#switching our characters will not change the fact that i could beat you.)

[ardentteadrinker]

Sitting with a bunch of online friends going "I have rights?" is becoming a mood now ngl.

[synergysilhouette]

Remaking Fire Emblem: Awakening

I kinda did a remake with "Fates," so I thought I'd make one with Awakening. To be fair: this is all subjective. I'm not saying my choices would make the game more enjoyable for everyone or that it'd be objectively superior. And most of this is plot-related, based on my understanding (or lack thereof) of the game after playing it. I changed a lot, and I've experienced gatekeeping within the community before back in my Reddit days, so be nice with your feedback!

Fell Dragon relevancy and the reduction of villains--It's revealed in retrospect towards the end of the game that certain villains aren't what they seem. Aversa was brainwashed by Validar as a child, Walhart was actually trying to prevent Grima's revival (albeit earning everyone's ire in the process) and was being manipulated by Excellus. Along with this, Grima and Walhart aren't really villains who affect the overall story, moreso placeholders for the main event. Because of this, I'd prefer to keep the focus on Validar and the Fell Dragon Grima, without there having to be those "well, in actuality" moments (as a Kingdom Hearts fan, I'm tired of those)--though we could keep the Aversa being brainwashed subplot; in fact, I'd re-work it so after Validar kidnaps her, she's raised by him to become a friend/servant to Robin (more on that in a sec), so they're the only one who can truly break through to her. Walhart is less aggressive with his approach to destroying the Grimleal, asking for cooperation rather than trying to take over the whole continent and forcing everyone to help him (he'd be allies with Chon'sin and actually have Say'ri and Yen'fay join before later joining our ranks himself), and Gangrel is a begrudging ally to the team because it inconveniences him greatly if the world is destroyed, as it would anyone--plus he realizes his troops are planning to revolt against him and wants to make nice with the people of Ylisse in case he ever needs to abscond.

Robin's background--First off, keep in mind that "Fates" was my first game, and while it copied a lot of "Awakening" (and "Engage" would do the same), the latter will always be my second FE game, and thus I wanted to avoid some tropes. Robin being the child of Validar is kinda burying the lead, and their mother is an unseen NPC, which is a big pet peeve to me with customizable characters; I adore a backstory. Seeing how Corrin, Byleth, and Alear's backstories follow similar beats to Robin's, I'd prefer if we switched it up. I'd enjoy if, rather than going the "nice, mostly absent mom and evil dad" route the succeeding games would go, we instead make Validar a bit more grey. He is still a devout follower of Grima, but not by choice. Coming from a family of worshippers, he plans to defect with his wife and child, but when they are captured and threatened with death, Validar agrees to become a vessel to Grima. This fails and corrupts him, and he raises Robin as the next vessel, his love being twisted with a fixation and obsession with them. His wife helps Robin escape shortly before the events of the game, but she disappears shortly thereafter and is presumed dead. Robin no longer has amnesia here, but has been kept a secret from the outside world, and thus Frederick is correct in being hesitant to trust them, and Robin understands, slowly revealing their origins to Chrom and co. (the full of which is done before the end of Act I).

The confusing paradox/Lucina's Mission--If you weren't mad before, you probably will be now. I kinda found the explanation of "Grima from an alternate future came to the present, gave Robin amnesia and went back to square 1" explanation kinda confusing and convoluted. Given the fact that the future children don't return to their time period anyway, I'd rework the story so that the alternate future that they came from is destroyed, and the children are the last remnants of it. No Grima going back in time with them; he was a being of destruction that brought about his own demise, eventually. The children were simply given a new lease on life, as well as wanting to spare their past parents the heartache of it all.

Making the children from the same timeline--This would mean a lot of extra work, but I'd enjoy it if the story and support convos reflected each character's unique heritage depending on who their dominant parent married. This INCLUDES CHROM ACKNOWLEDGING HIS KIDS HAVING BRANDS. If you recall, that's a family trait, and Lucina (the daughter he has regardless of your choices) has it, and Inigo (a son he could potentially have with Olivia) also shows that he has it. Any other possible kids Chrom can have should also mention having or not having a brand, imo. Morgan's backstory also changes. Here, Morgan comes from the same timeline as the other children (which can potentially happen in the OG game, but mainly if they have a sibling to confirm this), and they maintain a bubbly attitude, albeit not as moronic/silly as in the OG game.

(Art found on Etsy)

Emmeryn and Philia survive--Since I've already reversed the (seemingly) deaths of Walhart, Aversa, and Gangrel, I wanted to focus on Emmeryn. In the game, Philia is killed while trying to save her, and she commits suicide to prevent Chrom from giving up the Fire Emblem. Emmeryn can survive in one of the paralogues, though how this is possible isn't stated, and she has amnesia that makes her somewhat child-like. In my rewrite, Philia and her knights--or at the very least, Philia--doesn't die, and manages to rescue Emmeryn, though she has been roughed up in the process (IDK if I'd still make it because of Gangrel or if it'd be from Validar; probably the latter), forcing Chrom to take the role as king.

Romance options are more flexible--This includes same-sex options for Robin. Obviously this is more of a bonus aspect rather than something that largely affects the story/gameplay, but as a gaymer, this is something I'd enjoy, as well as STILL having kids in this (Fates mentioned same-sex couples adopted, but they don't get xenologues or get to be part of the story at all). Of course, this doesn't mean we can have Robin/Chrom since there's emphasis on heirs and Chrom has a big wedding with a bridge (unless you wanna have them get married and have an offscreen surrogate, which would be neat). Concerning Chrom, I'd enjoy Miriel, Anna, Panne, Tharja, Phila, Say'ri, and Flavia being additional romance options for him (which could come with interesting consequences).

Olivia joins earlier--This is a nit-pick as a Olivia/Chrom fan (mainly because of him acknowledging Inigo more than his other extras kids), but I also enjoy having a dancer on the team earlier.

Perhaps a bit more background/attention for some characters--In games like "Fire Emblem," most of the characters' personality and background is shown in the form of their supports with other characters. This might be unachievable in the game, but I would like more inclusion of the characters who join; the ones who join earlier definitely feel like they fade to the background as the story goes on, and things like Ricken's admiration for Chrom, Tharja's obsession with Robin (cue "obsessive dad" flashbacks), and Stahl's training under Frederick are some of the things I wish the mains story would bring up here and there rather than confining it to convos.

It'd also be nice to have an open-world, exploration-style story like 3H and "Engage," but it's not a necessity; it's just a fun thing I'd enjoy. Plus actually letting us replay our convos like we're able to do in later games would be awesome.

And that's my take! I'm almost certain that I'm forgetting something, but I can always edit this later. Lemme know what you think!

[cozycryptidcorner]

Classic movies I have watched thus far and are ranked according to:

Monster/alien/robot and human action

If the genders were flipped, would it appeal to me more

Is it so bad it's good or so bad it's bad?

Movies Reviewed in the post:

Barbarella

Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women

The Forbidden Planet

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

Life Force

I Married a Monster From Outer Space

Everything (INCLUDING SPOILERS) so far under the cut:

Barbarella: OK. this one is actually pretty silly. Definitely has aspects that would not be considered "progressive" today that were probably revolutionary at the time. Like I'm sure a woman who had sex with men and enjoyed it would not be labeled as "innocent" the way Barbarella is played to be, but like in the context of the sixties... idk probably was a profoundly intriguing concept. Loved the set and costume designs!!!!!!!!

Rating: 6/10, lots of human/nonhuman action.

Would I enjoy it more if the genders were flipped: Yes, as long as the costumes stayed the same. <3

Not bad. The parts that were dated could even be fun.

Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women: THIS WAS SO BORINGGGGG!!!!!!!! yup there were definitely come prehistoric (????) women there and they were all blond. I was definitely expecting this to be a low key fetish film about the really bad "noble savage" trope but the team from earth doesn't even see the titular prehistoric women. It's just the team from earth dicking around trying to collect samples while the prehistoric women try to secretly run them off by getting their gods to cause harm. Costume designs looked like cheap party city props.

Rating: 1/10, no action at all.

Would I enjoy it more if the genders were flipped: No.

So bad it's bad, full stop.

Forbidden Planet: Actually not too bad. Just disappointed that the aliens had been long dead by the time the humans get there. No alien/human or even robot/human action. GREAT set design (I like the look of old scifi set designs even if they don't look "real" i will always believe in set design superiority over CGI), pretty nice costumes. Very predatory romance between all the men of a military crew and the one human girl and some references how "immodestly" she dresses around them (I am rolling my eyes all the way back to my brain)

Rating: 5/10, interesting concept but no human/nonhuman action

Would I enjoy it more if the genders were flipped: that would be an interesting dynamic

I wouldn't call it "bad," just that I'm definitely not the target demographic.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers: oh i feel the strength of the red scare in this chili's tonight. Very much a "what if the russians invaded our town slowly" deal. No alien fuckery, in fact I'm still VERY confused as to how the switch happens. Because in this film, a pod will grow another human and then take someone's place while they are asleep. BUT in the scene where the main two are running away, when the woman is so tired she falls asleep... she's replaced? okay why grow a pod then. she was fine and then falls asleep accidentally for a few seconds and her humanity is gone but she wasn't replaced.... maybe it made sense in the sixties :/

Rating: 5/10, again. interesting, but no action

Gender flips? No, nothing would change

It's not bad, it's a classic movie for a reason. Pretty solid story line.

Life Force: NOW THIS IS WHAT I'M FUCKING TALKING ABOUT BABYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY SPACE VAMPIRES? VAMPIRES FROM SPACE? But also on the flip side, have you seen that post where it's like "men who write scifi are like here's a cool world building idea and also how much i fucking hate women." That's this. Decent effects, cool idea, but the main character is just... wild. There's a scene where he's sure a space vampire has taken over a random woman and just beats the ever loving christ out of her, unprovoked. Super uncomfortable to watch. You can tell that this is like an example of how some men view attractive women as sirens that "lure" innocent men with their "wicked beauty" and manipulate them. Not a good look! The set designs are cool tho

Rating: 5/10, would have been higher if not for the violence against women :/ there is human/nonhuman action.

Would I like it if the genders were flipped: yeah probably, as long as the domestic abuse undertones were also removed.

So bad? Oh girl they play it 100% straight. This is a movie about vampires that come from space and everyone is giving it one thousand percent effort in their acting. It's not velocirpastor levels of great, but it's a good movie to watch while high with your friends on a friday night.

I Married a Monster from Outer Space: oh girl that cold war red scare strikes again. This is definitely playing on the fears that you might just wake up one day and find out your spouse was a spy for the soviet union.

There is a dog, and the dog does die :(

Rating: 6/10, decent movie with drama and they explicitly sleep together in a very hayes code way

Would I like it if the genders were flipped: No, but the gender rolls should be. I played this up in the 'classics reimagined bisexually' but the guy does not actually malewife very hard

It's not bad. It's also not good.

[12bleupwhat12]

1, 6, 19, 15 and 13 for Amane <3

THANKS FOR ASKING POOKIE!

1. Favourite song lyrics

I love the lyrics “You’re sorry? I don’t care! Please, go ahead and die already/ Remember MY cries, MY repents MY words of “I’m sorry” that I said to you?” I just love the way the VA sings the first line super chipper like “die 😘”. I’m also a hoe for twisting the subject/context of final choruses (Taylor Swift does it a lot and I can’t get enough of it).

6. Favourite relationships with another character in the prison?

I really like how Fuuta and Amane’s relationship is developing and not enough people talk about it :’0! They both are completely different characters and if you told anyone in T1 that’d they’d get closer, I’m sure a lot of people wouldn’t believe you. But they both also have a similar mindset, Fuuta getting easily swept into cult-like mob mentality and Amane in the literal cult. It’s worrying for sure, but it’s defs interesting! I just find it fascinating how it developed so naturally and basically under our noses, the same way Muu and Haruka’s relationship developed in T1 before becoming the co-dependent mess they are.

13. Any ideas on what would they and their MV be like of they got a different verdict in T1?

I was initially unsure of it would change or be any different. MILGRAM characters have a tendency of when you vote one way they’re like “I’M GONNA SWITCH IT UP.” Part of me thought that Amane would be as radical and religious as she is now, with her ideals validated and therefore thinking she was cleared. She ain’t beating the catholic allegations.

But then I read a post that I can’t remember anymore (I’ll link it if I can find it) kinda proving the opposite. Honestly now, I think I’d she was voted innocent then she wouldn’t be the menace she is now. Amane grew up in an environment where adults and people of authority couldn’t be trusted to give her mercy, just punishing her for any bad thing she did. I think if she did get an inno verdict, she’d definitely need to grapple with the fact that not all sins have to be punished, and that she’s deserving of forgiveness. Of course this could backfire but we will never know

15. What do you think of their voice?

I LOVE HER VOICE, ESPECIALLY IN THE T2 VOICE DRAMA. I find it fascinating how her VA can switch from dark and moody to being really bubbly. She switches so seamlessly it actually unsettles me and that’s great! I also love her singing voice. Like I mentioned, the way she can sing the most darkest lines in a perky manner is so AAAAAA! She really does fit the role of singing on a children’s commercial/cartoon.

19. What do you think their childhood/teenage years were like?

I think we already know how bad it was. Amane is established to be a child who is a stickler for the rules, gets good grades and age all her veggies. It is sad to think that she trusted adults and authority figures so much that the abuse she went through was completely excused to Amane because “god told them to do it, she broke the rules it’s only fair,” when the rule she broke was probably hella unfair!

AGAIN, THANKS FOR ASKING POOKIE REUL!!!! <3333

[mizukagami-takamagahara]

In response to my BBCF Lobby Sprite Edits, @cavewulf added the following;

Did you know the lobby sprites design first appeared in a game called magical beat, which had a collab with blazblue

I actually did not know about that! Though, inspired by your comment, I decided to do some digging. The trailer I found (posted by Arcade Belgium) even teases at the BlazBlue cameos, giving us a brief glance at Carl and Nirvana while previewing the game's Character Select menu, and showing silhouettes of Ragna and Noel toward the end of the video!

Magical Beat was released for the Playstation Vita in 2014, published by Arc System Works, just like BlazBlue. I did notice it as an option on the ArcSys games poll that ended just recently!

Magical Beat was (or is, I guess, one could still play it, though it's certainly faded from the public eye) a combination drop-down puzzle game and rhythm game. A fun thing I noticed was that levels in Magical Beat are comprised of ten stages, just like the Arcade modes in some of the BB games (though I think it was eight in Chronophantasma?)

The world of the game does seem to have some kind of story, taking place after the extinction of humanity. The three human-looking characters that seem to be the face of the game are actually "humanoid cyborgs" from some great war in the past... a character archetype that ArcSys seems to really enjoy using.

In addition to the game's original soundtrack, courtesy of Kikuo-san, the game featured 20 songs from the BlazBlue series, and 15 from XBlaze! The songs were released as DLC in sets of six (on average) that would also unlock an associated cameo character to play as!

The game also featured a small selection of music from the Guilty Gear series, but no Guilty Gear characters were featured.

Another interesting note; while I was working on this post, I noticed the Makoto sprite from Magical Beat looks a lot different than the sprite I used for my edits. Here's a comparison;

Magical Beat Makoto --

Makoto available on the Librarium Wiki, used for my edits --

Note how much more red the Makoto sprite here is! The difference in eye color! The Magical Beat Makoto also features slightly more detail, with a hair shine at the back of her head that our Makoto lacks. What's up with that??? I'm aware that the CF sprites have multiple alternative color palettes people can use, but it seems strange that out of all the sprites uploaded to the wiki, only Makoto's page lacks her original palette.

I decided to boot up my copy of Central Fiction to see figure out whether or not this was her default palette, but I had trouble getting online- I have CF on the Switch, so I have to deal with Nintendo's finickiness.

I reached out to Carl @goofballproximitysurveyor for some help, and it provided the following screenshot of Makoto's CF sprite --

Which is the same as her Magical Beat sprite! Aside from the fact that she's still missing her hair highlight thing. I wonder why that was changed. I haven't noticed it with any of the other CF sprites.

Welp. Moving on from that mystery.

I never did play Magical Beat myself. This was supposed to be a Magical Beat post, though, before I got sidetracked. If any of you did play the game and have memories of it, please share them!

[tokyo-daaaamn-ji-gang]

Roasting tokrev girls: part 1, hinata (99% percent about her relationship with takemichi because these are the parts i hate the most hhhhh)

these are only my negative opinions and i'm still being negative about them

So i will start from beginning, i think takemichi only liked her because she was popular and loved him not because of who she is and combined with hinas live at first sight its not convincing me that its a type of love that will last twelve years and be healthy at the same time. At some times it even seems that takemichi isn't in love with her but more with the symbol of her: the only girlfriend he ever had, the person he's trying to save, the person that truly remembered him. (Although i think that changed later a little it still has other problems)

the most common critique about her relationship with our hero (i promise i'm going to talk about other things). Takemichi is 26 and she is 14 (i think?) Which makes their whole relationship....weird, i am not going to talk too much about it but it makes me really uncomfortable

I hate the fact that her beating up takemichi is portrayed as funny or deserved by michi the biggest ones i remember are the scene where she beats him up for cheating (i also think the whole concept of this scene is weird but this a whole other matter) or for breaking up with her i don't remember much from this scene but when i read it it was just...uh i don't know why a person like hina couldnt understand takemichi breaking up with her

She has no thoughts of her own about anything other than takemichi and arguably emma this is understandable with really minor characters but she is the reason this manga exists (or is she? Well even if not she was in that role for 3/4 of the story) but she is used in the story like a plot device a few stepps away from being a macguffin

God this is not nearly enough text for a character like hinata but i just can't squeze more if i think of something else i will just send another ask

Side question i would also like to do emma but first i want to reread some moments of the black dragon arc do you know where i could do it?

(last thing if i made you uncomfortable in any even very small way please say)

Ok I do a lot of positivity posts so I think it'd only fair we roast them too, gotta have that balance.

I actually do agree with the first point, I don't think past Takemichi really really loved her, this could partly be because he's only a teenager. But he definitely didn't seem to respect her a lot especially since he was definitely about to cheat on her with Emma before the switch. He definitely seemed to take her granted. I think he did love her in his own way though, after all she was what he thought of when dying. I also think when he first travelled back he wanted to save this idealised version of her like you said, almost like he had nostalgia for his only girlfriend. I do think that changed as he spent more time with her and got more sure of his goal though, it's like travelling back reminded him of everything good about her.

Yeah the violence bit is a little weird especially since she's supposed to be a pacifist. I think that's just Wakui's way of showing her strong emotions, like she was so upset she broke her own character and her own code. Definitely not cool though, it's definitely not a great trope.

Unfortunately she's mainly reduced into the love interest role so most of her characteristics will be based on Takemichi. Especially since she's mainly shown with him.

(Mangadex tends to be the best)

[d2kvirus]

15/1/24 Fact or Fiction

Statement #1: Despite RAW having a great 2023, you still enjoyed watching Dynamite more this year. FACT - For the simple reason that Dynamite is more readily available, as I can just plonk myself on the sofa and switch on ITV4...as long as the snooker or the darts hasn't overrun again, while WWE tends to involve a trip to WatchWrestling. That being said, 2023 was certainly not one of Dynamite's banner years as they spent a sizeable chunk of the year trying to lock into a groove, but only really managed it when the Continental Classic took centre stage and allowed things to be tweaked around it without being in the glare of the audience's gaze, while in comparison Raw has been more consistent

Statement #2: Seth Rollins has had a lame duck reign as RAW World Heavyweight Champion since he has been on the same brand the whole time with Cody Rhodes, who beat him in 3 straight PPV matches in 2022 but never got a shot at that title in 2023. FICTION - The only way you can call Rollins' run "lame duck" is if the bar has raised significantly from the reigns which set the definition of lame duck in stone such as Rey Mysterio, Jack Swagger or Jinder Mahal. As Riollins' reign can't be compared to any of those, as he doesn't lose all non-title matches nor is he a jobber elevated to champion in the hopes of selling some house show tickets in Iowa, calling him a "lame duck" is getting a bit too Nostalgia Critic for my liking

Statement #3: Commercial breaks during good TV wrestling matches are necessary and can be used creatively to improve the viewing experience. FICTION - Commercial breaks during matches routinely interrupt the flow and take you out of a match regardless of quality. While this isn't as bad as a commercial break in the middle of a three-minute match, where between 1/4 and 1/3 of the match is lost due to appeasing our corporate overlords, it's still the equivalent of being unable to watch the credits for a film as they've been squeezed into a postage stamp-sized space in the corner of the screen and sped up

Statement #4: Christian Cage was the MVP of AEW in 2023. FACT - While his promo and character work immediately puts Christian into the conversation for AEW MVP of 2023, what puts him over the top of guys like Samoa Joe, Mox, FTR or Orange Cassidy is the fact that he has done the impossible and revived the TNT title after a couple of years of it having its lustre tarnished by things such as the Sammy/Cody/interim/Sammy/Scorpio Sky/Sammy/Scorpio Sky hot potatoing for late 2021-early 2022 or Wardlow's eighteen month holding pattern both with and without the belt, and if one guy can undo so much damage on their own that makes them MVP

Statement #5: Since you gave a lot of scores of 8 or higher to RAW and Dynamite in 2023, if that trend continues in 2024 then the numerical scoring system itself should be changed. FICTION - Oh god, imagine if the scoring system was changed and Raw/Dynamite/Impact started getting 7/10 on the reg. Can't imagine it? Okay, well what you need to do is watch Event Horizon and skip to the scene where the original crew's last transmission is descrambled, and that's what will happen if an episode of SmackDown which ends with a lengthy Bloodline segment gets a 6.5/10

Statement #6: If you could only watch one weekly pro-wrestling show in 2024, you would rather it featured Adam “Edge” Copeland than CM Punk. FACT - ...though this is mainly down to pedantry, because Copeland is far more likely to actually be a regular face on the weekly wrestling show while Punk has already missed a few episodes of Raw since his return, which means I would actually be watching a show with the guy I expect to be there. If it were peak Punk who was guaranteed to be there three weeks out of four? I'd absolutely pick the show which Punk was on, but the Punk who is on some weeks and never mentioned others who has been missing the spark in his promos? That's why I go for the show with the guy who is far more likely to be there

Statement #7: Samoa Joe was the wrong person to take the AEW Championship from MJF. FICTION - While the most obvious guy to take the belt off the back of the Devil storyline was Adam Cole, what with him being The Devil and everything, Joe was certainly a good choice to end MJF's reign as he's been a strong and consistent onscreen presence in AEW all year (and reportedly also a strong and consistent presence backstage at Wembley...) and it certainly makes sense for him to hold the belt while also allowing AEW to reorientate their uppercard. Are there other names who could have been better calls or benefitted more? Absolutely, and that list has Swerve Strickland's name on it three or four times, but more importantly the list of potential people who would be the Xavier or Jerry Lynn in the history of the AEW title certainly does not have Joe's name on it

Statement #8: You liked the reveal of Adam Cole as “Devil” at the end of Worlds End.  FACT - While Cole was the most likely culprit for the longest time, and there were several moments foreshadowing it going back to the build to All In, that underlines how the most obvious choice is more often than not the right choice and only a swerve-obsessed doofus would have thought otherwise. More than anything else, there was a sense of relief when Cole was revealed, given the very real fears it might have been Jack Perry under the mask, especially as some of the moments were practically threatening the viewers with that possibility

[sleeping-on-cracking-ice]

can you please write an imagine for nigari?? he have a love/hate relationship with a girl where they throw shades to each other but they always have the other's back during games, and one day a guy flirts with her at the beach and he gets mad

I’d love to. Thanks for requesting! 😉

A Bullet Between The Eyes | Suguru Niragi

{Alice In Borderland Masterlist}

Character(s): Niragi (ft. OC’s)

Summary: Niragi and you have a bickering relationship with each other. One night a guy tries to buy you a drink, not noticing the psychotic man standing nearby.

Warning: a lot of swearing, smoking, violence, threatening

Word Count: 2.6k

*reader is female

Niragi gif credit

Music was blaring through the speakers at the highest volume possible and made your ears almost bleed. You swore you could feel the bass in your bones, shaking them against each other to the beat. You had become immune to the deafening dubstep music and the annoying yells of everyone in the large crowd. People were pushed up close and personal to one another, grinding against each other like a pack of horny animals. It made you sick.

You leant against the neon-lighted bar that was fixated about twenty metres from the dance floor. You watched as people pushed each other into the pool nearby as you took a large puff from your cigarette. You had never smoked before being thrown into this horrific world, but the stress and worry brought you to consider the damaging habit.

“Bunch of idiots,” you muttered angrily under your breath. “How the fuck are they having fun? Do they not realize their brutal fates are waiting to creep up on them?”

Your close friend Sara sat in the stool beside you. She glanced at you and then in the direction you were staring. “I mean, I guess that’s why they’re having fun. They only have such a short life ahead of them,” she responded, turning back to the bar and taking a swig of her drink.

“I mean to be honest Y/N, I’m surprised you’re not letting loose of your cold attitude and having fun,” Sara stated over her shoulder to you.

You broke your gaze from everyone else and looked at her from the side. “Why is that?” you asked, curious as to what she meant.

She looked at you and smirked. “Don’t play dumb. I’ve seen you,” she chuckled.

“Huh?”

“You and that militant. You’ve been getting awfully close to the psychopath. When did it all start?” she sneered.

You pulled a confused expression before realizing what she was referring to. “Oh you mean Niragi,” you said, “We just help each other out at games, it increases our chance of surviving.” You brushed off her accusation and took another puff of your cigarette.

“Sorry if I’m being nosy, but it’s just strange,” Sara assured. “In the months I’ve been here, I’ve never seen Niragi warm up to someone. He’s always remained the same unempathetic, abusive bastard that I’ve always known.”

You stared at her side profile, not being too sure what to say.

You wouldn’t say that you had a good relationship with Niragi, considering the fact that he really did know how to push your buttons. If anything he was your enemy. But for some reason when you two were placed into the same groups to complete a game, you work together and against the others.

It was like he completely changed his persona from a cold-hearted prick to an overly protective (still a prick) figure. It gave you whiplash at times.

You let out a small chuckle and smirked at Sara. “And how would working with Niragi make me want to go and dance more Sara?” you questioned, going back to the topic you started at.

Sara turned herself around fully and stared you down right in the eyes. “All I’m saying is, if you’re looking for a quick way to die, keep sticking around Niragi. You know how he is Y/N, and when he gets the chance, he’ll put a bullet between your eyes with that rifle of his.”

She stood up off her stool and strutted towards the pool with her drink in her hand, probably to have some fun herself, considering the games were beginning in the next couple of hours. No one knew which night would be their last.

Your eyes followed her figure as she walked away. “Huh, maybe she’s just jealous,” you muttered.

You turned around and leaned over the bar, asking the bartender to make you a drink. The blonde girl nodded and got to mixing it for you. You sat in the seat that Sara previously was and let out a big sigh. You honestly were getting tired of the constant parties every single night, it was starting to get old.

No matter how hard you tried to ignore it, your mind kept bringing you back to what Sara was saying about Niragi and you. Was it really getting that obvious? Were other people noticing?

The bartender slid the drink towards you and you thanked her. You lifted the cold drink to your lips and tipped your head back, taking a big amount into your body. You wanted to be at least slightly intoxicated when the games start. It always helped ease your anxiety.

As your head began to feel heavier and your limbs became a bit numb, you noticed that the usual warm chatter that surrounded the neon bar had dissolved, almost to silence. You were confused, whipping your head around to see the cause.

You felt your face drop into a scowl as you noticed the familiar face that you hated so much. Niragi’s black and white button up turned turquoise from the lighting, and his eyes which were a deep dark black as he peered around the bar looking for something. You locked eyes with the all too familiar rifle that hung on his shoulders effortlessly, obviously just there for show. 

You pointed that out to him one time which ended with your back against a hallway wall and the barrel of the rifle pressed harshly against your temple with Niragi’s disgusting spit in your eye. “You still think it’s for show?” he hissed.

He tried so desperately to get you to be scared of him at The Beach. Why in the hell did that brutal and bully personality of his fade at the games?

You swiveled back around in your seat, facing your back towards the frightening man.

‘Why can’t he just fuck off,’ you thought to yourself. ‘Why do I have to run into him everyday.’ It was becoming a bit suspicious, the amount of times you would catch Niragi around the corner of a room you’re in. He would always play it off as by chance but you’ve begun to think otherwise.

A hand slowly placed itself on your bare lower back and someone leaned in close to your ear. “Hey there sweetheart, I’ve been looking for you all night. A little birdie told me you would be here,” you heard Niragi purr into your ear.

You cringed at his sickening sweet tone and turned away from him. You could smell the slight tang of metallic blood on him. He’d probably ‘took care’ of someone some time earlier.

“What the fuck do you want Niragi,” you growled, not looking him in the eye. Niragi chuckled at your tone.

“That’s not a very nice hello. I thought you would’ve warmed up to me by now. You seem to put an awful lot of trust in me at games.”

He tucked a piece of hair behind your ear and pinched your earlobe gently between his thumb and index finger. You rolled your eyes into the back of your head in annoyance and slapped his hand away from your face.

“Piss off. If you’ve come here just to get on my nerves then you can beat it.” you spat at him harshly. He seemed taken back by your bold movements.

“Are you sure you want to speak to me that way? I might just leave you to die if you’re rude enough to me.” he snickered, keeping that smug smirk on his face that made you want to bash him over the head.

“So be it then, at least when I’m dead I won’t have to deal with your annoying ass.” You stuffed the rest of your cigarette into a tray on the table and stood up out of your seat to face the tall man head on.

He towered over you, that annoying and insolent smile never leaving his tanned face. Just his face alone created a rage in you that was indescribable.

“I don’t need some psychotic man with a machine gun to protect me Niragi. I am fine on my own. If anything, I could beat your cocky ass with my bare hands alone.”

“Well you seem awfully confident. Keep that same attitude when I have you cornered during a game, you might have to prove yourself right in order to survive.”

“Is that a threat?”

“It’s however you want to take it sweetie. A threat or a head-start.”

You frowned up at the man, not knowing how to respond. You walked back to the seat and grabbed your jacket that hung off it. “Have fun by yourself you prick. Why don’t you choose a fucking personality and stop switching between the two. You give me bloody whiplash.” You spat down at his feet, narrowly missing his shoe and marched away from him towards the pool to look for Sara.

You didn’t want to put up with his bullshit that night. You weren’t in the mood to start a verbal war with him, especially in front of everyone.

You found Sara sitting on the edge of the pool. There weren’t a lot of people around her, as everyone was either at the bar or on the dance floor.

You placed your hand gently on her shoulder and sat down next to her with your feet in the heated pool. It was a kind of awkward silence for a few moments before Sara spoke up.

“Sorry about before, I shouldn’t have assumed anything,” she started, looking into your eyes. “I understand that it must be hard for you, being the object of a psychotic man’s desires.” She said empathetically.

You appreciated her concern, as there were times where you were honestly scared for your life around Niragi. He really wasn’t the best person to be around, but you had already known that before you got closer with him. You never thought he would become as annoying and insistent as he had.

“I’m just worried about you. He’s a manipulative and untrustworthy person and I would hate to come back from a game one day to see your body with a bullet through your head.”

You stared into the water thinking about Sara’s words. “I know, I would hate that as well. I don’t trust him like that Sara. I would never put my own life in his hands, because I know he would hurt me with no remorse whatsoever.”

You both sat in silence for a bit with Sara leaning her head onto your shoulder. You wanted to spend this nice time together before leaving, just in case anything was to happen.

“I better go,” she announced after a while. She stood up and placed her hand on the top of your head. “Good luck Y/N. Make sure you don’t die out there. If anyone can survive, it’s you.”

You smiled at her words and looked up at her. “You too Sara. Love you.”

She said it back and then trudged off into the direction of the entrance to the hotel.

You wanted to be alone with your thoughts for a bit, but that didn’t last long when a tipsy young man with brown hair decided to plop himself right next to you, a little too close to just be friendly.

“Hey love! You’re looking awfully gorgeous tonight,” he beamed, placing an arm around your shoulder. You were taken back by his boldness, not knowing how to react.

“Oh, thanks I guess? I mean I’m dressed the same as I always am,” you said trying to keep the conversation light.

“Hmm really? Well I guess you’re just always gorgeous then,” he giggled and leaned closer to you.

You started to panic a little bit. This boy was a bit too flirty for his own good.

“Hey! Do you want to maybe come get a drink with me at the bar?” he asked in a cheery tone. You looked at him in shock and shook your head quickly. “No it’s fine really! I just had one so I don’t feel like another.” you insisted, laughing awkwardly.

“No really it’s fine! Actually you know what, I’ll grab it for you. You just wait here and I’ll be back soon,” he said with a big smile on his face. It seemed very contradicting to his pushy behaviour.

You started to get annoyed. “Please, it’s fine. I was just about to leave anyway,” you lied.

The young man still pushed. You found it quite pathetic really. Was he really that desperate?

Before you could even say anything else, you suddenly saw the man fly sideways and land in the pool. Your mouth fell open in shock and you watched as he came back to the surface gasping for air. “What the fuck? Who was that?!” he yelled out frustratingly. Everyone around the pool had gone silent to see what the commotion was.

You looked back to the side of the pool to see none other than Niragi himself who had a proud smile on his face. “It was me you little bitch.” The young man’s eyes widened in fear.

“Are you sure you want to go flirting around with a militant’s woman? You might just be looking to get your head blown off!” Niragi cackled psychotically. “Go find your own toy to play with.”

Niragi aimed his rifle towards the man and everyone surrounding the pool panicked and ducked down. The man screamed in fear and started yelling to do anything that might spare his life.

“My deepest apologies Niragi! I didn’t know she was with you! I promise I’ll stay away from her from now on!”

You felt somewhat belittled. How dare he apologize to Niragi but not you. You were the one that got harassed.

Niragi let out a giggle and pulled the trigger of his rifle. The deafening sound rang in your ears and you watched as the bullet narrowly missed the young man’s head by an inch, creating a splash in the water next to him.

Niragi kneeled down with an evil smile on his face and harshly gripped the boy by his hair to lift him closer to his face. “If you ever touch her again, I won’t hesitate to put multiple bullets between those annoying ass eyes of yours. You understand?” He growled.

“Yes! I understand sir! I promise!” the boy cried desperately.

Niragi let go of his hair and watched as he swam to the left of him to scramble out of the pool and sprint away from him towards the dance floor. Probably to hide among other people so if Niragi changed his mind about sparing him he would be harder to find.

You breathed heavily in shock, not believing what you just witnessed.

“What the fuck was that?!” you yelled at Niragi. He looked down at you with an emotionless expression.

“Huh?”

“That was so over dramatic! Niragi I don’t know if you know this, but we’re not together! We’re not even friends! You can’t go around threatening anyone who lays eyes on me!”

Niragi rolled his eyes and kneeled down to get closer to your face. “Look, that idiotic boy was just trying to get into your pants. He didn’t want anything else from you. I just did you a favor, you should be thanking me!” he exclaimed.

You furrowed your eyebrows in annoyance. “I was very aware of that fact Niragi, but I had it under control!”

“Did you really Y/N? Because from the way you were shaking it didn’t seem like you did.”

You stared into his deep, evil eyes. For once, you actually felt small underneath his gaze.

“Whatever, I’m going back to my room.” You stood up from your position and scurried away from the scene. As much as you hated to admit it, you were partly grateful to Niragi from saving you from that situation. You would never admit it to him though. You just wish he didn’t do it with so much aggression.

“Would you like me to walk you back-”

“Niragi! Fuck off!”

Author’s Note: Sorry this one took a while anon. I really hope it’s what you wanted!

[duckprintspress]

How to Edit an Over-Length Story Down to a Specific Word Count

One of the most wonderful things about writing as a hobby is that you never have to worry about the length of your story. You can be as self-indulgent as you want, make your prose the royalist of purples, include every single side story and extra thought that strikes your fancy. It’s your story, with no limits, and you can proceed with it as you wish.

When transitioning from casual writing to a more professional writing milieu, this changes. If you want to publish, odds are, you’ll need to write to a word count. If a flash fiction serial says, “1,000 words or less,” your story can’t be 1,025 and still qualify. If a website says, “we accept novellas ranging from 20,000 to 40,000 words,” your story will need to fall into that window. Even when you consider novel-length works, stories are expected to be a certain word count to fit neatly into specific genres - romance is usually around 80,000 words, young adult usually 50,000 to 80,000, debut novels usually have to be 100,000 words or less regardless of genre, etc. If you self-publish or work with a small press, you may be able to get away with breaking these “rules,” but it’s still worthwhile to learn to read your own writing critically with length in mind and learn to recognize what you do and do not need to make your story work - and then, if length isn’t an issue in your publishing setting, you can always decide after figuring out what’s non-essential to just keep everything anyway.

If you’re writing for fun? You literally never have to worry about your word count (well, except for sometimes in specific challenges that have minimum and/or maximum word counts), and as such, this post is probably not for you.

But, if you’re used to writing in the “throw in everything and the kitchen sink” way that’s common in fandom fanfiction circles, and you’re trying to transition only to be suddenly confronted with the reality that you’ve written 6,000 words for a short story project with a maximum word count of 5,000...well, we at Duck Prints Press have been there, we are in fact there right now, as we finish our stories for our upcoming anthology Add Magic to Taste and many of us wrote first drafts that were well over the maximum word count.

So, based on our experiences, here are our suggestions on approaches to help your story shorter...without losing the story you wanted to tell!

Cut weasel words (we wrote a whole post to help you learn how to do that!) such as unnecessary adverbs and adjectives, the “was ~ing” sentence structure, redundant time words such as “a moment later,” and many others.

When reviewing dialog, keep an eye out for “uh,” “er,” “I mean,” “well,” and other casual extra words. A small amount of that kind of language usage can make dialog more realistic, but a little goes a long way, and often a fair number of words can be removed by cutting these words, without negatively impacting your story at all.

Active voice almost always uses fewer words than passive voice, so try to use active voice more (but don’t forget that passive voice is important for varying up your sentence structures and keeping your story interesting, so don’t only write in active voice!).

Look for places where you can replace phrases with single words that mean the same thing. You can often save a lot of words by switching out phrases like “come back” for “return” and seeking out other places where one word can do the work of many.

Cut sentences that add atmosphere but don't forward the plot or grow your characters. (Obviously, use your judgement. Don't cut ALL the flavor, but start by going - I’ve got two sentences that are mostly flavor text - which adds more? And then delete the other, or combine them into one shorter sentence.)

Remove superfluous dialog tags. If it’s clear who’s talking, especially if it’s a conversation between only two people, you can cut all the he saids, she saids.

Look for places where you've written repetitively - at the most basic level, “ ‘hahaha,’ he laughed,” is an example, but repetition is often more subtle, like instances where you give information in once sentence, and then rephrase part or all of that sentence in the next one - it’s better to poke at the two sentences until you think of an effective, and more concise, way to make them into only one sentence. This also goes for scenes - if you’ve got two scenes that tend towards accomplishing the same plot-related goal, consider combining them into one scene.

Have a reason for every sentence, and even every sentence clause (as in, every comma insertion, every part of the sentence, every em dashed inclusion, that kind of thing). Ask yourself - what function does this serve? Have I met that function somewhere else? If it serves no function, or if it’s duplicative, consider cutting it. Or, the answer may be “none,” and you may choose to save it anyway - because it adds flavor, or is very in character for your PoV person, or any of a number of reasons. But if you’re saving it, make sure you’ve done so intentionally. It's important to be aware of what you're trying to do with your words, or else how can you recognize what to cut, and what not to cut?

Likewise, have a reason for every scene. They should all move the story along - whatever the story is, it doesn’t have to be “the end of the world,” your story can be simple and straightforward and sequential...but if you’re working to a word count, your scenes should still forward the story toward that end point. If the scene doesn’t contribute...you may not need them, or you may be able to fold it in with another scene, as suggested in item 6.

Review the worldbuilding you’ve included, and consider what you’re trying to accomplish with your story. A bit of worldbuilding outside of the bare essentials makes a story feel fleshed out, but again, a little can go a long way. If you’ve got lots of “fun” worldbuilding bits that don’t actually forward your plot and aren’t relevant to your characters, cut them. You can always put them as extras in your blog later, but they’ll just make your story clunky if you have a lot of them.

Beware of info-dumps. Often finding a more natural way to integrate that information - showing instead of telling in bits throughout the story - can help reduce word count.

Alternatively - if you over-show, and never tell, this will vastly increase your word count, so consider if there are any places in your story where you can gloss over the details in favor of a shorter more “tell-y” description. You don’t need to go into a minute description of every smile and laugh - sometimes it’s fine to just say, “she was happy” or “she frowned” without going into a long description of their reaction that makes the reader infer that they were happy. (Anyone who unconditionally says “show, don’t tell,” is giving you bad writing advice. It’s much more important to learn to recognize when showing is more appropriate, and when telling is more appropriate, because no story will function as a cohesive whole if it’s all one or all the other.)

If you’ve got long paragraphs, they’re often prime places to look for entire sentences to cut. Read them critically and consider what’s actually helping your story instead of just adding word count chonk.

Try reading some or all of the dialog out loud; if it gets boring, repetitive, or unnecessary, end your scene wherever you start to lose interest, and cut the dialog that came after. If necessary, add a sentence or two of description at the end to make sure the transition is abrupt, but honestly, you often won’t even need to do so - scenes that end at the final punchy point in a discussion often work very well.

Create a specific goal for a scene or chapter. Maybe it’s revealing a specific piece of information, or having a character discover a specific thing, or having a specific unexpected event occur, but, whatever it is, make sure you can say, “this scene/chapter is supposed to accomplish this.” Once you know what you’re trying to do, check if the scene met that goal, make any necessary changes to ensure it does, and cut things that don’t help the scene meet that goal.

Building on the previous one, you can do the same thing, but for your entire story. Starting from the beginning, re-outline the story scene-by-scene and/or chapter-by-chapter, picking out what the main “beats” and most important themes are, and then re-read your draft and make sure you’re hitting those clearly. Consider cutting out the pieces of your story that don’t contribute to those, and definitely cut the pieces that distract from those key moments (unless, of course, the distraction is the point.)

Re-read a section you think could be cut and see if any sentences snag your attention. Poke at that bit until you figure out why - often, it’s because the sentence is unnecessary, poorly worded, unclear, or otherwise superfluous. You can often rewrite the sentence to be clearer, or cut the sentence completely without negatively impacting your work.

Be prepared to cut your darlings; even if you love a sentence or dialog exchange or paragraph, if you are working to a strict word count and it doesn't add anything, it may have to go, and that's okay...even though yes, it will hurt, always, no matter how experienced a writer you are. (Tip? Save your original draft, and/or make a new word doc where you safely tuck your darlings in for the future. Second tip? If you really, really love it...find a way to save it, but understand that to do so, you’ll have to cut something else. It’s often wise to pick one or two favorites and sacrifice the rest to save the best ones. We are not saying “always cut your darlings.” That is terrible writing advice. Don’t always cut your darlings. Writing, and reading your own writing, should bring you joy, even when you’re doing it professionally.)

If you’re having trouble recognizing what in your own work CAN be cut, try implementing the above strategies in different places - cut things, and then re-read, and see how it works, and if it works at all. Sometimes, you’ll realize...you didn’t need any of what you cut. Other times, you’ll realize...it no longer feels like the story you were trying to tell. Fiddle with it until you figure out what you need for it to still feel like your story, and practice that kind of cutting until you get better at recognizing what can and can’t go without having to do as much tweaking.

Lastly...along the lines of the previous...understand that sometimes, cutting your story down to a certain word count will just be impossible. Some stories simply can’t be made very short, and others simply can’t be told at length. If you’re really struggling, it’s important to consider that your story just...isn’t going to work at that word count. And that’s okay. Go back to the drawing board, and try again - you’ll also get better at learning what stories you can tell, in your style, using your own writing voice, at different word counts. It’s not something you’ll just know how to do - that kind of estimating is a skill, just like all other writing abilities.

As with all our writing advice - there’s no one way to tackle cutting stories for length, and also, which of these strategies is most appropriate will depend on what kind of story you’re writing, how much over-length it is, what your target market is, your characters, and your personal writing style. Try different ones, and see which work for you - the most important aspect is to learn to read your own writing critically enough that you are able to recognize what you can cut, and then from that standpoint, use your expertise to decide what you should cut, which is definitely not always the same thing. Lots of details can be cut - but a story with all of the flavor and individuality removed should never be your goal.

Contributions to this post were made by @unforth, @jhoomwrites, @alecjmarsh, @shealynn88, @foxymoley, @willablythe, and @owlishintergalactic, and their input has been used with their knowledge and explicit permission. Thanks, everyone, for helping us consider different ways to shorten stories!

[b0rista]

— WHEN IT RAINS ON YOUR WEDDING DAY. ❤︎

characters included: jean, connie, & reiner.

author's note: BYEHDH first post in a minute!1!!1!1!!1! also this is all assuming that your ceremony is set to take place outdoors obviously dndnmf

— JEAN.

the rain would hit just as you were preparing for the ceremony to begin, in your dress and all. you looked beautiful, and you were more than ready to spend the rest of your life with the man waiting for you outside. with that being said, once you saw the ground dampen from outside the window, your heart sank

still, you were not as frustrated as jean was. it wasn't even comparable, really. he wanted this moment to be absolutely perfect, and the fact that something had gotten in the way infuriated him. nevertheless, he planned on leaving that venue a married man. so, as angry as he was, he reconvened with you

and he did that in the,, dumbest way possible. because he knew he wouldn't be able to see you in your dress, he literally scReamed for you from outside. you were several stories up in the church surrounding your outdoor venue, and he was calling for you from below. like that of a fairytale, you opened the window, looked down at him, and screamed back ❤️

"jean, what are we going to do?"

the question softened him up a little bit, in all honesty. seeing just your face, looking so concerned. from below, he gawked at you, but only for a moment. it was seeing you feeling so down that flipped a switch in him, and before you could worry any further, he aggresively moved to reassure you. with a pointed finger and a gnarl in his brow, he'd shout:

"what do you mean what are we going to do? we're gonna get fuckin' married! having served in the military and all, it's a shocker that you aren't willing to get a little wet, beautiful."

and because you never backed down from a challenge, you marched down that aisle, and beautifully so. when it was time for him to kiss his bride, jean took down your hair, letting the rain droplets course through your locks. after all, the weather was bound to ruin it, anyway.

— CONNIE.

similar to jean's scenario, the rain began its course just as the ceremony was about to begin. and as down as you were about it, you still decided to get ready to be walked down the aisle. no matter the weather, you were planning on being wed

as for connie, though, he wasn't nearly as confident as jean would have been. in fact, he practically fell into a half hour long depression over the fact that it was going to storm on your guys' wedding day. quite literally, he was heartbroken. he was profoundly bummed out, and the only person capable of lightening his spirits was you

that being said, with total disregards for the sake of basic tradition, he wound up at your dressing room. softly, he called your name, moving to make himself comfortable inside. however, before he could even stick his head through the door, you threw a comb at him, screeching at him that he couldn't see you in your dress. with that, he simply leaned against the closed door. and like a true lover, you walked on over, leaning against your side. cinematically, it was rlly pretty, the two of you leaning your sides against the opposite sides of a stupid door

"i wanted today to be perfect, y'know."

"pardon?"

the single word itself was enough to make connie blink, a single brow furrowed. meanwhile, on the other side, you were working up quite the committed bride speech

"we've slaughtered literal stampedes of titans, kicked the shit out of trained vigilantes, sat through keith shadis' lectures side by side, and not to mention the fact that we've looked death itself in the face far more times than humanely necessary for teenagers— we've done all of that. all of that, to build up to this moment. our moment. it's rain, baby. maybe the gods above saw that we're still smiling after having survived the shitfest of a life they'd given us, and they started to cry because they'd lost."

creaking the door open just the slightest bit, you'd let only your eyes show, piercing through the crack as you looked at your husband to be. he was staring back at you, wide-eyed, waiting for you to continue. you couldn't help but grin:

"are we really going to let a couple piss babies like that ruin our perfect day?"

after simply gawking at you, connie's surprised expression slowly shifted into motivation, his frown forming into that of a smile. with his newfound hope, he would quickly shake his head— "hell no!" he'd say. then, after telling you just how lost he'd be without you, he ran off. he didn't want to be late to the alter, after all.

— REINER.

probably the least worried out of everyone on this list, surprisingly. unlike jean & connie, the rainstorm had hit after the wedding ceremony, and during the reception party. people were dancing, laughing, drinking, and the two of you were having the time of your lives. that being said, when bertholdt came rushing over to warn the two of you of the rain cloud coming through, the disappointed look on your face was inevitable

"what?" reiner would ask, as if he didn't believe him. of course, the two of you made sure to choose a sunny day whilst planning— this wasn't supposed to happen. so, when your newfound mother-in-law and your bridesmaids rushed to cover the cake and people were slowly shrinking beneath the weeping sky, you frowned, as if you'd just been heartbroken

reiner had his arms wrapped around you just as your face had dropped, as well; the two of you were dancing along with the hired band just as you'd received the news. so, he literally watched as your expression contorted, and it literally ripped his soul out of his chest

like the gentleman that he is [most of the time], he would shrug off his suit jacket, holding it above your head as it began to pour. as he did, he simply watched you sadly stare at the ground, puddles of water beginning to seep into the grass surrounding you. not being able to physically stand seeing you so sad on such an important day, reiner only did what his heart told him to

"take off your heels."

confused, you'd only look at him. with a nod of his head, he'd go, "it's gonna be hard to dance if you've got your heels sinking through every puddle. take off your heels, pull your hair down," slowly, he would remove his jacket from above you, letting the water fall onto you as he held your chin in his fingers, "and let loose with me."

with that, you'd only smile. as unexpected as the weather was, you could see just how much he was ready to waste the day away dancing with you beneath the sobbing sky— and the thought alone made your heart skip a beat

cue the dramatic costume change.

within ten minutes, you ran back to the party in your reception outfit, not wanting to dirty your wedding dress. you'd yanked down your hair, and rid yourself of your heels, stepping into the soaking wet grass entirely barefoot. reiner had been waiting for you, hair completely disheveled. once you arrived, beaming, the party started once more

you and your husband would dance, laugh, and love one another in the pouring rain, the rest of your party following suit in the best reception imaginable.

[creativeashproductions]

Subconscious Match Making // Charlie Gillespie

Summary: Kenny brings in his niece Y/N and her band to provide a demonstration of the stage presence of a band. More than happy Tarnished Poets become mentors during the process of bootcamp. Charlie’s eye is stuck on Kenny’s niece; Kenny’s so powerful he subconsciously did match making

Warning: Swearing, talk about car accident, angst, and fluff.

Words: 4.6k

A/N: The song used by my fictional band is High Hopes by the Australian band Yours Truly.

Masterlist

Being part of the audition aspect of Julie and the Phantoms was unreal, especially being young with such an opportunity. The timing couldn’t be better with the band stationed stateside for recording; Kenny had presented the offer to mentor during auditions. The capacity as a musician mentor was alien, but you would do anything for the guy you considered an uncle.

Stopping briefly at the bathroom, you encountered one of the options for Julie that Kenny had sent in the PDF file of people auditioning. As you stepped up to wash your hands, you noticed her lips moving along to the song they had been given.

“Are you okay?” You questioned turning to face the teenager no more than fifteen at the most. Her brown eyes colliding with yours unable to hide the nerves, “You’re auditioning for Kenny Ortega’s show, right?”

“Yeah. I’m Madison.” The girl spoke, holding out her hand to shake, “Are you auditioning for Carrie?”

You smiled at her question, “No.”

Julie went to answer before the glance at her watch, startled her barely getting a goodbye out before she was rushing out the door. You went back to drying your hands before heading to the room Kenny had messaged you about. It was a large room with people sitting at tables and four people on stage. All in a circle speaking quietly, you took the opportunity to settle beside Kenny and your three band members.

“Hey Kenny.” You murmured turning to the man, the myth, legend Kenny Ortega himself. The man beamed at you as he had not seen you in months due to touring.

“Y/N! Sweetheart.” Kenny spoke, taking in the differences, the bags under your eyes gone from the last time he had a video call, “You look stunning as usual.”

You chuckled at his compliment, feeling he was right; sleep was definitely better when not on a travelling bus. Late nights now found at the recording studio with the band and less stress on being hounded by fans.

“So, what do you want us to do?” You questioned glancing at the quartet on the stage each keeping their attention on each other, “Who are they?”

Kenny glanced at his colleagues ready for the day to start, “This the first time they will be performing on the stage as the band. They don’t know yet. As being their age, I’d like you to show them the dynamic we’re looking for.”

You nodded along with Lachlan, Brad and Jay. Kenny’s happy smile directed you guys for a second before turning to the stage. Huddling with your bandmates, you started throwing out song choices, one the most challenging things.

“Okay. Before we have you sing Bright, I convinced my niece to join us while they are off touring.” Kenny told the actors gesturing to the band in a huddle unbothered at the lack of listening, “Okay.”

Turning as Kenny’s voice centred towards you, the people on the stage caught sight of you all; Madison’s eyes grew. She adored your music, and not recognizing you in the bathroom, burnt her. The other guys were less familiar with the band other than Owen who knew them through Madison and Savannah.

“This is my niece Y/N along with her band members Lachlan, Brad and Jay. Tarnished Poets this is candidates for the show Charlie, Jeremy, Owen and Madison.” Kenny gestured to the two separate groups who quickly switched.

With a vast amount of experience, the small stage revamped itself with the band’s personal instruments. People held to move the stage drums to replace with Brad’s drums behind the clear plastic with quick succession as the remaining members took their places.

Your dark wash jean jacket tossed to the side of the stage mere seconds before Lachlan’s fingers started the song off with shredding on his baby pink guitar. The room melted away from your mind as the four got lost in the music.

You got the nerve to come and say 

That you’re not standing in my way

When we both know

Eyes closed you moved to the fast beats feeling on the top of the world as if nothing would knock you down.

The room was quiet aside from the music enthralling the occupants as this band shocked everyone but Madison and Kenny. This was precisely how Kenny envisioned Julie and the band would be like as the room burst into noise as if it was a concert. The stage was electrifying, and the actors couldn’t sit still with big smiles and bodies moving to the beat.

Well I’ve had high hopes up til now

 And I was kinda hoping. 

 You could be my hero

 You could be my hero

At the lull, in words, the guitars and the drums wove through the room as you flipped your hair side to side concealing the expression. The music brought a feeling euphoria to you as it always had because nothing made you feel as alive.

You never stayed in one place when you weren’t cupping the microphone singing you jammed with the others. Cleaning removing the mic from the stand you move to face Brad through the clear screen with a grin. A smooth practised twirl you found yourself by the bassist Jay delving into the lyrics once more.

You can’t take it back

With all, I’ve tried 

And I know that you can’t shape me

Moving back in fluid motion Lachlan and you switched places across the stage from Jay. Lachlan began his solo ending just as you circled back to your original positions. Everyone had watched Lachlan they missed your microphone being replaced in the stand.

As the song came to an end, you ended the last note bending to the side with the stand, every member leaning over to the floor. The guitar notes faded as the room burst into applause.

“This is what I want the band to be like!” Kenny called moving to the stage you hug you, “I knew I chose the right people. Did you see how they commanded the stage? They used the entirety, exploding with energy.”

Charlie’s jaw was dropped at how great the band was, they transformed the room into a concert, and you were damn good. Owen reached over and gently pushed Charlie’s jaw back up without looking; this move alone gave Kenny insight into the dynamic between the actors.

“Can you all come up here?” You asked the four actors moving aside for them as they stationed themselves you all wandered around, “Naturally you’ve all equally spaced yourselves out. That’s good because you understand you need space to rock out, but it comes with a negative.”

Lachlan stepped forth his accent, bringing the group to surprise, “But don’t stay in the box you’ve created. The stage is yours. You’re a band so interact.”

“Don’t play the music. Become the music you play, Luke doesn’t just love music. It’s in his blood and part of his soul.” You finished squeezing the arm of Charlie, eyes fractionally widening at the solid muscle. Charlie’s eyes glued to your eyes he didn’t notice as you gently pushed the white guitar into his chest.

“Show us Luke’s bond with music.” You softly spoke, backing away from the Canadian male turning on your heel to sit with Kenny again.

Your eyes couldn’t help but return to the male with the cut off shirt, and his hair pushed up out of his face. Suspenders connected to his jeans rolled above the brown boots. Your lips parted as Madison introduced the group.

“Hi, we’re Julie and the Phantoms I hope you enjoy.” The girl spoke before the group transformed in front of the group. They were no longer actors hoping for roles, but they became the characters they desired to play.

Charlie melted into the character of Luke with ease; it was beautiful and poetic. What they didn’t know was that they were, in fact, the band.

As the music died down, you relaxed into the chair as Kenny cheered with his hands high in the air with the entire room as they bowed. Kenny’s teasing grin glanced back as he approached the stairs to the huddled youth.

“I don’t know. Can we?” Kenny spoke to the audience amused with the anticipation of the stage.

“Do it!” You called out with a grin along with the rest of Tarnished Poets keeping your eyes on Charlie. His energy intrigued you incredibly.

“Yeah you are our band.” Kenny announced changing the lives of the official cast forever. The quartet exclaimed in response clutching each other close as if they had been friends for years instead of months.

Charlie’s grin fluttered your heart as you leaned back, watching the excited group knowing you would be watching the show when it came out.

 The summer breeze was serene in the quiet area outside of the beautiful city of Vancouver, Canada where filming had commenced. Scheduling was perfect with the members of Tarnished Poets breaking off for the break. Lachlan returned to his family in Perth, Australia while Brad and Jay decided on a road trip in their home state.

You had accompanied Kenny to Canada for the first part of filming moving into a small house near the set. The home quickly became the hub of the cast with the close proximation to filming, you had even given Charlie the spare key. You two incredibly close.

“So, this is where you disappear to.” The teasing voice came from behind you. Glancing over your shoulder, you met the gaze of Charlie’s hazel eyes.

He moved through the meadow to the tree you found shade under with your guitar nearby. You always had a feeling the adventurous guy would find the trail to the meadow you frequented. His forest green shirt bringing out the green of his eyes that you adored. As if you were a character in a Tumblr story, you fell for him and wondered if he felt the same.

“Sometimes I need to leave the city. I spent too much time in them.” You spoke, closing the notebook of the song you were working on. It wasn’t one you planned on using for Tarnished Poets, but instead something you hesitated on showing Kenny.

 “I didn’t know you could play the guitar.” Charlie softly spoke gently, stroked the neck of the well-used guitar. Passed down from your mom who loved playing at cafes in her teens and into her early 20s.

“Probably because we perform with electric more often. Plus, I like doing vocals.” You spoke shuffling to face him, “So it took you over a month to find this meadow.”

Charlie chuckled glancing at the notebook with interest. He always wanted to know more about you from the moment he saw you.

“What are you working on?” He questioned slowly grasping the notebook in his hand. Usually, you would be shy and letting someone see an unfinished song. Still, something about Charlie never made you feel nervous.

“A song about regret over hurting someone.” You softly replied, moving to bring your knees into your chest thinking about one of the final devasting moments, “I’m kinda the female counterpart of Luke. I grew up in a small town where people had reliable jobs. I always loved music. My mom taught me to play the guitar.”

“Yeah?” Charlie smiled, wondering what a kid version of you would have been like. Your eyes raised to meet his.

“Her dream was to make a living out of her music, and she got rejected. A lot. I think she lost a part of herself when she gave up for a secure, stable job as an accountant. Didn’t mean she didn’t still love to play, so she taught me how to play as a hobby.”

“But you loved it like she did.” Charlie breathed picking up where the story would be going so he gently took your hand in his; something not unusual with you two.

“I posted videos of covers on YouTube and Lachlan saw it. He had moved to America to make his dream and closely, our band came together. We did some gigs around my hometown even making the long trips to the city.” You reminisced on the times where you were an underground band with a small following. Things went sour when you hit more immense success, “We had the opportunity for our music, and at eighteen we took it.”

Slowly you leaned into the body of Charlie relaxing as his arms encompassed you in a feeling of safety and warmth. His fingers tangling in your hair as he focused on your story.

“My parents found out, and Mom just exploded. We both said cruel things, and I left that night. We played gigs constantly, so I always pushed back, making up with her. Six months into the move, she got into a car accident.” You sighed nestling further into Charlie, “I wrote that song, but I couldn’t even finish it, but with Luke’s storyline, I think it would be perfect. I’m polishing it up to present to Kenny.”

“What’s it called?” He inquired, smiling as you shifted to lean your back against his chest to cradle the guitar in your lap.

“Unsaid Emily. My mom’s name is Emily.” Your words nearly buried under the soft notes from the guitar. Your lips opened to sing, but you didn’t have to. Charlie started it.

The emotion was raw in the air as the power in his voice brought you to tears, unable to do more than strum the guitar and harmonizing at one point. It was like Unsaid Emily was made for Charlie to sing. At that moment you knew, this was the song Luke needed to do for his mom in the show; however, it could be incorporated.

Overcome with an emotion you pushed to your knees to cup his cheeks as he trailed off the last word. The guitar keeping you from pressing your chests together to kiss you poured your feelings in the kiss. A kiss he returned with gusto.

“Whoa.” Charlie breathed, keeping his forehead connected to yours smiling as your eyelashes tickled his cheeks. Calloused fingers set the guitar aside as he tugged you into his chest as his lips drew closer.

Your lips parted as a tingle overtook your whole body as he lips caressed yours soft lightly you thought you imagined it. His mouth claimed yours in what might be the most passionate one you’ve ever had. Pulling away, you became aware your hands had flipped under his shirt with knowing.

“Thank you.” You spoke softly looking up through your eyelashes at the guy the grew as important as the band.

Charlie’s cheeks painted a soft pink set off by the hypnotizing brown of his hazel gaze as if you were his whole world. His eyes scanning all your features from the small scar in your hairline thanks to a table edge at six years old.

 “For what?”

“Being you.” You replied tugging fists full of the green shirt to silence her thoughts with another fervent meeting. Yours arm coming to encircle his neck as his hands copied the move on your waist. Sitting on knees time slowed in the toe-curling kiss, he pulled away once more.

 “I could kiss you forever, and it still wouldn’t be long enough.” Charlie spoke, keeping his eyes closed as his fingers pinched his skin. This was what he dreamed of, being able to hold you more than a few seconds of an embrace.

“How is this going to work? My band goes on tour when you’re at the end of filming.” You questioned nestling into his arms again. The future was scary when you both were incredibly busy with the upcoming months.

“I’ll fly over for a few weeks. See you in action.” He chuckled, pushing you away to stand up, “How about we start with dinner first?”

It seemed the universe took pity on a young couple when Charlie took you home to his family to meet. His parents and siblings being the only ones aware of the relationship. Tour came and went with Charlie, using the time before promoting JATP, attended before you flew back to Canada with him.

Being with Charlie was like breathing, necessary and beautiful. You got along with his family as he did with yours. It was remarkable how interconnected you became together in the months committed to the relationship.

“Hey.” Charlie spoke, kissing your cheek in your private home you were renting in the country of Canada. When whispers of the pandemic came around, you had flown from the house you rented in LA with a friend to home.

Charlie had had the same idea to return home to his parents’ home while you settled into a house further away from other people. Charlie walked the distance to your place, and when lockdown came into effect, the decision was, he would stay with you.

“Well hello.” You cheekily responded, resting your fingers on the sleep flush of his cheeks as the glazed look faded.

 Charlie straight out of sleep was by far your favourite version of him with the genuine and raw unguarded emotions he displayed. In the nine months together, you had fallen for him swifter than Swiper from Dora could take items. Completely reciprocated on his side.

“You look happy.” Charlie murmured tracing the path from your temple to the corner of your mouth. The boy with messy hair, he had started growing it out after Julie, and the Phantoms wrapped.

“I am.” You softly spoke, shifting closer to him, “I’ve never been happier than I am tucked away from the world in your arms.”

The flush of Charlie’s cheek no longer came from the nap, but from the attention, you placed on the actor. He could feel the love radiating from your heart just by the look in your eyes.

“I’m going to be incredibly cheesy and reply that I am holding my world in my arms.” He expressed leaning over to press his lips against your forehead raptured by the honour he had at loving you.

“The next few days will be hectic.” You articulated running your hands through the thick brown hair focusing solely on his eyes—the building excitement budding within the actor.

Charlie’s lips parted to reply when his phone vibrated on the side table, “One moment. It’s Owen.”

You shifted out of the camera view per the mutual decision to keep the relationship under wraps for the time being. You absolutely knew the show would be a hit and thousand, make that hundreds of thousands, of people, would crush on the character. By keeping the relationship quiet, it would increase the fanbase because some people honestly only care about looks.

“Hey Buddy!” Charlie beamed at his fellow quarantine hair buddy with over 3,000 kilometres between each other.

“Eh! Charlie!” Owen greeted just as excited at his best friend delving into a story of the recent lego build his mom had made.

“So, the show debuts in a few days. How do you feel about it? I’m excited but also nervous. First leading role.”

“I think people will relate to the show. I mean the music is amazing, and the acting wasn’t too shabby.” Owen replied just about to open his mouth when he slammed it shut. His blue eyes narrowed together, picking up on the odd background. He had to lean closer to his phone, “Either I’m suddenly eighty years old or your definitely not at home.”

“W-what?” Charlie scoffed eyes flicking to the surroundings completely forgetting he was in his girlfriend’s home instead of his parents, “I’m at home.”

“No! We’ve chatted so many times I could draw your family’s house blueprint with my eyes closed. That is a bedroom and it ain’t in the Gillespie home.”

Charlie moaned hanging his head, “C’mon buddy. I’m at home.”

“Charles Gillespie, you have sex hair.” Owen deadpanned unamused at the obvious and quite literally horrible dishonesty from the Canadian male. Charlie’s cheeks puffed as he blew air out of his mouth and taking the ‘L’ in the situation.

“One moment.” He spoke, putting his friend on mute and setting the phone down to create a black screen. The entire short conversation you had delved back into the songbook always on your person, “Babe, Owen won’t let it go.”

“Tell him.” You replied gazing over the rim of your glasses with a smirk scarcely visible to your partner. Your full attention returned to scribbling in the book while Charlie inhaled sharply; psyching himself up.

“Okay. I’m seeing someone.” Charlie admitted sending the blonde into screaming having been suspicious. Jeremy’s wife, then girlfriend, had tried setting Charlie up with countless refusals.

“Who is it?”

“Don’t get upset. I’m dating Y/N-“

“-like Y/N from Tarnished Poets? The musician from Bootcamp that completely made us look like toddlers?” Owen demanded gasping as Charlie panned the FaceTime to the girl under the blankets, “Holy shit!”

“I don’t know how I managed to get her date, but it’s the happiest I’ve been.”

“Hey Owen.” You acknowledged the blonde drummer with a shy smile and kind eyes that he had found numerous times on set. He looked up to you along with loving the suggestions and help Brad gave him on the drums.

“How long have you been together?” Wondered Owen with the cute little smile you found endearing. You felt happy that it was Owen that had pieced it together.

“Going on ten months now-“

“-and I’m only just now finding out!” Owen exploded jittery in his seat at the pairing he had wanted to get together since the unbreakable gaze multiple times on set, “God I love the world!”

“Just don’t tell anyone, okay? We want to keep this private; you wouldn’t have been told had you not figured it out.”

“More like hounded it.” Charlie muttered under his breath, slinking his arm around your shoulders as his right hand held his phone. You slapped the bare chest of the love of your life heart fluttering at the solid muscle as it always did, “We need to get together as soon as we can.”

“I’m so done. There’s nothing to do in Oklahoma man. So that photo from Tarnished Poet’s European tour was real?” Owen recalled the picture that had crossed his Instagram For You page a few months prior.

“Yeah. I flew over for two weeks having the best time watching my girl kill it on the stage, they destroyed the stage each performance.” Charlie gushed unable to hold himself from frantically telling Owen about you unfazed by your presence.

“Why am I so single!” Owen groaned flinging his head back, “Is it the whole living with my parents at twenty? Am I not established enough?”

“Nah, you’re just too boring.” Charlie quipped thankful he was out of reach of the taller boy earning a laugh from his side. Owen snickered with a quick retort to his fellow actor.

“Well I’d stay and chat, but my phone is at 10%, and I’m too lazy to find my charger.” Owen started waving as he hung up on Charlie without waiting for a reply.

Your lips twitched that the profanity that fell from your boyfriend’s lips at the abrupt end of the call. Owen was like that in the end, living in the moment to an extent. Charlie turned on his side to tug you into his side, uncaring of your task.

“You’ve slept enough.” You chortled at the clinging boyfriend you had.

“Do you think we should tell the cast? Owen will be bursting with the secret if we don’t” queried Charlie pining his gaze on the steadily flushing cheeks with a fondness, “They wouldn’t tell. I really want to brag about my hot rocker girlfriend.”

Your hand dropped the notebook to play with his hair, “We’ll just keep the relationship to close friends and our family.”

Too bad you didn’t place a bet with Charlie because two hours after the convo with Owen your phones harmonized together. Your iPhone showing Carolynn’s cute selfie while Jeremy called Charlie.

“You’re dating Charlie!” Carolynn practically screamed into the phone, completely excited, “Owen told Jeremy, and I have wife privileges.”

“Dude! How long?”

“Near ten months.”

“Damn, we missed so many chances for double dates, but hey now I know who you kept sneaking into the apartment. Not like the smug smirk, the next day and her stiff walking didn’t speak for itself.”

“Jer!” Charlie called out mortified yet also proud that you couldn’t walk the night after. Your reaction was to Jer’s blunt statement was to bury your face in Charlie’s neck, concealing the deep blush.

The two couples conversed a couple more hours before ending in the evening for food. The same routine would continue for the next few days with alternating between the cast. The day Julie and the Phantoms dropped on Netflix, you binged it. The acting was insane and the storyline paired with the songs? Beautiful.

The issue came when Episode 8 came with the tsunami of emotions as Luke shattered himself singing Unsaid Emily.

“Oh my god.” You sniffled shakily cupping your damp cheeks in your hands, “It hurts. He’s having this cathartic release while agonizing himself. His parents can hear him singing the song.”

Charlie tugged you into his side equally moved from the cinematic beauty Kenny’s team had done. Unsaid Emily was the most emotional piece of music you had ever written in your career; Kenny had fallen in love with it. His genius mind recreating the scene of Luke singing and changing his mother’s name to Emily.

“Sh.” Charlie soothed in your ear, rubbing circles on the small of your back crying along with you, “It’s just a show.”

“Where in the hell did you pull off that level of regretful sadness? Who hurt you.” You replied, breathing shakily as the scene. Your eyes still tearing up as Emily finally got a little peace back after losing her son twenty-five years in the past.

“I took inspiration from your story, and I watched a video with a bunch of people describing the last moment with their loved ones. Add some sad music and missing my family…well this happened.” Charlie explained gently pushing your hands away to wipe your damp cheeks in a soft smile, “You created the song. It’s your work that moved so many people.”

“I provided words and a melody. You provided emotion and bridge between Luke and the audience.” You retorted leaning closer to the Canadian boy so very much in love with him.

Charlie pressed another kiss to your forehead as you tried to pull yourself together but watching Luke and Julie try to touch? That shattered you even more. Luke deserved a hug, and he can’t even get one from his crush? Extremely tragic.

“Maybe we should write a song together.” Charlie suggested quirking up one eyebrow as his green eyes spoke volumes on his feelings no words could ever match. His long fingers playing your digits.

“I have a better idea.” You grinned, “I know season two hasn’t been confirmed but what if Jer, Owen, you and Mads write songs for the band? Give an authentic aspect to your characters and band. Do it together, in pairs and alone.” You breathed straddling him to ensure you had his full attention at the suggestion that lit a light in his eyes.

“You must be on to something.” Charlie acknowledged removing his phone from his pocket to use the group chat. In a few minutes, he had exciting suggestions for the song ideas, “I love you.”

“Love you too.” You replied, sitting back as he continued planning both via the group chat and FaceTime with the others.

Kenny was a genius both on screen and at matchmaking. As evidenced with Charlie and Kenny’s niece.

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[jsio]

EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT

MILES PROWER, ANTI-TAILS

Moebius' true king.

Art by Arealscrog

Archie's wasted character

Who is Miles?

Miles Prower is the Anti equivalent of Tails, from Mobius Prime. He is afew years older, being 11 instead of 8 and much more mature. He still appears to possess Tails' youthful tenacity and desire for independence, but he has a violent rebellious attitude and shows no interest in holding himself to childish things, even though he's only 11 years old himself, hating the nickname "Tails" being an example.

Miles holds his younger counterpart in utter contempt for traits Miles sees as weaknesses, especially how Tails went down the path of Science and technology instead of his magical Chaos force heritage, implying that Miles went down a more mystical path instead of Science, but from what we see in the comic Miles is more in the political field, by that I mean he manipulates all the political aspects of Moebius.

His actions throughout the comic run make him out to be smart, picky, but also cold, calculating and always 5 steps ahead of his own team and Adversaries, this leading to Alicia making him the Suppression Squads leader behind the scenes, while she is the figurehead "ruler."

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That's Anti-Tails, Who throughout this I'll be reffering to as "Miles." Now you may be thinking, "Why make a post on an extremely obscure and hardly used Archie character? Why not someone Like Tails, Shadow or a more popular Archie character?"

Well, it's because I believe that Miles had the potential to be one of Archie's most intresting original characters, I believe he could've easily held his own "Suppression Squad" comic run, but Archie Unfortunately really underused him and wasted his potential, but hey...

That's where us fans come in!

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This post is All about Miles Canonical self, every canon fact I can find about him and his full story in his short run during Pre-Reboot Archie Sonic, and my own personal headcanons in the later post.

But...before I get into any the headcanons, I need to teach those who don't know him about him, I need to talk about his Canonical self..so, let's get into it. Headcanons will be in the follow up post.

Canonical Apprearnces.

(Reworded from the wiki)

First appearance

The first appearance of Anti-Tails was back when the character was just "Evil Tails" and it was of him joining the Anti Freedom fighters in an attempt to take over Mobius Prime, prior to the downfall of Eggman.

He and his evil allies pretended to be the good Mobius Prime versions, and struck knothole with acts of mayhem, vandalism and overall mischief, a common thing on moebius. The real Freedom Fighters soon returned to set things straight, but their initial attempts to defeat the Anti-Freedom Fighters failed as their Anti-Mobius selves knew their moves as well as they did. Sally Acorn came upon the solution: switching combat partners. When he faced Rotor, Evil Tails proved unable to overcome the larger and stronger Mobian. Defeated along with the other Anti-Freedom Fighters, he was sent back to Anti-Mobius, where they continued to cause mayhem despite the efforts of the kindly Dr. Ivo Kintobor (Anti-Robotnik) to stop them.

This was the last we saw Evil Tails for awhile, however we did see a cameo of him along with every other tails when they all came together and formed Titan Tails.

The Suppression Squad

Art by Pota on Pixiv

Some time passed before his next appearance, and in that time "Anti-Mobius" went through changes in its name, now "Moebius." And all the characters changed alongside it.

Miles had assisted Boomer in stealing Dr Kintober's goal posts in order to allow the Suppression Squad to have access to inter-dimensional travel. Scourge obviously took this opportunity and went straight to Mobius Prime, along with a few other members of the SS, Miles being one of them, and they attempted an assult on the Freedom HQ, where we see Miles' and Tails face off, with Miles declaring to not be referrd to as Tails or Anti-Tails, but instead just "Miles".

He also indicated his disgust at Tails for having chosen a path of Science and study, despite having a strong connection to "Chaos force", aka magic. This has led to people believing Miles himself is a magic user.

When Metal Sonic attacked Scourge, believing him to be the real Sonic, Miles stayed back and observed instead of helping his king. Now, you may think that's betrayal, but in reality Miles didn't help because he did not wish to undermine Scourges strength, so instead he observed. Soon after Sonic came onto the scene he showed his willingness to help anyone, even his enimies, and this gave Miles an idea:

Let's team up with the freedom fighters to betray Scourge, that's the new plan.

Miles later met up with Sally, Bunnie, Antonie and Tails to offer an alliance, but didn't let Tails speak and showed his contempt to the original version, telling him, "Please don't talk, little boy, We're trying to have an intelligent conversation." Sally accepted the offer, knowing she needed all the help she could get for taking down Scourge.

Upon returning to Scourge, pretending to be running from the freedom fighters, Scourge asked for a summary on his mission, that being "bomb New Metropolis" but Miles ignored him however, instead reporting to Alicia (Anti-Sally) that his mission was a success. Immediately thereafter, Alicia told the Suppression Squad to, "Show our King just what we think of him", with Boomer and Patch clearly readying for battle

However, Miles was doubling up his betrayal, blasting both Sonic and Scourge back into Moebius for them to Duke it out there, with Boomer sealing the portal behind them. An ethical debate followed this, between Sally, Alicia and Miles, the trio being ordered to get the goal posts ready to be able to return the freedom fighters to Mobius after both groups agreed to make sure Scourge was defeated on Moebius by Sonic

Miles was as shocked as the rest of the group to find Scourge had defeated all of his opponents as Super Scourge. When the rest of the Knothole Freedom Fighters and Suppression Squad were quickly defeated, Scourge turned his sights on Miles, identifying him as the mastermind behind the betrayal.

Miles, cowering in fear, denied his role in betraying Scourge, who was threatening to beat him for his betrayal. However, Miles was saved by Silver the Hedgehog and unlike the rest of his allies, wasn't even hurt. Following Scourge's defeat and Miles' attempt to recruit Buns Rabbot into the Suppression Squad, Miles spoke to Alicia about who would be their new leader. Alicia explained that while she may be the figurehead ruler, they both knew Miles held the real authority at this point, to which Miles grinned.

That was the last we see of Miles in the Archie comics, he unfortunately isn't in the post reboot because he's now owned by Ken Penders, so we'll never see him again. Below is all of his official designs, and after that is my final thoughts on the character.

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My overview of Miles as a character.

I'm no Character analysist so I'll make this short and sweet, my review of Miles is that he's a Character with alot of potential, but he went wasted, not on purpose, but thanks to the lawsuit.

I believe that if that lawsuit never happened, and that arc was closed up nicely Anti-Tails would of became a far more realistic and grounded Character, and probably pretty popular too. Miles to me is a kid who was manipulated into a life of crime and now believes that's what is right, and I think that could of been an arc for him, mellowing out and becoming a true king for the people of Moebius. I also like how when Scourge goes Super and goes to Miles to confront him, he dosent stand up to him, he dosent become strong, but instead he cowers in fear, hes terrified and tries to lie, to me, that makes him feel more grounded, and I like that.

Personally I wish Miles was more popular, I wish he got more spotlight than he did and I wish his story got concluded, but with what we got, I think he's pretty good, and pretty interesting too! I've seen alot of ideas float around for this dude, all of them making sense in they're on way, and to be honest? His lack of story kinda helps make him more accessible.

Tl:Dr: I like Miles alot, and I hope this post helps you lot learn more about him and overall, gets more people down to write with him, draw with him and explore him!

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Would I change him in any way?

Yeah, there's one key part of Miles (from what we got) that I think was wasted. Now, what is that? What would I change about a Character I've mostly praised? Well...

I wish he was magical. In the Archie comics Tails is actually strongly connected to the "Chaos Force", not as connected as Shadow, but still VERY connected, and guess what? Miles and Tails ARE biologically the same, same DNA, and in that bit of the comic, Miles calls Tails out on something he should have no idea about if he himself isn't connected to the same thing (or Moebius equivalent). To me at least this kind of implies Miles is magical too.

Basically, I'd give Miles' moveset a touch of magical abilities, connecting him to Moebius' "Anarchy force". I think it would help separate him abit more from Tails, while also connecting them, because whenever you have science and magic together...they clash.

But yea that's all I'd change in what we got, just hints of magic, some magic attacks here and there. I think it'd be pretty neat, and it'd have the science Vs magic aspect with him and Tails relationship.

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

Lets finally wrap this up! At least, for now.

Thank you so much for reading all this If you did, it, this took me alot of hours, and I, I think it's over 2000 words now you madman. Why not spend your time doing something more worthwhile? Why not...have fun? meet someone? Go on a date? Live your life? Why read a post on an obscure Character, mainac.

But in all seriousness thank you for reading my post, I really like this character (clearly) and I want to teach people about him, and I hope this post has done that! Post 2. There's going to be a sequel post going over all of my personal headcanons, and possibly a 3rd going over community ones. Keep ya eyes out~

But yea, big read, now you lot know about an obscure Character, and this was fun to write! But now I'm gonna end this post with a fun fact:

Miles and the Suppression Squad were going to have one more arc, it was teased at the end of issue 196, but unfortunately it never got written. That would of been really neat but unfortunately it never got to happen.

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

BON'VOYAGE, HEDGEHOGS!

[vdlest]

Nice to meet you

Characters:

TFATWS Bucky Barnes x Reader

Summary:

The restaurant where Bucky always take Yori to eat with him is where you actually work. You've been watching and staring at him for quite some time now, but didn't have the courage to introduce yourself to him. But what happens when Yori asked Bucky to take you out?

Warning:

None

There they are again. You see two familiar faces entering the restaurant you are working at. You've been seeing this guy who is in his late 30s accompanied by an elderly for quite some time now. You don't know if they are father & son, or anything, but one thing's for sure, you like the guy. You like him even if you don't know what his name is, even if you have no idea who he is. His treatment to the elder guy is enough reason to like him.

No one is taking their table so you took the chance to finally have a closer look of the guy you've been liking for quite some time. Whenever they come, you are either busy with another table or assigned in the cashier. But this time, the opportunity is in front of you.

So you took it.

"Hi, ready to order?" you asked them casually, even if your stomach is getting butteflies inside it. Is this his effect to you? You don't know.

The older man stared at you and smiled, "Just call me Yori. I can guess you're calling me "old man" in your thoughts," he joked.

Yori's joke made you chuckle, "Okay, Yori, nice to meet you. I'm Y/N and I'll be your server for today," you said as you get the paper and pen on your pocket to get their orders, but still no luck from the man you've been eyeing, you still don't know what his name is, "What can I get you for your lunch?" you asked them, glancing at the man who's still busy looking at the menu.

"I'll have Fish and Chips, old man's been craving it since last night," Yori said looking at you. Good thing you were able to switch your eyes to Yori, but when he smiled at you, he must've seen you looking at the man beside him. Yori's smile made you somehow nervous.

You tried to act normal and turned to the man beside Yori, hoping that you would finally know his name by the end of this day.

"How 'bout you, Sir? What can..." you weren't able to finish your question for him when his eyes finally met yours. It was only a matter of time before you realized that this man has a gorgeous pair of blue eyes. You cleared your throat, "What can I get you?" you asked him, dismissing the thought of fantasizing about him.

"I'll just have Clam Chowder," he answers you as he handed you the menu, "Thank you."

"Would you care for anything to drink, then?" you grabbed the menu from his hand, "You should..."

"You should ask her out," Yori said to the guy beside him, making your eyes widened in surprise.

His reaction was same as yours, he's almost embarassed to what Yori just said. Your cheeks are burning red in your guess, but you tried to be as professional as possible. One more thing, you don't want the guy to think that you're into him, that'll make things more awkward as it is now.

"Yori," the man glared at Yori before he moved his eyes back to you, "I'm sorry, he's just really like this from time to time."

You are already getting tired of calling him "guy" or "man." You've been wanting to know his name but God knows how?

"It's fine," you replied then you prepare yourself to leave, "If there's anything you need from me, just let me know. Thank you."

"His name is James," Yori said as you turn your back on them, but you pretended that you did not hear it since you're already inches away from them.

Now, you finally know what his name is.

•••

When their order is finally ready, you took a deep breath before heading your way to their table. Things are more awkward now. You wished that you weren't their server so you'll just get to watch and like him from afar. Not like this.

"Here's your order," you tried your best to smile from ear to ear, even though you're feeling embarassed and a bit awkward already. You put down their orders and once you're done you told them to enjoy their meal.

"So what's a pretty lady like you doing here?" Yori asked you.

Oh, great, small talk, you thought.

You badly want to go back inside the kitchen and start serving other customers but you remembered what your manager told you when the customers make a small talk with you — answer them and interact with them, that way they'll have the will to come back.

"I'm just saving up money to start my own business," you answered Yori.

You could see in your peripheral that James is looking at you. As much as you want to know what kind of look he's giving you, you fight that idea.

"I like business-minded people. They are the best in organization and handling things," he complimented. "You got a boyfriend?" he asked you another question.

You shook your head and smile, "No, I don't. I guess that's the downside of being a business-minded, no one dares to date you," you joked.

"I think I'll take that dare."

Your eyes traveled to James who suddenly spoke.

"I'm sorry, you're what?" you asked him.

"You think no one dares to date business-minded woman? I'll tell you, what," he smiles at you, "I like accepting dares."

Is he asking you out?

"Just in case you're puzzled with his words," Yori joined the conversation again, making you look his way again, "He's asking you out."

"Really?" you asked Yori.

Your eyes moved back to James and the way he stares at you makes your heart skip a beat, countless times. Your fingers gripped on the tray you're holding, trying to contain your happiness.

"What time's the end of your shift?" he asked.

You gulped, "I'm out by 6."

"Great, I'll come back at 6 to pick you up, then," he extended his hand towards you, "I'm James Barnes, but call me Bucky."

You reached for his hand, "Nice to meet you, Bucky. I'm Y/N." The touch of his soft hand on yours answers all your untold questions about him.

Ever since you saw him, you kept on asking yourself what it feels like to be his girl, what it feels like to be hugged by him, what if feels like to hold hands with him, and what if feels like to be kissed by his lips. But now, the touch of his hand on yours and the fact that you two have a date later is more than enough.

•••

When he said he's gonna be at your workplace at 6, he meant he's gonna be 30 minutes early. You asked him to sit down on one of the vacant tables, when he did, he handed you the bouquet of flowers he's holding. You didn't want to conclude that it was meant for you, but when he handed it to you, your heart melted like an ice cream under the sun.

As you finished your shift, you and Bucky went on your way. He said he already had everything planned out, so he did not bother to ask you where you want to go. Well, that's how you like it anyway. You want to be surprised.

The two of you ended up in the nearby beach, before you settled down in the sand, you passed by some food stalls and that's where you and Bucky bought food and drinks for your date.

"I hope you like sunsets," he said as both of you sat down on the sand and started munching over the food you guys bought, "I should've asked you abour where you want to go, but..." he seemed a little nervous so you cut him off.

"I like it."

His eyes went to yours and now he's puzzled, "You like what in particular?" he asked.

You smiled, "I like all of these. I like sunsets. I like how you planned this night for us. I like it. I appreciate it." You handed him his drink, "I'm not expert in date ideas as well, so no worries."

He chuckled and that's the only time you noticed how cute he is when he laugh and smile, especially his cheeks reaching for his eyes.

"I haven't dated anyone in decades so that explains my old fashioned ways and ideas," you don't know what he means when he said he haven't dated in decades.

"What are you? A 80 year old man?" you joked.

"Actually a hundred and six."

You burst into laughter but his face remained serious, "You are so funny, Bucky." You sighed as you stare on the sunset in front of you, "You know, some of my classmates bullied me when I was in elementary 'cause they think I'm an old soul or something, so don't worry if someone thinks of you as an old-fashioned or something. It's not really bad."

He frowned, "Why did they bullied you?"

"Because they found out that I'm listening to The Beatles, Paul Anka, Frankie Valli, and not into Britney Spears or something trendy during our time," you explained. You took a deep breath once more, "I guess I just really prefer old and classic songs. I find them amusing and the words that they used in making them feels like they are really talking to you and your soul."

You could still remember back in the day, you asked your dad to bought you a vinyl because you were fascinated by it.

"So what's your favorite song?" Bucky asked you.

"Can't take my eyes off of you, it's really classic," you said before taking a sip from your drink. "That was also my parents' theme song when they got married," sadness took over you when you remembered your late parents, "That was also the song I sang for them during their funeral."

You felt Bucky's eyes on you.

You turn to him and nodded to his unsaid question, "I'm an orphan now. They died because of a car accident. And when they died I used to live with my grandma but she died ad well three years ago, that makes me independent from then on. That makes me alone and living my own life." You tried giving him a smile, "How about you? What are your favorites?" you changed the topic.

But even though you already changed the topic he did not let go of the fact that something changed in your mood when you talked about your parents.

"I know how hard it is to lose both of your parents. I felt them too," he reached for your hand, making you shiver, "But if they'd see you now, I'll bet they're proud of the woman you are now."

You looked down and smile, "Why do you even talk like you already know me?" you asked him. "You and I just met," you reminded him as you look back at him.

"We just met but I've seen you and how hard you work in that restaurant every single time I was there and every time I pass by it," he revealed.

All along you thought he doesn't know you exist, but he does. He's totally aware of your existence and he knows how hard worker you are.

"Don't feel bad for being alone and independent, 'cause you should be proud of yourself. You know how to take care of yourself without depending or relying your happiness to other people. Sometimes living alone isn't that bad, it will let you experience things that will taught you a lot of lessons in life," you felt he squeezed your hand, making your eyes travel to your and his hands holding together.

You learned from him that he's not related to Yori, they are just neighbors and he's just trying to help Yori as the latter is living on his own.

Once darkness consumed the sky, the two of you head back to your apartment, which is only a few blocks away from the place where you work. You asked him if he wants to have a cup of coffee, he said yes but before you guys could enter your apartment, he received a phone call. After he talked someone over the phone, he said he needed to go.

"Is everything alright?" you asked him concernly. You noticed the sudden change of his mood after he took the call.

He nodded, "Yeah, I'm fine. I'm sorry I need to go but I promise, I'll call you and text you." Both of you already exchanged numbers so you just got to wait when he will call and text you. But you said to yourself you're not gonna expect anything, "I had a wonderful time with you tonight and God knows I didn't want to end our date like this but I just got to go. It's call of duty."

You don't understand what he mean by call of duty but you have no other choice but to let him go.

"Take care, Bucky," that's all you could tell him.

You could tell in his reaction that he isn't happy with the answer he got from you.

Somehow, you are telling yourself to not expect anything from him. In that way, you won't get your hopes up and you won't end up getting hurt and disappointed. It's better that way.

You were about to close your door when his hand stopped you from doing so.

"Wha--"

Before you could say a word, he walked towards you and closed the space between the two of you as he leaned in to claim your lips.

The sweet taste of his lips makes your knees weak, but his arms rescued you and gently pinned you against the door. It's not long before you kissed him back and enjoy the taste of his lips.

Last night you dreamed of meeting him, of knowing him, and tonight, you'll be sleeping peacefully as you get satisfaction of meeting him, having a date with him, and getting the chance to kiss him. What a progress in a day.

When you heard your neighbor coming out the other door, you pulled away from your kiss.

You and Bucky stared at each other while waiting for your neighbor to evaporate.

Once your neighbor is gone, he kissed your lips one more time. When he pulled away, he smiled at you, "That's the first time I kissed a woman in decades, so if it's that bad, give me the consideration," he joked.

"No," you shook your head, "No one ever kissed me that good before."

His smile grew wider as he gave your cheeks a caress, "I'll see you when I get back."

"Don't promise anything to me, Bucky. Just do it," you said before entering your apartment and closing your door.

Like what you said, you will not expect anything for the coming days or even weeks. You won't do anything about it. You won't get your hopes up and wait for his move, it's up to him whether he'll call you or not. But a little part of you hope that he will.

A little hope wouldn't hurt anyway.

-v.dl

[j-amespotter]

★ exile - s. b.

“you’re not my homeland anymore.”

Pairings: Sirius Black x Reader, Reader x Male!OC

x. x. x.

Summary: Sirius is caught in the middle of a quarrel between two lovers; AU where Harry is raised by his godmother.

Genre/Warnings: angst, language, mentions of death & war, dumbledore-bashing 

Word Count: 1.3k

A/N: this can be read as a stand-alone, but i plan on writing a part 2 based on the song ivy (for those who would like a semi-happier ending). let me know if you want to be on my general/a character-specific taglist. 

masterlist

Sirius probably should not have stayed behind. All context clues pointed to the fact that he probably should leave the dining room. However, it was his dining room. It wasn’t his fault you were having a full-fledged argument with someone that was a complete stranger to him in his house. 

To be fair, he was still processing. Twelve years in Azkaban had him always prepared for the worst, but with Remus’s forgiveness and Harry’s acceptance of him, he was on a high. A high that, unfortunately, came crashing down the minute he discovered his girlfriend (Ex-girlfriend? There wasn’t ever actually a break-up, but Sirius got the hint pretty fast) had married in the fourteen years they spent apart. 

He supposed he should be thankful. Thanks to you and your husband, Harry grew up in a loving household. Harry had a family. 

John. His name was John. The name itself disgusted him. As he got to know John, it comforted him to find out that he was every bit a square as his name suggested. He was nice, though. Sirius couldn’t deny that. Stable. Perfect. Blonde. 

It was thrilling, actually. Watching his perfection deteriorate right there, in Sirius’s dining room. And besides the personal delight it brought to see you frown at John, Sirius had a right to be there. You were fighting about matters that concerned his godson, and he had already failed Harry for twelve years. 

“I’m telling you, (Y/N). We need to trust Dumbledore,” John argued with his wife. He sounded tired. Sirius hoped he wasn’t smirking, but at the same time, he didn’t really care. As perfect as this man seemed to be, he very obviously lacked the stamina to keep up with you. This fact satisfied him immensely. 

Sirius watched as you scoffed. “Dumbledore has got nothing to do with this. He’s my godson. I’m the one that raised him. Dumbledore stepped in when it was convenient for him – now when Harry’s grown up and useful.” 

John looked at you with an odd, doubtful expression on his face. “You weren’t the only one that raised him,” he said quietly. 

“I didn’t mean it like that…” you trailed off nervously. Sirius found it strange to see you back down so easily. He dared to hope that there was some trouble in paradise but was too well-acquainted with disappointment to let it flourish.

The three of you sat in silence for what felt like an eternity. Sirius, having remained uncharacteristically quiet in the encounter thus far, wondered if he should intervene. Before he could form a coherent thought, John broke the silence. “I don’t see why we should tell Harry the prophecy if you haven’t even told me yet.” 

For the first time all night, and quite involuntarily, you met Sirius’s eye. Out of the five people who knew of the prophecy’s full contents, only three survived. Fortunately for you, your husband did not notice the interaction – Sirius gathered that John remained blissfully unaware of your romantic history. “Nobody in the Order knows,” you said, “and nobody is supposed to know. I don’t want to tell Harry the prophecy. I just want him to know what to expect. There is danger in the Department of Mysteries, and if Dumbledore thinks Voldemort will try to lure him there, he should know it. You know how Harry is, John. If we don’t give him answers, he’ll go looking for them himself.” 

John winced at the invocation of the Dark Lord’s name. “But Dumbledore…”

“I agree with (Y/N),” interrupted Sirius finally. “It is not Dumbledore’s decision; it is ours. (Y/N)’s and mine. We are his godparents.”

John, who had no reason to dislike Sirius, stared at him in irritation. “Fine, if that’s what you think. You reap what you sow, I suppose.” With a firm glance, he turned to you. “I have sacrificed so much for you and Harry, yet you always keep me at arm’s length. Let me know when you’re ready to be a family.” With that, he got up and left the dining room. 

You flushed. Sirius felt a wave of fury at the man. How dare he throw that in your face? Selfish bastard. He waited for John’s footsteps to fade away. “Some guy you’ve got there,” he remarked sarcastically. 

Your eyes snapped in his direction. “He’s not ‘some guy.’ He’s my husband. And what business did you have, stepping in like that? I can handle myself.” 

“You didn’t ask me to leave,” Sirius pointed out without missing a beat. 

“I let you stay out of courtesy, Black. You are Harry’s godfather. I can’t change that.” 

“Good. Merlin knows you tried,” he said, glancing in the general direction of the door John just walked out. “See, we even argue better.”  

“Excuse me?”

“You don’t love him,” said Sirius matter-of-factly.

Anger flared in your eyes. “Yes, I do.” 

“Bullshit,” said Sirius, invigorated by your blazing look. “You're forgetting that I’ve seen it when you’re in love. Was on the receiving end, in fact. If you love him, you absolutely worshipped me.”

You looked at him, scandalized by the insinuation. “You’re an arse.” 

“Maybe, but one that speaks cold, hard facts.” He watched you, his pale eyes attempting to memorize your features. 

“Don’t look at me like that,” you snapped. 

“Can’t help it, love,” he said casually. It felt like fitting into an old rhythm. Sirius refused to believe you couldn’t feel the same way. 

You sat in silence for a while, but not like the awkward silence that enveloped the room when John occupied the space. You stared at your glass, lost in thought. “At least he didn’t leave.” 

Sirius swallowed heavily. “You didn’t stop me.” 

You looked indignant. “You must be joking.” 

“You’re freaking me out, Sirius. What the hell happened?” You clutched his arm, shaking him for answers. 

Sirius was inconsolable. “J-James and Lily… d-dead.” His voice cracked. 

Tears spilled out of your eyes. “N-No, that’s not possible. You said they were safe, that everything was fine!” 

He was trembling. You could barely make out his words. “The little rat…” 

“W-Who?” You were crying. Lily… your best friend… She couldn’t be dead. Bright, bubbly, perfect Lily Potter could not be dead. 

Suddenly, Sirius was standing up, wiping his eyes. “I have to go.” 

Your eyes widened. “What? Where? Where’s Harry?” 

“With Dumbledore. I have to go.” 

“Wait, don’t leave me here–” But with a crack, he was gone. 

Sirius sighed, rubbing his unkempt beard. “You didn’t come after me. You didn’t stop them from taking me. You didn’t get me out.” 

“How the hell was I supposed to do that? You didn’t tell me about switching the Secret-Keepers. You didn’t have an orphaned baby in your lap. And I saw your picture in the paper. Do you even know how deranged you looked? What was I supposed to do?”

“Goddamnit, I don’t know! Everything went wrong…” Sirius said, raising his voice slightly. “I lost my best friend.” 

“So did I,” you whispered. “Harry lost his parents. We both needed you.” 

“But I wasn’t there…” 

You shook your head. “No, you weren’t.” 

“And John was?” 

“Yes.” 

“I’m here now,” said Sirius in a resigned voice. 

“I can see that,” you joked with a sad smile. “I’m glad. We both are – Harry and me.” 

“You raised him well,” said Sirius sincerely. “James and Lily would’ve been proud of him.” 

You smiled at him like never before. His heart thudded against his chest. “I hope so. Thank you.” 

“Does he make you happy?” 

You stared at a spot over his shoulder, refusing to make eye contact. “It’s none of your concern, Sirius.” 

“It always will be, you know that.” You deserve better, he wanted to say. Better than him and me. 

You deserved someone who completed you, not just someone who fits the mold. As you bid him goodnight, Sirius couldn’t help the twinge of envy brewing in his chest. Beyond his jealousy and hatred of John, he felt sad. Sirius recognized the unhappiness in your eyes, and he felt helpless. There was nothing he could do for you anymore. 

Taglist: @iwritesiriusly​ @lunalovecroft​

[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.

[fishfingersandjellybabies]

I Wonder What It’s Like (3/3) - fic

Characters: Jon Kent, Damian Wayne, some Maya and Kathy Pairing: jondami Summary: One person’s bad timing is another person’s good timing. A/N: And *mumble mumble* they live happily ever after. Damian was already curious because the way Jon was holding him in the rescue was the way Clark holds lois in similar situations and ONLY Lois. It was just a giant ‘oh fuck it’s reciprocated.’ moment I guess, so he egged it on.

Part One | Part Two | Part Three

~~

It was an alien invasion. Of course it was.

All hands on deck. Justice League, the Titans, and their Teen variety, Young Justice. Even some less desirables like the Outlaws, Suicide Squad, Deathstroke and, well, their own little ragtag group.

And it was a weird time to be thinking about it, you know, punching out aliens and their robot pets over the city harbor and all, that their little foursome didn’t have a name. Didn’t go by anything. They weren’t League and they weren’t Outlaws. They weren’t really…anything. The ace in the hole? The backup?

He didn’t like any of those-

“Focus, Superboy.” Crackled in his ear. He glanced down to the nearby skyscraper. Saw Damian and Maya fighting back-to-back. Felt himself smile. Kicking ass and taking names – that was so them.

It was Damian who had spoken. Damian, who wasn’t even looking at him. Too busy flipping over Maya’s shoulder as they switched opponents.

Jon blinked a few times, then looked back at his own enemy, clutched tightly in his fist, shrieking to the machine that Kathy was taking out a few feet away from him.

“How’d you know I wasn’t?” Jon mumbled, throwing his rock-monster-looking alien towards the ground.

“Because we know you.” Maya chimed in. “And you float when you zone out. Notice how high you are right now?”

Kathy laughed as Jon sheepishly floated back down to where she was. “What were you thinking ‘bout?”

“…We don’t have a team name.” Jon practically pouted. “We’re just…the Other Ones.”

“And that’s a problem?” Damian snorted. “The less who know about us, the better, in my opinion.”

“Oh, right, and your opinion is never wrong.” Maya droned. A moment later she let out a shout, and Jon glanced down to see that Damian had thrown an unconscious and oozing alien right at her. “Okay, no need to be childish, you little worm!”

Damian cackled at her annoyance, and Jon ignored the flutter in his stomach.

“And there was no need for you to open your mouth at all, yet here we are, Nobody.” Damian sneered. Maya let out a string of curses, and Jon watched her throw a body in Damian’s direction. Damian dodged it, and then spoke again, but softer this time, aimed at him. “…Were you just lamenting the fact, or coming up with names yourself?”

“Mmm, both? Neither?” Jon shrugged, shooting himself across the sky to intercept an alien heading straight for a group of fleeing civilians. “I just thought it was odd.”

“I can’t believe I’m going to say it, but I agree with Damian.” Kathy said, making a retching noise right after. Maya laughed through the comms. Damian scoffed. “I like it how it is right now, you know? People call us when they need us, and we get to be normal people otherwise. It’s like being a hero part-time, and honestly, after our childhoods? I think the four of us deserve the break.”

“Freelance heroes.” Maya echoed. “I mean, I don’t think actually having a name or title associated with us would change anything, but I suppose I get the general principle.”

“I just mean, like…what if we’re interviewed by the news? Or some little kid asks who we are?” Jon pushed. An alien came flying towards him. He caught it like a baseball, spun, and threw it back from where it came. “The day is saved thanks to…who? Justice League Jr.? The Ghosts? The Powerpuff Girls? Like, what’s our backup?”

“I think concerned citizens would suffice in most situations.” Damian drawled.

“Concerned and capable, that’s us.” Maya mocked.

Kathy laughed at the joke, and Jon just rolled his eyes. He turned towards the water, seeing a new hoard of aliens and their robots coming their way. He sighed – when would this end?

Suddenly, there was a sharp static crack in his ear. In his periphery, he saw Kathy flinch at the noise too. Their communicators, then.

But before either of them could open their mouths to ask, Maya gave a shriek.

“Fuck!” She screamed. Jon and Kathy spun back towards the building their teammates had been on. The rooftop was no longer swarmed with aliens. In fact, the aliens were all scattered and flailing, like they were turtles knocked on their backs.

Jon’s stomach dropped as his mind processed what else was wrong. Maya and Damian were gone.

“Damian!” Maya shouted. Jon saw movement below the roof, glanced down to see Maya scrambling to her feet on the fire escape, pointing straight up into the sky. “Guys, he grabbed Damian!”

Jon’s eye followed her finger, and sure enough, speeding above even his head, one of these rock creatures – but bigger, more reptilian – was flying full speed towards the stratosphere, Damian hanging from his clawed hand by his ankle.

Damian, of course, wasn’t fazed in the slightest. Already had a knife in hand, and was stabbing at his captor’s grip.

Jon’s heart pounded, and he found himself glancing over at Kathy. She nodded, gave him a grim smile.

“Go get him.”

Jon needed nothing else, and felt the sonic boom snap behind him as he took off after the reptile man.

“Does he always break the sound barrier when he takes off?” Maya’s voice buzzed through his communicator. She was most likely talking to Kathy. He paid it no mind. “Or is that just another one of those Damian things…”

But because Damian was, well, Damian, he couldn’t leave well enough alone and kept stabbing at the monster’s fingers. And even as Jon sped towards them, he could see the creature getting frustrated, questioning how worth it it was to have Damian as a captive.

Without warning, he decided that, apparently, it wasn’t worth it at all.

So he dropped him.

Panic electrified Jon’s system, and his breath came up short as he twisted his course to follow a now-plummeting Damian.

What if he wasn’t fast enough? What if he didn’t catch him? What if the alien came back?

What if Damian died? Right here? Right in front of him?

“I’m coming!” Jon found himself shouting, both for himself and for Damian. In freefall, he saw Damian look towards him. “I’m coming, D!”

And as he got closer, flying as fast as he could, he saw Damian believe it, believe in him, and slowly, steadily, reach his hand out.

Jon was almost there. Jon almost had him.

But god, the buildings below them were already so close.

His heart was on fire, the wind in his face was causing his eyes to tear up. But he was close, he was so close-

(And the jagged corner of that skyscraper was even closer.)

-so he reached his own hand out, brushed his fingertips against Damian’s. Watched Damian watch their hands. Watched all fear drain from Damian’s face, turn into blind trust.

Then grabbed his forearm and yanked him into his chest. Held the back of Damian’s head as he spun them, so it was his back that bounced into the corner of the building’s roof, and not Damian’s skull.

The momentum kept them bouncing. Off that first building into another, into a fire escape, into a broken window, into brick, against a dumpster. And all the while, Jon kept tight hold of Damian, kept him curled into his chest, hidden by his cape.

Anything to keep him safe. And alive.

They landed in a heap in the alleyway, Jon’s back against the dirty ground, and Damian spread on top of him. Jon let out a small groan as Damian scrambled up and backed off of him.

“I hate falling. It’s my least favorite part of flying.” He mumbled, sitting up himself. He rubbed at the base of his spine as he glanced up. “You okay?”

“Am I…?” Damian scoffed, holding out his hand. Jon took it, and let Damian swing him up into his space. “You’re really asking me? You’re the one who just crash landed.”

“Being Kryptonian helps with that.” Jon winked. “Besides, you were the one who was just almost kidnapped, and then almost splattered on the pavement. I think it’s a valid question.”

Damian scoffed and crossed his arms, glancing away. “I’m fine…Thank you.”

“Any time.” Jon grinned. But almost instantly, he let the smile drop. Furrowed his brows and, without thinking, reached out, cupping his hand along Damian’s jaw and turning his head. “Hey, what’s…”

He’d seen blood, he thought, coming from Damian’s hairline. Was it from the previous fight, or their fall? Jeez, if it was from their fall, Jon wasn’t sure if he could handle…

But no, it was just dirt. Grime from being in battle all day with no breaks. His bad. He went to smile once more, but found himself hesitating as he glanced towards Damian’s face, and found Damian staring at him with wide eyes. Wide, too knowing, too soulful, too hopeful, too green eyes.

He felt his own heart beating against his chest. Especially as he remembered just how close they were standing. Damian had pulled him up into his chest, and Jon had never backed up.

And Damian never asked him to.

Suddenly, he found himself unable to let go of Damian’s face. Kept his hand glued to the curve of his throat, Damian’s own heartbeat pulsing against his fingers. Swallowed, and could have sworn the whole city heard it.

“Damian, I…”

But Damian cut him off with a simple, blunt demand. “Kiss me.”

Jon stumbled over the noises suddenly coming out of his mouth. Not words, not even thoughts. His attempts at speaking coming out like television static instead.

“Wha…what?”

“You heard me.” Damian said lowly, and Jon could feel the cheek under his hand heating up in the start of a blush. “And you know I don’t repeat myself.”

“You…I…this…” There was a crash a few streets over and Jon flinched. Instinctively shifted even closer into Damian’s space to box him in against the wall, to protect him. Just in case.

He never dropped his hand.

A second later, he realized his movement, and glanced down. Damian was still watching him with those sharp jade detective eyes. The ones Jon could stare into forever, if given the chance. The ones he could see the universe in, that were brighter than any star in the sky.

God, Damian could always see right through him.

“…I don’t think now’s the best time.” Jon whispered, almost desperately. Damian smirked.

“Timing and invasions and life-or-death danger has never stopped your mother and father. Hell, that never stopped my parents either. I’m pretty sure I was conceived in the middle of an assassination plot. On both of them.” A pause, to think, to bite at his lip. “But you didn’t say no.” Damian breathed softly. “Bad timing is not a no.”

“Well, of course not.” Jon rambled – admitted – as he looked off to the side, towards the invasion still happening all around them. Looked at anything but Damian. “But, we have to save the city. The attack is still going, and these aliens-”

Suddenly, there were fists in the front of his cape, and he was being yanked down, lips crashing into his.

Damian tasted better than Jon could ever dream, ever fantasized all those nights alone in his room. There was no distinct taste, but rather…he tasted like the donut Maya had forced him to have for breakfast that morning. The black coffee he’d drank with it.

He tasted like blood and chapped lips, with a fading hint of the cheap chapstick he used because it was a gift from a little girl they’d rescued a few months ago.

He tasted like insecurities and heartbreak. He tasted like a man who had never been sure of anything in his life until this moment, this action.

And Jon wanted to devour him. Jon knew he had to devour him.

Consciously this time, he raised his other hand, held Damian’s face as tenderly as he could. Felt his breath hitch as Damian skimmed his hands down Jon’s chest to grab at his waist.

It felt like he’d been waiting his whole life for this.

Damian seemed to almost melt against him, and when he leaned back those few centimeters to take a breath, Jon guided him backwards, until his spine pressed against the building’s brick wall.

“Jonathan…”

But Jon pushed against him, swallowed his voice. He couldn’t help but smirk, just a little. Damian may have started this, but he had no problem taking control.

And his heart stuttered at the thought that Damian was letting him.

But then, of course – of course – there was a explosion from the building behind them. They broke apart as Damian ducked slightly, and Jon once more hovered over him protectively.

Debris collapsed loudly around them, a sharp rod of steel bouncing off Jon’s back at one point. But as soon as it began to settle, their comms. crackled to life with their allies, friends and fathers calling for them, asking for their locations and statuses. Roars of the aliens echoed all around them.

Damian sighed.

“I suppose…you were correct.” He grumbled as he stood back to full height, looking up towards the clouds.

“About?”

“Now probably wasn’t the best time for...” He whined, waving his hand awkwardly between them. He put his hands on Jon’s chest again, but this time to push him gently back and step back into the street. “There’s an alien invasion to stop.”

Jon watched him for a moment. “…Damian?” Damian glanced over his shoulder. “Are we going to talk about this later?”

Damian blinked, then smiled. But not a hero smile. Not a Robin or Nightwing or Batman smile. A Damian smile. Warm and genuine and just the slightest bit mischievous.

“What’s there to talk about, Beloved?” Damian asked, leaning back and taking Jon’s hand, pulling him forward. “Now come on, there’s a world to save.”