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Ah, I love Hope. <3.

Yeah, there's a lot of older!Hope stuff out there - Lightning/Hope is pretty popular, but a lot of people age him up to make it legal. xD

Yuna/Kadaj, wtf. xDD

My problem with Hope/Lightning was that they always seemed to be more like siblings when I played. I mean, he calls her 'mom'. I kinda like it in fic, though (there's so little good FFXIII fic, I feel I really can't be picky xD). It's a bit like Tifa/Reno - I don't think there's any real basis for it, but I like it anyways.

One of the weirder pairings I've seen is Vincent/Paine. I sorta like Aurikku, though...

Well i thought the ending was weird at first to. Until I noticed some things that made it make a lot more sense. From what ive seen Orphan was pretty much pure power which is how he fueled all of the Fal'cie which in turn kept Cocoon powered and floating. Now the thing is Ragnarok doesn't just kill its enemies. It take them and fuses with them adding to its already great power. I noticed this when Fang and Vanille turned into Ragnarok and killed all of the monster that had come to pulse. They broke them down into peices and those peices came to them and went into them. When this happened they took on the more beast like form. So Orpan didn't want to die normally. He wanted to die by Ragarnrk's hand so that Ragnarok would gain his power turning into a being of unlimited destructive power. This would have been the end of everything thats what Lightning and the others didn't want. Thats what they were trying to avoid.

And as for when they turn to Cie'th which totally sucked by the way I couldn't beleive I had gone through all that just to see them turn to Cie'th right at the very end (So glad that changed.) they explained it in the cutscene. When they had turned to cie'th dispair had wrapped around their hearts and taken away their will to fight leaveing them in misery. But than they thought about everything that they had been through and what they had been fighting for and they remembered that hope and through that hope they found a new focus to save the world from the Fal'cie and to make a new one where everyone could be happy.

And after that when they were faceing them again the threat of Ragnarok had passed they could destroy Orpahn without everything being destroyed along with him. (Which is what he wanted). After he was destroyed Cocoon fell becuase all of the power of the Fal'cie was gone and thats what was keeping it afloat. Fang and Vanille turned into Ragarok and took the power of the beasts around them and went under Cocoon not to hold up the bottom but to use their body as the focal point of what they were planning to do. It wasen't by chance that the pillar was made that was the power of Ragnarok. It took the crystal and fused it with its already crystalizing body to form a pillar to hold up Cocoon (becuase if you think about it something that size falling from the upper atmosphere would be like a super asteroid hitting the planet. Nothing would have survived)

And for the last part everyone tcomeing back from being crystals. You have to remember it was the Fal'cie that had made them crystals to begin with and now that they were gone so was the focus that had held them to that form. And without that focus they had nothing keeping them crystal they could choose when they awoke (Like Lightning and the other) which is why Fang and Vanille stayed crystals becuase they were what was holding up Cocoon. Like I said this is just what I have noticed I might be wrong. But it makes it make a whole lot more sense if you ask me.