You can tell what the ship war/Tifa vs Aerith/Whose the “True” Heroine/Love of FF7 is about because it never includes Barret, despite him being a romance candidate (even IF the OG boiled it down to one big antiblack gay joke), or Yuffie (thankfully because of her age though I shutter to think how she would have been treated if she was an older, viable candidate), or Zack despite his bond with Cloud, or Jessie for that matter. All these are background elements to the ongoing fight over who is the default love interest and thus true love of Cloud.
Which is boiled down to, which one of these women are meant for this man.
It doesn't care that Final Fantasy 7 is a world-spanning story about humanity, genocide, imperialism, and trauma. It ignores that while Cloud is ultimately our main character, it's a story of an entire cast of main characters who are just as important to the ever moving plot as Cloud.
And really, as it insults Tifa and Aerith by trying to suggest one's story is more "important" than the other, it also insults Barret by completely ignoring that his efforts are the instigating factors OF the story and that the running theme of saving the planet? Is because Barret was the first one to scream it in the narrative. It ignores Yuffie's and Red XIII's fight to preserve their dying cultures in a world that actively wants to destroy them for the sake of capitalism. It ignores Cid as someone whose dreams were crushed by capitalism and become so consumed by his pain, he hurt everyone around him. It ignores how Vincent played an active role in Sephiroth's birth and the core corruption of Shinra.
And I think it absolutely misses the theme of FF7 and Cloud in general. Cloud loves everyone. He loves all his friends. If the Remakes and Rebirth did anything, it put on display that there's not one single person that Cloud loves--but all those he has met. Yes, he loves Tifa and loves Aerith and maybe in one or both, he has romantic feelings for them but he clearly loves Barret, Red XIII, Yuffie, Zack, Jessie, Bigs, Wedge, Reeve/Cait, and--as we'll see later--Cid and Vincent.
If any of them died, Cloud would have been devastated. Aerith is special and he mourns her in a specific way because she's AERITH. Not because she's the ONE. SHE'S AERITH. Irreplaceable just like Tifa, just like Barret, just like Yuffie, just like Red XIII, just like Zack, and Cait/Reeve, Cid, and Vincent.
For the last near 30 years, the ship wars have rewrote Cloud's intense love for the people around him as just a heteronormative love story and it's gross.
None of the characters deserve that, but specifically Cloud, Tifa, and Aerith who are so much more than players in a stupid love triangle.
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ooh i’m now thinking about the court intrigue part of your dragon au, and dick and jason being smack dab in the middle of a power struggle. bc there’s a faction of ppl who don’t want dick as crown prince; he’s foreign opinionated, popular, and not as easy to control. and so when jason comes along looking like the spitting image of bruce, and seemingly shy and manipulatable, they seize onto him. and jason’s obviously super smart, but he’s not used to the underhand way the court works, and starts to trust many in that faction bc they’re kind to him( bonus points if they have some servants working for them, bc jason trusts the servants way faster as fellow common ppl)
and dick isn’t an idiot, so he sees what’s happening and sees his little brother who he loves but doesn’t know that well, start to befriend all the people plotting against him. and he can’t call him out on it and look jealous (even though he is super jealous bc here comes this adorable kid, who could be bruce’s real son and isn’t perpetually a foreigner, coming along and stealing his father’s love and trying to undo everything he’s worked for). so he instead tries to befriend jason more, while always half being on guard for a knife in the back. jason picks up on weird vibes but has no clue what’s happening bc he’s a kid and the court is filled with so many weird vibes lol.
and jason grows increasingly entrenched in that faction, and then dies in a way that looks like he turned traitor but it went wrong and he got killed (not what happened, but the evidence is very convincing) (the anti-dick faction is also upset bc darn there goes their heir). and bruce and dick are heartbroken (bruce especially since he was blindsided since dick never told him any of his suspicions since he didn’t think bruce would believe him). but they don’t spread the news of jason as a traitor bc he was a kid and they don’t want to do that to his memory, and there’s like a tiny kernel of hope that maybe there was a mistake. but then jason comes back to life on the dragon of the tyrant, and immediately begins gunning for the throne (via attacking the heirs to the throne, tim and dick). and dick is heartbroken all over again, bc his little brother really does want him dead and to steal the crown. jason has 0 clue about any of this and is hurt and confused why his brother is calling him a traitor. cue much angst
Omg the MISUNDERSTANDINGS I am THRIVING
Dick and Jason would inadvertently end up in a downward spiral of hate and betrayal, with Dick convinced Jason is trying to usurp the throne and Jason thinking Dick never loved him and took the first chance to get himself a new little brother. One that isn’t common folk 😭
But also, Dick could think that he could sacrifice himself to keep Tim safe.
Jason wants him after all, right? He might be angry at Tim, but it’s Dick who he wants dead. The crown prince. Because if he’s gone, Jason will be next in line for the throne. And if Dick is smart about this, he can strike a bargain that will ensure Tim gets to live….
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Di Feisheng surfaces back to his own body still gasping, spent and sprawled across the twisted sheets, and feels, rather than sees, Fang Duobing's self-satisfied smirk into his thigh.
"Did that feel good?" Fang Duobing sounds far too earnest, the brat, as though he didn't learn to put his mouth to another's body only a few months ago and make Di Feisheng's life all the more difficult for it. He stares up at the rough-hewn ceiling boards in the dark, and sighs. The boy's a detective; he can draw conclusions himself. Evidence is still on his tongue.
Di Feisheng hears a laugh huffed against his skin, and then the subtle press of lips to his hip, gentle and blink-quick. Fang Duobing pushes himself upright, crawling over Di Feisheng before making to lay down beside him, shoving their shed robes from earlier off the bed. There's still sweat on them both, slick at every warm point of contact, but it'll cool soon enough. The half-moon of winter shining its light through Lianhualou's window promises that.
Fang Duobing's head lands at his chest with a deep exhale, one arm reaching across his torso, and Di Feisheng freezes.
There's no hiding the flinch of tension when they're pressed skin to bare skin; Fang Duobing notices immediately, raising his head to look at him, eyes wide and darker than the night around them. "Lao-Di? Is something wrong?"
And this, this is where Di Feisheng has had to figure out how and when to use words, with someone other than the likes of Li Xiangyi. Fang Duobing cannot yet read all of him like instinct, rendering language secondary. Bridging the spaces between them requires effort.
Yet it's effort Di Feisheng is willing to make. Wants, to make. "No," he says, and relaxes when Fang Duobing visibly does. "Just—" and for all his voice halts, he manages to speak, "stay here like this." Please.
"Okay." Fang Duobing smiles, so easily, so unfairly easily, and doesn't need to be pled twice. When he settles himself back into Di Feisheng's side, it's like he's belonged there for years, not like they haven't done this before.
Sharing a bed is one thing. Falling into each other's heat out of sleeplessness, then for company, is another, and no longer anything new. This, though, while they're still bare and for no apparent purpose other than the sake of it, is... unexpected.
What is Di Feisheng supposed to do? He finds himself reaching for Fang Duobing all at once, cautiously, watches his own arm slowly curl around him in return. Fang Duobing squirms minutely in his grasp, then stills once more, shifting himself even further onto Di Feisheng.
There is no further response, only silence, interrupted by breath rising and falling in waves. Compared to mere moments ago, however, the empty pause now seems less intimidating.
Fang Duobing's hair spills across them both, thrown there by his motions before. Di Feisheng moves to fidget with the ends of it, tugging lightly as it sifts through his fingers. It gets him some kind of content sigh, half-muffled against Di Feisheng's pectoral. Softer, a softer noise than when he'd yanked at it earlier, Fang Duobing between his legs.
He finds that he likes it.
Likes this.
Di Feisheng keeps himself there, unmoving. Fang Duobing's warmth is its own blanket; he wards off the cold of the house, the two of them entwined. Until Di Feisheng thinks, for perhaps just a minute, he's comfortable enough for his eyes to close.
When he opens them, Fang Duobing's breathing has already evened out. He's asleep. The sight of him is enough to convince Di Feisheng to let his own eyes drift shut once more.
There's a first time for everything, he supposes.
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Complaining abt Suicide Squad yet again but the fact that they have Waller exposing the alien community to space racist attacks and talking abt how she got to her position through deceit and being a terrible person and stuff is just. Ahsfiwueh JUST SAY YOU DONT KNOW WALLER.
Anyways literally the 3rd mission of the Squad ever (and the first framed as smth Waller picked and not orders from above) was the Squad discrediting and stopping a rogue vigilante who was only arresting POC and funneling white people into white supremacy groups (of which he was the most prominent member) in SUICIDE SQUAD #4. and it's explicitly framed as this mission being personal for Waller that she's hiding from the government bc its illegal like. Guys. Please why are we having her incite (space bc comics) racist attacks now
Also the whole "Amanda got her position through deceit and being a terrible person" NO. she KEPT her position through being shitty and playing complicated political games!!! She wasn't always that way like there is a difference and it is IMPORTANT ppl PLEASEEEE. In Secret Origins #14 we learn Amanda's backstory and she used to be a normal, caring person! Like even after she entered into working in government and politics she wasn't automatically morally bankrupt like please people. She was originally given control of the Squad by Reagan (*sigh* 80s comics...) to distract and get rid of her because she was so successful at pushing progressive social policy in Congress. Acting like she's this static pillar of evil is such a waste of her character and so fucking uninteresting and disrespectful to her arc it drives me MAD.
Like I am NOT saying Waller is all sunshine and rainbows, she fucking SUCKS (said w love <3) but like there's a human being there. It's a progression, she has a character arc like please, DC, please!!! They've fucked up Waller so bad and made her so opaque and uninteresting she can't even be the protagonist of her own story for fucks sake!
Like I don't know how many times I have to scream it until DC hears me or remembers but WALLER IS THE MAIN CHARACTER OF SUICIDE SQUAD. ITS HER BOOK. yet right now she's a cutout to be used as the villain wherever the writers please. Even in her book we get none of her perspective really displayed, no exploration of her thoughts with any kind of understanding of the role she traditionally has played and was made to play in the story.
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