SPOILERS LTD Remake — It's like New Coke except ... no, it's exactly like New Coke

[jeangl123]

Might not be LTD related but on that note about the Claudia Flashback. Someone on reddit found the filenames for Cloud's outfits, and the one he's wearing in the flashback, with the two shoulder pads, is called "ZackCostume."

Edit: Here's that post: https://www.reddit.com/r/FFVIIRemake/comments/ktcmxy

 

[Makoeyes987]

LMAO those sick bastards.

 

[Eerie]

That's true Ody, but it still means you have to get Tifa's resolution at least once, you have no choice but to get it. It's the mechanism that is fascinating to me! You can perfectly do that trophy without getting Aerith's resolution, but the reverse is not true, this is what I tried to point out

Edit lol I thought we had already pointed out that he wasn't in the right costume during the dream sequence, right? ^^' But to call it specifically Zack costume ^^'

 

[Makoeyes987]

How deep in delusion do you have to be to imagine yourself in another person's costume?

Reminds me of Naruto when

Spoiler

Obito was thinking to himself in Uchiha Madara's voice

 

[jeangl123]

How deep in delusion do you have to be to imagine yourself in another person's costume?

Reminds me of Naruto when

Spoiler

Obito was thinking to himself in Uchiha Madara's voice

I guess he just felt more comfortable that way.

From: Cloud

Contents:

Hey, do you want to come over to my house? I want you to try Mom's cooking. The thing is, I haven't been home yet since I've been here. I hadn't been able to make up my mind about it, but I decided that I should show my face... but going home alone is a bit uncomfortable, so I was hoping you could join me.

But i'm guessing it's because he would have been wearing a soldier uniform at the time if he wasn't a grunt so his mind fixed the continuity there. He does also get the uniform with the two pads so it could also just be for the consistency aligning with his false identity. Though it does seem like he is trying to copy Zack specifically. Makes me wonder if Claudia thought his grunt uniform was an actual soldier uniform in the real version of the scene.

 

[ph14basicbitch]

In order to get platinum, you have to do Johnny's quests. Cloud x Johnny confirmed.

 

[Thenir]

Well, he remembers most of Nibelheim events from Zack's pov, it makes sense

That's true Ody, but it still means you have to get Tifa's resolution at least once, you have no choice but to get it. It's the mechanism that is fascinating to me! You can perfectly do that trophy without getting Aerith's resolution, but the reverse is not true, this is what I tried to point out

Wasn't there a scenario, discarded for time constraints, where Tifa's dress mechanics depended on the side quests like Aerith's? Or am I wrong?

 

[Makoeyes987]

But i'm guessing it's because he would have been wearing a soldier uniform at the time if he wasn't a grunt so his mind fixed the continuity there. He does also get the uniform with the two pads so it could also just be for the consistency aligning with his false identity. Though it does seem like he is trying to copy Zack specifically. Makes me wonder if Claudia thought his grunt uniform was an actual soldier uniform in the real version of the scene.

That's exactly it, I just found it amusing how consistent and deep Cloud's false persona is (and the developer's not-so-subtle reference to it). It intertwines with his real memories while also feeding the false ego Cloud is wrapped in.

 

[KindOfBlue]

I am talking about a preferred route because, to sum it up, the devs chose to give bonus scenes that are intrisically cloti or lead to cloti scenes:

See, I don’t even look at it as a “route”, it’s just the story…“routes” to me would be like having a Tifa ending and an Aerith ending, which is honestly why I think making scenes like the resolutions optional is pretty silly unless it affects the direction of the story

How deep in delusion do you have to be to imagine yourself in another person's costume?

Reminds me of Naruto when

Spoiler

Obito was thinking to himself in Uchiha Madara's voice

Quite a jarring transition in the English dub to go from Madara’s deep-ass voice sounding like Mufasa to then hear Obito’s whiny anime edgelord voice

 

[frosty]

I think there's been a shift towards not just arguing that one ship or the other is "non canon" or whatever, but specifically that the ship you're arguing against is morally bad. This makes everything a lot more emotive straight away. Being told that your ship is non-canon is one thing, being told your ship is problematic is gets nastier much more quickly. There's probably a more detailed post I could write about this phenomenon, where it came from and why it changed, but not while at work on my mobile lol.

Basically it's an extension of what was said way upthread about how people's ships represent something very personal to them, kind of being weaponised by both sides. I actually thought LTD stood for "love triangle discourse" when I first joined until I remembered the old acronym.

Yep. After coming back to the internet specifically for ToTP translations, I don't know when or how a simple "I prefer <THIS PAIRING> cos that's what I like in a romance" became so insufficient that it now has to be "Cloud shouldn't be with Tifa because of the toxicity of their relationship has negative impact on the young minds of children, and you're cancelling Barret by not supporting Barrifa, so you're being really disrespectful to black people and shouldn't practice this kind of erasure, you racist. Also, you're anti-feminist because you support women as sex objects if you like Tifa, and she herself is clearly anti-feminist because she pretends to be weak all the time despite having martial arts training so Cloud is forced to save her"

Not verbatim, but that's the actual gist I'm seeing and it's gotten so strange, yet so fascinating

 

[KindOfBlue]

Also, you're anti-feminist because you support women as sex objects if you like Tifa, and she herself is clearly anti-feminist because she pretends to be weak all the time despite having martial arts training so Cloud is forced to save her"

Ah yes, Aerith is clearly the progressive choice when she appeals to the fantasy of the brooding male protagonist who just needs the perfect dream girl to make everything okay, only to be fridged later for tragedy points…hooray feminism, I guess?

 

[Eerie]

Though it does seem like he is trying to copy Zack specifically. Makes me wonder if Claudia thought his grunt uniform was an actual soldier uniform in the real version of the scene.

No way, she knew that he was a grunt - they were several, and the Soldiers stood out. No, she was just a proud mama boy!

And yeah, he's specifically trying to copy Zack because he thinks Zack is cool. Remember in the OG, when in Nibelheim in the fake memory, if you go talk to Cloud (hidden by his helmet), he goes "so lucky, you get to be a hero" or something like that. He also has a hilarious warning at the beginning, but I don't remember what he says then. The devs have also stated at least twice that he's trying to mimick Zack, both with Tifa (when he gives her the flower) and Aerith (when he dances), so I think it's not something he does conscientiously.

@KindOfBlue I think it would have been better to not have any option and get all three at once, but I guess they did it for replayability. All in all I don't put much weigh into this, when I see everything that we had and that is absolutely non-optional, I really cannot complain < this is my true stance XD

 

[Ryeleigh]

Yep. After coming back to the internet specifically for ToTP translations, I don't know when or how a simple "I prefer <THIS PAIRING> cos that's what I like in a romance" became so insufficient that it now has to be "Cloud shouldn't be with Tifa because of the toxicity of their relationship has negative impact on the young minds of children, and you're cancelling Barret by not supporting Barrifa, so you're being really disrespectful to black people and shouldn't practice this kind of erasure, you racist. Also, you're anti-feminist because you support women as sex objects if you like Tifa, and she herself is clearly anti-feminist because she pretends to be weak all the time despite having martial arts training so Cloud is forced to save her"

That, or Aerith is the abusive toxic stalker who emotionally manipulates/coerces Cloud to do her bidding and Cloud's not allowed to feel even friendship for her.

You know what's the funniest thing about this whole thing? That Aerith and Tifa clearly adore each other and yet their respective fans keep digging to find more things to hate about the other character.

 

[Leafonthebreeze]

I think one of the biggest realisations of how good the Remake is at balancing things out (and also how I am no longer a shitty teen who hates Aerith to be edgy haha) was that despite overall preferring Cloti, my fav "shippy" moment in the game was when Tifa and Aerith grabbed an arm each and walked around with Cloud in the train graveyard. Just let everyone be friends dammit! (Or solve the whole thing with an ot3)

I get where the need to tear the other girl down comes from, internalised misogyny is a hell of a drug and I too decided to hate Aerith in 2006 because she was pink and flirty and I wasn't when I was 15 but like, it is 2021 and maybe we can all move on a bit?

 

[frosty]

You know what's the funniest thing about this whole thing? That Aerith and Tifa clearly adore each other and yet their respective fans keep digging to find more things to hate about the other character.

I get where the need to tear the other girl down comes from, internalised misogyny is a hell of a drug and I too decided to hate Aerith in 2006 because she was pink and flirty and I wasn't when I was 15 but like, it is 2021 and maybe we can all move on a bit?

Funny, I was just thinking about this. Back when I had to manage soc med promoting a franchise of one of those model competition TV shows, (the kind that a bunch of model-wannabes compete against one another to win a contract),...the kind of internet savagery perpetuated by young, teenage girls had me ABSOLUTELY SHOOK.

They'd rag their most hated girl on social media, skillfully coordinate attacks and emoji spam criticising one particular girl's face / style / leg length across ALL her handles, print screen where supposedly one girl looked at another with "hatred in her eyes" (No, her colored contact and false lashes was just bothering her). All these while, behind the scenes, the models were mostly just too focused on completing their sponsor challenges, or just hanging out in their hotel rooms chit chatting with each other and made genuine friendships throughout their casting call and shoot period.

I'm not surprised that fans do this as well to fictional characters like Tifa and Aerith...even more so because they've no real feelings to hurt. It's just interesting to see this behavior being prevalent whether it's a tv show, or youtube influencers, or kpop stars or even video games.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

It's a lingering effect of the patriarchy. When women are suppressed and dependent on men for everything, pitting them against each other makes it less likely that they will unite in defense of their interests, and more likely that they will focus on pleasing men. Divide and rule.

 

[ph14basicbitch]

Not verbatim, but that's the actual gist I'm seeing and it's gotten so strange, yet so fascinating

If you've ever heard the term anti-shipper, it's the same kind of rhetoric that anti-shippers use, and people will use this kind of shit to make everything about ~morality~. It unfortunately pops up fucking everywhere, not just with the Cloud x Girl ships, though it definitely feels pretty loud coming from them since there's so many of them. "You're racist if you ship Reno with anyone other than Rude" is forever going to be imprinted in my brain.

(Tbh, I assume the Cloud x Girl stuff also has to do with the fan culture back when FF7 PS1 was released. This might sound insane to everyone else, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were people were hardcore projecting on to Tifa or Aerith because the 90s fan culture included stuff like "OC bad, self-insert bad, Mary Sue bad" which made them not want to make an OC.)

I get where the need to tear the other girl down comes from, internalised misogyny is a hell of a drug and I too decided to hate Aerith in 2006 because she was pink and flirty and I wasn't when I was 15 but like, it is 2021 and maybe we can all move on a bit?

It was opposite for me; I immediately liked Aerith cause she was all pink and had flowers and shit.
I did go through the internalized pink-hating phase later though lol.

 

[Ryeleigh]

I think one of the biggest realisations of how good the Remake is at balancing things out (and also how I am no longer a shitty teen who hates Aerith to be edgy haha) was that despite overall preferring Cloti, my fav "shippy" moment in the game was when Tifa and Aerith grabbed an arm each and walked around with Cloud in the train graveyard. Just let everyone be friends dammit! (Or solve the whole thing with an ot3)

I get where the need to tear the other girl down comes from, internalised misogyny is a hell of a drug and I too decided to hate Aerith in 2006 because she was pink and flirty and I wasn't when I was 15 but like, it is 2021 and maybe we can all move on a bit?

I'm mostly 'meh' on Aerith myself. She's kind of like a toned-down Yuffie and when I saw Yuffie in Intermission my exact reaction was: "Oh my god the genki". (Another fun thing, people who hate Aerith tend to adore Yuffie.) But the more extreme Cloti and Tifa fans who maintain that "Cloud and Aerith were never even friends, and she's a horrible friend anyway, and oh by the way, the devs totally hate her too" make me want to adopt her and write a Cloud/Aerith fic out of spite, lol. But probably not since I quite like the official pairings.

And you know, the whole thing is already solved but the people who never played the games refuse to accept it.

 

[Eerie]

It's all bizarre to me because as much as I hated Aerith in the OG (overflirty side and egocentrism, I did not see her kindness there and on top of that the game tried to sell me her romance with Cloud way too much, while I adored Tifa because she was strong and kind), I just bluntly stated it and did not try to make an argument of it. I mean, it was how I felt towards her, but it wasn't the reason why I didn't ship her with Cloud - since I didn't ship anything before the LS scene.

Now that I do love her, I understand why you'd hate on her - I mean, I used to, too - but saying how Cloud and Aerith aren't friends etc., that's bogus. Aerith is an important nakama to Cloud, in fact she has the same closeness to him as Zack does - which is why ACC associates them so much in Cloud's mind. The devs have made an important job of revisiting Aerith's character especially, and I think that's because they realised that some of the criticisms she received were warranted. Like her overflirty side has disappeared (given to Jessie instead), we do see her kindness, she bonds with all the characters, not only Cloud... I think it's really important because her death will impact all the characters in the party but in the OG we never saw her truly bond, except once or twice with Tifa - and we didn't really get more than that. Aerith, to me, is definitely the best Aerith we could hope for in Remake, and the best out of all her appearances in the Compilation to me.

 

[jeangl123]

No way, she knew that he was a grunt - they were several, and the Soldiers stood out. No, she was just a proud mama boy!

I meant that Cloud would have walked into his house with the grunt uniform on in the real version of the scene. If she saw the two soldiers then she would have to know that he wasn't one.

 

[kathy202]

I've always liked Aerith regardless of whether I liked or hated pink, but I've never wanted a canon clerith nor will I ever want it. It goes against all the reasons I like this character for.

What makes Aerith a compelling character is her struggle of being the last surviving ancient, and figuring all that out on her own. She never has the option of leading a "normal" life, which is in a way, like Sephiroth or Rufus. Yet she is often shown to be a rather "normal" girl, someone who flirts with a random cute boy, has her first love, lives with her mom, etc. I think what ultimately makes her death sad for me is the way we are shown a possibility for her happiness with a "normal" life, but that it will never happen. I think it's part of this whole theme of loss.

Having some sort of canon clerith scenario where Cloud is utterly in love with her for the rest of his life completely ruins that.

I think I have something for the "something is going on but it will never actually happen" ships... Which means they must never be canon... And that makes Tserith my personal favorite ship where Aerith is concerned.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Oooh yes, I do love a good Tserith.

 

[Eerie]

I think though that for this scene, ToTP has heavily reframed it - like it did with other stuff, like say, chapter 3 in its entirety. The way I see it, it's a mother teasing her son because she knows that he at least crushes if not more on the girl next door. She even describes Tifa - the mature girl that can nudge Cloud in the right direction, which is totally Tifa's role - with a grin. After ToTP, I just can't unsee that. In the same vein, Thea describing Cloud as beautiful is because she saw that her daughter crushed on the boy next door. It's just something that parents tend to do with their kids (we can't help ourselves ok? XD).

The fact is you could argue both ways in Remake, especially since we had a shot on Cloud's eyes that looked like they reflected stars, and quickly after tried to go back to Tifa, but it was just an interpretation. ToTP pretty much confirms it, especially since Claudia has no way to know Aerith, and since Aerith herself is the childish girl, not the mature one (no matter the English erasure of her character).

In the OG, IIRC, clotis argued that Cloud just wasn't interested in such girl (older) because he already was set onto Tifa, hence his answer to his mother "Not interested".

Requoting myself because, since I don't really pay attention to the music in the background, I was today years old when I learned this:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1443928569759948809

They were talking about the music there and so this girl went to look at this. Then Peko told me she knew all along because someone in YT already noted this So from the start, I feel that this scene was meant to hint at Tifa all along for those who paid attention.

 

[frosty]

Isn't "A Tower a Promise" an adaptation from the OG song "Dear to the Heart?". The repeating motif is at 0.43

I guess it's quite charming if you think that "Dear to the Heart" can be contextualized to refer to both the promise and Claudia both being dear to Cloud, but in the OG, I always found the title of the song had zero context where it was used, because it plays when the team leaves Midgar, and also when you're walking down the train tracks on the way to Corel while smashing a button to fall in a specific place to get treasure.

I always thought the OG scene where Claudia talks about an "older" woman was speaking to the player, so the player can be all "oohh, I geddit I geddit...Aerith!" like all the other red herrings about Cloud/Aerith in the game. If players were playing chronologically (with no other parts of the compilation to sully their interpretation) they'd have no idea at this point about Grunt Cloud's crush on Tifa - but they would know Aerith is older from the marketing materials. It's because we're veteran players, we try to retrofit all the new info back to the original intent of the OG

For Remake, I've no idea if that line was left in to have a nod to ToTP...or if they just left it in word-for-word like they did for some of the other script.

 

[odekopeko]

They were talking about the music there and so this girl went to look at this. Then Peko told me she knew all along because someone in YT already noted this So from the start, I feel that this scene was meant to hint at Tifa all along for those who paid attention.

To be fair, it was a composer on YT who mentioned the repeating motifs and I got excited. I think it’s true that in Remake, he actually wakes up and remembers he needs to go home, back to Tifa. I didn’t know that his mother and Tifa talked with each other about him before the novel came out, and didn’t think anything about what his mom said. I thought the scene was more about how much he missed his own mother, not that it was about one girl or another. What happened was, Traces recontextualized the scene for me, with the added understanding that Claudia knew her son had feelings for one particular girl, but I do still think it was intended for us to think about Aerith in the original game.