#vctlan

[motherlystrife]

mommy??? sorry. mommy? sorry. m-mommy??? sorry.

— clood

oh her sweet summer child. "clood, dear. i do believe that you are in serious need of some coffee."

[aicidos]

blows you up

[meteorshcts]

Is your character's appearance more telling or deceiving?

Does your character prefer to give or receive gifts?

What is a childhood meal your character cherishes?

Could your character survive in the wilderness on their own for a week or more? :)

What is your character's favorite form of affection?

Is your character more likely to give advice or seek it?

What’s an activity that reminds your character of someone else?

Is your character's appearance more telling or deceiving?

assuming i'm reading the intent of this question correctly, more telling for sure. he's the kind of guy to wear his heart on his sleeve. after angeal, he gets better at hiding how he's feeling, but he's never to the point where he's good at it.

Does your character prefer to give or receive gifts?

he loves both, but he loves giving more. i feel like that's sort of the cliche answer, but at the same time, the evidence is there. boy's giving out ribbons, favors, free meals, advice... you name it!

What is a childhood meal your character cherishes?

well, he's a bitch about his coffee preferences, which is entirely because of his childhood. but as for meals, probably a good fajita or a tamal.

Could your character survive in the wilderness on their own for a week or more? :)

not on his own, he'd go mad without someone to talk to. that person doesn't even have to respond! he just needs someone to talk to! but eh, i think 9 months is his limit.

What is your character's favorite form of affection?

anything physical, from hugs and kisses to handshakes and fist bumps. he loves it all. the more physical affection you give him, the happier he is.

Is your character more likely to give advice or seek it?

seek it, definitely. he doesn't particularly see himself as overly smart or wise (and...he isn't) so he'd just as soon not be the one giving out advice.

What’s an activity that reminds your character of someone else?

any sort of tending flowers or plants will always make him think of aerith and angeal. angeal more at first, aerith more later -- i think he sees aerith with plants more often than he sees angeal with them.

[churchflower]

❝ every time you get involved, people get hurt. ❞ — hojo @vctlan

she holds her breath, starts counting to ten in her head when he entered the room. she can hold it for a long time, but it's been a minute since she's been in this jar, old habits were out of practice. no elmyra to defend her when she holds her breath until she passes out. she doesn't want to talk to him, she's being petulant. but when he takes that dig at her she exhales, like a punch to the gut. "I made a deal." And she was sure Tseng would honor it, but was she wrong?

[phantasiiae]

i don't have time for distractions right now — hojo @ tseng

Tseng is deathly silent, his arms crossed as he stares at Hojo. He ought to know better than to expect anything other than exasperation or irritation at his precious time being wasted, but Tseng figured this was important enough for an interruption.

"I am just here to inform you that we found none of Sephiroth's remains in the reactor at Nibelheim," he says bluntly, arms crossed. While he himself is grieving, he does his best not to let it show. Sephiroth was his friend, almost brotherly, in a way. They always looked out for each other, had each other's backs...for him to be gone feels impossible, but that's it. There's nothing left. It's almost like he never even existed at all.

Tseng takes a deep breath, and then "As for your two most recent test subjects, Zack Fair is deceased. There is no sign of Cloud Strife that we can find." Whether that's on purpose or not, well, he won't say. "That is all."

[askaeristheflower]

[ sms ]: what do you mean you “fell asleep”, i sent that days ago?? - kunsel

[sms]: haven’t you ever heard of a coma?

[sms]: Would you believe me if I said I was fighting bandits?

[sms]: Also I didn’t text you for days and you weren’t worried? I could have been kidnapped

[youmourn-a]

the sky of black has blossomed from grey clouds, signifying an end of a heavy rain. right now, it's silent with the both of them in an abandoned house on the side of the road. there may be several holes in the roof but it's just dry enough to sustain them both. although, he's absolutely exhausted and desperately wants to sleep but shinra's army has been relentless. bags having been starting to grow under his eyes but, even so, a small smile forms with his lips. cloud is leaning against him. a welcoming touch.

" —— and aerith really is something else! i'll introduce you when we get back to midgar. " a knee is up, an arm resting upon it and looking at the drops slowly descending into a small puddle of indented carpet. " she's our first stop. she'll know what to do. "

( i wonder how long she's waited for. did she finally go see the sky? i hope she liked it. is angeal still there? ) unfortunate, seeming to slip from his mind for the moment in his sleep - begging mind that the turks are always watching her. " my dream was to become a hero but... i learned you can multiple dreams, ya' know? like, selling flowers all over midgar. i can't imagine doing it with anyone else but her. she's... " eyes fall half - lidded, the words falling into a faint whisper. the expression falls; tired.

for the sake of both of them however, he perks right back and gives him a gentle pat on the back. " you have dreams too, i'm sure. although, you never quite told me. ... ... i heard you wanted to become soldier, right? " then he laughs. cloud's catatonic expression never changes, doesn't even show to acknowledge a word. that doesn't bother him. " c'mon now, cloud, don't get embarrassed! as director lazard told me a long time ago, " his voice lowers to a quiet mumble. " unattainable dreams are the best kind. i didn't really understand what he said but... i get it now. "

any other night, it would be cool right after a consistent rain. except, it's warm. the smell of wet wood and damp grass is the only thing that overtakes their senses. even so, he keeps cloud close just in case. not everyone is as warm as zack. " ahhhh, it'll be fine! we'll both make it. i promise. "

( * @vctlan, things you said under the stars and in the grass — zack n cloud, i know they haven't interacted yet but hear me out, them on the run :') just free reign for zack thoughts talking to himself )

[yumetohokori]

[ NEW MAIL! Kunsel > Zack ]

[Mail: Kunsel] ????? Kunsel please it's too early for u to be weird.

[kuhatoarchive]

this was it — they stood at the precipice of the world's end. meteor swarmed overhead, sephiroth awaited them at the planets core, countless lives have been lost along the way... and yet, where one would expect trepidation and fear? cloud found peace. there was something so freeing about only having two possible outcomes. either they made it, or they didn't. but it was this that mattered, being able to stand face to face with the possible destruction of all and still having it in him to say no, to refuse to accept it, knowing that he would fight no matter what.

it took him too long to see it, to really get it... but cloud? he wanted to live. he wanted to protect those he cared so much for, to one day pay back all the love and sacrifices made for him that got him to where he was now.

he was cloud strife. he wasn't a great mercenary. he was never SOLDIER. he'd never been that great of a person, really, if you asked him. he'd always just been... himself.

and that was enough.

this time? he does not hesitate to hold her hand. long past was the time of his pride and shame holding him back - the eyes that look into tifa's? gratitude incarnate. maybe they never really knew each other before life threw them on these train tracks, strangers to both themselves and each other...

but cloud wouldn't change a thing now.

"thank you. for everything. for never giving up on me."

best read while listening to "together" by nine inch nails /jk

  unprompted.   ♡  * always accepting !  @vctlan.

   premonitions—vague hunches they were—had never denied her, even if she postponed their acknowledgement. but today, sitting here, the air shy from lukewarm and the night sky star-littered, she feels a stab of mortification like a thrill that courses old pathways within her: she can’t imagine the end, whichever outcome that may be, and from it stems a numbness she could have mistaken for peace in any other situation. 

   everything, even herself, feels up in the air, the same way the highwind looms over. placid. waiting.

   tifa wonders how she doesn’t gasp or retch or sob as her body struggles to contain the paradoxical truth. that, as it stands, they are as alive as they are dead. she holds the feeling against herself, keeping it there, beating; this is life. this is proof that she has come this far, that the memories were worth it, that the stars are watching how hard they have fought, and will still. it’s the most fear she has ever felt, and she’s glad she survived to be able to. 

   above all, she’s glad cloud is here. if some don’t return, if none of them do, she thinks she can bear anything having him beside, holding onto the hand that reaches for hers. she feels every bit of herself gather at the touch, half-afraid she is imagining it. no… gone is the time of mirages. his gratitude is true and his own and it holds her in place, thinking, there isn’t a world where he’s worth giving up on.

   his words set her free, somehow. their simplicity and earnestness. the steady hold of his gaze and the sureness of his grasp. it fits into the broad scheme of her consciousness like a tessellate, safekept to invoke before the final battle along the images of her family, nibelheim and its townsfolk, aerith, their crew, all the people she met in her time at sector 7 or her travels. a constellation.

   “...it’s because you never stopped fighting your way back.” to us. to me. it’s not hiding if she knows he gets her meaning by now. it’s tucked, too, in the creasing of her eyes, a smile forming. “after all that has happened… there’s still fight in you. it... makes me give it my all, too. i should thank you for that, leader.” another tifa might have figured her sigh would be a prelude to tears. instead, she chuckles, a small, brief sound to accompany her attempt at lightheartedness. 

   another hand rises to cup the one she holds, placing it atop his. her breathing is different now. quiet. her mind oscillates between reality and dream. hope, perhaps. “...we’ll be okay.” 

   against the beginning and end, in whatever order they may come.

[sasorikigai]

@vctlan​ stabbed the heart. Scorpion -> Kenshi

▬▬ι═══════ﺤ 🔥 || Bounded within, Scorpion cannot breathe; unfathomable is his pain, invisible are the chains, as their indestructible might chokes around his soul and heart. The freedom he yearns, but knows it will never be the kind Grandmaster Hasashi once held with his finite, mortal life. Incognizant he is of his sentence in time, but he holds indefinable status; neither mortal or immortal, of body, and yet spectral and otherworldly is his appearance, with ferocious ruby as his eyes, and his hellfire a violent wind. Yet, how he still holds streaks of light in-between his Grandmaster’s garment, yet his posture a phenomena so melancholic, it may make those who truly care for him cry wholeheartedly. 

There had been too much of everything, and there is too little. How his fragmented, severed memory becomes tangled dreams, the swift-cruel falling and disintegration of Hanzo Hasashi’s fullness as Scorpion remains midnight-choked; restless and agitated. Most would say one’s mind makes a map of everything integral of one’s self, everything one considers a part of himself or herself. Scorpion thinks, his mind used to be engraved with the lines of his family’s smile, and the notes of their gentle laugh. He has memorized the crescent of their eyes, the songs of their voice.... And yet. 

H̱̮̳̻e͈̘̖̪ ̰c̫̞̹̖a̲̙nno̞̩t̹̣ ̮͔fe̖̰̖e̻̺̳̫l ̼̼̹̱̱t̫̤͎h̜͍̠e͈͈̮̥̖m̯̫̜̤̘͕ͅ ̟a̦̥͉͔̠̬n͉̲̥̲̦y̯m̼͖̱o͚͓̗r͍̮e̼̱̦͈.̬̖̻̪͉͖̹ ̞F̺̜̣̺͉o̲̫͚̝̮̪r̻̘ ̲͍̣̟͈t̪̩̣̟̝͎̺h̞̣̪̱e̥y̗ ̫h͔a̮̯̦v̯͔e̯̙̥̞͍̜ ̬̼̯̳c͉͔̠͔r̥̠̦͕͖͕̣u̝͍̤ḓ͖̰̦͖̘ely̬̯̲̻͚ ͎an͇̭͕̟d̻̜͍ ͎̯g̖̰r͎̬͕̮i̯̮̖̯̥̘ṣ̙̺̥͍̠l͍̠̲̜̖y̹̘ ̮̠̖̪̜d̫͖̳̣i̠̦͈̫͕s̤̹̘͇̬̪t̺͎̜̞̥͍̹o̦͕̗̞͍̼͕r̹t̹̖͍͓͈͔͔e̘ͅd̗ ͙͎̘̙̳̘̥t͍̣o͍̼͎͇̳ ̲̬͔̣̘̖̳b̗̞̱̙ͅe̼̗̯ͅc̟̣̭̺̬̞o̦͖̺̦m͈̹̪̥̖ͅe i͕m̺̣̫͓̹͈͖m̼͈̖̺̘̤en̝̣̙̹̱s̝̠̣̘ḛ̝̬̰ͅl̹̙͍̖̙y̗ w̤̙̻̤͈ic͔͔̣̭ke̠̥̣̬͇͕̙d̝̹̞͉͈̝. ̖͉͚͖̮͎̘ “Everyone has a different way of escaping the dark stillness of their mind,” how his erupting inferno dwelling within sways beneath the fathomless depth of his crimson eyes, as he stares numbly into Kenshi Takahashi’s own. It’s as if his wavering presence would be caught by the cracking cobblestone below them, catching Scorpion’s still-eerie shadow - how could he have a shadow if he was meant to be a wraith without corporealness? - and the choking vines of his intensity slopes forward, as he defiantly commands his waning subconscious to the canine companion of his proverbial wrath. 

“Your Sento breeds familiar strength of infernal hellfire - it is like barbed wire once made of glittering gold, but now it stains everything and beyond with the dripping red of macerated and scorched blood and flesh. Perhaps it is the wild, chaotic grief of my fragmented being, as it wishes to completely swallow the light.”  ▬▬ι═══════ﺤ 🔥 ||

[aicidos]

you’re still in one piece, that’s all that matters. > barret to tifa

some meme.   ♡  * @vctlan.

her fingertips, not unlike her wrists and cheeks, are raw with effort. there’s a week-old sleep she had just today awakened from and exhaustion had settled in again— or maybe it was the gas that should have, for all intents and purposes, poisoned her. the thick clouds surrounding the highwind don’t seem so unfamiliar in that sense, but barret is here, steadying her upon her escape and arrival to the airship, and she holds onto his torso less for balance and more for comfort as the daze subsides. it’s blown by the wind, and in its place, reality settles like fine dust.

tifa only knows she really did wake up from her slumber for the fact she could never dream a reality like this.

“when things can’t seem to get worse, they do,” she murmurs onto his clothes. the cave. the black materia. weapon. the planet, its trembling and apparent descent into something unknown, a state of survival that seems ironically unsurvivable to the living. tifa knows barret, like her, has never had the answers. but she can appreciate the way he has always been better at refocusing on the present, at reframing what matters.

there’s a pause before she can even consider nodding. “...there’s a part of me that's still missing.”

without him, her past is only as real as a fallible memory. and she has come to learn how mistaken they could get to be.

“hey, barret?” the name is left in the air for a moment, and tifa only speaks again after she has wiped the dried blood on a cut on top of her lip, licking them clean. “i’m… still really hungry.”

[meteorshcts]

this is preposterous. i demand an explanation. — hojo

"The explanation, Professor, is that Genesis copies have invaded the building, and we're locking down everything, especially since they have good reason to be after you," Zack explained, aghast at just how stubborn the doctor was being.

"I was sent up here to get you somewhere safe, and that's what I'm going to do," he went on. "So come on, now, step away from the experiment for like -- I don't know, a twenty minutes? An hour? Long enough for us to neutralize the threat. Please?"

@vctlan

[annjiru]

[ TEXT : KUNSEL ] Help, they're trying to make me do my job at work. Require a distraction ASAP. Bring the helmet polish, I need to look busy.

[ TEXT : KUNSEL ] ...

[ TEXT : KUNSEL ] Please disregard, wrong person. Who I'm testing for their... proclivity for procrastination. Yes.

[TEXT:  ANGEAL  ]  Kunsel:

[TEXT:  ANGEAL]  I  know  the  original  text  wasn’t  meant  for  me,  but  it  troubles  me  to  know  that  you  think  so  poorly  about  your  duties  as  a  SOLDIER  member.  

[TEXT:  ANGEAL]  Excuses  aside,  you’ll  benefit  from  taking  more  pride  in  your  work.

[TEXT:  ANGEAL]  The  difference  between  an  average  SOLDIER  and  a  truly  great  one  lies  in  their  work  ethic.

[TEXT:  ANGEAL]  Not  to  mention  the  fact  that  you’re  expending  more  time  and  energy  complaining  than  you  would  otherwise  be  if  you’d  simply  do  your  job.

[TEXT:  ANGEAL]  I’m  making  a  mental  note  to  keep  an  eye  on  you  when  I  see  you  out  on  assignment.

[TEXT:  ANGEAL]  You’d  do  well  to  not  make  this  a  habit.  

[kuhato]

the water runs cold by the time she reaches him.

he'd been standing at one point, staring down at the drain, watching mud and blood run down his limbs, and for a while he was content with just that — with each droplet, he felt the tension ebb away, his body slowly unwinding from the anxiety that seemed to string him along, one step in front of the other.

the problem came when it was time to properly wash himself, face the idle wounds he had no memory of, the clearly surgical scars marring his chest and arms, the blood that stained him but did not belong to him. but he persisted, pushed past the questions his mind so desperately wanted to ask, closed off the doors to what truths he didn't want to face - it was all part of becoming SOLDIER, getting hurt was to be expected. he knew this.

he did.

but then he lifts his head up, facing the stream of water hitting him — and he nearly falls, catching himself on a shelf of hers (no doubt breaking it in the process), stars lining his vision as his blood pressure swarms, blood rushing in his ears.

"i'm fine." had she knocked? was he reassuring himself? did it matter? he had to finish up quick, aware of the increasing shake to his hands, the stuttering nature of his shallower and shallower breaths. he was fine, and though his thoughts grew hazier and hazier, he was making process.

until he wasn't.

until hands hastily trying to wash hair find themselves instead fixated on a fresh wound, a gunshot direct to his scalp. he picks at it, first idly and then in search for answers, dread rising in his throat along with nausea as he feels the still tender scabs give under his nails.

he was trying to look the other way, ignore all the details he was missing, trying not to worry tifa senselessly after everything they'd been through but — what happened to him? why couldn't he remember? what was wrong with him?

eventually, his legs give up beneath him, falling painfully on bare knees as a splitting headache finally comes to replace the pressure that had been steadily growing in his skull, swallowing with it all thoughts of anything other than the pain, nulling his sense of the outside world. he does not hear his name, does not hear the door opening, all he can feel is the now cold water rushing down his head, hands buried in bloodied hair, entire form shuddering.

unprompted.   ♡  * always accepting !  @vctlan.

i should be back with a clean towel by the time you’re finished, she had assured, repeating it on her mind to equate the seconds it takes her to reach marle and ask her for a spare one she could borrow. the worry in her eyes doesn’t go unnoticed, both marle’s and tifa’s. there’s the few surface questions she asks—this for that SOLDIER boy? is he sick?—and all those she doesn’t after tifa reassures her: he’s a good guy. i trust him. he’s my friend. 

she’s pathetically uncertain about all of them.

for a moment, she thinks all she does know is that shinra tampers with its SOLDIERs like they do with lands. she saw it in his eyes, the blue and a mako green that did not belong there. her first clue of his success, she supposes, because she had seen it before firsthand– cloud’s image resembled that of the first and last SOLDIERs she had ever had the displeasure of knowing in the flesh, images she had tried starving out by way of not reminiscing. 

and yet, cloud is here. he’s here and all it does is remind her.

cloud, the ex-SOLDIER. first class. the best of the best, part of an enviable percentage, part of the elite group that acted as the omen for nibelheim’s ruin. there is old bile in her throat and, after marle returns, a towel for her to sink her nails into as she bears the thoughts, bears the curious glances of onlookers asking, judging, what’s someone of his rank doing down here, and why is she keen on helping him? tifa doesn’t prickle herself on the suspicion. she understands the roots of their distrust, even if they’ve yet to know he’s a former SOLDIER: the fear that comes with anyone shinra-branded, carrying a weapon they were trained to use against any voiced unrest. or, worse, conspiracy. 

even with all the walking and waiting and talking she has done, she doesn’t know what to feel when she returns to the shower still running. his… latest trip, the one that brought him here, might have been particularly dangerous, she presumes, sitting on her bed like a dead weight. former SOLDIER, she repeats to herself, invoking the implications: someone that was privy to all he knew, nibelheim aside (but included), would not be let go just like that. 

it’s then when her own negligence crashes like a violent wave that compresses the air in her lungs: this is not just taking care of a friend. this is taking care of a missing weapon, one with the risk of being looked for, traced back. avalanche. the pace of her thoughts is frenetic, drowning the sound of water– until the wreck that goes off startles her enough to stand.

“cloud?” she knocks, “what was that?” but there’s nothing. even with her temple pressed against the door, she can’t make out the sound of breathing. he speaks, finally, but she can’t find it in her to trust the reassurance. not with the clear image of his dazed face when she found him at the station. she thinks, in an attempt at optimism, perhaps it’s a brief bout of lightheadedness? would he take offense in her not believing his word? 

tifa stays by the door as compromise. dead silent, indecisive. lamenting, perhaps, how much she wants to trust him, his word, and how much she doesn’t.

there’s another thud, and it marks a limit to the concern she can handle. “i’m coming in!” she calls out, voice worry-drenched, as she opens the door, the image of his crouching body, pinched close and trembling, filling her vision entirely. she can’t tell if she gasps or exclaims his name or is utterly silent.

she knows, however, that she’s moving. she can feel her body moving, taking immediate action, despite and because the shock, in order to close the handle, cold water splashing onto her. it all registers as a slow film playing back to her. therein, the quick glimpses she sees of the scars in his bare back, one particularly strange one in the middle of his shoulder blades standing out, are hour-long contemplations. there’s a thin stream of fresh blood trailing down from his scalp and onto that scar, and before she lowers to wrap the towel on him, she wonders if it’s due all his scrubbing, a miscalculation of strength. it has to be. otherwise, a wound there would be...

“cloud, hey, take it easy,” a plea out of the fear he might fall back into the worst of his initial daze again. he’s cold to the touch and she’s digging to place her hands atop the back of his, as if to help her voice go through by touch, “please, tell me you see me— that you can hear me.”

[apocalipsiss]

❝  So  I  understand  that  you  have  some  questions  about  LOVELESS, ❞ he begins, finding it strange that the younger SOLDIER would want to converse about his beloved epic.   ❝  Is  that  right  ?  ❞

@vctlan​ (for Luxiere).

[churchflower]

@vctlan​ asked: ( cloud ) ❛ i killed him. ❜

There was blood everywhere.       She did not flinch from the violence. She had learned a long time ago SOLDIERs didn’t fight and kill with joy or glee. They fought to protect. To defend. She reached out for the hilt of the buster sword, slowly pushing it down.  She turned herself away from the carnage, tilting her head to the side.         “What? Am I supposed to be scared?” She tilted her head, licking her thumb and rubbing a smear of blood off his cheek.