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9worldstales · 3 years

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MCU: Is Loki a serial betrayal or not?

So one of the things I see often discussed in the MCU is the long, long history of deceit and betrayal that goes on between Thor and Loki that got mentioned in “Thor – Ragnarok”.

As various MCU movies and comics get mentioned, I made a list of the sources referenced so you’ll know if they might end up spoiling you. Consider yourself warned (or feel free to skip the list if it bores you).

SOURCES MENTIONED:

Movies: “Thor” (2011), “The Avengers” (2012), “Thor – The Dark World” (2013), “Avengers: Age of Ultron” (2015), “Thor – Ragnark” (2017), “The Avengers – Infinity War” (2018), “The Avengers – Endgame” (2019), “WandaVision” (2021)

Comics: “Thor: Son of Asgard” (2004) “Marvel's The Avengers Prelude: Fury's Big Week” (2012)

Direct-to-video animated film: “Thor - Tales of Asgard” (2011)

Motion comics: None mentioned

Books: “Thor: heroes and villains” (2011), “Marvel Studios The first 10 years” (2018)

Novels: “Marvel Cinematic Universe Phase One: Thor” by Alex Irvine (2015), “Thor: The Dark World Junior Novelization” by Michael Siglain (2013), “Loki – Where mischief lies” by Mackenzi Lee (2019), “The pirate angel, the talking tree and captain rabbit” by Steve Behling (2019)

Webs: None mentioned

Others: Interview “A Talk With THOR: RAGNAROK’s Eric Pearson”, interview “Joss Whedon told Comic-Con the question he doesn’t want us to ask ever again”, Interview “Chris Hemsworth (Thor: The Dark World)”, Interview “Tom Hiddleston Talks the Love-Hate of Loki and ‘Thor’”, Interview “Chris Hemsworth Talks Expanding Beyond Asgard, Interview “Building to THE AVENGERS 2, and More on the Set of THOR: THE DARK WORLD”, Interview “Chris Hemsworth ‘Thor: Ragnarok’, Embracing the Comedy, the Thor/Loki Relationship and More”, Interview “Avengers 4 Endgame: Is Loki ALIVE? Chris Hemsworth gave a massive hint at London fan event”, Interview “Avengers stars reveal one big downside to the job”, “How Taika Waititi Made Thor: Ragnarok So Damn Funny”, Interview “How 'Thor: Ragnarok' Honors & Deviates from Its Comics Foundation”, Interview “Empire Podcast Spoiler Special: Thor: Ragnarok with Taika Waititi”, interview “Kevin Fiege Talks Iron Man 2, The Avengers and More”

So now, let’s start with a quote from Eric Pearson, one of the guys responsible for the script of “Thor - Ragnarok”.

“Thor and Loki have had so many interactions, and alliances, and betrayals. They’ve been each others’ nemesis for so long that even they’re a little exhausted by themselves. It’s almost like the fatigue of dealing with each other allows this terminator like force of Hela to just walk in. They’re divided so she conquers.” [A Talk With THOR: RAGNAROK’s Eric Pearson]

So, since math is an awesome thing and “Marvel Studios The first 10 years” gave us an official timeline let’s do some math.

For start the official timeline.

965: Odin adopts Loki

2011: Thor

2012: The Avengers

2013: Thor: The Dark World

2015: Avengers: Age of Ultron

2017: Thor: Ragnarok, Avengers: Infinity War

2022: Avengers: Endgame (actually not mentioned in the timeline but it takes place 5 years after “Avengers: Infinity War”)

Loki is adopted in 965 so he and Thor are adopted brothers by 1052 years in “Thor - Ragnarok”.

So… “Thor” takes place in 2011 and overall covers three days and, in 2 of them, Thor and Loki are on opposing sides. At the end of “Thor” Loki is believed to be dead.

In 2012 Loki shows up again in “Avengers”. Thor arrives on Earth by night and spend there what, a day? before going back to Asgard with Loki, who then spends a year in jail with Thor never visiting him before he is freed in “Thor: The Dark World”, which takes place in 2013.

It’s worth to mention in “Thor: The Dark World” Thor and Loki are allied against Malekit before Loki is believed dead again and instead rules Asgard up until 2017, when “Thor – Ragnarok” takes place.

Anyway this means that in those 1052 years they spent together Loki and Thor had been on opposing sides for 6 years… during which only 1 year was spent with Thor knowing Loki was alive and only 4 days were spent with them actively fighting each other.

But maybe those days were days of intense betrayal… so let’s sum them up.

For start let’s remember everyone that betrayal is a deliberate break of trust, of faith.

“Thor” is the one which contain most betrayal, even though some things weren’t meant to be as such at the time in which it was filmed but whatever, let’s be strict.

- Loki ruined Thor’s coronation

- Loki had Odin warned they were going to Jotunheim so that Odin came saving their lives

- Loki lied about Odin being dead and Frigga not wanting Thor back.

- After making clear he was Thor’s enemy (I mean he sent the Destroyer to ‘Ensure his brother does not return’, could he have been more explicit?) he tricked him into helping him making him believe he was dangling on the edge of the Bifrost and needed his help.

Okay, that’s a total of 4, one of which done to save everyone’s live (and it saved everyone’s life but, as I said, I’ll be strict and still count 4).

“The Avengers” despite painting Loki as the villain, has no betrayal. Loki doesn’t make any attempt to paint himself as Thor’s friend, he doesn’t even call Thor ‘brother’, he makes clear he wants Earth’s crown and he has made clear in “Thor” he wouldn’t hesitate to kill him. Yes, he lies to him about sending the Tesseract away, uses an illusion to trick Thor into ending up in the cage and drop the cage on the ground and stabs Thor on surprise as they’re fighting. He however never let Thor believe they’re on the same side, I’ll say with dropping the cage he remarked how he wasn’t on Thor’s side since he wondered if the fall could kill Thor. If Thor didn’t want to get the message, this was not Loki betraying him, this was Thor refusing to listen. As for Loki surviving to a fall into the void and not warning Thor about it, that’s not betrayal either. When Loki let himself fall in the void it was a suicide attempt. His survival is a plot hole for whom Whedon didn’t really bother making up an explanation.

“Well, I can’t tell you exactly what went on because it’s this dark, dark secret that I didn’t make up yet. But, the other day, I had trouble with that because he had this very passionate Shakespearean tragedy thing going on in Thor and then I needed a villain who’s not only capable, but ready and willing and anxious to take on all these heroes. For me, he just basically went on some horrible walkabout… That was pretty much as far as I got.” [Joss Whedon told Comic-Con the question he doesn’t want us to ask ever again ]

“Avengers: Infinity War” suggested Thanos resurrected him, how is up to speculation. I wonder if it has to do with the mind stone, which somehow resurrected his mind in a way similar to how Wanda resurrected Vision. But I’m not sure Marvel really tried to figure this out beyond ‘it just happened’. Anyway Loki didn’t plan to fake his death, his survival/resurrection was accidental and he didn’t own to his family to send them a note saying ‘I’m alive’.

So we’ve a total of 0.

“Thor: The Dark World” has merely the fact that Loki again didn’t die when he was supposed to. Mind you, he was supposed to die (or if he were to survive this was meant to be a secret as the movie’s ending was meant to be very different), but then they decided to keep him alive and on the throne of Asgard for “Thor: Ragnarok”. So, he clearly was stabbed and let Thor believe the wound was fatal, then went back to Asgard, took Odin’s place, offered Thor the throne and when the latter refused, took it for himself. We can’t count the fact he told Kurse ‘You might want to take the stairs to the left’ as betrayal because, again, being jailed, he’s clearly not on Thor’s same side nor trusted. Betrayal is a break of trust from someone you believed on your side. An enemy doesn’t betray you, a friend does, and Thor stated he doesn’t view anymore Loki as his brother. We also know the action was a miscalculation on his part, he thought Kurse was merely a Marauder, a pirate, not a Dark Elf part of a Dark Elves’ invasion, and he didn’t think it would end up causing Frigga’s death, just some troubles for his father and brother who cast him in that cell and, according to the novelization, he was meant to end up regretting it short after doing it.

“The east stairs lead to the barraks. You’ll find them mostly unguarded.” Loki said and Kurse nodded, then continued on, glad for the inside information. Loki wanted revenge against Thor and Odin – he just hoped that he wasn’t getting more than he hoped for. [“Thor: The Dark World Junior Novelization”]

More explosions occurred aboveground and Loki glanced upward. “Don’t you think you ought to look into that?” he said. Thor scowled at his brother, then strode off toward the stairs. Loki watched his brother leave, a hint of guilt in his eyes. What had he done? [“Thor: The Dark World Junior Novelization”]

So okay, if we count the fact he let Thor believe him he died, and that he was Odin, we’ve a total of 2.

Which leads us to the amazing number of 6.

Now okay, betraying 1 time is 1 time too much but this is not a pattern that pervaded his whole life, this is 2 days in which Loki was not in his right mind due to pain (“Thor”) and a day in which he wanted to avoid being jailed for life as Thor has promised him he would be once they were to get back (“Thor: The Dark World”).

But, but, but, didn’t Loki betrayed and attempted to murder Thor PRIOR to “Thor”? And why aren’t I considering “Thor: Ragnarok” at all?

I mean, in addition to Loki betraying Thor for money, there’s this bit in “Thor: Ragnarok”:

Banner: Okay, can I just... A quick FYI, I was just talking to him just a couple minutes ago and he was totally ready to kill any of us.

Valkyrie: He did try to kill me.

Thor: Yes, me too. On many, many occasions. There was one time when we were children, he transformed himself into a snake, and he knows that I love snakes. So, I went to pick up the snake to admire it and he transformed back into himself and he was like, "Yeah, it's me!" And he stabbed me. We were eight at the time. [“Thor – Ragnarok”]

But the problem is to quote Wanda in“WandaVision” when her ‘brother’ talks about their shared childhood, this sort of relationship, well, ‘That’s not exactly how I remember it.’ From the previous movies, interviews, books, novels and extra material, I mean.

But let’s start with order.

So “Thor: Ragnarok”.

Remember Eric Pearson, the guy whose quote I used to start all this?

For start this guy never worked on a script with Thor and Loki previously.

The most he did was to be involved in the “Marvel's The Avengers Prelude: Fury's Big Week” in which Thor and Loki have some cameo appearances.

So let’s hear what he has to say about Thor and Loki’s relation.

“For introductions, working on Thor’s voice was really great just because Hemsworth is great with the script. He actually pulled me aside one morning to talk to me about the Thor and Loki scenes. He pointed out, correctly so, that what I had was retreading a bit of what had already happened in Thor, Thor: The Dark World and The Avengers. We needed to have their relationship exhibit the amount of awareness that it should have after the audience spent so much time with them on screen. So, the Thor and Loki stuff is also some of my favorite.” [A Talk With THOR: RAGNAROK’s Eric Pearson]

So Hemsworth informed his opinion and which opinion has Chris Hemsworth of the whole matter?

Well, his opinion on Thor’s relationship with Loki evolved as time went by… but FIRST let’s focus on how he believed it was their relationship during or prior the “Thor” movie.

“In the very first film Loki and Thor as brothers had a friendship where there was less hatred involved.” [Chris Hemsworth (Thor: The Dark World)]

It’s not terribly explicative but let’s say that they were more or less friends? So his brother wasn’t trying to murder him from childhood? He wasn’t betraying him from childhood?

According to Thom Hiddleston definitely not.

“I think Loki grows up with an older brother who he loves and respects. They play, they banter and they bash each other about, but there is a latent jealousy. Craig Kyle ‐ one of our producers ‐ always used to talk about the analogy of the quarterback and the artist. Thor is the quarterback. He’s a chip off the old block and he’s just like his dad. Loki’s problem is, maybe not his problem, but [that] he’s more drawn to the powers of intellect, magic, and the dark arts. He’s not going to be out in the fields throwing a hammer around. That’s just not where his passion lies. There’s a disconnect with Odin and there’s a disconnect with Thor. He loves them very much, but he’s not just made of the same stalk. In the course of the film there’s a big reveal both for Loki and the audience about the truth of Loki’s true lineage and who his real parents are. I think that begets any jealous that was within him towards Thor develops into a dark, cancerous rage that then becomes a destructive rage.” [“Tom Hiddleston Talks the Love-Hate of Loki and ‘Thor’”]

And the ruining of the coronation? As the movie itself said it was done because he didn’t believe his brother was ready to rule… but let’s also read this bit always from Tom Hiddleston.

“He’s certainly not an anarchist who wants to burn the house down. I think he has an inner conviction. He loves a practical joke, he loves mischief and he loves playing around. He loves starting a bonfire in the next room and hearing people scream, but nobody would be killed.” [“Tom Hiddleston Talks the Love-Hate of Loki and ‘Thor’”]

In short it wasn’t meant to cause any serious harm... same as warning his father was meant to save them. Of the 4 times in “Thor” in which Loki betrays Thor, 2 are not done with evil intentions in mind.

But maybe it’s just Tom Hiddleston?

Nope, we’ve the booklet “Thor: heroes and villains” agree with this.

“Loki is often the voice of reason to Thor’s impulsiveness and is usually relied on to talk his older brother out of sticky situation.” [“Thor: heroes and villains”]

“As Odin’s younger son, Loki has always known the throne of Asgard will never belong to him. He has, however, tried his best to be a good brother to Thor and a son Odin could be proud of.” [“Thor: heroes and villains”]

Then we’ve this in the “Thor” movie:

Sif: He may speak of the good of Asgard, but he's always been jealous of Thor.

Volstagg: We should be grateful to him, he saved our lives.

Hogun: Laufey said there were traitors in the House of Odin. A master of magic could bring three Jotuns into Asgard.

Fandral: Loki's always been one for mischief, but you're talking about something else entirely. [“Thor”]

The group suspects Loki wants to hand Asgard to the Jotuns, but up till the end of the movie Loki will have Asgard’s best interests in mind. His way to pursue them though, by destroying the Jotuns, is beyond ruthless but it’s not traitorous toward Asgard.

Also they’ve nothing against him beyond the fact he was jealous of Thor. They mention no stabbing episode, no murdering attempt no previous betrayal. Loki was jealous and they fear this had caused him to do something extreme. NOW. They’ve nothing they can use against him from the past, their suspects are based on Loki’s jealousy, the fact he’s a wizard and Laufey’s words.

Even the “Thor” novelization, which discusses their relation, doesn’t mention murder attempts prior to the Destroyer thing.

From Thor’s point of view:

“His younger brother has always been something of a mystery to him. While Thor had been eager to spread his wings, fight in battles, and go off on grand adventures, Loki had always been more hesitant. True, he had Thor’s back, but it was often only out of necessity.” [“Marvel Cinematic Universe Phase One: Thor”]

From Loki’s point of view:

“Why did he always seem to get into trouble because of his older brother? Wasn’t he supposed to be the wiser one? Odin has expressly forbidden that they enter Jotunheim. Yet it wasn’t the first time Thor had done something reckless. And it wouldn’t be the first time Loki was powerless to stop him.” [“Marvel Cinematic Universe Phase One: Thor”]

Loki had Thor’s back, albeit he wasn’t happy about it, Thor is the one who causes troubles, everyone knows and in the novel Loki is regularly sent by Sif and the Warriors Three to calm Thor down and make him think.

Long story short Thor and Loki seemed to be originally planned to have a relationship similar to the one they had in “Thor - Tales of Asgard” direct-to-video animated superhero film which came out in the same year as “Thor”.

So, why somehow in “Thor: Ragnarok” it morphed into the one they have in the comics “Thor: Son of Asgard” (2004) if not worse?

Well, somehow Hemsworth’s feelings shifted along the way between “Thor: The Dark World” and “Thor: Ragnarok”. He was aware of how Loki and Thor’s relationship was portrayed in the comics and this bits fits with how in “Thor: Ragnarok” he just wants to tell Loki he didn’t care anymore.

I mean I can’t say too much but I think in the comic books, you kind of roll your eyes sometimes at the amount of times that they’re back to being best friends so we wanted to keep in mind that he did just try to kill you for the seventh time, and Earth and millions of people and what have you, so… [Chris Hemsworth Talks Expanding Beyond Asgard, Building to THE AVENGERS 2, and More on the Set of THOR: THE DARK WORLD]

Without giving too much away, I didn't want to repeat that relationship either. And Tom felt the same. All of us were like, ‘What can we do again here?’ There’s a bit of reversal as far as... In the first films, a lot of the time you’re seeing Thor going, 'Come back Loki, and da-da-da-da.' [But now] there’s a feeling from Thor that’s just like, 'You know what, kid? Do what you want. You’re a screw up. So whatever. Do your thing.' [Chris Hemsworth ‘Thor: Ragnarok’, Embracing the Comedy, the Thor/Loki Relationship and More]

"Ahhh, he's like the girlfriend you break up with and they don't get the message. Like, 'You're dead, sorry, it's over,' and they're coming round to hang the new drapes. "The most poignant moments (of Thor's movies) have been with Loki." [Avengers 4 Endgame: Is Loki ALIVE? Chris Hemsworth gave a massive hint at London fan event]

Until we get to “Avengers: Infinity War” in which he makes clear he believes Loki fooled him time and time again so that he doesn’t want him back…

While the cast share an obvious camaraderie, a void remains after Tom Hiddleston’s Loki died in Infinity War. Would Hemsworth bring back his troublesome onscreen brother if he could? “No. Why would I do that?” he answers, blankly. “He fooled me time and time again. But on the personal side, I was with Tom since the beginning of this journey and I learned a lot from him.” Hemsworth pauses. “If you’re asking if Thor would bring him back, I think if he could have done he would have. But for me, I don’t know.” [Avengers stars reveal one big downside to the job]

…even if Thor would have (and of course he would have if we’ve to believe Thor’s tears in “Avengers: Infinity War” and his depression in “Avengers: Endgame” are due to Loki’s death and it’s not merely due to how ‘fun’ it is to have a depressed Thor who ends up neglecting his health by drinking too much and getting fat… because being a source of amusement isn’t really a reason why you should introduce a depressed character in a story).

So yes, maybe Pearson didn’t go to the right source of info for Thor and Loki’s relationship.

However, credits when it’s due, the scene about Loki wanting to kill Thor from childhood is not so much due to Pearson or Hemsworth but due to Waititi.

Hewitt: You know, there’s another moment I love, when they have the little huddle about Loki, and he tells the story about how Loki turned into a snake.

Waititi: Yeah, yeah.

Hewitt: And that felt improv’d.

Waititi: Yeah, there was basically- what we did about six different versions of that story, and that was just us standing around, while the cameras are rolling, while I would just feed them lines, and feed Chris ideas for some stories. I was, “Oh, do one, this one, um, say, “I was walking through a field, and I saw a lovely Turkish rug in the middle of the grass, and I love Turkish rugs, so I went to stand on it, and it was Loki, and he turned back into Loki, and it was a hole, and I fell through the hole, and was impaled in the hole, full of spikes”.”

Hewitt: *laughs*

Waititi: As I did all versions of that and I just kept going with- Yeah, the one with the snake just turned out to be the one we used. [Taika Waititi On Screenwriting: An Empire 30th Anniversary Special]

And so how did Waititi envisioned the Thor-Loki dynamics? This is how Waititi describes Thor’s live:

“To be perfectly honest, he’s a rich kid who lives in a castle in outer space. I don’t know any of those people, but I do know people who come from dysfunctional families. He barely talks to his parents — well, his mom’s dead now — his brother is trying to kill him his entire life, and he’s supposed to be king, and he doesn’t want to be a king. A lot of it is also this father-son relationship stuff of him trying to prove himself, or trying to find his own identity, and I really relate to that. My dad was a very big personality in New Zealand and in our area, and I’ve always been trying to do my own thing to separate from him, while at the same time trying to impress him. Which is the story of pretty much all guys, and probably most girls, who are choosing a parent to impress. That was my way in with him.” [“How Taika Waititi Made Thor: Ragnarok So Damn Funny”]

Why Waititi came up with such an idea for their dynamics is up to everyone’s speculation because in itself it’s not important if he actually got told about it by Hemsworth, Pearson or by Brad Winderbaum, who admitted taking inspiration from the comics for “Thor – Ragnarok”…

“I'll tell you the three things we looked at the most. We're pulling a lot stylistically from Kirby [but] we're also looking at the Walt Simonson Ragnarok arc [and]… God of Thunder, the Jason Aaron book.” [How 'Thor: Ragnarok' Honors & Deviates from Its Comics Foundation]

… if this is the result of that 1 short comic he read…

“That’s a thing about me, guys, I did not do my research.” … “I read one issue of Thor as my research. Not even a graphic novel, it was one of the thin-thin ones.” … “And by the end of it, “Hm, well, we’re not doing that”. [Empire Podcast Spoiler Special: Thor: Ragnarok with Taika Waititi]

Waititi wanted to do his own story, not a continuation of the previous movies.

“I was lucky enough they didn’t force me to acknowledge things- there were certain things in the film, like the play, which makes fun of the scene in The Dark World where Loki dies, but there’s a point to that play, sort of to recap what happened, but also to tell the audience, “This is not what you think it’s going to be, this film is not going to be a continuation of that. It’s its own thing, and what you think you expect from this film ends at this play.”” [Empire Podcast Spoiler Special: Thor: Ragnarok with Taika Waititi]

This is not the point where I discuss what I think of this idea of stepping all over the previous movies to create a ‘new Thor’ that the Russo brothers proceeded to dismantle in the next movie.

In 2010 Feige was already on board with the idea ‘the movie comes first’ and the ‘connective tissue’ is fun and very important if you want it to be.

“It's never been done before and that's kind of the spirit everybody's taking it in. The other filmmakers aren't used to getting actors from other movies that other filmmakers have cast, certain plot lines that are connected or certain locations that are connected but I think for the most part, in fact, entirely everyone was on board for it and thinks that its fun. Primarily because we've always remained consistent saying that the movie that we are making comes first. All of the connective tissue, all of that stuff is fun and is going to be very important if you want it to be. If the fans want to look further and find connections than they're there. There are a few big ones obviously, that hopefully the mainstream audience will able to follow as well. But the most important thing and I think the reason that all the filmmakers are on board is that their movies need to stand on their own. They need to have a fresh vision, a unique tone and the fact that they can interconnect if you want to follow those breadcrumbs is a bonus.” [Kevin Fiege Talks Iron Man 2, The Avengers and More]

“Thor – Ragnarok” merely took it to an extreme, retconning a lot from the original to the point some feel “Thor – Ragnarok” is a parallel universe compared to the previous 4 movies, with its own canon.

So when they needed a joke they didn’t bother checking the previous canon, they just needed a joke and so they added that scene, and it somehow got so popular it got referenced in two novels, sorta, even if in both gets ‘adapted’.

Once he was in the room, the servant girl would likely go unnoticed enough to eavesdrop – certainly less noticed than a snake, which had been his initial plan, and which was easier to imitate than an Asgardian. But snakes tended to gather attention – Thor would pick up any serpent to admire it. [“Loki- Where mischief lies”]

In “Loki – Where mischief lies” by Mackenzi Lee the stabbing isn’t included, the book only keep Thor’s fascination for snakes and his habit to pick them up… but the scene couldn’t have happened when they were children as Loki is a teen in the book and has learnt only recently to use shapeshifting magic.

In “The pirate angel, the talking tree and captain rabbit” by Steve Behling the scene is partially retconned as well.

Where in the movie is played as a clear murder attempt in the book we’ve the same story but in a different contest.

“Hey, what did I tell you about insulting our guest?” Rocket scolded, shaking his head. “If anyone’s gonna do any insulting around here, it’s gonna be me.”

Groot looked at Rocket, and enacted an impressive-albeit obnoxious-imitation of the same sneet that Rocket used on Thor just few second earlier.

“I am-“

“Don’t finish that sentence,” Rocket warned.

“Gr-“

“I mean it! You wanna have tablet privileges revocked for a week, you go right ahead and finish that though.”

If Groot had pockets, he would have showed his limbs stubbornly into them, turned around grumbling, and walked away. As it was, he didn’t, so after a moment’s stare-off with Rocket he simply muttered, “I am Groot,” then ambled away.

“He’s in an awkward phase,” Rocket said to Thor by way of explanation, turning his attention to the master control panel.

“Adolescence is never easy,” Thor said looking over Rocket’s shoulder. “I remember when Loki and I were children. Loki transformed himself into a snake, and because I really, really love snake, I went to pick it up. But the moment I did, the snake transformed back into Loki, and then he stabbed me.”

It was at least ten second before Rocket spoke. And when he finally did, he sighed and said, “Why do I have the feeling you tell this story a lot? Like, A LOT.”

Thor smiled wanly. “Maybe a few times,” he acknowledged.

“I bet this Loki gets a big kick out of it every time you tell it,” Rocket said, chuckling.

The thin smile on Thor’s face quickly fell.

“Not anymore,” were the only words Thor could manage before he turned away. [“The pirate angel, the talking tree and captain rabbit”]

While in “Thor: Ragnarok” this story seems to be a proof Loki is an homicidal maniac because it’s compared to him wanting to kill Banner and Valkyrie and therefore, despite the idea this is a joke, make the whole matter a serious business, here Loki’s actions are compared to the ones of a teenager tree wanting to insult someone else and being told not to. It seems one of those stupid things little kids do in anger, or thinking it’s just a game, without really understanding the consequences they could have (=killing someone). Thor seems to almost brag about it, as if it was a funny childhood tale about the idiotic things they did as kids, not a cautious tale against his brother and the risks of trusting him.

It’s still a story that’s clearly out of character for how Loki was meant to be PRIOR to “Thor”, but at least now it’s better inserted in the contest and can fit vaguely more with the previous canon.

But whatever, that’s it.

So, in a way, we’ve two universes, one is the Pre-Ragnarok one, in which Loki prior to Thor loved his brother and had a good relation with him, and the other is the Ragnarok one, in which Loki wanted him dead from childhood.

Both exist.

It’s something a part of the fandom is well aware of, but also something another part of the fandom is ABSOLUTELY unaware of.

I’m not going to tell you which universe you’ve to favour, if the one in which Loki loved Thor or the one in which he wanted him dead, that’s up to your personal preference.

But if you’re among the many who’re still confused about why the fandom has split opinions about the relationship between the brothers… well, that’s a summary of the history behind it all.

Honestly, with the incoming “Thor – Love and Thunder” and “Loki” series, I’ve no idea what will be the future of it all. Waititi will probably want to go back to his “Thor – Ragnarok” continuity… unless he wants to reinvent Thor all over again so we’ll get another additional universe for Strange to enjoy in his upcoming “Doctor Strange in the multiverse of madness”… in addition to the universes created in “Avengers – Endgame” when the characters changed the past and the ones Loki will be creating in “Loki”.

Sorry, Doctor Strange, I guess you’ll have your hands full.

#thor #loki odinson #thor odinson #mcu #loki #9 worlds study

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subjectsix · 3 years

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okay so my star wars table top rpg dude, Knux, lost an arm. It’s the most cinematic moment I’ve ever had happen in a TTRPG and it was unplanned. Lemme tell you about it:

alright, come with me on this for a moment. let me set the scene.

our party is trying to recover their stolen ship. they are very wanted by a Hutt clan and have accidentally found themselves in direct opposition of a secret Imperial plan. Knux, my Nautolan in deep debt who cannot manage money and is already a bit on edge, is becoming a bundle of nerves the deeper this rabbit hole goes.

after an eventful encounter in a club on this cyberpunk, Hutt-controlled planet, the group is making an escape on speeder bikes they stole from the stormtroopers. they bank hard into an alleyway, pushing single file and fast for the other end. our Chiss party member, Dany, flings a grenade behind us, and it wipes out the two troopers giving chase, and the explosion blooms out behind us as we zip out of the alley.

we’re grinning and celebrating our escape, when our bikes stop moving, and we feel a slight tug. we’re promptly thrown into a wall and off the speeders, as an Inquisitor calling themselves Thirteen steps out of the shadows.

None of us are equipped to fight an Inquisitor. Are you kidding? This is true fear. They introduce themselves as Thirteen, and its clear they intended to kill us and tie up loose ends before we make things any harder foo them. This is end of the line, in over our heads and drowning deep. Knux shoots a pipe overhead, making steam pour into the street, and uses the cover to book it into a nearby warehouse. Dany barely makes it away, taking a hit from the Inquisitor, but pulling down obstacles as we run into this building.

The Inquisitor slows inside, cautious, assessing things. Dany drops a mine behind him, and Knux is already up four flights of stairs, headed for the landing overlooking the main floor. In his mad dash to get away, he noticed a Rebel cell insignia painted onto a wall, and he is looking for anything or anyone to help them right now. He makes it to the top of the landing, and its clear people were here-- there’s a fire going in a barrel, and a Vibroblade, of all things, on a crate. Knux runs forward and grabs the sword--

And Thirteen leaps up the four flights, crashing through the window on the landing. Dany stares in awe as Thirteen pushes Knux through a window with the force, sending him flying into a neighboring building. Knux lands with a thud in the club, scrambling to his feet, only to find hes standing behind a projection screen, where his silhouette is clearly visible to the club goers. Thirteen leaps in effortlessly after him and pulls out their twin blades. The crowds go wild for the entertainment.

Knux can’t sword fight! But he’s two steps from a panic attack and face to face with death, so a cornered animal fights with whatever they’ve got. He’s trying, really, but Thirteen is sidestepping everything effortlessly. (aka the rolls are hard. By some insane amount of RNG, the two attacks I roll for Knux come up as neutrals-- nothing bad happens, nothing good happens)

Dany is on the landing, firing his blaster at the Inquisitor, who is deflecting it all like it’s a mild annoyance-- but at least it means one blade is occupied.

(Thirteen rolls a Triumph-- that means they get a critical. The DM tells me how much damage Knux takes, then rolls the d100 and checks the table to see what critical effect I get. Since I took a critical already once, he adds 10 to the roll. I hear dice. I hear him go “oh no.”)

Knux loses an arm from the elbow down. Dany is yelling. (I am yelling.) No damage has been dealt to Thirteen at all.

Dany hears someone moving behind him, and barely has time to register the man pushing past him and leaping into the club.

It’s a man in old, battered clone armor-- actually, it’s a clone-- who draws their own Vibrosword and demands the Inquisitor leave, or face him, as he won’t stand for the Imperial control anymore. More people appear from the shadows alongside Dany and draw their blasters.

The Inquisitor escapes, in smug villain fashion. Knux slumps against a wall and sits down.

The session ends!

None of what happened to Knux was planned in any way, shape, or form.

I will think about this cinematic moment for a month now.

#kip plays star wars #wow. i. goodnight.

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travelplacesindia · 3 years

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Places to visit in Meghalaya

We at Travel Places India, providing Blog Related Information to Visit India – Places to visit in Meghalaya

Elephant Falls, Shillong

Umngot River, Dawki

Mawlynnong Village

Nohkalikai Waterfalls, Cherrapunji

Lady Hydari Park

Ward’s Lake

Nartiang Monoliths

Eco Park

Ka Khoh Ramhah

Thangkharang Park

Elephant Falls, Shillong

Named after an Elephant like a stone at its foot, the Elephant Falls are among the maximum famous falls withinside the North-East, located subsequent to Shillong. It is a tourists’ paradise with 3 layers of the falls reachable to the layman from one-of-a-kind vantage points. The Britishers named this fall so due to the presence of an elephant-formed rock on one facet of the fall. However, the stone disintegrated and changed into washed away because of an earthquake in 1897. Elephant Waterfalls is a splendid region for spending a while withinside the midst of nature at the same time as shooting the superb moments to your keepsake.

Umngot River, Dawki

At a time while the sector is scuffling with pollution, getting the threat to peer a crystal-clean river in which boats appear to glide in mid-air is a sheer excellent fortune. Umngot River, reflecting the lush greenery on both sides, is sort of a fairyland in which you may spot colorful fishes without diving into the cool waters. The pebbled mattress of the river is effects seen to the bare eye too. You can pass boating or kayaking to discover the way it feels to drift over glassy waters or camp on a bank. Flanked with the aid of using Khasi and Jaintia hills, the emerald-inexperienced river glints magically beneath neath the sun. If you’re taking a ship ride, you would possibly additionally encounter mystery alcoves and quick streams withinside the hills on both sides, even as you pay attention to the Twitter of birds. No wonder, it’s for from some of the pleasant locations to peer in Meghalaya.

Mawlynnong Village

The cleanest village in India, Mawlynnong Village is likewise called God’s Own Garden and for all of the proper motives. In 2003, Mawlynnong turned into provided the name of the Cleanest Village in Asia through Discover India. Alongside cleanliness, the village has finished lots- be it one hundred percent literacy rate, or a ladies empowerment state of affairs that the relaxation of the sector can simplest dream of.

But are those motives sufficient for you to plot a go-to and discover this mystic heaven? If not, right here are the pinnacle motives why this small village merits lots of extra travelers.

Nohkalikai Waterfalls, Cherrapunji

Located at a distance of simply five km from the primary town, Nohkalikai waterfalls is one of the maximum waterfalls in India. Gushing down from a peak of 1100 feet, this waterfall is one of the maximum famous visitor enchantments of Cherrapunji. Drive via an excessive tableland, hike for a small distance, and also you arrive on the perspective from wherein you may have a wide-ranging view of the Nohkalikai waterfall, cascading down right into a pool-like formation. Monsoon season is the quality time to go to Nohkalikai whilst the falls are of their complete form. From the viewing gallery, travelers cannot simplest revel in a wide-ranging view of the waterfalls however additionally the plush surroundings. A fleet of stairs takes you to different viewpoints.

Lady Hydari Park

A very famous traveler spot in Shillong, the park is devoted to the primary female of the province – Lady Hydari. This sprawling park, placed inside the coronary heart of the town includes extensive sort plants in conjunction with a mini zoo housing seventy-three species of birds and over one hundred reptiles. The lovely mattress of plant life is the spotlight of the park.

Ward’s Lake

Pretty as a picture, Ward’s Lake is the brainchild of Assam’s British-generation leader commissioner, Sir William Ward. The tranquil lake, formed like a horseshoe, is surrounded with the aid of using old-fashioned cobbled walkways and has a captivating timber bridge over it. The lawn surrounding the lake is an insurrection of colors, with a number of orchids blooming in profusion, even as lofty timber provides soothing shade. You can feed the fishes and geese which have made the lake their home, from the bridge or even as boating. Apart from clicking memorable pictures, you may quench your thirst and pride your flavor buds on the cafeteria here.

Nartiang Monoliths

If uncommon or surreal locations tickle your traveler’s mind, the lawn of monoliths in Nartiang, Jaintia district, is one of the brilliant locations to go to in Meghalaya. Large and tall monoliths pepper the lawn as a signal of admiration to beyond kings. Serpentine paths will take you thru those particular monoliths so you can take a terrific appearance around. It’s a background site, with flat monoliths or dolmens committed to women, and the upright ones or menhirs committed to men. The tallest monolith looms inside the center, making for an arresting sight.

Eco Park

There isn’t any higher vicinity than Eco Park to surprise the enthralling view of the ‘Green Canyons’ of Cherrapunji. The park is thought for presenting panoramic perspectives of the Sylhet plains of Bangladesh. A waterfall originating from here provides to its herbal charm. Tourists by no means fail to go to this pinnacle visitor appeal in Cherrapunji.

Ka Khoh Ramhah

Also called Mothorp and Pillar Rock, Ka Khoh Ramhah traps vacationers for its form. It is a rock formation inside the shape of and the other way up a basket with inside the form of a cone. According to legends, the basket belonged to a huge evil giant. Soak-with inside the splendor of clouds ascending from the plains and making it really well worth visiting.

Thangkharang Park

Located at a distance of simply 12 km from the principal city, Thangkharang Park is one of the fundamental sights of Cherrapunji. Lying subsequent to the Khoh Ramhah rock, this park gives a pleasing view of Bangladesh. The sight of meandering roads seems amazing. You also can deal with your eyes to the lovable perspectives of the Kynrem falls that gush down in three levels. The park additionally has 2 footbridges providing first-rate perspectives of the expansive lush valleys and the plains.

Another famous appeal that lies in Thangkharang Park is the Khoh Ramrah rock, that’s popularly called the Shiva Rock. Placed properly contrary to the access gate of the park, this big rock is inside the form of a lingam. A go-to to the park all through monsoons is even greater interesting as you may stroll on a small crossover bridge from wherein you may revel in a pleasing view of the water move cascading below. The park is maintained via way of means of the State Forest Department Control.

Things must while be traveling to Meghalaya

Top 15 Things To Do In Meghalaya

Visit the Most Famous Cleanest River in India | Dawki River

Meghalaya | Why It is called as Wettest Places on earth – Mawsynram Village,

10 scenic waterfalls in Meghalaya,

Top 10 Best Places to Visit in Meghalaya,

Some of The Best Shots of My Last Trip to Cherapunjee, Meghalaya

Meghalaya (North-East India) Trailer | Cinematic Travel Video | Shillong, Guwahati, Cherapunjee

#travel to meghalaya #travel #travel story #travel trip #tripura

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entropychanges · 4 years

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Tell me what you’ll do, please

So, Michael, dripping like a wet mop on the restaurant’s tile floor, stood silently as he looked between the sister of the girl whose murder he covered up only two months ago, and his lover who would rather be sent off to war than be with him. Great. He swallowed, figuring he may as well break the silence.

“Sorry, I wasn’t sure if-”

“The kitchen is closed,” Liz interrupted, looking him up and down before saying, “but you can stay until the storm lets up.”

Or, in which Michael gets caught out in the rain while sleeping in his truck, and ends up taking shelter in the last place he wants to be.

also on ao3

title (from phoebe bridger's demi moore) precedes the lyric "I dont wanna be alone" which is kind of a central theme in Michael's mindset in this fic

warnings for mention of Michael's injury, very brief and vague mention of toolshed incident near the end, lots of talk about rosa's death and liz's mourning, michael has self worth issues, michael and alex say mean things to each other bc they’re sad and scared and just like a lot of angst

(3054 words)

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When Michael woke from his drunken nap, he sobered up immediately at the feeling of his blankets being drenched and the sky being far too dark for his liking.

He knew it was going to rain that night, and had even felt it in the joints of his mangled hand. What he didn’t predict, however, was that he was going to sleep for a few more hours than he intended, waking up in the middle of a storm rather than to the late afternoon desert sun.

“Shit, shit, shit!” he hissed, scrambling out of his truck bed and attempting to gather his linens. As he piled the soaked pillows and blankets he realized that he’d stupidly kept his bag of clothes beside him as he slept, leaving him with nothing dry to change into. He shoved his belongings into a sopping pile on his passenger seat before rushing to the other side of the truck cab and turning on the ignition with shaking hands.

Safe from the weather outside, Michael cranked up the heater and stripped off his shirt, huddling against himself for warmth. He ran his fingers through his curls in an effort to squeeze the water out, but to no avail. He sat like this, shivering and pathetic, for about 20 minutes before deciding that he needed a plan B. He didn’t have enough gas to use his heater for any extended period of time, and he wouldn’t have enough money for a refill until Sanders paid him for his work that week.

So, he decided to head into town to see if he could find somewhere that would let him stay inside for the duration of the storm without expecting a dime out of him. Normally he would try the library, but that closed at 8 and according to the clock on his radio, it was around 11 pm. Damn it. Hardly anything in this sleepy town was open past 10 on a weeknight other than the bars, and the storm wasn’t helping his chances.

Monsoon season was probably the most detrimental time for his beloved old Chevy that he called home, and tonight was no exception. He could hardly see through his windshield with the mix of dust and rain smattered across it, the high-velocity winds forcing his wipers to barely keep up. He was able to see enough to drive, though, as well as to recognize the signs on the shops and restaurants. They were almost all closed, as he’d suspected, except for one - the Crashdown still had its lights on and as he pulled into a parking space in front of it, he could see two figures inside. Liz Ortecho was wiping the counter as she spoke to the person in front of her, whose back was turned to Michael.

Only a few months ago, Michael would be too embarrassed to walk into the Crashdown at half-past 11 looking like a drowned rat and ask for a favor from his academic competitor. Now, though, Liz was going through her own living hell, which Michael felt partially responsible for, and had no room in her life to pity some punkass kid that lived in his truck. So, he swallowed his guilt and pride and shame and made his way out of his car and into the pouring rain. Without giving himself a chance to rethink this decision, he threw open the diner’s door, bringing attention to himself far too dramatically.

And, well, shit. Maybe he would’ve been better off using his fake id to spend his night with the racist alcoholics at the Wild Pony.

The first thing he noticed was that Liz looked rough. She clearly hadn’t been sleeping, as her eye bags were dark and evident, and her skin was paler than usual. She stood stock still at his cinematic entrance, her face full of annoyance and exhaustion. She no longer looked like the nerdy girl-next-door that Max had a crush on. She looked older than her age, and, in a sense, she was. She was going through more sadness than most had in their entire lifetimes, and that thought sent a spike of pain in Michael’s chest.

It reminded him of that selfish anger he’d been repressing since that night; anger at Isobel for killing the girls, anger at himself and Max for covering it up, anger at whatever entities left the three of them on this planet in the first place. He usually tried to shove those thoughts down before they ate away at him, but that was impossible when the consequence of their actions was quite literally staring himself in the face.

He glanced at the figure sitting on the stool across from Liz and his stomach dropped. Of course, it just had to be the very person Michael had been avoiding for the past two weeks.

He watched as Alex’s face morphed from confusion, to brief concern, and finally an annoyance that rivaled Liz’s. The last thing Michael wanted was to relive the fight they’d had after Alex told him he was enlisting in the air force.

Alex called Michael a violent alcoholic that was wasting his life.

Michael compared him to every birth and foster parent who had abandoned him.

Alex said Michael was no better than his abusive father.

Michael said that was funny seeing as he was following in his daddy’s footsteps.

It wasn’t pleasant.

“Sorry, I wasn’t sure if-”

“The kitchen is closed,” Liz interrupted, looking him up and down before saying, “but you can stay until the storm lets up.”

Michael nodded, flinging water from his hair. He sat in the nearest booth, looking at his hands. He didn’t exactly have a plan for what he’d do if someone were to let him in. Maybe he could sleep? He didn’t think Liz would appreciate having to wake him up to kick him out once the rain stopped, but making conversation didn’t seem like much of an option.

When he looked back over to see that Liz had bent down to clean below the counter, Alex was still staring at him. Michael glanced back down at his hands, but it was too late. Alex approached the booth and stood over him.

“Hey, Alex.”

“What happened?”

“I fell asleep and when I woke up it was raining and all my shit was wet,” he said, still looking down.

Alex furrowed his brows. “It started raining around 8.”

“I guess I went to bed early.”

“Is that your way of saying you passed out drunk?”

Michael raised his gaze to glare at Alex. Alex glared right back.

“Can we not do this right now?”

Alex huffed a sigh and sat across from him. Michael leaned back and turned his head, watching the downpour out the window. They sat in silence for a minute until Alex spoke up.

“You need to change your splint.”

For someone that “wouldn’t be Michael’s medicine”, Alex sure liked to act like his doctor. But, he wasn’t wrong. Michael’s splint was soaked, making it functionally useless.

“I have some gauze in the truck, I’ll fix it later,” he replied, still staring at the rain.

“Just grab it now, I’ll help you do it.”

Michael turned back to Alex. “What? No, I-”

Alex stood up. “Get the gauze and I’ll meet you upstairs.”

As Alex turned away, presumably to ask Liz if she was cool with him bringing the personified version of a stray dog found in the gutter up into the small apartment she shared with her grieving father, Michael conceded and ran back to his truck to grab the gauze. He could never really say no to Alex. He rushed back in, covering the gauze with his body to prevent any rain damage and, with a quick “bathroom’s on the right” from Liz, he ran up the stairs to meet Alex in the tiny restroom that Liz used to share with Rosa. Used to. Michael shuddered at the thought. He was too sober for this long night.

Except, Alex wasn’t in the restroom. He was nowhere to be found. Regardless, Michael closed the door gently and began peeling the gauze off his hand, the feeling not dissimilar to applying a strip of wet paper-mâché to a surface. He winced at the pain, which he’d been ignoring until then, and wished he had some acetone to take the edge off.

He glanced at the medicine cabinet. Maybe…He opened the cabinet and there it was, half a bottle of kroger brand nail polish. Jackpot. Once he finished his second swig, the door handle started twisting. Shit. He used his telekinesis to put the bottle back in the cabinet and close the door, all while rinsing his mouth to cover the evidence. He didn’t want to think about what Alex’s reaction would be to finding him drinking Liz’s nail polish remover straight out of the bottle. “Seriously, Guerin? Alcohol not enough of a buzz for you anymore?”. Alex always called him “Guerin” when he was disappointed or mad at him. Lately, that seemed to be more often than not.

Alex peeked his head in slowly, as if to give Michael privacy, which was frankly adorable, seeing as how many times they’d seen each other at least partially nude. When he saw that Michael was decent, he opened the door completely, revealing that he was carrying a pile of clothes and towels.

“Here, change into these,” Alex commanded, handing him the clothes. His clothes. Michael’s ears turned red against his wishes at the thought of wearing Alex’s clothes.

“”You always have a stash of clothes at the Ortecho’s, or is this just my lucky night?” he asked, removing his wet t-shirt. Alex turned away, making Michael roll his eyes.

“I would usually come here when things got ugly at my place. Arturo didn’t mind me sleeping on Liz and Rosa’s floor, so I kept some of my stuff here. Tonight I’m here for Liz, though,” Alex explained.

Michael removed his pants. “You know you don’t have to turn away when I’m changing, right? We’ve seen each other naked, like, a hundred times.”

Now it was Alex’s turn to blush. “I think a hundred is a little hyperbolic,” he said as he turned around to face Michael.

Michael ran the towel down his body before finally ruffling his curls dry. “Well there was our first time... “

“Obviously.”

“And the time in the cab of my truck just a few days later…”

“That was just uncomfortable.”

“And then a week later when we had that picnic out in the desert at midnight…”

“Ugh, that was just gross. Do you know how many spiders and scorpions are out there? Definitely wish I’d kept my pants on for that.”

“And then add a few more in the back of my truck and that should add up to one hundred!”

“Still a hyperbole. I’d say that’s 8, total. The rest at least one of us kept our pants or shirts on.”

“Sorry, I forgot to add the ones from my dreams.”

“Oh god, please shut up,” Alex said just a little loudly, making Michael snort and put a finger to his lips.

“Shh, Alex, c’mon. No need to wake up Arturo by discussing our epic sexcapades.”

Michael was now fully dressed in Alex’s clothes, wearing a burgundy sweater that felt softer than anything he’d ever worn before and black jeans that were just a little too tight. He looked at himself in the mirror and cracked a smile.

“Maybe I could pull the emo look off, huh? What do you think, darlin?” He added the “darlin” as a test. When Alex was actually pissed, the pet name only ticked him off even more. When Michael was starting to get back on his good side, he brushed it off and pretended he didn’t like it, even though he definitely did.

Alex suppressed a smile. Score.

“I think you’re ridiculous. Now lean against the sink and hold this washcloth.”

Michael raised an eyebrow but did as he was told.

“Here, hold the washcloth like this,” Alex said before gently moving the fingers on Michael’s left hand around the cloth. It hurt like hell, but Michael did his best to hide it. He didn’t like Alex seeing him in pain, especially when he knew Alex blamed himself. Michael didn’t want him to have another reason to feel guilty.

“It’s good of you to come over here and be with Liz. She seems…” He trailed off, not sure of what he was planning on saying. She seems, what, bad? Exhausted? Depressed? Like she’d just had her favorite person in the world taken from her, and now the entire town was spreading lies about her? He just let Alex finish his thought.

“It’s just what friends do. She needs support right now,” Alex murmured, wrapping the gauze around Michael’s fingers. “She’s leaving town, too, soon. Which is a good thing, I think.”

Michael stiffened at that. He already knew Liz was leaving, of course. He was just as responsible for that as he was for Rosa’s postmortem defamation. It’s that “too” that hits. Maybe it was the buzz from the acetone or the thrill of Alex watching him undress, but either way Michael was able to forget for a second about the coldness that had been between them just a few minutes ago, and the reason for it being there. That little word, “too”, was a painful reminder that hurt just a little more than the feeling of his disjointed bones being squeezed too tightly by Alex’s makeshift splint. Michael inhaled sharply to indicate this.

“Shit, sorry, let me make this a little looser.”

Michael looked down and shook his head a tad bit too violently, trying to indicate that he didn’t give a damn about the stupid splint.

“What? What is it Michael?”

Michael squeezed his eyes shut, knowing he was diving headfirst into the argument he was trying to pretend had never happened.

“You can’t go.”

Alex dropped Michael’s hand, which he’d just finished putting the last piece of tape on.

“Goddamn it, Michael, did we really not spend enough time talking about this already? I’m sick of my father looming over me, and, let’s face it. I’m not like you. I can’t just waste my life in this garbage town forever, sustaining myself on whiskey and bar fights.”

Michael opened his eyes back up and realized he had tears welling up. It wasn’t because of what Alex had said, words and insults didn’t phase him anymore. It was that his deepest anxiety was becoming his reality. Michael was going to be left behind, yet again.

He was used to pushing his fears down, but right now he didn’t want to repress. He wanted Alex to understand exactly how he was feeling, no matter how childish or pathetic he sounded in the process.

“I don’t want you to leave me. I don’t want to be alone.”

He looked up to meet Alex’s eyes. The other boy’s face melted from the defensive hardness he’d held before to something much softer. It wasn’t piteous, it was just… sad.

“I don’t want to leave you Michael. I definitely don’t want you to be alone. You’re the only reason I’ve ever even considered staying.”

Michael looked down again. His words were sweet, but they held no meaning. It didn’t matter how much Alex cared about him, he was still leaving.

“You know this doesn’t have to be goodbye forever, right? I’ll be coming back after basic, and then I’ll be coming home on leave whenever I can.” Alex cupped Michael’s face with his hands, forcing him to look up at him. Memories flooded in of their first kiss, when they cradled each other’s faces in the UFO emporium. Michael mirrored the movement and leaned in to Alex’s space, but didn’t close the gap. Instead, he watched Alex closely, reading the earnesty in his eyes. It seemed like he truly believed they could still be together, even through hell.

It was Alex that made the move, pressing Michael into the sink behind him and tenderly kissing his lips. Their movements were slow and gentle, much different from their usual sexual intensity. This was a different kind of intimacy. They touched each other lovingly rather than lustfully, their focus not on rushing to make each other come, but instead on patiently memorizing every detail they could. They were so enraptured with their shared space that the outside world seemed to melt away, including the door that was being pushed open behind them.

“Oh shi-” they heard behind them, shattering the moment. Alex jumped away, terror in his eyes. Michael’s heart was in his throat. Of course, it was just Liz, who didn’t actually care about their romantic involvement, just that they didn’t have sex on her bathroom sink. Still, the last time they were interrupted like this wasn’t a night they wanted to relive.

“I just wanted to let Guerin know that it stopped raining,” Liz said, her eyes turned to the floor uncomfortably. This was her polite way of saying “please get out of my home it’s past midnight and I’ve been waiting for you to leave for half an hour”, so he took the cue for what it was and headed out the door with a nod.

“Hey, Michael?” he heard from behind him. He turned back around.

“I just wanted to let you know that I’m leaving in a week. I’d like to see you before then, to say goodbye.”

Michael gave another small nod, and headed down the stairs at twice his usual speed, not wanting either of them to hear him cry.

When he got to his truck, he knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep anytime soon. So, instead, he devised a plan to ensure he wouldn’t be around whenever Alex decided to schedule that goodbye.

And this plan required Kyle Valenti’s hubcaps.

#malex #malex fic #michael guerin #alex manes #roswell new mexico #roswell nm #roswell nm fic #liz ortecho #malex angst

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takuchat · 4 years

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The development of Final Fantasy VII is a mysterious and hard thing to follow. While there is plenty of info out there, much of it is either rumors or unsubstantiated. The sad thing is, there is no easy way to find legitimate information on the game. This is why I am here now, this article will serve as a source of factual information about the development of the original Final Fantasy VII.

Below, you will find interviews from the games development and release. As well as links to the sources of these interviews( interviews copied so they will not be lost one day ). Beyond interviews there will be Press Releases and some other cool information. Enjoy.

Logo concepts

Meteor Concept art

Final Fantasy VII – 1997 Developer Interviews

Hironobu Sakaguchi – Producer Yoshinori Kitase – Director Tetsuya Nomura – Character Design, Storyboards, System, Mech Design Yuusuke Naora – Art Director Motonori Sakakibara – Movie Director Akira Fujii – Battle Scene Director Ken Narita – Main Programmer Yasui Kentarou – Magic/Summoning Effects Kenzo Kanzaki – Backgrounds Nobuo Uematsu – Music

FF6 vs. FF7

Kitase: Our development concept for the story in FF6 was to have over 10 main characters, any of which could be called “the protagonist.” We challenged ourselves to create a world without someone you could point to and say, “this is the main character.” This time, with FF7, we knew from the beginning that we wanted Cloud to be the main character, and we were going to tell his story.

Aside from the story, FF6 had a lot of details undecided when we began development. A great many things were filled out along the way. In contrast, with FF7 we knew from the outset that we were going to be making a real 3D game, so from the earliest planning stage we had very, very detailed designs drawn up. The script was also locked in, and our image for the graphics was completely fleshed out. So when we began the actual work, we had already created what you could call “storyboards”. Of course there was some experimenting as we worked, but we were very clear about what we were supposed to be doing from the outset.

Actually, the very first thing we decided in FF7 was how the camera angles would change during battle scenes. We also decided on the materia system, where any weapon and armor can be equipped with any materia. Accordingly we knew the battles wouldn’t be about characters with individual, innate skills, but rather that combat would change depending on the way materia was used.

Sakaguchi: After FF6 was completed the staff had some free time. We then started thinking about what new hardware there was and what we wanted to do with our next creations, and we created a movie as an experiment. At that time we were working with the SG1 workstations, which had rendering software designed for next generation hardware. For that reason we thought it would be good if we could continue using this setup for our next game. With the SG1 software, we could develop graphics for any hardware. 1 However, for our purposes, we didn’t want the frame-by-frame, slow rendering that takes many hours; we wanted to develop a way to render the visuals in real-time for our new game.

Kitase: I believe we only had 3 months to figure all that out.

Choosing the Hardware for Final Fantasy VII

Sakaguchi: It was starting to become clear to us what the memory capacity for the different next-gen consoles would be. Our games were going to need a huge amount of memory. The Final Fantasy VI CG demo we made for the Siggraph exhibition took 20 megs all by itself. We thought that demo had a lot of visual impact, so there really wasn’t much question about which hardware we would use; if we were going to realize the promise of the demo we had shown at Siggraph, nothing but the CD-ROM format would suffice.

Another reason for choosing the CD-ROM was related to price. I think one of the big reasons the first Final Fantasy was favorably received by players, and the later games in the series gained so many fans, was that you could buy those games for around 5000 to 6000 yen. We tried to have the same pricing for Bahamut Lagoon, Gun Hazard, and our other later Super Famicom games, but using cartridge ROM meant those games had to be sold for over 10000 yen. New players did not flock to those games like they had before. If we used CD-ROM for Final Fantasy VII, we’d be able to have a 2-disc game at a price of 5800 yen. I was hoping it would be possible to make a game that could sell several hundred thousand copies.

Introductions, Difficulties, Favorite Moments

Sakaguchi: I’ve been working with Kitase for a long time, since FF5. He did most of the event scenes in FF6: the opera house, Celes’ suicide scene, the scene where Setzer climbs the stairs and reminisces, and more. I’m not exactly turning things over to the next generation just yet, but for FF7 almost all the story was done by Kitase. His original ambition was to be a film director, so he’s well-disposed towards this work–I’ve left all the in-game event scripting in his hands.

As for my part, since FF3 I’ve led the battle team, and that was my role this time too. Well, actually, the battle team is composed of solid veterans, so I stepped back a bit and played more of a producer role.

Nomura: For FF7 I worked on character design, storyboarding, and the underlying story.2 I have too many favorite parts to sum up quickly here… well, I like it all.

Narita: I was the main programmer. I did all the programming related to the field, and I also helped get everything together at the end. As for difficulties… hmm. Since it’s been a pretty sudden shift from the Super Famicom to the Playstation, we struggled first with getting used to the Playstation hardware itself, then finding out what appealing features it had, and learning how to bring out those features to make a good, balanced game. But on the programming side, what was really hard for me was going from 2D to 3D. Probably any programmer would say the same I think.

As for things I’m proud of, I thought the movies and the in-game field scenes transition into each other very smoothly. That was also the most difficult thing for us in terms of the programming.

Sakakibara: I worked on the movie cutscenes. The challenge for me was just the amount of volume we had to create, it was crazy. What I liked was the opening scene in the beginning. Although I’m already starting to forget it. (laughs)

Fujii: I did the backgrounds for the battle scenes. What was hard for me was that the field graphics would design their graphics with a very high polygon count, and I think had to find a way to reduce that count so the graphics could be rendered in real-time. Selecting the primary elements to render was very difficult. At first I was just fumbling through it, but I gradually got the hang of it and was able to connect things very well. When I first saw characters move around in those backgrounds I had made, I thought they looked great… if I do say so myself. Unless you’re specifically paying attention to them, battle backgrounds aren’t something you usually notice in a game, but we really had to prepare a huge number of different backgrounds for all the different map terrains.

Kentarou: I did the programming for the battle effects and summons. What was fun for me was recieving the storyboard mockups from Tetsuya and thinking “there’s no way, this is impossible.” But then when I got down to it, they came out surprisingly well. The Titan summon was especially memorable for me. The way we did it was new to me, and I think it compares really well with the work I’ve done in the past.

The CG Team

Sakaguchi: We definitely hired a lot more CG staff than we had before.

Kitase: Yes, but they didn’t feel like a separate, “detached force” from our main development team. They had experience in the game industry. What’s more, our existing staff at Square, who up to now had only worked on games, were able to learn a bit about CG from them.

Sakaguchi: For FF7, about 80-90% of the field and game mechanics were done by our traditional staff. For the CG staff with their specialized hardware knowledge, we tried to let them do their thing (but this time with a video game). Several top-grade special fx guys who had worked at Digital Domain and Lucasarts’ Industrial Light Magic also contributed to FF7.

Maps and Backgrounds

Naora: I worked on the unifying all the graphics, including the movies. The majority of my work was on the background graphics. In our previous games, most of those graphics were done with a fixed top-down perspective. To take a town for an example, the map would be composed of various sprites: houses, streets, foliage, fences, and so on. With FF7 we didn’t have to use sprites and could instead present the maps as one seamless image.

I had experimented with this before in the trial scene of Chrono Trigger. I used a bunch of memory to make one single image for the background. Previously we had to reuse so many sprites for our maps, but it was very exciting to be able to include whatever we wanted for FF7. We could have more varied terrain, and our whole image of the game world really expanded.

The work of mine that I really want people to see is, of course, Midgar. I had the image of a pizza in mind when I designed that city, and I really like how it turned out.

In any event, what we really wanted to convey with the backgrounds was a lived-in feel. Down to the beds and individual toilets, I put a lot of detail into everything.

And even after I stopped working, my boss was still making stuff. On one of the posters hanging on the wall, he added an image of Hironobu Sakaguchi. (laughs) I should be upfront: there’s many graphics that even I don’t know about hidden away in the game. Be sure to look closely at the walls inside the buildings. Who knows what surprising things you might discover. The Rocket Town especially has a variety of interesting things hidden away.

Cinematic Aspirations

Kitase: Visually, I wanted Final Fantasy VII to be a completely unified work, with a single style running from beginning to end. The cut-scene movies, overworld map, and battle scenes would not be disconnected, but would instead smoothly and seamlessly transition into one another. To call this game “cinematic” would be correct, but what I really wanted was something where all the compositions and shots would be suffused with meaning and show the intent of the creators.

For all our previous games, when we’ve been in the phase of brainstorming ideas and sketching pictures, there’s always been the knowledge that we have to work within the hardware memory limitations. This time there were no limits, and no restraints.

That difference in available memory had a really big influence on the development. For the gameplay system, story, and in-game events, it didn’t change very much. What the increased memory allowed in FF7 was more painterly visuals, with a better sense of space and composition. Naturally the graphics quality itself has also gone up, but I think it’s in the cinematic presentation where you see the evolution.

Sakaguchi: Speaking of cinematic, we also wanted to have a soundtrack with no repeated music. In movies, you don’t hear music get repeated, you know. Depending on the scene the tempo or the intensity might change though. I think something like that should be possible… although there is the matter of how much available spirit/creativity we can get out of our composer, Uematsu. (laughs) Of course FF7 is a game that takes over 40 hours, so some music is repeated, but our overall goal was to make it as cinematic as possible in that regard.

We also had Yoshitaka Amano do illustrations for the world of FF7. Some of his work appears as a frescoe on a wall in the game.

Kitase: We had really been wanting to use Amano’s artwork in-game before. In FF6, we wanted to have one of Reim’s drawings being Amano’s artwork. In the ending scene Reim would have painted a wall mural showing scenes of all the adventures the heroes had undertaken.

Character Design

Nomura: Since the characters in FF7 were going to be rendered in real-time, the nitoushin,3 chibi-style character design we’ve used in previous games wasn’t going to work here. If they brandished their sword overhead they’d end up stabbing themselves in the head. Not using the super-deformed style meant we had no limits on how to animate these characters.

Naora: I helped out on the character design too. In the previous games with the nitoushin, deformed sprites, it would look really lame if they rode a motorcycle or something. By changing the character’s dimensions, we were able to have them ride different vehicles.

Nomura: My involvement with FF7 goes back to helping create the basic story, and we came up with the characters during that time too. I think that was a good way to do things. Barret and Cait Sith were two characters whom I had wanted to create for a long time, but everyone else was created as we were writing the story.

As for things I personally designed, I think the Yin and Yang boss came out really well. Also, the Iron Giant. It wasn’t enough to just have a good initial design though. I had to create a design, then translate it into a 3D model, then see how it looked all-around, and only then could I say “alright, this is good.” Yin and Yang and the Iron Giant were two designs I felt that way about.

I also helped out on all the storyboad designs for the summons. Since 3D allows you to change the perspective in various ways, we decided to make the summons have really flashy camerawork.

Favorite Characters

Kentarou: I personally really like Red XIII’s scenes. Every time I remember that one scene of his, I start to tear up. (laughs)

Kanzaki: My favorite would be Tifa, because of her ample bust. (laughs)

Fujii: Yuffy. I like the sounds she makes. Also, it’s not a character, but I like all the summons.

Kentarou: Ah, yeah, I have a special love for Titan. Nomura said Titan should flip over the ground that the enemies are on. He would peel off a slab of the land: no matter what terrain he was on. (laughs) At first I had him come in on normal ground, and he’d flip the same slab of ground no matter what terrain… but that looked boring. I had a small insight into the problem and was able to solve it.

Narita: My favorite character is Barret. Because he does the same damage when he’s in the back row. (laughs)

Kanzaki: Yuffy and Vincent can do that too, though.

Narita: You can clear the game without getting Yuffy. I didn’t add her to my party. As for Vincent, I can’t forgive him. (laughs) Yeah, it’s Barret all the way for me.

Sakakibara: I like Jessie. She cleans your face for you. (laughs) If only you could have had Jessie in your party.

Nomura: For me, it’s of course Cloud and Sephiroth. My concept for Sephiroth from the beginning was that everything about him would be kakkoii.4 His battle movements, and all his in-game scenes too. My image of the relationship between Cloud AND Sephiroth was that of Musashi Miyamoto and Sasaki Kojiro, and I had them in mind when I designed their appearance, as well as their swords. Of course Cloud is Musashi, and Sephiroth is Kojiro.

Animating the Characters

Narita: The movement of the characters during the in-game events was actually all done by character designers in the planning group. Normally those designers convey what they want to a motion specialist, who then animates them. But in our case, the character designers learned how to do the motion work, and if they wanted to add some movement or gesture to a character they did it themselves. That’s why each character’s movements differ depending on who created them. There were designers who liked very exaggerated movements, and those who preferred more quiet, subtle movement.

For the character battle animations, however, we had motion specialists for each character. But for all the other in-game events, the designers created the character’s movements themselves.

Narita: Nomura was the Demon King of retakes. He was always making the designers re-do things. “Nope, that’s wrong there.”

Kanzaki: But it’s really thanks to him that we achieved very realistic motion.

Nomura: We spent more time on the typical, everday motion of the characters than we did on other types of motion. That’s where the character’s personality comes out, after all. So yeah, I stuck my nose into everyone’s work there. (laughs) I drew the designs for these characters from the moment we had our basic idea of them; no one told me “draw him this way” or anything like that. Every character in FF7 is one that I designed just how I wanted to.

The first characters we had were Cloud and Barret. From there we kept talking, and as we worked our ideas out, new characters would come up. All the characters were created in the course of our discussing our ideas for the game. None of them were created after the fact, as in “oh, let’s make this kind of character.” As we brainstormed about the game, we’d realize a character was already there in our minds.

Limit Breaks

Nomura: With each Final Fantasy, the entire team contributes to the initial design/planning documents, and we then pick out the best ideas from there. During that highly individual period of brainstorming, I came up with the idea of adding limit breaks to the battle system. In FF6 we had desperation attacks that would happen when you were near death, and I wanted to build on that idea. Since you were free to build your character by adding and removing materia, I also wanted to add limit breaks as a way to bring out the individual, innate personalities of each character. For that reason I’m really glad we were able to include them. It also allowed us to add more unique animation for each character, too, further emphasizing their individuality.

The Music of FF7

Uematsu: I know many players were hoping that with the move to the Playstation, we’d have studio quality music instead of the internal sound chip like that used in the Super Famicom games. And I know other companies are recording CD quality music for their games, but with FF7 we decided to do all the music with the Playstation’s internal chip.

That’s because as far as sound quality goes, we felt the Playstation’s hardware was more than capable. It has a higher dynamic range than the Super Famicom, and 24 voices (the Super Famicom had 8). The sound effects were all recorded in the studio, but the music, from start to finish, is all the Playstation’s internal chip. This way the music puts less demands on the read access time of the CD-ROM. It’s stressful to be playing a game and have to wait all the time for the CD-ROM to load data. So we prioritized a less stressful experience over better sound quality.

From the first Final Fantasy up to Final Fantasy V, the music has had a European atmosphere: the north, castles, blue skies… But FF6 started to break away from that, and FF7 begins with a new image, a dirty city of the future. So I was thinking the music should change too. I personally like a lot of different styles of music, so I saw this game as a chance to show parts of myself which I hadn’t been able to express before.

I used keyboard and guitar for the basic compositions, and I read the story and script as I composed. But there were so many songs this time that I was really worried I would run out of time. There were something like 100 songs needed. I’d compose, then program it in, and if it was wrong I’d revise it. Rinse and repeat. I write the music out first and then proram it into the sequencer, but there was no guarantee that the Playstation hardware would have the kind of sound I was looking for. And the sound quality might be very different. For that reason there ended up being a lot of unused songs.

Wrapping things up

Narita: At the end of the development we had a closing party. We gathered all the development staff together, and we all watched the credits roll after the last boss was defeated. As the staff was listed, each respective developer stood up and took a bow. It was the first time I realized “oh, he did that.” And it was the first time I really felt how many people had been involved in making this game.

Fujii: Once the field, battle, and world maps were all joined, that was when I first felt the power of FF7 as a finished work.

Narita: Until then, everything was being developed separately, and only at the end was it all joined together. When the world map was added and you could walk around, that was definitely the moment when I felt, “wow, we’ve really made it.”

You see, the way we made FF7 was totally different from the way we made the previous Final Fantasy games. Before, there was no real “director”–everyone was, individually, their own director, and everyone created the actual data that would be used in-game by themselves. There was a head person who generally controlled the flow of work and made sure everything got into its final form, though. I guess you’ve got to have someone like that.

But to imitate that with FF7 would have required a huge number of staff and hardware for them all to work on. You could say that the way we made FF7 was closer to the way they make movies.

Sakakibara: Speaking of that, we were also asked to make sound effects that would be of the same quality and character as those you hear in movies. It felt entirely different from the way we made sound effects before.

Kanzaki: The quality of the backgrounds took a huge step up, too. We didn’t have to reuse any sprites or tiles.

Kentarou: When I was making the battle effects, it felt like business as usual for me, so I didn’t have a feeling like “these are awesome!” then. But at the very end when we were debugging and I saw them, I thought for the first time how nice they looked. I also thought, “damn, it’s a good thing I didn’t slack off.” (laughs) It would have been really bad if we had just made a bunch of shoddy effects. (laughs)

Kanzaki: There were a lot of worries at the start of the development though.

Narita: Yeah, in a certain sense, FF7 is something of a minor miracle. I mean, we only had a year to do everything.

Fujii: It’s the shortest development we’ve had so far.

Narita: Yeah, that it was. And normally you’d start developing your game after you’d learned the new hardware. But we had to learn the hardware and create the game all in the same year. I really couldn’t believe it when I saw the finished product of FF7. It’s amazing that so many people were involved, and that we completed it in so short a time.

Fujii: Time is always the one thing you’re in short supply of. We had to do the battle system after all the field stuff was done, so practically speaking we only had half a year for that. The last dungeon was a real slap-bang, rushed affair.

Midgar near finished

Concept

midgar

Interview with Official UK PSX Magazine

Published in October 1997

Official UK PSX Magazine: Describe the game in 100 words.

Square: The latest in the Final Fantasy series is the closest Square have come to their ultimate goal of blending real-time action with FMV-quality animation, in an all-encompassing, totally absorbing and immersive interactive gaming experience. This seventh heaven is a mix of stunning backdrops, adorable and believable characters, intriguing plots, pulsating battles and tricky puzzles, which all add up to the best RPG yet to appear.

What’s the plot?

The world of Final Fantasy VII expands on FFIII’s concept of Magitek, where magical forces are a reality and have thus been incorporated into the technological progress of civilisation. This isn’t your typical fantasy setting: vast chimneys belch smoke, steam trains criss-cross the urban sprawl, neon signs crackle in the rainswept ratruns between towering factories. It transpires that Mako is a ‘dark’ form of magic, and its insidious corruption of the Shinra Corporation has created a police state by empowering a security force. You begin the game as an ex-soldier-turned-revolutionary, and immediately find yourself assisting a terrorist group called Avalanche in their attempt to overthrow Shinra and restore balance to the exploited world.

Is there anything in this game that we’ve never seen in any other?

If you’ve played SNES versions of the Final Fantasy series, then possibly not. There are slight deviations from the first six, and the music and graphics are obviously enhanced. But as a PlayStation starting point, continuity was very wise. For novice owners, however, this will be like nothing you’ve seen.

What other games have influenced Final Fantasy VII?

Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy II… need we go on? There is a whole history of RPGs and all the paths that lead Square here were winding. In Final Fantasy VII, however, there have been more Western influences both externally and from those on the team.

What’s going to be the best bit of the game?

Taking an already believable story and gameplay and placing it in an environment that now looks real it is a real shock to the senses.

Why will it be better than any other game of its ilk?

The characters for a start. Square’s scriptwriting talents are once again employed to make you fall in love with the characters, then mercilessly pull your emotional strings as they experience suffering, joy, love, betrayal and even (whisper) d.e.a.t.h. Also the quest is huge, straddling no less than 3 CDs, and with so many locations that the average completion time is reportedly 120 hours.

Any specific technical conventions to speak of?

At first the system might seem to bear similarities to Resident Evil, in that your polygon hero can move around a detailed pre-rendered environment, but the backgrounds are packed with interactive ‘hot spots’. The integration of old and new techniques also gives FFVII a unique cinematic quality. Its many cut scenes are CGI movie sequences that use the same pre-rendering as the rest of the game, so that when the dizzying camerawork finally comes to a halt, the scene on which it settles is also the environment in which your character can explore. The direction is seamless. The combat system boasts AD&D complexity. Weapons and items have slots in which to fit Materia, orbs that endow the wearer with extra powers such as the ability to steal, or summon Esper-like creature attacks, with some weapons boasting more slots for combining enhancements.

So why should anyone care about the game?

Because it’s the best RPG to appear on the PlayStation. It’s sold five million copies already in Japan!

Hironobu Sakaguchi Interview

Interview with Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of the Final Fantasy series and producer of Final Fantasy VII. From PlayStation Underground #2 demo CD set, released in the US in 1997.

Transcription and screenshots by Tuulisti.

PlayStation Underground: Why is Squaresoft publishing Final Fantasy FVII only on PlayStation?

Hironobu Sakaguchi: In the August of 95, one of the US’s largest CG conventions, Siggraph, was held in LA. At that time we were not sure what the next generation RPG game should look like, so as an experiment we created a CG based, game like, interactive demo to be presented at the show. It focused on battle scenes that were 100% real time and polygon based. This became the seed of Final Fantasy VII and it was then that we decided to make this a CG based game.

When we discussed designing the field scenes as illustrations or CG based, we came up with the idea to eliminate the connection between movies and the fields. Without using blackout at all, and maintaining quality at the same time, we would make the movie stop at one cut and make the characters move around on it. We tried to make it controllable even during the movies. As a result of using a lot of motion data + CG effects and in still images, it turned out to be a mega capacity game, and therefore we had to choose CD-ROM as our media. It other words, we became too aggressive, and got ourselves into trouble.

Why did you need such a large staff?

A larger developer team will not always create a better game, but when a project moves onto a scale such as this, you get to spend a lot of money, and work with highly qualified staff.

We were able to use many high-end machines and work with a staff of approximately 100 people, and I believe this was one of the largest game development teams in history. As a result, the final game generates a tremendous amount of energy. My theory is this: if one person creates a game – it can be a racing game or anything – or 10 people create the same game, the one created by 10 people will be much richer in scope. There is a larger pool of resources to draw from, and each person is able to put passion into his role, creating a greater sense of depth.

How has film influenced your game-making?

It is easy to get emotionally involved with both films and games, although in different ways. Adding certain interactive aspects to films however, I believe players can get further into them, even become one with the visual images. I have always emphasized visual and sound effects because rather than making my games equivalent to films, I want my games to surpass films. That is my goal.

Why is Final Fantasy VII getting so much praise?

Without changing the basic game play, the visual and sound effects have been significantly enhanced further drawing the players’ emotions in to the game. One way RPGs enforce too many images and too much sound on the players, robbing them of the feel of control. In order to avoid those responses, we did extensive research during Final Fantasy V and VI on how to make the players interactively involved in the game, while upgrading the visual and sound effects. The results of this research are reflected in Final Fantasy VII.

Are there any new themes in Final Fantasy VII?

When we were creating Final Fantasy III, my mother passed away, and ever since I have been thinking about the theme “life”. Life exists in many things, and I was curious about what would happen if I attempted to analyze life in a mathematical and logical way. Maybe this was my approach in overcoming the grief I was experiencing. This is the first time in the series that this particular theme actually appears in the game itself. See if you can spot it!

What was it like to work with director Yoshinori Kitase?

I have been working with him since Final Fantasy V. When he joined Square, he told me he initially wanted to become a film director, but that he thought this would be impossible in Japan. The previous version of Final Fantasy could be called puppet shows compared to this one. It’s a real film requiring innovative effects and various camera angles. His experience studying cinematography and in making his own films has contributed a lot to the making of the game. He is the director of this game.

The Making of Final Fantasy VII

May 2003 edition of Edge magazine’s regular feature “The Making Of…”, spotlighting Final Fantasy VII. Interviewed for this article were Yoshinori Kitase and Tetsuya Nomura.

Transcription by Tuulisti.

3.28m sales in Japan, 2.92m in the US and 1.77m in Europe. Three CD. Over two years’ development. Over 100 team members. Nine out of ten. Adults in tears. But Final Fantasy VII represents much more than cold record-breaking statistics. Here was the catalyst for the worldwide RPG revolution…

“This was undoubtedly the game that changed everything.” Yoshinori Kitase, the director the most important RPG ever, has cause for hyperbole. “We felt a wind of change inside the company during the development process. There was this incredible feeling I’ll never forget: we were making a new thing… making history. Imagine.” He pauses. Imagine. At the time there were many doubters, but Kitase-san’s instinct proved right; Final Fantasy VII eventually propelled the high-production RPG into one of the most popular videogame genres worldwide. The first demo of the title, creatively bundled on an extra disc with Square’s first 32bit offering, Tobal No.1, stunned the world with its steam punk setting, achingly melancholic score and arresting visuals. And it bore evidence of a huge team working on a title with aspirations not yet though possible in the medium of videogames. “There was a huge number of people we had never worked with before. Up until that point Squaresoft’s teams had only ever dealt with the traditional 2D medium. All of a sudden we had new people coming in working with software like Power Animator and SoftImage that we had never heard of before. From and industry point of view, it was unbelievable what we were trying to achieve. That is why we all had this strong feeling; this great enthusiasm.” As the software houses were jumping from the 16bit systems to 32bit hardware, Squaresoft made the headlines for choosing Sony over previous soul mate Nintendo. The story behind the split is yet to be explained and as the two companies only recently kissed and made up (with the departure of warring Hirosohi Yamauchi from Nintendo and Hironobu Sakaguchi from Squaresoft) we’re are unlikely to anytime soon. Kitase-san is predictably diplomatic, “We had a big decision to make in terms of which hardware to use. Nintendo was not one step behind in terms of hardware. In fact, the N64 was quite attractive actually. But as our goal was to develop the next-generation RPG we came to the conclusion that only a high capacity mass storage media would facilitate what we wanted to achieve. This meant CD was the only option and so from that perspective, Playstation was the only choice.”

Access All Areas

There was a great pressure on the team to maximise the benefits of the new medium. “At that time Sakaguchi-san (Square’s founder) was the series’ producer. Right from the time the decision to go with CD was made he set down a ground rule for the team saying, ‘If the player becomes aware of the access times we have failed.’ So we tried many tricks to circumvent the issue such as offering animation while the game was loading data, etc. The constant fear for us having worked with cartridges for so many years was that the player would feel bored while waiting for loads. However, only CD media was able to facilitate more than 40 minutes of FMV movies so we virtually had the decision made for us.”

Another Dimension

Graphically Square was trying things only hinted at in the first generation of 32bit titles. Using polygonal characters on CG backgrounds and interspersing the action with streaming FMV was a bold aesthetic decision. “We were keen that the distinction between the in-game graphics and the CG movie sequences was not overly pronounced: something we could not have done on the N64. The change of dimension into 3D was a massive one for the Square team. You could see the game with maps and angles that only 3D could offer and in terms of game characters, we were able to offer far greater, detailed animations, so they would look more real and more alive on screen. But it was a daunting task.” The change from Final Fantasy VI to Final Fantasy VII is as graphic a demonstration of the transition between 2D to 3D as one will see. Just how apprehensive was Kitase-san about this sea change? “It was during development that I realised the impact that 3D realistic CG visuals had on overseas players. In Japan, you have the manga culture with the traditional deformed style world design and characters that live through a story with very serious themes. Overseas, you don’t have this. To be honest we were pretty confident that FFVII’s characters and graphics would be accepted overseas and ironically I was much more anxious to see how Japanese users would respond.” Undoubtedly at the heart of any RPG’s success is the plot. No matter how good your battle system or locations, without quality scripting there will be no incentive for the player to play. It is testament to FFVII’s story that the game is widely regarded as the acme of the series and still frequently referenced today. While Final Fantasy games have traditionally always drawn upon a huge selection of myths and legends, the seventh game used them as a framework for loftier ethical aspirations and ecologically conscious evangelism. “Sakaguchi had a great vision of the force behind the universe. He wanted to explore the idea that planets and people share the same basic energy and so are, in some way, intrinsically linked. He developed this philosophy from drawing upon other cultures that stated when a planet disappears an invisible energy is released in to space. This energy goes to some place to give life again when certain conditions are met. The same energy drives people. So matter who or what this energy comes from, it will concentrate all together to give life to something or someone again.” These were ideas that the SquareSoft founder had long been toying with and it is unclear as to how much of the philosophy was pure fantastical fabrication and how much was his own dogma. One thing is certain, they posed difficulties for Kitase-san, “Sakaguchi’s ideas were incredibly difficult to represent in the game since they concerned an invisible abstract concept. It was something I’d never seen done in a game before. So, I came up with the Life Stream. “This was an idea that planets have the same kinds of life systems as people’s blood or nerve network. It allowed us to more clearly examine the issues we wanted to. Sakaguchi-san’s main ideas for FFVII and the world he imagined for the game (the creatures, etc.) were very closely integrated into the “Final Fantasy” movie. FFVII and “Final Fantasy” started at the same time in their development process and they share nearly identical roots. I may have to play/watch both again and compare all their common elements.” Although lengthy FMV, random battles and an arcane combat system alienated some gamers—especially in the west where anecdotal evidence suggests it became the most returned game history—the combination proved the winning formula for thousands who had never sampled such fare before. Boosting weapons and skills with Materia, summoning devastating guardians, scouring the planet’s highest peaks and deepest oceans for secret items and raising and training Chocobo gave both fresh and old RPGers an inconceivably large universe to explore and revel in. It also provided us with a legendary videogame moment.

Death of a Friend

Easily the most infamous and memorable character in FFVII was neither the main lead nor the central antagonist, although both Cloud and Sephiroth are premier examples of excellent design and characterisation, but rather a flower seller who appears a little more than a third of the game. Tetsuya Nomura, character designer, conceived both the characters of Sephiroth and Aerith. “The main issues of contention for fans worldwide are still Aerith’s death and the ending sequence with Sephiroth. With the plot I wanted people to feel something intense, to understand something. Back at the time we were designing the game I was frustrated with the perennial dramatic cliché where the protagonist loves someone very much and so has to sacrifice himself and die in a dramatic fashion in order to express that love. We found this was the case in both games and movies, both eastern and western. But I wanted to say something different, something realistic. I mean is it right to set such an example to people?” Kitase-san is adamant that cultural art puts too high a value on the dramatically meaningful death, “In the real world things are very different. You just need to look around you. Nobody wants to die that way. People die of disease and accident. Death comes suddenly and there is no notion of good or bad. It leaves, not a dramatic feeling but great emptiness. When you lose someone you loved very much you feel this big empty space and think, ‘If I had known this was coming I would have done things differently.’ These are the feelings I wanted to arouse in the players with Aerith’s death relatively early in the game. Feelings of reality and not Hollywood.”

Classic Convention

At the time of release the internet was awash with rumours that it was possible to resurrect Aerith. Edge wonders if this was ever the developers’ intention? “The world was expecting us to bring her back to life, as this is the classic convention. But we did not. We had decided this from the beginning. There was a lot of reaction from Japanese users. Some of them were very sad about it while others were angry. We even received a lengthy petition addressed to our scenario writer asking for Aerith’s revival. But there are many meanings in Aerith’s death and that could never happen. Final Fantasy VII is arguably one of the most significant games of all time. Not simply because it was so well conceived and executed, but mainly because of its wider significance to Sony. In Japan, history dictates that hardware can not succeed without a best-selling RPG franchise. With Final Fantasy VII Squaresoft secured its position as king of the adventure tale and won Sony an army of fans both in Japan and the west. The continued pressure Square receives to do a remake of the title is evidence of the game’s continued popularity. Edge gently pursues the rumours. “If I were to redo the game onto today’s hardware I would like to make the characters more realistic, I mean like FFX for instance. I think I would try include full voice support but I would definitely keep very same plot and scenario. I know that other members of the team are eager to do the update, but, currently I have no plans. Cloud and Aerith have appeared in other titles (Final Fantasy Tactics, Kingdom Hearts) so it is possible FFVII character will appear in a future title but there is much discussion to be had first.” Whether a new generation of videogamers get to experience this RPG in next-gen clothing is almost irrelevant. While few would go back to experience this epic again, it is one of those rare games that cast an emotional spell over legions of players. For that reason it will always remain the stuff of legend.

Afterthoughts: Final Fantasy VII

Interivew with Yoshinori Kitase and Tetsuya Nomura from Electronic Gaming Monthly, issue #196, October 2005.

In light of all these new FFVII offshoots, we thought it would be interesting to look back at the groundbreaking original PS1 game that popularized the role-playing genre in the United States. We waxed nostalgic with two of FFVII’s most integral team members: Director Yoshinori Kitase and character designer/battle director/coauthor Tetsuya Nomura.

EGM: What does Final Fantasy VII mean to you? Yoshinori Kitase: FFVII was the first Final Fantasy for the PS1, and it was also the first 3D game in the series, so it determined the new direction that the franchise would take after the 16-bit Super Nintendo era. It’s by far the most memorable and important title for me, and when I had the chance to expand any of the past games, I immediately chose Final Fantasy VII for the project. The ending of FFVII seemed to me to open up so many possibilities with its characters, more so than other games.

EGM: When you were working on FFVII eight years ago, could you conceive of how much the game would affect the RPG marketplace? Tetsuya Nomura: When I look back, I remember having no concept of just how massive that project would go on to become. Of course, I’d been associated with the Final Fantasy franchise before FFVII, as I did monster designs on Final Fantasy V (Super NES). I remember that before we started FFVII, the characters from Final Fantasy IV were still very popular, despite the fact that FFV and FFVI had been released. I found this really frustrating. Why would people still be talking about those characters? So I made it my goal to create my own batch of characters that would be remembered and loved by the Final Fantasy fans. Also, starting with FFVII, I was far more deeply involved with the story and characters, so I was really extremely excited to work on that project.

EGM: FFVII was a departure from the Super NES titles… were you worried about fan reaction? YK: I wasn’t really worried about response to the graphical shift, as there were already several 3D games in America that were accepted by fans. My fear had been that the Final Fantasy franchise might be left behind if it didn’t catch up to that trend, actually.

EGM: What did you think of Cloud as a hero when you were making FFVII? YK: There wasn’t really much controversy or criticism about having him as the hero from within Square, but he is definitely a mysterious character. That’s one of the game’s main themes, the fact that the protagonist has all these secrets to unravel. He isn’t a straightforward hero like Superman; rather, he has lots of mysteries, self-doubts, and a real dark side. Mr. Nomura was also very good at designing a character like that.

EGM: We heard that the death of Aerith and the creation of Tifa both originated in a phone call between you two…. TN: It’s funny, some magazine ran that story, but only the beginning and ending of it. People think that I wanted to kill off Aerith and replace her with Tifa as the main character! [Laughs] The actual conversation between Mr. Kitase and myself was very, very long. Originally, there were only going to be three characters in the entire game: Cloud, Barrett, and Aerith. Can you imagine that? And we knew even in the early concept stage that one character would have to die. But we only had three to choose from. I mean, Cloud’s the main character, so you can’t really kill him. And Barrett… well, that’s maybe too obvious. But we had to pick between Aerith and Barrett. We debated this for a long time, but in the end decided to sacrifice Aerith.

EGM: Did you pick her to increase the drama? TN: In the previous FF games, it became almost a signature theme for one character to sacrifice him or herself, and often it was a similar character type from game to game, kind of a brave, last-man-standing, Barrett-type character. So everyone expected that. And I think that death should be something sudden and unexpected, and Aerith’s death seemed more natural and realistic. Now, when I reflect on Final Fantasy VII, the fact that fans were so offended by her sudden death probably means that we were successful with her character. If fans had simply accepted her death, that would have meant she wasn’t an effective character.

EGM: Which female character in FFVII is your personal favorite? TN: [Laughs] I’m not really interested in any superdeformed females.

EGM: Since Dirge of Cerberus is, chronologically speaking, the furthest game in the FFVII timeline, does it have a happy ending? YK: AC and DC both have their own resolutions, so don’t expect cliff-hangers there. Also, DC isn’t the direct sequel to FFVII, Advent Children is. So we can’t view DC as the ending to the whole big FFVII saga. Plus, FFVII definitely has so many diverse elements, and different fans have interest in different characters, so if, for example, one person is interested in Cloud, Tifa, and Aerith’s relationship, then AC may provide some sort of answers for them. Somebody else might be interested in Vincent, so they might want to explore DC. It’s not like this is going to complete the whole story, but it will satisfy fans who have strong attachments to individual characters.

EGM: At the very end of FFVII, we see the epilogue to the whole story that takes place 500 years later, so really, you still have another 497 years’ worth of games and movies to fill in…. YK: Ha, maybe I’ll try to do that. In a way, I consider that epilogue to be the true happy ending of FFVII. Well, it’s a happy ending even though all the human beings are destroyed. [Laughs]

Concept art

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Dengeki PlayStation Vol.17– Dengeki PlayStation Vol.40-Non Translated

Magazine Previews

Forum member Brooke dug up some old FF7 previews from August of 1997 and was kind enough to share them with us. If you were already a Final Fantasy fan then, you might enjoy the nostalgia of the excitement that had been absolutely ravaging the West after the game’s January Japanese release. If you were not, it’s a pretty fascinating look at just how beside themselves people were to play this game. Also included is the preview of Final Fantasy Tactics, another imminent release at the time, as well as a truly prophetic piece about gaming and the third dimension.-lifestream

final fantasy vii development final

final fantasy vii development early

FFVII 10th Anniversary Discussion: p. 8 to 13 of the FFVII 10th Anniversary Ultimania

FFVII 10th Anniversary Discussion

In 2007 FFVII hit its 10th anniversary. To find out the secret of its appeal, we went to the 3 central members of the development staff behind FFVII and the Compilation. How does FFVII look through their eyes? Cloud’s Animations determined the image of the scenario

– It’s been 10 years since FFVII was released. I think the reason fans have continued to support it for so long is because it left that much of an impression on them, but what scenes stand out most in your memories as the creators?

Nojima: For me, it’s the scene where Cloud first appears at the start of the story. That scene used the cool standing animation Toriyama (Motomu Toriyama: FFVII’s event planner) made. If I remember correctly, it was named “Cloud showing off” (laughs). But when I say that animation I thought to myself objectively, “wow, this is great.” It was when I’d just started writing the scenario, and Cloud’s false persona was kind of determined based on that pose, and after that the image of the scenario started to solidify. Back in those days, a lot of different tasks would be going on simultaneously during production, so there were a lot of cases like that where the other staff would influence each other. All the important stuff was usually decided by talking it over in the smoking room (laughs). Nowadays since you’ve got the voice acting to record the scenario needs to be done first, so it’s turned into quite a lonesome task.

Kitase: That Cloud ‘showing off’ standing animation appears in the Nibelheim flashback as well. When the Shinra soldier asked about doing “the usual”, he does that pose. The same scene is in CC too, so I instructed the staff to recreate that animation (laughs). You were in charge of the Nibelheim events in FFVII, weren’t you, Nojima?

Nojima: That’s right. Right up till the very end we couldn’t get the bugs out of it, so it was pretty rough. Like when Cloud was waiting outside of the screen for his part in the scene, his hair would be poking out from the edge of the screen (laughs). Story-wise, the scene at the Northern Cave where Cloud talks while upside-down left an impression on me. I worked on the direction for that scene, but getting the characters to run to match with the movie scene was tricky, and I remember having trouble with it. The part where Cloud addresses Tifa as “Mrs.” Tifa, I made that hoping that the people playing it would be taken aback by the change in Cloud and it would really hit the player.

Nomura: The scene that sticks out for me is the scene when Tifa going into Cloud’s mental realm and he remembers the truth about what happened in the past.

Nojima: It was Katou (Masato Katou: FFVII event planner) who made the events for that part, and the movies were made by Ikumori (Kazuyuki Ikumori: FFVII movie designer). Ikumori was originally graphic designer for the maps, and this was the first time he’d tried his hand at movies. He said, “I’ve never worked on the movies before,” but looking at him now…

Nomura: Now he’s the movie director on DC and CC.

Kitase: Katou also did the event on the airship, the night before the final battle.

Nojima: Oh, the scene with the risqué line of dialogue? It was Katou who wrote that as well, not me.

– The line “Words aren’t the only way to talk someone how you feel,” right? That was quite a mature conversation for a FF game.

Kitase: But I remember having to get another version that was too intense toned down.

Nojima: The original idea was more extreme. The plan was to have Cloud walk out of the Chocobo stable on board the Highwind, followed by Tifa leaving while checking around, but Kitase turned it down. But even with the line in question, maybe at that time none of us thought it would be something so important (laughs).

In the original scenario, Zack didn’t exist

– Mr. Kitase, which scene do you find most striking even now?

Kitase: Like Nomura, I’d have to say the climax in the mental realm. The scene where the mysteries regarding Sephiroth and Cloud all become clear. I didn’t know until we were in the latter stages of development that Cloud’s memories were Zack’s. First of all, when I originally checked the scenario, the character of Zack didn’t exist. Zack was a character who came up as Nojima was building up the mysteries. So until that part was complete I was left wondering just how he was planning to solve this, and all the while making the event scenes, still in the dark about the truth.

Nojima: But with Zack, I didn’t simply bring him in just because it was needed for solving the mysteries. When I joined the development team, the concept of Aerith seeing her first love again in Cloud was already there, so I brought him in to link that with solving the mysteries.

Nomura: About the concept of her seeing her first love again in Cloud, at first we were thinking of making that man Sephiroth. When I got the request for the illustration of Zack we were already near the end of development, so when you look at it now it’s not even coloured, and I can’t really deny that it feels like quite a sudden request.

– Had you thought about the truth of the mysteries regarding Cloud and Zack from the very beginning?

Nojima: No, I thought of it as I went on with my work. So at the beginning there wasn’t much foreshadowing. The foreshadowing scenes, I asked the staff in charge of the event scenes to add after development reached a point where an outcome for the mysteries came into sight.

Kitase: In those days it was easy to go back and change things around later on. Lately, with the workload involved in making the graphics, it’s hard to ask people to change something once it’s been finished.

Nojima: Well, even back then, there were some people you could easily ask to change an event later on, and people who were difficult to ask, so the locations of the foreshadowing might be biased. I only went to the people who were easy to ask, and the foreshadowing is focused at the scenes they were in charge of (laughs).

Red XIII: Four-Legged Bane of the Event Planners – I think one of the things that have helped maintain FFVII’s popularity is the uniqueness of its characters. How did you go about creating the characters?

Nomura: At the very start of development the scenario wasn’t complete yet, but I went along like, “I guess first off you need a hero and a heroine,” and from there drew the designs while thinking up details about the characters. After I’d done the hero and heroine, I carried on drawing by thinking what kind of characters would be interesting to have. When I handed over the designs I’d tell people the character details I’d thought up, or write them down on a separate sheet of paper. At that time, I still wrote everything by hand as well.

– So in exactly what order did you draw the characters?

Nomura: The first ones I drew was Cloud and Aerith. Next was Barret.

Kitase: And then Nomura said he wanted to have a four-legged character, and drew Red XIII…

Nomura: After that I think things kind of stalled for a while (laughs).

Nojima: Because you said you wanted to have a four-legged character, it was a real struggle to make the cut-scenes. Like, ‘how is he supposed to climb a ladder?’ and ‘when he turns around his tail and his body end up going into the wall’ (laughs).

Nomura: The scene with Red XIII standing on two legs on the transport ship was funny.

Nojima: The scene where he says, “It’s hard standing on two legs” (laughs).

Kitase: You named Red XIII, didn’t you, Tetsu (Nomura)?

Nomura: I thought a name that didn’t sound like a name would be interesting, so I combined a color and a number. The reason I chose 13 was pretty much because it’s an unlucky number. The official details for the character and his real name ‘Nanaki’ was something one of the other staff did.

Kitase: It was probably Akiyama (Jun Akiyama: FFVII event planner) who thought of those.

– This is something I noticed before, but to type in ‘Seto’, Nanaki’s father, in Japanese with the keyboard set to kana input, you press the keys ‘PS’. I was wondering if this perhaps was where the name came from…?

Kitase: Did he think that deeply about it?

Nojima: If it was Akiyama who was in charge of that, I wouldn’t put some deep-rooted reason like that past him (laughs).

Yuffie and Vincent, who were almost cut at one point.

– Yuffie and Vincent are secret characters who you don’t have to get in your party, but I was surprised that they had so many cut-scenes prepared for them.

Nomura: There was even a time when some people thought we should cut them because we didn’t have enough time. But we somehow managed to veto cutting them, and as a result they became the secret characters they are today.

Kitase: The main reason for there being so many cut-scenes for Yuffie is down it the strong attachment that Akiyama, who was in charge of them, had. Her appearing in a battle and talking with her afterwards, all those were his ideas, and as development moved along the scope steadily got bigger and bigger.

Nojima: It’s really annoying when you try to save after the Yuffie battle and get tricked (laughs). For the story in Wutai, I made the parts related to the main story, but the events in the Pagoda of the Five Mighty Gods were the work of Tokita (Takashi Tokita: FFVII’s event planner).

Kitase: Those bits do have a Tokita-feel to them.

Nojima: Tokita is involved in the theatre, and the characters who appear there have the names of people involved with the theatre like playwrights.

– Who was in charge of Vincent’s cut-scenes?

Kitase: I remember making the event where he joins you in the Shinra Mansion, but his episodes themselves was Nojima, wasn’t it?

Nojima: I did write his episodes. The back story for Vincent and Lucrecia was around from the start, and I remember linking that with Shinra. In the end, Chiba (Hiroki Chiba: FFVII’s event planner) crammed the Vincent-related events in right at the last minute.

Kitase: Chiba is in charge of DC’s scenario, but thinking about it now maybe it turned out that way because he worked on the events with Vincent in FFVII.

Nojima: However, despite Vincent not having many scenes due to him appearing in the latter half of the story, he has a fair amount of dialogue, and when he does show up he talks a lot. Even though really he’s meant to be a quiet person (laughs). Even now I have a problem when creating scenarios, where even though the character is a cool and silent type, I end up making scenes where they just keep on talking and talking. Roles like Barret, who appear from the start and have a lot of lines, most of the time, basically don’t know anything. But characters like Vincent, or Auron in FFX, it tends to be the case that the quieter they are the more they know about things, and they just end up with more expositional dialogue. I still haven’t found a solution to this problem.

The reason FFVII’s characters have continued to be loved

– When thinking of the character’s stories or working on their designs, do you have any kind of tried and tested methods, Mr. Nomura?

Nomura: Maybe not a method in particular. For FFVII’s characters, they’re the result of wanting to make varied, and in a sense going for an orthodox balance. In the recent FF games, I now receive the profiles of the characters before handling the designs, so I don’t worry about the character building much now. I think FFVII was it as far as me thinking of the character’s stories first goes.

– The characters of FFVII seem to be especially popular even out of the entire series, but where do you think the reason for that lies?

Nomura: Hmmm, I wonder? Nothing really hits me. Well, I guess that each character has their own individual episodes which are well told. You might say their personalities are too strong (laughs).

Nojima: Yeah, they were made nearly excessively individual. For example, once you’ve decided Aerith speaks like this, it starts to escalate in that direction. And like Cloud’s cool standing animation we mentioned before, all the staff in charge of the events took in anything that seemed interesting. Even Cloud’s “not interested” catch phrase comes up so much you start to think, you won’t normally say it that much (laughs).

Kitase: Everyone used it, didn’t they?

Nojima: In that sense, their characters were definitely strong. In FFVIII onwards, the height of the characters increased, and we starting to be conscious of realism. And when that happens, there are times when you start comparing them to real life people. But with FFVII’s height, even in 3D, you still don’t really get that sense of reality. Maybe in that aspect they were like cartoon characters, which was a plus. I think, maybe they had a kind of easy to remember quality as symbols.

Kitase: When I first read Nojima’s scenario, I felt strongly that his image of a heroine was fresh. The hero didn’t have a typical personality, single-minded or righteous, and Aerith lived in the slums. Those things were really fresh. And having 2 heroines, Aerith and Tifa, and having the hero waver between them, at the time that was something new. And Sephiroth too, who appears from the start and is the final enemy, and is sort of a rival. For me personally, I think those things which weren’t in past FFs might be the secret to its popularity.

Nomura: In regards to Sephiroth, I wanted to avoid having the kind of plot development where you get to the end of the story and suddenly this boss you’ve never heard of yet just appears. With FFVII, I wanted to do a story where you’re chasing someone you’ve known was the enemy from the get-go. As for the heroines, during development some people were of the opinion that compared to Tifa, Aerith has fewer scenes and didn’t really stand out, so we also increased her appearances.

Nojima: As a motif for them, Tifa is “the childhood friend who’s been with you since nursery school”, and Aerith is “the girl who transfers school mid-term and quickly leaves for another school.” Since she doesn’t have many scenes, you’ve got to make it so that the transfer student has a big impact. That was what I thought.

Feelings about Aerith, the tragic heroine

– You can’t talk about FFVII’s heroines without talking about the tragedy that befalls Aerith at the Forgotten City. That event was a very memorable scene not only for the FF series, but all RPGs.

Kitase: In the past FFs as well, important characters died and went away. Like Galuf in FFV for example, they followed a pattern where the character would go down after giving it his all in a fight. In this case, often it went that the characters think something like, they’ve tired so hard, and just accept the death and overcome it. When creating stories I think that is an option, but in FFVII we were thinking, could we take this a step further? Bring out a sense of loss somehow? What I didn’t want to have was the kind of story development where even when a character dies there’s no sense of loss, on the contrary it just raises motivation and pushes you forward.

Nojima: Kitase’s loss talk has been consistent since back then.

Kitase: And with a lot of stories, before they die there’s a lot of dramatic preparations, aren’t there? Like a “pre-prepared excitement”, or “using this as a step to fight evil further”, those are the kinds of developments I wanted to avoid. In reality, death comes without warning, and you’re left feeling dazed at the gravity of the loss… Rather than wanting to fight evil, you’re just overcome by a great sense of loss, like you just want to give up everything. I was in charge of the direction of that scene, and I tried to bring out that sort of sense of realism.

Nomura: It’s related to ‘life’, one of the themes of FFVII, so it’s not portrayed as a “death for excitement’s sake” but expresses a realistic pain. Death comes suddenly, so I think the emotion there wasn’t excitement or anything, but sadness.

Nojima: Speaking from a scenario standpoint, FFVII is ‘a story of life cycling through the planet’, so someone needed to be part of that cycle. In other words, although what happened to Aerith isn’t really based on logic, as far as the story goes, maybe one of the team was destined to lose their life from the very start. But how that one became Aerith wasn’t decided through a notice as is popularly mentioned. It was decided after everyone, including myself, racked our brains about what to do.

Truth hidden in the abbreviations of the Compilation titles

– 7 years after the release of FFVII, the Compilation began, but it was a surprise that Advent Children, the sequel, was a film.

Kitase: Originally the AC project came about when the staff said they wanted to make a film.

Nomura: But having that film work being based on FFVII was decided from the beginning.

Kitase: They’ve made several of the movie scenes for games before, so they have the know-how. But an independent film was a big challenge for us, so we had to be ready for it being considerably difficult. When thinking of what subject material we work with while having that readiness, we came up with FFVII. At first it was only planned to be 20 minutes, but before I knew it there were fight scenes, and finally it grew to 100 minutes… (laughs).

Nomura: After we started the project, there was a period where it was put to one side for a while. At that rate, the project itself seemed like it would just go up in smoke, so I put my hand up and said I’d do it, and started again from there, adding in fight scenes and so on.

– Was the formula for the Compilation’s titles, AC, BC, CC and DC, planned from the start?

Kitase: In order of release BC comes first, Advent Children was the first title we decided on.

Nomura: For BC’s title, Taba (Hajime Tabata: BC’s director) and Itou (Yukimasa Itou: BC’s producer) came to me saying they had a good idea. “How about linking with AC, and Before Christ (B.C.), and going with Before Crisis?” I just gave an nonchalant “sure, why not,” but I never thought it would end up being a formula (laughs). So, next we skipped C and went for DC. Then planning for CC suddenly began. Kitase came to my office one day and told me, “think of something” (laughs).

Kitase: That was how it all began. At then, we were thinking of a PSP port of BC. At the time, you could only play BC on NTT DoCoMo mobile phones, so we wanted to let a wider spectrum of players to have a chance to play it. So personally, I was planning releasing it on the PSP with basically the same graphics as the mobile phone version, even if we did fill in the story a bit. However, when I told Tetsu about this, I hadn’t realized at that time that that wouldn’t be enough (laughs).

Nomura: Since at first I was told it’s BC on the PSP, I thought of calling it “Before Crisis Core”. But at that time we’d already decided on having Zack as the main character, so we said, “since it’s going to be different from BC, we don’t need ‘Before’ in the title, do we?” So we took off the “Before”, and by chance it fitted the CC which we had skipped.

Kitase: When I saw the cut-scenes of the completed CC, the quality was good enough to release on the PS2, and I never expected it would be this good. With CC, I had only read part of the scenario when I worked on it, so when played up to the ending myself, as a consumer, I was moved, like “aah, so this is what Zack’s story was like…” (laughs). When I saw the ending, I though to myself, “all the titles have come together nicely. I’m glad we did the Compilation.”

WEEKLY FAMITSU ISSUE NO. 1224: YOSHINORI KITASE INTERVIEW

IT BEGAN ON THE SNES

—First off, can you tell us how the development of “FFVII” came about?

Kitase: After development on “FFVI” ended, we started the “FFVII” project on the SNES. All of the team put forth ideas for the characters and game systems, but during that time we needed to help out “Chrono Trigger” team who at the time had run into trouble, so for a time development of “FFVII” was put on hold.

—Was the “FFVII” being developed then different from the finished one?

Kitase: Yeah. It was completely different, and Nomura (*1) had proposed things like a design for a witch. In the end, when development started up again it changed to the current setting centred on mako and the like, but the design for the witch Nomura made was incorporated into “FFVIII” in Edea.

—I see. So then, when the development began again, it become the world we have now which has a strong sci-fi feel.

Kitase: At the time there were a lot of Western-fantasy RPGs around, so we wanted to set it apart, and we wanted to achieve more realist ways of showing the story. Also, Mr. Sakaguchi (*2) had suggested a modern drama-esque story with a strong sci-fi feel.

—Had you decided on making it an RPG using 3D polygons at that point?

Kitase: When development had restarted, talk of a next generation console was already in full swing. Since the next generation hardware was said to have chips that excelled at 3D graphics, we also made a 3D battle demo movie based on “FFVI” and studied using 3D. Soon the idea came up that movies would be indispensible to the evolution of “FF” and we decided to development for the PlayStation, which utilised CD-ROM that had a large storage capacity.

“ALONE IN THE DARK”

—Was the decision to make “FFVII” in 3D a unanimous one?

Kitase: There were two directions the development of “FFVII” could have taken. One was to put pixel characters on 3D maps, like “Dragon Quest VII” and “Xenogears” would later use. And the other was the method used in “FFVII” where the characters are rendered using polygons. The pixel characters used in the story scenes in previous “FF” games were extremely popular, so at first we were considering the former which is an extension of that method. But as we couldn’t made a realistic drama in that way, and with polygon characters we could use the movement of their entire bodies to express things, we went for the later to look for new possibilities.

—Was there no resistance from the team?

Kitase: There was at first. Particularly, with the loss of the pixel graphics, the designer team such as Naora (*3) seemed to have felt that their job was put at risk. But in their own ways, everyone went to the CG training sessions and such and learnt to handle it. The people who had been there since the old days are those who had overcome that sort of times of change. In a sense, that was really the turning point for the development.

—Were there any titles that served as a reference when making a 3D RPG?

Kitase: A foreign game called “Alone In The Dark” was an inspiration. The backgrounds were single images done in CG, and when the polygon character moved along them, the camera would switch and the viewpoint would change. That method was new. “Alone In The Dark” was an adventure game, and its story was set in a mansion, but I thought that by taking this and using in it in RPG with vast field maps, it could be something different and new, so I went around showing this game to all the staff.

MOVIE SCENES YOU CAN CONTROL

—In “FFVII” one of its unique features was being able to control characters during the movies.

Kitase: What I wanted to do most of all in “FFVII” was to seamlessly join the movies and the game parts. We wanted to avoid there feeling like there was a massive gap in the graphics when moving from the movies to the playable parts, and Mr. Sakaguchi also said to not make it feel like the movies stick out. So we did some tests and made the part in the opening where the camera zooms in from a shot of all of Midgar to Cloud jumping off the train. I was in charge of the composition of that part, we used a method where as it moved from the movie to a CG image, the characters were positioned so they didn’t move out of place, and we refined it numerous times to get it to sync up nicely. When it went well without moving out of place, it felt brilliant. By the way, the kind of showy events like the scene where Tifa jumps off the Junon cannon, I was mostly responsible for those (laughs).

—Do you think scenes you can control during movies not being in other games was down to Square’s high level of technical skills at that time?

Kitase: No, rather than technical skill, I think it was more the inventiveness to want to do those kind of things. We wanted to take what “Alone In The Dark” did, having polygon characters on top of a CG background, and take it one step further. And because this was our first 3D game, we didn’t know the limits so we could have reckless ideas. We commissioned an outside CG company for the movie scenes, but when the trial version was completed, we would say “the story’s changed so we’d like to extend the movie scene by about 30 seconds” which really surprised them. Since at that time even just extending a movie by a few seconds costed 10 million yen. We made these unreasonable orders without knowing that. In the end we made do with a few revisions, but we gradually learnt that you can’t get retakes as easy as you could with games (wry smile).

—(Laughs) Did Mr. Sakaguchi give any orders for other parts?

Kitase: I think Mr. Sakaguchi wanted to follow the tradition of the pixel graphics, and to show the characters’ expressions on the field screens, so he paid attention to the size of the heads. In battles you can zoom in the camera, but since the field screens are a single background image, you can’t do that. As a result, the proportion of the characters are different in battle and on the field. But when we looked at it after “FFVII” was released, we thought “people are probably going to feel something is off with the difference in proportion” and so in “FFVIII” we the proportions on the field and battle scenes the same.

A SCENARIO WITH A HINT OF MYSTERY

—How was the story, which was distinct from the RPGs that had come before it, created?

Kitase: Before “FFVI” we had Mr. Sakaguchi’s plots, and based on that each of the staff would throw in their ideas and flesh it out, but with “FFVII” we could express things more realistically, so we couldn’t take a mishmash of all the separate episodes the staff had made up and make a single coherent game. That’s where Mr. Nojima (*4), who was one of the new staff members, came in. He had written an RPG scenario with mystery elements for “Glory of Heracles III: Silence of the Gods” on the SNES, so to make it a surprising story like that we left the scenario to Mr. Nojima and he incorporated the elements everyone wanted to do.

—Things such as Cloud’s true identity were certainly surprising.

Kitase: For Cloud’s identity, we only vaguely had an image of Cloud’s own existence being up in the air and it ending there, but the actual unfolding of events was left in Nojima’s hands. And he made not only the scenario but the actual event scenes as well, and the parts where all the mysteries get made clear like Nibelheim in the past were all in Nojima’s head so he hadn’t written it down in detail in the scenario. So we were doing the test play with no idea how it was going to end, and that’s how we first found out what happens. In particular Zack was made like that as well, he was a character Nojima brought in while he was building up the mystery, so we had no clue that he was that important a character (laughs).

—That’s surprising (laughs). Did Mr. Sakaguchi have any directions for the story, having written the plot?

Kitase: Mr. Sakaguchi had been deeply involved with the story up to “FFVI” but with “FFVII” he focused his efforts on the battles. It was Mr. Sakaguchi who suggested the materia system. At first materia had the name “spheres” which Nomura proposed, but Sakaguchi thought we should make it something that would resonate easily even with elementary school kids, so we went for ‘materia’. Back then, the staff were trying to come up with some cool name, but Sakaguchi said that in order to get it embraced across the board you can’t just think about what’s cool.

DEVELOPMENT BRIMMING WITH ENTHUSIASM

—Was the wide variety of mini-games something you planned to include from the start?

Kitase: We had thought of the bike mini-game where you escape from Midgar, but apart from that we had no plans at all (laughs). Now we don’t have staff who aren’t working on anything, but back then we could have staff who had a bit of free time between projects. There were some new staff as well so, kind of doubling as training, we had them make things that needed specialised programs, like the roller coaster shooting game or the submarines.

—So that’s the story behind it! By the way, were there any specific episodes from back then that left a mark on you?

Kitase: Actually, 6 days after “FFVII” mastered up, my eldest son was born. I luckily got there in time for the birth, but afterwards my wife said “you can’t just simply show up for the moment he’s born and everything’s fine” (wry smile). So while I caused some worry, it was a memorable time also for the birth of my son.

—So finally, can you give a message to the fans of “FFVII”?

Kitase: Looking back on the development of “FFVII” now, the difference in proportion between the field and battle sections encapsulates how the desire to “include the stuff we wanted to do” won over consistency. Those bits that are rough but you can feel the energy behind them, those are my favourite points in “FFVII”, and I think maybe what has been supported for so long. As you get used to game development you try to make something more clean and refined, but even if some things were a bit irregular, like there being so many mini-games, later on you come to realise that those can create some unpredictable sort of fun. I hope we can treasure that energy in the future as well, and not forget the enthusiasm we had at first as we make new games.

*1: Tetsuya Nomura. Character designer for “FFVII”. *2: Hironobu Sakaguchi. Produced heavily involved with the “FF” series. *3: Yusuke Naora. Art director for “FFVII”. *4: Kazushige Nojima. In charge of the scenario of “FFVII”.

– On the 15th anniversary To Tetsu

You’ve mainly received attention for your character designs, but you also suggested various systems like the limit breaks in “FFVII” which would be used in later games in the series. Limit breaks are similar to the special attacks in fighting games, but what an interesting idea it was to think it would be fun to place those into an RPG format. If I said it to you directly you’d get ahead of yourself so I won’t, but I would just like to say ‘thank you’ (laughs). (Kitase)

– On the 15th anniversary To Nojima

While we were asking you to come up with a mysterious story like “Glory of Hercules III”, me and Nomura kept throwing these elements we wanted without considering foreshadowing, so I think incorporating them must have been tough. But I am grateful that you pieced them together without turning us down. Thank you. But around the time of “FFX” our unreasonable behavior was too much *even for you* and you had a displeased air about you, didn’t you (wry smile). (Kitase)

WEEKLY FAMITSU ISSUE NO. 1224: TETSUYA NOMURA INTERVIEW

CHANGES IN THE VISUAL ASPECTS

—What was the most significant thing for you in the transition from “FFVI” to “FFVII”?

Nomura: I guess it was utilising polygons. The difference in high between the characters on the battle screen and the characters on the field screen also kind of seems like the gap between “FFVI” and “FFVII”, and seeing that process of trail-and-error is memorable for me.

—At that time, I hear you could have gone in the direction of using pixel graphics, or 3D, but what were your thoughts on it?

Nomura: I originally handled the pixel graphics, so I thought that if there were no pixels then my work would be gone (laughs). Later I took some training to learn CD, but I went into design and direction rather than working as a modeller.

—The “FF” series had been particularly known for Mr. Amano’s (*1) illustrations previously, so did you feel any pressure when your illustrations were to become the main focus in “FFVII”?

Nomura: I thought of my drawings as the standing images for the pixel graphics of the previous games, so there wasn’t any pressure.

—Standing images for the pixel graphics?

Nomura: In the “FF” series, Mr. Amano’s image illustrations and the pixel characters’ designs didn’t necessarily match. Personally, I considered image illustrations and the pixel graphics as being different categories in a sense. I was in charge of the pixel graphic parts, so I never considered myself as standing alongside Amano or taking over from him. The company decided from a rights perspective to put my name out in front, but originally there weren’t any plans like that at all.

THE TRADEGY OF AERITH AND THE BIRTH OF TIFA

—It was apparently Mr. Sakaguchi who selected you for “FFVII”, but how did that come about?

Nomura: From before when making a “FF” title, everyone would put plans regardless of their section. While everyone handed in text documents they made on a PC, mine were hand-written and had illustrations attached. Because I had originally studied advertising, I would keep in mind how to make people want to read it. Mr. Sakaguchi thought those illustrated proposals were amusing. Then one day he said, “let Tetsu draw the characters.” The start of this was the brush images for “FFVI”.

—Because your proposals were amusing!?

Nomura: Until that point, I hadn’t had many proposals taken up at all, so I don’t think that’s the reason (laughts). I suppose he liked the illustrations on the proposals.

—When it was decided that you would draw the illustrations, was the world and characters’s details already pinned down to a degree?

Nomura: There was a plot for the story, and I drew them based on that. But during the course of it Mr. Sakaguchi put Mr. Kitase (*3) in charge of production, and at that point in time the plot went back to square one. From there, I was also included in coming up with the original idea for the story, and began drawing while thinking up character and story details. At first Mr. Nojima (*4) was still on the “Bahamut Lagoon” team, so Kitase and myself refined the plot.

—Was the Aerith’s shocking death scene also confirmed at that time?

Nomura: I suggested to Kitase about having either Aerith or Tifa die, and it was decided that we’d go in that direction.

—Were there two heroines from the outset?

Nomura: No, originally there was only Aerith, and Tifa was added as another heroine later. To make up for Aerith dying, we needed a heroine who would be by the hero’s side until the end. Plus with Aerith’s death, while there were characters in previous “FF” games who lost their lives, we wanted to try a different approach. By bringing out a ‘sense of loss’ with Aerith’s death, we also wanted to portray the theme of “FFVII” which is ‘life’.

—It did certain have a different impact than that of the loss of characters in past “FF” games. Were there any other points you focused on with the story?

Nomura: I wanted to have a story where you chase Sephiroth. One where there is a SOLDIER who was once a hero, and the heroes follow him. Following a moving enemy hadn’t been done before, and I thought that by chasing something it would help pull the story along.

RELATION BETWEEN THE ORIGINAL CONCEPTS AND THE DESIGNS

—Were there any aspects of the character designs that you struggled with?

Nomura: For Cloud, at first I thought that it’d be better not to use too many polygons, so I gave him sweptback hair, but I didn’t think that looked much like a main character so I changed his hairstyle.

—Were you already thinking about polygon counts at the design stages?

Nomura: While considering it, I tried to be as unreasonable as I could. I thought that was necessary in order to do things no one else had done. For instance, making Aerith’s dress with polygons was very hard at the time. But I believed that thinking about how to make that so it moves naturally would lead to improvement of skills and rendering.

—Sephiroth’s long hair must have also been tough work.

Nomura: That’s right. That was also because I wanted to make the contrast easy to see between Cloud and Sephiroth in their designs. Blond and silver, short and long.

—At the time you said in an interview with our magazine that the image of Cloud and Sephiroth was based on “Musashi [Miyamoto] and Kojiro [Sasaki].”

Nomura: Yes. In particular the weapons, and the “showdown” image, was Musashi and Kojiro.

—Were there any other parts where the story concepts or mental images came through strong in the designs?

Nomura: At first, Sephiroth and Aerith were to be brother and sister, so I gave them similarities in their fringes. That aspect was dropped during the early stages, but the fringes stayed (laughs). I believe the original idea for them to be siblings later became that Sephiroth was Aerith’s first love. Ultimately Nojima thought up Zack, and it was all tied up.

WHITE IS THE “FF” IMAGE COLOUR

—Back at the time, did you realise the extent of the influence “FFVII” had on people?

Nomura: The Internet wasn’t wide-spread yet, and there weren’t really any avenues to see the opinions of a vast number of people, so I didn’t really know how it was being received by the public. But as the release was drawing nearer, the commercials on TV were played a lot, which gave a sense of the scale of things.

—There were several variations of commercials, right.

Nomura: Among those was a commercial that Kyle Cooper (*5) had edited. That was really cool, and it impacted me the way that different editing can give such a different impression. It was because of that that I took an interest in video editing.

—So the current high quality trailers came about because of a commercial for “FFVII”!?

Nomura: No (laughs). There is an outside editing director who has worked with us for a long time, but the present trailers are created with him.

—I see. The novel design for the game packaging, with just the logo on a white background which would be carried over to the future titles in the series, was also talked about.

Nomura: A lot of that was down to (Tadashi) Nomura who lead publicity for “FFVII”. Actually, we were talking about removing the lettering of the logo and just having the image of Meteor Amano had drawn. To have people recognise that it was “FFVII” from that. I thought that was pretty cool, but it didn’t materialise. The background being white was because Sakaguchi said that the image of “FF” was white.

—So there were lots of ideas even for the packaging. By the way, I heard that you are also involved with overseeing merchandise and publicity?

Nomura: That’s true, at the time I wasn’t sure how much I should do, so ended up drawing everything like roughs for plush toys and such (wry smile). I think it’s precisely because I didn’t know, that I was able to try my hand at everything. It was “FFVII” that was the start of my involvement in publicity as well. Though I ended up revealing info about “FFVII” I shouldn’t have and causing trouble, after that I started getting confirmation first. After I started working together like that, I was also able to cooperate with their publicity strategies, and I think I managed to get them to understand the intent of the development. Most of all, it was fun to be able to do that together.

ENERGY FROM IGNORANCE

—What sort of impression do you have now looking back on time spent making “FFVII”?

Nomura: We were basically rushing headlong, without knowing what we could or couldn’t do. And that’s why I think we could generate that much power, and pack everyone’s ideas in there. Our being able to be reckless making games that way ended with “FFVII”. Personally, it was the first “FF” where a wide range of my ideas were picked up, so it was a lot of fun.

—But before then as well, you not only created the pixel graphics but also submitted proposals as well, right?

Nomura: I put forth ideas for “FFV” and “VI”, but they were only really a part of the whole. Unlike in “VI” where with the inclusion of my ninja and my gambler I was given charge of the stories for Shadow and Setzer, “VII” was the first “FF” where I was involved from the ground up. Before then, I had been giving my opinions to a few people like Kitase, so it was interesting to be able to openly introduce proposals.

—”FFVII” is a game that has been supported by fans for over 15 years, but what kind of feelings do you have for the “FF” series?

Nomura: I still remember well what Mr. Sakaguchi said about “FF” at that time. There’s no one to tell that to the new staff, so I’d like to ask Kitase if he’d do so (laughs). I watched up close how Sakaguchi had left Kitase in charge of the development floor, and personally I think that Kitase is the true heir of “FF”. Also, “FF” carries weight because it’s a title that passed through many people’s hands and not just a single person’s. For example, “Kingdom Hearts” has the same main characters and the story carries on, but with “FF” the fact that ‘each time it’s different’ can feel like a tall hurdle. But that’s exactly why the new “FF” must always exceed the ones of the past. Even “FFVII”, which has been supported by the players for a long time and many people hope for a remake, but right now we want to prioritise new titles, and to try our best to make those become like “FFVII” or something greater.

*1: Yoshitaka Amano. Works on the image illustrations and logo designs for the “FF” series. *2: Hironobu Sakaguchi. Producer heavily involved with the “FF” series. *3: Yoshinori Kitase. Director of “FFVII”. *4: Kazushige Nojima. In charge of the scenario of “FFVII”. *5: Kyle Cooper. A video creator who produces the opening credits for films, with many credits such as “Se7en” and “Mission: Impossible”.

– On the 15th anniversary To Kitase

We see each other a lot normally, so I don’t really have anything to say (wry smile). Lately, there are getting to be fewer people who worked on “FF” with Mr. Sakaguchi. Among them, I’ve worked with you for a long time, and it feels like you’ve done a lot for me. Let’s keep on going into the future. (Nomura)

– On the 15th anniversary To Nojima

I think it’s great how you write this dialogue that gives characters clever things to say, and surprising stories. In “FFVII” Cloud’s true identity was a real shock. You later founded your own company and went independent, but I hope we can keep on working together still in the future. (Nomura)

Sources and Other Links!

If you like to read about Final Fantasy VII, I would also recommend buying the Final Fantasy VII Ultimania.

Interviews

Interview with Official UK PSX Magazine – October 1997

Hironobu Sakaguchi Interview – from PlayStation Underground #2, 1997

The Making of Final Fantasy VII – from Edge #123, May 2003

Afterthoughts: Final Fantasy VII –

Dengeki PlayStation Vol.17– Dengeki PlayStation Vol.40

“EGM2 August 1997 issue” scans

FFVII 10th Anniversary Ultimania p. 8-13 “Creators’ Discussion”

Final Fantasy VII Developer Speaks Out About “The Travelling Salesman”, interview by GlitterBerri.

Yoshinori Kitase Interview

Tetsuya Nomura Interview

Press Releases

FFVII North American Release Announcement – SCEA, February 1997

FFVII’s Marketing Campaign – SCEA, August 1997

FFVII Official Release Date Broken – SCEA, September 1997

FFVII Breaks Sales Records in First Weekend – SCEA, September 1997

FFVII Sells Over 500,000 Copies in the U.S. – SCEA, September 1997

FFVII Sells Over One Million Copies in the U.S. – SCEA, December 1997

FFVII for the PC Official Announcement – Eidos, June 1998

Other

Marketing material https://www.resetera.com/threads/final-fantasy-7-marketing-stuff-etc-reunion.37961/page-2

Xenon- http://xenon.stanford.edu/~geksiong/papers/sts145/Squaresoft%20and%20FF7.htm

Final Fantasy Beta- https://www.unseen64.net/2008/04/11/final-fantasy-7-beta/

See Also Beta versions of Final Fantasy VII’s world and assets- Here and here

Deleted Scenes and unseen text- Here

Concept arts here and here. Oh look more.

From the FFVII Ultimania Omega (2005). Early concepts for the world, characters and themes. – Character Files: Page 518, Cloud, Barret & Tifa. – Character Files: Page 519-520, Aerith, Red XIII & Cait Sith. – Character Files: Page 520-523, Yuffie, Cid & Vincent. – Worldview & Terminology: Page 523-525 – Scenarios & Scripts: Page 525-526 – Scenarios & Scripts: Page 527-528 – Scenarios & Scripts: Page 528-529 – Scenarios & Scripts: Page 528-529 (Part 2)

The Unused Text Series

Text and scenes found within the game code of the retail editions. Complete with in-depth commentary written by Shademp. • Article Index and Term Register • Part 1: Bombing Mission & The Train Ride • Part 2: Sector 7 Slums • Part 3: Train Escape & The Sector 5 Slums • Part 4: Honey Bee Inn – (1) Entrance, Lobby & Dressing Room • Part 4: Honey Bee Inn – (2) Waiting Room & Second Floor • Part 5: Rescuing Aeris, Story Time at the Inn – (1) Wall Market to Shinra HQ Library • Part 5: Rescuing Aeris, Story Time at the Inn – (2) Shinra HQ Library to Kalm • Part 6: Chocobo Farm to Corel Prison – (1) Chocobo Farm to Cargo Ship • Part 6: Chocobo Farm to Corel Prison – (2) Costa del Sol to Corel Prison • Part 7: Gongaga to Wutai • Part 8: Keystone Quest to End of Disc 1 • Part 9: Over the Glacier – Attack on Junon • Part 10: On the Highwind – Cloud’s Return • Part 11: Underwater Reactor – Infiltrating Midgar • Part 12: End of Disc 2 – Final Dungeon

Additional Sources- http://shmuplations.com – http://www.ff7citadel.com/ –

As time goes on, I will try and further enhance this article with more sources and interviews as I find them. I truly believe it is important to keep the history of classic games development alive.

The Development of Final Fantasy VII The development of Final Fantasy VII is a mysterious and hard thing to follow. While there is plenty of info out there, much of it is either rumors or unsubstantiated.

#aeirth #aeris #cloud strife #concept art #Development of Final Fantasy VII #final fantasy vii #jessie #kitase #nojima #nomura #remake #sakaguchi #sephiroth #tifa

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wanderingthroughwonder · 4 years

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Miranda’s Fic Recs

I’ve been wanting to do this for a while because I just have a lot of fics in different fandoms that I truly enjoy. These are mostly long fics because that’s what I read the most. Fandoms included: Teen Wolf, Harry Potter, MCU, Star Trek, Kingsman, and Avatar: The Last Airbender. Find them below! (Some fanfic spoilers ahead)

So I’m starting with completed fics and then I have a few not completed fics at the end that I’m just really liking.

Embers by Vathara

Rating: Not Rated, Word Count: 704,200 Fandom: A:TLA

Dragon’s fire is not so easily extinguished; when Zuko rediscovers a lost firebending technique, shifting flames can shift the world....

This is an Avatar: The Last Airbender rewrite. It’s Zuko centric and it splits off while Zuko and Uncle Iroh are on the run and Zuko learns of healing firebending. The world building is so good and interesting and the whole fic does a great job of reimagining the A:TLA world. You meet a lot of new characters that are super well written and fit the world nicely.

The Debt of Time by ShayaLonnie

Rating: E, Word Count: 715,940, Fandom: Harry Potter, Ship: Hermione/Sirius

When Hermione finds a way to bring Sirius back from the veil, her actions change the rest of the war. Little does she know her spell restoring him to life provokes magic she doesn’t understand and sets her on a path that ends with a Time-Turner.

This fic is so good and I’ve reread it before. I love Hermione centric fics and this is definitely one. When she goes back in time she goes through school again with the Marauders and it’s so good you guys. I think the fic does such a good job of showing her grow with these new people. The relationships in this fic are so intense and I love them.

Hook, Yarn, Sinker by pprfaith

Rating: Not Rated, Word Count: 65,675, Fandom: Teen Wolf, Ship: Stiles/Peter

Stiles is happy with his store, his hobbies, his friends. Peter’s just trying to figure out how to raise his nieces and nephews without fucking them up too badly.

Paths cross.

This is the first in a series of fics. It’s a Human AU with aged up Stiles and friends but with little kids Derek, Laura, and Cora. This fic is a good time and sweet and honestly low stakes which is so nice to have these days. I think a lot of Steter fics are more intense and I enjoy them but this is such a nice change of pace where you really get to know the characters in these fairly different circumstances. The whole series word count is 161,859.

A Sequence That You Never Learned by AnnaTaylor

Rating: E, Word Count: 64,624, Fandom: Star Trek: AOS, Ship: James T. Kirk/Spock

“Spock,” Jim breathes out, completely overwhelmed by the gesture—not quite believing that Spock knows him so well, that he’s already started researching, that he trusts Jim with a member of his own endangered species.

When Jim gets it in his head to adopt an eight-year-old Vulcan, Spock presents a logical solution to the issue of Jim’s of humanity: marriage to a Vulcan citizen.

This was one of my first Spirk fics and I honestly love kid fics. Vulcan kids are so different from Jim, but I love the idea that Vulcans still love him anyway. This is such a great Fake Marriage fic.

If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out by mia6363

Rating: E, Word Count: 13,232, Fandom: Teen Wolf, Ship: Stiles centric but technically Stiles/Peter

Commander Stilinski looks like he fell out of a propaganda video, his armor still smoking as he pulled off his helmet and handed it off to First Officer Argent. He had a few bruises down his neck but his smile was bright.

“Glad to see you safe and sound, Mr. Hale. I’d hate for Derek to lose a member of his family.”

“I told you,” Derek snapped at his superior, “he’s not worth this, Commander.”

This is the shortest fic on my list but I love this take. It’s got a Star Trek vibe and I LOVE how everyone is made into these different aliens. Stiles being human here is so interesting and it reminds me of those “humans are the craziest of the aliens” posts. It’s got multiple POVs and I think they’re written really well and do a great job of coming together.

Where Thou Art, That is Home by ShanaStoryteller

Rating: Various, Word Count: 94,108, Fandom: Teen Wolf, Ship: Stiles/Derek

Stiles is 10 when he saves the Hales from their burning home and Derek from a wolfsbane bullet, and this establishes a pattern that seems to continue indefinitely.

“Then he’s facing a burning home, and he wraps the hood of his sweatshirt around his mouth before he pushes the door open and steps inside. There’s Mr. Hale asleep - he hope asleep - on the couch, next to - Stiles thinks that’s his brother but there are so many Hales, who can keep track. He rushes over and starts shaking him, can see the rise and fall of the man’s chest so he knows he’s alive, but he’s not waking up. He shoves away his hood so he can shout, “Mr. Hale! You have to get up, there’s a fire! Mr. Hale, get up!” Nothing, he’s not even twitching, both of them taking in deep even breathes like they’re having the most peaceful of rest, and Stiles is going to cry. “Wake up, wake up, wake up!”

There’s a moment where all Stiles can here is the blood rushing in his ears and not the roar of the flames or the creak of wood, then with a violent, silent pop it’s all back and both men are gasping awake, eyes open and jumping to their feet.”

This is another series! It creates a Hales Survive AU and it’s got BAMF!Stiles. The Hales in this fic are so interesting and it’s an expanded family from what we see in canon. Magic!Stiles is written so well in this fic and things get intense but it’s so good.

Counterpart by sara_holmes

Rating: M, Word Count: 217,400, Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Ship: Steve/Tony

coun•ter•part [koun-ter-pahrt] [noun] 1. a person or thing closely resembling another, especially in function. 2. a copy; duplicate. 3. one of two parts that fit, complete, or complement one another.

Just because Hydra used the DNA of a Captain America from another dimension to create a lab-grown, six-year-old super-soldier, it doesn't mean that said six-year old super-soldier is biologically Steve's, right?

(Where Steve wants to ban Clint from bringing things home from alternative dimensions, until he doesn't.)

This is an amazing kid fic. Things are so messed up because of how the kids was raised up to the point they find him.I love Tony so much in this fic but also you sympathize a bit with Steve. The kid whose name I will leave out is my absolute favorite. This is also a series!

Fallout by Whisper91 kingsman

Rating: E, Word Count: 164,971, Fandom: Kingsman, Ship: Eggsy/Harry/Merlin

As far as the rest of the world is concerned, Gary 'Eggsy' Unwin is a registered Dominant. It's on his driver's licence. It's on his National Insurance card. Hell, it's even on his bloomin' GCSE certificates. And the fact that it's all a load of bollocks is a secret Eggsy had intended to take to his grave.

Course, he hadn't been expectin' a bloody sub-drop to sweep in and knock him on his arse in the wake of the Valentine Massacre. Turns out grief and adrenaline ain't a good combination.

I really enjoy the dynamics between the three of them. D/s fics are always so amazingly well built and I love fics like this where they’re hiding their dynamic. I think this fic does a great job of going further with the D/S world and giving it more biologically. I just reread this fic recently because I love how it’s done.

It’s Insanity But... by rosepetals42

Rating: M, Word Count: 71,477, Fandom: Teen Wolf, Ship: Stiles/Derek

The doorbell interrupts what had turned out to be quite the epic shoe hunt but, really, he’s grateful for the break. Or at least, he is until he heads down the stairs to grab the door, trips over a stuffed animal of some kind, bashes his head on the wall and barely manages to catch himself from falling down the entire flight of stairs. As with all things, Stiles would like to state, for the record, that this is Scott’s fault.

Or: Scott and Stiles are raising seven children. Derek is the entertainer they hire for a birthday party (not a clown though, he’s very specific on that fact.)

This fic is such a good time! I love two bro’s raising kids together. It’s a hilarious setup and also just so good for the Stiles and Scott dynamic. Each chapter is like a slice of life. Some chapters are more about the kids and some are about Stiles and Derek. It’s just a fun fic and I love that it’s still got werewolves because I think a lot of fics that focus more on regular stuff go full on human AU. Keeping werewolves is much more fun and it’s so well handled here!

So Wise We Grow by Deastar

Rating: M, Word Count: 81,248, Fandom: Star Trek, Ship: James T. Kirk/Spock

”Commander Spock, we have located your son,” the Vulcan lady on the screen says, which would be great, except Jim can tell by the look on Spock’s face that he’s never heard of this kid before in his life. “If it is expedient, the child will be sent to join you on the Enterprise within the week.”

This fic is two long chapters. Again, I love kid fic and this one does such a great job. We’ve got pining and hurt/comfort and all kinds of good feels here. There’s one line about t’hy’la that is just *chefs kiss* so good and hits you hard.

Play It Again by metisket

Rating: T, Word Count: 63,206, Fandom: Teen Wolf, Ship: Stiles/Derek

In which Stiles goes along with one of Derek’s plans and ends up in an alternate universe as a result. He should’ve known better. He did know better, actually, and that means he has no one to blame but himself. “Laura wants to lure the kid in with food and kindness and make a pet of him, like a feral cat. Derek wants to have him arrested for stalking. They’re at an impasse. (And the rest of the family is staying emphatically out of it in a way that suggest bets have been placed.)”

This is fairly Stiles centric. It really looks into the emotions of jumping universes. The alive Hale family is so good and it’s magic!Stiles which is always interesting. What I think makes it extra good is that in a lot of universe jump or time travel fics it’s more about adjusting to how things will be now. But this fic does that while also having the new universe with its own problems. It’s just fun to see Stiles deal with all these things.

Happy Lights by LadyShadowDrake

Rating: E, Word Count: 108,237, Fandom: MCU, Ship: Mixed

An interdimensional portal opens over New York and drops a tentacled alien in the middle of Central Park. The Avengers are called out to investigate, and hopefully return the visitor home. Steve has been brushing up on his diplomacy, but he never expected to be a liaison to an alien in such an intimate capacity, or that the alien would be so friendly, and the unusual visit turns into the world's best team-building exercise.

This is a series that is so much fun. The alien (aka the colony) is so interesting and sweet in the long run. I love seeing the team grow and as you go through the series you really get to see more of them coming together. This is just a playful fic that you can have a good time reading.

Magpie by waldorph

Rating: E, Word Count: 57,648, Fandom: Star Trek: AOS, Ship: James T. Kirk/Spock

Spock met Jim when he was 7 and Jim was 6. It has since been generally agreed that this was a mistake (or: the one where they grew up together and things are simultaneously better and worse for it).

This is such a deep dive of both Spock and Jim. It’s them growing up together and it splits off some as far as events that happen in canon. It ends before they become Starfleet. I think this fic creates such an interesting bond between Spock and Jim. I also really love where it goes as far as Spock not having grown up alone on Vulcan.

These are the unfinished fics. The first two are in progress and the last one seems to be abandoned.

Survival is a Talent by ShanaStoryteller

Rating: T, Word Count: 353,015, Fandom: Harry Potter, Ship: Harry/Draco

In the middle of their second year, Draco and Harry discover they're soulmates and do their best to keep it a secret from everyone.

Their best isn't perfect.

“Are you trying to get killed, Potter?” Malfoy drawls, stalking forward. Quick as a serpent himself, he reaches out and grabs the snake just below the head. It thrashes in his grip, but is no longer able to bite anyone. “This is a poisonous snake, and I doubt anyone brought a bezoar with them.”

Harry glares. He opens his mouth, and feels the beginning the snake’s language pass his lips, and this isn’t what he wants, what’s the point of insulting Malfoy if he can’t understand him –

Malfoy’s eyes widen. He slaps his hand over Harry’s mouth, “Potter, what the hell–”

This fic is in progress updated within 2020. It’s a rewrite of the Harry Potter series where Harry and Draco are soulmates. As you can imagine, that changes some things. I love this so much, I’ve read it like 3 or 4 times now. The characterization is amazing and I love the differences we see. Harry is Indian in this fic and the way it ties in is so good. You really get to see the difference in culture as well between muggleborns and blood traitor families and the purebloods.

You great unfinished symphony (you sent for me) by ketchupcrisp

Rating: E, Word Count: 227,792, Fandom: MCU, Ship: Steve/Tony and also the whole Team

The last thing Steve Rogers ever expected to see on a Wednesday afternoon was his (their) dead submissive tumbling out of a portal and practically into Phil’s lap, very much alive and frantic about Soul Stones and timelines and some other version of the team.

This is an AU but like literally. Tony comes from the universe we know into a D/S universe. The worldbuilding here - again like I think a lot of D/s fics excel at - is so good. It starts with everything a mess and things are intense. There’s multiple POVs which I think is really helpful in a fic like this where the relationships are so tangled.

Born From the Earth by venusm

Rating: E, Word Count: 277,602, Fandom: MCU, Ship: Tony Centric, Steve/Tony

Tony Stark's born an omega in a world where that means he's supposed to follow certain social rules. He becomes Iron Man anyway: Fuck biology.

If only his biology (and the world) would quit fucking him back.

To start off, some warnings: this fic gets a bit messed up. It’s an Omega verse in the worst possible way at certain points. It’s not a fluffy fic. It also doesn’t get that far into the Stony stuff because it’s unfinished. Honestly I’m worried this writer has died and I’ve gone through the comments and looked for them online to see if they’re out there and just not writing but I haven’t found any proof of that. BUT ANYWAYS. This fic is intense but it’s such an interesting take on Omega fics. It gets pretty dark but that darkness is pre-Steve and I’m hopeful that one day it might get finished so I can see where it was going to go.

#written #fic recs #harry potter #teen wolf #spirk #marvel mcu #atla #kingsman #shayalonnie #wordsformurder #mia6363 #shanastoryteller #captn-sara-holmes #whisper91 #petals42 #metisket #lightshadowverisimilitude #waldorph #ketchupcrisp

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theparanormalperiodical · 5 years

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The Conjuring (2013) True Story, And The 13 American Haunted Houses You Need To Know About

It’s been a busy week for haunted houses. And no, I’m not just talking about the popular Halloween activity.

Our favourite festivities often occur in mocked up haunted houses filled with sheets draped in a ghostly shape, ‘actors’ making their afterlife debut as various frightful creatures, and a fistful of sweets at the end of the night.

But it seems America’s obsession with the haunted house is about to take a much more cinematic - and realistic - turn.

Only recently did Ghost Hunting pro, Zak Bagans, continue his documented foray into the paranormal by filming a Halloween special in possibly one of the most haunted houses in the world:

The Perron Family Farmhouse in Rhode Island.

But it wasn’t necessarily the paranormal activity he claimed to have captured that intrigues me - it is what happened after filming ceased.

Following the visit, he claimed he faced 3 weeks of physical illness:

“It took everything out of me. My body isn't functioning right...haunted by something I believe is very ancient.”

The activity he captured features as the first time cameras have been permitted access to the 300 year old property in 15 years - but the haunting of the Perron family has by no means been ignored by popular culture.

One of the most striking horror films in recent years - The Conjuring - is based on the real life investigation conducted by paranormal dream-team Ed and Lorraine Warren.

So, when Zak Bagans followed in their footsteps, it catapulted the haunting back to our TV screens and presented more recent insight into this ever-still-haunted-house.

The activity captured by Bagans included a black mass blocking a window of the house, among other events that will be included in the documentary, of course.

The haunted house obsession don’t stop here, I’m afraid.

The creative minds behind the original film have only in recent days laid claim to a similarly infamous haunted house - the Lalaurie Mansion. They seek to create a similar cinematic feature to that presented in The Conjuring.

But it got me thinking: what was the true story behind The Conjuring?

And are there any other haunted houses in America that feature such #iconic hauntings?

So, in today’s edition of The Paranormal Periodical, I’m going to recap The Conjuring, compare the film to the actual real-life investigation, and take a good ol’ American road trip to the other haunted houses on offer - including the Lalaurie Mansion.

Let’s get spooky!

Here’s A Recap Of The Conjuring

I’m not going to waste my time and recite the complete plot of The Conjuring universe. That will take two days, a bottle of gin, and a therapy session.

Regardless, the original film ties together many of the strands of the total universe, providing the cinematic circle that the horror genre is so famed for.

Basics, a famalam move into a farmhouse. And everything is hunky-dory - until the first morning.

All the clocks have stopped at 3am, and the dog dies.

No, it’s not a good start.

Oh, and the dad finds a bordered up cellar which in all his wisdom he decides to open up again because it’s not like this is a horror film, right?

*Winks at camera*

And the creepy weird child finds an even creepier weird doll by the creepy weird tree which scars the cover photo used for the film!

Couple nights later, and supernatural shizz ensues, but this time spirits are telling the children that they want to kill their family, trapping the mother in the cellar, and physically attacking the living residents.

Following this they decide to be actual intelligent horror movie characters (OMG), and source help from renowned demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren.

The demonologists investigate, and come to the simple conclusion that their house will need an exorcism.

But first, they need the Catholic Church to give them the thumbs up.

Having slipped into the Vatican’s DMs, they start reading up on the house, only to discover a twisted tale that torments the Perron family.

They trace the house to a woman named Bathsheba Sherman, a satanist/witch/general-demony-thing who is believed to be related to a witch in Salem. Having sacrificed her week old baby to the devil, she hung herself on the tree that figures so prominently in the film.

Oh, and she died at 3am.

But briefly before hanging herself, she cursed all those who would take her land. That explains the high number of murders, suicides and drownings scattered across the land she once owned.

To gather evidence prior to the exorcism, the Warrens and crew in tow (along with a sarky police officer) set up a variety of bells, cameras and other ways to capture evidence of the paranormal.

But when most of the famalam are out for ice cream, Carolyn ends up being fully possessed after Bathsheba vomits blood into her mouth.

I mean, I’d prefer the ice cream.

Paranormal things ensue featuring the past inhabitants who were possessed by Bathsheba.

Carolyn then takes two kids back to the house while in full-possessed-mode, and attempts to kill them in the cellar. She is stopped just in the nick of time (wow, how convenient) and the Warrens then decide that ‘yeah let’s not wait for a priest, let’s exorcise this biatch right meow’.

They then use a combination of sentimental reflection and the extremity of an exorcism to lift Bathsheba’s curse.

There we have it - the cinematic version of events!

Question is: how close is this to the actual events that took place?

The answer: uncomfortably close.

The Real Story Of The Perron Family Farmhouse

It was early January 1971 when the Perron family moved into their 14 room crib. And their new year was about to come in with a bang.

Carolyn, the mother, and Roger, the father, noticed only small things at first.

Maybe the broom would go missing when she wanted to sweep the kitchen floor, or maybe it would move from place to place? Or perhaps something would sound as if it was scraping against the kettle when nothing was there? And sometimes small piles of dirt would be found on the kitchen floor after it was clean...

Yet aside from the domestic-demonic issues, their five daughters witnessed activity that was a smidge more supernatural.

Spirits would be seen around the house, and often were harmless.

However, some were not so forgiving.

Angry spirits were a feature of this farmhouse.

This activity mirrors the beginning of the film, perhaps on a more minimalist level - but a minor difference does strike with the following event:

It’s Carolyn that researches the history of the house, not the Warrens.

But what she discovered sticks close to the basis of the film.

She discovered that the house had been in the same family for no less than 8 generations. Many of them has died in a frightful number of horrible circumstances, from drowning, to murders, to the occasional suicide.

And a woman named Bathsheba features in the history of the actual house.

Bathsheba Sherman lived on the Perron’s property all the way back in the mid 19th century, and she was rumoured to be a satanist.

Among these rumours was one that claimed she was involved in the death of a neighbour’s child; there was even evidence of this!

From here the Perrons determined that the violent spirit was that of Bathsheba.

“Whoever the spirit was, she perceived herself to be mistress of the house and she resented the competition my mother posed for that position.” - Andrea Perron

It’s here that the close resemblance with the film intensifies.

Yay.

The film makes out that Bathsheba is attacking/attempting to possess the mother, Carolyn, in order to kill her children as a sacrifice for the devil.

It is then revealed in the film that Bathsheba possessed all mothers that lived at the property to mirror these actions.

Could this have been the real Bathsheba’s aim?

Other reflections of the true story include the nature of the hauntings.

Take the basement - the heating which was based in the basement would mysteriously fail, causing Roger to face the Perron’s fear of the basement, and venture down their to fix it.

And when Roger would come up from the basement, a rotting-smell would follow him up the stairs.

The same smells would move around the house. And their beds? They would rise up of the floor.

I mean, it’s just 0 to 100, isn’t it?

The final event that directly appears in the film is the possession of Carolyn Perron.

The Perrons stayed shacked up in this house for no less than 10 - yes, 10 - years, and the Warrens made many a visit. One of which involved a seance.

During the seance, Carolyn became possessed, speaking in tongues and rising up from the ground in her chair.

This features as a prominent scene in the film, but here ends the ‘based on a true story tagline’.

The Warrens did not perform an exorcism in the actual story, but claimed it must be performed by Catholic priests.

‘Based on a true story’ is a trope mocked by horror fans and horror haters alike, but this film clearly takes direct inspiration from the Warrens and their investigation.

And that is fucking terrifying.

Are The Any Other Haunted Houses In America?

Yep. So many.

There’s no doubt that the haunted house is one of the most common tropes featured in horror films. And as The Conjuring is the ultimate flick for this topic, it’s likely that it took inspiration from the other landmarks pinned into the Land of The Free.

Let’s take a guided tour, then!

We start with a tale only too similar to the Perron family farmhouse.

No seriously, it’s terrible.

The Bell Witch Farm, nestled in humble Tennessee bears an uncomfortable resemblance to the story of Bathsheba: a woman named Kate Batts in the early 19th century believed that a neighbour had cheated her out of land.

And so, lying on her deathbed, she swore she would haunt him forever!

She kept her promise.

The Bell family often noted physical attacks from supernatural beings, heard chains being dragged across the floor and noises in their walls

They even saw strange looking animals on their farm, such as a dog with a rabbit’s head. This is a satanic image which is often played upon in horror films.

We continue our road trip with a haunted house that too has featured on the screen, but this time, it’s the TV - it’s the LaLaurie House in New Orleans.

Sounds familiar? You’ve probably seen it on American Horror Story.

The story goes that this house belonged to Madame Delphine LaLaurie, a notorious serial killer who took pleasure in torturing and killing the slaves she kept from 1831 to 1834.

It was only when a fire struck the house in 1834 that the torture chamber was revealed.

When the authorities arrived, the slaves were found in all manner of ghastly positions:

One slave had her limbs broken in a manner that made her look like a crab.

Another had a hole drilled in their head and a wooden spoon sticking out of it (it is believed the brains were being stirred at the pleasure of the Madame of the house).

And another had their skin peeled off their back, revealing the bones and muscles underneath.

There are many more tales of the circumstances the slaves were found in, but I think we’ve heard enough...

When the reality behind the house was revealed, a mob of local citizens destroyed the residence, leaving only the walls intact.

The house has been closed off to the public since 1932, but in 2007 none other than the meme of Hollywood himself purchased it: Nicholas Cage.

Yet the actor was not the only thing in residence at the LaLaurie mansion. Thanks to its past, shouts, moans, weeping and ghostly faces have been seen and heard coming from the house.

Even negative vibes is a common claim of visitors, as is hearing footsteps across the house.

A seance has been conducted at the house, and the medium immediately claimed that sadness and heavy emotion settled on her. She also claimed that the slaves who were tortured and murdered there had passed on, and no longer resided at the house.

Clearly, this house has a lot going on. And it’s this haunting that is next to be projected onto the silver screen.

That’s right: the creative minds behind The Conjuring have snapped up a new haunted house, and are developing a brand spanking new horror franchise based on the worst kept secret of Louisiana!

In fact, they are hoping to reside in that mansion to write the screenplay and shoot the film.

Next up, we have the Sallie House.

It is claimed that a botched Appendectomy once occurred here, and the victim - a little girl - is what stirs the supernatural seen in this house.

The paranormal activity was reported by a small family that moved there back in the 1990s, and the intense attacks and torments were believed to come from this little girl named Sallie.

And the supernatural is off the charts.

I’m talking full bodied apparitions, EVPs echoing the voices of men, women and children, flying objects, items moving and turning up somewhere else...

And if that wasn’t enough, scratching at the walls, loud thumps of phantom furniture, and strong smells all feature within the haunting of this house.

Those that have gone onto investigate this has been touched by the paranormal themselves: burns, scratches, cuts - these physical attacks are common here.

Many a medium have also attempted to understand the house, including Peter James who worked on the Queen Mary, one of the most famous haunted buildings in the world.

It has actually been deduced that the attacks centre on men; it is claimed that the surgery on Sallie was done by a male doctor in 1905, and she never forgave him, attacking all men who enter the house in vengeance.

We now turn to the Villisca Axe Murder House.

No points for guessing what happened here...

Back in 1912, a family of six was bludgeoned to death with an axe. Each family member had severe wounds to the head, and one of the young daughters was found with a defensive injury on her arm and half-naked, suggesting attempted rape or assault.

The crime to this day has been left unsolved.

And the house? Empty.

No running water, and no electricity - apart from the odd paranormal fanatic who pays a hefty price to spend the night.

After the investigation, it was concluded that the killer waited in the attic with a cigarette until it was the time to strike.

And it was Josiah - the patriarch of the family - who met the worst fate. The attacker used the blade on him, leaving him with wounds in this face so severe that they couldn’t find his eyes!

The rest of the family were bludgeoned with the blunt end of the axe.

The house was restored in 1994, but it was prior to this that the main paranormal activity has been cited.

Former tenants have seen a man with an axe at the end of their bed who moves across the room in the dead of the night.

They have even been seen running out of the house screaming by the neighbours!

The tenants have also come back to their house to see their belongings strewn across the floor, and one has even felt a wrist on his hand which forced a knife into his hand.

And they wouldn’t be the first person to be attacked in the house; one paranormal investigator stayed overnight to investigate the goings on, and had stabbed himself by morning.

EVPs have also been used to document the hauntings, often recording references to the murders themselves. Sounds of an axe swinging, references to the six that were found dead, and even the name ‘Andy’ in reference to the murderer cropped up, informing this as a key haunted house.

We now park up at the House of Death.

And its name is deserved.

Brimming with 22 ghosts, this is one of the most infamous buildings in New York. But it still serves a famous bunch of residents.

Mark Twain is one of the most ghosts that once lived here, and still haunts his former residency. Another ghost is confirmed to be that of a young girl who was beaten to death of her father,

Indeed, some ghosts aren’t even human! A grey cat is a regular roamer of the House of Death.

Okay real talk - how would you know if a ghost cat is a ghost cause like lets say its a victorian child this bitch be looking victorian but a cat that just wanders around looking sarky and fucking off for long periods of time just be a cat.

Next up is the Lizzie Borden House.

The main ghost of this house - Lizzie Borden is still claimed to be laughing about murdering her stepmother and father via axe back in 1892.

Yet Borden is not the only entity still residing in this Massachusetts-based house; her victims still stalk the land, and a maid screaming for help is also often seen.

These sightings are mainly witnessed by the guests who visit the house hoping for a scare.

We now turn to a house that has been at the centre of its own horror film, just like The Conjuring.

Unfortunately, this film was rather more disappointing.

The Winchester House belonged to the wife of a man who developed one of the most popular guns of the era. Having lost her husband and young daughter, she consulted a spiritualist who told her the house was haunted by each and every victim of the guns.

Native Americans, Civil War soldiers and the other victims had haunted the house built on the empire of the weapon.

The spiritualist then recommended Winchester move and use her hefty inheritance ($20 million!) to build a home and appease the spirits.

From 1884 to 1922, a labrinth totalling 160 rooms was built, with corridors often leading guests to nowhere.

Next up is the Joshua Ward House. Built in historic Salem, this house was built for Sheriff George Corwin.

A major figure in the Salem witch trials, he lived, died and was buried here. So it’s no wonder that he still haunts the location!

But this haunting doesn’t just involve some bloke wandering the grounds and chatting shit about some witch-hunt (sound like American politics, if you’re asking me...).

This bloke is often rumoured to choke visitors to the house - this comes from Corwin being known as ‘the strangler’, a name descended from his favoured execution method for witches.

Even his victims have been spotted!

A dishevelled witch has been seen in a picture taken by a realtor wishing to sell the property on.

And I doubt that picture made a positive impression…

The final feature-film haunted house inspired the flick Haunting in Connecticut.

Great film; spooky house!

In the 1980s, the Snedeker family witnessed some serious haunting in their funeral-home turned family home.

Across two short years, the parents claimed they were physically assaulted and raped by demonic spirits. And their son was too visited by a spirit - a creepy man with long black hair.

The most recent family claim that their house is spirit-free, but it’s the fame of this house that currently is haunting the residents:

Frequent visits by paranormal fanatics have even caused the police to set up routine patrols to protect the residents.

We continue our road-trip in the Los Feliz Murder Mansion in sunny LA.

In 1959, Dr Harold Perelson murdered his wife with a hammer, attacked his daughter with the same weapon, and then killed himself with a glass of acid.

The rumours of haunting might be difficult to source, but this hasn’t stopped paranormal fanatics from trooping to the house and having a gander ‘round the grounds.

Years later, it was purchased by a family for storage purposes, and finally in 2016 it was cleared of the junk dating back to 2016. And most of it hadn’t moved since the murder that still haunts this property!

We follow up this murder with a much more en masse set of deaths.

The Farnsworth House Inn in Gettysburg is a remnant of the history that the USA has been subject to.

The inn is currently used as a restaurant to celebrate the history of the Civil War with waiters clad in civil war er-costume.

But what really accentuates the authenticity is the real confederate soldiers seen on the grounds!

The inn was once used as a hospital for the South’s soldiers after the war, and the hundreds of bullet pocks concealed into the walls confirm that it’s not just the injured that will haunt the grounds of this historic site.

Our final haunted house contains a figure who featured prominently within cinematic history: the only and only Molly Brown.

If you’ve been asleep since 1997, then you’ll have missed the Unsinkable Molly Brown in Titanic as played by the one and only Kathy Bates!

And the Unsinkable Molly Brown has her very own haunted house!

She was one of the few survivors of the Titanic, and eventually died in New York in 1932.

Following her death, it is said that she haunted the Victorian home she shared with her husband and mother, and it has now become a museum brimming with the items she once owned throughout her life.

From apparitions in the dinings room, to rearranged furniture; from moving objects to apparitions in the room of her child (who just so happened to die at a young) - this haunted house stays firmly within the past.

We finish our road trip in Virginia, and thank god we do!

(We are running low on gas.)

(I am also terrified.)

Welcome to the Ferry Plantation house! Fit to burst with 11 spirits, you can encounter the passengers of s ship-wrecked ferry, a former slave, and even a witch!

Grace Sherwood was accused of being a witch back in the 18th century, but her favoured haunting is less paranormal and more puppy-dog.

Yep, you can hear her call for her dog, Tobias!

So: do you fancy visiting any of these haunted houses?

And are you sure you want to rewatch The Conjuring?

Fact is, it’s the reality behind the monsters, demons, haunts, and horrors that makes those tales the films tell quite so terrifying...

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smokeycemetery · 4 years

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JA ONE XTC

JA • • •

KEVIN HELDMAN lives in New York. This is his first piece for "Rolling Stone." (ROLLING STONE,FEB 9,1995)

THE FIRST TIME I meet JA, he skates up to me wearing Rollerblades, his cap played backward, on a street corner in Manhattan at around midnight. He's white, 24 years old, with a short, muscular build and a blond crew cut. He has been writing graffiti off and on in New York for almost 10 years and is the founder of a loosely affiliated crew called XTC. His hands, arms, legs and scalp show a variety of scars from nightsticks, razor wire, fists and sharp, jagged things he has climbed up, on or over. He has been beaten by the police -- a "wood shampoo," he calls it -- has been shot at, has fallen off a highway sign into moving traffic, has run naked through train yards tagging, has been chased down highways by rival writers wielding golf clubs and has risked his life innumerable times writing graffiti -- bombing, getting up.

JA lives alone in a one-bedroom apartment. There's graffiti on a wall-length mirror, a weight bench, a Lava lamp to bug out on, cans of paint stacked in the corner, a large Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) sticker on the side of the refrigerator. The buzzer to his apartment lists a false name; his phone number is unlisted to avoid law-enforcement representatives as well as conflicts with other writers. While JA and one of his writing partners, JD, and I are discussing their apprehension about this story, JD, offering up a maxim from the graffiti life, tells me matter-of-factly, "You wouldn't fuck us over, we know where you live."

At JA's apartment we look through photos. There are hundreds of pictures of writers inside out-of-service subway cars that they've just covered completely with their tags, pictures of writers wearing orange safety vests -- to impersonate transit workers -- and walking subway tracks, pictures of detectives and transit workers inspecting graffiti that JA and crew put up the previous night, pictures of stylized JA 'throw-ups' large, bubble-lettered logos written 15 feet up and 50 times across a highway retaining wall. Picture after picture of JA's on trains, JA's on trucks, on store gates, bridges, rooftops, billboards -- all labeled, claimed and recorded on film.

JA comes from a well-to-do family; his parents are divorced; his father holds a high-profile position in the entertainment industry. JA is aware that in some people's minds this last fact calls into question his street legitimacy, and he has put a great deal of effort into resisting the correlation between privileged and soft. He estimates he has been arrested 15 times for various crimes. He doesn't have a job, and it's unclear how he supports himself. Every time we've been together, he's been high or going to get high. Once he called me from Rikers Island prison, where he was serving a couple of months for disorderly conduct and a probation violation. He said some of the inmates saw him tagging in a notebook and asked him to do tattoos for them.

It sounds right. Wherever he is, JA dominates his surroundings. With his crew, he picks the spots to hit, the stores to rack from; he controls the mission. He gives directions in the car, plans the activities, sets the mood. And he takes everything a step further than the people he's with. He climbs higher, stays awake longer, sucks deepest on the blunt, writes the most graffiti. And though he's respected by other writers for testing the limits -- he has been described to me by other writers as a king and, by way of compliment, as "the sickest guy I ever met" -- that same recklessness sometimes alienates him from the majority who don't have such a huge appetite for chaos, adrenaline, self-destruction.

When I ask a city detective who specializes in combating graffiti if there are any particularly well-known writers, he immediately mentions JA and adds with a bit of pride in his voice, "We know each other." He calls JA the "biggest graffiti writer of all time" (though the detective would prefer that I didn't mention that, because it'll only encourage JA). "He's probably got the most throw-ups in the city, in the country, in the world," the detective says. "If the average big-time graffiti vandal has 10,000 tags, JA's got 100,000. He's probably done -- in New York City alone -- at least $5 million worth of damage."

AT ABOUT 3 A.M., JA AND TWO OTHER WRITERS go out to hit a billboard off the West Side Highway in Harlem. Tonight there are SET, a 21-year-old white writer from Queens, N.Y., and JD, a black Latino writer the same age, also from Queens. They load their backpacks with racked cans of Rustoleum, fat cap nozzles, heavy 2-foot industrial bolt cutters and surgical gloves. We pile into a car and start driving, Schooly D blasting on the radio. First a stop at a deli where JA and SET go in and steal beer. Then we drive around Harlem trying a number of different dope spots, keeping an eye out for "berries" -- police cars. JA tosses a finished 40-ounce out the window in a high arc, and it smashes on the street.

At different points, JA gets out of the car and casually walks the streets and into buildings, looking for dealers. A good part of the graffiti life involves walking anywhere in the city, at any time, and not being afraid -- or being afraid and doing it anyway.

We arrive at a spot where JA has tagged the dealer's name on a wall in his territory. The three writers buy a vial of crack and a vial of angel dust and combine them ("spacebase") in a hollowed-out Phillies blunt. JD tells me that "certain drugs will enhance your bombing," citing dust for courage and strength ("bionics"). They've also bombed on mescaline, Valium, marijuana, crack and malt liquor. SET tells a story of climbing highway poles with a spray can at 6 a.m., "all Xanaxed out."

While JD is preparing the blunt, JA walks across the street with a spray can and throws up all three of their tags in 4-foot-high bubbled, connected letters. In the corner, he writes my name.

We then drive to a waterfront area at the edge of the city -- a deserted site with warehouses, railroad tracks and patches of urban wilderness dotted with high-rise billboards. All three writers are now high, and we sit on a curb outside the car smoking cigarettes. From a distance we can see a group of men milling around a parked car near a loading dock that we have to pass. This provokes 30 minutes of obsessive speculation, a stoned stakeout with play by play:

"Dude, they're writers," says SET. "Let's go down and check them out," says JD. "Wait, let's see what they write," says JA. "Yo -- they're going into the trunk," says SET. "Cans, dude, they're going for their cans. Dude, they're writers. "There could be beef, possible beef," says JA. "Can we confirm cans, do we see cans?" SET wants to know. Yes, they do have cans," SET answers for himself. "There are cans. They are writers." It turns out that the men are thieves, part of a group robbing a nearby truck. In a few moments guards appear with flashlights and at least one drawn gun. The thieves scatter as guard dogs fan out around the area, barking crazily.

We wait this out a bit until JA announces, "It's on." Hood pulled up on his head, he leads us creeping through the woods (which for JA has become the cinematic jungles of Nam). It's stop and go, JA crawling on his stomach, unnecessarily close to one of the guards who's searching nearby. We pass through graffiti-covered tunnels (with the requisite cinematic drip drip), over crumbling stairs overgrown with weeds and brush, along dark, heavily littered trails used by crackheads.

We get near the billboard, and JA uses the bolt cutters to cut holes in two chain-link fences. We crawl through and walk along the railroad tracks until we get to the base of the sign. JA, with his backpack on, climbs about 40 feet on a thin piece of metal pipe attached to the main pillar. JD, after a few failed attempts, follows with the bolt cutters shoved down his pants and passes them to JA. Hanging in midair, his legs wrapped around a small piece of ladder, JA cuts the padlock and opens up the hatch to the catwalk. He then lowers his arm to JD, who is wrapped around the pole just below him, struggling. "J, give me your hand, "I'll pull you up," JA tells him. JD hesitates. He is reluctant to let go and continues treadmilling on the pole, trying to make it up. JD, give me your hand." JD doesn't want to refuse, but he's uncomfortable entrusting his life to JA. He won't let go of the pole. JA says it again, firmly, calmly, utterly confident: "J give me your hand." JD's arm reaches up, and JA pulls JD up onto the catwalk. Next, SET, the frailest of the three, follows unsteadily. They've called down and offered to put up his tag, but he insists on going up. "Dude, fuck that, I'm down," he says. I look away while he makes his way up, sure that he's going to fall (he almost does twice). The three have developed a set pattern for dividing the labor when they're "blowing up," one writer outlining, another working behind him, filling in. For 40 minutes I watch them working furiously, throwing shadows as they cover ads for Parliament and Amtrak with large multicolored throw-ups SET and JD bickering about space, JA scolding them, tossing down empty cans.

They risk their lives again climbing down. Parts of their faces are covered in paint, and their eyes beam as all three stare at the billboard, asking, "Isn't it beautiful?' And there is something intoxicating about seeing such an inaccessible, clean object gotten to and made gaudy. We get in the car and drive the West Side Highway northbound and then southbound so they can critique their work. "Damn, I should've used the white," JD says.

The next day both billboards are newly re-covered, all the graffiti gone. JA tells me the three went back earlier to get pictures and made small talk with the workers who were cleaning it off.

GRAFFITI HAS BEEN THROUGH A NUMBER OF incarnations since it surfaced in New York in the early 70s with a Greek teen-ager named Taki 183. It developed from the straightforward writing of a name to highly stylized, seemingly illegible tags (a kind of penmanship slang) to wild-style throw-ups and elaborate (master) "pieces" and character art. There has been racist graffiti political writing, drug advertising, gang graffiti. There is an art-graf scene from which Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiac, LEE, Futura 2000, Lady Pink and others emerged; aerosol advertising; techno graffiti written into computer programs; anti-billboard graffiti; stickers; and stencil writing. There are art students doing street work in San Francisco ("nonpermissional public art"); mural work in underground tunnels in New York; gallery shows from Colorado to New Jersey; all-day Graffiti-a-Thons; and there are graffiti artists lecturing art classes at universities. Graffiti has become part of urban culture, hip-hop culture and commercial culture, has spread to the suburbs and can be found in the backwoods of California's national forests. There are graffiti magazines, graffiti stores, commissioned walls, walls of fame and a video series available (Out to bomb) documenting writers going out on graffiti missions, complete with soundtrack. Graffiti was celebrated as a metaphor in the 70s (Norman Mailer's "The Faith of Graffiti"); it went Hollywood in the '80s (Beat Street, Turk 182!, Wild Style); and in the '90s it has been increasingly used to memorialize the inner-city dead.

But as much as graffiti has found acceptance, it has been vilified a hundred times more. Writers are now being charged with felonies and given lengthy jail terms -- a 15-year-old in California was recently sentenced to eight years in a juvenile detention center. Writers have been given up to 1000 hours of community service and forced to undergo years of psychological counseling; their parents have been hit with civil suits. In California a graffiti writer's driver's license can be revoked for a year; high-school diplomas and transcripts can also be withheld until parents make restitution. In some cities property owners who fail to remove graffiti from their property are subject to fines and possible jail time. Last spring in St. Louis, Cincinnati, San Antonio and Sacramento, Calif., politicians proposed legislation to cane graffiti writers (four to 10 hits with a wooden paddle, administered by parents or by a bailiff in a public courtroom). Across the nation, legislation has been passed making it illegal to sell spray paint and wide-tipped markers to anyone under 18, and often the materials must be kept locked up in the stores. Several cities have tried to ban the sales altogether, license sellers of spray paint and require customers to give their name and address when purchasing paint. In New York some hardware-store owners will give a surveillance photo of anyone buying a large quantity of spray cans to the police. In Chicago people have been charged with possession of paint. In San Jose, Calif., undercover police officers ran a sting operation -- posing as filmmakers working on a graffiti documentary -- and arrested 31 writers.

Hidden cameras, motion detectors, laser removal, specially developed chemical coatings, night goggles, razor wire, guard dogs, a National Graffiti Information Network, graffiti hot lines, bounties paid to informers -- one estimate is that it costs $4 billion a year nationally to clean graffiti -- all in an effort to stop those who "visually laugh in the face of communities," as a Wall Street Journal editorial raged.

The popular perception is that since the late 1980s when New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority adopted a zero tolerance toward subway graffiti (the MTA either cleaned or destroyed more than 6,000 graffiti-covered subway cars, immediately pulling a train out of service if any graffiti appeared on it), graffiti culture had died in the place of its birth. According to many graffiti writers, however, the MTA, in its attempt to kill graffiti, only succeeded in bringing it out of the tunnels and train yards and making it angry. Or as Jeff Ferrell, a criminologist who has chronicled the Denver graffiti scene, theorizes, the authorities' crackdown moved graffiti writing from subculture to counterculture. The work on the trains no longer ran, so writers started hitting the streets. Out in the open they had to work faster and more often. The artistry started to matter less and less. Throw-ups, small cryptic tags done in marker and even the straightforward writing of a name became the dominant imagery. What mattered was quantity ("making noise"), whether the writer had heart, was true to the game, was "real." And the graffiti world started to attract more and more people who weren't looking for an alternative art canvas but simply wanted to be connected to an outlaw community, to a venerable street tradition that allowed the opportunity to advertise their defiance. "It's that I'm doing it that I get my rush, not by everyone seeing it," says JA. "Yeah, that's nice, but if that's all that's gonna motivate you to do it, you're gonna stop writing. That's what happened to a lot of writers." JD tells me: "We're just putting it in their faces; it's like 'Yo, you gotta put up with it.'"

Newspapers have now settled on the term "graffiti vandal" rather than "artist" or "writer." Graffiti writers casually refer to their work as doing destruction." In recent years graffiti has become more and more about beefs and wars, about "fucking up the MTA," "fucking up the city."

Writers started taking a jock attitude toward getting up frequently and tagging in hard-to-reach places, adopting a machismo toward going over other writers' work and defending their own ("If you can write, you can fight"). Whereas graffiti writing was once considered an alternative to the street, now it imports drugs, violence, weapons and theft from that world -- the romance of the criminal deviant rather than the artistic deviant. In New York today, one police source estimates there are approximately 100,000 people involved in a variety of types of graffiti writing. The police have caught writers as young as 8 and as old as 42. And there's a small group of hard-core writers who are getting older who either wrote when graffiti was in its prime or long for the days when it was, those who write out of compulsion, for each other and for the authorities who try to combat graffiti, writers who haven't found anything in their lives substantial or hype enough to replace graffiti writing.

The writers in their 20s come mostly from working-class families and have limited prospects and ambitions for the future. SET works in a drugstore and has taken lithium and Prozac for occasional depression; JD dropped out of high school and is unemployed, last working as a messenger, where he met JA. They spend their nights driving 80 miles an hour down city highways, balancing 40-ounce bottles of Old English 800 between their legs, smoking blunts and crack-laced cigarettes called coolies, always playing with the radio. They reminisce endlessly about the past, when graf was real, when graf ran on the trains, and they swap stories about who's doing what on the scene. The talk is a combo platter of Spicoli, homeboy, New Age jock and eighth grade: The dude is a fuckin' total turd. . . . I definitely would've gotten waxed. . . . It's like some bogus job. . . . I'm amped, I'm Audi, you buggin . . . You gotta be there fully, go all out, focus. . . . Dudes have bitten off SET, he's got toys jockin' him. . . .

They carry beepers, sometimes guns, go upstate or to Long Island to "prey on the hicks" and to rack cans of spray paint. They talk about upcoming court cases and probation, about quitting, getting their lives together, even as they plan new spots to hit, practice their style by writing on the walls of their apartments, on boxes of food, on any stray piece of paper (younger writers practice on school notebooks that teachers have been known to confiscate and turn over to the police). They call graffiti a "social tool" and "some kind of ill form of communication," refer to every writer no matter his age as "kid." Talk in the graffiti life vacillates between banality and mythology, much like the activity itself: hours of drudgery, hanging out, waiting, interrupted by brief episodes of exhilaration. JD, echoing a common refrain, says, "Graffiti writers are like bitches: a lot of lying, a lot of talking, a lot of gossip." They don't like tagging with girls ("cuties," or if they use drugs, "zooties") around because all they say is (in a whiny voice), You're crazy. . . . Write my name."

WHEN JA TALKS ABOUT GRAFFITI, HE'S reluctant to offer up any of the media-ready cliches about the culture (and he knows most of them). He's more inclined to say, "Fuck the graffiti world," and scoff at graf shops, videos, conventions and 'zines. But he can be sentimental about how he began -- riding the No. 1, 2 and 3 trains when he was young, bugging out on the graffiti-covered cars, asking himself, "How did they do that? Who are they?" And he'll respectfully invoke the names of long-gone writers he admired when he was just starting out: SKEME, ZEPHYR, REVOLT, MIN.

JA, typical of the new school, primarily bombs, covering wide areas with throw-ups. He treats graffiti less as an art form than as an athletic competition, concentrating on getting his tag in difficult-to-reach places, focusing on quantity and working in defiance of an aesthetic that demands that public property be kept clean. (Writers almost exclusively hit public or commercial property.)

And when JA is not being cynical, he can talk for hours about the technique, the plotting, the logistics of the game like "motion bombing" by clockwork a carefully scoped subway train that he knows has to stop for a set time, at a set place, when it gets a certain signal in the tunnels. He says, "To me, the challenge that graffiti poses, there's something very invigorating and freeing about it, something almost spiritual. There's a kind of euphoria, more than any kind of drug or sex can give you, give me . . . for real."

JA says he wants to quit, and he talks about doing it as if he were in a 12-step program. "How a person in recovery takes it one day a time, that's how I gotta take it," he says. You get burnt out. There's pretty much nothing more the city can throw at me; it's all been done." But then he'll hear about a yard full of clean sanitation trucks, the upcoming Puerto Rican Day Parade (a reason to bomb Fifth Avenue) or a billboard in an isolated area; or it'll be 3 a.m., he'll be stoned, driving around or sitting in the living room, playing NBA Jam, and someone will say it: "Yo, I got a couple of cans in the trunk. . . ." REAS, an old-school writer of 12 years who, after a struggle and a number of relapses, eventually quit the life, says, "Graffiti can become like a hole you're stuck in; it can just keep on going and going, there's always another spot to write on."

SAST is in his late 20s and calls himself semiretired after 13 years in the graf scene. He still carries around a marker with him wherever he goes and cops little STONE tags (when he's high, he writes, STONED). He's driving JA and me around the city one night, showing me different objects they've tagged, returning again and again to drug spots to buy dust and crack, smoking, with the radio blasting; he's telling war stories about JA jumping onto moving trains, JA hanging off the outside of a speeding four-wheel drive. SAST is driving at top speed, cutting in between cars, tailgating, swerving. A number of times as we're racing down the highway, I ask him if he could slow down. He smiles, asks if I'm scared, tells me not to worry, that he's a more cautious driver when he's dusted. At one point on the FDR, a car cuts in front of us. JA decides to have some fun.

"Yo, he burnt you, SAST," JA says. We start to pick up speed. Yo, SAST, he dissed you, he cold dissed you, SAST." SAST is buying it, the look on his face becoming more determined as we go 70, 80, 90 miles an hour, hugging the divider, flying between cars. I turn to JA, who's in the back seat, and I try to get him to stop. JA ignores me, sitting back perfectly relaxed, smiling, urging SAST to go faster and faster, getting off, my fear adding to his rush.

At around 4 a.m., SAST drops us off on the middle of the Manhattan Bridge and leaves. JA wants to show me a throw-up he did the week before. We climb over the divider from the roadway to the subway tracks. JA explains that we have to cross the north and the southbound tracks to get to the outer part of the bridge. In between there are a number of large gaps and two electrified third rails, and we're 135 feet above the East River. As we're standing on the tracks, we hear the sound of an oncoming train. JA tells me to hide, to crouch down in the V where two diagonal braces meet just beside the tracks.

I climb into position, holding on to the metal beams, head down, looking at the water as the train slams by the side of my body. This happens twice more. Eventually, I cross over to the outer edge of the bridge, which is under construction, and JA points out his tag about 40 feet above on what looks like a crow's-nest on a support pillar. After a few moments of admiring the view, stepping carefully around the many opportunities to fall, JA hands me his cigarettes and keys. He starts crawling up one of the braces on the side of the bridge, disappears within the structure for a moment, emerges and makes his way to an electrical box on a pillar. Then he snakes his way up the piping and grabs on to a curved support. Using only his hands he starts to shimmy up; at one point he's hanging almost completely upside down. If he falls now, he'll land backward onto one of the tiers and drop into the river below. He continues to pull himself up, the old paint breaking off in his hands, and finally he flips his body over a railing to get to the spot where he tagged. He doesn't have a can or a marker with him, and at this point graffiti seems incidental. He comes down and tells me that when he did the original tag he was with two writers; one he half carried up, the other stopped at a certain point and later told JA that watching him do that tag made him appreciate life, being alive.

We walk for 10 minutes along a narrow, grooved catwalk on the side of the tracks; a thin wire cable prevents a fall into the river. A few times, looking down through the grooves, I have to stop, force myself to take the next step straight ahead, shake off the vertigo. JA is practically jogging ahead of me. We exit the bridge into Chinatown as the sun comes up and go to eat breakfast. JA tells me he's a vegetarian.

IF YOU TALK TO SERIOUS GRAFFITI writers, most of them will echo the same themes; they decry the commercialization of graf, condemn the toys and poseurs and alternately hate and feel attached to the authorities who try to stop them. They say with equal parts bravado and self-deprecation that a graffiti writer is a bum, a criminal, a vandal, slick, sick, obsessed, sneaky, street-smart, living on edges figurative and literal. They show and catalog cuts and scars on their bodies from razor wire, pieces of metal, knives, box cutters. I once casually asked a writer named GHOST if he knew another writer whose work I had seen in a graf'zine. "Yeah, I know him, he stabbed me," GHOST replies matter-of-factly. "We've still got beef." SET tells me he was caught by two DTs (detectives) who assaulted him, took his cans of paint and sprayed his body and face. JA tells similar stories of police beatings for his making officers run after him, of cops making him empty his spray cans on his sneakers or on the back of a fellow writer's jacket. JD has had 48 stitches in his back and 18 in his head over "graffiti-related beef." JA's best friend and writing partner, SANE SMITH, a legendary all-city writer who was sued by the city and the MTA for graffiti, was found dead, floating in Jamaica Bay. There's endless speculation in the grafworld as to whether he was pushed, fell or jumped off a bridge. SANE is so respected, there are some writers today who spend time in public libraries reading and rereading the newspaper microfilm about his death, his arrests, his career. According to JA, after SANE's death, his brother, SMiTH, also a respected graffiti artist, found a piece of paper on which SANE had written his and JA's tag and off to the side, FLYING HIGH THE XTC WAY. It now hangs on JA's apartment wall.

One morning, JA and I jump off the end of a subway platform and head into the tunnels. He shows me hidden rooms, emergency hatches that open to the sidewalk, where to stand when the trains come by. He tells me about the time SANE lay face down in a shallow drainage ditch on the tracks as an express train ran inches above him. JA says anytime he was being chased by the police he would run into a nearby subway station, jump off the platform and run into the tunnels. The police would never follow. KET, a veteran graffiti writer, tells me how in the tunnels he would accidentally step on homeless people sleeping. They'd see him tagging and would occasionally ask that he "throw them up," write their names on the wall. He usually would. Walking in the darkness between the electrified rails as trains race by, JA tells me the story of two writers he had beef with who came into the tunnels to cross out his tags. Where the cross-outs stop is where they were killed by an approaching train.

The last time I go out with JA, SET and JD, they pick me up at around 2 am. We drive down to the Lower East Side to hit a yard where about 60 trucks and vans are parked next to one another. Every vehicle is already covered with throw-ups and tags, but the three start to write anyway, JA in a near frenzy. They're running in between the rows, crawling under trucks, jumping from roof to roof, wedged down in between the trailers, engulfed in nauseating clouds of paint fumes (the writers sometimes blow multicolored mucous out of their noses), going over some writers' tags, respecting others, JA throwing up SANE's name, searching for any little piece of clean space to write on. JA, who had once again been talking about retirement, is now hungry to write and wants to hit another spot. But JD doesn't have any paint, SET needs gas money for his car, and they have to drive upstate the next morning to appear in court for a paint-theft charge.

During the ride back uptown the car is mostly quiet, the mood depressed. And even when the three were in the truck yard, even when JA was at his most intense, it seemed closer to work, routine, habit. There are moments like this when they seem genuinely worn out by the constant stress, the danger, the legal problems, the drugging, the fighting, the obligation to always hit another spot. And it's usually when the day is starting.

About a week later I get a call from another writer whom JA had told I was writing an article on graffiti. He tells me he has never been king, never gone all city, but now he is making a comeback, coming out of retirement with a new tag. He says he could do it easily today because there is no real competition. He says he was thinking about trying to make some money off of graffiti -- galleries. canvases, whatever . . . to get paid.

"I gotta do something," the writer says. "I can't rap, I can't dance, I got this silly little job." We talk more, and he tells me he appreciates that I'm writing about writers, trying to get inside the head of a vandal, telling the real deal. He also tells me that graffiti is dying, that the city is buffing it, that new writers are all toys and are letting it die, but it's still worth it to write.

I ask why, and then comes the inevitable justification that every writer has to believe and take pleasure in, the idea that order will always have to play catch-up with them. "It takes me seconds to do a quick throw-up; it takes them like 10 minutes to clean it," he says. "Who's coming out on top?"

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