Unfortunately for the fanboys, the ensuing scene only exists in fanfiction. We rejoin YRP…afterward…as they continue their journey toward the exciting Youth League HQ. To mix things up a bit, they have to sneak past some sleeping Ochus. Oh, my adrenaline is really pumping now!
Like make out with Tightass in a pond?
Finally, they reach the big machine elevator that takes them up to the asscandle-filled Youth League area. In the background, Yaibal frantically runs around like a rabbit on speed. I guess that was the “important duty” he was referring to. That’s…kind of sad, actually. Thankfully — I think — Elma spots the group before Yaibal does. Running over to them — less spastic than Yaibal, at least — she wonders, “So…is it true that once the Gullwings join the Youth League, you’ll be in charge of your own division?” Wow, that rumor got way out of hand. Plus, I sure hope that no one would put Yuna in charge of anything — with all the tongues up her butt, it’d be difficult to get anything accomplished around there. Then again, I’m not sure that would be much different.
Yuna corrects Elma, pointing out that the AWESOM-O sphere drop was a one-time thing. Elma tries to act like she knew it was bullshit all along, which I’m sure is why she sounded totally excited when she spouted that ridiculous question a few seconds ago. Whatever, Elma. “I mean, you seem like the kind of person that decides things on their own and then just does whatever they planned to do,” Elma tards. I’m not sure how this would make Yuna differ from the general population — don’t most people plan to do stuff and then do it? “I can’t picture you joining an organization or an army or anything like that,” she continues. Well, she’s right in that the Gullwings couldn’t by any stretch of the imagination be considered an organization. But Yuna takes this very basic and unoffensive statement as if Elma just told her she anally rapes chocobos and boils newborn puppies. “Do I really come across that way?” Yuna frets. I don’t want to come across as a Yuna asslicker myself, but this is the girl who rebelled against the entire Yevon religion, married a pedophile just so she could send his ass, then went and killed off the only known means of defeating Sin before killing it once and for all, and she’s sitting here worrying about what other people think of her? One of these things is not like the other. Either Yuna’s suffering from inconsistent characterization due to game designer intoxication or she’s just that freaking lame. Could go either way.
Before I can spit any more bile at my monitor, Lucil and her lime green camel toe show up to the party. Even though she just arrived, she managed to catch the part where Yuna called bullshit on the rumors, and also claims that she knew Yaibal was a lying dickhead. Unfortunately for our mental health, she informs everyone that she “reprimanded” him. Don’t wanna know. Elma nasally whines that it would be so awesomely kewl if Yuna really were to join up with them — think of the lesbian orgies! Paine, possessive of her bitches, is all, “Nice try, ladies.”
But Lucil insists that she is not going to resort to begging, pleading, and general sycophantic activities, unlike the rest of her group. “I know that words alone are not enough to sway Lady Yuna’s heart,” she says. I’m sure Paine agrees, if you know what I mean. Sphere Recorder Bob judges this as an Important Philosophical Moment, slowly zooming in on Lucil as she spouts some profound-sounding shit that pretty much boils down to, “It’s not going to do us much good to annoy the shit out of Yuna — she needs to make the decision on her own.” There’s something about a “personal journey” in there, like this whole thing is just that fucking important.
“Isn’t Commander Lucil amazing? Such wisdom!” Elma creams herself, easily impressed. But seriously, if Lucil is basically telling people not to be like that dickcheese Yaibal, then I guess I’m down with that. She doesn’t need to be all pretentious about it, though. “I learned it all from my troops,” Lucil deflects the praise. Which I interpret to mean, “I’ve learned how NOT to be from that raggedy band of losers.” I give thanks to Yevon or whatever buglike deity rules over Spira nowadays that Lucil and Elma have to attend a strategy meeting starting at that exact moment. I’m sure it would have been highly rewarding to continue to absorb Lucil’s boundless knowledge, but I guess I’ll just have to learn to live with my disappointment.
Just for the sake of completeness — I wouldn’t want any of you to miss a single bit of extraneous exposition! — I talk to the NPCs around the area. According to them, the Youth League enlistment rate has gone way up, most likely because everyone thinks the Gullwings have joined up. And no one can pass up the chance to ogle Yuna’s half-naked bod. The other news, which just doesn’t seem as important as anything related to Queen Yuna, is that there’s an impending war with New Yevon. Judging from what the troops are saying, they haven’t practiced any actual combat skills. Well, it’s probably a safe bet that the New Yevonites haven’t either. I mean, they’re all old and shit. You know, a New Yevon/Youth League war could be really sexy if, say, Nooj was hot. Because then he and Baralai might end up making out. I guess I’ll just have to hope for an erotic war between Gippal and Baralai. Hey, what can I say — the ridiculous amount of fanboy fanservice in the game makes me feel like compensating the other way, all right? Stop judging me.
Groooooooss.
With that pointless visit over, YRP head back to El Celsioso to check out the latest Crimson Sphere they received from Nooj. Now, you all remember the last one which involved Laurel and Hardy describing a scene of mass carnage. That was actually called “Crimson Report 1” while the new one is “Crimson Record 7.” Judging by the locations of these spheres in the selection menu, Crimson Record 7 is the last of the Crimson Records (of which there are, seemingly, seven) and it comes right before the Crimson Report 1. Strangely, there are four slots between “[Lesbianc]’s Last Laugh” and Crimson Record 7, meaning that there are not actually seven Crimson Record spheres to find, assuming these are in some sort of order. Got all that? Good. Because it’s not like any of this shit is going to make any sense at the moment anyway.
A very grainy and dark video hides the activities of a panting, grunting female. Well, this is already better than the Doppelwank sphere. Like I needed to specify that. “Guys, where are you?” a possibly familiar female voice (I’m going to play dumb, okay?) calls out frantically over the sound of running. And…that’s it. Still better than the Doppelwank sphere, even with Greyskull. If I were to hazard a guess based on that short recording, I would guess that some chick showed up to the set of a porno and got down to business before realizing that none of her “castmates” had shown up yet. And the cameraman hadn’t even taken the lens cap off. Wait a minute — it’s just some sicko pretending to be filming a porno! He’s just a pervy voyeur getting his jollies! I realize I just got carried away, but didn’t I make that whole sequence a hundred times more interesting than it probably actually is? I sure did.
No, I am quite certain that such a thing would not be cool.
Yuna and the others warp back down to Mushroom Rock Road in order to nab some treasure chests before heading up the screen to Djose Highroad. On the way there, they encounter a lone Hypello whining about not selling any tickets. I guess the show in question doesn’t involve a gyrating Yuna or half-naked guys groping each other, since Spirans eat that shit right up. But no matter, I’m sure that’s just random NPC talk and won’t come back to bite Yuna in the ass at a later point.
I bet you can, Paine.
The Djose Highroad appears to be filled with Lesbianc Goons. In addition to the hunched, skeevy looking dudes, there are a couple of female goons wearing their trademark skintight pink spandex. And for some odd reason, none of the ones who actually converse with YRP seem to attack them, which seems to happen every other time they meet up outside of Guadosalam. Maybe that only happens when they’re actually competing for spheres. And perhaps “competing for spheres” is a bit too strong of a term to use for Spira’s bunch of lamewad sphere hunters. Anyway, I’m overthinking this once again, so let’s move on.
As always, Sphere Recorder Bob has a fine visual appreciation of the ass. While two nearby female goons discuss their latest dilemma, unaware that three rival “sphere hunters” and their tagalong pervy sphere recorder are standing right there, Bob sees fit to pan slowly up the back of one of them. More related to the plot, the two are freaking out about a sphere they just happened to lose somewhere on the highroad. “We gotta find that sphere or the boss’ll be furious! We might even…get the heel!” Leave it to Lesbianc to use the one phallic item on her body for discipline. It makes me wonder how many fanfics involve Lesbianc’s “heel” and any combination of Yuna, Rikku, and Paine. Why, I bet some of you have even written one, haven’t you?
The other female goon does a series of random flips over to her buddy. Maybe if they weren’t concentrating so hard on completely pointless gymnastic displays, they might notice YRP standing five feet away in plain sight. Sad. “Hey, did you hear that?” Yuna wonders after the two goons run off to search for the missing sphere. No, I’m sure the other two are completely deaf. “Let’s find it first!” Yuna suggests. I don’t think that should be hard, considering that the goons are completely unaware of their surroundings. “Someone’s turning Yuna into a bad girl,” Paine leers. Wow, those game designers are sure subtle with the innuendo! “Who?” Rikku squeaks innocently. Good lord.
With that lesborrific sequence, the mission screen pops up to make this little sphere hunt official. In addition to the most obvious goal of this mission — finding the dumb sphere, for those of you who may have recently received lobotomies — the screen drools, “As long as you’re making a scene, you may as well nab their clothes, too!” God damn it, I give up. It looks like I’m going to have a lesbian experience whether I like it or not.
Given that previous missions have involved psychotic levels of paranoia just to complete them correctly and still maintain the Almighty 100 Percent, it will probably surprise you that this one just involves the Dullwings running down the Highroad and spotting the orange, glowing sphere in plain sight next to a rock pillar. At first I’m skeptical and I pathetically consult the Brady Guide to see if I missed the fifteen hidden switches I was supposed to hit in a certain order, but without any sort of clues as to the order and oh yeah, there are ten switches that will also kill you and I need to be sure to approach each of the switches from a particular direction as well — the direction varies by switch, and it’s also random so that no guide in the world can help you — oh, and the random battle frequency has doubled to make this part even more challenging and fun! But no, it’s none of that — I just need to pick up the sphere and fight a “boss” battle. If I find out in Chapter 5 that I screwed myself over somehow…well, I’m sure it won’t be the first time in this playthrough. Deep breaths, deep breaths.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Like I said, the girls manage to grab the completely obvious sphere despite the fact that the two female goons had a head start on them. It turns out that it’s Yuna’s special dressphere — Floral Fallal. Using this, Yuna can transform into a giant vagina. Needless to say, I won’t be using it much. Having one of my own kind of destroys the mystery. As soon as Yuna picks up her Floral Vaglal, the tiny-headed, large-bodied Hardy comes lumbering up to her all, “Oh, you found the sphere for us, thanks so much!” When he eventually figures out that the sphere hunters are planning to keep the sphere, he shrieks, “The nerve!” while Sphere Recorder Bob does this terrifying close-up on the dude’s cross-eyed, collagen-lipped face. That shit is fucking scary, man.
God damn it, where’s the freaking sphere?!?!?!?!
Also, it’s rather amusing that the sphere in question isn’t even a movie sphere, but a special dressphere only usable by Yuna herself. Which makes it kind of useless to the Lesbianc Syndicate, I would think. Before Yuna can attempt to reason with Hardy by pointing out this simple fact, Laurel shows up and goes, “The Gullwings,” in his gay Alan Rickman voice. Not that he’s stating the obvious or anything. Hardy goes to stand behind his boyfriend partner, sobbing, “These meanies won’t give me back the sphere!” It’s all ironic, get it?! Laurel, intent on re-obtaining the sphere that turns Yuna into a giant female genitalia, suggests that it might be to his and Hardy’s advantage to utilize their weapons in a united effort to persuade the girls to give it up. And I just made that sound naughty. My apologies.
A random female goon joins Laurel and Hardy in battle. Since it was impossible for Yuna, Rikku, and Paine to steal Lesbianc uniforms from all the other female goons they defeated in random pissant battles, it looks like this is their chance! There’s nothing new or exciting to report in this battle. Laurel and Hardy must have been actually training between euphemistic training sessions since I don’t wipe them out in one hit. Still, this isn’t exactly a challenging fight. Once Yuna steals some gil (for that fucktard O’aka’s debt) and some no doubt valuable items, I sit and hold down the X button for a while. Seriously, Paine’s a white mage, so all I have to do is take my finger off the X button to heal Darkness once in a while. Just to mix things up a bit, I’m going to pretend that this battle is nearly impossible to beat and I’m just 1337 enough that it’s fucking easy for me. Who are you to spoil my fantasies?
After the battle, the Mission Complete screen appears over Laurel and Hardy running like little girls, accompanied by an almost-nude female. She’s wearing some sort of decorative loincloth — complete with visible buttcheeks right in Sphere Recorder Bob’s face — and a bikini top. This, of course, is the female goon “liberated” from her uniform. Surprisingly, the game designers’ laziness won out over their pervy fanboy ways, since there was no video of said liberation. Being a female myself, I’m also curious how neither the loincloth nor the bikini top knot were visible beneath that form-fitting spandex outfit. The game designers have apparently never heard of the concept of panty lines. No surprise, since none of them seem to be aware of actual female body issues.