rionaleonhart | To Kill This Girl, You Have To Love Her.

I've been replaying Final Fantasy XIII, and I love this game so much. One fun aspect of the RPG genre is that it often throws together a bunch of strangers and lets you watch as they get to know each other, and the inter-party dynamics in Final Fantasy XIII are particularly fun. It's not just 'yeah, we're all friends and allies on a shared mission!'; there are pseudo-parental relationships, there are characters who absolutely can't stand each other.

(More specifically, there are characters who absolutely can't stand Snow. Snow loves everyone! Everyone hates Snow. I genuinely love Snow, and I still find his battle quotes sort of grating.)

I love Snow going 'don't worry, I'll keep the kids in line' and Sazh going 'yeah, problem with that is you're one of them'. I love that poor Sazh is the world's most normal guy surrounded by alarmingly intense young people.

Sazh is so great. I really like that, while his reactions to things are funny, he's never just comic relief; he has a serious plotline and there's care put into his character.

Also, he sometimes says 'Attagirl' when Vanille defeats an enemy, and it's extremely cute.

Meanwhile, Lightning is running around trying to punch every god she encounters in the face.

I've said before that I see Fang and Vanille's relationship as mother-daughter. Having played Lightning Returns, however, I will freely admit that I was one hundred percent wrong and they are one hundred percent girlfriends.

More scattered notes on Buffy the Vampire Slayer! (A note on my entries about this show: I'm being fairly lax about spoiler-cutting on the assumption that most people who are interested in Buffy will probably have watched it already. If you're planning to watch it in the future and you want to avoid spoilers, though, let me know and I'll start being more cautious.)

'Innocence':

Angel kissing Spike on the forehead! There is definitely a lot of scope for Angel/Spike/Drusilla.

'Help us destroy the world.'
'I'm really more interested in the Slayer.'
'Well, she's in the world, so that'll work out.'

I can't believe Buffy fucked her boyfriend's soul out.

Buffy slamming Jenny to the desk by her throat was a really striking moment. (You may suspect that I originally wrote 'was sort of hot' and then went 'wait, no, I'm going to try to find a different way to say that', and I can neither confirm nor deny.)

Giles awkwardly realising Buffy and Angel had sex is great.

Willow/Oz is actually surprisingly cute. Definitely more enjoyable than Willow's crush on Xander.

That scene between Giles and Buffy in the car at the end, where he assures her that he supports and respects her, was rather lovely.

'Phases':

'This cheerleading trophy. It's like its eyes follow you wherever you go.' I'm so unhappy about this.

I love how excited Giles is by the prospect of learning about werewolves.

I suddenly find myself unexpectedly invested in Larry the bully's coming-out story. (Rei says that at the time the writers were considering having Xander turn out to be gay, and to be honest that might have made me like him more, given that the main thing that grates about him is his attitude to women.)

Buffy staked a freshly-turned vampire in a funeral home, and that must have been very uncomfortable when the workers discovered the body was gone.

Oz trying to shackle himself to keep himself from posing a danger! Bless him.

This juxtaposition of fandoms is sort of making me want fanfiction where Lightning and Buffy meet.

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Angel kissing Spike on the forehead! There is definitely a lot of scope for Angel/Spike/Drusilla.

Let me just say, very much yes!

I can't believe Buffy fucked her boyfriend's soul out.

"I know they say not to have sex at my age, but I love him! What's the worst that could happen?"

Giles awkwardly realising Buffy and Angel had sex is great.

Giles is so great!

'This cheerleading trophy. It's like its eyes follow you wherever you go.' I'm so unhappy about this.

SO HORRIFYING!

"I know they say not to have sex at my age, but I love him! What's the worst that could happen?"

We were discussing how odd it seemed to us that Giles suggested Buffy had been reckless, given that the soul issue was unforeseeable and Giles grew up in a country where having sex at seventeen is legal and unremarkable.

Ginger: Yeah, I don't know what the age of consent in California is, but--
Riona: California? Eighteen.

Ginger found it very funny that I knew this off the top of my head. One thing fanfiction research equips you with: an uncomfortable amount of knowledge about age-of-consent and incest laws. Napoleon abolished incest laws in France in 1810, and they weren't reintroduced until 2010! (They still don't apply to consenting adults.) It's an interesting fact, but when you tell people they do tend to wonder how you know.

[We were discussing how odd it seemed to us that Giles suggested Buffy had been reckless, given that the soul issue was unforeseeable and Giles grew up in a country where having sex at seventeen is legal and unremarkable.]

I mean, I can't remember everything about Giles, but is there anything to suggest that either he (or his public persona) might not just find all sex inadvisable and reckless?

I will defend FFXIII to my dying breath and the character relationships are SUCH a big part of why. Honestly I think it's one of the best developed parties in the FF series, insofar as "each party member actually has a defined personality and a character arc." There are quite a few FF games (and other RPGs of course) where that's very much not the case. Even my favorite (FF12) fails in that regard.

Also more games need to recognize the potential of a party that can't stand each other. EARN YOUR FOUND FAMILY.

(hello it's been a decade and i still have a lot of feelings about ff13)

It's such a great party! My favorite in the series. They've clearly given a lot of thought to how all the characters relate to and interact with each other, and it really pays off. In Final Fantasy VIII, much though I love it, you get a lot of focus on how the characters interact with Squall and relatively little on inter-party relationships beyond that.

suddenly find myself unexpectedly invested in Larry the bully's coming-out story

I originally read this as Larry the bull and was surprisingly unconfused. Clearly too much Umineko, where lines like "They turned and stared at the goats" are just totally casual, haha.

Meanwhile, Lightning is running around trying to punch every god she encounters in the face.

Hmm, this IS kind of true for Lightning. Now I kind of want to see her meeting Yuri from Shadow Hearts. This is also the perfect description of his character (both literally and figuratively in his case: Yuri is a fist fighter!). In fact, Yuri's solution to anything in life is pretty much "punch it".

...Actually, this would probably be a terrible idea. Yuri's intro is kind of a "whoo, hitting on everyone and making lecherous comments" archetype, and she'd probably kill him. (He does stop doing that later, though... mostly...)

-timydamonkey

Yuri's intro is kind of a "whoo, hitting on everyone and making lecherous comments" archetype, and she'd probably kill him.

Suddenly I'm strangely tempted to drop Irvine into the FFXIII universe and watch Lightning and Fang eat him alive. (Irvine and Lightning could technically interact in Opera Omnia! I'll have to keep an eye out and see if they do. Or Lightning and Zidane.)

I don't know what they'd be more annoyed about; his hitting on people ways, or for being a sniper who has a crisis of conscience about being appointed to snipe someone. No sympathy!

'Well, she's in the world, so that'll work out.'

Love the logic! Giles always came through at the important moments, until he didn't.

'This cheerleading trophy. It's like its eyes follow you wherever you go.' I'm so unhappy about this.

Agreed - it's a terrifying thought, to be stuck in there ...

The reminder that she's still in there is just awful. Still, if you're going to be trapped and immobile in a school corridor, I suppose Sunnydale High's the best school for it; at least it has near-constant interesting disasters you can watch.

I love Snow going 'don't worry, I'll keep the kids in line' and Sazh going 'yeah, problem with that is you're one of them'.

HOW HAD I FORGOTTEN THAT LINE

IT'S SO GOOD

Lightning is running around trying to punch every god she encounters in the face.

if lightning were a drill tweet she'd be the "i will face god and walk backwards into hell one", especially early-game

if lightning were a drill tweet she'd be the "i will face god and walk backwards into hell one"

Oh, wow, 'I will face God and walk backwards into hell' is the embodiment of Lightning and I'm delighted you've made me realise this.

Oooh yeah re: Buffy and Giles's scene by the car. Someone on Tumblr, I forgot who, pointed out that late-90's shows usually had the 'dad' slut-shame the 'daughter' in those situations, but Giles shows nothing but respect.

So agree about Xander! I suspect they didn't go through with him because they wanted him to stay ~relatable to the average dudebro. Which, meh.

The relationship between Giles and Buffy is so good! So interesting, so heartfelt, so well-drawn. It's definitely my favourite aspect of the show.

Even with its flaws, I can't help but love the cast of FFXIII. At the very least, the female cast feels incredibly strong. Light/Fang/Vanille OT3 gooooo.

Yes! I love that the plot is driven almost exclusively by female characters and the relationships between them: Vanille and Fang, Lightning and Serah. It really felt like something refreshing and new.

And let's not forget Lighting and Fang's incredibly flirty banter, which is somehow made even greater in Lightning Returns.

I love that poor Sazh is the world's most normal guy surrounded by alarmingly intense young people. God, this is so fucking true.

Also I love your comments on Buffy, yes yes.

How did he end up accidentally adopting all these damaged kids? Why do these things happen to him?

To Kill This Girl, You Have To Love Her.

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