rewatching kung fu panda 2 rn and tigeress and po's dynamic is so good to me guys

I’m a die hard Clerith shipper since 1997, you can’t change my mind but the one thing I won’t tolerate in FFVII aside from shipping wars, is anyone shitting on Tifa.

Don’t. You can like Clerith without hating Tifa. You can find other reasons to not to like Tifa as character, that isn’t “I don’t like her because she gets in the way of my ship”

Personally, Tifa isn’t one of my top tier FF characters, but I am not going to ignore how much of a badass and important person Tifa is to Cloud’s story.

People cite Aerith’s death and burial as the most important moment of FFVII, and yes it’s heartbreaking and an iconic scene. But you know what’s also an important scene?

Tifa in the lifestream with Cloud setting his memories straight. Tifa who up until this moment unbeknownst to the player, is aware that Cloud as he’s presented himself thus far *isnt* the Cloud he thinks he is. She’s been patiently going along with Cloud’s story trying to figure out *what happened* to him/ how he appeared in Midgar boasting of being a SOLDIER while clearly suffering from Mako poisoning/how will she ultimately break this story to him.

Think how hard it was for her to watch Cloud have ptsd episodes and not know how to ground him other than to say “it’s okay. Pull yourself together, let’s keep moving”, because she doesn’t know how or why Cloud is suffering.

But then they fall into the Lifestream together and Tifa helps Cloud sift through the memories warped and altered by the poisoning and Cloud’s severe PTSD.

Only Tifa could help Cloud here- she’s the only one on the Team who has known Cloud since they were young/understands Cloud’s motivations for wanting to become stronger in joining SOLDIER.

This part of the game is beautiful and emotional, and very ahead of it’s time in its portrayal and meta-discussion of PTSD; Cloud isn’t magically healed and back to normal, he never will be, be he’s reclaimed his identity enough that he can begin to heal. I’m replaying the original atm and the moment still holds and I’m hoping that the remake nails this moment. It’s as important and impactful to Cloud as a character as Aerith’s death.

Speaking of Aerith.  Aerith and Tifa become friends from the jump.  Aerith is so respectful of Tifa that twice she makes sure that she isn’t encroaching on Cloud and Tifa’s relationship. She asks Cloud if Tifa is his girlfriend, she reassures Tifa in Don Cornero’s Mansion that she’s not there to steal Cloud from her.  

And yeah, Aerith isn’t trying to steal Cloud or anything - she helped a cute buff guy recover from a fall, asked him for an escort because this time the Turks brought backup to capture her, and got swept up in the ensuing events.  

Hell, Aerith is ride or die for Tifa BEFORE THEY EVEN FORMALLY MEET EACH OTHER. Aerith sees Tifa being carted off to Wall Market and her “some bad shit’s about to happen to this woman if we don’t move NOW” senses go off.  

Cloud’s like “oh let me take you home first and I’ll get my teammates...” and Aerith’s like “YOU NAIVE FOOL? DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHAT HAPPENS TO CUTE GIRLS IN WALL MARKET? (tbh, considering how naive Cloud can be, I am going with ‘nope’.) WE GOTTA GO! QUICK GET INTO THIS SEXY DRESS BECAUSE MR. SOLDIER YOU’RE NOT COMING UP WITH A BETTER PLAN WE CAN WORK WITH!!” Aerith drives the entire plan to get into the Don’s mansion. She negotiates the dress, the wig, the makeup, EVERYTHING, to make sure that Cloud can pass as a women to come into the Mansion with her.  

Heck, Aerith was going to go into the mansion HERSELF to get Tifa when the guard was like “No dudes allowed.” The only reason they went looking for dresses in Cloud’s size, was because Cloud got all “No, I can’t let you go in there a lone if it’s as bad as you think it is”, (as if he hadn’t just spent the last day with this woman watching her completely kick ass in battle). So Aerith was like, “Fine, you wanna come with me? Get in the Silk Dress, Cloud” with the same energy as Shinji’s Dad.

And when Aerith gets captured, Tifa was like “WE GOTTA GO AND SAVE HER FROM SHINRA!” as well as protecting Aerith through the whole ShinRa office building mission when the groups had to split up.  So yeah, these two queens love and respect each other from the get-go, they put Cloud in his place, tease the shit out of him and Barret, probably had hair-braiding trains at camp, and support the hell out of each other . 

Also, as we see from the rest of FFVII and in AC, Tifa is devastated by her friend’s death and continues to grieve with Cloud.  Tifa is emotionally intelligent enough to see that Cloud’s grief and guilt over Aerith’s death is killing him, but also respects his need for space.  However, when she finds that he has Geostigma and has staying away from everyone so he can just waste away and die as some sort of penance for not being able to save Aerith and zack, she get’s PISSED at him. Tifa is instrumental in bringing Cloud back (again) to his senses.  Making him see, that he doesn’t only belong to himself, he belongs to their family, just as much as they belong to him. The love and fierce protection Cloud has for his family?  They have that for him and believe he’s more than worthy of that love. Tifa takes none of Cloud’s mopey and self-loathing bs, and sets him straight.

So if you think Tifa is only there for fan-service, an annoying bitch who is there to be jealous of Aerith, is there just to make a love triangle so SE can pander to fans on both sides, you clearly

a) didn’t play the games b) missed one of the best female relationships and examples of women supporting women in gaming c) missed how equally important both Aerith and Tifa are to Cloud in their own ways

IMO I see her and Cloud as platonic soulmates- kinda like Black Widow and Hawkeye- they have history, they have shared trauma from their childhoods and in the destruction of Nibelheim, they know what it’s like to grow up in a poor country town that’s been exploited by Shinra on so many levels from the natural resources to it’s culture of military indoctrination and idealization.

Yes, there was an innocent first love, but after certain events, to me- it’s moved beyond romantic attraction between them. They’re always going to be important to each other and in each other's lives.  

Their innocent first love to me, mirrors Zack and Aerith’s, but Aerith moved on and fell in love with Cloud. Yes, Cloud reminded her of Zack, she probably wanted to remain close to Cloud to get closure on what exactly happened to him. 

People often forget, Aerith *knows* Zack’s died and returned to the Lifestream in the way that she knew her adoptive mother’s husband had died before word reached them. When she has her awkward moment in Gongaga it’s not because she’s now realizing that he’s dead, she’s now realizing that these are Zack’s parents and they still don’t know what became of their son. Zack was scrambled into Cloud’s memories due to trauma and because Zack was someone Cloud looked up and was his ideal, combined with the fact that Zack was the only person talking to Cloud for 9 months as Zack carried his catatonic self back to Midgar. But Cloud didn’t *become* Zack, only Zack’s plans of becoming a mercenary and being a former SOLDIER were impressed upon him. If Cloud actually became Zack he would have been chipper, this energetic “I’m a hero!” all around good-guy hero Zack made himself out to be. The Cloud we first meet...isn’t- yes he thinks he’s a former SOLDIER turned merc, but he’s sardonic, arrogant, and too much of “tough guy/lone wolf”...he’s more like his child-like self who was made to feel like an outsider and wants to showoff how much cooler and stronger he’s become.  He didn’t find Aerith because Zack was some how possessing him.  Aerith and Cloud meeting was destiny, and their subsequent relationship is independent of their past histories with Zack. And if Aerith is interested in Cloud because she reminds him of Zack - well...the woman is allowed to have a type.

I digress.

Cloud was in love with Tifa in that - “hey! notice me! If I go off an become this awesome guy, I’ll be worthy of your attention” sort of way, that teens get.  He was a lonely kid, often bullied by the other children in the village (Tifa included), and probably didn’t know *why* he wanted Tifa’s attention- it was most likely Tifa had the most social capital among the kids. And despite her hot/cold treatment of him,Cloud who was desperate to prove himself, figured that if he somehow “won” Tifa’s attention, it would “show them”.  I am not saying that Cloud was using Tifa or didn’t care about her- he does love her. He blamed himself for not being strong enough to save her when she tried climb Mt. Nibel.  But you can’t ignore that his thirst to prove himself wasn’t wrapped up in his crush.  It’s your typical “become a hero, get the girl” idealization.  Cloud was 14 when he left Nibelheim for Shinra’s military. He was a child, just like Tifa, with a naive idea about how the world worked- and the world slapped them both in the face, HARD.  Relationships mature and change over time. Outside forces can and will shift your dynamics in how your relate to the people you love.  Sometimes your first crush, becomes one of your very best friends (happened to me personally so maybe this informs my take on Cloud and Tifa) because when you’re young you don’t understand that loving someone, outside of your nuclear family, isn’t only constrained to romance. This is what I believe happened to them. Cloud and Tifa had the quintessential school yard crush, and when they were reunited years later in Midgar, they still care deeply for each other in a different way than they did when they were 14 and 13.

But those are MY feelings, it’s how I play the game’s attraction mechanics; I am afforded to shape Cloud’s relationships as I, the gamer, see fit. I understand why Cloti shippers ship Cloud and Tifa, and they’re just as valid as Clerith, Zarith, Clack, etc.. but I’m a sucker for M/F platonic soulmates because there needs to be MORE of that in media. I rather Cloud and Tifa be platonic soul mates, co-parenting Marlene and Denzel with Barret, than Cloud “settling for Tifa because Aerith died”. which that explanation for Cloud x Tifa, often used by Clerith shippers, just undermines who Tifa is as a character and her’s and Cloud’s relationship.

But anyway, even though I don’t ship them and Tifa is not my #1 girl for VII, she is a vital character. She’s not there for fan-service.  She’s not there exclusively for a love triangle and to cause tension between Aerith and Cloud.  Tifa is VITAL to Cloud’s story, to the story of VII, to the planet of Gaia. You wouldn’t have VII’s core story without Tifa. And I will go to the mat for her just as hard as Aerith did when she saw Tifa in the cart bound for Wall Market.

So again: you may not ship her with Cloud, or she may not be your fave in VII, but in this house we forever respect the badass queen whose name is Tifa Lockhart

Thanks for your insightful comments, @veta-lopis​ ! And yeah, a lot of the reactions to ‘Silent Storm’ I’ve been seeing are following along the same general likes & dislikes. Which isn’t a bad thing I suppose. I’d rather have that than yet another piece of Halo media that is ridiculously divisive and/or yo-yos in overall quality...Also I just re-read both yours and @equivalencept’s Pros+Cons for the book and realized mine was a lot more like them than I thought. So I apologize for the lack of originality. XD

(btw these fine folks’ posts can be read here & here - spoilers still apply obvs)

I wanted to “officially” put my initial thoughts on things out into the wild here anyway though. And I hope you don’t mind me replying on a separate post, but since the book is less than a week old I’m trying to be as courteous as possible to those that want to avoid any & all spoilers by keeping specific talk about the story’s contents under read-mores. :)

I get what you are saying about Fred’s humor being better balanced in Denning’s previous books - because it was. I guess for my part I still would have liked to have seen more exploration of the weightier side of what Fred would’ve been going through at that time. Such as: how does Fred feel about essentially becoming the "replacement" for the Master Chief in the eyes of his remaining S-IIs (not to mention HIGHCOM) and Kurt in the eyes of the S-IIIs? Is he trying to run things differently than his predecessors, or the same - and why? Does he remotely expect, or want, his new duties as squad leader to pass on to someone else eventually? And other such related items.

Adding some humor to liven up a story is perfectly fine. Welcome even. Humanizing the Spartan-IIs is something anyone who has seen me around here/the Halo community in general I think knows I am 110% in support of. Especially when it is used to show that the S-IIs are indeed people and not just emotionless/mindless war machines. But when humor is utilized at the expense of what else that a character has to offer that also makes them unique and dynamic, it becomes a problem. And I feel that has sort-of happened to Fred in Denning’s books - which, as you touched on, is getting into retcon territory. But like I said I have hope this issue can be course-corrected in future media with appropriate feedback to the right people.

Also for the record, I don’t disagree that Eric Nylund’s past works could have done better with some punched-up emotionality throughout. Though in my opinion when it really mattered, the emotions that were attached to those various key moments were still strong and left a lasting impact (i.e. Sam’s death, Chief finding the surviving S-IIs on Reach, Operation: TORPEDO, Dr. Halsey and Fred fighting on Onyx, etc.). But that is neither here or there. Obviously different writers are going to have different strengths, weaknesses, and styles.

Also to give the current author some benefit of the doubt here, we don’t know exactly what material Troy Denning is working from. What was he given from 343i that briefed him on Blue Team and the other S-IIs? Was it even accurate, or detailed enough? Was he given anything at all? We just don’t know. Nor do I expect him, as a busy professional, to read TFOR/FS/GOO cover-to-cover dozens of times to become intimately familiar with the subtleties of the characters’ established personalities and mannerisms...that would’ve been nice if he had, sure, but that’s not realistic.

So all things considered he's done quite well - just needs to tighten the screws a bit in some areas, imo. Either way John being portrayed right was what was most important for ‘Silent Storm’ to do, as he is one of the primary POV characters. And I’m very glad, and relieved, to be able to say that aspect worked out great.

As far as I am aware, it wasn’t that the members of Green & Gold Teams were scaled back in terms of their involvement in the story. But rather 343i limited Denning in terms of the number of Spartans that he originally wanted to have in the book. As in, we could have seen another team of 4 present for this op (Black Team perhaps?). So when taking into account everything already going on between all the groups and the amount of characters involved as is, I believe the devs made the right call on that one. Still that doesn’t make it any less of a shame to see the Spartans we have not being utilized to their full potential (personality-wise and as soldiers).

Unfortunately though it is hard to say if Blue Team as a whole is even what 343i is wanting to “double down” on. All we have gotten from them in the wake of H5 is they think people want “moar Master Chief” - as evidenced with things like ‘Silent Storm’ and ‘Collateral Damage’ being labeled “A Master Chief Story”. Which, to put it mildly, is missing the big picture to a ridiculous degree. But (whether they like it or not) Kelly, Fred, and Linda were with John practically every step of the way up to the original games. So there is no way for them to be removed as long as “prequel” media is being made. So it is my hope that continued exposure to Blue Team will soften those fans that might have been soured on their presence due to H5′s extremely poor handing of their introduction to the games...and thus result in them being kept around as main characters and the Chief’s companions in H6.

Otherwise yeah, I totally agree that seeing a young John and Blue Team make their first forays into the wider world of the UNSC and it’s politics was the best aspect of the book. I really like that it did emphasize that at this point they are still kids and even with all their expert combat training and college-level education they have a lot left to learn from experience (both their own and their elders’/superiors’).

However, also like you said, more stuff that is just focused on their interactions as characters is sorely needed. Like that part early on in the story when Kelly broke some ribs and she had to call John out on his somewhat overprotective behavior. That was the perfect set-up for them to have a personal conversation later where they hash things out in more detail regarding how Sam’s death has impacted them both and what that means for them as teammates & best friends going forward...but it is never followed up on. Or for instance why not have a little more going on in the background with Daisy. I assume her confrontational attitude in the book is something of a reference to how she found out the ugly truth of what happened with their birth families after they were kidnapped...so why not have a moment where Kurt (as both a team leader for this op and someone we know is interested in understanding other people) really tries to push past that anger and make her feel better. Or why not just have a moment where Naomi uses her tech-savviness to assist Grace in doing something clever with explosives.

'Silent Storm’ was ripe for character-building elements like this. But, outside of a few moments for John, didn’t quite deliver. As you touched on in your own appraisal of the narrative there was just too much happening here to cover in one book - one that was less than 800 pages anyway. But for what we got, I will still say I’m satisfied with it and will continue to keep my fingers crossed that the positives and negatives currently being discussed across social media will be taken into account for next time.