Hello, have some fanart :)

Truth is, I've been struggling a lot with art recently. I felt as if I was really getting somewhere in late 2023. But every since mid 2024, I've felt as though I've been on a slow, excruciating decline into complete burnout.

I'm stuck in an in-between state where I'm still drawing, but it feels terrible, and I don't like anything I make.

I also feel very disconnected from all the art I've posted on this blog, and personally, I'm starting to resent the stuff that's gotten more attention than the rest.

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.