To Brii

Note before reading:  This is for you, Brii Dunviing. This isn't actually meant to be read but if you managed to find this you're welcome to read it. It's more a collection of thoughts and feelings I've acquired over almost 4 years of FFXIV. For some people getting over another person is a quick and easy task, that's not the case for me. I tend to hold on to the feelings I felt for a person long after it was relevant, I also tend to remember dialogue and such. If you feel like something is missing or something is wrong please contact me. If you don't want your name here please tell me. On another note, this isn't really meant to be aesthetically pleasing, the blog and everything are just quickly set up for me to write this out then forget about it. Oh, and if you want to skip the history you can skip to an edit I did two years after writing the initial text. It contains more of a personal summary, short one, but it says it all.

Coerthas Central Highlands

I don't know why but I often assign a zone in the game to a person and it's kinda random. For you, Brii, I could've said New Gridania by the bench, I could've said Neverland in Old Gridania. But the strongest memories of you I have are from Coerthas; The Stone Vigil and different FATEs scattered around Coerthas. I remember when I first started playing WAR and when I got it to around 40 you and I leveled up by doing FATEs there, you on a healer and I on WAR. Especially Svara comes to mind. That is to say, I remember Coerthas Central strongest from our Phase One.

The road leading up to Svara. On a related note; I remember way back when I first did the MCH job quests, I think it might've been the level 45 or possibly even the level 50 quest you have to fight Svara. A huge wave of nostalgia came rushing over me and it instantly brought me back to you.

The bench we first met on. Me and you and the rest of the Bench Buddys (including the typo). I didn't have the strongest connection to you at first, it was always the other members but we eventually started hanging out more. I like to think it's because we're rather similar in many ways. One of my biggest regrets is that I didn't take a lot of screenshots from this period. I was playing on a PS3 at first but eventually, I moved over to the PS4 which has a screenshot feature, but I honestly didn't think about it. Anyway, you might be wondering why.

 Every single time I enter Central Coerthas Highlands I think about you. You know the feeling you have around certain people, the aura or the vibe? I get that vibe in Coerthas and it reminds me of the one I got when we talked. The screenshot below is the ideal example, it's not Svara but I remember that we did this FATE. You'd tell me something about playing a tank, I would tell you something about healing and we'd share experiences. At this point, I think I had already gotten my SCH/SMN to 50, and you had already gotten your WHM to 50.

It's silly, really. That FATEs could be sort of nostalgic like this. When I did some FATEs for my relic weapon in 3.x I thought about this period and I really think this was a sort of golden age for me, personally.

This next screenshot is also another great one, sadly the FATE in question didn't pop and because of ATMA farming (remember those?) I didn't feel like waiting hours for it either, but a FATE pops around here. In the FATE you have to fight ice crystals, I remember actually trolling you here. I collected a bunch of them with flash (which was quite weak at the time) and I told you to regen me and all of them would go after you. I think you managed to heal yourself and keep yourself alive but it was still funny. 

 This is where the FATE "The Eyes have it" pops. I remember you asking me to come heal and raise people in LS with my SCH and I ran to do just that. I think we managed to beat it, but it was a very tough fight at the time.

The Stone Vigil a.k.a The end of Phase One

I think our friendship (not that it is a friendship nowadays but still) has gone through phases. Not the typical phases of getting to know each other - becoming friends - become better friends etc, no. I mean we've had periods where we're really close to each other, then something happens and we just break contact only to resume it later on. The Stone Vigil is probably my favorite dungeon, but if I could delete it and thus subsequently deleted everything good or bad that happened in it I probably would. 

I remember how hard this dungeon used to be. Besides the server lag, the fact that the EU datacenter was in NA, the poor gear we all had and the lack of skill we all had due to how new the game was - it all compounded to make this a truly difficult dungeon. New people will never get to experience the last boss with instant cast aoes and how epic it felt to finally defeat it after your 3 failed attempt due to the party voting to abandon. 

One of the moments I remember very fondly was when you were new to the game, I think you had just unlocked the dungeon. I told you how dangerous regen was before a pull, but you thought it wasn't that awful. So when we got to those ice crystals that appear out of thin air I told you to regen me before I pulled them, you got smashed and in turn, I got smashed, but it was just a funny experience. I also remember how smooth everything went in there with you, compared to the DF these runs were really nice. 

Now, why does The Stone Vigil mark the end of Phase One for us? Honestly, 3 reasons. 

1. We had kept in touch, all of us in Bench Buddys, for a long time. We had made great friends, but because of how comfortable we all were with each other we allowed a lot of jokes. Sometimes though, it went too far. 
2. Because of how close we were to each other we didn't know whether or not we could trust one over another. Like could you come to me and risk me siding with someone else over you? 
3. Stuff happened behind the scenes that I wasn't aware of. The following situation, that I'm about to describe after this, came out of the blue for me. I was totally unaware that you two had some resentment towards each other.

I was gone for 3-4 weeks one summer with no contact with any of you, I hoped you were all nice and that you were all there for me to talk with after I came back, and you were. I suppose though that something evolved or happened in that period that made it harder for you to remain later.

Me, you and another zone into The Stone Vigil, it was just another run. We didn't do it to level, I think we just did it for the currency or maybe we had a 4th with us who we helped out? I don't remember. Anyway, we get on our way and things went fairly normal. 

From my perspective, I couldn't spot something wrong, but in hindsight, I could see that there was this really sour "theme" in that run. Our friend would crack a joke, you'd say something back, he would return and it ended with you quitting the run before it was finished. That came as a shock to me, but I suppose something must've happened in the background leading up to this that I was completely unaware of and something nobody told me about.

I think after this it didn't take long before you decide to leave the LS. Maybe a few days, though I suspect you had thought about leaving for a while by then. I logged in and did my normal routine - check FC, check friendlist, check LS. Seeing that you had left came as a shock, especially without any word about it. Sure you had told Yuki, who was online at the time, why you left but she didn't tell me until a little bit later. Now initially because you had your BF with you in the LS and you were a team I thought something had happened to him, that's how confused I was for a while. You sent me a tell later on but by that time I was kinda upset and just couldn't find an answer that wouldn't be lashing out at you.

I deleted you, I didn't blacklist you so I kept the option of reconciliation open for another time. At this point, my biggest wish was for you and your BF to return to the LS. We broke off at this point and didn't talk again for over a year.

In between

I really didn't have anything against you, but I did feel empty without you. When you create a community you're sort of getting additional dimensions from your members, one brought out this, another this, the third this etc. Losing you hurt a lot, not only were you a great friend but you brought out another dimension in all of us. I remember all of us talking about random stuff, you mentioning that Norwegians sounds like they're puking all the time, so I thought the climate was decent enough for jokes but something else must've happened.

I can't actually remember anything of relevance happening in between, I think Yuki said something about Ty bullying you or something to that effect. I never saw anything that could've been similar to that, we're all different persons though so something obviously happened. A joke gone too far, maybe Ty grew too comfortable and pushed the boundaries, something happened IRL for you, I never found out why.

Nothing of particular note happens in between the two phases until we end up in New Gridania, both of us. You decide to add me, but we don't really talk for a while yet.

Phase Two a.k.a Haven

I get an interesting tell from you one day - "Could you help me out starting an FC? You can leave right after if you want"; I think at this time I'm FC-less so I decide to help you out, maybe I'm part of some FC but I can't remember. Anyway, we make the FC and instead of leaving I decided to remain in it. I was tired of being FC-less and getting closer to you again felt nice. I remember that you named it something with "Haven" and we got in a sort of beef with another FC already named "Haven" so you decided to be diplomatic and change the name. We changed from the Haven FC anyway when we acquired the house so nothing bad. I think you still keep (or kept when I wrote this) a small part of it in your FC's info thingie "There's no safer haven than the company you keep."

One thing that kinda ground my gears, that almost soured everything was a comment from you very early into joining your FC - "Are you still friends with Ty?" in a very "why are you friends with him still? He's obviously bad" kind of manner. Now, you're entitled to your own opinion obviously but Ty wasn't all bad, same as you weren't all good. But it was just that one comment and I could've misunderstood the question anyway so nothing wrong with that. 

Now here comes the reason that The Stone Vigil is an important symbol in our friendship, I join you and help your FC out all the way through til 3.0 or Heavensward - Stone Vigil The Expansion basically. Everything is actually going great, we talk a lot, the FC truly felt like a community, something I had been longing for since my early Mi6 days. But another issue surfaced for me, I have to balance the fact that on one hand I have my Bench Buddys LS and on another, I have this FC, two very hostile parties.

Ty was very curious if you had said anything about him, but you hadn't really done that so there was nothing to tell him, I suppose you were in a similar position. In hindsight and if I had a time machine I should've tried to repair what had happened between you two because I think despite everything Ty still cared, and I think you did too, at least at this point. I doubt any of us really "got over" what had happened. I'm truly sorry if I missed something blatantly obvious back then, but nobody actually told me anything.

It felt almost like a divorce, I'm balancing two different groups of friends. Sometimes I would be more active with the FC other times I would be more active in the LS. And it worked out but something happened later on in the FC.

Of my Own making

I think you can relate to the next part. 3.1 was a massive failure for the game, it was practically dead a few weeks into it. Things just died down and Ishgard became a ghost town compared to just a few months earlier. 

I tend to get these periods of the year where I feel really empty. I feel like I'm not going anywhere, that I'm not good enough and that I get extremely exhausted. Just very basic stuff makes me burned out. I think you can relate to this because I remember talking to you about this very thing. This happened in and around 3.1-3.3 and I lost contact with the FC. I just felt like I was on the outside looking in, the community we had built wasn't a community for me anymore. It felt like I had been excluded somewhat, not that it actually happened, I'm just saying that's what it felt like. 

I wasn't really invited to things and one day in combination with some IRL stuff I said "fuck it", probably the exact same thing that happened to you years earlier when you had decided to leave the LS. I left the FC, I think I sent a tell or maybe you did but nothing happened. We lost contact completely. I was FC-less at this point. I would remain FC-less for quite some time.

Failures

So we parted ways, not on good terms, not on any terms really. It wasn't even neutral, we just parted. A year or so later I tried to get in touch again, though admittedly in a very bad way. I tried to bring Ty with me to finally solve whatever happened but of course a little too late. If you are reading this I'm very sorry for whatever role I had, and I want you to know that I still care and that if you ever need anything you can just ask. I tend to burn my emotions into memory, if I cared about you at one point I will still care about you years after. A fault in my wiring maybe. 

You're maybe arguably my biggest mistake, at least one of them, in that I wish I could've done things slightly differently. First I shouldn't have taken it so personal that you left the LS without saying, maybe you had planned something or something happened, I should've made myself available for an explanation. Second I shouldn't have treated a lack of invites as something personal against me but something that just happened randomly, maybe I even should've asked what was up with the FC. Thirdly I shouldn't have waited so long. Time is really the enemy of everything. I might come back to this but I figured I would write something first. 

You know how you can group friends in FFXIV with different icons? Like hearts, spades etc? I have you and a few more all grouped as hearts, still even after all this time. Something I should've included at the beginning is probably a warning about the potential for cringe, I don't expect you to feel the same way I feel, especially not now after like years. I have to admit I don't follow your blog as much because I'm not huge into roleplaying but I do still check from time to time - I hope everything works out for you in-game and out of it, and I think you have a lot of potential!

Written in January in 2017.

Two years after writing it, EDIT:

It has now been two years since I last wrote on this post, you’ve effectively quit the game I believe, or at least you’re on a massive break. I think you’re taking some education? Anyway, I don’t want to read what I wrote before, but I do want to write something (unknown if I covered this in the text above and if so, excuse me!) – How you actually helped me out, more than you can know.

I isolated myself socially for 2-3 years prior to starting FFXIV, like not “I lost or ditched a few friends” but full blown “I haven’t talked to anyone in weeks, is this normal?”. I had zero avenues for anything, if I wanted to share a good movie I’ve watched, my political ideas, my thoughts and most of all, my feelings, I couldn’t. I didn’t have anyone to share them with. I was most likely depressed, but I never got it diagnosed because “if you don’t know you basically don’t have it, right?”. I’m not sure if it was a fear of knowing or if it was just the idea that if I was actually depressed and got it diagnosed, I would have to deal with it.

Anyway, I start to play XIV and almost from the first second I lose all of my social anxiety, I can thrive in this situation with all this anonymity. Not knowing anyone means there are no one who can judge me, if I make a mistake I can just slip back into anonymity. This all changed when I got introduced to the Bench Buddys and you a little later. Suddenly I was in a group getting to know them and them getting to know me, except. I felt chained up. Not because of you, but because of me. Like, a few of you had started talking to each other over Skype and you invited me, but I would always decline that invitation. Not because of a fear of speaking but rather because of a fear of someone getting to know me. I knew this wasn’t right, but because of your persistence I knew I had to make changes. For the first time I felt like something might be wrong, and while we never talked to each other through Skype or other means I must say that I value that “opening of myself” more than anything else. It truly helped me.

Losing you sucked a lot. Especially considering you were only effectively a few clicks away, but I was a coward. It is only after losing something we come to realize how much it actually meant. And I must say that even to this day I feel sorry and awful about that. FFXIV did a lot of good for me but losing you as a friend was devastating, even if I didn’t indicate it to you at the time, but I was afraid of losing it all. I don’t blame you at all for how things ended up, I blame myself for my inactivity and ineptitude. How different things could’ve turned out had I just been a friend? I’m grateful for you, you guided me out of a very different and dark path even if I never expressed that to you in person, and because of that I know you have tremendous potential to do good in this world and as such I’m glad there is someone like you out there. Thank you! Also, if you do find this (which I doubt, but you never know, tell me if this is encroaching on your privacy and I’ll take it down and edit out any mention of your name (or in-game nickname).

03.04.2019