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*sigh* My ff7 OT5 story is failing even before it's stopped being gen. Not on the plotty side! i've got a good plot, I think. Well, good enough. It's got action and intrigue and stuff! (and a *stuck in a cave alone together and injured, oh my* scene. huhuhu blanket scenarios. ♥)

Not from Zack and Aeris' side, because they're ~~sluts~~ self-assured, free, and they love everyone. Not from Sephiroth's, because he's pretty much asexual when it starts but once he starts realizing he has bonds, he will hold onto them pretty tight. (not that he knows how, but. I like emotionally incompetent/dysfunctional people >.>) Not really from Cloud's side because he has very strong bonds with all of them in some way.

But Tifa... ;_;

I couldn't make Cloud and Tifa already married/fianced/clearly together and uber-committed, because otherwise there would be no fivesoming ahead without cheating, and I don't like cheating plots. But I couldn't make them not together at all, since they're living together, and if it hasn't happened in all this time yet, it isn't going to happen, prompting from Zack and Aeris or not. Cloud might have a low libido, but he's not THAT dead under the belt. So...

When the story starts, Cloud and Tifa live together, raise Denzel together, and sometimes kiss and have sex... but they have separate bedrooms. They never talked about their relationship, but all their friends consider them so much an item there isn't even a need to mention it. Cloud and Tifa just... never clearly talk about it. Tifa thinks he still has issues to work through and she's waiting for him to commit, and Cloud thinks his living with her is commitment enough, and he doesn't need to actually say it. D:

The separate bedrooms thing is, on Cloud's side, because he likes his private space (though he could use an office or the garage for that almost as well); he still has nightmares complete with thrashing and gasps and whimpers, assumes he always will (maybe they'll slow down to a trickle by the time he hits forty or something), and he doesn't want to bother her. And he likes just going and knocking on her door, or welcoming her if she knocks on his. It works for him, since he's not a hornball who thinks sex thoughts about people without at least a tiny bit of prompting. Tifa kind of thinks a husband and wife should be sharing a bed, but she's waiting for Cloud's issues to get a little better.

... That's where I assumed they start from, but I might have to change it to something better. Because my Tifa-muse...

Well, it's been a while since I played the game through, so I might be remembering her wrong, or being influenced by Tifa in seph/zack/cloud fics, who tends to be a possessive bitch. ~___~ But I feel like she would be insecure about who Cloud loves best. She likes Aeris a lot, she loves her, even -- she likes Zack too, and she would like what they do for Cloud's self-confidence and happiness... But it's Cloud she's in love with. Cloud would be one of the focal points of the fivesome, and I don't think she'd be satisfied to have to share his attention, time and devotion with three other people. Her emotional needs wouldn't be met. And she's not THAT much of a doormat. So the more I think about it and the more Tifa-muse is making noises à la "I can't live long-term with being second-best, so in the end I would bow out." I think the only way she could accept it would be if Cloud loved her just as much as Aeris, Zack and Sephiroth put together, but he feels for them all very strongly, so...

I think if it were just Aeris, she might be alright, even though she's insecure about who Cloud likes best. Or if it were just Zack, because she'd see it as "he needs another man too, and I'm not one." But not three other people. She loves Cloud and wants him to get what he needs, but she has needs too. But I don't want to have her break it up in the fic itself, that feels kind of like a failure. The best I could get would probably be "eventually this might grow to be Not Enough, but for now they talked me into relaxing and liking it, even if it might not last forever."

But the Tifa I have in my head right now does want Forever. Zack and Aeris have a "I'm happy now so everything's okay, let's not worry" mentality, and Seph pretty much assume he'll lose what he has sooner or later, but Tifa... Maybe I have to rethink my Tifa from the ground up so she's less emotionally insecure (and less "happiness is husband+white picket fence+2.3children" ... this one might be easier because with the life she leads, she already knows that sometimes you have to settle for what you end up with. I doubt as a kid she dreamed to spend her life in the Slums bartending for moneyless drunkards, yet she still went and did it), but would that be IC for her? I'm really not sure. ;_;

... And maybe I have to accept that it's alright to have a fic end well without a "and they lived happily ever after" implied. *sigh* But I can't help but wonder if maybe it isn't a subtle dig à la "see? I'm not bashing but she still doesn't belong with my ot4 u.u" *stares at subconscious* >_> I don't like wondering that.

Any advice/suggestions?

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Sounds good. People make compromises in the name of love and all that.

Yeah, but she won't compromise forever. One day she'll go "This is not meeting my emotional needs and I won't blackmail you to stay with me since you love them, so I have to let you go." I know it happens in real life, but it still makes me emo. It's not a good end to me, and I don't like sad endings. T_T I'd have to really harp on the "for now it's okay" side of things, though, but I still feel like Tifa is getting shafted.

Yeah... Hm. *considers* On the other hand, she's got three other people to help her out with the emotional needs thing.

But on the other, other hand, she's not in love with THEM. ;_;

I don't know what I'm looking for here, perhaps for someone to tell me that game!tifa is not that emotionally needy and not one-man woman and I'm reading her wrong, and then I'll be able to fix my mental picture of her. T_T

... Maybe I can find a way to get her to fall a little in love with Zack and Sephiroth along the way, otherwise it won't be support enough for her... Oh god Sephiroth. >_>;;;;;He might have to move out before she's ready to relax a little around him. I bet she'd feel kinda cagey around him and that wouldn't make her very rational... Hm.

Hn. Hrrm. Argh. *grumbles* Maybe i'm worrying too much. ._.;

Oh yeah. But even if they never hit the romantic level, they can be two other people she doesn't want to leave and would hurt by walking out. There's that. Where to is the question, though. *is picturing hobo!Sephiroth snoozing under a park bench*

LMAO hobo!Sephiroth! *dies*

Nah, they wouldn't let him leave for parts unknown. He'd probably find himself an apartment or something... But then that means he would need the money too. What kind of job could he do? I seriously doubt Cloud and company would ever let him work for Shinra again, or any other corporation/government. Talk about a recipe for disaster. XD

Lone mercenary might be too loose and not structured enough for soldier-boy... Maybe a company of mercenaries. *ponders* but then he'd need men. And would they let him have his private army -- though he really never needed a whole army, and having the responsibility of a few people might actually be good for him in a grounding sort of way... HMMM... Or maybe not a company of mercenaries, but something like that, where he can be in charge and stuff. He needs to do something or he'll go bugfuck crazy again, and I dunno why but he always made me think he was a workaholic. XD

... Sorry for babbling at you. XD;; but yay I gots new ideas! Thank you for the inspiration. ♥

If there's still reconstruction going on in an organized fashion Sephiroth might do well in charge of one of the projects. Wrangling supply lines and keeping people working efficiently.

For what it's worth, Advent Children Tifa didn't strike me as all that needy really. She seemed to be supporting Cloud more than she needed him to support her.

I have trouble seeing him at the sit down and do desk duty stuff, and I don't see him at all doing construction for a living, so I dunno... But then with his skill set, what the hell is adapted except for fighting? argh. ~__~

HMM yeah, but it kinda seemed a little "waiting for you to be okay so you can be with me" which in light of how i read her in ff7 was... maybe not that insecure, but quite "i love you, i'm waiting, i'm not even looking at other people. ♥ " So... hmm.

I was thinking on site and giving orders more than desk jockeying.

Cop?

I think because I haven't played the game, and get most of my impressions of the characters from AC and game summaries, my impression maybe skewed. I saw it as "someone has to keep his pieces together until they stick, guess that's me" more than "I love you so I'll wait for you". Not having the game side it's easy to see it as a friend holding a friend together and slowly falling for him rather than a would be lover holding back "until he's ready".

And that would be me forgetting I was using my other journal. :P

Hrrrm. Cop might have possibilities... He'd need a city with a lot of active night life, I think, or else he'd get bored. Thankfully there might be some around. XD

Yeah, but in the game, they're shown to have common roots that go back to their childhoods. So... Yeah, she wasn't in love back then, but it's still been a while. *grumbles*

9-5 working stiff. Desk job. Most violent thing he gets to do on a regular basis is use a stapler. A boss.
Karma.

*To be a fly on the wall*

LMAO. Oh, that sounds all kind sof evil.

... He'd totally snap again, though. I thiiiink they might wanna avoid that. D:

Sushi chef? He does have a way with sharp things, and with the pig-sticker he's already got, I bet he could fillet a Great White in three stokes or less.
Or, just a chef? He's also known for fire, right?

>.>

<.<

*waves quietly from corner*

I can totally understand this and really it makes a lot of sense. Tifa has never struck me as someone who would be really happy in an open relationship. Sure Aeris was a good friend and she probably thought Zack was cute, but she's very much geared towards a you+me together. It doesn't have to be painted as "needy", she's just well.... vanilla. She'd probably love to have Aeris and Zack around, just not in her bedroom. (I understand the sentiment very well, as I was once offered a place in an open relationship and I was miserable, I'm a one person only type too. They turned out to be good friends in the end, but I couldn't handle the rest.)

As for Sephiroth... hoo. Tifa doesn't even have Cloud's old hero-worship of him to work with. He's the monster that ruined so much. She's really not the forgive and forget sort either. She may.... may.... concede to not actively trying to kill him.... for now.... and stay the hell away from her bar and the kids.

>.<

.... and none of this really helps out with the fic does it? But yeah, Tifa and Sephiroth is the big sticking point for a fic like this. I think if Sephiroth wasn't around, Aeris could get Tifa into a foursome with a little help from wonder perv Zack. They're the type to not neglect Tifa in the relationship and she might find that she does like the new setup and Cloud is a lot happier... but... Sephiroth. Yeah. If you could write it so that someway Tifa accepts him there's workability there. (The Tifa in my head thinks that using Cid's next rocket launch to push Seph into the sun is a fantastic idea...)

*waves back!*

XD Yeah, my plot does need more Tifa and Seph Come to Terms With Each Other scenes -- it's got a few but it needs more.

Of course it helps a bit that by the time Seph killed her father he wasn't totally sane anymore, but she hated him for too long to just flick a switch and go 'oh, that's alright then, you were a victim, come here so I can mother you.' First of all, you don't mother Sephiroth ~~unless you're Aeris.~~ Second, manipulated or not, he's still an asshole, and third, he comes across as regretting the loss of control more than he regretted the deaths. And with the emotional barriers he has, I'm not sure how to make him open up enough, to Tifa of all people. >_> I have a few ideas but.

like there's a scene where he sighs, and then goes "Miss Lockhart, let's spar."
and she'd be all >_> ahaha wtf no (you'll kill me, you're too strong.) And he's all "Just a spar, rly." And then he goads her until she really lets loose and is all RARRR *punchpunchpunch* and he lets her exhaust herself (that's the goal, but she manages to get in a few good punches before she's exhausted enough to calm down. >_>) That would clear the air a bit...

... Now I need other ideas like that. >.>

Would it help you at all to consider Tifa's background? I specifically mean that she deliberately went to a lot of trouble to become a fighter, and I that I got a distinct impression both that this was a pretty unusual/unfeminine aspiration by Nibelheim standards and that her father didn't approve. So maybe she's not as much of the white-picket-fence type as she seems, but it just doesn't come through as much. Possibly because she feels that Cloud needs a stable, motherly-type figure and decided she was the only one up to it--oh hey! Maybe that could mean she appreciates Aeris taking over that role a little to let her cut loose a little more without losing her de-facto family.

...I really can't help you on the her-dealing-with-Sephiroth bit. Maybe sparring leads to good old-fashioned mutually-admiring warrior sex?

HMMMMM I'll have to think on this a bit, but it does sound like a valid interpretation -- of course I can't really tell because BROTHER LOST THE F**ING MEMORY CARD WITH MY NEW GAME ON IT ARGH. ;___; I think I should look for scripts and re-read her key parts with Cloud... >_>

XD mmm warriorsex. ♥

Hm. Speaking as someone who grew up as a child in that very sort of household? I don't really get monogamy. The zero-sum x-or-y type, anyway. At all.

So... say that this whole thing starts and they all get together and in between 'Yay! Snuggles!' and 'Sephiroth. Eek. O.O' and 'Ah! Ahn! <3' Tifa is looking at herself and the others and the way they all really interact and expecting your scenario and determined to tough it out and enjoy being happy for as long as she can...

...And while she's waiting for that she finds herself happier and happier about Aeris' sneaking homemade cookies in her lunchbox or Zack's stupid jokes or even, Lifestream help her, engaging in a few moments of 'this is doomed but at least they'll be happy' bonding with bloody Sephiroth of all people.

In other words, she expects to eventually leave, but while she's trying to put that off she finds more and more to love in the other three, until eventually they're as indispensable as Cloud is.

XD; ♥

I like this idea, that she's expecting it to end eventually, but Zack and Aeris convince her to enjoy the time she stays anyway, and every days she makes the decision to stay a day longer. I think they might even present it like "it's like you make a commitment everyday, give your love everyday, instead of offering it once and having it taken for granted from there on." Of course she might be all "haha yeah right XD;" but inside she might still flirt with the idea and eventually adopt it.

I think, also, about the separate bedrooms thing? That he might still have issues about being startled awake, and just worry about being around someone who isn't enhanced like that. Sort of in the same way I'd expect the kids to know to stay out of his room unless he's really obviously awake. Which might play out into a larger, "well, I love you, but I'd really like to not have to watch you die someday," thing holding cloud back, which getting everyone ELSE he's loved and had to watch die back might help with.

As for tifa, I always felt that she was at least as attached to aeris as she was to cloud, so if you wanted to play up that angle of things, possibly even before/while cloud was working out his "AH! Can't touch!" issues, then that could help work her into the group more stably. Though you're still going to need to develop the bonds between her and zack and you've REALLY got your work cut out for seph/tifa even friendship-wize, imho. I think the possessiveness is mostly a product of fans who themselves are uncomfortable with alternative relationships, rather than all that IC.

Also, if you didn't want her there, you wouldn't be trying to write her there. *shrugs* I don't think you need to worry about bashing.

I mean, in the first part, they might not even be as much of a couple as you were thinking, but through cloud being terrified of hurting her rather than lack of interest. Like, they may have sex, but then cloud disappears for three weeks while he panics, kind of thing.

And Tifa seems much more focused on the kids and the bar and rebuilding and such than really waiting for cloud, if that makes sense. I think she IS waiting, in some level, but mostly, she's trying to put everything back together and have all of ther important people come out whole, and she has less pinned on being Ms. Strife than a lot of people who write her think.

HMM yeah, I kinda assumed that he might get a little violent trying to get away from his nightmares. I don't want to make it a huge issue, because it's been four years and besides no one ever remarked on it during the game... But yeah, definitely not entirely safe to sleep close by. And they might have had a couple of Cloud-disappearing-in-a-panic-after-sex incidents... Thanks for the idea. >D

Hell, I think the only people safe around him at night would be zack and seph. HOHOHO the mystery of who gets which bedroom is resolved~ (seph still goes to the attic. u.u)

And Tifa seems much more focused on the kids and the bar and rebuilding and such than really waiting for cloud, if that makes sense. I think she IS waiting, in some level, but mostly, she's trying to put everything back together and have all of ther important people come out whole, and she has less pinned on being Ms. Strife than a lot of people who write her think.
Hmm. Thanks, you've given me a lot to think about. *ponderyponder* If I could tone down the insecurity on tifa-muse... But she's not very present, I've got a hard time pinning her down. ~__~ But then yeah, in AC she seemed more confident and settled in her life... hm.

I think Tifa grows a LOT between when you first see her in the game and AC, and just a lot of people who write her stay with how she is as-let's face it, basically a little girl-- at the beginning and don't take into account how much she comes into her own over the course of the game, and then even more by AC.

... *^__^* you're right, you're right. I'mma gonna rewatch AC and concentrate on her now. Thank you!

Hmmm...

What about putting Sephiroth into a situation that is guaranteed to make Tifa either laugh until she falls over, or that will break her brain?

EX: Tifa's helping to run an orphanage right? She walks in and gets to watch as Sephiroth tries to convince a toddler that they really do want to eat the strained greens, and the kid making his opinion of the food very clear.

The only other thing I can think of is Zangan showing up and giving her a lecture about relationships, but that would be a little to convenient. Although, if you look at Tifa's background odds are he would know what to say to get her to open up a bit to the idea of a five-some.

Also, yeah, Sephy needs structure. Considering how he spent his life, leaving him at loose ends is probably the fastest way to get him into trouble. So what about the WRO? Reeve's in charge and he's already experienced in working with Sephy from their Shinra days. Maybe he could be in charge of the few SOLDIER's that managed to keep Jenova out(if there are any in your story).

Everyone else said pretty much the rest.

AHAHA I like the idea of getting Tifa to laugh at Sephiroth. I don't know that she helps run an orphanage -- she does take care of Denzel and Marlene, but she adopted Denzel and Marlene is Barret's. I think all the orphans we see in AC were random street kids -- could see her feeding them regularly though.

As for WRO, they're mostly peaceful, right? So they have no huge army for Seph to head. And they're trying not to be a second Shinra. They're probably trying to be open about what they're doing to build up trust. Think how fast people would lose their trust in them if it got out that their new head of security is secretly Sephiroth... XD; I don't think Reeve would risk it, not even to help Cloud out. But that might make for a nice conversation! So thanks for the idea ^___^

Now i've got to find more ideas where Seph could look silly enough for Tifa to laugh. *ponderyponder* ♥

"Hey, Seph, take care of Alice for me, will ya? I gotta go rescue Tifa from the evil taxman."

Dollies. Frills. Tea parties. Pink ribbons. And so on.

XD;; Oh god.

Nah, while that would be fun, no one sane would ever leave a kid to Sephiroth, and if they did, he would only stare at them like they're insane, stare at the kid, and find someone else to deal with it while he retreats to his attic. Also it's kinda cliche... Hrrm. Something dirty explodes at him ? *ponderponderponder*

By the way, his attic has a very pretty sign on it courtesy of Zack. It says "Fortress of Solitude" on it. >.>

*giggle*Evil Taxman

True, leaving a kid with Sephiroth wouldn't be a very good idea, at least not without supervision. Though, for some reason I've had this idea in my head that once he got used to them, Sephy would actually be pretty good with kids, if only for the simple fact that he has no cultural preconceptions on how to treat them.

And yes, it is cliche. *damnit*

Ohh, what about something really gooy exploding onto his hair? And Tifa is the only one around to help him get it all out?

Tifa: You talk like you've done this before...
Sephy: I have.
Tifa: ?
Sehpy: Zack
Tifa: Oh.

Fortress of Solitude *snerk* You know, he might actually like that...

Tifa's personality has many interpretations (and her relationship with Cloud can work or not, and be either healthy of really fucked up), but in one of my favorites she's not necessarily in love with Cloud, but is fiercely loyal to him. She is, thorough the game, a pretty "normal" person - but even she has to have issues - even mental problems - considering what happened to her hometown and the fact that she later became a terrorist. She probably killed people with her bare hands.
She probably had a crush on - was "in love with" - Cloud at the beginning of the game, but that may have had a lot to do with her "younger self" pushing through - the part of her that used to be a pampered little princess and wanted a handsome white knight to save her. It might be that, after Aeris' death, she "woke up", and she was definetely shocked at finding out just how messed up Cloud really was. She may also feel somewhat indebted to him - Tifa has ugly little facets to her, just like Cloud, who during his childhood convinced himself he was better than the other kids, she is very human, and she seems to feel as though she should be perfect. She knows, now, that she wasn't nearly as close to him as she had believed herself to be - wasn't even nice to him, as a matter of fact - and that he was punished for saving her life. In the current setting, where she sees him not only as her comrade but also as the only link to more peaceful times, she must feel at least partially responsible for the emotional damage done to him as a child.
Therefore, as a way of redeeming herself, she might have developed an intense urge to see him happy, or at least content, even in detriment of her own comfort - even if she has to accept the men who murdered her townsfolk (since she didn't see him, she might have included Zack as an offender, as he was also a SOLDIER).
If you choose to make her ever so sightly imbalanced, she might also feel some possessiveness for Sephiroth and Zack. They destroyed her previous life, they haunted her nightmares for years, they hurt Aeris, they helped complicate Cloud's life even further, they made her think she was going insane and act like a damsel in distress and nearly killed everybody she managed to love after that first time - after all that, she's got more rights to and over them than nearly anybody else on the whole damn Planet.

... there's probably much more to be said about Tifa, and this might not be very clear and desperately needs to be edited, but right now, I haven't got much time. I haven't read the rest of your comments yet, either, so sorry if this is repetitive. But I do love this kind of discussion, so if this gives you an idea and you want to elaborate, I'd love to ~~listen~~ read!

--Frances

@_@ You know what, I could see this interpretation working damn well...

... problem being that if she's not in love with Cloud in the first place, then there's no fivesome ahead. XD This interpretation is definitely interesting, but it doesn't match with my plot-skeleton. But thank you for writing it, you gave me a lot to consider. She's more complicated than she appears at first glance, isn't she? ^^

Dunno if you still need suggestions for this stuff, but just in case....

Sephiroth could perhaps do the body guard thing. You've alredy mentioned there had been trouble with gangs. Perhaps he could help keep the neighborhood safe. Alternatively, he could be put in charge of a private and wealthy person in need of someone to run their place like a fortress. This provides the same sort of "company of mercenaries" solution, but more acceptably placing him in charge of a group of security peeps. He gets to put his army skills to good use without getting his private army.

As for the "laughing at Sephiroth" thing...hmm...have you considered letting Tifa rescue him from something that should be fairly straight forward and simple for a normal person but that he himself never mastered due to his time in Shinra? LIke....I dunno...a stove? Or watching a bar?

You've set a pretty hefty goal for yourself here. The dynamics of a threesome are naturally more complicated than a couple. One reason teamwork reads so well is that you've mapped out for yourself WHY the three need each other, what each does for the other to make the relationship work and so on. Ideally, you'd want to know the same things here, but the dynamics of the relationship are more complex by a factor of two.

Movie Cloud seemed to me to be a man lacking very much in a sense of purpose and direction. He spent a good chunk of the movie essentially "lost". Now for Tifa, that's got to hurt, thinking that you alone aren't enough to give him a purpose. Maybe she enters into this thing seeing how it affect Cloud, the change in him versus what it was before. Maybe she tries to pull out later and comes to the ground breaking epiphany that Cloud wasn't the only one that was missing something important before, something that he and she alone couldn't provide the other; and yet at the same time she become closer to Cloud in ways she didn't know she could be before. I guess to my mind, if its going to work long term, Tifa needs to be fulfilled as a part of the fivesome that she was not as just her and Cloud. Its good and important that she start off loving only Cloud, but by the end of it maybe she realizes she needs these other people just as much. Suddenly short term fling while Cloud gets his head on straight becomes long term complications she can't just up and walk out of without crushing herself emotionally and tearing up everyone else in the process. I can't really say what role she should play in the five, but if she's going to stay I imagine it would need to become more critical for them all than anyone expects.

Just my two cents. Though that's American cents, which I think makes it pretty much worthless in your neck of the woods. Anyway...

For Seph, I decided that at some point they're going to find more surviving SOLDIERs who are kinda doing whatever job they can and so end up working with some unsavory guys because no good person wants to hire ex-Shinra supporters. XD And they'll have an escort company for traveling people and merchandise. Seph would get to do something good while rehabilitating both himself and the men under his command. ^^

You make a very good point about Tifa needing to find something in the other three. I'm not sure what just yet, though.

(Though it will never be a full fivesome -- it's gonna be more of a polyamorous thing anyway, where everyone does Cloud and most might do Aeris/Zack,but not necessarily everyone. I think Seph might be uncomfortable with Aeris like that for a while, and as for Seph and Tifa, they MIGHT have sex a couple of times if I manage to get them that far, but it's going to be uncomfortable and distant for years. XD Not sure Tifa likes girls as much as she likes boys too, so, hrrm. Though it's Aeris, so... XD)

Hmm! Much to ponder over. Thank you, lovely~

This is like waaaaay after the fact but I went back to reread the other bits on account of the new bits showing up (yay!) and I had an idea for Tifa and Sephiroth...

One thing the others really aren't is practical. Zack and Aeris are a lot of fun, and so incredibly optimistic that they're a blast to be around, but when you live with that day in and day out and are more grounded than they are, they start to look like their approach to life involves tapdancing blindfolded on a telephone wire and assuming that the wire will automatically be wherever their foot comes down. And Cloud is literally the flip side of that -- he assumes that the wire won't be wherever his foot comes down, that life won't support him for more than a step at a time before something else smashes it all to bits.

Sephiroth is, oddly enough, on a middle ground that I can easily see Tifa sharing. He's got to have been a pragmatist to be enough of a military strategist to win wars the way he did, but at the same time he's proud/arrogant/self-confident enough to not automatically assume there's nothing he can do to avoid the next slap in the face from Fate. And Tifa's got to have been a pragmatist to keep her bar running literally through Armageddon, to keep Cloud from dropping entirely off the deep end all these years, to raise two kids, and to do all of it at the same time.

In a nutshell, Zack and Aeris assume things will work out; Cloud assumes things won't work out but he silently clings while he can; Sephiroth analyzes where things might not work out and takes steps to correct the trajectory, and that would be something I think Tifa can relate to.

Since this is post-AC, post-apocalypse basically, I bet the supply lines are not what anybody would call reliable. So what happens when one of Tifa's bar essentials stops? Maybe the plumbing quits, maybe the gas, maybe one of the alcohol suppliers, but I'm thinking utilities would be both more immediate and plenty likely in a place that's getting rebuilt and therefore has people digging holes everywhere and breaking lines they shouldn't break and so forth. None of the others would have had the direct battlefield experience of how to fix that kind of situation, but Sephiroth would have come up with matter-of-fact jury-rigs for everything in Wutai when surrounded by hostiles who'd be poisoning your food and your drinking water every chance they got. Maybe some chaining of materia to a rooftop tank that someone fills with ice and then hits with fire to melt things to keep the pipes pressurized?

(tired now, going thump fall over...)

... :O

.... :DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

*makes sweet, sweet love to your magic brain~* ohh, yes. I'm getting BUNNIES ohgod wheeeeeeee. *______*

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