This is completely Nay's fault.
So bottle_of_shine has a meme about how your favourite pairing(s) got together that, of course, I had to flail at, and I think it's really interesting and so I'm reposting mine here in all of its flaily fangirly italics-abuse joy.
Spoilers ensue for Final Fantasy VI, (minor), Final Fantasy VII, (minor), and Final Fantasy XII (major.)
Okay! So. OTPs, in order, starting from the oldest game and moving forward!
Final Fantasy VI
Okay, so my OTP is semi-canon. Locke and Celes have all this clumsy and wonderful interaction; when they first meet Locke does his honourable-rogue-knight thing (okay okay so he's a thief treasure hunter but he totally is a knight at heart I'M TELLING YOU) and helps her out, and she's all like "Nope, leave me here, I can barely even walk" and he's like "Yeah well screw that you're coming with me." There are more hints later and if I go into all of them I'll spoil the story arc, so I won't.
But the thing about this pairing is, at the end of the game, it's unresolved. They have feelings for each other, there's obviously something there, but there are also enormous challenges. She's a general in an army that no longer exists and she lives by the rule of law; he's a thief treasure hunter and excels at skirting that grey edge where law doesn't go but it's not full-on chaos. They're both mind-broken in different ways and because of who they are and how they met and the way they both deal with issues (he runs away and looks for shiny relics, she clams up and shuts everyone out) it's so horribly hard to build a meaningful relationship for that, and for them I feel like there would have to be some external event (beyond the events of the game - and by the way, Celes and Terra are like the only two FF characters ever who display symptoms of the PTSD any FF main-party character SHOULD HAVE, DAMMIT, but I digress) to force them to admit their feelings for each other, because otherwise they just will circle around it.
Final Fantasy VII
--Disclaimer: I have not dealt with any of Complication Canon except DOC and AC, neither of which are relevant to this pairing! Also what is with the C's in the Complication names????--
Okay, so, once again, canon! Zack/Aeris to be precise (I don't even know why, I freaking hate Aeris, I think I blame laylah for this, argh argh argh!!!!!) So here's my question: How the hell did a SOLDIER First Class end up with a slum girl? Aeris doesn't seem like the type to go bar-hopping or anything like that, and why would SOLDIERs be slumming it in her particular sector? This leads me to one of two conclusions. Therefore, best guess says they either met when she was under Shin-Ra's "hospitality" (Y HALO THAR, Stockholm syndrome, how are you today?) or during some kind of riot in the slums, which brings up the same SS issue. Why would he notice her? Why would he bother? As a SOLDIER, he can probably get an above-Plate girl if he wanted her; why Aeris? The obvious answer is because "they're both good people" but there has to be more to it than that! I....I haven't been awake long enough to make a legitimate answer to this but um....yeah. I fail, sorry.
Final Fantasy XII
Yes, I've already lost patience with the meme and so I'm not covering most of the games, including my Kain/Angst OTP FTW!!!, but that's okay because there are definitely at least two pairings I can tl;dr about for this game!
So, Balthier/Ashe. I feel like through the whole game they're tiptoeing toward something that she doesn't want to admit to because it would be cheating on Rasler (remember how young she is, for all of her appearance of hardened warrior) and also because it wouldn't be right for Dalmasca, and basically everything Ashe does is focused on Dalmasca. He, meanwhile, wouldn't want to be tied down and so he flirts, but doesn't intend it to go anywhere. Yet, by the scene at the end in the Bahamut, he's obviously got some pretty significant respect for her as a person and I feel like after the ending, which I will avoid discussing for the moment to avoid too many spoilers, they might have some kind of secret affair. Ashe probably has to make a political marriage, but after her taste of relative freedom on their journey, is she really going to sacrifice everything she has gained to Dalmasca? Quite probably, yes, because she's Ashe. But that doesn't mean she won't yearn (and then I can write angst) or, alternatively, in this new alliance that Larsa, Al-Cid and Ashe are building, maybe the Queen of Dalmasca CAN marry a sky pirate!
It also seems relatively likely that Ashe would go the Queen Elizabeth I route (except without the virginity part, cause even Queen Bess had lovers, she just made sure not to get pregnant), keep Balthier as a lover and not marry politically, because if this alliance holds, Ashe has no need to sell control of herself and her country to someone from another country that her people will not accept (I mean look how close Dalmasca came to being the smoking crater over which Rozarria and Archades duked it out!) and....okay, fine, self-indulgent masturbation at an end here.
Vossler/Ashe also has some really significant possibilities. I feel like it's a desperation thing; she's got nothing left but him. Basch has betrayed her; Rasler's gone; her father is dead; her country is occupied and she can't do anything and Vossler's mandate is to care for the princess, and while I think his honour would quail, really hard, at doing that because it's not right, she's grieving, and most importantly she's the princess, I think eventually he would cave because he would recognize that without something to hold her together Ashe is going to just snap. She's seventeen. She has to have an outlet somewhere. And that just makes his betrayal so much more poignant and oh sweet zombie Jesus I want to write this now STOP ME NAY I HAVE ENOUGH BUNNIES MY GOD.
I have run out of brainpower now. Cross-posting to my journal because I need somewhere to remember this tl;dr. XD
Spoilers ensue for Final Fantasy VI, (minor), Final Fantasy VII, (minor), and Final Fantasy XII (major.)
Okay! So. OTPs, in order, starting from the oldest game and moving forward!
Final Fantasy VI
Okay, so my OTP is semi-canon. Locke and Celes have all this clumsy and wonderful interaction; when they first meet Locke does his honourable-rogue-knight thing (okay okay so he's a thief treasure hunter but he totally is a knight at heart I'M TELLING YOU) and helps her out, and she's all like "Nope, leave me here, I can barely even walk" and he's like "Yeah well screw that you're coming with me." There are more hints later and if I go into all of them I'll spoil the story arc, so I won't.
But the thing about this pairing is, at the end of the game, it's unresolved. They have feelings for each other, there's obviously something there, but there are also enormous challenges. She's a general in an army that no longer exists and she lives by the rule of law; he's a thief treasure hunter and excels at skirting that grey edge where law doesn't go but it's not full-on chaos. They're both mind-broken in different ways and because of who they are and how they met and the way they both deal with issues (he runs away and looks for shiny relics, she clams up and shuts everyone out) it's so horribly hard to build a meaningful relationship for that, and for them I feel like there would have to be some external event (beyond the events of the game - and by the way, Celes and Terra are like the only two FF characters ever who display symptoms of the PTSD any FF main-party character SHOULD HAVE, DAMMIT, but I digress) to force them to admit their feelings for each other, because otherwise they just will circle around it.
Final Fantasy VII
--Disclaimer: I have not dealt with any of Complication Canon except DOC and AC, neither of which are relevant to this pairing! Also what is with the C's in the Complication names????--
Okay, so, once again, canon! Zack/Aeris to be precise (I don't even know why, I freaking hate Aeris, I think I blame laylah for this, argh argh argh!!!!!) So here's my question: How the hell did a SOLDIER First Class end up with a slum girl? Aeris doesn't seem like the type to go bar-hopping or anything like that, and why would SOLDIERs be slumming it in her particular sector? This leads me to one of two conclusions. Therefore, best guess says they either met when she was under Shin-Ra's "hospitality" (Y HALO THAR, Stockholm syndrome, how are you today?) or during some kind of riot in the slums, which brings up the same SS issue. Why would he notice her? Why would he bother? As a SOLDIER, he can probably get an above-Plate girl if he wanted her; why Aeris? The obvious answer is because "they're both good people" but there has to be more to it than that! I....I haven't been awake long enough to make a legitimate answer to this but um....yeah. I fail, sorry.
Final Fantasy XII
Yes, I've already lost patience with the meme and so I'm not covering most of the games, including my Kain/Angst OTP FTW!!!, but that's okay because there are definitely at least two pairings I can tl;dr about for this game!
So, Balthier/Ashe. I feel like through the whole game they're tiptoeing toward something that she doesn't want to admit to because it would be cheating on Rasler (remember how young she is, for all of her appearance of hardened warrior) and also because it wouldn't be right for Dalmasca, and basically everything Ashe does is focused on Dalmasca. He, meanwhile, wouldn't want to be tied down and so he flirts, but doesn't intend it to go anywhere. Yet, by the scene at the end in the Bahamut, he's obviously got some pretty significant respect for her as a person and I feel like after the ending, which I will avoid discussing for the moment to avoid too many spoilers, they might have some kind of secret affair. Ashe probably has to make a political marriage, but after her taste of relative freedom on their journey, is she really going to sacrifice everything she has gained to Dalmasca? Quite probably, yes, because she's Ashe. But that doesn't mean she won't yearn (and then I can write angst) or, alternatively, in this new alliance that Larsa, Al-Cid and Ashe are building, maybe the Queen of Dalmasca CAN marry a sky pirate!
It also seems relatively likely that Ashe would go the Queen Elizabeth I route (except without the virginity part, cause even Queen Bess had lovers, she just made sure not to get pregnant), keep Balthier as a lover and not marry politically, because if this alliance holds, Ashe has no need to sell control of herself and her country to someone from another country that her people will not accept (I mean look how close Dalmasca came to being the smoking crater over which Rozarria and Archades duked it out!) and....okay, fine, self-indulgent masturbation at an end here.
Vossler/Ashe also has some really significant possibilities. I feel like it's a desperation thing; she's got nothing left but him. Basch has betrayed her; Rasler's gone; her father is dead; her country is occupied and she can't do anything and Vossler's mandate is to care for the princess, and while I think his honour would quail, really hard, at doing that because it's not right, she's grieving, and most importantly she's the princess, I think eventually he would cave because he would recognize that without something to hold her together Ashe is going to just snap. She's seventeen. She has to have an outlet somewhere. And that just makes his betrayal so much more poignant and oh sweet zombie Jesus I want to write this now STOP ME NAY I HAVE ENOUGH BUNNIES MY GOD.
I have run out of brainpower now. Cross-posting to my journal because I need somewhere to remember this tl;dr. XD