TW: emetophobia
Timber TV Station
-FFVIII is the champion in the series so far of illustrating vomit and other physical symptoms of illness. It does this a LOT.
-Climbing the TV station tower we see a TV on the outside of the building. Just has random words crawling across it.
-Watts pops up to say that the president is transmitting now, and there are too many guards for a direct assault. Maybe we can unplug some stuff?
-Rinoa wants to come up with a new plan, but Squall says he’ll do whatever. He’s up for a head-on assault. Rinoa’s call.
RINOA: “How sad. Act on my decision? That’s your duty? Oh, what an easy life it must be, just to follow orders…” Um. You hired them, right?
Squall brings the sass. Tells Rinoa straight up that he doesn’t thinks he can accomplish her goal. (And if it weren’t for the fact that this is a video game and y’all are the protagonists, I would agree.)
And he’s not just leaving it at that. He goes into detail, bringing up how they need the SeeDs for basic decisions, have “strategy meetings” by huddling on the floor.
Selphie reins him in a bit, but still. Ow.
-Rinoa takes this pretty hard, and wants to cancel the plan for now. I’m surprised.
RINOA: “We’re serious. So serious it hurts.” A bit awkward phrasing, but given how personal the history of the Forest Owls is it’s hard to blame them.
Also, we just know the backstory on the parents of Watts and Zone. Rinoa’s a “princess.” It’s possible this could be a term of endearment, but I get the sense that it’s meant literally. There’s gotta be some history about her getting dispossessed from the throne.
-Rinoa leaves. Again, I’m taken aback. I just assumed we’d storm the gates.
-Zell comes up the stairs to join them, as confused as I am about Rinoa leaving.
-The broadcast begins.
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The Broadcast
-An announcer does a “testing, testing” thing. He seems a bit bemused that this whole broadcast is getting on the air at all, since it’s such an unusual medium.
(Oh, right – it’s been 17 years. Forgot.)
-The music gets humorously presidential.
-Side note: the Galbadian insignia on the podium looks a bit like the Imperial logo from Star Wars.
-His proposal is to bring peace to the world. (LOLOL – Selphie gets excited that he might have taken her idea for real. I’m 99% sure it’s not that.)
-Yeah. Here’s the catch. There are “some trifling issues” between Galbadia and other nations to resolve.
-I was expecting him to announce a horrific weapon to help “solve” these issues, like a Death Star or a giant mirror or something, but it’s just a special ambassador. Rinoa maybe? That’d be an attempt to solve the Owls problem in one fell swoop, though I doubt it’d actually win the hearts and minds of Timber.
(He doesn’t seem like a “hearts and minds” kind of guy anyway.)
OH SHIT - THE SORCERESS. That sounds like a bad thing, given the whole “Sorceress War.” Maybe she’ll be like Glinda the Good Witch? (lol yeah, not likely.) It seems good for Vinzer in the short term if she was so powerful to have a war named after her, but there's no way this doesn't backfire on him eventually.
-WTF SEIFER BUSTS IN TO DISRUPT THE ANNOUNCEMENT WTF ARE YOU DOING BROSEPH
AND QUISTIS
The two folks tossed aside from the Garden.
-Seifer puts a knife to Vinzer’s head.
Squall is ICE FUCKING COLD about this. The other SeeDs want to know what he’ll do about this, and he says “nothing. Our job is to assist the Owls. It’s none of our business.”
-Quistis addresses the “Timber Team” directly to the camera, and asks for help.
Jeez. What are you going to do? She specifically says “you HAVE permission,” but she’s a peer. She’s not his teacher. I think she’s gone rogue with Seifer.
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Next time: the Timber Team gets in on the action.