#i mean the very existence of zack this early in the main game does that a little also

[sevlinop]

Similarities and contrasts between Cloud and Squall

(So fair warning, but spoilers ahead for both games, of course. Also, while I've played FF7 remake, I haven't gotten to play Rebirth yet, I've watched some of it online though!)

One thing I find really interesting about FF7 and FF8 is how hyper focused on the main character they are. Of course, most Final Fantasy games have a very clear main character, but in none of the other games do we see the story so filtered through the main character's perspective alone. The other Final Fantasy games are big on ensemble casts, and we rarely see a main character's inner monologue and perspective so extensively like with these two.

Cloud and Squall are requirements for any party you make as you play through the game, except for brief portions. Cloud regularly has a voice that screams words of warning in his head, and is an unreliable narrator. Squall is the opposite, he's an open book and we hear his honest perspective on all sorts of things. What they have in common, is other characters don't fully understand what's going on with them. The difference, is for Cloud we the player, don't either. Whereas with Squall, we begin to know exactly how his abandonment issues have affected him.

A list of other traits they share or that contrast:

Cloud's father dies when's he very young or before he's born, and is raised by a single mother - Squall's mom, Raine, dies in childbirth or shortly after he's born. Laguna doesn't know he exists, and Squall is raised in an orphanage.

Cloud is an only child - Squall has an older sister.

Cloud grows up with Tifa as his neighbor - Squall first meets Rinoa in the game itself.

Cloud fails to join Soldier, and is an unremarkable infantrymen - Squall is raised from a young age to be a SEED, and joins the organization successfully.

Cloud has repressed memories and is traumatized by the loss of his mother and Zack - Squall has memory loss and is traumatized by the perceived abandonment of Ellone.

Cloud copes by creating a fantasy persona who is heroic, capable, and stoic. As well as fabricating his own memories. - Squall copes by minimizing attachments to others, and acting unlikable.

Of course there are many others, even simple character design choices, like how Cloud is blond and Squall is brunette lol.

I think what I like the most though, is how they're such different depictions of dealing with, and ultimately overcoming, trauma. Cloud has to finally be honest with himself, and accept that he wasn't ever a hero like Sephiroth. (Of course I'm not sure being a war hero for a mega corporation is that admirable.) Still, Tifa loves him for who HE really is. And the rest of the party does too. Cloud is ok just being Cloud. A dorky, awkward guy, who still helps to save the world in spite of being anxious and motion sick. That what really makes him a hero. Not being some cold, implacable super soldier like Sephiroth, who's really a traumatized mess deep down as well.

Squall has to finally be vulnerable and let his guard down, even though that always brings the risk of pain and further loss. In fact, it's not just a risk, those things are inevitable in intimate relationships. Still, those truly loving relationships are one of the main things that give life meaning. Squall isn't exactly brave in the early game, despite all of his feats, he just doesn't value himself and my headcanon is that he's passively suicidal. Squall becomes truly brave when he has something to lose, Rinoa, his friends, his home. Bravery is when you're scared, but do it anyway.

I think these two are still such popular and iconic main characters for a reason, and I don't think it's just the eye catching character designs!

(Question for anyone who's interested, which one of these two do you relate to more? I'm sorta split, but I think I'm a bit more like Cloud!)

[keclan]

if crisis core remake comes out before the other two parts of the ffvii remake, doesn't that spoil for new players all of cloud's backstory?

[lany-d-flow]

Whisper Talk: Going Against Alternate Timeline Theories with a Theory, and Answering Questions Saying Otherwise.

Those who look with clouded eyes see nothing but shadows. -Sephiroth, Final Fantasy 7 Remake.

SPOILER WARNING

Pressing “Keep Reading” will bring you into spoiler territory for, well... Final Fantasy 7 Compilation and Remake, so this is your warning, all right buddy?

Also, this is one person’s interpretation of another work. What I predict may very well turn out to be untrue, and if you disagree with my prediction then that’s totally fine! (If you’d like, we could chat about it).

But honestly, I have spent the last few months thinking about this game in an unhealthy manner. I think having all of these whispers inside of my head with my frustration getting bigger is not going to move anything forward. So it’s time to wake up, get up, get out there and write thoughts about what is actually going on with Final Fantasy 7 Remake, while trying to clear up misconceptions that may be leading people astray. Perhaps the latter is the intention of the developers. If it is? Well, let’s move past the clouds and find the sunlight. 

All right, let’s mosey into this nonsense.

It’s been months since the release of Final Fantasy 7 Remake. After a long five-year wait for many fans, we got a piece of the story on the Playstation 4 in March and April 2020. It was exciting to see the capital of Final Fantasy 7, Midgar, be brought to life with state-of-the-art graphics. Treading through mako reactors, Sector 7 and Sector 5, the nasty Wall Market, Shinra HQ, hearing conversations of lively NPCs, exploring the subtle easter eggs and symbolism through visual storytelling... Goodness, so much of what this game had to offer was a delight! The developers put their heart and soul into fleshing out a section of Final Fantasy 7 that was, at most, 6 hours long. This level of detail cannot go unnoticed, and I’m sure it’s made everyone excited to see the reimagining of Gaia when we receive future installments!!!!

Oh, but wait... the developers introduced a new monster called Whispers, otherwise known as Arbiters of Fate, and... What purpose do they serve?! Why are these things in Final Fantasy 7 when they never had a role in the original game? Based on everything we saw in the story, they seem to be making sure the story of Final Fantasy 7 runs exactly as it’s supposed to. Without these ghosts, the story will not be 1:1. To make things worse, we have Sephiroth who’s from the future?! No wonder these Whispers are here, Sephiroth’s trying to rewrite history because everything he has tried before failed him!

So based on what we saw in Final Fantasy 7 Remake, the developers decided to create a metaphor for the fanbase, and since we defeated ‘destiny,’ we’ve defeated the fanbase’s say in where the story goes, thereby giving the developers permission to change the story the way they want it. Wow, this is pathetic on Square Enix’s part. Final Fantasy 7 is an amazing story with layers and layers of complex themes, why would they try to form it into something else? Now we’re going to have time travel and alternate timelines in the plot and Sephiroth seems unstoppable now. Heck, the developers are probably going to make sure impactful moments in Final Fantasy 7 do not happen, so Zack and Aerith are probably going to survive. And they’re also ditching the Compilation? Can these people be trusted? 

Final Fantasy 7 Remake is ruined!!!

Still with me? Well, this is just some of the talk that I’ve heard based on the execution of Final Fantasy 7 Remake’s plot. I won’t try to list every possible thing people are talking about, but I think we get the idea of the impression that our game’s ending put on a lot of players. So I wanted to give my input on what I believe is actually going on with the story, as well as answer many questions popping up about the circumstances of our game’s characters.

So, do I think the developers are changing the story?

Short Answer: No, at least not in the way that many people think. They’re “changing” the story by putting in new elements, moments that tie with the rest of the Compilation, but the main plot points (Overarching plot, the main crisis, the internal plot, the emotional climax, etc.) still need to happen. This series is more than 2 decades old, and with time it has received: a movie, 2 books, a sequel, 2 prequels, and now a remake with existing materials to tie into the game. 

Long Answer: All right, if you’re still with me, thank you. I will do my best to explain all of what’s going on. I’ll give my input via understanding how the FF7 Universe works; in other words, what the Whispers are, how the Whispers work, how they’ve actually always been apart of FF7 and are now receiving an expanded role, and how Sephiroth and Aerith showing meta behavior makes sense due to the power that the Planet has given to the Arbiters of Fate (exposure = visions out of context). I will also be answering questions that one may bring up as proof of an alternate timeline/story change and argue what their purpose may actually be.

So, let's Talk about A Whisper

Wait a minute...

So, let's talk about the Whispers.

Let’s start by explaining what the Whispers are, what function they serve to the Planet, and how the Planet creates them in the first place:

Whispers are souls that act as arbiters of fate and have been a part of the Planet for as long as the Planet has existed. They know the fate of the Planet from beginning to end, and their function is to make sure that a specific destiny runs its course. They all unite under the will of the Planet, just like the Sephiroth Clones all act under the will of Sephiroth, which is probably the reason why they were given a cloaky look: the Whispers' function parallels the Sephiroth Clones' function and both act under the authority of something else. They cannot be seen by everyone, and to actually see their physical manifestation, you need to either be 1) deeply connected with the Planet, or 2) receive some form of physical contact from someone who has a strong connection to the Planet. This is established early in Chapter 2 of Final Fantasy 7 Remake. Cloud meets Aerith for the first time, and at first glance she seems to be blown away by the wind. After Cloud and Aerith have an exchange and Aerith gives Cloud a flower, immediately after this we are greeted with an illusion of Sephiroth tormenting Cloud and more importantly, Aerith touching Cloud, allowing him to see the Whispers floating around the street. This follows the logic of my two points, as Aerith is a half-Cetra who’s been receiving visions of the past and future for years (her mural of symbolism in her Shinra HQ room was drawn when she received a vision as a child, though she does not understand the full context of what it means), and of course she ended up giving permission for Cloud to see the Planet’s protectors in action.

So how do the Whispers make sure destiny happens as intended?

Well, they do so by constantly observing the actions of the Planet’s people, sometimes in sight, sometimes not. If something happened that is off course, the Whispers immediately act to correct the course of said issue. We see this multiple times in the story. Some examples include: Aerith trying to leave the street where she meets Cloud, then proceeding to leave the street after meeting Cloud, following the Whispers’ intentions; Jessie getting injured in Sector 7 because destiny needs to make sure Cloud goes on the next AVALANCHE mission. If this didn’t happen, then Aerith and Cloud probably wouldn’t have met again; Surrounding the debris on top of Jessie to ensure her death takes place on top of the Sector 7 Tower (I’ll cover the speculation on her “survival” later); stopping Cloud from remembering everything about the Shinra Research Lab; stopping Hojo from revealing the truth of Cloud’s past (no way in Hell are they going to let the internal conflict unfold this early); reviving Barret from the stab wound that the Sephiroth remnant gave him; lastly, pushing Wedge down the Shinra HQ tower to ensure his death happens. Destined events either eventually happened, or they got delayed. This implies that the Whispers are nigh-omnipresent beings, especially given how many they are and how they were able to surround Midgar entirely, and their part of correcting destiny follows the flow of a river. As Red XIII puts it, “The flow of the great river that is the Planet, from inception to oblivion… For it is the will of the Planet itself”.

Cool. So how are the Whispers born? Where do they come from?

It’s actually a pretty straightforward explanation, and Aerith tells us in Chapter 18: Destiny’s Crossroads. Before the Whispers became Whispers, they were “Those born into this world. Who lived and who died. Who returned. They’re howling in pain.” This adds on to what Sephiroth said a moment ago: “All born are bound to her.” All Whispers were once living people, animals, etc. And all that are given life on the Planet are bound by something like a contract: You get made into an image and are given a physical life. In exchange, once that time’s up, you must return to the Lifestream and become a part of the Planet, being one of many who follow her will. You’re born, you live, you die, and you serve another purpose in a collective of spirits who are now tasked with making sure the flow of destiny is as it should be. By following all of this, we can conclude that 1) Everyone who lives on Gaia could eventually become a Whisper, and 2) since Whispers are a part of the Planet, they are formed from the Lifestream, the Planet’s lifeblood. This leads us into the next question...

How do the Whispers know the course of Destiny from start to finish?

Great question! The logical explanation to how they know is quite simple: the properties of the Lifestream. The Whispers are made out of Lifestream, and that gives them knowledge of the Planet’s destiny. I argue it is not farfetched to make this claim, as the Lifestream has shown time and again what it is capable of. Infact, let’s make an analogy of Lifestream manifestations via state of matter.

Lifestream: Its Three States of Matter and their Benefits and Side Effects

Mako is the liquid form of the Lifestream, Materia is a solid form of the Lifestream, while the regular Lifestream itself can be most equivalent to something of a gas/plasma, at least one that can be seen. Throughout Final Fantasy 7 we’ve seen what all of these forms can do. Mako is an extremely powerful energy source that powers all of Midgar through reactors, and is also what SOLDIERs are bathed in to possibly receive superhuman strength; Materia are jewels capable of all kinds of powerful magic; summoning fire, lightning, ice, creating shields, copying abilities of other living beings, healing, elevating other materia abilities, and most notably summon manifestations of powerful beings (Bahamut, Shiva, Ifrit, Odin, Knights of the Round). While the Lifestream itself? That’s all the souls of the planet with a consciousness that follows the Planet’s will. Some can appear as a physical manifestation, but they’re not quite solid, which is how Cloud’s buster sword moves through the Whispers as if he didn’t cut through anything. Use of the Lifestream can also create projections (think Aerith’s Chapter 14 resolution), allow access into someone’s subconscious under certain circumstances, and of course, give people visions of the past and future without any context as to how those events happen(ed).

All three forms of the Lifestream have side effects, too.

Materia can degrade the vitality and strength of the user. Think of it as a trade-off for borrowing the Planet’s lifeblood in the form of a jewel.

Mako can cause extremely intense mental breakdowns and break the psyche of those without strong mental resilience, which is why Cloud was unable to make it into SOLDIER. But he eventually received Mako exposure anyway. What happened? Oh yeah, he went into a comatose state not once, not twice, but THREE times. First during experimentation, second when he arrived at Midgar before Tifa bumped into him, and when he fell into a pool of Mako and washed up on the shore of Mideel.

Meanwhile, Lifestream side effects are non-contextual visions, loss of sanity similar to Mako (think Tifa before she entered Cloud’s subconscious), and if the Lifestream has something in it, infection! That’s how Geostigma came to be: Jenova cells from Sephiroth, Jenova, and the remnants were floating in the Lifestream, and when the latter destroyed Meteor, it also exposed humans to Jenova cells, turning into a severe disease that is deadliest toward hosts with emotional fragility. This is why Cloud has a “Geostigma episode” in Advent Children when he runs into an injured Tifa.

Even with all these side effects, the benefits are far too great to ignore. All this power from the Lifestream is why Sephiroth and Jenova wanted to siphon it for themselves in the first place. By siphoning the Lifestream resisting side effects, one can receive unparalleled powers. Sephiroth himself said it in the original game: 

“By merging with all the energy of the Planet, I will become a new life form, a new existence. Melding with the Planet… I will cease to exist as I am now. Only to be reborn as a god to rule over every soul.”

Notice how the last quote aligns with what Sephiroth said in the Edge of Creation about the Nebula? 

“Our world will become a part of it… one day.” 

We’ll come back to that statement, I promise. But for now, based on everything I’ve told you, here’s what I think is going on in Final Fantasy 7 Remake:

Sephiroth is not from the future. His exposure to the Lifestream for the last 5 years gave him the side effect of non-contextual visions. Among these visions, he probably saw his master plan fail. Eventually he realizes that the reason he has these visions is because of the Whispers and more specifically, the Planet’s Weapon Arbiter. The Whispers are fighting against Sephiroth as he’s gained both a rough understanding of the future and the Lifestream’s powers by siphoning it up. So, his new master plan? Defeat the Arbiters of Fate and THEN continue with his original plan. Sephiroth being omnipresent makes sense given his control over Jenova and her shapeshifting, S cells that allow him to puppetize clones and Cloud, and being in the Lifestream basically giving him more power with one form of that being omnipresence. What’s going to lead to his downfall is ultimately his arrogance: he probably thinks that just stopping the Whispers is enough for him to win. So while the physical manifestation of fate is gone, Sephiroth still needs to meet the same criteria to win: get the Black Materia to summon Meteor, his ticket to siphon up all the Planet’s Lifestream, which means he also needs Cloud to give him the Black Materia, which then means that eventually Aerith will have to summon Holy and eventually become one with the Lifestream to beat Meteor.

See how all of this comes together without time travel theories that go off on insane tangents? It’s established that the Whispers know the course of destiny from past, present and future. But WHERE did it say that they can travel through time? WHERE did it say that Sephiroth can travel through time with the Lifestream? That kind of power would be an enormous retcon to the story and the functions of Gaia, and it would also lead to a really convoluted plot that can deviate from the main themes of the story (trust me, some theories out there are wild). We do know that Whispers are in a singularity and it moves like a river, which as @silver-wield cleverly put in a post about the story of FF7R, translates to:

The arbiters of fate issued a correction to Wedge and made him fall out of the window in the Shinra building. Which means fate cannot be altered, merely delayed, which then leads to a more painful end for not accepting that fate.

...Or perhaps shuffled up with ultimately the same necessary outcome, because the river of destiny was put on a different course but is still heading to the same destination. There are multiple works in the compilation that the writers and developers would like to tie together to the main story. What’s a way for them to execute this? By making a metaphor for the OG storyline and by beating it giving them permission to add new things? From a certain point of view, sure, but the developers never needed permission to do this in the first place. But the side effect of beating the physical manifestation of destiny was likely shuffling parts of the story of Final Fantasy 7, prequels all the way to the chronological sequels. One can make a case for this based on the explosion felt at Midgar when the Arbiter and Sephiroth were defeated in the Singularity. The glitters of light could also reflect this change. From all this I argue freedom came to be, and characters from the Compilation might make an appearance during the main story such as Kadaj, Loz, and Yazoo. However, no matter what changes are present, the outcome will be the same. Cloud is not properly himself yet; he still thinks he made it into SOLDIER, he gets slight interferences from Jenova throughout the story (example: Cloud’s hand twitching when against Sephiroth at the Edge of Creation), he has the Buster Sword but still doesn’t remember who its original owner was, so his unreliable narration, downfall and emotional climax still need to happen. Aerith is the only character who can summon Holy and the only character who can call forth the Lifestream, and the only way she can call forth the Lifestream is by becoming one with it. How can she do this? There’s only one way: Death. Sorry guys, but if both Sephiroth and Aerith have prophetic visions of the future, there’s a chance that both know what must be done for themselves to get the upper hand. Sephiroth still wants to siphon up the Lifestream and become an omnipotent God, and the best way for him to do this? Summon Meteor. What does he need for this? The Black Materia. Who does he manipulate into giving him the Black Materia at the Northern Crater? Cloud.

My point from all this is that there are specific beats that need to happen to move the plot forward, no matter what new things they add from the Compilation. Using a different crisis for the overarching plot that isn’t Meteor is a retcon to the story, and why advertise Meteor and have it as the centerpiece of artworks and the title screen if you’re not going to use it in the first place? That’s just… really strange. We can add things in the middle of the plot to flesh out the main themes of a story while staying faithful to the outcomes. Adding something entirely different as a crisis like time travel in a game that has never been about time travel is out of place, unnecessary, and people are placing way too much faith in this being true while not looking at the bigger picture and function of Final Fantasy 7’s power tools. I believe the developers want you to think that the story is changing, that a happier outcome is in store for everyone. This all works with what Final Fantasy 7 did for many players in the first place: subvert expectations by placing us in an illusion with an unreliable narrative. We assumed Cloud made it into SOLDIER until we found out he never made it into SOLDIER and created a facade to conceal the truth that he was afraid to face. We thought Aerith was the love interest when the game kept making us appreciate her perky attitude until she ended up dying and then we discover in the Lifestream Sequence that Cloud’s romantic feelings, his whole reason for fighting, was for Tifa. We thought Shinra was the main antagonist of the game until shortly after going through Midgar, the main antagonist is Sephiroth. We thought we were fighting Sephiroth throughout the game until we find out that the real Sephiroth was encased in a crystal sucking up the Lifestream. We don’t actually fight him until the very end when he merges with Jenova and the Lifestream into Bizarro Sephiroth and Safer Sephiroth.

See where I’m going with all of this? The developers want to continue using red herrings and playing the theme of illusion by using different methods. The old methods will not work anymore, so they have to find a new way to subvert expectations in a way that gets us confused, excited, and uncertain what will happen until we actually play through the next installments. When that time comes, be prepared to get your heartstrings pulled, because reality hits our characters hard, just like it hits us hard. Think Biggs, Zack, Aerith are going to survive, and that Sephiroth is travelling through time to accomplish his devious tasks? Well, think again.

Now that we’ve gotten this far into this Whisper Talk, there are a load of questions I will need to address. So without further ado, Let’s mosey!!!

How is Sephiroth not from the future? His one-winged form from Advent Children Complete was shown in the final boss fight, the boss map looks eerily similar to Edge, and we saw multiple Sephiroths throughout the story. The game is heavily implying that Sephiroth is from the future and he wants to try to achieve victory a second time.

Well, for starters, First Class SOLDIERs having wings has been a thing for a while. Sephiroth was not the only SOLDIER to have a wing. As Final Fantasy 7: Crisis Core showed us, Sephiroth’s comrades, Angeal and Genesis, were able to grow wings at will. They had different cells (G cells) which gave them a different ability, make copies of themselves, rather than control others who share their cells, sure, but that is NOT stopping any of them from growing wings at will. It’s something used across the board for all three of these really powerful SOLDIERs and it’s no surprise that this time around, they want to show Sephiroth using more of his abilities throughout the game.

Also, Sephiroth having one wing is nothing new. It’s part of his Safer form and is named on his track, One-Winged Angel. So, as an homage, they wanted the villain of the game to use a wing during his fight in Advent Children.

There’s also another way we can explain this. Sephiroth formed a body of his image in Advent Children thanks to Kadaj. And what purpose does Kadaj serve? He’s a strengthened remnant embodying Sephiroth’s cruelty. In other words, he’s another puppet Sephiroth can manipulate. And he uses Kadaj’s body + Jenova’s head to form his image. A clone and Jenova cells, or just straight up Jenova, allow him to shapeshift as that’s one of Jenova’s trademark abilities. So using this as an implication of time travel doesn’t add up.

When it comes to Sephiroth’s 70 alternative accounts, each of them have a straightforward explanation, including the one that confuses most people. Here we go, according to the FF7R Ultimania:

An illusion only Cloud can see:

Cloud has S cells injected into him. The same S cells are also Jenova cells. Jenova cells allow hosts to read the memories of those nearby, inherit the memories of other hosts, and give Sephiroth shapeshifting and puppeting abilities on those who have S cells. This is how Cloud created his SOLDIER facade thanks to Zack’s injection, similar memories and instinct to hide from the truth. What’s likely going on here is Sephiroth is able to make Cloud hallucinate thanks to said S cells, hence why it’s an illusion ONLY Cloud can see. We saw this during the Nibelheim flashback, meeting Aerith for the first time, after the Sector 7 Plate collapse when he was behind Tifa. This is another way of showing Sephiroth’s omnipresent power.

Also, if we're going to get really specific about the properties of Jenova cells, we can look at a source like FF7 Ultimania Omega:

Jenova's mimic ability Jenova has a mimic ability which allows it to read the memories and feelings of others, then adjust its appearance, speech and behaviour accordingly to imitate what it has seen. Jenova once used this ability to get close to the Ancients and infect them with its virus, which killed many of them.

This ability is not limited solely to Jenova itself, for those who have its cells within them passes it as well, though in an incomplete form. Immediately prior to the start of the game, when Cloud's mind was shattered, he ran into Tifa and seemed to immediately return to "normal"; this was because of the mimic abilities of the Jenova cells inside Cloud read her mind, seeing her memories of him, which were then combined with his own ideal vision of himself, fashioning a new personality for himself.

And there you go. Jenova's signature abilities are shapeshifting and illusion. It's mentioned in her backstory, It's shown in her boss battles, it's shown in Jenova-infected hosts, and it's even shown in her OST! The illusion aspect being something only Cloud can see makes sense, thanks to his Jenova S cells, so the developers are expanding this ability.

Black Robed Man:

Simple. These are Sephiroth Clones, also known as Remnants. Each of these puppets have S Jenova cells injected into them, which is what allows Sephiroth to create illusionary projections of himself via their bodies. They can also create an illusion of Jenova’s Lovecraftian forms. If predictions are correct, there’s a chance that a couple of them could end up becoming the Advent Children (more on that later).

Flashback:

Also simple. This connects to what was mentioned in Cloud’s illusion. Cloud knows events he should not thanks to his Jenova S cells, and flashbacks like, “Within my veins flows the blood of Ancients. This Planet is my birthright!” are events that will be featured later in the game in moments like the Kalm flashback. Moving on!

Unknown:

This is where people get confused. But believe me, the answer is MUCH simpler than most people realize. The Unknown Sephiroth is the last form of Sephiroth that we fought in Final Fantasy 7. Yes, the shirtless one. From here forward I'll call him SOLDIER Sephiroth. For reasons I do not know, they decided not to make him shirtless this time around (too sexy by far?) but believe me when I say that that Sephiroth is the same one we saw at the Edge of Creation. How am I so sure of this? Look back at how Cloud met that Sephiroth in Remake and compare it to what happened in the Crater. They have the same tunnel of light and Cloud’s visiting a persona of Sephiroth that exists in a dimension unaffected by time and space. The Lifestream gives Sephiroth the opportunity to pull Cloud's conscious mind into this dimension. Cloud being in the Singularity during the final battle of FF7R Part 1, and the Singularity containing Lifestream = ability to take Cloud to meet SOLDIER Sephiroth in a pocket dimension, the Edge of Creation. In OG, being exposed/near the Lifestream in the Crater allowed Cloud to visit Shirtless SOLDIER Sephiroth in another dimension and finish him off, with Aerith helping Cloud return his consciousness to the real world.

See?! It actually makes a lot of sense, only this time Sephiroth hasn’t been stripped of his God powers and is currently siphoning the Lifestream. So this time around, Cloud couldn’t beat down Sephiroth. The reason the FF7 Remake Ultimania labels this Sephiroth as unknown is because it’s following a narrative where it assumes you do not know everything yet. Final Fantasy 7 Remake has only covered Midgar, and there’s still many places and moments we have yet to explore. But the Ultimania is not going to cover them until they are published in the next installments, and why would it tell us unrevealed "secrets" of the story? So for now, it has to act as if this is a mystery. This is the same case with Zack being labeled as “Missing in Action” rather than dead in the Ultimania, because we have not reached that moment in the plot yet. But I’ll cover that a bit more on one of the next questions.

As for Sephiroth being prophetic in the Edge of Creation, it’s simply foreshadowing what we’ll eventually have to face. “That which lies ahead… does not yet exist” is telling us that the final battle still has years before it’s ready to be unleashed. As for the Nebula, “Our world will become a part of it… one day,” this is a more vague statement of what I quoted earlier:

“By merging with all the energy of the Planet, I will become a new life form, a new existence. Melding with the Planet… I will cease to exist as I am now. Only to be reborn as a god to rule over every soul.” The Nebula that Sephiroth is staring at is stated in the FF7R Ultimania to represent Sephiroth’s wing(s). This same Nebula also has a similar shape to the original sketch of Safer Sephiroth. So, based on what SOLDIER Sephiroth told Cloud, we can conclude that Safer Sephiroth will one day be born and be the last fight for our team, maybe even taking place in the Edge of Creation. BUT it’s not quite time for that to happen yet, as Safer Sephiroth's physical body is still resting in a crystal at the Northern Crater. So there you have it!

Lastly, conceding the battlefield against Sephiroth, it is an homage to Advent Children and Edge, yes. That does not automatically mean that Sephiroth is from the future. We just fought arbiters of destiny who turned themselves into depictions of the three Advent Children. This is ultimately the developers' way of ending the game with an exciting boss battle and a somewhat familiar scene. It's just a manifestation of one of Gaia's locations while in the Singularity. Also, this whole boss battle was ultimately a fanservice-esque decision by the developers, particularly Co-Director Naoki Yamaguchi. They originally did not plan to have this boss battle in the first place, but they wanted to end this game on some kind of high note with the main antagonist. They could've ended the game with the Arbiter boss battle, and I think doing so would have confused less people, but the reason behind the Sephiroth boss battle has been spoken. We can conclude this: it was a Jenova/Remnant copy of Sephiroth using expanded abilities like his wing and absorbed some of the Whispers' power before this Sephiroth was defeated by the team and the Whispers were released from his grasp. There is no need to overthink this decision (but yes, I don't think it was entirely necessary).

But what about the Arbiters manifesting into images of Kadaj, Loz, and Yazoo? Whisper Rubrum, Viridi, Croceo, and Bahamut SHIN are all representations of Advent Children’s antagonists and their bio says they are from a “future timeline.” Isn’t this proof that there’s time travel and alternate timelines going on?

Well, you are right about the enemy intel bio in Final Fantasy 7 Remake stating that these guys are manifestations of figures from a future timeline. BUT that does not imply that multiple timelines are forming. Technically speaking, we all live in one timeline that follows through a singularity. This is the same case for Final Fantasy 7, and the very place we are fighting these Whispers is called the Singularity. The reason the Whispers are forming into these creatures is because of their future knowledge. This is their way of shapeshifting into powerful foes that can defend themselves against the team. They are turning into foes that destiny will one day birth, but in the form of something akin to a Weapon just like the main Arbiter itself, and this is also the developers way of adding a homage and possibly a hint of the foes that will appear in the future. They are NOT the Advent Children themselves, otherwise there would probably show more personality, and they would also… look more like them. So what happened with “time” after defeating these Advent Whispers and the Arbiter Weapon? Well, it sharpened the curves of the river and put destiny on a new course, but to the same destination, hence the “set beginning and end” that the developers mentioned before. In the river’s new course, we’ll get new events that while still having original events that will all be more fleshed out. In part of this new course of destiny maybe there’s a chance that we will see the Advent Children themselves. How can I be sure of this? After speaking to a friend about it, the remnants we encountered give us a hint. Marco, #49, resides in Sector 7. Who was a teenager that resided in Sector 7 before becoming a remnant and then Advent Child? Kadaj, also known as the manifestation of Sephiroth's cruelty. Meanwhile, we have #2 in Sector 5, who shows strong features fitting for someone in SOLDIER. Who fits this category? Loz, also known as the manifestation of Sephiroth's strength. People have theorized that #2 is Zack, but I do not agree and will address that later. The only remnant candidate we have left is Yazoo, the manifestation of Sephiroth's allure. This makes sense as he’s the most silent of the trio, so the developers will keep his remnant in mystery for now. But there you have it. By Nomura stating, "Come back to me a few years later and ask me what remake means," what I believe he means by "remake" is write the original story of Final Fantasy 7 with characters in other parts of the compilation included. Hence, a shuffled story with the same necessary outcomes.

Okay, but didn’t the developers say that Final Fantasy 7 Remake is not canon to the Compilation, thereby making it a different story from the Compilation and proving the developers are ditching the original story in the process?

Let me tell you right now: if those lines were what they actually said in full context, then they were lying. How am I sure? Because throughout FF7R, parts of what happened in the Compilation are included in the story. Zack’s Last Stand was featured in a flashback; Hollow’s lyrics greatly parallel the lyrical version of Price of Freedom; one of Cloud’s old Shinra Military comrades was featured and mentioned Kunsel, from Crisis Core; and of course the big Arbiters being manifestations of the Advent Children.

For saying the Compilation is being ditched and is the bad ending, why include characters and homages specifically from the Compilation? If they really were, they wouldn’t put pieces of it into the story like this. All that was stated by Director Tetsuya Nomura was that FF7 Remake is not canon to the Compilation YET. Keyword YET. The story is incomplete and the developers need to see Remake through from start to finish before they can say it’s truly canon to the Compilation. And what have Scenario Writer Kazushige Nojima and Producer Yoshinori Kitase said about the story?

Does this sound like they’re ditching the Compilation to you? I think this should sum up how they are tying the series of Final Fantasy 7 into one big package, but there are some people saying that the team seeing Advent Children and the Planet 500 years later, followed by Red XIII saying it’s “a glimpse of tomorrow if we fail here today” as proof that what happens in the future is a bad ending. This is not entirely true. It makes sense for humanity to be gone 500 years later with the Planet living on because that was the life that the team was trying to save in the first place. What Red XIII told us was simple: that if Destiny wins, then the river of Destiny will run the same course, and that includes the events of On The Way To a Smile, Advent Children, Dirge of Cerberus, and of course humanity being gone 500 years later. This is another case of the team receiving future visions without context, as I addressed before. They saw an event where they maybe saw people they knew, but do they know what leads to it? No. So what they assume about the outcome of the future and what’s good and bad may not necessarily be correct. They will find that out as the next parts of Final Fantasy 7 Remake are released.

Okay, but aren’t the characters free to do whatever they want now that they have beaten Destiny? As Aerith said, they have boundless, terrifying freedom.

They have freedom from the Whispers, and like Zack once said, “The price of freedom is steep.” They can begin their journey without the worry of the Whispers acting up if they do something that strays far away from what’s necessary. That doesn’t mean that they are not going to head to all the destinations we needed to reach in the original game. We will still probably have the flashback at Kalm since it’s the nearest town away from Midgar. We still need to pass through the Mythril Mines to get to other destinations. We still need to pass through Corel, Barret’s hometown, to get to the Gold Saucer where we will meet Cait Sith and reach Barret’s character climax. We still need to reach Gongaga and this will likely be a required place to visit because of how much more importance Zack is given in Remake. There’s also no working reactor in Gongaga so there’s a chance that yellow reunion flowers will grow as foliage. We still need to head to Cosmo Canyon, where Bugenhagen will teach us more about the Lifestream and where Red XIII will learn the truth about what happened to his father Seto. We still need to head to Nibelheim where a lot of confusion is going to rise within our team--specifically Cloud and Tifa--and also where we need to release Vincent from the Shinra Mansion. We still need to cross Mt. Nibel (we might get a flashback from Cloud) and head to Rocket Town to meet Cid and drink some goddamn tea. We still need to head to the Temple of the Ancients for the team to find out what needs to be done to save the Planet, and also the place where Sephiroth will manipulate Cloud and the team into giving him the Black Materia. We still need Aerith to head to the Forgotten City as it’s the only place she can use her prayer to activate the White Materia and summon Holy. We still need to head to the Northern Crater as that’s where Cloud will likely have his downfall and submit to Sephiroth….

We could keep going on with this, but I’m sure you see my point. New things will happen but there are important locations that the team needs to reach in order to come closer to their goal of stopping Sephiroth. The simple thing is that, from here on out, the Whispers will not intervene, giving us the illusion that things will change, but we most likely will learn the hard way that the necessary outcomes will still happen. So once again, the river is on a new course to the same destination.

Okay. You’ve talked about Sephiroth not being from the future, but what about Aerith? Her prayer stance in the opening cinematic looks eerily similar to her stance in the ending of Final Fantasy 7. Based on this, is she from the future/did she see the outcome of the Meteor-Lifestream-Holy Conflict?

No. What probably happened was the developers paid homage to that ending screen. What follows immediately after that is Aerith picking up a crushed reunion flower, symbolizing the non-reunion that Aerith and Zack could not receive in life, but eventually receive in the Lifestream. And once again: Aerith has received visions of the future, but without context as to why and how they happened. In a novella it’s mentioned that Aerith received a vision as a child and drew her mural of symbolism in her room as a result. We know she’s been receiving non-contextual visions for awhile, but being forced into a big responsibility by the Planet is something she needs to learn to accept, and that’s part of her character arc we will receive in the next parts of FInal Fantasy 7 Remake. There is no evidence she can time travel, and she doesn’t always know the Whispers’ intentions. When the team asked her what they were doing while surrounding the Shinra HQ Tower, she simply replied, “Who knows?”. She’s not omniscient. She has some meta knowledge and a big responsibility, but does not know how to handle this role yet. And that's where character development comes in for our Maiden of the Planet.

Cool, but why are people like Rufus and Hojo able to see the Whispers in the first place? And maybe Zack, too?

Actually, there’s a pretty straightforward explanation for this. As we know, to be able to see the Whispers, once again you have to either be heavily connected to the Planet or touched by a special person. Aerith spent a portion of her childhood in the Shinra HQ Tower. Who else was there with her? Her biological mother Ifalna. These two are both Cetra, one half and one full-blooded. Hojo likely spent hours upon hours with both of them, especially Ifalna, so receiving contact from them is not farfetched. Also, that gross f***** of a scientist does unfortunately play an important role in the plot and keeping the flow of destiny on course. As for Rufus? This man was a teenager when Aerith and Ifalna were living in Shinra HQ. It’s very possible that he ran into one of the two cetra and maybe received contact from them. If he didn’t? Don’t forget, this man is the president of Shinra throughout almost all of FF7. Even if the team opposes him, they still need him. He is very necessary to destroy the barrier that blocks the team from getting into the Northern Crater. Without his actions, the team cannot make it to Sephiroth. It’s that simple. And even though he can see the Whispers, how much does it matter? It’s only going to matter if the Whispers make a resurgence sometime in the plot. There you have it.

Okay, but why is Zack alive after his Last Stand? And why were the Whispers present during this? Also, what about the Stamp bag? Isn’t this proof of time travel and alternate timelines?

And here’s where the red herring comes in! He did beat the Shinra Army. And yes, the Whispers were present. BUT why were they present? Remember what was mentioned earlier? The Whispers are dead souls returning to the Planet, and if that’s the case they have been part of the Planet for a LONG time. This means that they were ALWAYS present through the course of events in the Planet. The reason we see them during Zack’s Last Stand is likely to throw one off at first, until they connect the dots with how old the Whispers actually are. And they are showing themselves in the Last Stand because this is an extremely important event that has to happen for Cloud’s next journey to begin. We didn’t quite get to see how the Whispers changed up the event, but they likely did form it in a way where the developers wanted to trick us. It's also left ambiguous if he can see the Whispers or not, although they do not seem to alarm him IF he can see them.

Now, about the Last Stand, If you compare Remake’s Last Stand to Crisis Core and Final Fantasy 7 OG, you’ll notice that Remake’s moment has similarities to the OG scene.

Zack walks, drops Cloud in a safe place, and defends himself against the soldiers in all three. So here's where the cutscenes get different:

FF7 OG: Zack fights against Shinra infantrymen. We don't see the troops, but Zack thinks he defeated them. Afterwards he heads to Cloud but immediately gets shot by a group of Shinra troops, and I mean shot. Afterwards, there is no dialogue between Zack and Cloud, Cloud grabs the Buster Sword and starts breaking down in the rain. Thus, his journey--nearly--begins.

FF7 Crisis Core: Zack confronts the Shinra army. He begins his monologue:

Boy oh boy... The price of freedom is steep. Embrace your dreams, and whatever happens... Protect your honor, as a SOLDIER!

We then proceed to battle the Shinra army. Eventually, the screen fades to black and we see Zack mortally wounded. The same group of Shinra troops from OG come over and bullet Zack to death. Eventually, Cloud wakes up in shock, and Zack parts Cloud his sword and last words:

For the both of us... You're gonna... Live. You'll be... My living legacy. My honor, my dreams... They're yours now.

Cloud then proceeds with a breakdown, and afterwards begins his journey, where he'll bump into a certain someone while in Mako comatose. Sheesh I hate watching that scene due to its deadly side effect.

Where does Remake stop?

Right in the area where Zack’s grave is, a cliff with a steep descent to flat land. It’s the same spot where Zack got shot by a Shinra infantryman who pursued Zack throughout his running away from Shinra Mansion; it's the same spot where Cloud placed the Buster Sword to honor his close friend’s wish; and the same spot where Zack declared, “For the both of us… you’re going to live. You’ll be… my living legacy.” The developers intentionally stopped us from seeing the outcome of that moment because it’ll either be the same place where Zack will die, or we’ll see his fate get delayed and placed somewhere else. 

I have also seen people argue that #2 is Zack, or if not Zack, then Zack’s corpse.

This is false.

Remember why Zack was placed in a cryosleep tube in the first place? Because, like Cloud, he was considered a failed experiment by Hojo because the S cells could not turn him into a Sephiroth clone. Zack becoming a Sephiroth clone would be a major retcon to the story and how he was able to escape with Cloud in the first place. Zack becoming a clone would mean that he was never a failed experiment. And what would happen if he wasn’t a failed experiment? Cloud wouldn’t be able to escape and FF7 wouldn’t have happened. Could Hojo have picked up Zack’s dead body after his death? Maybe, but is there evidence that his corpse would still become a clone? That’s extremely unlikely in my personal opinion. We would have to assume that Hojo did another clone experiment this time around and the Shinra troops decided to take his body with them when they had no good motive or order to do so anyway. Their orders were likely  “shoot to kill” and that’s it. We don’t need Zack’s corpse to be remade into a clone, and we certainly don’t need him to be a clone if Sephiroth wants to do something like create an illusionary projection of Zack. Remember what happened in the Northern Crater? Sephiroth used Jenova to create an illusion of Tifa in order to trick the Black Materia holder into “helping” the team.

Lastly, that bag of Stamp's Champs, Original Flavor.

It’s interesting, isn't it? And Nomura told us to pay close attention to both stamps. This is probably the biggest case of an alternate timeline being real, but after thinking about it for a while, I argue that it's not proving an alternate timeline exists, but rather it's being shown to give focus to two different heroes. And how does this work in the FF7 world? Well, Shinra probably has simple rebranding of Stamp on a Shinra product. It’s not uncommon for corporations to rebrand their products into a different name (just look up Lay’s Potato Chips and you’ll come across Walkers, as shown in my poorly collaged photo). BUT there's another example to talk about, as a friend mentioned. Stamp's Champs are the "original" flavor. This original flavor and Terrier is being used to represent Zack in FF7, as he was once called a "puppy" by his mentors in FF7 Crisis Core. Now, that bag is calling to the original hero, who was Zack (could also be an homage to how Zack's design was originally assigned a "different" role in FF7 OG) up until he passed his dreams on to Cloud. So what this means is both Stamps are used for wither a different flavor or got rebranded after a certain amount of time passed, or the Stamp brand has the same flavor is different depending on the location in Gaia. Now for the second functionality for Stamp: It's being used as a red herring to mislead the players deeper in to the mouse trap. Remember Stamp’s original function in the context of Shinra? It served as a propaganda device for Shinral to promote its use of warfare for wealth to mislead the public into thinking Shinra’s deeds were for progress and beneficial for the Planet. It’s very possible that the developers are using Terrier Stamp as a propaganda device to trick the face-value players into thinking everything’s going to be different for the story until we're shown otherwise. And if it actually is an alternate timeline? It will not affect our team. As established previously, there is no time travel that our team is capable of, and the Whispers act on a fixed flow under the Will of the Planet and are almost omnipresent, so they must correct the course of destiny in the present and as quickly as possible. That alternate timeline would probably just be used to show us that no matter what we do, what’s set in stone needs to be kept in stone. So, don’t get your hopes up that Zack is going to survive, especially since he already passed on the Buster Sword to Cloud in the present "timeline" that we're playing.

But why is there a different Seventh Heaven sign shown during the ending sequence? Isn’t this proof of an alternate timeline?

Careful now. There’s a big possibility that what was shown during that shuffled sequence of events was the original Seventh Heaven bar. That’s right, there was a Seventh Heaven before Tifa’s in Sector 7. How do I know this? It’s a sidequest in Final Fantasy 7: Crisis Core. Zack met an unnamed carpenter in the Sector 7 slums and helped name the bar. The canon answer in the narrative is to choose the name Seventh Heaven. So what’s likely happening here is 1) we saw a past event of the first Seventh Heaven bar being worked on, as the folks of the slums are building their homes together; 2) we are seeing the folks rebuild the Sector 7 slums, and perhaps to honor what was once there, the folks are building another bar and making sure to keep the original name Seventh Heaven, or 3) pretty much what I said before and it’s happening in an alternate timeline. Regardless, there’s a good chance that Crisis Core is being referenced here. And if it isn’t and it’s different events happening in an alternate timeline? Once again, our friends can’t go to that alternate timeline because time travel is not a power they have. So, it doesn’t really affect the main beats of our journey. What may happen, though, is our team will visit the Sector 7 slums later down the line, and they’ll have a reunion with a rebuilt home before settling the score with Shinra and Sephiroth. Until we see it, though, that’s just headcanon.

But why is Biggs alive? Aren’t Wedge and Jessie alive, too?

Biggs is shown to be alive, yes, but at what point of time and for how long? Also, even though he is shown to be alive, how is that going to drastically alter the story for our friends? He may stick around and have a minor role later, but he could very well die again depending on where the Destiny River is heading, and there’s likely very little he can do to somehow drastically change the story. Is he going to suddenly appear and sacrifice himself to make sure Aerith survives? Highly doubt it. See what I mean? Even if someone like him is left alive, he’ll either receive the same fate in a different way or just get a role that won’t change much of the main story. So, are Wedge and Jessie alive? Wedge, absolutely not. He was pushed down Shinra HQ Tower and there is no way he was able to survive a fall that high. There is no evidence that he “survived” after that fall as well. As for Jessie, we saw her gloves and headband on a dresser next to Biggs, but that’s it. Why would they place those next to him and not next to Jessie if she’s still alive and being taken care of? She was high atop the Sector 7 tower and it’s very unlikely anyone besides our team was able to run up and grab her on time. She was also in a worse state than Biggs and probably got crushed by the tower collapsing. In other words, she got crushed twice. Once when she set off her bomb and Cloud and Tifa bump into her; the second, when the plate dropped. What the glove and headband are, are likely nothing more than the remains of a friend who couldn’t make it. There may have been time for someone to pick up Biggs and that’s how he ended up in a bed, covered in bandages. As for more proof he’s the only one who survived? Wedge had 3 cats he held. Out of the three, only one named Biggums survived. The other 2 missing, I believe, are symbolism for the fate of the AVALANCHE trio. There you have it, three charming but minor characters who had written character arcs that got fleshed out in Remake, but don’t serve an extremely important purpose to the main plot points of the game (no offense to the trio, I do like Mr. Not-Charlie-Sheen and I wonder what they will do when the inevitable happens).

This is cool and all, but what about Sephiroth's line? "Seven Seconds till the end. Time enough for you, perhaps. But what will you do with it? Let's see." Also, this Sephiroth used more informal phrasing in the Japanese acript, such as "ore." He seems to be aware of what the future holds, too. So what do you make of this?

Ah yes, this moment, also one of the first pieces of script the writers thought of:

Well friend, I actually covered this topic before:

Seven Seconds Before the End: Theory vs. Context

While that post was made to debunk a theory, I believe what I wrote in it can easily be taken into the context of this post. That's one thing people constantly overlook about this line: it already has a given context. What do I mean by that? Check out the story log here:

In the world beyond, Sephiroth shows Cloud a vision of the planet seven seconds before its demise. Having strayed from the course destiny set for them, they strike out on a path toward an unknown future.

This is what Sephiroth was referring to: the end of the Planet. Unfortunately people are taking this line WAY out of context and using it to write theories that stray far away from the line's meaning in the first place. It's part of what Sephiroth is after, and it's part of what Cloud is fighting against. The team fought against the Arbiters of Fate because they believe what they saw was the end of everything for them without seeing the long-term outcome, while Sephiroth lured the team to fight against the Arbiters of Fate because he may have seen his failure, and believes that with the physical manifestation of the Whispers gone, he can continue his plan without any chance of failure. A part of the future, no matter what seems to happen, will involve making a decision seven seconds before the Planet's demise. What will cause the Planet's demise? Meteor. That is the main calamity we are trying to stop after defeating Sephiroth, and we need to defeat Safer Sephiroth and SOLDIER Sephiroth to make sure his will cannot block Holy from being summoned, as well as prevent Aerith from calling forth the Lifestream. So once again, this is from Sephiroth's rough understanding of the future, and it's a meta message for the players of what the ending of Remake might entail. It is NOT Sephiroth from the future suddenly sending his body/consciousness into the past in a really odd moment to give Cloud a warning.

Even with all this, the ending of Final Fantasy 7 Remake stated, "The Unknown Journey will continue." What do you have to say about this?

Yes, there is an unknown journey. This is a journey with new content to tie the rest of the Compilation together, like a possible story shuffle mentioned earlier. There's bound to be new and revised scenes in between the set beginning and end, hence "the unknown journey." I talked about this before, but for the developers to put something like "The same journeys from 2 decades ago will continue" is counter-intuitive to what they just showed us in the ending and would mess with all the anticipation for what's to come next. We have to think about this in a different perspective, and not the perspective of "oh, nothing is going to change." The developers need to keep people excited, and part of keeping that excitement is marketing a tease. It's pretty much how marketing works, too. A marketing scheme that only tells the literal facts without trying to juggle the consumer's emotions isn't going to interest the consumer that much compared to the marketing scheme that teases at the possibilities. As for the reason Yoshinori Kitase will then say that the team is continuing FF7R as FF7 has? He's in a different mindset during interviews like that. The game Final Fantasy 7 Remake is telling us things like a book, ending the events with a To Be Continued cliffhanger. Meanwhile, Kitase can state that FF7R will continue as FF7 because that's technically a vague statement. We know we'll get key locations and scenes, but we don't know how they'll get fleshed out. And we sure as heck don't know about any new scenes and how those are going to be executed in the next installments. In other words, think of a classic sandwich with a hipster rendition. The set beginning and end are the top and bottom buns, the protein is almost the same, maybe a couple spices added in there; and the unknown is all the new toppings added in your hipster-style classic sandwich. I know this is a strange analogy, but hopefully it gets the point across. So don't worry too much; Nojima, Nomura, and Kitase haven't shown us the new condiments yet!

Conclusion

If you're still here after reading through my wall of jargon, thank you! After all that I've written, I hope I was able to accomplish my goal: to ease your worries about the developers' plans with the story. And I hoped to do this by giving an in-universe explanation as to why certain things are happening. There is context to the Whispers' powers, and with the Whisper following a continuous flow of destiny, pieces of the future and past are scattered in that river. Sephiroth's been basking in this river for years now, so he got similar exposure as Aerith did and now has rough knowledge of what's to come. I think people who are clinging to time travel theories are taking the Whispers' powers out of context. We saw vague bits of the future; Aerith did, Sephiroth did, we did, and do you know who else? Cloud, Tifa, Barret, and Red XIII. Heavy exposure to the Whispers gives visions as a side effect. They're not travelling through time from the future to fix things when they've always existed as dead souls who returned to the Planet; they're continuously moving around Gaia and watching folks--especially key players in saving the Planet. The flow of a river doesn't stop, it keeps moving through its closed course. Maybe it can change its course in a slightly different direction, or get shafted into sharper curves to delay the flow, but it will still head to its final destination no matter what. While we are in the current of this new course, we'll stumble upon some untouched terrain before we get to the set ending.

However, even if we know about the inevitable, that isn't going to stop us from feeling intense pain for our heroes.

Thus the journey continues.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go sit my ass down and drink some god-damn tea.

Special Thanks

@otp-oasis-heavenxearth (Also known as @magicalchemist)

For taking the time to read my rough draft and pointing out the goofs, bringing in your theory ideas, as well as helping me solidify my confidence in Final Fantasy 7 Remake's future. Seriously, if you haven't, check out her blog. She's incredibly knowledgeable when it comes to FF7 and looks through every different perspective while sticking to the facts. In other words, straight up awesome!

@silver-wield

For allowing me to cite your post, as well as being the first person that made me faithful the developers are staying true to their word with their direction of FF7R. Seriously, thanks! If you haven't, check out her blog. Her attention to detail is incredible!

[buffaloborgine]

An over-review and (many) theories of FFVII compilation - Part V

Part I: The Timeline - https://buffaloborgine.tumblr.com/post/624717906149818368/an-over-review-and-many-theories-of-ffvii

Part II: The Fated Trio(s) - https://buffaloborgine.tumblr.com/post/624817710806827008/an-over-review-and-many-theories-of-ffvii

Part III: To be or not to be - https://buffaloborgine.tumblr.com/post/625180368648159232/an-over-review-and-many-theories-of-ffvii

Part IV: LOVELESS -https://buffaloborgine.tumblr.com/post/625631759219015681/an-over-review-and-many-theories-of-ffvii 

Part V: The Culprit 

Before I get on with this part, let’s all agree (again) on one thing: The timeline of FFVII Remake was a mess even before Cloud comes back to Midgard in the beginning of it, as I have explained in part I. 

[If you don’t agree with that, or haven’t read part I, then this part will have a lot of problems to argue, so just go read part I again, please] 

“The most useful form of time travel is to go back a year or two and rectify the mistake we made.” - Matt Lucas. 

Whoever decided to go back and wreck the timeline of FFVII must have their purpose and it is shown clearly in Remake: To change the flow of events and defy destiny. 

To Aerith, if she could stop Sephiroth from becoming the one who calls down the Meteor to destroy the Planet then she can change her own destiny. At the  end of the highway, it is Aerith, who actually shows sympathy to Sephiroth, saying “They.. Their words... They don’t reach him. All these moments and memories, precious and fleeting... they’re like rain rolling off his back. And when they are gone, he won’t cry... or shout... or anything.” Instead of trying to fix other things, Aerith knows that Sephiroth is the main cause and that if she can fix him, then everything will not happen the way they were supposed to. 

To Sephiroth, if he can manipulate Cloud sooner than he did in the original timeline then Cloud and the team won’t be able to stop him from destroying Gaia, therefore he can reach his true aim, becoming God. We can see Sephiroth trying to reach out to Cloud very early in the game, just right after Cloud is back to Midgard, then the moment Cloud meets Aerith, etc; what Sephiroth does is emphasizing his influence on Cloud, telling Cloud that his purpose is to save the Planet, asking for Cloud’s help. By changing his method to approach Cloud, Sephiroth is trying to fix his “fault” so as to defy his destiny. 

But then, let’s be honest, do you believe that the mess in FFVII Remake is caused by either Sephiroth or Aerith, or even both? 

We already know that Banora still exists on the map since Shinra didn’t bomb them because the poster of Banora White juice in Midgar. We also know that Tseng had his hair down before the time Before Crisis actually happened, thanks to the flashback cutscene of Elmyra. Also, the Wutai War is still going on. Therefore, if there is someone who actually messed up the timeline, that must be someone who knows about the events of Crisis Core and Before Crisis, and that can’t be neither Sephiroth nor Aerith.

So why I am so certain about that?

- First of all, Banora. There is no point for Sephiroth to actually try to prevent the bombing of Banora, he doesn’t even know about it, or if he does, he wouldn’t mind. It has been shown in Crisis Core that after that event, Sephiroth doesn’t even mention about it, he doesn’t care. It also is no problem to Aerith, she may know about Banora, but does she know about it being bombed? Aerith can sense when someone entered the Lifestream, but she doesn’t know exactly where they were; or she may get the knowledge about it after she entered the Lifestream, but even if she knows about it, does she needs to actually prevent it? No. 

- Secondly, Tseng. The best I could come up with the scenario for Tseng to let his hair down before the events of Before Crisis is that Veld was never a Turk which leads to Kalm never got bombed wrongly and Veld lives a normal life with his family (or maybe Kalm was still bombed and Veld died along his family in it, causing the whole Before Crisis event never happened). Sephiroth may know about those events in Before Crisis, but he never actually had any significant part in it, and he doesn’t care about the Turks so there is no point for him to fix this. Aerith knows about Tseng, and yes, she could want to fix Tseng’s destiny, so let give Aerith some possibilities here. 

- Finally, Wutai War. The fact that this war is still going makes it impossible for both Sephiroth and Aerith to get involved in this. Sephiroth was the hero of Wutai War and Aerith obviously wants peace, not war, both of them have no reason to let the war continue. 

Then, the question is, if neither of them is the culprit behind the mess in Remake, then who is? 

Well, the culprit must have all the connection to the three events above, also, must be someone who has already died in the original timeline so they are in the Lifestream and can manage to manipulate the Lifestream, or must be someone that is still alive after Dirge of Cerberus (the last point in the chronological line of the original timeline) and has a connection to the Lifestream so they can manipulate it for the time travel. By doing a quick short, we narrow down the list. 

- Vincent is alive after DoC but he seems fine with the result of DoC so he doesn’t need to travel backward for anything.

- Zack is tied to all of those events above but as the end of Remake, he is surprised that he is alive, so it means that he is no culprit. 

- Angeal could be the culprit, because he is the type of person that wants to fix things and save people, but exactly because of that, if he is the culprit, he would want to end the Wutai War. 

- And finally, Genesis. We see him still alive after DoC, he is closely tied with Banora, there is no proof that he needs to fix Tseng but we know that he does know a lot of things about the Turks (due to the way he talks to Tseng in the factory in CC), and as for the Wutai War, Genesis was jealous with Sephiroth about being the hero, so by keeping the war continue, Genesis could prevent their relationship from faltering apart. Also, he did say that he will come back, and I believe he will. 

In conclusion, I believe it is Genesis would be the most possible to be behind the timetravel;ing trainwreck in Remake, because he has the most reasons to do it. (Also the Stamp mascot, as it is shown in Remake that there are two different Stamp puppies in two timeline, it is obvious that the mascot is changed between different timelines. And besides, why a puppy? As we know Zack is referred as "Zack the puppy" by Angeal but from whom did we know about that? Angeal's mom, and then Genesis)

Thank you for reading, this is basically the last part of my theory, maybe there will be more, but for now, it ends here.  

[iaintyourbro]

I wonder if the reason why Cle~rith fans getting desperate with twisting facts is because most of their romantic moments are in midgar ,since midgar was in the pt1 and there’s non to them now only small parts ohh & GS date the moment they worship ,C beating A , A going to the FC then her death but i wonder if A death will actually happen the part 2 Because i’ve seen some people say the devs may change the plot and A death will happen differently (1/2)

so maybe A death will happen at the end of last disc in the remake , but remind me again when does the moment C say to T “it you opinion that matter.” I’ve CAs downplay this moment that the devs will remove it just like how most of their moments do you think the devs will remove CT moments in favor to them cause they’re hoping for that right now , i really thought it was too good to be true that many CT moments were added in pt1 since T was irrelevant until A death in OG (2/2)

Hey there! Thanks for the ask! This ended up much longer than I expected, so I’m going to add a Keep Reading for everyone’s sanity.

First I’ll talk about the scene where Cloud says this line Tifa. This happens when you go to the Northern Crater and Sephiroth creates an illusion of the Nibelheim vision. At the time, you don’t know it IS partially true, but it’s based on how TIFA remembers it. Sephiroth knew Cloud was there, but since he never revealed himself to Tifa, he used this to his advantage.

Cloud is holding strong saying he knows what Sephiroth is doing, and that the guy who runs out of the mansion won’t be him. Zack runs out - and Cloud is like I don’t care, this is Sephiroth’s illusion. I know I was here. Then Sephiroth also is like “okay... fine... I got a picture.” (He doesn’t say that exactly, but you get the jist)

Tifa then can’t respond, because she knows he wasn’t there. Cloud notices she starts to waver on this and says that her opinion is the only one that matters.

Here’s the exact lines that Cloud says:

However, Tifa can’t confirm anything now. Sephiroth did exactly what he wanted to do. This is what actually breaks Cloud. When he realizes that Tifa can’t remember him being in Nibelheim, seeing what Sephiroth is showing him and telling him, his mind breaks, and the illusion of Cloud Strife is broken with it. This allows Sephiroth to get the Black Materia and throw Cloud away like a used puppet, which is exactly how Sephiroth sees him.

This is an extremely powerful scene. You don’t get resolution on what most of this means until you go to The Lifestream later one and Tifa helps Cloud rebuild his mind. 

This is the first time that it’s obvious that Tifa is very important to Cloud. This is probably why it’s discounted. Anything that’s showing anything where anybody is important to Cloud other than who they ship him with is not real. 

If you replay the OG and pay attention, there are moments that show Tifa is important to Cloud. They are very subtle and NOTHING as obvious as what you see in Remake, but they are there. There are also comments from Barret and Aerith hinting at Cloud’s hidden feelings for Tifa. 

Barret when you first get back to Seventh Heaven after the first bombing mission asks if he wants to see his little baby (I thought this was funny).

Barret on the way to Sector 5 makes a comment about them after Cloud is trying to make sure Tifa isn’t scared. “You two can do this later.”

If Tifa and Aerith aren’t in your main party when you get to Costa Del Sol, Aerith will make a comment to Cloud when Tifa says she wants to go swimming about him getting crazy ideas and melting that cold exterior, and then she runs off with Tifa. 

But the OG was NOT romantic. I think it’s comical that so many people see all this romance. I replayed it recently. Any romance is very subtle. This game has like 5% romance, 95% crazy shit going on. 

Okay, LTD stuff: The Midgar scenes people refer to that I can think of are Cloud laughing with Aerith on the roof (which was removed from the Remake and given to the Avalanche crew), being imprisoned so Tifa hears about the date Aerith promised Cloud, causing some LTD drama, also removed, Aerith running after Tifa instead of Cloud - also replaced with Cloud going after Tifa. The last one is used to say that Cloud didn’t care about Tifa. So, they made sure to cover that one. 

Aerith HERSELF has helped to end the LTD. Her entire resolution was a nod to the OG plot - she gives foreshadowing on her death, on Cloud not being Cloud, and various other aspects. She tells him he can’t fall in love with her because even if he thinks he has, it isn’t real. They laid it on heavy there. Aerith HERSELF doesn’t seem interested. She’s absolutely more interested in what’s up with Zack. She built up the entire time you’re going through the Collapsed Expressway in Chapter 9 to ask Cloud if he had any SOLDIER buddies. 

In any case, the Northern Crater scene will be one that slays people. It was emotional in seeing it in text and polygons, but with voice acting and HD, you’re gonna see crying, fear, and see Cloud slowly breakdown in HD.

Now on to Aerith’s Death

So, I strongly believe that the main plot points of FF7 OG will be the same or similar in FF7 Remake. The devs themselves have said they are not going to divert from the story. However, that doesn’t mean that things won’t be added or tweaked. They added 30+ hours of content to a 6 hour portion of the OG. They moved scenes around, reworded things, and in some cases, removed scenes. But EVERYTHING they did only added to the main plot points. 

The Sector 7 plate still falls, no matter how hard you try to get there and stop it. Tifa still goes to Don Corneo and you have to save her, Cloud still falls in to the Sector 5 Church, President Shinra still dies, Aerith is still captured by Tseng.

The main aspects to drive the plot forward still happened. What happens in between those things is what is different, but ultimately, the main points are the same.

The things added or modified didn’t impact these aspects. If anything, they added to them. For example, having Barret get stabbed by Sephiroth served as a nod to the original idea to have most of Cloud’s friends actually die. This was changed to have just Aerith die. Sephiroth stabbing Barret also served to fuck with Cloud. Barret is revived because we all would have burned down SE HQ. (No, he’s revived because there’s quite a bit that would have had to change story wise, such as Corel and all that.)

Adding Sephiroth in early is enhancing the original story. There were instances in the OG where Cloud heard Sephiroth talking to him, but you didn’t know who it was. The “In my veins flows the blood of the Ancients.” is directly from the OG, at the same time. It’s when you’re going to Elmyra’s house. They just enhanced that scene. They’re building up the mental breakdown of Cloud slowly, so by time it happens, you will also feel like you’ve been mentally broken down by Sephiorth. It makes it much more powerful than hearing a high pitched sound and a random line of text appear on the screen.

I think that Aerith knows she’s going to die, just like she eventually seemed to know in the OG. I think Zack coming back is going to be part of that. I’m going to guess that he’s somehow going to help her. She will still need to be in the Lifestream at this point to make everything work. 

Do I think that the entire event will be the same? No. I think it will still happen at the Forgotten City. I think Cloud may completely go nuts and your party will need to stop him from killing Aerith himself, like he almost does in the OG. I’ve seen theories saying HE will kill her, but I don’t know if they’ll go that far. I think Sephiroth will still kill her. I’m not sure it’ll be the same exact way, but I’d be very surprised if they changed the scene too much.

It’s a really powerful scene. I don’t think it’ll be JUST Cloud looking at her. I think that’s why they’ve built up the relationship with her and the others - especially with Tifa. But I definitely think she will be killed in a very similar way in order to keep the horror of the original scene... and I think initially she’s going to survive it. That’ll be the whole illusion, but she’ll die pretty quickly after that. They’re going to fuck with us and make us think she’s going to survive it. 

I do think that Zack is going to come and “get her.” I think that Cloud will have interactions with Zack and Aerith to try and prevent the AC scenario of extreme guilt. Zack will definitely have a much bigger part than he did originally (which was almost non-existent in the OG). 

In order for them to properly follow the FF7 story, Aerith has to die. 

The other option is to have her die at the Northern Crater, which is originally where they were going to have it happen, but I’m not sure how that would fit at this point. Tifa is the key to breaking Cloud for Sephiroth. Sephiroth knows he can manipulate Cloud by using Tifa against him. Aerith wouldn’t do much additional in this scene. She doesn’t know Cloud. It also would require that Aerith dies to add to the grief the party is feeling. Cloud needs to be broken down, and Aerith is part of that breakdown. 

So I think she will still die at the Forgotten City. I do think that you’ll have more interaction with her after she’s in the Lifestream, but through symbolism. I think that Tifa will talk to Aerith when she falls in to the Lifestream. 

Everything that builds the skeleton of the FF7 story will be there. It’s just how powerful it will now be and how much will be added.

This turned out REALLY long, but I had fun writing it.

Hopefully I answered your questions!

[fycarmensandiego]

My thoughts on the new show

It’s not really a proper review because how would I even do that, so here are my various thoughts, somewhat collected! (This is long as hell, fair warning.)

General thoughts:

Le Chevre and El Topo are definitely a couple. I’m so glad other people in the tag are seeing this too. My first inkling was when they were hugging each other after graduating, but it was Carmen’s comment that they only ever work together that really got me like “oh they’re gay.”

Speaking of gays, Dash Haber (Countess Cleo’s courier) is one. His voice is so gay-coded, I knew this one immediately. Not crazy about him being an antagonist (even among antagonists), but he amused me, so he’s good.

Even if they have the same names, these are different characters. The exceptions here being Carmen, the Chief, and possibly Julia. This isn’t a Tomb Raider: Legend case of putting characters in different situations and slightly changing their personalities, or even a Tomb Raider 2013 case of radically changing their personalities to coincide with their new paradigms. Chase, Zack, Ivy, and the rest are really entirely new characters that simply share their names with past characters. It’s almost as if the names are references to the past shows and games than ties to those characters.

For the most part, they even have different designs. Zack is certainly the most radical change, but even the most similar have some changes. Prof. Maelstrom isn’t nearly as stocky as his namesake, and while Dr. Saira Bellum has wild hair like Dr. Sara Bellum, it’s a strange shape as well as a strange color, and her skin is darker.

This isn’t the first time something like this has happened in the franchise, either. Minnie Series from Where on Earth is apparently a totally different character from Minnie Series from the original Where in Time game. Adventures in Math changed a lot of the characters’ designs and backstories: some, like Jacqueline Hyde, still had the same core, but others, like Jane Reaction, are so different they have to be considered different characters. And then there are all the different iterations of the Chief: old white guy, middle-aged white guy, middle-aged Black gal, hologram, presumably white guy shrouded in mystery...

I will say that as a result of this, I was disappointed with Zack and Ivy. Not because this Zack and Ivy are bad characters, but because Where on Earth Zack and Ivy are my favorite characters in the franchise after Carmen, and I was looking forward to getting to see them, or at least characters resembling them, again. But, it is what it is.

I get the Kim Possible comparisons, but they’re not where I’d jump first. There are similarities: both are action shows with deliciously OTT villains (though the VILE gang wish they were as effortlessly iconic as Drakken, Shego, and Señor Senior, Sr. and Jr.) and similar art styles, and Player/Wade is a fair comparison. But I have to say I’d never have thought of that comparison if I hadn’t seen it here on Tumblr, perhaps because KP was rooted in Kim and Ron’s daily lives (Sailor Moon-style), whereas CS is rooted in its overarching plot (Chuck-style).

I do agree with another comparison: Coach Brunt and Countess Cleo, and Eartha Brute and the Contessa. I saw a post in the tag earlier today that brought this up, and while I hadn’t thought of it - probably because the Where in the World show is one of the parts of canon I’m least familiar with - it seems legit to me. I had wondered why these two were seemingly born out of nowhere, when the other three had their names and likenesses drawn from Where on Earth characters. (Shadowsan seems to me to be based on Suhara’s design and, to some extent, personality, with Shadow Hawkins’ name.) The specific theory that post espouses, that it’s a legal issue, seems possible to me. Although the World villains did appear in other Carmen media, I know WGBH and WQED own the copyright to the show, though they licensed the franchise from Brøderbund. So I have no idea what the legal tangle is behind that show, and I imagine it’s very complicated.

Speaking of WGBH: I wonder if Zack and Ivy being from Boston is an incredibly subtle reference to its location there.

I have mixed feelings about the art style. It is great in still shots, but I found it a little hard to watch as animation for very long.

I don’t ship anything – yet. Julia’s clarification of “travel partner” is certainly ripe for shippy implications, but for me there’s really not much on a personality level to ship her and Carmen at this point. (Likewise Carmen and Ivy, or Carmen and Zack.) I could definitely get behind Julia having a crush on Carmen, the way I feel OG!Jules certainly does.

As to Gray... he was plainly asking Carmen out / hitting on her when he gave her his card. But even on the way to the date, she insisted she saw him as an older brother figure. Like with Julia, I could potentially get behind it in future, but I’d have to see it developed further. There’s also the matter of him trying to kill Carmen, which I’m not crazy about... Carmen’s forgiven him since he was under orders from VILE, and his mind-erase courtesy of Dr. Bellum has given him a fresh start, but it didn’t change who he fundamentally is as a person, and that person made the decision to join VILE and ultimately to agree to kill Carmen. But I’m not totally anti-Carmen/Gray at this point.

(In re Carmen’s sexuality: I have always felt strongly that all of Carmen’s previous incarnations were ace/aro, but this Carmen? The sapphics have claimed her, and I’m here for it. I’m fine with her being gay, bi, or pan. I’m fine with her being acespec and/or arospec, or not.)

I was surprised by the violence. Scenes of literal attempted murder would never have made it in previous shows or games! In fact, a lot of the melee combat wouldn’t have. The franchise hasn’t always been totally non-violent - Ivy whacked the occasional villain around on Earth, and ThinkQuick and Stolen Drums both required the player to destroy VILE robots, the former featuring robots with personalities - but I don’t think it’s ever been shown in such detail as the combat scenes in this series. I don’t have a problem with it, exactly, but it was a little jarring.

Things I didn’t like:

The educational moments were utterly didactic. I guess you could say the same about Earth, but I feel like it integrated the education into the plot better, and it certainly made the educational moments more fun by working jokes into them. Meanwhile, this show is taking the Stolen Drums approach of info-dumping for two minutes and then moving ahead with the actual plot with no attention to education thereafter. To go back to my favorite video game (I warned y’all), fucking Tomb Raider: Legend did a better job integrating education with action. And it’s not even supposed to be educational!

Stop trying to make “caper” happen. It’s not going to happen. It’s a perfectly good word to use from time to time, as it always has been in canon, but for “The ____ Caper” to be every episode title, and for it to be used at every opportunity in the script when “theft” or “heist” or another word could have been used just as easily gets annoying. The thesaurus: it exists. Also, it’s so overused that at a certain point I started thinking of the culinary garnish instead of a crime. (And I’ve never even eaten capers. I don’t think I’ve ever even seen them in person.)

I’m not crazy about the newly established genesis of Carmen’s name. Having her grow up with no name but “Black Sheep” makes me feel uncomfortable tbh, and while I like the significance of her choosing her own name, pulling it off a hat label seems cheap. And out of character for someone as thoughtful as Carmen.

Some of the villains seemed like real cultural stereotypes. Thankfully, it was not nearly as bad as Adventures in Math, or we’d literally have had Le Chevre saying, “Hon hon hon, baguettes!” but Shadowsan and Paper Star in particular made me uncomfortable as they felt like very stereotypical “Japanese” characters. The same could be said of Coach Brunt, who while not a stereotype of any marginalized group, was definitely a bit one-note. Coach Beiste, but evil and Texan.

Cross-language misspellings. Namely, Shadowsan and Le Chevre should be Shadow-san and Le Chèvre, should they not? The omission of accent marks has always been one of my major bugaboos, and while it’s not the first time the franchise has done it, it still annoys me. Shadow-san’s missing hyphen annoys me even more, since the hyphen indicates that other honorifics could be used, and in fact, it would (if I understand correctly) be more appropriate for his students to address him as Shadow-sama or Shadow-sensei while his peers call him Shadow-san.

I felt some real misogynistic undertones to Tigress. In a show that otherwise is quite female-forward, it irked me that of Carmen’s four classmates, only one is a girl - and she’s the one who becomes Carmen’s rival. And then for that to continue throughout the series, setting her up as the mean girl to Carmen’s good girl (in many ways, the Regina to Carmen’s Janis Ian), really bothered me. I certainly don’t think female characters have to be perfect, or expect perfect representation, but it feels like Tigress’ development just was not done mindfully, and instead they let themselves fall into misogynistic tropes. It’s not like you to pit women against each other, etc. etc.

The ages and timeline confused me. Carmen seems to be in her late teens or early twenties throughout the main part of the series (I saw a post that mentioned she says she’s 20), yet she was clearly still a preteen or young teen when she stole Cookie’s hard drive. Since Cookie’s delivery is an annual event, its information shouldn’t last Carmen those several years to grow up.

By a similar token, Player seems to be the same age in the flashbacks as in the present day. As a result, he seems a little older than Carmen to start, and a few years younger to conclude. It messes me up. Not least because, not gonna lie, I want to be sure it’s okay for me to be so gay for Carmen.

Things I liked:

The references to previous canon. Along with the aforementioned names, we have:

Rita Moreno’s cameo! (Please, please, God, give us another Rita cameo and cameos for the rest of the Earth cast next season.)

Mentions of punning names. This was delightfully lampshaded with Gray’s original codename of “Graham Crackle” and the subsequent drags from his classmates. And while most of the other characters didn’t get punning names, one of the two who did was Rita’s character, Cookie Booker, the bookkeeper - or, indeed, book-cooker.

The very meta plot point of Carmen getting her outfit by stealing it from Cookie, voiced by her previous incarnation’s voice actor.

Frequent utterances of “Where in the world is...” or “Where on Earth is...”

Tigress’ name, a reference to an Earth episode where Carmen faces a new rival. I don’t know if the Duchess plotline was also a deliberate reference to this episode, or a subconscious one, but it’s so similar that I can’t think it was total coincidence.

I’m thinking “the cleaners” are a reference to the Ick brothers, the janitors from World and USA 3.0.

Carmen is ginger. I have a significant bias for redheads. (I dye my hair red and am only half-joking when I call myself transginger as well as transgender. Heaven on Earth-era Belinda Carlisle is one of my major style rolemodels.) Carmen suddenly being auburn for the first time just makes her even more endearing to me than one would have thought possible. Plus, Ivy and Zack both being redheads? Iconic.

Carmen is also gorgeous. Now, unlike some of you, I have never previously been gay for Carmen; she’s always been more of a big sister figure to me. Instead, as a kid, I was gay for TV!Jacqueline Hyde, Ann Tikwittee, and Ivy, in that chronological order. But the moment I saw this Carmen with her hair up in the trailer, I was a goner. And in her cocktail dress at the charity auction, or her black catsuit at the end of episode 9? I thirst. There were several other points as well where I was just like, “Oh my god, she’s so pretty.” Yes, darlings, I am very gay.

That choker. Most fashionable thing Carmen’s ever worn. Fight me. We love a stylish queen.

Player has a fidget spinner. And it’s only seen briefly, which to me says it’s an everyday part of his life, not something they threw in to try to seem cool... Which in turn allows me to point to something and headcanon that Player is autistic. He’s also known mostly by a username, and spends most of his time working on his special interest, and doesn’t seem to be one for socializing in traditional ways. We love an autistic prince. (Also, this makes him in some ways a male version of my girl Futaba from Persona 5. Again, iconic.)

(To be clear, especially since it wasn’t in my little self-introduction the other day, I’m self-diagnosed on the autism spectrum. So well-written characters being autistic is really fun for me.)

Player is from Niagara Falls, near where I live (I’m on the outer edges of the Buffalo/Niagara Falls MSA), while Zack and Ivy are from Boston, where I’m moving next month. Totally personal to me, but I’m so delighted. Now, granted, Player is on the Ontario side of the Falls rather than the New York side, but still. (Hell, who can blame him for not living in Niagara Falls, NY? It’s a hellhole.)

The VILE leaders stay iconic. Countess Cleo’s crush on Zack in his “Duke” guise is hilarious and adorable, and Dr. Bellum’s obsession with cat videos? Legends only.

Paper Star is generally fantastic. It’s actually too bad for me she’s a villain, because I find her super likeable. Her tendency to hum/sing to herself is also really endearing, and she’s another one who’s easy to headcanon as neurodivergent. I really hope we get more of her, and more of her outside combat and the daily business of villainery, because she’s easily my favorite of the VILE crew.

Tigress is also awesome. Yeah, the female character bias is real, but she’s def my second-favorite, which amplifies my annoyance at the aforementioned misogyny. To be honest, though, part of it may be that she’s basically Amanda Evert, my girlfriend from - you guessed it, folks! - Tomb Raider: Legend, with purple lipstick.

Zack and Ivy met Carmen while casing a donut shop. This is so delightfully silly, and I adore it. Like, who the fuck robs a donut shop of all things? I feel like it could’ve been a reference to them being fat, maybe one that was meant to be developed further but ended up on the cutting room floor? On that note...

The fat positivity is real. Zack and Ivy are still able to move around and are even somewhat athletic; the Countess crushes on Zack; and nothing negative is said about their weight (except the potential implications of the donut shop). I love this.

Carmen and Jules’ conversation. As I said above, it’s not enough for me to start shipping them, but I love that Carmen casually addresses her as Jules rather than Julia. It’s so much like when people I don’t know well call me Soph instead of Sophie, which I always love because it connotes that closeness. Moreover, since Julia’s previous incarnation / namesake was almost always called Jules, and was Carmen’s former detective partner, I feel like there’s an implication that Carmen coined that nickname and it became her primary moniker. It’s just so good, and shipping or no shipping, I really hope we get more interactions between them next season.

The voices are good... mostly. Maelstrom is definitely the one I was most impressed with, as his voice has a lot of character while still being easy to understand. Liam O’Brien was doing a great Tim Curry impression there, but much less egregiously campy and therefore more believable. Sharon Muthu was also fantastic as Dr. Bellum - not as fantastic as WOEICS!Sara’s voice actor (Candi Milo?), but then, who could be? And Kari Wahlgren’s performance as Tigress was snarly perfection.

Gina Rodriguez is a big departure from Carmen’s typically low-pitched voice, but she’s perfectly fine. I never sat up and went, “Wow, what a performance!” but I can’t find any fault with it either. Finn Wolfhard as Player is obviously cross-promotional stunt casting, but surprisingly, it’s also perfect casting.

On the minus side... Zack and Ivy. Part of it is that their accents are so ridiculous that it’s distracting (see above Tim Curry comment). Part of it is that, at least to my ears, the accents aren’t believable - I thought they were supposed to be from Brooklyn until they mentioned Boston. I actually don’t fault the VAs for this, as they both have moments where I got the sense they’d be capable VAs for the characters (and I know Abby Trott is talented as I loved her in Tales of Berseria and Nier: Automata), but rather the voice director(s) who pushed them toward those performances. I feel like if the direction had been different, I’d have liked Zack and Ivy a lot more.

That plot twist. I truly never saw it coming. I suspected that Coach Brunt was not, in fact, the one who found Carmen, but I’d actually thought it might have been Prof. Maelstrom. The extent of Shadowsan’s revelations was a big surprise to me. Kudos to the writers for pulling that off.

Conclusion:

It’s not the series I expected. It’s not the series I hoped for. But it is one that I enjoyed, both on its own merits and for revitalizing the franchise. As I said last night, it is a hell of a feeling to have new Carmen content in 2019 (that’s actually getting attention), and for it to be really good content is a relief.

If anyone else wants to share their thoughts, either one-on-one or with the rest of the community (as it were), please do! I’d love to talk more about this series and this franchise and the thieving queen of my heart, Ms. Carmen Sandiego.

[lilmajorshawty]

8th house your lesson part 2/2

Sun in the 8th: “Hells Solar Flare”

“I’ve watched the world burn a thousand times over-the same screams, the same human like tendency to cling to agony admits the flames”

The spiritual manifestation of having the sun here deals with a past life in which the native often committed sins of the ego. The past life was one riddled with the attainment of ones “identity” by the means of both literally and figuratively devouring that of those who stood in the way of this pursuit. In many ways these natives were acting out the sin of pride-being both unmoving and intolerant to the pains and woes of others, completely insatiable yet seemingly arrogant to their own personal flaws. Due to the 8th house and it’s dealings with death more often than not these natives died due to their arrogance-their unwillingness to see past the suns rays, to experience Pity. In this life these natives have been granted the ability of the ego; not only does this allow them to see through others but it also allows them to illuminate the darkness in others bringing it to the surface or the light so to speak. These natives can read energy with a simple glance and even more so than a Scorpio sun they can see your beginning and end with the touch of a hand-lying is pointless, running is futile. The sun here grants a fast healing process of the body, along with a healthy constitution for most of life. The death often occurs once this life lesson of humility in the form of human understanding and compassion is reached later in life. Your death will be a show, one that many will swarm to witness-and it’ll be your heart most likely to give out first like a true lion.

🔆The dark knight - like a dog chasing cars.

🔅The dark knight - A dark knight.

Moon in the 8th: “Dragon Heart”

“Her eyes had a bit of coolness in them, as if she could eradicate a nation without a second thought”

The spiritual manifestation of the moon here unlike its 12th house counterpart points to a past life in which ones mother has returned once again as both a guide as well as a means of forgiveness in this life. These natives often lived a life emotionally on edge constantly looking over ones shoulder for the next violent act of betrayal. These natives constantly, despite the tender nature of the moon-fought endearingly day by day for their lives-fights that robbed them early on of their youth-their ability to see the good and the more innocent side of man. The mother was the focal point in the past life as she often either manifested as the natives greatest villain or the natives biggest regret. Emotions are felt like a heavy and almost apocalyptic furry for these natives especially due to their heightened nature which allows them to pick up on small nuances in vibrations, emotional cues, and heart fluctuations such as an increase or decrease in ones heart rate. These natives operate on an entirely different emotional level than most people which at times can be alienating, though both their benefit and detriment this receptive nature allows them to intuitively gauge situations, especially situations that could prove to be more malicious in intent. These natives were often guilty of not upholding to the commandment of of honoring ones parents specifically the mother. The lesson in this life is to learn through women-to heal through them, to let go of your mothers sins and find forgiveness in your heart whilst nurturing those who’ve lost their way as you once did. The death often occurs by means of a gradual decline of ones digestive system along with the upper chest! The death is often tender as if god is tucking you into bed.

☁️Game of thrones - shall we begin

☁️Game of thrones - dragon-stone

Mercury in the 8th: “Oracle Of The Labyrinth”

“In the eyes of many, in the eyes of none”

These natives often spent much of their past lives in the shadows, constantly dancing from situation to situation never really settling in any one scheme or agenda, living a life completely like one complete network. There lies an innate darkness in these individuals often due to their mischievous, yet naturally inquisitive nature; they can’t help but want to know it all like some sort of opened book. The sin associated with this placements is often greed as in most cases these natives were both ruthless and even in some cases without morals as to who and what they went after so long as they retrieved what they desired. In this life these natives are blessed with a mind immensely quick and agile-a mind that can decode a room in a matter of seconds without a thought, along with a sharp intellect these natives are capable of picking up languages rather easily due to a past life full of travel. The tongue is their deadliest weapon and can easily sway a nation to its knees if truly mastered. The lesson here is to learn generosity-to share ones knowledge with others opening a better chance for those around you to be the best version of themselves. The life is often long! But death can occur whilst abroad and will most likely be something that manifest in the arms and eyes it occurs quickly due to the nature of mercury and can seem as if it happened before you could process it.

🎩inception - dream is collapsing

🎩inception - time

Venus in the 8th: “Fallen Angel”

“It was shallow, endless and pitch black-yet as my wings once a ghastly luminescent white faded to a dim Black I felt a sense of beauty in the fall”

These natives are an enigma-often the theme of life and death decorate them even those who aren’t truly in-tune with this energy don’t realize that they unconsciously leak off a divinely pure energy yet a tainted shadow lurks behind it. The past life of these natives was centered around themes of lust and gluttony and more often then not these natives were at the mercy of their desires. A natural sexuality exist with these natives, and even more so they have the ability to awaken the more impure sides of others but in a more odd occurrence the darkness they extract out of others only serves to purify these natives. Sex is taken with much caution in this life and is often something that takes much time to truly master for these natives as they can easily lose themselves to their past life traits if they’re not careful! They have been blessed with the gift of eternal beauty which allows them to create love and unity where ever they are even in a world at war! The lesson in this life is to find an outlet for their passionate energy and to truly learn the depth, as well as intimacy involved in love-to love without expecting gratification to just love simple and pure. The death is often peaceful-the voice my begin to fail near death along with a subtle influence to nature around you seeming to bloom.

🍃Passengers - main title(The starship Avalon)

🍃passengers - The sleeping girl

Mars in the 8th: “Cerberus Hound”

“Like wild muts we marched, the blinding cold, the barren land, pure isolation lay before us-though ever so hungry we paraded on, hungry, starving, salivating for the taste of war”

Ah many with this position often carry quite an intense level of inner willpower and strength inside of them; an almost endless reservoir of both presence as well as tenacity in the face of darkness. These natives often committed the sin of wrath-basking in their rage and in most cases allowing it to devour their own thoughts and actions. In some cases mars here can point to a past life in which one might’ve killed another or many out of anger, enjoying it or rather I should say relishing in the Satiation of their instincts. These natives in some ways are both intimidating with good reason as often they carry the aura of their past life around them-making them both physically sharp-and immensely quick on their feet when it comes to reading the actions of other as well as their body movements and language. These natives are often involved in the darkness or shy away from it, those that shy away from it are usually very clumsy and lack proper grounding mainly because they are disconnected from their instincts-while those whom tend to live in the more murky waters of the 8th house tend to be extremely magnetic in their body movements almost moving like serpents. The body tends to move on its on in response to previous experience in the life before. In this life anger is THE HIGHEST priority at mastering as often these natives can easily be consumed by hate causing them to become extremely malicious. Don’t let your anger eat you alive! Find an outlet before you do something you regret. The death might involve a obstruction of the mental faculties and brain! Death might be violent if other aspects don’t say otherwise! And one thing I’ve noticed is that vehicles can be dangerous to be driving or around when mars is transiting Pluto or Uranus and please don’t drive whilst feeling anger as it can cause you to make mistakes you normally wouldn’t.

🦅Zack hemsey - soothsayer

🦅Zack Hemsey - nice to meet me

Jupiter in the 8th: “Dubious Prohpet”

“The mind was a prison-the world was filled with hidden strands and cables holding is up like puppets”

Jupiter in the 8th house natives have been bestowed a massive amount of genuine spiritual guidance! They can see the world, the whole picture not just the small bickering-the wars or even the individual manifesto; they see the whole world as it is through its pain and it’s unjust tendencies and because of this they often embody the role of the Oracle all seeing and all knowing. These natives often embodied the sin of sloth, sitting and gorging the many undiscovered truths hidden behind each nook and cranny often at the expense of others. The world was their oyster but they lacked the drive or ambition to do much of the discovering, only taking the experiences of others for their own. In this life they’ve been granted the knowledge of their previous life often allowing them to revive from trauma others could only dream of-they’ve lived it, they’ve seen it all. These natives in this life have a guardian angel watching over them, in some ways it’s luck but this angel also serves as a reminder of how quickly luck can turn into agony-as these natives can often see the sky turn black at the moment of selfishness being exhibited. In this life they must learn to experience the world through their own eyes-to serve as a medium for the divine for those seeking truth and to find the truth themselves. The death could be of cancer due to Jupiter’s expansive nature especially of the cells. The worlds greatest questions once out of reach are answered at death. Often these natives develop a friendly relationship with god upon death.

🐚 Max ritcher - sunlight

🐚 Max ritcher - arrival of daylight

Saturn in the 8th: “The Gatekeeper”

“They stood tall and broad, faceless-bodies full of bloody holes and torn ligaments; flesh hung of their bones like decoration, yet their they stood without a tinge of emotions-just quietly somber walls”

Those with Saturn in the 8th like with most generational planets in the 8th have endured a past life a immense tragedy, some would say Saturn in the 8th can mean of life that was stricken with the most unforgivable side of man. These natives often experienced a past life that brought them face to face with hades himself-through constant struggle and endless suffering these natives witnessed death, love, chaos and bloodshed-rape-mutilation-humans eating one another and even things such as demonic intervention. These natives and the cruelty they experienced often forced them to create a mental barrier from their suffering often for the well-being of their own health. These natives have committed no such crimes in their past life but unfortunately due to the nature of Saturn this points to a robbing of ones innocence as often these natives were forced to grow up, to serve as their own emotional crutch from the harsher side of this world-they worked endlessly to build a persona strong enough to put the devil himself to shame. These natives often died alone in their last life yet they died in peace. In this life these natives are presented with the option of happiness or continued Wallowing, to either move on from the fear and restriction they plague themselves with or to allow it on take away another opportunity at life once more. These natives have an incredible healing ability and can easily put those around them at peace with just their presence. A deep and soulful love is emitted from these individuals one that could warm the coldest of hearts. Their is an endless yet suffocating wisdom about them as if you’re in the presence of something great. The death is often long and prolonged after a long life-but it’s often a silent death-I’ve noticed that their deaths are often a happy time for their loved ones as they finally get to see you off-to see you finally let go and be at peace.

⏳The revenant - killing hawk

⌛️The revenant - sound of Hugh glass

Uranus in the 8th: “The legion”

“It felt as though I were on some sort of plane looking about copious timelines and vapors of myself in a screen door filled with millions, I knew in the moment that we were many”

Uranus in the 8th house natives are often the finished link as they say, mainly due to the fact that these natives as ventured between the cosmic and the world of the living many times over-often finding themselves alarmingly connected to something beyond this world or the next. Emotions are hard to reach for these natives as they often unconsciously assign different aspects of their feelings or trauma in the face of one of their many past life strands. The science here lies in the fact that Uranus influence here is without Saturn as would be with Aquarius which would normally ground the spatial influence isn’t present here. In the case of Uranus in the 8th house they’ve actually developed a network between each of their past lives causing each persona to manifest itself at different moments and times, at varying emotional hurts and slights and even drawing them towards past lovers and family members. The “why?” You’re looking for doesn’t exist as these natives often operate by a coda which I like to call the END. These natives often come into this life “aware” and as they grow they will begin to unify the many “personalities” and varying lives into themselves as their soul grows in this life. The goal in this life is to become whole once more-and to use their completed self as a means to guide the rest of the world out of the repetitive self destructive tendencies it repeats in every life. The death often occurs later in life but under bizarre circumstances! It occurs swiftly and these natives are said to be on their last reincarnation cycle.

🔭Johann Johansson - Non-zero-sum game

🔭Johann Johansson - flight from the city

Neptune in the 8th: “The Martyr”

“The looking glass kept the shadows out, yet to my astonishment I seemed to be out side of the looking glass-casting a shadow”

Neptune in the 8th house natives can often suffer from what I like to call the undead syndrome even more so than the above mentioned generational planets as generational planets have a looser grip to the world of the living. These natives often spent their last lives weaving back and forth between realms often as heretics and mediums-seeking a meeting with those not of this world. The past life was one riddled with the theme of being used as an object or a means to an end for another; in some cases these natives were used for their bodies or even their innocence both mentally and physically often durning youth and adolescence. Natives with this placements can feel random bouts of guilt and sadness even feeling grief from seemingly out of nowhere as if something is being “tainted” before there very eyes. I’ve seen this aspect manifest in a self destructive manner in some be it through drugs, the undead, multiple bed partners or complete emotional indifference or emotional limbo. It’s very easy for these natives to fade in and out of consciousness and in some cases these natives are more at risk for demonic entities seeking them out as these natives often possess latent psychic abilities ranging from projection to out right precognition! It’s important to note that these skills are dangerous to use without proper training and often these natives can easily awaken forces beyond their control if they dabble to much in the occult! Not to say you shouldn’t but one should be weary of what they might bring forth. The lesson in this life is to learn grounding! To find a way to anchor oneself to this present life otherwise they run the risk of losing it all together-for if the soul is lost their is nothing to reincarnate. The death is mysterious and very obscure! Might be able to see the soul leaving the body.

⚰️westworld - This world

⚰️westworld - something I can never have.

Pluto in the 8th: “Cataclysm Hand”

“I’ve met him-his grey locks, his long flowing robe both rugged and torn as if he’d been traveling over the Red Sea since the beginning of time itself; his eyes had the strangest absence of color, so pale and so frighteningly absent of life-I was in the presence of the devil”

In the case of Pluto in the 8th we have a native who often resided in a very dark side of life in their past life and even for much of this life these natives continue to seek it out and vice versa.These natives see the world through an observant and even curious lens-endlessly learning through the pains and lows of others not necessarily out of malice but merely out of a desire to understand the meaning of suffering-to better understand their own pain. These natives often deal with the black hand as they say-mainly because these natives have in some way shape or form met hades in their reincarnation cycle and for better or worse that confrontation has shaped who they have become in the present. Those with this placement have a almost unbelievable amount of spiritual strength- in the case of which often these natives may attract less than desirable spirts(including those of malefic nature) yet possessing the capability to fend them off through sheer spiritual alignment alone. These natives often feel perfectly at home in the darkness which is often why many are scared of these natives and at times even more inclined to showcase their more darker and instinctual traits out of fear. These natives have the ability of judgment-often being able to rectify those in need of being ridiculed or guided to the right path. These natives have a natural ability to transform and meld themselves into a stronger version of themselves time and time again-constantly shedding off parts of their personality or even psyche that are holding them back in any way. A deep power to transform others is present here, as well as a readily accessible trait to dive into their own darkness and face it head on; in some ways they take on their darkness-emitting it like a beacon yet don’t be fooled this embodiment isn’t a sign of them falling privy to their lesser traits-in actuality these natives have a internal understanding of the realm of darkness serving as the light inside the shadows. The lesson in this life is mainly to wonder out of the shadows! To meet those who illuminate you as well as showing them the darker side of themselves-to find unity between hell and heaven. The death is often prolific in nature and intense like a baptism.

🔮Theophany - oath to order

🔮Theophany - Healing termina

[theconservativebrief]

It’s been in a coma, but the romantic comedy isn’t dead yet. The latest example: Set It Up, a workplace romcom that’s been gaining quiet viral energy since its Netflix-only debut on June 15. Zoey Deutch and Glen Powell star as two strung-out assistants who conspire to get their bosses (played by Lucy Liu and Taye Diggs) to fall in love so they can get a break.

And it’s totally delightful.

Set It Up, directed by Claire Scanlon, gets what it’s like to be a millennial — the economic insecurity, the small apartments, the presumption that a good romantic partner is as much a friend as a lover. Romcoms have a long history of exploring not just love, but what it’s like to fall in love right now, and Set It Up effortlessly evokes everything about being a 20-something in 2018 without pandering or feeling clueless.

Glen Powell and Zoey Deutch star as two put-upon assistants in Set It Up. Netflix

It also feels different from other recent movies that have tried to reinvent the romcom after several factors have left it gasping for breath. There’s the bro-friendly raunch-com variety, launched by The 40-Year-Old Virgin in 2005; its apex, as far as romcom material goes, is probably 2007’s Knocked Up and 2008’s Zack and Miri Make a Porno. These movies basically follow a lot of the contours of the traditional romcom, except they’ve got way more dick jokes.

Another variety tried to invert the genre conventions or inject them with unexpected elements. There are the “serious” romcoms — Silver Linings Playbook (2012), which is also about mental health; Obvious Child (2014), about abortion; The Big Sick (2017), about both serious illness and being a Muslim and an immigrant in America. And there’s films like 500 Days of Summer (2009), which are aware of the rails on which romcoms normally run and purposely run off of them.

But Set It Up doesn’t do any of these things. In fact, I think it works because it’s not highly original. That’s a feature of the film, not a bug. It’s a feature of the genre.

That might sound like I’m criticizing the romantic comedy. I’m not. I think there’s a very specific reason that romantic comedies need to be formulaic in order to be great — and I think it has everything to do with what romantic comedies are all about.

The main characters in Set It Up, Harper (Deutch) and Charlie (Powell), are aware that the story they’re living is a lot like other ones. Harper jokes about having to “Cyrano” their bosses — she has to eventually explain to Charlie what that means — and together they note that their plot is not entirely unlike The Parent Trap, though they seem to have only seen the 1998 Lindsay Lohan version and not the 1961 Hayley Mills original.

That sort of pop-culture callback (hey, Cyrano de Bergerac was a hit in 1897) shows up all over the history of the romcom. Sometimes they’re modeled directly on classic literary works and plays that have many of the same tropes of the modern romcom — most often plays by Shakespeare or novels by Jane Austen. Clueless (1995), for instance, is based on Austen’s Emma. 10 Things I Hate About You (1999) is based on Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001) is based on Pride & Prejudice, so explicitly that its main character is literally named Mr. Darcy. And She’s the Man (2006) is a send-up of Twelfth Night.

Heath Ledger and Julia Stiles in 10 Things I Hate About You, based on Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew Touchstone Pictures

Part of the reason Shakespeare and Austen are such ripe material for romcom writers is they got what makes a romantic comedy satisfying. There needs to be some tension to keeps your leads apart — a disagreement, some kind of dislike, an existing impediment in the form of a (disposable) significant other or class conflict — until, at last, one or the other or both finally recognizes their feelings and they fall into each other’s arms.

The modern romcom replicates that in a few tropes. You need a meet-cute. Then you need a fight or argument, or at least a misunderstanding (the more contrived the better). You need a grand gesture to solve it, and you eventually need them to find one another again. That needs to happen as close to the end of the movie as possible because the endpoint of any modern romantic comedy isn’t a wedding or even really a relationship — it’s the promise of future joy.

Some other features pop up in a lot of romcoms, too — especially during the heyday of the 1990s and 2000s, when romcoms were still a popular way for a promising young starlet or leading man to launch a career. (As Vox’s Todd VanDerWerff pointed out last year, that’s no longer true.)

The “grand gesture,” for instance, was often a breathless rush to the airport to stop someone from boarding a plane. Most of these romcoms were also set in New York City, for some reason. Most of the protagonists had a couple of very close friends whom they could rely on to point out that they were actually in love with the other lead character. And they usually involved very beautiful people doing things in improbably beautiful workplaces, restaurants, and apartments, some of which became instantly iconic.

Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in You’ve Got Mail Warner Bros.

The greatest example of all of these tropes, of course, was not onscreen at all: It was Friends, the 10-year TV romcom, which featured every single one of these tropes in spades. (If I remember correctly, there were at least three rushes-to-the-airport, including in the show’s finale.) A beautiful group of friends in much-too-nice apartments in New York City went through dozens permutations of these plot points, but the overarching story of Ross and Rachel set a template for the “will they or won’t they” plot, and when they finally did, it became a romcom.

Set It Up has a distinct heritage, and it knows it. In fact, Harper and Charlie decide early on that they’re basically trying to cast their bosses in a romcom, complete with a meet-cute and grand gestures that they can Cyrano into being. And it knows it’s a New York story — it even pans up and west from Central Park at the end.

When Set It Up toys with the tropes, it does so gently. We see Harper wearing sweats and eating and crying while watching something, but when the camera pans around we realize it’s not a weepy romance — it’s a football game. (Harper works for a sportswriter and wants to be one, too.) One big comedic setpiece centers on a rush to the airport (with a bit of a twist) that’s mostly funny because of how it winks at the convention.

Set It Up works because it knows the long line of romcoms it comes from. (It even relies on 1960s pop for its soundtrack, a throwback to the successful soundtrack of You’ve Got Mail.) The joke, we know from the start, is that while Harper and Charlie think they’re creating a romantic comedy, they’re actually in one, and from their own meet-cute we have a pretty good idea about what’s going to happen.

So it plays with the romcom form, but it doesn’t play with it too much. We watch romcoms so we can hang out with the characters and watch how they end up together.

Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth in Pride and Prejudice (1995) BBC

That’s in keeping with an important thing about romcoms: They’re romantic, sure, but they’re mostly comedies. Not the joke-a-minute type (though Set It Up has lots of funny jokes), but the more classical type stemming from Shakespeare’s and Austen’s days: The type of story where things start out okay, then get worse for a while, and then, in the end, leave things in a better state than they were when the curtain first rose. Unlike tragedies, where everything just gets worse, comedies have a more cyclical form. In the end, all the good guys are a bit better off than they were at the start.

That cyclical nature seems to not just apply to romcoms individually, but also to the form as a whole. The romantic comedy has been declared dead, but it may be far more durable than it’s given credit for.

After all, the basic form hasn’t changed a whole lot since Austen’s intelligent heroines were fighting with and then eventually marrying their dashing suitors. Anne Shirley cracked her slate over Gilbert Blythe’s head, but eventually she married him. Humphrey Bogart finally realized he loved Audrey Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe kissed Tony Curtis, Harry and Sally got together, and movie star Julia Roberts wound up with bumbling Hugh Grant.

And Set It Up might help revive the romantic comedy, too. There’s just something about the genre that we want to come back to, over and over again. Every generation wants some assurance that no matter how mundane or messed up our lives are, love might be just around the corner. And as long as romcoms know what makes them great, they’ll keep crossing our paths unexpectedly, lighting up our lives.

Original Source -> Netflix’s totally delightful Set It Up proves just how durable the romcom formula is

via The Conservative Brief

[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

[iaintyourbro]

Hey I just wanted to make a statement many fans worried about the LTD but as someone who watched and read many animes/mangas with LT genre as a main theme in every of these works the LT end up at the last episode or chapter but with FF7 if it was a main theme to the game why did it end in disc 1 why didn't it end at the last disc despite the OG having 3discs it should have been the climex of the game but it didn't because it isn't important what important is C real identity that the real theme .

Hey anon.

AGREED. The love triangle was meant to enhance the illusion aspect of Cloud’s issue. 

They game even tells us he created an illusion of himself. SOLDIER Cloud was meant to waver between the two women... I do think people make this a bigger thing than it actually was. I’d say, for me, it’s a very small aspect of his personality struggles. I do find it interesting in Remake they took the wavering aspect out. 

I’m of the opinion that Cloud didn’t do anything obvious to waver or attempt anything with EITHER girl. I think he had a thing for both of them, I don’t think as SOLDIER Cloud it was a deep thing. I think his desire was mostly to be a hero and save the damsel in distress. What’s funny is, neither of them really were damsels in distress...

Aerith in OG actually gets pissed at him for saying something like “I’m not gonna let a girl help me.” She pretty much is like “lol buddy okay you’re dumb.” Tifa just is Tifa and can kick all the ass - even in OG. The romance in FFVII OG to me wasn’t really a thing. Even all the GS dates were kind of weird. Aerith’s hints heavily that Cloud isn’t Cloud. Then you get this confirmed later and start unraveling the illusion and are in a state of “WTF IS GOING ON!” At least that was me.

This is the first time I remember going oh shit, what? The one thing in OG that they missed was building up his relationship with Tifa up to this point. The focus was to get the player attached to Aerith, so Midgar was focused on that, and then if you get her as a date option for the GS, that’s your next time. Personally, I never got attached to Aerith in OG because I didn’t like how she was. Remake Aerith is amazing and hilarious. 

I am not a fan of love triangles. FFIV had one, but it was obvious that Rosa had already chosen Cecil to me - so it wasn’t a huge thing. FFVII’s love triangle was vague and almost felt forced at times.

The only reason I honestly knew there was a love triangle was because of the user booklet that came with a game and what it said under Aerith’s description. 

The prison scene was always nasty to me because of course Tifa is like wtf. Aerith is like why are you and Cloud in the same cell? Cloud is like “I have no idea what’s going on.” Cuz he was oblivious - he had no idea that these two were in a “rivalry” over his affections... And honestly only Aerith really shows effort to me. Tifa isn’t confrontational, so isn’t going to do anything. Cloud doesn’t make an effort either way. 

This is another scene where you’re like wow okay. I mean, the whole Lifestream is like that, honestly. You’ve been playing this game and suddenly find out the guy you were playing with wasn’t actually who you thought he was. He’s a dork who never made it into SOLDIER and has somewhat of an obsession with this girl, Tifa, who you may or may not have even paid attention to the first part of the game. 

They make sure to leave up the “...I was devastated. ...I wanted to be noticed.” I took this screenshot out of my four up there cuz I didn’t have room and since they left the text up, but the kid was desperate to get her to notice him. To prove himself to her (and I assume her father). 

I mean, this is an accurate representation of his head when you go into it. The Nibelheim incident includes some memories of Zack and Sephiroth, but Tifa is also over there. I do think in Remake they will expand on this scene and show more about his mother, maybe his father, some other stuff that happened in his childhood, expand on the Mt. Nibel incident, and I think the CC elements of the Nibelheim incident will also come into play for the final part of this sequence once he remembers Zack.

To me, once this happens, it was clear that Cloud was in love with Tifa. That the first part of the game was an illusion, so I didn’t really think much else about it. Then I found out about all the fighting and I’m like... “Why though?” 

Real Cloud was all about Tifa and still was after he’s back. I felt no wavering after that point. Aerith dies, it’s permanent. It’s supposed to be realistic. Dead people don’t come back in real life, no matter how badly we want them to and no matter how many tissues we use to mourn for them. 

I do NOT think the love triangle was supposed to be a main theme OR stick has hard as it did. I think the fans did that, and now with Remake they’re clearing it up so... HOPEFULLY... it’s done. 

I think it’s a shame, because my best memories of FFVII as a teen weren’t the romance (cuz it was like non-existent) but Cloud revealing who he was, Vincent (of course), killing Hojo, the Northern Crater and the Lifestream, the discourse between Cloud and Barret... It wasn’t thinking about who Cloud liked more when he was SOLDIER Cloud. 

People I’ve talked to in real life who played the OG feel the same way. They didn’t even know this was up for debate... and these are casual players, so they didn’t play/watch CC or DoC and maybe the watched AC back in the day, but it didn’t seem to change their opinion. The only time I’ve seen people staunchly saying that it was player choice are those that couldn’t accept the fact that it WAS part of the illusion. And I’ve only ever seen it online. 

For people who actually played remake, nobody even thinks Aerith was a love interest (this is especially true for new fans that did not play OG). And I can tell you, the only people in real life that know I’m a shipper are my husband and my sister. The rest of the people I talk to don’t, because most of them are my co-workers and they don’t need to know this crazy fandom side of me. 

I think with the death of the LTD in Remake, it just opens things up for more interesting subjects regarding the entire cast. It makes Aerith much more lovable because she doesn’t seem to only give a shit about Cloud like she did in OG. I’m sure she won’t be so nasty to Barret when they go to Corel - I’d be shocked if they leave that in. I’m sure she’s not going to ask for a fortune from Cait Sith, and I’m sure she probably won’t even ask Cloud to go out at the GS. 

So that’s my thoughts...

In closing (long closing), I also think it does somewhat of a disservice for us to obsess over who Cloud liked more when he was SOLDIER Cloud. Both women are powerful on their own. They don’t need no man. I think sometimes when we get too extreme into this discussion, we almost feel like we’re defending these women to say because Cloud loves her more, she’s more important. That’s not the case, in my mind. Aerith is important because she’s Aerith. Whether Cloud loves her or not doesn’t impact her importance to the plot.

Same with Tifa. Now, Tifa’s role IS to be by Cloud’s side and ultimately save his life (multiple times). However, Tifa herself COULD function without Cloud. Cloud cannot function without Tifa prior to getting himself back in the Lifestream. If he falls into the Lifestream and there’s no Tifa, that’s pretty much it for him. 

In Cloud’s case, we can get to a point where it’s like he cares about nothing else except women, which we know is far from the truth. Cloud doesn’t seem to say much at all about women or dating in OG - in Remake they do some stuff with Wall Market and him acting like he knows what he’s doing (he doesn’t), but they have him acting like at typical arrogant teen. He’s an awkward dude, and it’s adorable, and it’s not that he’s blind. He obviously is attracted to Tifa early on. If you get Aerith’s red dress he stumbles over his words. 

That’s not to say we don’t care about how Cloud feels. We do. Which is why it’s important that we help him get himself back and get him through his complete breakdown. But the bigger focus should be the fact that Cloud isn’t fully Cloud and the romantic implications of that shouldn’t be weighed as heavily as the importance of getting his mind back.

[iaintyourbro]

I really don’t understand Aer/ith character in the OG we she fell for Cloud but my question is how she fell for him if she didn’t know the real him ❓ i mean for 4 years she didn’t move one from Zack but then came a guy who she knew nothing about esp the real him she was interested in him because he reminded her of Zack but she came to love when she barely knew him and didn’t know the real him not to mention that crappy fanfiction Maiden novel stating she loves Cloud more than Zack wtaf⁉️❗️1/2

I mean seeing how things changed in the remake i wonder if the devs are going down that road again with Aer/th falling for the not real Cloud again esp after all that Aerti friendship build up like i know Cloud is the protagonist but they don’t have to make every girl in the game fall for him ,opposite sex can have beautiful friendship without forcing romance into it,even if it fan service do they know it this fan service that many people got their story wrong and twisted it 23 years ago 2/2

Hey there! Thanks for the ask. 

So everything I’m going to write is my opinion on the matter and how I perceived the game (OG and Remake, mainly). Many moons ago when all this LTD stuff started, there were comments made by the devs about there being a love triangle. This was meant to enforce the illusion of Cloud’s persona. So, it did exist in OG. It wasn’t the main point of the story, and it was very subtle, especially to western audiences. I’d say OG’s makeup was maybe 5% romance, 95% other crazy shit. 

The problem is, people took it to be the ENTIRE game. So here we are, 23 years later... 

First, OG Talk

In any case, my view on Aerith, Cloud, and Tifa... I think when people say that Cloud was in love with Aerith or Aerith was in love with Cloud, they’re using too strong of a word. Love is a really strong word for what they may have had. I’d say it was infatuation at best.

Cloud wasn’t even aware that Aerith was interested. This is canon that he was oblivious to both Aerith and Tifa’s feelings.

I do not think that Aerith was “in love” with Cloud at any point. I do think she was very interested in him at first because she saw Zack in him - he had the same sword, wore the same clothes, and in OG, he had some of his mannerisms, like the squatting. 

In Remake, Aerith is more interested in finding out about Zack. She even tells Cloud UP FRONT once they sit down to talk about this, that Zack was her first love. In the OG, she says it wasn’t serious (then later admits she loved him). Zack and Aerith were together for quite a while prior to his departure for Nibelheim, she then wrote 89 letters to him. 

To say Aerith didn’t care about Zack like MWTtP does always blows my mind and makes me a bit angry. For one, it makes Aerith look like a total asshole towards Zack. This guy could have run out of Nibelheim undetected and left Cloud there to rot, but he made sure to get him out and then made his way back to Midgar. Of course Cloud was slowing him down. He could barely walk, couldn’t talk, couldn’t feed himself, and this guy TOOK CARE OF HIM.

And the whole point was to go back to Aerith. That’s the reason he was going to Midgar. They could have stopped in Gongaga, Cosmo Canyon, take your pick of town, but it was right to Midgar. 

Problem is, most of the stuff I just wrote wasn’t known until Crisis Core came out, almost 10 years after OG. So people assumed that Zack was a ladies man, since that was said in the OG, and that he didn’t care about Aerith. MWTtP was written before Crisis Core. MWTtP also is NOT canon. 

In the OG, Aerith’s date is more to give the player the foreshadowing that Cloud isn’t who he says he is. Now, most of us that played this game back in the day were kids or teens. A lot of these things went over our heads.

This is long as hell, so here’s a Keep Reading

In my opinion of OG Romance Piece: Cloud was a bit infatuated with Aerith, but didn’t forget about Tifa, they’re just terrible at showing it. We remembered the game WRONG in many cases (that’s a whole other post). It’s important to note, you CAN be flat out mean to Aerith based on player choice in OG, but CANNOT be MEAN to Tifa. You can be neutral with her, but not flat out mean. 

I mean, let’s look at the GS dates. Aerith’s date ends and she asks you if you don’t like spending time with her. You can tell her you don’t or you can tell her you do, but Cloud follows up with “It’s not that..” 

Tifa’s date ends and Cloud wants to know what she was trying to say, but she clams up and can’t. You do not get a choice on whether Cloud had fun with Tifa or not - he apparently had fun.

I did NOT see anything honestly in OG early on. The romance for me wasn’t there until way later, when it’s slammed in your face in Mideel when Tifa is like “I’m gonna stay by his side.” I remember being like “ohhhhhhhhh....” (Still did not really ship or see much romance in FF7 OG, though, as a kid).

As an adult, it’s easier for me to see it and pick up on things, but I still actively looked for CA stuff and it’s really not as extreme as it’s made out to be.

For me, the Love Triangle died when Aerith died. In the OG, after Aerith dies, she’s not mentioned again for a lonnggg time. It had forgotten about it by time they mention her again. Some people were very attached to her and had a hard time playing past this point, it seems...

My Thoughts on Remake and the Future Parts

Okay, so Remake blew me away. As somebody who came in to it with no shipping preference, I was like “okay I don’t remember this stuff...” 

Remake is definitely HEAVY HANDED with sexual tension and romance... but only really with Tifa and Cloud.

Aerith HERSELF ended the LTD. Her resolution, her side comments, how she completely stops flirting with Cloud, SHE ended it. However, I don’t think she would have had to. Cloud didn’t seem to really enjoy Sector 5 all that much. I was pretty surprised when I played it and Elmyra said “Don’t talk to Aerith again.” and he’s like “No problem, see ya.” I was like oh okay.... so... what is going on with this? (I also did ALL of Aerith’s quests including Language of Flowers, so it’s not that I didn’t see all of it.)

Aerith also immediately starts to attach to Tifa, and as time goes on, moves to trusting Tifa more (so it seems). And I’m really happy about that.

I do not think Aerith will even try to pursue anything with Cloud, nor will Cloud try to do anything with Aerith. 

The line was drawn in Part 1. Cloud is almost borderline obsessed with Tifa - when Tifa is sad he says her name, when Tifa isn’t in his view, he’s looking for her, he touches her constantly. 

If Aerith suddenly was like “fuck Tifa, I’m going to try to get with Cloud” it would really just... screw up all that buildup in Part 1. I think that Zack was shown as well to really just keep adding nails in the coffin for this. It also would be BOTH Cloud and Aerith completely pulling 180s on how they’ve been acting. 

I’d be absolutely shocked if they do that. If anything, I think you’ll see Tifa and Aerith’s relationship get a lot stronger. 

I would say that they showed great improvement with his relationships with Barret, Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie. They showed him getting more comfortable with Tifa (even though that went quick compared to the others). The one relationship I didn’t see much focus on improvement or him being more open with long term was Aerith. 

We rescue Aerith in Chapter 16 and he’s like “cool, let’s go.” He barely says anything to her. It’s the one person that is just “around”. Their interactions past Chapter 12 are almost just a way to drive the plot. The exception is her resolution if you get it, but her resolution also is packed full of OG references and foreshadowing. Everything Aerith says and does is important for the overall plot. 

In Chapter 17 and 18 he only talks to Aerith directly regarding what’s next and what’s going on. 

Hopefully that answered your question. I like talking about this stuff!