Maihan ·
I made one bad play on words between “Remake” and “Treemake” while reading information on the Amazon fires and decided to host a Final Fantasy VII Remake themed tree planting party. It turns out that the University of California in Irvine hosts tree planting events regularly.
These events consists of re-potting growing plants, picking weeds, and shipping some to various areas. Anyone can sign up to help at: http://shadetreepartnership.org/
Maihan ·
I will take any excuse to have a tea party but having a Fire Emblem: Three Houses themed tea party is the perfect excuse.
In game, players are able to invite various faculty and students to a tea party for various reasons:
Increase charm/charisma stats to increase battalion gambit attacks and gambit damage.
Increase support levels between player character and party member.
Pretend that you’re taking your favorite character on a pseudo-date
The tea house of choice is the Tea House on Los Rios located in San Juan Capistrano, CA. It’s pretty far south of Los Angeles, but it’s located in a historic district with a train station and nearby petting zoo. The ambiance wasn’t quite Garreg Mach, but it was a wonderful time with delicious teas and sandwiches and great company talking about Fire Emblem (and Persona…. and Final Fantasy…).
Maihan ·
This came together because I was browsing cake designs for no reason and came across the dripping cake designs.
Being hyper-fixated on Final Fantasy XV “at the time” (still to this DAY), my natural reaction was “OH! Scourge cakes!” (The “Scourge” being an in game plague of sorts). And of course this aligned with the release of the DLC for Final Fantasy XV, Episode Ardyn.
Just a couple months before, the other planned content for FFXV were cancelled during a series of very disappointing live-streamed announcements. So a party like this, complete with an Ardyn Pinata, felt like a nice way to end the FFXV era. (Except the fandom continues to thrive on the scraps of lingering content).
From the bottom of my heart, thank you FFXV for being there when I needed it the most and for representing and meaning so much.
Maihan ·
I knew I wanted to host a beach clean up and of course I decided to shoehorn my fandoms into this event.
Like many mid-20s to 40-year-olds, Kingdom Hearts has been an huge influence on my life and has been a constant since the first time I played Kingdom Hearts was in elementary school, to now as I enter my late 20s. It’s the themes, designs, aesthetics, in addition to the symbolism, and emotional dynamics between characters that remain relevant across generations and age groups. So despite the changing of world, the act of aging, maturing, and social or political awakenings, the entire series has become something you don’t simply “grow out of.” The design may be at times too bright with a quirky cast of licensed mascots, but there’s no line of exclusion- nothing to say “this is for kids” or “you’re too old for this.”
So naturally because beaches are an icon setting for Kingdom Hearts, a Kingdom Hearts themed Beach Clean Up just made sense.
Picking a beach for this event was easy, but getting a confirmation was not. With Earth Day coming up at the time I had sent in a request form, it took an uncomfortably long time to receive an answer. What felt like 100 phone calls later, eventually 15 days before the event, I received a confirmation on the date and location of the beach clean up.
Two prizes were provided for those who picked up the most trash. And these prizes- Sora and Riku pop-figures- were awarded to two brothers who unquestionably picked up the most trash.
The highlight of the day was the Frisbee being thrown into the bonfire pit. It was either bad luck, the wind, or and impressive display of athleticism. But regardless of how it went down, it went down in the most gut-busting way and with everyone’s knees buckling in disbelief and shock, gasping in the smoke and sand, tears swelling up at the corner of everyone’s eyes. Or just mine. It was hilarious.
It was eye-opening cleaning up and learning about our impact on the earth. Playing a video game series about saving planets and people, it felt appropriately uneasy learning that each plastic water bottle discarded took about 450 years to breakdown and cigarette butts took about 3-5 years to break down.
Enjoying everyone’s company at the beach, playing board games, eating junk food, and getting sunburned felt in-line with the themes of friendship and camaraderie of Kingdom Hearts.
