Thonga lets Yuna know that there’s still some fighting going on here between the Youth League and New Yevon, so she and her buddies had better stay away for now. One looted treasure chest later, we’re back on El Celsioso and Rikku is whining that they were just kicked off the island. I’m sobbing with you, dear. I don’t get to spend an hour navigating a glorified jungle gym. Woe.
Now it’s time to see if anything is new in Luca. The mission screen burbles something about a “popular spherecast” coming from Penis Balloon Central. “Think the Gullwings can get on the air?” Oh, goody. Because Yuna hasn’t had enough chances yet to be a total famewhore. Every fiber of my being is telling me to just save myself the pain and skip ahead to Mi’ihen Highroad–and that is saying something–but I soldier on in the name of thorough recapping.
Yuna starts out at the save point next to the stairs up to the Mi’ihen Highroad, making my resolve tremble slightly, but I defy temptation and head for central Luca, picking up some useless item from a chest and shamefully pimping Argent Inc. and Fanboy Bachelor along the way. I don’t really want to get into the specifics of talking to these people, because it’s lame and boring and time-consuming, but I would like to know what the deal is with the stoner surfbum language in this game. If it’s not “scoring” items left and right or an seeking an “awesome” sphere, it’s making people “totally pumped” to go spend their not-so-hard earned Gil on lupine racing.
Loading ...In the area where Yuna affected a horrifically saccharine voice and handed out balloons to bewildered locals, a few scattered people are gathering to watch a tele spherecast. I can barely bring myself to say this. Folks, onscreen is none other than Shelinda, formerly Groaning Braindead Yevonite, currently Groaning Roving Reporter. Of course, she has rid herself of her Yevon garments and is wearing a smart three-piece suit and patent heels. Just fucking with you. She’s still got that stupid hat with the tassels. In this scene I get to take the place of Sphere Recorder, uh, Larry and switch between camera 1 and camera 2. I amuse myself for several moments making Shelinda spastically move to face the camera at my cruel whim, until I start worrying about accidentally skipping the cutscene and having to reset. Paranoia is not a bad thing to have when dealing with this game, okay?
Also, both camera angles provide a healthy array of ass shots. Naturally.
Shelinda just happens to be doing a special on sphere hunters when Yuna and her friends show up to watch. “These days, everyone’s talking about the groups battling throughout Spira for control of the spheres,” she chirps in a total vapid Entertainment Tonight sort of way. She starts her rundown of the major new characters so far this crucial feature segment with the Youth League and a short, useless description of its members and Mevyn Nooj. Ditto Baralai and those New Yevon dickholes, and also Gippal’s Machine Faction and Lesbianc’s cadre of seven-hit-point wussbags. I know I’m being overly critical here, but Shelinda is far from doing any real reporting. Her segment boils down to, “Like, I’m going to talk about sphere hunters! Well, there’s the Youth League, and New Yevon–like, OMG, their praetor is sooooo cute!–and some other people, and stuff! Facts? Quotes? Um, what are those?” Not to mention that the few things of factual nature she does relate are things we already know. All that said, it is an incredibly realistic representation of local TV news.
“But lately there’s one group in particular that’s been drawing all kinds of attention,” Shelinda wanks. Can you guess who that group could be? I really don’t know, there are so many to choose from! Wait–I think she might be talking about our very own Gullwings! Let’s listen!
“That’s right,” Shelinda says, “the only group led by a high summoner, the Gullwings!” How funny would it be if there were some unsent high summoner out there who started up a sphere hunting group just to steal Yuna’s thunder? Maybe Yunalesca will come back to do this. She can swipe spheres from people by whacking them in the head with the Hope Hammer and running off with their shit. Sorry for the digression, but my mind can’t help but try to wander as far from this scene as possible. Shelinda continues, “And now, here’s today’s special guest: High Summoner Yuna!” Judging from Yuna’s Tightass-like reaction, Shelinda is about to do an ambush interview. Well, Yuna, what did you think would happen when you walk in front of a camera and stand next to a reporter doing a bit on sphere hunters? Of course, this is all assuming that Yuna is not just acting and that she doesn’t secretly love all the attention. A big assumption.
A station signal randomly breaks this scene from the next, in which Shelinda goes one-on-one with Yuna. These things just come out. I’m sorry. Let’s move on. Shelinda breaks the admirable pattern Beclem and Thonga started by asking Yuna a major suck-up softball of a non-question. “Lady Yuna, your concert the other day was nothing short of spectacular!” Yuna, with Shelinda’s amazingly phallic microphone jammed in her face–not that she’s complaining–tries to explain the identity switcheroo shenanigans that went on, but Shelinda basically cuts her off. She’s probably been told by her producers to cap all guests’ answers to two seconds or less–good sound byte size–and besides, it’s not like Shelinda has the capability to understand that whole series of events. Does anyone?
‘Yuna, get away from that thing!’
Shelinda further exemplifies the role of television news personality by asking Yuna, in earnest, “And speaking of puzzling, why the sudden career change to sphere hunting?” If Yuna had any wit whatsoever, I would hope she would respond, “Well, I hit a wall of sorts in my previous career. See, I did this thing called summoning before where I would summon aeons so I could defeat Sin. But funny thing, all the aeons are gone and so is Sin! I figured that was as good a reason as any to send out my resumé, YOU VACUOUS DIPSHIT.” Of course Yuna says nothing of the sort, and only apologizes for worrying everybody when she left Besaid. Christ. I think I just popped something.
“Rumor has it you left the island looking for clues about a certain young man,” Shelinda goes on, hoping for a little celebrity romance to spike her ratings. “Anything you can share with us?” Who even fucking knows how Shelinda found this out. It was probably that gossip whore Kimahri. Yuna chooses to answer, “It’s a secret!” because I determine that the populace of Spira, most of them having met this “certain young man,” would rather not hear anything about him possibly being alive. “Very hush hush. Sounds intriguing,” Shelinda giggles. Have you ever wanted to grab someone by the head and shake them around to check for rattling noises? I wish I could do that to Shelinda right now.
Yuna says something about her search for the man who’s inspired her wardrobe change being a long story. “I’m sure it is!” Shelinda practically screams back at her for no reason. “One can only imagine the fascinating tales that led to you becoming the leader of the Gullwings!” Brother shows up on the scene right on cue to dispel Shelinda of this evil lie. “I’m the leader! Me!” he screeches. That bitch is just trying to bring the Al Bhed down! Racist! Then Brother stares into the camera and–God, do I have to repeat this?–cries, “Gullwings! We rock you!” Buddy and Shinra also show up to horn in on Yuna’s fifteen minutes. It just occurred to me that if Brother, Shinra and Buddy used a stupid acronym like Yuna, Rikku and Paine do, they’d be BSB. And that only led my imagination to Brother dancing to and singing “Backstreet’s Back.” Maybe in the International Version.
Shelinda tries to ignore BSB and asks if it’s true that the Gullwings are now house boys of the Youth League. Brother tries to get all indignant, but admits that it’s “kind of true. But not really! No!” Buddy answers, “Uh, we don’t wanna get caught up in other people’s problems.” Might have helped, then, if you hadn’t stolen the damn sphere in the first place, but we’ve been over that point. Shelinda realizes that she’s no longer giving her viewers the hot girl-on-girl action they crave, and that these other Gullwings are making it a total sausage party, so she says they’re out of time for the interview. “Our thanks to today’s guests, High Summoner Yuna and the Gullwings!” Color me surprised that Shelinda doesn’t have some horrible signoff catchphrase, like, “I’m Shelinda, and here’s lookin’ at you, Spira!”
In a merciful universe, that is all the torture I would have had to endure, but because I don’t live in the land of rainbows and kittens and chocolate syrup rivers, there is more. Post-interview, Yuna nags Paine and Rikku for letting making her take up the whole spotlight. “It was more fun watching,” Paine replies, setting off a whole new wave of YRP doujinshi. Right when the girls are about to start kissing or throwing pillows (or both!), Shelinda uglies up the action by running over to thank Yuna for the interview. As thanks, she hands over the Covetous Garment Grid. And now she’s giving out gifts to sources? A journalism ethics board should be all over her ass for this stuff.
Well, that’s the best news I’ve heard all day.
Rikku asks Shelinda how long she’s been at this wank correspondent thing. I thought this was a popular spherecast. Wouldn’t they know if she’s been on the air for a while? Oh, wait, that would require them to know about the popularity of someone other than themselves. Never mind. Anyway, Shelinda tells them, “Well, after the Calm came, the temples were in decline.” No, really?!?! I am paralyzed by shock. “At first, I thought the best thing I could do would be to help the temples get back on their feet,” she goes on, surprising no one. “But everyone just ordered me around. I got tired of it.” It’s amazing to me that Shelinda would actually grow tired of being a temple monkey. I thought that was what she lived for. “You couldn’t just tell them ‘no’?” Yuna asks her, ever the fucking hypocrite. Shelinda says that she wanted to become more assertive, so she dumped those temple dickholes and came to Luca to begin her career as an empty-headed bimbo “journalist,” because some skeezy producers around town were looking to start up a completely unnecessary news show. “Another job you were asked to do?” Paine wonders. Shelinda smiles in her particular dimwit fashion and admits that she probably hasn’t changed a bit. And you know what? I’m being too hard on her. At least Shelinda has a goddamn job, however lame a job it is.
No means NO, Paine.
Shelinda runs off to do her next assignment, leaving YRP there to psychoanalyze her. Paine points out that she’s obviously enjoying her job even if she complains a little. “Sounds a bit like Yunie, doesn’t it?” Rikku giggles. Yuna’s all, “Really?” and Rikku and Paine just shake their heads. Actually, Rikku also does this Fonzie-like “Eeeeeeeehhhh” gesture. Hey, I don’t know, I didn’t motion capture this shit.
Completely at random, Rikku and Paine run past Yuna into the little café. “Dr. P, care to give us your opinion?” Rikku dog-paddles. Paine tries and fails to adopt a mock-scholarly tone and murmurs, “The hardest person to know is yourself.” Yuna watches this exchange, goes all, “SHUT UP U GUYS ARE MEEN” and stalks off. Now I’m free to explore the rest of Luca. Oh joy of joys, being able to continue slaving away as a marketing shill and getting to play Sphere Break totally makes up for having to spend several minutes listening to Shelinda. Thank you, game designers.
Once I’ve exhausted all the “fun” there is to be had in Luca, Yuna epitomizes laziness and teleports back to El Celsioso so she can teleport back down to the Mi’ihen Highroad. God forbid I miss any of the intriguing happenings up here. Rikku whimpers to Yuna, “Too bad I didn’t set our spherecorder to record the Luca broadcast!” Oh Rikku, I’m sure you can go down to the Luca Best Buy and pick up a sphere of it for 3000 Gil or so. Or you could have sent Sphere Recorder Bob down to tape along with his cousin Sphere Recorder Larry! But I guess you would you rather he sat around like the rest of Spira collecting unemployment checks.
I realize upon teleporting down to the Highroad that I should have just taken the damn stairs–I have to go up and down the entire road to beg NPCs to buy Argent credits or marry a loser who lives with his parents, but Yuna is teleported to the Travel Agency at the inconvenient midpoint of the road. Crap.
‘I do, and look at MY awesome boyfriend!’
Oh well. I’ve made my bed and now I have to watch Yuna and Rikku lie in it. About an hour and a half later, I’ve made my rounds, collected some Blue Balls Bullets for the Gun Mages, and raided all the restocked treasure chests, and it’s now time to do some percentage-point-getting. The girls ride a hover back from the end of the Highroad to the Travel Agency, and watch with amusement as the operator fails to put on the emergency brake and the hover glides into the ditch, no doubt killing those two pot-smoking shirtless guys hanging out at the end of the Oldroad. Good thing I already asked them if they’d like to be part of an exciting enterprise with Argent Inc.