head empty, only Lightning

What a lovely question, and thank you for asking.

I actually am writing a comic currently that is the story of myself and Lightning, including how we met and our story across the past 12 years of my life since I met her. I haven't released it to the public yet because it just isn't ready for that.

The short answer is that I've been a fan of the Final Fantasy games since I was introduced to them by a family member. The interesting thing is that I wasn't super interested in XIII when it came out and wasn't really ready to play a new one.

Originally I had seen the promotional stuff when the game was still in development and I was interested in her from the start. There was a spark from the get go, I guess you could say, and it just grew from there. It was a curiosity that grew into full on love once I finally sat down to play the game.

My friends ended up buying XIII and weren't super interested in it, so I ended up playing it. Lightning stole my heart the second I saw her. From there it just grew because I would be thinking "oh, this is what I would do if I was there", and then Lightning would do whatever that was. (A note that I can't do what she can physically do; though I was much younger when we met and was potentially capable, but had none of the training she has lol)

There really isn't one single reason as to why I love her, it's the whole package for me. The personality, the look, the style, all of it really. It's the way she goes through everything with unwavering confidence despite everything in front of her seeming impossible. I like that she tries to build up the people around her, even if she doesn't do it perfectly at first. (I'm talking about how she starts out with Hope in this instance, and even though she made a mistake she not only owns up to it but tries even harder to not only fix it but do better.)

There's also a lot of small things that I've noticed over time. Such as after studying a bit about Japanese sword stances for example. The fact that she almost always starts in a defensive stance; which implies that she is always leading with grace and actually giving her opponent the chance to not fight. (You can actually see this in the opening sequences even against the giant scorpion machine.)

I could write a whole thesis on Lightning really, and perhaps I'll do that on this blog in the future. Not to mention the bond and kinship that I feel with and towards her after all these years.