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APPLICATION
NAME: alex.
AGE: 25+
CONTACT: PM to this journal, please!
CHARACTER(S): N/A
INVITED BY: Invited by Min!
NAME: Rufus Shinra.
AGE: 30.
CANON: Final Fantasy 7 (Remake continuity).
CANON POINT: Chapter 4 of Rebirth, at the Junon parade celebrating his ascendance to the presidency of Shinra.
CRAU: None!
OTHER: FF7R is a retelling of the original Final Fantasy 7 storyline which draws on many of the OG canon's events and themes, but reimagines certain aspects of how those same events might have gone differently. For that reason, I'll occasionally be drawing on Rufus's depictions in the OG timeline to supplement my discussion of who he is as a character in places where Remake continuity is silent, but prioritizing his Remake portrayal in instances where his actions and decisions explicitly differ. He's not a fundamentally different character between the two canons, but Remake continuity appears to be fast-tracking him through his OG canon's development arc while also fleshing out his personal motives and goals.
SUITABILITY: Rufus meets the basic age of fifteen, as he's 30 in Remake continuity. The resort would be a fascinating environment for him because Rufus's life has always been about power — both the acquisition of it and the advantages it can bring you. Rebirth in particular demonstrates the ways he plays the world around him like a game of chess: seeking relationships with others that are both advantageous and mutually beneficial, but also in the fact that sometimes he's forced to act in ways that aren't in alignment with his personal interests for the sake of maintaining appearances or keeping his opponents complacent. Trading sex for power or advantage is also not unusual in his canon (his father had several affairs and Don Corneo is a Shinra lapdog, for example) and once he grasped the workings of Game 52, he would not hesitate to play it to the best of his ability. In essence, he would interact strongly with the setting and be highly motivated to participate in its shenanigans as he navigates adapting to life at the resort.
HISTORY:
FF7 deals with themes of environmentalism, socioeconomic inequality, and oligarchic capitalism. The majority of the world is dominated by one megacorporation, the Shinra Electric Power Company, which rose to primacy with the discovery of "mako" — a power source formed of the crystallized lifeblood of the planet. Rufus is the new president of Shinra following his father's death at the conclusion of Remake.
Significant moments in Rufus's history include his bargain with Tseng to save the Turks, his fall from grace and house arrest after collaborating with AVALANCHE, and his offer of alliance with Cloud, Aerith, and Tifa at the Junon parade.
Rufus's bargain to win the Turks' loyalty showcases his cunning as a strategist, his appreciation for trustworthy allies, and his first success in reappropriating one of his father's assets. When the Turks, formerly Shinra's covert ops unit, came under fire for disloyalty to the company, Rufus spotted an advantage and struck a deal with Tseng to intervene, persuading the president of their value. However, this intervention came at a price; in exchange, the Turks would give the appearance of allegiance to the company while their actual loyalty was with Rufus alone. This not only deprived President Shinra of a tactical asset, but secured for Rufus reliable allies to join him in his plans.
Additionally, Rufus previously secretly collaborated with the ecoterrorist group AVALANCHE, whose mission was to save the planet by opposing Shinra. Using his access and company connections, Rufus fed AVALANCHE information and funding in an attempt to destabilize Shinra, assassinate the president, and claim power for himself. Unfortunately, he was caught and placed on house arrest — a significant experience that fueled Rufus' resentment and ambitions to overthrow his father. Despite committing essentially a capital offense, President Shinra effectively just put Rufus into storage without even acknowledging the severity of his actions, as if to suggest that he was never a credible threat. This amplified Rufus's determination to prove his father wrong and take power by any means necessary, biding his time and honing his skills until his next attempt.
The final significant moment occurs during the ceremonial parade in Junon. Despite Cloud, Aerith, and Tifa being wanted members of AVALANCHE, Rufus immediately offers to set aside past hostilities, characterizing the manhunt as a mess left behind by his father with no tangible benefit to Rufus himself. He demonstrates his willingness to seek allies by offering amnesty in exchange for help hunting Sephiroth — an objective Rufus wants to pursue, but cannot due to surveillance by outside forces. This offer suggests that Rufus is unlike his father, and is willing to put the past behind him in favor of pursuit of the future he wants.
ABILITIES:
CORPORATE DARLING: At his current canonpoint, Rufus is the president of the Shinra Electric Power Company (and served as its vice president prior to his ascension), which has revealed him to be a bold and charismatic leader. Canon demonstrates that he takes a pretty hands-on approach to his company's activities and involves himself in its workings, as opposed to just sitting back and letting others run it for him; he actively participates in technical briefings, personally receives ambassadors, reads personnel files (such as Cloud's), and isn't afraid to demand that his board of directors account for decisions they've made that he disagrees with.
CUNNING: Having been raised as the presumptive heir to Shinra for all his life, Rufus is a master at quickly assessing power structures and determining how to manipulate them to his own personal advantage. He's a quintessential schemer who can quickly adapt his plans even around setbacks, all in pursuit of his ultimate goals.
MARKSMANSHIP: Despite being a rich kid with a personal army, Rufus does occasionally prefer to fight his own battles, and does so via dual-wielded shotguns. Remake demonstrates that he's an excellent precision shot, capable of hitting two quarter-sized targets simultaneously after they've been thrown into the air.
DUDE WHAT IS YOUR BODY: The man can fire a shotgun in each hand simultaneously and makes his dramatic escapes from rooftops by grabbing the strut of a passing helicopter with one hand and letting it lift him up like a coolguy. Somehow neither of these things dislocates his shoulders. He's fast, tough, and agile, and almost definitely a lot stronger than he lets on.
MATERIA: Though not an innate personal ability, people in the FF7 universe are capable of using palm-sized spheres called materia to cast a variety of elemental and utility spells, such as Fire, Ice, Aero, Heal, Haste, and so on. Assuming Rufus were to come into possession of such a materia (though he will of course not have any upon arrival to the resort), he would be theoretically capable of wielding its magic.
VICES:
RUTHLESS: In a particularly famous quote from Animorphs, ruthlessness is described as "not about being mean. It’s about seeing the bright, clear line that leads from A to B. The line that goes from motive to means [...] and not caring about anything but the beautiful fact that you can see the solution" — and Rufus is a perfect case study of this concept. When he's committed himself to tackling a problem, there's really no solution that's off the table, regardless of morality or propriety. As discussed above, his efforts to take control of Shinra included aiding and abetting a terrorist organization with compatible goals to his own, and when that attempt to unseat his father ultimately failed, taking matters into his own hands to try again. His willingness to achieve his goals by any means necessary even extends to his most valuable assets; in Advent Children, he authorizes the sacrifice of Tseng and Elena at the Northern Crater if it means Reno is able to successfully escape with JENOVA's head in the process. Rufus is ruthless, rational, and extremely cunning; he's willing to utilize any means necessary to achieve his aims, regardless of the morality attached, and when the chips are down there are ultimately very few things that he doesn't find expendable for the sake of reaching his goals.
ISOLATED: In Rebirth, Glenn describes Rufus as "a pigheaded, pathetic, daddy-hating child [with loneliness] under that brattish exterior" — and conspicuously, Rufus doesn't deny that assessment. To Rufus, loneliness is essentially an acceptable cost of the power and influence he holds, and being the heir to the throne of Shinra has proved to be a high and lonely destiny for him. He is always the face and soul of the corporation first, and even his closest relationships are still with people who are inescapably his subordinates, so much so that almost no one he interacts with even uses his given name: he is "sir" to Tseng, "the boss" to Reno, "Mister President" to his board of directors, and so on. Growing up in the environment of Shinra meant that Rufus had very little opportunity to form normal social relationships, much less friendships, and about the only time he seems to shed his icy presidential veneer is when he appears to derive real enjoyment from fighting Cloud — as though rivalry is the closest approximation to friendship he can hope to achieve.
DADDY COMPLEX: You can't swing a moogle around Rufus without hitting his daddy issues. Nearly all of his flaws have some root in the extremely complex relationship he has with his father, and he is very much a product of the upbringing he received. Canon establishes that his father mostly "scolded and ignored" Rufus in his youth, despite Rufus's best attempts to make his father think he was worthy and clever. Even at five years old, Rufus was desperate for his father's attention and praise; when shown the blueprints for what would become the president's office in Shinra Headquarters, young Rufus fixated on trying to think of something useful to contribute to the discussion so that President Shinra would show him approval for it. However, to President Shinra, Rufus was more of a company asset than a son; he gave him the rank of vice president in the company without giving him any real executive power, and mostly just seemed to need Rufus alive for the sake of having an Shinra heir to take up his legacy when he himself was done. And given that the Shinra legacy extends across the entire world of Gaia, essentially everything Rufus has ever known is marked with his father's fingerprints and those difficult memories of their conflicted relationship. Throughout Rebirth, he is caught up in the midst of the machinations his father left behind when he died, and dwells on his father's memory often as he tries to distinguish himself as an individual amidst the resentment and negativity he still harbors for him.
VIRTUES:
PRAGMATISM: Like all double-edged swords, Rufus's tendency to seek rational solutions cuts both ways, and can be as much of a virtue as a vice. His prioritization of outcomes regardless of the means allows him to form alliances and work with others to achieve mutually beneficial solutions without the bias of personal feelings. When Rufus was being kept on house arrest, it was actually the Turks who were assigned with monitoring him; however, when an opportunity arose to win their loyalty for himself, Rufus took it instantly, without demonstrating any backlash or petty retribution toward the operatives who were formerly his jailers. In Rebirth, Rufus offers amnesty to Cloud and his friends in exchange for pursuing Sephiroth on his behalf, not just demonstrating his willingness to set past conflicts aside but characterizing those conflicts almost as an inconvenience to his current plans and goals. Where his father's actions were often driven by selfishness and personal gain to the wanton disregard of others, Rufus is consistently shown having no problem with avoiding zero-sum games and pursuing solutions that benefit others along with himself. His priority is solely on achieving his own goals, not on wasting time and energy trying to make sure others lose out in the process.
DEVOTED: Though Rufus's position as president unquestionably keeps him separate from others, he is notably attached to those who have given him their loyalty, and places value on those relationships. His most open displays of affection in canon are generally reserved for his pet hellbeast, Darkstar; despite being a guard animal explicitly cultivated for his protection, Rufus genuinely cares for Darkstar and shows that attachment in a number of ways. He lavishes attention on Darkstar, from giving it a unique chain collar to taking it with him when he travels to actually putting an image of it on the custom explosive coins he uses in combat. He even becomes angry with Cloud if Cloud prioritizes attacking Darkstar in battle (despite Rufus...bringing...Darkstar...to the battle). Similarly, Rufus is protective of his people, as demonstrated when Tseng is critically injured by Sephiroth at the Temple of the Ancients; as they are evacuating him, Hojo offers his "help" in treating Tseng (which in fact is a thinly-veiled request to experiment on him), but Rufus quickly shuts the request down, firmly indicating that Tseng is off-limits. Throughout canon, Rufus is shown to be possessive of the people and things he deems "his", and will throw his influence to protect them from harm when others might seek to interfere with them.
ACCOUNTABILITY: For all his faults, Rufus takes accountability for his actions — and by extension, the actions of his company, even if he wasn't the one responsible for them to begin with. In Rebirth, he openly confronts his board of directors about their complicity in the destruction of Sector 7, demanding to know why none of them tried to stop his father despite knowing in advance what he intended to do and what it would mean for Midgar. However, as the scene plays out, it becomes clear that his purpose in calling them out is not to shift blame onto the board for the disaster, but to reaffirm that authority ultimately rests with the president — for better or for worse. Whenever Rufus speaks of how his ascendancy to the presidency "marks a new beginning for Shinra", it is always cognizant of the legacy that he has inherited. And indeed, in OG canon we see Rufus demonstrating his commitment to accountability when, in the aftermath of Meteor, he funds a variety of public welfare projects and community initiatives to atone for the harms his company had done. He constructs Midgar Edge to house refugees, funds medical research to cure geostigma, and secretly supports the World Regenesis Organization as they take primacy amid Shinra's corporate decline. For all that Rufus might resent his father and wish to distinguish himself from the man on a personal level, he also willingly acknowledges the harm the company did under his father's regime and never seeks to shirk responsibility for the consequences of those actions.
SUIT REQUESTS:
FIRST CHOICE: HEARTS — My primary preference would be hearts, as the traits that align with hearts are both complementary to his vices (dramatic, lonely, possessive, moody) but will also push him to express emotions that he otherwise would be very inclined to hide or suppress (desire for companionship, sensitivity, affectionate, compulsion to satisfy emotional needs). Rufus is very much a cool, collected schemer and spends a lot of time in his own head making plans and rationalizing through his choices, so being subject to the suit that governs emotion would be great in terms of pushing his boundaries and being able to play a side of him that he doesn't often show.
SECOND CHOICE: DIAMONDS — As an alternative to hearts, my second choice would be diamonds. Given that so much of Rufus's character is rooted in his desire for power and control over himself and his circumstances, diamonds would allow for Rufus to be subject to a variety of conditions that would threaten his ability to control himself (insatiability, heat, fever and chills) and drive him to seek out interactions to satisfy them when he might otherwise have preferred to remain aloof. Like with hearts, having that type of incentive would make for an interesting roleplay experience as he's forced to grapple with them.
RANK REQUESTS:
My request would be a 10 because based on the descriptions he heard on the TDM, Rufus would sort of naturally assume he'd wind up a face card (and thus, a resort "celebrity") and I think it would really eat at him to have been so close and just missed it. It would also be interesting because his canonmate Tseng is a Jack, which would place Rufus subordinate to him in the resort's ranking system (when Tseng is, in canon, subordinate to Rufus as president and Turk) and lend a lot to their relationship dynamic as a result. Aside from that, something on the higher end would be preferable if possible!
SAMPLES:
SAMPLE ONE — Rufus on thepeacockstop June TDM.
SAMPLE TWO — Rufus's previous top-level on thepeacockstop February TDM (note: I intend to start him fresh with his arrival being the June TDM's circumstances, with no memory of the February TDM's events).
SAMPLE THREE — A dreamshare thread frometraya that showcases introspection about Rufus's perspective on his role in the world and his relationship to his father.
OOC
NAME: alex.
AGE: 25+
CONTACT: PM to this journal, please!
CHARACTER(S): N/A
INVITED BY: Invited by Min!
IC
NAME: Rufus Shinra.
AGE: 30.
CANON: Final Fantasy 7 (Remake continuity).
CANON POINT: Chapter 4 of Rebirth, at the Junon parade celebrating his ascendance to the presidency of Shinra.
CRAU: None!
OTHER: FF7R is a retelling of the original Final Fantasy 7 storyline which draws on many of the OG canon's events and themes, but reimagines certain aspects of how those same events might have gone differently. For that reason, I'll occasionally be drawing on Rufus's depictions in the OG timeline to supplement my discussion of who he is as a character in places where Remake continuity is silent, but prioritizing his Remake portrayal in instances where his actions and decisions explicitly differ. He's not a fundamentally different character between the two canons, but Remake continuity appears to be fast-tracking him through his OG canon's development arc while also fleshing out his personal motives and goals.
SUITABILITY: Rufus meets the basic age of fifteen, as he's 30 in Remake continuity. The resort would be a fascinating environment for him because Rufus's life has always been about power — both the acquisition of it and the advantages it can bring you. Rebirth in particular demonstrates the ways he plays the world around him like a game of chess: seeking relationships with others that are both advantageous and mutually beneficial, but also in the fact that sometimes he's forced to act in ways that aren't in alignment with his personal interests for the sake of maintaining appearances or keeping his opponents complacent. Trading sex for power or advantage is also not unusual in his canon (his father had several affairs and Don Corneo is a Shinra lapdog, for example) and once he grasped the workings of Game 52, he would not hesitate to play it to the best of his ability. In essence, he would interact strongly with the setting and be highly motivated to participate in its shenanigans as he navigates adapting to life at the resort.
HISTORY:
FF7 deals with themes of environmentalism, socioeconomic inequality, and oligarchic capitalism. The majority of the world is dominated by one megacorporation, the Shinra Electric Power Company, which rose to primacy with the discovery of "mako" — a power source formed of the crystallized lifeblood of the planet. Rufus is the new president of Shinra following his father's death at the conclusion of Remake.
Significant moments in Rufus's history include his bargain with Tseng to save the Turks, his fall from grace and house arrest after collaborating with AVALANCHE, and his offer of alliance with Cloud, Aerith, and Tifa at the Junon parade.
Rufus's bargain to win the Turks' loyalty showcases his cunning as a strategist, his appreciation for trustworthy allies, and his first success in reappropriating one of his father's assets. When the Turks, formerly Shinra's covert ops unit, came under fire for disloyalty to the company, Rufus spotted an advantage and struck a deal with Tseng to intervene, persuading the president of their value. However, this intervention came at a price; in exchange, the Turks would give the appearance of allegiance to the company while their actual loyalty was with Rufus alone. This not only deprived President Shinra of a tactical asset, but secured for Rufus reliable allies to join him in his plans.
Additionally, Rufus previously secretly collaborated with the ecoterrorist group AVALANCHE, whose mission was to save the planet by opposing Shinra. Using his access and company connections, Rufus fed AVALANCHE information and funding in an attempt to destabilize Shinra, assassinate the president, and claim power for himself. Unfortunately, he was caught and placed on house arrest — a significant experience that fueled Rufus' resentment and ambitions to overthrow his father. Despite committing essentially a capital offense, President Shinra effectively just put Rufus into storage without even acknowledging the severity of his actions, as if to suggest that he was never a credible threat. This amplified Rufus's determination to prove his father wrong and take power by any means necessary, biding his time and honing his skills until his next attempt.
The final significant moment occurs during the ceremonial parade in Junon. Despite Cloud, Aerith, and Tifa being wanted members of AVALANCHE, Rufus immediately offers to set aside past hostilities, characterizing the manhunt as a mess left behind by his father with no tangible benefit to Rufus himself. He demonstrates his willingness to seek allies by offering amnesty in exchange for help hunting Sephiroth — an objective Rufus wants to pursue, but cannot due to surveillance by outside forces. This offer suggests that Rufus is unlike his father, and is willing to put the past behind him in favor of pursuit of the future he wants.
ABILITIES:
CORPORATE DARLING: At his current canonpoint, Rufus is the president of the Shinra Electric Power Company (and served as its vice president prior to his ascension), which has revealed him to be a bold and charismatic leader. Canon demonstrates that he takes a pretty hands-on approach to his company's activities and involves himself in its workings, as opposed to just sitting back and letting others run it for him; he actively participates in technical briefings, personally receives ambassadors, reads personnel files (such as Cloud's), and isn't afraid to demand that his board of directors account for decisions they've made that he disagrees with.
CUNNING: Having been raised as the presumptive heir to Shinra for all his life, Rufus is a master at quickly assessing power structures and determining how to manipulate them to his own personal advantage. He's a quintessential schemer who can quickly adapt his plans even around setbacks, all in pursuit of his ultimate goals.
MARKSMANSHIP: Despite being a rich kid with a personal army, Rufus does occasionally prefer to fight his own battles, and does so via dual-wielded shotguns. Remake demonstrates that he's an excellent precision shot, capable of hitting two quarter-sized targets simultaneously after they've been thrown into the air.
DUDE WHAT IS YOUR BODY: The man can fire a shotgun in each hand simultaneously and makes his dramatic escapes from rooftops by grabbing the strut of a passing helicopter with one hand and letting it lift him up like a coolguy. Somehow neither of these things dislocates his shoulders. He's fast, tough, and agile, and almost definitely a lot stronger than he lets on.
MATERIA: Though not an innate personal ability, people in the FF7 universe are capable of using palm-sized spheres called materia to cast a variety of elemental and utility spells, such as Fire, Ice, Aero, Heal, Haste, and so on. Assuming Rufus were to come into possession of such a materia (though he will of course not have any upon arrival to the resort), he would be theoretically capable of wielding its magic.
VICES:
RUTHLESS: In a particularly famous quote from Animorphs, ruthlessness is described as "not about being mean. It’s about seeing the bright, clear line that leads from A to B. The line that goes from motive to means [...] and not caring about anything but the beautiful fact that you can see the solution" — and Rufus is a perfect case study of this concept. When he's committed himself to tackling a problem, there's really no solution that's off the table, regardless of morality or propriety. As discussed above, his efforts to take control of Shinra included aiding and abetting a terrorist organization with compatible goals to his own, and when that attempt to unseat his father ultimately failed, taking matters into his own hands to try again. His willingness to achieve his goals by any means necessary even extends to his most valuable assets; in Advent Children, he authorizes the sacrifice of Tseng and Elena at the Northern Crater if it means Reno is able to successfully escape with JENOVA's head in the process. Rufus is ruthless, rational, and extremely cunning; he's willing to utilize any means necessary to achieve his aims, regardless of the morality attached, and when the chips are down there are ultimately very few things that he doesn't find expendable for the sake of reaching his goals.
ISOLATED: In Rebirth, Glenn describes Rufus as "a pigheaded, pathetic, daddy-hating child [with loneliness] under that brattish exterior" — and conspicuously, Rufus doesn't deny that assessment. To Rufus, loneliness is essentially an acceptable cost of the power and influence he holds, and being the heir to the throne of Shinra has proved to be a high and lonely destiny for him. He is always the face and soul of the corporation first, and even his closest relationships are still with people who are inescapably his subordinates, so much so that almost no one he interacts with even uses his given name: he is "sir" to Tseng, "the boss" to Reno, "Mister President" to his board of directors, and so on. Growing up in the environment of Shinra meant that Rufus had very little opportunity to form normal social relationships, much less friendships, and about the only time he seems to shed his icy presidential veneer is when he appears to derive real enjoyment from fighting Cloud — as though rivalry is the closest approximation to friendship he can hope to achieve.
DADDY COMPLEX: You can't swing a moogle around Rufus without hitting his daddy issues. Nearly all of his flaws have some root in the extremely complex relationship he has with his father, and he is very much a product of the upbringing he received. Canon establishes that his father mostly "scolded and ignored" Rufus in his youth, despite Rufus's best attempts to make his father think he was worthy and clever. Even at five years old, Rufus was desperate for his father's attention and praise; when shown the blueprints for what would become the president's office in Shinra Headquarters, young Rufus fixated on trying to think of something useful to contribute to the discussion so that President Shinra would show him approval for it. However, to President Shinra, Rufus was more of a company asset than a son; he gave him the rank of vice president in the company without giving him any real executive power, and mostly just seemed to need Rufus alive for the sake of having an Shinra heir to take up his legacy when he himself was done. And given that the Shinra legacy extends across the entire world of Gaia, essentially everything Rufus has ever known is marked with his father's fingerprints and those difficult memories of their conflicted relationship. Throughout Rebirth, he is caught up in the midst of the machinations his father left behind when he died, and dwells on his father's memory often as he tries to distinguish himself as an individual amidst the resentment and negativity he still harbors for him.
VIRTUES:
PRAGMATISM: Like all double-edged swords, Rufus's tendency to seek rational solutions cuts both ways, and can be as much of a virtue as a vice. His prioritization of outcomes regardless of the means allows him to form alliances and work with others to achieve mutually beneficial solutions without the bias of personal feelings. When Rufus was being kept on house arrest, it was actually the Turks who were assigned with monitoring him; however, when an opportunity arose to win their loyalty for himself, Rufus took it instantly, without demonstrating any backlash or petty retribution toward the operatives who were formerly his jailers. In Rebirth, Rufus offers amnesty to Cloud and his friends in exchange for pursuing Sephiroth on his behalf, not just demonstrating his willingness to set past conflicts aside but characterizing those conflicts almost as an inconvenience to his current plans and goals. Where his father's actions were often driven by selfishness and personal gain to the wanton disregard of others, Rufus is consistently shown having no problem with avoiding zero-sum games and pursuing solutions that benefit others along with himself. His priority is solely on achieving his own goals, not on wasting time and energy trying to make sure others lose out in the process.
DEVOTED: Though Rufus's position as president unquestionably keeps him separate from others, he is notably attached to those who have given him their loyalty, and places value on those relationships. His most open displays of affection in canon are generally reserved for his pet hellbeast, Darkstar; despite being a guard animal explicitly cultivated for his protection, Rufus genuinely cares for Darkstar and shows that attachment in a number of ways. He lavishes attention on Darkstar, from giving it a unique chain collar to taking it with him when he travels to actually putting an image of it on the custom explosive coins he uses in combat. He even becomes angry with Cloud if Cloud prioritizes attacking Darkstar in battle (despite Rufus...bringing...Darkstar...to the battle). Similarly, Rufus is protective of his people, as demonstrated when Tseng is critically injured by Sephiroth at the Temple of the Ancients; as they are evacuating him, Hojo offers his "help" in treating Tseng (which in fact is a thinly-veiled request to experiment on him), but Rufus quickly shuts the request down, firmly indicating that Tseng is off-limits. Throughout canon, Rufus is shown to be possessive of the people and things he deems "his", and will throw his influence to protect them from harm when others might seek to interfere with them.
ACCOUNTABILITY: For all his faults, Rufus takes accountability for his actions — and by extension, the actions of his company, even if he wasn't the one responsible for them to begin with. In Rebirth, he openly confronts his board of directors about their complicity in the destruction of Sector 7, demanding to know why none of them tried to stop his father despite knowing in advance what he intended to do and what it would mean for Midgar. However, as the scene plays out, it becomes clear that his purpose in calling them out is not to shift blame onto the board for the disaster, but to reaffirm that authority ultimately rests with the president — for better or for worse. Whenever Rufus speaks of how his ascendancy to the presidency "marks a new beginning for Shinra", it is always cognizant of the legacy that he has inherited. And indeed, in OG canon we see Rufus demonstrating his commitment to accountability when, in the aftermath of Meteor, he funds a variety of public welfare projects and community initiatives to atone for the harms his company had done. He constructs Midgar Edge to house refugees, funds medical research to cure geostigma, and secretly supports the World Regenesis Organization as they take primacy amid Shinra's corporate decline. For all that Rufus might resent his father and wish to distinguish himself from the man on a personal level, he also willingly acknowledges the harm the company did under his father's regime and never seeks to shirk responsibility for the consequences of those actions.
SUIT REQUESTS:
FIRST CHOICE: HEARTS — My primary preference would be hearts, as the traits that align with hearts are both complementary to his vices (dramatic, lonely, possessive, moody) but will also push him to express emotions that he otherwise would be very inclined to hide or suppress (desire for companionship, sensitivity, affectionate, compulsion to satisfy emotional needs). Rufus is very much a cool, collected schemer and spends a lot of time in his own head making plans and rationalizing through his choices, so being subject to the suit that governs emotion would be great in terms of pushing his boundaries and being able to play a side of him that he doesn't often show.
SECOND CHOICE: DIAMONDS — As an alternative to hearts, my second choice would be diamonds. Given that so much of Rufus's character is rooted in his desire for power and control over himself and his circumstances, diamonds would allow for Rufus to be subject to a variety of conditions that would threaten his ability to control himself (insatiability, heat, fever and chills) and drive him to seek out interactions to satisfy them when he might otherwise have preferred to remain aloof. Like with hearts, having that type of incentive would make for an interesting roleplay experience as he's forced to grapple with them.
RANK REQUESTS:
My request would be a 10 because based on the descriptions he heard on the TDM, Rufus would sort of naturally assume he'd wind up a face card (and thus, a resort "celebrity") and I think it would really eat at him to have been so close and just missed it. It would also be interesting because his canonmate Tseng is a Jack, which would place Rufus subordinate to him in the resort's ranking system (when Tseng is, in canon, subordinate to Rufus as president and Turk) and lend a lot to their relationship dynamic as a result. Aside from that, something on the higher end would be preferable if possible!
SAMPLES:
SAMPLE ONE — Rufus on the
peacockstop June TDM.SAMPLE TWO — Rufus's previous top-level on the
peacockstop February TDM (note: I intend to start him fresh with his arrival being the June TDM's circumstances, with no memory of the February TDM's events).SAMPLE THREE — A dreamshare thread from
etraya that showcases introspection about Rufus's perspective on his role in the world and his relationship to his father.