Application for city_of_cydonia
Out Of Character Information!
NAME;; Silver
AGE;; 18 (6/25/92)
JOURNAL;; saratogaroad
AIM;; nocteperpetua
EMAIL;; silverhikari@live.com
DESIRED CHARACTER;;
In Character Information!
CHARACTER NAME;; Claire "Lightning" Farron
CHARACTER JOURNAL;; soggypastry
CHARACTER AGE;; 21
FANDOM;; Final Fantasy XIII
TIMELINE;; Post-Game
PHYSICAL APPEARANCE;; Lightning is a slim woman who borders on the point of underweight, standing at about 5'7" (170.2CM). Her cotton-candy colored hair is wavy for the most part, coming down between her shoulderblades with the exception of her straight bangs that cross her face from the left, sometimes getting into her blue eyes.
For a soldier, Lightning's choice of dress is a little unorthodox, consisting of a sleeveless, midriff bearing sweater, a long vest with a band holding it closed above her waist, shorts under a leather miniskirt, and a red cape attached to the back of her vest. The holster for her gunblade also attaches to the back of her vest, and a pouch strapped to her leg completes the outfit.
ABILITIES;; Lightning is a rather accomplished soldier, showing prowess with the hard to wield gunblade and doing all kinds of kicks and flips with ease. She is also skilled enough at hand to hand to hold her own against armed soldiers without any problems, despite her slim physique
As a l'Cie, Lightning has access to three tiers. Commando is a physical based attack style, and Lightning excels at this with her quick attacks and range of movement. Ravager is the standard Mage/Sorcerer class, and Lightning has access to high level spells while using this class, which she can use to great effect. Medic is as the name describes, and while Lightning can't learn very many spells like Hope or Vanille do, she manages to hold her own in this role fairly well
STRENGTH/WEAKNESS;; From a physical standpoint, Lightning seems fragile until she winds up punching you and showing that while her strength isn't the brute form that Snow uses, she can still easily knock down a man who is nearly a foot taller then she is. Having joined the Gaurdian Corps, Lightning is trained in using a gunblade, a weapon that very few people can wield properly, let alone master the way Lightning has. This contributes to her combat style, in which she focuses more on speed then on strength, hitting her opponents more than once before they can respond.
Lightning is also quite good at strategizing, making sure that what needs to get done gets done, regardless of how difficult things can seem at first. She is often the first one to come up with a valid plan among the group of l'Cie, and despite her blunt nature, she is a natural leader.
But it's on the emotional level that Lightnings fears actually peek through. Due to the deaths of her parents at a young age, Lightning keeps everyone at arms length to avoid being hurt again. It's only after she loses her sister that she finally opens up again, and gains the emotional strength to let others back in. She in turn offers compassion, and a good kick in the ass if they need it.
PERSONALITY;; At first glance, Lightning is a cold, callous, and aloof woman, caring little for anyone around her. She is determined to reach the Pulse Vestige when the game begins, and only when the place is breached does the player learn why. She went in to save her sister, to whom Lightning is devoted too. When Lightning was younger, her parents died and Lightning was forced into the role of taking care of Serah, becoming like a mother to her. She went so far as to take the name "Lightning", throwing off her past so she could protect Serah. But in doing this, she ended up distancing herself from her sister and throwing herself into her work. Because of this, when Serah is marked for death, Lightning blames herself, dropping everything to search for her.
However, even though she found her sister within the Pulse Vestige, she was too late to save her from turning into crystal before her eyes, and the eyes of Serah's fiance, Snow. Snow, refusing to believe that Serah isn't do anything but sleeping in her crystal form, is the sole target of Lightning's anger and hatred for most of the game, until she comes to understand that Snow had nothing to do with it, and it was herself pushing Serah away that caused him to come into her sisters life. They reconcile, and Lightning soon learns to accept his place in her life as her soon to be brother-in-law.
Despite pushing Serah away, Lightning still cares for her sister. Those feelings transferred themselves to Hope Estheim, a young boy also marked as a l'Cie. At first, she can't stand his complaining and inability to keep up with her constant marching pace, but when he nearly dies at the hands of her Eidolon, a summon meant to aid l'Cie in their focus, she refuses to leave him. She becomes a sort of surrogate big sister figure to him, helping him start to come to terms with the death of his mother, an event he blamed Snow for. It is also because of Hope that she realizes the mistake she made in throwing off her past, and in how it doing so only distanced her further from Serah.
When things finally come to an end for Lightning and her group, she has changed from the cold woman we come to know at the beginning of the game. She is more open to her comrades, supporting them and caring for them the same way she does for her sister, and she no longer distances herself from Serah, instead apologizing to her sister for not listening to her at the beginning of things. She ends with congradulating Serah and Snow for their upcoming wedding, a far cry from the outright rejection at the beginning of the game.
HISTORY;; Pre-game, we aren't told much of Lightning's history beyond what she tells Hope. Her parents died when she was younger, and she was left to care for Serah. She threw off her birth name and took the name of Lightning in order to try and protect Serah, but that only worked to distance the two sisters and this helps to make Lightning's twenty-first birthday the total fiasco that it tutned into, as Serah chose that day to reveal that she had become a l'Cie, an enemy of Cocoon, their home. Lightning told Serah that, if she had really become a l'Cie, it would be her job as a member of the Gaurdian Corps to hunt her down and take her out. Serah runs off and is taken by the Pulse Vestige, forcing Snow, her fiancee, to tell Lightning what had happened. This prompts Lightning to quit the Gaurdian Corps to go after Serah, and this is where the game really begins.
However, Serah's rescue goes to hell soon after Lightning and Snow are reunited with her and she turns to crystal. Lightning and Snow, along with Hope Estheim, Vanille, and Sazh Katzroy are marked as Pulse l'Cie soon after, with thier apparent Focus, or mission, being to destroy Cocoon. When they find Serah again, her crystalline form is trapped in more crystal, and Snow stays behind to get her out. Lightning easily walks away from him, leading the rest from the soldiers heading after them. They make their escape into the Vile Peaks, where Lightning and Hope split off from Vanille and Sazh after Lightning announces her plan to destroy the main Cocoon Fal'Cie rather than become it's puppet. However, it doesn't take Hope long to fall behind during Lightning's soldier-march, and she becomes irritated at him. She nearly leaves him behind, but the appearance of her Eidolon, a creature that every l'Cie has the ability to summon, prompts her to return to his side. Lightning then decides to take Hope back to his home in Palompolum.
When they finally arrive in Palumpolum, Hope and Lightning find it under lockdown from PSICom, an anti-Pulse taskforce hunting for them and their fellow l'Cie. This forces them to make their way through the system of tunnels that wind their way under the city, and it is during this trek that Lightning finally explains herself to Hope, helping him make the first few steps to forgiving Snow for his mother's death, and trying to make him understand that he needs to return home to his father before something happens, along with pushing herself along the path of forgiving Snow. When they get topside again, Hope and Lightning are seperated again, Hope staying with Snow and Lightning going with someone searching for Vanille, a woman named Fang. Fang then explains the reason Serah was marked was because she and Vanille, already having been l'Cie long before they ever encountered Serah, were from Pulse and had awoken in Cocoon. Fang is saved from further explanations by an explosion sending herself and Lightning off to rescue Hope and Snow, and they proceed to Hope's home to allow the injured Snow time to rest. Here, she apologizes to Snow for her hatred and anger towards him, and then helps to fend off an attack on the Estheim house by PSICom.
Barely a day later, she, Hope, Snow, and Fang storm the Palamecia, a massive airship led by the Primarch of Cocoon, the leader of PSICom, to rescue the captured Vanille and Sazh before they are publicly executed. While they do manage this, facing down the Primarch reveals that he is a Fal'Cie, and that he knows of their Focus to destroy Cocoon. He explains that doing so, and therefore killing Cocoons millions of citizens, will summon the Maker back to them, like a child calling a parent after a nightmare. He sends them to the Fifth Ark, a remnant of Pulse hidden within Cocoon where monsters and machines serve to train the l'Cie in their new powers. Snow apologizes to Lightning here, but she instead calls him an idiot, telling him that his faith in Serah saved her. This in turn bolsters Snow back up to mostly normal, and they proceed to try and escape the Fifth Ark. Near the end, Fang's Eidolon makes an appearance, and Lightning helps her fellow l'Cie fight it off, calling Fang on of their own. After the Eidolon is tamed, they all escape to Gran Pulse, the hated world below.
Not long after they arrive in Pulse, however, Hope shows despair, telling the group to leave him behind; to leave the weak link behind while they search for a way to lose their Focus. When the group refuses, his own Eidolon appears and with the help of Lightning and Fang, he fights it off. This starts a long trek across the wilds of Pulse, until they reach the ruined village of Oerba, Fang and Vanille's hometown. At the edge of Oerba, Serah seems to be waiting for them, but it's really the Primarch, Galenth Dysley, in disguise. He manages to upset Snow, and by calling Lightning by her real name, Claire, gets under her skin. They beat him back, and return to Cocoon, promising eachother that they won't destroy Cocoon, but save it.
After a long and difficult trek to the Primarch's lair through Cocoon's wartorn capital city, the little group of l'Cie defeat the Primarch for a third time. He then transforms into Orphan, the first Cocoon Fal'Cie, and then turns the l'Cie against Fang as she swears to become Ragnarok to destroy him in order to defend Vanille and the others, who she sees as Family. When Lightning and the rest come to Vanille's defense, Orphan turns them into Cie'th, monsters that used to be human l'Cie. Vanille and Fang are the only ones who retain their humanity, and Orphan proceeds to torture Fang. When Vanille steps forward to become Ragnarok, something she was too afraid to do previously, the others return to human form and save Fang from Orphan. They then defeat the final Fal'Cie, sending Cocoon plummeting to Pulse below and beginning the transformation into crystal. Fang and Vanille become Ragnarok together in order to stop Cocoon falling, while Lightning and the remaining ex-l'Cie are sent to Pulse as crystal statues.
When they awake, they notice that Cocoon has been frozen in crystal, and that Vanille and Fang have completed their Focus. Due to this, their brands are gone and they are free. Snow is the first to notice two people coming close to them; Serah and Sazh's son Dajh. With the defeat of the Fal'Cie, the two were freed from being crystal and released. Lightning apologizes to Serah for her behavior prior to the events of the game, and she then gives her blessing for the upcoming nuptials. The game then ends, leaving them standing in the wilds of Gran Pulse, with a free world before them.
SAMPLE JOURNAL POST;;[Video]
[The feed clicks on rather abruptly, showing Lightning in her pod-room. She's obviously been thinking hard about this whole situation, but something seems off. It almost seems as if she's talking to herself, at first.]
I've looked around. There's no sign here of anyone I know, besides Hope. And some of the others have also said they haven't been able to find anyone they know, either. Just them, and none of the robots will answer any questions about how to go home.
Which means, if I'm right...
[She stops, letting that sentence drift off into silence. Has something happened? Yes. She has just realized that Hope was here alone until she arrived.]
...I... Hope. We need to talk.
SAMPLE RP POST;;
The day had come. That fateful, dreaded day that had sent shivers down Lightning's back for weeks now. She'd tried everything she could to prepare for this, but it still struck her from behind, leaving her vulnerable and unprepared.
Serah was getting married today.
The girl-no, the woman in question was standing in front of a long mirror, a smile on her face as Lebreau finished some last minute adjustments to her long white dress. Lightning stood back, closer to the door, as she tried to bring her emotions back under control. Tears blurred her vision as she simply watched her sister get ready to walk down the aisle. Oh, she'd known this would happen eventually, but that didn't make this any easier. Serah seemed to notice this, and as soon as she could, she turned to Lightning and extended her hand towards her older sister.
"Lightning. It'll be okay, you know." A slight nod was all Lightning could do as she reached her hand to clasp with Serah's, staring into the mirror with her sister. She was beautiful, a vision in white with flowers in her pale pink hair. They could have passed for twins at this moment in time, but Lightning didn't see that as Serah wrapped her arms around her sister. They'd both come so far from Lightning's twenty-first birthday, though Lightning still felt guilty over that.
"Serah...I'm sorry." Serah shook her head, the veil moving with this motion as she looked up at her sister with a smile.
"Claire...it's okay. I forgive you." She embraced her sister again, leaving Lightning speechless and trying to swallow the lump in her throat even as she let a faint smile show. This day would be perfect for Serah.
She'd make sure of it.
NAME;; Silver
AGE;; 18 (6/25/92)
JOURNAL;; saratogaroad
AIM;; nocteperpetua
EMAIL;; silverhikari@live.com
DESIRED CHARACTER;;
In Character Information!
CHARACTER NAME;; Claire "Lightning" Farron
CHARACTER JOURNAL;; soggypastry
CHARACTER AGE;; 21
FANDOM;; Final Fantasy XIII
TIMELINE;; Post-Game
PHYSICAL APPEARANCE;; Lightning is a slim woman who borders on the point of underweight, standing at about 5'7" (170.2CM). Her cotton-candy colored hair is wavy for the most part, coming down between her shoulderblades with the exception of her straight bangs that cross her face from the left, sometimes getting into her blue eyes.
For a soldier, Lightning's choice of dress is a little unorthodox, consisting of a sleeveless, midriff bearing sweater, a long vest with a band holding it closed above her waist, shorts under a leather miniskirt, and a red cape attached to the back of her vest. The holster for her gunblade also attaches to the back of her vest, and a pouch strapped to her leg completes the outfit.
ABILITIES;; Lightning is a rather accomplished soldier, showing prowess with the hard to wield gunblade and doing all kinds of kicks and flips with ease. She is also skilled enough at hand to hand to hold her own against armed soldiers without any problems, despite her slim physique
As a l'Cie, Lightning has access to three tiers. Commando is a physical based attack style, and Lightning excels at this with her quick attacks and range of movement. Ravager is the standard Mage/Sorcerer class, and Lightning has access to high level spells while using this class, which she can use to great effect. Medic is as the name describes, and while Lightning can't learn very many spells like Hope or Vanille do, she manages to hold her own in this role fairly well
STRENGTH/WEAKNESS;; From a physical standpoint, Lightning seems fragile until she winds up punching you and showing that while her strength isn't the brute form that Snow uses, she can still easily knock down a man who is nearly a foot taller then she is. Having joined the Gaurdian Corps, Lightning is trained in using a gunblade, a weapon that very few people can wield properly, let alone master the way Lightning has. This contributes to her combat style, in which she focuses more on speed then on strength, hitting her opponents more than once before they can respond.
Lightning is also quite good at strategizing, making sure that what needs to get done gets done, regardless of how difficult things can seem at first. She is often the first one to come up with a valid plan among the group of l'Cie, and despite her blunt nature, she is a natural leader.
But it's on the emotional level that Lightnings fears actually peek through. Due to the deaths of her parents at a young age, Lightning keeps everyone at arms length to avoid being hurt again. It's only after she loses her sister that she finally opens up again, and gains the emotional strength to let others back in. She in turn offers compassion, and a good kick in the ass if they need it.
PERSONALITY;; At first glance, Lightning is a cold, callous, and aloof woman, caring little for anyone around her. She is determined to reach the Pulse Vestige when the game begins, and only when the place is breached does the player learn why. She went in to save her sister, to whom Lightning is devoted too. When Lightning was younger, her parents died and Lightning was forced into the role of taking care of Serah, becoming like a mother to her. She went so far as to take the name "Lightning", throwing off her past so she could protect Serah. But in doing this, she ended up distancing herself from her sister and throwing herself into her work. Because of this, when Serah is marked for death, Lightning blames herself, dropping everything to search for her.
However, even though she found her sister within the Pulse Vestige, she was too late to save her from turning into crystal before her eyes, and the eyes of Serah's fiance, Snow. Snow, refusing to believe that Serah isn't do anything but sleeping in her crystal form, is the sole target of Lightning's anger and hatred for most of the game, until she comes to understand that Snow had nothing to do with it, and it was herself pushing Serah away that caused him to come into her sisters life. They reconcile, and Lightning soon learns to accept his place in her life as her soon to be brother-in-law.
Despite pushing Serah away, Lightning still cares for her sister. Those feelings transferred themselves to Hope Estheim, a young boy also marked as a l'Cie. At first, she can't stand his complaining and inability to keep up with her constant marching pace, but when he nearly dies at the hands of her Eidolon, a summon meant to aid l'Cie in their focus, she refuses to leave him. She becomes a sort of surrogate big sister figure to him, helping him start to come to terms with the death of his mother, an event he blamed Snow for. It is also because of Hope that she realizes the mistake she made in throwing off her past, and in how it doing so only distanced her further from Serah.
When things finally come to an end for Lightning and her group, she has changed from the cold woman we come to know at the beginning of the game. She is more open to her comrades, supporting them and caring for them the same way she does for her sister, and she no longer distances herself from Serah, instead apologizing to her sister for not listening to her at the beginning of things. She ends with congradulating Serah and Snow for their upcoming wedding, a far cry from the outright rejection at the beginning of the game.
HISTORY;; Pre-game, we aren't told much of Lightning's history beyond what she tells Hope. Her parents died when she was younger, and she was left to care for Serah. She threw off her birth name and took the name of Lightning in order to try and protect Serah, but that only worked to distance the two sisters and this helps to make Lightning's twenty-first birthday the total fiasco that it tutned into, as Serah chose that day to reveal that she had become a l'Cie, an enemy of Cocoon, their home. Lightning told Serah that, if she had really become a l'Cie, it would be her job as a member of the Gaurdian Corps to hunt her down and take her out. Serah runs off and is taken by the Pulse Vestige, forcing Snow, her fiancee, to tell Lightning what had happened. This prompts Lightning to quit the Gaurdian Corps to go after Serah, and this is where the game really begins.
However, Serah's rescue goes to hell soon after Lightning and Snow are reunited with her and she turns to crystal. Lightning and Snow, along with Hope Estheim, Vanille, and Sazh Katzroy are marked as Pulse l'Cie soon after, with thier apparent Focus, or mission, being to destroy Cocoon. When they find Serah again, her crystalline form is trapped in more crystal, and Snow stays behind to get her out. Lightning easily walks away from him, leading the rest from the soldiers heading after them. They make their escape into the Vile Peaks, where Lightning and Hope split off from Vanille and Sazh after Lightning announces her plan to destroy the main Cocoon Fal'Cie rather than become it's puppet. However, it doesn't take Hope long to fall behind during Lightning's soldier-march, and she becomes irritated at him. She nearly leaves him behind, but the appearance of her Eidolon, a creature that every l'Cie has the ability to summon, prompts her to return to his side. Lightning then decides to take Hope back to his home in Palompolum.
When they finally arrive in Palumpolum, Hope and Lightning find it under lockdown from PSICom, an anti-Pulse taskforce hunting for them and their fellow l'Cie. This forces them to make their way through the system of tunnels that wind their way under the city, and it is during this trek that Lightning finally explains herself to Hope, helping him make the first few steps to forgiving Snow for his mother's death, and trying to make him understand that he needs to return home to his father before something happens, along with pushing herself along the path of forgiving Snow. When they get topside again, Hope and Lightning are seperated again, Hope staying with Snow and Lightning going with someone searching for Vanille, a woman named Fang. Fang then explains the reason Serah was marked was because she and Vanille, already having been l'Cie long before they ever encountered Serah, were from Pulse and had awoken in Cocoon. Fang is saved from further explanations by an explosion sending herself and Lightning off to rescue Hope and Snow, and they proceed to Hope's home to allow the injured Snow time to rest. Here, she apologizes to Snow for her hatred and anger towards him, and then helps to fend off an attack on the Estheim house by PSICom.
Barely a day later, she, Hope, Snow, and Fang storm the Palamecia, a massive airship led by the Primarch of Cocoon, the leader of PSICom, to rescue the captured Vanille and Sazh before they are publicly executed. While they do manage this, facing down the Primarch reveals that he is a Fal'Cie, and that he knows of their Focus to destroy Cocoon. He explains that doing so, and therefore killing Cocoons millions of citizens, will summon the Maker back to them, like a child calling a parent after a nightmare. He sends them to the Fifth Ark, a remnant of Pulse hidden within Cocoon where monsters and machines serve to train the l'Cie in their new powers. Snow apologizes to Lightning here, but she instead calls him an idiot, telling him that his faith in Serah saved her. This in turn bolsters Snow back up to mostly normal, and they proceed to try and escape the Fifth Ark. Near the end, Fang's Eidolon makes an appearance, and Lightning helps her fellow l'Cie fight it off, calling Fang on of their own. After the Eidolon is tamed, they all escape to Gran Pulse, the hated world below.
Not long after they arrive in Pulse, however, Hope shows despair, telling the group to leave him behind; to leave the weak link behind while they search for a way to lose their Focus. When the group refuses, his own Eidolon appears and with the help of Lightning and Fang, he fights it off. This starts a long trek across the wilds of Pulse, until they reach the ruined village of Oerba, Fang and Vanille's hometown. At the edge of Oerba, Serah seems to be waiting for them, but it's really the Primarch, Galenth Dysley, in disguise. He manages to upset Snow, and by calling Lightning by her real name, Claire, gets under her skin. They beat him back, and return to Cocoon, promising eachother that they won't destroy Cocoon, but save it.
After a long and difficult trek to the Primarch's lair through Cocoon's wartorn capital city, the little group of l'Cie defeat the Primarch for a third time. He then transforms into Orphan, the first Cocoon Fal'Cie, and then turns the l'Cie against Fang as she swears to become Ragnarok to destroy him in order to defend Vanille and the others, who she sees as Family. When Lightning and the rest come to Vanille's defense, Orphan turns them into Cie'th, monsters that used to be human l'Cie. Vanille and Fang are the only ones who retain their humanity, and Orphan proceeds to torture Fang. When Vanille steps forward to become Ragnarok, something she was too afraid to do previously, the others return to human form and save Fang from Orphan. They then defeat the final Fal'Cie, sending Cocoon plummeting to Pulse below and beginning the transformation into crystal. Fang and Vanille become Ragnarok together in order to stop Cocoon falling, while Lightning and the remaining ex-l'Cie are sent to Pulse as crystal statues.
When they awake, they notice that Cocoon has been frozen in crystal, and that Vanille and Fang have completed their Focus. Due to this, their brands are gone and they are free. Snow is the first to notice two people coming close to them; Serah and Sazh's son Dajh. With the defeat of the Fal'Cie, the two were freed from being crystal and released. Lightning apologizes to Serah for her behavior prior to the events of the game, and she then gives her blessing for the upcoming nuptials. The game then ends, leaving them standing in the wilds of Gran Pulse, with a free world before them.
SAMPLE JOURNAL POST;;[Video]
[The feed clicks on rather abruptly, showing Lightning in her pod-room. She's obviously been thinking hard about this whole situation, but something seems off. It almost seems as if she's talking to herself, at first.]
I've looked around. There's no sign here of anyone I know, besides Hope. And some of the others have also said they haven't been able to find anyone they know, either. Just them, and none of the robots will answer any questions about how to go home.
Which means, if I'm right...
[She stops, letting that sentence drift off into silence. Has something happened? Yes. She has just realized that Hope was here alone until she arrived.]
...I... Hope. We need to talk.
SAMPLE RP POST;;
The day had come. That fateful, dreaded day that had sent shivers down Lightning's back for weeks now. She'd tried everything she could to prepare for this, but it still struck her from behind, leaving her vulnerable and unprepared.
Serah was getting married today.
The girl-no, the woman in question was standing in front of a long mirror, a smile on her face as Lebreau finished some last minute adjustments to her long white dress. Lightning stood back, closer to the door, as she tried to bring her emotions back under control. Tears blurred her vision as she simply watched her sister get ready to walk down the aisle. Oh, she'd known this would happen eventually, but that didn't make this any easier. Serah seemed to notice this, and as soon as she could, she turned to Lightning and extended her hand towards her older sister.
"Lightning. It'll be okay, you know." A slight nod was all Lightning could do as she reached her hand to clasp with Serah's, staring into the mirror with her sister. She was beautiful, a vision in white with flowers in her pale pink hair. They could have passed for twins at this moment in time, but Lightning didn't see that as Serah wrapped her arms around her sister. They'd both come so far from Lightning's twenty-first birthday, though Lightning still felt guilty over that.
"Serah...I'm sorry." Serah shook her head, the veil moving with this motion as she looked up at her sister with a smile.
"Claire...it's okay. I forgive you." She embraced her sister again, leaving Lightning speechless and trying to swallow the lump in her throat even as she let a faint smile show. This day would be perfect for Serah.
She'd make sure of it.