#- themselves away and it's tragic. my case is a bit different because it involves an adoption after ww2 so it's a bit messy

[spokelseskladden]

im from northern norway and i've been pretty lucky with the way most teachers tried to fulfill the learing requirements in the sense that I've actually learned about saami history and erasure, because apparently down in the south of norway a lot of teachers just. skip over the part where the norwegian government tried to erase saami culture and very nearly succeeded so yeah. kinda fucked up that.

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 302: As the Todoroki Turns

Previously on BnHA: 

Today on BnHA: We have a very fun chapter in which (1) Shouto grows up lonely on account of his parents being worried that his siblings will literally try to kill him, (2) Natsu and Fuyu grow up neglected on account of not being special and/or self-destructive enough to attract attention, (3) we get to revisit all of that exciting spousal abuse from chapter 39, and (4) Touya burns to death right on cue, pretty much exactly like we expected it to happen. Thankfully since this is a shounen manga, Horikoshi finds some hope in all this misery as the Todoroki family rallies together, with Shouto getting his long-overdue credit for being a perfect sweet angel who put up with all of this shit for sixteen years and somehow came out of it strong and kind and empathetic and determined. Anyway, so that flashback was a barrel of laughs. But now that it’s over, we can put all of that angst behind us, and move on to... well I guess, probably, more angst. Look, we’re short on variety at the moment. Bear with it.

ouch. we knew this was coming, but still

A+ parenting move there. “ho boy, our eldest just tried to murder our youngest, now what? hmm how about we isolate our youngest from all human contact”

though in their defense, we probably shouldn’t have expected this rabidly strength-obsessed fire man and his wife who was groomed since childhood to obey her family’s whims to have any idea of how to raise stable, well-adjusted offspring

SERIOUSLY YOU GUYS

this is a perfect example of Enji’s tragically self-revolving viewpoint right here. just because being a hero is your entire world doesn’t mean you can just excuse yourself from anything outside of that and act like it’s out of your control. “alas, all I care about is hero stuff and my son can’t be a hero, we are doomed to inhabit two different worlds” no you jackass, it’s called having more than one hobby?? figuring out how to spend some time with your son that doesn’t involve training?? the same exact thing you were telling him to do last week, while ignoring that you’ve never done that yourself in your life??

that said, yet again we have that complexity though because it’s obvious that Enji at least on some level is aware of his own flaws, even though he seems unwilling or unable to confront them. honestly, from what we’ve seen so far, Enji’s obsession with surpassing All Might might be more accurately called an addiction. he literally can’t let go of it even though he’s fully aware of how it’s slowly destroying his life. and so in the same way that a lifelong smoker or alcoholic might tell their child to stay away from cigarettes and booze, Enji tells Touya not to follow down the same path as him, even though he himself doesn’t know how to leave that path. so yes, it’s hypocritical as fuck, but there’s also an element of helplessness there as well because Enji literally doesn’t know how not to be like this

though all the same he sure could stand to put in more than just a token effort. but it is what it is, and we already know how much he’ll come to regret it

and meanwhile Baby Shouto has frozen his sleep bubble with his quirk lmao. so I guess his quirk did come in early. that’s a recipe for chaos right there

once again Shouto is ruining every single dramatic panel in this flashback

this was so dark and intense... and then I spotted the lil bubs in the corner. Horikoshi please control yourself

“some hero you are, running away” and then all of a sudden, “FIVE YEARS LATER��� lol what. OKAY THEN

(ETA: love the confirmation that eight-year-old Natsu comes from the Iida school of puberty and is basically a fully grown man, and meanwhile Touya comes from the hobbit school of puberty and has been perpetually eight for the past five years.)

“HEY BIG BRO WANNA COME RECREATE AN ICONIC FLASHBACK SCENE WITH US. WE’VE GOT THE SOCCER BALL RIGHT HERE, BUT HURRY UP OR WE’LL BE TOO LATE FOR SHOUTO TO WALK ON BY AND STOP TO LOOK”

lol and that’s literally the next three panels. but Horikoshi did add this extra bit after Endeavor starts to drag Shouto away

seriously Enji what the hell did you expect was going to happen here. “Touya went nuts and tried to kill his little brother out of jealousy, so let’s make it clearer than ever that Shouto is the important child and all the other children are just rejects. this will definitely not make the problem 100x worse, and will surely lead to Touya giving up and living a happy life, having been emotionally abandoned by the person he admired more than anyone.” good for you pal you figured it all out. no need for that plan b, “we all just go to therapy”

anyway so he’s telling Shouto he can’t play because he needs more endurance training. and meanwhile Touya’s patented Todoroki Drama Genes are going through puberty as well

definitely the face of a happy, emotionally stable child who’s not still plotting to murder his younger brother in his sleep

“WELL ACTUALLY MAKESTE” lol I stand corrected??

apparently during the five year interim Touya actually stopped blaming Shouto and realized Enji was the one at fault. good for him! a bit inconsistent, given what we know happens later, but I assume we’ll get to that in good time

anyway. “yeah man I agree that dad sucks, but it’s the middle of the night and I’m only eight and you’ve been monologuing for the past two hours bro”

LMAO

the manga is making my jokes for me, only better. fine then

looks like someone’s still miffed about that disagreement he had with his baby sister back when she was like four

“Fuyu doesn’t get properly riled up like I want her to so ranting to her is annoying.” okay but having been in Fuyu’s shoes, it really is just a different way of coping, and I can guarantee she’s not as fine with the whole situation as Touya might think. but making your peace with something is often a decision that’s made for emotional self-preservation reasons. and I sure as hell don’t fault her for trying to shut out a situation that she had no control over, and trying to make the best of it, and scrape together as normal a childhood as she could manage

and now in Touya’s defense as well, that is of course easier said than done, and I’m sure if there was a “push this button and instantly get over all of the trauma in your life” switch readily available for Touya then he would have pushed it too. unfortunately it’s not always that simple

so now Rei is pleading with Touya not to go train up on his little emo hill again, but it doesn’t seem like much has changed since he was eight

I don’t think he gives two figs about being a hero; he just wants his father to look at him again with pride. fucking hell, stop doing this to me you damn Todorokis

guh, they keep telling him the same thing over and over again

even if we hadn’t already known he was gonna go melt his jawbone off soon, I wouldn’t have expected a line like that to go over well

yep. fuck

that Todoroki puberty angst, though. nothing else quite like it

“you have a part in this too, Mom” ooooooh man

okay but look, he’s not entirely wrong. like, I’m not saying any of this is Rei’s fault at all! she’s in an impossible situation where she’s afraid to stand up to Enji (who by this point has shown that he’s willing to physically attack her if things get too heated, which is terrifying), and doesn’t really have anywhere to turn for support. her parents aren’t helping much if at all, and Japan in general is just a terrible country to be in when you’re in a domestic abuse situation. everyone’s expected to put on a brave face and deal with their problems all on their own in private. Rei is basically completely isolated at this point, and she doesn’t know what else to do, and so she’s just trying to keep the situation as stable as possible for the kids

but on the other hand, “for the kids” is also where that argument starts to break down a bit, because at this point Shouto is also being physically abused by his father, and the other kids are continuing to be neglected (emotionally if not physically), as they have been for years. so the situation really isn’t stable at all for them. and as a kid, what you end up learning in that type of situation is that you can’t rely on either parent. not the abusive one, certainly, but also not the other one who can’t protect you from any of it. even if they love you and they’re trying, they’re just as helpless as you. Rei is struggling to deal with all of this with one hand tied behind her back, and I get it, and I’m not blaming her at all. but all the same, particularly given that she’s (understandably) putting almost all her focus on Shouto, the end result is that the other kids have basically been left to fend for themselves

so yeah! a shitty situation all around. and one of those cases where it’s not really anyone’s fault (aside from Enji’s), but I can understand the resentment Touya is feeling all the same. and I’m so glad Horikoshi is acknowledging this, because it’s something I probably would have been too uncomfortable to bring up otherwise. as it is it’s still an incredibly heavy subject, and one that I probably have too many personal feelings about

anyway, so once again the whole “we’ll try talking to him and then just shrug our shoulders when it doesn’t work” parenting strategy doesn’t really pan out for the Todoroki fam

sob this boy is Anakin Skywalkering before our very eyes. all that’s missing is AFO to come and start whispering in his ear. any minute now...

“anyway so then he got taller and his fire changed from red to blue”

guess we’re getting pretty close then huh. this is the part of the flashback that I really don’t want to see, but also unfortunately the part that I’m most curious about :/

oh for fuck’s --

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN IGNORING HIM FOR FIVE YEARS DIDN’T ACTUALLY DO ANYTHING TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM” sob. back to the drawing board I guess

I thought he got taller, why is he still only like a third of Enji’s height here

oh fuck me these are armor-piercing feels. this is the heavy artillery right here

ENJI I’M BEGGING YOU PLEASE STOP AND THINK FOR ONE MOMENT IN YOUR LIFE BEFORE DOING SOMETHING YOU’LL REGRET FOR THE REST OF ALL TIME. your child just told you that he still thinks beating All Might is the only thing you care about, and that he believes his existence is a mistake unless he finds some way of doing that for you. please stop for a moment to contemplate that and choose your next words with care and grace and oh who the hell am I kidding

-- OR WE COULD JUST BLAME REI

go on and blame everyone but yourself then!! that’s a great solution!! jesus christ man I know this is Endeavor at his literal worst but still this is fucking hard to watch

POOR BABY SHOUTO IS YELLING AT HIS DAD NOT TO HIT HIS MOMMY THIS LITTLE BRAVE BOY NEEDS SO MANY HUGS OH MY GOD

AND MEANWHILE THE OTHERS ARE HUDDLED IN THE NEXT ROOM TRYING NOT TO CRY AH FUCK

(ETA: Fuyu covering Natsu’s ears cuts RIGHT TO THE CORE OF ME. Horikoshi if you’re really not gonna get these kids some therapy then at least consider giving your readers some. what is this.)

you know it’s bad when you’re starting to think the part where the kid burns to death might actually be a less traumatic thing to cut to right now

holy shit, actual Rei thoughts

“I was the one who ultimately made that choice” well there we go, wonder if that’ll put that whole argument to bed at last. I doubt it, but you never know. actually who am I kidding it’s not gonna settle jack shit lol

oh thank god, they decided it was getting too intense and cut away back to the present to narrate this next (final?) part

get ready to cue up that Alicia Keys. THIS BOY IS ON FIREEEEEEE

yeah I think that’s one thing we can mostly all agree on. neither of them had any clue what the fuck they were doing pretty much at any point. though I will say that the hypocrisy of him being all “WHY DIDN’T YOU STOP HIM” followed by him IMMEDIATELY DOING THE EXACT SAME THING is a bit rich

(ETA: and he still has this problem, doesn’t he? he froze up when Ending snatched Natsuo, and again when Dabi was attacking Shouto. he’s so afraid of doing the wrong thing that he ends up not doing anything, which of course is exactly what led to Touya’s death. damn Enji I guess you’ve still got some additional character development to unlock.)

and of course neither of them could possibly have known how badly it was going to turn out. like, the consequences here were WAY disproportionate even for the shittiest of parenting. no one expects “I didn’t know how to talk to my son” to snowball into “my son burned to death and then somehow came back as a villain and murdered thirty people”

ohhhhhhhh fuck me

LITERALLY INCINERATED THE ENTIRE HILLSIDE. fuck. and I am so not ready for the scene of Enji finding the remains of his jawbone afterwards. at least we were spared anything super-graphic (for now at least)

I feel like the timeline here is off, btw?? wasn’t Touya’s death supposed to happen after Rei got hospitalized? this might be the first actual retcon of the entire flashback. although I think it makes more sense this way tbh

I do appreciate that ten years later Enji is finally reflecting on the fact that if he’d just given up his stupid obsession he could have stopped his family from crumbling apart. that probably sounds sarcastic as fuck, but it’s not. there are countless jerks out there who would have still managed to find a way to blame literally everyone and everything under the sun except for themselves. at least he finally figured out how to take responsibility, even if it came too late to stop his son from dying and being radicalized into a villain terrorist organization

and speaking of, it seems to me we’re missing a third and final part to this little tale of woe, and one which only Touya himself will be able to shed any light on. so we’ll see how that goes

oh man seeing the other kids blaming themselves even though none of it was their fault hits hard af. Rei wasn’t kidding when she said they’d been bearing that burden of guilt far longer than Enji

SHOUTO I SWEAR TO GOD IF THE NEXT PANEL IS YOU APOLOGIZING FOR BEING BORN, I WILL... WELL I’LL BE VERY SAD, I GUESS. SO DON’T DO IT

oh good he’s just being quiet. good. it absolutely is not your fault lil bean. it’s not theirs either, but feeling guilty about things that aren’t your fault is a time-honored shounen tradition

goddammit I braced myself for the angsty Shouto panel a page too early. gotta do it all over again now lol. okay here goes

;_;

well well well would you look at that

imagine that. talking things out with your child before they make a rash decision. looks like the Todorokis’ parenting skills are finally leveling up

OH MY GOD

holy shit. this is the most quintessential moment of father/son Todoroki bonding in the entire series. for me it even tops the “nice scar” scene lol. Enji sobbing at the fact that he still has a chance to set things right. and Shouto offering his hand in what is actually the most mature and selfless gesture I’ve ever seen, and being all “we’ll stop him together” to his dad who he hates, but also doesn’t really entirely hate anymore. and all of that is incredibly moving... BUT ALSO HE STILL REFUSES TO MAKE EYE CONTACT WITH HIM AND HE WOULD LIKE HIM TO STOP BEING SO FUCKING DRAMATIC ALREADY IF YOU DON’T MIND. “WHEN YOU’RE DONE CRYING...” fkjldsk

OH MY FUCKING LORD

(ETA: wouldn’t be a Todoroki drama fest if there wasn’t somebody listening in on the whole thing in secret just around the corner lmao.)

“you think we should have waited somewhere else?” “yeah, probably.” “are you feeling a lot of secondhand embarrassment too?” “god, you have no idea.” STFU HAWKS IT’S NOT EMBARASSING TO BE MOVED TO TEARS BY YOUR FAMILY ALL COMING TOGETHER IN YOUR DARKEST HOUR TO GIVE YOU HOPE THAT YOU PROBABLY DON’T DESERVE BUT ARE NONETHELESS INDESCRIBABLY GRATEFUL FOR

and anyway you chose these guys as your found family, bucko. too late to back out now. next time go get yourself adopted by the Iidas then

AND MEANWHILE NO WORD ON THE WHOLE “HOW DID A THIRTEEN-YEAR-OLD SURVIVE A FIRE THAT COVERED HIS BODY WITH HORRIFIC SCARS AND MELTED HIS JAW OFF, AND HOW DID HE SOMEHOW THEN MANAGE TO GO INTO HIDING FOR TEN WHOLE YEARS, AND WHAT HAPPENED IN THAT INTERIM TO CHANGE HIS GOAL FROM ‘SURPASS ALL MIGHT TO IMPRESS MY DAD’ TO ‘KILL ALL HEROES TO MAKE MY DAD SUFFER’.” as if we don’t know the answer to that. but still, would it kill Horikoshi to just confirm AFO’s involvement in all of this already. at this point it’s basically just a formality

so here’s hoping next week we’ll either get that, or more Hawks action, or (DARE I EVEN SUGGEST, I’M AFRAID TO JINX IT) finally cut back to Bakugou and Deku and All Might omg. either way I’m hyped

[theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin]

So what exactly do you think about the whole vampire “mate” thing? Along with the whole idea that the vampire emotional nature is like “stone” and thus can only love romantically the once?

Mates? I don’t think they exist.

Alright, fine, a serious answer.

I think it’s not so much mates, per se, that there’s one person out there for you in the whole wide world and if you miss them you’re a soulless husk forever but a product of vampire neurology. 

It’s not so much that vampires don’t change, or at least, no less than humans do (we tend not to change without catalyst either). However, I do think that vampires are a bit more stubborn in their nature than us humans and their profound memory helps them along.

A vampire never forgets the joy of being in love, never forgets what they initially loved about their partner, and in the case of Marcus never forgets the grief of losing them. 

But I think they feel love, sorrow, anger, etc. as much as we humans do. They just have this overly romantic mythos that they themselves have bandied about for thousands of years.

What do I mean?

Well, the ‘mates’ we see are unconvincing. There’s Marcus, yes, and it’s implied that he had something truly profound with Didyme. But what about the others?

The Cullen Family alone is full of disastrous marriages that will fall apart any second now.

Bella/Edward is such a shit show of yikes involving no love whatsoever and more the lust that a lion feels when about to feast on a gazelle (that Edward also uses this analogy really says something to me). Remember that Meyer presents Bella/Edward as the best and brightest of all the mated pairs.

Edward marries and falls in love with her while she’s still human, a very rare phenomenon. He tries to leave her but finds himself physically unable to, within six months both he and Bella attempt suicide (nevermind that Bella was clinically depressed and Edward is in love with his own tragic theater and martyrdom). 

Meyer describes them of having the wonderful spiritual connection of Carlisle/Esme and the physical intamacy of Rosalie/Emmett (which of course means that Rosalie and Emmett are the only couple in this goddamn house that actually have any sexual intercourse). 

This is the love story the entire series hinges on.

And it’s like a virtual novel where you’re playing as Bella Swan, and if you made even one, small, wrong choice along the way Vampire Patrick Bateman sneaks into your room and devours you, your father, and maybe your entire graduating class.

By some miracle, Bella unwittingly travels the golden path. For her, that is, for everyone else it will end in very very bad places.

Then we have Carlisle/Esme, where they seem to be held together by wishful thinking and denial. Neither is really what the other wants, they share completely different values, their miscommunication is profound, and while I won’t get into it here I will say that I think they very likely have 0 physical intimacy for a variety of reasons.

Edward looks to Carlisle/Esme as his ideal relationship and what he wants to recreate with Bella. Which is... very Edward.

The only ones in the Cullens not a complete disaster, but still should have couple’s therapy, are Rosalie and Emmett. And here’s where I go, “alright, maybe there’s something to this mated pair thing”. Because the story of Rosalie is she finds this man torn apart by bears, after having been a victim of gang rape, carries his bleeding carcass for miles, dumps him on Carlisle’s table, and says, “MAKE ME A HUSBAND”. And it somehow works out for them. It’s the world’s weirdest pairing, in Midnight Sun we learn that Rosalie is just as weirded out as we the audience are, because her brain just tells her that this man is her husband.

So perhaps there’s some instinctual connection, but we certainly don’t see it in all vampire couples. So, if the mate thing does exist, I suspect it’s a) extremely rare b) is probably not one unique match in all the world.

That said though, even Rosalie and Emmett have issues and I’d hardly call them soulmates. They don’t really get each other, I think. Emmett certainly doesn’t understand Rosalie and I think Rosalie does find Emmett is often a boor. They love each other, certainly like each other, but they’re not two connecting puzzle pieces.

Otherwise, outside of these guys there’s... Pretty much Marcus.

Aro is gay, clearly enamored with Carlisle, and locked his wife in a tower.

Caius also locked his wife in a tower.

Eleazar left the Volturi for Carmen, but Eleazar is a dick and useless (this is for another meta). By the sounds of it Aro was jumping at an excuse to get rid of him.

Marcus, mourning for two-thousand years straight, is enough to convince me that something’s up. However, he could simply have been in love the way elves in LotR love, and they don’t have soulmates either.

Plus, mates are so cheap to me.

Every time, every time, I see it used it’s a cheap prop to do away with actually convincing us this is a convincing and moving love story.

Bella and Edward belong together because they’re soulmates.

Kylo-Ren and Rey are a dyad in the Force and therefore their love is a great one.

Tom Riddle and Harry Potter have their names written on each others arms in your fanfiction du jour and it’s very angsty because they’re soulmates with their greatest enemy and someone they don’t even like. Don’t ask how they could possibly be soulmates in this scenario, they just are, because I say so.

Every time you resort to using mates to convince your audience that your pairing is a superior love a puppy dies. 

Right, the falling in love romantically once, well look at my fics and I clearly don’t believe that. What I will say is that vampires can hold onto their memories longer than us, so if they want to reminisce over being romantically in love, they can, and falling in love with someone else might be harder for them. 

However, I don’t think there’s anything stopping them. We see many vampires with very complicated and frankly very human relationships. They play themselves for fools, yearn, and settle for people they do not truly love just as much as we humans do. 

[insanehobbit]

a twenty-five thousand word post about a twenty-three year old “debate”

As time goes on, I’m baffled that it remains a commonly held opinion that:

The LTD remains unresolved

SE is deliberately playing coy, and are (or have been) afraid to resolve it.

To me, the answer is as clear as day, and yet seeing so many people acting as if it’s a question that remains unanswered makes me wonder if I’m the crazy one.

So I am going to try to articulate my thought process here, not because I expect to change any hearts and minds, but more to get these thoughts out of my head and onto a page so I can finally read a book and/or watch reruns of Shark Tank in peace.

To start off, there are two categories of argument (that are among, if not the most widely used lines of argument) that I will try NOT to engage with:

1) Quotes from Ultimania or developer interviews - while they’re great for easter eggs and behind-the-scenes info, if a guidebook is required to understand key plot points, you have fundamentally failed as a storyteller. Now the question of which character wants to bone whom is often something that can be relegated to a guidebook, but in the case of FF7, you would be watching two very different stories play out depending on who Cloud ends up with.

Of course, the Ultimanias do spell this out clearly, but luckily for us, SE are competent enough storytellers that we can find the answer by looking at the text alone.

2) Arguments about character actions/motivations — specifically, I’m talking about stuff like “Cloud made this face in this scene, which means be must be [insert whatever here].”

Especially when it comes to the LTD, these tend to focus on individual actions, decontextualizing them from their role in the narrative as a whole. LTDers often try to put themselves in the character’s shoes to suss out what they may be thinking and feeling in those moments. These arguments will be colored by personal experiences, which will inevitably vary.

Let’s take for example Cloud’s behavior in Advent Children. One may argue that it makes total sense given that he’s dying and fears failing the ones he loves. Another may argue that there’s no way that he would run unless he was deeply unhappy and pining after a lost love. Well, you’ll probably just be talking over each other until the cows come home. Such is the problem with trying to play armchair therapist with a fictional character. It’s not like we can ask Cloud himself why he did what he did (and even if we could, he’s not the exactly the most reliable narrator in the world). Instead, in trying to understand his motivations, we are left with no choice but to draw comparisons with our own personal experiences, those of our friends, or other works of media we’ve consumed. Any interpretation would be inherently subjective and honestly, a futile subject for debate.

There’s nothing wrong with drawing personal connections with fictional characters of course. That is the purpose of art after all. They are vessels of empathy. But when we’re talking about what is canon, it doesn’t matter what we take away. What matters is the creators’ intent.

Cloud, Tifa and Aerith are not your friends Bob, Alice and Maude. They are characters created by Square Enix. Real people can behave in a variety of different ways if they found themselves in the situations faced by our dear trio; however, FF7 characters are not sentient creatures. Everything they do or say is dictated by the developers to serve the story they are trying to tell.

So what do we have left then? Am I asking you, dear reader, to just trust me, anonymous stranger on the Internet, when I tell you #clotiiscanon. Well, in a sense, yes, but more seriously, I’m going to try to suss out what the creator’s intent is based on what is, and more importantly, what isn’t, on screen.

Instead of putting ourselves in the shoes of the characters, let’s try putting ourselves in the shoes of the creators. So the question would then be, if the intent is X, then what purpose does character Y or scene Z serve?

The story of FF7 isn’t the immutable word of God etched in a stone tablet. For every scene that made it into the final game, there are dozens of alternatives that were tossed aside. Let us also not forget the crude economics of popular storytelling. Spending resources on one particular aspect of the game may mean something entirely unrelated will have to be cut for time. Thus, the absence of a particular character/scenario is an alternative in itself. So with all these options at their disposal, why is the scene we see before us the one that made it into the final cut? — Before we dive in, I also want to define two broad categories of narrative: messy and clean.

Messy narratives are ones I would define as stories that try to illuminate something about the human condition, but may not leave the audience feeling very good by the end of it. The protagonists, while not always anti-heroes, don’t always exhibit the kind of growth we’d like, don’t always learn their lessons, probably aren’t the best role models. The endings are often ambivalent, ambiguous, and leaves room for the audience to take away from it what they will. This is the category I would put art films and prestige cable dramas.

Clean narratives are where I would categorize most popular forms of entertainment. Not that these characters necessarily lack nuance, but whatever flaws are portrayed are something to be overcome by the end of story. The protagonists are characters you’re supposed to want to root for

Final Fantasy as a series would fall under the ‘clean’ category. Sure, many of the protagonists start out as jerks, but they grow through these flaws and become true heroes by the end of their journey. Hell, a lot of the time even the villains are redeemed. They want you to like the characters you’re spending a 40+ hr journey with. Their depictions can still be realistic, but they will become the most idealized versions of themselves by the end of their journeys.

This is important to establish, because we can then assume that it is not SE’s intent to make any of their main characters come off pathetic losers or unrepentant assholes. Now whether or not they succeed in that endeavor is another question entirely.

FF7 OG or The dumbest thought experiment in the world

With that one thousand word preamble out of the way, let’s finally take a look at the text. In lieu of going through the OG’s story beat by beat, let’s try this thought experiment:

Imagine it’s 1996, and you’re a development executive at what was then Squaresoft. The plucky, young development team has the first draft of what will become the game we know as Final Fantasy VII. Like the preceding entries in the series, it’s a world-spanning action adventure RPG, with a key subplot being the epic tragic romance between its hero and heroine, Cloud and Aerith.

They ask you for your notes.

(For the sake of your sanity and mine, let’s limit our hypothetical notes to the romantic subplot)

Disc 1 - everything seems to be on the right track. Nice meet-cute, lots of moments developing the relationship between our pair. Creating a love triangle with this Tifa character is an interesting choice, but she’s a comparatively minor character so she probably won’t be a real threat and will find her happiness elsewhere by the end of the game. You may note that they’re leaning a bit too much into Tifa and Cloud’s past. Especially the childhood promise flashback early in the game — cute scene, but a distraction from main story and main pairing — fodder for the chopping block. You may also bump on the fact that Aerith is initially attracted to Cloud because he reminds her of an ex, but this is supposed to be a more mature FF. That can be an obstacle they overcome as Aerith gets to know the real Cloud.

Aerith dies, but it is supposed to be a tragic romance after all. Death doesn’t have to be the end for this relationship, especially since Aerith is an Ancient after all.

It’s when Disc 2 starts that things go off the rails. First off, it feels like an awfully short time for Cloud to be grieving the love of his life, though it’s somewhat understandable. This story is not just a romance. There are other concerns after all, Cloud’s identity crisis for one. Though said identity crisis involves spending a lot of time developing his relationship with another woman. It’s one thing for Cloud and Tifa to be from the same hometown, but does she really need to play such an outsized role in his internal conflict? This might give the player the wrong impression.

You get to the Northern Crater, and it just feels all wrong. Cloud is more or less fine after the love of his life is murdered in front of his eyes but has a complete mental breakdown to the point that he’s temporarily removed as a playable character because Tifa loses faith in him??? Shouldn’t it be the other way around?

Oh, but it only gets worse from here. With Cloud gone, the POV switches to Tifa and her feelings for him and her desire to find him. The opening of the game is also recontextualized when you learn the only reason that Cloud was part of the first Reactor mission that starts the game is because Tifa found him and wanted to keep an eye on him.

Then you get to Mideel and the alarm bells are going off. Tifa drops everything, removing her from the party as well, to take care of Cloud while he’s a catatonic vegetable? Not good. Very not good. This level of selfless devotion is going to make Cloud look like a total asshole when he rejects her in favor of Aerith. Speaking of Aerith, she uh…hasn’t been mentioned for some time. In fact, her relationship with Cloud has remained completely static after Disc 1, practically nonexistent, while his with Tifa has been building and building. Developing a rival relationship that then needs to be dismantled rather than developing the endgame relationship doesn’t feel like a particularly valuable use of time and resources.

By the time you get to the Lifestream scene, you’re about ready to toss the script out of the window. Here’s the emotional climax of the entire game, where Cloud’s internal conflict is finally resolved, and it almost entirely revolves around Tifa? Rather than revisiting the many moments of mental anguish we experienced during the game itself — featuring other characters, including let’s say, Aerith — it’s about a hereto unknown past that only Tifa has access to? Not only that, but we learn that the reason Cloud wanted to join SOLDIER was to impress Tifa, and the reason he adopted his false persona was because he was so ashamed that he couldn’t live up to the person he thought Tifa wanted him to be? Here, we finally get a look into the inner life of one half of our epic couple and…it entirely revolves around another woman??

Cloud is finally his real self, and hey, it looks like he finally remembers Aerith, that’s at least a step in the right direction. Though still not great. With his emotional arc already resolved, any further romantic developments is going to feel extraneous and anticlimactic. It just doesn’t feel like there’s enough time to establish that:

Cloud’s romantic feelings for Tifa (which were strong enough to launch his hero’s journey) have transformed into something entirely platonic in the past few days/weeks

Cloud’s feelings for Aerith that he developed while he was pretending to be someone else (and not just any someone, but Aerith’s ex of all people) are real.

This isn’t a romantic melodrama after all. There’s still a villain to kill and a world to save.

Cloud does speak of Aerith wistfully, and even quite personally at times, yet every time he talks about her, he’s surrounded by the other party members. A scene or two where he can grapple with his feelings for her on his own would help. Her ghost appearing in the Sector 5 Church feels like a great opportunity for this to happen, but he doesn’t interact with it at all. What gives? Missed opportunity after missed opportunity.

The night before the final battle, Cloud asks the entire party to find what they’re fighting for. This feels like a great (and perhaps the last) opportunity to establish that for Cloud, it’s in Aerith’s memory and out of his love for her. He could spend those hours alone in any number of locations associated with her — the Church, the Temple of the Ancients, the Forgotten City.

Instead — none of those happens. Instead, once again, it’s Cloud and Tifa in another scene where they’re the only two characters in the scene. You’re really going to have Cloud spend what could very well be the last night of his life with another woman? With a fade to black that strongly implies they slept together? In one fell swoop, you’re portraying Cloud as a guy who not only betrays the memory of his lost love, but is also incredibly callous towards the feelings of another woman by taking advantage of her vulnerability. Why are we rooting for him to succeed again?

Cloud and the gang finally defeat Sephiroth, and Aerith guides him back into the real world. Is he finally explicitly stating that he’s searching for her (though they’ve really waited until the last minute to do so), but again, why is Tifa in this scene? Shouldn’t it just be Cloud and Aerith alone? Why have Tifa be there at all? Why have her and her alone of all the party members be the one waiting for Cloud? Do you need to have Tifa there to be rejected while Cloud professes his unending love for Aerith? It just feels needlessly cruel and distracts from what should be the sole focus of the scene, the love between Cloud and Aerith.

What a mess.

You finish reading, and since it is probably too late in the development process to just fire everyone, you offer a few suggestions that will clarify the intended romance while the retaining the other plot points/general themes of the game.

Here they are, ordered by scale of change, from minor to drastic:

Option 1 would be to keep most of the story in tact, but rearrange the sequence of events so that the Lifestream sequence happens before Aerith’s death. That way, Cloud is his true self and fully aware of his feelings for both women before Aerith’s death. That way, his past with Tifa isn’t some ticking bomb waiting to go off in the second half of the game. That development will cease at the Lifestream scene. Cloud will realize the affection he held for her as a child is no longer the case. He is grateful for the past they shared, but his future is with Aerith. He makes a clear choice before that future is taken away from him with her death. The rest of the game will go on more or less the same (with the Highwind scene being eliminated, of course) making it clear, that avenging the death of his beloved is one of, if not the, primary motivation for him wanting to defeat Sephiroth.

The problem with this “fix” is that a big part of the reason that Aerith gets killed is because of Cloud’s identity crisis. If said crisis is resolved, the impact of her death will be diminished, because it would feel arbitrary rather than something that stems from the consequences of Cloud’s actions. More of the story will need to be reconceived so that this moment holds the same emotional weight.

Another problem is why the Lifestream scene needs to exist at all. Why spend all that time developing the backstory for a relationship that will be moot by the end of the game? It makes Tifa feel like less of a character and more of a plot device, who becomes irrelevant after she services the protagonist’s character development and then has none of her own. That’s no way to treat one of the main characters of your game.

Option 2 would be to re-imagine Tifa’s character entirely. You can keep some of her history with Cloud in tact, but expand her backstory so she is able to have a satisfactory character arc outside of her relationship with Cloud. You could explore the five years in her life since the Nibelheim incident. Maybe she wasn’t in Midgar the whole time. Maybe, like Barret, she has her own Corel, and maybe reconciling with her past there is the climax of her emotional arc as opposed to her past with Cloud. For Cloud too, her importance needs to be diminished. She can be one of the people who help him find his true self in the Lifestream, but not the only person. There’s no reason the other people he’s met on his journey can’t be there. Thus their relationship remains somewhat important, but their journeys are not so entwined that it distracts from Cloud and Aerith’s romance.

Option 3 would be to really lean into the doomed romance element of Cloud and Aerith’s relationship. Have her death be the cause of his mental breakdown, and have Aerith be the one in the Lifestream who is able to put his mind back together and bring him back to the realm of consciousness. After he emerges, he has the dual goal of defeating Sephiroth and trying to reunite with Aerith. In the end, in order to do the former, he has to relinquish the latter. He makes selfless choice. He makes the choice that resonates the overall theme of the game. It’s a bittersweet but satisfying ending. Cloud chooses to honor her memory and her purpose over the chance to physically bring her back. In this version of the game, the love triangle serves no purpose. There’s no role for Tifa at all.

Okay, we can be done with this strained counterfactual. What I’ve hopefully illustrated is that while developers had countless opportunities to solidify Cloud/Aerith as the canon couple in Discs 2 and 3 of the game, they instead chose a different route each and every time. What should also be clear is that the biggest obstacle standing in their way is not Aerith’s death, but the fact that Tifa exists.

At least in the form she takes in the final game, as a playable character and at the very least, the 3rd most important character in game’s story. She is not just another recurring NPC or an antagonist. Her love for Cloud is not going to be treated like a mere trifle or obstacle. If Cloud/Aerith was supposed to be the endgame ship, there would be no need for a love triangle and no need to include Tifa in the game at all. Death is a big enough obstacle, developing Cloud’s relationship with Tifa would only distract from and diminish his romance with Aerith.

I think this is something the dead enders understand intuitively, even more so than many Cloti shippers. Which is why some of them try to dismiss Tifa’s importance in the story so that she becomes a minor supporting character at best, or denigrate her character to the point that she becomes an actual villain. The Seifer to a Squall, the Seymour to a Tidus, hell even a Quistis to a Rinoa, they know how to deal with, but a Tifa Lockhart? As she is actually depicted in Final Fantasy VII? They have no playbook for that, and thus they desperately try to squeeze her into one of these other roles.

Let’s try another thought experiment, and see what would to other FF romances if we inserted a Tifa Lockhart-esque character in the middle of them.

FFXV is a perfect example because it features the sort of tragic love beyond death romance that certain shippers want Cloud and Aerith to be. Now, did I think FFXV was a good game? No. Did I think Noctis/Luna was a particularly well-developed romance? Also no. Did I have any question in my mind whatsoever that they were the canon relationship? Absolutely not.

Is this because they kiss at the end? Well sure, that helps, but also it’s because the game doesn’t spend the chapters after Luna’s death developing Noctis’ relationship with another woman. If Noctis/Luna had the same sort of development as Cloud/Aerith, then after Luna dies, Iris would suddenly pop in and play a much more prominent role. The game would flashback to her past and her relationship with Noctis. And it would be through his relationship with Iris that Noctis understands his duty to become king or a crystal or whatever the fuck that game was about. Iris is by Noctis’ side through the final battle, and when he ascends the throne in that dreamworld or whatever. There, Luna finally shows up again. Iris is still in the frame when Noctis tells her something like ‘Oh sorry, girl, I’ve been in love with Luna all along,” before he kisses Luna and the game ends.

(a very real scene from a very good game)

Come on. It would be utterly ludicrous and an utter disservice to every character involved, yet that is essentially the argument Cloud/Aerith shippers are making. SE may have made some pretty questionable storytelling decisions in the past, but they aren’t that bad at this.

Or in FFVIII, it would be like reordering the sequence of events so that Squall remembers that he grew up in an orphanage with all the other kids after Rinoa falls into a coma. And while Rinoa is out of commission, instead of Quistis gracefully bowing out after realizing she had mistaken her feelings of sisterly affection for love, it becomes Quistis’ childhood relationship with Squall that allows him to remember his past and re-contextualizes the game we’ve played thus far, so that the player realizes that it was actually Quistis who was his motivation all along. Then after this brief emotional detour, his romance with Rinoa would continue as usual. Absolutely absurd.

The Final Fantasy games certainly have their fair share of plot holes, but they’ve never whiffed on a romance this badly.

A somewhat more serious character analysis of the OG

What then is Tifa’s actual role in the story of FFVII? Her character is intricately connected to Cloud’s. In fact, they practically have the same arc, though Tifa’s is rather understated compared to his. She doesn’t adopt a false persona after all. For both of them, the flaw that they must learn to overcome over the course of the game is their fear of confronting the truth of their past. Or to put it more crudely, if they’re not lying, they’re at the very least omitting the truth. Cloud does so to protect himself from his fear of being exposed as a failure. Tifa does so at the expense of herself, because she fears the truth will do more harm than good. They’re two sides of the same coin. Nonetheless, their lying has serious ramifications.

The past they’re both afraid to confront is of course the Nibelheim Incident from five years ago. Thus, the key points in their emotional journeys coincide with the three conflicting Nibelheim flashbacks depicted in the game: Cloud’s false memory in Kalm, Sephiroth’s false vision in the Northern Crater, and the truth in the Lifestream.

Before they enter the Lifestream, both Cloud and Tifa are at the lowest of their lows. Cloud has had a complete mental breakdown and is functionally a vegetable. Tifa has given up everything to take care of Cloud as she feels responsible for his condition. If he doesn’t recover, she may never find peace.

With nothing left to lose, they both try to face the past head on. For Cloud, it’s a bit harder. At the heart of all this confusion, is of course, the Nibelheim Incident. How does Cloud know all these things he shouldn’t if Tifa doesn’t remember seeing him there? The emotional climax for both Cloud and Tifa, and arguably the game as a whole, is the moment the Shinra grunt removes his helmet to reveal that Cloud was there all along.

Tifa is the only character who can play this role for Cloud. It’s not like she a found a videotape in the Lifestream labeled ‘Nibelheim Incident - REAL’ and voila, Cloud is fixed. No, she is the only one who can help him because she is the only person who lived through that moment. No one else could make Cloud believe it. You could have Aerith or anyone else trying to tell him what actually happened, but why would he believe it anymore than the story Sephiroth told him at the Northern Crater?

With Tifa, it’s different. Not only was she physically there, but she’s putting as much at risk in what the truth may reveal. She’s not just a plot device to facilitate Cloud’s character development. The Lifestream sequence is as much the culmination of her own character arc. If it goes the wrong way, “Cloud” may find out that he’s just a fake after all, and Tifa may learn that boy she thought she’d been on this journey with had died years ago. That there’s no one left from her past, that it was all in her head, that she’s all alone. Avoiding this truth is a comfort, but in this moment, they’re both putting themselves on the line. Being completely vulnerable in front of the person they’re most terrified of being vulnerable with.

The developers have structured Cloud and Tifa’s character arcs so that the crux is a moment where the other is literally the only person who could provide the answer they need. Without each other, as far as the story is concerned, Cloud and Tifa would remain incomplete.

Aerith’s character arc is a different beast entirely. She is the closest we have to the traditional Campbellian Hero. She is the Chosen One, the literal last of her kind, who has been resisting the call to adventure until she can no longer. The touchstones of her character arc are the moments she learns more about her Cetra past and comes to terms with her role in protecting the planet - namely Cosmo Canyon, the Temple of the Ancients and the Forgotten City.

How do hers and Cloud’s arcs intersect? When it comes to the Nibelheim incident, she is a merely a spectator (at least during the Kalm flashback, as for the other two, she is uh…deceased). Cloud attacking her at the Temple of the Ancients, which results in her running to the Forgotten City alone and getting killed by Sephiroth, certainly exacerbates his mental deterioration, but it is by no means a turning point in his arc the way the Northern Crater is.

As for Cloud’s role in Aerith’s arc, their meeting is quite important in that it sets forth the series of events that leads her to getting captured by Shinra and thus meeting “Sephiroth” and wanting to learn more about the Cetra. It’s the inciting incident if we’re going to be really pedantic about it, yet Aerith’s actual character development is not dependent on her relationship with Cloud. It is about her communion with her Cetra Ancestry and the planet.

To put it in other terms, all else being the same, Aerith could still have a satisfying character arc had Cloud not crashed down into her Church. Sure, the game would look pretty different, but there are other ways for her to transform from a flirty, at times frivolous girl to an almost Christ-like figure who accepts the burden of protecting the planet.

Such is not the case for Cloud and Tifa. Their character arcs are built around their shared past and their relationship with one another. Without Tifa, you would have to rewrite Cloud’s character entirely. What was his motivation for joining SOLDIER? How did he get on that AVALANCHE mission in the first place? Who can possibly know him well enough to put his mind back together after it falls apart? If the answer to all these questions is the same person, then congratulations, you’ve just reverse engineered Tifa Lockhart.

Tifa fares a little better. Without Cloud, she would be a sad, sweet character who never gets the opportunity to reconcile with the trauma of her past. Superficially, a lot would be the same, but she would ultimately be quite static and all the less interesting for it.

Let’s also take a brief gander at Tifa’s role after the Lifestream sequence. At this point in the game, both Tifa and Cloud’s emotional arcs are essentially complete. They are now the most idealized versions of themselves, characters the players are meant to admire and aspire to. However they are depicted going forward, it would not be the creator’s intent for their actions to be perceived in a negative light.

A few key moments standout, ones that would not be included if the game was intended to end with any other romantic pairing or with Cloud’s romantic interest left ambiguous:

The Highwind scene, which I’ve gone over above. It doesn’t matter if you get the Low Affection or High Affection version. It would not reflect well on either Cloud or Tifa if he chose to spend what could be his last night alive with a woman whose feelings he did not reciprocate.

Before the final battle with Sephiroth, the party members scream out the reasons they’re fighting. Barret specifically calls out AVALANCHE, Marlene and Dyne, Red XIII specifically calls out his Grandpa, and Tifa specifically calls out Cloud. You are not going to make one of Tifa’s last moments in the game be her pining after a guy who has no interest in her. Not when you could easily have her mention something like her past, her hometown or hell even AVALANCHE and Marlene like Barret. If Tifa’s feelings for Cloud are meant to be unrequited, then it would be a character flaw that would be dealt with long before the final battle (see: Quistis in FF8 or Eowyn in the Lord of the Rings). They would not still be on display at moment like this.

Tifa being the only one there when Cloud jumps into the Lifestream to fight Sephiroth for the last time, and Tifa being the only one there when he emerges. She is very much playing the traditional partner/spouse role here, when you could easily have the entire party present or no one there at all. There is clearly something special about her relationship with Cloud that sets her apart from the other party members.

Once again, let’s look at the “I think I can meet her there moment.” And let’s put side the translation (the Japanese is certainly more ambiguous, and it’s not like the game had any trouble having Cloud call Aerith by her name before this). If Cloud was really expressing his desire to reunite with Aerith, and thus his rejection of Tifa, then the penultimate scene of this game is one that involves the complete utter and humiliation of one of its main characters since Tifa’s reply would indicate she’s inviting herself to a romantic reunion she has no part in. Not only that, but to anyone who is not Cl*rith shipper, the protagonist of the game is going to come off as a callous asshole. That cannot possibly be the creator’s intention. They are competent enough to depict an act of love without drawing attention to the party hurt by that love.

What then could possibly be the meaning? Could it possibly be Cloud trying to comfort Tifa by trying to find a silver lining in what appears to be their impending death? That this means they may get to see their departed loved ones again, including their mutual friend, Aerith? (I will note that Tifa talks about Aerith as much, if not even more than Cloud, after her death). Seems pretty reasonable to me, this being an interpretation of the scene that aligns with the overall themes of the game, and casts every character in positive light during this bittersweet moment.

Luckily enough, we have an entire fucking Compilation to find out which is right.

But before we get there, I’m sure some of you (lol @ me thinking anyone is still reading this) are asking, if Cloti is canon, then why is there a love triangle at all? Why even hint at the possibility of a romance between Cloud and Aerith? Wouldn’t that also be a waste of time and resources if they weren’t meant to be canon?

Well, there are two very important reasons that have nothing to do with romance and everything to do with two of the game’s biggest twists:

Aerith initially being attracted to Cloud’s similarities to Zack/commenting on the uncanniness of said similarities is an organic way to introduce the man Cloud’s pretending to be. Without it, the reveal in the Lifestream would fall a bit flat. The man he’s been emulating all along would just be some sort of generic hero rather than a person whose history and deeds already encountered during the course of the game. Notably for this to work, the game only has to establish Aerith’s attraction to Cloud.

To build the player’s attachment to Aerith before her death/obscure the fact that she’s going to die. With the technological limitations of the day, the only way to get the player to interact with Aerith is through the player character (AKA Cloud), and adding an element of choice (AKA the Gold Saucer Date mechanic) makes the player even more invested. This then elevates Aerith’s relationship with Cloud over hers with any other character. At the same time, because her time in the game is limited, Cloud ends up interacting with Aerith more than any of the other characters, at least in Disc 1. The choice to make many of these interactions flirty/romantic also toys with player expectations. One does not expect the hero’s love interest to die halfway through the game. The game itself also spends a bit of time teasing the romance, albeit, largely in superficial ways like other characters commenting on their relationship or Cait Sith reading their love fortune at the Temple of the Ancients. Yet, despite the quantity of their personal interactions, Cloud and Aerith never display any moments of deep love or devotion that one associates with a Final Fantasy romance. They never have the time. What the game establishes then is the potential of a romance rather than the romance itself. Aerith’s death hurts because of all that lost potential. There so many things she wanted to do, so many places she wanted to see that will never happen because her life is cut short. Part of what is lost, of course, is the potential of her romance with Cloud.

This creative choice is a lot more controversial since it elevates subverting audience expectations over character, and understandably leads to some player confusion. What’s the point of all this set up if there’s not going to be a pay off? Well, that is kind of the point. Death is frustrating because of all the unknowns and what-ifs. But, I suppose some people just can’t accept that fact in a game like this.

One last note on the OG before we move on: Even though this from an Ultimania, since we’re talking about story development and creator intent, I thought it was relevant to include: the fact that Aerith was the sole heroine in early drafts of the game is not the LTD trump card so people think it is. Stories undergo radical changes through the development process. More often than not, there are too many characters, and characters are often combined or removed if their presence feels redundant or confusing.

In this case, the opposite happened. Tifa was added later in the development process as a second heroine. Let’s say that Aerith was the Last Ancient and the protagonist’s sole love interest in this early draft of Final Fantasy VII. In the game that was actually released, that role was split between two characters (and last I checked, Tifa is not the last of a dying race), and Aerith dies halfway through the game, so what does that suggest about how Aerith’s role may have changed in the final product? Again, if Aerith was intended to be Cloud’s love interest, Tifa simply would not exist.

A begrudging analysis of our favorite straight-to-DVD sequel

Let’s move onto the Compilation. And in doing so, completely forget about the word vomit that’s been written above. While it’s quite clear to me now that there’s no way in hell the developers would have intended the last scene in the game to be both a confirmation of Cloud’s love for Aerith and his rejection of Tifa, in my younger and more vulnerable years, I wasn’t so sure. In fact, this was the prevailing interpretation back in the pre-Compilation Dark Ages. Probably because of a dubious English translation of the game and a couple of ambiguous cameos in Final Fantasy Tactics and Kingdom Hearts were all we  had to go on.

How then did the official sequel to Final Fantasy VII change those priors?

Two years after the events of the game, Cloud is living as a family with Tifa and two kids rather than scouring the planet for a way to be reunited with Aerith. Shouldn’t the debate be well and over with that? Obviously not, and it’s not just because people were being obstinate. Part of the confusion stems from Advent Children itself, but I would argue that did not come from an intent to play coy/keep Cloud’s romantic desires ambiguous, but rather a failure of execution of his character arc.

Now I wasn’t the biggest fan of the film when I first watched a bootlegged copy I downloaded off LimeWire in 2005, and I like it even less now, but I better understand its failures, given its unique position as a sequel to a beloved game and the cornerstone of launching the Compilation.

The original game didn’t have such constraints on its storytelling. Outside of including a few elements that make it recognizable as a Final Fantasy (Moogles, Chocobos, Summons, etc.) and being a good enough game to be a financial success, the developers pretty much had free rein in terms of what story they wanted to tell, what characters they would use to tell it, and how long it took for them to tell said story.

With Advent Children, telling a good story was not the sole or even primary goal. Instead, it had to:

Do some fanservice: The core audience is going to be the OG fanbase, who would be expecting to see modern, high-def depictions of all the memorable and beloved characters from the game, no matter if the natural end point of their stories is long over.

Set up the rest of the Compilation - Advent Children is the draw with the big stars, but also a way to showcase the lesser known characters from from the Compilation who are going to be leading their own spinoffs.  It’s part feature film/part advertisement for the rest of the Compilation. Thus, the Turks, Vincent and Zack get larger roles in the film than one might expect to attract interest to the spinoffs they lead.

Show off its technical prowess: SE probably has enough self awareness to realize that what’s going to set it apart from other animated feature films is not its novel storytelling, but its graphical capabilities. Thus, to really show off those graphics, the film is going to be packed to the brim with big, complicated action scenes with lots of moving parts, as opposed to quieter character driven moments.

These considerations are not unique to Advent Children, but important to note nonetheless:

As a sequel, the stakes have to be just as high if not higher than those in the original work. Since the threat in the OG was the literal end of the world, in Advent Children, the world’s gotta end again

The OG was around 30-40 hours long. An average feature-length film is roughly two hours. Video games and films are two very different mediums. As many TV writers who have tried to make the transition to film (and vice-versa) can tell you, success in one medium does not translate to success in another. 

With so much to do in so little time, is it any wonder then that it is again Sephiroth who is the villain trying to destroy the world and Aerith in the Lifestream the deus ex machina who saves the day?

All of this is just a long-winded way to say, certain choices in the Advent Children that may seem to exist only to perpetuate the LTD were made with many other storytelling considerations in mind.

When trying to understand the intended character arcs and relationship dynamics, you cannot treat the film as a collection of scenes devoid of context. You can’t just say - “well here’s a scene where Cloud seems to miss Aerith, and here’s another scene where Cloud and Tifa fight. Obviously, Cloud loves Aerith.” You have to look at what purpose these scenes serve in the grander narrative.

And what is this grander narrative? To put it in simplistic terms, Aerith is the obstacle, and Tifa is goal. Cloud must get over his guilt over Aerith’s death so that he can return to living with Tifa and the children in peace.

The scenes following the prologue are setting up the emotional stakes of film - the problem that will be resolved by the film’s end. The problem being depicted here is not Aerith’s absence from Cloud’s life, but Cloud’s absence from his family. We see Tifa walking through Seventh Heaven saying “he’s not here anymore,” we see Denzel in his sickbed asking for Cloud, we see a framed photo of the four of them on Cloud’s desk. We see Cloud letting Tifa’s call go to voicemail.

What we do not see is Aerith, who does not appear until almost halfway through the film.

Cloud spends the first of the film avoiding confrontation with the Remnants/dealing with the return of Sephiroth. It’s only when Tifa is injured, and Denzel and Marlene get kidnapped that he goes to face his problems head on.

Before the final battle, when Cloud has exorcised his emotional demons and is about to face his physical demons, what do we see? We see Cloud telling Marlene that it’s his turn to take care of her, Denzel and Tifa the way they’ve taken care of him. We see Cloud telling Tifa that he ‘feels lighter’ and tacitly confirming that she was correct when she called him out earlier in the film. We see Cloud confirming to Denzel that he’s going home after this is all over.

What we do not see is Cloud telepathically communicating with Aerith to say, “Hey boo, can’t wait to beat Sephiroth so I can finally reunite with you in the Promised Land. Xoxoxo.” Aerith doesn’t factor in at all. Returning to his family is his goal, and his fight with Bahamut/the Remnants/Sephiroth/whatever the fuck is the final obstacle he has to face before reaching this goal.

This is reiterated again when Cloud is shot by Yazoo and seemingly perishes in an explosion. What is at stake with his “death”? We see Tifa calling his name while looking out the airship. We see Denzel and Marlene waiting for him at Seventh Heaven. We do not see Aerith watching over him in the Lifestream.

Now, Aerith does play an important role in Cloud’s arc when she shows up at about the midpoint of the film. You could fairly argue that it’s the turning point in Cloud’s emotional journey, the moment when he finally decides to confront his problems. But even if it’s only Cloud and Aerith in the scene, it’s not really about their relationship at all.

Let’s consider the context before this scene happens. Denzel and Marlene have been kidnapped by the Remnants; Tifa was nearly killed in a fight with another. This is Cloud at his lowest point. It’s his worst fears come to pass. His guilt over Aerith’s death is directly addressed at this moment in the film because it is not so much about his feelings for Aerith as it is about how Cloud fears the failures of his past (one of the biggest being her death) would continue into the present. If it was just about Aerith, we could have seen Cloud asking for her forgiveness at any other time in the film. It occurs when it does because this when his guilt over Aerith’s death intersects with his actual conflict, his fear that he’ll fail the the ones he loves. She appears when he’s at the Forgotten City where he goes to save the children. The same location where he had failed two year before.

This connection is made explicit when Cloud has flashes of Zack and Aerith’s deaths before he saves Denzel and Tifa from Bahamut. Again, Cloud’s dwelling on the past is directly related to his fears of being unable to protect his present.

Aerith is a feminine figure who is associated with flowers. That combined with the players’ memory of her and her relationship with Cloud in the OG, I can see how their scenes can be construed as romantic, but I really do not think that it is the creators’ intent to portray any romantic longing on Cloud’s part.

If they wanted to suggest that Cloud was still in love with Aerith or even leave his romantic interest ambiguous, there is no way in hell they would have had Cloud living with Tifa and two kids prior to the film’s events. To say nothing of opening the film by showing the pain his absence brings.

A romantic reading of Cloud’s guilt over Aerith’s death would suggest that he entered into a relationship with Tifa and started raising two children with her while still holding a torch for Aerith and hoping for a way to be reunited with her. The implication would be that Tifa is his second choice, and he is settling. Now, is this a dynamic that occurs in real life? Absolutely. Is this something that is often depicted in some films and television? Sure - in fact this very premise is at the core of one my favorite films of the last decade - 45 Years — and spoiler alert — the guy does not come off well in this situation. But once again, Cloud is not a real person, and Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children is not a John Cassavettes film or an Ingmar Bergman chamber drama. It is a 2-hour long straight to DVD sequel for a video game made for teens. This kind of messy, if realistic, relationship dynamic is not what this particular work is trying to explore.

(one of these is a good film!)

By the end of Advent Children, Cloud is once again the idealized version of himself. A hero that the audience is supposed to like and admire. We are supposed to think that his actions in the first half of the movie (wallowing in his guilt and abandoning his family) were bad. These are the flaws that he must overcome through the course of the film, and by the end he does. If he really had been settling and treating his Seventh Heaven family as a second choice prior to the events of the film, that too would obviously be a character flaw that needs to be addressed before the end of the film. It isn’t because this is a dynamic that only exists in certain people’s imaginations.

If the creators wanted to leave the Cloud & Aerith relationship open to a romantic interpretation, they didn’t have to write themselves into such a corner. They wouldn’t have to change the final film much at all, merely adjust the chronology a bit. Instead of Cloud already living as a family with Tifa, Marlene and Denzel prior to the beginning of the film, you would show them on the precipice of becoming a family, but with Cloud being unable to take the final step without getting over his feelings for Aerith first. This would leave space for him to love both women without coming off as an opportunistic jerk.

This is essentially the dynamic with Locke/Rachel/Celes in FFVI. Locke is unable to move on with Celes or anyone else until he finally finds closure with Rachel. It’s a lovely scene that does not diminish his relationships with either woman. He loved Rachel. He will love Celes. What the game does not have him do is enter into a relationship into Celes first and then when the party arrives at the Phoenix Cave, have him suddenly remember ‘Oh shit, I’ve gotta deal with my baggage with Rachel before I can really move on.’ That would not paint him in a particularly positive light.

Speaking of other Final Fantasies, let’s take a look another sequel in the series set two years after the events of the original work, one that is clearly the story of its protagonist searching for their lost love. And guess what? Final Fantasy X-2 does not begin with Yuna shacked up and raising two kids with another dude. And it certainly doesn’t begin with his perspective of the whole situation when Yuna decides to search for Tidus.

Square Enix knows how to write these kind of stories when they want to, and it’s clearly not their intent for Cloud and Aerith. Again, the biggest obstacle in the way of a Cloud/Aerith endgame isn’t space and time or death, it’s the existence of Tifa Lockhart.

A reasonable question to ask would be, if SE is not trying to ignite debate over the love triangle, why make Cloud’s relationship with Aerith a part of Advent Children at all? Why invite that sort of confusion? Well, the answer here, like the answer in the OG, is that Aerith’s role in the sequel is much more than her relationship with Cloud.

In the OG, it wasn’t Cloud and the gang who managed to stop Sephiroth and Meteor in the end, it was Aerith from the Lifestream. In a two-hour long film, you do not have the time to set up a completely new villain who can believably end the world, and since you pretty much have to include Sephiroth, the main antagonist can really only be him. No one else in the party has been established to have any magical Cetra powers, and again, since that’s not something that can be effectively established in a two-hour long film, and since Aerith needs to appear somehow, it again needs to be her who will save the day.

Given the time constraints, this external conflict has to be connected with Cloud’s internal conflict. In the OG, Cloud’s emotional arc is in resolved in the Lifestream, and then we spend a few more hours hunting down the Huge Materia/remembering what Holy is before resolving the external conflict of stopping Meteor. In Advent Children, we do not have that luxury of time. These turning points have to be one and same. It is only after Aerith is “introduced” in the film when Cloud asks her for forgiveness that she is able to help in the fight against the Remnants. Thus the turning point for Cloud’s character arc and the external conflict are the same. It’s understandably economical storytelling, though I wouldn’t call it particularly good storytelling.

As much as Cloud feels guilt over both Zack and Aerith’s deaths, it’s only Aerith who can play this dual role in the film. Zack can appear to help resolve Cloud’s emotional arc, but since he has no special Cetra powers or anything, there’s little he can do to help in Cloud’s fight against the Remnants. More time would need to be spent contriving a reason why Cloud is able to defeat the Remnants now when he wasn’t before or explaining why Aerith can suddenly help from the Lifestream when she had been absent before. (I still don’t think the film does a particularly good job of explaining this part, but that is a conversation for another time).

Another reason why Zack could not play this role is because at the time of AC’s original release, all we knew of Cloud and Zack’s relationship was contained in an optional flashback at the Shinra mansion after Cloud returns from the Lifestream. If it was Zack who suddenly showed up at Cloud’s lowest point, most viewers, even many who played the original game, would probably have been confused, and the moment would have fallen flat. On the other hand, even the most casual fan would have been aware of Aerith and her connection to Cloud, with her death scene being among the most well-known gaming moments of all time. Moreover, Aerith’s death is directly connected to Sephiroth, who is once again the threat in AC, whereas Zack was killed by Shinra goons. Aerith serves multiple purposes in a way that Zack just cannot.

Despite all this, though Aerith is more important to the film as a whole, many efforts are made to suggest that Zack and Aerith are equally important to Cloud. One of the first scenes in the film is Cloud moping around Zack’s grave (And unlike the scene with Aerith in the Forgotten City, it isn’t directly connected with Cloud’s present storyline in any way). We have the aforementioned scene where Cloud has flashes of both Aerith’s and Zack’s deaths when he saves Tifa and Denzel. Cloud has a scene where he’s standing back to back with Zack, mirroring his scene with in the Forgotten City with Aerith, before the climax of his fight with Sephiroth. In the Lifestream, after Cloud “dies,” it’s both Aerith and Zack who are there to send him back. Before the film ends, Cloud sees both Aerith and Zack leaving the church.

Now, were all these Zack appearances a way to promote the upcoming spin-off game that he’s going to lead? Of course. But the creators surely would have known that having Zack play such a similar role in Cloud’s arc would make Cloud’s relationship with Aerith feel less special and thus complicating a romantic interpretation of said relationship. If they wanted to encourage a romantic reading of Cloud’s lingering feelings for Aerith, they would have given Zack his own distinct role in the film. Or rather, they wouldn’t have put Zack in the film at all, and they certainly wouldn’t have him lead his own game, but we’ll get to the Zack of it all later.

The funny thing is, in a way, Zack is portrayed as being more special to Cloud. Zack only exists in the film to interact with Cloud and encourage him. Meanwhile. Aerith also has brief interactions with Kadaj, the Geostigma children and even Tifa before the film’s end. Aerith is there to save the whole world. Zack is there just for Cloud. If it’s Cloud’s relationship with Aerith that’s meant to be romantic, shouldn’t it be the other way around?

Let’s take a look at Tifa Lockhart. What role did she have to play in the FF7 sequel film? If, like some, you believed FF7 to be the Cloud/Aerith/Sephiroth show, then Tifa could have easily had a Barret-sized cameo in Advent Children. And honestly, she’s just a great martial artist. She has no special powers that would make her indispensable in a fight against Sephiroth. You certainly would not expect her to be the 2nd billed character in the film. Though of course, if you actually played through the Original Game with your eyes open, you would realize that Tifa Lockhart is instrumental to any story about Cloud Strife.

Unlike Aerith’s appearances, almost none of the suggestive scenes and dynamics between Cloud and Tifa had to be included in the film. As in, they serve no other plot related purpose and could have easily been cut from the final film if the creators weren’t trying to encourage a romantic interpretation of their relationship.

It feels inevitable now, but no one was expecting Cloud and Tifa to be living together and raising two kids. In the general consciousness, FF7 is Cloud and Sephiroth and their big swords and Aerith’s death. At the time, in the eyes of most fans and casual observers, Cloud and Tifa being together wasn’t a necessary part of the FF7 equation the way say, an epic fight between Cloud and Sephiroth would be. In fact, I don’t think even the biggest Cloti fans at the time would have imagined Cloud and Tifa living together would be their canon outcome in the sequel film.

Now can two platonic friends live together and raise two children together? Absolutely, but again Cloud and Tifa are not real people. They are fictional characters. A reasonable person (let’s use the legal definition of the term) who does not have brainworms from arguing over one of the dumbest debates on the Internet for 23 years would probably assume that two characters who were shown to be attracted to each other in the OG and who are now living together and raising two kids are in a romantic relationship. This is a reasonable assumption to make, and if SE wanted to leave Cloud’s romantic inclinations ambiguous, they simply would not be depicting Cloud and Tifa’s relationship in this manner. Cloud’s disrupted peace could have been a number of different things. He could have been a wandering mercenary, he could have been searching for a way to be reunited with Aerith. It didn’t have to be the family he formed with Tifa, but, then again, if you were actually paying attention to the story the OG was trying to tell, of course he would be living with Tifa.

Let’s also look at the scene where Cloud finds Tifa in the church after her fight with Loz. All the plot related information (who attacked her, Marlene being taken) is conveyed in the brief conversation they have before Cloud falls unconscious from Geostigma. What purpose do all the lingering shots of Cloud and Tifa in the flower bed in a Yin-Yang/non-sexual 69ing position serve if not to be suggestive of the type of relationship they have? It’s beautifully rendered but ultimately irrelevant to both the external and internal conflicts of the film.

Likewise, there is no reason why Cloud and Tifa needed to wake up in their children’s bedroom. No reason to show Cloud waking up with Tifa next to him in a way that almost makes you think they were in the same bed. And there is absolutely no reason whatsoever for a close-up of Tifa’s hand with the Wolf Ring on her ring finger while she is admonishing Cloud during what sounds like a domestic argument (This ring again comes into focus when Tifa leads Denzel to Cloud at the church at the end - there are dozens of ways this scene could have been rendered, but this is the one that was chosen.) If it wasn’t SE’s intent to emphasize the family dynamic and the intimate nature of Cloud and Tifa’s relationship, these scenes would not exist.

Let’s also take a look at Denzel, the only new character in the AC (give or take the Remnants). Again, given the film’s brief runtime, the fact that they’re not only adding a new character but giving him more screen time than almost every other AVALANCHE member must mean that he’s pretty important. While Denzel does have an arc of his own, especially in ACC, he is intricately connected to Cloud and Tifa and solidifies the family unit that they’ve been forming in Edge. Marlene still has Barret, but with the addition of Denzel, the family becomes something more real albeit even more tenuous given his Geostigma diagnosis. Without Denzel in the picture, it’s a bit easier to interpret Cloud’s distance from Tifa as romantic pining for another woman, but now it just seems absurd. The stakes are so much higher. Cloud and Tifa are at a completely different stage in their lives from the versions of these characters we met early on in the OG who were entangled in a frivolous love triangle. And yet some people are still stuck trying to fit these characters into a childish dynamic that died at the end of disc one along with a certain someone.

All this is there in the film, at least the director’s cut, if you really squint. But since SE preferred to spend its time on countless action sequences that have aged as well as whole milk in lieu of spending a few minutes showing Cloud’s family life before he got Geostigma to establish the emotional stakes, or a beat or two more on his reconciliation with Tifa and the kids, people may be understandably confused about Cloud’s arc. Has Cloud just been a moping around in misery for the two years post-OG? The answer is no, though that can only really be found in the accompanying novellas, specifically Case of Tifa.

Concerning the novellas, which we apparently must read to understand said DVD sequel

I really don’t know how you can read through CoT and still think there is anything ambiguous about the nature of Cloud and Tifa’s relationship. The “Because I have you this time,” Cloud telling Tifa he’ll remind her how to be strong when they’re alone, Cloud confidently agreeing when Marlene adds him to their family. Not to mention Barret and Cid’s brief conversation about Cloud and Tifa’s relationship in Case of Barret, after which Cid comments that “women wear the pants,” which Barret then follows by asking Cid about Shera. Again, a reasonable person would assume the couple in question are in a romantic relationship, and if this wasn’t the intent, these lines would not be present. Especially not in a novella about someone else.

Some try to argue that CoT just shows how incompatible Cloud and Tifa are because it features a few low points in their relationship. I don’t think that’s Nojima’s intent. Even if it was, it certainly wouldn’t be to prove that Cloud loves Aerith. This isn’t how you tell that story. Why waste all that time disproving a negative rather than proving a positive? We didn’t spend hours in FF8 watching Rinoa’s relationship with Seifer fall apart to understand how much better off she is with Squall. If Cloud and Aerith is meant to be a love story, then tell their love story. Why tell the story of how Cloud is incompatible with someone else?

Part of the confusion may be because CoT doesn’t tell a complete story in and of itself. The first half of the story (before Cloud has to deliver flowers to the Forgotten City) acts as a sort of epilogue to the OG, while the second half of the story is something of a prologue to Advent Children (or honestly its missing Act One). And to state the obvious, conflict is inherent to any story worth telling. It can’t just be all fluff, that’s what the fanfiction is for.

Tifa’s conflict is her fear that the fragile little family they’ve built in Edge is going to fall apart. Thus we see her fret about Cloud’s distance, the way this affects Marlene, and Denzel’s sickness. There are certainly some low moments here --- Tifa telling Cloud to drink in his room, asking if he loves her -- all ways for the threat to seem more real, the outcome more uncertain, yet there’s only one way this conflict can be resolved. One direction to which their relationship can move.

Again, by the end of this story, both characters are supposed to be the best versions of themselves, to find their “happy” endings so to speak. Tifa could certainly find happiness outside of a relationship with Cloud. She could decide that they’ve given it a shot, but they’re better off as friends. She’s grateful for this experience and she’s learned from this, but now she’s ready to make a life for herself on her own. It would be a fine character arc, though not something the Final Fantasy series has been wont to do. However, that’s obviously not the case here as there’s no indication whatsoever that Tifa considers this as an option for herself. Nojima hasn’t written this off ramp into her journey. For Tifa, they’ll either become a real family or they won’t. Since this is a story that is going to have a happy ending, so of course they will, even if there are a lot of bumps along the way.

Unfortunately, with the Compilation being the unwieldy beast that this is, this whole arc has to be pieced together across a number of different works:

Tifa asking herself if they’re a real family in CoT

Her greatest fear seemingly come to life when Cloud leaves at the end of CoT/beginning of AC

Tifa explicitly asking Cloud if the reason they can’t help each other is because they’re not a real family during their argument in AC. Notably, even though Cloud is at his lowest point, he doesn’t confirm her fear. Instead he says he that he can’t help anyone, not even his family. Instead, he indirectly confirms that yes he does think they’re a family, even if is a frustrating moment still in that he’s too scared to try to save it.

The ending of AC where we see a new photo of Cloud smiling surrounded by Tifa and the kids and the rest of the AVALANCHE, next to the earlier photo we had seen of the four of them where he was wearing a more dour expression.

The ending of The Kids Are All Right, where Cloud, Tifa, Denzel and Marlene meet with Evan, Kyrie and Vits - and Cloud offers, unsolicited, that even if they’re not related by blood, they’re a family.

The ending of DVD extra ‘Reminiscence of FFVII’ where Cloud takes the day off and asks Tifa to close the bar so they can spend time together as a family as Tifa had wanted to do early in CoT

Cloud fears he’ll fail his family. Tifa fears it’ll fall apart. Cloud retreats into himself, pushing others away. Tifa neglects herself, not being able to say what she needs to say. In Advent Children, Tifa finally voices her frustrations. It’s then that Cloud finally confronts his fears. Like in the OG, Cloud and Tifa’s conflicts and character arcs are two sides of the same coin, and it’s only by communicating with each other are they able to resolve it. Though with the Compilation being an inferior work, it’s much less satisfying this time around. Such is the problem when you’re writing towards a preordained outcome (Cloud and Sephiroth duking it once again) rather than letting the story develop organically.

Some may ask, why mention Aerith so much (Cloud growing distant after delivering flowers to the Forgotten City, Cloud finding Denzel at Aerith’s church) if they weren’t trying to perpetuate the LTD? Well, as explained above, Aerith had to be in Advent Children, and since CoT is the only place where we get any insight into Cloud’s psyche, it’s here where Nojima expands on that guilt.

Again, this is a story that requires conflict, and what better conflict than the specter of a love rival? Notably, despite us having access to Tifa’s thoughts and fears, she never explicitly associates Cloud’s behavior with him pining after Aerith. Though it’s fair to say this fear is implied, if unwarranted.

If Cloud had actually been pining after Aerith this whole time, we would not be seeing it all unfold through Tifa’s perspective. You can depict a romance without drawing attention to the injured third party. We’re seeing all of this from Tifa’s POV, because it’s about Tifa’s insecurities, not the great tragic romance between Cloud and Aerith. Honestly, another reason we see this from Tifa’s perspective is because it’s dramatically more interesting. Because she’s insecure, she (and we the reader) wonder if there’s something else going on. Meanwhile, from Cloud’s perspective it would be straightforward and redundant, given what we see in AC. He’s guilty over Aerith’s death and thinks he doesn’t deserve to be happy.

Not to mention, the first time we encounter Aerith in CoT, Tifa is the one breaking down at her grave while Cloud is the one comforting her. Are we supposed to believe that he just forgot he was in love with Aerith until he had to deliver flowers to the Forgotten City?

And Aerith doesn’t just serve as a romantic obstacle. She’s also a symbol of guilt and redemption for both Cloud and Tifa. Neither think they have the right to be happy after all that’s happened (Aerith’s death being a big part of this), and through Denzel, who Cloud finds at Aerith’s church, they both see a chance to atone.

I do want to address Case of Lifestream: White because it’s only time in the entire Compilation where I’ve asked myself — what are they trying to achieve here? Now, I’d rather drink bleach than start debating the translation of ‘koibito’ again, but I did think it was a strange choice to specify the romantic nature of Aerith’s love for Cloud. I suppose it could be a reference her obvious attraction to Cloud in the OG, though calling it love feels like a stretch.

But nothing else in CoLW really gives me pause. It might be a bit jarring to see how much of it is Aerith’s thoughts of Cloud, but it makes sense when you consider the context in which it’s meant to be consumed. Unlike Case of Tifa or Case of Denzel, CoLW isn’t meant to be read on its own. It’s a few scant paragraphs in direct conversation with Case of Lifestream: Black. In CoLB, Sephiroth talks about his plan to return and end the world or whatever, and how Cloud is instrumental to his plan. Each segment of CoLW mirrors the corresponding segment of CoLB. Thus, CoLW has to be about Aerith’s plan to stop Sephiroth and the role Cloud must play in that. In both of these stories, Cloud is the only named character. It doesn’t mean that thoughts of Cloud consume all of Aerith’s afterlife. Case of Lifestream is only a tiny sliver of the story, a halfassed way to explain why in Advent Children the world is ending again and why Cloud has to be at the center of it all.

Notably, there is absolutely nothing in CoLW about Cloud’s feelings for Aerith. Even if it’s just speculation on her part as we see Sephiroth speculate about Cloud’s reactions in CoLB. Aerith can see what’s going on in the real world, but she says nothing about Cloud’s actions. If Cloud is really pining after her, trying to find a way to be reunited with her, wouldn’t this be the ideal story to show such devotion?

But it’s not there, because not only does it not happen, but because this story is not about Aerith’s relationship with Cloud. It is about how Aerith needs to see and warn Cloud in order to stop Sephiroth. By the end of Advent Children, that goal is fulfilled. Cloud gets his forgiveness. Aerith gets to see him again and helps him stop Sephiroth. There’s no suggestion that either party wants more. We finally have the closure that the OG lacked, and at no point does it confirm that Cloud reciprocated Aerith’s romantic feelings, even though there were plenty of opportunities to do so.

I don’t really know what else people were expecting. Advent Children isn’t a romantic drama. There’s not going to be a moment where Cloud explicitly tells Tifa, ‘I’ve never loved Aerith. It’s only been you all along.” This is just simply not the kind of story it is.

Though one late scene practically serves this function. When Cloud “dies” and Aerith finds him in the Lifestream, if there were any lingering romantic feelings between the two of them, this would be a beautiful bittersweet reunion. Maybe something about how as much as they want to be together, it’s not his time yet. Instead, it’s almost played off as a joke. Cloud calls her ‘Mother’, and Zack is at Aerith’s side, joking about how Cloud has no place there. This would be the perfect opportunity to address the romantic connection between Cloud and Aerith, but instead, the film elides this completely. Instead, it’s a cute afterlife moment between Aerith and Zack, and functionally allows Cloud to go back to where he belongs, to Tifa and the kids. Whatever Cloud’s feelings for Aerith were before, it’s transformed into something else.

Crisis Core -- or how Aerith finally gets her love story

The other relevant part of the Compilation is Crisis Core, which I will now touch on briefly (or at least brief for me). In the OG, Zack Fair was more plot device than character. We knew he was important to Cloud — enough that Cloud would mistake Zack’s memories for his own -- we knew he was important to Aerith — enough that she is initially drawn to Cloud due to his similarities to Zack — yet the nature of these relationships is more ambiguous. Especially his relationship with Aerith. From the little we learn of their relationship, it could have been completely one-sided on her part, and Zack a total cad. At least that’s the implication she leaves us with in Gongaga. We get the sense that she might not be the most reliable narrator on this point (why bring up an ex so often, unsolicited, if it wasn’t anything serious?) but the OG never confirms this either way.

Crisis Core clears this up completely. Not only is Zack portrayed as the Capital H Hero of his own game, but his relationships with Cloud and Aerith are two of the most important in the game. In fact, they are the basis for his heroic sacrifice at the game’s end: he dies trying to save Cloud’s life; he dies trying to return to Aerith.

Zack’s relationship with Aerith is a major subplot of the game. Not only that, but the details of said relationship completely recontextualizes what we know about the Aerith we see in the OG. Many of Aerith’s most iconic traits (wearing pink, selling flowers) are a direct product of this relationship, and more importantly, so many of the hallmarks of her early relationship with Cloud (him falling through her church, one date as a reward, a conversation in the playground) are a direct echo of her relationship with Zack.

A casual fling this was not. Aerith’s relationship with Zack made a deep impact on the character we see in the OG and clearly colored her interactions with Cloud throughout.

Crisis Core is telling Zack’s story, and Tifa is a fairly minor supporting character, yet it still finds the time to expand upon Cloud and Tifa’s relationship. Through their interactions with Zack, we learn just how much they were on each others’ minds during this time, and how they were both too shy to own up to these feelings. We also get a brief expansion on the moment Cloud finds Tifa injured in the reactor.

Meanwhile, given the point we are in the story’s chronology, Cloud and Aerith are completely oblivious of each other’s existence.

One may try to argue that none of this matters since all of this is in the past. While this argument might hold water if we arguing about real lives in the real world, FF7 is a work of fiction. Its creators decided that these would be events we would see, and that Zack would be the lens through which we’d see them. Crisis Core is not the totality of these characters’ lives prior to the event of the OG. Rather, it consists of moments that enhance and expand upon our understanding of the original work. We learn the full extent of Hojo’s experimentation and the Jenova project; we learn that Sephiroth was actually a fairly normal guy before he was driven insane when he uncovers the circumstances of his birth. We learn that Aerith was a completely different person before she met Zack, and their relationship had a profound impact on her character.

A prequel is not made to contradict the original work, but what it can do is recontexualize the story we already know and add a layer of nuance that may have not been obvious before. Thus, Sephiroth is transformed from a scary villain into a tragic figure who could have been a hero were it not for Hojo’s experiments. Aerith’s behavior too invites reinterpretation. What once seemed flirty and perhaps overtly forward now looks like the tragic attempts of a woman trying to recapture a lost love.

If Cloud and Aerith were meant to be the official couple of the Compilation of FF7, you absolutely would not be spending so much time depicting two relationships that will be moot by the time we get to the original work. You especially would not depict Zack and Aerith’s relationship in a way that makes Aerith’s relationship with Cloud look like a copy of the moments she had with her ex.

Additionally, with Zack’s relationship with Angeal, we can see, that within the universe of FF7, a protagonist being devastated over the death of a beloved comrade isn’t something that’s inherently romantic. Neither is it romantic for said dead comrade to lend a helping hand from the beyond.

SE would also expect some people to play Crisis Core before the OG. If Cloud and Aerith are the intended endgame couple, then SE would be asking the player to root for a guy to pursue the girlfriend of the man who gave his life for him. The same man who died trying to reunite with her. This is to say nothing of Cloud’s treatment of Tifa in this scenario. How could this possibly be the intent  for their most popular protagonist in the most popular entry of their most popular franchise?

What Crisis Core instead offers is something for fans of Aerith who may be disappointed that she was robbed of a great romance by her death. Well, she now gets that epic, tragic romance. Only it’s with Zack, not Cloud.

If SE intended for Cloud and Aerith to be the official couple of FF7, neither Zack nor Tifa would exist. They would not spend so much time developing Zack and Tifa into the multi-dimensional characters they are, only to be treated as nothing more than collateral damage in the wake of Cloud and Aerith’s great love. No, this is a Final Fantasy. SE want their main characters to have something of a happy ending after all of the tribulations they face. Cloud and Tifa find theirs in life. Zack and Aerith, as the ending of AC suggests, find theirs in death.

Cloud and Aerith’s relationship isn’t a threat to the Zack/Aerith and Cloud/Tifa endgame, nor is it a mere obstacle. Rather, it’s a relationship that actually deepens and strengthens the other two. Aerith is explicitly searching for her first love in Cloud, revealing just how deep her feelings for Zack ran. Cloud gets to live out his heroic SOLDIER fantasy with Aerith, a fantasy he created just to impress Tifa.

There are moments between Cloud and Aerith that may seem romantic when taken on its own, but viewed within the context of the whole narrative, ultimately reveal that they aren’t quite right for each other, and in each other, they’re actually searching for someone else.

This quadrangular dynamic reminds me a bit of one of my favorite classic films, The Philadelphia Story. (Spoilers for a film that came out in 1940 ahead) — The single most romantic scene in the film is between Jimmy Stewart’s and Katherine Hepburn’s characters, yet they’re not the ones who end up together. Even as their passions run, as the music swells, and we want them to end up together, we realize that they’re not quite right for each other. We know that it won’t work out.

More relevantly, we know this is true due to the existence of Cary Grant’s and Ruth Hussey’s characters, who are shown to carry a torch for Hepburn and Stewart, respectively. Grant and Hussey are well-developed and sympathetic characters. With the film being the top grossing film of the year, and made during the Code era, it’s about as “clean” of a narrative as you can get. There’s no way Grant and Hussey would be given such prominent roles just to be left heartbroken and in the cold by the film’s end.

Hepburn’s character (Tracy) pretty much sums it herself after some hijinks lead to a last minute proposal from Stewart’s character (Mike):

Mike: Will you marry me, Tracy?                      

Tracy: No, Mike. Thanks, but hmm-mm. Nope.

Mike: l've never asked a girl to marry me. l've avoided it. But you've got me all confused now. Why not?

Tracy: Because l don't think Liz [Hussey’s character] would like it...and l'm not sure you would...and l'm even a little doubtful about myself. But l am beholden to you, Mike. l'm most beholden.

Despite the fact that the film spends more time developing Hepburn and Stewart’s relationship than theirs with their endgame partners, it’s still such a satisfying ending. That’s because, even at the peak of their romance, we can see how Stewart needs someone like Hussey to ground his passionate impulses, and how Hepburn needs Grant, someone who won’t put her on a pedestal like everyone else. Hepburn and Stewart’s is a relationship that might feel right in the moment, but doesn’t quite work in the light of day.

I don’t think Cloud and Aerith share a moment that is nearly as romantic in FF7, but the same principle applies. What may seem romantic in the moment actually reveals how they’re right for someone else.

Even if Aerith lives and Cloud decides to pursue a relationship with her, it’s not going to be all puppies and roses ahead for them. Aerith would need to disentangle her feelings for Zack from her attraction to Cloud, and Cloud would still need to confront his feelings for Tifa, which were his main motivator for nearly half his life, before they can even start to build something real. This is messy work, good fodder for a prestige cable drama or an Oscar-baity indie film, but it has no place in a Final Fantasy. There simply isn’t the time. Not when the question on most players’ minds isn’t ‘Cloud does love?’ but ‘How the hell are they going to stop that madman and his Meteor that’s about to destroy the world?’

With Zerith’s depiction in Crisis Core, there’s a sort of bittersweet poetry in how the two relationships rhyme but can’t actually coexist. It is only because Zack is trying to return to Midgar to see Aerith that Cloud is able to reunite with Tifa, and the OG begins in earnest. In another world, Zack and Aerith would be the hero and heroine who saved the world and lived to tell the tale. They are much more the traditional archetypes - Zack the super-powered warrior who wants to be a Capital-H Hero, and Aerith, the last of her kind who reluctantly accepts her fate. Compared to these two, Cloud and Tifa aren’t nearly so special, nor their goals so lofty and noble. Cloud, after all, was too weak to even get into SOLDIER, and only wanted to be one, not for some greater good, but to impress the girl he liked. Tifa has no special abilities, merely learning martial arts when she grew wise enough to not wait around for a hero. On the surface, Cloud and Tifa are made of frailer stuff, and yet by luck or by fate, they’re the ones who cheat death time and time again, and manage to save the world, whereas the ones who should have the role, are prematurely struck down before they can finish the job. Cloud and Tifa fulfill the roles that they never asked for, that they may not be particularly suited for, in Zack and Aerith’s stead. There’s a burden and a beauty to it. Cloud and Tifa can live because Zack and Aerith did not.

All of this nuance is lost if you think Cloud and Aerith are meant to be the endgame couple. Instead, you have a pair succumbing to their basest desires, regardless of the selfless sacrifices their other potential paramours made for their sake. Zack and Tifa, and their respective relationships with Aerith and Cloud, are flattened into mere romantic obstacles. The heart wants what it wants, some may argue. While that may be true in real life, that is not necessarily the case in a work of fiction, especially not a Final Fantasy. The other canon Final Fantasy couples could certainly have had previous romantic relationships, but unless they have direct relevance to the their character arcs (e.g., Rachel to Locke), the games do not draw attention to them because they would be a distraction from the romance they are trying to tell. They’ve certainly never spent the amount of real estate FF7 spends in depicting Cloud/Tifa and Zack/Aerith’s relationships.

At last…the Remake, and somehow this essay isn’t even close to being over

Finally, we come to the Remake. With the technological advancements made in the last 23 years and the sheer amount of hours they’re devoting to just the Midgar section this time around, you can almost look at the OG as an outline and the Remake as the final draft. With the OG being overly reliant on text to  do its storytelling, and the Remake having subtle facial expressions and a slew of cinematic techniques at its disposal, you might almost consider it an adaptation from a literary medium to a visual one. Our discussions are no longer limited to just what the characters are saying, but what they are doing, and even more importantly, how the game presents those actions. When does the game want us to pay attention? And what does it want us to pay attention to?

Unlike most outlines, which are read by a small handful of execs, SE has 23 years worth of reactions from the general public to gauge what works and what doesn’t work, what caused confusion, and what could be clarified. While FF7 is not a romance, the LTD remains a hot topic among a small but vocal part of the fanbase. It certainly is an area that could do with some clarifying in the Remake.

Since the Remake is not telling a new story, but rather retelling an existing story that has been in the public consciousness for over two decades, certain aspects that were treated as “twists” in the OG no longer have that same element of surprise, and would need to approached differently. For example, in the Midgar section of the OG, Shinra is treated as the main antagonist throughout. It’s only when we get to the top of the Shinra tower that Sephiroth is revealed as the real villain. Anyone with even a passing of knowledge of FF7 would be aware of Sephiroth so trying to play it off like a surprise in the Remake would be terribly anticlimactic. Thus, Sephiroth appears as early as Ch. 2 to haunt Cloud and the player throughout.

Likewise, many players who’ve never even touched the OG are probably aware that Aerith dies, thus her death can no longer be played for shock. While SE would still want the player to grow attached to Aerith so that her death has an emotional impact, there are diminishing returns to misdirecting the player about her fate, at least not in the same way it was done in the OG.

How do these considerations affect the how the LTD is depicted in the Remake? For the two of the biggest twists in the OG to land in the Remake — Aerith’s death and Cloud’s true identity in the Lifestream — the game needs to establish:

Aerith’s attraction to Cloud, specifically due to his similarities to Zack. This never needs to go past an initial attraction for the player to understand that the man whose memory Cloud was “borrowing” is Zack. Aerith’s feelings for Cloud can evolve into something platonic or even maternal by her end without the reveal in the Lifestream losing any impact.

Cloud’s love for Tifa. For the Lifestream sequence to land with an “Ooooh!” rather than a “Huh!?!?”, the Remake will need to establish that Cloud’s feelings for Tifa were strong enough to 1) motivate him to try to join SOLDIER in the first place 2) incentivize him to adopt a false persona because he fears that he isn’t the man she wants him to be 3) call him back to consciousness from Make poisoning twice 4) help him put his mind back together and find his true self. That’s a lot of story riding on one guy’s feelings!

The player’s love for Aerith so that her death will hurt. This can be done by making them invested in Aerith as a character by her own right, but also extends to the relationships she has with the other characters (not only Cloud).

What is not necessary is establishing Cloud’s romantic feelings for Aerith. Now, would their doomed romance make her death hurt even more? Sure, but it could work just as well if Cloud if is losing a dear friend and ally, not a lover. Not to mention, her death also cuts short her relationships with Tifa, Barret, Red XII, etc. Bulking those relationships up prior to her death, would also make her loss more palpable. If anything, establishing Cloud’s romantic feelings for Aerith would actually undermine the game’s other big twist. The game needs you to believe that Cloud’s feelings for Tifa were strong enough to drive his entire hero’s journey. If Cloud is shown falling in love with another woman in the span of weeks if not mere days, then the Lifestream scene would be much harder to swallow.

Cloud wavering between the two women made sense in the OG because the main way for the player to get to know Aerith was through her interactions with Cloud. That is no longer the case in the Remake. Cloud is still the protagonist, and the player character for the vast majority of the game, but there are natural ways for the player to get to know Aerith outside of her dialogue exchanges with Cloud. Unless SE considers the LTD an integral part of FF7’s DNA, then for the sake of story clarity, the LTD doesn’t need to exist.

How then does the Remake clarify things?

I’m not going go through every single change in the Remake — there are far too many of them, and they’ve been documented elsewhere. Most of the changes are expansions or adaptations (what might make sense for super-deformed chibis would look silly for realistic characters, e.g., Cloud rolling barrels in the Church has now become him climbing across the roof support). What is expanded and how it’s adapted can be telling, but what is more interesting are the additions and removals. Not just for what takes place in the scenes themselves, but how their addition or removal changes our understanding of the narrative as a whole vis-a-vis the story we know from the OG.

Notably, one of the features that is not expanded upon, but rather diminished, is player choice. In the OG, the player had a slew of dialogue options to choose from, especially during the Midgar portion of the game. Not only did it determine which character would go on a date with Cloud at the Gold Saucer, but it also made the player identify with Cloud since they’re largely determining his personality during this stage. Despite the technological advances that have made this level of optionality the norm in AAA games, the Remake gives the player far fewer non-gameplay related choices, and only really the illusion of choice as a nod to the OG, but they don’t affect the story of the game in any meaningful way. You get a slightly different conversation depending on the choice, but you have to buy the Flower, Tifa has to make you a drink.

So much of what fueled the LTD in the OG came from this mechanic, which is now largely absent in the Remake. Almost every instance where there was a dialogue branch in the OG has become a single, canon scenario in the Remake that favors Tifa (e.g., having the choice of giving the flower to Tifa or Marlene in the OG, to Cloud giving the flower to Tifa in the Remake). Similarly, for the only meaningful choice you make in the Remake — picking Tifa or Aerith in the sewers — Cloud is now equidistant to both girls, whereas in the OG, his starting point was much closer to Aerith. In the OG, player choice allowed you to largely determine Cloud’s personality, and the girl he favored — and seemingly encouraged you to choose Aerith in many instances. In the Remake, Cloud is now his own character, not who the player wants him to be. And this Cloud, well, he sure seems to have a thing for Tifa.

In fact, one of the first changes in the Remake is the addition of Jessie asking Cloud about his relationship with Tifa, and Cloud’s brief flashback to their childhood together. In the OG, Tifa isn’t mentioned at all during the first reactor mission, and we don’t see her until we get to Sector 7.

Not only does this scene reveal Tifa’s importance to Cloud much earlier on than in the OG, but it sets up a sort of frame of reference that colors Cloud’s subsequent interactions. Even as Jessie kind of flirts with him throughout the reactor mission, even with his chance meeting Aerith in Sector 8, in the back of your mind, you might be thinking — wait what about his relationship with this Tifa character? What if he’s already spoken for?

Think about how this plays out in the OG. Jessie is pretty much a non-entity, and Cloud has his meet-cute with the flower girl before we’re even aware that Tifa exists. It’s hard to get too invested in his interactions with Tifa, when you know he has to meet the flower girl again, and you’re waiting for that moment, because that’s when the game will start in earnest.

After chapter 1 of the Remake, a new player may be asking — who is this Tifa person, and, echoing Jessie’s question, what kind of relationship does she have with Cloud? It’s a question that’s repeated when Barret mentions her before they set the bomb, and again when Barret specifies Seventh Heaven is where Tifa works — and the game zooms in on Cloud’s face — when they arrive in Sector 7.

It’s when we finally meet her at Seventh Heaven in Ch. 3 that we feel, ah now, this game has finally begun.

It’s also interesting how inorganically this question is introduced in the Remake. Up until that moment, the dialogue and Cloud are all business. Then, as they’re waiting for the gate to open, Jessie asks about Tifa completely out of the blue, and Cloud, all of a sudden, is at a lost for words, and has the first of many flashbacks. That this moment is a bit incongruous shows the effort SE made to establish Tifa’s importance to the game and to Cloud early on.

One of the biggest changes in the Remake is the addition of the events in Ch. 3 and 4. Unlike what happens in Ch. 18, Ch. 3 and 4 feel like such a natural extension of the OG’s story that many players may not even realize that SE has added an whole day’s and night’s worth of events to the OG’s story. While not a drastic change, it does reshape our understanding of subsequent events in the story, namely Cloud’s time spent alone with Aerith.

In the OG, we rush from one reactor mission to the next, with no real time to explore Cloud’s character or his relationships with any of the other characters in between. When he crashes through the church, he gets a bit of a breather. We see a different side of him with Aerith. Since we have nothing else to compare it to, many might assume that his relationship with Aerith is special. That she brings something out of him that no one else can.

That is no longer the case in the Remake. While Cloud’s time in Sector 5 with Aerith remains largely unchanged though greatly expanded, it no longer feels  “special.” So many of the beats that seemed exclusive to his relationship with Aerith in the OG, we’ve now already seen play out with both Tifa and the other members of AVALANCHE long before he meets Aerith.

Cloud tells the flowers to listen to Aerith; he’s told Tifa he’s listening if she wants to talk; told Bigg’s he wants to hear the story of Jessie’s dad. Cloud offers to walk Aerith back home; he offered the same to Wedge. Cloud smiles at Aerith; he’s already smiled at Tifa and AVALANCHE a number of times.

Now, I’m under no illusion that SE added these chapters solely to diminish Aerith’s importance to Cloud (other than the obvious goal of making the game longer, I imagine they wanted the player to spend more time in Sector 7 and more time with the other AVALANCHE members so that the collapse of the Pillar and their deaths have more weight), but they certainly must have realized that this would be one effect. If pushing Cloud/Aerith’s romance had been a goal with the Remake, this would be a scenario they would try to avoid. Notably, the other place where time has been added - the night in the Underground Shinra Lab, and the day helping other people out around the slums — are also periods of time when Aerith is absent.

Home Sweet Slums vs. Budding Bodyguard

Since most of the events in Ch. 3 were invented for the Remake, and thus we have nothing in the OG to compare it to (except to say that something is probably better than nothing), I thought it would be more interesting to compare it to Ch. 8. Structurally, they are nearly identical — Cloud doing sidequests around the Sectors with one of the girls as his guide. Extra bits of dialogue the more sidequests you complete, with an optional story event if you do them all. Do Cloud’s relationships with each girl progress the same way in both chapters? Is the Remake just Final Waifu Simulator 2020 or are they distinct, reflecting their respective roles in the story as a whole?

A lot of what the player takes away from these chapters is going to be pretty subjective (Is he annoyed with her or is he playing hard to get), yet the vibes of the two chapters are quite different. This is because in Ch. 3, the player is getting to know Tifa through her relationship with Cloud; in Ch. 8; the player is getting to know Aerith as a character on her own.

What do I mean by this? Let’s take Cloud’s initial introduction into each Sector. In Ch. 3, it’s a straight shot from Seventh Heaven to Stargazer Heights punctuated by a brief conversation where Tifa asks Cloud about the mission he was just on. We don’t learn anything new about Tifa’s character here. Instead we hear Cloud recount the mission we already saw play out in detail in Ch. 1 But it’s through this conversation that we get a glimpse of Cloud and Tifa’s relationship — unlike the reticent jerk he was with Avalanche, this Cloud is much more responsive and even tries to reassure her in his own stilted way. We also know that they have enough of a past together that Tifa can categorize him as “not a people person” — an assessment to which Cloud agrees. Slowly, we’re getting an answer to the question Jessie posed in Ch. 1 — just what kind of relationship does Cloud have with Tifa?

In Ch. 8, Aerith leads Cloud on a roundabout way through Sector 5, and stops, unprompted, to talk about her experiences helping at the restaurant, helping out the doctor, and helping with the orphans at the Leaf House. It’s not so much a conversation as a monologue. Cloud isn’t the one who inquires about these relationships, and more jarringly, he doesn’t respond until Aerith directly asks him a question (interestingly enough, it’s about the flower she gave him…which he then gave to Tifa). Here, the game is allowing the player to learn more about the kind of person Aerith is. Cloud is also learning about Aerith at the same time, but with his non-reaction, either the game itself is indifferent to Cloud’s feelings towards Aerith or it is deliberately trying to portray Cloud’s indifference to Aerith.

The optional story event you can see in each chapter after completing all the side quests is also telling. In Ch. 3, “Alone at Last” is almost explicitly about Cloud and Tifa’s relationship. It’s bookended by two brief scenes between Marle and Cloud — the first in which she lectures him about how he should treat Tifa almost like an overprotective in-law, the second after they return downstairs and Marle awards Cloud with an accessory “imbued with the fervent desire to be by one’s side for eternity” after he makes Tifa smile. In between, Cloud and Tifa chat alone in her room. Tifa finally gets a chance to ask Cloud about his past and they plan a little date to celebrate their reunion. There is also at least the suggestion that Cloud was expecting something else when Tifa asked him to her room.

In Ch. 8’s “The Language of Flowers,” Cloud and Aerith’s relationship is certainly part of the story — unlike earlier in the chapter, Cloud actually asks Aerith about what she’s doing and even supports her by talking to the flowers too, but the other main objective of this much briefer scene is to show Aerith’s relationship with the flowers and of her mysterious Cetra powers (though we don’t know about her ancestry just yet). Like a lot of Aerith’s dialogue, there’s a lot of foreshadowing and foreboding in her words. If anything, it’s almost as if Cloud is playing the Marle role to the flowers, as an audience surrogate to ask Aerith about her relationship with the flowers so that she can explain. Also, there’s no in-game reward that suggests what the scene was really about.

If there’s any confusion about what’s going on here, just compare their titles “Alone At Last” vs. “The Language of Flowers.”

I’ll try not to bring my personal feelings into this, but there’s just something so much more satisfying about the construction of Ch. 3. This is some real storytelling 101 shit, but I think a lot of it due to just how much set up and payoff there is, and how almost all of said payoff deepens our understanding of Cloud and Tifa’s relationship:

Marle: Cloud meets Tifa’s overprotective landlady towards the beginning of the chapter. She is dubious of his character and his relationship with TIfa. This impression does not change the second time they meet even though Tifa herself is there to mediate. It’s only towards the end of the chapter, after all the sidequests are complete, that this tension is resolved. Marle gives Cloud a lecture about how he should be treating Tifa, which he seems to take to heart. And Cloud finally earns Marle’s begrudging approval after he emerges from their rooms with a chipper-looking Tifa in tow.

Their past: For their first in-game interaction, Cloud casually brings up that fact that it’s been “Five years” since they’ve last, which seem to throw Tifa off a bit. As they’re replacing filters, Cloud asks Tifa what she’s been up to in the time since they’ve been apart, and Tifa quickly changes the subject. Tifa tries to ask Cloud about his life “after he left the village,” at the Neighborhood Watch HQ, and this time he’s the one who seems to be avoiding the subject. It’s only after all the Ch. 3 sidequests are complete, and they're alone in her room that Tifa finally gets the chance to ask her question. A question which Cloud still doesn’t entirely answer. This question remains unresolved, and anyone’s played the OG will know that it will remain unresolved for some time yet, as it is THE question of Cloud’s story as a whole.

The lessons: Tifa starts spouting off some lessons for life in the slums as she brings Cloud around the town, though it’s unclear if Cloud is paying attention or taking them to heart. After completing the first sidequest, Cloud repeats one of these sayings back to her, confirming that he’s been listening all along. By the end of the chapter, Cloud is repeating these lessons to himself, even when Tifa isn’t around. These lessons extend beyond this chapter, with Cloud being a real teacher’s pet, asking Tifa “Is this a lesson” in Ch. 10 once they reunite.

The drink: When Cloud first arrives at Seventh Heaven, Tifa plays hostess and asks him if he wants anything, but it seems he’s only interested in his money. After exploring the sector a bit, Tifa again tries to play the role of cheery bartender, offering to make him a cocktail at the bar, but Cloud sees through this facade, and they carry on. Finally, after the day’s work is done, to tide Cloud over while she’s meeting with AVALANCHE, Tifa finally gets the chance to make him a drink. No matter, which dialogue option the player chooses, Tifa and Cloud fall into the roles of flirty bartender and patron quite easily. Who would have thought this was possible from the guy we met in Ch. 1?

This dynamic is largely absent in Ch. 8, except perhaps exploring Aerith’s relationship with the flowers, which “pays off” in the “Language of Flowers” event, but again, that scene is primarily about Aerith’s character rather than her relationship with Cloud. The orphans and the Leaf House are a throughline of the chapter, but they are merely present. There’s no clear progression here as was the case with in Ch. 3. Sure, the kids admire Cloud quite a bit after he saves them, but it’s not like they were dubious of his presence before. They barely paid attention to him. In terms of the impact the kids have on Cloud’s relationship with Aerith, there isn’t much at all. Certainly nothing like the role Marle plays in developing his relationship with Tifa.

The thing is, there are plenty of moments that could have been set ups, only there’s no real follow through. Aerith introduces Cloud around town as her bodyguard, and some people like the Doctor express dubiousness of his ability to do the job, but even after we spend a whole day fighting off monsters, and defeating Rude, there’s no payoff. Not even a throwaway “Wow, great job bodyguarding” comment. Same with the whole “one date” reward. Other than a quick reference on the way to Sector 5, and Aerith threatening to reveal the deal to cajole Cloud into helping her gather flowers, it’s never brought up again, in this chapter, or the rest of the game.

Aerith also makes a big stink about Cloud taking the time to enjoy Elmyra’s cooking. This is after Cloud is excluded from AVALANCHE’s celebration in Seventh Heaven and after he misses out on Jessie’s mom’s “Midgar Special” with Biggs and Wedge. So this could have been have been the set up to Cloud finally getting to experience a nice, domestic moment where he feels like he’s part of a family. And this dinner does happen! Only…the Remake skips over it entirely. Which is quite a strange choice considering that almost every other waking moment of Cloud’s time in Midgar has been depicted in excruciating detail. SE has decided that either whatever happened in this dinner between these three characters is irrelevant to the story they’re trying to tell, or they’ve deliberately excluded this scene from the game so that the player wouldn’t get any wrong ideas from it (e.g., that Cloud is starting to feel at home with Aerith).

Speaking of home, the Odd Jobs in Ch. 3 feel a bit more meaningful outside of just the gameplay-related rewards because they’re a way for Cloud to improve his reputation as he considers building a life for himself in Sector 7. This intent is implicit as Tifa imparts upon him the life lessons for surviving the slums, and then explicit, when Tifa asks him if he’s going to “stick around a little longer” outside of Seventh Heaven and he answers maybe. (It is later confirmed when Cloud and Tifa converse in his room in Ch. 4 after he remembers their promise).

Despite Aerith’s endeavors to extend their time together, there’s no indication that Cloud is planning to put down roots in Sector 5, or even return. Not even after doing all the Odd Jobs. If anything, it’s just the opposite — after 3 Odd Jobs, Aerith, kind of jokingly tells Cloud “don’t think you can rely on me forever.” This is a line that has a deeper meaning for anyone who knows Aerith’s fate in the OG, but Cloud seems totally fine with the outcome. Similarly, at the end of the Chapter 8, Elmyra asks Cloud to leave and never speak to Aerith again — a request to which he readily agrees.

Adding to the different vibes of the Chapters are the musical themes that play in the background. In Ch. 3, it’s the “Main Theme of VII”, followed by “On Our Way” — two tracks that instantly recall the OG. While the Main Theme is a bit melancholy, it's also familiar. It feels like home. In Ch. 8, we have an instrumental version of ‘Hollow’ - the new theme written for the Remake. While, it’s a lovely piece, it’s unfamiliar and honestly as a bit anxiety inducing (as is the intent).

(A quick aside to address the argument that this proves ‘Hollow’ is about Cloud’s feelings for Aerith:

Which of course doesn’t make any damn sense because he hasn’t even lost Aerith at this point the story. Even if you want to argue that there is so timey-wimey stuff going on and the whole purpose of the Remake is to rewrite the timeline so that Cloud doesn’t lose Aerith around — shouldn’t there be evidence of this desire outside of just the background music? Perhaps, in Cloud’s actions during the Chapter which the song plays — shouldn’t he dread being parted from her, shouldn’t he be the one trying to extend their time together? Instead, he’s willing to let her go quite easily.

The more likely explanation as to why “Hollow” plays in Ch. 8 is that since the “Main Theme of FFVII”  already plays in Ch. 3, the other “main theme” written for the Remake is going to play in the other chapter with a pseudo-open world vibe. If you’re going to say “Hollow” is about Cloud’s feelings for Aerith then you’d have to accept that the Main Theme of the entire series is about Cloud’s feelings for Tifa, which would actually make a bit more sense given that is practically Cloud’s entire character arc.)

Both chapters contain a scripted battle that must be completed before the chapter can end. They both contain a shot where Cloud fights side by side with each of the girls.

Here, Cloud and Tifa are both in focus during the entirety of this shot.

Here, the focus pulls away from Cloud the moment Aerith enters the frame.

I doubt the developers expected most players to notice this particular technique, but it reflects the subtle differences in the way these two relationships are portrayed. By the end of Ch. 3, Cloud and Tifa are acting as one unit. By the end of Ch. 8, even when they’re together, Cloud and Aerith are still apart.

A brief (lol) overview of some meaningful changes from the OG

One of the most significant changes in the Sector 7 chapters is how The Promise flashback is depicted. In the OG, Tifa is the one who has to remind Cloud of the Promise, in a rather pushy way, and whether Cloud chooses to join the next mission to fulfill his promise to her or because Barret is giving him a raise feels a bit more ambiguous.

In the Remake, the Promise has it’s own little mini-arc. It’s first brought up at the end of Ch. 3 when Cloud talks to Tifa about her anxieties about the upcoming mission. Tifa subtly references the Promise by mentioning that she’s “in a pitch” — a reference that goes over Cloud’s head. It’s only in Ch. 4, in the middle of a mission with Biggs and Wedge, where Tifa is no where in sight, that a random building fan reminds him of the Nibelheim water tower and the Promise he made to Tifa there. There’s also another brief flashback to that earlier moment in the bar when Tifa mentions she’s in a “pinch.” Again, the placement of this particular flashback at this particular moment feels almost jarring. And the flashback to the scene in the bar — a flashback to a scene we’ve already seen play out in-game — is the only one of its kind in the Remake. SE went out of the way to show that this particular moment is very important to Cloud and the game as whole. It’s when Cloud returns to his room, and Tifa asks him if he’s planning to stay in Midgar, that this mini-arc is finally complete. He brings up the Promise on his own, and makes it explicit that the reason he’s staying is for her. It’s to fulfill his Promise to her, not for money or for AVALANCHE — at this point, he’s not even supposed to be going on the next mission.

The Reactor 5 chapters are greatly expanded, but there aren’t really any substantive changes other than the addition of the rather intimate train roll scene between and Cloud and Tifa, which adds nothing to the story except to establish how horny they are for each other. We know this is the case, of course, because if you go out of your way to make Cloud look like an incompetent idiot and let the timer run out, you can avoid this scene altogether. But even in that alternate scene, Cloud’s concern for Tifa is crystal clear.

Ch. 8 also plays out quite similarly to the OG for the most part, though Cloud’s banter with Aerith on the rooftops doesn’t feel all that special since we’ve already seen him do the same with Tifa, Barret and the rest of AVALANCHE. The rooftops is the first place Cloud laughs in the OG. In the Remake, while Cloud might not have straight out laughed before, he’s certainly smiled quite a bit in the preceding chapters. Also, with the addition of voice acting and realistic facial expressions, that “laughter” in the Remake comes off much more sarcastic than genuine.

It’s also notable that in the Remake, Cloud vocally protests almost every time Aerith tries to extend their time together. In the OG, Cloud says nothing in these moments, which the player could reasonably interpret as assent.

One major change in the Remake is how Aerith learns of Tifa’s existence. In the OG, Cloud mentions that he wants to go back to Tifa’s bar, prompting Aerith to ask him about his relationship with her. In the Remake, Cloud calls Tifa’s name after having a random flashback of Child Tifa as he’s walking along with some kids. Again the insertion of said flashback is a bit jarring, prompting Aerith to understandably ask Cloud about just who this Tifa is. In the OG, this exchange served to show Aerith’s jealousy and her interest in Cloud. In the Remake, it’s all about Cloud’s feelings for Tifa and his inability to articulate them. As for Aerith, I suppose you can still read her reaction as jealous, though simple curiosity is a perfectly reasonable way to read it too. It plays out quite similarly to Aerith asking Cloud about who he gave the flower to. Her follow ups seem indicate that she’s merely curious about who this recipient might be rather than showing that she’s upset/jealous of the fact that said person exists.

For the collapsed tunnel segment, the Remake adds the recurring bit of Aerith and Cloud trying to successfully complete a high-five. While this is certainly a way to show them getting closer, it’s about least intimate way that SE could have done so. Just think about the alternatives — you could have Cloud and Aerith sharing brief tidbits of their lives after each mechanical arm, you could have them trying to reach for each other’s hand. Instead, SE chose an action that is we’ve seen performed between a number of different platonic buddies, and an action that Aerith immediately performs with Tifa upon meeting her. Not to mention, even while they are technically getting closer, Cloud still rejects (or at least tries to) Aerith’s invitations to extend their time together twice — at the fire and at the playground.

One aspect from these two Chapters that does has plenty of set up and a satisfying payoff is Aerith’s interest in Cloud’s SOLDIER background. You have the weirdness of Aerith already knowing that Cloud was in SOLDIER without him mentioning it first, followed by Elmyra’s antipathy towards SOLDIERs in general, not to mention Aerith actively fishing for information about Cloud’s time in SOLDIER. (For players who’ve played Crisis Core, the reason for her behavior is even more obvious, with her “one date” gesture mirroring Zack’s, and her line to Cloud in front of the tunnel a near duplicate of what she says to Zack — at least in the original Japanese).

Finally, at the playground, it’s revealed that the reason for all this weirdness is because Aerith’s first love was also a SOLDIER who was the same rank as Cloud. Unlike in the OG, Cloud does not exhibit any potential jealousy by asking about the nature of her relationship, and Aerith doesn’t try to play it off by dismissing the seriousness. In fact, with the emotional nuance we can now see on her face, we can understand the depth of her feelings even if she cannot articulate them.

This is the first scene in the Remake where Cloud and Aerith have a genuine conversation. Thus, finally, Cloud expresses some hesitation before he leaves her — and as far as he knows, this could be the last time they see each other. You can interpret this hesitation as romantic longing or it could just as easily be Cloud being a bit sad to part from a new friend. Regardless, it’s notable that scene is preceded by one where Aerith is talking about her first love who she clearly isn’t over, and followed by a scene where Cloud sprints across the screen, without a backwards glance at Aerith, after seeing a glimpse of Tifa through a tiny window in a Chocobo cart that’s about a hundred yards away.

The Wall Market segment in the Remake is quite explicitly about Cloud’s desire to save Tifa. In the OG, Aerith has no trouble getting into Corneo’s mansion on her own, so I can see how someone could misinterpret Cloud going through all the effort to dress as a woman to protect Aerith from the Don’s wiles (though of course, you would need to ask, why they trying to infiltrate the mansion in the first place?). In the Remake, Cloud has to go through herculean efforts to even get Aerith in front of the Don. Everyone who is aware of Cloud’s cause, from Sam to Leslie to Johnny to Andrea to Aerith herself, comments on how hard he’s working to save Tifa and how important she must be to him for him to do so. In case there’s any confusion, the Remake also includes a scene where Cloud is prepared to bust into the mansion on his own, leaving Aerith to fend for herself, after Johnny comes with news that Tifa is in trouble.

Both Cloud and Aerith get big dress reveals in the Remake. If you get Aerith’s best dress, Cloud’s reaction can certainly be read as one of attraction, but since the game continues on the same regardless of which dress you get, it’s not meant to mark a shift in Cloud and Aerith’s relationship. Rather, it’s a reward for the player for completing however many side quests in Ch. 8, especially since the Remake incentives the player to get every dress and thus see all of Cloud’s reactions by making it a Trophy and including it in the play log.

A significant and very welcome change from the OG to the Remake is Tifa and Aerith’s relationship dynamic. In the OG, the girls’ first meeting in Corneo’s mansion starts with them fighting over Cloud (by pretending not to fight over Cloud). In the Remake, the sequence of events is reversed so that it starts off with Cloud’s reunion with Tifa (again emphasizing that the whole purpose of the infiltration is because Cloud wants to save Tifa). Then when Aerith wakes, she’s absolutely thrilled to make Tifa’s acquaintance, hardly acknowledging Cloud at all. Tifa is understandably more wary at first, but once they start working together, they become fast friends.

Also interesting is that from the moment Aerith and Tifa meet, almost every instance where Cloud could be shown worrying about Aerith or trying to comfort Aerith is given to Tifa instead. In the OG, it’s Cloud who frets about Aerith getting involved in the plot to question the Don, and regrets getting her mixed up in everything once they land in the sewers. In the Remake, those very same reservations are expressed by Tifa instead. Tifa is the one who saves Aerith when the platform collapses in the sewer. Tifa is the one who emotionally comforts Aerith after they’re separated in the train graveyard. (Cloud might be the one who physically saves her, but he doesn’t even so much give her a second glance to check on her well-being before he runs off to face Eligor. He leaves that job for Tifa). It almost feels like the Remake is going out of its way to avoid any moments between Cloud and Aerith that could be interpreted as romantic. In fact, after Corneo’s mansion, unless you get Aerith’s resolution, there are almost no one-on-one interactions at all between Cloud and Aerith. Such is not the case with Cloud and Tifa. In fact, right after defeating Abzu in the sewers, Cloud runs after Tifa, and asks her if what she’s saying is one of those slum lessons — continuing right where they left off.

Ch. 11 feels like a wink-wink nudge-nudge way to acknowledge the LTD. You have the infamous shot of the two girls on each of Cloud’s arms, and two scenes where Cloud appears as if he’s unable to choose between them when he asks them if they’re okay. Of course, in this same Chapter, you have a scene during the boss fight with the Phantom where Cloud actually pulls Tifa away from Aerith, leaving Aerith to defend herself, for an extended sequence where he tries to keep Tifa safe. This is not something SE would include if their intention is to keep Cloud’s romantic interest ambiguous or if Aerith is meant to be the one he loves. Of course, Ch. 11 is not the first we see of this trio’s dynamic. We start with Ch. 10, which is all about Aerith and Tifa’s friendship. Ch. 11 is a nod to the LTD dynamic in the OG, but it’s just that, a nod, not an indication the Remake is following the same path. Halfway through Ch. 11, the dynamic completely disappears.

Ch. 12 changes things up a bit from the OG. Instead of Cloud and Tifa ascending the pillar together, Cloud goes up first. Seemingly just so that we can have the dramatic slow-mo handgrab scene between the two of them when Tifa decides to run after Cloud — right after Aerith tells her to follow her heart.

The Remake also shows us what happens when Aerith goes to find Marlene at Seventh Heaven — including the moment when Aerith sees the flower she gave Cloud by the bar register, and Aerith is finally able to connect the dots. After seeing Cloud be so cagey about who he gave the flower to, and weird about his relationship with Tifa, and after seeing how Cloud and Tifa act around each other. It finally makes sense. She’s figured it out before they have. It’s a beautiful payoff to all that set up. Any other interpretation of Aerith’s reaction doesn’t make a lick of sense, because if it’s to indict she’s jealous of Tifa, where is all the set up for that? Why did the Remake eliminate all the moments from the OG where she had been noticeably jealous before? Without this, that interpretation makes about as much sense as someone arguing Aerith is smiling because she’s thinking about a great sandwich she had the night before. In case anyone is confused, the scene is preceded by a moment where Aerith tells Tifa to follow her heart before she goes after Cloud, and followed by the moment where Cloud catches Tifa via slow-motion handgrab.

On the pillar itself, there are so many added moments of Cloud showing his concern for Tifa’s physical and emotional well-being. Even when they find Jessie, as sad as Cloud is over Jessie’s death, the game actually spends more time showing us Cloud’s reaction to Tifa crying over Jessie’s death, and Cloud’s inability to comfort her. Since so much of this is physical rather than verbal, this couldn’t have effectively been shown in the OG with its technological limitations.

After the pillar collapses, we start off with a couple of other moments showing Cloud’s concern over Tifa — watching over her as she wakes, his dramatic fist clench while he watches Barret comfort Tifa in a way he cannot. There is also a subtle but important change in the dialogue. In the OG, Tifa is the one who tells Barret that Marlene is safe because she was with Aerith. Cloud is also on his way to Sector 5, but it’s for the explicit purpose of trying to save Aerith, which we know because Tifa asks. In the Remake, Tifa is too emotionally devastated to comfort Barret about Marlene. Cloud, trying to help in the only way he can, is now the one to tell Barret about Marlene. Leading them to Sector 5 is no longer about him trying to help Aerith, but about him reuniting Barret with his daughter. Again, another moment where Cloud shows concern about Aerith in the OG is eliminated from the Remake.

Rather than going straight from Aerith’s house to trying to figure out a way into the Shinra building to find Aerith, the group takes a detour to check out the ruins of Sector 7 and rescue Wedge from Shinra’s underground lab. It’s only upon seeing the evidence of Shinra’s inhumane experimentation firsthand that Cloud articulates to Elmyra the need to rescue Aerith. In the OG, they never sought out Elmyra’s permission, and Tifa explicitly asks to join Cloud on his quest. Rescuing Aerith is framed as primarily Cloud’s goal, Tifa and Barret are just along for the ride.

In the Remake, all three wait until Elymra gives them her blessing, and it’s framed (quite literally) as the group’s collective goal as opposed to just Cloud’s.

In the aptly named Ch. 14 resolutions, each marks the culmination of the character’s arc for the Part 1 of Remake. While their arcs are by no means complete, they do offer a nice preview of what their ultimate resolutions will be.

With the exception of Tifa’s, these resolutions are primarily about the character themselves. Their relationships with Cloud are secondary. Each resolution marks a change in the character themselves, but not necessarily a change in Cloud’s relationship with said character. Barret recommits to AVALANCHE’s mission and his role as a leader despite the deep personal costs. Aerith’s is full of foreshadowing as she accept her fate and impending death and decides to make the most of the time she has left. After trying to put aside her own feelings for the sake of others the whole time, Tifa finally allows herself to feel the full devastation of losing her home for the second time. Like her ultimate resolution in the Lifestream that we’ll see in about 25 years, Cloud is the only person she can share this sentiment with because he was the only person who was there.

Barret does not grow closer to Cloud through his resolution. Cloud has already proved himself to him by helping out on the pillar and reuniting him with Marlene. Barret resolution merely reveals that Barret is now comfortable enough with Cloud to share his past.

Similarly, Cloud starts off Aerith’s resolution with an intent to go rescue her, and ends with that intent still intact. Aerith is more open about her feelings here than before, it being a dream and all, but these feelings aren’t something that developed during this scene.

The only difference is during Tifa’s resolution. Cloud has been unable to emotionally comfort Tifa up until this point. It’s only when Tifa starts crying and rests her head upon his shoulder that he is able to make a change, to make a choice and hug her. Halfway through Tifa’s resolution, the scene shifts its focus to Cloud, his inaction and eventual action. Notably, the only time we have a close-up of any character during all three resolutions (I’ll define close-up here as a shot where a character’s face takes up half or more of the shot), are three shots of Cloud when he’s hugging/trying to hug Tifa. Tifa’s resolution is the only one where Cloud arcs.

What of the whole “You can’t fall in love with me” line in Aerith’s resolution? Why would SE include that if not to foreshadow Cloud falling in love with Aerith? Or indicate that he has already? Well, you can’t just take the dialogue on its own, you how to look at how these lines are framed. Notably, when she says “you can’t fall in love with me,” Aerith is framed at the center of the shot, and almost looks like she’s directly addressing the player. It’s as much a warning for the player as it is for Cloud, which makes sense if you know her fate in the OG.

This is followed directly by her saying “Even if you think you have…it’s not real.” In this shot, it’s back to a standard shot/reverse shot where she is the left third of the frame. She is addressing Cloud here, which, again if you’ve played the OG, is another bit of heavy foreshadowing. The reason Clould would think he might be in love with Aerith is because he’s falsely assuming of the memories of a man who did love Aerith — Zack.

For Cloud’s response (”Do I get a say in all this?”/ “That’s very one-sided” depending on the translation), rather than showing a shot of his face, the Remake shows him with his back turned.

Whatever Cloud’s feelings may be for Aerith, the game seems rather indifferent to them.

What is more telling is the choice to include a bit with Cloud getting jealous over a guy trying to give Tifa flowers in Barret’s resolution. Barret also mentions both Jessie and Aerith in their conversation, but nothing else gets such a reaction from Cloud.

It also should go without saying that if Aerith’s resolution is meant to establish Cloud and Aerith’s romance, there should have been plenty of set-up beforehand and plenty of follow-through afterward. That obviously is not the case, because again, the Remake has gone out of its way to avoid moments where Cloud’s actions towards Aerith could be interpreted romantically.

Case in point, at around this time in the OG, Marlene tells Cloud that she thinks Aerith likes him and the player has the option to have Cloud express his hope that she does. This scene is completely eliminated from the Remake and replaced with a much more appropriate scene of father-daughter affection between Marlene and Barret while Tifa and Cloud are standing together outside.

The method by which they get up the plate is completely different in the Remake. Leslie is the one who helps them this time around, and though his quest to reunite with his fiance directly parallels with the trio’s desire to save Aerith, Leslie himself draws a comparison to earlier when Cloud was trying to rescue Tifa. Finally, when Abzu is defeated again, it is Barret who draws the parallel of their search for Aerith to Leslie’s search for his fiance, making it crystal clear that saving Aerith is a group effort rather than only Cloud’s.

Speaking of Barret, in the OG, he seems to reassess his opinion of Cloud in the Shinra HQ stairs when he sees Cloud working so hard to save Aerith and realizes he might actually care about other people. In the Remake, that reevaluation occurs after you complete all the Ch. 14 sidequests and help a bunch of NPCs. Arguably, this moment occurs even earlier in the Remake for Barret, after the Airbuster, when he realizes that Cloud is more concerned for his and Tifa’s safety than his own.

Overall, the entire Aerith rescue feels so anticlimactic in the Remake. In the OG, Cloud gets his big hero moment in the Shinra Building. He’s the one who runs up to Aerith when the glass shatters and they finally reunite. In the Remake, it’s unclear what the emotional stakes are for Cloud here. At their big reunion, all we get from him is a “Yep.” In fact, when you look at how this scene plays out, Aerith is positioned equally between Cloud and Tifa at the moment of her rescue. Cloud’s answer is again with his back turned to the camera. It’s Tifa who gets her own shot with her response.

Another instance of the Remake being completely indifferent to Cloud’s feelings for Aerith, and actually priotizing Tifa’s relationship with Aerith instead.

It is also Tifa who runs to reunite with Aerith after the group of enemies is defeated. Another moment that could have easily been Cloud’s that the Remake gives to Tifa.

Also completely eliminated in the Remake, is the “I’m your bodyguard. / The deal was for one date” exchange in the jail cells. In the Remake, after Ch. 8, the date isn’t brought up again at all; “the bodyguard” reference only comes up briefly in Ch. 11 and then never again.

In the Remake, the jail scene is replaced by the scene in Aerith’s childhood room. Despite the fact that this is Aerith’s room, it is Tifa’s face that Cloud first sees when he wakes. What purpose does this moment serve other than to showcase Cloud and Tifa’s intimacy and the other characters’ tacit acknowledgment of said intimacy?

(This is the second time where Cloud wakes up and Tifa is the first thing he sees. The other was at Corneo’s mansion. He comes to three times in the Remake, but in Ch. 8, even though Aerith is right in front of him, we start off with a few seconds of Cloud gazing around the church before settling on the person in front of him. Again, while not something that most players would notice, this feels like a deliberate choice.)

Especially since this scene itself is all about Aerith. She begins a sad story about her past, and Cloud, rather than trying to comfort her in any way, asks her to give us some exposition about the Ancients. When the Whispers surround her, even though Cloud is literally right there, it's Tifa who pulls her out of it and comforts her. Another moment that could have been Cloud that was given to Tifa, and honestly, this one feels almost bizarre.

Throughout the entire Shinra HQ episode, Cloud and Aerith haven’t had a single moment alone to themselves. The Drums scenario is completely invented for the Remake. The devs could have contrived a way for Cloud and Aerith to have some one-on-one time here and work through the feelings they expressed during Aerith’s resolution if they wanted. Instead, with the mandatory party configurations during this stage - Cloud & Barret on one side; Tifa & Aerith on the others, with Cloud & Tifa being the respective team leaders communicating over PHS, the Remake minimizes the amount of interaction Cloud and Aerith have with each other in this chapter.

On the rooftop, before Cloud’s solo fight with Rufus, even though Cloud is ostensibly doing all this so that they can bring Aerith to safety, the Remake doesn’t include a single shot that focuses on Aerith’s face and her reaction to his actions. The game has decided, whatever Aerith’s feelings are in this moment, they’re irrelevant to the story they’re trying to tell. Instead we get shots focusing solely on Barret and Tifa. While the Remake couldn’t find any time to develop Cloud and Aerith’s relationship at the Shinra Tower (even though the OG certainly did), it did find time to add a new scene where Tifa saves Cloud from certain death, while referencing their Promise.

A lot of weird shit happens after this, but it’s pretty much all plot and no character. We do get one more moment where Cloud saves Tifa (and Tifa alone) from the Red Whisper even though Aerith is literally right next to her. The Remake isn’t playing coy at all about where Cloud’s preferences lie.

The party order for the Sephiroth battle varies depending on how you fought the Whispers. All the other character entrances (whoever the 3rd party member is, then the 4th and Red) are essentially the exact same shots, with the characters replaced. It’s the first character entrance (which can only be Aerith or  Tifa) that you have two distinct options.

If Aerith is first, the camera pans from Cloud over to Aerith. It then cuts back to Cloud’s reaction, in a separate shot, as Aerith walks to join him (offscreen). It’s only when the player regains control of the characters that Cloud and Aerith ever share the frame.

On the other hand, if Tifa is first, we see Tifa land from Cloud’s POV. Cloud then walks over to join Tifa and they immediately share a frame, facing Sephiroth together.

Again, this is not something SE would expect the player to notice the first or even second time around. Honestly, I doubt anyone would notice at all unless they watched all these variations back to back. That is telling in itself, that SE would go through all this effort (making these scenes unique rather than copy and pasting certainly takes more time and effort) to ensure that the depictions of Cloud’s relationships with these two women are distinct despite the fact that hardly anyone would notice. Even in the very last chapter of the game, they want us to see Cloud and Tifa as a pair and Cloud and Aerith as individuals.

Which isn’t to say that Aerith is being neglected in the Remake. Quite the opposite, in fact, when she has essentially become the main protagonist and the group’s spirtual leader in Ch. 18. Rather, her relationship with Cloud is no longer an essential part of her character. Not to mention, one of the very last shots of the Remake is about Aerith sensing Zack’s presence. Again, not the kind of thing you want to bring up if the game is supposed to show her being in love with Cloud.

What does it all mean????

Phew — now let’s step back and look and how the totality of these changes have reshaped our understanding of the story as a whole. Looking solely at the Midgar section of the OG, and ignoring everything that comes after it, it seems to tell a pretty straightforward story: Cloud is a cold-hearted jerk who doesn’t care about anyone else until he meets Aerith. It is through his relationship with Aerith that he begins to soften up and starts giving a damn about something other than himself. This culminates when he risks it all to rescue Aerith from the clutches of the game’s Big Bad itself, The Shinra Electric Company.

This was honestly the reason why I was dreading the Remake when I learned that it would only cover the Midgar segment. A game that’s merely an expansion of the Midgar section of the OG is probably going to leave a lot of people believing that Cloud & Aerith were the intended couple, and I didn’t want to wait years and perhaps decades for vindication after the Remake’s Lifestream Scene.

I imagine this very scenario is what motivated SE to make so many of these changes. In the OG, they could get away with misdirecting the audience for the first few hours of the game since the rest of the story and the reveals were already completed. The player merely had to pop in the next disc to get the real story. Such is not the case with the Remake. Had the the Remake followed the OG’s beats more closely, many players, including some who’ve never played the OG, would finish the Remake thinking that Cloud and Aerith were the intended couple. It would be years until they got the rest of the story, and at that point, the truth would feel much more like a betrayal. Like they’ve been cruelly strung along.

While they’ve gone out of their way to adapt most elements from the OG into the Remake, they’ve straight up eliminated many scenes that could be interpreted as Cloud’s romantic interest in Aerith. Instead, he seems much more interested in her knowledge as an Ancient than in her romantic affections. This is the path the Remake could be taking. Instead of Cloud being under the illusion of falling in love with Aerith, he’s under the illusion that the answer to his identity dilemma lies in Aerith’s Cetra heritage, when, of course, the answer was with Tifa all along.

Hiding Sephiroth’s existence during the Midgar arc isn’t necessary to telling the story of FF7, thus it’s been eliminated in the Remake. Similarly, pretending that Cloud and Aerith are going to end up together also isn’t necessary and would only confuse the player. Thus the LTD is no longer a part of the Remake.

If Aerith’s impact on Cloud has been diminished, what then is his arc in the Remake? Is it essentially just the same without the catalyst of Aerith? A cold guy at the start who eventually learns to care about others through the course of the game? Kind of, though arguably, this is who Remake!Cloud is all along, not just Cloud at the end of the Remake. Cloud is a guy who pretends to be a selfish jerk, but he deep down he really does care. He just doesn’t show this side of himself around people he’s unfamiliar with. So part of his arc in the Remake is opening up to the others, Barret, AVALANCHE and Aerith included, but these all span a chapter or two at most. They don’t straddle the entire game.

What is the throughline then? What is an area in which he exhibits continuous growth?

It’s Tifa. It’s his desire to fulfill his Promise to Tifa. Not just to protect her physically, but to be there for her emotionally, something that’s much harder to do. There’s the big moments like when he remembers the Promise in Ch. 4., his dramatic fist clench when he can’t stop Tifa from crying in Ch. 12, and in Ch. 13 when he watches Barret comfort Tifa. It’s all the flashbacks he has of her and the times he’s felt like he failed her. It’s the smaller moments where he can sense her nervousness and unease but the only thing he knows how to do is call her name. It’s all those times during battle, where Tifa can probably take care of herself, but Cloud has to save her because he can’t fail her again. All of this culminates in Tifa’s Resolution, where Tifa is in desperate need of comfort, and is specifically seeking Cloud’s comfort, and Cloud has no idea what to do. He hesitates because he’s clueless, because he doesn’t want to fuck it up, but finally, he makes the choice, he takes the risk, and he hugs her….and he kind of fucks it up. He hugs her too hard. Which is a great thing, because this arc isn’t anywhere close to being over. There’s still so much more to come. So many places this relationship will go.

We get a little preview of this when Tifa saves Cloud on the roof. Everything we thought we knew about their relationship has been flipped on its head. Tifa is the one saving Cloud here, near the end of this part of the Remake. Just as she will save Cloud in the Lifestream just before the end of the FF7 story as a whole. What does Tifa mean to Cloud? It’s one of the first questions posed in the Remake, and by the end, it remains unanswered.

Cloud’s character arc throughout the entire FF7 story is about his reconciling with his identity issues. This continues to develop through the Shinra Tower Chapters, but it certainly isn’t going to be resolved in Part 1 of the Remake. His character arc in the Remake — caring more about others/finding a way to finally comfort Tifa — is resolved in Ch. 14, well before rescuing Aerith, which is what makes her rescue feel so anticlimactic. The resolution of this external conflict isn’t tied to the protagonist’s emotional arc. This was not the case in the OG. I’m certainly not complaining about the change, but the Remake probably would have felt more satisfying as a whole if they hewed to the structure of the OG. Instead, it seems that SE has prioritized the clarity of the Remake series as a whole (leaving no doubt about where Cloud’s affections lie) over the effectiveness of the “climax” in the first entry of the Remake.

This is all clear if you only focus on the “story” of the Remake -- i.e., what the characters are saying and doing. If you extend your lens to the presentation of said story, and here I’m talking about who the game chooses to focus on during the scenes, how long they hold on these shots, which characters share the frame, which do not, etc --- it really could not be more obvious.

Does the camera need to linger for over 5 seconds on Cloud staring at the door after wishing Tifa goodnight? Does it need to find Cloud almost every time Tifa says or does anything so that we’re always aware of his watchfulness and the nature of his care? The answer is no until you realize this dynamic is integral to telling the story of Final Fantasy VII.

I don’t see how anyone who compares the Remake to the OG could come away from it thinking that the Remake series is going to reverse all of the work done in the OG and Compilation by having Cloud end up with Aerith.

Just because the ending seems to indicate that the events of the OG might not be set in stone, it doesn’t mean that the Remake will end with Aerith surviving and living happily ever after with Cloud. Even if Aerith does live (which again seems unlikely given the heavy foreshadowing of her death in the Remake), how do you come away from the Remake thinking that Cloud is going to choose Aerith over Tifa when SE has gone out of its way to remove scenes between Cloud and Aerith that could be interpreted as romantic? And gone out of its way to shove Cloud’s feelings for Tifa in the player’s face? The sequels would have to spend an obscene amount of time not only building Cloud and Aerith’s relationship from scratch, but also dismantling Cloud’s relationship with Tifa. It would be an absolute waste of time and resources, and there’s really no way to do so without making the characters look like assholes in the process.

Now could this happen? Sure, in the sense that literally anything could happen in the future. But in terms of outcomes that would make sense based on what’s come before, this particular scenario is about as plausible as Cloud deciding to relinquish his quest to find Sephiroth so that he can pursue his real dream of becoming at sandwich artist at Panera Bread.

It’s over! I promise!

Like you, I too cannot believe the number of words I’ve wasted on this subject. What is there left to say? The LTD doesn’t exist outside of the first disc of the OG. You'll only find evidence of SE perpetuating the LTD if you go into these stories with the assumption that 1) The LTD exists 2) it remains unanswered. But it’s not. We know that Cloud ends up with Tifa.

What the LTD has become is dissecting individual scenes and lines of dialogue, without considering the context of said things, and pretending as if the outcome is unknown and unknowable. If you took this tact to other aspects of FF7’s story, then it would be someone arguing that because there a number of scenes in the OG that seem to suggest that Meteor will successfully destroy the planet, this means that the question of whether or not our heroes save the world in the end is left ambiguous. No one does that because that would be utterly absurd. Individual moments in a story may suggest alternate outcomes to build tension, to keep us on our toes, but that doesn’t change the ending from being the ending. Our heroes stop Meteor. Cloud loves Tifa. Arguments against either should be treated with the same level of credulity (i.e., none).

It’s frustrating that the LTD, and insecurities about whether or not Cloud really loves Tifa, takes up so much oxygen in any discussion about these characters. And it’s a damn shame, because Cloud and Tifa’s relationship is so rich and expansive, and the so-called “LTD” is such a tiny sliver of that relationship, and one of the least interesting aspects. They’re wonderful because they’re just so damn normal. Unlike other Final Fantasy couples, what keeps them apart is not space and time and death, but the most human and painfully relatable emotion of all, fear. Fear that they can’t live up to the other’s expectations; fear that they might say the wrong thing. The fear that keeps them from admitting their feelings at the Water Tower, they’re finally able to overcome 7 years later in the Lifestream. They’re childhood friends but in a way they’re also strangers. Like other FF couples, we’re able to watch their entire relationship grow and unfold before our eyes. But they have such a history too, a history that we unravel with them at the same time. Every moment of their lives that SE has found worth depicting, they’ve been there for each other, even if they didn’t know it at the time. Theirs is a story that begins and ends with each other. Their is the story that makes Final Fantasy VII what it is.

If you’ve made it this far, many thanks for reading. I truly have no idea how to use this platform, so please direct any and all hatemail to my DMs at TLS, which I will then direct to the trash. (In all seriousness, I’d be happy to answer any specific questions you may have, but I feel like I’ve more than said my piece here.)

If there’s one thing you take away from this, I hope it’s to learn to ignore all the ridiculous arguments out there, and just enjoy the story that’s actually being told. It’s a good one.

[air-in-words]

Badger Snakes and The "Red-Stained Ledger"

Since my recent announcement identifying as a Badger Snake (don't @ me if I change my primary at some point lol still going back over that one,) I've looked up some characters that have been identified as Badger Snakes, and found two things:

1) There weren't very many in fiction and

2) most go through the same personal journey I had described in my previous post.

By that, I mean, a very similar feeling of self-loathing or feeling as though you have some dirty secret to hide, AKA the Red-Stained Ledger Natasha Romanoff refers to. The two main ones that have been agreed upon I'll be focusing on are Woody from Toy Story and the aforementioned Black Widow, but I'll also be bringing two new characters into the fray, one that's been sorted as such based on the portrayal, and one that I've discovered on my own. They are Selina Kyle AKA Catwoman and Dewey Finn from School of Rock.

It's interesting to find the similar plotlines that certain sortings are given consistently in media, and The Power Behind the Throne AKA Badger Snake seems to pretty much only have the one: They fight for the group that they are loyal to, but they can't seem to help but do so in a way that they aren't proud of, one that they're sure would lead said group to shun them.

I'm sure someone could point out a character I'm not referencing here that doesn't have that plot, but at the very least, this plot dominates the sorting.

Woody in the first movie goes through exactly that issue. He only wants to fight for Andy's toys, and in many ways, all toys he comes across. He makes choices that he believes will benefit everyone, and prides himself on being able to make the "tough choices." But, he ends up having to do so in a "duplicitous" way, when he seeks to manipulate Buzz Lightyear out of his group. This is a horrible, dirty secret to him, and he feels almost as if he could never return to them, never show his face again because of how he chooses to fight. In the end, he reaffirms that his actions come from a good place, a place of love for his group, and finds ways to use his crafty talents that are slightly more constructive and a little less "cloak and dagger."

Natasha Romanoff has given me the namesake for this Badger Snake element: the Red-Stained Ledger. She describes her desire to fight for her country, for her family, but struggles with what she knows she's good at. She believes she's inherently a bad person and is determined to remain a loner due to her "badness," due to the "monster" she is. Good people don't lie or manipulate. Good people... uh... I dunno, bake cakes or something? Work humble jobs? But, her contribution to the world, her ability to be clever and tricky, means that holding her group, her country, her family, the Avengers themselves, only in her heart and not in her hands. But, her true colors are shown in her never-ending dedication to the cause, down to her being willing to give her life so that no one else has to do it. In a way, it's sad, because she died believing she in some way deserved it. But, none of her teammates felt that way about her. She may have been crafty, a master manipulator, and a skillful liar, but she was the farthest thing from bad.

Now, onto the two newer additions. I've seen Selina Kyle sorted as Double Snake, and I would agree that there are many interpretations that could fit the bill. But, if you ask me, the truest interpretation of her is as The Power Behind the Throne, the Robin Hood with no loud cause to shout from the rooftops; only a desire to help the people of Gotham. She uses her skills as a thief to act as a sort of "guardian angel" to the poorest in Gotham, but she has no grand statement to make. She sees people hurting, her group, the underdogs of Gotham, and came to their aid. But she does so quietly, secretly, because she believes in her heart that the way she has done so is not worthy of praise. She's a con and a thief, but, she places people above all else. She, in some interpretations, is one of the main people to open Bruce's eyes to the fact that not all criminals are necessarily bad people. Some of them are just in terrible situations they can't get out of. And yet, she won't afford that benefit of the doubt to herself, believing she is simply a broken toy not worth fixing. Her occasionally lackadaisical attitude towards killing may seem to make Badger primary unlikely, but Badgers are not always loyal to ALL humans. Her group is the poor and downtrodden, and those who act against them are less than human in her eyes.

Now, we come to my personal favorite, my own personal discovery: Dewey Finn from one of my favorite movies, School of Rock.

Dewey is a fabulous example of a Badger Snake, in my personal opinion. His chosen group is Rock with a Capital R and "the band," whichever band that may currently be. He may have some sort of Burnt Snake primary performance/model going on, wanting to play the part of a "rock star" that truly only cares about himself, but his true loyalty is very clear. He is worried about doing his chosen group justice in every way, making sure that Rock is being well-represented and that he's serving his current band the very best he has to offer. Being kicked out of his band at the very beginning is earth-shattering to him, not because he has a Snake primary style devotion to only them, but because they told him he let them down, and implying that he wasn't representing Rock the way he should. His Snake primary performance/model melts away as he bonds to his new band, the kids he teaches. He brings them into his chosen group of Rock and creates a new bonded group with them in particular as they form a band. He actually finds himself liberated by taking a backseat to the children (a very Badger primary thing to enjoy,) allowing Zack to play his song, guiding Freddie away from making bad choices, helping Tamika find her voice, encouraging fellow Snake secondary Summer how to use her shrewdness, and, using a method I believe is best utilized by Badger Snakes, helping Principal Mullins find her chill. Lol.

Badger Snakes, more than any other Snake secondary type, will rely on the "we aren't so different you and I" approach to get what they want. He finds out Mullins also enjoys Rock. This is something they have in common! Let's create a situation where we "naturally" find out we have this thing in common, placing us both in the same group. Although other primaries don't glorify groups as much as Badger primaries do, all people are more likely to listen to or help out someone they feel is like them in some way. So, Dewey puts some Stevie Nicks on the jukebox and gets Mullins on his side.

In a similar fashion to the characters listed above, Dewey believes he is truly a loser and has nothing of any actual value or goodness to provide. But, the children help him see he's wrong, and he finds a way to utilize his talents in a way that truly fulfills him.

In conclusion, although seemingly unrepresented, I think there actually may be quite a few more Badger Snakes hiding in media, and, perhaps, they can be outed by looking for the Red-Stained Ledger plotline. Badger primaries are more likely, in my opinion, to be disturbed by their actions than say a Lion primary, due to where their loyalties truly lie. Although Lions may fight for the right thing, and that right thing may involve people's rights or serving a group, they serve that right thing before any of the people they may steamroll over to achieve it. Badgers, by definition, serve things. And, usually, lying, cheating, or otherwise being crafty is viewed as the worst possible way to serve someone or something. They do care about the things they may hurt or damage through their actions, and how they use their talents does, in fact, matter to them immensely.

So, to my Badger Snakes out there struggling with their own so-called "Red-Stained Ledgers", just remember that Dewey Finn would think you're kick-ass.

EDIT: Sorry, was thinking about it, and had to put an edit. Another way to think of this plotline/character archetype is mentioned in School of Rock as well as in a musical I know very well. I wouldn't use this moniker as the name for this plotline, only because it describes a very specific Snake secondary, one that is playful and light-hearted, and not all Snake secondaries are like this.

Zack's song refers to Dewey as The Magic Man, a person that swoops in and, almost by magic (in actuality, manipulation) brings out the best in the people around them. In the aforementioned musical, this character is called The Music Man.

Harold Hill may very well be another Badger Snake, although one more heavily disguised than Dewey Finn. I won't go too deep into his characterization here, but know he's a conman who claims to be a band instructor, while he has no musical talent himself, planning on taking the money for the uniforms and instruments and running. Instead, almost without realizing it, he encourages and manipulates the people of the town he enters into becoming better versions of what they are now. And, the most tragic part of his character is revealed once another character, one of the children he's conned, points out that there isn't a band, and never has been one. Harold tells him "I always think there's a band, kid."

It's interesting that, in both of these cases, they are associated with music and an almost mystical ability to bring out the best in others. I might do a more in-depth look at Harold Hill at some point, since I've been planning on doing some musical characters for a bit.

If thinking about having a Red-Stained Ledger is too negative for your own self-image, think of yourself as The Music Man. Your friends and the people around you may actually see you as an almost mystical force for good, someone who always seems to know the right thing to say or do to bring out the best in them. :)

[regrettablewritings]

Fluff alphabet for Tadashi Hamada if you're stil writing for him, please. B, c,s w?

Indeed, I do still write for the lovely lad. Stuff is below the cut

B = Baby (Do they want a family? Why/Why not?):

Oh, most definitely. Tadashi is a very family-oriented man. Always has been, always will be. So it’s no surprise that he looks forward to the day he can start his own little branch of the Hamada family tree. We’ve already seen how he is with Hiro: He’s protective, he’s encouraging, he’s inspiring, he’s good at getting him to do things he may not want to do even if it’s for his own benefit -- imagine what wonders he could do if those traits were applied to a little mini-him or mini-you or mini-you-both!

Honestly, the subject goes more or less unspoken between you two because it’s kind of a given that Tadashi wants kids. You two would be taking a walk in the park or going to the mall and the moment a stroller passes by, he’s barely playing off how much he’s trying to crane his neck to gaze upon the chubby wonder resting inside. You can see the disappointment in his eyes when he fails. Some days when you’re just at the Lucky Cat trying to get some homework done, you’ll glance up and see him at a table with a baby at it, speaking all kinds of sweet words to them. You’ve seen his favorites playlist on Youtube -- it has a decade-old commercial for Legal Zoom on it. When you questioned why it was there in the first place, you had to witness your adoring boyfriend sheepishly admit that the baby in it was just too cute. And also he liked the pale purple walls and thought it’d make for good inspiration.

“Good inspiration for . . .?” you led, knowing exactly where it was headed. You watched at Tadashi’s eyes wandered and his cheeks and ears reddened.

“For . . . a nursery . . .” he responded. It was a mumble, but you heard everything you needed to know loud and clear.

Well, not everything, of course: You asked him what exactly he envisioned for the future.

He admitted he wasn’t exactly particular about whether he wanted a boy or a girl, let alone first or second -- he just knew he would like at least two children so neither one would be lonely. Corny and cheesy as it was, he would’ve preferred to live somewhere a little closer to the suburbs (“Hey, at least I don’t expect a white picket fence!” he justified). His reasoning being that he’d like a nice, quiet area in which many parks and libraries and schools can be accessible, and so any children of yours have room to grow. However, given the structure of the area, he knew that this was going to be a tough call for a multitude of reasons.

Bottom line, though, he’d be okay with living in the city if it meant he could still provide for you and your hypothetical kids the best he could. He just wants to make sure everyone is happy and healthy. But for now, he’s content with it just being the two of you . . . Emphasis on “for now.”

C = Cuddles (How do they cuddle?):

Usually with a prayer that Hiro doesn’t barge in. No, seriously: That bedroom of theirs offers only the most courteous of privacies by way of a tasteful but otherwise unpersuasive shoji. You want Hiro to see you guys trying to get cozy about as much as Hiro does -- which is not at all, given how he pretends to throw up every time he’s walked in on you two. And how he’s voiced his dislike of it.

Given that Tadashi is ever the caring brother and roommate, he can only get away with so many dry, “You don’t have to be here”s before he just feels bad about it. As a result, the two of you have actually had to create a cuddling schedule built with Hiro’s course times, your availability, and Tadashi’s availability in mind. And God forbid Hiro ever finds out about that schedule because all he needs is one more reason to call the both of you Ultra Nerds.

Worse-case scenario, you two get booted out and have to make do with the couch in the garage, cramped as it is. But you don’t mind: Usually, the reason you two are cuddling is because you’re so butt-tired from coursework that you need to relax and zonk out for a couple hours. Besides, for as lanky and more muscle-based as a guy like Tadashi is, his arm wrapped around you is unfairly warm and comforting. You’re bound to be conked out before you can even utter a complaint, or at the very least you’re way too relaxed to register the fact that you’re both awkwardly strewn about the furniture.

So if it had to be put in a different way (and less about worrying somebody might barge in), you supposed you could describe your cuddling as being the snug equivalent to how a college student eats, sleeps, or lives altogether: You both take what you can get when you can get it and try to enjoy it before it’s time to go to your next “adult obligation.”

S = Sad (How do they cheer themselves/others up?):

Tadashi is a pretty optimistic person so it’s actually hard to get him completely down, let alone long enough for him to actually require a pick-me-up bigger than a brief inner pep talk. Normally all he needs to do is have a quiet moment to himself, some time to cool down, maybe remind himself that things can and will get better. But in the odd moment where this isn’t enough, Tadashi will often turn to his interests.

However, don’t assume this means he’ll hunker down in his lab and focus on one of his projects: He’s long since learned that it’s best to not robotically engineer with sad or frustrated -- way too many power outages have occurred from that.

Instead, he turns to his other hobbies: Living with Aunt Cass means he’s been knowing how to bake for years, albeit the baked fruits of his labors don’t always come out prettily; depending on how free his schedule is (read: not very at all anymore), he may go find a location to go surfing; or he goes to a park to get, like, a cart crepe. Usually being outside in a sunny place (with plenty of puppies and babies around) zaps him back to normal.

Which leaves him with plenty of time to figure out how to cheer you up!

Given his nature, Tadashi has become a wiz at cheering others up. He’s just got this nearly contagious brightness about him. And even if you don’t find yourself as readily bright as he, don’t worry: He’s not afraid to pull old tried-and-trues on you. Being an older brother/almost fatherly figure has allowed him the perfect position to perfect his trade: That is, the art of being goofy for the sake of cheering up his loved ones. He will easily pick you up and jump around with you, hollering about how he’s going to “turn that frown upside-down” -- by actually holding you upside-down.

Not your cup of tea? Then be prepared to witness the most tragic case of Dad Dancing ever recorded in a man below the age of 30, complete with cheesy disco music. You will be forced to witness his arms flailing, head bopping, mouth performing what you had once heard being referred to as “The White Man’s Overbite”. You will beg that he stop “for the love of Mochi.” You will try to have your pleas be heard over the speaker blaring “Got to Be Real” by Cheryl Lynn, only to be further drowned out by your boyfriend’s tone-deaf singing.

But the man will not stop: He must dance in your honor.

And once you’re done wiping away the tears left from cackling, he’ll treat you to some froyo.

If this still doesn’t work, there’s the slightest chance he might pull out the big guns: Tickling. It’s reserved strictly as a worst-case scenario, but he’s going to dance until his feet bleed if he can help it before he has to do that again. The last time he resorted to tickling a little too eagerly, it . . . didn’t end well.

W = Wedding (When, how, where do they propose?):

When? A balmy evening in May. How? With a bit of difficulty. Mind you, Tadashi is a generally organized man on the average day. But on the day he proposes to you – heck, the days leading up to it? He’s a bit of a mess. And it’s in no small part due to how incredibly involved his friends and family had tried to be the entire time.

Make no mistake, he’s very glad that he has such supportive loved ones. However, he found himself constantly fighting off a heart attack every time one of them treaded the line a little too closely for his comfort. (Sure, there’s little suspicion in Honey gushing over wedding magazines with you or Aunt Cass asking you to sample a “brand new wedding cake flavor” she was planning to use for some pastries, but Wasabi asking about your ring size and Fred talking about how kaiju costumes were better than tuxes until GoGo had to slam him down really wasn’t exactly inconspicuous.)

Hiro might’ve been the closest thing to normal throughout it all, much to the elder Hamada brother’s surprise. But even then, he was more of less gesturing for Tadashi to just go ahead and pop the question – albeit, at the most inopportune times in the latter’s honest opinion.

“I can’t propose to my girlfriend in the campus library!” Tadashi rejected Monday.

“There’s nothing romantic about being in the middle of a pizzeria and going, ‘Hey, will you marry me?’” he scoffed on Wednesday.

“Hiro, if you ever propose to somebody in front of a mall fountain, then I’ve failed you,” came his dry response Saturday. He knew his younger brother meant no harm by applying the lightest of pressures; he just wanted all the anxieties over with! But this was you Tadashi was proposing to: You deserved only the best. Only the most heartfelt . . . Which was why, in the end, the where of it all was the Lucky Cat Café. Was it the fanciest establishment he could have done it in? Not really. Thankfully, Aunt Cass was all too eager to oblige his request to have the café to yourselves one evening; it allowed him to properly decorate your favorite table with a tablecloth and a bouquet of your favorite flowers. It was admittedly a tad cheesy, but you certainly didn’t mind it.

But this was where Tadashi had grown up. It was where his family – the core of his being – was, where his friends congregated to relax. This was his home in so many ways and if he was to invite you into his family, he wanted it to be done here. Even if it meant Aunt Cass and Hiro were not too discreetly peeking out from the back. Or that the entire time Tadashi was trying to recite his proposal speech, he kept getting distracted by your friends, whose faces were mashed against a window behind you, waiting to bear witness to this milestone.

Suffice to say, it was a very group-oriented situation. But neither you nor Tadashi would have had anything less.

Thank you for your patience!

[anakin-danvers]

you

Rey x fem!reader 

Description: All your life you think you know what you like. Then came her. 

In an attempt to have you talk to a certain Resistance pilot, you end up realizing your wingwoman might be the one who you have feelings for. 

Word count: ~2k

Warnings: none, it’s pure fluff plus my personal love letter to Daisy Ridley’s face

A/N: Wow I never thought I’d be writing something like this. But I did it and it’s here. And honestly, I’m so happy with how this turned out. As always, please let me know what you think :)

P.S. reminder that requests are open!

——

“Look, he’s walking this way.”

You hold back an eye roll as your friends giggle beside you. As much as you want to ignore them, you look up, seeing the source of their teasing. Poe Dameron, Resistance pilot, is walking over to his X-Wing which is stationed conveniently next to your own. 

Quickly, you avert your eyes from him, instead looking down at the comm you are working on fixing. Your friends, Sav and Tess, were supposed to be keeping you company while you finished the maintenance of your X-Wing, but instead it seemed they were more focused on distracting you.  

Poe reaches his X-Wing, turning over to give you and your friends a greeting. 

“Ladies,” he greets, giving a small wave before turning over to perform his own maintenance on his fighter. You nod as a form of greeting, too embarrassed by Tess and Sav’s muffled giggles to do anything else. 

As his attention leaves from your group, your head swiftly turns to glare at your friends. 

“What the kriff was that? Can you two be anymore obvious?” Your voice is low, not wanting Poe’s attention again, but the annoyance is evident in your tone. 

“Oh c’mon Y/N. Half the base has a crush on Poe, just have fun with it” Sav says, waving a hand to try to calm your nerves. 

“That may be the case, but I don’t want him thinking I’m part of that group,” you say, glancing over to make sure Poe can’t hear your conversation. From the enthusiastic conversation he’s holding with his BB unit, it’s fair to say you’re safe. 

“And why not?” Tess asks. “You should shoot your shot, you never know what might happen.” She shrugs, going back to working on the small design you let her paint on your fighter after much insistence from her part. 

You hold back a scoff. “Please, we all know that’s never happening.”

“What’s never happening?”

Kriff, the stars really are plotting against me today. 

The three of you turn at the sound of the voice. When your eyes meet with a pair of hazel ones, you wish you would’ve opted for fixing your X-Wing on your own. 

Standing before you is Rey, lightsaber hooked to her side and holding a brown bag which carried a wonderful smell. Her hair is half up, allowing the bottom half to sit on her shoulders. Her eyes stay on yours, making the jumpsuit you are wearing suddenly feel very warm. 

“Nothing,” you quickly say. At your answer, her brows rise. 

“Nothing is ever going to happen? Seems like a rather...tragic way to look at life,” she says, a hint of teasing evident in her voice. 

Against your will, the corners of your mouth raise slightly, just in time for Rey to let out a small laugh. 

“I brought Wookiee Cookies,” she says, holding up the brown bag. 

“Rey, you angel,” Sav says, walking over to her immediately to pluck her pick of the sweet treat. 

Rey takes a seat next to Sav on the floor, looking up to where you were finishing up your comm work. 

“Cookie, Y/N?” She once again raises the brown bag.

“Yes, in a second. I’m about to finish working on the comm...” you trial off, your tongue poking out slightly as you focus on finishing the last wirings needed. 

While in your state of concentration, Sav, Tess, and Rey converse among themselves. You pick up a bit of what they’re saying, the conversation moving from the lack of variety in the dining hall’s menu lately to the recent supply relief trip Rey and Finn made to the Outer Rim. 

You finish the comm fix, wiping your hands on the rag you had draped over your shoulder. As you make your way to get off your X-Wing, you steal a glance to where Poe is. He catches your look, giving you a smile before going back to what he was doing. You’re sure the group can see your flustered expression once you join them where they’re sitting. 

“What just happened?” Sav asks, excitement lacing her words. 

Rey’s face is painted with curiosity, her eyes searching your face for an answer to Sav’s question. 

“Nothing. He just smiled at me is all,” you say, looking down at your crossed legs. 

“Poe?” It’s Rey who asks, and by the way her eyes widen slightly, you can tell she’s catching on to what’s going on. 

It’s as if they’re all in sync with each other, because at Rey’s small gasp as a result of your silence, the three of them get closer to you, Tess leaving her place on the stool where she had been painting to join in on the huddling. 

“Yes, now please keep it down,” you say in a whispered tone, but you know it’s futile at the way they’re all not-so-subtly holding back their giggles. 

“I didn’t know there was something going on there,” Rey says while holding the bag of Wookiee Cookies open for you. 

You take one of the cookies and take a bite, taking your time to chew before answering. 

“There’s nothing going on. And there won’t be. I’m not his type,” you say, taking another bite of the cookie. 

“But you don’t know that!” Tess grabs your arm closest to her, shaking it lightly. “You don’t know unless you try to find out.”

“She’s right. If you like him, you should try to see if it can go somewhere,” Rey says. 

You look over at her and find her eyes are already locked on you. Her hazel eyes, beautiful you notice, hold something in them you can’t quite place. Whatever that is, it makes your heart beat quicken, adding to the already flustered state you are in. You look away, your eyes jumping from the cookie in your hand to the laces of your boots to the green of Sav’s pants. Anywhere but back at Rey. 

“I don’t even know if I like him that way, is the thing. He’s cute, very cute, but first I want to know him more,” you explain. You really didn’t think your plan to fix the comm would end up turning into a relationship intervention session. 

“Well, then let’s get you two to start talking more,” Rey says, smiling at the terror that paints your face. 

Sav and Tess laugh at your expression, joined by Rey’s own laughter. You can’t help but smile at their teasing, and you swear the way Rey’s face lights up at your smile causes you to almost choke on your last bite of cookie. 

~~

“Hey, you.”

You jump slightly at the voice behind you, dropping the data pad you had been reading. You squat down to pick it up, being beat by a hand that grabs it before you, another hand extending to help you up. Looking up to find Poe being the owner of said hands, you take the one he’s holding out for you, standing back up. 

“Sorry,” he says, handing you the data pad. “I didn’t mean to startle you, I just wanted to see how you were doing.”

See how you were doing? 

The realization washes over you. He’s trying to have a conversation with you. And somehow, you know Rey is behind this. 

“No, you’re fine. I shouldn’t have been walking and reading I guess,” you say, taking the data pad from where he’s holding it out. 

Poe chuckles, putting his hands on his hips as he nudged his head to the direction you’d been walking. 

“Where were you heading? I don’t want to keep you.”

“Oh, I was just heading to the dining hall. Wanted to grab some lunch before a briefing I have with General Riekkan.”

“Then, if you don’t mind, I’ll be grabbing lunch with you. I have a training session with a few new pilots later, so lunch right now sounds great,” Poe says. 

You nod, smiling at him. “I would like that.”

The two of you have lunch together, talking about different things. The topic you two stay on the longest is, of course, X-Wings. He knows so much about them, and you’re always willing to learn more. The lunch ends in him making you promise that you have to share lunch together again to finish your conversation about how the sounds your fighters make indicates its problems. 

He walks you to where you’re going to have your briefing with General Riekkan, giving you a quick hug before running off to meet the new pilots. You still have the smile on your face when you see Rey come out of a hallway. The way she’s smiling at you lets you know you were right of her involvement regarding Poe approaching you. 

“So,” she says once she reaches you.  Her hands are behind her back and she’s swaying slightly as the excitement bubbles out of her. “How was it?”

You chuckle at her state. “It was nice. He’s a really nice guy.”

“Oooh,” she says, wiggling her eyebrows which causes you to bring a hand to your face. 

“But,” you say, removing your hand to see her smile falter a bit. 

“No, don’t tell me there’s a ‘but’.”

You’re about to answer when General Riekkan opens the door of the briefing room. 

“Ah, Y/N, please come in. Rey, if you’d like to join as well.”

The two of you follow him in, not another word spoken about Poe. You know that’ll change after the briefing. 

The briefing is quick, another supply relief that you were originally going to be doing on your own, but we’re now going to do with Rey, since she ‘seems to not have anything planned for that day’.

As General Riekkan gives some details on the supplies and the planet you’d be aiding, you feel Rey’s eyes on you. You look over at her, and instead of looking away, she smiles. Heat climbs up your neck, making its way to your cheeks and ears. You smile back, and see that something in her eyes again, and just like earlier, it causes your heart beat to quicken. 

The briefing is concluded, and Rey offers to walk you to your room. You’re walking to your room when she speaks. 

“So, what’s the ‘but’?”

“Straight to the point, I see,” you say, a small laugh escaping your lips. 

“Well I’ve been in thought during the whole briefing.”

You laugh again, this time followed by Rey’s laugh. Butterflies fill your stomach at the sound, and you have to take a small breath before talking. 

“He’s very nice, but I think I see him more as a friend. An attractive friend, but still, just a friend,” you explain. You reach the door of your room, and the both of you stop walking. 

“Well, I can’t say I’m disappointed,” Rey says. 

And maybe it’s the proximity or the fact that you don’t have the walking to distract you, but you can’t help but just admire the way Rey looks before you. Her lashes adorn her hazel eyes beautifully, and the little scar on her cheek seems so unique, so her. You’re shamelessly staring at this point, and she knows it. 

“You’re not?” you manage to ask. 

She shakes her head. “No, I’m not.”

“Why?”

“Because,” she says, moving even closer to you, “I have a type and he was about to take it away.”

“Oh?” you ask, taking a small gulp as your look trails from her eyes to her lips. “And what is it?”

“It’s you.”

Her lips touch your cheek before you process what she says. Once you realize what’s going on, you can’t help but close your eyes, only opening them again when you feel the heat her kiss leaves behind. 

She’s smiling at you, the same smile that caused her eyes to hold that something you couldn’t place earlier, only now you can. It’s a twinkle in her eyes that you’re sure is reflected on your own.  

You lick your lips, not realizing how dry your mouth is until you make an attempt to speak. 

“Then I’m not disappointed either,” you say, your voice just above a whisper. 

If it’s even possible, her smile grows, causing you to smile yourself, a smile that can only be attributed to one person. 

Rey.

[uaklauslovesdave]

Hi, thank you for sending me asks, I really appreciate it! :D Could you do 002 for klave, I always want to hear your thoughts about them <3

my buddy, my dude, it’s been roughly 17 years since you sent this ask, and i’m oh so sorry for taking this long to answer. it got to be one of those situations where i wanted to do it Properly, which of course brought the anxiety, which of course then brought the avoidance. But we’re here now! it’s a new era and i have a whole bunch of klave thoughts to dump on my unsuspecting followers. let us begin.

when i started shipping it:

Pretty much immediately! I remember first watching s1 and getting that slow confirmation that Klaus time traveled to the Vietnam War. We saw him on the bus with his fatigues and bloody hands and I was like ‘oh god oh no he went to Vietnam didn’t he.’ And then later we have Klaus experiencing flashbacks in the bathtub and there are echoes of the noises of war but also a strong and clear “Dave!” And in that moment my interest was piqued. Dave, he said? Who is this Dave? Is this someone he loved? Did he have a war-time romance with another soldier? And I was hopeful but I also didn’t want to get too ahead of myself because of Queer Baiting in Media reasons (like, I was in the marvel fandom, ok? I went through the whole stucky dance routine). But then, but then! We got more. We got roughly five minutes (or less?) of scenes of Klaus dropping down in front of a disoriented soldier, of this soldier introducing himself as Dave on a bus, of Klaus and Dave dancing in a bar, of Klaus and Dave sharing a kiss in a quiet corner, of Dave bleeding out and dying in the middle of combat as Klaus sobs above him. And it was quick and it was short but it was meaningful and it was tender and immediately I knew that I was gone for them. There was no turning back at this point. I was all in on the Klave Train.

my thoughts:

My thoughts? Where do I even start? I have many! Some are incoherent! Some are devastating! Some are sickeningly sweet! Some are raunchy! Stay tuned to find out!

what makes me happy about them/what makes me sad about them:

So I decided to combine these two questions because, well, I Do Not Know how to untie the happy and the sad when it comes to klave. I tried and I cannot do it. They’re two sides of the same coin with these two. Because their entire relationship is tinted by tragedy, you know? They only met each other because Klaus was tortured and then flung into a notoriously traumatizing war in the 1960s. And who knows what number tour Dave was on. Had he been there for just 2 months or was this second or third time around? I’m not sure which option is more painful, really. And it’s unclear, did Dave genuinely want to serve in the military? Did he truly subscribe to those values instilled by his family? I’d lean towards no, based on the conversation Klaus tries to have with the Younger Dave in the diner. But I think it took Dave some time to get there, as he grew older and came to better understand and accept himself and perhaps grew more and more disillusioned with the life he was pushed into. And then there’s Klaus, whose own experiences somewhat parallel Dave’s (they just happened on a different timeline). Klaus, who grew up under Reginald’s reign of terror, who was taught to be a soldier just like Dave was. But his own disillusionment was expedited and he was able to rebel and remove himself from that scene more easily than Dave could (but at the expense of losing shelter and security and stability). And we have some insights into what it was like for Klaus to grow up in that environment, constantly surrounded by death. When we first meet him he is a person who clearly does not do genuine attachment or sincerity, because that is far too vulnerable and far too dangerous in his experience. He looks out for himself and he does what he needs to do to get by, and he approaches things from a casual, crass (safe) distance. And then there’s Dave, who we learn a little bit about from his interactions with Klaus in 1963 Dallas. He appears earnest and kind, just a Really Good Kid. He seems somewhat confused by Klaus, but also intrigued. Pretty much every time we see Klaus interact with someone in the 1960’s who is not a member of Destiny’s Children they approach him with disdain (referring to him as “pretty boy,” kicking him out of the diner, etc.). But not Dave. Not until he is pressured into it by Uncle Homophobe. And after that Dave seeks him out and apologizes, says that’s not him. And he and Klaus talk, and we see that they really knew each other, they really had a relationship, but by the end of the conversation Dave has been pushed too far. He’s not quite ready to rebel yet, he’s not quite able to make that leap into living as his true self. Just like Klaus, Dave grew up trapped and restricted and surrounded by ghosts. Not literal ones, no, but the ghosts of dead war heroes who came before him, the ghosts of the Ideal Man and Good Son that he thought he had to be, that he thought he had to prove he could become. And it’s not quite clear how and when Dave finally got to that point where he could rebel, where he could finally push past the fear, knock down the walls of the box he had been shoved into. But by the time he and Klaus crossed paths in 1968 Vietnam he was ready. And Klaus was ready. And they brought that genuine, true, real love out in each other. Something both of them probably thought was never possible. Something both of them probably thought was just a myth. Just turning themselves inside out and sharing that with each other. Trusting the other to take care of it and hold and keep it safe. All in the middle of a deadly war. It’s beautiful and it’s painful and it’s why I love them.

things done in fanfic that annoy me:

Nothing really specific comes to mind. Generally if there’s something I don’t like in a fanfic I’ll stop reading and move on. There is, of course, the Fanon Klaus Problem that makes its way into klave fics, so I suppose that annoys me. Or stories where Dave is one-dimensional and seems to exist just to comfort and take care of Klaus. But really, I don’t wanna hate on anyone who writes fanfic in a particular way. You do you. If it appeals to me I’ll read it and if it doesn’t I’ll just pass it by. No big deal.

things i look for in fanfic:

It absolutely depends on the day and what I’m in the mood for in that particular moment. I’m a sucker for angst so I absolutely do not mind reading something terribly sad and tragic. I like hurt/comfort with an emphasis on the hurt. I’m a fan of the GhostDave Watches Over Klaus Through the Years genre. I like stories that explore their time together in Vietnam. I’m into AU’s that include AliveDave traveling back to 2019 with Klaus and they hang out in Klaus’ room in the academy and Dave meets the siblings and Diego gives him a shovel talk. Sometimes I just want that sweet, sweet smut. Mostly I look for something that is both lovely and sad, which is not hard to find because that is, essentially, their relationship. There’s lots of good stuff out there. All y’all writers are talented. I salute you.

my kinks:

Alright, I’m just gonna preface this by saying that I will try my best to be unapologetically open about this, but at my core I am both shy and repressed. My easy and safe answer to this is that my kink for klave is love, happiness, and tender intimacy. That’s what I really want for them. But also. But also! Let them be smutty! Let them find places to sneak away and fuck, Dave’s hand over Klaus’ mouth to stop him from making noise that will alert the other soldiers to their activities. Or maybe they’re sitting under a tarp in the pouring rain and Klaus sees how far he can take it, and Dave doesn’t back down, and it ends up with Klaus blowing Dave while some other guys are sitting just feet away, oblivious to what’s going on between Katz and Hargreeves just over there. And then there’s that time they get to take leave together, and they’re able to get a hotel room, just to themselves, with real walls and a door that locks and a bed and everything. And the digs aren’t great but it feels like a palace compared to what they’re used to, and they absolutely do not waste this opportunity. Dave fucks Klaus into the mattress, and Klaus gets to learn what it’s like to have someone take control because you actually want them to and you feel safe with them, and Dave gets to learn what it’s like to have someone trust you implicitly and be willing to be vulnerable with you. And it’s not perfect, of course, sometimes their histories and understandings of sex and intimacy bump heads, but they love each other, they really do, and they work through it. And they both cry during sex at some point. For Dave it’s the first time he’s done so, for Klaus it’s not (but this is nothing like those other times this is because he wants to be here this is because he’s overwhelmed with love this is a release this is being seen this is being cared for).

who i’d be comfortable with them ending up with if not each other:

Let me be real and say that I really, really, really want them to end up with each other, and I think that this is where the show is headed. But, if that is not the case, as long as they are happy I will be happy. Perhaps that is cliche, but oh well. Just let them experience love and support, whether that’s with each other, someone else, or just on their own.

my happily ever after for them:

I don’t know how and I don’t know when (like seriously, when in the timeline is a big question), but I want them to find a way to be together. Maybe it involves some time-traveling, maybe it involves some timeline-hopping, maybe it involves some Commission interference, maybe one or both of them will be dead, maybe (most likely) it involves something that has not even crossed my mind as a possibility. But, like I said, I think that somehow there WILL be a (perhaps nontraditional) happily ever after for them. It might take some time to get there and I don’t think it’s gonna be a smooth road, but I do think that’s the ultimate destination. And I’m looking forward to the whole process.

who is the big spoon/little spoon:

Good question! My first instinct was Klaus as little spoon. Because he is Klaus but also because of the Bar Kiss scene where Dave tenderly cradles his face and those Very Important blurry behind the scenes instagram photos of Klaus resting his head on Dave. But I also think it would be really nice for Dave to be the little spoon? Because Klaus gets to hold him and act as a Protector and maybe he can feel Dave’s heartbeat beneath his (hello) hand and he gets to wrap around him and hold on tight and he can let go when he wants to but he doesn’t want to, he wants to stay right here as long as Dave will have him. And Dave will have Klaus wrapped around him, holding on, as long as Klaus wants to stay. Dave gets to be held and cocooned in the arms of this beautiful person he loves. Dave doesn’t have to be strong right now, he doesn’t have to put on the face of the Good Soldier. All he has to do is fall into the space between them.

what is their favorite non-sexual activity:

I’m gonna say that they had a lot of time to sit together and talk while they were in Vietnam. Sure, they had their duties and sometimes they were in the shit but there was also a lot of down time, just sitting around and waiting for something to happen. And so they’d sit and they’d smoke and they would talk. About their interests, about where they come from, and eventually about the life they would build together after they got out of there. But here’s a specific image that I have: they’re sitting close together, maybe it’s dark, there’s no one nearby. Cigarette smoke lingers in the air, mingles with the fine mist. The conversation has turned to music, somehow. Conversations have a tendency to meander when Klaus is involved, and Dave follows him step for step, never tripping, never questioning how they got there. And Klaus asks Dave about his favorite song, and Dave hesitantly mentions “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence,” like he’s embarrassed, but he’s loved it for years and he wants to be honest with Klaus. And Klaus hums and says he doesn’t know it, hasn’t heard of it, and he leans against Dave, lays his head against his chest. And Dave says, that’s ok, it doesn’t matter, it’s just a stupid old song anway. But Klaus says, no, you should sing it for me, I want to hear it, I want to know it. And Dave scoffs and laughs, but Klaus looks up at him, and then Dave looks away, and his mouth lifts into a smile, something small and fragile. He turns back to Klaus, looks him the eye, and softly, so softly, starts singing, “When Liberty Valence rode to town, the womenfolk would hide…” And Klaus drops his head and shifts closer to Dave and hears the words slip from Dave’s mouth and feels the words vibrate in Dave’s chest. He closes his eyes. There’s a war going on. It’s 1968 and he’s in Vietnam and his clothes are damp but he’s right where he wants to be. The song is not romantic, but it’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever heard. He never forgets the words.

[willowistic22]

The pleasure’s all mine... Prince Romeo

A grand party is held in the palace tonight, but one of the royal family member isn’t in the mood to indulge in it like how they’d usually be. Luckily, a stranger comes to save them. It just so happens that this stranger is so dangerously handsome. 

Word count : 4688

Part : -

Warnings : light mentions of alcohol, cursing, and that should be it. it’s nothing too serious. 

A/N: HIIII this is my gift for @s9da (well technically for paranormalsoup... i think you can piece in together why i asked you abt paranormalsoup in the wormsie discord server hehe) for the @newsiesgiftexchange i had fun making this bcs i absolutely love newsies royal au, so i hope you don’t mind i wrote a somewhat self indulgent fic for your gift hehe. it was still spromeo like you asked, but uhh idk i hope you like it bcs half of me think it’s not as great as i thought it was in my head. But anyways enjoy!!! :D

“Romeo! Get your ass out of there!” 

“How long does it take for you to get dressed?!” 

The two muffled voices turned into banging on the door. Romeo rolled his eyes, deciding to ignore his brothers and continuing to adjust his tuxedo in front of his full length standing mirror. 

His bedroom door swung open with no warning. In turns, two boys formally dressed came storming in. 

“Race! Crutchie! You could have at least waited for me to let you two in!” Romeo protested, adjusting sleeves under his dark blue blazer. 

“My God, Ro! You’re not even ready yet!” Crutchie commented, walking over as fast as he could with his crutch to get to where Romeo is standing. He takes the silver tie from the dresser and slings it around Romoe’s shirt collar, “The party is supposed to start right now and you know dad would want all of his sons to be present!”  

“He was probably too busy talking to the cat, weren’t you?” Race flops on the big bed, causing the dozens of velvet pillows to jump. It also seems to have awakened a huge white fluffy cat in the midst of the pillows. 

“Racetrack! Snowy was getting his beauty sleep!” Romeo protested, seeing the scene unfold from the mirror. 

Crutchie flipped both of his brothers off, telling Race to be careful so he doesn’t mess his own outfit up and making Romeo stand still while he helps him get ready. In under five minutes and Romeo is properly dressed just like his brothers. 

Crutchie places Romeo’s crown on top of his black locks, the magnificent silver object goes perfectly with the intricate silver curlicue designs on the shoulder and back of his dark blue blazer. With the tiny silver crown lapel pin and its tiny chain draping on the fabric to wrap up the dashing outfit. 

The three head out of the room. They strut through the grand hallway like it’s a fashion week runway, feeling confident with every step following the red velvet carpet till they reach the grand ballroom decked to the nines just like them. 

A huge chandelier hanging above the open space. A few tables and chairs neatly organized for the awaiting guests but still leaving enough space for a dance floor. The huge glass doors wide open to make use of the huge balcony for the party, also letting the evening breeze through the door. 

“About damn time you three show up!” Jack, the oldest brother exclaimed. 

“Jack! Do mind your language!” Their father protested. 

His three younger brothers walk up onto the podium, greeting their father who’s sitting on the only throne present. 

“It was all Romeo’s fault. He didn’t know how to tie his own tie!” Race joked. 

The brothers have their little silent squabble as they stand behind the throne. Crutchie decides to not get himself involved in it and tries to break it up, “Oh, grow up you guys!” 

Those words did nothing to help. In turn, Crutchie turns to their father in hopes to ignore those three. 

“Jackie-love! Listen to your brother, please!” A different voice chimed in. 

The three turn their focus away towards it and see Jack’s husband already fully dressed up. In a classy dark purple suit with a grey tie in the same shade as Jack’s own suit. 

“We’re celebrating our sixth anniversary and Sarah is finally home from her travels. The least you could do is to keep yourself presentable!” 

Jack pushes aside the squabble, switching on his loving smile for Davey. Romeo and Race pulled away from the squabble right after Jack. Their father silently sighed in relief to see his sons finally deciding to act like fully grown adults. 

He tells the royal guards to let the guests in. In under five minutes, the ballroom was instantly filled with guests in formal attire. Some fill their assigned seats for the dinner that was promised in the invitation while others mingle with each other. The band, playing lovely tunes loud and clear but it wasn’t time for the guests to get up and dance. 

The princes have also indulged themselves in the party. Jack and Davey can be seen mingling with the guests they’ve invited, listening to their congratulations on their sixth anniversary. Crutchie has gone to god knows where, which is surprising because he’s wearing a flashy yellow and black suit in the midst of all the mostly dull colored outfits in the ballroom. Race had gone off to fulfilling his promise to their father of introducing his new lover, the future king of Brooklyn. 

Romeo is left to slump on the round table with leftovers sitting idly on his plate. An odd thing for him to do, and he’s quite aware of it too. Romeo adores mingling, making new friends, or even catching up with some old friends that he has indeed spotted somewhere amongst the crowd this evening. Though, his energy to do so doesn’t seem to be there in this particular moment. 

The young prince watches from afar as his big brother finally introduces Spot Conlon to their father. Spot’s dark red suit is really contrasting to Race’s own outfit, a bright blue suit with golden curlicue designs on the shoulders and back which is a bit like Romeo’s. It matches perfectly with his blond messy curls and electric blue eyes. 

Romeo smiles, seeing his brother’s face lighting up as their father seemingly approves of the dashing Brooklyn boy that he has so helplessly fallen in love with for the past two years. Romeo doesn’t linger on it though. He returns his focus towards his empty table and plate, a sad smile painting his face as he observes his own reflection on the ceramic. 

“Well, aren’t you the life of the party!” A voice interrupted his thoughts, causing him to lift his head up, “But if I do say so myself, and I mean no offense to his royal highness, you’re quite the tragic sight sitting here all alone” 

His eyes landed on a gentleman standing proud and tall in a maroon suit, a black tie neatly tucked under his blazer. His complexion reminded Romeo of the topaz rocks in some of the castle’s intricate decorations, rich with brown but always glowing bright with the rest of the gems. In this case, his glow comes from the simple smile and the lovely brown eyes behind the silver framed spectacles. 

The initial comment brought a smile to Romeo’s face and a little laugh along with it. He fixes his sitting posture, eyeing the stranger with a head tilt while his head tries to figure out who this guest could be. 

“And you’re what? Here to be my savior from my little slump?” Romeo replied to match with the stranger’s cleverness. 

Seeing the success his opening line has brought, the gentleman pulls out an empty chair next to Romeo and sits himself down, “Well, you’re the prince here. Whatever it is you command me to be, I’m pretty sure I need to follow” 

Romeo lets out a small fit of laughter through his smile, looking away from the man’s eyes. It also makes the stranger laugh along with him. 

Romeo returns his sight back to the man in front of him. He walked right into a gaze-off he cannot look away from. In no means for intimidation, but a brief yet firm infatuation through the art of eye contact with the man he just met. Only now did Romeo realize how dangerously handsome this stranger is. 

“Romeo!” The call of his name pulled him away from the gaze and back to the world around him. 

He spots Crutchie zipping through the crowd. A smile painted on his face, just as bright as the yellow and black suit he’s currently rocking in. Romeo stands up to give his brother a hug. 

“I see you’ve met one of my friends from the lab!” Crutchie gestured back to the stranger Romeo was just previously speaking to, already slightly bowing his head to pay his respects to the two members of the royal family. 

“Oh, you work in the lab!” Romeo concluded, turning back to face the stranger who’s already on his feet. 

“Yeah. We call him Specs!” Crutchie giggled, making the other man laugh along while Romeo looks back to where he’s currently standing, “And Specs, this is my brother, Romeo!” 

Specs pulls up a simple smile for Romeo and a firm head nod. 

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt you two!” Crutchie apologized, a few moments after remembering they were previously having a conversation. He adjusts his crutch to get ready to leave, “I’ll leave you two to it, okay?” 

Romeo watches as his brother walks away to mingle into another group. It leaves him with the previous gentleman he was talking to. The only differences now, he’s not much of a stranger anymore. 

“So... That’s what they actually call you? ‘Specs’?” 

“Well, it’s because, if you can’t already tell…” 

Specs gestures towards his spectacles that rests on the bridge of his nose. Romeo chuckles, playfully rolling his eyes. But the smile tells Specs he’s still in the clear from offending a royal family member. 

“What’s your actual name? Unless you don’t have one” 

He laughs, parting his lips to let it out before saying, “It’s Julian. But now people mostly refer to me as Specs” 

Romeo nods, staring directly into his sparkly brown eyes. Whatever is gleaming under it is very inviting, and Romeo isn’t opposed to this mysterious invitation. He’s rather pleased by its presence. Before he knows it he’s already engaged with it, letting his own obsidian gemstone eyes linger in the gaze. 

“A pleasure to meet you... Specs” 

“The pleasure’s all mine... Prince Romeo” 

- 

Soon enough the sun has fully set. The night sky takes over the heavens above, thread by sparkling pearls to break up the deep blue. But the party didn’t stop. The royal family’s favorite performer, Ms. Medda Larkin, has finally arrived in the most fashionably late way. Her grand entrance was welcomed with warm arms by King Denton himself. 

With the presence of the superstar, the band picked up its lack of entertainment as Ms. Medda picked up the microphone after a quick dinner. The jazzy upbeat tune sends all the guests roaring for the dance floor. 

Romeo though? He has his own entertainment, in the huge balcony by the bar with his own partner. 

“No dance?” 

Romeo pries his eyes away from the dance floor he’s observing from outside. He glues them onto Specs, leaning his shoulder on the shiny bar top while twirling his glass of scotch. 

Romeo shakes his head, making a semi weird face, “Not really up for it” 

“Huh, you’re nothing like what Prince Charlie says” Specs commented, taking a gulp from his glass to finish his drink off, “He says that you’re very energetic and flirty” 

The comment makes him scoff through his smile, “I can’t say that he’s wrong. But… I’m just not feeling it tonight” 

The little silence between them is giving Romeo the impression that he should explain even further. But he takes this chance to finish his own drink and change the subject, “So, you work in Crutchie’s lab?”  

The subject of Specs’ profession quickly did the trick. It also reveals some basic facts about him. As it turns out, Davey was the one that pushed him to work in the royal lab. He’s been friends with Davey since college and has been partners in crime ever since. Davey was first to get the job as a chemical engineer at Crutchie’s lab after a year of switching jobs to match his preferences, while Specs was still continuing his studies for a masters degree. Since he’s been an A+ student at a young age, the first application he sent got him the call for the job interview and got in quickly. 

Romeo was very impressed by the story. Half way through it he starts to question as to why he’s been given the honor to talk to Specs. There is no way Specs is anywhere close to Romeo's league. 

Regardless, Specs doesn’t seem to question all of that. While there’s a noisy ballroom in the background, they’re having a party of their own. Smiling, laughing, and basically having a great time in their private little universe. Romeo is very much infatuated by the gentleman and wouldn’t want anything in the world to ruin the moment. 

“Y’know, you should probably just drop all the formalities at this point” Romeo lightly mentioned, between sipping his third drink he had only touched after half an hour upon asking the bartender for one, “It’s just me” 

“Just you?” Specs questioned, lips wrapping up into a warm smile that makes Romeo’s heart melt. 

He froze in place, admiring the wonder to behold. It makes Romeo smile wider as he slowly nods at the question. 

Before he could say anything else, the loud sound coming from inside took over their center of attention. A loud cheering of guests over something neither Specs or Romeo knows about, as the view was blocked by dozens of backs. 

Romeo turns his head away from it, focusing back to where he is currently at. He glances over at Specs and says, “Let’s get out of here” 

Specs looks back at Romeo, a little confused with his offer, “And go where, exactly?” 

Romeo sips the remaining liquid in his glass, setting it back with a loud clang against the bar top. He spontaneously grabs Specs’ hand and drags him away, leading him to the stairs on the side of the huge balcony. With every step down, the twinkling Manhattan view slowly fades away from their eyes. 

It was soon replaced by the view of the royal garden in the dark. A cobblestone path stretching to as far as the eyes can see in the dark, pass the green trees with overgrowing plants hanging over it, and various shapes of bushes strategically placed all around the settlement. The smell of the grass is so fresh and different, unlike anything Specs has ever encountered before. 

However, Romeo drags him to the other direction. They walked under a dimly lit tunnel, under where the balcony and the ballroom is. They can barely see each other in this kind of lighting, though Romeo’s crown was able to let the tiniest ray of light reflect on its figure. At the end of the tunnel, they can see an opening which would lead them to the center of the palace where another garden is located. 

“Where are we going, if I may ask?” Specs returned to his previous unanswered question. 

“Just… around, I guess” 

The two smile at each other, Specs nodding along to whatever bullshit he was just fed but still getting entertained by it anyways. 

“So… are you gonna tell me why you decide to detach yourself from the party?” 

So he noticed. Well, it isn’t like Romeo has been sneaky about it but he was hoping it wouldn’t be brought up. 

“That party isn’t for me so…” Romeo started, fiddling the hem of his blazer, “... It didn’t felt right if I were to mingle in there” 

“Because that party wasn’t for you?” 

Romeo stops in his tracks, realizing how wrong that sounds, “Okay, wait, I take that back umm…” 

“No, it’s okay if you’re a little… self centered” Specs half teased. 

Romeo scoffs at that, playfully shoving his arms with his shoulders that sends the taller boy laughing. He recollects his composure and re-explains himself, “I mean… Jack, Race, and Crutchie are up there because they have…’something’” 

The two continue to walk through the tunnel, Specs fixated to Romeo as he explains himself. 

“You see Jack, already living up to his reputation from being a good leader. Charismatic, fearless, all of that. He’s just waiting for our father to step down from the throne so he can unleash his full potential” Romeo started out, which made no sense to Specs question but he kept listening anyways, “And then you got Race. However big of a dumbass and a troublemaker he is, he’s smart! He doesn’t work full time at the lab but you’ve seen him there a few times, right?” 

Specs nods, recalling the memory of him seeing prince Anthony while he was working. 

“A great problem solver. Despite being the one that causes the most problems in the castle” Romeo added, making Specs chuckle a bit. He lets himself smile at that but it didn’t linger long. 

“And you know Crutchie. He’s smart and wants nothing more than to help others. Hearing the voices of the little people” Romeo continued. 

He stops walking, causing Specs to do the same. They’ve almost made it through the tunnel, just a few more steps away. The moonlight can reach just far enough to illuminate their faces and highlight their main features. 

Romeo looks up to the other boy, “I’m almost 23 and I haven’t really done shit” 

Specs fully turns his body towards Romeo, his words from before finally clicking in his head. 

“I thought you were a performer” Specs said, “Isn’t that something to be proud of?” 

“It is something I’m proud of. But people talk, Specs” 

His older brothers are famous for what they’ve achieved that are viewed as ‘useful’ with their title as royalty. Romeo, on the other hand, is a famous Broadway performer. Whether it’s playing the lead role, a side character, or just a part of the ensemble, no one will deny his talent. But people still talk badly about his title mixed with his love for theatre. 

Specs stays silent while waiting for Romeo to continue. He let’s Romeo walk out the tunnel first, letting the glow of the night illuminate his whole body along with the garden he’s in. Though, his heart doesn’t seem to be enjoying it the way that he should. 

Romeo turns around to face Specs, already slowly stepping out of the shadows of the tunnel. He takes his crown off his head, letting it dangle freely in his right hand, “Living here has its perks. But the downside is people expect you to be a leader of some sort” 

The taller boy stands next to Romeo, observing one side of the castle. The bright lights from the chandeliers clear as day through the huge windows. 

“So you’re really going to let the stupid comments old people say about you affect the rest of your life?” Specs questioned, letting a small smile creep up his face, “I mean, you’re the one that gets all the girls drooling” 

“I guess, but I prefer guys anyways” Romeo half chuckled, his smile yet to return. 

“Then it looks like the odds are with me” Specs said in a cheeky manner, taking a few steps ahead of Romeo. 

It caught him off guard. He dumbfoundedly stared at the boy for a good few seconds while his back was facing him. Heart beating very fast. Heat rising up his cheeks. The corner of his lips picks up on the tiniest bit of joy and excitement his heart is indulging in. 

Specs turns around and Romeo shakes away any obvious adoration towards the boy, pretending to admire his crown in his grasp. 

“I mean, I think you’re a very talented actor” 

“So you’re a fan?” Romeo asked cleverly, looking up to meet his eyes again while placing his crown back on his head, “Is that why you came up to me in the first place?” 

“Among other things… yes” 

Well, that’s something to know. 

Romeo and Specs roam around the garden in the dark, though they stay quiet in fear that other people might hear their presence. The laughing felt more personal and heartfelt when it’s secretive like this. Somehow Romeo is falling out of his usual confident nature, getting shier with every giggle that escapes their lips or clever remark Specs added on to the conversation. 

Romeo brought up the idea for the two to head to his bedroom after spotting a glimpse of his balcony on the second floor. Well, from the ground it’s three floors up. Regardless, they were still able to utilize their environment to work in their favor on climbing to the balcony. 

Romeo avoided entering his bedroom because it was embarrassingly messy. So they stayed where they are, carefully sitting on the balcony railing and continuing their conversation. They picked it up so easily that they’re soon laughing together like before. This time, they get a view of the garden below, a glimpse of Manhattan, and closer to the night sky. The warmth of his bedroom through the open balcony doorway defeats the freezing temperatures from outside. 

Specs was interrupted mid sentence after an odd feeling came by his leg. Fluffy and warm, like it’s a living being. 

“Who’s this?” Specs looks down to see a white fluffy cat looking back up to him. He gently picks up the white furball and cradles it close to his chest with a loving smile. 

“About time he decides to wake up from his nap” Romeo commented, scooching closer towards Specs so that they’re shoulder to shoulder so he can pet his little feline companion, “His name is Snowy” 

Snowy purrs at the love he’s receiving, giving the two boys long and slow blinks with every pet they provide. 

“Do you have any pets, Specs?” Romeo asked. 

“My apartment doesn’t allow pets. It actually sucks because it can get a little lonely” Specs replied. He lets Snowy go after the cat starts stirring in his grasps. Specs cleans any excessive fur that got stuck on his blazer before turning back towards Romeo, “I’m glad I get to have my own space after needing to live in a foster home for the majority of the time. But I got used to having lots of people around so…” 

“Not courting anybody?” Romeo asked again, “You look like the kind of guy who’d win a lot” 

Romeo you fucking idiot. His mind was yelling at him for saying that. No one with common sense would blatantly say that to someone they just met that day. 

Specs chuckles through his smile, staring at Romeo with a little twinkle hidden in his brown eyes. It could just be the stars from the sky reflecting in his eyes, but it’s not possible because there was a meaning behind his glimmer. 

“Not really my style” Specs replied, a flirtatious smirk making its way up to his face, “Though, I met a guy recently and… I’m trying my best to impress him” 

Oh. My. God. 

Romeo didn’t realize how close their faces were getting. Hot breaths circulate the small gap between their faces. Romeo diverts his eyes away from Specs’, but it absentmindedly went to stare at his lips. He imitated the way Specs has his lips slightly parted. 

“A-and how’s that going for you?” Romeo dared to ask, stopping the gravitational pull towards each other. Any closer and Specs might know how fast his heartbeat is going. 

“Not sure” He replied breathlessly, “You’ll have to tell me” 

If stomach butterflies could explode then that is definitely how Romeo is feeling right now. But they stayed still. Neither quite seem to have the courage to take the next step. 

Specs took the initiative, slowly guiding his hand up to cup Romeo’s cheeks. He then whispers, “Can I-” 

“Romeo!” A muffled voice interrupted their little moment. They quickly pull apart and stare at Romeo’s bedroom door inside the dimly lit bedroom. Violent knocking followed after the voice and it continued, “Romeo, are you in there?” 

It didn’t take long for Specs to catch on to what’s happening. He scrambles himself away behind the brick wall of the balcony, just next to the doorway. Romeo fixes his suit and answers the door. 

Just as he expected it, it was Race. No one in the family knocks as violently as he does. 

“My God, Race! Can I ever get some time alone in my room?” Romeo answered the door. 

“Why are you even in here? You’re supposed to be at the party!” Race said, “Dad was looking for you, y’know” 

“I just needed a little air but I’ll be right there, I promise” 

He flips Race away and turns around, seeing the previous boy he was with coming out of his previous hiding spot. He smiles sheepishly at Specs, which was met with his own chuckling. 

“Guess, we better head back” Romeo said, looking up to meet Specs’ eyes, “But you’re gonna have to use the balcony” 

“I figured” 

Specs sits back on the balcony before swinging both legs over the railing to climb down. Romeo leans his body against the railing, held up by his arms. It’s only polite to wait for Specs to climb down before he leaves to get to the ballroom himself. 

“By the way… thanks for keeping me company” Romeo felt like he owed him a thank you. After all, Specs could’ve had some fun or gained more than just a casual get-to-know-me conversation if he were to fully participate in the party. 

Specs looks up from minding his steps down, back up to Romeo’s eyes with a loving gaze towards him, “Of course. When else will I get the chance to be this close to you?” 

Rome looks down to his hands to hide away his blush and bashful little smile. He notices Specs hands are still on the railing, placed quite close to his own. 

“But how did I do? Were you impressed?” 

Romeo looks up, finding the other boy’s face is already two inches away from his own. The exact same position they were in before getting interrupted by his brother, just this time Specs is hanging on the balcony.

“Is that something you want to know?” Romeo questioned back with a little giggle following it. He thought it would be fun to tease him around before they finally part ways. 

“It’s not usual for me to straight up ask but… “ Specs caught on with the teasing, “... technically you were the one that ask” 

Romeo giggles along with him. He nods to his question and answers properly, “Yes. I was very much impressed by you, Specs” 

The next seconds were filled with silence. The high from their little banter turned into adrenaline to do something with how they’re positioned now. They both realize it, as both smiles slowly fade to parted lips with hot and heavy breaths hitting each other’s faces. Romeo glues his eyes on Specs’ lips, he could only imagine the other boy did the same. 

“Do I get the permission to kiss you?” Specs asked, barely above a whisper while his hands traced up Romeo’s arm until it reached his cheek once again. 

Romeo stuttered through his next few words before replying with a little giggle, “Permission granted” 

Specs wasted no time, softly crashing his lips on the other boy’s. Fireworks set off in their heads as the feelings developed for each other from this short period of time are released in one gentle kiss. Romeo moves one hand to hold his neck, as a means to deepen the kiss and to secure Specs from falling. 

They part with heavy breaths escaping their lips. The heavy breathings turned into giggles and giggles turned into goodbyes. 

Romeo watches as a giddy looking Specs makes it to the ground and walks towards the previous tunnel. Before finally escaping his vision, Specs glances back up to Romeo. Despite the distant Romeo can see a stupid grin on his face, which only made him laugh. 

As Specs finally escapes his view, Romeo lets out a long and adoring sigh and melts into the moment. Lowering his body and placing his head on top of his hands that are gripping on the balcony. 

He hears his beloved fur ball meow near him, but he’s far gone for that boy to even care what the cat wants. 

“I know, Snowy,” Romeo said, as if understanding the language his cat speaks, “He’s such a dream…” 

[kswhateverspace]

The Ruby and Christina Discord Drama

To my followers who have no idea what this is about, feel free to ignore this if you’d like. This is a long post showing everything that went down with the kicking of 3 members in a discord I’m a member and Admin of. I will share a bit, and then the rest will be under a cut. 

Jaye (hernameisjaye/ @reneesgoldsberry​) and I didn’t feel it necessary to address the kicks of the server publicly and just thought things would die down and people would move on. That doesn’t seem to be the case and so while I don’t want to give any attention to Krow (grimreich666), the continued attack of Dandybear has made this post necessary. On December 9th, 2020, 1 member was kicked from the discord. Michele (kerozenangel). She was kicked specifically because of this post she made

It was incredibly rude to all the writers in the discord and also @/everyone about it. The removal at this time was specifically to protect the mental well being of the writers who occupied the discord. In addition, for being continually antagonistic in discussions with other members.

Jaye and I are not big on public warnings in regards to someone’s character and the way one thinks. The only thing we correct is off topic discussion and only if it gets out of hand. Behind the scenes we talk a lot if certain members are acting up, and mentally keep track on how many instances are occurring, if behavior seems to be improving etc. You don’t see it, but when issues arise it is discussed, usually in length, and then we decide how to proceed. We also don’t publicly report when a complaint is sent to one of us about a member, but we have been sent them and they are taken into consideration.

On December 11th 2020, 2 members were kicked from the discord. Krow (grimreich666) and RVCBard (eshusplayground)

There is quite a bit to unpack here, but I am first going to address the tumblr post Krow made. I never planned on replying, just letting it go. But Krow continues to antagonize a member (dandybear) of the discord who had NO involvement in her removal from the Discord and it’s time all sides are put out for those who are not aware, or those who don’t have the full story to judge. I will be addressing the youtube video at the very end of this post.

I’m going to address the tumblr post in question in sections.

“So it has come to my attention that we cannot have a civil conversation in the Ruby and Chirstina Fandom. Nearly a month ago I gave up my own small Ruby and Chirstina Discord to join another manged by Kswhateverspace.”

Civil discussions are had all the time, what occurred began as a civil discussion until Krow made it personal by telling Jaye to learn her own black history. That was the reason for the kick. Personal attack. I will post screenshots of the entire encounter at the end. As for managed by me, I am just an admin, and did not start out that way. I offered to help organize the discord and tried to create events to make things a bit easier to navigate and more fun. I originally invited Krow to this discord after seeing people asking for links on tumblr to it.

No one was asked to give up any server, it was simply an open invitation.

“I thought that the community would be a good place to vibe with other members of the Ruby and Chirstina community. At first it was welcoming until I started writing my own Fan Fic for the Ruby and Chirstina ship. It had been users by the name of Dandybear and Agent Sheryl and a few others started to bury the work I posted and they would shade me, barely would I get comments on my work because they would fill the submission page with there personal conversations.Now I’ve written two novels professionally and I am working on a third and out of my 15 years of writing I can safely assess when somebody is trying to blackball or bury someone’s work because there work isn’t meeting up to snuff. And as for me I always supported their work because Christina and Ruby content benefits everyone, now I didn’t get into AO3 for the comments I did it because I love Chrisby.”

This is completely not true. There is a channel I created dedicated to posting work only, exactly to prevent the burying of work. Krow would actually break the rule from time to time of that channel, which is that it’s for links to works only, not discussion of said works. There is a separate channel to discuss. Despite the breaking of the rule, I never actually removed her creator role and instead just let it slide. Also, “Shading” never occurred.

“Yet it was only a week ago that me and a few others we noticed the mean girls clique right away as it consisted of Danybear, Frankie, Kswhateverspace and Agent Sheryl, who had came from my server to join.”

I want to address this on a personal level. I have literally spoken to Krow on a voice call, for 2 hours, with Frankie also in attendance, as well as Agent Sheryl. We had been doing the drop a random pin on the map game and it was a pretty fun time. Prior to this instance, I didn’t have the most favorable view of Krow as she tended to not have a filter when posting and I wasn’t always comfortable by what that was, however, I take my role as admin seriously, and in particular being a white woman in a predominantly black server, I never wished to step on anyone’s toes or out of line. Any worries or concerns I ever had or have, I always defer and clear with Jaye. After this game, I became more comfortable in general with her presence in the discord, but she continued to post fairly unfiltered views that would generally derail a discussion etc. and overall behavior within the discord did not make for a very comfortable place a lot of the time. I say this as myself, and from fellow members at the time of instances. I was at war with myself on this a lot of the time because I was the one who invited Krow, but no one can predict how people will be or mesh.

At this part of the post I will address Krow’s accusation that Dandybear “shaded her”. The screencap Krow uses at the end of her post.

In case it isn’t clear, You is a tv show and not literally @ Krow in case that’s what was thought.

“The egregious abuse of power there Admin and Owner Hernameisjaye is sickening; as her rampage all started on Thursday when Jaye went on a rant saying that Christina was racist. And to me and another black female members acknowledged her opinion but we disagreed with it as we had watched the show several times and understood the premise of the timeline within the Jim Crow Era. Not wanting to fight we had calmly stated our disagreement to her baseless claim and yet she still would not let up even after we have both took the high road as mature adults to leave the conversation.”

I will let screenshots of the entire discussion speak for themselves. I will preface the screenshots with the rules of the discord, which were last edited on December first.

I’ll speak on rule 6 here.

“In the event that we decide to kick/ban a specific user, that individual will receive a message from the admin team notifying them of the final decision.”

At then end of the day, Jaye and I decided to not inform those who were kicked the reason. It wouldn’t have changed the result and in all honesty, we were tired. If an issue wants to be taken up with that, it’s valid. However, no result would’ve been undone.

In most channels on the server, there are pinned messages about what a channel is for as well. This channel was always intended to be a difficult discussion channel, and those that enter are agreeing to engage in difficult discussions as it relates to the show. Krow broke rule 2 by making it personal. You can see the whole chain below. As for RVC, she made it clear she was no longer comfortable in the server and didn’t trust the admins, and decided to turn a situation that didn’t directly involve her to be about her.

After this, RVCBard was kicked. Throughout the life of the discord RVC was consistently combative and antagonistic towards members who’s views or opinions she didn’t agree with. Or if someone disagreed with her. It was an issue that would flare up often, but looked past because we wanted the server to be inclusive even at the detriment to the overall health of the server. We received multiple complaints from different members about RVC with the average complaint being that she made the user uncomfortable due to her approach to different discussions in varying channels. All of the above was taken into consideration that night, and was essentially the final straw.

And despite not being comfortable with approaching mods, she sent me the following after all this went down.

For clarification, I was not present at the time and woke up to multiple messages and had to catch up on my own. 

In the past, RVCBard had contacted me with an issue she saw in the server.

I talked it over with Jaye, and it was decided thirsting channels would be created to help address the problem. I show this as an example of good faith that when issues are brought to our attention, we look into it and do something about it if we’re able.

“It wasn’t long ago nearly 48 hours after I lost a family member that was dear to me that this mess ensued, I didnt carry my personal issues into conversation as I enjoy Christina and Ruby as a get away. Yet it is damn near sickening how an Admin can kick someone without warning because your losing an arguement. This isn’t an after-school special and it’s sad that this show that delivers it’s take on Black History and pain cannot be understood even by the simplest of minds, as they are too busy oversexualizing and insulting the Ruby and Chirstina Ship to understand that we see Christina and her flaws as well. I own 2 Discords myself and NEVER would I go out my way to make somebody feel uncomfortable like the way they did me.”

I was offline and asleep for the majority of this night. And this was the reaction to the news of her family member.

While the loss of her family member is tragic, and I sympathize with the loss, it is not a free pass. The kick happened because of hostility and personal attack. With a history of problematic behavior.

I wish to highlight this part from that paragraph

“as they are too busy oversexualizing and insulting the Ruby and Chirstina Ship”

I honestly have no idea who this is supposed to even be at. The entire discord is dedicated to Ruby and Christina. Oversexualizing? Really? Acknowledging Christina’s racism, in whatever form it presented itself in, is in fact seeing Christina and her flaws.

It is at this point I’d like to share the message Krow sent me after her removal and my response.

Now onto the video that was posted Jan 1st, 2021 that has resparked the drama. Which, the video is actually the worst offense done so far. I will address particularly awful points with timestamps that you can reference for yourself. Credit to @femeivor​ for helping with grabbing timestamps as I’ve stayed up incredibly late writing this all up.

To highlight the targeting that is going on in this video, I would first like to present the controversy surrounding LITTD chapter 5. Dandybear upon receiving valid criticism of her story replied with the following, which Krow decided to piggyback on.

With that shown, let's get onto the video titled “Dear AO3 Fanfic Writers”

1:41 - "there was this whole thing where they couldn't have a mature conversation as adults and decided to kick me and several other group members out for not feeling that way"

- If you’ve made it this far, you know how exaggerated this is.

2:10 - Says a couple of writers from the server are "abyssmal and you know it comes from their fucking area"

- Spoiler alert, at the end of this video she says her discord is a place to not be judged.

6:54 - huge rant about people having Christina be William in their fics even though that's canon compliant

- For this I shall simply copy and paste her own fic’s summary:

- When Ruby get's the chance of a lifetime to change her life working under Tic's strange yet introvert distant cousin Christina, she gets more than she bargained for. As Christina a well known lawyer struggles to free herself from her fathers abusive shadow after the death of her brother William and her elder brother Caleb; she seeks to gain control over the lodge her father has denied her as his only heir. Yet first Christina must clear her father and lodge members names a task that seems all to impossible under the watchful eye of her fathers righthand-man; yet such a task is proving itself to be difficult as she is taken by her new P.A. As Ruby finds out how to read the strange yet alluring Christina, a waiting William comes to make her dreams come true yet are all dreams true; yet she is sucked into into a world of wizards and dangerous turns. Can love come at such a time, or will the half-truths threaten to rip the two apart?

- I will also add here my OWN comment on said story

https://archiveofourown.org/comments/357964615

8:00 - straight up calling out Davenports, just not by name.

8:30 - says it's "disgusting" to have Christina spend a lot of time as William which is, again, canon compliant

11:00 - calls some fanfics "crap" and "torture porn for the soul"

11:14 - "I'm not trying to stifle creativity!"

- *stares into the camera like I’m in the Office *

11:33 - calls out a fic for including attempted rape when she has previously praised a fic that included CSA

11:50 - "you don't really understand these characters, you don't really understand her at all"

- Christina is not given some EPIC backstory in the show and literally no one knows that much about her. Only what we can perceive and deduce. Aka, tons of headcanons from everyone.

13:00 - now telling people what they should be writing instead

13:34 - mockingly calling out Dandybear again, this time with more than one fic

14:10 - once again telling people what they should be writing

14:30 - mocking people for writing smut then says “I don’t caaare - I mean I like that - I love smut….is that it?”

14:55 - "and I notice that some of you guys start out so great in your fics and then it goes down hill!"

- Is this encouragement or stifling creativity?

15:13 - calling out another fic

- I’m tired, are you tired?

15:33 - "Who the fuck writes this shit? Oh my fucking god! Are you guys just dumb? Are you guys stupid?"

16:00 - "Some of you wanna tag and say 'this is a Ruby and Christina Discord server [mocking noises] and if you don't agree with us we're gonna kick you out for no fucking reason!' You know? Shut the fuck up!"

- And if you’re THIS far, you very well know the reason and it definitely wasn’t NONE

16:16 - "you obviously don't know what Ruby and Christina mean to real fucking die hard fans"

- I personally love a classic gatekeep.

17:06 - "But for some of y'all to write these disturbing, disgusting fanfictions"

17:54 - calling writers racist for including racist characters in their fanfics for a show that included a lot of racism.

18:41 - says people are wasting her time because they're writing fics that she doesn't want to read.

18:49 - "This isn't for all fanfic writers. This is only for a couple of 'em. You know who the fuck some of y'all are. And shame on you for even doing this and writing this and trying to fucking push this kind of fanfic and this garbage off."

- If you’re gonna keep beating a dead horse and bringing up drama that you created again and again, start saying people’s names instead of hiding behind blanket statements.

19:07 - "And that's the whole problem why I decided to do Krows Korner. Because I'm so sick of these fandoms and even some of these professional writers running their ass around here, delivering garbage and people being a bunch of sheeple to say that this shit is the greatest shit ever. Honey, it's either you have dyslexia or a reading complex because I'm not really fucking seeing what you thought was so great about this fic." 

20:20 - "Join my Discord server if you wanna know the full, TRUE story about what happened at the other Discord server and how these people supposedly claim that they love Ruby and Christina but they support a racist fanfic writer who clearly does not understand about black relations, but lies and decides to be a dick every-damn-where"

- The clearest target at Dandybear herself is in this rant here. Which you can recall above from the screenshots I posted, that when confronted with valid criticism, aims to do better because we all have room for growth. Including racists characters can always be tough because they are uncomfortable characters as they are meant to be, but run the possibility of being too much. However they are not a direct reflection of an author’s view.

20:52 - "If you wanna join a fandom on Discord that doesn't judge you for liking what you like as Ruby and Christina, and even if we disagree, you know, still not have fear of being kicked out because you disagree, come join my shit. It's not even worth the headache, sweetie."

- Interesting take after making a whole video attacking writers/people you hate from your previous discord after you were removed for breaking rules aka personal attack. “doesn't judge you for liking what you like”

21:30 - "I don't care any fucking more. The drama is done, it's settled"

- Considering you have brought this drama up again, after your removal on the 11th of December 2020, I think you might still care.

21:33 - "I figure I would clear a record, basically, to what happened. And, you know, signify the issue that these motherfuckers is crazy. They're crazy as hell."

Everyone at the server had moved on and enjoyed the holidays, but this video has reopened a closed case due to the clear targeting of a writer who happens to be popular. Almost this whole video is an entire disguised attack towards her.

I sincerely hope this clears the air on everything that happened and continues to happen. You have the full story and can judge for yourself whether or not the kicks were justified. If you feel they weren’t, that’s fine and you can now join a new discord server of more like minded people. This continued targeting of Dandybear is unacceptable, and those of you in contact with Krow should not be allowing this to continue. Dandy is a real person like all of us, and if you have a valid criticism of her fic, you can do it in a rational manner. Or stop reading. Like every person ever has done in every fandom ever. Dandybear had no involvement whatsoever with the kicks of the server, they are simply a member and a writer in the fandom and this has gone too far.

If you feel like this server isn't the place for you anymore, I encourage you to find a new place to express yourself in the best way you'd like. We all came here to love Ruby and Christina and have a place to do so in an organized fashion. If you don't like the rules, or consider this place unsafe, I hope you find a community that aligns more with your interests and world view.

[polaristranslations]

The Twelfth Box

   ■   ■

Well, we've come a long way, but my story is finally reaching its climax—however, as for what lessons you'll take away from this story, I do not know. Calling it a lesson might be a bit of an exaggeration, but a tale, no matter its nature—as long as it is a tale told from one person to another—is a conversation. Even if the listener is listening in silence while the speaker is speaking, I believe it is still a conversation—I believe they are still exchanging words. Until one day in the future, when science has further developed and tales become entertainment that is machine-generated, I believe that tales, or episodes passed down from generation to generation, are a means of communication.

Even this story revolving around Hakobune Middle School's 66th Generation Student Council Executive Committee—it's a tale that's an unpleasant memory, a painful memory, and, in some places, a bittersweet memory for me. But in the end, it was not so much what was told but the act of telling it that was more meaningful.

And there was meaning in you listening to it.

So what I want to say is, thank you for listening to me.

   ■   ■

Chinu Namaji told me.

The reasons for my loss in the Formation Game.

"Well, I've been beating around the bush, but it wasn't any particular strategy worth putting on airs about—I'm sure even you've managed to guess at most of it, Kurokami-chan. You gathered only strong players, and I—well, it would be a bit mean to call them weak, but it might even be too presumptuous to call them players—I gathered only amateur players. If you think about it normally, your team had the overwhelming advantage, but the reason my team was able to win was exactly that—the reason it seemed like an advantage and actually was an advantage was the reason you lost, Kurokami-chan."

I listened to Chinu-senpai's words. I simply stayed quiet and listened.

Part of it was due to wanting to hear the reason I lost, but it seemed to me that she was trying to tell me something else, and if that was the case, I couldn't miss a single word of it.

That was the conversation between me and her.

Although, to that attitude of mine, Chinu-senpai laughed.

"Ahaha, it's not something you need to listen to so attentively. You'll be disappointed if you concentrate so hard—the point is, gathering only the strongest people does not make a strong team. This is why the theoretically viable all-star team is not necessarily the strongest team in the world. It's all about balance."

"Balance—are you saying that if everyone is at the same level of strength, then balance comes naturally?"

"Sort of, but not quite—strength is after all, limited to just one position. Even if you gathered nine pitchers that could throw a fastball at 150 km/h, that team isn't going to win the Best Nine Award, right?"

At the time, I didn't know very much about baseball, so I didn't understand the example itself, but now, there wasn't a metaphor more apt than this—of course, a metaphor was just a metaphor, so it wasn't like it applied directly to basketball.

But it was true that I hadn't thought about balance.

I simply called out to seniors that seemed to be athletic—maybe that would've been fine for individual games, but because it was a team game, it apparently backfired.

Backfired?

No, that wasn't it.

That sort of plan wouldn't just backfire normally—normally, anyone would gather players just as I did in order to form their team. That was the obvious strategy, and in fact, Chinu-senpai herself had guided me into following that strategy. She explained the rules of the game as if who I scouted was important—thinking about it, her going on about all-star teams and so forth was preparation, laying down the groundwork, wasn't it?

On the other hand, she must have quickly finished gathering her members in order to use the time spent waiting for me to instruct the five people she gathered on how to fight as a team.

How to handle the ball and pass it—in other words, teamwork.

Normally, if she were going to discuss why she won, that would be all—but the real reason she won was because she was able to make me not realize that this game was a team game. She'd made me think that it was an extension of an individual game—and, with me not seeing it as a team game, there was no way that frame of mind would be enough to beat her.

Rather than backfiring.

It never fired to begin with.[?]

"Well, in this case, your strong players ended up getting a bit arrogant, which made them unsuited for an off-the-cuff team game—in contrast, my weak players knew their own limits, and thus were able to follow my instructions perfectly. But that might just be secondary—after all, when I lost to President Kumagawa, we were definitely trying to face him with our teamwork."

"When you—lost to President Kumagawa?"

"If I said that, would it be a bit misleading?"

Chinu-senpai said.

With a lighthearted tone.

I wondered why she was being so lighthearted, but perhaps it was to keep the atmosphere from growing too heavy—in that sense, you could say her attempt was fruitless.

"After all, after that match ended, he said something like this—'Again, I couldn't win'."

Again, I couldn't win.

Chinu Namaji had said she'd lost, and Kumagawa Misogi had said he couldn't win.

In that case—it was a game with no victor.

Of course, it shouldn't need to be said now that that was basically Kumagawa Misogi's forte, but at the time, I couldn't believe that it was possible for a game to end with those results.

"By the way, the game we played was a game based on rules quite different from those of the Formation Game—however, the strategy he used was mostly the same. I... No, the girls' basketball team ended up being thoroughly beaten by his 'weakness'. We were beaten to a pulp, beaten so badly that we couldn't get up again—and then everybody quit."

"Quit—the club?"

The deserted gymnasium.

The solo club activities.

I figured that was the reason, but the reality was slightly different—the members that had been beaten up by Kumagawa Misogi were no longer here, not because they had sent in their resignations from the club.

They hadn't even sent in their resignations.

"What they quit wasn't the club, but basketball itself,"

said Chinu-senpai.

"They were unable to renew themselves, to flip the switch on their lives—they're still being dragged along by their defeat. Being dragged along slowly, and continuing to live slowly... No, continuing to lose slowly—it's tragic."

That's why I'm here,

said Chinu-senpai.

"That's why I resigned as Student Council Treasurer—I guess if I wanted to say it in a cool way, then I wanted to make sure they had a place to return to, I guess? But it's not anything that cool. It's more like atonement."

"...And by atonement, you mean?"

"So basically, I ended up getting those girls mixed up in the match between me and President Kumagawa—although the actual circumstances were a bit more complicated."

From then on, she began to speak evasively. Instead of getting to the point, her explanation felt far more ambiguous than her prior explanations—so at the time, it was a little hard for me to understand, but now, I understood the circumstances. And I understood why it was so hard for her to speak.

To sum it up, it was like this.

Chinu Namaji, who had been appointed as Hakobune Middle School's 66th Generation Student Council Executive Committee Treasurer, was also a major player in the girls' basketball team—it didn't seem like she was forced to make a decision between the two, but I suppose it depends on how you look at it. The facts may not be so simple, but it was likely the club members thought that if Chinu-senpai were not involved in Student Council activities, she would concentrate more on basketball—it was likely they even wanted her to quit the Student Council. So, it seemed that the Student Council and the basketball team collided. The actual details were a bit more complex—perhaps Chinu-senpai couldn't excuse her teammates getting involved with the Student Council Executive Committee led by the infamous Kumagawa Misogi—basically, the girls' basketball team recklessly bet everything on their team leader, Chinu Namaji, and challenged Kumagawa Misogi to a match.

And then—they lost.

"...Well, this doesn't just apply to athletes—anyone who normally puts in the effort and works hard would think like this. No matter how much you may regret losing to someone better or greater than you, it's not impossible to accept that loss. It's just a math problem. It's natural that 2 is bigger than 1—and if you reflect upon not having been 3, not having been able to become 3, then that can become your next goal. But, if you're 2 and you lose to 1, or even lose to a minus, then what is there to reflect upon? How can you use that loss to proceed? Do you just accept that the world is like that and give up? Just accept that being better is not always rated highly, that excellence is not always recognized? Yeah—and so, everybody gave up."

No, not everyone.

After all, there's me,

murmured Chinu-senpai.

"Being better is not always rated highly, and excellence is not always recognized, but whatever—I can deal with that. Even if the world doesn't understand, it's fine as long as I understand—or so I put on a bold front. But what I can't deal with is when something that's stupid or worthless is given a high rating by society—that just kills my motivation to live. I wasn't able to accept my powerless defeat. It felt like all my effort, all the hard work we'd put in together—it all came to nothing. Like I'd been thrust with the idea that our lives were meaningless. And I lost all motivation for everything."

Born without meaning, live without relations, and die without worth.

That was what had been said.

By Chinu-senpai—and by Kumagawa Misogi.

"Well, ironically enough, with that as the reason, I was able to resign from the position of Treasurer, and keep watch over the basketball team. So in that sense, President Kumagawa wasn't able to win."

That was true.

He hadn't achieved the results he wanted—with the result being him losing one of his officers, what exactly was he trying to do? As a result of the match, both the basketball team and the Student Council Executive Committee had experienced losses. Well, that was more or less what Kumagawa Misogi was made of—but to me at the time, it just seemed like an uncanny act.

"Basically, that's why I quit the Student Council Executive Committee—and why you became my successor, Kurokami-chan. Do you understand now?"

"......"

I had no choice but to respond that I did understand—it wasn't like I could just deny her past. However, it was hard to tell what exactly I did understand. I had certainly wanted to learn why Chinu-senpai had quit the Student Council Executive Committee, and why the girls' basketball team was in this state... But now that I'd learned it, now that I'd understood, all that was left was a feeling of dissatisfaction.

No.

Perhaps I was angry.

Not at President Kumagawa—but at Chinu-senpai.

It might be a bit irrational, but why didn't she try and face President Kumagawa again, try and have a rematch with everyone in the girls' basketball team?—I may have felt that way.

It wasn't the time to give up, it wasn't the time to just wallow in your powerlessness—I may have wanted to say something like that.. But I couldn't. There was no way I could. So that I couldn't say something like that, she had made me play this Formation Game—in the same way she lost to Kumagawa Misogi, she made me suffer a defeat.

And that was probably a fraction, less than one-hundredth, of the "sense of defeat" experienced after coming face-to-face with President Kumagawa—at the very least, after having felt it, I couldn't bring myself to criticize the members of the girls' basketball team.

"Well, no need to concern yourself with us—that's our problem. It's not like I'm trying to tell you to take down our foe for us, to get revenge for us, or anything like that."

"Eh—but!"

Revenge was a strong word, but.

I'd been sure that that was what she was trying to say.

After all, Chinu-senpai had just said something to the effect of "taking Kumagawa Misogi down"—hadn't she? With even the condition of "using that same method"—so, that's what I had assumed all this time.

However, that wasn't it.

Instead of that—it was, to say the least, for her junior.

And for her successor, some pertinent advice.

"In the near future, you'll end up facing off against President Kumagawa—I don't know how it'll happen, and I don't know what will cause it, but there's no way a person like you and a person like him won't collide at some point. But when that time comes, challenging his 1 with your 2, challenging his minus with your plus—that's all meaningless to him. He won't take any damage at all from that. Kurokami-chan. If you want to win against Kumagawa Misogi—you will first have to begin by losing to him."

   ■   ■

Chinu-senpai's words were like some sort of Zen dialogue, so at the time, it was hard for me to comprehend them—and rather than a Zen dialogue, it felt more like an impossible dialogue. However, it was still frighteningly pertinent advice.

In fact, when the time came for me to settle things with Kumagawa Misogi here at Hakoniwa Academy, we unexpectedly ended up settling things in such a way—Former President Hinokage's "Evilize Training Camp" was made with that in mind, too. However, this basically meant that I had been unable to follow or make use of the advice given to me in middle school, which meant that I'd failed to fulfill the request of Chinu-senpai.

I'm ashamed of myself.

After losing the match, I couldn't even carry out the request that I got as the penalty—if the news would reach Chinu-senpai's ears that belatedly... After three years, I was able to settle things with him, then it would be a great comfort to me.

However, there was nothing special about Chinu-senpai.

In the sense that she had been a part of the Student Council Executive Committee, she was a special case, but like her, there were students all over the school whose lives had been turned upside down by President Kumagawa. There were students all over the school, including myself, who were ruined by the mixture of good and evil, mixed with victory and defeat.

I'd even go so far as to say that the entire school was like that—

With the exception of my brother and the Vice President.

However, it went without saying that when I heard the story from Chinu-senpai—when I heard the story from her through the form of a competition—it was a clear turning point for me.

The next day.

After school, I headed for the Student Council office.

Of course, I'd gone there once early in the morning, but at that time, the office had been empty—despite mustering all that motivation, it felt like a huge letdown in the end. But I didn't falter, pulled myself together, and opened the door to the Student Council office after school.

This time, President Kumagawa.

Kumagawa Misogi was there.

He was alone—neither the Vice President nor the Secretary nor the General Affairs Manager was there.

I hadn't intended on changing my plans had anyone been there, but this was certainly a favorable situation for me.

If I was going to confront him, then one-on-one was ideal.

「Heya, Medaka-chan—what's the matter? With such a dignified look on your face,」

President Kumagawa said.

「Although, Medaka-chan, I guess you're always making that dignified face, aren't you—even though you'd be better off living your life a bit more cheerfully and loosely. Then you'd be more popular.」

To those cheerful and loose words of his, I said,

"President Kumagawa."

It was a proclamation.

"The responsibility of the Treasurer position of the Student Council Executive Committee—I will humbly accept."

「...Huh? I thought we'd already finished discussing that matter?」

"No. To me, this is the starting line."

It was true that I'd been performing my duties as Treasurer in the Student Council Executive Committee for a couple of days now—but now, I was truly determined to fulfill my duties.

It was this very moment that I was truly "promoted" as the Treasurer, in the truest sense.

That I decided to work under Kumagawa Misogi—that I decided to fight against Kumagawa Misogi.

As a comparison, it was sort of like how a shogi piece gets "promoted" after entering enemy lines—although it was more like a betrayal than a simple turnover.

「Hmm. I'm just thankful to hear that, but... What led to this change of mind? Should I hear it?」

"I spoke with Chinu-senpai,"

I said. I had no intention of hiding it from him.

"I learned—about my predecessor, and the details that led to her being relieved of her position."

In actuality, instead of being relieved, she resigned on her own—President Kumagawa actually tried to hold her back—but this was neither a misunderstanding nor an attempt to mislead.

But even so, I expected a rebuttal.

And yet,

「Chinu...?」

said President Kumagawa, tilting is head.

「...Who's that?」

That was.

The reaction of someone who'd heard the name for the first time—as if he wasn't even sure that the word was supposed to be a name.

「Also, what do you mean by predecessor? The 66th Generation Student Council Executive Committee's Treasurer has always been only you, Medaka-chan.」

"...Is that so."

There was no meaning to disputing it.

Whether he'd actually forgotten, or whether he was simply concealing it, I had no desire to even think about it—however, I keenly felt it.

From now on—this was the opponent I would have to fight against.

I resolved myself to face off against Kumagawa Misogi—the Minus that crawls from chaos, Kumagawa Misogi. It was like a joke, pitting a Treasurer against an incalculable man, but this was my reality here at Hakobune Middle School.

「Is that all you wanted to say? Then, get to work, Medaka-chan. Maguro-chan and Kouki-chan will be here soon—along with Anshin'in-san, too.」

"Anshin'in-sa—"

「Don't worry, you might not be used to it in the beginning, but I'm sure you'll get the hang of it in an instant, Medaka-chan. I look forward to our long relationship together.」

Kumagawa said with a smile.

It was a smile with no emotion behind it.

「I'm sure it'll be an unforgettable experience.」

   ■   ■

And so, Hakobune Middle School's 66th Generation Student Council Executive Committee was established. What happened after that, you should know very well—we fought, we broke down, we rampaged, and we became a mess.

There were disagreements, there were misunderstandings, and there were mistakes.

Things didn't go the way I planned, and of course, Kumagawa Misogi never had any plans to begin with, so we never arrived at a future that had been predicted by anybody—power and intrigue only swirled, finesse only flailed, and eagerness never saw the light of day.

It was out of anyone's hands, and no one could be held responsible.

A battle with no victors, that would make no one happy, began and ended.

No, it failed to even end.

It simply carried on, unsettled.

I didn't know what Chinu-senpai felt as she watched it happen—perhaps she was disappointed in me, or perhaps she never expected anything from me to begin with, thinking, "Ah, of course".

At any rate, I failed. And I don't think I managed to recover from it here in Hakoniwa Academy. That—those things—were a failure that cannot be recovered from.

There were too many things that couldn't come back—and there were too many people that couldn't return.

And so, for you—for you all—I want you to not repeat the same mistakes I made. That's what I wish. From the bottom of my heart, I hope that you don't make the same mistakes again—I know you're going to say that you would never do something like that, but you know, something like that can happen to anyone.

Just like how Chinu-senpai wasn't anyone special.

Kurokami Medaka and Kumagawa Misogi weren't anyone special, either.

When two people meet and get involved, a tale is born—though the two of us in middle school could only produce a bad ending like this. But even if it's a bad ending, even if it's a childish, or even juvenile—there is no doubt that it is still a tale.

As long as I can tell it to you like this.

Torai Kudaki.

Hakoniwa Academy's 100th Generation Student Council Executive Committee General Affairs Manager Torai Kudaki—I can no longer participate in whatever Student Council activities you'll perform now, but if there's any advice I can give you as a pioneer on the front lines and as a defeated soldier, it is to be the hero of a tale that you can tell, a tale that you are willing to tell to someone else.

And then, someday, you should tell it to a junior that admires you.

The battle you fought—and, of course, the happy ending you achieved.

   ■   ■

Hm? Chinu-senpai?

What happened to Chinu-senpai after that?

She's still well, even today—in Hakobune Middle School, the basketball team never managed to be reformed, but she was able to move on to high school as a competent player, running across the court even now.

Yes, that was one thing that President Kumagawa taught me.

Even if a tale ends with a bad ending—

People do not end with a bad ending.

[ghostbustermelanieking]

tma as “the haunting of bly manor”: self-indulgent au ramblings

this started as me really loving thobm’s ending (both in general and as a representation of what i want out of tragic gay love stories in horror) and thinking “wow it’d be cool if tma ended like that,” and ended up here because i started analyzing the parallels and where other characters fit in and couldn’t stop thinking about it. indulge me on this one please

(putting this under a cut in case anyone is watching the haunting of bly manor and doesn’t want to be spoiled. i don’t think you necessarily need to have seen thobm to understand this but it probably helps.)

· okay as pieces of horror that deal a lot in tragedy and death and love and themes of being trapped and fighting against things and reliving moments in time and losing yourself to outside forces, i think thobm works really well as a template for a tma au

· to start off: martin is the storyteller. of course martin is the storyteller

·“statement of martin k. blackwood regarding… a ghost story” more on this later

· the magnus institute stands in for bly, and it’s pretty much the same except it’s in the middle of fuck-all nowhere, and is much less staffed, and half the staff just like. lives there out of necessity

· it isn’t just a temple to the eye though; it’s mostly that, but it’s also kind of like a sinkhole for all the powers. the land it’s on is a mess and divided up between the powers like a mini fearpocalypse

· consider: tim and sasha as owen and hannah come and suffer with me

· ok aside from the inherent tragedy of their stories being in parallel, consider: tim would make those awful puns and sasha would absolutely pretend to hate it

· ok but also consider: sasha dies and no one notices, not even her. she’s taken by not-sasha the lady in the lake and she dies and no one notices it, but everyone wonders where sasha’s always going, why she always seems to be so out of it.

· imagine sasha fading into the background not realizing that shes dead... tim not understanding why she's pulling away or constantly disappearing, why she acts so strangely when he suggests they run away... sasha reliving moments with tim, unable to understand why she keeps coming back to the moment where she pushed him out of the way when something was in the institute, not realizing it’s the last time she saw him alive

· “tell him i love him…” oh my god

· not sasha is the lady in the lake. just because.

· jonah elias magnus is a little bit the lady in the lake a little bit peter quint he’s got the backstory of this being his house and being there for fuck-all-ever, and he’s using all these people as cogs in the machine, trying to get them to lose themselves to the eye or anything else there, using their lives and wellbeing to benefit himself (especially jon more on that later)

· (it should be noted there’s a very good fic with a huge manor and ghosts and romantic stuff and jonah possessing people called antigonish that makes way more sense than this but anyways)

· basira and daisy are a little bit quint and rebecca jessel. not entirely; their backstory is different and so is their dynamic, and daisy doesn’t possess basira to kill her and trap her there forever or anything like that. but she does go over to the hunt and ask basira to come with her. the difference is, basira wants to

· georgie is henry wingrave. minus the spousal infidelity and secret daughter, but in that she refuses to come to the institute. she’s brushed enough with it (with the end) that she doesn’t want to come anywhere near it, or anyone involved. she’s henry wingrave who separates herself from everyone for her own preservation but also loses jon and melanie in the process… who calls all the time because she misses them and wants to either apologize or beg them to leave but can never get up the courage to say anything… who comes back to get them out and dies briefly and has her encounter with the end… who talks to sasha when she reveals she’s dead and says, “tell him i love him…” who helps melanie leave in the end…. jesus christ

· melanie and jon are both dani yes i will elaborate

· melanie is dani in that she’s the last to come, and she thinks it’s going to be a new start even though it’s anything but. (she’s running, although not from a ghostly fiancé, but from the slaughter and the war ghosts and the humiliation she faced on the internet.) she comes to give a statement and ends up never leaving, and the slaughter only tightens its hold on her. georgie disapproves. melanie wants to leave when she figures out she’s trapped but she doesn’t know how

· jon is dani in that he is the second to last to come, and also the linchpin to ending all of it. but he’s also a little bit the kids, in that he’s being manipulated and taken over by the eye and in a lot of danger but he has no idea. he’s still the archivist he still takes statements and elias (who’s a lot less present here but still has some sway over everything) is manipulating the hell out of him ala quint to miles and flora

· the covering mirrors motif pops up here somehow mirrors looking glass eye all of that

· jon still takes statements, and statements are a version of dream-hopping. where they can relive their statements and their fondest memories and all of that, but jon is unwilling voyeur to all of it

· tim and martin are the ones who don’t stay at the institute overnight. jon and melanie and sasha and basira do. gradually tim and martin start to leave less and less

· it ends in a big confrontation i’m not sure how. lake + eye imagery, the power well trying to pull everyone in. sasha accepts she’s dead. georgie comes for her loved ones. jon gives himself over to the eye to save everyone, so they can all leave

· here is where storyteller martin comes in because imagine that ending of dani and jamie in a jm context. holy fucking shit

· jon and martin who leave the institute and go to scotland on borrowed time, knowing jon will inevitably lose the rest of him to the eye someday, but wanting to spend whatever time they have left together. the safehouse period but it lasts for years pls imagine. all of that. oh my god

· jon eventually going back to the institute to protect martin and martin following him and getting there too late… that entire scene by the lake… holy shit holy shit

· storyteller martin who won’t talk about it for years before finally giving the statement (possibly at georgie and melanie’s wedding just because, possibly not like that at all). who gives the statement futilely hoping it’s the key to seeing jon again because that’s always worked before. storyteller martin who is still looking for jon years later, who fills the sinks and tubs and sleeps with the door cracked open. storyteller martin who sleeps unknowingly with jon’s hand on his shoulder

· this is messy and unformed but i’ve been screaming about it for weeks oh my god someone draw this for me

· i don’t expect actual tma to end anything like this but i’d die if it did

[goldinavonlea]

What if Ant Jo offers to pay for Gilbert's schooling after he turns down the chance of going to Paris via marriage to Winnie?

Honestly? I think for Gilbert the whole Sorbonne dream is to his career what Winifred is to his heart.

The way I’m seeing all of this panning out, we have an eighteen year old who lost his father (and the entire rest of his family—we know he said they were a large family once which he is now the last of, and we’ve no idea how biologically or emotionally close to that family he was—we just know they’re all gone), then managed to find a new family he loved desperately only for that new family to be ripped open once again. Following that loss he decides he doesn’t want to be a Simple Country Doctor because he’s come to see it as helplessly standing by—having to watch yet more people die while he’s unable to do anything to stop it. He also becomes increasingly involved with Winifred, which has only stepped up since he’s met her parents and been provided with a possible path to the Sorbonne.

I think Winifred and the whole idealised future working in medical research in Paris are very much intertwined, and very much coming from the same root place, which is a blinding terror of getting his heart crushed again. He’s clinging onto the options which seem safer and easier, but they feel safer and easier because he wants them less and therefore there isn’t the same crushing fear of potentially losing them. He clearly likes Winifred but he doesn’t love her, and if there’s no love then there’s no potential for a tragical romance: if it all goes wrong it’s not going to destroy him. And if he goes into medical research—if he commits to a life of academic work instead of direct medical practice—he can help without having to bear the pain of watching his patients die. If the people around him that he loves keep dying then subliminally if he moves half way around the world they’re safe, right?

I think since John’s death he’s been scrabbling a bit, and having to experience another loss just when it all seemed to be coming back together has basically left him a raw nerve, and the choices he’s making at the moment are motivated by fear rather than passion. There’s that whole thing I read somewhere probably on here, talking about how people’s greatest strengths and weaknesses tend to be opposing sides of the same coin, and Gilbert’s greatest strength is that he truly, deeply cares about people—especially those who are marginalised or othered. That’s an incredibly powerful thing, but the flip side of it is that it makes you incredibly vulnerable to things like loss and rejection: if you take people right into your heart that means if anything happens, it hits you right in the centre and hurts like hell. Another one of Gilbert’s great strengths is that he seems to find it very easy to get along with people, people like him, feel easy with him, to my mind because he’s (generally, we’ll come back to this point) very perceptive in his interactions with people—he can read them easily, which means it’s easy for him to be what people want from him. The flip side of that, of course, is that it’s great for everyone else but not great for him: if you’re used to being what everyone around you wants you to be, it becomes very tricky to know exactly what you want for and from yourself.

So all this together, Gilbert has two paths: one is prestigious, low risk, with little potential to cause him great pain, but it comes at the price of cutting himself off from what fundamentally makes him special—his deep care for people, his ability and willingness to challenge the status quo in terms of who is perceived as being valuable in the world, the fact that he consistently shows that he’s happier and more at ease around people who are, in whatever way, Different. The second path is emotionally risky and challenging, but with the potential for much greater fulfilment, and surrounded by people he loves deeply but is scared to death of losing. The first path is the flat road; the second is the roller coaster, paying for the highs with the lows.

Now obviously this is my personal reading, my take, and this show loves to prove me wrong, but I just can’t imagine, in the end, Gilbert being able to walk away from his family, his people, when having that sense of family and community has always seemed to me to be his primary motivation. He ran from Avonlea as soon as he could after his father’s death I think more than anything because he just couldn’t bear to be alone—as evidenced by the fact that he was only willing to return after a) Bash agreed to come with him and b) he received in Anne’s letter evidence that there was at least one person in Avonlea who cared about him. And on the topic of Anne, coming back to what I said I’d come back to before: Anne is just about the absolute embodiment of the second path. As I said he seems generally to find it easy to get on with everyone else, can always say and do the Right Thing to keep things peaceful, but that falls apart with Anne all the time. I know a lot of us have stressed about the amount they’ve seemed to fall out, but I think part of that comes from the fact that she seems to render him incapable of being Whoever Is Convenient To The Situation and forces him to just be Gilbert (the same I think is true of Bash, who we also saw him have a falling out with last season—yes the issue there came from Gilbert getting tunnel visioned onto his own path and not thinking through what that meant for Bash, but the very fact that he was solid enough to be selfish with Bash eventually forced the resolution of the issue in a way that made Gilbert actually figure out what he really wanted, which again was to be with his family). The issue with Anne for him though is in that very fact: he can’t just make himself be whatever he figures she wants, and he has no reason to believe what she wants is him. That’s another potential pitfall of caring deeply about other people: he admires and respects Anne precisely for her worldview, the way she sees things and people, and if he really opens up and puts it all on the table for her and that worldview he so admires finds him unworthy, then that’s completely soul-destroying. If it could work with her then it would be his absolute dream come true, but if it doesn’t—if it went wrong in any of the myriad ways it could, if she turned him down or if she didn’t and then he lost her, it’d utterly ruin him. I think she scares the living shit out of him, and honestly I think he scares the living shit out of her too, she just has less of an instinct for self-preservation but anyway that’s another whole conversation.

I know I’ve wandered about a million miles from your question but anyway. ANYWAY. What I’m saying is that as lovely in theory as Aunt Jo sweeping in to save the day once again might be, I really don’t think Paris and the Sorbonne is actually what Gilbert wants or needs. I think he wants and needs to have the direct interaction of working directly with patients, and the emotional support of people he loves deeply around him in order to cope with the pains of that direct involvement (though I’m not saying he shouldn’t enter into any academia at all by any stretch, I think there’s a lot that he could gain from areas of that under the right circumstances, not to mention if you think I’m hopeless for the idea of the Doctors Blythe, Anne and Gilbert academic power couple of the university of toronto, you would be absolutely right). I think what he needs to realise is that no branch of medicine makes you a wizard, and that what really matters—the part in which he could truly shine and excell, is giving a shit. Is, as Anne said, caring deeply. That is what would make him a fantastic doctor. And that’s the other thing about Anne: she’s recklessness where he’s caution, and in both cases to a degree that they sometimes do themselves damage with it. But Gilbert makes Anne more considered, and Anne makes Gilbert brave. When they’re on the same page they’re absolute gold dust, and the potential they both bring out in each other is fantastic: he just needs to get past the fear that’s currently motivating him and let himself take a chance on the terrifying vulnerability of hope.

So. Hope that answers your question :p

[onf-headcanons]

ONF IN PSYCHO PASS AU (part 2)

Setting : angst, murder (influenced mass murder), futuristic society, you can read the introduction post prior reading this AU headcanon (for a better understanding cos some keywords will be slightly difficult for non anime audiences)

And warning long post and shipping hinting (I wont write it over explicit but if you are anime audience you can get the hint of which character I based so its suggestive should you integrated anime counterpart to ONF couterpart) if you are uncomfortable with that just kindly ignore it. Only adding it not just because to follow original series but also for the AU/headcanon storyline conflict purposes

Below is the known situation when the story starts in Yuto's POV

Yuto - Inspector

Changyoon - Inspector

Hyojin - Enforcer former Inspector

Jaeyoung - Enforcer

Minkyun - Analyst

Seungjun & Minseok - dead

And again sorry if its messy (Cos mainly I just want this AU to exist and making it to a birthday gift for myself XD)

The whole structure is followed the anime,but I will fast paced-ify to focus on main storyline. Also I will tweak my words/wordings to a more simpler format so that I wont cause you all headache.

Part 2 lets go (and here is where the story starts to be different from the anime plot, but main structure is kept the same)

1-4

(What's written in the file)

The 1st file

Kim Minseok, deceased at age of 20, was a former analyst in CID

2 years from today, it is reported that Kim Minseok was being held hostage along with his friend. It is his off day and the mall he was at, was coincidentally assaulted by terrorist. It is clearly that the attack is meticulously planned.

The group of terrorist have split themselves into smaller groups and used the first attacked location as their base. The head of the group with a about 20 men stay at the mall while the rest the members head out towards the city and started violence.

The group of terrorist took many hostages and they hid themselves in the warehouse (the only building that is currently safe to hide), threatening authorities for money and even the releasing of some mastermind/potential criminals.

They even mentioned should authorities killed 1 of their own, they will kill 1 hostages. That is the reason why they took hostages with exact number of the members in the terrorist group.

The authorities noticed the detected raise of area stress level. Since military are involved, CID are teamed up other department to resolve the issue while politicians try to juggle with terrorists. The goal is to rescue all hostages.

But while waiting, the terrorist had fun torturing their hostages but still keeping alive, based on witness, they are torturing hostages to kill time. (This also resulted authorities had to put effort to operate Psycho Pass cleansing program. as aftermath.)

When rescuing hostages, as reported by former military staff, that the boss of the group killed a hostage who was believed to be a friend of Kim Minseok. The boss was handled immediately before he can do more damage with Lethal Eliminator wounding him badly. This was proved by Lee Seungjun, former and deceased Inspector from CID who was assigned to back up with hostage rescuing mission.

However, Sibyl system detected Kim Minseok's Crime Coefficient level kept rising and spiked up to a highest record in history, marked 812 . Sibyl system judged that there is no saving for Kim Minseok and is to be executed at once. With some difficulties, Kim Minseok was executed by quick decision made by former military staff.

The 2nd file

Kim Hyojin, current status : alive. Former Inspector and current Enforcer of Bureau stationed in CID.

His Crime Coefficient level has tendency to be unstable after the death of his brother Kim Minseok and his colleague, Lee Seungjun. However it was under control as it did not surpass 100.

Based on witness, and observation, Kim Hyojin believed that Lee Seungjun was murdered instead of suicide. It was believed that he over committed into his delusions due to denial while grieving the loss of his brother and his best friend.

And to the extent he assaulted a former military staff who was also assigned to the hostage rescue mission along with Lee Seungjun. And that moment his the record of Crime Coefficient raised to 224 as he was "clouded by anger"

He was later assessed and treated before demoted to Enforcer.

1-5

(loosely based on episode 6,7 and 8)

Even though vague and its just suspicions, Minkyun voices up about a similarity he noticed from previous cases the team has handled recently. What Minkyun noticed was, even though the MO are different in all cases, the criminal are using a similar tech when they are committing crime

Hyojin and Changyoon's experience understand and believe in Minkyun's intention and worry should there is a mastermind behind and there is a larger picture. The team are in dumbstruck that those two would suddenly agree with each other.

"We need to be alert, cannot afford to repeat the tragic event happened 2 years ago." Changyoon comments

"Should there is another huge crime event, the whole city and country's Psycho Pass will go crazy, what happened 2 years ago only child's play in comparison." Hyojin adds

Yuto could feel his back bone shivers when he heard Hyojin talks about it non chalantly. Does he?

And look at the timing, before they can dig deeper into the tech, it is reported that a girl school faculty had a murder case.

While handling the case, Yuto finds opportunity to apologies to Hyojin because he has read into Hyojin's and Minseok's file. That was when Yuto and Hyojin are at office being a support back up for the crime scene investigating members.

"Wait, Why do I have to get angry, Yuto-ya?" Hyojin replies Yuto with a question. And this was a bit unexpected because Yuto thought Hyojin would feel down or upset or even get angry at Changyoon for spilling his history without his consent.

"I guess should I am angry, that would be solely directed at myself..." Hyojin continues with a thoughtful expression. But there a hint of sadness to it. "I knew something was wrong when I observed Seungjun's dead scene and my instincts told me that it might related to my brother's death. Just because I could not make it into words, no one believed in me."

"Is that why you confronted with the ex - military staff?" Yuto pieced the puzzle together. And Hyojin confirms it with a yes.

Yuto can understand why the word "delusions" are used. But unlike others, he does not push away Hyojin's emotions and "delusions".

Yuto timidly asks, "Lee Seungjun.-sshi?..Changyoon-sshi says he is your best friend...Must be someone you treasures."

Hyojin nods and his facial expression becomes brighter. "He is, I known him for ages, we always got each other's back."

"What kind of person is he?"

"Sometimes annoying, but a warm and excellent friend. Knowing him is the best and proudest thing that could happen in my life. " Hyojin smiles as he reminiscing about Seungjun. "I guess Changyoon already told you that I led the team back then right?"

Yuto nods and quietly listens to Hyojin talks about the old days.

"But actually without Seungjun being the pillar support to the team, I don't think I can lead well. Even though outsiders sees the team only led by me. But..." Hyojin pauses for a bit. "It was also led by Seungjun too. Along with Minseok, I never expect both of them to die in those ways."

Initially Yuto wanted to ask more about the old days, but when Hyojin spoke the name of his brother, Yuto pursues his lips as a sign of hesitation. But to his surprise...

"Do you know that Minseok joined the Bureau in a very young age?" Hyojin raised his head and looks at Yuto with glittering eyes. "Wait, you are 99 liner right? That makes you the same age as Minseok!"

Yuto could not process for a bit, so he went along with the flow. With that, more details about Hyojin's brother came out. So Minseok was filed as prodigy during a young age and arranged to join Bureau as an exception. And due to his young age and no plans for him to head out for action, the Bureau only focused on Minseok's academics and training as Analyst. Minseok did some basic self defense but it is not sufficient to qualify as a fighter.

"Aah... Should Minseok and Seungjun are here right now, they will be happy to meet you. Minseok never really had same aged friends when he is in the Bureau..." Hyojin gazes at Yuto as he mutters.

And speaking of Minseok, Yuto then suddenly remembers something and asks Hyojin about the hostage they met on Yuto's first day. "Hyojin- hyung... by any chance, actually you were not trying to hurt the hostage we met on my first day but were trying to contain them by driving them to a dead end?"

"Took you damn long time to figure that out." Hyojin pouts. "To think innocent people getting involved and caught up to things that are way out of normal....Anyone, even Minseok must have been very terrified and stressed to the extent his hue clouded and contaminated."

"But is he truly beyond saving?" Hyojin raise a question with a cold stare that gives Yuto chills.

Yuto keeps his silence as he worried to speak one wrong word. He wanted to say something but the event was 2 years ago and in file writes Hyojin as delusional, and since Changyoon is awfully cold towards Hyojin... Yuto does not know if he should trust everything the person in red hair says because he is questioning the system or trust his own hunch that Hyojin might have some insight that everyone chooses to ignore.

"Come on, don't look so acted up! Sorry if I scared you." Hyojin pats on Yuto's back and changed the mood.

Yuto smiles back at Hyojin and carefully offers, "Hyung , on next off day, can you bring me to visit their graves? I would like to pay my respect towards them as a junior joining this team."

Hyojin lifts his hand and pats Yuto, he smiles even wider and nods at younger one, "Sure. I promise I will not cause any trouble. Our Little Rookie Inspector."

Yuto understands it Hyojin teasing him again, but he let it slide because the mood is finally cheerful now.

"Thank you Yuto." Hyojin suddenly drop that out of no where. "Ever since I became Enforcer, no one talk about them anymore. It is nice to hear their name coming out from 3rd person's mouth and no one is depressed upon hearing it."

Yuto nods as a reply, and that moment, Minkyun returns with the other team. Hyojin instantly puts his index finger close to his lips, indicating the whole conversation a while ago to be kept secret. And Minkyun caught that, playfully wailing that Hyojin is being unfair and he should not just share his secret to Yuto only.

So the case that they has to attend to this time was young girl students being murdered, dissected/dismembered and later ensemble to look like an art piece of dark and grotesque genre.

It was suspected that a former teacher is committing the crime due to revenge by abducting the students and displaying the achievement by making the corpse into "art form". However, it did not take long for a second case with the same MO to appear and there is still no sign of the former teacher to be found anywhere in the city. Before any new evidence to be found, the Bureau can only back up by help enhancing security at the all girls school.

While looking at the photo of exhibit of dismembered victim, Jaeyoung unconsciously mentioned about genre and art style and the keywords enlightened the team. Minkyun search the data base but none could be found. Leaving the option of dark web, but it is unwise for Bureau to deal with those even if its for case solving purpose..

Hyojin remembers a criminal locked might help and once he gotten Changyoon's approval, Yuto and Hyojin immediately head to the place, hoping the person in Hyojin's mind could lend a hand. Yuto is curious on why Hyojin is so confident that the said person might be helpful, Hyojin mentioned that he was the one who put the said person behind the bars for having high Crime Coefficient level while selling illegal inappropriate artworks banned by authority policy.

Thankfully, the artist in confinement noticed the genre and art style by browsing through MO photo data provided by Hyojin and Yuto. It gave a huge clue, the MO was inspired by a famous underground artist, whose works are banned on market but the sales thrives in the black market. Apparently the artist has black market art persona and the normal persona. Art maniacs knows about this so it is not really a secret unless you dig into to it enough.

The team let Minkyun to run the data base to see if there is any connection between artist and students, even teachers and staffs in the school and BINGO. Apparently the artist's daughter is attending the school.

Knowing its a very suggestive clue, the team rushes to the school to get their culprit. They succeeded on getting the criminal this time but the murder still succeed in doing her 1 last act getting caught by CID. (Here is different from anime)

While monitoring back ups helping to clear crime scene, Changyoon calls Hyojin to have a chat at the Enforcers wagon and let Yuto to monitor Jaeyoung.

Back in the wagon, Changyoon and Hyojin temporary forgot their conflicts and start to piece the puzzles together. Changyoon even though sometimes is a bit not flexible, but when he sees Hyojin acknowledging Minkyun, he knows that the Enforcer in front of him is still the ex superior he knows.

Changyoon scratches his head a bit and tells Hyojin that the current and previous virtual community case felt a bit off. And should Minkyun's hint are actually legit, how should they tie up all the puzzle together?

Hyojin while biting his knuckles he goes, "Even though the young criminal this time has a high IQ. but as a minor, it is hard to believe that they can prepare such intricate crime display."

"I agree. " Changyoon adds, "This is an all girl school with dorm and I don't think our young criminal can gain access to the tools even if she wants to."

Hyojin and Changyoon come to a conclusion, that there is definitely a mastermind or consultant helping out criminals to execute their crimes, but who?

All cases looking irrelevant against each other but with the frequencies of cases occurring here and there, it does not hurt to think whoever behind this definitely is aiming for a raise of area stress level in a national degree. If that so, they might not dealing with a mastermind, but a group of crime syndicate who is trying to initiate a psycho hazard.

Although they both do not have strong evidence to prove their point but should their speculations are true (because of their first hand experience come contact with all these cases), it is already scary. While terror attack can produce fear and violence in large scale straightforwardly, a raise of crime number/disturbing criminal events affecting citizen's mental security can have long term effect. It is also a way to make authority focus on cleansing and clearing the hue and got distracted from something even menacing.

After a few seconds of silence, Hyojin finally breaks the ice., "Do we have a list of mastermind criminals that the terrorist group requested the authority to release 2 years ago?"

Changyoon replies "Yes we have, but... the authority did not really released them for reals. Its just a fake act to buy time...."

Hyojin stares at Changyoon in a straight face as they had thought of the same possibility.

"Hyojin are you suggesting that the terror attack was just to cover up a secret swap?" Changyoon stood up in disbelief, eyes wide open. "Thats crazy! Do you know how many terrorist members are there on that day? That many manpower and gunpowder just to do a human swap? For what purpose?!"

"And if there is a secret swap, are you saying that there is a traitor in our government?" Changyoon exclaims.

Hyojin only lowers his gaze and mutters, "I don't know." and he continues

"And you still think I am crazy?" Hyojin raises a corner of his lips and look at Changyoon with a victorious smile.

"I know you are delusional but this is insane, Hyojin." Changyoon frowns while he mutters. "Why do you have to complicate things and push yourself so hard until your Psycho Pass get clouded so bad?"

"My brother and my best friend both died with unconvincing cause of death. There are numerous points that are quite fishy regarding to the terror attack 2 years ago, Changyoon." Hyojin stares at Changyoon with firm eyes and its overflowing with hope.

"Seungjun wasn't himself after the death of my brother, it was not only guilt and regret he was feeling, he never acted like that before. He knew something. He must have seen something." Seeing Changyoon standing in front of him in silence, Hyojin took the chance to continue.

"I was there, I was the first person to find Seungjun's death scene. And as an former Inspector, I can tell you that was not a suicide." Hyojin starts to get excited as he voices out his points. "Who would choose to burn themselves and set a fire to their apartment room while at it when they can have a quick death?"

Changyoon still looking at Hyojin as if he is looking at a clown.

"You are a smart guy Changyoon, you can definitely tell there is something off if you..."

"Shut up." Changyoon silences Hyojin as he knows Hyojin is trying to persuade him to share common interest, Changyoon groans in irritation and barges out from the wagon, leaving Hyojin startled.

Jaeyoung who come across to this, asks if Hyojin did anything to piss Changyoon off in a concerned tone, Hyojin only denies him by laughing it off.

And Changyoon, who dashes into his car, punches the steering with his might before covering his face with his hands.

"What am I to you then?" he whispers into the silence. "Am I not your friend as well?"

To be continued on part 3

[but-im-jess-saying]

So I watched season 1 of Sweet magnolias, and I have thoughts and feelings. So I immediately tried to spoil myself by googling the book series the show was based upon and found out that that event at the end of the season did not happen in the books at all. So I began to create my own theories as to what might happen next and also what I would like to see happen next. I thought about it a lot and I'm 100% sure certain they are going to use flashbacks in season 2 to show what happened between Kyle running out of the party and the car crash. Something had to have happened because we don't see anybody grabbing the car keys which means it was probably in Tyler's pocket, though why Jackson would have a ‘no phones’ policy at his parties but not a ‘no car keys’ policy too idk. So, either Kyle took them from him or Tyler gave them to Kyle, why would he do that? What would happen to get Tyler and Kyle in a situation where Kyle can grab the keys and get to the car before someone else can stop him?  I think that there has to be a couple scenes. They could have someone who was there just tell the parents about it but I think it would be more effective to show it directly. My thought as to who was in the passenger seat is probably Annie and I'm sad about it because I feel that it would be better if it was Tyler, like it would make more sense. But if Annie is injured then the show can use that for drama, with the burgeoning Annie/Tyler relationship and to further animosity between Annie and CC. In the book series Annie spent the second book in the hospital for a different reason and I think that the show might borrow a lot of that plot line for her recovering from a car accident, if they intend for Dana Sue to have the same plot line and HEA as in the books. I don't want them to though, but I think they are going to keep it because it's a romance series and when people watch movies based on romance books they expect the core couples to remain the same. But, with the cheating issue they are probably going to have to muddy the waters more to make it seem like Dana Sue overreacted, I don’t think they should though, I want Dana Sue to get together with Hot Farmer.  But lesigh, Dana Sue's probably going to get back together with the cheating ex and the show will likely have Annie in the hospital to give them time to bond and hold hands and whatever by her bedside. I hope they decide to change the details as to what Ronnie did to make Dana Sue leave him because like if it's straight up cheating I don't think i could support that because its like Bill cheated and he’s a selfish ass for that, should not be forgiven. Check, I agree on this point. Then you have Ronnie, who also cheated, but he’s not a selfish ass (because…?) and he should be forgiven… why? The show is going to go into why/how Ronnie is different from Bill and make a case for why he deserves forgiveness and show him earning it. I would rather see Dana Sue and Jeremy get together but probably it's going to be Dana Sue and Ronnie. 

I think that Tyler being the character who is in this passenger seat would make a more interesting situation because if he's in the accident and he's injured then it might foster a situation where CC and Annie have to work together to support him or whatever and they can get to know each other without the level of jealousy that we've seen between them previously. I also worry about the potential of a  ‘and reality ensues’ plotline of the situation with your kid illegally driving a car while emotionally disturbed and harming or nearly killing someone else’s kid.  In situations that like that people tend to look for people to blame and it would be rational for Dana Sue and Ronnie to blame Maddie and Bill for their daughter's injuries and  for that matter for any parent to feel that Maddie and Bill should be held responsible for their son's actions, but if it's Tyler then you know there's no one to be mad that isn’t already involved. it makes the situation more straightforward, or rather more simple to have only one family involved, I guess. And then there's no reality ensues plot and the town taking sides and gossip and legal actions between families for damages, or medical bills, and the Townsends lose their house and the friendships over because Annie was hurt so bad and blah blah blah and it's just not as interesting to me if you have something obvious like where there’s a forgone conclusion about what will eventually happen which is the destruction of the friendship, which is the best part of the show or you'd have to like blatantly ignore the natural reaction of a mom when her child’s been hurt, ‘no Dana's not going to blame her friend for this she's going to blame...someone else’, idk. It's just not rational or reasonable to me but if the only set of parents whose children were harmed is Bill and Maddie and it's clearly an accident Kyle did not mean for this then I feel like the show can be more interesting than just the breakdown of a friendship over a tragic accident. Though I do think that Maddie will one way or the other blame Bill for giving her kid that Goddamn car when she knew her child was not ready for that and if he had asked her she would have said no don't do that Tyler is struggling with rage issues He's going to drive while mad and wrap himself around a fucking pole and that's not exactly what happened but she was correct in principal.

Couples from the books I think the show might actually change is Annie and Tyler. A lot of people have said that Tyler seems like he might be gay or bi and I do think that they might change the core couples of the books for the purpose of adding more diversity to the show. I mean there are LGBTQ characters and there are characters of color but more is better in this case and Tyler would be a different type of gay character, or bisexual, depending on how they decide to play it and i think it would be really good to have more characters breaking stereotypes about gay people. One thing I definitely want to see is CC and Annie becoming friends. Like it doesn't have to happen right away like I'm not saying season two starts and suddenly they're braiding each other's hair and having sleepovers but I would really like them to bond and see them learn to appreciate each other. I’d like for CC and Annie to have to work together and they get to know each other without the level of jealousy that we've seen between them previously like CC totally thinks or perhaps knows depending on your theory about it that Tyler is into Annie and Annie definitely understands that Tyler's more comfortable expressing interest in CC and I think they both want to be what the other is, and I don't think either of them really has learned to appreciate themselves the way you do when you're older and I think that they could you know sort of give each other a crash course in self-esteem and be like ‘of course I want to be you you're fucking amazing’ ‘I’m not amazing, you’re a-fucking-mazing’ and you know that could sort of be the basis for a friendship between them.  Like, you know that idea of history repeating itself I'd like for all of the children characters to eventually go off to college and build life and then come back to Serenity and like you know could be a time skip sort of thing and Tyler's had a career in baseball and maybe he's had a career ending injury like in the books or otherwise had some sort of scandal. I sort of like the idea of borrowing the plot from the book where its a cheating scandal, but its CC and his relationship that ends and CC goes back to Serenity with his kid and Annie is there too, and Tyler is juggling trying to build or rebuild a relationship with his son and get visitation and everything, while also dealing with a renewed attraction to Annie, who in this version would be a lost love character. And Annie could be like, “No, we are not starting anything with each other you need to focus on you’re fucking kid, remember how you felt during the whole thing with Bill, that is exactly where your son is emotionally right now, so dont come to me for comfort, go to him and show him you care about him, you ass.” And CC could be bitter and angry, only to discover that Annie is on her side and Annie and CC could become friends through Annie helping CC get her life back on track, maybe Helen could take CC on in her law practice (I feel like CC would be a lawyer or something, but not a practicing one, like she has a law degree, but not an active law licence and she’s actually been a stay at home mom).

Or maybe Tyler's been outed as gay/bi... I don’t really like that but him being forced out of the closet but that could be a career ending scandal and Jackson could be a local business owner (or a teacher at the highschool, this idea just occurred to me) or Annie could have been a renowned photojournalist or just a well known photographer or something. Whoever they decide pair Tyler with I'd like for them to have separated and grown into adulthood separately so they can like meet back up in serenity and get to know each other as adults as Tyler is dealing with this upheaval in his life and his love interest could be the one giving him the tough love, advice and comfort he needs at that point. I think that would be a really good storyline there like he's had his dream come true dreams come true, but not been happy because somethings missing, or he’s keeping this huge secret, or whatever and when it all falls apart he goes home and meets this person from his past. 

But I do definitely want CC to come back into it in some way as well and maybe she's like been in serenity the entire time in some sort of analogous role to the role Helen plays in some of the storylines. Maybe she's got a successful practice, maybe it's a little bit bigger than Helen's is portrayed, maybe she travels instead but serenity is still her home base and she supports the community the same way Helen does.  I think Annie and CC could be really good friends. Maybe more than friends, if the show decides to go with the fandom preferred, everyone is gay strategy. 

Anyways thanks for reading my rant... Please come scream with me about this show.

[teatimeatwinterpalace]

'"I made her promise faithfully to keep this knowledge to herself, and never to let a word of it pass her lips.’" - I wonder what all this could possibly mean? It sounds like it's going beyond a reference to Wilhelm's feelings for Ella and is actually referring to something that was happening between them. Do you have any certain impressions? (part 3/end - sorry! :))

Hey, first of all : I apologize for my late reply! For anyone wondering, few months ago we were talking about the so called “new letters” between Wilhelm and Ella that Queen_Missy has found and shared on the Alexander Palace forum.

I do have John Rohl’s book (which is really good). I agree that Fritz’s letter is particularly intriguing. When he mentioned “the previous event in Darmstadt” + “I made her promise faithfully to keep this knowledge to herself, and never to let a word of it pass her lips” it is as if something outrageous had happened. However, if it had been the case I’m sure John Rohl would have delve into it and wrote about it.

As far as I know, Rohl is the only historian who have written “extensively” on Wilhelm and Ella. I tried to find other sources in the books I own but not much came out. For instance, in Hannah Pakula’s excellent bio on Vicky there is no mention of a particular incident between the two. In the correspondence volume of Queen Victoria and Vicky 1878-1885, there is just one letter from Queen Victoria dating from October 2, 1878, it mentions a “rift” between Alice and Vicky, because of this affair but nothing indicates that something scandalous happened. Here is the letter :

“I will say viz: that I never told Alice you had complained bitterly to me - and that you had never asked me to write - for how could I? I only warned you what I had gathered and I have told you and Herr v. Liebenau (what I am thoroughly certain of) that Alice never wished to catch Willie, for I know she did not. It is a distressing misunderstanding which I trust is no cleared up and which I shall be too happy to aid in smoothing down if required. I think others (unintentionally) have talked and made messes, which is very annoying. Herr v. Liebenau thinks (as I do) Willie should not be pressed to marry too early.”

There is a footnote : “Most of the letters on this subject have been destroyed”. I’m not sure we should read too much into this. That is not really surprinsing and it wasn’t unusual to burn letters back then, especially the ones dealing with delicate family matters. It doesn’t necessary mean that they tried to hide a big secret. Besides, not all letters have disappeared.

Fritz and Vicky were obviously worried about the rumours about Wilhelm and Ella. He was the heir to the throne and she was still quite young. I think all this fuss came down to the fact that there were this strict moral victorian etiquette when it came to social interaction, especially between the sexes.. Vicky wrote to Wilhelm : “you had better for her sake & for yours, be a little scarcer in your visits, or else those reports will get into the newspaper, & it will be very disagreeable for Auntie Alice & for you.” A strict guidelines governed social interaction between men and women. However, these guidelines were ever evolving and most of the time were frowned upon by the “old” generation. The correspondance between Vicky and her mother Queen Victoria is quite enlightening in that aspect (quite funny too). In 1877, Vicky’s eldest daughter, Charlotte, got engaged to Prince Bernhard of Saxe-Meiningen. Vicky wrote to her mother :

“How differently the younger generation expects to be treated from what we were. […] Fancy that Charlotte never tells me when she writes to Bernard or when he writes to her… They resent the slightest restraint put upon them & Bernard thinks they ought to do just as they like.” 

Queen Victoria replied :

“I think there is a great want of propriety & delicacy… in at once treating your bridegroom as though (except on one point) he were your husband… Here now they have lost all modesty for not only do they fo about driving, walking & visiting - everywhere alone, they also now taken to go out everywhere together in society… & make a regular show of themselves… In short young people are getting very American, I fear in their views and ways.” 

So for obvious reasons, Vicky and Fritz didn’t want gossips and stories involving the heir of the throne and a hessian princess, spreading across Europe. They also knew very well who their son was and how volatile he could be. Vicky hoped that with some time this infatuation for Ella would falter because she knew that her niece could have carried the hemophilia gene. However, the letters between Vicky and her sister Helena show that during the summer of 1878, Vicky was unfortunately convinced that “a nuptial link between Wilhelm and Ella was both imminent and ineluctable”. Does that mean that Ella was also interested in Wihelm? That’s a possibility and I wouldn’t be that surprised if it was the case. Unfortunately we don’t have access to Ella’s letters. Nevertheless, she was fourteen at the time. Queen_Missy with her “new letters” suggests that Ella got pregnant. It is too far fetched imo. It seems that she got carried away while fantasming a bit too much around the supposed tragic love story between Wilhelm and Ella.

Later on, Wilhelm loved to say that his parents were against the match so he had “obeyed the severe command of duty” and married Dona of Holstein. However, according to John Rohl, Wilhelm’s change of heart was his decision : “Most of those involved, in particular his father and grandparents (not to mention Ella herself) [Did Rohl had access to some of Ella’s letters or did he just assum?], were unpleasantly surprised by this unexpected turn of events. The switch was not only sudden, it was total : in May 1879 Wilhelm flatly denied ever having even contemplated an amorous relationship with any of the Darmstadt princesses. […] “I had always loved them much more than any other cousins, just like sisters, but never did I earnestly want to have one, nor did I ever breathe a words of it to Aunt.”” Is it a testimony of Wilhelm’s inconsistent character? perhaps ahaha or if we are being fair here, he was just a young man (yet a young man who suddenly forgot all the letters he had written mentioning his desire to marry Ella, anyway).

Can we just take a moment to appreciate Fritz’s letter to his wife after he read the pompous, lovesick letter that Wilhelm had written to his aunt Helena about Dona. (Helena forwarded a copy of the letter to Vicky, then Vicky forwarded it to Fritz lmao)  : 

“Quite apart from his bombast & absurd expression [the letter was] worrying given that it was penned by an inexperienced boy. For how is a young girl of 20 years supposed to wait for years in the uncertain hope that when Wilhelm reaches maturity he will continue to enthuse for her in the way he does with this adolescent-starry-eyed enthusiasm!! Moreover, I find that his sudden changing of the saddle from the one for whom he had already declared himself to the other, who is now the “only one he has ever loved”, has occurred with outrageous rapidity.“

Fritz’s letter from 1879 can be seen as intriguing especially if you think that the new letters from Ella and Wilhelm by Queen_Missy are real (which imo aren’t). The incident that Fritz mentioned could have been Wilhelm asking Ella to marry him or telling her how he felt about her but it is just an assumption. The archives can still hide some crazy gems, who knows?!  But I really don’t think there is some shattering secret lurking in Fritz’s words. If it was the case, the tone of the family letters that we still have, would have been much more different. And concerning Ella, well we can’t say much with the few materials that we have, but if we follow John Rohl + the letters of Vicky, Helena, Fritz… then we can suggest that Wilhelm’s infatuation wasn’t as unrequited as most historians like to think it was.

For anyone interested in John Rohl’s books you can find online the first volume of his extensive research on Wilhelm II here. (sharing the link because unfortunately his books are expensive)