Final Fantasy Tactics

[Warlock]

So I can now confirm that Final Fantasy Tactics looks basically exactly the same as the Scottish highlands.

- HC

[Vireo Gilvus]

Yeah, I always got that feeling from FFT's opening movie. Probably wasn't a coincidence that you can hear bagpipes at the beginning of the background music.

So are you visiting Scotland now? What's the occasion? What are your plans? Gonna visit any castles?

[Warlock]

Yeah, doing vacation in England and Scotland (I've already been here for a week or so, actually; I haven't said anything here because it wasn't relevant until now, and I haven't said anything on FB because I wanted to keep the fact and dates that both my wife and I are out of the country on the DL. ).

I've been to a couple- both mostly-updated and ruined... There are a TON of castles in Scotland. This is a place where there's a ruined church from 1500 just sitting out in the middle of someone's wheat field like it's not even a thing. I daresay I could do nothing but visit castles for my entire vacation and barely make a scratch.

We did the obligatory Highland bus tour yesterday- it was a lot of fun, but man. I look at that countryside and I'm honestly a little embarrassed to the extent which my brain is ticking off "Mandalia Plains, Sweegy Woods, Orbonne Monastary..."

I have decided that this is a credit to FFT's art direction rather than an indicator of my level of dorkiness. It does make sense, given that FFT was (allegedly?) loosely based on one of the Wars of the Roses, and the area it takes place in is very obviously an expy of Medieval Europe... Something that the FFT team clearly put a lot more effort into recreating than throwing in a couple castles and knights and faux middle-English accents and calling it a day.

It's kind of an interesting time to be visiting Scotland for other reasons as well...

- HC

[Kalisiin Kumaki]

I was going to ask you about that...the Scotland Independence Vote.

I have a friend from church who is going to Scotland the day after that vote happens. she said everyone there will be drunk when she arrives...either from celebrating, or drowning their sorrow.

As a Welsh woman myself, I sorta wish Wales would go the way Scotland appears poised to.

Wales was never once conquered in it's entire history...we fought them Saxon bastards like hell! Any fellow Welshman will know what
I mean.

[Warlock]

Well, I'm leaving the day of the vote, which I suspect is a bit fortunate for me one way or the other.

Frankly, my take on the whole thing is that Scotland doesn't realize what a rocky road independence is going to be in the short- and medium-term; the pro-secession line is basically "well, we pay more in taxes than we use, so independence means we can keep that locally and sidestep austerity". The other half of that, though, is that they expect to be able to continue to use the British Pound as their currency- the UK has basically said "no, we're not letting you do that" and the sizable Scottish banking industry has said "If it comes to that, we're moving our headquarters to London, because we're not staying here while you try to jury-rig a new fiat currency." There seem to be similar conversations with respect to things like passport checks at the border and NATO/UN/EU membership.

That's just my two cents, of course, and I'm just a tourist. It'll be interesting to see how the vote comes out. There seem to be a lot more 'yes' campaigners on the street, although there's been an upshot in 'no' campaigners the last couple days (apparently a poll just came out showing 'yes' a few points above 'no' for the first time).

In other news, Millionaire Shortbread is awesome. It's probably a good thing for me- all things considered- that it isn't a Thing in the United States.

- HC

[Kalisiin Kumaki]

Well, welcome back to America, then, soon.

Me, I just want Scotland to win independence, because I'd like to see the Tories take one on the chin.