And All The Roads Lead Me Back To My Home.

[rionaleonhart]

THERE IS A ZOMBIE DRAW POINT IN THE TRABIA GRAVEYARD.

HORRIFYING.

Also, Squall thinks (I didn't turn out okay at all) when he's flashing back to little-kid Squall saying 'I'll be okay without you, Sis,' and I just want to hug him. He would probably just stand there awkwardly and give me a strange look, but I want to hug him anyway.


Really, it's amazing that Squall ever manages to improve his behaviour at all, with the way everyone says 'GASP, SQUALL, THAT'S NOT LIKE YOU' whenever he tries to say something comforting. I can feel Squall's frustration whenever he makes an effort and everyone says 'MY GOODNESS, SQUALL IS ACTING AS IF HE CARES ABOUT SOMETHING, THE WORLD MUST BE ENDING.'

I love all the characters! I do! But making a huge deal out of it whenever Squall takes a tiny step in the right direction isn't going to help him, guys. When Squall is teased, he closes himself off. You should know this. Take this scene:


Squall: (Man, she's really down.) Come on. I'm sure you can still do something.
Selphie: Squall... being sensitive? That's weird. You're the last person I expected to cheer me up. I must really look depressed.
Squall: (What's so weird? I care just like everybody else. It's just that there are too many things that can't be helped. So why bother talking about everything?)
Selphie: Uh-oh! There you go again into your own little world. And you're not gonna share anything, huh?
Squall: ...Yeah, whatever... (Why is she teasing me? I was just trying to help.)


I know Selphie's just poking fun, as she is when she responds to Squall's saying she's been a great help with a laugh and a 'That's not like Squall at all!', but what she's saying is that being closed-off and self-absorbed is 'Squall' and caring about others is 'not-Squall'. The implication - not intended by her, but there to be inferred by Squall - is that Squall is always going to be Squall and therefore incapable of openness or caring, so why make the effort?

Possibly I am becoming a little too worked up over a group of fictional characters' treatment of another fictional character, but I've fought with social-interaction problems myself, and I can tell you that 'good Lord, you're actually speaking to someone?' is rarely a helpful comment.

I swear it cannot be healthy to identify this much with Squall Leonhart.


On a less 'help help I cannot differentiate myself from a fictional character' note, here is a rather delightful description of a bazaar good from Final Fantasy XII:

Contains one (1) firearm and one (1) pouch of shot, made from hardened mud. The intent, of course, being to cover one's foes in mud, rendering them blind. And muddy.

My goodness, I love the Final Fantasy XII translation.

Comments

[twilit-wanderer.livejournal.com]

I feel kind of like a dunce because I have nothing intelligent to add to any of these posts (partly because everyone beats me to it and partly because I am not good at wording anything), but man, I just always love it so much when people talk about Final Fantasy VIII (which no one does anymore because I guess it is kind of old now, isn't it), especially in a way that doesn't consist solely of I HATE IT AND IT SUCKS AND MAN THAT SQUALL WAS SUCH AN EMO LOSER AND RINOA WAS ANNOYING AND USELESS AND ALSO THE GRAPHICS ARE TERRIBLE.

(Regarding relating to Squall so much, no, it is probably not, but at least there are enough of us around to relate unhealthily together? Bonus Jecca-Facts Story: Back in the worst times of my own social-interaction problems, I actually had a friend who was familiar with FFVIII and liked to compare me to Squall, and despite being well aware of how much it didn't help when the characters did that whole 'that's not like you!' thing, she would then, in all seriousness, do the same stuff to me, and I always wanted to call her on it but of course I never actually did.)


ALSO YEAH THE ZOMBIE DRAW POINT... That was kind of awful.

[timydamonkey.livejournal.com]

There are people who think Final Fantasy 8 has terrible graphics?!

And there was me always thinking "wow, they're really pretty and haven't aged that badly".

[twilit-wanderer.livejournal.com]

I've never seen anyone complain about just the graphics, so I like to imagine they're really just listing anything they can think of, however potentially irrelevant it may be, as another reason to hate it, because, yeah, I think they're just fine. (Clearly it's actually just the nostalgia talking, or that we're both lunatic Square-apologists, or something.)