Sitely: Frequently Asked Questions, & Stuff

Hi! I'm SilverAngel, the lazy little wannabe that owns Valkyrie (Don't call me Rinoa!! I'm NOT Rinoa!! I got an e-mail the other day addressing me as that.. no! I'm not Rinoa, no matter how hard I try ^_^; so don't call me that!). The work for this site began way back in March 2000, but because I had a lot of trouble at first it didn't open until July.. Don't laugh.. ;_; Anyway! Below are some random questions you may have at this point. ^_^ Before talking to me, see if yours is here. There's also other important information featured here too. ^^; So grab a mug of coffee and.. enjoy.. or something.

Disclaimer
Rinoa Heartilly and all other Final Fantasy VIII characters © 1999-2003 Squaresoft/Square/etc. I don't earn any kind of profit from this site so if you sue me for it, you'll only get about five bucks anyway >_<

MY Disclaimer
All edited graphics and content © 2000-2003 SilverAngel (which would be me :)) and if you steal my content/ideas/images/etc. I spent FOREVER working on I will punish you, so don't, okay? I'm a fairly decent person, just don't provoke me.. Or else I get violent. ^_- I'll go get my plastic gunblade outta the closet and make you pay! >D Muahahaha!
But seriously - everything you see here is a product of my time, effort, love, and countless hours spent at night when I should have been studying. (^^;) To steal something just shows how awful and lazy you are, and I WILL be angry and you WILL get a big spanking. :P

Credits
Any Japanese fonts you may spot around here were found at Gray Graphics. The current guestbook is courtesy of spiffy Megabook; the older one (that SUCKS!) was from gbook.nu. The current counter is from Site Meter (my old counters courtesy of Darkcounter.com & Bravenet :D). And credit goes to the Bradygames FF8 strategy guide, for general information like Rinoa's statistics and stuff. Umm, I guess that's about it. ^^

Layout Information
This site looks best in Internet Explorer - and because Netscape is gay, it doesn't work in Netscape, and if you're using Netscape and it looks like a shitball, it ain't my fault. :P Anyway.. I think pretty much any resolution works, but hit F11 if you feel the need! And view with 36 million colors, too, for the best effect. ^_^ Last time I checked (which was about a year a half ago, or something ^^;;) it looked BAD in AOL.. so if you're seeing a bunch of junk instead of a nice clean page, AGAIN, it's probably your browser, not me. ;_; The fonts used in this version are MS Sans Serif (what you're seeing now), Decost, and Inkburrow.

What programs do you use..?
For designing layouts I use Paintshop Pro 7, and sometimes my 'free trial' version of Adobe photoshop.. which never actually expired.. O_o;; Anyway, they do basically the same things, even though I thought there was some big secret they give you when you use Adobe.. O.o Eeehh. I use good ol' notepad for HTML, but used to use Frontpage - which I don't recommend for anything! It sucks! Easier to just do it yourself! Oh yeah, and I use CuteFTP for uploading. ^^

What does "Valkyrie" mean? Why'd you pick that name?
That's a word from Norwegian mythology (quite a few names from FF8 were taken from it, actually) as well as the name of one of Rinoa's weapon upgrades. I believe it's the name of the women that would choose which soldiers would die on the battlefield.. or something. But thanks to Cherry, who so nicely left more info for clueless me in my guestbook! :D "In Norse mythology, Valkyries were the beautiful young women warriors, mounted on winged horses and equiped with spear and helmet who chose the bravest of the slain warriors on the battlefeilds. They bring the fallen warriors to 'Valhalla,' Odin's hall. Odin (the cheif deity in Norse mythology) needs the warriors for the aproaching battle of Ragnarok, (the Norse apocolyipse) so they train at Valhalla during the day, and their wounds are healed at night." Aha. ^_^
Anyways, I picked the name because all the other Rinoa shrines had something related to angels or stars, you know, and I wanted something no one had ^^; So here ya are! XP

How do I do frames/pop-ups/etc?!
I have had a lot of people asking me these questions, and it's hard answering the same thing over and over.. :/ I'm going to make a tutorial for stuff like this EVENTUALLY, but until then.... uh, I need to find my old set of links for html help... Well, if you REALLY need help, I guess you could ask me - but I'm a bad teacher so I don't really recommend it. ^^; Besides, because of time constaints it might take me a while to get back to you (if I can at all.. I hate school. Dammit. ¬¬)

What about GRAPHICS? How did you DO that?!
Actually O_o;; I usually just end up making stuff while screwing around like a retard with a graphics program. My advice is to play around with PSP, kiddies, and don't be afraid to do stupid things! >D But if there's still a certain thing you want to know how to do, I guess you could ask me. But don't expect me to tell you how I did an entire layout or something. I have my secrets, y'know. ^_-
And also, don't expect to just pick up PSP7 for the first time and make something beautiful anf amazing.. You gotta learn first, and it takes time. The only way I even know how to do the things I can do is from the three damned years I've been doing it.. So don't beat yourself up if your designs aren't gorgeous the first time through. ^_^

Hey, if I ask, can I use your layout?
Thanks for thinking of asking instead of just stealing (like some people.. bastards ¬¬), but no... Sorry. =/

Can you make me a graphic or something, then? O_O
Umm. Well, if it's because you're just too lazy to make your own, no. :P But if you really, really, REALLY need help, then maybe; if it's something small. Just don't ask if you don't really need the help. And please, don't ask for something unrelated.. ¬¬

Can I look at your source code?
As long as you're just looking, sure. But just lookie, no touchie. :P Or else.. *pulls out big ugly stick!* Muahaha.

Why make a shrine to Rinoa? And she whines, gripes, smiles to much, {insert complaint here}
Well, you know? That's YOUR opinion, and it's gonna be different from MINE. >P Argh, don't bother telling me stuff like this, I'll just laugh at you. And as for the reason of the creation of this shrine.. it's because I adore Rinoa.. ^_^ I hope my dedication shows and you don't think this chunk of webspace absolutely sucks.. ^^;;

Where do you get all of your info from?
Actually, everything here is from my memory, or from the FF8 "official" strategy guide (most of the stuff in Training was written with the help of this slighlty innaccurate but still helpful load of BS ^^;;), or was taken from the actual FF8 game itself (erm, quotes!). I don't like using things from other people; I'd rather do it myself because I'm a stubborn idiot. ^^;; And that's why I've played FF8 such a ridiculous amount of times... eesh. O_o;;

Will you be my affiliate?
Ooh! I'm very honored that you'd ask. ^o^ Read the ending stuff on the affiliates page. Note that that's sort of like a seperate FAQ in itself, so if you have any questions about affiliation at all, you should definitely see that page. ^^

Can I link to you?
No, never. I hate it when people link me.

REALLY?!
No. :P ;) Actually, I'd LOVE it you'd link me.. Not that I'm hinting at it or anything though.. *cough* ^_-

Why don't you have sound files, or WinAMP skins, etc?
I just don't see the point of WinAMP skins and desktop themes, so I don't make them. I've hardly ever downloaded stuff like that off of a shrine, and since I don't find it necessary I don't spend my time on it (besides, everybody has stuff like that! I don't wanna look like everybody else and their dog, you know.. ^^;). If that's all that a character shrine means to you I think you really should go elsewhere :P As for sound files - I would, but I can't sequence midis, and WAV files just don't seem logical. ^_~ Sorry! Unless of course you'd like to donate something? ^^ *puppy eyes* I'll put the stuff up if somebody actually takes the time to make it and send it in, but I'm not going to actually make desktops or whatever just because I feel obligated, because.. umm.. I'd probably make really ugly, sucky ones anyways. ^^;;

As far as fan stuff goes, what exactly do you accept?
Oh my God, anything you have! O_O Fanfiction, fanart; FF8 cosplay or radioplays even; any kind of opinionated articles you have.. I swear, I'll probably accept almost anything so long as it's FF8 related and you give me permission to post it. ^^;; That pretty much goes for any multimedia stuff too. Nobody sends in anything, so actually doing so makes me die of happiness. ^^;;

Why do the images in your gallery have lower quality than, say, some other Rinoa shrines out there?
Well, if I wanted pictures from FF8, the only way I could get 'em was to screencap the FMV scenes of the PC version. And so that's what I did, and why sometimes they look kinda.. different (and also because I saved a lot of them as GIFs when I really shouldn't have O_o). I've tried to clean up some of the more recent additions to the gallery to my best ability (if you look at the Disc 4 gallery - that I'm still adding too - everything is all nice and neat ^^ But look back to Disc 1 - that I did a year ago - and everything starts to look all crappy X_x;;) but if that isn't good enough, I'm sorry ^^; Besides, it's not like you couldn't get better images elsewhere, anyway.
I'm also sorry of the fact that all of the images are different sizes >_< Once again, this problem is only present in the first images that were added, because I wasn't actually concerned about the neatness aspect ^^; I realize some of those first ones are pretty bad (size-wise and looks-wise) and probably need to be retaken - I hope to get around to this someday, and sorry for the inconvenience!

Can I use the images in the gallery?
So long as you don't claim credit for 'em or rip off the ENTIRE gallery, using a few pictures here and there is fine. Just don't direct link them, 'cause that's bad. >_<

Do you REALLY have a plastic gunblade?
Errrrrr. No! *cries alone in corner* But if you copy me, I will find something else to attack you with, so don't try it. >) Big, ugly, sharp sticks are always nice choices.

But then, why'd you say you had one?
A gunblade? Well, plastic blaster edge just doesn't have that ring to it. Ya know?
And as for the stick.. well.. >D I really do have a big ugly sharp stick..

But these aren't the questions I wanted answered!
E-mail me, baybeh! >D

Should I be afraid to talk to you?
Actually, nobody's ever asked me this (that'd be kind of stupid if they did.. like some big paradox.. lol ^_^) but I figured I'd just say NO, I'm not scary, or mean or anything.. ^^;; I CAN be, but only if you're rude to me first, or something. So be nice, otherwise you may be subjecting yourself to some not so nice things. *pulls out the big sharp stick and spears some paper violently on the end* Like THAT! Pretty scary, neh?
Umm, anyways, I'm not exactly the best at answering mail though (I sometimes take a long time to do it O_o;;), but if I take awhile it's not because I don't like you or something. ^_^ (It's probably just because the evil bastards at the school board have come up with even more ways to suck away my free time. :P For the second time, I hate school. DAMMIT. ¬¬)

Will I really get a spanking if I steal your stuff?
*pulls out da big ugly stick, again* You bet. >D

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