#but then……. well. he loves you. more than those hypothetical children—you’re real. you’re his.

[petrichorium]

Having a child is gojo’s greatest fear for much of his life. But then you show up. You fix that! He’s not scared of just bringing a baby into the world anymore!

Because suddenly the hypothetical woman he might impregnate is you, and that terrifies him more than anything else in the world.

[miley1442111]

(part 9)- hotel room choice- a.donaldson

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

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

summary: how art and you start to reconnect, as friends, of course.

(dw there are more parts after this :))

pairing: art donaldson x reader

warnings: mad angst, feelings of disappointment and depression, hurt, loneliness, eating disorder, SMUT 18+, piv, fingering, no protection, small fluff, etc.

PART 9 of 12

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

You sat in your hotel room, a full plate of untouched food in front of you, a party going on outside, and an empty feeling in your stomach. You hated your life. You were worse than empty, you felt desolate, and unknown. Everyone knew your name, but no one knew you. No one knew what you liked and hated, what your real dreams were, what you liked as a kid, what your favourite colour was. 

No. You were completely, and utterly alone. 

Which was fine. It meant no hurt feelings. No complicated relationships. But it also meant radio silence. It meant going days without speaking a word out loud. It meant weeks without real human contact. You had no family, none that wanted to see you anyways. You had no friends, no one at the top could. You enjoyed the tennis season, because it meant you’d at least be surrounded by people, even if they didn’t speak to you. That was fine. You liked people watching. Like when you spotted Lily and Art in the crowd at your match earlier that day. Lily was a beautiful little girl, and your heart ached for the hypothetical children you and Art would talk about back in college when you both got tired enough to forgo any anxieties surrounding talking about a future together. 

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

“We’d have a girl first,” he smiled, pecking your lips as he held you close. The cold air from the open window (that neither of you were bothered to close) caused you both to huddle together under his bedsheets, the darkness of the room giving way to a serious conversation. What you wanted your life to look like. How you believed it would look. “We’ll call her Lily.”

“Lily? Like my favourite flower?” You’d smiled as he nodded. You could barely make out his face in the dark room, but you could feel his smile against your skin. It felt good. 

“Like your favourite flower,” he nodded. “Then we’d have twins, a boy and a girl.” 

“We’d name the boy Matthew,” you decided. “After your grandad, obviously.”

Art beamed with happiness. He’d been close to his grandfather when he was a kid and a few months ago he’d opened up about it, telling you off-handedly about his desire to name his kid after him. You’d remembered. 

How could you ever forget it?

“And the girl could be named Heidi,” he offered. “It’s cute, right?”

“Very cute,” you agreed. 

“And then we’d have another boy-”

“Christ, how many times will I have to be pregnant?” You chuckled. 

“You don’t seem to mind me fucking you everyday now,” he smirked, pressing an open-mouthed kiss to your neck. You chuckled at his antics and pushed him off. 

“Fine,” you rolled your eyes. “What would his name be?”

“Lucas.” 

“Why Lucas?” You asked, holding his hand. 

“It’s pretty, like you,” he smiled and kissed your cheek again. 

“I love it,” you nodded. His hands went down to your waist and pulled you on top of him. 

“I love you.”

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

You pushed the plate of pasta away from you, a scoff on your lips. You weren’t hungry. You weren’t anything. 

You were empty. 

Knock, knock, knock. 

You got up and answered it, swallowing your tears back. “Hello?”

And there he was, blonde hair in a pair of pyjama pants and a hoodie that made him like 19 again. He looked at you with those same sparkling eyes, Lily’s hand in his. You both just stared at each other for a few seconds, before Lily shook his hand, breaking him out of the trance you’d found yourselves in.“Hi.”

“Hi!” She smiled. “You’re really good!” 

You leaned down to her. “Well thank you,” you smiled. “I’d love to play tennis with you one day, I bet you’re amazing.”

She nodded her head profusely. “Let’s play now!”

“Oh peanut, it’s kind of late-”

“It’s fine,” you nodded at him. “Unless she needs to be in bed?” 

“She’s fine to be awake,” he nodded, his eyes trained on you. 

“Perfect,” you smiled at her. “I’ll grab my racket, yeah?”

“Yay!” she celebrated. “I’ll go back to the hotel room and grab one of yours daddy! I’ll be right back,” Lily rushed off, keycard in hand. 

Art walked into your room and your frame stiffened. He felt like he had no control over his body. He was just… drawn to you. Like a mosquito to a light. His eyes stayed glued to you. 

“Have you eaten?” He asked, looking at the untouched dishes at the end of your bed. 

“I’m not hungry,” you shrugged. 

“You should eat something,” he nodded. “It’s good for you.”

You turned to him with a teasing smirk. “Really? I never noticed.”

Art felt 19 again. Awkward and much too sweaty around you. Nervous.

Like when you two first met at that party. Your beautiful face in the crowd. When Tashi introduced you to him. 

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

“That over there, is Art Donaldson with Patrick Zweig, Art’s great at tennis, but he lacks a certain drive, and Patrick is just an asshole who thinks he’s way better than he is,” she giggled. You laughed along, but your eyes lingered on Art. He met your eyes and his widened, he choked on his drink and you chuckled. He waved at you, and you waved back, a teasing smirk on your face. 

“He seems to like you,” she winked. “Go for it.”

You did. 

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

“You haven’t changed,” he chuckled nervously. 

“I wish I had,” you plastered on another fake smile and took his hand. His entire body went electric, every nerve ending on fire. You were touching him. You were here with him. Your eyes met his and he leaned in, trying to commit your face to memory. Like he would ever forget it. 

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered, bright eyes staring into yours. “So, so beautiful.”

He noticed how your breath hitched. How your lip quivered. How your eyes watery slightly.

“Dad, I’m ready!” Lily called from the door. 

“So are we!” you smiled, walking over to Lily. She put her hand in your and you felt that sorrowful ache in your heart increase in size. You’d wanted to be a mom. You couldn’t now, not after what you’d done to yourself. 

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

The tennis court was foggy, a slight midnight haze on your game. Art and Lily played against you, mostly having it be Lily serve, you hitting it back, then Art catching the ball and giving it to Lily to serve again. She was pretty great, especially for a little girl. It was beautiful. Your dreams coming true for one night. A family. A domestic setting in which Art looked at you like he used to. But Lily wasn’t your daughter. And Art wasn’t your husband. They were both Tashi’s. Everything in your life had become Tashi’s. 

Everything. 

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

Art walked you back to your hotel room after he walked Lily back to their hotel room. 

“Thanks for tonight,” he smiled. “Lily had a blast.”

“Thank you for tonight,” you smiled. “I had fun.”

He just looked at you for a moment, feeling exactly how he did eleven years ago.

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

“I had a great time tonight,” he smiled, dropping you off at your dorm. 

“It doesn’t have to end,” you smirked. “You could come in for a while.”

He’d never agreed so quickly. 

His lips were on your in an instant, his hands expertly undoing the lacing on the back of your beautiful black dress. “You’re so beautiful.”

“So are you,” you smirked, slightly biting his lip. He swore he could’ve cum right then and there. 

His lips worked down your neck as you both stripped, then you landed on the bed, his fingers slowly working you to your first orgasm of the night. 

“So pretty like this,” he whispered into your ear, somehow speaking over your moans. “So gorgeous.”

His lips seemed to be magnetic to your neck. His eyes, drinking in your body as you convulsed and moaned beneath him. 

“Art!” you whined gripping his bicep as you came. 

“Good girl, just like that-” he groaned when you took his hard cock in your hand. 

“Feels good?” you asked, coming down from your orgasm. He nodded his head as he whimpered out small praises, depraved sounds coming over of his mouth as you worked your hand up and down faster. He lay back as you straddled him, pushing him inside of you as he moaned out particularly loudly. 

“Fuck!” he whined out as you started to move. “So good- so, so good.”

“Fuck you’re huge,” you groaned. “You’re so big.”

With your praises Art came quickly, cumming inside of you with a groan as you clamped down around him, his orgasm triggering your own. 

“Fuck,” you groaned, laying beside him. 

“Please tell me you’re on birth control?” He asked and you groaned. 

“Fuck off and stop ruining the moment,” you chuckled, kissing him softly again. “But no, I am not. I’ll go and grab the morning-after pill now,” you sighed, getting up. 

“No way you’re getting it. I’ll go get it,” he assured, getting up and dressing himself. You simply walked over to your desk and pulled out a blister pack, then chuckled at him. He rolled his eyes and walked over, burying his face in your neck. “I thought you meant going out-”

“I know what you meant,” you smiled. “You’re so sweet Art, thank you.”

He faced you, a rosy blush on his cheeks. “So we’ll see each other again?”

“I hope so,” you smiled. “Cause I really like you.”

“I really like you too,” he admitted, and kissed you softly. 

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

He cleared his throat  “You’ll get some dinner?”

“Sure,” you nodded. “You’ll get some sleep?”

“Sure,” he nodded. 

You started closing the door, giving him a small wave,  but he stopped you, putting his foot in the door. 

“I wanted it to be you,” he admitted. “Always. I’ve always been in love with you.”

Suddenly this innocent night had turned into something much heavier. 

Suddenly you didn’t know what to do. 

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

art donaldson masterlist :)

navigation for my blog :) (criminal minds, obx, the bear, marvel, top gun, the hunger games, challengers :)

people who asked to be tagged :)

@fkaams

@emily-b

@yourmommycallsmemommy

@hrtsj1m

@januarycolor

@ruyaas-world

@tqd4455

[comeandreadawhile]

Clone Social Media : Hobbies

The phenomenon starts with the intention to show the civilians of the Republic the men behind the armor, as well as an encouragement for the men to do the things they enjoy when they have the time to in lieu of sitting around cleaning weapons for a third time that day.

Scratch that—the phenomenon starts with High General Kenobi, on a rare day of leave, teaching his Marshal Commander how to bake. Said Commander’s men were happy to taste test the flurry of experimental confections that pervaded their leave days in the following months. News spread fast of Marshal Commander Cody having a knack for baking, and so followed the spread of troopers attempting to make their own treats and/or branching off into other things the civilians called “hobbies” whenever what they could get their hands on afforded them.

The phenomenon kicked off when Padawan Commander Tano began a social media account with the intention of using it as a public diary, her first post was a picture taken of some of the 501st—with permission, her caption says—as they went about retouching paint scuffed in their most recent battle. The men are relaxed, some with paint smeared on their hands and cheeks and seemingly reacting to some joke or story told outside the threshold of the camera, and it’s an almost startling difference from the image of rigid lines of men, faceless in their full kits of white plastoid, that the civilians are used to. Tano’s second post is a video clip of one Captain Rex, with one General Skywalker sitting on his back counting reps, doing push-ups; the video was captioned “Another day in the G.A.R., restless in hyperspace.”

The digital diary continues from there, videos and pictures of specific locations posted only after reaching a safe distance to do so, never sharing anything mission critical—past, current, or hypothetical future. Eventually she shows the men under her how to make their own accounts, and other Jedi and their own troops follow suit. The 212th then takes it upon themselves to post pictures of the little cakes their Marshal Commander has gotten so proficient at making, and, when General Kenobi creates a joint account titled “command_212”, convince Cody to post pictures of things he bakes before they are distributed—even in the process of baking, if the fancy strikes him.

So Marshal Commander Cody shares pictures of his experiments, of recipes he finds that turned out well, of recipes that didn’t because of some error or other that he’s determined to give another go, with the occasional cryptid picture of General Kenobi taking his tea in the barrack’s kitchen. As time goes on those pictures shift to Obi-Wan covered in flour, or a shot taken from several feet away of Cody sneaking batter captioned “caught red-handed in the red velvet”.

As Marshal Commander of the 212th has taken to baking to relieve stress, the Commander of the 104th has turned to needlecraft and yarnwork.

The 104th retaliate the populatrity of the 212th’s command account with the domesticity of their own, despite the vaguely threatening possibilities of knitting and sewing needles. Boost and Sinker run the majority of the account, although all OG members of the 104th have access to it; they post pictures of the things Wolffe makes them, of General Plo covered in the lengths of scarves he’s received, of Comet in the ever-growing swath the gifted blankets with the current tally in the caption (his toes were off the floor by blanket burrito 6). The holonet at large loves Plo almost as much as his men, and once a week they post him saying some piece of sage wisdom—or utter nonsense, as the mood strikes—as the war goes on. After months of asking for a face reveal and requests for the patterns people are sure Wolffe uses, they make the most Force-forsaken tutorial videos as an all-in-one series.

“HOLY **** HE’S CASTING ON 12 TO START—“ “WHAT A MAD MAN!”

“So when you get to this row here you’re going to knit 3, purl 3–“ “TRANSCENDENT!” “—yes, thank you, and then keep doing that until you reach the end of the row...”

“Oh, OH MAN HE’S GONNA DO IT!” “HE’S GONNA CHANGE COLORS!” “Holy **** man he’s gonNA YOOOOOOOOOO!”

Cody is then issued a challenge by the holonet to learn to knit. He learns to crochet. Because Obi-Wan knows how to crochet. The holonet loves video snippets of them progressing on projects together. They also love the videos Ahsoka posts of Cody attempting to teach Rex, and praise the absolutely completely unrelated hat she later posts a picture of; it covers her Montrals with enough room for a few years’ growth. Anakin gets yarn stuck in his mechanical hand because he forgot to put his glove on before attempting to craft.

The real throwdown happens when the account for the Coruscant Guard posts videos of Fox aggressively tatting while venting about the lack of funding for proper security and surveillance tech.

Each posts sees a comical increase in the surfaces covered in lace doilies and runners, as well as a new topic for Fox’s venting.

A picture of an pillow embroidered with “Kriff the Seppies” is briefly posted to the 104th’s account before being taken down and replaced with a censor bar. Rumors begin to circulate when Senator Chuchi posts a picture wearing a gifted lace shawl; Senator Amidala comments on her confusion being resolved as to why Riyo kept bringing little baskets of crochet thread with her before a senate meetings.

A competition for ship nose art starts up, many votes going to the 501st, and the holonet’s heart once again melting at “Plo’s Bros”. Personal art begins popping up soon after. Fives starts posting spray paint tutorials, Rex and Hardcase become popular for clean graphic art. Bly gets his hands on metallic paint and the crowds go wild. Kix has taken his clean haircut game to the next level.

And then Colt and Shaak Ti make an account to post art the Littles make, most of them representations of their older brothers with wishes of safety and good luck, and of the only Jedi they’ve ever known, sometimes creatures they studied in their preparation for worlds outside of Kamino. Of batches passing their final tests with a congratulatory post.

Suggestions and instructions are sent out for clones who want to take and sell commissions, allowing them to finally make some money; most Jedi are more than happy to help make sure the finished work mails out properly to the buyers.

Ships of the non-nose art kind surface on the holonet. It’s generally agreed upon that command_212 is run by husbands, and Aayla is the protector of the 327th and Bly’s heart, even if she’s a clumsy menace around his artwork (caf spilled over a drying watercolor can be interesting or terrible depending on the circumstance). No one can agree whether Skywalker is married to his captain or Senator Amidala, but everyone agrees that Ahsoka is their baby. The holonet declares Plo to have Big Dad Energy. Shaak Ti’s Big Mom Energy is a friendly rival. The Jedi council has made no official statement denying or denouncing these attachments.

Public interest begins to shift from producing more soldiers to making sure the ones the Republic has stay alive, when the realization hits that within a couple of years the children posting art and losing teeth would probably be losing blood and brothers on some far away planet. Of making sure the men are eating well instead of just surviving. Well certain account-holders don’t post for a while, grieving a loss, posting again to reassure their followers they’re alright, the public questions what’s being done to keep the men emotionally and mentally well outside of the hobbies the public knows them for. “Born to handle any stress” is very much the wrong answer.

Pressure is put on the Chancellor to let the Separatists sucede, no one quite sure anymore why allowing them to would be harmful when at worst new trade agreements would need to be brokered; if they want to leave so badly, let them. And let the men have their hobbies.

(Sad thoughts ahead)

Sometimes commissioners never receive their orders, simply a refund with a letter from that clone’s Jedi after the latest battle ends. Any money they’d made would be split however their closest brothers decide.

The channel that always posts pranks and spray paint tutorials makes a post saying they’d be away to look after their sick little brother. It’s the last post they make.

The Coruscant Guard’s account stops posting a few nights later.

After Order 66 goes out, a new account goes up posting any pictures and cute videos of Aayla. Reposting old ones that the public is sure they’d seen somewhere before, posting new ones of funny faces and ridiculous videos of silly dances. The last one is the only one captioned, “she wasn’t a traitor.”

The account is deleted the same night, and the one of the 327th’s adventures never posts again.

Wolfpack_104 does not post, but is still there.

Command_212 is deleted almost immediately the night of the order.

Years go by, almost sixteen, and only after Vader already knows she’s alive does Ahsoka post again. It’s a picture of her, and Rex and Wolffe onboard the Ghost in hyperspace captioned “Was never a traitor. Always the little sister even if I’m four years older. In case you’re wondering, Rex still draws and Wolffe still knits when we can nab the string and flimsi.”

[unwantedtomost]

it had been months — sebastian stan

sebastian stan x fem!reader

word count: 4,401 words

summery: it had been nine months since you and your first real long term boyfriend broke up. but as they say, time makes the heart grow fonder ... and it also made the lust build up.

warnings: angst, smut, thigh riding, cheating, kind of a breeding kink at the end, unprotected sex (wrap it before you tap it)

a/n: i have never actually posted a whole thing on here before, so i hope this goes well. i know my writing can improve, but it’s pretty good i would say. enjoy!

It had been months since you had broken up with your long-term boyfriend. Your first long-term boyfriend you had since you arrived to the Hollywood scene. Nine months, to be exact. The same amount of time it would have been to carry a child. A hypothetical child. The same hypothetical child that ruined your relationship in the first place.

“You don’t want kids?” Sebastian questioned as soon as you entered the shared apartment. The topic of children came up at dinner with your shared friends. You, offhandedly said: “God, no,” with a laugh, not giving it a second thought. Not till now.

“Not really,” you said as you unzipped your heeled boots. “I never really have, not since I was younger.”

“Never?” He asked, heart starting to beat heavier.

You looked up to him, concerned when you saw his face. It was the same face he had on every time you guys got in a face, mixed with disappointment, maybe even hurt. You smiled, trying to lighten the situation.

“Maybe not never,” you said, putting your shoes away. “But not at least for ten years, maybe even longer. I mean, I am only twenty-two. I would like a good life without children before bringing them into the mix.”

Your warm smile and calm demeanor did nothing to elevate the tension, something inside you saying it did the exact opposite. He looked serious and upset, a combination you never saw much.

“In ten years I’ll be almost fifty,” Sebastian states.

“So? Guys never really stop shooting out good rounds. All my parts will still be intact by that time too.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Then what is it?” You were confused. Why was he acting like this?

“I shouldn’t be old enough to be the kid’s grandfather.”

Anger started to bubble up as well. This tone that he had made you pissed off. He was talking like you were stupid like you didn’t get what he was saying. The brassiness you had in general not helping your temper.

“Maybe you should have thought about that before you started dating someone sixteen years younger than you,” you shot back.

Then the yelling started. Something that could have been a deep, meaningful conversation (one that frankly should have been had way before this point) turned into a full-blown fight. You both started going in at each other, picking at old scabs that you knew would hurt. That was the point, after all, you just wanted to hurt each other. Because you were mad and upset, you guessed, but by the end of it, you weren’t even sure.

The fighting ended two hours later, you sat, slumped on the couch, huffing. You tried to catch your breath from all the yelling. Your throat was hoarse, your cheeks sticky from dried tears.

“It seems like we’re not gonna work out then,” you said, numb.

“Seems so.”

And you left that night, grabbing nothing but your phone before making your way to your closest friend’s house.

After that, you cried for two months straight. You really thought that Sebastian was endgame. That you would be together forever. That you would be happy. Ever since you caught sight of him at your first audition, you felt that he was the one. Then the universe laughed maniacally as it showed you just how fucking wrong you were.

In the past nine months, you had seen him approximately sixteen times, most being in passing, a few being at parties, and one time being at a coffee shop that you both loved. You started to frequent it less after the breakup, too scared to bump into him. Little did you know, he was doing the same thing. The day you two saw each other was both of your first times in three months.

It was all stupid small talk until it wavered, forced laughs and fake smiles fading as the reality of the situation simmered in.

“Look, y/n—”

“Don’t,” you interrupted. You knew what he was going to say, and you didn’t want to hear it. You simply couldn’t. “It was nice seeing you again, Sebastian. I hope you have a good life.” You took a few steps before turning back around for a moment. He looked at you like he was expecting you to run into his arms and make everything go back to normal. “And I really hope you meet a girl that can give you what you need.”

He tried to reach out to you, but you wouldn’t let him. You simply walked away and left him, alone. That was the last time you had spoken to him.

It was five months after the breakup until you let your friends talk you into going out again. And that night you had run into none other than the Timothee Chalamet. Numbers were exchanged then the next thing you knew, you were naked in his hotel room. After that, you went through a bit of a “hoe stage.” Every two weeks you were on a cover of TMZ, E!, or any other celebrity gossip magazine that existed with a “possible new thing.” The people ranged from Tom Holland to Madison Beer, and no one knew what was true or not. After the first few batches came out, you stopped giving a shit. You were allowed to rebound with whomever or however you wanted to, and you were taking full advantage of that.

You were so busy juggling so many people that you hadn’t even thought about Sebastian. Not till right now. Your eyes catch his from across the ballroom that you’re currently in. Your pulse quickens rapidly, you feel like you might even faint. If it wasn’t for Timothee’s hand on your waist, you were sure you would have collapsed on the spot. You watched as Sebastian’s jaw clenched just like it did whenever you did something he disapproved of. Just like it did every time he gave into himself and read one of those stupid gossip sights and saw you all over whatever arm candy you had chosen for the week.

“I’ll be right back, okay babe?” Timothee said, kissing you on the cheek. He waited for you to nod before making his way to one of his friends.

You don’t know what to do and those beautiful blue eyes you fell in love with all that time ago refuse to leave yours. You feel like you want to cry, or scream, or throw up, but you know that you shouldn’t actually do any of those things. You’d draw attention and you don’t want any more people talking about you.

Luckily, one of your best friends, Elizabeth, pulls you into a tight hug and brings you back to earth. Her body feels warm and it makes you feel safe, the smell of her strawberry shampoo bringing you comfort.

“I know,” she said before you spoke. “I saw. Are you okay? I’ll leave with you right now if you want to.”

It takes you a minute to process everything, and even though you’re running everything through your mind, nothing really sinks in.

“I’ll be fine,” you say with conviction, though you don’t know if it’s true at all. “Leaving wouldn’t accomplish anything.” You stop talking for a minute before smiling at Elizabeth. “Now, let’s go give the people what they want and take some pictures together.”

It had been two hours and the event was finally coming to a close. No more than forty-five minutes and the place would be cleared out. With that knowledge, you went to go take advantage of the free bar stocked up with expensive liquor. After schmoozing with people you did not even want to interact with, you deserve it.

“Two shots of tequila and a rum and coke, please,” you say to the rather cute bartender, shoulders slumping.

As soon as the two shot glasses were in front of you, you downed them. It burned like hell and you could only imagine the ungodly face you made. You tried to chase it with the rum and coke, but it didn’t help much. You heard a gruff voice beside you order something, one that was very familiar. When you heard a chuckle, you knew for sure who was right next to you. You froze again, that same dizzy, sick feeling coming back. You turned your head slowly to see those big blue eyes for the second time tonight, your heart surely beating loud enough that anyone in a mile radius could hear it.

“You look beautiful tonight, y/n,” Sebastian said, leaning against the bar, facing you.

“You do too,” you blurt out. Face turning red after you realized that you’re fucking stupid. “I mean, you look—shit. You look very nice, Seb—Sebastian.”

You’re so flustered and red, you want to simply sink into the floor. For a moment, you wonder why he isn’t acting the same way. It could be that he had already had some to drink or maybe he was just better at controlling his emotion. And the thought that makes dread flow through you is that maybe he is just over you.

“Are you going to an after-party?” He asks, sipping from his glass.

“I don’t think so,” you say. You were supposed to go to one with Timothee, where you were finally going to announce that you two had become official, but now you just want to go home. “Are you?”

“Probably not,” he said simply. “I’ll just have a few more of these back home and go to bed.”

“Drinking alone is no fun,” you say, hinting. You know what you are trying to get across but you don’t know why. It’s like your mouth was moving before your brain could understand what you were doing.

“It’s not ideal,” he said. “But I really don’t have a date to drink with, unlike you.” He pointed towards Timothee talking to a director you hastily met.

“He’s not my date,” you shot out. “I mean, he is, but we’re not like, dating.” Why the fuck are you talking!?!?

“It’s none of my business,” Sebastian said. He didn’t sound mean, he sounded like he was trying to comfort you.

“I know … but we’re not … if you were wondering.”

He chuckled, placing a hand on your elbow. “It was nice to see you again, y/n.”

He turned to start walking away but you called after him, making him turn back around. “Wait!” Once he was facing you, you felt like you were in a movie. “I could go for a drink.”

Sebastian smiled but his eyes dismissed you. “What are you doing, sugar?” He warned.

“I don’t know,” you said honestly. “But don’t shut me down.”

With a shared smile, he took your hand and you both left the party. On the car ride back to his apartment (that used to be your apartment), you thought briefly about how you would explain this to Timothee in the morning. Then you turned off your phone so you didn’t have to feel guilty if he decided to text you. Neither of you spoke much on the way. His hand never left its place on your thigh before you were finally there.

When he opened the door, you stumbled lightly into the apartment. Sebastian caught you by wrapping his arm around your waist. He lightly sat you down on the chair by the entrance (the same one you had sat at nine months ago). Once he had closed the door and put his things down, he came back to you to help slip off your heels.

“Are you already drunk?” He chuckled.

“No, just a wee bit tipsy.”

“Your ‘wee bit’ is usually a lotta bit.”

“Not this time, I really mean just a wee wee bit.” You suddenly burst out laughing at the fact you just said wee wee, giving away the fact that you are indeed close to being drunk.

“Maybe you don’t need anymore to drink,” Sebastian said.

“C’mon, Sebby, take that stick out of your ass,” you say, making him laugh. It makes you feel lighter like you weren’t fucking shit up again. Like you weren’t making a mistake you would regret in the morning. 

You watched as he made his way into the kitchen, pouring both of you a glass of red wine. Your favorite and most expensive red wine, the one that you had left at the apartment after the breakup. You wondered if it was the same bottle, or if he had done the same thing he was doing with you with another girl. When he came back, he handed you the glass which you placed down on the coffee table, realizing you were still in a designer white dress that you didn’t own.

“Shit,” you muttered after your realization.

“What is it?”

“This isn’t my dress.”

His eyes wandered down your figure as he thought. “You can take that off and I can hang it up for you. I’m sure there’s something here you can wear.”

You nodded before he was walking towards the bedroom, the one you once shared. You followed after him through the small hall. You looked around the room, noticing how boring it looked now. None of your decorations you had were up anymore, but the small mural you once painted in the middle of the night was still in full view. Did he think about you every time he saw it? If he did, why didn’t he just paint over it? 

Sebastian placed one of his shirts (that was your favorite one to wear) and a pair of shorts you had thought you lost on the bed.

“Well, you can get changed in here,” he stated before going for the door.

“Actually,” you called out, stopping him from leaving. “Can you unzip me please?”

He paused for a moment before nodding, slowly making his way back to you. The room went silent as he softly collected your hair and moved it to one side. Heat started to rise through your body at the close proximity he held. His hands grazed your shoulders momentarily before he steadily unzipped the expensive dress. You caught his eyes in the mirror in front of you, your cheeks immediately burning red. He finished unzipping the dress before helping you slide it off your arms. You had to cover your breasts with your arm since you hadn’t worn a bra. It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen your body before, he knew his way around there better than you did, but not covering yourself just felt inappropriate. But, to be fair, the entire situation felt inappropriate. The dress fell to a pool around your feet, leaving you in nothing but a pair of lace black underwear, ones that Sebastian had bought for you one month before you broke up. You stepped out of the dress, eyes never leaving his. He bent down to pick it up, blue orbs never leaving your eyes.

“I’ll go lay this on the guest bed,” Sebastian said plainly before leaving the room and closing the door.

Your heart was beating out of your chest as you let your arm fall. Even though you hadn’t even had a conversation with Sebastian in six months, being in that moment felt more intimate than anytime you had sex with Timothee—or anyone, for that matter. You pulled on the worn-out gray tee shirt that vaguely had ‘Coca-Cola’ printed across it before going out to the living room where you found Sebastian sipping on his wine, now dress in an old tee and grey sweatpants.

The next hour felt like a blur, it was filled with giggles and stupid comments. By the end of it, the wine bottle was empty and you two were officially wine drunk. Now, you were slumped on the couch (the one that you picked out), leaning towards Sebastian, hand dancing along the cushion space between you two.

“Have you realized we never had a goodbye?” You ask, breaking the silence.

“What do you mean?” He asked, not wanting his guess to what you were talking about to be right.

“I mean, we had a fight and I left then we were done. There were no ‘this is for the best’ speeches or attempts at a goodbye kiss. One day there was an us and the next it was … nothing.” You looked up at him, an innocent yet quizzical look on your soft features.

“We don’t have to talk about this,” he said.

Not this shit again. “I know,” you said, “we don’t have to talk about anything. We’re not together anymore. We don’t even need to acknowledge each other’s existence anymore. But tonight, you did, and now we’re on your couch.”

“I don’t—” he started, but you wouldn’t let him finish.

“We don’t have to talk about it then. But, I do have another question. Did you ever fuck anyone here?” The words flowed out before you could think any longer, nothing but courage and alcohol running through your body.

“What?”

“It’s pretty self-explanatory, Sebastian. I just want to know if you ever fucked someone in my—our—this place.”

His eyes bore into yours as he spoke, voice sharp and clear. “No, y/n, I have never fucked anyone in this place. No one but you.”

That answer made you happy. This place, your place, was still pure. No random hookups had tramped through the place where you lived.

“Good,” you accidentally said out loud, making him upset.

“Why does it even matter? It’s not like you weren’t fucking those young things you were all over in public.” He started to get angry at the thought. “Who are you to question me about my sex life after you broke up with me then pranced around tabloid covers for months with different people each week?”

“Because this was our house, I just want to know it wasn’t tainted by blonde bitches with names you didn’t even remember in the fucking morning.”

“Sorry to disappoint, but you’re the only blonde bitch I’ve fucked.”

Suddenly, your hand was moving and your palm was connecting with his face. It shocked both of you, making you both freeze in place. It took ten seconds before Sebastian grabbed the wrist you hit him with, yanking it so you were closer to him. So close you could feel his breath on your face.

“Slap me again and see what fucking happens, I dare you,” he spit out.

Then your heart was in your ass as your stomach erupted with butterflies and your panties soaked with arousal.

It was almost like you lost all control over your body as you smashed your lips against his. Your hands went to the back of his neck, pulling him in closer and tugging at the hair there. The intentional scruff on his face was harsh against your smooth skin, but it only elevated your pleasure. Sebastian’s hands went around the sides of your neck, one kind of cupping your face while the other was closer to the back to pull you closer. You felt like you needed to get closer to him, get as close as possible. You needed every single inch of him over every single part of yourself. Your leg swung, straddling him.

Without thinking, you rutted yourself against his thigh, a guttural moan coming from your lips as you did. It’s not like you hadn’t been touched in a while, you just got fucked a few days ago, but you hadn’t experienced something as hot as this in so long. It was rushed and needed, you felt like you would die if he stopped. Your hips absent-mindedly grinded down against his thigh again.

“Fuck, ride my thigh baby,” he ordered. You listened, slipping into your old ways. You continued to rut against his thigh as you kissed. He knew you were getting close by the moans you were letting out into the kiss. He pulled away from your lips, watching as you were losing yourself. “I want you to cum for me, sugar.”

Your hips slowed as your mind raced a mile a minute. You didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of making you cum from just his thigh. What would that do to his already inflated ego? It sounded like bullshit to give into him.

“No,” you mumbled out, your hips threatening to halt their movement.

“No?” He repeated.

You sat there for a minute, silent as his eyes frantically studied your face to see what the point was. He wondered if you wanted to stop, he would understand completely, but he knew that wasn’t what it was by the way you keep clenching your thighs together. Sebastian smirked as he realized what was really happening. He grabbed your hips and started to push you down on his thigh. The problem was that you wanted to cum, but you didn’t want to cum for him. Too bad he was determined on it.

You moaned loudly as he started to drag your hips. You were inching so close, the fact that you didn’t want to give in to the feeling made it feel like it was only becoming stronger. Your hands grabbed his old t-shirt as you frantically moved your hips back and forth. Your nose scrunched and your eyes shut tight, your mouth letting out a whisper of “oh fuck”s on a loop.

“That’s it,” you heard Sebastian say even though his voice sounded like it was miles away. “Cum like a good girl.”

Suddenly, all the pressure that was building up deep within your tummy snapped and you were on cloud 9. Your heat pulsed as you road out your orgasm, Sebastian's hands helping you immensely. It took a good minute of pants as you caught your breath before you opened your eyes and came back to reality.

“You’re a fucking asshole,” you muttered to him when you finally made eye contact again.

“I know,” he smirked. “Now be a good girl, sugar, and take off your pants.”

You questioned arguing with him more, but you decided not to. You wanted him, you wanted him so fucking bad. You stood up and pulled down your shorts, doing a little spin so Sebastian could marvel at how wonderful you looked.

“As beautiful as those look on you, darling, they’d look better on the floor.”

You playfully rolled your eyes as you stripped out of the underwear as well, leaving you in nothing but an old grey t-shirt. You went back to your place on Sebastian’s lap, pulling him in for another passionate kiss. You felt like you were melting into him entirely as everything snapped back into place. Your hands roamed lower, palming him through his grey sweats. You smirked to yourself at the realization of how hard he was already and at the fact he wasn’t wearing boxers. He lifted his hips to help you pull down his pants. Just as you were getting ready to place his member in the place you wanted him the most, he halts your movement by grabbing your wrist.

“Shit, I don’t have a condom, y/n,” he warned. You frowned, upset that he had stopped you.

“I don’t care.”

“But you still have that IUD in, right?”

You grimaced because no, you did not. Your five years had run out two months ago and you hadn’t gotten around to making an appointment for a new one. You shook your head slowly side to side before he sighed. He went to pull you off of him but you stopped him by holding onto his shoulders

“I don’t care,” you repeated.

“Y/n, you know why can’t.”

“Why not?”

He looked at you in disbelief. “Besides the fact you could get pregnant?”

“I don’t care,” you said one more time. “I want you.”

He looked into your eyes, trying his best to decipher your intentions.

“Y/n …”

“Get me pregnant, Sebby,” you said, meaning it too. “I want you, I want your kids. Fuck, I want us back. I don’t care if that means kids and a white picket fence. I just want you.”

“Are you sure?”

In response, you slowly leaned down and your lips touched. It was nothing like the kisses you had shared preferably, it was slow and soft. He pulled you closer, finally letting you lower yourself down on him. You both let out loud moans as you sink down on his member.

It was like you had forgotten what making love felt like, probably because you did. In the past nine months since you had split, you hadn’t made love with anyone once. It was all just meaningless sex or hot fucking, but there was no love behind it. You didn’t love Timothee, you hadn’t loved any of your flings. Maybe it was because you never stopped loving Sebastian—you were almost sure it was because of that.

You moved up and down whilst Sebastian thrust up into you. The room was filled with moans, grunts, and praises from both ends. He started to kiss your neck as his thumb started to rub your clit. The multiple amounts of stimulation only brought you closer to your climax.

“I’m gonna, fuck—I’m close.”

“I know, babygirl,” he cooed. “Look at me.” You looked into his blue orbs, feeling your climax inching ever so closer. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, yes, yes,” you whined out as your hips moved faster. “Cum inside me, Sebastian. Get me—fuck, god—put a fucking baby in me.”

With your confirmation, he flipped you on your back, thrusting harder. The hand that wasn’t toying with your clit interlaced with yours. Your grip on each other squeezed harder as you neared your finishes. You wrapped your legs around him as his hips started to stutter.

“Cum with me, baby,” Sebastian groaned.

You finally let the coil that built inside of you snap with his permission. Moments later, he busted inside of you, making you both yell out. He collapsed on top of you, trying his best not to crush you under his weight. You both panted for minutes before you finally spoke up.

“I love you,” you said. He lifted his head, looking into his eyes. “I never stopped.

“Neither did I,” Sebastian said. “Did you mean it, you want to have kids?”

“I want to do anything if it means I can be with you. Anything.”

[slasherhaven]

Could I request a slasher fic on how they propose? I have been thinking about it but I think you could do it more justice!(also totally ignore if you dont want to)

The Slashers and Proposing:

Thomas Hewitt

Thomas wants marriage so much. The idea of having a ‘normal’ family is everything to him. Getting married, having children (biological or adopted), it just makes him feel all fuzzy on the inside.

So, after so long of dating, Thomas was starting to consider proposing to you. He would talk to Luda May about it first, asking for her opinion and advice, and she was very encouraging.

Just like most of the slashers, he would have to get a ring from a victim. Even if he could go into the nearest town, he wouldn’t have the money to buy a decent ring and you only deserve the best.

Luda May would be in a really good mood ever since Thomas brought up the idea of marriage. She’ll be giving you looks and smiles that make you think that something is going on that you don’t know about.

Thomas and you will take a walk one afternoon, something the two of you would do to get away from the family when you had some free time.

When you get away from the house, he’ll stop walking, expressing how much he loves you. Whether he signs it or gives you a note. Then he will get down on his knee and hold the ring out to you, just like Luda May had told him too.

When you agree to marry him, he’ll pull you into an embrace. He feels like he could cry when he buries his face in your hair. He just loves you so much and now he’s going to be your husbands. He’s going to be a husband!

As soon as you return to the house and Luda May notices the ring on your finger, she is congratulating you both. You were already family but now you would be officially. She’s already planning your future with Thomas but just let her, he’s just excited.

Michael Myers

Never though of marriage. Not once. Realistically, never will.

Now, he’ll do something eventually. It’s far from traditional but means a lot coming from him.

You will have had to have mentioned marriage at some point. Given him some reason to believe you wanted marriage. 

He doesn’t think about it again until he’s killing a victim and notices the ring on their finger.

He will either pocket the ring or steal one from elsewhere.

When he comes home, you’re asleep. He’ll slide the ring into your finger and go to bed like nothing happened.

You don’t notice the ring at first until you’re making breakfast, freezing when you see the ring on your finger...the only explanation was Michael. 

When he comes into the kitchen, you smile and walk up to him. You lean up to give him a gentle kiss and he allows it. But doesn’t really respond when you joke about how he should have asked but yes, of course, you’d marry him.

You’re his, he didn’t need you to answer the question to know that. But...it’s still nice to hear, he supposes.

Jason Voorhees

Jason wants everything to be perfect for you!

He has to get the ring from a victim and he gathers a small collection before he picks the one he wants to propose to you with. He just wanted to make sure he picked the best one, the one you would like the most.

He’ll even take you out on a cute little date. Probably a picnic in a pretty location in the forest.

He’s noticeably nervous the whole time, especially when it’s coming up to the big question. 

When you ask him if he’s alright, he will nod and try to collect himself.

His mother raised him to be a gentleman so he knows what to do, getting onto one knee and pulling the ring from his pocket. He hopes you get the idea because he can’t really sign anything when he’s presenting you with the ring.

But you do understand and you accept, pulling him into a hug, feeling him physically relax in your embrace.

Brahms Heelshire

Brahms had spent a lot of his life reading books from the house’s large library, which includes romances. So he’s thought about relationships, marriage, and all of that before.

But its wasn’t until you that he started putting himself in that position. He’s craved a relationship for a long time but he’s only started craving marriage recently, with you.

Can’t get a ring...but after you say yes he tell you that you can get yourself one with his family’s money...sorry.

You’ll have dinner as usual. Afterwards, Brahms will put on some music and ask you to dance, which isn’t unusual, you just think he’s in a good mood. You’re not wrong, but that’s not the full story.

The two of you dance and finally he asks you if you like to marry him. You make him smile more than ever when you say yes.

Bo Sinclair

It’s definitely going to take a while to get a marriage proposal from this man.

He just never thought about it, never considered it. He knows that he plans on having you by his side for the foreseeable future, so why does marriage feel like such a huge step for him?

But at some point he thinks about it and he finds himself smirking at the thought of introducing you to people as his wife/husband/spouse. That’s what encourages him to genuinely consider it.

He pockets an expensive looking ring from a victim, sitting on it for a while until he decides what he wants to do.

He’s not going to make a big deal out of it but he might actually put together a dinner just for the two of you. Nothing fancy but it’s nice.

Then he’ll propose and you’ll probably never expect it from him. But of course you say yes.

He noticeably extra gentle with you that night.

Vincent Sinclair

Vincent loves the idea of marry you but is super nervous to propose. What if you say no?! He knows you love him, you’ve proven that to him time and time again, but he can’t help but doubt himself from time to time.

He’d try to make it as romantic as possible, already not liking that the ring he was going to give you was from a victim. It was a pretty ring and he would have bought you one if the brothers had the money for it, but they didn’t.

A romantic candle lit dinner! He’s pretty proud of himself for it. And it is perfect.

It’s after dinner, you walk up to him and wrap your arms around him, asking him what all of this was for.

That’s when he would reach into his pocket, fumbling for the ring before presenting it to you. Hanging his head slightly, shyly. He was adorable.

But of course you accepted and he couldn’t be happier, pulling you into a loving kiss before just embracing you.

Lester Sinclair

You’ll know he’s up to something pretty quick. He’s gotten all cleaned up and has put on a nice shirt, and when you joking ask him what the special occasion is, you quickly realise that he is hiding something. You just don’t know what.

He’ll...try to make you dinner. It’s not bad but usually you cook, or manage it together, but this time he insists on doing it all by himself.

Now you realise that Lester is trying to be romantic, something was coming. The idea of a proposal probably popped into your head at some point in the evening but you could never be sure with Lester, he could be a little unpredictable.

Dinner and wine, because that’s what he’s supposed to do, right?

He’s a real gentleman all night.

After dessert, Lester will give you a cute little speech about how much he loves you and how much you have impacted his life. When he’ll kneel down in front you, presenting you with a ring.

Even if you predicted it, act a little surprised for his sake. He’ll be smiling like an idiot as he pulls you into a kiss when you say nice.

Bubba Sawyer

The thought of marriage does make Bubba happy, it gets him smiling like only you can.

Unfortunately, he doesn’t have anyone to go to for advice. Well, he does but none of them give good advice. He’s better just figuring it out by himself. And he does eventually.

He isn’t sure when to propose because if he had it his way he would have done it already, but he knows that he can’t do it too soon. That being said, there is a chance he will propose pretty quick.

It’s simple. Once he’s found a ring that he likes and thinks will look pretty on you, he is ready.

It will probably just be in his bedroom when you both get some time alone. You’ll both be sitting on the bed, him babbling nervously, you’ll have to take his hands and calm him down.

Once he calms a little, he’ll reach into his pocket and pull out the ring, holding it out to you. As soon as you say yes, Bubba is smiling widely. Put the ring on and pull this boy into a hug, he’ll cling to you for the rest of the night. He’s so happy!

Billy Lenz

A proposal isn’t going to happen for a long time, simply because Billy has never considered marriage, never even thought about it.

He loves you, he wants to be with you, and he wants to be with you forever. Marriage has just literally never come to mind.

It doesn’t come to mind until the two of you were cuddled up on the couch watching a movie, the couple getting married. Then he starts to think about it and he realises he would like that a lot, with you.

“Would you marry me?” he lifted his head, resting his chin on your chest as he looked up at you.

You thought it was a hypothetical question. “Sure, Billy. I’d like that a lot” you smile, running your fingers through his hair.

He giggled, leaning up to place kisses against your neck while murmuring “wife/husband/spouse”. 

What’s when you realised he was being serious, he had just asked you to marry him while laying on the couch in your pyjamas. It wasn’t the most romantic gesture but it was cute. And your answer stayed the same.

Asa Emory (The Collector)

Asa is the type of guy to take everything into consideration. How would a marriage effect your relationship, how would it fit into his life, and how would it fit in with his ‘hobbies’, those are the most important things he has to consider.

It wouldn’t effect your relationship much at all. You already live with him, you know about what he does at the hotel, he would just call you his spouse. And because you already know about what he does, it wouldn’t effect his work at all. He had no reason to not marry you...

All of that just for him to realise that he really does want to marry you, for more than just appearance reasons. Admittedly, a marriage would be good for keeping appearances in his ‘normal life’, but it’s more than that. He’s decided that he would like to marry you.

Asa probably gives you the most conventional proposal. Probably a nice dinner date, a walk to somewhere more private like a nice park. That’s where he’d propose, already knowing you’d say yes. He’s always in control like that.

Jesse Cromeans (Chromeskull)

The possessive side of him (and arguably his romantic side) is fond of marriage. You being his in the eyes of everyone, nobody would be able to argue the point. You would be his.

But he still has his reservations. He lives a complicated life. You knowing about that side of him, about the stuff he does, not having to hide anything from you, that’s what pushes him to propose. You are already with him despite all of that, so he didn’t see why that would change in the future.

This man is so damn rich, you’re getting a grand proposal with this man.

He’ll buy you a brand new outfit to wear for the night and when you get to the fancy restaurant, you realised that he had bought out the whole place for the night. Even replacing the usual staff with his own. And you knew something was up, that he had something planned.

And he’d propose with an incredibly expensive ring. He just likes to spoil you, getting you the best of the best.

He’s already confident that you’ll say yes but still smiles when you accept the ring with you own bright smile.

Otis Driftwood

In Otis’s opinion, the proposal should be private. Something that should be personal, just between the two of you, which is arguably romantic in it’s own way.

Will most likely take place in his bedroom, since nobody but the two of you go into there, so it’s private.

He won’t say the words “Will you marry me?” It’s probably going to be more along the lines of “so you wanna be mine for good?”

And he will definitely get you a ring. It’s going to be stolen from a victim but it will be nice. He isn’t going to settle for just any ring he comes across first, he will wait for the perfect ring. If he sees somebody with a real nice ring, he’ll purposely target them for it.

Okay so erm…if you’re alright with gore and stuff, if you partake in his ‘hobbies’, and you have a good sense of humour…he may just present that ring to you while it is still on the victim’s cut off finger. He’ll make an educated guess on whether that would be something you found funny or grossed you out.

Baby Firefly

Probably never thought of getting married before you came along. She never thought about spending the rest of her life with someone, the idea of marriage seemed boring to her. 

The usual idea of marriage is settling down with someone, having kids, blah blah blah. She just wants to do fucked up shit!

But then she realised that she wants to spend the rest of her life fucking shit up with you! So that’s what your marriage would be like and that’s what she wants!

She wants to get the perfect ring for you because you deserve it! And she’ll get one for herself. Ideally, she would find matching ones or ones that are very similar.

Like Otis, she will target a victim simply because she’s decided that they are wearing the ring that she wants to propose with.

She’d asked “You wanna marry me?” with a bright smile on her face, already confident that you’re going to say yes.

Yautja (Predator)

The Yautja and humans have very different cultures and traditions. While they don’t have, what we call, marriage and aren’t usually monogamous or the sort to settle down, it’s not impossible.

You’ve talked about marriage traditions with him before, just when you were discussing the differences between both of your cultures.

They don’t get their mates rings, that’s a difference. But humans do, so he will. He wants to try to combine cultures and traditions.

Well, he’s not walking into the nearest jeweller and buying you a ring. Your ring is going to be made of some alien metal that you’ve never heard off, but it’s going to be super strong and super pretty.

He’ll get down on one knee and present you with the ring, just like he had seen in movies you had shown him. 

But a ring isn’t the only thing he presents you with. He will also present you with a large skull of an alien you don’t recognise. The skull is meant to prove his capabilities to be a provider and a protector, that’s their tradition. The skull might have been alarming if similar gifts hadn’t been presented to you when he was trying to court you, but this is certainly the largest gift.

[vidalinav]

im so happy you’re accepting prompts!! just know that there’s no pressure at all, and that we love your writing🤍 prompt: cassian and nesta talk about whether they’d still inevitably end up together if they weren’t mates and just alot of fluffy sweet banter

I did yours first because I really appreciated you saying that there was no pressure in completing it. I felt that and I thought it was the nicest thing in the world.

BUT It came out really stupid sorry so... I'm not going to tag anyone. However I will own my shame so here you go.

It's banter in the form of pillow talk, where Cassian constantly keeps Nesta up by asking her questions. In my brain, he goes on tangents and Nesta is the pragmatic one. That's like... okay Cassian. But again. STUPID!!!!!

~

“Do you think it would have been me?” Cassian asks as he tries to count constellations in fresh paint. “If we didn’t have the bond... would it have been us? I guess the real question is did the bond choose us from the start--our relationship destined? Or did the bond see us... how we acted and felt about each other, and some cosmic force recognized our love?

Nesta shifts in the bed, her eyes blinking up at him slowly. “Cassian these are not the type of questions you ask right before bed.”

But he has to ask, he always has to ask. There’s something about the darkness that has these questions bubbling out of his throat. “But think about it Nesta, don’t you think we’re sort of... odd.”

Cassian thinks about it all the time. There's no one more perfect for him then her and yet, he sees the way people look at them. His hands will always be stained with blood and Nesta is more fitted for white gloves and lace. And he knows she can hold a sword and fight with the best of them, but Nesta can fit anywhere and Cassian can’t fit.

“I mean I understand opposites attract,” he rambles on, “and we do have similarities, but we mostly fought in the beginning and yet I still wanted you even then. Was my want for you a part of the bond? Or was the bond part of wanting you? And if it’s the first, in another universe, in another time, would it have been me? And if it’s the second what if you hadn’t wanted me, too.”

Cassian turns to face her, the bed creaking as he moves. He watches as she frowns, her lashes casting shadows on her cheek. “I promised we’d have that time, but I never considered that in another life it might not have been me at all.”

It's not the first time he keeps her awake with some question or another.

Usually, she merely sighs exhausted at what do you think the meaning of life is? Does time even exist if we really think about it... Do you ever think about how you can know a person you’re entire life and only scratch the surface of who they are? Does that mean you can never really know a person truly in the first place and if that’s the case aren’t we all living with practical strangers?

More often than not Nesta’s covering her ears with the pillow, groaning while Cassian tries to pull it from her face. They’ve had a hundred and one nights like this. He wants a million more.

Cassian tries to catch his breath, almost wishing she’d groan or sigh or roll her eyes, play it off like it’s a stupid question because it is. he knows it is.

“So tell me,” he says, his words a whisper of worry, “what do you think? Was it always going to be us?

Nesta's brows furrow quizzically and she purses her lips. “I don’t know if you can tell this about me Cassian, but I don’t like many people.”

Cassian frowns at the words, “Is that an answer?”

Nesta shrugs, “I find it hard to believe I would have loved anyone else.”

“So you’re with me... by process of elimination?”

“Or...” She offers, her gaze alight with mirth, “you’re the exception.”

Hmm.

Cassian needs to think on that one.

“But hypothetically, what would you have done if it wasn’t me?” he goads. “We only exist because you turned fae, what if you hadn’t? There may or may not be a bond but the relationship is impractical if you’re human and I’m fae. You’d just get married to some poor bloke who gives you this large diamond ring and you have 12 children?”

Nesta scoffs, “Twelve?”

“Whatever number,” Cassian dismisses.

Nesta raises her hands to stop him, “we are not having twelve children.”

“That’s... a topic for another day,” Cassian waves off.

“No,” Nesta sings, “that’s a topic I will resolve now. We are not having twelve kids.”

“But I want a big family,” Cassian pleads, grabbing her hands and giving her that look that he knows makes her take pity on him.

Nesta rolls her eyes. “You’re head is big enough to fill up the entire house. We have no room for that many people. No. No!”

“The House is four stories. What are we suppose to do with all those rooms?”

“Cassian unless you are birthing these babies yourself in which I will fully support you emotionally, spiritually, and financially, we are not having twelve children. End of discussion.”

Cassian only grumbles out a response.

“And regarding your other question, I don’t know what I would’ve done. That scenario doesn’t exist. I’m fae, you’re fae. That’s it and unless we plan on dying tomorrow, I don’t know if we’d end up together in the next life. I don’t know if the bond keeps us coming back to each other. I don’t care. I want this life with you. I chose you and you chose me and we’re here together. And I guess, if the bond, or what I deem as love, means I’m going to have to answer these questions every night, then I guess that’s what I’m going to do.”

Nesta reaches for him, and Cassian shifts to make room for her. She settles her head on his outstretched arm. It tickles at his skin, but he can’t believe she’s just satisfied enough with that answer.

“Would you have married someone else though?”

Nesta sighs, but Cassian waits for the answer. She groans, mumbling about not getting any sleep.

“Probably,” she says at last. “Yes. If you want that answer, then yes. But quite honestly knowing my character and knowing the males in my town, we probably wouldn’t have lasted long. I would have killed him long before we ever reached twelve.”

Cassian laughs and Nesta brightens at the sound.

“Or he might have run head first into a moving carriage on his own accord. I wouldn’t have judged him.”

“How would you kill him?”

Nesta smirks, her eyes maliciously bright. “Poison... knives... a trip down the stairs.”

“Make it look like an accident.”

“Of course,” Nesta beams.

“You’ve thought about this a lot,” Cassian says, noting his mate’s excitement.

Nesta sets her hand on his cheek, rubbing her thumb along the rough stubble of his chin. “Murder is always on my mind.”

“I should probably stop keeping you up with my questions, then.”

Her lips are impossibly close to his, and he can feel her breath on his skin. “Maybe you should. I’m sure the House knows how to hide a body.”

Cassian laughs, the sound bright in the shadowed room. He’s sure that’s true and her lips raise at his calm shrug of acceptance. His eyes dart to her mouth.

Cassian wants to kiss her, but he has to tell her first.

“I love you.”

“I know,” she says, her lips nearly touching his.

Being near her is a relief. But hearing her speak is something else entirely. Maybe he asks her these questions because he wants to hear her voice into the last moments of the day. At all hours of the night.

Nesta wraps her hand around his hair and tugs.

But another question forms in his mind. “Would you’re family have approved of me?”

Nesta rolls her eyes, pulling away from him. Cassian grasps her arms, pulling her back. “Hey, come on now. You’ve indulged me this far.”

Nesta pretends to think about her answer, and as he waits she looks to the ceiling as if she’s actually thinking about it. Cassian can practically hear crickets.

“It’s taking you this long!”

“Well... I’m trying to be accurate!” She throws up her hands. “You know maybe they wouldn’t, because you’re not... princely. No offense.”

“None taken,” He remarks. Because he knows all too well the differences between them. Cassian doesn’t mind. She’ll be his queen. He can be her guard. Her knight. Whatever keeps her next to him.

“But then again, maybe they would because you are rich--hey!”

Nesta catches the pillow he throws and she throws it back at him. He catches it easily before it hits his face.

“Who hits their mate upside the head?” She yells.

Cassian rolls his eyes, “You hit me all the time.”

“I smack your butt. That is not the same.”

Cassian scoffs, “You won’t let me smack your butt.”

“That’s because you try to do it in public places!”

“Oh, so you’re okay if I tap your ass in private. You trying to tell me something Nes? Who knew you'd like to be spanked?”

Her cheeks redden and Cassian shrugs, thinking about it. "Actually I should've known that."

“I change my mind," She announces, grabbing his pillow, "they’d hate you and you know what? I would marry that man and I’d have twelve beautiful children!”

Then Nesta simply turns away from him and pulls the blanket over her head.

Cassian tries to pull the blanket down, but she doesn't loosen her grip. “Take that back! Nesta, take that back. I’m serious.”

“Nesta!” He hisses. “Nes, I’m not going to stop bothering you. Nesta!”

But Cassian slumps as the lump of blankets stays still. Nesta doesn’t even make a sound. 

“How about I pretend you didn’t just tell me about one of your fantasies and I'll bring it back up later. I’ll even pretend I found it in one of your books."

He rubs at what he thinks is her ass and Nesta shoves down the blankets with a flourish. Her hair is a mess of tangles all over the pillow.

“I hate you,” she says.

Cassian grins, setting his palms on her reddened cheeks.

“I love you,” He says softly, lightly tracing her soft skin with his thumb. It’s a privilege to be near her, to touch her, to be loved by her. To laugh and laugh and laugh. It doesn’t matter how, when, what, or why. “I wouldn’t want anyone else but you.”

Cassian kisses her lightly, “I still think we should talk about those children though.”

He merely gets smacked in the face with a pillow.

~

Fin.

~

I keep reading this and I can't make it better, so.... you win some, you lose some, you know.

[mypoisonedvine]

Dishonorable Discharge | dark!Bucky Barnes x sister!reader

please please please do not read or interact if this content would be triggering or upsetting for you in any way.  i do not condone the topics or behaviors that i write about.

summary: you and your brother were always thick as thieves, even if you weren’t technically related.  you weren’t ready for him to leave to go off to war, but you were even less prepared for the shell of him that would return.

warnings: noncon smut, sibling incest (I mean she’s adopted but still), breeding kink, innocence kink, loss of virginity, mention of hypothetical underage activity?? idk how to tag that but everyone in this story is 18+!

word count: 3.6k

tagging @lestersglitterglue​ cause they asked real nice!

Even though you were adopted, people always said that you and Bucky had a family resemblance.  It wasn't your respective appearances per se, but rather the way your eyes both sparkled.  Your parents sometimes joked that the two of you were more brother and sister than most brothers and sisters were— and they were right: even with the age gap, often the two of you felt like twins.  It was hard to imagine that your biological parents could've kept you and that you never would've known him... it felt like he had always been your brother, your best friend, your partner in crime; your Jamie.

You had been awful when he deployed.  You'd sobbed and screamed and beat his chest with your weak little fists.  You'd told him that if he left, you would hate him forever; that if he left, he might as well never come back.

Of course you regretted it once you got older and realized how stupid you were.  But you were only fifteen then, and heartbroken, and too selfish to understand that there were things more important than the promises you'd made to each other as children.  You were so afraid that he wouldn't come back and that you'd lose your only real friend in this world; and, like it often does, that fear turned to anger.  

By the time you were seventeen, you finally stopped crying and tried to make a life for yourself.  You tried to see it all as an opportunity: he'd always been the popular one, meaning you were stuck being known as "Bucky's little sister" rather than as your own person.  Now you could just be you for once— as soon as you figured out who you were without him.

By nineteen, you had lost hope that he would return.  You pretended to be at peace with that.  You pretended not to hate yourself for pushing him away when you needed each other most.  Silently, you thought of him every day; secretly, you went to church every night to pray for him.

It was the sort of neighborhood where you could leave your door unlocked, so you did.  Still, people usually knocked first.  You were wearing a nightgown you only wore around the house because it was much too short and small for you now, but with the hot weather, it was necessary.  You hadn’t expected to hear the door open, so as you nervously peered out from the hall to the foyer, you were beyond surprised at what you saw.

The man in the doorway… he looked familiar.  He was wearing your brother's uniform.  But his eyes were different.  That sparkle you shared was long gone.  And without it, you weren't sure he was your brother anymore.

"Jamie?" you asked, unable to believe what you were seeing.

Recognition crossed his face like he was hearing the name of someone he used to know.

"Jamie," you called again, your voice breaking as you ran to him; you wrapped your arms around his waist and held him tight enough to make up for all the lost time.  "I thought I'd lost you," you sobbed, "oh god, Jamie, I thought you were—"

"Shhhh," he soothed, finally reciprocating the hug as one hand stroked the back of your head.  

"Don't ever leave me again," you begged.  "I can't lose you again."

"I won't go," he promised softly.

And just like that, you were the same little girl who'd clung to his legs and begged him to stay all those years ago, but this time you'd gotten what you always dreamed of.  This time, he wasn’t going to leave.

“You still like your eggs basted?” you asked him with a toothy smile, doing your best to keep things light.  You had so many questions for him but you wanted him to just feel at home first.  You two had always told each other everything, so you figured it wouldn’t be long until he told you what he’d been through in the last several years.

When you turned to receive the answer to your question, though, you found him spaced out in his seat at the dining table, staring off into nothing.  You could tell he was thinking about something just from the way his eyes were glazed over; you could tell he was thinking about something unpleasant from the way his fist was tightened.

"Are you okay?" you asked gently.  Silence.

You left your place by the stove, crossing the kitchen and kneeling down so you were eye-level with him.  Hesitantly, you reached out to brush your hand against his face.  He was certainly older-looking, and stubble dusted his jaw where it met with where his hair had grown out.  You wondered if it was as strange for him to see you and how much you’d aged as it was for you to see him like this.

“Jamie,” you whispered, “come back to me.”

Finally, as your hand cupped his cheek, he turned to look at you.  Even with a face that was hard to recognize at times, the eyes that met yours were undoubtedly your brother’s.  Darker, yes, and clearly tired from everything they’d seen, but as blue and perfect as always.

"When you call me that,” he spoke, eyes scanning your face, “it's like no time has passed at all.  It's like I'm still the same boy I was the day I left."

You swallowed.  "But you aren't, are you?"

He shook his head, just barely.

“Hey, listen to me,” you instructed, getting more serious and refusing to let him break the eye contact.  “It doesn’t matter what you’ve seen, or what you’ve done.  You’re my brother.  You’re my best friend.  You’re my whole world—”

You choked up a little, but kept going.

“—and I’m glad you’re home, okay?”

“Okay,” he agreed, smiling that crooked smirk that made your heart melt every time.

“You still want those eggs?”

He nodded a little.

“Basted?”

“Yeah, basted,” he agreed, turning back to the table as you stood up and returned to the stove.

“Your room’s the same as it was when you left,” you told him as you cracked the first egg into the hot pan.  You were sort of nervous to bring up anything about that, but you thought he might find it comforting.

“I don’t think I’m ready to go in there yet,” he admitted.  

“Stay in my room tonight, then.  It’s almost the same as it was then, too…”

“I’m amazed that bed can still fit you; are you sure we’ll both be able to sleep on it?” he asked.

“Oh, I was gonna give you the bed and make myself a pallet on the floor!” you clarified, wondering how he ever thought the two of you could share a bed; you hadn’t since you were little little-- like, under ten-years-old little.

But when you turned to look at him again, he seemed genuinely disappointed.  "Of course I can't let you sleep on the floor.  You take the bed; I've got a lot of practice with sleeping on the ground anyhow."

That was the last thing you wanted, him reminded of what it was like out there.

"We'll share the bed," you announced.  "If I take off all the plushies and decorative pillows, there might just be room for you."

"Woah woah woah," Bucky raised his arms as if to motion for you to slow down.  "We can't just go evicting Mr. Hoppy!  He's been a full-time resident of your bed for the past twenty years!" 

You both laughed, and it was almost like old times.

"He'd happily move over for you, Jamie."

The two of you brushed your teeth side-by-side in silence; you waited for him to finish his shower while you turned down the sheets, scooping up everything decorative on the bed and tossing it into the chair in the corner.

You choked a little when he stepped into your room with only a towel around his waist, using another to rub his hair dry.

"Don't you have some pyjamas?" you asked awkwardly.  "No matter— I actually have some of the pants you used to wear right here."

You pulled the checkered pants from your closet, and handed them to him as he nodded gratefully; you barely turned around fast enough to look away before he dropped his towel.

"Why do you have these in here anyways?" he asked as you tried to ignore the sounds of the fabric brushing over his bare skin.

"I wear them, sometimes," you admitted, feeling your face get a little warm, "when I miss you."

"Well, I'm here now," he hummed, wrapping his arms around you from the back and pulling you into a hug.  You could feel the warmth of his chest and arms burning right through your silky shift.  You almost wished you had worn something thicker; and yet, somehow, you also wished that there was no fabric in the way at all.  

Slipping under the comforter together, you wondered if it was odd that he was cuddling up to you.  You didn't mind it, since it was the most like the brother you remembered that he'd been all day, but some part of you was worried what people would think if they knew.  

You brushed the thought aside.  Nobody would know anyways.  

He placed a kiss to the top of your head as you basked in how small it made you feel.  "You smell the same as before, sissy."

You used to hate that nickname but now it was beyond welcome.  It reminded you of simpler times.  

"I hope that's a good thing," you replied.

"It's a wonderful thing.  The day your handkerchief stopped smelling like you was the day I thought I would lose all hope," he recalled.

You remembered when he took it; he said he wanted something to remember you by, and you'd responded by telling him to just forget about you because obviously he never loved you at all.

"I was so cruel to you that day," you cringed.  "I hate myself so much for that..."

"Hey, hey," he got your attention with a soft plea, guiding your chin until you were looking up at him with watery eyes.  "You were a kid.  I was, too.  You acted out, it happens."

"But I said things that weren't true, Jamie— awful, terrible things…"

"I never believed them," he assured you with a smile.

"We promised to never lie to each other," you whimpered, "and I broke that promise."

He shook his head.  "It's all in the past now.  Just be honest with me from now on, and I'll keep every promise I made."

You remembered a pinky swear made up in the highest branches of a tree: a promise to never be apart.  He'd broken that one, but maybe he wouldn't do it again.  The thought made your heart flutter.

"Be honest," he instructed you again.  

"Always," you agreed.

"Do you love me?" he asked, so quiet it was barely a whisper.

"O-of course," you answered quickly, stuttering not because of any lack of surety but simply from wondering how he could ever question that.

Slowly, he leaned in and pressed his lips to yours, his thumb and forefinger still holding your chin.  For a brief moment it felt believable as a familial kiss.

But then it didn't.

He began to move his mouth against yours, and instantly you pulled back, looking at him with what you figured must have been an expression of stunned confusion.  "Jamie," you mumbled in disbelief.

"I missed you so much," he purred, seeming to ignore your reluctance.  "Don't break my heart, sissy, I just want a kiss."

"I can't kiss you like that," you shook your head.

"Please?  You have no idea how lonely I've been, how hard it was without you…"

You felt guilty for his pain, and you had always hated to deny him of anything.  The absolute second that you gave him a hesitant nod, he dove right back in, kissing you deeper and harder than before.  His tongue forced its way into your mouth but you couldn't pull back; his arm had somehow gotten to the back of your neck, holding you close to him.

You whimpered with confusion when you felt his other hand moving up your leg and slipping under your nightgown.  He smiled against your lips when his fingertips brushed over your hips and he realized that you weren't wearing undergarments.  You internally cursed yourself for it, even though it was normal not to wear anything underneath a gown like this.  What was abnormal was what he was doing.

"You're so smooth, and soft," he murmured, just barely pulling back from the kiss, "and I know you want me so bad—"

Just as his hand started to move dangerously close to somewhere it was definitely not supposed to be, you reached down and stopped him by grabbing his forearm.  

"D-don't," you managed to stammer out.

"Don't?" he repeated incredulously.  "Well, why not?"

"It's wrong…" you explained weakly.

"Such a good little girl, just like always," he chuckled. "You haven't changed at all.  Except, of course, this incredible body…"

It was much too easy for him to wriggle out of your grip, pulling out from your nightgown only to reach up and roughly grab your breasts through it.  Your face was burning and your gut sank with fear— and yet, there was a paradoxical tingle of arousal burning between your legs.

"You've grown a lot while I was gone," Bucky noticed aloud, groaning softly as he felt you up.  "Almost didn't recognize you when I stepped in.  I saw those gorgeous legs of yours and thought, 'who's the fox and what's she doing in my house?'  Of course, by the time I'd realized it was my kid sister, it was too late."

"It's not too late," you desperately assured, "you can stop now, and we won't tell anybody, and it'll be like nothing ever happened—"

You stopped as he started laughing lowly, shaking his head.  "Sweetheart, I'm not coming back from this, don't you understand?  You were all I thought about while I was gone.  You're the only girl I ever loved."

His hips pressed forward and you gasped when you felt his erection pressing into your thigh.  You bit down on your lip to keep it from quivering; for some reason, you didn't want him to know how scared you were.

"Feel that?" he asked, grinning when you nodded nervously.  "That's how much I love you."

You stammered helplessly as he reached down between your legs again.  

"Time to find out how much you love me," he purred, and you were frozen; paralyzed.  Two of his thick fingers swiped through your folds, gathering the arousal they found there.  "Oh, you love me quite a lot."

"I— I don't—"

"Take this thing off," he demanded suddenly, grabbing your nightgown.  You shook your head.  "I'm not gonna ask you again," he informed you sternly.  "Take it off or I'm gonna rip it off'a you."

You shook your head again, tears flowing freely until you felt wet patches beside your face on your pillow.

Bucky growled and manhandled you onto your back, grabbing at your nightgown and pushing your arms out of the way when they reached up to cover your chest.

He tore through it like it was paper.  "Look at you," he murmured in awe, "all grown up."

"James," you sobbed, "what are you doing?!"

"I'm taking care of you!" he responded, seemingly confused that you would even ask that.  "You're my baby sister; I promised to always take care of you and I meant it."

"This isn't right," you whispered, partially to him but mostly to yourself.

"This is the only thing that's right," Bucky disagreed, leaning down a little to hover over you as he began to push his pants down.

You recoiled when you saw his cock; you hadn't seen one before, except in drawings.  They hadn’t prepared you for this.  His looked big, red at the tip like it was angry; leaking and throbbing like it was desperate.

"You a virgin, sissy?" he asked in a way that made it hard to tell if he was being genuine or mocking you.

You nodded; you'd promised to be honest, after all.

"You were saving yourself for me," he informed you, and before you could deny it, he continued, saying everything like it was obvious fact.  "You knew you needed me. You knew you'd only be satisfied by your big brother's cock."

You shook your head as tears welled in your eyes, your protests muffled as he roughly kissed you again.  You tried to push him away but he was like marble, hard and unyielding.  You felt his sex sliding over yours and it made you feel dizzy and a little nauseous.

"You know how long I've dreamed of being inside you?" he asked darkly, his lips brushing against your ear.  "You know how long I've wanted to get a taste of this perfect little cunt?  I'll give you a hint: it was before I left."

He ignored your sobs of fear and cries of pain, and pushed his hips forward; he groaned as his cock forced your walls to part, and you felt like the wind had been knocked out of you.

"Oh god," he moaned weakly when he bottomed out, "oh my fucking god… you feel so perfect, sissy.  You feel so fucking good, I swear I could come right now.  I could fill you up—" he pulled back out most of the way and shuddered— "right fucking now."

"N-no, Jamie," you sobbed, "you have to pull out, you can't come inside!"

"Why not?" he pouted, slamming into you so hard that you were forced to choke out your cry of pain.  "I think you want it.  I think I deserve it.  I could get you pregnant and then you'd be mine forever."

"No!" you sobbed.  "Please, you can't!"

"I can," he assured you coldly through his teeth, his arm wrapping around your neck to hold you steady as he fucked into you.  "I can, little girl, and I'm gonna."

Tears streamed down your face, even as you let yourself admit that your brother's movements inside you did feel… intriguing, to say the least.  He buried his face into your neck, fucking you deep but slow.  You'd never felt so full before; you wrapped your legs around his hips before you could stop yourself.

"Fuck," he groaned, "you want me so damn bad, don't you?  You always wanted me.  I remember how you got so jealous when I lost it to Betsy Miller."

As sick as it was, you had; and even now, imagining him doing this with her made your stomach twist.

"You want me all to yourself, don't you, sissy?"

Shamefully, you nodded.

"Aw, it's okay," he soothed.  "You've got me, sis.  'M never gonna leave ya.  We're gonna be together forever, just like we always said."

That was all you'd ever wanted.  Why did it sound so terrifying now?

"I can feel you squeezin' me, babydoll.  I know you wanna come all over my cock," he taunted.

"N-no," you stumbled over your denial, but pleasure was searing through you faster than you could handle it.

"Beg me to fill up this little pussy," he instructed as his eyes got darker and a hand wrapped around your throat.  "Beg or you don't get to breathe."

"Please," you moaned through your tears, "please, fill up my— my little pussy…"

"Yeah?  You want my come?"

He started thrusting faster and you could feel the way your arousal had spread to coat both his thighs and yours; why was your body so responsive?

"Please, Jamie, I want your come," you repeated.  "I need it…"

"I know you do," he snarled, looking down at you with half-lidded eyes.  "I know you do, baby, I know you need my come."

"Please…" you repeated one last time, the word coming out choked and weak as you felt your own orgasm starting to crash into you, your whole body tightening involuntarily.

"Fuck, I can feel you coming— 'm close, sissy, I'm not gonna last much— oh fuck—!"

His hips stuttered to a stop and you winced as you felt him flexing inside you, pumping his load into you for what felt like ages.

He collapsed on top of you with a sigh and a smile.  "I wanted to last longer, even jerked off in the shower to try to take the edge off but… you just felt too good."

You were silent and still beneath him as he rambled, kissing away your tears between each word.

"I'll take better care of you next time, sis, don't worry.  Wanna make you come with just my tongue," he announced excitedly.  "But that'll wait until tomorrow.  Tonight you just relax, and don't move too much so I can stay inside you.  It's the only way I'm gonna be able to sleep."

He hugged you all night, drifting off even while you were wide awake and staring at the ceiling.

You were horrified at what your brother had become, and at what he had done to you.  But that wasn't what kept you awake.  No, you couldn't sleep because you were too busy trying to deny how much you had enjoyed it.

[bibliocratic]

How about Jon Martin and the cursed trip to IKEA?

Thanks for the prompt! :D

I’m sure this absolutely could have been read as like ‘IKEA is not-so-secretly a Spiral domain’ but this non-Euclidean hell-hole is of mortal making I’m sure of it.

(I love and fear you IKEA, never change <3)

 --

“I simply don’t see the reason why we’d ever need them.”

“If we have guests over!”

“We’ve never had guests over.”

“One day we might!”

“And over for what?”

“I dunno! Dinner or something, make a night of it.”

“Martin, neither of us can cook.”

“Well, we could learn.”

“Alright, fine. Pushing that to one side for the moment, my question is why do our hypothetical guests require a different set of fancier cutlery? What’s wrong with the ones we’ve got at home?”

“I mean, nothing really, just… well, it’s a thing, isn’t it? Having some nice stuff to bring out if people come round.”

“Will we be moving on to the fine china aisle next?”

“Maybe! Ha, ha, don’t give me that look – Why not splash out a little? At worst, we just have more forks and some extra knives.”

“…Alright, fine.”

“Yeah?”

“Before I come to my senses. But I reserve the right to refuse guests the good cutlery if they’re undeserving.”

“What, are you planning some rigorous questionnaire they’ve got to pass first?”

“Absolutely. Come on then, the fine china awaits.”

--

Alfonse has never really been one for home improvement. He’s got a rolled-up stick of posters that he’s dragged around from his old room to student digs to slightly nicer student digs since he was a teenager, their corners creased and dotted with blue-tack stains. He’s had the same chipped plate, chipped bowl, chipped cup set since uni, and has been belligerent about swapping them out for anything less likely to shatter the next time he puts it in the dishwasher. But it’s their first flat together, and it feels real, and grown-up, and kind of scary, and he thinks that it’s important to get this part right, to set their life together off with a different start than the other places. Meaning that now, somehow, they’ve got a squeaky-wheeled trolley full of pillows and a cheese grater and storage containers that aren’t see-through plastic boxes and honest-to-god frames for his Quentin Tarantino posters. He’s finding himself entertaining the rather luxurious thought of buying a large and leafy potted plant to brighten up their cramped living room.

Tom is in his element here, and he’s put on his ridiculous reading glasses that Alfonse says make him look like Dame Edna, peering over their chunky glittery frames to inspect the ballroom’s worth of lighting they’ve found themselves amongst. He’s humming as he does so, making notations with the pint-sized pencil they collected at the door. Alfonse is entirely content to let him take the reigns on this one.

He idly people-watches for a while, making noises of interest at another floor lamp when it’s expected of him – the students clearing out the kitchenware section, lugging around the straining blue blags, the parents with children who have been swayed by the toys – before he catches sight of a man circling the desk lamps. Glancing down at his phone, gnawing on his lower lip with some discontent before he glances up and around the terrain before frowning. He swings his phone in an arc, giving the hope of it a hopeful tap, muttering a comeoncomeoncomeon under his breath.

His mobile gives a chirpy buzz, and the man almost hits himself in the ear with the force of answering.

“Where are you?” Alfonse overhears. “I can’t… Jon… Jon, you’re breaking up, yeah, the signal’s… Jon. I’m by the lamps… The lamps. Lamps. I’ve got the trolley, yes, yes – you… hello?”

Alfonse hears a very emphatic fuck’s sake before he decides to go back to Tom and leave the man suffer in private.

--

Sinead’s planted herself on one of the sofas in the well-lit display areas and has committed to not budging an inch for at least ten minutes. The fabric is a cheery yellow, and it suits the colour-coordinated pretend living room, but she’s not sure she’d choose it herself.

She’s getting a headache. Mel’s off with her nephews and nieces over in the kid’s bedroom section and she just needs five more minutes before she can look at another floral wallpaper or toy car bed.

She’s disrupted from massaging her temples by an irate-looking man with some rather intense eyebrow game throwing himself down on the half-egg-shaped armchair nearby, letting forth a truly impressively disgruntled sigh.

“You look like you’re suffering,” she offers, because she is and she wants to know someone else is too, and he nods peevishly and gives another irritated noise.

“I didn’t realise there’d be so much drama involved in buying a sofa,” he grumbles.

“Amen,” she agrees. They share a quiet moment of strung-out solidarity as they sit moulded into the seat cushions.

“… What’s that one called?” the man asks after a moment of stewing in his own mood.

She shrugs but picks up the tag and squints at it.

“Brathult? With one of those… those A’s that have the little bobble hat. Apparently, it comes in yellow, blue and green.”

“Comfortable?”

“Not bad.”

“Hm.” For a while he goes silent. Then he points out two sofas tucked into different displays and artfully layered with appropriate throw pillows; the first, a stocky black number set upon a sleek wooden frame that serve as its legs, the second, a dense cuboid of cushions currently being looked over by in fastidious detail by a tussle-haired man wearing a t-shirt covered in lots of small cartoon cacti.

“Between that one and that one,” her companion in furniture-based suffering says. “What do you think?”

Sinead studies them carefully.

“The second.”

He huffs. It was clearly not the answer he wanted.

“Why?”

“Not sure. I guess, yeah, it’s not as flashy, but the cushions look deeper. And there’s more width there, even just looking at them.”

“But the first one has all that space under it to store things.”

“Yeah, but you just know it’s going to build up with dust, and you’d be having to get the hoover under it all the time. It seems a bit finnicky.”

The man gives a considering nod.

“You’re right.”

He hefts himself up and calls over to the other display room: “Martin!”

The tussle-haired man whirls around.

Her companion holds up his hands. “You were right. The second one.”

The tussle-haired man looks smugly victorious. Sinead tries to hide her smirk at the sight.

--

Andy’s heaving the flat-pack box for a small bookcase into their trolley when they hear a conversation bleed through from the other side of the huge metal shelves in the warehouse part of the store.

“I’ve got it, I’ve got it.”

“It’s coming down on my side – woahwoahwoah – ”

“It’s – Christ, swing it this way a bit – ”

“I’ve not – Jon, I’ve not got – it’s – Jon, it’s slipping.”

“Put it down – DOWN – yes, that’s… Right. Let’s… let’s just have a moment. Catch our breath.”

“God, why’s it so heavy? It’s not like it’s even that big!”

Andy pops their head around to the other side of the shelf. Two men are puffing and sweaty, the colour on their faces blooming with exertion. Between the two of them is the long and bulky cardboard box they are clearly trying to manhandle into their trolley.

“Do you… um, do you need a hand?” they ask.

The shorter one waves a polite but dismissive hand before they manage to wrangle some air into their lungs.

“We’re good, thanks.” He says. The taller one raises an eyebrow.

Andy knows well enough to leave them to it.

--

“Hmmm! You weren’t lying about the meatballs.”

“I know right, like, what’s the secret?”

“Probably E-numbers.”

“Don’t ruin these for me, Jon!”

“Haha, alright. Help me out with the chips?”

“You finished?”

“The hot dog was enough, I’m getting full.”

“Pass them over then…. You know, I think we did alright with our spoils today. And it wasn’t so bad, all told.”

“We have to get this all in the car yet.”

“God, don’t remind me.”

[haikyuuuuuhypeeeee]

Ch. Fifteen

⚠WARNING: Mention of previous character's death

• ────── ✾ ────── •

You set your phone down and look at Oikawa’s prone body lying next to you.

Once you returned to your apartment Oikawa was 99% asleep - you’re really not sure how he was able to put one foot in front of the other, but he did. You were going to deposit him into your bed but Oikawa was clinging to you like an octopus. So instead you let gravity do the work and you both had fallen backwards onto your comforter and pillows.

Oikawa didn’t even bother moving to get underneath the blankets before he properly fell asleep, mouth open and everything. He remained clutched to your arms, and you were helpless to try and escape from under him.

Ever since they were children, Oikawa always had to cling to someone and he’d be especially clingy when he was upset (which given today wasn’t surprising that you couldn’t pry yourself from his grip.) Since you, Oikawa and Hajime all lived in the same neighborhood since elementary, you had frequent sleepovers at each other’s homes. And sure enough, every time Oikawa would subconsciously choose you or Hajime to cling to while sleeping.

Hajime absolutely hated it but you didn’t mind.

Watching your friend sleep you can't help but give a sad little smile. He looks peaceful and so young in sleep. You know he’s the furthest from innocent right now, and he has a lot of work ahead of him to fully earn your trust back. But you wish that he wasn’t tortured with the troubles that plague you all.

A knock at the door makes you sit up. Oikawa’s face pinches at the motion, and you speak to him. “Mattsun and Makki are here, but you can sleep if you want.”

His reply is a sleepy grumble but he too sits up. You know that despite him only getting a few hours of sleep he won’t want to be left alone in your room. Together, with Oikawa leaning on you, you walk to the door and let in your friends. Mattsun raises his eyebrows at the sight of a clingy and exhausted Oikawa hanging off your frame but you just shrug. Makki seems to take pity on you as he drags Oikawa off and over to the couch, handing his coat off to Mattsun to hang up.

“Thanks for coming over,” you tell Mattsun. “I’m gonna put the kettle on and order some lunch.”

Mattsun nods. “Whatever you need to do.” He gives you a small smile and leaves you in the apartment entrance. You can recognize that he’s giving you space and letting you set the boundaries for the conversation to follow, and you appreciate his tact.

After you order the take out and make tea you enter your living room and see Makki and Mattsun sharing your couch. Oikawa is slumped in your armchair, eyelids drooping as he tries to stay away.

“Oikawa you can go back to sleep if you want.” You offer after setting down the tray with tea. He shakes his head at you as you pass out mugs but doesn’t verbalize.

“Okay, if you’re sure.” You settle on the ground by the coffee table, choosing to face your friends instead of sitting next to them. It’s quiet for a few minutes while everyone relaxes in their seats and sips the jasmine tea you’ve made. There’s a tangible tension in the air, stemming from the second Oikawa opened his mouth at the restaurant last night to this very moment. Mattsun and Makki are waiting for you to initiate, for in their eyes you were ready to tear Oikawa limb from limb yesterday and today you greeted them at the door with your tall friend clinging to you.

Plus there's the whole you loving Hajime thing that should be addressed.

You know that your friends would never, ever push you to discuss it. But they’re probably wondering why they weren’t privy to the info, why Oikawa was, and if you don’t trust them or something. The last thing you want is to make your friends doubt the relationship you have with them, so you’re ready to clear the air and address the elephant in the room.

“I love Hajime.” You say. Everyone looks up from their tea to you. “I’ve been in love with him since the first year of high school, I think.”

Predictably, you’re met with matching sad looks. But even though you knew it was coming, you still can’t squirm uncomfortably at the pity you feel coming from them. This was exactly why you didn’t want anyone to know, especially now.

“Were you ever going to tell him?” Mattsun asks quietly.

You shrug, both at his question and the uneasiness settling in your gut “I didn’t feel like I needed to at the time. We were still in high school, still living life. I was happy with our friendship and I didn’t think anything more.” You smile ruefully. “If anything I think I was more worried about not being friends with him anymore if a confession went south.

“Honestly, I didn’t think that there would be a day that I wouldn’t be able to tell him how I felt. Even if I grew out of those feelings, part of me thought I’d be able to confess some day. I don’t regret our friendship, not when I wanted more. But I do regret not being upfront about my feelings with Hajime. He was my best friend, and I should’ve been able to tell him anything.”

You feel tears prick at your eyes and you look down at your tea. “We all have wonderful memories with Hajime, and I will never ever forget him. But it sucks, because while the memories are wonderful I can’t help but think how much better they could’ve been if I told him how I felt about him.”

You sniff, holding back your tears. You look back up and see Oikawa wiping his eyes and Makki sniffling.

Mattsun is looking at you with a serious expression. “I don’t want to go through hypotheticals or explore ‘what ifs,’ but I don’t think I’m alone in saying that Iwazumi cared for you differently than he did us. And I don’t think it was because you were best friends growing up with Oikawa, because he hated Oikawa.”

“Hey!” Oikawa pipes up from his spot, but there’s no real heat behind it.

Mattsun shifts, clearing his throat. When he speaks again his voice is rough with emotion. “You were precious to him, and his actions reflected how much he cared for you.”

You recognize that Mattsun is not outright saying the L-word but his careful alluding makes you smile tearfully. “I know, and he’s always going to hold a special place in my heart.”

Nobody says anything to that, and the room is blanketed with silence again.

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Makki asks quietly, subdued. “Oikawa knew, but me and Issei didn’t.”

You sigh, your chest tight at the wounded look on Makki’s face. “I didn’t mean for Oikawa to find out. And I didn’t want to hide it because I didn’t trust you. But I just didn’t know how to bring it up, especially after Hajime passed away. I just,” you pause, sighing. “We’re all struggling, and I didn’t want you to think differently of me, or I didn’t want you to think that your feelings weren’t valid.”

It’s a lame excuse, but it’s probably the best way you can explain your thoughts. You’re not sure if their feelings are stronger or lesser than yours but you don’t need to know. The varying levels of grief people feel do not need to meet a criteria to be judged. Just because you love Hajime beyond the level of friendship that Oikawa, Mattsun or Makki probably love Hajime doesn’t mean that you “win” the game of grief.

“Y/N,” Mattsun says softly. “We’re your friends, and we want you to come to us with anything. Well, anything you feel comfortable sharing, which I guess in this case you weren’t comfortable with.” Mattsun pauses, it looks like he’s struggling to pick his words. “I do feel pain for you, but mainly because you’ve been dealing with these thoughts alone. I’m sorry if we ever gave you the impression that you couldn’t talk to us.”

You shake your head. “It’s not that, I swear. I just didn’t want to burden you all.”

Mattsun sighs. “I understand, and I don’t want to push you to share anything you don’t want to. But we love Iwaizumi, and if you want to talk about him or need to talk about him, know you can always come to us.”

Makki and Oikawa nod in agreement. You feel your eyes sting again but you smile, because you have the most kind and generous friends you could ask for. Hindsight is 20/20, but your heart does feel lighter knowing that your friends won’t ostracize you or anything because you love Hajime.

“We should’ve known that Oikawa would’ve just confronted Y/N straight on, he’s always been a jerk like that.” Makki says teasingly, trying to lighten the mood.

But instead of squawking in protest or complaining dramatically, Oikawa nods. “Yeah, I’m an asshole.”

Makki’s smile instantly shifts into an uncomfortable frown. “Oikawa, I was just joking -”

“But you’re right.” Oikawa cuts him off firmly. “And I’ve been even worse the past few months. I haven’t been taking care of myself like I should, and I’m sorry taking my frustrations out on you guys.” He takes in a breath. “I’m going to take a break from volleyball so I can make time for my therapy sessions.”

You, Mattsun and Makki all share the same look of surprise. “Oikawa, are you sure?” You can’t help but think back to Oikawa’s reason for not wanting to quit volleyball, and part of you feels guilty for suggesting he take away the strong connection he had to Hajime.

But Oikawa gives you a weak smile. “If Iwa-chan were here, he would call me a dumbass for not taking care of myself.”

“Yeah, he’d probably call you a dumbass and throw a volleyball at your head.” Makki adds. Oikawa squawks at the tease, making everyone in the room laugh.

You smile as you watch Oikawa snap back at Makki, with Mattsun egging them both on. They fall into a routine they’ve established since high school. The one missing component - Hajime either ignoring Oikawa’s calls for backup or sharing comistering looks with you - is obvious, but it doesn’t hurt as much. Your friends’ presence in your apartment fills you with warmth and comfort, like a warm blanket at the end of a hard day.

A knock at the door disrupts your thoughts and you stand to grab the takeout. Mattsun goes to the kitchen to grab plates and utensils, while Oikawa and Makki continue to squabble in the living room. You and Mattsun return to the living room at the same time, causing Makki and Oikawa to call a truce and grab food. There’s a comfortable silence in your apartment as you all fill your plates and settle. As you dig in, an errant thought comes to your mind.

“Oikawa, how do you know where Osamu lives?”

Oikawa speaks around the noodles shoved in his mouth. “I have a fan who works in the registrar’s office and it wasn’t hard to bribe her to look it up.”

“Yeah, that’s something we haven’t talked about yet.” Makki notes, looking right at you.

You avoid his gaze. “About Oikawa’s fans? Yes, it’s ridiculous how crazy they are.”

“That’s not what I was talking about and you know it.”

You glance up, sighing at the looks of intrigue on Makki and Mattsun’s faces. “I was upset last night, and I left my keys at his place. He let me stay because I was upset. We’re just friends.”

Mattsun purses his lips at you, but Makki has a thoughtful look.

“Well, he’s pretty cute. If Mattsun ever gets tired of me I might have to give him a call.”

“Shut up,” you hiss. You know you’re just playing into his trap, and hell would have to freeze over before Mattsun and Makki broke up but you couldn’t even hold back your distaste at the idea.

The smirk on Makki’s face only grows. “Oh, is Osamu into possessiveness?”

“Excuse me?” You ask darkly.

“He said you were possessive.” Oikawa helpfully supplies with his mouth full of food. You’re about to yell at him for manners when Mattsun speaks up.

“You’re different around him.”

Uh oh, he’s using the same voice he used earlier when talking about Hajime and you. He’s not teasing you.

“Different how?” You ask quietly.

He shrugs. “Different, like how you acted around Iwaizumi.”

His observation is met with silence, Makki glancing at Mattsun nervously and Oikawa gazing directly at you.

“Do you like Osamu-kun?” Oikawa asks.

“Wow, yet again Oikawa is not scared to ask the hard questions!” Your attempts at deflection do not go well, as Mattsun serves you an intense look.

“Do you like him?”

You push back, rolling your eyes. “I think you guys know more than anyone that I’m in no state to be in a relationship right now.”

“That’s not what we’re asking.” Oikawa replies. He’s still staring at you, but it’s not a mean look on his face. Neither Mattsun nor Makki are looking at you meanly either, but all three of your friends’ eyes bore into you. Oikawa speaks up again. “Do you feel differently about Osamu compared to me, Mattsun and Makki?”

Your first instinct is to say no because you do see him as you see your friends. You think of all of the conversations you’ve both had about school and classes. And you think of all the stories you’ve shared about growing up in Sendai and your likes, dislikes.

You would even say that you and Osamu are best friends, given how much you’ve relied on him when it comes to dealing with Iwaizumi. A twinge of guilt twists in your stomach as you worry that maybe you rely on him too much. He has his own burdens to carry.

But at the end of the day, you just know that he’d be there for you. And he’s shown time and time again that he will be there for a late night phone call or a shoulder to cry on.

Even those late night text conversations when you’re too scared to fall asleep. Or how the way he supports is different to Makki, Mattsun and Oikawa.

But why? Why is it different?

Is it because he didn’t know the Y/N you were when you were younger? He didn’t know the Y/N that existed before high school?

He doesn’t know you from before Hajime died. He’s seen this raw, broken-down version of you. And he still wants to talk to you. He still wants to hang out and get coffee and be with you.

And in return, you know this raw, broken-down version of Osamu. Honestly, you could care less if the Osamu you never knew was the richest man in the world, or the smartest man alive. The Osamu now has been shaped and has grown from every experience he’s lived, the good and the bad. And everytime you talk you find out more about him that draws you in more. You’re never going to be satisfied until you find out everything about him. You’re not sure if it’s obsession or infatuation, but every little fact you unearth brings you a joy that you haven’t felt in some time.

You revel in the small expressions he shows around you and your ability to decipher his mood based on those looks. You shine when he focuses on you, his intense gaze indicating that he’s giving you his full attention on you and only you.

You felt safe with the strong arm around your shoulders when you felt like breaking. You felt comforted when he wiped your tears from your face.

You felt loved.

You look up at your friends, amazed.

“Oh my god, I think I like Osamu.”

The boys nod their head at you, none of them surprised by your revelation. You look down at your full plate, appetite long gone. You honestly can’t believe you’ve been so blind. Looking back it was so OBVIOUS that you’ve had feelings for Osamu for a long time.

Another thought crosses your mind, much more displeasing than your realizing your feelings for Osamu. “I don’t think I’m ready for a relationship though.”

The boys nod at you again. This time Oikawa isn’t able to hold back his eyes roll. “Well obviously.”

You shrink down, feeling a new level of low. There’s no way you could try to pursue a relationship with Osamu, not now. But what if he wants to? What if he returns your feelings and wants to date you? Or worse, what if he doesn’t accept your feelings and doesn’t want to be your friend anymore?

“Y/N-chan, get out of your head.” Oikawa sing-songs, and it does bring you out of your head. You look at him and frown.

“I don’t know what to do.”

“Babe, you don’t have to do anything.” Makki replies.

“But I want to.” You say instantly. “I mean, I think I want to, or I should?”

“But you know that you’re not in the right headspace to pursue a relationship now.” Mattsun reminds you gently. “And making sure you’re healthy enough to give the relationship all that you can is important.”

You nod sadly, agreeing. But your face must display your disappointment, so Oikawa sets his plate down and comes to sit by you.

“Look, just take it day by day. Nothing really has to change, you just have a different outlook on your relationship with Osamu.” He grabs your hand and holds it in both of his. “Instead of looking through a plain window, you’re looking through a stained glass window, right? It’s still Osamu out there, and he’s still the same person you like and want to be with. But now your relationship with him is richer and more vibrant. Even if you can’t act on your feelings now, you still have this new and beautiful view.”

You stare at Oikawa, dumbfounded. Mattsun and Makki look equally surprised at the deep and meaningful comparison Oikawa pulled out of nowhere.

“Wow,” Makki eventually says. “I didn’t know you could be so romantic, Oikawa.”

“Excuse you, I’m very romantic!” Oikawa snaps back indignantly. “Anyway, Y/N-chan, I guarantee that Osamu will be willing to wait. He’ll be patient, especially with you.”

“What would you know about patience?” Makki asks, genuine confusion in his voice.

Oikawa snaps again wordlessly, his tone shrill. You and Mattsun laugh, and the rest of the day is filled with everyone laughing and teasing each other.

At some point you take a second to look at your friends and smile. Your lives are unimaginably hard, and Hajime missing from these get-togethers still makes your heart ache. But with Oikawa, Mattsun and Makki here to soothe the pain, you know you can get through the worst of it.

• ────── ✾ ────── •

A/N: Okay, so all the cards on the table - I cried during the entire writing process with this chapter - planning it, drafting it, writing it, finalizing it AND even reviewing it. It’s not the first time I’ve had emotional reactions to my own writing, but it’s the first time it’s been such a visceral reaction. Not only is it so satisfying to see that small character growth from Oikawa, but the character growth from Y/N was oh so satisfying. She is FINALLY opening up to her friends, and they are FINALLY having a conversation that has been MONTHS in the making. She isn’t scared to suppress her feelings anymore, and she FINALLY trusts herself to open up to her friends, despite her subconscious trying to protect her from being vulnerable in front of those she cares about. If you’re reading this now, please know that there is NOTHING wrong with being open and forthcoming about your feelings. The people in your life who love you unconditionally, including me, will THANK you for it. 💖💖💖 Okay, gonna go cry again after writing this A/N LOLOLOL.

Taglist Open! Please send an Ask with the request to be added to It’s [Not] Okay Fic & SMAU: @psycho-nightrose @camcam1617 @kamalymaly @toobsessedsstuff @shookykookie30 @roro-707 @qualitygiantshoepsychic @cerealfrdinner797 @ara-mitsue @gray-444 @tanakasimpcorner @rintarovibes @jellien @everytimeswift @bongofrito @babucrow @beidouluvr @kozuken-ma @imarriedachef

[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.

[the-pontiac-bandit]

If you're still answering tortall prompts, how about Raoul + family?

wow why NOT write 2000 words of blatant, shameless fluff about families you make for yourself??? inspired by this quote from tammy: “[Raoul and Buri] have glorious sex under trees, in tents, in lakes…. In carriages. I think at some point they’ll probably adopt. By the time they’re attached Buri’s getting a little old to have any of her own. It’s not like there aren’t plenty of orphans around.”

As Raoul stretched out, trying to make himself comfortable in his too-hard, too-small desk chair, he savored the warm feeling filling his chest and threatening to spill out and take physical form in front of him. In the midst of the most head-spinning, headache-inducing, sleep-sapping, joy-filled week he’d ever experienced, he’d had precious little time to slow down and simply exist within his new reality. He thought to close his eyes, the better to feel everything, but they only stayed shut for a moment before they forced themselves back open. He couldn’t stop looking at the scene in front of him for long.

Buri lounged cross-legged on their bed, far more relaxed than he had been at any point this week. Kel sat next to her, her back straight and her long legs carefully hanging off one side so as not to get dust from the practice courts on their bedding. Both had just returned from a full morning of training, sweaty despite a change of clothes and coated in dust despite a thorough washing, courtesy of a long, hot summer that had refused to give them rain.

Between them was the baby.

His son, he reminded himself. He thought the words a few extra times, even mouthing them once, as he had a thousand times in the last five days, as if forming them on his lips might make them feel more real.

None of this felt real to him yet. He supposed most people had nine months to get used to the idea before seven pounds of screaming chaos turned their lives upside down. He’d had exactly fifty-three days—he’d counted on Tuesday—so he supposed he still had some catching up to do. His mind was still reeling from the conversation that had led them here, and he wasn’t sure yet that he’d ever catch up.

He’d been sitting in this chair and pretending to read reports while mostly thinking about his right knee, which had been bothering him despite Duke Baird’s best efforts. He wasn’t sure why he remembered so specifically, since his days were nearly as certain to contain aches and bruises as they were to contain a sunrise. Buri had returned from a meeting with Thayet and Onua, although really, the word meeting conferred far too much dignity on what was more likely a combination of trick riding and palace gossip. They’d settled into the evening routine they’d shared for nearly a decade, working in comfortable silence with candles lit between them.

“Do you want children?” she’d asked, breaking the quiet spell of paperwork that gripped their nights.

“I think it’s a little late for that,” he’d replied with a snort.

She’d thrown a pillow at him. He had caught it and thrown it back without even looking up from the thick stack of papers in his lap, with a rude hand gesture following behind.

“You know what I meant. Did you want children? Before?”

Something in her voice had shifted. He’d finally looked up to find her eyes already trained on him. Her face had been so unexpectedly earnest that he’d actually taken a pause, had slowed the speed of their consistently paced banter, to think.

“I suppose I hadn’t given it much thought. There were friends, and then there was drinking, and then there was the Own, and then there was you,” he’d told her with a shrug. “I do like children, but I’m perfectly happy where I am.”

She’d chewed on her lip for a moment. He remembered being surprised by that. After nearly thirty years of friendship, she rarely took the time to think before she spoke with him anymore.

“Spit it out.”

“Do you want children?”

“And we’re back to the start,” he’d said with a grin.

“I spat it out. Now you answer it.”

“Hypothetically, sure, I’d enjoy a child. Now can I ask why you’re asking at all?”

“I’ve been thinking,” she’d started. She’d paused for a moment, holding her breath as though she was trying to decide whether she should speak at all. And then she’d let it all spill out at once. “I’ve been thinking it might be nice to have one. A child, I mean.”

She’d held up a hand and made a face before Raoul could even begin to formulate a joke about her monthlies or her aching hips or what they might do to make that happen. “Not like that. Thayet was telling us today about homes they’re opening in Corus, for children without parents. We were thinking about the children we traveled with back in Sarain, when Alanna found us all those years ago. Gods, it was terrifying, having Thayet and an infant to protect, especially when Thayet was ready to throw her life away for the infant. And I started thinking—we have money, and safety, and love, and there are all these children who have none of those things, and—”

She’d been speaking faster and faster, but she’d cut herself off abruptly at the look on Raoul’s face. “Never mind, you can forget—”

Raoul had smiled back at her, straightening up in his chair and marking his spot in the report on his lap before putting it aside. “So you want a child.”

The weeks that followed had been ones filled with paperwork and inquiries at the palace records about the process of appointing a common-born heir to a noble house and at the magistrate’s about drawing up paperwork for adoption. There had been careful planning and hushed discussions with only their closest friends about the best way to proceed. Buri had insisted on an older child, maybe eight or nine, saying that the few diapers she’d changed on the road to Rachia were enough for a lifetime.

Instead, five days ago, Buri had entered their rooms carrying a squalling mess of blankets with an air of forced nonchalance that had told him immediately what she’d done. Instead of clarifying, or teasing her, or asking if it was the smallest eight-year-old he’d ever seen, he’d simply held his arms out. While Buri had supplied endless explanations about Thayet ambushing her with a baby, he’d stared at the squirming mess of baby in his lap, blankets already coming undone, absolutely entranced.  

“He’s tiny,” he’d commented. His voice sounded like it was coming from someone else’s body. The baby was only just too large for him to hold in one hand, although he’d never try to prove it. The fragility of the life sitting in his lap was overwhelming.

“His mother died yesterday. Childbed fever, caught too late to help. The priestesses at the Goddess’ Temple were worried he might need more than the homes could give.”

Raoul had nodded, only half listening. The baby’s eyes were screwed shut while he wailed. His fine hair was dark, his skin tanned like that of the Bazhir babies Raoul had seen in his year in the Great Southern Desert. One of the baby’s hands had broken free of its blanket. It had waved in the air, keeping pace with his cries, which were far louder than he’d have believed such a tiny body could produce. He’d intercepted the hand with one finger and then watched in wonder as the baby had grasped it.

“Does he have a name?”

“Pathom,” she’d answered definitively, before belatedly remembering that names were the sort of thing parents might choose together. “That is, if—”

“Pathom of Goldenlake,” he’d cut her off with a smile.

The days that followed had been a blur. Thayet had found a wet-nurse and supplied an endless stream of goods that they’d have never known a baby required. Alanna had ridden in from Pirate’s Swoop at full speed to pronounce in a gruff voice that the infant was in perfect health. Gary had gifted them a bassinet and more blankets than any human child could possibly need. Dom had found a way to convert a standard-issue burnoose into an excellent baby sling, while Evin had given them a congratulatory note from George, who complained that Alanna had left before he could finish writing, and a cheerful promise that he’d never touch a soiled diaper. Onua had given them a set of unimaginably soft stuffed ponies, perfect replicas of the horses that roamed the highlands of Sarain where she and Buri had learned to ride.

Kel, away on business with Second Company at the Gallan border, had to wait almost a full week to learn she had a new godsson. He’d met the company when they’d arrived back at the palace long past dark the night before. They’d groomed Hoshi and Sparrow together while he thanked the gods for perhaps the hundredth time that her “testy pony” had finally found his way out of the Own stables and into a pleasant retirement.

Finally, when the last of the men had trudged towards the barracks and a well-earned nights’ sleep, she’d turned to him.

“Well?”

“There’s someone important I want you to meet,” he’d said, shoving his hands in his pockets with a smile that was equal parts nervous and eager.

“Sir, I’ve already met your wife.”

Raoul had let out a hearty chuckle. “But you haven’t met my son.”

Kel had frozen. Her face fell back into perfect stillness, the way it did when her mind was working its fastest.

After a second that felt like an eternity, she replied, “Sir, I saw Buri five weeks ago. If you’re telling me you’ve managed to grow a baby since then—”

“We didn’t, but someone else did. We adopted him from the Temple after his mother died in childbirth.”

Understanding flashed in Kel’s eyes while her face broke into a rare broad grin. She’d wrapped her arms around him in a fast, tight hug accompanied by enthusiastic congratulations that had gone suddenly silent in surprise when he’d added, a wicked glint in his eyes, “You really should come by tomorrow to meet your godsson.”

Buri had intercepted Kel on the practice courts the following morning with the dual goals of keeping her own skills sharp and ensuring that Kel would not be too polite to visit. And so now, he watched as Kel bounced his son with the brisk certainty of someone who had held a baby a thousand times. He could hear her cooing quietly at Pathom, softening her consonants while she told him all about forest campaigns in hill country. He knew he should ask her to speak up—if she was going to give her report verbally, she could at least give it at a volume he could hear—but he found he wasn’t particularly interested in the intricacies of the Second’s bowstring supplies. Buri made eye contact with him behind Kel’s back, laughter in her eyes. Buri could laugh if she wanted, but he was taking notes on Kel’s tactics. He would have sworn this was the quietest he’d heard his son in the entirety of his hundred-and-twenty-odd hours in the palace.

As his son stared wide-eyed at his former squire, Raoul was reminded of a comment he’d heard as they’d left Turomot’s offices the other day with paperwork making Pathom officially their own. “Well, that feckless Goldenlake dolt’s managed to start a family, even if it was too late to do the thing properly,” the Lord of Genlith had muttered at their backs as they’d left. Buri had elbowed him and whispered a quick “Feckless? I’ll show him feckless,” but her heart wasn’t in it. Before she’d even finished the thought, her eyes were back on Pathom, squirming against her chest in the burnoose that bound him to her.

And now, Raoul watched his son, passed between his wife and the woman who had been like his daughter long before any papers said he was a father. Stuffed Saren ponies lined the shelf above an intricately carved bassinet filled with beautifully embroidered blankets. A protection charm had been pulled from Alanna’s packs to hang at the head, while twin leather circles bearing the insignias of the Riders and the Own, no doubt carefully cut by mischievous commanders from the saddle packs of some unprepared trainees, was secured carefully at the foot. Raoul had to smile for a moment at Genlith’s ignorance—he’d begun his family right on time.

[samwrights]

i really like your seijoh baby fever hcs 😭 could i please request with 3rd gym + ushi and tendou ☹️

BABY FEVER PART 2 HUH 🤧🤧 alright, lets dive in y’all. Also, side note, I am sooooo soft for Akaashi’s inferiority complex. I just wanna hold his hand and tell him he’s perfect.

Also, Tsukki kinda got angsty??? I m sorry.

Bokuto;

This nut has baby fever with you

That baby radar we talked about last time—you both had it.

You can bet there’s a competition of who saw the cuter baby at the grocery store when the two of you go.

Though, no one ever wins because they’re all fckn cute.

You’re a little bit worse off than Bokuto though, in the sense that you won’t stop mentioning “when” you guys have kids versus “if”

And it’s kinda doing lots of funny things to him

Especially if you guys have friends over that have kids.

If you’re nowhere to be found, you can bet that you’re in the backyard playing tag or hide and seek.

H o l d I n g t h e m.

Friends who have babies are especially allowed over, just so you can hold them.

And feed them.

Oh my god, the way their eyes open?? So full of love and wonder??

Your weakness #7.

And Bokuto weakness #41—seeing you feed and hold a newborn

Never in his LIFE has the owl seen you look so happy and loving and glowing.

Not even on your guys’ wedding day.

You did but whatever, Bo.

Wait who’s got baby fever? You? Or Bo?

Both. Both is good.

But, Bokuto being him, he kinda starts to worry about the fact that you haven’t even brought up having kids.

Like y’all have been married for a year

This is what married couples do, right? No

So he’s in emo mode, but this is a whole different kind of dramatic.

He’s so serious and blunt and it’s kinda scary.

“[name], do you even want to have kids with me?”

ASSFGHJKL

“Bo, please tell me you didn’t just ask me that.”

But you can tell by the way his pupils his shrink yet his eyes become wider than the moon—he’s hopeful.

“Koutarou, I’ve literally been saying for the last four years, when we have kids. It’s kind of a given.”

“...can we get started then?”

Akaashi;

Akaashi gets soooo flustered when you start talking babies.

Because no matter how many different ways he looks at it, he thinks he’s not ready.

Especially when your newborn nephew gets dropped off for baby sitting.

How are you such a natural with kids?

Akaashi pretends not to notice the soft spoken voice you use for the baby.

Or the way it looks so natural, so right, to see you balancing him on your hip while you warm up a bottle.

He learned you’re also a co-sleeper and jump at the opportunity to nap with your nephew

It’s hard image for Akaashi to force out of his mind

But he can’t help but wonder if you’d do the same with your kids.

Then he starts panicking a little because he.’s falling down the rabbit hole of thinking he wouldn’t be a good dad.

Even more so when you bring up wanting to have a family with him.

Apparently you were prepared to just forego the entire idea of marriage and skip straight to family

Akaashi can and will freak out about that at another time.

“Shouldn’t we wait? Until we’re ready?”

“I am ready, Akaashi. But something tells me that you aren’t.”

“...I don’t wanna mess up.”

Akaashi isn’t very vocal when it comes to his insecurities—it came with the territory of handling Bokuto for a couple years.

So when he’s sharing them with you, you naturally jump into overprotective mom girlfriend mode.

“Akaashi, I wouldn’t want to have kids with you if I didn’t think you’d be a good dad.”

Did I mention he’s got a bit of a praise kink?

Cause that just went straight from his ears to his dick.

Kuroo;

Being married to Kuroo Tetsurou comes with a warning label.

One you had to recite as a vow.

“I will not bring up children until I am ready.”

You always thought it was a little weird when he asked you include something along those lines.

And, after a year, you sometimes forget your vow. You’re only human.

What else is human is this ADORABLE toddler in the car next to you guys at a stoplight who won’t stop waving at you.

“Aw, Tetsu look! Say hi!” The former captain’s eyes narrow questioningly, but he doesn’t say anything yet.

It only gets worse from here on out.

Why do kids like waving at you? Idk, but it happens pretty frequently.

Like when the two of you go out to eat and a baby in their high chair stops throwing their food on the ground, just to smile and babble as they look at you.

It makes you soft.

And, considering you’re sitting right in front of him, Kuroo sees the way your eyes become three shades lighter with every interaction.

“Remember your vow, baby.” He grits out, though the strain goes entirely over your head.

“Why did you make me say that anyway?” Kuroo never explained why—only begged that you included it.

“Cause once we start having kids, we aren’t stopping until you physically can’t anymore.”

Oh.

OH.

“Hey, Tetsu?”

“Yeah?”

“Can we start when we get home?”

Tsukishima;

If you expected all of these to be happy hcs, I hate to disappoint.

But Tsukki wants to strangle you when you bring up kids.

He’s brought it up so many times that he does not want kids.

No matter how many times you fawn over your friends’ children.

Or how much you splurge on gifts when you have to attend a baby shower.

That last one in particular especially made him want to fight you.

You will tease and joke over and over how much you just want him to impregnate you.

“[name], no.”

“Come on, Tsukki. You’d be such a hot dad!”

He’s not gonna deny that.

But he is definitely going to deny impregnating you.

Unfortunately, this is a recurring argument for the two of you.

To the point where you feel a little empty every time you hear once of your old friend’s just introduced another family member.

And Tsukki knows it’s wearing down heavily on you.

To where you almost aren’t really yourself anymore.

“I’m not agreeing to this,” he says one day when he finally sits you down, “but give me some time to...mentally prepare for being a family.”

“N-no, I’m okay, you don’t—“

“No, you aren’t. I miss you, [name]. And if this is what it takes to get you back, then I have to try.”

Ushijima;

Let’s be real—Ushi kinda dense.

So honestly, don’t expect him to pick up or understand the excitement you have when you see a baby

Or fawn over receiving wedding invites because someone still hasn’t popped the question.

I’m not pointing any fingers. Wakatoshi.

N e way. You’re not as eager for a baby as some. Or at least, you’re not as transparent about it.

Yes seeing little babies napping in their stroller sends your ovaries in a frenzy

Or seeing or hearing a baby cry in public forces your maternal instinct to go into overdrive.

But you were good! Really!

At least that’s what Toshi thinks

Until he overhears you on the phone with someone after getting home from work. Your mother, apparently.

“No, mom, he hasn’t proposed. Yes, I know we’ve been together for the better half of a decade, thanks for reminding me. No, you aren’t going to have any grandkids anytime soon.”

Oh. Was...was he doing something wrong?

“I should go, Toshi’s gonna be home soon.”

As soon as you open your bedroom door, you’re met with your stone-faced partner who was standing close enough that, if the door were still closed, he would have been pressed up against it.

“Are you upset with me?”

“Wha—no! No, you know how my mom gets...”

Ushijima may be a little dense, but he is at least somewhat aware enough to know when you’re lying.

“Let’s talk.” Not allowing you to escape, his large hands plant themselves on your shoulders just as firmly as his voice, leading the two of you to sit on the edge of the bed. “Is that what you want? A marriage? A family?”

“Of course, Toshi, I love you. We’ve been together for seven years—“

“Whatever you want, I will do for you.”

Tendou;

You had always told Tendou you didn’t want kids any time soon.

And he’s totally okay with—gives you two the chance to be just that.

So you both agreed to you going on birth control. IUD specifically, just so you didn’t have to worry about anything for a few years at a time.

Nothing to worry about!

Except seeing your best friend hold her newborn is doing funny things to you

And your other BFF just found out she’s pregnant

Now they’re both kinda just expecting you to follow in line

“You guys know I’m not ready.”

But they see just how tender you are with the newborn

Or how you’re very involved with the pregnant one, constantly asking her questions of what she’s feeling and how excited she is to be a mom

They know you too well—you’re already entertaining the idea.

So while you and Tendou are laying on the couch together, you try to nonchalantly bring it up. Try.

“How would you feel if I didn’t replace the IUD this time around? Hypothetically speaking, of course.”

Tendou’s typically bemused face perks up. “Oh? Making plans without me?”

“Wha—no! I’m just asking a question!”

“Mm, okay,” though his tone is light, there’s a bit of a teasing drawl, “then, hypothetically speaking, I would try to convince you to finally let me get you pregnant.”

Haikyuu!! Tag List

Let me know if you want to be added to the tag list!

@hihiq @dreamyjaems @tamcitrus @yourlocalmemedumpster @90s-belladonna​ @basicallyberry​

[regrettablewritings]

Fluff alphabet for Tadashi Hamada if you're stil writing for him, please. B, c,s w?

Indeed, I do still write for the lovely lad. Stuff is below the cut

B = Baby (Do they want a family? Why/Why not?):

Oh, most definitely. Tadashi is a very family-oriented man. Always has been, always will be. So it’s no surprise that he looks forward to the day he can start his own little branch of the Hamada family tree. We’ve already seen how he is with Hiro: He’s protective, he’s encouraging, he’s inspiring, he’s good at getting him to do things he may not want to do even if it’s for his own benefit -- imagine what wonders he could do if those traits were applied to a little mini-him or mini-you or mini-you-both!

Honestly, the subject goes more or less unspoken between you two because it’s kind of a given that Tadashi wants kids. You two would be taking a walk in the park or going to the mall and the moment a stroller passes by, he’s barely playing off how much he’s trying to crane his neck to gaze upon the chubby wonder resting inside. You can see the disappointment in his eyes when he fails. Some days when you’re just at the Lucky Cat trying to get some homework done, you’ll glance up and see him at a table with a baby at it, speaking all kinds of sweet words to them. You’ve seen his favorites playlist on Youtube -- it has a decade-old commercial for Legal Zoom on it. When you questioned why it was there in the first place, you had to witness your adoring boyfriend sheepishly admit that the baby in it was just too cute. And also he liked the pale purple walls and thought it’d make for good inspiration.

“Good inspiration for . . .?” you led, knowing exactly where it was headed. You watched at Tadashi’s eyes wandered and his cheeks and ears reddened.

“For . . . a nursery . . .” he responded. It was a mumble, but you heard everything you needed to know loud and clear.

Well, not everything, of course: You asked him what exactly he envisioned for the future.

He admitted he wasn’t exactly particular about whether he wanted a boy or a girl, let alone first or second -- he just knew he would like at least two children so neither one would be lonely. Corny and cheesy as it was, he would’ve preferred to live somewhere a little closer to the suburbs (“Hey, at least I don’t expect a white picket fence!” he justified). His reasoning being that he’d like a nice, quiet area in which many parks and libraries and schools can be accessible, and so any children of yours have room to grow. However, given the structure of the area, he knew that this was going to be a tough call for a multitude of reasons.

Bottom line, though, he’d be okay with living in the city if it meant he could still provide for you and your hypothetical kids the best he could. He just wants to make sure everyone is happy and healthy. But for now, he’s content with it just being the two of you . . . Emphasis on “for now.”

C = Cuddles (How do they cuddle?):

Usually with a prayer that Hiro doesn’t barge in. No, seriously: That bedroom of theirs offers only the most courteous of privacies by way of a tasteful but otherwise unpersuasive shoji. You want Hiro to see you guys trying to get cozy about as much as Hiro does -- which is not at all, given how he pretends to throw up every time he’s walked in on you two. And how he’s voiced his dislike of it.

Given that Tadashi is ever the caring brother and roommate, he can only get away with so many dry, “You don’t have to be here”s before he just feels bad about it. As a result, the two of you have actually had to create a cuddling schedule built with Hiro’s course times, your availability, and Tadashi’s availability in mind. And God forbid Hiro ever finds out about that schedule because all he needs is one more reason to call the both of you Ultra Nerds.

Worse-case scenario, you two get booted out and have to make do with the couch in the garage, cramped as it is. But you don’t mind: Usually, the reason you two are cuddling is because you’re so butt-tired from coursework that you need to relax and zonk out for a couple hours. Besides, for as lanky and more muscle-based as a guy like Tadashi is, his arm wrapped around you is unfairly warm and comforting. You’re bound to be conked out before you can even utter a complaint, or at the very least you’re way too relaxed to register the fact that you’re both awkwardly strewn about the furniture.

So if it had to be put in a different way (and less about worrying somebody might barge in), you supposed you could describe your cuddling as being the snug equivalent to how a college student eats, sleeps, or lives altogether: You both take what you can get when you can get it and try to enjoy it before it’s time to go to your next “adult obligation.”

S = Sad (How do they cheer themselves/others up?):

Tadashi is a pretty optimistic person so it’s actually hard to get him completely down, let alone long enough for him to actually require a pick-me-up bigger than a brief inner pep talk. Normally all he needs to do is have a quiet moment to himself, some time to cool down, maybe remind himself that things can and will get better. But in the odd moment where this isn’t enough, Tadashi will often turn to his interests.

However, don’t assume this means he’ll hunker down in his lab and focus on one of his projects: He’s long since learned that it’s best to not robotically engineer with sad or frustrated -- way too many power outages have occurred from that.

Instead, he turns to his other hobbies: Living with Aunt Cass means he’s been knowing how to bake for years, albeit the baked fruits of his labors don’t always come out prettily; depending on how free his schedule is (read: not very at all anymore), he may go find a location to go surfing; or he goes to a park to get, like, a cart crepe. Usually being outside in a sunny place (with plenty of puppies and babies around) zaps him back to normal.

Which leaves him with plenty of time to figure out how to cheer you up!

Given his nature, Tadashi has become a wiz at cheering others up. He’s just got this nearly contagious brightness about him. And even if you don’t find yourself as readily bright as he, don’t worry: He’s not afraid to pull old tried-and-trues on you. Being an older brother/almost fatherly figure has allowed him the perfect position to perfect his trade: That is, the art of being goofy for the sake of cheering up his loved ones. He will easily pick you up and jump around with you, hollering about how he’s going to “turn that frown upside-down” -- by actually holding you upside-down.

Not your cup of tea? Then be prepared to witness the most tragic case of Dad Dancing ever recorded in a man below the age of 30, complete with cheesy disco music. You will be forced to witness his arms flailing, head bopping, mouth performing what you had once heard being referred to as “The White Man’s Overbite”. You will beg that he stop “for the love of Mochi.” You will try to have your pleas be heard over the speaker blaring “Got to Be Real” by Cheryl Lynn, only to be further drowned out by your boyfriend’s tone-deaf singing.

But the man will not stop: He must dance in your honor.

And once you’re done wiping away the tears left from cackling, he’ll treat you to some froyo.

If this still doesn’t work, there’s the slightest chance he might pull out the big guns: Tickling. It’s reserved strictly as a worst-case scenario, but he’s going to dance until his feet bleed if he can help it before he has to do that again. The last time he resorted to tickling a little too eagerly, it . . . didn’t end well.

W = Wedding (When, how, where do they propose?):

When? A balmy evening in May. How? With a bit of difficulty. Mind you, Tadashi is a generally organized man on the average day. But on the day he proposes to you – heck, the days leading up to it? He’s a bit of a mess. And it’s in no small part due to how incredibly involved his friends and family had tried to be the entire time.

Make no mistake, he’s very glad that he has such supportive loved ones. However, he found himself constantly fighting off a heart attack every time one of them treaded the line a little too closely for his comfort. (Sure, there’s little suspicion in Honey gushing over wedding magazines with you or Aunt Cass asking you to sample a “brand new wedding cake flavor” she was planning to use for some pastries, but Wasabi asking about your ring size and Fred talking about how kaiju costumes were better than tuxes until GoGo had to slam him down really wasn’t exactly inconspicuous.)

Hiro might’ve been the closest thing to normal throughout it all, much to the elder Hamada brother’s surprise. But even then, he was more of less gesturing for Tadashi to just go ahead and pop the question – albeit, at the most inopportune times in the latter’s honest opinion.

“I can’t propose to my girlfriend in the campus library!” Tadashi rejected Monday.

“There’s nothing romantic about being in the middle of a pizzeria and going, ‘Hey, will you marry me?’” he scoffed on Wednesday.

“Hiro, if you ever propose to somebody in front of a mall fountain, then I’ve failed you,” came his dry response Saturday. He knew his younger brother meant no harm by applying the lightest of pressures; he just wanted all the anxieties over with! But this was you Tadashi was proposing to: You deserved only the best. Only the most heartfelt . . . Which was why, in the end, the where of it all was the Lucky Cat Café. Was it the fanciest establishment he could have done it in? Not really. Thankfully, Aunt Cass was all too eager to oblige his request to have the café to yourselves one evening; it allowed him to properly decorate your favorite table with a tablecloth and a bouquet of your favorite flowers. It was admittedly a tad cheesy, but you certainly didn’t mind it.

But this was where Tadashi had grown up. It was where his family – the core of his being – was, where his friends congregated to relax. This was his home in so many ways and if he was to invite you into his family, he wanted it to be done here. Even if it meant Aunt Cass and Hiro were not too discreetly peeking out from the back. Or that the entire time Tadashi was trying to recite his proposal speech, he kept getting distracted by your friends, whose faces were mashed against a window behind you, waiting to bear witness to this milestone.

Suffice to say, it was a very group-oriented situation. But neither you nor Tadashi would have had anything less.

Thank you for your patience!

[chaseatinydream]

pirate king (64) || atz

“Let’s go onto land!” You cheer excitedly, grabbing onto Jongho’s arm and he looks at you with wide eyes, surprised. You’re practically bouncing up and down in anticipation, waving your new arm about, and Yeosang smiles at you fondly from the side. It’s the most energetic he’s seen you for days. “Come on! Let’s go and buy Yunho some grilled squid or something to cheer him up!” Your grin is radiant.

“I’m glad you’re so excited about it.” Your captain’s voice comes from the door and Jongho whirls around to see Hongjoong standing there, wiping the tiredness from his face with a damp cloth, wearing a small smile. Out of the corner of his eye, however, he sees your face go ashen for a second at the sight of your captain before your smile returns, although it seems a little forced. He frowns. “If you want to go onto land, remember to bring Jongho with you.”

“Alright.” You say quietly, suddenly so much more subdued than you were prior. Jongho and Yeosang exchange looks. What is that all about?

“I heard you helped design the arm.” Jongho hears you add on, and your smile is... difficult to say the least, tender but brittle, cracking at the edges. But the gratefulness is your voice is genuine and true. “Thank you, captain.”

“I told you, call me Hongjoong.” His captain corrects with a fond smile, and Jongho finds himself frowning at the sight of it, wondering if... perhaps... but before he can think too much into it, Hongjoong is already stumbling across the cabin and clambering into his hammock. He must be exhausted from the recent events and steering the ship almost the entire way. The three of you watch him as he yanks his red jacket off to cover himself, before he makes a noise of annoyance when his fingers slip through a couple of gaping holes and slashes in the sleeves and sides. “This thing is falling apart.”

“It’ll become more holes than fabric soon.” Yeosang mutters under his breath sympathetically and Hongjoong groans, burying his face in his hammock so you can see the outline of his features against the rough fabric. “It’s going to be so cold soon.” He laments.

“We could start a fire on board.” Jongho pipes up and Hongjoong scrambles to sit upright, waving his fist at him.

“Are you trying to burn the Treasure like a piece of matchwood? No, Jongho, you shall not-” He nearly falls out of the hammock and you rush to flip his hammock back upright, the suspending ropes swinging dangerously. “That’s it, Jongho, you’re on bilge bailing duty for the next week-”

“I’m joking, I’m joking.” Jongho reassures him and Hongjoong gives him a glare out of the corner of his eye, as if not quite convinced. “We’ll be leaving you to your nap in peace now, captain.”

“Nighty night.” Yeosang whispers, as if he’s talking to a little baby and the three of you tiptoe out of the cabin, leaving your captain sulking in the hammock behind you.

>>>

It’s a good three hours of more negotiations and steering the ship into the docks before you, Yeosang and Jongho are strolling through the port marketplace, a cluster of white makeshift stalls set up with canvas awnings, selling brightly colored trinkets made from a rainbow of elegantly carved seashells.

“These are pretty!” You exclaim to Jongho, picking up a hair clip made of iridescent blue and green shells, while Yeosang heads down a few stalls to peruse a few maps. Jongho manages a smile, patting you on the head lightly. “Yeah, they are. You want one?”

“Nah, I have one already.” You say, patting the silver hairpin Wooyoung had given you resting subtly in your belt, the aquamarine inlaid in the middle still shining clear, the light rippling through the stone like sunlight through the ocean. “It’s the only one I need.”

“But you don’t wear it.” Jongho reminds you with a frown and you puff out your cheeks, a little sad. “Yeah, because the last time I did it nearly got stolen. Now, I only wear it on board the Treasure, but sometimes I forget.” You shrug, moving back to pick through the trinkets. “It’s fine though. I’m not really bothered.”

Jongho nods in understanding, moving over to check out some oddly curved daggers, tracing the tip of his finger along the edges. How did people find sheaths for them?

Glancing back at you, he’s about to see what you’re up to when he sees a group of local children standing behind you, chattering loudly in a foreign language and gesturing to your wooden hand. With a frown, Jongho picks through the crowd back to your side, where you’re still looking through the accessories, and takes your wooden hand in his very clearly, before pulling you away from the stall.

“Hey!” You protest, looking at him in surprise as he tugs at you lightly, leading you away from the eyes of the children. “I wasn’t done looking at those-”

“Let’s go eat some grilled squid.” Jongho suggests quietly, pointing to another makeshift stall. There’s a man standing over a charcoal pit, turning sticks of squid over the fire and the delicious aroma of spices waft over to you. Seonghwa would love to try these out, he thinks, and you turn to him excitedly, earlier annoyance forgotten. “Yeah, it looks delicious!”

Jongho smiles and follows after you as you hurry towards the stalls, pulling out his money bag. A few minutes later, the two of you are sitting next to the stall, chewing on the springy treat side by side. “This tastes amazing.” You tell Jongho happily, and he nods, glad to see that you’re smiling once again. “You remember the first time you brought me out?”

For some reason, out of the entire trip the two of you had had, the incident in which you called him cute comes to mind. “Oh, god, don’t remind me.” He groans, putting his hands on his cheeks and you laugh in delight, clearly remembering the very same incident.

“Don’t worry.” You beam brightly, ruffling his hair gently with your real hand and he smacks your hand away lightly, taking another bite to hide the colour rising to his cheeks. “You’re still cute.”

He chokes on his squid. “Hey!”

Your laughter rings out as you lean backwards, enjoying the feeling on the sun’s warmth on your face, eyes sliding shut. Jongho takes a moment to look at you, eyebrows furrowed slightly, the same question rolling around on his tongue since this morning.

What’s wrong?

He just wants you to be able to answer this question with an honest “I’m okay.” Or at the very least, be able to tell him that you’re not, and tell him what’s wrong so he can help you fix it. He waits, waits and waits, but you don’t say anything to break the silence, too preoccupied with finishing your snack and counting the sticks left in the paper bag for Yunho and the rest of the crew.

“Hey, Jongho...” You ask suddenly, and he raises his eyebrow to look at you in curiosity. “Hypothetically... very, very hypothetically... if one of our crew members die, what would you do?”

Jongho’s taken aback for a second, before he frowns, trying to read your face but your expression is unreadable, still carefully counting through the sticks of grilled squid and avoiding his eye. Then he turns back to look at the ground, counting the tiny stones underneath the soles of his boots.

“I guess...” His voice is softer than he’d intended to. “I’d mourn, I’d miss them. Then I’d keep them here,” he points at his chest, “and move on and live well for them.”

You smile, for some reason he can’t quite understand. “And if I die? Would you cry?”

“You’re surprisingly morbid today.” He remarks and you laugh, poking him in the side and dispelling his fears. “And I don’t even want to think about it.” You poke him in the side again, and keep staring at him. Something tells him you’re not going to let up until he gives you an answer, so he sighs and replies. “Perhaps I’d mourn? But cry? I don’t think so. I haven’t cried in a long while since my parents’ deaths.”

You beam back at him, eyes soft. “That’s good to hear.” You say quietly, one hand reaching up to ruffle his hair again and for some reason, this time, he doesn’t want to push your hand away and a feeling akin to fear strikes deep in his heart.

Frowning, Jongho opens his mouth to ask a question.

“Why are you asking these kind of questions-”

“Whoa, look at that!” You’re already rising to your feet and moving to another stall before he can finish his question and he sighs, shaking his head. You pick up something red and furry, holding it up to him. “This looks so cool!”

“That’s fox pelt.” He tells you, running a hand along the fur just to make sure. It’s soft, of high quality. “It’s used to make scarves and other things.”

“It’d be warm, wouldn’t it?” You muse, picking up the fabric and weighing it in your hands with a tilt of the head, and Jongho raises an eyebrow to look at you curiously. “I guess it would.”

“Okay!” You grin, reaching over to pick up a few and comparing them. “I’m going to get a few.” Jongho frowns.

“What for?” He asks, and you chew on your bottom lip as you shake each pelt out and check them for holes. “I want to make captain something.” You tell him absentmindedly. “It’s getting cold and captain’s jacket is full of holes, I don’t want him to fall sick. And besides,” your voice trails off as you look down quietly at the fox fur in your hands. “I want something for him to remember me by.”

“You’ll always be with us.” Jongho says, suddenly feeling a desperate urge in him to make sure he speaks it into existence, a painful feeling clenching in his chest. You smile at him fondly, open your mouth to speak, and Jongho leans in closer, he needs you to reassure him that you’ll always be there, be part of the crew, but before you can say anything, there’s a grumpy call from behind you.

“I see the two of you have eloped together.”

You and Jongho both whip around to see Yeosang stand there, looking remarkably put out, and then it finally hits; the two of you abandoned him at his map stall.

“I’m sorry!” You squeak, running over to squeeze Yeosang’s hand and he turns his nose up, refusing to look you in the eye. “Hmpf!”

But Jongho can see the tiny smile playing on Yeosang’s lips even as you whine and pull at his sleeves, and what scares him the most is that he can’t help but feel like all of this is going to vanish like a good dream in the morning light.

>>>

Back on the ship late into the wee hours of the night, as the voyage to Tortuga continues, you take your pile of furs, a pair of scissors you had borrowed from Seonghwa and your sewing needles in one hand to the main deck, nudging open the hatch to the storage hold.

You pause, wait for the sound of the crunching of apples, but there’s nothing except for the silence of the night, the sounds of water rushing against the hull of the ship and wood creaking. You’re not sure which you would have preferred, but wordlessly pull your things down into the storage hold with you, hang your lamp from the hook in the ceiling and close the hatch behind you.

The flame of the lamp casts flickering light against the wooden beams and shadows that slip into the darkness before your eyes can catch them, but you only find yourself looking at one place; the tiny corner behind the barrels you had first hidden in when you had first come aboard this ship.

You see it in your mind’s eye all over again, how you’d seen Mingi’s face for the first time, how you’d broken his nose, how Seonghwa had led you up the stairs with your broken ankle, all of it. You remember how Yunho had watched the sunrise with you, the story of the rings in his hair. You remember every little thing all too well, and perhaps that’s the greatest gift of all.

How much had changed since, you muse to yourself, picking up a piece of sacking that has fallen onto the ground with your wooden hand, and yet how nothing has changed at all. Who you are, and who you were before, and who you were before that, you’re no closer to any of these answers, and yet, all you know is that you want to stay with the crew that have become your family, to be with them always as the Treasure sails to the end of the world and even beyond that.

“I hope I won’t forget that.” You tell yourself quietly, even as you settle into the little corner just like how they’d found you, pulling the furs into your lap. “Even if I die, I hope I don’t forget all of them.”

You place the needle between your lips and work the screw of your prosthetic hand until the silver instrument is lodged firmly between the two prongs. You remember Yeosang’s smile of triumph and pure happiness for you when he realised that the prosthetic had worked, remember how the very hand you had lost had held his as you fought to bring him back to life.

You pull out the thread with shaking fingers, remember the way your master’s hands held yours gently as he guided the tip of your needle through the fabric, teaching you how to sew stuffed toys made with scraps of old sail to practice stitching. You remember the way you had hurt him and closed the door in his face, how you had reduced him to tears and left him to watch you die.

You don’t have time to cry. You have to hurry and finish this coat, before it’s too late. You pull the needle from the prosthetic, press it into the fabric. Before you know it, tears are slipping down your eyes as you push the tip of needle into the fur and start pulling the thread through, and the fox fur soaks in all of it, all your pain, sadness and happiness, trapping them within.

“I don’t want to just be a memory.” You whisper softly into the silence of the hold.

The night is dark, and silent.

[magnoliapip]

Ranked: Mother of the Year (Choices) Main Characters

I can’t sleep so that means I need to make another list that I’m not going to proofread before I post, right? Of course it does. But before we start, please remember this is my opinion on who I liked best. Not who impacted the story the most, not who was the best written fictional character of all time, yada yada. This is my personal opinion of the characters I liked best.

Spoilers WILL be featured below. You have been warned.

#13 -- Tallulah Copeland

Tallulah is a parent to a child at Bernhardt Academy, a friend of Vanessa Blackwood, and an active member of the PTA. Hugo is her partner.

This woman. I would flat forget this woman existed until she would show up again just to wreak havoc on MC’s day, usually at someone else’s urging. Every single time she spoke, I just wanted it to be over and she is just an awful, AWFUL person. She’s also the only awful person in this book who never pretends to be nice and/or never apologizes for her actions. Just an all around nasty person.

#12 -- Hugo

Hugo is a parent of a child at Bernhardt Academy and an active member of the PTA. Tallulah is his significant other.

If you’re actually reading these little blurbs, you have to be wondering “MagnoliaPip? How in the hell is Hugo ranked lower than two other unmentionables in this story?”

Thank you for asking, no one ever.

Put frankly, Hugo just annoyed the crap out of me. I know that’s supposed to be part of his character, but it went above and beyond the scope of acceptable annoyance. I grew to hate every second he was speaking. He never really contributed anything to the plot other than some irritating drivel. He wasn’t an antagonist, but he also wasn’t a pleasing good guy. He’s also the reason I’m considering not re-reading this book again right away like I want to.

#11 -- Guy Ledford

This man. This. Man. THIS MAN!

This part is going to include major spoilers, y’all, so if you haven’t read it and are still intending to, skip away now!! Again, major spoilers from here on out kids.

Guy Ledford is your main character’s ex-husband who has been absent for four years since the start of the book and wants to reconnect with his daughter. He is also a CEO of a snack food company/app, Nomme. He is the main antagonist of the book.

The reason I didn’t rank him lower is he genuinely adds something to the plot. He IS the plot. He’s the reason this book exists. However, he is such a scumbag he deserves nothing. He feels like a trope for quite a lot of the time, but at least he’s not physically abusive like a true trope could have been (at least, I never noticed him being physically abusive). Just, you know, a gaslighting, manipulative, arrogant, rude, selfish son of a-

I also love that they named him “Guy”. I’ve only ever met one man named this in my life, so it’s funny to me that they named this jerk “Guy” so it’s not only the most generic sounding name (did his parents also get a dog named “Dog” and a cat named “Kitty”?), but also one that a lot of men won’t likely have so they don’t have to get name checked in relation to him.

I like that you can get a good outcome (Guy ends up with joint custody with visitations  every weekend and having to back pay) without spending diamonds in this game as long as you make the right choices, but for those who DID spend all of the diamonds, I would have liked to have seen Guy end up with worse. I would have liked to see, if you made most of the right choices and bought all of the diamond stuff, him ending up with every other weekend or maybe just visitation. I know he’s trying to be a good dad (but still an absolutely terrible human being), but every weekend seems like so much when your daughter is in school.

#10 -- Augustus Blackwood

August Blackwood is one of Vanessa Blackwood’s sons and is a student at Bernhardt Academy.

I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this one. But he hurt my daughter and that’s enough. I would have liked to have seen him fleshed out a little bit more beyond being basically just a schoolyard bully. His motivations for his actions are hinted on, but nothing is really ever done and he’s mostly just a prop for something to hurt your daughter.

#9 -- Vanessa Blackwood

Vanessa Blackwood is the president of the PTA, a single mom, and a lawyer and becomes an antagonist to your character.

I’m probably going to get hate for this, but I want to like Vanessa. Obviously, she’s hateful and offensive, in some very, very unredeemable ways, but there’s something about characters like that which makes me want to forgive them and teach them how to be better. How to rehabilitate their bitterness. I felt it with Olivia Nevrakis, I felt it with Victoria Fontaine, and I know certain people in the fandom felt it with Becca Davenport and Poppy Min-Sinclair. 

**DISCLAIMER** Keep in mind, I’m not trying to excuse homophobia and racism here. They are both despicable things and should be accounted for. However, after having grown up in a homophobic and racist home and learning to leave that shit in the dust by the time I was eighteen and SLOWLY teaching my family to do the same over the course of the last 10 years, I believe people can change if you give them room and help to. Not everyone will, not many people will, but I believe in giving the chance. We need to force people to take responsibility and learn from their mistakes. Should the book have been approved as a series rather than a stand alone, I think this might have been a very real option within book 2.

#8 -- Ajax “AJ” Blackwood

Ajax Blackwood is one of Vanessa Blackwood’s sons and a student at Bernhardt Academy.

AJ is the quieter of the Blackwood boys, AJ is a shy kid who hates that his brother is mean just as much as your daughter does. He finally has enough within the book and stands up to him, which was more than a little satisfying and he does seem to have a genuinely good heart. I think it would be so cute for him, your daughter, and Luz to be their own adorable trio of friends. 

#7 -- Levi Schuler

Levi Schuler is your neighbor who helps save the day for MC early on in the book and becomes a friend to both her and your daughter. He is also one of your love interests.

And if this list is going to invoke hate from the masses, it will be this entry that does it. I know how loved Levi is. And I love him too! I just find him, and his musician plot, to be a bit tiring. He’s a wonderfully supportive friend/love interest, just about one of the nicest people, and he’s great with your daughter. I swear, all of the love interests in this book would be god tier in any book. It’s truly unfair to the others that we got three amazing ones here along with a great cast of characters. However, since that did happen, Levi will sit here at #7. He can have a consolatory rugelach while I continue on.

#6 -- Faye Devore

Faye Devore is your ex-husband’s new girlfriend, a younger social media influencer.

I loved Faye. Right from the start, I loved Faye. I prayed they weren’t going to make this into one of those books where we were supposed to hate the “other woman” because those plots are old, outdated, and overused. Thankfully, MOTY lets us skirt right around it and we end up with a wonderful character like Faye, who is the human definition of having the best intentions.

She gets on well with your daughter, even pointing out to MC at one point that she thinks of her like a little sister, and goes above and beyond to make her happy. She is genuinely upset about going against MC’s wishes about your daughter appearing on social media and doesn’t appear to want to cause any harm or hard feelings with MC at any point during the book. In fact, she wants to be friends. 

I would have loved for this and for it to be fleshed out more, again, if we had ever gotten a book 2. I’m also that jerk who would have totally romanced her in a replay and would have emptied my wallet to get a scene in that hypothetical book 2 where Guy finds out. Take that homophobe!

#5 -- Dr. Eiko Matsunaga

Dr. Eiko Matsunaga is a science teacher who teaches at the private school your daughter goes to and becomes friendly with MC because of your daughter. She is also one of your love interests.

If I would have had a teacher like Dr. Matsunaga when I was in school, maybe I would have cared about science at any point during my childhood. Eiko is so incredibly smart but has a heart of gold. She could be off teaching at colleges or writing published journals, but she’s teaching elementary science at a private school and honestly enjoying herself! She wants to see children succeed and will give any child who wants to do so, like your daughter, all of the help they need.

I want to romance her. I want to be her friend. I want it all because I’m selfish even when I don’t because I could never possibly be worthy of the supremacy that is Eiko. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

#4 -- Your Daughter / Zoey

Your daughter is 9 years old at the start of the book and desperately wants to be an astronaut. She is a science whiz and moves from public school to Bernhardt Academy at the beginning of the book to kickstart her education.

It makes me so sad that I will never actually have this child. “Zoey” is just so smart and funny and sweet and I love her so much. I spent so many diamonds on her. She’s a pixelated little bundle of amazing and I would die for her. That’s it.

#3 -- Alma Velasco

Alma Velasco is your neighbor, best friend, and (for part of the time) co-worker.

What did our character do to deserve such an amazing ride-or-die friend like Alma? She never disbelieves MC, is forever supportive as a shoulder to cry on and a supplier of good wine, and also helps MC out of more than one pinch. Seriously an amazing friend, and I wish we could have done something equally amazing for her to reciprocate.

#2 -- Thomas Mendez

Thomas Mendez is a lawyer and a single dad who becomes friends with MC very early on in the book. He is also one of your three love interests.

A big reason for why Thomas is at #2 is because of who #1 is but we’ll get there in a second.

There’s also something about Thomas that speaks to me as a person. It’s more than just being interested as a love interest or as a friend. There’s something about who he is. His awkwardness, his humor, his kindness and his generosity all make him someone I envy as much as I admire.

He takes on MC’s case pro bono when he doesn’t have to. He shrugs it off like it’s no big deal, but stepping back and looking at the it, by all accounts he was walking into a handily losing situation. He was also super busy at this time being a single parent himself and working on his class action lawsuit. That’s not even saying anything about him still grieving for Soledad.

However, the biggest reason I love Mr. Mendez is...

#1 -- Luz Mendez

Luz Mendez is a student at Bernhardt Academy who becomes best friends with your daughter early in the book. She is a soccer and art fan.

This little girl is the best thing I have ever read in my entire life. She made the entire book. Every character that came before her pales in comparison to her majesty. She is a goddamn queen and deserves everything.

Every scene with her is gold and I wish we had more. This little girl was completely willing to curb stomp someone with her cleats at the courthouse if something would have happened to your daughter. She is so aggressively herself and it is a joy to see. The relationship between her and her father is what really kept me going through the book’s more difficult spots. There is such true love and acceptance there, as well as the drive and desire to do better for the other than I just...There is really no way for me to properly explain the perfection that is Luz Mendez so I guess you’ll just have to read it yourself.

---

I’m not sure why it took me so long to start reading Mother of the Year (MOTY), but I’m so glad I did. In 3 days flat I binged the entire book, wasted so many accumulated diamonds, and had the time of my life. The cast of characters in MOTY is perfect and I wanted to rank them according to my opinion on which ones were the best. I ranked all of the characters I found to be profound enough to matter to the storyline or that MC or “Daughter” had enough interactions with to matter. As a result, there are several characters who didn’t make this list. 

Sound off below if you wish.

[rupertgayesarchive]

That ask and your answer about what if Sam was out of hunting and never left Stanford because Gabriel wanted to stop the apocalypse and threw him into a pocket dimension and I’m like. Obsessed. primarily with gabriel and how Sam would go.

I think he would stick Sam in a like… you remember when Zachariah stuck sam and dean in the office job and it was a parallel universe but also it was real life? like coplanar planes, I think Gabriel would elect to do that instead of his you’re going in my alternate universe, because it’s less detail consuming and I think Sam would notice small things that were off like how he figured out it was him in mystery spot.

You said Sam deserves to have the apple pie life but if he was comfortable with that it wouldn’t like.. work he wouldn’t be ready to ever confront Lucifer or anyone. i agree but also I don’t think he would stick with his normal life. like in the zachariah episode he had a normal life and fake memories of that but he still wanted to hunt and help people and also figure out wtf was happening. I think in this scenario Sam would still be psychic because I love that but Gabriel would probably try like… suppressing his visions and such, because they would lead him back into possible angel business. I think he’d still get little snippets because that’s fun and having reminders in that that the supernatural like.. exists and ppl are getting hurt, I think that would overrule his want of complete normalcy and even his spite toward John.

I don’t think he’d go back into hunting like, completely because I want him to have something good and also be semi well adjusted. but like we saw in the terrible life episode I think he’d like.. if he got bored and started looking up strange deaths well now he has to go help them!!

also it is sooo fun to me if he starts realizing something is wrong but he doesn’t know what. like in mystery spot I love that trope sooo fucking much also in s1 sam gets back into hunting through John Winchester style revenge quest and I want to give him a reason to start poking around that is like.. for himself and not anybody else. he can have a little obsession over it as a treat because i like seeing him be a bitch <3

i think initially when Gabriel found out the apocalypse was like in motion and Sam was at Stanford he’d have an opportunity there to do something without revealing to other players that he is alive because he was pretending to be a trickster. like he’s very much in this for self preservation and if he did some time traveling shenanigans, or disappearing both Winchesters and maybe even Adam out of nowhere, I think he’d worry that the angels would take notice. Randy your vessels!! But Stanford gives him a natural window to hide a key player. he needs to do away with Adam too so Lucifer can’t possibly have a true vessel to fight.. maybe he can kill him in a freak accident because I find that funny. sorry this is long and it will be getting longer

anyway I think as time went on Gabriel would pay like less meticulous attention. he’d still keep away like key players but as other people also started trying to stop the apocalypse he would become more relaxed also he’d be overconfident in himself like in changing channels. I think this would lead sam to notice more stuff that just doesn’t make any sense and maybe start looking for dean or even his dad, or going out of his way to look for hunts. maybe get involved in magic because i think he deserves to be a witch. wait actually that’s how he should find Dean. i think Gabriel would hide Dean from Sam and vice versa, and he didn’t foresee Sam using magic or anything. Also at this point it’s been years and I think Sam is more invested in this than his like… normal life. he’s more well adjusted but I can definitely see him just impulsively quitting his job to figure out what the fucks happening. Also I think he’d feel animosity at dean during this for not being there and not helping him, even though that anger doesn’t make complete sense. sorry i like the early seasons salmon dean reconciling and learning to like each other and sam realizing Your Parents Are People and I would like to see it with them having like, completely different lives and also some fun miscommunication bc of Gabriel. also sam having to reconcile dean having cas OHRHDHJ also dean and cas trying horribly to cover cas being not human is so fucking fun to me. unless this happens during a cas is dead time period which is fun in a different evil way.

I also think dean would only stop looking if he though Sam was dead, but I think… Gabriel might have hidden him but other people ARE still meeting him even with like altered memories. so I think angels or something can sense that Sam is alive but they don’t know where and I think they’d gloat and use it to taunt dean that he is like.. suffering while his brother is living a perfect normal life. Also because this adds another miscommunication that can be discussed and end in reconciliation in a way I don’t think would feel contrived and is in line with it the characters. it’d be Amelia s8 but Sam would be like (Sam voice) I did look for you!!! where were you when I needed you! also I want Sam to find out John died and he’s in absolute despair while cas is standing there like oh yes that’s so awful your father was an. absolutely a man😔😐🏳️‍🌈

idk when this would occur and i think every season offers like… different flavors of enjoyment for an audience of just me. like s7 proto widower arc?? Sam reconnecting with Dean during TMWWBK when he is not familiar with the dean and cas dynamic and has to be witness to Trying So Hard To Be Loyal. additionally that would be fun because bobby is there and dean is like, covering his ears and back talking bobby regarding cas. and if they’ve taken pains to hide cas being an angel Sam being like .who is this to Dean. is suchhh a fun concept.

WAIT post goodbye stranger. or maybe Sam can show up pre goodbye stranger to watch dean go from clingy after cas gets back from purgatory to wrongfooted to like ANGRY. well not Angry… to dean having dean emotions. when cas is off with the tablet ignoring him and he feels betrayed. and this Sam isn’t as close to him so he doesn’t know ANY details until Dean stats divulging them as they reconcile. ALL GOOD OPTIONS..

also if this happens during s6 i think it would be nice if cas started collecting allies, and at the same time as Sam trying to figure out what was keeping him away from dean and the angel business Cas could figure it out FIRST and use Gabriel as an ally against Raphael but he’d feel like he has to hide it from dean and sam. like in this scenario. actually any time I talk about s6 hypotheticals Cas’ conflict IS the A Plot. the Winchester’s were on a side quest idc. s6 is a fun time for these reasons but i don’t like it as much because Cas is still in the process of like.. formative development.

okay one last thing I’m SOOO sorry for my essay. you said if Sam was dispossessed the apocalypse would just.. not happen. i agree to like, a certain degree, because I do think they could have found another way but all of them would have been dust compared to swan song. so maybe Gabriel semi succeeded but instead of stopping the apocalypse he just… prolonged it. this changes a lot but if either Michael or Lucifer didn’t have a viable vessel I think the angels would scramble to actually for real stop the apocalypse but others would still want it to happen even if it was like.. Perfect they just want it to be over. this provides angel politics which I am in love with and we can still have like TMWWBK development for cas. I don’t know where I’m going with this sorry

op this is a lot, this is so much. i love it, i hope you have a google doc open somewhere and are typing away furiously.

now i didn't rewatch a lot of spn past s3 (surprise) in part bc i can't handle the brain damage and some scenes are seared into my cerebral cortex in a way that induced a temporary bout of eidetic memory, meaning i'll never forget the crypt scene in Goodbye Stranger for as long as i live. that being SAID, my s6-s7 knowledge is not as firmly coalesced. so because of that i'm letting your thoughts roam free as i don't know how accurate my own takes would be? but i feel like without sam there, like... hm. would dean even be the same person... would the past however many seasons even OCCUR remotely similar with sam out of the picture for literal years? we might be looking at a completely different world at that point.

my other theory is that the s2 plot of special children - we know azazel was raising a new 'crop' of psychic kids. i think that was a plot thread that they ended up dropping anyway, but if they didn't i do wonder if we'd be dealing with a lot more shenanigans like in s1 and s2 except with kids? and dean and cas trying to figure out what to do with these young psychics that might be turned into a vessel for lucifer or - whatever they wanted to do with those kids. hm.

i also question if purgatory would be a thing. like it probably would come up and be on the table, but maybe the godstiel arc wouldn't, bc if like you're saying dean and cas are together at this point, like. cas might have grown to love humanity (not just dean but like 99% dean) to the point where he might not be doing this risky gambit for more souls. and if gabriel is still around, cas may start petitioning gabe to help throw his archangel weight around against raphael while he tries to do the actual strategizing.

i think sam would still have his visions, like you said, and then maybe those lead him to dean or to a case that dean is also on? or if angels are more well-known later on, he tracks one down, maybe cas, maybe not (if it's NOT and it's one that works on raphael's side. ohoho. the possibilities...)