#its not like he asked for her opinion on the matter ffs

[letsduneit]

made the mistake of checking dune twitter and all i can say is frank herbert himself would be astounded by the misogyny because tell my why people are pitting irulan and chani against each other. why are they turning it into a contest. and for god's sake why are they determining the winner based on who a random man wanted to fuck more. this is peak pick me behavior and both of these women - book and movie versions alike- would be appalled and disappointed. shame on all of you

[siravalondulac]

ix. the father

meet me in the dark, kiss me in the moonlight

asoiaf ff | jon snow x fem!oc

summary: jon works in the stables and sees a side of elle that should have stayed hidden word count: 1619 warnings: slutshaming, detailed threats of death

masterlist

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Jon was certain that he would never get used to the smell of horse shit, no matter how long he was forced to work in the stables.

He tried not to let his discomfort show. Especially because Elle, who had been working in the stables for an even shorter time than him, seemed absolutely unaffected by her environment.

Even though he tried, Jon couldn't keep his eyes from flicking towards her every now and then. It did not distract him from his work, he would tell anyone who asked him - not that they did, too caught up with complaining.

"How come you get to tend to the horses,” Halder said to Elle, "while we have to dig around in shit?”

For some reason, after brushing out the horse’s mane, Elle had braided a strand of its hair.

Elle smirked. "Perhaps because I am not a criminal and therefore get to choose my work.”

Almost instantly after she said it, her eyes crossed with his, and her gaze softened, looking almost apologetically. Elle wasn't the only one who had noticed, apparently.

“Jon here's not a criminal either,” Grenn said from the back of the stables.

Jon could see Elle trying to say something, perhaps to apologise or explain herself, but he decided to butt in before her.

“No, it is true, I have committed the worst crime of them all,” he said in a theatrical voice. “I, as a Stark, dared to have curly hair."

A general sense of confusion could be seen on everyone's faces, but soon they all burst out into thunderous laughter - even Elle.

"Aye, and dared to be prettier than all his sisters too," Pyp exclaimed while lazily punching him in the back.

Jon, however, looked over to Elle. She was still laughing, though her eyes had never left him. He nodded and smiled encouragingly, hoping it would calm her nerves about her previous statement.

She smiled in response, and Jon knew it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

Elle had started combing down the next horse, a black stallion, when suddenly Ser Alliser appeared in the doorway. If there had been remnants of laughter left, it died down now.

"Elle," he spoke loudly into the room.

Said girl stretched her head out of the horsebox. "Yes?"

"Can you come with me? I have need of you."

"I will finish brushing down this horse and then I shall be right with you."

Why was Elle so courteous with Thorne?

The man looked around the room before gruffing out a "Fine" and left.

Elle appeared seemingly unaware of the stares upon her, continuing on with her work.

“There's something weird about her accent,” Pyp said.

Halder huffed. “She's Dornish, what'd you expect?”

“But she doesn't sound like the Dornish I've met.”

“I don't think I wanna know what kind of Dornish you hung around.”

Jon had only listened with one ear to their conversation. He still stared at Elle, trying to make sense of her previous interaction.

He blinked and decided he'd had enough of the guesswork and walked over to her. She shot him a quick smile.

"Elle, why does Thorne tolerate you?"

This was what got her to turn towards him fully. She laid her head to the side.

"Do you know why he is here, at the Wall?"

Jon shook his head.

"During Robert's Rebellion, he fought for the crown. After King Aerys was killed, the loyalists were given the choice between bending the knee and swearing fealty to Robert Baratheon, or taking the Black. Ser Alliser chose the latter."

"What does that have to do with you?"

"I am a Martell. Princess Elia was my aunt and my father tried to raise an army for Viserys Targaryen. He must have put two and two together and concluded that we are on the same side."

"And are you? On the same side, I mean."

"Jon, I wasn't even born yet when the Rebellion happened. It doesn't matter whether we share political opinions, simply him believing that we do makes my life far easier."

“And with me being Ned Stark's son…” He left the thought unfinished, but he knew. No matter how much he tried (he didn't) Thorne would never like him.

"Oh, would you calm down for a moment?" Elle exclaimed. The stallion had not stayed still for even a moment since she had come into his box. "I do not mean you harm."

"I'd be careful with that one," Sam said. "I heard that a few moons past he broke someone's leg."

Elle chuckled. "I wish Elia were here. She would have no problem taming this beast."

"Elia?" Jon asked, confused. How could Elle have ever met Princess Elia?

Elle immediately recognised the origin of his confusion.

"Oh, my sister, Elia. She was named after our aunt. Sometimes I think she is half horse, the way she moves on them." She furrowed her brows together. "Though I do wish that she would have let me win some of our races."

"Maybe you'd like to race against me sometime?"

Ugh, why had he said that?

Elle smiled one of the broadest smiles he had ever seen on her. "I would like that very much.”

“Maybe you would have more of a chance,” Sam joined the conversation again, “if you rode one of Lord Willas’ horses. I heard his breeds are the best of the best.”

Jon wanted to frown at Sam, but he held back. He was his friend and Elle didn't belong solely to him.

“Good, yes. But also incredibly expensive,” Elle answered. “The animals he breeds belong to kings, not bastards.”

“True.” Sam was deep in thought. “I would not be surprised if the king himself had multiple of Lord Willas’ stallions.”

Elle smirked. “Perhaps the princess used one of those to run away.”

“You should not joke about that.” Jon didn’t know all the details of the princess’ disappearance, but even he was careful around the topic.

“You Northerners are such prudes,” Elle said with a laugh. “Everyone in Dorne would have laughed at that.”

Jon would not have been surprised if the Dornish had celebrated upon learning of the tragedy that had befallen the royal family. They held no love for the Baratheon crown and-

"Oy, Snow!" Rast called from across the stables. He was leaning on his pitchfork, an ugly smirk across his face. His eyes were on Elle. "What'd ya reckon, how often did she have to let Thorne fuck her for him to be nice to her? A dozen times maybe?" Some of the men chuckled.

The heat curled up inside of Jon's stomach and slowly made its way into his entire body. Who was he to say such ugly things about his Elle? He wanted to growl, to roar, to burn him to ashes.

"Maybe that's the reason Mormont lets her stay, eh? Suppose her bed is never cold."

A hand touched his shoulder. Jon spared a glance towards Elle, and all the fire in him froze.

Jon couldn't move. He only stared at her smile, so dark and full of malice. He had never seen someone smile like this.

Her smile promised death.

He wanted to stop her, but it was too late. She was already walking towards Rast, like a predator stalking its prey. A shiver went down Jon's spine.

The others seemingly had noticed too, for a general sense of discomfort had spread amongst them. Even Rast had noticed.

He moved his arm, and within the blink of an eye Elle was onto him. Faster than anyone could move to stop her, she slammed Rast down into one of the carts, her knee burying down on his stomach and her dagger pressed to his throat.

The other men moved back in shock, some lone shouts found no echo in the room.

"Elle," Jon tried.

"What do you reckon?" she snarled. "Perhaps the reason they let me stay is because I did to them the same thing I am doing to you now."

Rast had let out a loud scream when his head hit the shit in the cart. Now he just lay whimpering beneath her.

"Or perhaps I held them over the edge of the Wall, let them see beyond the horizon and all the way into the Lands of Always Winter. That would let anyone's blood freeze. Would you like to try?"

"Elle," Jon tried again.

"I wonder how long it would take for the entirety of your blood to leave your body. Most likely not under an hour, especially not if I only open your throat here."

Jon could almost feel her pressing the dagger further into the skin himself.

"But if I dragged you to your bed and did it there, then your bed will not remain cold for the night."

"Elle, stop!"

This time she did look up, and Jon wished she hadn't. If he didn't know any better, he would have said her eyes glowed. He took a step back.

Elle bared her teeth and let her tongue run over them. Then she looked down again, smiling.

"It seems your life shall not end today. Truly a shame, I was so looking forward to it."

She removed her dagger and took a step back. But before Rast could move away from the cart as well, Elle kicked him in the stomach and he fell back into it.

"As a reward, you get to take care of the other horses," she told Rast. Jon knew it wasn't meant as one.

Her gaze went across the room and as their eyes met, she suddenly looked unspeakably tired. Then she smiled again and walked out of the stables.

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author's note: with this chapter and the last you should figure out who elle is pretty easily

[youdontjustgiveup]

August: Chapter 14

( ao3 | ff )

Previous Chapters: [link]

Summary: The day aboard the yacht unfolds with Chuck and Blair locked in their usual dance of flirtation and resistance. Who will give in first? Meanwhile, Serena decides it's time to pry into her friends' affairs.

Pairing: Chuck x Blair

Word Count: 4.1k

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: None

----------------------------

Nate returned with a boyish grin on his face, plopping down into the cushy seat next to Chuck on the bridge deck. The yacht rocked gently, the rhythmic lapping of the waves against the hull providing a natural soundtrack to the unfolding conversation.

“Not feeling much of a captain today, Archibald?” Chuck quipped, a relaxed smile playing on his lips. 

“I just want to spend some time with my best friend.” 

Best friend. There was that cursed word again. That casual remark, one he had never hesitated to shout from the rooftops, now seemed to mock him. Chuck didn’t feel much like a friend right now, let alone the best one.

Leaning back with his arm casually resting on the railing, the breeze gently tousled his hair. “There is always time for that,” Chuck said, briefly averting Nate’s gaze. 

“You’ve been a ghost these past few days. Sleeping in, sneaking off. Feels like I can’t catch you for more than five minutes since the party,” Nate pointed out.

“Jealous? We don’t have to be joined at the hip all the time.”

“Don’t tell me you’ve gone soft and fallen in love with that girl.”

“That’s preposterous,” Chuck scoffed. “Reserved for the weak, if you ask me. Life’s too short for all that sentimental nonsense. I’ll let you and, of course, Serena handle that.”

Nate raised an amused eyebrow. “Come on, man. You can’t deny that there’s more to life than your ‘no strings attached’ bullshit. Love may not be your thing, but it doesn’t make us weak. Besides, don’t act like you’re completely immune to a woman’s charms.”

He wasn’t. “I am.”

“I don’t believe you. Someday it will happen to you, and you will see that I’m right.”

If only Nate knew. He would punch him right in the face. 

“Then, what have you been up to?” Nate probed further.  

“The usual. Indulging in the Chuck Bass lifestyle.”

“Getting drunk until you pass out. Drugging yourself into oblivion. Hooking up with girls who mean nothing. I know it well.”

Kissing Blair until he was breathless. Losing himself in her until the lines between them blurred. Being with her because she meant everything.

“Exactly,” Chuck said. 

Serena’s laughter erupted into a spontaneous squeal, joined by Blair’s infectious glee, catching Nate off guard. He pretended to look down, as if trying to discern the source of their amusement, but their spot offered no visibility whatsoever. 

Lost in thought, Nate took the conversation in a new direction. “Blair is…” 

“What?” Chuck interrupted, his knee bouncing.

“Different.” 

A knot tightened in the pit of his stomach. “How so?”

“I can’t put my finger on it,” Nate admitted. He looked out over the yacht’s railing. “She seems happier, more content. More confident in herself. She’s got this radiant glow that makes her so much more attractive. It’s like I’ve missed the woman she has become. It’s like she’s a whole new Blair, and I’m finally seeing her. Truly seeing her.”

“It’s in the way she smiles now, you know? More genuine, less guarded,” his friend continued, a thoughtful note in his voice. “And her laughter—it’s different. Freer. Like she’s let go of something she’s been carrying for way too long.”

And what might that be? Chuck’s knee abruptly ceased its restless movement.

“Don’t you think so?” Nate inquired, seeking Chuck’s opinion on the matter. 

“If you say so.”

“If you can’t see it, you’re not paying attention.”

Chuck pressed his lips together, jaw clenched. The audacity of his friend’s remark hit him hard, especially after all that had happened. While it was true that Blair might be happier and freer, she hadn’t morphed into a different person. He would know that if he hadn’t been pining for Serena van der Woodsen like an asshole. For Nate to claim this newfound insight after all these years was a bit rich. 

“Blair has always been like this,” Chuck asserted, his tone firm.

“What?” 

“What you heard. And you have always been the one clueless enough not to notice.” 

The air between them stirred, the yacht’s gentle sway feeling more pronounced. Nate’s statement had struck a nerve, and Chuck’s frustration was boiling to the surface.

“What is wrong with you?” Nate demanded.

“Nothing.”

“Spit it out, Chuck.”

“Has it ever crossed your thoughtful, inquiring mind that Blair is acting this way because she’s not with you anymore? That she’s done pretending to be someone she’s not just to please you and get a scrap of attention? Because let me tell you, that’s what this is. Spare me the lines about how she’s all different and changed; this whole new Blair, just because she’s not shedding tears in a corner or catering to your every need to maintain the illusion of the perfect couple you never were. This…” Chuck motioned to the deck below, to the sound of her laughter. “has always been Blair. Passionate, tenacious, and–”

Instant remorse washed over him as the intensity of his words settled between them with a chilling weight. Chuck had said too much, and now he couldn’t take it back. 

“Wow.”

“Forget I said anything.”

“If I didn’t know you, I would say you like her.”

Was it a good idea to jump headfirst into the ocean?

“I don’t. We’re friends,” Chuck clarified, clearing his throat. Friends who kissed, of course. “And I care. Just like I care about you and Serena, even if you make it very difficult sometimes. Plus, you know my hands are pretty full right now with Amanda.”

Perhaps talking about that girl would make Nate forget about his little revealing speech. Nate smirked, and Chuck knew that he had succeeded. His friend was simple, or so he thought. 

“And Juliet, Emma, Andrea…” Chuck continued, listing names as if each one carried a weighty significance.

“I get it. No need to show off.”

“They’re just a phone call away, for whenever you decide to move on from pining over my stepsister.” 

“Maybe I’m not interested in Serena anymore.” 

“Who are you trying to fool, if not yourself?” 

“It’s just… Blair…” 

The girl’s voices echoed closer as they ascended the stairs to join Chuck and Nate, causing Nate to immediately shut up. In their hands, Blair and Serena held cocktails that, despite their initial appearance, seemed to lose their appeal upon closer inspection. Yet, the true intrigue lay not in the drinks but in Blair’s every calculated move. Once they reached the boys’ side, Blair, with audacious flair, decided to settle into Chuck’s lap with an ‘oops’. Despite an automatic reflex that urged his arm to wrap around her, he resisted the impulse. His left arm remained on the railing, while the other rested strategically on the seat, carefully avoiding any incidental contact. Nate opened his mouth to say something, then thought better of it. 

“Don’t think I’ve forgotten,” she whispered in his ear. Not too close, but close enough to send a shiver down his spine.

“It hasn’t even crossed my mind.” 

Could she at least get up from his lap? Nate and Serena were practically two inches away, for fuck’s sake. 

His muscles tightened, and every nerve was on high alert. Blair was ready to do whatever it took to win, regardless of the casualties left in her wake. The casualty? Well, it was none other than him. He felt tense—so tense that he thought he might crack. 

“What’s going on here? Developing a waitress complex, ladies?” Chuck teased the girls, trying to steer his mind away from dangerous territory.  

As Blair handed Chuck the second cocktail she was carrying, Serena mirrored the gesture with Nate. 

“Try them. They’re delicious,” Serena chirped, her voice filled with eagerness. “We made them ourselves.”

Chuck sniffed the supposed cocktail. Ignoring Blair’s skin touching him was more difficult than he thought, but he further examined the questionable concoction in his hand. It looked awful. “I must say, sis, your mixology skills leave much to be desired.” 

“That one is from Blair.” 

Blair shot him a playful, innocent glance. 

“Do you want to poison me?” Chuck asked.

“Well, not everyone has the palate to appreciate the subtleties of my unique creations.”

Nate, holding his own dubious cocktail, joined in with a chuckle. “I think ‘subtlety’ might be an overstatement, Blair. That one looks disgusting.” He gestured toward Chuck’s drink.

“Come on, guys! We were feeling adventurous with our choices. It’s all about the experience,” Serena, with a mischievous twinkle in her eye, defended her friend.

Chuck took a cautious sip. The initial anticipation of a refreshing, fruity, soft drink turned into a bitter and unpleasant taste that almost made him spit it out. The concoction was not merely awful, it had an extra layer of nastiness, as if Blair had generously doused it with perfume. Only a good old Scotch could save him from this foul flavor.

“An experience, indeed,” he remarked, suppressing a grimace. “Brings back memories of the day I accidentally sipped on dish soap.” 

Serena laughed. “Dish soap? When did you drink dish soap? Were you trying to align your intellect with your taste?”

“Ah, Serena, I thought I was trying to elevate my palate to the level of your dating choices, embarrassingly poor, yet somehow always entertaining. Spare me the talk. I was drunk.”

“When are you ever not?” An undertone of irritation seeped into his stepsister’s voice. “And, speaking of dating choices, are you sure you want to open the Pandora’s box on that one?”

Was she still upset about the little show they put on that morning?

“Guys,” Blair interrupted, bringing her glass closer to her nose. “I’m sure it’s not that terrible. You’re just being overly dramatic.”

“It is. Try it yourself.” Chuck redirected Blair’s drink closer to her mouth, dismissing the sensation that coursed through his veins when their hands touched. It was ridiculous how much it still affected him to be near her. However, she deftly pulled her head away. “Not so brave now, are we?”

Blair shifted, creating a subtle friction between them, and that made him shut up. Almost instinctively, his hand moved to her thigh, but he stopped mid-motion, afraid that any action would draw their friends’ attention. Mainly Serena’s. To his relief, no one noticed. His stepsister was too busy ignoring him now.

“Mine is not so bad,” Nate said after taking a sip of his glass.

“I made that one,” Serena noted proudly, and the two smiled at each other. 

While the blondes chatted about Serena’s cocktail-making skills and shared their experiences in Ibiza, Blair’s lips barely betrayed a reaction; her face seemed impassive, as if she were contemplating the most mundane painting. Was she truly indifferent, or was Chuck merely imagining things?

Blair moved again in an obviously innocent manner.  

Or perhaps she was far too busy planning her next attack.

“Can you stop?” Chuck whispered between his teeth, keeping the volume at a minimum and leaving the horrible cocktail on the floor. “They’re right here.”

“You know I won’t.” With a subtle yet deliberate movement, Blair pressed herself even closer to Chuck, her arm circling his neck. Heat radiated from her body, and he found himself starting to lose control.

“Blair…”

“Surrendering this early? I thought you had more in you,” she pressed.

If she thought he would only last one round, she was pretty full of herself. However, given her behavior, a certain physical reaction seemed inevitable. In a bold move, overwhelmed by the building tension, Chuck finally placed his hand on Blair’s thigh. His touch, a feeble attempt to regain some semblance of restraint, was met with a knowing gaze from Blair.

He pressed his lips together and closed his eyes. Thank God he had sunglasses. 

“Are you okay?” Blair asked innocently. 

Chuck snapped out of it. No, he was not. He pulled her out of his lap. Serena and Nate looked at him weirdly. 

“Going for a damn Scotch,” Chuck declared, and Blair laughed out loud. 

She was going to pay for this. 

As he uncorked the whisky bottle, pouring the amber liquid into his glass and measuring up to two fingers, the yacht came to a halt. A tranquil hush surrounded them, with placid waters stretching as far as the eye could see and no other souls in sight, offering them unblemished peace. Yet, his body seemed reluctant to fully embrace it.

He needed to act, and quickly. It had been close, and the completely unrelated-to-the-weather heat coursing through his body was proof of that. Their little bet was turning out to be more challenging than he had anticipated, considering he stopped thinking rationally whenever she was near, but the thrill of the game excited him. It was acceptable if she tormented him slowly, as long as he delivered the final blow. What she failed to realize was that, by tormenting him, she was also torturing herself. He could feel it—the dilation of her eyes, the unmistakable lust, the desire to pounce on him. And Chuck intended to use it to his advantage. Adjusting himself, he futilely tried to quiet the humming of every one of his cells.

A few minutes later, Nate and Serena descended to the swim platform, announcing their plan to take a refreshing dip in the water. Serena was perched on Nate’s arm, and just before they vanished, the ridiculous, cheerful grin on his best friend’s face faded as he glanced at Chuck, then at Blair. Serena tugged at him. 

“Pour me one, won’t you?” Blair requested, approaching the bar.

Chuck selected a crystal glass from the cabinet and placed it on the counter. After filling it the same way he had filled his own, he slid the drink toward her. Blair accepted the glass, bringing it to her lips but refraining from taking a sip. Her gaze was fixed on him as if he were the very glass she was holding, the very essence she craved. In response, he lifted his own to his lips and consumed its contents in a single, deliberate gulp.

She raised her glass, making a toast without breaking eye contact. “To my victory.”

He swallowed with difficulty.

She drank it all, too, trying not to grimace in disgust. Whisky, not her choice, leaned more towards his one and only preference. Despite that, she gracefully took the bottle from the bar and refilled her glass. With a smile, she held it out to him. 

Just as he reached for the drink, she snatched it back, holding it closer to herself and letting its contents cascade over her chest.

Fiery eyes burned with intensity. Her once immaculate appearance was now far gone. The composed and cold exterior unraveled like delicate threads in the face of a storm. Blair stood before him, not just a presence, but a formidable force. And Chuck was completely at her mercy.

“Drink it now,” she commanded.

His favorite whisky was all over her like a tempting offer, and he felt like he was being pushed over the ledge. 

Chuck stepped from behind the bar, his arms enveloping her waist in a desperate grip, pulling her in. The outside world faded into insignificance. Her chest glistened, giving off an intoxicating scent. It was like a spell that wove itself around him. It smelled like an addictive drug of the finest kind. Lowering his head to relish the fragrance, he caught a soft, involuntary gasp escaping her lips, and that wonderful sound snapped him back to reality. Well, how the tables have turned.

“Not feeling so strong now, are we?” he whispered provocatively against her skin, causing Blair to shiver. “Do you want me to taste it?”

Her breath quickened, a telltale sign of her desire. Raising his head, he locked eyes with her, their mouths dangerously close.

“That was the idea, was it not?” he kept going.

“If you do it, you lose,” she said with difficulty. “Remember the rules.”

No kissing. Touching, though, was fair game. But not below the waist. The neck—a forbidden zone, off-limits and non-negotiable. It was Chuck’s weakness, a fact Blair knew all too well.

“I think you will,” he murmured. “Your eyes are an open book.”

Blair leaned towards him, almost succumbing to a kiss that could release them from the torment, but before that could happen, she pushed him with force, nearly causing him to lose balance.

“Never.”

She gracefully walked away, hips swaying and head held high. The intricate dance of their mutual inability to resist each other, coupled with the risk of being caught, only heightened his arousal. Nate and Serena were right there, and it was only a matter of time before they noticed, given the not-so-subtle way they were acting. All it took was a pair of eyes. Even they had that. 

Taking a moment to compose himself, he downed another glass.

Upon joining his friends on the swim platform, Nate and Serena frolicked in the water, while Blair sat on the edge, delicately trying to cleanse her chest. Chuck sat next to her, absurdly close. 

“The offer is still on the table,” Chuck said.

Blair shot him a look. “You’re not getting anywhere near me.”

He touched her collarbone. “I think you’ve missed a spot here.” The whisky hadn’t even graced that part of her, but he reveled in how tense she was. He continued to playfully tease her, and when his hand brushed the spot again, Blair swatted it away.

“I don’t need your assistance.”

“You seem tense,” he murmured into her ear, his voice a velvety whisper that ignited a subtle shiver and the unmistakable prickle of her skin. “Afraid to let go?”

Blair met his gaze, her eyes transforming as she spoke. “If you believe you can handle me, Bass, by all means, make your move.”

Placing his hand on her back discreetly, he took advantage of the lack of prying eyes, their bodies conspiring in the intimate space they shared. “You have no idea how badly I want you.”

“Then have me,” she replied, her eyes locked with his, a bold challenge in the bright light of day.

“You know I can’t do that.”

She leaned in, her lips almost brushing against his, “Rules are made to be broken, aren’t they?”

“What are you both up to over there?” They nearly jumped at the sound of Serena’s voice. She swam closer, securing support from Blair’s legs as she reached the platform. “Join the fun!”

“What fun?” Chuck questioned.

“Come on in.” His stepsister ignored him. “Nate, help me.”

At the mere mention of his friend, Chuck instinctively withdrew his hand from Blair’s back. 

Eager to comply, Nate joined them outside. He approached Blair, and with nowhere to run, she surrendered to the inevitable and let him throw her into the ocean. Of course, not without first gracing Nate with a catalog of threats. Nate shrugged nonchalantly, while Serena just laughed. The two of them proved to be quite insufferable.

Choosing Chuck as his next victim, Nate looked at him, but Chuck remained steadfast. “Don’t even think about it.”

“You’re so boring, Chuck.”

“Well, sis, not everyone can live up to your riveting standards of entertainment and charm. It’s a gift, clearly.”

“Your loss,” Serena added sternly, casting a daring glance at Nate and Blair.

Nate had ventured back into the water, and there was Blair, supporting herself on his back. The sight stirred an uneasy feeling within Chuck.

“In more ways than one,” his stepsister continued.

“Weren’t you mad at me?”

“I am.” 

“Then stop talking.”

“You always play it cool, don’t you? Like nothing matters.”

“Why are words still coming out of your mouth?”

Blair’s giggles and the casual touches with Nate were starting to grate on Chuck’s nerves. Was she truly flirting, or was it a deliberate ploy to make him miserable? If so, it was working.

“It’s honestly tragic how things fell apart. They used to make such a perfect couple. Wonder if there’s anything we can do to fix the mess they’re in and get them back together,” Serena said. “Don’t you think?” 

Had they all decided to go completely mental?

“What the fuck are you talking about?” 

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“You cannot be serious.”

“Why shouldn’t I?” 

“Perfect couple? Weren’t they just perfect when he cheated on her with you, her supposed best friend? Or perhaps it was during those endless years of mutual misery, not a hint of love between them. And, of course, let’s not forget the grandeur of him sticking around just to keep his family from going bankrupt. So many stellar moments to choose from, really.”

Serena looked at Chuck, then at Nate and Blair. Chuck tried to put on a mask of indifference, but it wasn’t all that convincing. First, Blair’s comment, then Nate’s, and now, Serena’s. Was she really going through all this, him, just to get back at Nate? Serena got out of the water and sat down next to Chuck.

“As if you are any better,” she huffed. 

“As if I need lessons in morality from you, of all people. I know I’m not, but you might want to take a good look in the mirror before you start passing judgment.” 

“You’re a jerk.”

“Tell me something new.” 

“Look, what I’m trying to say is that, for some unfathomable reason beyond me right now, Blair likes you, and I know you like her, too.”

Chuck cut her off. “You have a really funny way of putting things, don’t you?”

“Don’t even try to deny it,” Serena persisted, not letting him interrupt. “Yet, here you are, shamelessly sleeping around, hopping from one bed to another. You like to pretend you don’t give a damn, that you’re above it all. The good and the bad. Because that’s who you are, right? The infamous Chuck Bass. Heaven forbid you act like a decent human being for once. Do you even know what it’s like to truly care about someone?” 

“Clearly I don’t. You know it better than I do,” Chuck snapped. 

“You play this heartless, ruthless game. But deep down, you’re just as lost as the rest of us. You feel as deeply as we do.”

“Shut up.” 

“Did I strike a nerve?”

His resolve deflated, much like a balloon losing its puff. He should just walk away, let everyone think what they always thought of him, but he had this inexplicable urge to explain himself.

“I’m not sleeping with anyone,” Chuck stated. 

Serena raised an eyebrow, “But you said…”

“I didn’t. I never uttered a word.” He leaned back, closing his eyes. “It was all Nate.” 

“Why would he say that?”

“Because he thinks I am. It’s too easy for both of you to jump to the worst conclusions about me,” Chuck replied dryly.

“You have never given us a reason not to.”

“Touché.”

“So, you’re not hooking up with this Amanda girl?” 

“I don’t even know who Amanda is.”

“Oh.”

A heavy silence enveloped them, in contrast to the carefree laughter of Nate and Blair. She playfully tried to submerge Nate, but in a quick turn, he grabbed her foot and pulled her down with him into the depths. They disappeared. A sharp, stabbing pain gripped him, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that this was the harsh reality he was destined to face. Why try to fight it? 

“What about Blair?” Serena asked after a while. 

“What about her?”

“You two...”

Chuck clenched his teeth. Serena was like a dog with a bone. 

“Haven’t you had enough?” he muttered.

“I haven’t seen her this happy in a long time.”

“Make sure to thank Nate properly.” 

“After everything we’ve been through in the last few months, she totally deserves it.”

“I have no idea what you expect me to say.”

“I’m not stupid, you know?”

“Well…”

“I’m trying to say something nice here.”

“After the crap you just pulled, don’t bother wasting your breath.”

He desperately wanted to believe there was something more out there for him, but deep down, he knew it wasn’t true. Everyone could see it. Happiness with him wasn’t a lasting embrace; it was a fleeting whisper, an ephemeral touch. He was not worthy of making anyone happy, not even himself. The weight of his own inadequacy bore down on him, a crushing burden that whispered of a profound emptiness at the core of his being.

“Quit playing the role of the heartless guy,” Serena said. 

“It’s not an act. It’s who I am.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“Too bad.” 

“Why is it so damn hard for you to accept that you’ve got some goodness in you? That you are good for her?”

“I’m not,” he replied firmly.

“Everyone can see it but you.”

“Just leave me alone.”

[swtorpadawan]

Ff the Sith Warrior encourges her to go kill the Hutt who worked her mother to death on Tatooine, she comes back traumatised. One comment on a video of that pointed out that up until that point she has helped the SW in killing numerous people and even worked as an assassin for hire without guilt, so it's weird for her to get remorsful for killing someone who personally wronged her and now I can't help but agree it's inconsistant. Any thoughts?

First – Thank you so much for asking thing, @bentarb ! You always ask the best questions!

I understand your position. In a vacuum? It is definitely inconsistent with some of Vette’s inactions. As you say, she does help the Sith Warrior kill a lot of people, a few of whom – like Jaesa’s parents – didn’t really deserve it.

But I think you’re missing the personal element.

All those people Vette killed in combat with her blasters, and all those others the Sith Warrior targeted? None of them were “personal” to her. Even in the case of Cada Bliss, the crime lord who got Vette captured on Korriban, and who had mistreated the Twi’leks as a people, didn’t suffer much more than a bruised ego and the loss of some bauble. (I’m serious – the Sith Warrior doesn’t even have the option to kill him.)

Why is this important?

Because that’s how killing works. Both in the real world and in ‘Star Wars’. Its one thing to kill someone because you have to do it to survive. Its another thing to kill them because you personally hate them.

Watch the original trilogy and the ‘The Clone Wars’ series. We see Luke Skywalker kill a lot of opponents – other pilots, stormtroopers, and an entire Death Star that had more than a million people onboard – and it never phased him much. Because he didn’t actually hate any of those people. Killing them was not his goal. So he remained the noble, idealistic young hero. It was only when he nearly killed Vader in his rage that something terrible nearly happened.

In TCW, we see both Anakin and Obi-Wan kill other people. But watch their reactions. Watch how they deal with it. With Obi-Wan, there is stoic regret. With Anakin, there’s hate and anger. Years later in Rebels, Obi-Wan confronts Maul, who has done more to hurt Obi-Wan than (almost) anyone else living. Obi-Wan strikes Maul down, but there is no anger in the act. Only regret.

Now Force-users – I’ve always believed – are different. But the message is clear: Killing someone because you have to kill them to survive – or because your boss insists – is one thing. Killing them because they killed your mother and your sister wants to go on a killing spree is another.

For the record - You mention Vette’s claims to have worked as an assassin once. To me, that runs contrary to her personality. There are a great many times when she disapproves of dark-side choices, and no matter what anyone says, if you work as an assassin, you’ll inevitably have to kill someone who didn’t have it coming. Also – successful assassins don’t wind up raiding tombs on Korriban, getting captured and enslaved.

I head-canon that Vette spent, like, a week as an assassin and quickly realized that it didn’t fit her personality. So she quit, and the rest is history.

(I recognize that is only a head-canon. Treat it as you will.)

But I digress – It makes sense to me that Vette going after that Hutt is different than the other cases.

Does that make sense? These are just my opinions after all.

Thanks again for thinking of me.

[whentheynameyoujoy]

Yup, Sure Was a Finale

I had an epiphany. The reason why I never re-watched the final two parts of Sozin’s Comet even though I’ve popped in episodes at random many times over the years isn’t that I can’t bear the sadness of seeing one of the best, most engaging narratives out there come to an end.

It’s simply that the finale isn’t all that good.

Some honorable mentions of what was enjoyable.

(+) This

Just this.

(+) The Church of Zutara has another convert

“Are you sure they don’t get together?” Hubster, 2020

(+) The tragedy of Azula

And the fact that it’s acknowledged as such. I hope Zuko will do his best to get her help and have a relationship with her…

(+) Sokka being a big bro

And the whole airship sequence in general. It’s wonderfully paced and plotted, with moments of humor, real stakes, Toph being both badass and a scared crying kid, Sokka strategizing and protecting, Suki saving the day, and non-benders being instrumental in thwarting the bad guy firebender’s plans. Would be shame if Bryke never portrayed them this capable ever again…

And now for the main course.

(-) Blink and its over

The wrap-up feels too quick (hashtag Needs More ROtK-style False Endings). A part of this is due to how fast the story goes from the thick of the action to hastily tying up a bunch of loose ends, but the larger issue is how Book 3’s uneven pacing comes home to roost. After spending half a season on filler episodes that at best subtly flesh out established characters while dancing around a huge lionturtle-shaped hole, and at worst contradict the theme of “no one is born bad” with “you’re a hot mess because your great-grandfathers didn’t get along too well”, the frantic “go go go” rush of the second half screeches to a halt with “they won and everyone was happy because now the right people have power and it will be all good from now on yup nothing more to deal with baiiiii”.

Yes, I know, it’s a kids’ show. But goddamn, this particular kids’ show has proven so many times it can do better than the expected tropiness. Showing the characters in their roles as builders of a new world was the least that could have been done.

Oh well!

(-) Ursa

We’ll never know. There will never be a story that delves into this. Yup. Shall forever remain but an intriguing mystery. Is good, though. Mystery is better than a story where Ursa shares her son’s penchant for forgetfulness. Imagine how embarrassing that would be. Speaking of which…

(-) What does Mai see in this jerkbender?

Look, I like to harp a lot on the mess of inconsistent writing that’s Mai but let’s unpack this scene from her perspective, shall we?

Zuko forgot about her! It totally slipped his mind that the one person who prioritized the safety of his dumb ass was rotting in the worst prison in the Fire Nation—because of him! And she was rotting there long enough after the final Agni Kai for the news of Zuko’s upcoming coronation to spread and her uncle to feel sufficiently secure to release her. But then the coronation scene is attended by every single member of Gaang & Friends that was imprisoned?

So what this tells me is that either a) the invasion force had the ability to break themselves out the whole time and for some reason decided not to exercise it until after the war was over, b) Zuko forgot about them as well and no one thought to remind him there were prisons full of POWs until Mai arrived, or, and that’s even better, c) Zuko took care to free every single resistance fighter while making sure Mai would be the one to stay behind bars.

Never thought I’d say this but Mai? Honey? You deserve so much better.

(-) “What does Katara want?”

Asked no one in the writers’ room ever, apparently.

This is not so much anti Cataang as anti romance stories that pay attention to the needs, opinions, and wants of only one partner in general. Over the previous 60 episodes, Katara actively expressed romantic interest in Aang exactly, wait for it,

Once.

And it got retconned out of relevance by the following two interactions where the possibility of a romantic relationship came up, making the Headband dance pretty easy to reclassify as just one of those examples where Aang “teaches” Katara to have fun (as if one of the main obstacles to her having fun wasn’t him constantly fooling around and offloading his duties). And because the writers not only didn’t succeed in portraying Katara’s internal state of mind, but also failed to root her reluctance to pursue a relationship in outside circumstances that could change, her sudden state of unconfused once Aang steps into the spotlight has a single canonical explanation that as much as approaches coherency.

The fact is, though, that trying to interpret canon Cataang from a Watsonian perspective is an exercise in foolishness. Because there is no Watsonian justification for the ship and never has been. Bryke simply conceived of Katara as nothing but a tropey prize for Aang, never saw her as anything beyond that, and were perfectly happy to go on and immortalize her as a passive broodmare for the rest of her life.

And I fully intend to die mad about it.

(-) Iroh dips

OK, it’s been long apparent that the show doesn’t intend to do anything about Iroh’s complicity in AzulOzai’s regime in any meaningful way, and that his sole motivation for doing anything whatsoever is Zuko whom he views as a replacement son which is supposed to be good for some reason. But the finale has him abandon even that, and instead turns him full-on YOLO, idgaf anymore. It really throws Iroh’s supposed love for Zuko into doubt when his last act in the entire show is to take a half-educated 16-year old with no political savvy or an heir to secure a dynastic continuity and plomp him on the throne of a war-mongering imperialist regime where the entirety of the militarist and ruling class is guaranteed to fight him tooth and nail for power.

(I sure hope Mai’s ready to start popping out babies by tea-time otherwise the whole country is fukd in about a week)

Christ, how hard would it be to have Iroh keep the throne warm for a few years while Zuko is getting ready to succeed him? Not only would it make the whole FN reformation bit quite likelier to occur, it would require Iroh’s hedonistic ass to actually sacrifice something for once. And not having Zuko ascend to power, instead spending some time bettering and educating himself first, would be a wonderful message that no matter what you endured and overcame, you never stop growing. A kids’ show, remember?

(-) The conquering of Ba Sing Se

Gee, I feel so blessed to have my attention diverted from battlefields which actually matter to an old dude vanity project I would have been perfectly happy to assume resolved itself off-screen.

The White Lotus in general just bugs me. I was fine with the individual characters and their overall passivity when they were portrayed as lone dissenters living under circumstances where it wasn’t really possible for any single person to mount a meaningful resistance. But as members of a far-reaching shadowy organization that’s left the real fight to a bunch of kids for 59 episodes straight and didn’t turn up until a perfect opportunity presented itself to take control of the largest city in the world and bask in the spotlight?

Yeah, no.

Similarly to the lionturtle-ex-machina, the White Lotus represents a huge missed opportunity for a season-long storytelling. Here’s just a brief list of what they could have been doing throughout Book 3:

orchestrating a Fire Nation uprising;

gathering those directly persecuted by AzulOzai’s regime to help Zuko keep his hold on power once he’s crowned;

establishing themselves as a viable alternative to Ozai;

sabotaging Fire Nation’s war efforts from the inside;

countering Fire Nation propaganda (Asha Greyjoy’s pinecones, anyone?);

running a supply network to alleviate the suffering of Earth Kingdom citizens.

Instead, they sit on their asses until the time comes to claim personal glory.

You know what, good on Bryke for making me conclude that in comparison, the Freedom Fighters were perfectly unproblematic, actually.

(-) Fire Lord Dead-by-Dawn

Yes, a kids’ show, I know! But ffs, this is the same kids’ show that came up with Long Feng and portrayed courtly intrigue, kingly puppets, secret police, spy networks, and information wars. Was it really too much of me to expect something other than “enlightened despot solves everything”? Especially if said enlightened despot has persisting anger issues, no personal support system, no base of followers, and no political experience whatsoever?

If Zuko’s actually serious about regaining the Fire Nation’s honor (i.e. by dismantling the country’s military machine, decolonizing the Earth Kingdom, paying reparations to everyone and their lemur, and funding any and all cultural restoration projects Aang and the SWT come up with), then there is no way, no way in the universe that he doesn’t face a civil war, deposing, and execution within a month.

One reason why his future as a Fire Lord seems rather bleak is that little’s been shown about the actual subjects of AzulOzai’s regime. While we get a vague reassurance that “no Toph, they’re not born bad” (le shockings), they largely remain a voiceless uniform mass of brainwashed clapping seals. What is their view on the Fire Nation’s crimes? Do they associate their condition with their country’s war-mongering? How will they react when Zuko starts dismantling the country piece by piece to rebuild it, bringing it to economic ruin? What will they do when noble Ozai loyalists come out of the woodwork and begin rounding them up under the banner of “Make the Fire Nation Great Again?”

I have no idea, and Zuko doesn’t either because he’s unironically more qualified to rule the Earth Kingdom than his own people.

You know what would have been better? Fire Lord Iroh, White Lotus pulling the strings to maintain the regime, and Crown Prince/People’s Champion Zuko travelling the Fire Nation with Aang and an army of tutors to promote the new boss, only to realize that absolute monarchy is kinda crap for the people he’s one day supposed to rule and gaining their support by ceding some power to them.

I’d laser holes into my TV due to how much I’d enjoy watching that.

(-) All hail Avatar Rock

Literally and metaphorically. Aang doesn’t sacrifice anything, gets everything, and the clever solution of going about getting said everything is handed to him on a silver platter, requiring no active participation on his part whatsoever.

He doesn’t work to unblock his chakras, spiritually or physically.

He only speaks to his past lives to get a pat on the back and a bow-tied solution he could mindlessly follow.

Energy-bending doesn’t require any sacrifice from him, leaves no lasting marks, and only serves for the narrative to praise him as the rare individual that’s unbendable and thus so very very special.

The most infuriating thing is, however, that Aang is clearly shown as being able to beat Ozai without either the Avatar state, or energy-bending.

And he chooses not to. From this moment on, Aang no longer fights to save the world. He fights to preserve his beliefs, going directly against the instructions of his past lives and effectively reneging on his duties as the Avatar.

Again.

It’s not like you can’t portray Aang’s faithfulness to his spiritual beliefs as the key to beating Ozai and saving the world. But that’s not what the show did. There is no link between Aang sparing Ozai and securing a better future, quite to the contrary—Ozai’s survival ends up being a massive problem for the continuation of Zuko’s rule, and consequently a threat to the world at large. His survival benefits Aang and no one else.

Aang’s spiritual purity and his status as a savior of the world are allowed to coexist only due to a deliberate stroke of a writer’s pen.

And I hate it.

Welp, nothing to do about it now except to bury myself up to my tits in fix-it fics I guess.

[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.

[wispforever]

if youre still doing the character thing, how about spirit or marie?

I sure am. How about Spirit And Marie? Both wonderful characters. I’ll do Marie first, then Spirit. Thanks for the excuse to infodump, really. You people are too kind.

Marie Mjolnir

My first impression of Marie was the same impression I get of most female characters in anime. It’s either “why do their clothes have to look like that” or “oh god here comes the obligatory sexist heteronormative romance”. For Marie, it was more of the second. They mention in the same episode she’s introduced that Stein is her “first love”, which told me that if she had a large place in the plot, her assigned male counterpart around which to orbit would be him. Though I’ve never read the Soul Eater manga, I believe they do end up getting together there (I could be wrong). Whatever the case, I was relieved that Marie’s and Stein’s relationship (though heavily implied to be romantic, at least on Marie’s side) was left open to interpretation in the anime. I’m just very sick of cool badass female characters like Marie being reduced to the man they pine after. So, I guess my first impression of Marie and my impression of her now are largely the same. While I appreciate the moments we get to see her strengths and ability to operate on her own, I do think that her character really suffers because of the whole sexist “oh gosh all I want is to find a husband and retire” “oh my I have to take care of Stein” like okay, I had enough at the cat girl smothering Soul with her humungo-tits. I had enough at sexualizing underage girls and women in general. I had enough at making sexual harassment a punchline. That being said, when we push all of the shitty writing to the side, I admire Marie for her strength and how she interacts with the children, Crona in particular. Which leads me to my favorite moment(s).

The relationship Crona and Marie have interests me the most, since I’m really drawn to the parallels between Marie and Medusa. As parental figures (and as characters), they’re about as different as you can get. As Crona’s mother, Medusa is obviously abusive. Along with being negligent, she abuses Crona mentally, emotionally, and physically. In general, Medusa is a person who doesn’t appear to value interpersonal relationships, putting it nicely. She instead is more focused on her own interests, often to the detriment of those around her. Crona is Medusa’s only immediate family (besides Arachne who she is estranged from), and so they suffer the most from her refusal to show even a shred of human decency or warmth. They suffer especially because they are her child, meaning they’re stuck with her essentially, and repetivie abuse between family members like a mother and child often becomes complex because of the necessity of having a parental figure in your life to support you as you grow up. Medusa teaches Crona that their boundaries don’t matter and that they are only good as long as they are useful and do as they’re told. This is what makes Marie’s influence on Crona so cool to watch. Marie is caring by nature, loving and nurturing by nature. Her very wavelegnth is healing. She is kind and does what’s right reflexively. Marie is the exact embodiment of what Crona always needed but what, even upon being rescued by the academy, still felt so foreign to them: unconditional love. Crona struggles to understand why the other kids helped them, why Maka felt the inclination to stop their battle and save Crona instead by trying to understand them, why the kids are still so kind to them even after everything. They do not understand that love is not a bargaining chip. It isn’t leverage in an argument. It’s not a tool for emotional manipulation. Love is caring for the people close to you, just because. Love for the sake of love. The other kids and teachers at the academy are the ones who are able to pull Crona out of all Medusa’s lies, and Marie is a Huge part of that. Even though I have greivances with this being the largest part of her character and what that implies for female characters in general, it doesn’t stop being so beautiful to me that she could help Crona heal in this way. Marie = best mom for the win

Most of the story ideas I have for Marie involve her relationship with Crona or Stein. Say, this covers my unpopular opinion too. I don’t like Stein and Marie as a couple, but I really enjoy writing them as friends, because even though I don’t really jive with them being together romantically, I think their dynamic is an interesting one to explore because they Are so different.

Getting into that a little bit more, I’d like to start by saying I don’t care if other people like Stein and Marie being a couple. That’s great doods, keep doing you. The fanart’s adorable, the meta’s fantastic. Whoever you are, SteinMarie shippers, ffs keep kicking ASS. This is just my preference and opinion. Zero shade in this house. That said, because of my frustrations about Marie’s character I discussed in the first paragraph, I don’t like the idea of her and Stein being together romantically. It’s really a classic sexist trope: the troubled man and his sweet nurse. I’m also just fed up in general with the hetero-nonsense, so there. However, they are both wonderful characters that I enjoy very much seperately. Also, I think it’s worth mentioning that I’ve only seen the anime, so I can’t speak for the manga as far as their relationship or Marie’s character in general.

Oh shit I accidentally already talked about this one lmao [see the second paragraph]

One headcanon I like to think about when I’m writing Marie is that she likes women (in addition to men or not) and she struggles with comphet. Just something interesting I like to think about. It’s really fun for me to take characters who have been written as pining or had 10 million failed relationships and be like “say what if they can’t find a husband cuz really what they really need is a wife”. I’ll talk about that more with Spirit inevitably.

Spirit Albarn

My first impression of Spirit, obviously him being a cheater, really came with a lot of distaste. I come from a family that was torn apart by infidelity, among other things, so it really rubs me the wrong way. However, his saving grace for me was that he genuinely loves his daughter. It appears that, whether it’s played for laughs or not, he just can’t find fulfillment in his romantic relationships. The reason is left up to the veiwers. Spirit, ultimately, is not just a shitty person, which is how most cheaters are protrayed in media. “Well, they cheated because they don’t care if they hurt people”, “they cheated because they are shit and that’s it”. That’s a fine explanation if you plan to do nothing with whatever character you’re describing, but Spirit is relatively recurring and is shown to be neither mean-spirited or emotionally unintelligent. It bothers me that his cheating and routine sexist behaviour isn’t taken seriously enough to be a subject that Soul Eater tackles and deals with. But that’s fine. I’ll just do it myself. At any rate, I still feel that same way about Spirit’s character, but I find it intriguing that he seems to genuinely want to become a better father and is actually a pretty good dad when it comes to his interactions with Maka. If Soul Eater had been brave enough to develop him more, maybe delve into the reasoning behind his impulsive romantic affairs, I think Spirit as a character could have been done more justice. It seems to me that he could be suffering from some of that wonderful compulsory heterosexuality that I mentioned before, then becoming confused when the woman he claims to love leaves him feeling empty. Rattling my gay little cage

When I think of my favorite moments with Spirit, I think of his moments with Maka, but I’m gonna hold off on that until I get to favorite relationship(s). In reference to what I talked about in the first paragraph, one moment I find really interesting when I’m thinking about my interpretation of Spirit’s character is the scene where he and Maka are on the roof talking. Maka asks Spirit why he cheated on her mother if he did, in fact, love her. He doesn’t appear to know the answer, and he doesn’t really understand how to effectively communicate that, though he was shitty husband, what he really wants now is to try and be a better dad. We hear his inner monologue, and he says something like “I love you [Maka] and your mama. That’s the truth. That’s the truth. That’s the truth.” Every time he says “its the truth” it sounds more like he’s forcing it. This is actually something that is SO strange to me. Even if I didn’t project a queer narrative on to the characters I love, I would look at this and be like “huh that is a Weird thing to say in that specific way”. Why does he say it like that? Why does he have to say it more than once? He’s only talking to HIMSELF. It isn’t like he’s trying to convince Maka. Why does he have to convince himself?? Could it possibly be because he’s reached a conclusion about his romantic/sexual orientation that he’s been trying to swallow his Entire Life??? makes ya wonder, doesn’t it, queers?

Just like I said when I talked about Stein, most of the stories I have in mind with Spirit center around that sweet gayness. But also, I like to think of ways Spirit could come to terms with his sexuality, how it might have affected him when he was young, his relationship with all these women, with his wife. I love to think about him being a dad at 18 and trying his best, but how much responsibility that must have been. Lots of great ideas when it comes to Spirit.

Um? unpopular opinion would be all the standard like I said with Stein lmao. “Oh no!” scream the heteros, “that they/them on tumblr is making Soul Eater queer we canst not allow that in our church!!!111!” But besides that, maybe even the fact that I think he’s redeemable?? Idk most everyone I’ve met thinks Spirit is funny at least and just calls him a dumbass and a slut (affectionate). Doesn’t mean anybody thinks cheating on your wife 56 times is okay so. I like this fandom, it’s chill here. My favorite is when I see my art tagged like “aw the stupid man and his crazy bf” like YOU ARE RIGHT

My favorite relationship when it comes to Spirit (besides Stein cuz if I start talking about them again I’ll never finish this ask) is the one he has with Maka. If you can call it a relationship lol. I guess I just find Spirit’s approach to Maka as a parent really refreshing. Not that the parents in other shows don’t love their kids or whatever, it’s just that the loving parent always seems to be paired with some other trope that makes their character hard to approach. especially in anime. Like the perfect mother who dies in the first episode, and we spend the rest of the show mourning her. Or the father whose love is somehow everlasting even though he’s never home. It’s really the fact that Spirit is even THERE that I love. He knows what Maka is up to. He talks about her. He’s invested in her life, and he loves her. All he wants is to spend time with her, and though he’s sad when she turns him down, he doesn’t push her. god dammit I just like a dad who actually loves his kids without all the usual strings attached like. oh my kids are a huge pain in my ass, but I love them in spite of it. oh i’m a man so can’t relate to my children in a meaningful way but i try. Get the fuck outta here with that shit. I want all the dads to get so happy when their daughters wanna hang with them that they throw up like Spirit. Give me the guy who loves his daughter so naturally, whose daughter is such a huge part of his life, that it doesn’t even occur to him stop trying even if she literally wants to murder him. That’s Spirit. jfc

To end with a cute little headcanon, I really love to think that when Spirit gets older and starts losing the color in his hair, instead of getting white or grey, his hair turns a pale pink color cuz he’s such an aggressive redhead. Wouldn’t that just be adorable? late 30′s, early 40′s, Spirit starts getting little pink streaks in his hair and then bam. Little pink old man Spirit XD

There ya have it. Thanks for the ask, and feel free to send more.

[createandconstruct]

What are your thoughts on Kuja? In my opinion he is one of the best antagonists in the final fantasy series because he goes through some character development during the story and one can understand his motives

Another FFIX ask! And it's Kuja related!! First I have to admit I've only played FFVII, FFVIII, FFIX, and FFX, so I don't have the full scope of FF antagonists. From what I've played of the series Kuja is definitely one of my favorites so far. His development and motives contribute to that but I think what I like most about Kuja is that he's not the "Main villain" or "Final Boss" in terms of the game or its narrative. He's just another tragic cog in the machine of life, war, and death that has plagued Gaia for centuries.

The game appropriately pulls the rug out from under you multiple times to reveal the greater antagonist - which is immediately a trend for RPGs - but the way in which it is done in FFIX fits well with its portrayal of perpetrators of war. There is never just one "man." FFIX sets up Brahne as the "main antagonist" when you first begin. She's the evil queen trying hard to foil your adventure and the princess' escaping escapades. You soon learn however, that Brahne isn't simply fun and games, Garnet is leaving the castle to try and prevent the woman from starting a war. Brahne is creating and enslaving an entire race to serve as soldiers just for this pursuit for power, which she calls greed. But then you meet Kuja who the characters quickly identify as the one "pulling the strings" of war. He feeds Brahne's hunger for power and enables her by helping her obtain the eidolons to use as weapons of mass destruction, committing genocide against the Burmecian and Cleyrans. Thus, Kuja is hit with the spotlight as the one responsible for the black mages creation and their manipulation, and the one responsible for enabling and equipping Brahne with the weapons she desired. Note: Kuja’s actions do not remove responsibility from Brahne but just prove that she was just another pawn in someone else’s quest for power.

Yet Kuja is not at the top of the food chain. He has his own motives for obtaining power, as, due to his inability to trance, he feels he does not have enough. Disc 3, really had me spinning in my head the first time I played when we, the audience, are given a wider scope to learn of Garland (beyond the main characters) and find that once again, there is someone else playing puppet master of the Gaian wars and tragedies. Brahne is to Kuja what Kuja is to Garland. Puppets for their greater goals. And yet we keep going deeper because even Garland is a tool created by the Terrans in their desperate, unachievable goal of immorality - probably the greatest form of power a living creature could achieve. Though, the quest for power, no matter the nature of said “power,” is shown to always end in ruin and more importantly, regret.

Brahne dies, gaining a clear mind in her final moments realizing only then that her true happiness was enjoying peaceful days with her husband and adoptive daughter. No amount of power would return those days to her. Garland realizes he has failed in the quest for Terra and has allowed Kuja to become powerful enough to destroy Gaia - the planet that holds the only remains of his creators' planets. Garland dies asking Zidane to stop Kuja, unable to do nothing himself, failing in the end after a millennium of work. Interestingly, Amarant is the only one able to break this cycle because he accepts his weaknesses and the help of others. Learning to live besides those he'd viewed as weaker and insignificant. Because of this he ends his quest for power that he's being following using violence before it ends in regret and ruin.

Unfortunately, even after witnessing the fates of Brahne and Garland before him, Kuja only mocks them and denies the eventuality that death will come for him as well. When told straight out by Garland he is going to die, the idea that after all he has done, all the power he has accumulated, he will disappear, the world continuing on without him - he breaks. The end of the game is a true depiction of the worst an individual's fear of death can bring. After my first playthrough and some life experiences, when I replayed the game Kuja's breakdown at the end really hit me. Everyone has the realization at some point that after their death the world will continue on without them. Whenever we die, the people we love will continue living; there will be music, books, art, movies, and media we will miss and never experience; the world will continue going and changing without us. That realization, when you have it the first time, can numb you - especially when you don't have a healthy mind set or support system. Which is exactly what happens to Kuja. He is hit by the closing door of his mortality and so he does the only thing he can in his fear - close the door on everyone else so he doesn't have to go alone. Because that's what he's truly afraid of.

Which is why, Zidane's act of kindness at the end, simply sitting with Kuja as he passes, is probably one of most significant acts in the game and a closing message on how to overcome the fear we all have for the inevitability and loneliness of death. Simply put: do not be alone.

Kuja's end is the best one he could have had given his circumstances and actions. He passes with regrets and awareness of the tragedy and horror he has inflicted upon the world and people, but at least when he does go, he is not alone. I guess that's why he's a great antagonist to me.

Also, Darkness of Eternity is such a freaking jam. 11/10

[ihearasound]

@yournomorehero​ oh BOY do i have some thoughts on shadowbringers, im glad you asked!! Its gonna be a WHOLE bunch (a solid wall of text) so I’ll put it under the cut 

Shadowbringers was SO good, and such an amazing story, it’s kinda difficult for me to call it “favourite game” because I feel like what it did kinda transcends its medium? But at the same time, I don’t think Shb could have been what it is without being the exact gaming experience it is. It builds so much on final fantasys legacy of the story of heroes of light saving the world, and as slow as ARR was, now more than ever I feel like everything of it was necessary. Without ARRs set up for everything, Shb couldnt have done what it did!

Shb is so focused on subversing FFs legacy while at the same time reinforcing all those same core beliefs. It’s a massive burden to save not one world but two, and it’s really cruel irony that the person we knew as the Warrior of Light for so long starts getting corrupted by the very same light theyre associated with. Filled so much with expectations to be a hero, taken on so many burdens, starting to literally bleed light... But at the same time, it’s the right thing to do and WOL is the only person who can do it. 

And here comes something that I think SHB has been the best at exploring: The companionship of Final Fantasy! Gosh!!! Now more than ever I really felt the importance of the bonds WOL forged along their path. When Alisaie got angry on our behalf after Vaughtrys defeat I chocked up, because for the first time I really felt like people were really concerned for what WOL is going through. Alisaie already introduced SHB so wonderfully, when the scions were taken one by one, and she showed not only weakness, but also asked WOL for emotional help. It’s the first time I noticed a character in the game being so emotionally honest with their weakness, and openly wanting to depend on their friends. And then towards the end of SHB Alisaie KNOWS that WOL is just as vulnerable, and that now its her turn to be the shoulder to lean on for WOL. Of course all the scions were there to support WOL!! But Alisaie was already my favourite scion and became soo much firmer in that position after those scenes. After all the expectations heaped upon the WOL during the entirety of ffxiv, she openly invited WOL to finally be vulnerable with their friends too.

And that gets me?? SHB reinforces the idea of chosen one thats popular in FF, because yea it’s true that theres only certain people who can do certain tasks. But no matter how valiant a hero, no one can fight alone. And so all the bonds WOL forged along their way are JUST as important as their (not so) lonesome fight.

Something I really loved in that regard was the quartet of WOL - Ardbert - Ryne - Emet-Selch the game put up. WOL and Ardbert are sides of the same coin. How public opinion can flip, how everything is relative, nothing is black or white because things can be flipped depending on where you are, how expectations can build you up and break you down. Ryne is another reflection for the WOL of how these expectations are heaped upon them based on things outside of their realm of influence, and how hard it is to live up to those expectations, BUT also how theres strength and understanding who you are and loving yourself. Emet-Selch is another reflection of WOL (And Ardbert and Ryne!) in that regard, also burdened with expectations that are much too heavy to carry. But because you love the people who put these expectations on you, you cannot and will not betray those. But something that Emet doesn’t have, Ardbert, Ryne and WOL do have is companionship. And so Emet highlights once again the importance of the bonds you have and the love you feel. He has so much love to give, but no one to give it too (willingly or no). It’s a one sided way for him.

Emet-Selch was SUCH a good character, I don’t think I’ve ever seen quite a villain like him. He was really exceptional in the way SHB built him up. He seemed very much like an ascian we know, but unlike the others he’s willing to converse and indulge us however long we want. But by the time Vaughtry gets defeated, he suddenly starts acting so much more emotional. Him kidnapping G’raha and hiding in the tempest feels a lot like a temper tantrum, and once we got to Amaurot that gets kind of confirmed to be so, but gets the much more tragic layer of how much he misses his loved ones, how many expectations he put on WOL, and how lonely he is amidst all of that. At that point his tragic backstory gives him a very interesting depth, that somewhat made me pity him, but even more so felt horrifying, because the menace he shows us aferwards feels so much more dangerous now, but at the same time WOL is only few steps away from ending up in the same place. And I’m glad the game intended for all of that, and in the end recognized him as a threat, but also as someone who is burdened by the weight of his own life and experiences. He’s SUCH a good villain, and I’m a bit worried about the heavy lifting Endwalker has to do to match up to this!

ALSO something I really loved was just everything around Ardbert and his companions. Through his story SHB invited so many scenarios of pain and grief, and then allowed those to be mended subsequentally. Once again by the companionship!! By love!! It gets me HOW deep of a core theme love is for SHB, and how it keeps people going into soo many different ways. The scions all reflected different aspects of love, how love can be influenced by grief and vice versa, and all of them were deemed as important. I love that!! In general, I loooove how much SHB counterweights hope and despair, love and hate, joy and grief. For every tragic event that happens, we get reassurances that we’ll get through it all. SHB is just so full of love, for people and life. It’s amazing, honestly. It’s a masterpiece, imo. I could say SO much more on this because MAN was this good, but I’ve already written up a wall of text kjhfsdh thank you for bearing with me!!

[miggydiaz]

For the salty ask 1, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 14, 16, 20, 22, 23 and 26 for cobra kai pretty please

My answers are so long, so I am putting this under the cut @wonderwolfballoon! Also I just noticed your Daniel icon I SWEAR I’M NOT DRAGGING HIM TO BE MEAN!!!

1. What OTPs in your fandom(s) do you just not get?* My biggest IDGI ships for CK are probably Elimetri or Kiaz. I’m not here to yuck other people’s yums or anything, but I do think there is something to the idea that Migueli isn’t popular because it’s a ship predicated on mutual respect for one another. Kiaz has the obvious enemies to lovers vibe and I just generally don’t sail those ships. Elimetri has... its problems, IMO, most especially around the idea that Demetri has to like... save Hawk from himself? Idk. I just like romances that I feel are based on love and mutual respect and not ...tropes.

 I am also not a Lawrusso shipper although I have a lot of those on my dash and you all are great! Again, not yucking yums! Daniel just makes me want to head butt him too much to pair him romantically with anyone 😂 I don’t even want his wife with him. He needs to self reflect~ 

4. Do you have a NoTP in your fandom? Are they a popular OTP?* 

I once saw someone ship Amanda and Anoush and I noped out of that so fucking fast I almost tripped over myself. I’m not sure if they’re popular. I just think some people feel the need to get Amanda out of the way to sail their ship and stuck her with Anoush which... no. Just no. Let Amanda be a messy single queen with a martini hobby, thanks! 

5. Has fandom ever ruined a pairing for you?* 

Not in CK. I’m lucky because I pretty much stick to my little Migueli bubble and I’m okay with that? Lmao lord knows the Squad on my dash is all about the DISCOURSE™️ so idk if I just don’t feel the need to get sucked into the wider ship wars because we have good healthy debates, but so far, so good. 

6. Has fandom ever made you enjoy a pairing you previously hated?* 

I never hated it... I just didn’t have many feelings on shipping with this show in general at first. Then I was in the CK tag one day and I saw Migueli fan art. Then I discovered @afurioushawk‘s falconry series and it was all over for me after that! So fandom DID make me love a ship, just not one I hated.

9. Most disliked character(s)? Why? Oh boy. How much time do you have? In some instances, it’s a good thing season 3 happened because otherwise, this would be a multi-page essay on the problems with race and class privilege as it pertains to Sam LaRusso and just some... generally not nice comments about Demetri that I’m conflicted about because I’m not sure if the writers are intentionally trying to write him a specific way and it’s just not translating to me or what. But season 3 revamped both of their images with me a lot. I’m way more flexible in terms of Demetri, but lmao I was the number one Sam LaRusso hater for a minute there (or maybe number 2, I can think of at least 1 other person who was in that boat with me back in like... August/September, but I won’t call them out because I don’t want them to get hate...) However, I have grown a bit in my opinions of Sam, and even though I still think she’s responsible  for a lot of shit she NEVER gets held accountable for, I also think that’s a reflection of the adults around her too, and this includes my otherwise unproblematic queen, Amanda.

But honestly, my most hated character (other than the obvious villain that is Kreese) is Daniel. No matter how handsome Ralph Macchio looks in cable-knits, because Daniel has always been a sanctimonious, shit starting drama king and I say that about KK Daniel too. I’m not saying Daniel was the ~true villain~ or anything, or that Johnny was innocent -- I can only drink so much Red and Yellow Kool-Aid -- but Daniel’s always been annoying to me as a protagonist, and turning him into a smarmy wealthy car salesman who is also a class traitor did not do him any favors in my book. I will say, I also like Daniel more in season 3 than I have in previous season, but since he is the adult, I will be mad at him longer than I will be at the kids, ya feel?

10. Most disliked arc? Why?

 Johnny’s entire season 3 storyline. The sheer level of REGRESSION at every turn drives me bonkers. It’s like watching him go through all of the stumbling blocks of season 1 all over again, but without the “he’s learning! He’s going to make mistakes!” free pass that I was willing to give him the first time around. He regularly jeopardizes Miguel’s recovery and it’s played for laughs. He fucks up on every level with Robby. He spends most of his time running away when things get hard or too real. He drops the ball completely with Hawk, and like, not to put too fine a point on it, but a lot of Hawk’s issues are because Johnny put Hawk on this ‘flip the script and be a badass’ path and then offered him no guidance for how to walk that path and instead left him in the hands of Kreese. And then he has the nerve to go to Hawk and basically be like “I made you what you are!” lmao yeah Johnny, you sure did, that’s why he’s breaking peoples arms, hoss. And then all of the nonsense with Ali and Carmen, like... if you were planning on teasing KK fans with Ali and him getting back together, why write her as married in the first place? Why even tease the idea of Carmen and Johnny until after you were sure what you were going to do with Ali as a character? Instead, they do what they did in season 3 and it makes him look like a colossal jerk. So yeah. Literally every choice they made with Johnny this season, I hated.

14. Unpopular opinion about your fandom? People who hate Tory are not valid, sorry not sorry.

16. If you could change anything in the show, what would you change? I would have kept Miguel entirely out of Tory and Sam’s beef. Or at least not directly inserted him into it like he was with the kiss. I know the writers thought it was necessary to push Tory to the point of inciting a fight at school, but I am just so exhausted over girls being unable to fight about anything but boys. Also I would bring Aisha back.

20. What is the purest ship in the fandom? 

I am probably biased, but I still maintain it’s Migueli. Look, Miguel stood up to Kyler for Eli and Demetri both. Hawk joined CK because he saw what it could do for some skinny nerd who was getting his ass kicked. And he took to CK, really took to it! Even flourished before he started getting mixed messages. And he and Miguel were pretty much inseparable after that. They coordinated their wardrobes ffs. Hawk dubbed him El Serpiente and no one else calls him that — it’s Hawk’s nickname for him. Miguel confides in Hawk only secondary to Johnny, who is like a father to him. The entire Coyote Creek exchange shows they can fight and disagree but... well, to use the cliche, they don’t go to bed angry, you know? They’re square the very next day. Hawk is the first person at Miguel’s side when he gets kicked over the balcony and the LOOK he gives the second floor where Robby is? That boy is out for blood immediately to avenge Miguel. So much of his s3 behavior is fueled by that need for vengeance because MD is wholly responsible for what happened to Miguel. And Miguel is so confused and betrayed by Hawk’s shift in behavior, and yet still holds out hope that Hawk will see through Kreese’s BS and come with him to The Dojo I Refuse to Name. And when Hawk does make that deflection finally, he shows up at MD with Miguel. There’s so much more that I know I’m missing but whether someone ships them or not, that is a tried and true love and respect for one another, a willingness to fight for and defend one another that you don’t often see in TV friendships... or even in most tv relationships. And I just think that’s the best ❤️

22. Popular character you hate?

 Daniel, hands down. I mean... I don’t even necessarily hate Daniel, you know? I just think it’s really, pardon the pun, rich that a guy of immense wealth and privilege can’t get a therapist or turn to his far too patient wife for help with his existential crisis over his high school bully opening up a karate dojo to make some money and help a kid who is getting the crap kicked out of him. I get that Daniel’s narrative is necessary for the rivalry, but it does nothing to make him sympathetic as a character.

23. Unpopular character you love?

 Tory, definitely! Everyone hates her and then there’s me and the Squad over here banging away on our Coors Banquet cans yelling TORY RIGHTS! Seriously she catches so much flack for a teenage girl who is... the sole income provider for her family? At 17? While caring for a sick mom and a little brother? And fending off a creepy landlord? Tory has it so rough and then she meets a cool girl at her dojo who asks her to hang out at some fancy ass country club which is probably the nicest place Tory has ever been in, and then she gets talked down to and accused of being a thief and has another girl lay hands on her, only to find out that same girl is her new boyfriend’s ex and... ugh. I HATE that Tory gets shit all over when Tory and Sam wouldn’t even have beef if Sam had apologized to Tory as she SHOULD have. Tory isn’t innocent, but damn, I’d be pressed too.

 My other unpopular character I love? Nathaniel. Seriously that kid is THE best. He’s a literal child but is out there like I WILL FUCK YOU UP, even though he’s MD. Honestly, his Cobra Kai energy is so ferocious I won’t be surprised if he moves back to CK eventually. Anyway, I love him.


26. Most shippable character?

 Miguel, hands down. It’s because he’s so affable and sweet overall. And because his hair is so fluffy and pettable that no one can resist touching it. I like to imagine that one day he and Hawk are talking about their hair and Hawk makes a joke about how Miguel’s mane is getting so long that it’s going to be bigger than his own, and then he reaches out to ruffle it and internally has a bisexual meltdown because oh no IT’S SO SOFT AND NICE. But uh... anyway, yes. Definitely Miguel.

[suffering-and-happy-about-it]

Nicole’s rambling: In the defense of Oliver Ulliva and age gaps

Okay, first let me remind you - this is my POV on the book as a whole. Everyone has their way of understanding of what exactly happened in Call me by your name (the novel) and you don’t have to agree with everything I am about to say - WHICH IS TOTALLY FINE.

Second thing - I’m going to be using translations and page references to my copy of the book - that being the first Czech edition from the year 2018, translated by Lucie Podhorná because it varies from the OG book itself (for example, when Elio talks to Vimini, my copy says "when did he tell you?" instead of "when had he tell her?"; it's just small nuances). Also, that's why I'm referring to Oliver as ‘Oliver Ulliva’, because my copy canonically confirms this being his last name - it refers to his last name being ‘Ulliva’ a few times since Mafalda cracks his egg open.

What made me even wanna write this rant? I don’t wanna in any way talk about the author or the director, or the actors. But... Well, quite a few things - especially the statement that their relationship was predatory since the very begging (simply because Oliver is seven years older) and that it was practically a ‘consensual ra*e’ and... Listen.

1. The Age Gap

Most of these were from the American audience who viewed the movie - but let me explain why Europeans might view this relationship differently and why you might change your opinion about it as well. I am not saying Americans don't do these things as well, but from what I've seen on the forums, etc., it seems to me that European x American view on age gaps is way different.

For the sake of this statement, I interviewed 10 of my European friends - of which were mostly all Czech. Europeans do not see a problem with having a seven-year (and more) age gap between the partners - you rarely find a couple of which both are the same age; three-years being the “standard” gap.

Young people, around 17 - 19, at least in my country, are attracted to older partners for various reasons - some like the intellectual potential of their partner, some are searching for a form of certitude in an older partner having their priorities sorted out and figured out their lives and what they want to do with themselves; whether we are talking about m/m, w/m, w/w or a non-binary relationship. One of my friends told me she searches older partners solely because they feel more protected by them. It's the sense of serenity, a different feeling of connection and different understanding to your other half.

I've talked to four of my friends, who both have partners of the same age or max. 1-year gap and even they told me they absolutely can see themselves dating a partner older by minimally five years. So, it's not a controversial thing here, really.

Maybe it’s more common in here, but rarely anyone frowns upon such relationships. At the time of my first relationship, my first partner was five years older than me - and I honestly couldn’t see myself with someone my age. From my experience, the relationships and bonds have a higher probability to last longer (we had a beautiful relationship of three years), it isn’t only driven by hormonal side of things and such, the feelings can develop into something more meaningful than just simple and shallow lust. More for that matter - most of these age-gap relationships didn't end extra-bad breakups and the partners tended to continue seeing each other as friends.

When I interviewed my friends, asking them about the length of these relationships, it was never less than a year. Usually, they said that they learned a ton of new stuff about themselves and having a healthy, normal relationship than from dating someone their age. So... Yeah. I guess that personal, first-hand experience is what makes us see the relationship for its good and bad, but still assures us not to perceive the relationship as predatory.

Now, you might say that while were living in the 2020s', Call me by your name took place in 1983 - and guess what? It was written in the year 2007. Does that mean something? The answer is - no. My grandma met my grandpa in the 80s' (I asked her about this as well and they have 14 years gap; my other grandma and grandpa met at the end of 80s' and the start of 90s' and they, as well, have 8 years between them) and by this, you can see that the situation is more or less the same as it was.

For all of the above, I can see why Elio fell for Oliver so quickly. First and foremost - he mentions Oliver being older like... Three, four times in a book that has word count 76.996? Elio doesn't care about age - it's a story about two human beings falling in love. It's not trying to research the problem of age and such. Stop judging the story for the wrong reason, ffs.

2. The 'consensual ra*e' argument:

Another thing I've encountered is the audience calling the story 'consensual ra*e'... Let me elaborate and tell you why you're wrong. In America, the age of consent is 16 - 18. In Europe, we have the age of consent established at 15 (the lowest being Estonia with 14) and you are a lawful adult at 18 years old. Given that Elio was 17 in the summer and 18 in November, he was already perceived as an adult; given what were his parents like and what relationship they had to him. (Again, I am looking at the story from today's perspective since the audience did as well). He was a man at the time Oliver came to Italy, he was a man at the time he had sex with Marzia, he was a man when he had sex with Oliver and he was a man when he traveled to Rome.

Elio should be perceived as an adult who carries most of his personal responsibility on his shoulders (since you're more than partially punished for the laws you break from the age of fifteen) and if he decides that he wants to be in a sexual relationship with an older man - he can rightfully do so. Surely, the relationship had another big B U T (for some people) - homosexuality and homophobia. And from the historical standpoint, I don't wanna spend too much time over it. The LGBT movement foundation ties back to 1969; given that Italy was in the capitalistic pro-American part of Europe (Czechia was under the Communist regime at the time, so homosexuality was barbarically punished in my country), I think there wasn't a problem with a subtle, not-too-obvious gay relationship. Sure, you couldn't walk into the open and hold hands and such, but you wouldn't get you beheaded.

Yeah, I mean, I'm not an expert on Italian war history and I don't particularly know what happened with Italy after WW2, but I know that in 1985, first LGBT organization got founding from the republic and from that I assume the situation, especially if it would be a subtle relationship, wouldn't be as bad.

In the story, it is hinted that both Sami and Anella were aware of the whole relationship - I mean, come on. Sami knew (since he had the big speech about being corrupted at the age of thirty, ("I think he's better than me, dad".; "And I am sure he would say the same about you, which both of you makes seem like good people." - Call me by your name, page 221)) and Anella perfectly knew at least in the movie - I mean, the car-ride home? Oh, she knew very well and she even told Marzia at the dinner, IMO.

Now tell me why would the relationship be a consensual ra*e? Because it is not bent to accommodate American laws? Because it not an ordinary every-day relationship? In which way is it ra*e? At the age of 17, you are taken as A D U L T who has their responsibilities to fulfil, at least here in Europe.

3. Oliver didn't love Elio as much as Elio loved Oliver:

... What? I mean... What?

Sure, you are seeing the whole story from Elio's eyes and for that, you are more likely to take Elio's side in this matter. In the end, it was Oliver who was getting married, right? And he was the first one to reach out, right? Well... It was a both-sided thing. At the first few pages, Elio says “"Do you want to look at them? "Not now, maybe later." Polite indifference, as if he noticed my out of place zealous effort to make him like me as he pushed me away briskly."; page 12 and on page 18, Elio states "We started - he must've seen the hints way sooner than I did - to flirt.", let alone that Elio describes that probably, Oliver visited his room while he was asleep.

I can see where the opinion that Elio loved Oliver more could've come from - he was young, hasty and captivated by the entirety of Oliver. Since we see the story by his side, Oliver can seem to be the less active out of the two. But trust me, he loved him the same amount, if not more. This was confirmed by both Sami and Vimini -

Page 92, a conversation between Elio and Vimini, Oliver went to the sea with Anchise:

"Do you know where Oliver is?" "I don't know. I thought he went fishing with Anchise." "With Anchise? He's crazy! He almost killed himself the last time!" No response. She was looking at the sun slowly setting down. "You like him, don't you?" "Yes," I responded. "He likes you too. More than you do - I think." You really think so? - No, Oliver does. - When did he tell you? - Not too long ago.

and page 220, when Sami and Elio talk about their trip to Rome:

"Oliver may be very intelligent—," I began. Once again, the disingenuous rise intonation announced a damning but hanging invisibly between us. Anything not to let my father lead me any further down this road. “Intelligent? He was more than intelligent. What you two had had everything and nothing to do with intelligence. He was good, and you were both lucky to have found each other, because you too are good."

Which obviously shows that both of the people who are indirectly watching the relationship between Elio and Oliver blossom in front of their very eyes are aware that both were very much in love. And Vimini, even if she said 'Oliver does think he loves Elio more', she could see that these two are very much attracted to each other. She was spending a lot of time with Oliver throughout his stay in Italy and she was beyond intelligent - these two were an incapable pair idiots compared to her.

So, no, Oliver doesn't love Elio more; he's just not being as childish about it as Elio is. Once more, the age gap is tying into this topic; while Oliver has his 'hot-headed' days, he already went through the phase of being obsessed by someone (or at least the phase being obsessed and letting the surroundings know). He is slightly more mature than Elio, so he just doesn't let himself go that easily.

And I think that he maybe suffers from internalized homophobia - page 224, Oliver talks with Elio as he comes back for Christmas:

"You should leave then. They (Elio's parents) know about us." "I figured so," he responded. "How?" "By the way your father spoke. You're lucky. My father would have me carted me off to a correctional facility."

In this short piece of dialogue, you can see that Oliver's father isn't okay with LGBT (not too much to wonder about, the American society was different than it is now, it wasn't a safe space for queers). And it's plausible that if Oliver had listened to this as he grew up, he got scared when his mind and body reacted to Elio in this way. We can see that for Elio, he lets go for some time; as they sleep in the 2nd part of the book and visit Rome together in the 3rd part of the book. He tried to overcome the fear and simply because he was in love with the boy, he did overcome it.

But you can see the broken shell (which was tore down in Italy) slowly getting together as Oliver gets back to the USA. He, once more, is under the pressure of American society who is not LGBT friendly at the time, his own father would've never supported his decisions regarding his love life, it could cost him his academic career... And for all of these reasons, it was more logical for Oliver to get married. It was his way of putting order back into his life; it was his way of being good as he says Elio.

So, yeah. Here you have it. Oliver was in love, the relationship could benefit both parties and it wasn't a consensual ra*e, thank you very much.

[dystopiandilfs]

The absolute slander on Hbomb since MCC 14 makes me so upset. Like I get not liking his maid bit or whatever but creating a narrative like that is so disgusting. You don’t have to validate not liking something its not hard to just ignore it. Even the comment on the animatic - if that makes you uncomfortable despite obviously having no weird/bad intentions, fine, but don’t twist it into something it’s not.

Like when people were mad at his glitching. It happens every year, he got lucky with the space bar spamming (which everyone does) and a rubber banding glitch which is out of his control. Intentions were not there. Then when Dream admitted to having a cheated run the next day they turn around and are not even disappointed he knew for around three months and kept the truth from everyone? The double standards are everywhere.

Him laughing at George’s run? Literally the entire dream team did the same thing hours earlier - it was funny. He had a valid reason to feel wrong for that stream since Sapnap didn’t offer any disclaimers that it was lighthearted, though Dream/Punz tried - Ive seen people twist it into being hypocritical, like no. It’s not.

What a lot of people don't realise is that a lot of Hbomb's bits and inside jokes with chat are jokes that have been around before most of the SMP were even known. His animatic comment was a reference to a running Cube SMP joke. The catmaid bit was started by Fundy and they both are in on the joke. Hbomb also has made clear that he stops the bit when minors are in the call like Tubbo joined the vc at one point and Fundy dm'ed Wilbur to distract Tubbo whilst Hbomb dropped the bit and asked how Tubbo was then asked him to leave vc.

Regarding the MCC glitch, I do think he exploited it. Yes it's been a glitch since the first MCC and most people know about it however my issue was nobody used it and won two rounds giving their team an easier 1400 points without a multiplier. I don't think it was cheating but I feel like it was a bit "scummy". Don't get me wrong I would have done the same I just think that paired with Scott giving tips on multiple games that ended up either helping his team or were things that fucked over other teams it was a bit unfair. However my opinion on that doesn't matter as the only people who were allowed to get upset at their win was Purple Team who didn't care and Blue who were running on emotions and fucked themselves over.

Whilst I do think that they shouldn't have commented and watched Hbomb's stream live especially to their large viewer count I do think that they had a right to express being upset which is what most people seemed mad at them for. Hbomb in retaliation said some things on Harvey's stream that were on the same level as the Dream Team + Punz and Big Q but it was to a smaller amount of viewers. I think it should have all stayed in private which it obviously didn't which is unfortunate however thankfully it's all resolved, the creators are all fine it was just a bunch of sweaty gamer boys running on emotions, energy drinks and/coffee.

To correct you the slander against Hbomb started just before MCC. He defended Minx from a bunch of cringe George fans who were insulting her in her replies for literally no reason, they then got mad that Hbomb "wasn't on their side" and went digging for clips which is how the animatic clip got spread. Because of one clip that people had no context with got spread Hbomb is now constantly being slandered and being taken out of context which is shitty. Like let the guy play video games with his friends ffs.

[glittercracker]

Kingkiller Crap

So, I’ve never really posted much here that involves my own thoughts. There are a number of reasons why, but whatever. I feel the need NOW to post some thoughts, and having no working independent blog (yet!) I suppose this is the place to dump them. PSA: none of this is about anime. None of this is frivolous or fun. TW for sexual abuse. You have been warned! So. I’ve been rereading the Kingkiller Chronicles. aka “Name of the Wind” and “The Wise Man’s Fear” and “That Other One That Shall Not Be Named.” This reread was, at the beginning, almost an afterthought. A way to keep my 13 yo happy on a 7 hour car ride. Except, he could not have cared less, and I got sucked back into the story (and okay, if that is how all our audiobook car rides go, meh? At least it keeps me sharp!) I raced through book one, and bought book 2 on audible with an eye to my upcoming surgery and recooperation. Book one was problematic in the places I remembered, but also as generally engaging as I remembered. And then book 2 happened, and surgery happened, and I have had weeks to lie in bed listening to this bloody interminable sequel, and I find myself lost in a morass of, “WTF was I ever THINKING?” Namely, how did I ever love this book enough to pine for the next? It’s been hard to put a finger on exactly what is making this time through book 2 both a slog and also vaguely, creepily uncomfortable, but if you’re interested, my rather stream-of-consciousness ramble of thoughts ensues. First, the male gaze that rears its head at times in book 1 predominates here. But while I don’t love the way Kvothe describes women, I also have 2 degrees in literature, and I’m beyond that being a reason not to read an otherwise engaging book. Second, Kvothe is a Gary Stu, for all of Rothfuss’s protestations to the contrary. Again, so far, so much traditional high fantasy. But while, say, Aragorn is content to just quietly be Awesome At Everything, Kvothe is a braggy little shit of a Gary Stu: the person you hated for announcing their perfect scores in that hs class you could never quite master. I could fill several pages with examples, but for some reason what really made me want to kick him in the head was not Felurian’s disbelief of his virginity (though really, jfc, REALLY?) Nope, it was the end of his time w the Ademrae (sp may be off, remember, I’m listening not reading!) when he crows about having learned the history of his sword 2 days earlier than expected. Why does this stick out? Oh, idk. Maybe bc he sucks so hard he can’t even get past the first obstacle in his practical final exam? Yet he still has to tell us how fucking awesome he is for remembering 6000 names of previous owners.

I know, I’m supposed to forgive his teenage idiocy. The internet sympathists (no pun intended!) keep telling me this. And I suppose that I would, IF this were a simple first-person narrative - but it isn’t. Let’s repeat that, and really think about it. This story is being narrated by an older and presumably wiser Kvothe who has lost everything - whose abilities have been expunged to the extent that he can’t open his own chest of Cool Stuff. He shows humility in his actions, mostly. And yet when discussing his 16 yo self, the humility evaporates, and he speaks with no kind of perspective or lens of accrued wisdom. He still compares women to instruments waiting for the “right” player (i.e. him) and defends this choice of words by saying, essentially, “You aren’t a musician, you don’t know!”

Interesting assumption for an innkeeper in a medieval-esque world. Interesting assumption if this is in fact authorial interjection, too, because I suspect the majority of this book’s audience *are* musicians to at least an extent, and I also suspect that the majority of us (yes, us - I own several beloved instruments, including a harp custom made for me as a wedding present from my husband) would not equate a human lover to even the most beloved of instruments.

But all of this is well-trodden critical ground. As far as I can tell, though, my third issue isn’t: although it’s perhaps the most glaringly tone-deaf example of all of Rothfuss’s excruciatingly tone-deaf portrayal of his world’s women. Namely, the two girls kidnapped and gang-raped by the fake Ruh.

Almost all of the criticism I’ve read on this section of TWMF concentrates on Kvothe’s treatment of the girls’ abusers. What’s interesting is that no one ever seems to write about Kvothe’s treatment of the girls themselves. Yes, he treats them kindly. He tends their wounds, he feeds them, he tries (and succeeds, of course) to draw Ellie out of her shocked stupor. 

Yet what he never once does, from the moment he takes control of the situation, is ask their opinions on any of this, including what their next step should be. He just decides to bring them back to their families - families who, in this type of society, might well disown them for being “ruined”. And the girls themselves, namely the intelligent and savvy Krin, seem to go blindly along with what he says. Why? Would Krin at least not question this, or object to his making decisions for her, when a group of men had so recently and brutally taken away all of her agency? Would she not question whether being brought back to her family is the best thing for the catatonic Ellie?

Okay, apparently not. So they return to their apparently very forgiving town. Kvothe stands up for the girls against the village shithead: thank you, Kvothe, bc I’m sure Krin could not have said those words herself. He assures the reader that they are with people who will love and care for them despite what has happened to them: thank you, Kvothe, though it’s stretching my credulity a bit that you would assume that no one will take issue with their deflowering. But then he “gifts” the girls the spoils of his slaughter: the horses, the valuables, the wagons. And I was about to give him a (grudging) pass for being decent about this, EXCEPT: he goes on to say that these goods are meant for the girls’ dowries. Specifically, to make them worth enough financially for potential husbands to overlook their loss of virginity. He even tells Krin not to settle for a less-than-lucrative marriage.

And suddenly, I was outraged. Why? Because a man who had witnessed the full extend of these women’s abuse brought them back to a backwater town believing that he was being magnanimous both in doing so, and in giving up whatever share he might have taken of the spoils of the debacle to make them financially lucrative marriage prospects. Because he never asked these traumatized girls if they might rather cut and run with the money than use it to make some man overlook their abuse in order to make them his property. He never even questions the idea that they will be grateful to submit to marriage contracts that will no doubt require them to have sex with their husbands, even though these women have been abused to the extent that they cannot sit a horse for *two days* after being rescued. And the worst part is that 20-something frame-story Kvothe doesn’t question this either; he just goes on to gloat about people singing songs about his daring rescue. Maybe I was just ready for a straw to break my benefit of the doubt. Or maybe this really is as outrageous as it feels. Either way, I can’t help being angry at Rothfuss. As a writer, I am very well aware that character and author are not the same thing; that authorial intent is not the same as authorial beliefs. But there are moments in some books when I have to wonder if that line is blurring, and this is one of them. Kvothe has literally JUST left a female-dominated country full of independent women happily doing their own thing. He has given these girls the means to find themselves a situation that will never require them to be beholden to a man again - even houses ffs, in the shape of those 2 wagons, should they want them. There are so many options beyond marriage: I can’t, for instance, think of a medieval society that didn’t have its version of a convent. Or, for Krin at least, why not the University? For that matter, why not marry her himself, and then set her free to do as she likes under the awning of a respectable marriage? 

Instead he returns them to their fathers, and likewise gives their fathers the means to marry them off with no argument. Who, after all, holds the reins of the horses at the end? Why does Kvothe assume that these families will actually use the wealth even in the dubious way that he recommends?

And in this, I think, I am justified in giving Rothfuss the stink-eye. This is one more instance for Kvothe to play the hero with no real attention given to the consequences. Kvothe himself, I think, would be appalled. He has suffered so much deprivation in his life, so often been marginalized, scapegoated, powerless, how on earth could he so easily consign others to that fate? How could he think, loving Denna as he does, having heard her words to the beaten girl in Severin, that buying these girls husbands who will “overlook” their abuse for the sake of wealth is anything but a wretched life sentence for them?

Sigh. There was a time when I desperate awaited book three. Now, given the other women’s lives at stake in this series, I’m not so sure I want to know.

[misssophiachase]

For @klaroline-events​ KC Bingo - “Flower Shop” On FF and AO3

Who says the customer is always right? 

You Don’t Bring Me Flowers

“She told me I never give her flowers,” he huffed. “How was I supposed to know that was a thing?”

“Who would have thought that giving someone flowers was a thing,” she shot back wryly. “You’re really asking the owner of this type of establishment that question?”

“You know what I mean,” he insisted. “I can’t do anything right hence my impromptu trip to what is, I’m sure, a very fine establishment.”

“Well, you’re here, so that’s a start,” she murmured. “And as much as I’d love to discuss the merits of giving flowers versus not giving them, it’s sort of busy in here right now so...”

“Oh of course, my apologies,” he replied, shelling over a wad of notes for his purchase. 

“How about a card?”

“Why do I need a card? It’s not like she won’t know who they’re from, right?” 

Caroline had to resist the urge not to roll her eyes at a customer. If this guy was her boyfriend she’d have dumped him by now. Who was she kidding? She never would have gone out with him in the first place. 

Yes, maybe he was kind of attractive with those untamed, blonde locks, short stubble that demanded to be touched and lips the colour of her favourite primrose. But he clearly had no idea about how to be a decent human being. 

Call her traditional but Caroline loved flowers and the generous act of giving them, hence why she started her own business five years earlier. 

Wild at Heart wasn’t big compared to some shops but what it lacked in size it made up for in its artistic bouquets as well as its warm ambience from the freshly baked, pumpkin scones in the adjoining cafe to her friendly staff. Well, except when Katherine was in a bad mood or hung over.

“A card is an accompaniment to the flowers and allows you to properly convey your message.”

“There’s definitely a message I’d like to convey but not sure it is very card friendly, if you know what I mean?”

Caroline was incredibly curious at his response and had to bite her tongue from responding. The obvious question being why he was buying flowers in the first place? But she could see the long line up of impatient customers behind him and knew they wouldn’t appreciate her views on the matter.

“If that’s the case, I think it’s best we just stick with the flowers.” 

Caroline wondered about his choice of flowers too. Most men, who had no idea about flowers, went straight for the roses. Beautiful, yes, but they were a safe option. Mister Sunshine, however, had chosen the namesake at the heart of her shop.

It was a combination of wildflowers. A mixture of Lavender, Daisies, Forget Me Nots and Queen Anne’s Lace to name a few. Although they were her absolute favourites, it was usually the last bouquet to sell in a day. Given it was only 9:09 am this was a first.

“No, I think you might have a point. So, what do you suggest I write?” She could hear the impatient groans from the people behind. 

“Look, here’s a card that says To and From,” she gestured to the plainest gift tag they had in the shop. One she only really kept on hand for situations like this. “All you need to do is insert names, easy right? Then you won’t feel the need to share opinions which might negate the positive act of giving flowers in the first place.”

A slight smile tugged at the edges of his mouth and Caroline was struggling not to reciprocate but then she remembered he was an ass. 

Before he could reply, she pushed that and the flowers towards him trying to ignore the way those crimson lips curved into a knowing smile followed by a flash of not just one dimple but two. 

“Next, please?”

27 hours later

Klaus had been standing outside the shop for a good fifteen minutes. He was debating whether or not to go inside. 

He looked down at the flowers he’d purchased yesterday, surprisingly still in relatively good condition given the way she’d thrown them at him. 

That would teach him to buy her flowers.  

Most people would take the rejection and either re-gift the flowers or throw them in the trash, Klaus, however, thought they were too beautiful for that and decided recycling was probably the best course of action. 

It had absolutely nothing to do with the beautiful, sarcastic blonde who’d sold them to him. Well, that’s what he kept telling himself.  

“Let me guess, you couldn’t help yourself and gave her the non card friendly version?” 

He turned slightly to his left, noticing the familiar blonde watering the flower pots outside the shop. He thought she looked stunning yesterday in a blue sweater, the colour of which he’d committed to memory, but today her jeans and white t-shirt combination was distracting him even more so. 

“Excuse me?”

“I couldn’t help but notice that my flowers are firmly grasped in your hand,” she noted. “If you’re looking for a refund I’m afraid...”

“Uh, no, of course not,” he stumbled. “I actually thought you might like them back.”

“I’m assuming they didn’t go down too well with...”

“Rebekah.”

“I’d apologise but given the way you were speaking yesterday I don’t really blame her for thinking you’re probably a bit of an ass.”

“Oh really? Is this how you usually talk to your customers, love?”

“Well, you’ve already paid for the flowers so I figure I’m safe.”

“You think you know me?”

“I know your type.”

“Wow, I’m a type,” he replied. “Please, tell me all about it.” 

“You did something wrong and you think buying this Rebekah flowers is going to fix everything. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work like that.”

“What do you think I did?” Klaus was beginning to get a complex and had no idea that a stranger, albeit a beautiful one, could make him feel so guilty. 

“Something bad if you’ve still got those flowers,” she murmured, her blue eyes gazing into his intently. “Maybe Rebekah wants more than flowers, did you ever think of that?”

“How about you?”

“How about me what?”

“If I gave you these flowers, would you like them?”

“I think that’s beside the point and extremely insensitive to poor Rebekah,” she scoffed. “I think I’m starting to realise her issues with you now.”

“Rebekah is my sister.”

“Yeah sure and that guy over there is my husband.” Klaus felt his chest constrict, not realising just how disappointed he was to hear that.  

When he’d made the trip, Klaus was secretly hoping she’d agree to go out with him. He knew he hadn’t made the best first impression but he truly felt like there was something between them. 

“I’m sorry to hear that, love,” he murmured. 

“Hang on, Rebekah really is your sister?”

“Unfortunately and you’re married, so it’s probably best I take my flowers and go.”

“What exactly did you do to your sister, you know besides not giving her flowers enough?”

“Her husband is in the Army and currently stationed in The Middle East. She’s heavily pregnant and incredibly moody and apparently I haven’t lavished enough attention on her. In my defence, she’s been like this since we were children but she’s one hundred times worse now.”

“Well, that I wasn’t expecting.” 

“I’ve taken her to every doctor’s appointment even though she complained about my supposed lack of driving skills and I’ve made plenty of late night trips to the store to buy the most disgusting combinations of foods to fulfil her voracious appetite. Then I thought flowers might help but apparently they weren’t to her taste.”

“Wow, you’ve been needing to get that off your chest for a while, huh?”

“You have no idea. I love her but she drives me crazy,” he chuckled. “I’m sorry to download on you, I should really let you get back to work.”

“I’m curious, why did you pick those flowers?” He looked down at them noting the diverse array of colours and shapes. He’d found himself immediately drawn to them in the shop but not exactly sure why at the time. 

“My sister, as it turns out, wanted roses, hence the tantrum. I suppose I thought these were understated, but at the same time wild and unexpected in a really beautiful way.”

“They grow not far from here actually,” she shared. “I usually go out and pick them a couple of times a week if you wanted to come with me?” 

Was she asking him out? Klaus couldn’t believe it, his initial disappointment a distant memory. 

“Your husband won’t mind?” She gave him a wicked smile, a slight blush crossing her creamy cheeks. 

“I won’t tell him if you don’t tell Rebekah,” she teased. 

When they married three years later, the bridal party carried wildflowers Caroline had picked herself. Rebekah’s daughter Florence was the flower girl and Klaus promised in his vows to always write a card to accompany his flowers even if she knew they were from him.

[rosaline-kei]

Disclaimer:I do not own Shingeki no Kyojin / Attack on Titan nor its characters.

Title: Playboy no more - EreMika Fanfic ; OneShot

Synopsis:  Mikasa wins the heart of a playboy who never knew he’d have wanted something so committed with someone like her.

Requested by: @eremika-forever12

Rated: T

Pairings: Mikasa Ackerman / Eren Jaeger

Read it also on / Please Leave a Review at: my Ao3 / FF net (might post there soon.)

A/N: never written this eremika trope before considering as the attack on titan series continues, Eren’s character is further explored and his decisions/character development makes me unable to picture him as stuff like a playboy. But hey, I’m open to trying I guess haha. Albeit admittedly I hated how this turned out as i lost motivation and yeah :/ My apologies dear requester; i hope you’ll enjoy anyway.

-

Mikasa hadn’t expect for her first kiss to turn out like this, in this sort of accidental predicament, with this person, with her on top of him—literally—on the ground.

Her lips were pressed against the school’s infamous playboy who had his eyes opened widely at her, filled with surprise at how direct she was—but more than anything, his cheeks resembled a ripened tomato while his brain was still processing the entire situation; of the fact that she—someone that he thought that not even someone as smooth as him would ever be able to get her to fall for him—kissed him.

But he wasn’t that dense to not know that it had been an accident, with her tripping, falling; falling onto him.

What he didn’t know, though, was that she hadn’t just fall on him; she had fell for him too.

-

It started when Mikasa Ackerman transferred to Shiganshina High.

She was fortunate to know someone from that school. That particular someone was a boy named Armin Arlert who just so happened to go to the same math tuition as her.

‘I’ll meet you at the cafeteria before class starts!’ He had texted her, leaving her to wait quietly in the cafeteria where a few students ate their breakfast or were burning the midnight oil as they dipped and curved their pens in a messy rush, desperately trying their utmost best to finish it before the bell rings.

One particular boy caught her attention, though. Sitting a few seats away was a boy who had chestnut coloured hair and green eyes that could’ve come across as striking if only she had a closer view. He wore a pitch-black leather jacket which gave Mikasa the impression that he was those typical boisterous gangsters that went around threatening people to surrender either their lunch money or answers for homework to him. Next to him was a blonde-haired girl with eyes that looked like a lovestruck puppy when he had his arm wrapped around her, and if she had to guess, they were probably flirting.

She looked away shyly, feeling like her eyes shouldn’t linger at what should be a private moment in her opinion. This early in the morning? She thought, sighing. She had heard wonderful things about Shiganshina High and its students from Armin—but it seemed that impression would soon change if there were more ‘bad boys’ like him roaming freely.

“Mikasa!” Armin called, waving his hand to get her attention before approaching and then sitting next to her. “Sorry for being a little late.” He chuckled nervously as he scratched the back of his head.

“No worries.” She assured with a warm smile. “Its good to see a familiar face… especially since I’m the new kid.” She sighed, transferring in the middle of the year wasn’t her cup of tea. But due to family circumstances, she didn’t have much of a choice and being an obedient and filial daughter, she complied without much complaint.

“Yeah. Oh and—” Armin’s cheerful look soon soured into something disgusted that confused Mikasa for a moment. He didn’t seem to be directing that disgust to her, though, but a couple that sat not too far away demonstrating PDA that Armin could only wish he could unsee; so did Mikasa, who turned out of curiosity, to flush and turn back in regret. “A-Are… all students here like th—”

“No.” He groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Mostly him… that’s Eren Jaeger…”

“Oh.”

“…and its sad to say, he’s a close friend of mine over here.”

“Oh—wait, what?” Mikasa’s eyes widened in bewilderment. She knew Armin enough to be sure that these two boys were most likely living in two different worlds. She found it a little hard to believe that the both of them were best pals, especially after that revolting look he had when watching him making out with who she taught was his girlfriend.

Suddenly, she felt Armin’s hands gripping on both her shoulders, startling her slightly. “A-Armin?”

“Listen to me, Mikasa.” He took a deep breath. “No matter what you do, do not fall for him or his flirtation. Not when… he’s going through this irking playboy phase.”

“P-Playboy?” She stuttered, in disbelief that he was friends with a playboy… and more than anything, she was flustered when he even brought up the idea of her falling for him.

While she was a teenager, Mikasa was yet to have any romantic experience. And by no means did she plan to rush into it. More than anything, her priorities were her studies. Yes, it may be boring. But if she wanted to get into one of the top universities, she didn’t have much of a choice.

“Yes. Playboy.” He shook his head in utter disappointment, as if he was a father that failed to bring up his son right. “He’s a… childhood friend. I don’t know what happened along the way but he became a playboy and I can only hope one day he will stop.” He said.

All the girls who got involved with him knew of his playboy nature, and for the most part, they didn’t care so much of how he would go from one to another when he was bored. Most of them knew getting involved with him meant no commitment.

“What makes you think I’ll fall—”

“It’s just a warning. In case.” He sighed. “He has a… way with his words. Only a few people aren’t swayed by it.” He shrugged. “But he’s a good friend, so give him a chance. For the most part, I already told him about you and to leave you alone. I don’t know if he’ll listen, though.”

Mikasa had never seen Armin so done with life (or more specifically, the wild, playboy heart of Eren) until now. It was amusing, but a little worrying.

“If he bothers you, just tell me, okay?” The bell rang at the same time Mikasa nodded her head. “Yeah… don’t worry. I’m not looking for romance, anyway.” She assured.

Besides… I don’t think I’d ever fall for someone like him.

-

“So, you’re the Mikasa Ackerman huh?” Eren grabbed a chair, sitting himself right in front of her desk with both his arms invading a small space on her desk to rest. “The girl Armin told me about?” He queried curiously. It was break-time now, and the first time he approached her.

“Eren.” Armin couldn’t believe he had the audacity to slide right in with eyes that screamed his intentions right in front of him. “Don’t.”

“Gee, Armin, chill. I’m not doing anything.” Eren raised his hands, innocently surrendering for a brief moment before his eyes found himself fixating with her greyish hues.

“Yes… I am.” She mumbled, her own pair of eyes staring right at his to realise that yes, they were indeed as striking as she had thought. And on top of that, they had a sort of allure that were trying to draw her in more and more, trying to get her hypnotised and immersed. However, before she could, she looked away right back at her book.

Eren smirked. “Eh? Why are you looking away?” He asked with a tone so gentle, but it sounded awfully playful. His hands raised, two fingers walking close to her hand that fidgeted with a pen. “I don’t want to have a beauty like you hating me…” He mumbled, his hands finding its way to hold hers softly, causing Mikasa to flinch, let go of the pen and snap her head up right at him.

“B-beauty?” She stuttered. That was a first.

“Yea—ow!” He screeched, and let go of her hand while turning behind to see Armin with a rolled-up paper that was just used to smack his head.

“Eren.” He cautioned again, and it amused Mikasa that the brunette that had acted all slick and brave around her was suddenly looking a little fearful and nervous when he saw Armin’s stern, furious and protective look. It was a stark contrast to the bad boy image she originally had of him earlier, and she couldn’t help but let out a chuckle that didn’t come across unnoticed to both of them.

“Why are you laughing?” Eren huffed, sounding rather defeated before he stood up, hands shoving itself in his pocket as he turned away embarrassedly. “gee Armin, ruining the mome—” He saw the blonde rolling the paper tighter and shot his hand up in defeat. “Okay, okay! Ah, whatever! I’m late for a date with some other brunette anyway.” He grumbled before walking off, casting one final glance at Mikasa. “See ya around, Mika.” He nodded before he left.

“ ‘Mika’?” Mikasa murmured to herself, before meeting a pair of blue eyes that looked at her with both concern and disappointment.

“…What?”

Armin crossed his arms. “Do not fall for him.” He said before slumping onto the seat that Eren sat on earlier. “I saw you blushing.”

And the pink rose back up to her cheeks when Armin brought it up. “I… It’s just a first for me. Someone… flirting with me and calling me… that.” She answered shyly, and Armin sighed. “Well, you’re not the first nor will you be the last person he ever calls that.” He spoke, “I just don’t want you to get hurt. Those who actually, genuinely fall for him get hurt when faced with rejection. You heard him, he’s going on a ‘date’ with some brunette when he was making out with some blonde earlier…”

Mikasa nodded. Armin is right, she thought. He is a playboy… do I really want to…?

Besides. She reasoned with herself. I just met him. I don’t… really like him in that sense. He just caught me off guard with that… look and his tone. I feel so silly.

“I understand.” Mikasa sighed. “On a different note, it’s hard to believe the two of you are friends… does he leave you alone for his ‘dates’?” She asked, a small concern rising in her.

“Nah. He hanged with me more often before you came. He’s just ‘freer’ now since you’re here to keep me company.” He laughed lightly, “He’s more loyal as a friend, trust me.” He paused for a bit, and then sighed. “I hope he’d make time for you, as in, talk to you under a more friendly circumstance. He’s different, as a friend.”

-

And what Armin said was proved to be true two days later when he found himself sick at home with the flu.

Aside from Armin, she hadn’t made any other friends since she was still new. (She wasn’t sure if she could count Eren, since she didn’t really talk to him considering he was too pre-occupied with his ‘dates’).

She found herself huddled alone at a quiet corner in the school’s library during their break, with textbooks scattered around the table she occupied as she did her work.

The last thing she expected was for a brunette to come crashing in, legs crossed, with a smile, sitting right next to her. “Yo.” He greeted, startling Mikasa a little who gave him an odd look.

“…Hey?” She greeted back, confused by his presence. She could’ve sworn he was fooling with a girl in the morning, and had plans to continue later during breaktime. So, she hadn’t expected him to be here, and Eren took notice. “Am I not welcomed?” He asked.

“No… its not that.” She looked away, back at the annoying question she had been stuck on for a little too long. “I just… thought you had a ‘date’.”

“Eh, things don’t go as planned.” Was the only answer he gave her, and Mikasa didn’t care enough to pry. Little did she know, he cancelled his plans to keep her company upon finding out Armin was sick with the flu. While Armin didn’t request that of him, he took it upon himself because he didn’t want her to feel lonely on her first few days in school.

And while they didn’t interact a lot, he considered her a friend (even after the little flirtatious stunt he tried to pull) since she was a friend of Armin’s. She seemed like a nice girl, anyway.

“Oh.” She said, and Eren noticed that she seemed a little tensed, as if she were leaving her walls and guard up. He couldn’t blame her. He was sure Armin gave her long lectures of his… playboy nature. And while that side of him did want to play with her, since it had been a while when he last ‘dated’ the studious type, he was sure Armin would kill him.

And most of all, Eren Jaeger didn’t want to get involved romantically with girls who sought actual commitment. He didn’t want to be a heartbreaker. But at the same time, he couldn’t stay still.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to hit on you.” Eren sighed, and Mikasa looked at him, confused.

“Why’d you hit me…?”

Eren looked at her, amused at her confusion, and laughed as quietly as he could since they were in a library. “It means flirt.”

“O-Oh…” She looked away embarrassedly, and it took every ounce of effort for Eren not to continue teasing because heaven forbid the terrors Armin would bring upon him if even thought of leading her on too much.

“Yeah. Armin would kill me. I still have my youth ahead, can’t let that happen.” He said. “On a different note, is this what you do in your free time?” He asked, and his tone ticked off Mikasa a little; it felt a little insulting. “Just study? Even when you’re with Armin, I still see you studying with him sometimes.”

It was something people back in her old school often said to her before calling her things like boring and plain jane. It ticked her off, but she ignored them. Besides, she had a small friend group there to hang around anyway.

“I want to get into one of the top universities.” She defended herself, even though Eren wasn’t exactly attacking her. “So, if I can study then… yeah.”

“No need to get defensive.” Eren assured, “I understand that sentiment. Armin’s kinda like that too.” He spoke. “But you know, you can let loose every now and then.”

Mikasa raised a brow. “Let loose like you? Mr playboy.”

Now, Eren felt insulted. But then again, touché. “That’s not what I mean.” He shook his head and huffed. “Gee, what happened to that shy, easily flustered girl I saw the other day?”

Mikasa flinched, and found herself turning into that easily flustered girl again when Eren brought up how she was so easily swayed by his little compliment. “…Do you want me to call Armin?”

Now, Eren flinched and his shoulders tensed and the next thing Mikasa knew, his eyes looked at her apologetically and desperately while his tone weakened, sounding defeated and pleading. “Please, don’t.” He begged. “He’ll kill me with that rolled up paper.”

“I find that hard to believe.” Mikasa chuckled lightly, “…Underneath that bad-boy and playboy persona, you seem…” She paused for a bit, and then laughed quietly to herself at the first word that came to her mind.

“Seem like what?” His brows furrowed.

“Oh, nothing…”

He grew a little childish—a side only a few got to see. “Eh?? Don’t leave me hanging like that!” His voice was slowly raising and Mikasa instantly hushed him.

“We’re in a library, remember?” She reminded, and noticed him pouting slightly. “Yeah, yeah…” he grumbled, “What are you studying now, anyway?”

Mikasa’s focus switched back to her paper. “Chemistry… I’m not too good at it.”

“Really?” Eren said, as he moved a little closer to take a peek at the question she was stuck at. “Ah… the mol concept.  It’s hard but… I can help you with this question. The answer is 3.8 mol, right?”

“Yeah…” Mikasa sounded a little surprised, resulting Eren to frown a little as he could guess what she was thinking.

“Look, not all bad boys or playboys are dumb-bells.” He huffed. “I happen to know—”

“No, no its not that…” Mikasa resisted a chuckle. “Armin just… told me you were failing.”

“Only in literature! Who the heck understands olden English language! I mean no offense to Shakespeare—”

“Shhh! Eren, we’re in a library remember?” It was only then Eren noticed the glares he was receiving from the people in the library, especially from the bookworms and librarians… and some of the girls who he ‘dated’.

Hell, did he have a bad sense of timing.

And then he heard a soft chuckle, turning around he saw Mikasa laughing lightly at him again and somehow, he couldn’t find it in himself to interrupt her again. And it was not because of the glares that were still shot at him.

Perhaps it was his playboy nature getting the best of him, but… he found her a little cute when she smiled and laughed.

-

One thing happened after the other, and Eren and Mikasa found themselves having study sessions together, with Eren helping her with chemistry and Mikasa helping him with literature.

Armin had been a little suspicious of this turn in events, since the last thing he thought that playboy would ever do in his free time was to have an actual study date, without the date aspect in it. However, upon joining a few of their study sessions at either Eren’s or Mikasa’s home, he realised that Eren could in fact, keep his hands and (in his opinion, sometimes cringey) smooth-talk to himself. It was surprising, definitely.

Although, it didn’t mean Eren didn’t tease Mikasa every now and then (especially when Armin wasn’t around to smack him).

And it didn’t mean his actual ‘dates’ came to a halt, there were a few times he skipped out studying and went on to have some fun.

But as days went by, unknowingly, those dates started to come to gradual decrease when he found Mikasa’s company… genuinely enjoyable—enjoyable in a way that no other girl gave him.

“Do you ever plan to stop being a playboy?” Mikasa scoffed at the brunette when he arrived at her home a little late than the scheduled time she had planned for their study session to start. While Armin was still running late, he had a reasonable reason which involved the bus he was on being caught in traffic. Whereas Eren, was on a date.

“I’m sorry.” He apologised for the tenth time, knowing that she was still irritated at the fact he lost track of time in the midst of his fun. “I mean, not really. It’s fun. You just don’t get it.” He said with a shrug, earning an eyeroll from the raven who just couldn’t understand why.

“Don’t you feel bad when you break someone’s heart?” She always felt a little iffy to Eren’s playboy habits.

“I always cut things off if I realise the girl is actually having real feelings.” He paused. “Otherwise, I just fool around. I’m just in it for the thrill.”

Mikasa raised a brow. Honestly, like what Armin had said, she hoped this was just a passing phase. “Yeah, yeah…” She sighed as she opened up her notes.

“What about you?” He asked. “Went on a date before?”

She flinched. “I…no.” She looked away timidly. “Studying is… enough.”

“Ehhh? You’re missing out on youth, Mika!” He exclaimed, before a mischievous look rose up to his face. “With such a pretty face…” He leaned in slightly, and if Armin had been there, he’d probably immediately withdraw his statement about him being able to keep his hands to himself. “You should be able find yourself a man like me—mmf!”

Mikasa pushed her notebook right up in his face, he was too close.

And a part of her hated how he gave her compliments like that, because it felt shallow with that smug, playboy tone of his. She hated how it’d make her feel flustered (and admittedly, a little happy) because he was definitely smooth with his words, especially when Armin wasn’t there to regulate his habits.

But she also liked it. The teasing; some of which she’d even return with her own playful taunts if she had the courage and wasn’t a flustering mess. It was all a first. Maybe that’s why she never exactly stopped him completely.

Maybe she just hated the fact it was all probably half-hearted, and he said all these things because he was a playboy who just enjoyed seeing girls getting all pink and red for him. Another reason why she hadn’t stop him because at least he knew his boundaries. He never touched her inappropriately nor did he ever push her to be his next new fun—and she doubted he even wanted her to be.

They were friends after all.

Friends… She thought. After spending all this time with him, something about labelling him as a friend made her feel… discontented. And she didn’t know why; not yet.

“You say that to everyone.” She sighed, and while her notebook blocked his face, she still averted her gaze away. “Everyone seems to have a pretty face to you…” It was only when she said the last sentence out loud, did she realise there was a hint of envy in her speech. She didn’t understand why.

“…Too far?” Eren asked, sounding less teasing and more serious as he gently took away the notebook that blocked her face. Honestly, Eren didn’t even know why he was teasing her (sometimes, a little more than he should in his opinion—but he made sure to never cross the line.), he didn’t plan to make her his new source of fun. That was the least of his intentions. Maybe it was because he found her reactions cute, and irresistible; and that became his fuel to joke with her every now and then.

Eren looked at her, at how her cheeks flushed and the timid look she wore as her eyes avoided contact with his. He made a mental note to dial down the teasing, but was quite reluctant.

Albeit, he rather do that than lose the friendship he forged with Mikasa in the past couple of months.

“No, not that. It’s just… I don’t know.” What am I even saying? Mikasa didn’t even know anymore, nor did she know why Eren’s eyes were suddenly fixated on her, looking at her with such softness and fondness.

“…You’re beautiful.” He suddenly confessed.

What? Was he pulling her leg?

Silence briefly engulfed the air, and Mikasa clenched her fist tightly before she forced herself to fill it.

“You’re just saying tha—”

“I’m being serious.” He cut her off.

She was beautiful. Her eyes, her smile, her cute facial expressions—but most of all, her heart. It was beautiful. She had been nothing less than nice to him the entire time. He had gotten to know her better through their study sessions; and sometimes they’d text and call afterwards. Eren hadn’t even notice he began to take less calls from his flings, answered less messages from them. Through the time they spent together, he had found out there were more things common between them than he had first thought. Through the time spent together, he made a friend that he could consider was as close to him as Armin was to him. The only difference was, after all the time he spent with her as a friend, he began to sub-consciously want something more with her. He wanted to have something with her; but it wasn’t the same way he wanted—or use to want the other girls in his life. And he was only realising this now.

“I…” He sounded serious, Mikasa knew and found it hard to react to because he had always been so cheery with her. Albeit yes, there were times when he was down and she of course, comforted him. But this was different.

What exactly was he insinuating?

“I…” Flustered and unsure of what to say, she immediately stood up, turned around. She needed a moment to leave; to have with herself and sort out the sudden fluttery feelings that accumulated in her stomach “I got to—”

Eren, thinking she wanted to leave because he said something stupid, immediately grabbed her arm to stop her. “Wait! I-I didn’t mean to—”

Startled by his grip, she turned back around a little too quickly, her toes bumping and tripping on the foot of the table, and suddenly she lost balance.

Everything happened so fast, and the next thing Mikasa knew was that she had fallen right on top with Eren. Lips pressed against each other.

It was Mikasa’s first kiss. She felt her heart skip a beat before it began to race in a damn marathon. She couldn’t steady the palpitations of her heart, nor could she control the redness that illuminated her cheeks.

And she didn’t want to push away. She didn’t want to let go or remove herself from this awkward position.

Both their eyes were wide, staring at each other’s orbs; a stare that soon melted down to an admiring gaze upon realising that a particular feeling they had was mutual. However, before either of them even dared making the first move, dared deepen the kiss, a blonde burst open the door.

“Hey Mikasa! Eren! Sorry I was late. The traffic—” He stopped himself, and was utterly shocked and caught off guard by the two teenagers with their bodies almost entangled with one another, with their lips pressed against one another.

A glare slowly came forth. “EREN?!”

-

Mikasa had a crush on Eren.

Mikasa had a crush on a damn playboy.

Whatever happened after Armin stormed in was all blur, all she recalled was them separating, leaving and not talking about it; the kiss. The feelings.

How did it happen? Mikasa didn’t know. Armin had already made it clear to her that getting involved with Eren Jaeger as a friend was fine, but getting involved with him as something romantic was the last thing someone who wanted commitment should even consider.

Mikasa didn’t like how Eren would approach, flirt, make a move and then made out with girls; at first she thought it was because, like Armin, it was agitating to some extent watching him fooling around, as well as being a fool sometimes. Little did she know that when time went by, the more time she spent with Eren personally as a friend, did she realise she wanted—she desired something more with him. He was a different person when he was with her. Admittedly, he did throw in occasional flirts from time-to-time, but more than that, behind the playboy persona he had in school, he was a sweet and kind boy (who can be reckless sometimes; but that’s a different and another story.) when he was alone with her.

Little did she know that agitation she felt soured into envy; because she wanted something from him that she didn’t think she’d ever get.

She hadn’t spoken to him since their accidental kiss, the weekend was awfully silent, and it went by quick with only texts from Armin who checked on her after that… incident.

He’ll never like me back. She thought, recalling all the girls he fooled around with; the ‘phase’ he was going through. At least, not in the way I want him to. Not in the same way I like…

Her cheeks flushed just thinking about it. However, all her flustered emotions soon spiralled down into one thing: sorrow.

She didn’t want to be his next one-time fling. She wanted to be by his side, as something more than a friend.

“But that’s not going to happen…” She murmured to herself, reflecting to all the flings he had; how wild and (sometimes) crazy they were. She was no match. Besides, she doubted Eren actually liked her back. Why would he? He seemed like he was having fun with all the other girls, so why would he want to settle for someone as plain and boring as her?

Whatever the case, she couldn’t avoid him now. The weekend went by in the blink of an eye and now, she was entering the school’s gates (albeit, a little tentatively). Just… act normal. She thought to herself. It’s just a kiss. Eren has… kissed tons of other girls before. No… big deal. He probably didn’t think much about it either…

She had resigned to accepting Eren as her silent crush; she didn’t think he could ever be hers, not when he was a playboy.

At that time, Mikasa didn’t know nor noticed how the time Eren spent with her had increased—and that was why their bond grew stronger during the time they spent together. She had eventually gotten accustomed to it.

And most of all, she didn’t know that Eren threw away all his other time with his flings just to spend more time with her.

-

Eren received an earful from Armin once he somehow, successfully dragged him out of Mikasa’s house.

“It was an accident!” Eren retorted, defensive. “You saw, didn’t you?! I didn’t make the move! She was on t-…” It was unusual for him to hesitate, or even get this flustered when talking about girls making the first move on him; much less them being assertive—

“She tripped and fell!” He groaned, looking away from the blonde who was practically glaring daggers right at him; or maybe he was trying to burn a hole right at his chest. Either one of them.

After a long conversation with both of them going back and forth, Armin sighed and decided to believe Eren. He wouldn’t lie to him… at least, not to this extent. “Fine. But you better apologise to her the next time you see her.” He grumbled, pinching the bridge of his nose. He wasn’t sure how Mikasa was doing; he for one knew romantic relationships was unfamiliar territory to her. To think that her first kiss was stolen by a playboy sounded quite unfortunate, in his opinion at least.

Well, at least Mikasa didn’t fall for Eren (metaphorically), at least. It wasn’t like she had a crush on him; and that was why she found her on top of him, right? He didn’t want her getting hurt, after all, Eren wasn’t the type to stay still when it came to girls. So—

“…And also…” He started to speak, breaking Armin’s thoughts off. “There’s… something I should tell you.” He bit his lip, knowing that he was going to get another painful earful once those words left his lips. “I… like Mikasa.”

Armin instantly halted in his steps, turned towards Eren, stared, and wondered if this was some sick joke of his. “I’m not joking.” He added, as if he had read Armin’s mind.

“Eren.” His tone grew menacing, “I swear. I don’t bother you and your damned playboy life because that isn’t my business. But, if you—”

“I don’t want Mikasa to be a one-time fling.” He specified, eying his friend with a solemn and serious look. “I… I’m serious.” He softened. What had Mikasa done to him? “I…I want to be serious with her.”

Armin arched a brow, arms crossed. He clearly wasn’t convinced; not yet at least. “So the infamous playboy at Shiganshina High just suddenly want to quit his playboy lifestyle?” Sure, love can change people. Armin knew that. But he had to be sure he wasn’t mistaking his feelings. “Then tell me, Eren. Convince me. It’s hard to believe that you suddenly… like her. That you want her as something more than a normal fling.” He paused briefly. “What makes you think you like her?”

Embarrassing and as flustering as it was, Eren began to tell. And Armin hadn’t expected for him to sound so genuine.

-

Mikasa awaited behind the school, as what Eren’s note indicated. She didn’t expect the first interaction she’d have with Eren after that accidental kiss was through a piece of paper he left underneath her table. Throughout the entire day, he hadn’t even batted an eye at her at all. Is he avoiding me? She thought, biting her lip nervously. Even during lunch, he left—and Mikasa could only assume he went to continue fooling around. I should’ve known better. He isn’t going to like me back…

When she asked Armin, he only shrugged and refused to say anything. That only made her worry worsen.

Why did Eren call her to meet him at the back of the school? Did he… plan to cut ties with her? Did Armin become too protective? Was that why he didn’t say anything?

Anxiousness overwhelmed her, and despite her colourful grades, she cursed at herself for being so stupid, foolish and most of all clumsy for tripping and kissing him. What was worst was that she didn’t even immediately pull away.

I can’t believe you, Mikasa. She thought to herself. You—

Her thoughts were instantly interrupted when she heard footsteps heading her way. Her head snapped up and she watched as a brunette, whose emerald orbs only took a glimpse at her, before averting away back to the ground, made his way towards her.

She watched, and didn’t say a thing.

Even when Eren was finally standing just a foot away from her, she kept quiet; her eyes looking away on the ground. Her heart starting to race again and she hated that it did.

I should just let go. I should just let go. It’s a silly crush. She thought as the silence between them prolonged. I should say something since I was the one who—

“Listen, Mikasa…” He said in a solemn tone, and Mikasa flinched, eyes looking up once again, meeting his emerald hues that now looked her way. “I…”

As Mikasa waited for Eren to deliver his speech, she anticipated and braced herself for the worst.

“I like you!”

Wait, what?

She noticed his cheeks reddening, his clenched fist as he forced himself to continue, “I… like you.” He repeated once again, but slower. The next thing he knew, he was pouring his entire heart out. “But its different from all the other girls I fooled around with. I don’t know how—I mean I know how, like after all the time we spent together as friends I found that you were quite enjoyable to be with even if you have your nose in a book for the most part…and then I started to… want to spend more time with you rather than fooling around I… I don’t know how to explain it but something about you just…” He took a deep breath, “It’s different.”

“I thought I just wanted to be closer friends with you and that was why I hang around you more often but then after that… accidental kiss, it all clicked. It felt different than all the other girls I…” He babbled on and on, his cheeks reddening after each flustering statement he made about how his feelings differed for her when compared to the other girls he fooled with. How he wanted something more with her.

He had gotten Armin’s blessing after he told him how he truly felt for Mikasa. “But whether or not she wants an actual relationship with you is up to her.” The blonde sighed, “You have quite the dirty, playboy reputation after all.”—and what he said was right.

Why would Mikasa want to be with a playboy like him? Would she even trust his words? Would she trust him? Give him a chance?

He hadn’t exactly been in a long-term relationship before.

“…and I understand if you don’t want to be with me… in that way.” He lowered his head, biting his lip. “I mean since I’ve… fooled around a lot and… you might not trust me and… I mean I deleted all their numbers already and cut ties… but… I understand if you still distrust me, however, I just… want to let you know…and I… hope you give me a chance.” He had always been direct, confident and barely ever paused or stammered in between his sentences and yet here he was.

A mess.

He didn’t dare lift his head, and stood there, frozen and silent while he waited for her response.

However, as the silence prolonged, he could’ve already guessed her answer.

No. It was going to be a rejection; that wouldn’t be a first, he had experienced those but none as heart-breaking as this.

And then what’d happen to their friendship? For what its worth, he hoped that they could remain friends. He liked her company. He didn’t want it to be over.

If she was by his side, even if it was just as a friend and not a lover, he’d be fine. He just wanted her—

“…Yes.” Came a soft voice, and Eren snapped his head back up in utter surprise; but his surprise was no match for Mikasa.

To think he’d confess to her. Mikasa hadn’t expect that. While she felt relieved, he didn’t invite her here to break their friendship or ask her to be one his part-time girlfriends, she was at first, undeniably stunned at his sudden confession.

Stunned, but happy. And Eren didn’t manage to see how flushed her cheeks became when he had looked away earlier, how her lips parted but she was still struggling to find proper words to articulate a respond.

She had so many things to say to him—but all of them came out in the form of a singular word.

“Yes.”

He sounded genuine, and she hadn’t seen Eren this flustered before and in his emerald hues she saw nothing but pure, raw honesty when he was pouring out his feelings. To think that she was able to make a playboy to change his ways was shocking even to her.

Eren stared at her, in disbelief. And before he could react ecstatically to this, he was caught off guard when the raventte suddenly leaned towards him, hands cupping his cheek as she (this time, not accidentally), crashed her lips against his.

Blushing furiously, shoulders tensed, Eren looked down at the raven who had her lips pressed against his. Since when was she that direct?

However, he eventually found his shoulders relaxing, his hands tracing down and wrapping around her waist as he found himself returning the kiss.

“Well, at least his phase is finally over.” Armin sighed quietly to himself, having watched the entire scene unfold from an empty classroom’s window before looking away as he continued to pack his bag. “…I wonder how Mikasa’s brother going to react to her dating an ex-playboy, though.”

[demxninyourdrexms]

Pacific Rim FF: As Above, So Below

“A Jaeger may only be as good as their pilots, but their roots stem from their creators. “

{Hannibal Chau X OC}

Word Count:  2,872

Rating: 18+ (M)

WARNINGS: Cursing/strong language,  adult activities (smoking,drinking, smut, kinks, etc), angst, death.

The streets of Hong Kong were bustling as usual, the rain turned into a slight mist off and on throughout the day. Most people were off going home after the long day of work, but a blacked out car was headed the opposite direction of the normal. It headed towards the Bone Slums, careful about which building it was looking for, or who to look for. Deep in the middle of the district, the car stopped outside of a building built up around a kaiju hand and claw. The neon lights shining in the puddles of rain on the pavement as the back door opened. 

Stacker had been trying to track her down since before the Jaeger program had been given a set date for discontinuation. They were losing Jaegers right and left, and the longer he tried to keep the program going, the worse the Kaiju force kept coming. Scientists were in a constant state of upheaval trying to predict the attacks and gain whatever they could on the Kaiju. But the Jaeger program was slipping, and to find a good engineer who knew each Jaeger top to bottom, was a task in itself. 

The first was Cherno Alpha, with her parents  being the ones to spearhead the project and construct the massive tank of a machine. Having been raised around nothing but Russian military and slept to the sounds of welding metal, she was the best out of them all to bring back. 

Stacker headed into the building, which was obvious it was a bar or club of sorts, with glasses lining the wall above the cabinet of various liquors. Tables and chairs scattered across the open space and various signs and pool tables there. On the other side of the bar was a staircase that led up to the VIP area and office. A few employees scattered amongst the utilities preparing to open soon. Stacker looked at the bartender, who nodded and pointed at the staircase. They all knew why he was there, it wasn’t often they had military in. And when they did, it was always for their boss somehow.

Stacker made his way up the stairs, looking around the ornate decor as he reached the door. The guard nodded and left him in. The office was far different than the rest of the building. The walls were lifted with newspaper clippings and awards. Prototype models of the famous Russian machine on the desk beside a glass of what looked like whiskey. 

A woman stood on the other side of the desk, looking out the window across the city. Her long, jet black hair pulled into a ponytail that trailed down over her shoulder and formed curls at the bottom. Her slim figure casting a shadow over the wall adjacent from the fireplace on the other wall. Dark brown lips and soft pale skin lit up by the glow of the fire as she glanced over her shoulder.

“Pentecost….”

A small smile formed across his lips. His stance was open, yet professional as he stood across from her at the desk.

“Talia Draider, you probably already know why I’m here.”

She smirked and crossed her arms, turning to fully face him. Her eyes are bright blue, lined with elegant winged liner and dark shadows. The way she dressed was like the kaidanovskys merged. Aleksis and Sasha practically raised this woman, so it’s no surprise she’s taken after them. A long sleeve, black shirt with a corseted laced bodice, and black sleek pants to match with laces up boots.

“Let me guess, they want me back.”

Stacker glanced around the room before looking her in the eyes. It’s obvious he wasn’t here for a simple visit to check in on her or catch up.

“How’d you know…”

“Because you’ve lost four Jaegers in a matter of months. The attacks are getting closer together and you can’t keep decent engineers who are competent enough to build or maintain them properly. You have a working one sitting there collecting dust with no compatible drivers and the wall is doing jack all shit to prevent anything.”

He couldn’t help but smile at her. She knew too well for her own good. Cherno Alpha had its picky drivers, only wanting the best on their team. But the government was even pickier, and they realized cutting their best asset for optimal operations was the biggest mistake. With years under her belt and exposure to the Jaegers since she was a kid, Talia knew the procedure inside and out. 

“Yeah, they’re asking me to get you back on board. But...uh, they’re not the only ones.” Stacker set his hat on the desk and her mood shifted. 

“The Jaeger program is being discontinued. PPDC believes the wall is doing what it’s supposed to do so far, so there’s no point in keeping a program that costs more than steel and concrete.”

Talia watched him, her mood changing instantly at the mention of the program being shut down. Her eyes sparkling slightly and looking up at him.

“We have six months, last stand here in Hong Kong. We’re stationed in the shatterdome and moving all the units in as we speak, and Cherno wants her girl back.”

She shook slightly as she looked over at the mannequin that had her coat. It was lined with fur trim, and donned Cherno Alpha’s name in Russian with the symbol on the back, just like Aleksis and Sasha had. She reached over and grabbed a cigarette and her lighter and lit it as she looked back over at him. Stacker smiled slightly and shook his head.

“Those things will kill you.”

“So will radiation exposure from a Jaeger, you of all people know that just as much as we do.” She smiled back at him, which made him straighten up and take his hat off the desk and put it back on. He looked at her with a slight fondness, Mako meant to him what she did to the Kaidonovskys.

“I’ll see you tomorrow then….” “Sir, yes sir.” She teased and punched his arm playfully as he turned to leave.

Hannibal and his men were preparing to close up shop for the night. With all the recent kaiju attacks, they have been out harvesting double the amounts of what they usually have been. Hannibal had his crew going double time to catch up with inventory before closing. Two of them stood outside the back door waiting for him as he exited, looking down the street he saw Talia exiting her bar after locking up. She pulled the collar of her coat up to shield her neck, the other coat folded and put in her messenger bag with the rest of her stuff. She looked both ways along the empty street, looking his way last and catching his eye. She smirked at him before turning her back and heading down the other side of the street.

“Boss…” the smaller one of the two guards went to speak to him when he spun around and grabbed him by the collar of his suit.

“We’re you about to try and tell me what to do? Last time I checked I was the one running this show.”

He let go and the man staggered back slightly. Hannibal looked back down the street to watch and make sure Tania was still there...still safe.

“I want you two to watch that woman. Make sure no one messes with her, got it?” He turned back to them and adjusted his suit jacket. 

“Yes sir.” They said in unison and headed down the direction she went. 

What was this, and why was he suddenly so concerned with someone he barely knows? Someone he only ever saw in passing when going out on site or just to get a drink and seeing her briefly at the bar. Hannibal shoved a hand in his pocket before going back into the building, another guard on the inside locking it behind him. He headed into his office and pulled at one of the jars on the case, revealing another room that looked to be a living quarters. 

“Who the hell are you…” he mumbled to himself, looking at what looked to be a photo taken of the woman by one of his men during an outing at the bar when she was coming out of her office. He thought he had seen her before somewhere aside from when she’s at her little establishment. 

He racked his brain for hours, going through the process of unwinding and getting ready for bed. He had picked up his glass of whiskey off the table when his phone rang. He scoffed and set the glass back down on the table and answered it.

“This better be fuckin good…”

“That woman you wanted us to watch? Name’s Talia Draider. Parents were dual engineers on the Jaeger program before they got killed by a kaiju attack on their way home. She was adopted by friends of the family and continued the work until she was dismissed.”

Hannibal sat on the edge of his bed as he listened. His brows furrowing.

“How the hell she end up in Hong Kong? And how the hell you find all this out in less than a few hours?”

The man half chuckled, he stood outside the apartment building he saw her go into and looked up at the window where she stood.

“She told us herself. Didn’t have to dig.”

“What do you mean she told you?! You let her see you?!”

“This one, sir, she’s not stupid. She knew you sent us after her. She said she appreciates the concern, but if you wanted to talk to just...ask. Also, whoever her folks are now, made sure she didn’t go without. Owns a bar in the slums yet has a nice place at the edge of the district.”

He couldn’t help but chuckle softly. It looks like he wasn’t going to be so cagey with this one if he wanted her, which he did. He wanted her, but not like he wanted black market items from kaijus. Not for display in his shop, or as a ‘trophy’. No, this one had meaning and he couldn’t figure out why. 

“She uh- she left her number too on a piece of paper. In case uh- in case you wanted it. This chick, she’s different.”

He wanted her safe at all costs, sending his men to watch over her walks at night or pop in at the bar to keep an eye on things. He wanted her close, with him at the shop or at the bar, in his arms, her company. He wanted to hear her opinions, her thoughts and about her past.

He shook his head as he hung up the phone, laying back in bed staring at the ceiling. He was brash and cold at times. Only looking into the business and not much else for the well-being or care for others. So, why is he all of a sudden concerned about a woman who is clearly out of his range of possible suitors. And he was too busy to even put that much effort into anything to do with it. Now he’s caught some sort of interest or feelings for this woman and he’s just as perplexed about it as his men at the sudden change. He eventually drifted off to sleep after almost an hour of pondering, eventually rising to the sun the next morning.

Talia had risen before the sun, racing around getting a shower and packing her messenger bag with everything she would need. She pulled the coat up over her shoulders as she heard a horn honk out on the street. Grabbing her bag, she headed down the stairs and put onto the street where the car waited. The driver held the door open for her with a small smile. She smiled back and quickly got in the car and they headed out.

She looked out the window at the passing people and cars. It wasn’t long before they made it to the gates of the Shatterdome and the car came to a stop. The driver helped her out before getting her two bags out of the trunk. Tania looked around at the many military trucks and personnel running around, some staring and pointing at her in surprise. They would dash around to groups of people near them and talking, drawing attention towards her as she headed into the shatterdome. 

Pentecost stood with two of his main technicians in the control room, going over schematics and regular calibration check ups on the Jaegers. One of his men came over and whispered in his ear, peaking his interest as he turned to see Talia. A grin spread across his face as he greeted her with a warm hug.

“You ready for this?” He asked softly as the technicians left to go about their usual business. Talia glanced around the room at all the equipment before out of the glass windows towards the main floor. Her eyes scanning each Jaeger, evaluating and taking in their upkeep and progression in development. She looked back up at him with a sly smirk.

“You didn’t tell them, did you.” she already knew that this wasn’t brought up to the Kaidonovskys. Pentecost was a soft one for reunions, and it wasn’t just the jaeger drivers that didn’t exactly know just yet. Their maintenance crew knew beforehand so they could assist with keeping the secret until otherwise. A small yet mischievous smile spread across his lips, which in turn made her do the same.

“Not exactly, but it wouldn’t hurt them to have a little bit of a surprise now would it?”

Talia shook her head and laughed before he led her out of the control room and down towards the main hanger. As they walked, he ordered one of his higher ranking officers to call everyone together for a brief announcement. Everyone started slowly coming together as they stopped what they were doing. Some of the Cherno crew wrapped around the back behind Pentecost, shielding Talia from any possible view of their drive team as they approached the front beside Striker’s team.

“Everyone, I know you all have been concerned about the recent termination notice by the PPDC of the Jaeger program. It is with a heavy heart that this is true, and we have been given a last chance to defend ourselves here in Hong Kong, which will not go unnoticed or without valor. I have called each and every one of you here for your bravery and relentlessness towards this war. Striker Eureka, Crimson Typhoon, and Cherno Alpha.”

Pentcost gestured towards each Jaeger and their set of drivers before looking around the room, his eyes falling on the drive teams, the Kaidonovskys last, He took a deep breath and smiled wide before going back to addressing the room.

“This is our last stand, so why not go out with full force. As stated, only the top candidates have been pulled for this final mission. With that being said, a Jaeger may only be as good as their pilots, but their roots stem from their creators. Each being individually crafted with care by only the top engineers, and I promised them both that their work will continue as long as this program stays active.” Pentecost started to smile as he spoke, seeing the blonde pilots start to perk up the more they heard his words.

“Everyone, please welcome back combat engineer Talia Draider, daughter of the late Amaree and Nicholai Draider, and now Aleksis and Sasha Kaidonovsky.”

Pentecost moved to the side of where he stood, the crew of Cherno following suit to reveal Talia standing in the middle of them. The last person barely got to move out of the way before Aleksis was already rushing over and picking her up in a tight hug. The echo of applause and cheering were drowned out at this point to the three of them as Sasha came up beside them with tears in her eyes as Aleksis set Talia back down on her feet and got a hug of her own.

The crowd dispersed after a few minutes, giving them more space as they talked quietly. Talia looked over at Pentecost with a wide smile on her face as he came over. 

“I’ll give you three some time to catch up. Just keep an eye and ear out in case. Welcome home, kid.” He smiled back at her before leaving them be. 

Talia watched him go before she was gently tugged by Sasha taking her hand and leading her off to a more quiet space. It was true, she was home again. Back with what she knew best, with the people who cared for her so much and gave her everything to live a good life. But she couldn’t stop thinking about the night before, in the street where she saw him. It was like a magnet, drawing her in more and more and she couldn’t understand any of it. 

She wanted to know who he was, to know more about him. And why he had an interest in her...