I mean sure but all I mean is that teenagers don’t know how to do anything and generally are feckless and awkward. I don’t have a problem with turning that on its head and insisting that that kind of uncomfortable authenticity is cool and that people who shun it are the real losers, man. honestly I’m inclined to agree. but they’re still functionally losers. they can’t do anything right, and they’re inclined to fail in often humiliating ways. this happens with every party character in final fantasy viii and that’s why I like it. it’s true-to-life in a way that these stories rarely are. there’s some genuine coming-of-age stuff in there that most young adult fiction can’t touch.
and teenagers are usually losers in both senses of the word, it’s just that most of them never evolve to be anything less embarrassing as adults. even if they become something most people wouldn’t call a loser, rightly or wrongly. but man, have you been around any teenagers lately? they’re intolerable. I couldn’t stand them when I was one and I like them even less now. I’m sure there are cool ones out there but as a rule? I’m sorry but they’re losers. same with adults tbh. it’s not an age thing. most people just continually suck even worse over time in the exact manner you’re describing here. you have to seek out and cherish the ones who make it out with their souls intact. and imo this is a much less bleak outlook than “you can only be cool as a teenager and after that it’s over. you missed your chance”. fuck that. I lost my teenage and college years and most of the rest of my 20’s to depression but I still found a cool life for myself as I aged and I’m glad I never bought into the belief that it’s over when you turn 20. it’s never too late and I honestly don’t know if I would have survived this long if I believed otherwise.
wise words, to which i can fully subscribe.
Also consider that for some, it is only possible to become their true self when they technically aren’t teenagers anymore, and it is kinda cool to meet people and see how they turn a new leaf and became better people for embracing who they are, instead of trying to appease to the masses and becoming anonymous NPCs.
what makes them losers exactly? cid having a failed marriage? laguna joie-de-vivre-ing his way into being president of a cloaked, hidden sci-fi nation? I think cid comes out alright in the end, he’s flawed but owns his failures and demonstrates a lot of compassion and humanity despite his position and past accomplishments. and laguna fuckin’ rules. he never stopped being cool. he’s like a hundred times cooler than squall. it’s ironic bc he’s more of a teenager than anyone else, he just never let go of being painfully, awkwardly sincere and it actually worked out for him
but what I love about ffviii is that it doesn’t hold back from revealing the flaws of the entire cast. and it does this with affection and humor. even with seifer. even with edea. there’s this throughline that no one is really that strong, that good, or that evil. they’re all just fucked up in sad but relatable ways. there isn’t any actual authority, and we see the ways in which they are all losers in one way or another. it’s comically exaggerated but there’s something deeply true about that. and for me, that kind of realization about the world is the most definitive thing about reaching adulthood and maturity. no one is driving. no one knows what’s going on. your parents are just as fucked up as you are. maybe you should stop taking yourself and your problems so seriously, squall! maybe you should take a cue from your old man, as embarrassing as he is.
Cid teamed up with his wife to establish a military school for the express purpose of killing her if needs be, but when push came to shove he sequestered himself and delegated all of his authority and responsibilities to a child.
Laguna became president of the free world, but never in 17 years bothered to contact his child. (Still thinking of how mad my wife got at him when I told her this.)
I’m not saying either of these characters have no humanity or aren’t cool in their own way, but their failures are far more consequential than anything the 6 main characters did (even if everything turned out fine in the end).
a conversation i had with my 3 year old nephew about a dream he just had:
“there was a cat there in the library and i shot it with a gun”
“were you scared, or just being mean”
“just being mean”
“being mean is fun isn’t it”
“yeah”
maybe the questioning was leading but his answers were consistent with the rest of his personality
he is nice to cats irl though. but his grandparents once shot a rooster after it lunged at him and they ate its flesh so he was definitely going through a human dominion over animals phase at the time
that’s because kids can’t fail and adults can, that’s the whole point. remember, this is when every single japanese commercial creation wanted to be sexless evangelion
anyway yeah I think ffviii cid is the closest square has come to making an adult human being in a video game
really loving all the FF8 chat it is reinforcing my suspicion that it will be my favorite one when i actually beat it someday
im struck by how sedate the opening chapter is, most FFs start with a bang and sweep you right into the world before settling down a little, the zenith being FF7 and the Mako Reactor 1 bombing. FF8 feels consciously different, youre walking around your college campus while extremely chill ass music plays and your first dungeon is a one-on-one exam with your hot professor
the Timber mission is closer to the FF shock-and-awe first setpiece and its held off long enough for you to realize youre playing a bunch of dorky impatient teenage mercenaries instead of a hardass ecoterrorist resistance group (not that AVALANCHE arent ultimately a bunch of dorks as well)
the opening punch is instead reserved for the CGI Squall and Seifer duel, truly one of the sickest oversignified melodramatic SquareSoft cutscenes. (second only to KH1’s OP because “simply & clean (planitb remix)” fucking slaps ass. ive been having these weird thoughts lately… like is this any of this for real or not… … …)
ff8 has so much aesthetic verve from the moment you turn the game on. i really like the music and the black and white photographs and subdued credits finally landing on the title after what feels like quite some time, and then just chilling in silence until you press Start
its really confident aesthetically Square was really in their feelings then lol
i wonder how much 9 was intended to be a deliberate nostalgia trip afterwards cuz i dimly remember 9-10-11 being a big “anticipate what Final Fantasy is doing next” media thing, previews in magazines that 9 was gonna do Airships and Crystals one last time on PS1 while 10 was Exciting Next Generation on PS2 and 11 was ??? WE DONT KNOW
Turned out 11 was an MMO (and sucked) whereas 14 is the MMO that sucks less enough to be worth playing
also remember that 9&10 were trying to lean a tiny bit into this new WWW-thing, when it wasn’t clear what would (and wouldn’t) work, 9 had some
hey, visit that (webpage) to find (some tidbit)!
bits in the official guidebook which felt like the most tacked-on bit there was, FFCC a few years later didn’t even entertain the idea of trying to entice someone to visit a webpage.
10 was more focussed on
hey! listen! join the FF club online and talk! to! other! fans!
selling you on a forum, and iirc they already/slowly started to wrap around to start selling merch… in hindsight, it is somewhat not there yet. Imagine Blitzball being an online game where you would have dueled with other players, and it would explain why it felt so useless in FFX
