Clerith - Tumblr Posts
Cloud: *sees Aerith in her dress*
Cloud: *forgets how to breathe*
—If that's what you want. Thank you.
Cloud Strife & Aerith Gainsborough FFVII Remake (2020) dev. Square Enix
If not destiny...what could it be?
THE AMOUNT OF CLERITH SCENES?! literally my clerith hating friend just sent me the trailer and said "they revealed the canon couple i guess" like i thought he was jokin but omg what was this trailer im feelin euphoric
FINAL FANTASY VII REMAKE (2020) ➙ FINAL FANTASY VII REBIRTH (2024) Dev. Square Enix
AND I’LL ALWAYS CHERISH WHAT YOU’VE GIVEN ME.
FINAL FANTASY VII REBIRTH (2024) ↳ Cloud, Aerith, and Sephiroth ➤ Forgotten Capital
this changed the trajectory of my life
Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020), Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997), Compilation of Final Fantasy VII Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Aerith Gainsborough/Cloud Strife, Cloud Strife/Aerith Gainsborough Characters: Cloud Strife, Aerith Gainsborough Additional Tags: Post-Rebirth, Cloud wanders worlds, Cloud looks for Aerith, Loss and Grief, Coping, Mental Anguish, Sadness, SPOILERS for Rebirth, One-Shot, Complete Summary:
Cloud learns to navigate between worlds. All he wants is to find her again.
[Rebirth spoilers]
'Whatever happens, don't blame yourself.'
FINAL FANTASY VII REBIRTH (2024) dev. Square Enix
AFTER ALL...YOU'RE JUST A PUPPET.
I might not be able to put this the right way, and maybe others have said this already,
but to me, the main thing about Cloud and Aerith is the way he tries to grow for her and because of her.
In a way, they could be quite similar. Both are incredibly lonely, and they share similar trauma. Both have lost their mothers in tragic, malicious ways. Both are confused about their identity and past. Cloud learns how much just he has forgotten and that something is very wrong with him, just like Aerith keeps finding out how little she actually knows about her ancestry or the circumstances of her mother's death.
Cloud and Aerith both realize this and are able to sympathize with one another. Aerith is incredibly patient with Cloud and him trying to uphold the walls he built around himself at all times.
I think Cloud knows there is a fundamental difference about them, though. And, that is that despite everything that has happened while Cloud has been putting up walls and has become hardened, Aerith has not. While Cloud looks to the past, is angered, shut off, and distant, Aerith has gone the opposite route. She remained soft and hopeful. It's not to say she isn't sad or lonely or angry, which she is, but she isn't faulting the world for this. She wants things to get better, instead of wanting revenge.
Generally, I think there are relationships that make you look to the past or to the future and I don't think there's right or wrong in that if it isn't too extreme.
But I think Aerith makes Cloud look into the future. I think he's always been either checked out about looking either way, or obsessed with the past, about what happened and how to mend it.
Aerith makes him believe in a future because she has been through similar things and she has come out on the other side hopeful. Because she is still good to people and because she still loves, she still cares. And I think this makes Cloud want to grow, too.
And he's showing this in some of Aerith's darkest moments. When she acknowledges her dark thoughts on the beach, he reacts with understanding, and he helps her going forward, supporting her when he can (even without the obligatory merc fee). He encourages her to speak out about her past at the lantern festival. I think as someone being taken in by a stranger as a child, essentially putting her guardian's life at risk and bringing heavy baggage along, she learned to have to be pleasant at all times to be loved. Through Cloud, she learns that this other side of her, the one that is struggling with embracing her difficult past and path forward, is also worthy of love and protection. She says to him on the beach, she is sure, he will love future Aerith, the one she is growing into right at that moment - she, too, is changing because of him.
These moments show he really wants to be there for her the same way she is there for him. He wants to make her happy and support her. He wants to protect her while she protects the world. He feels responsible for her, and it's a role he wants to grow into, and he does.
In a way, Clouds world just gets a lot bigger while Aerith is in it. When she is there, he actually laughs, he smiles like he does with no one else, and finally, he even cries holding her in his arms, when he was on the cusp of being turned into an emotionless weapon just moments before.
This, in turn, makes Aerith open up to him in a way she doesn't do with the others, too. They both see a side of the other person nobody else gets to see.
I think this is amplified in the ending when Cloud is literally the only person who knows what happened to her, that witnessed her death and who's able to see her afterward.
So I guess Cloud "got a say in all this" after all huh? (ง ื▿ ื)ว
Personally I love this small moments with all my heart.
