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all we are is dust in the wind

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there's no doubt of the future in my head

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nefeli is a close friend of mine, so i can vouch for the sheer amount of effort and care that has been put into this video. while i post fanart on this main account, i think it's an extremely important watch for online artists of all types, no matter how relevant you think it is to you.

ok. ive been trying to space out the timing of when i innoculated each of my social media accts w this video to avoid getting overwhelmed, but things are already way past that atp so it can't get much crazier LOL. i worked pretty hard on this and would really appreciate your time and feedback.

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where do i even begin. gift for @worldofbalance

uncut version (single image, reverse order) under the readmore.

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based off of the painting "tomb of a suicide" by wilhelm kotarbiński and fueled by the song "man is like a spring flower" by lingua ignota. very unlike my usual but i'm trying to get better at my weak points.

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listen to the sound of my big black boots

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a reference sheet for my take on the sephiroth remnants from @antisphinx and i’s conceptual advent children rewrite, “advent resonance.” note that the designs i’ve provided are not distinct subtypes, but examples of what a remnant could look like or be capable of :P

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rise run feed ripen wound wither fall rise again

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is cloud also a lesbian in your mind? i feel like the dynamic between cloud and sephiroth would be interesting either way. either we've got "here's this cis man who gets she/her as soon as he puts on a dress, and he doesn't even want it" or "gay rivalry" and those both slap :D also your art is AWESOME and i think it's SO COOL

haha yes my cloud is butch, i've posted art of it a couple times and am planning to draw more of it. it took me a long time to settle on this hc before "debuting" it because i wanted to be sure i could defend my choice if prompted, much as i did for sephiroth. i think cloud's relationship with gender is compelling and complex. i'm going to put most of this under a readmore because it's going to end up long as hell even if i show restraint.

the shinra propaganda machine made the military and SOLDIER many young people's heroes as a very idealized version of masculinity, strength, and courage. cloud aspired to all three of these traits in a way that i feel resonates with a lot of kids who don't totally relate to being a "girl," speaking from experience. i also just think child cloud's design really gives little tomboy energy.

cloud's character arc is a conflict of identity and self-actualization (in some ways, so is sephiroth's). i can imagine him seeing zack as a model of positive masculinity in his life and latching onto it in his post-coma confusion. gender is confusing even without a very fractured sense of self. some butches might identify as transmasc for a while; some continue to identify with the term, while for others, time and reflection leads them to settle more comfortably in ambiguity- butch, nonbinary, etc. i see cloud falling somewhere in this spectrum in the end. i think, ultimately, he does not identify as a man, while still wanting to be masc. he/him lesbian, more genderqueer than binary. i do think he was on T for a bit. being butch is awesome.

but as to the idea of a "gay rivalry" between cloud and sephiroth, i am not interested in sefikura because the knowledge that cloud idealized sephiroth as a child and worked under her as a teenager makes me uncomfortable. but i do find their dynamic in ffvii and onwards to be compelling in a lot of ways and hope to draw them interacting more often. since you're asking about their gender presentation, i'm especially amused by the idea of younger cloud being like, "man i hope i can be masc like sephiroth one day" when sephiroth herself comes to identify as a woman in the end. oops!

i like cloti, believe it or not, despite its very heteronormative depictions in a lot of fan content and, let's be honest, some canon. so i would say i enjoy my personal vision for cloti, just as i do enjoy my personal vision for aeriseph. for me (as a lesbian), tifa's affection and commitment to him makes a looot more sense through the lens of "i WANT that fail butch." we've all been there. on the whole, cloti is a lot more messy and complicated than many domestic-cloti-bliss fans typically acknowledge, when that's what interests me in the first place.

as for the wall market section, i never really saw the crossdressing scene as gender-affirming. it's definitely funny (aerith and tifa are SO into it, it's hysterical). cloud didn't exactly enjoy it, but he didn't seem upset, moreso embarrassed. very butch to me.

as a final note, these days it can sometimes be hard for me to truly latch onto a character if i cannot come at them from some kind of lesbian angle, but for me it typically has to be well-thought-out. anyway, this has been long af but thanks also for the compliment about my art! i'm very glad to be able to draw again after an injury-related hiatus.

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I love your interpretation of Sephiroth. She is truly majestic

thank you she’s my little princess

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my overly elaborate sephiroth reference sheet

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i like her

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my fanart of sephiroth riding the cta red line

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my fanart of sephiroth hitting cloud strife with her car

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as an update for tumblr as well, both of my hands have been visited by the carpal tunnel demon of pain and suffering in the last week or two so i will have to stay away from drawing for around a month if all goes well in the recovery process, but i'm trying to be chill about it

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least devastating friendship breakup