More Me

Ok, I succumbed. I have a Facebook account and I activated my Flickr one off my extant Yahoo account, all because of Mjollnir.

Also... *squee* I found Pharaoh Atem's site with 80 remixed FFXI tunes! And apparently he cosplayed a Mithra - I think he stole my "ear" notes, but they look fantastic!

Musical Memories

On Monday, I discovered that Mjollnir* can stream net radio.  Then I made myself sad.

I found Psycho White Mage Radio.  And four years of memories came flooding back.  /sadmithra

I do so miss Vana'diel - I sometimes wonder if I should stop torturing myself and drop the Twitter XI feeds...

*This is a temporary name on the assumption I find something more suited to my personality.  Doesn't help that I just listened to "And Another Thing" which has more than a few thunderbolt courtesy of Thor.

Testing Thor's phone

I'm dictating this to my phone I don't really have much of the status point of this is pretty cool.

okay no that's pretty close I have to edit a little bit later.

bye bye

After The Dream Ends...

...there is often another...

Hello all. I think I have a problem. I've noticed in the past several weeks that I feel less "Aerinny" than before. I know part of it is that I'm not expressing my personality as a goofy WHM Mithra. But a lot of it is the loss of having a use for my gifts.

OK, that's a little over the top. But, honestly, I haven't found another outlet for my gifts and I think lack of "spiritual exercise" is affecting me negatively. I'm grumpier than usual and have less patience. Some of that may be due to lack of sleep caused by a pregna-momma sleeping fitfully next to me ^^

While playing Portal and Fallout 3 recently (don't laugh - I have a four-year backlog of PS3 and PSP classics) I have tried to follow the path of light. In Portal, that pretty much meant not killing a single turret. I took great pains to evade and avoid them using cubes to block them or in many cases, jumping behind or beside them with careful portal placement. Once there I could safely turn them around (despite their cute protests) and walk away safely.

Overall, not a very good WHM outlet.

Fallout 3 is better, in that it has a very clear karma system with costs and benefits of playing well with others or laying waste to anything in your path. Up until the Garden of Eden mission, I had not killed a single human. I achieved this by tanking escort missions and disarming enemies when possible. A3-21's Plasma Rifle with a few VATS perks makes that pretty easy. Also, there was much running like mad and eating lots of found food.

Oh, I'm also on a med-and stim free run. 3 meds (2 by accident) and 12 stims only.

So, Garden of Eden. Of course, I rescue Fawkes. And since anything that aggroes me sets *him* off, he winds up doing a lot of killing. I'd rather he didn't but in only two cases did I actually instigate a Super Mutant Gatling Laser Roast-a-Thon. Both times involved slavers. RIP Eulogy Jones... I'm on the final mission and only have like 3 side-quests left so I think I did OK.

My kids still don't get why I'm trying to avoid killing, even in self defence. At this point I have a few groups out to kill me on sight: Raiders, Talon Company, and the Enclave. If they'd just ignore me, I'd turn Fawkes to melee and keep him close. But they don't and, conflicted as he is, he seems to really like mowing down smoothskins.

But even with all that (and yes, the Clones have called me out on my Fawkesian hypocrisy), I *still* don't feel right.

And GT5? There's not much use for a WHM there.

So, what to do? I've thought long and hard about TWLOHA's ImAlive project. If I thought I could do that without drowning in the pain of others, or becoming overly concerned about individuals, I'd do it. But it's a big commitment and Kat's due in 6 short weeks ^^ If I do go for it, I'll let you all know.

Oh, almost forgot - I must announce that I'm extremely proud of Elder. He has taken up my calling in his MMO of choice. Seriously! He spends about as much time talking and listening as he does questing. I've given him some gentle advice but otherwise I want to see where it goes. After going through his pre-teen and early teen years wondering if he cared about anything outside of himself, I'm so happy to see what he's been up to in there!

Also, now that I have a paycheck again, I'm thinking about grabbing that sewing machine and seeing what I can come up with in a month and a half. Ape got many wonderful and adorable outfits at Kat's shower and I think there's some I could ape (ha!) pretty closely with time and practice.

And I *still* want to cosplay this September. I saw some screenshots from one of the recent XI updates of new gear that looked A LOT like my plans for my Druid ensemble. Weir-r-rd.

With all my hopes and dreams,

Aerin

Final Farewells

Hello all.

For a number of reasons, this may be the end of my time in Vana'diel. I will continue to love all and serve all as a White Mage, gifted with a healing touch, a perceiving ear, and the Well of Sorrows. But I doubt I'll be doing any of that in Vana'diel anytime soon.

I've been working on my departure for some time, but with the latest S-E screwup, I may be denied even that. The December 6 update doesn't work on my PS3 and I'm not about to attempt their /workaround/ of reinstalling everything.

Hold on - I think I need to set the table.

I've long lamented that in the past 6 months or so I've gotten nowhere. My shell has (once again) basically fallen apart. I don't have any regular people to play with, and no organized group to assist me with the hard stuff. I don't necessarily mean endgame, but just Abyssea and AF3, Trials, new Rare/Ex gear, and so on. My last Party Log entry was on 9/25 and that was a shell thing. Other than that, I've had maybe one undocumented Dancer party and four trips into Abyssea. That's it. I'm tired of LFG for hours on end, and I suspect my gimpiness isn't helping.

So be it.

Furthermore, I just don't have the time I used to. Before last month, I was pulling back because of Ape. Her issues with online time haven't gone away and I got tired of fighting them. And then a few weeks ago I got kicked from the job that I loved dearly. So money goes away and so do indulgences like XI.

My plan was to see if I could cancel but rejoin after things sorted themselves out - maybe a month or two God willing! But then the December update broke PS2 play and things aren't looking positive for a simple fix. Plus, my plans to go to XIV seem to be pointless as word from Eorzea is that it's still broken (bazaar, quests, walkathons, etc.).

It doesn't help that I'm under a lot of stress and pressure. My gifts mean I'll survive but sometimes it just sucks having to be string enough for two people. Well, five, really (: I don't have anyone I can talk with about stuff because Ape and I just can't agree on how to handle stress in and of itself (causing her *more* stress) and I just can't find it in me to burden others. I know of several people who'd hang with me in a heartbeat, and I love them for it. But it's just not what I really need.

There's also some extra pressure to not be myself, so much. I'm not sure I like that. I am who I am, after all!

So, in summation, don't expect to see much more here. Even if by some miracle the stars align and I get back on, find a group on my schedule and get into all sorts of adventures, I just don't know if I can deal with the drama of The Real that surrounds Vana'diel for me.

If there's anyone still in Vana'diel that was hoping I'd come back and amateur up my WHM (lol Fhox) or finish out my Dancer, I'm sorry.

Missing you all,

Aerin

P.S. I've essentially moved away from Yahoo mail to GMail because a) Google is awesome, and b) I can access my Google accounts using a standard IMAP/POP3 client like Evolution. I'm at first name dot last name at gmail dot com.