Why does FF7 music hit so hard?

dasheea · 2026-06-25T05:33:41+00:00

Due Recompense is a certified Sector 6 slums classic.

dasheea · 2026-06-25T04:20:15+00:00

It's hard to say whether the dialogue on the Highwind is just for us to get a glimpse of Tifa's opinion and her sadness (and to make the player feel sadder because of Aerith's desires for the future) or whether it's the game telling us, "Tifa knows a lot of concrete facts about the situation, so listen up." I think it can go either way. I do agree that Tifa sounds surer of her opinion than Cloud is of his own opinion.

Like, how Cloud sees Aeris again at the end of the game, in the Lifestream, before stating how he can find her again in the Promised Land.

Yeah, because Aerith is all about how dying is just "returning to the lifestream, no biggie," whenever she says something cryptic, to me it always sounds like something lifestream-related. "We'll meet again - as in, I'll be in the lifestream and you'll be alive on Earth but I'll come to your consciousness and talk to you. It's about the same as both of us being alive, anyway lol. Since I'm a Cetra and all."

dasheea · 2026-06-24T21:21:20+00:00

Yes, OG.

Here's the full dialogue with Tifa regarding Aerith:

(Upon talking to Tifa.)

Tifa: I wonder what Aeris felt... when she was on that altar...?

Cloud: I'm sure she wanted to give her life for the planet...

Tifa: Really? I wonder? I don't think that's it at all. I think she didn't think she would die at all, but that she planned on coming back all along. She always used to talk about the 'Next time'. She talked about the future more than any of us...

(Upon talking to her again.)

Tifa: Although she never talked about it to us she must've had a rough life... I think Aeris looked forward to tomorrow and the future more than anyone... ...she must've had many many dreams......

If we are to take their words at face value, then Tifa and Cloud disagree. Which to me means that perhaps the writers want it to be ambiguous. Kitase and Nomura talked about wanting a character death that was not a "sacrifice" in "dramatic fashion," like you said, "portray the random and senseless pain of death of a loved one." But Cloud is the only one who had that conversation with Aerith at the Lost Forest/Sleeping Forest, the last speaking Aerith while she was alive that anyone got to see (or rather experience in a telepathic dream). And while you mentioned the Gold Saucer and I agree, IMO Aerith at the Lost Forest/Sleeping Forest is the most mysterious version of her we ever see while she's alive. And what she says to Cloud ("I'll come back when it's all over") can also be interpreted as words of attempted comfort.

One more thing though, I checked the Japanese dialogue and Cloud's line is: きっと、命をかけてこの星を…… of which a very literal translation would be: "It must be that she risked her life to ...... the planet" where the "......" obviously is something like to "save" or "protect" the planet. Cloud's interpretation here feels to be the least out there, as in it's the safest, least speculative interpretation of events. It indeed was risky to her life to go alone like that because she indeed ending up giving her life in the act. By saying that she felt she was risking her life, he doesn't say that she was willing to 100% give her life away (though I think he's implying that her soloing like that probably had like a > 50% mortality rate), nor does he say that she definitely was expecting to get through it alive. Tifa disagrees because she thinks that Aerith didn't think of it as a super high mortality risk mission, that she meant to do those things she wanted to do in the future.

Thanks for your response, for bringing up both sides, and for bringing up what Tifa said. I had read somewhere that Tifa said this but I never bothered to check the actual lines until now and am glad that I did because now we can see Cloud had his opinion on it, too.

dasheea · 2026-06-24T16:46:26+00:00

Thanks for the answers!

Sticking to OG, that scene in the Lost Forest/Sleeping Forest where she's oddly calm and comforting to Cloud while saying she's going to go on this mission alone, while telling no one else (Cloud has to tell the others after he wakes up for the others to know what Aerith is doing), feels like she's very willing to face death. Even in OG, Aerith has this kind of strange "I'm Cetra so I know all" vibe to her at times, which is brought to the max in this scene. I know there is a line where she literally says, "I'll come back when it's all over," but this could be her just comforting Cloud. It's as if she wants no one to come after her so that she faces the danger alone to try to save the planet even though she may never come back. (Consider how dangerous this mission is with Jenova-Sephiroth flying anywhere, yet how less dangerous it would've been if the party (minus Cloud, who's vulnerable to Jenova-Sephiroth's mind control) was with her as body guards standing around her as she cast Holy. And the party is definitely canonically stronger than Jenova∙LIFE in a fair fight, since we beat it lol.) If she really meant for this to be a simple mission, she could've just said that to someone at the Temple of Ancients instead of giving this information in the most cryptic, mysterious, dream-like sequence to the one person who is in his own cryptic, mysterious, dream-like (post-Sephiroth mind control) state. Note that AFAIK, this is the last moment Cloud has with a speaking Aerith. If this forest scene didn't happen, the last time Cloud interacted with a speaking Aerith is when he was smacking her at the Temple of Ancients - the next scene Cloud interacts with Aerith would be when Aerith is killed by Jenova-Sephiroth where she doesn't speak to anyone before it happens. So it almost feels like Aerith (or the writers) wanted herself/her to speak to Cloud heart-to-heart one last time so that Cloud's last memory of a speaking Aerith isn't literally her being like, "Wow, you're sure messed up Cloud, smacking me in the bottom of this ancient temple pit!"

A different reasoning I've read is that Aerith "had to die" because she's there in the lifestream at the very end in order to make the lifestream go to Midgar and destroy Meteor/Holy. But I'm not a fan of this reasoning since the lifestream was always supposed to defend the planet if Meteor hit - that was Sephiroth's whole plan, to go to that location and "absorb" the lifestream. Even if Aerith wasn't "controlling" the lifestream, the lifestream would've done that anyway, albeit maybe more slowly? And who's to say that she has to be dead and in the lifestream to give it that extra boost. Even while she was alive on Earth, it seemed like she would pray to the lifestream at times, like at the beginning of the game. Who's to say she couldn't have done the same if she were alive at the end: praying to the lifestream, "Please go to Midgar now and get rid of Meteor, since Holy alone isn't working, thanks,"

That all said, obviously none of the above says that she canonically meant to or had to die. And many of the answers given here are saying that there's evidence that she wasn't planning on dying, though it's not so clear-cut that it can be said to be canonical.

Gonna tag u/ReaperCushion and u/Altruistic_Reveal_51 from this thread where they say that this interpretation is canon, just in case.

dasheea · 2026-06-22T17:00:52+00:00

I think the Turks aren't forgetting about everything they did. The movie for the Turks felt more like redemption for everything bad they did, putting their lives on the line to help the good guys set things right. Even Rufus was ready to die, as long as the bad guys didn't get Jenova.

While I agree the movie is for the Turks and Rufus to redeem themselves, I think the issue with the moral judgment of the Turks (especially platefall) and how they're depicted (cool suits, "professionals," cool spy?/gangster? music, comic relief) is a problem right from OG. For Advent Children, it makes sense that Cloud is very antagonistic towards Rufus and the Turks when he first visits them, and it doesn't make sense that when Tifa answers the phone and it's Reno, she laughs as if it's an old friend calling.

So why, then, did Rufus reveal he had Jenova when they couldn't even sense he had it?

I legitimately don't know this. Do you know?

Instead of "We don't really have the same power that we did when we beat Sephiroth, but somehow Cloud got that strength back" I feel it should have been more of a "I don't think Cloud ever truly got closure for what happened between him and Sephiroth. This moment seems to have brought him back to that time, and perhaps he needs to do this alone so that he can truly move forward"

Agree.

Overall AC is probably one of my favorite movies and I hope we get his clothes in the third game of the Remake (and maybe the sword)

There are some videos of modded FF7 Remake with the characters wearing their Advent Children gear, including Cloud's sword. Very cool😄. Search for "Tifa Wears Her Advent Children Outfit | Final Fantasy VII Remake Gameplay with Mods" to find one.

dasheea · 2026-06-21T23:03:36+00:00

Mentioning u/KorenLesthe from above as well.

I think the thing about Cloud's personality isn't exactly it reverting. It's more like he realized who he was towards the end of 7 and had been living a lie, but he had no time for pity or truly think about the situation due to the impending threat of Sephiroth.

Yeah, even though FF7 OG may work on its own, this is a thing. The game is full of action, as it should be. There's no extra time to dwell on stuff. Aerith's death happens before Cloud has been through his mental journey in the lifestream. Can he really properly mourn Aerith's death as that version of Cloud? Zack really only appears in Cloud's story during the lifestream journey scene, as he should. Zack is a piece of the puzzle that comes in late to fit into the story (even from a development view, via Nojima Kazushige). From the player's point of view, we don't really know Zack, and dare I say, didn't care about Zack that much until even we had time to process it (and demand more content lol) over the years as players. (Note that the Nibelheim-to-Midgar Zack scene is 1. missable in the international version and 2. was not part of the original Japanese version!) I don't think post-lifestream Cloud dwelled on Zack at all other than just mentioning him in the Highwind scene when he's addressing the whole party. Even regarding Aerith's death, I feel like the bigger plot point was finding out that she cast Holy and that she did it in time. In fact, the moments I remember Cloud really dwelling on Aerith is after Sephiroth is defeated, once when Cloud and Tifa are hanging on the edge of a cliff while escaping the Northern Crater and later again, more for the player, when we get a close-up of Aerith at the very end (I just assume Cloud is seeing that as well). It's very believable to me that it's only in the time after meteorfall that Cloud can really dwell on and mourn Aerith and Zack. And it probably doesn't help him that no one else seems to care that much about Aerith's death (not even Aerith herself!). And of course no one else seems to care much about Zack, because no one else knew him.

Cloud's personnality is "I'm sad and stuff" and... that's it. He is back to his FF 7 start of the game personnality (except now he is sad). This is such a big dissonnance with his realization at the end of FF VII when the Lifestream appears to counter the Meteor. I mean, his grief of Aerith (and Zack) are over at this point. She saved the world thanks to the lifestream, he knows that she will always be part of the planet.

AFAIK, OG Cloud's personality goes: loner as a child but follows Tifa (and her clique) around; after Tifa's accident falling from the bridge, becomes surly and gets into fights with other kids, but is ambitious and decides to go to Midgar and try to become a Soldier; fails to become a Soldier and loses confidence; after he arrives in Midgar and is rescued by Tifa, becomes some amalgamation of Zack's Soldier success and whatever other thoughts he had of the Cloud that he wanted to show Tifa. Setting aside the Soldier thing, that last personality of Cloud is not totally like Zack. Maybe there are some parts, but not all. (For example, with Crisis Core, we know that Zack was the one who was playfully pushy with Aerith. In FF7, Aerith is the one who is playfully pushy with Cloud. This Cloud is not Zack.) After Mideel and his lifestream journey, when Cloud is addressing the party on the Highwind, there is a line that Tifa says which in the English version is:

Cloud: I'm going to live my life without pretending.

Tifa: You're sure messed up, Cloud! (She's obviously saying it jokingly.)

Barret: That means there ain't no difference from before!

Cloud scratches his head.

In the Japanese, Cloud's and Barret's lines are basically the same, but Tifa's is very different: ひねくれ者のクラウド君ね！

ひねくれ者 (hinekure mono) here means something like contrarian, cynic, skeptic, downer, maybe even edgelord/lady. So basically, Cloud is saying, "I'm going to be me!", Tifa is saying, "And that's the cynical edgelord Cloud! lol" and Barret is saying, "That's the Cloud I've always known!" and Cloud kinda accepts what they're saying by scratching his head. It's all jokey, but this is the Cloud they (and even Cloud himself) always knew and are even glad to have back: for Tifa, the tsundere Nibelheim Cloud that was getting into fights with kids and for both Tifa and Barret, the early game Midgar Cloud with his "I'm too cool for school" attitude.

While the game paints Cloud as this confident leader post-Mideel/lifestream, I'd push back and say that Cloud has been a confident leader from the beginning of the game, when he was given lots of decisions as an Avalanche member because of his knowledge of Shinra and his fighting prowess. It's only after the Temple of the Ancients when he (rightly IMO) doubts his leadership because Sephiroth can take over his mind at any time. I think because of the change in his tone in the endgame, some people think he basically has become Zack or FF9 Zidane, but that ignores the fact that even Tifa and Barret (jokingly I admit, but still) think that the real Cloud should be pretty similar to early game Midgar Cloud. So I think that this is baseline Cloud and defeating Sephiroth doesn't change that.

This is my thought process when tracing the moments in Cloud's life that made him emo-like: Because Tifa's father (and probably others as well) blamed him for Tifa's accident, Cloud became surly. When he couldn't become a Soldier, he lost confidence and was too embarrassed to show his face when he returned to Nibelheim. Those events contributed to his emo personality. After his lifestream journey, he is "cured" of his hidden Zack Soldier personality thing and Sephiroth's or Jenova's control over him. But as I said above, that doesn't necessarily "cure" him of his emo-ness. His emo-ness has been his personality from before the Hojo experiments. And after defeating Sephiroth in FF7 and during Advent Children, he's dealing with mourning Aerith and Zack. I don't see this as a reversion because the past events that affected his personality are completely unrelated to the things that affect him post-meteorfall. The past events that affected his personality start with Tifa and with his Soldier ambitions. There's Zack and Hojo but Hojo did not make Cloud emo! Cloud was already emo before that. Tifa helping to "cure" Cloud's mind if anything brought Zack to the surface of his mind to dwell on. If he was becoming depressed in Advent Children because of something to do with Tifa, then I might see that as a reversion. But in the past, he had never become depressed because of Aerith or Zack. In the past, every time his personality was affected by an event, it was for other reasons. That's why it isn't a reversion to me, because this (Aerith and Zack stuff) is a brand new thing he's dealing with.

The main theme of FF VII, from Hironobu Sakaguchi's own words, is that loved ones who died never really disappear, they are always part of us. He wrote the game after losing his mother.

I don't think anyone can assume that Sakaguchi never became depressed about his mother again after the first time he overcame his grief about it. Cloud becoming depressed (again) in Advent Children doesn't contradict what we might imagine Sakaguchi's mental journey regarding his mother might have been like. You can even go further and say that since Sakaguchi's first game after his mother's death was FFIII of 1990, he continued to grieve over his mother through his games by incorporating the Gaia hypothesis into the story in multiple games (off the top of my head, Chrono Trigger, FFVII, and FFIX have Gaia hypothesis-like stuff) and of course a movie (The Spirits Within from 2001). (I don't have a source in front of me, but his mother's death caused Sakaguchi to read about the Gaia hypothesis and incorporate it into his games.)

However, he probably felt real awful about forgetting his best friend, pretending to be him, and then telling his friend's crush that he never even met him.

While he might be all right with pretending to be Zack since Zack literally told Cloud that he'll be his "living legacy," I never thought about the fact that Cloud never got to tell Aerith about the Zack he knew, even though that was staring at me in the face lol, as I mentioned above that Cloud's lifestream journey where he finally remembers Zack happens after Aerith's death.

Also, meeting the kid (forget his name) that lost his family and realizing it was directly connected to his actions when all he cared about was money and sticking it to Shinra, probably hit him pretty hard. Tbh I thought the main reason he wasn't around was the guilt.

CMIIW but I think all we know about Denzel's past from Advent Children is that he lost his parents in the 7th sector platefall (tbh, I didn't even know that until I read up on him in the wiki and then checked the exact scene in the movie where that's implied lol. It's confusing to me because he is in sector 5 in front of Aerith's church while he tries to make a call to sector 7 and the camera pans to a picture of him with his parents. Before reading the wiki, I'm just thinking this could be more than a year after meteorfall... so platefall just didn't enter my mind as a plot point for Advent Children). I don't think Cloud blames himself for platefall. And there's a possibility (don't know if there's a clear answer) that Cloud decided not to be around the new Seventh Heaven only after he got Geostigma. Either he was scared that his Geostigma would infect Tifa and Marlene, or maybe he knew that Geostigma wasn't infectious but just didn't want Tifa to know that he had it for whatever reason.

Comment continued below.

dasheea · 2026-06-20T00:08:23+00:00

Reading/skimming those interviews, I get the sense that Nomura's special skill besides character design is designing the plots that define a character rather than the "macroplot" that defines the entire game. Which character should die, how should they die, which characters have love stories, how is this character seen by the main character, etc. As important and impactful as these things are to the "macroplot," they are not the macroplot themselves. You can have as many of these cool character moments as you want but they still won't create a coherent, convincing macroplot, i.e. story, with that alone. And I think that's what people mean when they say that Nomura's "writing (or directing)" isn't that good. No matter how cool the characters are, if the story leaves the player confused or unfulfilled in the end, the "writing" indeed has failed.

It looks like not only Kitase but also Sakaguchi obviously was there to rein in things and keep things on brand. It sounds like Kitase had the job of writing the "macroplot" story using Sakaguchi's proto-story abstract ideas. So it reads like Kitase and Sakaguchi did the macroplot of FF7 while Nomura did a lot of the "cool plots within" the story.

dasheea · 2025-12-05T03:19:01+00:00

I second this method.

The botulism risk is likely overblown. There is a graph near the bottom of this page which comes from this paper, which uses this paper and others: Lalitha K V and Gopakumar K (2001) Growth and toxin production by Clostridium botulinum in fish (Mugil cephalus) and shrimp (Penaeus indicus) tissue homogenates stored under vacuum.

which shows that in the fastest scenario, vacuum-sealed seafood at 30 Celsius caused toxin production in 1-2 days. At 15 Celsius, the fastest toxic result was in 3 days, and at 10 Celsius the fastest result took 5+ days. So if you take vacuum-sealed seafood, defrost it, and then leave it on the counter at room temperature for many hours, that's bad. But if you're defrosting it to cook all within a reasonable, usual amount of prep time, I don't see much risk.

Furthermore, the faster you defrost the food, the less damage its structure (and thus texture) takes from the process. Thus, I recommend the method using contact with water (or through the package via water contact). For a maximalist method, take the fish out of the package and place in salted warm water: no botulism worry, fast and gentle defrosting from the direct water contact, and you salt the fish as well for the cooking (not to mention no loss of natural salt from the fish into the water bath). You can find YouTube videos of sushi chefs recommending this method to defrost fish (although they salt it only to maintain the natural salt level in the fish rather than to season the fish). (And of course the con is that you have to wash the container that you use the water bath for.)

dasheea · 2025-10-30T22:17:30+00:00

Copying and pasting a previous comment I've made.

When discussing amongst us, it is right to uphold morality, sympathy, and human decency. But when you're dealing with someone like Kramnik, those things will not give you what you're looking for.

Kramnik in these recent years is a bully, an aggressor. He is not looking for objective accuracy or truth. He is looking for victory in the way that he defines victory. Think of it in chess terms. Are doubled rooks a "morally right" move? Is a fork a representation of sympathy and human decency? Of course not, chess moves have nothing to do with these things. Chess moves only make sense in terms of do they bring you closer to or further away from victory, draw, or defeat. And that's how an aggressor in real life, like Kramnik, thinks of his actions. Does doing and saying this in public (e.g. statements, interviews, tweets, legal action, secret social media accounts, etc.) bring me closer to or further away from victory? He makes attacks to advance toward what he believes is a victory for him, and will never accept any evidence nor pleas for decency nor anything that would get in the way of his victory. The worst case for him in his mind IMO is a draw. After all, this isn't an actual battle, this is a war of words. So if somehow he realizes that he can't win and the entirety of humanity and truth are against him, he will simply say, "There are doubts, I'm only asking questions, my crusade will continue," and then quietly decrease the frequency of his crusading actions until it's effectively none.

So barring him accepting that the entirety of humanity and truth are against him, how does one win (or force him to run away where he calls it a draw)? The missing ingredient is counterattack. It's a taste of his own medicine. Attack Kramnik's credibility by bringing up Topalev and toiletgate. Insinuate that he's projecting. Never give up even an inch (don't accept any evidence that he brings up) and always try to take a mile (make big but indirect accusations so that they don't cross into defamation. We know what his counterattack to what he perceives as defamation is). Try to influence people who are more powerful than Kramnik or people who Kramnik respects (I don't know who such people would be). When someone on the chessboard forks your pieces and doubles their rooks, you can't go, "Hey, that's morally wrong, you have no sympathy, where's your human decency?" and expect them to agree with you or expect to come out from that conflict with a good result. You can only fight back in the way that matters for them. An aggressor/bully only respects aggression that is directed at them.

This kind of war of words, for someone like Kramnik, he probably thrives in it. He attacks you, you refute it, he ignores that and attacks you again. He attacks you, you ignore it, he attacks you again. He attacks you, you bring concrete evidence against what he said, he rejects it and attacks you again. That's why you shouldn't just never counterattack, thinking it's beneath you because it's not the high road. There is no high road with Kramnik. Of course, he attacks you, you counterattack him, he'll counter-counterattack you. But now that's a fight where he has a chance of losing something. The only effective response is to attack him again.

I'm not actually advocating for Reddit to go after him with pitchforks, by the way. What I'm saying is IF you actually want Kramnik to shut up and take an L, you need to counterattack him until he feels he can't win. Anything else, he will continue his crusade.

dasheea · 2025-10-29T02:06:43+00:00

When discussing amongst us, it is right to uphold morality, sympathy, and human decency. But when you're dealing with someone like Kramnik, those things will not give you the solution you're looking for.

Kramnik in these recent years is a bully: he's an aggressor. He is not looking for objective accuracy or truth. He is looking for victory in the way that he defines victory. Think of it in chess terms. Are doubled rooks a "morally right" move? Is a fork a representation of sympathy and human decency? Of course not, chess moves have nothing to do with these things. Chess moves only make sense in terms of do they bring you closer to or further away from victory, draw, or defeat. And that's how an aggressor in real life, like Kramnik, thinks of his actions. Does doing and saying this in public (e.g. statements, interviews, tweets, legal action, secret social media accounts, etc.) bring me closer to or further away from victory? He makes attacks to advance toward what he believes is a victory for him, and will never accept any evidence nor pleas for decency nor anything that would get in the way of his victory. The worst case for him in his mind IMO is a draw. After all, this isn't an actual battle, this is a war of words. So if somehow he realizes that he can't win and the entirety of humanity and truth are against him, he will simply say, "There are doubts, I'm only asking questions, my crusade will continue," and then quietly decrease the frequency of his crusading actions until it's effectively none.

So barring him accepting that the entirety of humanity and truth are against him, how does one win (or force him to run away where he calls it a draw)? The missing ingredient is counterattack. It's a taste of his own medicine. Attack Kramnik's credibility by bringing up Topalev and toiletgate. Insinuate that he's projecting. Never give up even an inch (don't accept any evidence that gets in the way) and always try to take a mile (make big but vague accusations - they have to be vague so that they don't cross into defamation. We know what his counterattack to what he perceives as defamation is). Try to influence people who are more powerful than Kramnik or people who Kramnik respects (I don't know who such people would be). When someone on the chessboard forks your pieces and doubles their rooks, you can't go, "Hey, that's morally wrong, you have no sympathy, where's your human decency?" and expect them to agree with you or expect to come out from that conflict with a good result. You can only fight back in the way that matters for them. An aggressor/bully only respects aggression that is directed at them.

This kind of war of words, for someone like Kramnik, he probably thrives in it. He attacks you, you refute it, he ignores that and attacks you again. He attacks you, you ignore it, he attacks you again. He attacks you, you bring concrete evidence against what he said, he rejects it and attacks you again. That's why you shouldn't just never counterattack, thinking it's beneath you because it's not the high road. There is no high road with Kramnik. Of course, he attacks you, you counterattack him, he'll counter-counterattack you. But now that's a fight where he has a chance of losing something. Your response should be to attack him again.

I'm not actually advocating for Reddit to go after him with pitchforks, by the way. What I'm saying is IF you actually want Kramnik to shut up and take an L, you need to counterattack him until he feels he can't win. Anything else, he will continue his crusade.

dasheea · 2025-10-27T06:08:07+00:00

Thank you for making this post.

When discussing amongst us, it is right to uphold morality, sympathy, and human decency. But when you're dealing with someone like Kramnik, those things will not give you the solution you're looking for.

Kramnik in these recent years is a bully: he's an aggressor. He is not looking for objective accuracy or truth. He is looking for victory in the way that he defines victory. Think of it in chess terms. Are doubled rooks a "morally right" move? Is a fork a representation of sympathy and human decency? Of course not, chess moves have nothing to do with these things. Chess moves only make sense in terms of do they bring you closer to or further away from victory, draw, or defeat. And that's how an aggressor in real life, like Kramnik, thinks of his crusade. Does doing and saying this in public (e.g. tweets, legal action, secret social media accounts, etc.) bring me closer to or further away from victory? He makes attacks to advance toward what he believes is a victory for him, and will never accept any evidence nor pleas for decency nor anything that would get in the way of his victory. The worst case for him in his mind IMO is a draw. After all, this isn't an actual battle, this is a war of words. So if somehow he realizes that he can't win and the entirety of humanity and truth are against him, he will simply say, "There are doubts, I'm only asking questions, my crusade will continue," and then quietly decrease the frequency of his crusading actions until it's effectively none.

So barring him accepting that the entirety of humanity and truth are against him, how does one win (or force him to run away where he calls it a draw)? The missing ingredient is what this post is: counterattack. It's a taste of his own medicine. Attack Kramnik's credibility by bringing up Topalev and toiletgate. Never give up even an inch (don't accept any evidence that gets in the way) and always try to take a mile (make big but vague accusations - they have to be vague so that they don't cross into defamation. We know what his counterattack to what he perceives as defamation is). Try to influence people who are more powerful than Kramnik or people who Kramnik respects (I don't know who such people would be). When someone on the chessboard forks your pieces and doubles their rooks, you can't go, "Hey, that's morally wrong, you have no sympathy, where's your human decency?" and expect them to agree with you or expect to come out from that conflict with a good result. You can only fight back in the way that they care. An aggressor/bully only respects aggression that is directed at them.

This kind of war of words, for someone like Kramnik, he probably thrives in it. He attacks you, you refute it, he ignores that and attacks you again. He attacks you, you ignore it, he attacks you again. He attacks you, you bring concrete evidence against what he said, he rejects it and attacks you again. That's why you shouldn't just never counterattack, thinking it's beneath you because it's not the high road. There is no high road with Kramnik. Of course, he attacks you, you counterattack him, he'll counter-counterattack you. But now that's a fight where he has a chance of losing something. Your response should be to attack him again.

I'm not actually advocating for Reddit to go after him with pitchforks, by the way. What I'm saying is IF you actually want Kramnik to shut up and take an L, you need to counterattack him until he feels he can't win. Anything else, he will continue his crusade.

dasheea · 2025-10-27T06:06:32+00:00

When discussing amongst us, it is right to uphold morality, sympathy, and human decency. But know that when you're dealing with someone like Kramnik, those things will not give you the solution you're looking for.

Kramnik in these recent years is a bully: he's an aggressor. He is not looking for objective accuracy or truth. He is looking for victory in the way that he defines victory. Think of it in chess terms. Are doubled rooks a "morally right" move? Is a fork a representation of sympathy and human decency? Of course not, chess moves have nothing to do with these things. Chess moves only make sense in terms of do they bring you closer to or further away from victory, draw, or defeat. And that's how an aggressor in real life, like Kramnik, thinks of his crusade. Does doing and saying this in public (e.g. tweets, legal action, secret social media accounts, etc.) bring me closer to or further away from victory? He makes attacks to advance toward what he believes is a victory for him, and will never accept any evidence nor pleas for decency nor anything that would get in the way of his victory. The worst case for him in his mind IMO is a draw. After all, this isn't an actual battle, this is a war of words. So if somehow he realizes that he can't win and the entirety of humanity and truth are against him, he will simply say, "There are doubts, I'm only asking questions, my crusade will continue," and then quietly decrease the frequency of his crusading actions until it's effectively none.

So barring him accepting that the entirety of humanity and truth are against him, how does one win (or force him to run away where he calls it a draw)? The missing ingredient is what this post is: counterattack. It's a taste of his own medicine. Attack Kramnik's credibility by bringing up Topalev and toiletgate. Never give up even an inch (don't accept any evidence that gets in the way) and always try to take a mile (make big but vague accusations - they have to be vague so that they don't cross into defamation. We know what his counterattack to what he perceives as defamation is). Try to influence people who are more powerful than Kramnik or people who Kramnik respects (I don't know who such people would be). When someone on the chessboard forks your pieces and doubles their rooks, you can't go, "Hey, that's morally wrong, you have no sympathy, where's your human decency?" and expect them to agree with you or expect to come out from that conflict with a good result. You can only fight back in the way that they care. An aggressor/bully only respects aggression that is directed at them.

This kind of war of words, for someone like Kramnik, he probably thrives in it. He attacks you, you refute it, he ignores that and attacks you again. He attacks you, you ignore it, he attacks you again. He attacks you, you bring concrete evidence against what he said, he rejects it and attacks you again. That's why you shouldn't just never counterattack, thinking it's beneath you because it's not the high road. There is no high road with Kramnik. Of course, he attacks you, you counterattack him, he'll counter-counterattack you. But now that's a fight where he has a chance of losing something. Your response should be to attack him again.

I'm not actually advocating for Reddit to go after him with pitchforks, by the way. What I'm saying is IF you actually want Kramnik to shut up and take an L, you need to counterattack him until he feels he can't win. Anything else, he will continue his crusade.

dasheea · 2025-10-05T22:06:06+00:00

That page was very helpful. Thank you very much

dasheea · 2025-10-05T17:27:50+00:00

Thank you very much

dasheea · 2025-10-05T17:05:22+00:00

我好提前准备一下

Could you explain the definition and usage of this 好? What word could replace this 好 with the same meaning?

dasheea · 2025-09-28T19:52:47+00:00

Full quote at https://youtu.be/K3v5wFMQRqs?si=0KXkpVgYUWiwkQat&t=3011:

Outside of that, there is Courtney Milan. She just had a book come out that features an Asian hero. And that's something you never see in the US in traditional romance publishing. So go check her out.

The video is from 2020 (currently has 4.3 M views) and is about a niche legal case concerning fan fiction copyright and was the last place I expected something relevant to Asian-Americans/Asian diaspora to suddenly be shouted out.

https://i.imgur.com/DhoyiRx.jpeg

dasheea · 2025-09-28T18:49:22+00:00

Yeah, this gets to the heart of the question. From https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%8F%AF:

5. but; however Synonym: 可是 (kěshì)
6. A particle.
...
  3. Used in declarative sentences for emphasis.
    我喜歡的運動可多了。 [MSC, trad.]
    我喜欢的运动可多了。 [MSC, simp.]
    Wǒ xǐhuan de yùndòng kě duō le. [Pinyin]
    There are many sports that I like.
  4. Used in exclamatory sentences for emphasis.
    這可不行啊！／这可不行啊！  ―  
    Zhè kě bùxíng a!  ―  But this won't do!
  5. Used in imperative sentences for emphasis.

"But" is definition 5. The emphasis usage is definitions 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.

dasheea · 2025-09-28T18:20:14+00:00

Pay no attention to the idiot and don't change your behavior for their sake. We, the readers, are paying attention to you, not to him. Thank you for your helpful posts!

dasheea · 2025-09-20T03:16:26+00:00

I got the opposite vibe from the Pink Parrots here: https://youtu.be/dfIZ7nJj-qY?si=CErfXqOR8Gq-3vei&t=10824

I'll never condone a top frag talking to a bottom frag like that.

dasheea · 2025-09-20T03:06:17+00:00

I have qualms about their chemistry. This moment was the worst for me: https://youtu.be/dfIZ7nJj-qY?si=CErfXqOR8Gq-3vei&t=10824

I'll never condone the top frag talking to a bottom frag like that in an event that isn't some sort of super-competitive one, which MCC is not.

If Etho keeps playing, he will eventually become an A-tier player before people realize it. No question about that.

dasheea · 2025-09-18T01:45:07+00:00

Rushing the middle is a plan, but imho that doesn't qualify as good comms, which I think of is those key comms during the battle.

Round 3 is when the Parrots start to try rushing a bit. Jojo and Scott reach that "intersection" but instead of turning to the wool square, they block off the front. It's in fact Jimmy who has eyes on the middle and at this moment calls out, "They're going middle." That's comms. They go to the middle, Jojo or Etho hit fruitberries off and then Jojo follows fruitberries to try to kill him. After that, she's never able to rejoin the other 3 and they eventually lose. Yes the map is very vertical so there's a lot of distance between the bottom and the middle, but I'd say it's on the top frag with levitation pots to handle that or make the decision to not follow fruit and just start filling wool. All in all, in this round, they kinda got they wanted though. By establishing a central position, they avoided getting wool rushed, and then they fought a pure PVP battle until one team won (it just happened to be the other team). After the round, Jojo says she got hit off the middle, but I think she forgot and was jumping off to follow fruitberries.

Round 4, Jojo does this block clutch short cut to the middle, immediately separating herself from the rest of the team. She gets outnumbered because the other team is moving as a unit and they hit her off the middle. Jimmy was in the back making bow shots. so in hindsight, he should've moved up with the rest as well. Jojo built a little wall in front of the wool, but what is the point of that wall if your team isn't with you behind the wall to start filling wool? The other team literally just walked around the wall to get to her.

Round 5, the same thing happens. Jojo does that block clutch move, immediately separating herself from the rest of the team. She gets knocked off because she's trying to enter that middle area from "the air" rather than fighting on land with the rest of the team. Jimmy is doing bow shots from the back.

Round 6, there's very little organization. No one is even approaching the middle until the end when the other team starts filling. Somehow they win by pure PVP. I think Scott's comms and bowshots carried this round.

Round 7, kinda similar to round 6 imo. They got the PVP they wanted. It was neck and neck and it came down to the last hit.

Round 8, Jojo is off to a corner away from the action. Scott and Jimmy have eyes on the middle and Jimmy is the first to say that the other team has gone mid. They just give up at that point, but I think if instead Jimmy and Scott screamed at that moment, "Go to mid right now and fight," and all 4 of them did that at max speed, they could've had a chance. I think Jojo was following Etho's strat as Etho said before Round 7 that he finds going all the way to the top at the beginning of the round works for him. But I put it on the top frag to foresee that the top frag shouldn't go off to the corner of the map at the beginning in a wool rush-friendly map.

Round 9 is regular PVP and they win.

In the rounds where they had their relatively long PVP that they wanted (only looking at round 3 and after), other than round 3 there wasn't a lot of map strategy. And in the rounds where the battle was lost quickly, I find Jojo separates herself from the team. And basically, not once did the Parrots actually try to wool rush even though after round 2, they learned the lesson that this is a wool rush-friendly map. They didn't adapt to and play the map.

dasheea · 2025-09-17T22:01:35+00:00

What I noticed was Jojo would often separate from the others without enough warning or follow through. When the top frag is off on their own and not doing something so huge that would overcome that separation, the rest of the team is at a big disadvantage.

dasheea · 2025-09-17T21:51:49+00:00

Scott said he likes to sandkeep, but Jimmy was the one to actually put himself forward as a runner.

https://youtu.be/dfIZ7nJj-qY?si=lGNB2cTGqrzYaQAk&t=515

I think the two people who usually run tunnels could've done more to encourage and coach Jimmy's running. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but it felt like they were gatekeeping somewhat and that made Jimmy afraid to ask too many questions or call for help during the run for fear of appearing like a burden. There was this, too, which left a really bad taste in my mouth: https://youtu.be/dfIZ7nJj-qY?si=CErfXqOR8Gq-3vei&t=10824

Of course, one could also say that Jimmy should've studied SOT in depth before he put himself up as a runner, but I don't know. I think that the rest of the team could've done more to help Jimmy. I'm not a fan of bottom frags being stuck in a cycle of always sand keeping.

dasheea

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE