Viktor's star-sake is a perfect match for him. He was the archetypical brawny Chinese drunken priest, large and hearty with a mix of chivalry and bad sense (oh, and the appetite!) that exudes Viktor. Except for the priest bit, because.. priests can't get married, and even if someone can't see Viktor and Flik as Viktor-and-Flik, even if they aren't lovers, Viktor and Flik are still as good as married. Married, I tell you. Was that how they got to Edge, in suiko 3? He has this rumpled kid quality, that tells me he wasn't raised in a family with a mother, because no mother would condone her kid looking something like that. (Meia and I on SMS: "Edge, how many times do I have to tell you, don't leave your clothes crumpled like that!" "But Oyaji does it!" "Viktor-" "Oh, come off it, Flik." And then they brawl, and the Star Dragon sword sneaks off with the kid until all's right in the house again. Which doesn't really correspond to the "important person" story Edge gave, but.. it was just too good to pass up. Notwithstanding the fact that Viktor and Flik in Sui2 gave me this unkillable urge to write a story- and I think I will, when I find a way to slot it in- casting them as the spouses in Done is Done which, if I remember the title correctly (was it Gone is Gone?), was a German folktale of a farming couple exchanging duties for a day, because of perceived inequalities in the difficulty in their work. The gist of it was that the husband managed to completely spaz up the housework- there was a cow on the roof, the dog sick from sausages, and the baby.. I can't remember what he did to the baby, but it was something not good. While the wife managed perfectly, and came back to a household that was.. uh, well. I'd apologise to Flik for casting him as the wife, but the wife was cooler, anyway. And can't you just see Viktor making a mess in the kitchen and shrugging it off with, "Nah, gone is gone,"? Edge seems to have a bit of Flik and a bit of Viktor in him, as if they'd raised him from a child. He even has Flik's star!)

Wonder what Viktor and Flik were doing in Suiko 3. Wonder what a lot of the old cast were doing in 3, actually. I don't really want to believe it, except on grounds of the amusement value, but I have this sneaky suspicion that the hero of Suiko 1, McDohl, was Hugo's father.. Nothing really is known about Hugo's father other than that he was a hero, and he had black hair and was around during the Dunan wars. There are several that fit that description (scariest of which is Luca Blight, since they were after all on the same side) but apparently you cannot bring McDohl to the battle with her at the final dungeon, which.. says a lot. And which set me to wondering what would happen if, say, it were true, and Lucia simply didn't tell McDohl, and one day he came wandering to the Grasslands and then Found Out.. (which coincided with "what would Tir, Viktor, Flik and Riou think about those plays Nadir put up starring them?) It would be.. catastrophic, at first. Then Lucia would get Tir to make Jowy Hugo's Godfather, and Gremio would make them stew, and they would go fishing and everything would be just peachy keen and fine. Inasfar as they ever are in Suikoden. (Tir before he takes Hugo to visit at Gregminster: I hope you like stew.)

Also, Luca Blight ate my brain. The best indicator of which was when I finished the first draft of something, and my only reaction was "Oh God, Jowy, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry." ... ...Luca and Jowy, yes, because Luca was crazy, and yet I couldn't help but think that he had more to him than what was explicitly shown in the games. Plus, finding translations of Gaiden scenes helped make him take root in my mind.. And I never had trouble beating him, though I played through that part twice, thanks to my habit of always getting lost in dungeons, and ending up absurdly overleveled. That probably helped.

And in the end.. you know what I really wanted to see in Suikoden 3? Nina's kid. I mean, if even Milia and Ronnie Bell and Yoshino had children who just happened to be stars of destiny, why not Nina? I get the feeling she's hated, but she always amused the hell out of me. (And her unite with Flik kills me every time I see it.)

He said, "I don't want the book answer." Said I, "Well, it's either that or the three-year answer." And he said, "Three year answer?"

"If I started on that, I should take three years to explain it, and three years more to actually say it. And I want to do my tutorial now."

"I thought better of you."

In retrospect, I thought better of myself too. I used to be thrilled whenever I could find somebody to discuss things like that. But when I have a choice between fussing through a statistics tutorial or a sticky question very few people much smarter than I have managed to answer at all adequately.. when it's during a math class.. for now I think I'll take statistics. Messy, but one thing I've always liked about maths is that it is always in black and white. Either you're right, or you're wrong. (Or you made a stupid mistake somewhere above the answer line and it's messing everything up, but that's a gripe for another time.) Besides, after my experiences in JC, I'm frankly scared of discussing that sort of thing with guys.

This amuses me. Look, I have no guts!

Went for a routine checkup at a medical centre attached to a hospital today, and was made to fill out forms attesting to my health and get my temperature checked before the staff would let me in. Today my first lecture was cut short so that the school could let us have yet more declaration forms and brief us yet again on SARs. Chalk up one more casualty to that disease: all those trees!

I'm not actually worried about SARs apart from taking the usual preventive measures- all the measures anyone /can/ take so far are preventive- in the unlikely event that I feel feverish, I'll go home and possibly see a doctor; I'm not going anywhere near any of the places where SARs cases have been reported. But who goes there much anyway? From the view of the nigh four million people in Singapore, I mean. I don't wear a mask because it doesn't afford you any protection at all. How do you fight a virus they haven't even identified with certainty yet? Until the medical experts come up with more workable measures, I'm not doing anything else. And yet sometimes I wonder if I should be worrying like everyone else is; took a taxi home today and of course all the taxi driver talked about was SARs. I do worry that the measures that have been taken involving me personally are primarily focused on tracing me, should a SARs case be discovered they'll be able to trace me for quarantine- good for Singapore as a whole, but not a very comforting thought to me, personally. There is nothing else to do, however, so I guess it doesn't pay to worry. Ah well.

...I'm the really gay Koyasu witch guy! With a crush on my homophobic dweeby chairman! *dies*

..Koyapi is a fan, the article says. When next I have money and time to spend, I might just get the first book of this.

Apart from that bit of news, I got all my exam papers back and I finished Suikoden 2 with the good ending. (School is weird when the Further Maths faculty does better for the Further Maths paper than the C Maths, but I shan't talk about that.) Anyway. Suikoden 2. The 'Bad' ending made me bawl like a little girl, so I went back to an earlier save and resolutely slogged my way through getting all 108 stars. I hate doing side quests, and had a bit of panic when "It says WANDER AROUND THE MUSE/GREENHILL BORDER AND THE FLYING SQUIRREL WILL JOIN YOUR PARTY. But.. but.. the Muse/Greenhill Border is /closed/! Those pesky soldiers won't let me in! And I'm at the last chance point to gather all the stars!" Eventually I got past that problem (after more panicking once the squirrel joined my hero- he was /useless/. And dying.) Happy ending. I like Riou. I like Nanami. I like Jowy. But he has a lot of making up to do.

(I keep thinking that one day Nanami will get tired of their angst- because of course the two of them will be full of regrets and apologies and what-have-you that can never be adequately expressed to each other - and she will shove them into a broom closet somewhere until they make up. Or make out, as my inner Nanami tells me. Hee hee.)

Had a dream in which I got really angry at my parents. I don't remember how or why, but when I woke up, all I remembered for a while was that I was still angry with them. "Morning Dad!" "...wait, am I supposed not to be speaking with them?" I felt really silly for a while.

...Neclord has the chirpiest battle music /ever/, barring Seymour's final battle theme in FFX. I mean, really. Neclord has this unhealthy obsession with organs and chapels, since every time I see him he just has to be around one- in the first game, I must have spent about an hour trying to find his bloody chapel- and I was peeved at having two boss battles in a row without a way to recharge the runes, but I managed.

It probably didn't help that I was spending half my time laughing at the music, though. And Viktor had the best lines. Perhaps the music was in reflection to his mood- he must have been /very/ happy.

I'd watched quite a lot of Suikoden 3 previously, and right now I'd say I'm halfway over 2, but I think that even after I finish that, 1 will still be my favorite.. if only for the Hero. And I'm not quite sure why I like him so, for a guy who doesn't get to speak much. Poor little nice guy getting strung along by fate.. throughout most of the game I got the feeling that he was thinking mostly "shit, Dad's gonna /kill/ me." And as to that..

But I liked the gameplay, and the castle, and the characters. Even the bath, even if they never did anything funny in it as in Suiko 3. Just get in there, and stare at the characters in hot water, and inexplicably burst out laughing.

Suiko 2, however, contained all the gay. Alll the gay. It's not enough to have a cute hero and his cute best friend who is always cutely concerned for him, they have to have a cute unite attack! (which also happens to kick cans of whoopass.) And then there are the characters you meet.. I loved Viktor and Flik in 1, (Kimberly: Drink with me, pretty boy. Flik: *stammers* ahh, no, I'm taken.. Viktor: XD XD Take him.) but them in 2 were just great. No, it's not enough to go off together, leaving no word, they have to set up house fort together. And banter like a married couple.

And then you have Miklotov and Camus, Camus whom I like a lot, disproportionate to the amount of screen time he gets so far, who just gives off this vibe of gaaay.. very much like Percival of Suiko 3. Except that he knows when to keep his mouth shut. I wub them all.. even the narcissists of Suiko 1, that group of really weird people who sit around in the midst of a rose garden in your castle.. but it's too sad that just as I got the hang of battles in 1, the game ended, and the system in 2 was entirely different.

And now, since school's reopening and I really shouldn't be playing anymore, I shall go catch up on the stuff I missed when my computer was down.

At least, hopefully, I get to go out tomorrow, if it's only to see the doctor- a regular appointment, not anything to do with SARs, but. Fresh air! Freedom! Blissful ignorance of the pile of math and physics revision!

Also been reading. Totally by accident, I came across another sort-of yaoi high fantasy series (probably makes you very happy, eh?) It's the Avaryan Rising series, by Judith Tarr. I'm not too familiar with her work, since to date I've only read four of her books, but the first one gave me the impression of her being a historical romance author. I liked her prose, though, so I got the first few books of Avaryan Rising- The Hall of the Mountain King, The Lady of Han Gilen, and A Fall of Princes. Strictly speaking, none of them are /really/ yaoi- I'd advise sticking to just The Hall of the Mountain King, if you want the yaoi fantasy intact; book two rather irritated me, and while book three had the most forthright yaoi bits of all.. it had a rather disappointing ending.

Um. So. One thing I noticed from these four books is that her female characters (except in Hall of the Mountain King) tend to steal the story, but not the show. Sort of bordering on the edge of Mary Sue-ism, but not quite. I don't know why I get that feeling, either, and I don't know why I get quite so irritated by Mary Sues. Perhaps it's the blatant pushing of what I regard as something to be kept private, or maybe because most of the authors who write Mary Sues tend to be so inept that they put me off reading characters of the same mould entirely. Yet I don't recall actually reading enough of that type of thing to warrant this level of dislike- if I don't like what I read, I put it down or hit the back button, no harm done leaving people to their own- maybe it's infectious dislike. Maybe it's instinctive dislike. Interesting.

Hikaru. Sai. Entering the Shaman King Tournament together. *owowow* What would their oversoul attack be called? The "Hand of God"?! Or would that be the ultimate goal that all the shamans in the world work towards and cherish in their hearts and try desperately to reach?

..I can so see this, even if I don't want to. Oh, the pain in my soul. Shounen manga spawns, I tell you. And Akira would be so Ren. Almost. They even both have unusual hair.

And Yonha.. Yonha would be /Hao/.

...I'm being ridiculously happy about this, considering that this reprive comes about because of fears of viral outbreak. Or something. Don't actually know too much about the SARs thing that everybody's so worried about.. been too busy trying to study. I mentioned to my mom today at dinner that one of my friends was home with an mc because of suspicion of the disease, and she and the entire family immediately shifted to the other side of the table. What was funny was that I was only musing that I couldn't remember if I'd seen her before or after the hols, it being only the second day and non-lesson at that- maybe I should start taking SARs more seriously, huh? But seriousness probably won't save me from something carried in the air.

Ah well. What's important is NO SCHOOL! What's sad is that for me, it simply means MORE TIME TO STUDY! Finished half of my exams. Today's paper was a true killer. And it was only three pages, too. Printed on two sheets of paper, blank on one side. Seven questions. Two hours. And I left the exam hall feeling sick to my stomach. This was a paper I thought I was reasonably okay for, too. There was this pair of four mark and five mark questions- my solution for each took one line. There was this three mark question that was part of another question- I took half a page to solve it. There was this question I almost left out completely, because they didn't put it in the list of topics to study, dammit. It was the easiest question of the lot, too, and I know that I could have done it- I know the method, in fact, knew it, did it maybe a thousand times for the tutorial- but just couldn't remember the formula. XO XO XO XO *much screaming and tearing of hair*

Funny how the one thing that probably won't leave me after I leave school is the feeling you get when you discover your soul can be poured out, in two hours, in three sheets of flimsy paper.

Also I'm trying very hard not to think of Hikaru no Go at all, because even though I keep telling myself Go is not Sex! Go is not Sex! And certainly when I actually play the game, it doesn't feel even remotely sexual to me.. but I just can't help thinking of Hikaru's match with Suyon, in tankouban nine- The One Night Stand He Just Couldn't Forget.

"I learned Japanese just so I could hear you say my name!"

"Oh, but I already knew it.."

*emotional*"Play me!"

Too bad Hikaru's taken many times over, honey. Ma-any times. Really, if Go /were/ sex, Hikaru might quite possibly be torn apart by his jealous lovers. And if Go were sex, you might describe Sai playing as possession, Sai playing Hikaru as.. er, use your imagination, but how would one go about describing internet..

Right. Putting the thought to rest now. *forces thought into graveyard for bad things at knifepoint* (Why do these things always come to me during exam time? WHY?)

..okay, so I think that when Yonha smiles at Hikaru like that he's really going, "you know you want me, momma"

....

/Going/ to study now..

But there will be people who will go on, not even noticing it.

Spent most of my day at the library yesterday, reading through economics notes. Finally I left when the cheers for the amazing race thing tie in with the 'Speak Good English' campaign got too annoying. Whatever possessed the organisers to think that cheers would improve the standard of English in Singapore anyway? Especially since shouting automatically cancels out the literate effect.

Also watched Meia play through a bit of FFX-2.

Bitses of Spoiler for FFX-2!

..when they killed Sin, I'll bet they didn't expect global warming to ensue. Although I'm still at a loss at what to say of the game's beginning. Sure, it was totally whacked- everything in this game seems to be whacked, from the clothes to the music to the magic (dress up! really now, Square!)- but it was.. strangely compelling. Sort of Yuna meets Trish, of Devil May Cry. Not as in a cross between the two of them, but as in a literal meeting, with Trish educating Yuna on the benefits of Girrrl Power. Only Yuna is still too much Yuna for her to espouse the kind of things that Trish does. Yuna was always strong, but it used to be a quiet, polite /restrained/ kind of strength. Now..

Well, goodness. The clothes are one thing. (I say Tetsuya Nomura whacked out when he discovered that they wouldn't let him play with any of the male characters) Guns! And singing! And shooting people to announce her arrival- whatever /would/ Otousan say, Yuna? And running past people hanging dangerously from a clifftop.. my, Yuna, you've certainly changed.

Spent most of my day at the library yesterday, reading through economics notes. Finally I left when the cheers for the amazing race thing tie in with the 'Speak Good English' campaign got too annoying. Whatever possessed the organisers to think that cheers would improve the standard of English in Singapore anyway? Especially since shouting automatically cancels out the literate effect.

Also watched Meia play through a bit of FFX-2.

Bitses of Spoiler for FFX-2!

..when they killed Sin, I'll bet they didn't expect global warming to ensue. Although I'm still at a loss at what to say at the beginning. Sure, it was totally whacked- everything in this game seems to be whacked, from the clothes to the music to the magic (dress up! really now, Square!)- but it was.. strangely compelling. Sort of Yuna meets Trish, of Devil May Cry. Not as in a cross between the two of them, but as in a literal meeting, with Trish educating Yuna on the benefits of Girrrl Power. Only Yuna is still too much Yuna for her to espouse the kind of things that Trish does. Yuna was always strong, but it used to be a quiet, polite /restrained/ kind of strength. Now..

Well, goodness. The clothes are one thing. (I say Tetsuya Nomura whacked out when he discovered that they wouldn't let him play with any of the male characters) Guns! And singing! And shooting people to announce her arrival- whatever /would/ Otousan say, Yuna? And running past people hanging dangerously from a clifftop.. my Yuna, you've certainly changed.

Where to start? Reading through Game, I suddenly realised, "Hiroshima!" ..and smacked myself for having been so slow to see the obvious. That not so much helped me understand why the buggers were feared, but why and how the Japanese were feared, during World War 2. And brought up comparisons between descriptions of the battles in the Second Invasion (lousy higher-ups, brilliant field commanders) and the Germans also of World War 2, but made me think that all the wars in Game, including the one waged in Battle School, ended too dramatically, too cleanly, for them to be truly realistic. Although it wouldn't have been the same without ending the way it did, I admit.

I went into Shadow expecting to be disappointed, being forewarned, but found that I rather liked it, even though it stripped away any vestige of liking I had for Bean- I thought his way of thinking narrow. I can see the purpose of the novels after Game, as I can see that of the novels in the Shadow series. But what I don't get is this attempt to pare down Ender's character- the 'flaws' that Bean saw in him, the somewhat floundering character of Xenocide. In Ender's Game, I thought, was painted a masterpiece of a character, which the rest put cracked or cloudy panes of glass over in an attempt to make it more 'realistic'. I think I've said this before, only in different words.

Moving on..(blather blather blather. maybe I should quit this blog and start a book review site, or something.) Shaman King. First, I would like to point at the character of Tao Ren. (bottom character here.) ...I don't know what so ticks me about him. He's a brat, yeah, but his character by itself is not unusual of shounen manga. I think it's probably the hair. Somewhere sometime ago I came across the term 'sex unicorn' and while the context was so traumatic my brain forgot it in the interests of staying sane- the trauma stayed. That extraneous, gravity-defying spike of hair of his.. er. And the scary thing is, he's not the only character in that series contending for the title..

Hair aside, I quite like Ren, though. He's spoilt and grumpy and you know /exactly/ where he stands in relation to the main character, but cute all the same. Typical rival-type, but Yoh has to be the most laid-back protagonist of shounen manga I've ever seen, and thus, he is great. Greater still is Anna his fiancee- I'd ship Yoh/Ren, mildly, but any situation where I can think of them together, they'd be caught and the FEAR OF ANNA put into them. Inasmuch as that means invisible chairs for Yoh for the next fifteen hundred years and about a century of 'home correction'. That goes for anything involving Yoh, actually. Anna's great.

...I don't know what she'd do to Ren.

My second login, tonight, I get totally trashed. Someone help meeeee~

But that's because I just had pe! HAHAHAHAHAHA (I think I'm going crazy.) It's technically the beginning of the March break now, but my entire week (bar Tuesday) will now be spent studying. Feel my big balls of hate. On the other hand, not having physical education next week just means that I'll be able find out whether my phys ed teacher goes into pms-mode on alternate weeks, or on alternate pe lessons. (I mean, the /last/ week we didn't do anything wrong, but she managed to turn our ineptitude at tying nets to posts- and I don't think we were that bad, either- into a major, if completely irrelevant rant on How You People Are SO Pampered And SO Spoilt. And this week half- over half the class took blue slips to escape pe, but she was surprisingly.. nice. It's dizzying, I tell you.)

And so. Since I stink, I shall go to bathe. If I go for club tommorrow, I shall probably blog again.

DOUBLY BIG OW

On the other hand, Squeeeeeee!!!

And go here, and look at the 23456 hit illustration in the gallery, the 1818 hit, the 30000 hit.. and oh my god. (is that Kaori Yuki? I see Kaori Yuki.)

..the baby Cloud pictures here scare. (Yes, I have exams coming and I'm surfing Japanese fanart sites, why do you ask?)

Anyway. The paper had a decidedly anti-American slant, s'what I say. Very popular to bash the Americans now, yes. One question went "George Bush's 'war on terror' is nothing more than an expression of American imperialist aspirations. Do you agree?" Normally, the teachers would at least write "President George Bush". Using his name alone in a formal paper sounds weird, although I'm not in particular a fan of his.

The comprehension was two papers, one bashing America from the British point of view while simultaneously taking potshots at the British themselves. The other one was adapted from a book called "Why Do People Hate America" involving a long and tortured comparison of the American nation to the 'ubiquitous hamburger'- which the author described as 'essentially junk, food compounded by a whole series of additives that make the final product of little nutritive value' ..which sort of speaks for itself.

Even the teachers, man. Even the teachers. (Of course in GP we are expected to put up more or less balanced answers so whatever tones the passage or questions take don't really have impact on your personal answer unless you want it to, but.)