#final fantasy vii rant

[roeyliteratiforever]

"My impression of Cloud and Tifa relationship is that is based on guilt trip, projection and childish infatuation, mostly coming from Tifa."

I'm sorry when has Tifa ever guilt tripped Cloud?? She's been nothing but supportive to him. She's the sweetest girl she's never guilt tripped him at all. She has been worried about him because she knows his mental state is not well, but she has held his hand and helped him through it along the way.

What is Tifa projecting on to Cloud anyways?? She hasn't projected anything onto Cloud.

Childish infatuation?? Tifa has loved Cloud since she was a little girl, but grew up and still loved him and stood by his side despite all the obstacles and trauma her and Cloud both went through!

"This is why I don't like Tifa, because of how she treats Cloud and her jealousy issues when in reality...Cloud never was hers to begin with, so I don't see why she has this mindset that 'he promised to save me so he must still like me' which is false Tifa, in my opinion, needs to grow up and realize that Cloud isn't the only option."

Tifa treats Cloud wonderfully I don't know what game You've been playing, but she definitely does not treat him bad. It's normal for people to get jealous sometimes! Aerith gets jealous all the time and it's cute but when Tifa gets jealous it's not?? Cloud made a promise to her and she held that close to her heart as did Cloud! They both valued that promise because that was the moment they realized the both had deep feelings for each other.

I'm so over the Tifa hate! I love Tifa and Aerith both, and it's perfectly fine if you ship Clerith, but Tifa is an amazing character and y'all are just making stuff up at this point!

[withgreatpowercomesmyfuckingdick]

Imagine what it’s like being Lazard. Your top three employees according to fate are a 1) silver haired cat-man with three cycles of NPC dialogue he cycles through before he’s socially useless, who carries a sword longer than his body and is scarily proficient at his job and apparently nothing else 2) a fucking ginger (derogatory) obsessed with an old poem he recites regularly that’s our contextual equivalent of quoting Homer in day to day conversation, and is always cat fighting with the cat man because he can’t stand not being the center of attention, whose only redeeming quality is that he’s more conscious of keeping up public appearances and that’s only on the days he isn’t feeling Pyromaniacal and then 3) one singular semi-functional man that’s perpetually tired from mentoring others and babysitting his coworkers, who has such a rigid sense of honor that you could hit it with the Buster and it wouldn’t give. And that guy is probably depressed

Honestly it’s a miracle he didn’t snap before Crisis Core. Being the manager for that group would’ve put me in a fucking coma

[soggy-fishsticks]

hi guys long ff7 idea rant/ramble below

I've seen this idea mentioned in a few posts here-and-there lately, but I feel like people really gloss over the inherent horror aspect of post-Nibelheim Sephiroth's body just, , being a projection. He's still there, yeah, but his true body has long since been dissolved in and eaten away by the lifestream.

If you think about the lifestream like the burning, acid-esque way we think of mako in ff7, then imagine how incredibly horrific and excruciatingly painful Sephiroth's death must've been.

WE NEED MORE FF7 HORROR GUYS PLSSSSS 😭😭🙏🙏 Because think about it: the image of Sephiroth being burned and dissolved alive when he falls into the lifestream, his real body not actually existing anymore, his "body" being a form that- hypothetically- could take any form he wanted, etc. etc. etc.

Imagine aus where him coming back again, and again, and again, and again acts like a purgatory he can't escape, and he's the only person who's unable to realize he's in one. An au where, miraculously, his physical body DOES come back but it's wrong. His body is inhuman, his flesh and bones are still dissolving, and he's nothing more than a crazed, lost spirit that Jenova refuses to let find any peace.

And think about Genesis!!!!! I see SOOO many fics completely gloss over Genesis and it's like NOOOO IT'D MAKE EVERYTHING SO MUCH MORE TRAGIC AND INTERESTING PLEASE SHOW HIS REACTION TO SEPHIROTH RETURNING BACK FROM THE LIFESTREAM FOR THE NTH TIME 💔💔💔💔 ESPECIALLY when he doesn't come back the same!!!!

For a while I've been tempted to write about this kind of stuff myself, but it's hard to find the motivation to write and finish something 😞 Anyways that's my rant ok bye xoxo 💋

[theghostavocadoe]

GRIPS YOU ALL

LOZ IS NOT JUST SEPHIROTH'S STRENGTH HE IS ALSO SEPHIROTH'S SPIRIT WHICH IS WHY HE ACTS SO EMOTIONAL IT'S NOT BECAUSE HE'S BRAINDEAD

Yes the directors said that they had a "childish" and "dumb" approach with Loz BUT THAT WAS BECAUSE HE LIKES PLAYING AND MAKING JOKES NOT BECAUSE OF HIS EMOTIONS

i am BEGGING writers and artists alike to do more with this. I see people like "well which Remnant represents his happiness or good personality?" IT'S LOZ. IT'S LOZ. IT'S ALWAYS BEEN LOZ. STOP IGNORING HIM PLEEAAAASEEEE

[thebirdqueen]

All ff7 woman....get behind me. This fandom hates y'all too much

[aleeeeeeeeeeeeeeee]

I fucking HATE post-cc Sephiroth, I DESPISE him, I need him DEAD. I WOULD FIGHT THAT MF HAND TO HAND IF I HAD THE OPPORTUNITY I WON'T STOP UNTIL THAT PANTENE AD HAIR HE HAS DISAPPEARS AND LEAVES HIM WITH A HEAD AS SMOOTH AS THE ROCK'S

The only thing that's stopping me are his big gagazongas. Like. What was the need to have them all out like that. Why am I suddenly seeing this man in ways I never thought I would.

Am I a homosexual?

[protemporescitor]

"Um Ackchyually…"

Rant incoming. Gird your loins.

It's like every time Cloud does anything even remotely cool-looking, someone in the fandom will invariably go "um achshyelly he can't be doing kewl stuff because you see he's actually a massive dweeb and…"

Every goddamn time, like clockwork. I swear, it's become a kind of mass neurosis for the fandom at this point.

I'm sorry, but "Oh he's just some try-hard dweeb" is such a paltry reading of this character, one that only furthers my belief that this fandom is mentally unequipped to parse any real kind of psychological complexity.

Yes, he can be unsubtle, envious, socially awkward, even dorky at times. That's part of the character's appeal. His extremely human frailties in that regard are what make him such an endearing and interesting (dare I say relatable?) character. He's also the man who ended the world's greatest soldier, so what does that say about his critics, the fans who believe he's just some feckless dork while ignoring that side of him entirely?

Now, lest you think I'm just headcanoning the character this way and talking nonsense, here's a quote from Yoshinori Kitase himself: "He isn't a straightforward hero like Superman; rather, he has lots of mysteries, self-doubts, and a real dark side."

What truly grinds my gears is the smug, gratingly knowing insinuation that portraying Cloud as a badass is somehow "wrong", or naïve characterization at best. and that only works which portray him some other way (awkward, goofy, insecure, etc…) are showing you the "real" character. And that, to me, is just nonsense.

Here's another example:

Same character, two different aesthetics, with different traits being emphasized. Both depictions are considered canon.

So the real question is, why does it have to be one or the other? Why is it so hard for people to reconcile the two?

I sometimes think we're in need of two separate fandoms, one for fans who want to Cloud continue to grow and develop as a character (like me), and the fans who just want him to remain the same awkward, insecure boy forever, i.e. people who prefer cartoon FFVII, and those who care about mythology and prefer to look at the story as a kind of bildungsroman. In any case, there's a reason why I keep underlining the darker, more feral side of this character, even to the point of over-emphasis, because it's at risk of falling prey to a fandom pseudo-narrative that simply rings hollow. Remember, his proper animal motif is that of a wolf, and that "cloud", as a verb, means "to darken, to obscure".

(Not just any wolf, by the way. The wolf.)

Lastly, I get the distinct feeling that we don't mean the same thing by "cool". Presumably, by "cool", some of you mean "cold and uncaring", which he is not. (Or possibly suave, depending on your definition.) The other is more a question of aesthetic cool on the one hand and valour on the other, both of which he possesses in spades. Cloud keeps taking on fights he shouldn't win, and yet often comes out on top, anyway, usually while pulling one insanely cool-looking stunt or another (e.g. the Shinra building escape, or putting a stop to Sephiroth's plans even without SOLDIER enhancements.)

It doesn't matter how much dorky nonsense the world tries to put him through; he'll always remain effortlessly cool in that regard.

While I've got your attention, I want to bring up one more thing related to mischaracterization (or rather, misperception): Aerith's temperament in Advent Children, specifically the idea that she's lost her original characterization and is just being depicted as some simplistic, incorruptible pure pureness (tm) messiah figure. Again, I don't think that's right. (It might be true for Kingdom Hearts, but tbh I never cared much for that series, so I'll refrain from further comment.) It's a long-running bit of accepted wisdom which, as far as I can tell, has no basis in reality.

The truth is, Advent Children's brief running time means there isn't a whole lot of opportunity for Square to focus on character building, but I contend that both Cloud and Aerith's original characterization is intact, just handled in a more subtle way. Note her comportment in scenes like the one above. She still evinces the same kind of playfulness as she did when she was among the living. For example, when Cloud tells her that he wants to be forgiven, her reaction is to ask "By whom?" in her usual, cheeky manner. She's still subtly poking fun at Cloud's tendency to take himself too seriously, while hinting at the fact that she doesn't blame him for her death. Or later, when she tells Zack "I don't want a kid that big!" She's still very much cracking wise, even in the Lifestream.

If she comes across as more ethereal than she did in the original story, well, that's because she is. Given that she's now in the afterlife, being that scrappy, streetwise flower girl from the slums is obviously less of a concern for her, at least as far as actual, physical scraps are concerned. But it's clear that her original personality is very much intact.

The same is true of Cloud and fans who grouse that he's being "emo"* in Advent Children, which is equally false. (*Lord help me but I detest that word. Being emo is when you're moping about listening to MCR after your girlfriend broke up with you, not dealing with the shattered pieces of your life and mourning the deaths of two of your closest friends. To call that "emo" is insulting to the character and narrative alike. In fact, it's an insult to language itself. If you care about good writing at all, I implore you to let this dreary, monosyllabic pustule of a word wither away and die in favour of more literate, meaningful descriptors.) He might be far more world-weary and disillusioned at this stage, but he still show various shades of mood (gentle, furious, defiant, haughty, protective, uncertain, disdainful, imperious, even cocky, much like OG FFVII):

Lastly, griping about this also denies character development and growth commensurate with where both of them are at this point in the story. During the events of the original FFVII, Cloud is still boyish and uncertain much of the time, whereas by the time Advent Children rolls around, he is older and tempered by experience. The same goes for Aerith. Same essential character, just acting according to her newfound circumstances.

I think that's it for now. I leave this rant here in the vain hope that somebody has something more interesting to say than "lawl emo chocobo-head boi!!!" for the millionth time.

I won't hold my breath, but it would be nice to be proven wrong for a change.

[justyouraveragerpgfan]

Ok, what in the AI is this????

If you look closely, Masamune looks off, the belts look wrong, there are buckles in places there shouldn't be, Sephiroth's sleeves are too loose, etc.

Dear MTG and Square, if you want to make money off of artwork, please use artwork drawn by PEOPLE, not an amalgamation of STOLEN artwork generated by a COMPUTER PROGRAM. And especially don't credit an artist (name in the bottom left corner) for something a computer program made. And why the fuck would y'all, these huge, multi-million dollar companies, feel the need to use AI instead of HIRING ARTISTS. It's beyond me.

I am VERY pissed off, how do you screw up one of the most FAMOUS SCENES IN GAMING???

I'll just stick to collecting Pokémon cards, they never use AI for those.

[tifa-simp]

Why does every word speak for Tifa?

Tifa's signs of trauma are scattered throughout the game, some are obvious, some are subtle, but they all realistic reactions to all the things that have happened to her. Tifa is strong, yes, but she's also scared and confused. There are so much she still needs to learn and grow. And hopefully part 3 will do her character journey justice.

[ilminnestrone]

Can we stop using any excuse to ruin other people's fandom experience because they dared to joke (and I repeat, joke) about a theory (and I repeat, theory) that we don't like?

Can we stop using a purism and orthodoxy worthy of a theocracy to be unapproachable fucking gatekeepers, convinced that we are the bearers of the one and only true way and that everyone else is a bunch of idiots who clearly have absolutely no understanding of the media they are fans of?

Can we stop treating our interests as museum pieces to be kept under glass, and setting off alarms every time someone tries to interact with them in a light, spontaneous, fun way?

What the fuck is the point of engaging with fan communities if you are so comfortable all by yourselves, locked up in your bedrooms wanking, in the perfect belief that the characters you love are your exclusive property?

And yes (yes, YES), I am referring especially to Vincent's fans, who are so toxic that they made me walk away from one of my favourite characters. When they were handing out kindness and a sense of humour, you were standing in line for self-entitlement.

[eschercaine]

Seeing young Sephiroth in Ever Crisis and young Aerith in Remake got my brain working up.

What if, you know, the two of them met when they were young? They are close with each other before Aerith and her mother flee Shinra. (Thanks for this wonderful fanart. Love this! ❤️) But she and Sephiroth promised that they would see each other again.

Sephiroth and Aerith met again during the events of Crisis Core. And instead of Zack (Sorry, man.), Sephiroth became her lover. Maybe in this scenario, he didn’t go mad after learning the truth of his existence but he was struggling with himself.

The only bad guys here are probably Shinra corporation for experimenting on people and draining the planet.

...Ah, what a good fanfic it would be. 🥲

[roeyliteratiforever]

(Rebirth Spoilers) I am so tired of shippers in the fandom trying to cheapen Cloud and Tifa's kiss, and say "Cloud only kissed Tifa because he was rebounding." Rebounding from what?! Cloud has known Tifa almost his whole life and has had feelings for her for such a long time at this point! He knew Aerith for what a couple of weeks?! I'm not saying that Cloud and Aerith don't have a cute bond, but I'm tired of people trying to to cheapen Cloud's feelings for Tifa or acting like she is some rebound. If she was such a rebound for him why didn't he kiss Aerith?? Someone was trying to tell me that the almost kiss between Cloud and Tifa in Gongaga was also him rebounding "because he was so hurt because he though Aerith still has feelings for Zack" (which yes she does she will always love Zack but that's not the point) Cloud and Tifa had a moment in Gongaga after he thought he nearly lost her and stayed up all night watching over her to make sure she was okay and then they have a heart to heart where Cloud opens up to her and gets vulnerable for the first time ever with anyone! Cloud has never opened up his feelings to anyone else, and in that moment he wanted to kiss Tifa because that's how he felt not because he was rebounding! Look it's fine if you ship Clerith that's valid, but it's so annoying when shippers try to gaslight us into thinking Cloud doesn't really have feelings for Tifa or she is just a rebound when clearly that is not true! Cloud kissed Tifa because he loves her and always has! If you really think Cloud is the type of person to use someone that has always loved him like that then I really don't understand why you would want him with Aerith anyways.

[withgreatpowercomesmyfuckingdick]

something that’s always going to take me out about the ff7 fandom is that you WILL tag sephiroth on the post. doesn’t matter what the post is about. sephiroth is tagged. is he even in the room with us? no, but he’s in the tags, and it’s absolutely hilarious

[sephirthoughts]

Unpopular opinion ask game: 💛

(from this ask game)

💛: What is a popular ship you just can't get behind, and why?

Oh there are ever so many. i usually keep my mouth shut because i don't want to yuck anyone's yums or draw aggro from crusaders, but this is an unpopular opinion game sooooo

WARNING: UNFILTERED OPINIONS UNDER THE CUT

The one that i think burns my ass the worst is Cloud/Tifa, mostly because the game and fandom tries so hard to shove it down our throats. In the FF7 games, there is this blatant assumption all through the narrative that "of course the player is into this girl" which instantly makes me rebel against anything in any game, especially when it's heteronormative bullshit.

cyberpunk was the worst, when they tried to force me to like that leatherfaced blow-up-doll panam, who was so egregiously written by misogynist cismales, that i nearly quit the game. the grossly overt assumption the game made that i the (obviously cishet male) player would automatically be into her led to me abandoning her dirt nomad questline and never going back. i checked later, they just stand around in the desert waiting forever if you don't go back.

the problem with tifa is very similar. hetshippers always like to try and carve out a moral highground for their "canon" ship, by acting like it's misogynist not to like the female love interest in a game. i have news for you, babes, i don't have to eat garbage just because it's labeled organic.

a female character designed and written in a lazy, misogynist way is the same. consuming that fictional relationship uncritically is not something i am required to do, nor will i. the women in final fantasy games, for the most part, are badly written, terribly designed artifacts of a time when women were just objects and that was ok to say out loud. they're hardly even trying to hide it, now, but at least they are a little.

my theory on tifa's design is that the otaku devs had never seen a girl irl and when they tried to make one, what they came up with was a pair of massive tits and the personality of a wad of dryer lint. then they gave her some tossed together martial arts to justify why she's following cloud around taking up a party slot, instead of staying at home minding the children and elderly like a good girl.

also the business with her and aerith seeming to get catty and jealous over cloud several times (which they mercifully cut from remake) is such revoltingly juvenile and misogynist writing, it's almost funny. almost.

honestly the whole romance they are pushing between cloud and tifa is revoltingly juvenile and misogynist, since she's a personality-free prize for the male hero, not to mention homophobic, since it primarily seems to function as a beard, so sephiroth and cloud don't seem too gay (MISSION FAILED).

Cloud Strife is a character with whom i deeply connected and fully inhabited, and he is not a heterosexual neurotypical male in any way whatsoever. and yet i'm supposed to like seeing him shoved into the blandest wish-fulfillment, 'winning the titted-up tomboy hometown girl as a prize for being awesome' fantasy that some chuuni would've written in the back of their school notebook when they were 11. please.

examined fully, there's literally no reason for the pair to be romantically interested in one another, outside the pervasive and poisonous heterosumption of boy+girl=love. and i know what people are going to say about them being friends, but she doesn't like him. she never does. she likes the idea of the person she thinks he should be, and persistently tries to force him to become, throughout the series. she thinks the way he is needs to be fixed, because he's wrong somehow. we can still see it happening in advent children.

that's fine though, because he doesn't like her, either. he kind of remembers her from the past. that's all. he does not have the capacity to form that kind of attachment, when they first reconnect, and by the time he could form a meaningful connection with someone (circa advent children), he's already been fully railroaded into the domesticated role everyone has decided he's supposed to be in, and she is reduced to a nagging wife, by the writers. he is very clearly unhappy, and it's not because of sephiroth.

last but not least, is the lack of any kind of romantic tension between them. there is more chemistry between cloud and biggs, than cloud and tifa. hell there's more chemistry between cloud and those alley cats. it's very clearly a manufactured relationship for the sake of gratifying the decreasingly cishetmale player base of yesteryear.

in conclusion, cloud x tifa is the cold oatmeal of ships and i just want to spit it out yack

[buffaloborgine]

Before reading, I want to emphasize, I don't hate Sephiroth as a character, I hate how some people dismiss all of his heinous acts and cling to "He is a victim" and shove the tragedy he caused onto other characters. About that one post about Sephiroth and someone replying to it, let me be clear: I don't deny Sephiroth was a victim. Like many, he was the victim of Shinra and Hojo, that's undeniable. But to write like he is a good person and all the bad things he did were influenced by his upbringing? NO. Sephiroth is selfish, and no matter what you try to bend the narrative to fit your imagination, it is a fact. When the theme of FFVII is about "imagination/illusion", if we use the structure of protagonist vs antagonist, Cloud is the one that was affected by the illusion but he accepted help from others and got over it. Sephiroth would simply be the reversed version of that, he wasn't even illusioned, he knew for sure what he is but deciding that it was better for him if everyone else, and even himself stayed in that illusion forever. Sephiroth wasn't the only character to be affected by Shinra's evilness, but then let's take a look at those who also were affected: - Zack once learned and accepted that Shinra is evil had started running away with Cloud. - Angeal and Genesis don't share the same reaction but eventually once accepted the truth, they both rebelled against Shinra (also Lazard). - The Turks and Rufus are easy to see, I don't need to explain. - The massacred 1st SOLDIER unit mentioned in Dirge of Cerberus, fighting against the creation of inhuman Deepground facility. - Deepground themselves, they know what they are and they fought against Shinra, knowing they would even die if they do. So many would say, but Sephiroth does disobey Shinra and that he wanted to leave Shinra. Vetoing orders onto co-workers' heads doesn't seem to be a good way to protest, rather that's just push the responsibility onto others. And about "wanting to leave Shinra", as far as I remember, Sephiroth just said he would consider the idea, not that he would ever leave, and even till the event of Nibelheim, he didn't leave Shinra, not at all. So let's put this together, should we just see Sephiroth as a victim and say he isn't accounted for other tragedy happened in FFVII? Personally? Of course not. There are other victims and they fought back their abuser in different ways, maybe causing mayhem on the route but they still fought for their freedom. Sephiroth has never once given a single thought for others, and he was comfortable staying in Shinra, after all, he got the privilege for 1st Class, can veto orders and get admired by other SOLDIERs. To debunk people who claim that Sephiroth was thoughtful about Genesis' injury: Who was the one causing that mess in the first place? And even when you look at the cutscene, it was less of caring thought but more of "Why I am inadequate for this?" If he was sincere, he would have gone to check on Genesis later, but nope, he assumed Genesis was fine, like really, what kind of friend is that? No fucking friend would just assume friend is fine knowing they are hurt, no fucking friend would just condemn friends as traitor while not knowing the reason why they leave, and no fucking friend would keep their friends in the dark while knowing they are being tricked, abused. In conclusion, please stop saying Sephiroth is a good friend to anyone. If he cannot earn Zack's forgiveness, he is a prick, but if even Weiss stood against him (in DFFOO), consider he surely won't get any redemption.

[hooty09]

One-Winged Angel Analysis

Okay so Sephiroth’s theme..! I was looking at the English translations and found some interesting stuff. The first set of lyrics, which are usually “Estuans Interius, Ira Vehementi,” translate to “Burning inside, with violent anger.” This translates to Sephiroth’s true feelings towards humanity itself, despite many people’s mischaracterization of him being a teasing and “hopeless romantic” for Cloud. Really, the way he behaves towards Cloud comes from a spot of hatred and anger in his heart for just how easily Cloud was able to sneak up on him and impale his torso with the buster sword. Depending on the version of FF7, Sephiroth was either thrown into the life stream below the Mt. Nibel reactor, or he jump in himself. Sephiroth’s consciousness was only able to survive in the life stream without being absorbed because of the Jenova cells flowing inside him, and his status as an “unnatural life form” due to the super human abilities of the mako (mixed with Jenova cells. Normal SOLDIERS, who are also infused with Mako, are able to be absorbed by the life stream). The many times you actually see Sephiroth in game are actually just clones of him using parts of Jenova’s body, while his true body is in the North Crater. This all ties to the “Ne me mori facias” lyric, which translates to “do not let me die.” Sephiroth cheated death and was able to rise to the strength of a god, and his desperate hold on immortality is shown in this lyric. The next new words, “Gloriosa” and “Generosa” mean Glorious and Noble. This ties to Sephiroth’s belief that his actions are “good,” due to what humanity did to Jenova. Tying everything together is his main goal in FF7, which is to summon meteor and make a rift in the life stream, where the essence will clot up. Sephiroth will be in the center of the wound, absorbing the lifestream essence and becoming a god. With this, Sephiroth would be the last (known) living being in existence, which is the empty fate he refers to. All in all, while Sephiroth’s true theme would actually be “Those Chosen by the Planet,” his battle theme “One-Winged Angel” puts so much more depth into his character to study. One-Winged Angel focuses on Sephiroth’s fall from grace, and his idea of fate. In the new FF7 remake trilogy, fate is emphasized as the main idea of the games, and this ties in with Sephiroth’s character (as well as other characters) so much more. I made the gif below myself btw. THE END!!!