#art is always valuable if only for its sake

[novlr]

Hey! I'm a non native English speaker and i find it very hard to use wide variety of vocabulary in my writing. Any tips??

Just as a painter needs a rich palette of colours to make their art, writers need a diverse vocabulary to craft deep and engaging story worlds.

Your vocabulary as a writer is much like a paint box, with each word adding depth, contrast, and colour to your creation. So what techniques can you use to improve your vocabulary and give yourself more linguistic colours to choose from?

Read a lot

Reading is the best way to improve your vocabulary. It’s immersive, enjoyable, and will introduce you to more varied words. Make it a habit to read often, and try to read widely. Don’t limit yourself to one genre, age range, or style. Whether fiction, non-fiction, articles, or instruction manuals, reading as widely as you can opens your mind to words and styles you might never encounter naturally in your day-to-day life.

Write a lot

Write as often as you can. The more you write, the more often you’ll find yourself reaching for varying words and phrases to accurately convey your thoughts. Every written piece is an opportunity to experiment with new words. As with anything, practice is crucial—regular writing will naturally enhance your vocabulary and make your word usage more instinctive and fluid.

Use a thesaurus

A thesaurus introduces you to a variety of synonyms for the words you’re using and can help you express your thoughts with a bit more flair. However, using a thesaurus does come with a caveat: avoid using complex words just for the sake of appearing more sophisticated. Always choose words that best fit the context and effectively convey what you’re trying to say.

Join a writing group

Beyond being a place to talk about words, writing groups let you test your understanding of words in real time. Writing groups provide valuable insight into whether your word choices effectively convey your intended meaning. Seeing how other writers use their own vocabularies to share their own meanings is a great way to see how word choice can make your writing richer and more nuanced

Play word games

Playing word games is not only fun but is also an effective way to expand your vocabulary. For instance, games like Scrabble challenge you to form varying words from a set of letters, crossword puzzles can improve your understanding and recall of words, and games like Boggle can stimulate quick thinking around word formation.

Keep a word journal

Every time you encounter a new and intriguing word, whether through reading, conversation, or even during a TV show, jot it down in your word journal. Follow it up by researching its meaning, synonyms, and usage in sentences. Revisit these entries frequently, and try to incorporate these words into your writing somehow, even if it’s only during practice sessions. Over time, you’ll notice these new words naturally creeping into your vocabulary.

Sometimes simple is best

While having a broad vocabulary is an asset for any writer, it’s also important to remember that effective communication is what it’s all about, and sometimes, simpler words serve this purpose best. Not every situation calls for intricate or sophisticated language; in fact, often, using simpler, more direct language can make your message clearer and more accessible to a wider audience. More important than a wide vocabulary is an understanding of your readers and the message you want to convey in your text.

#writers #creative writing #writing #writing community #creative writers #writers of tumblr #writing inspiration #writeblr #writerblr #writing tips #ask a writer #writblr #writers corner #writing advice #resources for writers #writing resources #advice for authors #vocab list #writers and poets #writers on tumblr #helping writers #writing help #learn to write

[terrence-silver]

Hello! Could you write ❝ can you turn in to a bat ? ❞ and ❝ i want to be your familiar. ❞ - beloved to Jan Valek? I wonder how he would react if he encountered a human who had always liked vampire stories and when they met Valek they were curious and excited and not scared at all.

---

-"Say, can you turn into a bat, though?"-

You ask, bordering on excitement, as giddy as a purring kitten.

-"No, that is a misconception concerning our kind,"- Jan Valek explains patiently, unable to prevent himself from being amused. A bat? Why, of course. How precious of you to think that. -"But, I can be the mist at the edge of a forest. The shadows of the gathering dusk, moulded like a beast, fashioned out of translucent vapour."- He describes shapelessness and the fine art of transformation to you the best way he knew how lest he left you confused, explaining how a vampire can rid itself of a body altogether if need be, roaming under a starless sky black as the void, covering God's green earth not unlike a nocturnal cape as it ventures out to hunt. -"When the night is particularly dark and still, that is me. I can be everywhere, formless."-

-"That's so cool."-

You exclaim.

Cool?

Cool as in, not cold, rather, superb --- outstanding. Ten years until the start of the new millennia, 1998, Ano Domini, and the speech of the day often left him befuddled.

Jan Valek had a little human. A friend, companion and confidante, he dared say, one he regularly visited for several years now. He was attached to your, in equal measure, little conversations, little semblances of enjoyment and little moments of peace; the giddiness that reddened your cheeks with all the prodding and questions, a sweet, mortal sort of curiosity that often took place in the dead of night between two unlikely intimates --- feeling your pulse, blood particles and your heart singing whenever you met, even as he chided you that you shouldn't miss out on the pleasures of sunlight for his sake; such a valuable luxury, even though you were like a miniature sun on your own accord, moving in the manner of a shimmering body of light. Perhaps the only human worth anything. He has never fed from this one, nor did any of his coven, in fact, he felt an almost paternalistic sort of fondness towards you where he refused to do so even when you explicitly offered, a bit like an eager infant fuelled by fairytales and stories. Given, in effect, you were a kind-natured, mild-mannered child, with your tender human years and naiveté, compared to his six centuries on roaming this plane --- if anything, you needed to be steered away from rotten decisions and protected from your own silly impulse to offer your neck to the King of Damned, even though your blood had a saccharine aroma to it, fuelled by the summer evening in his nostrils, tickling his senses; sticky and partially melted like candy. Jan Valek needed to ensure you don't attract any unworthy insects. -"I want to be your familiar."- You whisper at one point, seated out the grass, concealed by an tiny patch of woodland, coiled into your own jacket for warmth (something he insisted on), him opposite of you. This time, Jan smiles.

His familiar? Weren't you already?

Instead, him deciding your session of ritualized conversation tonight must come an end and continue tomorrow with the tender full moon peeking out through a purple cloud --- he cared about your hours of sleep. He cared about whether you'd experience the entirety of the next day, and all its rewards. He needed to care because he'd feel even more accursed if he usurped that from you --- chuckling at your request, all he says is. -"All the human will be made familiar with tonight is being escorted to their abode for their blessed hours of slumber."-

#jan valek #vampires #vampires 1998 #john carpenter's vampires #jan valek x reader #jan valek x beloved #fluff #tw; implied platonic #tw; friendship

[solareti]

⋆｡ ﾟ ☁︎｡⋆ Check My Medium ⋆ ｡ ﾟ ☾ ﾟ ｡⋆｡ ﾟ ☁︎｡⋆｡ ﾟ ☾ ﾟ ｡⋆ ｡ ﾟ ☁︎｡⋆｡ ﾟ ☾ ﾟ ｡⋆ ｡ ﾟ ☁︎｡⋆｡ ﾟ ☾ ﾟ

If you're into yeule, "Poison Arrow" is probs the perfect song to listen to while reading this post. She's also one of my favorite music artists in the industry for just being an amazingly creative person~! P.S. all of these images have links if you're curious <3

I was pretty emotional drawing this, I haven't done art like this in a while and to know I can still draw and be happy about it; it's just nice to know I don't hate it~!

What Am I Doing with My Life? (っ ͡ ͡º - ͡ ͡º ς) ☆ﾟ.*･｡ﾟ

I'm writing some pretty sweet articles on medium.com. With themes in mental support and internal cartography, this really is just a journey towards finding out what in the heck is going on! Surely, I'm not to be the only one coming out of school several years ago, cycling my thoughts repeatedly in regard to why I am where I am today. School really didn't help define a realistic approach towards adulthood, so in all seriousness I've learned bills on my own with advice and help from my mom (thank you mami ♡).

Why Write? ʚ(´꒳`)ɞ .｡✧･ﾟ:* ~♡

An image from one of my articles on how to find your way through the Medium website; how to differentiate a bias from a supported article.

To put it simply, I'm sad. Ever since I was little, I had issues with anxiety, not to mention apparently being diagnosed with ADD (ADHD) which made finding a career path difficult for me. Everything seemed to pick at my interest, but like a quick burnout I'd tire and move to the next thing and so on. Writing is interesting, because it can be about anything that's running its course. Compared to everything else I've tried to do on a main stance, writing has been my mental medicine.

From my opinions on the 4th of July to articles educating on stances between Religion and the LGBTQ+ Community (being gay myself), I'll write about anything that challenges readers to think outside the box. In a world closed in by fear, I hope to remedy this with teaching and challenging minds with questions that simply need asking.

My Dreams (‘. • ᵕ •. `) ˚ ༘ ⋆｡˚ ✧ ˚ ༘ ⋆｡˚

Surprisingly, another constant has been my dream to work from home. Writing is something I enjoy, but I feel the need to type and handwrite just for the sake of keeping the calm in my center as well. I hope to make this an official career, because I feel I've found something that not only could pay my bills in the future; I could have a job that heals me at the same time~!

This was made on MS Paint (Paint), and brought back some awesome memories of Windows in 2014!

This is really difficult for me. It's no lie that the fear of jumping ship really aches in me at the thought of not being able to reach this point. I'm only 23, and even in applying to low-income housing I'm still finding myself potentially living paycheck to paycheck. The world has become an incredibly expensive place, and I dropped college simply because I felt time was a valuable currency that money only wishes buying. At a crossroads, I'm tasked by time itself to really find something to work for and stick with; art and music have always hit walls for me, but I love the idea of still using my other talents to support the stories and ideas I'm honored and eager to share with all of you~!

Thank You for Reading, solareti – Medium

#my writing #articles #lgbtq #lgbtqa #support #trying #digital artwork #thoughts #questions #medium #medium writers #mental breakdown #anxi4ty #sad thoughts #kawaii #emoticon

[made-some-ki-points]

Character Ideas Day 11: Zealot Barbarian

A lifelong nomad in an ancient forest, you love and cherish both the land and your connection to the nature god. You were never fully a holy caster, but you always considered the deity a friend, all throughout your time wandering the forests. When you woke up one morning though, you see fire above you and ash below you, a group of artificers wandering through and blazing down the ancient home. Terrified and enraged, you lash out at them and kill them, feeling a surge of power from your friend course through you. Now, they assure you that you are a valuable asset of theirs, and that you should take the rage of nature far beyond its current bounds. For their sake, you’re more than happy to. 

The child of world famous bards, your ambitions seemed set from the moment you were born. You’d be the next big thing, a new massive performer and idol the world over, and when you were a teenager, your parents shipped you off to a bardic conservatory to learn how to do just that. You started out promising, learning just how to play in a new and exciting way. But about a year into your studies, you hit an infuriating plateau. Nothing worked, nothing got better, your art stagnated in a way that made you simply want to quit, or even rage. Every time it happened, you tossed an angry word at the effigy of the god of music, increasing in their creativity every time. Somehow, your greatest strings of progress seemed to happen when you were enraged, and you could almost swear the statue was smiling at you. You know your skill set is strange, but you’re progressing regardless, and now, many are excited to see what exactly you have in store.

A low level worker at a temple for the god of death, you have heard truly vile remarks being thrown in the direction of undeads. You don’t see the problem, going out of your way to help them with their transition back to life regardless of the ire it earns you at work. Eventually, you commune with the god and ask if they really think that way, if you really should stop. They are instantly offended, and imbue their rage at the idea into you, instructing you to destroy the temple from the inside out. You’re reluctant, but you do, and now you’re on the run with only a single divine figure, and many, many undead, on your side. 

As a barely willing sacrifice to the god of pain and suffering, you were trained to take as many hits as possible, but never let your pain end by death. You are talented, beyond capable in the field, but you are never helped by the people who trained you, instead being revered for being in pain. A few short days ago, you mounted an escape, and are now searching for healing, your power be damned. When you find a healing caster though, you find your powers are perfectly intact, you gain a rage anew, and set out to hurt the group that made you needlessly suffer. 

You were the child of a royal taken by a dragon when you were young, held captive in a tower for many years. It kept you alive to continue feeding on adventurers, and you don’t terribly mind your new situation. In fact, you’re even talking to the dragon god, exchanging small talk to keep you busy. Eventually, you got bored of sitting and waiting, and asked the dragon god what to do. Elated, they teach you basic combat and provide you with plenty of power to help your captor turned roommate get some good food. This latest party is just... Damned hard to kill. Fine, you’ll go off with them, if for nothing else than to figure out what exactly they’re doing.

You are a well paid and well funded assassin who recently began working for a divine figure of destruction, tasked with taking apart a person’s life slowly and carefully through whatever means necessary. People look for a motive, a tragedy in your past to explain the pain you inflict. There is none, no motive, no reason. Honestly, you’re just having a grand old time.

During the chaos running away from a dragon attack, you were blinded by looking too hard and the breath cascading down from the gaping maw. Despertare to get out alive, you call out to the god of perseverance and light, begging them to give you strength. They answer, filling you with wild power and causing you to be an accidental symbol of town hope. Now, you travel to find others who need you, still not fully understanding the “bursts of adrenaline” you’re being provided.

You are the parent of a child with terrible night terrors, usually ending with screaming or crawling into your bed to sleep. Sick of seeing your child hurting, you approach the god of nightmares in a rage, asking what you can do to stop it. To your horror it offers you a deal. You can take on the powers of nightmares, which allow you untold strength in exchange for dark and violent hallucinations, and the god will leave your child alone forever. You take the deal without question, and soon enough, find yourself a completely different person, even if your child is free.

You are a slapstick comedian in a well loved troupe, finding a new way to get your ass kicked on stage for profit every week. Soon, you’ve grown a massive following that, to your shock, includes the trickster god. They rave about your performance when you meet, and offer you a way to improve your routine. They can give you a way to die more fully than before, making you practically unkillable when you enter what they call a “performance state.” You didn’t exactly sign up for full blown rages, but you actually find it incredibly fun. And what the hell, joining a party sounds fun too.

At first, you were petrified to meet the community of your Orcish partner. But, when you arrived in their encampment, everyone seemed to love you, giving you gifts and holy symbols and insisting you meet their war god. Desperate not to make a bad impression, you agree, and find out something shocking. You are the first Barbarian to visit this area, and the god quickly offers their help, almost in awe of you. When you agree, you take to the power quickly, but the renown much more slowly, nervous to become so important to your partner’s community so fast. Lots of people are now pushing for a proposal, and the two of you stepped away to talk about it. You’re not opposed, this is just a lot. Maybe some traveling will make you feel better.

#d&d #d&d 5e #dungeons and dragons #dungeons and dragons 5th edition #d&d homebrew #d&d character #barbarian 5e

[carl-jan-01]

Theories of Representation | March 10, 2023

When we are asked the questions, “Who decides what art means?” “Where could we derive the meaning of art?” We could have varying answers and interpretations, there is a certain attachment and intentions.

These meanings can be the subject of philosophy, whom’s meaning or interpretation are more significant. Is it really about the artist or from a random person? There is no absolute truth, each interpretation of a person would be equally significant. 

Death of the Author is also discussed, in which it is stated that just because the author produces that certain art, it doesn’t mean that he or she owns the absolute truth or the true meaning of the created art. This will allow the individuals to interpret their own perspectives which results in different interpretations. It also allows the audience to have the freedom to suit their taste or based on their mood to derive different layers or meaning to the created art.

However, how do we find these meanings in art? What is the value of art? Is art more valuable because we give more meaning or give importance to it?

There are two ways to value art, the first one is called, Intrinsic value: the value of art for its own sake. If the art is beautifully made without really knowing the true meaning of it since you were impressed. Secondly, Extrinsic value: when we understand the art because of the meaning we derived from it such as connecting it with emotional approach. More from a moralistic point of view which can result in optimism. 

However, I would like to be recognized and valued for my art extrinsically. As I mentioned in the previous blog, being beautiful with a purpose or goodness is a positive component of art. This provides me with an answer to the fact that there is always an emotional approach, even before I learnt how to appreciate my art. The artist’s role is as an observer which is to document reality. They have a much larger role which also shows what’s happening within the artist or to us. Just like the aesthetic experiences from intense emotions like catharsis and sublime

It also discusses the two different Art Expressions: Objective and Subjective. Objectivity is an expression where everything from the external world is reproduced. Subjectivity, on the other hand, is an expression where it is not realistic or observable, but based on how the artist imagined something or someone.

How do we exactly express or interpret? There are terms, Representation, Exemplification, and Metaphor.

We can express through representation, exemplification and metaphor. Representation: Imitation of reality and nature. Exemplification: They are more stylized and not realistic but recognizable and understandable. Metaphor: is the application of a name, or a category, or a descriptive term or phrase to something to which the label does not apply literally, but only imaginatively. It has independent meaning which represents a whole new meaning or interpretation which is also needed to be visible from the art.

This teaches me how to communicate myself accurately and properly when using something or someone. As an emotional person, this provides me with a clear notion of how I should use anything I wish to use and give it a deeper meaning.

Art is intended; transmission to an audience; expression of an emotion; experiences of the artist; and clarified by means of lines, shapes, colors, sounds, actions and/or words. We cannot take things face value. All artworks are possessed with association and expressive properties. As art evolved and as time passed, the understanding of an individual through things is getting broader. This emphasizes the value of art since it is not just about being drawn or developed creatively, but every component of it has meaning from what you see and from behind or during the production of art.

[bongotramp5]

Spirituality - A Holiday For The Hopeful

The Arcadian street resulted in the harbour from alternatives Theatre and was lined with columns along both parties for its length of 530 michael. Its width is 21 m. This street, had been the crucial one belonging to the city, was restored by Emperor Arcadius (395 - 408 A major.D.). so that it was called Arcadian after your canine friend. The middle section is paved with marble and that is 11 meters. wide; both pillared side sections of the street are 5 n. wide each. According to the knowledge acquired through excavations, the street, decorated with statues, was illuminated by candle-like street lamps at night. Cast stone, fiberglass and ceramic are especially materials utilized outdoor decor as these kinds of are durable materials and lightweight enough deal with without considerably trouble. These materials are designed to withstand the elements but if it gets wet, freezes and thaws it would likely crack. Below is a "how to" guide to keeping garden fountains and statuary crack free and beautiful this winter so when spring comes you begin enjoying!

As said before, a Jewelcrafter may possibly valuable gems, but the crna can also make rings, trinkets and rings. His epic necklaces and rings are wanted among other players which means that he can earn a plenty of gold by selling these or wedding party crafting themselves. Mathura offers their visitors their best milk called Ghee. Provide you to taste this milk at least once in your lifetime. They also have sweetmeats like Peda and Khurchan with a subtle sweet taste just right on your palettes. You can get some to generate home as presents to loved ones. It may be the largest park of its times who has a museum where beauty and style are blended together. You'll be able to see an amazing combination of art and culture. The museum have stone statues usually are exclusive and different. It is fascinating to take heed for different things. It was very busy in region. There were many, many stalls selling everything one might think of. And there were various people, most of them drunk on sake, celebrating brand new Year the beginning of the. The old man called out, "Kasa! Kasa for sale! Does anyone to help buy a kasa!" He called out for only a long time, but not a soul wanted to get one. St. Bega, or E. Bee, was also well-liked by early Christians in the Lakes. Tradition - if not history - has it that she was a 5th or 6th century Irish princess who became a hermit in Cumbria. The Priory Church of Saint. Mary and St. Bega, at Street. Bee's, is a 12th century church which once formed a part of a Benedictine priory. St. Andrew's, Penrith, is really a departure from Cumbria's many medieval places of worship. Although the tower dates into the 13th century, the main part was built by Nicholas Hawksmoor, a pupil of Christopher Wren, in 1720. Its internal decoration is stunning and surprising, with matt black pillars edged with gold, and strong highlights in Georgian blues and maroons. St. Andrew's churchyard known for its so-called, 'Giant's Grave'. Some sources believe is always be the grave of the 10th century Cumbrian king, Owen Caesarius; the four side pieces are certainly Viking hogback stones. Additionally, there are điêu khắc tượng Phật bằng đá , one 14ft upper.

#Tạc tượng đá

[insanehobbit]

a twenty-five thousand word post about a twenty-three year old “debate”

As time goes on, I’m baffled that it remains a commonly held opinion that:

The LTD remains unresolved

SE is deliberately playing coy, and are (or have been) afraid to resolve it.

To me, the answer is as clear as day, and yet seeing so many people acting as if it’s a question that remains unanswered makes me wonder if I’m the crazy one.

So I am going to try to articulate my thought process here, not because I expect to change any hearts and minds, but more to get these thoughts out of my head and onto a page so I can finally read a book and/or watch reruns of Shark Tank in peace.

To start off, there are two categories of argument (that are among, if not the most widely used lines of argument) that I will try NOT to engage with:

1) Quotes from Ultimania or developer interviews - while they’re great for easter eggs and behind-the-scenes info, if a guidebook is required to understand key plot points, you have fundamentally failed as a storyteller. Now the question of which character wants to bone whom is often something that can be relegated to a guidebook, but in the case of FF7, you would be watching two very different stories play out depending on who Cloud ends up with.

Of course, the Ultimanias do spell this out clearly, but luckily for us, SE are competent enough storytellers that we can find the answer by looking at the text alone.

2) Arguments about character actions/motivations — specifically, I’m talking about stuff like “Cloud made this face in this scene, which means be must be [insert whatever here].”

Especially when it comes to the LTD, these tend to focus on individual actions, decontextualizing them from their role in the narrative as a whole. LTDers often try to put themselves in the character’s shoes to suss out what they may be thinking and feeling in those moments. These arguments will be colored by personal experiences, which will inevitably vary.

Let’s take for example Cloud’s behavior in Advent Children. One may argue that it makes total sense given that he’s dying and fears failing the ones he loves. Another may argue that there’s no way that he would run unless he was deeply unhappy and pining after a lost love. Well, you’ll probably just be talking over each other until the cows come home. Such is the problem with trying to play armchair therapist with a fictional character. It’s not like we can ask Cloud himself why he did what he did (and even if we could, he’s not the exactly the most reliable narrator in the world). Instead, in trying to understand his motivations, we are left with no choice but to draw comparisons with our own personal experiences, those of our friends, or other works of media we’ve consumed. Any interpretation would be inherently subjective and honestly, a futile subject for debate.

There’s nothing wrong with drawing personal connections with fictional characters of course. That is the purpose of art after all. They are vessels of empathy. But when we’re talking about what is canon, it doesn’t matter what we take away. What matters is the creators’ intent.

Cloud, Tifa and Aerith are not your friends Bob, Alice and Maude. They are characters created by Square Enix. Real people can behave in a variety of different ways if they found themselves in the situations faced by our dear trio; however, FF7 characters are not sentient creatures. Everything they do or say is dictated by the developers to serve the story they are trying to tell.

So what do we have left then? Am I asking you, dear reader, to just trust me, anonymous stranger on the Internet, when I tell you #clotiiscanon. Well, in a sense, yes, but more seriously, I’m going to try to suss out what the creator’s intent is based on what is, and more importantly, what isn’t, on screen.

Instead of putting ourselves in the shoes of the characters, let’s try putting ourselves in the shoes of the creators. So the question would then be, if the intent is X, then what purpose does character Y or scene Z serve?

The story of FF7 isn’t the immutable word of God etched in a stone tablet. For every scene that made it into the final game, there are dozens of alternatives that were tossed aside. Let us also not forget the crude economics of popular storytelling. Spending resources on one particular aspect of the game may mean something entirely unrelated will have to be cut for time. Thus, the absence of a particular character/scenario is an alternative in itself. So with all these options at their disposal, why is the scene we see before us the one that made it into the final cut? — Before we dive in, I also want to define two broad categories of narrative: messy and clean.

Messy narratives are ones I would define as stories that try to illuminate something about the human condition, but may not leave the audience feeling very good by the end of it. The protagonists, while not always anti-heroes, don’t always exhibit the kind of growth we’d like, don’t always learn their lessons, probably aren’t the best role models. The endings are often ambivalent, ambiguous, and leaves room for the audience to take away from it what they will. This is the category I would put art films and prestige cable dramas.

Clean narratives are where I would categorize most popular forms of entertainment. Not that these characters necessarily lack nuance, but whatever flaws are portrayed are something to be overcome by the end of story. The protagonists are characters you’re supposed to want to root for

Final Fantasy as a series would fall under the ‘clean’ category. Sure, many of the protagonists start out as jerks, but they grow through these flaws and become true heroes by the end of their journey. Hell, a lot of the time even the villains are redeemed. They want you to like the characters you’re spending a 40+ hr journey with. Their depictions can still be realistic, but they will become the most idealized versions of themselves by the end of their journeys.

This is important to establish, because we can then assume that it is not SE’s intent to make any of their main characters come off pathetic losers or unrepentant assholes. Now whether or not they succeed in that endeavor is another question entirely.

FF7 OG or The dumbest thought experiment in the world

With that one thousand word preamble out of the way, let’s finally take a look at the text. In lieu of going through the OG’s story beat by beat, let’s try this thought experiment:

Imagine it’s 1996, and you’re a development executive at what was then Squaresoft. The plucky, young development team has the first draft of what will become the game we know as Final Fantasy VII. Like the preceding entries in the series, it’s a world-spanning action adventure RPG, with a key subplot being the epic tragic romance between its hero and heroine, Cloud and Aerith.

They ask you for your notes.

(For the sake of your sanity and mine, let’s limit our hypothetical notes to the romantic subplot)

Disc 1 - everything seems to be on the right track. Nice meet-cute, lots of moments developing the relationship between our pair. Creating a love triangle with this Tifa character is an interesting choice, but she’s a comparatively minor character so she probably won’t be a real threat and will find her happiness elsewhere by the end of the game. You may note that they’re leaning a bit too much into Tifa and Cloud’s past. Especially the childhood promise flashback early in the game — cute scene, but a distraction from main story and main pairing — fodder for the chopping block. You may also bump on the fact that Aerith is initially attracted to Cloud because he reminds her of an ex, but this is supposed to be a more mature FF. That can be an obstacle they overcome as Aerith gets to know the real Cloud.

Aerith dies, but it is supposed to be a tragic romance after all. Death doesn’t have to be the end for this relationship, especially since Aerith is an Ancient after all.

It’s when Disc 2 starts that things go off the rails. First off, it feels like an awfully short time for Cloud to be grieving the love of his life, though it’s somewhat understandable. This story is not just a romance. There are other concerns after all, Cloud’s identity crisis for one. Though said identity crisis involves spending a lot of time developing his relationship with another woman. It’s one thing for Cloud and Tifa to be from the same hometown, but does she really need to play such an outsized role in his internal conflict? This might give the player the wrong impression.

You get to the Northern Crater, and it just feels all wrong. Cloud is more or less fine after the love of his life is murdered in front of his eyes but has a complete mental breakdown to the point that he’s temporarily removed as a playable character because Tifa loses faith in him??? Shouldn’t it be the other way around?

Oh, but it only gets worse from here. With Cloud gone, the POV switches to Tifa and her feelings for him and her desire to find him. The opening of the game is also recontextualized when you learn the only reason that Cloud was part of the first Reactor mission that starts the game is because Tifa found him and wanted to keep an eye on him.

Then you get to Mideel and the alarm bells are going off. Tifa drops everything, removing her from the party as well, to take care of Cloud while he’s a catatonic vegetable? Not good. Very not good. This level of selfless devotion is going to make Cloud look like a total asshole when he rejects her in favor of Aerith. Speaking of Aerith, she uh…hasn’t been mentioned for some time. In fact, her relationship with Cloud has remained completely static after Disc 1, practically nonexistent, while his with Tifa has been building and building. Developing a rival relationship that then needs to be dismantled rather than developing the endgame relationship doesn’t feel like a particularly valuable use of time and resources.

By the time you get to the Lifestream scene, you’re about ready to toss the script out of the window. Here’s the emotional climax of the entire game, where Cloud’s internal conflict is finally resolved, and it almost entirely revolves around Tifa? Rather than revisiting the many moments of mental anguish we experienced during the game itself — featuring other characters, including let’s say, Aerith — it’s about a hereto unknown past that only Tifa has access to? Not only that, but we learn that the reason Cloud wanted to join SOLDIER was to impress Tifa, and the reason he adopted his false persona was because he was so ashamed that he couldn’t live up to the person he thought Tifa wanted him to be? Here, we finally get a look into the inner life of one half of our epic couple and…it entirely revolves around another woman??

Cloud is finally his real self, and hey, it looks like he finally remembers Aerith, that’s at least a step in the right direction. Though still not great. With his emotional arc already resolved, any further romantic developments is going to feel extraneous and anticlimactic. It just doesn’t feel like there’s enough time to establish that:

Cloud’s romantic feelings for Tifa (which were strong enough to launch his hero’s journey) have transformed into something entirely platonic in the past few days/weeks

Cloud’s feelings for Aerith that he developed while he was pretending to be someone else (and not just any someone, but Aerith’s ex of all people) are real.

This isn’t a romantic melodrama after all. There’s still a villain to kill and a world to save.

Cloud does speak of Aerith wistfully, and even quite personally at times, yet every time he talks about her, he’s surrounded by the other party members. A scene or two where he can grapple with his feelings for her on his own would help. Her ghost appearing in the Sector 5 Church feels like a great opportunity for this to happen, but he doesn’t interact with it at all. What gives? Missed opportunity after missed opportunity.

The night before the final battle, Cloud asks the entire party to find what they’re fighting for. This feels like a great (and perhaps the last) opportunity to establish that for Cloud, it’s in Aerith’s memory and out of his love for her. He could spend those hours alone in any number of locations associated with her — the Church, the Temple of the Ancients, the Forgotten City.

Instead — none of those happens. Instead, once again, it’s Cloud and Tifa in another scene where they’re the only two characters in the scene. You’re really going to have Cloud spend what could very well be the last night of his life with another woman? With a fade to black that strongly implies they slept together? In one fell swoop, you’re portraying Cloud as a guy who not only betrays the memory of his lost love, but is also incredibly callous towards the feelings of another woman by taking advantage of her vulnerability. Why are we rooting for him to succeed again?

Cloud and the gang finally defeat Sephiroth, and Aerith guides him back into the real world. Is he finally explicitly stating that he’s searching for her (though they’ve really waited until the last minute to do so), but again, why is Tifa in this scene? Shouldn’t it just be Cloud and Aerith alone? Why have Tifa be there at all? Why have her and her alone of all the party members be the one waiting for Cloud? Do you need to have Tifa there to be rejected while Cloud professes his unending love for Aerith? It just feels needlessly cruel and distracts from what should be the sole focus of the scene, the love between Cloud and Aerith.

What a mess.

You finish reading, and since it is probably too late in the development process to just fire everyone, you offer a few suggestions that will clarify the intended romance while the retaining the other plot points/general themes of the game.

Here they are, ordered by scale of change, from minor to drastic:

Option 1 would be to keep most of the story in tact, but rearrange the sequence of events so that the Lifestream sequence happens before Aerith’s death. That way, Cloud is his true self and fully aware of his feelings for both women before Aerith’s death. That way, his past with Tifa isn’t some ticking bomb waiting to go off in the second half of the game. That development will cease at the Lifestream scene. Cloud will realize the affection he held for her as a child is no longer the case. He is grateful for the past they shared, but his future is with Aerith. He makes a clear choice before that future is taken away from him with her death. The rest of the game will go on more or less the same (with the Highwind scene being eliminated, of course) making it clear, that avenging the death of his beloved is one of, if not the, primary motivation for him wanting to defeat Sephiroth.

The problem with this “fix” is that a big part of the reason that Aerith gets killed is because of Cloud’s identity crisis. If said crisis is resolved, the impact of her death will be diminished, because it would feel arbitrary rather than something that stems from the consequences of Cloud’s actions. More of the story will need to be reconceived so that this moment holds the same emotional weight.

Another problem is why the Lifestream scene needs to exist at all. Why spend all that time developing the backstory for a relationship that will be moot by the end of the game? It makes Tifa feel like less of a character and more of a plot device, who becomes irrelevant after she services the protagonist’s character development and then has none of her own. That’s no way to treat one of the main characters of your game.

Option 2 would be to re-imagine Tifa’s character entirely. You can keep some of her history with Cloud in tact, but expand her backstory so she is able to have a satisfactory character arc outside of her relationship with Cloud. You could explore the five years in her life since the Nibelheim incident. Maybe she wasn’t in Midgar the whole time. Maybe, like Barret, she has her own Corel, and maybe reconciling with her past there is the climax of her emotional arc as opposed to her past with Cloud. For Cloud too, her importance needs to be diminished. She can be one of the people who help him find his true self in the Lifestream, but not the only person. There’s no reason the other people he’s met on his journey can’t be there. Thus their relationship remains somewhat important, but their journeys are not so entwined that it distracts from Cloud and Aerith’s romance.

Option 3 would be to really lean into the doomed romance element of Cloud and Aerith’s relationship. Have her death be the cause of his mental breakdown, and have Aerith be the one in the Lifestream who is able to put his mind back together and bring him back to the realm of consciousness. After he emerges, he has the dual goal of defeating Sephiroth and trying to reunite with Aerith. In the end, in order to do the former, he has to relinquish the latter. He makes selfless choice. He makes the choice that resonates the overall theme of the game. It’s a bittersweet but satisfying ending. Cloud chooses to honor her memory and her purpose over the chance to physically bring her back. In this version of the game, the love triangle serves no purpose. There’s no role for Tifa at all.

Okay, we can be done with this strained counterfactual. What I’ve hopefully illustrated is that while developers had countless opportunities to solidify Cloud/Aerith as the canon couple in Discs 2 and 3 of the game, they instead chose a different route each and every time. What should also be clear is that the biggest obstacle standing in their way is not Aerith’s death, but the fact that Tifa exists.

At least in the form she takes in the final game, as a playable character and at the very least, the 3rd most important character in game’s story. She is not just another recurring NPC or an antagonist. Her love for Cloud is not going to be treated like a mere trifle or obstacle. If Cloud/Aerith was supposed to be the endgame ship, there would be no need for a love triangle and no need to include Tifa in the game at all. Death is a big enough obstacle, developing Cloud’s relationship with Tifa would only distract from and diminish his romance with Aerith.

I think this is something the dead enders understand intuitively, even more so than many Cloti shippers. Which is why some of them try to dismiss Tifa’s importance in the story so that she becomes a minor supporting character at best, or denigrate her character to the point that she becomes an actual villain. The Seifer to a Squall, the Seymour to a Tidus, hell even a Quistis to a Rinoa, they know how to deal with, but a Tifa Lockhart? As she is actually depicted in Final Fantasy VII? They have no playbook for that, and thus they desperately try to squeeze her into one of these other roles.

Let’s try another thought experiment, and see what would to other FF romances if we inserted a Tifa Lockhart-esque character in the middle of them.

FFXV is a perfect example because it features the sort of tragic love beyond death romance that certain shippers want Cloud and Aerith to be. Now, did I think FFXV was a good game? No. Did I think Noctis/Luna was a particularly well-developed romance? Also no. Did I have any question in my mind whatsoever that they were the canon relationship? Absolutely not.

Is this because they kiss at the end? Well sure, that helps, but also it’s because the game doesn’t spend the chapters after Luna’s death developing Noctis’ relationship with another woman. If Noctis/Luna had the same sort of development as Cloud/Aerith, then after Luna dies, Iris would suddenly pop in and play a much more prominent role. The game would flashback to her past and her relationship with Noctis. And it would be through his relationship with Iris that Noctis understands his duty to become king or a crystal or whatever the fuck that game was about. Iris is by Noctis’ side through the final battle, and when he ascends the throne in that dreamworld or whatever. There, Luna finally shows up again. Iris is still in the frame when Noctis tells her something like ‘Oh sorry, girl, I’ve been in love with Luna all along,” before he kisses Luna and the game ends.

(a very real scene from a very good game)

Come on. It would be utterly ludicrous and an utter disservice to every character involved, yet that is essentially the argument Cloud/Aerith shippers are making. SE may have made some pretty questionable storytelling decisions in the past, but they aren’t that bad at this.

Or in FFVIII, it would be like reordering the sequence of events so that Squall remembers that he grew up in an orphanage with all the other kids after Rinoa falls into a coma. And while Rinoa is out of commission, instead of Quistis gracefully bowing out after realizing she had mistaken her feelings of sisterly affection for love, it becomes Quistis’ childhood relationship with Squall that allows him to remember his past and re-contextualizes the game we’ve played thus far, so that the player realizes that it was actually Quistis who was his motivation all along. Then after this brief emotional detour, his romance with Rinoa would continue as usual. Absolutely absurd.

The Final Fantasy games certainly have their fair share of plot holes, but they’ve never whiffed on a romance this badly.

A somewhat more serious character analysis of the OG

What then is Tifa’s actual role in the story of FFVII? Her character is intricately connected to Cloud’s. In fact, they practically have the same arc, though Tifa’s is rather understated compared to his. She doesn’t adopt a false persona after all. For both of them, the flaw that they must learn to overcome over the course of the game is their fear of confronting the truth of their past. Or to put it more crudely, if they’re not lying, they’re at the very least omitting the truth. Cloud does so to protect himself from his fear of being exposed as a failure. Tifa does so at the expense of herself, because she fears the truth will do more harm than good. They’re two sides of the same coin. Nonetheless, their lying has serious ramifications.

The past they’re both afraid to confront is of course the Nibelheim Incident from five years ago. Thus, the key points in their emotional journeys coincide with the three conflicting Nibelheim flashbacks depicted in the game: Cloud’s false memory in Kalm, Sephiroth’s false vision in the Northern Crater, and the truth in the Lifestream.

Before they enter the Lifestream, both Cloud and Tifa are at the lowest of their lows. Cloud has had a complete mental breakdown and is functionally a vegetable. Tifa has given up everything to take care of Cloud as she feels responsible for his condition. If he doesn’t recover, she may never find peace.

With nothing left to lose, they both try to face the past head on. For Cloud, it’s a bit harder. At the heart of all this confusion, is of course, the Nibelheim Incident. How does Cloud know all these things he shouldn’t if Tifa doesn’t remember seeing him there? The emotional climax for both Cloud and Tifa, and arguably the game as a whole, is the moment the Shinra grunt removes his helmet to reveal that Cloud was there all along.

Tifa is the only character who can play this role for Cloud. It’s not like she a found a videotape in the Lifestream labeled ‘Nibelheim Incident - REAL’ and voila, Cloud is fixed. No, she is the only one who can help him because she is the only person who lived through that moment. No one else could make Cloud believe it. You could have Aerith or anyone else trying to tell him what actually happened, but why would he believe it anymore than the story Sephiroth told him at the Northern Crater?

With Tifa, it’s different. Not only was she physically there, but she’s putting as much at risk in what the truth may reveal. She’s not just a plot device to facilitate Cloud’s character development. The Lifestream sequence is as much the culmination of her own character arc. If it goes the wrong way, “Cloud” may find out that he’s just a fake after all, and Tifa may learn that boy she thought she’d been on this journey with had died years ago. That there’s no one left from her past, that it was all in her head, that she’s all alone. Avoiding this truth is a comfort, but in this moment, they’re both putting themselves on the line. Being completely vulnerable in front of the person they’re most terrified of being vulnerable with.

The developers have structured Cloud and Tifa’s character arcs so that the crux is a moment where the other is literally the only person who could provide the answer they need. Without each other, as far as the story is concerned, Cloud and Tifa would remain incomplete.

Aerith’s character arc is a different beast entirely. She is the closest we have to the traditional Campbellian Hero. She is the Chosen One, the literal last of her kind, who has been resisting the call to adventure until she can no longer. The touchstones of her character arc are the moments she learns more about her Cetra past and comes to terms with her role in protecting the planet - namely Cosmo Canyon, the Temple of the Ancients and the Forgotten City.

How do hers and Cloud’s arcs intersect? When it comes to the Nibelheim incident, she is a merely a spectator (at least during the Kalm flashback, as for the other two, she is uh…deceased). Cloud attacking her at the Temple of the Ancients, which results in her running to the Forgotten City alone and getting killed by Sephiroth, certainly exacerbates his mental deterioration, but it is by no means a turning point in his arc the way the Northern Crater is.

As for Cloud’s role in Aerith’s arc, their meeting is quite important in that it sets forth the series of events that leads her to getting captured by Shinra and thus meeting “Sephiroth” and wanting to learn more about the Cetra. It’s the inciting incident if we’re going to be really pedantic about it, yet Aerith’s actual character development is not dependent on her relationship with Cloud. It is about her communion with her Cetra Ancestry and the planet.

To put it in other terms, all else being the same, Aerith could still have a satisfying character arc had Cloud not crashed down into her Church. Sure, the game would look pretty different, but there are other ways for her to transform from a flirty, at times frivolous girl to an almost Christ-like figure who accepts the burden of protecting the planet.

Such is not the case for Cloud and Tifa. Their character arcs are built around their shared past and their relationship with one another. Without Tifa, you would have to rewrite Cloud’s character entirely. What was his motivation for joining SOLDIER? How did he get on that AVALANCHE mission in the first place? Who can possibly know him well enough to put his mind back together after it falls apart? If the answer to all these questions is the same person, then congratulations, you’ve just reverse engineered Tifa Lockhart.

Tifa fares a little better. Without Cloud, she would be a sad, sweet character who never gets the opportunity to reconcile with the trauma of her past. Superficially, a lot would be the same, but she would ultimately be quite static and all the less interesting for it.

Let’s also take a brief gander at Tifa’s role after the Lifestream sequence. At this point in the game, both Tifa and Cloud’s emotional arcs are essentially complete. They are now the most idealized versions of themselves, characters the players are meant to admire and aspire to. However they are depicted going forward, it would not be the creator’s intent for their actions to be perceived in a negative light.

A few key moments standout, ones that would not be included if the game was intended to end with any other romantic pairing or with Cloud’s romantic interest left ambiguous:

The Highwind scene, which I’ve gone over above. It doesn’t matter if you get the Low Affection or High Affection version. It would not reflect well on either Cloud or Tifa if he chose to spend what could be his last night alive with a woman whose feelings he did not reciprocate.

Before the final battle with Sephiroth, the party members scream out the reasons they’re fighting. Barret specifically calls out AVALANCHE, Marlene and Dyne, Red XIII specifically calls out his Grandpa, and Tifa specifically calls out Cloud. You are not going to make one of Tifa’s last moments in the game be her pining after a guy who has no interest in her. Not when you could easily have her mention something like her past, her hometown or hell even AVALANCHE and Marlene like Barret. If Tifa’s feelings for Cloud are meant to be unrequited, then it would be a character flaw that would be dealt with long before the final battle (see: Quistis in FF8 or Eowyn in the Lord of the Rings). They would not still be on display at moment like this.

Tifa being the only one there when Cloud jumps into the Lifestream to fight Sephiroth for the last time, and Tifa being the only one there when he emerges. She is very much playing the traditional partner/spouse role here, when you could easily have the entire party present or no one there at all. There is clearly something special about her relationship with Cloud that sets her apart from the other party members.

Once again, let’s look at the “I think I can meet her there moment.” And let’s put side the translation (the Japanese is certainly more ambiguous, and it’s not like the game had any trouble having Cloud call Aerith by her name before this). If Cloud was really expressing his desire to reunite with Aerith, and thus his rejection of Tifa, then the penultimate scene of this game is one that involves the complete utter and humiliation of one of its main characters since Tifa’s reply would indicate she’s inviting herself to a romantic reunion she has no part in. Not only that, but to anyone who is not Cl*rith shipper, the protagonist of the game is going to come off as a callous asshole. That cannot possibly be the creator’s intention. They are competent enough to depict an act of love without drawing attention to the party hurt by that love.

What then could possibly be the meaning? Could it possibly be Cloud trying to comfort Tifa by trying to find a silver lining in what appears to be their impending death? That this means they may get to see their departed loved ones again, including their mutual friend, Aerith? (I will note that Tifa talks about Aerith as much, if not even more than Cloud, after her death). Seems pretty reasonable to me, this being an interpretation of the scene that aligns with the overall themes of the game, and casts every character in positive light during this bittersweet moment.

Luckily enough, we have an entire fucking Compilation to find out which is right.

But before we get there, I’m sure some of you (lol @ me thinking anyone is still reading this) are asking, if Cloti is canon, then why is there a love triangle at all? Why even hint at the possibility of a romance between Cloud and Aerith? Wouldn’t that also be a waste of time and resources if they weren’t meant to be canon?

Well, there are two very important reasons that have nothing to do with romance and everything to do with two of the game’s biggest twists:

Aerith initially being attracted to Cloud’s similarities to Zack/commenting on the uncanniness of said similarities is an organic way to introduce the man Cloud’s pretending to be. Without it, the reveal in the Lifestream would fall a bit flat. The man he’s been emulating all along would just be some sort of generic hero rather than a person whose history and deeds already encountered during the course of the game. Notably for this to work, the game only has to establish Aerith’s attraction to Cloud.

To build the player’s attachment to Aerith before her death/obscure the fact that she’s going to die. With the technological limitations of the day, the only way to get the player to interact with Aerith is through the player character (AKA Cloud), and adding an element of choice (AKA the Gold Saucer Date mechanic) makes the player even more invested. This then elevates Aerith’s relationship with Cloud over hers with any other character. At the same time, because her time in the game is limited, Cloud ends up interacting with Aerith more than any of the other characters, at least in Disc 1. The choice to make many of these interactions flirty/romantic also toys with player expectations. One does not expect the hero’s love interest to die halfway through the game. The game itself also spends a bit of time teasing the romance, albeit, largely in superficial ways like other characters commenting on their relationship or Cait Sith reading their love fortune at the Temple of the Ancients. Yet, despite the quantity of their personal interactions, Cloud and Aerith never display any moments of deep love or devotion that one associates with a Final Fantasy romance. They never have the time. What the game establishes then is the potential of a romance rather than the romance itself. Aerith’s death hurts because of all that lost potential. There so many things she wanted to do, so many places she wanted to see that will never happen because her life is cut short. Part of what is lost, of course, is the potential of her romance with Cloud.

This creative choice is a lot more controversial since it elevates subverting audience expectations over character, and understandably leads to some player confusion. What’s the point of all this set up if there’s not going to be a pay off? Well, that is kind of the point. Death is frustrating because of all the unknowns and what-ifs. But, I suppose some people just can’t accept that fact in a game like this.

One last note on the OG before we move on: Even though this from an Ultimania, since we’re talking about story development and creator intent, I thought it was relevant to include: the fact that Aerith was the sole heroine in early drafts of the game is not the LTD trump card so people think it is. Stories undergo radical changes through the development process. More often than not, there are too many characters, and characters are often combined or removed if their presence feels redundant or confusing.

In this case, the opposite happened. Tifa was added later in the development process as a second heroine. Let’s say that Aerith was the Last Ancient and the protagonist’s sole love interest in this early draft of Final Fantasy VII. In the game that was actually released, that role was split between two characters (and last I checked, Tifa is not the last of a dying race), and Aerith dies halfway through the game, so what does that suggest about how Aerith’s role may have changed in the final product? Again, if Aerith was intended to be Cloud’s love interest, Tifa simply would not exist.

A begrudging analysis of our favorite straight-to-DVD sequel

Let’s move onto the Compilation. And in doing so, completely forget about the word vomit that’s been written above. While it’s quite clear to me now that there’s no way in hell the developers would have intended the last scene in the game to be both a confirmation of Cloud’s love for Aerith and his rejection of Tifa, in my younger and more vulnerable years, I wasn’t so sure. In fact, this was the prevailing interpretation back in the pre-Compilation Dark Ages. Probably because of a dubious English translation of the game and a couple of ambiguous cameos in Final Fantasy Tactics and Kingdom Hearts were all we  had to go on.

How then did the official sequel to Final Fantasy VII change those priors?

Two years after the events of the game, Cloud is living as a family with Tifa and two kids rather than scouring the planet for a way to be reunited with Aerith. Shouldn’t the debate be well and over with that? Obviously not, and it’s not just because people were being obstinate. Part of the confusion stems from Advent Children itself, but I would argue that did not come from an intent to play coy/keep Cloud’s romantic desires ambiguous, but rather a failure of execution of his character arc.

Now I wasn’t the biggest fan of the film when I first watched a bootlegged copy I downloaded off LimeWire in 2005, and I like it even less now, but I better understand its failures, given its unique position as a sequel to a beloved game and the cornerstone of launching the Compilation.

The original game didn’t have such constraints on its storytelling. Outside of including a few elements that make it recognizable as a Final Fantasy (Moogles, Chocobos, Summons, etc.) and being a good enough game to be a financial success, the developers pretty much had free rein in terms of what story they wanted to tell, what characters they would use to tell it, and how long it took for them to tell said story.

With Advent Children, telling a good story was not the sole or even primary goal. Instead, it had to:

Do some fanservice: The core audience is going to be the OG fanbase, who would be expecting to see modern, high-def depictions of all the memorable and beloved characters from the game, no matter if the natural end point of their stories is long over.

Set up the rest of the Compilation - Advent Children is the draw with the big stars, but also a way to showcase the lesser known characters from from the Compilation who are going to be leading their own spinoffs.  It’s part feature film/part advertisement for the rest of the Compilation. Thus, the Turks, Vincent and Zack get larger roles in the film than one might expect to attract interest to the spinoffs they lead.

Show off its technical prowess: SE probably has enough self awareness to realize that what’s going to set it apart from other animated feature films is not its novel storytelling, but its graphical capabilities. Thus, to really show off those graphics, the film is going to be packed to the brim with big, complicated action scenes with lots of moving parts, as opposed to quieter character driven moments.

These considerations are not unique to Advent Children, but important to note nonetheless:

As a sequel, the stakes have to be just as high if not higher than those in the original work. Since the threat in the OG was the literal end of the world, in Advent Children, the world’s gotta end again

The OG was around 30-40 hours long. An average feature-length film is roughly two hours. Video games and films are two very different mediums. As many TV writers who have tried to make the transition to film (and vice-versa) can tell you, success in one medium does not translate to success in another. 

With so much to do in so little time, is it any wonder then that it is again Sephiroth who is the villain trying to destroy the world and Aerith in the Lifestream the deus ex machina who saves the day?

All of this is just a long-winded way to say, certain choices in the Advent Children that may seem to exist only to perpetuate the LTD were made with many other storytelling considerations in mind.

When trying to understand the intended character arcs and relationship dynamics, you cannot treat the film as a collection of scenes devoid of context. You can’t just say - “well here’s a scene where Cloud seems to miss Aerith, and here’s another scene where Cloud and Tifa fight. Obviously, Cloud loves Aerith.” You have to look at what purpose these scenes serve in the grander narrative.

And what is this grander narrative? To put it in simplistic terms, Aerith is the obstacle, and Tifa is goal. Cloud must get over his guilt over Aerith’s death so that he can return to living with Tifa and the children in peace.

The scenes following the prologue are setting up the emotional stakes of film - the problem that will be resolved by the film’s end. The problem being depicted here is not Aerith’s absence from Cloud’s life, but Cloud’s absence from his family. We see Tifa walking through Seventh Heaven saying “he’s not here anymore,” we see Denzel in his sickbed asking for Cloud, we see a framed photo of the four of them on Cloud’s desk. We see Cloud letting Tifa’s call go to voicemail.

What we do not see is Aerith, who does not appear until almost halfway through the film.

Cloud spends the first of the film avoiding confrontation with the Remnants/dealing with the return of Sephiroth. It’s only when Tifa is injured, and Denzel and Marlene get kidnapped that he goes to face his problems head on.

Before the final battle, when Cloud has exorcised his emotional demons and is about to face his physical demons, what do we see? We see Cloud telling Marlene that it’s his turn to take care of her, Denzel and Tifa the way they’ve taken care of him. We see Cloud telling Tifa that he ‘feels lighter’ and tacitly confirming that she was correct when she called him out earlier in the film. We see Cloud confirming to Denzel that he’s going home after this is all over.

What we do not see is Cloud telepathically communicating with Aerith to say, “Hey boo, can’t wait to beat Sephiroth so I can finally reunite with you in the Promised Land. Xoxoxo.” Aerith doesn’t factor in at all. Returning to his family is his goal, and his fight with Bahamut/the Remnants/Sephiroth/whatever the fuck is the final obstacle he has to face before reaching this goal.

This is reiterated again when Cloud is shot by Yazoo and seemingly perishes in an explosion. What is at stake with his “death”? We see Tifa calling his name while looking out the airship. We see Denzel and Marlene waiting for him at Seventh Heaven. We do not see Aerith watching over him in the Lifestream.

Now, Aerith does play an important role in Cloud’s arc when she shows up at about the midpoint of the film. You could fairly argue that it’s the turning point in Cloud’s emotional journey, the moment when he finally decides to confront his problems. But even if it’s only Cloud and Aerith in the scene, it’s not really about their relationship at all.

Let’s consider the context before this scene happens. Denzel and Marlene have been kidnapped by the Remnants; Tifa was nearly killed in a fight with another. This is Cloud at his lowest point. It’s his worst fears come to pass. His guilt over Aerith’s death is directly addressed at this moment in the film because it is not so much about his feelings for Aerith as it is about how Cloud fears the failures of his past (one of the biggest being her death) would continue into the present. If it was just about Aerith, we could have seen Cloud asking for her forgiveness at any other time in the film. It occurs when it does because this when his guilt over Aerith’s death intersects with his actual conflict, his fear that he’ll fail the the ones he loves. She appears when he’s at the Forgotten City where he goes to save the children. The same location where he had failed two year before.

This connection is made explicit when Cloud has flashes of Zack and Aerith’s deaths before he saves Denzel and Tifa from Bahamut. Again, Cloud’s dwelling on the past is directly related to his fears of being unable to protect his present.

Aerith is a feminine figure who is associated with flowers. That combined with the players’ memory of her and her relationship with Cloud in the OG, I can see how their scenes can be construed as romantic, but I really do not think that it is the creators’ intent to portray any romantic longing on Cloud’s part.

If they wanted to suggest that Cloud was still in love with Aerith or even leave his romantic interest ambiguous, there is no way in hell they would have had Cloud living with Tifa and two kids prior to the film’s events. To say nothing of opening the film by showing the pain his absence brings.

A romantic reading of Cloud’s guilt over Aerith’s death would suggest that he entered into a relationship with Tifa and started raising two children with her while still holding a torch for Aerith and hoping for a way to be reunited with her. The implication would be that Tifa is his second choice, and he is settling. Now, is this a dynamic that occurs in real life? Absolutely. Is this something that is often depicted in some films and television? Sure - in fact this very premise is at the core of one my favorite films of the last decade - 45 Years — and spoiler alert — the guy does not come off well in this situation. But once again, Cloud is not a real person, and Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children is not a John Cassavettes film or an Ingmar Bergman chamber drama. It is a 2-hour long straight to DVD sequel for a video game made for teens. This kind of messy, if realistic, relationship dynamic is not what this particular work is trying to explore.

(one of these is a good film!)

By the end of Advent Children, Cloud is once again the idealized version of himself. A hero that the audience is supposed to like and admire. We are supposed to think that his actions in the first half of the movie (wallowing in his guilt and abandoning his family) were bad. These are the flaws that he must overcome through the course of the film, and by the end he does. If he really had been settling and treating his Seventh Heaven family as a second choice prior to the events of the film, that too would obviously be a character flaw that needs to be addressed before the end of the film. It isn’t because this is a dynamic that only exists in certain people’s imaginations.

If the creators wanted to leave the Cloud & Aerith relationship open to a romantic interpretation, they didn’t have to write themselves into such a corner. They wouldn’t have to change the final film much at all, merely adjust the chronology a bit. Instead of Cloud already living as a family with Tifa, Marlene and Denzel prior to the beginning of the film, you would show them on the precipice of becoming a family, but with Cloud being unable to take the final step without getting over his feelings for Aerith first. This would leave space for him to love both women without coming off as an opportunistic jerk.

This is essentially the dynamic with Locke/Rachel/Celes in FFVI. Locke is unable to move on with Celes or anyone else until he finally finds closure with Rachel. It’s a lovely scene that does not diminish his relationships with either woman. He loved Rachel. He will love Celes. What the game does not have him do is enter into a relationship into Celes first and then when the party arrives at the Phoenix Cave, have him suddenly remember ‘Oh shit, I’ve gotta deal with my baggage with Rachel before I can really move on.’ That would not paint him in a particularly positive light.

Speaking of other Final Fantasies, let’s take a look another sequel in the series set two years after the events of the original work, one that is clearly the story of its protagonist searching for their lost love. And guess what? Final Fantasy X-2 does not begin with Yuna shacked up and raising two kids with another dude. And it certainly doesn’t begin with his perspective of the whole situation when Yuna decides to search for Tidus.

Square Enix knows how to write these kind of stories when they want to, and it’s clearly not their intent for Cloud and Aerith. Again, the biggest obstacle in the way of a Cloud/Aerith endgame isn’t space and time or death, it’s the existence of Tifa Lockhart.

A reasonable question to ask would be, if SE is not trying to ignite debate over the love triangle, why make Cloud’s relationship with Aerith a part of Advent Children at all? Why invite that sort of confusion? Well, the answer here, like the answer in the OG, is that Aerith’s role in the sequel is much more than her relationship with Cloud.

In the OG, it wasn’t Cloud and the gang who managed to stop Sephiroth and Meteor in the end, it was Aerith from the Lifestream. In a two-hour long film, you do not have the time to set up a completely new villain who can believably end the world, and since you pretty much have to include Sephiroth, the main antagonist can really only be him. No one else in the party has been established to have any magical Cetra powers, and again, since that’s not something that can be effectively established in a two-hour long film, and since Aerith needs to appear somehow, it again needs to be her who will save the day.

Given the time constraints, this external conflict has to be connected with Cloud’s internal conflict. In the OG, Cloud’s emotional arc is in resolved in the Lifestream, and then we spend a few more hours hunting down the Huge Materia/remembering what Holy is before resolving the external conflict of stopping Meteor. In Advent Children, we do not have that luxury of time. These turning points have to be one and same. It is only after Aerith is “introduced” in the film when Cloud asks her for forgiveness that she is able to help in the fight against the Remnants. Thus the turning point for Cloud’s character arc and the external conflict are the same. It’s understandably economical storytelling, though I wouldn’t call it particularly good storytelling.

As much as Cloud feels guilt over both Zack and Aerith’s deaths, it’s only Aerith who can play this dual role in the film. Zack can appear to help resolve Cloud’s emotional arc, but since he has no special Cetra powers or anything, there’s little he can do to help in Cloud’s fight against the Remnants. More time would need to be spent contriving a reason why Cloud is able to defeat the Remnants now when he wasn’t before or explaining why Aerith can suddenly help from the Lifestream when she had been absent before. (I still don’t think the film does a particularly good job of explaining this part, but that is a conversation for another time).

Another reason why Zack could not play this role is because at the time of AC’s original release, all we knew of Cloud and Zack’s relationship was contained in an optional flashback at the Shinra mansion after Cloud returns from the Lifestream. If it was Zack who suddenly showed up at Cloud’s lowest point, most viewers, even many who played the original game, would probably have been confused, and the moment would have fallen flat. On the other hand, even the most casual fan would have been aware of Aerith and her connection to Cloud, with her death scene being among the most well-known gaming moments of all time. Moreover, Aerith’s death is directly connected to Sephiroth, who is once again the threat in AC, whereas Zack was killed by Shinra goons. Aerith serves multiple purposes in a way that Zack just cannot.

Despite all this, though Aerith is more important to the film as a whole, many efforts are made to suggest that Zack and Aerith are equally important to Cloud. One of the first scenes in the film is Cloud moping around Zack’s grave (And unlike the scene with Aerith in the Forgotten City, it isn’t directly connected with Cloud’s present storyline in any way). We have the aforementioned scene where Cloud has flashes of both Aerith’s and Zack’s deaths when he saves Tifa and Denzel. Cloud has a scene where he’s standing back to back with Zack, mirroring his scene with in the Forgotten City with Aerith, before the climax of his fight with Sephiroth. In the Lifestream, after Cloud “dies,” it’s both Aerith and Zack who are there to send him back. Before the film ends, Cloud sees both Aerith and Zack leaving the church.

Now, were all these Zack appearances a way to promote the upcoming spin-off game that he’s going to lead? Of course. But the creators surely would have known that having Zack play such a similar role in Cloud’s arc would make Cloud’s relationship with Aerith feel less special and thus complicating a romantic interpretation of said relationship. If they wanted to encourage a romantic reading of Cloud’s lingering feelings for Aerith, they would have given Zack his own distinct role in the film. Or rather, they wouldn’t have put Zack in the film at all, and they certainly wouldn’t have him lead his own game, but we’ll get to the Zack of it all later.

The funny thing is, in a way, Zack is portrayed as being more special to Cloud. Zack only exists in the film to interact with Cloud and encourage him. Meanwhile. Aerith also has brief interactions with Kadaj, the Geostigma children and even Tifa before the film’s end. Aerith is there to save the whole world. Zack is there just for Cloud. If it’s Cloud’s relationship with Aerith that’s meant to be romantic, shouldn’t it be the other way around?

Let’s take a look at Tifa Lockhart. What role did she have to play in the FF7 sequel film? If, like some, you believed FF7 to be the Cloud/Aerith/Sephiroth show, then Tifa could have easily had a Barret-sized cameo in Advent Children. And honestly, she’s just a great martial artist. She has no special powers that would make her indispensable in a fight against Sephiroth. You certainly would not expect her to be the 2nd billed character in the film. Though of course, if you actually played through the Original Game with your eyes open, you would realize that Tifa Lockhart is instrumental to any story about Cloud Strife.

Unlike Aerith’s appearances, almost none of the suggestive scenes and dynamics between Cloud and Tifa had to be included in the film. As in, they serve no other plot related purpose and could have easily been cut from the final film if the creators weren’t trying to encourage a romantic interpretation of their relationship.

It feels inevitable now, but no one was expecting Cloud and Tifa to be living together and raising two kids. In the general consciousness, FF7 is Cloud and Sephiroth and their big swords and Aerith’s death. At the time, in the eyes of most fans and casual observers, Cloud and Tifa being together wasn’t a necessary part of the FF7 equation the way say, an epic fight between Cloud and Sephiroth would be. In fact, I don’t think even the biggest Cloti fans at the time would have imagined Cloud and Tifa living together would be their canon outcome in the sequel film.

Now can two platonic friends live together and raise two children together? Absolutely, but again Cloud and Tifa are not real people. They are fictional characters. A reasonable person (let’s use the legal definition of the term) who does not have brainworms from arguing over one of the dumbest debates on the Internet for 23 years would probably assume that two characters who were shown to be attracted to each other in the OG and who are now living together and raising two kids are in a romantic relationship. This is a reasonable assumption to make, and if SE wanted to leave Cloud’s romantic inclinations ambiguous, they simply would not be depicting Cloud and Tifa’s relationship in this manner. Cloud’s disrupted peace could have been a number of different things. He could have been a wandering mercenary, he could have been searching for a way to be reunited with Aerith. It didn’t have to be the family he formed with Tifa, but, then again, if you were actually paying attention to the story the OG was trying to tell, of course he would be living with Tifa.

Let’s also look at the scene where Cloud finds Tifa in the church after her fight with Loz. All the plot related information (who attacked her, Marlene being taken) is conveyed in the brief conversation they have before Cloud falls unconscious from Geostigma. What purpose do all the lingering shots of Cloud and Tifa in the flower bed in a Yin-Yang/non-sexual 69ing position serve if not to be suggestive of the type of relationship they have? It’s beautifully rendered but ultimately irrelevant to both the external and internal conflicts of the film.

Likewise, there is no reason why Cloud and Tifa needed to wake up in their children’s bedroom. No reason to show Cloud waking up with Tifa next to him in a way that almost makes you think they were in the same bed. And there is absolutely no reason whatsoever for a close-up of Tifa’s hand with the Wolf Ring on her ring finger while she is admonishing Cloud during what sounds like a domestic argument (This ring again comes into focus when Tifa leads Denzel to Cloud at the church at the end - there are dozens of ways this scene could have been rendered, but this is the one that was chosen.) If it wasn’t SE’s intent to emphasize the family dynamic and the intimate nature of Cloud and Tifa’s relationship, these scenes would not exist.

Let’s also take a look at Denzel, the only new character in the AC (give or take the Remnants). Again, given the film’s brief runtime, the fact that they’re not only adding a new character but giving him more screen time than almost every other AVALANCHE member must mean that he’s pretty important. While Denzel does have an arc of his own, especially in ACC, he is intricately connected to Cloud and Tifa and solidifies the family unit that they’ve been forming in Edge. Marlene still has Barret, but with the addition of Denzel, the family becomes something more real albeit even more tenuous given his Geostigma diagnosis. Without Denzel in the picture, it’s a bit easier to interpret Cloud’s distance from Tifa as romantic pining for another woman, but now it just seems absurd. The stakes are so much higher. Cloud and Tifa are at a completely different stage in their lives from the versions of these characters we met early on in the OG who were entangled in a frivolous love triangle. And yet some people are still stuck trying to fit these characters into a childish dynamic that died at the end of disc one along with a certain someone.

All this is there in the film, at least the director’s cut, if you really squint. But since SE preferred to spend its time on countless action sequences that have aged as well as whole milk in lieu of spending a few minutes showing Cloud’s family life before he got Geostigma to establish the emotional stakes, or a beat or two more on his reconciliation with Tifa and the kids, people may be understandably confused about Cloud’s arc. Has Cloud just been a moping around in misery for the two years post-OG? The answer is no, though that can only really be found in the accompanying novellas, specifically Case of Tifa.

Concerning the novellas, which we apparently must read to understand said DVD sequel

I really don’t know how you can read through CoT and still think there is anything ambiguous about the nature of Cloud and Tifa’s relationship. The “Because I have you this time,” Cloud telling Tifa he’ll remind her how to be strong when they’re alone, Cloud confidently agreeing when Marlene adds him to their family. Not to mention Barret and Cid’s brief conversation about Cloud and Tifa’s relationship in Case of Barret, after which Cid comments that “women wear the pants,” which Barret then follows by asking Cid about Shera. Again, a reasonable person would assume the couple in question are in a romantic relationship, and if this wasn’t the intent, these lines would not be present. Especially not in a novella about someone else.

Some try to argue that CoT just shows how incompatible Cloud and Tifa are because it features a few low points in their relationship. I don’t think that’s Nojima’s intent. Even if it was, it certainly wouldn’t be to prove that Cloud loves Aerith. This isn’t how you tell that story. Why waste all that time disproving a negative rather than proving a positive? We didn’t spend hours in FF8 watching Rinoa’s relationship with Seifer fall apart to understand how much better off she is with Squall. If Cloud and Aerith is meant to be a love story, then tell their love story. Why tell the story of how Cloud is incompatible with someone else?

Part of the confusion may be because CoT doesn’t tell a complete story in and of itself. The first half of the story (before Cloud has to deliver flowers to the Forgotten City) acts as a sort of epilogue to the OG, while the second half of the story is something of a prologue to Advent Children (or honestly its missing Act One). And to state the obvious, conflict is inherent to any story worth telling. It can’t just be all fluff, that’s what the fanfiction is for.

Tifa’s conflict is her fear that the fragile little family they’ve built in Edge is going to fall apart. Thus we see her fret about Cloud’s distance, the way this affects Marlene, and Denzel’s sickness. There are certainly some low moments here --- Tifa telling Cloud to drink in his room, asking if he loves her -- all ways for the threat to seem more real, the outcome more uncertain, yet there’s only one way this conflict can be resolved. One direction to which their relationship can move.

Again, by the end of this story, both characters are supposed to be the best versions of themselves, to find their “happy” endings so to speak. Tifa could certainly find happiness outside of a relationship with Cloud. She could decide that they’ve given it a shot, but they’re better off as friends. She’s grateful for this experience and she’s learned from this, but now she’s ready to make a life for herself on her own. It would be a fine character arc, though not something the Final Fantasy series has been wont to do. However, that’s obviously not the case here as there’s no indication whatsoever that Tifa considers this as an option for herself. Nojima hasn’t written this off ramp into her journey. For Tifa, they’ll either become a real family or they won’t. Since this is a story that is going to have a happy ending, so of course they will, even if there are a lot of bumps along the way.

Unfortunately, with the Compilation being the unwieldy beast that this is, this whole arc has to be pieced together across a number of different works:

Tifa asking herself if they’re a real family in CoT

Her greatest fear seemingly come to life when Cloud leaves at the end of CoT/beginning of AC

Tifa explicitly asking Cloud if the reason they can’t help each other is because they’re not a real family during their argument in AC. Notably, even though Cloud is at his lowest point, he doesn’t confirm her fear. Instead he says he that he can’t help anyone, not even his family. Instead, he indirectly confirms that yes he does think they’re a family, even if is a frustrating moment still in that he’s too scared to try to save it.

The ending of AC where we see a new photo of Cloud smiling surrounded by Tifa and the kids and the rest of the AVALANCHE, next to the earlier photo we had seen of the four of them where he was wearing a more dour expression.

The ending of The Kids Are All Right, where Cloud, Tifa, Denzel and Marlene meet with Evan, Kyrie and Vits - and Cloud offers, unsolicited, that even if they’re not related by blood, they’re a family.

The ending of DVD extra ‘Reminiscence of FFVII’ where Cloud takes the day off and asks Tifa to close the bar so they can spend time together as a family as Tifa had wanted to do early in CoT

Cloud fears he’ll fail his family. Tifa fears it’ll fall apart. Cloud retreats into himself, pushing others away. Tifa neglects herself, not being able to say what she needs to say. In Advent Children, Tifa finally voices her frustrations. It’s then that Cloud finally confronts his fears. Like in the OG, Cloud and Tifa’s conflicts and character arcs are two sides of the same coin, and it’s only by communicating with each other are they able to resolve it. Though with the Compilation being an inferior work, it’s much less satisfying this time around. Such is the problem when you’re writing towards a preordained outcome (Cloud and Sephiroth duking it once again) rather than letting the story develop organically.

Some may ask, why mention Aerith so much (Cloud growing distant after delivering flowers to the Forgotten City, Cloud finding Denzel at Aerith’s church) if they weren’t trying to perpetuate the LTD? Well, as explained above, Aerith had to be in Advent Children, and since CoT is the only place where we get any insight into Cloud’s psyche, it’s here where Nojima expands on that guilt.

Again, this is a story that requires conflict, and what better conflict than the specter of a love rival? Notably, despite us having access to Tifa’s thoughts and fears, she never explicitly associates Cloud’s behavior with him pining after Aerith. Though it’s fair to say this fear is implied, if unwarranted.

If Cloud had actually been pining after Aerith this whole time, we would not be seeing it all unfold through Tifa’s perspective. You can depict a romance without drawing attention to the injured third party. We’re seeing all of this from Tifa’s POV, because it’s about Tifa’s insecurities, not the great tragic romance between Cloud and Aerith. Honestly, another reason we see this from Tifa’s perspective is because it’s dramatically more interesting. Because she’s insecure, she (and we the reader) wonder if there’s something else going on. Meanwhile, from Cloud’s perspective it would be straightforward and redundant, given what we see in AC. He’s guilty over Aerith’s death and thinks he doesn’t deserve to be happy.

Not to mention, the first time we encounter Aerith in CoT, Tifa is the one breaking down at her grave while Cloud is the one comforting her. Are we supposed to believe that he just forgot he was in love with Aerith until he had to deliver flowers to the Forgotten City?

And Aerith doesn’t just serve as a romantic obstacle. She’s also a symbol of guilt and redemption for both Cloud and Tifa. Neither think they have the right to be happy after all that’s happened (Aerith’s death being a big part of this), and through Denzel, who Cloud finds at Aerith’s church, they both see a chance to atone.

I do want to address Case of Lifestream: White because it’s only time in the entire Compilation where I’ve asked myself — what are they trying to achieve here? Now, I’d rather drink bleach than start debating the translation of ‘koibito’ again, but I did think it was a strange choice to specify the romantic nature of Aerith’s love for Cloud. I suppose it could be a reference her obvious attraction to Cloud in the OG, though calling it love feels like a stretch.

But nothing else in CoLW really gives me pause. It might be a bit jarring to see how much of it is Aerith’s thoughts of Cloud, but it makes sense when you consider the context in which it’s meant to be consumed. Unlike Case of Tifa or Case of Denzel, CoLW isn’t meant to be read on its own. It’s a few scant paragraphs in direct conversation with Case of Lifestream: Black. In CoLB, Sephiroth talks about his plan to return and end the world or whatever, and how Cloud is instrumental to his plan. Each segment of CoLW mirrors the corresponding segment of CoLB. Thus, CoLW has to be about Aerith’s plan to stop Sephiroth and the role Cloud must play in that. In both of these stories, Cloud is the only named character. It doesn’t mean that thoughts of Cloud consume all of Aerith’s afterlife. Case of Lifestream is only a tiny sliver of the story, a halfassed way to explain why in Advent Children the world is ending again and why Cloud has to be at the center of it all.

Notably, there is absolutely nothing in CoLW about Cloud’s feelings for Aerith. Even if it’s just speculation on her part as we see Sephiroth speculate about Cloud’s reactions in CoLB. Aerith can see what’s going on in the real world, but she says nothing about Cloud’s actions. If Cloud is really pining after her, trying to find a way to be reunited with her, wouldn’t this be the ideal story to show such devotion?

But it’s not there, because not only does it not happen, but because this story is not about Aerith’s relationship with Cloud. It is about how Aerith needs to see and warn Cloud in order to stop Sephiroth. By the end of Advent Children, that goal is fulfilled. Cloud gets his forgiveness. Aerith gets to see him again and helps him stop Sephiroth. There’s no suggestion that either party wants more. We finally have the closure that the OG lacked, and at no point does it confirm that Cloud reciprocated Aerith’s romantic feelings, even though there were plenty of opportunities to do so.

I don’t really know what else people were expecting. Advent Children isn’t a romantic drama. There’s not going to be a moment where Cloud explicitly tells Tifa, ‘I’ve never loved Aerith. It’s only been you all along.” This is just simply not the kind of story it is.

Though one late scene practically serves this function. When Cloud “dies” and Aerith finds him in the Lifestream, if there were any lingering romantic feelings between the two of them, this would be a beautiful bittersweet reunion. Maybe something about how as much as they want to be together, it’s not his time yet. Instead, it’s almost played off as a joke. Cloud calls her ‘Mother’, and Zack is at Aerith’s side, joking about how Cloud has no place there. This would be the perfect opportunity to address the romantic connection between Cloud and Aerith, but instead, the film elides this completely. Instead, it’s a cute afterlife moment between Aerith and Zack, and functionally allows Cloud to go back to where he belongs, to Tifa and the kids. Whatever Cloud’s feelings for Aerith were before, it’s transformed into something else.

Crisis Core -- or how Aerith finally gets her love story

The other relevant part of the Compilation is Crisis Core, which I will now touch on briefly (or at least brief for me). In the OG, Zack Fair was more plot device than character. We knew he was important to Cloud — enough that Cloud would mistake Zack’s memories for his own -- we knew he was important to Aerith — enough that she is initially drawn to Cloud due to his similarities to Zack — yet the nature of these relationships is more ambiguous. Especially his relationship with Aerith. From the little we learn of their relationship, it could have been completely one-sided on her part, and Zack a total cad. At least that’s the implication she leaves us with in Gongaga. We get the sense that she might not be the most reliable narrator on this point (why bring up an ex so often, unsolicited, if it wasn’t anything serious?) but the OG never confirms this either way.

Crisis Core clears this up completely. Not only is Zack portrayed as the Capital H Hero of his own game, but his relationships with Cloud and Aerith are two of the most important in the game. In fact, they are the basis for his heroic sacrifice at the game’s end: he dies trying to save Cloud’s life; he dies trying to return to Aerith.

Zack’s relationship with Aerith is a major subplot of the game. Not only that, but the details of said relationship completely recontextualizes what we know about the Aerith we see in the OG. Many of Aerith’s most iconic traits (wearing pink, selling flowers) are a direct product of this relationship, and more importantly, so many of the hallmarks of her early relationship with Cloud (him falling through her church, one date as a reward, a conversation in the playground) are a direct echo of her relationship with Zack.

A casual fling this was not. Aerith’s relationship with Zack made a deep impact on the character we see in the OG and clearly colored her interactions with Cloud throughout.

Crisis Core is telling Zack’s story, and Tifa is a fairly minor supporting character, yet it still finds the time to expand upon Cloud and Tifa’s relationship. Through their interactions with Zack, we learn just how much they were on each others’ minds during this time, and how they were both too shy to own up to these feelings. We also get a brief expansion on the moment Cloud finds Tifa injured in the reactor.

Meanwhile, given the point we are in the story’s chronology, Cloud and Aerith are completely oblivious of each other’s existence.

One may try to argue that none of this matters since all of this is in the past. While this argument might hold water if we arguing about real lives in the real world, FF7 is a work of fiction. Its creators decided that these would be events we would see, and that Zack would be the lens through which we’d see them. Crisis Core is not the totality of these characters’ lives prior to the event of the OG. Rather, it consists of moments that enhance and expand upon our understanding of the original work. We learn the full extent of Hojo’s experimentation and the Jenova project; we learn that Sephiroth was actually a fairly normal guy before he was driven insane when he uncovers the circumstances of his birth. We learn that Aerith was a completely different person before she met Zack, and their relationship had a profound impact on her character.

A prequel is not made to contradict the original work, but what it can do is recontexualize the story we already know and add a layer of nuance that may have not been obvious before. Thus, Sephiroth is transformed from a scary villain into a tragic figure who could have been a hero were it not for Hojo’s experiments. Aerith’s behavior too invites reinterpretation. What once seemed flirty and perhaps overtly forward now looks like the tragic attempts of a woman trying to recapture a lost love.

If Cloud and Aerith were meant to be the official couple of the Compilation of FF7, you absolutely would not be spending so much time depicting two relationships that will be moot by the time we get to the original work. You especially would not depict Zack and Aerith’s relationship in a way that makes Aerith’s relationship with Cloud look like a copy of the moments she had with her ex.

Additionally, with Zack’s relationship with Angeal, we can see, that within the universe of FF7, a protagonist being devastated over the death of a beloved comrade isn’t something that’s inherently romantic. Neither is it romantic for said dead comrade to lend a helping hand from the beyond.

SE would also expect some people to play Crisis Core before the OG. If Cloud and Aerith are the intended endgame couple, then SE would be asking the player to root for a guy to pursue the girlfriend of the man who gave his life for him. The same man who died trying to reunite with her. This is to say nothing of Cloud’s treatment of Tifa in this scenario. How could this possibly be the intent  for their most popular protagonist in the most popular entry of their most popular franchise?

What Crisis Core instead offers is something for fans of Aerith who may be disappointed that she was robbed of a great romance by her death. Well, she now gets that epic, tragic romance. Only it’s with Zack, not Cloud.

If SE intended for Cloud and Aerith to be the official couple of FF7, neither Zack nor Tifa would exist. They would not spend so much time developing Zack and Tifa into the multi-dimensional characters they are, only to be treated as nothing more than collateral damage in the wake of Cloud and Aerith’s great love. No, this is a Final Fantasy. SE want their main characters to have something of a happy ending after all of the tribulations they face. Cloud and Tifa find theirs in life. Zack and Aerith, as the ending of AC suggests, find theirs in death.

Cloud and Aerith’s relationship isn’t a threat to the Zack/Aerith and Cloud/Tifa endgame, nor is it a mere obstacle. Rather, it’s a relationship that actually deepens and strengthens the other two. Aerith is explicitly searching for her first love in Cloud, revealing just how deep her feelings for Zack ran. Cloud gets to live out his heroic SOLDIER fantasy with Aerith, a fantasy he created just to impress Tifa.

There are moments between Cloud and Aerith that may seem romantic when taken on its own, but viewed within the context of the whole narrative, ultimately reveal that they aren’t quite right for each other, and in each other, they’re actually searching for someone else.

This quadrangular dynamic reminds me a bit of one of my favorite classic films, The Philadelphia Story. (Spoilers for a film that came out in 1940 ahead) — The single most romantic scene in the film is between Jimmy Stewart’s and Katherine Hepburn’s characters, yet they’re not the ones who end up together. Even as their passions run, as the music swells, and we want them to end up together, we realize that they’re not quite right for each other. We know that it won’t work out.

More relevantly, we know this is true due to the existence of Cary Grant’s and Ruth Hussey’s characters, who are shown to carry a torch for Hepburn and Stewart, respectively. Grant and Hussey are well-developed and sympathetic characters. With the film being the top grossing film of the year, and made during the Code era, it’s about as “clean” of a narrative as you can get. There’s no way Grant and Hussey would be given such prominent roles just to be left heartbroken and in the cold by the film’s end.

Hepburn’s character (Tracy) pretty much sums it herself after some hijinks lead to a last minute proposal from Stewart’s character (Mike):

Mike: Will you marry me, Tracy?                      

Tracy: No, Mike. Thanks, but hmm-mm. Nope.

Mike: l've never asked a girl to marry me. l've avoided it. But you've got me all confused now. Why not?

Tracy: Because l don't think Liz [Hussey’s character] would like it...and l'm not sure you would...and l'm even a little doubtful about myself. But l am beholden to you, Mike. l'm most beholden.

Despite the fact that the film spends more time developing Hepburn and Stewart’s relationship than theirs with their endgame partners, it’s still such a satisfying ending. That’s because, even at the peak of their romance, we can see how Stewart needs someone like Hussey to ground his passionate impulses, and how Hepburn needs Grant, someone who won’t put her on a pedestal like everyone else. Hepburn and Stewart’s is a relationship that might feel right in the moment, but doesn’t quite work in the light of day.

I don’t think Cloud and Aerith share a moment that is nearly as romantic in FF7, but the same principle applies. What may seem romantic in the moment actually reveals how they’re right for someone else.

Even if Aerith lives and Cloud decides to pursue a relationship with her, it’s not going to be all puppies and roses ahead for them. Aerith would need to disentangle her feelings for Zack from her attraction to Cloud, and Cloud would still need to confront his feelings for Tifa, which were his main motivator for nearly half his life, before they can even start to build something real. This is messy work, good fodder for a prestige cable drama or an Oscar-baity indie film, but it has no place in a Final Fantasy. There simply isn’t the time. Not when the question on most players’ minds isn’t ‘Cloud does love?’ but ‘How the hell are they going to stop that madman and his Meteor that’s about to destroy the world?’

With Zerith’s depiction in Crisis Core, there’s a sort of bittersweet poetry in how the two relationships rhyme but can’t actually coexist. It is only because Zack is trying to return to Midgar to see Aerith that Cloud is able to reunite with Tifa, and the OG begins in earnest. In another world, Zack and Aerith would be the hero and heroine who saved the world and lived to tell the tale. They are much more the traditional archetypes - Zack the super-powered warrior who wants to be a Capital-H Hero, and Aerith, the last of her kind who reluctantly accepts her fate. Compared to these two, Cloud and Tifa aren’t nearly so special, nor their goals so lofty and noble. Cloud, after all, was too weak to even get into SOLDIER, and only wanted to be one, not for some greater good, but to impress the girl he liked. Tifa has no special abilities, merely learning martial arts when she grew wise enough to not wait around for a hero. On the surface, Cloud and Tifa are made of frailer stuff, and yet by luck or by fate, they’re the ones who cheat death time and time again, and manage to save the world, whereas the ones who should have the role, are prematurely struck down before they can finish the job. Cloud and Tifa fulfill the roles that they never asked for, that they may not be particularly suited for, in Zack and Aerith’s stead. There’s a burden and a beauty to it. Cloud and Tifa can live because Zack and Aerith did not.

All of this nuance is lost if you think Cloud and Aerith are meant to be the endgame couple. Instead, you have a pair succumbing to their basest desires, regardless of the selfless sacrifices their other potential paramours made for their sake. Zack and Tifa, and their respective relationships with Aerith and Cloud, are flattened into mere romantic obstacles. The heart wants what it wants, some may argue. While that may be true in real life, that is not necessarily the case in a work of fiction, especially not a Final Fantasy. The other canon Final Fantasy couples could certainly have had previous romantic relationships, but unless they have direct relevance to the their character arcs (e.g., Rachel to Locke), the games do not draw attention to them because they would be a distraction from the romance they are trying to tell. They’ve certainly never spent the amount of real estate FF7 spends in depicting Cloud/Tifa and Zack/Aerith’s relationships.

At last…the Remake, and somehow this essay isn’t even close to being over

Finally, we come to the Remake. With the technological advancements made in the last 23 years and the sheer amount of hours they’re devoting to just the Midgar section this time around, you can almost look at the OG as an outline and the Remake as the final draft. With the OG being overly reliant on text to  do its storytelling, and the Remake having subtle facial expressions and a slew of cinematic techniques at its disposal, you might almost consider it an adaptation from a literary medium to a visual one. Our discussions are no longer limited to just what the characters are saying, but what they are doing, and even more importantly, how the game presents those actions. When does the game want us to pay attention? And what does it want us to pay attention to?

Unlike most outlines, which are read by a small handful of execs, SE has 23 years worth of reactions from the general public to gauge what works and what doesn’t work, what caused confusion, and what could be clarified. While FF7 is not a romance, the LTD remains a hot topic among a small but vocal part of the fanbase. It certainly is an area that could do with some clarifying in the Remake.

Since the Remake is not telling a new story, but rather retelling an existing story that has been in the public consciousness for over two decades, certain aspects that were treated as “twists” in the OG no longer have that same element of surprise, and would need to approached differently. For example, in the Midgar section of the OG, Shinra is treated as the main antagonist throughout. It’s only when we get to the top of the Shinra tower that Sephiroth is revealed as the real villain. Anyone with even a passing of knowledge of FF7 would be aware of Sephiroth so trying to play it off like a surprise in the Remake would be terribly anticlimactic. Thus, Sephiroth appears as early as Ch. 2 to haunt Cloud and the player throughout.

Likewise, many players who’ve never even touched the OG are probably aware that Aerith dies, thus her death can no longer be played for shock. While SE would still want the player to grow attached to Aerith so that her death has an emotional impact, there are diminishing returns to misdirecting the player about her fate, at least not in the same way it was done in the OG.

How do these considerations affect the how the LTD is depicted in the Remake? For the two of the biggest twists in the OG to land in the Remake — Aerith’s death and Cloud’s true identity in the Lifestream — the game needs to establish:

Aerith’s attraction to Cloud, specifically due to his similarities to Zack. This never needs to go past an initial attraction for the player to understand that the man whose memory Cloud was “borrowing” is Zack. Aerith’s feelings for Cloud can evolve into something platonic or even maternal by her end without the reveal in the Lifestream losing any impact.

Cloud’s love for Tifa. For the Lifestream sequence to land with an “Ooooh!” rather than a “Huh!?!?”, the Remake will need to establish that Cloud’s feelings for Tifa were strong enough to 1) motivate him to try to join SOLDIER in the first place 2) incentivize him to adopt a false persona because he fears that he isn’t the man she wants him to be 3) call him back to consciousness from Make poisoning twice 4) help him put his mind back together and find his true self. That’s a lot of story riding on one guy’s feelings!

The player’s love for Aerith so that her death will hurt. This can be done by making them invested in Aerith as a character by her own right, but also extends to the relationships she has with the other characters (not only Cloud).

What is not necessary is establishing Cloud’s romantic feelings for Aerith. Now, would their doomed romance make her death hurt even more? Sure, but it could work just as well if Cloud if is losing a dear friend and ally, not a lover. Not to mention, her death also cuts short her relationships with Tifa, Barret, Red XII, etc. Bulking those relationships up prior to her death, would also make her loss more palpable. If anything, establishing Cloud’s romantic feelings for Aerith would actually undermine the game’s other big twist. The game needs you to believe that Cloud’s feelings for Tifa were strong enough to drive his entire hero’s journey. If Cloud is shown falling in love with another woman in the span of weeks if not mere days, then the Lifestream scene would be much harder to swallow.

Cloud wavering between the two women made sense in the OG because the main way for the player to get to know Aerith was through her interactions with Cloud. That is no longer the case in the Remake. Cloud is still the protagonist, and the player character for the vast majority of the game, but there are natural ways for the player to get to know Aerith outside of her dialogue exchanges with Cloud. Unless SE considers the LTD an integral part of FF7’s DNA, then for the sake of story clarity, the LTD doesn’t need to exist.

How then does the Remake clarify things?

I’m not going go through every single change in the Remake — there are far too many of them, and they’ve been documented elsewhere. Most of the changes are expansions or adaptations (what might make sense for super-deformed chibis would look silly for realistic characters, e.g., Cloud rolling barrels in the Church has now become him climbing across the roof support). What is expanded and how it’s adapted can be telling, but what is more interesting are the additions and removals. Not just for what takes place in the scenes themselves, but how their addition or removal changes our understanding of the narrative as a whole vis-a-vis the story we know from the OG.

Notably, one of the features that is not expanded upon, but rather diminished, is player choice. In the OG, the player had a slew of dialogue options to choose from, especially during the Midgar portion of the game. Not only did it determine which character would go on a date with Cloud at the Gold Saucer, but it also made the player identify with Cloud since they’re largely determining his personality during this stage. Despite the technological advances that have made this level of optionality the norm in AAA games, the Remake gives the player far fewer non-gameplay related choices, and only really the illusion of choice as a nod to the OG, but they don’t affect the story of the game in any meaningful way. You get a slightly different conversation depending on the choice, but you have to buy the Flower, Tifa has to make you a drink.

So much of what fueled the LTD in the OG came from this mechanic, which is now largely absent in the Remake. Almost every instance where there was a dialogue branch in the OG has become a single, canon scenario in the Remake that favors Tifa (e.g., having the choice of giving the flower to Tifa or Marlene in the OG, to Cloud giving the flower to Tifa in the Remake). Similarly, for the only meaningful choice you make in the Remake — picking Tifa or Aerith in the sewers — Cloud is now equidistant to both girls, whereas in the OG, his starting point was much closer to Aerith. In the OG, player choice allowed you to largely determine Cloud’s personality, and the girl he favored — and seemingly encouraged you to choose Aerith in many instances. In the Remake, Cloud is now his own character, not who the player wants him to be. And this Cloud, well, he sure seems to have a thing for Tifa.

In fact, one of the first changes in the Remake is the addition of Jessie asking Cloud about his relationship with Tifa, and Cloud’s brief flashback to their childhood together. In the OG, Tifa isn’t mentioned at all during the first reactor mission, and we don’t see her until we get to Sector 7.

Not only does this scene reveal Tifa’s importance to Cloud much earlier on than in the OG, but it sets up a sort of frame of reference that colors Cloud’s subsequent interactions. Even as Jessie kind of flirts with him throughout the reactor mission, even with his chance meeting Aerith in Sector 8, in the back of your mind, you might be thinking — wait what about his relationship with this Tifa character? What if he’s already spoken for?

Think about how this plays out in the OG. Jessie is pretty much a non-entity, and Cloud has his meet-cute with the flower girl before we’re even aware that Tifa exists. It’s hard to get too invested in his interactions with Tifa, when you know he has to meet the flower girl again, and you’re waiting for that moment, because that’s when the game will start in earnest.

After chapter 1 of the Remake, a new player may be asking — who is this Tifa person, and, echoing Jessie’s question, what kind of relationship does she have with Cloud? It’s a question that’s repeated when Barret mentions her before they set the bomb, and again when Barret specifies Seventh Heaven is where Tifa works — and the game zooms in on Cloud’s face — when they arrive in Sector 7.

It’s when we finally meet her at Seventh Heaven in Ch. 3 that we feel, ah now, this game has finally begun.

It’s also interesting how inorganically this question is introduced in the Remake. Up until that moment, the dialogue and Cloud are all business. Then, as they’re waiting for the gate to open, Jessie asks about Tifa completely out of the blue, and Cloud, all of a sudden, is at a lost for words, and has the first of many flashbacks. That this moment is a bit incongruous shows the effort SE made to establish Tifa’s importance to the game and to Cloud early on.

One of the biggest changes in the Remake is the addition of the events in Ch. 3 and 4. Unlike what happens in Ch. 18, Ch. 3 and 4 feel like such a natural extension of the OG’s story that many players may not even realize that SE has added an whole day’s and night’s worth of events to the OG’s story. While not a drastic change, it does reshape our understanding of subsequent events in the story, namely Cloud’s time spent alone with Aerith.

In the OG, we rush from one reactor mission to the next, with no real time to explore Cloud’s character or his relationships with any of the other characters in between. When he crashes through the church, he gets a bit of a breather. We see a different side of him with Aerith. Since we have nothing else to compare it to, many might assume that his relationship with Aerith is special. That she brings something out of him that no one else can.

That is no longer the case in the Remake. While Cloud’s time in Sector 5 with Aerith remains largely unchanged though greatly expanded, it no longer feels  “special.” So many of the beats that seemed exclusive to his relationship with Aerith in the OG, we’ve now already seen play out with both Tifa and the other members of AVALANCHE long before he meets Aerith.

Cloud tells the flowers to listen to Aerith; he’s told Tifa he’s listening if she wants to talk; told Bigg’s he wants to hear the story of Jessie’s dad. Cloud offers to walk Aerith back home; he offered the same to Wedge. Cloud smiles at Aerith; he’s already smiled at Tifa and AVALANCHE a number of times.

Now, I’m under no illusion that SE added these chapters solely to diminish Aerith’s importance to Cloud (other than the obvious goal of making the game longer, I imagine they wanted the player to spend more time in Sector 7 and more time with the other AVALANCHE members so that the collapse of the Pillar and their deaths have more weight), but they certainly must have realized that this would be one effect. If pushing Cloud/Aerith’s romance had been a goal with the Remake, this would be a scenario they would try to avoid. Notably, the other place where time has been added - the night in the Underground Shinra Lab, and the day helping other people out around the slums — are also periods of time when Aerith is absent.

Home Sweet Slums vs. Budding Bodyguard

Since most of the events in Ch. 3 were invented for the Remake, and thus we have nothing in the OG to compare it to (except to say that something is probably better than nothing), I thought it would be more interesting to compare it to Ch. 8. Structurally, they are nearly identical — Cloud doing sidequests around the Sectors with one of the girls as his guide. Extra bits of dialogue the more sidequests you complete, with an optional story event if you do them all. Do Cloud’s relationships with each girl progress the same way in both chapters? Is the Remake just Final Waifu Simulator 2020 or are they distinct, reflecting their respective roles in the story as a whole?

A lot of what the player takes away from these chapters is going to be pretty subjective (Is he annoyed with her or is he playing hard to get), yet the vibes of the two chapters are quite different. This is because in Ch. 3, the player is getting to know Tifa through her relationship with Cloud; in Ch. 8; the player is getting to know Aerith as a character on her own.

What do I mean by this? Let’s take Cloud’s initial introduction into each Sector. In Ch. 3, it’s a straight shot from Seventh Heaven to Stargazer Heights punctuated by a brief conversation where Tifa asks Cloud about the mission he was just on. We don’t learn anything new about Tifa’s character here. Instead we hear Cloud recount the mission we already saw play out in detail in Ch. 1 But it’s through this conversation that we get a glimpse of Cloud and Tifa’s relationship — unlike the reticent jerk he was with Avalanche, this Cloud is much more responsive and even tries to reassure her in his own stilted way. We also know that they have enough of a past together that Tifa can categorize him as “not a people person” — an assessment to which Cloud agrees. Slowly, we’re getting an answer to the question Jessie posed in Ch. 1 — just what kind of relationship does Cloud have with Tifa?

In Ch. 8, Aerith leads Cloud on a roundabout way through Sector 5, and stops, unprompted, to talk about her experiences helping at the restaurant, helping out the doctor, and helping with the orphans at the Leaf House. It’s not so much a conversation as a monologue. Cloud isn’t the one who inquires about these relationships, and more jarringly, he doesn’t respond until Aerith directly asks him a question (interestingly enough, it’s about the flower she gave him…which he then gave to Tifa). Here, the game is allowing the player to learn more about the kind of person Aerith is. Cloud is also learning about Aerith at the same time, but with his non-reaction, either the game itself is indifferent to Cloud’s feelings towards Aerith or it is deliberately trying to portray Cloud’s indifference to Aerith.

The optional story event you can see in each chapter after completing all the side quests is also telling. In Ch. 3, “Alone at Last” is almost explicitly about Cloud and Tifa’s relationship. It’s bookended by two brief scenes between Marle and Cloud — the first in which she lectures him about how he should treat Tifa almost like an overprotective in-law, the second after they return downstairs and Marle awards Cloud with an accessory “imbued with the fervent desire to be by one’s side for eternity” after he makes Tifa smile. In between, Cloud and Tifa chat alone in her room. Tifa finally gets a chance to ask Cloud about his past and they plan a little date to celebrate their reunion. There is also at least the suggestion that Cloud was expecting something else when Tifa asked him to her room.

In Ch. 8’s “The Language of Flowers,” Cloud and Aerith’s relationship is certainly part of the story — unlike earlier in the chapter, Cloud actually asks Aerith about what she’s doing and even supports her by talking to the flowers too, but the other main objective of this much briefer scene is to show Aerith’s relationship with the flowers and of her mysterious Cetra powers (though we don’t know about her ancestry just yet). Like a lot of Aerith’s dialogue, there’s a lot of foreshadowing and foreboding in her words. If anything, it’s almost as if Cloud is playing the Marle role to the flowers, as an audience surrogate to ask Aerith about her relationship with the flowers so that she can explain. Also, there’s no in-game reward that suggests what the scene was really about.

If there’s any confusion about what’s going on here, just compare their titles “Alone At Last” vs. “The Language of Flowers.”

I’ll try not to bring my personal feelings into this, but there’s just something so much more satisfying about the construction of Ch. 3. This is some real storytelling 101 shit, but I think a lot of it due to just how much set up and payoff there is, and how almost all of said payoff deepens our understanding of Cloud and Tifa’s relationship:

Marle: Cloud meets Tifa’s overprotective landlady towards the beginning of the chapter. She is dubious of his character and his relationship with TIfa. This impression does not change the second time they meet even though Tifa herself is there to mediate. It’s only towards the end of the chapter, after all the sidequests are complete, that this tension is resolved. Marle gives Cloud a lecture about how he should be treating Tifa, which he seems to take to heart. And Cloud finally earns Marle’s begrudging approval after he emerges from their rooms with a chipper-looking Tifa in tow.

Their past: For their first in-game interaction, Cloud casually brings up that fact that it’s been “Five years” since they’ve last, which seem to throw Tifa off a bit. As they’re replacing filters, Cloud asks Tifa what she’s been up to in the time since they’ve been apart, and Tifa quickly changes the subject. Tifa tries to ask Cloud about his life “after he left the village,” at the Neighborhood Watch HQ, and this time he’s the one who seems to be avoiding the subject. It’s only after all the Ch. 3 sidequests are complete, and they're alone in her room that Tifa finally gets the chance to ask her question. A question which Cloud still doesn’t entirely answer. This question remains unresolved, and anyone’s played the OG will know that it will remain unresolved for some time yet, as it is THE question of Cloud’s story as a whole.

The lessons: Tifa starts spouting off some lessons for life in the slums as she brings Cloud around the town, though it’s unclear if Cloud is paying attention or taking them to heart. After completing the first sidequest, Cloud repeats one of these sayings back to her, confirming that he’s been listening all along. By the end of the chapter, Cloud is repeating these lessons to himself, even when Tifa isn’t around. These lessons extend beyond this chapter, with Cloud being a real teacher’s pet, asking Tifa “Is this a lesson” in Ch. 10 once they reunite.

The drink: When Cloud first arrives at Seventh Heaven, Tifa plays hostess and asks him if he wants anything, but it seems he’s only interested in his money. After exploring the sector a bit, Tifa again tries to play the role of cheery bartender, offering to make him a cocktail at the bar, but Cloud sees through this facade, and they carry on. Finally, after the day’s work is done, to tide Cloud over while she’s meeting with AVALANCHE, Tifa finally gets the chance to make him a drink. No matter, which dialogue option the player chooses, Tifa and Cloud fall into the roles of flirty bartender and patron quite easily. Who would have thought this was possible from the guy we met in Ch. 1?

This dynamic is largely absent in Ch. 8, except perhaps exploring Aerith’s relationship with the flowers, which “pays off” in the “Language of Flowers” event, but again, that scene is primarily about Aerith’s character rather than her relationship with Cloud. The orphans and the Leaf House are a throughline of the chapter, but they are merely present. There’s no clear progression here as was the case with in Ch. 3. Sure, the kids admire Cloud quite a bit after he saves them, but it’s not like they were dubious of his presence before. They barely paid attention to him. In terms of the impact the kids have on Cloud’s relationship with Aerith, there isn’t much at all. Certainly nothing like the role Marle plays in developing his relationship with Tifa.

The thing is, there are plenty of moments that could have been set ups, only there’s no real follow through. Aerith introduces Cloud around town as her bodyguard, and some people like the Doctor express dubiousness of his ability to do the job, but even after we spend a whole day fighting off monsters, and defeating Rude, there’s no payoff. Not even a throwaway “Wow, great job bodyguarding” comment. Same with the whole “one date” reward. Other than a quick reference on the way to Sector 5, and Aerith threatening to reveal the deal to cajole Cloud into helping her gather flowers, it’s never brought up again, in this chapter, or the rest of the game.

Aerith also makes a big stink about Cloud taking the time to enjoy Elmyra’s cooking. This is after Cloud is excluded from AVALANCHE’s celebration in Seventh Heaven and after he misses out on Jessie’s mom’s “Midgar Special” with Biggs and Wedge. So this could have been have been the set up to Cloud finally getting to experience a nice, domestic moment where he feels like he’s part of a family. And this dinner does happen! Only…the Remake skips over it entirely. Which is quite a strange choice considering that almost every other waking moment of Cloud’s time in Midgar has been depicted in excruciating detail. SE has decided that either whatever happened in this dinner between these three characters is irrelevant to the story they’re trying to tell, or they’ve deliberately excluded this scene from the game so that the player wouldn’t get any wrong ideas from it (e.g., that Cloud is starting to feel at home with Aerith).

Speaking of home, the Odd Jobs in Ch. 3 feel a bit more meaningful outside of just the gameplay-related rewards because they’re a way for Cloud to improve his reputation as he considers building a life for himself in Sector 7. This intent is implicit as Tifa imparts upon him the life lessons for surviving the slums, and then explicit, when Tifa asks him if he’s going to “stick around a little longer” outside of Seventh Heaven and he answers maybe. (It is later confirmed when Cloud and Tifa converse in his room in Ch. 4 after he remembers their promise).

Despite Aerith’s endeavors to extend their time together, there’s no indication that Cloud is planning to put down roots in Sector 5, or even return. Not even after doing all the Odd Jobs. If anything, it’s just the opposite — after 3 Odd Jobs, Aerith, kind of jokingly tells Cloud “don’t think you can rely on me forever.” This is a line that has a deeper meaning for anyone who knows Aerith’s fate in the OG, but Cloud seems totally fine with the outcome. Similarly, at the end of the Chapter 8, Elmyra asks Cloud to leave and never speak to Aerith again — a request to which he readily agrees.

Adding to the different vibes of the Chapters are the musical themes that play in the background. In Ch. 3, it’s the “Main Theme of VII”, followed by “On Our Way” — two tracks that instantly recall the OG. While the Main Theme is a bit melancholy, it's also familiar. It feels like home. In Ch. 8, we have an instrumental version of ‘Hollow’ - the new theme written for the Remake. While, it’s a lovely piece, it’s unfamiliar and honestly as a bit anxiety inducing (as is the intent).

(A quick aside to address the argument that this proves ‘Hollow’ is about Cloud’s feelings for Aerith:

Which of course doesn’t make any damn sense because he hasn’t even lost Aerith at this point the story. Even if you want to argue that there is so timey-wimey stuff going on and the whole purpose of the Remake is to rewrite the timeline so that Cloud doesn’t lose Aerith around — shouldn’t there be evidence of this desire outside of just the background music? Perhaps, in Cloud’s actions during the Chapter which the song plays — shouldn’t he dread being parted from her, shouldn’t he be the one trying to extend their time together? Instead, he’s willing to let her go quite easily.

The more likely explanation as to why “Hollow” plays in Ch. 8 is that since the “Main Theme of FFVII”  already plays in Ch. 3, the other “main theme” written for the Remake is going to play in the other chapter with a pseudo-open world vibe. If you’re going to say “Hollow” is about Cloud’s feelings for Aerith then you’d have to accept that the Main Theme of the entire series is about Cloud’s feelings for Tifa, which would actually make a bit more sense given that is practically Cloud’s entire character arc.)

Both chapters contain a scripted battle that must be completed before the chapter can end. They both contain a shot where Cloud fights side by side with each of the girls.

Here, Cloud and Tifa are both in focus during the entirety of this shot.

Here, the focus pulls away from Cloud the moment Aerith enters the frame.

I doubt the developers expected most players to notice this particular technique, but it reflects the subtle differences in the way these two relationships are portrayed. By the end of Ch. 3, Cloud and Tifa are acting as one unit. By the end of Ch. 8, even when they’re together, Cloud and Aerith are still apart.

A brief (lol) overview of some meaningful changes from the OG

One of the most significant changes in the Sector 7 chapters is how The Promise flashback is depicted. In the OG, Tifa is the one who has to remind Cloud of the Promise, in a rather pushy way, and whether Cloud chooses to join the next mission to fulfill his promise to her or because Barret is giving him a raise feels a bit more ambiguous.

In the Remake, the Promise has it’s own little mini-arc. It’s first brought up at the end of Ch. 3 when Cloud talks to Tifa about her anxieties about the upcoming mission. Tifa subtly references the Promise by mentioning that she’s “in a pitch” — a reference that goes over Cloud’s head. It’s only in Ch. 4, in the middle of a mission with Biggs and Wedge, where Tifa is no where in sight, that a random building fan reminds him of the Nibelheim water tower and the Promise he made to Tifa there. There’s also another brief flashback to that earlier moment in the bar when Tifa mentions she’s in a “pinch.” Again, the placement of this particular flashback at this particular moment feels almost jarring. And the flashback to the scene in the bar — a flashback to a scene we’ve already seen play out in-game — is the only one of its kind in the Remake. SE went out of the way to show that this particular moment is very important to Cloud and the game as whole. It’s when Cloud returns to his room, and Tifa asks him if he’s planning to stay in Midgar, that this mini-arc is finally complete. He brings up the Promise on his own, and makes it explicit that the reason he’s staying is for her. It’s to fulfill his Promise to her, not for money or for AVALANCHE — at this point, he’s not even supposed to be going on the next mission.

The Reactor 5 chapters are greatly expanded, but there aren’t really any substantive changes other than the addition of the rather intimate train roll scene between and Cloud and Tifa, which adds nothing to the story except to establish how horny they are for each other. We know this is the case, of course, because if you go out of your way to make Cloud look like an incompetent idiot and let the timer run out, you can avoid this scene altogether. But even in that alternate scene, Cloud’s concern for Tifa is crystal clear.

Ch. 8 also plays out quite similarly to the OG for the most part, though Cloud’s banter with Aerith on the rooftops doesn’t feel all that special since we’ve already seen him do the same with Tifa, Barret and the rest of AVALANCHE. The rooftops is the first place Cloud laughs in the OG. In the Remake, while Cloud might not have straight out laughed before, he’s certainly smiled quite a bit in the preceding chapters. Also, with the addition of voice acting and realistic facial expressions, that “laughter” in the Remake comes off much more sarcastic than genuine.

It’s also notable that in the Remake, Cloud vocally protests almost every time Aerith tries to extend their time together. In the OG, Cloud says nothing in these moments, which the player could reasonably interpret as assent.

One major change in the Remake is how Aerith learns of Tifa’s existence. In the OG, Cloud mentions that he wants to go back to Tifa’s bar, prompting Aerith to ask him about his relationship with her. In the Remake, Cloud calls Tifa’s name after having a random flashback of Child Tifa as he’s walking along with some kids. Again the insertion of said flashback is a bit jarring, prompting Aerith to understandably ask Cloud about just who this Tifa is. In the OG, this exchange served to show Aerith’s jealousy and her interest in Cloud. In the Remake, it’s all about Cloud’s feelings for Tifa and his inability to articulate them. As for Aerith, I suppose you can still read her reaction as jealous, though simple curiosity is a perfectly reasonable way to read it too. It plays out quite similarly to Aerith asking Cloud about who he gave the flower to. Her follow ups seem indicate that she’s merely curious about who this recipient might be rather than showing that she’s upset/jealous of the fact that said person exists.

For the collapsed tunnel segment, the Remake adds the recurring bit of Aerith and Cloud trying to successfully complete a high-five. While this is certainly a way to show them getting closer, it’s about least intimate way that SE could have done so. Just think about the alternatives — you could have Cloud and Aerith sharing brief tidbits of their lives after each mechanical arm, you could have them trying to reach for each other’s hand. Instead, SE chose an action that is we’ve seen performed between a number of different platonic buddies, and an action that Aerith immediately performs with Tifa upon meeting her. Not to mention, even while they are technically getting closer, Cloud still rejects (or at least tries to) Aerith’s invitations to extend their time together twice — at the fire and at the playground.

One aspect from these two Chapters that does has plenty of set up and a satisfying payoff is Aerith’s interest in Cloud’s SOLDIER background. You have the weirdness of Aerith already knowing that Cloud was in SOLDIER without him mentioning it first, followed by Elmyra’s antipathy towards SOLDIERs in general, not to mention Aerith actively fishing for information about Cloud’s time in SOLDIER. (For players who’ve played Crisis Core, the reason for her behavior is even more obvious, with her “one date” gesture mirroring Zack’s, and her line to Cloud in front of the tunnel a near duplicate of what she says to Zack — at least in the original Japanese).

Finally, at the playground, it’s revealed that the reason for all this weirdness is because Aerith’s first love was also a SOLDIER who was the same rank as Cloud. Unlike in the OG, Cloud does not exhibit any potential jealousy by asking about the nature of her relationship, and Aerith doesn’t try to play it off by dismissing the seriousness. In fact, with the emotional nuance we can now see on her face, we can understand the depth of her feelings even if she cannot articulate them.

This is the first scene in the Remake where Cloud and Aerith have a genuine conversation. Thus, finally, Cloud expresses some hesitation before he leaves her — and as far as he knows, this could be the last time they see each other. You can interpret this hesitation as romantic longing or it could just as easily be Cloud being a bit sad to part from a new friend. Regardless, it’s notable that scene is preceded by one where Aerith is talking about her first love who she clearly isn’t over, and followed by a scene where Cloud sprints across the screen, without a backwards glance at Aerith, after seeing a glimpse of Tifa through a tiny window in a Chocobo cart that’s about a hundred yards away.

The Wall Market segment in the Remake is quite explicitly about Cloud’s desire to save Tifa. In the OG, Aerith has no trouble getting into Corneo’s mansion on her own, so I can see how someone could misinterpret Cloud going through all the effort to dress as a woman to protect Aerith from the Don’s wiles (though of course, you would need to ask, why they trying to infiltrate the mansion in the first place?). In the Remake, Cloud has to go through herculean efforts to even get Aerith in front of the Don. Everyone who is aware of Cloud’s cause, from Sam to Leslie to Johnny to Andrea to Aerith herself, comments on how hard he’s working to save Tifa and how important she must be to him for him to do so. In case there’s any confusion, the Remake also includes a scene where Cloud is prepared to bust into the mansion on his own, leaving Aerith to fend for herself, after Johnny comes with news that Tifa is in trouble.

Both Cloud and Aerith get big dress reveals in the Remake. If you get Aerith’s best dress, Cloud’s reaction can certainly be read as one of attraction, but since the game continues on the same regardless of which dress you get, it’s not meant to mark a shift in Cloud and Aerith’s relationship. Rather, it’s a reward for the player for completing however many side quests in Ch. 8, especially since the Remake incentives the player to get every dress and thus see all of Cloud’s reactions by making it a Trophy and including it in the play log.

A significant and very welcome change from the OG to the Remake is Tifa and Aerith’s relationship dynamic. In the OG, the girls’ first meeting in Corneo’s mansion starts with them fighting over Cloud (by pretending not to fight over Cloud). In the Remake, the sequence of events is reversed so that it starts off with Cloud’s reunion with Tifa (again emphasizing that the whole purpose of the infiltration is because Cloud wants to save Tifa). Then when Aerith wakes, she’s absolutely thrilled to make Tifa’s acquaintance, hardly acknowledging Cloud at all. Tifa is understandably more wary at first, but once they start working together, they become fast friends.

Also interesting is that from the moment Aerith and Tifa meet, almost every instance where Cloud could be shown worrying about Aerith or trying to comfort Aerith is given to Tifa instead. In the OG, it’s Cloud who frets about Aerith getting involved in the plot to question the Don, and regrets getting her mixed up in everything once they land in the sewers. In the Remake, those very same reservations are expressed by Tifa instead. Tifa is the one who saves Aerith when the platform collapses in the sewer. Tifa is the one who emotionally comforts Aerith after they’re separated in the train graveyard. (Cloud might be the one who physically saves her, but he doesn’t even so much give her a second glance to check on her well-being before he runs off to face Eligor. He leaves that job for Tifa). It almost feels like the Remake is going out of its way to avoid any moments between Cloud and Aerith that could be interpreted as romantic. In fact, after Corneo’s mansion, unless you get Aerith’s resolution, there are almost no one-on-one interactions at all between Cloud and Aerith. Such is not the case with Cloud and Tifa. In fact, right after defeating Abzu in the sewers, Cloud runs after Tifa, and asks her if what she’s saying is one of those slum lessons — continuing right where they left off.

Ch. 11 feels like a wink-wink nudge-nudge way to acknowledge the LTD. You have the infamous shot of the two girls on each of Cloud’s arms, and two scenes where Cloud appears as if he’s unable to choose between them when he asks them if they’re okay. Of course, in this same Chapter, you have a scene during the boss fight with the Phantom where Cloud actually pulls Tifa away from Aerith, leaving Aerith to defend herself, for an extended sequence where he tries to keep Tifa safe. This is not something SE would include if their intention is to keep Cloud’s romantic interest ambiguous or if Aerith is meant to be the one he loves. Of course, Ch. 11 is not the first we see of this trio’s dynamic. We start with Ch. 10, which is all about Aerith and Tifa’s friendship. Ch. 11 is a nod to the LTD dynamic in the OG, but it’s just that, a nod, not an indication the Remake is following the same path. Halfway through Ch. 11, the dynamic completely disappears.

Ch. 12 changes things up a bit from the OG. Instead of Cloud and Tifa ascending the pillar together, Cloud goes up first. Seemingly just so that we can have the dramatic slow-mo handgrab scene between the two of them when Tifa decides to run after Cloud — right after Aerith tells her to follow her heart.

The Remake also shows us what happens when Aerith goes to find Marlene at Seventh Heaven — including the moment when Aerith sees the flower she gave Cloud by the bar register, and Aerith is finally able to connect the dots. After seeing Cloud be so cagey about who he gave the flower to, and weird about his relationship with Tifa, and after seeing how Cloud and Tifa act around each other. It finally makes sense. She’s figured it out before they have. It’s a beautiful payoff to all that set up. Any other interpretation of Aerith’s reaction doesn’t make a lick of sense, because if it’s to indict she’s jealous of Tifa, where is all the set up for that? Why did the Remake eliminate all the moments from the OG where she had been noticeably jealous before? Without this, that interpretation makes about as much sense as someone arguing Aerith is smiling because she’s thinking about a great sandwich she had the night before. In case anyone is confused, the scene is preceded by a moment where Aerith tells Tifa to follow her heart before she goes after Cloud, and followed by the moment where Cloud catches Tifa via slow-motion handgrab.

On the pillar itself, there are so many added moments of Cloud showing his concern for Tifa’s physical and emotional well-being. Even when they find Jessie, as sad as Cloud is over Jessie’s death, the game actually spends more time showing us Cloud’s reaction to Tifa crying over Jessie’s death, and Cloud’s inability to comfort her. Since so much of this is physical rather than verbal, this couldn’t have effectively been shown in the OG with its technological limitations.

After the pillar collapses, we start off with a couple of other moments showing Cloud’s concern over Tifa — watching over her as she wakes, his dramatic fist clench while he watches Barret comfort Tifa in a way he cannot. There is also a subtle but important change in the dialogue. In the OG, Tifa is the one who tells Barret that Marlene is safe because she was with Aerith. Cloud is also on his way to Sector 5, but it’s for the explicit purpose of trying to save Aerith, which we know because Tifa asks. In the Remake, Tifa is too emotionally devastated to comfort Barret about Marlene. Cloud, trying to help in the only way he can, is now the one to tell Barret about Marlene. Leading them to Sector 5 is no longer about him trying to help Aerith, but about him reuniting Barret with his daughter. Again, another moment where Cloud shows concern about Aerith in the OG is eliminated from the Remake.

Rather than going straight from Aerith’s house to trying to figure out a way into the Shinra building to find Aerith, the group takes a detour to check out the ruins of Sector 7 and rescue Wedge from Shinra’s underground lab. It’s only upon seeing the evidence of Shinra’s inhumane experimentation firsthand that Cloud articulates to Elmyra the need to rescue Aerith. In the OG, they never sought out Elmyra’s permission, and Tifa explicitly asks to join Cloud on his quest. Rescuing Aerith is framed as primarily Cloud’s goal, Tifa and Barret are just along for the ride.

In the Remake, all three wait until Elymra gives them her blessing, and it’s framed (quite literally) as the group’s collective goal as opposed to just Cloud’s.

In the aptly named Ch. 14 resolutions, each marks the culmination of the character’s arc for the Part 1 of Remake. While their arcs are by no means complete, they do offer a nice preview of what their ultimate resolutions will be.

With the exception of Tifa’s, these resolutions are primarily about the character themselves. Their relationships with Cloud are secondary. Each resolution marks a change in the character themselves, but not necessarily a change in Cloud’s relationship with said character. Barret recommits to AVALANCHE’s mission and his role as a leader despite the deep personal costs. Aerith’s is full of foreshadowing as she accept her fate and impending death and decides to make the most of the time she has left. After trying to put aside her own feelings for the sake of others the whole time, Tifa finally allows herself to feel the full devastation of losing her home for the second time. Like her ultimate resolution in the Lifestream that we’ll see in about 25 years, Cloud is the only person she can share this sentiment with because he was the only person who was there.

Barret does not grow closer to Cloud through his resolution. Cloud has already proved himself to him by helping out on the pillar and reuniting him with Marlene. Barret resolution merely reveals that Barret is now comfortable enough with Cloud to share his past.

Similarly, Cloud starts off Aerith’s resolution with an intent to go rescue her, and ends with that intent still intact. Aerith is more open about her feelings here than before, it being a dream and all, but these feelings aren’t something that developed during this scene.

The only difference is during Tifa’s resolution. Cloud has been unable to emotionally comfort Tifa up until this point. It’s only when Tifa starts crying and rests her head upon his shoulder that he is able to make a change, to make a choice and hug her. Halfway through Tifa’s resolution, the scene shifts its focus to Cloud, his inaction and eventual action. Notably, the only time we have a close-up of any character during all three resolutions (I’ll define close-up here as a shot where a character’s face takes up half or more of the shot), are three shots of Cloud when he’s hugging/trying to hug Tifa. Tifa’s resolution is the only one where Cloud arcs.

What of the whole “You can’t fall in love with me” line in Aerith’s resolution? Why would SE include that if not to foreshadow Cloud falling in love with Aerith? Or indicate that he has already? Well, you can’t just take the dialogue on its own, you how to look at how these lines are framed. Notably, when she says “you can’t fall in love with me,” Aerith is framed at the center of the shot, and almost looks like she’s directly addressing the player. It’s as much a warning for the player as it is for Cloud, which makes sense if you know her fate in the OG.

This is followed directly by her saying “Even if you think you have…it’s not real.” In this shot, it’s back to a standard shot/reverse shot where she is the left third of the frame. She is addressing Cloud here, which, again if you’ve played the OG, is another bit of heavy foreshadowing. The reason Clould would think he might be in love with Aerith is because he’s falsely assuming of the memories of a man who did love Aerith — Zack.

For Cloud’s response (”Do I get a say in all this?”/ “That’s very one-sided” depending on the translation), rather than showing a shot of his face, the Remake shows him with his back turned.

Whatever Cloud’s feelings may be for Aerith, the game seems rather indifferent to them.

What is more telling is the choice to include a bit with Cloud getting jealous over a guy trying to give Tifa flowers in Barret’s resolution. Barret also mentions both Jessie and Aerith in their conversation, but nothing else gets such a reaction from Cloud.

It also should go without saying that if Aerith’s resolution is meant to establish Cloud and Aerith’s romance, there should have been plenty of set-up beforehand and plenty of follow-through afterward. That obviously is not the case, because again, the Remake has gone out of its way to avoid moments where Cloud’s actions towards Aerith could be interpreted romantically.

Case in point, at around this time in the OG, Marlene tells Cloud that she thinks Aerith likes him and the player has the option to have Cloud express his hope that she does. This scene is completely eliminated from the Remake and replaced with a much more appropriate scene of father-daughter affection between Marlene and Barret while Tifa and Cloud are standing together outside.

The method by which they get up the plate is completely different in the Remake. Leslie is the one who helps them this time around, and though his quest to reunite with his fiance directly parallels with the trio’s desire to save Aerith, Leslie himself draws a comparison to earlier when Cloud was trying to rescue Tifa. Finally, when Abzu is defeated again, it is Barret who draws the parallel of their search for Aerith to Leslie’s search for his fiance, making it crystal clear that saving Aerith is a group effort rather than only Cloud’s.

Speaking of Barret, in the OG, he seems to reassess his opinion of Cloud in the Shinra HQ stairs when he sees Cloud working so hard to save Aerith and realizes he might actually care about other people. In the Remake, that reevaluation occurs after you complete all the Ch. 14 sidequests and help a bunch of NPCs. Arguably, this moment occurs even earlier in the Remake for Barret, after the Airbuster, when he realizes that Cloud is more concerned for his and Tifa’s safety than his own.

Overall, the entire Aerith rescue feels so anticlimactic in the Remake. In the OG, Cloud gets his big hero moment in the Shinra Building. He’s the one who runs up to Aerith when the glass shatters and they finally reunite. In the Remake, it’s unclear what the emotional stakes are for Cloud here. At their big reunion, all we get from him is a “Yep.” In fact, when you look at how this scene plays out, Aerith is positioned equally between Cloud and Tifa at the moment of her rescue. Cloud’s answer is again with his back turned to the camera. It’s Tifa who gets her own shot with her response.

Another instance of the Remake being completely indifferent to Cloud’s feelings for Aerith, and actually priotizing Tifa’s relationship with Aerith instead.

It is also Tifa who runs to reunite with Aerith after the group of enemies is defeated. Another moment that could have easily been Cloud’s that the Remake gives to Tifa.

Also completely eliminated in the Remake, is the “I’m your bodyguard. / The deal was for one date” exchange in the jail cells. In the Remake, after Ch. 8, the date isn’t brought up again at all; “the bodyguard” reference only comes up briefly in Ch. 11 and then never again.

In the Remake, the jail scene is replaced by the scene in Aerith’s childhood room. Despite the fact that this is Aerith’s room, it is Tifa’s face that Cloud first sees when he wakes. What purpose does this moment serve other than to showcase Cloud and Tifa’s intimacy and the other characters’ tacit acknowledgment of said intimacy?

(This is the second time where Cloud wakes up and Tifa is the first thing he sees. The other was at Corneo’s mansion. He comes to three times in the Remake, but in Ch. 8, even though Aerith is right in front of him, we start off with a few seconds of Cloud gazing around the church before settling on the person in front of him. Again, while not something that most players would notice, this feels like a deliberate choice.)

Especially since this scene itself is all about Aerith. She begins a sad story about her past, and Cloud, rather than trying to comfort her in any way, asks her to give us some exposition about the Ancients. When the Whispers surround her, even though Cloud is literally right there, it's Tifa who pulls her out of it and comforts her. Another moment that could have been Cloud that was given to Tifa, and honestly, this one feels almost bizarre.

Throughout the entire Shinra HQ episode, Cloud and Aerith haven’t had a single moment alone to themselves. The Drums scenario is completely invented for the Remake. The devs could have contrived a way for Cloud and Aerith to have some one-on-one time here and work through the feelings they expressed during Aerith’s resolution if they wanted. Instead, with the mandatory party configurations during this stage - Cloud & Barret on one side; Tifa & Aerith on the others, with Cloud & Tifa being the respective team leaders communicating over PHS, the Remake minimizes the amount of interaction Cloud and Aerith have with each other in this chapter.

On the rooftop, before Cloud’s solo fight with Rufus, even though Cloud is ostensibly doing all this so that they can bring Aerith to safety, the Remake doesn’t include a single shot that focuses on Aerith’s face and her reaction to his actions. The game has decided, whatever Aerith’s feelings are in this moment, they’re irrelevant to the story they’re trying to tell. Instead we get shots focusing solely on Barret and Tifa. While the Remake couldn’t find any time to develop Cloud and Aerith’s relationship at the Shinra Tower (even though the OG certainly did), it did find time to add a new scene where Tifa saves Cloud from certain death, while referencing their Promise.

A lot of weird shit happens after this, but it’s pretty much all plot and no character. We do get one more moment where Cloud saves Tifa (and Tifa alone) from the Red Whisper even though Aerith is literally right next to her. The Remake isn’t playing coy at all about where Cloud’s preferences lie.

The party order for the Sephiroth battle varies depending on how you fought the Whispers. All the other character entrances (whoever the 3rd party member is, then the 4th and Red) are essentially the exact same shots, with the characters replaced. It’s the first character entrance (which can only be Aerith or  Tifa) that you have two distinct options.

If Aerith is first, the camera pans from Cloud over to Aerith. It then cuts back to Cloud’s reaction, in a separate shot, as Aerith walks to join him (offscreen). It’s only when the player regains control of the characters that Cloud and Aerith ever share the frame.

On the other hand, if Tifa is first, we see Tifa land from Cloud’s POV. Cloud then walks over to join Tifa and they immediately share a frame, facing Sephiroth together.

Again, this is not something SE would expect the player to notice the first or even second time around. Honestly, I doubt anyone would notice at all unless they watched all these variations back to back. That is telling in itself, that SE would go through all this effort (making these scenes unique rather than copy and pasting certainly takes more time and effort) to ensure that the depictions of Cloud’s relationships with these two women are distinct despite the fact that hardly anyone would notice. Even in the very last chapter of the game, they want us to see Cloud and Tifa as a pair and Cloud and Aerith as individuals.

Which isn’t to say that Aerith is being neglected in the Remake. Quite the opposite, in fact, when she has essentially become the main protagonist and the group’s spirtual leader in Ch. 18. Rather, her relationship with Cloud is no longer an essential part of her character. Not to mention, one of the very last shots of the Remake is about Aerith sensing Zack’s presence. Again, not the kind of thing you want to bring up if the game is supposed to show her being in love with Cloud.

What does it all mean????

Phew — now let’s step back and look and how the totality of these changes have reshaped our understanding of the story as a whole. Looking solely at the Midgar section of the OG, and ignoring everything that comes after it, it seems to tell a pretty straightforward story: Cloud is a cold-hearted jerk who doesn’t care about anyone else until he meets Aerith. It is through his relationship with Aerith that he begins to soften up and starts giving a damn about something other than himself. This culminates when he risks it all to rescue Aerith from the clutches of the game’s Big Bad itself, The Shinra Electric Company.

This was honestly the reason why I was dreading the Remake when I learned that it would only cover the Midgar segment. A game that’s merely an expansion of the Midgar section of the OG is probably going to leave a lot of people believing that Cloud & Aerith were the intended couple, and I didn’t want to wait years and perhaps decades for vindication after the Remake’s Lifestream Scene.

I imagine this very scenario is what motivated SE to make so many of these changes. In the OG, they could get away with misdirecting the audience for the first few hours of the game since the rest of the story and the reveals were already completed. The player merely had to pop in the next disc to get the real story. Such is not the case with the Remake. Had the the Remake followed the OG’s beats more closely, many players, including some who’ve never played the OG, would finish the Remake thinking that Cloud and Aerith were the intended couple. It would be years until they got the rest of the story, and at that point, the truth would feel much more like a betrayal. Like they’ve been cruelly strung along.

While they’ve gone out of their way to adapt most elements from the OG into the Remake, they’ve straight up eliminated many scenes that could be interpreted as Cloud’s romantic interest in Aerith. Instead, he seems much more interested in her knowledge as an Ancient than in her romantic affections. This is the path the Remake could be taking. Instead of Cloud being under the illusion of falling in love with Aerith, he’s under the illusion that the answer to his identity dilemma lies in Aerith’s Cetra heritage, when, of course, the answer was with Tifa all along.

Hiding Sephiroth’s existence during the Midgar arc isn’t necessary to telling the story of FF7, thus it’s been eliminated in the Remake. Similarly, pretending that Cloud and Aerith are going to end up together also isn’t necessary and would only confuse the player. Thus the LTD is no longer a part of the Remake.

If Aerith’s impact on Cloud has been diminished, what then is his arc in the Remake? Is it essentially just the same without the catalyst of Aerith? A cold guy at the start who eventually learns to care about others through the course of the game? Kind of, though arguably, this is who Remake!Cloud is all along, not just Cloud at the end of the Remake. Cloud is a guy who pretends to be a selfish jerk, but he deep down he really does care. He just doesn’t show this side of himself around people he’s unfamiliar with. So part of his arc in the Remake is opening up to the others, Barret, AVALANCHE and Aerith included, but these all span a chapter or two at most. They don’t straddle the entire game.

What is the throughline then? What is an area in which he exhibits continuous growth?

It’s Tifa. It’s his desire to fulfill his Promise to Tifa. Not just to protect her physically, but to be there for her emotionally, something that’s much harder to do. There’s the big moments like when he remembers the Promise in Ch. 4., his dramatic fist clench when he can’t stop Tifa from crying in Ch. 12, and in Ch. 13 when he watches Barret comfort Tifa. It’s all the flashbacks he has of her and the times he’s felt like he failed her. It’s the smaller moments where he can sense her nervousness and unease but the only thing he knows how to do is call her name. It’s all those times during battle, where Tifa can probably take care of herself, but Cloud has to save her because he can’t fail her again. All of this culminates in Tifa’s Resolution, where Tifa is in desperate need of comfort, and is specifically seeking Cloud’s comfort, and Cloud has no idea what to do. He hesitates because he’s clueless, because he doesn’t want to fuck it up, but finally, he makes the choice, he takes the risk, and he hugs her….and he kind of fucks it up. He hugs her too hard. Which is a great thing, because this arc isn’t anywhere close to being over. There’s still so much more to come. So many places this relationship will go.

We get a little preview of this when Tifa saves Cloud on the roof. Everything we thought we knew about their relationship has been flipped on its head. Tifa is the one saving Cloud here, near the end of this part of the Remake. Just as she will save Cloud in the Lifestream just before the end of the FF7 story as a whole. What does Tifa mean to Cloud? It’s one of the first questions posed in the Remake, and by the end, it remains unanswered.

Cloud’s character arc throughout the entire FF7 story is about his reconciling with his identity issues. This continues to develop through the Shinra Tower Chapters, but it certainly isn’t going to be resolved in Part 1 of the Remake. His character arc in the Remake — caring more about others/finding a way to finally comfort Tifa — is resolved in Ch. 14, well before rescuing Aerith, which is what makes her rescue feel so anticlimactic. The resolution of this external conflict isn’t tied to the protagonist’s emotional arc. This was not the case in the OG. I’m certainly not complaining about the change, but the Remake probably would have felt more satisfying as a whole if they hewed to the structure of the OG. Instead, it seems that SE has prioritized the clarity of the Remake series as a whole (leaving no doubt about where Cloud’s affections lie) over the effectiveness of the “climax” in the first entry of the Remake.

This is all clear if you only focus on the “story” of the Remake -- i.e., what the characters are saying and doing. If you extend your lens to the presentation of said story, and here I’m talking about who the game chooses to focus on during the scenes, how long they hold on these shots, which characters share the frame, which do not, etc --- it really could not be more obvious.

Does the camera need to linger for over 5 seconds on Cloud staring at the door after wishing Tifa goodnight? Does it need to find Cloud almost every time Tifa says or does anything so that we’re always aware of his watchfulness and the nature of his care? The answer is no until you realize this dynamic is integral to telling the story of Final Fantasy VII.

I don’t see how anyone who compares the Remake to the OG could come away from it thinking that the Remake series is going to reverse all of the work done in the OG and Compilation by having Cloud end up with Aerith.

Just because the ending seems to indicate that the events of the OG might not be set in stone, it doesn’t mean that the Remake will end with Aerith surviving and living happily ever after with Cloud. Even if Aerith does live (which again seems unlikely given the heavy foreshadowing of her death in the Remake), how do you come away from the Remake thinking that Cloud is going to choose Aerith over Tifa when SE has gone out of its way to remove scenes between Cloud and Aerith that could be interpreted as romantic? And gone out of its way to shove Cloud’s feelings for Tifa in the player’s face? The sequels would have to spend an obscene amount of time not only building Cloud and Aerith’s relationship from scratch, but also dismantling Cloud’s relationship with Tifa. It would be an absolute waste of time and resources, and there’s really no way to do so without making the characters look like assholes in the process.

Now could this happen? Sure, in the sense that literally anything could happen in the future. But in terms of outcomes that would make sense based on what’s come before, this particular scenario is about as plausible as Cloud deciding to relinquish his quest to find Sephiroth so that he can pursue his real dream of becoming at sandwich artist at Panera Bread.

It’s over! I promise!

Like you, I too cannot believe the number of words I’ve wasted on this subject. What is there left to say? The LTD doesn’t exist outside of the first disc of the OG. You'll only find evidence of SE perpetuating the LTD if you go into these stories with the assumption that 1) The LTD exists 2) it remains unanswered. But it’s not. We know that Cloud ends up with Tifa.

What the LTD has become is dissecting individual scenes and lines of dialogue, without considering the context of said things, and pretending as if the outcome is unknown and unknowable. If you took this tact to other aspects of FF7’s story, then it would be someone arguing that because there a number of scenes in the OG that seem to suggest that Meteor will successfully destroy the planet, this means that the question of whether or not our heroes save the world in the end is left ambiguous. No one does that because that would be utterly absurd. Individual moments in a story may suggest alternate outcomes to build tension, to keep us on our toes, but that doesn’t change the ending from being the ending. Our heroes stop Meteor. Cloud loves Tifa. Arguments against either should be treated with the same level of credulity (i.e., none).

It’s frustrating that the LTD, and insecurities about whether or not Cloud really loves Tifa, takes up so much oxygen in any discussion about these characters. And it’s a damn shame, because Cloud and Tifa’s relationship is so rich and expansive, and the so-called “LTD” is such a tiny sliver of that relationship, and one of the least interesting aspects. They’re wonderful because they’re just so damn normal. Unlike other Final Fantasy couples, what keeps them apart is not space and time and death, but the most human and painfully relatable emotion of all, fear. Fear that they can’t live up to the other’s expectations; fear that they might say the wrong thing. The fear that keeps them from admitting their feelings at the Water Tower, they’re finally able to overcome 7 years later in the Lifestream. They’re childhood friends but in a way they’re also strangers. Like other FF couples, we’re able to watch their entire relationship grow and unfold before our eyes. But they have such a history too, a history that we unravel with them at the same time. Every moment of their lives that SE has found worth depicting, they’ve been there for each other, even if they didn’t know it at the time. Theirs is a story that begins and ends with each other. Their is the story that makes Final Fantasy VII what it is.

If you’ve made it this far, many thanks for reading. I truly have no idea how to use this platform, so please direct any and all hatemail to my DMs at TLS, which I will then direct to the trash. (In all seriousness, I’d be happy to answer any specific questions you may have, but I feel like I’ve more than said my piece here.)

If there’s one thing you take away from this, I hope it’s to learn to ignore all the ridiculous arguments out there, and just enjoy the story that’s actually being told. It’s a good one.

#cloti

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Anonymous said: I didn’t know too much about the late British philosopher Sir Roger Scruton until I followed your superbly cultured blog. As an ivy league educated American reading your posts, I feel he is a breath of fresh air as a sane and cultured conservative intellectual. We don’t really have his kind over here where things are heavily polarized between left and right, and sadly, we are often uncivil in our discourse. Sir Roger Scruton talks a lot about beauty especially in art (as indeed you do too), so for Scruton why does beauty as an aesthetic matter in art? Why should we care?

I thank you for your very kind words about my blog which I fear is not worthy of such fulsome praise.

However one who is worthy of praise (or at least gratitude and appreciation at least) is the late Sir Roger Scruton. I have had the pleasure to have met him on a few informal occasions.

Most memorably, I once got invited to High Table dinner at Peterhouse, Cambridge, by a friend who was a junior Don there. This was just after I had finished my studies at Cambridge and rather than pursue my PhD I opted instead to join the British army as a combat pilot officer. And so I found out that Scruton was dining too. We had very pleasant drinks in the SCR before and after dinner. He was exceptionally generous and kind in his consideration of others; we all basked in the gentle warmth of his wit and wisdom.

I remember talking to him about Xanthippe, Socrate’s wife, because I had read his wickedly funny fictional satire. In the book he credits the much maligned Xanthippe with being the brains behind all of Socrates’ famous philosophical ideas (as espoused by Plato).

On other occasions I had seen Roger Scruton give the odd lecture in London or at some cultural forum.

Other than that, I’ve always admire both the man and many of his ideas from afar. I do take issue with some of his intellectual ideas which seem to be taken a tad too far (he think pre-Raphaelites were kitsch) but it’s impossible to dislike the man in person.

Indeed the Marxist philosopher G.A. Cohen reportedly once refused to teach a seminar with Scruton, although they later became very good friends. This is the gap between the personal and the public persona. In public he was reviled as hate figure by some of the more intolerant of the leftists who were trying to shut him down from speaking. But in private his academic peers, writers, and philosophers, regardless of their political beliefs, hugely respected him and took his ideas seriously - because only in private will they ever admit that much of what Scruton talks about has come to pass.

In many ways he was like C.S. Lewis - a pariah to the Oxbridge establishment. At Oxford many dons poo-pooed his children stories, and especially his Christian ideas of faith, culture, and morality, and felt he should have laid off the lay theology and stuck to his academic speciality of English Literature. But an Oxford friend, now a don, tells me that many dons read his theological works in private because much of what he wrote has become hugely relevant today.

Scruton was a man of parts, some of which seemed irreconcilable: barrister, aesthetician, distinguished professor of aesthetics. Outside of brief pit stops at Cambridge, Oxford, and St Andrews, he was mostly based out of Birkbeck College, London University, which had a tradition of a working-class intake and to whom Scruton was something of a popular figure. He was also an editor of the ultra-Conservative Salisbury Review, organist, and an enthusiastic fox hunter. In addition he wrote over 50 books on philosophy, art, music, politics, literature, culture, sexuality, and religion, as well as finding time to write novels and two operas. He was widely recognised for his services to philosophy, teaching and public education, receiving a knighthood in 2016.

He was exactly the type of polymath England didn’t know what to do with because we British do discourage such continental affectations and we prefer people to know their lane and stick to it. Above all we’re suspicious of polymaths because no one likes a show off. Scruton could be accused of a few things but he never perceived as a show off. He was a gentle, reserved, and shy man of kindly manners.

He was never politically ‘Conservative’, or tried not to be. Indeed he encouraged many to think about defining “a philosophy of conservatism” and not “a philosophy for the Conservative Party.” In defining his own thoughts, he positioned conservatism to relation to its historical rivals, liberalism and socialism. He wrote that liberalism was the product of the enlightenment, which viewed society as a contract and the state as a system for guaranteeing individual rights. While he saw socialism as the product of the industrial revolution, and an ideology which views society as an economic system and the state as a means of distributing social wealth.

Like another great English thinkers, Michael Oakeshott, he felt that conservatives leaned more towards liberalism then socialism, but argued that for conservatives, freedom should also entail responsibility, which in turn depends on public spirit and virtue. Many classical liberals would agree.

In fact, he criticised Thatcherism for “its inadequate emphasis on the civic virtues, such as self-sacrifice, duty, solidarity and service of others.” Scruton agreed with classical liberals in believing that markets are not necessarily expressions of selfishness and greed, but heavily scolded his fellow Conservatives for allowing themselves to be caricatured as leaving social problems to the market. Classical liberals could be criticised for the same neglect.

Perhaps his conservative philosophy was best summed up when he wrote “Liberals seek freedom, socialists equality, and conservatives responsibility. And, without responsibility, neither freedom nor equality have any lasting value.”

Scruton’s politics were undoubtedly linked to his philosophy, which was broadly Hegelian. He took the view that all of the most important aspects of life – truth (the perception of the world as it is), beauty (the creation and appreciation of things valued for their own sake), and self-realisation (the establishment by a person of a coherent, autonomous identity) – can be achieved only as part of a cultural community within which meaning, standards and values are validated. But he had a wide and deep understanding of the history of western philosophy as a whole, and some of his best philosophical work consisted of explaining much more clearly than is often the case how different schools of western philosophy relate to one another.

People today still forget how he was a beacon for many East European intellectuals living under Communist rule in the 1980s.  Scruton was deeply attached in belonging to a network of renowned Western scholars who were helping the political opposition in Eastern Europe. Their activity began in Czechoslovakia with the Jan Hus Foundation in 1980, supported by a broad spectrum of scholars from Jacques Derrida and Juergen Habermas to Roger Scruton and David Regan. Then came Poland, Hungary and later Romania. In Poland, Scruton co-founded the Jagiellonian Trust, a small but significant organisation. The other founders and active participants were Baroness Caroline Cox, Jessica Douglas-Home, Kathy Wilkes, Agnieszka Kołakowska, Dennis O’Keeffe, Timothy Garton Ash, and others.

Scruton had a particular sympathy for Prague and the Czech society, which bore fruit in the novel, Notes from Underground, which he wrote many years later. But his involvement in East European affairs was more than an emotional attachment.  He believed that Eastern Europe - despite the communist terror and aggressive social engineering - managed to preserve a sense of historical continuity and strong ties to European and national traditions, more unconscious than openly articulated, which made it even more valuable. For this reason, decades later, he warned his East European friends against joining the European Union, arguing that whatever was left of those ties will be demolished by the political and ideological bulldozer of European bureaucracy.

Anyway, digressions aside, onto to the heart of your question.

Art matters.

Let’s start from there. Regardless of your personal tastes or aesthetics as you stand before a painting, slip inside a photograph, run your hand along the length of a sculpture, or move your body to the arrangements spiraling out of the concert speakers…something very primary - and primal - is happening. And much of it sub-conscious. There’s an element of trust.

Political philosopher, Hannah Arendt, defined artworks as “thought things,” ideas given material form to inspire reflection and rumination. Dialogue. Sometimes even discomfort. Art has the ability to move us, both positively and negatively. So we know that art matters. But the question posed by modern philosophers such as Roger Scruton has been: how do we want it to affect us?

Are we happy with the direction art is taking? Namely, says, Scruton, away from seeking “higher virtues” such as beauty and craftmanship, and instead, towards novelty for novelty’s sake, provoking emotional response under the guise of socio-political discourse.

Why does beauty in art matter?  

Scruton asks us to wake up and start demanding something more from art other than disposable entertainment. “Through the pursuit of beauty,” suggests Scruton, “we shape the world as our own and come to understand our nature as spiritual beings. But art has turned its back on beauty and now we are surrounded by ugliness.” The great artists of the past, says Scruton, “were painfully aware that human life was full of care and suffering, but their remedy was beauty. The beautiful work of art brings consolation in sorrow and affirmation…It shows human life to be worthwhile.” But many modern artists, argues the philosopher, have become weary of this “sacred task” and replaced it with the “randomness” of art produced merely to gain notoriety and the result has been anywhere between kitsch to ugliness that ultimately leads to inward alienation and nihilistic despair.

The best way to understand Scruton’s idea of beauty in art and why it matters is to let him speak for himself. Click below on the video and watch a BBC documentary broadcast way back in 2009 that he did precisely on this subject, why beauty matters. It will not be a wasted hour but perhaps enrich and even enlighten your perspective on the importance of beauty in art.

So I’ll do my best to summarise the point Scruton is making in this documentary above.

Here goes.....

In his 2009 documentary “Why Beauty Matters”, Scruton argues that beauty is a universal human need that elevates us and gives meaning to life. He sees beauty as a value, as important as truth or goodness, that can offer “consolation in sorrow and affirmation in joy”, therefore showing human life to be worthwhile.

According to Scruton, beauty is being lost in our modern world, particularly in the fields of art and architecture.

I was raised in many different cultures from India, Pakistan, to China, Japan, Southern Africa, and the Middle East as well schooling in rural Britain and Switzerland. So coming home to London on frequent visits was often a confusing experience because of the mismatch of modern art and new architecture. In life and in art I have chosen to see the beauty in things, locating myself in Paris, where I am surrounded by beauty, and understand the impact it can have on the everyday.

Scruton’s disdain for modern art begins with Marcel Duchamp’s urinal. Originally a satirical piece designed to mock the world of art and the snobberies that go with it, it has come to mean that anything can be art and anyone can be an artist. A “cult of ugliness” was created where originality is placed above beauty and the idea became more important than the artwork itself. He argues that art became a joke, endorsed by critics, doing away with a need for skill, taste or creativity.

Duchamp’s argument was that the value of any object lies solely in what each individual assigns it, and thus, anything can be declared “art,” and anyone an artist.

But is there something wrong with the idea that everything is art and everyone an artist? If we celebrate the democratic ideals of all citizens being equal and therefore their input having equal value, doesn’t Duchamp’s assertion make sense?

Who’s to say, after all, what constitutes beauty?

This resonated with me in particular and brought to mind when Scruton meets the artist Michael Craig-Martin and asks him about how Duchamp’s urinal first made him feel. Martin is best known for his work “An Oak Tree” which is a glass of water on a shelf, with text beside it explaining why it is an oak tree. Martin argues that Duchamp captures the imagination and that art is an art because we think of it as such.

When I first saw “An Oak Tree” I was confused and felt perhaps I didn’t have the intellect to understand it. When I would later question it with friends who worked in the art auction and gallery world, the response was always “You just don’t get it,” which became a common defence. To me, it was reminiscent of Hans Christian Andersen’s short tale “The Emperor’s New Clothes”, about two weavers who promise an emperor a new suit of clothes that they say is invisible to those who are unfit for their positions, stupid or incompetent. In reality, they make no clothes at all.

Scruton argues that the consumerist culture has been the catalyst for this change in modern art. We are always being sold something, through advertisements that feed our appetite for stuff, adverts try to be brash and outrageous to catch our attention. Art mimics advertising as artists attempt to create brands, the product that they sell is themselves. The more shocking and outrageous the artwork, the more attention it receives. Scruton is particularly disturbed by Piero Manzoni’s artwork “Artist’s Shit” which consists of 90 tin cans filled with the artist’s excrement.

Moreover the true aesthetic value, the beauty, has vanished in modern works that are selling for millions of dollars. In such works, by artists like Rothko, Franz Kline, Damien Hirst, and Tracey Emin, the beauty has been replaced by discourse. The lofty ideals of beauty are replaced by a social essay, however well intentioned.

A common argument for modern art is that it is reflecting modern life in all of its disorder and ugliness. Scruton suggests that great art has always shown the real in the light of the ideal and that in doing so it is transfigured.

A great painting does not necessarily have a beautiful subject matter, but it is made beautiful through the artist’s interpretation of it. Rembrandt shows this with his portraits of crinkly old women and men or the compassion and kindness of which Velazquez paints the dwarfs in the Spanish court. Modern art often takes the literal subject matter and misses the creative act. Scruton expresses this point using the comparison of Tracey Emin’s artwork ‘My Bed’ and a painting by Delacroix of the artist’s bed.

The subject matters are the same. The unmade beds in all of their sordid disdain. Delacroix brings beauty to a thing that lacks it through the considered artistry of his interpretation and by doing so, places a blessing on his own emotional chaos. Emin shares the ugliness that the bed shows by using the literal bed. According to Emin, it is art because she says that it is so.

Philosophers argued that through the pursuit of beauty, we shape the world as our home. Traditional architecture places beauty before utility, with ornate decorative details and proportions that satisfy our need for harmony. It reminds us that we have more than just practical needs but moral and spiritual needs too. Oscar Wilde said “All art is absolutely useless,” intended as praise by placing art above utility and on a level with love, friendship, and worship. These are not necessarily useful but are needed.

We have all experienced the feeling when we see something beautiful. To be transported by beauty, from the ordinary world to, as Scruton calls it, “the illuminated sphere of contemplation.” It is as if we feel the presence of a higher world. Since the beginning of western civilisation, poets and philosophers have seen the experience of beauty as a calling to the divine.

According to Scruton, Plato described beauty as a cosmic force flowing through us in the form of sexual desire. He separated the divine from sexuality through the distinction between love and lust. To lust is to take for oneself, whereas to love is to give. Platonic love removes lust and invites us to engage with it spiritually and not physically. As Plato says, “Beauty is a visitor from another world. We can do nothing with it save contemplate its pure radiance.”

Scruton makes the prescient point that art and beauty were traditionally aligned in religious works of art. Science impacted religion and created a spiritual vacuum. People began to look to nature for beauty, and there was a shift from religious works of art to paintings of landscapes and human life.

In today’s world of art and architecture, beauty is looked upon as a thing of the past with disdain. Scruton believes his vision of beauty gives meaning to the world and saves us from meaningless routines to take us to a place of higher contemplation. In this I think Scruton encourages us not to take revenge on reality by expressing its ugliness, but to return to where the real and the ideal may still exist in harmony “consoling our sorrows and amplifying our joys.”

Scruton believes when you train any of your senses you are privy to a heightened world. The artist sees beauty everywhere and they are able to draw that beauty out to show to others. One finds the most beauty in nature, and nature the best catalyst for creativity. The Tonalist painter George Inness advised artists to paint their emotional response to their subject, so that the viewer may hope to feel it too.

It must be said that Scruton’s views regarding art and beauty are not popular with the modern art crowd and their postmodern advocates. Having written several books on aesthetics, Scruton has developed a largely metaphysical aspect to understanding standards of art and beauty.

Throughout this documentary (and indeed his many books and articles), Scruton display a bias towards ‘high’ art, evidenced by a majority of his examples as well as his dismissal of much modern art. However on everyday beauty, there is much space for Scruton to challenge his own categories and extend his discussion to include examples from popular culture, such as in music, graphic design, and film. Omitting ‘low art’ in the discussion of beauty could lead one to conclude that beauty is not there.

It is here I would part ways with Scruton. I think there is beauty to be found in so called low art of car design, popular music or cinema for example - here I’m thinking of a Ferrari 250 GTO,  jazz, or the films of Bergman, Bresson, or Kurosawa (among others) come to mind. Scruton gives short thrift to such 20th century art forms which should not be discounted when we talk of beauty. It’s hard to argue with Jean-Luc Godard for instance when he once said of French film pioneering director, Robert Bresson, “He is the French cinema, as Dostoevsky is the Russian novel and Mozart is German music.”

Overall though I believe Scruton does enough to leave us to ponder ourselves on the importance of beauty in the arts and our lives, including fine arts, music, and architecture. I think he succeeds in illuminating the poverty, dehumanisation and fraud of modernist and post-modernist cynicism, reductionism and nihilism. Scruton is rightly prescient in pointing the centrality of human aspiration and the longing for truth in both life and art.

In this he is correct in showing that goodness and beauty are universal and fundamentally important; and that the value of anything is not utilitarian and without meaning (e.g., Oscar Wilde’s claim that “All art is absolutely useless.”). Human beings are not purposeless material objects for mechanistic manipulation by others, and civil society itself depends upon a cultural consensus that beauty is real and every person should be respected with compassion as having dignity and nobility with very real spiritual needs to encounter and be transformed and uplifted by beauty.

Thanks for your question.

#ask #question #sir roger scruton #scruton #art #aesthetics #beauty #architecture #music #paintings #film #cinema #personal

[alby-rei]

Paint My World in Shades of You (Vincent x MC)

a/n: Happy birthday Vincent <3 

[Characters]: MC, Vincent, Theo

[Genre]: Fluff, Hurt/Comfort

[Warning]: None

{Paint my World in Shades of You}

I was sitting in Vincent’s room on his couch while he painted. His eyes were trained on the beautiful arrangement of flowers that rested against the window.

My eyes were trained on him; I was obsessed with his side profile. I loved the way his eyes shone with concentration, and his jaw relaxed and tensed as he worked. Suddenly, his serious expression lit up in laughter.

“When you look at me like that, I can’t help but lose focus.”

“Ah—I’m so sorry! I just—” My face heated up considerably, I must be a roasted tomato by now, “I really like watching you paint. It fascinates me so much how you create such wonderful paintings, and I was… taking mental notes of your technique,” and your face, and your arms, and your fingers, and-

“Have you painted, too, in your time?”

“Mmhm,” I nodded with enthusiasm, “though I’m still very much a beginner. I enjoy painting with a friend more than I do when I’m alone.”

“Oh?” Vincent set his palette down and faced me fully, “I can get you a canvas if you want to paint with me.”

“Right now?? I mean I’ve never worked with oil paints before… just acrylic and watercolor.”

Vincent rummaged through his supplies behind his desk, taking out a case full of paint tubes.

“I’ve got watercolors right here,” he shot me an excited smile, and my heart fluttered. How was I so lucky to have such an adorable boyfriend?

I wasn’t used to painting on large canvases— though it was still small compared to his— so I felt pretty intimidated just staring at the blank white abyss in front of me.

“What’s wrong?”

“I… don’t know where to start,” I looked back at him sheepishly.

I waved my paint-less brush on the canvas, shifting my gaze between the flower bouquet and the canvas to make a mental sketch. I caught sight of Vincent’s work in progress, and I had an idea.

“Hey Vincent, do you mind if I… copy you?”

“Hm?” He quirked his head to the side. 

“I want to learn how to paint like you, that’s how I’ve always learned actually— by watching others.”

His eyes widened, and he stuttered uncharacteristically. His gaze softened, as a small blush crept up his cheeks, and he looked back at his own unfinished work.

“Well, if that’s what you want to do, then I’m all for it.”

“Yay!” I clapped my hands in excitement. 

Vincent didn’t have an extra easel, so he suggested I use his. But I insisted that I can work without one. I brought a stool and dragged it close to his and started watching his every move.

“So first, I mixed these colors…” he stretched his arm out to display his color palette. It was a beautiful mess of oil paints, with a large white spot in one corner.

Time flew as we enjoyed the moment in each other’s company doing what we both love. 

“I’m not sure how to make this shade…” I pouted, staring at my messy palette.  

“The trick is to get a bit of ochre yellow in the mix, and then…”            

We talked on and on as we painted together. I tried to keep my focus on the bouquet, but I always ended up leaning over to see Vincent’s own painting.

“Your painting should capture how you­ see the world, MC.”

“I know… but I can’t get it to stand out the same way yours does,” I confessed. 

Vincent’s soft laughter eased my anxiety. I mixed some colors together blindly to try to create the right shade I’m looking for.

“Hey! That’s a great shade of purple you got. How did you make it?” He asked me with child-like curiosity and excitement.

I told him honestly that I didn’t know how, and we sat and experimented together. In a way, it gave me a confidence boost to see him try so hard to replicate the shade that I accidentally made. 

Clearly, I had lost track of time because the sun was gone, and the lamp in Vincent’s room was the only source of light left. I didn’t even notice the change, so when I looked up from my work, I had to rub my eyes to adjust.

“Oh boy, I didn’t realize I was so focused. I think I got a small headache…” I brought a hand up to apply pressure on my forehead.

“Are you ok, MC?” Instantly, Vincent was by my side, one hand caressing my arm as I sat on his couch to regain my bearings.

It took a second, but the world stopped spinning. I took a deep breath and looked up, smiling to reassure Vincent. Worry was written all over his face, bordering guilt.

“Don’t look so down, Vinnie~ It’s nothing serious,” I giggled, scratching the back of my head.

I looked between my canvas and his. I was really proud of how it turned out! His painting definitely had better defined lines and clearer contrasts in all the right places. Mine was less impressive in my eyes, but still a full image of the bouquet, no less.

“What do you think of my painting?” I nodded towards my canvas.

“It’s beautiful just like its artist,” he brought my paint-stained hand up to his lips and gently kissed my knuckles.

“Oh you…!” I punched him jokingly with my free hand.

“Mm… I meant it,” he laughed along, shielding his arm from further assault, “I’m a lucky man to be able to share my passion with my sweetheart.”

“Vincent, you’re too sweet.” I wrapped my arms around him, hiding my tomato-red face in his chest.

I felt his arms wrap around me, too, and we sat there in comfortable silence. The smell of oil paints and flowers wafted in the air around us, as his arms squeezed me securely. It was like we were left in our own bubble and time itself had stopped for us to enjoy this moment. I pulled away eventually, needing to wash my hands and help Sebastian with dinner. Looking outside again, I realized I was already late… woops.

“I have to go prepare dinner with Sebas soon, so I’ll see you later?”

I reached up to plant a kiss on his cheek. He turned his head and captured my lips with his. How am I supposed to say goodbye like this? The thought of leaving this room, this bubble of ours, felt like I was leaving a paradise behind.

“Don’t go just yet…” He pleaded with his eyes shimmering under the glow of the lone lamp.

“How about this: I’ll go wash my hands, then come back to clean up with you. Then, we’ll walk together to the kitchen, deal?”

He nodded, “Deal.”

I went to the guest bathroom room across the hallway. Paint was a lot harder to wash off than I thought. I scrubbed at it with soap, making sure not to damage my skin in the process.

It took a solid while, so I hurriedly dried my hands and made my way back to Vincent’s room. I was standing outside when I heard—

“…and what do we have here?” A chuckle, “Were you teaching a kid how to paint?” It was Theo.

Theo and I… didn’t get along. Maybe our humor just didn’t align, maybe he didn’t appreciate walking in on us that one time when he… shouldn’t have. And maybe I was too sensitive for his bluntness. But we made an unspoken truce to avoid conflict with each other for Vincent’s sake. At least, I thought we did. 

Before Vincent got a chance to speak, Theo was already inspecting the foreign painting in art-dealer mode. 

“Hmm… the colors are dull, and the strokes are uneven. If they thought they could imitate you, they’ve clearly got a long way to go,” he scoffed.

“Theo, that’s not—”

“And who asked you, huh?” I couldn’t stand aside and let him talk about me or my painting like that. It meant a lot to me; it embodied my precious time with Vincent.

“So the pup wanted to paint, eh? I guess I shouldn’t have expected much, then.”

I was about to give him an earful, but Vincent stepped in.

“That’s enough, Theo! MC and I painted this together. So, if you think it looks like a child’s work, then you’re saying that about me, too.”

“What…? No! I didn’t mean—” He shook his head, choosing to stare at the wall instead. He sighed, scratching the back of his head sheepishly, “I’m sorry I said those things, hondje. I didn’t mean to upset you.”      

Well, that was fast. At least he’s being civil about it.

“I-it’s fine… I’m just an amateur anyway,” I hugged my arms, looking away as I tried to calm myself. I was shaking, whether it was from anger or embarrasment, I didn’t know.

The silence was killing me, so I made to start tidying up my station. I blinked away the oncoming tears—I had nothing to cry about! I enjoyed painting with my boyfriend, and Theo apologized.

So, I kept blinking. Discretely.

Or at least as discretely as I thought I was.

Theo dropped the supplies he brought in for Vincent, talked to him for a bit, and left. I wasn’t paying attention to their conversation. 

“MC…”

Vincent’s voice broke me out of my thoughts. I sensed the guilt rising in his voice, so I rushed back to hug him in reassurance.

“…don’t worry, Vinnie,” I nuzzled my head into his chest, not realizing my tears had spilled onto his apron, “it’s not like I’m a professional artist anyway, he was just stating his opinion.”

His strong arms wrapped around me firmly, rocking me back and forth as he spoke.

“You are an artist just like me, with your own unique view. That, in itself, is a valuable treasure that no one can take from you,” he pulled away to stare into my tear-streaked eyes with his own saddened cerulean eyes.

Then he smiled gently, soothingly, “Art isn’t about perfection, it’s about self-expression… about sharing your world on a canvas. Today, you shared a piece of your world on my canvas, and it is my greatest honor.”

I was speechless, I couldn’t find the words to express the pride, the elation, the utter admiration I had for Vincent and his ability to always say the right things to cheer me up.

“…Thank you, Vincent. I-I really appreciate it,” I smiled brightly up to him, and my tears flowed freely down my cheeks.

He brought his right hand up to wipe away the tears, using his thumb to caress the side of my face. Try as I might, I couldn’t blink back the tears fast enough before they spilled silently down my face. I wasn’t mad, or sad even. I was just really extremely happy. It’s hard for me to explain though, and Vincent held my face in his strong hands and kissed every tear as they fell.

“We should do this again,” he declared, his hold on me never faltering, “I want to display your paintings all over my room until every part of it is immersed in the world you create.”

#HAPPY BIRTHDAY VINCENT #ikemen vampire #ikevamp vincent #vincent x mc #ikemen vampire vincent #Birthday fic #best boy #also FIGHT ME THEO #side note: I don't hate Theo #I just think we'd butt heads all the time xD #ikevamp theo #ikemen vampire theo #alby one-shots

[keenmarvellover]

POSTS FOR YOU - 1

Some links to posts with valuable content you want in one place.(BASICALLY EVERYTHING IS THERE)

Suggestions and Recommendations are appreciated and accepted.

Last Updated : 16/10/2020

NOTE: Some of these post are written in a crude and unruly fashion. But they contain valuable tips, guidance and information. If you can't/don't want to read such posts, then don't read.

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Tips to write Pain

How are you supposed to write about pain you’ve never experienced before?

References for Greek Mythology Characters

Link to an extensive site every single detail of Greek Mythology from Gods to Family Trees.

Tips to write Blind Characters

Some tips that might be invaluable when writing character that are near-blind or blind

Things to Remember when writing a Highly Emotional Scene

Just small things that could make a great difference

How to write with Multiple POVs

Tips on how to write multiple POVs with diverse characters

Synonyms and Antonyms

The person who made this list is a blessing to writers. Just saying.

Good Qualities for Female Characters

Females don't always need to be protected and be weak. Make them more realistic.

Words to Use instead of ‘Said’

Every single situation is listed. Check it out.

Limits of the Human Body

All extremities listed

Readers

Legal Sites to Download Literature

From children’s books to rare books, from philosophy and religion to nonfiction. I guess you can find anything here.

The Rights of the Reader

And some (lots of) bashing of Helicopter Parents.(You want to read only the rights. Here it is)

Wet Book Rescue : Steps to save a Wet Book

Valuable information if some of your prized books were affected by recent flooding. The video even shows you what to do if you can’t dry the book out right away.

Cheatsheet to Navigate AO3

Makes your time on AO3 a little more easier and interesting

How to trick Writers into giving you More Fanfic to read

Works for Comics and Art as well.

Get a Book Suggestion

This book website gives you the first page of a random book without the title or author so that you can read it with no preconceptions

Books written by POC Writers

Only POC authors included in the list.

Students

Basic ASL (American Sign Language) Movements

ASL Hand Movements for beginners.

Tips for studying with ADHD/a>

Made by a person with ADHD themself.

Resources to Learn New Languages

Ten fairly useful general language resources

How to properly take notes

It helps. It really helps.

FREE ONLINE LANGUAGE COURSES

Here is a masterpost of MOOCs (massive open online courses) that are available, archived, or starting soon. I think they will help those that like to learn with a teacher or with videos.

A Thread of Tips

A thread of tips to help High School and College students academically

LEARN THINGS FOR FREE

FREE ONLINE COURSES (here are listed websites that provide huge variety of courses)

Google like a BOSS

Some life hacks which make student's lives easier.

625 words to know in your Target Language

If your learning a new language, these words will help you build a strong foundation.(Some tips and sites are include too)

Miscellaneous/Life Hacks

How to add music to your Blog

How to add your very own, custom homemade playlist to your blog?

How to Walk with Purpose?

Some tips on how to hold yourself in public and why.

Cheatsheet for Laundry Rooms

Saves a lot of money in the Laundry Room

How to Gird up your Loins?

A lesson in how to gird your loins.

How to Disappear Online

Please read and spread for the sake of abuse victims or stalker victims.

What to do during a Nuclear Attack

I hope you never have to use it but here are some guidelines to follow in the event of a nuclear attack

How to pull an All-Nighter.

A to-do list

Write a Thank You letter after your Interview

It leaves a good impression on your interviewer and increase your chances of passing the interview.

Laundry Tags: Meanings

A life hack that you’ll definitely need at some point.

Where to find free Movies and Series Online

Lots of sites. Lots and Lots of sites. I am not Kidding. Now go and chill without netflix. (Part II)

How to get a Refund?

Get your stuff or a refund.

HOW TO DO EVERYTHING FROM SCRATCH

This starts at the most absolute basics of gardening and planting, provides definitions, and hopefully is easily understandable. This is a MUST-READ. (Farming)

Discuss your wages

It’s your right to share your salary, not doing so could be holding you back.

Youtube Tutorials for Basically EVERYTHING

This is a big, giant list of Youtube tutorials that will teach you all the basic life skills you need to know in order to be a functional adult.

Safety

Emergency Evacuation - Items to Gather

A text list of suggested items to acquire in the event of an emergency.

If someone you know is in an abusive relationship

AN ABBREVIATED GUIDE TO ‘Holy shit!!! My friend is in an abusive relationship what do I do’ and what not to do.

Defense Tips for Women

Defense and Safety tips a woman MUST know. (Part II)

An app that informs your Emergency contacts if you are inactive in a set period of time.(Could prevent rape attempts if used correctly)

If a Man gets Physical

How to check if a mirror is one way or two-way

If you are trapped in a smoke-filled apartment: What to Do

How to get out of Hand-binds

How to get out of the bunker of a Car

How to track Anonymous asks.

How to pick a Lock

Traits and Warning signs of an Abuser

What to do if a bigot pulls your Hijab (from behind)

What to do if someone pulls of a Muslim Woman's Hijab? (To do List for both Men and Women)

#safety #health #mental health #writers #readers #micellaneous

[prehistoricmancunt]

(I'm hoping you have some encouragement also some advice) how do I do art if I'm bad at it?

I'm so sorry I'm answering this literally 3 months later but i havent had my laptop in 3 months and i can't write anything meaningful without it oops

but yes i do!

- who cares about ugly art!!! Have fun make a mess make the ugliest son of a gun under the blue sky! having fun and being goofy and letting loose is the only thing that matters!!! If you have ever in your life said “oh I can’t draw I would even mess up a stick figure” I’m begging you to shrug off the idea that creativity needs to be for a product or an outcome. The process!! The process is all that matters! Colors and shapes scratch a corner of your brain no matter if you’re making something you’ll bin after making or submit to a gallery truly and really when crpl-pnk said to sing off key and dance off beat and make ugly art and write shitty poetry like. Yeah. They were right. Make art for art’s sake! Create because humans were built to create! Go stack up some sticks or rocks no one cares

okay so you've got that and you wanna know how to get inspired i got u there too:

- I feel like the things I jump out of bed to do are usually things I just want to see made. as simple as that: I just want to see them.

- jump into exploring what’s interesting to you at the moment and let that lead you to the next thought/piece of research/next idea piece body of work etc

-I also do a lot of image research!! and that is my art practice some days, especially as a disabled artist that's all i can muster. and that's so valuable! i think just about as important as the making of the art. learning what you like/learning new things. my Pinterest is my safe space now omg but before that and still i just organize my posts on tumblr here. ( @recycledguts guts is my acct for reblogging art, @burningoftheheart is where I reblog poetry/text, and on this blog I tag #art and #mundane art) I explore new mediums new ideas and it sparks new ideas while compiling sources and references and inspirations.

(here's my pinterest btw i think it's stellar)

- let yourself fuck things up!!!! mistakes are wonderful because they teach you what needs to be fixed next time. i like to take photos of all the parts of my process even and especially the hideous parts and the sketches bc its so cool to see where an idea started and ended and all that happened on the way. I think showing the journey and finding the beauty in having that around opens you up to letting more loose

it took me forever to be okay with fucking up. I used to be 'bad' at having a sketchbook like I’d want to curate every page and have every page look like a finished piece but what I’ve found is much more meaningful to me is like. Taping in scraps that inspire me or things from my day like a scrapbook and writing whatever I want and sketching out any idea that comes to me and doodling as well as the finished pieces. A really good piece of advice is basically don’t erase. You’re not wasting your paper theres always more paper to be had just turn the page and start again. (i actually laerned to be okay with process and ugly sketchbook bc of drawingwiffwaffles on youtbe after i got over their username and actually started watching their videos lmao) Robin Sealark on youtube was also key in my art making journey.

also like. realizing that no one else needs to see anything you make if you don’t want them to. you don’t need things to be polished and curated. Just make it for you and if you want to share it you can but you don’t need to make just to share yk?

also, your art probably isn’t bad. you’re probably just being your own worst critic. maybe you haven’t found the medium/technique for you

okay I'm sorry that was so long and so belated but i hope this helps!

#ok to rb #text post #art #ask #ref #long post

[sweetescapeartist]

DBS COLORING BOOK CHAPTER 74 REVIEW

*spoilers* I liked this chapter in isolation.

*spoilery spoilers* I dislike this chapter when comparing it to other chapters.

Here's the battle Vegeta fans have been waiting for...! (Glad I lowered my greatly expectations)

First, let's talk about use of panels real quick. When there is action, Toyo has done better and uses about 6 panels max to convey the fight. But when there is dialogue, he uses too many panels. Like 7 to 9 panels on one page. That is too much for dialogue. And he has pointless reaction shots often.

It begins with the axolotl inspired Sugarians leaving their fishbowl homes through cleaning-tube roadways. I like their aquarium-like city and their buildings.

And here we are on page 2 with the Toyotaro dialogue. 😒 How can I tell? Compare it to Dragon Ball and you can easily tell the difference between Toriyama's dialogue & Toyotaro's dialogue. (Toriyama has been more focused with working on the DBS movies. I highly doubt he contributes as much to the manga as some fans believe.)

Vegeta sounds like Mr. Satan when calling fusion and cloning "tricks" lol. And no, I doubt Vegeta's Forced Spirit Fission would work on Granolah. Granolah split himself in 2 with a technique. It is still all Granolah & he hasn't absorbed anyone. Forced Spirit Fission is useless here.

Granolah sure is chatty again after he kept saying how he really really wants to kill these Saiyans. Vegeta tells him he parted ways with Freeza and he is an enemy now, as to which Granolah laughs. Granolah thinks Vegeta is betraying Freeza to spare his own life. This just let's us know what kind of person Granolah is...

Granolah is a nonsensical idiot who doesn't know how to reason well & doesn't listen to truth because he assumes he is already right. I don't like ppl like him who refuse to grow mentally. I went from liking Granolah, to not caring about his bland personality, to disliking him. 😑

Oatmeel's input is pointless because he doesn't sway Granolah into believing the Saiyans may not be lying. He quickly gives up and becomes quiet. Vegeta informs Granolah that he was a child when Planet Cereal's ppl were killed and wasn't part of the attack. But he doesn't care and Paragus wants revenge against the royal family... I mean, Baby wants revenge on all Saiya... Granolah wants to kill all Saiyans.

Then we get Vegeta saying he will kill Granolah after barely talking to the guy who was willing to talk. I guess Vegeta just wants to fight and test his power instead of trying to redeem himself like earlier chapters implied and fans theorized. Throw that out the window.

He turns SSB Evolution & Hakai's large rocks around Granolah. But Granolah appears behind him and shows Vegeta true hakai. He elevates a big chunk of the ground & blows it up then the force pushes Vegeta to him and Granolah strikes him. Cool way to use the environment in battle.

Also, Granolah knows Hakai. He shows it off by using his own more powerful Hakai & suggests Vegeta's training with Beerus is lacking.

There is some cool looking art. Their fight moves from forest to river to lake. Interesting environment s for DB. Reminds me of the Cooler movie and the fights on Namek a bit.

This entire time, Vegeta is on the defensive and has to run. But, I find pages 16-21 silly.

Why is Vegeta swimming when he can fly through the water?! Swimming is slower & Granolah is firing fast ki blasts at him!

YOU: "But, Vegeta is swimming so Granolah can't detect his ki."

Granolah can see him! His right eye is supposed to see blood flow and stuff. He nearly hits him multiple times. And lets not forget he was sniping them long distance and his Goku in the neck and almost took him out. Why does Granolah need aim assist now? I'll tell ya why. To make Vegeta look more impressive than Goku by making Goku look like a poor fighter. And this was a Goku who was using Ultra Instinct and still got messed up by Granolah while Vegeta is just using SSB Evolution. Character sabotage... 😒

Back to my complaints about Vegeta swimming. The swimmin' would work in OG Dragon Ball but not here. It would work on Namek with Freeza who can't sense ki, but not here with Granolah who can sense ki (& maybe even god ki) & his eye can percieve all kinds of movements of the body.

And why does Vegeta momentarily pop up out the water then go hide back into it? Don't say its 'cause he needs to catch his breath. He aparently did training holding his breath while on the Heeter's ship, so he should be fine holding his breath. It was for a short period of time anyways. It just doesn't fit and is unnecessary in multiple ways.

Vegeta Hakai's Granolah's big blast to escape it and it blows him out of the water. Interesting kinda... Until you realize that Vegeta's training that we were shown was lame. He just Hakai'd logs & rocks! It should've shown him trying to Hakai ki blasts from Beerus. Make his training look cool darn it!

Chapter 70 Established that Hakai has changed. It no longer is just erasing things from existence in different ways. It has to have a *boom* explosion to it. So when Beerus Hakai'd Zamasu in chapter 19, there should've been an explosion instead of turning him into sand? So, now whenever the Hakai is used, there will always be an explosion...? I don't like how Toyo is quick to change what he set up just for his convenience...

Granolah brags about himself then Vegeta brags about himself-...! That's why I dislike Granolah! He's just like Vegeta! Maybe if I stop thinking of Granolah as a "good guy" then he will be cooler? I did like evil Vegeta as an evil character. We were supposed to hate him. So, if I imagine Granolah as an evil Vegeta... It worked! Granolah's unappealing attitude works perfectly if you view him as an evil enemy! (Still kinda preachy tho)

VEGETA: "But I'm still going to win."

Vegeta fans rejoice! Your prayers have been answered by the great Zalama! Vegeta announced victory...! Wait... I've seen this before... Yo... Vegeta fans, prepare for Vegeta to be defeated just in case. He has a record of announcing victory then ultimately losing. Don't get your hopes up too high.

Lol Granolah disses Vegeta's ego 👌. But Granolah is unknowingly talking about himself too XD. Dummies. Vegeta mocks him by calling him "Mr. Strongest" & Granolah has nothing to day. Granolah can dish it out but can't take it.

Goku wakes up and sees Vegeta fighting Granolah. Who cares? How are you gonna be caught off gaurd in a form that reacts on its own? Go back to sleep. I'm not mad at you, Goku. I'm just disappointed.

Vegeta fires a barrage of ki at Granolah and Granolah Hakai's them. Then Vegeta fools Ganolah into destroying an ancient city of the Cerelians.

VEGETA: "I can tell, you know... That you only recently acquired this absurd strength."

GRANOLAH: "How? How can you tell?"

VEGETA: "Thank you for confirming."

There's the Granolah we know. Quick to give out valuable info. Also, this is to make Vegeta appear "smarter" & a "better fighter" than Goku. Realistically, a master martial artist like Goku would be first to notice that Granolah recently acquired this kind of power. But, Goku is being dumbed down for Vegeta's sake.

VEGETA: "Need I repeat myself...? You may be stronger but... there's no gaurantee that I'll lose to you!" *attempts to break Granolah's leg*

So says the guy who always loses unless the opponent is weaker than him. But, he even lost to weaker opponents on Earth before, so....

Vegeta fans calm down, calm down. This is basic Vegeta dribble. Let's be real. When has Vegeta ever defeated an opponent that was stronger than himself? Never. When has Vegeta become stronger than his opponent and defeat them because they're weaker than him now? Always. Does Vegeta ever win when he is too cocky? Nope. This is to hype y'all up. Don't be mad if he loses. Y'all know this routine. The arc ain't even over so the chances of him winning are low.

Now let's examine Vegeta's fight in comparison to Goku's fight.

Goku goes through all his forms & uses Ultra Instinct in base, SSJ, SSG, SSB, & then goes silver haired UI when fighting Granolah. Then, he loses in every form. Vegeta goes straight to Blue Evolution and only seriously gets hurt once.

Goku keeps getting hit despite having a technique that is all about evasion. Vegeta gets hit far less & doesn't have Ultra Instinct.

Goku was struggling to fight a clone that was half the power of Granolah. Vegeta fights Granolah at his full power and struggles less.

Goku complains about his training and how he is struggling using his technique. Vegeta who had less time with Hakai training isn't complaining about struggling with Hakai.

Goku far surpassed Vegeta in the Moro arc, yet they are crippling Goku to let Vegeta catch up & make him look better. Vegeta has literally gotten a handout that he didnt have to work hard for in order to catch up with Goku... This chapter is fine when isolated and you aren't thinking about any other previous chapter. But, it is a convoluted mess when you look back at the previous chapters, the piss poor storytelling, & Vegeta's poor Hakai training that leads up to this chapter.

Where'd that "heroic" Vegeta and that "redemption" stuff go? Its as if Toyotaro decided he should stop tying to make Vegeta the hero & main character instead of Goku being the main. (Thank God.)

But... Vegeta says that he loves fights that are unpredictable?? That I disagree completely with. Vegeta wants fights to go in his favor through all of DBZ and will throw a fit when it doesn't.

In RoF: it was going in his favor so he loved it.

Destroyer Tournament arc: he didn't like that things didn't go his way in the end.

Future Trunks arc: he was upset when losing to Black, but loved it when he thought he was going to win.

ToP: angry when everyone else surpassed him, happy when he gained an upperhand, upset when he lost the upperhand.

Moro arc: Vegeta is upset that Moro is stronger but even more upset that Goku is stronger than him. When he is stronger than Moro he is loving it. Then when he loses the advantage, he is upset.

Vegeta doesn't love unpredictable fights, Goku does! Vegeta loves predictable fights in his favor.

Granolah asks how many lives were sacrificed for Vegeta's carnage. Vegeta doesn't answer. Why? Because its best to ignore the fact that he has killed billions of ppl so that Vegeta fans can ignore his bad actions (Yet many say that Vegeta has developed so much without acknowledging his terrible past). Can't have Vegeta looking like a bad guy in this chapter, right?

Oh boy! Page 37 is more "Vegeta hype!" He doesn't care about strongest or second strongest ('cause he has never been 1st place) & he basically explains Dragon Ball to us.

Roshi already taught Goku & Krillin that there will always be somebody stronger, so they need to keep reaching higher and higher.

If Vegeta is stronger than he was a few minutes ago, would that mean the same for Goku when he was fighting? Why did he perform so poorly? I wonder... 🤔

Granolah jabs Vegeta in the stomach, but Vegeta manages to slow it down (how come Goku using Ultra Instinct couldn't do that?). And cool. Blood. Anime has better writing and cool character development/moments. The manga has blood... Well, I guess blood is cooler to some ppl.

Vegeta is looking like Goku in the ToP before he attained UI. He has his head down & all. Vegeta just isn't talking about hownl much he sucks. Why does Goku keep insulting himself? N-nevermind. This is about Vegeta who keeps complimenting himself.

Why did Granolah become scared of Vegeta suddenly? Wouldn't he just see him as a mad dog and use his amazing power to put Vegeta down before he can do anything? He hates them so much, but keeps letting them live.

Uh oh... Vegeta doesn't like protecting and saving? BuT I tHoUgHt hE wAs a hErO! Where is his development going?? Ya mean the real development he had in the anime or the pseudo development in the manga?

But even after saying all that... I prefer manga Vegeta to be like this instead of a wannabe hero. Wannabe hero doesn't fit. This feels like Vegeta is in character again. I like this. I was just criticizing how Vegeta was written in past chapters in comparison to this one. A more chill Vegeta who loves battles? This is what I've wanted from DBS manga Vegeta for a long time!

Oh snap! Vegeta's transforming? I wonder what it will look like (thanks for the warning from the leaks 👍). Oil... Why are you even in this chapter? We don't care about you right now & you're boring without Maki. Goku says it ain't "any old god ki."

I wonder how Goku never knew about this new form if he and Vegeta trained on Beerus Planet together. Ya think he would've sensed and saw it & even wanted to fight against it.

So is this new form a spur of the moment thing? So Vegeta has a new form that he never trained... And he asks if Granolah has been training his new power on page 34... Sounds hypocritical of Vegeta, or he is being thrown a bone to make him look capable. Is Vegeta gonna pull a Golden Freeza by not training this new form? Or maybe a UI Goku at the ToP and lose the form?

Page 43, Granolah shoots tiny ki blasts at Vegeta's tower of flaming ki and he is surprised it did nothing. Why not try again but this time use that one big blast instead. No? Gonna let the guy of the race you hate finish transforming? Just gonna be scared and shocked to make Vegeta look impressive? Ok.

Pages 41, 44, & 45

Oh! Here it is! The new form...! Aaaand I still don't like it. Also, he healed up like Goku did last chapter too. Odd. Why does transforming heal them now? Didn't before.

No build up to make the form more cool, it's just

"Here, Vegeta. Goku has one more form than you do & he has mastered UI, so we can't let you fall too far behind. So I just pulled this crap transformation fresh outa my butt and gave it to you."

Another undeserved handout. Can you please make Vegeta earn a new form in the manga? PLEASE?!

Vegeta looks like he is in his own UI Omen form (like how Vegeta fans begged for Vegeta to get for the longest time). Dark hair with sone lighter coloured higlights, light coloured pupils, new aura. But this is what I see...

SSJ3ROSÉ of DESTRUCTION INSTINCT OMEN (or just "SSJ-ChexMix" for short)

Looks like in the end, Vegeta needed to resort to his own Ultra Instinct equivalent!

Oh no... I criticized Vegeta's bad writing too much! I bet some Vegeta fans are gonna automatically assume that I hate him because I want him to be written better without plotholes! 😱

IN CONCLUSION:

This chapter is good when isolated on its own. But, this chapter is filled with inconsistencies when you look back at previous chapters. Overall, it's... a mixed bag that I barely like. It's just so retarded that Goku had to be dragged through the mud just for Vegeta to look better. That is insulting to Vegeta and it either shows how much he sucks or or how weak the writing for Vegeta is. But we got what we got...

Wanna know how to make Vegeta look good without making Goku look pathetic? Goku never uses MUI! Goku defeats Granolah's clone with SSB. Then, Granolah merges back with his clone & catches SSB Goku by surprise and knocks him out.

Then, the reason why Vegeta seems to be doing better is because Vegeta is using SSBE, unlike SSB Goku who was caught off guard. Why make the MUI form & Goku both look like trash just to give Vegeta his own Ultra (Destructive) Intinct? Is Vegeta really that trash?! 😓😴

I don't wanna see the Heeters anymore. My hype for them died, but maybe a later chapter can make me like them more. Idk.

Where is my homie, Moniato?! 🐌 (BEST CHARACTER OF THE ARC SO FAR!)

Oh yeah...I was supposed to complain about not seeing Freeza again like I do every chapter... Who cares at this point? If Granolah is stronger than Goku & Vegeta, what can Freeza do? Hide for 3 yrs and let Granolah die?

What are my predictions for next chapter? More Vegeta wanking of course. More gloating & looking down on Granolah too. A battle of overinflated egos. Bad dialogue and decent to good art. I'll probably find it mostly boring but I may be surprised (that could be a good or bad thing). Vegeta will appear to be winning before...

Vegeta gets defeated & certain Vegeta fans will rage & be annoying. Those ones will complain about how Vegeta always gets the short end of the deal (that's what he gets for being shorter than Bulma & 12 cm taller than Krillin). This one should happen imo based off of Goku's performance.

Vegeta's fight will get interrupted before the battle ends so that Vegeta fans don't get angry. Make Vegeta fans feel that Vegeta could've won and keep them grasping on to hope. (How manipulative.) This one is most likely to happen to "satisfy" all fans.

Vegeta will win and Vegeta fans will rejoice & some will be very annoying. Despite the fact that he had terrible training, was handed a new form just to stay relevant, and Goku had to underperform & UI had to be nerfed just to make Vegeta look good. This one may happen just to appease Vegeta fans. (That is the worst outcome imo.) If Vegeta gets "a win/a W" against a main villain, make sure his training looks impressive and he has some sort of connection to the main bad guy. That way the victory feels well deserved.

If the final enemy is Freeza, then Vegeta defeating Granolah isn't "a win" against a major villain. Granolah will just be a bump in the road. He's already set up to not be a "bad guy." In the end, the main bad guy will be either Freeza, Gas, 7-3, or someone. Vegeta fans shouldn't care if Vegeta wins or loses against Granolah. He isn't the "final boss."

#dragon ball #dragon ball super #dbs #dbs manga #manga chapter 74 #review #Vegeta #Granolah #Goku #vegeta wanking #wtf toyotaro

[my-writings-and-musings]

Same anon thank you for answering my question! I was wondering if you could do headcanons for MTMTE Rung, Megatron, Rodimus, Minimus, and Swerve with an Artisic human reader that just sees the good and creative artist side of everything? From books to pictures to even their own bot? Like they can just look at their bot and go out on a whole rant on how beautiful their optics are from the color to their expression. if that’s too many characters you can take any one, I don’t mind! Thank you and have a good day ❤️

You're welcome! I'm always open for clarification, so feel free to ask questions about whatever you'd like if you're unsure on anything. I took a little liberty with this one, but I've got all the requested bots because darn it all these beautiful mechs deserve recognition!

Rung

·He discovers your artistic inclination thanks to years of experience reading personalities and emotions at a glance, but he wasn't prepared for the depth of your conviction in seeing the world through a creative lens, which he learned upon speaking to you about your process as an artist. This surprise grows as he sees you sketching around the ship, your exuberance for the inherent beauty in everything coming through in every conversation you share.

·When he praises some of your sketches on a quiet day in his office and is compelled to ask how you developed your style, he's fascinated by your explanation, and his spark is warmed by how beautifully you describe the world around you and credit it for inspiring you. He's visibly shocked when your list of current subjects and muses includes him specifically, and you can't help but chuckle at the usually calm bot looking so absolutely flustered. There's no way for him to hide any of that feeling when he requests a bit of clarification; there's hundreds of bots on board, what about him could possibly stand out?

·You're happy to elaborate on your process to a bot who so regularly underestimates his worth and lay out why he in particular piques your interest. The warmth and goodness of his being is such a rare and beautiful thing, you explain, but also so rarely appreciated that it drives you to try and capture that essence in a manner one can see. How could you not? Such compassion and empathy and forgiveness should be remembered! You've also seen that he's capable of accepting any genuine apology, and to have that level of mercy after so much war is beautiful, enough that you have to try and show it.

·To say he's touched is an understatement of unfathomable proportions. Removing his lenses to clear optics blurred with tears, he doesn't even know how to begin processing your praise of his character when you add that his physical self hardly fails to encourage you either. His glasses nearly slip from his hands when he hears you say that. You continue quite easily; the kindness in his optics and the sweetness of his smile, combined with his genuinely handsome profile, simply inspire you to start sketching.

·He's touched, but you have to understand, he is NOT accustomed to this level of praise. Between the near tears and the blushing he has to politely excuse himself to recover from this absolute tsunami of emotions, but being flustered and melted at once is enough to have him smiling through a little blush all day long. While he tries to take a little bit of your mindset into his everyday life going forward, he gets a bit dazed every time he sees a sketch of yours that includes his face, as that level of artistic devotion being dedicated to him is more than he'll ever be able to process. Not that he minds...

Megatron

·Being more familiar with the written word, he enjoys the arts but has little experience with those who create them, and time has not been on his side in regards to learning more. Thus, you're one of the first artistically inclined individuals he's been able to discuss the topic with, which he was motivated to do after catching a glimpse of your work. He could swear some of your sketches bear a resemblance to him, but he says nothing on the matter and is certain his optics are tricking him.

·Your talk of technique quickly surprises him by shifting to inspiration, which to you is the primary driving force of your work, as it influences how you go about conveying the subject matter. Eager to share what you mean, you explain that anything can have beauty worthy of capturing if you just take the time to look at it right. Even the most mundane or seemingly unappealing things can be remarkable if you know their story, and you want to convey that energy as wordlessly as possible.

·A little overwhelmed but quite impressed by your manner of reasoning, he rather jokingly asks if even beings like himself could ever inspire you, or perhaps another artist with your mindset. He's caught off gaurd like never before when you, quite enthusiastically, reply that he most certainly can and does! To keep his composure he recalls portraits of his likeness being commissioned to inspire his soldiers, but never believing these fell under the category of art so much as they did propaganda. They often depicted him quite... violently as well.

·Having never seen these pieces, you reply that your own experience is tied more to how you see him now, and you flip through your sketchbook to demonstrate. As close to your level as can be, he's speechless while you explain what you wanted to capture about him in each sketch, whether it's a quick study or a detailed project; and that's how safe he makes you feel. Hearing himself referred to as a protector cuts straight through his powerful armor.

·You depict him looking almost... gentle? Hearing you describe the his immense size as a source of comfort and his strength as a tool of keeping peace processes about as clearly to him as a foreign language, but he nods along and keeps the conversation going until his duties call him away. Though he says nothing of it, he volunteers himself for more of the physically demanding work around the ship. His body's purpose had always been decided for him, but you've reminded him he has the only true say in its use, and that everything really is a matter of perspective. Perhaps he'll take up sketching once this is all over.

Rodimus

·He's certainly always had an appreciation for visual appeal, even if his idea of beauty doesn't often overlap with what most would consider artistically valuable. This and his natural alertness makes him quick to notice you often sketch about the ship, frequently when he's present, but at first he leaves you alone to work in peace. Having a hobby on this crew is beyond valuable, and he doesn't want to distract you from a passion... That is, until he decides on one especially slow day to just ask you what you like to doodle about.

·You can tell he wants to be a little nosy, if only because he's naturally a curious bot about these things, but you're more than happy to share regardless. There's a lot due to the ample downtime on the quest, and he has to squint so he can properly scan the many sketches on the human sized paper. He happily recognizes friends, locales about the ship, even earth things he knows about... but he's not ready when he finds a picture of himself.

·While he remains outwardly playful, teasing you with how he'd pose if you only asked, he's internally flattered that you took the time to draw him. More specifically, he's touched by the way you drew him. The sketches and portraits portray him as a calm but amicable leader, standing tall and serving as a guide to those around him, a true "father to his men" kind of bot... it's everything he wants to be, but is quite certain he's not. He's barely able to keep up his smooth persona when he asks about your process.

·You explain that you find inspiration in everything, but he's been your chosen subject lately for a lot of reasons. It's no secret he's handsome, but you see something more when you look at him, and you did everything you could to show it here; there's a real leader in him. Maybe some bots don't see it under all the bluster and sarcasm, but you see how much he cares for every bot on his crew. He wants to be the best for all of them, and even if he struggles at times, that effort is beautiful to you.

·It takes everything in him to bite back some very embarrassing tears, and the crack in his voice doesn't help him hide the emotion, though he covers that up with unconvincing coughs and claims something got in his optic. From then on he seems to stand a little taller and find his assigned duties a little easier to bear, but you absolutely notice how he poses in what he believes to be heroic fashion whenever your sketchbook comes out. Inspired by his enthusiasm, you invite him to model more officially, and the crew is just happy to see him so enthusiastic.

Minimus

·Being as observant as he is, your consistent appraisal of your surroundings is not something he'd ever miss, but your frequent sketching in the most random places does leave him absolutely mystified. Every time he sees you there's artistic supplies on your person, but he can't find anything that appears to be worthy of putting to paper, so what could you be drawing? He respects your privacy too much, and feels too silly about his curiosity, to interpret and ask you for an explanation.

·Thus it's with some small eagerness that he finds one of your sketchbooks after it's been misplaced, and he sees the perfect opportunity to slip in a question. For the sake of handling something so tiny, he approaches without his armor, offering the lost item back with barely concealed pride at your delight to have it returned. In the moment of truth he nearly falters, but does indeed manage to ask what you draw around the ship. He leaves out the fact that he's observed you whenever you draw in his presence.

·The question has an answer only he seems to think isn't obvious; him! You spend time together frequently, and while everything is fair game for sketching, he's a very regular subject for you. Whether he's wearing the Magnus armor or not, you explain that the commanding aura he radiates is something you can't help but find beautiful. That word choice baffles him enough that he has to interrupt; beautiful? Commanding? Even without his armor?? You're delighted to assure him that you absolutely mean that.

·Hearing you describe the details of your reasoning, like the quiet dignity of his stance or the calm intelligence of his red optics, touches his spark in ways he wasn't expecting. He's calm and speaks softly as he keeps the conversation going, asking questions about your various works and listening attentively when you answer, processing your view of the universe as being packed with beauty in all the places people don't think to look.

·Any bot that sees him during the remainder of the day absolutely notices the change to his entire demeanor; namely that he's smiling a soft and barely perceptible smile. It's not long after he requests a few sketches from you to keep in his office, whether they're of him or not, and he has them framed in places of honor. He doesn't tell you, but you figure it out, that one particular drawing of him you gift for his sake is kept securely stored in a compartment by his spark.

Swerve

·Many bots may see him being a tad bit on the shallow side when it comes to the arts, but our beloved barkeep has his own unique appreciation for creativity and all the ways it can be visually expressed, and you recognize it not long after meeting him. As his bar is a frequent hangout for everyone, you find it to be a fantastic place to sit and sketch, as the variety of bots makes it quite easy to have your choice of subjects even if you have to sit on a table. Obviously Swerve notices and asks you what you're drawing when traffic slows one evening.

·You're happy to show him your work and he's always eager to hear what everyone is up to, so he starts asking questions about your art in general. How long have you been an artist? What's it like suddenly having a whole ship of aliens to sketch? Why draw here all the time? At that query you light up brilliantly, and he's delighted by your enthusiasm as you describe all the incredible sights the bar has to offer.

·You list some of your favorite things to draw, like the many friend groups on the ship that gather here, the brilliant colors of the glowing vats of enjex, and him smiling and rushing with orders through it all. That last one gets a flash of surprise from behind his visor, which is quickly overtaken by exuberant delight; you've been drawing him?! He babbles out a surge of confusing statements that you're eventually able to interpret as a request to see, just one he's too bashful to say directly.

·Happily obliging, you're touched by how he smiles at every little sketch, and feel compelled to explain that he's a big part of why you love drawing here. You try to see beauty in everything, even what often gets overlooked, and there's so very much of that here. The bar is one of those places that everyone knows is special, but you know he's the reason they love it like they do, and that his enthusiasm and hard work hold it all together. You find that inspiring, and actually quite beautiful. It doesn't hurt that his brilliant smile is always a treat to sketch.

·Trying to play it cool and totally failing, he doesn't quite hide that he's near to tears when he asks if you'd like to hang some of your work up in the bar, or maybe have a little corner for yourself to draw from. He just doesn't want you getting squished while you sketch, is all! And having a better vantage point is ideal for someone so small! When you accept, he gives you your own human sized accommodations not too far from the heart of the bar, and every so often when you sketch he'll glance up at you absolutely beaming.

#transformers #more than meets the eye #mtmte #idw #lost light #maccadam #tf #rung #megatron #minimus ambus #rodimus #swerve #self insert #human reader #requests #anon #my writing #transformers headcanon #my asks

[misssquidtracy]

Noble Intentions (Part 1).

My contribution to Gordo’s FabFiveFeb week. Chapter 2 will spill over into the first day of Alan’s week, courtesy of a certain gorgeous aquanaut who insisted on making this 2x as long as originally planned.

Sorry not sorry, Alan ❤️

All credit for FabFiveFeb goes to the amazing @gumnut-logic 💚

Prompt: A memory.

Warnings: Mild strong language.

Genre: Humour.

Characters: Sea Bean & Land Cabbage.

-x-

“And that, ladies and gentleman, is a wrap!”

A sigh that somehow managed to bridge the gap between despair and disbelief filtered over the comm channel, “Don’t go Hollywood on me now, Thunderbird Four. Are the targets clear of the danger zone?”

“Yes siree,” came the rather chipper reply, “Hazardous material has been removed and ultrasonic sweeps show no more underwater casualties. Danger zone is officially cleared. Standby for pickup, Thunderbird Two.”

“F.A.B,” came the rich tones of brother Numero Dos, “Can you be Pacific about your location, please?”

“Careful, Virg. I have a license to krill, you know,” Gordon warned playfully, aligning the little yellow sub so that she was within grabbing distance of module four’s cable.

A snort was offered by Virgil in lieu of a verbal reply, “I never knew it was possible to stick one’s head so far up one’s ass. Tell me, what did you have for dinner last night?”

“Same thing as you, bro,” Gordon countered, watching happily as his newly relinquished charges swam off to freedom. An emergency call had come in from a concerned student at the University of Otago claiming that several members of the dolphin pod she was satellite tracking in Kaikoura had run afoul of a discarded fishing net. Ever eager to help an animal in distress and with the right gear at his disposal, Gordon had roused Virgil and politely requested that the engineer taxi him the two and a half thousand miles to New Zealand’s South Island.

A decent number of locals had joined the rescue effort by the time Thunderbird Two arrived on scene, and it was with unbridled joy that they cheered as the last dolphin was cut free by Four’s robotic arms. Aside from managing to dodge an animal welfare bullet, the cetaceans were a tourism magnet and thus, an invaluable source of income for the town.

“Kia ora! Thank you!” a young woman called, scurrying up to shake Gordon and Virgil’s hands, “I’m Mandy Harrell, and on behalf of the IMMA, I just want to say how grateful we are to International Rescue for your help here today.”

Gordon smiled warmly, “I’ve always admired the work of the Marine Mammal Protected Areas Task Force. The pleasure is all mine.”

“Having two representatives from the world’s most elite rescue organisation here will do wonders for our public image,” Mandy enthused, shaking her head in excited disbelief, “We’re trying to raise enough funds to conduct a clean-up operation along this section of coastline. We suspect the net you just removed is one of several left by a group of unregulated fishermen we apprehended last June. Our goal is to have the first five hundred meters of coast cleared by the time the humpbacks arrive next month, but at the rate things are going, we’ll be several thousand dollars shy of our target.”

A soft series of beeps sounded as Gordon’s comm picked up an incoming call, but he ignored it in favour of giving Mandy his undivided attention. It was probably just John checking in. Or Scott forewarning him that Grandma was cooking and that they were out of laxatives.

“Perhaps we could donate the remainder?” Gordon offered, “I’d be delighted to help you guys in any way that I can.”

Virgil felt apprehension crawl up his spine when Mandy smiled, but didn’t instantly accept the (rather generous) offer that had been had laid down.

“That’s incredibly kind of you, but we like to be as self-sufficient as possible where money is concerned,” the young woman replied, tilting her head to take the sting out of her words, “If you’d be willing to donate your time however, that would be greatly appreciated.”

“Sign me up!” Gordon exclaimed, raising his hand in a similar manner to Scott’s scout oath, “I’m sure Alan can cover for me if I take an extra day off this week. You get that, John? Take me off the roster for tomorrow, please. Forward all emergencies necessitating the use of Thunderbird Four to Alan. I’ll take over his Monday shift next week as compensation.”

“Done and done,” came the smooth reply of the middle brother, “And now we wait for the inevitable tantrum.”

A chuckle bubbled up Virgil’s diaphragm as he adjusted his sash and fixed Mandy with an inquisitive gaze, “So, what will you have him doing? Shovelling seaweed? Litter picking? Seagull whispering?”

Mandy let loose a laugh that sounded a fraction forced, “Not quite. We’re a new partner of Otago University and recently signed a collaboration agreement with their School of Arts for the upcoming semester. We were going to host a series of life drawing sessions out on the open water, but the university probably won’t commit after the publicity this incident will undoubtedly be on the receiving end of. Do either of you have any experience with modelling by any chance?”

Virgil had less than a second to intervene before Gordon started uncontrollably word vomiting.

“Oh yes!” the aquanaut swanked, preening like a peacock, “Vogue, Armani, Cosmo, Grazia, Gucci, Vanity Fair, Louis Vuitton, Dior, Prada, Salvatore Ferragamo, Fendi, Saint Laurent, Givenchy, Balmain, Alexander McQueen, Burberry, Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, and KFC have all had a piece of this perfectly symmetrical face over the years.”

The squeal that tore out of Mandy had Virgil wondering if she was as smart as her paper qualifications claimed. A discreet search of IMMA on his comm gauntlet had revealed a string of abbreviations after her name that rivalled the Cambodian alphabet, yet she seemed perfectly willing to believe that Gordon really had modelled for all of the companies he’d just listed.

In truth, the closest the fourth Tracy had come to modelling was when his swim trunks had ripped during a family trip to the Seychelles. The scathing email that Scott had penned to the CEO of Speedo had been accompanied by multiple pictures of said trunks (both on and off their owner), along with the threat of legal action should Gordon end up deported for ‘indecent exposure’.

“Perfect!” Mandy effused, her green eyes glowing with excitement, “Ticket sales will skyrocket with a member of International Rescue as the subject! I must ring Shona and tell her to re-book the town hall.”

Valuable blood drained from Gordon’s face as the reality of what he’d inadvertently signed up for dawned on him like a sunrise in hell, “Uh, I thought you just wanted me as a poster boy for your open water sessions? Y’know…posing with porpoises, photobombing seals…helping to smooth over the bad publicity, right? Getting people to focus on the good rather than the bad?”

Mandy shook her head, her brown curls bucking in the breeze that was buffeting the shore, “It’ll be all over the news that it was you guys who saved the day, not us. International Rescue’s presence here is the catalyst for a financial surge we can’t afford to miss. I’m begging you. The dolphins are begging you. Please, help us to help them.”

Gordon chewed his lip. While he was probably the brother least phased at the prospect of getting his kit off for charity, he knew that Scott would be on him like shit on velcro if his derriere ended up plastered across the front of every global news channel in all its bare glory.

“Thunderbird Two, a priority call just came in from a couple of wreck divers in Chuuk Lagoon, Micronesia,” John’s voice, ever calm and authoritative, served as both a welcome distraction and an excuse to leave, “Alan and Kayo just got called away to a flood in Columbia and Scott is on a conference call with Colonel Casey, which makes you two our closest and only available option.”

“Please say you’ll come?” Mandy wheedled, panic slipping into her voice when Virgil and Gordon began to walk towards Two’s cockpit platform, “It’ll just be for a few of hours, and there’ll be a free lunch.”

That got Gordon’s attention. He’d been prepared to agree for the sake of the dolphins and inbound humpbacks, but the promise of free food sealed the deal.

“Ten o’clock tomorrow!” the aquanaut yelled, waving as the platform began to ascend, “I’ll need a toasted cheese on granary and five of whatever your equivalent of Celery Crunch bars are!”

“Uh, Gordon?” Virgil’s voice was low and gentle, a stark contrast to the shrieks of delight Mandy was emitting, “Do I need to remind you about what happened last time you signed up for something like this?”

Any confidence the aquanaut had vanished quicker than a burp in a dust storm as a memory he’d worked hard to suppress began to surface.

TBC.

#Gordon Tracy #Virgil Tracy #thunderbirds #thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds 2015 #thunderbirds fanfiction #fanfiction #tracy bros #tracy brothers #tracy boys #tracybros #tracybrothers #international rescue #Scott Tracy #John Tracy #alan tracy #kayo kyrano

[mot-the-ships-barber]

Posting an OC because why the hell not

Introducing the fabulous, the untrustworthy, the morally dubious, Lieutenant Etius, Assistant Intelligence Officer of the U.S.S O’Neill! (Shoutout to @fuckyeahromulans who’s art I found on Google images, I think it fits perfectly). I made him for a Discord server so the other characters that are mentioned are other players

He’s a Romulan, young at the age of 34, and serving on a Federation starship? Why? The Borg. His story takes place after the Dominion War where he’s seen two separate attacks by the Borg where they almost completely destroyed the Federation. He believed that the Romulan government should have put a more active role in helping stop the Borg, knowing that once Earth fell, Romulus was probably next. The government was fine with just letting it be, letting their two enemies weaken each other and not risk their soldiers lives. After all, they’ve lost valuable manpower in the Dominion War, why sacrifice more when everyone else needs to rebuild. As a low ranking Tal Shiar officer, Etius had access to traced communications that revealed the commission of a new set of Saber-class ships, their mission being the first line of defense against any invasion. With the ships being specified to work well against the Borg, Etius decided to leave Romulus and join the Federation to keep invaders at bay. After all, if the Alpha Quadrant is safe, the Beta Quadrant would be as well.

Upon entering Federation Space, Etius got a thorough interrogation by Intelligence operatives, before getting assigned to the U.S.S O’Neill as the Assistant Chief Intelligence Officer, being given the honorary rank of Lieutenant, although officially he would be outranked by even a first year cadet. Much to his dismay, his superior officer is a Vulcan by the name of Akron. Neither one is a fan of each other, but they’ve grown to tolerate the other. Other faces are Captain Hammond, a by the book Human captain, Commander Danvers, a former Borg drone who returned to humanity and joined Starfleet, very much an unstable loose cannon, Lieutenant Styre, the Vulcan chief medical officer, Lieutenant Atohi, the human chief tactical officer who Etius thinks is a yes man and is completely under his thumb (he isn’t), and Clayde Wilson, an undercover Section 31 agent sent to monitor threats to the rather unstable ship, including Etius

Etius likes to spend his time diving into the culture of other species. In his mind, the only way you can truly understand another is to experience life the way they do, and how can you keep tabs on someone if you don’t understand them? He can often be seen in the ship’s Five Forward bar reading Federation novels, eating their food, and talking extensively with the other crew members. Part of his reason is defensive, he knows that the ship is a powder keg with its clashing commanding officers and chaotic mission and wants to have trusty allies that he understands in case things go to hell, while the other part is just for the sake of increasing his intelligence and understanding.

As a member of the crew, Etius is always the first to come up with a shifty scheme to get the ship out of trouble, no doubt violating some kind of treaty in the process, whether it be cloaking the ship with multispectral emitters to appear like a Ferengi trader or violating the Romulan Neutral Zone. When the pressure is on, the Romulan tends to get nervous, and when he’s nervous he talks. A lot. He also likes to brew Romulan ale as a hobby, the crew conveniently forgets the rather illegal nature of the beverage when enjoying his craft. The fact that it’s illegal is actually a boon for Etius, nobody is able to criticize him on the quality of it, who else knows what Romulan ale is supposed to taste like? Romantically, Etius’s life is completely stagnant, and he doesn’t really have friends as much as he has mutual tolerance, but there’s always room for something to blossom the more time away from home Etius spends.

I have no idea if this is too long and if I’m rambling but I had a lot of fun making this, this is my first Star Trek OC and he’s very fun to use in RP settings. I have another in the works, a very extroverted Changeling science officer who was part of the 100 but avoided fighting in the Dominion War and feels guilt about it. If people like this I’ll write something for them as well.

#Star Trek #oc #Star Trek oc #romulan #ramblings

[thesims4blogger]

The Sims 4 Paranormal Stuff: Developer Blog (Part 1)

SimGuruConnor has released part 1 of the Sims 4 Paranormal Developer Blog series.

Hello Simmers! Welcome to a small 2-part Dev Blog about our newest Stuff Pack, Paranormal Stuff! This pack has been an absolute blast to work on, and I’m excited to share what this pack is all about!

I’ll try not to reveal too many spoilers for the pack either, so I’ll keep things somewhat brief. Our topics for today are the new Scared Mood and the Haunted House Lot Type, plus an interview with our Audio Artist too!

Get Scared

Sims can now relish in the mortal dread of the Scared Mood! The Scared Mood affects Sims in a variety of ways, with my personal favorite, the new Scream Incoherently interaction, where a Scared Sim runs up to another Sim to scream their lungs out. This can result in the other Sim calming down the Scared Sim, or resulting in both Sims becoming Scared. This can create a Scared Mood wildfire if you’re not careful!

Whoa, whoa, whoa, it's okay!

Sims afflicted with the Scared Mood also have trouble communicating with others, the urge to panic-run everywhere, and are slightly more prone to accidents. If no other Sims are around to help calm down a Scared Sim, they might just have to Hide Under The Covers for a while.

But if being Scared just isn’t your Sims style, consider purchasing the new Brave Trait. This Satisfaction Reward Store Trait will rapidly reduce the incoming fear a Sim feels and help Sims regain their composure faster. While no Sim is totally fearless, this trait should help mitigate some of those creepy feelings.

The Scared Mood and the Brave Reward Trait are all base game features coming with the Paranormal Stuff patch on January 21st. Tons of previous Uncomfortable Buffs are now becoming Scared Buffs, such as the “Startled By Ghost” Buff or the “Thalassophobia” Buff from Island Living.

While being Scared might not be a common occurrence in your everyday Sims life, living in a Haunted House is a whole different story…

Happy Haunts

Introducing the Haunted House Lot Type!

The Duplantier Dwelling, created by Doctor Ashley! This “canon” Haunted House will be available in the gallery!

They’re like regular houses, only haunted! Although unassuming during the day, at night, these places get super weird. Your Sims may notice things like flickering lights, pipes rattling, or even creepy dolls staring at them in the corner. All are totally normal occurrences in a Haunted House, but it may take some time for your Sims to adjust to their new surroundings.

Sims living in a Haunted House will also be introduced to floating apparitions known as Specters. They’re cute little critters, but their motives aren’t entirely clear. You can try talking to them, or even offer them presents in hopes of establishing a good rapport. If they like you, they’ll drop special loot for you and your family. If they don’t like you, well, you’ve been warned.

o o o (> ‘ u ‘ )>

Learning to get along with your new ghostly inhabitants is crucial in a Haunted House. Things like botching seances, neglecting Specters, or letting accursed objects invade your house will have a negative impact on its spiritual serenity. There is a delicate art to co-existing with the entities of the house, and thankfully you’ll have an expert on the matter to assist you!

Meet Guidry

Claude René Duplantier Guidry was a seasoned Paranormal Investigator in his previous life, but now he exists to help anyone brave enough to live in a Haunted House! You’ll probably run into him eventually living in a Haunted House, but don’t worry, he’s a nice ghost!

Guidry will gladly offer his wisdom to those who seek it. If you’re confused, alarmed, or slightly uncomfortable by your new haunted surroundings, give Guidry a holler and he might be able to help. He can also offer valuable objects to help your Sims, too; all you need is to reach out!

Still got it.

All Guidry wants in return is to crash at your place for the time being. Sounds like a fair deal, right? But if you’d prefer to fly it solo, you can always disable his nightly visits—he won’t be too upset, maybe.

As mentioned before, Guidry was a Paranormal Investigator before his untimely demise. If he sees potential in you, he can certify you with a Paranormal Investigation License, granting access to the Paranormal Investigation Freelancer Gigs. Only those who are qualified enough can join the ranks of Paranormal Investigators, but more on that next time!

Be Brave!

Living in a Haunted House adds a layer of risk and reward for your Sims, and each successful night yields Reward Store Satisfaction Points for everyone in the Household. Specters can also drop treasure that can also be collected, consumed, or sold to an Oddity Collector. So although your Sims might go through a bit of peril, they’ll thankfully be compensated.

One of my favorite pieces of haunted treasure is the new Sacred Candle. Not only do they look cool, but they also help protect Sims from paranormal influences. Place them around your house to make sure Sims are properly shielded!

A properly protected Sim.

Things like Sacred Candles and performing ceremonies at the Séance Table are integral to keeping your Sims happy in a Haunted House. Without using these paranormal tools, the entities of the house might get a little bossy.

And while it might be in your Sims’ best interest to keep the spirits of the house in check, watching things go horribly wrong in a Haunted House can be just as fun too. So whatever works for you!

Like Tiny Homes, this Lot Type can be toggled on or off at any time. So whether you’re a casual thrillseeker who wants to spend a couple of nights in a Haunted House, or a seasoned Paranormal Expert who wants to take on a new challenge, this Lot Type should offer something for you!

Crosspack Stuff!

Pets get to share the fun too! They especially love the accursed objects that show up!

I think they’re gonna get along great.

As mentioned before, a ton of old Buffs from multiple packs are now being converted to the Scared Mood. I think 70 something Moodlets were converted? Honestly, I lost count. Anything that seemed more appropriate for the Scared Mood was transferred over.

Oh, and you might remember an old Lot Trait from City Living called Haunted. For clarity’s sake, it needed a name change, so now it’s the Spooky Lot Trait. It also benefits from being combined with the new Haunted House Lot Type and will have an increased chance of spawning Ghosts at night. So use both for maximum haunted-ness!

Audibly Frightened

Last but not least, I’d love to turn it over to our Audio Artist for this pack, Briana Billups! She did a killer job bringing Haunted Houses to life! Trust me!

Conor: Can you tell us what an Audio Artist does on The Sims 4?

Briana: Big, broad picture: an audio artist decides what everything in The Sims 4 sounds like. We record, create, and edit sounds to the art and animation of the game. Little, very detailed picture: creating the actual sounds is usually one of the smaller aspects of our job. We are meeting with other departments, like design, animation, and VFX, to understand the overall vision of new game features and how we can fit in sonically. We are meeting with each other to make sure all our new content still keeps the very fun and quirky vibe of the Sims. We come up with new tools and implementation where necessary.

Conor: What sort of things go into the creative process for creating audio?

Briana: Every audio artist/sound designer has their own creative process, but I like to make a “sonic mood board” of sorts. I typically like to have a good idea of what I want something to sound like in my head before I record or edit it, so it’s nice to have sound effects or music to refer to that represents my original inspiration or ideas. When I was in college, I would make Spotify playlists for whatever I was working on. I would listen to them once a day, adding and editing as necessary, so when I actually got to work, I was in the right headspace. Now I’m usually less formal about this sort of stuff, but for this pack, I would refer back to things like Vincent Price’s demonic laugh from Thriller or Casper the Friendly Ghost Cartoons and the looping soundtrack from the queue of a horror ride at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk (Ghost Blasters)

Conor: What were you most excited to work on for this pack?

Briana: Definitely all the haunted house sounds! Good sound design is the crux of so many horror movies and video games, so even if we were keeping things more “Casper” and less “Poltergeist,” I still wanted to give a good scare here and there. I actually scared myself one day while playtesting another feature in the game!

Conor: If you had to choose, what is your favorite audio clip you’ve ever added to The Sims 4?

Briana: I would say my favorite SFX were the sports arena loops in EP08: Discover University. When you visit the arena for the soccer/esports match or graduation, you can actually listen to the whole game or ceremony. It was great to craft a whole story from start to finish using just sound. I also snuck in a lot of developer names when writing the scripts for our voice actors.

Thanks, Briana!

More To Come!

That about covers this first foray into the Paranormal Stuff Pack! This pack has been a ton of fun to work on, and watching my Sims flee in terror has been more enjoyable than I’d like to admit.

Next blog, we’ll focus on the Séance Table and developing your Medium skill, as well as the new active freelance career Paranormal Investigator.

Big thanks to the Stuff Pack team for helping this pack come to life, and thank you, Doctor Ashley, for building our featured Haunted House!

Until next time, SimGuruConor

#news #the sims 4 #ts4 #sims 4 #sims 4 paranormal #stuff pack