I Love It When Italians Argue About Italian. Like We Don’t Even Know How Our Language Really Works

lmao

Flowers.

Happy Birthday Aerith 🌸

Talk about a coincidence!

A debated canonicity

(Previous post here)

Mad1en who Trave1s the P1anet (adding typos to prevent unpleasant comments) is one of the most controversial entries of FFVII lore.

It was included in FFVII Ultimania Omega, published in 2005. Fans have debated ever since if this short story is part of the canon entries of the compilation, as it was written by an external writer that never took part to the realisation of the game.

Part of the fandom thinks it's canon because Square Enix never said it isn't, another part thinks it's not canon because Square Enix never mentioned it again ever since it was published (neither ever provided an official translation nor decided to sell it outside Japan. Quite self-explanatory, considering that "Picturing the Past" has been immediately translated and it's sold everywhere in the world).

The particularity of this novel is that here Aerith states she loves Cloud more than Zack. Not a word is spent to describe how she feels when she understands that Zack didn't cheat on her but endured experimetations for years and died to save Cloud, and that Cloud had created an alter ego based on Zack's traits. These lines started to divide the fans after the release of Crisis Core, that describes a tender and sincere romantic relationship between Zack and Aerith.

Yes, SE never officially said if this novel is canon or not, but I'd like to point out a fact:

The Remake includes tons of references to all the entries of the compilation.

Some examples?

The Avalanche members that show up in Chapter 4 wear the original uniforms of Before Crisis:

Crisis Core references can be found everywhere in the game, for one thing, Zack's last stand:

Dirge of Cerberus was already hinted in the game when Cloud, Tifa and Barret fell in the misterious lab beneath Sector 7 and is going to be heavily referred in the Intergrade. From the trailer we can see Weiss:

There are many references to Advent Children too. For example, Sephiroth has the black wing that he only showed in the movie:

Last order is quite difficult to refrence, as it doesn't add anything new to the story but it's rather a reinterpretation of Nibelheim incident. Anyway, it is mentioned in FFVII Remake World Preview (Square Enix book that includes "Picturing the Past"):

And now talk about the novels:

New characters, like Kyrie, come from The Kids are alright, a Turks side Story:

And here's an example from On the Way to a Smile too: from a dialogue with Jessie it's revealed that Cloud doesn't know the names of vegetables:

...turned out he [Cloud] didn't know a carrot from a gysal green. At first, Tifa was amused that mighty Cloud's new life started with learning vegetables names... (Case of Tifa)

So:

Before Crisis

Crisis Core

Advent Children

Dirge of Cerberus

Last Order

The Kids are alright

On the way to a Smile...

Picturing the Past was written alongise the Remake to clarify the origins of the mural painting in Aerith's room...

They are all abundantly referenced multiple times during the game. Find a more exhaustive list here.

And now it's the turn of Ma1den who trave1s the P1anet.

The author of this novel based himself on the original dialogues and story of the OG and reinterpreted them adding some new elements to create a coherent narration (full of discrepancies that, ehm, have already been disproved years ago, like Aerith's age when she met Zack, Hojo being not really dead, Zack's personality being totally different from Crisis Core, Aerith already knowing about Zack's death, normal souls that should merge immediately in the Lifestream, Omnislash being not Zack's ability...not that this ever convinced anyone).

Correct me if I'm wrong, but...

There are no references at all in the whole game. Not a single word that inequivocally refers to this novel.

Not a word to hint the fact that bad people's souls will rot in the Lifestream and won't be part of it because their spirits are beyond redemption (like what happened in the novel to President Shinra and Hojo).

In the novel Biggs, Wedge and Jessie are tormented by the deaths caused by the explosion of Mako reactor n.1. Jessie feels guilty both in the OG and in the Remake but Biggs and Wedge don't show much regret and the Remake shows that Shinra caused the massive explosion of the reactor, not Jessie. But wasn't the Lifestream supposed to be the place where all knowledges are merged together? I may be wrong but this would suggest that Jessie would have known it after her death.

There are hints that suggest the Aerith of the resolution scene is the one who already died in the OG: she talks to Cloud as if they had passed a long time together, she talks about death and finally disappears in a sparkling greenish light.

It would have been a great scene to put any reference to Ma1den but...it didn't happen.

Well...wierd the devs forgot to mention just this entry...

What a coincidence.

This might be the cutest FF VII lore fanart I've ever seen

oopsie, sketched some quick ff7 stamps bc i thought the idea of shinra making Stamp stamps was silly, and then i just had a great time playing crisis core reunion so here we are!!

so annoyed i couldnt remember if there is any unique identifiable flora to nibelheim, so i just decided cloudberries would be a good substitute since they are a) pretty damn hardy, b) punny and c) very tasty. these are based on stamps i vaguely remember from childhood, very cool!! :)

hi there but can you describe to what this is suppose to mean (In the RPG text, there was a method to make it easier to understand who's line by using "I", "I", "I" etc. for each character, but "There was a notational fluctuation, so I replaced it completely. There was something like "ta ~", long ago) - Kazushige Nojima. apparently people are taking Nojima's words here as saying the Eng localization and maybe the others as well for 7 remake as bad? is that really the case tho?

Yeah, I remember that. It's one of those moments I start to think that some people shouldn't comment on languages they don't know, and/or don't know how to navigate via translation/dictionaries—especially when this is combined with selfishly following their own agendas by skirting context. We know people do this. Happens all the time with source materials, or even epitexts like guidebooks or interviews. But, it's more annoying when it directly involves a writer's social media account within the drama. It's just really bad.

But let's contextualize.

Every now and then on his Twitter, when he isn't posting about his cute pets (lol), Nojima will post something related to video games/writing, and it'll also often be when you see a small part of the twitter FF7 ENG fanbase parading around his tweets with comments or likes. For instance, a tweet where he talked about leaving room for imagination and interpretation, or when talking about scenario writing. It's not necessarily a bad thing to have this interaction, though sometimes people will say weird things. You'll also find that his tweets like this usually get a good amount of attention as opposed to when he talks about his pets.

That's when we get to the tweet you're referring to, I'd reckon this being the most attention he's ever gotten for a personal tweet. Here's a decent translation, w/ some things added in w/ brackets for clarity:

RPGのテキストで、キャラごとに「ぼく」「僕」「ボク」などを使い分けることで誰の台詞か判りやすくする、なんて手法があったけど「表記ゆれがあったので僕に全置換しときました～」なんてのはわりとありました、昔。

In RPG texts, there was a technique of using different words for each character to make it easier to identify who is speaking, such as "I" [ぼく], "I" [僕], "I" [ボク], etc. However, a long time ago someone would say something like "there was inconsistency in the notation [orthographical variants], so I completely replaced them with I [僕]".

A couple of things.

At its core, this is just a comment about game development/writing. There is no "shade" (I really hate this immature perspective), there is no talk about localization. That was made up by people who don't know how to translate or navigate JPN text. What he's essentially talking about is: how there were different ways to write characters referring to themselves, but how in the past, this was averted and made consistently one way.

That's it.

As you can see, this absolutely has nothing to do with the Remake, and I would wager it also has nothing to do with the OG. This all hinges on the proposed reason for the technique—to make it easy to identify/understand whose dialogue is whose. For the Remake, this issue is nonexistent in today's age considering voice acting, and for the OG, the dialogue boxes identified who the speaker was anyway. Really, this also doesn't automatically apply to all localizations, especially ENG, because of the way the corresponding languages work. Especially in ENG, there's not a lot of natural variances for someone just saying "I" in writing. The closest thing is something more akin to an attribute to characterization (as opposed to clarification of who is speaking), like a character referring to themselves in third person instead of "I", a godly character saying "this one" when referring to themselves, or a character egregiously saying something like "me thinks". For characterization purposes, something close in the OG would be how the 5 bosses of Pagoda had different methods of speaking, which the ENG didn't follow suit apparently.

While an issue of "JPN did this but ENG didn't" does apply to, say, that situation with the 5 bosses: one, you still need to think of the context of how certain things don't directly work for every language, and two, even the example Nojima brings up doesn't exactly apply the same way the examples I mentioned or the 5 bosses do.

Which in this case, Nojima brings up the example of different ways to write what would be pronounced as "Boku" (I, me)—the hiragana ぼく, the kanji 僕, and the katakana ボク versions of the exact same word. They would be the "orthographical variants" [表記ゆれ]—and I was very tempted to translate it as the following meaning—which is simply referring to "words with the same pronunciation and meaning, but different written forms". I wrote "inconsistency in the notation" to signify how this was a situation where someone saw these orthographical variants (or fluctuations, as some translated) and wanted to change them to one, consistent thing. This....is really just a notation thing. Kana is for pronunciation + writing sake, all three of these aren't completely different words. This is different than the 5 bosses example, as the Lifestream user mentions 私 (watashi), ワシ (washi), オラ (ora), and わらわ (warawa)—those are actually all legitimately different words + pronunciations AND mean "I, me". Much more appropriate and often done in JPN fiction.

Nojima's example of 僕/ぼく/ボク ( all "Boku") is not the same, and honestly, it absolutely makes a lot of sense why someone would look at that and think....why? When the 5 bosses example would be the better approach instead imo.

Anyway, the problem with people who misunderstand this is that they're wanting to take this scenario and create a narrative that Nojima is mentioning this specific instance, that isn't even relevant for the Remake, as a means to talk bad about his fellow development team members and reference other "issues" in the Remake's localization. Hell, even look at the comments, which are all from JPN speakers, one of which is someone else who works at SE. None of which are talking about the Remake or all localizations (which literally....why would JPN speakers be doing this???)—just writing for games in general. I’m assuming this tweet gained such massive traction because of how most things ever do, but it isn’t some conspiracy in the making where he talks bad about his fellow employees.

And the funny thing is that, it absolutely can and does apply to the development for even just the JPN version, as this would happen even at the stages of which editing, proofreading, and programming these texts into the game—now, this CAN also apply at the stages of localization, but in addition to what otherwise is also for the JPN. Nojima could vary well be referring to something that happened when making the JPN version of a game long ago, NOT any of its localizations. That isn't made clear.

What is clear, however, is that Nojima isn't talking about Remake or even directly localization. This is just people reaching for their own twisted purposes, and as always, it's annoying. 

It’s just about pronunciation.

It’s just fandom being fandom. Insubordinate. And churlish.

CUTE FS WALLPAPER FOR THE SCHOOL EVENT WITH THE BABIES AJDHDSJ

AND WE GET ANOTHER FS CHAPTER IN JUNE THANK GOODNESS

If this isn't soulmate material than I don't know what is. She looks so proud 🥲😂

FFVII Remake Easter Eggs and compilation continuity - Part 5: ON THE WAY TO A SMILE

FRUITS AND VEGETABLES

Jessie: I make a mean pizza, I’ll have you know! Marche, luche, black milly, red shelly - I use only the best ingredients! Sound good?

Cloud: Never heard of any of that stuff.

A NEW BAR 

Some months after Meterofall, Barret, Tifa and Cloud opened a new bar in Edge.

Barret: I guess...we’ll build another bar.

Tifa: Yeah. We will. You’ll help too, won’t you?

Cloud: For a price.

DENZEL

Cloud found Denzel, an orphan in need affected by Geostigma, in front of Aerith’s church and decided to bring him home. In remake Aerith used to visit an orphanage placed near her house, in Sector 5.

BARRET’S MISSION

After Metorfall and the defeat of Shinra, the world lost its primary energy source and got plagued by Geostigma. Barret embarked on a journey to amend for his sins and he finally resolved to do it by finding a new energy source and so help people start a new life. 

You’re lying to yourself, even now. (...) Picture it! Picture a world without Shinra. Without Mako energy. A stagnant, impotent world. Now picture a natural disaster. Who would help the people? Help to recover and rebuild? You? With their old world ruined, will they thank you for the new?

MEMORIES

After being killed at the end of FFVII, Sephiroth tied his existence to Cloud’s memories, creating a bond between them.

Were the planet to die, so many things would be lost. (...) That which binds us together would be no more. And I would be loath to live in such a world. 

(...)

Our world will become a part of it...one day. But I...will not end. Nor will I have you end. (...) The edge of creation. Cloud, lend me your strength. Let us defy destiny...together.

GUILT

In the OG Tifa doesn’t show much hesitation about AVALANCHE methods and the regret for the victims of Sector 7 is just slightly mentioned a couple o times, while that’s one of her major traits in the Remake. This characterization comes from Episode Tifa, that fully explores her feelings about her past actions and their consequences. 

A whole lotta mormal people with families and friends work for Shinra. People just trying to support their loved ones as best they can. I know it's not exactly a revelation, but... It's easy to forget.

According to the short story "Picturing the past" the people in black cloacks (aka the Sephiroth clones) have the tendency to reunite at the Sector 7 train graveyard.

The train graveyard is located next to Sector 7 station, the place where Tifa found Cloud right before the beginning of the game.

The meeting with Tifa triggered the creation of Cloud's alter ego: SOLDIER-Cloud.

It may be just a coincidence but this mural is exactly in front of the station and next to the train graveyard

"Use your imagination"

"Shoot for the stars"

Such nice details!

Love love LOVE these! 🤩💖

This is beautiful ❤️

Cr: checkoutafrica : IG