ne0dym

jim and athena, siblings extraordinaire

15/05/2024

as someone who has spent a great portion of their life on the internet since late childhood, i've made countless online friends - some fleeting, fading as times and interests change, but others enduring through long periods of no contact and shifting circumstances. and some online friendships can be indeed so remarkable that they become part of our own personal mythos, every interaction giving us a new story to tell our other unrelated social circles.

such is the case for my dear Jim and Athena, a couple of now 30-somethings from the US. we've shared a special bond ever since we met and they quickly became my own figures of legend. so i want to immortalise our friendship in this post, telling the full story of how we met and where we are now, with every laugh and hardship in between.

chapter 1: drunker bunker, faded factory

so for a bit of context, the MMO Final Fantasy XIV has a lifecycle dictated by patches and expansions. this story begins in early 2021, in-between shadowbringers patches, when i was freshly caught up with the then-current content and still had a ton of things to do, as well as a lot of free time. i feel like back then the community was a bit more open to doing goofy shit just for fun. of all community-building activities in this game, "meme" runs of alliance raids are some of my favourite, since they're just so silly by nature. these long instanced dungeons for up to 24 players are the perfect medium for a funny 40ish-minute adventure because there's just enough going on that they can be pretty chaotic, but also they're not super hard, which inspires players to come up with their own self-imposed challenges.

perhaps the most infamous of these meme runs was the Drunker Bunker, a run of the 2nd Nier-themed alliance raid Puppet's Bunker, but with alcohol encouraged. i first learned of this delightful event on january 23 when one of the hosts advertised it in shout chat; i patiently waited for the party to go up, and although i didn't get a drink until midway through, i was intrigued enough to want to do it again, but properly. it turned out to be a weekly thing, hosted every saturday by a guild named Papi Churro from the server Faerie. so it was that on jan 30, with a fresh batch of weed edibles, i had my first real Drunker Bunker run, marked by the discovery of my quintessential stoned song, "train". the week after that, i was already in the in-game group chat of Drunker Bunker regulars.

now i've found evidence that my dear friends were actually there from the beginning, but my first recorded acknowledgement of jim was on the 4th week, on february 13. this was a special evening for several reasons: one, i played Black Mage, a job i was quite inexperienced at, guaranteeing hilarious chaos; two, we wiped a lot; three, we all had so much fun we decided to do Copied Factory (the 1st Nier raid) afterwards; and finally, i actually have an archive of some chat highlights! here's what i can piece together based on these screenshots and old tweets:

i had taken a liking to being in the B alliance, probably because that was the one jim and athena also were (in fact, when i join meme groups, i still join B whenever possible!), and there was likely some conversation in the group chat about who would play what job. i was already a tank main, but in the spirit of fun and whimsy, i wanted to play jobs i would probably suck at, such as black mage, letting jim be our tank. that probably explains number 3, which was after the Bunker run. anyway, number 1 was during the third boss of Bunker, Heavy Artillery Unit (a frequent party wiper for us!): i had received a res offer shortly before a healer LB3 (which resurrects all dead party members), so i kept the revive prompt until the next time i was dead and we were about to wipe, i ressed at the last moment and died again immediately, but it was pretty funny and made someone else laugh, so that made my evening! then someone said 'i suck at healing', jim said 'this is the only way i'll practice tank', and i said 'i'm bad at dps', to which jim replied as in number 2; DPS means damage-per-second, but jim's quick and witty "deaths per second" definitely made me cackle, haha. so after Bunker we dedided to do Factory, and as i was thinking about what job i wanted to play next, i accidentally switched to gladiator, the un-upgraded version of Paladin, which made jim suggest i stay on that class as in number 4. in the end, i continued on black mage and jim went as red mage instead (useful to resurrect multiple people in quick succession); but with both of us being very smashed, many deaths ensued. one time, jim said to a healer in our party 'milk, sorry you wasted that res on me. i did 0 things with it'; another time, i probably ressed and died immediately afterwards, which gives us number 5. and finally, at the end of a long and particularly funny session, jim thanked me for the fun times as in number 6.

the Drunker Bunker community was livelier than ever, and for the next session a discord server was created so we could all be in VC! i took my last bit of edible and decided to play healer, a dangerous combination as the whole time i was either tunneling too hard on mechanics to heal, or too busy healing to do mechanics; i'm pretty sure for a good amount of time during the second encounter in Bunker, with one boss for each alliance, i was attacking the wrong party's enemy lol. according to my archives i was able to use healer LB3 twice during the third boss, which sounds cool and did make athena go 'that was awesome!', but was probably the only act of good healing i did that evening. in voice chat, people put on music to play and we all had a really great time. that was also when i found out jim and athena were together, a discovery that warmed my heart! afterwards we decided to run Factory too, and alliance B, being Da Best, went as all-tanks, but athena left just after we started.

i really felt like i had made some cool new friends; i created a new character in the Faerie server so i could join Papi Churro and hang out with them, and jim&athena also started inviting me to do stuff together. the next Bunker session also had voice chat and went way more smoothly than any run before, without any wipes; i was actually sober that evening, which could not be said for athena, who again didn't join us for Factory, but who could still be heard in the background of jim's mic. while we all laughed when she accidentally sent some nonsense in the game group chat, the idea of my friend being actually too wasted worried me, so i asked jim if she was okay (i know i did that at some point, but i don't have confirmation of when that happened, so i'll assume it was during this episode).

but our delightful weekly meetings were not going to last. i've previously described Drunker Bunker as ill-fated, and march 6 was when its downfall was spelt. Papi Churro were skipping that weekend for some reason, but encouraged us to make our own. we managed to get a full group even without the host FC filling a good number of spots, but people started to leave after a wipe on the 3rd boss, which made the rest of us abandon the duty. i have no idea why, since the whole point of this event was to be messy. but me and jim&athena didn't let that stop us from having fun that evening, and we did other fights together, along with another Bunker regular we befriended.

the following saturday, march 13, was, to my knowledge, the last Drunker Bunker. shortly before it started, i learned that jim and athena were no longer coming, thanks to a not nice message from someone in the group. i begrudgingly stayed for that evening's session, but without those two in VC the mood was definitely less lively, there weren't as many laughs, and the people i brought along to fill empty spots simply were not in the same wavelength. while i really wanted to destroy the culprit with my fists, i never found out who it was, whether someone in Papi Churro or one of the other regulars, but it doesn't really matter; even if Drunker Bunker was to end, i had already got the best possible thing out of it: a pair of new friends for life.

chapter 2: the adventures of harrow, jim and athena

no longer part of a weekly event, we were now free to just do whatever we wanted at any time. we had already done some duty roulettes together previously, but we quickly started to branch out to other activities, such as deep dungeons and mount farming. at that time there were two deep dungeons in the game, which are something like Persona dungeons with each floor having a random layout and possibly buffs or debuffs; they can be done solo or in a party of any composition, and players start at level 1 and gain levels as they defeat monsters in each floor. personally, i usually find them quite boring, but i had a blast getting lost in Palace of the Dead and later Heaven-on-High with jim and athena, especially since we continued our habit of getting a bit wasted.

on march 27 i believe we had our first potd run, with me as dark knight, jim as dragoon, and athena as white mage. me and athena died a lot, which prompted this hilarious line from jim 'at what level does dragoon get res' — although that was a joke, even DPS can resurrect others in potd by interacting with a certain item on each floor. even with many deaths, however, we still succeeded in completing up to floor 50, i'm quite sure the furthest i had got in potd at that point! afterwards, we had a histerical Factory run that made me cry laughing, and finally we got a couple of stormblood extremes clears. at one point, i teleported all of us to Ishgard, the starting place for the dark knight job, and athena mentioned she hadn't got to level 35 drk yet. so i changed my outfit to look like the job quest NPC and said 'come over here athena. why haven't you done your quests. (disappointed emote)', giving us all a good laugh. that evening was definitely a great bonding experience for all of us.

on april 17 we did potd again with me as machinist, and that time i had taken an edible. i guess i had previously mentioned my experiences with weed and how they made me go quiet, because at some point athena asked 'harrow, have you had any baked goods today?' hahaha. that stoned deep dungeon run was particularly confusing, like i would frequently find myself lost after killing a bunch of enemies on the opposite side of the map that we were supposed to go, and we all kind of conked out after floor 50. the next day, we joined an all-tank run of the newly released 3rd Nier raid, Tower at Paradigm's Breach, and it was highly entertaining, despite the fact i felt quite mellowed out due to weed hangover.

at the same time that i felt protective of my new friends, they also took on a sort of big-sibling role towards me. intoxicated or sober, hanging out with them always felt so cozy and i would frequently comment on my twitter how cute jim&athena were. then one day, april 24, athena randomly sent me a message: 'Harrow ask Jim how he is feeling. 😋'. at first i was scared that something was up, but upon asking jim, he replied 'Lol man I'm high as balls right now And time means nothing'! i believe that was the first time he had a weed edible, and later both athena and me joined him in getting high. we started a new game in Borderlands 3 on playstation together, which proved to be a real challenge since neither of us, stoned as we were, had any idea what to do. jim said at one point he felt like he was lagging behind and that me and athena were doing all the work, but i replied that i was following HIM, so in the end we only managed to do any progress thanks to athena, lmao! jim had told me the effects he felt, such as time warping, shivering, struggling to put sentences together, and sensory overload; and i, who never felt very comfortable telling people about my edible habit, felt a little happy that our experiences with weed were so similar.

the next big story i have in my archive was on may 9, when we were hanging out in voice chat, having taken edibles and doing some duties together. at some point, jim said 'you're not broody enough to be a dark knight main', which made me curious: 'what would u suppose i play based on my personality'. jim's response was 'Well, way to trap me, MOUTH, er...' and athena added 'i would say gunbreaker'. at that time i made no secret of how much i disliked that job, and jim said 'That's, that's the worst thing you could say'! we decided to run Tower with me as healer, and jim went 'i got it. i can be the best tank', changing to gunbreaker. i told him 'you are on thin fucking ice' (affectionately). one time during the third boss, jim had died and was expecting a res, but since the boss was almost dead i opted to leave him on the floor so he could return without a debuff after we were done; he was a little sad that i didn't resurrect him and said 'and youuuu wanted my last name...' (bishop). and finally, at the last boss, i rescued him into an insta-kill aoe just for fun, which made all of us laugh uncontrollably!

afterwards, i was in a city hub called crystarium and saw a funny interaction in the chat log and read aloud, 'sonic the'hedgehog bows courteously to mister pickle'. jim asked 'what did mister pickle say back', to which i replied 'they didn't say anythi- oh sonic the'hedgehog is gone.' jim, being the hilarious man he is, went 'he did What. oh i am COMING FOR YOU. where are you. tell mister pickle to bow courteously back. i'm coming'. i gave him my location but realised i had missed a crucial bit of information, which i was quick to clarify: 'oh WAIT mister pickle was the one who greeted first'. jim, having already arrived at the crystarium in my server, said '.......i am glad he did that.'

in voice chat jim said 'mister pickle you are a gentleman' (he almost said 'you are... a pickle'), did a 'showering with riches' emotes towards the stranger, and repeated that in-game before going back to his server. he asked me to 'tell [pickle] i said he is a gentleman', and after a few moments he asked 'what did he reply?'. i said 'oh i didn't say anything', which made jim go 'YOU. i'm coming.' by the time he returned to my location, mister pickle was gone, but we were able to find them in another city; we teleported there and the following conversation ensued.

other funny episodes of our adventures include a time we did dungeon roulette and had a random tank called billy bonka; jim asked 'what do you make at your factory, billy?'. the response: 'cocaine' hahaha. the dungeon was dusk vigil, the ruins of a fortress in a cold, icy environment; jim said earlier in the chat 'i really shoulda worn a coat. i'm freezing'. i said, 'do u want a hug', to which he replied 'lol cat boys are probably warm', but when i eventually died he said 'oh actually, you may be cold now...'. or when we ran Bunker for the first time in a while, and i had yet to acquire the 2B minion that drops at the end; jim said 'harrow come here, i got something to show you', and me 'if it's the 2B minion i'll just leave'. when i arrived at his location, it was indeed the minion, and of course i disbanded our party. or yet another time we ran Tower and simultaneously celebrated being in alliance B like the old times, and me going 'jim i confess i was going to rescue you to your death but then the boss died', with a reply 'it's ok i know you were thinking of me at least', and athena mentioning that i was jim's favourite sibling and him confirming that we were definitely family though.

indeed, i always thought of our friendship as something of a real "found family" arc. to further validate that sentiment, in late july, jim and athena were adopting a new kitten and she said that the kitty would be my "niece", which would make jim my brother. i may have got emotional over that!

(but wait, i said before that "i wanted jim's last name", what was that all about? well, as i developed Harrow's backstory, the need for a different surname arose; i pondered over this issue for a long period but eventually found inspiration in the one and only jim bishop. after some research, i found the name lévesque, derived from the french word for bishop, which ended up being his definitive last name! i consider this decision literally life-changing!)

one of the fun things you can do in ff14 is get married, by way of a sidequest that involves scheduling a real-world time and day to perform the ceremony, and you can even invite guests and customise the look and music of the wedding venue! jim and athena wanted to celebrate their in-game anniversary and chose june 11 as the date, but the time slot wasn't saved and it had to be postponed. the event ended up being on july 31, and since i didn't have a character on their server and was unable to create one last-minute, jim streamed the ceremony for me! it was truly great, with athena looking very elegant while jim donned his funny costume. before the cutscene started, i guess he had some gloves equipped that messed up his outfit but he couldn't unequip it as his armoury chest was full, so instead of putting them on his inventory he instead hurriedly destroyed some gloves that were part of a gearset. afterwards, jim gave each of the random guests 2 raisins.

over the next few months i started getting into harder content in ff14 and our meetings became a little more sporadic. the last story i have to tell from this period was on 6 august when we did the other deep dungeon, hoh. it was their first time in there, so when we finished floor 10 they got the achievement "she's so high"; a very appropriate name, since we were indeed kinda baked and had the most stoner talk we ever had at that point. jim was playing black mage, which has a buff called ley lines; he plopped down his ley lines the moment a pack of mobs died, so i said 'noo your ll'. he replied 'was that a ll or Ii or iI or il' and for what seemed like forever i had absolutely no clue what he meant 'what are u talking about jim'. we were both very confused until i looked back on the chat log and realised the issue 'OH your ley lines!'. as an epilogue, in mid september we did some quick roulettes and treasure maps, and one time jim logged out early and i said to athena: 'tell him i miss him already'. she answered that 'he smiled and started giggling'; they're so cute!

it was always nice seeing a little 'yo' in the chat and playing with them whenever possible, but outside the game we had precious interactions too, such as when athena gave me support when i had a very bad, traumatic day irl, and when jim wished me a good luck on my physics exam and jokingly offered to help me with it (covid-era remote classes). the months went by, a new expansion was released for ff14, and seeing my two siblings online became increasingly rare.

interlude: the quiet years

i have a quaint tradition of sending out letters or postcards to friends at the end of a year, and naturally i sent one to my dear siblings too (and have every year since then). but even our online communication, especially with jim, became a little epistolary, in that we would catch up every few months and tell each other all the good and less good news. the last time i remember voice-chatting with them was on a saturday afternoon, april 30 '22. we happened to meet in FF and hopped on vc, allowing me to tell them of the great friend-breakup i went through earlier that week. i was feeling extremely dejected, but hearing their kind, reassuring words definitely helped me to pull myself together and start healing.

for the next several months we traded cat photos, irl updates, media recommendations and holiday wishes. it's crazy how time flies when you're entering adulthood and getting pulled to all sorts of directions at once. i continued playing ff14 and raiding most days, but irl i had gone back to school and found myself quite busy with classes. and i'm sure that the real jim and athena were, too, occupying themselves with important things and not having as much time to hang out online. and that's fine. even though i always missed them a lot and frequently reminisced on our adventures, i knew that, being years older than me and with actual jobs, they were probably way more busy with adulting than i was.

in july 2023, i finally got a playstation 5 and briefly talked with jim about it and final fantasy 16, which i had just started. but apart from that exchange, we didn't keep in touch for like 10 months, and even longer for athena! it's happened a lot in my life, real or online, that months and years go by and i drift away from friends once so close, losing contact for long periods as our interests and circumstances shift, to the point where i begin to wonder if they even remember me. i really didn't want this to be the case with my siblings, yet as usual i felt hesitant to send even a little "yo".

but on 18 november '24, jim finally broke the silence. without exposing too much of our private convos, i felt so relieved that he reached out first and emotional that he said he considered me one of his dearest friends! we got caught up with each other and talked about what we had been up to in real-life, cat-parenting and gaming. but most importantly, since we both felt like we should stay in touch more, we resolved to start a Baldur's Gate 3 campaign after the new year!

chapter 3: the adventures of tomscot, karlach and charlie

as a funny coincidence of fate, way back in march 2021, on the one day i hung out with people from the guild papi churro in vc, i learned about bg3 for the first time. some of the folks there were playing the recent early access together and i got a glimpse at it through a discord stream, but since at the time i only had an old iMac computer, i could only dream of one day playing the game. well, this dream came true when the game was fully released on PC and within a few days i was already convinced to play it! as i progressed through my own campaigns, several friends wanted to start co-op playthroughs in various combinations, but none of those lasted more than one or two sessions. it is a wonderful, huge game that requires a big time commitment to make any progress, and clearly it wasn't the right game for my friends to stick with.

but my dear jim and athena promised they would commit to a full playthrough, and so i re-bought the game on PS5 and we started our campaign a little after new years! we've been playing almost weekly since january 3, with me and athena playing as custom characters: the human bard tomscot and the gnome monk charlie, respectively; and jim as one of the origin characters, karlach. it had been a couple months since i finished my campaign and i was ready to start a new one, so i'm really happy that those two have been very patient despite having played through the game several times already! i keep discovering new things i totally missed during my first playthrough.

as of writing this, we are currently on act 3. i honestly thought i'd have more stories to tell but i don't actually have a lot of written or visual records of our adventures! with our sessions being about 3 hours long and with us in vc, it's just better to live in the moment and enjoy each precious meeting without worrying about writing down everything that happens. if i had to pick a few favourite moments, though, karlach dishing out ridiculous amounts of damage by throwing weapons and enemies around, charlie being the protagonist of this campaign and saving our asses when we die, and tomscot accidentally aggroing NPCs and setting off traps, are all things that always make me laugh.

i'm glad we found something to play together long-term, rather than having to hope we just stumble upon each other online, like in the FF14 days. and once we finish the campaign, i hope we can continue playing something else! from day 1, hanging out with jim and athena has always been the highlight of any day for me. they have a great sense of humour, they're supportive and patient, they're sensible, nonjudgmental adults, they have cats, they like to have a good time while zooted. we have a bond that neither shifting interests nor months of silence can break; what better friends could i ask for?!

even though there are certainly many great moments that were left out, in this article i wanted to immortalise our adventures so i can always look back and remember the fun times we have shared. i am so lucky to have jim and athena in my life!