#everyone gets infected by jenovas virus | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

millionsnife · 5 days

Text

verse drop;; ff7/trigun fusion; building this verse with @lockhartred

important notes. readmore for length:

gunsmoke doesn't happen; instead the SEEDS ships land on the planet gaia. knives and vash are born roughly a year before the coordinates are chosen and input into the pilot program. they're roughly 2 years old when the ships land on gaia.

humanity begins colonizing the planet.

monsters are discovered, and in an effort to combat them and survive on their new home, experiments splicing plant dna into human dna begin using adult volunteers. success rates are high and the experiments are considered a success. there's now a mix of pure humans and cetra; cetra is the name they give the human-plant hybrids.

rem, wanting to be closer to her sons and understand them and their needs as plants better, also volunteers for the experiments. (unknown to anyone, a virus in space managed to infect one of the plants on board. at this time, the virus only affects plants. the plant rem's spliced dna comes from is an infected plant. this becomes the first strain of the newly named geostigma when it's discovered, but it is assumed they caught and eradicated the disease before it was a problem, not knowing.)

at some point within the next couple years, vash and knives get older and start exploring this new world at rem's side. they wander north, and something or other happens. rem, in an effort to protect the twins, loses control of the new powers she's gained as a plant hybrid and there's some sort of explosion or such. it's never clear even when they tell people what happened; regardless, the north crater results from the accident, and rem is sealed within an icy cavern below ground.

knives and vash are the ones to create the cetra of the watch; the intention for this is that when rem finally reawakens again, someone will always be there and ready to help her rejoin the world. the twins themselves resume traveling and living among humans, both to occupy their time and bc they think rem would prefer them to live their lives instead of sitting around waiting for her. most plants somehow end up in the crater via unknown (to everyone else) means.

time passes. cetra dwindle and only pure humans remain, somewhere along the way the history gets warped. rem's existence in the cavern gets forgotten by all but the remaining watch and even their stories somehow warp and shift so that they believe they're guarding against a calamity from the sky, instead of being there as guardians meant to protect and eventually reintroduce rem.

shinra finds rem eventually; gast renames her jenova, unknowing of what he's truly found and experiments begin. by this point, the infection of the original virus in combination of time and weather have degraded rem horribly; what's left is not the mother the twins knew, and at this point the twins begin to come in conflict on what to do about the situation. shinra also finds the plants and begins using them in ways they should not lmao

"Reunion" is not what hojo believes it to be, whatever the hell that is; "reunion" is just the plant dna trying to bring their new hosts into the higher plane/add them to the network of the collective plant consciousness. hojo's meddling has also fucked around and found out a lot of problematic ways, and rem/jenova's a little bit mad.

vash wants to cooperate with humans the way they always have, convinced they can work together to fix the rem problem and bring her back to the mother they remember. knives, after centuries of wandering, has grown a bit jaded by humanity and is all for letting rem/jenova just kill off humanity and leave him, vash and plants as the remaining survivors.

he's not actively killing anyone but knives is totally down for letting jenova just do the thing. vash is the one who firmly believes (and is right!) that what's left of rem's mind would be horrified of everything she's doing. he eventually convinces knives to work with avalanche to remove shinra as the problem they are and save the other plants, without killing everyone else off.

and the last point is where the threads take place; during the ff7 game timeline, as well as post

#anyway this means sephiroth is technically??? maybe their brother??#which is funny #also the clouds/knives rivalry that i deeply desire exists here bc it's also funny #knives at sephiroth: i'm the oldest child just so you're aware. and then vash. you're LITERALLY the baby of this family #ff7 au;; where are the bones mother–have we been scattered among them?#hcs;;

3 notes · View notes

iaintyourbro · 3 years

Text

The Unknown Journey Continues

Part 1

I know it's been a while... but I've been going down a rabbit hole with @starlight-samurai regarding time loops, Jenova, Minerva, and more fun. So I figured I'd try to put it into one post to get the insanity out of my head. Everything in here is based on things we've found by either going through more obscure Ultimanias, learning more about Dirge of Cerberus and trying to decipher what the hell Jenova is by putting together various sources - including other Square Enix games - and how they handled freakishly similar scenarios.

Did you know there is a companion mobile game for it that was out on the good old flip phones? Did you know there was an online mode in Dirge of Cerberus only available in Japan, but had story elements that were not in the main game?

The sad part is, there's still so much to go through...

(I've also had various discussions with @ourfinalheaven, Manu, who doesn't have Tumblr, so here is her Twitter. and Somebody's Nightmare (here is her Twitter). So I wanted to tag them here, as it's much more fun to discuss these ideas as a group, since it'll only help you build on and strengthen your own ideas.)

Please be aware, there will be Spoilers for FFVII - Almost all Compilation titles, Xenogears, and NieR Automata throughout this.

So let's go on a journey where we explore what actually already exists in the compilation - including the idea of the whispers and timeloops - how Minerva may play into everything, and what exactly Jenova is capable of doing.

I asked Sesi if he'd ever played any of the NieR games, because he'd said something that made me wonder if they were going to take a similar approach. As a very, very quick high level summary: NieR Automata deals with a time loop type of idea. The androids will be rebooted and repeat the same things over and over again. This is broken when 2B is killed by A2 because she becomes infected with a virus. That being said, you have the option after Ending E to either erase all of your data and end the cycle OR you can try again. The Pods have a discussion, and one asks, "But won't they just do the same thing again?" and the other replies with "Maybe. But it could also be different this time."

Here's Sesi's message back to me when I asked him about this (cleaned up a bit since we were having a casual conversation over Discord):

Maybe I could just guess based comparatively on the Dirge storyline, because that was sort of SE's first flirtation with “robots and androids” since they’re all programmed and locked behind like task managers and shit that can shut them down. The story of the online mode for DoC that came out in Japan, we never got to see it, you’re basically an Android OC and you have to get to “the end of the level” and then essentially die, and a new one takes its place. This keeps happening until Weiss is essentially freed from being able to be task managed by the guys who are suppose to be able to control them and I know from tons of years with Square games that they’re verrrrry bad at differentiating their narratives they tend to just keep “ripping themselves off” so is it anything close to that?

Cuz if so I think I kinda know what you’re saying and yeah, I agree, I think with CC bringing in its poetic symbolism and LOVELESS, and DoC bringing back the cyclic nature of the lore, whispers, premonitions and future visions, proto-Materia and the perversion of this next cycle since the planet can no longer cleanse and protect itself and its will is weakening lesser and lesser to the point where it’s fate is “in a true sense of jeopardy This time essentially it’s all tied in together and sort of played as though it's a fated track; a cycle of events and something has hitched it, thus the whispers manifesting and Sephiroth's higher implied control over his destiny. Of course, even all that is just their new red herring game, but it’s definitely a part of the lore they want to play with, in order to go back and reMAKE the OG with the comp inserted from inception. Also gut punch a lot.

Time Loops

I was somewhat surprised to find out that this concept is NOT new to FFVII's universe. It's discussed in Dirge of Cerberus... probably one of the least played and least understood of the compilation. (Trying to sell a third person shooter with terrible controls to a market of mostly people used to turn-based combat wasn't going to go well.)

On top of it, we didn't even get all of it, since online mode was never released outside of Japan, and the Dirge of Cerberus Lost Episode was on Amp'd Mobile and Verizon flip phones back in 2006. Were you around for the cell phones in 2006? I had the ones on the list, and how somebody could play a game on those blows my mind.

Square has a tendency to reuse themes from their other titles. Probably one of the most blatant is the similarities between Xenogears and Final Fantasy VII. They were both being developed at the same time and a lot of ideas that didn't make it into FFVII ended up in Xenogears.

NieR

So how does this work? In NieR (both Replicant and Automata), you play the same path multiple times. Each time, it's slightly different depending on what side quests you did your first and second playthrough, but there's also other subtle differences throughout the story. In Automata, you get to play as 2B your first playthrough and 9S for your second. They follow the same path, but you get it from his perspective the second time and it reveals a bit more of what is going on. However, even with some slight differences, the main plot points stay the same and the ending result it also the same.

Then on your third playthrough, you wake up in the Bunker, and you're getting ready to go on a new mission. This time, though, 2B is killed and shit hits the fan. Things get crazy, you play as a new character: A2. In the end, pretty much everyone "dies", but you can choose to "reboot" and try again. You also can say you are done and let them all rest and delete your save data (the game gives you the option for both Automata and Replicant, and with Replicant, it actually leads to a new ending).

The striking thing for me is... There are certain events that will always happen, no matter what.

Fixed Points in Time

It's been years since I've watched Doctor Who, but there was something that stuck with me, and that was the fixed points in time. You can read about all of them here, but here's the basics:

Now, of course Doctor Who goes into this with much more detail and it's a recurring theme. However, as you read through that page, you'll probably find many aspects that have been used in various JRPGs that you've played. And Doctor Who most likely pulled some of the idea from classic Science Fiction novels. Each story puts its own spin on it.

How does this relate to FFVII Remake? Well, when they say that the major plot points will stay the same, it reminds me of this. No matter what, Cloud must fall into the Sector 5 Church, the Sector 7 Plate must be dropped, Aerith and Zack both must die, and Meteor has to be summoned, to name a few. So, with a time loop, those things would still have to take place in order to prevent a complete collapse of reality (at least in how Doctor Who uses it).

Therefore, the Whispers are ensuring that the Will of the Planet is followed.

One of the major themes in FFVII is that of loss. People die and they do not come back. Yes, other FF games do allow this to happen (FFX, FFXIII, FFXV), but VII is not those games. It was written with that idea in mind, that once a person dies, they, just like in real life, are dead and cannot be brought back.

I've previously written that I think they'll make us believe we are able to change fate, but we will eventually be slammed with the reality that we can't. That is because the planet has determined that certain events are fixed points.

Xenogears

Xenogears takes a bit of a different approach to the loop idea. Instead of repeating the same time period over and over, it has the characters reincarnated, and the same outcome happens each time: Elly dies. However, each time it's different. After all, they're in various time periods, in some cases thousands of years apart.

In all of the lives of Fei (who will have a different name in each time period) and Elly (who is always Elly/Elhaym), Elly will end up dying trying to protect Fei and the others. In one life, she is a religious figure at a totally not Catholic church, in another she's the wife of a scientist who was working to create children from nanomachines due to mass infertility issues. But she is ALWAYS with Fei, even if his name changes.

In her Mother Elhaym time, this is when Lacan (Fei) finally snaps. Though he's not fully aware of his past lives, he becomes aware, the anger consumes him, and he becomes Grahf. Fei is then reborn into the time period you play the game in.

There's a lot to unpack with this, so I won't go into it. Grahf wants to destroy God (Deus) because he thinks if he does, then it'll stop the suffering (his suffering).

If you do want to read more about Grahf, you can do so here, but it probably won't make much sense unless you've played Xenogears up to that point... Since it's much later in the game that this is all explained.

Lacan's desire was to stop the cycle of Elly always sacrificing herself for his sake. Though Grahf is not a perfect existence - he's not fully "The Contact", he sacrifices himself in order to let Fei move forward, and hopefully stop the cycle, by destroying the Deus system. (Elly also tries to sacrifice herself here, but Fei goes after her and stops her.)

Now, some people may think I'm saying that Cloud or somebody is going to do this in order to save Aerith or Zack (or his village or mom), but in FFVII if they do the loop method, I don't think Cloud, Tifa, Barret, and the others are aware of it. Most likely, it's only 'Sephiroth' and Aerith who are aware of it.

How this Could Be used for Final Fantasy VII

I'm stressing could because there's so many different possibilities on how they use this (if they are using this), so please, don't take this as fact. This is based on speculation based on what we know.

A time loop is a great way to explain away the differences in the story that we've seen: Biggs being alive, Wedge living for longer than he should have, etc. Since these are not major plot changes, they can simply say that this time it'll be slightly different... but your fixed points (major plot points) will remain the same.

It's a way to pull in some of the more obscure themes from Dirge of Cerberus and also play with the LOVELESS lore.

It could all simply be a big red herring and it's really just a remake of OG, but with the compilation tied together nicely... since it works much better when it's combined and not in 50 different games, books, movies, etc.

I don't think it's a "sequel" per say, not in the way I generally perceive a sequel. It's more of a loop of the same thing. The question is, when is the loop started and what will cause it to end? When will the planet (if it even is the planet) determine that it's good enough to begin moving forward?

JENOVA, Sephiroth, Genesis, and Minerva - Oh My!

Let's be real... Genesis isn't exactly the most popular character in the FFVII Compilation... but what if they make him one of the most important to the story? //Ducks as various fruits and vegetable are thrown in my direction//

I think what Genesis is probably most known for is his love of LOVELESS. He has the entire thing memorized and randomly says lines from it throughout Crisis Core. LOVELESS lore is still something I'm trying to grasp, so I am not going to comment much on it. Once I understand it more, I'll update this.

...And then this happens. The secret ending for Dirge of Cerberus, where Genesis picks up Weiss. Weiss, who has now been introduced along with Nero in FFVII INTERmission and is an optional ridiculously hard boss in the Shinra battle simulator in chapter 17 of the main story. There is some lore associated with the battle sim - so if you don't plan on beating it or you just can't, you can look up the pre-battle and post-battle cut scenes on YouTube. They're very short, but interesting. (I beat this asshole last night - it's a hell of a fight.)

....To Be Continued because apparently Tumblr won't allow more than 10 images per post now.... Next will be more on JENOVA and Sephiroth along with Minerva.

#ffvii #ffvii genesis #ff7 genesis #ff7 intergrade #ff7 intermission spoilers #FFVII intermission spoilers #FFVII Intermission #Final Fantasy VII #Dirge of Cerberus #FFVII Weiss #Xenogears #nier automata #final fantasy vii #ff7r #final fantasy 7 #timey wimey

68 notes · View notes

im-totally-not-an-alien · 4 years

Text

Final Fantasy 7 prompts no 61

1. Hojo screwed up.

A light engulfed the Shinra tower, turning everyone inside into the opposite gender.

Genesis immediately bought different make up and had a few copies of his uniform altered because there is no way he isn't going to look his absolute best in any situation.

Sephiroth locked himself in his quarters because his outfit doesn't exactly support the existence of boobs. He's still doing paperwork. The poor bastard.

Angeal got advice from some rather flustered secretaries. He's more bothered by the situation than he's willing to admit

Zack and Kunsel took this opportunity to see what the girls bathroom was like.

2. Someone referred to Sephiroth as "Clouds big tiddied goth boyfriend"

3. Cloud can summon those wierd eldrich hellhounds from AC. He does this by saying the word "Havoc" as an attack command.

AVALANCHE soon found out that if anyone/ says that word, they'll spring up from Clouds shadow. If he isn't being actively threatened or attacked they will attack the thing that poses the greatest threat to Cloud, which usually winds up being poor Vincent.

4. Genesis finds out Shelua and Shelke are his little sisters and immediately tries to shove himself into the family dynamic

5. Ghost Aerith cutting off Sephiroths dramatic monologs with an air horn

6. Au where everything is the same but its from Ghost Zacks perspective

7. Time traveler cloud was caught on the security cameras planting something underneath the Generals office chair. Reno was dispatched, expecting to defuse a bomb.

What he found instead was an airhorn trap. The redhead left it and went back to the security room to watch the chaos unfold, only to see the very blond he had been hunting for months watching the monitor. His hand immediately went to his rod, but the blond waved him off. "We can fight later. Sit down, the firsts just entered."

Reno grinned as he watched Shinras holy trinity jump a meter and a half inter the air and he actually considered proposing to blondie right here and now. This feeling only increased when the stranger began making copies of the footage and placing them of flash drives, all the while, Genesis was talking a mile a minute, (likely cursing and threatening to roast whoever had done this alive) and Angeal inspected the trap, thinking that a certain puppy was about to get a lecture.

They fought, or course. And of course, blondie got away again. On the plus side, Reno got to keep one of the flash drives.

He likes to hack into computers near wherever Rhapsodos is and back the video appear on screen.

8. CC Cloud gets bitten by a werewolf. Hes more concerned with not being dragged off by the Turks or a scientist than the actual "being a werewolf" thing

9. Denzel and Marlene choose to race in those little toddler jeeps after Reno bought them a pair.

They were kinda miffed until they pressed down on the "gas" petal and the tiny little things rocketed off with them inside.

Cloud, Barret, and Tifa all stood there frozen before Barret took of running after his daughter.

Reno rubbed the back of his head, "Eheh. I guess I suped 'em up a little too much, huh."

Tifa cracked her knuckles, "You have five seconds to run."

10. Sephiroth returns again, descending from the sky like some kinda majestic bastard. "Cloud, I- What are you doing?"

Cloud and Genesis glared at him from the toddler jeeps they were racing. "Mind your business catboy!"

11. Time travel fuckery where Genesis uses Holy to save the world after Aerith was kidnapped.

12. Sephiroth was running out of time. His consciousness was beginning to fade and disperse through the lifestream. In one final desperate act, he tried to force Reunion by pulling out the small part of Cloud who had wanted to help Sephiroth. The part that was made to be his puppet.

It worked, but had the unfortunate side effect of shattering the blonds soul into several pieces and by extention, creating Clouds own remnants. Even worse. There's more than three.

(This is a blatant excuse to have all the different fanon versions of Cloud in the same story)

13. The Cetra Cloud au, but with a twist. He was a Cetra infected by Jenova, but didn't die. Instead he defeated her and helped his ancient kin seal her away.

Fearing that he might be a danger to the world, he asked the planet to seal him away too, keeping him on stand-by in case the world ever needed him again.

Two thousand years into the future, he is awoken by the desperate cries of the planet. The humans have found Jenova and are using pieces of her body to create super soldiers. Whats worse is that they are draining the planets lifeblood and burning it as fuel. They called it "mako"

The planet was afraid that if it awoke its weapons they might be destroyed. They were made for one powerful opponent, not thousands of adversaries. So she awoke him to destroy the humans "leach machines" and dispose of Jenova, before she can properly awaken.

14. Au were Cloud is a calamity, much like Jenova.

He crash landed in Wutai near the beginning of the Wutai war and proceeded to kill/consume anyone who challenged him. Fortunately the shape-shifting virus was still young and was rather new to his powers.

Unfortunately, he was actively hunting Jenova and Sephiroth in an attempt to kill them and claim this planet as his own territory.

The planet is hysterical, prompting Aerith to run to Tseng and tell him what she knew of the Calamity From The Skies. Tseng relays this information to the directors and the firsts, portraying it as a serious threat. The problem is that the planet doesn't know what the new viruses intentions are.

The firsts simply see this as a chance to play hero and greatly underestimate the blond only to get brutally crushed, with Sephiroth nearly dying before Genesis saved him via his limit break.

(Cloud is super evil in this btw)

Featuring: Cloud eating people, existential horror, gore, Cloud tormenting one Soldier by saying his brothers last words in said brothers voice, Cloud shapeshifting into other people and evading security problems like that, Cloud shape-shifting into Genesis and impaling Sephiroth from behind, ect.

15. "You cannot forget me Cloud. No more than you can forget Aerith or Zack, for you love me as much as you love them."

"I hate you!" The blond spat out.

The silverette shook his head, smiling as though his reaction simply amused him, "Hatred is just another form of love."

"Then I will love you as I always have." He replied as he readied his sword.

(The phase I originally came up with was "Then I will love you as I always have, with a dagger and a sneer" but it didn't fit)

#cloud strife #sephiroth #final fantasy 7 story prompts #final fantasy 7 prompts #final fantasy prompts #ff7 #genesis rhapsodos #zack fair #jenova #angeal hewley #final fantasy vii #final fantasy 7

86 notes · View notes

innumerablemuses-a · 4 years

Text

[This was written by my husband! His current tumblr is @videxphxtxgraphy, though as you can see, his blog is so new that I can’t properly tag him. I was planning to edit this up a bit, but to hell with it. Here’s his (and my) hot take on a theory on Final Fantasy VII BEFORE the Remake drops!]

I've been trying to get this to MatPat directly, but hell with it, I'll share it with you guys! I've had this theory for several years, and this is the first time I've voiced it. In my time on the internet, searching for anyone else who had this theory, I've seen a single post that brought up the same points, with the same evidence. ONE!

I'll separate this theory into confirmed information, stuff that is told to us directly in the canon, and possible information, stuff that can be inferred from So, without further ado, my FF7 theory...

Is the true name of Red XIII's race.

Throughout the span of three games, multiple books, OVA's, and a movie, we've been told of nearly everything in this world...EXCEPT for the name of the race of a prominent character. Doesn't this seem weird? I think that Square had told us, and none of us caught it!

Let's take a look at what we know about Red XIII, or Nanaki's (I will be using the two names interchangeably ahead) race:

*They are an incredibly long lived race, ageing roughly one year for every three of ours, as Bugenhagen had told us.

>Bugenhagen "Ho Ho Hoooo. I hear that you looked after Nanaki a bit."

"Nanaki is still a child you see."

>Red XIII

"Please stop, grandfather. I'm 48."

>Bugenhagen

"Ho Ho Hoooo. Nanaki's tribe has incredible longevity."

"So you see his 48 years would only be equivalent to say that of a 15 or 16 year old in human reckoning."

>Cloud

"15 or 16!?"

*His race was connected to the planet, as evidenced in FF:Before Crisis, where he and another of his race, Denah, are in the process of doing a ceremony to "appease the planet" that is held every fifty years, that requires a male and female of his species. From this, we can infer that his species has been responsible for this for quite awhile, and that the race has a connection with the planet, a thought that is strengthened by Bugenhagen himself being able to hear and understand the Planet, as well as being able to read the language of the Ancients.

*His race is intelligent, at least to the same level of humanity.

*Hojo attempted to breed Red XIII with Aerith with the intent to create a child that would live long enough to allow Shin-Ra to experiment with to find the Promised Land.

>President Shinra "How long will the research take?"

>Hojo "Probably 120 years. It's probably impossible to finish in our lifetime. Or in the lifetime of the specimen too, for that matter."

>(Hojo turns away from the table.)

>Hojo "That's why we're thinking of breeding her. Then we could create one that would withstand our research for a long time."

>President Shinra "What about the Promised Land? Won't it hinder our plans?"

*A prominent site near Nanaki's home-town, Comso Canyon, is the Ancient Forest, and while Ancient could simply refer to it being old, what is another Ancient we hear of regularly?

The Cetra.

I believe that Red XIII is a Cetra.

This sounds insane; after all, we see two Cetra in the game (Aerith and ilfana), and neither of them have any dog or feline-like features. So, let's look a little more into the Cetra.

*The Cetra are a race similar to humanity, sharing our language and our intelligence.

*The Cetra are deeply connected with the planet, able to communicate with the planet.

*The Cetra were deeply spiritual.

Do these sound familiar? These sound a lot like our friend Nanaki, as well as the denizens of Cosmo Canyon. But none of these answer the question I posed:

If Nanaki IS a member of the Cetra, why does he look like he does? To answer this question we need to go to the Ilfana herself. In Icicle inn, you can find recordings of Aerith's parents, Professor Gast and Ilfana. During one of which, she says the following:

Ilfana: "That's when it appeared! It looked like... our... our dead mothers... and our dead brothers. Showing us specters of their past."

Scientist: "Who is the person that appeared at the North Cave? I haven't any idea."

Ilfana: "That's when the one who injured the Planet... or the 'crisis from the sky', as we call **him, came."

[NOTE:: **might be a translation error; script was directly copy and pasted]

>(She covers her face with her hands.)

Ilfana: "He first approached as a friend, deceived them, and finally...... gave them the virus."

>(She looks up again.)

Ilfana: "The Cetra were attacked by the virus and went mad...transforming into monsters."

>(She sinks to the floor. The scientist runs over to her)

Ilfana: "Then, just as he had at the Knowlespole. He approached other Cetra clans...... infecting them with... the virus..."

Now, from this, we learn that the Cetra were infected by Jenova cells, went mad, and became monsters, in a similar way that we see can happen to humans, such as Hojo and the various numbered hooded NPCs that wander the world. However, we also know there are multiple beings who were infected with Jenova cells who mutated, but did not go mad, namely SOLDIERs’ three golden boys: Angeal, Genesis, and Sephiroth. As well as the bosses in Dirge of Cerberus, who were injected with Genesis' genes, and at least one of them, Azul the Cerulean, was able to mutate, though he kept his mind intact.

This is to say nothing of SOLDIER, all of its members being injected with Jenova cells, and yet, none of them are monstrous. All of these cases are done via artificial means, so it leaves one to wonder what direct exposure to the cells would do.

More evidence comes from the creepy scientist everyone loves to hate, Hojo. And to me, this is perhaps the most decisive evidence. When Cloud and the crew goes to rescue Aerith, they interrupt Hojo attempting to forcibly breed the two. Why would Hojo be doing this? The common answer is a joke, saying that Hojo is just creepy like that. While this MAY be true, President Shinra himself is not. President Shinra is a greedy, corrupt official, who's biggest concern of murdering thousands of his own citizens is how much gil that will take out of his pocket. This doesn't seem like the type of man who would give his precious gil to a crazy scientist for no reason, especially given how implausible breeding these two seems. This implies that President Shinra believed this was possible, leading me to believe Hojo had given proof that the breeding was possible, likely through DNA or blood samples.

Of course, this is just a theory, but it is something that, as I said, I have very rarely seen discussed, and I also truly believe this is what was intended. We have the backstory to the Buster Sword, for crying out loud, but not so much as a single line mentioning Nanaki's species name? Believe what you will, theorists, but that is my theory, and that is my response to the idea that there is nothing else to be discussed about FF7.

#Nanaki #Red XIII #FF7 #Final Fantasy 7 #Final Fantasy VII #FF7 Theory #FFVII Theory #Cetra #Ancient

13 notes · View notes

saanphoenix · 5 years

Text

@queen-pathetic Alright. Let's theorize.

So, we got Nibelheim, right? Mountainous region that's highly treacherous, full of Mako energy, aka the Lifestream, and home to powerful monsters such as dragons. ...Damn those dragons.

Nibelheim is located pretty far north on the Planet, closer to the Crater, an area that has sucked so much of the Planet's energy toward it that the surrounding area is Very Winter. It's an open wound and blood is still pooling towards it to scab it over. Said blood is infected, though, with a virus that mutates life into monsters. Ifalna tells us all this. JENOVA is responsible for the Weird Shit on the Planet. I digress. Point is: Planet Blood Concentrated Nearer The Crater.

Not only is there a reactor in Nibelheim--because abundance of Planet goo--but there is also a natural Mako fountain, crystalizing into natural materia. Which is hella rare. The whole point of the reactors was to not only create power but to create Huge Materia through manmade means. And Nibelheim's just cooking one up on its own.

With all this mind, it's easy to theorize that Nibelheim is Special. It might even be similar to Mideel--one earthquake short of dumping the whole place into the Lifestream. And with the Lifestream that close to the surface in that area, it's bound to cause some Weird Shit of its own. Like materia. And dragons. And potentially people susceptible to the Lifestream.

Now, one of the things that have always bothered me in FFVII is Cloud's weirdness. Even before the experiments, this kid was shown to be Weird. He survived a terrible fall that nearly killed his friend and put her in a coma for seven days while he only suffered some scrapped knees. How? He gets impaled by a sword, hoisted into the air, and finds the strength to not only impale himself further, but plant his feet on the ground, lift a full-grown man into the air via said sword, and THROWS man and sword. And he lives! How? He gets dunked into the Lifestream twice and survives. Sephiroth didn't even survive that. How?

In Before Crisis, he grabs a sword and goes every bit of the definition of berserk, attacking AVALANCHE in a frenzy, and then remarks that he has no idea what he just did.

And that's just the physical feats he pulls off.

He is extremely sensitive to the Lifestream. When WEAPON is about to attack Mideel, he pulls himself out of his stupor just long enough to tell everyone that it's coming. No one else can sense it.

You can argue that could be his recent exposure to the Lifestream making him more in-tune with the workings of the Planet, or even JENOVA reacting, but I honestly suspect this is just Cloud. Because Tifa, after also falling into the Lifestream, is fine. Her first trip and she comes out on top. Cloud can't even handle the test to become SOLDIER, which includes exposure to Mako and JENOVA cells. He couldn't mentally handle the experiments, which included exposure to Mako and JENOVA cells.

Like. This boy is Weird. He's stupidly resilient and gets mentally overwhelmed by dead people. Fuck! Even in Advent Children, he still sees Aerith and Zack! Like, Tifa and Marlene sorta sense Aerith, but Cloud's just casually yanking his consciousness to another plane of existence or some shit for some nice chit-chatting.

I wouldn't be surprised if he's just an anomaly of the Lifestream himself. Life finds a way. The Lifestream pulled a Gaia from Spirits Within and just altered someone's energy because reasons.

#ffvii #cloud strife

49 notes · View notes

yeonchi · 4 years

Text

Kisekae Insights #2: The Doctors, Protags and Prototypes

These are the characters who form the core of the Kisekae Project. Of course, being a Doctor Who-inspired project, there is always the Doctor, but this Doctor is different from the Doctor you know on what I like to call BBC Doctor Who.

Introduction and origin story

Being the egotist I am, the other protagonist of the project is a character based on myself. He’s been through many incarnations under the same name, but in his final incarnation (shown above on the left), he prefers to be known as Hiroki Ichigo. He has a twin brother (on the right), who used to be known as Zhuge Liang, but for the latest revision of the Kisekae Project, prefers to be known as Parker Zhou. Imagine him as Sephiroth from Final Fantasy VII, but with black hair.

In my reviews of Resolution and The Timeless Children, I outlined my origin story for the Doctor and here, I will expand and elaborate on it. No, of course he’s not the Timeless Child.

During the Time War, the Time Lords were desperate for more soldiers and resurrecting their dead wasn’t enough for them. As such, Lord President Rassilon invented a virus, suspended in Mako energy, and spread it on Earth at some points in history. While the virus would have no effect on the infected, it would sometimes result in the souls of their offspring being harvested and transported to Gallifrey, where they would become new Time Lords. The human “shells” would be left with corrupted chromosomes and/or brain activity as a result. Other humans documented these genetic and neurodevelopmental disorders over the years, resulting in what we know today as disorders like Down syndrome and autism (though I should note that the Time Lords probably didn’t cause every disorder known to mankind).

At essentially the same time, the Shinra Electric Power Company worked on the Jenova Project, injecting a number of people with Jenova cells in the process. By chance, one of those people had a child with someone who was infected with Rassilon’s virus and also a twin that they were unaware about until its birth. Unfortunately, in the present-day view of the project, Shinra had already fallen and there are no plans for a “reunion theory”.

After the twins were born, they had to be taken to another hospital due to complications. In the middle of the night, the Time Lords were extracting the child’s soul (the other babies in the nursery were chanting an angelic prayer in the process) when the twin suddenly emitted a blast of Mako energy, causing everything to go silent. In reality, that soul was knocked out of the Time Vortex and landed on Gallifrey long before the Time War. That soul became the Time Lord who would be known as the Doctor. My backstory is that he was found by Omega and raised like any other Gallifreyan.

The child would later be diagnosed with autism. Uniquely, due to the Time Lord and Jenova DNA in him coupled with whatever remnant Mako energy there was (I dunno), the child also had the ability to regenerate, but it would create another body in the process and he was also susceptible to regenerating following emotional distress (like a broken heart or something, think Takotsubo cardiomyopathy). The child would keep on living as the “archetype”, while the new body created would take on a separate identity and live as a “prototype”. The process varies each time; either the child would regenerate into the prototype and the archetype (or real self) would manifest sometime later, or the child would regenerate into his next incarnation and the prototype would manifest later. As for the twin, well, everyone forgot about him because of the Time War, so he was put up for adoption as if he were an orphan. However, he did not share his brother’s regeneration abilities. In the story, they meet each other again and basically, all is well.

So now, let’s look at the different incarnations for the Doctor and the child. Now, both of them are subject to the 12-regeneration limit, but there are some points where more than one regeneration was used. There are a couple of exceptional circumstances regarding certain regenerations, which I will elaborate when I get to them.

The different incarnations of the Doctor

Remember that the Doctor in the Kisekae Project version of Doctor Who is different to the one you know from BBC Doctor Who. In this version, there are only five numbered incarnations of the Doctor, but by this point in time, he has used up all of his regenerations. The image of the five Doctors at the top of the page is only representative of each incarnation’s main counterparts; some Doctors may have influences from other Doctors. It should be noted that these versions of the Doctor look like children because they are played by children, with the exception of the Fifth as time passed.

First Doctor (1999-2003): Based off the BBC First, Third, Fourth and Seventh (for good measure) Doctors. This is interesting as I had two actors playing him due to “child labour laws” and as such, there are two stages to this Doctor. The first one played from the start of the series, showing his first adventure off Gallifrey, to his sentencing by the Time Lords for breaking their non-interference laws. The Doctor managed to escape his trial to farewell his companions, then had his TARDIS blown up. A regeneration was used up as a result. The second actor played the following episode to the end of this Doctor’s tenure. For most of that time, he was in exile on Earth and working for UNIT. He could technically be the 1.5 Doctor, but I prefer to just refer to him as the First Doctor, like his previous incarnation. The Doctor managed to fix his TARDIS and broke the terms of his exile, which led the Time Lords to search for him again. However, after the Doctor killed the Time Lords chasing him by tricking them into destroying a city, the Time Lords annulled his sentence and they left him alone. The First Doctor would regenerate into the Second Doctor either in his final story (which has now been retconned) or in his next story, the Doctor Who TV Movie.

Second Doctor (2003-2007): Based off the BBC Second, Fourth (for good measure), Sixth and Eighth Doctors. Originally, the Second Doctor directly regenerated into the Third Doctor, but because of the 50th Anniversary, it was retconned and he regenerated into the War Doctor.

War Doctor: Literally the same as the BBC War Doctor, down to the “played by John Hurt” bit. The War Doctor regenerated into the Third Doctor at the end of The Day of the Doctor and would forget what he did to end the Time War.

Third Doctor (2008-2009): Based off the BBC Ninth Doctor because we never skip Nine. Again, there were two actors playing the Doctor, but that was because the series changed stations (it’s a thing in my version). The second actor is the more commonly-known version of the Third Doctor, though the first actor did get to play him for a season, with influences from the Seventh and Eighth (for good measure) Doctors. This is the first Doctor where the series started spinning-on other franchises and implementing characters from them, with companions such as Fifi Forget-me-not and Angelina Mouseling (from Angelina Ballerina, in case you didn’t know). Like his counterpart with Rose Tyler, the Third Doctor regenerated into the Fourth Doctor after he took the Time Vortex into himself to save Fifi.

Fourth Doctor (2010-2012): Based off the BBC Tenth Doctor. This Doctor saw the start of the anime spin-ons as characters from Lucky Star, namely Konata, Minami, Misao, Kagami and Tsukasa, were featured as companions. Reimu Hakurei, along with Sonic, Tails and Amy Rose, were also companions of the Fourth Doctor. Towards the end of this Doctor’s tenure, a second actor had to come in and take over because the original actor was unavailable, though he managed to come back and film his regeneration scene. Oh yeah, the series changed back to its previous station. The second actor like playing this Doctor so much that he wanted to do it again, so he got a spin-off series to do so. That actor also played the next and final incarnation of the Doctor along with multiple other characters, including the other protagonist and his prototypes. If you haven’t got it already, that was basically me, and I was also the showrunner and main writer.

Fifth Doctor (2012-present): Based off the BBC Eleventh and Twelfth Doctors, along with influences from the BBC Fifth and Tenth Doctors. This is, of course, the current incarnation of the Doctor and there are no further incarnations, not even a female incarnation. Eventually, this incarnation became cemented as the Infinity Doctor, though I still prefer to call him the Fifth Doctor. When the Fourth Doctor regenerated into the Fifth Doctor in The End of Time, it also created two pony versions of himself, a pony version of the other protagonist (my self-insert if you didn’t know) and separated two or three people’s souls from him. This was due to some machinations from Yuki Nagato which the Fifth Doctor later cemented as timeline splits.

You know, funnily enough, Zhuge Liang would become the Doctor in an earlier prototype of my project. It’s just as well that I like making retcons here and there, despite what I preach about artistic integrity.

The three new ponies created as a result of the Fourth Doctor’s regeneration are as follows (images to be revealed later):

Jee Gun, an Earth pony counterpart of the other protagonist. After ending up on Equestria and living a pony’s life there, he would later regenerate into Storm Dasher, a Pegasus.

Doctor Whooves, based on the Fourth (BBC Tenth) Doctor. In his final adventure he would have a meta-crisis regeneration (leading to the Doctor Whooves/Time Turner living in Equestria) before regenerating into another incarnation based on the Fifth (BBC Eleventh) Doctor.

The Pony Doctor, based on the Fifth Doctor. Though left unmentioned in the story, the one regeneration he could have used was sacrificed to facilitate Doctor Whooves’ regeneration.

The different incarnations of the child

Now let’s take a look into the incarnations of the child, the other protagonist. Instead of whatever I just did up there, I can describe some aspects of each incarnation’s personality (not that it would really matter most of the time), adventures and love life (it’s a theme in my project). Oh, by the way, each incarnation looks the same most of the time; there have been some instances where an incarnation looks different to the norm.

First incarnation: Curious, yet impatient and had difficulty socialising due to his autism. If he found something he liked, he would play with it for a long time. He had a tendency to push or hurt people in his way, which his later incarnations would generalise as “he liked to kill people”. Macabre indeed. This incarnation regenerated on a trip to Hong Kong. His father wanted to take a photo of him and his mother with the Beatles wax figures at Madame Tussauds, but he, being the curious boy he was, was too busy playing with Paul McCartney’s hair to even look at the camera. His mother slapped him and threatened to leave him there. He became heartbroken and regenerated for the first time.

Second incarnation: Similar to his first incarnation, but he had a flirty side. He had crushes on a couple of girls; the first never resulted in a relationship because she became repulsed after hearing of his insubordination, while the second only resulted in a short marriage. He was also easily-manipulated by others, which was how he first learnt how to swear. This incarnation regenerated when the two girls he loved plotted to kill him and he was forced to commit suicide at Honnōji to avoid being captured.

Third (2.5) incarnation: Following his regeneration, he managed to metamorphosise his remaining regeneration energy into ice, making him into a being similar to Elsa from Frozen, calling himself the Ice King. This incarnation was vengeful and strategic, with his only purpose being to take his revenge on the girls who plotted to kill him. He almost succeeded, but he died before he could fully exact his revenge. The ice powers changed back into regeneration energy, allowing him to regenerate again without using another regeneration.

Fourth incarnation: Though he was feisty, destructive and brooding, he began to mellow upon meeting Fifi Forget-me-not, who would later become his wife. He fought in a resistance army, but in a manner similar to The Night of the Doctor, he died after he failed to save someone from a missile attack. He was revived by the Sisterhood of Karn (might get into that sometime), who convinced him to regenerate into a warrior.

Fifth incarnation: One of the longer-lasting incarnations. Despite his warrior’s nature, he had a friendly and romantic side with him as he lived with Fifi for a number of years. When she and her friends had to go back to Flowertot Garden (as it was being assimilated into Never Land), the two parted ways. He later fell in love with another girl who would later become Akari Ichigo, but it would be some time before they got married. After having his heart broken by another girl, he regenerated into his next incarnation.

Sixth incarnation: Mellow and romantic, yet assertive when he needed to be. This was the incarnation where he started a relationship with Akari, but it would lead to his demise at the hands of her cousins who opposed the relationship. After using up a regeneration in a meta-crisis to save himself, Akari helped him regenerate into his next incarnation with a kiss (this was the proposal as well). This would mix up their DNA, resulting in subsequent prototypes being considered the offspring of the two rather than his siblings.

Eighth incarnation (skipped one because meta-crisis): Cheery and spirited with a case of wanderlust and a sense of nostalgia. He took Akari to visit people and places, both old and new in his life. His demise came at the hands of his parents, who were tipped off about his relationship with Akari. Following a Christmas Carol-esque nostalgia trip, he gets locked up in his room where he regenerates. There isn’t a lot to his ninth incarnation because he uses up three more of his regenerations trying to save his twin brother, Zhuge Liang, from the Voidstation. We’re up to 10 regenerations used up at this point. Oh, and he became a magical boy as well and scattered himself through his timeline. It’s complicated. I’ll explain later.

Twelfth incarnation (see previous): Similar to his eighth incarnation, but with a wanderlust for time travel. The Pony Doctor lent him his TARDIS for a while, but he stopped upon hearing that one of his old friends had died. He married Akari, but they barely got to start their new life when he was killed by Girl Power. He would regenerate into a female incarnation after accepting a deal from Walpurgisnacht.

Thirteenth incarnation: This was a female incarnation, played by Tavia Yeung and based on her character, Apple Lam Chung-yan (林頌恩) from the 2013 TVB drama A Great Way to Care II (仁心解碼II). This was the first incarnation who would have a different name from the original, having taken up the name of Momoka Mizutani (水谷桃花/ももか) to avoid suspicion from her enemies. Like the Ice King, Momoka was bent on revenge. With Akari being taken from her previous incarnation, brainwashed and placed in a family with his prototype and a Progenitor-created child, Momoka manipulated the family into visiting her restaurant so she can get closer to them. Unfortunately, her plans were sabotaged and she was killed in the process. To be honest, casting Tavia Yeung was a bit meh on my part because of her English skills. I was going to replace her with Dodo Cheng as an older Momoka, but I decided that it wasn’t worth it.

Fourteenth incarnation: Same as the thirteenth incarnation, but with Walpurgisnacht taking further control of Momoka. She became more vengeful to the point of killing people who had wronged her in her previous incarnations. This causes her to suffer from a traumatic post-regeneration crisis, where she became somewhat psychotic. After being convinced by Zhuge Liang and Violet to give hope to others in need, she commits suicide after coming to peace with the fact that she wouldn’t have a chance with Akari. Little did she know what fate would have in store for her. Momoka would survive a shot in the head for a while and join her previous incarnations (except the Ice King) in freeing Akari from her brainwashing. The original version of the story has Momoka regenerate directly into her next incarnation, but the final version (having been revised some time after The Time of the Doctor premiered) has Momoka reset to her previous male incarnation to see Akari for the final time before regenerating to his next and final incarnation.

Fifteenth incarnation: This is the incarnation that cemented Hiroki and Akari’s names into the story as they would be known by those names from that point on. Hiroki also gave himself a makeover as part of this, leading to him basically cosplaying Hanbei Takenaka from Samurai Warriors 3 and 4, at least for the Next Gen Series. During that series, Hiroki shared some personality traits from all his previous incarnations, making him a happy-go-lucky boy with a dark side that sometimes overcomes him and makes him irrational. He is also attached to Akari because she is the only person who can control his dark side (actually, she acts as more of a crutch). In the Moushouden Series, where he becomes Kamen Rider Decade, Hiroki learns to accept and control his dark side, becoming a calmer and more enlightened, yet still enigmatic person. At this point, he’s essentially like Tsukasa Kadoya.

The different prototypes

As I stated, with each of the other protagonist’s regenerations comes a new prototype. A couple of them are based off the incarnations from which they regenerated and a few of them are literally anime characters. Some of them may have had different names in the past, but the names listed here are the names they are now known by. You might also recognise those names from the Waifu Network Tumblr.

Prototypes are listed in order of regeneration.

Richard Yang (楊子深)

Zhuge Qiao (諸葛喬)/Hayato Kisaichi (私市颯人)

Natsuki Takara (高良夏希)

Kyōko Izumi (泉京子)

Takumi Kamijō (上条拓海)

Kumiko Hayashi (林久美子)

Yamato Kurosawa (黒沢大和)

Daichi Kurosawa (黒沢大地)/Nagi Kurosawa (黒沢凪)/Marco Wong (黃翔希)

Kyōya Shinomiya (四ノ宮京夜)

Momoka Mizutani (水谷桃花)

With the exception of the Kurosawa siblings, who went off and did their own thing, the prototypes formed a family with the two protagonists, thereby known as the Zhuge family. There were also others in the family who became members not by virtue of regeneration, but by the privilege of being close friends to them.

Zhuge Shu (諸葛虪)

Katsuki Hiiragi (柊克樹)

Kai Hirasawa (平沢海)

Terry Mizukoshi (水越テリー)

Kasumi Shinomiya (四ノ宮霞)

#kisekae insights #doctor who

0 notes

servantofsadako-blog1 · 7 years

Text

while it’s cool to think of cloud gaining wings or stuff due to jenova cell’s influence, i hardly see anyone addressing the one special ability that cloud did manifest (that the only other person who did show it being sephiroth).

memory access.

from what we saw in the og, cloud can have access to other people’s memories from these two examples:

1. zack’s role in the nibelheim incident: cloud remembers things that he wasn’t there for so clearly, meaning that he, at one point, had access to zack’s memories before his death (or after? maybe the target doesn’t need to be alive for this to work?) and took enough to patch his role in nibelheim in a way he could cope with.

2. when tifa saw him at the train station: before he saw tifa, i believe cloud was a blank slate. he could walk (not steadily, but enough to make him reach midgar), he had zack’s memories of nibelheim, but he had no personality he could operate with. when he saw tifa walking by, he accessed her memories and based his personality on what she remembered him as and got up no sweat after he was just a heap leaning on the train, to the extent tifa believed he was cloud (luckily, he was in this case but still). you never see tifa say ‘you changed, cloud’ in game, just the opposite really, meaning his mimicking was perfect.

so the first example shows that cloud can access memories of events he wasn’t personally there for. the second example shows that cloud can mimic the personality of anyone based on the memories of the people who knew them.

ifalna said that jenova approached the cetra as a friend, deceived them, and finally gave them the virus. while cloud can’t shape-shift the way sephiroth can, he can still mimic anyone he wished if he tried. he could know anyone’s hidden secrets and kept memories by a glance.

it’s creepy. and kinda neat.

OH BOY I HAVE A LOT TO SAY ABOUT THIS!

Lemme just preface this by saying that the whole mindreading thing has never been my favorite part of the game… I honestly just like to ignore it because it’s only ever mentioned in passing and literally never explained satisfactorily in the OG and pretty much dropped completely from every other part of the canon. Both Advent Children and Crisis Core, which had every opportunity to expand upon it with their three - count ‘em - three Jenova babies EACH didn’t so much as mention it… the only place we see something that’s even close come up again is in DOC with Shelke’s Synaptic Net Diving ability…

So… if I were to hazard a guess at how Jenova’s mindreading powers work, I’d have to base it somewhat off of that… I think you mentioned before that you hadn’t played DOC so I’ll try my best to explain how this works (honestly this wasn’t explained exceptionally well in-game either, and it’s been a LONG time since I last played Dirge so if there’s anyone out there whoknows better feel free to correct me). What Shelke’s Synaptic Net Dives seem to be is a kind of combination clairvoyance/astral projection that allows her to see and minimally interact with people and things at a distance by travelling through the energy fields that power those things.

I say energy fields because I think the original purpose of this ability was to allow her to interact directly with stored data in a computer or other electronical devices (not sure why that was a necessary skill, but given the fact that Hojo was apparently able to upload his entire consciousness into a Deepground server from on top of the Sister Ray, even if I’m remembering this wrong the fact remains that this technology exists) so long as they are connected in some way (I dunno if they have to be hardwired or if Shelke can EMail her brain to people using wifi or what).

At the end of DOC Shelke performs an SND that takes her inside another lifeform/construct of the planet - Omega. If she could do this - literally send a piece of herself into another living being in order to peek at its insides (and potentially its thoughts, or the thoughts of anyone else she might do this to, seeing as brains are themselves just giant squishy balls of eletrical signals), we can assume that Jenova’s ability to do so probably functions on similar lines. Considering that Shelke was not connected to Omega during her final SND, nor does Omega have a functioning wifi router lodged somewhere in its body, it follows that the energy field she used to access it was the lifestream itself.

Jenova, given her absolutely massive amount of power (enough to wield meteor magic singlehandedly), was probably able to perform her mindreading abilities (and possibly also her shapeshifting abilities) out of sheer force of will alone, manipulating the lifestream directly in order to glean whatever information (genetic or memetic) she needed from the people she interacted with. In fact, I would go so far as to say that Jenova had the ability to do this on a worldwide scale - being able to read the thoughts or shift herself into the form of anyone at all, at anytime, anywhere on the planet (allowing of course for the time it would take to find the specific person she wanted). If her powers weren’t this widespread, how else would you explain the call of Reunion, where she drew Cloud (and the other clones) to her from all the way across the world. (Alternatively, it’s possible that the call of Reunion is a lower-grade power, and that’s what allows it to function on a global scale, while her other abilities must be somewhat more localized… but either way I think their radius of effect is probably still pretty terrifyingly huge). It’s just one of the lovely dangers that comes along with everyone literally being directly connected to everyone else via 'The Force’ - you get one bad apple in there and the infection spreads so quickly (as seen by Jenova’s extermination of the Ancients, as well as geostigma which we have a confirmation was purely spread by the flow of the lifestream and not by any other means of contact or exposure).

In order to SND, Shelke required a decade of rigorous training and numerous modifications made to her body and mind. She also requires the use of assistive technology to allow her to 'jack in’ to whatever she is interacting with. If memory serves, she and the other Tsviets (some of them anyway, I think Weiss and Nero might be exceptions to this rule) were given their superhuman powers primarily through exosure to Genesis’ DNA. This makes Shelke part of Jenova’s legacy - but only indirectly.

Basically, Shelke is a second generation Jenova Soldier, and that, to me, explains why she required such specialization in her training (she’s not a bad fighter and she’s got a pretty boss Shield materia, but her skills with SND so far exceed her skills with combat that after she locates Vincent the other Tsviets deem her to be no longer necessary and try to kill her), why it took so much out of her to learn and use her ability (she’s four-foot-nothing and looks like a ten-year-old because using her skill was so exhausting that her body didn’t even have the energy to make her grow, and suffers frequent fainting spells on top of this), as well as why she required the mechanical supports to successfully SND.

Genesis - her next closest 'relative’ up the Jenova family line never once shows himself capable of clairvoyance/astral projection/mindreading. Even Sephiroth does not exhibit these abilities until AFTER he gets tossed into the lifestream and loses his physical form (or at least the bottom half of it). To me this seems to suggest that not all of Jenova’s numerous powers transfer to her descendents as easily, or as equally - super strength? check. wing? check. mindreading? maybe a grain of potential for this existed in the Sephiroth/Genesis/Angeal generation, but it certainly wasn’t a skill they were instructed to hone, or possibly even made aware of at all (I think anyone in their right mind - or even Hojo despite certainly not being in his right mind - would be terrified at the thought of a living Sephiroth capable of mindreading or limited mind control).

As for Cloud’s apparent but unexplained proficiency for it… well like I said, I like to ignore this part of the game. There’s not really a solid reason given for why Cloud can perform this superhuman feat. I like to think of it (headcanon warning) more as a misidentification of what’s happening. Avalanche has been told that Jenova has the ability to mindread and Cloud in all his lack of self-confidence and willingness to name Tifa his savior in this situation probably assumes there was no way he could have pulled himself together in that moment after everything that happened and decides it must have been Jenova’s mindreading that brought him back to consciousness. I’d argue that the reason he’s so like the Cloud Tifa rembers from her childhood is actually a result of some degree of regression on Cloud’s part due to trauma, and Tifa’s own not-so-stellar memory. But again, that’s just me.

0 notes