#and dev is just like. a total fucking dork

[spiralstatic29]

main squad but make them so high school !!

[silver-wield]

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

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

Ok let's do this then.

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

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

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

Other analyses if anyone’s interested.

Shinra HQ vision scene (Cloti/plot analysis) 

Chapter 3 (Cloti reblog) 

Tifa character analysis 

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

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

Clotiscrew tunnel analysis 

Cloti reunion analysis 

The Promise Analysis 

Andrea’s approval (Cloti ask response) 

Leslie analysis (not mine, but a good read) 

Cloti action touching 

Aerti friendship analysis 

Cloti body language chapter 3 

Cloti healthy disagreement 

Cloti post heliboss battle (chapter 15) 

Clerith playground scene 

Cloti body language plate fall 

Cloud and Barret friendship 

Now, strap in and enjoy the ride.

Recap time!

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

Elmyra asks they sleep on it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Quick lesson on intonation.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Do I get a say in all this?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Conclusion

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

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

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

[normieexclusive]

This is just me daydreaming since the guys rough drafts came out but like...

A situation where MC goes back to the human realm after their time in devildom is up, and they really do miss the guys but they still need to do their human thing because life dosnt stop for a human that misses their demons! Besides, they know those dorks will find a way to them eventually (Or eventually they’ll find a way to them)

But then one day they go to meet a bunch of cousins (For reasons i have no idea about) and they come to this big ass house and--

-- and holy-effin-shit who the fuck is this slightly fluffy haired guy that reminds her too much of the first born??? And then this guy that had to be mammon hovering over him like a worried parent and what the hell-- what the hellllllll.

And then they meet the other five and they have no idea whats going on but they all remind them so much of the brothers from Devildom that something had to be at play?? There’s no Diavolo to go to, no one but them that seems to know about their time in hell but theyre bent on getting to the bottom of this! And also ready for another round of “Solve the family probs”

(Which.... actually is a lot easier this time around. As humans they all seem a little less defiant around MC and... less hellbent on tearing MC apart)

Also I know Im veering a little bit from the devs on this one but like... It would interesting to make human Lucifer a kind of sickly guy, partly because it messes with the dynamic a little bit (With Human!Luci unable to handle stress or handwork too much- though he does try- last he fall ill then H!Mammon would probably take up a lot of the big brother role. Considering he is with MC i can only image how protective he would be of a brother who he feels like is practically at deaths door, although things are a lot more chaotic considering H!Mammons trying but also not exactly suited for a parental role. H!Satan might still hate him but for totally different reasons, like how H!Luci seemed to get more attention when they were younger and H!Satan got jealous very quickly- which resulted in bouts of constant anger to get attention. Because of his brothers sickly state though all he can do is seeth with an anger just . H!Beel with some issues with food that might translate into an ED, A Depressed H!Belphi that feels like hes in the wrong body- the wrong place- and knows theres something more going on but has no idea what.)

Brothers that go out without telling anyone, that do things and get into trouble constantly and only make H!Luci worry more. None of them are aware of the stress they put on him until MC finally snaps them out of it and suddenly it just clicks that, before, they were all working as seven separate entities instead of as a family and they start to slowly work to become closer.

The kicker is... They’re actually are MCs cousins. Like you know how sometimes the gene pool makes it so that kids end up being almost perfect copies of their parents. Since the sins are technically.... very distantly related to MC that must mean their cousins are too. And just... You know... the gene pool made it so that these assholes just all happened to be mis-mash of the seven sins. (I really only want this because the meeting that ensues would be funny as hell)

[silver-wield]

Honestly? I will never ever get what Cler!ths have against Zack/Zerith. The guy loves and treasures her; they're so damn cute together; they actually spent quality time together, so their relationship is believable; A in the remake is clearly not over him; and he's available (as in she won't be trying to steal him from someone else). What's to hate about all this? A will surely be happy with Zack, so if you love her, wouldn't you want that for her? 1/3

But I guess it was never about her happiness, huh? I know they must think CloTis just root for Zerith to get rid of A, but to me it’s not about that. After all, before Zack came into the picture, I couldn’t care less about A since I hated her in the OG. But I liked the way she was with Zack in CC. And now with Remake!A that I don’t feel so strongly about as in the OG, I want her to be happy too. 2/3

Also, at least our side is decent enough to not shove A with someone she has 0 chemistry with (hint hint Barret x Tifa). Having CloTi and Zerith as the canon couples is the best thing that can happen to those characters. No one gets left out, and all of them win and are with the person they love and is suited for them. But hey, maybe it’s just me. 3/3

Because he’s canon and ruining their fanon lol That’s pretty much the whole reason they hate him. I was watching the entire gameplay of Crisis Core yesterday because of a thing nagging me about Cloud where I heard he and Zack did some kind of claw arm minigame and that’s why Cloud was upset during the collapsed expressway bit, but I didn’t find it because the reason Cloud’s upset is different, but still because of Zack.

But, at least I got to see a whole lot of parallels between Cloti and Zerith. And these aren’t just FF7 to FFCC, no, these are parallels going from CC to 7R meaning the devs looked over CC, picked out these scenes or lines and then deliberately inserted them into Remake so that we’d see the couple parallels between the two. Because that’s how canon works. They associate the couples to each other so that people see and understand this is how it’s gonna be. 

But some people are just dumb and keep sticking their fingers in their ears and putting blinders over their eyes. They don’t wanna see and hear the truth and then get butthurt and crazy at everyone who can. Because they wanna be the blind leading the blind. Only, we’re not blind and don’t wanna be. 

Aerith definitely has very low interest in Cloud. I mean, she literally brushed off being concerned about him during the drum after she saw him go off at Sephiroth. She didn’t care. Red and Barret asked if Cloud was ok and Tifa said she was really worried about him, and what was Aerith’s reaction?

“True, but it’s Cloud—I’m sure he’ll be fine.”

That’s after literally seeing Cloud freak tf out the last time she saw him. Aerith doesn’t care about him. Not like that. Seems he’s more like a useful tool for her to battle Sephiroth with if I’m being honest.

I’d feel sorry for these people, but they’re just so nasty I can’t bring myself to. They spent years dragging Tifa: her appearance, her clothes, personality fucking everything. There wasn’t one single thing about her they haven’t tried to destroy just to prove how much better than her Aerith is. This is a character that Nomura designed to be Cloud’s ideal woman. Even if they’d never got together and just mutually pined for each other forever like the absolute dorks they are, do these people really think that treating Tifa like this would make Nomura want to be kind to them? Do they think scrubbing out the canon story is respectful to Nojima? To any of them? They’ve worked on FF7 for 23+ years. These trolls might have loved the game for that long, but this is their work. Something they love even more than anyone else does. Nojima kept coming back to Cloud over and over because he had such a deep connection to him. He has NPCs talk about Cloud like a relative in game (yeah because Johnny’s dad is totally a message from Nojima to Cloud about how he feels like he’s family and he’s sad to say goodbye to him) and people are shitting all over it. 

These morons better get their attitudes sorted because no matter how much they cry and scream and complain the story is still Cloti and Zerith and always was.