The Fifth Act, Chapter 23

[sinnatious]

Title: The Fifth Act

Rating: T for violence.

Summary: FFVII Time-travel. Gen. Cloud has an accident with a Time Materia.

Author's Note:  Luckily, this chapter is a rather short one, so I was able to get it out on time.  No update this weekend, though - I'll be going down to the coast.  So next chapter will be next wednesday.

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Comments

[azardarkstar]

Ah... Angeal. You complete idiot. Though personally, I think Crisis Core would've been that much more interesting had it been Angeal and not Genesis. Of course, that's just going from what I remember of it by watching over my friend's shoulder. Since I've never gotten to play.

*Still crying inside over that one.*

Zari

[caterfree10]

At the eleventh hour, he would drag himself to his feet and fight. No matter how much he might want to give up, some part of him always insisted on surviving.
Favorite line out of this entire chapter every frickin' time. I mean, it's true. When push comes to shove, Cloud always picks himself up off the ground and kicks reason to the curb to do the impossible fights back against whatever he needs to.

I also like how he compares actually being First Class to his actually making it now. Damn mako screwing with his memories. >>

And, idk if you're familiar with Avatar: The Last Airbender, but the feeling I had towards Zuko's betrayal of Uncle Iroh at the end of Season 2 is about the same thing I have here for Angeal. Both reactions include the phrase "[CHARACTER], YOU FUCKING MORON". |D; And Zuko's my favorite AtLA character, so that's saying quite a bit. x3 SENSE, ANGEAL NEEDS IT KNOCKED INTO HIS HEAD. *pets Cloud*

[sinnatious]

<3 You really get Angeal's position at least. It isn't that he really wanted to betray Cloud to PURE EVIL, just that he was desperate and in that desperation a bit naive, and keeps getting dragged deeper and deeper into shit. (And dragging Cloud with him).

And I'm glad someone else liked that line! It was a private favourite of mine, too. It's an interesting duality Cloud has, in his seemingly slow, passive suicide with Geostigma, but also that crazy strong will for survival that turns up whenever he's been speared by Masamune or gone for a swim in the Lifestream.

[caterfree10]

Mm yeah, going through hell makes people do some really stupid things sometimes. It's just ending up having worse than anticipated consequences for one of the victims of shitty judgement. xD /terrible person

Yeah, it's one of the things I like about Cloud too. I think a part of him would like nothing more than to have a passive existence after everything he's been through, but he can't stop that strong survival instinct of his. Never give up without a fight indeed. ^^ okay self, you can stop dragging AtLA references into your FFVII discussions now.

[anonymous]

Well, I've got nothing to say that hasn't been said already (ANGEAL WHAT ARE YOU DOING, NO, NO, NO, AERITH IS ALREADY WORKING ON THE CURE WHY ARRGHH ORZ!!), but I have to admit this is, personally speaking, not out of quality, my least favorite stretch of the fic. Mostly because scenes where the characters are utterly uncoordinated (through lack of communication, usually, like here) and someone is suffering because of it exasperate me. It makes me want to shout directly into the story and help the characters cheat/sequence-break their way to victory.

[sinnatious]

It was a common reaction amongst those reading! The privilege of the reader being able to see all the cards but not being able to place their own bets. Though with the amazing power of hindsight I would have done a lot about this section of the fic differently.

[anonymous]

True!

Out of curiosity, what would you have done differently, if you don't mind telling?

[anonymous]

What really gets me about the last bit, is the part where Angeal holds Cloud down. Because it wasn't until that point that he realized what a clusterfuck the whole situation was.

I love that he was chiding Cloud - "Hey, calm down." - in a friendly but unworried manner. And then not a minute later he's in the thick of it holding Cloud down by the wrists because Cloud was out of his mind with fear. And Angeal must have felt like slime in that moment. I can't see him having ever envisioned himself in a situation where he'd do that to someone, let alone someone he was kind of friends with.

A+ angst.