#valentine memories

[leavingautumn13]

honestly the things i find in my drafts...

[i have commissions open now]

[youstillsaiditsname]

i think i loved you, but i guess i'll never really know

joan tierney / death cab for cutie / sylvie baumgartel / the crane wives / @araekni / khalid hosseini / lev st valentine / wendy cope / richard siken (reordered)

[thatnununguy]

Got into Guilty Gear, helped me get through a really dry no-drawing period :)

[heavenlyascent]

You can tell what the ship war/Tifa vs Aerith/Whose the “True” Heroine/Love of FF7 is about because it never includes Barret, despite him being a romance candidate (even IF the OG boiled it down to one big antiblack gay joke), or Yuffie (thankfully because of her age though I shutter to think how she would have been treated if she was an older, viable candidate), or Zack despite his bond with Cloud, or Jessie for that matter. All these are background elements to the ongoing fight over who is the default love interest and thus true love of Cloud.

Which is boiled down to, which one of these women are meant for this man.

It doesn't care that Final Fantasy 7 is a world-spanning story about humanity, genocide, imperialism, and trauma. It ignores that while Cloud is ultimately our main character, it's a story of an entire cast of main characters who are just as important to the ever moving plot as Cloud.

And really, as it insults Tifa and Aerith by trying to suggest one's story is more "important" than the other, it also insults Barret by completely ignoring that his efforts are the instigating factors OF the story and that the running theme of saving the planet? Is because Barret was the first one to scream it in the narrative. It ignores Yuffie's and Red XIII's fight to preserve their dying cultures in a world that actively wants to destroy them for the sake of capitalism. It ignores Cid as someone whose dreams were crushed by capitalism and become so consumed by his pain, he hurt everyone around him. It ignores how Vincent played an active role in Sephiroth's birth and the core corruption of Shinra.

And I think it absolutely misses the theme of FF7 and Cloud in general. Cloud loves everyone. He loves all his friends. If the Remakes and Rebirth did anything, it put on display that there's not one single person that Cloud loves--but all those he has met. Yes, he loves Tifa and loves Aerith and maybe in one or both, he has romantic feelings for them but he clearly loves Barret, Red XIII, Yuffie, Zack, Jessie, Bigs, Wedge, Reeve/Cait, and--as we'll see later--Cid and Vincent.

If any of them died, Cloud would have been devastated. Aerith is special and he mourns her in a specific way because she's AERITH. Not because she's the ONE. SHE'S AERITH. Irreplaceable just like Tifa, just like Barret, just like Yuffie, just like Red XIII, just like Zack, and Cait/Reeve, Cid, and Vincent.

For the last near 30 years, the ship wars have rewrote Cloud's intense love for the people around him as just a heteronormative love story and it's gross.

None of the characters deserve that, but specifically Cloud, Tifa, and Aerith who are so much more than players in a stupid love triangle.

[booloocrew-blog]

#1 victory royale

ft: shirt from @theyetee with pearlina yuri art

[labotor]

"I'll keep your secret, DiMA."

[l3irdl3rain]

Thank you again to everyone who donated!!! We raised a total of $475 for the Humane Society of Portage County.

[valencock]

Idk what they're saying but Hancock's grabbing his ass for sure

I can't believe a ghoul and a synth could be so in love holy fuck

[retr0-dayz]

2000s valentines nostalgia

[retroness-is-fabulous]

[michanvalentine]

Things about Vincent Valentine that I read around and piss me off.

"Vincent should have done more!"

It is one of the most common observations. And I hate it! What he was supposed to do exactly? Ok, let's take a step back and pretend we're in the real world and not in a fantasy action video game. Vincent was a highly trained Turk and an excellent marksman. That's not enough to say that he was definitely also a cold piece of shit ready to do any job. In fact, I believe that Vincent was the exact opposite of this and that he was not cut out to be a Turk at all. Which is why he got into trouble. "Stern and upright" is how Square Enix describes him, so we're talking about a person who has great morals and a high sense of duty. And these two things don't always go together. To this we must add the naivety he had as a young man (evident in DoC) and his great empathy towards others (which FF VII Rebirth is highlighting a lot). So when Lucrecia decided to use the fetus as an experiment, Vincent found himself in an impossible situation, where morality and duty were at odds. Human experimentation disgusted him, but his role was as a bodyguard, nothing more. His duty was to watch and let the scientists do their work. Furthermore, at that moment no one could imagine what the result of such experiments would be and what Sephiroth would do in the future. So we're talking about a man torn by his own principles, full of doubts and, lest you forget, heartbroken. It is not easy to act in a situation like this. But he couldn't ignore his own morals, so despite his role he tried to reason with Lucrecia first and then he confronted Hojo, with the consequences we know. Did he have to kidnap Lucrecia? Did he have to kill Hojo? Did he have to burn the Shinra Mansion to the ground? Let's be honest, normal people don't act this way. And Vincent Valentine was the sanest one in the middle, so he paid for it. But even if Vincent had freaked out and gone down the path of violence, there would have been consequences and it would probably have ended the same way.

But let's go back to Lucrecia for a moment. Vincent's naivety and empathy did not allow him to notice the red flags. He only saw the best and deepest part of her, the fragile, kind and brilliant one. When she pushed him away, he still behaved as correctly as possible. He stepped aside, hoping that she would be happy. There is no selfishness, there is no possessiveness. This is called unconditional love, and it is very rare. Should he have claimed Lucrecia for himself even if she didn't want it? Fight the other man to get the woman back? Continue to chase her proclaiming his love like a crazy? These are some traits of toxic masculinity. Vincent left her absolute freedom, he respected her choices as a woman, as an adult and as a scientist, even if his sensitivity allowed him to understand some things before she could notice them herself. And that's why Vincent's question "are you sure this is what you really want" hurts so much. He knew it. He knew she would love that child.

The fact that Vincent feels like a failure who was unable to protect the woman he loved and her child is understandable. But this is only his feeling, his perception of himself in a situation way bigger than him. So no one will ever be able to get it out of my head: Vincent Valentine did everything a good man with his hands tied behind his back could have done. He went out of line for Lucrecia and Sephiroth, and was killed for it.

[kidzwithcandy]

[lynettethemadscientist]

It kills me that I can’t actually talk to Nick Valentine because if I could I would tell him that the identity crisis he’s going through is actually a very human experience. The way he talks about his predecessor strongly resembles the way people talk about their parents. They wonder about how much of themselves is really them and how much is just how their parents raised them. They wonder who they even are outside of their parent’s influence and what they’re supposed to become. And ultimately the answer is to take the tools and instruction that were given to you by your parents and to do even better with them. And Nick comes so close to realizing this. But there’s a sort of bitter tone when he insists that the good he does now is his own. I wish I could help him reconcile with his “father”. I wish I could tell him that his predecessor would be proud of him. That the original Nick would be so proud that a synth chose to use his knowledge and skills to help others and to finish the job that he couldn’t 200 years ago.

[w3bkinz-t0yb0x]

valentine's webkinz 💌🌹🍫

[neapenning]

Gotta include the whole family

[theveryworstthing]

i didn’t have anything specific ready for valentines day and all my other pin-up sketches for this month are going in my patreon art dumpster before they make their way to my public art dumpsters so enjoy this mini challenge i made for myself where i tried to draw Rouge without ref and got her so impressively off model that i just leaned into it.

happy valentines. enjoy Bat.