TLV Application (Inmate Version/Voided)

[coffinturk]

User Name/Nick: Maruah
Contact: maruah coffinturk Discord: Everyworker
Other Characters Currently In-Game: N/A

Character Name: Vincent Valentine
Series: Final Fantasy VII (OG)
Age: Approx 57-60, physically 27.
From When?: Dirge of Cerberus: Vincent's first encounter with Rosso the Crimson in Edge. While he is unable to die, he took considerable injury and also transformed to Chaos. Using this heavily injured, transitive state to say he was rendered vulnerable/open to the Admiral.

Inmate Justification: Vincent is a walking aggregate of self-assigned (some real, some assumed) sins. Some he has come to realize were not his to be punished for but another's. While others are demons (real and figurative) that he still contends with. In his own words, he has never tried to seek forgiveness for his sins and has to this date only sought to atone for them by inaction and two decades of self-imposed, nightmare fueled slumber. At this canon point, Wardens can aim for efforts on encouraging him to atone for his sins in a more proactive way and look for or seek out closure. (The latter is a given at the end of Dirge but at this point there's still much there. Seeking an 'alternate route' through TLV in some ways.)

Arrival: Vincent was brought against his will. He might remember a glimpse of the Admiral but it's fuzzy at best and at worst has no memory of the transition.

Abilities/Powers:

Subject of Experimentation: He's been given an 'immortal' body, monstrous transformations, regenerative capability and heightened senses via intense experimentation on his body. Vincent has received overly-fatal levels of damage; while he can be knocked unconscious, suffer pain and the like, he heals up in a short period of time and just... gets back up. His reflexes and strength are clearly far beyond the human norm and he seems capable of defying or manipulating how gravity affects him for limited periods of time (you know this bs or this). His resilent body allowed him to survive the integration of the quasi-WEAPON called Chaos. In balance it seems hinted that he has to fight the urge to sleep.

Heightened Senses: Somewhere between a strong connection to the planet and the monster-senses, Vincent exhibits extrasensory abilities and a keen sense to discern when something is amiss in the natural order. He seems able to sense oddities, fiends, and monsters despite there being some distance between himself and the cause. He's probably hard to sneak up on as well.

Magic Potential: While materia's generally the only means on his world for using magic, Vincent is a decently strong spellcaster in that regard, with a fairly generous amount of mana to draw on.

Shapeshifting: Part of the original experiments on him have given Vincent access to other forms; a behemoth-hybrid called Galian Beast, two humanoid creatures on par with horror movies and the 'demiWEAPON' Chaos (see below). While the intervening years have given him the ability to briefly transform without losing control, it is still a very feral, bestial state for him. A controlled transformation readily drains the same energy used to cast magic and would leave him unable to use spells for a while after. Less controlled transformations could last longer and sometimes might require that he simply be beaten down to stop the rampage.

Ancient/Proto Materia: Within his body resides an ancient materia created by the Planet. It is connected to Omega and Chaos and, when Chaos was within him, quelled its rage and allowed him to retain his human consciousness. Other than being something people might detect and having a type of energy one might expect from 'highly condensed lifestream' pulsing from it, it's so specialized that it has very limited functions: exerting influence over Omega and Chaos (allowing Vincent to control Chaos) and providing shield against their energy. Without this, Vincent cannot easily control or suppress Chaos.

Chaos Host: Vincent plays host to the planetary 'demiWEAPON', Chaos. Unlike his other transformations (probably), the entity is a being in its own right, acting as herald to events which would summon the WEAPON Omega. In the event of a catastrophe that damages the planet beyond saving, Chaos appears to return all life to the Lifestream which Omega then takes to the stars to find another world to settle on. Being a creature attuned to and crafted by the dark evils, terrors and 'sins' naturally pushed out of the Lifestream, Vincent remains virtually immune to such influences as a result. Chaos is insanely powerful, massively amping up strength, regeneration, and agility to an insane degree (he chucks a massive anti-airship artillery canon through someone's body like a knife through butter in this state). He is capable of flight and deadly projectile attacks. At some point future to his canonpoint, he also learns how to draw on the strength and power of Chaos while keeping his human form, arguably pushing him to speeds and strengths that probably surpass even SOLDIER.

Mundane Skills: Vincent is a former member of Shinra Company's Turks, a group of specialists who were responsible for investigations, intelligence, security and the dirty work. Company fixers if you will. Vincent is trained in a wide range of skills that facilitate the work he performed. This would include hand-to-hand combat, intelligence, stealth, surveilance, security and any number of useful skills such operatives would find useful in their line of work (yes, he probably does know how to make makeshift bombs out of household chemicals, it's probably fine). Even before the experiments that changed his body, his particular specialty was in firearms and marksmanship; he was considered the best of his time. He also is a dab hand at the trading card game 'Queen's Blood' and seems more than capable of reading and understanding scientific reports on a fundamental level; likely a combination of vested interest in what happened to him and having a scientist father.

Restrictions: Immortality seems a nonissue here since people don't age. I see no reason to nerf his baseline 'doesn't die/regeneration' since it's proven he feels pain, you can knock him unconscious/send him into a hibernative state for him to regenerate. It just might take a little more than normal to knock him unconscious and he can play dead if someone stabs him, wait to heal, get back up again later.

Weird gravity/telekinetic powers are almost nonexistant/closed off. He can probably make his cloak hem billow. Maybe not stumble on that last unexpected stair. Possibly delay a bowl from falling off the counter for a second so it can be caught! You know, small, anecdotal things. But otherwise unable to escape or use these on a dramatic or overscaled or even basic purpose.

Heightened physical strength and agility will be much closer to a baseline, atheletic human. Heightened senses would probably be largely untouched as they are not overtly offensive in nature and generally serve to sense threats.

Transformations will be impossible. Though it'll be 'there' because they're a part of him, the ability just won't trigger. Likewise, Chaos will be dormant. 'There' but forced into sleeping and inaccessible. It goes without saying he would not be able to channel any abilities either.

Magic is locked away. Has the potential and spiritual energy, but unable to do anything with it. This will probably be tied to whether or not his transformations are unlocked.

Mundane skillsets and knowledge are probably retained? If there's a need to put limiters on this, let me know. Otherwise he'll just be doing these things at a normal human specialist capacity. He probably plays a mean game of darts.


Inmate Information:

Vincent worked for the Shinra Company as a Turk, the corporation's problem solvers and intelligence division. Needless to say, although there's never any specifics given, it's safe to say his hands aren't clean. But the actual reason he has been brought in as an inmate are the events surrounding the beginning of the Jenova Project and Sephiroth's birth. While providing security for the scientists involved with the project, Vincent met and fell in love with Dr. Lucrecia Crescent. However, Lucrecia harbored a deep-seated guilt for the death of Vincent's father, who had protected her from a containment breach of stagnant mako. Vincent found out about the connection and confronted her. While he only wanted to hear her out, Lucrecia pulled away from Vincent and threw herself into the Jenova Project and turned to Professor Hojo. This led to Lucrecia agreeing to allowing the child she was carrying (by all accounts Hojo's) to be subjected to Jenova's cells.

While Vincent spoke out against the unethical practices, he backed down when Lucrecia insisted that this is what she wanted. After Lucrecia started suffering from the effects of the experiment, he confronted Hojo and ended up being shot. The professor saw the fatally wounded Turk as an opportunity to prove himself and likely get a pass for shooting Vincent if he succeeded. The experiments weren't kind. Vincent's body, though rended immune to aging and death, was deemed a failure due to instability which kept him comatose. Lucrecia sought to use her research into Chaos and Omega to stabilize Vincent and succeeded. However she had disappeared by the time Vincent regained full consciousness.

This left Vincent with limited understanding and brief flashes of his ordeal. Coupled with his own guilt for not saving Lucrecia or putting a stop to the experiments, he chose to do nothing, serving punishment for his sins in a decades-long slumber locked away in the Nibelheim-based Shinra Mansion's basement. Vincent was only stirred to action by meeting Cloud and his companions. Hearing of what his inaction had wrought- Sephiroth's insanity and the danger to the world- he at first thought to return to his slumber. He changed his mind, choosing to join the party at least long enough to seek revenge against Hojo. During this journey and in confronting the Professor, he came to realize that while his sins could not be changed, there was much he took on himself that should have been Hojo's punishment instead.

Vincent was also able to find Lucrecia, though he lied to her and said her son was dead to spare her the pain of what Sephiroth had become. By the time he returned to her after the events of Meteor, she had sealed herself in crystalized mako. He visited regularly and often had dreams of fleeting glimpses of memories from the experiments performed on him. Many of these have left him with more questions than answers.

Vincent's demeanor suggests a stern man, mysterious and cold. Even younger, he preferred solitude over company, showing signs of being easily flustered in social situations which aren't purely professional. Particularly so if it were someone he had feelings for. Locking himself away and extreme guilt only amplified this natural tendency, leading people to assume he has little or no interest in events around him. He's slow to warm to people, slower still to open up; this latter perhaps reasonably so. Social, outgoing events are extremely exhausting to him, causing a tendency to retreat to lonely corners if he feels he must stay and leave the moment he's done.

Underneath the cold demeanor lies a great deal of emotion. He possesses very little in the way of hatred for anything in particular, believing most have their own circumstances and it would be hypocritical at best given his own past as a Turk. But those rare occasions it manifests, it is absolute. Likewise he is not quick to anger, though it would often be for the sake of others rather than himself and particularly for those who have come to be regarded as friends. Despite a well-stated preference to being left alone with his own issues, Vincent can be cajoled into frivolous activities because of his own personal interest or to learn more about the people he journeyed with. He has a quiet, dry, and often sly sense of humor that belies his outward demeanor and catches people unaware. He cares about what happens around him and cares deeply, enough to drown himself in self-imposed guilt for his failures.

As a victim of terrible experiments, Vincent has suffered through massive physical and mental trauma. Severe nightmares plague him, blending the events and his guilt over failing to save his beloved from her own fate into an nigh-inescapable morass of guilt and self-loathing. Awakening to find himself an immortal, monstrous product of Hojo's experiments and Lucrecia's efforts to save him did no favors to his state of mind, with half-glimpsed memories of the procedures leaving him confused and uncertain if the latter's efforts had been made for his benefit or revenge and scientific curiosity. Though this easily lead to a virtually unwavering belief such punishment would have been no less than he deserved.

Emerging from his decades-long slumber had given him a wider world in which to process what happened to him but more importantly what is and isn't his sin to bear. Though by the end of the events of Dirge of Cerberus he is given some closure over the long established survivor's guilt, at the time he was brought to the barge, he is still lost in the uncertainties and questions.


Path to Redemption:

Redemption has two layers. The foremost is complicity in Sephiroth's descent to madness and efforts to destroy humanity through inaction. While he recognizes this as his sin through the choice he made and came to some atonement through action by joining Cloud's party, do the combined hibernation and action truly amount to enough punishment? Or even count toward atonement? Vincent himself admits that it was just choices he made and does not absolve his sins, nor does it mean they are forgiven.

The second layer is the uncertainties and unknowns surrounding his complicated relationship with Lucrecia and the experiments conducted on him. Vincent deals with extreme guilt about his survival and the emotional burdens of what it means to be immortal. While this isn't a crime, it is tangled deeply with the perception of his overall sins as well as the real and perceived culpability in Sephiroth's origins. By the end of Dirge, he gets some closure. The barge provides an opportunity to reach some sort of acceptance or openness to pursue the answers he fears with more courage once he returns; an alternate or addition to his

Vincent is stubborn about his views on the sins he bears. He has not once sought to seek forgiveness for them and his form of atonement was to lock himself away and sleep in nightmares for almost thirty years. He is also here against his will, but at the same time he's perfectly reasonable. That's how prisons work; someone assigns a crime by their standards and he has to do the time to win his release; he'll accept having a Warden because that's how prisons work. Given a permanent Warden assignment is likely going to be the best route forward rather than temporary Warden pairings.

Of course that doesn't mean he won't have to deal with a bit of trial and error leading up to a permanent pairing. It's just that it's less likely to be fruitful if he's having to change out every month or so.

Emotional blackmail is not going to work on him. He's naturally a private individual and introverted. Approaches that are aggressive or needlessly condemning will probably backfire on the Warden.

Some of the triggers may be cast related. But there's also the possibility for similar stories to serve as triggers or the slow (but inevitable) friendships he develops on the barge to serve as catalysts to improve his own outlook. While he doesn't believe he's 'the only one that suffers'- that describes way too many people touched by Shinra's scientists on his world and he knows it- it's a whole different story hearing other tales and experience. While he might not outwardly react much, it is something he will remember and mull over on his own time.

Vincent once told Nanaki "You'll keep thinking about it your whole life and that's how it should be. The important thing is that you don't forget." When he gives advice like this, it's something he himself practices.

In addition to this, I'm hoping that he may stay on and transition to a Warden, depending on what he learns about graduation and what it means to live on the barge. Help others, in return getting a wish granted. Depends on how things go and how the Graduation transitions work!


History: History Link Here

Sample Network Entry: [ Note: Vincent is just a person that talks a lot or makes use of communication devices. It takes him three years after returning to society to even bother getting a phone. So rather than a single network post, I'm going to do some shortform bits he'd send out that are collectively in the requirement. If this is not okay, I will do my best to rework it! Or maybe find someone that can boomerang a quick network back and forth. /o/. ]

• If Yuffie shows up here, do not give her my contact ID. There's no emergency in the universe that will give her the right to use it.


• Does anyone know how to turn the sunlight off?


• There is a bar in the Lounge but no hours posted. If anyone knows the schedule or who to contact for access, reply here.


• [ In response to shorthand texting. Whether or not he actually comprehends what was typed. ] Funny. Mind trying again with words? I left my decoder ring at home.


• What types of wine do they have available?


• Whoever's knocking on my door and not getting an answer, there's a reason for that.
  

Sample RP: Samples here.

Special Notes: Nothing comes to mind other than I'm happy to rework or work with revisions or ideas for restrictions that might suit the game better!