#but IT’S A CRAZY LESSON TO HAVE TO LEARN WHEN SO MANY CONDITIONS WERE NOT WORKING IN YOUR FAVOR

[obstinaterixatrix]

spent an hour calling an ex-coworker to be like HEY YOU WERE GOING THROUGH SOMETHING CRAZY!!!! THIS IS CRAZY!!!!!!

[chahnniesroom]

no place like home

pairing: none (platonic ot8 & reader)

summary: when you start to feel unwell, you're determined to continue on as normal. as your condition worsens, you try your best to pretend everything is fine, but your body has other plans.

word count: 6.2k

tags/warnings: 9th member au, illness, gagging/throwing up, hospitalisation, angst

a/n: this is the last of the 9th member au fics that i have planned! wanted to do a classic sick fic. as always, thanks to @kangaracha for motivating me and mostly just listening to me complain. if you haven't already, please go read queenmaker. also, i finished this super last minute and have not proofread this at all.

where the heart is collection | read it on ao3 | masterlist

As a trainee, one of your favourite places was the dorms.

It was always a relief getting back to your room at the end of a long day, even if it was shared with five other girls, because it was one of the few places that you weren’t being monitored as closely. When you had first joined JYPE, your first friends were your roommates and it had been incredibly difficult to see them move out, whether it be because they left the company or debuted.

It was hard to continually watch people come and go and you no longer automatically befriended everybody who joined the dorm. You remained polite, tried to help them out if you could, but you had learned that keeping to yourself was the safest option - it made it easier when they inevitably left you.

When you debut as a member of Stray Kids, you're not exactly surprised that they keep you in the dorms, but the change in atmosphere means that you do everything in your power to avoid spending time there. It helps that your schedule is crazy enough that you barely get any time to rest, let alone have free time.

Your roommates had been excited for you to debut, but it hadn’t taken long until their jealousy took over. You’re not surprised, you knew all too well how bittersweet it was to see someone else in a position that you had hoped to have.

It starts small, you’re pretty forgetful and not the most organized person in the world, but you know it's not a coincidence when your favourite skincare products, newest makeup, or nicest jewelry started going missing. 

The other girls weren't considerate about your schedule since you no longer had lessons, went to the company, ate, or slept at the same time as them. Even when they knew you had important schedules the next day, they were loud when you were trying to sleep and complained if you accidentally woke them up when leaving early.

Gradually, they started to get more bold, critiquing you when they knew you were in the room or pretending to accidentally break your things, even if it was obvious that it was on purpose. 

You didn't tell anybody about it, even if you knew that you should. But as much as you resented the situation, you were pretty sure that for as long as you lived in the trainee dorms, complaining wouldn't do anything but make things worse. If this was the price to being an idol, you were more than happy to pay it.

But when JYPE offered you your own place, you said yes almost as fast as when they had asked you about joining Stray Kids. It's a no brainer, you don't even have to share with any of the boys.

It's only when you got the keys and saw your new home for the first time that you realised why they've given it to you so freely.

The room is so small that it astonished you. You're pretty sure that it must have been lived in by a junior staff member or something because it's similar to a gosiwon. It just barely fits a bed, tiny bathroom, and a counter space that doubles as a desk and kitchen area.

You’re lucky that you don’t have many personal belongings so that you don’t have any trouble moving from the dorm to your new place on your own. You knew the boys would offer in a heartbeat to help you carry things, but you didn’t want them to.

In fact, even months after your move, you still haven’t let them visit, although not for a lack of trying on their part. It wasn't that you were ashamed, you just knew they wouldn't understand that you were satisfied with the space that you had. And that you were pretty sure that there wouldn't be enough space for all 9 of you, let alone spaces to sit.

You learned quickly that the walls and floors are paper thin which means that it’s freezing in the winter, boiling in the summer, and there’s no proper ventilation so it’s stuffy all the time. Not only that, but you can hear all too easily that your neighbours are up at all hours of the day and when the people living above you shower for longer than 10 minutes, water starts to drip down into your unit. You have a bowl and towel permanently placed under the place that leaks the most, located easily because it’s marked by rings of discolouration where your ceiling is stained from the water damage.

Still, you didn't complain because you still considered it better than the trainee dorms, which is exactly where they would probably ship you back to if you showed that you were ungrateful. 

Most of all, you’re happy to have a place all to yourself where you don’t have to worry about pretending to be a perfect idol. You’re free to decorate as you please, buy snacks that you know definitely do not follow your diet plan, and for the first time in your life, you feel like you have a little bit of independence.

—

Maybe it's just that time of the year. You’re not sure if it’s the lack of sunlight, longer nights, busyness of your schedules or all three, but you feel yourself starting to get worn down.

It's a number of little things, minor health problems that can be easily disregarded. It's when you start to dread dance practices, usually your favourite part of preparing for comebacks, that you really notice something might be wrong.

As a trainee, you never had trouble remembering choreography, in fact that was what you were best known for, but this comeback you’ve been forgetting steps left and right. When you start to struggle with songs that you’ve been performing since debut, you get a bit worried. You haven’t drastically changed anything in your routine or diet that would explain these difficulties.

Add that to the fact that you can feel tension slowly building in your head, signalling that you're starting to develop a migraine, your concentration starts to slip even more.

“Hey,” Minho calls gently, pulling you off to the side when the group has a water break. “Is everything okay?”

“What? Yeah, of course I’m fine,” you say unconvincingly. You’ve seen the group’s schedule for the next few weeks and you know that you can’t afford to skip out on the little practice time that you have.

“I can tell you’re in some sort of pain,” he says. “What’s bothering you?”

“I’m getting a bit of a headache,” you admit. Minho’s brow furrows as you continue speaking. “And I don’t know, I just feel more clumsy than usual. But it’s not that big of a deal-”

“That doesn’t sound good, Y/nnie,” he says.

“It’s okay, let’s just get through this practice, then I’ll go home and get some rest.”

“Y/n-ah,” he warns you.

“Really, oppa. I don't have any lessons after this, I'll go straight home,” you promise.

“Message me a picture the second you get back, okay?”

“Fine,” you say, rolling your eyes even though it just makes your headache even worse.

Somehow you make it through the rest of practice. You can tell that Minho is watching you carefully the entire time, but near the end it takes so much effort to just try to keep up that you forget all about it.

You don't have to be prompted to go home when you're done. You get a manager to drive you back and beeline to where you keep your medicine, popping a couple of your strongest painkillers and washing them down with a large glass of water. As quickly as possible, you change out of your sweaty clothes, wipe yourself down a bit, then collapse into bed.

Your head is absolutely splitting, making it feel impossible to fall asleep, but you must be able to because you keep experiencing time jumps. Each time you wake, you feel disoriented and woozy, but it seems to help because you feel mostly back to normal by the time your morning alarm goes off.

You don't want to worry the boys, but when you make it to the company, the first thing you do is ask one of the managers to schedule a doctor’s appointment on one of your upcoming days off. It’s coming up to your yearly check-up anyway so it doesn't hurt to make your visit sooner rather than later.

You tell your doctor how the headaches started and never really stopped even though you don’t have a history of migraines. You explain that you think it’s related to instances where you’ve had a hard time concentrating or remembering things, then also bring up the coordination issues you’ve noticed.

When they ask about any other symptoms, you don’t even bother to mention the chronic fatigue, achyness in your joints, or constant tightness in your shoulders and neck. They're nothing new and you don’t have to be a doctor to know that you’re overworking your body - it’s something that comes with the job and you’ve accepted that.

Your doctor listens and takes you seriously, but admits that it’s too general for them to pinpoint the source of the problems or even to confirm whether they’re related without further testing. They take your blood and let you know that they’ll contact you or your manager if they find anything to be concerned about.

A few days later, your manager pulls you aside quietly and lets you know that your bloodwork came back without any flags other than a slight deficiency in iron. He tells you that the doctor said to monitor your symptoms and return if they get significantly worse, but that at the moment, there’s nothing they can do to treat you other than prescribe an iron supplement and a general multivitamin.

It’s about what you expected, but you still feel disappointed and guilty. You knew one of the main concerns from the company of having you as a member of Stray Kids was whether you’d be able to keep up with the boys and you had insisted that you could. It’s not like girl groups had it any easier and you weren’t afraid of hard work. 

It was one of the main criticisms that fans had, especially in some of the variety content where the group often played sports. Jeongin was naturally clumsy and it was a running joke that Minho was terrible at any game involving balls, but you also suspected that some of the boys didn’t try their hardest when they were against you. You hated the idea of being Stray Kids’ weakest link, it scared you as much as it motivated you.

So even though the last thing you want is to be diagnosed with a condition or illness, you had hoped that they would find a reason that you’ve been having so much trouble lately, some sort of explanation for how bad you’ve been feeling.

—

Like always, the time continues to pass. You push through your comeback period and have already begun preparations for the next. You help with brainstorming the main concepts, working on recording guides, and throwing around ideas. 3racha has a backlog of hundreds of partially completed or completed songs and you pick through those too, trying to see if any of them spark inspiration.

You take your supplements and vitamins religiously, cut out any junk food and caffeine from your diet, and spend most of your free time trying to catch up on sleep.

For the first time since moving in, you actually get to spend a considerable amount of time in your apartment. All the extra rest doesn’t seem to help though. The migraines you've been experiencing have gotten to the point where a bad one makes you non-functional. If anything, you're just getting worse.

You’re tired all the time, but just can't fall asleep at night. It's a classic case of insomnia, but when you ask Chan about it, none of his advice makes a difference. It's strange though, you've never had this much trouble falling asleep, even when you shared a dorm with five other girls who had no regard for your sleep schedule.

You had thought that the source of your headaches was lack of sleep, but now you're not so sure.

It seems like your throat is more easily irritated and you hate the way that your voice is so much weaker than before. At random times during the day, your throat tightens and nothing you do can stop the subsequent coughing fits. You don’t think you're sick, but that’s the only explanation that you can think of.

Lastly, you keep forgetting things, and it's not just the usual like misplacing your keys or not being able to remember dance moves. You've missed dinners with the members because you can't remember them inviting you, you find yourself retelling stories multiple times to the same people because you hadn't realised you had already told them before, and you start to have more and more blank spots in your memory. Worst of all, you forget that you're forgetting things.

You've been trying to record all of your symptoms so that you can report them accurately to your doctor, but by the time that you get a chance to write things down, you can only recall whatever is bothering you at that exact moment. You know that you have been having all these problems, but you just can't describe the details.

You bring it up to your manager again and schedule an appointment with another doctor, only to be disappointed again. They go through the same battery of tests just to give you a similar, but slightly different regiment of supplements.

Even though you made your manager promise not to tell the boys about these health concerns, they must have been able to quietly organize your schedule to be as efficient as possible. It’s the little things that you only notice after a few days, too many coincidences in a row. Your solo recording sessions are right before or after group ones so that you can go home first, something that the members usually fight to have, and all of your lessons have been ending early for no apparent reason.

You feel a mixture of gratitude and guilt because you can tell that the boys are becoming suspicious and maybe a little annoyed by this special treatment. In the lead up to a comeback, everybody is suffering from a lack of sleep and you’ve been trying your best to either push through your migraines to hide them, even though it makes you feel even more like garbage when you finally get back home.

And, of course, you lose your appetite. It's actually the only good thing that comes out of all of this because one of your least favourite recurring events is the bi-weekly weigh-ins that JYPE requires all artists to do. Management claims that it’s just to assist the wardrobe team as they plan outfits for future schedules, but nobody is convinced that’s the real reason. Half the team doesn’t care anymore, but you’ve never been able to fully ignore the inevitable criticism whenever you don’t reach your target weight.

You've always had trouble following the diets that are assigned to you, but you find it's significantly easier when even your favourite foods are no longer appealing. 

At the team’s next weigh in, not only are you below your target weight by over a kilogram, you’re pretty sure you're the lightest that you’ve been since before debut. Your brow furrows in disbelief as you stare at the number. Although you have a few upcoming photoshoots that you want to look good for, you haven’t even been trying to lose weight.

In the past, your goal has always been to be one of the members that got to skip the mandatory lecture about how they had dieticians on staff for a reason and that everybody should be following their recommended diets. They sometimes even pulled up statistics and figures on what fans considered to be the ideal body type, drawing from comments on recent videos, posts on social media, and even fan art.

But now, you don’t feel any pride, no sense of accomplishment, not even any relief. You just feel so tired.

You slink out of the room, escaping to one of the studios to kill time before group dance practice. Nobody comments when you rejoin them at the start of practice, instead focusing on perfecting moves and making sure that everything is in sync in the short time that you have the room booked for. By the time the two hours have passed, you're more than ready to collapse into bed.

You try your best to sneak out before anyone realises you're leaving and make it halfway out the door before you're stopped.

“Y/n-ah,” Changbin calls after you.

You pause in your tracks, but don’t reply right away, trying to steel yourself for the conversation that you know you’re about to have. You know that he’s just concerned about your well-being, you would be too if the situations were reversed, but you can’t help but feel annoyed, especially because you hate the way that you can feel the rest of the group members silently watching to see how you’ll respond.

“Yes?” You turn around slowly.

“I just wanted to see if you wanted to join us for lunch,” Changbin says, instead of directly mentioning the elephant in the room.

“I-” You try to frantically come up with some sort of excuse.

“I know you don’t have any upcoming schedules,” Jeongin inserts himself into the conversation, looking up at you pleadingly. “Come on, we haven’t all eaten as a group in so long!”

“Fine,” you concede, unable to withstand the power of his puppy-eyes. You can see Minho and Chan exchange a glance and you inwardly wince. You’re not trying to avoid spending time with everybody else, but the way that you're reacting definitely makes it seem that way and you know it's just another thing they're going to worry about.

You end up at a barbeque restaurant that you’ve heard some of the members rave about. The second you walk in, you’re hit with the smell of grilling meat and for the first time in weeks, your stomach growls and you’re actually excited to eat.

You’re practically bouncing in your seat as you wait for the meat to cook and the rest of the boys look amused by your enthusiasm. They forgo the usual tradition of serving Jeongin first, giving you the first piece of meat that’s cooked.

“Oh, this is so good,” you groan the second that the beef touches your tongue. “How come you’ve never taken me before?”

“Yah, I’ve mentioned this place half a dozen times in the past few months!” Jisung whines. “It's your fault that you've never joined us before.”

“Sorry, I promise that going forward, I'll always make sure to take your food recommendations seriously,” you reply solemnly, before automatically ducking out of the way when Jisung leans over to swat at your arm. 

It's enough to break through most of the lingering awkwardness at your initial almost refusal to join them. Everybody starts to serve themselves and chat with whoever is closest to them. You get pulled into a conversation about what Hyunjin should do with his hair for the next comeback which turns into a full blown debate about long hair versus short hair with a side tangent on blond versus black.

You’re not even halfway through your meal and still enjoying yourself when all of a sudden, your stomach turns. You force yourself to continue chewing and swallow the food in your mouth, then try to excuse yourself in a way that seems natural.

“I have to go to the toilet,” you say quietly, trying to hide the gag that you aren't able to suppress. You take a few deep breaths through your nose and dig your nails into your palms to distract yourself from the sudden nausea.

“Are you okay?”

You hadn't even noticed that Seungmin is trailing behind you worriedly.

“I'm fine,” you say quickly, trying to wave him off without having to say too much.

“Are you sure? You don't look so good.”

“Yeah, I-”

You reach the bathroom doors just in time as you start to gag again. Not caring if Seungmin is still following you or not, you push through and make it into a stall just in time to throw up into the toilet. It's not more than a couple of mouthfuls, but it's enough to make you feel disgusting. Even though your stomach seems to settle immediately after, your appetite is long gone.

Seungmin watches you silently as you flush the toilet and rinse out your mouth, even going so far as to pass you a tissue to dab at your watery eyes.

“Sorry,” you say finally, with a hoarse voice.

“Are you feeling better now?” he asks. You stare at him in surprise for a second that he's not asking what's wrong.

“Yeah, I think so,” you reply.

“Let's go back then.” Is all he says, before taking your hand and leading you back to the table.

“Everything okay?” Jisung is the first to notice that the two of you have returned.

“Yup,” you say, at the exact same time that Seungmin announces “Y/n-noona threw up.”

“What? Are you not feeling well?” Chan immediately stands up and walks over to you.

“Seungmin,” you groan.

“What? You thought I was just going to let you pretend nothing happened?” Seungmin says instead of apologising.

“Y/nnie,” Changbin says cautiously. “You know that you can tell us anything, right? You don't have to go through this alone.”

“No, I'm okay!” you say quickly. “I just think I ate too fast or-”

“Y/n-ah,” Chan says sternly. You close your mouth so fast that your teeth click together. “Please don’t lie. We won’t be mad, whatever it is, I promise. We just want to help, we’re concerned about you.”

“I know this looks bad, but I’m not dieting right now or restricting myself at all,” you start. “I swear.”

“Okay,” Felix says, not sounding convinced.

“But I don't know what's wrong with me lately, I just can't eat lately,” you say.

“Can't?” Felix tries to clarify. “Or won't?”

“I promise, I’m trying. I want to eat, I do!” you reply frantically. “I'm not just saying that, really!”

“Hey, hey,” Chan soothes you, rubbing your back. “It’s okay, we believe you.”

“I hate this,” you say miserably.

“Let’s just take it slow, okay? Tell us how you’ve been feeling and we’ll see if we can do anything to help,” Minho says carefully.

“Uhm, not much appetite, even when I can tell I’m hungry, nothing really sounds good. I don’t know, I’m just tired a lot? But I’ve been having trouble sleeping at night.” You bite your lip, trying to remember if there’s anything else. “And headaches, but I think that might just be because I’m not sleeping and eating well.”

“Right, the migraines,” Chan nods thoughtfully. You narrow your eyes at Minho, the only one that you’ve mentioned your migraines to. He just shrugs his shoulders in response.

“But it's fine,” you say.

“It's quite obviously not,” Seungmin replies. “Whatever this is, it doesn't sound like something that will go away if you just try to power through.”

“It’s nothing,” you insist. “I went to two different doctors, but they both couldn’t find anything. All my bloodwork came back clear, okay?”

“How come you didn't tell us?” Jeongin asks, sounding hurt. “You thought it was bad enough that you went to the doctor twice and we didn't know?”

“I didn't mention it, because it really is nothing! I didn't want you guys to worry for no reason. I wanted to be cautious, but if the doctors said there was nothing I could do, there was no point to let you guys know. You guys know that I would have said something if they said it was serious,” you tell them.

There's a moment of silence while everybody processes what you've said.

“If you're sure,” Hyunjin says reluctantly.

“I am. Please, trust my judgement and trust what the doctor says. I’m going to take it slow, but I still want to be involved in all of our schedules,” you plead.

“We can do that,” Chan eventually agrees, even though he doesn't look too happy about it. “Just, if anything happens then please let us know, okay?”

“Yes, dad,” you say, rolling your eyes. Everybody laughs at Chan's indignant ‘hey!’ in response and things settle back to normal. You can tell they're all still worried, you feel them watching you as you pick at your food for the rest of the meal, but you know that everyone feels a bit better after finally talking about it.

—

You’re exhausted.

The last few weeks actually haven't been as bad because while the boys have been respecting your wishes to stay involved in every schedule, they have been taking care of you more than usual. They make sure that you always have simple and light, but nutritious meals available, are more strict about taking breaks and not staying up too late, and just overall make you feel loved.

By now, you've mostly gotten used to dealing with all of these symptoms, but today seems worse than usual.

Even the motion of fumbling to turn off your blaring alarm seems to drain your limited energy and it takes everything in you to force yourself to sit up in bed. 

Making your way to the bathroom feels like a dream, you’re unsteady as you walk, like your muscles can’t remember what to do. Turning on the lights makes your headache spike, so you end up going through your morning routine in darkness, fumbling to brush your teeth and brush out your hair. You can’t even remember what you’re getting ready for, but you know that it’s something important, something that you can’t postpone or miss. 

You must take longer than usual to get ready because you’re in the middle of applying skincare when you hear your phone ringing from where you’ve left it in your bed. It must be your manager, calling to say that they’re outside, which means that you’re late. You abandon the rest of your routine, turning to go to your closet to change. 

Before you can take a step, a wave of dizziness washes over you and your vision practically whites out. By the time it fades, you find yourself slumped on the ground, unsure when you stopped standing or how you made it back into your bedroom.

As you lie there, you realise that you’ve never noticed how comfortable your floor is, even though you haven’t bothered to get any carpeting or rugs. Just like how you hadn’t realised how hot you’re feeling until you rest your cheek on the ground, letting out a sigh of relief at the coolness of the fake hardwood. Involuntarily, your eyes flutter closed.

You wake up in bed. 

The second you fully regain consciousness, your eyes shoot open, body filled with adrenaline. Never mind the fact that you have no idea how you got into bed, you're likely extremely late for your schedule now and the guys probably hate you. 

You sit up, ignoring how it makes your head spin. It's only when you move your arm to try and stand that you notice a sharp prick of pain.

When your vision clears, you find yourself staring in confusion at an IV that's taped to the crook of your elbow. Further inspection reveals that you're not in your room at all, but wearing hospital clothes and in an unfamiliar room.

Your stomach drops. You've lost time before, had periods of a day that just slipped away, but never this bad. You don't know if you've been unconscious this whole time or just can't remember anything that happened since the morning.

You startle back when someone cups your cheek in their hand. You raise one of your hands slowly to touch it.

“-you hear me?” 

“Chan-oppa?” You squint up at him, now noticing that he also has his other hand wrapped around your shoulder, trying to keep you in place. You have no idea how long he's been trying to talk to you.

“Y/n-ah,” he says, body sagging with relief now that you seem more aware. “You're awake. I gotta- let me tell the guys to come back.”

“I- what happened?”

“You weren't answering your phone,” Chan says. As he speaks, he guides you back to lean back against the bed, adjusting it so that you're sitting upright.

“I’m sorry.” You swallow thickly. “I- I don't really remember-”

“No, it's okay,” he assures you. He takes your hands in his and fiddles with your fingers. “They uh- well we were all concerned so they got the spare key to get into the building. You didn't answer the door either so they went in and-” Chan clears his throat roughly before continuing. “They said you had collapsed in your room and wouldn't wake up. So they called 119 and an ambulence brought you here.”

“Oh,” you say. “That was this morning?”

“Uhm, that was yesterday. You've been out for a while, I think they did a bunch of tests but-”

Both of you look up as the door bursts open. A doctor walks through, then the rest of the members spill through the door and rush to your bedside.

“Y/n-ssi,” the doctor says. “Good to see you awake, you gave these boys quite the scare.”

“I'm sorry,” you say, blushing as the everybody continues to crowd around you.

“How are you feeling?”

“I'm fine-” you start, then correct yourself. “I'm confused mostly and still a bit tired, do you know what's wrong with me?”

“Y/n-ssi, have you had any changes to your regular diet recently?” the doctor asks instead of directly answering your question. “Have you eaten anything unusual, maybe a bit before you started experiencing any symptoms?”

“No,” you say after a second of thought. “I don't recall eating anything out of the ordinary lately. But my diet- I mean I haven't had much of an appetite lately anyway.”

“Okay,” the doctor says, making a couple notes. “Have you ever heard of mycotoxicosis? We ran a series of tests and one of them identified elevated levels of some mycotoxins. We also found some damage to your lungs that may be related.”

“Sorry, what do you mean?” Hyunjin interrupts, looking confused and alarmed. “Toxins? Has she been poisoned by somebody?”

“Not exactly,” the doctor clarifies, which doesn't exactly make any of you feel better. “These mycotoxins that were found are naturally produced by certain types of fungi.”

“She had poisonous mushrooms?” Jisung looks like he's going to cry as he asks.

“To put it simply, we believe that Y/n-ssi has had consistent and long-term exposure to a dangerous type of mould and that is the cause of a number of symptoms she is experiencing,” the doctor explains. “This is most commonly caused by consumption of food that has mould such as nuts, cereal, or coffee beans, although it's also possible that it is something in her environment that she could be inhaling or coming in contact with.”

“We share most meals during schedules, so it can't be that. I don't prepare much food when I'm at home, I mostly order out,” you say. 

“She lives by herself,” Changbin shares with the doctor. “But it's been months, you don't think-”

“That could very well be the cause,” the doctor says. “Are there any visible signs of mould in the apartment?”

The members exchange glances.

“We've never been there,” Minho says slowly, narrowing his eyes at you.

“There's a bit that grows on the tiles in my bathroom because the ventilation isn't good,” you say quietly. “But I try to clean it off as soon as I notice it. And- there's a history of water damage from the unit above me so…” You shrug.

The doctor nods and writes a few more notes.

“You can do testing to confirm, but it does sound likely that there is mould in the ceiling or walls that has been affecting you.”

“So what is being done to treat her?” Seungmin asks.

“If her apartment truly is the source of the mould, then we've already done the most important thing. We've removed Y/n-ssi from the toxin so that she is no longer exposed and her illness shouldn’t develop any further. We're also providing her with some antifungal medication that will assist her body in killing off any mould as well as general supplements to help strengthen her immune system and heal the damage caused by the toxins. We'll keep her here for a couple more days to ensure that she's getting better, but expect that over the next few months, she will be able to make a full recovery.”

After a brief period where the boys pepper the doctor with questions, he bows and leaves. 

—

When you're finally released from the hospital, all the boys insist on escorting you back to your place, even if it means taking two vehicles. They hover around you as you walk up the front steps and fight to be the ones that get to cram themselves into the elevator with you.

Even though the doctors said that the mold was harmful due to your prolonged exposure, everybody has secured on face masks and you plan to keep the visit short. You just need to grab some essentials and the rest of the members are curious what your place looks like. The company has assured you that everything else, like the packing, moving, and especially cleaning, will be taken care of by them.

You’re so used to being by yourself that it feels strange to return with the boys trailing behind you. You unlock the door without any fanfare and lead the way, turning around once everybody has made it in. It's not that comfortable, not everyone fits in the main room without really squeezing in, but at least they're able to close the front door.

“Tada,” you say flatly. “Welcome to my humble abode.”

“This is the whole place?” Jisung asks, shocked as he looks around, eyes wide.

“Well, I don't need much space-” you start to reply.

“I can touch all the sides of your bathroom without having to move!” Hyunjin exclaims.

“Luckily my arms aren't freakishly long like yours-” you say, before Minho interrupts.

“No wonder you always try to come over for meals,” he muses. “There's practically nowhere for you to cook!”

“I can still cook!” you defend yourself. “There's a mini fridge under the counter and I have a hot plate and a rice cooker in the cabinet. I just like your food better.”

“Where do you even keep all your clothes?” Jeongin asks, opening one of your cabinet doors to reveal where you stuff all your electronics. Your hair straightener dislodges from where it must have been leaning against the door and clatters loudly to the ground, pulling a series of wires along with it. You wince and rush over to stuff everything back into place.

“I don't need much,” you explain. “I have storage under my bed and there's space over on that side.”

“But what about-”

“I like the way that you've decorated the room,” Seungmin cuts him off. His voice is calm and measured, especially compared to the chaos of the other boys. “It feels very comforting and safe.”

“Thank you,” you say, blushing underneath your mask. “I- I know it's not much, but I did the best that I could.”

“Sorry, Y/nnie,” Hyunjin says. “We’re not trying to criticise. It's just-”

“It's okay,” you reassure all of them. “I mean, as much as I consider this place my home, there is a lot to hate about it.”

“Yeah, let's not forget about the fact that it's not an exaggeration to say that staying here sent you to the hospital!” Seungmin chimes in. “And that the only reason we are here right now is to clear everything out because it is legitimately unsafe for Y/nnie to continue living here.”

“Speaking of, I'm pretty sure that we're supposed to limit the amount of time we spend in here, I thought this was a grab and go kind of visit?” Changbin asks.

“Yup, let's not stay here longer than we have to,” you agree.

After living there for almost a year, you would have thought that you'd be at least a little bit sad to have to move out of your apartment. But as you finish packing up your essentials, all you can think is that you're lucky that instead of a place, you consider your home to be these eight boys.

where the heart is collection | read it on ao3 | masterlist

[yolimar217]

I come with my crazy ideas saved from last year, because nobody has written in detail about Reader's training. With the guys, I feel it's super important because it gives it more plot and how they are instructed in sword handling.

I'm referring to a girl from the modern world, and she has to adapt to defend herself from monsters.

For me, the most qualified for Reader to develop better instruction would be Warriors, Sky, and Twilight; I feel they would be the best to instruct her. The others would be a disaster.

I believe Warriors was instructed from a very young age at the school of knights, and I believe he would have the best training, because he was a soldier almost all his childhood.

Wild would try to feed her better. Improving her physical condition so that she develops more muscle mass and resistance for training, since they are going to subject you to entire days so that you develop the basics to handle the sword.

Twilight, his thing is for you to develop physical strength in your arms with some exercises and hitting wood with an axe. He would do it so many times until you can't anymore, because it was the first thing he learned before handling a sword. He wouldn't make you handle a sword at all until you develop physical strength and resistance.

Most likely Legend will end up betting with the others on how long your resistance lasts, and he would mess with you, saying hurtful comments to motivate you. And that makes you angry, and more than once you've gone after him with a stick in your hand to hit him.

However, you never reached him because of the Pegasus boots.

Wind is going to drag you to training when you don't want to. He will be the typical nephew who, in less than 5 minutes, has already exhausted all your energy. But he would be the one who motivates you the most in training, giving you a hand from time to time.

Time would be watching that they don't overdo it with you, and making sure that you are complying with the training protocol they were planning. More than once he has corrected your posture with the sword, and helping you in the lesson.

Sky would be very patient with you, and would make sure that you don't hurt yourself, even if you are handling a wooden sword that he made for you. He would be watching that your reflexes are at the level of a prolonged battle, in case they have to hit you from multiple angles to take you out of combat.

Although Sky has the worst resistance, his thing is to endure the fight and prolong it.

Hyrule would be healing you all the time, because you would have your hands injured from the use of the sword and shield. And helping you from time to time if you have any doubts about a certain sword posture. He would always be present in training, if they overdo it with you.

Four would already be making you a sword, but first it would be when you are more advanced in the lessons, because it would depend on which sword you adapt better in combat. He would also help you in classes when you are handling the sword.

However, he would send all your learned lessons and those of the others to the trash. Since he would be completely deranged in combat, fighting you from all angles, doing so much cheating that he would take you out of combat.

Legend would go through something similar, as he would be someone who would teach you by force that everything learned with the best lessons is not worth it in combat, but the best strategy.

Wild, he is also going to teach you, but most likely he will end up breaking the swords, even the wooden one they made for you. That's why the others wanted to take control of the lessons, since he breaks everything, and so that nobody suspected that he broke the wooden sword.

He taught you the bow and arrow, which in the end you loved because it was long-range and only needed a lot of strength in the arm, the biggest demands.

[cooking-pol-martin]

Mythbusting Pol Martin

When you have little kids, you have a delicate balance to walk with media. While I'm not terribly censorious -- I don't think any given kid is going to be traumatized by hearing the f-bomb, plus largely it was me dropping them -- but there's plenty of media that can be upsetting with no cusses at all. I don't think the kids ever saw the sketch on Robot Chicken called "Tooth & Consequences", but I do remember vividly thinking, whelp, make extra sure they never watch THAT shit. While I think The Family Guy sucks, it was more that the one kid would repeat the most annoying punchlines for days that got that show banned from the house.

But then the grownups in the house also had to contend with children's media, which runs the gamut from awesome to the fuck outta here. I loved Yo Gabba Gabba!; tolerated Dora the Explorer; and absolutely banned both Calliou and Barney. All this is winding up to say there were two shows (for lack of a better word) that everyone in the family could absolutely agree on: Homestar Runner and Mythbusters. If you've never watched Mythbusters, the format is thus: they find a myth and then try to recreate the conditions. If they can't -- if it's busted -- then they try to make the myth happen by any means necessary.

Which brings me, inevitably, to Pol Martin.

I made two Pol Martin recipes this week: "Braised Rib-Eye Steaks" and "Pepper Rice." (They were for different meals, because I've learned my lesson about ruining dinner.) When I started the Pol Martin project lo, these many months ago, I declared I was going to follow the recipe as closely as I was able. This resulted in me doing things like boiling leeks for half a godamn fiscal hour which I will never do again, thank you very much. I was in my recreating conditions phase, to put it in terms of Mythbusters. This resulted in a lot of busting.

Since then, I've decided to cut myself some slack sometimes. (Not always, because I followed the ridic instructions for "Fish & Vegetable Salad" to the letter, to Wet Ass Pol results.) But for the two recipes that are the subject of this essay, I decided to hew to the ingredients list and proportions as closely as I could -- with some minor deviations -- but I more or less chucked his cooking instructions. I'm a better than decent cook with decades of experience in the kitchen, and I'm just going to say it: sometimes his recipes are wrong. So I'm just trying to make them work, like the Mythbusters do once the myth gets busted.

The first recipe I tried was "Braised Rib-Eye Steaks." I'm of the opinion that it's difficult to fuck up a good cut of meat. To be fair, I've seen Pol give it the college try, like when, in one of the digitized video tapes, he goes to the market for a salmon steak and then microwaves that bitch to death. I suppose the amendment to my declaration being: it's difficult to fuck up a good cut of meat, except if there's a microwave involved. Like I've never made scallops because I'm terrified of screwing up something that's roughly $30 a pound. But I got some nice rib-eyes from Costco, and was ready to get to it.

The major change to this recipe was that I made it in the Instapot. Braising requires time, time which I didn't have. The Instapot, with its pressure cook setting, can cut two hours of braising down to 20 minutes. (My mom, who was a working single mother, used a pressure cooker all the time to get dinner on the table, so this feels really regular to me.) I also rearranged the order the ingredients went into the cooker. Pol almost always puts the spices in too early, which makes the volatile aromatics in, say, garlic cook off. I also cut the ... everything smaller than Pol directs. One thing that drives me crazy in his videos is how enormous his dice is. No.

[image description: a photo from one of Pol's cookbooks. Very wet looking sliced beef with vegetables that are diced too big on a pink and green plate. The caption reads "Braised Rib-Eye Steaks (serves 4).]

"Braised Rib-Eye Steaks" turned out good, not amazing, but good. Per usual, the recipe was way too wet. He had me pour a cup of clamato juice and two cups of beef stock over two pounds of meat, which is a ridiculous amount of liquid. But Wet Ass Pol's gonna wet. I was intrigued by the inclusion of clamato juice -- and even added some anchovy paste to punch up the umami -- but honestly I don't know that it added much more than vibes. I liked the turnips which soaked up all the flavor of the broth but still had a little crunch. Usually I think turnips are boring. I had the whole thing over mashed potatoes, which was the right call.

Honestly, my biggest criticism is that braising a rib-eye is kind of a waste of a rib-eye. Like it'll be good, but braising is usually reserved for tougher, more fibrous cuts of meat. Braising is when you sear something to get a nice crust, and then basically poach it in some kind of liquid -- broth is common, but you can do use anything from wine to coconut milk, or a combo -- in an enclosed dish. The low and slow cooking breaks that structure down and makes the meat tender, but the meat isn't submerged so it doesn't go to mush. The rib-eye basically tasted like stew meat, which is obviously delicious, but stew meat is also like half the price of a rib-eye. I liked this enough to do again, but I'd chill on the braising liquid and use a shittier cut of meat.

Oh also? I added a bunch of flour as thickener trying to get the braising liquid to approach something like gravy-like consistency, but there's no overcoming this amount of wetness.

[image description: sliced beef and diced turnips & tomatoes served over mashed potatoes in a dark blue bowl. There's an awful lot of liquid.]

The next recipe I tried was "Pepper Rice." You might think pepper refers to black pepper, but he means bell peppers, just to get that out of the way. I needed a side for this chicken shish kabob recipe I've been wanting to try since my newest collection of sick fucking antique skewers showed up. (Pol has a lot of kebab recipes, and his skewers are all immaculate. The fact that I can't find the sword-shaped ones that aren't a grillion dollars still makes me mad.) I'd run across the "Pepper Rice" recipe and filed it away for a rainy day: it's simple, has normal ingredients, and cooks fast.

[image description: grilled chicken on sick fucking antique skewers with birds and stuff for handles sits on a silver tray.]

I'm going to admit that like the braised rib-eyes, I utterly disregarded his instructions. I've run into this with Pol's recipes before -- notably the "Fish & Vegetable Salad" -- but he often pre-cooks ingredients. I simply don't get this. "Pepper Rice" isn't so different from my go-to Spanish rice recipe, which involves softening the vegetables and then pouring in both the dry rice and chicken broth so that everything cooks together. Instead, Pol wants us to fry up the veggies and then mix in already cooked rice? Why? This is a terrible idea.

[image description: pepper rice and grilled chicken in a dark blue bowl on a bright red tablecloth.]

Hilariously, I didn't get the ratio between the rice and cooking liquid quite right, so I kind of ended up with a Wet Ass Pol situation inadvertently. I just boiled it off. I though the pepper rice was kinda bland, but then my husband waxed all philosophical about letting the subtlety of the pepper's mild sweetness become the focus, without distracting with stronger flavors. Maybe he was humoring me slash Pol, but it's also an interesting way to start thinking about the meta-philosophy of preparing food.

I'm a Midwesterner, so I'm not ever going to go too crazy with spices, but I almost automatically double the garlic in any recipe, add fish sauce, anchovy paste, or capers at every opportunity, and otherwise garnish with soy sauce, sriracha, or whatever condiment seems appropriate, and some that don't. On some basic level, I must value a certain kind of complexity of flavor ... or that's not the right way to put it. Fresh ingredients cooked right without much seasoning can be complex, but they're subtle. It's more like I want the flavors to be more forward.

The best articulation of this is in the cookbook Salt Fat Acid Heat which, like it says in the title, argues that the best dishes balance those four attributes, but then also really digs into the various ingredients that contribute to that balance. The recipes in that book aren't amazing, ironically, but articulating a philosophy of cooking and writing a decent recipe are two different skill sets. I think the author is onto something there, at least in the ways flavors interact. Pol's recipe has all the attributes in pretty decent balance: salt from the broth, fat from the oil, acid from the tomatoes, and heat in the browning. But I want something that explores other registers: sweet, hot, green, bright, any of a dozen flavors I can't describe but nonetheless enjoy. I want those four attributes to be a base I can build on.

So. I've made a couple dozen Pol Martin recipes so far. There have been high highs and low lows, and everything in between. I've followed recipes exactly and not so much. I've attempted everything from appetizers to main dishes to desserts. I've used a microwave. But I feel like this is the first time I've really understood that he and I have sometimes fundamental differences in what we value in cooking. So if I take an ingredient list from Pol, which is balanced in one way, and cook it the way most makes sense to me, which is balanced in another, I can really get the most out of his recipes. I think I've really begun to vibe on our differences, Pol and me.

Woof, did that gummy kick in or what? Yeah.

[glapplebloom]

Part 2 of this little trial... (Please note, this was written before the defense)

When a crime is being committed, the punishment should reflect the crime. The only reason they would not be punished is if they do not have the cognitive knowledge to understand what they have done. This is because they did not know or they’re crazy. Cozy Glow does not fit any of these traits. Proving she’s not crazy is pretty easy considering she acts civil for the majority of the time and thoroughly planned this event.

Now how could I prove that Cozy Glow did understand what she was doing? I could use her words where she believes Friendship is Power. I could use her actions where she imprisoned Starlight Glimmer or Chancellor Neighsay because they were in her way. Or I could use the fact she perfectly planned to not only take away magic but take out the seven who could likely have stopped her if they knew her intentions. 

This was planned early. To be a pen pal with Tirek and to earn his trust had to take at least months to get this information. To integrate herself with the faculty so they can trust her without question. Even using the Cutie Mark Crusaders to make herself seem like she learned the lessons of Friendship after trying to fake failing to get them to be part of the school. She proved her actions have a reason behind them and it almost worked.

Her plan was simple: remove the magic from Equestria so she can take over as Empress of Friendship. Regardless if it would have worked or not, if she was successful then the entire landscape of Equestria would have changed. The Weather would be out of control. Perishables would be gone since magic is what preserved them. Transportations would be greatly affected since Pegasi needs magic to fly as seen in Generation 5.

And Generation 5 is not proof that things would have turned out alright. Twilight Sparkle put all the magic into three stones with the promise that as long as they are living in harmony they can use magic. And by that time technology has improved to give us cellular service and television. So even if the magic slowly drained because of their growing distrust for each other, technology grew to defend themselves and improve their current living conditions.

Some would think punishing Cozy Glow would diminish the message of Friendship is Magic, but have you really seen how the majority of the villains are taken care of? Nightmare Moon: Blasted. Discord: Blasted. Chrysalis: Blasted. Sombra: Blasted. Sunset Shimmer: Blasted. The Dazzlings: Blasted. Tirek: Blasted. The Storm King: Blasted. That’s 8 villains blasted. Be it magically reformed, imprisoned, or even destroyed, that was their first go to actions.

So why did other reformed villains get to turn good and not Cozy Glow or the others. Besides those magically turned good, in a word, they chose to. Celestia’s plan for Discord to be reformed was to use Fluttershy. Twilight wanted to put him back in stone or come up with a reform spell to do the job. And when Fluttershy promised to not use the Elements of Harmony and she kept it despite him being a jerk, the only reason he stopped was because he wanted to be friends with Fluttershy and chose to stop it.

Starlight Glimmer went back in time to change the past. Ignoring that because it's a debate on its own, Twilight’s many first actions to stop Starlight was mostly to fight her. It was pretty much a standstill until Starlight threatened to just tear up the spell. At that point, there was nothing Twilight could do other than try to convince Starlight that she could. And Starlight did because deep down, she did want to change.

So what about magicing up her redemption. The thing is, that doesn’t fix the problem. Luna being the prime example showed that despite being blasted good, the underlying issues that caused her to be Nightmare Moon in the first place still existed. It took until A Royal Problem to finally settle the beef between the two as Royals. Because if not, maybe both Nightmare Moon and Daybreaker would become reality.

Stygian is another example of someone magically reformed. But it was a lot different from Luna’s case. While you could argue the Shadow he was producing was from himself or an outside force possessing him, the real reason was because of Starswirl's actions. And no magic would have fixed that until Starswirl realized his mistake and apologized for it. As far as we know, Cozy Glow has nothing like that going for her. When she was about to win, she continued on her plans and did not undo her actions before it was too late.

So the biggest issue people seem to take is Cozy Glow being sent to Tartarus. A recent post saying sending a kid to hell. Ignoring headcanons and interpretations, there are multiple instances where a child is punished for their actions. If she is too young or mentally incompetent she would be excused. And we know she isn’t mentally incompetent of those. So that leaves being too young to go to jail or if she is a teenager.

Those not of age are usually sent to the Juveniles, basically a prison for kids. Depending on their actions, they could either be sent to therapy and counseling or when they are of age, be sent to prison. This is a case that happened in 1993 where two boys who were 10 were given this treatment. While this was possibly undone, this is under the assumption that Cozy Glow is 10 years old or under.

If she is a Teenager, that means she would be tried as an adult. And while she would be sent to the Juvenile, as soon as she turns 18 she would be sent to the adult prison. So based on her actions as well as how she acts, there is a 2/3 chance that she would be seeing a prison cell for her actions. In the end, for stealing all the magic and erasing it from Equestria, for tricking and imprisoning the faculty and authority figures, and planning to take over Equestria with her army of Friends, Cozy Glow deserves to be sent to Tartarus. 

And this is ignoring her other attempt at trying to take over Equestria. (The following was written after the defense) Teaming up with two dangerous villains. Willing to stab them in the back when she thought she had the edge with Discord’s power. Seeing the damage their actions cause to bring in the Windigos. Tirek even said it himself, “I'd had enough of you trying to manipulate me with that insincere, syrupy sweetness. At least now we can see the real you.” And the real her is, straight up, evil. 

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

Now that you read the Defense and Prosecution, click here to give your own thoughts on Cozy Glow’s Fate. Should she be given a redemption? Or should she be imprisoned?

[ederlot]

Dinner with Jackson

I was quite the loser once. I had never been very popular. I knew a lot of people, but only had two friends. Very good friends they had become over the years. The kind of friends who you could wake up at night. Not that I had ever used that knowledge, but if necessary it was possible. I knew that for sure. I didn't need more friends either, or so I thought at the time. I was not very active on social media. I did have a Facebook and an Instagram, but that was more because everyone else had them. I never felt the need to have a lot of followers, so that I could say I had a lot of friends. I think I'm way too down-to-earth to call people I've never met in real life 'friends'. Or too old. I remember the time when we used to go to a café to meet each other, relax and do crazy things. But that was quite some time ago. I have done many studies. From psychology and cultural sciences to electrical engineering and nutrition, but I had not completed any. They were all boring and not really what I was looking for. What was I looking for? I still wouldn't know. My search led to various jobs and eventually I ended up in the office of a large transport company. Also boring, the work, but the people were quite nice. Very multicultural. The conversations often went nowhere (if I understood them at all) and I didn't really have a strong bond with anyone, but there was a lot of laughter.

With a pounding head full of thoughts, I stared at the small print on the screen. Basically I was staring through the screen (the work was really boring). Slowly I started filling the input fields with requested information. Today's hundredth order. I almost met my quota. Luckily it was almost time to go home. The sun shone brightly outside. I almost melted while smoking during the breaks. Not just me. The Arab colleagues, who were used to more heat, also found it unpleasant when it was so hot outside. That's the disadvantage of here, either it's cold and wet, or it's suddenly way too hot. The wind didn't bring any relief either, if there was any. On days like this the wind was like a hairdryer. Every breeze was warm and dry. Sigh! That last order was finished. Of course I could have done more before it was 5 o'clock, but I didn't. They immediately expected me to do more orders every day. That's how it worked at the company. There were those show-offs who always did more than necessary. But they were called to the lead if they suddenly did less, but were still above 100. I got a cup of hot chocolate from the vending machine just to kill another minute. As always, I spent the rest of my time looking interestingly through my notebook, as if I were working on a very difficult order. Some thought the work really interested me. In the beginning I did, but after two years of continuously doing the same thing and running into walls when I had an improvement proposal, the fun was really hard to find. It paid quite well, especially if I had to work in the evenings with all the shift allowances. And there was regular overtime. I didn't have much to do at home, so I was always allowed to come back if there was a lot of work. That made me a bit popular. At least with the shift lead.

I always thought I came from a warm family. Until a while ago I was doing a bit less financially. Then I discovered I had to figure it all out for myself and learned that you only really got to know people when you were in a difficult situation. There are some life lessons you don't actually want to learn, but they are thrown into your lap for free. Fortunately, I was able to start at the transport company after a period of unemployment. However, the bond with my family is no longer as strong as before. I think for them it is, because they treat me like they used to. However, I find it difficult to forgive them for their absence when I needed them most. I had a nice car. I had to sell it to pay my mortgage. That's why I was now on a bicycle in the killing heat. Air conditioning would be nice. I even took a boy from the streets into my house so that we could share the costs. His name was Jackson, a black guy who wanted to take all his friends into my home as well. Or so it seemed. He came from a special project of the municipality. Well… I had trouble with it at first. Car gone, privacy gone. But I really needed the money. He was under supervision, so it seemed safe to me and the municipality paid, so I was sure I would never have to chase the money. But now that things were going better financially, I could no longer get him out of the house. And hey… sometimes it was quite nice to be with someone. Alone was just alone, right? It was still quite far to my house actually. A half hour cycle in the blazing sun. A sip of cold Coke would be welcome.

I clumsily pushed my bike into the shed, where, after a moment of riding itself, it fell against a pile of boxes that had been there since the move. Every weekend I decided to clean out the boxes. And every day I decided to be more careful with my bike. It was the only means of transportation I had. But on the weekends I had other, more fun things to do than tidying up the shed and after work I was too tired to park the bike properly. Actually, I just never felt like it. Home was my safe haven. At least it was before Jackson came along. Luckily I still had my own room, which Jackson was not allowed to enter.

“Did you bring any pizza rolls?” came a deep voice from the living room. “And the milk is gone.”

God damn it, I hadn't even closed the front door before he started whining. It often happened that Jackson would have liked me to bring him anything and everything after work. He hardly ever went shopping himself.

“No,” I replied, throwing my bag under the coat rack. “I just got home from work and I can't smell all the food you've been eating!” “I texted you,” Jackson immediately protested.

The pounding in my head, which I suffered from at work and which had disappeared due to cycling, returned. After work I wanted to be left alone for a while. Even if it was just for a few minutes. In my mind I walked to the kitchen and took a large glass from the cupboard, after which my eye fell on the calendar that was taped to the refrigerator door. Gosh! It was Friday. Nice weekend! Every day seemed the same at that boring job. It often happened that I had forgotten the days of the week and had to accidentally find out that the weekend had started. I once even managed to go to work on a Saturday and did not understand why the gate was closed. Oh yes… Dinner with Jackson tonight, it was noted on the calendar. He was actually going to go with friends, but they canceled. And he treats, so why not. At an all-you-can-eat in the city. I used to eat there with my friends. The choice was large, the food tasty and not too expensive. Jackson also had his good habits. What the…! Why did the refrigerator look so empty inside? Where's my coke?

“Where's my Coke?” I shouted irritatedly from the kitchen.

“It's gone,” came the voice from the living room.

Sigh. So I could still go to the supermarket with my headache. The idea of; Jackson also has his good sides, disappeared immediately and with a wildly beating heart I walked to the living room. There he was, slumped on the couch. 400 pounds of body in just a pair of white boxer shorts, barely visible through his belly, which hung well over it.

“Couldn't you have gone to the store yourself?” I asked, already knowing what the answer would be.

Jackson didn't respond. As usual, he paid more attention to the program on television than to me.

“I was watching this,” he finally said, probably starting to feel uneasy about my icy frame and piercing gaze.

Sometimes we had conversations that were easier than this. About life, the mistakes we had made and our dreams. It took a while, but I finally got Jackson to tell me something about himself every now and then. Sometimes we even laughed about ourselves and each other. More often than not, there were situations like this where I was irritated and Jackson didn't seem to care much. It seemed impossible to make appointments with him. Jackson had proven to be very good at saying yes and doing no.

“I'll go to the supermarket in a moment,” he said after a few minutes, without taking his eyes off the television. 'Let's check this out first. It's almost over."

He'd had all damn day to go to the grocery store and get everything himself. Angry, I walked back to the kitchen and filled the tall glass with tap water to quench my thirst. Jesus man! I had never seen such a lazy nigger. We had to be at the restaurant in less than two hours. He never achieved that. The supermarket was not very far away and you could get there quickly by bike. But not Jackson. The last time he cycled it took him 20 minutes. He had come back completely out of breath. And then he wasn't even as heavy as he is now. And then… my poor bike. Would it hold that weight? How am I going to get to work on Monday if that thing was completely collapsed?

“Never mind, I'll go, again!” I shouted as I placed my half-full glass in the sink and walked into the hallway. “Just freshen up a bit for tonight. And wear decent clothes.”

There was silence from the living room. No response when I closed the front door behind me and took my bike out of the shed again.

“Oh, that guy can whine!” Jackson thought. With a groan he stood up with difficulty and pulled his sagging boxer shorts over his plump, protruding ass. Why on earth had he planned dinner with him? Contact with the friends he used to have had deteriorated since he lived here. They used to be together often, on the street. His father had died when he was a toddler. He did not have good contact with his mother. Neither with his two sisters. They were too busy with themselves. With make-up and men. Maybe as an older brother he should have paid more attention to them, but Jackson had chosen a different path. A path of crime, of stealing and drugs. Until he was at the police station again and was assigned a house for some project. At first he didn't like it, but after a while he started to see the usefulness of a home. It was actually quite nice. A bed, a shower. A place to feel safe. And Eder… oh well, he wasn't too bad apart from his whining. He did the shopping, cleaning, payments. And he was a good cook. His friends still lived on the streets. Or in prison. Jackson had never been to prison. He had been spared that fate.

Jackson glanced in the mirror on the wall in the hallway next to the stairs before beginning his climb. There was a piece of dust in his deep navel that he clumsily picked out with the help of the mirror. He could no longer look over his stomach. It was therefore no longer possible to pick something out of his navel without a mirror. Despite his weight, Jackson's body was not flabby. Not liquid, like the bodies of many fat people are. His belly was large, but firm. And so were his legs, which had to bear all the weight. His legs had always been strong. Handy for running from the police if he stole something again. A deep sigh. Then he slowly climbed the stairs. With each step his boxer shorts slid down a little, revealing a high butt crack, but Jackson didn't seem to mind. Breathing deeply, he reached the last step. Holding on to the banister, he took a good minute to recover from the climb. Thoughts of all the food at the buffet made his mouth water. He had been looking forward to it all day. Actually, it didn't matter to him who went with him, as long as he was there himself. With a bar of soap he washed his armpits and the underside of his fat breasts, which swayed violently despite their firmness. Groaning from bending over, he took off his boxer shorts and also washed the underside of his stomach. These were the places where there were the most sweat spots in this hot weather. They eventually started to itch, he knew from experience. And he felt cleaner and fresher when they were washed. He didn't take time to take a shower. He wanted to be ready when Eder got back. He didn't mean to piss him off. He wanted to go to the supermarket himself, but sometimes he just couldn't find the energy to do it. Then he couldn't pull himself away from the television and the couch and he stayed seated. All day. Like today.

Naked, Jackson walked to his bedroom and took a pair of clean boxer shorts from a drawer. A purple one. He never wore briefs. They were no longer comfortable now that a large fat pad was growing under his belly. He flopped clumsily onto his bed and struggled to get the boxer shorts over his feet. His legs had grown a bit bigger again, he felt as he pulled at the fabric. He lifted his stomach and pulled the boxers up a little further. Again he breathed deeply, as if he had exerted himself heavily. Groaning, he got up and walked to his wardrobe. Decent clothes. What were those actually? Jeans will be better than sweatpants. It was a great opportunity to also wear the new blouse that he bought last month. Jackson didn't like to wear jeans and blouses. He preferred looser clothing around his body, such as sweatpants and shirts. They gave him more freedom of movement and were easier to take off if he got hot. The first pair of jeans he found in his messy wardrobe went straight into the trash. It dates back to the time when he first moved into the house and he could barely pull it over his thick calves. The second pair of jeans had frayed holes at the knees. The pants slid more easily over his calves, but got stuck at his thighs. Sitting on the edge of his bed, Jackson tugged at the dust in frustration. Well, surely he still has one pair of jeans that fit? With a loud crack, the holes at the knees tore out and with a thud, Jackson fell back onto the bed. He had pulled too hard and so these pants also had to go in the trash. Panting, he got up and looked through the shirts in his closet for another pair of jeans. He heard the front door slam shut. Eder had returned, so time was running out. The taxi that would pick them up would be at the door in about an hour.

It was good to see that Jackson was no longer on the couch, a sign that he was changing clothes. Do not get me wrong. I wasn't the type who only wanted to be seen with people in expensive clothes. But I also didn't want to be seen in a restaurant with someone who looked like a beggar. I hurriedly emptied the shopping bag. Finally, Coke! I poured the remainder of the water from the glass into the sink, filling it halfway with coke. I also brought a box of frozen pizza rolls that Jackson had requested. They seemed gross to me, but Jackson ate more of what seemed gross to me. For example, sandwiches with cheese spread, real cheese, jam and chocolate sprinkles. He could eat a whole loaf of it. I greedily drank the coke and ran upstairs to my room to change clothes. I didn't see Jackson. He had closed his bedroom door. I didn't really feel like saying anything to him. There was a nice tense atmosphere again. That promised something for tonight. I personally had no problems finding nice clothes. A lot of it came from the time when I was in a better financial position. Then I had too much money, or so it seemed. Buying designer clothes was one of my hobbies. Crazy actually. It was never about the brand for me, but the clothes were just beautiful. And the quality was good, which is why I can still wear them now. It is not yet pale or full of holes. Then I had a good job at a large bank. Sometimes I still regret leaving. Well… I had indeed resigned there myself. I had my reasons, so I didn't really have to regret it. Money wasn't everything. There was also such a thing as personal happiness. Not that I found that afterwards. I was still searching for what I wanted to do with my life. I started to feel more and more in a hurry. I wasn’t 18 anymore and I wouldn’t live forever. A loud groan sounded, followed by a 'damn it'. Well, Jackson is having a hard time with his clothes. For a moment I thought I was going to check on him, but something stopped me. A white Calvin Klein t-shirt with print. I was going to wear that this evening. With black jeans. Time to get dressed.

When Jackson came to live with me, he was a slim, even athletically muscular boy. Afterwards I heard about his street life, how he had always had to run from the police and that he trained almost every day with climbing frames in playgrounds and loose paving stones that he pulled off as weights. So I understood how he got that body. If I must believe his stories, he never had a home before. No one took care of him. I think he likes it here. Not that I care for him, and I only clean his mess because he doesn't do that himself and I like living in a reasonably clean house. But I still have to cook. For myself, so I cook a little extra and he can eat too. At first he ate almost nothing. Everything I made was dirty. We always ate separately and often he wasn't even home. I then saved a portion for him to heat up in the microwave. When the plate was empty the next morning I knew that he had come home, that he had probably slept in bed and that he did like the food. One day he told me that his best friend had been arrested and taken to prison. He hoped for a while that things would not be too bad and that friend would receive a less harsh punishment, but that turned out not to be the case. Yes, from that moment on Jackson stayed home more often and we ate together more and more. From that moment on I was also able to cook increasingly larger portions. The food tasted good to him. Too good perhaps. There were days when he would lie down in bed after dinner with a stomach ache because he had eaten too much. About six months ago I started noticing that I was losing food. Then suddenly the milk had disappeared from the refrigerator or I couldn't find a pack of cookies that I was sure I had stashed in the pantry. Of course Jackson didn't know anything about anything, but I still assume he drank it or ate it. At first I thought he was suffering from a tapeworm, but when his weight started to increase seriously I knew better. In just under a year and a half, Jackson went from a fit, muscular guy to the over-the-top pudding he is today. He didn't seem to care that much. Sometimes I wondered if he even realized that he had become so fat.

I nervously looked at the clock in the living room. The taxi would arrive in fifteen minutes to take us to the restaurant. I didn't even know Jackson had ordered a taxi. While changing clothes I realized that I didn't know how we were going to get to the city center. Somehow I always think that the bicycle is the only means of transport these days. Sometimes I'm not quite right in my head, I know that. I did like to walk to the city myself. If I have an appointment with one of my friends. I'm not afraid of a brisk walk. But I don't see Jackson walking far anymore. He would probably faint halfway due to his weight. By the way, he could hurry up changing clothes. Otherwise he would be late for his own dinner. I always liked to be on time. Better much too early than a little too late. I didn't know why that was. I did know that I could be annoyed if I had made an appointment and the other person showed up much too late. Of course something could come up, but please let it know. Or those people who were way too early. That I was sitting relaxed on the toilet and the doorbell suddenly rang. You can also call or app then, right? In the kitchen I filled my glass halfway again with cola. That was one of my weird things too; Fill glasses halfway. Just imagine if that taxi came and I hadn't finished the Coke yet. Then it would sit on the counter all evening and it would be lukewarm and without sparkles when I came back. Then I could wash it down the sink. I wasn't a big drinker. Not a big eater either, but I just didn’t get a smaller glass. And where was that fat guy? How much time did it take you to change clothes?

I looked at myself in the mirror by the stairs. The Calvin Klein shirt still fits well. The black jeans had become a little too big, but that's why they invented the belt. In the past three years I had not gained any weight, rather lost it. Due to the stress of not having money I had lost about 50 pounds. I had never been really fat. Quite sturdy. In any case, I was more solid than I am now. People complimented me on losing weight, but a compliment is worth nothing if losing weight was not the intention. Unfortunately, I knew what it was like not to have money to buy food. And if the money was there, I wouldn't be hungry because of all the worries. Fortunately, that period was now behind me. There was a heavy stomp on the stairs and Jackson appeared, huffing and puffing like an old steam locomotive. He descended slowly and laboriously, step by step, holding tightly to the railing. My god… what did he look like! The jeans he was wearing were so tight around his legs that he could barely bend them. His new yellow blouse that looked like it came straight from Hawaii (I thought it was ugly) was no less tight around the rest of his body and certainly didn't hide his love handles, which were too big to hold with one hand, bulging out of his pants. They even hung over it a bit. The yellow fabric wasn't strong enough to support his belly, so it hung low over his crotch. The buttons were tense, as if they were about to pop off at any moment, and openings showed the black color of his flesh. One button above his navel wasn't even closed. His fat arms literally bulged out of the short sleeves. Why hadn't he just put on baggy sweatpants with a t-shirt and left his ugly blouse open? Shit man! If I sent him back to wear something else, he would definitely be late for the taxi.

“You look good,” Jackson said, a little surprised when he caught his breath.

It had indeed been a long time since I had put on my old, expensive clothes. I didn't have to hit on anyone at work anyway and there was no point in wearing expensive clothes on the bike. They would only get dirty with sweat.

“Thank you,” I stammered, not really knowing what to say about him.

The doorbell rang, meaning the taxi had arrived. I quickly said that his new blouse looked good on him as I walked to the front door. Jackson waddled after me. I think the driver was also shocked by that big, black figure behind me, because he quickly took a step back when he saw Jackson. At the taxi I buttoned the open button of his blouse with some difficulty, after I had asked him to hold his stomach for a moment. Why hadn't he bought a size larger? Jackson struggled to get into the backseat of the taxi. While sitting, there was even more pressure on the buttons. The one I had just closed had sprung open again. He seemed to be having trouble breathing. Was he holding his stomach in? In my mind I hoped that nothing crazy would happen in the restaurant. Even if nothing crazy happened, it would still be a special evening. I realized that I had never had dinner with a black guy before. Perhaps it was normal in his culture to walk around with broken buttons on a yellow Hawaiian blouse. Well, at least that's not the case here. Jackson moaned softly. His pants were very tight.

We got to the restaurant in no time by taxi. I looked at Jackson as he paid the driver. The button on his blouse wasn’t just opened, it was gone! It was probably still in the taxi. I didn't feel like looking for it. And Jackson wasn't even aware that he was missing a button. He didn't notice at all that his belly fat was now bulging out of the gap between the buttons in his blouse. If only he had worn a black blouse, it wouldn't have been so noticeable. He walked towards me with a cheerful look. He must have felt blissful from all the smells of freshly baked food that greeted us. Modest as I was, I let him into the restaurant first. After all, he had made a reservation and would pay afterwards. He waddled impatiently after the waiter who pointed to our table. He probably saw the opening in the blouse, because he gave Jackson a dirty look. Funny how truly modest people don't point out flaws to others. Just like that snot in someone's nose that you don't point out to him or her, so that they look like an idiot all day long. I kept a small distance from Jackson and the waiter, as if I didn't want anyone to think I belonged with them, while soon afterwards I was sitting at the same table. Some of the other guests had also seen Jackson and many quickly turned their eyes away. Their children giggled softly, but luckily no one spoke to us.

“I'll go to the buffet,” Jackson said. The drool just barely came out of his mouth. “Will you order me a Coke?”

What the…! Before I could respond, he had gotten up and walked over. I must admit that the extensive buffet, which was clearly visible from our table, looked very inviting. And maybe it was better that way, because I saw dozens of people looking up when he walked past.

The situation reminded me of the barbecue I hosted for my friends and family early last year to celebrate my permanent employment at work. It was more of a party out of common decency, because my bond with the family was already crumbling considerably. Jackson was there too, of course, and a few of his friends, and although he wasn't as heavy as he is now, he had already gained quite a bit of weight. His friends looked at him the same way the people here do now, with some disgust on their faces. Well… those friends were still mainly on the street. They did not want to participate in the project in which the municipality would also look for a house for them. I never saw those friends again afterwards. Actually pretty sad for Jackson. Sometimes I wonder if it doesn't hurt him. He also ate at the barbecue. Even when everyone was gone, he continued to eat. I think that was also the first time he went to bed with a stomach ache. I wanted to call an ambulance, but he really didn't want that. All the meat was gone. The next day it came out again in the toilet. The whole house smelled of it. It was one of the few times Jackson had apologized. Not only because of the smell, but also because of his poor behavior the night before in front of my family and friends. He was ashamed. I didn't think he should have apologized. I already wanted to get rid of my family and the meat had gone nicely. My friends… they didn't like him that much. They felt he was taking advantage of my kindness. They didn't come to my house that often anymore. Especially when Jackson was there and he was almost always there. That's why I went to visit them, or we went to a terrace in the city center.

“A coke and a sweet white wine,” I ordered when the waiter came by.

A nice sweet wine, I deserved it after a week of hard work. Jackson drank almost no alcohol. An occasional beer, in the evening in front of the television when I had bought toast or other tasty things. A table further away I heard children giggling. Not much later, Jackson appeared. There was a mountain of food on his plate. Shrimp, eggs, something that looked like a steak, a puff pastry case with ragout and all kinds of things were hidden under a pile of potato salad.

“Could there be more to it?” I asked sarcastically as Jackson sat down.

The coke and wine were brought, after which he eagerly looked for his cutlery, on which he had placed the plate. “I'll go back right away.” He smiled showing his big white teeth. “So, let's enjoy first.”

I pointed out to him that his cutlery was under the plate because he looked like he was trying to push the food in with his hands. I couldn't deny that Jackson always ate with relish. I could learn something from that. I always eat in a hurry and because I have to. In the past, I often didn't take the time to cook a decent meal. Sometimes I even skipped meals. If I didn't feel like driving to the grocery store to get something to eat, I didn't. Now that Jackson is here, I eat more regularly. At home then. If I forget to take bread to work again, I can still easily not eat for the whole day.

“You should have told me that a button on my blouse is missing,” Jackson said suddenly between two big bites.

Wow, awkward moment. Someone had apparently brought it to his attention. I didn't know what to say for a moment. It might have been polite if I had made a comment, but then? We couldn't quickly drive home to get another blouse or shirt.

“You're right, I could have let you know that a button is missing,” I finally said. “I hope you don't feel uncomfortable now,” I said afterward.

Jackson shrugged, stuffing his mouth with the last bite before this plate was empty. I stared at him, waiting for him to swallow the bite and answer.

“I'm here to eat, not to worry about what others think. There's nothing wrong with male black meat, right? Let them take a good look. And I'm also here to have a good time with you."

He added the latter quickly, as if he were afraid of offending me. He pushed the empty plate to the center of the table and stood up again.

“I'll go again.”

And he was gone.

A buffet was actually not suitable for two people at all. If you went there with a group, there was always someone at the table with you. If there were only two of you, you were often alone. The sweet wine here was tasty. That was not the case at every restaurant. After taking a big sip, I decided it was time to take a look at the food myself. Jackson stood by the hot plates, where chefs were preparing the meat and vegetables. I myself was more into the small snacks. They had plenty of those here too. A glass of shrimp cocktail. That was mine. And some deviled eggs. A few slices of smoked salmon (I was a fish lover) and meatballs. Oh…did I see fried squid rings there? I took that with me too. It seemed like a lot, but my plate was not even half full. I had barely sat down at the table when Jackson also returned. His plate was fuller. Two steaks and a sirloin steak. That was also one of those dirty things that Jackson couldn't get enough of. I once ate a sirloin steak at my ex's parents' house. Damn! That filthy fat edge. I still get nauseous when I think about it. It was the first time in my life that I didn't eat the food out of decency, which led to another awkward situation. I really couldn't get it in no matter how much I wanted to.

“Thanks for the invite,” I said, trying to make conversation as Jackson devoured the meat in front of him. “I know you would rather have been here with your friends…”

The latter came out before I knew it and I decided not to finish my sentence. I didn't know how much Jackson would be bothered to hear it.

Jackson shrugged again, but made no further response.

“Don't you ever miss them?”

I couldn't resist asking the question. Personally, I would miss my friends if they suddenly disappeared from my life. Jackson stopped eating for a moment and stared at the half-gnawed sirloin steak on his plate.

“They themselves chose to drop me,” he replied somewhat under his breath. I had to make an effort to understand him. “I don't miss people like that.”

He lifted the sirloin steak to his mouth with his hands and began to hastily bite off large pieces. I didn't have time to ask more questions, because Jackson got up again to get more.

Maybe it was his tactic to shut me up. Jackson didn't like to talk about his friends. In the beginning, yes. He was almost proud of them, how they managed to survive on the streets. I often had discussions with him about the ethics of stealing, but Jackson really thought differently than me, so those conversations were never satisfying. Let me also go to the buffet. The nice thing about buffets was that you didn't have to eat everything in a certain order. You just took what you felt like at that moment. People always looked at me in amazement when I could fill a plate with desserts in between, and then move on to savory, warm things. They just had white chocolate mousse here. And brownies. Ice cream, I wasn't crazy about that. This is enough for now, I can always go back. Jackson was already in place. Two full plates lay on the table in front of him. Was one plate no longer enough or something? It made me feel sick looking at the two mountains of food. What must those chefs have thought when that fat boy appeared in front of them with two plates? Would they have made a comment? Parts of the food slid from the plate onto the table as Jackson eagerly began to eat it. It looked quite unappetizing. The big bites he took, which were swallowed almost without chewing. Others saw it too. They had followed him with their eyes from the moment he passed their table with the two full plates. Have you ever seen someone looking at something in disgust? The restaurant was now full of looks like this. I think the children found it exciting and probably wondered whether he would get to finish the plates. Well, he seemed to be able to do it easily. With a soft 'pop' a second button popped off the blouse, revealing even more of his black belly. Shit man! He won't be walking half naked to the buffet again, will he? I pretended to be invisible and turned my gaze to the white chocolate mousse on my plate as several other guests walked past our table on their way to the exit.

“Disgusting,” one of them said quietly.

Jackson didn't notice. He was too busy scarfing down the food. “Delicious!” he suddenly shouted.

I was shocked and choked on the mouse. Others looked our way. What the hell…! I stared at my plate again. Maybe I should just walk away. Er… get chocolate mousse again or something. Satisfied, Jackson rubbed his stomach and felt the second button had disappeared. He smiled. “This is really great man!” he said, leaning back to give his stomach more room.

He sat there for a moment and stared into space. I wondered what was going through his mind at this moment. What would someone who had just consumed four full plates be thinking about? Jackson rubbed his stomach again, then struggled to get up.

“Are you really going back to the buffet with your blouse half torn open?” I said cattily. I was terribly ashamed. What must those people be thinking? More and more of them seemed to leave because of him. Jackson nodded his head. He probably didn't care what I thought about it. Suddenly there was a loud gurgling sound under the blouse. “Ooh, but first I'm going to the bathroom,” Jackson said. 'And quickly too. All that food is putting pressure on my intestines. Can you help me get up?'

I didn't dare look into the restaurant anymore for fear of all the eyes that were undoubtedly staring at us, while Jackson tried to get out of the chair, leaning on me. Wow, that boy was heavy! With a clearly audible groan and a final effort he straightened his legs. While he waddled towards the toilets, I quickly ran back to the dessert corner of the buffet. I don't belong with him… I don't belong with him, was all I could think. Some children started laughing and pointed after him. There was a huge tear in the jeans near his butt. The purple boxer shorts he was wearing were clearly visible. Oh my God! Back at the table, I hoped Jackson would never return. That this was all a bad dream. I never asked him to wear clothes that were too tight. Just decent clothes. I quietly ate the freshly made chocolate mousse. Would Jackson really want to eat more? How was he going to make it? With a torn blouse and pants? I would be ashamed of myself if I walked around like that. Should I forbid him from getting more? That wasn't possible, right? Maybe all this wasn't necessary and my first wish came true, because it took quite a while before Jackson showed himself again. Crazy things went through my head. Could he have fallen down the toilet? Could he have produced such a big turd with all his food that he couldn't get it out? Could he have gone into cardiac arrest due to his obesity? Only then do you realize that no matter how ashamed you are of someone, you don't want anything serious to happen to that person. It took at least half an hour before he appeared again. His torn pants hung in front of his crotch. He couldn't get it any higher. The bottom of his stomach was sticking out of his blouse, in front of the purple boxer shorts, which would certainly have been visible otherwise. The waiter looked after him. Fortunately, more guests had left in the meantime, which made me feel a bit safer.

With a sigh he sat down opposite me again. “I couldn't get my clothes on, man,” he said. “I got a little bigger than I thought.”

Finally, Jackson showed traces of self-knowledge. And I hoped that, like me, he thought it was time to go home. But unfortunately. Drooling, his head turned back towards the buffet and I could almost hear him thinking about what to get next.

“You know there's a huge tear in your jeans?” I said, stopping him from getting up.

I didn't feel like having to support him again. Jackson looked at me in shock. Apparently he didn't notice. I don't think it's strange if your belly is so big that you can't see your own pants while sitting on the toilet, even though they are hanging around your ankles.

'Your ass is bulging out, man. You really can't do that.'

Jackson stared at the empty table in front of him, clearly disappointed. I thought that was sad again. For him, a nice dinner should not end in disappointment. Especially since he was the one who paid. “Can't you go get me a plate?” Jackson asked softly. 'Just one, then we'll leave quietly.

Well, go ahead then. I wasn’t really willing to be treated like his personal servant, but there was no other option. As long as he just sat there with his big, black body and torn clothes, he couldn't attract much more attention than what he had already done. He didn't really care what I took with me. Everything was tasty, so I took the liberty of putting everything on the plate. Pizza slices, mashed potatoes with sausages and a variety of meats freshly baked by the chefs on the griddle. Previously I judged the food mountains that he had brought with him, but now I do exactly the same. Perhaps I should have taken two plates with me. The chefs smiled at me. Of course they knew that all that meat was not for me. Jackson was amazed when I came back. I had managed to put more food on a plate than him. Immediately he started eating it. In the meantime, I got a plate of small dough dishes that I hadn't seen before. At the table I grabbed one myself. I gave the rest to Jackson, who already had half of the full plate empty.

“Man, this is so good,” he said with his mouth full, after which he added a triangular-shaped dough snack.

Honestly, I don't cook that well. Not that extensive anyway. Somehow I felt at ease again. As long as Jackson stayed put. All he had to do was eat. And it helped that many people had already left the restaurant. It was already almost nine o'clock. Many people don't stay in a restaurant for very long.

What a slimeball! I've never seen someone so squirming and begging for a plate of food. One plate had become four. Finally time for dessert and so I walked between the buffet tables for the fifth time in search of sweet treats. Okay, what should I take with me? Profiteroles, brownies, cupcakes. Chocolate mousse; pure, milk and white. The plate was completely full again when I walked back to the table. Jackson breathed deeply. He barely got up to reach the plate. That's what you get when you eat that much. I walked back to the buffet, to the wide freezer that was there. Jackson liked ice cream, I knew. After all, he ate all those tubs of ice cream, which I wanted to save for those few times when I really felt like it. They had many flavors here. Hmmm… banana, chocolate, vanilla. And a few scoops of less common flavors. So, a generous dollop of whipped cream on top. If he still wants to eat, I will let him eat!

“You're good to me,” Jackson said as I returned to the table and placed the bowl of ice cream and the huge mound of whipped cream next to the plate of desserts. I sat down on my chair and decided that this would be the last round. The restaurant was about to close and Jackson looked like he was going to explode at any moment. There were only buttons left on his blouse near his breasts. The rest popped off two plates ago. He had also unbuttoned his pants to create more space for his stomach so he could push even more food into it.

“I can't take it anymore,” he finally said with a deep sigh that made his face look painful.

His overfull stomach pressed on his lungs, making breathing difficult and even painful. It also made a gurgling sound. Maybe it was too tight. I hadn't seen Jackson eat this much before.

“That's a shame,” I said.

'Come on, your plate is almost empty and you still have to finish that ice cream, right? That whipped cream isn't filling. You'll finish it in no time.'

Jackson nodded, as if he thought I was right, and continued eating the chocolate mousse. If you're so greedy, eat everything, I thought. Otherwise it's a shame. Of that ice cream and of my time getting it. Slowly, Jackson finally brought a spoonful of ice cream to his mouth. Apparently the ice cream was very tasty, or it was just a new flavor that made Jackson eat faster again. Spoonfuls of whipped cream eagerly disappeared into his mouth. Almost empty. He leaned back in his chair, trying to relieve the painful pressure in his stomach.

“Just a little more,” Jackson panted when the ice cream was gone too. “Just a little more pudding, I can still finish that.”

But I had other plans and called the taxi. Jackson didn't seem to be completely in this world anymore. His eyes looked dazed, as if he were going to faint at any moment. If I had gotten more, it would have been good, but I thought he actually wouldn’t mind to go now.

The waiter looked wide-eyed at the large, black belly, most of which rested visibly on his thighs, as Jackson paid her. Tipping was probably something he had never heard of, because he paid to the cent. My phone beeped. The taxi had arrived, I saw on an app.

“We have to go, the taxi is here.”

I hopped out of my seat with relief. As I expected, it had been a strange evening. On the one hand I was happy that it was over, but something in me also liked it. It was just a shame his clothes were too tight. That had attracted too much attention.

“I…I can't get up!” Jackson groaned. 'I ate too much.'

Of course I was allowed to support him again, but this time it was more difficult to get him up than when he had to go to the toilet. He kept falling back into the chair. His gut looked hard and swollen. A soft burp left his mouth. We had to hurry. This taxi wouldn't wait forever. Fortunately, one of the servers was kind enough to help us. Or he just wanted to get rid of us. They were probably happy that we were going. The waiter stood on the other side of Jackson and with some effort we got Jackson out of the chair. He held his stomach tightly with both hands as we guided him to the exit.

“What a big eater,” the waiter said to me.

He winked. I give him a phony laugh. The clerk and driver helped Jackson into the taxi. I took a seat next to him in the back seat and hoped to become invisible again through sheer willpower. It was not easy to get him into the taxi. He could no longer bend over, there was too much food in his stomach for that. Finally, he collapsed into the backseat, his legs spread wide to provide all the room his belly needed. Weird gurgling noises came out of it as Jackson gently rubbed it. He breathed deeply. As long as he doesn't fart here. The driver probably thought the same, because he raced us back home, taking a speed bump a little too fast.

“I'm exploding!” Jackson shouted, when the threshold was behind us and I had regained my place in the backseat. Jesus, that guy was really in a hurry. A loud belch escaped Jackson's mouth. The driver remained silent. Even when the taxi started to smell like grilled meat and fried potatoes. The gurgling sound from his stomach became louder and louder and for a moment I wondered if it was actually possible to explode from eating too much. Fortunately, we were back in my street. While Jackson was trying to get up in the restaurant, I had taken the liberty of grabbing his wallet, which he had placed on the table. Fortunately, there was still enough money in it to pay the driver. This one didn't get a tip from me either, grumpy guy. He hurriedly parked the taxi on the sidewalk in front of our house. It was clear he wanted to get rid of us.

No doubt the driver would have thought we were the biggest bastards he had ever transported. He sullenly took the money I gave him. Huffing heavily, as if he were about to give birth at any moment, Jackson lay slumped in the backseat. Judging by the smell that made its way out when I opened the door, he had just farted.

“Help me,” he said softly, trying to pull himself out of the doorway.

It was not easy to get that monster out of the car. He had done an extremely good job in the restaurant. Eight large plates of food, that's no small feat. After ten minutes he had not moved an inch. The driver looked impatiently at our fumbling. It didn't interest me. What a jerk! Once again, Jackson fell back into the backseat after I tried to pull him up. A loud fart escaped. Jackson groaned.

“Come on, one more time,” I said, grabbing his arm again.

Jackson remained seated. “I'm in so much pain.”

Don't whine so much. It was his own fault that he was now sitting there with a painfully full stomach. I counted down and pulled him out of the taxi with all my strength. It worked. Panting, he stood in front of me, holding his stomach tightly again. The driver stood there and looked at it. I didn't spare him a glance. As I supported Jackson to the front door, I heard the taxi drive away with screeching tires. Another loud fart sounded. Digesting all that food will produce the necessary gasses. His belly looked big and hard. Maybe it was a good idea to make him throw up over the toilet to take away most of the tension. Calling an ambulance was not an option, Jackson never wanted that when he had a stomach ache from eating. Maybe he was ashamed of himself if he had lost control again. In any case, it didn't look good. Jackson's face contorted in pain with every step he took and that black belly, it was really big and bloated. It stood out heavily in front of us as we walked down the hall. His head was wet with sweat and he was breathing deeply. I honestly thought he was going to drop dead at any moment. That his heart couldn't handle it anymore. He was already out of breath, and he still had to climb the stairs. I thought it would be better, and he wanted it too, to put him on the bed instead of on the couch. He had plenty of room in bed to recover from all the food. And I would rather have him release all the fumes in his room than in the living room.

Gawd…! And just as I was using force to push him up by his fat ass, he let another one out. Jesus, they were getting harder. The neighbor must have heard this. And the smell! Oh my God. A really diarrheal smell! Disgusting. We were almost at the top of the stairs. After each step, Jackson needed a few minutes to catch his breath. With one hand still holding his stomach, with the other he lifted himself up onto the banister. If only it didn't come loose from the wall it was attached to. If Jackson were to fall now, I would be beneath him. Neither of us would probably survive that. But that smell… terrible!

“I can't anymore,” Jackson whimpered.

His stomach rumbled unnaturally loudly. This is the moment it's going to burst, I thought and pushed his ass again. Groaning, Jackson stepped up another step. His blouse was below us, in the hallway. I had helped take it off so he could move a little more and to cool him down a bit as the sweat was pouring off his body. Hop, another step!

“We're almost there,” I said as Jackson collapsed.

He shouldn't be stuck here now. I didn't feel like having to support him all night. I couldn't see how many steps we had to go, because his body blocked my view, but there couldn't be many. Jackson laboriously took another step. Then another. We were upstairs. I sighed. What a late night job. Jackson waddled to his room without my help. A burp. His ripped jeans hung from his knees as he flopped back on the bed. It creaked under his weight. Curious, I checked to see if his heart had not stopped yet.

“Thanks,” he puffed softly.

I nodded and left his room.

There I was, in the middle of the night, sitting on a slightly sagging couch in the living room. What a night. I had poured myself a coke. I didn't have any wine, but I was most certainly in the mood for it now. He came to live with me, Jackson, a year and a half ago. Slim, athletic, from the street and he used my house as a kind of youth center. Those friends of his, they were not sweethearts. Neither was he. My stuff disappeared, my money disappeared and my privacy was completely gone. I was bullied and humiliated in my own home. I couldn't get rid of him anymore. He was too well protected by the municipality for that. I had actually signed up to keep him in my home for five years myself. So I couldn't get rid of his friends either. I had even called the police a few times to have them thrown out of the house. Idiots, they were. When they had ridiculed me so much that I fled my own house crying, I had decided to poison Jackson. But yes... then I would go to jail myself and I wasn’t  willing to do that. I discovered that Jackson started eating more when he was sad or disappointed. I made good use of that knowledge because, I thought, if he gained a lot of weight, he would no longer be able to survive on the street and his friends would no longer be of any use to him. Then they would stay away. That would be nice revenge for Jackson's retarded behavior towards me. Not only in terms of his friends, but also in terms of the household. He really did nothing all day but watch television and give me orders. So I became his maid. I did the housework, laundry and shopping. And most of all, I cooked. I regularly asked him about his friends, about his mother and sisters. And about  his dreams and wishes. And I always asked before or during dinner. He almost never answered with words, but from the intense eating that suddenly occurred, I could see that I had hit him somewhere. Sad really, but I still wanted to get rid of him. I wanted to move on with my life, without someone constantly watching what I was doing and depriving me of the energy to do the things I really wanted to do. It didn't look like he was going to leave voluntarily. I'm just glad those horrible friends got the hell out of here. And that the clothes that were too tight were torn now. Fortunately, he couldn't wear those anymore. Well boy, you shouldn’t eat so much and be so lazy. That was not a healthy combination. Jackson, 400 pounds in a year and a half. Could I double that in another year and a half?

[mubal4]

9/13/23  

Where is our limit? – Mogollon Monster 100 Race Wrap Up

How far can we truly go? What is the limit? What are we truly made of?

The questions above where the principals behind us doing the Mogollon Monster 100 (MOG 100 for short) last weekend. Would never consider myself a veteran 100-mile ultramarathon runner. This was my fifth one since beginning this wildly, wacky, and amazing sport back in 2015. However, I am familiar with the distance, what it takes to complete them, and since none of mine have been pretty (pretty-ugly more like it 😊), there have been many lessons learned along the way. Listen, running 100 miles is crazy far and there are so many unknowns; things you don’t think of, wouldn’t think of, that do occur where you need to problem solve (more to come on that). However, there are ways to mitigate some of the unknowns and uncertainty that are apparent. This in mind, I studied the course and was able to do some training runs along the route to familiarize myself with the climbs, technicality, and conditions. We spoke to friends that have experience with running it (much gratitude Meghan & Brian) and crewing it to limit a bit of the uncertainty. We trained! And trained! And trained! The expectation was this was going to be a 100-mile not like something we’ve experienced before, just in the course, terrain, and technicality. Therefore, if we were going to do something we’ve never done before, we were going to have to train like we’ve never trained before. Come race day however, there were still a few pieces of uncertainly, some done on purpose – that would prove to help us begin to understand if we could go beyond the limits!

From the book A Runner’s Hi, by Dean Karnazes

“An ultramarathon is not a single experience, but a series of little moments, strung together in a narrative thread that becomes a complete story. Some moments are silly, others sublime; not that much different from life really. In so many ways, an ultramarathon is a microcosm of life when compressed into 100 miles of running the full breath of humanness is experienced, the physical, emotional and the spiritual. Along the path, a story gets told. What I’ve come to realize is that the ending is not what matters most. Sure, I may get another buckle today, but reaching the finish line is not the ultimate prize. It is the story that’s lived along the way and today was turning out to be one hell of a story.”

Here's the story.

The foreshadowing the weeks prior to this race was the perfect preface to what was to come. We spent the two weeks before in California with our youngest daughter Alaina for two separate soccer tournaments. In between those weeks I was also in CA for work. It actually worked out well because I only drove out once (flew the other 😊). Point being, it wasn’t the ideal type of taper weeks I would have liked, and things were not routine at all. Even the week of was not ordinary in any way but the more I thought about it, it was in line with what I was expecting the race to deliver. The day before I drove up to Pine, AZ to get settled into the cabin and wait for my wife Robin & our great friend, Michelle, who would be crewing me throughout. Originally, we had thought it was going to be Robin solo for ungodly hours up on the Mogollon Rim (rim), in a point-to-point race, driving for miles and hours trying to find out where the hell I am in a remote part of AZ with limited, if any cell service. (Yeah – a bit uncertainty and unknown there). Fortunately, Michelle committed to helping out and she was a complete rockstar for her first time ever experiencing something like this. She came up critical in a number of areas. When we all arrived separately late Friday, we talked about the game plan, made final preparations, and tried to get as much sleep as possible. Not something that comes easy before any ultra, let alone one like this. When the alarm went off @ 3am it was time to get going and by 530am I was at the starting line getting ready to tackle this beast.

There was a calmness to the air as we got a few minutes out. Race Director Noah shared some instructions and insight on the course, finer details, and wished us all luck and then the National Anthem was played. This was the first time; I can remember this being done at a race. It delivered a sense of pride, some emotion, and much energy. After feelings of anxiety, stress, wonder and excitement, we were off, and I actually felt relief and comfort.

After crossing the starting map there was no hesitation, we were immediately into our first climb. The weather was cool, the climb was gradual, and we were moving steadily. A couple of short miles we were on top of the rim for the first time and the views (from every time up there) were epic. My first thought expressed out loud – “wow.” It truly is amazing, beautiful up there and recommend having it part of a bucket list. Not the race, but certainly a trip to the top 😊!! We had several miles of smooth running before descending back down to our first aid station. Quick refueling and then it was back up for our second climb for a couple more miles, then on top of the rim again, runnable terrain, before meeting up with Robin and Michelle for the first time at mile 27ish! We all had a lot of energy at this time, and I was feeling strong. We did our first sock change and took care of the feet, iced down with a neck banana. This was however, the initial point where my stomach started to act a bit off. I had been eating pretty well up to this point and staying consistent with food, but nothing sounded good to me at this time. I did though, stuff a few things in my head and got back at it. We had a few miles on top of the rim road (gravel road) before making a big descent down to a major aid station at mile 32ish. This is where the fun started!!! As I left the girls, just a few minutes out, my pack felt loose and bouncy as I ran. Not normal!! It is usually snug to my upper body. I didn’t think too much of it and kept running and for about 5 minutes the whole right side broke off. Think of having a backpack on and the right strap broke off. I was essentially running with that! No bueno for another 80+ miles. Here is where problem solving comes in…. fortunately, I had some athletic tape in my back so as I continued moving, I put that pack on the front of my body and worked to tape it up the best I can. In the meantime, I was trying to call Robin (remember remoteness and bad cell service) and fortunately she picked up. I told her the news and thankfully she and Michelle were able to catch me. Cue the MacGyver music cause this is where Michelle went to work. She was able to use leukotape (very stick & strong tape) to solidly put the pack together, while they “went to town” (a couple hour roundtrip) to see if they can get me another before meeting back up about 20 miles later.

That pack ended up holding up for the rest of the race but did cause a bunch of cuts/scrapes on my back because it wasn’t as snug, but we used that same leukotape to take care of that mess too. Leukotape – it’s the new duct tape!! The next 20 or so miles are some of the toughest of the course. There is that long descent as mentioned, and then several miles of rolling hills in an exposed area below the rim and then another brutal climb known as Myrtle. Fortunately, most of the time in the exposed area it was cloudy so we did get a bit of a break, just about a mile before the climb started. The sun popped back up and it seemed to warm quickly. The technical terrain, my stomach not on par, the heat and now the climb, started to pull me into my first real dark spot of the day. The climb up Myrtle is very tight, technical, steep, and at some points it doesn’t seem like you are even on a trail. It was slow going but I will tell you, there were a few moments when I stopped to turn around, at this point the sun was beginning to set, and the views were amazing; even saw a rainbow. It sucked but it was pretty easy to embrace that suck with what I was seeing. Things finally began to flatten out and I was able to hit the next aid station at the top. At this point, I was nauseous, and no food sounded good. I tried a few things but no dice. I took a seat, took in some salt (chips), downed some ginger ale, and I was on my way again. Fortunately, I’d be seeing Robin and Michelle for the second time in a few miles – that was giving me the energy I needed to get there.

As I began approaching what was the Buck Springs aid station, I began hearing faint noises. At this point, I was running near the edge of the rim to my left side, and it sounded like coyotes howling. Although I was a bit beat up, I wasn’t at the point where I was hearing things (yet 😊), and nightfall was just on us. The closer I got to Buck Springs the more I realized that was where the noise was coming from – it was an all-out party, on top of the rim, in the middle of nowhere and the volunteers and crews were having a blast. It was an immediate bolt of inspiration considering the last climb that happened, the 4th one. I came upon Robin and Michelle, and they went right to work. The last stretch did take a toll on me, my stomach was still queasy, but my body and mind were in good spirits. We had two jobs at this point, taking care of the feet with cleaning them up and sock change, and eating. They both went through a cycle of different types of food for me to eat and settled on grapes (thanks again Michelle, best grapes I ever had 😊), broth and a load of potatoes and salt. I also took a moment to get my wits about me. This was going to be one of those moments that was going to be unknown for me, and for Robin as well. There have been races that I haven’t had a pacer and actually, my last 100-miler back in October, I didn’t have one. I went through the night at that race solo. But……it was a 20-mile looped course and one I’ve run dozens of times, so it was VERY known. These next 20 miles were going to be through the night, on trails I’ve never traveled, likely by myself in the middle of nowhere. Yes, there are other runners out there, however at this point in a 100-mile race, things are very spread out. This is another moment of this race I was looking forward to – let’s see how I navigate and work through this without a pacer to keep me motivated, moving, fueled and awake 😊!!!!

When I left the girls, the trail descended a bit and was quite smooth. I actually caught up with another runner and we worked together for a few miles. We then came upon two others and the four of us started picking off miles throughout this section of the course, known as the cabin loop (passing by a few cabins, Pinchot & General Springs…..hence the name). After some time, we began dipping into and climbing out of a few canyons over several miles. During this time, not sure because it wasn’t like I was moving at blazing fast speed, I began distancing myself from the other three runners. Coming into Pinchot Cabin aid station I was feeling very good, likely because I ate before but my stomach was still not right and that stayed with me the entire race. For some reason, just couldn’t shake it. No worries, I downed a full PB&J, some caffeine, and was on my way. On my way out, I saw one dude and his pacer, talking deeply, and as I turned back to say thank you to the aid crew, the runner was heading to a caught to sleep……my hope for a short period of time and then pressing on. This next part was about 7 miles, and I was to be seeing Robin and Michelle for the last time at night. This part and more ups and downs, not as difficult as the climbs up and down the rim but for some reason it seemed relentless. It chewed me up and spit me out and by the time I reached the girls, at just over 60 miles, I was not in a good way. Physically, my muscles were good, and feet were okay too. We did another sock change and cleaned them up and I sat for a bit but didn’t have an appetite. The girls kept asking me if I wanted anything and nothing sounded good. I forced down another PB&J and then Robin, sweet Robin, asked if I wanted a lemon-lime Celsius. As I changed into dry clothes and got ready for the rest of the night, early morning hours, I grabbed the Celsius and took a sip. It was tasty, refreshing too. I then slugged the remainder of the can and it seemed to immediately give me a boost (caffeine….)! My mind had been in a dark spot, and I was hitting a low but once again, the girls, and this magic elixir got me moving again.

I wouldn’t be seeing the girls till mile 87, likely not until early afternoon so it was just me, my headlamp, and the trail for the next 10-12 hours. The descent just out of this aid station is down what is called the Powerline Climb and it sucked. There is no other way to describe this, about a mile maybe, trek over a rocky, boulder filled “trail.” During this time, another one of those things that don’t usually happen but will during a 100-miler, happen. As I planted my trekking pole and went to remove it, it got stuck between two rocks and I yanked one part right off. It was still connected with the internal cord but for some reason I was no longer able to collapse them AND, my headlamp ended up blowing up as well. All while descending this “trail” from hell. Thankfully, I made it to a section resembling an actual trail where I was able to get the pole and headlamp “fixed” and I was back moving again with Celsius energy. There was another aid station a short distance away and I again down a full PB&J – they seemed to be working for me at this time so stayed with it and went in and out quickly. The next few hours it was pretty much me out there. I had seen a few headlights a ways in front of me as the trail meandered through the trees and climbs but other than that, it was darkness with the cone of light from my lamp leading the way. I was moving, and moving well, or at least I felt like I was. I glanced at my watch occasionally and my pace is where I wanted to be heading to the 75-mile mark. I kept my head down and just kept moving forward. The silence and darkness were peaceful and my mind went to Robin and Michelle, hoping they made it back to the cabin okay (Robin confirmed that via text but didn’t get that until after…..). I was thinking about Isabella and Alaina and how they were doing. As well as our dog Bear. I had thoughts of when we committed to doing this race earlier in the year and the months of training leading up to it. I thought about the different trails and mountains climbed, people met, and research we did in preparation. More than we’ve done for past races. Technically, we were approaching 75-miles into this adventure, but the journey started way back in April!!!

Not sure if I nodded off for a quick second during my thoughts or it was a rock that I kicked but I did come out of what seemed like a trance and noticed two lights ahead on the trail. As I continued to get closer, I saw a couple more just ahead of me. The night sky was getting lighter, and the morning was beginning to wake up, just like me I guess 😊. My pace picked up as well and about a mile outside of the Geronimo aid station I was able to catch up to the 4-5 folks in front of me and we descended into the aid station as the sun was rising in the air. Getting through the night of an ultra can be one of the most demanding portions of the race. The last few hours for me were a bit serene and the dawn of this new day brought new life to me as well. I had a drop bag at this aid and was able to get another fresh set of clothes, new socks, and fueled up again. I had about 27 miles before seeing Robin and Michelle and the two last climbs of the day. I was ready to go but the Geronimo aid station was a scene of a bit of carnage. A friend was sitting there when I arrived, hadn’t seen him for about 12 hours, and unfortunately, he had decided not to go on. Another that I had passed coming into the aid did the same. And one guy, who we shared some miles with earlier in the race, came into the aid, all smiles and seemed like he had a ton of energy, was asked if he wanted anything, “nope, I’m done,” was his response. I wanted to see if I could rally these folks and all of us press on. But their race isn’t mine and vice versa. I gave my friend a pat on the back, it was his first 100-miler, he crushed it, and I was proud of him; happy as well to have shared miles. Told the others great job too and thanked the aid station volunteers. They all encouraged me to keep going and that I was doing great.

I had goosebumps when I left that aid station. The encouraging words, the new morning, knowing that we were getting toward the final quarter, and I knew this section of the course. I had trained on it a few weeks prior, so I was excited, and I was doing it almost exactly at the same time of day. After going through the night, conquering that uncertainty, and leaning into the unknown, I was somewhere familiar. This section of the course has some more rolling hills, nothing too substantial, before hitting the fifth climb. This is the shortest climb of all six but still gets a bit hairy toward the top. Navigating the rollers, I came across a runner and pacer, two from back earlier in the night, they were moving well, and we shared some short words. We had come across each other for several hours and figured we’d hit the climb together. I was surprised, by the time I got to the climb a couple miles later, they were nowhere in sight. I ended up seeing them finishing up the race as we were driving out of town…….it was good to know they kept moving on! Getting to the top was good and the trail dumped onto the rim road again and there was about a mile to Donohue aid station. There was about half-dozen runners at this when I rolled in and none that I had seen on the trails. We were all taking a bit of a breather because what was to come wasn’t going to be ideal at all!!! We were all about to take on, arguably the ugliest, toughest, most technical climb of the course. Prior to that, we were heading down a gnarly set of switchbacks and a steep grade, one that was to match the future climb. Altogether, it wasn’t far, 4 miles, but it was going to be brutal. I filled up my bottles, grabbed a handful of food and was on my way, I wasn’t going to delay the inevitable. I started to descend and told myself, “this is going to suck, it is going to hurt, it is going to be brutal, take your time, breathe, and keep moving forward.” The downhill was tough for a bit, slow and steady, then began to ease up getting closer to the bottom. After a quick left turn the climb was on and in reverse, it started off with an easy grade and then it just got as expected. It was almost breaking, but I just kept moving forward, took some stops for a few seconds, and kept climbing. It seemed to get steeper and steeper and then after some time, I began to hear voices. My head peaked over this ridge, and I heard a few people clapping. I was relieved to be at the top and after about ½ a mile I heard more cheering. I had made it to Dickerson Flat aid station and the final time I would see Robin and Michelle before the finish!!

It had been about 12 hours since I had seen them and yes, they were a sight for sore eyes…..and feet. Those 20 miles between our time together had tested me but not defeated me. My muscles were still feeling good, but my feet were banged up. Bones were sore and my hip/groin was beginning to bother me. I also started to begin feeling hotspots on my feet but decided not to change socks. I wanted in and out of this aid station fast. With about 15 miles to go, it was time to get to that finish line. Lemon-lime Celsius and PB&J made another appearance, and, in a few minutes, I was back on the rim road for about 5 miles before heading into Pine Canyon. This is a great view from the top of the rim looking into this canyon, all the way down, about 2 miles to the bottom. Although the view is pretty the trail down is not. Very technical, steep and switch backs several times before flattening out at the bottom. Now the trail was level, pretty smooth and was winding through some pine trees. The temps were nice, and the overcast skies made it much cooler. This was ideal since I was headed into the final stretch, which was mostly exposed. This was the second exposed part of the course I had mentioned but today, it was cloudy, and was starting to drizzle a bit. This made the next 8 or so miles to Pine Trail head, even with its climbs and descents, thankfully the final ones of the race, tolerable. There was a point on this stretch that I thought I was going the wrong way. I hadn’t seen anyone for a few miles, I was still following the markers, but didn’t realize this last stretch had so many climbs. I had even done this part of the course a year earlier at another race. I guess was beginning to lose my mind with being up for 40 hours, so I was getting a bit freaky 😊. I just kept moving and had some energy to run some of the flatter downhill areas. About 3 miles before I was to hit the last trailhead and get into the final stretch, I came upon a man, and what I found out to be his daughter. He was moving really slow – almost a crawl. I stopped to check in on him. He had said he hurt his knee quite badly and, to a point, needed to be held up by his daughter. He seemed to have his wits about him but had trouble staying upright. He still had a few hours to finish and with only 5 miles left, I believed he was going to make it. I did let the race folks know at the finish line that he was out there, but I had confidence he was going to get there. A few rolling hills later I saw the trailhead and water stations and realized that this journey, this test, was about 20 minutes from ending. The last, almost 2 miles, is on the roads through the town of Pine with the finish being at the community center. I crossed the main road and headed through this neighborhood, that dumped me out onto the main road. With about ½ mile left, you can see where the finish turns into the community center and I was able to see Robin and Michelle standing, almost in the road, waving me in. Strong feeling of emotion filled me, and my pace picked up to a solid run, faster than I had run for many hours. It is funny how the sight of your crew and the smell of that finish gives you that kick to run faster in the last mile of a 100-mile race than you had run at the start. As soon as I hit the line, some pictures were taking, and hugs were given by not only Robin and Michelle but folks from Aravaipa racing.

The race was over, and the journey completed. As I am sitting here a week later from the day the race started, I still haven’t had it set in deep. I’ve reflected on it, Robin and I’ve spoken about it a little, but who it drove me to become and where the next step will take me is unknown right now. I am clear though on the fact that what we set out to do, what I outlined above, for this race, came to fruition. I wanted to be tested, moreso, then I had ever been in a race. I wanted to hurt, be pushed to and beyond limits, go into deep pain caves, and sit there. And deal with it! I wanted to be in the mountains and woods at night, by myself without anyone around, with my thoughts on how to keep my mind and body moving forward. As mentioned, it was pretty ugly, mistakes were made and, yes, many things were not ideal. But we did it and I am grateful for all those that helped me along the way.

Thank you to #aravaiparunning, Brian and Meghan Slavin, all the volunteers, participants, crews, families, friends. Thanks for all the text and words of encouragement before, during and after the race. All those that have reached out – you reaching out means more than you can imagine. To Isabella & Alaina, one at college and the other playing in soccer tournaments all weekend, thank you for thinking of your old-man and reaching out throughout the journey. I love you both very much and am so very proud of you. To Michelle, the rookie crew member – what can I say, you freaking rocked it. You know have a lifetime spot on our team 😊. Really appreciate you – love you! To Robin – we’ve talked about it so much these last few months and in the last week. This was an adventure from the start, and we knew the journey was going to be way different than we’ve experienced before. We knew we were going to have to do things way differently than we had done before. However, when things started last Saturday and until we crossed that finish line, I knew – no matter where this journey was going to take us, I was where I was supposed to be and who I was supposed to be with. Thanks for being my partner and my guide throughout this experience. Glad we can do it together. “Once you decide to run 100 miles, you’re not in charge anymore. Those in charge are your former and future selves. During the race, when you don’t want to keep going and life’s awful, just remember your former self wanted to do this and your future self wants you to finish. Let those two be your guides.” – Eric Senseman

[olivianathetree]

y’all I finally did it. I have been extremely passively wanting to take very specific picture, and nearing the end of april I finally got a bit more serious about getting it. I specifically wanted to capture a scene looking at the lions from the rupert park highway overpass with interesting clouds, the playland towers in view, snow on the mountains, and leaves on the trees. that basically means there’s two times of the year where that’s possible: spring and fall. fall is less ideal because spring just has the certain green flush of life that has largely faded to dull dried out hues in the fall. there were so many times I was driving down the highway and noticed the perfect conditions, but never had the lens or my camera on me to take it. by the time I would get home, the conditions would have changed or I simply just forgot. the pattern continued this was for about 3 years, I’m embarrassed to say. this elusive picture also was a bit of a sendoff for the lens I own that I needed to take it: my massive 200-500mm bazooka lens. the thing is massive, and frankly I’m so rarely going on adventures where I’m willing to lug around a 2.3kg lens, and that’s not even including the camera itself!

don’t get me wrong, I took some great pictures with this lens over the years. I remember I was so excited to finally get some close up of birds and other wildlife, which it certainly did. nowadays, I’m a bit less of a gear enthusiast and I’m often looking for ways to shave weight when going on adventures rather than bulk it out with niche items. and so I decided I was ready to move on from this lens, but I wouldn’t let myself until the white whale was mine.

my first attempt this year was in late april - I attempted to get a shot of this scene by biking there. however, by the time I arrived, the clouds all decided to evaporate and ruining the ideal conditions. let me tell you, biking with an extra 2kg of weight is certainly noticeable. but at this point I was determined, and only a week later I once again saw my opportunity. I quickly made it to the spot - via car this time because yeesh learned my lesson. when I arrived, it seemed as though the clouds once again wanted to ruin my vision. I wasn’t backing down and after about 25 minutes of waiting my patience was rewarded. the clouds revealed the lions and I was snapping like crazy. I even got some bonus angles I hadn’t originally considered. editing was a bit of a hassle due to the massive filesize of the panoramas I got - we’re talking like 20ft across and about 8ft tall. but I managed, and now forever get to marvel at my resulting pictures. the lens is now listed and safely packed away in a box for a prospective buyer (hopefully sooner than later, I got other hobbies to fund 😅)

please enjoy my celebratory portrait inspired by a white guy showing off a fish he caught. it brought me great joy to take.

[icherishyou]

sun, 3 jan 2021

Holy crap, it's 2021!

It feels like yesterday I celebrated 2020 new year by working so fucking hard in January, and then quarantine, and then the new year again! Where the hell are those days going? That damn quarantine makes the day shorter, I guess. Not gonna lie, 2020 was so damn hard and I'm glad to leave that year (let's act as if those shits left behind in 2020).

Oh god, I just wrote some words but my fingers couldn't stop swearing. I just want to be a good girl!

That's okay, let's move on! Life must go on! Even though 2020 was so rude to me, I wouldn't learn so many things if 2020 didn't happen. So, whether 2020 puts so much poison in my drink or my food, I can assure you that I am still alive and stronger!

I just want to write some lessons that I’ve learned in 2020 which may sound nonsense, but it does change my perspective of life.

1. Always be grateful for what you have, best or worst! As I said before, 2020 was a pandemic year, and we were in quarantine for almost a whole year. No activity outside, no physical meetings, no meet-up in your favorite restaurant, and no going outside for an unspecified reason. The point is to STAY HOME! Back in 2019 until January 2020 when I was so busy with my college and part-time, I always complained about my condition and situation which always made me so busy and tired. Wait, don't get me wrong! I like to be busy and tired. I like to come back to my room late at night, take a bath, and then have a deep sleep. I like it. BUT SOMETIMES, my college had an unspecified schedule about the assignments. Like suddenly we had to make a meeting with someone from a certain company, we had to go to another city to research about warehouses or something, etc. Let alone my part-time job. Before I took the part-time job, I had explained to them that I only can take the job at a certain time, but they suddenly called me to take the job outside of the time we had agreed before. Like dude, I have a social life as well. It was sad when sometimes my friend went to hangouts, but I had to do part-time, or I had to go home to meet my family, or I had been too tired to join them. Duh... And then the pandemic came. Me, who was an outsider, had to stay at home for the whole time, trust me, it drove me crazy. It made me feel so grateful for something I always complained about before. For the God's sake, I miss being busy and tired. I miss going everywhere with my friends doing great or shits. I miss sleeping when I'm physically tired. I miss everything. I even miss my irregular schedule which made me curse myself. Jeez.

2. Never wait for yourself to be ready, because you will never be! Besides the pandemic, I had other things that made my 2020 so stressful. I lost my grandma, my classmate, and my uncle (in terms of death, but not Covid19). My grandma (oh God, why did you do this to me?) was my support system. She would always say yes when the world said no. She was the one who backed me up when the world would like to beat me up. I have known my classmate since he came to Indonesia (he is an exchange student from Africa). We became so close because we had the same classes and group project lately. My uncle was my savior every time life got hard for me. He would calm me down when I had a fight with my mom or another family member. I lost them in a row and God... idk how was my feeling. I know this is fate. At the end of the day, we will lose someone we love the most whether we are ready or not. But seriously? 3 at once? I thought I was so sad because I wasn't ready to lose them at that time. And I thought, if only God took them away when I am a little bit mature, I would be ready. But until now, I realize that I will never be ready for losing someone I love the most. Whether I'm 18, 19, 20, or even 50 years old, I will never be ready. We have to agree on the way the universe works, whatever it takes. And that's the only way we can come to terms with the situation. This makes me understand the term sincere in life.

3. Love is not only having each other but also letting go Pandemic, losing people I love, and now heartbroken. How could life be so rude to me? Like, what I had done before which made the universe against me this cruel? But that's okay, let's see how far I will fight back! But don't listen to me seriously about this thing. I'm really bad at love. Two break-ups for less than a year dude, I can't make people stay. Tbh, I don't really know what to write in this section, because what I feel about this ‘thing’ is so complicated. I'm a too realistic person and feeling things like this makes me feel so confused to explain it in a word. Because that's what love should be, be felt and proven, not to be explained lol Okay. So, it sounds so bad for me to say that I can't make people stay while making them stay is not my responsibility. But indeed, I feel guilty every time people go. It makes me think "what mistake have I made this time?" I'm sure that I dated only good people in my life. I mean, they only needed nothing but time and love. And so did I. I only needed time and love from them. If you know what I mean, no parasite relationship here. So those are my responsibility, giving time and love (which can be in various ways). I have to do my best to spend time with him, listen to his story, laugh at his jokes, appreciate every simple love he gave, always be there for him, etc. Even though making him stay is not my responsibility, staying with him is my responsibility. And if he decides to go at the end of the day or the universe can’t make us both as one, at least I've tried to give my best. Well even though that "best" is only my opinion. Everything still can be so wrong although you have done everything so right. If he is happy and right for you, he will stay. So, if he is not staying, it means he is not happy enough to be with you even though you have given your best. Just let him go for his happiness. Don't waste your time and love to please him to stay while his heart is not for you anymore. You’ve done so well, and you deserve someone who will be happy with you, as happy as you with him. “I love you, but I let you go” I hear that clause everywhere and every time, but just at this age, I finally get the meaning.

4. It's okay not to be okay Maybe this was the simplest thing that I never noticed in my life. I also heard this clause so often, but I never knew the real meaning before. Or maybe because I just didn't have time to be not okay before. I was so busy with my life out there, chasing my ambitions, putting my emotions aside, and just focusing on my dreams. Because I thought, that’s the only thing that matters in my life. The only thing that people always want to see in me. If I felt sad, I would only spare a few hours to cry in my room. A few hours later, I went out of my room, and was facing a new day. Because I had so many things to do, and sadness would slow it down. Back in 2016 or 2017 (I forget the exact time), when one of my closest friends asked me about my ex, and I just told her that we had broken up a few days ago. And she was so surprised and said "WHAT? YOU JUST BROKE UP? AND NOW YOU JUST SIT DOWN IN FRONT OF ME AS IF NOTHING HAPPENS?". Indeed, I was so sad, who wasn't? But with those busy schedules, trust me, I looked so heartless. I had to be okay and no time to tear up my tears too much. But when this pandemic came, it felt like I had so much time to do nothing unless being sad because I had no busy schedules. With those many things in terms of death or break up, I cried a lot at night (sometimes without reason), I felt sad at day (sometimes without reason as well), sometimes I felt so desperate, and I wanted to give up. Jeez, I did feel sadness for real. I thought it was abnormal because I had never been that way before. Until I realized, I guess the universe just gave me time to mourn. I'm just a human, and it's normal to feel sad, crying, and okay not to be okay. I can cry as much as I can even if I have a lot of things to do. It's okay to stop some work just to heal my emotions. And I thought some people need to see me at my lowest point (but tbh this is not me lol I can't do this one, not to all people). So, whatever happens next in 2021, I guess I'm totally ready. Whether life will give me sugar or salt, I believe it happens for a reason. This life will give me only happiness or sadness. And from both, we need to be grateful.

[jerzwriter]

Delaying the Inevitable: Chapter 35: For Good

Book:                   Open Heart 3 (Post Series) Pairing:                Tobias Carrick x MC, Ethan Ramsey x MC Rating:                 Chapter:  Mature             Warnings:            Discussions of traumatic memories, parental substance abuse; emotional issues. Summary:           Extended Series WIP – Love Triangle.  In this chapter – Ethan, Casey and Tobias all examine their past, and the impact it has on their present as Casey decides where her future lies.   Category:            Extended Series (WIP) A/N:                     FINALLY! Oh, my I thought the final chapter would never be done! And I’m really hoping my covid brain allowed me to do it justice.  This has been a long and crazy ride that started almost a full year ago, before Open Heart 3 Ended.  When the fandom was still pretty active.  I am so grateful to all of you who have followed this story, some with an enthusiasm I will never understand, from the start. To say writing this has been a learning experience is an understatement.  There is a lot I wish to say, and I may write more about it in the coming days, but for now, I give you the final chapter.  Thank you for taking this ride with me. A/N 2:                  This chapter is dedicated to readers who have written to me over the past year and bravely shared their own stories.  Your words have touched me, your trust has humbled me and, yes, you impacted this story and how it needed to be told.  You opened my eyes to so many things, and I am forever grateful for the lessons.  I will always keep your confidentiality, so your names are not mentioned here, but you know who you are, and this chapter is yours.

A/N 3:                 Songsipiration  “For Good” 

SERIES MASTERLIST

CHARACTERS BELONG TO PIXELBERRY STUDIOS

Her legs were unsteady as she barreled through the hall.  There was no time to process the past twenty-four hours.  It had descended upon her and those she loved like a whirling tempest determined to forever shift the landscape of their lives.  Once formed of solid bedrock, the ground beneath her had dissolved into piles of shifting sand, and she needed something to hold on to, a life preserver to carry her through.  And, in a peculiar way, Louise had provided it for her.  

All eyes were upon her as she approached the nurses' station with a hellbent fire in her eyes.

“Where is she?” Casey demanded.

“Dr. MacTavish,” the head nurse attempted to soothe, “everything is OK.  We have protocols in place, and we wouldn’t let her….”

“Is there an approved visitor list?” Casey snapped.

The nurse lowered her eyes.

“No, there isn’t. We’re lucky that the nurse on duty knew the situation, or she could be sitting at his side right now.  In his condition, do you think that is what he needs to wake to?  Now, where is she?”

No sooner had the nurse pointed in the direction of the waiting room before Casey was on her way.  Her breath caught at the sight of Louise, her back hunched as she silently stared out the window. It would have been impossible for her to know how many wounds the sight of Ethan’s mother would open, but it became apparent quickly.  Her composure began to slip, and her body began to tremble, but she was not about to concede.  She was here to protect Ethan and avenge all that Louise had destroyed.  She was drowning in a sea where there were no simple answers, no right, no wrong, and she desperately needed clarity in something, and this is what it was.  

Louise turned around and gasped when she came face to face with Casey.  Their eyes lingered on each other before either spoke.  Louise remembered the young woman being compassionate and kind and hoped to find those mercies in her now.  But as she scanned her face, she couldn’t find a trace of either. Casey’s blue eyes steel daggers that Louise felt slicing through her soul.  She averted her eyes; there was nothing to do but prepare for the onslaught that she had known was inevitable.  

“The audacity!” Casey spat. “The absolute audacity of you to show your face here! Now! How dare you, Louise!”

The older woman’s tiny frame appeared to shrink even smaller.  She couldn’t argue; every word Casey spoke was true.  A truth she had attempted to bury not once, but twice in her lifetime. She probably wouldn’t be standing here if she had stopped to think.  But the impulsivity that had defined her life in so many ways delivered her to where she stood.  It was only now that she realized how unprepared she was for the ire she was about to receive.  

“Casey,” Louise said nervously as she slowly lifted her head.  “I figured I’d have to face Alan first, but I should have known...  I knew you would be by my son’s side.”  

Casey laughed bitterly, the pale attempt at flattery angering her even more.

“You knew? What the hell would you know about your son? Your son?  You don’t have a son, Louise.  Your son is gone.”

“Gone?! You don’t… he didn’t….”

“No, he’s alive, fighting for his life, at least.  Fighting to stay here for the people who love him, and that does not include you. Your son,” she spat.  “Alan has a son.  Hell, Naveen does, but you? No … you forfeited that right.  The last thing Ethan needs is you.  The one person who made him feel like nothing for more than half of his life.  So you can just get your things and get the hell out of here now because I assure you, you will see Ethan over my dead body.”

“Casey… I know… I wish… I know I deserve your scorn… but there is so much that you don’t understand….”

“You’re right, I don’t, and I never will.  You see, I can’t imagine turning my back on anyone that I love, never mind my own child!”

“I thought he’d be better off without me, Casey,” Louise wailed as she attempted to explain.  “Both times!  I know who I am!  I knew what I was capable of, and I couldn’t do it.  I couldn’t stick around to see the disappointment in his eyes.”

“The disappointment in his eyes? Is that what you feared?  So you were protecting yourself.  Because the disappointment… the heartache… it was still there. Ethan still had to endure it, even if you didn’t have to see it.  But I did.  Alan did.  The people who loved him and tried to clean up the mess you left again did. We all paid the price for your actions, but at least you were spared.  That makes me feel so much better.”  

Louise bit her lip and turned away in shame.  How could she make Casey understand when she barely understood herself.  

“I truly believed I was doing what was best for him.  Alan was the better parent, the reliable parent who didn’t have the baggage that would weigh Ethan down.  When I came back… I thought it could be different,” she yelped, stifling tears. “And it was going so well… but I heard those voices again.  They said I wasn’t good enough, I didn’t deserve it, and they were probably right. I started using again to shut them up, but they only became louder.  I knew what was coming.  I didn’t want Ethan’s life to become calls from the police at 2:00 AM because I was wandering around some parking lot, not even knowing my name.  I didn’t want to start turning the anger I had inside on those around me, and I knew I would.  I know what happens to the families of people like me because that’s the family I grew up in.  And I didn’t want to put Ethan through that.”

“Louise, we’re doctors. We knew damn well what was at stake. That’s why we tried to get you help, but you….”

“I was losing, Casey! I was falling off the cliff, and I did not want to take him, take any of you, with me. I saw the way Ethan looked at you, the way you looked at each other.  You were building a good life, and the last thing you needed was me dragging you down.  You both deserved a life free of me.”

“So instead, you abandoned him? Did you really think that wouldn’t hurt?”

“I wasn’t thinking logically.  I thought he’d be OK. He had you… and…”

“He had me? That’s your excuse? Because not only is it pathetic, it’s wrong. He didn’t have me; he didn’t have anyone.  After you abandoned him, he shut me out.  He shut Alan out.  Why love anyone when love just walks out that door. Right? That’s the lesson you taught him.  That’s your legacy!  That’s the voice he heard when he shoved me out of his life the same way you shoved him out of yours! You nearly destroyed him, and then he turned around and nearly destroyed me!”

“Wait, you… and Ethan… you’re not together?”

“No, Louise.  You destroyed us when you destroyed him.”

“I’m… I’m sorry I didn’t know….”

“Of course, you didn’t. You weren’t there.”

Casey took a long breath and felt the heated emotion welling inside her turn into steely resolve. “There is only one thing that’s important right now: Ethan surviving, and I don’t see how you can be beneficial towards that. I want you to leave.  If Ethan survives, we’ll tell him you were here… when he’s strong enough. He can decide if he wants to see you, but you will not see him until then.  I will make sure of that.”

“But you’ll tell him that….”

Casey rubbed her temples and turned away.  “Louise, I said all I’m going to say.  Leave your number with the nurse on duty.  If you hear from us, Ethan lived and is willing to see you.  If you don’t… well, then at least one of those things didn’t happen.”

Not giving Louise a chance to respond, Casey stormed out of the room without paying attention, careening into someone as she turned the nearest corner.

“Oh, I’m so sorry! It’s my fault,” she apologized.  “I wasn’t looking, and…oh.”

Her eyes took on a new layer of sadness when she looked up and saw Tobias’s outreached hand.

“I’m sorry,  I….” she sputtered.

“Were you here to see Louise?” He asked.

With adrenaline still coursing through her veins, she became defensive.  

“Yes. And I know what you’re thinking! But I only came because she had it coming! She doesn’t get to just breeze in here because she wants absolution!  She doesn’t….”

“Hey, hey, slow down, Case,” he pleaded, instinctively wrapping a comforting arm around her. Then reality dawned on him.  With an ache he had never felt before welling in his chest, he took a step back.  

The way he retreated from her and the broken expression in his eyes ripped at Casey’s already tattered heart.  The past year required her to push her feelings aside, put on a brave face, and do what was best for all.  She had done it with such finesse that it should have been easy for her to put on one more performance.  But every person has a limit, and Casey had reached hers.  She was standing mere inches away from Tobias, but the chasm that was building between them left him unreachable.  Her heart sank, and it was only then that she realized that Louise had inadvertently provided her with a temporary escape.   But now, as her anger melted away, despair rushed in to fill the void it left behind.  Her world was awash in grey, and this time, Casey refused to lift the paintbrush in an attempt to paint a brighter sky.  

“I’m not upset… well, not about this,” Tobias whispered.  “I was headed down here, probably to do the same thing you did.  I just… I understand.”

“Oh,” she demurred. “I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean to… I just….”

“It’s OK.”

“How are you?” she asked, unwilling to meet his eyes.

“Me,” Tobias chuckled sadly. “If I had to pick the shittiest day of my life, this runs neck in neck with when my Dad died thinking I still hated him.  But, hey, I survived that, right? I’ll survive this, too.”  

“Life’s about more than survival,” Casey swallowed.

“Yeah, well… sometimes that’s the best we’ve got.”

“It didn’t have to be this way…,” she choked.  “You…and me… you know, it didn’t have to be….”

“Yes, it did,” he interrupted.  “Yes, it does.  This is killing me, but nothing has changed since last night.  You… we need this time.”

“Time… apart,” she murmured.  

“Yes,” he said, caressing her cheek.  “Time apart.”

Casey clenched her eyes tightly and nodded in silence, biting her lips in a valiant attempt to stop her tears from falling.  

“When Sienna called… I rushed down here.  I didn’t pack my things the way we planned… you know… so they’re all still at hom…” the word caught in her throat.  “I mean, at your place… and…”

“Shhh, shhh,” he soothed. “It’s OK, Casey.  We can work that out.  If it’s easier, I can pack your things for you….”

“No!” she snapped. Her mind raced back to the last time her heart was shattered, and Ethan neatly packed her belongings.  Every memory they shared, her whole life, lined up neatly in cardboard boxes to be carried away like nothing ever happened. “I need to be a big girl and do this, Tobias.  No matter how much it hurts.”

He nodded sadly.  “Where are you going to stay?” he asked with a pained voice.  

“I’ll get a hotel room for a night or two until I figure things out.”

“I don’t like the idea of you being alone. Why don’t you just stay….”

“No, Tobias.  Don’t you get it? I can’t be there with you. That was our home,” she cried. “ We shared so much there, and now, knowing that… our future…”  she trailed off.  

“I know,” he breathed. “I wish we didn’t have to… it’s just….”

“I know,” she said, placing her hand atop his.  “I know,” she smiled, lifting the paintbrush out of her pocket and beginning to paint pretty lies.  “I’ll be fine.”

Tobias knew her too well; he knew she was putting up a false front, but he didn’t deny her.  Sometimes we have to try on different roles before they become a reality; he was attempting to do the same thing himself.

“OK.  Do you want to take the day off?”  He asked.

“No, I’ll be on shift in four hours, as expected,” she answered with a sad smile.  

“Then I’ll see you then,” he nodded awkwardly as they parted.  

The world was the same place that it was just 24-hours before, but the landscape was forever changed.

~~~~~

A few hours and very little rest later, Casey shuffled into the team’s office.  Harper jumped up and greeted her with a warm embrace.   Peering over Harper’s shoulder, her eyes locked with Tobias’s, but he quickly turned away.  Her face contorted as she let out a gentle snort. This was all too familiar, and she took solace in one thing… for now, only she and Tobias knew of their situation.  There was enough to deal with, and fielding questions from people whose hearts would be in the right place was something she did not need.  

“Is there any word on Ethan?” She asked.  

“Nothing new,” Tobias answered from across the room.  “But he hasn’t gotten worse and, right now, that’s a good sign.”

“I know it will be difficult for us to focus today,” Harper stated.  “Maybe we could set up a schedule to check on him.  This way, no one is away too long, and we can keep each other updated.  After all, he’d be furious if we let our patients suffer because we’re worried about him.”

“I say that’s an excellent idea,” a voice called in from the door.  

“Naveen?” Casey asked. “What are you doing here?”

“Helping a friend,” he smiled.  “Well, several of them, actually.  With Ethan…” he stalled. “Well, I told the board I would step in temporarily to help with the team.  I need to keep busy right now, and the hospital is where I want to be.  Temporarily,” he emphasized.  "I’m sure my boy will be back up here in no time, and then I will return to fishing.”

“That sounds like a plan,” Tobias smiled, patting Naveen on the back.  “It’ll be nice having you around.”

After a brief meeting, Naveen asked Casey to remain behind.  She poured them each a cup of coffee and sat next to her grand-mentor on the sofa.  

“While I love the opportunity to work with you again…” she sighed.

“… I wish it wasn’t like this,” they said in unison.

“One would think doctors would get used to the unpredictability of life,” Naveen said, tapping her hand.  “I’ll let you in on a little secret; we never do.”

“I’m learning that,” she said as she sipped her coffee.

“I talked to Tobias earlier.”

“Oh?”

“I know that you were both looking for new positions before… but, with things as they are, I asked if he would consider suspending his search, just until things are sorted out.”

“And?”

“He agreed to pause his search for now.”

“Oh,” she answered, looking down at her cup.

“I thought he might have….” Naveen stopped when he saw the distant look in Casey’s eyes, and like the top diagnostician he was, he knew.  

“No,” she smiled weakly, “he hadn’t told me yet.”

“I see.  Well, I was going to ask the same of you.  Do you think that….”

Naveen trailed off as Casey stood and walked silently to the window.  She stared pensively down at the street below.  Her mind was being pulled in a multitude of directions… she wanted to check in on Ethan, she wanted to talk to Tobias, she needed to pack her things… and find a place to live.  How did everything end up here?  It had been her dream to be on this team.  These people had become her family, Edenbrook her home, and now, they needed her in more ways than one.  She turned around and leaned against the window's edge.  With her head held high, she looked at Naveen and spoke in a voice that came out far more confidently than she had anticipated.

“I am afraid I can’t make the same promise.  I’m sorry, Naveen.  I don’t have any immediate offers, but when a suitable one arrives… I need to move on.”

Naveen pushed his glasses up his nose and walked toward her.  

“I don’t know if I have ever been more proud of you than I am right now, Casey, and I’m glad you won’t be staying on.”

“You… are?” she asked nervously.

“Yes.  Because no one is infallible.  You had one critical flaw that prevented you from becoming the best doctor… no… it prevented you from being the best person you could be.”

“And what is that?” she asked with growing concern.  

Naveen took both of her hands in his.  

“My child, you put the needs of every patient, of every person you cared for, above your own.  That level of empathy is admirable, but there is only so long anyone can bear that much of a burden before it erodes them. Edenbrook has taught you well, and you have given your all to us, but it’s time for you to put Casey first. Trust me, the patients will be cared for, the institution will still stand, and it will stand stronger because you were here.”

Casey’s head fell into Naveen’s shoulder as she fought back the tears.

“Let it go, my child. You’ve been through so much, and there is no shame in letting it out.”

“Naveen,” she sniffled, “I feel like you just gave me permission to be… free.”

“As much as I would love to give that to you, that is something that you can only gift yourself… and you just did.”

“But… but some people are more than just patients to me. They’re people I love, and how do I leave them behind?”

“Casey, you fight for those you love.  You give them your all.  No favor is too big or too small.  You fight for them.  But it’s OK to fight for yourself with the same gusto, and….”

“And?”

“… and sometimes, you should let them fight for you just as hard.”

He took her by the shoulder and looked into her eyes.  

“Go where life takes you, my dear. The people who are meant to be there will end up by your side.  It’s inevitable, and you couldn’t stop it if you tried.  It’s what brought us all together, and it all works out if you let it.”

Naveen gave Casey a quick hug and smiled.  “Now, I believe we have work to do.”

“We do,” she smiled. “Are you going to see Ethan now?”

“After I speak with Dr. Reynolds.  We need to adjust schedules, but it won’t be long.”

“Naveen,” she called, stopping him in his tracks.  

“Yes, my dear?”

“Do you… do you think he’ll be OK?”

“I do,” he smiled. “He has to be.”

~~~~~

A few hours later, it was Casey’s turn to check in on Ethan.  She was grateful for the elevator, which stopped on every floor, allowing her just a few more minutes to close her eyes and shut out the world. But when the door opened on her floor, the tiredness dissipated when she heard Alan’s agitated voice.  Fearing the worst, she rushed to his side.

“Alan, what’s wrong?”

He turned to her with a grin so bright that she immediately knew it wasn’t agitation but relief.  

“I was trying to reach you and Naveen! Ethan’s awake! He’s awake, and he asked to see you!”

The nurse gave Casey the usual speech as she walked her to Ethan’s room.  

“He is still in and out, and he needs to rest ….”

“Excuse me,” Casey said politely, holding up her ID.  “I’m a doctor here, remember? I think I can handle this.”

“Oh! Of course, but even doctors need to keep their visits short.”

“I know that too,” Casey smiled, “now get out of my way because I need to see him!”

The whirling and beeping from the machines helping Ethan in his fight were the only sounds when she entered the room.  Ethan remained still, eyes firmly shut as she sank into the chair beside his bed.  She took his hand in hers and smiled as a calming breath escaped her.  She could be patient now.  For the first time since he was rushed into surgery, she was confident that those eyes would open, that she’d see them again.    

“When you want attention, you really go all out, don’t you?” she chuckled nervously.  “If you ever do anything like this again, you won’t make Ethan Ramsey because I swear I’ll kill you first.  You better know that” she swallowed.  “Because I will.”

She slumped back in the chair and closed her eyes, relishing the feel of his warm hand in hers.

“No, you won’t,” he whispered, in a voice so low that she thought she imagined it.  But when his hand gently squeezed hers, she startled, her eyes opening to lock on his once again.

“Ethan,” she gasped, “Oh my God! You’re….”

Taking his hand in both of hers, she lowered her head and began to weep.  

“Do I look that bad?” he breathed, wincing in pain.

“Ethan,” she gasped, ignoring his attempts at humor.  “I thought we were going to lose you.”

“I wasn’t going anywhere.”

“Well, we have a team of doctors here who were not so sure.  Don’t you ever do this to me again!”

“I won’t,” he whispered, the faintest of smiles on his lips.

“I’m holding you to that.”

“Are they doing a decent job caring for me? Or do I need you to read my chart to me?”

“You’re not on the clock right now, and with the amount of painkillers being pumped into your body… how about you let us take care of you for a bit?”

“Only under duress.” He attempted to chuckle, but it quickly turned into a grimace. “Are you OK?”

“Me? I’m not the one lying in that bed.  I’m just fine.”

“I saw how scared you were… when I,” he swallowed.  “I’m sorry for worrying you so.”

“You never have to apologize for worrying me, Ethan.  That’s what we do for those we care for.  It’s the price we pay for experiencing love.”

“I know, and, Casey?”

“Yes?”

“I remember,” he whispered.

“Remember what?”

“Everything. Everything you said.  I remember every word.”

“You… you do?”

“It helped more than you know.  It reminded me of how much I mattered, and it helped me hold on.  But, don’t worry,” he half-smiled.  “I’m not holding you to it.”

“You’re not?”

“People say things when they think… we see it every day.”

“But I didn’t say anything I didn’t mean.  I do love you, and the thought of losing you, it was… I was terrified, Ethan.”

“I know, but that doesn’t mean….”

“You know what,” Casey interrupted, “none of that matters right now.  All that matters is you getting better, and you will.  I’m sure of it.  We will have time for other things later, but now… you just need to rest and get better.  Can you do that for me?”

“I can,” he grinned.  

“Good, now, I’m going to leave now because I already hear Naveen yelling that I’ve overstayed my time.”

“Is that really happening? I thought I was hallucinating.”

“No,” Casey chuckled, “he’s out there, and others will be soon.  A whole lot of us love you, Ethan Ramsey.  Please, no more stunts like this to prove it, OK?”

“You have my word.”

With a kiss to his forehead, she left the room.

~~~~~

Tobias tried to be patient when he heard that Ethan had woken up.  He was anxious to see him, but he figured there were at least a handful of people his buddy would want to lay his weary eyes on before he saw his mug. So, he waited.  He had been staring through the window into Ethan’s room for over twenty minutes now.  A hell of a way to spend his dinner break.  He told himself he would only go in if Ethan were awake. He had enough interruptions already today.  And now, with his free time dwindling away, he wasn’t sure if he was more apprehensive about getting some time with his friend or missing his chance.  But when he saw Ethan stir, a gentle smile on his lips as he woke, Tobias knocked on the door.  Nothing was going to keep him away.  

“Tobias.”

“Hey, buddy,” Tobias muttered, gently tapping Ethan’s leg.  “I’m so glad you pulled through.”

“Really?” Ethan smiled, though clearly in pain.  “That means something coming from you.”

“Yeah, well, even during our darkest times, I never wished you dead,” Tobias snickered. “And I’m confident you never wanted me dead either.”  

Ethan stared at Tobias blankly, his discomfort aiding him in preventing a smile.  

“OK, so maybe I should take that back,” Tobias laughed.

“I’m joking,” Ethan grinned wearily. “I’m glad we’re both here.  So, what’s my prognosis? Is it as rosy as they’re telling me? Or is it just the shit we feed our patients when we want them to keep their spirits up?”

“You do that? I thought you were Dr. Honesty?”

“Well, I never considered it a lie, per se.  Just a way of offering some hope. What I’m asking you is, do I have hope?”

“You have hope, Ramsey. You have hope.”

The silence between them was simultaneously awkward and comfortable, the wan smiles on their faces tilting more toward the latter.  

“How is the team doing?” Ethan asked.

“Miraculously, we’re managing to stay afloat.”

“I’ll be back….”

“I have no doubt that you will be, after a long recovery, sir. We’re not letting you rush this. Even Naveen jumped back in; we’ll hold down the fort.”

A look of exasperation crossed Ethan’s face.

“Hey,” Tobias replied. “That’s what we do for people we care about, so cut the shit.  I promised to put off the job search until you’re back on your feet, someone has to be an asshole to the interns, and we both know it’s not going to be Naveen.”

“Is Casey staying on too, then?  For now?”

“No,” he answered matter of factly.  “She’s still searching, and she’s made it clear if the right opportunity arises…” he paused, choking on his words, “… she has to.”

“I don’t blame her,” Ethan sighed.

“I can’t say I do either.”

“Tobias… I know I apologized before, but now I see it even clearer.  I never should have interfered.  I hope you and Casey will both….”

“Stop, stop,” Tobias interrupted him.  “What’s done is done. We can’t move backward, only forwards.  Besides,” he smiled sadly, “you and me… broken-hearted over the same woman?  We’ve played this game before.”

Ethan stared blankly at the ceiling, letting his thoughts gel before speaking.

“I’m not broken-hearted anymore,” he replied softly.  “But I’m… sad? Coming to terms? But the one thing I know is after coming so close to the end is… I want to live.  You know? It is so clear now.  How much of my life did I waste just surviving? That’s not the goal. When we send our patients out that door, do we want them to survive? Or do we want them to live?”

“We want to live,” Tobias assured.  “I want you to live.”

“Good,” Ethan smiled, “because I plan on it.”

“Do you…” Tobias hesitated. “You know what, never mind…,” he stood up. “I should….”

“No, T, talk to me.  Do I what?”

“Do you need… her? In order to… live?”

“Do I need… who?”

The look on Tobias’s face answered Ethan’s question without words.

“Casey? Tobias, I already told you I was out of line.  She’s your present and my past, so I ….”

“I told her we needed some time apart,” Tobias blurted.  “She needs some time… to think.”

“You… you broke up with her?” Ethan asked in astonishment.

Tobias shrugged.  “I guess I didn’t think of it as breaking up with her at that moment.  I thought we’d take an indefinite pause.  Just give her some space to think, you know? But since then, I’ve had to face it… indefinite pause means we’re not together.  Giving her space to think means she may never come back.  So, yeah.  I guess I broke up with her,” he said, wiping a tear from his cheek.  “Too late to change my mind now.”

Ethan was without words temporarily, looking away as a myriad of emotions grappled to take center stage. He wasn’t sure who the victor would be; finally, guilt grabbed the microphone.  

“I’m sorry, Tobias. I… I feel like this is my fault.”

“Well, you didn’t help,” he chuckled.  “But I can’t put the blame on your shoulders.  Casey fell in love with me, I have no doubt about that, but I don’t know if she was fully out of love with you when she did.  I didn’t think it would matter, you know, I figured… I loved her… I love her… so much that I thought it would work out.  That we could overcome anything together, right? Then, at the first chance to prove that to her, I failed.  Not because I wanted to, but because I let my own goddamn demons get in the way.”

“Yeah,” Ethan snorted, “I know what that’s like.”

“So there is more than one thing at play.  I love her more than I’ve ever loved anyone or anything.  I want her by my side, but… I need to be sure she wants to be there. That’s why I set her free.”

“Well, I hope she comes back.  I know how much you love her.”

“You mean that?” Tobias asked with surprise.  “That’s what you want? She’s a free agent Ethan; she could choose you.”

Ethan let out a groan as he attempted to shift his weight.

“Hey, take it easy,” Tobias said as he jumped to assist.  “We can talk another time.”

“No, I’m going to be in pain for a while.  There’s no time like the present.  You asked what I wanted.  I want to be happy.  I want all of us to be happy.”

“Yeah,” Tobias smiled. “So do I.  And right now, that means you getting well.”

“And it means you finding peace.”

“And it means Casey….” Tobias stopped, “Finding what she wants.  Regarding you, regarding me, regarding… everything.”

After a few minutes, Tobias broke the uncomfortable silence.  

“So what is the deal with you and Sonia anyway?  That woman is far too smart, spunky, and beautiful to be hung up on you!”

“Oh, you think she’s hung up on me,” Ethan laughed.

“Well, she was out there all night waiting.  I’m sure she’s gonna be pissed you woke just after she left.”

“All night, huh?”

“All night.”

“I don’t know what the deal is yet, or if there is any deal at all.  I’ve been in love with Casey for so long, and I was convinced that if I didn’t have her, I could never love again….”

Tobias snorted in silent agreement.

“… but, sometimes, when I’m with Sonia, I start feeling things that I didn’t think I would be able to again.  I still love Casey, but… then again… if I really did, would I feel anything for Sonia?  There was a time when it would not have been possible.  Maybe it’s like you said; how do you know when one love ends, and another begins?”

“I don’t know, buddy. I don’t know.  We just put one foot in front of the other and keep working at it.  The answers will come when they should.  At least, I hope they will.”

“All this philosophical talk from Tobias Carrick?  It’s almost like one of us had a near-death experience.”

“I’m glad you’re here, buddy.  Even if your sense of humor still sucks.”

“I’m glad you’re here, too. We’re all going to be OK.  I know it.”

“I suppose.  I also suppose I should get back to work.  My boss is out of commission right now, but he’s still an asshole.”

“He sure is,” Ethan grinned.

“You do have another visitor queued if you’re up to it.”

“Who?”

“Floria.”

“Oh, Jesus! I forgot she was with me.  How could I….”

“Relax.  Blood loss and losing consciousness may have had something to do with it. We’ll all let you slide.”

“Is she OK?”

“Yes.  She had a concussion, and they kept her overnight, but she’s heading home.  She wanted to see you before leaving.”

“So, you missed your chance to pull the life support on her? Huh?”

“You know I wouldn’t have,” Tobias smirked.  “We actually… we sort of made peace.”  

Ethan cocked an eyebrow at his friend.

“Don’t look at me like that. I have matured,” Tobias said, waiving Floria in.  

“There is hope for you yet, Carrick,” Ethan grinned.

“Well, I wouldn’t go that far,” Floria smiled.  “But, in the end, I guess he’s all right.”

“I guess you don’t totally suck either.  But don’t go telling anybody I said that.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” she smiled.  “I have a rep to uphold too, you know.”

Tobias nodded with a smile, then turned back toward Ethan.  

“I’ll leave you two to it.”

Floria took one look at Ethan, and tears sprung to her eyes.  

“Stop it,” he insisted. “I’m fine.”

“I don’t know that this constitutes as fine,” she insisted.  “It seems more like lucky to be alive and hoping….”

“Hoping nothing… I will be fine.  I promise you.”

“Well, I will hold you to that, Ethan Ramsey.”

“I’m so glad you weren’t seriously hurt.”

“I wasn’t.  I wasn’t at all.  When we were still in the car, I looked over at you, lifeless, groaning in pain… I wanted it to be me instead.  I wanted that so badly.”

“Don’t say that, Floria!”

“But it was my fault, don’t you see?  You wouldn’t have been on your date with Sonia, not heading into Cambridge, if it were not for me.”

“I was giving a friend a ride like I had many times before. There is no….”

“I asked you on purpose. I could have gotten there just fine on my own, but I wanted to make you late for your date because… I was jealous.”

“I should have known,” Ethan said with a frown as Floria turned away in shame.

“I’m sorry, I….”

“Oh, no.  No, no, no.  I didn’t mean it like that.  I meant that I should have known it would be hard on you.  With everything that had happened with us… I should have been more sensitive.  I’m sorry too.”

They clasped hands and smiled.

“You really don’t have to apologize.  I certainly have wreaked enough havoc, and I hope you know that I am truly sorry.”

“Floria, stop.  The past is the past, and I don’t want to look that way anymore.”

“Well, then I guess I should tell you about my future.  I am here to say goodbye.”  

“Goodbye? That sounds awfully final.  What’s going on?”

“Last night, after the accident, I called my mom.  She… was so happy to hear from me, and when I told her about the accident, she just cried. My father was the devil himself, so I never felt guilty for hating him, for removing him from my life.  But I always painted my Mom with the same brush. I blamed her because she didn’t protect me, didn’t protect herself.  Sometimes, I hated her more than I hated him because I felt she should have known better.”

“Floria, I think….”

“Let me finish.  I’ve known for some time now that she did the best she could with the knowledge and ability she had at the time.  But I still couldn’t forgive….”

“And now?”

“It’s time, don’t you think? After all this time, she still wants to see me. She wants me in her life again… I have to give it a try. A real try. Before I live to regret it.”

“I’m so happy to hear this. Of course, she’s still there; she loves you.  She always has. I’m glad you finally see it.”

“So, I’m going to stay with her for a bit.  In Baltimore.”

“In Baltimore?” he exclaimed.

“I know,” she smiled, “I said I’d never go back there.  But I think it’s time I put those demons to bed.  I have as many good memories there as bad, and it’s time I start remembering them too.”

Floria’s heart melted as she looked into Ethan’s eyes. They hadn’t looked upon her in quite that way since their days back at Hopkins.  She realized just how much she needed his acceptance and forgiveness, and at that moment, he granted it without saying a word.

“I’m so proud of you, Floria.  How long will you be gone?”

“Indefinitely.  I gave Dr. Reynolds my resignation this morning.”

“You what?!”

“It’s fine.  I need a new start.  I need to heal, and that will not happen for me in Boston.  It’s time for me to move on.”

Ethan clutched her hand tighter and smiled.

“Look at you, all grown up.”

“It’s about time, don’t you think?” she laughed.

“You’ll keep in touch?”

“Of course!” She said, standing up from her chair.  “Someone will need to yell at you if you aren’t following your doctor's orders.”

“Well,” he chortled. “I’m sure you’ll have some competition there.”

“The more, the better,” she smiled.  “Thank you, Ethan.”

“For what?”

“For letting me in when you had every reason not to.  For making me realize that I am worthy of forgiveness, too, because it’s the only way I was able to begin to forgive myself.  This… right now… none of this would be happening if it weren’t for you, and I’m forever grateful.”

“I wish you all good things, Floria.  I really do.”

Cupping his pale cheeks in her hands, she leaned over and kissed his forehead.

“Same to you, Ethan. Same to you.”

With a final glance over her shoulder, she was on her way.

~~~~~

Two days later.

“I still don’t like the idea of you being in that place by yourself,” Rose said as she hastily tossed her daughter’s clothes into a box on the bed.  

“Mom, I’m subletting one unit in a building with 299 more.  I won't be alone.”  

“A building full of strangers isn’t what I’m referring to, smart ass!”

“They’re not all strangers, Rose,” Sienna added.  “Most people in that building are hospital staff, and everyone loves Casey.”

“Yes!” Casey said with a scowl, “It’s very convenient.  This way, the hospital rumor mill will know that I’ve been dumped again in no time. It’s nice to know they’ll have a leg up on it.”

“Oh, stop it!” Jackie admonished, “we’ve got your back.  Let people try to fuck with you!”

“I don’t want to broach a sore subject,” Aurora interrupted, “But Bryce just texted.  He said he and Tobias should be back here in about twenty minutes.”

“That gives us enough time,” Rose replied. “These are the last of her things.”

Casey had been doing her best all morning, allowing the practical physician in her to take over. Her belongings needed to be packed, and she needed to move out.  No emotions, just tasks, and it had been working for her until now.  

She wasn’t sure if it was the mention of his name or watching Jackie tape up the final box.  Maybe it was the thought of leaving her key on the counter as she walked away or the knowledge that she may never see this place, which was so precious to her, again.   But whatever the reason, all the bravery she had fostered began to crumble.  She found herself sinking into the couch, clutching the blanket that she and Tobias had snuggled under countless times against her chest, and then her tears started to flow.  

“I guess…. it’s easier to leave here without him here, you know?” She cried, “I can pretend it’s not real.”

“But Casey,” Sienna said, rubbing her friend's back.  “As much as it hurts, you can’t do that.  It has to be real.”

“I still don’t know why he had to do this!” Jackie chided.  “I call bullshit! You love him. He loves you….”

“Sometimes it takes more than love,” Rose said, rubbing a hair out of Casey’s eyes.

“Does it, Mom? Because I thought love was strong enough to conquer anything.  That’s what I believed.  That’s what I watched between you and Dad my whole life.  It’s supposed to be enough.  It’s been enough for the two of you.  Maybe it’s just me.  Maybe I’m not enough.  No one has that much faith… in me.”

“Casey! Stop that!” Sienna yelled.

“Oh, baby girl,” Rose said, taking her daughter in her arms.  “We need to talk."

“Do you want us to leave?” Sienna asked.

“Oh, no,” Rose smiled. “You should all hear this. Plus, you may have wisdom I don’t, and Casey needs all of us right now.  You see, love is a wonderful, powerful thing. It's what makes life worth living. Heaven knows when I leave this world one day, you, your Dad, and all of the people I’ve held in my heart will be what I am most grateful for.  But love isn’t black and white. It has so many different shades, and, sometimes, it hurts.”

“I don’t understand what you’re saying,” Casey cried.

“Casey, I’m your mother. Your happiness means more to me than anything else in this world.  So, when I see you like this… it breaks my heart.  It would be so easy for me to be angry with Tobias.”

“You see!” Jackie exclaimed.

“But I’m not.”

“Oh,” Jackie demurred.

“Baby, you’ve been through so much in the past couple of years.  You fell in love, you’ve lost, you learned to forgive, to try again, and love again.  You’ve seen your career rise to heights that blew away your wildest dreams.  You’ve grasped opportunities with both hands and made them yours, and you’ve let others pass you by.”  

“Mom! I didn’t do that because….”

“Shh shh shh.  Let me finish.  You’ve been through so much, baby, and it’s easy to see how it could leave you… confused.”

“But I’m not….”

“Aren’t you?  Tobias didn’t make this choice because he doesn’t love you.  He just knows that uncertainty is not a foundation to build a strong relationship on. For him, it’s an act of self-love, sure. But it’s also an act of love for you.”  

“Really?” Cassey protested, “How do you see that?”

“Do you think he doesn’t know who you are? Tell me when you’ve put yourself above anyone else.”

“Mom, that’s not fair!”

“It’s fair,” Sienna chimed in. “I mean, you turned down a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to stay behind with T.”

“It’s not that clearcut! I stayed because my career isn’t the only thing that matters to me! I’m already in a position that people with twice my experience would kill for. I wasn’t exactly sacrificing!”

“But weren’t you,” Rose answered.  “Weren’t you? Casey, if Tobias had been on board from the start, what would you have done?”

Casey looked down at her hands.  “I don’t know.”

“Yes,” Rose disagreed, “you do.”

“And Casey,” Sienna said nervously, “I think you need to be honest with yourself in other ways too. I told you what I thought about how you reacted when Ethan said he still loved you, it was….”

“Intense,” Jackie finished. “We all wondered why your reaction was so strong… including Tobias.  I know you didn’t want to hurt him, but how could it not?”

“Then, he hears you talking to Ethan before surgery,” Rose said, shaking her head. “Even though the circumstances were exceptional, you can’t blame him for having doubts.”

“But why can’t he see that’s not what I meant! I love Tobias. Why doesn’t he see that?”

“He does,” Rose stated. “I know he does.  But does that mean that you don’t love Ethan?”

“Mom!”

“Answer me, Casey.”

“I love them both, OK!” She sobbed as she jumped to her feet.  “I love them both! And I don’t understand it.  I don’t know how it happened, and I don’t even know what it means! Tobias was my future, and Ethan was my past, and I was fine with that! Then I saw Ethan lying there, and I just… I lost him twice already… I couldn’t bear the thought of losing him again!  But that doesn’t mean… I don’t know what it means.”

“Well,” Rose smiled. “That’s what you need to figure out, baby.”

“How? How do I do that? Because my mind has never been cloudier, my heart has never been more broken, and I’ve never been so uncertain of everything.  How do I find this goddamn clarity everyone keeps talking about!”

“You will,” Rose said. “It may not be tomorrow, it may take longer than you like, but it will come. I’m sure of it.”  

“And what happens during that time? I could lose them both, Momma.”

“Yes, you could.  But I promise you, if you do, then neither was meant to be.”

Casey fell into her mother’s waiting arms, and as the seconds passed, her friends joined in until they were in a tearful huddle on the couch.  As she absorbed the wisdom her mother imparted to her, Naveen’s words also came back to her mind:

“Casey, you fight for those you love.  You give them your all.  No favor is too big or too small.  You fight for them.  But it’s OK to fight for yourself with the same gusto, and….”

“And?”

“… and sometimes, you should let them fight for you just as hard.”

Casey’s heart didn’t stop aching; the pain remained ever as strong.  But surrounded by all that love, the words finally started to seep in. By the time she emerged from the huddle, she had finally placed her confidence in the one thing she had needed most of all…. herself.  

~~~~~

Several days later, Ethan was well enough to be moved to a regular room.  While that was a sign of great progress, it also had its drawbacks, like the ability for multiple visitors to be present at once.  After years of cultivating a reputation as a curmudgeon, Ethan wondered why many people wanted to see him.  But all of his protestations were in vain because everyone knew he could send them away. Yet, with each person who stopped by, his smile grew that much larger, and everyone became that much more comfortable than he would be OK.

“Oh, you mean he never told you about when Casey called him a goddamned diva?” Alan laughed.  

“She what?” Sonia asked with wide eyes.

“Alan, I’m sorry, but I was there,” Baz interrupted. “She called him a goddamned diva but then asked if he would prefer spoiled child or entitled jackass.”

“Oh, my God!” Sonia gasped, “and what did you say?”

“I told her spoiled child fit the bill,” Ethan sighed.  “Now, is this why I fought to live? So you miscreants could mock me while I’m still in my hour of need?”

“Well, that may not be the reason, but you have to admit it’s fun,” Baz laughed.

“Fun and educational!” Sonia squealed.  “Oh my God! Casey is my new hero! Seriously, none of us are worthy of being in the same room as her.  Am I clear?”

“Well, that would be a pity,” Casey said, entering the room, “because it sounds like fun in here, and I want in on it.”

“Oh, if you’re willing to grace us with your presence, we will honor having you here,” Sonia bowed. “Plus, I want to learn at the feet of the master! Has anyone else ever called him a diva, jackass, and spoiled child and lived to tell the tale?”

“In fairness, many have called him that and worse,” Casey smiled.  “However, it’s generally not to his face.”

“And that is why you are the queen!” Sonia affirmed.

“Am I really allowed this many visitors at once?” Ethan whined.

“Private room,” Baz shrugged, “you can have as many as you want, and you know you want us.”

“Eh-hem,” Alan cleared his throat loudly and gave his son a knowing look.

“Ah, yes.  Well, as much as I do love all of your company….”

“I knew he’d finally admit it!” Baz smiled.

“But I need to ask you to leave for a bit.”

“Is everything OK?” Casey asked.

“Yes, there is just someone here I need to see and… I’d like to do it alone, well… alone with my father, that’s OK.”

Casey’s eyes went wide. With all the chaos that had taken place, she all but forgot about Louise.

“Ethan, are you sure?” She asked nervously.  

“Yes,” he smiled.  “If I’ve learned anything, it is that I can’t let my past continue to control my present nor my future.  This has to be done.”

“But your still not a hundred percent well, Ethan, and the stress….” Casey stammered as Sonia’s eyes searched Ethan’s face.

“Are you able to handle this?” Sonia asked him.

“I am.”

“And I’ll be right there,” Alan assured.

“Then I say you do what you need to in order to start your new chapter,” Sonia smiled.  “I have faith in you.”

“Thank you,” Ethan smiled.

“Do you want to get coffee?” Sonia asked Casey, “I really do want to hear all of your legendary tales.”

“Well, I don’t know if they’re legendary….” Casey answered.

“Oh, they are,” Baz added as he intruded on their plans.  “I’ll tell you about the time that….”

Alan turned and looked at his son when the door closed behind them.  

“Are you sure you’re ready for this?”

“It’s time, Dad. I’ve never been more ready for anything in my life.”

~~~~~

Ethan’s eyes were closed when she entered the room, and he kept them that way until he heard her take a seat in the chair placed a short distance from his bed.  He could hear her sniffling noises, and it made his hair stand on end when he realized that he would know those sounds to be her anywhere. There are some things biology won’t erase, even if we want to.  

He took his time, opening his eyes only when he was ready.  But in the end, he did so a bit sooner than he would have chosen to, mainly to spare his father any further discomfort.  He found her gaze fixed upon him, swollen eyes and a weary smile on her lips. He noted that she looked years older, yet she still looked the same.  

“Ethan,” she muttered. “I’m so glad to see… to see you’re alive.  Thank you… thank you for agreeing to see me.”

“Why did you want to come?” He asked, gravity present in his voice.  “How did you even know?”

“It was on the news… I… I saw the accident and when they said your name… I came here right away but… but it was thought best to wait…. I really appreciate you seeing me.  I was happy to know you were going to survive, but this is so much more than I could have….”

“Louise,” Alan said softly, trying to stop her from spiraling anymore.

“I’m glad they made you wait.  I did need to have more strength to do this.”

“I understand,” she grimaced.

“Really? Because I don’t. I don’t understand why a child of any age should feel anything but comfort if their parent is visiting them during a crisis.  I know the world doesn’t work that way. I see it every day in my work.  I’ve lived it myself, but even so… I’ll never understand it. But then again, I don’t have to. I only have to accept it.  After all, I’m not a child anymore, am I?”

Louise looked down at her hands as she picked at a loose cuticle.  Biting her lip as regret and shame consumed her, she had already steeled herself for this.  Whatever Ethan needed to say, she needed to hear.  She had denied him so much in his life that whatever he needed now, she would give, so she sat and waited.

“Do you know when I stopped being a child? The day you left.  My life as I knew it was over, and I was left to doubt everything that I ever believed to be true. Eleven.  Eleven years old is far too young to become an adult.  It’s too young to lose hope, but I did.  You robbed me.  You changed me.  I stopped letting people in.  I didn’t believe in love or even happiness.  I became successful, sure, but there was a void that work could never fill no matter how hard I tried.  It took more than two decades for me to attempt to change that, and I only did it because of the love of a wonderful woman.  One who didn’t give up on me no matter how much I pushed her away.  She made me believe that she would love me and, unlike you, she wouldn’t leave.  And I was happy.  For a brief moment in time, I was happy! Then you came back, and my life felt so complete.  I felt whole. Everything was falling into place for the first time in nearly forty years, and I felt… joy! Then what do you do? You abandon me… again without so much as a note to say goodbye.  It destroyed me, Louise.  It destroyed me.”

Ethan looked over at Alan, who sat at his side.  His father nodded, silently letting him know that he had his back, no matter what, and Ethan smiled.

“I know I have to take responsibility for my own actions.  I’m an adult, and I have to take accountability.  But I found myself back in the place of a shattered 11-year-old boy who had lost faith in everything, most of all himself.  So what did I do? I behaved just like you. I turned on those who loved me the most, my dad, Casey… I destroyed someone I loved,  someone I never wanted to hurt, because it made me feel like I had control when, clearly, I had none.  I ran. I abandoned, and I had no regard for the damage I left behind.  Who does that sound like?  We are more alike than I ever care to admit, but there is a big difference.  I will never let it happen again.  I know you have an illness, and I know that broken people hurt others, but that doesn’t make the damage any less real.  I can work to make myself better, but the scars will always be there. And the scars I’ve inflicted on others, they will bear them forever too.  And I can’t do this anymore.”

He shifted in bed, then sat up tall, not letting the throbbing pain in his side stop him as he spoke.

“I am choosing to forgive you.  I am choosing to do so because I want peace in my life, and holding on to the anger and fear will not let me find that.  I need to be at peace, and I truly hope that you find yours as well.  I want you to be happy, and I want you to have a life that you can be proud of.  I sincerely do, but… that life can not include me.  Being abandoned by you once left me with a gaping wound.  Being abandoned by you twice led me to inflict the same wound on others. I don’t know what being abandoned by you for a third time could do, and I’m not sure I could withstand it.  At this point, I’d have to be a fool to believe that it could not happen again.  So, this time, it’s not your choice.  It’s not in your control. It’s in mine. I am setting myself free. This is the last time we will meet, and I wanted to give you the courtesy of a goodbye.”

“Well,” she replied stoically, “that’s much more than I had offered you, so I will take that as a kindness.”

“I’m grateful to you,” she smiled toward Alan, “I’m grateful that you did such a wonderful job under dreadful circumstances… thanks to me… to raise such a wonderful man.”

Louise stood to her feet, clutching her purse in front of her as she tried to control her quivering lip.

“Thank you for seeing me; it means more to me than you’ll know.  I’m glad you’re getting a second chance at life, Ethan. Please, don’t blow it. And while I have no right to say it, I hope you know that in my own twisted way, I do love you and wish I could have been the mother you deserved.  I hope you find everything you ever dreamed of and more.  Goodbye, Ethan,” she swallowed.

“Wait,” Ethan said, extending his hand.  “I wish you the best… Mom.”

And with that, she was at the door.  

Alan looked at his son with more love than he ever thought could fit in his heart, a tear streaking his cheek.  He laid his hand on Ethan’s knee.

“I’ve never been more proud of you than I am right now, son.”

“Thanks, Dad,” Ethan gasped.

“How do you feel?”

“I feel… I feel … free. I feel free.  And…”

“And?”

“Like I could really use a hug.”

“Lucky for you, I always carry some extra around,” Alan smiled as his son collapsed in his arms.

~~~~~

An hour later, Sonia peeked into Ethan’s darkened room, retreating when she saw his lights were off.

“No, Sonia, come here,” he bellowed.

Although it was dark, he could see the brightness of her smile as she made her way across the room.

“What are you so damn cheery about?” he smirked.

“Oh, I wouldn’t define it as cheery. I would just say… I’m so proud of you.”

“Me?”

“Yes, Ernesto.”

“Oh, Jesus, I thought we were beyond that….”

“Not on your life! Oh, wait, that’s a bad joke, considering you know… maybe I should….”

“Would you just shut up?” he laughed.  

“Fine.  I am amazed that the arrogant, emotionally constipated man who walked into that waiting room all those months ago could stand up for himself… so well… and with such grace.  Really, I’m so proud of you.”

“Jesus, did my Dad give you every detail? Trust me, I’m sure he sold it as something it’s not.”

“He said you told him to!”

“Ah, as if any were stopping him,” he grinned.  He caught Sonia’s eyes in the dim light of the room, and he couldn’t miss how bright they shined, they always did, but today, they were radiant.  

“I need to thank you,” he whispered.

“For what?”

“For everything.  For being a friend, for making me laugh, for being quirky and irritating enough to make me want to show up on time for therapy just to spar with you.  For tolerating me when I hadn’t acted as well as I should have, for putting me in my place when I need it and… in recent times… for being here for me, when you didn’t need to be.”

“You don’t have to thank me,” she smiled.  “That’s what friends do.”

“Is that what we are? You and I? Friends?”

Sonia shrugged.  “I don’t know.  I know I’m Sonia, and I know you’re… God, I guess you are Ethan. When we’re together, we’re Sonia and Ethan, and whatever that is, or isn’t, doesn’t matter.  All that matters is… I like it, and I think you do too. Does anything else really matter?”

“No,” he smiled.  “I guess it does not.”

“Hey,” a voice called from the door, “I just wanted to… oh, shoot, I’m sorry, I didn’t know anyone was here.  I’ll come back….”

“Casey,” Ethan called, “no, please stay… I actually… I want to talk to you.”

He looked at Sonia, “Would you mind?”

“Oh, of course.  It’s late, and I was planning on heading home. But I’ll stop by tomorrow.”

“Please do,” Ethan said with a grin.  Then it was the two of them.

“I like her,” Casey smiled, “She is spunky AF.”

“AF?”

“As fuck.”

“I know what AF means. What I don’t understand is your insistence upon using the term.”

“Is this why you wanted to talk to me, Ethan?”

“No,” he laughed. “It’s not.”  

“Alan shared most of your story with Sonia and me.  I know we both think you’re pretty brave.”

“Brave? It took me how many years to finally do what I needed to do….”

“Hey! You needed time to figure out what that was, and you did.  Don’t be so hard on yourself.  I don’t think most people would ever muster up the courage to do what you just did with their parents, regardless of their relationship.  So how do you feel?”

“I feel free, Casey. I feel like the biggest weight has been lifted off of my back, and now that it’s gone, I wonder why it took me so long to let it go.”

“Well, that’s the beauty of hindsight,” she smiled.  “I don’t know if you are aware, but Louise and I had words.”

“I’ve heard a bit.”

“I was hard on her, and perhaps it was warranted, but I still feel bad.  I don’t know her full story, but from the little I do… I can tell she was a victim too, and… while it doesn’t make it right, it still….”

“You don’t have to explain, Casey.  I understand. In fact, I have Naveen work with my attorney to set up a trust for her so that she’ll be cared for.”

“Ethan, really?”

“I can’t have her in my life.  But, without her, I wouldn’t be here.  She has an illness, and I don’t want to know she’s living on the street when I live in a penthouse.  Does any of that make sense?”

“It makes perfect sense. And it speaks to who you are, Ethan. Before, when I said I couldn't be more proud of you? Well, you just broke your own record.”

“Hah,” he laughed, “nothing like nearly dying to bring forth all sorts of clarity.”

“Hmm.  Clarity,” Casey mumbled.  “I’m hoping I don’t have to face death again to get some of that myself.”

“Casey?”

“Yes?”

“Why haven’t you told me that you and Tobias broke up?”

Casey looked up, stunned.

“Oh, ah… several reasons? Not the least of which is that compared to you almost dying, I guess I didn’t think it ranked as very important… to you, that is… not to me,” she added meekly.

“Are you OK?”

“Me?  Sure. Yeah, I’m fine,” she lied as she began to shake her head from side to side.  “No, no. That’s a lie,” she said, stifling a sob. “I’m not fine.  I’m horrible.  I’m sad most of the time.  And I’m confused.  And angry, really, really angry… mostly at myself.  I’m completely out of my mind, at least 80% of the time, so I’m all of those things, and….”  

“And none of them are fine.”

“No,” she smiled sadly. “None of them are fine.  Tobias thinks I’m still in love with you, so clearly, he can’t be with me.  All he ever did was love me, and now I have left him feeling nothing but doubt.  And who can blame him, really?”

“Are you?”

“Am I?”

“Are you still in love with me?”

Casey pulled her chair up close to his bed and then wrapped his hands in hers.

“I love you, Ethan.  I love you with every bit of my heart, and I always will… but I’m not in love with you anymore.  But you see, the love I have for you is so strong, so, so strong that… I couldn’t understand it.  I didn’t know how to categorize it.  I’ve been so confused, and there was no clarity, until….” she thought of her mother’s words. “Until right now.  I’m sorry, do you… do you still love me?”

Ethan reached up and touched Casey’s cheek with a tender smile.  “Oh, Casey.  I will love you until I die, which hopefully won’t be anytime soon.”

They both giggled, happy for a reprieve before he continued.

“You and I, what we shared… it was the real thing, you know, and if things had been different….”

“I know,” Casey said, nodding through tears, “I know.”

“But we have to take the cards that we were dealt and…. Follow me on this, OK?”

“Sure.”

“I still love Louise. I do.  I can’t help it.  But she broke me, not once but twice.  I gave her my heart a second time, knowing how badly she had shattered it the first, and she did it again.  I don’t know if I could withstand it a third time, that kind of pain… might be too much for me to bear, so I had to let her go.  And now that I have, I know it was the right choice.”

“I’m happy for you,” Casey smiled, “I know you needed that peace, and I’m glad you found it.”

“So am I, and now, I’m giving it to you.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m so sorry, Casey. For doing to you exactly what Louise did to me.”

“It’s not the same, Ethan. She’s your mother, and….”

“Of course, it’s not entirely the same, but you can’t deny the similarities.  You loved me like I had never been loved before.  You gave me that precious gift, and how did I repay you? You handed me your heart, a heart that I had damaged, and I promised to protect it, and then I dropped it.  I never wanted to hurt you, Casey,” he said through tears.

“I know you didn’t….”

“But I did.”

“Yes,” she swallowed, “you did.”

“There are only so many times people can go through pain like that.  I’d never feel safe with Louise again, and I know you’d never feel safe with me.”

“You know, Ethan, that’s where you’re wrong.  Because I can feel safe with you, just not in… not that way.  You see, our love, it didn’t die. It transcended. You are and will forever be one of the most important people in my life.  You are my soulmate, but soulmates can take on different roles.”

“That’s exactly how I feel, too.”

“You do? You? Believe in soulmates?”

“I do, Casey.  I held on to you so tight, and I held on because I didn’t want to lose you.  But now I see….”

“You never could.  We never could.  We’re inevitable, Ethan, just….”

“… in a different way than we thought it would be.

“So, we’re good?” Casey smiled.  

“We’re better than good. I haven’t gone and destroyed your belief in magic and destiny and all that happy BS, have I?”

“Of course not!  I still believe in magic, in fate… in love. I believe in it more than ever because now I know it’s real.”

“If you play that song from Wicked, I’ll be forced to never speak to you again.”

“You lie.  You’re stuck with me, and you know it.”

“I am.  But hey, why don’t you get out of here and go work things out… I’m sure there is someone who would be very happy to hear about this.”

“I’m afraid it’s just not that simple.”

~~~~~

Casey had her duffle bag tossed over her shoulder as she walked out of the employee entrance.  It was a crisp evening, and she had come to enjoy her new commute, a three-block walk to the hospital.  It was a little hard to get used to at first, going home to an empty place.  It was something she had never done before.  First, it was her family, then roommates, then lovers… but there was something both humbling and terrifying about calling “home” a place that belonged to her and her alone.  

Even though they had promised to remain friends, she and Tobias had limited their interactions to work and dealing with minute details.  A wok of his that she accidentally packed, her earings that he found on the side of the bed.  Each of these interactions hurt more than the next, and if she were to be truthful, she worried about the day when they would no longer exist.  Could they keep that promise? Or would their relationship peter away upon the last time they found something that belonged to the other?  

It seemed a little sill to her. After all, he had something that belonged to her that she wasn’t quite sure she’d ever get it back, and that was her heart.  Ethan was right. She could find Tobias right now.  She could run and tell him that she figured it all out. She was in love with him, and he was the one she wanted to be with.  It had all the makings of an epic rom-com ending.  Yet, as she wandered down the lonely streets that led to her temporary home, she couldn’t bring herself to call him.  And she couldn’t even say why.

~~~~~

One Month Later

He pushed his glasses up his nose and stared at the paper trembling lightly in his hand.  A cautious smile spread on his lips as his eyes bounced between the letter and the confident young woman who sat before him.

“Is this your final answer?”

“Naveen,” Casey smiled, “This isn’t Jeopardy.”

“Then I take that as a yes and,” he bit his lip to stop his voice from croaking, “as much as I am going to miss you, I am so proud of and delighted for you.  Come here!” he said, rising to his feet and rushing around his desk. “I need a hug!”

Casey smiled as he clutched her in his grip.

“This is a wonderful opportunity for you, and I am going to be so proud to tell everyone who will listen that I handpicked you for Edenbrook back in the day.”

“What about Ethan’s role?” she asked.

“We’ll leave that out,” he grinned.  

“Have you told anyone yet?”

“Only my parents.  I wanted to tell you first.  The timing is perfect, with Ethan coming back next week… at least part-time.”

“Yes, and Tobias has only just started looking again, so…. Oh, dear, I’m sorry.”

“It’s OK,” Casey shrugged, “I know he started his search again.  He told me.”

“So, you’re speaking again?”

“We never stopped speaking; we just… haven’t spoken much.”

“You miss him, though. Don’t lie to me.  Grand-mentees know all.”

“I do,” she lamented. “But, I keep thinking of something you told me.”

“Me? Oh, tell me what it is! I love when I know I’m part of the story.”

“You said to go where my life takes me.  The people who are meant to be there will end up by my side.  It’s inevitable.  And sometimes… I have to fight for myself and let others fight for me.  The way I would fight for them.”

“I think you extracted the wisdom from my words, but let me give you just a few more.”

“Oh my….”

“If you know what you want regarding Tobias, don’t let stubbornness stand in your way either. Life is too short, Casey.”

“I know.  But I know I need to learn to stand on my own two feet, and I have no business promising myself to anyone else until I can say I’ve done that on my own.  I know it’s a risk, and I won’t lie, I’m a little terrified, but I agree with you. What’s meant to be will be. We couldn’t even stop it if we tried.”  

“I am so full of wisdom,” Naveen beamed.

“You certainly are.”

~~~~~

It was an unseasonably cool morning, even for Boston.  Still, the sun was shining bright, and there was not a cloud in the sky as Casey walked to meet Tobias.  He had offered his place, but she couldn’t bring herself to go.  She considered asking him to come to hers, but that wouldn’t work either.  They settled on meeting in the Public Gardens.  Neutral grounds.  And it was early enough that the only interruptions would come from chipmunks and pigeons, maybe an errant jogger or two who Casey believed had no business being up at that time anyway.  It would work.

He was surprised to receive her text.  They’d been keeping their distance outside of work, much to his chagrin. He had asked for time, she respected it, and now, as the distance between them grew, he couldn’t help but wonder if he had made the biggest mistake of his life.  But there was no turning back.  When she asked to meet, he quickly agreed though he couldn’t fight the sinking feeling that settled in his stomach.

He arrived before her, already perched on the bench and looking out over the pond when she approached.  It was so serene, so much like home, that the temptation to throw her arms around him and just… stay… was great.  It would have been so easy, and he would accept it with joy.  At any other time in her past, that’s precisely what Casey would have done.  But when landscapes change, they change the players too. The patterns of old may have provided comfort, but that was not enough anymore.  She knew she deserved better. She wanted, no she deserved, greatness in all things… in her profession, in her life, even in her heart…, and they wouldn’t be derived in her comfort zone.  

“Hey,” she said, surprising even herself at how quickly and genuinely her smile came to her face.  

He jumped up at the sound of her voice, his blue eyes locking with hers.  They embraced instinctually for what they thought would be a moment, but neither could let go.  It had been six weeks since they felt the warmth of the other, and only now had it become clear how desperately it was needed.  How could they let go of it freely?    

“Thank you for agreeing to meet me.”

“Come on, Case.  Do you think I’d ever turn an opportunity to see you down?”

“I would hope not, but I really don’t know.  How are you, Tobias?”

“Me,” he chuckled. “I’m peachy! Never been better.”

“OK, stupid question,” she said, nudging his shoulder.  

“How about you?” He asked. “You doing OK?”

“OK is a good assessment. And I’ll take it for now, but one day, I really hope it will be better.”

“So, why’d you call me out here at this ungodly hour? I know you’d rather wrestle a baby tiger than be up this early, so I know this isn’t for chit chat.”

“I suppose I should get to the point because no amount of chatter will make it easier to say.  I wanted to let you know before I told anyone else. I’ve accepted another job offer. My last day at Edenbrook will be next week.”

“Oh,” he sighed cautiously. “I see.  Well, I’m happy for you. I know you’ve wanted out for a while, so… what lucky hospital snagged you?”

She dragged her hand over his forearm without looking at him and took a steadying breath.  

“George Washington.”

He tiled his head, doing his damndest to keep the already sad smile on his face.  “So, DC it is? It’ll be good for you,” he whispered, tying to make himself believe it true.

“Maybe it will,” she shrugged, “or maybe it won’t.  But one thing is certain: I'll never know if I don’t try, and I owe it to myself to give it a shot.”

“You’re right.  It’s a phenomenal opportunity, and I have no doubt in my mind that you’re going to shine.  Are you happy?”

“Happy?” she said turning away, “I’m looking forward to the opportunity.  Happiness… that may follow.  I imagine only time will tell.”    

“Do you have a place yet?”

“No.  But the realtors are working on it, and I have suite lined up until then, so... it shouldn’t be long.” 

“Have you told my Ma?” he laughed nervously.

“No, Tobias.  I really haven’t been able to bring myself to talk to your Mom.  Although, I probably should call her once I’m settled.”

“She’d like that,” he smiled.  “She doesn’t hate you, you know.  She hates me.”

“She does not hate you,” Casey laughed, once again prodding his arm.

“Don’t bet the farm on that one,” he chuckled sadly.  

“Will you… will you keep in touch with me, Tobias?  You promised we’d stay friends, but since everything has happened… we haven’t even talked.  And I miss you.  I miss you so much.”

“I miss you, too. Pretty much every minute of every day. So, yes.  I will keep in touch... eventually.”

Casey’s face fell and as she pulled a bit further away.  

“Oh?” she gulped.

“Look. I can’t imagine my world without you in it, so I can’t say goodbye for good.  But it’s still so hard.  I was in love with you for so long before you even knew, and I thought it would be easy to go back.  I was an idiot to think I could do that after knowing what it meant to have you by my side,” he let out a deep breath and turned away as Casey fought valiantly to keep her tears in check.  When Tobias regained his composure, he continued.  “So yeah, I’m going to keep in touch, but we’re going to have to take it slow. OK?”

“I understand,” she lamented.  One hand wiped a tear that had fallen from her eye as the other gently caressed his face.  “This is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.  It still doesn’t seem real.”

“Oh, believe me, I know. Sitting here, accepting this all... not fighting like hell to get you to stay.  It’s killing me.”

“So then why aren’t you fighting?” she asked.

“Because I love you too much to do that.  I want you to find you.  I want you to be all you can be, how could I say I love you and deny you that?” 

“It was you,” she sobbed, “You should know that.  It was you all along, Tobias.”

“What do you mean?” he stuttered. 

“You said I needed time to choose between you and Ethan.  But I figured it out quickly.  I love Ethan, and I probably always will.  We have a bond that will probably never be broken, not unlike the one that you two share.  But I wasn’t in love with him anymore.  He was my past.”

“I should have known that.”

“How could you? My mind was so muddled that I didn’t even know what I was thinking at the time. You were right. I had to figure it out, and I now I have.  Ethan was my past.  But you… you were my future.  You were my home.”

“Were?” he whispered. “Does that mean our ‘temporary pause’ has become a full stop?”

Casey swallowed hard then took his hand.

“It means I’m going to DC. It means I thought the choice I had to make was between you and Ethan, but then I realized there was another choice all along, and that choice was me.  I love you, Tobias, and I would have never taken this risk if you hadn’t set me free.  The thought of losing you was too great to bear, but once you were… already gone… I had to think of what I would if I had no one to think of other than myself.  I realized, I had to give it a shot.”

Tobias shook his head as his legs bounced nervously, his hands falling to his pockets as he pressed his lips together.  He would have traded anything a chance to press rewind, but life didn’t work that way.  

“I should have gone with you,” he sniffed.  “When you got that offer, I should have been on the plane to DC with you that night. By now, we’d be there, living our lives, finding our place in this world, and instead… You’re going to be seven hours away, and I get to live with the crystal clear knowledge that every problem I put forth had a solution.  I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“You weren’t ready, and you can’t be mad at yourself for that.”

“Oh,” he guffawed, “Oh, yes! Yes, I can.  I can blame myself for a long, long time.”

“And what will you gain?  You were right.  We needed time.  I needed time to understand who I was and where I belong, and now, maybe you need the same. I don’t think our story is over, we just don’t know the end.  And it’s scary, but when the time is right... we’ll both lift a pen and write the one that is best for both of us.  I know that.  I know that in my heart.” 

“You sound so mature.”  He shoved her shoulder to try to make light.  “Almost like a grown-up,” he smiled.

Casey did her best to offer a genuine smile, and to her surprise, it came easy.  

“It’s overrated,” she chuckled. 

“Oh, don’t I know it.”  He took her hand in his, his heart aching as he wondered if it was the last time, hut he he had to let her know what was in his heart.  

“I need you to know something before you go.  No matter what the future holds for us… every day, every hour I spent at your side was a precious gift I never thought I’d receive.  I wouldn’t trade a single kiss, touch, or a single night in your arms for anything in this world.  Even if it means having to live with the pain of losing you for a lifetime, it will have been worth it just to know, for a brief moment in time, what it was like to be yours.” 

Her lips began to quiver and her eyes lowered, a single tear rolling quickly down her face.  He raised his hand to wipe it away before it had a chance to fall, and she raised her hand to his.  Holding it fiercely in her own. 

“I love you, Tobias.  I love you so very much.” 

“I love you, Casey, and you have my word, I always will.”

As the Boston began to come to life around them, they leaned into each other, their lips meeting, perhaps for the last time. It was a kiss goodbye and a kiss hello. It marked a beginning, and it marked an end.  Its uncertainty made the bitter taste all the more sweet as time stood still around them.  When they finally willed themselves apart, they were both unsure of so much.  But they knew three things to be true.  That dull aches in their hearts would not subside anytime soon.  They were still in search of themselves, but they would have never realized that if they had not first found each other.  

But most of all, they knew their story was unfinished and that, one way or another, they too were inevitable.  

[izlaria]

Garrison Headcanon: Why Lance hates Keith

Lance is fourteen when he first arrives at the Garrison. He is still on the shorter side, with full cheeks that his abuelas insist on pinching every time they visit. His skin has grown darker from summer days spent at the beach, his hair is freshly cut and his uniform is in pristine condition. He's putting his best foot forward, because flying is all he has wanted to do since he was ten and first learned about space travel. Nothing is going to stop him from achieving his dreams.

Nothing, except a bunch of white, spoiled rich kids who think themselves better than him just because they had private lessons even before the term started.

There aren't many of those. Most of the freshmen are bright-eyed and friendly, trying to cram a few dozen introductions into the few minutes they have before Orientation. Lance can see a group of brown kids, some who look Latin, some who look Asian, talking among themselves and they are all smiling.

The voices that stand out the most, however, come from the kids in the far-right, who have already claimed a bunch of seats with backpacks and pencil cases. Like they all knew one another, were already part of the same exclusive little club. They speak loudly about the simulations they had already ran, how first-year piloting would be a breeze.

It makes Lance clench his teeth.

He has never been inside a simulator, much less a space craft. The videos he has watched give him an idea of the controls, but his parents hadn't had the money to spare on preparatory courses and Lance himself had refused, saying that he could learn just as quickly from the theoretical books and tutorials. He could catch up on practice.

Looking at his classmates now, Lance wonders if he's made a mistake. Maybe he should have accepted Veronica's offer to pay for his classes. The way some of these kids spoke, it was like they'd been flying for years already.

Lance's stomach turns with this thought, mixing with the already active nerves that came from being in a completely new environment.

He analyses all this as he makes his way into the classroom, gravitating towards the middle rows. It's a good vantage point: close enough to the board that teachers won't immediately label him a troublemaker and adjacent to pretty much all the cliques that are already forming. Lance doesn't mind. He's good at making friends.

One of the brown kids turns as he approaches. The dude is large, with a friendly face that is stretched in laughter. Their gazes meet on accident, but Lance finds himself grinning back.

"Hey there!" Lance thrusts a hand in the other's direction. "Aren't you a hunk of a man?" he says it playfully, exaggerating a wink to make sure no one will take him too seriously.

The group of kids laugh, the boy in question most of all.

"You're not actually wrong," he responds sheepishly, shaking Lance's hand. "My name is Hunk."

"You're kidding!" It's the type of coincidence that makes Lance believe in fate. There is warmth in the way they talk to each other now, a welcome change from how clinical most officials have been towards the students so far. "I'm Lance! Well, Leandro, but everybody calls me Lance in English!" He takes a step back and mimics throwing something through the air. "Because of my crazy throwing accuracy."

"For real?" asks a guy on their left, who has one of those gullible faces that make Lance want to protect people.

"Nah!" Lance elbows the dude on the ribs while Hunk chuckles. "I'm messing with you. It's one of those family things: dad wanted Leandro, mom wanted Lance, and they couldn't choose."

"Sounds like an identity crisis waiting to happen," comments one of the girls, but it's good natured.

"I'm Cuban, usamerican and bi, cariño. I go all the ways!"

It's a lot to put out there, especially for first impressions, but Lance doesn't know how to hold himself in. Mom used to say he would grow into this tongue of his, eventually, but everyone else doubts it. It would take a life-changing event for Lance to know when to keep his mouth shut.

He doesn't mind. He's a very take-me-or-leave-me kind of guy, despite his need to be liked, and it has worked out for him so far.

One of the guys frowns, but Hunk and the girl simply smile back. It's already a lot better of a reception than he'd imagined.

Out of the corner of his eye, Lance sees another kid enter the classroom, so he turns and watches. The longish hair initially makes him think it’s a girl, but there is something undeniably masculine about the angles of that face, the broadness of the shoulders.

Well, not undeniably, cause gender is a construct, but still. The person looks like a guy and the guy looks cute.

But then he makes a straight line towards the rich kids, taking the seat right next to the window. The dude doesn’t even acknowledge the other students, he simply picks up the pencil case that had been used to save the seat and drops it on the desk behind him. Doesn’t even thank his friends.

What an asshole.

“Those kids are the fighter pilot wannabes,” explains the guy who’d frowned at Lance earlier. He’s glaring again, but at least he hasn’t made any unsavory comments about Lance.

“You think they are any good?” Gullible-face peeks around Hunk to also stare at the newcomer.

“Doesn’t matter how good they might be.” Lance smirks, eyes still fixed on the dark-haired boy, even as he pulls out his phone and continues to ignore their peers. “I’ll be better.”

-

Headcanon: Lance thinks Keith is one of the rich kids who had private tutoring for their flying because of a mix-up involving seating arrangements, a misunderstanding that only deepens when Keith aces their flight simulation. When he realizes Keith isn’t part of the rich kids, it’s already too late, Lance has already determined they are rivals.

[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.

[spooky-ghostwriter]

Sentinels Stuff from 2021 and Beyond

Sentinels of the Multiverse has really taken over all of my hobbies...

In 2018, I finished a custom hero deck for Tsukiko. Next was Gold Dragon in 2019. Then Escarlata in 2020.

I kept intending to take breaks from Sentinels and work on other hobbies, but these have been so fun and rewarding that I’ve just kept making cards... without posting them to this blog. Until now.

The Alesia Circus

My first three decks were all heroes, but Sentinels of the Multiverse also has Villain decks and Environment decks. Instead of having a player control them, these decks act on their own.

Battles in Sentinels can take place anywhere from a generic superhero city to an intergalactic prison for supervillains to crazy time vortexes. Alesia Circus is one of the most important locations in my writing, and with Tsukiko already part of the game, I figured it was a perfect time to try my hand at an environment deck.

Dressed to Kill’s story focuses heavily on the performers and their acts, but to make the environment more interactive, I added a set of circus games that players can participate in, called Contests. 

Around the time I was finishing up Escarlata, the custom Sentinels community really started expanding, and in particular, creators started featuring each others’ characters in their own cards. I decided I’d use this opportunity to see just how many cameos I could include. Some were front and center, others were buried in the background. The answer, as it turned out, was twelve - there are twelve characters made by my friends among the art!

When a player fulfills a Contest’s condition, the card gets flipped facedown. The back of all cards from the Alesia Circus environment have a ticket on the back:

Tickets let you visit Circus shows and get a bonus in the game as the performer helps you out. If you can’t visit a Circus show, the villain of the game messes with it, and throws some penalty at you.

The Alesia Circus was a pretty frustrating deck to make, to be honest. The art took a really long time, and since the Shows deviate from the normal Sentinels card template, I had to do a lot of work by hand. BUT I love how it turned out.

Digital Implementation

Sentinels of the Multiverse has a digital version on Steam, and recently, the devs added workshop support. Luckily for me, I have a programming background. So I spent an inordinate amount of time coding each and every Sentinels card I’ve designed (around 80), and now all four of my decks are available for free on Steam. (Though Sentinels itself is around $10, or $1 if you can catch it on sale!)

If you’ve got the game, get Spooky Ghostwriter Comics here: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2436888590

The digital implementation was ALSO a lot of work but ALSO very rewarding. Heroes in the PC game have extra art beyond the cards - a few different poses depending on whose turn it is. I wanted to keep up the pattern for my heroes, which meant a lot more drawing. But considering how disappointed I am (now) with how I drew Gold Dragon’s character card, I enjoyed seeing how much I’ve improved since then:

Tsukiko Rework

Speaking of being disappointed with old work... the deck I posted for Tsukiko was not great. Since calling that deck complete, I’d learned a lot about art and how to design good Sentinels cards. 

Generally, I don’t like reworking things. I’d rather take the lessons I’ve learned and apply them to new things instead of making countless revisions to something I called done. But Tsukiko was rough, and it got to the point where even I didn’t like playing as her anymore. 

Luckily, in the grand scheme of things, most of her cards were fine, or at least good enough. There were only a couple absolutely dreadful cards. I won’t dwell too much on the card changes, since I know most people looking at this blog don’t play Sentinels. Instead, I’ll just show off one of the cards that got brand-new art. Because WOW, the original version of Escape Artist was bad:

1920s Cartoon Promos

Some time ago, I posted an old-timey cartoon version of Gold Dragon, saying how much I loved the rubberhose art style and wished I could do more with it. So I did more with it!

All of my heroes will or are going to have a variant character card in this style. Or in Gold Dragon’s case, two:

These are in the digital game too! (Other than Tsukiko’s which is still in the playtesting phase)

Silhouette

And finally, my current art project is yet another Sentinels deck. I hope to have it finished sometime this year. Her name is Silhouette, and she’s an edgy goth vampire with some of the best art I’ve drawn yet:

With Silhouette, I’m switching from Flash/Photoshop to Clip Studio Paint. It’s a fantastic program and I wish I’d made the change sooner. But there are still a lot of things to figure out.

More on Silhouette later, when her deck is complete!

Wrapping Up

If you’ve read this far, thanks for indulging me! Sufficed to say, I’m still pretty fond of Sentinels and making content for it. Of all the nonsense I’ve spent my free time doing, this has been the most rewarding by far. Hopefully my creative energy keeps up!

[okamirayne]

What is it about writing that brings you joy? Is there a particular book that you love that has inspired your journey as a writer? Do you still dabble in reading fanfic? Pew pew pew. I’m shooting you with the real questions—well the ones I wanna know. Lotsa love to you 🥹🥹🥹🥹💕

Hey Anon! Thanks for these real and raw Qs. You tugged on my heartstrings with these. 💕

What is it about writing that brings you joy?

Oh damn. This is painful to answer while I'm stuck in burnout, but it's a beautiful question and so necessary to remind me of what I love, so thank you for posing it. There are several things about writing that bring me joy...

The characters. Always. Connecting with the characters; this always moves me out of myself and into that magical space where I'm walking in other worlds with these raw and unmasked people; there's something intimately profound and exciting about having them rock up into your headspace...drop down into your heart...then spill into your hands and out onto the page...hopefully in a way that does them justice. I love learning their stories. And I love telling them.

The synchronicities. I always find that strange little happenings, from small to big, always show up in my life...some a-causal event or instance that's related to whatever project I'm focusing on. It's freaky cool.

The suspension of time and space when I'm in flow. I definitely lose time, which means I am wholly and completely present (albeit in another world) when I'm in the right state. Kind of like astral projecting your mind somewhere else; essentially I'm sitting there writing, but in an abstract sense, I'm not really sitting there at all. I'm hanging out in whatever world I'm immersed in, shooting the shit with the characters. It's a neat way to travel.

The organic process of everything connecting/coming together. The story. The meaning you don't know is there until the end. This gives me such a huge and humbling kick, because it's such an intuitive process, and often surprises and delights me...my INFJ brain runs on that kind of crazy-juice.

The expansion -- I have to do a shite-tonne of research for a lot of the stories that come to me, it stretches and grows me and the joy of that stems as much from learning as from hoping I'm doing justice to the characters/story.

Ah! I also get joy from the freedom writing brings to explore our universal and cross-pollinated psyche. I enjoy how the fictional worlds tip their hats to the convergent worlds we've created as a species here on our little blue planet. I've found writing can act as a passport that takes you past the polite, policed, and political bullshit of our current militant social 'wokelands' and wastelands, granting deeper and truer access into the rich terrain of the human condition and its truths...where there aren't hyper-offended gatekeepers, or borders, or boundaries (though these are constantly and tragically being enforced on creatives nowadays due to everyone being offended by everything -- even fiction).

I love who I am when I'm writing. I'm just a better person. I experience things differently.

Is there a particular book that you love that has inspired your journey as a writer?

There's no one book in particular. I love mythology and comparative mythology, which has certainly inspired a mystical appreciation of the power of storytelling across cultures and genres. I've read so many books which I've taken precious lessons away from, it's so tough to recall them all. Julia Cameron's The Right to Write, most of the books by Steven Pressfield, Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet. So so many, luv!

Do you still dabble in reading fanfic?

Ha! It's funny you should ask, luv, as I just read a Destiel fic. *laughs* I haven't touched fanfic in agessss but a friend and I were chatting about this particular ship so I hopped on board briefly at Stupid O'Clock last night. Maybe this'll be the start of me getting my weekly fanfic-fix in the wee stolen hours! I'm sure there's a quota I need to hit to qualify as dabbling...

....but hey, I was just happy to escape for a while.

Thank you again for these interesting questions, Anon! Big love and appreciation coming at you, sweetheart, wherever in the world you may be. ^_^💕💕

[kerie-prince]

We're Worlds Apart (4)

Draco Malfoy x American No-Maj!reader

series m.list | general m.list | previous chp

warnings: a curse word if you squint, sassy Draco

summary: Draco Malfoy is a pureblood wizard. Magic runs through his veins and has been since his birth. You're a Wiccan No-Maj; a non-magical being with ordinary blood through your veins, but practices what you call magick. And this very practice upsets your neighbor.

a/n: a day late bc i got distracted watching game of thrones lmao i have adhd so i honestly should've known better than to have something so attention demanding in front of me :P

(gif cred)

Three more days.

Three more days until your brother and his girlfriend come to your Buffalo suburban home to spend Thanksgiving. You came home from work on a better day than the ones from the week before, only to walk inside and was almost convinced you entered the wrong house.

Your mother took the liberty of decorating your house while you were gone. The place looked like an IKEA catalogue. Green and cream colored throw pillows were on your black leather couch, your small dining table had a fall-themed centerpiece and a blood orange table cloth. New dining chairs, all of them matched, unlike the mismatched ones you had before. And that god-forsaken ‘Live, Laugh, Love’ wooden sign hung in your kitchen. That damn thing is leaving first thing in the morning.

“Ma, what the hell did you do to my house?” The more you looked, you groaned at what you saw. Your grandmother’s tapestry was no longer hanging at its original place, now hung hidden behind the tv. “Oh, don’t give me any grief about it. Y/B/N is coming and I don’t want the place looking like the Spirit store.”

You knew you couldn't really fight her on this. It would be more frustrating to have to argue and still not be able to put everything back to how it was until she left. Taking a deep breath, you walked yourself to your room to get changed into comfortable clothes and light some sage for your nerves.

Three more days.

—

One more week.

In a week's time, Blaise Zabini and Theodore Nott were to come to New York to spend the month of December with Draco and to say he was excited was an understatement.

He was excited, nervous, and many other feelings that he was too stressed to name. The guest room was prepared for the two of them to share, all he had to do was figure out what to do with them while they were here. He had taken a week off and had no idea what to do. He still hadn’t gone around the city he lived in. He could always ask his friends at Saint Marie but for some reason, he was too shy to.

He could always ask Mrs. Charles for recommendations on what to do. She was a sweet muggle neighbor that he came to like as well as her husband. He could also ask you, but it’s been over a week since he spoke to you in your yards. From glimpses into your window, you seemed so exhausted. Not that he really cared, but he remembered that you would try to get along better and so far, all he’s done was give a nod towards your direction when he walked into his home as you were leaving yours.

His bedroom blinds were always closed now because he knew that if he were to see you doing your… whatever you do in your room just once, he’d change his mind about the whole thing. It still bothered him, but not as bad as it did when he first saw it.

Draco’s stomach growled as he sat on his couch, bringing him out of his thoughts and walked over to the kitchen. To his despair, his pantry, cabinets, and fridge were all empty. Guess I’ll have to grab something. He pondered on what he was in the mood for as he ran out the door. Draco figured he'd just figure it out as he drove around the streets downtown.

Since moving to America, he found so many new cuisines than he had ever imagined. He usually always ate at home, and if his family ever ate outside of home they usually went to the finest restaurants in France. Of course, they were all wizard-owned restaurants. But in New York, he’s been introduced to new things. For one, he had his first ever hamburger with Blaine. Ashley took him to a Chinese restaurant, and Ian bought Draco a traditional New York pizza.

Yes, all these things existed in London. Maybe not so much New York-style pizza, but there was pizza. Draco, however, never had the opportunity to try any of these foods. Lucius was extremely strict about eating out. It was never necessary considering he could afford the best quality foods to be made at home. When they did eat at restaurants in France, it was only because a higher official at the Ministry had invited them for a night out.

Around the streets, the bright lights of buildings and restaurants lit the streets as he drove around them. Draco turned into a street he hadn’t been into yet in hopes to find something else he could find to try. There were a couple places he hadn’t been into; a Greek restaurant, a Brazillian one, and a couple shops. There was one shop close to the end of the street. It was sandwiched between two boutiques and had a neon green and purple sign in the front. Soul Beads. In front of the building was a man with a weird sign in one hand and an even weirder thing that seemed to have made his voice louder in the other. Draco couldn’t make of the rubbish he was yelling into the thing from inside his car.

Draco pulled to the curb to walk around the street and check out the restaurants. A bell jingle caught his attention, turning around to see one person he didn’t really expect to see here. “Draco?” your face showed the same expression as his. He watched as you closed the door to Soul Beads and walked up to him. The weird man that stood in front of the store yelled out, “DON’T TALK TO HER, THIS BITCH HERE WORKS FOR THE DEVIL!”

“Do you know him?” Draco asks with a quirked eyebrow. The stranger kept yelling profanities at you but Draco saw how you couldn’t be bothered by it. “He does this every couple weeks. What brings you out here?” Your hands were stuffed tightly in your pockets for warmth.

“Do you own the street? Can I not be here?” he asked sarcastically. You faced him with a deadpan look as to ask him again without having to say the words to him. Or call him a smartass. Which he is. With a roll of his eyes, he continued, “I’m looking for something to eat but I’ve never been to these places before.”

“Ah,” you started, “Well I don’t know what kind of stuff you’re used to, but I suggest the Greek restaurant right across. Over-priced, but the best gyros you’ll ever have in Buffalo.”

“It’s yee-roh, not jahy-row.” Draco corrected. He couldn’t tell if you were irritated or confused after he said that. Probably both.

“You know Greek?” you asked.

“I studied it when I was a child. My tutor showed me the word once and hit my hand when I had mispronounced it. Learned the hard way to never do that again,” flashbacks to the older woman teaching him the language cursed his mind for a few seconds.

His stomach growled even louder now in the silence between them. Draco blushed in embarrassment, shifting around to look away so you wouldn’t see. You slightly chuckled and tapped his shoulder. “Come on, neighbor’s treat.” And you walked onto the busy street.

This bloody woman is crazy to be crossing a busy street he thought as he rushed to follow you across the street. He got scared as a car got too close and ran to the safety of the sidewalk. “You’re gonna get yourself bloody killed one of these days like that,” he scolded. “If you’re gonna live in New York, you’re gonna have to deal with annoying pedestrians and sometimes be an annoying pedestrian. Be glad you don’t live in Manhattan, they’re worse. A person could be hit by a car and he’d just get on up and keep walking.” you informed.

Draco would be lying to himself if he said that didn’t spook him a little. Sure, he’s seen a few students get hexed, some by him, but they’d never just dealt with it and continued walking in the halls. They’d either have to hope their friends knew the counter curse or they’d end up in the hospital wing and had Madam Pomfrey help them back to normal. These muggles really are just… strange.

The restaurant looked old and desperately needed a remodel but by Merlin, it smelled amazing. “Now, are you getting a yee-roh sandwich or are you getting something else?” you mocked his previous correction with a playful roll of your eyes. Draco looked at the menu but it didn’t matter as he didn’t know the first thing about Greek food. What the hell did my father force me to take lessons for? “Do you want me to just order for you?” you asked as he kept browsing for too long. There were only 12 things on the menu but it still confused him.

He held back a snarl as he agreed to your help. He stood aside as you ordered and waited until it sounded like you were done, then headed up to the window to pay. “Oh, you don’t have to. I insisted I would pay,” you tried to push his hand away and reach for your credit card but he proceeded to hand the money to the cashier. “It’s nothing.”

“Here or to-go?” the lady asked with a thick New York accent. The two of you just looked at each other waiting for someone to say something. “Do you want to just-”

“Eat it here?” He looked at the small space and saw only one unoccupied table by the window. One of two tables. No longer growling, his stomach was shaking nearly violently, indicating that he can’t wait any longer. It was a strange feeling to be starving. Never had he ever had to wait for food at Malfoy Manor nor at Hogwarts. Whether it was house elves or first years, someone always ran to get him food with a snap of his fingers. “Yeah, here’s fine.”

The lady handed your plates to you as he went to claim the small table before someone else did. He looked around the space with a slight disgusted look. It’s not that it was run by muggles, but just because the place looks so old and kind of dirty. Even the house elves at the Manor lived in better conditions. The corner he sat in made him feel slightly claustrophobic. How do they sit and enjoy anything like this?

You sat the food on the table and shook your jacket off on to the chair. Draco watched as you placed the plates as neatly in front of you both. He couldn’t help but notice the rings that covered most of your fingers. Some were simple silver bands, some bronze bands, and some looked like wire that had a wrapped, colorful rock in the center. They were mismatched but coordinated at the same time. If that made any actual sense.

You started some simple small-talk, “So, what brings you all the way out here?”

“I got a better job opportunity,” Draco responded. His voice sounded uninterested, and his eyes stared at the plate. It had three pieces of meat on a bed of white rice, a small salad and a little dipping bowl of some white sauce. He dipped the meat into the sauce and as he tasted it, he nearly groaned in content. The flavors danced around his mouth and he had to hold himself back from devouring the whole plate in a matter of seconds.

He could feel you staring at him but chose not to look up to see judgement in your eyes. Whether it was with amusement or not. The food was so good and he would most definitely order another one to-go on his way out for his lunch break tomorrow. I’m definitely bringing Blaise and Theo here.

“What kind of job do you do?” Draco stopped chewing his food and swallowed nervously. He should’ve expected this kind of question sooner or later, but here he was sitting in silence trying to figure out what to say. He couldn’t just tell you that he’s a Healer because then that would lead to more questions and that’d be more answers he couldn’t give you. “What, you don’t wanna tell me?” you furrowed your eyebrows at him as he continued his silence.

Finally, the word popped in his mind, “I’m a doctor.” Hopefully that ends that conversation.

“That’s cool, what kind of doctor are you?” Shit. There’s more than one kind?

“Uh, I work with people who come into the hospital with major injuries like a broken arm and such,” Draco stuttered.

“So, an emergency room doctor. You work in the ER then,” you concluded with a hand over your mouth as you chewed. “Y-yeah, that.” Draco tried not to sound suspicious. “What about you?”

You cleared your throat, drank some of your soda and pointed out the window, “You see that store over there? Soul Beads? That’s my store.” It was weird how coincidental it was that of all streets to drive into and of all people to run into, he ran into you coming out of your personally owned store. Looking back at you, he saw your face relax and smile at the building. “What do you sell? I’m assuming it’s not food seeing as you didn’t invite me in.”

Now it was time for you to stutter, “Oh, just candles and stuff. Nothing too flashy.” You poked at your food and took small bites of it. There was an awkward silence between you two for about ten minutes before you started the conversation before, “Assuming you don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, will you just be working that day?” Draco didn’t know much about the holiday, only that he was getting paid more that day.

“Yeah, I’ll be at the hospital for the night. Probably until four in the morning.”

“Well that sucks. You’ll miss out on the greatest American tradition that is Black Friday,” you chuckled.

“What’s that?” Yet another thing Draco didn’t understand.

“Black Friday is when people fight to the death for a discount on things like appliances and tvs. It’s quite amusing to watch,” you slightly exaggerated. Keyword slightly. Draco had wide eyes as he heard the description. “I’m sorry, to the death?”

With that, you laughed so hard you placed one hand flat against your chest and the other held the table with a tight grip as if you were to fall from your seat. He then realized you actually didn’t mean to the literal death and mentally scolded himself for being so gullible. You continued laughing and he rolled his eyes before chuckling to himself. You leaned back up and wiped some tears underneath your eyes, “Oh my god, I needed that laugh.”

A shiver went up Draco’s spine once he caught a glimpse of your smile. It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen you smile at all. Before your little argument, you would smile towards him and all the other neighbors all the time. But this never happened before. He looked away from your eyes and tried to find anything else to look at. Tilting his head up, he saw an air conditioning unit. Oh, that’s why.

Small talk ended there with a clear of his throat and proposed to go home. Draco saw how you looked a little disappointed and forced a small, kind smile on your face, “Yeah, it’s getting kinda late and I don’t want to keep my mother waiting. God knows what she’s done to my house while I was gone.” He wasn’t going to keep pressing on the matter as he figured they still weren’t close enough for that. One dinner didn’t make them friends in his book. It wasn’t terrible, though. Maybe he would do it again.

Walking to their own cars, she said “See you around, neighbor,” and got into her car and drove off. He just nodded his head as he always did and drove off as well. They arrived home at the same time and walked inside without looking at each other, thinking that it would just be weird to keep saying goodbye.

—

It was finally Thanksgiving, and Y/B/N and Stephanie were going to be over around three in the afternoon. Your mother was more of a pain than usual, waking you up at six in the morning to do last minute cleaning, grocery shopping, and starting on roasting the ham. The loud argument over ham or turkey in the grocery store the week before lasted for an embarrassing two hours after your mother caved and let you pick the main entree for dinner.

Once you got an hour to yourself, you went to your closet in the hall and grabbed a small glass jar then walked to your backyard for some lavender. You walked to the kitchen for a stick of cinnamon, placed the items on the kitchen counter and walked quickly to your room for something small. Your eyes found a loose ribbon on the floor and grabbed it then went back to the kitchen.

You put all the items into the jar and browsed the kitchen for one more thing. There was a bouquet of flowers on the dining table that your mother bought. Perfect. You grabbed a couple flowers and took the petals to mix in the jar. Once you were done, you chanted to yourself three times:

“Goddess, please take the negativity out of this kitchen.

Replace it with positivity and love. So mote it be.”

You heard your mother waking up from her nap from the guest room and ran into the kitchen to hide the jar somewhere she couldn’t see it. The spell can’t exactly work if she sees something to nag about. She walks in the kitchen and sees you looking suspicious.

She looks at you with squinted eyes - mainly because she had just woken up - but said, “I’m not gonna ask what you’re up to. Can you make the potato salad? I like the way you make it better.” You silently agreed as you looked for the things in the fridge and grabbed a large bowl to mix it in. Your mother walks up to one of the cabinets to grab a pot to boil the potatoes with, only to find the thing you tried to hide. “What’s this, honey?”

You stammered over your words trying to find an explanation before she cut you off, “It’s pretty with all the things in there. You should keep it out.” She placed it beside a photo on the countertop and walked away to fill the pot with water. You were surprised she didn’t ask any further questions. You continued cooking and had a hopeful smile on your face. Maybe it won’t be so bad tonight.

The doorbell rang and you both looked at the clock on the wall. It read 1:55 and you looked at each other in confusion. “Y/B/N must be early,” your mother guessed and went to the door to let him in. The greeting was loud as she greeted him in. You could hear your little brother’s laugh with enthusiasm as he walked into your kitchen, “What’s up, big sis?”

You placed the utensils down and ran up to him with your arms up, “I’ve missed you too, baby brother.” He was much taller than you as he picked you up and hugged you tightly. You slightly swung your legs to give him the signal to let you go. He got his height from your dad, leaving you short thanks to your mother. Your brother had a big smile on his face and you reciprocated the smile. It’s been a long time since you’ve seen each other.

“Oh, lemme introduce you. Steph, c’mere!” He looked over his shoulder and called for the special guest. A beautiful woman with long, chocolate brown hair and doe blue eyes walked next to Y/B/N. “It’s so nice to meet you, I’m Stephanie.” She held her hand out causing you to quickly wipe your hands on your apron. “Hi, I’m Y/N.”

“Y/B/N has told me so much about you. I was so nervous to meet you,” Stephanie admitted with a slight blush on her cheeks. “I wonder what this dummy told you. I bet you I can tell you more embarrassing stories about him,” you jabbed his arm.

“That’s not fair, I didn’t say anything all that bad. You’ll hex me or some shit,” he had his hands up in defense.

“Y/B/N!” Your eyes widened and you laughed nervously, “Don’t listen to him, he’s an idiot.”

Stephanie looked back and forth at the two of you and finally settled on you, waving a hand, “Oh no, that’s okay. I practice, too.” Wait, what? It seemed your mother thought the same exact thing, only out loud. “Yeah, Stephanie also does the same thing you do. Crazy, right?”

Your mother stood shocked before them, not saying anything. Your brother had a smile that wasn’t exactly fitting the situation. Stephanie had a kind smile, and although you were visibly surprised that your little brother’s girlfriend was, of all things, also a Wiccan, you were laughing inside at your mother.

This is gonna be the most interesting Thanksgiving ever.

—

next chp

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[froggycreekfarm]

Important lessons to learn from Gabby’s tragic life and death.

1. Based on the body camera video posted by the officers who pulled Gabby and her fiancé over for suspicious driving, some viewers assumed Gabby was suffering from mental illness and Brian was the stable one.

2. Some people may have assumed both partners were equally abusive and equally at fault. The old “it takes two” myth that doesn’t really apply to most abusive situations.

3. Some people may have even assumed Gabby was the abuser and Brian was the victim.

4. These assumptions are classic. Why? Because, in many cases, the target manages to keep things together until her breaking point, at which time others may see her crying or hear her yelling or see her breaking, and then they assume she’s “crazy.”

5. Meanwhile, the abuser plays the part of the poor, patient partner who has to deal with this crazy person. But all the while, he’s been acting very differently behind closed doors, pushing her to this point intentionally and feeding on her emotional break. He LOVES to see evidence that he has hurt her. He LOVES to see her pain.

6. For this reason, “breaking her” has been his goal from the start. It may take him hours or weeks or months or even years to break her, but he won’t stop until he gets that reaction, and then he’ll point the finger and say, “See? She’s crazy. I’m just trying to keep her calm.” And then he’ll do it again. And again. And again.

7. As a result, some people will buy into that false narrative. Even the target. Which brings me to my next point.

8. In the video, we see Gabby making many excuses for Brian’s behavior, and she takes all the blame for everything he does.

9. We also see Brian blaming Gabby and saying he was just trying to keep her calm.

10. This is also the norm for victims of long-standing abuse. A target becomes conditioned to believe everything the abuser does is her fault.

11. Also, she clearly doesn’t want Brian to be in trouble. She’d rather pay the price and protect the man she loves. Also, remember she truly believes he only acted this way because of her, so she doesn’t want him to be blamed. This is also the norm.

12. Smart officers see right through this. Others buy the cover-up story. (And because some officers are also abusers, they all too frequently side with the abuser even when they know exactly what’s going on.)

13. I actually credit the police in Gabby’s situation. They were calm, they separated the couple, they interviewed them individually, they split them up for the night, they did everything right. I’m sure the officer has tremendous guilt about the end result and wonders if he could have prevented it, but I don’t blame the officers in this case. I was actually pretty surprised and impressed with how well they treated both Brian and Gabby (and, sadly, I was thinking how rare it is to see that.)

14. Many people have been shocked by Brian’s family’s refusal to cooperate with police. I’m not shocked at all. Let’s look at that a little more closely.

15. I’m also not surprised to learn that Gabby lived with the Laundrie family for a year. We all see this family will do anything to protect their son, even at the cost of an innocent young woman who was a real part of their family and soon to be their daughter in law. While most of us can certainly understand them wanting to protect their child, they crossed a moral line when Gabby went missing.

16. But I think it goes deeper than that. I think it shows them as a system of enablers who not only allowed Brian to abuse Gabby over a long term (which probably led to her intense anxiety) but also a system of gaslighters who were probably always shifting the truth to keep Gabby confused and make her believe she’s the problem. She was caught in an entire system of abuse. And once you’re in that web, it’s very very very difficult to see a way out.

17. I imagine they probably contributed to her abuse from the start and encouraged their son’s abusive behaviors by rewarding him, making excuses for him, blaming Gabby, flipping the script, and keeping her in the fog that breaks down a person’s psyche and spirit over time.

18. Gabby and Brian had been together since their teens. This is also common. These immature relationships work beautifully when both partners grow together and mature emotionally. But when one wants to keep the other down, naive, and under his control…and the other is growing, learning, and maturing, it doesn’t work.

19. We hear Gabby tell the officer that Brain didn’t think she could do her travel blog. It seems clear that he didn’t believe in her and was trying to make her not believe in herself.

20. She also says he didn’t like her working and that he locked her out of the van because she wouldn’t calm down. But when you listen to the full video, it sounds like he was upset because they’d spent too much time at the coffee shop with her working on her website when he wanted to go hiking. She wasn’t in her seat when he was ready to leave. Control issues?! He squeezed her face with his hand in anger. He cut her down and criticized her, verbally abusing her until she was a wreck of tears. He was breaking her spirit, intentionally.

21. Why? Because her focus wasn’t 100% on him. And because she had found a job she enjoyed and was good at and that allowed her to connect with other people, when he wanted her all to himself.

22. She now had this one little piece of her life that he couldn’t completely control, so he wanted fo get rid of that. It angered him. He punished her for it. See the pattern?

23. The overall takeaway? When you see someone crying like this, don’t assume she’s crazy. Don’t buy into the false narrative given by the abuser. Don’t believe the cover-up story by the target who has been conditioned to carry all the blame and shame. And don’t assume she’s going to be okay. She just may end up your next recovered body.

24. If you or someone you love are in an unhealthy relationship, please don’t assume it will get better in time. I haven’t heard one single story where it got better. Not one. Not with therapy. Not with church. Not with prayer or forgiveness or complete surrender. Nothing works when the abuser is determined to destroy that target. He will not stop until she is erased from this world or from her life. And in many cases, he’ll walk away without any consequences.

Please don’t let the next Gabby be you or someone you love.

Domestic violence hotline: 1-800-799-7233

credit: Julie P Cantrell