Faith v. 3.0 (Cloti Club)

Graymouse

Pro Adventurer

Just saw this on Twitter and Instagram. Many comments are commenting about the disrespect calling their relationship as "friendship" while the other side seems to be having a field day proving the whole "platonic debate".

Not trying to start LTD here but Square Enix's marketing team seems to be fueling the flames. They probably need to read @insanehobbit's analyses to know where their bosses are going with this series.

On the other hand, technically Cloud and Tifa are best friends so I'm glad their celebrating the friendship but not when there's a LTD going on for years! I would love to hear your thoughts, without delving too far into LTD territory.

Nice! One of the greatest scenes in the game! Non optional by the way.

Cloud X Tifa have had:

Several Slow Mo Hand reaches
Hug scene
Train Rolling scene
Exclusive PS4 Theme that features only her sitting in Cloud X Tifa spot along with her Theme song playing
Tanabata
Shinra visuals
Midgar Blues
and now Friendship day!

Edited to add:

I am sure I am missing a lot more. I am not worried at all. Besides my SO was my best friend before becoming my entire world and continues to be. People are taking this way too seriously. I am just glad that Cloud X Tifa is getting more attention than ever! Besides, the amount of people that legitimately think people in love can't be friends or its one or the other, is shockingly worrying.
 
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JT77fp

Lv. 25 Adventurer

Just saw this on Twitter and Instagram. Many comments are commenting about the disrespect calling their relationship as "friendship" while the other side seems to be having a field day proving the whole "platonic debate".

Not trying to start LTD here but Square Enix's marketing team seems to be fueling the flames. They probably need to read @insanehobbit's analyses to know where their bosses are going with this series.

On the other hand, technically Cloud and Tifa are best friends so I'm glad their celebrating the friendship but not when there's a LTD going on for years! I would love to hear your thoughts, without delving too far into LTD territory.
My humble opinion is that you're being duped into reacting to a bit of shitstirring. All in good fun though!
 

minami758

Pro Adventurer
AKA
Miiwoo
Yeah, that tweet is literally: "From us, Square, to the fans - here is a flower for friendship day." It's really not that deep and frankly kind of embarrassing that all these people from both sides of the LTD get into such a tizzy about small stuff like this. At the end of the day marketing on Twitter is all about engagement, and they know LT tweets get the most comments. It has no bearing on the actual game or the direction of the story.

On a positive note, a fan officially discovered that Cloud says Tifa's name a whopping 59 times in the whole game! That's way more than what a lot of us originally thought (we all thought it was around 45-50). Here's a clip for your viewing pleasure:

 

Eerie

Fire and Blood
Funny I saw the tweet and I liked it, but I knew immediately it would stir up controversy lmao. I'm like, "Ohhh, I didn't know they were already lovers" seeing how the tweets went from both side, it's pretty embarrassing. I personally LOVE that they use CloTi for marketing, they never did before. So please don't complain about such things, especially since, they ARE friends (more than friends, we can agree, but friends STILL).

Also I made a tumblr thing, just in case you notice someone talking like me, it's probably because it's me. Because there is more than CloTi and I want to talk about Aerith too, in LTD and non-LTD stuff, so it's hard to follow the rules here :( with @odekopeko we have been talking a lot on Twitter, I thought I wanted to put my words in coherent posts.
 

insanehobbit

Pro Adventurer
lol, honestly, that post is some A+ trolling from FF7R's social media manager. Like @minami758 said, Twitter is all about engagement, and it's a platform designed so that the most polarizing content rises to the top (which is a lot more worrying for what it's doing to our politics than feeding a dumb ship war). I'm sure they're aware that the shippers are among the most vocal/active people on the platform. Whereas a benign post celebrating let's say the friendship of the AVALANCHE trio (which is what SE actually posted about for International Friendship day on their blog/website thing) wouldn't get much engagement, this was really the perfect post to rile up the shippers without contracting canon. Also, it's the end of the month, so maybe they just needed to hit some engagement numbers or whatever.

Some more unsolicited advice from yours truly, but my suggestion would be not to look to every new piece of information/marketing as if it might contain the secret answer to the decades-old question of which girl Cloud really wants to fuck. (Again, I personally think it was already answered 23 years ago after disc one). Speaking from personal experience, you'll just start internalizing arguments from the other side, which will end up skewing your view of the work into a more myopic one and diminishing your enjoyment of it overall. Just because a sizable chunk of people hold a certain point of view doesn't give it more legitimacy (I don't want to stray too far off topic here, but really, just look at our politics).

This is cheesy, but the best thing about works of art/entertainment is that they can help reveal something about yourself and the world around you. Participating in fandom is a great (and often times creatively fulfilling) extension of that, but if it becomes something that is a constant source of anger/anxiety instead, I would take a step back and think back to what drew you into it in the first place rather than focusing all your energy on the negativity.

Twitter is a particularly bad place for fandoms in general, not because the fans are particularly toxic, but because it is designed so that the craziest/most polarizing posts get the most attention/clout, which creates a feedback loop that devolves into more and more toxicity. More posts=more clicks=more ad revenue for an ad-based platform. Twitter incentivizes this behavior because it profits from it. That's capitalism, baby!

I will get off my soapbox now.

Also I made a tumblr thing, just in case you notice someone talking like me, it's probably because it's me. Because there is more than CloTi and I want to talk about Aerith too, in LTD and non-LTD stuff, so it's hard to follow the rules here :( with @odekopeko we have been talking a lot on Twitter, I thought I wanted to put my words in coherent posts.

Would love to read! Do you mind linking to it?
 

rkss

Pro Adventurer
AKA
Me

Just saw this on Twitter and Instagram. Many comments are commenting about the disrespect calling their relationship as "friendship" while the other side seems to be having a field day proving the whole "platonic debate".

Not trying to start LTD here but Square Enix's marketing team seems to be fueling the flames. They probably need to read @insanehobbit's analyses to know where their bosses are going with this series.

On the other hand, technically Cloud and Tifa are best friends so I'm glad their celebrating the friendship but not when there's a LTD going on for years! I would love to hear your thoughts, without delving too far into LTD territory.
People from both sides are so insecure about it. "Friend or childhood friend" has been in Tifa's profile for a long time.
The fact is Nojima called Tifa "heroine", she's already "won" (whatever that is). It means she's important either for the story or for the hero and I struggle to understand how a pointless thing like "frienzoned" could be vital to the plot. Either that or Nojima shot himself in the foot with that interview.

Cloud Tifa' contents are being pushed by official account that's always a good thing. No need to be defensive about it.
 

Graymouse

Pro Adventurer
Sure, but I don't feel like I'm saying ground-breaking stuff there (TAT ) My last post I just finished was more of a super long rambling, god I'm sorry for the few people who read me. You can check it here if you want.

This was a good read! Thanks for sharing!

As with my tradition of not having anything of substance to contribute to the conversation, here are some tweets to fill the daily Cloud X Tifa fanart quota!


Cute Indeed! I love it!


With this one, I almost spit out my Pepsi that I was drinking! Nice one Cloud!

 

iamhorde

Pro Adventurer
Really appreciate all your level-headed views here to help put things into perspective.

This is cheesy, but the best thing about works of art/entertainment is that they can help reveal something about yourself and the world around you. Participating in fandom is a great (and often times creatively fulfilling) extension of that, but if it becomes something that is a constant source of anger/anxiety instead, I would take a step back and think back to what drew you into it in the first place rather than focusing all your energy on the negativity.

You're absolutely right here, I think it's time to take break from reading too much into every piece of content available and simply enjoy the awesome art that @Graymouse so diligently updates every day.
 

Graymouse

Pro Adventurer
Really appreciate all your level-headed views here to help put things into perspective.



You're absolutely right here, I think it's time to take break from reading too much into every piece of content available and simply enjoy the awesome art that @Graymouse so diligently updates every day.

I think everyone here in this club is just happy that SE keeps using Cloud X Tifa in marketing Final Fantasy 7 Remake! This is the most attention that they have given these two in a really long time! Whither it be representing love, friendship, or whatever! If this gets more people to play this game I am all for it! I absolutely love it! Please keep doing it!


I have a bit more fan art to sprinkle in here. These are the last ones for today, I promise. Maybe... ;)


This one should make @Cat on Mars happy! :D

 
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JT77fp

Lv. 25 Adventurer

Sharing an oldie from Crisis Core (timestamped at 3m30s). Poor Cloud getting hauled back to town incognito by Tifa after getting hurt trying to protect her. Haven't seen this in years and still worth a chuckle. Especially in light of their interactions and banter from Remake.

I mean seriously, Tifa has so much ammunition to rib Cloud with for the rest of his life! But just like how Cloud and Tifa's relationship has developed over the years already, I'm sure as they get older you can imagine them looking back and laughing at their silly teenage / early twenties existence when they took everything so seriously (besides all the death and destruction part of course), whilst doing everything they could to hide their feelings from each other!
 

Yumelinh

Pro Adventurer
I pretty much agree with everything that has been said on the subject here, but I'd like to add just one thing: don't let people make you believe that Cloud and Tifa being labeled as friends is a bad thing (even more this early in the story AND in the Remake Twitter of all places) because it's not. They're probably the best-known video game characters with childhood friends trope and have always been labeled as such because it is their most well-known connection as well (the rest is pretty much in spoiler territory). There is nothing wrong with that. Tifa is a love interest, a friend, and an ally. Using her in any of these contexts should be totally fine.
 
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Stiggie

Pro Adventurer
AKA
Stiggie
I am having a discussion with a person who is just adamant that Cloud doesn't care about anyone except for Aerith after FFVII and I am just losing it.
How is it possible that people character assassinate Cloud soooo much!?
I just don't get it, I provide quote after quote from the games, movies, developers, Hell, Cloud himself even (I pity you, you just don't get it at all, there's nothing I don't cherish!) and the dude just doesn't even acknowledge any of it.

He just dismissed it all in general with lines like "That's all contradicted by Tifa saying that Clouds smile was fake", as if the opinion of one, non-omniscient character concerning a single smile, in a single point in time, has equal weight to pages upon pages of quotes and material showing Cloud caring about everything and everyone.....

I feel like I am just going insane, how can people be so wrong on this subject?

Hell, I visited the Clerith forum recently and just....the things I saw, how are these people for real? The amount of disillusionment that is heading their way in the shape of a FFVII: Remake shaped train is just off the charts....


I'm sorry, I just needed to vent for a moment because honestly I get too freaking invested in people being wrong, I just can't handle it.
 

KindOfBlue

Pro Adventurer
AKA
Blue
I am having a discussion with a person who is just adamant that Cloud doesn't care about anyone except for Aerith after FFVII and I am just losing it.
How is it possible that people character assassinate Cloud soooo much!?
I just don't get it, I provide quote after quote from the games, movies, developers, Hell, Cloud himself even (I pity you, you just don't get it at all, there's nothing I don't cherish!) and the dude just doesn't even acknowledge any of it.

He just dismissed it all in general with lines like "That's all contradicted by Tifa saying that Clouds smile was fake", as if the opinion of one, non-omniscient character concerning a single smile, in a single point in time, has equal weight to pages upon pages of quotes and material showing Cloud caring about everything and everyone.....

I feel like I am just going insane, how can people be so wrong on this subject?

Hell, I visited the Clerith forum recently and just....the things I saw, how are these people for real? The amount of disillusionment that is heading their way in the shape of a FFVII: Remake shaped train is just off the charts....


I'm sorry, I just needed to vent for a moment because honestly I get too freaking invested in people being wrong, I just can't handle it.
Shipping’s a hell of a drug, I’m afraid. A consequence of the idea of Cloud’s feelings being “up to the player” (which I feel stopped being true once SE decided to tell you what Cloud felt) is that it allows people to self-insert their own ideas to the point of reinterpreting the characters to fit their own projection no matter how much it conflicts with the narrative, which might work for a game with multiple routes but doesn’t really fit FF7. I believe it was Nojima who said that the Remake would leave less room for things to be up to interpretation and if that’s the case, hopefully some of the more extreme misrepresentations of Cloud’s relationships will die out. If this is really the last of the Compilation, might as well make things more definitive this time, right?
 

Stiggie

Pro Adventurer
AKA
Stiggie
Shipping’s a hell of a drug, I’m afraid. A consequence of the idea of Cloud’s feelings being “up to the player” (which I feel stopped being true once SE decided to tell you what Cloud felt) is that it allows people to self-insert their own ideas to the point of reinterpreting the characters to fit their own projection no matter how much it conflicts with the narrative, which might work for a game with multiple routes but doesn’t really fit FF7. I believe it was Nojima who said that the Remake would leave less room for things to be up to interpretation and if that’s the case, hopefully some of the more extreme misrepresentations of Cloud’s relationships will die out. If this is really the last of the Compilation, might as well make things more definitive this time, right?

God I hope so, I just want this to end, I am so done with it.
The thing is, even if Clouds feelings were determined by the players choices, and not just a representation of Cloud "not being himelf" as I believe. (You get zero say in the matter after Cloud gets his real persona back), then it's still not like all interpretations are valid.
There is some leeway, some course correction, but not everything is possible, it's literally impossible to not be nice to Tifa for instance, the worst you can be is generally dismissive. So I don't get how people can build interpretations of Cloud that just go 180degree in the opposite direction of everything Cloud stands for.
 

KindOfBlue

Pro Adventurer
AKA
Blue
God I hope so, I just want this to end, I am so done with it.
The thing is, even if Clouds feelings were determined by the players choices, and not just a representation of Cloud "not being himelf" as I believe. (You get zero say in the matter after Cloud gets his real persona back), then it's still not like all interpretations are valid.
There is some leeway, some course correction, but not everything is possible, it's literally impossible to not be nice to Tifa for instance, the worst you can be is generally dismissive. So I don't get how people can build interpretations of Cloud that just go 180degree in the opposite direction of everything Cloud stands for.
I’m probably in the minority here but I’ve never liked the affection mechanics and how they interfere with character development sometimes, I feel like all of the character-building scenes should be non-optional especially when the scenes don’t even contradict one another like the discovery and resolution scenes of the Remake
 

Graymouse

Pro Adventurer
Sometimes it is best to let the game speak for itself.

Kindofblue makes a good point above. Nojima is making it a point to leave no doubts in this last group of games. I think he is following through with his word.

Fans of Cloud X Tifa have a lot going for them. All they really have to do is wait.
 
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Yumelinh

Pro Adventurer
I’m probably in the minority here but I’ve never liked the affection mechanics and how they interfere with character development sometimes, I feel like all of the character-building scenes should be non-optional especially when the scenes don’t even contradict one another like the discovery and resolution scenes of the Remake
I don't think you're in the minority here, tho. I think it's well accepted by the fandom ( well, at least here in this forum... not so sure elsewhere lol) that all discoveries/ resolutions are canon, since they can all happen without contradicting one another.

And yeah, I was never a fan of the affection mechanism in OG, but I think Remake handled it much well (by connecting it primarily to how many missions you finished)...let's hope they keep it balanced like this for the next installments as well.
 

Eerie

Fire and Blood
I think people are stuck in the first disc of FFVII OG lol. When developpers said that Cloud wavered between the two girls, they didn't mean "SOLDIER Cloud loved Aerith and True Cloud loved Tifa". They meant "SOLDIER Cloud wavered between the two girls, but he was none the wiser". SOLDIER Cloud didn't understand the feelings and bonds he was making - he didn't really have the time to stop and examine them for one, he was wrecked for two.

Once True Cloud pops up, he doesn't waver anymore. It's all Tifa, Tifa, Tifa. The Lifestream scene is his love confession to her. This is NOT optional. If your SOLDIER Cloud preferred Aerith, True Cloud will still confess his feelings to Tifa. Aerith is barely a passing thought after her death, it's almost comical - I hope this will get changed if she dies again.
 

Ite

Save your valediction (she/her)
AKA
Ite
Hi guys. So, I kind of just skim these LTD posts but I just want to say that I don’t really come to the clubs for the kind of negativity and othering that I’ve been noticing. Could you please move it to the LTD?

I’m both a Clerith and a Cloti and really like the fanart in these clubs. I like these places as a hub of fanart and celebration, not a place to snigger at other shippers where they are unlikely to see it or respond.

And just so you’re aware, this club is the only one on TLS where this is prevalent.
 
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