#sephiroth: *exists*

[tossawary]

I'm fascinated by little overlaps of character experiences in a timeline. In "Final Fantasy 7" as I vaguely remember it, Sephiroth is born in Shinra Manor in Nibelheim. The house has a secret basement laboratory, but people can't really spend months locked inside a house without losing it, so there must have been SOME interaction between the scientists in the manor and the people of the local village.

Like, they would have needed to get food somehow? And Shinra could be delivering all of their food by helicopter or something once a week, among other supplies, sure, but it's also possible that they might have had their food delivered through the village. Over the months or years that they were there, someone must have gone out drinking at the local pub or gone out to buy cigarettes at least once. There are different levels of lockdown that all seem feasible. It's possible that the situation was chill enough that Shinra employees might have semi-regularly gone out to eat dinner in town and simply not talked about what they were working on while out and about (Project S / the Jenova Project).

According to the wiki, Cloud is 21 during FF7, which means he was 17ish during the Nibelheim mission, I think? Some additional materials somewhere suggest that Cloud's Mom was only THIRTY-THREE (33) when she died, so I'm putting him at 17 because that means she would have been 16 when he was born. Which, depending on how old Sephiroth is exactly (wiki puts him at 25-30ish during FF7, which means he's probably 21-26ish during the Nibelheim mission), means that Claudia Strife would have been 7-12 years old in Nibelheim when Sephiroth was born.

It's perfectly possible that Claudia Strife at some point met Vincent Valentine, Hojo, or even a heavily pregnant Lucretia. She was supposedly a precocious girl with big dreams (before apparently becoming a teen mom), so she might have tried to hang around Shinra Manor at some point, and, idk, Vincent on his smoke break might have casually told her to fuck off for her own good. If the Project S people stayed in Shinra Manor for several years, it's very possible that one of the security guards or someone else there might be Cloud's father, who slept with a 15yo local and eventually left when he got sick of rural life. In which case, Claudia Strife might even have had the motivation to belatedly try to record who was at Shinra Manor and when, as part of an effort to find and contact her baby's deadbeat dad again.

(It's also possible that Cloud's Mom paid zero attention to any of the Shinra people back then and knows nothing about them, of course. Small towns are small, but also, sometimes you do the smart thing and just don't go poking around the mysterious corporate compound on the edge of town. That's just none of her business.)

Anyway, I think it's funny that Sephiroth is trying to figure out the secrets of his past, and they (Sephiroth, Zack, Cloud) could have potentially easily learned both Lucretia Crescent and Vincent Valentine's names if Zack had had one (1) conversation with Cloud's Mom. Claudia Strife was around back then as an adventurous young girl! She might honestly know a little something! Cloud, go home and talk to your mother!

[toopolar]

*news reporter voice* anyway being devoted to hatred is still obsession and obsession directed to one person is still a form of soulmateism uhhh words are hard more about this at ten

[yingxtkm]

Some old miniroth scribbles I never bothered cleaning so I’m posting them here 👍

Second image is based off a scene in naia97’s Let’s Play War where Sephiroth paints his room and sleeps in it without opening the window so he got sick from the paint fumes.

[catboyidia]

AHHH THIS STUPID GAME AND ITS STUPID CUTE CHOCOBOS AND ITS STUPID ADORABLE LITTLE BABY SEPH 😭

[cthulhu-with-a-fez]

my datemate has been thoroughly educating me about final fantasy 7, including showing me the movie, which had absolutely zero plot whatsoever and it was PERFECT that way??? like. must a movie have things happen in it. can it not simply be an hour and forty minutes of flexing how many polygons the animation department has access to now via baller fight scenes loosely strung together to make a character study. advent children was a masterpiece, you cannot change my mind.

[ladyespera]

[heraldofcrow]

If Genesis is always pissed off because of Sephiroth then you are my Sephiroth 💀💀💀

Genesis when Sephiroth so much as breathes in his direction:

[lecliss]

I'll never be able to take the theory that Vincent is Sephiroth's real father seriously cuz I cannot stress enough how important I think it is to the plot that Vincent wanted to fuck Lucrecia and did not get to.

[cloudyeucharis]

for the ship bingo uhhhhh

SephZack? 👉👈

I LOVE SEPHZSCK!!!!!

When I was first pkaying CC I was like... they got something going on

[mqkoeyes]

i will forever think abt this specific sephiroth scene from remake

[ilminnestrone]

Case closed.

[sefirots]

boy son

[prismaticpichu]

Late night fic food!!! I dunno how much EC hype is gonna distract me or outshine floofy Zack & Seph stuff, so lemme take this window of opportunity to share this little nugget!

No new silly mobile game will ever shake my true love here xD I think the idea is cute! Looking forward to getting back to it!

~~~

Sitting on the couch, Sephiroth gazed at the package in his lap, bulbs of mako-green rippling against the dim light of the apartment.

Zack, in turn, was gazing at him with bright blue eyes, a familiar gleam in them that the general had come to know as pure, unbridled anticipation. He definitely wanted Sephiroth to open whatever he was holding—and he would, really, it was just…

“…What’s the occasion?” Sephiroth asked softly, his visage full of question as he turned to face the boy. When he had received a message to come to Zack’s quarters, a gift was not what he was expecting. It wasn’t Yule, nor his birthday, nor any other holiday that would entail gifts (to his knowledge). And yet it was so typical somehow, for his friend to surprise him.

Zack playfully smirked. “What? I need an occasion to get my pal something?”

“When it’s wrapped, I think so.” Sephiroth drummed his fingers against the sleek blue paper swathing his gift, thoughtful. It had to be something.

“It’s not international boss day yet… is it?”

“Nope,” Zack chirped. “It’s not.”

“International friendship day?” Sephiroth quirked an eyebrow, remembering that Zack was looking forward to that one.

“Nope! That’s next month.”

“…General Appreciation Day?”

“Nopity-nope.”

Sephiroth returned to the package, officially stumped, unable to think of any other occasions that Zack had enlightened him about.

“Just open it, bud.” He could hear Zack’s kind smile in his voice. “You’ll see.”

There was no room left to protest. Not to that softness, not to that sincerity. A velvety warmth sparking in Sephiroth’s chest, reminded once again of his dear friend’s thoughfutlness, the older man obliged. He delicately raked his nails against the wrapping, unwinding and peeling ribbons of tape until he was able to cleanly tear the paper off. That was done just as gently, rending it with both hands… and a plain cardboard shoebox was revealed underneath. Yet it was clear that there was no footwear inside—it was far too light.

Carefully, Sephiroth lifted the lid. Green eyes widened at the sight.

Nestled inside a bed of tissue paper and packing peanuts, islanded in the white sea, was a small plush Ifrit. A deep, vivid orange colored most of its body, save for its silken belt, patterns resembling dancing flames stitched all throughout its arms and legs and stomach. Two appropriately long horns branched from a mask-like jawbone that framed its face and chin, with two beady eyes adorning its noseless visage. Somehow, they had managed to make the hellish summon adorable. But that was besides the point.

Sephiroth withdrew the plushie, silent, cradling it in his gloves.

…He wasn’t exactly one for stuffed toys, and Zack knew that well (although Zack was quite the opposite). There had to be something more to it—some kind of heavier underbelly. Sephiroth gazed almost mesmerically at the plush, tracing his fingers over the harmless blazes, feeling the stitches catch against his leather nails. He had fought–used—the summon countless times in the past. It should have been like any other monster, an indifferent shape in his mind. Yet it wasn’t. Staring at the beast, it was very much clear. All its contours filled in. And the colors inside were vivid with memory.

There was only one thing that Ifrit reminded him of. And that was—

“A year ago today,” Zack’s voice smiled again, “you saved my life.”

[crisiscutie]

Random Sephthought #7

You know, Sephiroth is usually seen smoldering in the FF7 franchise but I absolutely love how genuinely gleeful he is in Smash Bros. 

Thanks to his archnemesis, he’s bringing despair to many of these well-known  video game characters. Of course, there’s still some rage in there, It’s Sephiroth, when there is never rage but judging by his sadistic glee and his voice lines, he’s more than happy to have new toys to play with.

And a part of me still cannot believe he’s in smash to this day. 

Also WTF is the smash wiki talking about when they say his appearance is derived from CC Seph? It’s OG Seph. Down to the longer, asymmetrical bangs.

[hollow-vergil]

As in, would he have still gone on a war path even if Lucrecia was in his life? Or would he have been more peaceful about it, despite the disappointment.

[millionsnife]

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

important notes. readmore for length:

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

humanity begins colonizing the planet.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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