joudama wrote an interesting essay, proposing that Wutai had an expansionist past to explain why a ton of characters look Asian* but with different coloring:
http://stopthatgirl7.insanejournal.com/210716.html
Just some food for thought.
*Or, as I would put it, why everyone apparently looks like Gackt.
(Do people want to move the Wutai talk into another thread? It's interesting, and I never would've found it if I hadn't accidentally clicked on this thread ...)
I once read an article that 1 out of 100 people are distantly related to Genghis Khan
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/g...ect-descendants-of-genghis-khan/#.VFcnkfTF-vk
So it's my head canon that the founder of the Wutain Empire was identical to Gackt and concurred most of the Western Continent, reaching as far a Mideel.
The original people of the Western Continent originated around Corel (which was once plains, not a desert), and later people from the Northern Continent settled in the norther parts of the Western Continent.
Blonde hair and blue eyes is a trait originating in the cold northern continent, although it evolved independently in Mideel. Dark skin originated in Corel, with people in Costa and Cosmo canyon being darker. Gonga is a mix of descendants of Wutains and Norther Continent people, so you get black hair and blue eyes.
Personally, I think Wutai is a mix of all of Asian made up of smaller countries that each micro versions of various asian cultures/countries that all intermixed, united. So you have people of mixed heritage, and it's a melting pot culture.
However, I'm always a bit worried about writing Wutai because I don't want to be racist or contribute to racist stereotypes. "All Asians are the Same" is a pretty bad stereotype. Now of course, I'm aware that China and Japan are different countries (countries that don't have the prettiest history). I gave one of my OCs a Japanese first name and Chinese Last time (much like Yuffie has a Chinese first name and Japanese last time), not because I think names don't matter or China and Japan are the same, but I see Wutai as extremely ethnically mixed, with Japanese equivalent first names being in vogue because the emperor's line if from the Japanese equivalent culture, and therefor seen as prettier.
Much like how in England after the French concurred the country, French became the language of the aristocracy and English adopted French words, I see Wutains as adopting Japanese names and over all a lot of mixed names due to a lot of mixing on the Wutai Continent.
That's my head canon. I don't want to be racist though, or hurt any actual asians who read my story. I'm just trying to make sense of the canon as given, a canon where a girl named Yuffie has a friend called Yuri (probably Russian if used as a boy's name) and a mentor called Chekov.
Anyone have any good ideas of how Tseng came to join the Turks?
My head canon was influenced by Licorice's head canon. She's one of the first authors I read in the FFVII fandom and the one who made me interested in Tseng as a character. Coming in, I only really had a clear picture of Rufus Shinra in my mind (I sort of watched ACC and then Case of Shinra before anything else in the compilation, I got into the series through an interest in Rufus), and Reno because I shipped him with Rufus. Because Tseng was pretty blank slate for me at first and Licorice wrote Tseng so well, her ideas really had a huge impact on me.
That said, my head canon is sort of a combination of her two head canons, with some of my own stuff thrown in.
In my head canon, Tseng's mother, Hanako, was fascinated by the "Eastern World" and visited Junon (then a thriving cultural center and port) to study Eastern music. After getting pregnant, she made the choice to have Tseng in Midgar and raise him there because she thought he'd have more freedom and opportunity. In Lic's words, she "sees Wutai objectively as a backward country in need of forced modernization, and subjectively as a prison made up of his family and feudal obligations. Shinra represents freedom." She became friends with Veld through his wife, who she'd met at University in Junon and considered her best friend. She admired that Veld worked for Shinra, and saw what he did as working towards progress.
When Tseng was two years old she returned to Wutai for her father's funeral, she was informed that she would not be able to take Tseng out of wutai. They seized his travel documents and barred him from leaving the country. The reason being that Wutai feared a coming conflict with Shinra (my head canon being there was a cold war with wutai long before the actual extended conflict broke out), and believed that Shinra would raise Wutain children to use as spies. Since Tseng's parents are Wutain, he's considered Wutain and they the law said they could keep him from leaving.
Hanako knew Veld worked for Shinra, and knew the President himself. She hoped that meant he might have enough influence to help her get her son out. Veld pulled some strings, and she was allowed to leave with her child, but not before the boy was marked as an "outsider". Forever branded as an outcast so he could never return and corrupt true wutains, since the government was convinced he had ties to Shinra.
Five years later, many Wutains had illegally fled Wutai to seek the rumored better life under Shinra (much like people leaving Cuba for Florida, but fleeing Feudalism instead of communism). Due to racism/oppression, many of those from wutai lived in the slums where tensions rose between the immigrants and those who had been there longer (Think "Gangs of New York" with Irish vs 'locals' - if someone is different and in competition for jobs, bigotry arrises). As tensions between Shinra and Wutai grew in the political arena, gang wars had all ready come to the slums.
It would not be in Shinra's interest for Wutain gangs to control Midgar's underworld. Shinra could tolerate crime, but only if the "Boss's" understood who owned the city and so the Turk's became invested in insuring the young "Boss Corneo" came out on top.
The problem? It was hard to gain intel on the Wuatin gangs. If you weren't Wutain, you weren't getting in. Veld needed someone on the inside, but none of his Turks were Wutain and he needed to be sure he could trust whoever he sent.
So he turned to Hanako. He'd done her a favor five years ago and now he needed one from her. Go to certain clubs wearing a wire, get close to gang leaders, she was beautiful and charming, it would be easy. Of course, Hanako was reluctant, she had her son to consider. If anything happened to her, Tseng would be all alone.
Veld promised nothing would happen, and that if anything did he'd make sure Tseng would be looked after. Hanako loved Veld, trusted Veld, and wanted to repay him and so she eventually agreed.
The gang discovered there'd been a rat, tracked down Hananko and shot here while Tseng watched. They would have killed Tseng, but the Turks had discovered their source had been compromised. Veld arrived moments too late to save her, but soon enough to shoot the killers before they killed her child.
This is how Tseng came to Veld: seven years old and covered in blood.
The head of Shinra's phycology department (long since defunded and forgotten) evaluated Tseng at Veld's request. His determination was that the trauma could leave too damaged to live a normal life, possibly dangerous, and emotionally unstable.
If the boy was to survive, he'd need a support system. Veld couldn't just place him in a home, and things were hard enough for Wutain children in Midgar orphanages without them being traumatized. Veld knew Tseng was unlikely to ever be "adoptable", the alternative was to put him in an institution, but Tseng was his responsibility now, he owed Hananko that much.
He couldn't keep Tseng himself. His family life was rocky enough with his work schedule and a new born at home. The pregnancy hadn't been easy on his wife, Veld's career hadn't been easy on his wife. He knew she'd want to take Tseng, Hananko had been her friend, but he wasn't sure if their marriage, if his family, could take the strain of raising a boy who might never be a normal child.
And what if Tseng turned out to be dangerous? What if he hurt Felicia?
Two things in Veld's life mattered: His family and the Turks. There was no room for Tseng in his family, but maybe there could be with the Turks.
From here my head canon follows Lic's. Tseng has no memory before the age of seven, he is "literally raised inside the building - a little human experiment of Veld's own. Veld deliberately raised him to be the perfect Turk. What's interesting about this Tseng is that his Wutainness is only skin-deep; he has no affinity with the culture, doesn't speak the language properly, has never visited the country. His country, his culture, his language, is Shinra. Based on his outward appearance, people constantly make false assumptions about him, which he can sometimes use to his advantage. He is the subject of frequent ethnic slurs, while feeling no identity whatsoever with that ethnicity. He's constantly being told that he is something he knows he is not. He's a man whose only home is Shinra."
The only difference between my head canon and hers is Tseng's age (my Tseng is younger, only 7 years older than Rufus). And that Veld's experiment was somewhat in response to the director of phycology's own experiment with raising select children to be super soldiers (his theory was to test if environment alone, without genetic modification, was enough to create superior warriors - Cissnei was raised by Shinra (though not by Veld) as part of his experiment- for that head canon see here
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8552070/1/Shuriken-Female ). The director's experiment involved raising children to be killers, isolating them, forcing them to compete in hunger games esce survival trials. The director bragged he could create the perfect warrior.
Veld disagreed. He thought the perfect warrior was one with loyalty, and that loyalty was built on trust. He raised Tseng to trust him, to trust his orders, to trust Shinra. Whereas Cissnei was raised to be suspicious and Veld had to undo a lot of damage to integrate her into the Turks when she was turned over to him (it's canon she has issues letting her guard down and trusting others), Tseng was raised to trust, to care, but only for ShinRa, only in ways which were useful.
Veld never meant for Hananko to die, the guilt plagued him, but he cames to terms with the fact that being a Turk meant taking risks, doing what was necessary, he'd needed a Wutain on his side, and now Hananko would have her wish. Tseng would always be looked after, and Veld gained an asset.
Veld tried to be cold, drown out his guilt with a utilitarian montra, but as the years passed, in his heart, Veld knew what he'd gained was a protégée, a son.
((so that's my head canon, sorry this is long. Still not sure if I want Veld and Hananko as friends or if they had an affair at some point - open to suggestions there))
