Amber
I met Amber in 2003. When I opened my first website ever ‘Yu-Gi-Oh Chix’ dedicated to — you guessed it — the female characters of Yu-Gi-Oh. At the time Amber owned her own site, Mystical Shadows, which was dedicated to the Dark Magician Girl and Seto Kaiba of the same Anime. At this point she was going by her long time internet alias Sapphire-chan. I remember her layout was blue at the time and that I thought, even then that she was an amazing webdesigner. I sent her an e-mail asking to affiliate, fully expecting the answer to be no. We did the generic link exchange thing when we started talking on my tagboard.
At the time my graphics program was the illustrious Microsoft Pain(t), and I was having trouble editing an image — as I recall I was trying to colourize a picture of Mai pink by hand. (For those with now webdesign experience this is about 98% impossible). Amber happened to be online on my tagboard at the same time, and I mentioned my dilemna. About 5 seconds later she had colourized the picture of Mai and sent it to me, I didn’t even have to ask — Amber has always understood my towering pride which makes me a cripple at asking for things. This was the first of a million times that Amber would just do something to help me out of the goodness of her heart.
From there we joined her forum and underwent everything from the most amazing and hilarious moments of my life, to drama the likes of which I hope to never encounter in real life. She made me an avatar which I keep on my hard drive… and which still makes me smile. And all the while we never met each other once. We tried many odd projects including a Yu-Gi-Oh RPG, an Anime Shine with another one of my beloveds, and a Sailor Moon related fanfiction. One day, though, the unspeakable happened and Amber was barred from talking to anyone she had met online. Needless to say it was heartbreaking for me.
A few years later we crossed paths again. She was back into sneaking online.
Which brings me to today, and why I think Amber deserves a whole website to her, but as that would make me look like a stalker I’ll limit myself to a page.
Amber is one of those artistic souls, and often times that leads to the oh-so-familiar artistic depression, where she thinks she isn’t worthy of attention, or that her art ‘isn’t that great’. To this I scoff, because I know better. When Amber creates anything she pays a lot of attention to details, which is why she is a better artist than I will ever be. Everything about her creations is always so well thought out and imaginative, but also, never looking rehearsed or robotic, this is because she understands the intricacy of a soul and I love her for it. Whenever she draws something she prefaces it by saying it’s not good, I open the file and my jaw drops. Literally.
But it’s not just the art! (Obviously). Amber is also helpful, funny, and personable in her own way. At first she can be shy, and she tends to get a bit obstinant when you try to find out why she’s upset if she seems to be. But it’s funny, because she only does it because she ‘doesn’t want to bother you’
Amber never says ‘no’ when you ask for any sort of help. And if she doesn’t know the answer she will quest to find it. Though it’s rare she doesn’t know something being the ‘valid code encyclopedia’. She would never hesitate to help, even if the person in question was one she didn’t like, she’s always the bigger person in arguements — the perfect contrast to me. She never ceases to help me, even when I ask the dumbest questions, and without her Empty Cage would be ‘black times new roman font on white’ I imagine one day she’ll kick me for continuing to design and bugging her all day, but until then.
Anyways, I could go on and on for hours on this tangent, but I’m going to try and wrap things up.
Amber, I want to thank you a million times for everything you’ve done for me ever. I want to tell you to dance in the sun. I want you to know how much you’ve always meant to me as a friend, because I don’t know anyone I admire as a person as much as you. I aspire to be like you in so many ways. Most of all, I want you to know if you ever need anything, no matter how big or small, stupid or otherwise I will do anything I can to make it happen. I wish I could do more for you.
Continue examining the mundane as magical I wish you all the best and hope to see you on AIM soon.
To those who love Amber you can join her fanlisting here. And a collective which lists all of her sites is here.