#it has it’s flaws. I don’t know everything that’s gone on with the creator and I’m not keen to find out

[robyntheredhead]

I’m really liking Hazbin Hotel, but Jesus I am so sick of streaming shows having short seasons. It would’ve benefited so much even from just another 4 episodes to spread things out a bit.

It feels like the show was just getting started, and now we’re already at the conflict leading into the finale.

#it has it’s flaws. I don’t know everything that’s gone on with the creator and I’m not keen to find out #but for what it is I’m enjoying it! I like the songs- I like the characters #but it’s like they don’t have time to explore any random fun character-bonding stuff because they need to keep the plot going #the last 2 episodes feel like we’re ramping up to the end already and I don’t feel like we’ve spent enough time with these characters yet #hazbin hotel

[minisugakoobies]

Versus | MYG, JHS - Chapter 7

Pairing: Yoongi x Reader x Hoseok

Genre: smut, fluff, angst, crack, enemies to lovers, Villains!AU

Rating: M (18+)

Warnings: mentions of weapons - blades and lasers, mentions of blood/bleeding, references to physical combat, references to kissing, references to masturbation (m), this one's pretty angsty, the sidekicks remain the sweetest, shifting POVs, Vitality has to deal with a sexist asshole

Word Count: 3.7k

Disclaimer: NSFW, obviously I don’t own BTS - they just inspire me

Summary: Supervillain exes Yoongi and Hoseok are sick and tired of having their plans for world domination wrecked by you, aka Vitality, the world’s most powerful superhero. When fellow villain Jimin suggests a little competition to see who can bring you to your knees, they both eagerly accept. Now the battle is on as both men engage you in fight after fight to see who will conquer you first. Will you finally defeat these two, or will they destroy you - and possibly take each other out in the process?

A/N: And we're back! Sorry for the long break, but the holidays interrupted everything (like they usually do). This might be the longest chapter yet? To think I once thought this would be a drabble series 😵‍💫 I'm just a wordy bitch 😂

Chapter title comes from "Seek & Destroy" by SZA, which is very much the vibe for this chapter and the chapters to come.

Unbeta’d as usual. Please don’t be a silent reader! 🥺 My inbox is always open! 💕

Chapter Six ✨ Series Masterlist ✨ Character Playlists

Chapter Seven: The Art of War, Goddammit, I'm Drained

Jin knows a lot of things.

As an advanced AI system, it has access to all of humanity’s collective knowledge. It can tell you anything that has ever been recorded, in written word, in video or photos, in digital data. Nothing is out of its reach.

It also knows how lucky it is that Hobi is its creator. To think that this gorgeous genius, this gifted scientist, this absolute visionary poured his heart and soul into making Jin… well, it would give it goosebumps if it had arms. And flesh. 

Right now, though, it knows that Hobi needs it, no matter how much he protests otherwise. So as Hobi once again stomps through his lair, heading for his inner sanctum, Jin opens every door for him unprompted, dims the lights slightly to mitigate any headaches Hobi might have picked up while fighting (the man always seems to end up with a tension headache after dealing with Vitality), and releases a calming burst of lavender into the air as well. 

Jin prides itself on taking care of its beloved.

Hobi sheds his black body harness, removing all of his laser weapons as he continues to scowl at no one. A replay of his battle from earlier today is playing in his mind on a loop. Once again, he’d failed. He’d finally managed to fight you without having to rely on those damn power disrupters and he’d still lost. 

And then there was that whole… ordeal… with the kissing. And the strange sensation flowing through him from your touch. Just what the fuck was that about??

“Penny for your thoughts, love.” 

Hobi purses his lips. “Jin, please. Not now.” He strips out of his all-black combat ensemble and slips on an oversized tee and joggers. Running his hand through his hair, he musses it slightly. Gone are all traces of Dark Hobi, his fastidiousness, his sharpness. This is just Hoseok, looking soft and slightly lost. 

Jin’s electronic heart glitches in agony.

“I’ve prepared an analysis of today’s engagement if you’d like to see where things went wrong.” 

“Ha,” Hoseok barks a piercing laugh, one that manages to sting Jin even despite its lack of nerves. “I know exactly where shit went wrong. Expecting Vitality to act rationally.”

As Hoseok strolls into his command center, Jin activates all the screens, displaying the video captured from the cameras embedded in Hoseok’s tech. “Actually, sir, it appears that the fatal flaw in your plan today occurred when you stopped using your tech and chose to engage Vitality in hand-to-hand combat.” If Jin had a throat to clear uncomfortably, this is where it would do it. “Just like the last time.” 

Hoseok frowns, staring at the monitors. Jin’s right, of course. He knows he shouldn’t indulge so much in physical violence. If he would simply resist the impulse, he could probably finish you off so easily using any of his laser weapons.

He just can’t help himself. Every time he sees you, he feels this burning need to get his hands on you. It consumes him, drives him mad until he finally snaps. 

Until he gets that desperate urge under control, it’s going to be his downfall every time.

“I know, Jin. I fucking know.” Hoseok sighs, propping his feet up on the command console. “So I’m guessing your recommendation for the next battle is…?”

“Once you have her cornered, either with or without the disrupters, use your tech to destroy Vitality.”

“Right.” Hoseok rubs his face, and Jin wishes yet again that it had an arm to sling around its creator’s shoulders. “You make it sound so easy.” 

“I’m merely reporting the results based on a comprehensive analysis of–”

“Save it, Jin, I understand.” Hoseok’s so tired. When’s the last time he had a proper night’s sleep? 

Oh. Right. 

He sighs, sitting up and crossing his arms over the console. “Clear the screens, Jin. I don’t need to see anymore.” 

“Is there anything else I can do for you, darling?”

Hoseok ignores the term of endearment, lost in thought. Will he ever be free of the guilt of that night? Or will it haunt him forever? 

Maybe if he exorcises his ghost, he’ll be free.

It’s along that train of thought that he gives his next command.  “I want you to run a few scenarios for me.” 

“Of course. What would you like me to analyze?” 

Hoseok leans forward, resting his chin on his arms. For someone whose brilliance looms so large, he seems so small, Jin muses. “I want to know the most effective way for me to eliminate Vitality and Yoongi. Together.”

“Hyung, please. Let me take a look.” 

“I said I’m fine, Taehyung-ah!” 

Taehyung’s one of the strongest marksmen Yoongi’s ever met, capable of taking down any foe with any item from his vast arsenal, but truly, the deadliest weapon he wields is his pout. Yoongi sighs.

“Fine.” He lowers his head, allowing Taehyung to inspect the cut opened by your fingernails. It oozes blood as his confidant touches it gingerly, and Yoongi hisses. 

“Sorry, hyung.” Taehyung bends over his medical kit, setting to work cleaning and dressing the wound as Yoongi silently meditates on what an absolute fuck-up of a day it’s been. 

Once again, he’d been on the verge of victory. Thanks to Taehyung’s intervention, he’d had you cornered, trapped against the cabinets. He could still feel the dagger in his hand, aimed at your head. One toss was all it would take. One quick toss, and he’d win.

A thrill had raced through him at the thought of finally, finally defeating you. Not just you, but Hoseok, too. Honestly, that idea made his pulse jump even more. And then the flesh-eating bacteria escaped its confines, and Yoongi couldn’t believe his good fortune. You were seconds from being destroyed completely. With a vicious laugh, he’d pulled his arm back, preparing to deliver the death strike that would secure his crown, and glanced at your face.

That was his fatal mistake. 

Fear. So much fear was swimming in those gorgeous eyes of yours that it stopped his hand, locking him in place as the world spun around him. It was an expression he recognized from countless other faces over the years during his rise to supervillain status. A look that he usually sought out. Craved, even.

So why was it causing his gut to twist? He felt physically pained, staring into your terrified orbs. The urge to quell the panic he found there warred with his desire to win. 

He hesitated. And, well, he should’ve remembered that old saying. 

In a split second, he moved on instinct, tossing the dagger and saving your life. And then he was running again, without a chance to contemplate his reaction until he sat down and Taehyung began pestering him about his injuries. 

Reflecting on it now, his only thought is, what the fuck.

“Hyung, can I ask you a question?” 

Yoongi grunts. Sure.

“Is this competition worth it?”

Yoongi lifts his head, wincing at the way his wound stings with the movement, staring at his confidant. The other man’s blue hair is held back by a bandana, his gaze fixed on his kit as he organizes the objects, placing the items back into their proper spots, and Yoongi is struck by just how young Taehyung looks as he steadfastly avoids his hyung’s eye. 

“What are you asking, Taehyung?” Yoongi never has patience for avoidance.

Taehyung sighs, sounding quite like a weary old man despite his appearance as he answers. “It just seems that this contest has brought you nothing but pain and stress. How many times have I had to rescue you now? How many times have we sat here, you brooding silently while I patch you up? No matter how many brilliant plans you come up with, Vitality foils each and every one, and we return home to start over again. You know what they say about the definition of insanity, right?”

“Are you calling me insane?” Yoongi’s voice is laced with venom, but Taehyung doesn’t flinch. He knows he struck a nerve, but he trusts his hyung not to bite. 

“I’m just concerned. This competition seems to be taking so much from you.” His task complete, Taehyung faces his hyung, dark eyes wide with worry. “Maybe… maybe it’s time to let it go. Then you can get back to what you really want.”

That’s the real question, there. The one that’s been keeping Yoongi up at night. What does he want? He knows what Taehyung thinks he wants. The same thing Jimin thinks. World domination. 

But when Yoongi is alone in his bed, fantasizing, it’s never images of him sitting on a throne, ruling over all that makes him hard, have him gripping his cock, stroking so quickly. No, it’s usually a face floating through his mind. It used to be the same face, night after night, wicked eyes, dark smirk, whispering sweet words about forever. A face that used to lie beside him once upon a time.

Last night, it was a different face. Wearing an expression of hope.

Hoseok was always the impulsive one, giving in to his emotions so quickly. Yoongi’s worked hard to keep his in check. He’s only ever really given in once. 

Well, twice now.

He won’t make that mistake again. 

“Taehyung. I appreciate your concerns. I do. But you must trust that I know what I’m doing.” Someone needs to. “As for what I want… this competition is the way to achieve that.”

Taehyung blinks meditatively, absorbing Yoongi’s words, the waver in his voice. His hyung is lying. A tiny strand of dread works its way into his gut, settles there, twisting into a knot. “If you’re sure, hyung.”

“I’m sure.” Yoongi stands, muscles protesting loudly. He grits his teeth to keep from groaning in pain. “I’m going to win.” 

And when he’s done, and both you and Hoseok are gone forever, he’ll finally be free.

Tackatackatackatacka

The Company’s cubicle farm lackeys are busy clicking away while you stride down the hallway towards Conference Room A. Their heads turn one-by-one as you pass. You’d think after how many years of these weekly meetings, they’d be accustomed to your presence, but somehow every week you manage to electrify their sad little lives with the few seconds they bask in your radiance.

To these poor souls, you’re akin to a god, and you drink in their envy and awe as easily as you do the energy that pulses from the flickering fluorescent lights overhead.

Inside the boardroom, you take a seat next to Namjoon, who greets you with a nod and a gentle “Sup?” You nod back, not particularly feeling like making small talk, still smarting from your recent fights. Once again, you’d been on the verge of putting Yoongi and Hobi away from good, and once again, both slipped through your powerful fingers. 

You’re real fucking sick of the repeating seesaw games.

The CEO of your organization calls the meeting to order. You remain zoned out, nodding occasionally, smiling when your name is mentioned, but otherwise completely disengaged. 

“You okay, baby?” Namjoon murmurs as the CEO cues up something on the video screen behind him, droning on about Doc’s latest discovery of a new super in Bolivia. 

“Right as rain, Joon,” you reply. He looks dubious, so you steer him away. “How did your raid on LMLY Industries go?”

“Oh, uh, I didn’t end up leading that mission. Boss man decided to give it to the babies.” 

“He what?!” ‘The babies’ are the junior members of your org. Barely out of training, they’re nowhere near ready to handle a mission of their own. Especially not one where the target is a legendary villain like Jackson Wang. The man’s practically a mythical creature, appearing in nearly every story of defeat you’ve heard from other supers. 

Glancing across the table, you eye Jeongin and Felix curiously. They both appear to be in one piece, so they clearly didn’t lose, but you’d have heard by now if Wang was in custody, so he must’ve gotten away again. “If he wasn’t going to give you the mission, then it should’ve gone to me.” 

Namjoon shrugs. “Pretty sure you were on a mission of your own at the time. It’s not like you can be everywhere at once, babe.”

“Well, not until the scientists get the teleportation tech up and running. Last I heard, the lab suspended testing.” 

Namjoon grimaces. “Oh, yeah, they shut that shit down when Changbin and Jisung had their little… uh… body swap incident. Remember?” 

“Fuck, I completely forgot about that.” Seems like you should’ve remembered the sight of two of your junior teammates switching heads for a day, but it’s been a busy couple of weeks and these things tend to slip your mind. Thank god the scientists figured out they could reverse the swap by just sending them back through the portal. 

“Yeah. That was a wild fucking day.” The two of you fall silent as one of the officers at the table says your names, but he appears to be reading a report out loud and not actually addressing you, so you tune the meeting out again as Namjoon rubs his chin thoughtfully. “Speaking of the lab….”

“Vitality? Did you hear me?”

The CEO’s voice breaks into your gossip session and you sit up, startled. “Sorry, sir, what did you say?” 

The bald man eyes you suspiciously from behind a pair of thick spectacles. “We were just discussing your latest debriefing statements from your recent missions with Dark Hobi and Evil Yoongi.” 

“Of course, sir.” Your hand flexes on your thigh and you smother the sparks that slip from your fingertips in anger at his tone as you feel Namjoon shift anxiously beside you. You’ve never liked the way the CEO talks to you. You hate even more that you have to address him and all the other officers in this room as ‘sir.’ And of course your teammate knows both of these facts.

“General Ahn here wanted to ask you a few questions.” The CEO bows to a severe-looking older man sitting at the head of the table. His highly-decorated uniform speaks to a lifetime of service and victory. It’s meant to intimidate. To suggest power. 

Please. You could destroy him in an instant.

“Vitality,” the old man booms, “in addition to familiarizing myself with your statements, I have watched the videos we obtained from your body cams.” He’s referring to the tiny cams integrated into your uniform in your organization’s logo, a shield with a tiger’s head, and also in the headband you wear. “There seems to be some patterns.”

He pauses, and you realize he’s waiting for you to respond. “Some patterns, sir?” 

“Yes. In the last ten engagements you had with either of these supervillains, there came a point about halfway through where you suddenly end up completely at their mercy. Furthermore, in each of your last five missions to capture the wretch known as Evil Yoongi, not only were you on the verge of losing, but you managed to allow yourself to become restrained, tied up in one manner or another.” He stares you down across the table. “Explain yourself.”

You blink. Explain yourself? What the fuck does that mean? “I’m sorry, sir? Explain… “

“Yes, explain,” he snarls. “How does the strongest superhero in our arsenal suddenly find herself on the losing end against these two? Every time we send you out to bring them in, you end up on your back, or strung up by your ankles!”

His words seem to ruffle the others as uneasy murmuring ripples around the room. You notice the CEO shifting in his seat uncomfortably. Has he also noticed the strange glitching of your powers? 

Ice courses through your veins. You know the cameras captured everything visible, but what keeps happening to you can’t possibly be seen by others. Only the absence of the use of your powers might cause someone to question if they’re waning… but there’s no way they’ve caught on, is there? 

“I–I…,” you stammer for an answer as the general’s face turns red with anger. “I can only state that in each of these engagements, I eventually succeeded in defeating them.” 

“Yes, in the last ten battles, you did successfully overcome them eventually, as you say, but only after spending too much time and effort to do so, typically after causing more collateral damage than is acceptable, and on top of that, after all ten missions they both still managed to escape!” 

His aura is a disgusting brownish-green shade, pulsing violently as he shouts. You imagine that if you were to feed from him, it would just make you feel nauseous. 

“Well, sir, once I have apprehended the villains, I turn them over to our containment team, so any escape is hardly–”

“And then there is the matter of this!” The general waves at the CEO, who cues up a video. As the room around you gasps in shock, the kiss you’d shared with Yoongi fills the screen that makes up the wall behind the general. It’s a very close angle, shot from your point of view, but it’s very clear what is happening between the two of you.

“That was a distraction technique, sir–I had to keep the enemy engaged while I–”

He laughs derisively, indicating with a flicker of his fingers for the CEO to kill the video. “Oh, you certainly kept him engaged! You see this,” he turns to one of his colleagues, another crusty old man in a tacky uniform, “this is why we should stick to male superheroes only, because as soon as a woman is involved, all common sense flies out the window!”

A large hand lands on your tensed fist under the table. You glance at Namjoon, and he shakes his head slightly, gripping your wrist, silently urging you not to release the blast building in your palm. Taking a deep breath, you center yourself before reabsorbing the beam of energy rather than letting it fly loose in the sexist old windbag’s ugly face. 

“I can only apologize, sir,” you grit through your teeth. “I will do better on the next mission.” 

“I certainly hope you do. Because if your disappointing performance continues, you will be removed from active duty. Is that clear?”

“Crystal. Sir.” 

As the CEO continues the meeting, Namjoon turns to you, a muscle in his sharp jawline ticcing violently. “That motherfucker has no right to treat you like that. Are you okay?”

No, you’re not okay. You’re fucking livid. The nerve of that general, to question you! As if you haven’t devoted your life to this organization, giving up everything–family, career, love, everything–as soon as your powers emerged and made you a potential recruit. You never questioned your decision to join the team and become a superhero. 

But if this is how they’re going to repay your commitment and dedication, the literal blood, sweat, and tears you’ve shed for them… maybe you should. 

“No. But I don’t want to think about that ancient asshole and his condescending attitude any longer than I have to.” You frown. “Fuck, I need to blow off some steam.”

Namjoon sighs. “Blow off steam, huh? Bedroom or gym?”

“Both. Gym first. As soon as this meeting is over.” You pause. “Please.” 

Namjoon nods, hand squeezing your wrist again before he pulls it away.  

A roiling stream of thoughts churn through your brain as the meeting drags on. Most of them are worries about your glitching powers and what the company will do if they find out, but there's an image that keeps bubbling to the surface over and over - the one of you and Yoongi kissing. Thank god the general didn’t have any video of what happened between you and Hobi on the plane. 

And what about the look in Yoongi’s eyes when he’d saved you from that nasty bacteria?! You didn’t need any photos to remember that. Thinking about any of those moments makes your stomach eat itself. You try not to dwell on them, try to avoid thinking of the word for these feelings. If you give them a name, then you give them power.

How did it come to this? These men have committed unspeakable crimes. There’s no denying that. Yet at some point, you’ve gone from seeing them as simple shadows to real people. Complicated beings, flesh and blood, filled with every shade imaginable. Like the prism through which you view the world. 

As a superhero, you’ve no room for such nuance. 

Another exec speaks and you catch sight of yourself in the reflective glass walls. The face gazing back at you seems unfamiliar. It’s not just the unsettling evolution of your powers that has you worried. It feels like you are changing as well. And you’re not sure who it is you’re becoming.  

Namjoon tips his head towards you, and you immediately know what he’s going to say. “Listen, maybe you should go talk to Doc now? The general obviously noticed your powers fritzing, even if he didn’t say anything about them specifically, and if he noticed, then–”

“No. I told you, no one will understand.” And you don’t want to end up a lab rat. Not again. “Now please, just drop it, will you?” You never should’ve told him about what’s happening with your powers. The man wouldn’t shut up about it. You trust him not to tell anyone, but still, it’s getting annoying. Yeah, of course you’re concerned, especially since the weirdness has happened every time you’ve fought Yoongi and Hobi lately, but–

Wait. 

Wait.

Holy fucking shit, how did it take you this long to see it??

Quickly, you grab the pen and pad in front of you, the ones provided for you to take notes  (you’ve never written down a single word in any of these interminable meetings), and scribble down your epiphany. The subtle lift of Namjoon’s eyebrow confirms that he read your message. The jaw twitch means he’s ready to do some damage.

Those bastards. They’re messing with the wrong motherfucker.

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[sheltershock]

Today I saw the Barbie Movie after seeing multiple advertisements marketing it as “hot pink existentialism,” and I think it’s the best film I’ll ever see this year. If you are a woman, please see this movie. If you are a mother, please see this movie. If you have anxiety or depression, please see this movie. If you are autistic, please see this movie. If you have doubts about life in general, please see this movie. The movie currently has a reputation of being an edgy children’s film, but I assure you, it’s the most adult film I’ve ever watched.

I initially saw this film while going through a bout of anxiety. I was fine that morning when I booked the tickets, but an hour and half before I went I was having doubts about what I was doing in my free time. I was wondering if I should quit something because it is hard, even if it once brought me joy. I sat there, holding myself, as the movie began and in the first ten minutes  I knew it would make me cry. I ended up shedding a few tears throughout, but when they hit the ending, I was bawling. And I had crying fits on the drive back home. I had gone with my eleven year old sister who showed interest in seeing it, and she was confused about my reaction. She just wasn’t experienced enough to understand the underlying themes and messages about the film. 

Beyond the Barbie brand, the hot pink, the nice outfits, and the hilarious “two worlds cross” storyline, Barbie is a film about life. It is similar to Pixar’s Soul, in that sense. There are plenty of laughs, but it hits you with the hard “why are we here” question. Barbie is presented in the beginning to live a perfect life, and I do mean perfect, except when one morning existentialism comes knocking on her plastic skull. She has thoughts of death and panics when she discovers the start of cellulite, fearing her loss of beauty. She is then tasked to go find the little girl who is playing with her in the real world, the one that’s putting these thoughts in her head. But she is told that it’s not entirely the little girl’s fault, Barbie is responsible as well, though she denies it. 

When Barbie goes into the real world one of the impactful scenes is her sitting on a bench, and enjoying life in the real world. The wind rustling the trees, mothers spending time with their children, two men enjoying each other’s companionship, and an old woman sitting next to her, who’s representative of everything she was afraid of in the “Call of Adventure” scene. And Barbie thinks for a moment, turns to the woman and tells her that she’s beautiful. And the old woman responds back with “I know.” This scene is called back in the ending, when the woman returns and, spoiler, she’s Ruth Handler, the creator of Barbie. That’s right. The Barbie movie has a talk-with-god sequence. Though, in the film, Ruth is not presented as a deity, but as a human. Her tax evasion along with her own mortality is brought up to show her flaws, but Ruth is really portrayed more as Barbie’s mother than her deity. Ruth literally points out that she named her human daughter “Barbara.” 

There are two scenes where Ruth talks about her creation, and both acknowledge that Ruth is extremely human. She is Barbie’s creator, yet does not know what form she will inevitably take. Her first scene is at her own kitchen table, where she invites Barbie to sit and drink tea. She says to her “you’re different…you look great.” And the second scene is at the end of the film where Ruth describes that Barbie is an idea, and unlike humans, ideas don’t have “endings.” And Barbie asks her if she can be human, asking her own creator if she’s okay with that. Ruth says that ideas last longer than any individual, and an idea can be anything. But before Barbie becomes human, she asks Barbie to take her hands and show her what it means to be “human,” and the scene where Barbie admires life plays along with other footage, presumably from Ruth’s own life. It’s all good memories. Because that’s what being human is about, enjoying life despite all the bad things surrounding you. 

Barbie largely portrays these “bad things” as the patriarchy, which go on to infect Barbie Land. The patriarchy is shown in direct opposition that Barbie Land stands for, women’s empowerment, women’s freedom, and women’s leadership. Nobel Prize winners go on to become lesser to men, to serve them beer, massage their feet and be objects to ogle at. Even the female President of Barbie Land is diminished under the patriarchy. All of this is presented as brainwashing, as programming. There is current criticism that Barbie is anti-men. But the patriarchy is only part of the driving force of bad things, the other half are intrusive thoughts, anxiety and depression, portrayed most prominently after patriarchy has taken hold in Barbie Land. But even before that happened, when everything was great in Barbie’s life she still thought about death. Before she knew that the real world was primarily controlled by men, she still had thoughts about existentialism.

When Barbie says at the end of the film, “I want to be human,” she, at that point, had experienced anxiety. Barbie describes it as “feelings that aren’t about or towards anything.” And despite that, she still wanted reality. She even described tears as feeling good. When I say this movie is about living, I mean it’s about how we chose to live even though it's hard. Everyday we chose to wake up and continue our lives. Barbie portrays fear and sadness as necessary to feel truly happy, that you need both to have fulfillment, to be alive, to be human. Barbie is about a lot of things, patriarchy, existentialism, feminism, motherhood, living and being human. 

Additional:

I thought about Greta Gerwing’s comment throughout the viewing, “the creation of Barbie is the opposite to the story of Genesis.” Instead of women being created to help men, Barbie was made first, and Ken was made as her boyfriend. Barbie Land is accurately described as “opposite to our world.” The entire senate is made up of women, the workforce is all women, all women live in harmony and friendship, but men are almost secondary citizens to women. Their relationship is described by “Barbie has a great day every day, but Ken only has a great day when Barbie looks at him.” Barbie Land depicts men how Hollywood depicts women, as objects for the fe/male leads. The big climatic scene for the Kens is a war against themselves for the attention of the Barbies, which happens all the time in films and TV… between women. There’s always a scene where two women fight for the man’s affection. Ken’s resolution at the end of the story is to find an identity on his own, one that’s not dependent on his job, or his girlfriend, or any particular thing he does. It’s the traditional “woman moves on to not need no man” but flipped for the men. Any critic who claims that Barbie is anti-men, should also be claiming that a majority of films and TV are anti-women. 

The “patriarchy” in Barbie Land is portrayed as stupid men being in power, ogling women and liking horses because the doll world is inherently a heightened sense of our world, but backwards. Women in TV and film have long been stereotyped into liking shopping and clothes, being obsessed with our looks and waiting for a guy to notice us. So in Gerwing’s screenplay, she gave that stereotype to the men in the film. It’s satirical to show how stupid the gendered stereotyping on the screen is. The aim of the film was to be about women and their issues, so Gerwing brilliantly switches the gendered roles and the agency assigned to them. 

The movie ends the Ken storyline saying that “Kens will one day work their way up in Barbie Land to be at the level of women in our world.” The reason they aren’t placed as equals at the end of the Barbie Movie is because it’s a real world criticism and call to action for the audience. Telling everyone in the theater that If you were invested in the men of this world to be equal in Barbie Land, then you should be equally invested in women being equal in the real world. All of this was Gerwing’s way of trying to explain the stupidity of gendered roles and expectations. 

#barbie #barbie 2023 #the barbie movie #review #spoilers #shelti rambles #I’m really glad I got to see it

[sing-me-under]

I have a lot of posts about how I liked the finale and it was not OOC, but that’s on a stance of consistency, not storytelling and meta narrative. The finale is consistent with their characters (except Punz but that’s a whole other rant). I think the ending was far from well written (because the dialogue was fucking improv on a time limit). It’s definitely not handled well on the meta, but I think it Makes Sense. I don’t defend the finale because I think it was great. I defend it because I see a lot of poorly interpreted takes or just straight up neg.

I think I’ve accidentally come off as a c!Dream apologist or a c!Tommy anti at first glance even though I’m quite literally the opposite of both if anyone actually reads my long form rants (because they are rants under the thin veil of analyses; I am just throwing words at a keyboard without any central idea). If given a gun, I wouldn’t hesitate to shoot c!Dream between the eyes, and I’m literally a cc!TommyInnit main. He is literally the only steamer/youtuber I watch regularly (anymore) despite being the kind of person who prefers to flitter through content topics rather than dedicate to a specific channel or streamer.

Criticism where criticism is due, and I love reading crit and neg and I agree with so much of it, but I’m not the kind of person to reiterate what other people are already saying. You can criticize the execution of the finale all you want and I Agree With You. It’s terribly executed! But I’m going to ignore the terrible execution and the unintentional framing because it’s been beat to death by now, so let me shove what I liked about it down everyone’s throat.

I don’t intake the DSMP from the perspective of someone expecting a professionally written story. I’m watching it knowing that this is an improv told by amateur storytellers, one of whom is literally a comedian and the other who has the self awareness of a very small dog.

I don’t expect a perfect execution, but I know it’s well meaning. I think people are so desperate to hate sometimes that they forget that the whole existence of the DSMP is out of a place of love and passion for the story they’re telling. It wouldn’t have gone on this long if it weren’t for a genuine love for what they do, and we have seen first hand how other projects die on so so many occasions.

I think the DSMP (especially Tommy and Dream’s finale) deserves to at least receive some praise for what the content creators intended rather just neg upon neg, a lot of which are by people who didn’t even watch the finale. There’s a whole section of the community who loved the ending when it was first streamed, but I didn’t see anyone else actually talking about why it was good other than “Staged Duo My Beloved” and “Tommy is a good person!” like YOURE ALSO MISSING THE POINT. THIS IS THE SAME BULLSHIT STEVEN UNIVERSE FANS PULLED.

Tommy was a flawed individual who was facing his abuser and his trauma right as he was at death’s door but Tommy Didn’t Forgive Dream For The Shit He Did. You don’t fucking forgive abusive power hungry narcissists for literally killing and torturing you. But y’all are so eager to go straight to Murder just because it’s an actual option, but in the DSMP, murder is still framed as a Very Bad Thing to do rather than just some unfavorable activity that people take part in. It’s just that there’s no consequence for commuting the Very Bad Thing other than the degradation of your morals (WHICH AGAIN EVERYONE IS MORALLY GREY AND I COULD GO ON A WHOLE RANT ABOUT TOMMY AND THE THEMATIC IMPORTANCE OF HIM NOT KILLING PEOPLE)

But the prison literally failed! So what do you do if both prison AND murder are off the table?? You move on. That’s what you fucking do. You pick the perpetrator up by the scruff of his neck, strip him of everything that gives him any power, give him a licensed therapist or seven, then put him behind a white picket fence in fucking Wyoming literally miles away from the nearest person, and you at least try to live your life.

Tommy literally couldn’t move on because he was haunted by the very Concept of Dream. Even if he picked up his bags and moved to the other side of the universe, he’d be haunted by the fear that Dream would find him somehow because that’s how paranoia works. Instead, Tommy chose to understand the cause of his Fear so that he could get some control over it, so that he could close his eyes for once and get some fucking sleep. Although this entire time he knew it was a futile effort because they’d be dying anyway, but for once in his goddamn life, he deserved to at least feel some relief from the heavy burden that was his self (although this was mostly everyone) perceived Crime Of Existing.

GIVE THE GUY A FUCKING BREAK.

ITS NOT FUCKING VICTIM BLAMING AND NO ONE IS FORGIVING DREAM EXCEPT THE BATSHIT CRAZY DREAM APOLOGISTS. NOT EVEN CC DREAM IS FORGIVING CDREAM BECAUSE CDREAM IS A PIECE OF SHIT THAT SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED ANY AUTHORITY OR NEAR CHILDREN.

#personal #dsmp #personally I’m of the opinion that certain crimes do deserve the death punishment #however Death is irreversible and if you kill the wrong guy then whoops #so I am also against the death sentence in real life practice #purely because it can be exploited like the entire American prison system #I have absolutely no qualms against killing people #in context #but I also am aware it’s not a mentally stable thing to do #and Tommy would actively deteriorate upon committing Kill #he has had the option to be a worse person and he either decides against it or he is prevented from making the choice #good #i see the If Tommy Had A Gun meme #do not give him a fucking gun #don’t give any of them a fucking gun actually #except Connor. I trust c!ConnorEatsPants with a gun #just don’t let anyone commit murder except Connor

[ashes-forgotten]

Wheatratt community we are sleeping on the absolute angst potential of the headcanon that Rattman created Wheatley. Doug loving this dumb little robot not just in a romantic way but in the way a creator loves their favorite creation. He made such a lifelike, emotional ai, one that feels and sounds and t hinks so much like a human despite being so far from human, a machine with endless flaws and feelings and thoughts that make him a work of art, a work of g enius from a scientist’s standpoint. How do you code a machine to be truly unpredictable, to be impulsive and reckless and so truly lifelike? And we know how lonely Rattman is, of course he would adore and empathize with this creation he can consider a genuine companion.

But then, Wheatley was designed to be a moron. To be unpredictable and impulsive and emotional, prone to human error despite not even being human, created specifically to fail. And he was perfectly made. It worked perfectly, Wheatley’s negligence causing the deaths of over ten thousand people during his time at the relaxation center alone. Reminder: he was given that job as EXILE. It’s heavily implied that he killed people before that in cut dialogue out of either again, negligence, or even sheer boredom. If Doug knew, he would be faced with having created life that has ended lives. Jekyll and Hyde, Frankenstein and his monster. And Wheatley h a t e s himself. He hates himself so deeply and violently and wholly and is so sensitive that being called a moron causes him to make one of if not the worst decisions he has ever made, betraying Chell and throwing away everything they had worked for. He’s digging his own grave throughout the entire game, he’s so desperate for companionship and reassurance and yet sabotages it for himself, and why wouldn’t he? That’s what he was designed to do.

Don’t you think Wheatley, who can’t take the blow of responsibility for his actions, would blame his creator for why he is the way he is? Don’t you think he’d be angry? Don’t you think Doug would be distraught that his funny little robot friend has literally gone completely insane just as a human would? That his creation hates itself so completely, and hates him for creating it?

But they still love eachother as well. Like GUYS THIS SHIP COULD BE SO ANGSTY AND FRIENDS TO ENEMIES TO LOVERS IT COULD BE ALMOST AS DIVORCED AND TERRIFYING AS CHELLDOS IT-

@incel-wheatley @humanwheatleyslefttoenail WHEATRATT GODS I BRING FORTH MY CRAZED RAMBLINGS WRITTEN IN MY BLOOD AS AN OFFERING DOST THOU ACCEPT (im so sorry and so tired and I can’t genuinely cry over them alone anymore)

#doug rattmann #wheatley portal 2 #wheatratt #i am mentally ill

[qqueenofhades]

Hi. I’m curious. What did you mean by “women who read fiction might get Bad Ideas!!!” has just reached its latest and stupidest form via tumblr purity culture.? I haven’t seen any of this but I’m new to tumblr.

Oh man. You really want to get me into trouble on, like, my first day back, don’t you?

Pretty much all of this has been explained elsewhere by people much smarter than me, so this isn’t necessarily going to say anything new, but I’ll do my best to synthesize and summarize it. As ever, it comes with the caveat that it is my personal interpretation, and is not intended as the be-all, end-all. You’ll definitely run across it if you spend any time on Tumblr (or social media in general, including Twitter, and any other fandom-related spaces). This will get long.

In short: in the nineteenth century, when Gothic/romantic literature became popular and women were increasingly able to read these kinds of novels for fun, there was an attendant moral panic over whether they, with their weak female brains, would be able to distinguish fiction from reality, and that they might start making immoral or inappropriate choices in their real life as a result. Obviously, there was a huge sexist and misogynistic component to this, and it would be nice to write it off entirely as just hysterical Victorian pearl-clutching, but that feeds into the “lol people in the past were all much stupider than we are today” kind of historical fallacy that I often and vigorously shut down. (Honestly, I’m not sure how anyone can ever write the “omg medieval people believed such weird things about medicine!” nonsense again after what we’ve gone through with COVID, but that is a whole other rant.) The thinking ran that women shouldn’t read novels for fear of corrupting their impressionable brains, or if they had to read novels at all, they should only be the Right Ones: i.e., those that came with a side of heavy-handed and explicit moralizing so that they wouldn’t be tempted to transgress. Of course, books trying to hammer their readers over the head with their Moral Point aren’t often much fun to read, and that’s not the point of fiction anyway. Or at least, it shouldn’t be.

Fast-forward to today, and the entire generation of young, otherwise well-meaning people who have come to believe that being a moral person involves only consuming the “right” kind of fictional content, and being outrageously mean to strangers on the internet who do not agree with that choice. There are a lot of factors contributing to this. First, the advent of social media and being subject to the judgment of people across the world at all times has made it imperative that you demonstrate the “right” opinions to fit in with your peer-group, and on fandom websites, that often falls into a twisted, hyper-critical, so-called “progressivism” that diligently knows all the social justice buzzwords, but has trouble applying them in nuance, context, and complicated real life. To some extent, this obviously is not a bad thing. People need to be critical of the media they engage with, to know what narratives the creator(s) are promoting, the tropes they are using, the conclusions that they are supporting, and to be able to recognize and push back against genuinely harmful content when it is produced – and this distinction is critical – by professional mainstream creators. Amateur, individual fan content is another kettle of fish. There is a difference between critiquing a professional creator (though social media has also made it incredibly easy to atrociously abuse them) and attacking your fellow fan and peer, who is on the exact same footing as you as a consumer of that content.

Obviously, again, this doesn’t mean that you can’t call out people who are engaging in actually toxic or abusive behavior, fans or otherwise. But certain segments of Tumblr culture have drained both those words (along with “gaslighting”) of almost all critical meaning, until they’re applied indiscriminately to “any fictional content that I don’t like, don’t agree with, or which doesn’t seem to model healthy behavior in real life” and “anyone who likes or engages with this content.” Somewhere along the line, a reactionary mindset has been formed in which the only fictional narratives or relationships are those which would be “acceptable” in real life, to which I say…. what? If I only wanted real life, I would watch the news and only read non-fiction. Once again, the underlying fear, even if it’s framed in different terms, is that the people (often women) enjoying this content can’t be trusted to tell the difference between fiction and reality, and if they like “problematic” fictional content, they will proceed to seek it out in their real life and personal relationships. And this is just… not true.

As I said above, critical media studies and thoughtful consumption of entertainment are both great things! There have been some great metas written on, say, the Marvel Cinematic Universe and how it is increasingly relying on villains who have outwardly admirable motives (see: the Flag Smashers in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier) who are then stigmatized by their anti-social, violent behavior and attacks on innocent people, which is bad even as the heroes also rely on violence to achieve their ends. This is a clever way to acknowledge social anxieties – to say that people who identify with the Flag Smashers are right, to an extent, but then the instant they cross the line into violence, they’re upsetting the status quo and need to be put down by the heroes. I watched TFATWS and obviously enjoyed it. I have gone on a Marvel re-watching binge recently as well. I like the MCU! I like the characters and the madcap sci-fi adventures! But I can also recognize it as a flawed piece of media that I don’t have to accept whole-cloth, and to be able to criticize some of the ancillary messages that come with it. It doesn’t have to be black and white.

When it comes to shipping, moreover, the toxic culture of “my ship is better than your ship because it’s Better in Real Life” ™ is both well-known and in my opinion, exhausting and pointless. As also noted, the whole point of fiction is that it allows us to create and experience realities that we don’t always want in real life. I certainly enjoy plenty of things in fiction that I would definitely not want in reality: apocalyptic space operas, violent adventures, and yes, garbage men. A large number of my ships over the years have been labeled “unhealthy” for one reason or another, presumably because they don’t adhere to the stereotype of the coffee-shop AU where there’s no tension and nobody ever makes mistakes or is allowed to have serious flaws. And I’m not even bagging on coffee-shop AUs! Some people want to remove characters from a violent situation and give them that fluff and release from the nonstop trauma that TV writers merrily inflict on them without ever thinking about the consequences. Fanfiction often focuses on the psychology and healing of characters who have been through too much, and since that’s something we can all relate to right now, it’s a very powerful exercise. As a transformative and interpretive tool, fanfic is pretty awesome.

The problem, again, comes when people think that fic/fandom can only be used in this way, and that going the other direction, and exploring darker or complicated or messy dynamics and relationships, is morally bad. As has been said before: shipping is not activism. You don’t get brownie points for only having “healthy” ships (and just my personal opinion as a queer person, these often tend to be heterosexual white ships engaging in notably heteronormative behavior) and only supporting behavior in fiction that you think is acceptable in real life. As we’ve said, there is a systematic problem in identifying what that is. Ironically, for people worried about Women Getting Ideas by confusing fiction and reality, they’re doing the same thing, and treating fiction like reality. Fiction is fiction. Nobody actually dies. Nobody actually gets hurt. These people are not real. We need to normalize the idea of characters as figments of a creator’s imagination, not actual people with their own agency. They exist as they are written, and by the choice of people whose motives can be scrutinized and questioned, but they themselves are not real. Nor do characters reflect the author’s personal views. Period.

This feeds into the fact that the internet, and fandom culture, is not intended as a “safe space” in the sense that no questionable or triggering content can ever be posted. Archive of Our Own, with its reams of scrupulous tagging and requests for you to explicitly click and confirm that you are of age to see M or E-rated content, is a constant target of the purity cultists for hosting fictional material that they see as “immoral.” But it repeatedly, unmistakably, directly asks you for your consent to see this material, and if you then act unfairly victimized, well… that’s on you. You agreed to look at this, and there are very few cases where you didn’t know what it entailed. Fandom involves adults creating contents for adults, and while teenagers and younger people can and do participate, they need to understand this fact, rather than expecting everything to be a PG Disney movie.

When I do write my “dark” ships with garbage men, moreover, they always involve a lot of the man being an idiot, being bluntly called out for an idiot, and learning healthier patterns of behavior, which is one of the fundamental patterns of romance novels. But they also involve an element of the woman realizing that societal standards are, in fact, bullshit, and she can go feral every so often, as a treat. But even if I wrote them another way, that would still be okay! There are plenty of ships and dynamics that I don’t care for and don’t express in my fic and fandom writing, but that doesn’t mean I seek out the people who do like them and reprimand them for it. I know plenty of people who use fiction, including dark fiction, in a cathartic way to process real-life trauma, and that’s exactly the role – one of them, at least – that fiction needs to be able to fulfill. It would be terribly boring and limited if we were only ever allowed to write about Real Life and nothing else. It needs to be complicated, dark, escapist, unreal, twisted, and whatever else. This means absolutely zilch about what the consumers of this fiction believe, act, or do in their real lives.

Once more, I do note the misogyny underlying this. Nobody, after all, seems to care what kind of books or fictional narratives men read, and there’s no reflection on whether this is teaching them unhealthy patterns of behavior, or whether it predicts how they’ll act in real life. (There was some of that with the “do video games cause mass shootings?”, but it was a straw man to distract from the actual issues of toxic masculinity and gun culture.) Certain kinds of fiction, especially historical fiction, romance novels, and fanfic, are intensely gendered and viewed as being “women’s fiction” and therefore hyper-criticized, while nobody’s asking if all the macho-man potboiler military-intrigue tough-guy stereotypical “men’s fiction” is teaching them bad things. So the panic about whether your average woman on the internet is reading dark fanfic with an Unhealthy Ship (zomgz) is, in my opinion, misguided at best, and actively destructive at worst.

#long post #anonymous #ask

[djhedy]

what is canon and should we respect it (a not-essay on aftg fandom)

i want to write an *entire* essay on this but i am between meds right now so exhausted and suffering a HEAT WAVE (uk?? why! we are normally so temperate) and also there's always a risk of sounding patronising when trying to put your opinions/experience across, so i'll try to write briefly and wotnot

what is canon:

"the material accepted as officially part of the story in an individual universe of that story" or, as we'd probably all put it "wot the author wrote"

why this matters, and why the author matters - our characters wouldn't exist without them

beyond a basic respect for the author, which i would define as like not being a bitch to them (because every human being has feelings, and this is something easily forgotten on the internet), we land on the question "should we respect canon"

well... maybe?

it sort of depends why you're here. the experience of literature/art can be defined a few ways: what the author intended, what the reader experiences, the impact on society.

what nora intended: if you care, she's written a lot of extra content on tumblr. but given that the majority of people who read the books probably won't care enough to find the extra content, this isn't canon. it isn't canon because it isn't in the books of the story. calling it canon is gatekeeping. but it's SUPER FUN and i enjoy seeing what nora's interpretation of her own characters are. thanks nora we luv u.

the impact on society: people get SO UPSET about this question. and it's a reasonable question for sure. art does impact society and vice versa. i just kind of don't think this is the big deal you think it is. people are always hunting for signs of homophobia, sexism, transphobia etc in fandom works. and like... sure, you can do that if you'll enjoy it. this essay isn't really about this, and i don't want to ramble. but aftg is an indie publication. its impact is so insubstantial. maybe chill out. the people who are like AARON IS HOMOPHOBIC BUT ANDREW THE MURDERER IS UWU or, opposite, SETH DESERVED REDEMPTION AND MATT IS ABLEIST - my guys it's a book. these characters are flawed. literature isn't meant to be a pinnacle of morals (unless... it is) and we're supposed to love these characters because they work through their flaws and settle into who they are. are they still dicks at the end? sure! it's fun. not everything has to be light and perfect. and you'll have more fun with art if you stop hunting for homophobes in the fandom of an independent publication with a few thousand readers. that's not how to succeed at the gay agenda. we're on it, i promise.

WHAT THE READER EXPERIENCES: this is the big one! you know when you read a book or watch a film and say "oh wow so it was about THIS, THIS was the important bit!" and someone disagrees? well, they're not wrong and you're not wrong. experience is a whole thing. what someone has experienced in life before they come to the art, what they experience during the art itself. art is a communication from the creator to the audience and that communication is subtle and will be different for *every* single person.

this will upset a lot of people, but it isn't canon that neil is demisexual. the label isn't mentioned once in the books. can it be inferred? ABSOLUTELY. he's demi in all of my fanfics because i personally love it. but nora mentioning it in extra content does not make it canon, in the same way that jkr telling everyone she saw dumbledore as gay after the books, does not make it canon. #theauthorisdead (but let's still be nice to them. ...unless you're jkr. fuck jkr.)

my point is just that canon doesn’t always matter. collectively most of us have decided neil is demi, which is important rep to a lot of people without rep. how sexy of us.

and experience matters. there will be people to whom it's important to write neil as not-very-demi. there will be people to whom it's important to write neil as super ace. be kind to each other.

i've decided i need to add another heading.

WHAT'S THE POINT OF FANFICTION?

to preserve canon? no, because... nora already did that. there's a huge amount of fun to be had trying to write neil and andrew as *accurately* as possible - but this *accuracy* will be different from person to person. because a work of literature is complicated and writing is hard and - individual experience. we've already gone through that. but like, have you ever tried to write andrew's dialogue accurately, the way he speaks like he's half-high half-shakespearean?? it's DIFFICULT. i have tried.

you know what's also fun? experimenting. what would their relationship be like if neil was an alcoholic. what if andrew liked wearing dresses. what if one of them cheated. what if matt died of a drug overdose.

in my head the point of fanfiction is EXPLORATION.

sometimes you're exploring the characters as accurately to your experience of them as possible, sometimes you're adding a new element in to see how they would react. let's be honest, that new element is usually something you're obsessed with in your own life. gender presentation? why people cheat? why people relapse? why relationships break down?

anyway, back to the list.

WHAT'S THE POINT OF FANFICTION?

to dick around and have a nice time? yes.

to work through your own identities/traumas/what have you? probably if you're anything like me and basically everyone i know in the fandom lol.

i think this is everything i want to say.

no wait i lied! final point.

if you've ever studied literature or philosophy the first things they teach you is to question *everything*. for example: what is fanfiction, what is canon, "we have to respect canon" do we??

if you've heard someone using the word "feminisation" to mean "make neil soft uwu", rather than repeating the word, question why it's being used here. what does feminise mean, what does soft mean. maybe you love the dark side to neil, maybe other people like the side of him that can heal.

there's nothing wrong with playing with sexual dynamics and relationship dynamics. sometimes you might be writing something cliched, homophobic, sexist - if you work out you are doing that, maybe stop it. on the other hand lots of couples *do* play out the dynamics of - trousers on in the bedroom, trousers on in the relationship. it's not homophobic to depict a homosexual relationship where one is subby and one is dommy. it exists. so like, chill a little.

and remember you are not always right and everyone is different?

man did i accidentally make this patronising?

woops.

lots of love hedy x

#aftg #fanfic #a whole fucking essay #yes im gay and my gf is sub as shit #it's fucking hilarious #i'm also an ex-lit student and i miss it #be gay do crime #etc #if you're mad at me come tell me #conversation is cool #just be nice to each other plz

[williamaltman]

The truth about Wanda's family and ScarletVision in WandaVision:

So, it has been a while since the show aired, but to this day, I think a lot of people don't quite understand the logistics of all that happened. Mainly, in regards to the existence of Vision and the twins. A lot of people still think that they're "not real". What exactly counts as real might be a bit subjective, but they're not "fake" in the sense that a lot of people seem to think. A lot of those misconceptions seem to come from the fact that in the comics, Wanda's twins are said to "not be real". This comes from the fact that their souls come from a shard of Mephisto's, and after Pandemonium comes to take those shards back, they're gone. In the show however, as we know very well, there's no Mephisto. So how do the twins exist? According to Agatha in episode 9, the Scarlet Witch is a being capable of "Spontaneous creation". Right before, she says "Your children, Vision, this whole world you created... This is chaos magic, Wanda." So how do the twins and Vision exist? Simple, Wanda created them. They're not fake. They're not "an illusion". In fact, it is established many times that everything inside the Hex is REAL, not an illusion. As per Monica, in episode 5: "It's not an illusion, Wanda is rewriting reality" "Wanda's twins are hers. Everything might look fake on the TV, but everything in there is real" So why do they disappear without the hex? If they're real, shouldn't they stay alive? Again, Agatha explains: "You tied your family to this twisted world, and now one can't exist without the other." Wanda's mistake was that the creation of Vision and the twins was made a part of the same spell that created the Hex. So if she takes down the hex, she takes them down along with it. It seems like a lot of people miss the fact that, Agatha explains the situation clearly to her, and then offers to make a deal with her: If Wanda gives her her power, she'll correct the flaws in Wanda's spell and allow her to live happily with her family. The whole time that they're fighting and Wanda is shooting her power at her, Agatha thinks she's doing that as part of their deal. But we then learn that Agatha was lying, as she then tells Wanda: "About our deal... Once a spell is cast, it can never be changed. This world you created will always be broken." Which also explains the criticism of "Why didn't Wanda just keep the hex at her house?". She can't. The spell can't be changed. She either keeps it as is, or undoes it. No in-between. Now, more in regards to ScarletVision. I've seen some takes about their relationship in the show that are... Wrong, or at least questionable. >"Wanda is having sex with an illusion of Vision/a mind-controlled Vision/forcing him to be with her" Vision is not an illusion. He's a real person (synthezoid) with his own life and mind and free-will, exactly like the original Vision. The reason he disappears along with the hex is already explained above. Wanda is not mind-controlling Vision, or forcing him to do anything. Because he and the twins were created inside the hex, they don't need to be mind-controlled to fit in on the sitcoms, and they're also straight-up immune to Wanda's powers as shown when she tries to make the twins sleep, and as said by the creators in many interviews. In episode 5, there's the "You can't control me the way you do them" "Can't I?" which a lot of people misunderstand and take it as Wanda having control over Vision. But she doesn't. Her "Can't I?" is referring to what she does next: Rolling the credits, to end the episode. It doesn't affect Vision's mind at all. It also just doesn't work, as Vision is able to stop the credits when he continues to argue with her. And as we find out next episode, even changing the decade doesn't take away Vision's memories and knowledge of there being something wrong in WestView. >"Do Wanda and Vision have sex? Can they?" This one is kind of a tangent, but, I've seen a couple arguments about the scene in episode 2 where they go under the covers in bed. First of all: Yes, they obviously had

sex. The implication of the scene is pretty clear. Vision makes a suggestive face to Wanda and tells her to turn off the lights, right after she turned their separate beds into a double bed. The reason they have separate beds is that couples in actual 60's sitcoms did. Because them being in the same bed, implied, well, sex. There's just also no other way to interpret them going under the blanket and moving and turning off the lights especially after the faces they make at each other, so I'm not sure why there's even an argument about this. And yes, the fact tha Wanda gets pregnant at the end of the episode DOES help with that. Yes, Wanda gets pregnants with her powers... But that's not the story she wants, she wants it to be as if she and Vision can just naturally have children. So, when she has sex with Vision that night, that should be the point where the twins are really "conceived." >"But how can they have sex if Vision is a robot and doesn't have a-" Just think about it... Vision, with his powers, can create his own clothes. Full-on outfits. His whole costume and a cape. He's able to change from that to his casual turtleneck outfit. He can even alter his whole body to look human. It's just logical that he's also able to create a penis. Besides that, Paul Bettany and even Lizzie got asked about that and Vision's sex life a bunch of times. And every time they have said that, yes, Vision can change his density, Vision can create a penis, they do have sex somehow... Note that, when Wanda does get pregnant, they don't question anything about how "But how can she be pregnant if we don't do that?", but rather just "How is she months pregnant in a matter of 12 hours?". It's true that Vision as a synthezoid shouldn't be able to impregnate her at all, but if Wanda got pregnant without them even having sex AT ALL, that would definetely be more of an issue rather than just how fast the pregnancy has advanced. >"But that doesn't matter, cause Wanda's pregnancy is psychological". No. How is it psychological if the children are actually born? I guess the logic here is that both the pregnancy and the twins she give birth to are fake, and "an illusion", but that has already been established as NOT being the case. And then part of that comes from misunderstanding the storyline in the comics. Wanda's pregnancy was not psychological. She actually got pregnant and unlike the show had a normal 9 months pregnancy. The idea that the twins were fake originally came from them being shards of Mephisto (which was a retcon btw). And then, when Bendis came to write House of M, he wanted to frame Wanda as being crazy and unstable. So he emphasized the idea of them not being real to make it seem like part of Wanda's mental issues, and also went with the narrative that a pregnancy and babies created through magic were inheretly not real. But that's only the interpretation of one write in a couple stories. He also said "chaos magic" wasn't real, and then other comics dismissed that and said that it was. And then, they turned out to be real enough that they were able to be reincarnated into Wiccan and Speed. So, even in the comics, Wanda's pregnancy isn't exactly fake or psychological. Even if you still see it that way though, the show is NOT like the comics. It has its own logic, which, to come back to the beginning, is that: Wanda's powers make her capable of "spontaneous creation". She fully created the twins and Vision as living people. She made the mistake of tying their existence into the hex, so when she undid the hex, which was a spell that ALTERED REALITY rather than created illusions, they were gone along with it.

#WandaVision #Wanda Maximoff #Scarlet Witch #Vision #The Vision #ScarletVision #Scarlet Vision #WandaVision Spoilers #Marvel #MCU #Marvel Comics

[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.

#cloti

[mindmeltonabun-blog]

Doom At Your Service: Analysis & Theories for EPs 7-8

Welcome back to another edition of analyses and theories time with me! I’m going to try and keep this post as short and as simple as possible. In case I don’t, I apologize in advance! Also, sorry if this post is filled with grammar mistakes and confusing syntax...I'm writing/editing this late at night and my ADHD meds have lost their effectiveness.

Anyways Eps 7-8 was pretty awesome and I’m glad that a bunch of my previous theories had come true! For those who wonder how I come up with some of these theories, I just look at everything whether it be big or small. I also try to look for connections and patterns. At the same time, I try to understand the motivations of characters and what is the big picture the writer is trying to paint. Once you're able to do all of that then you can predict where the story is going. This is how for the most part I was able to predict the events and endings of shows like TOTNT and TKEM. Anyhow, let’s get down to analyzing and theorizing! Turn on those thinking caps!

What the Rock Balancing Structure Represents

Rock balancing is a form of art that involves a person placing a combination of rocks in an arrangement. To achieve balance of the rocks, one must be very patient and compassionate. In its completion, the structure represents that while things may appear impossible, they are actually possible. So what seems impossible, but can actually be possible? Hmmm probably Myul Mang learning what it means to be human and ending up becoming human. Notice that both the rock art is next to the plant and the story of Pinocchio? It's saying saying that the impossible can be possible. It's possible for Myul Mang to be able to learn what it means to be a human so that the impossible can happen...he can "grow" up to becoming a real human.

The whole rock balancing structure could also signify that in order to grow, one must overcome one's deepest fears. I don't know about you all, but stacking rocks is a scary thing especially since at any moment the whole thing could fall over. Anyways, if you remembered, Myul Mang had been searching everywhere for Dong Kyung and feeling like one of his worst fears (Dong Kyung not existing) had came true. It's only when he goes to Dora's hospital room and sees both the Pinocchio book and rock structure that he got Dora's lesson. And that's why afterwards you didn't see Myul Mang going on another search for Dong Kyung somewhere else.

A brief digression. I’ve seen multiple people theorizing that the plant and the butterfly represent Dong Kyung and Myul Mang respectively. To them I say, did you just completely miss the part where Dora says the plant is Myul Mang? Myul Mang is both the butterfly and the plant. For those who still don’t see that, let me break it down.

First, what do butterflies symbolize? They symbolize metamorphosis, death, and rebirth. Myul Mang is not a literal butterfly, but he will eventually be one in a metaphorical sense. If anything, Myul Mang right now is like a caterpillar on the verge of entering the cocoon stage that is followed by a reemergence as a butterfly aka human. You can also look at it this way, Pinocchio is a butterfly too. Why? Well, look at what happens to Pinocchio. He is reborn as a real boy after having gone through metamorphosis (puppet -> real boy).

Now let’s examine the plant symbolism. What do plants represent in DAYS? They represent humans. What is Dora growing? A human Myul Mang..DUH!! Sorry, but I didn’t think it was that hard of a concept to grasp especially since Dora has already explicitly said what she is growing in that one scene. For Myul Mang to grow up to become a "good" human, he needs to learn to think about others, forgive himself, be compassionate (not only towards himself, but others as well), love others, etc. Other things Myul Mang would probably need to learn is how to love his fate or amor fati (loving your fate means loving it all, not just the good parts, but the bad parts too; loving it so much so that you would never want to change anything about it and would gladly relive your life the way it was over and over again for all of eternity).

I don’t think the "plant" will fully "blossom" until Myul Mang sacrifices himself to save Dong Kyung for the sole reason that he loves her (in contrast to sacrificing himself for his own personal gain). Therefore, that's probably the final lesson -- how to be completely selfless.

Dora just wants her son to grow up to be a "good" plant (human) so she doesn't have to end up pulling him out aka end him before he even becomes human! Okay???

Sorry if what I've just said was confusing. What I meant to say is that Myul Mang's personal growth is reflective in the plant's growth. The more he learns of what it means to be a "good" human, the more the plant will grow until it blossoms into a beautiful flower (a real human).

If we want to connect the idea of personal growth to the story of Pinocchio, we see that Pinocchio's growth occurs only after he experiences pain (physical and emotional) and love. From these experiences, he learns what it means to be a "good" boy and is rewarded by the Fairy transforming him into a real boy.

One Wish or Wishes?

In my previous post, I had briefly touched upon how I think Dong Kyung is going to wish for brain cancer to be cured. Though I still think this, I nevertheless want to explore some of the other possibilities of what her wish could be.

Potential Wishes:

1) Myul Mang to Become Human

2) More Wishes

3) Contract to be Voided

4) No One Remembering Her After She Dies

For #1, Dong Kyung wishes Myul Mang to become human, but then she still dies from her untreated brain cancer…so nope. For #2 and #3, are these wishes even allowed? I would like to point out some flaws of the writer. Maybe it’s not so much a flaw, but an annoyance I have with the writer of DAYS. What one can or cannot wish for is not explicitly stated. Due to this, it is somewhat difficult for me to accurately predict what Dong Kyung will wish for. It’s like trying to detect a substance without being given its upper and lower limits or range of detection (sorry for the science related analogy) ! For #4, I guess this one could be probable, but there is just too much evidence pointing to Myul Mang's death. After exploring each of the possibilities, I'm still left thinking that Dong Kyung's one wish will be to cure her cancer.

Anyways, even if Dong Kyung wishes for her brain cancer to be cured, it’s not really a happy ending since Myul Mang still dies. Is there any other way for Dong Kyung to make another wish so that she can save Myul Mang? I think there is and it comes in the form of the “gift” that Dora gave Dong Kyung. In my previous post, I had theorized that the marble may have a larger purpose than just being a symbol of how the fate of the world is Dong Kyung hands. I believe now that the marble’s larger purpose is that it is a type of wish fulfilling stone. Why? Because we know fantasy dramas typically make references to mythology. In this case, the writer of DAYS is probably referencing Hindu mythology.

In Hindu mythology there are 3 main gods:

1) Brahma: The Creator

2) Vishnu: The Preserver

3) Shiva: The Destroyer (Sounds like Myul Mang right? Also, the love story between Shiva and Parvati is somewhat similar to that of Myul Mang and Dong Kyung’s love story.)

Dora is the equivalent to the god Vishnu in Hindu mythology. Vishnu is often depicted wearing a “Cintamani”, a type of wish fulling stone analogous to the Philosopher’s Stone (hint hint…transforms something from one form into another…immortal -> human) in Western mythology. Given this, the marble/Cintamani in Dong Kyung's possession could be the key to Myul Mang’s rebirth.

Some might ask, “Well why can’t Dora just use it to wish for her son to be reborn as a human?”. Well, remember that both Dora and Myul Mang are slaves to the wishes of humans. They themselves cannot fulfil their own wishes or desires. Meaning, even though Dora and Myul Mang can wish for something to happen, they cannot carry it out unless humans wish it too. Also, as I mentioned previously, deities in kdramas never just give humans gift because they’re being nice. Rather, they give gifts to humans so that humans can help them accomplish their overall goals/wishes.

So putting it all together, do you see where I’m going with this? Dora has the same wish as Dong Kyung which is for Myul Mang to live, but Dora is unable to execute her goals/wishes unless Dong Kyung wishes it too. Dora knows that Dong Kyung will probably use her one wish to cure her brain cancer. At the same time, this leaves her son, Myul Mang, to die. Therefore, Dora gives Dong Kyung the wish fulfilling marble with the intention that Dong Kyung will use it to wish for her son, Myul Mang, to be reborn as a human. With Dora/Dong Kyung’s wish, Myul Mang will be free from his cursed life as an immortal and be reborn to be able to live happily with Dong Kyung.

Side note, the rebirth of Myul Mang into a human can either be dependent on Myul Mang's personal growth or it can be dependent on this wish fulfilling stone or both! I'm leaning more towards his personal growth as being the catalyst for his rebirth, but who knows! It very well could be that the marble has a role to play in his rebirth.

Is Dong Kyung Going To Be An Immortal?

No…no…and NO!!

Some might ask why don’t I think this? Well, for a bunch of reasons. I’ll admit I used to think that it would be very romantic for a human to become immortal so that they can be with their immortal lover forever. However, the more I thought about it, I came to the realization the notion of forever is not romantic nor beautiful. At its core, the concept of eternity is quite terrifying and ugly. And if you haven’t realized already, the writer of DAYS has been making multiple arguments against immortality. For anything to have meaning, it must have an end. In this sense, the end is beautiful.

To get my point across, I want you to try and think about some things. What keeps life meaningful? Experiences? People? Well, imagine doing something you love for a year. Now imagine doing it for trillions or zillions of years. Experiences no matter how good they are at first will eventually become tedious if you do it for long enough. For example, eating your favorite dish may be good for a while, but not for zillions of years. At one point or another, you ultimately lose your desire to want to eat it or eat entirely for that matter.

Now surely getting to know people and loving them can keep your life meaningful right? Well, how many times do you think you could handle knowing and loving people who eventually disappear? Eventually, you grow tired of crying and mourning over dead loved ones that you become numb. Now imagine being Dong Kyung. She would have to witness her family, their family, and so forth dying over and over again for all of eternity. Doesn’t that seem tortuous? Sure, one could argue that at least she has Myul Mang with her, but do you really think her love for him could sustain her forever? The relationship between Myul Mang and his mother, Dora, is a prime example of how a loving relationship could turn sour over a great deal of time. The gift of immorality Dora bestowed on Myul Mang became a curse instead of a blessing. So why would Myul Mang want to give Dong Kyung something that was basically a curse for him? As for Dora, she probably wouldn’t want to give Dong Kyung the same gift after seeing what it did to her son.

If you continue to think that Dong Kyung will become an immortal being, did you really smell what the writer of DAYS was cooking or did you just smell what you were cooking?

The Bad Case of the Riddles

From what I have been reading on multiple platforms now, it would seem that a lot of people are rather confused about a lot of things. It’s understandable! Throughout the show, the writer has presented some complex philosophical concepts that may be difficult for some viewers to grasp. To further add to the confusion, the characters at times do speak in what appears to be riddles. This I believe may be one of the major flaws of the writer. She has to consider that her audience are probably people who have never read any philosophical works before. Most viewers aren’t here to decipher cryptic messages or see how they’re connected to some major philosophical concepts such as eternal recurrence, existentialism, nihilism, amor fati, etc. Most are here to shut off their tired brain and enjoy some good fantasy romance! I know I’m totally one of those people!

Needless to say, I did find myself in a debate of whether I should discuss some philosophical concepts referenced in the show as to help you all gain a better sense of understanding. However, I concluded that it would take too much of my time to do so. Additionally, despite my best efforts to use the simplest of words, I found that whatever I had already written may have still been confusing to the everyday reader. Anyways, if there are any particular scenes or dialogue you all want to me go over, please feel free to use the ask button and I’ll do my best to try and answer them!

Whats Going to Happen Next?

Probably more filler type stuff aka more bs. It's common in kdramas for characters to go back and forth on their initial decision of whatever. Dong Kyung is going to break up with Myul Mang because she loves him and doesn't want him to die. And before the breakup, she's going to give him some good memories to remember her by. Following this, she's going to try and love herself so that she's the one that ends up dying and her wish is going to be for everyone to forget her? Okay......Zzzzzzz!! Idk... Dora is probably going to intervene somehow to get Dong Kyung and Myul Mang back together again.

Other Random Thoughts

What I think would be interesting to learn about is the connection between Dong Kyung's parents death and Dora past self's death. It wasn't just all a coincidence that they both died on the same day. Who knows... maybe Dong Kyung was meant to be in the car that day with her parents, but Dora's past self sacrificed herself to change Dong Kyung's fate.

Also, I still don't think Dong Kyung is going to die, I mean you got her brother praying to the deities that she lives!

Okay, I'm done. I wrote this in Microsoft Word and it was 5 pages long. My brain is dead. There's probably something I should've gone over or elaborated more about, but oh well. Thanks for reading this disjointed post!

#doom at your service #doomatyourservice #myulmang #myul mang #tak dong kyung #takdongkyung #park bo young #parkboyoung #seo in guk #seoinguk #pinocchio #DAYS #theories #my brain is melting

[kirain]

Hazbin Hotel and VivziePop Drama

I've been hearing/seeing a lot of drama concerning Hazbin Hotel and it's creator VivziePop, and while I don't know her personally or really care what people think, I do hate slander and the spread of misinformation. Truly nothing in this world upsets me more than when people believe rumours while making no effort to fact check, and that's exactly what's happening right now. That said, I wanted to try and clear up some of the rumours going around about Vivzie and the show, because I think some of them are absolutely outrageous and need to be addressed.

1. Vivzie hired an abuser onto the show.

Now, I’m not here to burn anyone at the stake, especially since I don’t know anything about Chris Niosi (the alleged abuser), who I believe openly admitted to the allegations? Regardless, this is a moot point. He’s not credited anywhere at the end of the episode. So either he was booted before production wrapped up or he had nothing to do with the show in the first place.

2. Vivzie supports bestiality.

Admittedly I thought this one might be true, since she draws so many anthropomorphic animals. In the very least, I figured she was probably a furry, but I haven't seen any evidence supporting this accusation either. Near as I can tell, this rumour started for two reasons. One, because of her famous Zoophobia comic, which revolves around a therapist named Cameron who gets assigned to work with human-like animals. Ironically, poor Cameron suffers from crippling zoophobia, which makes for some pretty decent comedy. I didn't read the whole comic because, quite frankly, it’s not my cup of tea and I just don’t have the time. But from what I saw there are no examples of bestiality anywhere in its contents.

Two, this message, which blew up all over social media:

To me, this just proves that people are more interested in virtue signalling than checking to see if their claims are actually true. Everything about this message is 100% false, which I’ll touch on in my next point.

3. Vivzie is a pedophile and she’s drawn child porn.

This is hands down the worst allegation and holy shit, I really wish people would stop using it to defame someone when they don't have any proof. This is a life-ruining accusation and you're disgusting if you believe it based solely on hearsay. This rumour began to spread when Vivzie allegedly shipped the two underage characters in the above photo and drew them NSFW-style. At the time, one character was 19 while the other was 14, and the relationship was a very illegal student-teacher relationship.

This is WRONG! The characters were not 14 and 19, they were actually 18 and 19, the legal age of consent! Additionally, the relationship wasn't student-teacher. One character is a student and the other is Alumni (a student teacher). This one pisses me off the most because it’s obvious the person who sent that message didn’t even bother to conduct any research. They said, “He’s a teacher, she’s a child.” Both characters are MALE!

Since then, Vivzie has apologised for any NSFW art she drew in the past and stated that it's not a reflection of her art today, and I'm inclined to believe her. Almost every artist has drawn NSFW content at some point in their career, and hers wasn't even distasteful. Other than this one example, there is no evidence anywhere that suggests she’s drawn “child porn”. In fact, she’s never even drawn explicit NSFW.

Please stop spreading this rumour. It’s dangerous and completely incorrect.

4. Vivzie said the "N" word!

No, she didn’t. It was a fabricated tweet. That is all.

5. Vivzie is copyright striking every video that criticises her!

No she isn't. YouTube’s DMCA is automatically striking people who are using full clips without permission. Vivzie has gone public several times, telling people exactly how to avoid getting a copy strike from the algorithm, which is something she absolutely does not have to do. At this point, she doesn't owe you anything. In my opinion, she should just sit back and watch these channels burn.

6. Vivzie copies and traces other artists’ work.

This is another one I’ve seen going around, but I looked into it as thoroughly as I could and failed to find any concrete evidence to support the allegations. As of right now, there are only two examples of Vivzie “copying” or “tracing” other artists’ work, and both of them can be explained. The first is a gif she made with a character from her Zoophobia comic, which looked a lot like the girl from ME!ME!ME!:

Damn, that’s pretty incriminating. She obviously stole-- oh, wait. This gif was part of a ME!ME!ME! MEP (multi editor’s project) and Vivzie didn’t take full credit, despite the fact that it’s not even a direct trace. It’s supposed to look like the original, which she fully cited. The second example comes from a short dance sequence from her Timber video, which seems to have been inspired by several Disney movies. As Vivzie herself stated, that was an homage to the original animations. Lots of artists and shows do this, including the beloved Stephen Universe series.

Regardless, this doesn’t count as stealing character designs or plagiarising someone’s work. It’s meant to be respectful, an admiration of other projects. Other than these two instances, however, there is no evidence of her tracing or stealing other people’s art. From what I’ve discovered, all other designs she’s been accused of “stealing” are characters she bought and paid for. They’re quite literally HER characters.

7. Vivzie supports problematic creators.

I’m getting really tired of guilt by association. Vivzie follows and enjoys some controversial figures, but who cares? We can argue all day about whether or not the accusations against them are true, but it ultimately has nothing to do with the show or Vivzie as a person. I do the exact same thing, to be honest-- follow and listen to people on all sides so I can learn, understand, and form my own opinions. The fact that some people think this is bad, to me, is absolutely mesmerising. Vivzie doesn’t control what the people she follows post, and if they do something overly questionable she publicly criticises and denounces it.

From Vivzie:

Now that that’s been dealt with, I’d like to address some complaints/claims about the actual show.

8. Vaggie is an angry Latina stereotype and a lesbian stereotype. Vivzie is appropriating Hispanic culture and misrepresenting the gay for profit.

First off, I see a lot of people passing around yet more misinformation regarding Vivzie's race. So many people seem to think she's white? Well, I'm here to tell you they're wrong. Very incorrect. Vivzie is in fact Latina, and Vaggie is meant to mirror some of her own personality traits.

Second, who is Vaggie mad at? Context matters, and if we take a look at the episode, we see that Vaggie is literally only mad at two specific people: Angel Dust and Alastor. Why? Well, for starters, it's her girlfriend's dream to run a rehab hotel for sinners, and Angel Dust nearly demolishes that dream single-handedly. Vaggie has every right to be over-the-top vitriolic. Then there's Alastor, a known sadist, narcissist, and murderer who loves trapping people in his nefarious schemes. He invites himself in, effectively takes over the hotel, and pushes both her and Charlie aside. At one point he even sexually assaults her by slapping her butt during his musical number. So yeah, I think her seething ire is totally justified. Keep in mind, however, that when she's around Charlie she's calm, collected, and happy. I wouldn't call that a stereotype.

Thirdly, the lesbian stereotypes. I keep hearing this argument but I really don't see it. Both Vaggie and Charlie have so much personality and trust for each other. Maybe I'm wrong, but the stereotype I know always totes a more butch, tomboyish woman with a ditsy, innocent, naive woman. Charlie is optimistic, but she isn't stupid. She refuses to shake Alastor’s hand because she knows he’s likely trying to screw her over. She’s also not entirely innocent herself and uses words like “fuck” and “shit”. I also wouldn’t call Vaggie butch or tomboyish. She has a cute, girly presentation, complete with a pink ribbon in her hair, lace stockings, and a dress. She's protective of her girlfriend, as I think we all are with our partners, and there's nothing wrong with that. They're flawed characters, as every character is meant to be. This isn't a problem.

9. The show is racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, blah, blah, blah.

I’m amazed this is even an argument. The show is supposed to be a dark comedy that takes place in HELL. You know, the place the worst of the worst end up after they die? What were you expecting? Everyone gets a shot or two fired at them, but that doesn't make them bad characters nor does it make the show itself horrible. Take, for example, Katie Killjoy, the news reporter so many people are up in arms about. She says she doesn’t “touch the gays” because she has “standards”. Well, here’s a newsflash of my own: we’re not supposed to like her! She’s an antagonist. Not to mention ten seconds later Charlie insults her and isn’t the least bit slighted by her pretentious attitude. The characters are strong and don’t take shit from anyone, because to some degree they’re all terrible people who can throw down when it’s called for.

Obviously if you don’t like the show or think it’s offensive, I’m probably not going to change your mind. That’s perfectly fine. You’re entitled to your opinions and you don’t have to watch the show. Just stop lying and stop trying to take it away from everybody else. Stop attacking Vivzie and spreading misinformation without checking the facts. I realise a lot of people probably aren’t trying to be vindictive and only want to do something good, but just remember this: the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

#hazbin hotel #vivziepop #vivzie #alastor #angel dust #vaggie #charlie #timber #stephen universe #drama #radio demon

[hollowandmerciless]

So it was a love story after all

One of the things that has been said over the years about Attack on Titan is that it had no romance. Isayama, was the general consensus, didn’t write a love story. AOT is not about ships. It’s about the nature of humanity, about hatred, about racism and the will to survive. It’s got its roots in Norse mythology, in real life events from the recent past and a more ancient past. But love and romance, so everyone thought, never had a place in this story.

How wrong we all were.

As it turns out, Eren’s motivation for everything he did was always his eternal and undying love for Mikasa.

Here’s where I stumble.

I never saw any convincing signs of Eremika in this story. I didn’t like their dynamics in the first place – Eren seemed annoyed with her a lot of the time, or at best consider her his adopted sister – and what really rubbed me the wrong way during the entirety of the story was Mikasa’s unhealthy obsession with Eren. Yes, he saved her, and yes, she’s an Ackerman, who are known for their intense bonding to their host (although this was a false assumption as well, according to Zeke), but her obsession was unhealthy and annoying to the point that I was unable to see her character development or her actions. 

Her looks didn’t make her special to me (contrary to a lot of male fans I encountered on social media and irl), to me she was just one of the characters, albeit a rather uninteresting one, so I wasn’t paying as much attention to her as they did – we all pay most attention to our favourites (which in my case are Eren and Levi and to a lesser extent Hanji and Connie), and as a result I may have been blind for any character development she had. 

Maybe it’s because I’m a woman and I feel like she’s one of those poorly written -“the man is my only goal in life” -women. Women who in a story solely seem to exist as an appendage to the main character and have no life or will of their own. Eren and Mikasa were, in my opinion, never equals in this story.

I know many people do see Mikasa’s character development, and do see meaningful interactions between Eren and her, but I’m sorry, I can’t see them unless I use a microscope, and I think this is the main flaw in Isayama’s writing: with all the twists and foreshadowing (which I so thoroughly enjoyed), some hints he left are way too small, while some of his red herrings are too in your face to ignore. 

It also feels like Isayama changed the ending too often and forgot about a lot of foreshadowings along the way.

This is why it feels that we’re left with so many plot holes – if you read closely, there aren’t many, but the red herrings were sprinkled so abundantly throughout the story that we may have expected way too much. The origins of the Ackermans, the importance of Historia’s’ baby and “who is the father”, Zeke’s presumed 4D chess and Eren’s 5D chess, the Underground cities as protection against the rumbling, what caused the titan forest trees to grow so large, what happened 854 years ago in the year 0, Reiner heavily being foreshadowed to become the new Helos, what is the Hallucigenia thing, where did it come from and how does it create titans, where did Ymir’s first titan come from if there was no one in PATHS yet to build it – we don’t need all these answers, but somehow Isayama made us believe there was more to this than there actually was, and that’s why many of us feel robbed of the ending we wanted or expected.

The Historia storyline bothers me the most. The dynamics between her and Eren were much more interesting and realistic than those between Mikasa and Eren. To begin with, they were equals. Whatever happened, they always had each other’s backs. So it made sense to me that Eren had at least something to do with her choice to have a baby, especially because he was so vocal against it. Instead, she too married a guy who hadn’t been particularly nice to her in the past and nothing of it had anything to do with Eren or his plans, or their shared memories of previous founders. 

Parallels between OG Ymir and Historia seemed abundant, but apparently, in the end, we were supposed to see an essential parallel between Ymir and Mikasa. Her Stockholm-syndrome-love for the first King Fritz felt like a sort of deus ex machina (and yes, if you reread chapter 122 there were hints, but so scarce, so small, that they didn’t seem to hold much significance).

I find the fact that OG Ymir needed to see someone break loose from the clutches of obsessive love in front of her own eyes to finally break loose from her own love for Fritz a bit far-fetched, especially since I consider that this is what the entire story hinges on.

(Now we do understand why Isayama had Levi so severely wounded in chapter 114 (the explosion). Had he been fit, then he had most likely been the Ackerman who killed Eren (because this has been foreshadowed too, multiple times) – and that wasn’t supposed to happen. It had to be Mikasa, or else OG Ymir wouldn’t understand how to break loose from her bond.

Another thing that bothered me was Eren’s sudden confession of his love for Mikasa to Armin. Like I said, I found the Eremika dynamics particularly uninteresting, so this confession felt very unnatural and far-fetched to me – but, again, this is what the entire story is built upon. 

He does what he does for them, specifically for her.

It’s actually kind of sad that some fan theories were better/more interesting than the canon ending, but Isayama is the creator of this story and we’ll have to accept his ending – I do know that the more I’ve been rereading the final chapter, the less it bothers me how the story wrapped up. I might even come to like it, and when I reread the full story (which I will certainly do, I LOVE this story) I’ll pay more attention to the small hints Isayama sprinkled between the lines for us about the love Eren felt for Mikasa, to see if his words in 139 will finally make sense to me.

For now, Eren’s motives don’t feel real or grounded. If he’d cried about the millions (billions?) of deaths he’d caused instead of about Mikasa, it would have made more sense in the grand scheme of things. He’d cry for the lives he’s taken, and for the realisation that it has all been in vain, because the ones he tried to protect so that they can live long and happy lives, will now be consumed with grief and survivor’s guilt.

Still, could any of this have gone differently?

No.

Eren was rightfully desperate when he, from behind the bars of his cell, yelled at Hanji if there was another way. Because there wasn’t.

The irony was that Eren always fought for freedom, but all his life he had been a slave to his own destiny. He was unable to change the future, and could only try to influence it. Or else, as Kruger said, this cycle would repeat itself, again and again.

All in all I feel there was more to this story than what we got, it could have gone deeper, more foreshadowing could have paid off instead of being a red herring.

A bittersweet ending

Levi surviving and finally getting closure with the knowledge that this was what all of his old SC friends died for, brought me to tears. And that smoke, was that the disappearing of his Ackerstrength? 

The frame where he travels the world with his carers/adopted children Gabi and Falco and his new best friend Onyankopon (friend? lover? just look at that glance they share) made me so happy that this is now the desktop background of my laptop.

(I hope they’ll travel to the AOT equivalent of the UK so he can finally enjoy some decent black tea)

To me, at least this part was sweet. The rest: bitter, even the fates of the Alliance members. This is a story with an open ending. We don’t know if they’ll succeed on their peace mission, we don’t know what the Yaegerists will accomplish, we don’t know what the rest of the world will do; all options are open again, but maybe that is the point. Eren never meant to end the hatred, there’s no fighting the nature of humans. Erwin knew this already: mankind won’t stop fighting among themselves until there’s only one person left. 

Eren’s goal was to end the titan era, and at the cost of his own life and that of 80% of humanity, he succeeded. 

Learning that Eren, who held freedom in such high regards, was a slave to his own destiny all along was painful and ironic, but in a way he lives on as a bird, finally free, finally Vogel aus dem Käfig.

Thank you, Isayama.

#snk #aot #snk meta #eren yaeger #snk spoilers #snk 139 #snk 139 spoilers #mikasa ackerman #levi ackerman #eremika #shingeki no kyojin #attack on titan #aot 139 #long post

[graceloveswolves]

Insatiable Pt3

Okay so I wasn’t planning on making a part 3 originally but I just love this idea so much so here you guys go!

________________________

Today was the day.

I was standing with my mate Resmond. He had on a suit, and I had worn a red sparkly dress, it stopped above my knees and had a loose and open back, resting against my hips. Clara had picked it out for me, she always had such better taste in clothes then I have had.

“The venue is lovely, kind of a shame we didn’t have a huge wedding don’t you think?” Res had envied, looking around at the snow covered ground, the landscape was breath taking. I looked at the winter wonderland themed wedding, it looked like something out of a movie. Everything was perfectly placed, not a single flaw in the setting.

“No. Our wedding was perfect. It was special.” I disagreed, taking his hand and wrapping it around my shoulders. I stood on my tiptoes, and whispered against his ear.

“But if you want to redo our wedding night I have no complaints here.” I felt him stiffen as he looked down at me, raising his eyebrow with a surprised smirk plastered on his face. “That was very bold of you. Don’t tempt me love, Clara’s been dying to throw another wedding.” He replied, eyeing the curious blonde across the venue, that was talking to Irinia-one of the Denali sisters.

I smiled at the sight, she always was good at making new friends. I let my gaze wander, taking it the different crowds of vampires from around the world. Suddenly I stiffened, my icy heart dropping to the pit of my stomach. I felt as if I was going to puke, which wouldn’t be possible but none the less.

I had accidentally made eye contact with a familiar pixie that I would’ve known anywhere.

“Oh no.” I gasped, dropping my gaze to the ground beneath me as I saw her making her way towards me. Resmond had put two and two together, letting his arm fall from my shoulders and pushing me behind him.

“That’s close enough.” Resmond demanded, however not phasing Alice in the slightest. Then without a single beat, a familiar cowboy had made his presence near Alice.

“Jasper. Alice.” I stated their names, pulling Res back a few steps, as a signal that everything was okay. I felt unusually calm, no doubt in my mind that Jasper had been using his mojo on all of us. “This is my mate, Resmond. Res, this is Alice Cullen and Jasper Hale, they are from my old coven.” I introduced the pair, glad that the tension was slowly fading.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you.” Jasper had politely nodded towards Resmond, who seemed calm and collected now. “Well, Im going to find Clinton. He’s no doubt already in some sort of trouble. I’ll leave you to catch up with your friends. If you need me...” he trailed off, already knowing that I knew the drill.

“Yes, have fun.” I dismissed Resmond, he was not good at making new friends, and I didn’t expect him to want to get to know the family I had left behind. Once he was gone, I had looked at my old sister.

“Well...Aren’t you going to give me a hug?” Alice asked, opening her arms up to me. I smiled, practically jumping into her arms. I had felt such bliss, reuniting with Alice. She had always had such a bubbly and happy personality. Once I had broken from her grasp, I turned to Jasper, who also given me a quick but loving hug.

“How have you guys been? I’m sorry I have been such a stranger. It’s just with everything that happened with...” I couldn’t bring myself to say his name aloud. Thought I already knew I didn’t have to. “We have been good, we have been in Ithaca for awhile. Jasper’s enrolled as a philosophy student and Carlisle works nights.” Alice said, shocking me.

“You left Forks?” I questioned the short pixie in front of me, I wondered if that’s why Carlisle was looking for me. Maybe he didn’t want to leave me behind in case I had decided to come back. But why? They had such a perfect set up in Forks. They should be leaving until another few years. Then the realization had hit me, they must’ve gotten in trouble with the human, why else had they flee from a perfectly normal town.

“Yes. Edward hadn’t wanted to stay there anymore, so we left.” Jasper answered for his mate. I could practically roll my eyes, of course, Carlisle would have done anything for his precious Edward.

Carlisle.

My eyes widened, I turned to Alice, surely she’d seen me ask the questioned I had been dying to ask since I saw her. She looked at me with sympathy, nodding her head.

“Yes. He is here. Over by the river.” Alice responded to the question I hadn’t asked out loud. Suddenly music had started to play, to which I nodded in gratefulness as Jasper pulled her into the dance floor. I smiled at the couple as they started to dance. They had completed each other’s life, it made me happy that nothing has changed between them.

I then gazed over by the river that was a few hundred yards from the venue. There was a few vampires chatting at the tables that had been placed there, however my eyes fell on the one vampire sitting by himself. The blonde vampire was at the edge of the river farthest from the others, sitting in solitude. Or more like waiting. I bet Alice had seen this beforehand. Maybe she even planned it all herself. There was no telling when it came to her.

I was near the river in seconds, deciding to walk the next few yards. I felt the pit in my stomach grow bigger by each step I had taken, growing closer and closer to my creator. I didn’t dare to look up to see if he had taken notice in my figure, I already knew that he probably had. Instead I became very focused on the snow beneath me, watching as I left a shoe print with each step.

Part of me had wanted to turn around and go back to the dance floor, maybe dance with Resmond or Braxton. Chat with Clara, or even with my old siblings in the Cullen clan. But despite all of the anxiety and regret, deep down I had craved seeing Carlisle. I needed to have this talk to him, then I could finally move on. Then I could finally be happy with Resmond.

Once I had gotten to the edge of the river, I had sat down next to Carlisle. I didn’t look at him, I just took in his smell, which I haven’t smelt in over a year. Nor had I been this close to him since the falling out. It was quiet, we just sat and looked at the river in front of us, listening to it flow freely.

I could feel his stare burning into the side of my face. He had been waiting for me to speak, but I was still trying to find the right words to say. I grabbed a fist full of snow that had laid beside me.

Don’t be a coward.

“What a wonderful wedding, don’t you think?” I had finally spoken. Trying to break the silence, hopefully that didn’t sound as stupid as I thought it did. I had finally turned to face him, to which I was right, he had been staring at my face. He seemed somewhat mad when he had met my eyes.

“You never came back.” He responded, making me look back out into the river. He had not felt the need to beat around the bush apparently. Getting straight it the point I guess.

“I didnt see the need. You made it clear that I was never on your list of priorities Carlisle.” I tossed a chunk of snow in the water, watching the ripples fade away as the snow melted into the river.

“You were my very first creation Y/n, I spent the majority of my life with you, you were always one of my top priorities.” He defended himself.

“You certainly had a unique way of showing it. Tell me, what was the real reason you left Forks? Was it because of the human?” I pressed, my way of indirectly telling him I told you so.

“You were right. I am sorry I hadn’t listened to you the first time. But you did not have to disappear, I would have given you your space, you didn’t have to leave me wondering every day whether or not you were even alive.”

“You had Edward, you didn’t need me. And look, I’m still alive.” I gestured to myself, looking back at the man who I spend more then half my exsistence with. He had a pained look on his face, his eyes eyeing me up and down.

“Edward was not my first creation, I did not spend over 200 years with him alone. Did you know how much pain you put me in? I spend every day thinking of ways to get you back. You were mine, and I had lost you. You were the only one I did not worry about leaving, and you did.”

“Well I’m not yours anymore. You couldn’t appreciate what you had while you had it. I found someone else who does, every single night.” I rubbed in, snapping at him.

There was silence between us for a few moments. Carlisle looked like he was thinking, trying to find something to say to defend himself, but even he knew his errors in his treatment towards me. He had sighed, giving up.

“Are you happy?” He had asked me.

“Yes.”

I had responded immediately, I raised my left hand up, flashing him my wedding ring that Resmond had proposed to me.

“ Well I guess that’s all the matters.” Carlisle had said, he had a tint of sadness in his voice.

“What about Esme? Haven’t you two gotten married already?” I brought up his mate. He had refused any intentions of marrying her in the past, but I had secretly knew he loved her, he just didn’t want to upset me.

“We eloped, she is at home with Edward. She didn’t want to leave him, not in his state. He had taken it hard, leaving Bella behind.” Carlisle explained.

“Well, for what it’s worth, I’m sorry about that.” I had given my sorrows to him.

“Thank you.”

Once again we had been left in silence. I debated on saying something, but I had heard footprints behind us.

“Y/n my Love, would you like to dance?” I heard Resmond from behind me.

I looked back at Carlisle, who had smiled softly at me. “Well, I guess it’s finally time to let you live your life. Have a nice life Y/n, go be happy.” Carlisle had gestured to Resmond. I smiled, nodding back at him.

“You too Carlisle. Thank you, for giving me this life.” To which I gave him one last look, before turning around hand in hand with Resmond.

I had felt peace.

I knew deep down it wouldn’t be the last time I saw Carlisle, but I could finally let go of him. I could start my new life with Resmond, who I loved and he loved me back.

And that was all I needed.

#twilight vampires #carlisle cullen requests #carlisle cullen oneshots #carlisle cullen imagine #carlisle cullen x reader angst #carlisle cullen angst #carlisle cullen x reader #carlisle x reader #carlisle cullen #twilight x reader #twilight #twilight imagines

[ironwoman359]

Okay smart ass. How come you and the other big blogs aren't saying shit about the racism and other problematic things happening in the fandom? Specially when almost all of you were always ready to put your opinions on something as petty as fans criticizing Thomas for how he wears a skirt.

Well, I cannot speak for other ‘big blogs’ because, while I am friends with some of the people who run the blogs that you’re lumping into the ‘big’ cateogory, we are not a monolith. We don’t have a secret group chat where we all decide “today we shall talk about Thomas wearing a skirt and ignore racism on purpose.” I can offer speculation that perhaps more people quickly added their own two cents on the skirt thing because when compared to everything else that was going on in the world, both on tumblr and off it, it was such a simple thing to digest. Everyone was craving something simple at that time, so it was an easy, cathartic thing to jump in and say “hey, don’t be mean in people’s inboxes” and proceed to stop thinking about almost just as fast. Anyway, like I said, I can’t speak for other people, only for myself. So since you apparently want me to, I’ll speak for myself. 

“How come you and the other big blogs aren’t saying shit about the racism...”

I am white. It is not my place to speak over poc about racism. It is my place to reblog their posts, elevating their voices without commentary. That is something that I learned this year, and it is something I intend to continue to practice. I do recall making one post in early June, about not using the b/l.m tag on fanart posts, but after seeing several poc express that they wanted white people to talk less and listen more, I elected to make no more original posts about the subject and stick to reblogging without comment. If you’re looking for some good posts about racism in the sanders sides fandom, here are a few good ones. Though most of the posts about racism that make their way across my dash and subsequently onto my blog are less fandom focused and more broad. 

“...and other problematic things happening in the fandom?”

This is where I must repeat what I said the other day; this could relate to any NUMBER of things, and unless you are more specific I have no idea what you’re talking about. Are you talking about callouts for specific creators? There were two that happened over the summer that I know about, but A) again, those were about racism, so I chose not to muddle the conversation with my voice, and B) the works being discussed in those situations were works I was personally unfamiliar with, and thus did not feel like I had enough information to state an opinion publically (which again, as I understand it, would have been unneccessary additions to an issue I have no authority to speak on). 

So maybe you’re talking about the Twitter callouts, or the situation with the artists for the Storytime Madlibs video? Again, I felt as though I lacked sufficient need/information to make any statements about those issues. I have a twitter, but I barely use it, and don’t use it for the fander community at all. I had NO IDEA what any of that stuff people were talking about was, and still don’t, and since I don’t use Twitter and am not in that community, it seemed pointless to speak about. That is not to trivialize any hurt or harm that was caused or experienced during those events, just to say that I have nothing to do with them, which is why there’s nothing about it on my blog. (The joke I made about fandom twitter was supposed to be universal and relate to how all the twitter discourse these days seems to be a rehash of tumblr discourse from five years ago. Bad timing on my part I guess, oh well.) And, being 100% honest here, I don’t think I even watched the Storytime Madlibs video. If i did, I don’t remember much about it. I know that when it came out that the artists were underpaid, I reblogged one or two posts about how content creators should not be put on pedestals and are not perfect, but the rest of that situation was centered around the artists involved in that video, and since I was not one of them nor did I know any of them personally, it seemed like something that again, I shouldn’t bring up because I didn’t know anything about it. From what I understand, a solution is/was being worked out, but I haven’t heard anything recently. 

Or by ‘problematic things’ do you mean the existence of remrom, or unsympathetic sides, or how I’ve been in this fandom for over 3 years and our anon hate problem has never gone away, or the rampant purity culture, or the pervasive ageism, or literally a dozen other things, some of which are genuine issues and some of which are simply differing opinions being handled with all the grace of an elephant on roller skates? I’ve said it over and over again on this blog, but this fandom is not perfect. No fandom is perfect, but this one in particular has a reputation for being ‘pure’ and ‘wholesome’ for some reason; a reputation that it has never upheld by the way, because, shocker, fandoms are made of humans, and humans are not flawless porcelein dolls. We’re incredibly flawed creatures, and mistakes are inevitable. The sooner we all accept that and start treating our mistakes as an opportunity to learn and grow and do better next time instead of a signal that we were always worthless pieces of garbage that had no chance to do anything other than fuck up, the better off we’ll all be. 

And may I reiterate: look outside this website for a minute. There is SO MUCH going on in the world right now, every single one of us is utterly exhausted, we are suffering from a massive traumatic event, several massive traumatic events at once, actually, forgive me if my attention is spread a little thin at the moment. 

I’ll readily admit, there have been posts in the past several months that I’ve seen, read, and then not reblogged. Often this is because I feel as though the post that I am seeing does not have the full picture, and that it would be irresponsible to reblog only that part of the ‘discourse.’ And most of the time, I just don’t have the mental energy to go looking for the full story on whatever the Issue of the Week is. And I shouldn’t have to. Because at the end of the day, what I put on my own blog is my business, and no one else’s. There’s not some rule list that magically appears once you pass 1,000 followers that tells you what you must and must not do as a blogger. I am not required to weigh in on every little thing that happens in this fandom just because a lot of people in it follow me, and in fact, NO ONE is obligated to reblog something regardless of how many followers they have. If you are dissatisfied with the posts I make and/or reblog, you’re welcome to unfollow, there’s no rule that says you have to stay. But my energy is so limited these days, and I’m not going to devote what little free time and headspace I have to figuring out the ‘Correct’ take on fandom discourse.

I’d like to end by once again reiterating what many have said beffore, that racism is not the same thing as fandom discourse. It is always my goal to not speak over the voices of poc, and if in this post I have done that in any way, I’d like to apologize. Poc are welcome to DM me so that we can discuss it in any such instance, whether on this post or any other from the past or that comes up in the future. I am still working on unlearning racism, and know I am likely to make many more missteps on that journey. Stay safe out there everyone. 

#taylor talks #fanders #fandom discourse #racism tw #longpost #ask to tag #asks and answers

[aomineavenue]

Homesick (Miya Atsumu x f!Reader) | 006. dinner disaster

Summary: Six years ago, L/N Y/N wouldn’t exactly say that she loves her life. It had always been problematic but her best friend, Miya Atsumu, since she was eight when she moved to Hyōgo, has always been there for her, and she wouldn’t change it for the world. However, things would always fall apart for her ever since, so she should have expected of such. Running away from her problems seemed like the easiest route to take at the time, so what happens when the past comes barging back into her life demanding answers? Will she be able to confront her demons?

Pairings: Miya Atsumu x f!Reader

Updates: irregular.

Genre: Angst, ANGST I LOVE ANGST, a lil bit of fluff here and there.

Warnings: Language, etc. (Will be mentioned once posted because I don’t want spoilers huehue)

Disclaimer: I do not own any characters except for the reader and my ideas. I do not claim any images used for content in this fic, everything goes out to their respective creators unless it is mentioned that it is mine.

Status: ongoing. | series masterlist

↩ confessions | dinner disaster | realizations  ↪

mia’s note(s): 

can you find the easter eggs in here? 

i am sorry, i am not very fond of this chapter lmao i told you guys im bad at writing that isn’t angst man 

i hope you guys enjoy anyway, lemme know what you guys think!! and tell me if you find the easter eggs mwa mwa

You nod eagerly as you shut the menu in your grip, completely ignoring Reiji’s protests from beside you as the rest of the individuals seated around the table either watch in amusement or curiosity. “I believe there is always a three special course meal that changes every day according to the chef, we’d absolutely love that.”

At the sight of Reiji’s features scrunched up in horror, you inwardly squealed in victory. 

Years have flown by, you’re both practically strangers at this point. Yes, strangers. Just two strangers who know every shameful secret, every hidden freckle, and even every fatal flaw in each other. Who were you kidding anyway? Six years have gone by just like that, but you knew it yourself, deep down that you still strongly cared for the man that now stood before you, his eyes the only thing you could focus on, not even the soft chatter of the other guests or the soft instrumental melody produced by the restaurant’s speakers could capture your attention and disrupt your thoughts. Mesmerized, that is what you are. What even. 

It has been six years and to this day, he still completely steals your breath away. 

Not that it should surprise you or anything. Despite everything, how he had hurt you back when you were both 17 and in your second year in senior high school back in 2013, or the hurtful words that spilled from his mouth from the running emotions that day back at the sports complex when the truth revealed itself, you couldn’t bring yourself to hate him or even be angry. You’ve thought of this a billion times since you left Hyōgo. You have imagined a billion scenarios, trying your best to prepare yourself because you knew. You knew that it was inevitable to stay hidden, to keep your secret hidden. A part of you always knew you were going to meet him again. Not that your reunion was delightful or anything. It was nowhere near such. No matter how many scenarios you created in your head, it had not been enough for you to prepare for any form of response. 

You hadn’t realized it at first when you had met him on that day because of the emotions running high through your veins, but now, standing in front of him, your eyes drank him up completely. Of course, you notice the differences from six years ago. It wasn’t as if he was going to stay how he had been back then, nor was it difficult to notice the changes from the boy you used to adore. Looking at him now, it was clear as day that he had grown up from the charming boy next door to a breathtaking man that you can’t seem to tear your gaze away. 

As your name rolls off of his tongue, you snap out of your trance, blinking a couple of times. Thankfully, you suppressed your emotions quick enough from allowing the warmth that wanted to creep across your cheeks. God, how embarrassing. Did he notice you were practically devouring him with your eyes? Hopefully not. 

However, despite his handsome features, you are suddenly reminded of the last conversation that the two of you shared and it was enough for you to push your mushy thoughts to the very back of your head. Ah, right. You remembered now, before being distracted by Atsumu’s ridiculously handsome face, you were going to give Asuma and Reiji a good smack. If only you had known of this setup, you would have never agreed. Jumping back to reality, you were about to take a step back, wanting to leave the premises, only to be held back by Reiji, gripping onto your arm to stop you. 

You were cut off from your protests, Reiji moving closer to whisper in your ear with the all too familiar tone he uses on you during arguments. Before he could even finish his sentence, you already knew that the excuses you have in mind were no use. There was no room for negotiations. “Stop being stubborn and sit down. Do this for your kids. It’s not like it’s a date or anything.” 

Grumbling underneath your breath at how much of an ass he was, he only replies with a chuckle as he releases his grip on your arm, neither of you realizing the green-eyed monster’s gaze that followed the whole interaction. The two of your friends took their seats, greeting the rest of the party, while you’re left standing there before Atsumu. As you stood there face to face, you didn’t realize the two occupants around the table sharing hushed whispers amongst each other, berating each other for bringing other people along. Meeting his gaze once more, you give him a small nod, “Atsumu. Shall we then?” 

He nods, his voice cracking slightly because of his nerves, “Yeah.” 

However, as you turn to greet the rest of the party, you feel your shoulders grow tense at the realization of what your two friends did once again. They had occupied seats around the table, leaving the only available seats next to each other for you and Atsumu. If it’s one thing you hated, it was when your friends become the meddling monkeys that they are. 

Not wanting to cause a scene, you inwardly groan and occupy the seat next to Reiji, leaving the seat next to you for Atsumu. In spite of your irritation, you find yourself flashing a half-hearted smile at the three across from you. 

“Hi!” the one in the middle greets you happily with an enormous smile plastered across his face, “I’m Hinata, it’s nice to meet you.” He extends his arm across the table, holding out his hand for you to shake, which you gladly take. 

“Nice to meet you too,” you respond with a nod of your head as you release your grip from his hand, just in time to retrieve the menu that the waiter had passed throughout the group. Flipping it open, you avoid the glances from Bokuto and Osamu, who looked as if they were itching an interaction from you, but because of your irritation, you definitely didn’t want to talk to them just yet, they probably had helped your friends in setting this up. “So Hinata-san, I’m assuming you're Bokuto’s teammate?” you ask before tearing your gaze away from his to examine the menu in your hands. You don’t notice the frown that briefly appeared on Atsumu’s lips. 

“Oh, Hinata’s just fine!” he waves his hand with a laugh, “Yes, I’m Bokuto and Atsumu’s teammate. We actually wanted to bring our friend Sakusa here too, but he said he has an emergency at some hospital.” 

"Hmm…" you hum, letting your eyes scan the menu, thinking you might as well enjoy the food, "Oh, I hope everything is okay with your friend Sakusa and it’s nothing too serious, but now that we're here, might as well enjoy and run Rei's wallet dry. Right, Rei?"

You tilt your head a bit, glancing over at Reiji from the corner of your eye with a sly smirk forming on your lips. Ah, the man could only let out a nervous chuckle, knowing full well what you were planning as he recalls a similar scenario a few months back in the very same restaurant that put a dent to his savings because of the ridiculous price of the meals you had ordered that night. Not tearing your gaze away from your best friend, you call for the waiter's attention, who quickly responds by walking over and pulling out his tiny notepad to jot down your table's order. 

"Hello, I'm Daiki and I'll be your waiter for the night." He greets with a friendly smile, not realizing the awkward atmosphere among the group, "What will we be having?" 

Clicking your tongue against the roof of your mouth, you give Reiji an innocent grin before turning your gaze over to the waiter to return his smile with your own, "Hello, Daiki. You see, my friends here aren't really sure what to order, but I told them not to worry since I've been here so many times, so I'll be ordering for everyone!" 

"Excellent, ma'am!" He nods his head, matching your enthusiasm.

You nod eagerly as you shut the menu in your grip, completely ignoring Reiji’s protests from beside you as the rest of the individuals seated around the table either watch in amusement or curiosity. “I believe there is always a three special course meal that changes every day according to the chef, we’d absolutely love that.” 

At the sight of Reiji’s features scrunched up in horror, you inwardly squealed in victory. 

It was going to be a long night.

Mayuzumi Asuma and Suwa Reiji were now considered dead.

To you, at least. And somehow, you knew that, despite them avoiding meeting your gaze alongside with the other three across from you who freely interacted with each other, they themselves knew what they were getting themselves into. They were digging their graves for this stunt they have pulled. 

You’d got to give Reiji credit, though. Despite pushing his buttons by ordering everyone the high priced three course meal, he wasn’t his usually squirmy and irritating self. You had at least expected sharing a heated argument with him after such a display, but instead of giving in, he continued to pursue his plan with the others. 

Oh, they think they were so slick, as if you hadn’t caught on with their little plan. Not a date, they say. It might as well be one, since they’re bluntly ignoring your attempts to converse with them. All was missing was some privacy. At first you hadn’t thought about it when you had tried to share a conversation with Hinata, it was only right for you to get to know someone; you were just being nice. However, before Hinata could respond to your question, Bokuto had dragged him into a conversation about volleyball. You brushed it aside, not thinking anything rude of it, as you knew Bokuto would often speak with anyone out of the blue. It was just how he is. 

You hadn’t even thought about it the second time around when this time; you tried conversing with Osamu, wanting to know about how his business is going so far. Except, the conversation between you and Osamu never happened due to the fact that Asuma had cut you off mid-sentence, engaging the man in a ridiculous conversation about healthy diets. Like, what the heck was that all about? Asuma and healthy diets just don’t sit well with you. Nevertheless, you brushed it aside, shifting your attention to the first course meal of the night that had been placed before you. 

They think they were so smart, trying to pull it off. Ah, but no. You had caught on with their little plan the third time around when you tried to join in Bokuto and Hinata’s conversation. You were instantly shot down by Reiji, shifting the conversation to another topic that only they could understand. 

They were dead men. All of them. 

Placing your chopsticks down, you turn your head towards Reiji’s direction with a false innocent smile curling upon your lips. “Reiji, dear.” 

Ah there it was, catching the nervous bob of his Adam’s apple in this throat with your gaze. "Yeah?"

"I hope you know—” 

Hinata cuts you off by standing up abruptly from his seat, waving frantically towards someone’s direction, “Ushijima-san!” 

You blink before turning your head to look at whoever Hinata was waving to, catching a glimpse of a tall, muscular man nodding towards Hinata’s direction in greeting, a woman trailing close behind him. Not wanting to be rude, you return to your previous position to face Hinata that was seated across from you, “Was that the Ushijima Wakatoshi?” 

Hinata nods as he sits back down, a huge smile on his face. “Yeah, I’m sure you know about him.” 

“I suppose,” you lift your shoulders up in a shrug as you pick up your chopsticks once more, completely forgetting to reprimand Reiji’s actions much to his relief, “I was volleyball manager back then in high school, so I would know a few things, including some players.” 

“Where did you go to school?” Hinata asks, tilting his head a bit as he looks at you curiously. You wonder, briefly, had Atsumu not mentioned you at all since the incident at the sports complex? Weird. 

As you were about to reply, the man seated on your left answers for you. “She went to the same school as me, Shouyou-kun. She was our manager.” 

Hinata stares at you for a second, blinking a couple of times before realization hits him, his eyes widening, “I remember you now! You were that pretty manager!” 

The men around the table chokes and sputters their food, causing you to scrunch up your nose in disgust. Atsumu is first to respond after clearing his throat, “What? I mean, yeah. She was our pretty manager.”  

“I remember her because it was the first time I saw Tsukishima look stupid over a girl,” Hinata chuckles, shaking his head. “But, how come I only saw you once? Were you a third year at the time?” 

Suddenly, the tension was back in the air. You catch from the corner of your eye, Atsumu growing tense from Hinata’s question, and you had to fight the urge to show your own emotions. Everyone else was silent, probably waiting for you or Atsumu to answer. “Ah, I left high school towards the end of our second year, and moved to Kanagawa. I had my hands full at the time, so I didn’t return to high school.” 

“But wh—” Hinata gets cut off by his own yelp, making you raise a brow in confusion. He turns his head towards Osamu’s direction, wincing slightly, “Osamu-san!” 

Osamu lets out a laugh, not looking anywhere near apologetic. “Ah, sorry buddy. I was reaching over Bokuto but you were in the way.” 

An awkward atmosphere engulfs around the table once more. This dinner was certainly not going according to Osamu and Reiji’s plan. Opting to avoid the awkward glances from the other individuals, you turn your attention over to focus on your food while Osamu and Reiji were sending glares towards each other once they realized your attention elsewhere. The two had talked with Atsumu earlier, devising a plan for the two of you to talk things through. Originally, Osamu suggested that the dinner should be just you and Atsumu, but Reiji declined such an idea because of two reasons. First, you would completely decline yourself to go to a dinner and leave Atsuhiro in the hospital despite your mother being present, Reiji knew you too well that the idea of dinner at a fancy restaurant without your sons was a big no. That is, unless a friend of yours were to force you by dragging you to the restaurant. And second, if you were to be left with Atsumu alone, Reiji fears that you would leave almost immediately. 

And he was right for both. If he hadn’t dragged you here himself, you wouldn’t have bothered to go. And if he hadn’t stopped you earlier, you would have ran out the moment you saw Atsumu. However, they hadn’t expected this. Reiji hadn’t expected Osamu to bring two other people, while Osamu hadn’t expected that Reiji was going to bring someone else along. Yes, it was a disaster. 

Reiji had opted to bring Asuma along, because he knew you were going to be suspicious if it were just the two of you going for dinner. You would have accused him of coddling you like a child, it was something he would do now and then when he wanted you to release all the emotions you had kept bottled up. It’s not that you didn’t appreciate him for it, he just knows that if he did such a thing during such an emotional time, you would push him away when Reiji wanted to speed things along. As much as Reiji disliked the father of his favorite twins, he wasn’t going to deprive the little boys any longer of the chance of finally getting to know their father. If he was going to force everything on you, he would do it. He, too, has grown tired of your decisions of run away. 

Osamu on the other hand, only decided to accompany his brother himself but as he and his brother were leaving the apartment, the other two barged out of Bokuto’s room claiming to be starving from the lack of food the past couple of hours because of some intense gaming session on the PlayStation 4 that Bokuto brought along with. Not being quick on their feet, the twins had blurted out they were going out to eat. They unfortunately could not decline the two balls of sunshine. 

Clearing his throat, hoping to shift the tension in the air. “Anyway,” Osamu starts before tearing his glaring gaze away from Reiji over to where Ushijima was seated across the room, “Who is that girl Ushijima is with?” 

“She kinda looks familiar,” Bokuto hums, placing his chopsticks down after finishing his first course meal, shifting his gaze over to Ushijima’s table. 

“That’s the heiress of the Akita Empire,” Asuma answers, “Pretty woman, she is. I didn’t know she was dating anyone.” 

Hinata lets out a gasp of excitement, his eyes going wide. “I wonder if Ushijima-san is really dating her!” 

“Maybe you can ask him at the party…” Bokuto suggests while the rest of his words are drowned out by you, growing bored with the night as you wonder when you can possibly leave. 

Despite drowning out the conversation around the table and focusing on the food, Atsumu pulls you in with his voice from the side, “Hey, I’m sorry about this. I told Osamu and Reiji it was a bad idea from the start.” 

Ah, so it was those two who had planned the whole thing out. You let out a sigh, turning your head to face him to answer, your voice low to keep the others out of the conversation, “There’s nothing that we can do now.” 

“Would you have preferred that it was just the two of us?” he asks, hope laced in his voice. 

Lightly nibbling on your bottom lip, you tear your gaze away from him. Did you? You actually wanted to talk to Atsumu after having the talk with your sons. You were going to express your disappointment towards Reiji and his plan full of flaws. Had they planned this for the two of you to talk? If so, this was stupid to begin with. Something so serious between the two of you and Atsumu should be discussed within private walls, and this was nowhere near private. So maybe, yes. Perhaps, if the two were you alone, then it would have been better. “I guess,” you finally admit, “Maybe the two of us can talk things through properly when this is over. I think it’s time. For now, I hope you can accept my apologies.” 

“And I hope you accept m—” 

Hinata’s loud voice booms excitedly, “Oh remember that party!” 

The two of you snap your attention over to Hinata, the disappointment clear in your features for the disruption. What were they talking about? However, curiosity gets the best of you and you entertain him anyway. “What party?” 

“The Christmas party last year!” Hinata announces with a chuckle, “At first, I was thinking why Reiji-san and Asuma-san here look so familiar then I remember I attended the party with Bo-kun and the others!” As if on cue, the moment those words left Hinata’s mouth, Atsumu and Bokuto visually stiffened, causing you to grow more curious. 

“Ah, that party.” you let out a laugh, nudging Reiji with your elbow, “He’s talking about your all-time favorite party.” 

A scowl makes its way to Reiji’s features, “Please, do not remind me of that horrendous party. I had to move rooms just because of that, and I replaced the mattress too.” 

“You’re so dramatic,” you drawled, laughing along with Asuma as you remember Reiji going crazy the next day after the party. “Just because your guests did the dirty on your bed—” Reiji cuts you off by pinching your side, which causes you to let out a yelp in both pain and surprise.

Osamu interjects with a grin, “Actually, I have a feeling that Sakusa would have died hearing such information. But I would be pissed off too, Reiji. That’s nasty. I would have moved out the whole place entirely.” 

“Right?” Reiji exclaims by throwing his hands in the air, “I couldn’t step inside the room without wanting to poke my eyes out.” 

“That’s why we no longer let Atsumu drink too much because he’ll probably do that again,” Hinata adds, laughing along. 

Once again, silence. 

“Wait, what?” Reiji asks, the first to break the silence. “That was you?” 

Bokuto smacks Hinata’s head before looking away awkwardly. Hinata, on the other hand, takes a minute to realize his mistake before flickering his gaze back and forth from Atsumu over to you, waiting for his mistake to backfire in his face. The rest of the individuals around the table turn their attention over to Atsumu, waiting for his response. 

You were the first to defend him, letting out a laugh. “Okay, enough of this. Let’s leave the past in the past. Let’s not make things awkward, it’s not like Atsumu and I are dating or anything,” 

“Tsumtsum!” a squeal echoes throughout the restaurant and all you could think now was “What now?” 

#atsumu x reader #atsumu miya x reader #atsumu imagine #atsumu imagines #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu x you #haikyuu imagine #haikyuu imagines #hq #hq x reader #hq imagine #hq imagines #homesick

[petracore101]

Hello lovely friends and followers...

I’ll just out with it- I am not going to be posting RWBY content anymore. I don’t think I’ll keep watching at all, honestly. I’ll try to discuss why below, but regardless, I will still be around, just not for RWBY. And if you’re feeling rough about all this too, and want a sympathetic ear to talk through things with, please reach out. My inbox is open. <3

tldr; It feels like the heart of the show, the depth and nuance I have always loved about it, is just... gone.

It’s not a new feeling; those of you who have been following me awhile know I felt largely the same after V7. The journey was skipped to get to the destination. At the time, I had hoped it was just a product of circumstance- of taking on new writers, switching up the way they did things, and trying to juggle so many new characters... but this volume has solidified for me that it’s not a temporary shift. This is the new normal.

And that does hurt, because RWBY has been a big part of my life for... well, about 8 years now. I was drawn in the moment the red trailer dropped, and only grew more invested from there. Since the very beginning, I’ve watched the show and it’s characters grow with its creators, and been able to grow alongside them. Even when I had to take a break from the FNDM circa V5 (because the discourse around the Faunus arc got... unpleasant), I kept watching and engaging with those I could trust, because RWBY remained important to me. I’ve loved v1-6 dearly, despite their flaws, because the emotional core of the show has always shone through. And the belief in that core is what’s kept me here so long. But now the story just feels... gutted. And as much as it breaks my heart, I don’t think it can come back from that.

For two volumes now, I’ve felt as though the story has been rushing through the plot points without consideration for characters or their growth, while leaning heavily on shock value to make up for the lack of emotional depth. It’s become almost entirely a plot-centered narrative, leaving its intense character moments detached from or outright opposed to those character’s arcs. And because of this, it has relied on stunning the audience with increasingly brutal and sudden reveals, while skimming over or outright ignoring opportunities for nuance and emotional complexity. It feels desperate, using the characters’ pain for cheap emotional jabs rather than actually engaging with that pain or it’s consequences. And that results in it seeming to play the core character tropes straight rather than taking the time to subvert them in any meaningful way, because doing so would require engaging with their emotions beyond a surface level. For me, that engagement, that depth, that subversion, has always been a crucial part of the show, and the foundation of its story. It’s the hook that grabbed me in the first place, way back when I first heard Monty discussing the idea behind the new project he and his friends were undertaking. But now, all the narratives I have been invested in just ring hollow, as if they’re dolls imitating past movements, without any of the soul that first gave them meaning. The story isn’t about the journey, it’s just a collection of the major events that define it, with nothing deep connecting them. Gone too is the persistent hopepunk feel of the first 6 volumes- the quiet moments of hope and self reflection replaced instead with a breakneck sprint through an increasingly tone deaf plot. Everything that kept me engaged, kept me invested is just... not there anymore. It hasn’t been for two volumes. And this finale was the final nail in the coffin.

I do want to make it clear that I don’t say any of this to turn anyone off the show- I’m glad for those who still enjoy it, and I truly hope you continue to do so. Maybe you disagree with me completely, or perhaps this new normal is exactly what you’re looking for. I’m certainly not going to judge anyone for that. And even if it’s not what you want it to be, you may just want to keep enjoying it casually, or are simply not ready to let go of something that means so much to you. I don’t want to imply I have any kind of problem with that either. Because truly, I hope everyone still watching enjoys whatever they have in store. I just know that I... can’t.

And as much as it hurts to say goodbye, I also know that clinging to what feels like a shell of the show I’ve fell in love with 8 years ago would only ruin my enjoyment of the parts I do love. For me, RWBY ended at V6. We said goodbye to those we lost, resolved to carry on with their memory bolstering our spirits. Then, with that beautiful send off, started a new chapter... and that’s where I want to leave it.

So goodbye, RWBY.

I’ll remember you fondly.

#I know I’m avoiding details... it’s intentional :/ #I’ve just seen this kind of FNDM reaction before- it’s what made me step away the first time #that time it was the reaction to criticism of the faunus arc... #and I really desperately do not want to relive that #emotions are running so high.. and I don’t want to add fuel to that with a step by step breakdown of everything I haven’t liked #nor do I really want to argue those points; that’s likely to just be painful for everyone #and that’s not what I want from this... #everyone’s already raw... and ​I can see people starting to tear each other apart even more over these disagreements... #I won’t be part of that... it already hurts just watching it. #but if you do just want to talk... message me #I love y’all... and I might not be here for the show but I’m damn sure gonna be here for you. #i suppose i should tag this #rwde #as well.. for anyone blocking that tag #aaand a couple more.. #rwby crit #discourse