A couple weeks back I came across a post on Facebook: one of my old friends from FFXI, Techno, talking to another old friend, Margulis, about the FFXIV beta. I interjected to ask a couple questions about it since I was kind of in an MMO drought and I then went and signed up for the beta for Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. Last weekend I managed to snag a key from Alienware Arena's giveaway (and then later got a key direct from SE for this weekend) and got a chance to try it for a few hours and catch up with some old TF buddies that have been playing XIV. The game itself is amusing, kinda eh but I'm really relishing the chance to nostalgia bomb with some old friends and familiar character/class styles (making up for lost Mithra time).
Oh, and I was seriously, seriously giddy to have auto-translate again. That thing is so much fun.
When Final Fantasy XI first came out I was still in high school and didn't have the means to procure and subscribe to an MMO, but as a big Final Fantasy fan I vowed to myself that one day, one way or another I would find a way to play it. About a year after I graduated I finally was in the right position to pick it up. My senior year of high school I was really big into Tribes: Aerial Assault and by the time I got into FFXI I still was in touch with a few old clannies who were now playing it, and they managed to get me a friend code for Phoenix and I hopped on board their social linkshell. I can't quite remember the name of it...
I was Kurohyou, a Hume male, beardy style.
That first LS (we'll call it LS1 for now) introduced me to the environment that would typify most of my FFXI tenure: bittersweet drama. The distinguishing feature I'll always remember most was the Lexi/Talenar/Elvaan-PLD-guy-whose-name-I-forgot trio. Lexi was the only female and WHM in the LS, which meant despite the fact that nearly everyone absolutely fucking despised her, they were obliged to kind of put up with her. She was married to a guy called Talenar (a THF), and this almost wouldn't be worth mentioning except that she was near constantly hitting on and generally fawning over a second guy, the Elvaan-PLD-guy-whose-name-I-forgot.
My first main was WHM, entirely because I hoped to relieve Lexi's stranglehold as the group's only healer.
At some point, when I was doing the first level cap raising quest, on the part where you have to get THAT paper I had been struggling, stress-fully, to farm it all day. At some point some friends from LS1 offered to help and somehow Lexi and co. came along. I don't remember the details but for whatever reason Lexi's presence put me into an incredible, seeing-red fury. I do recall she was bitching about having to come help me and this upset me greatly because by luck it happened to drop shortly after they all showed up.
Anyways, the only other notable thing I can remember about Lexi is that later a guy named Atistab (whose name I only remember because of the below image) and I became really good friends when we discovered we had a mutual hate for Lexi (who had been in his Dynamis LS for a long time).
There was a second LS I was in between LS1 and TiamatsFangs, all I remember is that the leader was a guy called Ninboy who was one of the few max level goldsmiths on the server. And man, digging up that image I came across a number of interesting images from those days.
This is Astarael, a career BLM who was another of a constellation of old friends from my Tribes days.
There was some point when I was partying in Valkurm Dunes (would have been in the earliest area) when I joined a party with Jillia and Margulis (they were a couple at the time IIRC). We had one member of our party who was pretty bad and the three of us were arguing with him which made us all fast friends, and from there I joined TiamatsFangs--a group that I've been involved with in varying degrees over the years but I've always maintained contact with at least a few of them as time has gone by.
Jillia and I were close friends. I hesitate to say she was my closest friend ever because at the time I was still quite close friends with Brandon Seidler (whom I'd dragged into FFXI at some point). I'm not too shy enough to not admit that I had a smouldering unrequited crush on her for quite a while as well, but I also don't mind saying that at the very least I loved her like a sister.
This was the picture she posted on the TiamatsFangs forums. She was a PLD and an absolutely badass tank. I'll come back to her because there's a baffling backstory that leads into the last time I left the game so we'll save that until then.
I'm actually going to cut this post short here and come back to things. Topics for another post: Nikki/Moosey/Clashes, Aurawyn, Kiren, Arithia/Faux/Kazeryushin, Girr/Homer the Scammer/SWTOR follow-up, more Jillia, playing FFXIV.
Quick tl;dr on the post title/first paragraph: I lost contact with Jillia shortly after she quit to go to university and the combination of our close friendship and the really bizarre circumstances surrounding her exit from the game form a seriously haunting mystery that I hope-but-don't-expect might someday be resolved. Got the idea earlier today that if I can get this post to pop up on Google or other search engines with the right combination of keywords she might stumble across it someday.
Edit: It's a number of weeks later now and I was cleaning out some tabs on my browser when I noticed this post pops up at the top of a Google search for "Final Fantasy XI Jillia Phoenix" and quick searches confirm that "Kurohyou Phoenix", "Jillia Phoenix", and multiple other permutations show this post at or very close to the top, so mission accomplished. The TF gang and I (especially) would love to hear from you again if you're reading this, Jilli.
