Strifesodos Week 2025

@strifesodosweek finale!

I looked at the word swordplay for a while and I was definitely going to do a sparring thing between them (funnily enough, I've been writing them in a swordplay spar for unrelated reasons), but then.

of course

It's me, and I thought TRANSISTOR....

so my wife has now become my garbage fire, bc they're both red. How many times will I Transistor my hyperfixations? as many times as I dang well please, I love that game forever.

Every time I do this it's really based on Vibes so it's not like my rabbit hole AUs (FFXVHorizon Zero Dawn, FFXVHades, Shadow of the Colossus AUs, or whatever my brain wanted to do with Castle in the Sky, Illusion of Gaia, and Ignoct), and that's fine. It's fun! for measures of fun, if you know where this leads.

also, Genesis losing his voice would make him sooooo mad. But losing Cloud would make him even madder and I want that for him.

I realize I painted the background too dark to show off the feathers I drew very well, oops, but also I had to call it done SOMEHOW, I was caught in coloring purgatory for ages!! so ah well. Obviously the most important part was smashing the swords together into a conglomerate Design and I had a good weird time with that (would it be Fusion Sword? and Buster Sword? and the Transistor??? well it is now you're in my playground buddy!! and I think it being cobbled together and not *quite* matching all at once is an interesting tidbit I could do something with in the vibes narrative, if I were writing that narrative rn.)

this'll be my highlight for the week I think. My bright spot I'm pulling out of the weird state my brain's been in.

@strifesodosweek day 6 for me

I was holding off posting this until I finished the last one, which, once you see it, will make sense why it took me longer lmao. But this. I also kinda struggled around with this, trying to figure out how to pose them the way I wanted and then I drew the details of a whole new sword (twice), and armor in weird perspectives, and things blocked off in strange ways, and just.

become a final fantasy fanartist, they said....

but I think about them being called failures, the shadows they live under, all the time. (I like the Sephiroth and Zack mako ghosts, I think that part worked as intended.) and I think about them recognizing that in one another. I also think about the proportions being wrong but shhh askjdlhfkajsdf

Got kicked in the pants more than a little bit at the start of this week, so I've also spent some personal time thinking of failure closer to home, hah. But I'm proud of finishing these far sooner than I did last year's week, so there's that. It's still October, good job!

shinjikari

me and my ball #myball

winter4knights

Title: dimidium facti, qui coepit, habet Fandom: Final Fantasy VII Rating: T Characters: Genesis Rhapsodos, Cloud Strife, Sephiroth Pairing(s): Genesis/Cloud, with background Sephiroth/Cloud Warnings: Implied/Referenced Abuse, Dubious Consent, Branding, Guide-verse Summary: Genesis does not envy the fate of Sephiroth's new Guide. Never you mind that he can't get Cloud Strife out of his mind.

Written for the prompt 'safety' @strifesodosweek

Two more left to post!

You can find this one here to read.

citrusici

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Summary:

Genesis first showed up in Edge not long after Advent Day and the Deepground incident. While the adults in Edge are all still wary of the stranger with a single black wing, several kids eventually work up the courage to ask Cloud about Genesis’s wing and why he has it. Cloud, unsure if he wants to tell them the nightmare that was the true story, decides to make something up instead. (Cloud isn’t a very good liar, it turns out. At least the kids find it entertaining. Genesis is a little less amused.)

written for @strifesodosweek 2025: "Keeping Secrets" | "Nosy Neighbors"

@strifesodosweek Day 6: The Library

AAAAAAH OK I got it in even if its a bit late. This prompt had me stumped for a while. I wondered a lot where Genesis went after Sephiroth turned him down in the reactor and if he just left or stuck around nibelheim for a while. And also based on a theory I read from someone where Cloud was actually the one that checked in on Sephiroth. Maybe if both things happened, Cloud and Genesis could have met then.

So enjoy pre experiments Cloud and degradation Genesis

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

@strifesodosweek day 5 time

this probably rhymes with, while not being exactly a scene of, the story idea I've been slowly writing, haha. I don't imagine it as stormy per se, not literally, but there'd be a night where Cloud and Genesis have a talk, about nightmares and surviving what hells they've gone through, and the conversation is easier to have in the dark. A conversation that'll be the tipping point into understanding that hey, this guy who might have every reason to resent me actually understands something I thought no one else would.

for Genesis, he resents Cloud for being the strong hero who changed the world, who defeated Sephiroth (more than once), but Cloud understands the pain of being a failure and the pain of your body dying beyond anyone's help.

for Cloud, there's the generally abrasive nature of Genesis by default, but also that Genesis goaded Sephiroth on, might've been in a position to do something that wouldn't end in Nibelheim and instead burned every bridge and led to so many deaths. But Genesis also understands being called a failure, being compared to Sephiroth and left wanting, understands what being captured and trapped by Hojo entails.

So, they talk. They start understanding in the vulnerable darkness. Forgiveness might be difficult, old hurts are still hurt, but it's a start. They're in this world together, two who are some of the very few who could understand. Whatever develops between them, for the years and years they'll spend on the Planet together, is certainly capable of becoming romantic.

I will revisit their same trauma again, I am compelled and obsessed with it.

T_T so good

@strifesodosweek 2025 Day 7: Racing

THE FINAL DAY!!!! the last prompt I got was racing, and ended up doing another color page because why not. While I was drawing this it made me wonder if one of the last times Genesis got to really play fight was probably with Sephiroth in the VR Training room, which ended up so badly. After years, maybe there could be moments he could enjoy himself in the same way again racing Cloud in in the desert, wing vs wheel.

Thanks so much for all the sweet comments and reblogs this week, and to @strifesodosweek for putting this event together!!!

I'm going to go binge the AO3 collection while I rest my wrist.

withgreatpowercomesmyfuckingdick

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH MY FAVORITE!

The day has come. The last chapter of dirge of the phoenix is up!

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Summary:

This is the first time they've talked since…then. Talked properly. They can't do a day without saying something to each other, they have to, and Cloud's not so cruel that he's going to help Genesis up in total silence after a death if Genesis wants to talk. But it's been small things. Chores. Keeping up about Edge's going-on's. The kids, Josie and Yvonne, Cloud installing a tub at some point.

Not a talk. So Cloud sets everything aside and makes way.

For @strifesodosweek my prompt 5: Second Love

@strifesodosweek Day 5: Nightmares

I went back and forth on this one a lot (if you couldnt tell from the rushed shading lol)My initial thought was to go with Cloud or Genesis having an nightmare because those two are chock full of bad times, but I'm also a die hard fan of both Dadesis and Cloud being a dad, so why not shove the two together. Strifesodos being dads together it is.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh so cute!

@strifesodosweek day 4

Much simpler, and very summer themed today. I thought it would be funny if Genesis was complaining about the heat and Cloud snarked back bc Genesis is The Fire Guy(tm). while Cloud's heated up, he's better thermoregulated than the guy who's been trapped in an underground secret lab for like four years or something. My datemate is a northeastern kid, and he wore jeans every summer while in the southern desert with very little complaining about it. So that's what Cloud is like to me (though I gave him shorts bc why wouldn't you just wear shorts when it's warm). Genesis is hubris incarnate and he loves to complain. They're in the shade, he's got a popsicle (which he's gonna lose to melting while he complains lmao), and yet he's being his drama kid self.

anyway they're so funny and silly sometimes. They can have a silly summer interaction as a treat.

withgreatpowercomesmyfuckingdick

they are so precious!

day two of dirge of the phoenix!

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Second chapter is UP!

Summary:

I should've left him in the wall is something Cloud thinks every hour, on the hour, from the moment he first meets Genesis.

@strifesodosweek prompt four: Keeping secrets! Hope you guys enjoy, and thanks for all the love I've already seen on chapter one!

@strifesodosweek Week 2025 Day 4 - Ever Crisis Academy AU

Shinra Academy's newest transfer student Genesis Rhapsodos, a legendary pitcher backed by his parents, faces off against Midgar Seventh High's rising star batter, Cloud Strife

A friendly rivalry with the potential to blossom into...something more?

I told myself that I wasn't going to color any other pages, but the thought of Genesis with custom red gloves and shoes, and Cloud with scruffy muddy shoes kept taunting me...

CUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUTE

@strifesodosweek day 3 for me

It's sorta a sequel piece to last strifesodos week's prompt Promise that I did. The promise is fulfilled, and Genesis returns despite whatever might've made him leave in the first place.

(because I reuse ideas like crazy, I have a similar plot beat for my OC Avel, where she leaves for personal reasons and comes back a more complete version of herself, but that's a little tangential here haha)

It couldn't have worked between them years ago, but this time, warm autumn colors and crisp autumn air, this time they can meet one another more like kindred spirits. Make a bond that lasts them as long as they last on the Planet.

idk why the whim struck me but I decided yeah, it's October for me, so it's also autumn for them.

admittedly this was definitely more of a writing prompt, and I draw more than I write (not that I don't have a vague impression of story for my art just that I don't write it down formally), but it also spoke to me as a sequel to last year's strifesodos week prompt so I did it anyway.

the next one will be a little silly and summer, haha