#Trigger warning: Hojo | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

the-music-maniac · 5 months ago

Text

Why is the daddy dom characterization so common with pre-nibelheim Sephiroth in fanfics. Does that look like a man who knows how to fuck, to you?

If someone does anything sexy in front of him, he would give them the Seph equivalent of a frog blink. That man is tired.

Lol jokes aside, I suspect for someone who has had his bodily autonomy dictated by lab techs and Hojo for the entirety of his life, he wouldn't be raring to have one night stands with complete strangers in his free time. Sure you could argue that sexual intercourse would be a way to regain a little control of autonomy, but I don't think it's likely when it would be with strangers that - not only never sees Sephiroth as anything but the famed legend (an image he doesn't like btw) which is likely accompanied by unwanted expectations of what he's like in bed, but complete strangers that could've also been sent to like. Assassinate the most important asset that Shinra has?

My point being that I don't think Sephiroth really had any safe space to explore what he likes for something like sex - and since it isn't necessary for his duty as a soldier, and may even count as unwanted distraction and vulnerability - Sephiroth likely discarded any interest in it entirely. That is, if he had any interest at all in the first place. You could also assume he could explore it with people he IS close with (ex. Angeal, Genesis etc.) but in those scenarios he wouldn't exactly know off the bat what he likes, or be self assured in any sense.

Trigger Warning (implication of SA/dubious consent): Of course you could also explore the darker side of this, which is that Sephiroth has experience because he didn't have a say in it, bc the company used him/trained him as an asset in this aspect as well. Which is an entirely different discussion to be had, so I won't go into it any further here.

And I think despite the suggestive shit that post-nibelheim Seph says to Cloud, his mind is not on anything sexual in actuality. He's likely aware of the effect flirtation and innuendo can have on people - disgust or interest or whatever would distract an opponent. Or he's just entirely unaware of - or does not care how else his words can be taken. He's a drama queen, but his goals have been pretty clear post insanity, and they have nothing to do with something as mundane as sex. So his demeanour after Jenova isn't that applicable (also we know that square Enix was like heehee we figured you would like this dialogue, so there is also that).

Basically, while I understand Sephiroth is a cool character for exploring fantasies (valid, go ham) - in terms of if you're trying to be accurate to canon characterizations, fics where he's written as a suave dom/top gets a bit of a question mark from me??

I feel like what makes more sense for ships involving pre-nibelheim Seph (including those sefikura time travel fixits that I'm mildly obsessed with) would be uncertainty. Here is finally someone who he actually feels safe to explore this aspect with, and it's natural for exploration to involve stumbles. And I don't think Seph would rule out submission or bottoming as an option in regards to himself either. Or switching/versatility. As someone trained to be objective or logical when tackling anything really - he would probably go about it methodically. So why not try it all to gather data?

What his and his partners' eventual preferences are gonna be is author's choice of course lmao

Also a disclaimer before I end it here - this post is purely because I find discussion on this interesting. If you disagree, or just wanna write what you wanna see, definitely do that and disregard what I've said. Fanfic is supposed to be self indulgent, so who gives a shit what other people think.

#I don't know if it's actually that common now it's just i've been looking at old fics #btw i posted this entirely by accident my tumblr glitched and now i have to contend with this post existing on the internet #final fantasy vii #sephiroth #i'm gonna tag all the ships i've seen this characterization in #sefikura #sephgen #sephzack

61 notes · View notes

bardic-tales · 9 days ago

Text

The Silence Between Screams - FF VII / FWC Alternate AU Fic

Summary: A clinical, soulless encounter between two scientists is overshadowed by the haunting presence of an experimental subject who refuses to break.

Pairing: Diana Ravenscroft (f!oc) / Professor Hojo

Other Characters: N01 (Bianca Moore), Zack Fair, Cloud Strife, Sephiroth (mentioned)

Possible Trigger Warnings: Abuse (medical), body horror, blood, captivity, coercion, experimental torture, graphic medical procedures, gaslighting, loss of bodily autonomy, medical trauma, non-consensual experimentation, psychological manipulation, sedation, sexual content (clinical, detached), torture, vivisection.

The silence that followed was surgical. Not awkward, not bashful. Simply . . . done.

The rustle of fabric as Diana Ravenscroft pulled her white coat back over her bare shoulders was louder than the tapping of her boots across the cold, blood-flecked tiles. She moved with the same mechanical efficiency she used to vivisect spinal cords and catalogue the reactions of degraded clones. Clinical. Controlled.

Hojo hadn’t bothered to redress completely. He stood near a steel table stacked with corrupted Sephiroth Clone tissue samples. His lab coat was open, shirt partially untucked. His posture was still hunched. His long fingers hovered over a scalpel as if debating whether to pick it up or whether it might betray something messy if he did.

Neither of them said anything for several moments. That was the way of scientists who’d reduced even human intimacy to data.

“I expected something . . . more,” Diana said finally, adjusting the rubber gloves onto her hands with a sharp snap. Her tone wasn’t judgmental. It was just factual, as though commenting on the acidity of a blood sample left unrefrigerated too long.

Hojo let out a dry chuckle. “I don’t perform for your satisfaction, Ravenscroft.”

She raised a brow as she tightened the belt around her coat. “And yet you seem quite invested in your reputation with the Costa del Sol interns.”

“Ah, yes. A crude population, easily impressed by confidence and a doctorate.” Hojo picked up the scalpel, examining its reflective edge with a disturbing fondness. “But I wasn’t interested in impressing you. I thought you might learn something.”

“I did,” she said, tucking a strand of copper-red hair behind her left ear. “That it’s a highly inefficient and overhyped biological process with excessive perspiration and no clear purpose outside of reproduction and temporary chemical feedback.”

“Ah,” Hojo murmured, “there it is. The dispassionate prodigy strikes again.” His smile was skeletal, as if his lips stretched thinly over his face. “You know, most people at least lie to themselves about needing connection.”

“Most people don’t watch their test subjects scream for dead lovers while their nerves are flayed open,” she said evenly. “That tends to adjust one’s expectations about the value of sentiment.”

Almost on cue from across the lab-

CLANG. SLAM.

A containment tank rattled violently against its metal restraints. The sound echoed through the suffocating, dusty corridors. Diana didn’t even flinch. She checked her clipboard.

N01 again.

The subject’s pale form spasmed violently in the green-tinged fluid. Mako and blood threaded through her veins like rivers of mercury. Her indigo eyes were squeezed shut, as her lips moved, sending bubbles up through the liquid she was submerged in.

Sephiroth . . .

The words was more of an exhalation than speech. Her vocal cords strained against the breathing tube that had been sutured in post-laryngeal insertion.

Hojo’s attention drifted lazily toward the tank. “Her vocal cords are regenerating faster than expected.”

“No,” Diana said, noting it. “She’s compensating. Trauma-induced vocal plasticity. Something about Sephiroth’s name triggers a spike in her theta wave patterns. Possibly just desperation.”

Hojo moved to the tank like a man greeting a particularly beautiful cadaver. His fingertips tapped the glass near N01’s head. “She calls for him even under sedation. What do you suppose that implies?”

“That her psychological tether has exceeded the cellular one. We’re beyond degradation timelines now,” Diana said. “She’s more will than flesh.”

Hojo’s grin deepened. “Delightful.”

Diana turned to check the other chambers: Zack Fair and Cloud Strife. Both were floating in their tanks, green light bathing their still faces.

Zack’s eyes fluttered. That one was fighting.

“Subject Fair is resisting the infusion protocols again,” she said, already stepping toward the monitor banks. “Jenova cell uptake is 32% lower than last week. You overdosed the mako.”

“No such thing,” Hojo said. He approached behind her. “He’ll break. They all do.”

Diana leaned close to the screen. “Except when they don’t. And then we have another Hollander problem on our hands.”

Behind them, N01 convulsed again. Blood seeped from her tear ducts and beneath her fingertips. Her back arched within the tube like she were fighting invisible restraints. Black and indigo wings rattled against the rigging pining them in place. She was fighting not just the containment gear but something older. A memory. A name.

Sephiroth. Again.

Diana tapped her stylus against the tank’s control screen, lowering the adrenaline stimulation by half a point. Her lips barely moved. “Interesting.”

Hojo watched her with a glint of suspicion beneath his glasses. “You’ve grown unusually preoccupied with N01.”

"She’s my assignment,” Diana replied coolly. “I’m invested in results. Her celestial genotype is the only one surviving cellular breakdown past the seven-month degradation mark.”

“Is that all?” Hojo asked. His voice was like a scalpel sliding under the skin: invasive and precise.

She didn’t rise to the bait. Instead, she stepped back and adjusted the settings on Cloud’s tank.

“I’ve noticed something curious,” she said. “Subject Strife is showing sporadic memory flash loops. I believe N01’s psychic field is affecting him.”

“Fascinating,” Hojo drawled. “Perhaps proximity-based empathic leakage.”

“Or perhaps,” she said softly, “we’ve underestimated the metaphysical overlap.”

Hojo tilted his head, peering at her like she was one of his own specimens. That was how he looked at everyone: like they were part of one never-ending test.

“You’ve always worshipped control, Diana. Cold fingers on the scalpel. So what is it about this girl?” he asked, voice growing quieter. “The way she fights even after her flesh is torn. The way she still calls for him. Are you envious?”

Diana looked at him then: sharp, green eyes flat. “You confuse obsession for admiration. What I see in her is possibility.”

“She’s not divine. She’s not Jenova”

“No,” Diana said. “But she was touched by something that is.”

They both stared at N01 for a moment longer, watching the bubbles escape her lungs in pulses, as if she were counting the seconds until she could scream for him again for the fluid to silence the name.

Hojo turned away first. “We’ll need to do another biopsy. Harvest from the lower spine this time. That’s where the demonic markers spike.”

“I’ll prep the restraints.”

She walked to the surgical table and hummed a tune under her breath. When she passed the semen-stained sheets still crumpled from their earlier liaison, she didn’t look at them once. There was no afterglow. No fondness. Just data to log and a subject to bleed.

Sometime Later

The labs fell quiet, smothered in the sterile hush of fluorescent light. Only the low, rhythmic hum of containment units broke the silence. The machines pulsed like mechanical lungs in the hollow underground lab. Dim green light filtered from massive cylindrical tanks, casting sickly patterns on the steel floor.

Zack Fair floated within one of them, motionless but twitching: a muscle in his jaw twitching every few seconds, like a dreamer caught in the throes of a nightmare he couldn’t wake from as he reached for a figure that had passed on.

Next to his tank, Cloud's eyes fluttered open for a breath of a moment: unfocused, pale blue irises drowning in the mako-saturated liquid. He didn’t seem to see anything. Then they shut again, sinking back into whatever coma Shinra had drugged him into.

In the furthest corner of the chamber, where the green light faded into nothingness and even the machinery dared not breathe too loud, a figure hung suspended in another tank. Isolated and restrained.

N01.

Unlike the others, she was half-curled, floating as though the containment fluid embraced her more tightly than gravity ever could. Her bare skin shimmered beneath the green hue, ethereal and bruised.

Shinra had stripped her bare, as if peeling away her last defense, her last dignity. But even so, she remained unbowed, a figure of tragic defiance suspended in silence.

Long black hair streaked with iridescent purples drifted around her like ink in water. Her eyes were closed.

A deep curved scar glowed faintly along her stomach, pulsing in sync with something ancient and wrong. The taint of Jenova had not been silenced. The cells only slept, tainting her blood and bonding with something far more ancient than them.

A ripple stirred the stillness.

Without warning, her fingers twitched, just a little, and her lips parted. Not wide. But the word that slipped through was undeniable, unyielding, carved from something deeper than consciousness. Still, the solution muffled the name.

"Sephiroth . . ."

There was no desperation. No sob or scream. It wasn’t a plea. It was a calling. Certain. Unshakable. An unbroken promise that he would come.

And then, an almost imperceptible sound pulsed around the tank. The tiniest of fractures spread like a vein through the glass of her tube, branching out from her right hand, where her clawed fingers now pressed faintly against the inside surface.

A slow tremor moved through the steel base of the chamber. The lights above flickered once. The containment fluid pulsed, as globes of air palpitated like the thudding of a heart through her containment unit. Somewhere, beyond the lab, a spirit stirred in a body that was not his.

And N01 barely smiled. Her expression was neutral, unreadable, but behind her eyelids and in the depths of blackness, memories bloomed like fire consuming a village: a ceiling ripped open by cosmic purpose, a ladder of splintered wood, and blood soaking silver hair.

The thread around her wrist was still there. Glowing. Binding. Unbroken. And in that moment, though she was still submerged, still locked in Shinra’s man-made tomb, the air around her changed.

Because something had heard her. He was coming.

@themaradwrites @craftyhal @megandaisy9 @watermeezer

@prehistoric-creatures @creativechaosqueen @chickensarentcheap

@inkandimpressions @arrthurpendragon

21 notes · View notes

getvalentined · 1 year ago

Text

I've never done a full breakdown of everything that happened to my version of Vincent while he was under the knife (although there is a partial breakdown from like 12 years ago on Ask Vincent Valentine), but @spinejackel tagged my recent Vincent doodle gushing about autopsy scar (Vincent Has a Y-Incision headcanon supremacy!) so I figured it was probably a good time. This is also probably the best method, since I can apply the right tags and trigger warnings to hopefully keep it from hitting the people who would be disturbed.

For anyone who doesn't know, figuring out the fucked up physiology of victims of science is like my entire jam. I think this is what happens when you let a chronically ill child watch Akira and the original Bubblegum Crisis OVA and most of the works of Masamune Shirow. All that before FF7 even existed. This means that the explanation under the cut may seem excessive, and this post is very long. I've been building it over over a quarter century, I don't think there's any avoiding it at this point.

Warnings for body horror, nonconsensual body modification, medical horror and torture. Basically, if there's anything you can think of related to becoming a victim of science under the rule of an unethical sci-fantasy oligarchy, it's probably in here to some degree. It's explained plainly and simply, in clinical but not visceral detail.

My headcanons for what Hojo did to Vincent are pretty specific, albeit not precisely comprehensive; 27 years later I still don't really have a particularly solid concept for how he turned Vincent into a shapeshifter, although at least we know it's not something entirely specific to Vincent—Hojo repeated that facet of the experiment in Azul, but not in any other SOLDIER operative even in DeepGround, implying that it's only possible if very specific physiological conditions are met. The minimal concept I do have involves a twisted application of the concept of incarnate summoning as it appears in FFXIII-2, but it's very vague and also not the topic of this post. Maybe later.

Regarding the Y-incision/autopsy scar, my headcanon is that once Hojo tweaked Vincent into being able to regenerate from any injury—an enhancement that is confirmed to be entirely Hojo's work in Dirge—the professor of course felt it necessary to run various tests quantify the usefulness of his handiwork. He did this first by inflicting various surface injuries, then by causing more extreme bodily trauma, which eventually culminated in Hojo removing the majority of Vincent's internal organs in order to measure how long it took them to grow back and, assuming they did grow back, how the new ones compared to Vincent's original parts.

To be able to observe this as closely as possible, Hojo kept Vincent's torso open for the entire process—which he repeated twice more in order to check the weight, size and structure of the newly-grown organs in comparison to the originals. This study proved that most of them did grow back, but the majority of them stopped developing much earlier than was appropriate for Vincent's age and size. The difference was consistent, Hojo just never figured out why most of them grew back smaller and less-developed.

The reason this happened is based the fact that most of the organs in the human trunk are used in digestion and other related processes, and Vincent's regeneration means he doesn't need to eat or drink anymore. His body only expended as much energy as was completely necessary to develop those organs to the point of being functional rather than normal, because they're not really necessary. Vincent is glad he still has them, though, because he does still occasionally eat (usually in social situations) and also he'd be really sad if he couldn't even have coffee.

Vincent's brain activity remained normal during the entire process, although that may have something to do with Hojo driving a bunch of fluid lines into his head and flooding the inside of his skull with mako to keep him awake the whole time even while deprived of oxygen. (Rebirth spoilers, but seeing the bit in the Nibelheim Protorelic questline where Hojo does something super similar to this, after this has been my headcanon for decades, was a trip.)

Two organs didn't grow back at all: Vincent's appendix and one kidney. This was also the result of efficient energy expenditure, as the human appendix isn't necessary for survival, and only one kidney is really required. (Each time Hojo removed the new kidney, the one that grew back would be on the opposite side, which bothered Hojo to no end.)

His lungs grew back a little larger, possibly because his skeletal structure never quite recovered after his first transformation into Galian—his arms and legs are noticeably too long for his body, although not to the point of looking impossible, and likewise his ribcage settled to breadth that would allow for larger lungs. He doesn't really need these anymore either, related to his brain being exposed to so much mako during the process that it can now operate without oxygen if necessary, but switching himself over from aerobic to anaerobic respiration is really unpleasant and Vincent tries to avoid it when he can.

His heart was pretty normal by the time Hojo was done with him, although his heartrate had dropped to like 20bpm even when elevated. Again, if respiration isn't necessary, there's not much reason for the system to be active. (By the time Lucrecia was done this had dropped to around 5bpm on average, although it's completely arrhythmic and jumps all over the place when he's not either particularly active or on the verge of a transformation.)

This was the experiment that left Vincent susceptible to degradation, which Hojo didn't realize until after finally closing him back up. Upon realizing that Vincent's body wasn't responding properly to a different test (a repetition of an earlier experiment related to the regeneration of external tissues and features), Hojo just kinda threw him in a tube to be disposed of at a later date, kinda like that scene in Arrested Development where there's that dead dove in a bag in the fridge. The incision healed at some point during the period that Lucrecia was working on him, but early enough in her work that the tissue couldn't flawlessly regenerate (like it does in the present), leaving him with one more gnarly scar on top of all the rest.

Vincent is self-conscious about all the physiological changes brought on by what was done to him, often to the point of loathing. His left arm is the worst—it rotted off while he was in the throes of degradation and grew back as something that he hesitates to call his arm—but Vincent hates that Y-incision scar almost as much. Some days they tie.

(It has come up in appropriately horrified conversation with Shalua that, considering how his regeneration works, Vincent could probably get rid of all the scars on his chest if he somehow peeled the skin off his torso in a single swath. He will not be doing that. Besides, it might grow back the wrong color/texture/etc, like his left arm. Not worth the risk, much less the suffering.)

Also I gotta finish off this entry with the extremely stupid headcanon reveal that Vincent's (honestly fairly impressive) dick was cut off during the first round of bodily trauma regeneration tests—and Hojo has never felt the sort of rage he experienced upon discovering that it grew back bigger than before. This occurred early enough in the experiments that Vincent was not awake for it, and thus has no idea how the fuck this happened, and does not want to talk about it ever thank you very much. I've never mentioned it in public anywhere because it is extremely stupid, but I hope someone out there finds it as funny a concept as I do.

#vincent valentine #headcanon warning #body horror tw #torture tw #medical torture tw #it's all described in scientific detail #not visceral at all #but it's still very much horror #so please be aware #and do not engage if you're not into that #fandom ramble

119 notes · View notes

chocobochaserstories · 3 days ago

Text

Sephiroth’s “Pentacle”

And why yes, I am aware that that’s a real word. We’re not talking about the talisman. We’re talking about @salternateunreality2’s headcanon of Sephiroth having a tentacle for a penis (penis + tentacle = pentacle). And Salty, I hope you know this progressively got more cursed as this project went on.

(Diagrams under the cut. No I cannot draw, we’ll work with what we’ve got here.)

Warning now. NSFW under cut. (:3)

Figure 1: Sephiroth’s Pentacle anatomy, sagittal cross section.

General differences between Sephiroth’s reproductive system and that of a general male’s are the obvious lack of a penis and the substitution of a tentacle. This is a result of J-Cells (Jenova, gross.). The tentacle was close to general penis size as an infant, and minus the “odd” shape, Hojo didn’t pay it much mind. It wasn’t until he began to enter puberty that the tentacle began to actually resemble a tentacle more and underdeveloped male genitalia less.

The tentacle, as it developed, began to become prehensile, and this is when the tactical ridges began to develop. The tactical ridges are what give the the tentacle not only its prehensile properties, but also the nerves in the ridges give Sephiroth the ability to discern his surroundings via tactile feel (Talk about getting to know your partner intimately).

Figure 2: Transverse cross section of the pentacle.

The musculature of the pentacle is primarily musculature, with very little adipose tissue. Like a typical human penis, the pentacle is vascular and erection is triggered by a rush of blood flow to the area.

And of course, the crack-brained headcanons:

Sephiroth has tactical (I realize I spelled it wrong on BOTH diagrams so… no I didn’t.) ridges over suckers to preserve Genesis’s rectum. Y’know, since suckers are traumatic and the rectum, being membranous tissue, is pretty sensitive. I imagine that’s more painful than pleasurable. Plus that’d be a really awkward visit to medical.

Sephiroth didn’t realize his “friend” was prehensile at first. He just figured it was growing with the rest of him, and that’s pretty normal. It wasn’t until he was trying to shower and he reached down to pick up his shampoo that he realized, as his pentacle was handing the bottle to him, that maybe this wasn’t quite what the anatomy book explained it was.

No, Hojo didn’t waste time to give him the talk. He gave him an anatomy textbook and walked away.

After reading that book was when Sephiroth realized “huh, yeah no my penis isn’t supposed to look like that.”

Genesis actually fainted out of shock the first time they had intercourse. Well, they hadn’t actually done anything yet. He got jumpscared by (in Salty’s words) Sephiroth’s Trouser Snake being a little too much of an actual snake.

When Genesis came to, he actually tugged on it. I mean, they were teenage boys. Teenage boys prank each other. Maybe it was a dildo in Sephiroth’s boxers to mess with him. It was probably Angeal’s idea. It was very much real.

Genesis was actually slapped in the face by the pentacle, and not in the sexy way. In the “Sephiroth’s appendage has a mind of its own thanks to Jenova” way. Sephiroth apologized, Gen was flabbergasted. The mood was kind of ruined after that.

It took several weeks and Genesis been afraid to even touch Sephiroth’s belt to try that again. Genesis had the (only slightly) irrational fear that the pentacle would slither up and hit him again.

This also makes condom shopping a fun game as y’know, condoms are typically made for a completely different shape. Also what size would that even be? Generally penises don’t taper into a point and have significant grooves on the end, you know? Count on Genesis to find an “Adult” store that sells condoms specifically for tentacle dildos. Though if those get discontinued, they might be a little screwed.

Sephiroth also wears special boxers and a protective cup in his SOLDIER uniform due to the odd shape that doesn’t match the standards that usually go into producing SOLDIER protective gear. And of course, First Class Sephiroth wears the tightest freakin’ pants.

#sephiroth #final fantasy vii #final fantasy 7 #ff7 #crack headcanons #expansion of someone else’s headcanon #sephiroth being non-human #Frickin’ Jenova #I blame Jenova #jenova

15 notes · View notes

sapphirothcrescent · 2 months ago

Text

My Professor Sephiroth AU with Sapphire summary. This Sapphire is even MORE feral than the original!

TW: Hojo is a trigger warning all his own, human experimentation, medical torture, medical trauma, PTSD, non consensual medical treatment.

Sephiroth is not Hojo (he tells himself) so when he's in charge of Shinra's R&D (after Hojo suddenly and unexpectedly dies in an "accident") he decides to develop a much safer and more ethical working environment. All of the experiments and specimens need to be catalogued and either put out of their misery or taken care of. All of Hojo's research needs to be looked over. He's got a long road ahead of him.

In his initial tour of the facility, Sephiroth comes across a specimen cell with the label SA001. Inside is a very pale, malnourished human woman. The sight of Sephiroth, a man in medical attire and an air of authority about him, sets her off. Sephiroth is concerned on how hostile she is just at the mere sight of him. One of the senior researchers who reluctantly helps Sephiroth out of shame and fear tells him that SA001 was one of many Hojo experimented on with J Cells and who didn't die from the injections. She's labeled aggressive and dangerous. She also can't speak. The researcher doesn't know if she ever could speak before or has gone mute from being at the mercy of Hojo for whoever knows how long.

Sephiroth wants a thorough medical examination but SA001 does not make it easy for him. For a non SOLDIER, she's quite strong. She bites and scratches and kicks and manages to draw blood from him, impressing Sephiroth. At least Hojo wasn't experimenting on her with rabies. After finally realizing that none of the other researchers hae the strength to hold her down long enough for him to examine her, he calls in an old friend by the name of Zack.

Between the two of them, Sephiroth gets a standard exam and some blood work off her before finally giving her a sedative. She bites him one more time as he holds her waiting for the medicine to take effect then her eyes glaze over and she lies limply in his arms, then carries her to a larger, less dismal cell and wraps her up in a thick non medical issue blanket for comfort. Before he leaves he takes one last look at this poor "specimen" and tells her unconscious form that he promises to make her feel safe one day.

#au of an au #ff7 #oc #sephiroth x oc #oc x canon #sapphiroth #sapphiroth AU

7 notes · View notes

prismaticpichu · 9 months ago

Note

B, C, F!!

You got it!! 💕

Any of your stories inspired by personal experience? ~ Yes!!! One of my personal favorite fics, Lightning, has a huge focus on PTSD and the sense of confusion that comes with spontaneous triggers/episodes. For instance, (and without getting into too much detail) I myself have been able to handle being in a room full of drunk people just fine- while other times looking at a wine glass can cause my heart to pick up speed. Sephiroth in that fic is plagued by horrible memories of being electrocuted by Hojo as a child (triggered by a storm outside), yet is left confused and ashamed, claiming that he has been able to handle trekking through thunderstorms in the past without ever breaking a sweat. The point I was trying to get across there is that, sometimes- and as Zack puts it- PTSD episodes can be completely random, like “lightning having the chance to strike a tree.” Sometimes, we’re just hit by it when other times we’re not. And that’s okay <333 It’s absolutely okay.

What character do you identify with most? ~ ON A LIGHTER NOTE LOL I think I see a lot of parallels in myself to Zack!! It’s hard to always stay positive- especially when his world seems to be imploding- but the young First always tries his best to keep everyone’s spirits high!! I imagine he’s someone who genuinely finds catharsis in making others smile, even when he himself is having trouble doing so. He’s the exact kind of person I strive to be: kind, optimistic, and loyal until the very end!! <333

Care to share a favorite hurt/comfort fic? ~ Absolutely!!! How about I share a few?? <333 (and it doesn’t specify that they have to be MINE soooooo~)

• Warning: Flash Photography by @tardistype221b ~ absolutely ADORE this fic for its implementation of very realistic PTSD- with the flashbacks beautifully laced throughout!!- and Zack being there to comfort his best friend <333 ahhhhhh!!!

• A Haven of Hyacinths by @dyradoodles ~ Just PEAK catharsis wherein a Jenova-purified Seph is reunited with Zack in the Lifestream <333

• Footfalls by @altocat ~ another extremely cathartic ride, only it’s post-Nibelheim addition!! <333 Zack is essentially doing what he does best- carrying a delirious Sephiroth across the snowy mountains as they escape ShinRa’s clutches <333 All with the most beautiful writing you can imagine!!

• Poster Boy by copper_nights ~ Protective Angeal being the best friend on the face of Gaia <33333 Gahhhh I love this author sm!!! So many amazing fics in their arsenal!!

• When the Stars Shine Brightest by @lucky-ladybugs-lovelies (I believe this is the right blog??? Plz forgive me person I tag if it’s not!! 😂❤️) ~ anyway lol THIS FIC MADE ME CRY. LIKE… IT LEGITIMATELY DID. NO OTHER FIC HAS MADE ME CRY BEFORE OR SINCE. Fic follows an extremely shattered Sephiroth in the aftermath of Zack’s death- having been killed on a mission. That’s all I can say without spoiling the rest, bc it’s really worth going in blind <333 Do note that 1) this fic is on FF.Net and might need a little more digging to get to and 2) it is a sequel fic- but I promise you its predecessor, Shine Until Tomorrow, is worth the read itself <333 It’s really just an incredible story she tells, and i’ve always been such a HUGE fan of her worldbuilding <333 SOLDIER always feels so alive!!! As do the characters!!

(Side note- if you ever fsr wondered where my love for Zack & Seph came from, it started here 😂 With this wonderful author!!!)

#fanfics #pichu writing #fic recs #zackseph #sephiroth #zack fair #crisis core #angeal hewley #asks #ty!!

15 notes · View notes

flowerwiththemachinegun · 4 months ago

Note

why do you like hojo?

I could explain…but I won’t. Probably 30+ trigger warnings long that I’d rather the world never know.

6 notes · View notes

salternateunreality2 · 1 year ago

Text

AGSZC Wedding Highlights (crack)

from the @strayheartless archives <3

The ceremony will be quiet, sweet, intimate, possibly an elopement, and the after party/reception will be a literal zoo because Zack will invite every friend he's ever made, which of course includes animals. Naturally, Cloud's dragon aunt and cousin (Asil and Knarf) will also be invited.

Cloud biting Hojo and Sephiroth immediately urging him to let go… because of how gross Hojo is (that can't be healthy for Cloud), not because Hojo is screaming in pain.

Sephiroth and Cloud hiding under a table/in a closet is going to happen. No, not to make out (though that will happen), but to get away from ~the people~.

Sefikura do come out at regular intervals to show love for their partners by braving the humans. They emerge together, holding hands, and go greet family members or dance with AGZ for 30 minutes at a time, then they make eye contact from across the room and go rescue each other.

"Excuse me, Aunt Rachel, it was lovely meeting you, but it looks like my new husband needs a break" *scuttles off to rescue Cloud from a dance with Cousin Casey*

"Oh, my new husband looks like he needs me, thanks for the dance, bye" *skitter skitter skitter*

AGZ being so proud of them and grateful that they're pushing through AND taking care of themselves.

The Strifes defend the new husbands from obnoxious relatives (some lines borrowed from the illustrious @strayheartless)

Cloud: *materializes out of nowhere* Hello, Genevieve Rhapsodos. I heard you were saying this cake was triggering your asthma because of the gluten. You meant celiac disease. Which you don't have and didn't warn us about. Furthermore-

Sephiroth: Nope, back to the table *drags Cloud away, desperately grabbing his hands so he can't flip her off*

Zack: *laughing his ass off*

Gillian: You had that coming.

Angeal: *trying not to laugh and come up with an apology*

Genevieve: *sputtering indignantly* Are you going to let him talk to me like that?!

Genesis: *smirking* Yep.

Claudia: How's that for a country bumpkin, bitch? *shoves cake in her mouth*

Genevieve: Are you going to let HER talk to me like that?!

Genesis: I don't LET the Strifes do anything. They do what they want. If you want to fight her, go ahead and good luck, mother.

Claudia: If you need me, I'll be under the table with them having delicious, gluten-filled cake, mmmmm!

-----

(((For context, Asil is Claudia's dragon mom friend, as discussed here, and Knarf is Asil's dragon son)))

Hojo: *shows up, starts making a scene with security. Apparently being bitten wasn't warning enough.*

Claudia: I smell bitch. Be right back. ASIL!

Hojo: *suddenly gains the power of flight via dragon*

Knarf: *is raiding the buffet, his mom can handle this*

Hollander: *skedaddles with a pocket full of cake after seeing what happened to Hojo*

Knarf: *pops his head under the table to lick the boys then trots off because he smelled Scientist with CAKE*

Hollander: *is about to learn a valuable lesson about dragon tracking abilities*

Claudia: *adopts Sephiroth on the spot and pats his head because she's awkward and doesn't know what to do. It's the perfect thing to do.*

Genesis sneaks each of his boys away to dance in the night air at some point, just the two of them in a circle of fire he lit with his materia skills to show off.

Angeal makes sure everyone eats, especially Cloud, who was nervous before the ceremony, and Genesis and Zack, who simply forgot.

Sephiroth whisks each husband away to look at the stars together and fumbles through a few lines of the individualized love letters he wrote for them.

He knew he wanted to do something like this and wound up asking Cloud's friend Tifa, who walked him through romantic ideas, and encouraged him to write them each a letter if he was uncomfortable speaking it all out loud. Once he had a structure, the rest was easy. Each of them cherishes their letter to this day.

Zack worked really hard to smooth the way for everyone socially, and also gave each of his men a special, meaningful wrapped gift.

Cloud pulled each one into a random hallway, got on his tiptoes, and kissed them.

He's not the biggest on physical affection, so they were all thrilled that he agreed to marry him despite his hang-ups AND that he's initiating a lot. They're all out of their minds and over the moon over how incredibly cute he is.

He also told them each the same thing, trying to be romantic. And, well...

"I'd kill a god for you and rip out their innards with my teeth".

He...probably should have asked Tifa for help. They love it anyway.

After the party, they take their time on their honeymoon to chill in each other's company.

That suits Angeal just fine, because even neurotypicals get worn out by socializing, and he LOVES cuddling his boys.

Cloud gnaws on a lot of stuff in happiness.

Sephiroth is purring non-stop, and they all take turns laying on his chest.

Everyone passes Cloud around like a prize and he puts up with it because it's THEM.

Everyone simultaneously decides to dogpile Angeal and thank him for all he does for them while suffocating him to the happiest death ever.

Besides marital activities, cough cough, there will be a lot of...

Them play fighting in the long grass. Them getting ticks in the long grass. Them being treated by Angeal and told not to go back into the long grass. Them going back anyway because one of them (Zack) found the coolest bug ever. Genesis setting fire to the long grass because he hates bugs. All the ticks dying because he firagas the shit out of the long grass. Angeal sighing about the long grass. Sephiroth pulling out his textbook knowledge and saying it's fine, the grass will come back, but the ticks won't, and really, they did the world a service. (I KNOW THIS IS NOT SCIENTIFIC, LET A SALT DREAM)

Them all stargazing in the burnt field, Cloud falling asleep almost right away, sandwiched between two of his husbands. Zack asking to be carried home when it's time, then falling asleep in Sephiroth's arms. AGS putting the spiky ones to bed together and taking so many cute pictures as the pair automatically gravitates to each other.

They stumble across a Hojo lab and discover their new children: the Remnants and some Chadleys.

Zack: I love all our babies 🥰 we should have more! Video of Zack with his babies

Sephiroth: Alright, let's find another lab to raid.

Angeal: *reading documents* WHAT THE FUCK, HOJO?!

Cloud: ikr even after Asil ate him we're still finding his experiments. They're hella cute experiments, but still.

Genesis: *at the babies* STOP CHEWING ON YOUR BROTHER.

#ff7 #sephiroth #zack fair #cloud strife #genesis rhapsodos #angeal hewley #agszc

23 notes · View notes

altocat · 21 days ago

Note

It’s a dark topic but it’s for a fic. Were there certain procedures that Sephiroth underwent in the labs that he blocked from his memories entirely? I think anything involving violation of his reproductive autonomy?

Hoo boy. Gonna put this one under the cut. TWs, obviously.

Some of the more traumatic experiences Sephiroth has endured has been more psychological than physical, with Hojo running a series of sensory deprivation experiments on him with the expressed purpose of breaking any flicker of rebellion within his greatest experiment. Sephiroth has repressed a LOT of these memories as a result, often becoming very confused and agitated when he suddenly finds himself reacting negatively to tightly enclosed spaces or solitary confinement.

As for reproduction, Hojo HAS retrieved MULTPLE "samples" from Sephiroth over the years. Mostly so he can have them on file for later use if he so chooses. These samples were retrieved while Sephiroth was unconscious, aided by the help of machines to provide a suitable level of stimulation. Sephiroth knew about the procedures. He loathed them violently. And personally ASKED to be unconscious during the procedure so he didn't have to think about it. It just feels like a bad dream afterwards, hazy, easy for him to ignore if he doesn't dwell on it. More than often, he pretends it was little more than a vague nightmare that never actually happened.

...Sometimes, he has a very, very hard time meeting Hojo's eyes.

And, to his credit, Hojo never brings it up again in the aftermath.

The road to Hell is paved one silent step at a time.

They'll go there together someday.

#asks #ff7 #ffvii #final fantasy 7 #sephcanons #sephiroth #final fantasy vii #crisis core #hojo #professor hojo #tws #trigger warnings

19 notes · View notes

holly-fixation · 4 months ago

Note

AU where Sephiroth and Aerith are half siblings

So there are multiple ways to do this. You might hate me for the one I picked. Trigger warning.

Sephiroth always admired Professor Gast. No matter how much training and education Hojo forced him through, he beamed when Professor Gast came into his room.

When Professor Gast stopped coming in, Sephiroth constantly asked where he was. At least until Hojo chose to lock him in simulated battles until he could barely remember his own name.

Professor Gast never returned, but Hojo disappeared for a few days. Sephiroth wished he could feel relief. He was terrified of missing a task Hojo desired and to be punished for the lack of accomplishment.

When Hojo returned, the scientist brought a woman with him. A woman with brown hair in a red dress.

A year passed, and Sephiroth was told he had a little sister.

He was more than confused. But the woman in red held a tiny baby he was supposed to be friendly with.

He didn't like the woman or the baby. If didn't help that she clearly didn't like him either.

As the babe grew into a child, they became close.

Aerith's presence gave him the freedom to try things he never dared in the lab. Sephiroth's presence protected her from almost all invasive appointments.

She gave him a stuffed chocobo. He taught her how to use combat knives.

The one thing Sephiroth couldn't protect was Ifalna.

That was okay. Because Ifalna couldn't save him either.

Aerith's smiles, Ifalna's presence, and Gasts kindness all vanished far too soon.

He was left only with Hojo until his first real mission began: a rescue of P0 classes and the extermination of Rhadore.

#ffvii #ff7 #final fantasy vii #sephiroth #final fantasy 7 #aerith gainsborough #hojo ff7 #ifalna

25 notes · View notes

connectionxterminated · 1 year ago

Text

The Devil Doesn't Bargain.

Seeking Out Vengeance. — Lockette Hojo.

Trigger Warnings: Descriptions of Fire, Manipulation, Gaslighting, Suffocation from inhalation of smoke, Problematic father, Character death.

Tags: @gmanwhore , @the-main-characters , @ghostlyplacetobe , @ren-not-rennie , @miss-midnightt

The fire burned all around her, her wings extending to their full length, a burning look of hatred filling her eyes as she stares him down, clenching her fists until her knuckles turned white, the smoke filling the air as the mad scientist backs away in utter fear, stumbling back into his desk, trying to grip the desk to keep himself up, but unable to, he falls forwards from the smoke filling his lungs, coughing and hacking, tears pricking the corners of his eyes, squinting as he tries to focus his gaze on his daughter standing in front of him, but being unable to due to the smoke obscuring his vision.

Lock steps forwards, picking her father up by the collar of his lab coat, causing him to stand up in an instant, covering his mouth with the sleeve of his coat, glaring daggers into his daughter.

"What the Hell do you think you're doing?!"

He demanded an answer, but only received a mocking laugh in response by the girl who stood in front of him, seemingly unaffected by the smoke and the fire.

"Doing what I should have done a long, long time ago."

She held the match in her hand, lighting it up, the flame much smaller compared to the one surrounding them, and with that, she dropped it onto the floor, causing the already growing fire to grow bigger than it was beforehand.

"You should have realized how much pain you've inflicted on me years ago, and then maybe, just maybe, this would have never happened. This is your own fault."

Lock scowls, folding her wings away as she turns her back to him, hearing him fall to the ground from all the smoke he's inhaled, and for a moment, just for a moment, she feels pity and guilt.

And he reaches out to her, tears now rolling down his cheeks, his voice raspy and unsteady from the smoke filling his lungs, a small sad smile on his face as he laughs weakly, his head falling to the ground, his black hair falling out of its ponytail and in front of his face.

"My little Lockette.. You're just like your mother.. Strong.. Resilient and so very capable.."

Lock pauses, turning her head over her shoulder to stare him dead in the eyes with a look that could kill.

"You have no right to say such things. You abandoned her! You abandoned me! You never cared for me or mom! You only used her because you wanted to further your research! Don't pull that bullshit on me!"

She turned away again, taking a few steps away from her father with her fists clenched, she wipes her own tears, shaking her head firmly with another scoff.

"Do.. Do you remember..? When you were a little girl..? That pendant I gave you..? Do you.. Do you still have it..?"

Hojo asks with a weak smile, coughing roughly as he struggles to stand, wiping away his tears as Lock raises a brow, now gripping the pendant around her neck as she nods.

"Of course I do. I've had it ever since I was 3.. Before.. Before she.."

She trails off, a look of anguish and hurt crossing her features, feeling her fathers hand on her shoulder.

"Before she was killed. I know.. But.. But that.. That pendant was once your mothers.. I held onto it for her.. And then.."

He cuts himself off by falling to the ground as the flames grew higher and higher, coughing roughly and loudly as he wheezes, Lock narrowing her eyes suspiciously.

"And then what..? And then what?!"

Her father smiles up at her weakly, wheezing as he tried to speak once more.

"And then.. she asked me.. to give it to you.. when you were old.. enough.. My little Lockette.."

Lock scoffed, folding her arms over her chest as she rolls her eyes.

"Yeah, but that still doesn't make up for the fact that you killed mum, and you ruined me as a person! I could've had a normal life if you never did what you did!"

Lock snapped at him, earning a long sigh in response from Hojo.

"It was for the betterment of mankind."

Lock steps back, her eyes narrowing further if that was even possible at this point.

"The betterment of mankind?"

She repeated, anger evident in her tone.

"Shut the Hell up, you bastard! See?! I knew you would never change!"

Hojo sighs, letting out a long wheeze and collapsing to the ground, passing out from the lack of oxygen he was receiving.

In turn, Lock took off her pendant, walking over to her father's desk, picking up the old 'family' photo of her, her mother Starlight, and her father Hojo. She gently wipes her hand over her mother's face, revealing her, she frowned, putting her pendant down next to the photo, finally letting go of all that has happened as she exits the burning lab, shaking off the bit of flames upon her wings.

She turned back and looked over her shoulder towards her unconscious and barely visible father laying on the ground of the lab, fire surrounding him as she shakes her head softly, leaving the premises for good.

"The Devil Doesn't Bargain."

#{ lock ; drabble }#{ cryptid ; writing }#{ lock }#{ oc ; lock }

8 notes · View notes

catsvrsdogscatswin · 11 months ago

Text

Higurashi Month 2024, Day 4: Depressed

Higurashi Month prompts archive: AO3

Trigger Warning: Depictions of the club members handling depressive episodes.

Depression fell over Keiichi only once, when he reached the top –and found apathy. Always pressure, always success, but less and less praise, less and less rewards.

His depression was redirected outwards. If he could not take joy in things, then he wouldn't give joy to other people, either. If his mom worked hard over breakfast, he wouldn't eat it, and serve her right. It didn't matter if his stomach felt hollow and achy for most of the day afterwards; he didn't care.

He could just say that he was busy, that he wanted to get to class earlier to study, and she wouldn't even be upset. That annoyed him. So he could starve himself and she wouldn't care, just for his stupid grades?

Huh. He'd… he'd show her, he'd do something she wouldn't like. Probably. Somehow. He'd find another way to rebel.

Keiichi treated his depression like a pebble in his shoes; a hard, persistent point of annoyance that shortened his temper and made him keen to spread the bad mood around.

~*~

Mion curled in on herself when the depression came. When she didn't feel like enough, when she felt like she could have saved Satoshi, when all of her dues and duties and performances and guilt came seeping in…

She went quiet. She withdrew.

She wasn't born the heir, but she'd been taught to be the heir, and the Sonozaki family taught that vulnerability must be hidden, that flagrant displays of emotion were to be kept behind closed doors.

So Mion closed her doors and buried her grey feelings deep, deep, deeper down, covering them with layer after layer of duty and obedience and friends and fun. She fought it like any other enemy; by studying, deconstructing, and then ruining them. Sadness was just another enemy to beat.

So –she took a step back. She severed the hurt before it could linger and purged her wounds before they could fester. She tossed her sorrow to the back of the closet and forced herself to look to the brighter days ahead; and if they weren't there already, she made them be. She dragged her friends into tempestuous games of glory and fun and wild, dizzy laughter until she forgot what she had to be sad about, much less that she was sad.

Even in times of deep, bitter hurt –when games weren't enough– she still withdrew quietly, locking her feelings away from all but a few; the friends she used to help cleanse the poison from a wound.

~*~

Shion shut down.

The birds didn't stop singing –a ridiculous poetic convention, she'd always felt– but now they just made noise, instead of their happy trills. The sun didn't stop shining, but it was always too bright or too grey; it made her eyes hurt. Food was too bland, too textured, too flavorful, and she gagged to think of forcing it down.

Everything became… too much.

All she ever wanted to do was drag herself, lead-weighted down to her bones, into the soft safety of a fluffy blanket, curl up, and weep the world away. She wanted the whole universe to whirl around and come to a halt with a reality-rocking crash, wanted to plunge anything and everything into a black, endless, silent abyss, just so it would stop.

It was always too much. It was all too much.

But since she couldn't destroy the world, she simply locked the world away, falling into a dim grey haze of routine that shied away from the slightest change, the slightest effort, the slightest intrusion of a honor anything into her bitter, despairing sorrow.

~*~

Satoshi probably used to react to depression differently, but now, well…

After years of being an outcast –unwelcome in every village activity, shunned at every facility– he neither tried to hide, nor expected to receive sympathy for, his moments of despair. Why bother? No one cared to help. No one cared to notice. He was a Hojo, and his family were vermin in the eyes of his neighbors.

It wasn't fair, of course, but he'd gotten used to things that weren't fair becoming the norm.

So he just… existed. He went about his day with the grey mantle of depression lying heavy on his shoulders, but he paid as much attention to it as dandruff.

Why bother caring? Why bother worrying? No one was going to help, and he had no way to help himself. There was no point in wasting his slender resources trying to fix it.

He couldn't do anything. He was helpless.

All he could do was wait for the few moments when things temporarily changed for the better.

~*~

Rena liked to think of her life as shining bubbles of wonderful, sparkling memories… but she knew that deep down underneath, all those dancing glints and sparkles just overlaid a sullen, remorseless, endless grey sea the color of dirty dishwater.

It was a stone around her neck, thick iron chains on her ankles, and she fought it, forcing herself to find something cute every day, to smile, to be happy, to leave those thoughts and that terrible persistent dragging weight behind. Some days she had more success than others.

It wasn't fair. She poured all this love, all this light and happiness and joy into her mind, ceaselessly and without relenting every day, and still the depression waited to pounce, lunging out whenever she let her guard down and sinking its poison fangs deep into her mind.

It truly wasn't fair. If she spent all her days playing with her friends, smiling, laughing, finding adorable things to take home or polishing her treasures, why didn't those loving memories, those joyful feelings, simply outnumber and crush that terrible weight beneath them? Math said they should –it simply wasn't fair.

But Rena was a fighter to the end, so she kept planting her feet in the dust, fixing a smile on her face, and going about her childhood days with her beloved friends.

~*~

Rika didn't know what it was to not feel depressed. It was like a set of sunglasses bound over her eyes, a tint that shadowed everything she saw.

She might be able to snatch a particle of release playing those delightfully wonderfully unpredictable games with Mion and her friends, but there was always the thought, the sorrow, gnawing at the back of her head, like forgotten homework or an upcoming appointment.

This will not last. This will end sooner than you wish.

How could anyone be happy, truly happy, in the face of that? Knowing everything that she knew?

She could smile and feign cheerfulness, but Rika was a swimmer with tied arms, desperately kicking her legs to keep her face above the water. The barest pause, the slightest rest, the most tiny slackening in her efforts, and she would go under and drown. She'd lost courts of the false starts to that she'd had already, the moment when the water had closed over her head and only a moment of frantic, soul-burning efforts had kept her from succumbing.

Her despair had been ground so deeply into her heart that the only thing that kept her thin spidersilk strand of hope from snapping was the thought that, someday, she might be free and it all might end.

~*~

Satoko isn't the type to get depressed. Her spirits naturally rocket to the sky like fireworks, and to crush and extinguish those flames means grinding her down so deeply that there is nothing but bare ash and embers. She doesn't get sad, she gets angry –or she simply stops.

A lot of animals have that reaction –a fawn's instinct, when threatened, is to freeze and hope it isn't spotted. Satoko does that. She goes still. Quiet. Limp.

If you are not a burden, you are not noticed. If you are not troubling, you are not seen. If you do not object, you will not be spoken to.

Deflect. Deflect. Deflect.

Defense mechanism or not, it works. If Satoko lets her mind retreat to a quiet blank place that only stirs to give her body whatever instructions it needs to complete a task, she does not have to think about what gives her sorrow. If she detaches her thoughts from what makes her sad, she can complete her tasks and not remember why it hurts.

If she doesn't think about it, it doesn't count.

Ignoring it until it goes away might be cheap, but that is how Satoko handles her depression, nonetheless.

~*~

Hanyuu… is not particularly built for melancholy. She had never learned the words and meanings that were currently thrown hither and yon to describe a person's mental state, and while yes, she grieved, and yes, she held onto her hurt, she did not particularly…

It was hard to describe.

Whatever else she was, Hanyuu was also primarily a spirit long gone, and her emotions did not sustain themselves when she did not think about them.

Of course, she sorrowed for Rika! And of course, her despair was black and deep, growing darker with each failure! But…

Grief was a constant companion, and had been since before her heart had given its last doomed beat and her former vessel sank into the ooze of the swamp. Rika knew joy and life and fun, but Hanyuu was nothing but an observer, an unseen pair of eyes, and had been for so agonizingly long that even her emotions seemed to come to her secondhand, like a tale told or a play being watched.

They struck sudden and bold, sometimes, that is true. She could still feel, with all the raging intensity of the living and the icy depths of divinity. But it was not often; she did not let it.

Hanyuu did not think her heart could handle such a breaking again.

#Higurashi Month #Higurashi Month 2024 #Higurashi no Naku Koro ni #Higurashi When They Cry #When They Cry

3 notes · View notes

bardic-tales · 6 days ago

Text

Where Grief Began - a FF 7 / FWC fic

Summary: Bianca dreams of Sephiroth in a twisted vision of heaven and childhood trauma, only to awaken to the nightmare of another failed pregnancy and captivity under Shinra's control.

Pairing: Bianca Moore (f!OC) / Sephiroth

Other Characters: Diana Ravenscroft (f!OC), Hojo (mentioned), Sarah Moore (f!OC)(mentioned)

Possible Trigger Warnings: abduction, blood, body horror, captivity, child death (referenced), coercion, emotional manipulation, experimental pregnancy, grooming overtones, hallucinations, implied non-consensual touching, medical trauma, miscarriage, non-consensual medical procedures, power imbalance, psychological abuse, psychological manipulation, PTSD, reproductive trauma, restraints, sexual trauma (implied), stalking (emotional and psychological), surreal horror, trauma flashbacks, vivisection

The forest was always quiet.

Moonlight glowed like frost across the canopy, refracting through the translucent leaves above. Bianca walked barefoot. Her black-threaded hair rippled behind her like water, not quite touching the ferns beneath her. Her breath didn’t fog in the air. There was no scent. No temperature. Only stillness.

This was not the Celestial Realm. It was false. Unnatural. She looked around her, but she knew that instinctively. She knew it because hybrids like her were forbidden there until their soul had wearied of flesh. Of the blights upon the world. Because no place in paradise would smell faintly of him.

His scent was all around her.

Sephiroth’s scent was not natural. It was sterile leather, charred wood, and cold steel. Every time it curled into her nostrils. Her gut twisted, reminding her of the operating table, the scent of fluid, and Hojo’s laughter behind glass.

That scent was false, too. Once again, she knew it instinctively. Sephiroth's scent should have never reminded her of her experiments. He had died before she was taken by Shinra and thrust in the bowels beneath the Shinra Manor. Before the flailing of skin. Before bones being splinter. Before the despair.

She stopped in the clearing. Silver ferns swayed with no wind. The trees around her pulsed faintly with light. Veins glowed from within like stars' reflections upon moonlight water.

“Do you like it?” The voice was sweet but filled with rot.

She didn’t turn. He wasn’t there. He was never there, not until he wanted to be. Not until the forest bled, and the stars wept. Above her, the moon opened like an eye and the beams burnt.

Not her skin. No. This was more insidious than that. It was like a flash burn beneath her flesh, probing at thoughts and emotions that she had long forgot.

“I built it for you,” Sephiroth said again. His voice was close, brushing the nape of her neck. Her back arched slightly. No one was there. “From your mother’s memories.”

Her breath hitched. Seraphine.

“I’ve never been to the Celestial Realm,” she said, turning slowly. “You don’t know what it looks like. How? How did you access my mother's memories?”

His form coalesced: impossibly tall, lithe. He was a darkness draped in buckled black leather and reflective silver. The pauldrons gleamed. His long silver hair fell like a screen around his face, and the cat-like eyes glowed with poisonous affection. He was like poisoned honey.

“I don’t need to know it. I know you.” He stepped forward. “And this is what your heaven looks like, isn’t it? Hunted. Haunted. Beautiful.”

Bianca stepped back. her heart thudded even though this was a dream. She thought it was. Her fingers twitched for Solstice, but the blade was absent, as if excised from memory like a boil one removed.

“You’re not real,” she whispered.

Sephiroth smiled. “Say it again.”

She didn’t. Her silence was defiance, and that always excited him. He moved faster than she remembered. One hand cupped her chin: leather-cladded fingers brushing her lips and the pressure almost gentle.

“Tell me you love me,” he murmured, breath grazing her cheek. “Say it, Bianca.”

His thumb dragged slowly across her lower lip, and something in her shattered. As tears slid down her face, she bit. Her fangs clamped down upon him, almost ripping the digit from his hand.

Blood welled on his thumb. A strange taste filled her mouth: metallic and tangy. He didn’t flinch. Sephiroth watched her eyes, and his gaze didn't give away any emotion, but then he leaned down and kissed her.

She tried not to respond, but her soul twitched. Her wings quivered, as she fought against the sensations rising like a geyser.

His mouth was too warm. Too soft. It reminded her of when he had been just Sephiroth, before the fire. Before Jenova. Then, the uninvited kiss deepened and filled with possession. His fingers curled around her chin. His blood dripped from his thumb and smeared against their faces. Then, as quickly as he appeared, Sephiroth was gone.

Only a single black feather remained, drifting down and landing in her hand.

She collapsed to her knees. As she sat there in the grass with the ancient trees towering over her, she gagged silently. Her fingers trembled.

The moon above fractured like glass. The trees groaned before bleeding red.

The dream shifted. No. She tried to scream, but no sound came. The trees receded like shadows into fog. The ground changed. Wood became carpet. Moonlight became amber glow of a nightlight.

She was in her old bedroom.

Seattle. Age ten. Gold fairy lights hung above her bed. A bookshelf filled with names she would one day surpass stood in the far right corner. A lavender blanket with her name stitched by Sarah Moore’s calloused hands draped over her My Little Pony bedspread.

Her legs were still adult. Her chest still rose and fell with a grown woman’s breath. But she was ten again, and Sarah was about to die.

“No. Please,” she whispered. "Not this."

Masamune rested against the wall next to the bed, leaning like a quiet sentinel watching over the two.

“If you were stronger, you could have saved her.” Sephiroth said from behind her, as if she had summoned him with her fear. He rested his chin on her shoulder and stared out at the room.

Bianca didn’t turn. She stared at the door.

The door Sarah had walked through to answer the phone from David: the one to have Bianca ready since they were going to go Christmas shopping. The one that had brought her death.

If Bianca had been there - If David had been there, Sarah wouldn't have died. They could have faced the Cult of Asmodeus, but she was too small, too little, to do anything.

“I still thought I was human." Bianca froze. “I still believed the world was good. I didn't know.”

“That’s why I brought you here. Because this is when your grief began. And I want to understand you. Every inch of your pain. Every tear. Every scream. Joy. Regret. Sorrow. Pain will make you stronger.”

“Liar.” She tried to step forward, but her legs didn’t move.

His arms encircled her waist from behind, pulling her slowly toward the twin bed. “I’m not your enemy. But I am your beginning and your end, Bianca.”

“Let me go.” Sephiroth, then, lifted her easily, bridal-style, and carried her across the floor that smelled of old pine and crayons. His coat shifted, revealing bare chest beneath the leather suspenders. His hair brushed against her cheek.

He laid her on the bed. As he placed one of his knees beside her, the mattress sank beneath his weight. After he wrapped his arms around her, he pulled her back towards him. "Why are you still resisting?"

Her defenses shattered. She didn’t resist. Not because she was weak. No. Because she was tired. It wasn't a surface exhaustion: the kind that made your muscles ache. This was a soul ache, a morose emotion that stole her breath and --

Masamune reflected the bedside lamp like a sliver of moonlight, as the My Little Ponies on the lampshade danced as fractals within the surface of the black and silver blade. She stared at it: the purple wrapping, the diamond gaps revealing pale ray skin beneath.

“I should hate you,” she said. “I want you to.”

He pulled her against his chest, gloved fingers stroking her shoulder. Her wings pulsed behind her back, half-folded in shame.

He pressed his mouth against her temple.

“You don’t need to pretend anymore,” he whispered. “You love me.”

“No.”

“Say it.”

“No.”

“I could burn everything to away. All you need to do is embrace Mother and me.”

He pulled the blanket over her and cradled her tighter. His breath was steady, soothing, almost gentle.

Tears leaked silently from her eyes. Her voice shook. “If I do . . . I’ll never come back.”

“But you will be with me. With Mother.” For a long time, neither of them moved.

She fell asleep there in that memory, in that dreamscape. Her heart screaming to escape, but her body surrendering to the weight of exhaustion. The scent of her childhood -- lavender -- still clung to the pillow. Her mind frayed at the edges, and here in this false reality, dreams bled into memory, past bleeding into present. As Sephiroth -- or something in both of them -- restitch and rework what she thought was real and what was only dreams.

Bianca awoke in her containment cell, screaming into the sterile dark. The restraints were real. The cold floor. The familiar weight of the collar around her throat. Her scar throbbed with dull heat. Something trickled down her thigh: mako or blood. Or both. Her body trembled violently as she curled inside herself. Her instincts overridden by agony. A sharp pain bloomed low in her abdomen. Deep and tearing.

“No," Bianca's voice cracked: raw from screaming. "No, no, no . . . not again - ”

A red light blinked steadily overhead, illuminating the chamber. Her wrists were tethered above her, and a clear tube snaked from her pelvis to a containment cylinder pulsing faintly green.

A miscarriage. Another one.

Hojo's instructions echoed from some distant speaker, but it was background noise compared to the sterile hiss of the containment chamber opening.

Footsteps clicked neatly against the tile. Not Hojo. Too measured. Too calm. Hojo's steps were usually quicker.

Diana Ravenscroft entered, clipboard in hand, flanked by two assistants in full decontamination gear. Her eyes swept across the monitors, not even glancing at Bianca’s face.

“Subject N01. Heart rate elevated. Serum loss minimal. Cellular degradation remains stable despite trauma,” Diana said aloud, dictating into her recorder. “The uterine lining rejected the embryo within projected tolerance margins. Subject’s body is unfit for stable gestation still. Artificial wombs remain the superior option.

“This marks failure number three. Perhaps a spinal nerve severance during last vivisection compromised hormone regulation.” Diana stepped closer. Her expression unchanged, as she stared down at Bianca with that clinical detached stare.

Bianca moaned and turned her face toward the wall. Her inner thighs were wet. Her skin was icy. A stain of crimson mixed with mako pooled beneath her.

Diana didn’t respond. She merely raised a gloved hand, motioning to a technician. A long, sterile swab entered Bianca’s body. She screamed again, and that scream became a sob.

Her mind frayed at the edges. She squeezed her eyes shut.

The word surfaced from her broken throat like a prayer: “Sephiroth . . .”

“Increased verbal frequency of Subject N01’s hallucinatory attachment to Project S,” Diana noted. “This compulsion may reflect residual Jenova cells imprinting from prior exposure to his genetic material.”

Diana didn’t see him, but he was there.

Behind Diana, in the dim, untouched edge of the room, stood Sephiroth. His eyes glowing: cyan, bright, unchanged. He didn’t speak. He didn’t move. He only watched her with his arms crossed. The silver of his hair caught the red emergency lights.

Bianca’s chest hitched. But her soul recognized him anyway.

“Stop fighting," His voice echoed within her head. "Accept me.”

Her hands trembled in their bonds as she smiled through blood and tears. Her eyes locked on the illusion: her hallucination, her tormentor, her everything.

Diana didn’t even look up.

@themaradwrites @shepardstales @megandaisy9 @watermeezer

@prehistoric-creatures @creativechaosqueen @chickensarentcheap

@inkandimpressions @arrthurpendragon

#oc: bianca moore - ff #character: sephiroth #sephiroth #opt: bianca / sephiroth #oc x canon #sephiroth x oc #final fantasy vii fan fiction #ff vii fan fiction #bardic tales #bardic-tales #fic: memories from the lifestream #au: canon divergence #flashfiction: fwc: ff #oc: diana ravenscroft

18 notes · View notes