Mother’s day.

June 17, 1990. Angeal and Genesis took him to get a snow cone.

Give me Genesis acting kinda like an ass because his mastery of materia/magic/the arts is the only way people respect him. And Cloud is either a nobody that drops banger mechanical/engineering/tech work or is barely respected outside his field of expertise. I don’t care how they first interact with each other but they eventually make a super wholesome ship and take no shit from anyone. Be it one shot, slow burn, standard pacing, or whatever. I see Genesis as being super forward and flirty but secretly self conscious and Cloud just doesn’t care about the opinions of others. Let Sephiroth for once kinda be a decent (autistic aroace) bestie that is in an actually aroace respecting relationship with Zack and/or Angeal. I love BAMF Cloud, make them both BAMFs.

✨Mulan AU✨ with the crisis core crew

Gen small town “girl” with famous rich parents

Has bestie Angeal but otherwise hates his life

Fails utterly with matchmaker. Will not shut up about Loveless thinking it will improve his chances, accidentally burns house down (or maybe not by accident)

Reflection moment

Meanwhile Shinra pushing harder into wutai territory, calls for conscription come to Banora

Angeal is going, gen feels desperately left out

Begs to go instead of his father, yelled at and shamed in front of village

Constantly being told he’s a dishonor by everyone as a child has given him massive inferiority complex, doesn’t help that angeal is so into honor (not that he says that to gen tho)

Sneaks off in the middle of the night for war, def doesn’t tell angeal

Ancestors send zack the puppy after him, cloud the lucky chocobo is the horse and cricket combined?

Angeal sniffs him out pretty quick after he joins the camp, chews him out in lecture about honor

Gen very upset with him about that, uh oh they’re beefing

Angeal still doesn’t rat him out and keeps an eye out for him even if they’re not talking tho

Hojo comes to tell his “son” sephiroth that he’d better not disappoint him with the trust they’re putting in him to let him lead this group of soldiers after the last glencident (rhadore o7)

Rufus left in charge to supervise sephiroth (or maybe a turk? Just think the animosity between those two fits the shang and scribe dynamic)

Training montage. Gen has gender crisis realizing this is him actually, while also having crisis over his new massive crush on sephiroth

After training montage angeal apologizes and they are besties again until angeal laughs at him for his crush on seph and genesis is now in a huff

Zack and cloud overhear seph and rufus fighting about the quality of the troops

Gen tries to reassure seph as he storms away from rufus

Zack and cloud forge orders to the front to give to rufus

Girl worth fighting for is seph having a sexuality crisis over genesis, maybe also angeal

Seph’s thoughts: oh god is that somehting i was supposed to want??? Its never happened before,,,,, and now that maybe it is it’s not with a girl? Shit

Angeal can also have a crisis over oh shit gen I’ve loved you since forever and I thought I was gonna get to marry you but you’re not a girl ig so wtf do I do now

They come across a burned village in wutai that shinra’s armies have already swept through

Seph starts questioning his allegiance to shinra

Instead of finding hojo dead bc we’re not that lucky maybe he finds glen dead having joined the resistance against shinra. Maybe rufus shot him right before he could get to him

Ambush by angry vengeful wutaians, gen saves the day with strategic forest fire to give them a chance to escape without doing too much slaughtering but gets injured in the process

I would put avalanche here as a funny reference but idk how id fit them in

Uh oh gen is not amab

Transphobic rufus, seph is just even more confused in his identity crisis now and also has spent his entire life being conditioned against this sort of thing hes not really that upset

Angeal left behind with genesis bc he knew and didn’t turn him in

Rest of the army takes the fort they were supposed to take and goes back towards midgar

Gen is big sad, angeal gives rousing acceptance speech

Gen, inspired, decided that Genesis Rhapsodos does what Genesis Rhapsodos wants and goes after them to give them a piece of his mind and inform them that gender norms are bullshit and what stops him from being a man really they all seemed pretty convinced before

Gen and ange run to catch up to the army having a victory parade in junon

On the way back they run into a group of wutaian ninjas sneaking up on the city

Seph, who has just been chewed out by hojo and is having a bit of a panic attack internally, doesn’t listen to gen

Big showy ceremonial thing with sephiroth and pres shinra, wutaians show up to crash the party and kidnap shinra, seph still reeling from hojo and genesis and everything is off his game a little and isn’t able to stop them

Gen and angeal show up while seph is about to go after them, comes up with plan to crossdress to get inside

Perhaps seph has an oh shit gender moment of his own here

The others deal with the guards while seph goes on ahead after the president

He busts open the doors to the throne room where he finds shinra just chilling with the wutaians??? Turns out he hired paid actors (mercenaries) to attack the parade to fuel propaganda against wutai

Since wutai is known to use monsters to combat soldier he has no qualms about getting hojo to set a giant monster on ags bc they’ve seen too much

One cathartic hojo murder and climactic rooftop battle later and shinra’s evil plans get revealed to the public

Maybe kunsel leaks the receipts or something or shinra monologues evilly for a hidden camera held by zack or both

Shinra definitely at least gets deposed if not outright assassinated

Rufus tries to step up as emperor but the crowd is not having it. They are chanting for the great hero sephiroth instead

Sephiroth deflects the praise onto Genesis who actually wants it and preens under the attention, angeal is just proud of his besties

When gen and angeal return home gen finally gets to fulfill his dream of sharing an apple with sephiroth yayy

YAY AN ASK hello and thank you! These were very fun! Restricting myself to ff7 for these bc that’s all my brain thinks about these days

Z - Just ramble about something fan-related, go go go!

Ah ah uh let’s see hello do you have a moment to talk about our lord and savior aroace Sephiroth

The appeal? It makes the angst hit even worse and then I can project wildly on him. It would make the Am I a Monster dilemma even worse for him and even more heartbreaking for us. And then there’s that sweet sweet unrequited sephgen angst where he feels guilty about not being able to return Genesis’ affections. And then if you want a happy fix-it ending (I do) there’s the chance to have them both character develop and have a wonderful even more complex and beautiful friendship grow out of it. And it’s not like he can’t ever feel that way so other ships not necessarily cut off by this

The evidence? Trust me bro (gender neutral)

A - Ships that you currently like a lot.

Oo hm well romantically I do love AGS and all variations of that! Although I do personally hc Sephiroth as aroace so even that is more qpr-y to me lol. For most romantic ships I don’t really have strong opinions, I just am along for the ride

Now platonically. Lot more opinions there. Love the chaotic energy of AGSZC fics where they’re a chaotic found family destroying Lazard’s remaining sanity. And need I even mention Zack and Cloud (both romantically and platonically, they’re great)? Everyone loves them and I am no exception. I also adore the idea of Sephiroth and Aerith being lab siblings—I need more of those fics in my life. Also the friendship spawned from the hc that Genesis and Aerith are half-siblings. They would cause so much chaos together if ever allowed to meet. Never allow them to go on a fun night out unless you want several counts of arson and armed robbery and Sephiroth and Cloud tied to chairs in an abandoned warehouse in full drag. Also god I wish Angeal and Tifa had interacted in canon any time ever because they would love each other. And finally I love Yuffie and Cloud’s chaotic sibling relationship where Yuffie is constantly annoying him and picking all his pockets

C - A ship you have never liked and probably never will.

Switching back to romantically for this one. Angeal/Zack has just never appealed to me really, I think the mentor/student part just throws me off of it. I can tolerate it in AGSZC fics, probably because it’s not the main focus, but idk. I do adore their relationship platonically though. The Angeal I love you man scene means so much to me

K - What character has your favorite development arc/the best development arc?