I kept thinking ‘Phantom!Lightning isn’t creepy enough, add more’ and I just kept adding and adding until Phantom!Lightning even made an appearance in my dreams. I literally stared at that image so long that it imprinted on me and followed me into my sleep one night.
This comic has been in the works for over two years. This shows in the way my art style changes progressively through the pages. This will also be posted on Deviant-Art just in case reading it is too difficult on Tumblr.
He felt and saw her everywhere in Yusnaan’s vast Palace. At first, the flickers of her in mirrors and water made him believe he was dreaming. Too much Chaos infusions, not enough sleep. Hallucinations. But then he overheard his men talking about the rose-haired phantom they had seen reflected in the water of the fountain whenever he had been passing it and it jarred a memory of Hope’s last warning message. Beware the rose-haired phantom.
Snow swallowed and tightened his hand around Serah’s pendant. It wasn’t Lightning he was seeing in every reflective surface. It was Serah. Always with a face that he swore she would never wear long in life: devastatingly sad. Tears were always present on her cheeks in the time he forced himself to look at her, to confront the ghost haunting him.
But now, he wondered: was she really haunting him? If others could see her, was it a true haunting? It wasn’t as if she had risen from the grave just to torment him, right? That wasn’t Serah.
So, he made the decision. Tonight, he would try and talk to his rose-haired phantom. Despite Hope’s warning, he would engage with her. If it was his Serah…he wanted that chance.
“You couldn’t stand by and do nothing, could you?” Noel, really? Weren’t you the same guy who said “don’t ever lie down and wait to die”? You have the same “push forward no matter what” energy as Snow.
The music whenever Noel and Snow are arguing is so good. You can tell from the moment the beat starts that some shit is about to go down.
Mog hiding behind Serah is adorable. And then Serah takes up her role as peacekeeper and breaks up the argument just by saying “Listen, Snow..”
Snow’s respect for Serah is so wholesome. Honestly, the scenes with Snow and Serah are always so wholesome.
I had forgotten that Serah and Snow hadn’t seen one another for two years. I knew they had put their wedding on hold until Lightning could return but I didn’t remember how long they had spent apart.
Damn. No wonder Serah seemed to miss him really fucking bad in the opening.
Underrated moment: that time that Lightning joined in on Team NORA‘s ribbing of Snow.
There’s just something endearing about Lightning casually joining Snow’s other family for some good-natured teasing when she originally hated them all. That character development, huh?
The dialogue between NORA and Snow after Serah breaks up with Snow and Snow runs after her makes me believe that they were attached at the hip from the moment they met. Nearly every single one asks where Serah is when they see Snow alone.
Lebreau even teases him about it and promises to make them a celebration dinner whenever they get back together. She sees it as inevitable.
Which kind of makes me wonder why they are so okay with going off and doing their own thing for two years if their relationship has been established as the “always together” kind.
Throughout the first game, it is Snow that has the most belief in Serah and in their reunion. It is what he is fighting for.
So, why does he leave her behind in New Bodhum while he searches for Lightning? Why wouldn’t she have gone with him-especially since the Serah we know is so headstrong and stubborn?
It certainly isn’t because Snow has learned to let Serah go. We see that in Lightning Returns that he still holds her as close to his heart as he did in FFXIII.
So, why does he leave her behind in New Bodhum while he searches for Lightning? Why wouldn’t she have gone with him-especially since the Serah we know is so headstrong and stubborn?
Just my two cents below.
From a plot device point of view, it seems obvious to me that they wanted Snow out of the way to make Serah stand out better as a protagonist. We’d already played as Snow in the first game, so if they had kept them together we’d have naturally thought of Snow as the protagonist, and Serah as secondary. Taking Snow out of the picture, and adding a new character as Serah’s travelling companion, sells better that we’re supposed to focus on Serah’s journey.
Regarding instead if/how it makes sense from a storyline perspective, what in my opinion supports their separation is the fact that Serah wasn’t exactly okay after Lightning vanished.
Nobody believed Serah when she told them that Lightning wasn’t in the crystal pillar, and as much as Serah was convinced she was right, it can’t have been easy for her:
she lost her sister
her friends think she’s imagining things (i.e. she lost her marbles)
she has magic she isn’t supposed to have
they are constantly under monster attack
Games shy away a lot from explicitly mentioning mental health issues, but I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that Serah had depression during the entire time.
The very beginning of FFXIII-2 makes it quite clear that Serah is very far from okay; at least one of the live trigger options makes it rather obvious, as she has a nervous breakdown on screen. Gadot, and especially Lebreau, try desperately to have Serah react and protect herself; then there is Serah’s own, very hesitant, declaration to Noel that she can fight if she has to.
The implication, also backed by the fact that Lebreau had to save her from that monster, is that so far, she hasn’t been able to.
So the way I see it is this: had Serah been okay, Snow would totally have set off with her. But she wasn’t, and because of that it’d literally have been too dangerous to bring her along: had Snow somehow been incapacitated during their travels, Serah wouldn’t have been able to fend for herself or both of them.
(The counterpoint to this is: maybe if Snow and Serah had set off together, the kick in the butt Serah had at the beginning of XIII-2 would have come much earlier; but they’d have both been risking their lives on the chance that Serah would rise to the occasion, and Snow evidently wasn’t willing to risk Serah’s life on that chance.)
It takes them fighting the flan together to prove that Serah can now hold her own. There is also the fact that Serah feels the need to prove herself during her Coliseum fight with Snow: after the flan, Snow doesn’t think there is anymore a need for her to do that, but since Serah feels that way, it seems to me it means that Serah herself knew there was a time she wouldn’t have been able to have Snow’s back.
I also do not think that when Snow first set off, either of them thought he’d be gone for so long: Snow probably was being his usual optimistic self about his search for Lightning. Serah being unwell probably played a huge part in Snow leaving to find Lightning in the first place: since he himself was unable to help Serah get better, Snow must have thought that maybe having Lightning back would do it.
The paradox ending where Snow and Serah actually set off together also works well with all of this in mind: Serah is already back in fighting shape by then, so they can now become a power couple. I do wish we’d gotten to see more of that ending, they’d have been a delight to watch.
I can see your point and narratively it does make sense.
Based off of the Snow of their first game, it just seems to me that Snow wouldn’t have left Serah while she was struggling, especially while she was struggling even if he thought Lightning could have done a better job. I mean during the entire first game he stood by her, fought to stand by her. Add that to his behavior in the Sunleth Waterscape and it just feels disconnected with the Snow that we know.
It happened like most things did in Serah’s life: abruptly and staggeringly potent; she had been sick for the past three weeks at the most random of times. It wasn’t until Yeul calmly suggested she take a pregnancy test that Serah even thought of the possibility; now, she sat on the toilet in her spacious apartment that Lightning had helped Snow and her move in to and stared down at the tiny device showing two pink lines.
Somehow, the thought of telling Snow she was pregnant was more terrifying than it had been to tell him she was a l’cie; she tried to be bolstered by the thought that they had made it through that: a too-soon pregnancy on top of settling into a new apartment, planning a wedding ceremony, and tying up the final ends of her graduation from college should be a walk in the park compared to that.
She tried to suppress the trembling of her hands as she slid the cap back onto the test, tore a square of toilet paper off of the roll, and placed the test onto the counter on top of it. As she washed her hands, she heard Hope’s voice in her head from what felt like ages and ages ago: “You certainly don’t wait, do you?”
“We’ve never done anything in the right order; why start now?”
The dialogue between NORA and Snow after Serah breaks up with Snow and Snow runs after her makes me believe that they were attached at the hip from the moment they met. Nearly every single one asks where Serah is when they see Snow alone.
Lebreau even teases him about it and promises to make them a celebration dinner whenever they get back together. She sees it as inevitable.
Which kind of makes me wonder why they are so okay with going off and doing their own thing for two years if their relationship has been established as the “always together” kind.
Throughout the first game, it is Snow that has the most belief in Serah and in their reunion. It is what he is fighting for.
So, why does he leave her behind in New Bodhum while he searches for Lightning? Why wouldn’t she have gone with him-especially since the Serah we know is so headstrong and stubborn?
It certainly isn’t because Snow has learned to let Serah go. We see that in Lightning Returns that he still holds her as close to his heart as he did in FFXIII.
I ran ahead as Lightning during Chapter 3 and I just heard Vanille and Snow jumping and grunting. The AI had momentarily broken and they were just bouncing erratically back and forth across the wreckage from the vestige like they were trying to see who could jump the farthest. It was very amusing to watch, but the AI fixed itself before I could record.
Okay but, I absolutely LOVE just how supportive and eager Snow is to learn Serah can fight and is gonna fight beside him. He knows Serah doesn’t want to be coddled and protected, and he respects what she wants. Having his full on support in contrast to Lightning being so overbearing obviously makes Serah so happy, that her own fiancé supports her decisions,,and at the very least says that if Serah does ever need help, he and Lightning will be right there to help her,,,I love these two sm
I love!! How Lightning, Snow, and Fang’s war of the visions artwork is based off of their official renders, tho with a couple slight differences!! The biggest one being how the render Lightning’s art is based off of isn’t a full body render, so the art blessed us by giving her legs,,,,,,bless
ITS FINALLY HAPPENING!!! FFBE WAR OF THE VISIONS X FFXIII COLLAB IS FINALLY REAL, LOOK AT THEM!!! LIGHTNING HOPE SNOW AND FANG!!!! I KNEW THEY WERE GONNA LOOK GOOD IN THE GAMES ART STYLE, I JUST KNEW IT, IM SO HAPPY I NEED TO CATCH MY BREATH AHHHHHHH
