clotilove

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That night the stars were gorgeous. It was just Cloud and I. Cloud and Tifa in Final Fantasy VII: Remake and Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis.

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♪ know that you'll take my hand—and never let me go ♪

Cloud Strife & Tifa Lockhart Promises to Keep • Final Fantasy VII (Rebirth)

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"Look at these two! Not even tryin' to blend in!" —FINAL FANTASY VII REBIRTH (2024)

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He would become exceptional. A SOLDIER. A hero. Someone special to Tifa. [x]

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"Looks like fun, huh?"

Cloud Strife & Tifa Lockhart Golden Saucer Date • Final Fantasy VII (Rebirth)

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Am I...getting ahead of myself?

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"Of his own free will, he had decided to become an exceptional man. To become a SOLDIER, a hero, and a special existence to Tifa." Kazushige Nojiima 2,000 Gil to Becoming a Hero February 2024 (FFVII Rebirth World Preview)

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Cloud Strife in Advent Children 2/∞

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Cloud ✨

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NEVER LET IT GO AGAIN.

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Tifa’s Resolution

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My (On Going) List of Good Cloti Fanfiction

I don’t think I had read a Fanfiction in about 15 years before FF7 Remake came out, but since I was so damn desperate for more, I found my way back to good ol’ fanfiction.net…. which looks nothing like it did then - in fact it looked better back in the early 2000s… I also found AO3, which is where I lurk most of the time… So here’s my list of Cloti fics I’m a little obsessed with - many of these I’ve read multiple times. 

Last Updated: 10/22/2020

I started writing my own. You can read it if you want. It’s SFW so far…

Someone to Watch Over Me by  Iaintyourbro

First, some of my favorite themes, some of which I never thought I’d enjoy:

Zack trying to hook up Cloud and Tifa while they’re in Nibelheim (CC timeline). These are always somewhat hilarious and I can absolutely picture Zack doing this.

College AU. Never thought I’d like these either, but the few I’ve read are fantastic.

Pretty much anything where Zack and Aerith are together and alive and are friends with Cloud. Even better if he complains about them, because generally Aerith and Zack in these fics are hilarious.

I do like family fluff - so Post AC. 

“Deleted” Scenes and other During the Game timeline moments that could have secretly happened. Also okay with slight canon-divergence in these (since they’re fanfiction) for the love of Cloti.

Cloud and Tifa being awkward, innocent, dorks.

I do not do fics where they bring up the love triangle as if it were a real thing. Yes, that may be petty of me, but I read fics for enjoyment. I can go to Twitter to get annoyed. All of the fics below are strictly CloTi and Zerith. I do not do any other pairings with Cloud and Tifa - only CloTi. That doesn’t mean they’re free of angst. There’s angst, but they have happy endings.

The fics that may have some slight LTD stuff in them are generally during canon and are handled well. It’s not him pining over her. It’s confusion/persona/Jenova/voodoo stuff.

COMFORT FICS are BOLDED - These are fics I read when I need a pick me up or something happy. I read these over and over.

So let’s get to it. I’m sure I’ve forgotten some and I got side tracked and started reading some of these while getting the links hahaha… 

Safe for Work:

My Rock  by  SCE0508 

Reunited Series by  Foxtale @foxtale97 Series: Includes six different works.

Remake Deleted Scenes by  holysmotez @holysmotez Series: Includes six different works.

Moments of Almost by  kitsune13tamlin

Moments, Precious and Fleeting by  dwightkurtschrute

Cold Kiss by Kuro Kiishi

Fated Encounters by  IG_KorrasamiShipper Lot of Zerith too.

Swords and Stars by  tishannia

Broken Hearts and Maladies by  Marjorie_Franklin Series: Includes 3 works.

After Advent by  kitsune13tamlin

Fidelity by  sekiharatae

Day to Day Life by  sekiharatae Series: There are 15 works included (There’s even more now - and Catharsis is incredible)

What It Means to Be Living by  The_Ocean_Deep 

Landing Home by  You_Light_The_Sky

Wakey Wakey by @silver-wield

Above the Highwind by @silver-wield

tenderly by hoegeta

On Our Way (Again) by @holysmotez

Not Safe for Work:

Party Like Your Heart Hurts  by  spaceOdementia

A Sea of Silence by  SKEvans

Bench Breaks by  Radiklement @atlasxderema

Sensations by  jordypordy

fool for you by  hoegeta

Gold Saucer Delights by  theClosetPoet7

Behind Closed Doors by  sekiharatae Series: There are 27 works included.

Avalanche by  OurLadyMuffin

I Don’t Know What to Do With My Hands by  LadyOfSkyhold

Learning to Live by  OurLadyMuffin

Acts of Worship by  someonesbunny

We Own the Sky by  Somebodys_Nightmare

Alone at Last by  Somebodys_Nightmare Series: There are four works so far.

Luster by  holysmotez @holysmotez

Time after Time by  Somebodys_Nightmare

Ever Requited by  Roxicodone

Sky Blue Daydreams by  spaceOdementia

Last Train to Brooklyn by Somebodys_Nightmare

Only You by Somebodys_Nightmare

Three Months, Tops by  umechaw

Instead, He Chose to Kiss Her by  Somebodys_Nightmare

Something Sweet and Wonderful by SKEvans

beating around the bush by hoegeta

The Shape I Found You In by  ipona

The Comeback Kid by Somebodys_Nightmare

Codes of Conduct by @mayonakanoame

Heart Infection by  spaceOdementia

At Ease by Wandering_Letters

If you guys know of any others, let me know! I’ll try to keep this updated.

Also, if you happen to follow me on here and want me to add your Tumblr tag, I’d be more than happy to!

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Cloud’s Promise to Tifa.

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WITH YOU CLOSE,  I’M THE HAPPIEST I EVER WAS .

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Hey, do you ever consider Aerith’s death scene as romantic? I saw many people seeing it as Cloud “losing his love”. Not just in FF7, I felt the “character who lost the person they love” trope was very popular in films and anime and it was usually portrayed as tragic romance, so that’s why the fandom(or even the newbie) can interpret that way without knowing the context in the story, maybe they thought that “losing a lover” was more impactful than “losing a dear friend”

I don't, but here's the thing, whether you see that scene as romantic or not hinges entirely on whether or not you see Aerith and Cloud as romantic. There is nothing about the scene itself that is inherently romantic. Cleriths say things like "Ofcourse Cloud loved Aerith, he was really sad when she died". Whenever they say something like that, the following quote comes to mind.

“Those who cannot conceive Friendship as a substantive love but only as a disguise or elaboration of Eros betray the fact that they have never had a Friend" ~ C.S. Lewis.

I think that quote sums up a large part of the problems with Clerith as a ship. It entirely hinges on the rather disturbing idea that the only reason a person could be sad about losing someone, is if they were romantically in love with them, which really bring into question the relationships Cleriths have with the people around them. This is exhibited most strongly in their approach to Advent Children, where their inability to see grief as the result of anything other than lovesickness causes them to distort every aspect of Clouds character and the plot in order to force it to fit with this belief. It's these simplistic beliefs regarding the spectrum of all the equally important facets and types of love that lies at the heart of why Clerith, as an interpretation, is so fundamentally shallow. Everything has to revolve around one thing, romantic infatuation, everything has to revolve around one person Aerith. But if that were true we wouldn't see Tifa break down at the sight of Aeriths corpse, we wouldn't see Tifa break down in case of Tifa. But she does, moreso even than Cloud, because Tifa loved Aerith, not as a lover, but as something more, a friend, an important part of herself, love for the sake of love, not for romantic purposes. And the same thing goes for Cloud, he mourns because he cared for Aerith, he loved her, yes, in that she mattered to Cloud. But whether he loved Aerith, and whether he was in love with her, are two entirely different things. Aerith was a friend, a surrogate mother, her race as well as her personality made her representative of something important, the last of the ancients, nature, mankinds innocence even. And to Cloud her death instantly makes her represent the price of his own failure and weakness. All of these things are important, and all of these things are diminished by the idea that her loss is only sad because Cloud wanted to sleep with her. Cloud being in love with Aerith would make her death less tragic, not more. You also correctly hit on the point that the reason people saw this as romantic is not because there is anything in the product itself that says it's romantic, but because they take tropes they've seen in the past, and project it onto FFVII. But sometimes tropes are subverted, the existence of romantic tropes doesn't prove romance unless they're followed through on, which they're not in FFVII. Aeriths death is MEANT to be a subversion of tropes, meaning tropes aren't reliable evidence.

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I’M REALLY GLAD TO HAVE YOU BACK, CLOUD. REALLY GLAD.