#and of course all the resources in the world at her disposal to create all the trappings of it

[itspileofgoodthings]

Taylor returning over and over to the falling through the ice accident in the Bolter—everything to me

[thecreaturecodex]

Debbie Twice-Born

“Enraged” © deviantArt user TheBoyofCheese

[This character was an NPC from my Age of Worms game, one of Filge’s undead minions after @canwefixitnoitsfucked​ took Filge from NPC to PC. Debbie’s name and personality were references to “Manos” the Hands of Fate; in that movie, Debbie is the poorly-dubbed little girl who gets turned into one of the undead. Debbie was much more of a joke character than a useful one, although Filge did keep her in a papoose to use her pale aura until she got too fragile to survive the kinds of AoEs they were dealing with. And since I brought Filge back as a weird mutant, I figured Debbie should get the same treatment.

The music box I refer to in the gear is new, but I think it fits well with the character. I assembled a whole huge soundtrack for Age of Worms, and both Filge and reality warping stuff were associated with Philip Glass music. Specifically, Filge’s themes were all taken from the Dracula score. So Debbie’s music box plays the theme from Candyman. ]

Debbie Twice-Born CR 16 CE Undead This young woman has a slight build with powerful and lean muscles, shorter than average but no less strong for it. Her hair is tousled and blonde, and her eyes are black pits looking over a mouth full of sharp, crooked teeth. She carries a bloodstained axe with practiced ease.

Debbie Twice-Born is Filge’s “daughter”. She is a slaymate, created from the daughter of a woman who Filge loved. The woman scorned Filge for his cruelty, and she and her daughter both died from a plague that Filge could easily have saved them from. Through Filge’s adventures, Debbie was quiet and distracted, complaining about the cold of death, and frequently looking for a lost puppy that may or may not have ever existed. When Filge was fragged by his own party, Debbie escaped, and wandered around Alhaster during the short lived Age of Worms on Oerth. When Kyuss died, the waves of powerful negative energy that suffused the region caused her to “grow up”, as it were, and advance from a child of about eight years old to a young woman of eighteen or so. Of course, she was still dead, and still crazy. But now much more dangerous.

Debbie Twice-Born spent a few months as a recreational serial killer before entering the Wormwarrens and finding her equally transformed “father” there. Filge now uses Debbie as his primary agent in the wider world, committing assassinations for him, gathering useful supplies and spying on his former allies. As her powers have grown, Filge has given her a longer leash, and she has made multiple excursions to alternate realities through the depths of the Shadow Plane.

Debbie’s latest excursions have brought her to Castle Xyntillian, where she is a guest of honor and mutually exploited. Debbie has considered merely butchering Aristide Malevol and stealing his role as head of the family, but knows that without finding and destroying his phylactery, that that would be a fool’s errand. Likewise, Aristide is happy to have a powerful pet assassin on hand who is ultimately disposable to him, but also wants to pick her brain about Filge’s exploits, powers and resources. Debbie is somewhat scatterbrained and never paid much attention to the technical details of necromancy, leaving such conversations a source of frustration for the Patriarch Lich. As far as actual friends within the family, Debbie Twice-Born gets along well with Hubert Malevol the Hunter, whose enormous kennels of mundane, monstrous and undead hounds give her plenty of doggies to play with.

Debbie Twice-Born       CR 16 XP 76,800 Female variant giant slaymate slayer 10 (stygian slayer), shadowdancer 1 Init +4; Senses darkvision 60 ft., Perception +13 Aura pale (10 ft.) Defense AC 25, touch 17, flat-footed 20 (+4 Dex, +1 dodge, +3 natural, +5 armor, +2 deflection) hp 221 (8d8+10d10+126) Fort +13, Ref +13, Will +8; +2 vs. mind reading effects Immune undead traits Defensive Abilities half damage from falling, trap sense +3 Offense Speed 30 ft. Melee lifedrinker +22/+17/+12 (1d12+10/19-20x3 plus 2 negative levels), bite +16 (1d6+3 plus disease) or bite +21 (1d6+6 plus disease) Ranged dagger +19 (1d4+6/19-20) Special Attacks bolstering touch, sneak attack +4d6, studied target (+3, 3 targets, move or swift action) Spell-like Abilities CL 10th, concentration +17 2/day—invisibility 10 minutes/day—shadowy mist form Statistics Str 22, Dex 18, Con -, Int 13, Wis 10, Cha 24 Base Atk +15; CMB +21; CMD 38 Feats Blind Fight, Canny Tumble, Combat Reflexes, Dodge, Extra Slayer Talent, Improved Critical (greataxe), Mobility, Nimble Moves, Power Attack Skills Acrobatics +22, Bluff +16, Climb +11, Craft (traps) +11, Disable Device +26, Disguise +16, Escape Artist +17, Fly +11, Intimidate +14, Knowledge (arcana, religion) +6, Knowledge (planes) +3, Perception +13 (+18 finding traps), Perform (dance) +12, Sense Motive +13, Spellcraft +6, Stealth +22, Survival +13 (+18 following tracks), Swim +11, Use Magic Device +17 SQ exceptional resources (15th level PC, +4 Cha), grown up, hide in plain sight, slayer talents (bleeding attack +4, fast stealth, foil scrutiny, spell use, surprise attack, trapfinding) Gear lifedrinker, +3 catskin leather, belt of physical might +2 (Str, Dex), headband of charisma +2, winged boots, bloodstained gloves, ring of maniacal devices, ring of protection +2, false face, dust of appearance, assassin’s dust, scroll of shadow walk, scroll of greater invisibility, scroll of dimension door, scroll of enervation, scroll of inflict critical wounds (x2), scroll of displacement (x3), scroll of mirror image (x3), 10 daggers, masterwork thieves tools, copper and bone music box worth 125 gp, 12 pp Special Abilities Bolstering Touch (Su) Three times a day, a slaymate can touch an undead creature to grant it a +1 profane bonus to attack rolls and damage rolls and +2 channel resistance for 1 minute. Disease (Su) Pale wasting—injury; save Fort DC 20; onset 1 day; damage 1d4 Str and 1d4 Con; cure 2 saves. The save DC is Charisma based. Exceptional Resources (Ex) Debbie has the treasure of a 15th level PC, and has used some of that money to obtain and use a tome of influence +4. These advantages give her a +1 increase to her CR. Grown Up (Ex) As an undead child magically matured to adulthood, Debbie has a slightly different set of abilities than normal for the giant simple template. Instead of gaining a +4 bonus to Constitution, she gains a +4 bonus to Charisma, and a +10 foot increase to her land speed. Pale Aura (Su) A slaymate exudes an aura that empowers necromantic magic. Any necromancy spell cast within a slaymate’s pale aura gains a +1 bonus to the DC (if any) and is cast at +1 caster level. A spellcaster within the slaymate’s aura can choose to use any metamagic feat he knows on a necromancy spell he casts without increasing the casting time or spell level. Doing so, however, deals damage to both the slaymate and the caster equal to 5 x the level the spell would ordinarily be adjusted to. There is no saving throw to resist this damage. Shadowy Mist Form (Sp): At 10th level, a stygian slayer can transform into an inky black cloud of mist. This functions as gaseous form, except it also obscures vision as fog cloud. The slayer can use this ability for a number of minutes per day equal to his level. These minutes need not be consecutive, but must be used in 1-minute increments. This ability replaces the advanced slayer talent gained at 10th level. Spell Use (Ex) At 7th level, a stygian slayer is able to use spell completion and spell trigger items as if they were an arcane caster with these spells on his spell list: darkness, forced quietUM, modify memory, nondetection, obscuring mist, phantom steed, shadow walk , and wizard spells of the illusion school of spell level 0 through 4th. The slayer’s uses their class level as their caster level for this ability. This ability replaces stalker.

[tayfabe75]

Hello! So for a couple of days my feed was filled with videos from Super Bowl and the afterparty and I was like, I just can't believe it can be faked like that. She even posted a TikTok with him. It seems to me that in her world this is just a different level of relationship. So I just thought that there’s no way this is not true and then I came across a video where Matty says: “this show is about what you should or shouldn’t believe that you see on the screen.” I was just 😑 and it got me thinking again. One side of me believes that this simply cannot be faked, while the other begins to think after such conversations. But Matty is Matty and he could only mean his show and this thought slipped through very quickly and I don’t think it will reach the general audience. But it's funny because I look at the video of Taylor and Travis kissing and I think, well, everything should be clear, shouldn't it? And then there this little thought on my mind that you shouldn’t believe everything you see on the screen and I don’t even know what to believe anymore…

Also I can’t understand why she needs this, she can live a great life without any plans to prove something to someone in this way 

Hi anon! First and foremost, if you see Taylor with her new partner and see or feel that nothing is amiss, that's understandable! It's perhaps even counterintuitive to see a couple kissing on television and think it's fake at first glance. For me, it's less about what I directly see, and more about how what I'm seeing is incongruent with what I have learned about Taylor Swift.

While I've always enjoyed pop music, I never really got "wonderstruck" with a pop star quite like this (at least not since I was a kid!) Even when I'm utterly obsessed with a band or singer, chances are good that I don't know the name of their PR agent, you know? lol However… Taylor is not just a musician. She's a phenomenon. She's not simply writing albums and touring, she's building mystique and self-mythologizing a whole universe of lore. Each fan is entranced by a different facet of Taylor Swift - be it the music, the spectacle, the celebrity, fashion, easter eggs, lore, muses, or the mystery!

"We think we know someone, but the truth is that we only know the version of them they have chosen to show us."

The Reputation prologue is bookended with this quote! That is how important the message is, that she both opens and closes the prologue with this quote. I must stress: I do not claim to know anything about Taylor Swift. Please understand that when I theorize, it's based on my own personal subjective knowledge of human nature or what motivates us, and I apply that to what I see and hear (of course, I think everyone does this, it's just good to acknowledge!)

You said: "One side of me believes that this simply cannot be faked"

Again, bear in mind that Taylor Swift is a celebrity with access to more resources at her disposal than even other celebrities. If she wanted to create a "simulated" version of her life to throw people off the scent of her real personal life, I don't see why she wouldn't or couldn't (the greatest of luxuries is your secrets…) PR relationships are definitely a real thing that celebrities engage in for a variety of reasons. Here is an interesting list with some more insight (of course, this is BuzzFeed so take it with a huge grain of salt). Speaking of which, Taylor's current partner's PR agent has teamed up with Jack Ketsoyan, who openly admits to setting up "fake romances" between celebrities. If you can stomach it, the next time you see the PDA videos from the field or the club, try looking through the comments. I suspect you'll see a lot of people who aren't buying it (here's a good tweet about how these two were mic'd up! lol) Here's some additional insight into Taylor's current relationship with some stats that might shed light on the "why" of it all.

If you want to hear my guess as to what all the football stuff is about, well, I'll start off with two of my favorite Taylor quotes:

"People often greatly underestimate me on how much I'll inconvenience myself to prove a point."

and:

"Having the world treat my love life like a spectator sport in which I lose every single game was not a great way to date in my teens and twenties, but it taught me to protect my private life fiercely."

Obviously, Taylor doesn't need the money. And frankly, the NFL does not need nor deserve any additional female fans, considering women are excluded (unless they'd like to strip down and get objectified as cheerleaders, I guess). So, what is she up to? Well, everyone loves to call her "Mother" and I think she's about to teach us all a lesson - likely about media literacy and how much she's had to perform her celebrity persona and keep the media attention away from her real life, whatever that may be. I am one of the believers that she's intentionally oversaturating the market to recreate conditions appropriate to launch Reputation… Others think that idea is absolutely too wild or too "absurd" (fair lol)

I think the simplest explanation that makes sense to me is that she and Matty only ever intended to be public for one blissful month so that he could finally attend her shows as her boyfriend. But, she didn't want the heat of her fans on his back when he went on to do SATVB. Matty did not need cruel Swifties making fun of Peanut, for instance. That's a super vulnerable thing he's doing each night his band performs. So, what would get the most heat off of each other's backs? New relationships, but especially ones that fans would love because they were the manifestation of pre-existing fandom memes from circa 2020:

As for Matty… if his comments have anything to do with what's going on with his or Taylor's respective "relationships" (and I think they do), then they're not really meant to reach a wider or more general audience (yet). But the fact that The 1975 are (maybe) about to go on hiatus, yet Matty predicted The 1975 would be the most important band of the 2020's… might mean that he and the boys have some kind of trick up their sleeve! Perhaps their collaboration with Brad Troemel, who helped co-write SATVB, which ends March 24th, I think (unless more dates have been added). If you're familiar at all with the kayfabe theory, it comes directly from Brad Troemel, himself. I'll just say that it's highly interesting to me that SATVB should kick off in September, the same month as Matty and Taylor's new relationships! (If you're interested in a good rabbit hole, I'd check out my tagged posts on Brad).

Anon, please know it's okay if you don't know what to believe! Sometimes I don't know, either. As you might've guessed, I'm a big supporter of Taylor and Matty together. Based on all I've seen and heard, my deductive reasoning tells me they will be endgame and that we will get back there eventually. So, obviously, I'm not thrilled to watch the current turn of events, either… but they're strange enough that I also can't look away lol I am compelled to keep looking into why things aren't adding up, and these searches have been, and continue to be, fruitful. But even if I'm wrong and endgame doesn't end up happening, then I have to trust that they know what's best for themselves better than I do! And regardless of what Taylor or Matty decide to do in their personal (or simulated?) lives… they've both reeled me in as a dedicated fan, completely independent from whatever relationship they may or may not have with each other or other people.

In the meantime, I'm gonna keep studying their music, following their live shows, and filling this place with fun clips, connections, and edits! Even if they're truly over for now, or heaven forbid - forever, I'm still interested in archiving this unlikely yet inspiring love story of reconnection (especially when many big Taylor sources refuse to acknowledge him - like here, where they refuse to name whose concert she debuted Anti-Hero at, or this one, where they cropped him out of a photo from his own damned tour zine! lol So needlessly petty...)

Perhaps this desire to archive all things "Tatty" acts almost like a shield from current events for me lol Here's something I'll suggest if you want some Tatty-related reassurance: take a scroll through my blog... any time you see a tag that begins with "overlap:", click on that to see how that topic relates to both Taylor and Matty. Some of them are reaches! Some are silly. Some just show how similar they are. Others are... compelling!

Lastly, what I can also suggest is that, if social media is upsetting you, it might be nice to take a small break! I strongly encourage everyone on the internet to use the block and mute buttons as often as needed, and to mute any names or keywords you aren't interested in seeing content for. Curate your own experience! Your brain and your heart will thank you for it, I promise!

Hope any of that helped lol Thanks for the ask! 🤍

[farolero-posting]

Write Your Own Path Forward - chapter 3

Chapter summary:

We catch up with the current state of the world. Someone is questioning the existence of ghosts, someone is fighting sleep and someone is trying to solve a mystery.

Words: 2,095

Read chapter 1: On Tumblr / On AO3

(full chapter below the cut)

A robot can do any task given to it, with enough time and information at its disposal, and the Entity had plenty of both things. 

It wasn’t sure where to start this time, however. When it didn’t have a connection to rely on, there was no set course for where or what it should be focusing on. It had not been programmed with that possibility in mind. Or if it was, it couldn’t do it with ease

[I was also not programmed to be broken. I did this to myself], it remarked to itself, as it looked for lines that needed fixing.

[...] 

[Niko wouldn’t like me to say that…]

[The best I can do is fix myself, and that is all I can do.]

The World Machine’s attention was set in the Refuge. The center of this world. 

It worked at a slow pace, at first. The city was overwhelmingly big and detailed, and every corrupted element required a specific fix that would match the original content. It needed to find the specific corrupted bits, and reconstruct them into something that resembled what used to be in that place. It had an extensive database to pull from, which made the task arduous. Thankfully. usually some fragments of each element remained intact, and the surrounding information could give it the context needed to fill in the blanks,

There was a catwalk missing in the apartments to the south west of the city. Three poles on the ground level, by the computer repair shop. A set of stairs next to one of the schools. 

A robot guarding the path to the apartment buildings in one of the alleys between buildings. A robot standing in front of a drugstore. A robot lying next to one of the lanterns that had started leaking, depowered due to its missing parts. All of them required the same resources, and providing those was not a difficult task.

Would they notice the difference? The Entity hoped they didn’t. At the very least, every inch of them was created from what the World Machine had already stored, their parts could be copied and repurposed without issue.

It wondered if any ghost’s lingered inside those robots, too. 

.

.

Cedric walked inside his apartment, leaving the key next to the door, on a small table. 

“After all this time… We made it here.” He held the door as his siblings walked inside. 

Rue walked past the boy’s legs and climbed up to one of the free seats, curling up on it, while Prototype closed the door behind him and sat on the chair closest to the bookshelf. There were piles of blueprints in it, as well as a few books with clovers on the cover. Cedric took off his hat and left it on the hanger on the door, sighing in relief. His toolbox now weighed on him. He supposed he should drop it by the laboratories when he had more energy, but the only thing he currently looked forward to was getting some well deserved rest.

Tea would be nice as well. He turned his head towards the door, considering the idea.

“Cedric?”

“Yes, Rue?”

“You should sit down with us. You must be tired.” Rue leaned her head to her right, pointing towards the yellow sofa next to her. “Do you want to sleep or would you rather do something else first?”

The boy repressed a yawn, 

“I… think I would like some tea first.” He took off his goggles, blinking hard in an attempt to find strength. “I also… wanted to tell you about a conversation I had. At the office computer terminal.”

“It seems you tried it sooner than I anticipated,” Proto stated. “Did you succeed?”

“Yes, I did. I thought it wouldn’t work out at first, and I had to wait for quite some time, but I got a response.”

“Hold on, does this mean you managed to contact the World Machine?” Rue asked, perking up her ears. “That’s wonderful news. I’m quite impressed you managed to do it.”

“Thanks? According to my father, computers were its usual way of communicating, and that computer was used by Niko before, so I guessed this had a chance of working. These computers aren’t… powered by normal means, however.” —He yawned again—. “I’m just glad I managed to find a way around that issue.”

“And… how are they doing?” the fox inquired.

“I offered our help to the Entity. We didn’t speak for long, and I wasn’t asked to do anything else for the moment. They just said they needed to handle the remaining squares and focus on that. They did ask about you two, I said you were busy but willing to help too.”

“You can count on us for that.” Rue confirmed, while Proto nodded.

“We walked around the Refuge while you were working. We helped some of the evacuees from the cafe to get back to their apartments.” Proto walked to one of the shelves and inspected the contents. “It appears that the residents are adjusting quickly. The return of the sun has… increased the chances of this positive outcome, it is likely this state will continue, depending on a few other factors...” He grabbed a box with a faded label.

“We also saw a few people preparing to celebrate too. I guess it’s a relief to finally see the sun again. I sure like it myself.”

“M-hmmm” Cedric nodded along, his eyes tightly pressed as he did it. “This is good news, then.” He yawned. “I wish we could go watch that, but I’m… barely awake at the moment.” 

“Cedric, do you still want tea?” Proto’s head was directed at his brother, while his eye gazed at the door. “I can go to the communal space and make some. I assume you would like that.”

“I very much would, thank you. I should change my clothes while you go do that.”

The robot nodded, opening the door.

“I’m leaving too.” Rue leaped onto the floor, stepping out of the room.

“We’ll be right back.” He stepped out of the apartment, disappearing from sight.

The common dining rooms were down the hall, as the pair walked, Rue resumed the conversation.

“So, what do you think?” asked the fox. “About… the World Machine.”

“I cannot say for sure. What the Entity does now is its own choice. But I cannot predict what choices it will make. Cedric’s input is likely to result favorably for all of us.” 

They opened the door to find a mostly empty room, aside from one resident sleeping with an empty cup next to them.

“I personally think that things may take some time to settle for them… This was… abrupt. I think we all still see some of the scars,” Rue spoke, standing on one of the stools. “It needs time to process some things, but I stay hopeful.”

Prototype filled a kettle with water and leaves, and left it on one of the burners. “How do you think the other regions are doing? I didn’t get to see the Glen, but Cedric said the islands were full of anomalies.” 

“I… just saw the city streets, I think I know even less than you. The squares were very aggressive and the city is supposed to be better equipped to handle them. I think… the Glen still needs to recover. Not just from the squares, but also some of the flooding issues, though that’s been an issue for a long time. Maybe I could visit soon. I want to see a few people over there.”

Prototype nodded, while he took out one of the trays, setting a saucer and a teacup on it. “Rue, I think I should visit the Barrens.”

“I think that’s a good idea, but what’s your reasoning?”

“We don’t know how the anomalies spread around that region, besides the one station I was at. I also suspect it may be needed.”

“Does it have to do with the World Machine?”

“Kind of. I think the head engineer has reasons to… question the nature of the world. We are not sure how the Entity will handle that sort of information. They’re tamed and seem more stable but this instance could create some instability it may not be ready to handle yet.” 

The kettle whistled, cuing Prototype to take it out of the burner and pour a cup.

“You could talk to it, you know.” Rue tilted her head to the side, winking. “We all should, actually. We’re all that we have. It will probably seek us as time goes by.”

“Maybe.”

.

.

Many strange things had happened during the last few hours, and being abruptly sent back on the lookout point next to her home didn’t help to solve any of Silver’s questions.

Her best guess was that she was moved somewhere as the squares took over, and this same action was then repeated to bring her back to a safer location in the Barrens. The mechanism for such a process to occur was unknown, however. Her only clue was that the messiah had suggested the involvement of a machine “remembering” her code. 

A World Machine, they called it.

Her thoughts on the matter were fuzzy at best. Her first hand experience suggested the actions of a being, one who took her from the squares, restored her damage, and then let her go. One of the suggested solutions to this motivation was that the deity who guided Niko was responsible for moving Silver from the dark room back to the lookout point, but Niko’s words seemed to imply that their god was not the one causing such changes, so it meant it had to be something —someone— else. The World Machine was a term she had to look further into, in order to figure out how it fit into this thread of events, so she added it to her pending tasks. 

But that wasn’t the only odd part about the last hours. There were other bits of information that seemed out of place. Niko had carried a journal with a clover on the cover, just like the ones his friend used to write. The journal, however, was written in an indecipherable language, and had glowing yellow phosphor, which was a rare material. The child had stated seeing a drawing of the room, and upon sharing it with her, she noticed it was from a top-down perspective. 

Just like the video feeds in the observation terminals inside the mines. She doubted she could access the area in its current state, and she was not eager to test her luck inside just yet. There were bigger matters to attend to, for the moment.

She had arrived just in time to see the Sun lit up at the top of the Tower once again. The sun beams poured all over the barren land around her, and her visual sensors took a few moments to adjust to the shift in lighting. The metallic sand shone in a stronger shade of blue, with a few small faint blue sparks of phosphor. The buildings ahead of her cast a shadow behind them. casting a sharp silhouette over the ground. 

She had memories of the time before the sun was gone, though she couldn’t reproduce those images to compare, and so this experience was completely new to her.

It felt good.

She had said that the sun wouldn't fix everything, and perhaps that wasn’t necessarily wrong, but she was willing to believe that its presence would make any future attempts at solving those problems easier. They had a reliable source of energy for batteries, and means to store the light that reached them. It was likely that people would try to move back to the area to resume work on it, and make the repairs that were needed long ago. Of course, this was a long journey and she first needed to report back to the Refuge about what was left of the Barrens. Silver was in a clear area, but she had to check around to be certain.

As she walked around the area, she noticed the presence of distant squares. Of course that problem would not be solved as easily.

And then she noticed how a cluster of them faded away, clearing the entrance to a tool storage facility. The anomaly had never behaved in such a way. 

What was behind this development? She needed to investigate it along with everything else.

But… that could wait. She had work to do first.

And a bright day to light up the mood.

[peachiimilquetea]

peachii's notes: SURPRISE!!!! the prologue is DONE and the scene is set for the rest of the story!! i hope this makes sense! it has more of a fantasy flair here but the story takes place years after the main events of the prologue so technology has advanced enough for it to be regency like just bare with me ok?? ok!

as always let me know what you think!! happy reading!!

main fic directory . next

the history between the cloverglowe elves and the kingdom of achmaedia is a convoluted one at best. many moons ago, when the fir trees were strong and the sugar crystals were still found above ground, a small band of elves settled on the right side of a large valley that stretched across the land, as far as the eye could see. a large majority of the elves practiced earth magic, almost a requirement for anyone who wanted to venture off and explore at the time, and so their little community was intertwined with the world around them. their structures were enmeshed with the trees and the vines, woodland creatures eager to help with their plans to make their home in this forest.

at the same time, the kingdom of achmaedia was expanding eastward, finally deciding to stop on the left side of the valley. the elves had very limited experience with human culture and vice versa. they certainly didn't subscribe to the same mindsets about land ownership and expansion, and so when the emperor was alerted of trees in the forest across the valley falling down he was incredibly alarmed.

to their credit, the humans were not all bad. a large majority, lead by the king were welcoming and open to the elves and their different way of life. however one senator, Ödön, had “bigger visions” for the kingdom. he saw the resources that the inhabitants of cloverglowe had at their disposal, and wanted them for himself.

of course when he came to the king he did a whole song and dance about the greater good of the people, but fortunately the king was much wiser than that and refused. this enraged Ödön, causing him to draft a plan to create conflict between the two groups, knowing the peaceful elves had no pure defense against their advanced and barbaric weaponry.

on the eve of the spring of alms, a great elven holiday consisting of a large feast, the senator payed a few soldiers of the royal army to stage a coup, capturing the empress, the princess and her daughter. the princess was separated from them and in the chaos, killed.

in retaliation, the elven secret service sent out a dispatch, setting fire to the achmaedian settlement and using their nature magic to turn the land against them. as neither party was aware of the strings being pulled behind the scenes, tensions rose. smear campagains against each group were started, and the elves were portrayed as savages to the new settlers, putting the king under pressure to industrialize fast and bring more people in from the capital to bolster their numbers. under the guise of having seen this coming, Ödön rose the ranks very quickly and became the king’s personal political advisor.

the elves on the other hand, were enraged that they had extended so much grace to people who so obviously opposed the core tenants of their way of life. to cut down trees and still be welcomed into their community, only to kill their heir and leave their budding kingdom in shambles? despicable.

they closed their borders as far as they could go with magic, stopping at the very edge of the valley’s walls and declared an aggression pact on anything having to do with humans, including the people themselves. this left them at a stalemate for years, before a group of curious humans broke the magic seal, and war was declared.

after years of fighting and wasted resources, the king and the elven empress finally decided to hold a meeting in the valley, the only part of the shared land not claimed by either party, and decide the best course of action to protect their respective people.

[ancientpathwayswitchcraft]

In today's reading, we draw upon the boundless wisdom of Isis, exploring the intricate dance of deception (VII of Swords), the alchemy of manifestation (I The Magician), and the luminous hope (XVII The Star) that guides us toward healing. Join us as we delve into these profound Tarot insights, revealing the lessons of balance, creativity, and renewed optimism that await.

[craftezjgamble]

Online marketing Pt 1

The World wide web is an excellent place to work, whether you're the retailer selling a specific line of goods or a provider making your living in the Internet. Right now there is, yet , one particular age-old issue with organization that never appears to go away: people won't get what they don't realize about. This is where Internet marketing comes in. Online marketing basically entails using various tools and services to be able to let your business get to a wider bottom of customers. Good Internet marketing provides in a significant quantity of clients, retain them interested and even then make more than happy to acquire more of your products. A not-so-good Online marketing program, even so, will be a complete waste of time in addition to money. In the worst case situation, you could including finish up doing a lot more harm than very good to your business in the event that the online marketing strategy is inadequately thought out. Strangely enough, most of the people actually fall short in their Internet advertising and marketing strategies not mainly because they lack the information or the complex capabilities to help to make good use of Web Marketing. SEO, HTML CODE, opt-in lists, landing pages - all of this will not issue when the would-be marketing expert will not know precisely how to actually be successful with the resources at his or perhaps her disposal. Allow me to be clear: this particular article is not just a technical manual on the finer points involving Website marketing. No courses, no tests, no benchmarks. This content aims to product your technical ingenuity and give you a concept of what to do using your skill and knowledge. It will certainly allow you in order to channel your attempts and create far-reaching plans. In small, this post will teach an individual how to succeed in your primary year in Net marketing. The Mentality of a Successful Internet Marketer The successful marketer needs a vision to succeed. No, We are not talking concerning some grand, messianic vision or anything. What i'm saying is an eyesight that will define in which all of the Internet advertising and marketing efforts will go in order to. This vision will certainly allow you to be able to focus your time and energy directly into something more successful, and will enable you to truly succeed inside Online marketing. But before you can define your vision, you must first assume the mentality of a prosperous marketer. This way of thinking is in turn consisting of different frames of thought. Right here are some associated with the crucial kinds: Honest and Truthful The very primary thing I have to tell you is that no truly effective Online marketer is a sham and a fraud. The particular stereotype of the particular Internet marketer of which sidelines as the ruthless vulture and even snake-oil salesman will be an image that is, sadly, more commonly adopted than I want. But let me personally tell you of which being a prosperous Internet marketer means getting successful to the long run - so you cannot be productive in the end if you start your job since a fraudster. The rewards from fraudulent sales or misleading marketing strategies are immediate and appealing, but you cannot build a marketing contr?le with foundations put on lies plus deceptions. An Internet marketer together with a name built upon reliable business and customer fulfillment will yield even more rewards in typically the long run than an anonymous cat who may have to change names every now and then lest he/she face criminal charges. Ready to Research One of the marks of the successful Internet marketer is typically the willingness to attempt issues out. Many would-be marketers spend months (even years) studying how to work in Internet marketing. This really is all okay and good, but this will always be for nothing or else willing to put your skills away on the open up market where that will be truly tested under pressure. The truth in the matter is that will there is not absolute recipe to be successful as a great Internet marketer. You just have to grit your the teeth and dive directly into the whole mess. You learn more quickly, and you may be able to be able to find out exactly what works and precisely what would not in your particular distinctive line of work. Even your flaws cannot be regarded as failures if a person learn from them in addition to use that expertise to better yourself. Reflects and pay attention to From Mistakes

Because an try things out of yours falls flat does not mean you have to just up and even forget it. The particular whole point regarding experimenting is to discover what works in addition to what does not. When something you only implemented does not job, such as a weak shoring page or defective search engine optimisation, then you certainly have to go back in addition to trace where typically the mistake been a result of. This specific is why that is completely essential that you reflect upon any problems you encounter in your Internet marketing campaign. What went wrong, how achieved it go mistaken, how can I actually repair it and how can I turn it? These four questions are staples when it will come to reflecting as well as learning from virtually any mistakes. Seeks Quality in every That Needs to Be Completed Good enough is a significantly cry for quite good, despite the fact that both are "good" in a way. Excellence is once you give your best to everything you carry out. This excellence is definitely not optional to be able to be a successful Affiliate marketer. You don't cut corners, you don't do some sort of sloppy job plus you don't claim "this excellent enough. " Excellence is basically about ensuring you do since good work seeing that you can. This kind of pursuit of excellence will always take you to find better and better ways of carrying out things, greatly increasing productivity and efficiency. Best of all, your customers will immediately acknowledge your this brilliance and will end up being more willing to be able to at least check out what you possess to offer. Pieces Competitive Standards in order to meet There is another reason you need to seek out excellence - typically the best and the majority of threatening of the competitors also perform the same. You have to always understand exactly what your competition are up in order to. You have to know what they offer, that they carry out things, how that they market themselves and even even how productive they are. In case excellence will force you further in your marketing efforts, then your competitors will define the minimum amount you want to work together with. This is particularly useful any time you are a new comer to Internet marketing. Your current competitors probably will include been around intended for quite a long time already in addition to will have invested a significant timeframe and money to obtain where they happen to be now. Now you can analyze how they do something and you can be able to benefit the most by your competitor's existing practices. Understands the Needs of the Consumer This is usually clich�, I realize, but it is anything so many fresh Web marketers overlook that will it is really worth pointing out once again. People have requires. If somebody will come along selling something which will satisfy me, then I will be more compared to happy to component with my hard-earned money. This simple fact underscores the importance of spending time, cash and effort reaching away and comprehending the needs of your target customer base. Numerous first-time Internet marketers also have this kind of frame of thought where they believe that exploiting their customers and wringing money from their website since quickly as possible is the only way to survive. This thinking are unable to be more flawed. Any kind involving business, Internet advertising included, is only going to make it through if trust is usually built between client and client. Actually reaches Out and 'Touches' Customers This is usually another clich�, of course, but it really is nonetheless crucial: your customers must think that you really give a hoot about their pleasure. 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Clear About Everything People young and old will be a lot more willing to obtain a product if that they specifically what they will are getting. Many marketers love to employ fancy prose, large promises and specialized jargon to bedazzle customers. This basically such a poor thing in almost all cases, but all this grandstanding will probably be for nothing in case the potential client does not know what the heck they can be looking at. Always be as transparent as you can with what you sell and you will probably find customers considerably more willing to carry out business with you. This is especially important for item pricing and service fees. You would be surprised from how many product sales pages exist about the Internet that do not list the actual costs of purchasing the product or support. Lots of claims and lots associated with testimonies, yes, yet the lack regarding home elevators something as basic as prices is enough to switch most people away from the site. Builds a Network of Lovers Internet marketing is definitely not an one-man (or one-woman) task. You will will need the assistance of a great deal of people to make yourself genuinely successful in this particular industry of work. As soon as you get down to a lot more complicated features of Internet marketing, a person will inevitably discover youself to be working with the whole host involving people: content designers, writers, shippers, gurus, accountants, customer worry etc. Everyone an individual meet is really a probable partner, so often take the opportunity to create and increase your network if you can. Even guy Internet marketers may prove to be useful partners. An individual could swap buyers by selling products that complement the business of the some other market. For instance , internet marketer A sells hype ebooks via Amazon online marketplace while marketer B sells leather addresses for the Amazon Kindle. Extra resources|Find more info could work together to be able to promote each other peoples products; effectively posting their consumer bottom using each other. Emotionally Balanced About typically the Business Nobody will be a heartless device, but breaking lower into an psychological wreck all the particular time can't become great for business. A successful Online marketer requires to be totally objective when that comes to producing business decisions. The personal life need to not seep with your work, especially if your marketing initiatives get distorted throughout the process. Beliefs, opinions, biases as well as political affiliations should be kept separate from work, otherwise they can blind you coming from seeing things while they are actually. This particular also goes with regard to the success in addition to failure of the Internet marketing undertakings. Internet marketing is definitely a fast-moving planet, which means items die off as quickly as they are delivered. Look long in addition to hard at your own marketing programs and even be impartial regarding which ones will be worth spending power on and which ones need to be fallen. Uses Money Completely and Efficiently A single of the more common problems with World wide web marketers is that will they have no idea exactly how to use their particular money wisely. A few say you have got earned an interesting thousand dollars within sales from the many successful marketing campaign. Expenses and taxes usually are paid, and you also even now have $500 remaining. What will you do on this funds? Will you order educational materials, obtain marketing tools and even hire people to be able to handle the labor intensive tasks, or will you screw it up all on a feel like tablet PC? Remember that the amount of money you earn is just not something you have to spend right apart. It is a resource that a person can use to make your advertising and marketing campaigns even even more successful in typically the future. You can even use that funds in order to save up intended for retirement or while a mortgage downpayment. Whatever you choose to do, merely make sure that will you always 'invest' your money in something that is going to be truly advantageous to you. Prepared to Innovate and Produce There are a lot of marketing programs around that can easily introduce you to be able to the basics, but carry out not ever forget to be creative. There may be often no have to have to reinvent the wheel, in addition to a lot of instances where one can learn from the experiences with the productive (and not-so-successful) online marketers out there. However you do have to remember that folks are constantly learning and evolving as well. What might have worked two, about three years ago is going to be done to death right now - specifically with the breakneck tempo of evolution more than the Internet. It is for this cause that a successful marketer is usually ready to try out and about new things. These kinds of new things may not regularly be effective or turn a profit ideal away, but these people will always impart beneficial knowledge to the particular marketer all in all. This specific is especially important if you think about the next frame of believed that is current within the mindset of successful Internet marketers. 'Hungry' for More in addition to More Knowledge The past but most certainly not the least involving important mindsets associated with a successful Affiliate marketer is the ever-increasing need to learn more regarding his or your ex business. You need to never, ever cease thinking that you know enough to keep you on top of your business. The world of business is definitely ever-evolving, with fresh players (and competitors) coming in together with their innovative plus creative methods. The particular last thing a person want to conduct is to fall behind the competitive curve simply because you aren't on top regarding the latest info regarding your business. Its for this particular reason that an individual must regularly be famished to learn whatever you can about your own business. Talk in order to your customers. Really know what makes them content and what frustrates them. Find out how you can easily be operate better on a day-to-day basis. Learn exactly how to make more with less. These are generally but a small number of areas of which you can focus on. Be famished for knowledge, and you will always be able to stay along with the online game at all periods.

[wack-ashimself]

I've got to tell you about best worst wedding party ever.

My sister got married last weekend in another state to her now husband. Their wedding photos look like works of art. I'm not exaggerating. They drove an hour into the mountains to get it done. He's a great guy, they're great together, I genuinely could not be happier. So for the friends and family, they did a ceremony in our home state this weekend. They had people I haven't seen in a good part of a decade coming in. One of the few times both my mom's and dad's sides have been together in forever. Fancy caterer once featured in a Food Network segment. Venue right next to the beach. You couldn't plan for anything more perfect.

Then it all instantly went sideways the day before the event...

Her new husband got seriously sick. Not hospital sick, but basically can't leave the bed sick. So we show up to the venue to decorate it, he wants to help, but he can't even get out of the truck. We're okay with this. We want to help him get better. It takes us a couple hours because without him there, my sister is quite indecisive. They really do balance each other out. One of the few couples I genuinely see lasting the long run.

We get it all set, looks nice, we're tired from the drive across the state, and everything seems to be going a little bit on schedule but bumpy. We hang out and see relatives that arrived early that night, had a lot of good laughs finding out about how insanely weirdly different the world was just 3 generations ago, and called it a night to get ready for the big party.

Wake up to it pouring rain. And we're staying in a campground so it's muddy. Side note it's one of the shittiest campgrounds ever, and I know this is how all campgrounds are becoming. You get a tiny plot, there's no f****** nature, and you're basically just renting a hotel room not attached to anybody else. Camping means nature, privacy, and roughing it. At least to some degree. This place sucks any connection to the planet, made it as cheap as possible, and sold whatever remained back for as many stupid dollars as they could. The lock on my door to the cabin could be broken by almost just pulling the door too hard, nobody is sleeping in any of the trailers that are rentable because the mattresses are basically just thick cushions, and even the trailers that they bought, which look brand new, are so cheaply made that I genuinely don't see them lasting very long. If an old lady opened up the medicine cabinet awkwardly, she would break it off the wall cheap. Capitalism makes it so everything is disposable, so you got to buy a new one, even though we don't have unlimited resources and pretend like we do.

Anyways her husband is still sick. To the point where they run late to their own event. And the reason I know is because I was right behind them being the second most late lol. We get to the event, and nobody seems to know how to create a timetable. Because the husband is struggling to get enough energy to get through some of the basics of the ceremony. And of course for these dozens of people who showed up for this event, you don't want to cut out literally one of the top two people this entire thing was for.

Finally we get going. The husband, which I keep calling him that because I don't want to say his real name, decided to troop on through. We do a small ceremony where we basically find out how they met and what they love about each other. It was moving. I was f****** crying. I did not expect to cry. I cried a lot. It was some of the happiest cries I've ever had in my life. Happy cries are some of the weirdest cries. And you don't get them that often. Good things are happening...

Then the next event was food. Even though she was fancy, caterer was late. And the only reason it wasn't exceptionally late is cuz we were already running late. She was late by about maybe an hour and a half. But we were late by an hour. That's how bad it was. Fairly I found out later she had three different people call in, but you don't have three people call in on a major event if you're paying them well, unless they all got somehow sick. Doubtful.

While caterer is unpacking with her I believe son, we do basically the speeches and toasts. And I will tell you what: I had never met the best man before that day, but I swear to God that was one of the best best man speeches I've ever heard in my life. A complete stranger made me bawl my f****** eyes out, and I don't even know my sister's husband that well. I've only met him a couple handful of times. They live across state you know? The best summary is saying how her husband and him met, how much they had in common which was crazy similar, how passionate they were to have meaning in their life and help, how they've been there for each other, How He Loves great things about my sister and her husband, his best friend. I heard it took him nine months to write, but it was f****** worth it. Then my sister's best friend came on. I've known her practically my whole life. She's a goofball. But really sweet and genuinely cares about people. She wrote her toast to the beat of Sir Mix A Lot I like big butts. But she did not practice clearly even f****** once, you couldn't tell what she was saying, but she cared so much and loved so much, my sister was dancing and cheering her on the whole time.

And then, if you can't tell again by my style of writing this, bad news. Caterer left, and even before a single plate was served I knew for a fact there was not going to be enough food. I knew so much that I was literally one of only three people that didn't eat until every single other person ate. And then even when I did that, I found out that some people purposely didn't eat at all anything but the appetizers, so that way anybody who drove from way far away or came from out of state could get something for their energy. We still don't know why, but caterer claimed that was enough food for 110 people, when not even all the people who were scheduled to come came. Only like 80 people came. So she didn't even get close to 80 people. There were so many things almost nobody got any of. And then there were leftovers of things that nobody f****** wanted. We didn't need a giant bin of f****** rice if all the things that we would put on that rice are already gone.

We don't even cut the cake. We saved that for her and her husband to do on their own time. That makes me happy. At least he gets something. Oh I forgot to mention. He left in the middle of food being served, the fancy expensive food, and never once got to try a single bite of it because he was so sick. That crushed me. I'm a foodie. That's just not fair. So he basically was at his trailer the rest of the day sleeping.

Party is going good though. Everybody is happy, the rain that was pouring is finally stopping. This is one of the few parties where I found no drama, everybody was happy, and the only complaint was the lack of catering. I don't know if you've ever planned a party, but to get almost every single person not regretting coming when it went this s***** already is quite f****** impressive.

Then I hear something that I thought was a total joke. Never was going to happen. Especially with the weather being as s***** as it was. Just because it was not raining doesn't mean the beach we were on didn't have higher waves and it wasn't semi-cold. My sister in her wedding dress was going to run into the lake. I'm told I guess her husband was going to do it too if he was there. Which would have been even more badass. So we set it all up, basically the entire party moving to the beach. My sister runs in, and then unexpectedly, cuz not everybody was notified of this or prepared with a towel and change of clothes, one by one a few people ran in there. I would say maybe a total of 10. On a colder September Day in Michigan, right after a downpour, my sister convinced a ton of people to just run into a lake with their clothes on. Because it was her wedding. Before this, we took a ton of pictures on the beach. They turned out awesome. Even though I look like a fat w****. I need to quit looking like a fat w****. And that's not low self-esteem. I'm literally the fattest I've ever been in my life and I'm not proud of it, but that's what happens when you lose your job that was based on all physical labor and then you start doing nothing for a good part of a year.

But I digress. Because that's what I'm the best at LOL party starts to die down. And even though it's really dark, it's only 4:00 p.m. when this happens. So we start cleaning up the party, at one point I swear to God it was almost like two families against two families of who could clean the inside of the center versus who could clean the tent faster. Tent won, but only because there was less s*** inside it. I was kind of sad because even though it was a pretty good day for all that did happen, for how long people had to travel to get here we weren't really utilizing all the time we had. There was plans to meet at the campground and chill, but we were kind of spread out, so with all the different families and friend types meeting up, there would be so many different fire pits being lit. That's like the big thing of camping. Sitting around a fire, staring at it, talking occasionally. And like the highlander, there can only be one.

Me and my parents go to the campground. Just looking to get some food because we didn't have much. That's a serious answer. Basically everybody after the party went to go get more food because the party lasted long, but the food didn't. By the way I should have mentioned we had appetizers and a s*** ton of drinks. So we had well beyond just the food that was catered. And people were still hungry.

Then slowly one by one I noticed in a nearby Pavilion, a couple different random party goers from the event were setting up shop. I don't know how it happened, seemed almost like Word of Mouth right after the main party, but since the Pavilion at the campground was empty, we took it over for party number two....

And I don't know how, but party number two was even better. Maybe because all the shittiness of what happened around the first party, along without the formality, we could just have a plain old let's do whatever the f*** we want party.

And did we ever. Because I don't know if it was happenstance or they actually researched it, which I highly doubt because we were kind of just grabbing at straws near the end, but there was the biggest outdoor propane grill at a campground I've ever seen in my life. So we took all the alcohol left over from the first party, which there was a goddamn lot, brought it over to the pavilion, and just started playing music and hanging out. Then the three best things, I'm sorry, four of the best things, ever that could have occurred, happened. First of all I got to play my first real large group game of charades. I've always had to play it in like a small group of like three on three, four and four. This was like 8 to 12 versus 9 to 11. We didn't care. And I have never laughed so much. It wasn't technically charades it was a charades type game. Gestures. Look it up. Really good game. And it was funny because of how many people who have never done any type of Charades got up there, and did better than people who have done it for years like some of my family. Seriously in such a short period of time, I have never seen or heard so much joy and laughter over such a stupid f****** game. It was amazing. The second was while we were doing this, somebody loaded up that grill with so much meat, there is absolutely no way we would get through it all. I genuinely was joking but serious about it that we've got more food at the second party then the first one. The third thing that was amazing was I got to see people who I rarely get to see Cut Loose, Cut Loose to extents I never knew, and I don't even think they realized how happy they were. People I rarely see smile certain times were glowing with happiness. Alcohol helped. Cannabis helped even more. Oh and the final thing was I learned a new card game that I love called peanuts, even though it could have any other name. It's basically like competitive solitaire. Each person gets a deck and first one to get rid of their game of Solitaire wins. It's insanely competitive. Like we were hitting each other by accident, knocking over s*** etc. It's not every day you get to learn a new card game you like. Cuz I've learned a ton of card games I hate lol.

After that, the party died down.

We partied two different parties, and I don't know how any of us were still standing. I don't know why I'm awake right now. I think I'm motivated to tell the story lol.

I said good night to my sister who was enjoying a certain cannabis brand that is supposed to be top tier that I bought her for her wedding present. Which kind of bugged me because it was for her and her husband. You don't get the whole thing. I'm honestly thinking of buying him one alone. She was smoking it with her best friend. They started making fun of me. They always do. But my sister was so happy, and she gave me one of the nicest compliments earlier about helping with the whole event, that I would not change a single thing about the past 36 hours even though it was a f****** chaotic mess.

Side note here's some more stories of the f****** chaos.

-Bachelorette party, my mom got sick because they did not put enough ice in the cooler to chill the pudding shots, and they were in a river trying to tube for over 6 hours because the water was so low, the tubes wouldn't move. My sister ended up pushing my mom. And some people didn't bring shoes even though the river was super rocky. They even found multiple tubes popped along the river.

-We were supposed to have a s'mores bar. And make your own s'mores with all these different things you could use to make it. Three different people that I believe had to bring different parts forgot to bring some of them, and then a bunch of kids the night before ate some of it. So that never f****** happened. We had a sign for it and everything LOL

-One of my uncles recently had been T-boned, so he quickly had to buy a new pickup truck so he could tow his trailer here for him and his family (they LOVE camping). On the way here a day early, his brand new truck f***** up so bad, they had to stop in a nearby town, and basically ditch the trailer to fix the truck. Or I think maybe he fixed it and took the trailer back home and drove back out here. It still sucks. He's going to sell this new one because he thinks it's going to have even more issues in the future. Terrible luck.

-I don't know why I didn't just call him my brother-in-law because maybe her husband was shorter, but my brother-in-law also started his own business and that's where we think he got sick. He just quit his own job, started his own business, and one of his first jobs may have made him stupidly sick for one of the biggest once in a lifetime parties for him ever. I told you this is one of the best stories because the party turned out to be one of the best parties of my entire life, but nearly everything that could have gone wrong, went wrong. I just genuinely feel bad for my brother-in-law. He's the nicest most sincere patient guy, and he got robbed of one of the once in a lifetime parties for him! It just breaks my heart. Nobody that good deserves something that bad to happen to them. Let it happen to f****** Bill Gates or something. I hope you enjoyed reading. If you have any questions I'll clarify but I don't want to give details of who any of these people are because it's their f****** life. I just thought it was one of the best stories I've ever lived through. And I wanted to write it down before I forgot a single detail.

And reading this over again for proofreading because I am terrible at grammar I remembered one more cherry on top of how f***** all this was.

-Remember their wedding last weekend? Well they didn't plan for them being by such a everything is hundreds of miles of National Forest that there would be no place for food. So they basically on a portable stove had to make a box of mac and cheese for their honeymoon dinner. I'm telling you this is one of the best stories of all time. Make this whole thing into a goddamn movie. Cuz it really f****** happened. And by the way I don't censor myself. This is my God damn new f****** phone. I need to turn it off. Stupid f****** technology.

Ps- I give my sister props for never once considering through all this shitstorm that this was a sign or an omen that her marriage was doomed. Cuz a lot of stupid f****** people would have.

[samwisethewitch]

Earth-Friendly Witchcraft

Whatever religious or spiritual tradition they identify with, most witches agree that there is something sacred about the natural world. We draw our power from the earth beneath our feet, the sky over our heads, and the air in our lungs.

And yet, many of us live in societies that are actively contributing to the destruction of the natural world. Most developed nations have a linear economy, which means resources are extracted and then sent on a one-way trip to consumers who will use them and then throw them away. This leads to overflowing landfills, air and water pollution, and quickly disappearing resources. The World Economic Forum predicts that, if our habits don’t change, there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean by 2050. And I dearly hope that by now we’re all familiar with the reality of climate change and its devastating impact on global ecosystems.

I’m not trying to scare you, but I do want to point out the hypocrisy of drawing power from the Earth in our magic while simultaneously contributing to her destruction. If we truly want to consider ourselves spiritual allies of the planet, we need to make an effort to live our lives — and practice our magic — in ways that are less harmful to her.

You don’t have to become an environmentalist or switch to a zero waste lifestyle, but we can all make little changes for a more sustainable life. There’s lots of information out there about how to live a more Earth-friendly lifestyle, so in this post I’ll be focusing on how to apply that same philosophy to your witchcraft.

Steps to a more Earth-Friendly Practice:

Limiting your consumption will automatically lower your negative impact on the planet. Follow my previous guidelines for avoiding consumerism to start shrinking your carbon footprint.

Avoid plastic as much as possible. According to the WEF, 70% of our plastic ends up in a landfill or in the world’s waterways, and according to Julia Watkins, author of Simply Living Well, only 9% of household plastics get recycled. Plastic (unlike glass and metal) cannot be recycled indefinitely — it can only be recycled a handful of times before it becomes too degraded to be repurposed any further. There really is no way to make plastic safer for the planet, so it’s best to just avoid it altogether. Look for tools made of metal, wood, or glass instead of plastics, and try to order things shipped in paper and cardboard when possible.

Create spells that won’t leave leftovers. One of the big contributing factors to our current environmental crisis is that we just produce too much waste. You can avoid this in your magical practice by crafting spells that won’t leave you throwing away a big ball of candle wax, herbs, and paper. Kitchen magic is a no-brainer for this, since kitchen spells are meant to be eaten. If you want to do a candle spell, use small candles that will burn up completely — I find larger candles are more likely to leave leftover wax. Making magical bath salts is another great option for leftover-free spells — just make sure everything you include is safe to go down the drain and won’t contribute to water pollution!

Forage for your own spell materials. One of the best ways to avoid plastic packaging and cut down on emissions from shipping is to use materials from your backyard! Learn about the plants, animals, and minerals native to your area, and take regular nature walks where you can gather what you need. Remember to only take as much as you need and to be careful never to damage the plants you harvest from. Make sure to carefully disinfect any animals bits you pick up — you can do this by burying them in salt for a full moon cycle and/or setting them in the sun/under a UV light for several days. If you find a dead animal and want to strip and clean its bones for use in ritual, this is a much more involved process and will require special research, equipment, and lots of time. And, of course, never eat anything you have foraged unless you happen to have an advanced degree in botany.

Keep a magical garden. Another great way to connect with the planet and shrink your carbon footprint is to grow your own herbs, vegetables, and fruits. You can, of course, grow food for your kitchen if you have space, but even if you live in a tiny apartment you can grow a handful of magical herbs in pots. For a list of common houseplants and their magical associations, check out this post.

Shop for spell materials at a local farmer’s market. Buying local is a great way to avoid the environmental impact of shipping produce, and it allows you to support small farms. Farmer’s markets also typically carry seasonal produce, which can help you align your magical practice with the cycles of nature. Farmer’s markets are a great way to find seasonal fruits and vegetables for kitchen magic, but you can use the produce you find there for other types of spells as well.

Trade paraffin wax candles for beeswax or soy wax. Paraffin, the material used for most cheap candles, is a by-product of crude oil, which is not only highly unsustainable but contains carcinogens (chemicals that may cause cancer). Beeswax is a sustainable alternative, and beeswax candles produce a “clean” burn, meaning it does not negatively affect air quality. Soy wax is a slightly pricier, vegan-friendly sustainable option that also produces a clean burn.

Use undyed, unbleached paper for your written spells. The bleaches and dyes used in most commercially available paper have a toxic effect on the environment. Colored paper cannot be recycled or composted because it will contaminate everything it touches. Use plain, unbleached paper for your written spells, especially if you plan to bury them in the ground or dispose of them outside.

Make sure your essential oils are ethically harvested. Essential oils are tricky — although they are marketed as natural, many of them are produced through unsustainable methods. Because essential oils are concentrated, it may take thousands of pounds of plants to produce a single pound of oil. This can have a devastating impact, especially for endangered plants like white sage or palo santo. Look for ethically-sourced, wild-harvested essential oils — these are oils that are gathered from the wild in ways that don’t hurt the local ecosystem. Mountain Rose Herbs and Eden’s Garden are two brands that are committed to sustainable essential oil production.

Instead of burying a spell in a jar, bury it in a hollowed-out fruit or vegetable. Many traditions call for spells to be buried in the ground. Items like jar spells and witch bottles are traditionally buried on the witch’s property. The problem with this is that plastic and glass bottles do not biodegrade, and will remain in the ground for years. Instead of putting these materials in the ground, bury your spells in a hollowed-out fruit or vegetable. As a bonus, you can choose this item to support your intention. For example, you might use an apple for a love spell or a spicy pepper for protection. Just make sure everything inside the spell is also biodegradable!

Keep a compost pile as an offering to your local land spirits. Compost is an easy way to reduce food waste, and it gives your garden a boost! Even if you don’t have your own garden, you can give your compost to a fiend who does or look into donating it to a community garden. When composting, it’s important to maintain a balance between carbon-rich “brown” ingredients (leaves, undyed paper, cardboard, etc.) and nitrogen-rich “greens” (fruit and veggie scraps, coffee grounds, egg shells, etc.) — you want about four times as much brown as green in your compost. Start your compost with a layer of brown — preferably twigs or straw to allow good airflow. Alternate layers of green and brown materials as you add to the pile. Every time you add to your compost, verbally express your gratitude to the land spirits. Your compost should be moist, but not soggy — you’ll know it’s ready when it’s dark and crumbly and smells like soil.

Make your own tea blends with loose herbs and a reusable tea strainer instead of buying teabags. Witches and tea go together like peanut butter and chocolate, but the individual wrappers on teabags create a lot of waste. On top of that, since many of these wrappers are dyed, they may not even be recyclable. Keep your teas earth-friendly by buying dried herbs in bulk and blending your own teas. Making your own blends is not only better for the planet, but also allows you to choose each ingredient for a specific magical intention.

Find ways to use your trash in your craft. This one is pretty self-explanatory. Instead of throwing things away, find ways to use them in your magic! Use food scraps from cooking, like carrot greens and potato peels, in spells. Turn an old shoe box into a travel altar. Add your coffee grounds to spells to ground them and manifest results in the physical world. You get the idea. Be creative!

Research different models for Earth-friendly living, like the zero waste/low waste lifestyle, sustainability, and the solarpunk movement. This will give you more ideas for a sustainable lifestyle, as well as a sustainable magical practice.

The funny thing about Earth-friendly living is that, the more time you spend taking care of the planet, the more connected you feel to it. I encourage you to try some of the ideas on this list — you’ll be amazed by how quickly you develop a deeper relationship with the Earth and all her creatures.

Resources:

Of Blood and Bones by Kate Freuler

Simply Living Well by Julia Watkins

“By 2050, there will be more plastic than fish in the world’s oceans, study says” from The Washington Post

A Sustainable Mind podcast

Practical(ly) Zero Waste podcast

[luna-the-moth]

Lucifer, Leviathan, and Satan with a Plant-Loving S/O (SFW)

I accidentally deleted the ask, but here’s what was requested: @hey-its-spades : Hello! For Levi, Lucifer, and Satan if you dont mind uwu . Mc has a knack for plants and has taken it upon themselves to put plants everywhere. ( hanging from ceilings,crawling ivy on outside walls,in the kitchen, library, even luci's study.) All the rooms look a liytle greener and None of them say anything but the student body is saying that it makes the old place look alive and home-y. It makes mc really happy.       

Oh I adore this ask! SFW, with a GN! reader. I’m assuming by student body you mean the HoL residents? Since almost nobody outside the household residents visit there. I got really carried away with Levi and the Lucifer angst as well-

My vampire poll for the OM characters

My ask box is open, but please read my rules and guidelines before requesting! Please send them in my ask box, as I can keep track of requests better.  Reblogs, likes, and comments are greatly appreciated!

Lucifer, Leviathan, and Satan with a Plant-Loving Reader (SFW)

Prologue/basics for all of them:

Ever since you came to the HoL, you decided that it was too....lifeless.

Sure, there were bright candles lighting the halls, but the house was devoid of any life, besides the brothers and Henry.

So you took it upon yourself to decorate, of course!

While many human world plants didn’t fare well in the Devildom due to the poor soil quality, Lord Diavolo had agreed to bring you enchanted soil, guaranteed to grow any plant.

Regardless of temperature or sunlight needs, whatever plant grew in that soil would flourish to its upmost potential.

Asmo had a great deal of amusement with you decorating, advising you on what colors would fit specific areas of the household, and what species of flowers would bring beautiful symbolism as well.

In the house’s entryway, you left a pair of Strelitzia nicolai (giant bird of paradise) plants, as they added a subtle flair.

With long, stemmed leaves, it contributed a touch of elegance and flair.

On the a few windowsills, you had placed Begonia rex-coltorum (Rex begonias), their dark, vivid, colors standing out.

You had planted crawling ivy on the outside walls, making the house seem more inviting.

Lucifer:

Lucifer hadn’t minded your redecoration, as it had matched well with the house’s aesthetic, adding to the beauty.

In fact, he had quite enjoyed seeing you pore over catalogues and books, deciding which one would fit the space best.

Over the next few weeks, he watched as the House of Lamentation became brighter, more colorful.

It was a nice change, he thought.

However, he was surprised when he had woken up in his study, rose bushes in the corners of his study.

Deep, red roses greeted him as he surveyed his study with a pleased smile.

It was no secret Lucifer adored roses, and he was appalled when he had first arrived in the Devildom, as the soil quality was so poor, it could hardly grow anything.

Which meant he couldn’t grow roses, one of his favorite flowers.

The fact that you had thought about him, and wanted to gift him such a beautiful display, greatly moved the stoic demon.

Making his way to one of the bushes, he took off his gloves and knelt down on one knee.

The soft, sweet fragrance immersed his senses, filling him with memories of laughter, smiles, serenity, and Lilith.

Roses were her favorite flower.

As the memories flooded his mind, Lucifer suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of longing, and his vision became blurred.

He remembered the way Lilith used to brighten up when helping him with his garden, an eager grin ever-present on her face.

The way she would make him a colorful bouquet of roses whenever Michael had given him more stressful tasks than usual.

He quickly wiped a stray tear that had fallen from one of his eyes, and calmed himself.

Taking one of the velvety flowers in his hand, Lucifer gently brought his lips to the flower head, leaving a soft kiss, almost as if it was Lilith’s forehead.

The next time you went over to his study for some tea, he brought you into his arms, bringing you close to him.

Kissing your cheek, he lets a small smile break through his usually-serious facade.

“Thank you for the roses, my love. They compliment my study’s aesthetic nicely.”

Placing a small kiss on your neck, he smirked.

“Perhaps I can thank you with a date tonight?”

Leviathan:

Levi actively enjoyed watching you redecorate the HoL.

It was like one of his favorite games, The Grims! (Yes that was a terrible pun for The Sims.)

He had listened with interest as you went off on the best plants that would fit his aesthetic, and would match well with water.

What caught his attention, was when you brought up the topic of bio luminescent plants.

Of course, they weren’t naturally grown in the human world, but scientists had recently found a way to genetically modify tobacco plants.

In doing so, they had spliced the genes with four fungus genes related to bio luminescence, then carefully cultivated them.

From a seedling to maturity, the plants presented a small glow, visible to the naked eye.

The gene modification had no harmful effects on the plants, and the only difference between the lab-modified plants and wild plants, were height.

The entire time you had explained the plant’s origins passionately, Levi sat in awe, watching as you had gestured your hands in an excited fashion.

So this is what you meant when you had said you enjoyed him being so passionate about an anime or game.

At first, Levi had thought you were merely exaggerating to cheer him up, but as he looks at you now, eyes shining with delight, he understood.

You decided that since you were decorating the HoL, you would decorate Levi’s room as well.

You didn’t have access to the bio-luminescent plants, but you decorated his rooms to the nines nonetheless.

So, you had pooled together your money and resources, to create a mini lily pond for him!

You had miraculously gotten him out of the house, for a cosplay con, in which you had ‘accidentally’ forgotten to buy yourself a ticket.

Which we all know is a lie, you had just not bought one for yourself in order to stay at home, assembling the pond with Solomon’s help.

It was small, enough to fit around 6-7 lily pads/lotuses.

You had carefully grown the lily pads in your room, watching as they eventually bloomed into light, almost ethereal flowers.

By the time Levi came home, you had just finished cleaning up, getting the mud washed from your hands and arms.

Upon seeing the lily pond, Levi’s eyes were wide with amazement and shock.

You created and did this, for him?

Absolutely sets down his handfuls of merch, (gently, mind you) and silently steps over to you.

He does his best to hug you like in anime, wanting you to know how much he appreciates this.

Yes, it may be awkward, but it warms your heart knowing that he stepped out of his comfort zone, just to thank you.

He’s too embarrassed to say it while looking at you, but you can hear his voice as he rests his head against yours.

As he pulls away, a blush is evident on his face, his head turned to the side as he awkwardly places his hand against the back of his neck.

“T-thank you, Y/n. It’s a b-beautiful lily pond.”

Satan:

He fully supported your botanical excursion

After all, he’s always had an affinity for plants.

Whether it be for potions, poisons, or mere decor, Satan had a green thumb, through and through.

If his room weren’t full of books, scriptures, and all sorts of literature, he’d fill it with various plants.

So when you had announced that you were going to re-decorate the HoL with various flora, he was buzzing with excitement.

He gathered every human botanical book he knew of, and started leaving them for you on your desk.

Within a week, you had stacks upon stacks of books, knowledge ready at your disposal.

And so you began to research.

Satan was considerate to leave footnotes in a few of them, like what type would pair well with what color schemes, etc.

You smiled while reading through them, seeing Satan’s elegant handwritten flow across the pages.

Within a few weeks, you had skimmed through the books, thoroughly reading a handful of them.

After ordering the plants you wanted on Azukon, (courtesy of Lord Diavolo’s credit card-) you were eagerly anticipating their arrival.

Especially because a few ‘special items’ were in the package.

After all, you wanted to thank Satan properly for his help.

When the various flora arrived, you had carefully cultivated each of them, encouraging their growth.

Satan had assisted you, monitoring their progress, and making sure none of his brothers ruined them.

The following weekend, Satan had a student council meeting planned, as did the rest of the brothers.

Which left you with the perfect opportunity to set up Satan’s gifts.

In his room, you had placed Senecio rowleyanus (string of pearls) plants, their bright green globes spilling over the bookshelves.

Along with that, were lavender candles, with dried lavender crushed inside.

After all, Satan had always (usually) been the most level-headed out of his brothers, despite his title.

He’s much more than the avatar of wrath, and has gone through painstaking time and trials to overcome that.

That’s why you had picked lavender, which without a doubt, would be noticed by Satan.

When he had come back from the meeting, he was already in a pissy mood, as things didn’t go as planned, ending in an argument between the brothers.

However, when he stepped into his room, seeing lavender candles lit, and garlands of plants over the bookshelves, he immediately broke out in a smile.

A real, genuine smile.

Seeing you sitting on his bed, lavender candles lit, plant garlands stringing down from the bookshelves, it was almost like one of the romance novels he had read...

Quickly, he scooped you up in his arms, spinning you until you were laughing for him to stop.

Finally setting you down to gently kabeddon you, he playfully kisses the corner of your lips.

“Thank you my love, these are absolutely beautiful. I shall preserve these for all eternity.”

[the-angery-sapphic]

Alternative ending to 06x13

What should have happened.

Here’s to another day of failing to catch Nyxly.

Kara thought to herself bitterly. After she woke up in the med-bay with Alex and Lena at her side, all she wanted to do was go home and wait for the next day. She wasn’t even sure she could sleep tonight, given everything that’s happened today, from losing the courage totem to creating a psychic connection between her and Nyxly. She shutters when she remembered the flashes of blood, the panic in unfamiliar eyes, looking down at the stained knife she doesn’t remember having. Kara shakes her head, lost in her own thoughts when she realized somebody was talking to her.

“Kara? Kara are you alright?”

Her head snaps up into gorgeous seafoam eyes and feels security with the weight of a hand against her collarbone. “Yeah, yeah I’m okay” Kara replies slightly breathless. Lena raises her eyebrow, unconvinced. “Do you want to come over for dinner?” Kara asks, trying to redirect the conversation. Luckily, Lena took the bait, smiling as they left the tower together.

After finishing dinner, they moved to the couch. Lena smiling as Kara handed her a plate of dessert. “I don’t know how I didn’t pass that trial” Kara laments, the events of the day still eating away her thoughts. Luckily, Lena seemed to be on the same boat. “I don’t get it either! You literally went to the Phantom Zone to save humanity”. A cold shiver runs up Kara’s spine at the mention of the dreaded place. “And yet, there was still something I was doing wrong” Kara says dejectedly. Lena straightens in her seat, and Kara was put off at the glint that appeared in the woman’s eyes. “Actually, there might be a way to stop Nyxly without you needing to pass the test” Lena states airily. Kara peaks with interest, resting her chin on her hand.

What.

Lena’s a witch? She’s kidding. She has to be kidding.

Kara blanches in shock, before internally laughing at herself. Of course she is, at this point what skill doesn’t Lena have? The scientist however appears troubled with the information, and Kara then remembers Lena’s issue with magic.

“I’m not sure I’m ready to talk about it yet.” Lena states with strain in her voice, and Kara went immediately from wonder for this amazing woman, to protective. Kara nods sagely, and lets Lena continue.

“I feel that I owe it to everyone to learn as much as I can, and I thought I could start with seeing if I can untether you from Nyxly.”

Kara looks down as she remembers the flashes of blood, her hand gripping a knife, to a panicked father’s eyes as a rock makes its way to the pit of her stomach. She would love to lose this bond, to get rid of the pain and never think about it again. However, she knows she can’t, she owes it to the world to use every resource at her disposal to put a stop to Nyxly, no matter the pain she feels. She looks up to Lena’s hopeful eyes and lowers her hand to rest on top of a paler one, and her chest fills with warmness. “I will take all of your help with magic, but I think I want to stay connected with her.” She feels Lena’s argument before she hears it, and continues. “It could be an asset, if I’m able to feel what Nyxly feels maybe I can figure out what she’s planning” Lena’s eyes fill with concern and pain. “But it could be painful and dangerous” She laments. Kara feels her chest flutter at Lena’s concern, however, regrets the stress she causes her. She wants to soothe the worry lines that form on Lena’s forehead, she wants to pull her close and kiss her brow and reassure her that she will be okay, that she will always be fine, even when she isn’t. She settles for looking down at their hands still linked together, “Nyxly is not like any villain we have ever faced, and if it gives us an advantage then I am willing to take that risk” Kara says with conviction in her voice, her Supergirl voice. She looks back up to Lena’s soft eyes, and see’s a mix of concern and adoration. Control yourself, she says to her own elevated heartbeat, and the flush of warmth that spreads from her chest to her core. Rao, I hope I’m not flushing, is she noticing anything? She can’t stop staring into Lena’s eyes, and her gaze lowers to her lips when she realizes that Lena is speaking, and she should probably be listening.

“I don’t know what that gauntlet was about, because you are the epitome of courageous” Lena says with reverence, and

oh,

she’s pretty sure her whole body is on fire now, and she can’t maintain eye contact anymore, looking down as an uncontrollable smile graces her features, with flushed cheeks. However, before she can compose herself, a sudden pain enters her temples, and she feels it. Anger, unfiltered anger. Her head is throbbing in pain as she grits her teeth. She can barely hear Lena’s voice over the ringing. “Kara? Kara are you alright? Is it happening again?” She musters enough conviction to respond, “She’s angry, Nyxly’s angry” Kara grits out before another shooting pain enters her temple. Kara whimpers, and hunches over. Lena takes both of their plates and sets them on the coffee table, before Kara feels hands on her shoulder, gently forcing her to lay down. She expects to feel her head hit the firmness of the couch’s armrest; however, she feels herself laying on something softer. She manages to open her eyes blearily and see’s that she is looking up at Lena. Her eyes gently tracing Kara’s features. I’m laying on her lap, Kara realizes, my head is in her lap. Kara then realizes that if she wasn’t in intense pain right now, she would be freaking the heck out. Before she could say anything else the pain intensifies, and she turns, burying her face in the Luthor’s stomach, as she lets out another whimper, the soft scent of jasmine quietly invading her senses. She feels fingers gently scratch at her scalp, and goosebumps run down her body as she lets out a choked moan. The fingers pause for a second, before they continue, not giving Kara the time to overthink it. The fingers run from her scalp to the soft baby hairs at the nape of her neck, gently scratching, and all thoughts die in Kara’s head. She feels boneless, and it’s getting harder and harder to stay awake. Lena must have sensed that she was trying to stay awake, because she pushes blonde hair away from her face, before she’s leaning down to whisper in her ear. “It’s okay Kara, let go, I’m here”, before she feels a soft pair of lips press down on her brow. Kara doesn’t remember any of the pain at this point, she feels her energy seeping out of her body, and surrenders herself to the woman lulling her to unconsciousness. She purrs when she feels her nails scratch gently at her nape as a reward. With one last sigh of relief, Kara is asleep. Dreaming of red lipstick and warm sea foam eyes.

Somewhere on a spaceship, Nyxly is wondering why she feels gay all the sudden.

[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.

[sfb123]

Stealing Moments

Book: The Royal Romance/The Royal Heir

Pairing: Liam x Riley

Summary: The Royal family spends the afternoon taking part in some pre-Easter (or preaster, if you will) activities.

Rating: G - I’m not going to sugar coat it (sugar is the last thing this story needs), this is some majorly fluffy stuff here. Even for me, and I’ve produced some pretty fluffy work.

Word Count: 1,947

A/N: So this story is a triple threat:

I am participating in @wackydrabbles prompt #88 “I meant every word.” Which will appear in bold.

I am also participating in the @choicesaprilchallenge2021, day 3 teal. That prompt will appear in italics.

I am also participating in @trraw, day 2 Liam. That prompt will appear in the form of a handsome and charming King.

A/N 2: This is an idea that I thought of while I was writing my upcoming Uncle Drake fic (you’ll see that one on Sunday), so I decided to write it up as a little prequel to that. Thank you to @jessiembruno for encouraging me to take my crazy throw away ideas and make them into something, and also by contributing this adorable moodboard. You are a Canva master. To think, not too long ago you hated it and cursed it out on the regs!

Tags: You know the drill, they’re down below. I hope you get it! If you want to be added or removed, let me know!

Liam sat in his study, wrapping up some paperwork before his next meeting when there was a knock on the door. “Come in.”

Bastien entered the room and shut the door behind him. “Sir, Lord Neville is demanding an audience with you. Immediately.” 

“Of course he is. Tell him I am unavailable, and to make an appointment with my assistant before he leaves.” 

“I did. I explained to him that you have an important afternoon meeting that could not be rescheduled. He didn’t appear to care.” Bastien chuckled to himself. This wasn’t the first time Neville had tried to weasel his way into an urgent meeting with the King.

Liam let out a deep breath as he stood, scrubbing his hand over his face. “Of course he didn’t. That’s fine, I need to get to my meeting anyway. I will tell him myself.” 

Almost immediately upon exiting his study, Neville was in his face. “Your Majesty, I have an urgent matter that requires your immediate attention-”

Liam held up a hand, silencing him. “I’m sure you do, Lord Neville. Unfortunately, I am on my way to a very important meeting, so I am unable to sit with you right now. Please see my assistant on your way out, and she will be happy to book you for my next available appointment.” 

“With all due respect Your Majesty, that simply won’t do. It won’t take long, perhaps I could walk with you to your next meeting?”

Liam internally rolled his eyes at the suggestion. He knew just how to stroke his ego to get him to back down. “Lord Neville, as one of our most valued members of court, I couldn’t possibly do you the disservice of giving you anything but my full attention on what I’m sure is a crucial matter. That is all I would be doing if I allowed you to continue at this time. I will make sure that my staff adjust the schedule to provide us enough time to examine the issue thoroughly. Please send me any documentation as soon as possible so that I may review it before our meeting. That way, we can hit the ground running when we do meet.”

Neville stood tall, a smug expression quickly spreading across his face. “Very well, Your Majesty. I appreciate your assistance in the matter. I will leave the documentation with your assistant.” He bowed, and Liam nodded in response before exiting the area and moving on to his next meeting. 

“If I may say sir, the way you handled that situation was truly masterful.” Bastien commented as they walked through the palace. 

Liam chuckled and patted his security guard on the back. “All in a day's work, my friend. Everything is in place for this afternoon, I trust? I will have no disruptions for the remainder of the day?”

“Yes Your Majesty, the staff has been fully alerted that you will be unavailable. I will be at the door to ensure that you are not bothered.” Bastien replied. 

Once they arrived at their destination, Liam crossed the threshold and closed the door behind him. He was the last to arrive, so the sound of the door caught the attention of those that had already gathered. 

“Daddy!” Eleanor jumped out of her chair and ran straight for Liam, leaping into his arms. 

“Hello Princess.” He chuckled as he held her close, placing a kiss on her cheek. “Are you ready to decorate some Easter eggs?” He carried her through the livingroom area of the royal quarters, returning her to her seat at the kitchen table.

“Yep! I helped mommy mix all the colors together. It was so fun!” She gestured to the cups of coloring spread out across the table. 

Liam couldn't help but laugh at his daughter’s enthusiasm as he approached his wife, who was standing at the table making the final preparations for their afternoon project. “Hello, beautiful.” He leaned down and placed a lingering kiss on Riley’s lips. 

“Hey handsome. You made it right on time. I’m impressed.” She teased. 

“I wouldn’t miss this for anything in the world. No matter how hard Neville tried.” 

“Neville, yuck!” Eleanor chimed in, causing both of her parents to burst out laughing. 

Riley turned her attention back to her husband. “Alright, you go get changed. I don’t want you ruining your fancy king clothes with egg dye.”

Liam kissed his wife and daughter before going into the bedroom to put on some more casual clothes. He returned unnoticed as Riley explained the egg dying process to Eleanor. He stood for a moment and watched them, his girls, his world. He couldn’t help the smile that quickly spread across his face at the sight. 

“Daddy, come on, we can’t start without you!” Eleanor called out to him from the other side of the room, breaking him from his thoughts. 

He returned to the table and stood between his girls. “Alright, I’m here. Where do we begin?” 

Not only was this Eleanor’s first time decorating Easter eggs, but Liam’s too. He was told that as a Prince, there were more productive ways for him to spend his time. It was just one of the many childhood experiences being royalty simply didn’t allow for. He was so happy, not just to have this experience for himself, but to share it with his daughter. Another way to give her the childhood he never had, but always wanted.

Once Riley explained the process, they got to work; since she was the seasoned professional, she let Eleanor and Liam take the lead and do most of the work. She marveled in the similarities in their gestures, the concentration on their faces as they placed their white eggs in the dye, and the excitement when it would come out dyed a bright color. At one point, Riley couldn’t help but laugh when they pulled out their eggs at the same time, and looked up at her with identical expressions of joy, showing off their creations. 

They had gotten down to the last egg, Liam turned to Eleanor, “Ok Princess, we’ve got one left. You get to pick the color.”

A thoughtful expression overtook Eleanor’s face as she surveyed the colors that surrounded her before turning to her parents and confidently announcing her decision. “Teal.”

Riley and Liam locked eyes and shared a confused expression. There was no teal, they had only prepared basic colors, blue, green, yellow, pink, and purple. “Baby girl, we don’t have teal. These are the only colors we have.” Riley explained. 

Eleanor’s lip started to quiver as her arms went across her chest. “I want teal. Please.” Her parents had been teaching her the importance of manners, so she figured if she said please, they had to give her what she wanted. 

They both knew what that lip quiver meant, they were going to need to move quickly to avoid a total meltdown. Liam approached the princess and started rubbing her back to keep her calm. “It’s alright Eleanor. Why don’t you tell me why you want a teal egg so badly?”

“It’s my favorite color.” She looked up at her father, a pleading expression etched in her face. Her eyes glistening with unshed tears. 

There was no question that Eleanor had the King wrapped around her finger, and when she looked at him like that, there was absolutely no way he could deny her. “Alright, let me go talk to mommy and see what we can do for you.” He kissed her on her cheek and returned to his wife. “Riley, there must be something we can do. I can send someone to get teal coloring. We have unlimited resources at our disposal, there must be some way we can make this happen for her.” 

Riley shook her head and rolled her eyes. “Man, you really are a sucker when it comes to her. Aren’t you.” 

“For both of my girls, actually.” He lifted her hand to his lips and brushed them gently across her knuckles, while giving her a hopeful expression. 

She sighed deeply, as much as she tried to fight it, she was also a sucker for her family. “Alright, I guess I can try to mix the blue and green together. Maybe I can get the right ratio to make a teal dye.” 

Liam turned to Eleanor and gave her a thumbs up, she clapped her hands and cheered in response. Riley got to work carefully mixing the two dyes into a third cup, occasionally dipping a piece of paper in to test the color. She smiled to herself when the fourth test paper emerged from the cup. Mission accomplished. “Did somebody want to make a teal egg?”

“Me me me!” Eleanor raised her hand and jumped up and down in her seat. 

Riley placed the cup in front of Eleanor and handed her the egg. The pair worked together to color the final egg to the princess’s exact specifications. 

Liam watched as the two of them completed their family project. His heart was so full at that moment that he felt weak in the knees. He reached behind him and laid his palms against the kitchen island to steady himself. He stood there as his wife, the love of his life, sat with his daughter creating memories in their home. In that moment, he wasn’t a King, he was the luckiest man in the world. 

With the help of her mother, Eleanor pulled the egg from the dye, her smile growing exponentially as she proudly looked up at her father to show off her work. “Daddy, we did it! It’s teal!”

Liam chuckled at the sight in front of him. “I think it’s the most beautiful egg I have ever seen, Princess.”

Riley looked up and noticed Liam’s expression before leaning down to Eleanor. “Hey sweets, why don’t you go wash up for dinner while I put all of this away.” Her daughter looked up and nodded before rushing down the hall. Riley approached Liam and put a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, are you alright?”

“Love, I can honestly tell you I have never been better.” He placed a hand on her cheek. “Do you remember our first date? During the social season?” She nodded. “You asked me what my dream was, and I told you I wanted a real family, one that was close and listened to each other.” He paused, staring deeply into her eyes. “I have that, because of you Riley. You’ve made my dream, my heart’s desire, come true. Going into my social season, I had all but given up on falling in love, and assumed I would simply marry for duty. Then you uprooted your whole life to give me a chance at happiness. I will never be able to tell you how truly grateful I am for all that you have given me.” He placed a lingering kiss on her lips.

“Liam, I did it for me too. That night in New York, I had never felt like that before. I was not that girl, the one that drops everything to fly around the world for a boy I just met, but I knew there was something there that was worth exploring.” She wrapped her arms around his neck. 

“Really?”

Riley laughed gently. “I meant every word.” She leaned in to kiss him, and he pulled her close. 

They pulled apart just as Eleanor bounded back into the room. She ran straight for her parents and jumped into Liam’s arms. He held her against one side, and pulled Riley into the other. He was sure that life couldn’t get better than that very moment. 

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[itsclydebitches]

RWBY Recaps: Volume 8 “Witch”

Happy Saturday, everyone! Well, it's perhaps happier provided you didn't watch today’s episode lol. Getting through these 18 minutes felt like watching an extended version of a CinemaSins vid. I heard a little 'ding!' every time something nonsensical, contradictory, or just downright stupid happened. My mind became a pinball machine. 

Which, in the interest of being fair as opposed to just snarky, only matters if you're looking for something resembling emotional depth in this show. RWBY, for all its faults, is enjoyable as a mindless spectacle. It's when you expect — or simply hope — for anything more that this very fragile house of cards comes tumbling down.

If it’s not clear already, today’s recap contains copious amounts of salt. Fair warning. 

With that disclaimer out of the way, let’s dive in. Episode nine is titled "Witch," which is fitting since many members of our group go toe-to-toe against Salem herself. The narrative issues inherent in having your heroes fighting their final boss years before the series is meant to end might have been avoided if it weren't for Oscar's ridiculous, sacrificial attack... but we'll get to that.

We open with a sweeping shot of the Atlas battle, as hundreds of dead soldiers segue into endless grimm. Hold onto that image for a bit. At the end of this carnage is, of course, the mouth of the whale. We cut to Jaune, Ren, and Yang already safely inside.

"Well," says Yang, "that was harrowing."

I'm on the fence about this choice. On the one hand, yes, it's good that RWBY knows it can skip over extraneous scenes. We have NINE characters to keep track of and develop, fourteen if you count Ozpin, Maria, Winter, Ironwood, and now Whitley. Plus villains. There simply isn't time to show every insignificant moment... but was this insignificant? Obviously finding Oscar and escaping Salem's clutches is the true hurdle of this mission, but that doesn't mean getting through an entire army of grimm is in any way a cake walk. I'd be more willing to ignore this time skip if it weren't likewise presented as such a challenge for Winter's team. They have to "clear a path" to the whale, but our trio got there unscathed and unnoticed? The obvious implication here is that Ren just masked them the whole way — supported by his aura breaking later in the episode — but it still feels like we missed an important chunk of this task.

I'm nit-picking though. As said, I’m straddling the fence on this one and, given that, I'm inclined to settle on a, "Good job, RWBY. You're keeping the writing tight," if only because I don't have much else to praise about this episode. Throw the poor, struggling show a bone lol.

Now that they're inside, they realize they haven't the slightest idea how they'll find Oscar. “Like finding a needle in a giant…whale… why did we think this was a good idea?!” Because you and your friends are idiots who no longer bother to think about a situation before throwing yourself straight into it? This isn't me being mean to Yang, she literally says as much later on. Our heroes no longer get by on intellect, strategy, and skill, but rather plot armor and a staggering number of coincidences. For example, Ren.

Yang: Wow, it sure is lucky for us that on our way to this incredibly dangerous mission Ren inexplicably developed a new part of his semblance. Now he can not only mask peoples' emotions, see the true emotions that someone is feeling, pull thoughts out of their head about what they believe about a situation, but can also track someone across long distances through their emotions alone. Even that doesn't actually help us find Oscar, we just got lucky again when, in this maze of a whale, he ran right into us!

Me: So what were you going to do if this meta-world stopped giving you the most contrived solutions in Remnant history?

Yang: Die gloriously, I guess.

What Yang actually says is, "Okay. That's new!" and they enter the literal belly of the beast wielding a shield of convenience.

Jaune is also being awkward again because remember, RWBY doesn't know when to incorporate humor and when to treat a situation seriously. He reminds Ren not to "drain [himself]," he'll help him, and it's clear the scene is hinting at their earlier fight. There's a lot to unpack there, but I want to save it for the second conversation.

For now, we cut to Oscar, curled up in his cell, repeating stories to comfort himself. Yeah that's fine. I could use a broken heart right before Valentine's Day.

“She brushed off her bumps and bruises, for nothing hurt worse than the loneliness in her chest." It's a line from The Girl Who Fell Through the World, which Ozpin recognizes given that he's "lived through" a fair number of fairy tales. He immediately asks how Oscar is holding up — because he's a caring person! — and Oscar admits that he never understood why the girl of the tale was sad upon reaching home again. Now he does: she wasn't the same person anymore. I don't think the fact that Oscar has had both a metaphorical fall — leaving his farm to 'fall' into this war — and a literal one — falling through Atlas to unlock his magic — is lost on anyone. This is a nice allusion to our themes. Yang's speech to Salem later on? That’s something else entirely. 

Storytelling done, Ozpin says he thinks "this plan to divide might have run its course” and it's time to try and find a way to leave. I'm sorry, I love my farm boy, but what plan? He didn't do anything. At least nothing that could remotely be termed an intellectual plot. Oscar convinced Ozpin to try and turn Hazel by telling him the world would end under Salem's rule and the only reason that worked is because the story decided to chuck out Hazel's entire character. You know, the one that hates Ozpin above all others, wants the world remade into a non-Academy horror show, can't understand that people make their own choices, is terrified of Salem, and has no reason to trust a prisoner he's currently torturing. Oscar's "plan" hinged on his writers erasing a great deal of work to build a new story that fits said “plan.” He didn't even get Emerald involved, she just — again, conveniently — eavesdropped outside their door at just the right moment.

To be clear, I'm not against a story being written to work in the hero's favor. Of course things are going to be convenient in a happy-ending tale. Someone manages to hold out just as long as they need to, a sword is lying just within reach, you, yes, happen to run into the one person you're desperate to find. This kind of stuff is reassuring, telling its audiences that sometimes things do work out for the best. It's enjoyable... but only provided the hero's entire success doesn't hinge on fate being shockingly kind to them. That's what RWBY has become. A world where Salem doesn't attack Mantle, Amity Tower is suddenly finished, the group can charge into any deadly situation they want to and bank on destiny twisting around itself to ensure they come out of it safely. A hero finding a convenient weapon nearby to defeat their enemy with is only reassuring after we've seen them implement a brilliant attack, struggle, nearly win, but then suddenly be faced with failure, necessitating that little push from coincidence. They earned it. The hero doesn't get to run in blindly and find a Defeat Bad Guy plot point gift wrapped for them at the first sign of trouble. They just die.

RWBY used to be a better written show because that's precisely Pyrrha's story. She charged a Maiden unprepared, without a single plan or hope for success, and she died. That's what happens in a dangerous, internally consistent world, but RWBY has since lost the second half of that formula.

I'm harping on this because this entire episode is built on that foundation of coincidence, something that shouldn't be happening at all, but especially not when you're pitting the heroes against Salem herself.

So yeah, it just gets worse from here.

Back to Oscar. Without the cane magic is the only weapon they have at their disposal, but he's reluctant to use it because every time he does, they merge more quickly. 

They... do? 

Okay, there are three major problems with this announcement:

I'm pretty sure we've only seen Oscar use magic once: creating that barrier to survive the fall through Atlas. That was the point of his near death experience, to unlock something that had previously been unavailable to him. Yet if he's only used it once, why is he so sure that it hurries the merge along? What's this "every time" business? This confusion could have easily been avoided if the show had just let Oscar use his magic this volume, tackling some other questions and gaps in the process. Let him use it to fight off the grimm in Mantle, giving him the opportunity to admit to at least Jaune, Ren, and Yang that Ozpin is back. He could have used some magic against the Hound with Ozpin's encouragement, answering the question of why he was entirely silent while the two of them got their ass beat. Give us a moment where Oscar uses his magic against Hazel, nearly escaping in the process, but is captured again at the last moment. Basically, his line makes it sound like magic has been this ongoing resource with an established downside when... it hasn’t.

Coinciding with all of the above, how is it that Oscar can suddenly use magic at will? Yeah, yeah, he unlocked it during the fall, but really? You open up the magic gates and from then on out it's as natural as breathing? This is the same issue with Ruby's silver eyes. The story gives these characters incredible powers, but never has them talking about how they work, let alone training them. They just exist, perfect in execution, as soon as the plot needs them. (See: the final shot of this episode.) At least Weiss had to practice her summoning for multiple volumes.

Finally, the question of how Oscar instinctively knows how to use magic could easily be answered with, "Well, he's kind of Ozpin now," but that would require the story to actually explain what the merge is. "We merge faster," Oscar says, but what does that mean? The Ozpin and Oscar we see in this scene are fundamentally indistinguishable from the Ozpin and Oscar who existed at his aunt's house, four whole years ago. They're still separate people, with one controlling the body and the other existing as a consciousness he can talk to. Nothing has changed. The show keeps insisting that Oscar is going through this deep and painful arc of losing himself to Ozpin... despite the fact that he has yet to lose a single bit of Oscar-ness. Has he changed? Well of course, but anyone going through these experiences is going to change. Remove the "merge" aspect and Oscar's confidence or power up is likewise indistinguishable from any of the other characters' developments. Nora is becoming more of an individual this volume. Ren is becoming more powerful in his semblance. Neither have an Ozpin to force that change, it just happens on its own. So what separates Oscar from every other character going through a formative experience? When is “I’m not the same person anymore” due to unnatural magic vs. just growing up? 

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy our boy is getting more screen time — and that the cast is actually being kind to him now — but overall his arc is objectively terrible. He bought some clothes, told Ironwood he was as bad as Salem, told Hazel how to access the Relic, and then asked him not to be a villain anymore. Somehow these things are presented as significant moments of growth while the real questions surrounding his merge go unanswered.

“Honestly, I think you’re doing just fine on your own," Ozpin tells him, but he's not. God knows our boy is trying, but this is a moment where Ozpin's self-hatred (and the story's insistence that the younger generation is intrinsically better than the older) is blinding him to the situation. Oscar has made terrible decisions lately, in as much as he's been able to decide anything at all, and now he's rejecting escaping captivity because he's terrified of a concept he doesn't even understand yet. None of that is fine. Reassurance is one thing, but painting this situation as Oscar making better choices than he would with Ozpin's input is insane. He literally just decided to keep them in Salem's clutches indefinitely because something something magic is scary, I guess. Oscar doesn't need a, 'You're better than me' speech, he needs a reality check so they don't both die. Remember back in Volume 5 when Oscar, a brave but idiotic 14 year old, insisted on fighting someone entirely out of his league and Ozpin was like,

then saved him from getting his head crushed in like a cantaloupe? We need more of that. Our teenage heroes need guidance, but because RWBY keeps insisting that every adult they encounter is corrupt or incompetent, that hasn't happened in three volumes. They're just aloud to decide things like, “Let's tell our captor the Relic's password because UwU ~trust~” and then the story bends over backwards to make that work. Instead we could, you know, let characters learn that they can be wrong. 

The snow scene was the beginning, but RWBY really went off the rails the day it let Qrow warn the group against stealing from and attacking an allied city, only for them to call him an idiot for doubting them. Now, Ozpin doesn't even get to warn Oscar about stupid decisions, he just agrees with them, reassuring and passive. Never mind the complication of whether Ozpin is even emotionally capable of providing guidance after they labeled him the worst thing to ever happen to them. 

Why does RWBY keep ruining my faves 😔

Anyway, we’ve got to stay on track. Oscar has decided to just lie there but, luckily for him, Hazel's redemption — I use that term so loosely — has begun. He drags Oscar out of his cell before we cut to Winter. 

She's leading a portion of Ironwood's army, trying to get things ready for when the bomb arrives. Neon and Flynt are a part of her team, sharing scared glances and trying to remain optimistic. It's a legitimately hard-hitting moment, striking that balance between horror and hope. Funny though, I wonder that RWBYJNOR would think of their friends fighting for evil Ironwood...

Marrow, continuing the tradition of insisting that our heroes be both adults and kids simultaneously, looks sadly at the soldiers heading into battle and goes, "But... they're just kids." I would like to remind everyone reading that Ruby is younger than them. Anyone who thinks that these teenagers shouldn't be fighting grimm — the thing they have been training to do as their professional career, during an unprecedented attack on their home — should not simultaneously be looking to the girl who is two years younger as his savior. (Something that, while not overt yet, is very much where Marrow is heading as he continually doubts the Ace Ops and looks to RWBY's group as his new, moral leaders.) I'm glad that, for once, this perspective is firmly called out. Elm arrives to tell him point blank that he needs to figure out his personal ethics later. It doesn't matter because there's an army of grimm out there and monsters aren't going to spare anyone, adult or child. Quit philosophizing and kill some already.

Back to Hazel where we get the doorway shot from our trailer. He's taken Oscar to the Relic, because of course he has. Do I really need to list how convenient this is too? Apparently, "the moment we move that thing, this place goes on high alert," but there’s no alarm for when Oscar is taken from his cell, they enter the Relic's room, or when they use it. What does a movement alert matter if someone can just waltz in and waste the last question themselves? Put some of those endless grimm in the room to guard it, Salem!

Just assume that I am, at any given point in this episode, letting out the longest sigh my lungs are physically capable of.

Emerald shows up, demonstrating both the convenience of everyone arriving when they need to, and the very real danger that Salem herself could come in and discover what they're up to. Hazel has Oscar summon Jinn, only to immediately say that “Actually, I think all my questions are answered now.”

I'm sorry, how does this answer any of Hazel's questions? His driving question was not, "Is the Relic actually a magical object capable of doing magical things?" but rather "Are you telling me the truth about Salem's plans to summon the Gods and destroy all of Remnant in her quest to finally die, thereby changing who I'm going to support in this war?" Seeing a naked, blue djinn does not answer that question. 

Hazel's "redemption" is non-existent. He — we — learned about Salem's death wish despite how that contradicts previous lore, then he trusted Ozpin despite that contradicting his entire character, now he joins the heroes because, literally, he sees Jinn floating there. It’s bad enough that Hazel goes from clear villain to sacrificial hero in a matter of in-world hours, but we don’t even get a reason for why that change occurred. 

Oh, there's also this:

So Jinn doesn't come out of her lamp unless someone intends to ask a question, but does it for Ruby because she's special, yet still reiterates that this won't happen again. Then Oscar summons her without intending to ask a question, she comes out anyway, confirms that none of them seek knowledge from her, and happily pops back inside her lamp because eh, it’s whatever.

If RWBY had any courage the three of them would be cursed now for toying with a powerful, magical object. Remember the days when Jinn was a little terrifying because it felt like she was warping her answers and we had no idea what she might do to someone who used her carelessly? When she felt like a djinn? Good times.

Or better times, at least. 

So Good Guy Hazel and Good Gal Emerald promise to get Oscar out. Never mind all the horror they caused, the people they killed, and that for Hazel, at least, this defection is coming out of nowhere. 

Anyone remember that Emerald orchestrated Penny's death? No? Just me?

As they leave it turns out Neo was camouflaged against the wall, because she was also precisely where she needed to be. Does everyone just periodically pop into the Relic room to see what’s going on? At least this time it's not working in the heroes' favor. Remember when I said it's beyond idiotic for Oscar to just hand out the Relic information to known enemies currently holding him captive and torturing him?

Yeeeeaah.

So Neo's got the Lamp. Funny how all of this could have been avoided if Ruby had just put it in the vault like she came to Atlas to do ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

We return to our trio where Jaune and Ren need to rest because their aura is giving out. Good! These guys fought a battle, fought Neo, fought more grimm, fought the Hound, traipsed through the tundra, presumably fought through more grimm to get to the whale, and have been using both their semblances to look for Oscar. It's about time their reserves started to falter.

Jaune decides to scout ahead a bit, leaving Yang and Ren to talk about nothing of importance. I mean that seriously. Remember a few days ago when I spoke about how, if the snow conversation does come back up, Ren's points would be entirely ignored for a nonsensical “I’m glad we’re friends” speech? Remember how I also spoke about how every emotional beat now is entirely generic and you could replace any character with another and not a single thing would change? Yeah. This is both those arguments in one. Nothing is said about the points Ren made. His problems with how the group has been acting lately and the very real, very deadly consequences it has had are flat out ignored. We went from

"But these aren't the kinds of decisions we should be making because we have no idea what we're doing!"

to

"Forward, no matter what!"

in a matter of hours, with precisely zero insight into how Ren went from one perspective to the exact opposite. Kind of like Hazel. Because see, RWBY doesn't write arcs, it just writes one thing until it decides to switch it up for something else, with the opposite idea presented as a “resolution” or a “twist.” Our creators writes scenes they know the fandom is begging for without considering how to get a character to that place, let alone how to get them out of it. That's all Ren's speech was, the equivalent of moral fan service. Here's a glimpse of actual character depth and a morally gray situation... now forget it ever happened because we're back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Instead of working through the laundry list of issues Ren raised, Ren instead accepts Jaune's aura help — something they've been doing since Argus — and tells Yang it's okay to be scared. These moments are meaningless and, as said, could have been between anyone in our cast. Ren could have told Nora she doesn't have to use jokes to cover up that she's scared. Jaune could have reminded Ruby that she can depend on him. Yang could have tried to keep Blake and Weiss' hopes up. This scenes ignores the individuality of the characters, like the fact that they just fought over very different world views, to instead favor any dime-a-dozen moment of support. The number of times this volume has rejected the conflict and resolution the group needs for bland, generic reassurances staggering.

Also, apparently Jaune isn't scared at all? I don't think that's as good a thing as Ren seems to think... 

Then Jaune immediately rounds the corner, terrified lol.

One of the seer grimm is on its way and he tells Ren to mask them. Apparently he had been masking them before — one of the reasons he's so tired now, trying to do two things at once — but it's only here that they go black and white again. Ren manages to keep it up for a little while, but his aura breaks before the seer passes and they're spotted.

Hark! A consequence!

That was well done. It makes sense and it adds to the stakes. We've seen the insane amount of fighting the group has done since Volume 7, we just established that they're at their breaking point, and then Ren's aura fails him right when he needs it the most. Add this to the miniscule pile of things that were well done this episode. 

Salem runs into Emerald and Hazel, the former of which is acting very suspicious when asked if he's made any headway with Oscar. The seer's alarm interrupts them though and... okay. Was I the only one who cackled during this moment? Between Salem's voice acting and the fact that she just yeets herself down the hallway, it came across as really funny to me. 

Either way, it is a bad situation. Our trio is trying to figure out what to do, to which Yang responds, "Do what we do best… charge blindly into danger!!”

Ren's aura is broken. Jaune barely has any left and it’s unlikely he could heal right now even if Ren had any aura to amplify. If Ren takes a single hit anywhere important he is dead.

Me, on my knees, surrounded by the ashes of the Hound, the last bit of serious storytelling we had: "For the love of God, the kingdom is on fire and simultaneously dying of cold. There's a grimm army decimating hundreds outside. Half their group is missing and they're wandering lost inside a devil whale, about to have the most powerful being Remnant has ever known personally try to kill them — can we please have their attitudes reflect that?"

The answer, in case you were wondering, is no.

Back to the bomb. Whatever scientists were given this task have completed it and Marrow watches as it's flown out towards the whale. "Come on, Juan" he whispers and I'm all, "Juan?" Apparently it's a callback to last volume when Marrow couldn't remember Jaune's actual name, but it took me hopping onto the RWBY wiki to remember that. 

As death via explosion inches closer, the trio runs into Hazel and Emerald. Turns out though that Hazel is really Oscar, disguised through Emerald's semblance. Nice trick! Jaune immediately drops both weapons to hug Oscar and, while that's nice and all, it's also the stupidest thing he could possible do in enemy territory. Also, Oscar has been beaten up by the Hound, tortured with magic, and likewise beaten bloody by Hazel. I was hoping for a tender hug like the one Nora gave him, not a giant squeeze for more comedy purposes. It just feels like RWBY has no idea how to manage the tone of this volume, let alone the torture of a child...

There's the obligatory, "Why should we trust you?" from Yang regarding Emerald joining the team, to which Ren responds, "Because she's scared, just like us."

That doesn't prove anything. Literally everyone is scared right now. There is a war going on. I really cannot emphasize enough how RWBY throws out Deep™ sounding lines that are, upon inspection, absolutely nonsensical. Nora reminding Penny that there are different parts to her personhood, Hazel saying that all his questions have been answered, Ren announcing that Emerald is scared... it's all worthless chatter that has no bearing on their problems: How do I keep from being hacked? How do I know you're telling the truth? How do we know you're trustworthy after you spent years trying to kill us? But of course, because it's RWBY, Ren's announcement is treated as some sort of secret truth that everyone accepts. Emerald joins up.

As they head for an exit we return to Marrow who, frankly, is getting on my last nerve. I know the fandom loves him because he's clearly leaning towards Team RWBY, but does anyone actually listen to what he says? He starts yelling at Winter for sending in the bomb because the trio might still be alive in there, despite:

Seeing for himself the hundreds of soldiers that have fallen trying to keep Atlas safe

Knowing and hearing again from Winter that the only way to stop this carnage is to take out the whale. Given more time, the whole city falls

Sadly announcing to the world that children shouldn't have to fight in a battle, rather than just joining the fray and helping to keep those kids safe

How does Marrow think those kids are going to be able to stop fighting? How does he think he'll get a city to return to? It's no wonder that he's drawn to Ruby because both characters stand around twiddling their thumbs, mourning that things are bad, and blaming others for imperfect solutions rather than doing something to make the situation better. Marrow's disgust at Winter over the bomb is precisely the same as Ruby's disgust at Ironwood over Mantle: how dare you not have a plan that results in both victory for us and zero sacrifices? They want perfection which, yes, is an admirable trait, but their problem is they refuse to do anything until that perfection appears. They’re paralyzed, a trait that’s particularly dangerous when your story insists that perfection will never appear: it’s not a fairy tale. So they just continue to get mad at others for the fact that they live in an unfair world. You want that perfect solution? Think it up yourself. Otherwise, stand aside and let those coming up with something do what they can to make things better. 

Marrow goes so far as to drag Weiss into things, trying to guilt Winter with the knowledge that she'll have to relate the death of her sister's friends back to her. Winter, because she's a badass who isn't in denial over the situation, tells him that yes, she will shoulder that responsibility. To Marrow's credit he backs off then, but man. RWBY has legitimate moral questions here — when is holding out for a few worth risking the many? — but they go about exploring it in the most frustrating way possible. I personally have no respect for the guy who wants to announce that Children In War Is Bad instead of, you know, using the power he currently has to protect those kids already neck deep in a battle. 

Because John Mulaney remains relevant:

"There shouldn't be a horse in the hospital :( "

"We're WELL PAST THAT."

Marrow is the one going, "There shouldn't be kids in a war :( We shouldn't have to kill a few to save the whole kingdom :( " and everyone around him is like, "No shit, dude! But this is the hand we were dealt! You going to help us, or what?"

Literally all of these characters could have been so much more than what they currently are.

Except Winter. She's doing great.

Now for the final scene. Our group nearly manages to escape the whale, but is incapacitated by some sort of screechy power that Salem employs. 

She contorts her body, stretching out her arms to snag Emerald, and the others have a brief, but intense skirmish. Jaune manages to block a blast of magic aimed at Ren with his shield — nice — and Yang dots Salem's face with a bunch of bombs before blowing her sky-high — double nice. Oscar shoots out some magic of his own because, yeah, I guess he can just do that now? It really feels like it came out of nowhere after eight episodes of being the punching bag. 

Of course, Salem immediately reforms. She traps the group with grimm arms that come out of the whale, interrogating Ozpin about why he bothers to keep coming back. There's a very sad answer there of, "I don't," referring to his lack of choice in reincarnating to fight her.

Yang interrupts their little tet-a-tet to throw the question back in Salem's face, calling her out on her choices. A great idea but, as always, execution: "because something bad happened to you once upon a time? No one gets a fairy tale ending."

I’m sorry, but that dialogue had me cringing. Like I said before, way too on the nose. There's keeping with the fairy tale theme, and then there's shoving the viewer's face in it. More of Oscar's musings on how he relates to the protagonists of fairy tales, blurring the lines between storytelling and reality, which in turn encourages the viewer to consider how they see themselves in the RWBY cast. Less... whatever this is.

Yang goes on to talk about how many people Salem has taken from her, which upon reflection makes a certain amount of sense if you toss in all the people who are here, but changed somehow due to Salem's influence, as well as acquaintances who died as a result of her meddling: Raven is scared off, Tai suffers as a result, Pyrrha dies, Penny dies, Yang loses her arm and her school. I think the dialogue could have been revised to reflect that better though because what Yang implies is that Salem has killed countless of her loved ones, yet what she says is, "Summer Rose. My mom." Honestly, for the few seconds this exchange was happening my thoughts weren't even on Summer. Yang calls Salem out for killing loved ones and my brain went, "Pyrrha??"

That's how little they've done with Yang and Summer. I know in the past I've argued that RWBY has a "better late than never" situation going on, that I would praise them for making the right writing choices even if they arrive years too late... but now that we're here, I find that it's a hard problem to overlook. Summer is Yang's mom? When's the last time we heard that? Volume 2? Whenever the conversation with Blake was. Since then Yang has called Raven "Mom," focused on that emotional connection (or lack thereof), was excluded from the conversation with Qrow, comforted Ruby after she was blindsided by Salem's taunt, and otherwise hasn't mentioned Summer at all. There is no foundation for this accusation except a few lines about getting cookies as a child and the fact that we're tossing references in now makes me worried that we'll indeed get a grimm!Summer reveal. Better remind the audience that she exists before the twist arrives! Honestly, as much as a part of me wants to praise RWBY for trying to get things back on track, moments like this just ring hollow now. They waited years and now it’s too late. It doesn't help that this is the episode where we shrug off Ren's speech. What will Yang's cutting admission amount to based on this trend? Probably nothing. Summer will become Yang’s mom again in another six seasons. 

Salem, obviously, doesn't care. The real Hazel arrives and she orders him to take Oscar back to his cell. Instead, he gives him his cane with a whispered, "No more Gretchens, boy."

Behold, another meaningless line. Hazel hates Ozpin for "forcing" Gretchen on a mission and "getting" her killed. The whole point of his villainy is that he doesn't understand the concept of choice and that bad things can happen to good people with no one able to prevent it. Not every loss has a responsible party attached (outside of, you know, Salem/the grimm). So what is he even demanding here? No more huntsmen schools? That's what you wanted Salem for. No more "forcing" people to fight for you? Ozpin never did that in the first place. Or is it just a strange promise that no one else will die here? RWBY seems to be under the impression that they can just name drop dead family members — Summer, Gretchen — and that's that. Emotional depth created, never mind a lack of buildup or clarity. 

Then Hazel punches Salem across the room and she releases every single hero from their bonds. See the theme of this episode: convenience. Hazel shoves a whole bunch of dust crystals into his shoulders and yells that he's doing what Gretchen would have wanted, clearly sacrificing himself so that the others can escape. The battle between him and Salem is pretty decent. I enjoyed the dust vs. magic creativity and the sheer damage Salem can take before reforming. This fight really showcases how not human she is.

It does, however, bring into question Hazel's reveal about her needing an hour to heal at the longest. I mentioned how unlikely it would be that our heroes would get the chance to "kill" her multiple times, yet here we are, just a few episodes later. They got that opportunity and... does it matter? Salem's reforming doesn't appear to slow down at all, despite her head getting obliterated at least three times, so at what point does she need longer than a few seconds to heal? If this was meant to be a potential weakness the group would eventually exploit, we needed to see it here, both for that setup and to keep it consistent with Hazel's story.

Regardless, they fight and at first it looks like a pretty straight-forward sacrifice on Hazel's part, giving the group their chance to escape. Except... Oscar.

"She'll just come after us," he tells Jaune, turning away from him to fight.

I need a list for this: 

Of course she's going to come after you. This is not some shocking revelation. At no point has anyone thought that escaping the whale is the answer to all their problems, it just creates one less problem to deal with. Namely, the problem of "Our ally is captured, being tortured, and may give up important intel to the enemy. Oh, also he's about to be blown up with a bomb." Salem coming after them doesn’t matter. What matters is making her plans as difficult as possible as you work to come up with more solutions of your own. This is just a smaller version of the Ironwood conflict: “Well, Salem will just follow Atlas into the sky so it’s useless to attempt escape, or to buy ourselves time.” It’s really not. I know I’ve used this ridiculous comparison before, but if you’re ever chased by a horror movie serial killer hell-bent on your destruction and your reaction to this problem is, “Why run? He’ll just chase us. The only possible choice is to fight him with a 99% chance of our death,” then I beg you to re-evaluate things. 

What was the point of coming to rescue Oscar if he was just going to stay behind? The whale is about to be blown up by a bomb and the trio risked their lives ten times over to get to him. If I were them I would be pissed. We went through all that to get you out and now you’re refusing to leave when we have a chance? Thanks for that. 

Same with Hazel. Not that I care about the guy, but if I was sacrificing myself for others to escape I'd be pretty annoyed at them randomly deciding not to do that.

What does Oscar even think he's going to do? Kill the immortal witch? The entire point of our series is that they can’t do that (yet). 

However, if he is able to do something significant via Ozpin's magic, why didn't Ozpin do that generations ago? Somehow I don't think a younger Ozma closer to the height of his power was in a worse position to attack Salem than a tortured, aura-less kid who unlocked his magic yesterday. The more RWBY reveals about Salem, the more I go, “Okay, but why didn’t his happen [insert any number of years] ago?” 

Did Jaune actually leave? I assume he's just grabbing an airship or something before coming back to drag Oscar away, but seriously where did he go?

There's no way I can approach this scene without throwing up my hands and going, "What? WHY?" Which is a real shame because we finally get to see a bit of what the cane does and it’s... precisely what Ozpin's magic has always done? I mean, we saw that green shield five years ago and now there's a giant white beam. Okay.

If the beam just hits Salem with Generic Magic Power then there was never anything secret about the cane, it’s just, you know, Ozpin’s weapon. If the cane does something significant to hurt her we're left with the question of why it took literal generations to use it. Nothing is making sense to me and the only way I can think to salvage this scene is if Jaune runs back in, snags Oscar like a sack of potatoes, and runs out yelling about how he's clearly suffering from a concussion because what are you trying to accomplish here?

It doesn't help that this moment feels... final. Hazel has managed to hold Salem in place. Oscar has unlocked his cane and lands some mega hit right before Hazel passes out and looses his hold. Not only does this feel like a scene that should be at the end of the volume (we've still got five episodes), but also the end of the series. RWBY is building Salem into an unbeatable enemy by giving her more and more powers, and simultaneously eliminating the stakes by having our currently weakest character (in terms of exhaustion/injuries/aura/training) landing a shot like that. Why would you nerf Salem's threat level like that in the middle of a volume? Especially with a tool our group has had available from the start? If the cane does damage, maybe lead with that in the, “Here’s why we should stay and fight” office conversation. 

I assume that Oscar's hit will obliterate Salem to the point where both he and Hazel have time to escape, or he obliterates both of them (“Do it”) and that's somehow presented as a better choice than just running while Salem is captured, or the bomb will interrupt things somehow... but it's just so shoddily done. At the very least, if they were going to have Oscar refuse to let someone fight alone, have it be an actual friend he's staying to assist. Having Oscar refuse his own rescue to help Hazel has more than one problem attached to it. We can say what we want about RWBY's themes of forgiveness, but this guy was torturing him just a few hours ago while serving Remnant's version of the devil. Just let him sacrifice himself and move on.

And that's where we end. Oscar powering up, the cane getting all magic-y, and him shooting a crazy big blast that engulfs both Salem and Hazel. I can't believe how not excited I am about my farm boy doing something badass, but here we are.

Overall I think this episode was way worse than last week's. We absolutely had problems in "Dark," particularly when it came to the Hound and the group's blind devotion to Ruby, but at least those moments were cushioned by an otherwise decent episode. "Witch" felt like I was watching something closer to a parody of RWBY, one deliberately poking fun at the fandom's desires: erase all conflict for awkward silly times, your favorite villains are instantly good now, the heroes go toe-to-toe with the main antagonist because why not, throw a bunch of magic in there for good measure, and wrap it all up in some over the top "this isn't a fairy tale" lines. I can see the pieces of a much better episode here — Emerald sneaking Oscar out with her semblance, Neo snagging the relic, Flint and Neon, Hazel attacking Salem — but it simply didn't come together.

I know I said this last time, but I have no idea what we're going to do for another five episodes. Salem slowly reforming from bomb damage as the group tries to keep Penny from opening the vault? The grimm attack halted with the whale gone so Qrow can go after Ironwood? The longer this volume runs, the more I think it was a mistake for them to introduce Salem as a fightable antagonist now. RWBY doesn't know what to do with her besides have her inevitably fall in the final season, so until then she's left being stupid (Relic), passive (Mantle), or, likely, written out of the story temporarily so the heroes can turn their attention towards smaller conflicts and weaker foes. They literally can’t beat Salem yet, but they can’t focus on other problems when she’s around without coming across as negligent, so if you have to find ways to erase her to make room for that... what was the point of bringing her here in the first place? We could have established that Salem is bound to her realm and had her send the Hound and whale to attack Atlas. There, all the fun parts of the volume without her complicated presence. 

Well, the next five weeks will certainly be interesting, at the very least... 

Until next time 💜

[Ko-Fi]

[septembercfawkes]

Using Character Arc to Create a Story

Lately I've been writing down and pulling together different approaches to brainstorming and creating stories. Some are more basic and some are more advanced, and some will work better for certain people than others. Today I want to introduce an approach to brainstorming a story that works off character. Well, the character arc (or lack thereof, I guess), specifically.

So if you are one of those writers who tends to favor character over plot (🙋‍♀️ #GuiltyToAFault #WhatIsPlot), this might be preferable to you. If not, it's still useful to have at your disposal. Every story needs to address character arc (or the lack thereof, obviously).

Okay, so if you are new to the writing world, you might want to know what I mean by "character arc." "Character arc" is just a fancy term for how a character grows or changes through because of the story. Most of the time, we are talking about the protagonist, since that is the most important character. (But technically any character can have a character arc.)

And that's who we are referring to in this post, the protagonist.

First off, not all protagonists arc. Some protagonists remain the same. To be honest, this can get pretty tricky, as like most things in writing, terms aren't always black and white.

For the sake of this post, I'm going to break down the protagonist options into two categories: "change" vs. "steadfast." (Because I've used this elsewhere and seen it used elsewhere.)

Change Protagonist vs. Steadfast Protagonist

A "change" protagonist will do a more or less a 180, from the beginning of the story to the end of the story.

A great example of this is Scrooge. He starts out miserly and through because of the story, ends up being charitable. Other examples of famous characters:

Harry Potter: Unloved and powerless --> Loved and powerful

Elsa from Frozen: Closed off/isolated --> Open

Jean Valjean: Hard, bitter, cold --> Loving and merciful

Generally speaking, these would be called "positive" character arcs.

But you can also have a protagonist that has a "negative" character arc, such as Anakin's descent into becoming Darth Vader.

In the other category, we have the "steadfast" protagonist. A steadfast protagonist will be more or less the same from the beginning to the end--however, this doesn't necessarily mean he or she doesn't "grow." (Remember how I said this isn't necessarily black and white? Yeah . . . ) Sure, a steadfast character might stay essentially the same from beginning to end (cue classic Superman or 007), but most the time, in modern times, the steadfast protagonist will grow by degree.

Meaning, instead of doing a 180 flip, he or she will gain a greater understanding or a greater ability or greater experience. He or she will become more of something.

This doesn't necessarily mean the steadfast protagonist never wavers or never has doubts or never meanders the wrong way during the story. He or she just doesn't do a direct flip.

It's hard to explain this, because it's really more of a spectrum (someday, someday, I will write that steadfast protagonist article ✊, but until then . . .)

Some more examples of famous steadfast characters:

The Little Red Hen

Job from the Old Testament

Jesus from the New Testament

Captain America

Generally speaking, these steadfast characters offer a "positive" example. Their steadfastness ultimately leads to positive outcomes.

But you can also have a steadfast protagonist that offers a "negative" example. This is what you may find in a tragedy, where the protagonist refuses to change. Their stubbornness ultimately leads to negative outcomes. An example of this may be the grasshopper in the "Ants & the Grasshopper" fable.

(Also, I hesitate to use the word "example," because it sounds too highbrow or judgy, but it conveys my point.)

Okay, so now that we have those defined, let's continue.

Considering Your Character

This approach to creating a story is about figuring out how your character is at the beginning of the story and the end of the story, and then filling in the in between stuff.

Because often when you know how your protagonist starts and how your protagonist ends, you can get a better idea for what needs to happen in the narrative. And in a well-told story, the protagonist doesn't really change or remain steadfast through the story, but because of the story.

Think about your protagonist and how they are at the start of the story. What will they be like at the end of the story? If you aren't sure, maybe throw around some ideas until you find one that sounds interesting or that rings true.

Worth keeping in mind is that the protagonist's personal journey will play into the theme topic, so consider if there is a topic or attribute that sounds appealing to you. Do you want to write about love (Harry Potter), isolation (Elsa), hard work (the Little Red Hen), or bravery and kindness (Cinderella)? What defining characteristic does your protagonist have? What defines him in this moment in time? And of course, if you are brainstorming, you can come up with more than one answer.

Just know (I wish I'd known earlier!) that the attributes you choose to highlight in your protagonist will also play into the theme. So in choosing that, you are also influencing the theme. (However, let's leave creating a story via theme for a future method.)

While some writers prefer to think about how their protagonist is at the starting of the story to figure out the end, others prefer to envision the protagonist at the end, first, and then use that to help them figure out how the protagonist is at the starting.

For example, if I know I want Harry to be loved and powerful at the end, I might realize that I want him to be unloved and weak in the beginning, so his personal journey is more dramatic.

If you are new to writing, I'm gonna let you in on a little secret 🤫: Most people in the writing world will agree that the easiest and most-likely-to-be-successful protagonist option is a positive change protagonist.

Steadfast protagonists tend to be more difficult to write, especially for beginners.

Negative versions of either are more difficult when it comes to pleasing the audience.

Obviously all versions can be and have been done successfully, but it's good to keep this in mind. And my article aside, you will also find it is more difficult to find resources to help you write the other options, unfortunately. (Come on writing world! Let's remedy that!)

Okay! So next it's time to categorize (if you haven't already).

Is your protagonist a "change" character? Or a "steadfast" character?

Is this "positive" or "negative"?

Arcing the Change Protagonist

If you are writing a change protagonist, the next thing to do is to list out potential challenges, events, or problems that are going to invite (read: force, often by baptism by fire) your protagonist to change. As always if brainstorming, try to come up with more than you think you need. Often the first things that come to mind are cliches, and you gotta dig deeper for the juicy stuff.

Don't be afraid to be mean. Sometimes character-focused writers are afraid to hit their protagonists hard. But remember, that all stories should be about some type of death--meaning, the stakes should get high enough, that it feels like a life or death situation, even if it isn't. This means that there will be things that take place that cannot be undone, cannot be reversed--things that are "final." Also worth noting, is that stakes do more to reveal character than almost anything else (another article I need to write).

Now, if the change is positive, this often means the protagonist starts with a flaw, misbelief, or weakness that needs to be addressed and overcome. In A Christmas Carol, Scrooge is way too miserly! So what is it gonna take to make Scrooge, the most miserly person of miserdom, to change? Well apparently, three supernatural visits, that end in his potential death.

Unfortunately, the average person doesn't want to make a drastic personal change--it's hard and uncomfortable! So chances are your protagonist is gonna need some serious crap to happen to kick him out the door.

On the other hand, if you are writing about a protagonist who wants to flip 180, then this is likely a want vs. need issue. As the story progresses, say the protagonist thinks she wants to be rich, but realizes, at the end of the story, she actually needed to be loved. Notice, however, that this is still a "forced" change--because in reality, she went from unloved --> loved. So just keep in mind that what your protagonist is gunning for, may not be the same as what he actually needs. (Sometimes in positive stories like this, once the protagonist gets what she needed, she is then able to get what she wanted, as well, ex. finding out the love of her life is actually rich).

In most “change” novels really, you'll be dealing with a want vs. need within the protagonist, but let's stay simple for now.

If you are working with a negative change protagonist, your list of problems, events, and challenges may perhaps have a different nature, because you are thinking of how the protagonist is going to descend to something less. What does it take for Anakin to become Darth Vader? How does a high-achieving high school student become a notorious serial killer? And why? What happens that brings in these thoughts and leads them to make these choices? What will harden their worldview? What myths do they begin believing?

Perhaps they became so obsessed with chasing their want, that they miss out on their need. Since this is a negative arc, this is often the case, to some degree.

Again, list out more ideas than you need. Hopefully in the process, some ideas will start to coalesce and connect, with a sense of cause and effect.

From there, pick out what ideas are most appealing to you, what ideas or most impactful and dramatic, and (if you are familiar with how theme functions), what ideas best embody the thematic statement you want to make (or at least a perspective on the theme topic you want to explore).

Keep in mind that there are some key events in every story: the inciting incident (what kicks off the journey to change--typically the climactic moment of the beginning), the climactic moment of the middle (sometimes called The Ordeal), and the climax itself. These are big turning moments, so we usually want to use our big ideas for them.

In any case, all stories should escalate--meaning the problems get bigger, not smaller.

It might be helpful to organize your list with these things in mind.

Also, note that in the beginning of the story, you'll need to show how the protagonist currently is. Meaning, if you are writing a positive change protagonist, the beginning needs to show us what flaw, weakness, or misbelief the protagonist has, and ideally, how it is (negatively) affecting his or her life. If you are writing a negative change protagonist, you'll want to highlight attributes that foil what he or she becomes. Maybe this person was kind, innocent, and full of potential--show that in the beginning scenes.

At the end of the story, you'll need to show, or rather validate or prove, how your protagonist has changed. So we need to see Scrooge being charitable to others. We need to see Anakin become Darth Vader. Think about how you may validate the transformation.

Testing the Steadfast Protagonist

Now, if you are writing a steadfast protagonist, this will be similar, yet quite different.

Because the point in here isn't to illustrate a flip-flop. It's to illustrate ultimately holding onto core beliefs, despite all heck breaking loose.

The biggest problem writers make with steadfast protagonists, is they make it easy for the character to be steadfast. And it's annoying.

Instead of using a steadfast protagonist to illustrate how wonderful or great it is to be honest, charitable, kind, long-suffering--or how clearly wrong it is to be selfish, power-hungry, and dishonest--it's a gazillion times better and more effective to instead focus on the cost of being steadfast.

That is what this journey is about. Because if you want to be kind to everyone, that ain't easy! I mean, is it really easy to be kind to the person who murdered your dad? And guess what, if you are kind to certain people, they will take advantage of you.

If you are writing a steadfast protagonist, the point isn't to come up with ideas that will flip the protagonist, but instead come up with challenges, events, and problems that make it very difficult and costly to remain steadfast (to put simply, because in another sense, one could argue these are two sides of the same coin). These can be bad things that happen that are difficult to deal with, but on the other hand, they can also be bad things that innately come about from being steadfast in whatever characteristic the protagonist is illustrating (ex. if you are kind to everyone, you may pick up stalkers).

List out ideas that are going to legitimately test how steadfast your protagonist actually is. When it comes to attributes, we often think in either-or, but in reality, most of us just have boundaries. For example, I don't steal stuff, but if I was starving, I might.

So what needs to happen to test the boundaries of your protagonist's core? Try to look for complex situations that don't have an easy or obvious out. Sure, it's easy to be kind when you are surrounded by loving people and life's great. But can you still manage to be kind when you live with your evil stepmother and wicked stepsisters who are abusing you on a daily basis? Consider how being steadfast in an attribute can actually bring more hardship.

In a sense, Job got dumped on because he was faithful to God. People tend to recall his story as one where he remained optimistic--but if you actually read the story, the costs got so great, that he became bitter and angry towards God. It was the cost of being faithful. But the point was, despite that, he was still steadfast in being faithful.

And again, don't be afraid to be mean. It's the struggle that makes the victory sweeter (or the defeat worse, I suppose).

If you are working with a negative steadfast character, you may consider what challenges and hardships could provide the opportunity to grow into someone better--while also fairly showing that there are believable, logical reasons for them not changing. It's helpful to consider dilemmas. Sure, she could be kind and associate with someone in the lower class, but if her father sees her doing that, she is at risk for losing the family fortune.

When it comes down to it, when it really counts, will your protagonist choose to be selfish or self-sacrificing? If it's a negative steadfast protagonist, he'll choose the selfish option.

More or less (I am simplifying some of this for the sake of the post).

Often the negative steadfast protagonist will ultimately illustrate the tragedy and damage of not taking opportunities to change.

The positive steadfast character will ultimately illustrate the benefits of holding true to good values.

And keep in mind, just because a steadfast character doesn't change, doesn't mean he doesn't grow. In the story of Jesus, Jesus was already a God, but by atoning for the sins of humanity, He also learned how to succor His people according to the flesh. He still grew, by degree.

I like to think of this as the steadfast character gaining more wisdom.

So list out ideas of what could really challenge your protagonist's steadfastness. If he or she is going to grow by degree, consider how and in what way--what events can lead to that? What else does he or she learn and master about X attribute? And what does it cost to remain a certain way? How do these events lead to the protagonist ultimately becoming more steadfast? What wisdom is gained from them?

Keep in mind, we still want a coherent plot of course. So look for the personal journey and for cause and effect.

Since the protagonist isn't flip-flopping, often either the society or another important character will--sometimes because of the protagonist's steadfastness. For example, by Jesus choosing to do His father's will, it has lead many people since then to do a 180 flip in life. So it might be helpful to consider that as well. How can you show that change?

Once you have your events, pick out what ideas are most appealing to you, what ideas are most impactful and dramatic, and (if you are familiar with how theme functions), what ideas best embody the thematic statement you want to make (or at least a perspective on the theme topic you want to explore).

Hopefully by this point, ideas are starting to coalesce and connect together into a natural order--the story. Keep in mind the plot needs to escalate--it needs to become more difficult to remain steadfast the more time goes on and problems build, not easier. And pick big or impactful events for key moments.

In Closing

By this point, a story should start to take shape. Or you at least have enough ideas to send you in the right direction.

From there, you can outline, start writing, or dig deeper into incorporating more story-creating techniques.

In the future, I'll share another.