SPOILERS LTD Remake — It's like New Coke except ... no, it's exactly like New Coke
- Thread starter The Twilight Mexican
- Start date
KindOfBlue
Pro Adventurer
- AKA
- Blue
inb4 ZACK X TIFA CONFIRMED
you joke but it makes me lol when cloti fans on twitter say that cloud trying to imitate zack was cute interaction, despite insisting that all romantic interactions between cloud and aerith are just the result of cloud being confused about who he is.
another reminder for me to stay out of twitter discourse
null
Mr. Thou
- AKA
- null
Edit: I remembered that I wrote this not too long ago about Tifa:
Eerie said:
So I feel vindicated
That's a good point, come to think of it. Tifa screaming about hating Shinra, SOLDIER, etc. but Cloud shows up reeking of both and still gets the VIP treatment. She's gotta see some of that cat-rescuing normie underneath it all.
eleamaya
Pro Adventurer
Joke aside, Zack x Tifa is totally crack pairing.
Even if Cleriths want to get rid of those, pairing them up seriously/debate if they were canon doesn't make sense unless it's just them pairing two people they hate the most together. This pairing doesn't even exist in JP fandom when I searched it for my account.
I mean, Zack x Cissnei is even more believable to be Zack's 2nd best after Aerith.
And Tifa? I see Rufus x Tifa is popular idk why.
Even if Cleriths want to get rid of those, pairing them up seriously/debate if they were canon doesn't make sense unless it's just them pairing two people they hate the most together. This pairing doesn't even exist in JP fandom when I searched it for my account.
I mean, Zack x Cissnei is even more believable to be Zack's 2nd best after Aerith.
And Tifa? I see Rufus x Tifa is popular idk why.
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looneymoon
they/them
- AKA
- Rishi
I see you all liking lewd art on twitter.
Here I was thinking I was doing good at keeping my timeline pure.
Here I was thinking I was doing good at keeping my timeline pure.
LicoriceAllsorts
Donator
Rufus is the richest man on the planet, accustomed to getting his own way. Tifa is a beautiful independent woman who doesn't give a good goddamn about how rich someone is. However, he's sick (geostigma): this makes him vulnerable, and appeals to her nurturing instinct (albeit against her better judgement).
Also, enemies to lovers is a venerable and respected trope.
Also, enemies to lovers is a venerable and respected trope.
Dr Frasier Crane
Pro Adventurer
I can definitely see the appeal in a K-Drama/Cinderella story between Tifa and Rufus. It’s a cliche, for sure. Tifa has a preference for blondes it seems, and Rufus is on a redemption arc after the OG. Then again he did try to have her publicly executed, so I’m not sure how you square that circle. Definitely not a fan of what Odysseus describes above, but people bought 50 Shades of Grey by the millions. It seems there’s a fair few Tifa fans that prefer to ship her with Reno though, but I’m not sure how you get past the sector 7 plate-drop there either.
Ships are just a way of people exploring their favourite relationship tropes and in many cases sexual fantasies, too, aren’t they? One of the biggest, if not THE biggest, of the FF7 ships has to be Cloud/Sephiroth. It doesn’t make sense on paper at all - CloudxZack is the better ship, surely - but I get why people are into it. I think.
Ships are just a way of people exploring their favourite relationship tropes and in many cases sexual fantasies, too, aren’t they? One of the biggest, if not THE biggest, of the FF7 ships has to be Cloud/Sephiroth. It doesn’t make sense on paper at all - CloudxZack is the better ship, surely - but I get why people are into it. I think.
LicoriceAllsorts
Donator
I think what's interesting is to look at the Venn diagram of people's ships. Out of the total number of Cloud/Sephiroth shippers, what percentage also ship Rufus/Tifa? Zack/Cloud? Is being a Vincent/Yuffie shipper (a ship which I think is about to sink thanks to the DLC which so clearly makes her a child) mutually exclusive with shipping Rude/Tifa? And so on.
Eerie
Fire and Blood
How so, zerith happened before clerith and didn’t prevent it from happening. As much as clerith didn’t prevent Zack and Aerith to reunite either.
Edit: by clerith happening I mean at least Aerith’s feelings and their scenes. You all know I don’t believe Cloud had full fledged romantic feelings for her, and that I may be the most extreme shipper here for thinking like that ?
Edit: by clerith happening I mean at least Aerith’s feelings and their scenes. You all know I don’t believe Cloud had full fledged romantic feelings for her, and that I may be the most extreme shipper here for thinking like that ?
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Odysseus
Ninja Potato
- AKA
- Ody
Well, let's say you're some kind of mutually exclusive shipper (every ship is OTP I guess.) If you want to free Cloud up for Tifa, you put Aerith with Zack so there's no conflict of interest. Or if you want to ship Cloud and Zack or Cloud and Sephiroth or whatever, then you put Tifa with Robert or Rude or Aerith or literally any character (there's art for all of it, I promise. ALL of it.) I dunno if anyone actually does things like that though.
Eerie
Fire and Blood
There are shippers who like both cloti and zerith - I think the pairings work in a very similar way so it’s understandable. Then you have those who like everything under the sun, and those who only ship one ship. It’s really different for each one. Like personally when I see AerTi I see the friendship and I like that. I don’t ship them romantically because I don’t think they are interested. Same with Zack and Cloud. At least clerith I see the romantic side of the pairing, even if I don’t like it. But for some they will ship because they want more interactions and a good relationship, not even romantically. It’s their way of showing how much they enjoy the interactions between two characters.
LicoriceAllsorts
Donator
Unhappy love triangles are my favourite trope, so I ship Tseng/Aerith/Zack.
I don't like to live bad, unhealthy relationships but I do love to read about them.
I don't like to live bad, unhealthy relationships but I do love to read about them.
Torrie
astray ay-ay-ay
I have spent a considerable amount of time with fellow Zakkura stans and, from what I observe, there's approximately 30% overlap between Sephiroth/Cloud and Zack/Cloud shippers. Could be more than that, actually, because people shipping some SOLDIERs tend to ship multiple SOLDIER couples. Sefikura & Zakkura are matching exclusively well because Sephiroth is predictably depicted as an abusive and sadistic partner while Cloud finds comfort in Zack's arms and may finally feel safe, and loved, and cherished.
Personally, I'm not invested in the former because I don't want Cloud to suffer any further than he already has but some people obviously find it appealing.
Roche is exclusively shippable with anyone though. Kunsel too, but to a lesser degree.
LicoriceAllsorts
Donator
Tseng/Elena and even Tseng/Aerith used to be bigger ships than they are right now, and there was a lot more mixing and matching of the Turks. Since the Remake was released we seem to have been reduced to two pairings: Tseng/Rufus and Rude/Reno. Since for me Rude and Reno are the greatest bromance ever told and emphatically not a ship, I kinda hope that SE continues to keep everything nicely ambiguous - although I have a lot of sympathy for people who'd like FFVII to have just one canon gay ship (but couldn't it be Tseng/Rufus?).
Oh, wait, there's those two guards in Sector 7, but the rookie's crush on his stern boss seems unrequited. Gosh, where have I heard that before?
Anyway it will be very interesting to see how the introduction of Elena disrupts the shipping lanes in Part 2.
Oh, wait, there's those two guards in Sector 7, but the rookie's crush on his stern boss seems unrequited. Gosh, where have I heard that before?
Anyway it will be very interesting to see how the introduction of Elena disrupts the shipping lanes in Part 2.
KindOfBlue
Pro Adventurer
- AKA
- Blue
Generally I hate love triangles, but I think the way the FF7 one is handled is pretty tasteful (USUALLY, at least…still not a fan of stupid affection mechanics making certain interactions optional).
I’m personally pretty strict on prioritizing canon over shipping, so even canon shipping makes me cringe when the characters are portrayed out-of-character in discussions and fan works (hence why I ignore fanfiction altogether lol). Overall, to me, any shipping that occurs outside of what the creators intended just feels…I dunno, fake?
I’m personally pretty strict on prioritizing canon over shipping, so even canon shipping makes me cringe when the characters are portrayed out-of-character in discussions and fan works (hence why I ignore fanfiction altogether lol). Overall, to me, any shipping that occurs outside of what the creators intended just feels…I dunno, fake?
Dr Frasier Crane
Pro Adventurer
You’re touching on an interesting topic. I have one angle on it, and this may be shocking to some: I think there’s a lot of psychological warfare in online fandom. You got normal people who just like to ship everything under the sun: the multishipper, who ships in good faith. You got people who just like canon and are happy when Darcy walks across the field to confess his love to Lizzie. You got your LGBT+ shippers, your crack-shippers. And finally you got your bad faith shippers who want to “pair the spares”.
Some people genuinely like the idea of Zack and Tifa getting together, and in the abstract - devoid of canon and context, who knows: maybe they could be a good match. But I also guarantee that some people reading this page grind their teeth at the word “Zifa” because they know that Clerith fans ship the pair out of cynicism and convenience. And it’s true the other way around: Cloti fans ship Zerith even though they either don’t actually have much investment in the pairing or they don’t actually like one of the characters in the pair. (Spoiler: It’s Aerith.) Astroturfing is apparently a thing in fandom and not just online media and marketing. Sometimes, I see people trying to will BarretxTifa into existence. And who knows, maybe one day Square will have the balls to give a black character a romantic interest (poor Barret and Sazh seem doomed to be single parents, forever). I know nothing about Naruto, but I do know about its ending pairs and sometimes I see art of HinataxSasuke retweeted and I wonder: are some of these fans still fighting the good fight? Have the NarutoxSakura shippers still not given up?
I wonder how common this is in other spaces in the fandom. Do Serikura fans ship Zack with Kunsel to get him out of the way? Do Rufus/Tseng fans ship Elena with Reno? I watched an amazing video on the Harry Potter fandom that said back before the books were done Harry/Hermione shippers used to ship Ginny with Ron.
Never ship kids. Not even once.
LicoriceAllsorts
Donator
I really like that post, Dr Crane. I wanted to make sure I said that first.
I don't believe one can ship anything out of cynicism and convenience.
Ship is in the heart.
If you're not feeling it, you're not shipping it.
If there's no conviction behind it, it's merely a pairing.
I don't believe one can ship anything out of cynicism and convenience.
Ship is in the heart.
If you're not feeling it, you're not shipping it.
If there's no conviction behind it, it's merely a pairing.
KindOfBlue
Pro Adventurer
- AKA
- Blue
Sasuke and Hinata have never even been shown speaking to each other at all until they were both fully grown adults with kids of their own (unless you count that filler movie where she calls out to him and he just tells her to shut up lmao) so shipping Sasuke and Hinata can pretty easily be regarded as a crack ship that’s just a convenient excuse for Naruto and Sakura.
With Zack and Aerith as a counterpoint to Cloud and Tifa, Zack and Aerith actually did interact romantically in a way that Cloud and Aerith just never had the chance to get to, so it fits a lot more neatly than the inverse. Not just because of Aerith’s death, but because neither party were afflicted by an evil alien mind controlling them to suppress memories related to their feelings for somebody else.
Of course, some will invalidate Cloud and Tifa’s development by insisting he constantly wants to be with Aerith in the Promised Land instead of Tifa but I can’t tell how much of that is based on the creators’ intentions vs fan interpretations vs other writers’ interpretations in AUs. He’s said to have found his Promised Land among his friends and family, and he goes back to living with Tifa so I’m not particularly convinced by that interpretation of Cloud.
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Dr Fraiser Crane said:
I've said it in Faith, but essentially shipping is just someone's value system (about love and relationships) becoming the main interpretive lens through which they view two characters. And "shipping' is to experience your own value system, vicariously.
If you strongly believe that "love" trumps all (even logic, sometimes?) love-at-first-sight, love has to including mutual pining, love enduring after death- You're going to project all of this onto say, Cloud and Aerith. Which is why I always say that "shippers" aren't fighting for the characters - they're fighting for their own beliefs of love and romantic relationships to be recognized as valid. That's why everyone is so hell bent on "canon" - because the creator said "Yes - that's what I think of love. You're right!"
Clearly this doesn't include those people who just say - well, I like these two character designs together and I'm going to draw them a lot.
And this is also relevant to the value system - "pairing the spares". No one likes to think that in their pursuit of their ideal "love" someone gets left behind or shattered. No one likes to think they have to be the bad guy in someone else's story. Hence this convenient - "I didn't do anything bad breaking up this relationship, because the leftover piece has found love. I didn't make him / her sad - they found their happiness."Dr. Fraiser Crane said:
villains23
Rookie Adventurer
- AKA
- v
Same here... I just like the characters as they are. That's enough for me.
eleamaya
Pro Adventurer
They exist, but just tiny part of the western fandom i.e roleplayer.
I can guarantee you it's just a small part of the fandom. And yeah, as Zerith shippers, I have problem with this kind who just throw Zerith everywhere or speak for them only to deny Clerith for convenience. The large base genuinely loves Cloti & Zerith together regardless of which one you love/invested in the most as OTP. Idk if this was proper enough to be shared here, but I collect many of their parallel in the story to give you more understanding that shipping both equally works. Though, I don't give my thoughts of it like an essay, it's just pure quotes so free to discuss it.
Sadly, what Clerith thinks of love is the opposite of what Nojima/The Creator think it is.
Nojima values a deep and long-lasting relationship in hardship, a romantic relationship that needs to be maintained because once you confess your feelings and declare that "hey, we're official/canon now", it's not over yet. We know how Nojima depicts Cloti in Advent Children, they faced a relationship problem before finally together again and Nojima is sure of that. He also said in FF8 Ultimania, Squall/Rinoa is just 1/3 ahead of true love because.... they're still young and they just start, similarly he said in CC Ultimania Zack and Aerith are still young to call their romance is "true love" yet (I think he just refers to their relationship before 5 years separation because 89 letters she sends and how he want to return to her is deep).
Among these pairing, it's just Cloti who passes their 24-23 years of life, not a teenage romance anymore. He said, "I dont intend to write about love, marriage, family (laughs)" when describing Cloti. Squall x Rinoa, Tidus x Yuna, even Zack x Aerith don't reach that stage yet in the story since they're all 17 yo. But if Zack and Aerith could really survive at the end of FF7Remake, they would reach this stage too since their 5 years separation is the hardship they must conquer to be together again when they reunite. And if FFX-3 really came to reality as Toriyama said, I believe Tidus x Yuna would be together again since, in audio drama (FFX2.5), Nojima makes them break up. They will be 21 yo in FFX3. Well, only Squall x Rinoa that left to our imagination what kind of their relationship issue would be like since there's no sequel of FF8.
(I don't use other pairings because Nojima wrote only FF7, FF8, and FF10.... also FF Chaos lmao)
So, Clerith is really out of his mind of "canon pairing" or "true love" definition. But it doesn't mean he deny that the feelings already exist, Aerith's feelings for Cloud exist and he tells us in COLW. But Cloud's feeling? We never know and even if Cloud had, for Nojima too it seems, it doesn't matter since Cloud has Tifa and move on with his life. They're comrades, they care for each other, and they share "ai" (deep love that it doesn't matter whether it's romantic or not)... their bond is real, not fake, no matter how short it is (three weeks with Cloud not being himself till she dies and Aerith was searching Zack despite realizing to let go in the end). That's the bittersweet of Clerith and I would defend this from those who say Cloud and Aerith's bond was 'not real'.
But I know this would never be the ideal Clerith shippers want. They want their own version of Promised Land and would always argue that Cloud loves Aerith more (even only her since Tifa is just mere NPC lol) although we've already known this answer for so long.
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