#the guilt! the grief! the connections to sephiroth!

[queernoctis]

But, baby, please, I just need someone to hold me

Even though you don't even know me

[sephirthoughts]

for the random character ask game: 3, 17, 19, 20, 31 with Nero?

3. This isn't obscure to anyone who sees all my ridiculous posts about the Vincent family, but I do HC Vincent Valentine as half Chinese, which makes his biological son Nero (and also Sephiroth) a quarter Chinese. I don't think he knows or cares, given his life up to this point, but it's a part of his heritage and part of what makes him so beautiful (in my multi-layer delusionverse at least).

17. So, Nero has two sides. One is a highly competent, cold-blooded sadist who has enough power and charisma to control those wily Tsviets in his brother's stead. But the side of him we all love is the real Nero. That seething, crawling, clinging, clawing, demanding, begging, bloodthirsty, no one can have you but me and I will tear apart anyone who would dare to hurt you or even anyone who looks at you for too long Nero, that loves and worships his brother to the point of actual madness. Weiss loves him back, and would never leave him, of course, but if he ever tried, I think we'd see the true depth of Nero's absolute obsession, even to the point of making his brother stay by his side if he has to.

I have a lot of songs for this, but the most spot-on I can think of at the moment are Rid of Me and Legs, from PJ Harvey's gorgeously psychotic 1993 album Rid of Me. Pretty much the whole album is Nero's shattered psyche talking to itself. Give it a listen, for real.

19. Nero can canonically make all kinds of things with his darkness, which includes people. So, when he's lost and alone, after the events of DoC and winds up stuck at his bio father's house being wardened by Sephiroth and isolating himself in his room, feeding into his own madness, the need to soothe himself would overpower his reason, and cause him to manifest fake versions of Weiss, interact with them, which will only make his grief and longing for the real Weiss worse, and also lead him to tear himself apart with shame and guilt about it, later [this will come up in his story and i already have a scene half written 💀].

guys making fake Weiss is nero's VICE I'M HILARIOUS SHUT UP

20. The worst ones are the horrible mutilations done to his back and shoulders, to implant the wings. The actual articulated wing pieces were heavily damaged and then lost during DoC, but the implanted mounts, to which they connect, can't be removed now without paralyzing him and leaving huge gaping holes in the muscle tissue, so they are still there. The wing mounts had to be spliced to his nerves so they would function, and that had to be done without anesthetic, to ensure the connections were made correctly. That means Nero's body was restrained and rendered immobile with mako-enhanced paralytics, while his mind was kept awake with stimulants, to endure a twenty-six hour surgery, in which the pain was so excruciating, it caused him to have a psychotic break, and to suffer permanent mental scars, as well as the physical ones on his body. Also he has a bunch from medical abuse, punitive torture, and combat.

31. Nero would like to officially state, for the record, that the Weiss the Immaculate fan blog on tumblr, all-hail-emperor-weiss, does not belong to him and that he has no association with it whatsoever, and if he gets one more anon ask, accusing him of being Weiss' crazy brother, he's going to fucking show you fucking internet nerds what crazy really means so everyone fuck off and go back to shitposting your Weiss headcanons so he can tell you why they're idiotic and wrong—er…so the blog owner, whoever they are, can tell you why they're idiotic and wrong. Except that one who said they HC Weiss and Nero as soul mates and a pair of mandarin ducks, who would be together in every universe. That person is excepted from the general fucking off.

[doberbutts]

Anyway the question that always gets asked whenever I reveal that I'm not actually into the Cloud/Tifa thing is who do I ship them with if not each other.

The answer is a little more complicated than all that because from the start I considered their relationship something closer to a QPR before I even knew what that meant. I was calling them platonic life partners back then. People who don't feel any romantic love for each other but have chosen to stay regardless, or perhaps because.

I think, before, Cloud thought he wanted to be for Sephiroth what Zack wanted to be for Angeal. A puppy-like affection, a mentor/mentee comradery, and a close connection. I think Sephiroth would have hated it. He was cold and standoffish to Zack until circumstances forced them together, and even then he only really opened up due to Zack's connection to Angeal. I don't think having his own "puppy" would have been welcome at all. And I think Cloud would have been forced to come to terms with reconciling his hero worship with the reality of everything.

He and Zack were friends, but Zack was actively dating Aerith at the time, and Cloud didn't know Aerith existed back then. And within the narrative, Zack and Aerith are "parents"- with how often Aerith is referred to as a mother with Zack standing beside her, and Cloud is among those who repeatedly mistake Aerith for their mom. Zack does it once within the complilation, before he meets her for real, Cloud a few times, *after* he knows who she is. Clearly even when [redacted], Zack and Aerith are intended to be read as a couple, but then that once again removes an option for Cloud.**

The others... eh. I could be pursuded with the right argument but within canon itself it doesn't hold much water. Once we eliminate those four, he's got affectionate negging with Barrett, a quiet respect for Vincent, and a mutual back-scratching with Reeve. He's vaguely willing to play ball with Reno and Rude but not willing enough to let his guard down, while he treats the other Turks with some distain. He mostly tolerates Cid and Yuffie he both treats like and calls a child- she's the youngest so fair, but still removes her from the playing field. Anyone else connected to Shinra he actively dislikes, so Rufus and his flunkies are out.

We've got confirmation that he doesn't remember Kunzel and if Tseng remembers who Cloud is, he's being characteristically tight-lipped about it but Cloud certainly doesn't remember him. The OG Avalanche crew all died, even though Biggs lived in the Remake, and they weren't close. The Remnants of course mostly wanted to kill him the entire time. Deepground barely acknowledges his existence. Angeal died before Zack met Cloud and Genesis was too deep in his own shit to care.

So like. That doesn't really leave anyone.

Personally I think Cloud has way too much unresolved grief and trauma that he still has not worked through. It's years later in Advent Children when he's finally able to begin to move on from [redacted], and despite that even more years later in Dirge of Cerberus he's still notoriously distant and moody and prone to flaking. He's still questioning who he really is, can he actually trust his own memories and senses, and how much guilt is he willing to shrug off his shoulders for his actions while under someone else's control.

And I think being a distant moody asshole that pushes your friends away because you don't know if they're actually real or not is a difficult mindset to be in while also trying to be in love. So he doesn't try. His friends do love him anyway however exasperated they may be with him at times when he shuts them out while Going Through It. But it means he's not really building anything with any of them either.

Except Tifa, who keeps a room and a bed and a desk for him when he decides to come back, whose bar he calls home, who adopted a scared little boy with him, who watches their friend's adopted daughter with him. Who takes a family photo of the four of them together, which sits on that desk. Who quietly sorts the research papers as he hunts for a cure for an incurable disease affecting their son. Who yells and scolds him not because he left and stopped coming home, but because he gave up and shut her out when he contracted the same disease rather than letting her help.

"You don't answer the phone, but I don't see you throwing it away."

Out of all the voicemails on his phone, it was hers saying Reno had dropped by the bar looking for him and being vaguely threatening with the kids that got him to go see the Turks. He did not followup on Reeve's invite to the WRO. He didn't go chasing oil with Barrett. He didn't visit Yuffie in Wutai. But Tifa says "Reno was here being his usual weird self, I think something was wrong", and he went to investigate.

I don't ship it. I think he believes he's too broken for romance. And I think she's very patient to wait for him and give him the space he needs. Maybe they're FWB. Maybe it's entirely platonic. But the compliation has shown us that it's *something*, even if it's deliberately vague on what type of something.

**I do sort of like the "first this guy [redacted] my boyfriend, then he [redacted] my girlfriend, after trying to [redacted] my childhood best friend and succeeding in [redacted] my entire village and also my mom. This Sephiroth guy sucks" paired with Sephiroth's "tell me what you cherish most, give me the pleasure of taking it away" vibes of Cloud/Zack/Aerith don't get me wrong, but also as said Aerith and Zack were dating at the time but Cloud does not know who she is (or even that Zack has a girlfriend) and it is Very Important that Cloud not know the name Aerith until after Zack [redacted] which would imply sort of shadey behavior on Zack's part. And I don't really see him as the type to cheat, so.

[stagnantmako]

I rip affectionately on Dirge a lot, but I really want to just take a minute to talk about what I like about it and why it absolutely has a place in the compilation.

The major theme of Crisis Core was coming to terms with your own mortality and the legacy you life has. Leaving behind a mark, how you impacted the people you leave behind with your deeds. Zack was sure in who he was and what he wanted. Unlike Cloud, Genesis, Sephiroth, and even Angeal - he was content with the sort of person he was. His character growth was not a giant revelation about his past, it was simply to accept that the strong are burdened and learning to deal with that burden.

The themes of Final Fantasy VII were identity and rebuilding yourself after trauma. Finding out who you are, cementing your beliefs, connecting to people around you after you've had your trust broken or suffered great loss - how those around you influence who and what you are. Cloud pretends to be someone else through much of the game, he flip-flops between identities, memories, thoughts, feelings - and slowly over the course of the game he grows comfortable in his own skin. He's not the only one. Almost everyone within FFVII is pretending to be someone else or holding on to an aspect of an old life.

Advent Children, for all it’s problems, seems to be about how hard the continued work of living is. The pain of accepting life and all it’s pain and learning to embrace the joys of it. Life never stops challenging you - and going at it alone doesn’t help, you need connections to hold you accountable and help guide you to be the best person you can be. Personal growth does not equate the end of a struggle. Life is full of them. Painful memories are just as much a part of who you are as the good ones. But those painful memories are just memories, and with people around you or even with just your own two feet, you can move forward and fight for yourself and them.  It ends with all eyes facing forward, towards the future, learning from their past mistakes and becoming stronger for it.

Dirge of Cerberus is the logical conclusion to this chain. Dirge is about grief and what happens when you don't let go. Friendships you’ve lost, loved ones who have passed on, things you feel you could have done different. Dirge is about the consequences of letting yourself stay wrapped up in your own grief, stuck on one stage or another. Nero and Lucrecia both trip into denial and then veer straight into bargaining with the devil himself to bring back what they lost. In both cases, it ended up being harmful to the person they cared for - both of the people they sought to save became puppets to Hojo. Those people are ultimately damned to survive them.

Vincent breaks free of that cycle because he realizes the past is gone. That he has to value the present and the life he has now if he wants to honor Lucrecia and her memory.

Nero refuses to even consider a future without Weiss. He literally cannot fathom moving on. Even when he dies himself he's too dependent on Weiss and returns to him in spectral form, abandoning his very identity to fuse with his brother so he's not left alone.

Nero: Let us become one. Let us come together, so that none may ever tear us apart.

Lucrecia never lets go of the guilt for Grimoire’s death. Hell, to be totally honest I don't think Lucrecia even knew Vincent very well because she was so wrapped up in his connection to Grimoire. To prevent it from happening again, she revives Vincent against his will and damns him to eternal life.

Lucrecia: I’ve made too many mistakes. Lucrecia: And I’ve hurt you so, so much. Lucrecia: Why did I do what I did? Lucrecia: I’m so sorry.

And, well, Vincent spends decades longer than he'd even known her mourning Lucrecia (or at least his idea of Lucrecia) and his old life.

Vincent: I used to be nothing but a stone in the river of time, but three years ago it was you and the others who taught me I had to move ahead.

The difference between all of them is Vincent found connections outside of his past. People who wrenched him out of the pit he was in and gave him new purpose. But unlike Lucrecia and Nero, he's open to allowing them into his life.

Shelke, too, is able to begin letting go of her trauma and grief for who she was and gets to learn to know the person she is now. Her sister dies protecting her (as Weiss arguably did for Nero) and while she's horrified and gutted by the loss, she allows herself to work through it. Her stopped clock starts moving forward again. Shelke says goodbye and moves forward because when Vincent offers out his hand, she takes it and allows her life to expand from what it was to what it could be.

Like, listen. The version we got of Dirge was incomplete. We missed a lot of content. The gameplay was pretty bad, the camera is the greatest enemy the game has. But Dirge has its place in the story.

And it ends the series on a far more hopeful note than Advent Children or even the original game did. It has things to say about its characters and themes that are worth listening to.

[cultivatxr]

‘ you have been the star of each and every one of my nightmares ’

POETRY STARTERS - The Princess Saves Herself In This One.

It shouldn’t bother her as much as it does, to hear those cutting words. It isn’t her fault that the fates have connected them, that by divine justice or (more likely, malady) they have shared an intertwined destiny from the moment they took their first innocent breaths. Yet it still feels like a personal responsibility; that somehow Aerith’s very existence has become the stuff of nightmares and torturous sleep. A wound to be picked at, to fester and bleed no matter how softly she treads or tries to remedy it. They are tragedy incarnate and it pained her to think it, much less admit it aloud.

But the nightmares go both ways. She’d seen Sephiroth in her dreams since before she knew his name, a spectre in the fog, haunting her dormant nights and perhaps some of the waking ones as well. He’d granted her death a thousand times over, woken her in tears and sweat, heart beating so quickly at times she’d feared it might stop there and then. She’d watched his pain unfold, his grief and his trauma splayed like a dying animal across a butcher’s block. She’d seen Jenova puppet him; to tug at those strings like a macabre marionette, stealing free will and goodness in one fell swoop until all that was left was guilt and death.

And yet, Aerith had more presence of mind than to tell him all this. There was no reason to add to his pain when he was already hurting; no reason to prolong the suffering of a man she’d long since forgiven and even dared to care for. Instead, all she could offer was the sanctuary of distance - to retreat into herself and hope that it was enough. Maybe one day he’d forget about her. Maybe one day the voices in his head would stop their screaming and at last allow him the peace he so rightly deserved. It was at best, her only comfort when she at last looked up at him, emerald eyes saddened and forever out of reach.      “I’m sorry I was such a poor dream.”

[thememcry]

THE POSITIVE & NEGATIVE; Mun & Muse - Meme.

fill out & repost ♥ This meme definitely favors canons more, but I hope OC’s still can make it somehow work with their own lore, and lil’ fandom of friends & mutuals. Multi-Muses pick the muse you are the most invested in atm.

My muse is:   canon / oc / au / canon-divergent ( potentially ) / fandomless

Is your character popular in the fandom?  YES / NO. 

Is your character considered hot™ in the fandom?  YES / NO / IDK.

Is your character considered strong in the fandom?  YES / NO / IDK. (apparently there are youtube comments circulating about how boring or weak aerith is. if an explanation needs be provided for how strong of a woman, character, and fighter she is in her own regard then the point of the character is missed entirely.)

Are they underrated?  YES / NO.

Were they relevant to the main story?  YES / NO.

Were they relevant to the main character?  YES / NO / THEY’RE THE PROTAG.

Are they widely known in their world?  YES / NO.  (the big baddies know of her, the little baddies know to look for her and the heroes just learned of why she’s important).

How’s their reputation?  GOOD / BAD / NEUTRAL.

How strictly do you follow canon?

      it depends entirely on the person / character i’m writing and what verse they’re in. when someone approaches me and doesn’t specify a verse i give them main verse (ff7r) and follow canon as closely as i’d like. but most of my threads diverge from canon for exploration or other purposes. i’m not concerned with how close to canon my aerith is ------obviously i’d like people to hear her voice when i have her speak, or see her performing the actions i have her commit to but i’d also like this interpretation to be my own. so when someone reads a piece of my writing they say oh yes, that’s kay’s aerith definitely.

SELL YOUR MUSE! Aka try to list everything, which makes your muse interesting in your opinion to make them spicy for your mutual.  

      i could make an entire post about all of the things i love about aerith gainsborough on its own, so i’ll try not to let this be too rambly.

      she is such a three-dimensional character and she always has been. people expect just to meet the damsel in distress, to rely on cloud and company to help her out at every twist and turn. square even did a good job selling her appearance: soft pinks, gentle features, and when she was given a voice actor the first few times they always went the route of someone who had a lighter lilt. to the first glance she is very much all of those things. except it’s not all she is.

      aerith wears masks to cover the horrendous things that happened to her as a child: experimentation, the shocking loss of her mother after escaping it, crushing loneliness, an awareness that she was different and nobody around who understood the properties of that difference to explain it to her in a way that didn’t terrify her. she heard the planet, could tell when people passed away and rejoined the lifestream, surrounded by all of these voices yet so fucking alone. and did she let it make her bitter? did she become angry or cold, jaded or cruel? no. aerith is kind and giving without being too self-sacrificing and without making her boring. she’s not as innocent as people are made to believe.

      look at her first interactions with cloud. she flirts mercilessly with him, and then you discover she did it to zack, too. she’s not afraid to express herself in any fashion and she’s unapologetic about how forward and positive she is. despite all of the shitty things that happened to her, she’s still all of these great things. she’s scrappy, she can be a brat (ask the turks!) and she blooms under the cover of oppression that she lives. sure, she’s in a beautiful house with a loving mother figure but she’s in the slums and she’s being watched constantly by some part of the company that wants to see her dissected or worse.

      and she’s divine. no, literally. of course it takes her death for the realization of that divinity to really be understood by the fan base and even by her own party, but once aerith dies she becomes an actual deity. it’s sad that you don’t get her in your party any more but it’s obvious how much she affected everyone she worked with (and even those she didn’t). they spend the rest of the game avenging her, they spend the rest of the game explaining their grief over her loss, promising her death won’t be in vain. and once that’s done? there’s an entire movie where cloud deals with his grief over everything, but mainly his self-appointed guilt over her death. as if he could have changed it? i mentioned to @seraphicwiing​ in a conversation (an au one) about sephiroth and aerith ------he didn’t kill or break her. he gifted her divinity.

      so this sweet flower girl goes from a first appearance damsel in distress to an actual conduit of the planet, watching over her friends and everyone else from the spiritual plane of it. controlling the lifestream itself to rise up and crush back meteor.

      if you don’t like her by this point, it’s a lost cause. honestly, just go play pacman or something.

Now the OPPOSITE, list everything why your muse could not be so interesting (even if you may not agree, what does the fandom perhaps think?).  

      maybe strong female leads aren’t your cup of tea? perhaps you really wanted aerith to maintain her softness and have none of the bite or edge that i argue make her interesting?

      some people want a strong woman to be something like paine in ffx-2, or lightning in ffxiii, or even lulu in ffx itself ... dark and perhaps a bit brooding, angry with someone or something. they can be gentle but they’re mostly a razor sharp edge threatening to slice anyone who tries to get close to them. aerith is arguably a hot take on the stronger female leads ... even compared to tifa. you don’t doubt that a woman who fights with her fists is a tough, bad bitch ... but aerith isn’t physically strong. she’s the image of a princess honestly and that’s just not what some people want to see or deal with.

      arguably her personality can come off a bit strong. she’s snarky and, as i said, a tease. she can be bratty from time to time and that can absolutely be read as irritating, especially to someone whose looking for negative personality traits to focus on at a first glance.

      and a lot of people just see her as a love interest to cloud. and she is, i won’t deny that. it’s been further addressed in the remake with her dream sequence that cloud absolutely has feelings for her. it dredges up the age-old argument from 1997 of: tifa or aerith. why does it have to be or? why can’t he love them both in different ways? or the same way? it’s not like aerith has a lot of time to be the love interest, anyway. we all know how disc 1 ended, by this point.

      perhaps people see her end-game divinity as a deus-ex mechanic. sure, it kind of it. but the game never hid its intentions of why aerith was there. she was always special, we just didn’t know how. she always had holy, we just didn’t know what it meant at the time. but it does seem a bit convenient that right as the meteor is going to crush midgar ------here comes the lifestream, holding it back so holy can stop it! wow, amazing! darn that aerith and her connection to the planet. how awful. maybe cloud could have just braver’d it.

What inspired you to rp your muse?  

      i love her. it’s just that simple. she’s so complex and so different from other characters i tend to gravitate toward. she has a darkness but she’s good, genuinely. i usually go for people who are deeply seeded in some kind of trauma, or are just generally a piece of shit. and aerith certainly has her trauma, but she’s risen above it. she chooses to live her life as much as she can before the ultimate doom clock ticks to 0, you know?

      i admire her beauty. not just her physical beauty (and she is), but the beauty of her as a person. i wish i could be as endlessly positive as she is, even faced against such awful odds. i wish i could be the kind of person who surrounds themselves with people who love them, despite their flaws. but i am very much the opposite of aerith.

      i consider myself endlessly lucky to be a mouthpiece of some kind of version of her. this is a character i’ve had a connection to since i was like, 7 or 9 (and i’m 30 now). the very fact that i get to log in every day and express some form of this wonderful character keeps me connected to her. she has a loud voice in my head, and i think she always had. i think that remake just re-lit the flame for her.

      i wrote her a long time ago, during myspace rp days. but we all know how myspace ended. so i choose to write her now because it feels right. and i really do enjoy having someone who shines so brightly in my head.

What keeps your inspiration going?  

      the same as everyone else, i think: music, clips of the character, art of her ... but mostly? my writing partners. i wouldn’t be anywhere without the people in this site who come to me every day with an interest in my interpretation of aerith. i never expected so many lovely humans to want to see what i can do with her. but i have people dm’ing me on discord every day with ideas or thoughts, with musings or what-if’s ... and it really just keeps this muse so alive for me.

      even though i have a backlog of drafts and inbox things to answer, i can know that they will get done ... it’s just up to me as a human to write things out.

Some more personal questions for the mun.

Give your mutuals some insight about the way you are in some matters, which could lead them to get more comfortable with you or perhaps not.

Do you think you give your character justice?  YES / NO. 

Do you frequently write headcanons?  YES / NO.

Do you sometimes write drabbles?  YES / NO.  (i’d prefer to write out a reply to a solo drabble).

Do you think a lot about your Muse during the day? YES / NO. 

Are you confident in your portrayal?   YES / NO. 

Are you confident in your writing?  YES / NO.

Are you a sensitive person?  YES / NO.

Do you accept criticism well about your portrayal?

      in the proper context. i don’t want someone coming on here and telling me i play aerith wrong because it’s not what she would do canon. that’s cool, i don’t write her strictly canon. but if i’m having doubts and i ask for the feedback, i’m open to it.

Do you like questions, which help you explore your character?  

      always. i am 100% always accepting development questions.

If someone disagrees to a headcanon of yours, do you want to know why?  

      nope. i don’t care if you agree with my headcanons or not. i’m sure there are people who don’t like that i have a ship with a sephiroth, or a reeve, or that i’ve had her mess around with rufus or biggs. i’m sure there are people who despise the way i make her speak to people ... and that’s fine. they’re allowed to. but this is my interpretation of aerith and so far i’m loving everything that i’ve gotten to do with her. especially those things that include character building with others.

If someone disagrees with your portrayal, how would you take it?

      they’re allowed to disagree. they’re also not beholden to follow me. i won’t be upset if they unfollow me. it’s their comfort, after all. and i’d rather spend time on here enjoying myself than either having someone voice their dislike of my interpretation or get vocal about how they’re uncomfortable.

If someone really hates your character, how do you take it?  

      people have really hated aerith since 1997. they’re allowed to have their silly opinions of her. and i’m allowed not to entertain them.

Are you okay with people pointing out your grammatical errors?  

      please do. i’m human and i make mistakes. i’d love to fix them.

Do you think you are easy going as a mun?  

      yes, but i’ve had people mention that i seem a little unapproachable. please approach me. if you want to write with me let me know. if you want to chat ooc with me talk to me. i promise i’m an absolute dimwit on my side of the screen. i’m spacy but i try to be as nice and welcoming as possible. somehow i’ve conned a few friends out of this rpc already with my idiocy, so please please please come chat with me.

That’s about it, congrats for filling out!

[astoryofalove]

Advent Children: A Story Told Through Color

I was watching  Channel Criswell’s video about Color in Storytelling (epilepsy warning) and it really makes you think about the use of color in Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. 

This was partially written for #ClerithMonth Day 19 “Clerith colors” but mainly inspired by the video....

Advent Children’s color-scheme is bleak with all the shades of grey and black that make up the character’s clothing and locations. 

Even a child’s room is flat in color, with Marlene arguably being the most “colorful” of the entire shot (but even she is grey toned).

Tifa’s bar is one of the three darkest shots we see in the movie (the others will be revealed later on).

Zack’s tombstone is equally grim as Midgar, Edge, and Seventh Heaven.

The protagonists of the film follow the color scheme, too. 

The first time we see any ounce of vibrancy in the entire film is when the viewers find themselves in Aerith’s church. Both Tifa and Marlene are present in this rare shot of color and yet both look as austere as they did before. 

Looking at these few stills, you can see the stark contrast between Tifa, Marlene, and the surrounding location. Despite the location being bathed in sunlight, it never really appears to be illuminating Tifa or Marlene. The rafters, fallen beams, and flowers... Yes, they’re illuminated. But Tifa and Marlene are purposely placed to where the sun never really shines on them. They’re stuck in the slight shadow of the Church which in itself is symbolic of the premise of the film, since it’s about Cloud’s love and guilt for Aerith causing him to close himself off from his friends.

The next time we see any small hint of color is during Denzel’s flashback, very briefly we see the photograph of Denzel’s parents. Everything about the image is unlike anything we’ve seen prior to this moment. The parents are in white and Denzel’s in a playful blue, and warm and loving smiles are upon their faces. 

What’s more interesting about this shot is that in the bottom right angle of the picture, we see a few white lilies.  It goes without saying that flowers, specifically lilies, symbolize Aerith. But there’s another interesting subliminal symbolism that Nomura just made us associate to the flower girl.

 The significance of the lilies being present in the photograph of a happy memory for Denzel is so the viewer associates happiness and peace to lilies, and therefore to Aerith as well. It’s a set up for what’s about to come... But that’s for a little later on.

Interestingly enough, Denzel himself almost seems to brighten up this shot, as well. 

Against the dreary backdrop of a destroyed Midgar, his off-white shirt and bright auburn hair drastically stands out. What’s the purpose of making Denzel suddenly have a pop of color? Is it just random lighting choice or symbolism? I’m leaning more towards symbolism because Denzel doesn’t just exist in Advent Children to tell us his own sad story, but he is also a huge part in Cloud’s story. Nojima stated that one look at Denzel “inspires the backbone of the story”, so it’s not far fetched to assume that everything about Denzel’s appearance means something.

Denzel serves as a way for Cloud to redeem himself for failing to save Aerith, and in Case of Tifa we discover that Cloud believes Aerith is the one that brought the young boy into his life. So it makes sense that Denzel’s entrance shot is him bathed in light because that’s what Denzel’s purpose is in this story—he is a beacon of hope and redemption for Cloud, and he’s a direct connection to Aerith.

The bland color-tones appear once again when we arrive at Zack’s grave. The interesting thing about this scene is that it isn’t bright and beautiful like Aerith’s church, instead, it matches the rest of the movie in its depressing greys and browns. 

Although both characters are dead and are causing Cloud to feel a sense of guilt (Aerith more so), only Zack’s associated area is represented in these grim colors that match the rest of the film’s palette. Which is strange because it’s Aerith’s death that is causing Cloud the most grief, to think it would be her areas that were represented in such dismal colors. But instead, it’s Zack’s grave that is grey and Aerith’s areas that are bright. 

It makes you wonder why the source of Cloud’s depression and guilt is represented in such warm and peaceful imagery. Usually it’s the other way around in cinema. 

Between the next moment I’d like to discuss is a bunch of scenes that follow the same colors as usual (greys, browns, and blacks). When we arrive back at the church we see that both Tifa and Marlene are still lingering about in the church.  In this particular shot,  we see two beams of light and yet neither actually cast their glow on Tifa or Marlene. Both should be illuminated and yet... they’re not.

During the fight between Loz and Tifa we see this shot.

It feels like a deliberate move by Nomura to have Tifa’s only shot in the entire film where her backdrop is bright white, include the background of the Church. Her black hair and outfit stand out against the white, with the pillar in the background making sure the viewer never really associates her to the light. It’s almost as if the pillar was included in the shot to serve as a subliminal interruption. Tifa is not the focus of the light, but rather is the contrast with the light of Aerith’s church.

After this, we return to the dark colors we’ve gotten accustomed to. The darkest scenes being the moment Tifa and Cloud speak in Seventh Heaven.

This is the moment where Tifa should have “broken through” to Cloud, where her wants and feelings should have prevailed over Cloud’s guilt for failing to save the woman he loved two years ago... and yet the scene is visually the darkest moment in the entire film (even over the fight with Sephiroth). Why would Nomura do that?

This plea from Tifa should be shrouded in some sense of visual hopefulness and yet it’s gloomier than ever. It feels as though this moment isn’t supposed to serve as a moment where Cloud begins to “let go” but rather is to show the viewer how much darker Cloud’s depression becomes the more people push him to match their pace of “living”. 

Despite Tifa’s well-meaning intentions, her tough words do not actually cause any “light” or resolution to come into Cloud’s life and he reluctantly  heads to the Forgotten Capital just as depressed and guilt-ridden as before.

We see the protagonists bathed in the same depressing light as before but when Aerith summons Cloud to the spiritual realm, of either Cloud’s subconscious or the Lifestream, we see nothing but white as Aerith’s theme song begins to play.

This is the most vibrant, colorful scene of the entire film. Nothing is visible other than Aerith, Cloud and the flowers and there aren’t any visual interruptions that draw the eye away from the focus of the scene (Cloud and Aerith) unlike the pillar in Tifa’s church scene. It’s just color after color. Even Cloud’s black clothing seems to have a brighter feel to it. 

It’s during this scene that Aerith is finally able to tell Cloud that she’s never blamed him for her death, something Nomura said would be the only thing that could heal Cloud of his guilt. And Nomura made sure that this pivotal moment visually conveys that same sense of hope and peace by surrounding the two in pure light and lively flowers. 

Aerith’s presence in Cloud’s life, her intentions, her words and her impact on Cloud’s character are perfectly reflected by the visuals of this beautiful and tranquil moment. 

But Cloud hasn’t yet gotten the chance to forgive himself for Aerith’s death before he is suddenly ripped from the serene moment and thrown into the fray with Kadaj, Yazoo, and Loz. A short battle ensues and Cloud is ultimately rescued by Vincent.

Vincent and Cloud speak very briefly before we’re taken back to Seventh Heaven. And Tifa and Cloud’s conversation is as dark as the bedroom. With Tifa giving Cloud ultimatums and coming down on him for his unwillingness to “let go” of the past she so desperately wants him to forget about. This way of dealing with Cloud’s problems makes him feel “deflated”, as Cloud’s voice actor, Takahiro Sakurai, admitted to in the Reunion Files.

As Tifa says to Cloud  “Which is it? A memory, or us?” the scene suddenly fades into pure white and we hear Aerith’s voice gently say “Isn’t it time you did the forgiving?“

The contrast between both Tifa and Aerith’s scenes being that Aerith’s words have provided literal “light” to Cloud’s life whereas Tifa’s moment is nothing but darkness. Tifa expects and demands Cloud to choose, but Aerith let’s Cloud decide on his own with a playful push. 

It’s a subtle move by the director, but as viewers we begin to realize which of the women’s words are having the healthier, and more positive affect on Cloud’s psyche.

The scene switches back to the Forgotten Capital and Cloud confides in Vincent, who is said to carry the same “sin” as Cloud, and asks him if he’s ever tried to forgive himself for failing to save Lucrecia, the woman Vincent loved. Vincent admits that he’s never tried and Cloud makes up his mind. Cloud does just as Aerith suggested—try to forgive himself.

In the next scenes we’re back in Edge and the colors are still as dreary as before despite Cloud letting go of his guilt. It’s a brilliant move to depict how, even though Cloud has forgiven himself, the peaceful colors of Aerith’s presence  are forever drained from Cloud’s life. It’s not until Cloud battles Bahamut that we see the visuals brighten up again. 

In that moment, it seemed as though Cloud wasn’t going to make it through Bahamut’s flare, despite receiving help from all of his friends. Then, suddenly, Aerith’s image appears before Cloud to give him one final push to bring him to victory. Just as before, she comes to Cloud surrounded by pure light. 

Nomura created a homage to the end of FFVII with this scene, where Aerith literally saves Cloud from falling into a river of Mako, to make a point to the viewer. It’s a subtle yet decisive move by Nomura to convey how Aerith, as she often does, brings Cloud to victory and safety, whether it’s emotional or physical. 

While Cloud’s friends all tried to give him their help, their efforts weren’t enough to bring him through, it was Aerith that managed to give him strength and power to win that fight. Just as it was Aerith’s words that inspired Cloud to forgive himself. 

The next bit of color we see comes during Sephiroth’s fight. Zack shows up to give Cloud a little bit of a push and when he does show up, he’s surrounded by white. But unlike the moments between Cloud and Aerith, the area never seems to be completely enveloped in white, with Zack’s bleak clothing colors and parts of the sky (and grey floor) still visible.

While this scene is still more colorful than scenes with Tifa or the others, there’s subtle visual interruptions in this moment that never truly makes the viewer feel as if he is associated to pure light. 

After Cloud wins the battle against Sephiroth, Yazoo and Loz both shoot and kill Cloud and the next thing we see are Geostigma infected children running through the rain to Aerith’s church. 

The moment we see Aerith’s sacred place is one of the best cinematic moments in the Final Fantasy series. With golden light illuminating her church, it appears before the viewer as a northern star, a ray of hope. We know something good is about to come.

Then there’s White.

Although both Zack and Aerith speak to Cloud in this scene, it’s telling that only Aerith’s hand is visible against the white backdrop as all of Cloud’s wounds are healed. Just like with the hand-reach scenes, this is another example of Aerith being associated to Cloud’s healing and “peace”.

When Cloud awakens, he cures Denzel of his Geostigma and the entire church erupts into celebration. But then someone catches Cloud’s eye... 

A pink and red figure, illuminated in pure light. Aerith is literally glowing in this shot and it’s the only time in the film in which any character catches the light like this, not even the children that are within the same beam of light as Aerith, glow like she does. It is a special touch unique to Aerith.

And when she finally turns around to face her beloved, she tells him that everything’s alright and gives him a smile before turning for the door of light. 

Interesting thing about this shot is that Aerith’s red jacket lingers in the shot for as long as possible, which emphasizes her existence in the scene. It is then that we finally see Cloud smile for the first time.

Cloud’s suffering has ended.

The movie then shows an image of Cloud’s friends and a small bouquet of yellow daisies. With flowers being Aerith’s imagery, she once again is the source of color against the dull background of AVALANCHE’s clothes.

But it’s the last image that says it all.

Cloud’s Buster Sword is seen residing in Aerith’s church, her vibrant lilies and beams of pure light surround his iconic weapon. It’s meaning is simple, unity and peace. 

[omniversalobservations]

All-Star Superman (2005)

Another invocation technique that the magician can employ is called the assumption of godforms—where with “concentrated imagination of oneself in the symbolic shape of any God, one should be able to identify oneself with the idea which [the god] represents.” Comics writer and practicing magician Grant Morrison describes the process in his essay Pop Magic. The Gods of myth are primal forms, expressions of big ideas that have been here long before us and will remain long after.Morrison writes that, for example:

“ANGER is one of those Big Ideas and LOVE  is another one. Then there’s FEAR and GUILT “So…to summon a god, one has only to concentrate on that god to the exclusion of all other thought. Let’s just say you wish to summon the Big Idea COMMUNICATION in the form of the god Hermes, so that he will grant you a silver-tongue. Hermes is the Greek personification of quick wit, art, and spelling and the qualities he represents were embodied by Classical artists in the symbol of an eternally swift and naked youth, fledged with tiny wings and dressed only in streamers of air. Hermes is a condensation into pictorial form – a sigil, in fact – of an easily recognizable default state of human consciousness. When our words and minds are nimble,when we conjure laughter from others, when we make poetry, we are in the real presence of Hermes. We are, in fact, possessed by the god.”

Morrison is keen to point out that there need not be a ghostly or real reason for this. As Crowley wrote:

“In this book it is spoken of the Sephiroth and the Paths; of Spirits and Conjurations; of Gods, Spheres, Planes, and many other things which may or may not exist. It is immaterial whether these exist or not. By doing certain things certain results will follow; students are most earnestly warned against attributing objective reality or philosophic validity to any of them.”

Still, two questions arise. if these Gods are not ‘real’, why invoke them at all? Morrison answers that for us nicely:

“People tend to become possessed by gods arbitrarily because they do not recognize them as such; a man can be overwhelmed with anger (the Greek god Ares), we can all be “beside ourselves” with passion (Aphrodite) or grief (Hades). in life we encounter these Big Ideas everyday but we no longer use the word “god” to describe them. The magician consciously evokes these states and renames them gods in order to separate them from his or her Self, in order to study them and learn.”

So for example, “You may wish to connect with Hermes if you’re beginning a novel or giving a speech or simply want to entertain a new beau with your incredible repartee”. Practical magic then. Choose a god based on their qualities; what Platonic ideal or archetypal human experience they represent, and invoke them in order to know and learn from them

[...]

Morrison too advocates drawing upon fictional entities in magical practice:

“So once I got into the chaos magic thing, I started to think well if all I’m doing is triggering a state of mind can I do the same thing with something I know to be unreal? And I would start instead of summoning up Greek gods or Voodoo Loa, I would summon up Metron from the New Gods or HP Lovecraft monsters, or the Cenobites from Clive Barker and get the same thing. It was all about, okay, so even fictional things appear as long as they correspond to the specific feeling that you’re trying to create using this ritual method.”

Could Superman work this way? Certainly the religious and mythopoetic elements of the Superman story our often argued. Noting the Jewish heritage of Superman’s creators some commentators have read Superman as a Moses figure. Superman’s home of Krypton was about to be destroyed by events beyond his parents control. In Biblical Egypt the Israelites faced the mass murder of their male children. Both the infant Moses and the infant Superman were saved from death by their parents, one placed in a reed basket and sent down the Nile, the other in a rocket sent into space and bound for Earth. Both children grew up in foreign cultures, discovered and raised by adoptive parents who realise their true potential. Superman disguises his Kryptonian heritage with the human persona of Clark Kent, just as Moses was forced to keep his Jewish ancestry a secret.

Another variation says that Superman is a Christ figure. Like Jesus, Superman is sent by his father from the ‘heavens’ to save mankind (albeit one at a time). Both are raised by adoptive parents of humble means-Superman by farmers, Jesus by a carpenter. And both possess extraordinary powers that they use for the benefit of mankind. Furthermore, Superman’s real identity as Kal-El, son of Jor-El, has theological significance, “El” being a semitic word for ‘deity’ or god.

[...]

Perhaps then, like Jesus before him, Superman  is the latest incarnation of dying and reborn god, or of the Solar deity variously known as Horus, Sol or Apollo. In his book Supergods Grant Morrison neatly summarises what archetypal function Superman, as the latest manifestation of a perennial form, then serves. superman, he writes, embodies our species ‘loftiest aspirations’. As such Superman “was brave. He was clever. he never gave up and he never let anyone down. He stood up for the weak and knew how to see off bullies of all kinds. he couldn’t be hurt of killed b the bad guys, hard as they might try. He didn’t get sick. he was fiercely loyal to his friends and to his adopted world. He was Apollo, the sun god, the unbeatable supreme self, the personal greatness of which we all know we’re capable.” (Supergods, p.15)

It seems obvious why one would want to invoke Superman and absorb those qualities. What’s peculiar to Superman however is his tendency to leave the pages of his dimensional universe and manifest himself in our 4-dimensional realm.

Take Alvin Schwartz’s story in An Unlikely Prophet for instance. Schwartz was a writer of both Batman and Superman for seventeen years in the forties and fifties. Later he was contacted by a Buddhist monk named Thogden. Thogden claimed to be a Tulpa, a ‘thought-form’, a being thought into existence by a Tibetan mystic. Thogden proceeds to take Schwartz on a spiritual journey that takes in many of the familiar stopping points on the twentieth century magical path-shamanism, quantum physics, and of course, superheroes. Schwartz’s journey apparently continues in A Gathering of Selves, which focuses on Batman (who as Morrison points out is the Lunar counterpart to the Solar Batman). As it happens, I haven’t yet read the second book so if anyone knows more about it I’d love to hear.

Most important right now though is Thogden’s claims that Superman, too, is a Tulpa.  That Schwartz’s (or perhaps all the readers and creators) thought and focus on Superman have given him some kind of materiality; some ability to manifest in and interact in our world. Certainly, Schwartz has an experience that may or may not be evidence of Superman’s intervention. Grant Morrison has also had a magical contact with the Superman thought form. As he said in an interview with Newsarama:

“My specific take on Superman’s physicality was inspired by the ‘shamanic’ meeting my JLA editor Dan Raspler and I had in the wee hours of the morning outside the San Diego comic book convention in whenever it was, ‘98 or ‘99.

“I’ve told this story in more detail elsewhere but basically, we were trying to figure out how to ‘reboot’ Superman without splitting up his marriage to Lois, which seemed like a cop–out. It was the beginning of the conversations which ultimately led to Superman Now, with Dan and I restlessly pacing around trying to figure out a new way into the character of Superman and coming up short…

“Until we looked up to see a guy dressed as Superman crossing the train tracks. Not just any skinny convention guy in an ill–fitting suit, this guy actually looked like Superman. It was too good a moment to let pass, so I ran over to him, told him what we’d been trying to do and asked if he wouldn’t mind indulging us by answering some questions about Superman, which he did…in the persona and voice of Superman!

“We talked for an hour and a half and he walked off into the night with his friend (no, it wasn’t Jimmy Olsen, sadly). I sat up the rest of the night, scribbling page after page of Superman notes as the sun came up over the naval yards.

“My entire approach to Superman had come from the way that guy had been sitting; so easy, so confident, as if, invulnerable to all physical harm, he could relax completely and be spontaneous and warm. That pose, sitting hunched on the bollard, with one knee up, the cape just hanging there, talking to us seemed to me to be the opposite of the clenched, muscle-bound look the character sometimes sports and that was the key to Superman for me.

“I met the same Superman a couple of times afterwards but he wasn’t Superman, just a nice guy dressed as Superman.”

Source: Nth Mind