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Hitting them with the plushy beam

I never buy merch for my interests (because shipping is expensive where I live and there's barely anything available anyway) but I wish these were real. T ^ T

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Genuinely so annoyed that I've seen more fanart for chocobo god damned Sam than I have seen for Dyne.

There is nothing, my god.

He's literally pivotal to the development of one of our main characters with one of the strongest death scenes in the og game.

What the fuck are we doing???

*biting and chewing and gnawing*

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I appreciate Barret's Advent Children design for doing something different, but idk how I feel about it overall. The fishnet top? The top leaves me a little bewildered. Idk if my idea here is better or not. Fashion is subjective.

I also don't know if a fully metal hand is a great idea? Here I imagined something that has a sort of soft padding on the hand.

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Part of me, very rarely, wants to draw some Seph vs Cloud fanart.

But that'd be contributing to an already incredibly oversaturated market, and I don't think I'd be adding anything new or interesting to the dynamic at all.

It's one of the few times I'm actually fine just letting an idea die in my head. :P

Not to mention, it'd get mistagged as sef1kura to hell and back

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I just learned that I've consistently been making a simple and easy to miss grammatical error in all of my fics so far...

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I know people love the "force-femming" of Cloud in og and remake.

But I'm gonna be honest, I think (specifically but not exclusively a transmasc) Cloud would be into force-masc.

Also, all of this (my interpretations) aren't inherently sexual but the kink very much tends to be. It's a kink at the end of the day.

As far as I think it could apply to Cloud:

There's just a couple of tropes and trends in there that I think would appeal to him.

I can see (a pre-character arc) him being into posts with militaristic vibes or implying some kind of empowerment through more toxic types of masculinity. (Lone wolf type stuff)

Although I don't know if he'd vibe with the ones that imply submission. Maybe part of him would, it's up to interpretation as usual.

I think you could maybe integrate SOLDIER and the mako treatments into it aswell. I think SOLDIER especially has a lot of potential to explore some pretty common force-masc tropes. (Although Cloud was 14-16 in SOLDIER so non sexual)

Literally being transformed into an "ideal man" through all the propegandisation and freaky sci-fi experiments.

There's a trope in force-masc of being injected with testosterone (willingly or more often forcibly), and I think there's something in there that's similar to the Jenova cell stuff.

Another trope of force-masc is an older gentleman sort of guiding (or forcing) the subject through their masculinisation. It made me wonder what character could do that for Cloud. (I think most people would default to Sephiroth, but I think that's too obvious and lame personally. Not to mention the shipping fodder it provides. Yes, he wanted to be like Seph yada yada, but that connection is ultimately severed through his character arc.)

I was thinking maybe it could be Barret, in the more "guiding" rather than "forcing" sense. In a version of the trope, that's a lot less intense and a little softer. I think it'd be especially interesting if Barret is also trans himself.

I'm not sure where that idea I just described lands relative to the actual kink itself, but oh well, I thought it was interesting. I think I'm more hovering in the vicinity of, rather than participating directly in the kink itself.

There's a good video on force-masculinisation by Trash Discourse on YouTube that explains some of the tropes and trends therein as well as diving into people's responses to it, it's lack of popularity relative to force-femme, among other things.

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I appreciate Barret's Advent Children design for doing something different, but idk how I feel about it overall. The fishnet top? The top leaves me a little bewildered. Idk if my idea here is better or not. Fashion is subjective.

I also don't know if a fully metal hand is a great idea? Here I imagined something that has a sort of soft padding on the hand.

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A sef1kura rant that I may or may not delete later

[This is not shipping hate. This is me heavily disagreeing with something and wanting to express why that is. It's not a manifesto against the ship or anything. I'm not trying to ruin anyone's fun or claim you can't ship it in spite of what I say.

I am more than aware that I'm in the overwhelming minority in my opinions here.

This also isn't an essay or a thesis, and I am bound to miss things or talk about other aspects in separate posts at some point.

Also, I'm deliberately misspelling sef1kura because I don't want anyone who likes it to see this because I don't want to bug them.]

One of the reasons I so heavily disagree with sef1kura is because I genuinely believe that it's most common interpretations (as far as I've seen) contradict not just the general themes but the entire point of cloud's character and his dynamic with sephiroth.

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If he is in any way singled out by seph then that completely shatters the entire point being made with him about his insignificance and eventual overcoming of the cruel odds set against him.

I especially dislike the "fated rivals" interpretation that even the games have pushed.

the person who talks about fate the most (as far as I remember) is sephiroth [the villain] and (as far as I could tell) the game examines fate as a flawed and often unfair idea.

In sephiroth's world of "fate", cloud was fated to die insignificant and meaningless. And seph was fated to rise above all else and outshine everything.

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As for the rivals thing. They just aren't rivals.

Rivals implies a back and forth. Rivals implies mutual investment in each other. Rivals implies struggling to overcome one another because you're so nearly evenly matched.

Seph vs cloud is like a nuclear bomb vs a coughing baby.

Also (Sticking to the original here not the stuff after) they don't fight eachother over and over like rivals often do. They fight directly once. And it's the final battle. And cloud wins thanks to the essential help of his friends.

DID I MENTION HIS FRIENDS??? Did I mention how important it is that cloud doesn't win alone? He only wins because he has his friends by his side the whole time!!! Sure, he has that last encounter in his mind, but that's more symbolic than literal.

(One reason I'm not into the climax of advent children)

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As far as I understand, a lot of sef1kura interpretations tend to present this idea that cloud "impressed" seph. That he eventually stood out to him in some way. Enough that many even interpret a fixation or obsession on seph's end.

As far as the original game is concerned, (because I am well aware that later games seem to leave room for this interpretation as well) that's just... blantently false? Like there's interpretation and then there's contradiction.

Seph couldn't give less of a shit about cloud and that's a fact.

It's the whole reason that cloud clawing his way to relevance and overcoming seph is so cathartic.

He's being told he's nothing by someone who believes that they are everything.

They were never fated to even interact, let alone fight isn't that the whole reason it's cathartic that it happens anyway?

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There also seems to be this idea that cloud and seph are creating this fate for themselves through their apparent mutual obsession.

But again, this mutual obsession idea just blatantly contradicts the themes of the game and the hero vs villain dynamic they're setting up.

People seem to take it for granted as an inevitable conclusion and not a very standard case of yaoï goggles.

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Another (very subjective) reason I dislike the pairing is that it is so obnoxiously yaoï it hurts.

I've read and enjoyed yaoï.

And that's why I can tell you with certainty that sef1kura is quintessential yaoï. But I believe that that is to its detriment as a pairing.

Because at this point the characters are more recognised for this most obvious and (I personally believe) reductive of lenses through which to view them.

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I also really dislike how the ship's popularity saps and takes away attention from literally the entire rest of the game and places it all on what is (in my subjective opinion) C grade yaoï.

Anyway, that's all I've got for now. Maybe I'll reblog this post and add stuff if I think of it. Or maybe I'll delete this post at some point who knows.

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Surprising no one

I'm already a little worried about my most recent fic (title: she would)

I'm worried that the question it asks is more interesting than the answer I give in the fic itself. :/

Oh well. I genuinely couldn't think of anything more to add and I'm ultimately happy it's so short and simple.

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I wrote another fic! ^^

I wanted to keep things very short and simple this time.

It's clarret again but past myrret aswell.

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I got more "experimental" with these and just let my hand guide me. The characters are gonna look a little different every time and I just have to accept it.

CW suggestive under the cut

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Top surgery went well!

Turns out I can still draw a bit :]

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why do you avoid/ dislike some characters or ships? i love your art, have a great recovery from your top surgery !!

First of all thank you! Recovery is going well so far. ^^

Secondly, that's a good question. It's also kind of broad. Do you have any particular characters or ships you'd like to ask me about?

I'm not entirely sure why I dislike what I dislike when it comes to characters or ships. I think it all depends on which characters or ships we're talking about.

When it comes to ships, I'm probably aromantic, which could be influencing my perception of fictional relationships and cause me to interpret them differently from what most people end up seeing.

As for characters, I've noticed I simply tend to get put off by very popular characters and tend to enjoy characters that others might dismiss.

These aren't hard set rules or anything just trends I've noticed.

Thank you for the ask. :]

Don't feel shy about asking another question if you still have any. I love answering asks. ^^

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I imagine he's wearing a vest under the jacket

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Me and my twin are getting top surgery tommorow.

That means I probably won't be able to draw for the next few weeks while I recover. So I may or may not be posting any art for a bit.

We'll see.