#backwaterheroics

[xkuja]

🫶what does after care look like for them? does kuja prefer sticking around after or hightailing it out/kicking his partner out to avoid dealing with aftermath..?

|| Sinday Headcanons ||

You got it, hole in one~.

He kicks them out, or leaves himself to go preen.

For him, aftercare involves avoiding that inevitable post-coital clarity, a deliberate escape from the... stark reality that follows intimacy.

Narcissists don't like to deal with their feelings.

[devilreno]

@backwaterheroics​ asked: “Did you just bite me?!”

Physical contact starters

       It's been there a while now, this apathy he has for the merc. Who he is, what he does, is not of Reno’s concern. When he’s out of his sight, he’s out of his mind as well. However— when they’re together they’re much like fire and ice. Their personalities would clash, and so would their weapons. Just that— today Reno might have let out his spite in a different kind of way.

      The Turk brushes his hand past his lips, still tasting the cotton fabric on Cloud’s attire. Luckily for the blond, he didn’t go as far as to leave a mark. Or maybe his cloth saved him from it.

       He would do anything to catch him off guard, no matter what it is and in what way he would do it. A sly grin plasters across his face, uncovering pointy whites, and he lets his hand down.

       “Yeah? Whatcha gonna do ‘bout it?” He mocks, his tongue grazing his teeth as he tries not to cringe, remembering the cotton to teeth contact— not so pleasant.

[petitepistol]

“i brought you a blanket.”

Elena was not on the best of terms with Cloud Strife.

This was a funny thing, the fact she'd managed to carry a grudge for years. By now she was amiable with most of the posse formerly known as AVALANCHE, but she did her best to carry a torch of disdain for Strife himself. Mainly on principle. He liked to make it difficult for her though, given the fact that these days he'd save his colder glares for her male colleagues. Rufus was the one who was truly worth his glower, Reno was a perpetual pain in the backside, and as much of a gentleman as Rude was she couldn't imagine Strife wasn't aware of the fact that the man in shades was very interested in Tifa. It was probably in much the same way that he was wary of Tseng because though the Gainsborough girl had long since returned to the lifestream, one does not just forget a threat.

These were Elena's theories on the subject of why Strife was being so godawfully nice to her, as she huddled herself in the blanket he'd offered. Her eyebrows were furrowed as she forced the lump in her throat to pass. If he was going to be civil, she had to be civil as well. It just wouldn't do to let the weird stolen valor wannabe ex-SOLDIER turned Sephiroth clone turned legitimate hero to one-up her in the decorum department.

"You didn't have to, but...thanks." There. Her courtesy quotient had been met and she could return to regarding him with a vague sense of ever softening derision.

@backwaterheroics

[atlaslain]

heyyyy kit talk to me abt zack’s hesitations or lack thereof when it comes to killing ppl for soldier or otherwise. i feel like all the hesitation i notice comes from him taking time to process how exactly the commands given to him are supposed to go, or like,,, what he’s supposed to accomplish besides Killing The Thing, but i wanna know your thoughts coz ily

@backwaterheroics

first things first hi rowen ily lots and i hope ur havin a great day.

SECOND THINGS SECOND, it took me forever to word this ramble because it’s honestly just a big formless ramble but im gonna do my best to Share These Thoughts. 

ZACK & HESITATION TO FOLLOW ORDERS: A SAGA

if we start at the very beginning, zack’s first ingame mission initially acts like a true mission but resolves into a simulation. nevertheless, we do see the first hint of zack going ‘wait what, why do i have to do this’ and i like that we’re immediately shown that he’ll question shit he thinks isn’t right. he’s quick to notice that the troops he’s fighting are shinra troops and wants to know why they’re attacking him ( and it’s a lovely lil foreshadowing for Later In The Game ). angeal immediately tells him it’s fine, these are wutai troops disguised as shinra soldiers, and zack’s misgivings appear to dissolve. at this point in time, he is a fourteen-year-old second class soldier and things are really quite simple in his mind: shinra good — shinra road to heroics! wutai enemy, wutai bad. 

i do wanna note here that he doesn’t completely regard wutai as,,, yknow, evil or The Enemy, but it’s more that he. believes the shinra line about how they’re taking over this place to help them. shinra vc it’s fine guys, we’re just gonna rob this place and probably try to eradicate its culture but it’s To Help THem, we’re gonna give em resources and a mako plant or somethin! ( point is, zack thinks…. he thinks he’s Doing Right here. and that’s important. so long as he’s convinced he’s doing the right thing, he’ll stop questioning. )

note that he’s a ton happier to fight the behemoth toward the end of that mission. fighting monsters is so much less morally questionable. a lot of his early missions tend to end this way, with a nice big monster for him to take out so he doesn’t need to wonder if it’s right.

that leads us nicely to wutai and zack’s first mission with angeal. at this point, he’s buzzing. he’s just been suggested as a first class soldier. angeal’s with him. he finally gets to fight. he wants to impress lazard. he’s ready to kill without question here and it genuinely is a touch terrifying how eager he is. 

the wutai mission has that fun mechanic where you actually score higher the more enemies you choose to kill. there’s the option to walk away from them, to sneak through the fortress, but you get more points — more shinra prestige — for causing carnage. zack does not question this. he causes the carnage. 

except with yufi. she’s… she’s a kid ready to defend her home from him. i honestly wanted the game to give him a bigger reaction to that — my iteration of zack is certainly far more affected by this child, this self-professed hero, whose home is being invaded and who considers him the bad guy. he plays along, pretends to be beaten, but it’s the emotional impact that floors him, that makes him think ‘is this right and should i be questioning what i’m doing’. what is he accomplishing here, other than being part of destroying this kid’s people? it’s a scene that’s played lightly but is shockingly heartbreaking. 

he still does his part though. 

the scary thing is, if the whole angeal-genesis-sephiroth mess hadn’t happened, he might’ve continued that way. they’re the ones that make him begin to question — he hesitates initially to fight genesis’ soldiers because they’re shinra soldiers, they used to be allies — he fights them because they’re traitors and because he’s given reason to slot genesis nicely into the Villain portion of his brain and decide that means he’s in the wrong. 

i like to think zack’s declining faith in shinra has a direct correlation to how often he hesitates to follow commands. when it was angeal giving the orders, he was following someone he had trust and faith in. without that, the whole thing begins to feel empty and zack ( again, particularly my version ) is a fucking storm of a person who follows his own damn rules and his own beliefs.

zack lives for battle but he hesitates to take lives meaninglessly. he likes to consider his fights heroic, so long as he can convince himself he’s killing people to save other people. 

he actively Does Not Want to kill either genesis or angeal when ordered to. even with genesis, who’s killed people and is clearly going down a very dark path, zack hesitates. he’s just … like you said, processing. he wants to understand why this can’t be resolved without death — why there isn’t a better way. he fights only when it’s made plain to him that there’s no working around this. he’s told ‘kill’ and he’s like ‘okay but why’. ‘what exactly do you want me to do’. ‘w h y’. during genesis’ first supposed ‘death’, zack’s devastated. he didn’t want this. ( he actively makes damn sure genesis survives the next time. )

with angeal, he disobeys direct orders to kill. this is a breaking point of sorts for him, during which it becomes horribly plain to him that he is one of the few people here trying to avoid all this death. trying his damn hardest to reject those orders to kill angeal, only to do it anyway, results in a strange sort of shutdown in him. he doesn’t question anything for a while. fights because he’s told to. kills genesis copies. loses himself a little. he’s willing to kill hollander, where before his mind was set more on ‘capture and make him sort this shit out’. 

he says it himself: i’m soldier, so fighting’s all i do. he sounds scathing about it. disgusted with himself. he knows he’s a weapon to shinra and he’s letting himself be used, letting himself stop thinking because it’s easy to just follow commands and hope it all works out, because trying to do the right thing only wound up causing angeal’s death anyway. 

zack’s very much a person who wants to do right but gets a little confused along the way about what that is. a lot of his wariness in blindly following orders very much comes from his own strong moral compass, and the way the various influences around him seem to affect it. 

i dont know if this is a good ramble or if it just turned into me crying about zack again but there are my thoughts. my badly organised thoughts. aksdfjxngk.

[imnevergonnagiveyouup]

apollo i can’t believe you’re six feet tall like you could probably rest your elbow on my head what the heck what else do i not know about you,,, reveal to me ur secrets

AWRAXA.

SHHHHHH HH, it’s not that great lmao. A secret I have is that I really like oranges! They’re very good! Especially with chamoy and/or tajín, it’s so fucking good. Tajín is salt/lime/chile seasoning it’s freaking delicious on oranges and other fruits and veggies. Especially with jicama!

[futureheld-a]

blue  skies  &  blue  eyes  -- a  chibiusa  /  cloud  mix         (   for  @backwaterheroics  )

wild  boy  --  danielle bradbery  

no  you  can’t  catch  lightning  shooting  ‘cross  the  sky,  but  the  moment  you  see  him  you  know  you’re  gonna  try.  but  he’ll  disappear  without  telling  you  goodbye.  oh,  no  matter  what  you  think—you  can’t  tame  a  wild  boy.    

shivers  --  rachel  platten

baby,  it's  chemical,  something  about  you  really  drives  me  crazy.  baby,  it's  magical,  it  could  be  the  stars  above  are  all  to  blame.  i  get  emotional  knowing  you'll  never  ever  try  to  change  me.

there’s  no  way  --  julia  sheer

there’s  no  way  that  it’s  not  going  there  with  the  way  that  we’re  looking  at  each  other.  yeah,  there’s  no  way  that  it’s  not  going  there,  every  second  with  you  i  want  another.  so  maybe  we  could  hold  off  one  sec,  so  we  can  keep  this  tension  in  check,  but  there’s  no  way  that  it’s  not  going  there  with  the  way  that  we’re  looking  at  each  other.

goodbye  summer  --  danielle  bradbery  feat.  thomas  rhett

he  packed  his  bag,  filled  his  tank  with  gas,  man  it  went  by  so  fast.  too  good  to  last  and  just  like  that  it  was  goodbye  summer,  you  tore  me  apart.  blue  eyes  and  blue  skies  fade  into  the  dark.  letting  him  go  is  the  hardest  part.

candy  --  mandy  moore

so  baby  come  to  me,  show  me  who  you  are.  sweet  to  me,  like  sugar  to  my  heart.  oh  baby,  i’m  craving  for  you.  i’m  missing  you  like  candy.

let  him  go --  julia  sheer

staring  at  the  ceiling  in  the  dark,  same  old  empty  feeling  in  your  heart  ‘cause  love  comes  slow  and  it  goes  so  fast.  you  see  him  when  you  fall  asleep,  never  to  touch  and  never  to  keep  ‘cause  you  loved  him  too  much  and  you  dive  too  deep.

[dirtypaw-arc]

@backwaterheroics liked ( x ). 

                                         I think... I want to be forgiven.      

[atlaslain-a-blog]

backwaterheroics replied to your post: on that note, here's a fun way too real...

zack holding onto his phone coz of his selfie collection…. fjdnskafj

zack to zack: get rid of ur phone, shinra could track it also zack: .........but my nudes are on there