Here's the thing, right? I personally think Cloud and Tifa's relationship is at its most interesting post-Advent Children. I understand that Advent Children is not a well written movie--in fact I truly believe the characterization of every character in it (especially Cloud and Tifa) was detrimental to their personalities in future works and in the fandom. The movie did irrevocable damage to how people perceive them and their relationship and I will never forgive it for that
but
and walk with me here
foundational, post-Advent Children sets up a really interesting dynamic for them. For one, they're older--only 22 and 23, yeah (and in my head I wish they were in their late twenties or god thirties? IMAGINE??? LETTING THEM GROW UP)--and still they're both on two different levels of maturity. Cloud has to essentially force himself to grow from a stunted sixteen year old in a man's body to being a grown adult, meanwhile Tifa has already done that on her own for years. It's not a surprise that when Geostigma hit, Cloud got on the road and ran for the hills rather than deal with the emotional fall out. It's what he did when he was thirteen and went to Shrina, after all. A man whose still working with a teenager's sense of urgency is going to book it rather than stare it in the face.
Meanwhile, Tifa is stuck in Edge. Yeah, she loves Seventh Heaven, she loves Marlene, and she loves Denzel but whether you take Cloud and Tifa as lovers, ex's, or platonic friends, he still abandoned her with all the responsibility. People can get mad at her for yelling at him all they want, but she was right in that moment. Cloud was chasing a phantom and, back in reality, Tifa was the one who had to pick up the pieces he left behind.
And how can resentment not fester from all that? People in the fandom want to perceive Tifa as having the patience of a saint but by god if there was ever a person who deserved to snap at Cloud, it was her. As if she's not grieving the loss of Aerith, as if she doesn't have the ribbon displayed openly on her arm while he hides it under a black sleeve, as if she was doesn't wait by the phone for him, answer his business calls, pay the bills, keep his room clean. Two years after the world is saved, Cloud gets to drive away on his motorcycle and Tifa is forced to play mother and wife for him regardless of her feelings.
He's not a fully developed person and I think Cloud realizes that in Advent Children. He ran because he couldn't be that person, for Tifa, for the kids, for Barret or anyone else on the team. He'd rather decay by himself in Aerith's church knowing that she would have slap him on the back of the head for what he was doing. AC had these fucked up but fantastic ideas for Cloud and Tifa because by god, it wasn't going to be a happy ending at the end of FF7 for them. Neither of were ready for it or grown enough for it.
They need time to figure themselves out as people and I think logically, as much as they do love each other, Tifa and Cloud are going to be naturally messy people together. How can you not be? All the love in the world doesn't fix the fact that one of them was had an identity crisis that rendered him comatose and the other is so traumatized by her past that she'd rather lie to someone to keep them together than risk losing them to the truth. There's no domesticity in that but I love that they attempted it, as if setting up a home and a job and sharing a bed after the end of the world would fix that. It's so childish and makes sense because they're both still effectively children.
Post-Advent Children adds the fun addition of them no longer being in survival mode. There's no excuse for either of them at the end of it to keep running away from their problems. Is Cloud smiling at Tifa in the end? Oh, of course, but a smile doesn't do away with months of abandonment, does it? He can't get on a motorcycle now and ride off, and she can't grin and bare it because she's too frightened of the alternative.
Like don't get me wrong, I love FF7 Cloud and Tifa, I adore them, but to see them as adults having to actually live with the fall out of their actions--actions that have hurt each other--and maybe accept that they romantized each other as a coping mechanism and don't really know each other (because how would they? FF7 is implied to have happened maybe A DAY after Tifa found Cloud at the train station). Advent Children Tifa and Cloud do know each other and that's what makes the resentment and bitterness between them worse. It's a betrayal after everything they'd been through.
What, weren't we done from hiding the truth from each other because it hurt? So there still isn't trust?
I understand the aversion in the Cloti space to make their relationship less than fluff after AC because it should be that happy ending (and I think some people take these issues as anti-cloti which is weird) but Cloud and Tifa, at least in the original FF7, worked because of how raw their relationship was. They want to idolize their childhood so bad, they want to live in this fantasy world where he's the hero and she's waiting on him, but the reality is that they are both broken people who lied to each other and themselves, and are living in grief day after day.
(Also honestly the other reason I like AC-Tifa in particular is because it gives people the chance to write her as an actual three dimensional person who isn't waiting on Cloud hand and foot, waiting for him to come back into her life and give it all meaning. I still think the worse Tifa's are the ones written to be rebound for Cloud, to watch him be the main character of his own little drama while she keeps everything afloat and works as glorified therapist/mother.)
what bothers me about fandom is that so often, it treats Tifa as Cloud's second choice. Not his friend, not the person who pieced his mind together, not a part of his family
no, she's his rebound, the couch he sleeps on when he has no where else to go, the next best thing
and this isn't just about Aerith (who quite frankly would be so pissed at Cloud if he treated Tifa like that), I've seen it with so many other ships, be it Zack or even fucking Sephiroth??
Tifa in canon is Cloud's center point, his home, the place he always returns to and I don't mean this in a singular romance sense, I mean this as an importance and yet every time when Tifa is not the main ship, Cloud just uses her as emotional labor until the person he """belongs""" with comes along and then what? Tifa just swallows her tears, nods, and tells him to go on
all it proves is that for all this fandoms goin 'oooooooo girl boss we love you queen' about Tifa, they still treat her like a wet rag for Cloud to use and toss at his emotional convenience
I almost prefer when the fandom was openly sexist, at least it was honest
Advent Children is a great fun film full of fanservice on the surface but if you sit down and try to make it work for Aerith specifically in fic form, it makes you want to run head first into a wall.
Tifa has Aerith’s blood stained ribbon I have no proof of this but it will not stop me from imagining Tifa taking it out when she’s alone and putting it to her lips, pretending it’s still warm and smells like Aerith’s favorite soap.
She’d tie it in her own hair but she’s worried she’ll damage it. To destroy the last piece of Aerith’s she still has—she can’t do it. So she’ll keep it safe or try to at least; it’s hard to keep something precious protected when all you have are battle scarred hands.
I've finished the game and I just have notes right off the bat:
what Rebirth gives us the interpersonal relationships with EACH of the party members, it takes away from the brutality of the OG (Sephiroth bloody path through Shinra, Cloud physically attacking Aerith, Dyne in a manic state saying he wanted to 'reunite' Marlene with her dead mother, rebuilt Nibelheim, even Sephiroth's sword being in Aerith's stomach) and it makes me think that the writers were too scared of just how brutal FF7 was.
The removal of Cloud putting Aerith into the waters at the Forgotten City was a mistake. I have no idea why they did that except maybe they wanted the audience to believe that MAYBE Aerith was alive?
Actually her coming back at all, either as a ghost or a projection of the Lifestream really lessen the impact of her death. In the OG, when Aerith was dead, she was dead. No, message from the grave, no ghosts, no hint of her until her face appeared at the very end. It was final and it was heartbreaking--and again, it makes me think the writers were too scared to deal with that.
What Cloud is seeing in the final scene isn't Aerith. It's either Jenova or Cloud's broken psyche refusing to accept Aerith's death and his failure to stop Sephiroth. Barret and Tifa both being so uncomfortable with how Cloud's acting just proves it to me. And really, if it is Aerith, why is so not reaching out to anyone else. Why just Cloud. Like yes, Main Character, but not Tifa or Nanaki at least? I don't buy it, that's not Aerith.
Speaking of Tifa OH MY GOD between her and Barret, the writers at least knew how to hit us hard with them. Barret openly weeping and putting on his glasses, trying to force himself forward, when he screamed I'LL KILL YOU at Sephiroth.
Tifa being unable to move when called, breaking down, sobbing in the field because Aerith was her best friend. And the last time Tifa saw Aerith, talked to her, was when she lost her in the mist. And remember, Tifa FOUND Aerith in the mist before back in Remake--when Aerith was lost, Cloud may have found her but Tifa was the one to say 'we found you'. And SHE LOST HER.
I understand also that Cid didn't know her long but good God given his reaction when first met Aerith, you'd think he'd muster more than he's shown in the credits.
They REALLY want to hold off Aerith and Zack meeting and talking, huh.
This game series knows how to take the wind out of Sephiroth though like why am I fighting Bizarro Sephiroth of all things in what would be the mid-point of the game. I know they needed a final boss but WAIT a BIT FOR HIM.
Looking up something on the FF wiki and ah yes Tifa's Fenrir ring, very cool very--
wait a minute
Barret's what now
whispers oh my god Cloud gave Barret a ring. He gave him a ring that symbolizes himself just like he gave Tifa because Barret is part of his family I'm gonna
AU where Cid helps Ifalna escape Shinra with Aerith and Sephiroth and they grow up in Rocket Town, and become pilots like they're stepdad. Getting to see the world they were constant denied from above. Sephiroth reaching out towards space to understand himself and Aerith traveling through a sky she no longer finds daunting.
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janainaart
theartofmadeline
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