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Chapter 34 - FOREVER - is up.

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Vincent glanced at Sephiroth’s bare arms; thin, long, from the sleeves of his oversized plain black teeshirt. Wrong colored skin. So white it was almost translucent. Paper. Beautiful blue threads of vein visible just beneath. Concern twisted through Vincent’s core. Fragile. …He is so fragile. “Where’s your jacket?”

“How do you know?” Sephiroth asked again.

Vincent removed his pendleton from Lucy, shook it out one handed. Tossed it at Sephiroth, who did not so much as flinch. It landed in his lap. “Put mine on,” Vincent scanned the train car for an attendant, to request a blanket. No attendant, no anybody.

Sephiroth did not move. “I’m not cold. I’m not anything.”

Vincent attempted to reorder the prioritization of comfort, to whom it was given. To address things in the right order so that any of it mattered. Said things that he knew to be true, despite not knowing how. Except for one thing. One, which he would not say. What was done to Sephiroth. “…Because everything is different this time. Do you want to hear the story? Of the night you were born?”

Sephiroth said nothing. He looked so much like Vincent in shape and feature, Vincent was taken by the uncanny, eerie feeling that he was his father, speaking to himself.

“There was a historic blizzard. Snowed for days, kept comin’, kept gettin’ worse. Storm was so bad the wind and snow took out almost everything. The power, the phones, the roads. The snow was up past my knees. Blacked out most of the windows. I was worried I was gonna have to take an axe to my piano and burn the pieces to keep us warm. And then… it was time. I carried your mama from the house, all the way down the hill, into town. I was so scared I wasn’t gonna make it, but I did. I kicked on the door of the doctor’s place, until I woke up all of Nibelheim and the family that delivered you let us in. I turnt around, told death to go fuck himself, and slammed the door in his face. …Put on my jacket.”

Sephiroth’s expression did not change. Nothing on him changed. As cold and still as the air around them.

“Maybe that’s why you like the snow so much. Got some of that blizzard in you. Maybe that’s why you’re so fair. Maybe you’re full of snow,” Vincent drawled. Sounded like his father.

[car crash sfx]

[hubcap rolling sfx]

[Mr. Hangman scream sfx]

[discard "objectively great" and replace with "soulless, sloppy, cash grab" sfx]

: O

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The FF Oracle deck is just about ready to go! Sales to start around early November. As always, sales are catered to Patreon members first. Just a dollar a month will get you access to pretty much all content including the shop, and a few bucks more will earn you some other neat rewards.

I cannot overstate the importance of Patreon to the creation of merch like this, especially in this era of unreliable social media... so if you've got a few spare bucks per month please consider joining us over there!

The style of the artwork is more suited to be on cards than any of my other decks I reckon. Because of a few factors this print is fairly limited and I'm not sure there will be another, so do sign up if you're interested!

Previously: FF playing cards | FFVII playing cards | FFXV Tarots | FFVII Tarots | FFXV Playing cards | FFVII Full Tarots | FF Hanafuda deck

Like, no, you guys don't get it. Romance is not about the Amount of devotion, it's about the COLOR. the FLAVOR of it all. a character can be just as devoted to their platonic friend as they are to their romantic partner, and they don't love either of them more, just differently.

But because the majority of people still have it stuck in their minds that romance exists on the highest tier of love, I'm stuck seeing endless takes that boil down to "these two care about each other too much for it to NOT be romantic" as if that's the core determining factor to how literally any of this works

/writes extremely complex, layered, nuanced women that represent very real experiences while being 1:1 relevant to the fantastical story being told with an emphasis on unpacking all motives and driving forces focused on framing empathy and understanding, while at the same time exploring harmful choices and accountability/

another snippet from chapter 33. If you’ve read A Cold Hearted Boy, I hope you catch the loop back in this one.

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“One more time, one more!”

Vincent pulled the sliding door shut behind him, did it slowly and carefully; an attempt to go unnoticed. Crept across the dining area cluttered with empty pizza boxes, paper plates and plastic cups. He leaned against the door frame that separated the sitting room, looked into it. At Aeris on the sofa, Marlene in her lap. Yuffie on one side, Tifa on the other. Barret, next to her. And a book. A little book. The one that cost Quicksilver.

Marlene tugged at the cover, held shut in Aeris’ hands. “Read it again.”

“It’s very late,” Tifa said, “You had a big day. We have a long way to travel tomorrow. You might get bored, sitting still for so long! Aeris can read it to you again on the train.”

“No helicopters,” Marlene said firmly.

Tifa smoothed Marlene’s hair. “No, no more helicopters.”

Marlene tilted her head back, peered up at Aeris. “One more.”

Aeris looked down at her. “You really like this one, don’t you? I did too, when I was little. It was my favorite. Just like you, I wanted to hear it over and over. My mother used to read it to me. …It’s a very, very, very old story.”

Marlene turned in Aeris arms, head against her breast. Coiled. “Read it.”

Aeris looked at Barret; Barret nodded.

“Okay,” Aeris said, shifted Marlene’s weight. Tucked her into the crook of her arm, opened the book and held it, so that Marlene could see the delicate, frail pages.

Vincent watched Aeris hold and snuggle Marlene. Watched their bodies, their faces. Contentment, present, in a moment and nowhere outside of it. Everything done to them, put aside to choose this instead. He wished Lucy was there to see them. To be there, with him, seeing them. He wished that none of this was happening at all. He wished every person on the planet would die. For everything to end. A release. Respite. Rest. Peace. Mercy.

“Ready?” Aeris said.

“Ready,” Marlene said.

Chapter 33 - LISTEN - is up.

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Barret leered at him. “You woke up thirty years in the future, to this, and think ShinRa has done any fucking good? That this isn’t a dystopian hellscape?”

“I think it’s more of the same, just at a different point on the circle. Everything is so different. And it isn’t. I think no matter what you replace something with, everything goes back to the same place. Every story has been told. Every ending has already happened. The rise and fall of empires. Something dies, and something is born. On and on and on. We’re stuck in a time loop. As long as there are people on this planet, this is how it is gonna be. This is what people are. This is the human condition.”

“So what do you think the answer is?”

Vincent shut his eyes. Stretched back, dropped his head onto his arms draped over the balcony rail, the little flower still in his fist.

Barret looked skyward. “We tear it down to the studs. And we rebuild. We learn from our mistakes, and we don’t go backwards. We try something new, instead of trying again. It’s not going to be easy and it’s gonna take a long time. But we gotta try. While we’re here. Otherwise there’s no point. We do what we can for the greater good. And we don’t ever stop. Even if that means saying goodbye to someone you love, for a while. …Good people make hard choices to be good.”

Vincent’s back shuddered. Again. And Again. Barret reached for him, stopped himself. Was certain Vincent was crying; was surprised when he spoke, face buried in his arms, flat toned. “…Barret.”

“Yeah?”

“Are you mad? At Dyne. For killing himself. Did you forgive him?”

“No. He coulda faced what he done, what happened. No matter how bad he felt, how much he was suffering for it, fact is he cared about that more than he cared about Marlene. …Or me. Or himself. There was more for us all… and he quit.”

“You said you’d help me. End this. Find an end. Called it rest. What makes us different?”

10/05

10/04

Higher level people like this do question themselves but they do it as a performance. It is not sincere and it is part of a larger mechanism of control. They question themselves only in carefully engineered social circumstances in which their audience is isolated and emotionally / mentally / physically under their thumb.

They do this to illicit sympathy and support and reassurance of no wrong doing (again, where others can see it) from the sycophants they've surrounded themselves with and they do this ONLY when they know there is nobody present that will disagree with them, nobody present who is able to defend themselves, and nobody present who is willing or able to challenge the situation / event / person they are crocodile tear crying about.

Heads up for the people caught in the mess of someone like this - this is also part of a loyalty test you probably aren't a willing or even aware participant in.

This is dangerous. Pay attention to the environment you are in when someone is giving these sort of monologues. Pay attention to the excuses they make for creating those environments in the first place.

10/05