#fandom ramble

[getvalentined]

FOR THE ASK GAME! i know you've posted a ton of amazing analysis, but i would love more of your vincent thoughts. If you're tired of writing about him right now, i'd also like to hear your thoughts about Glenn, who i don't know if i've heard you talk about a lot. 🖤

💭 How I feel about this character

I will never get tired of talking about Vincent Valentine. He is my favorite character in the whole of fiction, my blorbo of blorbos, and I consider him the single most personally compelling character ever created. I'm not sure I can quantify how much I love this character.

One issue I do run into with regard to how much I adore the guy is assertions and assumptions that it's because he's hot so I wanna fuck him, which is 1000% not the case. I do appreciate his looks—his Rebirth design in particular makes me slightly feral—but it's not from a place of attraction, per se. I personally have no interest in boning Vincent Valentine! I do think he deserves to do some boning, though.

💞 All the people I ship romantically with this character

I ship Vincent with Veld, Cloud, and Genesis, and often Cloud and Genesis at the same time. Also Reeve. Sometimes Tseng, but that's complicated.

I was the first person on the English-speaking side of fandom to draw VinVeld fanart, way back when Before Crisis was still fairly new, and I have RP'd VinVeld with multiple partners since about 2009. Chapter 19 of BC happened, I got fed a loose translation on LiveJournal, and my brain chemistry was changed—another Turk, still alive, who knew Vincent? And they don't refer to each other with any honorifics at all? And he recognized Vincent immediately when even Lucrecia didn't? Those two were basically married, I'm sure of it.

That said, I actually shipped Strifentine before I shipped VinVeld, and I still ship it really hard. My current slice-of-life slow-burn WIP fic is Strifentine, and in Ye Olde Fandom Dayes it was intended to be a core component of my massive Sefikura Bodysharing AU that temporarily broke FFN's review system, although I never got that far.

I've shipped Vinesis since Crisis Core, because Vincent and Genesis are kindred spirits in a way that is similar to Vincent and Cloud while also being completely different, and I love that for them. Two men-turned-monsters-turned-Weapons, doomed to walk the planet until its death, paying for crimes that were never their fault in the first place. Lovely.

While I've never personally posted much if anything related to Valenstrifesodos, I think the dynamic between the three of them would be amazing. Also, as I described to a friend literally yesterday, it's like this: Genesis is Sephiroth's soulmate by fate, Cloud is his soulmate by force, and Vincent is Sephiroth's only living relative so he inherited both of them when the guy died.

Reeve and Tseng are much less commonly shipped with Vincent for me, mostly because I ship them with each other as endgame 100% of the time. In my head, Vincent was kinda with Reeve for a bit postcanon but it just didn't work, and he's honestly pretty attracted to Tseng but doesn't ever pursue it because Tseng kinda hates him. (Tseng does not hate him, it's complicated and entirely Veld's fault, if Tseng ever gets over it they'd have a really fun dynamic.) Sometimes—assuming he doesn't get back with Veld or enter into a relationship Cloud and/or Genesis—I feel like Vincent would occasionally be a third while Reeve and Tseng are together, but it'd be very rare.

🤝 My non-romantic OTP for this character

Also Genesis (in universes where Valenstrifesodos doesn't happen they're generally platonic for a very long time before anything happens between them), as well as Barret and Reeve, but I think my favorite option here is Shera.

They don't really have any canon interactions to speak of, but I spend a lot of time thinking about Cid talking to Vincent in Dirge, telling him that Shera is worried about him and will want to know if he's been eating enough—so they've had interactions, offscreen, between the OG and Dirge. Enough that Shera fusses over him and worries about his diet and sends messages along with Cid to make sure Vincent is doing all right. That's adorable. That's so sweet. I love that for both of them.

🚫 My unpopular opinion about this character

I feel like I have a lot of these, but it really depends on what one considers "unpopular." I guess the biggest is that he isn't in love with Lucrecia anymore? Even though that's...canon. Like that's canon. That is something explored in Dirge, the conclusion of their shared storyline is that Vincent was never actually in love with Lucrecia at all, because he never really knew her, and now that he does he actually appreciates her more, but is able to move forward and leave her behind. (Which is literally what she wants for him! She wants him to be happy without her! This was her goal and she succeeded! But god forbid women do anything!)

The next one is that he would not enter into a relationship with Cid because even if Cid is his type (which he is!) he's in a dedicated relationship with someone else, and Vincent has already done the song and dance of "fool around with a scientist under Shinra's banner* who has a highly intelligent scientist partner who isn't afraid to go to extremes for their work.**" It has nothing to do with interest or a lack of interest, it's because Vincent literally, canonically got killed and turned into a monster for poaching*** and he's never going to even entertain the idea of that ever again.

* Cid is an engineer in Shinra's Department of Space & Aeronautics

** Shera is also an engineer in the same department and was literally cool getting burned alive if it meant the Shinra No. 5 launch would go off safely

*** Lucrecia and Hojo were canonically married and were already in a relationship at the time that Vincent showed up in Nibelheim

The rest include such hot takes as Chaos' consciousness being gone at the end of Dirge (which is also canon), Vincent being Sephiroth's biological father (which is not canon but fuckit), and him being unabashedly pansexual (any character that expresses romantic or sexual interest at any time in any media is bi or pan until proven otherwise) but not having relationships with cis women or anyone who could ever theoretically conceive—he interacted with Nero, immediately knew what happened there, and is not so irresponsible as to risk making any more monster babies capable of flattening the planet when they have a tantrum. (This is actually super rough for him because it's a big part of his sexuality that he just has to cut off forever out of safety concerns and that's pretty fucked up but there's nothing he can do about it.)

🌟 One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon

It's funny, because prior to Rebirth's release I said the one thing that would make up for Vincent not being playable would be if he turned into something and attacked the party, but obviously the devs wouldn't do that with a character everyone is supposed to trust—and then they did! I wanted to see them do something with the asymmetry established in Dirge, maybe give him a wonky eye or something like I draw him a lot of the time, but the devs would never do something like that—and then they did! I wanted him to be more fleshed out, like it would be nice to know if he ever had hobbies, but the devs would never waste time on that—and then they did! Rebirth Vincent was made especially for me.

All I really want now are more interactions between him and Cloud moving forward into FF7Re3, and I have a decent amount of faith that it'll happen.

[ for the character breakdown ask game ]

[ilminnestrone]

Guys, I hate to be that person, but Genesis and Angeal being older than Sephiroth is not a theory: it's the literal narrative of Crisis Core.

Genesis is an academic with a perfect use of language for dramatic purposes, and he told the story of the Jenova Project in perfect order: first Project G, then Project S, using the failures of the former to ensure a good success of the latter.

The progress is clear: Failure (Genesis) < still not there (Angeal) < success (Sephiroth)

Sephiroth being the youngest is not speculation, but intentional storytelling. They could always retcon this, but there was no doubt in the original script, at least the fact that Project G came first.

There could still make Genesis the middle child because their order of birth has not being stated, but there's no doubt about Sephiroth being the youngest, since Genesis stated it in Nibelheim.

Yeah, it would be awkward having a character called "The Origin" not being the first born, but in meta he would still be the origin of the crisis, so it could work. I don't like this option -logically the biggest "error" should be on the first try- but that's the only non-canon thing they could change without retconning.

I could go on telling you that basically Genesis also told us that Sephiroth is genetically sterile. Which makes perfect sense: Hojo could have just made another S by reproduction if it was possible.

I have a bunch of theories about the genetics of AGS, but they could sum up in "Genesis and Angeal are chimeras, Sephiroth is an hybrid" (and most hybrids, expecially males, are indeed sterile due to extra chromosomes).

[irlneo]

i feel like the amir lovers could possibly agree to this, as well as the aoi fans: both of them would be really weirded out yet interested in taxidermy. ofc eleanor too but for a bit other reasons. idk all i can think of is amir wanting to learn about how it all worls whilst Aoi is the one to focus on how soft and how closeup one can get with animal taxidermy. there's interest but there's a " ok but its... dead." aspect. idk i feel like a fanfic writer or another artist can have some fun with this

[abbey-abdominal]

Oh. Oh. Okay. Well, then. Thanks Glitch. Thanks a lot.

I fucking love this show. Shit was wild. It was beautiful.

[average-hyperfixator]

Yk since I like to hc some faith characters as autistic (in this case Gary) partially because anytime my undiagnosed ass tries projecting some of my own traits onto a character they end up being autistic traits but THAT’S NOT WHAT THIS RANT IS ABOUT

WITH GARY I’d like to shove my love of human anatomy and torture/execution methods onto him bc like. Yes he would have a special interest in forms of torture/execution he was AROUND to witness some of them LIVE.

Also I like to think that Gary just finds humans and their anatomy fascinating and finds torture/execution methods as ways of “pushing the human body to it’s limit”

However, since he’s a demon and a cult leader no one wants to listen to him talk about blood eagles, crucifixions, iron bulls, the intricacies of Aztec death rituals, anything relating to torture/execution in general, because they think he’s crazy.

Admittedly he is but like C’MONNNN LET HIM INFO DUMPPPP

Me if you even care

[squicks-and-giggles]

I'm almost done with ToH, and something struck me about it that I wanna try to articulate. A lot of this is colored by growing up as a medicine and surgery nerd surrounded by people who were a lot more squeamish than I was about those topics, so bear that in mind.

The boiling isles are characterized throughout as being... pretty damn gross, in a biological kind of way. The whole society is established on the body of a massive dead creature, so landmarks are discussed and named in terms of anatomy. The scenery is made up of tendons and veins, of teeth and bones and offal. It probably smells bad.

And this kind of thing is a trademark of horror. Body horror is frequently used as shorthand for things that are fundamentally evil or opposed to humanity in their nature. But ToH is very matter-of-fact about it. The way it presents all this borderline-gore is as completely mundane, or even just shy of scientific. And when you think about it, there's no reason that "this character has too many teeth and eyeballs, woooooooooo" should be a signifier of evil. Those are just... body parts. We are all ultimately sacks of the same meat, so sacks of meat are actually kind of mundane, even if they're startling to look at initially.

Which makes sense with the overall message of the show: Just because something looks freaky or scary at first, or gives you an instinctive "nope" vibe, doesn't tell you anything about its actual substance or character. Those things that disgust you, shock you, make you want to dry heave--anything can be a source of beautiful and invaluable knowledge when looked at from a different perspective.

This ends up baked into the very setting--we consider our nature beautiful, and Eda does too. Hers is just, y'know. Made of meat.

[tremorsvault]

On one hand, yes... But really no.

Shane was pissed because not only had Rick shown up the day before and ended his affair with Lori, but Rick and the others also left to get Merle and the bag of guns. According to Shane, this was Rick putting everyone at the camp at risk, but they went through with ut anyway.

Shane then vented all that frustration on Ed.

Yeah, he wasn't doing anything out of the goodness of his heart, he just found the only person he could beat to pulp without serious repercussions.

Rick, on the other hand, saw what was going on for himself, and only had his suspicions confirmed by Carol.

Everyone knew what was happening to Carol/Jessie in these situations, maybe less so with Pete and Jessie because they had a house, not just thin tent walls. But that's not important, the point is, the people who knew about it didn't do shit because Pete was a surgeon and they needed him.

For Carol, everyone knew because you can't hide anything like that for long behind tent canvas.

Rick took action to try and improve the situation for Jessie, and on some level Ron and Sam too. And yeah i think we can all say that he could've handled it better.

Shane just needed an outlet. If he actually gave a shit about Carol and Sophia, he would've done something to help them a lot sooner.

It's basically a glorified temper tantrum from Shane.

1.03 // 5.15 requested by anonymous. 

[getvalentined]

I mentioned this elsewhere but I can get into more detail about it here: one of my favorite things to do when writing fic for a series that isn't placed on some AU version of Earth is to use legitimate but archaic or obsolete terms for things: "dioxidane" instead of hydrogen peroxide, "bhanga" instead of marijuana, "shellshock" instead of PTSD, and so on. I think it gives the work a more realistic air while also solidifying the setting as being somewhere else, and still being something that a reader can look up if necessary.

Also a huge fan of repurposing common idioms for the fictional setting in question. I play in FF7, and these are a few of my favorites:

In for a penny, in for a pound → In for a gil, in for a grand

Rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic → Washing windows in Midgar at Meteorfall

A bull in a china shop → A grandhorn in a glass boutique

Don't look a gift horse in the mouth → Don't look a gift bird in the beak

Boss makes a dollar, I make a dime, that's why I [verb] on company time → Boss makes a fortune, I make a gil, that's why I [verb] while I'm paying the bills

Cold as a witch's tit → Chilly as Shiva's armpit

Hung like a horse → Built like a behemoth

If wishes were horses beggars would ride → If wishes were chocobos beggars would fly

Idioms catch on because there's a particular flow and rhythm to them, so you can't always just swap out a word and expect it to work—you can't just plug in "chocobo" everywhere common turns of phrase use "horse," for instance, because the extra syllables throw off the flow and make the phrase awkward to say. You gotta figure out the pattern in the idiom, where the emphasis hits, etc., and then rework that to work in-universe.

Stuff like this is very silly, but it really makes a difference to me with regard to readability and suspension of disbelief, so I really enjoy doing it in my own work, and it's always fun to see it in someone else's!

[ilminnestrone]

This was originally meant as a reply to @rottenpumpkin13, but I didn't want to drown her in an endless rant, so I'll continue here.

A lot of fanwork that depicts homosexuality has its roots in mysogyny. I said what I said. That doesn't mean I don't enjoy it myself, I wasn't brought up in a magical bubble and everyone is entitled to their kinks, including me. I'm an AFAB masochist sub with a humiliation kink, so believe me when I say it's perfectly fine to enjoy things that could be considered mysoginistic in the safety of our bedrooms.

Let's start with the obvious here: the seme/uke stereotype has obvious homophobic roots, especially when it is culturally appropriated and taken out of its original context (a context in which it is mainly aimed at young women who want to identify with the uke character). The sterotype being:

the top is always the dominant one, he's tough and strong, sometimes even sadistic and brutal and quite abusive;

the bottom is always submissive and breedable, feminine, frail and small, and he looks like he's not really enjoying himself.

Let me stress the homophobia in case it's not clear: you have to be feminine to enjoy dick. And let me stress the mysogyny: you have to be frail and not really into sex to be feminine.

So here we are: bottom-shaming (yes, it's a real thing!) was a thing even in ancient Greece and Rome. "To be fucked in the ass" still means "to have it bad" in Italian. The point is that being penetrated is humiliating because it's something women do, and being a woman is inherently bad. And if it's humiliating it must be painful too. Both the giver and the receiver orgasms are always depicted as some sort of debasing punishment.

There is no such thing as top and bottom stereotypes we portray in our fanwork in real homosexual relationships. Bulky hairy men can be submissive bottoms. Small twinks can be relentless tops. Most gay people switch. The younger partner can top the older. People with the same body type have sex (and it's actually easier that way, this comes from someone who's 5' and can't do certain things because of size difference!).

You know how much I love @birdblacksocialclub. One of the reasons being the fact she depicts achillean men in a realistic way: her Genesis and Sephiroth are both slender and muscular, roughly the same size and they want to have sex with each other because they're both young and hot. Who's the top? Probably Sephiroth, but it's actually unclear most of the time. Who's the dominant one? Ah, it depends, it's a battle of wits. Who's mainly? Both, because they're fucking men in their twenties. Who enjoy himself most? BOTH. They're smug and hedonistic about it. They're having sex for God's sake, it's one of the most pleasurable things in life alongside with pizza and punching a nazi.

This isn't really going anywhere. It's just my desire to see more variety and realness in gay fiction. I want to be able to find a Bottom!Sephiroth fic and not be overwhelmed because it's the first one I've ever read. I want people not to see a soft-spoken and queer coded character and immediately assume he wants to be pegged. I don't want people depict oral sex as submissive (it could be but it realy depends on how you do it). I don't want people to portray a character as small and feminine just to get him fucked.

And fucking please, let bottoms enjoy sex. We do. A lot. I swear to God, we're not suffering (even if we whine).

(And yeah, this is basically why I can't really stomach Omegaverse stuff).

[some-pers0n]

I'm always entertained by people doing those "canon VS fanon" memes where both are misunderstanding characters to such a violent degree 'cause like

[girlashfur]

new tumblr game. put in the tags a GENUINE flaw your fav(s) has. cant be something like "too kind" or "loves too much" like something genuinely bad messed up morally wrong they are or have done

[abbey-abdominal]

I really don’t understand why Pomni’s character has this forced implication that she’s this pathetic loser (even by Glitch the studio). Like are we watching the same show, Glitch? Pomni is … kind of a heroic protagonist. She’s so far from being pathetic, but ??? Hey, man, that new Pomster plush is adorable. Whatever man.

[kittenintheden]

hello my loves <3 do not ever, ever, ever "officially" create for an IP that you have not signed a vetted contract to be paid for. this is a tactic companies use to get a free writer's room they don't have to pay for. you won't see a cent and they will own your work. don't do it.

[beanthebugboi]

Canon/Headcanon likelihood chart

So I've been thinking about @macdenlover 's "levels of headcanon" chart (about how heavily a HC is influenced by canon), so I decided to make my own scale about how likely a HC is to be true (including different levels of canon) using queer cartoon characters as examples :)

I just spent an hour making this because I was bored. Enjoy. Image description under the cut.

Inspiration:

ID courtesy of @hatreds-og-imagedescriptions (thank you!!)

[ID: a chart going from 10 to 1, with explanations of the ratings on the left and images of characters with queer flags and descriptions of said characters on the right.

10: "Explicit canon. Clearly stated in the original media." Trans Barney from Dead end Paranormal Park. "Barney says "I'm transgender"".

9: "Implicit canon. Never explicitly stated, but 100% canon in the original media". Nonbinary Raine from The Owl House. "Raine never says "I'm nonbinary," but uses they/them and is never referred to as a man/woman (also, confirmed by Dana)".

8: "Creator confirmation. Never stated in the original media, but confirmed canon by the media's creator". Aroace Lilith from The Owl House. "While never mentioned/implied in TOH, Dana has confirmed that Lilith is aroace".

7: "Heavily implied. Never confirmed, but likely true (either by canon evidence or creator implication)". Genderfluid Nimona from Nimona. ""Aaand now you're a boy" "I am today" (anyway, the whole movie has trans/GNC themes)".

6: "Possibly implied. Hinted at in the original media, but could be explained as something else". Trans Doofenschmirtz from Phineas and Ferb. "Doof COULD be transmasc, or the whole "raised as a girl" thing could just be for the bit".

5: "Fanon. Never confirmed, but generally accepted by the fandom". Aromantic Alastor from Hazbin Hotel. "While only confirmed to be ace, most of the fandom also sees Alastor as aromantic".

4: "HC with evidence. Headcanons supported by a dedicated fan's detective work". Bisexual Mabel from Gravity Falls. "People have noticed bi flag stickers hidden on Mabel's scrapbooks".

3: "Canon neutrality. Could be true, could be false, but overall makes sense and doesn't contradict the original media". Genderqueer Pleakley from Lilo and Stitch. "Maybe Pleakley is genderqueer, maybe he just wanted to crossdress for the mission, who knows? That's why it's a headcanon."

2: "I made it the fuck up. Based on vibes, has absolutely nothing to do with canon". Bisexual Megamind from Megamind. "No evidence, no explanation, he just has Disaster Bi™ vibes".

1: "Um? No? But go off. Directly contradicts canon (but who cares, that's why it's fun)". Trans Stanley Pines from Gravity Falls. "Even though flashback scenes prove Stan is AMAB, some people HC him as transmasc." End of ID.]

[getvalentined]

This is...fantastic. I've never seen someone else put the entire Genesis issue so succinctly before, and I commend you for it.

(I would argue that Zack isn't actually stupid at all, he's just sixteen, but you did kinda cover that, which is also nice. I'm also not Zack's biggest fan, to be clear, but that's mostly because of his fandom.)

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.

[goldensunset]

a real blorbo is someone you can both write a lengthy and serious/sad analysis on yet also constantly and i mean constantly make stupid jokes about