#yes that’s Zack and Reeves in the back dancing with them

[fatedroses]

SOLDIERs are required to learn how to dance as part of their training?

Well obviously that means I have to draw the OG 1st Class guys dancing too

[moony-mae]

Hi I finished Final Fantasy 7 Remake last monday and I wanted to talk about it here but I keep forgetting... So here’s my two cents and spoilers under the cut. 

So first of all, I didn’t play the original. I never had a Playstation 1, and I wasn’t interested in playing the HD edition because I'm not a fan of turn-based games. That being said, I knew some of the characters because of Kingdom Hearts, you play eco-terrorist, Reno from this game is basically Axel and they share their voice actors (Japanese, English and French, and probably other too) and I know Aerith dies. That's pretty much everything, and maybe some other details because I've been on this thing we call the internet for a lot of time now, but that's pretty much everything. 

Oh and I don't remember why the years ago I watched a Crisis Core playthrough that left me with a lot of feels and tears. I love Zack, he's my boy and he deserved so much better. But I'll cry over he's not-so-dead body later. 

Also, I'm aware of the infamous ship wars that last for 20+ years. But again, more on that later.

So, these last months, while 90% of my friends were so hyped because of the Remake, I was "Yeah Okay. That looks cool I guess". But I didn't watch any playthrough when it released because I wanted to discover everything on my first run. 

So : 

I had a hard time with the gameplay at first. But once you control and knows it, it's really fun, I liked it. 

I liked Aerith before, from what I knew from KH and fandom things, but now I'm just in love. Her spunkiness, and her softness... Ma'am, I love you.

I didn't know much about Tifa aside from her punching walls and searching Cloud in KH2, but I'm also in love. 

Cloud is a soft emo boy who tries to be an adult and fails (I relate) and I like him. 

I was annoyed by Barret at first because he kept screaming in Chapter One, but he's just a soft big guy who's trying to save his lady, aka the planet.

Marlene is so cute I want to hug her.

Jessie, Biggs, and Wedge are precious.

THE CATS, OMG THE CATS. They are so well done!!!! Also, Wedge's cat is the true hero of this game you can't change my mind. 

The music is just so good I want to cry.

Chapter Twelve could just have beaten me up it would have been the same results. 

I'm afraid of Scarlet.

Tifa and Aerith saying they are going to cut Don Corneo's ball added 10 years to my life. 

Also the animation of Don Corneo beer belly. It's so well done. 

The dance at Honeybee Inn. Oh god. I was just laughing of embarrassment the whole time. Also wow Cloud those moves what Hojo did do you

Speaking of Hojo, this is the person I want to cut the balls of. Or maybe other things. He whole speech in front of Aerith about what he did to Ifalna's body... I just wanted to hug this poor baby girl and torture the bastard off

Also what he says about breeding Aerith in front of the council of Shinra.. Y I K E S. 

Speaking about them I don't know who I hate the most. 

Aside from Reeve. He's a good boy and the only one who has a heart so please save him. 

Also, Palmer, who are you. Like they are no space for in the Shinra museum why are you even here.

... Okay I just looked on the wikia but my question still stands.

... It’s funny that I used the world space.. 

Red XIII don't believe Barret you are BEAUTIFUL when you smile. 

So the ending : I just want to say I started crying the moment I saw Zack's boot on my screen. 

I don't know what to think, aside that the whispers are clearly OG fans screaming "we want the original game just with better gameplay and graphics don't change a thing" but it’s time to challege destiny ! 

Also I saw a pic of Nomura, Kitase and Nojima and honestly, they look like people who could plan to destroy the world together. Just a feeling, but I'm afraid of their powers. 

Like I said I don't know if there's an other timeline where Zack is alive (a friend who doesn't buy the theory thought it could just be "Stamps friends" like Hello Kitty's friends or something and they are all on chips packs but idk), or if he just dies later before the game starts (that would be sadistic but I'm afraid of the three people in charge and they look like they could do that) but I know that anyway I'm going to cry a lot

if we have a zerith reunion it's going to kill me I'm crying just thinking about it.

Actually I need to speak about Aerith before we go on shipping part. Again, I don't know what to think about her "instinct" aka her knowing things and the weird feeling Marlene had when she touched her.. Idk. I readed the theory about her knowing the events of the OG and it's on point with her explaining about the whispers and the whole destiny part, but again idk.

YES IT'S SHIPPING TIME AND MY TWO CENTS ON IT

I love Zerith since CC and it didn't change here. Two babies who can kick ass and deserved better

I foud Cle/rith (so it doesn't go on the ship tag) cute (everyone is just sexy in this game so) but I felt Zack's shadow over them the whole time. Between Cloud who's not really himself and mixed he's life with what he knew of Zack's and Aerith asking multiples times about Cloud's war buddies (and the scene in the park of course!), it just doesn't add for me. Yes, of course, Aerith could move on but she seems to know things and not while she's clearly grieving Zack/searching information about him. Also, like she said, he can't fall in love with her. Not that he shouldn't fall in love with her, he can't. 

Cloti is hella cute. It's in my "looks cute" ship part, aka not my otps and I could easily read fanfiction when they are not together but they are really cute. 

Last but not least, a word on the dub : I played in French becase hey it's here so why not and it was good. They took back the original voices of KH/Advant Children for most (I'm sure for Cloud, Sephiroth and Tifa). The only dub that I don't like is Aerith, they casted a new voice for her and it seems too childish for her, but it had grown on me so it's okay now. 

To put it in a nutshell (you don't know how much my English professor would be proud seeing me using this) : it was great and I cried a lot. As usual.

 Now I'm going to read a lot of fanfiction. 

[leonawriter]

Of His Own Agency And Will

Read it on AO3

Fandom: Final Fantasy VII

Characters: Sephiroth, Cloud, Jenova (mentioned)

Summary: Of all the things Cloud could have anticipated, standing in the same room as the man who had tried to kill him and destroy the Planet several times over while said man was sat with his knees up and stating calmly that he did not intend to carry on with those sorts of actions was not one of them.

...

“So. You’re back.” A nod. Hair spilling over Sephiroth’s face. “And you’re saying... that what happened before, won’t happen again?”

Another nod, although this time more of an incline of his head.

Cloud could see something of a smile on that mouth, the one that had taunted him so many times before, and he wanted to rail at how unbelievable and unrealistic this all was, wanted to take the shoulders of the man sat on the floor in front of him, and shake them and and say you don’t just do this, not after all you’ve done.

Instead, his voice came out as cold as the snow on Mount Nibel, and he heard himself say something else.

“Tell me why any one of us should believe you.”

Try me, came the unspoken words. One wrong word. Try me, and I’ll show you that I’m not afraid to protect every single thing in this world from you again, and again, and again, no matter how many times it takes.

A full minute ticked by.

“I will not disrespect you by giving you false assurances, Cloud.”

He shuddered at the sound of his name coming from that man, and hoped that it didn’t appear too obviously on his face. 

“Then why even bother with pretending at all? Tell me that. Why not just try and kill me and have done with it?”

Someone else might have been worried at the words - but needn’t have been. 

You’ve already beaten him once, right? Then this should be a cinch, came through his mind. Zack had been right. He was strong enough. He had been back then, and he would be any time he was needed to be.

“Because I... remember not being - entirely on my own within my mind.” There was that smile again. It made Cloud want to hit its owner’s face just to get rid of it. “Something that of all people, I am sure that you would understand all too well.”

The word puppet wasn’t said, but it might as well have been, and Cloud’s eyes narrowed.

“Don’t you dare try pulling that shit with me.”

Sephiroth laughed - although it was markedly different to the laughter that he vaguely remembered hearing during their fights, and nothing like the way that he distantly remembered from something or other before Nibelheim. It was mocking, however, and that was familiar enough.

“I wouldn’t dare. Did I not say that I would not give you reassure you of things that could not be promised? There is a difference between us, as much as there is similarity, Cloud. Through my cells, you have a strong link to Jenova. And yet, you fight her, with everything you have.” Something about his voice sounded curious, almost whimsical. “I made no such efforts,” Sephiroth continued, staring into the middle distance, hands noticeably clenching where they were wrapped around his knees. “I watched as the world burned, because I was angry, because there was nothing left for me, and because I saw nothing within it that I... cherished... enough to turn back for.”

“And you think that’s going to help your case?”

Sephiroth snorted, the sudden waft of air from his nose blowing the hair that had fallen in front of his face in a manner that Cloud would have found outright comical on any other person.

“No.”

Said bluntly, offering nothing else to soften the blow or explain. Nevertheless, Cloud waited.

Eventually, Sephiroth sighed, his pale hair dancing in the air once again.

“There was too little of Jenova left to retain my previous state upon my revival. I believe there was an... altercation. I did not understand at the time what it meant, but my next moments of awareness, you were there for, the cells that we share having drawn me to you. I focused for just long enough on my own existence and will to live rather than everything that I had desired, passed down to me from her, and it was enough that, with her cells so scarce, she could... no longer keep her hold on me.” 

The disturbing thing was how his expression made him look for an instance like he felt actual pain from that separation. Even now, when he’d supposedly been trying to say that he wasn't about to go right back to finishing what he’d started.

“Is that good enough for you?”

Cloud’s eyes narrowed again.

“Not hardly. I trust you about as far as I could throw you, but that isn’t the point, and it’s not just up to me.”

Sephiroth’s head tilted back, and that same smile from before was clear on his face once again. 

Cloud didn’t like to admit it, but that smile was one he recognised. He saw it every so often on some of the others - Reeve, for one - remembering things they’d had to do, that they’d do again, no matter how awful. 

On someone like Reeve, it made sense. On someone like Sephiroth, it seemed wrong.

“Given that you threw me bodily into the Nibelheim reactor while unenhanced and impaled on my sword, I take that as a high compliment,” he heard as he left, making him slam the door a bit more viciously than he had intended.

...

AN: So this was all based on ideas I'd had floating around of "yes, I think that Sephiroth wasn't entirely doing things of his own will at the end of Crisis Core and during FFF7, but no, I don't think he'd suddenly be repentant and asking for forgiveness the moment he's completely free of Jenova, and no, I don't think Cloud would be all that accepting of it, but he wouldn't suddenly turn into a super villain himself and deny someone help, either."

As a friend of mine put it, there's "Sephiroth wasn't a passive party who didn't engage with the plot and events after all past a certain point" but also, "Jenova was totally fucking with him." and they both are real things.

Honestly, I don't know if I'm going to do more for this, since I have other things I'm working on and it's only meant to be a flash fic to get the idea out of my head, but it was fun.

[illusioneery]

And last part of this, it is. Happy 20th anniversary, everyone C: (Belated, but still)

#sefikura week | day 7: The End

The truth about what he had with Sephiroth was simply spilled out by Tifa when they reached Kalm and reunited in the inn. Cloud had been telling the very little he could remember from that time in Nibelheim, long ago; that he had flashbacks of Sephiroth attacking him that made little sense to him for some reason he didn’t know.

Well, at least until Tifa said “Of course it doesn’t make sense, what kind of boyfriend would do that to you?”

“…Boyfriend?” He cast an accusatory look at Zack. What else wasn’t he aware of that the raven haired man didn’t tell him?

“Yeah,” Tifa answered “He started acting all possessive when he saw me and you had to make it clear that you were taken to make him stop.”

Under a still accusatory look and feelings of betrayal because of the former SOLDIER first class hiding that bit of the story, Zack and Tifa took over for him with telling everything they knew about the incident and before that.

And even if in the end, he forgave Zack upon knowing that the other man’s intentions in hiding that weren’t bad ones, there was still the shock of knowing he wasn’t just dealing with a General gone rogue. He had an insane ex boyfriend willing to destroy everything while somehow finding a way to mess with his mind.

(About that, Cloud had no idea of how it was possible, until he was told by his former SOLDIER friend that before Sephiroth, another man found a way to “clone” and control others.)

Their route to the Northern Crater wasn’t a straight path. At the same time that Sephiroth was out there and represented a great danger that needed to be dealt with, there were other dangers like Shinra.

With their search recruiting even more people to the cause, (a pilot from Rocket Town that went by Cid, a small ninja from Wutai going by Yuffie, a sin burdened man named Vincent and a robot cat from an amusement park — where, by the way, Cloud had a funny “date” with Red XIII — who asked them to call him Cait Sith) not only they were dealing with the many dangers, but also with personal resolution for each of them.

That, in Cloud’s case, came in the form of memories rushing right back to him. It hurt; a different pain from being stabbed by that particular sword, a different pain from seeing Aerith almost meet the same end and knowing that who was behind the act had been special to him once. A different pain from being used like a puppet for a plan to put a Meteor in the sky, coming for the Planet, to be accomplished. It hurt because it was something that brought him so much happiness once and he couldn’t have any of that anymore.

The more of it that came to him, the more it pained Cloud knowing what they’d have to do, what he had to do, to avoid a big tragedy.

Cloud decided that everyone needed to realize the true reason they were doing this for, upon realizing his own. “Saving the world” sounded like an obligation rather than a reason and that didn’t seem right. Even if small, he wanted everyone to be fighting for something worth risking their lives for.

And maybe, part of why he was fighting was to find peace for himself and his friends. But another part of him said it was also to allow Sephiroth to finally rest, if there remained anything of the man he had once known.

“Hey, Cloud, do you remember when we were little… before you left for Shinra?” Tifa asked beside him. She hadn’t a place to go like the others and ended up staying with him. Somehow, it was a good thing, that, to have a friend around and not be so lonely in the airship by himself.

“I called you to come to the water tower… never thought you’d actually show up.”

“You made a promise…” She started.

“Which I couldn’t keep,” the blond pointed at the part of the long scar that was visible on her belly. He couldn’t prevent that, neither could he save his mother or help Sephiroth before things got out of control “but I’m glad that didn’t end worse.”

“It’s alright. We were silly children and I… I kinda thought we were going to…” Tifa trailed off.

“…End up together?”

She nodded. “When did you figure out you liked men, anyway?”

That was a tough question as it had never been something that he realized like the way one would suddenly remember they’ve forgotten food in the oven. It had been a process, concluding with the fact that he saw himself being with a man as something that felt right and couldn’t even imagine being with a woman anymore.

“A while after I got to Midgar, I think. I’d have written to you about it but I thought you’d be like everyone else in that town and turn your back on me.“

“You sort of told anyway, when you appeared with him. What changed, then?”

“He was jealous of you, I decided I was happy with him and didn’t want you two to get into a fight.” Cloud sighed. It had been a little cruel to just spit out that he was dating Sephiroth back in the day, like that, but it was still better than keeping Tifa’s hopes up. After a while, he decided to ask “Did you date anyone from that time till now?”

She avoided his gaze and blushed a little. “T-that girl from AVALANCHE, Jessie… I don’t know if you remember…”

“Woah, hold on… you like girls?”

“Boys, too. Both.”

Cloud opened his mouth to let out a little “Oh”, before calling her to go back inside the airship. It’d be morning soon and no matter if the others came back or not, they had a big mission to deal with.

Above them, a raven and a white owl flew by. A strange sight, two different birds like that keeping each other company, the blond thought.

Unknown to him, the birds were actually a manifestation of the dead resting beyond, watching over the living. Mischief and pride, two birds curious about what would come to happen to a former comrade.

Even if everyone returned, there was something only Cloud was supposed to do in that Crater and he realized it when he was pulled into the Lifestream for a final battle. One of them would have to put an end to the other.

Sephiroth approached him once it was done, as if he wasn’t bleeding and ready to leave at once.

“Thank you,” he said, gently touching his face, sliding his hand a little to the side of the blond’s head “You fought well.”

“You taught me well, too,” Cloud added, tears forming in his eyes with the realization that his Sephiroth, the one who brought him happiness, had returned and was now free.

“And you learn fast.” There were so many things to say then, but the Lifestream suddenly dancing around them offered just one “Cloud, I have to go now.”

“Can’t I just… take you out of here?”

“I’m afraid that’s not possible.” Sephiroth said, his calm tone hiding away the pain of that fact.

“I just… I… I wanted to save you, too.” The blond sobbed.

“I know. I’m sorry,” he pulled Cloud close to him “Gaia, how I missed you… I think I’ll miss you until it’s time for you to join me, but for now… this will have to be enough.”

The kiss he gave the blond was barely a gentle touch before the streams carried him away.

In the few years that went on after that, life was going considerably well for most of them. Reeve — the man behind Cait Sith — started an organization to help the world in this new era of Shinra being out of business, which most of them helped with.

Tifa started a new bar in a new town that was being constructed near Midgar. Barret went to Corel, as the kind of energy the town supplied once was relevant again. Aerith and Zack opened a little flower shop together. Red XIII — or rather, Nanaki — was travelling across the world. Cid, Vincent and a woman named Shera were very happy together, after Vincent battled his nightmares and survived to tell the tale. Yuffie was working on making Wutai be the place it had been, again.

Meanwhile he was… handling deliver services. It brought him to many places and tied him to nowhere, no one. Maybe it was for the best, even if he distanced himself from his friends a little.

This time of the year, he usually went to the northern continent; to leave flowers in a place deep down the caverns in the Crater. It had became a tradition to honor that date, that anniversary of sorts even if it was a sad event.

He was about to call Cid to get him there later, when he got a call from Aerith.

“Yes, you picked up! If you have some time, can you go to the old church? Maybe take a blanket along? I kind of had… a feeling.”

By now he was used to Aerith’s feelings of things that were to happen or were happening in regards to the Lifestream. So, after he told her he would, he changed his route to the ruins of Midgar.

The old church’s ceiling had been destroyed along with so many other places due to the violent encounter of Meteor and Holy. The ground had been ruined, too, and flooded with the rain.

Flowers still grew by the altar, as it had always been, but now the building housed a lake of sorts.

No matter what, it was still a place in which Cloud could find peace and forget for a little while the difficulties he had faced in his journey. And so, he opened the door without hesitation, then immediately took a step back in his surprise.

In the lake there, stood a man with long silver hair, who turned to greet him with an expression that didn’t spoke of the corruption, the malice from two years before that.

Cloud dashed forward, to embrace said man in any way he could and soon as possible.

In the place where he could find peace, he found his home again.