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mitsuhachi (mitsuhachi) wrote,
@ 2007-12-28 11:20:00

Entry tags:

fandom: final fantasy 7, thinky

Writing Question
Cloud vs. Sephiroth AC fight

I was re-watching some scenes from various FF7 things this morning, and something really stood out to me: nearly everyone I've talked to who's tried to write Sephiroth has noted how particularly difficult he is to get in bed, even the ones who normally have no great trouble with explicit stories. He's often written as nearly-asexual. But if you watch the canon, a lot of his lines and delivery are... if not outright sexual (and the "get on your knees; I want to hear you beg for forgiveness" line can definitely be argued) then at least deeply sensual. So I'm wondering where the disconnect comes from?

I don't really write much, myself, and I've never tried to write Sephiroth in any case. So I'm putting out a general query to those on my f-list who do write/have written him: How do you view sephiroth's sexuality and how does that play into the way you write his character, either in outright smut or in tamer pieces?

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chichirinoda
2007-12-29 01:24 am UTC (link)

*tilts head* With Sephiroth, there are two completely different characters - one pre-Nibelheim, and one post-, for obvious reasons.

My pre Sephiroth does tend towards the asexual. That's because I see him as a) growing up very socially isolated, basically being raised by Hojo. and b) then being thrust into a situation where he has to act as a leader. He doesn't have peers he can 'screw around with', so to speak. No friends, no one to introduce him to the joys of social and physical contact. I don't believe that he lacks emotion and desire - far from it - but he's controlled enough and naive enough in that area that it takes some doing to get him to relax enough to pursue such things.

Post Sephiroth is a whole different ball of wax. He's capable of using everything he's ever witnessed, or anything he's had happen to him, against his enemies. Instead of being locked away from his emotions, he is completely consumed by them and controlled by them. Even if he wasn't in the habit of having sex in his previous life, he still knows ABOUT sex. However, I think that his seeming sensuality has more to do with the pure emotion that he's consumed by, and not because he is actually consciously seeking sex at that time. I agree that he's sensual, but it's the sensuality of power, and I don't think he's actually inclined towards physical sensuality any more than he was before. Of course, he is capable of using rape to break a person, because it's an effective tool for the purpose.

Er, hope that made some sense. And that's just my view of him, anyway. I think he's capable of physical intimacy (especially pre), but that it takes someone like Zack who might have more experience, to get him to let go.

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mitsuhachi
2007-12-29 01:51 am UTC (link)

No, this was exactly the kind of thinky-thing I was hoping people would post. <3

I think you've got a really good point about some of the sensuality from later being tied into the crazy. A lot of it does certainly seem to be tied into violence and control issues.

Also, have you had a chance to look at crisis core bits yet? I may go look some cut-scenes up, now that you've brought it to my attention; I'd love to look at his dialogue pre-crazy now.

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chichirinoda
2007-12-29 02:01 am UTC (link)

I've seen exactly one Crisis Core bit that involved Sephiroth - a battle with two other SOLDIER types, and it was in Japanese so I don't know exactly what they were saying.

I've been kinda avoiding them since then because subtitled ones came out and I know the game is coming soon and I don't want to get too spoiled. I'm really looking forward to seeing more pre-Nibelheim Seph in the game, though. I'm well aware that everything I have on him from then is pretty much conjecture and extrapolation :(

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	mitsuhachi 2007-12-29 02:08 am UTC (link)
	I didn't mean that as a slur on your characterization. D: I'm personally not as familiar with the canon on his pre-crazy days as I could be, so that's all I meant by that. And anyway, a lot of characterization is conjecture and extrapolation anyway. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	chichirinoda 2007-12-29 06:36 am UTC (link)
	Oh! I didn't take it as a slur at all ^_^ Sorry if my response sounded like I did. I was just answering your question and adding that I personally don't have a lot of faith in the accuracy of my characterization, since I know it's based mostly on fluff and air. I expect that when I play through CC, my characterization will change, or at least tighten up a bit. XDDDD (Reply to this) (Parent)

laylah
2007-12-29 01:34 am UTC (link)

Interesting question!

I think part of the issue is the difference between original game!Sephiroth and AC!Sephiroth; it feels to me like a lot of the characterizations changed in AC. They're not totally unrecognizable, but it feels like a lot of them had their fandom-button-mashing traits pumped up for their big-screen appearance.

To me at least, in the game Sephiroth felt really...focused, in a way that didn't leave room for any kind of human connection, sexual or otherwise. First he was the warrior he'd been bred to be, and then he became the bitter angry killing machine that created the plot. He never seemed to be human enough to want other humans.

But you're right -- that's not a characterization that AC encourages. And that...might be something I have to think about more. :3

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mitsuhachi
2007-12-29 01:59 am UTC (link)

I wouldn't have even started wondering, except that it's a characterization that's pretty consistent through a number of authors who I respect a lot.

Randomly? I realize that kh is kind of ridiculously AU, but, in that continuity, you remember how it's cloud's attachment to him that keeps Sephiroth coming back again and again? And also I think I'd heard some theorizing that the shirtless!seph you fight at the end was also in Cloud's head? It would be interesting if the differences in characterization were deliberate, and AC!seph isn't real!seph at all, but something out of cloud's head.

Um. Or I might be babbling. >.> <.

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chichirinoda
2007-12-29 02:03 am UTC (link)

KH2 Seph said that he was just like a manifestation of the darkness in Cloud's heart, or some jazz like that >.< I don't think he was exactly in Cloud's head, but I think he's pretty much 100% according to Cloud's expectations, and not really how he really would be.

Cloud has pretty massive emotional issues in KH, too, so I doubt one can trust his perceptions of Sephiroth to be entirely fair, realistic and unbiased. XD

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	mitsuhachi 2007-12-29 02:12 am UTC (link)
	I'm not sure I entirely buy that the... second incarnation? or whichever it was, from the last battle with seph in FF7, where he had no shirt, was supposed to be in cloud's head either, but I had heard it argued, anyway. But yeah, in kingdom hearts, cloud and seph did seem to be way more bound to each other than in other games/movies they show up in. (Reply to this) (Parent)

laylah
2007-12-29 02:10 am UTC (link)

I think that would be a really neat possibility, honestly. Certainly Cloud has always been fascinated with Sephiroth, from the point when he was still too young to run away from home. Sephiroth-in-his-head is probably a more idealized construct than anything that could exist in real life. I do believe the final battle in the game is the attempt to exorcise Sephiroth from Cloud's psyche after he's already killed in the world.

...This is probably a lot of what made so many old-school fans upset with AC; the fact that Cloud won that battle and yet still has to return to that headspace and deal with Sephiroth over again.

I don't even really know what to *do* with the KH incarnations of everyone from FF; their stories are so fucked up that it seems hard to reconcile them with their first selves.

But, uh, I have very little confidence in Nomura's plot/character abilities, so. Take my crankiness with a grain of salt. >_>;

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mitsuhachi
2007-12-29 02:18 am UTC (link)

Not a problem. I do hear what you're saying. Though, for all their faults, I think he has to have been doing something right, for the characters to have such mass and long-standing appeal.

I think that AC is good for what it is; it's beautiful, fun, and ultimately really self-indulgent, but it doesn't contribute a lot to the time-line of the game. I'm an easy sell for ~~the pretties~~ ~~Sephiroth asking Cloud to give him the pleasure~~ the pretties though, so I might not be the most discerning fan.

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skeren
2007-12-29 08:30 am UTC (link)

Oh Oh Oh Mememe! I have a range. Some of my Sephiroth muses are just.. they know about it, but they don't connect sex with pleasure. They connect sex with having children. Yes, I know, that's kinda blinkworthy, but it would make it that much easier for him to act sensual without realizing that's what it is ::has watched the CC bits:: So he looks, in one of them he blantantly looks at Zack's backside I tell you. And though not all my Seph's have any connection to that game or inferences whatsoever, it has sorta firmed up a few interpretations.

Okay, less tangled. One muse of mine is, put simply, a cat, and no I don't mean the one that dresses as one. I' talking the one from 50 RPs. He's a cat. He was raised in a lab, he can -be- sensual, he just doesn't bother, ~~has never even kissed someone either~~, and he keeps his thoughts to himself. Another Seph of mine is, put frankly, a whore. He's discreet, but he doesn't see sex as anything but what he was told it could be. A release of tension, and he flagrantly disregards hurt feelings as superfluoous because sex has nothing to do with emotional connections in his head, this muse later roams sideways because he's the one that ends up my most cuddly Seph, as he has the threesome of AC as his natural spawn, but that takes -years- and Zack to happen. Yet another Seph muse (I wouldn't ask me to count, it would be scary) this one is dubbed Angel in my head, got wings early, but he also seemed to be one of those precocious children and got encouraged, so he doesn't understand why someone wouldn't want sexual favors half the time. ::vague gesturing: It depends, honestly, where you come from with the muse. Some start there, others develop sexuality over the course of the stories. More than one of mine is experienced, though they tend to keep their experiences to themselves out of basic concerns of media and at times Hojo, depending where they are. Others, it's even favoritism rumors they're trying to avoid, as per the topic many touch on for Zack/Cloud fics.

Ultimately, a lot of it seems to be a case of 'how was he influenced by the people he knew?' Sometimes, Hojo sheltered him. Others, he told him about sex in the most uninteresting way that was humanly possible. Then there are those fics where Seph avoids sex subconsciously because he doesn't want to be hurt by it, though he never understood he was.

Post Nibelheim is always a bit different. The sex appeal is not always so much suddenly emergent as changed. He has a focus, he uses it. One of my Sephs (no not one previously listed x.x) I call Gift, and he's one that's highly focused on Rufus. He's also brutal, and he sees the things he does with Cloud as playing. He doesn't thing about physcal pleasure, just the sensation of fun, enjoying the moment and trying to foster more for himself.

As one of the others mentioned, sometimes he just doesn't see people as anything -to- play with. Ironically, I don't think I have any like that. One of the others that are post game, in a world where he killed Cloud and didn't call down Meteor in the end, because he wanted to thwart mommy, is a grabby, possessive bastard. He gets a Cloud fro another world (can you not see my RP influences all over half these muses?) and immediately sets to getting as much out of her (the Cloud was a boy once, and wasn't pleased to be a she) and it was less sex than domination and possession, fun for the sake of enjoying that sense.

Do you want me to keep going or have I just gotten confusing by now?

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	mitsuhachi 2008-01-01 11:18 pm UTC (link)
	Um. No, this is really interesting. I don't usually get to hear about RP things; it sounds like a lot of the time they go further from canon than you could get away with in normal fic, which is interesting. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

skeren
2008-01-03 12:09 pm UTC (link)

Though all of these have a base in some story or another. Angel excluded (his roots actually came forth from a few pieces of fanart) they all have stories. DS, the one with the kids, has a whole universe. Things were twisted and we forgot major plot details because I hadn't played the game at that point, but there's a, I dunno, Sephness? There's some quality that makes me draw a line and go 'this is something Sephiroth would do' and 'this is something I can think of no good reason for Sephiroth to do.' Ultimately, to me, it seems as though the reason they all cycle off tot he side, is because all the little choices are made a bit differently, and it's a case of a butterfly in asia and a Tsunami in the ocean. Radical differences. The thing with it though, is that there has to be a progression, or you just end up with something that feels wrong, sensual, skilled in bed, ignorant, cold, no matter what take someone has on him. If it's not explained, and it crosses sideways to expectations, then usually someone did something wrong. At least, that's how it tends to feel. In RP that tends to come up more because it's an immediate writing process of a sort. You have to figure it out right this instant, and in many ways, it helps you, or rather, forces you, to better know your character, because you have to keep lines between what he would do, and what you would do. See?

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