i'm thinking about making a pinned post but for now, hiii i've gained enough confidence to write and post said writing so here's a link to my first ever post on AO3 (its a valenwind fic for my fellow VW warriors).
i'd like to use tumblr to connect more with fellow squeenix fans because i lowkey miss having mutuals/people to talk to </3
Hot take (that only my friend knew before this)
If Gillian’s cells were implanted onto Genesis, while Angeal was born directly from her-- They both have *her* cells, right?
They’re half brothers, or atleast sorta bros.
And that makes shipping them gross. i’m sorry i had to say it
Tune in next time for Juli punching holes in Crisis Core’s story and/or fixing them.
Nora has a new game to torment her friends with because why not? And to give her favorite people a small break from FMK. The game: Would You Rather. Her first contestant/victim, Jaune. Because why not? He can do with a nice change of pace. He seems to almost expect Nora to ask FMK at this point. Gotta keep him on his toes ya know?
Jaune WYR: marry Tifa or Aerith from FF7?
Jaune: WYR
Nora: Hey, Jaune! I got a new game we can play!
Jaune: If it’s anything like MFK, MFE, or BMI I will strap you to a chair, and make you watch dog movies.
Nora: How is that a threat?
Jaune: Sad dog movies where the dog may, or may not die in the end!
Nora: (Horrified gasp!)
Nora: You’re a monster!
Jaune: I am my monster's gatekeeper, Nora. Keep on pushing my buttons any further, and I will let them out to play~!
Nora: Ahhhhh?!!?!
Nora: WYR!
Jaune: Eh?
Nora: Would You Rather!
Jaune: Eh?
Nora: Would you rather marry Tifa, or Aerith from FF7!
Jaune: …
Jaune: Haaa… Okay, listen up, Nora. I have never played, FF7, I’ve seen videos… Well, it was more of a movie considering how many cutscenes there were in that remake they did. But, I barely know anything about FF7, and the characters in it.
Jaune: I know they’re both… terrorists, rebels? One of the two, they’re interchangeable. They’re involved in this weird love triangle with Cloud. I think…?
Jaune: I know, Aerith is the flower girl who dies, and that made everyone sad… for some reason.
Jaune: And, I know, Tifa is the eye candy/waifu of the Final Fantasy series… at least I think she is…? All because she has… did…? She has a big rack!
Jaune: And, there was that whole, Italian fiasco…
Nora: The what fiasco?
Jaune: I know the bare bones about the game! So I’m going to have to pick Tifa!
Nora: Because of her boobs?
Jaune: Because of her big boobs!
Nora: Really? I thought you would make a more in depth, and well thought out choice.
Jaune: Nora, if you look at the pair just from the character designs, you can choose between either the cute flower girl, or the hot brawler babe. Who do you choose?
Nora: What?! What kind of choice is that, flower girl, or brawler babe? How can you rationalize a choice like…?!
Jaune: Ruby is the cute flower girl, Yang is the hot brawler babe. Who would you rather?
Nora: …
Nora: Yang…
Jaune: Because of her boobs?
Nora: Because of her big boobs…
Jaune: Ha! Told ya.
///
I do know the bare bones about the games. Never played them, and I don’t care for RPG’s. There’s no replay value to me.
So, I am broke and spend too much money on games and have interest in the obscure and nostalgic corners of cultural media. What am I to do??? How about play every single interesting-looking PS2 game ever made and write about it! Here's a screenshot just showing some of the titles I have on-deck:
There are many, many more games that I am interested in checking out, but I figure I gotta start somewhere, and this is already an insane number of games to have at the ready lol. Also worth noting: I had a PS2 growing up, I love games like Star Wars: Battlefront 2 and Kingdom Hearts and Metal Gear Solid 2, BUT I'm not currently interested in revisiting games I know well! I am specifically looking for those titles I never knew about, or maybe heard of but wasn't familiar with! I'm sure I'll end up replaying Kingdom Hearts 2 at some point, I adore that game, but for now that's not a priority. To be clear, most of the games in the screenshot above I know nothing about.
#1 : SSX 3
I'm not sure why but the SSX games always eluded me, there was something about the snowboarding genre that I just didn't really care about, which is especially weird considering I still call Tony Hawk Underground one of my all-time favs. I LOVE weird sports games, and SSX 3 absolutely rules in so many ways.
I first wanna talk about how ahead of it's time the level layout seems to be? You're always going downhill, and every event is just a portion of the mountain. There's fewer loading screens than I thought was possible on the PS2, and everything just flows so well! The dynamic music has a bad habit of cutting out at strange times, but it's an approach to music that I don't think was ever really popularized until PS4 titles like FF7 Remake. Nowadays we're pretty spoiled, they use entire orchestras and cut sections in and out depending on what's happening in the action, but to see something similar in a snowboarding game, AND with like. pop songs that I know and love? Hearing 'Jerk It Out' in a genuinely invigorating and exciting form??? It rules!!!
The gameplay is just so addictive, too. It's so seemingly easy but so hard to master, truly the perfect arcade-y combo. This game feels like exactly what I'd want from a PS2 action game, it has great vibes, extremely fun gameplay, and I've already caught myself multiple times in that 'just one more run' loop that lets you know you're playing a winner.
I mean, just look at Griff. He says so many iconic lines, such as, "Being a kid is soooo COOL!" or "this sucks more than a tummyache!" SSX 3 knows what it is, and totally owns it. Absolutely timeless, killer game.
#2: Ape Escape 3
So, I love Ape Escape 2. I grew up with it, I thought Pipo was so cute, the mechanics broke my brain and it was just a great time! I seem to have been in a huge minority because the series just kinda evaporated in the West past Ape Escape 1. It's a real shame, too, because I think in many ways I actually think Ape Escape 3 is even better than 2. It uses a lot of similar mechanics, but introduces so many new twists and interesting approaches to the well-established gameplay, it's genuinely pretty challenging at times which I don't think I ever felt with Ape Escape 2!
As well, the music of Ape Escape 3 is just SO FUN and there's so many adorable jokes and references! It's a bit of a shame that the translators didn't even try to rewrite a lot of the written puns into English, particularly the names of the monkeys. Instead, they're crudely translated directly from the pronunciation in Japanese. If you know the reference and use context clues you can, USUALLY, piece together what the joke is, but it sucks that you have to do some cultural and textual investigation that the translators really should've done themselves.
I guess that example shows how lucky we were to get Ape Escape 3 in the West at all; it sucks that this game seems to be so niche and forgotten! Especially with the y2k, almost hyper-pop style that fits perfectly in with modern trends, I think this game could easily find an audience with anybody who learns about it, but instead it's one of those games that doesn't really get brought up other than by fans discussing their fav games of all time, a real commendation and condemnation of it's legacy. It's amazing, but it's as niche as you'd expect, and that's a shame.
I really need to emphasize how great the soundtrack to this game is, it's a lot of fun! Ape Escape for PS1 has such a deeply fascinating ost, full of drum n bass and synths, and while I still dig Ape Escape 2's ost it's notably less memorable and engaging. Ape Escape 3 sees the original composer Soichi Terada return to the franchise and he really brought his A-game, like, just listen to the song that plays in your hub area:
Ape Escape 3 is unabashedly cute, high-energy and Japanese, and you truly feel it in the ost. Even the more thematic, less eye-catching tracks still have an extra oomph from Terada's iconic drum tracks. Every song has a racing heartbeat, really matching the upped energy the game as a whole brings when compared to it's predecessor.
It's such a fun game and part of me wants to binge through it but honestly it's so uniquely cute and fun that I think I'll need to savor it, playing just a little bit every day like I just got home from school and still have homework to do. It's a game I want to savor all my time with, and that's rad.
#3: Tony Hawk's American Wasteland
So, I love Tony Hawk games. I have beaten nearly every title in the series, including: THPS1, 2, 3, 4, THUG, THP8, THPG, and the THPS 1+2 and 3+4 remakes. I am a HUGE FAN. Except, I just never found much interest in American Wasteland? There's something about it; maybe it's the open world, maybe it's the speed, maybe it's the tone, maybe it's me, but I've just always been turned off of the game.
In my revisit, I think I still agree. Tony Hawk's Underground (THUG) is a game where you just skate and do missions and that's it, and it rules! It isn't without fault; some questionable vehicle sections are shoehorned-in on every level (with all but two being entirely optional!), there's some questionable difficulty spikes at times and a lack of challenge at other times, but overall it's just so fast and fun, the story is simple but satisfying, the soundtrack rules, it's just a great game! All killer, no filler.
American Wasteland, however, has some huge issues that led to me having trouble keeping interest.
For one, the gameplay; The gameplay is fun, but in some ways feels a bit overstuffed and disjointed. Like, who wanted more parkour mechanics? Why is there a whole repurposed BMX game awkwardly shoehorned in? Why do I need to play for an hour to learn how to spine transfer? When will I ever use the bert slide other than when the game forces me to? There's so many new gimmicks that just feel obnoxious and unnecessary.
The zero loading screen gimmick is neat at first, but those slow rides through empty hallways get so aggravating, especially as the game emphasizes the mechanic and asks you to run back and forth between areas for no reason other than to take advantage of their open world gimmick. You'll eventually unlock fast-travel spots connecting certain maps, but not being able to choose missions from the pause screen really slows down the gameplay with little reward to compensate.
Also, needing to do random filler missions to get money to progress the story just SUCKS! I don't want to tag a wall five feet away from a dude 20 times just to have enough money to keep playing the game, I WANNA PLAY THE GAME! Even making your character better is more annoying. I get that they wanted to make earning stat points more challenging by implementing a daily challenge board, (in THPS you bought stats with money found hidden in levels or earned by completing missions, which made maxing out stats challenging. In THUG this was changed to making you perform stat-relevant feats to raise them, and to reach certain points in the story to unlock access to higher tiers; in practice, this meant the second you have access to more stats, you can just do a few combos and instantly max them out again) but in practice this just felt like yet another time-waster. Your character is simply worse unless you play for a longer amount of time and wait for those challenge boards to refresh.
I think American Wasteland has a reputation because it is so singular. Though I admittedly don't care for the tone - like, the game is pretty washed-out brown and they try so hard with the 'punk' vibe despite a lot of the writing being cheesy (and frequently racist) - at least it's something I haven't seen in any other game? It's fun to see something truly try to embrace punk, even if it feels half-hearted and outdated.
American Wasteland LOVES to linger on their OCs that I just do not care about (other than Mindy, who IS goals), to affirm to you how cool and edgy it is, despite not really being that cool or edgy. Also, it's weirdly sexist??? And I'm not just referring to the character creator, which only allows you to choose your favorite flavor as man to play as, despite literally every other game in the franchise allowing both genders. There's a lot of ire towards women that don't correctly act subservient to men in this game, it's really got that ick that a lot of MTV-core early-aughts media has for me. It's nicer and less offensive than the Bam Margera-led THUG2, but in some ways that almost makes it worse? THUG was inoffensive, THUG2 was offensive, and THAW is just an awkward in-between, and nobody likes a centrist.
I'm really only like 1/5 through the game, so maybe the gameplay just really is that fun and I'll have a better time further in, but it's a shame coming back to my white whale in the Tony Hawk franchise and being pretty disappointed. People hype this game up so much, but there's just very little that makes this game 'better' than it's predecessors, and to me it really demonstrates why the franchise died. They perfected the formula and were too afraid to try something different until it was too late, settling instead to add intrusive gimmicks without enriching the gameplay, and you really can't get away with that without already having Pokemon or Call of Duty-levels of success.
#4: OutRun 2006: Coast to Coast
This game rules, I don't have much else to say. I had never really heard of this game, but I had read a tweet about how fun Sega racing games used to be, and this game is just a fun time. If I didn't know any better, I'd think the PS2 was THE console to experience zero loading screens, and this game really embraces the concept.
The name of the game is challenge and replay-ability, and technically you can beat the game in like 20 minutes. The way it works: like any arcade racer, you are primarily racing against the clock. If you make it to a checkpoint before the clock hits zero, it refills and you keep playing. If you don't, you lose. The gimmick is that at the end of every level you can choose to take a left or right exit, with every exit offering a unique level, the leftmost being easier and the rightmost being harder.
This makes more sense when you're trying to get a highscore on a leaderboard, but here there isn't much of an incentive? I guess if a certain level speaks to you more than another you can choose it, but uhh, that's about it. There is a leaderboard, but like, it's a PS2 game. That just doesn't hit the same.
The saving grace of this game is just how fun it is. The drifting and weaving, perfectly hitting those corners and slipstreaming past your opponent, it really captures what makes arcade racers so satisfying to play. It's also just kinda funny that you are forced to play an anime twink with a big tiddy gf, what's not to love?
Once you've played the game for an hour, you likely have seen just about everything the game has to offer, which is a real shame! There's a ton of unlockables, but most of them barely impact the gameplay, and even with some of the fun twists challenges add (such as being randomly asked to dribble a giant beach ball with your car, weave through semi-truck stockades or maintain drifts for as long as possible) you're still driving through the same levels doing the same few things.
This single focus of the game is a dual-edged sword; it's hard to play the game for long periods of time without getting burnt out, but it's just so fun to play it for 5-10 minutes whenever you have that itch.
~
So, I don't have much of a concluding thought to this other than to say I plan to write a lil entry like this for every game that I play for a sufficient amount of time that I have thoughts and wanna share em. I don't think it's fair to say I'll only talk about games I beat, because like, a lot of these games I won't be beating, but I don't really wanna pretend I know everything about Steambot Chronicles when I've only played for two hours, either. My biggest goal is just to capture the passion each game made me feel in whatever form that takes, and maybe to help popularize some hidden gems from the PS2 catalogue! If anybody has any recommendations for what I should check out next please do let me know!
Let me leave you with a little treat: So, if you've played R4 Ridge Racer or Persona 3, you know how Japan loved throwing some powerful soul singers onto soundtracks, and it almost always rules. Here's one from OutRun 2006: Coast to Coast that I have never heard before and don't expect to encounter in the wild. Japanese language has a very high syllable count so maybe this sounds less weird to their native speakers, but man, this chorus really uhh, is somethin:
I had completely forgotten this part. Aerith's father was Professor Gast.
The snowboarding mini game is such a tonal whiplash considering where you are in the game, maybe they put it in to lighten the mood.
Thanks to the handy-dandy walkthrough, I got the Alexander Materia. Which requires you to find the hot springs, make sure you TOUCH IT, and then find the cave where the monster "Snow" lives, who will be offended if your hands have hot spring water on them.
I genuinely wonder why programmers do this? Stuff that just requires you to poke and prod at everything the figure out? I guess there are folks out there that enjoy it, like "AbsoluteSteve" who wrote the walkthrough I'm referencing.
On my previous replay of this game (10 years ago?) I gave up just before this part in the snowstorm, and as such do not remember it at all.
The Zack reveal.
It's hard to buy into Cloud's crisis of faith when I remember the information that's revealed later on when Cloud and Tifa are in the lifestream, but I have to remember he doesn't have that information at this point. The evidence currently points to Cloud not possibly having genuine memories of the Nibbelheim incident because he seems to think he was Zack (and not another person lying on the ground just out of frame).
So nobody ever thought of just flying north before? Because you just flew up here on your airship. It wasn't exactly hidden from you.
Rebrith making "Weapon" a bunch of whale-looking things was so dumb.
The developers knew what they were doing with this cut-scene.
So many folks ask "why didn't Tifa say anything before this" and the answer is right there. "other things you shouldn't know that you did." She didn't have all the facts herself, and wanted to try and figure things out before confronting him.
I know the original game is nearly 30 years old (ouch) at this point, but Rebirth just came out a year or so ago, so Spoilers below vv
But I was thinking about the main change that was made to the Nibelheim return that Cloud & Co. have in FF7, and at first I wasn't necessarily a fan as it felt like a change made for the sake of making a change. But the more time passes, and as I'm replaying 1997 FF7 again currently, I think it was a really smart move to make.
In the original FF7, Cloud and Tifa return to Nibelheim and find the town almost exactly the way they remember as opposed to the burned-out husk that should by all rights be there waiting for them. Barret and some others ask about this, bc they were pretty clear about the state of the town in their retelling of the Sephiroth tantrum. They investigate, and the story reveals (as does talking to the NPCs meandering around the village) that Shinra rebuilt the town from scratch to hide what happened, and have replaced all the dead villagers with Crisis Actors (pun intended).
In FF7 Rebirth, however, they take it a step further. All of that is still true; village burned down, mass murder, Shinra rebuilt, people moved in, denying that the burning ever happened. What's changed is that there is a cover story added; now Nibelheim exists as a retreat primarily focused on hospice care (and treatment research, i think?) for victims of extreme Mako Poisoning (ironic, considering Cloud's history with Nibelheim and Mako Poisoning. I digress). The subtext is still there, that Shinra is doing this as a cover-up, but it's less obvious, as the whole town is full of people talking about Mako Poisoning, healthcare, and the swath of black robed Sephiroth Clones roaming the Nibel area. It also seems that the people actually working in this town do earnestly believe in their cover story, too. At the very least, there is a genuine attempt being made to comfort the Sephiroth Clones in their end-of-life. One could argue that could still be true in the original FF7 as well, I think there is a slightly higher number of Black Robes there than other towns, after all.
Again, I wasn't a fan at first. I accepted it, it didn't ruin anything by any rate, I just thought it was a bit superfluous. But again, replaying FF7, I had a change of heart. In FF7 (1997), this takes place in what I like to call the "Backstory Section". Back to back, we go to Barret's, Nanaki's, Cloud/Tifa's, and Cid's hometown, where we get to learn about their history and what set them on this path. Optionally, you can also go to Zack's hometown and learn about Aerith's history with him, and to Wutai to learn about Yuffie. The main thing I want to talk about is Corel, though.
The similarities between Nibelheim and Corel Incidents are striking. Poor village, remote and in the mountains, the only source of income is Shinra subsidies due to a nearby Mako Reactor. In both cases, the towns were effectively destroyed by Shinra. Corel was actually assaulted by Shinra military forces arbitrarily after the Mako dried up and is still devastated years later, and Nibelheim (as mentioned already) was utterly decimated by one lone SOLDIER. And yet, in FF7 (1997) there is no attempt to cover up Corel's destruction. In fact, they still allow Corel to be the primary method tourists use to go to the Gold Saucer, a massive attraction with tons of foot traffic. It's almost like they're encouraging people to see what Shinra is capable of if the town ends up on their bad side. A step further, Gongaga also has had no attempt made at PR after their reactor exploded, and in Crisis Core, they just fucking bomb Banora and wipe it off the map. So my change of heart comes from one question:
Why bother rebuilding and covering up Nibelheim, if they have literally never bothered to do the same for any of the other similarly destroyed towns?
The answer is probably "to prevent people from investigating and discovering Shinra Manor/Jenova's tank in the reactor". I would argue that it's not really worth the trouble, when you could easily just destroy the manor and the reactor, with far less trouble and expense. Just grab those books (as if you didn't already fucking have digital copies, Hojo) and get the fuck out of Dodge, you know? Also, I would argue that literally any effort should be put into the original game to offer evidence toward that hypothesis, if it is canon. With the text available, all we know is: Nibelheim burned, Nibelheim was rebuilt to hide it.
Which brings me to my original point. The Rebirth addition of Mako Poisoning treatment/palliative care is a smart way to justify why Shinra would go to so much expense to hide what happened. Sure, their true motive is likely to prevent investigation and hide Sephiroth's breakdown, but if they're putting all this time and money into it, they might as well do something tangible with the damn town. Turning it into a care/research center just makes sense, especially as Sephiroth Clones (which are actively dying of Mako Poisoning) are making their way to/through the town anyway. Catch them on their way to the Reunion and study/care for them.
So... this theory is based off the 'Cloud snapped and thinks he saved Aerith' theory. TL;DR due to all the extra mind screwing Sephiroth has done this time around, Cloud couldn't take Aerith's death so he's convinced himself that she's totally fine and that he totally saved her!
Anyways, let me ask you this. What exactly caused Sephiroth to lose in FF7? He was extremely close to achieving his goal but he made a mistake that cost him greatly.
He underestimated Cloud.
Remember back then Sephiroth wasn't NEARLY as obsessed with Cloud as he is now. He didn't really think much of Cloud apart from a puppet. But Cloud to Sephiroth wasn't any different from black robed Sephiroth clones. Yeah Cloud killed him, but he was just a lowly Infantryman.
Cloud was a pawn on the board he exploited, not his foil and his obsession.
So in the OG, once Cloud had fulfilled his purpose and gave Sephiroth the Black Materia, it makes sense that Sephiroth left Cloud to drown the Lifestream when the WEAPONS woke up. Sephiroth just threw him away like a broken toy not worth thinking about.
And that's where he went wrong.
Cloud washing up in Mideel, Tifa helping him piece together his memories, Cloud regaining his true self, these things led to Cloud being strong enough to face and kill Sephiroth. Cloud had proven himself more than a puppet and Sephiroth lost because of this arrogance.
So that's why Sephiroth in Remake and Rebirth keeps hounding Cloud and making him have way more mental breaks than he did in OG.
That's why Sephiroth wants Tifa dead too because to a lesser extent he underestimated her too. He used Tifa to break Cloud in the Northern Crater by showing the accurate memories. But he didn't expect her to piece together Cloud's mind. Tifa can help Cloud be stable therefore it would better for Sephiroth if she died.
But yeah Sephiroth is trying to break Cloud and make him be more of a puppet this time. For example, Sephiroth hijacks Cloud's 'inner Cloud' moments in Remake. Instead of being warned of the Reactor, Cloud sees a feather. Cloud talking to himself about scraping his knees falling down a great height gets interrupted by Sephiroth. And in Rebirth these 'inner Cloud' moments are not even there. The dream in Junon and us playing as kid inner Cloud as the body gives Sephiroth the Black Materia are absent.
Cloud in Rebirth starts to take some of Sephiroth's fighting stances and word for word sentences as well when he's supposed to be impersonating Zack.
(Also if you ask "Well why doesn't Sephiroth make Cloud stab himself so that Cloud can't stop him?" Remember that Sephiroth in AC goes out of his way to torment Cloud and give him Despair. If Cloud lost the fight you can bet he wouldn't of just killed Cloud. He would make Cloud watch him kill everything and everyone he cherishes because Sephiroth is petty like that. Sephiroth would make Cloud suffer forever if he could. That's why he saved Cloud's life in the swamp.)
And if you don't believe me that Sephiroth constantly harassing and messing with Cloud's head isn't making Cloud more mentally damaged, then replay/rewatch the differences in the OG and Rebirth post Temple of the Ancients. In the OG Cloud is self-aware and terrified that Sephiroth can control him and almost doesn't go after Aerith because he's scared of learning the truth of himself.
Rebirth Cloud does not do these things. He just... doesn't acknowledge what happened. When Yuffie asks how did Sephiroth get the Black Materia if he didn't beat up Cloud and he just goes "Uh..." and Yuffie rambles on and Cloud just ends up agreeing that Sephiroth totally beat the hell out of him. And when Tifa asked Cloud to let her know if he starts thinking weird thoughts and he asks her what she means. She gives the example of thinking she's not real and he apologises but- CLOUD YOU JUST WENT THROUGH A DEGRADING AND AWFUL EXPERIENCE OF SEPHIROTH MAKING YOU A PATHETIC PUPPET DESPERATE FOR THE BLACK MATERIA! HOW DO YOU NOT THINK 'Oh hey maybe that counts as weird thoughts'.
Which all results in Cloud blocking out that Aerith is dead because Cloud's now more insane.
Sephiroth has his claws deep in Cloud's brain.
But what is this all leading up to?
Here's where I go into pure theory and speculation.
At the Northern Crater, Sephiroth will not only show the truth of Nibelheim, but also Aerith's death and shatter Cloud's mind.
But...
Sephiroth isn't going to let Cloud be washed away and he isn't going to let Tifa fix his brain. He's going keep his puppet with him. Sephiroth will put up that barrier around the Crater to defend himself from the WEAPONS and Shin-ra, and make sure Cloud's on the other side of barrier this time.
So when the barrier and the party goes in to fight Sephiroth, they will be forced to fight Puppet Cloud.
I call this 'The Puppet Cloud Boss Fight Theory' btw.
But yeah they will be forced to fight their mind broken friend. (Bonus points if Cloud's theme plays as a boss fight remix. Also bonus bonus points if Cloud at one stage of the fight gets a bat wing on his left KH Style.)
The fight will end with Cloud being pushed into the Lifestream (by Tifa probably to mirror Clpud doing that in Rebirth) and then Cloud washes up in Mideel all make poisoned.
Maybe instead of that WEAPON attacking Mideel it's Sephiroth trying to stop history from repeating. OOO or maybe Sephiroth fights that WEAPON!
But either way Tifa and Cloud end up in the Lifestream.
Maybe one of the reasons Zack is here from another world or whatever is because the damage to Cloud's psyche is too much now for just Tifa to fix alone and Zack and Tifa go through a buddy road trip through Cloud's mind. Or maybe Zack will being having a boss fight with Sephiroth in the background to stop him from interfering.
...
And that's the theory! Maybe later I will figure out how the empty materia is involved or all the wacky worlds stuff. But that's my theory for now.
@dezimaton asked: :3c for char breakdown meme: rosso (FF7) ?
THANK YOU FOR ASKING, because my feelings for this character has grown and shifted over the years!
-How I feel about this character-
See, when I first started playing the game, she was cool and interesting, but was a bad guy against Vincent and that's about as far as my brain went. She was just a blood-loving psycho to me, and I could never decide if her accent was cheesy or enjoyable.
Now? I adore her? Like I do most the Tsviets, or at least what I like to see as the original three (I don't actually know the timeline, my I like to see Weiss and Nero as the top dogs and Rosso being the closest to their level, with respect). But idk, its come from some roleplays, and replays, and story analysis, but also fully letting it sit in (which applies to all Deepground characters) that yes she's crazy and enjoys battle and spilling blood, but why wouldn't she? Brought up and trained and tortured as she was? But I fucking love her. She's beautiful. She's badass. She has her own weird form of honor, and I thoroughly enjoy her.
-All the people I ship romantically with this character-
I've never really thought of shipping, to be honest, that much for her! Only shipping I've managed to imagine is, by roleplay randomness, my failed-tsviet OC being deeply, sapphicly dependent and obsessed/in love with her and Rosso having her own affection in return. Absolutely toxic, but in a devoted way? XD
Beyond that, like I said, I haven't really thought about it! But since the OC shipping, I'm now inclined to see her as more a woman's woman, so perhaps I'd consider other female characters, if any could handle her lol.
-My non-romantic OTP for this character-
Absolutely headcanon, but I like to imagine her and Nero have their own version of friendship...? They are very loyal, Nero holds absolutely loyalty to Weiss of course above all others. But I like to imagine he looks at Rosso as one of the few people at least managing to stand with them. And Rosso feels the same, she puts them both, especially Weiss, on a pedestal of greatness in their torture-born culture. Nero is right there beside him, but for different reasons. She would do just about anything for them. She is fond, to a degree, of the other Tsviets, but beyond that, she just sees the world as things to taunt, challenge, defeat, and/or kill, and she's eager to do it.
Again, of course, in scenarios paired with my OC, I imagine her as protective and possessive and waiting to lead her into their world. Might protect her from what she deems unnecessary, and will otherwise support her and push her through everything else.
-My unpopular opinion about this character-
I don't have many opinions about her? Much less do I have enough experience thinking about her and exploring her to know what would be an unpopular opinion. Other than maybe she should almost be on par with popularity and fanart and attention as Weiss and Nero. Maybe not AT the same level lol, but, still. She's enjoyable.
-One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.-
I think the only things I'd want for her going forward, kind of applies to the other Tsviets as well. I want more screen time and with that or in that, I want more exploration of the characters. The Tsviets and Deepground are such a sad, enthralling batch of characters! Are they blood thirsty and dangerous? Technically, yes! Could they be classified on some spectrum of psychosis? I'm not a professionly, but probably! Is that their fault? HELL NO. You raised someone to bite or be bitten for most their life, they're gonna become a biter.
Others have said this, but honestly, feels like Deepground and the top Tsviets are the biggest ShinRa victims of them all, and every time I think about that, it makes me wanna write shit about them! So if I could see Rosso with her incestual besties wreaking some horrible havoc in the next game? That would be delightful! Unlikely, but delightful XD
