Part 49: Par for the Course

Huh, how about that. I love etymology trivia, even if the roots are incredibly nerdy.


"why it is like a mountain of rubble"




see they let it slip that iz is a guy




well i have and she is clearly right there, are you fucking blind






no


no fuck damn


nooooo i want my running shoes back




"You know what we call that back home? We call it a 'ma'i.' Ancient Hawaiians knew that women get really pissy when they have their ma'i, so they would make them go in a different hut while they were having them so they wouldn't have to deal with the bullshit. They were really smart I tell you what"


"Not really.
But I'm moving on."


And that's it. Makakao's entire existential crisis. It is now fully resolved and he doesn't talk about it ever again.

Adus I want you to write Makakao an apology for your accusations of emotude


Awright Iifa Tree time

wait no maybe if I run around in that forest over there I'll encounter that Ragtimer asshole and he can give me some dollaz


that




that is not a fucking ragtimer


It drops an Emerald. It teaches some cool stuff I guess but Makie is the only one who can make use of it for the time being with MP+10% and Haste.


oh also the world map area around the iifa tree is called the pualei plains

obviously you have probably heard of what a lei is, that being a cultural sort of wreath you wear, but there are many variations of it. there are the traditional ones, like the ti leaf lei, the kukui lei, or the ubiquitous plumeria lei

there is also the haku lei, which is a sort of wreath you wear on your head kind of like that laurel shit romans wore, though these tend to be made of very different shrubbery from other leis, i have seen them before but couldn't tell you the specific materials

modern variations include the silk lei that is traditionally given at graduations, the candy lei, the money lei, and of the infamous plastic flower lei that so many tourists get conned into buying, it's pretty hilarious considering you're paying like $15 for a thing kids make dozens of in kindergarten

but now you are all educated so you shouldn't make that common tourist mistake, if you want one that will last forever get a varnished kukui nut lei instead and it looks much better




yeah that doesn't look ominous at all





Kilika walks into an invisible thing



"i don't see any fuckin' seals, holly do you see any seals?"
"arf-arf-arf"
"shut up makakao

i might not be able to make a coat out of you but i would be more than happy to club you anyway"








just like kilika scratching his butt, the option to kick the shit out of any and every strange object we have prompts for is also a thematic component of ff9






yet another scene that would be absolutely ruined by voice acting of any kind









So the Iifa Tree is a pretty strange pl


GIANT BONER TENTACLE MONSTER


ace and is full of very natural root formations and shit.


adus your apology is to be written like a mognet letter


yes

yes it is

it weighs approximately 5,974.6•10^21kg that is quite a lot












yeah this isn't dangerous at all


a brilliant plan




no god damn didn't you learn your lesson the last time when you stuck your hand in a hole and almost got buried under a metric ton of sand








Just like every other dungeon in this game, the Iifa Tree feels gigantic, but it really isn't. It's like seven screens long, including the ones in the trunk.


un tss un tss un tss un tss un tss

So Makie's Trance skill is Double White, which is basically a White Magic version of Makakao's Double Black. You just cast two White Magic spells in a row, which sucks unless you know Holy, in which case it still sucks because Holy is a single-target spell that will almost never do 9999 later in the game because everything gets such obscenely high Magic Defense that you need to 4x reflect a spell onto a single target to get anywhere near it.

But that's another story entirely.

Long story short DblWht is the most useless Trance in the game, right after Cook. White Magic in FF9 is only good for healing, or dropping an emergency Float against enemies that use Earth magic. If you're using it for anything else, you're doing it wrong.


Zombie Dragon is kind of a pain. Unless you're doing a Level 1 playthrough, in which case it is a godsend because it can Zombify a character. They don't gain any EXP, but I think they still get AP. Kind of a pain in the ass anyway, though, for all the weaknesses it gives you, and how it prevents you from healing in-battle.


also elixirs for everyone 'cause i just don't give a fuck


Pretty much everything about the Iifa Tree is super weird.











curiouser and curiouser




:keanu:

keanu reeves's blood cousin was in my dorm in boarding school

he was super portagee, like five feet tall and five feet wide

i forget what became of him, i can never remember if he went into chicken fighting or construction or law enforcement or just ended up hangin out on his porch playing portagee horseshoes all day








"Um, Mog senses a lot of life beneath us.
Moogles are faeries, so they sense life everywhere, but Mog says there's a whole lot here!"


"Well I haven't seen any folks in fabulous business suits anywhere so I doubt he even has agents at all"




"But if the Mist comes from this tree, how come it only appears on Kilika's continent?"
"I guess there has to be something that channels the Mist."






"Oh! I'm sorry! I didn't mean to..."
"It's okay. I'm not upset anymore... about being made and everything.
Anyway, that factory had a lot of Mist inside, right?
There's gotta be a connection between the Mist, Kuja and... the black mages."



So I really enjoy the stuff The Black Mages put out. Every once in a while, I'll search for news of a fourth album because you never know.

Doing a quick GIS of that image led me along my news-checking path again, and what did I come across but an Overclocked Remix thread about them! Most of the thread was "lol they bitches i am so pro i could make a better songs than them jap jap jap"

I dunno, there's just something about pretentious assholes that makes me grit my teeth and wanna kick their ass. 90% of the people who make RPGMaker resources--I mean, they make good stuff when you're like me and can't program for shit--I'd kick their asses notwithstanding. 90% of the people on OCR, I'd kick their asses too.

Politicians, CEOs, Donald Trump, Rupert Murdoch, Haunai-Kay Trask... there's a lot of fat, slobby, jiggly ass that needs to be kicked in this world. I think a lot of the world's problems would be solved if only we were allowed to kick more asses. I suppose it wouldn't do a lot for world hunger or STDs, but you never know.





NEXT TIME