Hi, I've been lurking around here for a while, and read up on all of... this. I am not good with words, I suppose it's one reason I have always just related to Cloud as a character. But here I am I suppose; apologies for rambling in advance.
FF7 has been my favourite game, my favourite story, since I first played it in 97.
Even as a 14 year old kid, I knew how the story went, relevant to the topic. with Tifa rescuing Cloud in Mideel, the lifestream scene being my alltime favourite in any game. Yea, even then I twigged what happened under the Highwind. We all SAW the conversation on the airship and Tifa hugging him after the battle.
If I'm honest, Aerith's death didn't really bother me, not half as much as Cloud breaking down in the North Crater. I was distraught by that part honestly. What I'm probably trying to say is I felt so much more for the plot between Cloud's ears than whatever happened outside, characters died every five minutes and over the years it hasn't changed Aer was one of the many and that's how I saw it. The whole team mourned. Tifa, Yuffie, cried. They carried on.
Obviously back then I wasn't a shipper or even really into romance, the story has so much more; but I did know there was some sort of fandom infighting that I ignored for the most part. I even collected the Amano art with Cloud and Aerith at the time and still I knew the story. Cloud was with Tifa, and I was... a mostly indifferent 14 year old, lol. Nevertheless I watched ACC, for the fights mostly, and didn't question them being together. I saw Aerith in side games and shrugged. She was pretty iconic, a well known character, I liked her as a character well enough despite har being removed from the party and mostly ignored for half the game. I played Crisis Core, and liked it, the ending made me cry, like I imagine everyone else.
I'm not sure why I felt the need to recount my feelings over this game lol. Though, I've never forgotten that time.
Well, dozens of years later, my ridiculously excited autistic old lady ass got hold of the remake and loved it. Cloud and Tifa were much closer than I remembered, but I was still mostly in it for the fighting, the drama. Still, trying to get back into the fandom I went looking for more. I read the novels and then I noticed the trend over the internet and forums. 'Aerith,' 'Aerith and Cloud,' everywhere. Or 'Cloud loves both girls, it's up to interpretation.'
I didn't fully agree but I shrugged and moved on. Sites like tvtropes and reddit aren't exactly the bastions of truth and so on, and I was pretty secure in my memories of playing the OG two dozen times by this point. It was quite easy to see that Cloud had dropped back in Midgar under the apparent assumption Tifa was his wife and he would do nasty things to anyone that looked at her funny. Aerith was the intentionally annoying big sis type, and the dynamic between the three was great, fun, I loved all of them.
Then Rebirth, got me. 100%, I was invested in this funny Kdrama couple that Cloud and Tifa had become. To me there was no real interpretation I felt, like I read so many people saying, like this was fairly obvious. But now there are people everywhere telling me that my interpretation is wrong. Googling anything about Cloud brings a whole pile of Aerith with it. Even feeling secure that I knew the story well enough to not be confused, I feel like I've been gaslighted or something. Is this it? that even though the debate was settled 27 years ago before a lot of the people debating it were even born, that it's just kinda okay to have so much of the searchable information on this game be misleading and innacurate? It's weird to me. I'm not naive to social media and fandoms, I'm aware this is the case for many. I suppose I'm just venting after the last few months of immersing myself here, where I never thought I would be, lol. Thank you for, tolerating this massive brick of nonsense.
Here's to the next 3 or so years of SMH at people I guess!
