squid you ignorant slut.

OTP Like You Wouldn’t Believe

Why are you like this?

I don’t know. Tragic backstory, youth spent as a Sephiroth fucker, the fact that when you like something for long enough you just wind up incepted 8 layers deep in your own recursive bullshit. I will never change. I will never improve.

What do you like about it?

well they’ve got the stabbing bit from utena/anthy down pat so it would be good to add some hand-holding into the mix, amirite???

Anyway, Sephiroth and Aeris are my super duper favourites. They’re narrative foils and fated enemies, bearers of the black and white materia, the culmination of a 2000 year old conflict between Jenova and the Cetra, the unnatural consequence of Shinra’s willingness to corrupt any and all nature and the only person able to produce living, growing greenery in the slums of Midgar. They come from similar circumstances, they are both half-human/half-other, they navigate that identity in opposite directions and they doom one another. Oh boy, do they doom one another.

Finally, crucially, they both come to pretty tragic endings (in Sephiroth’s case, the “this guy is incapable of making good choices” kind of tragedy) with a whiff of inevitability about them. These two are dominoes in the rube goldberg machine of fate, set against each other from the start, culminating in a conflict of apocalyptic proportions. The question of “Could Sephiroth ever have been anything better?” is directly connected to the question of “Could Aeris have survived?” And not even just because he murders her, but also because he murders her specifically because she takes it upon herself to “deal with” him (and good for her - kick his ass baby) - because nobody else can do it. Because her hand was forced in a lot of ways.

And then getting into their personalities - Aeris is outgoing and stubborn and refuses to give any ground on the things she believes but cagey and mistrustful and allergic to being actually emotionally honest with people, telling them the truth about how she feels. Sephiroth will not stop telling you how he feels, all the time, usually in a way that suggests he is either deep in denial about it or just totally lacking in any kind of meaningful perception. It makes for an interesting potential combination of strengths/weaknesses. They’re also both lonely people, both explicitly harmed by Shinra and by a lack of community, kinship, people who are like them. 

So what you’ve got is a pair of people who are uniquely positioned to understand and potentially support each other who are, through a combination of their differences, their traumas, the things that make them who they are AND the choices that they’ve made about who they want to be, stuck enacting cycles of violence that extend out literally millenia before they were ever born, that remained manifest even between their fathers. It makes me. Actually insane. I can’t handle it.

Friends, enemies, lovers, I am truly fine with all of the above, but they need to hold hands.

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

I: Do you have a guilty pleasure in fic (reading or writing)?

probably a few but like, mind control/influence instantly comes to mind so no wonder ff7 was the first fandom I participated in and I’m simultaneously fascinated and infuriated that Persona 5 brought up the possibility of people finding their minds becoming distorted by Palaces and then never actually did it.  Though I can actually trace this back even earlier to like, the whole evil green ranger saga in the original power rangers.  yes.  But yeah it’s definitely factored into writing a fics a few time.  (And I guess I’m also guilty of loving hurt/comfort, lol).

R: Are there any writers (fanfic or otherwise) you consider an influence?

This question is a bit odd for me because there are writers I’ve meant to take as an influence but.  Felt I never actually worked hard enough to incorporate into my writing style?  The Strangeness of Beauty by Lydia Y. Minatoya is a good example of this because when I first read the book I really enjoyed the way it could meander, and I think I did try to write a few pieces specifically in the kind of meandering garden-path way.  But that was quite a few years ago and if you look at anything I’ve done since, I...don’t do that at all.  I’m sure I’ve been subconsciously influenced by writers and yet I don’t feel like my writing style has really changed stylistically as opposed to simply getting better at some things (and probably worse at others lol).  So like.  ...idk k.a. applegate for the writer I read from the most in early childhood \o_O/

While FF7 was the first fandom I ever wrote fic for, and the one I actually debated in for a while (TEENAGE ME WAS A MASOCHIST, I GUESS), Shadow Hearts was actually the first fandom I was really involved in as a writer, and I do think that owes a great deal to a sweet older author who gave me lovely reviews and chatted with me a bunch.  So.  MikoNoNyte probably is the biggest influence as a motivator.

T: Any fandom tropes you can't stand?

in ff7 there are a number of love triangle tropes that will make me break out in hives lol just.  Let Aerith and Tifa be friends with each other.  Because they are!!  Stop assuming the second Cloud does something nice or has a two-second disagreement with one of them that he’s “favoring” someone!  it’s just....hngh

sentinel all the way. snipe everything. never come within 500 feet of a single enemy throughout the entire course of the game. they cannot kill what they cannot see.

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