Title: Eir's Tomorrow
Fandom: Final Fantasy 7
Pairing: Sephiroth/Cloud (Main), Zack/Aeris, Elena/Tifa, Angeal/Genesis
Categories: AU, Time Travel, Wingfic (...It's FF7, kind of expected)
Length: Super Epic (162,615)
Warnings: Violence, Torture, PTSD, Minor character death

Author on LJ: jukeboxhound
Author Website: AO3 | Tumblr

Author's Summary:
Cloud is the Planet's greatest weapon, and if he can't fix old wrongs and battles then he may end up being the means by which it all ends (again).

Review:
I adore FF7 fic. I even more adore the entire time traveling trope that the FF7 fandom uses with complete abandon (seriously, you turn around and there's another one! [honestly, I wish there were more so I have more to read]). It is rare, however, that you find a FF7 time travel fic that is long and complete and good. This fills all three of those!

You start off with the planet dying, which is a main staple in a lot of FF7 time travel fics. Then, of course, said planet catapults Cloud back into time. Except a lot of fics where you start off with Cloud as a cadet, you have Cloud as the kind of invisible guy who hangs around Sephiroth as a child. Which is less creepy than I'm making it sound. Um.

But, seriously, Cloud meets Sephiroth as a child due to the planet being all screwy--a Sephiroth who is experimented on, who is treated as a subject, and who has no real positive guidance. Enter Cloud who isn't all mentally there a lot of the time (the planet isn't exactly the benevolent presence it is in a lot of other fics), but who eventually sees Sephiroth as this child with a horrible life and Cloud grows protective.

Then there's another shift. Cloud is taken away, Sephiroth grows up, and things change. Cloud is determined that events won't follow the same path as his last lifetime, but life is both hard and unexpected. Not everything works out, but there are bright spots along the way. Events grow truly epic--it's not about just a handful of people, it's about saving an entire world that hurts just as much as it helps. Everything grows complicated and nothing is easy. Terrible, terrible things happen. And yet there's still people striving to make the best of things.

The author takes the idea of time travel FF7 fic and makes it their own. A lot of the fics can feel the same after a while, but this goes in original and interesting directions. It's long and very plotty--the romance is there, but much later on and it never takes over the storyline. It's just good and such a well worth it read.

Eir's Tomorrow