Faith v. 3.0 (Cloti Club)

[Eerie]

I think the reason why I'll never be able to ship CxA myself, is that it's not Cloud. Even if the feelings are real, it's his fake persona there - unlike Tifa who lets his real self go out. I'm like, "how can you ship this when one of the person there is not himself?" Even if the feelings are genuine, I can't say that the chemistry is best between Cloud and Aerith (something I see often), because it's not the real Cloud answering to her.

And it's true that Cloud has a hard time with women, but I think with everyone too haha. Which is why it's good to show off the skinship between Cloud and Tifa because that's literally how they communicate lol. Thank you Nojima for pushing for the hug lol.

 

[Final_Heaven]

I think the reason why I'll never be able to ship CxA myself, is that it's not Cloud. Even if the feelings are real, it's his fake persona there - unlike Tifa who lets his real self go out. I'm like, "how can you ship this when one of the person there is not himself?" Even if the feelings are genuine, I can't say that the chemistry is best between Cloud and Aerith (something I see often), because it's not the real Cloud answering to her.

And it's true that Cloud has a hard time with women, but I think with everyone too haha. Which is why it's good to show off the skinship between Cloud and Tifa because that's literally how they communicate lol. Thank you Nojima for pushing for the hug lol.

Yeah, there's a lot of inherent problems with C x A being the endgame couple in the OG timeline.

1) Cloud is not himself the entire time that he's with Aerith.

2) Aerith falls for the ghost of Zack in Cloud even though she wants to know the real Cloud later as she can tell something is off.

3) She dies and she never meets the real him.

4) Cloud beats the shit out of her.

5) Cloud attempts to murder her at one point.

6) Cloud and Aerith only knew each other for 2 months.

7) Cloud has to move on. It'd be deeply unhealthy for him to continue pining for someone decades after they're dead. Even Aerith moved on from Zack 5 years after she last met him.

8) Cloud and Aerith never have a moment of romantic catharsis like Tifa and Cloud.

 

[Graymouse]

Wow, what a lot of great discussion going on today. I love it! I am going to have to go back and read some of these posts when I get home from work!

 

[minami758]

I understand the appeal of Cloud and Aerith. For many it's the aesthetics: flower girl and stoic bodyguard/opposites attract, in the OG he opens up to her fairly quickly in comparison to other people. (Which is why I think it's very interesting that they changed that in the Remake, and Cloud actually opens up to Avalanche and Tifa first.) And the tragic aspect of her death adds to that "what if" appeal. It's a fantasy, basically, and falls into many Disneylike tropes, things that we're used to seeing in regards to romantic media.

However, I think people who postulate that Aerith is Cloud's one true love or that he prefers her over Tifa miss the forest for the trees. It's a very narrow, cherry-picked view of the narrative, in my opinion. A lot of people involved in shipping or LTD debates sometimes forget that FF7 is not actually a "love story" at its core. The romance, while a part of the characters' journeys, is secondary to the plot as a whole.

 

[MasterMoogle]

I'm only posting this here so y'all can see how horrifying Tifa looks without hair.
https://vow-upon-a-star.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F619445656503926784

 

[Eerie]

I already knew that part of the earring, that it must have been that meaning and why she wears it I mean, but I didn't know she shared one pair with Cloud (noooooooo Tifa please, put back your hair onnnnnn)! Great discovery there!

 

[odekopeko]

I can't be the only one attracted to Bald Tifa. xD

 

[Final_Heaven]

I can't be the only one attracted to Bald Tifa. xD

I was gonna mention that she doesn't look half-bad lol

 

[DutchDread]

6) Cloud and Aerith only knew each other for 2 months.

Closer to a week actually, from what I can tell.
If I remember correctly, the game starts on the 9th of december, which would mean he falls into the church around the 12th of december. Aerith probably spends a day or two in Shinra HQ. And by the end of december Cloud has already given the black materia to Sephiroth from what I've seen from the timeline.
That leaves about 2 weeks for them to get to know each other, her to die, and have the subsequent journey to the northern crater and mental breakdown. If that takes about a week, that leaves a week to 10 days with Aerith.
That's, and the fact that Cloud is braindamaged is what realistically makes the ship not work in any real life scenario, it's just not realistic. That wouldn't be love but a strange sick obsession.
But more importantly to me, it doesn't work as well with the themes, narratives, and plot of the game. The story is inherently not as good with Aerith as the love interest.

Specifically it makes Aerith a less interesting character because it removes a lot of her inner struggles. One of the reasons I prefer Tifa as a character is because she has more going on internally when removed from overall conflict.
If Aerith is going through an internal struggle concerning her love of Zack, her confused feelings for Cloud, the loneliness of losing Zack, and doubt about what she feels etc, then that's a good story, and her falling in love with someone because he's literally her ex's living legacy works extremely well.

But in the Clerith version Aerith doesn't really have a good personal story, Zack is diminished to the status of someone who really doesn't matter much anymore, in which case, why is he even part of the story? The story of "I had an ex, but I am over him now and am with this new dude", inherently is devoid of meaning. It also requires you to accept that the fact that the next guy she likes literally being her ex's living legacy is basically just a coincidence....which, would be absurdly poor storytelling.
She just happens to like the real Cloud? Even though she's never met him? How convenient :S

Unfortunately for the Clerith interpretation, the idea that Aerith is simply over Zack is less interesting than the idea that she's trying to convince herself of something she doesn't believe. That doesn't disprove it, but in writing, you generally don't add in things such as these unless they have an impact on the story. It being irrelevant would be bad storytelling, and I don't think FFVII is a poorly told story.

 

[odekopeko]

Shouldn't that go into the LTD? LTD bijj super thirsty for this kind of stuff right now. They're talking about inbreeding chocobos right now. ?

 

[Cat on Mars]

@DutchDread I have a question. How long did it take you to type that (very interesting and comprehensive btw) wall of text? Here, have a cookie and welcome aboard

Specifically it makes Aerith a less interesting character because it removes a lot of her inner struggles. One of the reasons I prefer Tifa as a character is because she has more going on internally when removed from overall conflict.

I feel the same way. Not to diss Aerith, but I like charaters that exist out of the main conflict more than characters that exist to present that very conflict. I've always liked "secondary charaters" more than the main ones for this reason, so I fucking love FFVII because they took a normally secondary character as Tifa and placed her on front.

Rinoa x Squall won first internationally.

I hate them. I dislike them inmensely and every time I play FFVIII I remember why I've always disliked their relationship with great intensity.
And "Squinoa" sounds bad. Like tentacle porn bad.

 

[DutchDread]

I have a question. How long did it take you to type that (very interesting and comprehensive btw) wall of text? Here, have a cookie and welcome aboard

A good while, but I enjoy overthinking things and writing down long rambling replies. Honestly, in the runup to the remake, and in the month since, I've probably legitimately written over half a million words on the subject of the TLD, Clouds character arc, differences between plot and narrative, and other FFVII related nonsense.

And yeah, I've also written a piece specifically answering why I prefer Tifa over Aerith, that mostly points out the fact that Tifa has more of a story going on in isolation, when removed from the overall plot.
She has much more interesting internal struggles and dilemmas that she has to overcome, and the fact that the person she wants to share them most with is the one person she can't share them with just makes for great story potential.

I don't see that with Aerith, but I ESPECIALLY don't see it with Aerith if you assume she's over Zack. Someone tried to argue that she did have internal struggles, and I am not saying that she doesn't, but they're relatively shallow and easily resolved.

There is a reason they added in the plotpoint of her wanting to be "found" by her friends in the remake. Because without that she wouldn't have any real inner struggle going on, that's already arguably more than in the OG (if you accept Clerith), but is still already resolved by Cloud, Tifa, and Barret scaling the wall to come find her.
It's just a short little arc that's immediately resolved because honestly, it wasn't that big a deal.
At first, with destiny being an important factor in the remake, I thought they were trying to give her an new explicit inner struggle about having to face destiny and her death, and I thought that might work, but then they removed destiny, so that plot hook is logically gone as well, leaving her again being morally relatively spotless as far as personal struggles are concerned.

 

[loozzer]

@odekopeko
I hate them. I dislike them inmensely and every time I play FFVIII I remember why I've always disliked their relationship with great intensity.
And "Squinoa" sounds bad. Like tentacle porn bad.

smh at this slander lol squall/rinoa created romance, all other couples only wish they could be as iconic

 

[Final_Heaven]

Closer to a week actually, from what I can tell.
If I remember correctly, the game starts on the 9th of december, which would mean he falls into the church around the 12th of december. Aerith probably spends a day or two in Shinra HQ. And by the end of december Cloud has already given the black materia to Sephiroth from what I've seen from the timeline.
That leaves about 2 weeks for them to get to know each other, her to die, and have the subsequent journey to the northern crater and mental breakdown. If that takes about a week, that leaves a week to 10 days with Aerith.
That's, and the fact that Cloud is braindamaged is what realistically makes the ship not work in any real life scenario, it's just not realistic. That wouldn't be love but a strange sick obsession.
But more importantly to me, it doesn't work as well with the themes, narratives, and plot of the game. The story is inherently not as good with Aerith as the love interest.

Specifically it makes Aerith a less interesting character because it removes a lot of her inner struggles. One of the reasons I prefer Tifa as a character is because she has more going on internally when removed from overall conflict.
If Aerith is going through an internal struggle concerning her love of Zack, her confused feelings for Cloud, the loneliness of losing Zack, and doubt about what she feels etc, then that's a good story, and her falling in love with someone because he's literally her ex's living legacy works extremely well.

But in the Clerith version Aerith doesn't really have a good personal story, Zack is diminished to the status of someone who really doesn't matter much anymore, in which case, why is he even part of the story? The story of "I had an ex, but I am over him now and am with this new dude", inherently is devoid of meaning. It also requires you to accept that the fact that the next guy she likes literally being her ex's living legacy is basically just a coincidence....which, would be absurdly poor storytelling.
She just happens to like the real Cloud? Even though she's never met him? How convenient :S

Unfortunately for the Clerith interpretation, the idea that Aerith is simply over Zack is less interesting than the idea that she's trying to convince herself of something she doesn't believe. That doesn't disprove it, but in writing, you generally don't add in things such as these unless they have an impact on the story. It being irrelevant would be bad storytelling, and I don't think FFVII is a poorly told story.

I checked the timeline to be double-sure and yeah, Cloud meets Aerith around December 12. She's dead by the end of December.

https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wik...line#.5B_.CE.BC_.5D_-_.CE.B5.CE.B3.CE.BB_0000

A good while, but I enjoy overthinking things and writing down long rambling replies. Honestly, in the runup to the remake, and in the month since, I've probably legitimately written over half a million words on the subject of the TLD, Clouds character arc, differences between plot and narrative, and other FFVII related nonsense.

And yeah, I've also written a piece specifically answering why I prefer Tifa over Aerith, that mostly points out the fact that Tifa has more of a story going on in isolation, when removed from the overall plot.
She has much more interesting internal struggles and dilemmas that she has to overcome, and the fact that the person she wants to share them most with is the one person she can't share them with just makes for great story potential.

I don't see that with Aerith, but I ESPECIALLY don't see it with Aerith if you assume she's over Zack. Someone tried to argue that she did have internal struggles, and I am not saying that she doesn't, but they're relatively shallow and easily resolved.

There is a reason they added in the plotpoint of her wanting to be "found" by her friends in the remake. Because without that she wouldn't have any real inner struggle going on, that's already arguably more than in the OG (if you accept Clerith), but is still already resolved by Cloud, Tifa, and Barret scaling the wall to come find her.
It's just a short little arc that's immediately resolved because honestly, it wasn't that big a deal.
At first, with destiny being an important factor in the remake, I thought they were trying to give her an new explicit inner struggle about having to face destiny and her death, and I thought that might work, but then they removed destiny, so that plot hook is logically gone as well, leaving her again being morally relatively spotless as far as personal struggles are concerned.

I'm of the opinion that based on her dialogue that while she's no longer constrained by destiny to do what she has to do. She's going to choose to merge with the Lifestream of her own volition to achieve the same outcome of saving the planet.

Maybe Part 2 will revolve around how maybe she has hope now and Part 3 will conclude that "no, she doesn't."

The explanation behind Hollow make it sounds like she's still going to die:

I believe that the most important thing to consider when writing a song for a game is "Who, in what situation, in what state of mind?" If you factor in too much information, you'll get hung up on this and that detail, and you won't be able to make any real progress. When that happens I try to boil it all down to a single key phrase that encapsulates what I want want to express. Cloud in the rain-lost in thought- that was the image that I settled on in the end.​

The struggle of a man trying to escape a destiny- he ultimately cannot-a man standing outside himself looking in, despairing that he is powerless alone, and searching for a way forward, frustrated and desperate.​

I chose C11th chord to capture the complexity and insecurity of someone unable to let his guard down- though it was Yosh, with his raw powerful vocals, who gave voice to that Cloud standing quietly in the rain, but howling in his heart.​

 

[Cat on Mars]

A good while, but I enjoy overthinking things and writing down long rambling replies. Honestly, in the runup to the remake, and in the month since, I've probably legitimately written over half a million words on the subject of the TLD, Clouds character arc, differences between plot and narrative, and other FFVII related nonsense.

And yeah, I've also written a piece specifically answering why I prefer Tifa over Aerith, that mostly points out the fact that Tifa has more of a story going on in isolation, when removed from the overall plot.

I loved this since I played the OG. She has a real bio! She has a backstory! She had family drama! She has hobbies and stuff!
And that's why they could still write stories with her for the Compilation, and why there is a metric ton of fanfiction about Tifa (and I'm excluding the smut). In all seriousness, you can write about her and her struggles and her flaws. As a guilty please, I love thinking about how her everyday life in Nibelheim was and I've always wanted to write about it in comic form.

She has much more interesting internal struggles and dilemmas that she has to overcome, and the fact that the person she wants to share them most with is the one person she can't share them with just makes for great story potential.

It's just a short little arc that's immediately resolved because honestly, it wasn't that big a deal.
At first, with destiny being an important factor in the remake, I thought they were trying to give her an new explicit inner struggle about having to face destiny and her death, and I thought that might work, but then they removed destiny, so that plot hook is logically gone as well, leaving her again being morally relatively spotless as far as personal struggles are concerned.

Yeah, I was dissapointed too. I hoped she has had room for that nuance, personal struggles and all, and now I'm not sure what we're going to get.

smh at this slander lol squall/rinoa created romance, all other couples only wish they could be as iconic

They're iconic, indeed. Iconic as the most sucky pairing ever concieved.

 

[MasterMoogle]

@DutchDreadI hate them. I dislike them inmensely and every time I play FFVIII I remember why I've always disliked their relationship with great intensity.
And "Squinoa" sounds bad. Like tentacle porn bad.

I used to be the biggest fan of FF8 when I was younger, but now that I'm older(and I've played ff8 recently), the Squinoa pairing annoys me. It's so unrealistic.

Any time I hear a male character say something along the lines of, "I just want to hear her voice again" I become repulsed. Squall's character development was so unrealistic, and downright annoying. He went from an angsty loser(minus Cloud's mental issues), to an unqualified leader who made a woman his entire identity.

But to stay on topic: https://baka-neearts.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F617121354813243392

 

[Graymouse]

@DutchDread

That was a wonderful analysis of the OG game, easily the best one to date. When debating the LTD, facts sometimes get in the way of fandoms and it can get pretty heated. With that said, where were you about a month ago when the LTD thread was blowing up?

 

[Cat on Mars]

@MasterMoogle I reserved a deluxe edition and all I got was an oversized t-shirt that's falling apart because I've been using it as "nightgown" since FFVIII's release date. I was a fan too.
Full disclosure: I don't like romance in media because it tends to suck. I like emotional development. And FFVIII's plot was so contrieved that Squall and Rinoa's relationship was equally contrieved and their development is goddawful and their romance is full of shitty clichés placed in the worst places at the worst times. The pacing was awful too.
Squall is a douche, Rinoa acts like a 7-year old on sweets and coke soup and everybody else is insane. Quistis isn't, but after leaving Balamb she... doesn't have any development as character and we get soapy "romantic" stuff ? She looks so badass and then they let us down like that smh.

ETA: Oh, something from baka-nee that doesn't have terrifying faces. Good catch.

 

[DutchDread]

That was a wonderful analysis of the OG game, easily the best one to date. When debating the LTD, facts sometimes get in the way of fandoms and it can get pretty heated. With that said, where were you about a month ago when the LTD thread was blowing up?

Arguing with people on youtube or reddit most likely XD
Make no mistake, I can also get quite heated, mostly when I am simply tired of the way people converse. I am always up for a friendly discussion where both parties present their opinion with respect, but I not above getting into shouting matches.

I think in general one of the problems is that it's all treated like a single debate, and one single argument. There is no distinction between whether or not someone is simply talking about their preference, or making an analysis, or trying to prove a certain viewpoint, etc.
It all becomes a clusterfuck unfortunately.

I don't always want to prove things one way or the other, sometimes I just want to give my perspective on how I interpret something and then you just get people shouting "WHERE IS THE PROOF!?", when I wasn't trying to prove anything, just establishing my position.

 

[MasterMoogle]

@MasterMoogle I reserved a deluxe edition and all I got was a t-shirt that's falling apart because I've been using it as "nightgown" since FFVII's release date. I was a fan too.
Full disclosure: I don't like romance in media because it tends to suck. I like emotional development. And FFVIII's plot was so contrieved that Squall and Rinoa's relationship was equally contrieved and their development is godawful and their romance is full of shitty clichés placed in the worst places at the worst time. The pacing was awful too.
Squall is a douche, Rinoa acts like a 7-year old on sweets and coke soup and everybode else is insane. Quistis isn't, but after leaving Balamb she... doesn't have any development as charater and we get soapy "romantic" stuf with ? She looks so badass and then they let us down like that smh.

My thoughts exactly. I still enjoy ff8, oddly enough. I find its world more relatable than ff7. It reminded me of Harry Potter.

The problem I think is that writers are often times so obsessed with the "opposites attract" trope that they fail to see the value of writing romantic relationships between equals(introverts or extroverts). What usually results from the "opposites attract" trope is the introvert always being "pushed out of their comfort zone" to the point where they're doing uncharacteristic things to impress the extrovert, OR conversely the extrovert is "tied down" and forced to settle, resulting in them losing all the vibrancy to their personality. Either way, one character is altered to the point of being unrecognizable, and often times lose what made them a good character to begin with.

Anyways, back to Cloti. Cloud and Tifa make for a much better pairing IMO because it's a slowburn between equals(introverts) with no cheesy romantic gestures mixed in, as far as I can tell.

Conversely, I think a relationship between two extroverts work when written as impulsive whirlwind romances, mixed with cheesy romantic gestures because it seems so natural to both their personalities.

I'd be interested to hear what @DutchDread thinks of my theory on romantic writing.

 

[Graymouse]

I think one of the most rudimentary flaw in an Aerith X Cloud pairing that is almost always getting overlooked, or glazed over is "time" spent. It seems like none one factors that in at all. Time is a inconvenient fact that is never mentioned in any debate between these two ladies. I feel that is what makes the pairing so unrealistic on so many levels. Aerith can not begin to compare to the time that Tifa has spent with Cloud, it is quite unfair to be honest, on how much of an advantage that TIfa has on that front.

 

[DutchDread]

Any time I hear a male character say something along the lines of, "I just want to hear her voice again" I become repulsed. Squall's character development was so unrealistic, and downright annoying. He went from an angsty loser(minus Cloud's mental issues), to an unqualified leader who made a woman his entire identity.

Agreed, this is why I am simply done with the whole love triangle thing in FFVII, I enjoyed it for a while back when I was young. But now, 23 years later I just find it annoying that a story about a dude who has to live with his failures and move on, NEVER moves on because the fanbase is ironically unwilling to move on.


The love triangle was fun within the confines of Clouds time as a mentally twisted individual. But by refusing to just make Cloti official concrete canon they made it so that Cloud is forever slightly hung up on this girl he barely knew, becoming this "I just want to hear her voice again" type protagonist that just doesn't fit his character arc, and does a disservice to Tifa, Cloud, Aerith, and FFVII in general.
It poisons the fandom and has caused all FFVII characters to be trapped in a perpetual state of unhappiness. I hate the idea that the remake is changing the original, but the one hope I have is that they simply make Cloti canon and put a stop to this entire thing by giving Zack and Aerith a satisfying ending.

But I am doubtful, I think they'll again try and make everyone happy, and as a result, make no one happy.

I also don't like Squall and Rinoa btw, of all the FF games I played as a child FFVIII aged the worst the more I thought about it growing up.

 

[Cat on Mars]

I like reading the kind of opinion pieces @DutchDread made: sticking to the facts, even-handed and with pretty to no "creative interpretations" in order to push a ship or to tar any character.

When the LTD exploded my time in the FFVII fandom had passed so I didn't get to parcitipate via shitposting. Now I'm part of the 1st Airborne Divition.
If shippers get out of hand I'm ready to go full Ghost Batallion on them and release the most horrifying Sephiroth/Jenova's head porn on them.

 

[Graymouse]

I thought that happened under the Highwind.

Yes, I have nothing of value to offer and I'm in my work break. Great first post, keep it up!

To quote one of my favorite movies "The Breakfest Club"

Are you talking about "over the bra and under the panties" High Wind scene? Or the lean on each other and whisper sweet nothings in each others ears until they fall sleep in each others arms. High Wind scene?

 

[Cat on Mars]

Are you talking about "over the bra and under the panties" High Wind scene? Or the lean on each other and whisper sweet nothings in each others ears until they fall sleep in each others arms. High Wind scene?

Yes.
You still can do lots of sex stuff in that seated position, as long as everybody involved have hands. But the answers to everything is "yes".