#❛ verse: cloud ; crisis core.

[ghostofnibelheim]

Hands Baby!Roth a cream-stuffed cookie.

"Just so you're aware, eating it without first splitting it apart and licking the cream... straight to jail."

"Straight to jail, huh...?" He looks down at the cookie, holding it with care between two fingers of one hand. He examines it closely, one side, then the other, like a dangerous materia he'd been handled.

It is then that he brings his other hand to it as well, pinching it identically with thumb and index finger. He looks a little like a priest holding onto communion bread before the ritual, so careful; almost reverential.

He snaps the cookie in half, a crack opening at the center with such perfection one would've thought Sephiroth had just used his sword instead. The cream squeezes and oozes slightly under the pressure, bleeding out between his fingers. It drips on the ground a little, falling at his feet like sugary gore.

Sephiroth brings one half into his mouth and chews, lips closed, eyes defiantly fixated on the blond throughout the process.

Only when the half oreo cookie is completely ground and swallowed, he speaks. "Says who?"

[heartbinders]

TAG DUMP: CLOUD STRIFE

❛ ic: cloud. ❛ musings: cloud. ❛ headcanon: cloud. ❛ aesthetic: cloud. ❛ meta: cloud. ❛ images: cloud. ❛ relations: cloud. ❛ open: cloud. ❛ closed: cloud. ❛ inbox: cloud. ❛ dash games: cloud. ❛ starter call: cloud. ❛ drabbles: cloud. ❛ music: cloud. ❛ verse: cloud ; crisis core. ❛ verse: cloud ; original. ❛ verse: cloud ; remake. ❛ verse: cloud ; rebirth. ❛ verse: cloud ; kingdom hearts. ❛ verse: cloud ; smash.

[gcdwinged]

tag dump

#* ic    /    all things must die.

#* aesthetic    /    defy the force that drags them all to heel.

#* musings    /    whispers from mother.

#* character study    /    beneath the legend is a longing.

#* visage    /    alone as a god.

#* dyn. sephiroth & aerith    /    we cast darker shadows with stronger light.

#* dyn. sephiroth & cloud    /    what you are without me? what am i without you?

#* verse: final fantasy vii    /    ruination to all.

#* verse: crisis core    /    the one who remains shall become a hero.

.#* verse: kingdom hearts    /    in the heart of darkness.

#* verse: remake    /    the sun rising on a rebirth.

#* verse: advent children / i send the pestilence and plague.

[ghostofnibelheim]

It was a fleeting contact, however sweet. Sephiroth did not shy away from the blond's lips, but did not open himself up to them either. His mouth cradled the other's like a shy nibble to a fruit too sweet to be bitten into with hunger. Just a taste that left wanting for more.

"Getting personal, so quickly? What's the rush?" This wasn't what he'd invited the honey boy to do, and he was positive the other knew, too. Was he trying to play safe, too scared perhaps? Or was it the opposite, rather? That'd be selfish.

His hand had reached up to hold onto the blond's chin, gentle but firm. One thumb stroked slowly over Cloud's lower lip.

"Do you have others waiting for you to be done with me?" Sephiroth asked with a soft grin. "I'm not the type who likes to share."

Sephiroth was goading him, that much was obvious, but whether or not this was a trap was yet to be seen. Either way, Cloud could not control the anxious quiver of his exhale when that one feeler was pinched out of view, or the all but deafening beat of his heart in his chest.

An intense moment passed between them, while the blond merely sat there, absorbing the honey of Sephiroth SOLDIER First Class' taunt, drinking in the bewitching glitter of those pale jade eyes, and justifying the means which contradicted what little was left of his good sense.

Oh, how he could get drunk on that gaze alone. Oh, how he wished that all eyes on him belonged to this man and no other.

And in true Cloud Strife fashion, the spontaneity played on that moment of weakness, where craving overpowered any ounce of willpower and took the SOLDIER's tease to its very limit despite breaking almost every rule in The Honey Bee Inn's handbook.

A shift of his body to lay flush against the other's, palms gently cupping that gorgeous, impossibly perfect face, all accentuated by a soft, amorous hum huffed through the nose.

He kissed him.

[altocat]

is the sephiroth in first soldier a different sephiorth from the one we know

No. First Soldier showed a poster of Beagle!Stamp, meaning that all the events and versions of Sephiroth portrayed within the story (both in past and future) are Sephiroth as he canonically stands pre-Nibelheim. Some people are equating to the imagery of the white "wing" cloud=an AU Sephiroth. But that's not the case.

Nomura himself said that this version of Sephiroth is designed to be a pure-hearted version of the character as he was before he fell into darkness. So this is Sephiroth as he was back before Nibelheim corrupted him. And, to reference a more modern phrase, it's likely that the events of First Soldier/CC are "canon events" in his life that are set in stone with shaping him as a person, for better or for worse. Genesis' disappearance was still referenced after all. And Crisis Core Reunion appeared to take place in the Beagle 'verse as well. So yeah. This is really Sephiroth. Not an AU version of him. First Soldier is acting as a means of developing his character and motivations to showcase the tragedy of his downfall.

If you're meaning OreSeph, that's still a mystery that Part 3 will have to address. My current theory on him is that he is whatever's left of the "real" Sephiroth, or a Sephiroth separate from Jenova's influence. It's possible as well that he's a future Sephiroth who has lived through all the Compilation titles and is either looking to end things permanently or is looking to change things entirely, with a focus on preserving Cloud's life in the process. It's unclear. Part 3 will have to resolve that as best as it can.

[lucky-ladybugs-lovelies]

Why do so many people think the KH Sephiroth harmed Zack when he (presumably) took him in Birth By Sleep? That game revealed several things about Seph that are absolute game-changers for KH verse:

KH Sephiroth, like his counterpart, was a hero during this era. Admittedly, Nomura said we don’t know if he’s gone bad, but we know he at least was a hero who inspired Zack at the beginning.

Because of this information, it is highly unlikely he is literally Cloud’s darkness. Cloud was like 11 during Birth By Sleep. Sephiroth was surely older to be a renowned hero. (Granted, he certainly could have started early, as his counterpart did. But I still feel like he was surely older than 11 in Birth By Sleep and had been doing the hero thing for a while.)

He already had his wings as a hero, so they were likely not some sort of ominous sign (except to the bad guys). The presence of one large feather announced to everyone that he was there.

For me, the most logical possibility of what happened to Zack is that Sephiroth saw Zack’s desire and potential to be a hero and that Phil wouldn’t budge on training him, so Sephiroth took matters into his own hands and swooped down to take Zack with him and train him himself. It’s the scenario Sephiroth and Zack fans have been dreaming of for literal decades. Until Crisis Core came out, the popular belief was indeed that FF Sephiroth trained Zack. And I love Angeal and all, but dang, it hurt to lose that glorious headcanon. KH verse dropped it in our laps! Let’s embrace it!

[cpirits]

★ ━━━━━━ His blue-green Mako colored eyes were nearly cloudy with tears, and as much as he tried to will them away, they didn't leave and he didn't want to let Zack see. It's not like other would tease him, Cloud just didn't want Zack to think he was sad.

When Zack made a friendly slap to his back, Cloud wasn't expecting it and stumbled forward a bit, nearly losing his balance with a yell. "Hey," He made to stand straight, rubbing the back of his neck. "Yeah, yeah, I know. No giving up, I gotcha."

@cpirits

' i know that i can only exist in a dying world '

"Oh yeah?" With one hand on his hip, he turned to face his companion. "According to who?" Where the heck did that come from? It hadn't just materialized from nothing, that was for sure. Someone out there had planted such a thought in his mind and Zack wasn't about to stand for it. If anything, those that fought alongside Soldier deserved so much more than they got. From Shinra or anyone, really!

"We ain't dead yet!" He grinned, whacking Cloud against the back with one encouraging 'pat.' "And you know, life has a way of clawing its way up from the abyss no matter the circumstances. Giving up? Nah. Now that's something we can't allow."

[achoshistor]

[ff7cc] is this symbolistic?

ff7cc SPOILER until like ch 6 (but really a ffvii spoiler bc thats the only reason how i know what happens next)

i need to WRITE WRITE WRITE. every essay i write now sounds like garbage to me. same with music tbh i havent played a full song in over two years now and its honestly kind of sad but i have no motivation. it feels like my fingers dont work like they did before and im too easy to give up on things bc i literally made it through the first time so it should be easier the second time but im lowkey really busy (100% procrastinating on calc) but im like whatever i need to get it all out of my head. im really shocked people read the last brainrot post like wow people are really seeing whats going on in here.

anyways ive been listening to the cc(r) ost while studying (around up to right before nibelheim because i want to make a flower wagon for my beautiful queen Aerith (i dont get the hate? madame M calling her homely like WHO's homley? wait lmfaoo off topic but why was cloud whimpering and moaning during the scene i had to take my headphones off cause i couldnt take it anymore...)) i should start a medium account and write like those pretentious tech bros that say things like "college is for LOSERS!" (ur going to a top school for cs?) (i didn't really like that guy cause he was lowkey weird too) but i think it'd be really funny. lowkey i forgot where i was going with this because the parenthesis reminded me of the chain rule which reminded me of that guy but anyways back to the main point...

I usually listen to game osts when studying (lie im listening to deftones right now) but the track "True Motives" (ill link it somewhere here) when genesis and angeal beat up sephiroth lowkey got me thinking during calc practice... like theres three instruments (piano cello violin) and its got a call and response format but its like all three are doing that (i told you i havent touched anything music related in a long while LOL sorry if the terminology is wrong). in the cutscene we start out with sephiroth with the violin and then like half a second later we get the piano take the upper with the cello playing the secondary melody? but the violin immediately kicks in... TBH i wonder then since im assuming sephiroth is the in between since hes "still around"—i dunno what happened to angeal—im at the point where ive killed the angeal creature but zach mentions him being possibly around and im assuming genesis is a total goner cause hes not around for anything else afaik (or he might im not that well versed in ffvii canon) and angeal reminded me a little too much of sonon so im gonna assume hes dead. as we know violin = treble cello = bass piano = both so i guess genesis = violin and angeal = cello just cause they seem like that to me. right when sephiroth pushes angeal back and genesis is about to go crazy the piano and violin lowkey come in and cello is just playing the bass notes for tha chords and the last half is lowkey just piano and violin plus a little cello right before angeal tries to stop genesis and gets thrown off into the junon sea or whatever u call it (i lost the submarine mini game in vii and i had to look up help and every tutorial was like " youre a total IDIOT if you failed this..."). maybe this is a whole lot of nothing and im just mkaing things up.

anyways thats enough for today i think. thank you for coming to my ted talk.

[stagnantmako]

thinking abt my crisis core verse where nero's working with zack to bring genesis & angeal in. he's just disguised as a random fucking infantryman meant to accompany zack while he hunts for them, and there are others - or they missions always start out with others - but nero keeps fucking killing them because he can't have any witnesses to his power.

and he is just. basically forced to dress like an infantryman so he doesn't stand out (the soldier uniforms show off his markings & shinra wants him to be as indistinct and undercover as possible) except it doesn't really work that well bc he has been trained to kill from birth and keeps being the sole survivor of these stupid missions so he's gaining noteriety for being strong.

and radiates this terrifying aura bc he's the literal embodiment of death.

he ends up hanging out with cloud because a) cloud is around zack often enough that he's familiar with him and b) they have this fantastic friendship where neither of them says a word to each other for hours at a time and nero loves that. he doesn't even know cloud's name.

( cloud also doesn't know his name and, quite honestly, its been so long it'd be awkward to ask )

nero's over here looking at cloud like if solider doesn't want him i bet he'd make a decent tsviet... or a brain robot.

[ghostofnibelheim]

🚎 - There’s only one seat available on this long commute, and it’s beside your/my Muse.

OR, and hear me out, there are NO seats available, but your muse has a lap like a bench so~ :)

First Meeting Starters || Always Accepting~

"It's dangerous to stand up on a moving vehicle. You should sit down."

He says, absolutely well aware that no seat is left for the blond to take. That, however, is not Sephiroth's problem to handle.

[heartbinders]

@hauntedreality || Cont.

He knew he had to keep up — he couldn't be dead weight, especially not on Zack. But he lied to himself for as long as he could until his body simply wouldn't allow him to anymore: those last few monsters that had lashed out at them did a number on him.

Cloud pulled his helmet off as Zack jogged back to where he had fallen behind, averting his gaze, kind though Zack's eyes were. He couldn't stand to look him in the face. He was slowing them down. They would have to stop because of him.

Or Zack would carry him. That caused Cloud's gaze to snap right back up to meet Zack's — because honestly, he couldn't decide which fate was more embarrassing.

His mouth hung slightly open, waiting for words to come out. He sort of wished he had just sucked it up and not complained, because a break would slow them down even more, but being carried would make him a literal dead weight on top of a figurative one. And he couldn't exactly say "nah, never mind" now. Not while Zack looked at him like that.

❝ You don't — need to carry me. ❞ The part of Cloud's mind that formed speech gradually sputtered back to life. ❝ I'll be fine if I can just, uh...lean on you for a little. ❞

[anakinh]

all of my other posts on rebirth have some complaints or just pure complaint, which does not reflect my feelings on the game, so i'm going to now post a thing i like with each complaint. my current complaint is 'none of the words "queen's blood tournament on the shinra-8" is in the original game.' (and that includes shinra-8, shut up). here is a list of compliments about the game:

Starting as Zack generated SO MUCH hype. i was screaming

the music around the midgar wastelands is 'hollow'! I love it so much

playing as sephiroth was so fun. he's amazingly designed and his VA acted the hell out of nibelheim. very well done

i like the additional tension between cloud and tifa, with both of them suspecting the other of being an imposter

baby chocobo cute

the combat is very fun. yeeting tifa is great

it's so pretty! i have so many photos! of so many things!

FROG QUEST BEST QUEST

weed canon in ff7-verse

despite my imminent complaint, queen's blood is pretty good

in fact, most of the mini-games weren't terrible

also, the queen's blood weird subplot is very intriguing, as is the sucked into queen's blood subplot (until the timing made me want to kms). i do like it when i get to yell 'WHAT THE FUCK' at the screen. sometimes you have to remember that ff7 is a very silly game.

okay, now that i've paid my dues I just wanna say that there are so many minigames all at once. Literally most of chapter 4 were mini-games and then we jump into chapter 5 and it's another mini-game tourney?? jenova is RIGHT THERE in the boat. please just let me jenova boss fight. I'm forgetting what the plot is. (and this is also a general problem with open world games. even in BG3 I was spending time shopping in the Lower City instead of helping my friend who got kidnapped by murder cultists. sigh)

anyway they turned this game into 100 hours by filling it with padding. again. (imagine cloud narrating 'and then I got the vacuum to clean the air of mako so i could use the elevator... and then the cord WAS STUCK.' he remembers that but not killing sephiroth?)

also I don't like the way they're treating Shinra right now, especially Rufus. If I trusted Square Enix I wouldn't be blinking at it, since there are so many times where people talked about how horrible Shinra was... but I definitely don't trust Square Enix, and especially not how they write Rufus. Shouldn't he be talking about ruling with fear now? stop trying to sanitize the evil capitalist. I hope Barret is right when he said joining was a bad idea. I shouldn't have to hope. It should be obvious. It would be if I trusted Square Enix.

lastly, seriously, wtf is up with glenn T_T why is he here. why do i dislike a person from a mobile game showing up here when people from prequels showing up is fine? i mean definitely part of that is because crisis core is not a gatcha game.

... and that was like 4 complaints. it's just easier to say things when you're complaining instead of praising. I gotta work on that.

[ghostofnibelheim]

"Probably nothing. I just thought you looked familiar." Sephiroth replied in a surprisingly candid manner. Surprising at least for those who knew him well enough to have learned what a reserved man he could be.

His gaze lingered into space for a bit, until the man shook his head. "Then again, I thought the same about the egg. It's reassuring to know at least one of these impressions was correct." He concluded with a slight wave of his hand.

The SOLDIER moved half a step to turn, probably to finally take his leave. But he hesitated then, looking down on the doorboy once more.

"... You said the flavour felt familiar... but that you cannot remember." Sephiroth repeated Cloud's words carefully. "... Would you say it is a bad memory? One you'd rather forget about?"

Oh, but Cloud had noticed the weird looks being thrown their way, his eyes would dart towards those curious stares, back to the silver SOLDIER and then back to the passing crowd.

Man... that raw egg was really starting to solidify and culture in his guts right about then. Or maybe he was just having the fanboy jitters standing here and talking to the one and only Sephiroth SOLDIER First Class... no... it was the egg, we're blaming the raw eggs today.

Damn whatever chicken shat that one out!

"I-I guess we're friends, yeah." He tried to sound confident about that answer, he really did. But were he and Zack Fair really friends? Or did the other man just feel sorry for him and chose to sit with him in the mess hall since they met back in Modeoheim?

It wasn't a thread Cloud particularly wanted to pluck at in that moment.

"Sir... permission to speak?" he asked this with the meekest of voices and yet failed to wait for a response before asking his question anyway. "What's this gotta do with that egg you gave me?"

[phoenixcatch7]

Fic idea collection: sephiroth reincarnates into mdzs.

Now I've been rotating this in my mind for a while, but it went through several iterations before I was happy with it. Feel free to expand on or even use any of them!

Sephiroth reincarnates into lwj. Straightforward, pretty 1 to 1, we get lovely white v black and anime swordsmen and a bewildered love at first sight gay panic that goes differently to but about as well as canon. Room for gorgeous scenes and lots of angst. Wings, war heroes, on a pedestal, etc. Becoming a new person vs cycles of trauma. Devil you know etc. Problem: I don't like writing romance, I don't particularly want to one true soulmate wwx with someone who isn't lwj, and should wwx still die (pretty inevitable) the issue abruptly becomes sephiroth grieving for his brutally defamed and murdered One Love and not going on a genocidal spree about it. Lsh is not enough of an deterrent when the jianghu wants the kid dead too.

Sephiroth reincarnates into lwj and lxc in a split soul/mind situation, and they 'both' fall in love with wwx. I loved this, but the logistical issues (particularly the war) clashed with anything to do with the canon plot, and again it didn't fix the other romantic issues.

Sephiroth reincarnates into just lxc and that would have very little bearing on the wwx centric plot, so maybe a romance with jc? Again, cute, but sephiroth is pretty much the polar opposite of lxc and that'd mess up so much. They could work a grumpy (cold, uncaring) with a grumpy (hot, cares so very much) dynamic, I think they'd work pretty well under the right circumstances, but that combined with the fact I don't really ship them (sorry!) put me off expanding it further.

The one I finally decided on:

Sephiroth as... nmj! The combination of the special sabers and their resentment, the war leader role, the reputation, the kid brother abruptly foisted on him, it really struck me! I really like the idea of nmj slipping NHS some of his dna as a baby (qi covering for hojo science in this case) and the compulsive consequences of that. Feeling like NHS only really cares for him because of the s cells mind control. Having to take care of him like those egg/flour bag baby projects to teach kids empathy and responsibility but with a real human kid brother.

Nmj letting NHS slack even if he hates it because his subconscious will protect him in an emergency. If you've seen the scene in ff7 rebirth of cloud with the soldiers you'll know what I mean (it was SUCH a good scene. Ice cold). Imagine NHS of all people getting in trouble (like in the live action) and suddenly like a switch is flipped turning into a merciless murder machine.

I feel like they'd bond a lot in their own way, with NHS both thinking the world of and being sibling scared of him, them thoroughly enjoying battles of wits like weiqi but having no/few shared interests outside of that. Nmj honing NHS' observation skills, ruthlessness, quick thinking (and unwittingly, acting skills lmao). Sephiroths total inability to comprehend NHS' want to be lazy and indulgent with his own childhood of being genetically made to be a high functioning child soldier and then having to lead the sect and raise a kid from a young age, but having no real reference for how a normal childhood would look.

It'd be really interesting to see how it'd affect the war efforts, with someone well versed in large scale conflict, with sephiroths own overwhelming power. Wwx wouldn't be the sole ace, and how would that affect his own motivations and reputation if he wasn't as necessary?

And of course!! The venerated triad!! How would sephiroth take lxc and jgy, so much like his old genesis and angel? Would the experience of crisis core prepare him for those two, or for betrayal and distrust? Without the threat of degradation, would he find himself clinging to them? Would he notice lgys betrayal or underestimate him? Would he feed him his dna and pull an uno reverse??

And should he die, there's no way his corpse is going to be normal. Like, at all. (And poor NHS would sense it, react to it, part of his mind and cells getting ripped out, shut down, the warmth and love of his brother.) Would it constantly try to revive? Would its presence cause mania or mood swings, hallucinations, nightmares? Would people exposed start picking up habits or beliefs he had while alive? Would it be cut up to try and weaken it? Would its eyes track lgy until he hides it away? Would he start oozing green?? And don't even start on what a temple scene would look like in this situation, oh man. It'd be Bad. I think he'd claw his way back to full consciousness out of pure homicidal refusal. He's clawed his way back from total annihilation far too many times to let some conniving POLITICIAN do him in for good.

Nmj staunchly returning from the dead to take up being a Co sect leader again because now he's actually unkillable and NHS is not about to let this happen without shoving as much work as possible back onto him lmao (so he can't leave). And befriending wen ning. The white hair and blank eyes with the iron grey skin and black/gold would be striking.

Basically nmj would be ripe for really good canon divergence and character analysis and growth but even if you keep canon the exact same there's still plenty of room during and after for anything ranging from hurt/comfort to fluff to pure crack (we're putting Sci fi dystopia allegory man in Chinese High Fantasy it's not going to go completely smoothly. And this man does not have experience with raising a child).

There is, also, the option of split mind nhs/nmj sephiroth, in which one body takes the brawn and the violence and the attention and the other keeps the brain and the secret longing for safety and comfort and leisure, acting as though two separate people to allow this space to rest and heal and learn to be human in the way a child soldier or orphaned teen sect leader isn't allowed. It'd mean NHS and nmj would have to be twins, and thus full blooded, but that could be rectified by nmj just being the youngest of the trio and NHS being a few years behind in classes so he's in the same year as the other clan heirs (and wwx) like canon. He'd also be a lot, lot harder to kill and if jgy did anyway sephiroth would quite brutally extract revenge immediately for killing his other body and that means no happy ending for wwx (or a lot of people tbh).

So which idea is your favourite?

[youmourn]

#YOUMOURN, private zack fair from - crisis core - final fantasy. orig. made 2016. re - re - est. 2024. reimagined from canon. please read about his rewritten canon because it is crucial how different i portray him from the original source. crisis core critical. not affiliated with the ffrpc. rewritten by cassi. 25+. any pronouns. extremely low activity and primarily iconless. standard rules apply. has played through rebirth. spoilers will be tagged. verses include bloodborne, dark souls, ffxiv / xv / xvi, kingdom hearts, devil may cry, baldur's gate 3, resident evil. carrd tba later.

information about canon divergence below (does not follow rebirths timeline but does take some influences)

does not only include staying alive endgame (his price to pay is losing his left eye which is covered by an eyepatch) but upon finding out the truth about shinra and soldier as a whole skews his vision on what he thinks is wrong and right. absolutely does not follow soldier honor nor blindly follows in his mentors ideals, instead perceives his own opinions and changed directions of dreams. tries to cling onto naïve ideas of heroism he has embodied but loses it along the way. has come to the realization that soldier is nothing but monsters thus believing he is one in return despite no longer being a member. partakes in the bombing of reactor's 1 and 5 - albeit super reluctantly so despite his past dealing with them - thus following the events as an unwilling body of avalanche. there is fleeting proof of sephiroth that he absolutely can't ignore ie. a whisp of long silver hair, an echo of his voice that no one else can hear, but it's never in the full form like cloud.

horror elements will also be applied here so follow with caution.

[strfe]

RE: IDENTITY.

after spending hours watching a video (source) @speedchasing sent me i'm going to make it everyone's problem cover a little regarding how i've always written cloud's personality and overall 'identity' from the happenings of crisis core (post-nibelheim) and note how i've always perceived it, as well as some new developments, some of which are unique to vii remake (meaning his personality will differ to an extent between his og / viir verse(s), etc).

i still believe that cloud has never really thought of himself as 'being zack'. the closest example of this being true is in the flashbacks cloud has, where he inserts himself where zack would be in reality, because zack had been the only SOLDIER present at that point in time (other than sephiroth, in most instances, and he at least knows he is not sephiroth) and it's reasonable for him to therefore have been that (other) SOLDIER, since if he knew anything of his past — it was that he was a 1st class SOLDIER. the identity that cloud takes on at the beginning of ffvii is one comprised of his memories and desires, as well as tifa, and also zack's memories. from the moment cloud regains consciousness at the end of crisis core, the jenova 'mimic' ability present within him begins to shape the personality that he will eventually take upon himself in ffvii. the idea of zack: the hero that cloud had always admired & wished to be ever since he was a child, as well as the legacy of memories that zack leaves with him upon passing the buster sword along, imprints itself onto his consciousness and begins to formulate when he meets tifa at the train station just prior to the beginning of ffvii.

the jenova cells rewrite his memories and come together to formulate the idea of all of cloud's memories (namely prior to the nibelheim incident), zack's ideals and behaviourisms, tifa's memories of him, and the dream of becoming a hero he clung to so desperately as a child (and even into adulthood).

the mimicry is intertwined with his very consciousness to project a reality to him that he wished to be true, and that protected him from the reality of zack's loss & his perception that he was a failure in every aspect of the word: he hadn't made SOLDIER / hadn't proven the kids that bullied him wrong / couldn't fulfil his promise to tifa to get her to notice him, and he was unable to do anything but watch as his closest friend (the one person who still embodied 'the hero' that he aspired to be but never was, and didn't believe he would ever become) laid down his life for him. he was 'too weak to save anyone': a sentiment sephiroth reminds him of in remake, but one he desperately tries to avoid.

something this video made me consider more-so (especially with regards to the events later in the game, then from 'on the way to a smile' onwards) is the idea that zack, aerith & sephiroth are all a fundamental part of cloud's consciousness. while zack and aerith guide him towards recovery and salvation (something it has been noted he couldn't otherwise do alone), sephiroth guides him towards destruction and embodies his pain and regret. in remake, sephiroth seems to purposefully be trying to disconnect cloud from that which makes up his consciousness, and / or become the domineering presence in his consciousness, and is shown on multiple occasions to have a stronger hold on him (cloud) than even in the original game. moments such as cloud stepping towards johnny to kill him, and not hesitating to strike down reno (even resulting in the whispers intervening) aren't entirely out of character for someone who has killed in the past, but they are moments that are definitively not present in the original game, and there is emphasis on cloud's behaviour scaring others and / or being especially violent, even for an 'ex-SOLDIER'. this is likely also due to his connection with sephiroth during remake being more prevalent. his consciousness is gravitating slightly more towards 'destruction' than it does in the og. while i can't say for certain, i do expect the disparity to grow as time passes and the story continues in remake, especially if the theory that zack has become detached from his consciousness in some way(s) is true, and increasingly more-so if sephiroth accomplishes this same feat for the other memories that shape cloud and his bond with others.

the main thing to note is: cloud in remake is not only an amalgamation of his past memories (among other things), but also of future memories that sephiroth has been feeding into his subconscious.

while this isn't a staggering change at the moment, it is a slight one, and i expect it may be key to certain elements of ffvii changing so i'm tentative to write too far into the vii:r verse outside of what story has already been revealed to us. for example, i would be reluctant to write as far as the north crater knowing that by that point in remake our expectations may have been completely subverted / characters may be acting differently or have taken different paths, etc. i think it has been long enough now to say quite confidently that vii: remake is not a remake, it is more of a convoluted sequel, and as such (while i'm happy to merge elements of remake/rebirth + with the og for fleshing out the world / its characters / character dynamics), i'd prefer not to write specifically in the remake verse too much further than is 'current'.