tl;dr I lost my love and companion of 11 years yesterday. I made a video to honor her, and I would like to share it with you. I know it has some issues, but the way the Morpho landed on her shoulder at the end was too perfect.
Video: Farewell Nabi. I will miss you always.
Details: Yesterday, I lost my best friend and love of 11 years. We have both been gamers for all our lives, but while I had preferred single-player, story driven JRPGs, she preferred online games and playing with other people. She loved WoW and played it for many years. I got her into Diablo, and we played so much Diablo 3 together, both on PC and on Console.
As a long time FF fan (been playing since the original FF on NES), I wanted FFXIV to be my first MMO. I had an account since 2014, but because of the social anxiety I'd get every time I had to queue in DF, I didn't progress far. I was determined to get into the game, and I did it with her help. It took me two tries, but at the end of 2015, I got my friend and companion into this game. Once she got to Sastasha, Tam-Tara, and Copperbell and realized how fun dungeon content could be, she became less of a WoWhead and more of a FFXIV fan. She helped me through the anxiety by running dungeons with me, and now I'm strong enough and salty enough to make my own PFs for endgame content.
We hit endgame around 3.2. We did the normal mode of the new trial in 3.3, and when Dragonsong played during Phase 1, she was in love with that song. Every time we queued for trial roulette, she hoped for that trial to pop just to hear that song play again. It was also one of the first songs she got for the orchestrion.
When Stormblood came out, she was excited to see that SAM was one of the new DPS. While she loved and mained MCH during HW, she knew but one thing to do with SAM: as a fan of Kill Bill, she had to main SAM and knew her glam had to be "The Bride." While she wanted to change her name to that as well, that presented a problem. Her IGN, Nabi, was named in honor of her cat she had to give up for adoption many years ago. Instead, at my suggestion, she became Nabi The-bride. Our FC helped her find the pieces for her glam, test which dyes gave the right color, and she became "The Bride" in game. Her veil came from our Eternal Bond, a wedding with the theme, "wear as little clothes as possible" because "I wanted a naked wedding, as were customary among the Betazed." (We are both Star Trek fans as well.) Her LB macro was, "Where's Bill?"
During this time, she also realized she is trans. Having lived most of her life as male, she struggled to find a new name for her new identity. She tried a female variant of her birth name, but that didn't set well with her. Since almost all our friends are from FFXIV and called her Nabi anyways, I suggested she take on her character's name. She loved that idea for two main reasons. One, it honored her cat that she missed so much it still made her cry. Two, Nabi also means butterfly in Korean, and Nabi would always describe her transition as from being an ugly caterpillar to a beautiful butterfly.
The last year of her life had been rough. She struggled with illness on and off. I had to learn to give IVs at home. She was hospitalized two weeks ago, but last Friday, she took a turn for the worst. Yesterday, I did the hardest thing I've done in my almost 40 years on this planet: standing by her bedside with her dad as we watched her slip from life together.
Nabi always thought she would be forgotten. On Saturday, I knew we were losing her from the moment I saw her, and the events of that day started to build evidence supporting that conclusion. I came home and created a private Discord for her friends in FFXIV, invited them and told them to invite people I may have forgotten. As of this posting, there are 53 members. When it was time for us to say goodbye to her, those who could come joined the voice chat (we had 20+ people). When we began the process of removing Nabi from life support, we @everyone the Discord, and they sat there, in silence, waiting for the inevitable news that would come with the next @everyone. Nabi would not be forgotten. Nabi is loved.
The night before she passed, when I couldn't sleep, I went to make one more gif of her before I tried to lay down. I had logged into her account and left her on all weekend in her house in Shirogane, humming (her favorite dance). She loved to use /fume at me in game, and I had grown to love the sound effect. So, when I put on my headphones to hear the sound effect and was considering making a short video instead of a gif, Answers started to play on her orchestrion; that was the first time I let it go and cried really hard. At that point, I definitely decided to make a video. But instead of Answers, I played Dragonsong instead. It took me three hours to get a take I liked; it's not perfect; I forgot to turn off Discord and it beeped during recording. Sometimes I moved the camera too fast, sometimes too slow, sometimes an object or my toon blocked the view for a second.
But near the end of the recording, her morpho landed on her shoulder and stayed there, and I couldn't think of a more perfect ending. I left the recording as it was and posted it to YouTube. After she passed, I shared it with her friends in the memorial Discord, and now I'm sharing it with you.
Nabi The-Bride, your Ambrose loves you with all his heart. I will miss you, my companion of 11 years.
commence ugly crying
PSA: Get a living will and medical power of attorney on file. You may need them at any age.
Video: Farewell Nabi. I will miss you always.
submitted by /u/deservevictory80
[link] [comments]
Continue reading...
Video: Farewell Nabi. I will miss you always.
Details: Yesterday, I lost my best friend and love of 11 years. We have both been gamers for all our lives, but while I had preferred single-player, story driven JRPGs, she preferred online games and playing with other people. She loved WoW and played it for many years. I got her into Diablo, and we played so much Diablo 3 together, both on PC and on Console.
As a long time FF fan (been playing since the original FF on NES), I wanted FFXIV to be my first MMO. I had an account since 2014, but because of the social anxiety I'd get every time I had to queue in DF, I didn't progress far. I was determined to get into the game, and I did it with her help. It took me two tries, but at the end of 2015, I got my friend and companion into this game. Once she got to Sastasha, Tam-Tara, and Copperbell and realized how fun dungeon content could be, she became less of a WoWhead and more of a FFXIV fan. She helped me through the anxiety by running dungeons with me, and now I'm strong enough and salty enough to make my own PFs for endgame content.
We hit endgame around 3.2. We did the normal mode of the new trial in 3.3, and when Dragonsong played during Phase 1, she was in love with that song. Every time we queued for trial roulette, she hoped for that trial to pop just to hear that song play again. It was also one of the first songs she got for the orchestrion.
When Stormblood came out, she was excited to see that SAM was one of the new DPS. While she loved and mained MCH during HW, she knew but one thing to do with SAM: as a fan of Kill Bill, she had to main SAM and knew her glam had to be "The Bride." While she wanted to change her name to that as well, that presented a problem. Her IGN, Nabi, was named in honor of her cat she had to give up for adoption many years ago. Instead, at my suggestion, she became Nabi The-bride. Our FC helped her find the pieces for her glam, test which dyes gave the right color, and she became "The Bride" in game. Her veil came from our Eternal Bond, a wedding with the theme, "wear as little clothes as possible" because "I wanted a naked wedding, as were customary among the Betazed." (We are both Star Trek fans as well.) Her LB macro was, "Where's Bill?"
During this time, she also realized she is trans. Having lived most of her life as male, she struggled to find a new name for her new identity. She tried a female variant of her birth name, but that didn't set well with her. Since almost all our friends are from FFXIV and called her Nabi anyways, I suggested she take on her character's name. She loved that idea for two main reasons. One, it honored her cat that she missed so much it still made her cry. Two, Nabi also means butterfly in Korean, and Nabi would always describe her transition as from being an ugly caterpillar to a beautiful butterfly.
The last year of her life had been rough. She struggled with illness on and off. I had to learn to give IVs at home. She was hospitalized two weeks ago, but last Friday, she took a turn for the worst. Yesterday, I did the hardest thing I've done in my almost 40 years on this planet: standing by her bedside with her dad as we watched her slip from life together.
Nabi always thought she would be forgotten. On Saturday, I knew we were losing her from the moment I saw her, and the events of that day started to build evidence supporting that conclusion. I came home and created a private Discord for her friends in FFXIV, invited them and told them to invite people I may have forgotten. As of this posting, there are 53 members. When it was time for us to say goodbye to her, those who could come joined the voice chat (we had 20+ people). When we began the process of removing Nabi from life support, we @everyone the Discord, and they sat there, in silence, waiting for the inevitable news that would come with the next @everyone. Nabi would not be forgotten. Nabi is loved.
The night before she passed, when I couldn't sleep, I went to make one more gif of her before I tried to lay down. I had logged into her account and left her on all weekend in her house in Shirogane, humming (her favorite dance). She loved to use /fume at me in game, and I had grown to love the sound effect. So, when I put on my headphones to hear the sound effect and was considering making a short video instead of a gif, Answers started to play on her orchestrion; that was the first time I let it go and cried really hard. At that point, I definitely decided to make a video. But instead of Answers, I played Dragonsong instead. It took me three hours to get a take I liked; it's not perfect; I forgot to turn off Discord and it beeped during recording. Sometimes I moved the camera too fast, sometimes too slow, sometimes an object or my toon blocked the view for a second.
But near the end of the recording, her morpho landed on her shoulder and stayed there, and I couldn't think of a more perfect ending. I left the recording as it was and posted it to YouTube. After she passed, I shared it with her friends in the memorial Discord, and now I'm sharing it with you.
Nabi The-Bride, your Ambrose loves you with all his heart. I will miss you, my companion of 11 years.
commence ugly crying
PSA: Get a living will and medical power of attorney on file. You may need them at any age.
Video: Farewell Nabi. I will miss you always.
submitted by /u/deservevictory80
[link] [comments]
Continue reading...