(Almost Solid) Proof That Dan Ran PhilsLion
I'm convinced that Dan was the person who ran the PhilsLion twit and I have receipts. For anyone who doesn't know, PhilsLion is a twitter account that tweeted from the POV of Lion. It's commonly thought that this account was run by Phil. Besides the fact that he would interact with the account, there are multiple tweets that seem to be about him and dan. Unfortunately there's good reason to believe it wasn't Phil running it. HOWEVER there are many reasons that lead me to believe it was Dan who was tweeting from it, some of which is evidence based and some of which makes logical sense.
DISCLAIMER: All tweets I've included that are ostensibly about dan and phil's relationship are in reference to things that are confirmed by d&p themselves (e.g. the fact that d&p were romantically involved when they first met). I will not discuss anything that is not supposed to be public knowledge.
First let's look at when the Twitter was created. (Note: I am in UTC-8 so all screenshots will be in that time zone. I will say what time it would've been in UTC+0 (d&p's time zone) for clarity.)
Dan’s twitter account was created in May 2009. The first tweet from him (assuming he did not delete any older ones) was May 15 at 1:18pm. Presumably this is the day he got twitter.
On May 16 2009 at 3:19am Phil tweeted that he uploaded “I was kidnapped.”
In this video he mentions his own personal twitter account, and there is an annotation of Lion saying “i want a twitter” (20sec into the video)
About 3 hours after the video was posted (6:26am UTC+0), we get the first tweet from PhilsLion (presumably this was right after the account was created)
May 16th 2009 was a Saturday. We know from Dan’s video “THE POWER NAP” that he worked at ASDA on Saturdays and Sundays from 5am-10am. So he would’ve been awake shortly after Phil posted the video. Also note that Dan presumably had an iPhone at the time (he tweeted something about iPhones in June 2009 and had no previous tweets before that about getting a new phone). He specifically tweeted in Sep 2009 about tweeting from his iPhone. Based on the fact that Dan literally showed up to work drunk and took a nap, I don’t think he is above going on twitter at work.
While this is not proof that Dan created the account, we can see that it’s definitely possible for him to have created the account. We know he would’ve been awake at the time the account was created, and it was approx. a day after he created his own twitter account, so making a twitter account would've been fresh in his mind.
We do have proof that Phil did not create the account. First, he edited the description of “I was kidnapped.” to say that someone [else] created PhilsLion:
He also tweeted May 16th (10:35am UTC+0 if that matters to anyone) basically saying the same thing as the video desc, implying that someone else made the account:
Finally in “AmazingJason” (posted May 26th) he mentions, again, “someone [else]” creating the Twitter account (about 20seconds in, the timestamp is linked). He encourages everyone to follow it and links it in the description of the video:
So unless Phil was really pushing that someone else created it even though he himself made it, it wasn’t him.
If you want to skip to Proof™ scroll down to the next photo of Phil. Before that, I’d like to debunk the 11:11/different time zone thing–I think this is the biggest reason people have claimed that the account was not run by Phil or Dan but rather some other random fan. On May 30th at 4:12pm UTC+0 and June 3rd at 4:19am UTC+0, PhilsLion tweeted about making wishes at 11:11. In order for these tweets to be made at ~11:11 local time, they would need to have been made in either UTC-5 or UTC+7. UTC-5 is US Eastern Time. UTC+7 is a time zone mainly consisting of Southeast Asia. This includes parts of Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam. I have an explanation for this, which is certainly the biggest reach of this whole thing, but it is a plausible explanation :p
It’s very possible that it was Dan who tweeted this if he was on vacation with his family at the time. We know Dan and his family have vacationed in Asia many times (at the very least they went to Thailand in 2006, India in 2010 and 2013, and Sri Lanka in 2016). So while there’s no proof (that I know of) that Dan was on vacation at this time, it’s certainly possible that he was. The location of the tweets would fit with where we know his family likes to go on holiday. Additionally, the second tweet talks about water skiing, which tends to be a fun vacation thing rather than something people do regularly (note this tweet would be at 11:19am in UTC+7)
There’s further proof that PhilsLion was not always in UTC+7. On Christmas 2009, PhilsLion tweeted “goodmorning” at 6:21am UTC+0. This would be 1:21pm in UTC+7. It makes a lot more sense for this to have been tweeted in England.
Then fast forward to January 8th 2011. PhilsLion tweets “I was up all night” at 8:05am UTC+0. This would be 3pm in UTC+7. So again, it seems that PhilsLion was not in UTC+7 at this time.
Okay, now onto much more solid evidence. First, the handwriting of PhilsLion. This is the most tangible piece of proof. On June 25th 2009 Phil posted “AmazingAlex,” where Lion can be seen behind him in one of Phil’s shoes:
Lion tweeted a photo the next day, saying “I’m on a boat :)” in reference to being in Phil’s shoe
Note that the drawing/writing does not appear in the video and therefore was done by whoever runs PhilsLion. Here is some of Dan’s writing (found in TABINOF) for comparison:
This is from the “how to draw cat whiskers” page. Notice how the As all have the crossbar quite high up, just like in the twitter picture. Additionally, the top loops in the Bs are all very skinny compared to the bottom loop. Here’s another one of Dan’s capital Bs from the blindfolded portrait page, which is similar to Lion's writing:
I’m not a handwriting analysis expert, and yes it’s different drawing on MSPaint vs. a piece of paper, but the handwriting certainly has similarities.
And now, the more circumstantial evidence, but things that seem (imo) to be too big of a coincidence to not have been written by Dan (FYI these are going to be added in order of how much of a reach they are, not chronological order, lol). First we have “I month you”:
This tweet is proposing an alternate word for “love” and ends with “I month you” (i.e. is replacing the word love with month), and was tweeted on November 19th 2009. AKA exactly a month after dan and phil met IRL for the first time.
Another one that seems very related to Dan and what we know of his situation is this tweet about “Lion’s” dad:
In Dan’s own words in BIG: “I didn’t think I could ask my family for help or share my feelings about this, mainly due to my dad. Funny guy, kind of a woke hippie who did and said a lot of things I did respect but at the same time used to walk around the house saying how he hoped someone he had a problem with at work would 'die of bum cancer.' Yep, so picked the one area to be a bigot that would further traumatize your child. Nice! This experience coming from a childhood hearing the word gay meaninglessly thrown around as an insult at home[.]”
Note that Dan was still living at home at the time, so if this tweet was made by him, it wouldn't have meant literally “getting away.” Also, Dan was at home when this was tweeted but it was 3 days before he was going to see Phil.
Next there’s this tweet:
The “admirers” thing could be referring to anything really, but was tweeted during the time that Dan (and Phil) were in the Clipstar video contest. Also, Dan posted this dailybooth two days before this tweet, and most of the comments are just gassing him up, so lol (the pic doesn’t load but based on the comments I think it was a screenshot from his clipstar vid).
This tweet from Christmas Eve 2009. Dan and Phil were together and filming the interactive Christmas adventure:
Proof they were together if anyone needs it:
This tweet (tweeted November 26 5:45am UTC+0)
Many things to note here. The song linked is called “When I See You Again.” It’s by Dave Bullas (one of the founders of SiTC), whom d&p were/are friends with. (They had other friends who were friends with him as well. PJ has the top comment on the video.) The lyrics of the song are not really happy as they insinuate a breakup. But it’s interesting to think about them in the context of wanting to see someone who you are not able to. This tweet was 3/4 days after the “I wonder how biology…” tweet and 3 days before Dan went to see Phil.
Also, Dan just LOVES recommending music to people. He does it a lot.
(^ Proof Dan was seeing Phil on the 29th if anyone needs it)
Now a tweet exchange which doesn't technically prove anything, but I thought was curious. Phil tweeted December 29 2010 about getting a new camera:
Lion tweeted in reference to this 20 minutes later:
I find this interesting because Phil made no comment anywhere about manuals or ignoring them. So it could just be PhilsLion making schput, but a lot of the other Lion tweets are in direct reference to something Phil said/did. It would make sense if Dan ran the twitter acc and he was talking about something that he witnessed Phil do that we don’t know about. Also note “my new camera is here” vs. “phil picked up his new camera” (Lion giving more specific detail than Phil in terms of the manner in which he obtained the camera).
Some Tweets (1, 2, 3) which aren’t proof of anything but just sound like things Dan would say:
For context, this is about floods that happened in Queensland. Again, I have no way to prove Dan said this. But if you’ve ever read, like, anything Dan has said in a print interview ever or watched any of his liveshows, you know that he often tries to say stuff with superfluous/pretentious language and then ends up not making a whole lot of sense. Things that he’s said have been misconstrued so many times, or just outright don’t make sense to anyone but him. So this series of tweets checks out, if it is Dan who ran the account.
This Twitter exchange which doesn’t actually prove anything but is very sweet if it is dan who tweeted it:
The photo is a screenshot from “AmazingJason”:
Note that two weeks later (October 23) in “Life without the internet!?” Phil says the internet led to him “meeting the best friend of [his] life.” The comments all assume he is referencing Dan, but in the video he holds up Lion, so presumably that’s actually who he’s talking about. That is, unless Lion represents Dan :p
Lastly, this tweet which is a Fall Out Boy lyric, but again would be cute if it was Dan:
There's a few more tweets that are interesting to think about being from Dan but don't actually prove anything so I won't put them here lol.
So, at the end of the day, could it be some random fan* who made the twitter account? Yes. But in my opinion there isn’t really anything proving it’s not Dan. On top of that, there are enough things that fit with what we know factually about d&p now, but were not well known at the time, that make it seem much more likely that Dan ran this account vs. a random person.
*technically when the account was started, Dan himself was a random fan. So there’s that too ;)
P.S. best practice is to not interact with old tweets, so pls don't go on a retweet spree
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So you wanna sell your art on Redbubble but you don't know how?
(Or, I meant to write this months ago but better late than never lol)
OKAY okay. I have a bunch of friends as well as mutuals who have lovely lovely art and have considered selling it online (specifically on Redbubble lol that's what's being covered today anyways) but don't really have any clue how RB works, if it's right for them, or what to expect. SO I'M HERE TO GUIDE Y'ALL THROUGH ALL THE BASICS and hopefully, if I've done my job right, this tutorial will help you set up your RB shop and start selling your art online (or help you decide that RB isn't for you lol).
Table of Contents:
What the heck is RedBubble and should I use it?
How to make your account and set up payment
How to add a new work
Pricing? Markup?
Extra: Checking sales and payment history
Extra: Taxes and copyright, in case that scares you.
Extra: The Partner Program (or how to make "officially licensed" fanart)
What the heck is RedBubble and should I use it?
>> RedBubble is a site that allows you to upload your artwork and sell it on quite a variety of different products.
>> The main benefit of using RedBubble, aside from reach and visibility, is that RB handles *everything* when it comes to the manufacturing and shipment of your product. You are literally not responsible for anything other than making the art, uploading it, and deciding how you want it to look on different products. If there is any kind of problem with material quality or delivery (though in my experience they're pretty good with both of those things), it's not your responsibility to correct!
>> RedBubble does not charge you to sell on their site, but they do set a base price for all products to cover manufacturing and to ensure that they make some level of profit for each sale. We'll look into the specifics of this in a later section when discussing pricing and markup, but it would be considered pretty standard, for example, for an item to cost $20 and you to make $4-$5 upon making a sale.
>> At the end of the day, whether or not RB is right for you largely depends on whether or not you feel their pricing and payment is fair, and whether their available products correspond to what you wish to sell.
Okay, so how do I get started?
Well first you're gonna need an account!
>> Head over to the RedBubble main page and click "Sign Up"
>> Select "Artist Signup"
>> Fill in your email, shop name (this is your username also), and password
>> Click "Sign Up"
>> You will be brought to this dashboard page:
>> We will discuss creating products in the next section. Everything under "Set Up Shop" is optional and I'll let you explore that on your own so we can focus on the essentials. That just leaves... Getting paid!
>> First, check the email you used to confirm your email address. If you didn't receive an email to confirm your email address, don't worry, we can resend the form- keep going with the steps for now.
>> Then, under "Get Paid", click "Add your name & address". Note that all of the options in the "Get Paid" section actually lead to the same form, but selecting this option starts us near the top.
>> Fill out all the fields on this page. If you didn't receive the email to confirm your email address, click on this button:
Then check your email again.
>> Note when choosing your payment method: if you are from Canada, like me, then paypal is your only option. Same for parts of Europe that aren't in the UK. Otherwise, you also have bank transfer options:
>> Once you've finished filling in everything on this page, click "Save Changes" at the bottom and... That's it! Now you can get paid :)
**Note: I believe RB still requires you to make a minimum amount of money before they do a transfer (for me in Canada I believe it's $20 CAD?), so do keep that in mind!
>> Payments are made to your account monthly, generally on the same day every month (assuming you've made profits!).
How to add a new work
So you've made your account, fantastic. Now you're ready to actually add your works to RB and make them available for purchase to the wider public! To demonstrate the process, we're gonna use our pal Nicky here (who was a gift from my lovely friend @llumimoon) and pretend that we want to upload him:
Ain't he a doll? Anyways, let's begin.
>> Hover your mouse over your pfp in the top right corner to make this drop down menu appear:
>> Click on "Add New Work"
**On a new account with nothing uploaded, this will look a bit different. instead choose "Sell Your Art" from this dropdown menu, then "Add New Work" from the top right corner of the same dashboard page from earlier.
>> Click on "Upload New Work" (and note the file type and resolution requirements at the bottom. I always stick with PNGs, but in theory JPEG or GIF works as well.)
>> Select the file of the image you want to upload. In our case, that's Nicky.
>> Now write a title for your work, tags, and a description if you want. The tagging system is how people will actually find your work, it works a lot like Tumblr's! Try to choose things that are relevant to whatever your piece is. If you're uploading fandom-related art and aren't sure what tags are used for your fandom on RB, try looking some up and seeing what generates the most relevant results!
>> You may have noticed the "background color" section right below Nicky. This sets the default background color for your piece on different products. We're gonna keep this as the default white here, and I'll show you how to adjust this for individual products very soon.
>> Scroll down. This is where we decide what products we want this design to be available on and how we want Nicky to look on each thing we've enabled.
For example, if I were actually selling Nicky here (if that wasn't clear obviously I'm not actually selling my friend's art lol don't do that ofc) I would definitely want people to be able to buy him as a little sticker :]
>> In this case, "Stickers & Magnets" have been enabled by default. If you wanted to disable them, you would simply click that little "Enabled" button. Similarly, if we want to enable a product type that is disabled, just click that same button (which will be grey rather than green and say "disabled").
>> If a product is disabled and you are being prevented from enabling it, that's because the dimensions of your image are too small for the product in question! You'll wanna resize your image (preferably in a manner that retains its resolution of course) and come back.
>> Hm. Let's use the hats here as an example of how we might make edits to the layout of a specific product.
He's kind of cut off, as you can see actually that's pretty in-character, and I think I want this hat to be pink rather than this default beige-looking color.
>> Click on "Edit"
So, the first thing I'm gonna do here is use that "Scale Image" slider to scale him down a bit. I'm also gonna click the image and drag him up a bit to re-center him.
Next, I'm gonna pick from one of the default colors and choose the pink one.
>> Notice the two arrows beside the words "Bucket Hat"? This lets me go through the different types of hats available and change the background/base color for each of those, like the dad hat:
>> Before we apply our changes, click that little gear icon right under the pencil icon
>> This lets us adjust the markup price for each individual hat. It is 20% by default. Changing the markup percentage affects how much you will make off of a sale, as well as how much your product will cost. More on that in the next section!
>> Click "Apply Changes"
The "dad hat" was the last hat I had selected (when setting its color), so the display has changed to show that one in the preview. Here's our bucket hat from before:
Nice!
>> The specifics of how you can adjust your design will vary depending on the product. With pillows & totes, for example, the editing menu looks like this:
Using the "Choose pattern" option, I can make the Nicky image repeat as a pattern like so:
(note that I also scaled the image down a bit here too).
>> One last thing. See that "Replace Image" button near the top?
You can use this when you want to use a different version of your image altogether for a specific product.
>> That's the gist! Play around with the settings for each item as you see fit. You can always edit them again later.
>> Scroll down. Select up to 2 relevant media types.
I'm pretty sure this affects search results when users choose specific filters, but tbh otherwise I don't think it's all too important.
>> Let's look at what remains.
>> I have the "Who can view this work?" section set to "Only You"- THIS IS SO I CAN FINISH THE STEPS HERE AND SAVE THE WORK WITHOUT ACTUALLY MAKING IT AVAILABLE TO THE PUBLIC. In practice, you'd only use this option if you wanted to buy your own work on something but didn't want other people to be able to see or buy it. Otherwise, you're always gonna choose "Anybody (public)".
>> Collections can be created to organize the pieces in your shop (for example, by fandom), but we won't cover the specifics of how to do that here.
>> Set whether or not your work contains "mature content".
>> If you want, you can set which product shows up in the preview for your work when people view your shop. If you think your piece looks especially nice on a mug, for example, you can make sure that's what people see first.
>> Finally, agree to RedBubble's User Agreement (read that little blurble, since that's basically all you generally need to care about when it comes to what you can and can't sell on RB, but more on that later).
>> Click "Save Work" and voila! Your piece is now available in your shop, and can be found in the search results of whatever tags you left on it (this may take a few minutes to take effect).
>> If you want to check out your design in your shop, navigate to your pfp and click "View shop"
>> Don't fret if the design doesn't appear in your shop right away! Again, this can take several minutes.
>> To edit your design again (and to view/purchase privately uploaded designs like Nicky here), click the "Manage Portfolio" option instead:
>> Here is Nicky as he appears in my portfolio (again, your portfolio and your shop are different things- Nicky will not appear in my shop at all because he is set to "private")
>> You can click that little gear icon to do a variety of things, like return to the editing menu from earlier. The three icons below Nicky refer to the amount of comments, sales, and likes your design has received in total.
>> Click on your design either from your shop page or your portfolio page. Wow! Your cool art is now available on all the products you enabled. Be sure to look through them and make sure that everything is to your liking!
Pricing? Markup? What's that about?
Well good tumblr user, RB handles everything regarding the production (and shipping) of your product, which means that they set a base (minimum) price for every kind of product to account for materials and production, and of course make some amount of profit themselves. The *markup* is a percentage that you the artist set (see the previous section on how to do so), and will determine how much you actually make off of a sale. Note that increasing the markup price means that your product will increase in price as well!
>> An Example (using hypothetical but more or less realistic numbers):
Let's say that the base price (0% markup, i.e. no profit for you) of a phone case on RB is $15. You set the markup to 30%. 30% of 15 is 4.5, so the public price is increased to $19.5, and if anyone purchases this phone case with your design on it, you will make $4.5.
And that's really the gist! Ultimately the markup price is up to you and what you feel is reasonable, though RB sets it to 20% by default.
Extra: Checking sales and payment history
Eheh, unfortunately I've reached the image limit for this post but:
To check your sales:
>> Click on your pfp
>> Click "Account Settings"
>> Under "Artist Tools" (on the left side), click "Sales History"
To check your payment history:
>> From the same "Artist Tools" menu (see above), click "Payment History"
Extra: Taxes and copyright, in case that scares you.
>> Do I need to report the income I make on RB when I do my taxes?
Yup! But dw, it isn't anything special. I mean, I'm not here to do your taxes for you, but money you make on Redbubble counts as "Self-Employment Income", same as if you sold your art just about anywhere else really!
>> So what am I actually allowed to sell on Redbubble? Is fanart okay?
Generally speaking... Yes! Obviously work should be your own, and it should not contain any company logos or names that you don't have the right to, nor photos of actual people unless you have their explicit permission.
>> Hm, okay, but what if I *do* accidentally sell something that isn't allowed?
In most cases, it'll just get taken down 👍. And no, you won't be asked to pay back any profits you made off the work in the meantime.
**A more extreme case: Story time. So, years ago a friend of mine uploaded some official Rick and Morty art that he forgot to set to "private". Overnight he made... Let's just say he made quite a bit of money. RB responded by taking down the work and banning his IP address, effectively preventing him from ever selling on the site again. But they still let him keep the money he made, and he didn't get into any actual trouble outside of that. What I'm saying is, even if you really fuck up, it'll be alright. And again, this was a pretty extreme scenario.
***Note: if your work falls under one of the brands in Redbubble's "Partner Program" (see the next section), it will be temporarily removed from the search results and your shop while it undergoes review. So don't panic if you see your fanart suddenly disappear from your shop!
Extra: The Partner Program (or how to make "officially licensed" fanart)
Very briefly, Redbubble has their partner program, which I won't explain in full detail here, but basically it means that if you upload a work and tag it as one of these brands, it will be inspected for review and, upon passing that brand's guidelines, will be considered "officially licensed" merch for that brand. Just felt worth mentioning!
So that's really the gist folks! There's certainly much more to play around with when it comes to RB, but that's all you need to know to get started! Hopefully this was useful? Hopefully lol. In any case, good luck out there!
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i’m about a month late to the ffvii rebirth fanfare but i saw your study/shot comparison for the ending while scrolling through some tags and was really curious to see if you had come up with any more conclusions since then! i just finished it a couple days ago and still reeling from it and have been enjoying hearing people’s thoughts about what the heck they think is going on. obvs cloud is not ok, but i’m still trying to decide just how much of what we’re seeing is due to his sanity going out the window and how much of it (if any) is aerith actually speaking to him and/or sephiroth messing with him. the way he tells the rest of the party to not look up at the sky though and none of them see what he sees, just clues them all in to the fact that he isn’t entirely all there anymore. a collective very concerned side-eye lol. somebody help him pls.
!!! oh friend, you're in a TON of luck: I actually started a few different commentaries on how I saw the ending on this weeks back, but didn't post them because I got distracted by other fandoms? I'm more than happy to share them though—not as developed as they could be, but some congealing of where my mind went upon finishing the game and rewatching the gameplay.
forewarning: FFVII ending spoilers + a long af post lmao
So I wrote this on my twitter (where I go to see things only on twt lol) the other day because of a bunch of concepts were clarified by the Ultimania + translators, which kinda sums up where my thoughts are:
Which...yeah. As I see it: as of the ending, Aerith is in fact dead in our current world (the one of the player narrative). How I see it, she's died in our primary timeline—though likely "alive" in the same way Zack is in some other timeline, in addition to her connection to every "universe" through the power of her connection to the planet as the last Cetra.
The white whispers (which represent Aerith/the will of the planet) as well as the “confluence of world” colors we see with Sephiroth are all around when Cloud supposedly “sees her alive" during the classic death scene—
—an indicator that the event itself was the "confluence" Sephiroth was trying to achieve, with Cloud experiencing several versions of it due to his own connection to Sephiroth/the lifestream/his fragmented mind. We see this both in what Sephiroth says around the event itself....and also the contrasting experiences of our party with what Cloud sees in the moment (+ through end of the game).
As I see it, Cloud’s consciousness by the end of FFVII:R-II is fully fractured; throughout both Remake & Rebirth he is already seeing visions affected by Sephiroth’s influence on the planet (the black whispers, the way hooded men and thin air turn into Sephiroth before his eyes)—and now, during the “confluence of emotions / worlds / reunion” mentioned (Aerith's death), Cloud’s already broken mind is slipping further into seeing “the middle space” of the worlds joined and prepared for destruction by Sephiroth in real time, rather than following the timeline of events in the world we play—a la the post that inspired your ask. :)
All that said: the reason he’s seeing Aerith (not just sensing her the way Red does in his own Lifestream connection) is because she’s a Cetra, and now (in death) the embodiment of the positive!Will of Gaia across worlds—so because of Cloud's connection to that "middle space" / ability to traverse different versions of reality because of his connection to Sephiroth, Cloud is interacting with her presence…despite it not being there for anyone else.
It’s also why he can see the sky split no one else can.
ADDITIONALLY:
The Aerith we see fight alongside Cloud in the final battle and the one we see walking around everyone as Cid fixes the plane…that’s the spirit of her person (think the Aerith of Advent Children). Aerith didn’t live this game—her spirit can communicate because of Sephiroth's successful confluence, though she’s ALSO "alive" in the same way Zack and Biggs are to us: aka she died in the world she was in but still exists in others, which Sephiroth confirms/explains both when Aerith pulls Cloud into another “doomed” world—
when he’s trying to manipulate Cloud in the Lifestream—
and when you’re fighting Sephiroth alongside Aerith in the void during the final battle (after she’s died).
Even so, Aerith “living on” as the last Cetra/the spirit of the planet + someone with access to multiple worlds through the "reunion" means she’s now as able to infiltrate Cloud's ongoing visions as Sephiroth is...and is likely trying to keep him even somewhat present despite his clearly fractured mind.
I think that’s implied repeatedly by through the hollow Holy Materia (implying both Aerith is no longer “there,” but still present + that cloud himself is now hollow)—
—and why/how the Black Materia (Sephiroth) is still manipulating him and very much driving his fractured thoughts, visions and actions.
As for the rest of the party: it's because no one but his “vessel-connected-to-Sephiroth” self (+ now dead-but-living-on-in-the-Lifestream Aerith) has any idea what he learned about worlds in the Lifestream that what’s happening to Cloud is lost on everyone (and why they look painfully concerned), and also why spirit!Aerith repeatedly gives him reminders to 1) not listen to Sephiroth and 2) focus on finding himself again.
All that said: because Cloud’s actual self is already slipping away from our present game TL by the second half of the game, it will have to be retrieved and rearranged—which we know will happen in game 3 (assuming you know the original FF7 plot where Tifa rearranges him in the Lifesteam) but that has to be changed from “Cloud finds out about Zack and finally cracks" because Cloud already knows about Zack in some capacity by the middle of Rebirth.
I personally think this sets us up for a really interesting resolution in that Tifa is going to probably have spirit!Aerith’s help putting Cloud back together in the Lifestream in game 3—and that she will likely play a bigger part in helping Cloud “find himself” in his own world again because it’s been made more apparent that she’s a full consciousness in the Lifestream/able to affect multiple worlds now because of Sephiroth completing the first step in his plan. That's more just hopeful on my part going into the next game than something rooted in analysis though.
But yes! those are my thoughts! I hope this gives you (more than a little) something. Feel free to ask if something isn’t clear though lol this was like 4 different half-done drafts combined 😂 Regardless, ty so much for the ask / giving me a reason to post them!
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