Even being ESL aside (I'm also ESL), what they said was CA not coming across as having a "deep spiritual bond," not having no bonds at all. Those are two very different things as well.
I felt so vindicated by that. My first thought when playing the ending was just "oh they're just exploring the denial stage of grief in an extreme way by having Cloud unable to accept it, reflecting all the players that desperately tried to find a way to save Aerith back in the OG, and making it part of his weaker and weaker grasp on reality. Cool beans" and was surprised to find that not the general consensus lol. It's nice to see I'm on similar wavelength as the devs there.
Same here. The Lifestream is gonna be the main event I can't wait. I'm also very curious about Wutai now that it's plot relevant, and excited to return to Midgar in general. It was so fleshed out in Remake it'll truly feel like a homecoming now.
Seemed like a nothing burger scene to me and i did watch all 3 of them in-game. Tifas one was clearly the most intimate to me at least.
Oh, it's definitely an attempt to claim that "Aerith totally brings out the real Cloud too!" because Real Cloud coming out for Tifa has burned their asses for years now.
Yeah they did feel like they were referencing the OG dates essentially.
Nah i'd much rather take ambiguous than accepting some kinda last minute ass pull Clerith after everything they've done to pull further away from that possibility.
Basically this.
CA is basically dead and buried as a possibility now with everything they've done, unless they just want to ruin everything they've build up so far.
I never understand how someone could think there's any kind of jealousy portrayed in that face there.
Totally not a perfect example of an actual jealous Cloud at play.
Somehow the guy that kills their favourite is lesser of the 2 evils than the girl that's the kindest and most caring person in this game.
This feels like bait more than anything. Or maybe it is just someone who has fuck all idea about the game(s) and rolls with whatever he was fed.
To be fair, it's not exactly clear so far that he's doing all this just for her to new players. That's what the Lifestream sequence is there for afterall.
I never understand getting invested on a ship you aren't even familiar with in the first place. Though i guess knowing a basic concept around some ship is enough to get some people into it? Just a weird thing to me i guess.
People never get tired of pretending Crisis Core doesn't matter. I guess Zack being more prominent now scares people too much.
The stuff about them insisting Marlene being Barret's daughter takes away from her place in Cloud and Tifa's family is especially funny when you consider how ff7r has been portraying that dynamic. Tifa has almost as much screentime with Marlene as Barret does, Marlene is shown to be one of her biggest concerns in the build up to the plate drop, in Rebirth Marlene always asks about "Daddy and Tifa" instead of just Barret himself, Barret credits Tifa as the reason he got his shit together as a father, ToTP has Tifa note that Marlene brings out her maternal side, and it's now been made very clear Marlene was young enough when she met Tifa that she likely doesn't remember a time before she was in her life. For all intents and purposes Tifa already is Marlene's mother, the living situation in AC just makes it feel more like a traditional set up.
I think a lot of it is that, especially in the OG, Clerith is baited with some incredibly popular tropes. It was a clever way to build quick investment in the ship and Aerith herself to ensure her death would hurt, but a lot of shippers just never look past it at all. Hell, I've seen people reduce the entire ship war to if you prefer a meet-cute or childhood friends.
People also seemingly have an easier time self-inserting as Aerith too so that’s potentially part of it. (Even though Tifa has a lot of relatable traits such as insecurity, kindness, guilt, etc.)
Funny when Denzel's biological parents are "CloTi coded" just with inverted eye colors. Aerith "guided" him to them or it was fate/chance/luck for him to be around the Sector 5 Church that day. In Marlene's case I agree with that, 'they' do that to diminish Cloti's relationship.
Yeah, I just hope people will actually reflect back on the stuff and be like, "oh, so that's why!"
Hmm... From what I've noticed, a lot of people are into shipping just to fill pretty dolls with tropes and kinks they like. So if the dolls are pretty and they fill basic tropes, I guess that's enough for people? But honestly, forget about shipping, I can't imagine getting invested in a story, world, and characters I don't even know, lol.
Since I'm not a Clerith, obviously I can't answer. But I imagine that a part of the appeal is that there's enough there to get invested in the first place but also not enough that people can fill in the blanks. And usually, what people fill the blanks with is more interesting than what's actually there. Or well, that's what I've noticed about other non-canon ships anyway.
I was actually thinking about this and I think I agree with Eerie on this. Like, Aerith is already half-Cetra, the last of her kind, she's the magical girl who can talk to flowers and the planet, she's the only one who can pray for Holy (iirc), she essentially becomes a mother goddess, and she already had/has her tragic love and soulmate story with Zack. So having Cloud's romantic affections on top of that? Feels a bit too much, especially when Tifa was essentially created for Cloud. And yeah, people can be all "misogyny", "moving on", "strong and independent woman", but I'm sorry, that doesn't change her role in the story, lol?
You said exactly what I meant, tks
“Two lonely people find common ground and seek comfort in each other”, I see some people said that. IMO, precisely, Aerith reveals her past loneliness throughout the journey, and the ones who comfort her and pull her out of that sadness are Tifa and Cloud. When alone with Cloud at the water tower, she still refused to share more, even though he was willing to listen.
So far IIRC Cloud's loneliness as a child is brought by Tifa's convo in her room in Nibelheim, also Yuffie's date brings it too, (loner vibes as a kid) because Tifa told her.You said exactly what I meant, tks
“Two lonely people find common ground and seek comfort in each other”, I see some people said that. IMO, precisely, Aerith reveals her past loneliness throughout the journey, and the ones who comfort her and pull her out of that sadness are Tifa and Cloud. When alone with Cloud at the water tower, she still refused to share more, even though he was willing to listen.
But I haven't seen any scenes in the ReTrilogy where Aerith senses Cloud's loneliness and is the one to comfort him.
The question is: Cloud truly understand Aerith as a person—her burdens, her feelings for Zack, and the constant loneliness she carries. So what about Aerith? To what extent does she understand and empathize with Cloud?
To be honest, I find this scene between Cloud & Aerith far more romantic than the one between Cloud & Tifa. It has depth and feels like the tender whispers between two people in love. But this contrasts with Cloud in the ReTrilogy, where in Rebirth, Cloud is quite talkative and flirty only with Tifa.
Honestly, there is shipping, and people can ship whatever and it's fine, and there's canon. Personally I'm not here to discuss "shipping", but to discuss "canon". So that there are a lot of people shipping CA isn't really a problem to me - there are still way more CTs. It's fine but it's when they pretend that it's canon that I'm crossing eyes; CA does not meet the treshold for "canon" aka two characters being in love with each other. Aerith clearly fell for him but a one-sided love never made a pairing canon. Time will also tell if Aerith truly fell for Cloud, or if she fell for Zack's image in Cloud - which I suspect is a possibility too; this should be cleared in p3. If they don't want Zack to feel like second best, they might go for the second option.
The basic idea doesn't even quite work when Cloud literally can't confide in Aerith because his memories were scrambled at the time. Aerith talks about it, sure. But Cloud never does (unless memory is failing me).
I'm putting my bet on vibes and CA having a tragic angle plus being backed up by a lot of popular tropes at the time. Honestly, though, I also don't get it, but that comes with the territory when I thought Aerith was pretty bratty and insensitive in OG, so I was very far from even liking her by herself. Hell, I just said a few posts before this that I don't really buy what the games (Retrilogy included) are telling me about her and Cloud's dynamic.
I can see the second option being expanded upon as this idea seems to have been setup. In the the Ch.14 Resolution scene (Remake). Aerith tells Cloud (and mostly herself) that the "love" is in her imagination. By the end of the dream date, Aerith questions her "suki" for Cloud.
I believe Nomura mentioned in an interview (Game Informer) that he wanted to explore the denialism aspect of loss and the struggles to overcome that.
I only say so because they’ve seemingly committed to ZA and CT. That I’ll just be very annoyed if they chicken out at the last minute…
Yeah i guess the tropes speak for itself and draw people in. Not something that's generally enough for me to be invested for sure. I've also never been into tragic romance at all. Not something that appeals to me at all. I second the better send off for Aerith.
With the loner aspect i guess? But Tifa honestly to me feels like the easier to relate character out of the 2 in general. She's the most human character in the game probably.
At least there is way stronger build up for it this time around so if people are still too stubborn to see what is going on then that's on them.
Interesting. I definitely need to learn about the actual work before i can get invested in anything. The interest in possible characters and their dynamics comes after for me.
That would sorta explain why the extremes try to twist some things to essentially make it seem like they got more than they actually did too. The lack of real content for the couple.
Yeah maybe me asking why they are being shipped was a bit pointless considering people ship literally anything they can come up with even if the characters never even interact. I'm just surprised Clerith is as popular as it is, but i'm not the most romantic person ever anyway so what do i know.
Aerith definitely never came across in the most positive ways to me either from way back then. The dynamic for the most part also does feel very one sided which doesn't really help me get invested either. It's only when Aerith is not being pushy when the dynamic feels better to me as Cloud isn't just on the receiving end.
