#man idk anymore im still in mourning i just want to scream about anything im really not doing okay

[freckledbastard]

i guess if i had to sum up my feelings on ffvii rebirth, it would be like this: for the most part the game was incredible, but the way side quests were tied to affection points actively discourages players from completing any said side quests until after the gold saucer date scene had played out.

BIG SPOILERS FOR REBIRTH ENDING (warning: this gets rambly the way my posts always do - oh god its so long)

a bigger thing is of course, what everyone is talking about: the ending. they were so desperate to do a will they-wont they with aerith's death and in the end the answer to 'is aerith going to die' was... kinda.

i couldnt quite tell you what actually happened, but this is my current understanding. cloud simultaneously saves/fails to save aerith, which two timelines crashing into each other at the same time? or at the very least, the timeline cloud could see (where he manages to save aerith) is NOT the same as everyone else (who are experiencing the timeline where aerith dies) which is annoying, because it means we don't get to see the classic scene of cloud slowly lowering aerith's body into the lifestream EVEN THOUGH THATS SUCH A CLASSIC FFVII MOMENT.

but it also kind of funny, because everyone else is crying and cloud is just... so chill. and he warns everyone not to look up at the sky (where it's cracking due to timeline shenanigans) and then when they look up and see nothing clouds like EXACTLY. its an illusion and dont trust it. and spirit!aerith is going around and saying her goodbyes to everyone, not that they can see her, and cloud is still chilling because i guess to him, she's just staying back to focus on her praying? while everyone else is actively mourning her.

sephiroth's manipulations of cloud in this game sure was something as well. my man was going out of his WAY to gaslight/mentally traumatise cloud good lord. sephiroth reminded me a bit of godzilla from minus one because everytime cloud experienced any sort of happiness sephiroth was there to either actively fuck things up or to stand there menacingly and tell cloud to enjoy being happy while he can

also poor tifa good lord my girl is going through it. when cloud is like i remember zack omg shes like oh?? and clouds like yeah i let him be washed away in the river in nibelheim :'( and you can SEE her thinking 'no!!!!!! no!!!!! cloud that's not right at all!!!!!!!'

the thing with her in the lifestream though.... that was odd. and kinda felt unnecessary and like it was there to add some sort of plot related to the overall story - since otherwise the plot is very hmmm what should we do next.... just like og 1997 version.

idk, the whole timeline thing is weird. ALSO the fact that in the zack timeline, nanaki gives his life to try and save aerith and zack just goes thank you and runs off with aerith when i tell you i was screaming at the tv like ZACK NANAKI ISNT DEAD YET like i get after all the trauma he'd gone through he didn't want anything to happen to aerith and was even willing to dump clouds comatose body into kyries arms (who he didn't know) to run after aerith - which btw already made me sad like i get it!!! i get it!!!!!!! i too would singlehandedly devote everything to saving aerith but as a cloud and nanaki lover i was v sad!!!! anyway then when they kept shifting from the actual story to the zack cutscenes i was like im sorry zack but i dont actually care that much about this side plot i want to get back to cloud.

going back to the ending, i laughed a little when in the fight against sephiroth hes trying to manipulate cloud again but clouds like nuh uh thats not gonna work on me anymore!!!!! and then the ending cutscene shows cloud discovering he has the black materia on him, him saying 'reunion...' and then combining the black materia into his blade and knowing exactly where sephiroth is and its definitely due to SOLDIER intuition and nothing more i swear guys. cloud im so sorry you're definitely still being puppeted. also also i saw the japanese version of the scene where sephiroth first calls cloud a puppet and the build up is sepiroth saying that cloud doesnt actually experience emotions and he's deluding himself if he thinks they're real and in english he says 'for you're nothing more than a puppet. MY puppet' which is already fantastic, but in the japanese version instead hes like 'how cute, my empty puppet' which is even BETTER. please call cloud kawaii again sephiroth we love toxic yaoi in this household.

genesis wasnt in the game which im genuinely disappointed about. since crisis core reunion was remastered and theres a scene in the gacha game where sephiroth is trying to call genesis i thought there was high chance of him in the game. CLOUD THINKS HES DEGRADING (hes definitely not) AND THERE WAS NO GENESIS. no way hes not in the next game theres not a chance he's not. please i need cloud and genesis to look at each other and say lines please squeenix im begging you let my rare pair be vindicated in some way

speaking of rare pairs, vincent and cloud. they looked at each other and talked which basically means they're canon. vincents waist is SO tiny i was shooketh and then i saw how broad his shoulders were and I WAS SHOOKETH AGAIN actual dorito man.... hes so edgy in this game i was laughing at him so hard, shadow the hedgehog ass. when he gets on the plane and is like im joining you and clouds like 'if you betray us you're dead' i was thinking cloud sweetie im so sorry but if anyone is doing the betraying (unintentional or otherwise) its you

uhhhhhh what else. i went with nanaki for my gold saucer date which was v cute. cloud and nanaki had a handshake and cloud was like oh.. they ARE soft.... in relation to his paws which so soooo cuteeee. my team was cloud yuffie and nanaki. it'll be tough when part 3 comes out, because cloud and vincent are 100% permanent, but idk who will be the third person....

also is sephiroth trying to become the ruler of all the differ- wait sorry pivot, i just remembered zack and cloud fighting together against sephiroth, which is pretty funny because cloud still doesn't actually remember who zack is, not really. to him they're friends yeah, but friends because they were both in SOLDIER and cloud was unable to save him from being swept away from the river. meanwhile to zack, cloud is his dear friend but a friend he managed to save at the end of crisis core and is confused as to how biggs knows him. sephiroth is the ONLY one who actually knows what the hell is going on but hes sure as hell not saying anything because anything that makes cloud more susceptible to being sephiroth's is a win in his book ANYWAY sephiroth trying to take over all the different timelines? i guess?

ALSO ROCHE. theres NO WAY roche would have volunteered to be hojo's test subject like that theres literally no way. my personal theory is that sephiroth saw that cloud was experiencing positive emotions when he was with roche and his possessiveness flared up and he used the jenova cells in roche's body to basically make him volunteer to be hojos lab rat. anyway rip roche's mind, hes gone from us another one lost to the reunion i was so sad i loved roche i thought he was a lotta fun and a great new character, but of course that wasnt meant to be

im sure there are other things i wanted to say but im drawing a blank.

i did actually really really enjoy the game! i thought it was amazing, the combat was super fun i enjoyed the exploring (although as much as i like chadley i wish hed stop asking about the protorelics), the voice acting was incredible for the most part the story was really really good. i would HIGHLY recommend this game, even if you're not a big ffvii fan its so incredibly made and clearly made with a lot of love

my only real caveats are again, side quests being tied to the affection meter and them trying super hard to will they wont they with aeriths death to the point that they technically didnt commit either way

[amarillokidding]

So like... Since when does calling someone a girlboss go from it being a random fictional female character minding her own business to an irl female serial killer and still be used in the same way............................................. Like.... I didnt really like the Amazon prime Cinderella movie but she really was minding her own business and yeah they were going for a female empowerment thing but why did movie commentators I watch keep calling it a girlboss movie. Sometimes woman are just like that. Sometimes woman are just horrendously cringey. Why are female characters who are assholes called girlbosses as well when they refuse to be "nice" but still called that in a mocking way :/ why are fucked up irl woman called that as well. Idk it just all feels weird to me. I really don't like it.

It also gets jumbled up with the gaslight gatekeep girlboss meme (I also dont like it) and then everyone's calling any female character that does something for herself a "girlboss". And if she lied to someone its gaslighting now and if she's mean shes gatekeeping. Like.. The dilution of gaslighting is a whole thing as well. It just all feels like ppl are trying to create terms for ppl and its something ive seen happen So much recently .like the "pick me girl" thing.

It just essentially means a "not like other girls" but shorter and acting like its not literally just the same thing. This one hits me a little bc I know I've been one of the "im not like other girls" girl before when I was in middle school. I thought I was different and later on I realized that every girl is also different and I just wanted to be cool and it happens to so many girls as well and maybe I have a soft spot for girls that feel that way but "pick me" feels like a reinvention of that to make fun of girls who are like that that do grow out of it but its harsher bc its ppl making fun of them for wanting to be cool like. Who cares >:( as if they're also not being fed the idea that being like other girls is bad now being unlike them is bad too. Dont ppl have better things to do than making fun of girls figuring out what the hell is going on.

Girlboss Pick Me That Girl its all just annoying terms meant for mocking woman all over again. And female characters I like are getting their tags CLOGGED with stupid and annoying memes that only say the same unoriginal stupid shit over and over and over again.

I dont wanna sound angry or accusatory to any of my friends bc I know many ppl even myself have used girlboss but I thought it was like a jokey thing in the beginning but I really feel like its gotten out of hand and no one online knows what theyre doing anymore.