Zerith - Blog Posts
so Zack gives Aerith the ribbon she wears until the day she dies, he suggests she wears pink and she does, and it seems like there’s forget me nots on her letters to him and that matches her necklace. And she keeps that ribbon and that dress until she dies and when Cloud lowers her into the water, reuniting her and Zack, she’s still wearing the date dress for Zack. And let’s not forget all the sweet compliments Zack gives Aerith and how hard he worked on her flower wagon! And how Aerith loved him so much she waited for him even longer than they’d dated! And Zack loved her so much he literally died trying to see her again! She was one of the last things he was thinking about as he died. 😭 it’s also very sweet how Cloud keeps reuniting Zack and Aerith. Of course he’d do anything for his friend who kept him safe, but he reunites Zack and Aerith when he lowers her into the water, he does it by taking Zacks sword to Aeriths church, and then he does again by taking Aeriths flowers to Zacks grave. Cloud loves his friends and he is the biggest Zerith shipper.
"All the living are dead
and the dead are all living.
The war is over and we are beginning"
reunion
(zack & aerith, ff7)
"All the living are dead
and the dead are all living.
The war is over and we are beginning"
I just know if Zack was there, he would have matched her energy Instantly
Edit: now with VA
I finally beat FFVII Rebirth and had to draw Zerith again. 💐 Aerith and Zack OTP 😭
Zack talking about Aerith flashback
Bonus, Cloud remembering him:
i want what they have
Crisis Core Reunion vs. Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth
just a shitpost
Zack and Aerith from Final Fantasy VII Ever Crisis
Hi I haven’t drawn anything rlly stupid in a while so i needed to change that, the images had their vibe LOL
If you can’t tell what’s happening the dude is spilling his drink on her bc he fell asleep too LMAO
Only 3 more days til Crisis Core Reunion! 😭 I know it’s going to utterly destroy me but hopefully seeing Zack and Aerith together again will dull the pain – at least slightly.
Day 1
“I’m scared of walking out of this room and never feeling the rest of my whole life the way I feel when I’m with you.” Dirty Dancing (1987)
I'll see you...I promise ❤
Aerith thoughts
I like to imagine that Aerith slowly got over Zack after going on her adventure saving the world with friends.
For those who have been in relationships or at least had a boyfriend or girlfriend in highschool, it can be really hard to get over heartbreak if your environment and the people around it don’t change.
For Aerith, her first boyfriend by all accounts ghosts her one day after months to years of causally dating and she is still in contact with his co workers, saying they can deliver letters to him if she wants. It’s natural for her to assume that he just found another girl or died during one of his missions.
Crisis core (a terrible game btw) adds context to their relationship and honestly as someone who was a little interested in their relationship dynamic, I wasn’t expecting the few scenes they have together to be hanging out for a little bit but then Zack gets a call from work so he’s gotta go.
It does add context to the player that hey dude maybe Zack did ghost Aerith. He seems like an amazing person but the game chose to show that he was always too busy and he had other relationships to tend to.
On Aerith’s end, it seems she really enjoyed being with Zack but her time with him was always cut short. That must of really sucked for her because I bet she always wished he stayed longer. To me (the player), it felt like Zack didn’t or couldn’t prioritize Aerith in their relationship and Aerith knew and wished something would change.
Rebirth adds new context with two things: Zack WAS OBSESSED with Aerith. Couldn’t wait to tell his buddies about her. That’s sweet but not really the vibe I got from him in Crisis Core and def not in the OG when he was barely a character.
Another thing is that Aerith rather quickly gets over Zack (whether or not she knows it) after meeting Cloud, Tifa and gang. Having a new boy to mess with was def a fun change in her life but also having a bestie like Tifa must have made her feel comfortable talking about her experiences with Zack as shown in Rebirth. When she met the two, her relationship with Zack still defined her to some degree or at least was one of her biggest hang ups she wanted to inform people about because it was on her mind.
What’s interesting is that before meeting Cloud, Aerith is stuck in this cycle that I’m sure many people who experience heartbreak know well but being stuck in the same environment but without someone you hold dear. For me, it felt like I could never get out of feeling like I was ever going it to get over it. However for me, I got so much better and later got over that person when I got out of that environment I associated the heartbreak with and reconnected with some friends of mine. I believe the timeline of Aerith meeting Cloud and gang to her death, it was around one to two months. I think Aerith legitimately got over Zack (maybe 80%) by nibelheim or if you get her date it’s like 100% by return to gold saucer.
All Aerith had to do was create new memories with new people who gave her a new purpose in life. Not only that but she was travelling 24/7 saving the world with her bestie and new boy toy and a gang of new friends. She left her home and adventured off to actually live life and stop Sephiroth. I’m sure this fulfills her fantasies of creating memories with people and just being a normal young woman. I mean she was kinda living the typical boyfriend girlfriend dynamic but she wanted more out of it. I think Aerith really fell in love with Cloud because he prioritized her more than Zack regardless of infinity levels just from Cloud saving Aerith from Shinra and other smaller things that happened in Rebirth. She def said life got better during her cosmo canyon speech. I will say that in the OG, her relationship with Zack was not as important to her character as it is in the remake series. In the OG, I felt like the story was telling to tell me that she doesn’t want to talk about it because she wants to still look available to Cloud/the player but still have different characteristics (past boyfriend, been in a relationship, experience older girl option, missing boyfriend, etc) when compared to the other girls.
To summarize, I like how they showed Aerith getting over one of her biggest personally obstacles which was her missing boyfriend from her teenage years. She let it be one of her defining aspects of her character and now she’s so much more than a past heartbreak. She could actually enjoy life until her end 🥹
For the next time like this Zack should bring Cloud to distract Sephiroth and it suddenly turns into double date 😂
Imagine Aerith is finally introducing her boyfriend to Sephiroth who he has supposedly never seen yet (though he unknowingly already has) So when he answers the door, he’s surprised to see Zack standing there, realizes he’s Aerith’s boyfriend and looks just about ready to kill.
Zack *excitedly*: “Sephiroth!!!”
Sephiroth: “Zaaackk!”
Zack: “Sephiroth!!!!”
Sephiroth *slightly angrier voice*: “Zaaaacckk 👹”
Zack: *sweating*: Sephiroth…
Older brother!Sephiroth insists on joining them for the most awkward dinner date in the history of dates.
Aerith, squinting at the menu: They say the ribs here are amazing. I wonder, though, how do you even cut those apart?
*Sephiroth slowly holds up a steak knife, maintaining direct eye contact. Zack starts trembling*
Aerith, still focused on the menu: I guess a steak knife could work. But does it need that much force?
*Sephiroth impales his own menu, Zack shrieks and dives under the table*
⭐️
Cait Sith's prediction in the OG
Cait Sith's DMW in Crisis Core
Guess who's the real star ⭐️
Aerith's ribbon: is it still a gift from Zack?
It has been rumored by some fans that the Crisis Core scene where Zack gave Aerith the pink ribbon is no more canon, because kid Aerith has a pink ribbon too.
I don't mean to sound pretentious but...they're evidently different. Kid Aerith's ribbon has four ends, adult Aerith's ribbon has just two.
Since the original FFVII kid Aerith's had two outfits. She wore the blue outfit in the first part of Elmyra's flashback and the orange one when Tseng tried to convince her to return to Shinra.
In the Remake she wears the orange outfit only in the train graveyard vision and the blue one in all of Elmyra's flashback, from the moment she found her at the station up to when Tseng showed up. It's definitely not very evident because of the sepia tone filter, but we can compare her dress to the concept art and to the orange dress: she has no ribbon on the chest but wears a pinafore dress and a light shirt with bell sleeves.
This means that in the sepia toned scene she was wearing the green ribbon, as we can see from the concept art.
The scene at the train graveyard bears many similarities with the situation described in Picturing the Past, so she was wearing the orange outfit before escaping Shinra HQ.
When Elmyra found her and brought her in Sector 5 she had the green ribbon, not the pink one.
Someone tried to say Aerith stated the ribbon was a gift from her mother when she met Cloud at the church...
Nice try, but she was talking about White Materia. (Leaving a couple of links in case anybody wanted to check: OG, Remake)
So, not only there's no evidence that the pink ribbon is no more Zack's gift but that scene influenced also an important moment of the Remake: Aerith and Cloud's first encounter.
And in both cases the gift was made in order to thank the other for their help
CC: To show you my gratitude for that "hello" that woke me up.
Remake: You know, for scaring those things away.
Ehhh...can I say what a coincidence again?
Talk about a coincidence!
(Previous post here)
Aerith's key art
Since the release of the original FF7 each main character's had a dedicated key art.
They mostly remained unaltered in the Remake because their symbolism applies to both entries, while Aerith and Yuffie's changed in order to fit the themes of this new installment.
In the first picture Aerith was looking at the Highwind, but in the new one the airship's disappeared...why?
In the OG she wished she could fly on the Highwind one day. Probably this key art was meant to give to the player the illusion she could fulfill her dream and continue the adventure with her companions, in order to make more painful and unexpected her destiny.
I think her Remake key art has a totally different meaning. The central point of this picture is not the absence of the airship but the fact that she's staring at the blue sky:
The last line of the Remake makes more sense in Japanese
The sky, I hate it.
It links up better with the scene of Crisis Core where she perceived Zack's death while it started raining.
But maybe this time there's a chance...
This new picture has also a parallel with Tifa's key art: both staring at the sky, both relating it to a special person❤️
What a nice coincidence!
I can't get this out of my mind
@zerith-week
Talk about a coincidence!
(Previous post here)
On 14th February 2019, Square Enix decided to celebrate Valentine’s day with an article about
5 great Final Fantasy love stories.
Here we find:
- Noctis & Lunafreya (FFXV)
- Tidus & Yuna (FFX)
- Maria & Draco (FFVI)
- Squall & Rinoa (FFVIII)
and..........
Zidane & Garnet? Celes & Locke? Serah & Snow?
No
Zack & Aerith. Crisis Core.
Weird. This happened just one year before the release of the Remake, where, coincidentally, there are tons of Crisis Core references. Aerith almost cries while remembering Zack, Zack survives his last stand and there is a beautiful slow-motion scene where Zack and Aerith perceive each other’s presence while Hollow starts playing...
But don’t worry,