Quad
-Everyone else on the team is getting a concert ready. Selphie emphasizes that it’s not for just for her or for the Garden, but to congratulate Squall.
-Not sure Squall would like this. He seems more of a Worf-at-a-birthday-party kinda guy.
-Selphie’s putting a band together with the group!!!
-Rinoa’s the only person excited by the prospect, but Selphie says she has something more important for Rinoa to do. Color me interested.
-Looks like there’s gonna be a mini-game to find the correct scores.
-hahahahha – I get to pick each party member’s instrument. This is wild.
I’ll go with…
-Zell on electric guitar. It’s… ok, but… YES! Swapped him to violin. There we go. The melody is kind of a jig, and I really like it. Kind of makes me want to take up the violin again.
-Next up is Irvine.
[Can I just say how much I love this? This is a glorious, fun, team-bonding moment mini-game with great music. It doesn’t advance the plot in itself and I couldn’t possibly care any less. This is wonderful.]
-Irvine, you get the flute.
-Selphie rocks out on guitar.
-Last one: Quistis, on piano.
-Hee! Once I picked all the instruments, combat victory music played.
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Garden/Horizon
-Squall leaves his room alone that night. The team is out in the hall waiting for him.
A change of clothes.
-Rinoa urges Squall to act like a teenager for once. He really does have a tremendous amount of responsibility for anyone of any age, let alone a teenager.
-I get the dialogue choices to go to say “why not” to the concert or “not in the mood.” I’ve been pretty consistent of late in picking the more engaged ones, so I go with “why not” here.
-They head near the lip of the sun panel. Irvine tries to be Squall’s wingman, setting him up with “the perfect place by the stage” and “a magazine” (??). Squall facepalms. XD
-Selphie runs down towards the mayor’s house and Irvine runs off to follow.
I really keep going back and forth on them. It’s a weird line, and I’m not sure how to navigate my feelings around it. It’s fine if Irvine’s attracted to Selphie and wants to bulid a relationship with her. It gets ickier for me when he starts talking in terms of setting things up to “score” – but it could also be just him wanting to make a romantic setting and a good date.
Tone matters so much.
---
The Concert
-Squall and Rinoa descend to the Mayor’s house. Aha! It’s there, not the quad, that the FH workers set up the stage.
-It looks awesome, and it sounds awesome. The music rocks.
-Rinoa and Squall move away a bit to the “spot” that Irvine had described.
RINOA: “Ohh, a naughty magazine!”
Lololol
-Rinoa, I love you. She starts saying how she knows the promotion may make him turn inwards rather than relying on others. He starts to do the patented Squall-thinking-facepalm. She notices.
They slowly turn to look at each other, mirror images, before he hand-flaps her away. It’s really, really funny. XD
-She then SHOVES HIM OFF A LEDGE. Yikes. I mean, I know he has high hitpoints, but you shoved him onto a solar panel array, not into a pool. Easy there.
-She wants him to be more open, trusting. Rely on others.
-He’s more receptive than I would’ve expected. Acknowledges that he’s been untrusting, and thinks it’s related to his world view.
SQUALL: “(Am I that untrusting? Maybe it’s this way because I’m scared… it feels great to have friends who believe in you and adults you can rely on. That’s why it’s so dangerous, especially if you become used to it. Someday you’re going to lose everything. Everybody around you will be gone.
“(Then what are you left with? Nothing. Nobody… It’s so miserable. And it’s inevitable. It’s so hard to recover from something like that. I never ever want to deal with that again. I can’t. Even if it means being alone…)”
Really powerful stuff. Makes me want to learn more about what really happened to Kid!Squall.
-He starts to walk away. There’s some miscommunication about the music, and whether it’s irritating or annoying, and whether he wants to talk and she wants to talk, but he doesn’t want to talk and she takes it personally.
-Love this exchange. It nails the awkwardness of teenagers discussion a possible relationship for the first time openly, fumbling at it and not quite connecting, but still trying.
-Rinoa runs off. The concert ends.
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Balamb Garden
-Squall lying in bed that night.
-OH GOD IT’S KID SQUALL IN THE RAIN AGAIN CRYING FOR HIS SIS
KID!SQUALL: “…Sis… I’m all alone, but I’m doing my best. I’ll be okay with you, Sis. I’ll be able to take care of myself.
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Next time: Squall got called to the bridge after waking up, so probably some campaign progression.
