theme under construction

some transparents of tomotake kinoshita's character art from the versus books' final fantasy vii ultimate guide! in order, these are from pages 3, 17, 110, 30, 31 & 47.

while probably best known (-within the vii fanbase) for his beautiful cover works below,

he also did the art within the book, including the doodles above + these little 'fuller' pics below and the character guide artwork! (which, unfortunately, is more of a pain to cut out.)

(pages 44, 50, 64.)

(107, 109, 111, 113, 115, 117, 119, 121, 123.)

while now the versus' guide can be a little pricey if you're looking to get your hands on it physically, it is freely available to view on the internet archive! as i recommend with anyone even lightly into preservation, back it up personally while you can :^)

+ og post edit to clear up a common misconception: the versus' guide was not official ffvii material! though the book and many of the other guide works were all incredibly iconic (which is where i believe the misunderstanding comes from), this one is quite literally called The Completely Unauthorized Final Fantasy VII Ultimate Guide with multiple disclaimers that it's unaffiliated with square in any way. :p

guy who's about to push the PC-98 sound card to its absolute limit and create the most heartachingly beautiful music you've ever heard: Yeah okay

Fan Translators: hmm taking into account the intention of the original and the rules of both languages, plus the tone of the story, the best title would probably be something like Adherent of the Blade of Duality, but probably an official translation would want to shorten it to Blade of Duality, or perhaps Double-Edged Sword to borrow a popular turn of phrase that also fits thematically--

heyyy I turned the Beta Kids’ handwriting into useable fonts!

these are very basic 60 character fonts! I will probably expand these into full fonts with numbers and special characters later (need to buy font software first). I am aware @taehyunglesbian did this in like 2012, but their fonts are no longer available for download. @rubysapphrald also did this in 2021 with all the kids and some trolls (theirs is still available for download). I wanted to try my hand at it too! Fair warning: these are somewhat anachronistic since we don’t see all the necessary letters from every kid— hence my choice of the word “reconstruction.” I will be working on Alpha Kids’ handwriting next! I haven’t found a sample from Jane, however, so pls send one to me if you find :o

She mentions multiple times in the books that she despises expensive gifts, and the ones that actually leave an impact on are her Chevy and the wooden wolf bracelet Jacob gives her. The Chevy is second-hand from Billy, and the bracelet was carved by Jacob. They hold value to her because they have personality; they speak to her tastes and were given to her with those tastes in mind.

She loves her Chevy, but it is eventually replaced with a sleek, expensive designer car gifted to her by the Cullens. She adores the bracelet but Edward puts an designer charm on it to remind her of him.

Even her clothes, which she insists are fine and suit her, are replaced with branded sweaters, dresses and heels.

She hates the idea of any kind of marriage but Edward holds vampirism over her head to get what he wants. Even when she agrees to marry him (against her will) she wants to keep it simple, wanting to simply drive to Texas and get married via a drive thru- Alice begs Bella to allow her to plan the wedding and it's easily more ostentacious and expensive than her birthday party in New Moon, which she describes as "a hundred times worse than I'd imagined"

They get rid of her preferred aesthetics in hopes that their consumerist one will stick, and one of the last things they do to her is literally strip her of her humanity.