Under The Rotting Pizza

Yup.

[ria-neearts]

“Hey. We found you.”

[wombywoo]

●○●○●○ f a m i l y●○●○●○

[lousysharkbutt]

im finally playing the game

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[ribbon-couture]

I’m not gonna lie... I don’t understand half of this Zack-SOLDIER discourse I see floating around. I understand the dissection of SOLDIER itself, of Shinra and it’s monopoly of power, of capitalism and it’s horrendous impacts but... you guys lose me when you choose to make it all about Zack Fair and how he’s not really a hero if he chose to work for a capitalist monopoly.

Because he’s not the only one of our heroes to do so.

He’s just the only one who dies before he can actively make a change and join the fight and grow. Which is, you know, the tragedy of the situation. Like, he’s a child soldier. He’s been manipulated by propaganda and Turks and adult Shinra Execs. Hell, he’s even manipulated by Angeal. And he has to navigate this alone. And he doesn’t wanna be there, he wants to run away, so what does Shinra do? Assign him his very own personal Turk to ensure that doesn’t happen.

Zack is miserable, but there is no real way out. And then Nibelheim happens and he’s asleep for years until he breaks himself and Cloud out. And then he dies. There’s no time to process. There’s no time for him to say, “Hey I know what I want to do with my life and who I want to be and how I feel about Shinra.” Hell, Cloud doesn’t even have that luxury and the man is alive.

Cloud goes on a journey where he figures those feelings for Shinra out in a supportive way surrounded by people who have also been hurt, and, if there’s anything the remake has made strikingly clear, it’s that Clouds feelings for Shinra aren’t so cut and dry. He has immense sympathy for the troopers, to the point where other people think he’s defending them more than once. He brags about having being apart of the Shinra military. He’s proud of being apart of the war.

It’s too easy to say that a child who fell into ShinRa’s trap was at fault for not realizing how awful Shinra was sooner. The point is and always will be that Cloud and Zack were children manipulated into fighting because of propaganda. The adults and mentors they had around them had fallen for and pushed the very same agenda. For Zack, Angeal may as well be Dumbledore. What the hell is a child supposed to do against a system that’s been in place years before he was born? Especially when that child dies after getting 5 years of his life stolen by the very same company?

So, yeah... I get it but I don’t get it. Because I feel like focusing on Zack’s failures or Zack’s immense desperation for validation of his heroic abilities/goodness in spite of who he works for and what he does is really an oversimplification of what’s actually going on.

[saanphoenix-deactivated20260411]

"That black and white world of yours."

The Zack criticism of him sucking Shinra's dick is a recent development, and I think it mostly stems from people's personal frustrations at the real world, their relationship with it, and now they're projecting that frustration onto Zack.

It's dumb and I can't take these criticisms seriously for all the reasons you stated. They selectively forget all the moments Zack showed frustration with the company and his desire to leave so they can keep hating the idea of capitalism and its greedy corporate sponsors.

[ijocosity]

To add to this: I think people forget that Zack Fair and Cloud Strife are poor kids from rural towns. They probably didn't have access to higher education and they probably didn't have many options by way of job prospects. Shinra has the monopoly on all of that. They come into these backwater towns, plop down a reactor, and fuck off. So what do young boys do? They go to war. They move to the city with the idea that they are going to make something of themselves. Tifa responds to Cloud's desire to leave Nibelheim with "All the boys are leaving." (You notice how Shinra's military is a boy's club?)

People's anger with Zack (and SOLDIER in general) always speaks to me as products of the responding anti-military industrial complex that American's have towards their own system. Young men and women being fed through the the chamber, shot off, and left behind without thought. But there's a reason the military represents a source of pride for a lot of men and women. For a lot of them it's the only way you can escape the strangle-holds of poverty, to get training and education, to develop a family with their brothers and sisters in arms. Shinra is an extreme example of this system because they genuinely don't care about their troops in any regard. Is it right? Does it lessen the sins of war? Of course not. But it's the system that is corrupt.

I think of Zack, who is this sweet goofy kid so wet behind the ears that he's still swimming gets a lot of hate because of this military=bad mindset but. He's literally a child. He's high school age. He falls for the propaganda. Rises through the ranks. Is proud of that. Hell he's still proud of it in the end. He goes to the grave defending his own definition of what it means to be SOLDIER. Cloud's relationship with Shinra buoys between derisive and prideful. Yes Shinra is shit and is awful but he made it to the top of that. He was a shark instead of a sheep (except he wasn't was he. He literally had a mental breakdown to the point that he had to steal valor to function)

People call CC a war apologist game and I find that to be very tone deaf. If anything it's a story about the effects of war on the soldiers. Zack goes from eager recruit to a deserter. Sephiroth early in the game is torn between his duty and following his friends. Angeal and Genesis are two boys from a backwater town. They made it to the top and they died for it. (Quick aside: im really excited for the exploration of Wutai in the Remake. Yuffie vs Cloud's mindset would be cool to see)

Anyway. Zack Fair doesn't deserve an IOTA of the hate he's gotten. Send tweet.

[ria-neearts]

Bedtime story

[ria-neearts]

Mamma.

[corzev]

DONT REPOST

vacation all i ever wanted 

(in which sephiroth gets some goddamn therapy and they all go to costa del sol together)

[gongagas-deactivated20201008]

Aerith: Babe, can you pass me the butter?

Cloud: *reaches for the butter*

Tifa: *also reaches for the butter*

Zack: *running in through the door, a stick of butter in hand* you needed me, babe?

[pastelcheckereddreams]

“Sit tight, man - I’ma go get Kunsel.”

This still has me screaming. I know we probably won’t ever get a Kunsel cameo, but this callback to CC just gets me fired up. 

I think I’ve said this before but - do you know what this means?? What this implies? Kunsel knows Cloud, or at least knows he has a connection to Zack - as does this security officer. Why would he go get Kunsel if he didn’t? Of course, Kunsel could have just spread the word around that he was looking for Cloud, so maybe this guy doesn’t know the particulars. But I like to think Zack made it a point to mention to everyone and their mother that Cloud was his buddy. He did take several troopers out to dinner and told them to be nice to Cloud, after all. 

I like to think that Kunsel never stopped looking for Zack. Maybe something didn’t add up in ShinRa’s cover story about the Nibel reactor. If anyone’s going to sniff out inconsistencies, it’s Kunsel. So for five years, he had an ear to the ground. Then maybe they get word that a platoon’s been sent after two lab escapees. Word is they’ve been tracked and chased all the way from the Western Continent. And Kunsel has a Hunch because they went through Banora. They’re SOLDIERs. Sephiroth is gone. Hojo has made no secret of his displeasure these last five years, ranting and raving about the loss of his perfect creation. So could it be..? Zack and… Genesis? Zack and his little trooper buddy? Kunsel’s almost made up his mind to go find them himself - close to MIdgar, the last report said. Out in the Wastes. But then the Turks come back with their report. It’s not so confidential that Kunsel can’t get his hands on it, though. The news sinks into his gut like a stone through water: a whole platoon gone, and missing SOLDIER First Class Zack Fair, KIA. 

But then, just a few months later, this trooper approaches him in the SOLDIER training rooms with an urgency to his salute. Cloud Strife, he says. Floor 63, dressed in SOLDIER fatigues. Kunsel drops his gear and hurries to the cafeteria with all the haste he wished he’d had months prior. His mind is cataloging all the possible reasons Cloud could be here, the missing variables of that fateful mission now so long ago, answers to years of hypotheses finally within reach. 

But it’s still too late. Cloud is already gone by the time Kunsel gets there. 

[samijen]

Aerith & Tifa ❤️⭐️

[ijocosity]

One thing I always think back to fondly when thinking about the Crisis Core is how genuinely sweet Zack and Aerith are towards each other. I find one of the strongest aspects of that game was its ability to show the other side of the coin for many characters. Aerith was so strong willed and charming when you meet her in OG(the Remake even more so). She tended to be the one that took the lead in her relationships especially with Cloud. In CC she's younger, a lot more naive, a lot less sure of herself. Her first serious relationship was with an older boy who was handsome and charismatic and goofy and made her laugh. She's there for him when his world comes crashing down and he's the one who pushes her outside her comfort zone. He's the first person she's met from Shinra that makes her feel safe. That makes her want to see the sky.

Then Zack goes to Nibelheim and I think about her being 15, 16, 18 waiting for a call that will never come, writing letter after letter to the boy she loves who just. Disappears. They don't break up. They don't have a massive fight for her to clutch to the anger. Zack just never comes back. He breaks a promise to her and she doesn't know why. I can't imagine that heartbreak. Of falling in love with someone so young and never having a chance to grow out of or with that love because they are just suddenly gone from your life (would Zack and Aerith have made it if Nibelheim didn't happen? Maybe? Maybe not? Its an interesting thought.) How many nights did she lay in bed worried out of her mind. How many times did she check the mail looking for zack's handwriting? I think having that first love, having that moment of caring for someone very intensely for the first time is such a pivotal moment for her. Aerith is a character that has faced so much trauma and loss and her ability to smile in the face of it and still love life is so admirable She's confident and a risk taker and can hold her own. But i also like that aspect of her that is still this unsure naive 15 year old girl and mourning the loss of her first relationship.

[wholesomeelf]

[samijen]

In another timeline…

[read left to right]

[ijocosity]

Commission request from @salivating-greed.  He requested our beautiful, dumb idiot boi. Thanks so much for commissioning me!

This was a lot of fun to do! hmu if you’re interested in my work. 

[samijen]

ff7 doodles

[endlessnightarts]

I still think the themes of the original FF7 concerning how heroes are just people, and putting them on pedestals and making them living legends damages them and also the people who idolize them, has been lost pretty badly over time. Sephiroth and Zack’s characterizations have suffered and been flanderized into something that goes directly against what made the original FF7 so good and its a shame. Zack in particular being built into this perfectly good and pure hero Cloud can’t live up to misses the point of the original so badly, as does making Sephiroth into a completely inhuman mastermind.

Zack was just a dude. And if you go solely by the brief flashbacks and how Cloud acted when he was imitating him, he probably wasn’t even an exceptionally good one - just a poor kid from a small town in a shitty world trying to get by, he did bad shit, he got desperate, and in the end he got unceremoniously gunned down with safety on the horizon. Changing Zack’s death into a grandiose last stand against an army misses the point and I’ve been bitter about those changes for years. There’s nothing glorious about being in SOLDIER, or about being a war hero. That was the whole point. Zack gets gunned down by some faceless nobodies and Sephiroth gets killed by Cloud when he was also a faceless nobody - heroes aren’t heroes, they’re just people.

Anyway I have way too many FF7 feelings to sort out.

[allsortsoflicorice]

That’s why the Remake can never replace the Original.

[ijocosity]

I agree with many of the points above especially about the damaging effects that idolization has on characters within the story. Your heroes are heroes until they fuck up and unlike normal people who are given room to adjust and grow and learn, heroes are utterly dammed.

I think its interesting that the story of FF7 and its sister installments is really a warning against unreliable narrators and that its necessary to understand that there are facets to every person. Sephiroth was a war hero for Shinra, but he was also known as the Demon of Wutai. He's a villain and a victim. Avalanche is both activists and terrorists depending on who dies. Zack is just a guy yes. But he was a kid with idealistic dreams that was ultimately betrayed by everything that gave him an identify and direction. His death in both OG and CC paint a different perspective of the same tragedy. OG he's gunned down unceremoniously and is left to rot nameless and forgotten on a cliffside. He is both nothing and everything to Cloud.

CC gave Zack a hero's story. The heroic last stand against an unbeatable number. Its more dramatic and solidifies Zack firmly into a Good Guy(TM) role. Watching the playthrough recently as an adult I don't find Zack to being a hero here. He's a soldier who's defacted from the company that has been his everything for years. His heroes have betrayed him in ways that I would argue is worse then Cloud because Zack was betrayed by friends and mentors. He's stripped of his identity as SOLDIER, something that he actually possessed and worked hard to achieve and here he is on the cusp of rebuilding and faced with the fact that he is trapped by his disillusionment. He has to justify the qualities and morals of SOLDIER not to anyone else but to himself. Because the very pillars of those morals have been dismantled before his very eyes and he has to be the one to represent what he believes to be right and true. Zack's story is very much one of a good guy who realized that he was fighting unwittingly for things that directly went against his own morals and then making the choice to be more. I think the OG paints the perspective of not developing one's self around a hero or a singular ideal because everyone is just a person and thus is fallible. Everyone is just some guy. No one is special in the grand scheme of the world. CC presents the other side of this narrative. Its about the hero's fallout, the dilemma of someone who devouts their life to violence for a cause only to discover too late that they were wrong and that even the "just some guy" had his own narrative the entire time.

[cryoftheplanet]

Key flaws of the FFVII cast

Cloud - feelings of inadequacy

Aeris - emotional reclusivity

Barret - black and white thinking

Tifa - uncertainty

Red XIII - naivete

Yuffie - self-centredness

Cait Sith - complacency

Vincent - inaction

Cid - bitterness