My wank respite is brief. Near the flower shop, Laguna nervously asks if they can stick around town a while before they head back out into the big, scary world of actual employment. Kiros interprets this as Laguna needing time to gather material to write about the town of Winhill. Hoo boy, now that issue of Timber Maniacs is going to fly right off the shelves. But Laguna answers in the negative. “Too much publicity and you get all those tourists and stuff,” Laguna bitches. “You’re afraid someone might come and take Raine away? Laguna, you’ve changed, man,” Kiros responds. I think that wins the award for Biggest Leap in Logic for this recap so far. Yes, Laguna doesn’t want to write about the town because someone might steal his beard. It’s the obvious conclusion. Go sit in the corner, Kiros.
Even Laguna recognizes the idiocy of this conversation and pretends to see a “monster” just to get out of it. This is a self-fulfilling prophecy, owing to the obscene random battle frequency. Speaking of idiocy, Laguna and Kiros return to the pub, heading upstairs to give their impressive report to Raine and Ellone. When Laguna spots the two chicks in the same room, he automatically assumes that they’re engaged in “girl talk.” Which they, unfortunately, are. Game designers know all about the female mind, of course.
Laguna thinks he should leave them to their talk of makeup and shopping, but Kiros is a giant gossip whore. “(Something inside me tells me to listen.)” he wanks. I love how he tries to make his own inappropriate curiosity sound like something important. Plus, his rude habit means that I actually have to listen in on said girl talk. Shut up, Kiros.
‘Ew, girls!’
Sigh. Ellone starts right in on her line of questioning, unaware that two adult men are spying on her from the stairs. “Raine… Aren’t yoo gonna marry Uncle Laguna?” she wonders. Gag. “A guy like that?” Raine wonders. “Like that” meaning gay, or “like that” meaning a giant dumbass? Raine has the perfect opportunity to educate Ellone on something called a “gaydar” and how to utilize it properly, but she wastes it in favor of airing a laundry list of complaints about Laguna. Well, I can live with that. According to Raine’s list of examples, Laguna sucks way more ass than even we knew. In fact, so many negative traits come to her mind so quickly that her text boxes overlap all over the freaking screen. It seems the woman has taste.
Some people are into that.
“But he’s really nice! I really, really like him! Raine, Uncle Laguna and Elle should all be together!” Ellone chirps. God damn, why couldn’t her parents croak before they bred? Raine turns toward Ellone for a moment before saying, “…But you know…I think what he really wants to do is travel all over the world.” Blah blah, Laguna doesn’t want to stick around BFE, blah blah Laguna needs to sow his wild gay oats, blah. This pisses her the fuck off. Of all the shitty things about him, she’s the most peeved over his actual dreams and goals? Those are his only redeeming qualities. Finally, Raine loses all my respect by admitting that she shares Ellone’s dream of becoming a big, happy, bearded family.
Laguna runs into the room at this point, vibrating like he can barely contain his excitement over collecting another beard. He almost blows his cover by overacting, all, “Yeah, I just got back, just now. There’s no way I could have been listening at the stairs since I ran into the room as soon as I got back, which was just now.” But Raine can’t figure out that the guy likes wang, so she doesn’t catch onto the act, either.
Laguna gives his stupid report, which we don’t care about, and Raine offers to cook him dinner before he goes out on his next dangerous patrol. Until then, he should wait [in [his] room]. With Kiros. Yeah, she has no fucking clue. I feel like kind of a hypocrite ragging on her, since I didn’t really catch on right away either. But she spent a year with the guy, so she doesn’t really have a good excuse.
‘…and together that makes a horrifying fanfic!’
So Laguna and Kiros go back to Laguna’s place, alone. Bamp chicka chicka bamp bamp. Instead of the expected and pretty much necessary reunion buttsex, we get another fucking cut scene. Laguna has to share all his feeeeeelings. He’s freaked out about leaving and not seeing Ellone or Raine again. “What happened to me? I feel… What is this I’m feeling?” he wanks. It’s a little thing that we generally call “denial.” And possibly “wankst.” “Oh, please let it be this room when I wake up!” he shrieks dramatically. Kiros starts to consider propositioning one of the soldiers in the square — he doesn’t need this kind of baggage. The last bit of dialogue before we blissfully fade to black is Kiros’s second remark about how Laguna has changed. Yes, he did change — he became even more boring and irritating. Yeah, I know.
Well, that was about 37 minutes of the game designers attempting to make us care about Laguna and failing horribly. Seriously, I understand that we need this backstory for later on, but Jesus Christ. Half an hour of telling and not showing. Plus Bite Bugs and Caterchipillars. Woohoo.
‘Scared of having sex with a vagina…’
At least we’re finally back to our main characters. Of course, I can’t feel too relieved since Rinhoa is there. But what the hell, she’s not talking, so that’s an improvement. Quistis, Selphie, and Rinhoa are all sitting on the floor in a metal room while Zell wakes up from a nap. This is not a coincidence — Zell was in the “dream world,” the poor fucker. Selphie, having no brains or taste, practically pees her pants in excitement when she asks him how Laguna is doing. Zell doesn’t know, since he was inside Ward’s brain and obviously didn’t see the other two. “He’s working in some sort of prison-like place,” Zell tards. Oh, like…a prison? Lord, Zell. According to him, Ward is bored to death in his prison job and wishes to be “fighting alongside Laguna.” Wow, that’s some delicious, delicious irony. Ward needs to be careful what he wishes for.
Since Quistis, Selphie, and Rinhoa are all awake, I guess this means that the conspicuously absent Squally and Irvine were Laguna and Kiros, like it really matters. Quistis wonders why the hell they keep having these incredibly mind-numbing dreams. A more pressing question would be, “How are we going to escape from prison?” Since that’s where they are after that botched mission. Seriously, you’re potential assrape fodder and you’re wasting brainpower thinking about Laguna? Not cool.
That’s generally what’s done in an RPG.
What is cool for the foursome is that even though they’re in prison, they all ended up in the same cell so that they could brainstorm a way to break out. That was some smart thinking on the part of whoever locked them up. Zell talks to each of the ladies in turn, possibly thinking of how this would be the perfect scenario if only he were straight. Any other guy would practically be humping the walls in lust. We probably all know someone like that. Selphie wonders about an escape plan, while Quistis wonders if Squally is being brutally raped by men, women, and toys. Surprisingly, it’s Rinhoa who has the most to contribute to the discussion. Take a moment to digest that if you must.
Rinhoa reiterates that Ward works in a prison and he’s from Galbadia. Zell doesn’t follow. She’s all, “Um, hello, we’re in a prison? In Galbadia? Does this room look familiar at all, YOU FUCKING IDIOT?” Zell takes several moments to mull it over while we have the privilege of reading his actual brain-impaired thoughts. Finally, a very dim lightbulb goes off over his empty head as he screeches, “I know this place! […] This is the prison that Ward works at! He’s a janitor here!” God, Rinhoa figured something out and she’s smarter than someone else in the party. Alert the presses!
With this newfound realization, Zell can now contribute essential pieces of information to the party, such as the fact that there are many similar rooms to this one in the place. A bunch of cell-like rooms in a prison? You don’t say. “There’s a prison for political activists in Galbadia…This must be the place where Ward works! Right here, where we are! I’m sure of it!” Rinhoa decides. Well, that sure didn’t last long. That one spark of intelligence must have shorted out the rest of her tiny, tiny mind.
As if Rinhoa’s grasp of the obvious is contagious, Quistis comments, “It’s no surprise we’re in jail. We did attack the sorceress…” No, I thought they were in jail for crimes against fashion. Jesus Christ, Quistis. Blah blah blah, the president’s dead, blah blah blah, the sorceress took over Galbadia, blah blah blah, Irvine and Squally aren’t there and things look sucky for all of them. Seriously, this dialogue. The camera finally fades out, sparing me.
Aaaaand we fade in on another cell. This one is like a hexagonal tube on its side, with a single slab sticking out of the wall and a shitter. But people in video games don’t go to the bathroom, so I’m not sure what that’s doing there. Squally lies on the slab bed, fully clothed. Aw. He sits up, apparently coming awake for the first time. Of course he wonders the obvious things, like where he is and why he doesn’t have a giant, gaping wound in his chest and shoulder. Well, the latter might be due to POTIONS and HEALING MAGIC, genius. I won’t list the rest of his internal monologue verbatim except for this: “(He was there… Seifer, leering down at me.)” Hee. “Damn you, Seifer!” Squally screeches, remembering that his man shoved him aside to serve a sorceress. It always sucks to remember those types of things upon waking.
Squally tries to stand, but falls onto his hands and knees. This is getting good. The cell shakes, and we get an FMV of some kind of lift contraption pulling the cell tube out of the wall and raising it up through a shaft to another, higher level. Yes, that was thirty seconds of things moving into and out of various tunnel-like passages. Go figure.
The view changes to a circular walkway around a central hole, presumably the same hole that the elevator thing just went through. Basically, the whole place is shaped like a cylinder. Again, go figure. A helpful little text box informs us that this is Floor 7. Three guards enter a metal door in the outer wall. The door has a glowing pink bar on it. Wow, they just keep shocking us left and right here, don’t they?
That was me banging my head against the monitor.
The doorway leads to the cell containing Zell and the ladies. Selphie freaks, “What, what!? What was that loud noise?” Except that there was no loud noise, only the monotonous harpsichord music in the background. Whoops, game designers. At this point, the guards actually enter the room just in time to answer Selphie’s question. One of the guards has the unfortunate name of “Mean Guy,” and he informs the foursome that the “sound” is Squally being erotically tortured. Zell tries to get all in the guy’s face, but unfortunately it appears that Mean Guy has some penis size issues — he’s obsessed with making Zell respect his authoritah. Of course, as with most people who suffer from that particular character defect, he ends up sounding like a total loser. Zell isn’t much better — instead of pointing and mocking, he stamps his foot in a display of…well, I’m not sure what it is besides dorky. But it totally sets off Mean Guy, whose buddy points a gun or something at Zell while the two of them kick the shit out of the tattooed spaz.
This is kind of unfair — two armed men against an unarmed one? What a couple of fuckheads. Except that Zell fights with his fists and he’s gone up against a gazillion armed soldiers in the past. Therefore, this makes no sense. I’ll still throw a poll at you guys so you don’t fill my inbox and the forums with your own fanwanking.
Loading ...Rinhoa waits until the two guards have gotten several kicks to various areas of Zell’s young bod before she screams at them to stop. She totally drama queens it up, too, cringing in an overexaggerated fashion as if she gives a shit about anyone besides Squally. As Zell lies facedown on the floor, possibly whining, Mean Guy suddenly remembers what brought them to the cell in the first place. Well, besides the possibility of some underage tail. Lifting Zell’s head up by the hair, he asks, “Hey man, is there a Rinhoa with you?” Finally, something is going right for me — the guards want to take her away. There’s some more shit where Zell tries to defend her, only to get kicked by Mean Guy again. Must be roid rage. Rinhoa, selfless and perfect Mary Sue that she is, agrees to go with the guards. Personally, I don’t care whether they’re going to torture her or take her to the special happy puppy and flower room, she’s gone.