Pollen Ainne

Parallel's between Remake and Rebirth's endings. A thread. Remake: Fate is breached by Aerith Rebirth: Fate is breached by Cloud

And consider this is a fighting game where the characters kill troopers and monsters. All that are acts of violence. If we are just going to throw terms broadly then why do we even care about the word abuse? When Cloud being an "abuser" would then mean nothing because obviously he has been violent towards a lot of stuff. He even threatened to kill Johnny. Cloud, the Johnny abuser.

As I said, im not agreeing with everything she said. If you read my post, I disagreed that Cloud requires external punishment from others or that understanding from others is him getting away instead. I totally do not agree with that. Even Aerith's leaving was never supposed to be tormenting punishment but a way to keep him intact. None of the girls intented to or should want to punish him. But how is my definition of abuse absurd? You can use the term broadly for sure but if we do that then wouldnt any punch thrown be considered abuse? And if you treat it broadly then yeah, anyone who has punched or kicked or even threw something at someone, no matter who it is, is an abuser.

quick show me one clerith who said this without twisting and taking it out of context @sephisnubecita

You are wrong tho. Regardless if the OP is wrong or right in their deductions (some stuff I dont completely agree with), violence and abuse aren’t the same thing. And neither does the person's statement infer it. Violence is about physically hurting someone. It’s an action, like hitting or trying to kill them. Abuse is about controlling or mistreating someone in a relationship where there’s a power imbalance. Violence can be an effect of abuse, but not necessary. Abuse can also be emotional or psychological, not necessarily violent. TLDR: While violence can be part of abuse, not all violence is abuse, and not all abuse is violent. In Cloud's case, there really isn't some sort of power imbalance between him and Tifa that allows for such dynamic. Hence violence from him to Tifa is not considered abuse at all. It's like him attacking Barret or Vincent. No one would say that is abuse. But it does make sense that controlled or not, there should be some lesson of regret that comes from it, regardless if it is a full consequence or not. Altho, personally, all that should come from Cloud himself and does not require external punishment from others. And we barely get a complete insight of Cloud's innter thoughts, so who knows. The guy is traumatized enough already.

@ClaireStrifeX02 @sephisnubecita She was literally talking about the consequences, or lack thereof, of alleged abusive behavior. Playing dumb isn’t going to win you anything here.

The problem with saying “it’s all Lifestream” is that it’s often used to argue that there is only one absolute reality and everything else is just an unreal projection inside it. That assumption does not actually follow. If everything is Lifestream, then the so-called “shared reality” is also part of the Lifestream. There is no external, independent layer standing above it that gets to be labeled the one true reality while everything else is downgraded to unreality. Yogacara does not teach Marvel-style branching timelines, but it does allow multiple streams of conditioned experience. These streams arise from the same conditioning ground and can influence each other or even synchronize under certain conditions. What we call “shared reality” is simply when multiple streams align and stabilize together. That stability is not absolute. It is governed by causes and conditions, and it can shift if those conditions shift. So if someone says “it’s all Lifestream,” that does not eliminate multiplicity. It actually includes it.

@pollenainne Nah, the multiverse crowd interpret it as MCU style thing, not a "manifestation inside the Lifestream". This is a very big issue in the fandom too, people see "different worlds" and hop to timeline and multiverse theories while it's ALL lifestream

I think some people are missing the connection between Yogacara and FF7 and some arguments are misunderstood or strawmanned. The multiverse discussion as far as I know, was never about an MCU-style collection of separate, hopping worlds. The argument has always been about multiple realities existing at once. Not alternate universes you travel between but coexisting experiential truths. Yogacara doesn’t force one narrative. It allows multiple realities to coexist without collapsing them into a single, objective version. In Yogacara, reality is not denied, it is PLURAL. What is “real” depends on perception, memory, consciousness, and karmic imprint. Two contradictory experiences can both be real without one needing to overwrite the other. So not any one of these realities is imagined or untrue.

This is a completely valid concern. Them trying to spiritualize the concept of the lifestream more than it already is can actually be a detriment to the world building especially since they seem to have overcomplicated stuff that could have just simple psychological answers. This is the product of FF7 being cut into three separate segments. I would say, I am enjoying the concept and the ideas. However, if I want the more coherrent story, I will just stick to the OG. I have already thrown all notions that the remake is anything but an exploration of the original.

This is so lame though. Cloud’s entire arc is about him overcoming all his mental shit and zeroing in on a single objective truth: he has to defeat Sephiroth or the planet is doomed. This GRATES against OG FF7’s materialist eco-spiritual core. Real physical threats. shinto animism + gaia theory. kabbalah/gnostic mysticism. NOT subjective idealism bs

I agree. Multiple realities exist 100% and by virtue of it being Yogacara it 100% does. And yet, shared reality is a complex thing. Right now, Zack is not presented as a stable shared reality in Yogacara terms. He is not an enduring conventional reality (samvrti-satya), nor is he a world meant to persist and fully cohere with the main party’s synchronized experience. Instead, Zack functions as a manifest counterfactual. He represents what could have been, sustained by unresolved karmic and emotional residue. Yogacara allows this through the concept of storehouse consciousness (alaya-vijnana). If the Lifestream in FF7 is understood as analogous to alaya-vijnana, then it operates as a deep reservoir that holds unexhausted karma, unresolved intentions, and unrealized possibilities. Zack’s multiple outcomes are not separate parallel worlds running independently. They are unresolved potentials. They are karmic branches that never fully collapsed into shared conventional reality. They are counterfactual lives that continue to exert pressure on the present because their causal seeds were never fully exhausted. Yogacara allows unrealized causes to continue conditioning perception and experience, even if they never stabilized as shared reality. Zack is that lingering pressure made visible. He is the embodiment of unresolved causation emerging from the deeper substrate of consciousness. The same structure can apply to Aerith if her survival remains confined to Cloud’s stream and does not stabilize into shared dependent causation. It will function in the same way as Zack: a visible manifestation of unresolved potential sustained by deeper causal residue. Only a shift in dependent conditions that brings her manifestation into synchronized shared reality would change that status. Are these worlds still real? YES. Are they shared perceptions? No.

@pollenainne Whether you explain why the worlds exist via Yogacara or conventional multiverse logic, I don’t really care I just think it’s ridiculous for people to say there is no multiple realities when Sephiroth has a whole scene explicitly explaining there is and that’s his whole plan

But are these really deterrents to changes in the timelines? Or are these effects of Sephiroth trying to influence the world to only his own perception and the planet trying to fight it? Sephiroth is like a virus to the planet it seems (and Jenova) and the planet might be trying to fight back by trying to ensure that some realities don't vanish. But then its just a thought. It could also be plot holes or them doing whatever they want to get the story they want.

@pollenainne "Yogacara doesn’t force one narrative. It allows multiple realities to coexist without collapsing them into a single, objective version." But we see there are a set series of events, theres even in universe deterrents to changes to the timeline

@UD_Cloudy They wont. They will rely on outside stuff to explain most of it. People will come out with their own conclusions of why things happen. They will drop miniscule explanations and we will debate to no end and then quote ultimanias. What else is new?

@pollenainne 100% agree! The one thing that worries me is how do they going to explain all this only on the 3rd part. I am afraid it is too overwhelming for people who is not familiar with this concept.

In much plainer words: What we call “shared reality” is really just many minds lining up and experiencing the same thing at the same time. It is coordinated perception. That means the majority does not automatically define what is ultimately real. Shared perception is stable because the system of causes and conditions keeps it stable. But if those conditions change, what people experience together can also change. So it is possible that instead of one person adjusting to the group’s perception, the group’s perception could shift to match one powerful individual’s perception. That is what Sephiroth is trying to do. He is not just coping or imagining. He is trying to control the Lifestream, which in FF7 acts like the foundation of reality itself. If he can control the source of causes and conditions, then he can reshape what everyone experiences as real. In simple terms, he is trying to force the world to line up with his own perception. In a system like FF7, where causal structures like the Lifestream can be influenced, shared realities are not fixed. They can realign. Therefore, reducing phenomena to “just imaginary” or insisting on a single permanent true world oversimplifies a framework where all experiences participate in dependent reality and synchronization itself can change. We also cannot say that FF7 will follow Yogacara logic faithfully, it is a fantasy game after all.

A more concrete example is the Whispers. At first, only Aerith and Cloud could perceive them. They were not visible to the rest of the party. However, once others physically interacted with the Whispers through contact with Cloud and direct interference, they too began to see them. The expansion of visibility followed interaction. This establishes a consistent narrative pattern: phenomena in FF7 may initially be perceptible only to certain individuals, but once they exert causal force and enter shared interaction, they stabilize into intersubjective perception. Therefore, limited perception does not automatically imply fabrication within FF7’s metaphysics. In this system, visibility expands through causal contact rather than determining existence from the start.

However, since Final Fantasy VII is a fantasy world, it is possible for Sephiroth to aim and succeed in making his own reality prevail over any shared reality. And it seems that for this, he needs Cloud's help. Read below as my own thoughts only. Under a Yogacara lens, reality normally exists as many overlapping streams of consciousness that stabilize a shared world through intersubjective coherence, with no single perspective allowed to dominate absolutely. Sephiroth’s goal to “merge all realities” is not about combining parallel physical worlds, but about collapsing these plural streams into one authoritative perception that he controls. By embedding himself in the Lifestream (which functions much like storehouse consciousness), disrupting the mechanisms that normally resolve contradictions, and imposing his will on how reality stabilizes, he can temporarily force his version of reality to dominate locally. However, this domination is inherently destructive: a fully prevailing single reality would erase plurality, overwrite other consciousness streams, and freeze becoming itself. FF7 frames this not as enlightenment or success, but as planetary death. Aerith represents a counter-principle which is continuity without domination. While Cloud embodies the tension of fragmented perception that resists total collapse. But as long as multiple consciousnesses retain the ability to perceive, remember, and act independently, Sephiroth’s reality can never become absolute. Hence, he will most likely fail. In this way, FF7 can use fantasy mechanics to push against Yogacara’s boundaries while still making a philosophical claim: forcing one reality to prevail over all others is not resolution, but annihilation.

But what others might also not understand about the realities is that if it is not a shared reality then it cannot be permanent. Hense the crack in the sky. Unfortunately, these realities no matter how real or valid they are will have to come to an end.

Calling them “worlds,” “timelines,” or “realities” is not important. The terminology is a red herring. Whether you name them: worlds timelines branches layers realities What matters is this truth: There are multiple experiential realities, and all of them are real. Not metaphorically. Not hypothetically. Ontologically real within the narrative.

I think though that it is okay not to like all the relationships. It shouldn't matter if you don't like the cloti or clerith dynamic. We don't all have to like the same things. And I also think it is fine to argue our views and show reason why we think differently. The problem is that people just take it personally sometimes. It's just weird.

I’m a Clerith fan at heart. There’s something about Cloud Strife and Aerith Gainsborough that just speaks to me, the softness, the humor, the way they connect so naturally even in the middle of pain and uncertainty. Their moments feel quiet but meaningful, like two people finding light in each other when the world is falling apart. That said, I genuinely enjoy Cloud and Tifa scenes too. Their history, the shared memories, the comfort they find in one another, it’s real and emotional. Some of their moments hit hard in a very grounded, human way, and I think those scenes are an important part of Cloud’s journey. And Zack and Aerith? I love them. Their relationship is warm, sincere, and full of heart. Watching their scenes, you can feel how much they meant to each other, and that love doesn’t just vanish. It stays with Aerith, just like Zack’s legacy stays with Cloud. For me, loving Clerith doesn’t mean rejecting the others. I don’t feel the need to erase or downplay any bond to validate my own feelings. Final Fantasy VII is special because it allows space for different kinds of love, past and present, loud and quiet, joyful and tragic. We all connect to this story in our own way, and that’s okay. You can have a favorite and still appreciate the rest. That’s what makes it feel so human.

@Danomite_Dan @RadiantAntiHero Nah, the fact alone that Zack is not present in Lifestream White on Aerith's side when she needed help against Sephiroth means that Zack's existence in the Lifestream is conditional at best.

Well, there are different viewpoints on the lifestream. But generally speaking, Zack hasn’t dissolved into it and remains by Aerith’s side. Technically speaking post Rebrith, Zack’s Jenova cells should make it impossible for him to return to the planet. As we saw in Remake, Marco is still alive even though he died in Ever Crisis. If AC’s depictions of Zack and Aerith are just Cloud’s memories, as early interviews seemed to state, then Cloud imagines Aerith with Zack.

Zack and Aerith aren’t canon in OG that’s a blatant lie, they are canon on CC which is a prequel and serves as backstory for OG. That relationship is over by the time OG happens and there isn’t anything hinting at it continuing post Aerith’s death (for obvious reasons).

@Danomite_Dan @RadiantAntiHero I still fail to see any implication of romance. They were both dead and visited Cloud, what are they supposed to do? Throw the other one out of the lifestream?

@RadiantAntiHero @pollenainne

@Danomite_Dan @RadiantAntiHero Together like you know what I mean.

@pollenainne @RadiantAntiHero At all times, Zack is with Aerith. So yes they are together in the lifestream.

@Danomite_Dan @RadiantAntiHero Nothing of which has anything to do with them being together.

@pollenainne @RadiantAntiHero Aerith’s ACC Dengeki Character Profile: