Now fall

Final Fantasy XIV just announced Blue Mage.

I started playing Final Fantasy XI back in 2004; I knew what “Final Fantasy” was I just didn’t care much for it. I’ve played video games since Nintendo and Duck Hunt and I’ve always been attracted to the shorter Mario games or DDR or fighting games.

But RPG’s? Things that required me to invest time?

Nah.

I was dating a guy at the time who was heavy into all kinds of games. And I was one of those girlfriend’s who didn’t exactly complain when they’d spend 16hrs on a game but I just didn’t understand why either. So one day he shows this emote TaruTaru’s had on FFXI that was /panic and I fell in love! I thought it was the cutest thing ever!

My first character on a Final Fantasy MMO was a girl Taru named Ihiphop. I ended up so much more invested in the game I ended up signing up for my own account. I recreated her as Ihiiphop and a boy since my bf at the time only played female characters and you’re able to get married in game but it had to be a boy and a girl (FFXI didn’t support same sex marriage at the time). Over the span of about 8 years Ihiiphop did his White Mage thing until I decided I wanted to be a cat girl and so Cheshiire was created as a Monk.

I ended up quitting FFXI because life got busy and all my friends started quitting. Eight years is a pretty good run anyway.

I won’t lie, there are a lot of times I miss FFXI so much and my friends — I still keep in contact with some but I’ve lost touch with lots of others.

In 2010 Final Fantasy XIV was announced and I was pretty psyched. The combat system seemed a bit weird and hard to understand.

The game ended up flopping and in 2013 I was invited to the Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn beta.

At the time I was in the Disney College Program so the weekend I finally got to jump on and make my character (another female Taru which was now called a “Lalafell”) the beta had ended after that weekend.

I didn’t jump back on the game again until 2015. And I’ve been on since. Well on and off; right now I’m off.

But I created an entire life for my FFXIV character who is typically a cat girl named Axelyn.

She started off as a bright pink kitty that eventually grew into green eyes; she was created to be everything I wasn’t. Cheerful. Happy. Strong. And in the first year I had played the game I stumbled on a lot of things that broke me. I struggled with looking to FFXIV to keep me company and occupy me the FFXI had all those years ago and I would do the same things here I did there — I fished, I crafted, I cooked to occupy myself. And they’re still things I still like doing on this game when I want alone/down time.

 

My entire FFXIV gaming experience changed when I met Sir Penny’puss and to think I had zero interest in him in the beginning because I thought his name was weird. But this boy quickly became my best friend. I’d lose sleep texting him while he was at work at 5am until I crashed at around 9am only to count down until he was home from work and we could jump on the game and go on our next adventure.

But he was my breath of air. The friend who wouldn’t judge me no matter what I, myself did or the fact that Axelyn had a really shitty hot bar, didn’t know how to use her skills and couldn’t dodge AOE’s. He was always right there to pick her back up. And he was always there to pick me back up on the nights in real life I’d have stare downs with bottles of pills in my bathroom.

I always say this, but it’s true — he didn’t have to care about this red eyed kitty who didn’t know what she was doing. Or this girl states away who had a life that was rapidly constantly falling apart.

But in that second year of me being on FFXIV we went on a ton of adventures, including getting married. And I’ll never forget how much time he took to decide what colors to make our FFXIV wedding or how much time we spent on it lol!

And since then we’ve gone on many adventures, cleared many things, fought many primals and took even more screenshots.

He’s the designer of our houses. And I absolutely miss the things he’d come up with. I miss taking screenshots with him and I miss going on adventures with him in game.

I know people who meet their S/O on games dream of spending time together for real, in real life and I’m not saying that I don’t enjoy that I see him every single day face to face now. But I do miss when we were just two cats traveling around Eorzea emoting at each other.

I miss his glamours and his macros. And that’s something I’ll always miss.

 

 

And of course, I also miss my dear Axelyn.

I’ve grown to love her company over the years and sometimes it’s weird not to see her every day, or as often as I did.

I keep saying I plan on coming back, I just don’t know when.

Are there any games that you hold dear and close to your heart?