deLint diagnoses Hal's emotional susceptibility / "flitting in and out" of matches

texture · 11 Nov YDAU

• When: 11 Nov YDAU (same match, later)
• What: As Stice takes the second set and pushes Hal in the third, deLint tells Steeply that Hal's edge over Wayne is finer groundstrokes but his weakness is "the head": unlike Wayne (who forgets each point instantly), Hal remembers points, senses trends, is susceptible to discouragement and set-long lapses in concentration, and "some days you can almost see Hal like flit in and out of a match, like some part of him leaves and hovers and then comes back" — deLint says this emotional/forgetful susceptibility is seen most in Hal. Poutrincourt notes Hal is "better since before the present, perhaps now he is étoile," and that the Founder's "genre-dysphoric" quality "does not sound like Hal." Precursor imagery to the coming dissociation.