangs used in a dark or even dim environment. I assume Wutaian ninjas exploited the heck out of that. :D

2. Their emotional/moral weak spots

Abandonment issues was a big one, I think, and all the huge gaping vulnerabilities created by being a child with no one to love, or who loved you.

Thinking outside of Shinra’s standard pathways is a matter of some anxiety to him, in Crisis Core–his idea of resistance is ‘find my friend first and then oops fail to kill him they can’t prove it was on purpose’ and then later ‘turn down the assignment to find my friend and kill him.’ There’s just, a lot of emotional dependence on a toxic structure indicated by his behavior patterns.

I’m sure that was deliberately instilled, but it’s not that hard. His superpowers aren’t Superman scale self-sufficient until after he ‘dies’ once, and capitalism does what it does. He’s not much less dependent on the Company for survival than the average worker, and more so for identity.

Morally he was disadvantaged by being a corporate supersoldier with Hojo as his parent–the details of his upbringing have never been clarified but they sure didn’t put him anywhere outside Shinra enough for him to form external attachments, or even powerful internal personal ones prior to the rather shaky ones he managed with two peers sometime in adolescence, which leaves fairly few possibilities really.

Anyway morally he’s nothing but weaknesses, even before he got tangled up with The Thing From The Northern Crater and decided he was God and should consume all life. ^^;

5. Guilty pleasures 

You know, I don’t think even pre-evil Sephiroth did guilt much? Waste of energy, and (see above) he wasn’t socialized for it, it’s counterproductive in a soldier. The ‘guilt’ in guilty pleasure is really a species of shame though, and anyone with that much pride is vulnerable to the opposite, even if they weren’t exposed to someone like Hojo growing up….

You know, it was probably novels? He was a reader, and one of the most personal things we know about him from the OG is the deep impression left by Hojo’s furious rant about how inappropriate it was to use poetic expressions about magic. Even ‘magic’ was too sentimental for this domineering science twit.

So, every so often growing Sephiroth would get his hands on a piece of fiction, and the quality wasn’t necessarily great because it was whatever he could pick up in the break room or wherever, but he’d hole up out of sight and scarf it down. Even once he had his own living space and salary and could buy whatever books he wanted and store them, he’d pick up novels on the sly and get rid of them once he was done, like someone was going to catch him. One of the things he used to pick out of the ruins in Wutai during the looting was books.

He always felt a confusing mess of jealousy and scorn about Genesis’ Loveless thing. That he could just like it like that, constantly, right out in the open, where anyone could laugh at him. That nobody had ever taken it away.

Less tragically, I think sometimes he’d go home and watch bad TV. Whatever Midgar’s stupidest soap opera was. Sephiroth caught enough of the reruns to know most of the main plots. He had an opinion about who the father of Jaqueline’s baby should have turned out to be. He would never admit this.

9. Humiliating memories

Okay, as touched on above repeatedly, he grew up with Hojo, who loves breaking people down and laughing at them, so he’s probably got a lot of these.

The worst one is one time when he had a weak moment or an optimistic one, and asked out loud in words for something he really, really wanted, and Hojo said yes, and gave Sephiroth just enough time to get desperately excited and express gratitude before laughing at him and saying of course he was lying. Don’t be stupid.

That isn’t something important enough to bother with.

12. Grudges and vendettas 

‘Burning inside with violent anger’ isn’t there for no reason. From Nibelheim on these define him, and according to bonus materials of middling canon status he eventually sheds almost all identity elements but his grudges.

I think, based on the shape of his breakdown? That for most of his life he told himself that holding onto anger and pursuing grudges was a waste of time and energy. But that didn’t actually help him let any of it go, he just internalized and ignored things. Because he wasn’t actually not holding grudges, he was just reacting like someone who didn’t have any choices, and marinating in spite.

Spite against Hojo surfaces on the way up to the reactor in a way that says to me it’s a habit, almost a reflex. But it manifests in profound pettiness, and I think that’s the only way he normally felt he was permitted to act out against the people who really bothered him, though I’m also sure he channeled a lot of anger into unrelated killing. Natural thing to do when you’re a frustrated teenager who’s supposed to be killing people anyway.

By the time he did it in Nibelheim, it was an old habit.

The fact that he bothered to personally kill the Shinra President as his big debut says to me he was holding a grudge about his entire life against the person who commissioned him and declared the war and shaped the floating Midgar-world that defined his life. I think there were probably a lot of personal insults in there too, just because of the way Shinra Sr. seems to have conducted himself generally.

He’s a Donald Trump expy wouldn’t you.

Sephiroth is written as a much softer person in Crisis Core, almost absurdly so, but even there you can see him resenting Genesis and Angeal more than a little for abandoning him. It probably brought back his whole mess of feelings about Gast, who really did abandon him quite unforgivably but Sephiroth never knew the full circumstances, just that he was gone and later dead. There are signs he blamed Hojo, who doesn’t seem to have gloated openly about the murder even if he did make sure to inform the boy his favorite person was dead now.

And of course later on there’s Cloud, which doesn’t actually make that much sense until you loop in the retcon about Cloud throwing him into the reactor and cutting short his initial rampage. There’s the grudges he seems to have inherited from Jenova, against the Cetra.

It’s not out of the question that he killed Aerith the way he did in part because she was the thing Gast abandoned him for, as well as all the other less personal reasons. I sort of like to think so.

16. Dark secrets/’skeletons in the closet’

Of his own, as opposed to ‘about him’ that he found out about, I don’t think he really had many? He wasn’t much accustomed to privacy.

I think most of the worst things he did, as a human being rather than a transhuman monstrosity, were pretty unavoidably public; they were war crimes, and happened in front of some fraction of the rest of the army. He was praised for them.

There probably were a lot of dark things he never talked to anyone about, that weren’t really known, but except for outright humiliating childhood incidents like above he wasn’t particularly hiding them. He was just never in a position where it would have made any sense to him to bring them up.

Genesis wasn’t ever someone it was safe to be vulnerable around, and Angeal was uncomfortable with too much emotion, and besides they were fellow soldiers and it wasn’t like the things he didn’t talk about from the war were anything special, and he wasn’t going to complain about his childhood to them. And who else was there?

Dude needed so much therapy.

20. What-ifs/Alternate Timelines 

I go absolutely nuts with alternate timelines for Sephiroth. He’s so much fun to work with that way.

Lucretia and Vincent stole the baby and went on the run: Firo grew up kinda isolated in the woods with his parents but runs away at thirteen to fight Shinra because he’s so mad they had to leave Wutai because of the invasion. Parzival AU.

Ifalna recruited Sephiroth to her escape scheme and he wound up raising Aerith on the run, under the names Rith and Roth. Beloved Dust AU, that one’s actually online as you may very well know lol.

Vincent blew up the Nibelheim reactor with Hojo and Jenova in it when Sephiroth was six, and then later Midgar blew up as well and the Shinra world order collapsed, and the recently married Mrs. Strife adopted the weird lab kid. Later on Cloud pressures his big brother into starting an anti-bandit militia. Time Of General Strife AU.

Cute three-way blood brothers ceremony contaminates Genesis’ body with Sephiroth’s DNA and sets off his degeneration several years early, when they’re all teenagers and not nearly as famous, powerful, or fucked in the head. Brother and Brother AU.

And so on. ;}

[fallintosanity]

Since it's pride month, can I ask you what your headcanons are for everyones orientation in Providence? It's not something I can really see coming up in-story, but I'm curious nonetheless. :3

Hoo boy, anon, my answer to this is probably a lot more complex and in-depth than you were expecting, so BUCKLE UP Y’ALL LET’S TALK ABOUT SEX AND SEXUAL ORIENTATION IN SOLDIER

(Note: I’m only going to talk about the original Compilation material for this, since that’s what TFA was written from and that’s what I’m writing Providence from.

Also all of my headcanons are colored by the fact that I am hella aro/ace myself so all flavors of allo are ??? to me)  

First off, major credit to @ageofzero​, who got me started down this headcanon path. The short version of their original headcanon is that SOLDIERs lose their sex drives due to the mako treatments, Jenova cells, and intense physical training regimen. After all, mako poisoning is a known Thing, and Jenova is a bizarre alien with no known gender (the original Japanese game never refers to her with any gender, and it’s strongly implied that her commonly-known feminine form is a shape she adopted to get close to the Cetra. Sephiroth only calls her “Mother” because Hojo lied to him that Jenova was his mother). 

I find this idea fascinating, and think it makes a lot of sense. Of the SOLDIERs we meet, only Zack seems to have any interest in forming romantic bonds with anyone, and even his relationship with Aerith is remarkably chaste. It’s impossible to know whether this is due to an actual intent to depict a chaste romantic relationship, needing to keep the games at a family-friendly rating, cultural differences between Japan and America in terms of how romantic and sexual affection are shown (especially in the 90s), the limitations of the game engine in terms of having the characters physically interact, or some combination of the above, but the result is that the canon we are shown does not include anything approaching a sexual relationship between two characters.*

Given all that, and given the unsettling implications you find if you so much as scratch the surface of ShinRa’s human experimentation**, I think it’s eminently reasonable to believe that however they might have started life, SOLDIERs no longer have sex drives or sexual desire. Which is all an incredibly long-winded way of saying, I headcanon all the SOLDIERs as some flavor of asexual: 

Sephiroth: Extremely aro/ace. I’ve talked before about how I think he sees people and relationships differently than humans do, and that extends to romance and sex. I’m not even sure “aro/ace” is the right label for him under those circumstances, but it’s close enough. 

Genesis: Ace, bi- or homoromantic. TFA and its non-canon side pieces suggest Genesis is romantically interested in Cloud (which I’ve been carrying into Providence), and we have no idea if he’s ever been romantically interested in anyone else. 

Angeal: Ace, probably either aro or heteroromantic. Like Genesis, we never see him express romantic interest in anyone, but it’s possible he does off-screen. 

Zack: Probably would have been bi or poly if he wasn’t in SOLDIER; as is, ace and bi- or poly-romantic. (but really only has eyes for Aerith) 

Kunsel: Ace, maybe demi-romantic? He’s eighteen in Providence and has been focused on rising through the SOLDIER ranks; I don’t think he himself knows for sure. 

Cloud: A bit of an outlier because I headcanon that he would have been aro/ace even if he hadn’t gotten the mako/Jenova treatments. At no point in any of the original game or greater Compilation does he express romantic or sexual interest in anyone. He cares deeply about Aerith and Tifa both, but at no point says or does anything to suggest that it’s romantic or sexual in nature. Tifa occasionally says things which imply she sees her relationship with Cloud that way, but he never responds in kind. At best, his childhood interest in her could be a bit of a puppy crush, but that doesn’t rule out aro/ace Cloud since so many aro/aces do experience puppy crushes or squishes that aren’t sexual/romantic in nature. Or it could be as simple as, Tifa was the popular kid and Cloud was the outcast kid, and he was interested in her because if she was friends with him, then maybe he wouldn’t be an outcast anymore. (I lied, I’m going to talk about the Remake for a second because I’m intrigued that it appears to have doubled down hard on ace!Cloud, to the point where a lot of people have said “I don’t normally have ace headcanons, but Remake!Cloud is ace”. He’s either completely oblivious to, or visibly uncomfortable with, half the cast wanting to get into his pants. Even when Aerith warns him not to fall in love with her, his objection is to her telling him what to do yet again rather than anything about his actual feelings.) 

Noctis: I realized as I was writing this post that I also headcanon Noctis as ace and probably aro- or demi-romantic. Like Cloud, we never see him express romantic or sexual interest toward anyone, which is notable given that he’s supposed to be marrying Lunafreya. He certainly seems to care deeply about her, but - like Cloud and Tifa/Aerith - his affection can be easily read as a close childhood friendship, and depending on which answers you give in the notebook choices, can canonically be brusque and uninterested. He’s also visibly uncomfortable with Gladio’s flirting (with other people) and Iris’s flirting (with Noct himself). Since we do see Gladio flirting, pretty brazenly sometimes, and we hear Prompto chatter about his crush on Cindy, Noct’s silence on the matter is telling. (He also throws an interesting wrench into the works around the SOLDIER castration headcanon, since he did get the treatments but they affected him very differently than everyone else. But I can’t say too much else there without venturing into spoiler territory.) 

So anyway hi, my name is Sanity and I have a lot of ace headcanons. ^_^;

* The closest we get is the scene near the end of the original game, with Cloud and Tifa under the Highwind before the final battle. The scene itself is, again, remarkably chaste. Depending on your Affection value with Tifa, it’s not even all that romantic; it reads mostly like two friends who have been through a lot together. The few lines that do shade toward romance all come from Tifa herself, not Cloud. Also, what Tifa says the next morning on the Highwind changes depending on whether or not your Affection value is high enough; if yes, she asks the others, “Were you watching?” and if no, she asks, “Were you listening?”. So it’s possible to get a canon path which suggests Tifa and Cloud did something she didn’t want the others watching, but 1) that still leaves a lot of room for interpretation, and 2) it’s equally possible to get a canon path which suggests nothing happened at all.

** I’m just going to quote @ageofzero​ here because they put it best: “It might've been an unintended side-effect, of course, but idk how anyone could've thought 'let's put Mako inside human beings' when everyone knows what a powerful burning energy source Mako is and what the hell that might do inside a human when people have likely already suffered Mako poisoning from building Midgar/the reactors. And also considering that Mako is a 'refining' of Lifestream that basically strips away all the benefits of Life within it, there's no way it's not some kind of reproduction dampening substance, among many other negative consequences. [...] ESPECIALLY since a lot of SOLDIERs probably start out in their teen years (Zack, and Cloud's attempt). They're still developing humans, and who knows what effects Mako has on someone who's still passing through adolescence???? Angeal, Genesis, and Sephiroth are all even worse off because they were babies when they were made prototype experiments for the SOLDIER method. [...] I can't imagine mako doing anything but turning the body into a weird toxic mess even if it is controlled and regulated so they don't suffer the loss of their mind. And what the hell does it do to SOLDIERs on a DNA level?? With how much mako (and Jenova cells) there is in their body, it could turn body fluids into burning/glowing/toxic substances. All body fluids. Or at the very least make it Not Good to be exposed to said fluids, if they're not directly toxic/mako-infused. It might very well be the brain turning off reproductive desires bc SOLDIERs are a biological dead end by the time they're strong enough to be considered SOLDIER. What a chilling concept (also hello I like thinking about weird biology).”

[breezy-cheezy]

I finished Final Fantasy 7 Remake

Long story short, I loved it!! So much!! And there’s alot I wanna rant about so here we are. A review of sorts?? Major spoilers ahead! 

And if y’all think you’re immune to spoilers because you played the original FF7, YOU ARE NOT. Lots of new stuff here....just warning y’all.

Although! I did find this great looking walkthrough playlist if anyone’s interested and can’t play the thing themselves? Idk how complete it is with the details, but from a glance it looks nice! 

- FIRST OF ALL the music in it all is amazing!!! From the menu song all throughout, I got Emotional. All the rehashings of Aerith’s theme?? Tifa’s theme?? The FF7 main theme here are there?? AMAZING!!!! I need to find a tracklist or something there are so many versions of the songs specific to the scenes they played in and I die??? Man it is Good. 

- On the music front, I really enjoyed the Jukebox feature! So they could add in old classic songs that story-wise couldn’t appear yet...good nostalgia there. 

- Lil disclaimer, I played the original FF7 fairly recently, on Steam. HOWEVER. I played Crisis Core years ago, and watched Advent Children, etc. And Final Fantasy music has been a staple homework playlist for me for ages now.... So yes I’m new to the whole FF7 original story. But not new in how most people are...it’s a weird situation lol. Like I knew the general FF7 story for awhile but just recently filled the details....

- The gameplay is awesome!! I wasn’t great at it, but...tbh it felt like mechanics combo of the original FF7, FF15, annnnd Kingdom Hearts :D Also appreciated it PAUSED when you picked out commands lol. Loved upgrading weapons. Loved working with materia. I wish there were like...ways to save a materia set so you could easily switch over when your characters were switched out though X’’’’D 

- Biggs is Aro/Ace

- Cloud is VERY Aro/Ace

- Tifa might be Ace

- I decided long ago (in my Crisis Core phase) that Sephiroth is Aro/Ace. There’s nothing to “prove it” in this game but I’m holding to it. I have claimed these characters askjdhuiwdhguerhgr

- Side note, slightly related, but I love how the relationships shone in this remake?? Lots of casual, comfortable touch with Tifa and Cloud (in which Cloud seems in general pretty touch averse due likely to Trauma) in a “we’ve known each other our whole lives” way and gosh I love them. Aerith with Cloud is adorable. Barret!!! Was characterized SO WELL here, and I love him way more than I ever did!! Barret and Tifa interactions as well were so heartfelt and wonderful aaaaaa how good

- Like...Barret haaaates Cloud in the beginning. But somewhere along the way he adopts Cloud instead and ain’t that fantastic?? He just can’t contain how much he cares about others and especially his daughter and goSH I love him. 

- Aerith!! I love her!! She gave such a vibe that she knows more than she says, but is still so cute and sweet and sassy I LOVE!!!! Also that scene in the train graveyard with baby Aerith ;;~;; 

- Also

Cloud: You need any help??

Aerith, climbing a ladder: I’m fine. You don’t need to treat me like a princess or anything~~~

*ladder breaks*

Aerith, completely serious: s h * t.

I LAUGH

- Cloud was actually really cute with kids!!!!! 

- I think I saw a post where they talked about how much more consistent characterizations were here?? I have to agree. I feel some stuff was lost in translation while playing FF7 original, and it felt alot more put together, character-wise, here. I feel like some of that was learned from FF15 and its success with character relationships?? It was Good. 

_ I rambled about this before, but Wall Market was every bit as embarrassing as you would think. *covers face*

- Also I thought it was interesting how they handled who was in your party when! A little annoying sometimes though, switching materia around!!! DX I also really wanted to actually PLAY Red XIII/Nanaki....but sure make him an NPC, whatever. (I am grateful he healed me often.)

- *me when Nanaki shows up* AAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!! THERE HE IS!!!!!!! (sidenote, in the original, I didn’t wanna call him by his experiment name. He’s the only character I changed the name of. The name I picked? Ignis. :”D )

- The motorcycle segments were ANNOYING AS HECK, especially that last one in escaping the Shinra building DX The game forced your camera to focus on the boss and that made the controls VERY ANNOYING. Cool to watch tho.

- I actually almost completed the game boss fight chain early last night!! But RIGHT when I got to Sephiroth, the family demanded I get off the TV for their use D: all that progress....I had to redo ALOT. DX 

- STILL the fights were VERY cool! Reminded me of KHII end alot actually, jumping around on broken floating buildings and whatnot?? Also the creature looked like a HUGE DARKSIDE heartless lol

- There’s actually alot in this remake that gives alot of a KH feel to me?? Nomura I see you....

- *screeching the One Winged Angel theme still not knowing the words* 

- I LOVED how they showed scenes of the future in the end?? Probably ripped from Advent Children, but?? The characters actually seeing that?? Going “this CAN’T be our future!!” Yo. Also it’s implied it might not HAPPEN now going against destiny and all. I know alot of people are pissed but I am EXCITED. I’m all for a fix-it fic game thank YOU. 

- Speaking of fix-it: ZACK. ZAAAAAACK!!!!!! It’s implied he’s alive in one reality so WHERE IS HE??????? I’m so curious about this new story. I’m gonna eat up theories. I want!! To see!! My baby boy!!!!!! to be Fair (haha) I spoiled myself knowing he was in the game but I didn’t know WHEN!!!

- This is terrible, but I love how much they expressed how NOT OK Cloud is. His mental state is awful, but boi won’t talk about it. 

- Like I know it’s in the original, but it comes up ALOT more in the remake, and the flashbacks/brain short out moments are more obvious in HD for sure. Plus Cloud’s eyes seem more green there, which is a great touch!! Also the incredible FORESHADOWING it brought. Love it. Please someone help this idiot with his headaches....

- I did get annoyed with the whole scene in Hojo’s lab. Cloud’s walking like a zombie toward where Jenova is, saying CONCERNING things, and NO ONE reaches out until he outright collapses? We all just gonna stand back and watch?? Sure ok. 

- Hojo is absolutely disgusting and horrifying and exactly how I imagined him, creators did great job.

- Also why does no one use curaga in these character death scenes???? Potion? Anything????Hello??????

- I was so relieved Wedge (and one of his 3 cats) got to live, and then devastated when they chucked him out a window last minute ;;A;; still. I didn’t see a body. Maybe he’s ok.....*sobs*

- I WAS NOT EXPECTING BIGGS TO BE SEEN IN RECOVERY THO YEEEEESSSSS (I love ANY sign that they DID manage to change the future a little...I thought he was dead!!) Fun fact! The one part I legitimately started crying was when Biggs “died”! Hhhhhhhhhh

- Those dang dementors huh? X’’’D Whispers of fate...there to make sure the story goes according to the original game basically. Does that make the whispers the purist fans of FF7? ...please don’t kill me for that comment sidfiushguigerha

- I just wanna say making a game ABOUT making a remake (that is different from the original) and the struggles in that is VERY meta and so clever and delightful and I LOVE IT. I really wanna see what happens next....

All in all I spent 52 hours on this game. WAY more than I expected for only covering Midgar. And I ENJOYED it!! Some parts felt like the story was being dragged/padded, but most of the time I didn’t care. Also there’s even more to do?? Apparently I missed some scenes....I don’t have time for now, but maybe someday. Or maybe I’ll just look them up ;;7;; 

It’s a good game y’all!!

[zackfiar-a]

FRIENDSHIP ENDED WITH SHINRA NOW AVALANCHE IS MY NEW BEST FRIEND

it took me 10 hours to write all this. i did change up canon quite a bit, but it’s generally the same in some places. i dont blame u guys if u want to skim it LOL 

i rewrote zacks canon from when he joined soldier then a little bit after the Infamous Shinra Showdown PLEASE read this !!!!

i will be applying THIS canon to my portrayal for now on esp the part where he lives but knowing my dumbass, ill be forgetting pieces of canon information i meant to add before ill be adding this to his about shortly once i wake up with a better thought process

if u have any questions pls feel free to ask !!!

being a naive kid at 13 and hearing the glorifying the heroic stories of shinra and SOLDIER, zack makes leave for midgar while writing a note to his parents not to worry about him, he’s aiming for greater things; far more than what gongaga can give him. his dream is to be the wrong idea of what being a hero means, which is wanting to be loved by many and being admired simply for the fame. sephiroth could do it, so why couldn’t he? anything is better than the boring life that gongaga gave him. 

at 15, he makes it into SOLDIER as a 3rd class with the sheer force of determination and the passion of not giving up, which is what his higher ups find lacking in the military chain. being young and impressionable, shinra puts into their head of the glory they give. SOLDIER and the military is what the people look up to for protection while some think of SOLDIER as just dogs. this doesn’t deter zack, genuinely thinking that shinra is doing well for midgar. during this time he gets injected with a dose of mako, which is what they give all members of SOLDIER. this enhances their abilities and strength at the cost of body degradation and the risk of dying earlier than everyone else. zack questions this: giving up literal life for power? well, shinra wouldn’t lie to him! right? if this is price of being a hero for the people, then it has to be worth it while completely clueless of the manipulation of propaganda and ideology that shinra has shoved in his face and forced to intake.

when he turns 16, he’s promoted to SOLDIER 2nd class and befriends kunsel, who helps him give more of the inside scoop of shinra. he’s one of the first real friends zack has made, even exchanging e-mails to communicate outside of missions and SOLDIER. all the while, he is put under the tutelage of angeal. he can sense the hesitance in his mentor for training an actual kid while zack thinks being in SOLDIER is all fun and games. zack hasn’t even seen the horror of the underbelly of the beast, only fighting the surface of the war and just blindly following orders (anyone who dares stand against shinra is a bad guy and aligns themselves with wutai). fortunately, zack doesn’t fully believe that. regardless, angeal teaches him what it means to be SOLDIER, something along the lines of having SOLDIER honor. he doesn’t get what angeal means by that with furrowed brows as he continues to drill that into zacks mind, ontop of zack admittance of the reason why he joined SOLDIER in the first place aka becoming a hero for shinra and the people of midgar. angeal doesn’t even try to alter that dream knowing very well that’s not something he should be aiming for, deciding to let zack figure it out for himself.

if you want to be a hero, you need to have dreams and honor. how many times zack has heard that, he would be a rich man. eventually he takes it to heart, looking up to angeal because of how wise and strong he is.

when he’s 17, angeal nominates for him to be a 1st class while being sent out to a mission in wutai. lazard says this will stop the war, but in actuality it’s used as a false sense of justice of using SOLDIER to set up another reactor in its place. zack is unaware of this, thinking of serving as justice against wutai, using this as a place and opportunity to prove himself. in the end, lazard uses zack’s tenacity and naive enthusiasm to show he could prove himself to overtake fort tamblin. ontop of that, while navigating lazard to safety, angeal is gone and is approached by sephiroth that angeal has possibly betrayed and abandoned SOLDIER. 

no! angeal wouldn’t do that! that’s not the angeal i know! he tries to tell himself that. it’s now where he begins to doubt in shinra and question their motives. he’s so enraptured at the loss of his mentor, he’s stuck inside of his mind on why angeal would leave? he has honor, right? it’s not honorable to leave that what you’re loyal to. having infatuation and admiration for sephiroth, he quickly loses the shine. maybe it’s disappointment, maybe it’s the loss of his mentor. shinra had glorified the 1st class members on all forms of media, but in reality, they weren’t all that special. he takes this time to talking about the SOLDIERS (some that don’t really care for him), about shinra and why they’ve joined it while trying to see if anyone knows anything about behind the scenes. he confides in kunsel, who does give some information on former 1st class genesis and all the 3rd and 2nd classes he took with him.

going with tseng to banora, he immediately feels a sense of dread. it’s strangely quiet, especially when when he comes across angeal’s mother. while he explains to her he doesn’t know where he is, he is determined to bring him back no matter what, not knowing the meaning of his own words. finding out that genesis buried his adopted parents, tseng and zack make their way to the apple factory on the outskirts of town. tseng tells him that sephiroth was originally assigned to this mission but pushed this on zack, for selfish reasons, he thinks. he doesn’t know whether to be angry or relieved because he feels like he can convince angeal to return to shinra but angry because how cowardly can you be? when he finds out that the planes are going to bomb banora, he rushes to try and help gillian escape only to think that angeal had killed her. he feels enraged, punching him, yelling at him about honor and the fact that was his own mother. the respect for him was rapidly being lost, feeling immensely disappointed when angeal leaves without explaining himself. he comes to greatly hate genesis and seriously distrust shinra.

coming back to hq, he is promoted to SOLDIER 1st class. lazard thinks zack would be happy about his promotion, but is only met with a sad face. i don’t deserve to be SOLDIER 1st class. i don’t want it. which, this is what he wanted in the beginning, but with everything that’s happened, he feels like can’t. being unable to convince angeal, the loss of a village and the death of gillian, he feels like he’s going backward from his goal of being a hero. it doesn’t help that he’s a 1st class by default from the lack of leadership. lazard doesnt listen and hearing that genesis copies have attacked midgar. doing so, he meets cissnei. finding out that she can handle herself, he immediately hits on her but is shortly sent on a mission with sephiroth to sector 5 reactor. they look for hollander, instead they find papers for project g. seeming that sephiroth is interested in the details of the experiments, zack is appalled that genesis is a result of a failed experiment and the fact that hollander experimenting on others. is this why he took a bunch of 3rd and 2nd class SOLDIERS with him? to use them to help himself?

finally finding hollander and genesis, he chases hollander through the mako reactor to eventually come across angeal. there’s a momentary relief of seeing him again, however is quickly flooded by reddening anger. angeal tells him, because he is also a monster, he only dreams of 2 things: world domination and revenge. zack is thrown aback at the declaration, resisting the temptation to punch him again. you’re not a monster. monsters don’t have honor. they’re scared. they’re selfish, so they fight and punish the weak. you’re not like that, angeal! and then he remembers what cissnei said about wings that symbolize freedom. angels aren’t monsters. angeal after gets into a fighting position and demands that zack defend himself. hurt at the notion that he would attack him, he’s momentarily stunned. before he can get into a fighting stance or defend himself from the blow, he falls below into sector 5.

he wakes up in a church with aerith hovering over him, briefly thinking it’s his mother when he’s convinced that she’s an angel that has come to greet him in heaven. there’s a funny feeling of meeting her, but he brushes it aside and asks her for one date as a thank you for saving him. he notices the flowers, suggesting that she should sell them to make midgar happy with the motto midgar full of flowers, wallet full of money. on a little detour, zack and aerith chat while she explains she’s afraid of the sky and SOLDIER. they fight and they like it, she explains. however, zack explains that he’s a part of SOLDIER and maybe that it was a mistake that he joined in the first place. not all of them enjoy fighting for the fun of it. that some of them joined because of a childhood fantasy and it’s not at all what it’s cracked up to be. SOLDIERS motives and goals were vastly different from his own and he doesn’t know if he wants to continue to align himself with shinra. he apologies that he shouldn’t have put that all on her since they just met. though he reassures her that since his eyes are the color of the sky, there’s nothing to be scared of. he decides to take her out to see the real sky one, to reassure her that it won’t swallow her. his stay is cut short when he’s called that genesis has attacked midgar and that he should hurry back.

when aerith takes him back to the sector 5 gate, zack decides to buy aerith a pink bow as a gift for their one - day anniversary of meeting. before he leaves, he helps a guy name the bar that would later be named 7th heaven. 

he makes it back to shinra hq and is ordered to go protect hojo, for hollander is probably using this as a way to kill him. finding hojo, he seems less than troubled and more annoyed about hollander. he says that SOLDIER should do their jobs as brutes and do less thinking to protect geniuses like him, which angers zack a little bit. he never really did trust him, seeming to enjoy it too much when hojo injected him mako upon first entering SOLDIER. people aren’t made to throw their lives away for someone who seems them as less than human and shows no compassion. regardless, he does his job, fighting the bahamut fury. he swore he saw angeal during the fight; genesis is gone. 

months later, he’s sent to modeoheim with a couple of shinra infantryman and tseng. on the way there, the helicopter crashes and he meets cloud while the infantryman can’t quite keep up. he learns that cloud is from nibelheim and they instantly bond as being “country boys”. eventually they find a mako excavation facility, which zack takes the initiative to infiltrate while tseng and the others continue to modeoheim. he finds a bickering genesis and hollander, which he immediately aims to fight and kill him. even though he has no personal connection to genesis, he knows that he was close friends with angeal and sephiroth, and he feels like it’s his duty to finally end him. albeit hesitant, he charges forward and wins the fight with genesis while he continues to run after hollander. in the bathhouse, he finds tseng and cloud tired and beaten as they had fought angeal. they warn him to be careful. doing so, he runs into angeal and hollander. 

with his sword shaking in his hand, he decides that he has to bring angeal down and stop this cycle. that as long as he’s alive then genesis will be as well. he finds out that angeal is a result of project gillian and that said gillain actually killed herself in her home. he feels so bad, so disgusting that he had accused angeal slaying his own mother. those thoughts aren’t with him for long, but he sees him combining with all of this copies to become angeal penance. this is it, this where he is where he’s going to have to slay his mentor, the man that he’s looked up to and found as a role model. angeal, his friend that he had confided so much of his secrets in, dead by his blade. it’s like the battle was over in an instant, because now angeal was on the ground, blood pouring out of his wounds whilst slowly degrading. while zack sustained injuries of his own, the most noticeable one was the x on his cheek, with blood slowly running down his neck. it doesn’t take long for him to realize that his whole intent was to kill him, while angeal still had some semblance of honor left. it wasn’t fair, he shouldn’t have to be the one to do it.

angeal weakly hands him his buster sword and tells him to remember dreams, that zack should aim to be a true member of SOLDIER and protect his honor.

when he dies, he takes a deep breath and presses the buster sword to his forehead much like angeal did before he went on missions. sorry, angeal. i can’t do that. i can’t be the SOLDIER you want me to be. my dreams… what does it even mean to be a hero? what honor do i have left as SOLDIER? as long as i stay here, i have none. i will continue to live with what’s left.

later he confides in aerith, traumatized over angeal’s death. he doesn’t want to be in SOLDIER anymore, not what’s going on behind the scenes. unfortunately, while being under the contract of shinra, he’s forced to stay in and serve as a SOLDIER 1st class.

at 18, he’s one of the few SOLDIER 1st class left, the other one being sephiroth. when interacting with a brigade of shinra troops, he tells them that if they want to be a SOLDIER, they must have dreams and honor. while the troops have said to find his speech admiring and they they look up to him with his cool, new look! it’s any rare time that he gives a somber look. don’t believe what shinra says. think for yourself. he doesn’t want to promote and encourage more people to join SOLDIER. deny them as much man power as he possibly can, even if it gets him in trouble with the higher ups. as long as he’s here, he’s under the thumb of shinra.

as a “congratulatory break”, he’s sent to costa del sol to rest and relax. except the fact that he was opposite of that. cissnei was here with him, and any other time he wouldn’t mind, but he knew why she was also on “break” with him. though he’s warned that genesis copies have been spotted, and he has no choice but to fight. a soon to be vacation was over with, when he’s also informed that hojo broke out of prison with the suspicions of lazard, who was said to have disappeared prior before. he rushes to midgar to help stop the genesis copies with the stolen tech of shinra. when he found hollander, it was too late and he escaped. lo’ and behold sephiroth has finally arrived and tells zack that his mission was deemed a failure. he’s just tired of all of this, more concerned about the towns people that caught up in the mess than hollander. at this point, he was too deep that he has no choice for hollander to seek justice for what he’s done. needless to say, he doesn’t care much about seeing sephiroth, but hearing him say he forgives him of his misdeeds relaxes him. with sephiroth’s permission to go back to midgar to see aerith, he heads off there immediately. 

when he arrives at the church, he spots an angeal copy with aerith. at first assuming the worst, he aims to kill it but aerith says not to. instead, the copy protects aerith instead from an uninvited monster. zack doesn’t trust it, but leaves it in the church’s beams anyways to watch over her. he tells aerith that he’s going to be gone for a long time, and he won’t know when he’ll be coming back. so she suggests that zack makes the flower wagon he promised her long ago. when he gets the pieces together, he’s disappointed that aerith doesn’t like it but uses it anyways. he’s with her for several hours, selling flowers, but when he sees aerith being lenient with the price, he tells her not to settle for less. make your stand and not sell it for 1 lousy gil. the flowers deserve to be 10 gil a piece, at least. when a costumer comes across aerith and zack selling flowers, he tells them that it’s their dream to make midgar full of flowers. unfortunately, it isn’t a bit later that he gets a called away on his last mission. before he leaves, he tells aerith that aerith should do something for zack every time he comes to visit her, like wearing pink. he thinks pink is a really endearing color on her. he finds tseng hiding behind a piece of playground equipment, and even though he doesn’t fully trust the turks, he’s really the only one he can trust to take care of aerith, not exactly understanding tseng’s role in the first place.

when zack gets back, he finds cloud, who’s trying to round everyone up for the next mission. zack is elated and excited that finally another mission with him. he finally meets with sephiroth, accompanied by cloud and several other unnamed shinra infantryman, and sephiroth tells them they’re leaving for nibelheim. their goals there were to inspect the incoming monsters infiltrating the town and a malfunctioning reactor. although zack is surprised that cloud has his helmet on, he has his suspicions, he asks why. cloud doen’t give a direct answer, so he brushes it off, not wanting to push the issue. hearing that sephiroth doesn’t have family, he perks up when he hears him mention jenova’s name. jenova… jenova… isn’t that the cells they were using for the monsters? genesis mentioned something about that, didn’t he?

when they go check out the reactor, tifa is there and offers them around nibelheim as a tour guide, even taking pictures in the process. the reactor is now fixed, but among the pods they find monsters soaked in mako. zack is disgusted and feels bad to the people who were affected by this. what were the lads words they said to their family? what were they doing when they got kidnapped? climbing the stairs, he finds the biggest pod with jenova and he can’t help but stare at the plaque. jenova… wait, that’s sephiroth’s mother! before he can think about it more, sephiroth starts to speak. you average SOLDIER members are mako - infused humans. you’re enhanced, but you’re still human. …but then what are these things? their mako levels are exponentially higher than yours. when sephiroth explains that they are monsters spawned by mako energy and that hojo created them, it didn’t take long for zack to connect the dots. he didn’t want it to be true, but it wasn’t a coincidence that the three best friends weren’t human at all, just experimental pawns made by the scientists of shinra. zack approaches him, and tries to be careful on the subject. he didn’t want it to be true. you said “average” member. what about you? that should’ve been an instance where he kept his mouth shut.

this whole thing was no coincidence. seeing sephiroth suddenly grip his head and ask himself if he’s an abomination, that he’s not like the others. zack can’t help but wonder what’s wrong and console him or to be shoved away. makes it no better that genesis came to confirm that’s the case, blowing zack away; that sephiroth is not human because he was created from jenova, or the remains of those failed experiments. finally, when genesis leaves after sephiroth, zack rushes after him to see zack be blasted by a monster and helped by tifa. it makes sense that sephiroth possibly the strongest monster out of angeal and genesis. when he helps tifa and cloud back to the inn, he goes to check up on sephiroth, who is in the basement of the shinra basement. in a mistake of one room, he comes across a seemingly sleeping man in a coffin. oh, creepy. finding sephiroth, he is immediately shunned away with him burying his face in the books. it was his fault this happened anyways, that he had to ask why sephiroth thought he was different from the other SOLDIERS, even angeal and genesis. he was going to try again, because he wasn’t going to have sephiroth betray them too. except sephiroth continued to ignore him and even threatened him to leave. there was a terrible feeling in his gut, but there was nothing he could do, so he left to go check on cloud back at the inn.

cloud was fine, but he wanted to talk to him about tifa and the fact that he was hiding his face the whole time he was in nibelheim. it was a personal issue it seemed, but cloud said if only he was in SOLDIER, then he would be strong enough to protect tifa and others. except, zack wasn’t on board. SOLDIER is a den of monsters. don’t go inside. everything shinra has told you about it is a lie. how great it is… how it produces the best heroes in the world; they don’t settle the peace, they’re just glorified monsters. they don’t care about what happens to the people, as long as it funds their goals in the end. cloud seemed confused, wanting to know more about what he was talking about. zack has the experience of being in SOLDIER in his belt, he just wants to prevent people from being in the same situations he’s been in many times. you know, i asked myself what it meant to be SOLDIER. when i first joined, i thought i was proud to be a part of shinra. everyone talked about how great being in shinra was, but no one knows what lies in the dark. only i know the truth. cloud, do me a favor: don’t ever look in SOLDIER’s direction, before you get turned into a monster, too. 

cloud is still confused, but agrees with him regardless because he was someone who looked greatly up to zack, and it must be serious if he’s saying stuff like this too. though he couldn’t help but ask if zack was considered a monster also. zack doesn’t answer for a long moment, even considering. … i might be. all monsters are infused with mako energy afterall. wouldn’t it make sense if i were one? cloud doesn’t know how to answer it, so he nods towards the buster sword, telling zack that’s never seen him use it. zack picks up angeal’s sword and thinks. this is a symbol of my dreams and honor. it was a symbol of angeal’s burden of SOLDIER honor, not his own. no, it’s not. it’s symbol of my freedom, when i finally leave SOLDIER for good. when i make up all the wrongs it’s done to the innocent people of midgar. this is a symbol for… my own honor. this is proof that i am alive and that i exist. who gives a damn about SOLDIER anyways? no, he wasn’t a monster and never will be one. he’s a kind, and cares for others. do monsters do that? he smiles at cloud and sets down the blade. he thanks him while going straight to sleep. cloud doesn’t even have a say in what for.

a week passes. zack hasn’t seen sephiroth in town and every time he visits him, he is shoved away and ignored. it doesn’t even look like he’s been sleeping. it’s his horror when he wakes up to the increased heat in october and the smell of smoke that he finds out nibelheim is on fire. going to confront sephiroth, he sees tifa curled up, cursing shinra and SOLDIER. he meets him in the reactor where he’s talking to jenova, which he fights him not soon afterwards. just like genesis and angeal, monsters from experiments. sephiroth is no longer the man he had once trusted and admired, so he must either kill him or try and talk him out his hazed trance of god superiority. which is pathetic to think about, because if he couldn’t convince angeal, what makes him think he can talk to sephiroth? zack is striked down, too weak to fight on, so seeing cloud approach, he begs for him to finish sephiroth off. for what he’s seen, it looks like killed him. that victory is short lived when he becomes unconscious. 

for the next 4 years, his dreams died as fast as he desired them. he vaguely remembers such unjust experiments done to him; pumping in so much mako and the power of jenova cells it feels like the flesh is melting off his bones and his heart pounds heavily in his chest. zack doesn’t even realize it’s been 4 years, maybe several days max when he sees angeal’s image in his sleep. he tries to scream for him, but nothing comes out. he bangs on the glass, but there’s no sound. the next few seconds flash by, and now he’s on the ground in some lab. where was he? that didn’t matter. he’s free now, and he’s see cloud in a pod that was next to his own. from then on, it was his duty to take care of cloud until he woke up. it didn’t matter if he didn’t wake up for 3 months, he was still going to be by his side. it’s the least he could do, he owes him so much for getting cloud involved in this mess. 

when he’s finally able to change his clothes, he realizes upon closer inspection that cloud is suffering from severe mako poisoning. he’s seen it in several SOLDIER members who were addicted to it, like they were in such a catatonic state it took them a day to several to get over it. he can’t imagine the intake he has taken, but zack was fine, already being infused with it previously. 

he takes cloud to the coast of a beach that wasn’t far from nibelheim, but by the time he got there, it was night time. he didn’t mind, he needed a break anyways and they had to wait it out until morning because of all the shinra patrols. which, has hasn’t figured out why there were so many to begin with. he’s approached by cissnei, but she wasn’t here for a friendly conversation, her weapon drawn. she asks if he’s the runaway specimen, which gives zack the idea that while he got his wish of no longer being a SOLDIER, he is now seen nothing as an experiment gone wrong. that’s not quite what he had mind, but also finding out that being gone for 4 years makes sense, being presumed dead when he was captured. how was he supposed to function in this world now when it’s moved on and you’re left behind? it was cissnei’s orders to capture him alive, but zack would be dead than rather to be back in shinra’s hands. seeing her able to actually put up a fight, zack escapes to meet back up with cloud. cissnei comes back, but offers him her peace, and a vehicle for them to runaway in. he thanks cissnei, and cloud and zack attempt to back to midgar, while trying to run from shinra.

another year passes, he sees genesis on the road, which he’s been told that zack’s “gift of the goddess”. becoming captured, a genesis clone eats some of his hair to help stop his degradation, except the cells had adapted to zack’s body, having already intaken mako in the past. the clone transforms into a monster, which zack has to fight to pass. he does, becoming more frustrated and angry until he reaches gongaga. he decides to make a pit stop, but cissnei finds him, telling that his hometown is such an obvious place for shinra to find zack. except he spots a white wing and a flash of angeal’s face. 

he leaves cissnei and goes to chase the figure, finding out it’s lazard who had become an angeal copy. once wanting revenge and filled with anger, absorbing angeal’s cells caused him to have a strong will and the desire to help out zack. he’s degrading, and it shows by the withered feathers. unexpectedly, he asks what zack’s dreams were. this time, he takes serious consideration. no longer someone of shinra or SOLDIER, he’s free to do whatever he pleases, however now that’s very sure in his goal, he tells lazard that he wants to a hero. this time, not for fame or to see how great people are. if he can save one person, then he can be a hero. if he can help at least one person, then that’s good enough for him. he doesn’t care about fame, or the glory that comes with a praised name. that’s boring and not for him at all. lazard laughs and tells him exactly what he had said before when he first asked those years ago: unattainable dreams are the best kind.

genesis and hollander find them, which hollander now has become a genesis clone. genesis informs him that cloud is the last bearer of pure s - cells. upon them trying to take it, zack officially kills hollander at last, which he leaves cloud with a wounded lazard. zack finally gets the hint with the constant banora apples he always holds that genesis works from banora. he asks a dying lazard to look after cloud as he goes to finish off a further degrading genesis. he chases him underground and finds and finishes him. after all this time, he can’t feel the harbor of anger and hatred he once had towards genesis, but now only pity and sadness. all this for a shred of immortality, just because he was afraid of dying. however, he can’t forgive all those people he’s captured and extracted for any hopes to stop his degradation process as a failed experiment. he leaves genesis down in the banora underground where the lifestream goes through.

coming back to the surface, he sees lazard dead with the angeal copy that had protected aerith in her church. zack rests with cloud when the last angeal copy to dies, thanking it for protecting aerith this whole time while he was away. with his new found motivation, zack hitches with cloud on the back of a truck on the way to midgar. zack tells him that he wants to become a mercenary, any job that’s dangerous or boring, as long as it has pay. he also informs cloud that he’ll join him too, because they’re friends, right? he also has “conversations” with a continued catatonic cloud about how he can’t wait for him to meet aerith. zack thinks the two of them will get along perfectly, like they’re two peas in a pod. also recalling how cloud had issues with talk about tifa, he hopes that cloud gets that resolved because he’s sure tifa misses him a lot and wants him to come home (which, it’s unfortunately no longer nibelheim). zack continues to talk to cloud about nonsense, even silly stories about being in SOLDIER. he says once that kunsel had e - mail’d him like crazy when he mysteriously found that he was still alive. it’s like he’s too ashamed to face him now. 

he spots a shinra road block, which zack thanks the driver and sets cloud to the side, telling him he’ll be right back. he’s convinced that he will die here but he will continue to fight for his freedom as long as he was associated with SOLDIER in any time frame. that’s fine with him. approaching him, he gives a sigh and a shake of his head. then pressing the blade to his forehead, he speaks to himself. whatever happens, protect your dreams…  and your honor. fight for your freedom and your right to exist! come and get it! before charging at the army in his wake. 

it feels like the battle went on for hours, being targeted at several different directions. the weight of the buster sword was becoming too heavy, his arms feeling like lead and legs feeling like jello. dodge a bullet there, block a punch there. even several summons later, it like his body was running on auto - drive. he’s lost vision in one eye, but he can still fight. the pain is numbed by the adrenaline running through his body and how his lungs are struggling for air with every swing he takes. was he really going to die here? his first mistake was believing in shinra’s ideals and goals, and continuing to follow them, what kind of idiot was him? quickly went down from being a respectable, admirable leadership to someone who’s the lowest of the low. shinra won’t keep midgar safe. everyone is pawns, they’re all expendable. they don’t care about its people, they will sacrifice as many as they can. what’s their end goal? he doesn’t know. he just wants to right all the wrongs he’s done, all the ignorant stuff he’s said. it’s all over. he owes the people.

i’m sorry. i’m sorry.

it’s almost a hour later, his back is laid against the bloodied ground with a cloudy sky above him with the hilt of the blade loosely being held in his hand. did he… make it? his heart rate is slow but as long as he can still move. was cloud okay? that was his main concern. cloud… his voice is quiet, rasp as he struggles to sit up. blood is pouring down his face and neck, a rib was cracked, but that was the last thing on his mind. cloud, we did it. there’s a very weak smile on his face, his left eye is non - functional, and he’s using his buster sword as a crutch. a rather pathetic sight. did you see that? he finds cloud resting exactly where he rested him. good, he’s so relieved. he struggles to pick cloud up, but with his arm held across his shoulders, he’s wincing and in so much pain, but they had to keep moving. we’re almost there. then he can see aerith again, the freedom of the sky of his victory well won.

however, he collapses upon half way making it to midgar, unconscious from blood loss, but when he wakes up, he’s at the slums sector 7 train station. he looks at his side and see cloud still knocked out. he’s safe. he’s spotted by tifa, who regonizes cloud and brings them back to the apartments. zack is treated by a doctor, with 2 cracked ribs and a loss of his left eye, which is covered up with a bandaged eye patch. cloud is still catatonic, however slowly regaining consciousness, as he is showing more body function than he has in the past year. while recovering, zack is introduced to avalanche, who’s goal was to fight against shinra and their greedy destruction of the planet. zack decides to still work as a mercenary while aiding avalanche, to take back what they’ve killed and caused chaos with. he decides to take tifa to the side and apologize for what happened in nibelheim and her dad, even feeling solely responsible. 

when zack is able to fight, he takes up the job to help bomb a reactor, albeit hesitant, and helping up around  the sector 7 slums with the neighborhood watch, even going to the sector 5 slums and reuniting with aerith. even after all this, he still maintains a positive face, joking with the lack of a brain cell.

however, bombing the reactor has tied him with shinra once again, instead of being a SOLDIER 1st class, he’s an escaped fugitive; a betrayer of shinra. the events after this is still to be determined.

[lully-jo]

Final Fantasy VII: The Theme of Life [Part 1]

My introduction to Final Fantasy was with VII* in my freshman year of High School. Though the graphics did not age well (and have aged like milk with each passing year) the storytelling was so compelling and immersive that it carried the game into the hands of future generations who had become so accustomed to high resolution gameplay complete with voice acting and flashy action sequences. From the opening cutscene to the closing epilogue, I found myself thrust into a world that became more and more familiar as I explored every city and village and spoke with the townsfolk and learned about every party member’s backstory. These were people and places that I somehow knew. This was a fantasy that mirrored a reality that I and everyone around me was already living, and rather than being a pessimistic take on capitalism and classism and the destruction of the planet, there remained a glimmer of hope to inspire players when they turned the game off.

Interestingly, with the remake coming within the next year, it seems the themes of VII have only become increasingly relevant. Normally, I would be excited to see a new generation of players pick up this legendary masterpiece of RPG gaming and find within it the meaningful questions regarding humanity and its place in the universe, but I have reason for concern even with the mere teasers being released in preparation for this year’s E3. I want to take this opportunity to express just why VII is considered so legendary and masterful so that those who will enter the world of Cloud and company through the remake will know where the story started and what made it worth re-introducing to the new generation of gamers in the first place.

*I should probably make it clear that I only played VII because I instantly fell in love with Cloud’s character in the first Kingdom Hearts game which I played in middle school.

Be prepared for spoilers under the cut, but I’d be surprised if you’ve gone this long without learning about much of VII’s story. 

Storytelling: The World is Much Bigger Than You

One of the greatest methods in which VII expresses the grandness of the universe is in the simple method by which the story begins. The player is immediately thrust into a bombing mission as Cloud Strife, a 21-year-old mercenary who has been hired by AVALANCHE, a terrorist, anti-SHINra organization. The goal is simple: The planet is dying and big business is what's killing it. Therefore, cripple the company by destroying their methods of production. Immediately, the story is set in a world very much like our own; big business has all the real power, the wealthy live in luxury at the cost of the poor suffering and the planet’s ecosystem and essentially lifeblood is sucked up dry.

Without much further thought, Cloud continues along with Barret, Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie towards the center of one of SHINra’s reactors, killing any SHINra soldier along the way with little remorse. Again, at this point, the mission is simple. Once you reach the reactor, there is a short scene where Cloud collapses and we get a small piece of foreshadowing into our major plotpoint: there’s something else going on here. After detonating the bomb, Cloud and company return to Tifa’s bar, 7th Heaven--the HQ of AVALANCHE. There are arguments, as Cloud seems to be a mere bystander taking advantage of Barret’s need for insider information (Cloud was a 1st Class SOLDIER under SHINra before he became the mercenary he is at the start of the game) rather than someone who genuinely cares about the well-being of the planet. Eventually, Tifa and Cloud reminisce a scene together of a promise they made as children in their hometown; Cloud left Nibelheim in order to become a 1st Class SOLDIER, just like his hero, Sephiroth. If memory serves me right, this is our first introduction to Sephiroth.

Later, there is another bombing mission (Cloud has agreed to help again, but at a price) at it doesn’t go as planned. After a battle gone wrong, Cloud falls from the plate and lands in Aerith’s church. He had already met this girl once, but this time he gets a proper introduction to her and learns that SHINra has been keeping an eye on her since she was very small. This is another indicator that there is more going on to this story than players initially assumed; what else is SHINra up to? Why hunt this girl from childhood? She seems close with the Lifestream somehow--she can speak with souls that have passed on and simply knows when someone has died as though she’d been beside them when it happened.

As Cloud continues on with Aerith and learns more about her and is able to introduce her to Tifa and Barret, there eventually comes disaster; SHINra is about to drop one of the Sectors of the plate that hangs over the slums of Midgar, which will result in the deaths of thousands. Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie are already attempting to counter SHINra and their Turks (a special unit that SHINra sends out to do their dirty work and whom have been hunting Aerith since childhood), but they are easily overtaken. Aerith is kidnapped by the Turks in exchange for keeping Marlene, Barret’s adopted daughter, safe from harm, and though Cloud, Tifa, and Barret make an escape, the self-destruct button is pushed by Reno and the plate comes crumbling down. SHINra places the blame on AVALANCHE and thousands of innocent people are killed.

It is in this moment that we see Tifa and Barret now asking themselves if their methods of protest were worth it. If they had done the right thing and if all those deaths were, in fact, their fault. This is the beginnings of VII showing a recurring theme in the game; how do my actions affect everyone else in this world?

After a moment of grief and finding Marlene safe in the hands of Aerith’s adopted mother, Cloud and company decide to break into the SHINra building to rescue Aerith. On their way to the top floor, they discover a few hints at other projects SHINra has been working on and see into Hojo’s laboratory where he was keeping Aerith and what he calls Red XIII (otherwise and from here on out known as Nanaki), a wolf-like creature with fiery-red fur and a flame at the end of his tail. Hojo attempts to force them to mate, explaining that Aerith is the last survivor of a race called Ancients who can speak and connect with the Lifestream. The gang rescues Aerith, Nanaki joins your party (he can talk!) and then you are captured as you try to make your escape. What happens overnight is what changes the  name of the game from then on out.

After a short night’s rest, Cloud wakes up to find his cell door open and blood streaked across the floor. SHINra soldiers have been killed and the blood continues up towards the top floor of the building. When Cloud and company arrive at President Shinra’s office, he is dead--impaled with a sword. It is Cloud who identifies it as Sephiroth’s sword and now the player and all the characters are met with the realization that there is something else much deeper and much bigger going on than they had previously imagined. This storytelling method is continued through every interaction until it isn’t just a question of who the immediate bad guy is, but the implications of how every person can be the bad guy in some way and also how nature will always take everything back.

Though it took me a while to get here, the opening of VII is truly masterful in its buildup towards the actual meat of the story it attempts to tell. The focus is on Cloud and his small group and their very centered goals and eventually, through subtle foreshadowing and character dialogue, the scope of the story grows and grows until it’s no longer the question of one’s place in society, but one’s place in the universe. I find it so poignant how extremism is shown to be dangerous on either end of the spectrum, and just how dangerous is shown as you progress through the story and are made to think about the world on a much grander scale than yourself. As I stated before, the greatest power by the end of the game is the planet itself; Nature will always take everything back.

This method of storytelling allows players to learn along with the characters. It allows us to be part of the party without dumbing down characters in a way that doesn’t make sense within the canon. Not only this, but it takes the characters very seriously within their environments and their objectives. It builds them up only to make them question if their motives are justified. In the grand scheme of things, was setting off explosives to get back at a government entity good for everyone? Innocent people were killed in those explosions, and that’s not just including the dropping of the plate over the slums by SHINra. AVALANCHE sacrificed innocent lives as they battled with SHINra as a corporate entity. Were those deaths justified?

The slow yet action-packed buildup towards the meat of the VII’s story was purposeful, well executed, and honestly the best way to open this story. From a quick glance at the FFVII tag after the reveal of the new trailer, some fans seem to be speculating that the dark shadows that fighten Aerith are perhaps new foreshadowing into the remnants affiliated with Sephiroth and REUNION. I fear that trying to force too much early foreshadowing will cheapen what was already a beautiful story-telling method. Part of what made those remnants such a shock later on in the story was our sudden introduction to them. Bringing them in earlier in the gameplay seems completely unnecessary and like it will hurt the return to Nibelheim scene and the eerie feeling the player is supposed to be struck with when they enter the town. Not to mention, Aerith’s reaction was wholly unlike her and contradicts what made her such a complex character that broke the trope of petite-princess-girl-need-protection.

I’ll get into the details of characters in another part. This has already gotten long-winded enough and there’s still so much I’d like to discuss.

[strykingshot]

Final Fantasy 7 AU: Subject K- age 22-30 an AU where Kat becomes an experiment by Hojo, a link to more details can be found here

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Final Fantasy 7 Crisis Core: Mechanic Girl- Age: 21, Kat runs a mechanic garage owned by her father called the Copper Carbuncle. Due to being located in the sector 7 plate, the shop will, from time to time, take jobs from Shinra when vehicles or warehouse equipment breaks down. Though not officially a Shinra employee, Kat has been given permission to work repairs on Shinra property due to her father working in one of the local warehouses.

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Final Fantasy 7: Rebel with a Cause- Age: 26-28, Kat is a repair girl living in sector 7 slums but travels to the other sectors to handle any jobs. Usually, it’s small things like fixing a tv or a broken oven, but her specialty is cars and motorcycles.

 She’s well known in the sector 5 slums since she takes care of any repairs for the orphanage for free. The kids also love playing with her dog, Blitz, that travels with her to jobs. She sometimes stops by the church to make basic repairs to keep the place from collapsing under Aerith’s feet when she’s in town for a job. She also has a habit of “accidentally” leaving spare parts or tools lying around that just happened to end up in Avalanche’s hands. You can read a quick backstory tale here

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Final Fantasy 7: Running with Shinra- Age: 26-28, Kat accepts a job at Shinra as a mechanical engineer. Her skill with machines allows her to quickly rise the ranks to head of engineering. Her dislike for Shinra is well known among the employees under her, but she is careful to not to put her job in jeopardy.

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Final Fantasy 7 Advent Children/Dirge of Cerberus: Mechanic Mom- Age: 30-31, Kat has opened up a new shop called the Silver Carbuncle in Edge. Since setting up in Edge, Kat adopted two orphans and has been saving up to buy a proper house for the three of them. If she's not working on repair jobs, she works part-time for Strife delivery service.

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Final Fantasy 14: Adventure Awaits

Name: Kathrine "Cota" Stryker

Age: 27

Race: Au Ra/Elezen mixbreed

Born to adventuring couple Orlen Stryker and Altun of the Mol tribe, Kat's mother fell ill soon after Kat was born due to an injury that she had received from a fight that had become infected. Unable to travel the distance back to her tribe, they returned to Orlen's home of Ishgard to settle down and raise their daughter while Altun recovered. Unfortunately Altun never recovered and passed away a year after Kat's birth, leaving Orlen to raise their daughter alone surrounded by the judgement of his town without enough gil to travel back to the Steppe.

Kat grew up around constant bullying and harassment from the other children her age for her dragon-like appearance which left her with few friends her age. She ended up spending most of her time either at home or spending hours at the Athenaeum Astrologicum learning about the stars or the Skysteel Manufactory learning to build and tinker.

It wasn't a surprise to Orlen when Kat made her interest in adventuring known and by her nineteenth birthday Orlen had saved enough gil to buy her everything she needed to travel safely through Eorzea and a prayer she would be able to see her mother's homeland like Altun wished for her.

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Final Fantasy 16: Leviathan the lost- Age 26-31, Born in Oriflamne, Kat's parents did everything they could to hide her affinity for magic to avoid their only child becoming a bearer. Keeping her magic hidden, Kat joined the army and rose through the ranks to become a dragoon knight.

During a battle where the men under her risked being killed, in a last ditch effort Kat used her magic in front of the soldiers, creating a large wave to drown the enemy soldiers. Instead of being thankful for her saving them, the soldiers threatened to reveal her magic and have her become a bearer. In her anger at their betrayal, she ended up awakening Leviathan and killing her soldiers. When she awoken and realized what she did, she fled, leaving everything of hers in the hope it would look like she died with the soldiers and became a wandering mercenary with a habit of finding and leading escaping bearers to Cid.

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Devil May Cry 4/5: Dancing with Devils- Age: 22-28, After losing her parents in a mysterious accident as a teen, Kat became a minor bounty hunter living out of her truck while taking jobs wherever she can. During a trip to Fortuna, she ends up fighting demons in an attempt to protect some local civilians.

After that incident, she branched out into researching demons and including devil hunting into her business. You can read a quick backstory tale here

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Kingdom Hearts: Radiant Heart- Age: 16-18, Born in Radiant Garden, Kat joined the restoration committee with a focus on keeping the heartless out of the town. Due to an accident around the first heartless attack, Kat suffers from memory loss and deals with frequent headaches when something triggers a lost memory.

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Mortal Kombat: Stryking Emotions- Age 28, Kat was born to Sonya Blade and Kurtis Stryker. For the first 5 years of her life, she was raised by her father by himself until her father was killed. Kat was then raised by her father’s grandparents, who fought for sole custody claiming Sonya was an unfit parent.

Kat’s grandparents were loving but stuck in their grief of the loss of their son. Kat grew up listening to her grandparents about what her father was like as a police officer. After Kat graduated high school, she joined the police academy and joined the NYPD at age 24.

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Resident Evil: Outbreak- Kat is a rookie cop in the Raccoon City police department working under her father when the outbreak starts.

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Persona 5: Take your heart- Kat is a 2nd-year transfer student from New York due to her officer father transferring to Japan.

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Final Fantasy 15: in progress

Genshin Impact: in progress

Fire Emblem Three Houses: in progress

[rosaguard]

AERIS GAINSBOROUGH RP PLOTTING CHEAT-SHEET!

Want new-and-exciting plots for your character? Long to reach out to more of your followers, but don’t know where to start? Fear not! Fill out this form and give your RP partners both present and future all the of juicy jumping off points they need to help you get your characters acquainted.

Be sure to tag the players whose characters YOU want more cues to interact with, and repost, don’t reblog! Feel free to add or remove sections as you see fit. Template here.

mun name: summer. ooc contact: feel free to message me through IMs or asks. discord is reserved for friends and more serious plotting.

who the heck is my muse anyway?

    aeris gainsborough is one of the main protagonist from final fantasy vii and the last living cetra, an ancient race that is able to speak to the planet directly. when she was only an infant, aeris’ father, once the former head scientist at the shinra company, was murdered so that aeris and her mother, ifalna, could be captured. the first seven years of her life were spent as a prisoner in the shinra building so her and her powers could be studied closely for shinra’s own selfish gain. eventually, her mother was able fight her way out of the shinra building but was fatally wounded in the process and the two were eventually found on the steps of the sector five station by a widow named elmyra gainsborough. knowing that aeris was finally in safe hands, ifalna leaves her daughter with a heirloom, the holy materia, before she passes on to join the lifestream. in the years following her mother’s death and being adopted by elmyra, shinra would continue to track her movements but mostly let aeris be as she got older. 

   the use of mako, an energy source that was drained from the planet’s essence, would also rise in prominence during this time and various groups formed to oppose shinra’s methods. the most notable and active group were the eco-terrorists, AVALANCHE, and aeris’ life changes completely when one of its members nearly crashes on top of her in her church. a short walk to sector seven ends with aeris adventuring through a red-light district, midgar’s sewers, and finally kidnapped by the turks. feeling responsible for her capture, cloud, tifa, and barret break into the shinra building and are able to rescue the flower girl before hojo can use her and another innocent creature ( red xiii / nanaki ) for another one of his twisted experiments. once she is safe, the group’s attempt to escape fail and they’re locked away….only to be mysteriously freed where they discover that nearly everyone in the upper floors of the building murdered, including president shinra himself.

   while the group mostly intended to save the planet by destroying shinra, aeris and the others soon learn that there is an even greater threat to the planet: sephiroth. due to be wanted in midgar, the ragtag group of strangers leave the city in order to search for the elusive former general in order to figure out his intentions. this moment jumpstarts aeris’ journey of self-discovery and learning more about her ancestors ⎯⎯⎯⎯ something that she had deliberately avoided until now. as she the group continues to travel the world, aeris slowly begins to not only understand her role as the last cetra but she finally learns of the true purpose of the heirloom her mother had given her all those years ago…

things you should know:

aeris does not die in my portrayal. my blog is canon divergent and is meant to explore how she ( and the story as a whole ) would change if she were to live. i’ve already written about what the differences between the events at the city of the ancients are in my blog canon.

the original game will always be my base. with the remake coming, there will more than likely be changes that i’m willing to adapt to but her personality will always remain faithful towards the OG in case the remake is not. i also pick and choose which parts of the compilation ( crisis core, advent children, etc. ) i wish to acknowledge.

aeris can ‘hear’ other planets too. she might not fully understand what it’s saying as its words might sound muffled or completely like gibberish to her but she can hear it.

my aeris is brown. when describing her in a thread, please don’t describe her skin as pale or white because it is not. she is the equivalent of a south asian woman visually, not western like nomura has stated she’s designed to be ( here is an example of her skin tone if it helps ).

what she’s been up to:

main verse: after being rescued from shinra, aerith quickly becomes a new member of the AVALANCHE crew once they decide to leave midgar. during this period, she and the others travel across the planet to hunt down sephiroth and uncover his true motivations for seeking the promised land. until aeris, along with tifa and barret, leave the main party to travel to the city of the ancients alone.

where to find her:

sector five church:  aeris’ home away from home is an abandoned, dilapidated church in the sector five slums where she has managed to do the impossible: make flowers grow in the slums. children often visit her to play in her church or help tend to the flowers while she’s away.

the upper sectors: towering over the slums is the plate that holds the foundation of midgar. despite popular belief in the slums, people of various wealth live on the plate - from the middle class to the most wealthy.  it is the flower girl’s main place of business and you’re most likely to find her selling flowers on loveless avenue in sector eight.

the highwind: despite the wounds earned during the clash at the city of the ancients, aeris remains with AVALANCHE until the end. once meteor is finally summoned by sephiroth and tifa and barret are rescued in junon, the others return to icicle inn to retrieve aeris. after cloud is found in mideel, aeris remains at the hospital to be treated by its doctor while tifa watches over their comatose leader. after cloud returns to his former self, she mostly stays on the airship whenever they leave to fight.

current plans:

kill sephiroth / save the planet: this is pretty straight forward to be honest.

desired interactions:

if the ff rpc wasn’t so d-e-a-d, i would mostly say canon interactions? i would really like to go more into her general feelings regarding well…everything post-stabbing. it would be a difficult time for her since she’s just been stabbed, she failed to protect the planet, etc. ( there’s also processing what happened at the temple of the ancients: tseng might be dead, we know he’s not, but she thinks so and cloud attacked her ).

more friendships / family / whatever. i’ve actually haven’t gotten into shipping until like…the past year? it’s been nice but also want to make sure all my interactions aren’t just romantic.

this section will be updated™ over time.

things that bother me:

receiving starters about aeris’s flowers or something related to flowers. while it might not seem like a big deal to you, imagine receiving 6 starters and four of them were about the same exact subject. it’s just…really boring so please don’t write about her flowers unless it’s something you really feel is unique enough.

having your muse ‘save’ aeris. unless we’ve discussed this and i’ve agreed to it happening, don’t write it for me. aeris is not weak. she does not need your muses’s protection unless she asks for it. in the original game, she states multiple times that she can handle herself and gets visibly annoyed when people underestimate her: cloud: you gotta be kidding. why do you want to put yourself in danger again? aeris: i’m used to it. cloud: used to it!? ……well, don’t know… getting help from a girl… aeris: a girl!! what do you mean by that!? you expect me to just sit by and listen, after hearing you say something like that!? // cloud: how could I ask you to go along when I knew it would be dangerous? aeris: are you done?

literally everything about crisis core!aeris. having her entire design be retconned because a guy told her he liked pink on her is bad. having him be the one to suggest she sell flowers when she literally lives in straight poverty is bad. having her spend four years writing letters to the equivalent of a high school crush is bad. having so much of her relationship with cloud taken and recycled for zack ( falling in her church, just one date, etc. ) is bad. having her, a person that is literally connect to the planet and has limit breaks that deal with nature itself, be scared of the sky is not only bad but stupid. none of this means that i hate zack as i would still be willing to write ze.rith if there’s chemistry but it would have to be heavily plotted and discussed.

tagged by: no one, i rewrote an old one i did.

tagging: anyone who wants to.

[vanitas-valentine]

Kingdom Hearts Theory

Today we are going to cover a theory I have had for awhile. This theory is parallel universe theory which is  ties into multiverse theory. In fact the theory is, an infinite universe would have infinitely many planets, and on some of them, the events that play out would be virtually identical to those In the original universe. Meaning within an infinite universe, every single possible configuration takes place multiple times to achieve all possible outcomes. Let Us begin . Many in the final fantasy which we will refer to as Original Universe  for this, Often will Lead to a predestined outcome. Certain key events  no matter if they take place in the Original or  in the Parallel ones  will occur but the cause of them and time in which they happen might be different from original. Let us take some of the key components in kingdom hearts  mainly final fantasy ones and piece them together. In Kingdom hearts 1 we  find Aerith ,Cloud ,Yuffie,Squall who goes by Leon,Cid, Tidus,Wakka,Selphie and of course Sephiroth. Now in parallel universe There is no  Midgar, Shrina power company or  Balamb Garden . Which could be attributed to there home world  begin lost. But I am certain that is not the case because when the worlds are restored after  Hollow Bastion (Radiant Garden) keyhole is sealed many of the worlds and people who were displaced from the heartless trying to succeeding in taking over the worlds. Cloud and the others Return to Hollow Bastion or if you prefer Radiant Garden. It is Clouds home world in the game instead of original  universe  Nibelheim. Also in original he was 15-21 in the events  of before crisis , and crisis core. So he was not yet solid 20 years old when Sephiroth  defected  from Shrina in original. But  sense in parallel there is no Shrina company to employ Hojo and for the company itself to fund  experimentation  to create  super solders for there own use. The question in Parallel is How did they get Mako enhancement  and  in Sephiroths case experimentation done on him as an infant . If Jenvoa does not exist within this Parallel universe.In kingdom hearts 2 we see cloud take on His advent children outfit and attitude more. Which in the original takes place 2 years after the events of the main game of 7. which leaves him 23  years of age. But in Parallel even with Sora having slept for a year  and traveling in Castle Oblivion. Which i am begin generous when I say  kingdom hearts 1 possibly taking a year in there   which would make Cloud 21 by the end of the first game. In  358/2 days and  chain of memories which coexist at or around the same time  leads to cloud begin 22 and then Sora sleeping for a year would bring him up to 23. Cloud in the original  universe  suffers from Geostigma at this age and is taking care of children.  But in Parallel universe he is not sick at all Also to point out that Aerith whom died in Original  very much is alive and well  in parallel. Then their is even the predetermined  choice of fate. I am referring to Cloud and Sephiroth  begin mortal enemys and  wind up chasing one another. Not to mention that in the journal entry He made it into  solider But in original He  never did but suffered from  traumatic event that caused him to adopt his Friend`s(Zack Fair) memories and personality. Now  that leads me to Zack fair whom was  featured in Birth by sleep . He is introduced  to us in the Coliseum  where  much similar to original universe  he wishes to become a hero. Also like in the the original he is 16- 21 and in Parallel appears to be 15 to 18. But he refers to  Sephiroth begin a hero. Which means the predate  Sephiroth turning bad some how  happens  from  when  Zack is left at the Coliseum  and the game wraps up. During when of the cut scenes during the ending shows Zack in the coliseum   leaving it  begin called  forth by black feathers floating down from the sky. Very  much like what happens  in Barona in the original universe. Although Zack is still very young in birth by sleep.  Could be hinting that his tragic fate ( his death in original crisis core universe ) is a predetermined fate that is  unchangeable. this  can  be supported because in no other  kingdom heart title to date is Zack featured again. Now onto Sephiroth Whom in the original was poster boy for Shrina Power company and is In  crisis core about 20 years old  supposedly. And by the events of game 7 is Supposedly 27. Where in  Kingdom hearts he is only featured physically  so all can see  in kingdom hearts one. Which  his appearance is   like in crisis core   or  advent children,  With  In the original  it shows his progression from a sane rational  if not slightly  socially awkward person. Whom friends meant everything to. Sephiroth acts more humane and caring than his reputation would suggest Offering his blood for a transfusion to help Genesis when he was injured. Later he even offers Genesis his title of "hero", to help curb his jealousy.To snapped deranged psychopath who intent to watch the world fall to ruin to achieve his goal.Following his fall into insanity, Sephiroth retains most of his personality traits, but becomes murderous, ruthless, and vengeful. He develops a messiah complex, proclaiming he is "the chosen one" destined to lead the Planet. He becomes sadistic, as he enjoys mentally torturing Cloud. Sephiroth is devoted to Jenova and its cause,. Which is to  destroy the planet. In Kingdom hearts he only ever alluded to begin a representation of Cloud`s own inner darkness. And his connection to  Cloud`s past in kingdom hearts is unclear. Now let us move on to  squall or Leon as he prefers to be called in  kingdom hearts. Sense we established in the Original was a member of  SeeD mercenary from Balamb Garden. And is  17 during the  original.  Leon in  Parallel( Kingdom hearts) appears in the first game which he is about 24 years old in( in kingdom hearts 2 he is 26). In the original his rival sense his days in the Orphanage was Seifer Almasy. whom was 18. But in kingdom hearts 2 where we meet Seifer  for the frist time he appers in his early  teens no more then 16 at most. Meaning  they exist at the same point in time just different worlds .Seifer in the original is the cause for the scar that runs across squalls face, his own face  having a similar mark due to the  exchange. Well in Parallel( kh )  Leon still  has the scare but due to the age  difference and living  on separate worlds . It is highly unlikely  he was the cause of the one scare Leon is sporting. Seifer`s could be attributed to his rivalry with Hayner.  How ever moving on Leon  in Parallel is leader of both the Heartless Resistance and the Hollow Bastion Restoration Committee.Unlike the original where he worked his way up from a member to be the commander( or chairmen). is this theory perfect no but it does explain a fair bit . Hope you enjoyed it #kingdomhearts #theory  #finalfantasy