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
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)