I suppose it would be strange to hide anything from you, though I wonder if they will still be personal enough to make me uncomfortable. Sometimes personal comfort and logic don't have a proper correlation to each other.
Still, there aren't many truths I would deny you, and no questions at all which I would actually stop you asking.
I often find it easier to articulate when I write. Primarily because it gives him plenty of time to think of what to say. But if these are personal questions...it may also help to be able to hide his reactions if his younger self can't see him. So this may be best. If I change my mind, we can always change to talking in person.
As you wish. How long precisely have you been having intercourse with multiple partners? Did your decision to mate begin with an individual and allowed for another later, or did you choose two immediately?
There is a considerable pause before Sephiroth responds.
Something Genesis informed me of, at length, once we became romantically involved is that it is both mildly insulting and highly awkward to refer to things regarding sex and relationships in terms one might use in a science textbook. Or for animals. For some reason, informal language is considered more appropriate - I believe due to the fact that sex and romance between individuals is inherently intimate, and using clinical language in regards to them therefore feels inherently incorrect.
Please do not refer to it as 'mating' in the future. Or 'intercourse'. You will end up getting a lecture about it if Genesis hears you, and it will likely be the most uncomfortable conversation you have ever had. Simply saying 'have sex with' is both accurate and appropriate enough.
While all of this is entirely true - and in fact Sephiroth has adjusted enough over the past two years or so that hearing his younger self talk this way does sound odd even to him - there's no denying that part of this was simply him stalling for time as he...gingerly lowered himself into the hot water of this conversation. Having done what he can to make it slightly more comfortable going forward...he supposes he has to answer.
It was shortly after I arrived in the simulation I was in, prior to being here. Very shortly upon reuniting with Genesis, who I'd been separated from in our own world for some time due to circumstance. He chooses not to go into detail about this, and doubts his younger self will bat an eye at it. After all, SOLDIERs are sent out on different deployments all the time. Being in SOLDIER together had never guaranteed that they would all be together all the time. He and Angeal had both had feelings for me, and in our separation he had feared they had missed their chance to tell me how they felt, so upon our reunion, he shared his feelings with me. And Angeal's, in turn.
It was just Genesis, at first. However, that was because Angeal showed up in the simulation much later on. Had Angeal been there with Genesis at the same time, it's likely I would have entered a relationship with both of them within the same timeframe.
For the record, I was in the simulation for roughly two years. He knows his younger self will want this frame of reference.
[Some is indeed glossed right over. If they were assigned different cities, with considerable distances between them, of course there could be long separation. Years, even, though that seemed less likely.]
While I have no intention of discussing your mating habits romantic conquests with Genesis or wooing him, and thus his opinion on phrasing is irrelevant to me, I will endeavor to remember as it is not irrelevant to you.
Would you still have indulged in their "feelings" with them if the setting of their confessions had differed? Midgar or Junon as opposed to a simulation? If the simulation could alter a body, could it also alter an emotion?
How much of that two years was required to make having their hands on you less uncomfortable?
Genesis has no doubt talked to you at length about Loveless already, has he not? Genesis considers his opinion on all things relevant to everyone, all the time. I strongly suggest you don't tempt fate as to whether or not he considers your phrasing relevant.
And I am not simply indulging in their feelings. I share them, and to an extent always have. Until the conversation with Genesis, I had not...considered the romantic angle, I suppose. And certainly I had not considered the sexual. But I loved them, completely. They represented nearly all that had ever been good in my life. Once the idea of other ways to love them was suggested to me, despite it not having occurred to me before, it seemed like the most natural thing in the world. As though the idea had always been there, and I had simply lacked the imagination - or perhaps the necessary frames of reference - to conceive of it on my own. There was no hesitation or doubt involved.
Locale and timing would have changed very little. The feelings had been there prior to the simulation.
As for becoming comfortable with touch, that happened years prior to any romantic entanglements. Casual touch was something they subjected me to from quite early on in our friendship, whether I wanted it or not, and I'm grateful they insisted on it. It was something I was unaccustomed to, struggled to trust, and had been told I didn't need, but...I both needed and wanted it, beneath all those difficulties. Even when I was actively uncomfortable, a part of me enjoyed it. And once the discomfort of the unfamiliar passed, I could enjoy it fully.
But there were years of having arms draped over my shoulders, being curled up with them on Angeal's couch watching movies, and other such friendly contact long before there was anything romantic between us. If you fear you're going to be thrown in at the deep end whenever we go back to our own worlds and times, you don't have to.
Likewise. if your experiences do mirror mine, then you don't need to worry about feeling whatever distaste or uncertainty you feel now when you reach the point of forming such a relationship with them. When that time comes, it will feel as though you had been waiting for it to happen for years.
As yet he has not chosen to discuss sexual matters with someone half his age and I have no reason to think that's likely to change. Fate will not be tempted so long as you don't prod him to do so.
What does love feel like to you?
It is a goal that my experiences will NOT mirror yours in any way shape or form, is it not? Returning to Gaia means being decomissioned and vivisected.
But even should circumstances differ there is a reasonable chance I may "develop feelings" for another at some time in the future, and understanding how you habituated may make it easier to contend with. As it stands as you remember from this age likely the idea of sex is a repugnant one, and the idea of that changing because of liking someone and not simply some
latent attraction i have yet to actually experience that the Professor and most others claims i will surely have sooner or later as all adolescents do
Hopefully. I don't know if he would consider you too young for sexual education yet. Certainly he didn't discuss it with me until we were involved with one another. But even children are sometimes educated about sex and etiquette regarding sex, so I wouldn't consider yourself completely safe and would still avoid using phrases that might trigger his belief that you may require such education around him.
Also, being decommissioned and vivisected are things that never happened to me, so as far as that goes, you my want to mirror my experiences that far, at least. There are places I would like to see your path diverge from mine, but your being dismantled for dragon parts would hardly be an improvement on my own circumstances.
As for love...how I felt for Angeal and Genesis wasn't too different from how I felt for Glenn and his squad, though obviously since I knew Angeal and Genesis for far longer, and shared more experiences with them, the connection was forged even more deeply. Enjoying the time I spent with them, feeling safer and more comfortable with them than anyone else, drawing comfort and support from them, being immensely invested in their well-being. And, of course, wishing to provide for them all the things they provided for me, because of how important they were to me. These are the platonic feelings I had for them before anything romantic or sexual was involved, but they're all feelings you should be familiar with, and they formed the basis for what came later. It's not some entirely separate emotion - it's an extension of the affection you already feel for someone. At least, it is how I experience it.
I admit that when Genesis first expressed interest in me...it made me happy that he cared for me so deeply, but I was more willing to explore the idea of sex and romance with him because he wanted it than because I felt any inherent interest myself. I had never seen the appeal, but if it was something someone I loved so much wanted, that I could provide, I felt I would be happy to. That making him happy would make me happy, and was worth doing something I felt ambivalent about at best. However, once I actually tried things like kissing and sex for myself, rather than just hearing about them or witnessing them as a spectator...I found that they are far more pleasant activities than I had given them credit for, and if I hadn't tried them for his sake I would have been missing out simply due to my own preconceptions about things I had never truly understood. To kiss someone is such a different experience than to watch other people kiss as to be utterly incomparable.
I encourage you to attempt to keep an open mind, and to divorce your feelings about other people engaging in sex or romance from the idea of how it would feel for you to do the same. There's simply no comparison. Whether or not you would enjoy it, they're still nothing alike to each other, and you can only judge how it feels accurately once you've tried it. Which you don't have to rush to do, naturally, but don't assume you have any basis for judging what it would be like in advance.
I don't know if it reassures you, but until Genesis expressed his interest in me, and until I realized I enjoyed physical affection with him...I didn't experience the sort of attraction you describe. I knew he was attractive, but in an objective way. I never really thought of anyone like that until I had reason to take an interest. Perhaps you may have been...compromised by the idea that you will eventually take an interest in others, through me...in which case I apologize for accidentally kick-starting things you aren't ready for or interested in yet.
But to go back to what you asked...love, to me, simply feels like a more intense form of the love I felt for Genesis and Angeal back when we were only friends, with some physical attraction added into the mix. I already loved them so much, and was so prepared to do anything for them, that romance felt as though it changed little between us aside from some of the activities we engaged in. It may be that our lack of positive relationships with other people in our lives, the lack of people who care about us and who we want to be with, has made us attach...unusually strongly to the few people who hold meaning for us. Maybe other people have far more casual friendships. And admittedly, both in the simulation and here, developing less...intense relationships with people is both possible, and something I have done. But on our own world, I lacked those opportunities - as you well know.
There's doodles all up and down the margins; this took a while to compose; changes in handwriting here and there mark some level of discomfort with some things.]
I have had a thorough sexual education already, and if any such thing is ten years away I have no need for etiquette lessons now about it. Do not inform him of anything otherwise and I will likely go unlectured.
You were also presumably not turning into a dragon at sixteen, so our experiences by necessity are deviating. Likewise, there is a reasonable chance if I am not soon returned to my place in Midgar, dragon or not, I will never meet the Genesis and Angeal of my age and rank, and thus everything you have experienced alters.
[He's .. rather older than he looks. Smaller than he should be too. Huh. Maybe there's a lot more deviations to start with.]
Not that I wish it so, on surface level observation of the contentment you seem to have. There is, or I suppose was, much to be gained from knowing if not the method of getting there, then the approximate end result I could look forward to. Unless they appear here as well, it may never be. And if they do, it will certainly be awkward to base our friendship on "We will be having intercourse in some years so let's prepare for that".
If one may truly die from embarrassment that would be a genuine risk.
Were there more time, more than the ten days we had in Rhadore, would how you felt about your team been the same than for your partners with equal time? If they expressed interest in you, would you have accepted interest in them?
There are no apologies needed for 'kick starting' anything. There is no Genesis for me to fall in love with whom is free to be loved, nor an Angeal. Or my team.
Some of this is helpful. Others I admit raise more questions than they answer, such as if our team did express interest, would Lucia have been left out?
...you're sixteen? But you said you were only recently deployed to Rhadore. I was deployed to Rhadore at twelve.
There may be far more discrepancies already than I realized.
But despite how much this information has thrown him for a loop, the way he's turning it over in his mind looking for all the possible ways this affects everything he's thought so far...it never even occurs to him not to continue answering questions. That he could just not fulfill a request made of him due to the state his mind and emotions are in is something he still struggles to remember.
As for Glenn and his squad...I don't know. Certainly I was too young when I knew them to consider any such thing, and the age difference would have made it unlikely for them to even consider it themselves until I was at least eighteen, if not more. Between the fact that I knew them at a time when such thoughts weren't ever on my radar, and everything that happened with them...it's hard to even give a theoretical answer to that question.
The best I can say is that the possibility was there, in the form of the deep affection I had for them - and I have never experienced much desire without such feelings of affection to start with. But whether they would have felt any such thing in return, and whether or not my feelings could or would have deepened to something more in time - it's too speculative to give any meaningful answer. A coin flip would be as accurate a guess as any insight I could give you.
I had been placing much on the erroneous assumption that we are the same and thus the future you have of contentment and family would one day also be my own even if it would be awkward and uncomfortable to reach that point.
With new information to work with I have been re-evaluating.
I assure you, there is much in my future you would be better off avoiding, and much of the happiness I've found has been contingent on the strange rules of places like this, and the simulation before it. That you're not necessarily bound to my fate is a more positive outcome than you can imagine.
That said, regardless of anything else or any differences between us that may exist, I have no doubt the Angeal and Genesis of your world will find you. They sought me out intentionally, and they will do the same to you, even if the circumstances in which such things happen differ. They are far too stubborn to be derailed by such small setbacks. So if meeting them informs part of your hopes for your own future, you don't need to give those hopes up.
We are on different planets. They will not find me.
And I imagine they may well be derailed by facing a dragon, were they on the same planet. SOLDIER is taught thoroughly what to do about monsters.
[It had been important to him to believe that bright ending was waiting for him. And now having to rely on some sad, minuscule hope that two specific people might just happen to appear on a completely different planet, and events still unfold the same way..
Sephiroth didn't dare allow himself many dreams. It's too unpleasant when he's forced by reality to give them up. What once had been incomprehensibly strange but at least a positive to anticipate was now so much ash.
He'll pull himself together. He always has. It's just a lot of disappointment piling up.]
In light of the differences between us, any further questions I may have asked are irrelevant. A sibling still, but we are not the same. I would have preferred it if we were.
I didn't remain in the simulation forever. It is entirely possible we won't be here forever, either. Likewise, there is no reason to think that, if you return home, the dragon - and the changes it's wrought on you - will go with you. There are many possibilities still for you to meet your own Angeal and Genesis, whether or not it happens exactly as it did for me.
But...I'm sorry if believing we were the same gave you comfort that you no longer have. I believed it as well. But the thought gave me more dread than happiness. I've endured much that I would never wish you to go through, and the thought that you might be inescapably doomed to suffer the same events I have was deeply distressing. That there is possibility for deviance between our timelines gives me hope I didn't have before.
Still, I would rather it not have come at the expense of something that comforted you.
I must wonder truly at what differences there are in our lives and upbringing that you might seriously suggest I base my plans for the future on nothing but wishful thinking.
But it is good that it has brought you some level of ease for your worries. And that I finally have an explanation for why our scales are a different color!
I will be fine. I apologize for troubling you so needlessly over such petty things.
I expect you wish to withdraw to be alone to deal with your pain. May I suggest you not do so, and accept company instead? We don't need to talk if you don't wish to.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
when in doubt make another one. a text.
Date: 2024-11-30 01:53 am (UTC)Very neat, precise handwriting, as ever.]
I have questions, if you have time. They are going to be embarrassing and very personal.
no subject
Date: 2024-12-01 07:34 am (UTC)I suppose it would be strange to hide anything from you, though I wonder if they will still be personal enough to make me uncomfortable. Sometimes personal comfort and logic don't have a proper correlation to each other.
Still, there aren't many truths I would deny you, and no questions at all which I would actually stop you asking.
no subject
Date: 2024-12-01 10:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-12-01 10:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-12-01 10:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-12-01 10:50 am (UTC)There is a considerable pause before Sephiroth responds.
Something Genesis informed me of, at length, once we became romantically involved is that it is both mildly insulting and highly awkward to refer to things regarding sex and relationships in terms one might use in a science textbook. Or for animals. For some reason, informal language is considered more appropriate - I believe due to the fact that sex and romance between individuals is inherently intimate, and using clinical language in regards to them therefore feels inherently incorrect.
Please do not refer to it as 'mating' in the future. Or 'intercourse'. You will end up getting a lecture about it if Genesis hears you, and it will likely be the most uncomfortable conversation you have ever had. Simply saying 'have sex with' is both accurate and appropriate enough.
While all of this is entirely true - and in fact Sephiroth has adjusted enough over the past two years or so that hearing his younger self talk this way does sound odd even to him - there's no denying that part of this was simply him stalling for time as he...gingerly lowered himself into the hot water of this conversation. Having done what he can to make it slightly more comfortable going forward...he supposes he has to answer.
It was shortly after I arrived in the simulation I was in, prior to being here. Very shortly upon reuniting with Genesis, who I'd been separated from in our own world for some time due to circumstance. He chooses not to go into detail about this, and doubts his younger self will bat an eye at it. After all, SOLDIERs are sent out on different deployments all the time. Being in SOLDIER together had never guaranteed that they would all be together all the time. He and Angeal had both had feelings for me, and in our separation he had feared they had missed their chance to tell me how they felt, so upon our reunion, he shared his feelings with me. And Angeal's, in turn.
It was just Genesis, at first. However, that was because Angeal showed up in the simulation much later on. Had Angeal been there with Genesis at the same time, it's likely I would have entered a relationship with both of them within the same timeframe.
For the record, I was in the simulation for roughly two years. He knows his younger self will want this frame of reference.
no subject
Date: 2024-12-01 11:08 am (UTC)While I have no intention of discussing your
mating habitsromantic conquests with Genesis or wooing him, and thus his opinion on phrasing is irrelevant to me, I will endeavor to remember as it is not irrelevant to you.Would you still have indulged in their "feelings" with them if the setting of their confessions had differed? Midgar or Junon as opposed to a simulation? If the simulation could alter a body, could it also alter an emotion?
How much of that two years was required to make having their hands on you less uncomfortable?
no subject
Date: 2024-12-01 11:28 am (UTC)And I am not simply indulging in their feelings. I share them, and to an extent always have. Until the conversation with Genesis, I had not...considered the romantic angle, I suppose. And certainly I had not considered the sexual. But I loved them, completely. They represented nearly all that had ever been good in my life. Once the idea of other ways to love them was suggested to me, despite it not having occurred to me before, it seemed like the most natural thing in the world. As though the idea had always been there, and I had simply lacked the imagination - or perhaps the necessary frames of reference - to conceive of it on my own. There was no hesitation or doubt involved.
Locale and timing would have changed very little. The feelings had been there prior to the simulation.
As for becoming comfortable with touch, that happened years prior to any romantic entanglements. Casual touch was something they subjected me to from quite early on in our friendship, whether I wanted it or not, and I'm grateful they insisted on it. It was something I was unaccustomed to, struggled to trust, and had been told I didn't need, but...I both needed and wanted it, beneath all those difficulties. Even when I was actively uncomfortable, a part of me enjoyed it. And once the discomfort of the unfamiliar passed, I could enjoy it fully.
But there were years of having arms draped over my shoulders, being curled up with them on Angeal's couch watching movies, and other such friendly contact long before there was anything romantic between us. If you fear you're going to be thrown in at the deep end whenever we go back to our own worlds and times, you don't have to.
Likewise. if your experiences do mirror mine, then you don't need to worry about feeling whatever distaste or uncertainty you feel now when you reach the point of forming such a relationship with them. When that time comes, it will feel as though you had been waiting for it to happen for years.
no subject
Date: 2024-12-01 02:00 pm (UTC)What does love feel like to you?
It is a goal that my experiences will NOT mirror yours in any way shape or form, is it not? Returning to Gaia means being decomissioned and vivisected.
But even should circumstances differ there is a reasonable chance I may "develop feelings" for another at some time in the future, and understanding how you habituated may make it easier to contend with. As it stands as you remember from this age likely the idea of sex is a repugnant one, and the idea of that changing because of liking someone and not simply some
latent attraction i have yet to actually experience that the Professor and most others claims i will surely have sooner or later as all adolescents do
no subject
Date: 2024-12-04 10:44 am (UTC)Also, being decommissioned and vivisected are things that never happened to me, so as far as that goes, you my want to mirror my experiences that far, at least. There are places I would like to see your path diverge from mine, but your being dismantled for dragon parts would hardly be an improvement on my own circumstances.
As for love...how I felt for Angeal and Genesis wasn't too different from how I felt for Glenn and his squad, though obviously since I knew Angeal and Genesis for far longer, and shared more experiences with them, the connection was forged even more deeply. Enjoying the time I spent with them, feeling safer and more comfortable with them than anyone else, drawing comfort and support from them, being immensely invested in their well-being. And, of course, wishing to provide for them all the things they provided for me, because of how important they were to me. These are the platonic feelings I had for them before anything romantic or sexual was involved, but they're all feelings you should be familiar with, and they formed the basis for what came later. It's not some entirely separate emotion - it's an extension of the affection you already feel for someone. At least, it is how I experience it.
I admit that when Genesis first expressed interest in me...it made me happy that he cared for me so deeply, but I was more willing to explore the idea of sex and romance with him because he wanted it than because I felt any inherent interest myself. I had never seen the appeal, but if it was something someone I loved so much wanted, that I could provide, I felt I would be happy to. That making him happy would make me happy, and was worth doing something I felt ambivalent about at best. However, once I actually tried things like kissing and sex for myself, rather than just hearing about them or witnessing them as a spectator...I found that they are far more pleasant activities than I had given them credit for, and if I hadn't tried them for his sake I would have been missing out simply due to my own preconceptions about things I had never truly understood. To kiss someone is such a different experience than to watch other people kiss as to be utterly incomparable.
I encourage you to attempt to keep an open mind, and to divorce your feelings about other people engaging in sex or romance from the idea of how it would feel for you to do the same. There's simply no comparison. Whether or not you would enjoy it, they're still nothing alike to each other, and you can only judge how it feels accurately once you've tried it. Which you don't have to rush to do, naturally, but don't assume you have any basis for judging what it would be like in advance.
I don't know if it reassures you, but until Genesis expressed his interest in me, and until I realized I enjoyed physical affection with him...I didn't experience the sort of attraction you describe. I knew he was attractive, but in an objective way. I never really thought of anyone like that until I had reason to take an interest. Perhaps you may have been...compromised by the idea that you will eventually take an interest in others, through me...in which case I apologize for accidentally kick-starting things you aren't ready for or interested in yet.
But to go back to what you asked...love, to me, simply feels like a more intense form of the love I felt for Genesis and Angeal back when we were only friends, with some physical attraction added into the mix. I already loved them so much, and was so prepared to do anything for them, that romance felt as though it changed little between us aside from some of the activities we engaged in. It may be that our lack of positive relationships with other people in our lives, the lack of people who care about us and who we want to be with, has made us attach...unusually strongly to the few people who hold meaning for us. Maybe other people have far more casual friendships. And admittedly, both in the simulation and here, developing less...intense relationships with people is both possible, and something I have done. But on our own world, I lacked those opportunities - as you well know.
Is any of that helpful?
1/2
Date: 2024-12-04 04:35 pm (UTC)2/2
Date: 2024-12-04 05:07 pm (UTC)There's doodles all up and down the margins; this took a while to compose; changes in handwriting here and there mark some level of discomfort with some things.]
I have had a thorough sexual education already, and if any such thing is ten years away I have no need for etiquette lessons now about it. Do not inform him of anything otherwise and I will likely go unlectured.
You were also presumably not turning into a dragon at sixteen, so our experiences by necessity are deviating. Likewise, there is a reasonable chance if I am not soon returned to my place in Midgar, dragon or not, I will never meet the Genesis and Angeal of my age and rank, and thus everything you have experienced alters.
[He's .. rather older than he looks. Smaller than he should be too. Huh. Maybe there's a lot more deviations to start with.]
Not that I wish it so, on surface level observation of the contentment you seem to have. There is, or I suppose was, much to be gained from knowing if not the method of getting there, then the approximate end result I could look forward to. Unless they appear here as well, it may never be. And if they do, it will certainly be awkward to base our friendship on "We will be having intercourse in some years so let's prepare for that".
If one may truly die from embarrassment that would be a genuine risk.
Were there more time, more than the ten days we had in Rhadore, would how you felt about your team been the same than for your partners with equal time? If they expressed interest in you, would you have accepted interest in them?
There are no apologies needed for 'kick starting' anything. There is no Genesis for me to fall in love with whom is free to be loved, nor an Angeal. Or my team.
Some of this is helpful. Others I admit raise more questions than they answer, such as if our team did express interest, would Lucia have been left out?
no subject
Date: 2024-12-04 11:12 pm (UTC)...you're sixteen? But you said you were only recently deployed to Rhadore. I was deployed to Rhadore at twelve.
There may be far more discrepancies already than I realized.
But despite how much this information has thrown him for a loop, the way he's turning it over in his mind looking for all the possible ways this affects everything he's thought so far...it never even occurs to him not to continue answering questions. That he could just not fulfill a request made of him due to the state his mind and emotions are in is something he still struggles to remember.
As for Glenn and his squad...I don't know. Certainly I was too young when I knew them to consider any such thing, and the age difference would have made it unlikely for them to even consider it themselves until I was at least eighteen, if not more. Between the fact that I knew them at a time when such thoughts weren't ever on my radar, and everything that happened with them...it's hard to even give a theoretical answer to that question.
The best I can say is that the possibility was there, in the form of the deep affection I had for them - and I have never experienced much desire without such feelings of affection to start with. But whether they would have felt any such thing in return, and whether or not my feelings could or would have deepened to something more in time - it's too speculative to give any meaningful answer. A coin flip would be as accurate a guess as any insight I could give you.
But why do you ask about Lucia specifically?
no subject
Date: 2024-12-04 11:33 pm (UTC)For hours.
He'll write back, eventually.]
no subject
Date: 2024-12-04 11:35 pm (UTC)Are you all right?
no subject
Date: 2024-12-04 11:44 pm (UTC)Yes.
[Nope.]
I was merely distracted. I apologize.
I had been placing much on the erroneous assumption that we are the same and thus the future you have of contentment and family would one day also be my own even if it would be awkward and uncomfortable to reach that point.
With new information to work with I have been re-evaluating.
no subject
Date: 2024-12-05 01:44 am (UTC)That said, regardless of anything else or any differences between us that may exist, I have no doubt the Angeal and Genesis of your world will find you. They sought me out intentionally, and they will do the same to you, even if the circumstances in which such things happen differ. They are far too stubborn to be derailed by such small setbacks. So if meeting them informs part of your hopes for your own future, you don't need to give those hopes up.
no subject
Date: 2024-12-05 01:56 am (UTC)And I imagine they may well be derailed by facing a dragon, were they on the same planet. SOLDIER is taught thoroughly what to do about monsters.
[It had been important to him to believe that bright ending was waiting for him. And now having to rely on some sad, minuscule hope that two specific people might just happen to appear on a completely different planet, and events still unfold the same way..
Sephiroth didn't dare allow himself many dreams. It's too unpleasant when he's forced by reality to give them up. What once had been incomprehensibly strange but at least a positive to anticipate was now so much ash.
He'll pull himself together. He always has. It's just a lot of disappointment piling up.]
In light of the differences between us, any further questions I may have asked are irrelevant. A sibling still, but we are not the same. I would have preferred it if we were.
no subject
Date: 2024-12-05 02:01 am (UTC)But...I'm sorry if believing we were the same gave you comfort that you no longer have. I believed it as well. But the thought gave me more dread than happiness. I've endured much that I would never wish you to go through, and the thought that you might be inescapably doomed to suffer the same events I have was deeply distressing. That there is possibility for deviance between our timelines gives me hope I didn't have before.
Still, I would rather it not have come at the expense of something that comforted you.
no subject
Date: 2024-12-05 02:12 am (UTC)But it is good that it has brought you some level of ease for your worries. And that I finally have an explanation for why our scales are a different color!
I will be fine. I apologize for troubling you so needlessly over such petty things.
no subject
Date: 2024-12-05 02:14 am (UTC)I expect you wish to withdraw to be alone to deal with your pain. May I suggest you not do so, and accept company instead? We don't need to talk if you don't wish to.
no subject
Date: 2024-12-05 02:31 am (UTC)I believe I have embarrassed myself enough for one day. But thank you for the offer.
no subject
Date: 2024-12-05 02:34 am (UTC)