#than the clerith vs cloti ship war

[maryse127]

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Join the ongoing discussion about wether or not the Conduit is a weapon of mass destruction (it isn't, vote Zu Pharg) because of the Xenoblade Brackets poll

Try not to get upset about and dragged into a ship war that is older than I am but has been invigorated by the release of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth

[deadbydad]

So...

There is a huge cloti vs clerith war going on...still...

I am a clerith shipper all the way, and while I only see Cloud and Tifa as best friends....

Both Cloud x Aerith and Cloud x Tifa are both valid ships, and again it's up to the player to decide which one they like better or they can ship both as well!

But shipping wars are dumb as hell! Yes, there's a leaked scene for Cloud and Tifa (I won't spoil it!) but while yes it's true, it's up to the players choices to get that specific scene. Yes, Cloti is canon to some people but to others Clerith is canon to them.

It's obvious that Cloud loves Aerith and he loves Tifa as well, it's just up to the player to decide which one is romantic feelings and which one is just friendly feelings. There shouldn't be a huge argument about which ship is better, because to be fair....

Neither ship is better than the other.

So while yes, I prefer Clerith over to Cloti, I respect Cloti shippers and I understand why they ship Cloud and Tifa together. It's just not for me and that's my choice and that should be okay!

Everyone has their own opinions and can like they're own ships, but hating people over something like this all because they don't ship what you ship...Is just dumb and it's a petty argument.

And then there's the people who ship both Clerith and Cloti, and good for them! Love that for them!

Also, Tifa deserves better than Cloud in my opinion........

And please don't go screaming at me in the comments about anything Cloti and why it's better, it's not and Clerith isn't better either. They're just ships.

I respect everybody until they give me a reason not to respect them!

And if anything I think Aerti is a better ship than both of these....So is Zakkura....

All ships are valid...

I hope this made sense

[sapphire-weapon]

and something that you always gotta keep in mind about me is

i grew up in a completely different era of the internet and of fandom than you all did.

when i was up and coming in fandom, the internet was mostly young men and boys. not just in fandom -- but everywhere on the internet. i very much grew up in a man's world in a way that gen z did not.

my earliest fandoms were DBZ, FF7, warcraft, RE, and DMC -- all of which were controlled exclusively by men and men's voices. even the feminine pockets of fandom -- the shipping parts of fandom -- were dominated by male discourse. clerith vs cloti ship wars back in the day used to take the form of proving which of the girls was more of a slut and a damsel-in-distress (and therefore worthless) -- who was more deserving to be with cloud.

so, from a very young age, i had to cultivate a very masculine presence online. i had to meet those guys where they were at -- i couldn't expect them to cater or conform to me.

it was actually very relieving for me when that presence had reached a point where people reflexively referred to me as "he." i never corrected them; i didn't dare to. because being a woman in those male-dominated spaces meant that those guys threw everything you said out the window and you got sexually harassed until you shut up and went away.

i mean i even went all the way through college refusing to get on voice chat in public game lobbies because i knew i'd get kicked the second someone heard a feminine voice. people who have known me for years like @godtier and @theggning and @friedesgreatscythe and @feelboss can confirm this.

you guys grew up in an era where slash ships are the majority, queer fans and women are the majority, "problematic ships" are a thing people are concerned about, and no one bats an eye at trans headcanons.

i grew up in an era where the N-word was commonplace, women in fandom spaces were told to get back in the kitchen, queer fans were damn near driven to suicide, and ship wars literally had discourse in them like (and i quote) "yuffie dresses that way.... to piss off her dad. tifa dresses that way.... because she's a slut."

so what i am today is the culmination of decades of existing in a space where i had to mirror and mimic millennial and gen x dudebros in their attitude, demeanor, and vernacular -- just to be heard. just to have a fucking conversation with people without it spiraling into "so do you do anal?"

i still have my deeply held very liberal, very feminist, very progressive values.

but i'm just never going to be the all-welcoming Customer Service internet personality that gen z is.

i'm gonna be that guy who comes off as arrogant sometimes and tells anon i sucked their dad's cock last night. because that's who i've always had to be. and part of me doesn't even really want to change, because it's a part of who i am, it's a mark of what i've been through, and maybe i can use it to help you guys navigate through an old fandom that grew up exactly as i did.

[protemporescitor]

Spoilers Begone

With Rebirth's release mere hours away, and the increasing risk of spoilers seeping into even the most well-curated social media feed as a result, it's time to batten down the hatches. Going radio silence until March. I may visit mutuals or reply to the occasional message, but no more idle scrolling for me until well after the 29th. With that in mind, I'll leave you with some final thoughts and predictions…

On shipping vs. respecting the narrative

The shipping wars have been done to death. We all know this. Nearly three decades of pointless bickering about whether CloTi or Clerith is canon, as if that's the only thing that matters about FFVII's story.

Judging by its promotional materials, Rebirth seems to be leaning very heavily towards Clerith. However, this may yet turn out to be a red herring. We just don't know, and won't know until Square finally unveil their true intentions regarding the remake trilogy as a whole. As much as they've revealed of the game thus far, they've been equally careful to conceal their ultimate goals in creating it. In other words, right now they are playing us harder than Kojima did back when Metal Gear Solid 2 was still in development.

My own bias is towards Clerith, obviously, but… to be perfectly honest, at this point I don't give a damn whether they canonize it or not, or even if they end up going completely in the other direction. So long as these characters find some kind of happiness and closure at the end of the road, (and so long as it all makes sense for the story) I'll be satisfied. People get so caught up in all this shipping nonsense that they often forget that, at the end of the day, this element is intended to be in service of the STORY, not the other way around. I'm no exception to this.

That all being said, I'm not particularly worried about Clerith being sunk at this point. I mean, have you seen the trailers? That, plus two separate theme songs about Cloud and Aerith expressing their longing to be together? It's not hard to see where all this is going. (Also, canon or not, I'm not going to stop liking Clerith just because it gets sunk by the narrative. The fuck were you expecting?)

Obviously, I want to see as many Clerith moments as possible in Rebirth, but I don't want Square to leave CloTi fans out in the cold. I'm not that petty. That interpretation of the story clearly means a lot to a great many fans, and I believe they deserve to get their fair share, too.

To be honest, I've always thought that the remake trilogy was an opportunity to undo some of the damage that the ambiguity regarding Cloud, Tifa, and Aerith's relationships has wrought. And the simplest way to do that would be to let individual fans control how that part of the story plays out, similar to something like Mass Effect. It might not be a perfect solution (and some fans might quibble that doing so would be a cop-out from Square's "true" intentions), but at least that way, everybody gets something.

But even that, I suspect, ultimately won't fix the fandom. Which leads me to my next point…

Rebirth won't settle the love triangle debate (and neither will the trilogy's concluding act).

This is admittedly a somewhat pessimistic prediction on my part. I'm hoping that with the conclusion of the remake trilogy, maybe the fandom can grow up somewhat and that CloTi and Clerith shippers can finally bury the hatchet. But even if Square were to go so far as to include a full-blown romance, wedding, etc. for one pair or the other, even that probably won't end the debate. My suspicion is that the topic of discussion will simply shift over to arguing about what the developers' ORIGINAL intentions were, before the remake trilogy or even the compilation came to be.

Here we may observe a pair of goalposts, endlessly shifting.

Aerith will (probably) die.

Much as I would like to see Aerith survive and flourish, I find it highly doubtful that Square would leave out one of the most iconic scenes in video game history. So, at the very least, Aerith will probably "die" in some way, and her funeral scene will undoubtedly be in Rebirth in some form. I can't imagine Square retelling FFVII's story and leaving out this moment entirely. It'd be like removing the baptism scene from the Godfather.

However, something tells me Aerith won't stay gone this time around. Whether she ends up in the afterlife, or in a state of limbo, there's little doubt in my mind that she'll return for the grand finale. Furthermore, I would argue that she's already been resurrected in a meta sense. Fans who insist that Aerith needs to stay dead in order to uphold the original title's themes of loss and grieving (the ones who aren't being disingenuous and insisting on this point merely to promote CloTi, that is) are forgetting that it isn't 1997 anymore. The rules aren't the same.

That said, I do expect that Aerith will die at the end of Rebirth. "No Promises to Keep" seems to be foreshadowing as much, and it would make sense for the song to play over the end credits (intended to soften the blow, perhaps, or to tide us over until part 3), reaffirming once again that Cloud and Aerith's bond is stronger than death.

As Vera Lynn once sang: "We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when. But I know we'll meet again some sunny day."

In closing

The wait has been excruciating, but it's nearly at an end. We all have strong opinions on this story and these characters, so the occasional dust-up is inevitable. (I'm as guilty of that as anyone else. I can be an absolute gremlin online, I'll admit it.) But with Square's aim being to deliver a maximalist reading of FFVII's story, jam-packed with every beloved moment and quirky element of the original title dialled up to eleven, there should be plenty of content for everyone to enjoy.

So whatever differences we might have, whatever characters you choose to ship together, etc., I want to take the opportunity to wish you all well, and I sincerely hope that everyone has a great time playing Rebirth.

Signing off until March.

Cheers, -Scitor

[frogadir]

#ShowerThoughts getting stuck on cloti vs clerith is just missing the point because cloud's very identity is complicated so of course his feelings will be complicated i need people not to treat it like ship wars!! like there is something brewing between him and aerith that obviously gets cut off but the love doesn't go away, it just changes shape—she's watching over him from beyond the veil/her soul returns to the lifestream. he will never stop caring about her. and of course on the tifa end as kids you can argue over whether cloud just wanted someone to notice him or if he had a little crush on her from the start but after their accident when tifa's mom dies & the promise he makes to her they are bonded... and there is definitely a little undercurrent to that but it's also so fraught when they reunite as adults because tifa knows something's wrong with cloud before he does so she's unsure of what to do with him much less with any feelings they might have shared. and then through cloud's rediscovery of himself they become closer than ever before you can interpret this romantically or not i think it sits in this ambiguous place. at the end of the game beneath the highwind is so interesting to me for this reason because whether you see them as friends or potential lovers they do ~spend the night together~ at what they believe to be the end of the world and it's such a great scene like I am falling asleep and not really making a point here but basically i think arguing over which relationship is Real or Better or forcing one over the other cheapens both of them because cloud's relationships with the people around him shape him when he's in an unsure unstable place it's what brings him back to himself. so the way he shares these feelings with two close friends across time and place is super interesting to me. and then if you throw his relationship with zack into the mix... and zack's with aerith... none of this is cut and dry there is blur and overlap and it is a really interesting element of his story! who remembers NUANCE. and my cloud playlist

[jericho-12]

The Cloti vs Clerith shipping war is fucking stupid

Honestly, I’ve been seeing cloti shippers and clerith shippers arguing about who would be the better lover for Cloud, and let me just say this:

Why?

It’s pointless in my opinion.

What if Cloud doesn’t need a lover to complete him?

Yes Aerith and Tifa have been and always will be important to Cloud, but I think that fighting over the two is just a waste of time.

There are more important things to argue about, but instead people are fighting over which is better for the main character.

IT”S A FUCKING GAME!

IT”S NOT WORTH FIGHTING OVER!

Yes, Aerith died. 

Yes, Tifa lived.

But I think that Cloud doesn’t need a love interest, that he can be happy without one.

Neither ship is really canon, so why fight over it.

Cloti shippers, I get why you ship it. But if they wanted to make it canon it would’ve happened.

Clerith shippers you have to understand that Aerith is dead, and I’m not counting the remake in this, so Clerith can’t happen.

Watching cloti shippers and clerith shippers fighting is like watching little kids fighting, and it’s fucking ridiculous.

You know what, I think Cloud could be gay or bi.

And the way that people have been fighting is out of control. Sometimes even violent. 

OVER TWO FUCKING SHIPS!

My little sister is better than that!

Yes, I might be a Clerith shipper, and I have been told to kill myself because of that, but I can say that if Aerith dies in the remake I’ll accept it. If Cloud and Tifa do get together, yes I’ll be upset, but I’ll also accept that.

But the shipping war over these two is just dumb and tiring. It gives me a headache just seeing how many people are arguing over two ships that are not canon. Yes, I think Cloud really loved Aerith, but it’s not worth arguing over if he did or didn’t.

I get that there is a lot of proof that Cloti or Clerith could happen, but again why fight over who is perfect for Cloud?

People should just agree that both females are great characters and both ships are okay.

Opinions are important and should be respected. People should be respected and their choice in ships.

Grow the fuck up people.

[silver-wield]

I want to know what your thoughts are on the optional Aerith resolution scene? Particularly around the time where Aerith says the "love" line?

Awww man, you're gonna make me watch that? Lol

Ok let's do this then.

Ok, spoiler warning for ppl who haven’t played – do I still need to do this? Eh ok, (I tag FF7R spoilers as final fantasy 7 remake spoilers) and it’s gonna be reasonably long.

Also, this is one person’s interpretation of the scene, so if you disagree that’s cool and we’ll agree to disagree.

You’re also gonna have to excuse the janky quality on some of the screens, I’m grabbing them from Youtube and it’s frustrating af trying to get the exact moment I want.

Other analyses if anyone’s interested.

Shinra HQ vision scene (Cloti/plot analysis) 

Chapter 3 (Cloti reblog) 

Tifa character analysis 

Aerith Resolution (plot analysis/theory – I should probably update this since I’ve had other ideas since then) 

Train graveyard (not really an analysis, but I got some sweet screenshots of Cloti) 

Clotiscrew tunnel analysis 

Cloti reunion analysis 

The Promise Analysis 

Andrea’s approval (Cloti ask response) 

Leslie analysis (not mine, but a good read) 

Cloti action touching 

Aerti friendship analysis 

Cloti body language chapter 3 

Cloti healthy disagreement 

Cloti post heliboss battle (chapter 15) 

Clerith playground scene 

Cloti body language plate fall 

Cloud and Barret friendship 

Now, strap in and enjoy the ride.

Recap time!

So, Aerith's been taken by Shinra and the group is still feeling the after effects of the plate fall. Everyone's pretty demoralised and after they visit deep ground and Cloud gets the aborted flashback of himself inside a chamber being experimented on, he says to Elmyra they should go save Aerith before the same fate befalls her.

Elmyra asks they sleep on it.

During the night Cloud “wakes up” to see a ghostly Aerith heading downstairs. He follows her outside and they talk on the hill top where the lifestream can be seen glowing in the background.

It’s important to note that Cloud has literally just gone through both the train graveyard and seen a bunch of ghosts and the plate collapse where he’s seen a load of people he cares about die. 

Cloud looks surprised. Hmm I wonder why....

Yeah, this is a no brainer opening. Aerith shouldn't be there and he doesn't think he's asleep at this moment. He looks around and figures out it's a dream, but isn't totally sure because how often does anyone have cognisant dreams?

You can see the doubt about if she’s a ghost or not and she doesn’t clear that up, so Cloud’s left wondering if Aerith’s dead already. The following conversation doesn’t reassure him.

Aerith's “Maybe. You tell me,” doesn't actually help here. If Cloud's having doubts about how real it is – and she's aware of his fake persona and wants to know the real him – then causing further doubt in his mind seems counterproductive. It's like she's implying an illusory nature to their relationship. It also feels like foreshadowing the moment Cloud thinks he’s not real. 

She's also not looking at him when she says it, so even if it was a teasing moment between them, she's automatically set a distance between them. Because eye contact matters, remember? When someone can't meet your eye it's for a reason, whether they're uncomfortable or hiding something or whatever. Eye contact is a conscious connection between two people. Deliberately not making eye contact has meaning too.

Aerith exposition. Lots of fidgeting. No eye contact. She seems like she's making small talk to avoid something. Even when Cloud faces her head on she quickly turns away again to stare off into the distance. Cloud remains in her peripheral vision only. When Aerith does turn to reassure Cloud, he looks away.

And after is the immortal line “Don't be silly” in response to Cloud's sarcasm. I mean, isn't she supposed to be the sweet one? So wouldn't her saying silly fit with her vocabulary? Or should she have said something like “Cloud, don't be a fucking moron” because she swore that one time and everyone erupted into cheers over it? Let's say it is a callback to Claudia, who somehow had a prophetic vision of Aerith being “the one”. Aerith didn't say “silly goose” which was the exact line Claudia said, so technically Aerith's only half of what Claudia suggested. If Tifa says “goose” at some point does that validate her being in the running too?

Yes, I'm being facetious. Point is, unlike the promise between Cloud and Tifa when it was Tifa reusing her own words, this relies on Aerith having meta knowledge of what Claudia said to Cloud when he was 16 and Aerith was with Zack. So, with that in mind, why would Aerith care what Claudia had to say about some other guy she doesn't even know when she's already got a boyfriend? The implication of this is that Aerith already knew everything that would happen to Zack and she'd already moved on from him to Cloud before they ever met and yet she kept writing letters to Zack the whole time.

But then after meeting Cloud she decided to take him up on the slide and talk about her dead boyfriend...as a way to let him know she's single?

This is Cloud's face when Aerith says in a perky voice “You worried about me?” This is the bit where he says “Of course.” It's a very neutral expression tbf. There's not anything being given away and the way he says the line is very simple too. Nothing suggests he's revealing a big secret to her or that he's embarrassed by his concern. I'd say it's SOLDIER!Cloud at rest since we know from the devs that Cloud still puts on a front with Aerith because he doesn't know how to deal with her. Which is typical for Cloud since he's emotionally 16 and never dealt with girls.

That perky persona visibly drains from Aerith's face and body language. Her posture sags, she breaks eye contact, she looks sad. This is the image of someone who isn't happy to hear that Cloud's worried about her. Now, if she was into the whole ship wouldn't she be happier to hear that line from him? She's regretful and turns away again, using her body as a barrier to any possible intimacy.

I'm sure people disagree, so imma explain. If she'd turned her back that would be an outright rejection. She'd be fully closing herself off. By turning away, she's indicating the conversation isn't over, but her degree of attention on Cloud is less than if she'd face him head on. If she stayed facing him, then that builds intimacy since face to face is open body language which can have several interpretations – some of which I've mentioned before like confrontational when Cloud steps up to Rude. When it's between a couple, it's suggestive of building intimacy and trust.

And when Cloud takes a step towards Aerith, she steps away again, towards the lifestream in the distance. Not permitting the closing of distance is a sign she doesn't want to encourage intimacy with him. That she walks towards where the lifestream is means that's where her attention and focus is. Whether that's an overarching plot reason or from a “Zack is there” reason is up to your interpretation.

Another immortal line. Considering Aerith just stepped towards where we can see the lifestream and that she's taking up her priestess pose we can reasonably assume she's thinking of Zack, unless you're once again subscribing to the theory that she's meta!Aerith aware of her own death and speaking of that. In which case, yall need to make up your minds whether she's one or the other because you can't swap between the two when it suits you just to justify your arguments.

When Cloud says “I'll remember that” in response to Aerith's advice that “every moment matters” it definitely comes across as one of those character building life lessons that Cloud's had over the course of the game. He got one from Barret about how not everyone has a choice to run away, one from Marle about listening to others and caring and now he's got one from Aerith about making the time they have count. These are mentor moments.

But more importantly, look who Aerith's looking at when she says that line. It's not Cloud, not the lifestream. Us. The players. She is talking to us. This isn't just wisdom for Cloud, it's for us, too.

After a 9 second pause from Aerith, in which she looks at the ground, Cloud offers a suggestion of what she wants to say next. She seems very lost in thought during this time, and almost reluctant to speak. Considering she always seems to know what to say in any given situation, this is off. This very long pause is the longest she's been silent in the whole game. It's notable. She almost seems to be warring with herself as her eyes narrow and she subtly shifts from side to side.

I may well be wrong about the length of time she’s silent. It could be 7 seconds in a callback to the 7 seconds it took for Sephiroth to drop and kill her in OG. 

I'm one of those who does subscribe to the whole OG!Aerith vs meta!Aerith theories – which I stick to throughout every scene involving her so don't even try and @ me and say I'm a liar – and to me, this looks like OG Aerith trying to assert dominance over the situation, while meta Aerith wants to refuse.

When Cloud speaks, Aerith looks grateful for the cut in. It pulls her out of that warring state, while he's trying to look cool and mature still lol (dork)

Okay, so that whole speech she gives about thanking him is definitely coming off like she's aware of things she shouldn't know yet. This may be what OG!Aerith was trying to prevent her from saying. This isn’t something that Cloud should know yet, after all.

After some physical humming and hawing, eyes downcast, then glancing away and we get a shot of her feet – remember all of this is intentional to build a story here – she looks up and we get this line that's making certain people freak out with joy.

Quick lesson on intonation.

Intonation is the rise and fall – the pitch – of how you say certain words. The way you say them gives them their meaning. You can say the same words in many different ways to convey different meanings and/or emotions.

I've previously focused on Aerith's choice of the word “can't” here because this is the key word in the phrase.

Honestly, I'm not entirely sure how certain people are interpreting this line to turn it into a positive. The word “can't” is synonymous with an impossibility. It means “there are specific reasons why this isn't possible.”

Aerith didn't say “Don't” as in “you shouldn't”. She said “can't” as in “not able to”. She is telling Cloud that he's not able to love her. The specific intonation on the word “can't” supports this evidence. If yall wanna examine it more closely then I suggest you turn the sound down slightly so it's actually harder to hear the whole sentence and see which words have more emphasis. Can't has specific emphasis, which wouldn't be there if she wasn't stressing the word.

As for her facial expression. I mean, this doesn't look like the earlier one where she's sad or regretful. This is matter of fact. She's telling him this as a kindness because he's not yet aware of the reasons that she is.

(Note: I didn't say which specific reasons because some of yall say it's her death and others say it's Tifa, so that's up to you. There's reasons, is my point).

So up until she said that, Cloud was actually looking at her. But this made him turn away in dismissal. Not with embarrassment. He's not caught out and flustered. He's SOLDIER!Cloud, remember? He's all front and super cool facade.

This isn't the first time a girl has thrown herself at him. Jessie did it too, only more ott. Cloud's used to brushing off girls and does it without effort.

I'm sure up to this point some people have been screaming about how biased I've been and unfair and this is so cloti (excuse me while I roll my eyes).

So, if I'm biased why am I about to point out that the above screen is real!Cloud popping in for a visit? This is him overriding the SOLDIER persona to question if Aerith might have a point. But not about her. About Tifa. Because within the previous few hours, Cloud and Tifa shared an intimate moment. And it wasn’t soldier Cloud who did that. It was real Cloud. Aerith is calling attention to real Cloud’s feelings for Tifa, which makes him look to the house where Tifa is sleeping. He gets soft eyed and starts to smile, but then seems to want to question himself, which we know isn’t a good idea. Real Cloud and Soldier Cloud aren’t ready to meet yet.

And while real!Cloud is busy debating with SOLDIER!Cloud about Aerith's words, she's approached completely silently – because, ykno, she's not actually there – and he's caught sight of her hand in his peripheral vision. The second she touches him he jerks back looking surprised. This wasn't a telegraphed move where he saw it coming from 10 feet away and chose to do nothing.

I also question that if he can feel her hand here then it's solid, but when he goes to grab her it's not? So, she chose to let him feel the first touch, but then rejected him grabbing her? Or is it more likely that having caught sight of her hand in his peripheral vision he didn't actually feel her touch his face then or the time after because Aerith's not there. There's no actual physical interaction between them.

This is pity. Not much else to say about it. Meta!Aerith knows Cloud's future and that by introducing these future concepts to him, she's causing confusion ahead of the time it should happen. She feels bad about that and probably about her OG behaviour that she had no control over thanks to the Whispers forcing her to go against her real nature.

Well, I was going to say that Cloud going to grab her wrist – not her hand – is just further proof of her intangible presence. She isn't someone he can hold onto. But having grabbed this screen it's clear he wouldn't have grabbed her wrist at all either. His hand is open and aimed at her forearm and already passing through her well before he tries to close it.

And the reason why goes back to the ghost thing. Cloud thought she wasn’t there in person, that she might be dead or it’s a dream, but then she touched him. So he wants to grab her the same way he did Jessie in the pillar, to try and keep her alive. But his hand goes through her and he’s left looking confused again.

“Do I get a say in all this?”

Well now. That's a bit different. I'm sure like everyone else we've all been convinced that Cloud said “Don't I get a say in this?” like he's arguing with Aerith's decision. That he's admitting he's already in love with her.

“Do I get a say in all this?” is a totally different kettle of fish.

Don't connotates a confrontational tone. It's argumentative. It's rejecting whatever previous statement was made.

Do is a question. It's inquisitive. Placid. Neutral. It's neither confirming, nor denying the previous statement. It's merely asking for more information.

Funny how those little word replacements some people use end up twisting the narrative.

Cloud’s not just speaking about Aerith’s most recent statement either. He’s talking about the whole conversation they just had. The possibility that she’s dead or dying and he doesn’t get any choice about it. This is a throwback to the OG theme of life and death and how the dying get to say goodbye and decide how to leave, while the living don’t and have to figure out how to move on from it afterwards. 

Anyway, Cloud has his back to us, so we don't even know if that's coming from SOLDIER!Cloud or real!Cloud, so that's up for debate and I won't even bother since he's got his back to us and we can't see either way.

And then we've got the cool SOLDIER!Cloud (screen) telling Aerith he's gonna save her. We already know that Cloud does his best to sound cool and confident when talking to Aerith because he doesn't know how to be himself around her. This is the kind of line you'd expect to hear from him.

She replies, “If that's what you want.” which is also very non-specific. It's a neutral statement that leaves things up to Cloud. It could imply an answer to the previous question he asked, since the two do stand beside each other and make sense. However, the interjected “It's almost morning” line breaks this up and makes it less of an impactful statement from her. She's done her upmost to neutralise any romantic context from this scene.

Conclusion

If yall saw romance then okay, you must be right.

I sure af didn't. I saw a regretful Aerith telling Cloud things he shouldn't be aware of yet, feeling more regretful for confusing someone who's already suffering from mental illness and then making non-committal statements that neither reject or encourage his attention.

Maybe she's regretful for her own sake as well, knowing what she does about him and still doing this to push some future narrative only she's aware of, but I wouldn't say this is romantic. It's clearly some kind of goodbye from her. Cloud, for his part, looks confused and guarded through most of the scene. There's one moment when his real self peeks out to question Aerith's meaning, but then he's gone again. We can't say for any certainty that his question was asked by his true self or his SOLDIER persona and without visual context I won't speculate.

[strawberry-kiwi-banana]

Watching shipping in the Final Fantasy VII fandom in the aftermath of the Remake's release has been a trip.

Like you have the revival of the Clerith vs Cloti ship wars (with special guest stars Zerith shippers) where shippers of both are trying to prove that Aerith/Tifa are more important to Cloud than the other.

Then you have the Sefikura and Aerti fans who are sitting silently and thanking Square for the food.

And the all of the shippers of the new ships that launched with the Remake are scrabbling to create content for their ships.

(Let's not forget the Clack, RufusxCloud, and RenoxCloud shippers who are going through the Remake looking for crumbs and finding at least a snack)

Finally, you have the FF7 newcomers who are trying to figure out if the fandom is always like this (spoilers: the fandom is always like this)

[squinoas]

Final Fantasy VII: Remake is both a blessing and a curse, to newcomers and series veterans alike - a (kinda) in-depth review of Final Fantasy VII: Remake.

Final Fantasy VII: Remake is both a blessing and a curse, to newcomers and series veterans alike.

As the latter, and someone who has played and enjoyed (and watched, in the case of Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children), most of the compilation that followed the original, I feel confident in saying this game is a worthy remake of the standout hit that put Final Fantasy on the radar of the Western audience. The blessing is an imaginative and fleshed out retelling of a fraction of an original thirty-hour story – stretching it out and giving backstory to returning characters, while introducing some fresh (and welcome) faces along the way. The Midgar section in the beginning of the original Final Fantasy VII clocks in at around 3-4 hours of a player’s overall journey.

Not this time.

But is that also the aforementioned curse of this game? That those players who have enjoyed the original many, many times know of what it still to come? Throughout my play through of the game this felt like it was going to be its main detractor, when actually the ending completely throws this into the air.

Only time will tell if this is a good decision that will pay off, or if it will backfire. Nevetheless, I’m optimistic that the best is yet to come.

How long will we have to wait for more? That’s anyone’s guess at this point, especially with the Coronavirus situation. Safety comes first, and any delays to the second and third parts of this episodic epic (and I hope it continues to be epic) will be understandable – and hopefully, much like this first part, well worth the wait.

GAMEPLAY (COMBAT, MATERIA, WEAPONS)

Much furore has been made about the series ditching a turn-based system – one still employed by Dragon Quest (another Square-Enix property, and the most recent instalment, Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age, one of, if not my favourite, recent JRPGs).

Final Fantasy now employs an action-based model, more akin to another property, Kingdom Hearts.

Sometimes erratic and frenzied in 2016’s Final Fantasy XV, I’m happy to say that Square-Enix appeared to fine tune most of the aspects I disliked about that game’s playstyle and the result is Final Fantasy VII: Remake’s fun gameplay.

Keeping the ATB gauge involved was a good move, and gave the game a familiarity. The oscillating difficulties mean that there is a playstyle for everyone to find. I managed the entire game on normal mode (even my first time fighting the Whispers), until the Sephiroth boss battle. I have my own narrative issues with us fighting Sephiroth in the first part of this game anyway, but the difficulty spike in this battle on Normal mode felt unreal. I’d managed the slog that was the Hell House boss battle, and the annoyance of the escape from Shinra section, including that boss battle, but this was another level, and the only boss I had to change to easy mode for (which meant redoing the Whispers fight on that mode too).

On the other hand, there were bosses where, understanding their attack patterns and developing a strategy meant that winning the fight felt genuinely rewarding, as opposed to just time and energy-draining. An example of this was the Ghoul fought in the Train Graveyard – a new inclusion, and a whole strand of story that I enjoyed immensely. That battle really made use of switching between party members – Cloud and Tifa taking the lead in physical attacks and Aerith using her magic whenever necessary.

Materia has been updated, but not massively. Rather than a huge overhaul of the system, it still works largely how it did before. It’s been adapted for an action-JRPG but still comes down to strategy. However, an option to change materia mid-fight might have been prudent, considering the variety of enemy weaknesses. I found myself having to restart more than one fight because a batch of enemy scrolled through at least three different weaknesses and I was never adequately prepared for them at first. But at least restarting these fights was easy and hassle-free.

I liked the additions of new materia; such as Synergy which is another way to control what your other party members do in a fight, and the Magnify materia which works like the All materia of the original game. It made finding new materia fun and fresh, and meant I was constantly changing up my strategies to see what worked best.

The weapons system has been changed significantly, however. The upgrade screen looks stylistically like the crystarium from Final Fantasy XIII and the Historia Crux from Final Fantasy XIII-2. Therefore, it looks interesting, but is actually kind of boring when it comes to upgrading weapons. I ended up letting the computer upgrade my weapons with the balanced option, and this was a cool feature for people like me who found the task of upgrading tedious; especially when having to click out of each character’s weapons to only click into another one.

But the abilities that came with the weapons and having to develop a proficiency for these abilities was a nice addition. The only time I felt hindered by this was when Barret had to learn an ability on a close combat weapon. I like the fidelity to the original, but at the same time it was a handicap. Of course this is probably my own problem as I could have chosen not to use those weapons, something I may not do in a second playthrough.

Nonetheless, I felt like it encouraged me to play as every party member, and some were just downright cool. Special mention has to go out to Aerith’s Ray of Judgement, and Barret’s Maximum Fury which are so OP it isn’t even funny.

STORY (CHARACTERS, PLOT, ADDITIONS)

The original Final Fantasy VII is well known for the infamous ship wars. Clerith vs Cloti has been the ongoing debate for the past twenty years, and I don’t think this game is going to convince anyone that their side is right or wrong. It’s still left open to interpretation, at least in my opinion, and perhaps this was the best way to keep everyone satisfied. However, the game adds the additional element of having Aerith confirm that she did indeed love Zack Fair, the main protagonist and her love interest in Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core. As a ‘Zerith’ and ‘Cloti’ shipper myself, this game gave me plenty of moments to love for both couples. As someone who does have a liking for Clerith and Aerti, it kept me more than fed.

I have to give kudos to those involved with the game that they stayed true to the very canon interpretation that Aerith and Tifa are friends, and always were. True, they both expressed some small mote of jealously in the original game (and, at times, in this one too), but it quickly becomes obvious that they are both strong-willed young women who admire each other greatly. There are great examples of their burgeoning friendship but my favourites have to be kicking the lecherous asses of Don Corneo’s lackeys, and discussing a shopping trip for stuff for the bar.

All in all, the characters are kept true to their original incarnations. If anything, they – as with everything else in this game – are given to breath and work through things organically. They are fleshed out, and given further backstories, motivations and plot. I think this was best done with the doomed member of AVALANCHE, Jessie. She’s given a last name which, to begin with, makes her feel less like an ancillary plot device and more a character in her own right. To add to this, we meet her mother and father; which absolutely tugged at my heartstrings, what with her father’s tragic accident leaving him in a comatose state. We find out Jessie wanted to be an actress and was working at the Gold Saucer (this also works as a nice nod to places we know exist in-universe but will not visit until a later instalment).

Marle, Leslie, Madam M, Andrea Rhodes – every Chocobo Sam – are all fantastic additions, and I hope we see them again. In particular I would love to see Leslie reunited with his lost love in a future game.

Now, in terms of the story, I have played the original inside and out for many years, and always thought I would be against changes made to the story. Throughout most of the game most of these additions are simply changes that just make things more interesting for someone like me who’s played the original before. Towards the end, however, things take a drastic turn, and turn everything we’ve known on its head. As I said before, I have no idea where this is going to go in the next part, and there were some aspects that left me scratching my head.

The main of these being Zack. As far as anyone who has played the original or Crisis Core will know, Zack died in a last stand against the Shinra corps sent after him and Cloud after their break out from Nibelheim. However, the ending raises some interesting questions. At first I thought us defeating the Whispers had rewritten Zack’s fate, but maybe that’s not the case. Nevertheless, it will be interesting to see where they take it (one change I did not like was Zack’s voice actor. I know all the English VAs were changed – which I wasn’t a big fan of in the first place – but the new voice actor does not sound good compared to Rick Gomez).

Overall, our characters end the game in more or less the same position as the end of the Midgar section of the original, but after the events of the battles with the Whispers it appears that certain events that would have been due to happen (the original ending with Red XIII, Aerith’s death, etc) may not happen at all – or at least, not in the way we think.

[scripting-life]

FFVII: returning to my first love

 *peeks out of the corner of my lurking spot*

Hello? Anybody out there? It’s only been, oh you know, four-ish years since the last time I’ve posted anything here. I apologize in advance for anybody who’s still following me from my Castle days. If you couldn’t tell from my extended absence, I’ve mostly moved on. Castle and Beckett were fantastic characters that let me to play with some deep-dive analyses, and Castle will always hold a special place in my heart as my comfort show and my first real and extended experience with online fandom. I’ll always be grateful to the community I’ve had the joy of interacting with (or, the community with which I’ve had the joy of interacting, as Castle would correct me my dangling preposition).

I honestly didn’t think I would ever have reason to come back to Tumblr after Castle ended. But the FF7 Remake has returned me to my very first love--when I was young and innocent and before I knew anything about OTPs or ship wars. I’ve been back lurking for several months now and seeing all the fanart/fanfics and fun theories and analyses has reignited my enthusiasm for the FF7 franchise. It’s also fun coming back to this franchise with a more mature understanding of the themes/concepts that completely flew over my head as a young preteen.

(This ended up being super long, so the rest is below the cut to spare everyone the pain of scrolling. Apparently, my rambling tendencies have not changed at all. lol.)

When FF7R was officially announced (five freaking years ago!), I was filled with apprehension. FF7 was my first taste of a “grown-up” game. I was 11 and played my brother’s copy of the OG on PC in 1-2 hours spurts on the weekends when I visited his apartment. It took me months, if not years, to finish the game (I ended up stealing his copy to play on our computer at home...lol), and I was so blown away by it. I remember the exact moment I finished it and how I was literally shaking as I watched the ending FMV.

Later, when I found out my brother had a copy of FF8 (my poor brother was so accommodating to his annoying little sister...haha), I was so excited to play, in large part because I thought it would continue the story of FF7. Young, naive me didn’t understand the numbering conventions of Final Fantasy titles. I was madly theorizing and breaking my brain trying to find connections between the two games’ plots and had literally played through more than half the game before I finally realized the storyline of FF8 had absolutely nothing to do with FF7. I was sorely disappointed, and I think that has somewhat tainted my appreciation of future titles. Not to say I haven’t enjoyed the subsequent FF titles, but I think a little part of me is always comparing them to that first experience of wonder and awe that I had with FF7.

I discovered fanfiction in my teens and starting writing FF7/Cloti fics in college. Aside from interacting with a few fic writers at the time, I was not involved in any online communities, so I kept myself pretty free of any ship war drama and the like. When I did research for my fics, I’d sometimes see shipping sites and theories where I didn’t always understand the logic of how certain conclusions were reached, but frankly, I didn’t much care and didn’t realize that Clerith vs. Cloti was such a touchy subject. I was peripherally aware that some sort great LTD war was waging, of course, but it didn’t really touch me. I stayed in my Cloti shipping/fic-writing lane and was probably a lot happier for it. And, to be honest, based on FFN’s listings for FF7, I felt like I always saw a bunch of Sephiroth/Cloud fics and thought that was just as popular as the more conventional ships.

Graduating college and entering “real life” pretty much ended my FF7 fanfic-writing journey. In the intervening years between college and the release of FF7R, I haven’t gone back to the OG too much. I’ve played almost all the Final Fantasy games since then, and I always enjoy getting my FF7 crew fix when I play the non-canon mobile games or the Kingdom Hearts franchise. But FF7 was a happy part of my teenage years, and I was content to think on it with sweet nostalgia.

Remakes, in recent experience (*cough cough* Disney, why?), have been hit or miss, with a lot of misses. It’s hard to strike a good balance between catering to nostalgia and delivering a fresh product, never mind the change in social mores through the decades. I was so afraid FF7R would screw up my memories, especially since I wasn’t the biggest fan of Advent Children. The graphics were great and the action scenes were fun, but the story felt like a let-down. Cloud, in particular, felt so different (and yes, moody) from where we left him after the OG. I understand now that a lot of his character motivation was better explained in the On The Way to a Smile novels, but back then, I just felt like AC came out of nowhere. 

Btw, because I see this question a lot on other blogs when I’m lurking, I’ve ALWAYS thought that it was very clear in AC--even without reading anything else--that the reason for Cloud’s depression was due to guilt and not because he was pining for Aerith. The only reason I didn’t like his characterization in AC was because it felt like it came out of nowhere since AC is set 2 years after OG and by the end of the OG, he seemed to be in a pretty decent place mentally and emotionally. That being said, I can absolutely understand why some traumas resurface years after the originating incident and how times of peace might actually be worse because he is no longer solely focused on saving the world, but I was just surprised and a little bummed that this was the direction the devs chose to take AC at the time. Now that I’m older, I do better appreciate the complexities of Cloud’s mental state and the fact that they depicted a hero with lingering mental health issues is actually pretty awesome. I’m drawn to characters that have flaws--sometimes serious ones--but try their best anyway. Hence, why why Tifa Lockhart and Kate Beckett are some of my all-time favorites.

Anyhow, that didn’t stop me from pre-ordering FF7R, of course. I avoided reading any reviews as I didn’t want my first impressions to be swayed, and boy, was I happy that I went in mostly blind. That sense of awe really almost felt like playing the OG for the first time again, but somehow more. The combat system is incredibly fun and the world-building is nothing short of incredible. The variety and abundance of NPCs gives the game so much flavor and the locations have been rendered so well. As I’m going through areas like the Sector 7 train station and Wall Market and Aerith’s house, I can almost superimpose the layout from the OG in my head, but now it’s in 3D and so rich and full. It’s obvious that a lot of attention was paid to details, and I love all the head-nods and homages to the OG.

And oh, the characters!

This is the Cloud I’ve been wanting to see in glorious HD and the Cloud I remember from the original game: all awkward, dorky trying to be cool, socially inept, mentally unstable, abrasive-at-times, reluctant to act depending on who’s asking, wannabe hard-ass who’s actually a big softie inside Cloud. I remember reading an article a few years back about how the devs basically redid Cloud for the Remake because they wanted him to go back to his dorky roots--which ends up making him closest to his personality in the OG than his appearances in other franchises--and I was SOOOO incredibly happy to hear that. I was so sick of the way Cloud was constantly depicted as this cool, broody McBrood in his cameos when he was a pretty big dork in the OG. (Anybody remember him doing squats in the Highwind when Tifa says it’ll be lonely with just the two of them and Cloud responds that he’ll make enough noise to make up for it? Like I said: cute, but a dork.)

I WAS surprised by how comfortable and sweet and touchy (so very very touchy) the devs made him with Tifa from the beginning. That initial scene of Cloud being such a smooth operator giving Tifa the flower had my jaw-dropping and every single flirty interaction after that (and there are many) had my Cloti heart overflowing in shock and bliss. Throughout most of my years as a Cloti shipper, even though I believed Cloti was supported by canon and pretty clearly together, I was also under the impression--mistakenly or not--that Cloti was the minority ship. So for Square Enix to make it so blatantly obvious that Cloud is really into Tifa at such an early stage has been an unexpected gift.

Also, they’re just really hot together. (Clotiscrew tunnel--be still my heart!)

As for Tifa...oh, what wonderful character development we’ve already gotten for Tifa. Tifa has always been one of my all-time favorite characters ever since reading her character blurb in the OG game manual. Initially, as a child, it was because I saw so much of myself in her. She was outwardly bright and optimistic, but tended to hide all of her stronger feelings inside. She fought with her fists, and for someone who was a tomboy growing up who liked playing contact sports with the boys, I connected with her in a way that I had never been able to connect with other female protagonists who were primarily back-row specialists. (I also aspired to grow to her listed height of 5′4″, which alas, did not happen...lol).

I love how the Remake delves into more of Tifa’s moral conflict between the destruction that she causes as part of Avalanche and needing to do something to stop Shinra, and yes, even seeking revenge. They touched on this in the OG lightly, but the Remake really hammers it home. She’s perhaps the most conflicted character in terms of motivation in Part 1. That scene with the Shinra manager on the train is actually one of my favorite scenes of her because it highlights that tension. The elevator scene, if you opted for it instead of the stairs (or if you did one, saved, and reloaded to do the other one, like me), is also underrated in terms of how much it reveals about Tifa’s inner struggle.

On this point, I also appreciate that the Remake has the characters reflecting on the damage they’ve both indirectly and directly inflicted--the Avalanche team all do this to a certain degree. In particular, Jessie’s constant inability to figure out what she’d done wrong with the bomb to cause such a massive explosion and her remaining feelings of guilt during her death scene (”they were my victims” ouch!) were heart-breaking.

Aerith’s depiction was another pleasant surprise. I’ll be honest; I didn’t much like her in the OG. She was too pushy and willfully oblivious to the point of being mean at times. In the Remake, much of her sometimes too in-your-face playfulness was kept--perhaps still a little too much--but I appreciate the nuance that they gave her. The train graveyard scene tells the player that she didn’t have friends growing up, and I think that partially contributes to her lack of social tact at times. The other factor that gives her personality more nuance is the hint of special knowledge that affects how she interacts with the rest of the group. It gives her additional hidden motivation and adds to her mystery for new players while simultaneously pulling at the heartstrings for old players who get the impression that Aerith is somehow aware--to a certain, unknown extent--of her own fate. 

I also appreciate that Aerith is more grounded as a real person than as some sort of revered being. I do blame AC for some of that. When you have the power to cure a fatal disease from the afterlife and send the dead back to life, it gets into some godlike territory. Maybe it’s a fair depiction of her powers as a Cetra, but I just get the feeling that Aerith herself wouldn’t really appreciate being made into this goddess-like figure. Remember that her character blurb in the original game manual implied that she was more interested in earthly things (i.e. the love triangle) than in exploring her own powers. I personally think that Aerith used the “love triangle” in the OG as a form of escapism from the weight of her burdens rather than genuine interest, and I just think she’d want to be thought of as a person rather than as a god. One of my favorite scenes for Aerith is when she and Cloud are traversing the rooftops and she slips on the ladder, letting out a simple, “Shit.” It humanizes her in a way that combats some of the ways she’s sort of been deified in the last 23 years. Also, Aerith wielding a folding chair like it’s WWE never fails to make me laugh. Overall, she just comes off as a more reasonably flawed and--as a result, to me--a more likeable character in the Remake, and I do very much like her now.

Barret is pretty much the exact larger than life character I imagined in my head, only somehow even better, and I really love how expressive and emotional his eyes and facial expressions are. His scenes with Marlene are truly the cutest thing ever. Red XIII is a big, furry ball of sass, and I need so much more of him in the coming parts (Cosmo Canyon still wrecks me to this day). The interactions between the Wedge, Biggs, and Jessie are incredible, and they really feel like people who’ve been friends and basically each other’s family for years. The Turks and Rufus are pretty much as cool as I imagined them in the OG.

There’s still so much more I haven’t even started touching on about the Remake, and I think that’s why I’m finally posting this now. I just can’t contain my love for this game any more, and I really really need a place to express myself. I don’t know if anybody is still reading, but I appreciate having the opportunity to finally gush about this game and franchise that I’ve loved so much for pretty much two-thirds of my life.

[sapphire-weapon]

Read what you said about Eagleone being bashed back in the OG timeline and you know what really bothers me about it? Three ships are being talked about here, but the conversation is entirely about Leon. The three completely different women involved aren't in the focus. It's only about "but who compliments Leon more and who does he want to fuck?" Who's the best accessory? It's never "well, SHE'D benefit from Leon more than the others beause xyz." To this day I spite ship all of the women with eachother instead, lmfao.

if this was any other fandom, I'd agree with you

Like, it's DEFINITELY the case in the Clerith vs CloTi wars

It's not really fair to say this about RE, though, because RE is a very rare series wherein the women outnumber the men. RE has four returning, leading ladies (Jill, Claire, Ada, and now Rebecca), where it only has two men (Chris and Leon).

the only other possible ship for Claire at the time was Steve, and people hated Steve almost as much as they hated Ashley

and the only other possible ship for Ada was Wesker, and Wesker/Chris was so much the name of the game back then that no one even considered him with Ada

there is also no other viable ship for Ashley other than Luis, who even 2005-era fandom could tell was not straight LMAO

Leon was pretty much the only viable candidate for all of these women if you were looking for an M/F ship. There really were no other options.