#shinra sent GENESIS to take down tamblin

[getvalentined]

I was gushing about Genesis' design the other day and decided to transplant the whole rant over here because I love how Genesis' whole design makes no pretense about him doing things specifically to make himself look taller, but also more delicate—because he has an aesthetic that he's determined to maintain, but it's a ruse. The whole thing is a ruse. Genesis knows what he looks like, particularly what he looks like compared to the people around him, and he works with it in such a fantastic way it makes me feral.

It's so obvious from an artistic and fashion design perspective that he's trying to give himself a more masculine shape while also trying to look unintimidating in that shape, like he's petite when he's absolutely not—which makes perfect sense when paired with the fact that he's a mage and when he uses a sword it's in very close-quarters combat compared to his peers.

Genesis is trying to look like the least intimidating of the Firsts because it means opponents are more likely to underestimate him and let him get too close, only to realize that he's like 6'3" and can throw a freight truck.

Take the cut of his coat, the way he wears his belt a little low—like he's trying to look taller, but also like he wants you to think that his legs maybe aren't quite that long, like his waist is wider than it is, but his shoulders are narrower. Like his frame is more average, like he lacks the physical capacity to do too much damage compared to his similarly ranked colleagues.

His clothing makes him look less svelte; he doesn't want people to catch that he can be on you in four steps because he's long-legged and limber as fuck. His pauldrons are set low on his jacket, as if he wants them to look slightly too big. Genesis' shoulders and chest are actually pretty broad for his frame, his legs and arms are long and well toned, but he dresses and carries himself in a way that makes it difficult to tell unless you're really looking.

Most opponents won't parse Genesis' build correctly, they won't realize that he's got some beastly upper body strength until he's on them far too quickly and he's grabbed them by the face—and since when were his arms so long?—and flung them across the battlefield.

At a distance, or alongside Sephiroth or Angeal, Genesis doesn't just look delicate, he looks fragile. He looks like you can snap him in half. On his own, though, up close? You're fucked.

[zackfiar-a]

hello class! today we’re going to learn about growth and the process of healing via zack fair

when zack entered SOLDIER he had bright eyes of optimism whilst having one goal and a dream in mind: to become SOLDIER 1st class and to become a hero just like sephiroth. however the longer he stayed in SOLDIER, the more he realized that hey ..... something isnt Right here. one of those that you cant have emotions attached to missions or the ppl that ur fighting against, that its just a reliability. thats not something he agreed with because he purely focuses with his emotions, whether it could be his downfall or not. he feels immensely, whether its anger towards himself or sympathy; something so trivial as emotions will jeopardize the mission (ie a mission to go search for angeal). 

and unfortunately, being as young and impressionable as he was, it was very easy for him to be manipulated by his higher ups (because of his intense enthusiasm and wanting to please his superiors) and not be able to form opinions of his own, lest they get tested and make himself doubt his loyalty to shinra. which is why he had no problem with going to wutai and trying to overtake fort tamblin, he was told wutai is the enemy of shinra. they’re the bad guys, without ever being told the reason why. like why did shinra name wutai as their enemy? why are they going at war with them?

his perception was warped by the toxic ideals and goals that shinra and SOLDIER had, even though his guy he knew it was wrong and that he should question those of higher power than him. 

it also took too long to realize that shinra, at the face, is a company and state helps the people and protect midgar from terrorists and others that dare face against shinra. that underneath, they were making monsters with an ancient alien that landed on earth years and years ago. he doesnt know why; doesnt know anything about the ‘promised land’ theyre searching for. he doesnt know anything about their goals of creating beings from jenova, g, and s - cells. the fact of the matter is, theyre stealing away innocent people just so shinra can experiment on them (and they all worked for shinra ie SOLDIER 3rd and 2nd class when genesis took them with him; probably others than he cant imagine).

being hit with the information that genesis is degrading from the g - cells and angeal being born from the result of experimentation from gillian, the clouds started to fade away from his eyes and hes actually surprised that the ppl that know this are okay with it. like it was common knowledge, which it wasnt! he didnt know anything about this! the fact that angeal knew about this and didnt tell him, he felt hurt and betrayed. he was blindly following in his footsteps of embracing your SOLDIER honor and your dreams, that the fact he was proud and happy that he was working for shinra! meanwhile they had secret labs scattered about banora, modeoheim, and nibelheim that these experiments were going on!

at this point, zacks faith in shinra is fading and his dream is being pushed to the back burner even when he does eventually become a 1st class. no thanks! you can keep it. not like he had a chance but accept it. when hes forced to kill angeal, theres a mix of emotions: intense sadness because he looked up to angeal and admired him greatly, with his skills and such inspiring ideals; and even tho he can handle himself without angeal, he felt like he was the last pillar in SOLDIER that he had. he also felt relieved and hurt, zack doesnt forget him keeping all this information of human experimentation a secret while zack was looking with a naive lense to wanting to protect the people. relieved in the sense that angeal was probably hurting and was rapidly degrading if the grey hair and pale skin at his death was any indication.

being inherited the buster sword wasnt something he took proudly, it was a heavier weight on his shoulders the point where was sagging. he felt the least he could do was become those that ppl looked up to as well. even tho he carries a piece of angeal, he just couldnt accept what he had tried to push onto him. SOLDIER honor, there wasn’t a thing that existed at this point. trying to convince himself that SOLDIER doesnt mean monster, he couldnt kid himself that it meant monster. 

during this time, he goes to the church and accept consoling from aerith. altho he doesnt talk about what happens, or what hes experiencing / feeling which eventually becomes his downfall. as a way to make himself feel better, he visits the church, immediately feeling calmed, but however with so much weighing on his mind, promising aerith to build the wagon for her flowers becomes half-hearted. he thinks this is enough to try and hes the burden he was inherited, to push away the trauma of having to kill his mentor and watching him die, and fighting monsters, that were at some point, people---  even to the point of no longer wanting to be a part of SOLDIER. ofc this doesnt work and isnt a viable way to cope with his experiences. 

being last straw is when he fights sephiroth when he burns down nibelheim. that was someone he looked up to and trusted, he joined SOLDIER wanting to be like him. except now hes dragged cloud and tifa into this whole mess, and he feels incredibly responsible for not intervening sooner. he shouldve seen the signs that it wasnt going to end well, but he gave him the benefit of the doubt, hoping that he wouldnt be like genesis and angeal (which he was wrong). witnessing that sephiroth was kept these very important and crucial details, made him realize it doesnt matter how important or popular you are in shinras eyes; if theres any hint that someone could retaliate, they will keep it a secret until its convenient for them. this severed anything else positive he felt for shinra.

he doesnt even realize he was put in a pod for 4 years (only assuming its been a couple of weeks at most), still imaging that hes 18 when he now has to physically free himself from shinras grasp. even while hes asleep, the nightmares and visions of angeal wouldnt waver. even though he could choose to leave cloud alone in the pod with severe mako poisoning, he didnt want to. cloud was his friend, and he felt solely responsible for him to be pulled within the crossfire. cloud wanted to join SOLDIER, well this was the reality. he couldnt even fight for himself or eat; but he was alive and that was good enough for zack. zack has this pushed guilt onto his conscious, so he makes sure to bring cloud with him everywhere he went, even casually talking to him like he can actually respond back. 

he doesnt even realize the reality that he wasnt a respected member of SOLDIER, by the words of hojo, they were both fugitives and even though zack was still asleep in that pod, he was so tired; emotionally, physically, and mentally. this whole thing, he had to see through, if not for himself, then for cloud. at least get him to midgar and try to continue living a separate part shinras greedy hands. there were certain times while trying to avoid shinra and hide, that he could just end himself several times, but clouds existence was a constant reminder that they both managed to live, besides he owed cloud so much, so ridding himself off wouldnt do them nearly enough good. 

so seeing genesis again got him angry, that he couldnt even blame him for the reason this was happening. whether genesis wanted to capture hollander to help further shinra in experimentation, it wasnt going to stop what was going on underneath the surface. seeing lazard with angeals face really made him weak at the knees, physically made him sick, and feeling temporarily relieved (which he doesnt forget of the fact that angeal is dead, that this isnt actually him but lazard who absorbed his cells).

and finally beating genesis, he still felt angry with only a small semblance of sympathy. even with his soft heart, he couldnt help but feel bad for him, going thru such great lengths just because he was a failure of an experiment and wanted to live longer than what he got. this wasnt genesis’ fault, it was shinras and that just made him more frustrated. 

and while hes with cloud, riding to midgar, he once again tries to push the anger, hurt, and frustration at the back of his mind to tell cloud silly stories while he was still in SOLDIER, and what he thought about cloud upon meeting him for the first time, and that feelings of doubts that hes sorry that cloud has to travel with a monster. with coming across the shinra army, he realized this was a final stand, being physically exhausted (even w the mutated s and mako infused cells, he doesnt feel nearly as strong as he did before). even though he no longer holds up the honor of SOLDIER, he needs to protect cloud and his own honor that hes built as a person, and nothing else.

when he succeeded by the skin of his teeth, he wonders why hes still alive, why hes still breathing, even though its hard. he lost sight in one eye, but he doesnt even realize how, everything happened so fast. was he shot? was he stabbed? who knows, but taking cloud to midgar while hes sitting on deaths edge himself, he will take cloud back even if it kills him. there are people there waiting for him, unlike zack--- no one is waiting for him to come back, the people that hes looked up to has died, or see him as a traitor. perhaps, you could count his parents, but hes so ashamed to see them face to face. he feels like if he did, he would break down. his cell phone has long ago stopped working, so who knows if anyone has sent him anything during the time of his slumber. he doesnt even know that kunsel is waiting for him to come back.

during this whole time, hes held in his feelings and emotions, shouldering all this himself. he hasnt talked to anyone previously about his trauma, the nightmares that prevent him from sleeping, or his doubt. being in the sector 7 slums and being taken care of, he puts on a false face that everything is okay, but it cracks when he hit his brink. crying and screaming, yelling how none of this is fair and how he shouldve been dead. he doesnt why hes alive but hes so tired. he was fully planning to die when he faced shinras army, not even thinking how to why, if there even is a reason. even though tifa and marle kindly provided him a room to rest in, theres a momentary frenzy where there are several deeply punched in walls, even unleashing his sword in blinded frustration. 

hes never been taught that it was okay to share your feelings, and being swallowed by the toxicity of SOLDIER, he felt as if it was weak to ask for help. hes encouraged and is told several times, while being in the slums, that its okay. theres always an ear to be lend to if one needs to talk about their woes, or something that deeply troubles them. not to mention, he has a hard time accepting that so much time as passed, that so much as changed and almost so many people forgot about him. hes lost so much of his younger years by SOLDIER, the lost of mental growth by being in a god damn mako infused pod. he needs to catch up, now finding home in the sector 7 slums (altho apologizing and insisting that he fix up the room that he ruined. it gives him something to do and he fees bad for destroying that was so graciously offered from kindness).

he spends his time around avalanche and tifa, not only trying to help up from the wounds he endured, but trying to move on. find easier methods to cope and deal with the stress in healthy ways thats not dangerous self destruction to himself and those around him. hes slowly coming to the conclusion that hes not a monster that hes so insisted on, but a victim and pawn of SOLDIER and shinra. hes angry at shinra. hes upset, frustrated, aggravated, among other emotions towards the former company hes worked for.

and even though this healing process is still slow, hes becoming much more happier than has been before. he finds home in the slums, and those people that has so welcomed him, even though untrusting because of his previous affiliation with SOLDIER. he loves the people, quickly befriending the entire sector 7 slums. 

hes come a long way since coming back to midgar, from self loathing and a weak, nearly broken spirit to his back optimistic, naturally smiling self that people love to be around. he has given shinra a lot, but he wont let them take away a person he was so proudly being before he entered SOLDIER, albeit still immature with mentality that hes still 18.

[leonawriter]

I just saw a picture, and it inspired me, because there was Sephiroth, Angeal, Genesis, and Zack all in what seemed to be a forest - but Zack was his older self with his scar and different hair.

Idea is, Zack from his Advent Children self, travels back in time (one of those ‘this was not planned’ things, not ‘I have a plan that’s inevitably going to go wrong’) and finds himself in Wutai. His younger self is still around, too.

Zack, however, is quite obviously not the same Zack. He’s either gone back physically not just mentally, or his body is created from memories of how he saw himself as being when alive. Which is, uh, early/mid twenties.

So, while everyone else is doing their thing, and young!Zack heads off to Fort Tamblin, older!Zack tracks down where Genesis is hiding. Calls Sephiroth, because he’s had time to think about this. He’s had time to talk to Angeal, as well. Straighten things out a bit. Everything’s always clearer in hindsight, and all.

He doesn’t talk or do anything right away. But he waits, and watches, and then Angeal’s there, and he walks out.

Neither of the two Firsts expected to see Zack. Neither of them expected to see a second Buster Sword.

Neither of them expected someone they’d both known to be an excitable puppy of a Second to be wearing First’s blacks, or have the air of an experienced SOLDIER used to command. 

Or for him to say, “That’s as far as this goes. No one moves from this spot until we’ve all had a talk. Anyone tries to fly out of here, I’m using Thunder, and no one wants scorched wing. Or to alert the Wutai forces to exactly where we are. Trust me, I’ll do it if I think I need to, though.”

Zack has run out of fucks to give. Everyone’s all in one place. This ends now.

Sephiroth arrives while the other two are still grilling Zack on who he is (you look too old, what’s with you having a Buster Sword, how much do you know, what do you know, how do you know it) and is... rather confused.

“Everyone in SOLDIER,” he says, “is a genetic experiment of some kind or other. You, me... all of us. It doesn’t make us special. But I don’t think it really makes us monsters, either. Not until we actually start to want to hurt people. Because no matter what Shinra wanted SOLDIER to be, the only reason any of us have any pride in it, in what Shinra made us, it’s because being SOLDIER is what we’ve made of it. And no matter what we’ve done,” he gives Genesis a look, “it’s not too late to stop.” 

He crosses his arms. Angeal looks at Genesis, about to ask what Zack’s talking about, but Zack is still talking and Sephiroth is listening, because something is going on, something that rings true somehow, and it seems as though it means something to the others.

“To be honest? I don’t care who stays in Shinra, or who leaves. I can’t blame anyone who’d want to leave, really. But there’s nothing worse than going off to deal with everything alone. I tried that once. Trust me, it doesn’t work.”

Angeal tells him that this is the kind of talk that would get him booted out of Shinra and SOLDIER regardless, and Zack just snorts and looks away - “I’m from a future where Shinra sent the army and the Turks down on me just because I didn’t want to play along at being Hojo’s latest experiment. I don’t think that’ll be an issue.”

It’s this that gets Genesis actually interested, rather than simply putting up with the grown-up version of Angeal’s puppy, because this - this means that the kid, who looks as old if not older than he does, knows what he’s going through and isn’t just talking out of his ass about it. It isn’t just easy sympathy.

Angeal’s frankly horrified. Even if he doesn't really know if he believes either Genesis or Zack just yet, the implication of everything if they’re telling the truth is... enormous. Awful. He doesn’t want that for himself, and he doesn’t want to believe that such things could have happened to Zack. And yet, at the same time... looking at Zack and the way that he’s dealing with this - if this is Zack, the Zack he knows but from a different time, with different experiences, then there’s something about him that makes him feel proud, and he can understand why his Buster Sword is on the kid’s back. 

Sephiroth is finding it all a lot to process. There are parts of him - large parts - that are still angry, no, furious. Because from what Zack’s said, from what he’d heard, his friends were going to leave. What did this mean for their friendship? Where they really friends at all? Were Shinra and SOLDIER all that had kept them together? And if Zack was saying that they had all been experiments, then where did that leave him? Especially if what he’d said about Hojo was true, which Sephiroth, well... he has enough understanding of the man to believe that more than most.

....I don’t know where it’d go from there. But the idea of future!Zack getting everyone together and sorting things out in Wutai is just. So damn good. 

I think maybe Genesis would stay separated from Shinra, but he’d also have grilled Zack on ‘okay but did I get cured and if so HOW’ and actually gotten answers. So, being that close to Banora’s underground anyway, and the others are now in communication with each other, he ends up fixed up way, way earlier. He overrules Hollander. The Copies that had already been created end up spotted later on fighting AVALANCHE’s Ravens, now that Genesis doesn’t want to play along with following orders, and has other ideas of what to do with his rebellion.

Angeal goes back with younger!Zack to Shinra, with Sephiroth. SOLDIER is what we make of it sticks with him. Lazard, now without an army and soon without outside funding, has to go along with just doing his job and directing SOLDIER for the time being, and finds that his top two First have, well, changed somewhat. Neither are willing to go along with further ideas as he suggests them, but somehow, they do end up at some kind of agreement, because he finds out that neither of them are exactly fond of Shinra either.

Angeal does end up with his wings after a while. It’s inevitable. He tends not to make a habit of actually flying or generally using them at all, though, because the last thing he wants is to have to join Genesis. 

Sephiroth’s wing takes longer in coming. He only gets it when he’s heard more of the truth, that he wasn’t ready for back in Wutai.

Young!Zack is left baffled by how Angeal and even Sephiroth are now treating him as though he needs protecting.

It all makes a fair bit more sense when, on a mission with Angeal, they run into Genesis, and Angeal still treats him like a friend, and Genesis looks him up and down like he doesn’t quite measure up to expectations, and then someone comes in and they look just like him. And Angeal’s Buster Sword is on his back. And Angeal doesn’t seem to find any of this weird.

[getvalentined]

So I was gushing at @skadren and @takenbynumbers about this earlier, but I wanna share it here too because I think I'm right. I think I have patched one of the biggest characterization holes in Crisis Core, and the result is both horrible and entirely on-brand.

I don't think Gillian ever left Project G.

In Crisis Core, we find out that Hollander was apparently supposed to be the lead on the Science Department's handling of SOLDIER, but Hojo somehow stole it out from under him. We never find out how, but the important thing here is that—in spite of Gast calling Project G a failure in the late '70s—Hollander was still respected enough in the company to be in the running to head up his department.

After Project G was deemed a failure, it's implied that Hollander and Gillian independently made Angeal, to try to prove that they were right. I think most of the fandom has just always kind of assumed Gillian caught feelings because she was the one actually carrying the baby this time, and that's when and why she bailed.

But…she didn't bail.

Gillian stayed in Banora, the original research site for her project. She stayed in contact with Shinra. And, most egregious of all, she encouraged Angeal to join SOLDIER. She and her husband were so proud of him for enlisting that her husband literally worked himself to death to buy Angeal better equipment than his peers. You don't do something like that if you don't dramatically approve of what's going on.

What if the real reason that Gillian never accepted hush money from Shinra had nothing to do with her (horribly sanctimonious) concept of honor, or even her wounded pride, but because she believed that Project G would still come to fruition when Angeal was old enough? What if she didn't take hush money because she didn't want Shinra to be able to hold the bribe over her head when, eventually, she came back to the company fully vindicated?

She's the only one of the original four junior researchers that wasn't moved to Project 0 by Gast after the Jenova Project wound down. Hollander was there, Hojo was there, Lucy was even there, but Gillian wasn't. Gillian stayed in Banora, and she brought Angeal up, and then she sent him back to Shinra.

I think she knew how Gast played, and she intended to beat him—by being patient, because Gast wasn't. It was his greatest weakness as a scientist. He refused to ever wait and see how things developed; the moment he got a single piece of new information he jumped on it, even if it meant abandoning all his prior efforts and leaving his junior researchers to clean up after him.

If she was so against what she'd done with Shinra, why did she encourage Angeal to enlist? It makes no sense with the context we're directly presented in the game and in some of the newer meta, but it does make sense if she encouraged it because she wanted him sent back to Hollander for testing. It makes sense if she knew that war was the best time to prove that she and Hollander had made something they could be proud of, something worth the company's time.

Hollander was in the running to head up the department. He'd done something to garner so much approval from Shinra that he was almost given charge of the department he'd been working in as a junior researcher for decades. Angeal enlisted at some point in the decade prior to the events of Crisis Core, and Genesis was initially the one sent to Tamblin to end the war.

But Genesis defected. Project G didn't end the war. Hojo was given the lead position, and Hollander literally ran away, going into hiding while still desperately trying to prove his project a success by whatever means necessary.

He never stopped working on the project that had been declared a failure over twenty years prior, why would the project's namesake?

This would also explain why Gillian refused to help Genesis—he was the subject that got her project deemed a failure. Possibly twice, if the above events are accurate. She already knew that, at least scientifically, Genesis wasn't worth the effort.

This concept, to me, makes Gillian finally make sense. She only kills herself after Angeal chooses a side, and it's not the side that will lead him back to Shinra. She kills herself when there's no way that she'll ever be able to capitalize on the success of her project. She kills herself when her patience proves to have been for nothing.

I don't think Gillian ever left Project G.