#so finding small ways to keep those transitory scenes interesting is so so important to me

[meat-loving-meat]

getting to a point in my nuclear weapons AU where I actually need to do some more detailed planning. I can only fly by the seat of my pants for so long 😭

[astoryofalove]

More French 25th Anniversary Ultimania translations

Around September 5th, I received a few scans of the French Ultimania given to me by a clerith (who knew a friend that obtained the books months in advance somehow). I don't know any French at all so I had to consult 4 different people about how these should be translated. I tried my best to fact-check certain things, but if there's any mistakes feel free to chime in and help out. With that said, I’ll be putting facts and explanations and other less important quotes under a read more, so I can keep this brief. 

To start, let’s go with Cloud’s page:

Quote 1: (Cloud's page, Lifestream sequence) Ses véritables désirs dévoilés Pendant sa jeunesse, Cloud était un jeune rebelle qui s'isolait des autres enfants, car il voulait croire qu'il était différent. A ses yeux, néanmoins, Tifa était une personne spéciale. C'est dans ses souvenirs que l'on découvre cette romance ephemere. His true desires revealed. During his childhood, Cloud was a young rebel who isolated himself from other kids, because he wished to believe that he was different. In his eyes, however, Tifa was a special person. It is in his memories that one discovers this ephemeral (fleeting/transitory) romance.

If you remember, in 2012 my sister translated this quote to say that Cloud’s feelings for Tifa were “fleeting” while others insisted on not translating the word entirely... Despite that, the official French seems to back up what we were saying years ago... That Cloud’s crush was fleeting. As Ultimavara of the clerith forums said, “By the very nature of the word, if something from childhood was ephemeral, it can't still be around when you're an adult.” 

This isn't even the first time Cloud's crush for Tifa has been labeled as something small, either. His crush was also called “dim/slight/ほのか” in the Crisis Core Ultimania (Pg. 24) and the FFVIIUO (pg. 25) said Cloud “had once had feelings for her“ but doesn’t anymore, and the official FF GBike twitter account even said Tifa’s feelings “never meet/agree” with Cloud’s fate (meaning Tifa lost her chance). 

This 25thAU quote just further proves that, while Cloud did harbor romantic interest in Tifa as a child/teen, those feelings were dim and fleeting and did not develop into anything serious as an adult. I don't think it's unfair of me to say that this quote entirely debunks the CT ship, either. Whether or not we all agree about what does or doesn't happen in the optional Highwind scenes, doesn’t matter at this point. This non-optional Lifestream scene describes Cloud's crush on Tifa as short-lived... If his feelings for her were short-lived then that means those feelings do not exist as an adult, which means the High Affection Highwind scene isn’t canon.

I don’t see how this quote can be taken as pro-CT at all.

Moving on, let’s look at Tifa’s quote regarding the High Affection Highwind scene:

3. (Tifa's page) Dans la nature, face à un Cloud n'arrivant pas à trouver ses mots, la nuit précidant le combat final. Pendant des années, Tifa et Cloud ont secrètement eu des sentiments run pour l'autre. Avant la dernière batailla faco à Sephiroth, ils arrivent enfin à se les avoue. In the wild: Facing a Cloud unable to find his words, the night before the final battle. For years, Tifa and Cloud *had* feelings for each other. Before the final battle with Sephiroth, they finally come to confess/admit/acknowledge them.

What the French is actually saying in this quote is "used to have", as in past tense. The reason we know this is because the sentence "Tifa et Cloud ont secretement eu" is in the "passé composé" (a past conjugation) tense, meaning it describes something that happened in the past and isn't ongoing anymore. An example of this is the Case of Lifestream quote: "Cloud avait été son amant" which is translated as "Cloud had been her friend and lover" (because Aerith died and they can no longer be "together", hence the "had been"). Are Cloud and Aerith still lovers? Emotionally, of course... but physically? No, of course not. The phrasing of "Tifa et Cloud ont secrètement eu des sentiments run pour l'autre" means their feelings were a COMPLETED action in the past, meaning they don't have those feelings now. Again, the "passé compose" tense refers to events that ended in the past and furthermore the word "pendant" is a specific temporal preposition in French that is ONLY used for past stuff that has no bearing on the the present.

So this quote about the optional High Affection Highwind scene is literally saying that what Cloud and Tifa "acknowledge/admit to" is that they used to like each other during their childhood (which goes with the whole “Tifa’s feelings don’t agree with Cloud’s fate” quote).

I spoke with quite a few people about the French and all of its nuances and here's what one of my anonymous sources had to say....

I am not a professional translator, and the following is based upon my own level of understanding of the French language as a student. The closest thing that French has to the English present perfect tense is the ‘passe compose’ which is the tense of this quote, the present perfect is used differently in French than in English. It does not express the same thing in French that it does in English. In English it generally refers to an action that started in the past and which has not finished. In French, the comparable tense may be formed in a way that makes the two seem equivalent (present tense of avoir or etre + past participle of a verb), but they are not. The passe compose is used to express actions that started in the past and ended in the past. More specifically, actions that started at a specific point and lasted for a defined period of time. If you wanted to refer to actions that lasted for some indefinite period of time, or that may still exist, you would use the ‘imparfait.’ The translators obviously didn’t, and they didn’t for a reason. “Pendant des annees, ils (Tifa et Cloud) ont secretement eu des sentiments l’un pour l’autre.” With this quote, using the conjugation “ils ont eu” it comes out to (literally) “they have had,” but that’s not what it communicated in this tense. In English, this would communicate a state perhaps continuing into the present, but in French it’s using a particular tense that is reserved for things that are finished. This is why you often find in textbooks and learning resources the translation made to “had” instead. This is what the phrase is truly communicating. 

Source: languageguide.org - passecompose You cannot argue between “they have had” and “they had” in French using the passe compose, because this tense only refers to past actions that are completed. In English, saying “they have had feelings for each other” would perhaps imply those feelings continue into the present, regardless of when they began in the past. This is not the implication of the French, so the literal translation to English is the incorrect nuance. Thus, because simply translating it to literal English misses the nuance of the French, and because the passe compose is actually generally translated to a more simple past expression in English (“they had”), the better translation is “they had” feelings for one another (at some point in the past).

My contact continued...

... That tense is specifically about things in the past that ended before the present. It's the difference between "had" and "have had." Yes, the literal translation of this may be they "have had" feelings for each other, but this does not mean in French what it means in English, because French does not include the Present Perfect Progressive tense the way English does. So it may SEEM that it says this in French, but it means "they had" in the past only. Plus, "pendant" is a specific temporal preposition in French and it is ONLY used for past stuff that has no bearing on the the present. 

And  since I (and majority of you) don't know anything about French, my anonymous contact gave me these links to help prove what they're saying:

1.

Pendant means "for" and refers to the entire duration of an action in the past or future, with no relation to the present. Source: thoughtco.com

2.

Pendant is used with the passé composé to indicate how long a completed activity lasted. Be careful not to use depuis with the passé composé in this context. Source: laits.utexas.edu 

3.

The passé composé is used to express punctual actions and events that started in the past and ended in the past. --- In French, the past tense is reserved for things that are over. "I have lived here for 3 yrs" started in the past (3 yrs ago) but it has not ended yet. Therefore, you cannot use the passé composé to talk about it. Source: Jann from wordreference.com 

4.

The passé composé is the most common French past tense, often used in conjunction with the imperfect. The passé composé can express any of the following: I. AN ACTION COMPLETED IN THE PAST As-tu étudié ce weekend? Did you study this weekend? Ils ont déjà mangé. They have already eaten. II. AN ACTION REPEATED A NUMBER OF TIMES IN THE PAST Oui, j'ai mangé cinq fois hier. Yes, I did eat five times yesterday. Nous avons visité Paris plusieurs fois. We've visited Paris several times. III. A SERIES OF ACTIONS COMPLETED IN THE PAST Quand je suis arrivé, j'ai vu les fleurs. When I arrived, I saw the flowers. Source: thoughtco.com

So again, Cloud’s crush on Tifa is once more described as something that no longer exists as an adult. Even though this is the HW scene, this quote clearly isn’t pro CT.

Now with all of the "CT" quotes dealt with, the most "problematic" quote, in my honest opinion, is the last quote that deviates from the true Japanese:

(Cloud's page, Last Battle) Bataille décisive... Son idole de jeunesse, l'assassin de ses proches et la pièce maitresse du projet Jenova un ex-SOLDAT nomme Sephiroth, C est un danger pour la planète, et Cloud doit le battre en duel afin d'en finir une bonne fois pour toutes. Decisive Battle… His idol from childhood, the assassin of his loved ones and the masterpiece of Project Jenova, an ex-SOLDIER named Sephiroth. It’s a danger for the planet, and Cloud must beat him in a one-on-one duel in order to end things once and for all. 

Original Japanese: 愛するものを奪った仇 | aisuru mono o ubatta kyu

(Fan) Translation: "[The] enemy [that] robbed [him of] someone [he] loved"

Official French: "the assassin of his loved ones"

The distinction being that it goes from singular in Japanese, to plural in the French version.

We know that the original Japanese refers to one person ("aisuru mono" is singular; therefore it's about Aerith), and is decisively romantic at that, since World of Final Fantasy also referred to Aerith as someone Cloud carries "aisuru" for (and later confirmed in Italian, Chinese, German, Spanish, and English). But for some reason, the French translator chose to neutralize the sentence. The following is what my French source had to say about it:

Here the translators chose to use a plural term, seemingly referring to all of the people whom Cloud loves whom Sephiroth caused the deaths of (directly or indirectly, apparently). From knowledge of the story, I take this to mean Aerith and Cloud’s mother exclusively, though I suppose this is not the only interpretation. It can mean “relatives,” but this excludes Aerith. It can mean “close friends,” but this excludes his mother. The term can also just mean “loved ones,” which I believe fits best because it does not specify the relationships that Cloud has with each person (which is necessary if we’re to believe that they’re each different i.e. familial, romantic, etc), and includes a wider range of close relationships that the other terms, “friends” or “relatives” would exclude. 

Does this quote really matter? Well, not really in my opinion. Prior to October of 2016, this quote was important because it was an "official" source saying Cloud loved Aerith, but as my French source said, World of Final Fantasy proves Cloud's love for Aerith regardless... and it does it in 7 languages no less, so we don't necessarily need this quote to prove anything anymore. So is it really even a loss at this point? Doesn't feel like one to me. It's especially hard to complain about any of this when we can finally confirm--once and for all--that Cloud's feelings for Tifa lasted for a very short time (as "ephemeral" literally means just that). This not only debunks the argument that Cloud "rediscovered" his feelings for Tifa after the Lifestream scene, but it nullifies the alleged "romantic" version of the Highwind scene entirely.

Again, no matter what people think happens in the HAHW, the fact that Cloud's past feelings for Tifa were described as "fleeting" during the Lifestream scene means his feelings for her from the past did not continue to the present... therefore there's actual canon material suggesting Cloud has zero feelings for Tifa a week or two prior to the end of the game.

So, in my honest opinion, CT has been entirely debunked with this Ultimania.