The Ben Blog

I’m fond of the DLC for the latest Dynasty Warriors games. It’s always cheap and usually a very fun way to refresh my experience with the games. And I love getting new outfits. One of the things I always look forward to when a new game is released is seeing what everyone’s wearing now. So getting all kinds of new clothes for cheap is great for me. Particularly for those characters whose outfits I take issue with. (I know I’d have played DW6 a lot more if I could have stuffed Xiahou Yuan in literally anything but that vest of his). I have particularly strong feelings for this latest pack of outfits, so I’m going to ramble about them for a bit. I’m starting with Wu because I have the most thoughts on their outfits.

Sun Ce

Sun Ce is can now be dressed like Urashima Taro. Long (I assume me) story short, he saved a turtle. Turns out it was a goddess or something and they got married. …….Japan is weird.

Da Qiao

Sun Ce’s wife gets to dress up as Otohime, that turtle Urashima Taro married.

Next is a group of characters based on the Little Red Riding Hood fairy tail (from Europe!)

Zhou Yu

Wu’s original strategist gets to be the Big Bad Wolf. So…Yeah, that’s pretty yiffy. Make what you will of that. I like the coloration of the outfit (it makes him look evil like every other adviser ), but his ears and tail just seem kind of stuck on to me.

Xiao Qiao

Zhou Yu’s wife gets be Little Red Riding Hood. Apparently, that interpretation of the fairy tale is a lot more common than I realized. Uncomfortable connotations aside, she does look cute in it. Though that might just be because she’s, like, 12. I get the impression that she’s going trick-or-treating.

Lu Meng

Zhou Yu’s successor Lu Meng plays the Huntsman in this weirdly sexual little fairy tale. So…what, he’s just here to cockblock Zhou Yu? Well, whatever. The outfit looks appropriate on him, and it’s a bit more interesting than his usual clothing choices.

Next comes a bunch of outfits based on Alice in Wonderland – the story that forces me to retract that “Japan is weird” comment and just shake my head at what happens when you tell stories whole smoking a shitload of opium.

Sun Quan

I actually don’t remember the King of Hearts, but that’s who “Train” (as I call him due to the way some character say his name) gets to be. I’d have put him as the Queen, actually, as Train had a habit of trying to execute people when he’d had too much to drink. But I guess they want us to take him seriously or something. I don’t know, I think he’d look good in a dress. The puffy parts don’t look too bad on him, but it’s kind of like putting a dog in a sweater.

Or something.

Lian Shi

Train’s wife is, as you could guess, dressed as the Queen of Hearts. I really don’t think the character suits her very well (see above), but I do really like this outfit. I get an odd, jazzy vibe from it, and the puffy skirt is fun.

Zhou Tai

Zhou Tai looks pretty spiffy as the Trump Soldier. Not a lot of people can still look like a badass while wearing a belt made out of little hearts, but he pulls it off.

Lu Xun

Little Lu Xun gets to be the White Rabbit. I’m not entirely sure why. Maybe it’s because he got involved so late in the game? I don’t know. As with Zhou Yu, his bunny parts just seem kind of pasted onto his head. I like the rest of the outfit, though. It’s very colorful and fun. His giant watch belt buckle makes me think of Flava Flav.

Gan Ning

…Did I call Zhou Yu yiffy? At least he’s mostly wearing his shirt. Xingba is just hiding behind a red carpet on his chest. Once again, we’ve got the problem of his cat parts being glued on unnaturally. But at least he carries the look off pretty well. I can see him as the Cheshire Cat, he’s got the smile for it. A good choice of costume.

Ling Tong

Ling Tong is the Mad Hatter, and he carries the look off perfectly. He has the perfect body language for it, relaxed but kind of dangerous – perfect for a guy who could just go off on you at any moment like the Hatter could. Dude’s terrifying. I particularly like Ling Tongs pants/shirt and his rainbow belt. Stylin’.

Sun Shangxiang

I run into a personal problem here. I had a crush on Shangxiang a while ago (back in DW4 and 5), and I’ve just recently realized how much she and Gina have in common, personality-wise. It’s actually a little eerie. Thing is, I don’t really like Shangxiang’s body – not curvy enough for my taste. I was in a workable place with that. Then I saw this outfit. My first reaction upon seeing it was “Is Shangxiang dressed as a maid?” The problem being that maid outfits are kind of a thing of mine. So…yeah…uncomfortable now. Why does the universe have to do this to me?

Then again, Gina just realized she can’t choose between Sima Yi and Sima Shi, so she can only shame me a little bit.

The remainder of the outfits don’t really have much of a theme. They’re just fun.

Taishi Ci

Our good buddy Taishi Ci is Kintaro. From what I gather, he was a giant baby with godlike strength. He played with animals, then grew up and moved to the city with a famous samurai. Since he liked it, he brought his mommy to live there with him. Considering how much Taishi Ci loves his mom, I think it’s fitting. I’m just glad they didn’t go with Kintaro’s original getup, which was nothing but a bib with the kanji for “Gold” on it.

Sun Jian

Pappa Wu is Odin, the Allfather. The Norse had some of the most badass deities around, and Odin was the boss, no questions asked. Very fitting for Papa Wu, and the outfit itself looks great on him. I do kind of question his helmet, but it’s a Viking thing, and I try  not to insult Vikings.

Huang Gai

And standing next to Papa Wu is Huang Gai, the octogenarian pyromaniac. Because he’s such a boss, Huang Gai gets to be one of the baddest of all divine asses: Thor. Sounds right to me.

Ding Feng

And finally we come to Ding Feng, already called “the scariest face in Wu”. Fittingly enough, he’s Frankenstein (‘s monster). This actually works on a few levels. His appearance, obviously, is well suited to the costume. But if you’re actually familiar with the story, you might recall that the monster was actually a very intelligent and thoughtful individual – much as Ding Feng is beneath his frightening visage. I approve.

Two bits of good news from the War on Terror today; one of which is, admittedly, a bit more suspect than the other. I’ll start with the shadier thing first.

Read the article here.

Azerbaijan gets the fun job of sitting between Iran and Russia. It’s one of our little buddies over in that area, so they take a lot of flak from the Arab nations nearby. The Associated Press reports that just recently, Azerbaijan has arrested 22 of its citizens who were plotting various terrorist attacks against Azerbaijan and American-related companies.

This isn’t the first time Azerbaijan authorities have discovered terrorist cells in their country and prevented them from carrying out various attacks, from the destruction of a McDonalds to the assassination of Jewish teachers. So if these 22 Azeri are part of an Iranian terrorist network, then it’s very good that they’ve been taken down.

There is, of course, the question of whether or not these actually are terrorists. There are some strong indicators that they are – a lot of weapons and explosives were seized when they were arrested. And the article has some details about how they were recruited, when, and by whom. As far as I know, Azerbaijan doesn’t have a history of making these sorts of things up, so I’m willing to believe them. But it is always good to be a little leery, lest we find ourselves in another Red Scare where the accusation is tantamount to evidence.

The other bit of news I got today is much more concrete.

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta is visiting Afghanistan. Wednesday morning (Tuesday for those of you in my part of the world), he was attacked. As his plane landed in a military base, an Afghan driving a stolen car set it on fire and drove it at the plane. Everyone made it out of the situation alive – including the terrorist, who is being treated for his burns.

It is quite possible that this is not the ‘usual’ sort of terrorist. Rather than being motivated by religious extremism like our usual lunatics, this might have been about the recent shooting spree an American soldier went on, killing 16 Afghans. I suspect this because the guy driving the car actually fled from it rather than, say, blowing himself up as terrorists tend to do. But that’s just my speculation, and I’m hardly an expert.

Source.

I know, I know; that title sounds rather melodramatic, doesn’t it? God I wish it was.

Nope, there are death squads roaming Iraq neighborhoods hunting down homosexuals and killing them.

I’m going to start out by saying that this isn’t a new thing. In fact, violence against homosexuals in Iraq is one of the things that got worse after the U.S. invasion and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Hussein’s regime, while technically Islamic, was largely secular. Being the maniac that he was, Hussein didn’t really have much respect for any sort of higher authority. His word was law. And so, while technically his religion and regime condemned homosexuality, he didn’t really care and wasn’t all that interested in hunting down homosexuals. With him out of the way, though, militant groups took to the streets and started enforcing their own rules. While the U.S. soldiers were busy dealing with the al-Qaeda terrorists and remnants of Saddam’s army, the under-trained and inexperienced local police were left to deal with issues like this – and a whole lot of them didn’t really care to.

And yet, while this started to be a serious problem during the U.S. occupation, it has actually gotten worse since the U.S. left Iraq. A gay rights activist under the name Roby Hurriya comments on a surge in violence against homosexuals in the last 2 months. He has evidence of 14 killings in the last three weeks – many of them killed by being held on the ground while someone smashed in their heads with cement blocks. Hurriya believes as many as 200 homosexuals have been killed in recent years. He can name 66 victims who he personally knew. Disgusting as it sounds, the Iraqi government is not classifying these murders in any special way, so we don’t actually know the total death toll for homosexuals in Iraq.

Now, of course, if this article was just about death squads killing homosexuals in Iraq, the title wouldn’t sound so strange. But then I went and threw emos into the mix. Remember them? I know most of us found them annoying here in America. But in Iraq, it’s a fun new thing that the kids love. They see it as a way to express themselves and really, I think that kids in the Middle East have a much bigger problem with their individuality being crushed than we do here in the west, so more power to them.

But say, do you remember what the most common insult we threw at emo kids was? That’s right! We used to say they were all gay.

Please take a moment to recall the previous few paragraphs.

Yeah. These death groups are killing emos as well because they’ve convinced themselves that they really are gay. And if you think that the fact that the killings have spread to heterosexuals as well will help the situation, you’re out of luck. According to the article I read on the subject: “The Interior Ministry added to the atmosphere of menace last month by releasing a statement that labeled the emo culture “Satanism”. It said a special police force would stamp it out.”

So yeah, this is basically condoned by the Iraqi government. This has been going on since 2003 and there’s no end in sight. Nor is there any push for us to do anything about it, from Team Red or Team Blue politicians. It gets harder and harder for me to believe that either party actually cares about anything.

Source.