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Lalli Physalis

Sargatanas [Aether]

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  • 6

The Unbearable Lightness of Eorzea

Public
Hey y'all, this is a bit of a status update I guess? Hi! Hi. I hope you're all doing good. I hope you're safe and in good health, and doing all you can to help people stay safe and healthy as well.

Interesting times we're in, interesting times.

Basically I just wanted to write a quick note saying that I did not, in fact, abandon FFXIV or this blog, so those out there who enjoy Lalli's adventures (based on pageviews, I gotta assume there's at least a handful of youse?) can still look forward to finding out how the Cloud of Darkness, the Crystal Braves and the entire nation of Gridania are gonna screw him over.

What I ended up writing, however, was kind of a very long rambling about games, escapism, and the fragility of having to rely on technology. Buckle up, or click away, cause it begins below.

What's going on right now with my gaming situation is that I'm not able to play much, and since my writing is directly fueled by my deeds in the game, I haven't had much material to work with. Lalli' just sorta chillin at the moment (literally, I think I last logged out in Coerthas).

Y'see, my faithful old gaming PC, lovingly built by my ex-boyfriend-now-friend when I was in college, has been on its last legs for a long time. The hunk of junk must have turned 8 years old this year - it's a miracle it still works. I had a couple parts replaced maybe 3 or 4 years down the line, but it still has most of the original hardware (including the 2 USB ports that got fried at some point during assembly - I've become a pro at daisy-chaining USB splitters).

Despite its quirks, it worked jolly well for a very long time. However, these days, to log on and get my popoto fix, I have to go through a bit of a lengthy process which I unfortunately seldom have time for.

First, have to carefully dust the damn thing, or else it'll overheat minutes after starting the game (and since my building is very strict about noise at night, I can't use my electric duster after 8h30 - some foresight is required). Then, I have to brace myself for a 15-minute wait while the ol' clanker boots up - and it doesn't always stick, I often have to reboot because the game crashes a lot when starting up. If I do make it online, I can usually enjoy up to about an hour of gameplay before the freezes and light flashes start, provided of course I keep the graphic quality at the absolute minimum (my screenshots have been garbage lately, egads).

The things we do for love...

Speaking of love - in my country, stores and such are slowly reopening after several months of quarantine. The first thing I did when I heard was to call the computer store that replaced the parts some years ago and commission a new computer. I still have to wait several weeks before I can pick it up, however, because most of the parts were backorder due to the pandemic (and, in a moment of poetic symmetry, my ex-boyfriend-now-friend will be the one driving me there - this is the end of an era).

Which brings me to the contemplative part of this entry - how fragile Eorzea is, in fact.

I don't mean in a lore-sense or even a game-design sense, I mean, in a having-a-place-in-one's-life sense. I started playing this game the week it got released, and its lore and universe has been a part of my imagination ever since. Yknow how they say that even though dreams aren't real, they still exist because you experienced them? Eorzea is a bit like that for me - a dream, and one I can experience awake.

Provided I have a good computer. And Internet, and electricity, and a subscription (so money, basically).

I feel incredibly privileged to have been able to walk out of quarantine and slap a metaphorical wad of cash on some dude's counter to get a new PC. I still have a job, when so, so many do not. Oddly, it's actually because of the quarantine that I was able to afford this - I was supposed to move again this year (if the being unable to dust a PC after 8h30 didn't tip you off - this is kind of a shitty building, turns out) but chose to postpone when the government strongly encouraged people to put off non-essential moves. The money I had set aside this year was suddenly freed up, and I certainly wasn't going to travel with it, so... there we are. There's no way my PC would have lived another year, so without this unforeseen turn of events, it's possible I would have had to stop playing altogether.

This type of butterfly-effect shit always gets me thinking - was this actually the best course of action? Should I have saved that money instead and willingly walked away from PC gaming? Will this actually end up being unhealthy for me? There was definitely a time in my life when I was lonely and sad and used the game as an escape instead of confronting my issues. Perhaps having less access to that means of escape forced me to improve my situation... I'm in therapy, my social life is better, I'm more active physically, yadda yadda yadda.

Oh, I'm still deeply fucked up, that remains, but I am trying. I'm no longer assuming I deserve misery. Therapy taught me that a)I do not and b)it was too scary before to think I deserved better because that would have meant I would have to get real mad at many a person and then work real hard, and I didn't think I could handle any of it. But I can, and I am, and I will.

And yknow what? Maybe I'll eat my words a year down the line, I don't know, but I think this is what will make a difference: that I made a conscious decision to make my life into one I wouldn't need to escape from. I'd like to keep Eorzea in my life as long as I can, but not as a hatch; as a door, a door to a dream that I can take whenever I want, just because Eorzea and her beautifully diverse people enrich my life.
Comments (6)

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This character has been deleted.

You'd need a new PC eventually, so I'd say it was the best course of action.

Lalli Physalis

Sargatanas [Aether]

Yeah! But yknow, it could have been a cheaper work laptop instead of a gaming rig and such.

Siglinde Skysworn

Sargatanas [Aether]

Lalli! It is good to hear you are still mostly safe and healthy in these trying times.

I am not qualified to comment on depression and mental health, but I am glad you are now getting therapy, and you're right that you do not deserve misery. I hope things continue improving for you!

Siglinde Skysworn

Sargatanas [Aether]

I am actually kind of disappointed to hear you did not move, cause your current place seemed to be giving you a lot of problems with sleep and noise, I recall. But hopefully, you will be able to have a better place and new computer by next year, haha.

I look forward to reading more about your adventures when your computer does arrive!

Lalli Physalis

Sargatanas [Aether]

Thanks a lot Sig! I tried out the PC yesterday and it works like a charm (but I basically only had the time to redo my hotbars and such, haha). I'm trying to make a plan to move out for when the pandemic has died down but a side-effect of the situation is that there aren't a lot of available apartments, so I might have to be patient there.

I got a potential roommate waiting in the wings, but I don't know, I've lived alone for a long time now, I've become used to it ^^;

Lalli Physalis

Sargatanas [Aether]

As for the mental health bit, I'm ironically doing better now than the past years, and that's why I was able to seek therapy. I just needed to be a little brave/hopeful, and yet I put it off for years because I felt like I deserved the crap, but also because I was afraid it wouldn't help, which would have meant I'd be condemned to be miserable my whole life.

It's very ironic - had I kept putting it off forever, it would have been a self-fulfilling prophecy.
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