Sun in the UK? Film at eleven

So today finally felt like summer-- I spent a good majority of the afternoon outside sunbathing by the pool. Sunny skies, warm weather... It was a great day. A cherry coke, a mars bar... Life was good.

I've still got some work to do, some writing I have to finish up before the end of the year, but I'm not too terribly worried about that. More pressing, I think, are the two short plays I've agreed to be in for the summer writers' festival. I've got a lot of lines, and I better start learning them, as they go up on the 18th!

I finished up FFIV this morning, bringing the list of Final Fantasies I have not beaten down to three: FFIII, FFV, and FF: Mystic Quest. Perhaps I can tackle the latter two this summer, although I think I may wait for FFV to come out for GBA and for the FFIII remake which is coming out for DS later in the year. They're never gonna remake Mystic Quest-- let's hope, anyway.

The final battle in FFIV is particularly difficult. In my experience, there are two kinds of difficult battles in conventional RPGs-- there are battles in which your party is very nearly wiped out, but you rally and see the battle through (this was the case with FFIV's final climax), and there are battles where the enemy absolutely crushes you and you make one last futile attempt to succeed, knowing full well that if it fails you are out of options and will be smote (this is the case with the final battle of Xenogears, for instance-- at least it was the first time I attempted it. Closest. Boss. Ever).

I'll come back to RPGs in a minute, but I'm going to change the subject abruptly-- I've long considered getting a tattoo, but I've always been put off by the permanency of it. I am entirely comfortable with the idea of defacing my body for a moderate period of time-- say, a few years, perhaps even a decade-- but the notion that I would be essentially marking myself for life makes me quail.

Previous tattoos I have mused over in the past include the Japanese kanji "ai," meaning "love," but Asian character tattoos have become something of a cultural stereotype and are now passe. My good friend Caroline has a tattoo on her lower back in Arabic that reads "hungry for life," or something similar, and it's very aesthetically pleasing... But I realize that even if the cultural connotations of an Arabic tattoo aren't entirely complicated, I'm not entirely sure that the Arabic cultural notion of "love" is similar to my own. It's a subject I'm not informed on. Also, love and I have sort of an interesting relationship right now.

When I went to New Orleans last spring break, I saw a girl who had "omnia vincit amor" tattooed across her lower back-- a tattoo which I thought was supremely classy (it's Latin for "love conquers all," and the somewhat sexual connotations that go with the tattoo's placement make the statement both sincere and tongue-in-cheek, which fits me perfectly). The problem, of course, is that I really don't have a good place to put such a tattoo on myself. In addition, I would much prefer a symbol to text, simply because it's more compact, less obtrusive, easier to hide if I need to. So while I give the lady many props, it's not something that'd work for me.

For a large portion of this year (ever since The Nameless Novel was released, actually) I have considered getting the symbol for V.F.D. tattooed on my left ankle, which would officially mark me as a member of the secret society that aids and protects the Baudelaire orphans. It works in many different ways-- V.F.D. represents knowledge, reason, literacy, and the telling of stories, all virtues which I support, while simultaneously being ambiguous on notions of heroism, chivalry, and nobility, virtues which I find myself struggling with. Ultimately, those who wear the tattoo are people who believe that a place which has books cannot be all bad, and that's a belief that I never see myself losing. The only problem is that it's not my creation. Bearing the mark of V.F.D. would forever mark me as someone who appreciates Dan Handler's work, but as someone who hopes to tell his own stories someday, what would it say about me that I mark myself with devotions to the stories of others? Wouldn't it be better to create my own mark, a mark that has significance in my stories, and then tattoo myself with that?

Just this afternoon, by the pool, I had another idea of something symbolic, simple, that I feel wouldn't intrude on my own sovereign storytelling. Take a look at this:
Now, anyone who knows me will immediately recognize this as the logo of my favorite videogame, ever, in life. Notice how the T in "Fantasy" is shaped like a sword? Well, it occurred to me today that I might conceivably get that sword tattooed somewhere on my back (perhaps my right shoulder-blade, or between my shoulders). Like any tattoo I would ever conceivably get, it would be small, probably slightly more than an inch long or an inch and a half. I think it would work because on the one hand, it would be a (dorky) reference to what I consider to be the finest videogame ever produced, and on the other hand it would simply be a basic sword design, solid black, universally appropriate to the genre of works I hope to eventually produce (mostly fantasy/adventure). It wouldn't impinge on my idea of my "own creation," because it's not from a novel, it's from a videogame, and I won't be producing any of those in the foreseeable future.

Now, a brief note to my parents: for all my exuberance, it is not my intent to get this tattoo. This has simply replaced the V.F.D. symbol as the most likely candidate for tattooing if I were to ever make the decision to mark my body. I think it's still too permanent a process for me to comfortably undergo, but I'll admit that with this-- a symbol which pays homage to my interests, represents me, and looks cool-- it has become a considerably more appealing option.