when i was in school, we read an essay written by a woman detailing the series of destructive spirals that resulted from grief over her mother's passing. many of the things she said did not sit right with me, but by far the most disquieting moment was when she posited this: if given the choice to select five people in our lives to rescue in a lifeboat, each of us, though we might pretend otherwise, would choose quickly and easily.
i don't think this is true at all, and it is, of course, a meaningless thought exercise. a life-or-death scenario in which we are given that kind of control is entirely out of the question, and asking others to engage with such an idea is a cruel endeavor.
that has not, however—and i am deeply ashamed of this—stopped me from longing, desperately and irrationally in the years since, to ask my friends to do just that.
you see, it's not the callousness of her proposal that struck me, nor the fact that it isn't true. what was most disquieting to me was the deeply felt sense it gave me that i was not going to be put in someone else's lifeboat—or at the very least, no one was ever going to put me in their lifeboat first.
it's a profoundly cruel and irrational thought to have, and i'm not proud if it, this urge to make my loved ones promise me they'd choose me, that they wouldn't happily and easily leave me to die, a promise i wouldn't believe anyway. i have enough control over my own tongue not to ask, but still the thought nags, from time to time.
one of the many pitfalls of amatonormativity is this: due to the way society prioritizes romance and monogamous romantic partnerships above all else, it is very easy for your friends and loved ones to set you adrift, to jettison you as dead weight—and oftentimes, they will be seen as justified for doing so.
but my dear friends, i can't swim. and when i think about that boat, pulling away from me through the dark and swirling sea, i think of the waves. i imagine myself slipping under the surface, calling out to that distant boat as it drifts further and further away, and no one hears me. thank god, they'll say. that was easy.
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I'll unspool the threads of my heart
to stitch up your hems.
They keep dragging through the mud
and snagging on sticks and stones
and getting torn.
The repair never lasts.
I don't mind, give it here.
I have plenty of heart,
I have plenty of thread,
I won't even ask you
to mind your hems.
I'll do it again.
Never mind that the scarlet
doesn't match. Never mind what happens
when I run out of thread.
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i understand all the older og fans who are annoyed that a lot has been revealed about sephiroth's past. i really do. a mysterious villain, if done well, is super effective, and in the og the hints at a somewhat normal but slightly traumatic past is what made sephiroth very compelling.
and yes, ever crisis may very well be fanservice. but who fucking cares.
but a lot of the claims from angry fans that sephiroth's backstory is unrealistic or it ruins his character is so unfounded imo :/
a traumatic past does not take away from a compelling, mysterious villain. a backstory that lays out the situations that influenced a villain to become 'the bad guy' does not make him less of a villain, nor does it ruin his character. many mainline final fantasy games have shown the backstory of their villains — kuja got one, kefka got one, so why not sephiroth? why not expand on things that we already technically know from existing canon lore?
i don't think this is an attempt to make sephiroth a stereotypical, trope-y 'tragic villain'. i don't think it's an attempt to distract us from the atrocities he's committed. i think it's more to see the human in the monster, and to symbolise just how pervasive and destructive shinra is.
if you've watched the boys, you will see many similarities (and of course differences) between sephiroth and homelander, and shinra and vaught. both sephiroth and homelander were pawns of shinra/vaught from the beginning, literally created to be weapons and objects for their organisations. both are manufactured, sort of humans. both were lied to about their origins, both were 'lab rat kids', both had childhoods devoid of what all childhoods should be. manufactured monsters. they are both results of their environment.
and yet, they both are irredeemable in the end, regardless of the fact they were forced on a path they had no say in. AND fans of the boys weren't fucking foaming at the mouth because homelander got a backstory. none of us thought it ruined his character. we all still see him as a man too far gone. why are ff7 fans like this.
i'm not too sure if square will change things up in rebirth and the final game, maybeeee they'll give sephiroth a redemption arc, i'm not sure, but fans are speculating. i don't think they will. but either way, based on the current canon timeline, he isn't redeemable. he's turned into a monster, and he now has the complete opposite of a normal life which is what he wanted as a child.
i also feel like he encapsulates the sort of madness and entitled viewpoint that only a human being, and male villain could possess. and this isn't to take away from his character and it isn't a diss. it isn't a diss at men either. but i think it's extremely realistic. if we think of current society, how men are socialised, they are socialised to believe they have an inherent uniqueness, something special — an inflated ego. and tbh, i think if we look deeper, i think in a lot of western, individualistic societies, this also transfers to everyone, not just men. sephiroth admitted he always thought he was special ("i knew, ever since i was a child, i was not like the others. i knew mine was a special existence. but this… this was not what i meant") and different from the rest. i think this dialogue, while heartbreaking, really does show an insight into his inflated ego. and i personally believe that his ego, his entitlement, was borne of utter loneliness and isolation. what else could give him comfort, other than believing in this idea that he was of a special existence?
while sephiroth turned into a monster, i feel like he is so incredibly reflective of the human condition (or, at least, a facet of the human condition), which to me, is what makes him such a compelling yet tragic character/villain.
who and what else, but a human being, a man, to think the world owes them something, to think they are entitled to justice in the form of suffering and destruction? to think that everyone is deserving of pain all because he was objected to it? to think they can take and take and take some more? to act in a rage so strong that it is no longer blind, but calculating, intentional, thoughtful and nearly prophetic?
who and what else on this earth could be so utterly consumed by emotion to the point of complete destruction? THAT is a facet of humanity, or maybe it's a facet of a lack of it; of the human condition. sephiroth, the monster, the manufactured monster, the one who was of a special existence, the one who is not like the rest...ends up acting in a way that only a human being would be able to. the irony. he doesn't even see it!
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