To Tyke Morbult 

It’s funny. I never considered our friendship ending a possibility, but now it is inevitable. We’ve drifted away, without doubt for the last time, at least for a while. I’m unsure if it can ever be mended, but maybe it wasn’t anything to begin with? Or, and this is what I’m leaning heavily towards nowadays, I think our friendship was incredible, but it got fucked by slight nicks here and there as we journeyed together. A scrap here resulted in a fight there, and all the while our friendship kept taking knock after knock. It was bound to come undone at some point, or? Also, as with other posts - feel free to leave a comment, or elsewhere contact me and I’ll remove your name from this post + others. My intention isn’t to have you necessarily read this, but if you do then I want you to know you existed and that our friendship carried significance. Also, while I do think I have a great memory, it’s always selective, and so I may remember things happening at some point when it really happened later/earlier, if you understand me? Also another point, some of this I’m writing now and some of this I’ve already written back in 2018 and I’m just shamefully copy and pasting. Just figured I’d tell because a lot of it is written strangely.

1. A Realm Reborn

As a fresh newbie I would sit on the bench with Kuzh, a fellow member of Mi6, just chatting while waiting for queues or just in general, it was a perfect location to just witness people coming and going. Every now and then we’d end up with company, I remember one swede who started talking with us. Tyke Morbult I believe either sat on that bench as we moved toward it or zoned in after finishing a duty, but we started talking and when he told me he was a swede I believe I told him some typical “norwegian vs swede”-talk. Probably a joke of some sort, but I remember calling him “my special swede” but due to time schedule or whatever we didn’t really talk after that. I think I added Tyke as a friend but it took 3 weeks before we found each other sitting on the bench again. We instantly hit it off and we started talking about everything, people joined in and talked with us and in just a few days we were almost 30 people there. That was a crazy time, but we decided to make a LS and we called ourselves Bench Buddies. We disbanded the original because it wasn’t manageable. People joined in for edgy talk and the spam grew too much for us so we started a more private and personal LS and called it Bench Buddys (thus the typo in the title). The ubercommander I think I called Tyke. The context is a little lost I’m sure but the general vibe of the group was awesome. Rylumin Yamata joined the first LS but not the second and I don't know why. I think, if I’m being honest, he just wasn’t there when it was formed and I think we never got the chance to invite because we were all doing our separate things. 

Damn, do you remember our first LS? It was fucking chaos. Think we had a good amount of people just crowding the bench, think we even fled it for a while after because of the craziness. Though, we were a solid group of friends and that never changed, even with the invasion of people. 

I remember you joining FRZN for a while helping Yuki get it set up. You were there for a month or so, if I’m not mistaken. 

A lot of really crazy things happened back in those days. An opinion I think you and I share is that the game was a lot more social back then, though perhaps we were just more social. Anyway. And, oh my God, look at all of those abilities and skills. Fucking flash, miss it! 

The next image is of all of us at the moment. All of these weren’t there in the beginning and some are not there any longer. Pepto Bismol is a notable one, he was there in the beginning but took a break shortly before 2.3 I think. And he logged on once during 3.x but quickly left the LS and also left the server, I believe he’s changed his name too and there were too many potential Pepto Bismol’s for me to assume one was the guy. Elryca Nightwish left the server after a while due to her FC leaving. She was French so it was natural for her to seek out fellow Frenchies. Thus why there’s two different Elrycas. They made an alt to keep in touch with us. Brii Dunviing and Erandel Windseeker left the LS a little while into 2.x due to some drama, I’m not gonna speculate on their reasoning, I know it but it serves no purpose to put it into here now. 

 

 

In the beginning I think it was just me, Tyke, Kuzh, and Yuki. We gained Ree Chu and  Hanaan Hatake as well as Pepto Bismol. Kitty Swallows I befriended a little later but not so much as to not include them in there as well. These were the original members, if we had been founded today we’d probably establish a Free Company, but we were all involved with our fellow FCs and now also the LS. Brii Dunviing and Erandel Windseeker also wandered into us by the bench. I believe they were both hunting for friends on the server and saw us talking and basically introduced themselves by just jumping into conversation. It was a match made in heaven. All of us were a nice group, we would chat about everything, IRL and in-game stuff. If any one needed some help we’d be there to offer it. In a way that part of the game has been lost to me for ages now. Sure, I get to help out people in the Free Company but I don’t reap the same benefits. I’m sure it’s just me who needs an adjustment in how I view things. 

If I could change one thing it would definitely be to invite Rylumin Yamata. Our conversation got quite lewd and rude but I’m sure we could all use the warmth he would offer any and all. Also, we gained Tsunala a little later, first being very snarky and bitchy and mean, but turns out she was glorious and I really liked her. Though she kinda stopped playing for a long time.

Yuki took this image for an official FFXIV screenshot contest. I remember it, though I’m not sure I’m actually in this image. 

1.1 Defenders of Eorzea

2.3 released in August 2014. I had come home from a vacation to Spain a few days “too late” to enjoy the launch, but the LS was still there, and you all were still active. I remember apologizing for my absence, I kinda left for Spain before announcing it. 

The Hunt was a new piece of content in 2.3 and I wasn’t very taken by it. I remember Tyke and Yuki doing a lot of it. They were both nearly fully i110 just a week into it or something. I just couldn’t deal with it, too grindy for me. I do remember warming up to The Hunt later on, but initially I was put off by it preferring instead to spam Syrcus Tower and Lab. 

I remember specifically Brii loving Syrcus Tower. You and her would spend ages together, chatting on Skype and in-game. Do you remember your hide and seek session in Coerthas? I remember reading about it in our LS but I think I was doing something with my FC at the time so I couldn’t participate. 

Brii really fit in well with all of us. She was an amazing person, and while Erandel wasn’t nearly as active, he was great too. I remember you and I, together with Brii, Yuki and some of her Finnish friends attempting Titan Ex. We nearly made it too during the worst fucking server lags ever. I believe we got Titan down to below 10%. Fucking EU datacenters being in NA. 

While this screenshot isn’t technically from that era, I still remember the launch of Gold Saucer. Testing out everything with all of you.

1.2 The end of a friendship

The breaking point for the LS happened a lot more slowly. Because I had been on vacation for 3 weeks I didn’t really get to observe everything that had happened. We didn’t have Discord or Skype for the LS and my internet in Spain was rather dodgy anyway. I got to see some character updates on Lodestone but my interaction with anyone was minimal. I don’t know what had happened and neither party would later give me any more information, perhaps because there was no more information to give. People bicker and become enemies due to simple things all the time and without a third party there to keep it in check things of that nature can get out of hand very quickly. I believe that’s what happened, a tension grew between Tyke and Brii. We all played the game for different things. I think me and Tyke both played it for the social aspect, Brii would later play it for the endgame stuff more than the social aspect. And that’s where I think the tension really started. Nobody likes to be told they’re doing something wrong, and even with the best intentions, simple advice can be misconstrued into bashing.

The tension cumulated in what I can only describe as the single breaking point - The Stone Vigil. 

It was a normal dungeon run for the most part. I think I was the healer or perhaps the tank, you went as BLM and Tyke went as BLM. Midways into the dungeon you give Tyke some advice, it sounded like this “you shouldn’t use fire II on 2 mobs, only on 3+”. I don’t know the state Tyke was in at the time but I believe that advice together with the tension I’ve mentioned before set him off. He didn’t really say anything but I believe he was about to go nuclear, I can’t know though but I could feel it without really knowing anything. Something was definitely wrong in this dungeon run. 

We approach a group of mobs and Brii uses fire II on 2 mobs, Tyke writes “Brii, you shouldn’t use fire II on 2 mobs, only 3+” and with that we were history. With that almost half a year of bonding, half a year of getting to know each other, half a year of feeling like a family was torched. With a single sentence we were doomed. Brii ragequit and logged off. I don’t think we finished that dungeon run. Personally I was in shock, I can’t speak to how Tyke felt but it was shocking to me. Something else was up but I just had no information, nobody told me anything. In hindsight I should’ve tried to defuse the tension, maybe purposely made a mistake or two just to cut through it. It all happened in an instant, by the end of the week both Brii Dunviing and Erandel Windseeker had left the LS. And in my personal opinion we never recovered. We healed but the LS was never the same for me. For me you were all my brothers and sisters, I still regret how things turned out and that I didn’t do more to mend the rift at the time.  

1.3 A change

I remember changing my character several times. I felt unhappy, restless, I needed something new. I would frequently ditch and join new FCs, spending weeks all alone, and then a few more weeks in another FC.

I do miss this character, actually. 

2.4 came around and I was FC-less. Ninja was released in this patch and Tyke invited me to his FC “you can join for the EXP and then leave if you feel like it after :D!” I think he told me. I didn’t, I joined and remained in the FC for a long time. Hanaan Hatake I already knew from the LS and Early Days but in the FC I got to meet Jack Hamlet, Sora Mhigo, Mieko and Kusari Cifer, and Lanceifer Tiferet. They were a cozy bunch of people. I had finally found my home, the place I thought I would remain for a long time. Yuki also ended up joining this FC. Chocohoes, btw. 

The FC was a true “home”, I remember all of us going into Ifrit HM as marauders. I remember the countless discussions about vit vs str for WAR I had with Sora Mhigo and how much to pull and when. We didn’t really agree but the climate for discussions was excellent so we just accepted each other. 

Do you remember all the endless discussions about fucking parry? Damn. I miss it all.

I spent an absurd amount of time playing with Tyke and Kitty, they were, similarly to me, awake far past any sensible bedtime. I would do the relic with Tyke, and then socialize with Kitty. 

I can’t even remember what we were queueing for here. Was it a 24-man or PvP? 

A crazy long time, anyway. Breaking records in the amount of time we wasted, though any time spent with a friend is precious on its own. 

I used to really enjoy how much HP you could potentially have as a Warrior. It was mind blowing seeing the numbers, and it’s one of the things I miss the most, besides the self-healing, of course. 

Cleaving Tyke in two. I believe we both got petrified. This was on our journey to get Alexandrites. Doesn’t feel that long ago, but it has been too long.

Don’t intend to dox anyone here but I remember when Tyke and I hunted for Alexandrites, or as part of some other relic step we’d frequently run into Bladeofdeath Doctore. I would ninja pull, Tyke would, and Blade would be very upset with the both of us. Eventually though I think we did grow sort of friendly with each other. Never talked much, but I saw them every now and then. 

I remember you getting that glamour. You kept it on for such a long time it became your uniform in many ways. I never see people wearing it nowadays so when I do I think of you.

Probably debriefing Kitty about the tedious Alexandrite farming, though it actually was quite rewarding when I can see it at some distance. 

Tyke and I stumbled upon this duo in a Snowcloak run. As far as I can recall they actually did pretty great, and were very friendly. 

Damn, Tyke syndrome spawned from all of this. You maining WHM, and occasionally zoning out. You were great though, it was just funny.

Everyone had to wear green for Mieko and Kusari’s wedding. 

Eventually though because 2.4 grew boring toward the end people started logging on less and less. If you experience the “FC high” you’re not at all prepared for the lows. I felt lonely again, and I felt like the FC was dying. In honesty this is normally what happens to smaller FCs, as a patch grows stale they login less to save up energy for the next patch. I left that FC somewhere in late 2.4 or early 2.5. We’re in 2015 now.

I was now without a FC and almost without a LS. I think around this time Kitty had stopped logging on as often, Pepto and Ree were both on break (which for Pepto meant forever and for Ree meant years), Hanaan was busy with her own FC. I spent many nights just reminiscing about what had been, I felt incredibly lonely. I would talk with Tyke and with Yuki but they weren’t always available. I had left Choe at this point.

Fucked up how much Lab we did. This was prior to the tank change so we actually did troll a bunch of times. I WISH I HAD RECORDED SOMETHING. I remember both of us tanking and during fights we’d fight the other alliances for aggro on their mobs, or leave our own party defenceless in the process occasionally too. Also, just noticed but is that fucking Wendy? The awesome lalafell tank we met? You wanna know what's fucked up in regards to that? If we say she was 10 years old when this screenshot was taken she would be 17 now. If 20 then 27. Like wow.

Would frequently get trashed in chat, but it was hilarious. I would totally get banned for all of this if it had happened nowadays, but so worth it! 

I remember us branching out to play some other games too. Like Advanced Warfare or GTA V.

My grey character. We did quite a lot together back then. I think what spurred it all on was the fact that we were both similar, in terms of age, and also in terms of where we were in life - living the NEET lifestyle. Like I had lofty ideas, I wanted to become a nurse or something like that, and you wanted to become a Siemens technician. God, looking at this image I wish I could grab out and just spend some time with “us” again as we were back then. 

I remember both of us playing and having a blast with Monk. We’d just get into the zone and punch some fools. I specifically remember us both struggling with typing while playing it. Back then you had a fuck ton of buttons, and I was playing with a controller, but we made it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DVjEKyR1ag

Do you remember this? What an epic clusterfuck. During one of our “let’s not go tank and healer, let’s relax!”-runs. 

Tyke and I would often hang out and meet the strangest people. I specifically remember one person called Josiah Sylvan or later Dungeon Master, whom I’d hang out with frequently until my mental state took me out of it, and later theirs would as well, if I remember. At least we shared a wonderful hug.

Me and Tyke were just messing around in New Gridania, I told him to glamour a full plate armour set because “the chicks digs that”. No idea, we were just messing around. I think Tyke went to repair down by the inn when he said “Karma come quickly!”. And right then and there was a huge group of people clearly RPing and messing around and so I joined them. I like to think I’m decently creative, I can go on long tirades and trash talk quite a lot. I’m also in love with cringe to the extent that I can purposely put myself in a position to maximize cringe-capital. I love cashing in, anyway I just started trolling around and flirting with people. Both me and Tyke quickly came in contact with someone else (someone who’s in the Bench Buddys LS picture from above). Eljusiana Belhi. In the picture above she’s called Skye Azene. 

She was a lot like Tyke when I first met him, very open and very talkative. We all quickly hit it off. I also remember “flirting” with members of Val and also another fellow I thought lost, Koushiar Beor. He would try to flirt with Belhi and I would show up and flirt with him to mess up his plans. It was honestly rather funny, I miss all of that. If not for this event I doubt very much that Bench Buddys would still be around, and again I’m not sure why we invited Belhi to our LS but didn’t invite people before. 

Belhi would often try to unsettle me, or be very flirtatious. Luckily, or maybe unluckily, I didn’t bite. 

https://youtu.be/Z5BmhbcyDRk

Due to my sleeping schedule, Belhi’s flirtatious moods and romance in general both Tyke and Belhi hit it off, talking for ages in tells and elsewhere. 

I mean who can say no, right?

They would eventually get married and live happily ever after… 

Now kiss.

...for a month or whatever when heartbreak happened. It was a sad time for poor Tyke. I believe I lashed out at Belhi in response, calling her names and a cunt. But we all overcame that and lived on, potentially stronger for it. 

Can’t deny Belhi was hot. Mostly because she sucked at being a BLM at the time and would set fire to everything, but it would later become her main.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVnDnEfNmj8

While you suffered due to Belhi’s cruelty, you did kinda recover and come back, and we would all hang out together.

1.4 Some dungeons

Snowcloak changed the game for me. Previous to this moment I didn’t fully care about the story, it hadn’t interested me, but after this everything changed. The story was suddenly immersive and interesting. I still remember loading into it together with Yuki A’zuma, Tyke Morbult. The music gripped me. Sure, after running it 50 times it is mostly just snooze inducing now, but back then it was amazing. The snow covered surfaces, the crystalized ice forming walls, it was otherworldly. The dungeon itself wasn’t as interesting, it had some cool elements, but it was mainly just your average dungeon. Everything else was great. Y’sayle’s ascendance into primalhood, her zealous attitude towards the world. Having a trial not only be linked but have it happen immediately following a dungeon? Insane. 

Sastasha (Hard) was yet another dungeon. Honestly, it kinda sucked. It was okay, the thing I remember the most about it was how a Tyke Morbult wore a fedora. Now usually he would hide it but I asked him to put it on right before a big pull, I felt we needed the neckbeard wearing fedora wielding charm it would grant us. Oh, and it was also one of many dungeons involved in the second to last or the very last relic step, damn I think I ran this dungeon the most. The item would not drop. 

The only memory I have of Qarn that’s worth bringing up is when I, Tyke Morbult and Lanceifer Tiferet did it. Where are you now, Lanceifer? Anyway, I remember us three doing it together. Quite a boring experience but you guys made it interesting. Figuring out each boss, thinking you had to deal a certain amount of DPS on the second boss. Getting zombified over and over on the last boss. A magic experience. 

2. Heavensward

Oh my God. So much shit happened in Heavensward, I’m honestly surprised it only lasted two years. From 2015 to 2017. It felt like it lasted for a decade. I remember you spamming me, and that I spammed you on PSN with the hype messages on the morning of the launch. We were thrilled. We had prepped for it. You, and I and Yuki teamed up and ran through most of HW in rather quick succession. Like, we weren’t rushing it, we took our time, but we did most of it together. I felt such a strong bond to you both, and even to this day I still feel it faintly. Belhi and Venator followed, though at a slower pace. 

I would spend a lot of time riding with you everywhere. A little glitch from the days of HW’s launch. 

This does something to my heart. It feels heavy just looking at this. Our LS got rejuvenated by HW. Yuki had invited Venator, and we were a solid group of people again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yk-TRjAQQzg

A hilarious video from the launch of HW. It jumpscared me so much, I was shook, but it was so funny. 

We would go through some duties attempting to solo or 3-man them. And it worked wonders, we knocked a few out. Though, and this is probably why I screenshot this - I fucked up. For the longest time I had the Titan Ex quest but I abandoned it and forgot that I had done so, thus I had to complete this twice. Strange to think that this was maybe less than a year after we had attempted to do it in ARR with Brii. 

Armi and us completing T5. It was hilarious, a real clusterfuck because of our ‘yolo’, but it worked out! 

2.1 The wait

Do you remember the wait between 3.0 and 3.1? Fucking torture. I mean nothing happened. 3.0 was an amazing launch and expansion but it didn’t have content enough to keep us from starving. The dev team took a vacation, as well. And then 3.1 launched and all we got was The Diadem.

Do you remember how much of this shit we actually did? Like we were fully decked out in the best, at least in terms of iLvL, purple gear for most of our jobs. We spammed Dino Island. I can’t remember but I think our LS was fairly splintered for a period here. Like you and Belhi would do things together, and then I and you would, and then I would do some with Belhi, etc. Yuki was always heavily involved. 

2.2 The best time ever, the worst time ever

I don’t think we specified why we started a FC. We simply did. And that’s the very same FC I’m now in a little over 2 years later. In the beginning it was just Belhi, Tyke and I. And that’s all the members we ever needed. We built the FC but decided to get a house so we donated some gil and worked towards it but then we received a tell from Yuki. She was interested in parting with her FC, it was dead and it had a medium house. We merged our two FCs and The Bench Buddies 2.0 was created, now with a house. Yuki was made a co-leader. The dead FC had another member there already called Rivai Ri, now called Ink Varia who also decided to join us.  Belhi was in a relationship with someone and they joined together with a group of friends. Rin Lumoria, Sakurapingu Chan, and Alderin. A few extra too but I can’t remember their names, I’m sorry. We were a decently sized group of individuals now. We could finally do everything in the game be it maps, dungeons, raids or whatever. I felt like the FC was a massive success. 

Though it wouldn’t last. Mere days into 3.3 something kicked off that would be the end of something that had been stable for years - us. Tyke and Yuki were discussing Skyrim, or Bethesda or some such, and their discussion had heated up to the point that Tyke called Yuki “a thick fuck”. Not in the ‘fat shaming’ sense, but in the ‘how are you incapable of grasping this point?!’. Yuki had, I believe, struggled for some time with a feeling of inadequacy. And then this compounded everything and just nuked it for her. She was enraged, and in that rage she kicked Tyke. I remember Tyke sending me a tell asking to be invited back, I did so, I wasn’t paying a lot of attention but I noticed when Tyke kicked Yuki again. Damn. What a mess. 

I talked Yuki down and made her apologize but the damage was done, Yuki would be demoted to Officer for a while, something she didn’t accept and she chose to leave the FC instead. Yuki found another FC and she’s been with them ever since, I did try to reconcile us and also get her back but she didn’t want to so I just couldn’t do anything. I did plead with her for weeks and even months after attempting to get her back, but it was a lost cause. I still, even to this day, miss what we all had during back then. 

I still carry with me, in my inventory, a pineapple I got from Tyke during a map run with the guys, partly because it’s a lucky charm but also because of the obvious memories. In all honesty this is probably the first successful period we had as a FC. Sadly though because our “glue” was the relationship between Belhi and Rin we simply couldn’t survive the break up and their half of the FC simply left. We were now just wandering, Belhi was heartbroken obviously and didn’t really feel like doing anything anymore. Me and Tyke were discouraged because of how emotionally ravaged Belhi was, and also the plans we had for the FC, like we had saved up some maps to do them with the group just prior to all of this happening as an example. It was sad. Understandable but still so sad. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLGC1ZWQids

I remember this happening to you a lot during this time. Your network was unstable, and you frequently complained about your loss of packages and what not. You didn’t always lag, but when you did funny things happened. 

Initially I wanted to include screenshots of this conversation because I can’t put the cringe into words. I figured I shouldn’t due to the personal nature of it but I will describe it quickly. Fed up with the whole Brii-situation I decided that now, years after everything had happened, was a good time to reconcile both Brii and Tyke. A very cringe decision in hindsight, I should’ve sent tells and worked slowly, instead I chose the fast option. I sent Brii a few letters. When I didn’t get a reply I sent a few more. And some more. I received a longer tell with the “If you didn’t get a reply on the first try, why would sending 7 more letters work better? There was a time we could’ve worked through this, but that’s over with. I’m simply done and I will now blacklist you”. 

In hindsight I understand, but I didn’t back then so I made Tyke join me and we waited outside her FC house. Erandel, Brii’s BF, had to come and talk with us and tell us how it was. Fuck me. It was rather cringe worthy but it kinda worked as a closure, though I wasn’t satisfied back then and I’m still not satisfied.

Our FC did power through, but it lacked the intensity it once had. The loss of over half the membership usually has that effect. Thanks to all of us, but mostly Rivai Ri, we managed to secure some really great members. James, Finn, Hamzi, Vivi and most importantly Fie. Our FC worked out, we were once again a success. Do you remember our bet? During the presidential election in 2016 we placed a bet on who would win, and the loser had to put a million or maybe it only was 100k, into the FC chest? I lost that technically, Trump won. Though Hillary did win the popular vote so it was kinda 50/50. Funny. 

A very sad moment. Including it because of the state of our FC. We should’ve never left that house.

Unlike The Diadem, I think most of us found POTD to be rather interesting. The initial one was a little boring, but the second iteration was funny. You and I did some, but mostly all of us did some. 

Rivai, me, Tyke, Belhi and Fie all helped out now, building the FC, helping new members, it was a peaceful period though nothing really happened. When I say that I mean that there weren’t a whole lot of notable situations, mostly interpersonal communication and bonding that’s hard to express in words without outing a bunch of personal information.

Us finishing POTD floor 200. It was absolutely amazing and I truly regret not getting to experience it again with you all. It took us a few attempts, we wiped on some of the most stupid parts, but we made it. This was during Rivai’s break from the game. 

I don’t want to dox you, Tyke, but suffice to say - your life circumstances changed from the NEET life in 2014, to the AH meetings in 2015-17, to getting employed. The point I’m trying to make is that we spent less and less time together, and while we could chat on Discord, it wasn’t exactly the same as doing stuff together. 

A lot did happen. Rivai felt excluded, supplanted by Fie, and I couldn’t spend as much time with you and Belhi as I wanted. We did make time for some ‘us’, but not as much as we had once enjoyed. 

2.3 Stormblood

What? Not a whole chapter dedicated to Stormblood? I could probably do so. But I just can’t at the same time. The last half of 2017 fucking sucked for me. I wasn’t hyped for Stormblood, I was severely burned out, suffering from depression and the like, at least the early stages of it. I do remember us all leveling up through PvP. 

Fie chose to level ahead and skip most of the story, Rivai couldn’t play as much but I believe he also skipped cutscenes and such to get a head start. Belhi did a sort of “best of both worlds” and me and Tyke watched and enjoyed most of the cutscenes. Unbeknownst to me this would later create a rift between us, all of us. Simple thing, but simple things compounded on top of other simple things tend to be the reason why people break apart. We all had a blast though, helping each other and talking and discussing things while we went on. 

Right now I just feel sad more than anything when I hear the music in the expansion. Half a year after Heavensward I had a blast enjoying so many things, half a year after Stormblood and I’m sort of “meh”. This isn’t to spite SE, FFXIV or the expansion itself, could simply be burnout. 

We all grew so incredibly close at this point. It all seems like such a fever dream by this point, honestly. I miss it all, of course, but I think it had to happen like this. That this was a positive for us all, probably.

I don’t need to recount and retell what happened, it happened. Fie broke with all of us, and then she didn’t, and then she did. And I broke with her, and then with you. The end of 2017 was horrible. Rivai had already left by this point. 

Essentially I just snapped at the end of 2017. I just couldn’t cope with it. When Fie left the FC I felt an intense pressure in my chest, an existential dread. Instead of dealing with it I ditched, and in so doing I permanently ruined a thing that was growing. Of course, things did happen for us all before this, we did dungeons, we did experts, Rabanastre, getting kicked from Omega etc. 

2018-2021

This following section is written in 2021, but I felt like I needed to add some stuff here because I ended it pretty grimly. I did in fact rebuild my friendship with both Tyke and Belhi, and for the longest time, like 2 years, it was pretty great. Belhi and Tyke tried reviving the FC, and they were very successful, but as the content got stale, as the months went by and all we had to look forward to was Eureka, it died down again. In the end only Belhi attempted to keep the lights on, both me and Tyke were fairly fatigued. Or rather, settled. I shouldn’t speculate, I’m only assuming. Can’t say that was the case for Tyke, but it was for me. 

A rather decent and thriving community. 

2018 was almost exclusively dedicated to Eureka. I did an unfathomable amount, but sadly Belhi never got into it, and thus the distance between us grew greater. I sometimes wish we could return to those lonely nights in 2017 where it seemed like we chatted about everything. I wish I wasn’t such a self loathing idiot and just talked to Belhi. 

I made 4 videos of my adventures in Eureka. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJrMQ9F8HZg being the first one.

I remember wanting to finally get my chocobo to max pedigree and… I never ended up doing it, but we did a bunch of chocobo racing. I kinda enjoy it, just wish the netcode was better. I remember when it first released and the mad dash to do a few of them. Didn’t quite deliver, but I like content like this. 

Tyke and I spammed Eureka, reconnecting in a major way. Just wish we had done so through other means. I wasn’t fit even then, but you did lift my spirit. 

Skye just built differently. Loved this little glitch. 

Nyir Reginleif returned, or at least into my sphere again, having been a former member. We did a lot of these HoH, well. Not as many as POTD, but still. Alas, my struggling mental state forbid me from actually enjoying it fully, something I regret today. 

I lost my dog in 2019, and I remember you logging onto Minecraft saying “you can join me if you need company”. I also remember how you tried, in early 2020, to introduce me to your group of friends. You tried but I just couldn’t be helped, and in so doing I kinda sealed the fortunes of our friendship. I remember a period of time where we didn’t even need to type, we just knew what the other was thinking. We’d finish each other's sentences, or thoughts. Do the exact same thing as the other without noticing. We weren’t twins, far from it, we were fairly different, but still - at our core - we once used to be soulmates. And while it might be too early to say whether we’ve had our last moments, I think, as things are, it’s heavily implied. And so I figured I’d leave this here, as an echo, that’ll hopefully reach you, but if not the sentiment will hopefully echo through time and space. Oh, and I did want to use more screenshots from our early days but I can’t find them anymore, so I dunno what happened there.

I wish I was the friend you once had, but I’m not. I can’t say what you think of us nowadays. Maybe just indifference, but in any case I want you to know you meant a lot to me, and that I am cheering you on. Will forever be a supporter of you! 

I did consider using real names, but, as with Belhi, I decided against it. So thanks for everything, K, I may be back to add more stuff, but for now this is it. I do love you greatly, may you find whatever you want in life, and in your moments of doubt may you have support. Take care of yourself, Tyke.