Sephiroth, Final Fantasy VII

While Cloud Strife may seem like an obvious and safe option, Final Fantasy VII’s melancholic super bully Sephiroth took my heart in unexpectedly warm ways. He’s brutal yet poetic, gentle yet menacing, soft yet terrifying—all while haunting you with his immortal existence. Sephiroth is sexy scary, the type of guy to recite nihilist philosophy to you before pinning you to a wall to have his way. He’s giving Vicious from Cowboy Bebop but make it BDSM, and that makes me sweat.

The moment Sephiroth made his debut in Square Enix’s 1997 turn-based RPG, I was in love. Sure, I gawked at his semi-exposed chest, his pale torso wrapped in straps and blanked by a leather trenchcoat, but I was really enamored with his disposition. This is a tragic character, one first heralded as a beacon of exceptional bravery before descending into megalomaniacal madness. It’s frightening and yet, it’s somehow beautiful and sensual as well. Sephiroth does things to me and continues to own property in my head space, probably more than he does Cloud Strife’s, and I don’t mind that at all. — Levi Winslow, staff writer

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