#arcsblade

OKAY BUT. Can I mention tho that it takes them literally all of two cutscenes before they're opening up to each other about incredibly personal topics. Fang laments about her lost Focus and messed up brand and waxes poetic about doing anything to save Vanille (watch Lightning's face after Fang says this, she gives this very "oh..." expression of understanding about it bc of course she would). And Lightning admits she'd pull the trigger if she was ordered to after refusing to answer Sazh on that very topic at the beginning of the game, and she laments about not having a future without having anything to fight for (to which Fang has a beautiful answer and shows us pretty much from the get-go that she understands Lightning on a fundamental level, and Lightning clearly demonstrates the same for Fang in chapter 9).

Like!!! This is Fang and Lightning we're talking about. Lightning's a private person by nature, and Fang has so many emotional issues it's insane. But here they are talking about their feelings and shit almost immediately after they meet. Double points to Lightning after spending the first half of the game being standoffish with almost everyone she met lmao. I swear these two were made for each other.

AND THIS! MY DEAR ARCSBLADE IS WHY LIGHTNING/FANG/VANILLE IS PERFECT!

If not for VANILLE I highly doubt that Fang would have opened up.

If not for VANILLE I highly doubt that Lightning would have become more honest.

Vanille is THE GLUE! THE CHANGE! THE LOVE!

Lighting and Fang without Vanille is a violently passionate and destructive fantastical love.

Lightning and Fang WITH Vanille becomes a much softer, much kinder, and much more truly loving dynamic.

If not for VANILLE... Fang and Lightning would have been at each other’s throats from the jump and they would have stayed there.

Fang cannot emotionally communicate well at all, her heart and mind are not built for it, she’s been beaten down by a world that claimed it was only trying to “protect its people” and watching people die and despite having already PAID HER DEBT she has been dragged back into a war that already saw fit to use her as a human bullet and nothing more.

Lighting mirrors this but from the opposite perspective. Her military training is burned into her DNA by this point and she’s COLD and HARDENED by everything... except she is not so far gone that she doesn’t miss who she wished she could have been.

Fang and Lightning have similar goals, similar purposes, but they do things so differently that under any other circumstances they would be at each other with tooth and nail... even though they want the same thing. PEACE.

Vanille balances them out, even in a “non-romantic” sense.

If Lightning hadn’t gotten to know Vanille, if Vanille hadn’t BEEN THERE, Lightning would have been on a very different path through the game. Lightning would have happily become a murderer for her goals if not for the change Vanille (and to a point some of the others) helped make in her.

And Fang is not responsive to anyone, given what happened to her who could blame the woman, but her lack of responsiveness to ANYONE ELSE was leading her to a path of self destruction that she would have welcomed. Vanille snaps her back to reality.

What I’m saying IS...

What I’m saying IS...

Fang/Vanille/Lightning is not just a GOOD OT3, but a DAMN NEAR PERFECT ONE because they compliment each other in a sense of PURPOSE and PERSONAL GROWTH.

Remember when people thought the Meta should’ve won the Death Battle cuz he was “stronger” and didn’t account for Carolina and Epsilon’s teamwork even though it was laid out flat in the episode that that was why they won?

17. Your favorite character to write this year?

11. How do you come up with your fic titles?

I think my best/most effective titles are the ones that come to me with the story concept (The Drop was like that; so was After You), or early in the writing. Sometimes, a title just comes to me that feels perfect for the story and its main character, and I think the Sera fic I just started posting, A Pot to Piss In, is one of those. ;) I do use song lyrics or lines from a poem occasionally, but generally the song or poem needs to have been a major inspiration for me to go that way (Between the Daylight and the Deep Sea, If I Speak for the Dead). Most often, if I don't already have a title in mind, I will look within the fic itself for a line to pull from it as a title (Not Yet, No Woman Rules Alone). I especially like it if I can connect the title to some text or concept that is important in-universe (Cast Your Bread Upon the Water, Gifts of the Hunt). If all else fails, I'll go with a one-word title that at least somewhat gets at what the fic is about! But those tend to be the ones I like the least.

16. Do you research for your fics? If so, how deep of a rabbit hole have you gone down by accident when researching?

I will go down absurd research rabbit holes for fic, not necessarily because I'm a stickler for perfect realism or anything (I'm not! especially when the setting is fantasy or science fiction that doesn't abide by the rules of our world anyway), but because I'm curious and I love the opportunity to learn about something it wouldn't have occurred to me to look into otherwise. Fic is the reason I discovered that there's a whole subcommunity on YouTube for tasting and reviewing MREs. (And so much other stuff related to military culture when I was regularly writing for Red vs. Blue.) I've researched the real plants of the Mojave that appear in Fallout: New Vegas, throat and lung injuries and various other medical stuff for Red vs. Blue (where you really can't take medical realism too seriously all the time but you can certainly throw some in for flavor), historical modes of address and various other historical things for Dragon Age (where, again, realism is not a priority but can help to add flavor).

Hey, D <3

send me a character and i’ll list:

favorite thing about them: So many things. I love that he’s an emotional crier: anger, frustration, relief, etc have all brought him to tears. I love that he’s the one who called out Qrow on how what happened with the Autumn Maiden and Pyrrha wasn’t really a choice. I love how hard he tries to be better and how much he tries to protect the people he cares about. I love that he’s the kind of guy that when Neptune “offered” him Weiss (which btw, yikes Neptune for phrasing it like that), Jaune didn’t jump on the oppurtunity to move in on the girl he had a crush on. Because Jaune knew she liked Neptune and not him. So he asked Neptune if he liked Weiss, and if he did, to talk to her; because that was what would make Weiss happy. (And of course that he followed through on an offhand “deal” he made Pyrrha, and wore a dress.)

least favorite thing about them: His painful attempts to flirt with Weiss (which thankfully seem to no longer be a thing), the fact that sometimes he’s a little dumb and doesn’t think before he acts.

favorite line: “Only if you promise you’ll meet us there.” There’s a lot packed into that line and it made me cry a little the first watch through. Jaune and Ruby is such a great friendship.

brOTP: Nora, Ren, Ruby

OTP: Pyrrha/Jaune

nOTP: I have seen Jaune and Cinder and boy am I Not Okay with that

random headcanon: Team JNPR played a lot of Remnant’s version of Just Dance (like how Yang and Ruby often play their fighting game) and that’s why they were able to collectively bust some moves. (Since Jaune was just goofing around when they were playing the game, Pyrrha didn’t realize how well he could actually dance, leading to her surprise at the party.)

unpopular opinion: He’s had good character growth and he’s not annoying.

this is fucken cute and i'm glad it's getting spread around