#spoiler alert: Sephiroth is in it

[moon-and-stars-selfship]

ALRIGHT EVERYONE BATTEN DOWN THE HATCHES, FORECAST SAYS THERE'S A GAY WARNING IN THE AREA UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE AND I'M ABOUT TO DROP SOME GAY CONTENT.

[j0ht0-gh0sthunt3r]

Hey, have you ever been to Hisui

Ive been to Sinnoh a few times, yeah. but they dont call it Hisui anymore, anon.

[holly-fixation]

Spoiler alert for crisis core reunion I guess because it's first thing in the morning and I'm excited but I should be doing work

Here's just a little side by side comparison of Reunion's and Crisis Core's Mother dearest 💙🖤💙🖤💙

I'm not gonna say any theories yet but it really does look like they shoved her entire head in a helmet.

[rosy-crow]

Yeah, after watching the teaser, I’m really starting to think Square is doing the Arcane thing.

I’ve been talking about it with @altocat for a while now, and I feel like it’s starting to get real. So, this is just gonna be my final theory for the story until proven otherwise.

Spoilers for Arcane: League of Legends, but for anyone that doesn’t know, basically Arcane adapted LOL and developed one of their most iconic villains, Jinx, into a very well-written character with a story that showed you exactly who she was and why she eventually lost her mind. Before this show, she was probably about as developed as Seph was in the OG.

Even though Jinx is more flamboyant and emotionally chaotic, she and Seph are weirdly similar villains from what I’ve seen. Seph reminds me a LOT of Jinx and vice-versa. I’ve even drawn them together and compared their designs—it’s funny how mad villains in video games tend to have key similar design points, even down to hair-styles and clothing, but I’ll save that for another post lol.

Anyway, from the FS teaser it looks like we have a big climax in that ultimately leads to this scene with Seph and Rosen, who have been set up to be mirrors of each other.

All I know is that the trailer showed Rosen telling Seph to make a choice about which life he wanted to save (Japanese version made this a bit clearer), and the other lives in danger are Team Glenn. Seph is gonna have to choose between them, and….well, since we know Team Glenn lives….uhh…and also….

Rosen’s dog is trying to alert the others of something. Seph made a choice or did SOMETHING, and I thiiiink it’s gonna result in Rosen’s death. Whether it was intentional or an accident, we don’t know, but it’s clear this is when sane Seph when was still good and caring, even if a little psychologically stunted and conditioned because of Shinra. He’s been consistently this way throughout the First Soldier and doesn’t change until Nibelheim.

But I get the feeling everything went wrong with Rosen. That’s why Glenn is at odds with Seph years later.

This is also why we’re getting Arcane vibes. If it’s a misunderstanding or rift caused by Seph’s intentions to save his friends…well, that’s very familiar to this notorious Arcane scene:

Basically, Jinx…or Powder, as she’s known here, makes a drastic decision to save her friends and sister from genuine danger. However, her own talents are her worst enemy, and she causes twice as much destruction as the enemies her friends were struggling with. Almost everyone ends up dead, except for Powder’s sister. It was a horrific mistake and creates a massive rift between Powder and Vi (that’s the sister).

Vi also cements the idea in Powder’s mind that she’s a “jinx” or a curse of sorts. A complex that Powder had already been struggling with, and one she later embraces as her persona.

Glenn and young Sephiroth have been established to have a bit of a brotherly relationship so far, with Glenn being the down-to-earth and honest older source of influence. There was also the whole arc between these two revolving around Glenn initially calling Sephiroth a “cyborg” as an insult to say the kid was modified and different, not a “normal human.” This lowkey came off like a deliberate reference to Sephiroth’s later meltdown over not being human, yeah?

So you guys see what I mean, the themes here are similar to Arcane and Jinx’s psychology. If Seph makes some fatal mistake or a bad choice to save his team, and they walk in on this? Or get the wrong idea? Yeah, it’s gonna turn what was supposed to be an act of heroism into something much worse. It’s also gonna be the perfect reference to Seph’s later big moment in canon…errr, Nibelheim itself, where he just embraces inhumanity and finally goes berserk against everyone’s expectations, traumatizing the main protagonist and his eventual rival in the process.

Again, the theme of “tragic mistake paralleling or foreshadowing a villain’s first deliberate act of cruelty and evil” would be VERY similar to what happens with Jinx in Arcane.

I’m not saying SE is doing this on purpose, really, but the shared themes of identity collapse and “monsters you created” between Arcane and FF7’s main “mad villains” are interesting. Their stories obviously will play out differently, but it wouldn’t surprise me if The First Soldier ultimately culminates in a life-altering decision that Sephiroth makes, one that does NOT end well and births that conflict between him and Glenn.

That’s my theory for now. These teasers are convincing me more and more. We’ll see.

[pen-and-umbra]

do u think sephiroths redemption arc is possible?

(Spoilers & wall of text alert)

Sure, why not, anything is possible. Currently, only two things are certain. One, despite fan backlash, Square Enix continues to take creative liberties. Second, regardless of what SE does, some fans will be upset.

For better or worse, SE's handling of the Remake in this regard leaves plenty of room for a 180-degree turn on Sephiroth's case. The character's portrayal has steadily shifted since the original, which appears to have served the purpose of painting him in a sympathetic light. It begs a question: to what end? Crisis Core, Ever Crisis, and FFVII Rebirth all depict Sephiroth as a decent person, with Rebirth showing him influenced by Jenova during the Nibelheim massacre (as discussed here). Here hardcore fans like to bring up old Ultimania publications, citing that Sephiroth's will overpowers that of Jenova after falling into the Lifestream and learning everything there is to know about the Meteor/Cetra/Jenova. While how SE handles that episode in the Remake remains to be seen, it's worth noting that official lore is neither immutable nor free of contradictions on a variety of details, including seemingly important plot beats like romantic lines. Additionally, certain details diverge over the course of compilation. As a result, we've already seen SE absolve AVALANCHE as an eco-terrorist organization by shifting the blame to ShinRA in the remake. They've made changes to Rufus and President ShinRA's plotlines. We've seen them make extremely bold decisions regarding Gold Saucer that were unthinkable in the OG. Furthermore, the inclusion of the Whispers and the theme of "Changing the Fate" demonstrate SE's willingness to take drastic and controversial steps, sometimes diverging significantly from the original material. The point is, developers' previous statements aren't set in stone and are subject to change as FFVII project grows.

As previously stated, SE left some space for a turn, most likely on purpose, if they decide to take a risk. The Rebirth already explores the idea of Sephiroth as little more than a passenger after leaving the mansion. In addition, the entries on Jenova monsters we fight in parts one and two sufficiently expand on the scope of Jenova's mind-interfering abilities, which may allude to Jenova's larger role in the Remake. When combined with the Temple of Ancients hologram and snippets from Gast's journal Sephiroth quotes, it could indicate that Jenova has been "awake" and out of slumber since its discovery at the dig site, potentially manipulating Gast and the team behind the Jenova Project.

Therefore, the groundwork for introducing a villain more significant than Sephiroth may already be in place. Shifting the focus away from him and toward an eldritch cosmic terror should suffice, as the ambiguity about who is in control has already existed since the original script. The Nibelheim sequence from Rebirth played a role in this, as did the infamous ore/watashi pronoun switch. And despite appearing to be totally distinct, the outcomes of Sephiroth's goals (consume Lifestream and travel to a new Planet to be god) eerily mirror those of Jenova (consume Lifestream and travel to a new Planet, presumably to once again consume it's Lifestream, rinse/repeat). Incidentally, in the Temple of Ancients, there is a hologram suggesting a connection between Jenova and The Goddess from LOVELESS, so one has to wonder just who Sephiroth is taking after with that "to become god" complex of his.

Another thing to consider is that throughout the compilation, traditional methods of defeating Jenovaroth simply did not work. Sephiroth/Jenova returned after their defeat in OG, and if you consider the Remake to be a sort of sequel (that is, if you subscribe to the Remake!Sephiroth=AC! Sephiroth theory), Jenovaroth returns after Advent Children as well. Battling him does not appear to yield results or break the "rebirth" cycle, so perhaps a different approach is required. (This ties in thematically with the tagline "defying destiny").

Redemption arcs are often perceived as leading to a "happily ever after," but they can take various forms beyond this common expectation. A character's redemption can involve self-sacrifice to overcome evil, collaborating with the protagonist to bring about change, and more. Combined with the previous remark about the futility of conventional fighting methods, perhaps the way to defeat Sephiroth/Jenova for good is somehow linked to his redemption of sorts. To break the parasitic bond between the two, or to quench and release the spirit's anger. In some ways, this is what Aerith does to Kadaj in Advent Children, and the latter's "essence", cleansed by Aerith's Great Gospel trick, rejoins the Lifestream. Equally, the Gi subplot somewhat parallels the Jenova/Sephiroth situation, so SE is likely to implement a comparable strategy for a secondary plotline.

Speaking about the latest material in the compilation, Ever Crisis quite poignantly brings up the topic of breaking the cycle of hatred.

The latter pertains both Cloud & party (hatred toward Sephiroth, ShinRA), and Sephiroth himself in as much as OG painted him (hatred towards humanity for eradicating the Cetra and more). So perhaps the key to saving the world of FFVII is about showing compassion and acting out of mercy, not out of revenge.

Anyway, it is entirely speculative at this point.

Overall, a different role for Sephiroth should not be dismissed as a possibility as certain elements in the game suggest a potential twist related to Jenova. SE have proven that they care about their creative vision far more than about criticisms, so…no promises at the journey's end. Naturally, some groups of fans may strongly oppose SE if Sephiroth is sidelined or if significant alterations are made. On the other hand, there has been growing dissatisfaction since the first part of the Remake with Sephiroth being shoehorned as a boss fight so frequently that he becomes redundant as a "final big bad". While both perspectives are reasonable and offer valid insights into the situation, someone will still be outraged no matter what SE does.

From a personal standpoint, I maintain an open-minded approach. If Sephiroth remains a villain, that's fine. If he is revealed to have been Jenova's puppet all along, my world will not collapse. On the plus side, I'm excited to see Jenova play a bigger role. The entity is as fascinating as The Thing from the film, and the original failed to capitalize on all of its creepy potential. At the end of the day, it may be the case of familiarity breeding ambivalence: the game has gotten so old that I won't mind a new twist, even if all characters end up dancing to a hip-hop tune in the end. On that note, in a recent interview, one of the developers stated that they are planning the ending with characters being happy in mind, which is what I'd like to see after 20+ years. For the characters to discover happiness and peace. This includes Sephiroth. Finding a peaceful way to break free from Jenova and his anger once and for all.

👋 @pen-and-umbra

[roseartsandfics]

Chibi Crisis Core Art Dumps

Here are the art dumps of the characters from Crisis Core FFVII Reunion in a chibi style ❤️ Well, I had to have confidence since people chosed go for it on a poll about drawing Crisis Core characters, so I thought a chibi style of them would be a good start to start drawing some Crisis Core goodies and TGA goodies :3

SPOILER ALERT FOR THOSE WHO HAVEN'T PLAYED CC FFVIIR THAT I AM ABOUT TO TALK ABOUT!!!

1. "I knew you would had faith in me of having some improvements as SOLDIER!"

"Yeah. Great work, now get off me."

Zack hugging Angeal after possibly managing to having some improvements as becoming 2nd class as I believed. I think the cutscene where Zack managed to hug Angeal after he decided to recommend him 1st Class SOLDIER before heading to Fort Tamblin is one of my favorite x3. I believe this would be the reaction Angeal had given after the hug before lol. Zack is such a dork, but a lovable dork x3

2. Just Cissnei sitting on a bench comfortably ❤️

3. Genesis with a rose 🌹 (he looked utterly handsome with a rose, but would be better if I drew him without the chibi style lol)

4. Sephiroth collecting his thoughts before every mission (I just COULDN'T. You can tell how he possibly feels of every war and mission. Poor guy :(. I just WANT to hug him 🥺)

I was doing really well in Crisis Core Reunion, despite the mistakes and missable things here and there. Otherwise, I'm doing really well! Possibly not getting 100%, but oh well lol. The game is so much fun, I just have to keep my fingers crossed to get a chance to beat it 🤞

Both Cissnei and Genesis are kinda hard to draw, but otherwise, not too bad :3. Hopefully I can do my best to improve on drawing the SOLDIER boyos (and the Turks, which is my first time drawing them) :3

Sephiroth was so much fun to draw! Angeal was pretty fun as well, but Zack? He is pretty difficult to draw. Gotta improve it somehow *bonks my head with a hammer*. Anyways, Cissnei became my favorite female Final Fantasy character already after playing part of chapter 3 in CC earlier, and was not expecting her to return in Rebirth :). Welp, have a great evening!

Angeal Hewley, Zack Fair, Cissnei, Genesis Rhapsodos, Sephiroth and Crisis Core - Final Fantasy VII - Reunion ©Tetsuya Nomura, Hajime Tabata, Yoshihiro Hirota, Mariko Sato, SQUARE ENIX and Tose

Artwork ©RosePrincessArts

No copyright infringement is intended

Used: Sketchbook app from iPad

[lumine-no-hikari]

Dear Sephiroth: (a letter to a fictional character, because why not) #261

Today, J and I woke up at around 5:15 in the morning; I was gonna drive him over to Great Barrington. So we got ready, and we got in the car, and I went to get gas…!

…only to have the airplane lesson guy text J to tell him that it's super foggy, and therefore better to do the lesson later in the day; his next availability was 5pm. Ahahaha~!

Well, that's all right. I was pretty groggy anyhow; wanna guess at how stellar I was at getting to bed at 9:15pm like I said I was gonna (spoiler alert: I was NOT at ALL stellar at it)? So, with suddenly a ton of free time on my hands, I groggily played some Dead Cells. I didn't get very far, because I was groggy. My reflexes were dull and I was making poor choices in the heat of various moments, and… yeah. It was still pretty fun, though! Can't complain!

Once it stopped being stupid o'clock in the morning, I got some dishes done, fed the cats, and then, I decided to make hotdog macaroni and cheese!

I got these natural casing mini-hotdogs and I chopped them up, and I chopped up an onion really finely with my handy-dandy veggie chopper, and I threw in the leftover Frito cheese that really needed to get used up, and then I filled a bowl! I put in the macaroni and cheese, mixed the hotdogs in, drizzled ketchup and mustard over it, and then put some of the finely-chopped onions on top!! It was DELECTABLE!!!

…Want some…?

…I know it isn't fancy. But it tastes really good. It makes my belly happy. And a happy belly is the foundation for literally everything else.

I took a short nap after eating the macaroni and cheese, because even after several hours of waiting for it to not be stupid o'clock in the morning, I was still groggy. The early autumn-ish air smells amazing, but it has a chill to it, so I put on my giant, floofy wearable blanket, pulled up its hood to keep the light from my eyes, curled up on the couch, and caught some Z's. At some point, Hunter decided that I am a pillow and napped along with me, like so:

...For whatever reason, I guess he decided that the place for his nose was the side of my head, hahaha!

…Hey, Sephiroth? Have you ever put on a wearable blanket? If you haven't, you wanna try out mine sometime? They're super cozy and soft, and I think you'd like it a lot!! And I got the biggest size there is, so it swims on me, haha! So maybe it'd fit you properly, even though you're very tall. According to your in-game model (as opened in Blender), you're about 78 and a third of an inch tall, including your boots. So that's like… what? Maybe 77-ish inches tall, barefoot? Hmmm… I think my wearable blanket should fit you! Because you're only like 4 inches taller than M, in that case, and the wearable blanket fits him just fine!

…Heck, we can even use basic math to get your height; Cloud is some 68 inches tall (I'm at about the same height as him!), and so if we get a smaller picture of you two standing side-by-side, and measure out Cloud's height in the picture with a ruler, and record that number (we'll call it x), and then measure your height in the picture with the ruler and record that number (we'll call it y), then we just do the basic formula for proportions - 68 over x is equal to some number over y. We can get "some number", which will be your height to scale, by multiplying 68 inches by y, and then dividing the result by x. Easy peasy!

Anyway, 6 feet and 5 inches barefoot is pretty tall, but it's not really that unusual, at least in my part of the world; one of the people at my job is about the same height as you, and he seems really nice; he's the one who went in the back and got me my official work shirts when they finally got delivered, and when I smiled at him in gratitude, the smile he returned to me was just as radiant - it was very good! Then there's Julian Devorak of The Arcana, and he's 6 feet and 4 inches - only about an inch shorter than you. Mewtwo is 6 feet and 7 inches. A friend of mine from Australia is 6 feet and 3 inches. There are lots of people, both in story worlds and in my world that are about your height. Being tall really isn't all that weird; the world takes all kinds of shapes and sizes, and it's not nice to judge people on the basis of their outward appearance. You can't look at someone and just up and decide on the spot that they must be scary as a person just because your brain is scared of the vision coming in from your eyeballs - it ain't right. It ain't fair. It's dehumanizing, and it does a terrible disservice to the person you're looking at.

We have a phrase in my country that goes like, "you can't judge a book by its cover", and it means that you can't know who a person is, how they think, feel, or behave, or what they're capable of doing just by looking at their outward appearance. This phrase is something I try to live by. And it's something I know you live by, too; I remember when you scolded Zack for saying that Tifa can't be the guide just because she was a girl. I remember when you said, as a boy, that you cannot judge the elderly or the young as being unfit for combat based solely on their appearance. Your refusal to engage in sexism and ageism is pretty freaking refreshing; thank you for being yourself.

Anyway, I know a lot of people in my world like to say, "zOMG, Sephiroth is such a great big huge tall guy - gasp! - so intimidating!" but like… you're really not, because there's nothing inherently intimidating about someone being tall. So don't listen to those guys, okay? There's nothing weird or wrong or intimidating or any other negative adjective about your height and build. You're just you. And that's good enough. And if anyone gives you any problems about it, you just send 'em my way, okay? I'll fix their attitude real quick - don't you even worry about it, all right?

…Well anyway. J and I left for Great Barrington at around 3:00pm so we could make it there for the 5:00pm lesson for him. I tried strapping my GoPro to my head (I found it!) to take a video of the drive, but I mostly just got a video of the ceiling and of the sun shade flap thingies; I was frustrated. I'm going to try a different approach tomorrow, because I get to take J to Great Barrington again tomorrow, in any case. So we'll see what I can do.

At the end of J's lesson, one of the older pilots there offered us some of the pizza he got; he had extra. I was surprised by how tasty it was; it comes from a store called The Big Y, I guess. I had never heard of it before. But supposedly, it's the best corporation to work for in the whole state of Massachusetts. I wonder how true that is. Hm.

On the way back, J and I got a couple of pretty rad pictures of the moon; it was giant and red and low in the sky, and it looked amazing:

...I wish you could have been here to see it with us as it sank below the horizon. It was a pretty breathtaking sight.

Well. It's very late now; almost midnight. I gotta get to bed. Fortunately, I don't have a specific time I gotta wake. I hope that things with the GoPro will work out in the car tomorrow; I'd like to be able to show you the beautiful things along the route in motion...

I love you. And I'll write to you again soon. Please stay safe out there...

Your friend, Lumine

[icycoldninja]

How exactly did Genesis want Sephiroth to give him his cells?

SPOILER ALERT: Plot spoilers from Crisis Core, might wanna skip this and come back to it after you've finished the game.

When Sephiroth was in the middle of his breakdown, Genesis suddenly appears, unannounced, holding an apple and, ignoring his friend's clear emotional turmoil, proceeded to yammer on about LOVELESS and how he needed Sephiroth's pure Jenova cells and whatnot to stop the degradation. Thing is, how exactly did Genesis plan to get Sephiroth's cells? Judging from the way he kept waving the apple around, it looked like he wanted Sephiroth to slobber all over it so he could then take a bite of the apple and get some of Sephy's spit (which technically contains DNA), resulting in his degradation being cured.

I dunno, maybe the apple was just an accessory and I'm overthinking things. What do you guys think?

[catboyidia]

various christmas related asgzc thoughts:

- its their first time celebrating christmas together, as their own family, and its their first time celebrating the entire holiday season and being able to enjoy everything that comes with it to its fullest, especially sephiroth since he’s never been able to really experience christmas at all

- genesis demands that they get the biggest tree they can and decorate their tree as extravagantly and flashy as possible, overseeing the entire ordeal as he makes the others do the actual work and just tells them what to do

- while trying to wrap the tinsel(?)/garland(?) around the tree, zack somehow accidentally manages to tie himself to the tree with it

- zack also tangles himself in the christmas lights, and upon trying to help him, cloud ends up also being tangled up in them, so they end up needing to seek help from angeal, waddling over to him awkwardly in a mass of colorful lights, much to cloud’s humiliation

- genesis puts mistletoe absolutely everywhere he can and then demands the others kiss him every time one of them inevitably stands under it with him, and zack ends wanting to do the same except he doesn’t necessarily demand kisses, he’ll just look like a sad kicked puppy if one of the others doesn’t kiss him. they all also need to explain the mistletoe tradition to sephiroth, who doesn’t quite understand the point but absolutely joins in anyways

- they all “build” a gingerbread house together… they give up after hours of it falling because they each kept knocking it over in one way or another and instead decorate a pile of crushed gingerbread house pieces because after so many times falling the pieces just kept breaking more and more

- they go out to play in the snow together, making snow angels, or at least attempting to, and having a silly little competition of who can make the best snowman (spoiler alert: it’s actually none of them…) and they argue about the winner until it quickly devolves into a snowball fight (genesis throws the first snowball) and they all absolutely pelt each other with them until they’re completely covered and need to go inside before they risk hypothermia

- while trying to light the fireplace so they can all warm up, zack nearly sets himself on fire and manages to accidentally singe a small bit of sephiroth’s hair

- they try to take some nice christmas pictures like a family… it goes exactly how bad you would expect…

a couple angstyer ones:

- zack and sephiroth visiting angeal’s grave on christmas, running into genesis also visiting angeal’s grave, brushing snow off of it and sitting with their backs on different sides of angeal’s gravestone, zack on one side, sephiroth in the middle, and genesis on the other side as they take turns recounting stories of things that have happened over the year, with each of them hesitantly starting to hold hands in the snow, momentarily making up with each other. and after the nibelheim incident, sephiroth is no longer there but genesis and zack keep up the sort of tradition, although this time they have no positive stories to recount

- after zack dies, cloud visits zack’s grave with small gifts every christmas, although unlike zack he doesn’t have any accompaniment to share his grief

[icharchivist]

I do like that Aerith's death and sacrifice are treated with the gravity they deserve, genuinely

Yes, it hurts, but I prefer that to everyone looking sad for five minutes and then it's business as usual. I like that they really let you feel the loss

god yeah, this is really something that stands out to me about ffvii

Aerith was so beloved by everyone in the party. In the first part of the game she is such a well rounded character, with so much joy and mischief and her being there for everyone in need. She's always so sweet and helpful while also being torn by this legacy she is the only one left to honor.

And then she dies, and all of this still follows through. The whole party mourns her, each with their own connection to her making the pain even harder to get through.

Her death isn't about Cloud or the pain it gives him. Like, sure Sephiroth tried to have Cloud kills her because it's one stone two birds for him, he can get his petty revenge and full control on Cloud at the same time as he's getting rid of Aerith, but it's not Cloud's grief that is centered. It's really more about everything Aerith wanted to do, hoped to do, being taken away from her, and from everyone else who wanted to make that future with her.

After her death the game constantly reminds you of her because she was the only person with all the keys to save the world, and now everyone has to try, to figure out what she knew, what they could do in her place now.

Everything reminds them of her, they carry her with her.

and none of them sees her death as this sort of sacrifice because her death should never have happened, and they need this spite from how unfair it is to make them move forward.

In further parts of the game where the whole party assembles, you can always see a hole in the way they're gathering - like they're keeping a place for Aerith, like she is still a part of them, even if she's not here anymore. But they keep her in mind, even with her absence.

Not to mention how much her battle kit was genuinely unique and something gamers usually rely on a lot because it's genuinely a lifesaving kit, and losing her make you really realize just how much you relied on her just to keep everyone alive. without her, it's harder to survive.

and it's so touching and it's why i often talk about how important the thematic of Grief is, because they're all coping with the way her death left a hole in their heart, but they have to move on, if only because she sacrificed too much for them to give up now.

and on top of that it adds to the ecological reading of the game. The whole game revolves around the planet dying, about the mega corporation taking all of this life away, creating abominations in an attempt to control the planet, and leaving it for dead. Yet the planet can persist. it can live on. it can still find the strength to get going.

Aerith's name is pronounced like "Earth" in Japanese. Because she is the physical extention of this thematic. she is the flower that bloomed in a floating city detached from nature. She's been through grief, through pain and loss, but she carries on, she remains as strong as she could be. Shinra tries to experiment on her, abuse of her, treat her like an animal they can just breed for their own convenience. But she was resilient, she remained strong, as long as she could, only to be killed by the ultimate "perfect" experiment the Shinra has made trying to control the Earth once and for all.

And now as Meteor is approaching, as Shinra is using more and more of the Mako Energy to try to stop the Meteor even if it kills the planet in the process, as the Weapons awake to protect the earth at all cost even if they have to destroy humanity for it..... is when we lose Aerith. But our companions who have been fighting for the future of the planet still have now to fight for it, if only in honor to Aerith who gave her everything.

and spoiler alert but... it's not the last we hear of Aerith and especially how she influences the plot. Because still, like the Earth on the verge of dying, her will carry on.

And everyone still misses her so much.

in Advent Children, years after the conflict has been settled, all of the members of Avalanche wears a red ribbon on their arms as a memento to Aerith. And when they fight in battle together, they can feel Aerith with them. They will mourn her for as long as they're still alive, but they'll remember her, they'll talk about her, because she is still part of them, what they wanted to protect at all cost.

Aerith's death is often mentioned as being one of the most influencial moment in gaming history because of the way it makes you feel her loss every time as the game continues. It's just. really powerful in the way it's still woven in the narrative.

I miss her so much....

[sabrondabrainrot]

Share us your fics ideas please!!

I have sooooooooo many! (Also sorry it took me so long to answer this I didn't see my inbox)

I'm in so many fandoms and my brain is always thinking of found family or hurt comfort or fluff so it tends to all ruminate in my brain.

1-A Wildcards - a Persona x MHA crossover fic. I've started writing this one and it's in the works but the basic idea is, "what if ever persona protag is under one roof and all siblings and all are in school at the mha world." I have chapters and plans but it's hard to get fic motivation on this one at the moment. One of my theories also turned out right for MHA lore and I can't explain why but having my own theory proven right really took the wind out of my sails. XD

2. ff7 what if au - basically there's a theory me and a bunch of ppl online share where president Shinra has a bunch of bastard children and basically my fic idea is, "what if the bastards all grow up under one roof." So I'm currently doing research on characterizations for it. It's difficult for me to nail down Cloud's, Rufus', Evan's, and Lazard's personalities. I love Au's where ppl are brothers or grow up together. I don't have any plans for this other then the kids somehow help Genesis, Angeal, and Sephiroth not go insane but I can't figure out how I want to do that.

3. Simon Petrikov: Fionna and Cake Adventure Time drabbles - basically wanted to continue where Fionna and Cake leaves off and put Simon in the trauma cube where he gets to heal from his past. I also am a sucker when Trauma is blasted in 4k for everyone to see so the entire crew that cares for Simon also gets the trauma beam. I also realized Simon and Betty were never married so I decided that must be changed and wrote them a wedding. :)

4. Gohan's Wheel of Emotions - Another fic idea I've had for a few years now. I want to do a series where basically some kind of xyz machine goes wrong and Gohan gets split into a bunch of pieces and it becomes a race against time to put him back together. I was planning for his emotions to be wondering around. I want this to be teen era Gohan too because I'm a huge sucker for the Saiyaman ark. It's again just hard to find time to write it! I just want to write a cheezy little light hearted kind of self healing story.

5. TMNT turtle tot au - just a fun multicrossover baby adoption event. I'm currently writing this and have almost 2 chapters done! I love the idea of the 2003 turtles having a bunch of different aged turtles showing up at their doorstep. So they have to juggle sending everyone home while doing their best not to adopt anyone (spoiler alert the kids adopt THEM)

6. TMNT a KH/Tsubasa inspired story - I don't want to share too much on this plot but if you know about Kingdom Heart and Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles then you can get the idea of what if might be about. :)

7. TMNT brainrot drabble - currently working on this one but it's an 87 drabble fic that was inspired by season 5's finale. but now that I'm writing it (it's almost to 10k now) I REALLY want to have it go past the show finale too because MAN the last seasons of 87 are GREAT angst potential. I'm a huge sucker for hurt comfort and this entire fic is kind of like hurt comfort lite.

8. Hetalia - I have so much brain rot for Hetalia but I find it surprisingly hard to write for. I want to do a bunch of silly Hetalia fics about America and his super strength. I love that little idiot because he's MY adorable little idiot. The show is also just so cute and funny it is a big guilty pleasure of mine.

9. Lout of Count Family / LCF stupid idea - basically what if Cale Henituse can sing but he only sings the silliest dumbest songs ever in the history of Rowoon. That's it that's the fic.

10. I have a silly idea for a big multicrossover between all the korean light novels i've read and various manhwa and danmei novels. Like, "What if all systems have a chat function and it connects you to other system users." So it would just be a casual chatfic comedy.

That's most the of the ones I could think of! :P

[holly-fixation]

Spoiler alert for Crisis Core Reunion I guess.

I was going through the newest trailer ( where they show basically the entire game's plot including Zack's death and the moment before Sephiroth breaks ) mainly as a joke because hey, we have Sephiroth holding Jenova's head again. I'll go update my old theory.

But then it got a little weird.

You know how it Remake her head was Completely covered in the tank in Hojo's lab? Because, canonically, she had no head there, so that's justifiable.

Well, these are the screenshots of her head in CC Reunion.

See the bottom shot specifically? How her head is covered and her neck is basically two bolted hex nuts? Her face is certainly different than Remake, so why would the neck be the same?

Maybe Shinra got its shit together. Maybe it's just different technology to connect to that angel doll thing Sephiroth tore away that Shinra made in an attempt to communicate with her. Maybe it's Square trying to keep the rating lower by not having a realistic sliced open neck on screen, but I'm pretty sure you can see it in remake. It could be that simple.

But if it isn't. Official announcements say nothing changed in CC Reunion. It's just "more than a remaster", right?

Something changed. It might not pay off until Rebirth/Remake 3, but Something changed. I have some new ideas, but for now I'll let them stew.

See you all after CC Reunion drops!

Update 4 Seconds after posting:

I never actually zoomed in. I got too focused on the neck. Her ENTIRE FACE is obscured by whatever the hell this "helmet" is. Yes there is a bunch of metal, including a support that looks like a nose from far away and a white light glowing where her eye would be visible.

But there is also a tiny red glow behind the white one.

Again, I'm gonna let my theories stew before I get too excited.

(Bonus, I tried to get a screenshot of her in the tank and it's extremely hard to see but here's all I could get)

[sepheroth]

1, 17, 20

send a number for me to talk about one of the following topics! 1. long threads :

not sure if this means like long as in lengthy replies/ like in detail or long as in on going for a long period of time, or a huge amount of notes. but! either way, as long as the muse allows for it, then i'd give it a go. i dead ass once had someone block me because my response was much more lengthy than theirs, and there like 'it's annoying that you keep writing a book, because im not trying to write one' like. i get that not everyone is gonna be on my same length or inspiration, but wow. like...i want someone to at least tell me to tone it down so they wont be as intimidated, and i will. but sometimes my muse will just not shut up and i love when the muse does that for me.

17. fanon interpretations : like in general or as in sephiroth? that's kinda something i go against. like i forreal see people base sephiroth off an assumption that negatively reflects him as a character. like...people say that sephiroth is obsessed with cloud (in a way that makes it seem soo creepy and gross to me) ...i don't see it that way. i'd be a liar if i said i went through a period that i did not like the ship. i met someone one day and they changed my view about sefikura. i ship it now. but how my version of seph will go bout it is being a resident cloud botherer, and he's also a tifa botherer depending on the person i'm with, and it depends if it's pre nibelheim sephiroth or post nibelheim sephiroth. like...he's a villain, he's supposed to peruse his target and try actively to get rid of them. is that not what he's supposed to be doing? and also how i see it, his hubris is something that prevented him from being able to do that. it's also why he keeps trying to take him out. but sometimes i get the sense he's just having fun with the whole thing because he knows it annoys the hell out of him. lmfao. 20. violent threads : i rarely get to do these/those. like i had an old villain muse who like met a goddess who was responsible for cursing him to be immortal by giving him her heart (spoiler alert, he hates it and wants to die). he's another final fantasy villain, i will say. he met her in her human/mortal form and as soon as he seen her he. went. berserk. and...things got pretty...violent. and before that, he got..slap happy. i don't think im very good at those...but like, if im comfortable with that mun, i will take the time to write them.

[pen-and-umbra]

idk if everyone checked out latest halloween special, so SPOILER alert ahead. why do you think sephiroth stuck w/ shinra for so long with all the crap they out him thru? i mean ec is EXPLICIT abt sephiroth suffering mistreatment at hojos hands, not to mention those lies shinra created abt him being this hero figure. and he only starts thinking about *maybe* quitting on the eve of Niebelheim mission, like whyyyyy??

Who can say? There could be numerous reasons.

For one thing, I believe Sephiroth understood he couldn't truly escape ShinRA's clutches and sever all ties with the organization. He was too valuable to lose, the pinnacle of ShinRA inventions, a source of non-degradable cells; they wouldn't let him go. At best, he could hope for a life like Aerith's: loosely free but on a leash, watched over by Turks and whatever other means of surveillance were available. It doesn't help that half the places in the area have a strong ShinRA presence, and Sephiroth is a well-known public figure with an eye-catching appearance. He couldn't just blend in with the crowd because he was too famous and well-publicized. Perhaps Angeal and Genesis were not the first SOLDIER members to desert active duty, and younger Sephiroth witnessed other deserters being chased to hell and back (I have a theory that the FS trio might eventually face this fate). If such an incident occurred, it could have left an indelible mark. After all, living under constant surveillance or a threat of pursuit is not exactly the normal life Sephiroth desired.

One could argue that ShinRA couldn't do anything against him if he chose to quit or flee. I disagree to a point. They did manage to bring down Zack — it took an army, but they did it, and Zack, mind you, held his own against Genesis. Now Sephiroth is on a whole other level, but he is still human — at least before Nibelheim events. He requires sleep, sustenance, water. If a direct confrontation is out of the question, ShinRA could always resort to subterfuge. Poison, gas, sedatives, in water/food/air when he's less vigilant — you name it. The only issue left would be containment. If they wanted him for cells and tissue, they could just arrange something to keep him comatose. Not to mention that the remake makes it abundantly clear they have no regard for collateral damage. They could burn down an entire town just to get to him. ShinRA most likely had dirty tricks up its sleeve that could cause problems even for SOLDIER members — not necessarily in the form of firearms or other weaponry.

Another reason could be one of existential nature. Sephiroth had been raised his entire life to be a killing machine. He lacks both the vision and the skill set to be anything else. Ever Crisis openly states that Sephiroth had little prior experience with people prior to his first field mission with the FS trio, meaning that it was mainly lab and training staff that influenced him during his formative years. As a true psychopath, Hojo is a master manipulator; in FF7R, it is he who suggests using psychological torment to break Aerith, so it's fair to assume a young child might have also received a chunk of that. Knowing Hojo, I wouldn't be surprised if he made it a point to instill this belief in Sephiroth: you're only good for killing, and without ShinRA, you're nothing (or maybe it was even more personal, with Hojo substituting ShinRA for himself). Those ideas are very likely to have become absorbed into the very core of Sephiroth's sense of self as he matured. And once something has been drilled into your head since childhood, it is difficult to break the mold. When you combine that with the fact that his legend began as a deceptive marketing ploy, you have a potentially damaged sense of self-worth. You'll get someone who is confident on the battlefield but lost beyond it. Fighting, as short-sighted as it was, gave him a sense of purpose. It sufficed for a while, being as good a reason as any other.

There's also the matter of belonging. Sephiroth's obsession with finding his family stems from a sense of rootlessness and an unsatisfied need to belong. The game is subtle about it, but it's still there: it's his sense of being different from others, his inability to relate to normal experiences (having a hometown, for example), his sensitivity to cyborg comments (the implication here being that the question of his own nature was salient for Sephiroth already back then), and his reaction to "it's not cool to ask about mother" (which implies that people teased or berated him for wanting to know). Still, as bad as ShinRA was, it gave him purpose and provided whatever meaningful relationships he had. It gave him stability. Unlike the world outside, it was a known variable, and as the saying goes, better a devil you know. As far as my guess goes, Sephiroth was in no small part simply reluctant to shift the status quo and go for drastic changes, which is very human in hindsight. Humans are conformists by nature; uncertainty generally frightens us, so we avoid it. To him, the outside world may have appeared to have no place for him: no place to belong, no place to mingle, no skillset for a living other than wielding a blade. He eventually considers leaving once he realizes that whatever anchored him to the company is no longer there, with his friends gone and ShinRA completely discrediting itself with human experiments.

It's tragic in retrospect, too; as Ever Crisis points out, Sephiroth knew the company was using him from a young age, but his need to belong and have a purpose was strong enough for him to willingly turn a blind eye to its questionable ethics.

[roseartsandfics]

Sephiroth (CC) -- Rose

Here is another Sephiroth artwork from Crisis Core with a rose 🌹 Tbh, I actually LOVED how this turned how. I just love drawing my favorite FF character (or villain lol), especially the FFVII trilogy <3. I’ve been wanting to draw more Sephiroth lately, so here he is I did probably last week (?).

SPOILER ALERT for those who hadn't played Crisis Core and/or Crisis Core Reunion, and the original and the remakes of FFVII of what I am about to say! So be aware of spoils!

I managed to do chapter 8 of CC-R, finally managed to see the Nibelheim Incident, which was an essential, and most shocking event I have EVER seen in my life ever since getting into FF. I hadn't even known that the people that created FFVII to have the most crucial event that probably is popular and shocking at the same time. I hadn't even gotten into that event in the OG and the remakes of FFVII just yet, nor seen the full thing of Last Order, but I did manage to get through it in Crisis Core Reunion. I was NERVOUS of playing that chapter 0_0. My heart was beating fast and my stomach was turning just thinking about it and how I will get through it! (I started to love Tifa's voice, btw :3). Sephiroth’s fall from hero to a threat was INDEED heartbreaking. I feel like he is the victim of Hojo’s experiments and the origins are just heartbreaking. Unfortunately he fell into insanity. I also felt if that wasn't for Hojo, and all the experiments he had done, and what he had done to Sephiroth, and probably the company did this to him as well, none of Sephiroth’s insanity would've happened. And yeah, Cloud killing Sephiroth at the reactor by stabbing him and throwing him into the Mako pit (or lifestream) was hard for me to watch after the battle. It'll be hard and NERVOUS for me to watch that scene from the OG as well along with the backstory from Cloud's POV in the OG and Rebirth. Oh, and that Sephiroth battle… was probably one of those battles that got my blood boiling but loving at the same time for some odd reason. I wasn't even READY for the Sephiroth battle at all, and I hated it, but loved it at the same time. Things I love was his stances and and intros before the battle, but what I hate is trying not to die from every powers he's using. The second phased I don't really like. So yeah, Sephiroth's fall from grace sucked, but will be forever my favorite FF villain ❤️

Alright, that's enough with the long description of my time playing chapter 8 and discussion before I get myself carried away lol. I had the shirtless Sephiroth art with a rose done on this book, but I didn't like how it turned out. So I decided to redraw that piece on my iPad and will display it as soon as it's done :). I'll be playing more Crisis Core soon!

WIP pics:

Sephiroth and Crisis Core - Final Fantasy VII - Reunion ©Tetsuya Nomura, Hajime Tabata, Yoshihiro Hirota, Mariko Sato, SQUARE ENIX and Tose

Artwork ©RosePrincessArts

No copyright infringement is intended

Used: Soho Studio pencils and markers, fine artists pens, gel pen, illustration markers, non toxic alcohol markers and calligraphy pen

[scarletsartwork-and-submissons]

More Sephiroth x Malleus things:

Suggestive content!!! ⚠️

-They have fucked in the sky at least once

-Malleus providing relaxing music on his string instrument while Sephiroth is reading

-Malleus singing Sephiroth to sleep (Sephy would keep this a secret from other people tho)

-Ice cream play (I will not elaborate further)

-both are capable of being extremely jealous and territorial

-Sephiroth finding out how old Malleus is and is trying to comprehend it

-Ponytail contest (spoiler alert: Sephiroth wins)

-Malleus has at one point bit Sephiroth a little too hard with his fangs

-One time, they fucked so good it caused a hurricane (definitely Malleus's doing)

I don't know why I keep putting an emphasis on Malleus and Sephiroth causing a storm while having sex. Maybe cause I think it's hilarious.