freelanceexorcist

[freelanceexorcist]

Apropos of nothing, here's some US Civics trivia:

Q: Can a presidential executive order be overturned?

A: Yes, it can! EOs can be overturned by a subsequent president, by Congress through legislation or, if found to be unlawful or unconstitutional, by a federal court.

Source

[freelanceexorcist]

Great post, OP! I posted about this a while back and had questions as well. I wonder if it was just a stylistic choice on the part of the creators to show how top secret the Jenova Project was, but if it's not, that makes things interesting.

I said in the last post about it that I suspected Hojo had a hand in all this. The redactions look like they were done quickly, like someone took a black Sharpie to the books. As the OP says, documents aren't usually redacted unless they're going to be released to the public, so why were they redacted when they were just going to be chilling in a secret library that's very difficult to access? Because Sephiroth was meant to find them and Hojo blacked out the parts that would give Sephiroth more information than he wanted him to have would be my guess (like mentions of Lucrecia as the mother? Vincent's role in the whole thing?).

I've had my suspicions for years that Hojo had his fingers in that pie and at least partially engineered Sephiroth's breakdown and the destruction of Nibelheim. I mean, he seems to have showed up right away and gotten started with Cloud and Zack. The embers were still hot while he was setting all that up so he had to have been planning. It's not clear if he expected Sephiroth to lose it and destroy the town or if he didn't and just took advantage of the situation, but I suspect the former.

But why though? Probably to forcibly get test subjects for his Reunion experiments? In the mind of a Shinra man, who would miss a bunch of hicks from a one horse town that few people know about and whose reactor just happens to be run by R&D and not Urban Development? Kinda makes you think that if Sephiroth didn't put Nibelheim to the torch, a strike team would have come in with flamethrowers to do the job for him.

It'll be interesting to see where they go with this if that's the plan. I wonder if the real events of the run up to the Nibelheim incident will be told from Sephiroth's point of view and we'll see more of what he was experiencing.

A detail that I find makes me speculate is the books Sephiroth reads in Nibelheim are filled with black lines censoring information.

It's interesting because he seems to believe he (incorrectly) has learned the truth. Yet, details still remain hidden.

Now from my understanding and experiences with redactions in text is that usually the text is redacted when the text is going to be distributed.

So the question I have is like are original copies of classified documents, not meant for distribution or public viewing, have redacted text like this book Sephiroth is reading.

Furthermore, if this book was in a secure area that few were aware of its existence, is the redaction necessary? (I mean it makes sense in some ways don't want information being leaked) Who is the primary audience the censors were concerned about accessing this information?

And correct me if I'm wrong but I have yet to stumble upon any texts in the game that have redacted text.

Which makes me wonder. Were these books censored in order to prevent Sephiroth from learning the full truth? Was any information purposely redacted so that Sephiroth would come to this conclusion that he's an ancient for example despite that being proved false shortly after his birth? Did someone want Sephiroth to obtain this information?

And now these pages that Sephiroth is reading most likely have parts of text redacted primarily because it mentions names, locations or dates, which is typical for declassified publications. However, I guarantee you that some parts of that book look more akin to a declassified document from the Bush administration given how Shinra is

Anyway I just love seeing that Sephiroth goes mad from the revelation but yet even then he is still not given the truth.

I want to know your thoughts. Maybe I'm thinking too much here

[freelanceexorcist]

All of this. And the best part is, it's really starting to appear that Ore Sephiroth and Jenovaroth-the moustache-twirlingly evil guy they want so badly-are two versions of one person, so everybody is shaping up to get something they want out of the Retrilogy/Ever Crisis lore.

But I guess that's not enough for some people. They're probably the same people who are pissed off about Aerith's death spawning a universe where she survived because it "robs them of their sadness" or whatever. The original game still exists, guys, just so you know.

And yeah, they're giving us all this beautiful character development for a character who has had it coming for a long while now, and some people are big mad because he wasn't Flanderized into a generic doomsday villain. Seems to me that these folks hate change more than they like the character. Make it make sense to me.

On one hand, I need to calm the fuck down about Sephiroth and stop giving into Twitter to debate lore. I KNOW I’m better than this lmao.

On the other hand, I see people genuinely angry about “how Crisis Core ruined Sephiroth by killing part of his agency through Genesis,” and “how having friends made him less cool,” and “how all the Compilation is humanizing him too much and taking away his mystery,” and “how he went evil for no reason,” and “how he was always an asshole that saw himself as superior to others and only broke down because he found out he wasn’t all that.”

I see unironic worship of “canon” traits he has that apparently mark him as a perverted alpha daddy dom sex god instead of the actual raging, delusional murderer with a loathing for all life he becomes for a reeeeeeeally key and important reason.

I see remarks like “I hate how First Soldier is ruining my favorite character and taking away more of his agency,” when said “favorite character” is Sephiroth’s most surface-level traits as a villain with no further depth and he has to be cool and perfect 100% of the time or else he isn’t Sephiroth anymore and he’s suddenly “badly written.��

That’s not the same character.

Yes, I know.

Why am I mad that one of the most beautifully designed and canonically objectified and powerfully portrayed and sensually voiced and thirstily fawned over characters in video game history is being reduced to singular traits???

I don’t know.

How can I demand the luxury of rage when faced with such odds.

What did I expect.

Yeah, this one’s on me.

[freelanceexorcist]

Not my other pretend husband over here pushing his glasses up his nose while giving bedroom eyes. Work that Bayonetta vibe, my love.

King of sass and elegance low-key confirmed as a nerdy bookworm.

Technically we already knew that from his chamber in Rebirth but I'm glad they're running with this vibe. It fits him so well.

[freelanceexorcist]

The other night, Flerken started yammering his little head off and I couldn't figure out why. Then I happened to glance at the clock and saw that I was about 15 minutes late giving him his Churu. Crazy things happen in this house when my son doesn't get his Kitty Crack on time.

[freelanceexorcist]

Dear Co-workers,

*If you're standing over my shoulder and asking me if I read the email you just sent before said email has even had time to hit my inbox, you need to settle the fuck down.

*If you're sending me a Teams message to tell me you'll be sending me an email, you need to settle the fuck down.

*If you're sending me an email to tell me you'll be sending me another email later, please go to the restroom of your choice and give yourself swirlies.

*If your email contains an "emergency" that you're sending me after 4pm on a Friday, please punch yourself in the face and don't stop until I tell you.

*Also, if you're sending me rapid fire Teams messages one after the other while I'm trying to address your "emergency," please ask the person sitting beside you to break your fingers with a hammer.

*If your "emergency" is only an emergency because you sat on it until the last minute or forgot about it and civilization will collapse unless I make it my emergency, well, if I said out loud what I want you to do, I'd probably end up on some kind of watchlist.

*Finally, if the way you handle IMs and text chat would get you booted from a Discord server for being a colossal nuisance, delete Teams until you can behave like a civilized professional and not a squirrel on meth.

[freelanceexorcist]

I think it’s hilarious that Angeal and Sephiroth first meet during what feels like the setup to a horror movie. sephiroth and angeal’s blair witch project adventure

[freelanceexorcist]

so I have two new favorites thanks to Ever Crisis

[freelanceexorcist]

"former league player" is definitely not a title i'm proud of

[freelanceexorcist]

The Three Funniest sitcom moments ever, in no particular order: old lady edition.

Dr. Johnny Fever is back! (WKRP in Cincinnati)

WKRP Dr. Johnny Fever Awakens From The Dead

Chuckles the Clown's Funeral (The Mary Tyler Moore Show)

Mary Tyler Moore at Chuckles the Clown's Funeral

The Great Herring War (The Golden Girls)

The Great Herring War

[freelanceexorcist]

His default settings are nap and zoomies.

[freelanceexorcist]

[freelanceexorcist]

The Flat Earth gang is absolutely wrong, because if the Earth was flat, cats would have knocked everything off of it by now.

[freelanceexorcist]

US politics under the cut (I'm sorry I'm lifting the embargo).

Damn, $182B. It takes a rare gift to lose that much money in just three years.

Elon Musk sets world record with worst loss of fortune in history - CBS News

In case anyone needed a little schadenfreude.

I really am sorry to lift the embargo on US politics even just temporarily, but maybe if he still lands on his feet after this, it will be the point of divergence that spawns a universe* where he's flat busted and in need of aid but doesn't get any because the GOP cut funding to the social support programs he needs and he doesn't qualify. The private charities and foundations should turn him away as well. Let him crawl back to his rich family in South Africa and be broke as fuck over there instead.

*Yes, I know the quantum multiverse is extremely hypothetical but if ever there was a time for faith...

[freelanceexorcist]

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines an emergency as an unforeseen combination of circumstances or the resulting state that calls for immediate action.

That Fuckwit from Field Services defines an emergency in four distinct ways when it comes time to get Procurement involved:

1. I sat on this until the very last minute and now it’s your problem.

2. I completely and utterly boogered up this project, which has created an emergent situation and now it's your problem.

3. I refuse to schedule the weekly check ins with my customer at any time other than Friday afternoon, I promised them the moon and they want it onsite tomorrow so here’s a red hot requisition for you at 4:45 pm and now it’s your problem.

And

4. It’s not really an emergency but I want you to drop everything and tend to me first so I’m going to tell you it is and now it’s your problem.

*Sigh*

[freelanceexorcist]

He's just a kid who needed a hug

Also, First Soldier's story is so good and it's a crime it's only a mobile game. You won't change my mind.

[freelanceexorcist]

I mean it when I say I'm done with all things political and I'm no longer watching the news (if something big happens, I'm sure I'll hear about it somehow). So this is my closing argument on that front.

Cut for length.

Those of you who choose to continue to engage will be seeing a lot of blame assignment in the coming days and months. Every pundit will be weighing in with their ill-informed opinion on who's responsible for this. I'll save them the trouble.

Blame the men who hate women more than they love their country or even their own miserable hides. You won't have to look too far to find one of those.

Blame the white women who are desperate to be picked by these men.

Blame the media who spent the whole election cycle sanewashing that demented fucking monster while ignoring the very real accomplishments on the other side.

Blame the shitheads who thought it was safe to sit this one out.

Blame the turncoats on our own side who bayed for Joe Biden's blood because he had a bad night and didn't stop until he caved to them. Nah, scratch that, those people never accept blame for anything.

Blame the foreign-born oligarchs who would rather see the country burn to the ground than pay their fair share to keep it running.

Plenty more where that came from. Plenty of blame to go around.

And here's some advice if you're open to it. If you're not, consider this the end of the post.

*Puts on "old lady who's seen some shit" hat*

If you're terrified of what the future holds, don't live all four years at once (credit for this approach goes to user King Beauregard over at The Establishment Bar). Take each day as it comes. Each hour as it comes. We survived him once and we WILL survive him again unless he starts a nuclear war, in which case there was nothing any of us could have done to stop it anyway. I wouldn't worry about that, though. He's so far gone I doubt he remembers how to tie his own shoes let alone what to do with the nuclear football.

Take care of yourself. This is sacrosanct. Do what makes you happy and soothes your nerves. We have a limited amount of time on this rock, so don't spend it staring at a screen in anticipation of the next horrible thing he will do or say. Ride it out and be kind to yourself in the process. We have four years of positive progress ahead of us and we will go into 2026 and 2028 with strength and resolve.

Don't game out worst-case scenarios or catastrophize. We don't know what's going to happen tomorrow let alone over the next four years. About the only thing that can be confidently speculated upon is that he is very unlikely to survive much longer and will most likely not make it another four years. Yes, then we will be saddled with President JD Vance, First of His Fake Name, but not forever. Mike Pence was a bland husk who made the right patriotic face noises and was the personification of the word “invisible,” but JD is an obvious and glaring creep who is about as appealing as a broken toilet with a deuce left in the bowl and has achieved the near impossible goal of making Ted Cruz seem likable in comparison. He likely won't win a re-election bid as long as the Democratic party chooses the right white man.

Unplug. Dump Twitter and try a service like Bluesky if you want to continue using social media. Distance yourself from any site that's set up to allow engagement farmers to get maximum exposure by pissing off as many people as they can then letting human nature take its course so they can make a few pennies, turning the place into an anxiety-spiking hellscape in the process (looking at you, Twitter, TikTok, Reddit, etc.). Stick to sites that produce content that gives you joy.

If you choose to continue to engage, engage at the local level. Get school board members, mayors, council members and state Representatives elected. Those offices may not seem important, but they absolutely are. They could very well be the firewall between you and the United States of Gilead if the worst were to come to pass. Organize at the local level instead of attending some million-woman march that will almost certainly be co-opted by corporate, political and Hollywood interests who want to look like they give a fuck about you and abandon you once they get their narcissistic supply. A bunch of small fires are a lot harder to put out than one big one.

Don't conflate what happened in other countries with what could happen here. Attempts to break us will be made, but we are not Afghanistan. We are not Iran. We are not Nazi Germany or Franco's Spain. We are not Russia. Whatever may or may not happen here will happen within the framework of the systems we have set up, our current circumstances, our history and our people's resolve. He failed once, and now that he's in obvious cognitive decline, he will likely fail again.

I'm not going to tell you everything will be OK, because I don't know whether it will or not. The future is a huge question mark just as it always has been. But what I will tell you is that how you react to whatever happens is entirely up to you. If you find yourself ruminating, stop and apply the techniques used in cognitive behavior therapy (CBT). Reframe your thoughts in a positive or at least neutral way. Do breathing exercises. I ask you to trust me when I say these things help.

That's about all. We've got this. We didn't think we could survive the first regime, but we did. We've been on this road before and as The Boss sings, nobody's kiddin' nobody about where it goes. It sucks that we've been thrust into it again by people who really should have known better, but you play the card you're dealt. We can do this.