#barret is the protagonist

[slaughterverse]

I feel like Cloud 🤝 Sammy

Science experiments I love to draw in cool dynamic poses.

[shitpostingkats]

*head in my hands* Man. Cloud Strife and his insane cocktail of mental illnesses just continues to be handled so much better than you would expect out of a AAA video game.

Remake and Rebirth are really writing down and circling and underlining the sentence "CLOUD STRIFE IS UNWELL. CLOUD STRIFE EXPERIENCES HALLUCINATIONS AND BREAKS IN REALITY THAT NEGATIVELY IMPACT HIS ABILITY TO INTERACT WITH THE WORLD." That by itself is so huge.

We're getting better about depicting psychosis and related disorders in video games outside of ableist set-dressing in horror games, and there's some great work happening in that sphere of representation. But most of the time, if a game's protagonist experiences hallucinations, it is the capital P Point of the story. This is going to be a narrative about living with this condition, and a main focus of the story. Again, super super awesome. FFVII is not a story about having psychosis. It's a game about throwing hands with a corporate middle manager with unresolved mommy issues and an angel complex. And also the main character has hallucinations.

The player itself is not able to cleanly see the lines between real and not-real, either. You're not viewing Cloud's reality breaks as an impassive observer, sometimes they are treated by the game as genuine threats that can hurt you. And if you've played the game and have a level of meta knowledge, you still can't easily disregard the randomly appearing Sephiroths, because some of them are actually real. The player and Cloud are operating in pretty much the same level of buy-in to the hallucinations, in that you both know this is a thing that happens and will usually assume the hallucination is not physically present unless another character also comments on it. But you can never be sure.

And the way the other party members act about it. The remakes are hammering home "No, it's not that the other characters are polite, or oblivious. Cloud is not subtle. Everyone gradually pieces together that this is a thing that happens to him, and they are deeply concerned, but that can't really do anything to help." I so expected, the first time Cloud has a big obvious break in reality, for the rest of the team to question if he was alright, or if he was even fit to be on this journey. Cloud goes tearing off away from the group, chasing a specter none of the rest of them saw, and it's just a quiet conversation of 'hey, no one else saw what he saw, right?' And then they go and get their guy because he probably shouldn't be alone right now. They never attack him for it, or tell him he's going insane.

Everyone takes to it with so much. Grace. Hello, this is our party leader, he's an excellent swordsman and a good friend. Oh yeah, sometimes he sees things that aren't that there or goes into a weird coma state where he chants about reunion and doesn't seem to notice the world around him, so much so that one time he went into shutdown and tried to throw himself off a cliff. That's just. A thing they accept about him.

And especially with the fact that Remake chooses to drop the truth bomb extremely early that, even with his remarkable grip on his mental faculties, Cloud is dying. Couple years, maybe more, maybe less, but. Tifa and Barret (and possibly Aerith?) know that he is not expected to live long. And they still treat him with humanity and they don't try to stop him from going on a jrpg adventure and they don't tiptoe around him like he's fragile. They don't stop loving him, even as he starts to deteriorate.

It's just. Cloud Strife, man.

[the-music-maniac]

This is a purely indulgent crack idea, but I think it would be very funny if there was this time travel fix-it for the events of FF7/Sephiroth's insanity, except instead of just one person getting sent back, almost everyone in Avalanche (Cloud, Vincent, Tifa, Barret, Yuffie, Nanaki, Cait Sith/Reeve, etc. ) gets sent back. And all of them think they're the only one that time travelled. So, you essentially have a bunch of people trying to pretend they don't know anything about the future and assuming no one else knows about the future, and being confused af 90% of the time because the others aren't reacting in a predictable way to what they know about the future.

How this happens could occur in one of two ways - everyone gets sent back at different time points, and so their initial efforts to kill Sephiroth before he becomes genocidal includes them one by one meeting Miniroth and going Oh No This Is A Child, and Sephiroth progressively getting more and more well adjusted by the time he meets the next time traveller because now he has a group of people hellbent on fighting Shinra and Hojo on his behalf with the dual reasons of you are not going to become another genocidal maniac under my watch, and Why Is The Child Fighting A War Who Authorized This. I think the order of time travel should happen with age (ex. Vincent arrives first, Cloud and Tifa and Nanaki arrive last, etc.).

Or they all show up at once when Sephiroth is an adult. All of them are covertly trying to assassinate him but failing bc they keep accidentally cancelling out each other's attempts.

I want a cartoonish level of obliviousness. Arguably Cloud, Reeve (or Cait Sith?????) and Cid, and potentially Nanaki, are the ONLY ones that really have the excuse to be in Shinra, so everyone is confused about why other people they know are suddenly There™ yet somehow not landing on the obvious answer of more than one time traveller. All of them bullshit just well enough to throw doubt bc they're all pretending they don't know anything about the future. Aerith has an inkling about what's going on bc the planet talks to her, but she's too entertained at the shenanigans to be much help. Zack has no idea what's going on, cause he's not a time traveller, or someone in kahoots with the planet. Shinra is in absolute chaos because of how much people are meddling. At the same time, everyone is simultaneously noticing that 1. Seph is surprisingly, a very normal (even kind?) guy. What gives. 2. Man was, on the contrary to popular belief, not walking around with delusions of grandeur or cackling evilly in the months before his sanity went kaput and is in fact, malnourished, overworked and depressed, 3. Hojo and Shinra were even bigger bastards than expected.

Meanwhile Sephiroth is there like: man, people sure are up in my business a lot lately. He's thinking this as he stares dead eyed out the window, with his tenth cup of coffee in hand and a sheath of thick paperwork tucked under his arm. Behind him is Barret hiding (badly) in a fake plant.

I dunno how but this results in every one of our beloved protagonists (and Sephiroth) surviving, no one going insane, and Hojo dying an awful death. And then the gradual dismantling of Shinra, hurray.

[infizero-draws]

SMASH THE INTERESTS TOGETHER 💥💥💥

my reasoning for the roles if ur interested:

susie as barret: tank, Big, both are objectively the best character of their game reagrdless of who ur actual fav is (also i think susie would think the gun arm is sick)

kris as cloud: protagonist, has weird identity shit going on, also just general Mental Illness, forced to hurt their friends against their will at some points

noelle as tifa: childhood friend of protag, can tell weird shit is going on w said friend but doesnt rlly know how to help

ralsei as aerith: magical healer, knows shit they shouldnt, association with yellow flowers, long dress/robe thing

[rocketbirdie]

TUMBLR USER ROCKETBIRDIE REBLOGGED MY POST IT IS A DAY OF JOY AND CELEBRATION jndbhjmnh thank you so SO much it really means a lot to me to have such a talented artist appreciate my work! out of curiosity can i ask your opinions about every ff7 party member? i'm always curious to know the fandom's opinion about them :)

OOOUUUAAAAAAA UR SO SWEET!!!!!!! <333 OK here goes nothin!!

CLOUD STRIFE: Most uncomfortably relatable protagonist of all time. Impressively apocalyptic autism. I need him crushed into a fine powder and baked into a disney princess themed birthday cake.

BARRET WALLACE: He deserves so much better. Just, in general. Why did they do that to his character in Advent Children (rhetorical question; we all know the answer.). Actually I think we should just get rid of all of SE's intellectual properties and just have Only Barret.

TIFA LOCKHART: Oh my god. If I had known about Tifa Lockhart as a highly impressionable 5 year old, I would have grown up to be cisgender. I'm gonna leave that one up to interpretation.

AERITH GAINSBOROUGH: Weird girl. Incomprehensible girl. Unnerving girl. Girl who makes you want to become a girl. Girl who I love dearly forever. Aerith is love, Aerith is life.

RED XIII: Lowkey the saddest character in the game. He's just a lonely child, he's already had everything taken from him, he's trying so hard to hold it together. Hang in there Nanaki :(

YUFFIE KISARAGI: I like how they handled her in FF7R, bridging the gap between two very different audience's impressions of her. Boy is she disruptive in some of Rebirth's scenes though. Super curious how part 3 and the Wutai war thing will go down.

CAIT SITH: Middle aged businessman's gambling-addicted fursona by proxy is hands down the funniest concept for a JRPG party member. I want to love him so bad, but I can't take him seriously for the life of me because every scene he shows up in suffers from severe mood whiplash.

VINCENT VALENTINE: I see the appeal. I'm admittedly less invested in the vampiric sexy snatched-waist, and more in the technologically-hamfisted out-of-touch grandpa aspect of his character.

CID HIGHWIND: This man is NOT 32 years old. His asshole-ishness and cartoonishly vulgar dialogue is very important to me and I hope they don't water him down too severely in part 3. ESRB please, please let him say Fuck just once. please

[tossawary]

At the beginning of "FF7 Remake", Barret asks how old Cloud is and Cloud can't(?) answer (he answers with his presumed SOLDIER rank at first), so Barret cracks a joke about how for all he knows, a SOLDIER's rank could be the same as their age. Presumably this is a reference to the company's known mad science practices / child soldiers. Barret compares Cloud to a toddler as more joking / needling.

And, you know, that seems well within the bounds of FF7. You could do an AU where protagonist Cloud is a Superboy-style OG!Cloud-Zack clone. Transferring / implanting memories seems like something that this world / company might have a materia for, with side effects that Cloud is obviously suffering (the flashbacks).

I don't know what the plot / larger point of this AU would be, but it would fun purely for the "Oh Goddess, fuck, we actually took a one-year-old on our 'eco-terrorism' mission" AVALANCHE reactions.

EDIT: I would also probably keep both OG!Cloud and Zack alive in this AU. They're hiding somewhere out in the countryside or something after successfully escaping Hojo's labs, but they lost the Buster sword at some point or it was shipped back to Midgar very early on as "proof" of Zack's death in Nibelheim. Clone!Cloud has it for some reason or another.

So, as the story continues, there are an increasing number of clues that the protagonist Cloud maybe isn't the same Cloud. Tifa: "Your face looks different as an adult. Guess you grew up, huh?" (It's the Zack influence in Clone!Cloud.) And there also seems to be a second party of mysterious heroes / rebels somewhere out there in the world also working against SHINRA. Clone!Cloud gets partially recognized by a few people for things he definitely didn't do.

And then the Clone!Cloud and Tifa party runs into the OG!Cloud and Zack party, and both parties go, "Oh... shit..."

[oasis-nadrama]

About the way Cloud Strife's friends tread his mental health issues

Oasis Nadrama, 27/04/2025

[ WARNING: Final Fantasy VII Rebirth endgame spoilers - Mentions of trauma, grief, murder and PTSD ]

These days we see a lot of people wondering why Tifa, Barret and others don't say something, don't challenge Cloud, don't confiscate his sword, etc. But there are a lot of things to keep in mind before judging them.

- Most members of the group absolutely miss a HUGE part of Cloud's mental collapse: the Tifa/Cloud and Aerith/Tifa exchanges are private, and no one sees our favourite chocobo mane attempting to murder Tifa at Gongaga.

- They are all tormented, ravaged by complicated trauma and PTSD, as highlighted by the trials. Furthermore, they all have their own new pains to face, tied up to the old ones. To take a particularly strong example, Barret has to deal with the horrible death of his BEST FRIEND and father of his adoptive daughter. This event alone is the kind of moment that can reduce people to shambles. All of our protagonists are doing their best, bravely facing impossibly painful circumstances.

- They all have to kill people occasionally. They for sure aren't simply "stunning" all of these Shinra troops during the two games.

- The group spends the entire game (and the previous one!) on the run from a murderous megacorporation controlling gigantic resources, while trying to protect Jenova-infected victims and to hunt down the most powerful warrior in the world doubling as an atrocious, hallucinations-inducing Eldritch horror.

- Cloud's SOLDIER persona was built from the start with a significant amount of coldness and detachment. We know the inner Cloud is more sensitive than this, Tifa knows, Aerith knows, but to the others this part of him is not a front. When they see him indifferent to human deaths, or slaughtering helpless Shinra soldiers, for them, it's in a continuum with Cloud's general personality.

- Cloud's comrades may think sometimes he's going too far but again, they are living in a world of extreme violence, perpetrating homicidal violence themselves (to defend themselves, other and the Planet), and struggling with their own traumas and issues.

- Cloud's advanced stages of moral degradation only become apparent in the Temple of the Ancients. By this point, all of the Avalanche splinter cell members are not simply comrades: they have developed powerful friendship with him. So they will excuse him, develop their own denial, as alas we often do regarding people we love. It's hard to talk about such things, it's hard to think about them.

- It is also a countdown by this point, they are all running to reach the Black Materia as soon as possible, and overcoming a storm of terrible obstacles, so to them his mental state is a simple cloud in a larger tempest.

- Cloud's mask falls after the Temple of the Ancients, but by this point it is difficult for other members to broach the topic. And since they are rushing to save Aerith, they may think it is not the best time.

- Afterwards, Aerith dies, and this loss represents extreme suffering for all of them. They all loved her, they all had a strong link to her; they may even have been her friends more than they are Cloud's, since Aerith was pretty open about her feelings and always ready to help, and they treasured her as a human being, a comrade, an incredible magician, an artist, a confident and the last survivor of the Cetra. Remember, she even extended the olive branch to Cait Sith after his betrayal, before Cloud stopped her from doing so; this can be seen as an indication of her humane, attentive, strong and generous nature. It is impossible to overstate how much Aerith counted for them, and their rage and despair can be felt during the entire final battle.

- Then Tifa, Barret, Cid, Yuffie, Vincent, Cait Sith, Nanaki see Cloud completely collapsing, and sinking into denial, at the end of the water burial. What are they supposed to do? They loved her. They knew how much Cloud loved her, and how much he must hurt, how much guilt he must feel - especially since they all left the burden of responsibility to him and him alone when they opened the Whispers veil in the middle of the Forgotten Capital. Are they supposed to speak now?

So yeah, Cloud's friends didn't say anything. They didn't do anything. And they won't say or do anything for quite some time, until the tragic reveals at the North Crater in the upcoming Part 3.

Can we blame them?

[chaifootsteps]

I’m kinda devastated by the “cockblocktavia” thing, she’s the only female character who really feels like a lead, the closest to a real girl, even if her only waking thought is her dad just like Loonas is boys in general and Millie’s is her husband. Octavia just felt, different, more real.

I’m also a huge fan of Barret Wilbert Weed so I was so excited for her to have more focus and sing with that incredible voice of hers. I thought lots of people would see Via shine and be on her side, creating an actual dilemma in the show that’s been well foreshadowed. But now it’s like Brandon completely overshadowed it, and sabotaged the emotional impact of her story arc and performance for the sake of his character and his musical debut (which is going to sound bad, I’m sorry, but it is) What a selfish prick. What the fuck is Via even getting “in the way” of?? Stolas actually loves her, not obsesses. They have an actual bond. What irritates me too is “stolitz” is nothing but a marketing tool. Only garbage shows have to rely on a dramatic gay ship for views and money, and even this show is better than that.

Also how pathetic is it that the so called protagonist only has a musical debut now in season 2, and even then he has to share it with another character who has sang three times to date. That is the craziest case of creators pet I’ve ever seen. Why isn’t Blitzøs daughter having a big emotional moment? Why can’t we see his family breakdown in real time? Everything is about stolas’ shitty family while Blitzøs is the one that’s actually interesting. And sad. Tight-knit families formed under harsh environments have strong touching bonds, nobles don’t give a rats ass about each other, but Viv hates the poor, so she would never understand that.

Agreed, agreed completely.

I hate that I actually had some hope that maybe, this show wasn't actually going in the direction the Octavia leaks made it seem, that they weren't actually going to villainize this sad, troubled girl in favor of her dad. But it looks like that's exactly what we're getting, and it's surreal and disgusting.

[demialwrites]

FF7 HCs: Cooking Skills

Reno: mostly seen making toast (or an entire sandwich if he's feeling fancy)

Rude: can cook most things given a recipe and even then, he can figure it out given enough time

Barret: can put the straw in a juicebox for Marlene but don't ask for anything else

Tseng: can make a great coffee but has no patience for actual cooking. Has to buy meals

Rufus: he's fine if the vending machine only requires pushing a single button

Tifa: only Rude can outdo her but only because she'll always make better drinks than him

Cid: lives off cowboy coffee. It's suspected that he can roast things on a spit

Vincent: doesn't need to or cannot eat/ Unknown/Refuses to answer

Cloud: cooks decently because Protagonist™. If he was a Sim, his main dish would be spaghetti

Elena: has a few childhood favourites she has mastered but can't make much else

Sephiroth: cannot cook. Hojo never let him. Once tried to roast something with fire materia. Ended badly

Zack: he should be able to cook but it never stuck when his parents tried to teach him. He was the one who encouraged Sephiroth to use the fire materia

[altocat]

There's one thing that bothers me about the First SOLDIER storyline in Ever Crisis. Why do not like Glenn, Matt, and Lucia? Is it because longtime veteran FF7 fans see them as unnecessary filler characters who were "shoehorned" into an OG FF7 character's backstory? I've seen furious FF7 fans hate them just because they had more Banners than Barret and Red XIII. I've also seen the trio criticized for their morally questionable actions too even though our main party in the OG literally starts out blowing up a reactor, causing the deaths of numerous innocent people. Cait Sith rightfully calls Barret out on his hypocrisy when the former worries about Marlene but dismisses the deaths of a lot of people as just "a few casualties." And then there is Zack, who was one of the SOLDIERs taking part in the Wutai War. He had no malicious intentions toward the Wutaians, but it still didn't change the fact he killed the people who were just defending their country. Morally gray characters are the bread and butter of FF7, so I don't understand what's wrong with having more morally gray characters.

The P0 trio has some clumsy aspects to them that take away points--they're only really remorseful AFTER they kill all the Rhadorans. Sephiroth is arguably more sympathetic in that he's still a child and also never enlisted with Shinra, not to mention he's been bred and conditioned into killing since he was born. But the P0 trio more or less goes along with it, reluctance or otherwise. So it makes them feel a bit more hypocritical afterwards. Matt and Lucia also regretfully don't have much to them as characters beyond a few little quirks. They both feel kind of useless in retrospect.

With ALL this said, I still do like the P0 trio. They added a lot to Sephiroth as a character and I've grown to genuinely like Glenn for what he is, even if the writing on him is a little messy. I think maaaaaybe they should have approached the issue with the Rhadorans slightly differently. Or at least made it look less one sided so that our protagonists don't come off as actual murderers. There are blurred lines in war sometimes, or at least there are malleable aspects to "kill or be killed" on the battlefield that allow for some level of sympathy or moral grayness. I don't think the story dwelled on it enough. They did with Sephiroth, but less so with the trio. I'd chalk that up to limitations with chapters more than anything else.

But like I said, I do like the trio and I'd be down for seeing more of them. I can see why people might not like them, whether that's for legit reasons or petty ones. Glenn at the very least is NOT a "filler" character since he's shown to have made a serious impact on Sephiroth's personality as an adult. And that counts for something.

As for veteran fans...well they're just going to complain either way lmao it's already a lost cause in that regard. The larger fanbase is known for doing that.

[unknown-lifeform]

13 and 18!

13. worst blorboficiation

Mmm this is hard. In the ff7 fandom specifically I feel most characters aren't too terribly blorbified, although it really depends on whoever is like writing them and stuff you know? Like you can go from one person who interprets Cloud in the most absurd fanon nonsense way and then the next person has the pitch perfect characterization. I feel with Cloud I've seen many people depict him in ways I don't like but he's also the protagonist and one of the most popular character so it's just a matter of statistics

18. it's absolutely criminal that the fandom has been sleeping on…

Barret. Yes I know I'm not exactly the one who should be preaching around here since I have like two Barret-centric fics and one of them isn't even published because I can't work out some issues with it. But like just because I'm personally biased towards evil twunks doesn't mean everyone else in the fandom is you know? Barret is a perfectly good character and we should all focus more on him

[salternateunreality2]

After a particularly nasty day at the labs, Sephiroth wakes up with fox ears and tail

How does it go?

Hehehehehe ❤️❤️❤️

Possessed by a fox spirit, he has sudden and uncontrollable urges to (a) eat udon, (b) share with chocobos, (c) be transformed by the power of friendship with plucky anime protagonists from a terrifying war machine to a cute and helpful hero a la Naruto, and (d) dig.

Cloud meets his hero because Sephiroth finds him, choco-naps him, and feeds him udon in a hole he digs out in the desert. Cloud just rolls with it, he's a hungry, growing boy.

Hojo steps in one of the smaller holes and breaks his leg. The bone completely snaps and he bleeds out because he insisted on retrieving Sephiroth alone, and Sephiroth is pointing his fuzzy ears only at Cloud to make sure he eats, and his tail is wagging so hard it starts up a dust storm that drowns out Hojo's screams.

AGZ and Lazard find them in the desert. They find Hojo's corpse first and Genesis "is surprised" and "accidentally firaga's it" 5 times. Angeal and Lazard are also surprised and may have stabbed and shot the corpse as well. Zack runs ahead, looking for his friends.

Lazard finds the three of them eating noodles happily, and the news that Hojo is dead snaps Sephiroth back to reality just enough to abandon the obsession with noodles (for the moment) and digging, but not enough to jolt him from becoming a hero with the power of friendship.

Noodles are shared by all (except Hojo) and eventually one special noodle digs its way into one special hole when SephZard finally get together later.

By that, of course I mean they both have spaghetti in their mouths and it goes like this:

Zack is Naruto, he has the shiniest moral compass after getting a stern talking to from Barret.

[fearowkenya]

fine!!! I guess I'll do all the work around here myself and write the Chadley skywheel date we were robbed of!!! fine!!!!!!!! i guess you can see my preliminary notes about it!!!!!!!!!!!!

disclaimer & tip: no im not actually mad, no i dont actually think we were robbed, yes im aware that im maybe 1 of perhaps 18 people who even wanted this (and that at least 1 of those people are a stack of raccoons in a trench coat), no i cant tell you if/when an actual published version of this would be posted, I'm 15k into a fic about yuffie being concussed that was supposed to be a quick joke oneshot, the posting timeline of this idea is between my adhd and god; i have absolutely no say in it

why do you want this

1) i love chadley

2) i just am hyperbolically miserable that he is present at gold saucer both times you're there and hes ALONE!!!!!!!

3) if you go talk to him as cloud during Costa del amor he is SAD that he didnt participate

ok so we are off to a rough start because there are (at least!!) two directions I could take a Chadley skywheel date that i think would be fun and interesting.

the first one is Chadley & cloud - this is fun to me because Chadley clearly holds a ton of admiration for cloud that while genuine is really only surface-level, and I think thats fun to explore. also chadleys stupidly obvious crush is adorable even though it has no chance of being reciprocated. idk it would jsut be cute and sweet and I cant stop thinking about it

the second one is the one I'm actually more likely to write because I think theres a lot more untapped potential there. i like to call it Cool Teen Squad and it's skywheel date but what if it was Chadley & yuffie & nanaki running around an amusement park unsupervised

hey what are you gonna do about loveless?

what a good question. I'm not sure because cloud&chadley loveless would be different from teen squad loveless , but theres 1 thing that would be the same for both of them and that is Chadley as rosa. this is non-negotiable. if rebirth is not going to overtly connect the dots between That Line Chadley Says In Response To Seeing Cloud At Wall Market During Remake and Why MAI Looks The Way She Does, then hand me a god damned pencil im doing it myself!!!!!! Chadley is going to be so pretty and have a wonderful time!!!

anyway cloud & chadley loveless is pretty easy , everything stays the same with Chadley as rosa and cloud is going to be nice about it. everyone is going to be nice about it.

Cool Teen Squad loveless has me a little torn because theres two fun avenues that i think are worth exploring

1) yuffie as alphreid, chadley as rosa, with nanaki as an extra protagonist idk id have to think about how to justify an entire extra role. that's a problem for future me, I'm too busy thinking about how much fun yuffie would have in big dramatic knight role with a big stupid sword. also she would look so cool

since Nanaki isn't there to be garm or whatever I'm volunteering Vincent instead. not galian beast, just Vincent as himself. barret stays as-is, I think him and Vincent vs the Teens is really cute and funny 

2) yuffie and Nanaki (admittedly mostly yuffie) get to be so annoying about (gently!!!!) teasing chadley about his crush on cloud and it is compounded by loveless , where cloud stays alphreid, chadley is rosa , nanaki stays garm, but yuffie replaces barret as varvados . you cant tell me she wouldnt have SO MUCH FUN being the villain

other ideas for Chadley skywheel date

Chadley & cloud:

- chadley explaining the mechanics of the skywheel in excruciating detail with cloud listening intently

- mai being annoying directly in chadleys ear but cloud cannot hear her

- 2v2 queens blood with cloud and Chadley working together. this would give opportunity to pull in some of the other characters to cameo since they'd need ppl to play against. (how would 2v2 co-op queens blood even work?? who cares , it would be fun) (except now I'm trying to figure out how it would work mechanically. hmm. an idea for me to chew on later)

cool teen squad:

- yuffie badgering Chadley into hacking the gold saucer games for maximum gp, (idk if Nanaki would condone this or not , might be funny if he did?) and then being chased around by the exhausted underpaid arcade employee.

- a friend and I talked about what Chadley would look like in combat and it might be fun to play around with those ideas via Cool Teen Squad goes to the battle square. I dont have any concrete ideas at this time but it would let me think about synergy attacks with Chadley and i think that could be super fun

- the three of them complaining about annoying shit adults say to them , Chadley laughing and having a nice time in the skywheel car with yuffie and Nanaki while they do bad impressions of idk, cloud being a stick in the mud??

much to think about as you can see!!! and much more I've probably not even considered !!! ideas & other ppls thoughts welcome, there's really so many possibilities and i invite others in joining me in not being normal about any of them <3

[greatwyrmgold]

Do as I say, not as I do, and don't get into arguments in a YouTube comment section. Even if the community is normally pretty chill.

So, a YouTuber I watch has been playing Final Fantasy 7, and just got to the point where Aerith gets Sephiroth'd. Someone in the comments argued that that scene might be done differently in the remake, since Aerith doesn't do anything in the plot. If you found some other way to introduce the White Materia, you could remove her.

I of course jumped in, pointing out that:

Aerith influences other characters in important ways (particularly Cloud and Tifa, the protagonist and arguable deuteragonist)

Arguing that a character is useless to the plot because you can remove them from the plot if you replace them with something that does the same thing is very silly.

After exchanging a few comments, I realized two things. First, the other guy does not seem to understand the second point. Second, said guy genuinely does not seem to think that any action Aerith takes that doesn't directly contribute to defeating the bad guy with a sword can matter.

To him, Aerith matters because she owns the White Materia and helps use Holy to stop Meteor from destroying the Planet. Nothing else matters.

Not her conversations with Cloud and the others. Not her refusal to put up with Cloud's tough loner persona. Not that time she convinced Cloud to wear a dress. Not her getting captured by Shinra, inspiring the rest of the party to rescue her (and the other experimental subject they found). Not her getting Marlene to safety, and making sure she'll be safe while Barret is out of Midgar. Not the lore about the Cetra she knows, or the discoveries made while following her, or even what she learns from talking with the Ancients or the Planet or whatever.

Apparently, Aerith matters because she owns a rock, and that's it.

What a #$%^ boring game Final Fantasy 7 would be if that were true.

[final-fantasy-as-literature]

I haven't had energy for a longer post lately, but I feel like Stamp in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth and Remake is pretty easily a symbol for what Cloud himself symbolizes while taking a Bloomian reading to them with Wu Cheng’en's Xiyouji as precursor. This post will not be diving into the six revisionary ratios because it is off-hand, and even Bloom gave those up over time.

Minor spoilers for Final Fantasy VII Remake below the split.

The first and easiest draw is that the name given to the Monkey by Patriarch Subodhi is Sun Wukong (孫悟空). The Sun (孫) itself comes from husun (猢猻), a word for a kind of monkey whose name comes from a noun for a foreign group. If you remove the animal radical, or dog radical, from 'sun' (猻), the monkey, you get 'Sun' (孫), the Monkey's surname. In this reading, the dog simply acts as a reference to one of the Monkey's names that wasn't drawn upon to give meaning in the 1997 release. The literal monkey is gone, but the dog has returned with all the meaning it gives. The Monkey has historically been used as both a symbol representative of the state's interests and a countercultural symbol of rebellion against that state in much of East Asia, and has even represented the interests of states in opposition.

Evidence towards this would be other occasions in which Cloud is now referred to with names, teases, and insults that call upon the Monkey's names and their meanings. Foremost that comes to mind would be Barret asking about Cloud's age and joking about Cloud being a one year old. Patriarch Subodhi gives Monkey the name "Sun" on page 115 of Volume 1 of Anthony C Yu's Revised Edition of Journey to the West, explaining,

If I drop the animal radical from this word, what we have left is the compound of zi and xi. Zi means a boy and xi means a baby, and that name exactly accords with the fundamental Doctrine of the Baby Boy. So your surname will be 'Sun.'

Hongmei Sun points out the importance of the "Doctrine of the Baby Boy" to Monkey's "multivalent" and "ambivalent" identity when she explains a reading of one of Monkey's most common self-referential titles on page 20 of her Transforming Monkey: Adaptation and Representation of a Chinese Epic:

The translation “Old Monkey” is a choice made based on the sacrifice of the other meanings of both sun and lao, and understandably so, owing to the lack of corresponding expressions in English. But without the meaning of “venerable” and “baby,” the nature of the oxymoron in the name is lost. “Old Monkey” can also mean “Old Baby” or “Venerable Monkey,” which reveal more of the ambivalent nature of the Monkey King.

Tying these readings together in Final Fantasy VII Remake and Rebirth is as simple as noting that Cloud is referred to and compared to in-text with "Stamp." "Stamp" is actually the fourth observational title given to Cloud by the members of Avalanche, with the first being "merc," the second being "real joy to look at," and the third being "true believer." This is excluding both his name, Cloud, and his status in SOLDIER, as those are a "true" name and status rather than merely observational. Barret directly addresses Cloud as Stamp when he asks Cloud, "Stamp scared to bite the hand that fed him? Or is he a loyal little doggy?"

Something I believe many readings of Final Fantasy VII Remake miss is this exact moment, forgetting that this isn't a coincidence - the text itself was created, not a coincidence being observed. Barret isn't just making a metaphor within the text that can be understood by its characters, but a metaphor that can be understood by the readers of the text. That this metaphor of a dog as the ambivalent symbol of both a bureaucracy and its people is addressed to a blonde protagonist bound by piercing headaches and undergoing an arc of rebellion against a corrupt bureaucracy ought to be compared to the context of precursors in East Asia. Within this context, it isn't hard to find a precursor-text that offers easy comparison and enhanced meaning: Wu Cheng’en's Xiyouji, the story of Sun Wukong, the rebellious and loyal monkey, the reluctantly true believer, pressed and willing bodyguard, and handsome and horrific figure.

Cloud shares the multivalence of Monkey in a way that defies singular interpretation, which is why I believe the best isolated interpretation is to "reduce" the text to a precursor poem. This opens the door to more focused interpretation through lenses that already exist, such as the "multivalence" of Monkey and Cloud. This, even more, demystifies elements of the text for which little progress has been made in accepted fan-interpretation, such as in the "parallel worlds" (as some fans have called them) easily being expression of common folk beliefs within Buddhism. This also allows the reader to bring mechanical elements into cohesion with their reading, such as with the materia being akin to sarira as displayed in the text.

[wits-writing]

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (Quick Review)

Director: Adam Wingard, Screenplay: Terry Rossio, Simon Barret, and Jeremy Slater

Resurrecting this inactive blog and copy pasting this from over on my Letterboxd because I need to spread the word about this movie as much as possible!

No Spoilers, fwiw:

Well...

This fucking owns!

Easily the best stuff from Godzilla vs Kong was Kong journey to discover more about himself and his connections to the Monsterverse's delightfully bonkers lore around The Hollow Earth. Positioning him as a member of an honorable line of warriors.

The New Empire effectively triples down on that by making Kong this movie's actual protagonist over any of the human characters (who are pretty fun to watch and play their support roles in this plot damn well.) The giant ape's story playing out as a quest for purpose within his new home in the Hollow Earth. One he discovers once he comes across other apes like him living under the tyrannical fist of the Skar King. Kong's challenge becomes figuring out how to get his rival Titan, Godzilla, on his side for the inevitable showdown with this new threat.

It's a highly fantastical tale, made better by the fact that this movie trusts the audience to follow along with it as plays out wordlessly. Only having the human characters directly commentate on it after the important actions have played out.

And all of this would be enough to leave me satisfied, but this movie actually has a fair amount of surprises up its sleeve that none of the marketing gave away.

So I'll just say, if you've been enjoying the Monsterverse up to this point, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is more than worth your time!