Disclaimer: The Final Fantasy games and all related characters and locations are owned by Squaresoft. This is a work of fanfiction, meaning that it is both created by a fan for no purpose other than entertainment, and it is fiction, meaning that all characters and events are purely fictonal and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Man, how come my serious fics are never this popular? ;; Oh, well, here's the next part, so enjoy. And as for those serious fics...yeah...soon...
Is this new formatting system creeping anyone else out?
Oh, by the way, this fic is dedicated to RocketJesse. I don't know if anyone reading this was ever part of the Pokemon (--;; I know, I know) fanfic community, but she was one of the best Rocketshipper writers ever and just a cool person, and everything I know about writing fluff I learned from her. I have no idea who she really is or what's happened to her since the good old days, but her fics are still some of the cutest ever written. Just felt compelled to thank her here--if you like this, you have her to thank too.
Blatant Fanservice
by flame mage
take 2: "You seem close."
The great thing about shooting for X-2 was that there was almost no reason to cut anything. Think about it. In this game, they told us, a player would be able to go pretty much anywhere at pretty much any time. That meant that for every possible place someone could go, everything they could do, and everyone they could talk to, we had to shoot a scene, and it had to go in there. So I was feeling confident as my private hover landed on the road outside Djose that it couldn't be that hard to add a scene in--if it got shot, and it got thrown in with the rest of the film, they'd stick it in and find a way to get a player to go there. Whatever I did, it would work--but then I frowned. I wasn't sure exactly what to do. Sometime pretty soon, Gippal was just gonna disappear. Should I take him aside now that there were fiends at the temple and admit that I was worried about him and wanted him to be careful so he could come back to me? Or should I wait until he was missing to realize that I was really in love with him and pray dramatically for his return so we could have a tearjerking love scene when we were reunited? Decisions, decisions!
This was the third day after that first scene with Gip when we signed up for the dig. We'd spent the day after that filming the bit shots--y'know, talking to technicians, doing all the wandering around that we couldn't just edit in with computers, all that junk that no one really cares about because it doesn't involve close-ups on my gorgeous young face. The day after that, we'd done a little extra shooting for the big fight with the Experiment. And today was the wrap-up at Djose-- my big chance, since it was the only other chance I'd have to do a scene here with Gippal. We'd have to get it right. And as always, I was totally rarin' to go.
The scene opened with Gippal standing outside the temple, pacing. "Hey, it's Cid's little girl!" he called as soon as we got close enough for him to walk up and ruffle my hair with both hands, pushing me backwards.
I flailed--the meanie had pushed me a little harder than he was supposed to--and raised my arms like I was fending him off. When I got my balance again, I stood up and rubbed my head, sulking, "I have a name..."
"You seem close," Yuna commented. I breathed a little sigh of relief. It had taken me a long time to persuade that goody-goody to break from the script. She only agreed to do it after I promised to give back that little sphere of her and Wakka that one night on the pilgrimage when we all got really drunk. You'd be amazed what a little blackmail can do.
Gippal flicked a glance at me: 'See? It's working.' Then to Yunie, he said, "We made quite the couple."
"Ohh!" Yuna laughed, looking at me.
I ran up and pushed Gippal hard from behind to get him back for messing with my hair--you have no idea how long it takes the stylists to get that right every morning. He stumbled forward, and I yelped in Al Bhed, "What are you saying?" He only laughed. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that the cameras were focused dead on me, and I spun around, pressing my hands to my face like I was totally mortified and blushing. Every single lens zoomed in on my face.
"Rikku's always good for a laugh," Gippal grinned. Then he turned serious and got back to the script. "If you're here about digging, this isn't the best time."
I whirled back around and stared straight at him. "Well, there were fiends here too, right? Want us to clean up for you?"
He turned around to face the temple door. "Fiend hunting?" Then he turned back to face me. "What, you guys give up the sphere gig?"
I was about to improv another line when stupid Yunie kept going with the stupid script. "Temporarily. Right now we're helping people out. Maybe...you'd like to hire us?"
Gippal, who was still doing the longing-stare-at-Rikku-the-babe thing, finally dragged his eyes off me and turned away again. "Nope. You already took care of Sin. We can't go running to you every time we get into trouble." He snorted. "Hm! I watch my own back."
"Hmph! Show-off!" I'd had my hands on my hips, but now I bent over (current fanservice shot count: 4) to point at him and laugh.
"Hm." He didn't take the bait, but he tossed a meaningful glance at my chest before turning around again.
"Well, be careful," Yunie said.
"You too," he replied.
"Right."
"Come on!" It was the first thing Paine had said in the entire scene. She was starting to get pale, and I could tell she was kinda going through sword withdrawal. Suddenly she just turned and stalked off. Yunie and I ran after her, but not before I could take one last look back at Gippal.
He scratched his head, staring after me, then chuckled to himself and turned around.
"Cut cut cut!" yelled the director. "This is not in the script, nosirree! Why are you improv'ing?!"
"Just trying to, uh, add realistic character interaction, boss," Gippal jumped in. "See, GameSpot did this survey a while back, and it said that gamers are 57% more likely to purchase an RPG when they can relate to the characters. And 93% of all statistics are made up on the spot, including this one," he added under his breath to me.
"Is that right? Are you making this up? Is that really really really for real? Alllllrighty then!" the director cried. "Simply splendid work, everyone! You keep right on doing that improv! But now--to dinner!" He skittered off, leaving a trail of dust behind him.
Gippal shot a look over Yunie's head at me: 'We need to talk.' So I mamboed my way off to the side and pretended to be totally fascinated--not hard, all ya gotta do when you're a video game character is make your eyes really big--by some junky old piece of machina until the crowd thinned out and he walked over.
"Hey, you guys filming tonight?" he asked.
I shrugged and waved to one of my personal assistants to bring me a copy of the shooting schedule. "Nah, doesn't look like it. Now that the bit filming's over, we're using the night to get to Guadosalam for the Chateau scenes. I think they're still finishing up in there--Leblanc didn't want anyone shooting in her precious chateau, ya know, said all the lights would fade her artwork out, so they had to set up a couple sound stages."
"Wait. To get to Guadosalam from Djose, you have to go through the Moonflow, right?"
"Well, maybe you do. Some of us have private hovers."
"Sorry. Forgot I was dealing with a real celebrity here." He rolled his eyes. "But still. We're not shooting the scenes in order. We could just have one of the camera clues follow us to the Moonflow. If we left in ten minutes, we'd make it right around sunset. The sun setting over the mist, the Pyreflies comin' up outta the water...we could definitely outdo Macalania. Get the cameras to one side of the bank, maybe have just our silhouettes against the setting sun."
I pictured the scene. Just the two of us standing on the bank, night falling and the moonlilies opening and the Pyreflies spiraling up around us...what had Lulu said? "The entire river glows, like a sea of stars." It would be the wickedest coolest love scene ever! Maybe we could even have it be the last scene in the game...oh, wow...
"Oh, poopie!" I cried. "Don't they have Tobli's junk out there?"
Gippal groaned. "Yes. And he won't move it, either. You know what a ham he is. Besides, no one will know that this scene is supposed to be in there unless it's in his scripts, and they're locked up in his office in Guadosalam."
"So what we need is a plan! I'll just pop over to Guadosalam and make a couple of teeny-tiny little changes to Tobli's papers while you get his stuff out of the way. Then we'll both double back, get just ahead of the camera guys, and be at the Moonflow just before sundown for the big mush-mush!" I realized I was motoring my hands the way I do when I get excited about something and stopped. "C'mon, Gippie, it'll be perfect!"
"And just how are we supposed to get all the way out there and back in time?" he wanted to know. "Even a hover wouldn't do it."
"We'll borrow the airship! Buddy and Brother snuck off to go bet on Shinra's sphere matches in Luca, but they left the airship right outside Djose!" I grabbed his wrist and tore off toward the ship. Up the ramp, slam the hatch, pound the elevator panel until it took us up to the bridge, dash down the hallway, jump off the balcony, vault into the cockpit, and there I was at the helm of the most powerful machina in Spira. Man, this was nuts.
"Hey, Rikk, you sure you know how to fly this thing?" Gippal was looking around doubtfully.
"Psh. The thing's on autopilot anyway. All I gotta do is press a couple buttons and aiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeee!" That scream was me as the airship rocketed to life, nearly slamming into the top of the temple before it did a 180 and shot off toward the Moonflow.
"Y'know," he commented as he leaned over the back of my chair, "A couple minutes ago I was havin' some serious doubts about this evil plan of your, Rikkaroonie. But this--this just might work."
I dropped him off at the nearest side of the Moonflow--lucky for us, no one was around to see him shoving the wagon into the bushes--and zinged ahead to Guadosalam. Where I was praaaaying that Tobli wouldn't actually be in his office.
I'd been to the office a bunch of times before, mostly negotiating contracts and boring stuff like that, but even if I'd never seen Guadosalam before in my life I would have instantly known where the headquarters of Tobli Productions was located. I don't know what it was--maybe it was the major vibes of show-stopping magic (not to mention wads of cash), or maybe it was the huge neon sign above the door. Whatever it was, drawing so much attention to the place was a super big security risk, especially with the kind of locks Tobli was using on the door. A professional thief like me could pick it in seconds. And who knows what kinds of seriously bad stuff can happen when a thief gets into your office?
I didn't end up stealing all that much, probably because I found what I was looking for right away. The scripts were sitting right there on the desk--I tell ya, anyone could walk in there and mess with 'em. I just made a couple of quick additions and dashed back to the Moonflow, where Gippal was already waiting.
"So how are we gonna get those guys to shoot this?" he muttered to me as soon as I got close. "It's not on their schedule."
"That?" I grinned. "You just get ready for loooooove and leave that to me!"
Okay, so technically I didn't actually have a plan or anything for that. But I'll tell you the reason I didn't need one, and once you hear it it's gonna make perfect sense: it was simply because I'm so darn cute. One of the camera guys had this hyuuuuuuge crush on me (how else do you explain some of those shots?), and I was pretty sure that if I was out there, he'd be tempted to shoot a couple of extra frames. So as soon as they got within earshot, I cried at the top of my lungs (pretty loud, if I do say so myself--if you've heard my vocal collection singles, you know I've got some major pipes, forget "Real Emotion"!), "Ooooh, it's just sooooo beautiful out here!"
"A beautiful night for a beautiful girl," Gippal said, coming up from the path to stand next to me.
"Ooh, that was so cliche!" I hissed. "Can't you do any better?!"
"I'm just warming up," he snapped back. "You think they're watching?"
"I dunno. I can't see a thing."
He shot a glance over his shoulder. "Yeah, this one guy's got his camera out. Quick, say something!"
My lightning-fast brain instantly flashed back to every sappy G/R fic I'd ever read. What was it I was supposed to do next again? Just slobber all over him all of a sudden? Or...no, I was pretty sure I wasn't supposed to fall into his arms yet. I had to be the heroine in the romantic comedy and show off some of my spunk before turning into a little puddle of melted Rikkujello. "Are you feelin' okay?" I asked, pushing him so hard I nearly knocked him into the water. "You're, acting, like, almost human."
This would be where the songfic should start. Poopie! I'd meant to blackmail Paine into hanging around with the boombox. Well, they could edit that in later. "I think Cid'd beat me up if I weren't acting like the perfect gentleman around his kid. You're lucky you're practically Al Bhed royalty, kiddo, or you'd be sitting in a pile of moonlilies right now."
"Oh yeah?" I snapped back, clenching my fists. "You talk big, but you're just a big meanie trying to pump up his own stupid ego! I bet I could take you any day of the week, creep, you hear me?!"
"You wanna bet?" There was a smile on his face now.
"Yeah!"
"Then you lose." With that, he just picked me up and slung me up into his arms like it was nothing. I mean, after all, I am perfectly petite and slender, but, man. This guy worked on the barbells like I worked on my tan.
Not that I couldn't have escaped easily, mind you. If I'd wanted to, I could have kicked his butt AND stolen his wallet before he could say, "Rikku's a babe." But I thought I'd just sit back for a little while and see what the big idea was. It's all strategic, y'know?
And it wasn't like I liked being in his arms or anything. If you thought that, you've been reading too many fanfics.
"Aaaahh! Put me down before ya drop me, you big dumb lug! Ooh, man, if Brother were here, he'd pound you into the ground!" I screamed instead. The other thing about fanservice was that I had to be totally helpless and Gippal had to save me. It's like a law.
"We'll call this settling your debt!" he laughed, spinning me around and around until the spirals in my pupils were whirling and I had to shut my eyes and duck my head into his chest. This was kind of a bad idea, because in a couple minutes he got so dizzy too that he fell down--right into the water.
Fanservice rule #3: you don't have to get everyone sopping wet, but waaaaay more people pay attention if you do.
Even I was laughing as we straggled outta the Moonflow and onto the bank. Our clothes (yes, you CAN call my outfit "clothes" and not "lingerie", thankyaverymuch!) were, of course, soaked all the way through, and there were Pyreflies swarming all around us, so our wet skin was glistening.
Man, fanboys were gonna dream about this for months.
"What are we supposed to do now?" I asked Gippal under my breath.
"Think Macalania, you dingbat! The big cinematic liplock! The kind the Hollywood Production Code was created to prevent! Come up with a killer segue or something."
Oh, man. How was I supposed to do that? Stare into his eyes? Just blurt out my confession of undying love? Mention shyly how scared I'd been when he was gone? Pretend to punch him, have him catch my hand and not let go?
"C'mon, would you hurry it up?!"
Being a very careful and serious thinker (what? doesn't it show? no, of course it wasn't like I was shy or something stupid like that!), I was still weighing my options when he shot a desperate glance back at the camera crew, which was still stopped dead on the road, and then basically stuck his tongue down my throat.
Not that was all bad or anything.
In terms of fanservice, that is.
And the important part was that we were getting the big romantic kiss on film.
"Oh, damn!" the camera guy cursed. "This tape is write-protected! I can't record over it! I've been shooting nothing for ten minutes!"
The rest of the camera crew groaned and ad-libbed their lines. "Oh, I can't believe it." "You big moron." "You made us waste all this time spying on them for that?" "Let's get outta here." And with that, they packed up and left in a huff.
Gippal let out the longest string of cuss words I've ever heard outside of a blitzball match.
"It didn't work," I moaned. "Now we're gonna have to do it all over again!"
He rolled over on his back on the ground and groaned. "We can't do it here; we'll never get them back to the Moonflow, and that guy'll think he's nuts if he sees the same scene twice. We're gonna have to try something totally different."
"But where?" I wanted to know. "We've already hit Djose. The Bikanel scenes have been over for weeks. Guadosalam doesn't make sense. Filming's almost done. There's practically nowhere else to get a love scene in."
"No, wait. There's one more place." He looked at me, and we said it at the same time: "The Farplane Abyss!"
"There's a scene where I give Paine that sphere, right? While she's looking at that, you can mess with my injuries or something and we can have a Moment. It's perfect--right before the final battle! The intensity'll be killer. And by that time in the game everyone's been dying to see some romance, since they've all read the spoilers online and know that Tidus has to be around somewhere if they don't screw up with the X button. There won't be a single dry eye in the house at E3."
"You sound pretty sure of yourself," I told him, raising an eyebrow. "You really think this is gonna work?"
"I think a brilliant and talented young lady like yourself can MAKE it work," he replied.
My face got a little red, but I wasn't blushing or anything stupid like that. It was just the Pyreflies hanging around and shining their stupid little Technicolor lights on me.
"Okay," I said. "The Farplane Abyss it is."
He grinned. "It's a date."
My face got redder. Stupid Pyrefly swarms.
Man, how come my serious fics are never this popular? ;; Oh, well, here's the next part, so enjoy. And as for those serious fics...yeah...soon...
Is this new formatting system creeping anyone else out?
Oh, by the way, this fic is dedicated to RocketJesse. I don't know if anyone reading this was ever part of the Pokemon (--;; I know, I know) fanfic community, but she was one of the best Rocketshipper writers ever and just a cool person, and everything I know about writing fluff I learned from her. I have no idea who she really is or what's happened to her since the good old days, but her fics are still some of the cutest ever written. Just felt compelled to thank her here--if you like this, you have her to thank too.
Blatant Fanservice
by flame mage
take 2: "You seem close."
The great thing about shooting for X-2 was that there was almost no reason to cut anything. Think about it. In this game, they told us, a player would be able to go pretty much anywhere at pretty much any time. That meant that for every possible place someone could go, everything they could do, and everyone they could talk to, we had to shoot a scene, and it had to go in there. So I was feeling confident as my private hover landed on the road outside Djose that it couldn't be that hard to add a scene in--if it got shot, and it got thrown in with the rest of the film, they'd stick it in and find a way to get a player to go there. Whatever I did, it would work--but then I frowned. I wasn't sure exactly what to do. Sometime pretty soon, Gippal was just gonna disappear. Should I take him aside now that there were fiends at the temple and admit that I was worried about him and wanted him to be careful so he could come back to me? Or should I wait until he was missing to realize that I was really in love with him and pray dramatically for his return so we could have a tearjerking love scene when we were reunited? Decisions, decisions!
This was the third day after that first scene with Gip when we signed up for the dig. We'd spent the day after that filming the bit shots--y'know, talking to technicians, doing all the wandering around that we couldn't just edit in with computers, all that junk that no one really cares about because it doesn't involve close-ups on my gorgeous young face. The day after that, we'd done a little extra shooting for the big fight with the Experiment. And today was the wrap-up at Djose-- my big chance, since it was the only other chance I'd have to do a scene here with Gippal. We'd have to get it right. And as always, I was totally rarin' to go.
The scene opened with Gippal standing outside the temple, pacing. "Hey, it's Cid's little girl!" he called as soon as we got close enough for him to walk up and ruffle my hair with both hands, pushing me backwards.
I flailed--the meanie had pushed me a little harder than he was supposed to--and raised my arms like I was fending him off. When I got my balance again, I stood up and rubbed my head, sulking, "I have a name..."
"You seem close," Yuna commented. I breathed a little sigh of relief. It had taken me a long time to persuade that goody-goody to break from the script. She only agreed to do it after I promised to give back that little sphere of her and Wakka that one night on the pilgrimage when we all got really drunk. You'd be amazed what a little blackmail can do.
Gippal flicked a glance at me: 'See? It's working.' Then to Yunie, he said, "We made quite the couple."
"Ohh!" Yuna laughed, looking at me.
I ran up and pushed Gippal hard from behind to get him back for messing with my hair--you have no idea how long it takes the stylists to get that right every morning. He stumbled forward, and I yelped in Al Bhed, "What are you saying?" He only laughed. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that the cameras were focused dead on me, and I spun around, pressing my hands to my face like I was totally mortified and blushing. Every single lens zoomed in on my face.
"Rikku's always good for a laugh," Gippal grinned. Then he turned serious and got back to the script. "If you're here about digging, this isn't the best time."
I whirled back around and stared straight at him. "Well, there were fiends here too, right? Want us to clean up for you?"
He turned around to face the temple door. "Fiend hunting?" Then he turned back to face me. "What, you guys give up the sphere gig?"
I was about to improv another line when stupid Yunie kept going with the stupid script. "Temporarily. Right now we're helping people out. Maybe...you'd like to hire us?"
Gippal, who was still doing the longing-stare-at-Rikku-the-babe thing, finally dragged his eyes off me and turned away again. "Nope. You already took care of Sin. We can't go running to you every time we get into trouble." He snorted. "Hm! I watch my own back."
"Hmph! Show-off!" I'd had my hands on my hips, but now I bent over (current fanservice shot count: 4) to point at him and laugh.
"Hm." He didn't take the bait, but he tossed a meaningful glance at my chest before turning around again.
"Well, be careful," Yunie said.
"You too," he replied.
"Right."
"Come on!" It was the first thing Paine had said in the entire scene. She was starting to get pale, and I could tell she was kinda going through sword withdrawal. Suddenly she just turned and stalked off. Yunie and I ran after her, but not before I could take one last look back at Gippal.
He scratched his head, staring after me, then chuckled to himself and turned around.
"Cut cut cut!" yelled the director. "This is not in the script, nosirree! Why are you improv'ing?!"
"Just trying to, uh, add realistic character interaction, boss," Gippal jumped in. "See, GameSpot did this survey a while back, and it said that gamers are 57% more likely to purchase an RPG when they can relate to the characters. And 93% of all statistics are made up on the spot, including this one," he added under his breath to me.
"Is that right? Are you making this up? Is that really really really for real? Alllllrighty then!" the director cried. "Simply splendid work, everyone! You keep right on doing that improv! But now--to dinner!" He skittered off, leaving a trail of dust behind him.
Gippal shot a look over Yunie's head at me: 'We need to talk.' So I mamboed my way off to the side and pretended to be totally fascinated--not hard, all ya gotta do when you're a video game character is make your eyes really big--by some junky old piece of machina until the crowd thinned out and he walked over.
"Hey, you guys filming tonight?" he asked.
I shrugged and waved to one of my personal assistants to bring me a copy of the shooting schedule. "Nah, doesn't look like it. Now that the bit filming's over, we're using the night to get to Guadosalam for the Chateau scenes. I think they're still finishing up in there--Leblanc didn't want anyone shooting in her precious chateau, ya know, said all the lights would fade her artwork out, so they had to set up a couple sound stages."
"Wait. To get to Guadosalam from Djose, you have to go through the Moonflow, right?"
"Well, maybe you do. Some of us have private hovers."
"Sorry. Forgot I was dealing with a real celebrity here." He rolled his eyes. "But still. We're not shooting the scenes in order. We could just have one of the camera clues follow us to the Moonflow. If we left in ten minutes, we'd make it right around sunset. The sun setting over the mist, the Pyreflies comin' up outta the water...we could definitely outdo Macalania. Get the cameras to one side of the bank, maybe have just our silhouettes against the setting sun."
I pictured the scene. Just the two of us standing on the bank, night falling and the moonlilies opening and the Pyreflies spiraling up around us...what had Lulu said? "The entire river glows, like a sea of stars." It would be the wickedest coolest love scene ever! Maybe we could even have it be the last scene in the game...oh, wow...
"Oh, poopie!" I cried. "Don't they have Tobli's junk out there?"
Gippal groaned. "Yes. And he won't move it, either. You know what a ham he is. Besides, no one will know that this scene is supposed to be in there unless it's in his scripts, and they're locked up in his office in Guadosalam."
"So what we need is a plan! I'll just pop over to Guadosalam and make a couple of teeny-tiny little changes to Tobli's papers while you get his stuff out of the way. Then we'll both double back, get just ahead of the camera guys, and be at the Moonflow just before sundown for the big mush-mush!" I realized I was motoring my hands the way I do when I get excited about something and stopped. "C'mon, Gippie, it'll be perfect!"
"And just how are we supposed to get all the way out there and back in time?" he wanted to know. "Even a hover wouldn't do it."
"We'll borrow the airship! Buddy and Brother snuck off to go bet on Shinra's sphere matches in Luca, but they left the airship right outside Djose!" I grabbed his wrist and tore off toward the ship. Up the ramp, slam the hatch, pound the elevator panel until it took us up to the bridge, dash down the hallway, jump off the balcony, vault into the cockpit, and there I was at the helm of the most powerful machina in Spira. Man, this was nuts.
"Hey, Rikk, you sure you know how to fly this thing?" Gippal was looking around doubtfully.
"Psh. The thing's on autopilot anyway. All I gotta do is press a couple buttons and aiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeee!" That scream was me as the airship rocketed to life, nearly slamming into the top of the temple before it did a 180 and shot off toward the Moonflow.
"Y'know," he commented as he leaned over the back of my chair, "A couple minutes ago I was havin' some serious doubts about this evil plan of your, Rikkaroonie. But this--this just might work."
I dropped him off at the nearest side of the Moonflow--lucky for us, no one was around to see him shoving the wagon into the bushes--and zinged ahead to Guadosalam. Where I was praaaaying that Tobli wouldn't actually be in his office.
I'd been to the office a bunch of times before, mostly negotiating contracts and boring stuff like that, but even if I'd never seen Guadosalam before in my life I would have instantly known where the headquarters of Tobli Productions was located. I don't know what it was--maybe it was the major vibes of show-stopping magic (not to mention wads of cash), or maybe it was the huge neon sign above the door. Whatever it was, drawing so much attention to the place was a super big security risk, especially with the kind of locks Tobli was using on the door. A professional thief like me could pick it in seconds. And who knows what kinds of seriously bad stuff can happen when a thief gets into your office?
I didn't end up stealing all that much, probably because I found what I was looking for right away. The scripts were sitting right there on the desk--I tell ya, anyone could walk in there and mess with 'em. I just made a couple of quick additions and dashed back to the Moonflow, where Gippal was already waiting.
"So how are we gonna get those guys to shoot this?" he muttered to me as soon as I got close. "It's not on their schedule."
"That?" I grinned. "You just get ready for loooooove and leave that to me!"
Okay, so technically I didn't actually have a plan or anything for that. But I'll tell you the reason I didn't need one, and once you hear it it's gonna make perfect sense: it was simply because I'm so darn cute. One of the camera guys had this hyuuuuuuge crush on me (how else do you explain some of those shots?), and I was pretty sure that if I was out there, he'd be tempted to shoot a couple of extra frames. So as soon as they got within earshot, I cried at the top of my lungs (pretty loud, if I do say so myself--if you've heard my vocal collection singles, you know I've got some major pipes, forget "Real Emotion"!), "Ooooh, it's just sooooo beautiful out here!"
"A beautiful night for a beautiful girl," Gippal said, coming up from the path to stand next to me.
"Ooh, that was so cliche!" I hissed. "Can't you do any better?!"
"I'm just warming up," he snapped back. "You think they're watching?"
"I dunno. I can't see a thing."
He shot a glance over his shoulder. "Yeah, this one guy's got his camera out. Quick, say something!"
My lightning-fast brain instantly flashed back to every sappy G/R fic I'd ever read. What was it I was supposed to do next again? Just slobber all over him all of a sudden? Or...no, I was pretty sure I wasn't supposed to fall into his arms yet. I had to be the heroine in the romantic comedy and show off some of my spunk before turning into a little puddle of melted Rikkujello. "Are you feelin' okay?" I asked, pushing him so hard I nearly knocked him into the water. "You're, acting, like, almost human."
This would be where the songfic should start. Poopie! I'd meant to blackmail Paine into hanging around with the boombox. Well, they could edit that in later. "I think Cid'd beat me up if I weren't acting like the perfect gentleman around his kid. You're lucky you're practically Al Bhed royalty, kiddo, or you'd be sitting in a pile of moonlilies right now."
"Oh yeah?" I snapped back, clenching my fists. "You talk big, but you're just a big meanie trying to pump up his own stupid ego! I bet I could take you any day of the week, creep, you hear me?!"
"You wanna bet?" There was a smile on his face now.
"Yeah!"
"Then you lose." With that, he just picked me up and slung me up into his arms like it was nothing. I mean, after all, I am perfectly petite and slender, but, man. This guy worked on the barbells like I worked on my tan.
Not that I couldn't have escaped easily, mind you. If I'd wanted to, I could have kicked his butt AND stolen his wallet before he could say, "Rikku's a babe." But I thought I'd just sit back for a little while and see what the big idea was. It's all strategic, y'know?
And it wasn't like I liked being in his arms or anything. If you thought that, you've been reading too many fanfics.
"Aaaahh! Put me down before ya drop me, you big dumb lug! Ooh, man, if Brother were here, he'd pound you into the ground!" I screamed instead. The other thing about fanservice was that I had to be totally helpless and Gippal had to save me. It's like a law.
"We'll call this settling your debt!" he laughed, spinning me around and around until the spirals in my pupils were whirling and I had to shut my eyes and duck my head into his chest. This was kind of a bad idea, because in a couple minutes he got so dizzy too that he fell down--right into the water.
Fanservice rule #3: you don't have to get everyone sopping wet, but waaaaay more people pay attention if you do.
Even I was laughing as we straggled outta the Moonflow and onto the bank. Our clothes (yes, you CAN call my outfit "clothes" and not "lingerie", thankyaverymuch!) were, of course, soaked all the way through, and there were Pyreflies swarming all around us, so our wet skin was glistening.
Man, fanboys were gonna dream about this for months.
"What are we supposed to do now?" I asked Gippal under my breath.
"Think Macalania, you dingbat! The big cinematic liplock! The kind the Hollywood Production Code was created to prevent! Come up with a killer segue or something."
Oh, man. How was I supposed to do that? Stare into his eyes? Just blurt out my confession of undying love? Mention shyly how scared I'd been when he was gone? Pretend to punch him, have him catch my hand and not let go?
"C'mon, would you hurry it up?!"
Being a very careful and serious thinker (what? doesn't it show? no, of course it wasn't like I was shy or something stupid like that!), I was still weighing my options when he shot a desperate glance back at the camera crew, which was still stopped dead on the road, and then basically stuck his tongue down my throat.
Not that was all bad or anything.
In terms of fanservice, that is.
And the important part was that we were getting the big romantic kiss on film.
"Oh, damn!" the camera guy cursed. "This tape is write-protected! I can't record over it! I've been shooting nothing for ten minutes!"
The rest of the camera crew groaned and ad-libbed their lines. "Oh, I can't believe it." "You big moron." "You made us waste all this time spying on them for that?" "Let's get outta here." And with that, they packed up and left in a huff.
Gippal let out the longest string of cuss words I've ever heard outside of a blitzball match.
"It didn't work," I moaned. "Now we're gonna have to do it all over again!"
He rolled over on his back on the ground and groaned. "We can't do it here; we'll never get them back to the Moonflow, and that guy'll think he's nuts if he sees the same scene twice. We're gonna have to try something totally different."
"But where?" I wanted to know. "We've already hit Djose. The Bikanel scenes have been over for weeks. Guadosalam doesn't make sense. Filming's almost done. There's practically nowhere else to get a love scene in."
"No, wait. There's one more place." He looked at me, and we said it at the same time: "The Farplane Abyss!"
"There's a scene where I give Paine that sphere, right? While she's looking at that, you can mess with my injuries or something and we can have a Moment. It's perfect--right before the final battle! The intensity'll be killer. And by that time in the game everyone's been dying to see some romance, since they've all read the spoilers online and know that Tidus has to be around somewhere if they don't screw up with the X button. There won't be a single dry eye in the house at E3."
"You sound pretty sure of yourself," I told him, raising an eyebrow. "You really think this is gonna work?"
"I think a brilliant and talented young lady like yourself can MAKE it work," he replied.
My face got a little red, but I wasn't blushing or anything stupid like that. It was just the Pyreflies hanging around and shining their stupid little Technicolor lights on me.
"Okay," I said. "The Farplane Abyss it is."
He grinned. "It's a date."
My face got redder. Stupid Pyrefly swarms.