“Two people who can initially, at best, barely stand each other but also compliment each other so shockingly well that, because of the circumstances, are now forced to work together and slowly bond..."
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.
They have the ability to help each other HEAL and push each other to DO BETTER.
