#skadren rambles

[skadren]

my chosen explanation for why vincent's room and coffin are all fancy and spruced up now in the new trailer is that genesis has been camping out with him and strong-armed him into letting himself have Nice Things

[katachresis]

rules: tag 9 people you’d like to know/catch-up with

tagged by @skadren, thanks! :D

last song listened to: 自己按门铃自己听 sung by 周深, lyrics written by 高曉松

last show: i actually don’t remember. i don’t really watch shows. i just add shows to a list of “yeah i will definitely watch it later” and then i don’t

currently watching: none, unless you can count a show where i watched the first episode 2 weeks ago, said “i will definitely get back to that” and still haven’t (in which case, 三十而已 / Nothing But Thirty)

currently reading: i’m in the middle of several books. one of them is... bad and i don’t recommend it (i am reading it for very shen yuan lit crit hobby reasons). another one is into the drowning deep by mira grant. it’s pretty good if you’re looking for a fun time. mermaids, urban fantasy, horror, what’s not to like?

...can i not tag anyone the thought of taking the initiative to reach out to people is making me cold sweat right now.

[skadren]

honestly bothered by the moral panic over seph's new costume in ec. why do you think that standard traditional wear from a non-western culture that shows less skin than zack's swimsuit is "too lewd"?

if you're looking at a 14-year-old's bare chest and thinking "oh my god, how sexual" then the person out here lewding things is you. which is whatever, it's a fictional character, but you may want to take a good hard look in the mirror and examine your own cultural biases before you start a moral crusade against sqnx for "sexualizing" and "exploiting" a fictional character.

[skadren]

something i wish more western ff7 fans acknowledged is that this is a japanese game made by japanese devs in the japanese language. by playing in english (or another language of choice), we are playing a secondhand translation that verifiably does not convey things accurately, much less the devs' intent

if you're going to make an in-depth analysis video on the lore, you need to consider the original japanese

if you're going to say that fans weren't supposed to know a certain plot or worldbuilding detail because it wasn't stated explicitly in-game, you need to consider the original japanese

if you're going to mock a character's dialogue as being terrible and evidence for a game being terrible, you need to consider the original japanese

i am aware the language barrier exists and there's no way of truly understanding 1:1 without a ton of difficulty and effort most people aren't willing to invest. that's fine! no one has to if they don't want to! but before people open their mouths and say things as an 'authority' with their entire chest, they need to consider that they don't have the full picture and may be wrong, because in all of these examples i have listed above, the person in question was very wrong because they didn't know what the game actually said.

[skadren]

last line challenge

RULES: In a new post, show the last line you wrote (or drew) and tag as many people as there are words (or however many as you like).

tagged by @vinjaryou. thank you for the tag!!

Not anymore, murmurs the same distant voice in the back of his mind, but he doesn't know what to do with that. What it even means.

i think most people i know have already done this so i am trying to avoid repeats. sorry if you've already been tagged! @officially-tilly @kutikue @toastedcatbread

[skadren]

what is it about angeal that has people so ready to bend over backwards to blame clunky writing and bad execution for his hypocrisy rather than ever consider the possibility that he is, in fact, written Like That On Purpose

like even if it wasn't explicitly the devs' intent (which i personally would prefer to give them the benefit of the doubt, but i will acknowledge we shouldn't assume the authorial intent in one way or another), isn't that boring?? just ignoring literally everything that is in the text rather than engaging in ANY form of conversation with it??? if you're just gonna toss out everything about a character wholesale because "bad writing!!!" instead of think about any implications of their behavior then were you even a fan of the character in the first place????

[skadren]

it's friday the 13th 🎉🎉🎉

[skadren]

[skadren]

everyone is talking about "the more you endure, the greater the power that will awaken in you" and yet no one is talking about "if your unconscious mind is who you are, you could never take responsibility for anything.... i'm very conscious about every decision i make" I'M SURE YOU ARE, SEPHIROTH

[skadren]

i really want to write another omegaverse thing but like. is that too soon. too much

[skadren]

Im still baffled at the difference between canon Genesis and fanon Genesis, like why did you take this wonderful disaster literature intellectual and turn him into generic mean theather kid good lord

And dont even start with Angeal. They saw a guy who forced his apprentice to kill him because he couldnt support his reality and pretended he's the boring stable fella 😭

i just think there have been too many people who have looked me in the eye (metaphorically) and said they love genesis but specifically the fanon version, canon genesis is bland and awful and cc sucks, but also they didn't actually play cc hahaha but all their friends say they get genesis's characterization sooooo perfect and correct therefore their headcanons must just all be accidentally canon hahahaha isn't that so funny??????????

this number is only matched by the amount of people who have unironically said that angeal is unquestionably the "best" of all the firsts, he's so great and honorable and morally upright, it's a shame he had to die while genesis lived, he deserved so much better

please end my suffering

[skadren]

every day i think about how hua cheng is vincent coded and xie lian is cloud coded but you see the number of people who enjoy tgcf is so very large but the number of people who enjoy it AND ship strifentine is so very small. do you understand my suffering

[skadren]

2, 3, 6, and 8 for Tseeve~

send me a ship and a number and i'll tell you:

2. what their love letters look like

i don't think tseng has ever written a love letter before in his life. that is both way too easily perceived and way too impermanent at the same time. what if someone else finds it? what if it gets lost or thrown away or burned before reeve reads it?? what if reeve reads it??? his love letters are grocery store shopping lists stuck to the fridge and reminders for reeve to take his medications and protein bars and hot coffee "coincidentally" left on reeve's desk

reeve has diary entries. sometimes they are addressed to tseng: small jokes, the highlights and low points of his day, his current projects, proposal plans. wedding plans. reeve is a planning kind of guy, for everything. and before they got together, definitely pining. all the pining. he also has at least five separate entries wondering about tseng's hair care routine. his meetings notes may or may not be found with their initials doodled all around the borders (with ample questioning over what tseng's last name is. is tseng even his real name? is reeve a bad boyfriend for not knowing?? but wouldn't asking be an invasion of boundaries???)

3. which one outlives the other, and how they cope

both of them expect to die before the other. reeve because of how many goddamn medications he has to take and that must be terrible for his liver, and also he's older so that's how it works, right? tseng because of his line of work, and later on after he retires, because of the lingering issues from his past injuries. and the real reason is that neither of them want to think too hard on what it might actually be like to go on alone.

unfortunately tseng dies first. you can blame @takenbynumbers for that one. you know what you did

reeve puts on a pretty good attempt at going on outwardly unaffected, although he finally retires and passes on the seat of commissioner to someone else, like he'd been saying he would do for ages now. but he's never been very good at remembering to take care of himself; tseng is always the one who bossed him into doing it. so he sort of just... gives up on it?

(vincent accuses him of just giving up and waiting to die. reeve doesn't think he's wrong.)

6. how they decorate their bedroom

neither of them are big on excess so i guess it would be a pretty... normal? bedroom? there is a bed. big enough to fit both of them but not too big, because what if one of them gets lonely at night? the bed itself isn't anything fancy; sturdy and comfortable with enough support for reeve's back. plain sheets. they have two sets of blankets that are horribly mismatched because one reminds reeve of the quilts his ma liked to make and the other is a gift from yuffie that tseng will never admit is the exact same pattern of blanket he remembers his mom using when he was a child.

they both have a nightstand but desks are banned from the bedroom. deskwork is also banned from the bedroom. not that it keeps reeve from trying to sneak paperwork once in a while.

cait also has a cat bed in one corner (even though he really does not need a bed on account of the whole robot thing). he gets exiled regularly but it works out because he does not want to see his dads getting it on, thank you very much.

8. what they argue about

reeve always tosses his clothes in the general direction of the laundry hamper and misses. tseng's hair clogs the shower and gets all over the floor all the time. tseng hates taking out the trash and reeve never remembers to do it.

more seriously, even if their dedication to their work is something they have in common, neither of them like how little free time it gives them to spend together. it can lead to arguments over exactly how much the other person prioritizes their relationship at all, especially since the way they express their feelings and validation for one another is very different-- reeve's love language is physical affection and verbal affirmation, while tseng's is acts of service. coupled with how reticent tseng is about talking about feelings at all, it can lead to reeve feel like he's lovebombing tseng to little response, while tseng feels like he's never good enough at reciprocating properly.

but their biggest argument of all time is still the one that takes place directly after the turks drop the plate. there is a lot of broken trust between them regarding whether their relationship was as meaningful as reeve really thought it was, how much tseng has been hiding all this time, whether reeve wanted to be with tseng at all or just an idealized version of him. i fondly refer to the entire time they spend separated until they get back together postcanon as their divorce arc.

[skadren]

wip

[skadren]

genesis for the ask game!!!

send me a character

sexuality hc: gay gay homosexual gay. his type includes "dangerous" and "could murder him effortlessly"

gender hc: he's unquestionably cis and very secure in his identity, in a very gnc way. he has unlocked cis+

a ship that i have: valenstrifesodos. lol

a brotp: i am aware that they never meet in canon, but genesis and aerith. i just think they'd be a great match in terms of personality and ability. every day i think about an au where genesis joins up with avalanche in og and mentors aerith

a notp: genesis/tifa, romantically. no judgment to the people who like it, i just... don't know if i will ever understand the appeal

random hc: genesis does not love drama as in "loves workplace drama", he loves drama as in "loves theater". he does not actually care about petty workplace drama and finds it pointless and irritating. while he isn't afraid of expressing his opinions, he's straightforward because he wants to resolve problems as quickly as possible. he's the kind of person who lets go of grudges easily if things are resolved, but holds onto them forever if they aren't.

general opinion: one of my favorite characters! very sad he gets a lot of hate from fandom, even from the people who claim to love his "fanon" version. i think a major factor in the misinterpretation of his character is some questionable localization choices in cc, as well as the way most of its more detailed storytelling relies on optional content like missions and speaking to npcs.

[skadren]

#7, Genesis and Vincent

send me a ship and a number and i'll tell you:

7. which one is the worse driver

oh boy. this is a hard one because the unquestionably best driver in my ot3 of them is cloud, and genesis and vincent alike are happy to be his passenger princesses. if we're not including cloud as a factor here, then, well...

both of them definitely know how to drive just because of their past employment with shinra. as a turk vincent has driven people around, secret service-style, and as a soldier genesis used motorbikes pretty often. neither of them tend to be constrained by petty things like "right of way" and "turn signals" and "traffic laws" when needs must

genesis is the one between the two of them who actually enjoys driving, but only for motorbikes. he's not really into driving cars; it doesn't give him the same kind of rush. he has never intentionally obeyed a single traffic law before in his life nor does he really care to because no one's gotten hurt from his driving, have they? (they have, but it was himself when he was a teenager, and he was soldier so he got better fast. so.)

vincent doesn't particularly enjoy or dislike driving. it was just another skill for him to have as a turk, and cars have changed just enough between back then and postcanon that he's really not a fan anymore. he could get by in a pinch, though, and he's a much safer driver to be a passenger with, so long as you're not caught in a car chase for whatever reason

in the end, neither of them actually need to drive to get around anyways. why drive when you can fly?