finalfantasyxiii-2confessions:

I always thought Snow was being rather mean to Serah. She did come all this way and he didn’t seem to appreciate it or acknowledge how strong she’d become. Guess that’s why I’ll always love Noel and Serah together.

I have a couple of issues with this confession, and they’re so all over the place that I felt the need to write them down.

I can kinda-sorta agree with this only as far as the first sentence. Snow did not handle his relationship with Serah very well during the XIII/XIII-2 interlude when he left to find Lightning. He didn’t ask Serah to look for Lightning alongside him— he didn’t really give it a thought. This is Snow’s largest failing for me: he cruises along with his own agenda and while the motivation may be another person, he gets to a point where a weird sort of tunnel vision blocks out other factors - factors that do in fact have bearing on his goals. Like whether or not Serah would like to go. Like whether or not Serah needs to go. This isn’t so much “mean” as it is a little thoughtless.

If I’m remembering right, Snow actually did notice the changes in Serah. He was surprised that she and Noel fought well, and even tried to showboat a little in front of them. Kinda like, “hey, I can kick just as much ass”, ha. He did acknowledge her strength, just not loudly and not in so many words. And maybe I’m reading too much into this, but Snow did, after all, tell Noel to keep on looking after Serah. This says to me that Snow liked what he saw in both Serah and Noel. He liked the obvious growth Serah had undergone and liked Noel’s ability to help her along with that growth.

And last but certainly not least is my issue with the final statement. Noel/Serah is not an alternative to Snow/Serah. And Snow/Serah is not an alternative to Noel/Serah. They are obviously linked by Serah, but the relationships are very, very different and they each grew on their own time and have their own basis. I, personally, fell completely in love with Noel/Serah based on their own merit. (Basically anyone who follows me knows of my Noerah love, heh.) Yes, these two men are obviously huge parts of Serah’s life. Yes, it is kind of required for them to run into each other not only in canon but in fanworks because they are such huge players in Serah’s story. But I will reiterate: they are not alternatives to each other.

dear etro that was long