Random Chaos

As the main list of questions of this meme started winding down I started thinking about the answer to this question.  It’s not a simple question, to be sure—I think this might be the tricksiest of them, actually.  Tricksy, in that it makes me think of all of the things that could have been but alas! are not.  Tricksy, in that I have to prioritize and figure out what it is that I want the most in the next game.

Considering what a question this is, I shall do my best to answer it in a way that makes sense.

I MAKE NO GUARANTEES THAT IT WILL.

Alternate Title: FINAL FANTASY DRAFT PICKS

Hoo, boy.

I could go on for days about this one.  Although the majority of my demands were met in the release of Duodecim (LAGUNA! LAGUNA!), there were a few others that I would have liked to see make it into the roster.  Though they might not have gotten the attention that they would have merited—as several others have said before me, Square-Enix did themselves a bit of a disservice by limiting this title to a single UMD.   Considering the members of the fanbase that would spring upon this title like a starving wolf who has just found its first meal in days, I think that a two—or even three—disc release would have more than allowable.  I have managed a list of five of my top choices, however.  I go into some detail, though, complete with hypotheticals and the like, so here’s a heads-up so you know what you’re looking at when you click that cut.

Format: In pretty much every case, I’ll introduce my top draft picks and stick them in a hypothetical cutscene.  I will try to limit myself to one draft pick per title, but there might be cases where I can’t do that, either for sheer volume of the cast or for seriously awesome rating.

Game Title

Draft Pick.  Here follows my description of who, what, and why.  Expect some theorizing and guessing, as well as at least some logic behind things.

Railenthe:  [adjusts her glasses and clears her throat]  At any time when the font face changes to predominantly italics, I’ve created a hypothetical cutscene in which I’ve placed the draft picks, to illustrate the potential interaction between them and their counteparts.  There will be times when I reference/lift things wholesale from the script, but because this is mostly out of thin air, those will be minimal.  Gestures, movements, and the like will be in brackets, kind of like stage directions in a play/screenplay.  [clears her throat again]

Let’s begin with the wild mass ranting!

I bet you expected something about Feral Chaos here, didn’t you?

Just knew that I’d go on about the whole snafu that led up to me tasting bloody, salt-tinged death at the hands of that multi-armed monstrosity, didn’t you?

*buzzer*  WRONG!

This question tastes an awful lot like Day 2, but there are a few differences. Day 2 was favorites. Today is dedicated to that strange factor of “HOLY HELL WHAT WAS THAT IT WAS AWESOME.” Thanks to Team Canon Fodder (Again, props to ya, Toffee!) a lot of that came from the newbies.

Especially Kain Highwind.

You know that ‘point of no return’ moment?

That moment when you realize: “I’m not sure what I did to get here, but there’s no way out of this situation that ends well for me” sort of moment?

Oh gods.

Day 16.

You got me started!

The pairings! There are so many! This game has made me ship so much het. HET! Me! HET! I’ve never done that! …well excepting Luke/Tear from Tales of the Abyss, but they make Cannot Spit It Out cute.

This game seems to ship everybody with everybody, but there are a few standouts that deserve shoutouts.

For a very long time, the pairing that stood out in front of the rest was Mateus/Ultimecia—also known as PalaMecia (see what I did there?). It started as knee-jerk minion shipping, but after a while of playing through the original story again and again, it just seemed to be…there. They’re rarely seen apart, and she’s the only one he interacts with that doesn’t wind up on the receiving end of some sort of snarky comment at one point or another. And Mateus is good with the snarky comments, too… (“You would compare me to that gibbering nihilist?”) Second, because he is what he is, we know he’d survive the world getting nuked by the off-balancing that Cosmos’s death produced. And yet he had a plan after watching his compatriots get wiped out—creating crystals suited for sustaining ‘bodies of the dark.’

He only had one guinea pig.

For the purposes of this argument, I posit that he already knew where that one was going: Mateus had chosen his queen.

…as with any fandom!ship, this WILD GUESSING on my part. But you have to admit it’s got a little bit of weight.

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With the release of Duodecim, however, another rushed to the front of my awareness, ready to pwn all that stood before it with a solid punch and liberal amounts of snark.

Enter…LIGHTSHIPPING! WoL and Lightning seemed to be solidly there during the story mode of Prologus—about all they managed to pull off was snarking at one another, when they should have been more cohesive together—even the bad guys call them out on it. They were firmly an item in my head by the end of Prologus…

But in 012, where was it?!

…besides in that encounter line in Lightning’s story, which was so not innocent.

It wasn’t until the end of the war, when Team Canon fodder had been downed, that it finally returned—in a teaser-hint: that faint little smile Lightning gives him before she fades away.

Thanks to that moment, these two are now a Belligerent UST/Slap Slap Kiss couple in my head.

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I honestly can’t think of a platonic pairing. Except Gabranth + Onion. I wrote it once on a challenge and it’s become a running gag. With chocolate. And cereal. And blackmail.

I really need to get back on that project.

Other pairings that I like:

Kujecht (Kuja/Jecht. YEAH IT’S CRACK. But it kinda works)

Kujerra (Kuja/Terra. The fluff will consume your brain!)

Any female summon/Firion. It’s hilarious.

Firion/Lightning. Roses everywhere.

“So you offer your life in exchange for theirs?”

“Of course not. I offer yours.”

—Kain, after listening to Exdeath’s villainous diatribe