Salamander, 2023-12-26 [original]

Oh HOT DAMN anon, this was absolutely fucking amazing holy shit!! Everything I could ever have asked for, I'm not even kidding. The detachment in Seymour's POV voice, the way he feels so separate from his Guado heritage, even as they're forcing him to die for them (well, trying to anyway!), the way his relationship with Jyscal is so fraught and how you show us so well what their relationship is like through his almost throwaway, calm thoughts. OUGH SO GOOD!!! I never expected to get Seymourfic and I'm so so thankful for this!!

The Calm was within touching distance. The thought made him burn with rage.

All this rage within such a young heart, it fucks me up!!! BABY BOY!!!! ;____;

But he could not call her, knowing she was his mother, and knowing she would be used for nothing but the renewal of this spiral of death.

Their relationship is SO perfect, and Seymour's refusal to spend her for that, to bring about the thing he hates so much, ugh it's just so good.

He summoned her, not to fight Sin, but to have his retribution. She was enormous, monstrous, the true reflection of his grief, and wrenching her from the ground already felt like a death. They wept together as he commanded her to kill, and when he let her fade away, only the bodies of his two guards were left behind, still and pale and unblinking. He spat in their faces as if they were fiends, and then he sent them, to put an end to a job well done, crying noisy tears while the pyreflies made their way into the sky.

THIS PARAGRAPH!!!! MY FEELINGS!!!!! Absolutely fucking sublime. The emotion, the description of how she's summoned is so, so perfect. The turning point in Seymour's life as he kills for the first time, and the following paragraph just cementing it.

He remembered her on the silent, lonely journey. Remembered how she had clasped his hands in her own, so small and delicate and lovely, and traced her steady fingers over his palms. She had taught him how to dress himself, and had known how to take care of his hair, in places soft and smooth like a human’s, but scattered with the rigid, arborescent growths of the Guado, and coloured a bright blue that was uncommon among both races. She had never passed comment on its strangeness, never done anything but kiss it and tell him it was beautiful. For others, he was an abomination, swiftly removed to Baaj to put an end to the mistrust he inspired. For her, he was her son, and she his mother. A truer love could not be found in all Spira. She had placed her soft lips against his face, and he had known then that he would never need anyone but her. My son, my darling son.

Okay this piece of guado worldbuilding SHOOK ME!! Perfect explanation for why his hair Does That, and his mother's response to it, her tenderness and love for him is FUCKING ME UP. How his memories of her will have stayed with him throughout the rest of his life as he dressed and took care of his hair. OUGH. I absolutely LOVE this incesty vibe toooo you wrote them so perfectly!!!!

Also god, Seymour having seen the truth of Spira all those years ago and then living with that knowledge all those years in exile. The way his father fucked up so badly by making him create Anima, it's like a whole new cycle in and of itself that culminates in his own death years later.

GODDDD. Anon, thank you so much for this gift, it is SO fucking good I'm gonna be chewing on it for years. Catch me shoving it at all my friends at the mere mention of Seymour. Beautiful. Splendid. Sublime.

VSSAKJ, 2023-12-29 [original]

Anima is one of my favourite... characters? Existences? Final Fantasy things, anyway, and therefore I loved this. Thank you for sharing it! It's super sketchy in all the best possible ways. Much love. ♥

moemachina, 2023-12-30 [original]

This is such a delicate and terribly gentle look at Seymour's upbringing and his relationship with the Guado and his feelings about his mother. You do such a good job setting the scene, the stillness before the storm, as Seymour walks down the mountain into the Calm Lands with his guards and his ghosts, followed by the dramatically satisfying riposte of Seymour murdering his guards and defiantly returning to Guadosalam anyway to force his father to render him disgraced and exiled (and, implicitly, to put his father to one final, futile, childlike test about loving him or not). This is really melancholy and grim in the best possible way. It's a terrific character study about what makes Seymour tick.