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futurology
APPLICANT INFO.
NAME: Coco
CONTACT:![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
rosebride
CURRENT CHARACTERS: n/a
CHARACTER INFO.
NAME: Claire Farron " Lightning "
CANON: Final Fantasy XIII
AGE: 21
APPEARANCE: (x)
CANON POINT: after the final battle in XIII
BACKGROUND: game summary / lightning's background
PERSONALITY:
Lightning is introduced dramatically — casting off a cloak marking her as a member of the "purge", she near single-handedly annihilates an entire task force of a moving train. This sets her up as a confident individualist — moments later, when she and a man named Sazh are faced against a imposing warmech, he asks her "What are we gonna do?" to which she replies "Watch and learn". Lightning is a woman of action, someone who finds punching to be an easier solution than asking questions or talking things out. While badass, this go-getter attitude can often work against her.
To call Lightning emotionally stunted would be oversimplifying how she behaves, but to her new-found friends in the l'Cie gang, it seems like this is the case. She shows little to no regard for the other l'Cie most of the time. Early on, Lighting tries to abandon Sazh using her grav-con unit and slaps him off of her when he tries to grab onto her, exclaiming her as his only way out of Hanging Edge.
The way Lightning treats people is largely a result of how she was raised — or, well, how she raised herself. Her dad died when she was young, and her mother died when she was fifteen and her sister, Serah, was thirteen. As a coping mechanism, she took on the moniker of 'Lightning' and went straight out of high school into the Guardian Corps, which is similar to someone going straight into the military. While telling herself she was doing this for Serah, Lightning became a workaholic to compensate for her inability to cope healthily with her past, subsequently treating her sister coldly. In the light novels, Lightning even refers to civilians as 'unnecessary distractions' from her work.
Usually she just shakes people off, but at times she can be downright insensitive or scathing. She treats her sister's fiancé, Snow, as a nuisance at best and as a dredge of society at other times. When Serah and Snow conjunctionally announce both their engagement and Serah's branding by a fal'cie at Lightning's birthday a day prior to the game, Lightning remarks that it is her 'worst birthday ever' and that if it were true it would be '[her] job to hunt [Serah] down', which causes Serah to run away crying. Multiple times when Snow speaks of Serah, Lightning decks him without remorse.
Lightning feels a large amount of guilt retroactively for the way she treats others, particularly after her sister is crystallized. Still, she has a difficult time expressing this in a natural way and feels apprehensive about being exposed. When she begs Serah to let her in to the fal'cie vestige in chapter 1, she tells Sazh not to listen to her due the vulnerable nature of her plea. She seems to have a fixation with dwelling on things, or feeling weak — when Lightning and company stumble upon Serah's crystallized body stuck in Lake Bresha, instead of helping to get her out, she attempts to walk away, claiming she's 'let go', but Sazh remarks that she appears as if she wants to stay as bad as Snow does.
As much of a debby-downer as she can be, Lightning isn't without her quirks. She has a sense of humor, but you have to pay attention to notice it; most of it comes in snide remarks and proving people wrong. When she attempts to join the purge by boarding the purge train and a PSICOM member stops her to inform her that she's exempt, she pulls out her sword and hands it to him, proclaiming "I quit, then", leaving the PSICOM member quite stunned. Her humor has this effect on people; it adds to her steely persona. Lightning also appears to be a bashful person — she expresses embarrassment and turns away when Fang inspects her brand, which is concealed under her shirt.
Initially, Lightning's 'goal' is to ignore her focus and instead commit what basically would be acts of terrorism on the Sanctum, who she feels is to blame for her newfound state as a l'Cie. She has many arguments with her fellow l'Cie, who instead want to figure out what their focus is and accomplish it like most would, but Lightning is blinded by her own desires. Lightning's dedication to vengeance is also another way of her coping; instead of dealing with the fact that she brushed off Serah's plea for help, she blames other people for Serah's, and her own, fate, such as the fal'Cie, the Sanctum, and even Snow, who she feels created a rift between the two sisters.
Midway through the game, Lightning separates from the group and Hope follows her; while she initially treats Hope coldly, she warms up to him fast and begins to treat him much like a big sister would. Noticing how insecure he is, she gives him the knife Serah gave her for her birthday and allows him to 'lead' through an area or two in an attempt to boost his confidence, showing Lightning's more compassionate side and her motherly tendencies. She's a person who's used to taking care of others, but she's also a strong believer in tough love, threatening to leave him at one point in an attempt to make him buck up and stop willfully making himself a liability. It gets to the point where she becomes an inspiring and comforting force for him, and while she initially must feel out how to play this role, she begins to show true compassion for him; she hugs him upon finding him in Palumpolum unharmed, a rare act of physical affection Lightning tends to not show.
No one could deny that Lightning cares deeply about certain things; she's passionate and stubborn, hence the name: "It flashes bright, and then fades away. Can't protect, only destroy." She sees this moniker as a negative descriptor of herself, but in actuality, it's a perfect metaphor for how she behaves: she moves quickly and impulsively and is impossible to predict. On the thirteenth day, she renounces her exemption from the purge and willingly boards the train so she could make it to the pulse vestige where Serah was trapt. Hope remarks how crazy it was, and how he could never do it, to which she replies that "some things in life you just do".
"Just doing" isn't always a good credo to live by, however. Lightning is an extremely stubborn person, and once she decides she's going to do something, it's near impossible to make her change her mind. The reason she is so opposed to doing her focus is because of her issue with 'fate' and being told how she will live her life; it takes a grand, philosophy changing epiphany inspired by the musings of a fourteen year old for her to realize that hey, maybe mindlessly committing regicide and potentially annihilating an entire civilization wasn't really a good idea or a way to assert her own agency.
Her agency, however, is what makes her most uncertain, or her perceived lack thereof. Lightning is most uncomfortable when things seem to be outside of her own control, which can be traced back to her behavior shortly after being orphaned; throughout the game, Lightning expresses discomfort or even anger whenever someone mentions 'fate' or the l'Cie clock that was ticking every second. Lightning is the only one of the group to view their plight in a nihilistic way; instead of attempting to understand and enact their focus, which is their fal'Cie given 'purpose' in life, she opts to ignore it completely and take revenge on the ones who she believes put her in their hopeless situation. This can also be seen once again in her moniker; Lightning has no real purpose, it merely flashes bright and disappears, leaving meaningless destruction in its wake.
The moment Lightning gains a purpose is the moment she changes for good. When Hope makes her realize that humans are slaves to the Cocoon fal'Cie, she remarks that it took everything from her, all of the constructed and fragile attachments she had — her job, which was to serve and protect Cocoon, the authority and respect she carried as a person of her title, and the master that she blindly followed because it was what was expected of her and what she expected of herself. By fighting for revenge, she was able to not think about her now meaningless existence.
Here, Lightning also owns up to her mistakes since becoming a l'Cie. She claims that she won't abandon Hope, and by extension will not abandon her other l'Cie comrades. Lightning's new mission is a more noble one — to break the chains that hold herself and all the denizens of the world to the fal'Cie's whims, guised as 'fate' or 'order'. Here, Lightning represents necessary chaos, and Hope her, well, hope. By rejecting both the standards of a broken but lawful society, Cocoon, as well as the 'purpose' she was bestowed against her will by a Pulse fal'Cie, she takes back her agency and becomes truly independent — a person who forges a path for their life of their own mind, and a person who does not blame others, luck, or chance for what does and does not happen to them. She remarks that she may be able to keep hope alive, but she can't help him "find the Hope he was named for", and that "fighting without Hope is no way to live. Just a way to die." The 'hope' she means here is a path, something to believe in, one's own convictions — Lightning can't give these to him. Instead, he has to make his own.
From this point on, Lightning noticeably changes; in particular, she gentles. While she does slap Fang after her confession later on, she remarks that "whether they're square is up to Serah", implying that her and Vanille's transgressions are, for now, forgiven. She also claims that her slapping Fang "didn't change anything", meaning she didn't feel any better after doing it; before, violence was her answer to solve her complicated feelings, but now it wasn't able to ameliorate them the same way they had. In her interactions with Fang in Palumpolum, she also expresses fear and concern for the other l'Cie, pleading her that they must be safe because there had been no announcement of their capture; this is staunchly different from the way she had treated the others before, abandoning literally and emotionally them without remorse.
Snow and the way Lightning treats him as the story progresses are another sign of her development; she hates him and everything he and NORA stand for, living without any responsibilities or innate values, because it represents an orderless society which she fears before the game begins. Once Lightning finds her new purpose, however, she begins to care for him deeply not only for Serah's sake, but in a genuine way, even apologizing to him for the way she treated him after he is injured while tending to Hope. Her relationship culminates with him in a scene while on Gran Pulse; here, she asks Snow if he truly plans to marry Serah, telling him not to 'let her down'. Here, she shows her acceptance of Snow as Serah's fiance, and also is the one reassuring him instead of Snow trying (in vain) to reassure her, stating that he had 'convinced' her that they'll see Serah again.
In the climax of XIII, when the group faces off against Barthandelus and Orphan, everyone sans Vanille and Fang turn into Cieth and Vanille and Fang are tortured physically and mentally by Orphan. Through what they can only refer to as a 'miracle', they are able to come back from being Cieth through sheer force of will and through remembering the times they shared and the times to come; a path they would forge themselves. Before facing off against Orphan for the last time, Lightning sets up a dichotomy between themselves and him; he doesn't believe in anything, while they believe in so much, and they "live to make the impossible possible. that is [their] focus." Orphan let's out a chilling scream, because here Lightning has successfully 'slayed' fate. They are not doing anything because they are told to do it, but rather because they choose to do so.
Ultimately, by the end of the game Lightning has turned into a compassionate person, but not someone whose compassion hampers their strength. Her storm begins to quiet, and the Lightning calms, allowing other people in, which only adds to the strength that Lightning possesses. The last time we see Lightning in XIII, she's in a congregated circle amongst the people she is closest to, including Serah and Snow, exhibiting how their safety and well-being has become her new goal and purpose in life.
ABILITIES:
Lightning is a former sergeant of the Guardian Corps, so she has training that is not dissimilar to a foot soldier. She is proficient with a number of weapons, specializing in the usage of a gunblade, but has also been shown using a rocket launcher and a fighter jet. she could probably feel her way through any bladed weapon or firearm.
Besides that, Lightning is a l'Cie, meaning she has access to superhuman abilities. These abilities are accessed and improved via the l'Cie's respective eidolith, a crystalline manifestation of a l'Cie's power. l'Cie can switch between six different 'roles' in combat, each of which having a purpose, and each l'Cie specializes in three specific roles. Lightning's roles are commando, ravager, and medic, which are a brute force hard-hitter, black magic specialist, and a healer respectively.
Here is Lightning's crystarium. Since she's coming in post-game, she has access to every level of abilities in her primary roles.
The last, notable ability a l'Cie possesses is the summoning of an eidolon, which is an elemental entity who aid l'Cie in their focus. When summoned, he appears as a humanoid male, but when an eidolon's gestalt mode is activated they turn into a mount. Odin's gestalt form is a horse. Here are Odin's abilities.
INVENTORY:
gunblade, lightning's knife, lightning's eidolith, grav-con unit
WRITING SAMPLES.
NETWORK SAMPLE:
[ early in the morning, a text is sent out. sorry to all those that logically are sleeping now, but as lightning sees it, everyone should be up by now anyway. any later, and you're wasting the whole day away. ]
I'm looking for someone to train with. I use a sword, but I'm open to other weapons and hand-to-hand. Only thing I ask is to take it seriously and keep up.
[ she wanted to keep in as best shape as possible while she was here — if she was going to be stuck here, she may as well occupy herself somehow, and participating in missions wasn't enough for someone who previously was constantly running from the government. all she could think of was serah — and sazh, snow, hope.. fang and vanille. it almost felt irresponsible being here, not that she particularly had a say in the matter. ]
Send me a private message and I'll tell you where to meet. I can pay for your ferry if necessary. Thanks.
L.
[ and, upon being messaged, she sends a succinct message back: ]
I'll meet you on the Komo's beach at noon. Let me know if you need ferry fare or if this doesn't work for you.
Bring your worst.
LOG SAMPLE: log from cerealia
NAME: Coco
CONTACT:
CURRENT CHARACTERS: n/a
CHARACTER INFO.
NAME: Claire Farron " Lightning "
CANON: Final Fantasy XIII
AGE: 21
APPEARANCE: (x)
CANON POINT: after the final battle in XIII
BACKGROUND: game summary / lightning's background
PERSONALITY:
Lightning is introduced dramatically — casting off a cloak marking her as a member of the "purge", she near single-handedly annihilates an entire task force of a moving train. This sets her up as a confident individualist — moments later, when she and a man named Sazh are faced against a imposing warmech, he asks her "What are we gonna do?" to which she replies "Watch and learn". Lightning is a woman of action, someone who finds punching to be an easier solution than asking questions or talking things out. While badass, this go-getter attitude can often work against her.
To call Lightning emotionally stunted would be oversimplifying how she behaves, but to her new-found friends in the l'Cie gang, it seems like this is the case. She shows little to no regard for the other l'Cie most of the time. Early on, Lighting tries to abandon Sazh using her grav-con unit and slaps him off of her when he tries to grab onto her, exclaiming her as his only way out of Hanging Edge.
The way Lightning treats people is largely a result of how she was raised — or, well, how she raised herself. Her dad died when she was young, and her mother died when she was fifteen and her sister, Serah, was thirteen. As a coping mechanism, she took on the moniker of 'Lightning' and went straight out of high school into the Guardian Corps, which is similar to someone going straight into the military. While telling herself she was doing this for Serah, Lightning became a workaholic to compensate for her inability to cope healthily with her past, subsequently treating her sister coldly. In the light novels, Lightning even refers to civilians as 'unnecessary distractions' from her work.
Usually she just shakes people off, but at times she can be downright insensitive or scathing. She treats her sister's fiancé, Snow, as a nuisance at best and as a dredge of society at other times. When Serah and Snow conjunctionally announce both their engagement and Serah's branding by a fal'cie at Lightning's birthday a day prior to the game, Lightning remarks that it is her 'worst birthday ever' and that if it were true it would be '[her] job to hunt [Serah] down', which causes Serah to run away crying. Multiple times when Snow speaks of Serah, Lightning decks him without remorse.
Lightning feels a large amount of guilt retroactively for the way she treats others, particularly after her sister is crystallized. Still, she has a difficult time expressing this in a natural way and feels apprehensive about being exposed. When she begs Serah to let her in to the fal'cie vestige in chapter 1, she tells Sazh not to listen to her due the vulnerable nature of her plea. She seems to have a fixation with dwelling on things, or feeling weak — when Lightning and company stumble upon Serah's crystallized body stuck in Lake Bresha, instead of helping to get her out, she attempts to walk away, claiming she's 'let go', but Sazh remarks that she appears as if she wants to stay as bad as Snow does.
As much of a debby-downer as she can be, Lightning isn't without her quirks. She has a sense of humor, but you have to pay attention to notice it; most of it comes in snide remarks and proving people wrong. When she attempts to join the purge by boarding the purge train and a PSICOM member stops her to inform her that she's exempt, she pulls out her sword and hands it to him, proclaiming "I quit, then", leaving the PSICOM member quite stunned. Her humor has this effect on people; it adds to her steely persona. Lightning also appears to be a bashful person — she expresses embarrassment and turns away when Fang inspects her brand, which is concealed under her shirt.
Initially, Lightning's 'goal' is to ignore her focus and instead commit what basically would be acts of terrorism on the Sanctum, who she feels is to blame for her newfound state as a l'Cie. She has many arguments with her fellow l'Cie, who instead want to figure out what their focus is and accomplish it like most would, but Lightning is blinded by her own desires. Lightning's dedication to vengeance is also another way of her coping; instead of dealing with the fact that she brushed off Serah's plea for help, she blames other people for Serah's, and her own, fate, such as the fal'Cie, the Sanctum, and even Snow, who she feels created a rift between the two sisters.
Midway through the game, Lightning separates from the group and Hope follows her; while she initially treats Hope coldly, she warms up to him fast and begins to treat him much like a big sister would. Noticing how insecure he is, she gives him the knife Serah gave her for her birthday and allows him to 'lead' through an area or two in an attempt to boost his confidence, showing Lightning's more compassionate side and her motherly tendencies. She's a person who's used to taking care of others, but she's also a strong believer in tough love, threatening to leave him at one point in an attempt to make him buck up and stop willfully making himself a liability. It gets to the point where she becomes an inspiring and comforting force for him, and while she initially must feel out how to play this role, she begins to show true compassion for him; she hugs him upon finding him in Palumpolum unharmed, a rare act of physical affection Lightning tends to not show.
No one could deny that Lightning cares deeply about certain things; she's passionate and stubborn, hence the name: "It flashes bright, and then fades away. Can't protect, only destroy." She sees this moniker as a negative descriptor of herself, but in actuality, it's a perfect metaphor for how she behaves: she moves quickly and impulsively and is impossible to predict. On the thirteenth day, she renounces her exemption from the purge and willingly boards the train so she could make it to the pulse vestige where Serah was trapt. Hope remarks how crazy it was, and how he could never do it, to which she replies that "some things in life you just do".
"Just doing" isn't always a good credo to live by, however. Lightning is an extremely stubborn person, and once she decides she's going to do something, it's near impossible to make her change her mind. The reason she is so opposed to doing her focus is because of her issue with 'fate' and being told how she will live her life; it takes a grand, philosophy changing epiphany inspired by the musings of a fourteen year old for her to realize that hey, maybe mindlessly committing regicide and potentially annihilating an entire civilization wasn't really a good idea or a way to assert her own agency.
Her agency, however, is what makes her most uncertain, or her perceived lack thereof. Lightning is most uncomfortable when things seem to be outside of her own control, which can be traced back to her behavior shortly after being orphaned; throughout the game, Lightning expresses discomfort or even anger whenever someone mentions 'fate' or the l'Cie clock that was ticking every second. Lightning is the only one of the group to view their plight in a nihilistic way; instead of attempting to understand and enact their focus, which is their fal'Cie given 'purpose' in life, she opts to ignore it completely and take revenge on the ones who she believes put her in their hopeless situation. This can also be seen once again in her moniker; Lightning has no real purpose, it merely flashes bright and disappears, leaving meaningless destruction in its wake.
The moment Lightning gains a purpose is the moment she changes for good. When Hope makes her realize that humans are slaves to the Cocoon fal'Cie, she remarks that it took everything from her, all of the constructed and fragile attachments she had — her job, which was to serve and protect Cocoon, the authority and respect she carried as a person of her title, and the master that she blindly followed because it was what was expected of her and what she expected of herself. By fighting for revenge, she was able to not think about her now meaningless existence.
Here, Lightning also owns up to her mistakes since becoming a l'Cie. She claims that she won't abandon Hope, and by extension will not abandon her other l'Cie comrades. Lightning's new mission is a more noble one — to break the chains that hold herself and all the denizens of the world to the fal'Cie's whims, guised as 'fate' or 'order'. Here, Lightning represents necessary chaos, and Hope her, well, hope. By rejecting both the standards of a broken but lawful society, Cocoon, as well as the 'purpose' she was bestowed against her will by a Pulse fal'Cie, she takes back her agency and becomes truly independent — a person who forges a path for their life of their own mind, and a person who does not blame others, luck, or chance for what does and does not happen to them. She remarks that she may be able to keep hope alive, but she can't help him "find the Hope he was named for", and that "fighting without Hope is no way to live. Just a way to die." The 'hope' she means here is a path, something to believe in, one's own convictions — Lightning can't give these to him. Instead, he has to make his own.
From this point on, Lightning noticeably changes; in particular, she gentles. While she does slap Fang after her confession later on, she remarks that "whether they're square is up to Serah", implying that her and Vanille's transgressions are, for now, forgiven. She also claims that her slapping Fang "didn't change anything", meaning she didn't feel any better after doing it; before, violence was her answer to solve her complicated feelings, but now it wasn't able to ameliorate them the same way they had. In her interactions with Fang in Palumpolum, she also expresses fear and concern for the other l'Cie, pleading her that they must be safe because there had been no announcement of their capture; this is staunchly different from the way she had treated the others before, abandoning literally and emotionally them without remorse.
Snow and the way Lightning treats him as the story progresses are another sign of her development; she hates him and everything he and NORA stand for, living without any responsibilities or innate values, because it represents an orderless society which she fears before the game begins. Once Lightning finds her new purpose, however, she begins to care for him deeply not only for Serah's sake, but in a genuine way, even apologizing to him for the way she treated him after he is injured while tending to Hope. Her relationship culminates with him in a scene while on Gran Pulse; here, she asks Snow if he truly plans to marry Serah, telling him not to 'let her down'. Here, she shows her acceptance of Snow as Serah's fiance, and also is the one reassuring him instead of Snow trying (in vain) to reassure her, stating that he had 'convinced' her that they'll see Serah again.
In the climax of XIII, when the group faces off against Barthandelus and Orphan, everyone sans Vanille and Fang turn into Cieth and Vanille and Fang are tortured physically and mentally by Orphan. Through what they can only refer to as a 'miracle', they are able to come back from being Cieth through sheer force of will and through remembering the times they shared and the times to come; a path they would forge themselves. Before facing off against Orphan for the last time, Lightning sets up a dichotomy between themselves and him; he doesn't believe in anything, while they believe in so much, and they "live to make the impossible possible. that is [their] focus." Orphan let's out a chilling scream, because here Lightning has successfully 'slayed' fate. They are not doing anything because they are told to do it, but rather because they choose to do so.
Ultimately, by the end of the game Lightning has turned into a compassionate person, but not someone whose compassion hampers their strength. Her storm begins to quiet, and the Lightning calms, allowing other people in, which only adds to the strength that Lightning possesses. The last time we see Lightning in XIII, she's in a congregated circle amongst the people she is closest to, including Serah and Snow, exhibiting how their safety and well-being has become her new goal and purpose in life.
ABILITIES:
Lightning is a former sergeant of the Guardian Corps, so she has training that is not dissimilar to a foot soldier. She is proficient with a number of weapons, specializing in the usage of a gunblade, but has also been shown using a rocket launcher and a fighter jet. she could probably feel her way through any bladed weapon or firearm.
Besides that, Lightning is a l'Cie, meaning she has access to superhuman abilities. These abilities are accessed and improved via the l'Cie's respective eidolith, a crystalline manifestation of a l'Cie's power. l'Cie can switch between six different 'roles' in combat, each of which having a purpose, and each l'Cie specializes in three specific roles. Lightning's roles are commando, ravager, and medic, which are a brute force hard-hitter, black magic specialist, and a healer respectively.
Here is Lightning's crystarium. Since she's coming in post-game, she has access to every level of abilities in her primary roles.
The last, notable ability a l'Cie possesses is the summoning of an eidolon, which is an elemental entity who aid l'Cie in their focus. When summoned, he appears as a humanoid male, but when an eidolon's gestalt mode is activated they turn into a mount. Odin's gestalt form is a horse. Here are Odin's abilities.
INVENTORY:
gunblade, lightning's knife, lightning's eidolith, grav-con unit
WRITING SAMPLES.
NETWORK SAMPLE:
[ early in the morning, a text is sent out. sorry to all those that logically are sleeping now, but as lightning sees it, everyone should be up by now anyway. any later, and you're wasting the whole day away. ]
I'm looking for someone to train with. I use a sword, but I'm open to other weapons and hand-to-hand. Only thing I ask is to take it seriously and keep up.
[ she wanted to keep in as best shape as possible while she was here — if she was going to be stuck here, she may as well occupy herself somehow, and participating in missions wasn't enough for someone who previously was constantly running from the government. all she could think of was serah — and sazh, snow, hope.. fang and vanille. it almost felt irresponsible being here, not that she particularly had a say in the matter. ]
Send me a private message and I'll tell you where to meet. I can pay for your ferry if necessary. Thanks.
L.
[ and, upon being messaged, she sends a succinct message back: ]
I'll meet you on the Komo's beach at noon. Let me know if you need ferry fare or if this doesn't work for you.
Bring your worst.
LOG SAMPLE: log from cerealia