#Final Fantasy VII spoilers

[prokopetz]

"Sephiroth doing paperwork" gets treated like a funny meme about the peculiar fixations of fanfic writers, but if you think about it, the guy's job – at least pre-losing-his-shit – is to somehow be a corporate middle manager and a cop at the exact same time, both professions which are notable for the unbelievable quantities of bullshit paperwork they generate. He would absolutely be filling out Form 27-B.

[feeeshy]

finished ff rebirth a few days ago

[flowersbane]

rebirth villains, summarized: no cloud belongs to me >:(

like, bruh

leave this man’s autonomy aloooooneeee

[finallyfantasy7]

I've seen people accuse Angeal of being a coward.

Either for choosing to die, or for making Zack kill him instead of doing it himself.

Angeal Hewley was a hero.

I didn't see anything cowardly in his behavior. I only saw a person willing to sacrifice his life to protect others.

Not just the story but imagery and motifs support it too: his name, being the only one of the trio having a white wing, being called Angeal Penance in the final fight, the way he's depicted at the end...

As for the story, what drove Angeal to get Zack to kill him wasn't cowardice, but a wish to protect others. Suddenly faced with Genesis and unaware of motives for his desertion and behavior, Angeal disappeared in Wutai because he didn't want to drag Zack into the whole mess while Angeal takes time to reason with Genesis to come back. Being a SOLDIER had come to mean so much to Angeal but he left without hesitation to protect Zack. He left to get Genesis back.

Yet, despite Angeal's love for his friend, he stands between Genesis and Zack in the Banora factory, because protecting is what he does.

Angeal never joined Genesis because he couldn't justify the violence. Angeal was there only to convince Genesis to return with him to Shinra. Of course, once Angeal learned the truth of the horrible experiments that created them, and of all the disgusting things Shinra did, he couldn't morally justify returning either. He was left in a limbo.

On top of that, his own degradation got triggered and affected his mind and made him confused and unable to think clearly (G-SOLDIER degradation makes them irrational and more prone to violence), and he wrestled with the newfound knowledge of his twisted origins, his mother's willing participation in it, her lies, and that the fact that it was actually the sleazy lowlife Hollander who was his biological father (and not the man he respected and loved all his life and who was so proud of Angeal he had sacrificed everything for Angeal to have the Buster Sword). Hollander used Angeal's moment of helplessness to harvest his cells and with them started creating Angeal copies. Angeal never consented to this. Sephiroth's conclusions that both Angeal and Genesis are in league with Hollander when he saw Angeal copy is incorrect and comes from Sephiroth's own issues.

Yet, Angeal's own existence created the one thing he strove all his life to prevent. A danger to others. Aside from Lazard, all Angeal copies were monsters, not humans. And monster are dangerous. They attack people. They kill. They create suffering.

If he were to prevent it, he had to destroy the source of the cells - himself, or the world would never be safe from Angeal copies.

Now, it's very important to note that this decision to destroy himself was very different than the self-loathing wish to die he expressed to Zack in Banora, or the pointless attempt to get Zack to kill him on the bottom of the plate above the Sector 5 church.

By this point, Angeal had managed to overcome the degradation's effects on his mind by using his willpower and his SOLDIER honor, and he was not searching to die to end his own shame, he was searching to do his duty.

We see this change in him when he starts helping Zack and Sephiroth deflect Genesis' and Hollander's attacks, protecting people in Shinra Building, and informing Lazard of their plans, although never officially returning to Shinra. He retained the spirit of what it means to be an honorable SOLDIER without supporting Shinra that created it all.

Now, with his mind clear and his honor restored he does not loathe himself, but he can clearly see his copies have to be destroyed. And there is sadly no other way to do this than to absorb them and destroy himself in the process.

He is not a coward, he is selfless and brave for willing to die to protect others.

He did not saddle Zack with this. Zack consented. Zack agreed that their enemy is all that creates suffering, even if he didn't fully understand what that would entail. At that point Angeal probably didn't either.

But think about Zack's personality. Killing his mentor and friend is unthinkable to him, but how would he feel if he had refused and then Angeal copies killed innocent civilians? If they killed a little kid? Zack was devastated but ultimately it was Angeal's free decision. How much more devastated would Zack be if his refusal to fight Angeal led to deaths of people who had no choice in the matter unlike Angeal?

From what I saw of their last fight, Angeal faced several issues:

to collect his copies and destroy them

to prevent Hollander from getting more samples from him

to find a way to destroy himself while being merged with the copies which seems to rob him of self-awareness. He didn't seem at all in control as Angeal Penance, so how could he destroy himself?

So, what course of action is left? Who can Angeal trust?

Who is strong and skilled enough to fight a SOLDIER 1st Class strengthened by degradation? Who can be trusted to prevent Hollander from collecting more samples? Who cares enough about protecting others to crush his own feelings by killing his friend? Who has mental fortitude and emotional support to do it and come out on the other side still himself?

Gensis is still obsessed with a cure and revenge and is creating untold suffering himself, and Sephiroth was taught that collateral damage is no big deal and doesn't care about much except his friends. And besides, Angeal already saw Sephiroth had started spiraling into despair.

So who is left?

Only Zack.

And Angeal prepared Zack. He prepared him by training him, by loving him, by teaching him about being an honorable and moral SOLDIER. He certainly couldn't even dream this is what he was preparing him for, but he inadvertently did. Zack is powerful enough, and cares enough, and is emotionally strong enough. Zack is the most emotionally strong person Angeal had ever met.

Only thing left to do was to convince Zack to do it because Zack has shown he would rather die than fight Angeal. But while Zack was alright with sacrificing himself, he wouldn't hurt Aerith by never returning to her (which very nicely makes Crisis Core even more tragic).

Angeal did everything in his power to make sure Zack would be alright. He checked to made sure Zack has emotional support after Angeal is gone. He went to the Church to meet Aerith.

He made sure she is the kind of person to be there for Zack.

And she was.

He made sure to leave one of his copies he could influence from the Lifestream to protect Aerith.

And it did.

And Angeal knew Zack is emotionally strong enough to handle it.

And he was.

[jenkatkatzilla]

Haven't been active in a while because life so... have a bunch of screenshots of my bestest most favouritest FFVII boy, Vincent ♡

[lavandulastorms]

mourning - aerti week day 7

[jeannieceevisamariama]

Tifa’s laugh is everything✨

Love when Cloud gets super into character!

Sailor Barret will always be S tier 🤩

Aerith and Tifa little moments are adorable 🥹

[radcad08]

There is one thing I wanted from Remake/Rebirth: for Tifa to show her reaction to Cloud's memory/mental state more clearly, and try to actually support him rather than staying totally silent out of fear.

I'm on Chapter 11 currently, and it is the strongest showing thus far. Especially the climb up Mt. Nibel.

At the Nibelheim airstrip Cloud gets a headache, pulls his sword on a black robe he hallucinates is Sephiroth, and you hear Tifa booking it over to him from offscreen. She grabs his arm and puts herself physically between him and the black robe. She's dedicated to keeping him together as best she can.

Do the others know she's the only one who can? The game doesn't even make it clear they saw what he did at Gongaga. Barret later refers to Cloud "losing it" but he doesn't go into detail. He's been losing it in pieces since Remake.

Tifa jumps in twice going up Mt. Nibel. She recognizes Cloud speaking like Sephiroth at the naturally formed materia and immediately interrupts him.

She very strongly reassures him at the bridge when he's convinced his issue is cell degradation and it is going to kill him.

She's trying as best she can to keep him out of that negative head space, keep him focused on her instead.

And she still messes up, just like in the original. They didn't absolve her of that, which is wonderful.

Even as she says she never corrected him before out of fear, she's still holding back! At that very moment he is remembering Zack, and she still can't bring herself to tell him he is remembering it wrong. Zack wasn't the grunt who got swept away, Zack did not die that way. She jumps in and asks to be the one to tell Aerith, because Aerith already knows Cloud's memory regarding Zack is borked.

For everything Remake/Rebirth whiffs, I think they are doing a great job with this piece. I always felt like Cloud didn't really get much support during his breakdown in the original. Rebirth expands that timeline and gives Tifa, and occasionally other party members, more opportunity to attempt to support him. And that's great.

[geekysteven]

[owarinaki]

Rufus & his Turks

Final Fantasy VII : Rebirth [RUFUS RECAP] part 23

Index gifs // Trailer recap // Rufus's Story recap 1 //2 // 3

Rufus Pic recap 1 // 2 // 3 // 4

Others Tseng&Rufus , Hojo&Darkstar

[RUFUS RECAP] Other links

Ch.4 part 1 // 2 // 3 // 4 // 5 // 6 // 7 // 8 // 9 //10 // 11

Ch.6 part 12 // 13

Ch.8+9 part 14 // 15 // 16 // 17 // 18 // 22

Ch.10+11 part 19 // 20 // 21 / 23 // 24 // 25 // 26

Ch.12+13+14 part 27 // 28 // 29 // 30 // 31

Etc. : 32 // 33 // 34 // 35 // 36

[willosword]

yay i redrew the ff7 shot that altered my brain chemicals so now i can keep playing ^_^ here's a cloud-side-up version too

[prokopetz]

You know, I'd joked in the past that, from a Doylist perspective, the cross-dressing sequence in Final Fantasy VII mostly exists as a characterisation vehicle for Aerith's blatant boys-in-dresses kink, but playing through the remake and seeing its decision to have Aerith sitting there just straight open-mouth hyperventilating – heavy breathing on the soundtrack and all – while watching Cloud get dolled up in drag is a lot more explicit than I expected them to make it.

[bread--hood]

"The first reactor created by Shinra, the Mt. Nibel reactor, holds many secrets."

[xxjustshakeitupxx]

WE ARE SO BACK, THE GAME DID ITS JOB

*Cloud having a 'flashback' of 'Zack' being swept down the river*

Boyfriend: Oh, so I was almost right, I was this 👌close.

Me: *Teasing* You were this 👌 close.

*Cloud tells Tifa he remembers Zack and she says "Oh..."*

B: ??? What do you mean "Oh..."?!

M: 😆

Cloud: Zack was my friend. How could I just forget him?

B: It's crazy what PTSD does to someone.

M: *Internally* 👀💦

Cloud: Degradation. It's hollowing me out.

M: Or that lol

*Scene ends*

B: No that-that- that's not right. That's still not right. Something's missing here.

M: Yeah??? 😆

B: *Fired up and laughing* There's no way Sephiroth and two actual SOLDIERS now went to a fucking reactor with one random grunt! There's no way that happened. There's no way! I pointed that out the first time, too!

M: 😆

B: "Why are there two random dudes here?!" So there's absolutely no way it was just another random guy! That's wrong! I don't know how it's wrong, but it's wrong!

M: 😂😂😂😂

B: I know I'm right on that one!

M: So what's your theory now?

B: I don't have a theory anymore, I just know that that's true. *Getting fired up again* What I just said has to be true! There is No. Fucking. Way they put Sephiroth, Cloud, and now apparently Zack-- although I don't know what his capabilities are-

M: *Internally*💀

B: - I assume they're on par with Cloud-- and a random dude- Why the random dude?! That random dude is something else, or fake, or there's some missing information, or someone's switched around, but there's no random dude!

*Silence*

B: *Mumbling* Fucking random dude.

M: 😂😂😂😂

[finallyfantasy7]

Ooooh, nooooo, I just realized something.

Gast Faramis was the only decent scientist in Shinra, with noble intentions and who treated child Sephiroth well and as a child, not a mere scientific experiment and a weapon. He seems to be the only person Sephiroth emotionally connected to before he met Genesis and Angeal. Even years later when adult Sephiroth is falling apart, he calls Gast's name who he hasn't seen in years.

And then we have:

Hojo killed Gast.

Hojo (indirectly) killed Ifalna, Gast's partner.

Sephiroth - Hojo's son, killed Aerith - Gast and Ifalna's daughter.

Sephiroth didn't just kill Aerith - Sephiroth and his family completely wiped out Aerith's family. And Sephiroth didn't even realize. He still respected Gast at the time of OG Final Fantasy VII.

How many tragedies can they write into one game series?

[homonymph]

i’m finally playing ff7 remake and just got to the honey bee inn sequence. i feel like i’m having a stroke jfc this is a fever dream