#WHAT DO YOU MEAN... ARE YOU OR ARE YOU NOT GENESIS' BEST FRIEND?

[bigfatbreak]

more ff7/first soldier ranting. laughing my ass off that sephiroth's little dream sequence of his perfect reality involves his mommy loving him and making him his favorite food, because my poor son. wants family more than anything else. and thats it

and then Angeal has a fantasy of being in Genesis' shoes and everypony loving hiiiim and complimenting hiiiim and he's the one that invents banora white juice and he's the one that's well-read and ambitious and everyone's sooo proud of him

and im laughing my ass off bc he's had such a complex about Genesis since CHILDHOOD and has just been taking constant potshots at him struggling to find a way to knock him down a peg because of his blinding envy. yeah here's your unconditional hero everyone. mhm. yup he's the most honorable guy here. the stupid fuck who fantasizes about doing everything genesis has ever done while constantly putting him beneath himself because his pride is incandescent in spite of not earning any of the accolades Genesis worked for. yup. total team mom there

[salmalin]

My sincerest apologies and warmest welcome to my rant about FF7: Crisis Core. Or, as I like to call it,

Propaganda: The Video Game

I say this with the utmost affection. Crisis Core ranks really high up there in my favorite Final Fantasy 7 installments. I played it when it first came out, borrowing it from a friend to play on a borrowed PSP. And, the more I learn about the game and the more I replay it, the more everything lines up.

This game is not about Zack Fair.

This game is about how Capitalistic Propaganda can sink into every aspect of life to the point where it is entirely indistinguishable from reality. And it’s very overt about it. So…

Here we go.

My treatise on Propaganda’s starring role in Crisis Core.

Part One: The Timeline

Something that a lot of people gloss over due to decades of Child Heroes in media—Japanese Shonen and Shoujo series in particular—is how young these protagonists are. We’ll hand-wave a lot of stuff in non-live-action series with just a little bit of suspension of disbelief. And that’s honestly just accepted these days. But here’s the thing about those hand-waves.

Final Fantasy 7 doesn’t do that.

Now, FF7 hand-waves a lot of stuff. For example, how far you can travel in a day by foot, the distance a man weighing approximately 165lbs can jump after being genetically fused with what might as well be a cocaine demon (Jenova), and how much hairspray one can reasonably carry on a cross-country journey while on the run from the feds.

Age is not one of them.

Exhibit A: Yuffie Kisaragi.

Do I really need to say more? She acts her age. So does Zack. And Aerith, even. Most of the characters in the original lineup were over twenty for a good reason. We see several kids in the series, and they all act their age, too—both the OG and the remake. Age is not a thing that FF7 really grapples with. It’s something they take relatively seriously.

Now, to the point.

Zack is 16 when Crisis Core starts…

… and he was 13 when he ran away from home without his parents’ knowledge to join the military.

Which accepted him.

At 13.

Without a parental permission slip.

Think about that for a second.

… Or for the next several parts of this breakdown.

Part Two: The Main Character

As I mentioned in the introduction, Zack is not the main character of the events of Crisis Core. Instead, he is the focal point of the second person POV. This is not the first time Square has done this. It was done most notably with FF9, FF10, and FF12. (I’m not going to go on an Akira Kurosawa rant right now, but please check out his film “The Hidden Fortress”. FF12 and Star Wars episodes 4-6 borrow heavily from this film.) The purpose and position of this character is such that they might best witness the effects the other characters make on the world as their stories unfold, usually in the role of a love interest. For Akira Kurosawa, it may have been told this way because these people are most effected by the decisions being made.

“Well, then, Sal,” you may be asking, “who would you say is the main character? Would that be Aerith, since she’s the love interest, like in the other games?”

No, actually.

It’s the antagonist.

And by that, I mean Genesis.

Hear me out. I used to hate Genesis, for I was once young, full of judgement for flamboyancy (thanks, internalized homophobia), and was led by the narrative to believe he was mean to his friends. Then I met my Lovely beta who loved him, so I wrote a fic for her as a gift. So for that I kinda just… read stuff. Because that’s the thing about Propaganda—you gotta read stuff to navigate it. I read the in-game emails. I re-watched all the scenes I could get my hands on with him. I read his wiki and tried to track down more information about him. Then I watched the scenes in Japanese and gained a better understanding of not just Genesis, but Sephiroth’s character. And I realized that Genesis was put on this road from the start. In fact, a big part of the fact that he’s seen the way he is in Canon—only at his most hostile and lowest points—is because the story is told through Zack’s point of view.

So before we get into the breakdown, here’s the hard facts about Genesis.

1. He was a test tube baby who may or may not technically be Angeal’s fraternal twin brother, which we are not going to unpack right now.

2. He was adopted by a relatively rich family.

3. He was a child genius (which requires not only resources, but drive to achieve), and at a tender young age of like… ten or something? He decided to mess around and literally invented pasteurization. Which is incredible, and really speaks to his knowledge of the world and ability to grasp complex concepts even at a young age. But, again, this is not the time or place to unpack that.

4. He was best friends with Angeal, who might as well have been the sweetest, kindest boy to ever walk the Planet. (I’m biased. I love him.)

5. As a teenager, he became fixated on Sephiroth, who had gained national acclaim as a SOLDIER despite them being the same age. (Please see part 1 and think about that for a second.) He then goes to join SOLDIER and brings Angeal with him. And Angeal brings his step-father’s puritanical “hard work is honorable” mindset with him. (On that note, Angeal and his father’s arc really are a wonderfully scathing letter to companies that overwork their employees and how toxic/unhealthy that line of thinking is. But. Again. We are not unpacking that right now.)

6. At one point he became consumed with LOVELESS, a series of poems with heavy prose and symbolism thicker than syrup. It got to the point where he was so well known for it that there was an entire fanclub dedicated to both him and analyzing the text.

7. While he was in SOLDIER, he repeatedly had his achievements publicly accredited… to Sephiroth.

Over and over and over again.

Everyone did, really. They mention it in the beginning of the game. Sephiroth even got public credit for Zack’s raid on the castle when he wasn’t even there. How much of his legacy is real? How much of it is made up? How much of it was faked? We don’t know. No one knows. But he keeps getting credit, anyways. And when Genesis confronts him about it, Sephiroth doesn’t care. In the Japanese version of their fight scene, you could even say he indirectly implies that he wants Genesis to take his place as the “hero”. In the English, Sephiroth’s line is, “Come and try.” But in the Japanese the line is closer to, “Wouldn’t that be nice?” Which, depending on how you take his tone, can mean wildly different things—from mocking, to earnest, or even admiration—which is especially to tell because he might be annoyed with Genesis at the moment.

Fun Fact: In Ever Crisis, Sephiroth explicitly says they are making up his achievements in the press to target boys his age for recruitment. (Thus why they accepted Zack at age 13.)

My theory on this line is that he is being cynical; that Genesis doesn't understand just how harrowing and even humiliating his experience has been. This only enforces my theory that the "come and try" translation in the English not only does a disservice to a line as wonderfully heavy as, "Wouldn't that be nice?", but fundamentally misunderstands Sephiroth as a character.

8. Genesis then took the fight to Shin-Ra. Inspiring a good chunk of their staff to leave the company, he then staged multiple attacks on facilities, staff, and the main building—which also spilled out into the city of Midgar. He murdered his parents, buried them, killed everyone in town, and… Yeah. It wasn’t pretty. A lot of innocent people died simply because they were vaguely associated with Shin-Ra. These are the actions of a villain. What’s more, this is clearly a sign that he has been acclimatized to death and violence by Shin-Ra to the point where he doesn’t even consider taking hostages.

Except.

Except the entire town was a Shin-Ra town.

Banora, canonically, was a Shin-Ra built town, which means everyone there was basically an employee of the company. No one was safe. Everyone was a threat. And that…

That was how he was raised. And he finally knew the truth—that every moment of his life was touched, controlled by Shin-Ra, all the way down to his very conception. He has never known freedom. He has never known his own identity. And now that very cage was killing him, slowly and painfully, and turning him into something that couldn’t even be recognized as human. He was watching himself rot in the mirror, and it was all because of Shin-Ra’s greed. And as he searched for salvation, he sunk into LOVELESS as he always had, hinging his entire life on Minerva’s Gift because he knew he was dying and that was all he had.

9. And then he died…

10. … but then it turned out LOVELESS was actually kind of a blueprint, and he did meet the Goddess, and he did get reborn without his degradation so he was rewarded for his journey in the end.

So why wasn’t Genesis the main character of the game?

Simple.

His actions challenge the status quo without being about the status quo. It’s a story about revenge. It’s a story about retribution. It’s a story about answering mass violence with mass violence and ultimately being rewarded by it. And while, yes, the series is an action-based violence simulator, the violence in the original FF7 was a guided, tactical effort. (For all that the characters aren’t the brightest bulbs in the sun lamps.) But the biggest, most obvious shift in the narrative happened when they realized their role as terrorists—bringing mass violence to the company via bombing and open aggression—was just resulting in increasing levels of retaliation against uninvolved people. They might as well have been a child beating the ankles of a giant. The goals and themes of the game fundamentally change when they realize that answering mass-scale societal violence with mass-scale physical violence was not only unsustainable, but also wasn’t going to solve their problem.

FF7 is about change and learning when violence—and what kind of violence—is appropriate in the face of different threats.

Genesis’ arc undermines all of that, and making him the main character would contradict the very heart of the OG game.

So, instead, we are positioned as Zack, connected to him through a mutual friend. From there we see all the damage and horror this vengeance brings to those living under the status quo.

But also, that plotline’s a major downer in a lot of ways, so they needed to lighten things up a bit to keep audience involved. And that’s why Zack is, well…

Part Three: Zack is a Himbo

Please, for the love of all that is holy, keep in mind that everything I say here is with the utmost affection.

Zack is dumb as a rock.

He is a charismatic, enthusiastic sixteen year old jock who ran away from home at thirteen years old to join the military. Which, please know, why I say “military” I mean “private security guard force with a standard-issue Death Baton and a license to kill”. The first scene in the game is him being excited that he gets to murder a bunch of people in a simulation, which he is immediately scolded for by his mentor. He is a glorified, souped up private security guard who is canonically only in it for the glory at first. He wants to be a “hero”, but doesn’t seem to fundamentally know what that means. And, over the course of the story, the definition of that clearly changes for him.

Which tracks, because the story takes place over a period of time with high stress.

Occasionally I see people saying they wish that Zack had more complexity to him, and honestly? The game. Would be. SO. BAD.

Full Disclosure: I am not the biggest fan of Zack specifically because he lacks a lot of nuance. I wish he was a bit more complex, too. But I also know that would break the game. What’s worse, if he was still on Shin-Ra’s side because he understood Shin-Ra’s mission… Well… That would make him a villain, or a cog at best. That’s not main character material. It would make the ending more messed up, though.

Anywho, Zack was thirteen when he left home. He had no formal education. He didn’t tell anyone what he was doing. He even joined without a permission slip from his parents. This means that Shin-Ra was accepting thirteen, possibly fourteen year olds into the military. (Some people will say this tracks because you can get a job at fourteen in many parts of Japan. But, and this is important, you aren’t allowed to be a security guard until you’re quite a bit older, and you need a specific license for it, much like in the US.) Clearly they didn’t teach this boy critical thinking skills. Not because he’s a himbo, but because having their Super-Powered Private Security Force With A License To Kill think independently would explicitly go against their interests. (EX: Genesis.)

Shin-Ra needs SOLDIERs to follow orders or the company would no longer be able to function. Seconds and Thirds aren’t even allowed to reject missions. (One could argue that sending certain someone on back-to-back missions would be a good way for them to eliminate undesirables within the ranks by sending them to their deaths, which… would make an incredible fic idea, actually.) We already know that First, Second, and Third Class rank assignments do not actually reflect the power of the SOLDIER. This is canon. I would instead argue that those who make the rank of First Class aren’t necessarily the most powerful, but are instead the most visible in the media, thus the easiest to market, and/or the easiest to manipulate and control. (For a great example of this, see The Umbrella Academy.)

The point is, Zack may have been elevated to his position as a first specifically because he is malleable and single-minded. Even after all he saw with Genesis, he stuck by the company to the very end, with the exception of the time Sephiroth was literally guiding him to fail a mission. Zack allowed himself to take Shin-Ra’s side every time, taking down their enemies and following their orders, preserving his “honor as SOLDIER” as he had been taught. The only thing that made him stop…

… was literally getting put in a jar.

It was when he was no longer a SOLDIER.

Part Four: Honor

There is no such thing as SOLDIER Honor.

I repeat: There is no such thing as SOLDIER Honor.

It is a fictional thing that is borne of an ideology based around hard work. It only has power because it is believed in. It is an intangible social construct similar to the law, mathematical order of operations, and gender roles. So why are Angeal and Zack obsessed with it?

Pretty simple.

Angeal’s step-father followed it.

Now, we know three things about Angeal’s step-father.

1. He was chill with the fact that Gillian was already pregnant when they started dating.

2. He was a very good father.

3. He worked himself to death trying to pay off the sword he bought Angeal.

This, of course, says a lot about Angeal considering he rarely uses the sword. He essentially sees that sword as the symbol of his step-father’s life. Everything he uses it for, he sees as more important than his step-father’s life. That thing is usually Zack.

Zack, who is the child who joined the military based on stories of heroes.

Zack, who rises against Angeal in the name of his own step-father’s ideology and tries to talk him down, even at the very end. But Zack fails because he fundamentally doesn’t understand what’s going on, partially because “Soldier Honor” is just one more aspect of this narrative he was given. It is a narrative that Angeal has had to step away from, even though he doesn’t want to leave the memory of his step-father behind. He was a good man. He was a good, hardworking man.

And that is why he died.

Corporations will use you up until there is nothing left, then honor your memory/sacrifice. Shin-Ra was doing the exact same thing the company his step-father worked for did; using up SOLDIERs until they outlived their usefulness. And Angeal was horrified to realize that his “SOLDIER Honor” wasn’t honor at all.

It was willingly submitting to control.

But, unlike Angeal, over time, this meaning changed for Zack. Partially because he didn't understand it fully in the first place. It became about acting with integrity. It became about helping people. It became about not lying down and watching the abuse Shin-Ra handed out in exchange for literal money; for maintaining the status quo.

At the very end, Zack understood what it meant to be a hero.

Part Five: The Conclusion

To sum up, Zack believed in and idolized the propaganda spread by Shin-Ra at such a young age, and was so convinced by it, that he ran away from home at thirteen to join the military.

He was their target demographic, so they happily took him into their ranks. What’s more, people think this is normal enough that we see no one opposing this, because the only people who oppose Shin-Ra are “extremists” or “violent terrorists”.

Zack then became their loyal puppy, groomed to fill his role as super-powered attack dog to sick on anyone they deemed appropriate, and he filled the role. He believed he was doing good. He didn’t think they were invading another country, because that’s not what he was told.

He went after Genesis, because that’s what he was told, and he wouldn’t let Genesis’ actions shake his faith in the company.

Then he went after Angeal, hoping to get answers, only to become more confused. Angeal taught him about SOLDIER honor. He taught him about a higher calling. He was the one who made Zack truly loyal to the company. This challenged everything Zack knew.

He went with Sephiroth, planning a small rebellion of their own (a white lie on paperwork) to get answers, only to find things he wasn’t ready for and couldn’t fully understand.

Zack is shaken by each of these events. Horribly. At times, we even watch him grieve. But time and time again, he doesn’t leave the company. He sees the damage they do first hand, and he doesn’t leave the company. The company isn’t the problem, to him. He reads their emails, does their dirty work, and “maintains his SOLDIER honor”.

Zack swallows what they give him right up until what they give him is torture.

Zack swallows what they give him until he becomes their victim.

Every step of the way, Zack is fed a story of how the world is. He was raised on it. He lived it. He became part of it. He was paid peanuts to enforce the status quo Shin-Ra installed in the world by force, and he was proud of it because it was, to him, something to be proud of.

Zack believes the propaganda whole-sale, and we get to watch, from the point of view of an outsider, as it slowly destroys his life before killing him.

Propaganda has the power to make suffering normal. Propaganda has the power to make murder righteous. Propaganda has the power to take a thirteen year old boy out of his home so they can give him a sword, and when they point him in the direction of their enemies he charges of his own volition, because they made him believe in their cause. And he believes in their cause because he believes that it makes life better for everyone.

But that’s not what’s actually happening.

That’s just what he was told.

Crisis Core is about propaganda, and the depths to which it can affect our lives. It changes our belief systems. It changes our perceptions of reality. And when it’s torn down around our eyes, it can make us go insane. It can make us violent and unreasonable as we realize just how much violence is being forced upon us—violence other people just plain do not see. It's just a a piece of paper. It's just a law. It's just a job.

It's just a war.

Final Fantasy 7 was about Fascism.

Crisis Core is about the propaganda that built it. It is told from the point of view of a boy, then a man, steeped in it. He watches until the people suffering around him—Sephiroth, Genesis, and Angeal—are twisted into villains by the truths and lies around them. Genesis and Angeal are tortured by truths, Sephiroth is transformed by lies, and Zack is subsequently hunted down to conceal them.

Crisis Core is Propaganda: The Video Game.

[melukonova]

LOVING SEPHIROTH, sephiroth x reader.

tw. mentions of his hurtful past, emotional abuse that miniroth didn't deserve :( this post can be seen as suggestive but it's left mostly to your interpretation

a/n. for @silverflqmes , my best friend who has inspired me to write yet again for something i love and for writing various requests for me, indulging me in my own happiness. you are never leaving this deep hole of ff7 that i dug for you AHAHAHAH! this is also for the many fans who have made fanfics and such that have shaped me now<3 much love to you all! (i will make more headcanons if this gets love) also sephiroth might be a little ooc since he's new territory of writing for me :,)

info. very lovable and soft sephiroth<3 very short blurbs! inspired by the song everything by lifehouse, i can see him relating about you, the reader, and how he feels for you. enjoy! pre-nibelheim!!!

𐚁. sephiroth's love language can be seen as quality time as seen with the time he spent with genesis and angeal, he grew very attached easily. i can see this in a similiar way since i'm sure once you've caught sephiroth's eye, you're happily in his heart. he enjoys just being together, perhaps he'll teach you how to use masamune (a toy version at least since he wants to protect you from injuries). don't get me wrong, every other love language applies for him too but i know he's happiest with the fact that you're there by his side.

𐚁. he is very awkward with affection so the first time you hold him, i think he wouldn't know what to do but he'll awkwardly pat your back while trying not to freak out a bit by being touched since he was experimented on as a child. please teach him how to love, he didn't get enough as kid... i think being patient with him would also warm his heart with you as well. he isn't the best with people, just in using his sword... which is why it's an anomaly to him if you stuck around for this long.

𐚁. indulging ellie on this one: sephiroth with a kitten. he probably is the one to adopt a kitten out of the two of you except what you didn't expect was him to basically mother the kitten. i think his wounds are still healing from the fact that the locket of his mother was torn away from him.. but you guys both loved that kitten very much, naming saikou which means radiance. it is the radiance of both of your lives and definitely a way to heal from your guys' pain, whatever it may be from your end but i know sephiroth suffers from loneliness and feeling not good enough. he feels this much less because of you though and of course, saikou. saikou is now your love rival... the kitty is his precious baby but you are his most prized treasure.

𐚁. while i said quality time is his favorite love language, i think that he likes physical affection as well since he never really knew what it's like to be loved. he wanted to learn though as well as learn to love you which led to teaching him how to cuddle. still very awkward, he's trying his very hardest as he pats your head and encases you into his body. eventually it led to couch cuddles every time he came home from work, he won't say it out loud but this is his favorite part of being able to be with you. he is so beyond smitten.

𐚁. as sephiroth had been in SOLDIER all of his life, he's not completely sure the best way to comfort you on many things but what he can do is to give you a better night! he'd come home with flowers since somehow zack had talked him into buying flowers from his girlfriend, what can i say? zack was a persuasive businessman and sephiroth had no clue how to be a good boyfriend. he'd probably panic if he couldn't make you feel better, he just wants you happy and would slay his enemies (those who wronged you). he'd indulge you in just about anything that you wanted to do between him trying on your favorite dress, self-care day with face masks, kisses all over to make you less insecure or just to feel more loved, an ice cream date, etc. you name it and it's done. he'd even sneak you into the training room on the SOLDIER floor to take you on a loving date with an even more beautiful sunset but all he could see was his sun, you.

𐚁. you already know his hair care routine since it was leaked from your mail, did i mention you were apart of sephiroth's fan club? he uses a WHOLE bottle of shampoo and conditioner. one day you had to braid his hair, adding in flowers to his hair as you braided it. he loved it since it kept his face clear for combat, meanwhile genesis and angeal snickered at him since his s/o made him look all pretty so none of his enemies would take him seriously. masamune said differently than his hair did. if somebody ruined the artwork of your braiding? they ALSO had a date with masamune.

𐚁. he doesn't like a lot of attention as many would say since he is so famous. this is the big question, how did you enter his life in comparison to the fangirls? you understood him. it was a new feeling for him and he didn't know how much he would end up loving it. no thirsting over how hot he was or saying how strong he had been. just a simple: "i know you've been working hard for so long, you deserve some rest," was enough to make him moved by you. nobody could compare to you in his innocent heart. he was so new to every experience, every hug, every kiss, and every touch you gave him. each time was something new that he had learned to love about you and eventually love about himself as well. you helped him to understand he was more than a monster, more than a soldier, more than just a test subject.

𐚁. what you hadn't expect is to find a loving sephiroth in the kitchen with you, holding you close to him as you listened to italian cooking music (the pasta addict in me thinks he'd want to learn more about pasta and its origin). his head was leaning down towards yours while staring down at your lips as you both had been swaying. his hand had been on your waist and the other had been moving up from your shoulder, over your neck slowly with care, to your soft cheek. capturing you in his lips, the water had boiled over but he didn't care at that moment. the thing he clung onto most was this moment because at this moment, sephiroth just knew. he was in love and he finally felt free as he deepened the kiss. he knew where home was and he was kissing his own home, taking in all of what makes you so lovable as well.

melukonova, 2024. 𐀔

[rottenpumpkin13]

ACGSZ (as kids) board the Polar Express. What happens?

Sephiroth:

First time outside the lab. Clutching his standard, white lab pajamas like a security blanket.

He takes a seat and keeps looking around the train with suspicion, "The physics of this locomotive are impossible. Also, why is no one concerned about a strange man collecting children at night?"

Refuses the hot chocolate at first because "Professor Hojo warned me about sugar and foreign substances." Ends up trying it out of peer pressure and immediately falls in love. His eyes widen at the first sip—it's his first taste of chocolate.

Tells the other kids he never got presents, not even for his birthday. Genesis looks horrified.

Accidentally ends up on the roof and has a philosophical conversation with the hobo about the meaning of life.

Genesis:

Bounces onto the train in festive red pajamas and a little robe, all big smiles and boundless energy. He's missing one front tooth and can't stop grinning because his mom isn't here to worry about appearances and tell him to close his mouth.

He gulped down his hot chocolate eagerly, then began theorizing how he could replicate the recipe. "I bet it has nutmeg! Angeal, do you think it has nutmeg?"

"Genesis, sit down," Angeal groans, tugging him back into his seat for the third time.

Gets into a heated debate with the conductor about the train being a metaphor for "the journey of life."

Is a walking mini dictionary/ encyclopedia combo, is eager to tell everyone all about the fun facts he knows, and tells other children stories.

Horrified to learn Sephiroth doesn't believe in Santa. Spends the rest of the ride trying to convince him and tells him all about how Christmas is magical.

Angeal:

Only here because Genesis dragged him along. Begrudgingly sits down but ends up lecturing the other kids about train safety. "Hold the rail, Genesis. Don't hang your head out the window, Zack. Cloud, are you feeling okay? You're looking pale."

Keeps pulling Genesis back into his seat, which becomes a full-time job.

Lowkey guilty about enjoying the hot chocolate because his parents don't get to try it. "They'd love this." Feels even guiltier when he accepts a second cup.

Tries to help the staff maintain order, which the conductor finds both helpful and annoying. The conductor repeatedly tells him to "take a break, kid."

Gets emotional over the broken toys in the back of the train.

Zack:

Becomes best friends with every kid on the train in under five minutes. "What's your name? That's a cool name! Wanna play a game? What's your favorite Christmas carol?"

Organizes a "Guess That Christmas Carol" competition. Ends up singing too loudly, which makes Sephiroth laugh for the first time.

"GUYS, WE'RE ON ICE! WHY ARE WE DRIFTING? THIS IS AWESOME!"

Convinces the conductor to let him touch the controls and to drive the train.

Cloud:

Cloud is the last child to board, running through the snow with his little scarf trailing behind him. He almost missed the train, but the other four pulled the emergency brake.

Shyly accepts Zack's excited ushering and sits in the corner. Gets motion sick almost immediately.

Slowly warms up to the group, tells them he doesn't receive much presents because his mother can't afford them, Sephiroth nods in solidarity and the two bond over their lukewarm feelings about Christmas.

Tries the hot chocolate but drinks it too slowly and it gets cold. Zack swaps cups with him. In fact, Zack has made it his mission to make sure Cloud has the best time ever.

At the North Pole

When Santa arrives, Sephiroth is picked to receive the first gift. Everyone else cheers, while Sephiroth looks very out of place.

Santa asks him what he wants. Sephiroth thinks of asking for his mother back but pauses. He looks at Genesis excitedly ranting about Santa, Angeal trying to stop Zack from terrorizing an elf, and Cloud shyly smiling and giving him a thumbs up.

"I… I want our paths to cross again someday," he says instead, looking at his newfound friends.

Santa smiles knowingly. "Consider it done."

None of them remember the night when they wake up. But when they meet again years later, it feels like fate.

[theghostavocadoe]

Genesis Rhapsodos ADHD headcanons

From someone who's diagnosed with ADHD

His vocal stims usually range from humming to narrating/singing out what he's actively doing in that moment. Or mimicking the sounds of things. There's been multiple occasions where he goes "mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm" while the microwave is running

Constantly under the "I want to look good but all my fancy clothes are itchy" curse, resulting in him dressing up fancy for approximately 45 minutes before he has to take it all off

White noise. CONSTANT white noise. especially when he's trying to sleep. His desk fan and his air conditioner are his best friends. Same with his Bluetooth speaker. When he finally gets the motivation to clean/cook, it's David Bowie and Abba all the way babieeee

His executive dysfunction is so bad that sometimes he has to go to Angeal and Sephiroth and be like. "I need you to yell at me to do this thing." And they both immediately threaten him with tearing his book in half which motivates him to do the Thing

Must go through the embarrassment of ordering off the kids menu in restaurants because everything else would physically make him gag from food avoidance

If someone tells him to do something as he's actively doing it, the rest of his day is immediately ruined.

Gets two copies of every book; one to keep clean and pristine, one to annotate and take on missions.

His physical stims include but are not limited to; swaying back and forth on his feet, flicking his earring, picking his fingernails (he wears gloves to combat this), and the infamous bouncy leg.

When he gets overstimulated, he becomes easily irritable. He often has to come back and apologize to people for blowing up on them because he didn't actually mean it, he was just too stressed out to think before he spoke.

Angeal and Sephiroth are his saviors when it comes to getting out of overstimulating parties that he never wanted to attend in the first place. Angeal is the one that comes up with an excuse and Sephiroth is the one to escort Genesis out the door with a radiating aura of malice that keeps everyone 10 feet away.

he and Zack connect over having ADHD and they often trade tactics that help them, remind each other to finish their tasks, so on and so forth

[the6thpaladinofvoltron]

Sephiroth and Female Reader: A Short Excerpt-Crisis Core Era.

The moment Sephiroth himself brought you on board as a new recruit, a connection instantly tethered you two together. It was quite a mystery; because aside from Genesis, Angeal, and Zack, the silver soldier wasn't known to bond with others so quickly.

You rose through the ranks under Sephiroth's wing (no pun intended), spending hours training together, going on missions together, and chatting in your rare off time. So much so that fellow Soldiers started calling you Sephiroth's Girl.

"Hey there, fellow Cadet!" Zack, the Puppy Soldier, scampered up to you. "Hojo wants to see you in the lab."

You inwardly shiver hearing that name, but begrudgingly agree to see what that horrid scientist wants.

You despised Hojo. Mostly because you were able to see just how uncomfortable Sephiroth was in the doctor's presence, and you came to the conclusion that Hojo must've done some violating things to your friend. That and Sephiroth made sure that for any medical checkups, Hojo was allowed nowhere near you.

And the irony, on your way down, you passed by the silver soldier as he was headed in the same direction. And he immediately took notice of this.

"Don't tell me that Hojo requested your presence at the lab too?"

"...Yes." You slowly answer, suspicion creeping into your brain. "He has. What does he want you for?"

Alarm bells rang in Sephiroth's head. Hojo must've noticed how close he was getting with you. He grabbed your wrist rather hard and started leading you away from the elevator.

"Ouch! Sephiroth, hold your horses! What are you doing?"

He tugs you into a training room and taps in a code to lock the door before answering.

"Don't freak out, but there's only one reason why Hojo would call both of us into his office. That monster..."

You can see Sephiroth's body convulse as he struggles to get the words out. And it clicks. You start to feel rage simmer at the base of your gut.

"That lunatic wants to... breed us?! UGH! No, no, a million times no, I am not letting that quack use me to violate you!"

Sephiroth isn't surprised that you managed to piece it together, you were very clever when it came to figuring out problems.

"There you go again putting me first, Cadet. Your body matters too, you know, and I am not letting Hojo get his hands on you."

You notice something, something different, an intensity in those blue/green eyes that you've never seen before. Sephiroth was always protective of you, but now, of all times, you start to question why.

"Sephiroth? ...I have to ask, why me? I mean, I really appreciate everything you've done for me, but why? I'm just your average Soldier."

"...Cadet, you're more than that."

Sephiroth hesitated. He was scared. Scared that if he told you why he cared about you, that you would disappear just like Angeal and Genesis. But he had to, you wanted an answer.

"The day I selected you out of dozens of candidates for Shinra, I didn't know yet just how much you would mean to me. You treat me as a human, Cadet; not a hero to live up to, not a celebrity to admire, and not a test subject to poke and prod whenever you feel like it. I'm your equal, your friend... You help me feel normal."

You stare at your friend, unable to form words. But, your body moves on its own, your arms encircling Sephiroth and pulling him into a hug. And from the way you feel his arms grab onto you and his body relax, it seems he really needed this.

"Sephiroth... I promise... I'm gonna try my best to always be there for you. And if Hojo ever tries anything, can I borrow your sword to skewer him?"

The silver soldier chuckles softly.

"Sure you can. And... I promise to try to always be there for you in return. I won't let anything hurt you."

[silverflqmes]

agszc and the flowers they'd give as well as why they would give them?

໒⦂ 𝐅𝐋𝐎𝐖𝐄𝐑 𝐋𝐀𝐍𝐆𝐔𝐀𝐆𝐄.

notes. hey queen, my knowledge in flowers is baby level but!!! we’re gonna see which flowers the boys would give based on themselves and their love<3

genre. fluff

for @melukonova <3

ft. sephiroth, cloud strife, zack fair, genesis rhapsodos, angeal hewley

gender neutral! reader.

ะ ྂ ❤︎ . ˚˖ you selected.. orchid.

+ reasoning. orchids come in a variety of symbols next to the obvious luxury and beauty, such as strength, mystery — even charm and refinement. more importantly, they bring across how lucky you are to be able to love your special someone.

+ sephiroth had always thought himself to be deplorable for as long as he could remember. growing up, he had countless reminders of how unloveable he was even in spite of shinra’s hero treatment of him. when he met you, however, somehow you had brought this ray of light into his suffocating darkness and had loved him in spite of everything. he was just so lucky to have you in his life — it was imperative he showed you his gratitude. and so, from the many books he read in his days, he’d decided that gifting your orchids was the best way.

+ “it took awhile to find you these, given the state of midgar.. but the search was worth the while. as i recall.. lovers gift one another flowers as an expression of affection, do they not?”

ะ ྂ ❤︎ . ˚˖ you selected.. gardenia.

+ reasoning. gardenia is the type of flower you would use to confess when the words don’t quite reach your lips. basically, an unspoken confession to convey your love. furthermore, it represents purity and expresses beauty towards the receiver.

+ cloud strife.. was never really the best with words, feelings and emotional expression. he preferred to think of himself as an actions kind of guy, and his confession to you boiled down to exactly that. with all the worst behind him, and the whisper of advice from his parted friends, he would have set out one morning to sector five to purchase a few gardenias. flowers and their meanings didn’t come easy to him, but the words he’d received told him these were the ones. the blond’s only hope was that his message would be received and returned.

+ “here, got these for you on the way back from my delivery, they’re um.. gardenias. make sure to change their water every other day or so, if you want them to last, of course..”

ะ ྂ ❤︎ . ˚˖ you selected.. daisy.

+ reasoning. daisies represent an innocent, cheerful and pure form of love. the kind of flowers you would pick fresh from the garden or a patch of grass to bring to the person you cherish most. they can also express true love, beauty and simplicity.

+ zack fair was true to his nickname — a puppy. despite his want for leaving the countryside to join SOLDIER, the days he would spend back home were all filled with memories that he would forever carry with him. a few that stood out most were the times he’d race up to you with a handful of daisies. despite their messy condition, and the apology he would laugh out for tripping on his way to you, his actions are filled with sincerity and love.. even if zack might not know what he’s given to you. with time, however, he will have realized the depth of his gifts.

+ “ahaha, sorry y/n! i didn’t see this rock on my way over, and i might have ruined the flowers a bit.. but they still smell nice! and i tried to salvage the good ones, y’see! peak condition!”

ะ ྂ ❤︎ . ˚˖ you selected.. aster.

+ reasoning. asters, according to myth were associated with a goddess that wept because there weren’t enough stars. the tears that fell became the star shaped flowers we call asters. on the contrary, they symbolize love, charm and sensitivity.

+ genesis rhapsodos — born poet, forced to soldier. flowers and their meanings didn’t fall far from the tree for a man with vast knowledge of the arts, literature and beauty. as someone with a keen interest in loveless, having analyzed and noted it to memory, asters came to be his first choice in conveying his love for you. the gift of the goddess, he would have concluded, and a perfect fit for the one who has captured his heart — you. and so, on his way back from a mission, a singular aster would have occupied his red, gloved hand as he presented it to you.

+ “a gift from the goddess for my beloved.. as flowers have long since disappeared off the face of midgar, amidst the filth and industrialization. are you pleased with my findings?”

ะ ྂ ❤︎ . ˚˖ you selected.. alstroemeria.

+ reasoning. alstroemerias convey loyalty, devotion, support and.. honor. the type of flower you give to remind someone of their strength when they fall on hard times. but, it is also said that receiving an extra sweet one, meant you were beloved.

+ angeal hewley wasn’t exactly one for frivolous love, a stark contrast otherwise, to his friend. the romance department just never really called his attention.. well, at least until he met you. somehow you sparked feelings in him that he wasn’t sure he was even capable of feeling strongly towards another person. it was strange, different.. but a good kind of different. however there was a downside — that being his lack of experience. his familiarity with romance was minimal, but he was determined to provide! and with outside help, he was acquired flowers.

+ “these are alstroemerias.. a mouthful, i know. but they used to grow back where i grew up, in banora. they said the sweeter ones are best to gift to your beloved — so here you are.”

notes. several hours of research and inconsistent writing later, i was able to finish your request.. love how NOBODY had roses but like anyway, this is the end results for agszc with flowers woop

↳ return to main masterlist . request rules . send an ask

[altocat]

You did their flaws so what's AGS best qualities

ANGEAL: Reliable, sensible, caring, and nurturing. He brings people closer together. He takes good care of his friends and does his best to guide them. He's a good mentor because he's patient and warm-hearted. He always tries to do the honorable thing. He believes in pride, but not arrogance. He's humble and honest, focused and resolute. He treats his friends like family. He's the glue that holds things together. Well-rounded, noble, and true of heart.

GENESIS: Passionate, creative, clever, and courageous. Genesis tells it like it is. He's bold and hotheaded, but will go down fighting to the very end. He has a lust for life, excited about the world, eager to explore and create. He works hard to make his dreams a reality, pushing himself beyond his limits to be the best. He follows his heart. He's funny and witty and really wants to be loved and respected more than anything else. He wants to prove his worth, and has the drive to excel whenever he puts his mind to it.

SEPHIROTH: Loyal, intelligent, compassionate, and devoted to his loved ones. Sephiroth's icy exterior hides a soft heart. He will sacrifice everything for the sake of his men, protective to a fault. He's a good friend and a truly exceptional warrior, strong in more ways than just physical. He loves deeply and earnestly, though he has difficulties expressing his feelings. He enjoys being challenged and is very cordial and gracious towards those he deems worthy. His solitary, often lonely nature means that he cherishes those who show him kindness and respect.

[berenwrites]

A Simple Question - Steddie - PG13

for @steddie-week Day 2

Prompt: Hands / touch starved / Invisible Touch by Genesis

rated pg-13 | 1155 wds | tags: kissing, fluff, everybody lives, post vecna, mentions of sex

Eddie is a little tipsy and he has a question for Nancy.

(Also on AO3) ( My Other fic on Tumblr)

A Simple Question: Ha! What Boundaries?

Eddie was on his way to drunk, which was why he sat on the couch next to Nancy and cut himself off. Ever since his brush with death, he was something of a lightweight. At least everyone else seemed to be pretty buzzed as well. He’d passed on Argyle’s weed because of the aforementioned lightweight status, but the others hadn’t.

Jon and Argyle were currently lying on the floor having a deeply philosophical discussion about mushrooms, and not even the magic kind. Steve and Robin were draped all over each other in the corner giggling. And Nancy had been staring into space until Eddie sat down.

“Greetings, Wheeler the Badass,” he said with a smile as she looked at him.

“Eddie the Not-So-Banished,” she replied with a smile, “to what do I owe the honour.”

That made Eddie giggle.

“Came to ask you a question,” he told her. “Probably an ill-advised question, but I figured you’re too mellow to hit me.”

Nancy lifted an eyebrow at him for that.

“You’re probably right,” she agreed much to his surprise.

“Really?” he asked, because he would have shut his mouth if she’d objected.

“Really,” she said. “Ask away.”

“So,” he began, drawing out the ‘o’ sound, “Steve…”

“Ah,” Nancy said with a smile that Eddie couldn’t quite interpret.

“What do you mean by ‘ah’?” he asked.

“That your question?” Nancy replied.

“What? No,” he protested.

“You only get one,” Nancy told him.

“You’re changing the rules,” he complained.

“I could go and talk about mushrooms,” Nancy said.

“Okay, okay,” Eddie said, pretty sure if he had had one less beer the conversation would have been a lot less annoying, but then again, they probably wouldn’t have been having it at all. “So, Steve, reputation with the ladies deserved or hyped up?”

Nancy snorted a laugh and patted him on the leg in a rather unsettling way.

“In a sexy way or romantic way?” she asked.

“Um … sexy,” Eddie admitted quietly.

“Totally deserved,” Nancy told him, “and actually in a romantic way too. Probably would have eaten that shit up if, well, the stuff that happened hadn’t.”

She looked sad for a moment, so Eddie patted her hand in what he hoped was a sensitive gesture.

“So totally deserved?” he prodded when no more was forthcoming because his brain to mouth filter was on low power.

“God yes,” Nancy said, turning to look at him. “You would not believe how good he is with his hands, oh and his mouth. Fuck, his hands and mouth in combination.” She beckoned him closer. “Jonathan’s good,” she whispered, “but he’s never given me three orgasms in a row.”

“Three?” Eddie whispered back.

Nancy nodded.

“And that was just for starters,” she assured him. “I think he gets off on getting his partner off,” she revealed.

“Wow,” was the best Eddie could do with that information.

“You should shoot your shot,” Nancy said and all but shocked him sober.

“What … me … but …” he babbled.

“I’ve seen the way you look at him,” Nancy said quietly.

He wondered if she was actually as high as she was pretending, because the look in her eyes was anything but vague.

“I’m that obvious?” he asked, sagging into the couch cushion.

He’d come out as bisexual to this older group of friends when Robin had accidentally outed herself at another of their exclusive get-togethers and panicked. That Steve had known since Starcourt and been Robin’s number one cheerleader really shouldn’t have been as much of a surprise as it had really.

“Only among friends,” she told him, wrapping her hand in his. “You should talk to him.”

“He’s straight,” Eddie pointed out.

“Not if the way I saw him making out with Argyle is anything to go by,” Nancy replied.

“Argyle?”

“Yes, my dude?” Argyle asked, so possibly Eddie had said that louder than he had meant to.

“Just passing on your haircare tips,” Nancy covered for him.

“Always here if you need advice, Brochacho,” Argyle replied with a wave before going back to talking to Jonathan.

“I couldn’t hear what they were saying,” Nancy said, leaning in again, “but I did see Steve thank Argyle and walk away with that, wow I’ve discovered something face he does when he’s processing new things.”

“The one with the adorable little crease right here?” Eddie asked, pointing to the top of his nose.

Nancy lifted both her eyebrows this time.

“Wow you have it bad,” she commented.

“I know,” he admitted and sighed dramatically. “But he’s Steve and I’m me. He’s an adonis and I’m a wet cat.”

So maybe he deserved the laugh from Nancy for that one.

“Talk to him,” Nancy encouraged.

“But what would I say?” Eddie asked kind of desperately.

“You could try, ‘Steve fancy kissing me’,” an all too familiar voice said from just behind him.

It was at that moment he realised Steve and Robin were no longer in the corner, far, far away from the current conversation. He kind of froze, only turning very, very slowly to find Steve standing directly behind the couch with a couple of cold sodas in his hands.

Apparently, adrenaline was amazing stuff, because Eddie felt one hundred percent sober in that instant. An embarrassing squeak escaped from his throat.

“Oh, thank fuck,” Robin said, throwing herself onto the couch on the other side of Nancy, “the romantic tension was getting really annoying.”

“Says the woman who still hasn’t made it to first base with Vicky,” Steve bitched back.

Robin just made a kissy face at him, while Eddie continued to freak out.

He’d been daydreaming about Steve ever since he’d woken up in the hospital with Steve standing guard over him like some angel from heaven. Apparently, nobody argued with Steve Harrington when he looked like he might bring down the wrath of God at any moment, which had given the rest of the Party enough time to get Eddie’s name cleared. The whole ripping a demobat in half had started it for Eddie, and that had totally clinched it.

Steve was looking at him now in that earnest way he had that kind of melted Eddie’s insides.

“Hey Steve,” he finally said, “fancy kissing me?”

It was all kinds of pathetic, but it was all he had.

With a cocky smile, Steve passed the sodas he was holding to Nancy, leaned over the back of the couch and slipped one cold hand into the hair as the base of Eddie’s skull. The kiss was long and deep, and Eddie never wanted it to end. Of course it had to, especially when Jonathan, the traitor, wolf whistled.

Steve picked up a cushion and threw it at Jonathan’s head as Eddie sank back into the couch with what he was sure was a dreamy expression on his face. Nancy leaned in.

“Wait until you get the full magic hands too,” she whispered.

The End ( My Other fic on Tumblr)

[foreststarflaime]

Ok so I was translating the Iliad for fun last night as one does and oh my god it’s them?? Genesis Rhapsodos is a homeric hero in this essay I will

“Sing to me, goddess, of the accursed wrath of Achilles son of Peleus, who caused countless pains for the Acheans, and sent forth many stout souls of heroes to Hades, and made them spoils to dogs and to every bird of prey, and the will of Zeus was accomplished, from when first the son of Atreus ruler of men and divine Achilles stood apart in strife.”

-Homer, Iliad, I.1-7 (translation is my own)

But like the more I think about it, the more it just…fits him perfectly? Strap in boys this turned into a long one, I’m putting my ‘useless’ degree to good use

So a huge drive for Homeric heroes is pursuit of kleos (κλέος, meaning glory), it’s what their societal values are built off of, and it’s what Genesis builds his life off of too. It’s why he can’t let himself coexist peacefully with Sephiroth—for Genesis’ glory to spread, it can’t be eclipsed by Sephiroth’s. Kleos is earned primarily through being remembered in song, and you don’t see Shinra making any propaganda with Genesis in it (at least disproportionately not as much as Sephiroth).

And that’s another thing—Genesis’ desperate will to live. A big part of the appeal of kleos is that it grants you a sort of immortality, to live forever in the minds of humanity as long as the songs about you persist. There is a way to earn kleos without being the best hero around, and it’s to be killed by the best hero around—in passages where heroes go on killing rampages, there’s little catalogues of everyone they kill, like little graveyards of poetry that let them live on after death. It’s not a dishonor to them, rather the opposite since they died bravely fighting someone they just couldn’t beat.

This isn’t the way Genesis wants to earn his kleos, though, and he’s desperately afraid of it. We see in his reaction to degredation that he will do anything to avoid his own death, lashing out against everyone in pain and fear. He wants more than anything not to die, but he doesn’t want to end up a footnote in the rampage of someone greater. He wants Achilles’ fame, but fails to see that this fame was conditional upon his death. The most famous part of Achilles’ story that survived, after all, was his heel.

And then there’s how his friends fit into the story. As you can see in the quote from earlier, Sephiroth fits well as the Agamemnon to Genesis’ Achilles. Agamemnon leads the assembled Greek forces because he has the most men, the most fame, but Achilles (putting aside the matter of whether he is or not) doesn’t want to be seen as inferior to him, and is infuriated when Agamemnon does something he sees as a slight against his kleos. From Genesis’ perspective, this fits Sephiroth exactly. From Sephiroth’s perspective, naturally this is not the case, but therein lies the problem—he’s in a different genre from Genesis, one that becomes incompatible when put in the context it’s in, and this dooms them to tragedy.

It’s a similar problem with Angeal. Honor and glory are similar enough to be the best of companions, but they are not the same thing, and it’s something that is easy to forget. The difference is most clear, again, in the context they’re in. Genesis is so busy chasing immortality in kleos that he forgets that honor is not immortality, and Angeal’s will to live fails when his honor does, and he loses him.

Angeal and Sephiroth are both their own genres, causing misunderstanding and ensuring the tragedy that occurs, but they fit in just enough with the context of Homeric heroes to not let Genesis see his mistake.

Important for him also is the definition of monster to a Greek—two different creatures mashed together in a way nature isn’t supposed to go. That’s it. And by that definition, he is a monster, though we’d still call him human by our definition. And that’s just…ouch. In the fundamental rules of his world, he is inarguably a monster.

But the tragedy of that is that he’s just so painfully human, as are all Homeric heroes—so horribly, humanly flawed in such a loud way that the world cannot ignore it, and is pulled down with him.

Okayy wrapping it up with a few fun facts because this is turning into the essay I didn’t mean it to be, his last name Rhapsodos (Ῥαψῳδός) is a Greek word that translates roughly to bard, and specifically to a bard that recites epic poetry. Like the Iliad. It’s so unbelievably perfect for him, good job square enix! And the fact that this quote from the Iliad has goddess instead of Muse like the Odyssey, it was fated! Also, not that noun genders really mean anything, but the Greek noun genesis (γένεσις) is actually feminine, so win for genderqueer Genesis propaganda

Anyway where did my afternoon suddenly go, this was supposed to be a short fun thing, I should really be working on my thesis (which coincidentally was inspired by him, I’m in too deep send help) if you read all this I love you forever lol bye

[sleepyparalysisdmon]

Orbit - Act Two

Y/N has a little problem and it’s that she’s literally never alone. She hasn’t known what a little peace and quiet is for nearly a decade. When her therapist suggests a wellness retreat, she expects to be bored to death and just maybe learn to like meditation a little bit. She does not expect to meet someone that she has an insane connection with. Too bad it might be too good to be true.

You can find the masterlist here. 

Genre: medium au, a hint of soulmate au, heavy on the angst 

Pairing: Minghao x reader (featuring therapist!Jeonghan, best friend!Junhui, and ghost!Vernon, with a tiny bit of coworker!Seungkwan)

TW/CW: *deep breath* a lot of discussion of death and moving on (or not) afterwards, grief, trauma (specifically regarding a car accident), therapy, meditation, hypnosis, sleep disturbances, psychic abilities, discussion of mental illness and treatments, and explicit smut. MDNI. 

There are some difficult topics in this story and they are handled as delicately as possible, but proceed with caution if anything here might be upsetting.

Word count: 9.4k

Jeonghan sets a metronome in front of you and you glare at him. 

“I am not in the mood,” you warn, feeling particularly temperamental today. You’re running on next to zero sleep and the only reason you showed up today is because he’d give you a hard time for cancelling on him. Again. Jeonghan huffs at you.

“Y/N, you have to work with me here. I’m a therapist, not an expert in mediumship, but I’m really trying here.”

“Where did you even get that thing? And are you trained in hypnosis? You know it’s not a recommended practice, right?” Your tone is biting, and Jeonghan narrows his eyes at you across the coffee table. 

“You’re in a fine mood today,” he bites back. “And if you must know, I borrowed it from a friend and I did take a class. And I was the one that sent you the article saying it was not recommended, remember? But your file breaks all of the rules for typical therapy, so I’ve tossed out the rule book when it comes to you.” 

In the six months since your wellness retreat, Jeonghan had doubled down on trying to find things that could help you gain control of your abilities. He had seemed to fully accept that you were indeed a medium. 

Maybe it had something to do with you relaying a message for him from behind the veil. His grandmother was not happy about the woman he was dating. Jeonghan had thrown his notebook in the trash can and announced his resignation, particularly after you nailed the way his grandmother would have ranted about it. And yet, he was there the next week, ready to try something new. 

He’d pressed about how your wellness retreat had gone and you’d done your best to dance around the topic. Yes, it was insightful but it would take some practice. He’d given up on pressing for more details and just asked for you to send him the things you found insightful so he could research them. This had led him down the rabbit hole over the last few months and now today’s experiment was apparently hypnosis. 

You’re still glaring at him from across the table. “What’s your goal with hypnosis?”

“First, to see if it works,” Jeonghan bites, before huffing, settling into his seat, taking on a defensive pose that you almost call him out for. “I think it might since the meditation has been working. And I’d like to explore your lost time.”

You tense. “What lost time exactly?”

Jeonghan hesitates before finally saying, “I’d like to explore the lost time of your accident. But we can start with smaller bouts of lost time instead, if you’d prefer.”

You shake your head. “I don’t know that it would be worth exploring the lost time during the accident. Supposedly, I was unconscious upon impact.”

Jeonghan nods, pursing his lips. “Maybe. But one thing I’ve learned from working with you is that you can’t assume that a word like ‘unconscious’ means ‘unaware’.” 

Your jaw ticks. He’s asking you to relive the genesis of all your troubles now. The only thing that could be worse than not knowing like you have for almost a decade is actually knowing. A lot of days, the facts you’d been given were enough. “If I… agree to this, how do you pull me out? I’m not interested in being re-traumatized on this fine Tuesday afternoon.” 

Jeonghan looks pleased that you’re even considering it. “We’ll use a code word that we establish up front. It would ideally have nothing to do with your situation and hearing it should break you from whatever you’re experiencing.” 

You can’t help but grimace a little. “You really have been to a hypnosis training, huh.” 

Jeonghan rolls his eyes. “Are you in or out? I have a back up for today if you’re out.”

You don’t have much to lose, except for maybe your sanity, but that’s been hanging by a very thin thread for a while. But missing your subway pickup might snap that thread just as easily. “I’m in.”

Jeonghan has you sit in the center of the couch, leaning back into the cushion. He says it’s important that you’re comfortable and relaxed. He even gives you a pillow to hold, musing that you can keep your defensive pose if it makes you feel safer. Then he sits up across from you, starting the metronome that faces you on the coffee table. 

“This is similar to meditation in the beginning. Watch the metronome, get in tune with the ticking. Maybe even sync up your breaths with it if it’s comfortable. When you’re ready, close your eyes,” Jeonghan instructs, sitting back in his seat. 

You’d gotten a little better at filtering and meditation, so you slip into that state with only a little resistance. Your eyes drift closed after a while, focusing on the steady click of the metronome amongst the noise. That noise starts to fade, but you hear Jeonghan somewhere in there. “Y/N, if you can hear me, nod your head.” You respond robotically. “Good. Our code word is ‘elephant’. If I say it, I want you to come back.” 

Silence stretches for a while and you do your best to focus on Jeonghan’s voice amongst the ticking when he speaks again. “Let’s go back to that night. You were driving right? What were you listening to?” 

You feel your body jerk in a weird way and then suddenly your hands are on the wheel. It’s dark and your passenger seat is full of bags. Jeonghan calls your name. “Some rock station, I don’t know the song,” you mumble. 

“Good. What were you planning to do that night when you got to your parents’ house?”

It’s not a memory exactly, but rather an active thought. You can’t wait to have dinner. Your mom is making one of your favorites because it’s your first time back home in nearly six months. “Hungry,” you say shortly. “Mom is making dinner for me.”

“You’re doing good, Y/N. How’s the weather?”

“Terrible. A lot of snow. I’m driving slow but it’s still slick.”

“Okay.” You wait, still ‘driving’ with your grip on the steering wheel tight. “Now, think about just before the accident. What do you see? Take a look around.” You look around, right and then left. There are no turns ahead yet but there’s a car coming your way on the other side of the road. The headlights veer in an unsettling way and then the light closes in on you fast. Panic slices through you. “Deep breath, Y/N. It’s a memory. It can’t hurt you. Slow things down. This is all up to you. Hit pause and look around.” Jeonghan’s wrong. It isn’t all up to you and you can’t hit pause because the car is on you in a heartbeat. But, unlike how your memory stops at that moment, you’re still conscious. “Y/N?” 

In the blink of an eye, you’re in the ditch, a horn blaring, but you aren’t sure which car it comes from. You look to the left. “It’s a tan sedan,” you blurt. 

“Okay. Can you make out anything else?”

You shake your head in this little vision of yours because you can’t. It’s too dark. There’s motion from the other car and even though you’ve sort of lived this before, relief floods you. Someone approaches in the darkness, but you can’t make it out. Whatever out of body you’re experiencing is starting to fade. Your neck and left side suddenly hurt. You’re in the car and yet you’re not. 

When it starts to become unbearable, you hear Jeonghan say, “elephant” and then you’re slamming back into your body. You squeeze your eyes shut because the light is too bright and all the noise makes you feel like your head might explode. All of it makes you fold into the pillow in your lap. The clicking stops and Jeonghan’s hand is on your back, a solid pressure that gradually brings you back to reality. He hands you a wad of tissues when you sit up. When you wave him off, he gets you some water and sits back down across from you, not looking relaxed at all. 

“Anything?” He finally asks. 

You shake your head, feeling defeated. “No. Not really.” The timer goes off and he turns it off, before pinning you with a long look. 

“Do you want to talk about it now? Or do you want some time to think about it?”

You feel so drained that the only thing you can say is, “I’ll see you next week.” He lets you go without a single snarky comment this time. 

You arrive to work a few minutes early and are kind of surprised by how many people are already there. Seungkwan spots you from the crowd and comes to meet you at your desk. “Did I miss a meeting invite?” You ask, scrambling for the app on your phone. 

“No. Didn’t you get the email?” Seungkwan asks, confused. You give him a blank look that must be answer enough. “Mr. Kim died yesterday.” 

Your eyes widen and you place the phone on your desk, giving Seungkwan your full attention. Mr. Kim was one of your managers, a sweet old man that was well past retirement age but enjoyed working to keep busy, particularly after his wife had passed and his kids had all moved away. His death isn’t a surprise exactly, but it’s still devastating in that he was such a positive force in the office. Everyone loved working with Mr. Kim. “What happened?” You ask weakly.

“He wasn’t feeling well and stayed home from work yesterday. When he didn’t answer the phone, one of his neighbors came to check on him. Must have gone in his sleep,” Seungkwan explains, clearly upset. You mask your relief because it’s not at all appropriate to show, but you think that it’s a good thing that it was in his sleep. You’ve seen what a traumatic death does to someone and you would never wish it on anyone, least of all Mr. Kim. 

“That’s awful,” you sigh. “Have they made arrangements yet?” 

Seungkwan shakes his head. “Not yet, but I hear they will today.”

You nod, letting Seungkwan drift to someone else as they approach with the same confusion that you had. You make it a point to not go to funerals for obvious reasons, but you’ll make the exception for Mr. Kim. 

Speaking of, you sit down at your desk… and see Mr. Kim. He’s sitting at his desk, twiddling a pen with a soft smile. He makes eye contact with you, raising the pen in his boney fingers like he’s waving at you. You smile to yourself, before wiping it away because it’s totally inappropriate amongst the grieving and log in to your computer. You have a feeling he won’t stick around for long, which is all you hope for Mr. Kim, even if you’ll miss him. 

You make it a point to not go to funerals, but you know you should show up to one with flowers when you go. After all, you had nineteen normal years to teach you those sort of things. 

You get to the area of town that the funeral home is in early and find the nearest florist shop. It’s a cute, little place, the exterior a dark red brick with pristine white shutters nailed around the wide windows. The bell dings above the door when you walk in and the shop is empty, save for you and a bunch of plants. 

Plants aren’t your forte, but you browse them. Most are too bright for the occasion - you don’t need a florist to tell you that. “Hey, I’m sorry, I was wrapped up in something.” 

You twirl at the sound of the voice, not because it came out of nowhere, but because it’s familiar. Minghao is standing behind the counter, clad in an apron, wiping his hands on a towel. He looks equally shocked. 

“Y/N? This is a surprise.” You feel warm all over at how his face lights up, like he’s genuinely happy to see you despite how you’d left things six months ago. You give him a shy smile back. 

“It is. I didn’t know you were a florist.” You glance around the shop before looking at him again. “This does remind me of you, though. It’s… comforting in here.”

He looks a little sheepish. “Maybe. I’m still trying to make it mine. I bought it off of the previous owner last year. I worked for her for years and couldn’t stand to see the place fall into someone else’s hands.”

You feel even more warm and fuzzy. “That’s thoughtful of you.” You both stare at each other for a long moment. “I’m… sorry I didn’t reach out. I feel stupid about it, but I lost your number somewhere between the airport and home.”

Minghao kind of looks entertained. “And here I thought you were just ghosting me.”

“No, not on purpose anyway,” you chuckle. 

He’s still smiling softly as his eyes sweep across you. “You look good, Y/N. Dare I ask what brings you here though?”

You’re not sure what kind of answer he expects, but he turns sympathetic when you say, “I’m attending a funeral in a couple hours.”

“I’m so sorry for your loss. Let me help you find something,” he says, walking around the counter to meet you out in the open. He takes you to a particular shelf containing some muted flowers. “Can I ask who it’s for?”

“One of my managers. He was a sweet guy, always looking out for everyone, particularly the younger team members,” you answer, feeling the sadness creeping up again every time you think about it. You haven’t had to grieve very many people in this way, though you’d sort of grieved plenty of people you didn’t know. Minghao’s hand brushes your shoulder in comfort and you suck in a breath as the sound mutes just like it did six months ago. He must think he’s done something wrong, because he pulls back quickly, going back to business.

“Roses and Lillies are typical choices for something like this. You can’t really go wrong with it. Marigolds work too.” You wait because he doesn’t seem totally pleased with any of these options when you glance up at him. “These are from you alone?” You nod. He abruptly spins, walking to the other side of the shop and you follow. “These are hyacinths. The purple ones symbolize sorrow.” You look at the flowers in front you and then up to him questioningly. He gives you a bit of a rueful smile. “Your relationship with this sort of thing isn’t really typical. You need something a little special.” 

You look up at him, blinking back tears. He might think it’s because of where you’re going later today, and it certainly contributes, but really you’re overwhelmed just like you were six months ago by how he just gets you. Your voice is a little watery when you say, “That sounds great.”

He arranges everything just so with a level of perfectionism that feels unmatched. You wonder if he puts that kind of work into every order. Perhaps he does. He seems like a meticulous personality, but you kind of wish this was something special for you and you feel selfish for the thought. When you pull out your wallet and ask how much you owe, he waves you off. “Minghao, please let me pay.” He stubbornly shakes his head, handing you the bouquet over the counter. You sigh, accepting them and holding them against your chest gently. “Thank you, Minghao.”

You aren’t ready to leave right this second and he must sense it. He walks around the counter, taking the bouquet from you and lying on the counter. Then he’s opening his arms to you and you don’t think twice falling into them. It’s not even the silence that is peaceful. It’s his scent and warmth and the way he gently rubs your back. When you eventually pull away, he beats you to drying your tears, hand lingering against your cheek. 

The shop phone rings, the tone shocking you out of the moment. “I’m sorry, I should let you get back to work,” you say, pulling away from him. He lets his arms fall but he doesn’t rush for the phone, watching you grab the bouquet and make your way to the door. Your hand is on the door knob when he calls out your name. 

“Don’t be a stranger. You know where to find me now.”

You smile and nod. You do know where to find him and you don’t know if he was ever really a stranger. You just don’t know what to do with any of that because the connection with him is scary in its intensity. 

You don’t have time to think about it because you have to get to the funeral home. 

Vernon nudges you awake sometime after 3am. You blink sleepily at him and you can already tell what he’s going to say because you’ve seen that face before. “Working again?” You mumble. 

“Yeah. It was a lot this time. Scoot over,” he says simply. You do as he says and he plops down next to you. You feel yourself dozing off again, the effects of the medication you took before bed still strong in your system. You hadn’t made a habit of taking it, but you thought you might need some help tonight after spending the afternoon at a funeral home - aka a hotbed for ghosts. “It hasn’t been quite that bad in a while,” Vernon muses, making you jolt from sleep.

“Had to go to a funeral today. I think I have some stragglers,” you mumble, rubbing your eyes. 

“Ah,” Vernon says like it makes all the sense in the world. Maybe it does to him, being on the other side of the veil. 

“Vernon?” He hums. “Do you remember dying?”

He’s quiet for a long time. This is a topic that you don’t bring up often. He just doesn’t seem to want to talk about it. Eventually, he says, “Sort of.”

You look at him with hopeful eyes. “I’m not the only one with breaks from time?”

Vernon shakes his head. “No, you aren’t the only one.” He stares up at the ceiling for a while. “I remember drifting away. But I don’t remember a lot before that moment. One moment I’m with my friend and the next I’m staring up at a bunch of doctors and nurses, fading in and out.”

You blink at him in the darkness. In the nearly ten years that he’s been around, he’s never given this much information. “That must have been scary,” you mumble. 

Vernon looks at you with an entertained smile. “It’s funny that you of all people should say that. The only difference is that you didn’t drift away for good.”

“Can I ask you something?” You say. He raises an eyebrow, probably biting back a comment that says you already have. “Do you know why you haven’t moved on yet?”

“Trying to get rid of me?” Vernon teases. You pin him with a look and he rolls his eyes. “Sorry, sorry.” Then he gets serious. “I don’t know. It’s not like I haven’t tried. It’s just out of reach and I don’t know why.”

You nestle into your pillow a little more, lost in thought. “I’m sorry.” 

He shakes his head at you. “There’s nothing for you to be sorry for. Life keeps going, even when it looks a little different. Go back to sleep. I’ll be here.”

As you doze off again, you resolve that if you can ever figure out how to use this little gift, you’ll help him move on if he wishes. You just have to figure out how to do that first. 

Some Saturday mornings, you’re so restless that while you’d love to be in bed asleep, that doesn’t happen. You give up trying to go back to sleep around 5:30am and get dressed for the day. You kind of like to walk it off while the city is still sort of asleep. So you slide on your headphones and start walking aimlessly. 

You end up on the subway, riding for a while, then pick a stop at random really, getting off to walk the streets some more. Your mind is elsewhere and this isn’t quite the time loss that you and Jeonghan talk about all the time, but it’s certainly related. You don’t know where your mind is at when you end up in front of Minghao’s shop hours later. 

It’s a nice morning now, a little breezy but sunny at nearly 10am. You study the front of the flower shop. The lights are on but the sign on the door is flipped to Closed. You turn, thinking about where to go next. Your head is a little fuzzy when you snap back to reality like this, like parts of your brain are still booting up, and you don’t hear the shop door open behind you, too busy thinking about which line you should get back on, or if you should just hike it now that it’s daylight. The sunlight would be good for you, probably. 

“Y/N?” 

You spin, wide eyes meeting Minghao’s. He’s propped the door open, maybe to let some fresh air in. He smiles like he did last week when you stopped in and surprised him, but the longer he looks at you, his face starts to shift in concern. If he had any smart ass comment or cheery good morning, he doesn’t say it because he must sense you’re a little off kilter. “Do you want to come in?” 

Your feet carry you in without your mind really catching up. Minghao lets you ramble the store for a while, while he does some opening chores. You don’t hear him sneak up on you, but you know he did when the world goes quiet at the pressure of his hand on your shoulder. 

“Why don’t you help me water some of these?” 

You’re suddenly totally with it, looking sheepish. “Oh, I shouldn’t. I have absolutely no green thumb. It might actually be a danger to your business for me to even be here.”

His eyes crinkle when he smiles. You hadn’t noticed it before. Maybe he just hadn’t smiled like he is now. It’s relaxed and easy, soothing even. “I trust you.”

“You shouldn’t,” you snort. “At best, I’ll under-water it, and at worst I’ll drown it.” 

He picks up a small watering can from one of the shelves, handing it to you. He lets go of your shoulder and your eyes widen because the sound doesn’t rush back, at least not how it often does with him. It’s not a 0 to 10 sort of thing today. It’s more of a 0 to 5 at most. Not that you even know what to say about it, but he’s leading you to one of the shelves by the window, pulling you out of your thoughts. 

He keeps you busy most of the morning and you let him. A handful of customers trickle in, most for orders that are waiting for them already. You even handle a couple of those while Minghao consults with customers who aren’t sure what to buy. 

The afternoon is quiet. He’s taught you how to properly trim stems so you both are working on that when he asks, “feel better?” 

You feel so transparent around him, and normally that sort of thing would drive you up the wall, but you find it makes you feel safe with him. “Yeah, thank you for letting me hang out here.”

“My door is always open for you.” The ingenuity in his voice makes your throat clog up with emotion. “Do you wander like that often? You seemed kind of checked out.”

“Occasionally,” you say. “There are some gaps of time where I do that. I’ve been told it’s a stress response, but I don’t know.”

He’s quiet for a bit, but you know he’s not ignoring you. You know better than to think that. Whatever he says is always thoughtful. So you wait patiently, snipping stems. 

“I thought about you, you know?” You glance up at him and he’s not really cutting anymore, stem and scissors loose in his hands. He must think you mean about your last night together and he shakes his head. “Not like that. At least not as much as I was worried about you. I left that retreat wanting to see you happy, not being weighed down by everything you experience.”

You always feel so fucking emotional with him. You suck in a shaky breath, busying yourself with another stem. “It’s gotten… better. Incrementally, at least. I’ve kind of resigned myself to not having a cure for this sort of thing, but it’s not quite as suffocating as it once was.” You stop yourself before you tell him how much of an impact he had in just a few days on that. 

His gaze is sweet and you have to look away again, busying yourself with the next stem. You don’t know how many seconds, or even minutes, tick by before he finally says, “that’s great, Y/N. I’m really glad I met you.”

You give him a shy smile, hoping your eyes don’t shine as much as you feel that they do. “Me too, Minghao.”

Jeonghan gives a look that is crystal clear. That’s one thing about him, he does very little to mask what he’s thinking. He probably could (and he’d be far more ‘professional’ for it), but there’s something disarming about him choosing not to. It sort of takes the edge off of his typical bluntness when he speaks. 

Minghao squirms under Jeonghan’s look, which makes Jeonghan’s mouth tip upwards even more. Minghao knows he’s in trouble when Jeonghan puts his notebook aside, settling into his seat with a sly smile.

“Xu Minghao is twitchy. This should be something,” Jeonghan muses, waving his hand expectantly. “Come on, tell me.”

Minghao pins him with a look. “I regret ever calling you and making an appointment. You’re actually the worst.”

Jeonghan snorts. “You think that offends me? Someone threw a pillow at me yesterday and that was the gentlest of threats during that session.”

“You probably deserved it,” Minghao bites, crossing his arms. “You like to mouth off.”

Jeonghan still looks highly entertained. “That’s what I was told then too.” He finally settles, smile dimming to something more appropriate for therapy. “Come on. What’s on your mind?” Minghao blinks a few times. Jeonghan narrows his eyes and then groans, rubbing a hand down is face. “What is it with you people shutting down on me in the first five minutes?”

“Try having some tact,” Minghao smarts, picking up a pillow to hold in his arms. Jeonghan watches him move into the defensive pose, an unusual look flashing across his face, before he shakes it off. 

“Fine. Serious therapist face on now. What’s the deal today?”

“It’s kind of a long story,” Minghao dodges. 

Jeonghan gives him a dry look. “You have an hour and you’re paying me to listen. So I have time.”

Minghao scoffs, looking anywhere but Jeonghan. He doesn’t like therapy. It requires divulging things that he feels are too personal, which he only does on the rarest of occasions. He knows that’s the entire point but it makes him squirm in a way that he normally never would. He sometimes forgets why he called and made an appointment almost two years ago, mostly because he clammed up in the first appointment and has stayed clammed up ever since. 

He’s also not prone to blurting out things, but he just spits it out because it might drive him crazy to hold it in any longer. “Do you believe in soulmates?” 

Jeonghan’s quiet for a few long beats and Minghao is afraid to look at him, opting to stare at a pot of fake flowers on Jeonghan’s bookshelf in the corner. Minghao keeps telling Jeonghan he’ll just bring some fresh ones in regularly and Jeonghan brushes him off every time. He thinks he might just do it one day without asking.

“I can’t say I’ve ever experienced something like that myself, but I’m kind of a fan of the concept. It’s pretty romantic. Why do you ask?”

“I met someone,” Minghao finds himself mumbling. 

He doesn’t have to look at Jeonghan to know that he’s intrigued. “Oh? Recently?” 

“Not exactly.” Minghao twirls the tassels of the pillow distractedly. “It was about six months ago. At that retreat. I ran into her again recently though.” 

Jeonghan hums and Minghao sort of wishes he’d pick up the notebook again. He hates when he makes a ton of notes, but he thinks he hates it more when he completely abandons the concept of notes altogether. “Fascinating.”

“Try to seem less excited. You’re supposed to be sympathetic,” Minghao practically begs. 

“You haven’t given me any information to be sympathetic about yet. And I wouldn’t think finding someone you consider your soulmate warrants sympathy, anyway. So I’ll need you to fill in the gaps here.”

Minghao isn’t really proud by how so not composed he is when he huffs, tossing the pillow aside and standing to pace. He feels Jeonghan watch him and Minghao’s sure he’s entertained. He’s never been a pacer in therapy, or really anywhere else in his life. He’s usually not even much of a talker. Jeonghan has to work pretty hard for the bits of information he does get in their sessions. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever connected with someone like that before. It’s something really special. To me, at least.” 

“And you said that you’ve run into her recently?” 

“I didn’t think I’d see her again actually. I don’t even know her last name or what she does for a living or much of anything else because it never even came up. And then I didn’t hear from her after we left the retreat. And then she just walks into my shop one day six months later. We were both surprised.”

“Romantic, something out of a movie, really,” Jeonghan muses. “Is she into all the spiritualist stuff too?” 

Minghao snorts. “Not really. At least, not much.” 

“Why is that?” Jeonghan asks curiously. 

Minghao wants to say more, wants to get it all off his chest, but it’s not his thing to share. “It’s hard to explain. But she started to come around to it at the end of the retreat.” 

“And does she seem into you?” 

The question shouldn’t blindside him the way it does, but he stops in his pacing. He rubs the back of his neck. He thinks you probably wouldn’t have slept with him that night if you weren’t at least a little into him. You don’t strike as the type to just do that. Not that it would be a problem, but you seem to like your space and a one night stand felt uncharacteristic. It makes him wonder why he seemed to be an exception. 

Jeonghan calls his name and Minghao is pulled out of his daze. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

Jeonghan’s smile is light, losing the look of pure entertainment from a few moments ago. He shrugs. “It’s worth exploring. I can’t make any comments on soulmates or anything.” He rolls his eyes, “but I’ve been researching some pretty interesting things lately, so… just see where it goes. What’s her name?”

“Y/N,” Minghao says, sighing a little, defeated. Jeonghan’s expression changes for only a flash before he is smiling lightly again. 

“See where it goes. Not just anyone shakes the Xu Minghao.” 

Minghao decides to take the leap. At some point today, anyway. When he works up the courage, that is. 

It’s a slow day at the shop. All orders have been filled and he doesn’t expect a lot of business today since it’s the middle of the week. There will be a rush after most people start getting off of work, but until then he has nothing to do. No orders. No watering. No repotting. 

That means he has all the time in the world to stare at your contact on his phone. 

It’s a pretty new addition, just entered into his phone a couple weeks ago when you last visited. It was you who thought to ask and he was elated to give his number to you. But since trading numbers, he hadn’t heard from you. Hadn’t seen you either. Since the beginning of all this, he’d decided to let you come to him. You seem like you wouldn’t like the pressure of him pursuing you. But he was getting antsy to be in your presence again. He wishes he had something, anything to do to keep him from almost calling or texting. He can’t think of a single time that a woman had made him so… twitchy. That was the word that Jeonghan had used. He’d known he was in trouble the moment he met you that first morning at the retreat. Then he thinks maybe that’s not totally true and brushes it off, busying himself with moving pots here and there in the window just for the sake of something to do. 

Minghao’s rewritten a single text a dozen times and finally feels satisfied enough to hit send when his phone buzzes and he almost drops it, heart racing. It’s a message from you. ‘Do you happen to be free tonight?’

It takes him an embarrassingly long time to reply because he needs some time to panic. Finally, he sends back, ‘You read my mind.’ He trades a few more messages with you to make plans.

Minghao closes up shop right at 5pm and rushes home to shower. His hands shake a little when he pulls up in front of your apartment building. He said he’d go up and get you when he was here, but he parks and turns off the car, just taking a breather. Pursuing this is simultaneously the best and the worst thing he could do. But he would be helpless to turn you down. He’s felt that way since he met you. 

He jumps at a small ‘knock knock’ on his passenger window. It’s dark but he knows it’s you. He just knows. It’s so ridiculous how all his panic drains as you open the door and slide into the passenger seat, giving him a soft smile. 

“Sorry, I got impatient,” you say sheepishly. Your words make all of his insides do little flips. You look pretty, hair pulled up in a ponytail away from your face. You’d followed his instructions, dressing warmly in thick leggings, a sweatshirt, and boots. You’re also wrapped in a puffy coat that swallows you. It makes him so fucking soft and he can’t believe you’re in his car right now. You reached out to him this afternoon to see him.

“That’s okay, I was just about to come and get you anyway,” Minghao answers, feeling sort of shy. 

In the darkness, it seems like you might flush a little. It’s strange because you usually seem so unaffected by those sort of things. Until you two slept together on the last night of the retreat, he really assumed that things were one sided. He’s still not sure if you feel anything close to what he does, but he’s hooked regardless. 

“What did you have in mind?” You ask gently. 

Minghao blinks, coming back to reality. “I was thinking a night drive, maybe look at the stars.” He watches the corners of your lips turn up, eyes turning a little entertained. “Unless you don’t believe in that sort of thing either.”

You snort and he thinks it’s one of his favorite sounds. It’s the type of thing that couldn’t be attractive if anyone else did it, but he loves when you do it. “Hao, I’ll go look at the stars with you. You don’t even have to ask.”

Minghao can’t help the big smile that spreads across his face. This might be the first time he’s felt giddy. “Buckle up.”

Nearly an hour later, he parks in the middle of nowhere outside of the city. He meets you at the hood of the car with a blanket, holding your hand to help you climb on and lay down. When he’s laid down next to you and tossed the blanket across both of you, he finds that you’re already looking at him. Your hand lands on his chest at the exact same time that he throws out his arm for you to slide into. He suppresses a deep sigh once you’re curled up into his side with your head on his chest. His hand curls into your waist and he thinks this must be what peace feels like. It’s what he’s been after for years. 

Minghao kind of thinks you might have dozed off when you surprise him by turning to look at the sky. “So what am I looking at here? Be my tour guide.” He tilts his head down to look at you and you meet his questioning look. A little playful pout falls onto your lips and he really has to resist kissing it off of you. “What? You were my tour guide at the retreat. You know about stars too, right?”

It’s his turn to snort. “Not that much, no. I just think it’s pretty.” You chuckle against his chest and you can probably feel how his heart races. But he still tells you want he knows. It eventually devolves into just finding your own shapes in the sky. But at some point, he realizes that you’ve stopped looking at the sky and are looking at him. He gives you a curious look because he doesn’t quite understand the expression on your face. It’s vulnerable but he doesn’t know what it means. 

“Are you always this romantic?” You ask like it’s a serious question. 

“No,” Minghao says automatically. “At least not like this.”

“Oh, so I’m special or something? You don’t take women out to look at the stars all the time?” You tease, grinning up at him. 

He absolutely cannot help reaching out to brush your cheek. He likes how your eyelashes flutter at the touch. “You’re very special, and no, this would be the first.” He bites his tongue to keep from saying it will probably be the only one too. He can’t imagine doing something like this with anyone else. It would feel too hollow and performative - a strong attempt to be romantic, whereas with you, it’s effortless.

You still look vulnerable, your big eyes staring up at him, but there’s something sobering about your expression. “Hao? What’s happening here?”

That’s such a loaded question and it makes him hesitate. It’s not that he wants to be dishonest - far from it. But there are some things he just doesn’t know how to say yet, so he opts for something he knows is true. “It’s what you want it to be.” 

“So you feel something then?”

Again, such a loaded question. “I feel a lot when it comes to you.” He brushes some baby hairs out of your face. “Do you?”

“Yeah,” you whisper. 

“Oh, thank god,” Minghao sighs. 

You aren’t totally sure how you got here. You and Minghao eventually get cold while laying on the hood of the car but aren’t ready to go home so you both climb in the back seat. As you warm up, it starts with taking off your coats, then your sweatshirts. And now you feel like you’re dripping sweat as you’re nearly naked in Minghao’s lap as he sits in the backseat. 

The tone of this is different than that night at the hotel. It certainly doesn’t lack the intimacy and passion, but it does lack some of the gentleness he used last time. There’s even a tinge of desperation that makes your head spin. You’re enjoying it, the way he grips your hips and leaves some stinging bites on your neck and chest before soothing the sting with a sweet kiss or a soft sweep of his tongue. The back and forth of rough and sweet has you on the edge, gasping for air before he’s even felt how wet you are. 

Minghao finishes sucking a bruise onto your collarbone, sighing against the sore spot between little kisses. “You sound so pretty. Do you feel good?”

Your mind is numb in the best way. Not only is it silent, but you couldn’t imagine thinking about anything besides him. Nothing else exists outside of this car to you at the moment. “Yes,” you mumble, gripping his shoulders as he starts another bruise on your breast this time. “Can I have you?”

He groans against your breast, his fingers digging into your hips roughly. “You already have me.”

Last time was slow, almost painfully so. This time, it’s painful how much time it takes to yank his sweats and boxers down to his thighs and to pull your panties to the side. He maneuvers you by the hip, helping you slide down on him. The deep sigh that he lets out into your ear rattles our brain and when you’re fully seated, the rush from moments ago is gone. Like last time, he stays buried inside of you, totally still. You fold into his neck and his arms wrap around you tightly, hands soothing up and down your back. You wonder if it will always end up being less about the sex and more about the intimacy with him. He took you to the sky last time, of course, but what you remembered the most in the months that passed since then was the way that he held you close like this. 

You have no idea how long you sit in his lap like that. It’s only when you place a mindless kiss on his neck that the fire lights up in you again. The moment your lips hit his neck, you feel the little vibration of the sound he holds back. You place a few more kisses there, testing the waters. But the moment he tilts his head to give you more access, you’re all over him. As you kiss and suck spots onto his neck, you feel him tensing under you - his shoulder under your hand raises a bit, his fingers dig into your waist, his cock twitching inside you as his hips jerk up on occasion. It makes you grind a little and you love how he becomes putty in your hands. A moan falls from his lips and it spurs you on, lifting your head to press your lips onto his. His tongue dips into your mouth as you lift your hips and lower again, starting a slow rhythm. 

Your thighs ache when he finally pulls away from your lips to whisper against your lips, “I’m close.” 

“Come inside, I’m on the pill.” 

The words seem to light a fire. His eyes pinch closed and his hand flies into your skewed underwear to rub your clit. It all has you gasping, tears pricking your eyes at the overwhelm. “Please come. I’ll come with you.”

The promise throws you over the edge, back arching. His hands slam you down to take him deeply and he holds you there, burying his face in your neck as he comes. The feeling is totally consuming, just like everything else with him. 

When you both have come down some, you both relax. He slumps back into the seat and you slump into him. You both have long caught your breath and the sweat has started to dry when you chuckle against the skin of his neck. 

“What?” He asks sweetly. 

“This will sound stupid. But does this mean we’re together?”

You’re sort of afraid to look at him, but he doesn’t make you. You feel his heart underneath your hand and it makes you feel better that you aren’t the only one. His hands sweep up and down your back in a way that you don’t think you’ll ever get enough of. “That’s what I’d like. Do you want that?”

You place a little kiss on his neck. “Yeah,” you whisper. “That’s what I want.” You swear you feel him sigh underneath you.

Minghao is laying in your bed next to you. It’s become a habit over the last month or so since getting together. He likes being in your space and you must like it too because you’ve already given him a key. When you did, he asked if you were sure and you’d given him this look that he still can’t figure out before insisting. 

He kind of feels like he’s floating with you. He gets the stuff that kept him grounded out of the way - he knows your full name, and what you do for a living, and where you’re from. All those things that you both would already know if you had more than a couple minutes of normal chitchat when you first met. But truly, your surname doesn’t matter, and neither does your job or where you’re from. Nice to know, sure, but your answers would have had very little impact on how consuming his feelings for you were becoming. 

You both had dinner together tonight and he agreed to stay over. It’s really his favorite thing, the domesticity of it all. He thinks he’ll never get tired of it. Like now, you’re curled up into his chest, snoring softly. You say you get better rest when he’s here. He does too, even though his night is no less active than usual. 

When he dozes off, he knows the moment that he slips away from his body. It’s happened enough times over the years that he knows it’s not just simple dreaming. Jeonghan calls it drifting. Minghao remembers how perplexed he’d been at his therapist’s word choice, but Jeonghan wouldn’t budge. Maybe it was because things like lucid dreaming or astral projecting didn’t fit into his textbooks or any version of the DSM, at least not in any sort of diagnosable way. Minghao knew that dreaming was really a huge question mark for psychologists, so he had resigned himself to Jeonghan or any other therapist not really being able to fix his issue. 

The drift looks different every time, like he’s standing in a different spot in the room every time. This time, he’s right where he fell asleep, in bed next to you. He can’t feel you curled up next to him, though he can see you. But he sees other things when he drifts. 

At the moment, that’s Vernon, sitting at the desk watching the TV on mute. It’s not the first time he’s seen Vernon. “Do you ever leave?” 

Vernon snaps his head in Minghao’s direction, a guarded expression on his face. “Yes, quite often actually.” He whispers. Minghao doesn’t quite know why he does that, but he thinks maybe Vernon is afraid of waking you up. Minghao still doesn’t understand everything, but it seems like people like you can peek into other planes. Vernon had likened it to a building. He’s upstairs, but when Minghao drifts, he drifts upstairs through the ceiling, usually without meaning to. And you, well… you know exactly where the stairs are whether you realize it or not.

“And you check up on my girlfriend all the time, why?” Minghao prods. 

Vernon rolls his eyes, turning back to the TV. “I’ll have you know that I’ve been visiting her for nearly ten years. You’re the one that’s truly new here.” 

“Do you have a crush or something?” Minghao teases, ignoring the unsettled feeling in his stomach. 

Vernon rolls his eyes again. “You know, I’ve hated you since I met you.” Minghao rolls his eyes back. “No, I don’t have a crush. It’s just that I’d consider her a friend and I worry about her.” Vernon crosses his arms, leaning back into the chair. “Plus, I can’t move on, so…”

Minghao doesn’t quite know what to say because that’s pretty far outside of his wheelhouse, no matter how spiritual he is. Vernon stands, turning off the TV and stretching. “Leaving?”

“Yeah,” Vernon says. “You guys are gross and I’m not needed anyway.” 

“Not needed?” Minghao echoes, confused.

Vernon gives him a look that says, ‘are you stupid?’ “There’s no line. She’s actually sleeping. Seems to be something you can handle, so that means I’m going for a walk.”

Minghao blinks as Vernon leaves, looking around the room. Huh. There is no line. He wonders how long that’s been the case. He doesn’t drift far from his body, just in case. 

It’s on a Sunday in late November when it clicks for Minghao. He’s at your apartment again. The shop is closed today so you and Minghao take it slow this morning. It starts with the sex. He thinks calling it sex is too crass. It doesn’t capture the depth of the moment accurately. He laughs to himself a little as he’s washing your hair in the shower afterwards because ‘making love’ doesn’t feel like it really comes close either. You think he’s laughing at how you’re squinting to keep soap out of your eyes and you scold him lovingly without even looking at him. It doesn’t click then. 

You guys make breakfast together. Since you both have the time you make a big spread, not just some toast. He listens to you chatter the whole time. He thinks he would have never gotten to the point where you talk the way you do with him now. You were so tightlipped when he met you. But he thinks he’d never get tired of the sound of your voice. It doesn’t click then. 

You wash the dishes while he dries them. He makes a smart ass comment and you flick some water at him. The air is sweet, overwhelmingly so, and he really can’t help the grin that’s spread across his face. He gets the cheesy phrases that he used to roll his eyes at. Weak in the knees. Heart racing. Brain empty except for anything to do with you. Head over heels. That last one in particular always made him chuckle, but he gets it now and never wants to not feel that way again. It doesn’t click then. 

It’s chilly, but you guys decide to grab your coats and go for a walk. It’s brief but he holds your hand the entire time. When you guys settle in again at your apartment, he goes to make some tea. You both sit on the couch and watch the TV on a low volume, drinking your tea. When both mugs are empty, you throw back your blanket and lay down, opening your arms to him. His brain stalls out. This is when it clicks. 

There’s some emotion bubbling up in him and his eyes prick with tears that he tries to blink back. He likes taking care of you and protecting you. Likes how you seem to feel secure around him when that seems to be sort of uncommon for you. But when you look at him like that, offering him a warm place to lay under the blanket with you… well, it crushed him in the best way possible. 

Minghao crawls to lay half on top of you, face pressed into your neck. Your arms fold around him and then the blanket comes around you both. That emotion might eat him alive, especially as you start to comb your fingers into his hair. 

“I love you.” Your fingers stop in his hair and he can feel your pulse quicken under his lips. “I’m in love with you. I don’t think it could ever be like this with anyone else.”

You pull back, making him meet your eyes, and his body floods with relief that there’s just as much emotion swimming in your eyes. “I love you too. In love with you. Nothing will ever compare for me either.” 

You both meet in the middle, kissing sweetly. Then his face is back in your neck and your fingers are combing through his hair again. 

He says it at least ten more times that day, if only because he needs you to know how much he means it. You say it back and kiss him every time. 

Jeonghan looks up from his computer when Hana enters his office with a soft knock. She doesn’t look happy to see him, but he isn’t really surprised by that. He’s kind of surprised she hasn’t quit yet, honestly. The downside of dating your receptionist, he guesses. When you break up, things get awkward. 

“I’m heading out,” she says curtly. “Are you staying?”

He bites back a smart ass comment like ‘obviously’, because she has her puffy winter coat on and her bag on her forearm and he’s buried in handwritten notes to type up. Obviously, she’s leaving and he’s staying. But he doesn’t need to give her another reason to hate him. So he nods evenly. “Yeah, I’m going to finish some things up. Go home and have a good night. Be careful.”

There’s a little flash of emotion that she masks almost right away. Their breakup wasn’t bad exactly, but she’d been much more into him than he had been into her. It felt unfair to string her along, so he cut it off as kindly as possible. He didn’t blame her for being bitter and he certainly didn’t blame her for feeling a plethora of emotions bubble up when they did have to interact. He’d be in the wrong profession if that sort of thing bothered him. 

Eventually, Hana nods. “Don’t stay too late. I’ll lock the front door behind me.” And with that, she’s gone. 

He finishes up the stack of patient notes and sighs, turning off the overhead lights and opting for his desk lamp. He grabs a glass and bottle of alcohol from his bottom desk drawer. It’s been one of those days, otherwise he wouldn’t reach for such a vice. He talks to clients all day about bad habits, and tries to not be a hypocrite when he almost lectures them. But the first sip takes the edge off, so he finishes that drink and pours another. He’ll need it because he’s been putting this off. 

The file is buried under a bunch of things on the corner of the desk. He got it weeks ago and has been hesitant to pull it out so it got buried. The tab on the file folder has a date of nearly a decade ago. He takes a deep breath and flips it open. 

He likes a mystery, mostly because he likes to toot his own horn when he’s smart enough to solve said mystery. But this one hasn’t been straight forward, not by a long shot. He needed more information, so he made a few calls. 

He kind of feels like he’s swimming in the deep end when he finally opens the file and picks up the first page inside. Your name is at the top of it, amongst others. 

It really is what you said it was. A not-so-freak accident in bad weather. No driver was deemed at fault because it’s described that even emergency vehicles and tow trucks had a hard time that night getting to the location of the crash. 

Vehicle descriptions are also there. Your black sedan and as well as a tan sedan. That last detail sends a little chill up his spine when he reads it. Occasionally, he doubts your ability, but according to the report, there should have been no way you knew it was a tan car because you were indeed unconscious when emergency personnel responded. But you did under hypnosis. 

He wonders if you’ve seen this report, but he thinks better of it because you’re so avoidant of everything to do with this situation. He thinks about the months that you dodged even addressing it beyond, “I got into a car accident.” He’d had to put in some serious work for you to even tell him how you felt about that accident. 

Objectively, looking at the pictures, he thinks everyone involved could have died. Jeonghan wonders if he should bring any of this up. Your appointment is tomorrow. 

He closes the file, stashing it away in a desk drawer, and finishing his drink. He feels kind of bitter because he’d hoped the contents of the folder would hold all the answers. 

That night, he sleeps restlessly, eventually giving up and opening his laptop. There must be 20 tabs open and he flips between them, well beyond laughing to himself about him, a psychologist, browsing metaphysical sites and articles about psychic abilities, active dreaming, and… soulmates. This whole thing makes him want to scream. 

He resolves to have you try hypnosis again tomorrow. There are dots he can’t connect and he needs you to help him, if only so it saves his sanity. 

[trinitvii-r]

VP Squared - First Class Impressions

prologue | part i

(ffvii x reader

Genesis should’ve known anyone who got on well with Rufus Shinra would be a load of trouble. Sephiroth thinks it’s a funny turn of events that his friend is the one experiencing stress, rather than causing it.

Angeal’s just happy to be there, really.)

“Dibs,” is the first thing out of Genesis’ mouth as he walks into the conference room.

You know he was referring to you, but you don’t even spare him a glance before returning to your conversation with Rufus… to make it clear to everyone in the room that your VP is and will remain your main priority.

Behind the silly little red-coat-wearing-in-the-middle-of-damn-July man, Angeal looks rightfully embarrassed and is trying to drag the man away. Sephiroth chooses to ignore them both, and makes for his usual seat.

Undeterred, Genesis walks closer to you and stretches out his arm, pointer finger raised straight at you. “Dibs,” he repeats.

You and Rufus share a look for no longer than a second, and your VP immediately understands. He has an amused look on his face as he says, “Go ahead.”

You no longer mask the annoyance you feel as you spit out the words, “Piss off.”

Genesis squeaks out, “I— beg your pardon?!”

You turn away from him, and focus your attention to Rufus once more.

The blonde flicks you on the nose, and laughs at the pinched expression you make. “I would’ve thought you’d say the more colorful word.” Translation: I was hoping you’d say the more colorful word.

You fiddle with your cup of coffee, making a point to keep Genesis hanging, knowing damn well he’s still hovering. “I thought it may offend his delicate sensibilities.” Translation: You know what I mean.

Rufus snorts. As you drink your coffee, Rufus looks up at Genesis, and explains, “They just called you a little bitch.”

You may not have SOLDIER senses, but you swear you hear Sephiroth choke on his spit.

With a mild tone, you reprimand Rufus. “I said I think he’s a wuss.”

“Creative license.”

In unison, the two of you couldn’t resist to snicker. A sight that oddly further aggravates Genesis.

The Commander bites, “That’s it! Newbie, I’m gonna have a lot of fun breaking you in.”

Excuse me?

As you rake your eyes over Genesis’s form, you hear a voice somewhere else in the room ask, “Should I call Human Resources?”

Genesis looks half-murderous, and half-flirtatious as he smirks down at you.

You give him a cheshire grin and say, “Do your worst, Carrot-top.”

Sephiroth absolutely loses it.

Or at least by Sephiroth standards. The man is chuckling, and you could see his shoulders shake as he tries to rein in his mirth.

You pop him a finger gun à la Reno, and cheekily say, “Excited to work with you, General.”

Both Genesis and Angeal drop their mouths open in shock when Sephiroth gives a lazy mock salute, and says, “The feeling is mutual, rookie.”

You turn to Angeal, and give him a wink. “Same goes for you, Commander Hewley.”

A flustered Angeal murmurs, “Thanks. I’ll do my best.”

Genesis should have known you’d have no nice sentiments to spare for him. And he’s proven right when all he gets is a lousy, “You can drop dead for all I care, Red.”

Sephiroth excuses himself, and you could vaguely hear a deep laughter resounding in the hallway.

This is the scene President Shinra walks into, and he looks completely defeated. A triumphant grin forms on Rufus’ face.

All your posturing from earlier morning seems to have faded away, and now Genesis finds himself the sole subject of your attention. He gulps as you stare up at him with wide eyes, an almost enamored expression just for him… or at least his fireballs.

“That was so sick.”

Turning his nose up at you, and in a pathetic effort to hide the red dusting his cheeks, he answers, “What a crude way to address my talent.”

He’s surprised when you don’t respond with some quip. Instead, you whine, “C’mon, man. I’ve never even said that about Rufus with his guns.”

Filing away that tidbit about the Shinra brat, Genesis couldn’t help the giddiness he feels at your words. Not the words he would have preferred, but the sentiment certainly was there. Close enough. If throwing fireballs at dummies was what earned him your respect and admiration, then that’s what he’d do.

A part of him is terrified at his outright sense of urgency to impress you. He brushes the thought away when you grab onto his coat sleeve, and beg, “Please teach me, dude.”

Again, not his choice of words, but for now, dude will have to do.

“Rhapsodos, move! You’re blocking the view.”

The mood is instantly killed by the Shinra brat.

It starts off like this.

News gets passed around that you were assigned the Rufus babysitting gig.

Hand in hand with that, news gets passed around that you somehow made it into the SOLDIER program.

Along with that, the fact you threatened Heidegger with a knife. (A velocity edit of the security feed of the moment is the top retweeted and liked tweet of the day. A bubbly filter AMV of Rufus lowering your knife for you is second.)

It only gets weirder from there.

Sephiroth’s, Angeal’s, and Genesis’s fanclubs have wildly varying takes on what happened in the meeting. Ranging from funny — You apparently had some top secret Turks-esque information that Genesis’ beautiful auburn hair was actually dyed from a bright orange that he had always been self-conscious of, and that you had called him by a mean nickname (Carrot-top) that kids in his village used to bully him with, and ended with Genesis bursting into tears. — to oddly conspiratorial — You were investigating reactors with the Turks when you fell into a vat of pure mako, and that President Shinra had decided to officially make you SOLDIER as a coverup for the fuck-up. You apparently became so powerful that you were named Sephiroth’s Lieutenant General, and that had made Genesis cry.

Genesis being reduced to tears seems to be the thread holding all these rumors together.

By lunchtime, everyone and their mother had their own theories on The Situation.

Which was why Cadet Cloud Strife had to do a double take when he saw you following after Genesis Rhapsodos, followed by Rufus Shinra following after you, and Sephiroth following after Rufus Shinra.

What.

Cloud nearly dropped his soup in surprise.

As you passed, he could barely make out the words, “again” and “just one more.”

And if Cloud knew anything about the Shinra rumor mill, it’s that they would take those words and lewdly misinterpret them. He could already hear Janice from Accounting typing loudly on her phone. Great. He wouldn’t need to open his inbox to know he’d see yet another wildly smutty Genesis fan fiction disguised as a newsletter.

Screw Zack for signing him up for those fanclubs.

Even before you leave the canteen, the winning theory is that you and Genesis enter into a whirlwind romance burning hot like the fireballs he flings onto unsuspecting targets, but alas you are a free spirit who refuses to be tied down. This theory also ends with Genesis in tears.

Cloud notes with a hint of amusement that the sight of you stacking up your and Rufus’s plates and neatly disposing of the trash is the most babysitter-like thing you’ve done all day. You even clean up for Sephiroth who reacts with a slack jaw and the most bewildered expression, and Genesis who stares at you as though you’ve just told him the secrets of the universe. The redhead could almost be described as swooning when he thanks you profusely.

You simply look at the man as if he had grown two heads. After a beat, you smirk. “Alright, hot stuff. Take it easy for the rest of the day, yeah?” You nod subtly at Rufus, who takes it as his cue to stand up, and says his farewells to the other two.

As the two of you make your way out the canteen, this bit of conversation once again throws everyone into a frenzy:

“Still think he’s a wuss?”

“Yeah, but not when he’s swinging that thing around.”

That thing in question was fireballs, but the rest of Shinra didn’t know that.

Definitely not it.

Anything but that.

When Lazard the Bastard told you you’d have to pay your dues as the newest SOLDIER, you did not expect it to be that.

“Well, what did you expect? The rest of them were cadets first. I can’t just hand everything to you.”

You tried the Rufus excuse, but Lazard brushes off your concerns. “I can assign a First on him for a couple hours.”

Like he heard you, Rufus looks up from his phone, and gives you a nod and a smile.

Gods. Right when you wanted Rufus to be a brat and demand his way, suddenly now he’s all goody.

With a scowl, you tell Lazard, “Let’s get this over with.”

Blood everywhere.

Gross.

Oh, and Angeal’s here too.

Nice.

“What’s up?”

Angeal had to admit. For someone who’s elbows deep into cleaning bloody blades, you sure had a draw to you as you hum some kind of melody. He wordlessly sits next to you, and wipes down the first weapon he could get his hands on.

A half hour later, he gets the feeling that you’ve got quite the mouth on you. Though, he’s seen you behave more casually with the other Turks plenty of times, and sometimes with Rufus himself, it’s a bit jarring to be on the receiving end of it.

“—Not gonna lie — but don’t you dare tell anyone else — if Rufus didn’t have those photos on him, and he had to get an actual SOLDIER babysitter, I would have preferred you.”

‘Wait. What.’ Clearly, Angeal was a bit distracted by how efficiently you can clean blood that he had neglected to hear some damning information on how you may have gotten this new gig. Oh well. He can try chatting with you another time. Besides, your new position would only make you more accessible to him.

Heaving a sigh, and resting your bloody knuckles on your hips, you give Angeal a grin. “Wanna hide these rags under Genesis’ bed?”

As if you even need to ask.

When Rufus drags you by the back of your collar like a cat out of Genesis’ private quarters, he can already tell this scene is only going to cause more chaos.

A wide grin fights its way to his face.

He had made the right call for his personal SOLDIER.

[prismaticpichu]

Zack: …You know what, Sephiroth? You are right. These books are right. Genesis was right.

Zack: You are a monster.

(Zack takes a step forward, across the massacre of books on the floor, and places a delicate hand on his friend’s shoulder)

Zack: And you are a good one.

(Sephiroth stares at the boy for several beats, doesn’t say a word. Furrows his brow at the oxymoron and tries to make sense of it)

Sephiroth: Good… There is no such thing as a good monster.

(The word leaves in a sharp, bitter hiss, drenched in venom and defense)

(Zack is undeterred)

Zack: Sure there is. There’s plenty.

(Sephiroth shakes him off)

Sephiroth: Heh.

(Zack catches his footing, doesn’t miss a beat)

Zack: It’s true! Fairies, elves, mermaids… Those ain’t evil, are they?

Sephiroth: Those are not monsters.

Zack: Well they sure as heck ain’t human!

(Sephiroth’s mouth parts in protest, breath heavy and whetted… but no retort comes out. No venom is spewed; no jagged remark is made. He doesn’t speak—not for some nebulous amount of time, as if asphyxiated by the thickened air around them. And when he does speak again, his head dips, turns away, and his voice whittles down into a slow, saddened mumble)

Sephiroth: …And neither am I.

(Something in Zack’s soul breaks)

Zack: …No. Seph. Maybe not. Maybe you aren’t. Maybe you do have some ancient creature’s blood in you. Maybe you are a monster.

(His voice softens, dips, a glimmer of something wet in his eyes)

Zack: But you aren’t… aren’t a bad one, pal. If you are a monster, you’re the good kind. The best kind….

Sephiroth (head still dipped): …There’s no such thing.

Zack: Yes there is, Seph. You have to believe me. Take, I dunno… I dunno—unicorns! They aren’t horses; they aren’t normal. I don’t know what the hell they are. But just because they’re different doesn’t mean they’re bad… does it now?

(There’s a long, heavy stretch of silence)

Sephiroth: Are you insinuating that I am… like a unicorn?

(A flutter in Zack’s heart, knowing his words are beginning to break through the veil)

Zack: You bet I am! And, well… are unicorns evil? Are they disgusting? Do they not have gentle, kind hearts and risk everything to protect their friends even when they betrayed them…?

(Sephiroth lifts his chin then, silent, digesting the boy’s earnest words… absorbing their depth and meaning and the weight of their absurdity. And it’s at that moment that the faintest trace of a smile plays on his lips. The first smile in nearly 6 days.)

Sephiroth: …No. They do.

(And for the first time in nearly 6 days, Zack smiles as well)

Zack (blinking back a tear): … There’s my buddy.

(The book in Sephiroth’s hands falls to the floor as Zack enfolds his aching friend in an embrace, and sinks into his friend’s arms in relief as Sephiroth hugs him back)

[ttrpgcafe]

Heya! TTRPG trick or treat, please! 🎃👻

This one's got a backstory, so stick with me.

When I first got into TTRPGs, I learned about the big 6: D&D, Pathfinder, CoC, Cyberpunk, WoD, and Shadowrun. Of those, I've still, to this day, only played 5, and Shadowrun has remained the odd man out, despite having probably my favorite setting of all of them after Pathfinder. Part of this is its reputation for being a really crunchy game, keeping me from getting players, and part of it was that it's a very crunchy game that explains its rules SO POORLY (in recent editions at least, I'm told 3rd is the best in this department) that I couldn't even really convince my friends to get over the hump because it's hard for ME to grok the rules.

For well over a decade, Shadowrun has been my white whale, always on my shelf, never my table. So I did what any other well meaning TTRPG player does when they have a setting they like but a system for that setting they hate: I looked at every hack on the planet for every other system.

So here's your treat: every Shadowrun hack I've found!

Up first, Runners in the Shadows by Mark Cleveland:

This is a Forged in the Dark hack for the Shadowrun setting that is probably one of the better ones for emulating the "crew going on heists and doing cool shit" vibes that Shadowrun tries really hard to say is its core. I'm a sucker for FitD games in general, I think the system is *so* elegant, and I struggle to find a system more suited for the setting (SR's own rules included) than Blades, so this one has to go at the top.

With that said, there are still plenty more!

I'm going to give 2 PbtA games a shout out here, the first I've played, the second I haven't, but have heard plenty about.

Up first: City of Mist!

"But that's not a shadowrun hack!" I hear you saying behind your screen, and you're almost right, it technically isn't, BUT it's asymptote certainly approaches shadowrun, for my math nerds out there. This is a game about the (literal) power of stories, about struggles against an unseen and unknowable force trying desperately to remove every semblance of magic from your life, and about the yearning to keep your mundane life despite, or maybe in spite of, your magical adventures. City of Mist proper is a fantastic gritty noir urban fantasy game that works wonderfully as the framework for an early 6th world setting with minor tweaks, but it's sequel: Metro Otherscape, leans into the Shadowrun of it all, adding a 3rd axis along which your character can struggle, being "noise". In Otherscape, you're balancing a mundane, magical, technological life, and trying not to let any of those three overwhelm your being. A lot of cyberpunk games try to say that cybernetics reduce your humanity in one way or another, but I think Otherscape does the best job at embodying that balance in a way that isn't deeply ableist in its messaging. It's ALSO the only PbtA game I actually LIKE.

Hot take: I can't stand Moves, they annoy me to no end, and needlessly complicate an otherwise brilliant system. I might make a follow up post if anyone wants to hear my deeply bad take, but for now, just know that I'm a ttrpg heretic, and we can move on.

Otherscape completely does away with moves, and instead just lets the MC and the players decide whatever is most relevant to the action being attempted! It solves almost every problem I've ever had with PbtA games, AND kicks ass as a shadowrun stand-in, so this also deserves a place at or near the top.

Second PbtA game: Shadowrun in The Sprawl. This one is a hack of The Sprawl, a PbtA cyberpunk game in its own right, SRiTS adds the setting and magic of SR to its formula, and that's all I know about either system, due to my aforementioned PbtA-phobia. I've included this one for thoroughness, not because I have any stake in it.

Most of the other hacks I've seen use generic systems like Fate, Savage World, Cypher system, Genesys, and a hero system hack I've heard a bit about but can't find anywhere. All of this is to say that there is a wealth of options for generic systems that try to emulate SR, and most of them are fine. The last game I'm going to talk about though uses its own system, its own setting, and manages to be completely, utterly unique while capturing the vibes of SR so well that I'm still a little in awe at how well it does all of the above. I'm also not 100% certain it's a particularly good game, but the fact that I'm unsure about it should tell you that it's definitely still better than SR proper, because I KNOW that system is bad.

Without further ado: NewEdo

NewEdo is fascinating to me in that it feels like the same jump from Shadowrun that 3rd edition D&D made from 2e, or even the same kind of jump from 3rd to 4th, where you can clearly see the spine of the game it's evolving, but almost every other part of the system has been changed and improved in new, interesting ways that can still be used to tell VERY similar stories, but has its own identity at the same time. I mentioned that City of Mist is Asymptotic to SR earlier, and I stand by that assessment, but I'd say that NewEdo is closer to a parallel line, or a tangent from SR's line, if we're using the same terminology. To get into the nitty gritty, NE uses a system the author describes as "Crunchy lite easily managed", which amounts to a priority system during character creation very similar to the one SR uses, but with each tier you can select having pretty impactful ramifications for your character going forward. The easiest example is the modifications priority, at its top tier, you basically make a mythical creature into robo cop for your character's ancestry, but at its absolute lowest tier, your body actively rejects any and all implants, such that your character will NEVER have implants. On the same note, cyberware is handled REALLY well, with your body only being able to handle so much at a time, but otherwise the only ramification is a "biofeedback" line on your fate card, which I'll get to right now!

Almost every option your character picks gets added to a little personalized random d100 table on your character sheet called the fate card. This includes your character's crit rate, the possibility of a deity intervening on your behalf, or the aforementioned biofeedback line, which briefly fucks you up as you cyberware malfunctions. You get new lines on your fate card through picking certain character options, making impactful decisions during the story, and otherwise fulfilling the express goals of your character. The entire system kind of hinges on the fate card as a mechanic, which is weird, because I don't think I super love it, as it adds additional rolling to an already pretty dice heavy system.

Which brings me to the dice! New edo uses a d10 as its primary die for dice pools when rolling your characteristics like strength, speed, etc, but the rest of the polyhedral family for your skills. (D20 excluded) The skill system is a little funky, but I like it. Basically, each skill has a rank, which indicates how many dice it has, but each rank is assigned a die, each having a different cost associated with it. So my swordsmanship could be rank 4, but what that really means is that I've got 1d6, 2d4, and a d8 that I get to add to my strength rolls every time I attack with a sword. As far as resolution, you total all of your dice together to try and hit a target number. I don't have the table handy, but it's something like 15 for a moderately challenging task, and up to 40 for a nearly impossible task. I dislike addition in this context because math at the table usually slows things down, but it looks like you're probably only rolling 2-5 dice at a time at the beginning, which isn't *that* bad.

You'll notice that the two major mechanics I've mentioned so far have received pretty luke-warm responses from me, and that sounds like I hate the system, but those aren't that makes me like (\love?) this system is the back end, the choices that happen during character creation, and the things that those choices let you do. Every skill is attached to feats that unlock at different skills, magic is a skill, and its feats unlock better relationships with the Kami in your repertoire (magic is up next, I promise) and your class (path, they call it) doubles as a way to tie your character to the world, with each being associated with an in world faction which gives your character an immediate stake in the world and their community. It's a lot, but it all comes together to make something greater than the sum of its parts.

The last thing I want to talk about is the magic system, because I found it deeply interesting, as it's one of the very few skill based magic systems I've interacted with, and one of my favorites on a narrative level. Instead of spells or spell schools, your character instead develops relationships with Kami, and each new "order" or "type" of Kami your character gets access to represents them finding out how to supplicate, make an offering, or otherwise convince a given Kami to do a certain effect. If you have a relationship with the fire Kami (that's plural, not singular), then your character has learned that their local fire Kami really like a certain type of hot bun, so they offer them that hot bun after a scene where they invoked those kami, to maintain their relationship. Mechanically, this works instantaneously, you simply make a roll on your "Shinpi" skill, invoke whatever "rote" you want to use, and the relationship building is left for the GM and player to work out at the table.

(That's the last I have to say on the game itself, but I would ask anyone who has read the game and is more intimately familiar with Japanese culture to tell me if the game feels respectful to that culture, because I truly don't know, and the book doesn't list any sensitivity consultants. The author is Canadian, but spent many years sailing to and from Japan as a professional sailor, so idk. )

I guess the moral to this post, if there is one, is to acknowledge when a system or setting has faults, but learn from them, and don't ignore the good or cool stuff that's there! It might inspire you to make some amazing shit like City of Mist, Metro Otherscape, or New Edo, all of which, their relationship to Shadowrun aside, are fantastic games in their own right! (NewEdo is still up in the air, but it has its teeth in me, and that has to count for something)

That ends my trick or treat, thanks for asking!

[rottenpumpkin13]

Everyone does a day where they pretend Sephiroth doesn’t exist. How does it go?

The 'Sephiroth Doesn't Exist' Prank

• Zack thinks Sephiroth doesn't have fun and isn't included in enough silliness, so to combat this he has the idea to get everyone in on what he thinks is his best prank yet: pretending Sephiroth doesn't exist. This will end badly.

*Sephiroth approaches Genesis and Angeal*

Sephiroth: Hello.

Angeal: You know what would be nice, Gen? If we had a third friend.

Genesis: Agreed. We make a good duo, but sometimes it gets lonely.

Sephiroth: I'm standing right here.

Angeal: Do you hear something, Genesis?

Genesis: I don't believe I do.

Sephiroth: Have I don't something to upset you?

Genesis: Actually, I think I hear a cat somewhere.

Sephiroth:

*Lazard walks in*

Sephiroth: Good morning, director.

Lazard: Good morning, Genesis. Good morning, Angeal.

Sephiroth: !?

Lazard: So it's just the two of you here today?

Sephiroth: Are you unable to count?

Angeal: Yeah, Zack was supposed to be here but he's busy with a patrol assignment. Go ahead and brief us on the mission.

Lazard: Of course, since it's a very delicate operation that requires both of our First Class SOLDIERs. Since we only have two.

Sephiroth: .....When did I get demoted....? *opens his email to check*

Genesis: It's a shame there's only two of us. The program could really benefit from a third First Class SOLDIER. It's unfortunate that it's such a difficult position to achieve.

Sephiroth: I was the one who recommended you for First. Without me you wouldn't even be here.

Genesis: Do you gentlemen hear something?

Sephiroth: Your envy and petty jealousy are undesirable character traits that showcase your insecurities, therefore making you unlikeable and arrogant, which people gossip about behind your back. You would know this if you actually turned around for once instead of keeping your nose in the air, as if searching for the scent of success like a starved dog.

Genesis: ......

Sephiroth: Did you hear that?

Genesis: ......

*Sephiroth flicks Genesis' ear*

Genesis, fighting back tears: ......

Lazard: Anyway, I was wondering if either of you wanted room #14, as it will be evacuated shortly.

Sephiroth: But room #14 is my office—wait, I understand exactly what's going on.

Sephiroth: I've perished and the lifestream has failed to take me, making me a ghost and therefore freeing me of all responsibilities I previously had under Shinra's command.

Sephiroth: ......no, it's too good to be true.

*Zack walks in*

Zack: Hey, guys! Sorry I'm late, but I was actually in Professor Hojo's lab.

Angeal: Why??

Zack: Oh, he evaluated my physical condition and combat abilities, and then decided that I'm the perfect specimen and will now obsessively take over my life.

*Sephiroth stands up*

Sephiroth: I'M FREE.

*Sephiroth kicks his chair over, throws the stack if reports on the floor and walks over to the glass door, where he proceeds to shatter it with a forceful kick before cartwheeling away*

Angeal: Well that was a—Genesis stop crying—well that was a bad idea.

Zack: No it wasn't! See how happy he was? This prank totally brightened up his day!

*Genesis, Angeal and Zack are standing around when Tseng rushes up to them*

Tseng: We're in the middle of an emergency. Someone has murdered Professor Hojo and no one can locate Sephiroth. Where is he??

Zack: Oh....yeah, we played a prank on him by ignoring him, and now he thinks he's dead.

Tseng: Do you really expect me to believe Sephiroth would fall for one of your pranks?

*Sephiroth appears holding his bloody sword, wearing comfortable clothes, carrying a pet cat, and dragging a suitcase with a Costa Del Sol travel brochure in hand*

Tseng: Sephiroth?? What is the meaning of this??

Sephiroth:

Sephiroth: Which one of you bastards resuscitated me?

[hendersister]

that's all

summary: steve is concerned when he finds out that you're going to start tutoring billy.

pairing: steve harrington x henderson!sister reader

title 🎵: that's all by genesis

You’ve just finished grabbing some books out of your locker before first period starts. You close your locker and turn to see Steve Harrington approaching you. Your eyes widen. What is he doing here?

Even though you and Steve had become friends while you helped save the world last fall, you both still mainly stick with your different cliques during school hours. Steve’s social status has gone down a bit over the past year, but he’s still popular. He just won “Best Hair” in his senior class superlatives. Steve is one of the cool kids and you definitely are not. As president of the National Honor Society, a tutor and only girl in the school’s Mathlete team, you are considered a nerd in the Hawkins High social hierarchy. It’s all very The Breakfast Club.

“Hey Steve! What’s going on? You lost?” you joke.

Steve’s locker is at the other side of the school. This is the first time Steve’s visited you at your locker.

“What? No!” Steve shakes his head, and then, “Hendseron told me that you’re gonna start tutoring Billy Hargrove. Is it true?”

You nod. The only reason you were assigned to be Billy’s tutor is because you’re the best tutor at this school. Billy is on academic probation and needs to get his grades up if he wants to play on the basketball team next season. In rural Indiana, high school basketball means everything. You didn’t really have a choice in the matter. If you said no, you mostly likely would’ve faced some repercussions. 

“Yeah. He was just assigned to me. We have our first tutoring session tomorrow during study hall,” you explain.

Steve sighs. He looks concerned.

“C’mon, Y/N, do you really think that’s a good idea? Billy’s an asshole. Remember when he got violent with the kids? I mean, Billy’s a piece of shit…” 

You take a deep breath. Remember when he got violent with the kids? Of course you remember! How could you forget? Billy attacked Dustin’s friend Lucas at the Byers’ house a few months ago. He was scary and aggressive. Steve had to intervene to protect Lucas and the rest of the kids. The fight between Billy and Steve was rough. Steve lost that fight but won your respect. You were impressed and proud of Steve for keeping the kids safe.

“Yeah I know,” you quietly agree, “It’s not like I asked to tutor Billy. Mr. Carpenter assigned him to me…”

“Can’t you just ask Mr. Carpenter to assign him to someone else?” Steve tries.

You shake your head.

“No,” you answer coolly, “But if it makes you feel any better, I’m meeting Billy in the library. He won’t get violent in a public place.”

“That doesn’t make me feel better,” Steve mumbles. He sounds uneasy.

You roll your eyes.

“Relax! I’m just tutoring Billy. It’s not like we’re eloping to Vegas or anything.”

“I’m not joking, Y/N!” Steve shrugs.

“I’m not laughing, Steve,” you brush off his concern, “Why do you care so much?”

Steve scrunches his forehead, confused.

“What?” 

You cross your arms against your chest.

“Why do you care if I tutor Billy or not?” you question him.

“Dustin was worried,” Steve gives you a non-answer.

“And you?” you keep pushing.

“I’m… I’m just trying to look out for you because… Dustin asked me to,” Steve stumbles through his response.

You raise your eyebrows. 

“That’s all?” 

Steve is quiet for a beat. Deep down he knows the truth but he’s not ready to admit it to himself just yet. Steve really cares about you. He’s trying to convince you not to tutor Billy because he’s trying to protect you. Steve doesn’t trust Billy and he doesn’t want you to get hurt. 

"Yeah, yeah that's all," Steve sighs.

You shrug, unconvinced. Since becoming friends with Steve, you’ve felt a spark between you two. You’re starting to believe that Steve feels the electricity too. But he won’t act on it. He’s an athlete and you’re a mathlete. And even though Steve is set to graduate soon, he still takes the high school social hierarchy seriously.

“Look, I appreciate the concern but I’ll be okay. I can take care of myself just fine. I’ve been doing it for a long time now…” you tell him.

Steve nods his head, defeated. He leaves without another word. You watch Steve go. After a beat, you turn and walk away in the opposite direction.