gogmagog | "The hero wore hot pants" sounds like the name of a very bad, very gay historical romance novel.

OK, more SuikoTactics.

Haha, the "talk" conversations in battle both give me warm fuzzies and amuse me. I especially like Flare and Hot Pants' first conversation: "oh, hello, how're you?" "fine, fine, and how are you?" "oh, I'm good." Think they finally figured out the whole brother-sister thing? Because it is kinda coming off like a Luke/Leia moment, where they're like, "ew, WE ~~KISSED~~ MAY HAVE HAD ROMANTIC THOUGHTS ABOUT EACH OTHER...this is awkward."

Also, Hot Pants' conversations with Snowe are cute. "Am...am I doing good?" "Yeah." "W, we're still friends, right?" "Of course." AWWWWWW

Anyway, on the way to Haruna they end up being attacked by bounty hunters, who apparently think Kyril and co. have kidnapped Corselia. After defeating them, two more people show up, and the gang (thinking they're more bounty hunters) prepares to fight, but one of them recognizes Andarc. The guy's name is Coop, and he and Andarc go way back. He's there with his boss, Heinz (he says, "I'm Coop. I work under Heinz," heh heh). Turns out Heinz knew Walter (and was also investigating Rune Cannons), and Coop went to the National Academy with Andarc. Heinz is kind of a jerk - when he sees Yohn, he's all "ah, Walter's pet. I didn't think she'd still be alive." Kyril takes umbrage, going all "bitch, don't talk about Yohn that way, she saved my life! *fingersnap*" and Heinz has the grace to look abashed. He reports that the Kooluk have been active recently near the Scarlet Moon border, with Rune Cannons - he asks if they can come along, and Andarc natters on about how they'd be an asset (and by "they," he means Coop, and by "asset" he means ass-et, if you know what I mean).

... I truly never tire of making Suikoden gay jokes. XD

Anyway, Heinz and Coop join the party. Heinz, however, does not appear on the roster, which makes me immediately think he'll be another Sanchez and get his betrayal on. (And as later events will prove, I'm not wrong.)

Anyway, at this point I go recruiting - I fight some thieves to get Reinbach's Rose Crest with Charlemagne as an ally, and then return the crest to get both Reinbach and Charlemagne in the party. Then I talk to Reinhold in Merseto about how a mysterious warrior is beating people up, and go to challenge her. She is, of course, Mitsuba (you'd think she'd have a new schtick by now), and I trounce her handily (another S rank!) and get her to join. Upon returning to Merseto, she browbeats Reinhold into joining as well. Mitsuba's actually kinda weird - she has a Chameleon Rune, which means that her innate element isn't fixed, but varies based on the day of the week. O_o

Anyway, now I decide to progress the story and go to Haruna. There, the sorcerer Simeon that I'd heard about is under attack. And y'know, from the old lady talking about him healing people when she was young, I was expecting a wrinkly, wizened old man like Warlock. But holy crap, Simeon's young! And kinda hot, in that GetBackers-manga, girly-looking childbearing hips way! :O

Anyway, I beat off the bad guys. Then their leader, Ornela (who we've seen before as Busk's sister and an aristocratic Kooluk general, opposed to the Patriarchal Faction [which is what Iskas is working for]), shows up. She recognizes Corselia, as it happens, and calls off her men. Corselia calls her "Aunt Ornela," and refuses to go home with Ornela, asking if Ornela will pretend she never saw her so that she can see something with her own eyes. Ornela reluctantly agrees to let her go with Kyril, after threatening him with vague bodily harm if he lets anything happen to her.

Then attention turns to Simeon. Corselia promptly introduces herself as the granddaughter of Julius, Emperor of Kooluk, and everyone else is all "dude wtf!" Simeon is suspicious at first, but then they tell him about the Evil Eyes and the Rune Cannons' negative effects, and Simeon says it sounds unlikely that it can be reversed. However, he comes along in hope of seeing it himself, and so joins the party. Then they hear the townspeople murmuring about Corselia, and they skedaddle before a scene occurs.

Unfortunately a scene occurs whether they're there or not, with a whole bunch of townspeople hoping to meet the emperor's granddaughter, all "we don't want anything special, just food, my kids are hungry, please!" Of course, the party's gone, so the people's wishes are unfulfilled. Still, it seems like a clue that perhaps Kooluk is not a particularly good government. (Though why we'd think any government that fell for Graham Cray's crackheaded plot would be competent in the first place is a mystery.)

Afterwards, Heinz talks with Coop. After hearing Corselia's identity, he wants to kidnap her and hold her hostage to get the Kooluk emperor to do what they want. Coop, however, is not down with this (he's the tardish boy-scout oniisan type, all "I don't think it would be right!~"). Heinz calls him a coward, and is all "fine, I'll do it myself" - then Corselia herself comes out of the bushes looking royally (no pun intended) pissed off. She reads Heinz the riot act - and points out that if anything happens to her she's left instructions with Kyril to contact the emperor of Kooluk. Heinz replies that he was just joking (I BET) and stalks off in a sulk.

I like Corselia now - she's actually got some guts. XD

Anyway, I buy new stuff in Haruna; Jeane is in the tavern, but she won't join me until I do some unnecessarily complicated quest. So I move on to the Small Border Village (on the border between Kooluk and Scarlet Moon, the location of the first Suikoden). There Kyril and co. are stopped by Frederica, whose VA is HORRIBLE. She's like this butch badass archer, and it's not so much that her voice actress is BAD per se as much as she's wrong for the role, because the voice is way too squeaky and is striking fear in the hearts of NO ONE.

Anyway, she says that Kooluk has been setting up Rune Cannons, as they'd heard, in an effort to fortify for an attack on Scarlet Moon. Kyril's announcement that they want to destroy the Rune Cannons comes as a pleasant surprise to Frederica (a rather nasty one to Heinz though, who seems less than happy) and so she joins the party, and a battle immediately ensues to destroy the Rune Cannons that are massed up in the village.

The battle is kinda a bitch - mostly because of SuikoTactics' nasty habit of spawning more enemies mid-battle - but made easier when a few rounds in three new allies appear: Paula and Jewel (both on Giant Owls) and Selma. Paula has a new VA, who is also HORRIBLE in a robotically perky way.

Also, I don't think I've mentioned this before, but the two best characters in the game are easily Hot Pants and Kika. Good ol' Hot Pants is of course the best, not unlike McDohl in S2 - he's a kickass fighter, and is the ONLY fighter character to be able to use a magic rune as well (the Rune of Punishment), which also happens to be the best magic rune in the game. In addition using it no longer causes damage, as in the end of SuikoIV. Put all this together with his ridiculously high speed and good skillset, and he's the Orlandu of SuikoTactics. Meanwhile, Kika is almost as good. Her stats, aside from HP, are also great for her levels, and her Falcon Rune kicks a ridiculous amount of ass for a weapon rune. And they're both wind-elemental, so you can totally just toss a bead down on the ground to make wind terrain and then set them back-to-back, and there's very little they can't take on.

Anyway, after the battle is over and the cannons are destroyed the new members join permanently, and Heinz looks at the ruined cannons clearly mad that they were destroyed rather than under his control - he mumbles that he'll get them next time or somethinig equally traitorous.

Then we get some interesting background. Around the campfire, Frederica asks if they know about Graham Cray (the boss of SuikoIV), who used to work for Scarlet Moon and then later for Kooluk. Apparently the reason he went mad and killed those Scarlet Moon nobles (and hence got exiled to Kooluk) was because those nobles needed an enemy, an excuse to fight, and so torched his village and made it look like the Kooluk were responsible so they could retaliate. Cray went crazy and got revenge. (Now this doesn't excuse pimpin' out his kid to the killer Rune of Punishment, but whatever.) Anyway, Frederica's village got obliterated in the fighting, and that's why she's so concerned about this conflict.

...Speaking of campfire scenes, there are some really funny ones around this time you can get by Resting. Specifically, one with Reinbach and Charlemagne where Reinbach acts like he's on crack, and one with Katarina, Keneth, and the other three ex-Razril Knights (Tal, Jewel, Paula) where they reminisce about the good ol' days and talk about where they're at now that's really cute and nostalgic.

Anyway, at this point Kyril decides to go to the capital of Kooluk to find out what they know about Rune Cannons there. This is actually one of my problems with SuikoTactics - the entire game is about getting rid of Rune Cannons, but we don't have a hugely great motivation for doing so. It's like "well, they turn people into fishmen occasionally - but rarely - and so I guess that's bad, and I DID promise my dead dad that I'd keep trying to destroy them..." But we don't even know why Walter wanted to destroy them, since he did want to do so even before he found out about the fishman thing (and found out about it the hard way, heh heh heh). And I know they answer these questions later, but I kinda feel like they should have at least addressed it a little more by this point. Still, I'm enjoying the game greatly, so it's no biggie.

Augh, I just got my click-n-ship for my second order today - supposedly it shipped yesterday. So it would probably have arrived Monday but now I'll have to wait till I get back in January to pick it up from the P.O. (because I put a hold on my mail). ARGH.

AL-ARAAF
'Neath the blue-bell or streamer -
Or tufted wild spray
That keeps, from the dreamer,
The moonbeam away -
Bright beings! that ponder,
With half closing eyes,
On the stars which your wonder
Hath drawn from the skies,
Till they glance thro' the shade, and
Come down to your brow
Like - eyes of the maiden
Who calls on you now -
Arise! from your dreaming
In violet bowers,
To duty beseeming
These star-litten hours -
And shake from your tresses
Encumber'd with dew
The breath of those kisses
That cumber them too -
(O! how, without you, Love!
Could angels be blest?)
Those kisses of true Love
That lull'd ye to rest!
Up! - shake from your wing
Each hindering thing:
The dew of the night -
It would weigh down your flight
And true love caresses -
O, leave them apart!
They are light on the tresses,
But lead on the heart.

Honeyed lilies, dry lotus root and fae flowers.

In the bottle: Almost kind of a cherry scent, maybe? For some reason I'm really sucking at being able to describe these scents in the bottle, and I'm not sure whether it's because they're 5mls or whether this specific line is just very well-blended.

Wet: Kind of an evergreen-y, woody scent, very calming and peaceful. There's a sweet undertone of something, not sure what. Then I looked at the description and wtf, honey and flowers? It doesn't smell like that at all (well, the honey might be the sweet undertone). I guess the woody scent is the lotus root, which is dominating - and I hope it continues to, because I like the way it smells now and don't want the flowers to come out and stage a hostile takeover.

Dry: The honey amps up, but it's a spicy honey. The lily also comes out a bit, but it blends well with the rest and isn't a hugely OMG FLOWERY scent anyway, so it continues to be quite nice.

Verdict: Holy crap, a floral scent that isn't super-girly and that I can actually wear! This is definitely a keeper, I'm glad I have a 5ml of it.

ALONE
A hectic, frenzied pinpoint in desolation: booming, bleak, and dark with the horror of loneliness and reluctant solitude. Patchouli and cardamom with bright mandarin, labdanum, muguet, red sandalwood, angelica and gardenia.

In the bottle: Disturbingly incensy evergreen. Like Dublin gone psycho. D:

Wet: Oh, the patchouli has gone EVIL, and even the mandarin and flowers can't save it from smelling like Satan's head shop. Something cinnamony - the cardamom, or maybe it's the red sandalwood? - makes a brave stab at calming the patchouli, but one that is sadly doomed to failure.

Dry: It all kind of blends together into an incensey tea scent, but that patchouli's still just a bit too much for me. And it's STRONG, with a whole lotta throw - it's actually kind of giving me a headache.

Verdict: Er, this is one to definitely swap away, I'm afraid.

SPIRITS OF THE DEAD
Thy soul shall find itself alone
'Mid dark thoughts of the grey tomb-stone;
Not one, of all the crowd, to pry
Into thine hour of secrecy.

Be silent in that solitude,
Which is not loneliness - for then
The spirits of the dead, who stood
In life before thee, are again
In death around thee, and their will
Shall overshadow thee; be still.

[cut for length]

A shuddering white scent, of ghostly breath and stony silence: dry tea leaf, linden blossom, papyrus, orris and coffin wood.

In the bottle: It reminds me of the way the apartment my dad had when I was a kid smelled, and I'm not sure what exactly does that (maybe the orris root) but it's kind of a blast of nostalgia.

Wet: Yeah, it really really does remind me of my dad's apartment. It almost smells citrusy, but not really. It has that same kind of tart freshness that citrus does, though, but with a more...woody?...undertone to it. There's a floral thing going on too, but not sure what. Overall it's a very calm and peaceful scent.

Dry: Pretty much the same as wet.

Verdict: I actually think I'd like this one even without the nostalgic associations, but with those I definitely like it. It is a really peaceful, gentle unisex scent.

Let's Positive Linking!
- Murderous Santa display protests secularization of Christmas. Featuring Santa: Special Serial Killer Edition! :D
- 83-year-old grandma hits 3-story beer bong. I would totally be all OMG COOLEST GRANDMA EVAR, except that Old Grandma Hardcore is still cooler. However, this lady shows a definite adventurous streak that I have to admire.
- Top 100 Engrish moments in videogames. Wubba, wubba. I'm in the pink today, boy!
- Knitta, please. A new and bizarre kind of urban graffiti. (This and the above links have been brought to you by