#strifesodosweek2025

[tegabyte]

@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!

[strifesodosweek]

Let's do the time warp Strifesodos Week again!

UPDATE: Spin The Wheel!

First off - for anybody new here:

What the heck is Strifesodos Week??

A whole week to celebrate the relationship between Cloud Strife & Genesis Rhapsodos - From the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII. Stories set in any part of the timeline are welcome, as well as totally out there AUs and Crossovers of any kind. 

Are there any rules?

Only a few! 

Keep your story focused on the relationship between Cloud and Genesis. Background relationships between them and other characters, like AGSZC or anything else should stay that way, in the background. There are a lot of stories of all the guys together but not as many with just these two so this fan week is important for adding to the ecosystem (and, frankly, enriching our enclosure okay??)

NSFW is totally acceptable, just make sure you tag everything appropriately wherever you choose to post it

When you make a post here on Tumblr put a little @strifesodosweek so that I can make sure you’re shared here for everyone to see! If you post on AO3 please add it to the collection so that everyone can find it there as well!

You must write the fic specifically for the event, using the prompts you get!

Please share this so other people can know its happening to participate!

So where are the prompts?? Right HERE!

Well, we’re going to do things a little bit differently this year! Instead of having one specific list of prompts that everyone is assigned each day, we're going to work together to create a whole wheel of prompts! Some I came up with myself, most I'll be choosing from submissions, and I will smash them all together so that everyone has a much broader range of things to choose from.

I only have a few guidelines I’d like people to adhere to for this, and they are as follows:

Spin the wheel seven times + one do-over if you get one that you really hated or have no idea for

You’re free to do the prompts in the order you were randomly assigned or whichever order you want, I’m not a cop

Since I’m not a cop, I can’t stop you from just choosing what you like from the list instead of spinning, but it would be a lot more fun for everyone involved if you played along the way the system is set up :) 

How about we come up with a prompt list together, just like last year but a little bit to the left. Click here to submit up to five prompt ideas for the list. I'll choose at least one from each person or more if I really really love it. Deadline to submit prompts is MAY FIRST!

[errantnight]

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

Summary:

At the wedding of the man who abused and jilted both of them, Genesis and Cloud slip away to have a little bit of revenge sex in the bride's dressing room. “Are you crazy?” Cloud asked, but he was already stripping out of his own clothing before Genesis could even begin unzipping him. “You’re crazy, we’re both crazy, how much do you think this cost?!” “Put it on, I want to fuck you right here and ruin this tacky thing.”

@strifesodosweek

[tegabyte]

@strifesodosweek has begun (yesterday), and I have... .been overzealous with my picks from the wheel. Partially because a good chunk of them were aimed toward writers, and partially because I don't know how to do things by halves lmao

but pirates.... it speaks to me on a "targeted at me" level. Man I miss my pirate RP adventures.

This fought me in a lot of ways so I had to scribble in the coloring and background just to get it out of the way, but the point gets across. (god, Genesis, why is your sword Like This, I'm just gonna copypaste the hilt I drew whenever I need it again askldjfhasdf)

the list this year is custom, spun from a wheel, so mine is

Pirates Witching Hour Meeting years later Popsicle Nightmares Failed SOLDIERs Swordplay

get ready for some AUs alongside the canons, because I just. can't help myself. XD

[tegabyte]

@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 ex 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.

[tegabyte]

@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.

[tegabyte]

@strifesodosweek day 2 for me

I promise I'm not actually fleshing out yet another crossover AU, but this hit me while I was scribbling ideas for the other nighttime prompt I had and it crossed the wires in my brain that were thinking about AMVs. So... Utena AU happened.

And I spent.... too much time coloring this lmfao.

aND I DREW THE HILT OF GENESIS'S SWORD BY HAND. AGAIN.......

I'm not actually going to do more about this, especially because assigning characters might be miserable for my brain, but I *did* think of who Akio would be (and it's probably very obvious). I did actually consider drawing that one Twelfth Night promo image but with this silly AU idea, and instead decided on screenshot redraw.

Listen, is Genesis much of an Anthy? no. But they both wear red so I went with it. All things being equal, Cloud could've equally been the Rose Bride in this situation with how often he ends up with swords stabbed through him, but I gave him a break (until the end).

I promise, promise, promise that this is just one specific brainworm I have thus excised. Contemplating it further would involve me figuring out Saionji and Touga and I just don't feel like it. XD

tinyroth Dios and Sephiroth Akio tho is on lock.

god have I been listening to a certain song on loop all day trying to finish this? well, listening to it on loop since I started working on it at like 3pm, but yeh. it's the only thing I could do to get myself working. (thanks to an AMV, Good Luck Babe is Utena-coded now)

[tegabyte]

@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.