Just because I need to drag myself out of this funk, I need to talk about one of my blorbos.
Fujin, from the UNDER-RATED Final Fantasy 8.
She is a minor character, mostly meant to be a sort of foil to one of the main antagonists, but I absolutely fell in love with her design.
Firstly, she is a short and petite woman who, and I cannot emphasize this enough, is STRONG AS FUCK. Not only physically due to the mechanics of the world within the game, but also on an emotional level. Even if she only has a handful of visible interactions, she is my absolute FAVORITE character in the series.
Silver hair, eyepatch, red eye, kicks ass. What's not to like?
Also one of the only times I've seen a speech impediment represented in a game that is not just stuttering.
There's a boisterous guy named Raijin that she's a duo with, and the way they interact JUST THROUGH BODY LANGUAGE (Mind you, this is a Playstation 1 game) is such a good way of establishing the way they communicate because she only speaks in one or two word sentences.
It's never addressed in the game, but the reason I put it down as some sort of impediment I will address a bit later.
When she speaks (and the game uses traditional quoted speech like "I am speaking right now.") It is always represented as in the following example where she is scolding a colleague.
The capital letters are not meant as shouting. It is never interpreted as such by the characters or context around her.
It has often been interpreted as some sort of injury in a number of fan theories, and I would agree, except for one interaction within the game.
One of her colleagues is making a terrible decision, and it's the leader of her trio, Seifer. For THE ONLY TIME in the game, she has a full-on paragraph of smooth speech in proper lowercase in which she lays out a plea to one of the most important people in her life.
Thus, speech impediment. Not to mention that most of her interactions with other characters involve PHYSICAL action rather than words, as if those actions come easier to her than speaking.
Strong woman character, mysterious, prefers action over words?
I fucking love Fujin. And it is CRIMINAL that more people don't know about her.
MY GIRL! AND THEY MADE HER A SIDE CHARACTER!
This is why I am writing a whole fucking fanfic of her and Rumi from Kpop Demon Hunters.
