FF14 players skip over perfectly serviceable catboy to thirst relentlessly over a giant, two-headed lizard jerk instead
Gaga for Bakool Ja Ja.
Final Fantasy 14 is known for its pretty, fanbase-fuelling men—and they typically share a few common characteristics between them.
They're usually chiselled, handsome, beard-free husbands with a soft, sometimes boyish appeal. The one exception to this is Emet Selch, who reads as more of an exhausted middle-aged man (or perhaps an elderly millennial) trapped in a twink's body. This rule, however, typically stands. I'm a victim of it myself, if my writer bio is anything to go by.
So naturally, the thirst object of brand-new expansion Final Fantasy 14: Dawntrail is (checking my notes, here) a… uh. It's a two-headed lizard man. Hm.
That's right—despite the fact that Koana, a beautiful, pretty, bespectacled, shy, wonderfully voiced cat boy is standing right there, the FF14 fanbase appears to have walked past him like a pet ignoring a freshly unpacked bed just to sit in a cardboard box. To illustrate this, here's a beautifully rendered image of Bakool Ja Ja in a maid outfit.
As someone who wrapped the Main Scenario Quest up recently, this is extraordinarily funny. Bakool Ja Ja—and I'm taking care to avoid spoilers for the latter half of the story here—is a comprehensive jerk.
He takes almost every opportunity he can to cause problems, unleash terrors, and commit assault. Almost all of his screen time is spent cackling like a Saturday morning cartoon villain—every single idea he has is poorly thought out, and fails catastrophically. He is a schoolyard bully wrapped in a pile of failure. He literally steps on your tacos (not a metaphor, thank god) at one point out of sheer spite.
On the other hand, he is around nine feet tall, has big pecs and back muscles, and y'know. Two heads. That's fun. I guess.
Spearheading the Bakool Ja Ja propaganda campaign is a poor and blighted soul who has actually straight-up renamed their in-game character to "BakoolJaJa's Babygirl" in an astounding act of commitment to… well, it's not a joke if it's earnest, is it? One tweet of theirs doing the rounds depicts Bakool Ja Ja in the throes of ecstasy with the quote: "Bakool Ja Ja when I give him the Bakool Job Job if you know what I'm [saying]."
They are, at present, freaking out about the fact Kotaku managed to write about this before I did (hello, I'm here to make things worse).
There's no possible preamble I can write that'll prepare you, psychically, for the batch of Bakool Ja Ja fanart that'll greet you if you search the character's name on Twitter. Here's another one of him in a maid outfit, here's one of him in a bikini. There is one of him being "milked", which I don't want to link here because it means I'm going to have to look at it again.
I feel like this entire thing is a cognitohazard, because the more time I spend considering the pros and cons of some blessed sibling loving, the more I sort of get it. We're going to get into spoilers for the latter half of Dawntrail's story now. Away with thee if you haven't finished it.
Bakool Ja Ja does do a 180, and he does wind up being a sympathetic character in the end—revealing that he is, essentially, a spoilt-rotten golden child with heaps of expectation placed upon his shoulders, desperate to stop attempts to create more two-headed lizard people like him because, uh, most don't make it to adulthood. It's pretty grim.
This feels, more than his buff stature or implied twin genitalia, like the biggest contributing factor. Bullies aren't inherently hot, but a bully with a tragic backstory? Now that's fanfiction fodder, baby. Anyway, I'm going to go back to enjoying my Expert Roulette while bleaching this whole thing out of my memory. Godspeed, lizard lovers, you're doing Zodiark's work.