The teller was like "uhhhh, hmmm", but the fact I'd been paying it down for over a year and there was hardly any left meant she just accepted the payment and left a note for one of their loan folks to see if something needed to be done to square it up. :P

(Uri had also met that Elidibus, after the OTHER Elidibus had run into two "clones" and msged me like "HEY COME HANG OUT WITH US", but that was not the "Elidibus alt I know" that I was expecting to see and I was so confused for a second! :D)

They didn't show up, so after awhile I was just enjoying the performance with the HUD turned off to better see the visuals, turned it back on to /cheer ... and saw that Elidibus had come in and said something, and was right behind Uri.

BUT IT WAS A DIFFERENT ELIDIBUS. XD

I was laughing SO HARD.

(Also in the case of Vagrant Story specifically, if you at least TRIED to play, managed to make it to the Snowfly Forest, and then went "okay yeah no this is too much I can't deal with this", then I think you have acquired some of the same appreciation I have for Ashley's character. XD)

In short: Yeah I understand that sometimes there are barriers to people playing a game, I am glad to help out with that, but watching a game is ABSOLUTELY not the same experience as playing it - and anyone who assures you it is "so don't bother, just watch the video" is robbing you of something.

And while the game was really punishing and I understand why a lot of people just lost it at the Snowfly Forest - and now the game's not exactly easy to find/play to begin with - it's really, REALLY worth playing if you can. The sense of danger - and growth to overcome it - isn't captured in videos.

forging whatever gear an opponent had happened to drop into something specialized for specific types of enemies until he could slice through them without a thought.

The difficult gameplay itself made his persistence, his patience, and his skill as a blacksmith integral to his character for me.

Simply watching the cutscenes, or watching an experienced player go through with their good weapons, cannot provide the kinship I felt with Ashley fighting through undead hordes with the starter weapon, sitting and waiting to recover before moving on to the next room, spending HOURS in the workshops

And mind you, I'm queued as a healer on Crystal. Got it to ping once, a DPS dipped, and it's been at 0 tanks, 1 healer, 0 dps for the 6 minutes since.

Side note: ...The free lv99 RPR coat is an entirely different look than I was going for when I put his previous RPR glams together, but uh. It's not bad.

(Of course I just think that coat looks good on everyone...)

I swear I'm such a moron about gear on my alts. Recently I remember realizing that one of them was doing level 80 crafting with some of their gear still at like level 30...

Like... maaaan. That synced-to-lv99 apollyon sure went down a lot faster than the synced-to-lv98 apollyon yesterday, and without chocobo backup to keep him from dying. XD

Oh YESSSS he is GOING TO TOWN on the spinach and that munching sound is the best sound I have heard in ages.