#flo rants

[what-is-anything-even]

as security around The Goat has increased over the years, and successful destructions have decreased, I’m so glad nature is taking the matter into its own hands. first summoning a flock of jackdaws and now just blowing the thing down, big bad wolf style

[portamisbeloved]

when they’re picking up Aramis at the monastery he says poverty and celibacy weren’t difficult aspects of living as a monk for him but that “it was obedience I could never take to” but. Like. My man. You spent your whole life prior as a solider. The Obedience And Following Orders Profession.

[weaselbrownie]

to the person who spammed my asks with 10 smut requests

i. love. you. 😩😩❤️‍🩹

[lifewasawillow]

is it just me or everyone does a little dance every single time they listen to a specific part of a song?

[strayheartless]

So er…… I was reading some poetry (don’t look at me like that, Its literally part of my job.) and I came across a Robert Burns poem (I was not majorly familiar with his work previous my interest is Wordsworth and Coleridge) and I found a poem that is a bible reference…

And it sounds a lot like Cloud. The poem is called “ah woe is me, my mother dear” and its a paraphrase Jeremiah 15:10 explaining the woes of a man who is scorned and hated by his community because of financial issues and Class prejudice. It’s addressed to Burns’ Mother I believe and features a line (2) in stanza one that directly links to a certain “strife”.

Jeremiah 15:10 Woe is me, my mother, that thou hast borne me a man of strife and a man of contention to the whole earth! I have neither lent

Woe is me, my mother, that thou hast borne me a man of strife and a man of contention to the whole earth! I have neither lent on usury, nor

“Ah, woe is me, my mother dear!

Ah man o’ strife ye’ e born me:

For said contentions I maun bear;

They hate, revile and scorn me.”

-Robert Burns, 1786

Now, I am not Claiming that this is a key influence of Clouds character design, that would be silly and likely completely false. However, it is not entirely illogical to assume that given the biblical influence within crisis core and FFVII that Jeremiah 15:10 played at least a tiny part in the crafting of Cloud’s character arch at least in part.

In fact the whole passage of Jeramiah 15 sounds a whole lot like what happens between Cloud and Sephiroth. For those who are not familiar with the passage (I myself had to search for it and read it through.) it details Gods warning to Jeramiah to not pray for the people of Judah because he has already concluded their fate. He says that

“even if Samual and Moses stood before me. My mind would would not be favourable towards this people”

(This is King James Version I think, but the Catholic translation is pretty much the same and the Hebrew translation varies in language but not in meaning)

Which could be translated in the game as Sephiroth’s unwillingness to change from his war path against the planet. In this case Cloud stands in for Jeramiah while Sephiroth stands in for “the lord” (God). I think it’s interesting to play around with the idea that Samual and Moses may be Angeal and Genesis, or perhaps Zack and Aerith? And that one could construe the declaration as “even if those I have saw fit to trust were to stand before me, It would not stop me from burning the planet down.” And it’s doubly interesting that in Sephiroth’s case we often play with this idea of, if Genesis hadn’t defected or taunted sephiroth, would Nibelhiem have happened? I think Jeramiah 15 tells us that, yes, it would have.

As for the Burns poem (which uses 15:10 a little differently out of its context.) it takes this idea of “scorn”and “revile” literally in a way that mirrors Clouds childhood in terms of being outcast because of his mothers position in society- I.E. their class- and the fact that he is never given the chance to challenge those expectations that he is not to be trusted. The biggest flaw in this of course is that Burns is referring to financial struggle (something the game doesn’t really reference but we infer) while Clouds problem is defiantly social class, but then these things go hand in hand.

Burns closes the poem by directing the mothers awareness (and their fire our own) that she is the only one that sees him, and the only one that knows he is treated badly

“Yet I, a coin-deniéd weight,

by fortune quite discarded;

Ye see how I am, day and night,

By lad and lass blackguarded!”

This is interesting to me from Clouds perspective (if it is an influence) that it plays into this idea that Tifa had no idea the isolation Cloud suffered. In a way Nibelhiem stands in for the people of Judah as they are made to suffer for a larger transgression, but also their transgressions against Cloud, while Cloud himself, who has no love for these people, begs for them to be spared.

I dunno man, I am probably reaching so hard here. But my Brain lit up like Genesis with a new loveless theory.

[strayheartless]

Don’t tell me you know what extreme obsession is until your OCD mixes with your current special interest to create a creative type of hellish nightmare that you wake up in a panic attack from.

I often joke that I’m terrified of post Nibelhiem Sephiroth… Yeah that’s not a joke apparently.

[strayheartless]

Hi flo, why are you up so late?

Well the undiagnosed ADHD I’m almost sure I have prevented me from working on my essay and now I’m sat having a prolonged panic attack trying to write it at 3:00AM.

Why are you up so late?

[weaselbrownie]

i keep starting new fics but then give up halfway ugh 😪