This was... this was amazing. I absolutely adore this. Amazing.
I'm a fan of Alice in Wonderland and the best part is that it reads as though written by a madman. As does this. Don't worry, I mean that in the best way possible.
I love this pairing, and I love this fic. Well done!

Huh. Well. The Tifa/Aeris was unexpected. At least, the lemon was. There were earlier hints of the pairing in the story, I'll admit, and the last line in the previous chapter *was* pretty unambiguous in that regard, but the lemon came out of nowhere. Which, to be fair, is perfectly in line with the style of this fic.

So, I am going to make an ass of myself and assume that the events of this story were about Tifa coming to grips with her mixed up, messed up, and confused feelings on Aeris and her death. Like, she was jealous of Aeris, but also admired her in a way. Like, that jealousy grew into obssession and the admiration into attraction. Either that, or she simply had so many emotions built up over all that had happened that she didn't know what to think about anything and thus ended up having a fucked up mind trip where shit was crazy and nothing made any fucking sense.

So, putting aside the directionless ramblings of my sleep-deprived brain, let me just say that this fic was one helluva ride, and I enjoyed it for what it's worth.

TTFN!

Welp. This chapter was definitely just as full of mindfuckery as the first, and I, at least, feel just as lost on this little journey as Tifa herself does. Which, I assume, was your aim-if that's the case, then you did a damn good job of it.

The little things, the big things, each and every other thing, it's all a brilliant mess of confusing imagery, subtle wrongness, and Naked Aeris. All Tifa (or the reader) can do is follow along and see this trippy trip through to the end.

TTFN

o.O Man, that was... trippy as hell. Like Final Fantasy VII meets Through the Looking Glass. On drugs. I feel like my head is, like, "whoah, man," and it's all like, "whatever, bro," after reading this chapter. This fic is all, "what the fuck is going on, nothing makes any sense!" But in a good way, y'know?

I like it!

TTFN

Apparently, you're not on my alert lists or something, like wtf.

Also, I didn't read this, 'cause I was too annoyed with not knowing about it, til like, now, because for whatever reason I haven't been on this side of the site since like, last eternity.

Like like liek.

I'll be back to actually give this a review SOON! promisseeee.

(:

What a strange, fun story! I haven't read the entirety of Alice in Wonderland, but I get the gist of it, and you know, it works in an odd sort of way. The premise is so "out there" and yet through it, you manage to say a lot about the FFVII characters and story. Outside of the box, but very loyal to the source. Apart from the deliberate idiosyncrasies, I like the prose a lot. This definitely deserves more reviews.

The emotion reads truer and more fantastic than any wonderland created; which makes me favorite this. Despite such a ridiculous set, the juxtaposed emotions and themes make the reader as uncomfortable as Tifa. Again, you win.

Three in the mornng and in love.

Great job, Physix.

Well, let's see here.

I read this story about four hours ago, after I'd helped playtest a tabletop RPG my roommate's designing *and* running an Apocalypse World session, so my brain was dead. The story was opaque to me. Maybe not Finnegan's Wake opaque, but I got some caffeine and sugar into me for a reread, because I felt there was something *there* and the story deserved another look. The point I'm making here is that this is dense stuff.

Following from that point: how necessary is the density? I went and Googled the language of flowers to figure out what tulips, primroses, and eglantines could signify. Tulips are love, perfect lover, and lead to a dungeon; primroses seem to be "I can't live without you" and lead to Hojo's lab; and eglantines, from what I gathered, are "I wound to heal" and lead to judgment. That one, assessment of Tifa's worth - as a person, as a sexual partner, as a healer - seems to be the one that fits. But does my knowing these things, or maybe thinking I know but being incorrect about them, improve the story? It's pleasing to think eglantines wounding to heal tough love/the straight truth, that I've "got" it, but symbolism like that doesn't make the story any deeper. It just means I had to go and Google some flowers. Yes, Aerith is a flower girl. She would know what these things mean. If this adventure is a construction of hers, it makes sense that it is structured around flowers, but that locks out the possibility that this is a process of self-actualization which Tifa is undergoing. If that were the case, the architecture would be different, would correspond to something in *her* mind.

There is so much here that one can't even Google. Why is the floor made of Shin-Ra grunts (or SOLDIERs, depending on the description - a bit of continuity error there perhaps)? Why is the ceiling a mirror which shows Tifa wielding a glass masamune spilling petals or *something?* She didn't kill Aerith. She seems to think she did. Has she translated her envy of Aerith's ability to understand Cloud and reach him, combined with her inability to prevent Aerith's death, into the feeling that she *caused* that death? I feel like that's a stretch, if such is the case (and given my careful reading of Chapter 3, I feel like it is). Then again, Tifa clearly has deep sexual feelings for Aerith, which at other times I might call a stretch, but you're not a shitty slash writer. There is something here you're trying to get at, something you're trying to work out, like the onion in the earth.

The onion. Onion vegetable, vegetable Cloud, Cloud Onion? And Aerith is the only one who can peel him? But Tifa seems to like onions. Or is Tifa the onion? Or is the obvious one right, and Aerith is the onion? I could take any of these interpretations and run with it. Obviously the onion is a Metaphor, but a Metaphor For What? It's unclear. The gold room and red Zoloms, the blue liquid in the urns, the red and blue and purple dresses, this is a very vivid story. The pink and orange of Aerith's skin - a description that never really clicked with me. Pink and orange? She always looked just pink to me. At times I was thinking of her as some kind of freakish human carrot. The nudity, too. Is she nude because she's moved beyond the human social need for clothes? Then why is she clothed in the final scene with Tifa - just so Tifa can have the pleasure of taking off her blouse? I felt, while I was reading this story, like I was being bombarded with a storm of symbols and meanings, and in trying to account for them all I got tired. Aerith is naked, fantastic. She's 22, I can get behind that. Fucked if I know why she's that way, there is too much to keep track of and interpret here.

The least of which is her dialogue. Mentor figures speak in cryptic metaphors for one of two reasons: to lead the student to self-actualization and understanding without telling them the things they need to realize themselves, and to annoy the living hell out of everyone. I did not feel like she was pushing Tifa toward any kind of personal realization until the back end of chapter 2, and for the parts of chapter 3 that didn't have them fucking one another. I felt like she was talking in strange, chipper ways that were supposed to sound clever, and whimsical, and I wanted to punch her. In the mouth. When she actually got down to the fucking *point* and told Tifa what was up, I thought she was well-written.

I thought Tifa was written quite well, with the exception of a couple clunky lines of dialogue. She's strong, she doesn't take shit from an onion, she's going to keep her head even when she's on some kind of crazy psychedelic bender and she has no idea what's going on. That's good. That's Tifa to a T. And she doesn't stop worrying about Cloud even when she's in what seems like her own personal Hell. Good stuff. Her shyness about Aerith's nudity, well, I'll buy that. It didn't scream out of character to me. It wouldn't be the way I'd run with her, but this is a matter of taste, not criticism.

The smut, lemon, whatever we're calling it these days. It flipped a switch, for me. I'm a straight guy, lesbian sex is always going to do that. Sure sure. Any stylistic points I could offer here are, again, matters of personal taste. You made some choices I wouldn't have, and stuck to them, and that is excellent. Consistency is all I ask. Now, here comes the but: I don't think we needed this. When Cloud comes to terms with his guilt in AC, or at least resolves to, he does not do it by having sex with Zack, Aerith, or Vincent. He doesn't have sex with *anyone* in the game when he makes the decision to reveal the truth about his past. Obviously, this is Tifa and not Cloud, but the issue is the same: guilt. And I didn't feel the sex was an important part of her overcoming the guilt, or deciding to live with it, or *whatever* happens at the end of chapter 3. (It's a little unclear, and I feel like there are several interpretations one could have about what she really decides to do.) It instead feels like the author wanted to write some smut, from a meta perspective, and it feels like Tifa has always wanted to have sex with Aerith and figures now is the last time she'll ever have that chance, from a character perspective. If the choice to open herself up to Aerith, to join in a sexual union with her, was more evocative of her decision to accept something about what Aerith represents here, perhaps this would have fit more. But it feels contrived. Now Tifa is naked, and Aerith is clothed. Convenient. Why? If Tifa is giving up Aerith and the guilt she or the onion represents, why is admitting her into the most vulnerable part of herself a positive step? I wouldn't write that as Tifa working up the courage to have sex with Aerith; I would write it as Tifa working up the courage to *stop* having sex with her.

As a general rule I told myself I would avoid particular stylistic points because I'm leaving a review, not a beta-level analysis, but I would avoid using last names. Calling her Aerith in one sentence and Gainsborough in another is strange. If the fic is from Tifa's PoV, she calls her one or the other. Same with using Lockhart. I don't think of myself by my last name. I don't call my roommate Tim in one thought and Vaughan in the next. Sure, avoid repetition if possible, but don't use the last names.

I will close out the nitpicking with something that I have no criticisms about, indeed nothing to do but praise it: the filth. Tifa is dirty, Aerith is dirty, there is dirt everywhere, there is stink, there is an earthiness and even a sometimes-disgusting quality to the *feel* of the piece that is uncompromising. The vaginal, birth imagery you use to describe the onion's ascent is calculated and proper. This *is* a birthing process for Tifa, a rebirth, and birth is a filthy process. It feels correct that she is filthy, that Aerith is covered in dirt, that they have sex in the dirt. That's not an angle many people would take, and it works here, it really does.

All things considered, I feel like you have the core of something here. But, to borrow your Metaphor, there are a lot of layers to it, and I feel like many of them are extraneous. If you whittled away the floor made of soldiers and the language of flowers and the dialogue, if you reduced this piece to the essentials - Tifa, and Aerith, and guilt, and the Metaphor of an Onion - it could be something really extraordinary. Right now it feels weighty, even ponderous.

But in the end, you deserve the utmost respect for getting an idea like this, pursuing it, finishing it, and putting it up. This is not the inane bullshit that comprises 95% of fanfiction, and this is one of the *very* few slash pairings of any kind that I found believable. That is all you. Keep it up.

O...kay. Well, you've got originality. This is interesting, and well written, but it's so unusual I'm not sure how to comment. A fascinating story.

"Which of you is most worthy of me?"

Interesting phrasing. I wonder if that means what I think it does.