Falk - The FFXI midget of PUPPIES AND SUNSHINE.

This is really long, read at your peril.

I'm not really sure why I am posting this now instead of, say, two or three years ago. Maybe it's because I know no one reads this blog now anyway. That's probably it.

Anyway, a few years ago I was wondering if I should delete this blog from the face of the earth, but I decided not too. Even though the way I represent myself now is vastly different from the way I made these posts years ago, I think it's important to have a record of these things. Plus, some of these posts are comedy gold (I start with "Jyakotsu has terrible grammar," five lines later I say "you should burying the coffing"). I also had a brief stint with trying to use interesting metaphors and similes which amounted to mixed results. Some of those are pretty funny too (as fast as cookies disappear at a Weight Watcher's meeting is really stupid since, presumably, no one would be eating them; plus in the context of that post it was a poor choice of a simile).

I recently found a box filled with stuff from my elementary and middle schools, and I nearly started bawling on the floor of my room. When I was in second grade, we had to write a personal comment to everyone in our class the day that we left for summer vacation. Afterwords, all of the comments that people wrote about us were placed in a notebook and given to the recipient to keep. This meant I had a notebook filled with one comment about me from each of my classmates. There were some that were really silly ("you're a good freind [sic]"), but there was one that honestly made me tear up (keep in mind, this was second grade):

"you're wrilly wrilly nice, your the nicest person in the class!"

When I was in elementary school, I was legitimately nice. I probably was the nicest person in my class. I went to a really small school (grades 1-3 were together in the same room, we had about 20-25 children each year total; grades 4-6 were together with about 15-20; and 7-8 were together with 7 and 5 the two years I was there), so that's not saying much, though. My level of "niceness" was pretty much constant up until after I left that school (so when I went to high school, 9th grade).

For the record, I remember getting FF11 when my brother graduated middle school, which meant I had just graduated 5th grade. My math probably sucks, but I think that means I was about 10 when I first started to play FF11 (let that sink in for a minute! xD). I joined up with TBH I think two or three years in. I don't remember exactly when, but that doesn't really matter to get to the point of this story ("there's a point?" one may be asking now). When Soul lotted the YYR I was in either 8th or 9th grade, 13 or 14.

I'm going to do a short interlude here and comment on the social climate of the LS as I remember it (once again, keep in mind my age: I was 13/14). Zerayla often joked that she was the "den mother" of the group. Whether she meant it seriously or not, I don't really know; all I know is that, for me, this assertion was certainly true. I looked up to Zer and Xean. As I remember it, they were always kind, supportive, and willing to drop what they were doing to help out an LS member. They were true friends, people I were proud to be associated with. I'm sure I was whiny and annoying at the time, so I know I would come off as stupid or naive or childlike, but I was always treated with respect. It's funny to think, now that I know more about most of them, that I was practically a baby compared to the other players. I don't think I ever said how old I was, but I don't think it took advanced rocket engineering to take a semi-accurate guess as to my age (but in saying that, I have to mention I would guess 90% of the FF11 population are younger than they actually are because they just act like 13 year old girls, so maybe that's not such a strong statement...). Anyways, the point is that we were a close-knit group. At the very least, I certainly considered the majority of the people in the LS (including Myrrh) friends.

I basically had the same set of friends in RL from the time I was 6 until I was 15; pretty much everyone I knew went to the same school as me. The only things I did outside school were piano (a solo thing), choir (there were only like 5 other boys in it and 4 of them were annoying), and some church thing I barely remember (the fact I literally only remember one person, a girl I had a crush on, is a testament to this). Basically this meant that the only friends I had I had either known for a long time (RL) or knew only in FF. Because the number of people at my school dwindled as age increased (3rd grade = 12 people in my class, 8th = 3), I started to put more emphasis on my FF friends. While I wasn't going to start giving out my address or whatever, I did start to trust them, which is the main point here. (I remember Zer and Xean breaking up when I was in 9th grade, so I'm pretty sure I was in 8th grade when this happened, now that I think about it)

Although I'm sure I could articulate my thoughts with more clarity now, I don't wish to comment any more on who was right or wrong in this situation (lotting the YYR, that was a longer interlude than I was planning ｗ　(yes, I really copied that w)). Having kept in touch with Soul, Xean, and Zer for years afterwords, I think I have a certain bias here in the present (the only exposure to Myrrh since has been additional posts on the Flameboard and then shouts in Jeuno, neither of which were flattering). My writing was so terrible that I really didn't want to read past the first few lines in the piece I posted when the event occurred, so I honestly have little recollection of what I said other than the fact that I supported Xean (who, according to my later posts, is an asshole, something I'm sure everyone is guilty of being at some point in his or her life. I probably overreacted with that accusation though, sorry =P). The nice thing is that that's really the one thing that matters in the context of this post.

I wasn't online that night, so my only real recollection of the actual event occurred the day after. After Myrrh had left the LS, I remember going out to Ro'Maeve to offer my help in camping Shikigami.This was important to me; I had promised I would help everyone in the LS get their YYR, and at the time I promised that, the LS had included Myrrh. Looking at Xean's post on Zer's blog, I told Xean "I was just there to watch" and my search comment said I was semi-afk. I actually remember this relatively clearly; I got there before Xean logged on, and I asked Myrrh if he would invite me. I either never got a response back or was just flat out denied, so I decided to stay there in case he changed his mind. I was legitimately not feeling well, so I wasn't going to waste my time staring at my TV (I had a PS2 at the time) when I could be doing something else. Anyway, I never got invited and Myrrh accused me of only staying to get the ToD. The only other person in our LS who needed the YYR was Alienne, and I don't think anyone really wanted to camp it anytime soon after what had happened, so that definitely wasn't why I was there. I remember thinking how angry I felt; while I was online only to offer assistance and help, I was denied. At that age, I couldn't understand why someone would be so cold to me even though we had been laughing together not even a week ago.

This is where the reason I've been writing all these seemingly unrelated anecdotes about my real life will hopefully start making sense. All of the friends I had lost up until now had been for reasons beyond my control, e.g. moving away. But this was a time where I was putting forth all my efforts to be a good friend and yet was still being denied. It was something I could not understand. Were our bonds of friendships so weak they could never be renewed? Why had I ever been friends with someone who would turn his back on me so easily? What was the point of friendship if it would end in sadness?

When I moved to high school less than a year later, I was lucky enough to have one of the people I knew go there too. In addition, this school was really tiny as well; we had less than sixty students in the entire high school, eight or so of which were foreign. My friend from middle school and I become more separated, but I was kind of okay with that because he started to become pretty lecherous which sort of creeped me out, especially when he was that way with my closer friends. By the end of the year, I wasn't the most popular person, but I definitely had the respect of most of my peers and the friendship of half of them. In addition, I pretty much had top marks in all my subjects (I famously got 100% in my geography class because I literally got 100% on all of the tests), and ended up getting an award for "student you should strive to be" or something like that.

At the end of that year, however, my parents decided to move to Iowa. There were certain reasons for this, but in no way were we forced to move out of necessity. I would have kept it a secret from my peers but one of the teachers I asked to write a letter of recommendation (to my new high school) decided to tell everyone in my class I was moving. On the last day of school, most of my friends who didn't already have my email address asked me for it and I obliged (this was during the MySpace phase but even I could see at that time that MySpace was stupid, so I just IMd).

When I moved to Iowa in August of that year, I did something odd. I deleted my email account with no notice. For a long while, I wasn't sure why I did this, but I think I have a reasonable guess now. I once had a friendship with Myrrh, but that friendship failed and left me utterly disappointed. I was afraid my friendships would wain as I was no longer talking to my friends every day at school, so I decided that rather than face the possibility of a failed friendship I would just end it myself before it had the chance to sour. My new school was (compared to the other two) huge, so if I had tried I probably would have been able to find friends. But for the same reason that I erased my email, I decided I wasn't going to make friends. From day one I acted rudely, and just generally spurned everyone who tried to talk to me. It's kind of funny; I knew I would be happier with friends, but I was so afraid that I would just get hurt that I decided it would be better to just have none at all. During lunch, I would go to the library just so I wouldn't have to talk to anyone. It was around this time that I realize how much I hated people my age. I've always been a very reserved person when it comes to face-to-face social interactions, so the way that people talked in this school just disgusted me. I would be lucky if I would hear one comment a day regarding the size of some girl's mammaries/that wild party last night/drugs or alcohol or tobacco/sex, things that I found a) incredibly stupid and b)incredibly inappropriate to be talking about in public (funny story that is sort of related: here at college, I've actually heard someone in the booth next to me in the lunchroom talking about her abortion, I mean seriously how stupid is that). I'm sure that part of me, however, only saw these things as being stupid because I wasn't involved in them and I secretly yearned to be a part of them. Maybe that's true; I don't believe that's the case, but it's certainly a possibility. (On a side note, I also started practicing piano a lot due to the fact that I really had little to do in the evenings with no one nagging me, which was a huge boon to me. Playing piano is such a relaxing thing to do for me now, and being able to play basically anything has been a blessing.)

One thing that stayed the same, however, was the LS. This was around the time we started doing casual Saturday night events, for reference. It's honestly interesting that I didn't decide to quit when I moved as well. I think that because I had know most of the people in the shell for years, I felt that I knew they wouldn't sully my friendship. Later on, the fact that they weren't teenagers certainly helped my affection towards them. I think another part of it was that I feared a real-life Myrrh event would be worse than one online. Whereas I could sequester Myrrh away so that I never would talk to him again, I would be pretty much forced to see someone in real-life every school day. As much as I hate to admit it (Zer always preaches the opposite of this!), I also felt that my character Falk and myself as the player were two different beings; having something pain Falk would hurt, but I could always say it wasn't really me. When the Myrrh event happened, I had not yet made that distinction: maybe that event is what made that idea appear in my head, I don't know. The point is I stayed in the LS.

And I certainly am glad I did. While I acted stoically in school, I could loosen up when I played FF. If anyone who played with me during this time is reading this, they'll know what I mean. I had seen my brother in high school get too attached to the game, so I decided I would only play on weekends, a rule I kept with few exceptions. My main game-time was reserved for Saturday night events and Sunday statics. I can't say how much I loved these events. They were honestly some of the only times I had actual fun all week. Saturday events in particular were amazing; being able to down boss after boss with a group of (mostly) smart people was a real contrast to everyday life (my Spanish classes there were so incredibly stupid, we would go over verb tenses I had learned in 3rd grade for like 2 months and people would still fail the tests, ¿Cómo ocurrió esto?). I think just the fact that I was a part of something was also a large factor in my euphoria. At school, I was always bored and no one ever relied on me, but in the game I was the main healer (i.e. important), and damn it all if I was not an essential part of the group. I felt that the ties of friendship I had with my allies were always reciprocal; I knew they were true bonds.

An interesting note is that I never engaged in any sort of real-life conversations with my LS. I think I said my name once to someone, but other than that I don't think I ever told them a lot about myself. By the time I graduated high-school, the majority of the LS were on Skype and on a first-name basis with each other, but I never used Skype and no one knew my name. Even though I really did see them as friends, I think I still was trying to make a distinction between me the player and Falk the character. In a sense, these two personae were actually quite distinct. The player was the face I represented in my real-life, someone who was always serious and blunt and rude, but Falk was my inner self distilled, someone who was patient, kind, and "wrilly wrilly nice." One of the things that people often say about the internet (and anonymity in general) is that is allows us to act the way we want to (i.e. the way we truly are) because there are no repercussions if people or society don't agree with what we say or do. I think this idea is in action here; Falk is the person I wanted to be in a controlled environment, but the player was the role I played in the way I viewed the world.

So, to review, how has Myrrh affected me? Even now, more than four years later, I still have my outer "player" persona. Although there were other events that may have caused me to act this way (Kelga and Josudes), I'm pretty sure the real reason is because of Myrrh's betrayal of my friendship. I'm sure it's not what he intended, but the event just happened to occur when I was at a very impressionable age. I happened to decide that it was better to have no friends than to have friends that would end up hurting me.

I was so lucky to have decided to stay in TBH. I can say without a doubt that I am a better person now because of the experiences I've had in the linkshell. I have wonderfully memories I'll (with the aid of this blog) hopefully never forget. When TBH "broke" a year or so ago due to inactivity, I had already moved on to college, where part of my Falk persona begin to leak into reality. From TBH I had learned that friendships should always be cherished, even if they can possibly end badly. Although I still mainly act aloof, that just makes the friends I have now even more special, and I truly hope that my friendship is something beneficial to them as well.

I'll end this post, and this blog (unless I play FF again (unlikely) or have some sort of thought that only makes sense in this context), by giving a heartfelt thanks to everyone who has ever been a part of TBH, even Myrrh. I would not be the same person, for better or worse, without you all.

Thanks for the memories, everyone!
Falk

Yeah yeah yeah blah blah blah

Kutharei was laughably easy, the only mildly dangerous thing is the 1HP and hate reset move, but he only used it twice and never followed it with an -aga.

Dynamis was easy as well, we got the Dchap ~30 mins in and TH armlets ~70 mins, after that we wanted to stop (since that was all we needed) so we just did the NIN NM for Sonka, and ended up getting those anyway lol.

We have gotten 2 Ares body and one 25/35 set, one full Morrigan coat and 2 35s. lolsalvage etc, but 4 people can do any zone full farm + boss (except Bhaflau due to ramparts - can do 2 + boss).

Sedna and Itzapshjiaosufisaljasiudf were both dumb. WHM + any DD can duo Sedna, he was stupid easy with 4. I can solo Itz on BLU, with 4 it's a complete joke. I didn't take any pictures, but we also did the Uleguerand boss. It was an easy manaburn fight with BLM RDM BLU BRD, also had another BLM under 50%. Tarsal slam was dodged most of the time, and his TP moves really only did like ~300 damage.

The Grauberg boss was slightly harder, mainly because he double attacks 100% of the time and had instant cast gas. We did NIN RDM/NIN RDM/NIN BRD SAM, I got killed by painful whip for ~1200 at like 90% though lol. After I unweakened, he was at like 15% so I chainspelled and killed him (2 atmad bliz4 took off ~3-4% each). Funny story, there was an 18 person shout alliance killing Melo Melo so they could pop the boss after us - it was at 80% when we got there, it was at 87% when we left.

After this run, I got my 7th boss for my 3rd lunar, so now the game becomes broken. I can 2 shot any regular mob with Bliz4, 2 shot any number of mobs with Whisker etc. We procced grellow on all of them except sedna, because he spams TP moves and it'd suck to do AMs etc.

We also did Chickarney (sp, the cock) in altepa for seals, and he was harder than any of these bosses....We had a THF tank, but she got killed a few times because of 1shot hammer beak, and that NM is a biiitch. Under 25% he hit for ~700 damage in a -31/6% PDT set, critted for 1050 and he has 100% double attack. Luckily he can be kited pretty easily, and 7 shadows on BLU is insane for that fight.

That's all I think, and back to school for me so I won't be doing much. lol