Part 6: Memories of That Day Still Haunt Waffles

Last time, our intrepid crew of seafaring misfits set out for Kilika, only just escaping a brush with the Fail Whale.  (Kilika itself, however, was not so lucky.)  Yuna performed the first of three miracles necessary to qualify as a saint, Lulu hurt everyone's feelings, and Waffles failed to make any friends.


On the way back to the docks I had Tidus attempt to take down a killer bee that had only 1 hp left and be nagged by Lulu when he missed. Then I pressed the wrong key and had her attack it with her mog rather than casting a spell and she missed it too. And nagged herself.

This guy has a particularly bleak view of Sin, but you can’t really blame him after everything that happened here yesterday. He doesn’t even have the hope that humanity will be free of Sin through atonement. He just sees it as a punishment to be suffered.

Yuna sitting up on this barrel here with her feet dangling is really cute. :)

Aboard the S.S. Winno, Waffles hangs around downstairs with the Aurochs while Yuna is upstairs making polite conversation with the Goers under the watchful glower of Kimahri.

(And the binoculars of Wantz. Uh . . .)

Which of the Aurochs do these Goer girls have their eyes on?

Waffles? Nope!

It's Keepa!

Good advice.

Yeah, like the couple who stand around making out in clear view of everyone. Get a room, you two!

(Also check out Gatta asleep on the floor over there next to Luzzu.)

I stopped by to see the chocobos again and read this sign. Underwhelmingly, it just says “Feed.” You know, like the sack of chocobo feed right here. I don’t know what I was expecting.

Above deck, the Goers start giving Tidus a hard time, prompting this excellent scowl from Yuna in the background. They remember him from outside Kilika Temple, where he loudly proclaimed that the Aurochs are going to win the blitzball cup this year.

(It is kind of hard to argue with this logic.)

Yuna gallantly rushes to Waffles’ defense.

Unfortunately, he doesn’t back her up, leaving her to hold up the “Zanarkand is Real” argument by herself. The Goers exchange glances, then brush Yuna off as either crazy or simple. They can’t really argue with her since she’s a summoner, so they defer to her with a transparently patronizing tone and then go away.

And she looks so sad. :(

Waffles asks her what’s wrong, and we learn that she really does earnestly believe in Zanarkand:

She isn’t just saying so to humor him; she’s believed ever since Jecht told her about it when she was a little girl.

This seems like something that would be possible to disprove, but I guess the only people that have been over Mt. Gagazet and survived are summoners. Who did not come back. (I wonder how all the crowds of tourists manage to get over there in X-2 if it’s such an arduous journey?) Everyone is going by the historical knowledge that Zanarkand was destroyed 1,000 years ago in the war with Bevelle, but you know, that could have been easy enough information for the Church of Yevon to falsify, if no one ever goes there.

It’d be a really neat twist if it turned out that there WAS a thriving machina city there after all, isolated from the rest of Spira and waiting to strike back at Bevelle, and Tidus was actually from present-day Real Zanarkand. And ordinarily civilians from either side simply weren’t taught about the existence of the civilization on the other side of the mountain, so it was a secret only known by the Maesters of Yevon and whoever was in charge in Zanarkand.

*drums fingers, stuffs into a file of AU Fanfics I Don’t Have Time to Write*

Yeah, he really does. But it has to be big enough to accommodate the yellow-booted FEET he is constantly stuffing into it.

Translation: There’s a cutscene happening up there you should go eavesdrop on.

(I like how Wakka sits down in preparation for what he knows will be a long lecture.)

Wakka: “Relax! He’s bound to know someone in Luca.”
Lulu: “And if not?”
Wakka: “He could always join a blitz team. Anyhow, it’s better than just leaving him in Besaid.”
Lulu: “What? Just leaving him in Luca?”
Wakka: “What do you want me to do?”
Lulu: “Yuna wants to make him a guardian.”
Wakka: “Oh yeah, geez . . . There’s that too, eh?”
Lulu: “And whose fault is that?”
Wakka: “Not mine!”

Wakka: “It is mine, huh?”

Lulu actually does care about Tidus, if nothing else than for Yuna’s sake. She is concerned about Wakka’s lack of foresight in bringing him along, and worried that he doesn’t have any other plan for him other than “see if someone will claim him when we get to Luca.” She may also be concerned that they’ll end up responsible for him in the long run, but she can’t in good conscience just dump him in a big city and hope for the best. (She’s also apparently a bit perturbed that Wakka has talked up being a guardian as this great job when she knows from experience that it is not.)

This conversation continues if you keep eavesdropping . . .

Wakka: “Oh, right. Wait, you sure ‘bout that? He’s really Sir Jecht’s son?”
Lulu: “It’s hard to say, but Yuna seems to believe so.”
Wakka: “Okay.”
Lulu: “‘Okay?’ ‘Okay?’ That’s all you have to say?”
Wakka: “Well, yeah, I mean . . . He’s gotta decide for himself, ya? Well, him and Yuna, I guess.”
Lulu: “You’re right, for once.”
Wakka: “Ahem.”

(Tidus’ becoming a guardian and going with them, or staying behind in Luca.)

I guess Wakka has won at least one argument against Lulu, but not very solidly.

Wakka: “Should what?”
Lulu: “Become Yuna’s guardian.”
Wakka: “Why me?”
Lulu: “Because Yuna can’t.”
Wakka: “Why not?”
(See this is what I was talking about when I said she must get frustrated not being able to carry on a coherent conversation with anyone.)
Lulu: “He hates his father – what he was, what he did. Do you really think she can possibly say to him . . . ‘I want you to be my guardian, like your father was to mine?’”
Wakka: “Aren’t you being over-sensitive?”
Lulu: *huff!* (I like to imagine that her fur ruff fluffs emphatically whenever she does this. Making it a huff and a fluff. Heehee.)

(Wakka is being soundly out-sassed in this conversation.)

Wakka: “I’ll try talking to him after the tournament.”
Lulu: “Be discreet.”
Wakka: “I know. It’s his decision.”

Lulu has gotten all this information on Tidus’s personal feelings from Yuna, who apparently tells her everything. I can very easily imagine Yuna gushing breathlessly and in great detail to her about every conversation she had with him that day. And Lulu listening patiently while silently willing her to omg please just go to sleep.

You guys are all terrible gossips. (Which is pretty realistic for the behavior of a family, if mine is any example.)

Wakka: “Hating your own father, huh? Sounds like a luxury to me. I don’t even remember my parents. Can’t say how I feel about ‘em.”

Wakka: “Dammit! Sin just takes everything away from us.”

This conversation raises some questions. Wakka is two years older than Lulu, meaning that if they’re talking about the same incident, he was seven when his parents were killed. That’s the same age that Yuna and Tidus were when they lost their fathers, and they clearly have memories of them. So either Wakka has a poor memory, or he and Lulu are referencing separate Sin attacks on Besaid. (Or Lulu, as I hypothesized earlier, is from somewhere else.)

Either way, he is probably thinking both of their lost parents and of Chappu when he slams his fist into the deck.

And he’s probably still thinking of Chappu a little here.

“About that conversation which I’m sure you didn’t just overhear.”

I always forget how short Lulu is, even including her hair and her heels. (According to this, she’s 5’5” without them, and Tidus is 5’9”.) I always assume she’s taller. Maybe it’s just her attitude and her regal bearing.  And that she looks so much taller than Yuna.

“Those Lucans dragged off Keepa! I . . . I hope I’m next.”

Ohhh dear. D:

(If the Luca Goers are the Career Tributes, then Doram and Balgerda are definitely Clove and Glimmer. Bickson is Marvel and Graav is Cato. Keepa should get out of there.)

(Tidus has a memory of failing to do his father's outrageous Jecht Shot as a child, earning a bonk on the head from the floor and ridicule from Jecht.)

Notice Bahamut’s creepy child fayth lurking around in the background here. Either he was hanging around at the time that this happened, or he’s infiltrating Tidus’ memories as he is remembering them.

MEMORIES OF THAT DAY STILL HAUNT WAFFLES.

The Jecht Shot Challenge is way more amusing if you fail it, which was fortunate for me since I’m playing this with a keyboard and am still getting used to the controls.

“I’ve had enough of your smug face, blitzball!” *punt*
Good thing everyone has like, an endless supply of them.

Then the camera pans over and up and oh no.

She was there the entire time. She saw the whole thing. She saw you fall on your head. She saw your wee temper tantrum. She knows you tried to do a Jecht Shot.

He asks her how she knows that and she says that Jecht showed it to her when she was little. That must have been an extremely busy day, considering that she says Jecht showed up the day her father left on his pilgrimage. So in one day, Jecht was dumped in Spira by Sin, got himself arrested, was sprung from jail by Braska with Auron in tow, became a guardian, met Little Yuna, told her a bunch of stories about Zanarkand, showed her the Jecht Shot, and then left with Braska and Auron to go on pilgrimage without even time to buy a pair of shoes.

“Hey, kiddo. What? No, I’m from Zanarkand! I rode here on a giant whale. Yeah it’s totally a real place. There’s a huge blitzball stadium all lit up at night and nobody ever goes to bed. Of course I’ve been there! I’m the star player of the Zanarkand Abes, you know! Wanna see something cool? I call it the Sublimely Magnificent Jecht Shot Mark III. *punt* Uh, sorry about your ball. Well, I gotta go, your daddy made me a guardian or something and now me and him and this grumpy dude are gonna go fight Sin. See ya!”

Tidus believes her that they’re talking about the same Jecht now, though.

He asks if she thinks he’s still alive, and she says she doesn’t know, but he was famous in Spira, too:

This is a very good point Yuna makes. Why is nobody looking for Jecht?

In the eyes of the Spiran people, he should be a legendary guardian just like Auron. As far as I can tell, a legendary guardian is one whose summoner defeated Sin, and who survived. Due to the rarity of that happening, Auron has achieved celebrity status. So wouldn’t people be curious about the fate and whereabouts of Braska’s other guardian? Especially if they don’t just assume that he’s dead?

Then she asks him what he would do if he found him.

“After everything he put Mom and me through. And because he was famous, I was always . . .” He brightens, realizing they have something in common. “Well, you should know, Yuna. Your father’s famous, too. Everyone in Spira knows him, right?”

(Good face.)

“But the honor of having a father like him surpasses all that, I think.”

Yuna’s early childhood wasn’t easy, either. Although her father was (as far as we can tell) loving and supportive of her rather than harsh and dismissive like Jecht was of Tidus, he had to abandon her when she was seven, too. He did it partly to free her from the life of discrimination she would have endured on all sides as the child of an Al Bhed and a disgraced priest. Since her mother died when she was younger and her Al Bhed family had not tried to reach her yet, she was left in Bevelle, probably in the care of the temple orphanage, where she would not have been exactly welcomed. (Mind you, I’m extrapolating this from what little we know about Yuna’s early life, but she does mention that Kimahri found her wandering the city alone at night, indicating that whoever was supposed to be watching her was not doing a very attentive job.)

While Tidus is rebellious and resentful of his father for leaving him and his mother, Yuna remains a model of filial piety. But interestingly, neither of their perspectives is presented as necessarily wrong.

If you miss the Jecht Shot, you get this cute line. (After Wakka gets Tidus’ attention by whacking him with a blitzball, per usual.)

If you succeed, he asks Waffles to teach the shot to the Aurochs.

The Sublimely Magnificent Waffle Shot Mark III!

I dunno. It looks like Datto just sprained his everything back there.

The next morning we arrive at Luca, and Tidus’ face lights up with joy when he sees the blitzball stadium. Look at how happy he is! It’s finally something he recognizes.

However, his good mood is soon crushed when the announcer starts ragging on the Aurochs before they’re even off the boat. It gets worse when they start talking about how great the Goers are immediately afterwards. Wakka is used to this kind of reception towards his team, but Tidus certainly isn’t. He’s the star player of the Zanarkand Abes!

(Somebody on tumblr pointed out Tidus’ blithe lack of awareness of the irony of telling a team called the “Goers” to STOP RIGHT THERE and I can’t stop laughing.)

This time everybody but Yuna is embarrassed to be seen near him. Lulu appears to be considering the merits of just leaving Tidus in Luca after all.

Fortunately everyone’s attention is diverted by the arrival of Maester Mika, head of the Yevon church and leader of all the peoples of Spira. (Even the non-Yevonites.) Lulu briefly exposits that the tournament is being held to commemorate his 50 years in office. Waffles makes a good point:

And gets walloped by Wakka for his disrespect. It's possibly that Grand Maester is a lifelong office, but that is still a long time for one old guy to be in charge . . .

I can empathize with Waffles here. Actually, in a crowd, I am more on par with the crying child to the right who can’t see anything at all.  (According to that above-linked list of FF character heights, I am shorter than Rikku.)

I like the buildup to Seymour’s big dramatic reveal.  You see people whispering about him. Then you see his dragon tattoos and open shirt. Then you see the lower half of his face and his mysterious smile.  The big secret must be his face, since it’s being kept so carefully concealed from us. Then suddenly he whisks around and !!!! 

BLUE HAIR ANTLERS.

Also he is obviously the bad guy because Final Fantasy does a terrible job of hiding them. Smoothly handsome, charismatic, pleasant-voiced guy with improbable hair and a leadership position? Yeah he’s definitely going to turn out to be evil.

You can see Lulu bowing respectfully here with everyone else. I wonder if the Yevon bow originated 1,000 years ago as the blitzball symbol for victory that Tidus knows it as and was appropriated by Yevon, or if it was just used for blitzball in the fayth-constructed Dream Zanarkand, and stripped of its religious connotation in a world with no religion. At any rate, Waffles is confused.

Mika introduces Seymour to the crowd:

“Under circumstances that were in NO WAY MYSTERIOUS WHATSOEVER.”

Yuna’s father was working to do the same with the Al Bhed, but he was less successful. (Probably because he wasn’t looking to convert them like Maester Jyscal did the Guado, just make peace.) This was how he met Yuna’s mother.

Then Seymour notices Yuna in the crowd and they exchange glances so intense they cause my emulator to glitch some of the people standing around Yuna out of existence.

I wonder if he recognized her personally (or by reputation), or if he recognized her as a summoner, or if she really just caught his attention because she’s cute. At any rate, this kicks off one of my favorite subplots. Yuna is intimidated and flustered but a little delighted to be the focus of his Intense Gaze. Tidus is less delighted. Nobody else seems to have noticed.

He says, as Yuna’s poor little heart is pounding through her sternum.

“Why is nobody ever glad to see me?”

NO. SCREW YOU, TUTORIAL!! I CAN DO THIS BY MY OWN SELF. LET’S GO.

Waffles eloquently summarizes the way I feel about tutorials. And sports. In general.

But just then Yuna and Lulu bash into the locker room. Yuna is all excited because

She wants to go look for him right now, despite the fact that the tournament is starting in like five minutes and Waffles is supposed to be the Aurochs’ trump card. Yuna gets so carried away that it’s not until she’s dragged him out of the room that she explains her reason for bringing him along: Auron was also her father’s guardian, and she believes he may be a way to finding Jecht. She doesn’t know that Tidus already knows him. She just really wants to help Tidus find his dad, and meet the man who knew hers. (Well, again. They probably met briefly when she was seven.)

This time Tidus does believe that they have to be talking about the same guy.

A lot of the problems they are about to have could have been easily solved if Lulu had gone with them. She must have noticed that Wakka was stressed and decided to stay to calm him down. There aren’t a lot of other reasons she’d voluntarily hang around in a stinky locker room when she could be out enjoying the open breeze of Luca. Maybe she hates crowds.

Headcanon: Or maybe she just really doesn’t want to go see Auron, because they already met ten years ago, and parted under embarrassing circumstances.

Poor Keepa is back here in the corner repeating the new goal Waffles gave him like a mantra.

Outside in the hall, Tidus runs across two Al Bhed Psyches players who are hanging around looking not at all suspicious. 

“A lady summoner! We must report.”

Waffles, bless his heart, starts clumsily trying to thank them for the help that the other Al Bhed gave him the other day, under the assumption that all Al Bhed know each other. When he realizes that they don’t understand his language, he simply raises his voice and starts bellowing at them, like that’s going to help.

There is something very stereotypically American about the way he does this. He comes across like the caricature of the blundering American abroad, which is an interesting detail in a Japanese game. Actually a lot of Tidus’ impulsive, loud, and clumsy mannerisms seem very Western, especially in comparison to Yuna’s more polite, reserved attitude.

Yes, you had better. :c

I love the female Ronso. And I love how she’s watching the fishies out the window here like a big kitty.

Apparently blitzball players get the “Sir” address like ex-guardians. But only really good ones.

Although this makes sense, in a world where blitzball is so important because it’s apparently the only entertainment they have, that really good blitzball players would have honorifics and be treated as celebrities. I was going to wonder why they don’t seem to be paid an obscene amount of money, live in luxury, and do product endorsements like modern athletes, but they probably do. But just the players on the winning teams, and especially the stars. So the Besaid Aurochs, Kilika Beasts, and other disadvantaged teams still live in relative poverty while the Luca Goers are among Spira’s social elite.

There are miscellaneous signs on shops and things written in Spiran around Luca. This one says “Weapon,” and over the middle, “Blitz Ball.” I was going to go around reading everything but AuronLu has already translated a lot of them.

Ronso family outing. :) I wonder how the Ronso blitzball players train without access to the ocean.  There must be some (freezing cold) lakes up in the mountains.

Luca Goers, Besaid Aurochs, Ronso Fangs, Al Bhed Psyches, Kilika Beasts, and Guado Glories.

I am sure nobody will be kidnapped or release a bunch of fiends into the stadium if that’s what you mean.

Hahaha um. That’s not ominous. Not at all. Usually people do their eternal reposing from the inside of a coffin, just so you know, mister.

I can see that! Please continue!

 

After the brief sightseeing tour I took Waffles on around the stadium he catches up with Yuna to find her being filmed for a spherecast already. (And Wantz’s blog.)

But he's the star player of the Zanarkand Abes!

This guy knows how to appreciate fine comedy.

I wonder where these are broadcast to. There are big screens around Luca, but I wonder if anyone has television-type devices in their homes in the more affluent areas. For that matter, I wonder how people get information in places like Besaid and Kilika where they don’t have them. I guess they just hear things by word of mouth from sailors and traders.

You wouldn’t think that this doofy little scene would be the cause of so much heartbreak later on. But you would be wrong.

So there!

Yuna: “Because when a lot of people start to gather . . .”
Waffles: “Sin?”
Yuna: “Mmhm.”
Waffles: “What about Luca? It’s safe here?”
Yuna: “It’s not any different. But the stadium is here. The Crusaders fight to protect it with all their strength.”
Waffles: “They protect the stadium?”
Yuna: “Blitzball’s really the only entertainment we have. Spira’s a little short on fun these days.”

Here’s a glimpse of how bleak living in Spira really is, despite the bright, candy-colored environment. Literally the only entertainment they have is underwater soccer-volleyball. I’d like to hope that maybe Yuna is exaggerating a bit, or that growing up with Wakka and Chappu, she got a disproportionate sense of its importance. Where is the rest of their culture? Is there no art, or literature, or music, or theatre? Don’t people have hobbies??

Yuna gets woozy at the mere thought of tall buildings.

(And yet later she’s able to walk around the deck of an airship without a problem and fearlessly throw herself off a tower . . .)

I bet the dog knows where he is. Waffles, go talk to him and find out.

No, I said red coat, not red balloon! Are you even listening to me?

No, I said “grumpy guy in a red coat” not “dreamy guy with blue hair”!! Get back here, Yuna. Why are you so flustered all of a sudden?

Ughhhhhh.

Not pictured: a café. Also a bar does seem like the more logical place to look for Auron.

That cat seems to know this won’t end well.

Inside, Kimahri runs across these two bullies from his childhood, and we find out that our big blue kitty is actually, at 6’8”, small for a Ronso. They allude to an incident ten years ago where they bested him in combat and broke his horn. As a Ronso’s horn is a point of pride and honor, Kimahri was left in disgrace, but he chose to leave the mountain rather than admit defeat to these two. And ten years later, he still won’t back down.

Biran reaches for his horn stub, but Kimahri smacks his hand aside.

Waffles helpfully encourages him to “Take ‘em on!” Kimahri flattens Yenke with one punch before someone with terrible priorities yells for them to take it outside because the tournament’s starting, not because a bar brawl between three aggressive manly Ronso could result in all possible bottles, windows, chairs, and limbs being broken.

You guys had ONE JOB.

Lulu comes running up and tells them that Yuna’s been kidnapped by the Al Bhed Psyches, who want the Aurochs to throw the game as ransom. But if you remember, she caught their eye because she was a summoner, so this is probably a front for their real reason for summoner-napping, in which case they wouldn’t get her back even if the Aurochs did lose. (Which, statistically, has a high probability of happening anyway.)

Rather than complying with their demands, or alerting the authorities, Lulu wants to track them down herself.  (She likes to take matters into her own hands because she doesn’t trust anyone else to be as competent, especially where Yuna is involved.)

Noooooooo. :(

(Also, the whistling conversation happened right next to this probably-annoyed guy, so he might have overheard it. So he knows what it means, at least enough to bring it up to Tidus.)

“Somebody sneaked up behind me and BUILT A BARRICADE!!”

(Those revolutionaries are tricky.)

There are Al Bhed machina on the rampage around this area but this sailor lady with amazing pants is not afraid of anything.  But if you think about it, sailors must be the most incredibly hardcore people in Spira because they have to deal with the threat of Sin on a daily basis.

“I’ll stand over here while you do it!”

“Someone has to make sure this dock stays off-limits to civilians!”

Yeah you keep telling yourself that, buddy. I’ve got robots to punch.

These three take a break from their frantic pursuit of the Al Bhed boat to watch the all-important blitzball match. They’re just in time to see Wakka get sucker punched by one of the Psyches.

I think Lulu is probably trusting Wakka to buy them some time so that’s why she’s so unsympathetic but seriously, ouch.

Okay so, thanks to youtube we have long since solved the mystery of how Lulu manages to get from the airship to Yuna’s wedding without teleporting, but what remains unsolved is how she manages to jump from the dock here to the deck of the departing ship. Maybe her dress lets her hover like Princess Peach.

The Al Bhed have some kind of blitzball-shooting attack machine on guard that I forgot to get a picture of. Yevon knows why or how they have this thing, but it reappears in X-2.  What could possibly be the purpose of such a thing?

(Maybe the much-maligned improbably blitzball-shaped bomb that Tidus loses his head over in FFX-2.5 was also of Al Bhed engineering?)

The crane on board has the same “Salvage Dream – Cid” logo (backwards) on it as the earlier salvage ship, but Waffles says it’s not the same one, so I dunno. I guess Cid has a fleet of them.

I bet Waffles is good at those arcade claw machine things. 

After the battle, the door opens and Yuna emerges having shucked off the Damsel in Distress trope and already rescued herself. And also apparently beaten the stuffing out of everyone on board. They should have known that even unarmed, a summoner has her pockets full of Pokémon at all times.

But you get credit for trying, you guys. (I wish Yuna got experience for her unseen fight.)

Best victory shot.

 

Lulu continues her tireless fight against Yuna's cowlick.

She’s so proud. :*)

Tidus is less enthusiastic about the walloping Yuna gave the Al Bhed because he remembers his rescuers from the beginning of the game. Even though they took him hostage, threatened him with violence, made him work for them, and he whined about it the entire time. This is what he remembers.

(I told you he wouldn’t forget it if Rikku fed him.)

Can you guys not read? His name is on all the ships. We just went through this.

Yuna explains that Cid is her mother’s brother, (her older brother, I think), but they became estranged after she married a Yevonite. (Yuna’s mother was disowned by the Al Bhed after her marriage to Braska. When Yuna was four, she was traveling back to Bikanel Island to try to repair her relationship with her family, but her ship was attacked by Sin, earning her a place in Final Fantasy’s illustrious Dead Moms Society.)

Lulu and I assume Kimahri already know that Yuna is half Al Bhed, but they’ve been keeping the secret from Wakka. Lulu is about to explain why – he’s a devout follower of Yevon and was presumably raised with the customary antagonism towards the Al Bhed, taught that they are a bunch of heretics and heathens. But his real hatred for them was sparked when his brother chose an Al Bhed machina weapon in favor of the sword he wanted to give him, a decision Wakka holds responsible for his death.

But Waffles abruptly prunes her budding monologue.

They all suddenly remember that Wakka is waiting to hear whether or not Yuna is safe, and therefore whether or not to throw the game. While everyone was standing around reminiscing, he’s been holding the score at a tie all this time despite all his broken ribs.

Waffles jogs impatiently in place while Lulu sends up a signal flare from her fingertips.

When Wakka sees it, his tired face breaks into a smile and he musters the Aurochs. They launch an all-out offensive, do sportsy things that I forgot to screencap, and score one more goal right before the buzzer sounds.

What is this “we” business? Waffles was everywhere in Luca except in the sphere pool during the match and Yuna, you can’t even swim.

It just occurred to me that part of the reason for Lulu’s apathy/antipathy towards blitzball is that it reminds her of Chappu. But wow lighten up there Tardar Sauce. Something like this hasn’t happened in 23 years, which is more years than you personally have. (Ilu Lulu don’t punch me.)

Waffles: "I know I could never take Chappu’s place.  You're the one who told Wakka that, right, Lulu?  And I don’t think Wakka would ever try to take Chappu's pl--"

Waffles, having still not learned that when Lulu is emotionally taut she sprouts thorns, stumbles headlong into this bramble patch. It's really sweet of him and great that he wants to reassure her that he doesn't want to be a replacement for Chappu as was her concern, but he did not think this conversation through at all. Poor Waffles. You tried.

It is interesting though that he's bringing up not only on the possibility of himself as a replacement brother for Wakka, but on Wakka as a replacement boyfriend for Lulu.  Bear in mind that, regardless of what happens by the time X-2 rolls around, there has been no suggestion of a romantic pairing between Wakka and Lulu thus far.  Tidus is the one who starts pushing the idea on Lulu.  (Who does not appreciate it.)

Wow if only we had a white mage or something.

Here we see Yuna beating herself up again for the terrible things that happen to her. Rather than blaming the Al Bhed for snatching her, she blames herself for getting snatched, and for the Psyches taking it out on Wakka during the match when he refused to forfeit it. :( She also feels bad for the worry she causes everyone.

They said they needed help finding their dog in a white van full of free candy I got kind of confused about the details.

I do wonder how they managed to grab her from a crowded place without anyone noticing, though, even with everyone distracted by the blitzball tournament and the Ronso fight unless she had maybe wandered off looking for Auron.

However, I find Wakka’s also blaming Yuna for this really upsetting. I mean seriously even if we’re going to blame the victim rather than the kidnappers here, what about all the people who took oaths to protect her, including the two who were with her at the time? If only she had had some kind of, I don’t know, GUARDIAN, maybe this wouldn’t have happened.

She says, in a stage whisper so that everyone in the immediate vicinity can hear.

Hooray, sports. Do the thing. Win the points.

On a side note, those decorative panels near the ceiling kind of look like the various Evil Eye fiends.

Lulu wields words the same way Auron wields a katana: both to wound others and to defend herself. (Also, sharply.) She doesn’t like to be caught seeming vulnerable. The reason she came across as so harsh about Wakka’s less-than-graceful win earlier was because she was worried about him. She’s frequently mean to him, but she does care about him.

I adamantly do not ship them, but I like their relationship. I see them more like almost-siblings, like they would have been if Chappu and Lulu had gotten married. I think their dynamic is much more brother-sisterly than romantic. (And that the developers for X-2 REALLY dropped the ball when figuring out how to handle this and what to do with them but that is a rant for another time.)

This inscription is for some reason mistranslated, even though it’s in English. It actually says “To the dreams of my childhood – farewell. Captain Wakka, Besaid Aurochs.”

Which is a lot more intense and melancholy than what we’re told it says. But it fits with Wakka’s intention for this to be his last game, and win or lose, he’s going to give up blitzball to become a full-time guardian to Yuna.

(No pressure on me to win this thing then, is there?? D:)

Next time: Sketchy guys! Horrifying monsters! Prodigious badassery! And blitzball.