I'm enjoying having a website!

Before I made it, I was concerned that maintaining a website might feel unrewarding, given that it's not really a format that encourages feedback. If you update your website, it can be hard to tell whether anyone saw the update at all.

But it feels good to have somewhere I can just talk as much as I like about Final Fantasy VIII! I've added a few new pages since I first mentioned the site here, and it's fun to watch it grow, even if there's no way of knowing whether anyone else is seeing the new additions. As perhaps evidenced by the fact that I've kept up this blog for twenty years, I just like talking about things I enjoy!

(If you're curious about what's changed, though, there's a rundown on the updates page!)

Just the fact that I have this site is encouraging me to think about new projects related to Final Fantasy VIII, too. The first romance fic I ever wrote - and, in fact, the first fic I ever completed - was I Need You, a short and terrible Squall/Zell fic I penned at the age of thirteen. Maybe it'd be fun to attempt to rewrite it now that a couple of decades have passed.

I'm trying to resist rereading the original until I've finished my rewrite, but I remember the concept made absolutely no sense. Here is the plot of my first ever attempt at romance:

- Zell creepily watches Squall while he sleeps, going ':( oh no I love him but he's got Rinoa'.
- Zell tells the sleeping Squall aloud that he loves him and kisses him on the forehead.
- Zell SUDDENLY PASSES OUT ON SQUALL'S BEDROOM FLOOR FOR NO REASON.
- Squall wakes up, finds Zell sleeping on his floor, goes 'seems normal' and puts Zell in the bed with him.
- As he drifts off again, Squall half-remembers Zell BEING CREEPY and murmurs, 'I think I love you too.'

Absolute nonsense. It's a real challenge to write something that follows a similar trajectory but actually feels in-character and halfway plausible. Dear thirteen-year-old Riona: if you want a character to fall asleep on the floor, there should probably be a reason!

I'm also having fun revisiting my old silly projects relating to this game. I managed to dig out my old homemade Triple Triad cards and post scans of them on the Triple Triad page. Please enjoy my ludicrous attempt to draw a Geezard, or the made-up card where I just drew a Neopet and gave it devil horns.

There's a part of me going, Hey, if you added the Balamb Garden flight deck, you could let visitors fly to locations from other Final Fantasy games. Please stay calm, Riona; let's at least try to keep this project on a reasonable scale.