As I mentioned the day before I turned 35 yesterday. Between existential dread of already being in the middle of my 30s and general mental health crap it wasn't really a great one!
That said, something meant to be a Christmas present to myself had a longer turnaround than I expected ( see https://bsky.app/profile/confusedmo...../3meagwk7nxc2v ) so it kind of became a birthday present to myself instead, so I guess that's something.

Just another thing to overwhelm my mental health at this point honestly.

https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lode.....edbafa4f7eef54
(scroll down to "Equipment can now be glamoured regardless of class or job requirements" (or just take my word that it's there, I'm not your dad))

Turns out it's all fun and games until you're scouring the whole-ass videogame for fashions you might have liked but initially wrote off because of the class it was anchored to

Duder could have been maximum childhood-crush-I-didn't-know-was-a-crush material if not for the PS2 era being obnoxiously weird about 2D graphics. I was robbed back in 2004!

Anyway fan translations are still cool and good, it turns out.

hey
hey kid
you want some unreasonably visceral nostalgia pangs
https://youtu.be/PtPYp-etfCQ
https://youtu.be/8v_BISgU584
https://youtu.be/XDAKjvmj0m4
The Laguz were in fact one half* of the reason that I do the whole furry thing, and while I didn't realize it at the time I was really, really into the homoeroticism of Ike/Soren and Oscar/Kieran and that really did one hell of a number on my brain chemistry.



*the other half is Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, which turned 20 a couple years ago, which I talked about at the time

https://apnews.com/article/james-do.....c01d457e9d46aa
rip in piss "neighbor" (read: bozo), you deserve worse for ruining as many lives as you did (including mine)

(No I wasn't actually literal neighbors with Dobson, I just grew up distressingly close to his bitch-ass organization's headquarters.)

More like Tales of X-"I really wish the games industry would stop calling straight ports remasters, it's both dishonest and denigrates the noble port, especially in cases like this where being trapped in old console jail for a decade and a half makes a port the best thing for it"-llia Remastered.

Oh hey, look at that, it's happening again, right down to it having been in old console jail for far too long. You could argue I was being to harsh on Ivalice Chronicles characterizing it this way but I have enough pattern recognition re:Namco's other re-releases that I'm confident in using it here; I guess it doesn't really matter and all I'm doing is letting my own personal nitpicks get the better of me anyway.

Anyways I actually used this game (dumped from my own disc) to test if my ROG Ally could emulate the PS3 and it did so perfectly and I still need to be careful about spending money on media I already own (a lesson I learned from the Switch port of Tales of Symphonia, funnily enough), so all I can do is wish this re-release well.

https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lode.....d88a5d447419c9
The new dress (look under "new recipes have been added") isn't gender-locked! I think this is the first time this has happened for something that's not a cash shop item, at least from initial release! I didn't even get the memo until I saw a Hrothguy in the wild with one!

(Also, Echoes of Vana'diel is quite possibly the hardest one of this game's "indulgent homage to different FF game" has ever pandered as of this second tier.)

More like "I really wish the games industry would stop calling straight ports (or straight ports with upscaling photoshop filters and extra voice acting, as the case may be) remasters, it's both dishonest and denigrates the noble port, especially in cases like this where being trapped in old console jail for almost two decades makes a port the best thing for it"-valice Chronicles

Anyway I've actually watched the trailers this time and I'm on board now; not sure why I was kinda mean the first time I talked about this really, the aforementioned old console jail makes this a good thing on its surface. (Now I'm just torn between "really need to be careful about spending full retail on media I already own" and "they're dubbing it like they do FFXIV and I'm really interested in seeing how that works out on a much older game".)

Oh, honey, I'm just irresponsible.

It's to fffffffffFUckIng hot out for this shittttt
"For which shit?"
Yes.

More like I've-already-bought-this-game-several-times-over-decades-ago-and-it's-really-easy-to-emulate-valice Chronicles

I promise to think this even more than usual this month.

https://youtu.be/tJpkg8wMEbE?si=7D0LUPVpP0iSGK_J&t=16
There is always vengeance.
There is ALWAYS vengeance.
THERE IS ALWAYS VENGEANCE.

...to be windmill slammed by the Vana'diel March in the first goddamn second.

I will not be providing context for the above statement.

It's like I'm a hostage in my own dang brain lately

They have no idea the sort of power they've given me
I have become a monster

https://youtu.be/tJpkg8wMEbE?si=7D0LUPVpP0iSGK_J&t=16
Y'know, I mentioned that this quote had become my ethos for Pride Month, in particular, but as time goes on I can't help but feel it about, like... everything. Every time some sort of current event happens (or even just something shit happens to me personally) this one movie quote haunts my thoughts.
I also thought I had more to say about this but it turns out I don't. Damn.

"How is that different from just gay?"

Extremely tedious pride month activity, do not recommend.

June is only a few days away and we all know what that means: I get to have a bunch of intrusive thoughts about my childhood trauma.
As such, I've been thinking about this quote a lot lately:
https://youtu.be/tJpkg8wMEbE?si=7D0LUPVpP0iSGK_J&t=16
(final line of the video, 16 seconds in)

Just, y'know, a favorite of mine.

At no expense to you, and at Capcom's own behest:
https://captown.capcom.com/en/super_elections
Tell them it's high time to bring back the Breath of Fire games after more than two decades. Cite the popularity of stuff like Persona or Xenoblade or that new Granblue game.
Please and thanks!
(also I am mostly joking but I'd still like it)

33 years!
And as previously alluded to things are going quite poorly, so there's that.

Always catches me off guard, I always forget how early in the year February is.

anyway my mental health is still in shambles* and im lonely and miserable because of it, lol, lmao

*And trying to rectify this is Herculean; whoever thought multiple long, dense, agonizing forms were something reasonable to foist on someone with a mental illness can go to hell.

If you know what I'm talking about then you know what I'm talking about but I do find the above description very funny when removed from context.

I spent a huge chunk of 2023 suffering an existential crisis over 2003 being 20 years ago and man, this year's gonna be so much worse.
2004 being 20 years ago is already bad enough (World of Warcraft and the Nintendo DS are turning 20 among other things) but also there's 2014 being 10 years ago (that was when things started Going Badly™ for a variety of reasons and I still haven't really been able to process any year since) and more generally I'm just not emotionally prepared for it to be the mid-2020s.
And that's all on top of 2023 itself utterly sucking ass and 2024 almost certainly following suit for all the same reasons.