Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene…
      --Romeo and Juliet: Act 1, Prologue

The site name comes from the Prologue of William Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet, a play that all of you are (hopefully) familiar with. In the beta version, the first name I came up with was La Lettre, which is French for "the letter", a reference to the last letter sent by Aerith. It wasn’t something that clicked well with me, and it didn’t sound right either.

While browsing around, I read about someone describing Zack and Aerith as star-crossed lovers, and, of course, the term "star-crossed" comes from Shakespeare’s famous tradgedy. The word is also brought up in the same prologue as "(In) fair Verona". So I figured, why not? Oddly enough, Fair is Zack’s last name (which is a coincidence in a sense; "Verona" or "In Fair Verona" doesn’t sound as good as "Fair Verona", in my personal opinion). To add to the irony, "fair" is hardly a word to describe the outcome of their relationship; in fact, it was more unfair than anything else.

Also, because I obviously like to be consistent, I also have a portfolio site named after a location in another one of Shakespeare’s plays (I was totally kidding about that first part). Although this isn't really that important, the site's subdomain name "/23" comes from the twenty-three wishes Aerith mentions to Zack (in all honesty, I was running out of ideas).

This site has been an ongoing project for more than a year, with some of the first articles being written sometime in May 2008. After playing the game, I spoke to a friend/dormmate who lent me Crisis Core, and we shared insight on the relationship between Zack and Aerith. Oddly enough, although I wasn't too fond of Aerith, the caring side that we see between her and Zack really did make me see her in a different light. The conversation brought on the first few ideas for content, and the rest took on its own course.