Final Fantasy VII: Death of Aeris

One of the most dramatic and emotional scenes I have ever seen on a video game was watching Aeris die in Final Fantasy VII. I found a well-written wikipedia article on the creators of the game and their thought process regarding her death:

 

“In early planning stages of Final Fantasy VII, Aerith was to be one of only three protagonists. Before this, Kitase and Nomura decided that one character would have to die, and after creating the three characters, decided on Aerith after a long debate. Nomura stated in a 2005 Electronic Gaming Monthly interview: “Cloud’s the main character, so you can’t really kill him. And Barrett… [sic] well, that’s maybe too obvious”. This was not changed after other protagonists were created.^[12] While designing Final Fantasy VII, Tetsuya Nomura was frustrated with the “perennial cliché where the protagonist loves someone very much and so has to sacrifice himself and die in a dramatic fashion to express that love”. He found that this appeared in both films and video games from North America and Japan. “Is it right to set such an example to people?”^[13]

Kitase concludes:

In the real world things are very different. You just need to look around you. Nobody wants to die that way. People die of disease and accident. Death comes suddenly and there is no notion of good or bad. It leaves, not a dramatic feeling but great emptiness. When you lose someone you loved very much you feel this big empty space and think, ‘If I had known this was coming I would have done things differently.’ These are the feelings I wanted to arouse in the players with Aerith’s death relatively early in the game. Feelings of reality and not Hollywood. (Yoshinori Kitase, Edge, May 2003^[13])

 

While reflecting on the game, Tetsuya Nomura claims that “Death should be something sudden and unexpected, and Aerith’s death seemed more natural and realistic”, and “When I reflect on Final Fantasy VII, the fact that fans were so offended by her sudden death probably means that we were successful with her character. If fans had simply accepted her death, that would have meant she wasn’t an effective character.”^[12]

The Best Calendar Ever

I honestly think that I have the worst greatest calendar ever.

Take a look at some of the holidays for March:

Unfortunately, “Everything You Do Is Right Day” did not fall on one of my Finals.

National Goof Off Day is Everyday for me.

Fat Tuesday? Ash Wednesday! No, this is not something special to this calendar, I just wanted to point out the hilarity of the two “holidays” next to each other.

The King of all holidays on this calendar. Proof that this calendar ran out of ideas for all of the holidays (there are more holidays on the calendar than there are normal non-holiday days) they had “planned” for the year.

My birthday is “National Chocolate Eclair Day”.

Seriously? Seriously.

Best Calendar Ever.

Emerald City Comicon 2011

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

A slideshow of my very first Emerald City Comicon!

I bought a 3-day pass to Comicon for my boyfriend, Nomar, as an early birthday present. When I bought the tickets, I had no idea what to expect, and actually thought that I wouldn’t have a good time. However, I had a BLAST and am still having ECCC withdrawals. Come back…! Come back…! I miss you ECCC.

The highlight was definitely meeting Felicia Day and Amy Okuda on Saturday. It was my first meet and greet, and I was nervous because I had no idea what to say to them.

By the time I got in front of the line, I got so nervous and excited that I totally neglected my boyfriend (Sorry, Nomes!).

What was so great about the meet and greet is that both Amy Okuda and Felicia Day actually wanted to converse with us, which I did not expect. I don’t remember what I said to them, but I do remember Nomar standing in the back awkwardly (since he didn’t pay for the meet and greet) when Felicia Day asked me,

“Uh. Who’s that?”

I responded, “Oh! That’s my boyfriend.”

She said, “Oh, hello boyfriend!” and shook his hand.

Then I also remember her asking us how we met, and we awkwardly responded “eHarmony” at the same time as a total joke, but Amy Okuda and Ms. Day nodded their heads with a smile on their face that really looked like, “Oh that’s…interesting” (which is a look we are used to and receive all the time). After seeing this look on their faces, we quickly tried to deny that we met through eHarmony, and at this point we looked so nervous and awkward that I think that they believed that we actually met through an internet dating site, but were too embarrassed to admit.

At this point, I thought we had to leave the table, when Felicia said,”Oh you know, I actually have a few friends that have met through online dating sites.” I’m not sure if she said it out of pity and totally made it up just to make us feel better.

Overall, they both were very sweet and were absolutely gorgeous. I enjoyed being in their presence for the awkward 3 minutes (on our part) that we were there.

Overall, the total experience was amazing. I had an absolute blast, and am totally kicking myself for not going earlier.

Jane Park: SPF Everyday

Jane Park, CEO of Julep Nail Parlor, and beauty expert, blogged about her regret about the health of her skin:

“So I am slathering on SPF – more seriously on days I am outside most of the day (55 on days I’m out in the snow in Sun Peaks) and just built-in SPF everyday (15 to 30 everyday even though I live in Seattle). If there’s one thing I wish I had done earlier in my life it’s using SPF. Yes, I didn’t wash my face religiously in my 20s, but that doen’t have a lasting impact. Failure to use sunscreen does.”

Yes, I know what you’re thinking. “It’s never sunny here!”,”What about winter! The sun’s never out.”, and “I’m never on a beach. Why would I wear sunscreen all the time?!”

It must mean something if a beauty expert like Jane Park tells us it’s something she wished she had done.

I’ve used Neutrogena’s “Ultra Sheen” for a while, and I really like it so far. Yes, it still kind of feels and smells like sun block, but it’s a lot lighter than other “sunblock lotions” that I’ve tried.

I don’t remember how much it cost to pick one up, but I see on various sites that the 3 oz. bottle is under $10. Pick one up today and protect yourself from the sun.

Hazel – The Lost Tapes

If you have $7 (US), download Hazel’s (there are two dots above the “a” in his name. However, I don’t know how to make that happen on here. Sorry!) “The Lost Tapes“.

If you don’t have $7, then open a credit card and download The Lost Tapes. You have no excuse to miss out on something this awesome.

Awesome Applications: F.lux

The other day, I was reading a Reddit thread authored by Reddit user Tendollarburrito who asked, “What lifestyle tweaks have you made that have made a real difference?”

Reading the thread led to my discovery of F.lux: “Software to make your life better”. Thanks to that vague description, we can clearly infer that installing the application will change your computer screen in a way that will help your eyes feel less strained.

From the website:

“F.lux fixes this: it makes the color of your computer’s display adapt to the time of day, warm at night and like sunlight during the day.

It’s even possible that you’re staying up too late because of your computer. You could use f.lux because it makes you sleep better, or you could just use it just because it makes your computer look better.”

I also searched through Youtube to find a decent video showing what it does:

I absolutely LOVE F.lux so far. However, as a warning, it changes your computer screen to become an orange tint at night. So it takes a little to get used to, but you feel the difference when you switch from f.lux to your regular computer lighting.

But enough from me. Try it yourself!

Click here for the link to F.lux.

5 Minute Fixes: Paper Clip Holder as a Bobby Pin Holder

Well, I pretty much said it in my blog title.

Putting all your bobby pins in a paper clip holder with a magnetized top is an amazingly easy, cheap and helpful fix to help you keep all your bobby pins in one place. I know before I started using a paper clip holder, I would lose an average of 34,453,345,523 bobby pins a week (I know, because I counted all the bobby pins I threw at the number of creeps on the Ave. It was/still is a very expensive hobby).

The magnetized top is what really makes a difference. I often throw in bobby pins, and it gets stuck to the magnet, which makes it easy to grab the next time you need a bobby pin. This is a great fix for a lazy person, like ME!