Open Arms from EPIC gives me Angeal and Sephiroth vibes 😭
AAAAAA omg it does 😭😭😭 and it even keeps fitting when the motif shows back up!!!
Angeal trying to convince Sephiroth to open his arms to friendship and teamwork the first time they met!! Telling him that he can relax, that he can be safely open with Angeal!
Sephiroth is so tired of the war and bloodshed, but he knows no other way to live, and he’s been burned before and he doesn’t quite know how to relax. Not until Angeal (and Genesis) teaches him to, and even then he’s still not great at it. Sephiroth is terrified of being hurt again, but Angeal approaches him with open arms, not the controlling fist of Hojo, and he can’t resist.
Angeal teaches him to open up to the world, Genesis teaches him the joys of living (sorry this is AGS now I don’t make the rules lol, this one specific line made me think of him). And he does! At least with them. He’s still hesitant and withdrawn, but with their help, he can achieve something close to happiness and compassion.
And then Angeal is gone, crushed to death by the heavy weight of life, like a Cyclops’ club. Sephiroth experiences that pain he was so afraid of again, and he’s so worn down—death by a thousand cuts, of every one of the troubles and traumas life has brought him. Before he had his rock to weather them, but now…
Now he’ll become the monster. Ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves, after all—he can’t hurt if all he feels is hate, if he remembers nothing.
(And Genesis, like Eurylochus, doesn’t trust Sephiroth enough not to open the wind bag—he can’t trust him with the secrets he’s learned. He mutinies against all they’ve ever known, and then he offers Sephiroth an apple, to share in the flesh of the sun god’s cattle. And Sephiroth can’t take it anymore.)
