Faith v. 3.0 (Cloti Club)

[DutchDread]

it is quite unfair to be honest, on how much of an advantage that TIfa has on that front.

I don't like it for the wider implications. I am fine with saying Cloud desires both women equally while he is not himself. He doesn't have his memories so Tifa doesn't have that advantage.

The problem for me comes when that 50-50 balance is maintained throughout the extended timeline.

If I have to accept that Cloud is 50-50 about both women when he doesn't have his memories of loving Tifa, then I logically have to assume that normally, he'd lean towards Tifa.


Conversely, if I have to believe that Cloud is 50-50 between the two women when he has his memories of Tifa, and has spent years together with her, but is still just as interested in the girl he knew for barely more than a week. Then that is SOOO insulting to Tifa that it's simply unreasonable.


So which is it, did he have no preference during that week? Or does he have no preference in general? SE says nothing, and no one wants to answer and to me the entire 50-50 thing just fundamentally is insulting to one character or another.

I am also expected to believe that who Cloud prefers is based on this actions. That's fine, actions and choices indeed determine love in the long run. But I am expected to believe that it's that ONE week where Clouds choices matter? Not the 1000 weeks that happen afterwards?

It's just "Clouds choices matter that one week, and after that, if he likes Aerith, then nothing that happens after matters anymore, it will always be Aerith"?


Nah, that's just ridiculous to me. He liked both women when he was weird, if he hasn't been weird he'd have probably favored Tifa, now that Aerith is dead, he definitely favors Tifa, let's move on, this is reality.

 

[MasterMoogle]

https://kakashishan.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F616606285936361472

 

[Graymouse]

I don't like it for the wider implications. I am fine with saying Cloud desires both women equally while he is not himself. He doesn't have his memories so Tifa doesn't have that advantage.

The problem for me comes when that 50-50 balance is maintained throughout the extended timeline.

If I have to accept that Cloud is 50-50 about both women when he doesn't have his memories of loving Tifa, then I logically have to assume that normally, he'd lean towards Tifa.


Conversely, if I have to believe that Cloud is 50-50 between the two women when he has his memories of Tifa, and has spent years together with her, but is still just as interested in the girl he knew for barely more than a week. Then that is SOOO insulting to Tifa that it's simply unreasonable.


So which is it, did he have no preference during that week? Or does he have no preference in general? SE says nothing, and no one wants to answer and to me the entire 50-50 thing just fundamentally is insulting to one character or another.

I am also expected to believe that who Cloud prefers is based on this actions. That's fine, actions and choices indeed determine love in the long run. But I am expected to believe that it's that ONE week where Clouds choices matter? Not the 1000 weeks that happen afterwards?

It's just "Clouds choices matter that one week, and after that, if he likes Aerith, then nothing that happens after matters anymore, it will always be Aerith"?


Nah, that's just ridiculous to me. He liked both women when he was weird, if he hasn't been weird he'd have probably favored Tifa, now that Aerith is dead, he definitely favors Tifa, let's move on, this is reality.

Well, I got what you are saying about when Cloud wasn't Cloud. However, even still I do think his feelings for Tifa shown through his fake persona'. I always, like to think that was true, at least in my head. Cloud's love for Tifa was so great that it didn't matter if he had a "clouded" mind (Sorry I couldn't resist.) it still shown through. I mean for one the entire reason Cloud "joined Solider was to get Tifa to notice him. I think deep down in Clouds psyche that holds true no matter what state his mind in.

I guess what I am trying to say is that "his heart wants what his heart wants" his brain be damned! That is why I was taking about time in this instance.

 

[Odysseus]

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".

Poor Barret

 

[Cat on Mars]

Conversely, if I have to believe that Cloud is 50-50 between the two women when he has his memories of Tifa, and has spent years together with her, but is still just as interested in the girl he knew for barely more than a week. Then that is SOOO insulting to Tifa that it's simply unreasonable.

It's insulting to Cloud too, painting him as a guy that uses Tifa for convenience and a warm bed, making him the biggest douchebag on the face of the planet. I wonder why certain shippers want to pair him up with Aerith if they have such a low concept of him. I mean, he's awful by their descriptions so... do they hate Aerith or something?

ETA: @Odysseus I thought the same when I was typing it lol

 

[Graymouse]

What is funny is you saw how a passionate hug made people feel. Could you imagine what would happen in Cloud and Tifa actually kissed?

 

[Cat on Mars]

Hold on, I'll post the images just in case someone wants them:

 

[DutchDread]

Cloud's love for Tifa was so great that it didn't matter if he had a "clouded" mind

Oh I agree, when I say Cloud likes them equally, the part that likes Tifa comes from the actual Cloud, the part that likes Aerith comes from his fake persona I think.
I also think the one is closer to love, while the other is closer to a slight crush at most.

But that's not an argument I am particularly interested in winning. Ultimately I don't really care if Cloud had a temporary crush or not, and whether or not that crush was "real" or not, I care that at the end of the day, when all is said and done, Cloud, with his full mental faculties available, loves Tifa romantically, and wouldn't exchange her for anyone.

Why defend the entire town when all I need is the castle.

 

[Graymouse]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1266379844926881796

There are some dark places on the internet......

 

[DutchDread]

What is funny is you saw how a passionate hug made people feel. Could you imagine what would happen in Cloud and Tifa actually kissed?

Funnily enough I randomly just read a piece of fan fiction someone posted somewhere in this threat. I am normally not interested in fan fiction because, well, it's fan fiction, and I assumed it would usually be poorly written. But this one happened to struck a cord because it didn't read like a fan fiction as much as it read like "yeah, this is probably a pretty fair and accurate representation of how things might go after ACC".

Was called "full circle", chapter 1 was "aftermath" I think. They kiss at some point and I couldn't help thinking, "yeah, that's basically exactly how I'd predict it would happen".

 

[Cat on Mars]

But that's not an argument I am particularly interested in winning. Ultimately I don't really care if Cloud had a temporary crush or not, and whether or not that crush was "real" or not, I care that at the end of the day, when all is said and done, Cloud, with his full mental faculties available, loves Tifa romantically, and wouldn't exchange her for anyone.

It's not really an argument because the result has been decided decades ago. But shippers gonna ship.

Why defend the entire town when all I need is the castle.

Or from another POV, why spend resources invading Russia in the winter with a shoddy supply chain and lose Europe to the allies? It doesn't make any sense unless you're insane -oh wait.

From my time as shipping wars civilian in the Avatar fandoms (A:TLA and A:TLK), I learnt that some shippers think that they can "win" random battles of their picking, take some hills (usually the most useless ones), and declare themselves winners.
That's not how warfare works.
That's not how creative intent works.
That's not how you enjoy media.
That's how you set yourself up for bitter disappointment.

 

[Yumelinh]

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.

wow, that's my reason, too! First time I see someone bringing this up in this context.

Being honest, if it wasn't because of that I would probably be a multi shipper myself. As @minami758 mentioned before, I can totally see the appeal in Clerith. It's the perfect Disney romance. It's cute and fun when they are together. I can see why people would like it really.

But in the back of my mind, I just can shake off that Cloud isn't his full persona there. Not that I think it disproves what they felt there because I really don't think it does. There were feelings there and he was attracted to her, clearly... but later on, when we learn about his struggles it just gives everything a new perspective, and suddenly everything kinda switches because Cloud didn't have his full agency at that time and that... bothers me a lot. But I always judged it as something more personal than an actual argument lol so I try not to bring this up in discussions.

However, I can understand that some people simply don't look at it that way, so it doesn't bother them as much as it does me I guess.

That said, Cloud wasn't himself when he reunited with Tifa either, but the difference here lies exactly in the fact that she knew who he was before everything happened, so it never felt like their whole relationship was being built on the top of a fake personality, but more like... it was something that they needed to overcome to be together again. It always felt like Tifa was looking for the Cloud she knew, the guy with kind eyes, and in the lifestream, she was able to be reunited with him again.

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.

You better bring these posts to here (if you want ofc)

 

[a_apple 2.0]

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.

I feel like that the idea that both C/A and C/T are 50/50 is only true in AU stuff which is literally the reason why the LTD still exits to this day imo. The compilation went pretty hard with Cloud/Tifa and Zack/Aerith. ACC literally ended with Cloud calling himself a hero and putting Zacks sword in Aeriths flowers (lewd). I mean it's fair to say that if Cloud has no problems seeing them both go together into the white light, then we can assume that the dude seems to have moved on with his life.

 

[iamhorde]

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'd love to read those half a million words on these subjects. Where can I find them?

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.

One can only hope but the fact that they were bold enough to have that crazy whirldwind of an ending to Remake Part 1, suggests to me that Nomura and team may be willing to take some bold steps to finally give FF7R a more proper closure. They did allude to the fact that they are all getting older and if they wanted to Remake FF7 it had to be done now. Hopefully this includes giving it a closure of sorts. To me, I actually felt AC:C was a pretty good closure to be honest.

The fact that Nojima actually convinced the team to keep the Cloud x Tifa hugging scene may also suggest that they are probably not shying away from the likely direction of CloTi + Zerith.

 

[Final_Heaven]

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.

Tifa and Aerith's Resolution scenes are giving me hope.

At the very least, they're providing stronger arguments behind where Cloud is meant to end up at least. And Nojima has talked about their having to be less ambiguity in general.

Aerith calling out Cloud's romantic feelings as not being real carry some heavy implications there too as well.

Plus they're providing a stronger initial foundation for Tifa x Cloud which wasn't there as much in the original Midgar.

Like, Cloud here feels more romantic here with Tifa than he did with Tifa in AC(they didn't interact as much in that movie as I hoped though) and that might be because they were still making a transition on how to portray the characters outside non-voiced Chibi forms.

 

[DutchDread]

You better bring these posts to here (if you want ofc)

haha, sure, whenever I write something that's actually well thought out, and not just the n-th refutation I'll see if someone here is interested. It kind of depends on the purpose of the piece I guess.


I agree with the concept that Cloud not being himself invalidates the interractions to some degree. Although I usually concede that I can't prove that any specific interaction is "genuine" or not, for the purposes of proving any ship I generally just assert that the amount of factors influencing Clouds behavior means that in trial terms, "none of it is admissible in court". It might be real, it might not be, we can't know and therefore, we can't use any of it.

But from a purely logical standpoint, it's not possible to separate feelings from identity. Even if your personality is the same, and the emotions that you are feeling are a genuine result of your personality, the fact that you can't intellectually assess and place those feelings means that you can't determine their nature. Because in order to understand what something means to you, you need to first understand who YOU are.

This goes for others as well, whether Aerith has genuine feelings for Cloud is ultimately irrelevant because the feelings can't be genuine.
If you love a man because you think he's a great guy, but unbeknownst to you, he goes out every night to kill puppies, then you don't love that man.
You love an idea of that man, and since the actual man physically resembles the idea that you love, you can be said to love "them". But it's inherently not genuine. You need to be able to understand who someone is, in order to understand what they mean to you, and you need to understand who you are.

Cloud and Aerith can't have that. They might still have feelings, but since they don't know each other, it's by necessity a thought that they love. And the real thing might be close enough, but if it is, that's mostly by accident, and still not genuine in its origins.

 

[DutchDread]

Aerith calling out Cloud's romantic feelings as not being real carry some heavy implications there too as well.

It does, but I have this nagging feeling that this might instead set up the old cliché of "no, it was true love all long!". As an example how cringe worthy that is, look that Tauriels last scenes in the Hobbit.

 

[odekopeko]

It's not Aerith that's the issue for me in the CA dynamic, but Zack. I wish I didn't watch the CC gameplay. Because I do still enjoy all the CA scenes but now my heart hurts pretty bad when I do. I get pretty emotional over fictional characters yikes.

Slightly ot but if you guys have ever seen Scrapped Princess, there's this guy - no, this HERO - named Fulle who finds the MC after she loses her memory. They spend a few days of normal life together before she rediscovers her past. He helps her escape by trying to stall an entire army alone only to end up with his body riddled with arrows. You see him crawling in the streets with arrows sticking out of him, desperate to get to her like he promised, but eventually becomes too weakened, and memories of their time together start flashing before his eyes. Then he dies.

I saw that scene as a kid, so seeing Zack get riddled by bullets and crawling his way to see his girl, I just couldn't shove Zack into the "he's just someone she wasn't serious about and now wants to move on to Cloud whom she loves more" category anymore, like I did when I first played the Remake.

 

[Final_Heaven]

It does, but I have this nagging feeling that this might instead set up the old cliché of "no, it was true love all long!". As an example how cringe worthy that is, look that Tauriels last scenes in the Hobbit.

It feels too specific considering Cloud's identity issues.

There's also an undertone that's been running underneath the Remake.

In the Ultimanias, it's mentioned that they had Cloud differently with each of the women.

With, Aerith he plays up his cool persona.

And with Tifa, he's more himself.

Adding onto that is Aerith telling Cloud that his romantic feelings for her are well....not real, his imagination, an illusion.

And while we don't get anything with Tifa explicitly, there is a song in-game that references them that does idealize their relationship as "true love".

So it feels that it's all really weaving together pretty well into Cloud's identity arc.

It's a tale of Two Clouds(The loser Grunt and the cool SOLDIER) with two different love interests(the Childhood Love and the Messianic Heroine).

Which I guess is pretty similar to what you said before.

 

[minami758]

@odekopeko You're not alone, CC did that to a lot of people, and in turn pissed a lot of CA shippers off. It's in line with the way SE has continued the compilation though, to be honest.

It does, but I have this nagging feeling that this might instead set up the old cliché of "no, it was true love all long!". As an example how cringe worthy that is, look that Tauriels last scenes in the Hobbit.

I might be the only one to think this, but I don't actually think any of the Resolution scenes are going to be referenced in any meaningful way in future parts. If by the simple fact that they're optional and some people might not play Part 1 before Part 2 and beyond (I don't know why they'd do that, but I'm sure people do,) and that SE can't really trust everyone to be a completionist and get every single Resolution scene. If you didn't get Aerith's scene and then played Part-whatever and got that line, it wouldn't really make sense.

I think on a fundamental gameplay level, because they're separating things into parts and each game is supposed to be somewhat standalone, the Resolutions are contained in their own bubble.

 

[Yumelinh]

It does, but I have this nagging feeling that this might instead set up the old cliché of "no, it was true love all long!". As an example how cringe worthy that is, look that Tauriels last scenes in the Hobbit.

That's... a good observation, really. I can see this possibility now that you mentioned it, like... it can go either way. I just hope that, if they decide to go this route then they leave Tifa/Cloti out of it. As long as they go a 'unique route' then I'll be okay. Having Tifa still being endgame after something like this would just solidify "won by default" misconception that the fandom has and would be just too cruel to her character.

Having said that, and much cautious as I try to be when it comes to creating expectations, I do try to believe in their words that they will respect the compilation and Cloud/Tifa as the canon ship there ( but maybe this assumption can work in with the compilation too? idk lol).

It's not Aerith that's the issue for me in the CA dynamic, but Zack. I wish I didn't watch the CC gameplay. Because I do still enjoy all the CA scenes but now my heart hurts pretty bad when I do. I get pretty emotional over fictional characters yikes.

Slightly ot but if you guys have ever seen Scrapped Princess, there's this guy - no, this HERO - named Fulle who finds the MC after she loses her memory. They spend a few days of normal life together before she rediscovers her past. He helps her escape by trying to stall an entire army alone only to end up with his body riddled with arrows. You see him crawling in the streets with arrows sticking out of him, desperate to get to her like he promised, but eventually becomes too weakened, and memories of their time together start flashing before his eyes. Then he dies.

I saw that scene as a kid, so seeing Zack get riddled by bullets and crawling his way to see his girl, I just couldn't shove Zack into the "he's just someone she wasn't serious about and now wants to move on to Cloud whom she loves more" category anymore, like I did when I first played the Remake.

I try not to bring Zack for the same reason as the other one as well. If feels too personal ;-; Because yes, after I played CC, everything that I found adorable in Clerith was somehow tied up with Zerith.

And It hurts me a little to see that he died trying to get to her to only being used as the link to this other ship to happen if CxA was the supposed canon ( it just works better in that sense that @DutchDread mentioned in their post). But on the same time, people deserve to move on, so I feel conflicted.

 

[Final_Heaven]

@odekopeko You're not alone, CC did that to a lot of people, and in turn pissed a lot of CA shippers off. It's in line with the way SE has continued the compilation though, to be honest.



I might be the only one to think this, but I don't actually think any of the Resolution scenes are going to be referenced in any meaningful way in future parts. If by the simple fact that they're optional and some people might not play Part 1 before Part 2 and beyond (I don't know why they'd do that, but I'm sure people do,) and that SE can't really trust everyone to be a completionist and get every single Resolution scene. If you didn't get Aerith's scene and then played Part-whatever and got that line, it wouldn't really make sense.

I think on a fundamental gameplay level, because they're separating things into parts and each game is supposed to be somewhat standalone, the Resolutions are contained in their own bubble.

Well Aerith's Resolution in particular is just foreshadowing things. The game goes on like it didn't happen because Cloud and Aerith don't get a single shippy moment after that chapter. Cloud never references any romantic feelings for her either.

 

[Final_Heaven]

I don't like it for the wider implications. I am fine with saying Cloud desires both women equally while he is not himself. He doesn't have his memories so Tifa doesn't have that advantage.

The problem for me comes when that 50-50 balance is maintained throughout the extended timeline.

If I have to accept that Cloud is 50-50 about both women when he doesn't have his memories of loving Tifa, then I logically have to assume that normally, he'd lean towards Tifa.


Conversely, if I have to believe that Cloud is 50-50 between the two women when he has his memories of Tifa, and has spent years together with her, but is still just as interested in the girl he knew for barely more than a week. Then that is SOOO insulting to Tifa that it's simply unreasonable.


So which is it, did he have no preference during that week? Or does he have no preference in general? SE says nothing, and no one wants to answer and to me the entire 50-50 thing just fundamentally is insulting to one character or another.

I am also expected to believe that who Cloud prefers is based on this actions. That's fine, actions and choices indeed determine love in the long run. But I am expected to believe that it's that ONE week where Clouds choices matter? Not the 1000 weeks that happen afterwards?

It's just "Clouds choices matter that one week, and after that, if he likes Aerith, then nothing that happens after matters anymore, it will always be Aerith"?


Nah, that's just ridiculous to me. He liked both women when he was weird, if he hasn't been weird he'd have probably favored Tifa, now that Aerith is dead, he definitely favors Tifa, let's move on, this is reality.

While the devs have maintained to think what you want when FFVII ends, there is definitely a preferred canon route to what happens via the supplementary material, novels, game etc.

Aerith gets the GC date, Cloud and Tifa get that HA HW scene and Tifa & Cloud are in some type of relationship that the story is very vague about.

Friends w/benefits, Asexual Life Partners, Boy-Girlfriend, Soon to Be Engaged etc. They want you to pick your favorite outcome.

All we know is that Tifa and Cloud are going to spend their lives together until they die and are raising kids together with implications of romance spread throughout the story.

I'm hoping that the fact that Cloud x Tifa is so popular will allow them to just be explicit in-game with it .

If Aerith can move on from Zack who she was with for over a year then Cloud can move on from Aerith who he only knew for a couple weeks.

 

[Graymouse]

Playing devils advocate, if Zack lived and both Cloud and Zack made it safely to Midgar, I don't think there would be an Aerith X Cloud at all. With that said could that have a change in dynamics between the two? If so, then I don't think Aerith X Cloud could be together either way? With or without Zack. I know that makes it sound hollow but....?

 

[Graymouse]

The LTD thread is heating back up!