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Meta on Tifa from Final Fantasy VII
I might write some FF7 fanfiction at some point, so I will start with meta. [Of course, I have written FF7 fanfiction before.....IN THIS JOURNAL! Don't look for it, it will make you cry.]
Final Fantasy VII was released for the PlayStation console in 1997. I really hope that it's okay for me to be spoilery about this game. It's been out for 12 years, and if you play video games at all, you've already played it. If you haven't played it, you probably never will.
FF7 is your basic RPG: Cloud Strife is a loner protagonist who slowly assembles a team of people with varying abilities who band together to defeat the Big Bads and save the world (from: an evil corporation that destroys the Earth's lifeforce in order to make money, a giant meteor, an alien who fell from the sky and infused people with her cells to make them crazy, and a psychopathic murderer who used to be Cloud's personal hero). Also, you begin the game as a member of the terrorist organization, and then end up leading it! You plant bombs and run from the military! So awesome.
More than halfway through the game, you the player discover that Cloud's memories and perception of reality are totally flawed, fabricated, and basically deeply fucked. He has spent the entire game projecting someone else's persona on to himself due to a combination of low self esteem and his living inside a glass tube for two years and being experimented on by the lunatic Professor Hojo inside the Shinra Mansion.
And almost more interesting (to me), you figure out that the two women who are/were in love with him (one is killed halfway through the game) both had reason to believe that he was really messed up - Aeris, because Cloud acts exactly like Zack, down to mannerisms, clothing and hairstyle; Tifa, because Cloud has memories of events for which she was present.....but she knows that he was not. And despite this knowledge and probably sense of foreboding, they love him anyway.
One of the things I find most fascinating about Final Fantasy VII fanfiction is that in the stories I've read, writers treat Cloud's myth as reality, and go from there. Nobody ever deals with the fact that the protagonist in the game was a pathological liar who believed the lies he told himself, or the fact that Tifa spends the entire game KNOWING that he is lying, thinking that the memories she has of him are made up, etc.
It could be that I'm simply looking in the wrong places for fanfiction, but it really seems like even beyond the death of Aeris, this game should be a minefield for angst and psychological trauma. But most of the fanfiction is littered with AU stories in which Aeris is resurrected post-game and everyone fights a new Big Bad, or Cloud has Sephiroth-related angst.
Even in-canon stories from Tifa's perspective would be so much more interesting. Imagine visiting Nibelheim and meeting all of the Shinra employees there who claim to have always lived there - how much Tifa must have questioned her own sanity/perception of reality, if all that had changed, and Cloud had, too. Cloud's memories are the only ones that confirm her own - that everyone was murdered and everything burned to the ground - but she knows that Cloud was never in Nibelheim during that time - so are her memories real, or not? Can she even trust Cloud, who's leading their group in their fight against evil?
Anyway, those are some preliminary thoughts on Tifa, which don't even include everything else (her love for Cloud, complicated by his former unrequited love for HER, her bad-assery, her scar from Sephiroth, her blind rage, etc.)
Aside from Tifa, the characters who I find the most potential in for fic are:
Professor Hojo
VINCENT VALENTINE
Reeve
Rufus Shinra
...and probably more
ETA: FABULOUS CLOUD META BY SOMEONE WHO IS NOT ME!
Final Fantasy VII was released for the PlayStation console in 1997. I really hope that it's okay for me to be spoilery about this game. It's been out for 12 years, and if you play video games at all, you've already played it. If you haven't played it, you probably never will.
FF7 is your basic RPG: Cloud Strife is a loner protagonist who slowly assembles a team of people with varying abilities who band together to defeat the Big Bads and save the world (from: an evil corporation that destroys the Earth's lifeforce in order to make money, a giant meteor, an alien who fell from the sky and infused people with her cells to make them crazy, and a psychopathic murderer who used to be Cloud's personal hero). Also, you begin the game as a member of the terrorist organization, and then end up leading it! You plant bombs and run from the military! So awesome.
More than halfway through the game, you the player discover that Cloud's memories and perception of reality are totally flawed, fabricated, and basically deeply fucked. He has spent the entire game projecting someone else's persona on to himself due to a combination of low self esteem and his living inside a glass tube for two years and being experimented on by the lunatic Professor Hojo inside the Shinra Mansion.
And almost more interesting (to me), you figure out that the two women who are/were in love with him (one is killed halfway through the game) both had reason to believe that he was really messed up - Aeris, because Cloud acts exactly like Zack, down to mannerisms, clothing and hairstyle; Tifa, because Cloud has memories of events for which she was present.....but she knows that he was not. And despite this knowledge and probably sense of foreboding, they love him anyway.
One of the things I find most fascinating about Final Fantasy VII fanfiction is that in the stories I've read, writers treat Cloud's myth as reality, and go from there. Nobody ever deals with the fact that the protagonist in the game was a pathological liar who believed the lies he told himself, or the fact that Tifa spends the entire game KNOWING that he is lying, thinking that the memories she has of him are made up, etc.
It could be that I'm simply looking in the wrong places for fanfiction, but it really seems like even beyond the death of Aeris, this game should be a minefield for angst and psychological trauma. But most of the fanfiction is littered with AU stories in which Aeris is resurrected post-game and everyone fights a new Big Bad, or Cloud has Sephiroth-related angst.
Even in-canon stories from Tifa's perspective would be so much more interesting. Imagine visiting Nibelheim and meeting all of the Shinra employees there who claim to have always lived there - how much Tifa must have questioned her own sanity/perception of reality, if all that had changed, and Cloud had, too. Cloud's memories are the only ones that confirm her own - that everyone was murdered and everything burned to the ground - but she knows that Cloud was never in Nibelheim during that time - so are her memories real, or not? Can she even trust Cloud, who's leading their group in their fight against evil?
Anyway, those are some preliminary thoughts on Tifa, which don't even include everything else (her love for Cloud, complicated by his former unrequited love for HER, her bad-assery, her scar from Sephiroth, her blind rage, etc.)
Aside from Tifa, the characters who I find the most potential in for fic are:
Professor Hojo
VINCENT VALENTINE
Reeve
Rufus Shinra
...and probably more
ETA: FABULOUS CLOUD META BY SOMEONE WHO IS NOT ME!
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Seriously, though - that really surprises me about the fic that's out there. I wonder why that is?
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I always found it weird that a lot of people paired her romantically with Vincent in fanfiction, presumably because they are both optional characters.
And yeah, I wonder why, too; I'm considering cross-posting my meta to a few FF7 LJ communities to see what other people have to say.
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It's true that you can get Barret! There's also a way to get Yuffie, although I have never done either.
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Although, to be fair, when I read FF7 fanfiction, I was still afraid of fanfiction with sex in it (to be fair, I was 15 and younger); I bet there's good stuff out there that I might be more mature for now!
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I think there is a reason FFVII is so popular, and I agree it would be nice to see fanfiction that explored the characters' psyches a little more. Instead of just, you know... angsty Sephiroth/Cloud porn.
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It is hard to understand what's going on, because its like you're 3/4 of the way through and suddenly Tifa and Cloud figure out that the entire game is built on lies! WTF! Also, FF7 has a pretty poor translation. I've seen some scripts at the Final Fantasy VII Citadel that are much more enlightening into what's going on in the game.
People start rumors about a PS3 remake all the time, and I really wouldn't mind that - even if only for a script revamp, setting aside the graphics (I *like* the graphics!).
Also...the end of the game doesn't provide much closure. It's like, really, that's it? That's the end? The ending of FF8 was much better.
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Perhaps the game doesn't make sense to you because you don't remember everything about it - for example, last night I had to remind you who Lucrecia was.
What about the game doesn't make any sense?
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In general I have a really hard time finishing Final Fantasy games, FFX is the only one I ever managed to stay focused on long enough to finish. They are so long and involved, I really can't play them without following a strategy guide (still have the guides for VII and XII in my closet).
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When I find other stuff, though, I'll probably make another post.
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I think fic tends to avoid treating Cloud as a pathological liar because in some ways it's a condemnation of him, and the most natural response is to sympathize with Cloud. I would be interested in reading about some of the fic you find.
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I do still need to read through all the not!emo Cloud recs you gave me like, six months ago in
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