I pretend I'm rational, pragmatic, unsentimental. I deal with the issues, man, the core of our intellectual relationship with games, the subtle layers of gamer psychology. And I feign androgyny; my gender has no place in my writing. I'll even scrutinize a digital rack with the best of 'em (isn't it just a bit sad that this article was #1 on Gametab and didn't leave the top ten all weekend?)

Then, though, I see this picture and every component of my veneer dissolves like the polar ice caps against the march of Man's global campaign to subjugate nature. For all chicks who obsessively breed adorable chocobos that they love too much to race (almost), who take elaborate sidequests only to receive the tiny, fluffy Chicobo's Triple Triad card, who bear up admirably against the peripheral reminder of the ever-ticking biological clock -- I believe I speak for all of us when I clear my throat and explosively effuse:

"AWWWWWWWWWWWWWW~~~!!!!!! A CHOCOBABY!!!!!!!!!111"

I'm going to go wash my heart in lye soap for a while until its forbidding crust has properly reformed, at which point I'll be back to say, "But how about that mother? Damn, didn't somebody tell her Tifa's supposed to be hot?" 

[Via Siliconera]