This Is a Dr. Cid Appreciation Post

According to the official chonk chart, I believe Balthier's Hot Dad falls somewhere between "he chonk" and "a heckin' chonker." As I was studying the character design for this very serious scientific purpose, I also noticed that the bright white thigh-high boots he wears over his skintight black leather pants go all the way up to his crotch.

Final Fantasy XII is a treasure on this earth, and it is largely unappreciated by fandom because we all secretly feel guilty that we do not deserve it.

What I really appreciate about Cid, however, is that his entry in the Clan Primer reads as follows: "Friend to Vayne. Though their ages are different, they share many of the same ideals and beliefs." Like, there's a lot going on with Cid, but apparently one of the most important things about him is that he and the game's primary (kind of?) antagonist are good buddies. Almost every time we see Vayne in the second half of the game, Cid is either in the room with him or just entering the room, and he seems to be there for no purpose other than to hang out.* After the party fights Cid in the Draklor Laboratory, he flies away on some sort of vertically aligned magic motorcycle, and it's my personal headcanon that he built a small fleet of these things so that he could go visit Vayne whenever he wanted.

* I think the purpose of associating Vayne with Cid is to demonstrate that Vayne can see Venat, thus providing the only real foreshadowing for the final boss fight, in which Venat's evil influence causes Vayne to take off his shirt (and his pants!!) and float around a little for the player's enjoyment. But really, Cid isn't involved in any of the political plots or character development arcs; he's just there because he and Vayne genuinely enjoy each other's company.

By the way, one of the things I've always appreciated about Transistor is the strong implication that the Camerata are a group of friends who are working together not because they have something to gain from their partnership but because they just really like each other. As the player, your job is to fight them, so you don't really see the inner workings of this friendship, but the game doesn't exactly try to hide the warmth and closeness of the relationships between the bad guys.

To me, that's the best possible Team Villain justification for trying to take over the world: We were all out drinking the other night and it seemed like a good idea, so we made it happen and here we are.

This Is an Ashelia B'nargin Dalmasca Appreciation Post

In my post about Balthier's Hot Dad, I referred to Vayne as "the game's primary (kind of?) antagonist." This is because I think FFXII's real antagonist is Ashe.

Livvyplaysfinalfantasy makes a very good point in her post about Ashe's theme music, which is that it "sounds more like a villain’s theme than a leading lady's." Ashe wants freedom and agency, and she wants the power to protect herself and her people, and for most of the game she is willing to do whatever it takes to assert her independence and achieve independence for Dalmasca. She is willing to destroy Archadia, and she is willing to destroy Rozzaria, and she has seen what nethicite can do with her own eyes, and she says (to Reddas, of all people) that she's not afraid to use it.

What I appreciate about Ashe is that it takes five sympathetic party members, two sympathetic party guests (we don't talk about the third one), and an entire cast of sympathetic NPCs to prevent Ashe from essentially becoming Ganondorf. She almost - almost! - becomes a villain anyway, though, and not a single person would have respected her less if she did.

Every morning I drink a tall glass of Respect Ashe juice, and it helps me get through the day.

However! I know this is very shallow - and I apologize - but who in their right mind let Ashe leave the house looking like that? Of all of Vossler's many sins, Ashe's outfit is the most reprehensible. Penelo can dress like that because she's sixteen and can do whatever the hell she wants, and Fran can dress like that because she's (at least) sixty and can do whatever the hell she wants, but I don't think it's sexist or misogynistic to say that "surfside lingerie casual" is a strange look to wear when you're on a tour to meet with all of the political leaders in your region in order to negotiate the independence of your kingdom. In Ivalice, the political power of humes seems to be marked by how much clothing they're wearing, and Ashe is wearing a gauzy negligee and a red handkerchief. It's like, Come on girl, dress for the job you want, not the job you have!

Anyway, what's really interesting about Ashe is that, in not only refusing to take the power offered to her by the Occuria but also eliminating its only accessible source, she is responsible for rise of religious zealotry and the resulting Cataclysm that destroys Ivalice and permanently limits the level of its civilization, all of which probably occurs within Fran's lifetime. It turns out that Ashe made the absolute worst decision she could have possibly made; but, in her defense, she made it for all the right reasons.