(Warning: LTD Fuckery. Get lost if you can’t stand shipping-talk.)
I have seen a lot of commentary regarding the most recent content being released for FF7R, both official & unofficial. The most bold and aggravating comments come from the shipping fandoms, of course. The Clerith fandom, in particular, are going menacingly hard - whether they’re gloating over some scenes or downright downplaying others, their comments and feelings regarding the game seem to fluctuate the hardest out of everyone else’s.
It’s a literal emotional rollercoaster reading their opinions. Quite fascinating. It ranges from thinking that Cloud’s English VA is far too crude towards Aerith to them being sure that Cloud and Aerith had a valiant hero & heroine moment at the end of the game. Interesting.
But I would like to gage in on one of many aspects that they’ve been raving about: they seem to think that all ships BUT Clerith are simple fan service. They’re insisting that Clerith is going to be the flagship pairing, and that the developers/creators are using Clessie (Cloud x Jessie) and Cloti (Cloud x Tifa) as a fan service component. Although they may be using this technique, I think they have the flagship pairing incorrect.
After studying the game’s romance interactions, it became more and more obvious that Cloud and Aerith have extremely similar “romantic” scenes as Cloud and Jessie. Even more interesting is that these scenes are just as shallow, cliche, corny, and mundane. Whereas Cloud and Tifa’s scenes are always much more deep, thoughtful, and somehow always bring up their tragic past. Cloud and Tifa have an apparent neuronal & emotional link that literally no other character could replace nor understand.
Of course, to back up my statement, I do have SEVERAL instances where Cloud and Jessie have almost IDENTICAL scenes as Cloud and Aerith. If Cloud and Aerith were the intended romantic couple that will be slowly “burned” into the game’s plot, why do they have the same generic, light-hearted, bantered flirting as Cloud and Jessie? Again, it’s rather interesting. Personally, I don’t think it makes sense to follow this logic, but to each their own!
But without further ado, here are the interactions! I won’t go into details since the body language/dialogue literally do all of the work:
Clessie Interaction 4 (Both exceptionally curious about Tifa’s role):
Clessie Interaction 6(Ft. Wedge, Heeding a Warning):
BONUS CLODGE (CLOUD x WEDGE) & CLERITH COMPARISONS!
And there ya have it! Pretty hilarious!
I would imagine if the canon & intended flagship pairing was Clerith, the developers would at least TRY to make their moments much more unique, NOT make them totally identical to Clessie moments. Although both Clessie and Clerith have very sweet moments, there are no parallels that can be compared to Cloud and Tifa’s intimate moments - Cloud & Tifa have unique moments that are character-specific. Tifa and Cloud know things about each others that others couldn’t emulate, something Aerith nor Jessie could relate to (possibly why both Aerith & Jessie eagerly ask about Tifa’s standing with Cloud).
But alas, this is just an opinion based on obviously stated evidence. We’ll see how the development team treats the romance component of this game.
amandla
titsay
prguitarman
vaporwave
romaincrisis
theartofmadeline
