So, tomorrow night will be the Toonami airing of Sword Art Online II Episode 24, the final episode of the second season. Have you seen it? No? Go watch it tomorrow night, and come back. You have seen it? Then did you hear about what happened that made news the same time as it aired? Yes? Then read my older post on it You don't know what happened? Then keep reading. On Saturday, December 20th, 2014, the episode originally aired in Japan (so sometime on Friday, US-time). On Saturday morning US, the episode was put up to air on Crunchyroll, and viewers in the US were able to watch it. I worked that day, but when I got home, I settled down on the couch, pulled up my laptop, went into a friend's game stream, and got ready to watch the episode. I'd read spoilers, so I knew what was going to happen, and I knew I'd likely cry, but I was ready to watch it. Then the news broke. I never knew Codex Vahlda. I never knew Yggdrasilly. I never knew Tai. But I have friends who knew him, who'd played with him. I had close friends, who considered him one of their best friends. They'd played together for years on FFXI. Some played together in FFXIV, some didn't. Regardless, they'd kept in touch. I was in the stream chat, I was on Skype co-hosting with the streamer. And then tweets started coming in. "Is he gone?" the tweets were asking. "What happened?" others asked. And as more information and tweets came out, the picture was made more clear. In SAO, Yuuki had AIDS. It was past the point of doing anything but making her remaining life more comfortable, and letting her live freely via video games. But her time was coming to an end. From what I have been told and understand, Tai had kidney disease. People told me he'd seem healthy at times, and others would be really sick. His brother had offered his kidney, and they were waiting on a surgery date. But that date would never come. Tai was found unconscious in his apartment, his kidney having failed, and him believed to have been without oxygen for 24 hours. In SAO, Yuuki entered the game one last time, so that she could gift Asuna with her signature move. She had made a name for herself, and was well known in the game. When players across the game heard that this would be her last log-in, they came, by the hundreds, to kneel down in silence, holding vigil in her final hours. Sadly, Tai did not get that. But though he was not physically in the game, he was there in spirit, as his friends said goodbye. His free company (guild, basically) held a vigil for him, knowing that while their friend was, in essence, already gone, his body was being kept alive on life support, allowing his family and those who knew him personally to say goodbye in person. Those who were bards played music, and others knelt in silence. Like in SAO, people heard what was going on. People who knew him, joined in at the FC's house. People who didn't know him, but wanted to show respect, they came as well. A livestream was started, so that people who weren't there could join the vigil. A friend in the hospital with him, set up a computer so that Tai's friends and family could see the support that was being offered. Friends who were on other servers, gathered at communal areas to hold their own vigils. People who never knew him, on other servers, did the same. People, friends and otherwise, who didn't even play FFXIV, found their own ways to honor him. Some sat in silence in other games. I couldn't watch the episode. I didn't know exactly what happened, but I knew that Yuuki died. I'd never known Tai, but instead of watching the episode, I watched the vigil. I offered music suggestions of songs I knew that had helped or touched me after my father's death. And I read the comments on the episode. Most comments were very respectful. They thought it was a beautiful send-off for a wonderful character. But some weren't. Too much melodrama, they said. Ridiculous, that so many people, most of whom had never met the character, would come to kneel in vigil. Manipulative of our feelings. That this would never happen in real life. They didn't know Tai. But neither did I. And how could you say that, about something fictional, something meant to evoke emotions from us, when the exact same thing was playing out in real life, at the same time? I lashed out. I typed angrily at those people. I told them that it wasn't ridiculous. That it WAS happening in real life. It wasn't the first time it happened. Sadly, it likely won't be the last, either. I've made no bones about my feelings toward SAO. Entertaining it may be, and I enjoy watching it, but I don't "like" it. I have major problems with it (a device capable of murdering people being released as a toy, and the author's reliance on attempted rape for drama being foremost among those). But for all my problems with it, and as ridiculous as the contrivances to get things to happen the way the author needed it to for Kirito to come and save the day, that episode, that single episode, was the most realistic thing in the entire series. I never knew Tai. But I look at my friends, the ones who knew him, the ones in pain over his loss. I look at Pattmyn, whom I'd never met, but who was a good friend of Tai's (I suspect it was him playing the livestream of the vigil in the hospital), and that I've been speaking to and met because of Tai's passing. I look at the Backloggery, and our goal to finish the games that Tai had failed to complete before his passing. I see how Tai affected all those people, how much he meant to them, and it affects me as well. This man I'd never met, that I never would meet, was helping to shape my life, through the lives of those he'd already touched and shaped. I won't be watching episode 24 when it airs tomorrow night. I won't be catching it On Demand, either. Nor will I pull up the subtitled version on Crunchyroll, nor either on Netflix, when it inevitably ends up there. Because watching it unfold in real life imprinted its story deeply enough that I can recall the emotions without it. But for those of you who are watching it, who may be thinking what those other people did, that it was ridiculous, that it was unrealistic, I hope you read through this to the end. Because what was fiction for you wasn't for others. And sometimes, fiction helps us to accept reality.

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Eorzea lost a brave adventurer last night. May you rest in peace, Codex Vahlda, and may you ever walk in the light of the Crystal.

If only Eos could embrace us all, maybe there would be less undeserved death in the world.

The Power of Video Games, and the Worth of One Life Every day, at any given moment, someone, somewhere in the world, is playing a video game. Sadly, the same could be said for someone dying. Sometimes, the two of them intersect. Often, at least according to the media, this is a negative thing. Sometimes, however, it’s not. Like it or not, video games are a big part of our world. You can hardly look around without seen them, or something about them: huge displays in stores; arcades at the mall; commercials on TV; children and adults alike on the street with portable systems. They’re even in the news, especially when there’s been a violent act that people can blame on them, or the gamergate fiasco that flared up over the summer. With all of the negative publicity video games get, it’s hard for people who don’t play them to understand their benefit. They see the Grand Theft Autos and Assassin’s Creeds, but not the Journeys or the Flowers. Or they say that they’ll “rot your brain”, instead of seeing the hand-eye coordination that games help develop. Or they emphasize on the solidarity of the gamer, ignoring the social aspects of games. For a long time, co-op and vs. play have existed in video games. First in your own living room, then with people all over the world. Sometimes, with online play, you have the option of playing just with people you know, or random people, such as in games like Mario Kart or Super Smash Bros. Other times, you don’t even know who the random person you’re paired with is, like in Journey. And in others still, you may start off as strangers, but become as close as family. King of this last style is the MMO genre. MMOs, or Massively Multiplayer Online games, are just what they sound like. You play them online, with a massive amount of other players. Sometimes the game is small, and others, they’re so huge that they have to span across several servers. And people interact with each other, and make friends in these games. I never knew Tai (aka Yggdrasilly, aka Codex Vahlda). I recognized his name, having seen him in Backloggery chat, or mentioned in friends’ tweets about Final Fantasy XI and Final Fantasy XIV. For me, he was just another person. But for my friends, as well as other people I don’t even know, he was a close friend, a trusted teammate, and an important part of their gaming lives. When people make friends in games, or come to a game already as friends, they want to regularly play together. In many games, they are allowed to form a group known as a Guild, or an equivalent to it. Guilds have certain benefits, such as being able to share at least certain parts of their currency and items, as well as giving you a group of people you can call on, whether to do quests, or just to hang out. In Final Fantasy XI, the guild equivalent was called Linkshells. Many of my friends played together with Tai in a Linkshell on FFXI. When they moved to FFXIV, many of them ended up on different servers, and in different Free Companies (Final Fantasy XIV’s guild equivalent), but they still kept in touch, and played together when they could. I don’t want to go into what happened, partially because I don’t know all of the details, and partially because it’s not my place. But to explain it as simply as I could, he was found with no brain activity, and was being kept on life support so that his family could pay their last respects before he passed. Wanting to do something for him, his Free Company leader bestowed upon his character the rank of “Immortal Siren” (Codex Vahlda, his character, was a bard). Then people started coming to the front of their FC House, and kneeling in silence and in prayer, or, if they are bards, playing for him. People from his FC. Friends not in his FC. Random people who saw the gathering, asked what it was for, and joined in. It was posted to reddit, and someone started streaming the vigil. More people joined in. People posted their condolences from other servers, both on the reddit and in the stream channel’s chat. People (myself included) who don’t even play the game, who didn’t know him, paid their respects. From what is understood, the video stream was even being broadcast in his hospital room, for the benefit of his friends and family there. Then some of those friends on other servers, set up their own vigils. On one server, a group of people, both friends and others who just wanted to pay respect, set up a Viking funeral. All across numerous servers, across multiple continents, players from all different backgrounds and walks of life were joining together to honor a man that most of them had never met, but that they felt the need to support the family and friends of. Even in World of Warcraft and EVE Online, other online games, people were paying respect to him. For those who both knew and didn’t know him on Backloggery, “Games for Yggdrasil” was started, for people to play and finish the games that he had left unfinished, in his place and to honor him. It was even said that word had made it to the Final Fantasy Fan Festival taking place in Japan, and that people were discussing what was happening: Hundreds of people, all over the world, coming together in a show of support for their fellow players, and one person that most of them had never, and would never get a chance to meet. Video games are all about violence. Video games rot your brain. Video games are only played by solitary people. Look at all this, and just try to tell me that you honestly believe it. One person. One person, taken before their time, who just enjoyed playing a video game, brought together hundreds of people, from all around the world, just to honor him. He may not have touched their lives directly, but the actions of those he did touch touched them, in a way that they might not even realize. Reading the reddit thread, through my own tears, so many people who, like me, don’t play the game, and didn’t know him, are crying. Because he touched someone we know, who in turn has touched us, in a ripple effect. Yes, there are many negative things one could say about video games. But in this internet age with online gaming, it also has the power to bring people together, in ways that could never be imagined even 15-20 years ago. And one person, one solitary person, has the power to bring people together and touch lives, even without having ever interacted with them. That is the power of video games, and one the worth of one life.

As a fellow player of FFXIV, it pains me to see this. Close friends to strangers showed up in silent vigil at the Free Company house of a fellow player who lay dying in his hospital bed. It didn’t stay in the Gilgamesh Server. The news of Codex Vahlda spread to servers Hyperion, Excalibur, and even Brynhildr. I noticed a few in Odin server as well. Mostly in Mor Dhona. Codex didn’t make it through the night and eventually passed. I paid my respects to him once I received news. I never knew him, but surely he was a great person. My dearest sincerity to his friends and family. Full Article: http://kotaku.com/ffxiv-community-holds-massive-vigil-for-a-dying-player-1673823454?utm_campaign=Socialflow_Kotaku_Facebook&utm_source=Kotaku_Facebook&utm_medium=Socialflow

Rest in peace, Codex.

May you ever walk in the Light of the Crystal, fellow adventurer.