FFVIII – Part 25: When We Were Young

Summary: Finished my tour of Timber, visiting various families, train stations, the hotel, and magazine offices. Saw near unanimous sympathy for the Forest Owls among the townspeople. More of Squall’s defining character traits: jerkhood and boredom.


Timber

-There’s a train that (when the trains run) goes to the Desert. For the prison, probably.

-A large family here is crammed into a small house. The sister hasn’t had a great year.

-I drank from the faucet in this house and it refilled my health. Was hoping to practice more with limit breaks. Oh well.

-Squall continues his Reign of Jerkhood by stealing from the old man. Nice, buddy! Pries into the cabinet and keeps prying until he steals his stash of 500 gil.

What a dick. Tried returning the money, but it’s not an options.

-Crap! I got “Samed’ for the first time. Still pulled out a win, but I gotta be careful.

Also, I thought “Same” just turned over the adjacent cards, but seems like there was a “Combo” that turned over ALL cards. Gotta check into that.

-Trains in Timber go to Balamb, the Desert, Dollet, and Deling City.

-WHAT THE FUCK! A random conversation with a woman waiting for a train throws my whole theory about the Galbadian Trio into disarray. She says a handsome young man saved her from falling onto the tracks once.

Now, it could’ve been a different Loire. Like, Laguna’s child if he’s from the past. Probably Laguna though.

-Got my first Triple Triad complete victory!

-Doom finished. Let’s see what it does… yeah, a ticking clock. 24 seconds, then the enemy’s soul gets sucked out of his body for an instakill.

I’m having a bit of a hard time thinking when I’d want to use this. Maybe against a slow moving, super hard to kill enemy like a Tonberry, or something that heals itself up a lot. I can’t imagine it works on bosses. Not gonna keep it on my ability bar.

-NOOOO! I’m super salty right now. Was on a winning streak in Triple Triad, but mostly against players with bad cards. Then one person whooped me, taking my Behemoth and Iron Giant and Hexadragon cards. And one more I can’t remember. At least I didn’t bet Quistis or Ifrit in that game.

-I finally understand Boost. Used it well (got up to around 110), and it really tears enemies apart with a GF.

-Next Ifrit ability I’ll learn is “M** Rush.” Curious what it does.

-As we learned before, we can’t stay at the hotel here. Cool to see how much support there is for the Owls here – the hotel clerk seems apologetic.

-The occupying soldiers are major league jerkaholics. “Be grateful we’re here,” “if accepted us, you’d thrive instead of being a backwater,” etc.

-BUT THE TIMBER SECURITY GUARDS TELL THEM WHAT’S UP!

This is so great to see. The Galbadians threaten to kill them and their children for their sass, but we step in and take out those Galbadians.

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Timber M*****s Building

-I’m guessing that the Timber magazine with the ableist name is one that publishes fiction, with pulpy short stories.

-Hit S-Level 5! Also found a hidden draw point with Blizzaga.

LOL

Random Dude in a Smoking Jacket: “Oh, did you say I look like an artist? Well, as a matter of fact, I am.”
Squall: “(I didn’t say anything…)”

-I keep finding old issues of the magazine that don’t grant any benefit, but still get consumed. I’m guessing this is for some bonus thing.

-The more I learn about the magazine, the more I think it’s more like Playboy.

-One of the editors tells us that it’s been around for about 20 years. Mixture of journalism, stories, etc.

-This is a lot like the cafeteria. We see the editor talking, but because it’s Squall’s perspective, we just hear his reaction.

Squall usually annoys me when he acts bored, but I actually like this. As an adult who does just that, I can’t blame him. It also reminds me just how young he is.

-Ok, here we go. Squall asks the editor about the Laguna dream. Please tell us what’s up please tell us what’s up please te

Hahahahahaha this game is such a fucking troll.

He doesn’t know anything and just gives more “back in my day” rambling.

-The last conversational path with the editor brings up his childhood, mentioning how he remembers the war with the Sorceress. He wrote letters about how meaningless the war was to the magazine.

-bored squall may be my favorite squall. He’s easily the least-likeable FF protagonist so far, even counting the trying-way-too-hard-to-be-cool early game Cloud, but that makes it even more fun to see him get poked at. XD XD

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Timber

-Age seems to be a theme so far. A lot of characters keep bringing it up, even side characters who talk about when they were younger and whether they mellowed or grew wiser or grew frustrated.

The too rapid passage of time.

-More on that couple from the pub. I hate the mentality that “well, the more they fight, the more they love each other!” NO.

Look. I haven’t been in a lot of long-term relationships, but nothing I’ve seen suggests that fighting = love. Maybe gentle squabbling. Maybe the ability to bounce back from a disagreement. But where tf is this “hitting and screaming at each other = love” coming from? Just trying to be funny?

-hehee – we go out the back of the pub and the kids from that home are on the balcony, talking about what kidnapping the president is all about and what it means.

“It’s sort of like playing tag!”

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Next time: onto the TV station.