#orroi

                                            Questions for the Mun                                         ACCEPTING || NOT ACCEPTING

☂ How does your muse spend a rainy day? How do you spend a rainy day?

meme: character solidifying! 

4. What type of discipline was your character subjected to at home? Strict? Lenient?

ooc: It should be noted that a number of people within the fandom interpret Genesis’ childhood differently from the next. While I come across many who seem to believe that Genesis was abused as a child, I see something different based on my own observations of his character, theories and findings from the Ultimatum which unveils a bit more about his parents. Of course, I don’t think anyone can be wrong with this. There is still very little information on Genesis’ family life as a whole so it is all down to interpretation. 

    I think this answer would benefit more if I explain the ‘nitty-gritty’ about his beginnings by referring back to a previous answer and elaborating on key points.

    I remember speaking to a few people about Genesis’ childhood and how I like to believe that it was the best time of his life. With his parents aside for the moment, his attachment to his childhood is visibly clear throughout the entirety of Crisis Core, containing a number of his dreams and wishes that he wanted to fulfill in adulthood that were not diluted by the process of “growing up”. When I find myself poking my nose around Gillian’s house in the game, I always smile when I come across the photograph that is quite obviously Angeal, Genesis and Gillian herself. I don’t think Genesis ever truly grew up, for his childishness (both the negative and “positive” aspects of being childish) is one of the key aspects of his character. A child’s natural confidence and recklessness is reshaped by what they experience (whether early or later), or to when they become aware of the world and the expectations society brings upon the young. Genesis, as an adult, is one of the unfettered and is still mostly unaffected by what society expects of him and commits himself entirely to something without limit, inhibition or fear; becoming more and more intense the moment he betrays ShinRa. His childhood, as he is dying and losing himself to the madness that the degradation brings upon him, and based on the analysis of his dialogue and actions, becomes a chapter in his life which he latches onto, as if it was his last hope, or last love, containing all the things he adores — LOVELESS, Banora Whites, Angeal, his admiration for Sephiroth — to which he refers to even once it is all over.

  Genesis was considered a “child prodigy” and when you discover his little hiding place in the Banora Underground which he used as a child, you happen upon a number of trophies and plaques which refer to achievement, learning that Genesis won an agricultural award for his creation of Banora Apple Juice (Yes, Genesis invented Apple Juice on Gaia), which paints this image of a little boy actively involved in the development of his father’s orchard— whom was the major of Banora at the time.

  My headcanon has his parents named Gershon and Evelyn, both of them (like most or if not all the residents of Banora) having been related to ShinRa in some way that Genesis at the time had no idea of. To those who may be unfamiliar with the conditions of Genesis’ “adoption”, Genesis was handed over to Banora’s landlord after the G Project was shut down after Hollander was no longer receiving funds to continue it. It is implied that Genesis was born in the lab/prison facility beneath Banora (which can be explored at the end of the game), and since ShinRa made a habit out of covering corporate company secrets by having them hidden by picturesque little villages— like those of the Potemkim that embellished the banks of the grungy Dnieper River to fool folk into believing that everything is fine and dandy— who will EVER question the purity of this island? I headcanon Gershon as being the parent which took the longest to bond with Genesis, often withdrawing himself from social, “parental“ activities with his son because he was constantly reminded of the debt he owes to ShinRa, and his more serious grasp on the role of hiding one of ShinRa’s big secrets from the world. He was stern, but was mostly afraid of his son-- and ShinRa.

     Evelyn however, the mother whom inspired Genesis’ love for books, poetry and magic, of whom Genesis was fervently attached to throughout his childhood, bonded with Genesis far more quickly. She once bore an air of professionalism with Gershon, but as she was unable to have a child of her own, over the years she grew attached to Genesis and spoiled him rotten. She luxuriated in the view of his talents. Heralded him as a genius that could do no wrong in the world, blurring the lines between light and darkness, wrong and right, ‘He can only do the right thing’, which only fed a child’s ego, an apathy that was already there--

    It is never my fault. I am always right!

    Genesis became untouchable under the constant praise of his mother. Severely warped by the empathic bond with her. The well-mannered, charismatic and compassionate ‘good-boy’ of the village that his mother consistently flogged before those whom were rather taken aback by her own obsessive and smothering behavior. He was ‘flawless’. The most ‘intelligent’, the ‘strongest’, the most ‘beautiful’-- few of the laudatory felicitations that his mother would spew as she fed a monster in the midst. 

    He left that island aiming to be the best. He left that island, “I will surpass even Sephiroth”, with cruel calamities ready to be liberated. He had no idea he was a monster. His dip into madness a slow, subdued and disturbing one-- sickness rotting his mind, softening his bones; he becomes a calm beast. A soft-spoken and poetical demon that his mother, even as she stared upon him, trembling and ready to die, could still forgive.

8. How does your character feel about religion?

     Gaia is a planet which is ripe with creatures and forces that could be considered GODS, or something worth reverance. To those unfamiliar to the processes that take effect beneath the earth, one could look upon Genesis and dub him a divine of sorts. He is obsessed with the epic poem LOVELESS. A love that fueled his want to research the seemingly ‘holy’ happenings of the Planet to infer a more deeper, more rapturous love for the GODDESS that lingered between the lines. 

     It is difficult to really determine if belief in the Lifestream is considered “religious” on Gaia. Most, if not all, the characters take its existence as fact-- all its narratives and symbols already well established into everyday GAIAN life. However, Genesis himself is a lot more vocal about his passions. His creativity overriding those who try to make sense of something that, from birth, would only have ever been told as “the final resting place” for those who “return to the Planet.” He visualizes the “Lifestream” in the form of a female idol whom is named “Minerva” -- though not directly in the LOVELESS text -- but I always wondered if his meeting of her was just a figment of his imagination, or the Lifestream itself taking upon a form that he is “familiar with” to communicate with Genesis more strongly. In the Ultimatum, it states that Minerva herself is just a representation of the Lifestream and is not truly a “Goddess”, but moreso of a “Summon” above the likes of Bahamut, Leviathan, Phoenix, etc. Nevertheless, he worships her, and diffuses all that reverence into all his recitations-- willingly blinded by his fervent desire to achieve the GIFT, to sacrifice all that he is to rid himself of the taint that his origins forced upon him.