#I want to take a lot of gposes there lol

[thewizardtower]

Finally managed to get the secret path for Mount Rokkon! 🌸🌸🌸 Summoned G'raha for a little date.

[scionshtola]

progress report

got gnb to 76, brd to 67, mnk remains at 73

first two steps in shb relic done but cori now has a different mch glam for 7.0 that doesn’t need this so. who knows.

inexplicably decided to level all crafters to 10 this weekend so shb remains un-replayed. i did get to the crystarium tho

rewrote a chunk of island fic and now it’s less words but better? progress??

i have a v long list of things i want to do before dawntrail and it feels v unrealistic lol but

gnb, brd, mnk to 90

all endwalker role quests (i’ve done aiming and healer)

finish bozja (i’m at delubrum reginae)

get the shb mch relic

ng+ shb and enw

finish island fic

[aislingsurrow]

My GPose Wrapped! Organized by when I finished the piece (when I saved it out to my EDITED folder in Google Drive)

I want to thank you for joining me on this journey! Getting a better sense of Aisling as a character is very fun, and getting to take cute pictures of her rocks.

Month by month commentary under the read more!

January

I actually finished and posted a lot of stuff in January but this was one of my favorites. I had to do a few tries with this pose shape and placement- originally I had her in a gazebo in the Grand Cosmos, doing a a spin. This final version really is stronger!

February

I was saving up energy for Lalapril! I knew the prompt list would come out early March so I waited… and bided my time…

March

I worked on Lalapril prompts through March and April, so these two months feature Lalapril posts. I finished Soul in March… I always knew I wanted Aisling’s sin eater future to look over her, and originally it was more of a canted angle and framing. But then I landed on this flatter framing, more tarot card like, and I knew I had a winner!

I originally wanted longer hair on Aisling, but I couldn’t find anything that worked right that I liked… so I went shorter, and I think that helped emphasize the right shapes in the piece more.

April

I’m really fond of the Zephyr photos. I just think the colors turned out sooooo nice, and it was the first time I fucked with color set editing. So this was a learning moment, too!

I tried a few different locations for these but found this one suited Aisling best.

May

I remember getting the ask I posted this with aaaaaaages ago. I think I may have actually also technically finished this piece ages ago, too? It was the part with Lamitt in the other sequence that was holding me up because the expression didn’t read right. Or it didn’t match the cutscene. Or both.

I overlayed two shots of this one with different shaders to get the impact I wanted. I like doing that. A big part of my process is getting the angle and pose I want and THEN going through shaders to get the right Look. So I wind up taking a lot of screenshots that no one will see because I don’t like the color balance. So it’s nice when I can use more than one.

June

Another relatively busy month according to my Google drive??? But I really liked this pose in particular. It’s a great outfit - (I forget the mod name rn but if you want to know I WILL look it up just ask)

I think I got a great side of Aisling. It gives me a lot of fun vibes- a lot of childhood shapes and inspirations in a piece.

I really like La Noscea- solidifying Aisling as a Limsa Girl and exploring her physical relationship with the area has been fun. It’s nice digging into the place as part of her story. Maybe I try to do that in the Black Shroud or Thanalan this year!

July

Bwaaah! Gampy! Midgardsormr has been a Big part of Aisling’s story since Heavensward. She’s formed a close relationship with him, despite him trying to ensure that Doesn’t Happen. But grandpa can’t help himself, not really.

So when I saw the Midgardsummer mod I knew I had to…. I HAD to….. SUMMER VACAY GAMPYYYYYY

yeah this was also a fun way to test the new face bones! My first time really working with them. I’m still learning a lot about them now!

August

As I was going through Dawntrail, I wanted to try and capture moments that captured me. And though Dawntrail as a whole failed to capture me (JUST got to the last area and stalled out loooool) I really liked the build up to Ja’Tiika. The colors we saw through the rocks really captured me, and this scenario came to my head immediately!

September

Summer came to an end and I managed to snap this picture before all the Moonfire Faire decorations went away! These little cauldrons are actually filled with water, but I couldn’t resist posing Aisling on them. All of the little bombs around her kept floating even when the world was frozen, so I had to time the shots lol. But she fit right in! And I like the angle I got on it.

October

Glamtober! It was fun to piece through Vanilla items. I managed to find a few new ones I liked, and I am really fond of all the pictures I took. But the Unsounded ones are my favorites because Unsounded is my favorite comic. Go read it! The climax is climax-ing.

November

I joined the Popoto Patch discord a while back. I’m not very active in it as big discords are hard for me ): the biggest one I’m active in, I’ve been in for years and was there when it was much smaller. I’ve tried joining a few big discords for 14 and not all of them have been great- there’s just so many people so I find it…. Haaaaard ):

I’m going to try to challenge myself tho! I wanna try to do as many Popoto Patch zines as I can this year, and try to go to an event! Or two! It’s possible! Ganbatte!

Anyway, cyberpunk was the theme for this shot, and it’s a lot less punk than most of the other entrants, I think. But look, if Aisling were in a future city, THIS is what she’d wear!

I really like the outfit of this mod, as well as the glasses I found. Suuuuper sharp. And I couldn’t resist adding some bokeh bubbles to pump up those colors…. If I could just live in the rainbow of this picture I’d be happy.

December

I’m soooo glad I got around to doing this. I’ve wanted to do more with this outfit since I took only first shot with it a year or so ago, and when I saw that Sailor Moon art again I knew…. I knew I had to do it with Aisling….

Sailor Moon is near and dear to my heart and the aesthetics inform sooooo much of my tastes and what I love. It was hellish posing this (the camera and big mounts are NOT friends) but I managed to make it work, and I’d do a lot different now….

Fun fact this is in Halone’s cave in Coerthas. The blurred out crystals really make a perfect backdrop.

And that’s it! Thanks so much for joining meeeeee! I’m bad at ending things sooo

[starrysnowdrop]

Just me blabbing underneath the cut. Just trying to get some things off of my mind.

Content/Trigger Warnings: Terrorism/Terrorist attack, deaths, and mental illness.

First of all, I just want to quickly thank everyone who has reached out to me lately, not only today but over the past several days. I’m still not feeling completely well mentally, with the attack still feeling pretty fresh in my mind, along with some other things that I’ll get to in a bit. But I’m still so grateful to all of you who are here and have sent kind words and positive energy. It truly means the world to me and I can’t thank you all enough.

I do want to just take a few moments to write out my thoughts about what’s all going on with me IRL.

So as much as having a terrorist attack happen in your hometown and with that affecting me enough as that is, I have also recently learned that one of my husband’s coworkers has a son that was killed in the attack. I didn’t know the son personally, but my husband did. It made the attack hit a lot closer to home than it already did, and it’s been very difficult to not dwell on it. Each day is a bit better than the last, as the grieving process goes, and so we are all taking it one day at a time.

Along with all this, my mental health has not been the greatest… obviously lol! Which means that I haven’t been gposing and writing like I’ve wanted to, and the more time I spend away from doing the things I love, the more it gets me depressed and it turns into a crazy cycle that won’t stop until I pull myself together and try gposing and writing again.

I guess I might just need some more time to process everything before I try to get back to writing and gposing. I’ll try to be here and try to get motivated to create again, but in case I’m quieter than usual, just know that I’m still here and that I’ll be alright. I just need some time.

If you’re here reading this, I want to thank you. I love you all, and I hope you have a wonderful day/evening/night/whenever!!

💖 ~ Hali

[lavampira]

👀

How do Koana and D’alia go from awkward strangers to that last gpose

🎤🎤🎤take your time 🎤🎤🎤

well you see :3c

they spend a lot of time talking after the rescue mission - koana is encouraged to open up, so he does, and d’alia finds it easy to confide in him because of that, so she does, too. and talking about their childhoods and how they can relate (or the differences!) builds a deep connection between them that grows over msq. I like to think there’s times when they can talk or spend time alone as lamaty’i and koana work together, sort of a budding friendship with a side of attraction as they get to know each other.

(also this moment during all of that lol)

and then there’s the conversation with koana saying that he hopes she stays in tuliyollal despite his jealousy before the coronation, which is ultimately where d’alia says oh, she really might have started to develop feelings. being asked to stay is something that she’s always wanted but hasn’t really had before from someone, and even if he’s asking on behalf of his sister, it’s that quiet admission that he agrees with the request that really gets to her.

(and the flustered glance and smile from the palace balcony before she goes to shaaloani AAAAA)

then, you know, everything happens. there’s no time to test the waters, but d’alia tries to be there for koana as a new friend, and look after lamaty’i as hers, and even though there’s so much going on, I’d like to think that protective and supportive side of her really touches him, too. maybe letting his own growing feelings slip when he spots her from the balcony (again), yells for her not to leave, and runs all the way down to talk to her.

so that gpose set is a few snapshots of scenes I’m writing in the ‘how did they get together’ fic post-msq. it takes place after the funeral and festivities and once koana has some time to spare from repairs and other dawnservant duties - he wants to check on the hhetsarro in person as vow of reason, after having sent thancred and urianger to aid them during the attack, and since d’alia has been staying in tuliyollal and traveling to mehwahhetsoan, he asks her to accompany him. it’s also an excuse to spend time together, as much as it is utilizing her familiarity as a resource, and maybe a small part emotional support, as she knows about his childhood that clearly still lingers with him.

and the rest I’ll leave to when I finish the fic, but the basis is that they finally have a chance to explore those feelings during this time together, and dive into a bit of boldness to be closey and kissy!

[thegreatyin]

moving on from petty story complaints (although i have many more), the world design is some of the clunkiest ive ever seen in an MMO and it all feels hollow and artificial in a way no other game has really ever managed to pull off. for a game that expects you to run around doing a collectathon in every single zone in order to unlock flying, it's impressive how empty and formulaic the world feels. it doesn't feel like im wandering around the magical world of hydaelyn. it feels like im playing a middling jogging simulator

i feel like ive made yall feel way too safe regarding my gaming opinions. im gonna post ffxiv hottakes until someone begs me to stop

[haellen-o]

Then Vs Now: Haellen Orestes

hey uh this got away from me a little bit and there's a massive wall of text and old screenshots detailing my adventure through FFXIV. it gets a little personal cause man this game was with me through some rough times, and those rough times did kinda shape my experience. so uh... yeah tl;dr i yap a lot. do not ask me to talk about my experiences with media i WILL ramble

ARR (August 2020)

by now i had actually met my main friendgroup and they were all starting to get into FFXIV. it was free. one of our other friends was picking it up. and everyone else was like "yeah why not" and i got hit with an unironic sales pitch. because i hate MMO's and i was refusing to even try it because and i quote (myself) "I've tried every other MMO what's gonna be different about this one?"

so yeah i was a fucking idiot lmao. Haellen orestes was born sometime between the 20th to the 31st of august. the earliest screenshot i can find i'm not using cause it looks a w f u l and is really dark and hard to see. so i'm using this one that was taken a little bit later with crime tools with one of my good old friends. that's their highlander on the right. and on the left is baby haellen (or scaellen as i like to call her)

HW (September 2020)

Bnuuy haellen was born shortly after i bought the game (which was a little bit after prae/castrum) and i swapped over to viera. because FF12 was one of my favourite games and my first real exposure to deep diving into a games lore and world building. and i happened to love viera. bnuuy haellen was quite different to haellen now. she was a lot more flirty. a little bit horny, and also not as (physically) strong. she was a science and magic lady in canon despite me playing dragoon and drk in HW. I didn't really have a good idea of how i wanted her character to be yet so i was still experimenting with looks. glams. and hair. i was also still REALLY enjoying the game at the time. especially after i nearly dropped it during the post ARR pre HW slog. the music and story got so much better and i was suddenly super invested in the game. i was also starting to finally meet some more people who played the game and got into communities and FC's

Stormblood (January 2021)

bnuuy haellen was starting to take shape. i had a solid idea for her and knew what i wanted to do with her character for RP purposes. aloof, flirty, friendly, and completely oblivious to actual romance advances. i believe by now i had also fully integrated into being part of a small FC where i made some good friends (who i am no longer friends with due to reasons i'm gonna keep private. No need to air dirty laundry)

Late Shadowbringers (May 2021)

Well the bnuuy is starting to look a little more like a haellen now. And she was starting to BE a little bit more like a haellen too!, kinda reserved, very smart, friendly in a flirty way, and can also kick the shit out of you. by now this was when i started to meet one of my now good good very close friends (an understatement) and was starting to get into the meat of the game. i started gposing less and started doing actual content and playing other classes. as well as doing things like maps, on content extremes. and even dabbled on the idea of tackling an ultimate and finding a team for that (Spoiler. i never did lol) but i was starting to grow tired of being a viera. not because of the lack of hats or the fact everyone was a viera... but because of people being INCREDIBLY HORNY to random strangers on the internet. i've neve recieved so many out of pocket ERP requests before then and hooboy i was growing tired of it...

July 2021 (Endgame shadowbringers)

Well now who is this beautiful woman? this was when haellen began to TRULY become who she is now. stronk. independent. incredibly smart. will punch you. and also (at this time) composer and enjoyer of music. By now i had met all the friends i had made in XIV and was starting to take a break. i was getting burned out on doing high tier content and was starting to not enjoy the game as much. So i started to go back to casual stuff. including levelling classes! (baby bard as pictured here) and the horny in game messages died down completely! because no one cares about hyurs! [quiet sobbing]

by now i was also completely infatuated with nero. and at this time in the old writing it was a little bit of unrequited love. this was pre fan-fic writing so i was just creating l o r e (bonus pic because it made me chuckle but i have no context to give it since it was taken shortly after the other)

Endwalker (December 2021)

By this point i was deep into my casual content. i was still joining for maps but i was mostly doing older content i missed out on that could be done easily. and older mount farming, as well as getting deeper into RP and starting to dabble with the idea of writing a fanfic. this is also when haellen became as she is now. simultaniously the smartest person in the room, and also the dumbest. reserved in public, stronk asf, and back to being blonde!. this was also when i really started to become... More myself. its really funny that endwalker specifically has such a close place in my heart not because it touched me deeply (it did) but because i also went through several self realisation phases. it was a tough year and i did a lot of soul searching and found a lot of answers to questions i had, not all were good. But they all were for the better.

you may recognise that highlander in the backgrounder too, my good good friend ivarr. we'll come back to him

Post endwalker (march 2022)

Babies first modded gposes! that is the haellen i feel most people will recognise. my poor laptop could NOT handle the game at all and it turned into a portable heater, but i was enjoying trying out modded gposes. especially the lovely calfskin jacket replacer i found. and also by this point haellen was the haellen you know today

THE OPHELIA ARC BEGINS (June 2022)

I was a little deeper into writing fanfic now, going from roleplay to solo writing was a little difficult. and that's when i wanted to experiment with some different races, thus ophelia was born. she quickly became her own thing instead of "Elf haellen" and HOO BOY IF ONLY I KNEW HOW MUCH THIS ELF WOULD GET STUCK IN MY HEAD... and if only i knew how much this game would help me again through a dark time

Island sanctuary (August 2022)

Fun fact. i was homeless during this period! By this point i was starting to get into doing more modded stuff for gposing. Including shaders and modded outfits. I was trying my best to not turn into a modbeast because i actually really like the vanilla aesthetic

Return of the bnuuy (january 2023)

With crime tools. I revived the bnuuy haellen as her own existence, an AU if you will. and the brainrot began, and oh BOY i have so many unfinished and unpublished writings from this time. and also by this point i had become kinda content with my existence in FFXIV

Intermission (January 25th 2023)

THIS IMAGE HAUNTS ME IN MY SLEEP (affectionate) ivarr elbow dropping forchenault my beloved

anyway this kinda got away from me. the post i was tagged in was super short and nice and then going back and looking through all my stuff i was like "OH MAN A LOT HAPPENED BETWEEN 2020 AND 2024 HOLY SHIT" and uh... Well its gotten so far away from me we're having an intermission for me to apologise for this being SO DAMN LONG and also a little personal... i like going through memory lane and it gets me a little introspective, and even if this gets hit with the too long didn't read. I've enjoyed going through my back log and seeing all my memories. and remembering the times i've had and how much this game helped me through times. the rest of 2023 was (very thankfully) uneventful. partway through the year i finally joined tumblr and finally got a house (its very awful! in hindsight this should not have been celebrated! help :D) the ophelia arc continued to the point where i'm debating if i put more time into haellen or ophelia, and i got the confidence to be more myself, and put my writing out there for people to view

Now (28th of december, 2024)

And now? well. I'm hopelessly in love with these two absolute goobs (Warning: do not call ophelia a goob. she is wanted for several crimes against humanity)

and i'm doing much better. both in my relationship with FFXIV. mentally. and... well not physically i really need to work on that. but i'm in less pain than i was before!. And more importantly i'm excited to play dawntrail eventually, when i have the money to lol... I also need to fix haellen cause ugh my girl does not look like my girl H E L P

Tagged by @otherworldseekers thank you for inadvertantly putting me down the memory rabbit hole and i apologise if you read through this for how much i blabbed on about my journey lol

i almost don't want to tag anyone cause i don't want to condemn people to read through this. its so fucking long and i yap and blab so much about stuff that i really feel like doesn't matter but also is kinda integral to my experience to this game and why its so close to my heart?

anyway. woe walls of text and tag games upon ye @hdawg1995 @uldahstreetrat @cindernet-exploded @sylaurin and also anyone else who actually reads through this wall of text that wants to take part

[glacierbash]

Then Let Me Be Evil

You never wanted to hurt anyone, but the world never gave you a choice. You did the best you could with what you had, but every innocent mistake you made was held against you when it counted, every crossroads led you down the wrong path no matter which way you went. No matter what you did, the odds were stacked against you. It wasn't fair, and you are sick and tired of being told what a monster you are for things out of your control. Well, fine. They want a monster? YOU'LL GIVE THEM A MONSTER!

thank you @gailiag for the tag! this was really fun to consider and work on, and it gave me an excuse to gpose again lol. it took me a while to decide if this fit Iverelle well or not--I always thought that Iverelle was the type of person who would always and forever do the right thing, and even in her worst versions of herself (like in a villain ending), she'd be doing it because she believed herself just. But, then I remembered one of Iverelle's key factors: She believes in the good of the people around her. She believes that her suffering is justified, therefore she will continue to suffer it until her final death, because it is worthwhile for the sake of the people she loves. She would shoulder every burden imaginable, if it meant the people she loves would never suffer. But what if she gave up on people? What if misanthropy and nihilism won over, and Iverelle decided that not only was her suffering not enough, but that people around her didn't deserve her righteousness? What if she decided enough was enough? After all, Iverelle has a certain friend who she could turn to, should the two of them decide this is the best course of action. She's never truly alone, after all. And all of her fights and all of her duels with Zenos, it's changed her. She knows he's not wrong, in claiming she's nothing more than a beast hunting for greater prey. What greater prey is there than all who roam the star? She would do it, then, turn against all who once stood with her, for the greatest challenge imaginable, for the greatest thrill. She'd give her detractors everything they wanted. She'd prove them right.

But don't worry. Iverelle's unwavering belief in the good of people is unwavering for a reason. She loves people. She believes in people. She knows that for every bad person out there, there's a hundred good people. She knows that for every opportunist who would profit off of the suffering of the masses, there are a thousand who will work to improve the lot of not just themselves, but those around them. Even after all the abuse she suffered growing up, Iverelle knows there's still good out there, and still good people--and so, it is worth it to take another step, as exhausting as it is.

as for this, i'll go ahead and tagggg @jydrophobic, @apessimisticjackass, and @neptunewyvern, as well as YOU reading this, right now! thank you for reading my elf rambles blows u a kiss

link to quiz here!

[sjofn-lofnsdottr]

Third place of my dudes - and he's only third because I like playing Merc with Vezin, mind you - is Errol, my dumb sadcat.

Where Dusk looks high or distracted (you'll all see, eventually), where Mercuriel looks furious, Errol looks sad. He makes the most cartoonish sad faces, and I love it to death. And I don't know why, but his eyes just seem shinier, like he's on the verge of tears, a lot of the time.

This delights me, because I have been playing Errol in various forms since fuckin' 2014. I know him and what makes him tick extremely well. He's normally a depressed, cowardly human man in these things. When I first started playing FFXIV, I realized something that was going to make things more fun for me was yammering about the batshit experience I was having (I'd never played a FF before) to people. I did this via a written LP on a forum I frequent. They were all familiar with Errol due to the Let's Plays I'd written of the Sim version of him, and I let them pick what Errol should be in his FFXIV form. They picked miqo'te, and damned if they weren't right about this being the most Errol possible thing he could be in this universe.

Errol doesn't want trouble. Errol takes losses extremely hard, and he's very sensitive to other people's losses as well. Errol just wants to quietly live his life and avoid commitments like he owes them money. He hates conflict, and especially hates fighting. Errol is the worst possible choice for a giant crystal to pick as Her Champion.

He knows it, too. It weighs on him a lot, that everyone is depending on him and he hates everything about it, especially since he has no faith in himself, but he can't just ... not. So he dies inside, every day.

So it'll come as no surprise, then, that his MSQ class is DRK. Forever DRK, no matter how inept I feel playing one (well, DPS-wise, I'm still good at rolling defensive cooldowns and shit, obviously).

Seriously, his face is a treasure.

He is also married! The way he wound up married is sort of funny. Someone in my FC - I didn't know them particularly well at the time - wanted to get married for the glamour items. Some people volunteered but I got the vibe they'd be weird about it. I didn't know my friend very well back then, but I knew they deserved better than someone bad weird. I'm an old married woman who loves her husband very much, I am safe as hell for that sort of thing! I'm GOOD weird!

Her name is Y'sonjha. We decided she convinced Errol to pretend to be her husband so she wouldn't have to come up with excuses for why she wasn't going home to hook up with the latest nunh. Then whoops, they caught feelings, because lol romance novel tropes.

It's kind of funny, because the actual player behind her has wound up my best friend, go figure.

He struggles with the idea of not being good enough for her, but by and large he accepts she thinks he's good enough, and that's what's important.

I struggle with lighting them sometimes, I should really do more gposes of them for the practice.

Anyway, that's Errol, the Saddest Cat.

Please love him as much as I do.

[thevikingwoman]

re : ffxivvanillagpose thing :

i think 1 month total time with 7 prompts is great. it lets ppl go at a leisurely pace, lets ppl double up, lets ppl with multiple alts participate without any fear of running out of time or wanting to make huge posts for each prompt, etc. and i'm very invested in the idea of a yearly event :)

as someone who doesn't *usually* participate in gpose things like this *because* i'm a completely vanilla player, i have no feedback regarding the timing of it. i do know that events tend to overlap, but i'm unsure anyone would hold any animosity toward you for any overlap that might occur.

i guess personally, as a completely separate opinion/nitpick, would be to avoid scheduling it during a long term event in which the city states are decorated? lol i know i personally waited to take some shots because the decorated city did not at all fit the aesthetic i was going for

tldr; i think you did great!! :D and i had a lot of fun participating!

Thank you so much! I'm glad you want to go again next year!

I'm also a vanilla player and I can get a little intimidated by gpose events that tend to done with a lot of posing and so forth, but more so I'm busy and I know I don't have the fortitude to do a month long thing.

I will consider the seasonal events - I didn't think of that. I think the is something many of the months though, but this is good feed back!

[thefreelanceangel]

Tagged! 9 People, Let's Go!

@madalyn-maeve tagged me (directly, by messaging me, because Tumblr was being a bitch) so I'm going to IMMEDIATELY do this.

Last Song Listened To:

"Let The Children Watch" by Tom Cardy (LOL I KNOW... I actually keep YouTube playing largely in the background when @tlbodine comes over for our biweekly coffee & chat, so the last ACTUAL song on the play history was "Hell is Forever" from Hazbin Hotel, but I fiddled around last night and Tom Cardy was the last thing I clicked on.) If you want the last non-hilarious song I listened to, it was "Footfalls" by Soken and the Primals. [Because of COURSE it was.]

Currently Watching:

"Seinfeld" is playing in the background as I type this because my ADHD can handle new books easy, but does Not Play Well with new shows/movies. (I have to be in the mindset to SIT and WATCH NEW.) Most of the time, I play the same few TV series in the background so I can glance up, watch for a few minutes, and then go back to what I'm doing. Which means in rotation, it may be: Seinfeld The Simpsons Hazbin Hotel Helluva Boss American Horror Story (Coven, Freak Show, Hotel are the most likely seasons to be watched, but I like Asylum and will rewatch Roanoke) Forged in Fire Mythbusters

Sweet/Savory/Spicy?:

I will take sweet over ANYTHING else. I am very much a hummingbird and prefer sweet flavors to anything except garlic. Savory is secondary, mainly in favor of sandwiches. And... no spicy. None. No. I am the Whitest of White Girls and just cannot even with spicy. I do not like to EAT PAIN for fun. {I still get mocked by my husband and my roommate for fussing about "this ketchup is too spicy" after a lot of black pepper got mixed into it. IT WAS SPICY, DAMN IT.}

Relationship Status:

Well, I did say above that I have a husband, so kinda outed myself on that one, huh? :D My hubs is @scarssdoesrp (and yes his Tumblr is basically nonexistent, much to my eternal frustration, and yes, at a glance, it hilariously reads like 'Scarss Does ERP' which is just so gd funny.) We met ... lemme think... I want to say back in 2010 when my then-boyfriend got me playing Neverwinter Nights and I joined a server that Scarss was modding. We stayed in touch, off and on, throughout the years, and then I ran into him on NWN again after splitting with my ex. He trundled over to GW2 and welp... Now we've been together nearly six years and married for two!

Current Obsession:

HAH. Books. Books, books, books, books, always books. Always books. ...yes, FFXIV, I'm logged in almost every day, I GPose during my work hours *cough* I GPOSE A LOT, and I genuinely enjoy the gameplay so I have fun trying to Git Gud. (But also books, seriously, like I LOVE books, if you want to talk about books, let's talk about books.)

Tagging:

I know this has been going around for a while, so I'm going to tag people from my notifications that I'm not familiar with! LET'S GET TO KNOW SOME FOLKS! @im-thinking-arson (Love that name btw LOL) and @wingedflame and @swishysword annnnnnnd @ithaerielbrenagh and @hazoret

@arinaxiv annnnnnnnd... @lizzy-calaxio and... @zeloinator and... @thefrostflower

(Let's try fixing the tags YET AGAIN...)

[candycryptids]

List 5 things that make you happy, then put this in the askbox for the last 10 people who reblogged something from you! get to know your mutuals and followers ╰(´︶`)╯♡

;0;! Oh jeez ok ☀️ 😌

Frogs- this one might be kinda obvious I guess based on my blog title and all but I really like frogs and toads and tadpoles I think they’re really fascinating little critters and every time I learn something new about frogs it makes me feel all sparkly. Like they swallow when they blink- because their eyes go down into the body and it squishes food down their throat. Isn’t that WILD? Nature is so cool. (-unfortunately there’s one Toad I can’t stand because the way she carries her babies makes me freak out. Sorry Suriname Toad! If trypophobia is a problem for you don’t look her up 🥰)

Scented Plushies- I love… being able to smush my face into a soft plush animal and smell a pleasant smell. (I like sweet/fruity/pastry kinda smells) It’s like… IDK I have a bunch of them in my bed with me so I can pick one to cozy up with and it helps me sleep? (I have to sleep with a plush animal anyways, the way I sleep I’ll fuck up my shoulders if I don’t have Little Guy Support lol.) but also uh. Yeah Build A Bear has insertable smells and they last for like ever and they’re really pleasant ;; my favorite I think is their seasonal Pumpkin Spice, but I also really loved their other seasonal, Sunken Treasure, it was like, mango-y …

Pork Katsu- whenever we make it at home it’s kind of a special occasion cos it takes some doin, tryin stuff yk, but it’s always SO GOOD… we never have enough leftovers for Katsudon the next day lmfao. Oh there’s also a little restaurant inside the Hmart we go to, they do Katsu Sandwiches? And they come with a Fruit Sando too (it’s filled with seasonal fresh fruit and whip cream and it’s SO PRETTY and tastes SOOOO good.) gotta be one of my top tens of food (both kinda of sandwich LOL, but also just Pork Katsu. I group them together mentally as one thing in my brain 🤔)

Dark Chocolate Terry’s Orange - already drooling thinkin about that Winter only treat auuuuu…. It’s just so good, and it’s easy to snack off of for like, weeks. Cos you slap it on the table a bunch and it has a bunch of fake orange wedges made of dark chocolate to Nomf on. If you like chocolate and Orange you should try one once, I think they’re pretty great! I think some off-brands also makes like, ones with fillings like mint and raspberry? They’re pretty decent too from what I remember… (oops.. double food Happies. Well.! Food makes me happy!!!)

Leaving my Rambling Gushing Tags on peoples art also makes me really happy tbh it’s just not something I can condense into one-two words for the bold and color format I started - lol. But I for real get so excited seeing the stuff people create (I count gpose as art actually, it’s a creative outlet!!! Art!!) and I don’t have a LOT of art technical terms- it’s been a while since high school so I don’t even fully remember the terms they taught me back then- but I’m still like. Idk I see a cool shot, or a piece of art, and my heart becomes like, thunderstorm on the ocean, crash boom!!!!! So I write a bunch of tags pointing out what I like and what I think (with restraint, sometimes, I try not to thirst tag too heavily since I don’t want to make people uncomfortable and like. Block me LMFAO then I wouldn’t get to see their cool characters/art anymore yk) and I just. I hope it makes them happy too? But thinking that it might/does make them happy to get ramble excited tags (cos I do Lmfao) makes me really happy too? Idk. I just wanna put out good energy on people’s stuff. Encourage them to keep pursuing their hobbies? They cared enough to post it so others could see it which meant they wanted to show others, rather than not posting it all and keeping it to themselves, and, idk. This got really long LOL. I just have a lot of feelings about this i guess. Ty for sending this ask btw it’s been fun to answer ;w;

[quad-weave]

(I took this picture almost a year ago!)

1-year Gposing Anniversary!

Today is the day I consider my gposing anniversary--the first time I did a 'photo shoot' specifically for the point of sharing with others :) So, I wanted to take some of my earlier pictures and remake them, to see how far I've come! :)

(Why not the first photo shoot though, you may ask? I already redid the pictures to revamp the Eorzea Collection post that first shoot was for.)

------

I can't do this without revisiting my first custom Anamnesis pose. It was mainly the result of me poking around the tool and figuring out how it works, but I was still happy with the result.

But it's anniversary time, so it time for a remake!

To be honest, though, there wasn't too much wrong with the pose in and of itself, besides the fingers. It is just a tweak of an in-game idle pose, after all. So what I did was use the same shader and put a bit more thought into the framing and background!

And I fixed the fingers. You can't see it but I fixed them, trust me 😌

08/22/23:

08/06/23:

------

Next, I wanted to remake my first couples pose. I remember learning so much from trying this one out, but I also had a lot of trouble with a lot of things... and I think it took about six hours total. This set was definitely a trial. I saved and loaded these poses a few months ago too, and hoo boy. There was a lot happening, lol, and most of it was not good.

The reshoot is more of a reimagining, though. Unlike the other shoots where I replicated most of the image, I've changed the outfits, some of the background, and tweaked the poses a fair bit.

Let's face it, when I first tried this pose I was out of my depth, and now, with a deeper understanding not only of Anamnesis but how to frame pictures and choosing shaders, I have a couples pose set that looks far more natural and soft.

10/17/22:

08/06/23:

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Next is this picture. At the time I was still getting the hang of post editing, and also was dealing with some... oddities with the dress. Which had me crop the shot at an unusual resolution.

But now, I know how to be more subtle with my post-editing and shaders, and I've gotten better with lighting, too. In general result looks more natural :)

10/23/22:

08/05/23:

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Finally, I have this photo shoot with Laurent. This one was special to me because it's the first time I used some really dramatic lighting, and I still really liked how it turned out.

However, there were issues with other parts of the composition (the giant knife, everything being shot from the same angle, etc) and I always wanted to give this another try :)

It's a bit brighter this time around due to the changed location, but the lighting still feels pretty dramatic. This time I did some different, more dynamic angles, and I took a bonus picture :)

Oh, and I learned how to scale weapons down. Why are weapons so huge in this game...?

11/20/22:

08/05/23:

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I really enjoyed remaking some of these shoots--while I knew I've improved over the year I started, being able to see the differences side by side really lets me see my growth.

Here's to another year of having fun gposing :D

[forgetsrotation]

6.4 Tataru's Grand Endeavor

FULL SPOILERS, INCLUDING IMAGES!! A complete live blog of my progressions through the quest.

Proceed at your own risk. I won't cypher it with rot13 since it's behind a read more. Hopefully no one gets spoiled unintentionally. ;v;

PLEASE DO THE WERLYT TATARU QUEST BEFORE YOU READ THIS I BEG YOU!!!!!

A miqo picture so the other image doesn't pop up and spoil ppl lol

I'm come down, relatively, from the thrill of it all. Two separate quests... no follow quest, which would have been disappointing if uhhh not for EVERYTHING ELSE THAT WAS GREAT!!! I am so pleased and I'm not just saying that because of what we got at the end of it all. :)

However. I cannot believe--

OK. Henceforth will be my live blog reactions bc that's fun to chronicle! I hope you can derive some joy from it too. Fair warning, I curse a lot out of excitement. Gibberish. It's pure joy. You will NOT understand this if you haven't played the new quest yet LOL

----

Up at 5AM for these two… like a long nap after going to bed at 12:30AM lol. Waiting for patch to dl! It seems to have finished early, but I am in no rush!! My recording software is set up. :)

MILITARY EQUIPMENT??? Gaius’s “brother-in-arms”…

OUTFIT THE TROOPS AHHHHHHHHHHHHjsa

f

;asdjkfal;ksjdflkjaskdfsadf

GOING TO SEE HIS HUSBAND FOR REAL!!!!!!!!!

MIQO KNOWS WHERE TO FIND HIS HUSBAND HEHEHE

I’m gonna frow up

me being able to crime tools gpose him wherever I want (still takes the time to gpose)

they are married

He really has changed!!

EXCUSE ME SOMEONE STOLE THE G-SAVIOR???????

AVILINA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AHHHHHHH

Other business = see his husband, but Gaius is very shy

HUHHHHHHHHHHH NOOOOOOOOOOO

Aww I love when he kneels to talk to children

NOT THE CLOUD DECK !!! gpose time……….

HOLY SHITTTT U;MDFJDJ I’M LOSING MY MINDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD (post blogging: it was a fake out. it's ok tho lol)

Miqo can drive better than Gaius :)

support from the rear, huh……………………….

FUCK I AM SO READY LET’S GOOOOOOOOO

SCREAMING CRYING THROWING UP

WHERE IS ALLIE THO… HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

NERO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nero is mad at the bottom accusations.

THE SYMBOLISM……….

EVERY TIME I SEE MIQO AND GAIUS IN A CUTSCENE TOGETHER I WANT TO FROW UP (AFFECTIONATE)

me constantly checking for allie. Severa is no where to be found… neither is vald...

checking all the npcs for flavor text… one lady moves around now!

Aw baby you know Makoh’to will help you anytime, anywhere!!

HOLDING HANDS TIME

OMDasdfkj I’M GOING TO FUCKING EXPIRE

hehehe she sure does!!

just know my face has been like :D this whole time

Aw… Miqo is good at soothing children so it’s ok!!

I am crying

CRYINGGGGGGGGG

I MF CUKING DLKJSDKLFJLKJSDF IDM”A I MA MSLDKDJSJDK

I’M LEGIT GOING TO FROW UP (AFFECTIONATE) NYTKLSDLFK MY HEART IS RACING SO FAST RIGHT NOW I DFKLJKSDF I CANNOT EVEN OH MY GODDDDDDD PLEASEEE LET IT BE THE ITEM WE GET

I”M GOING FO CUKGING ODIM

I AM FOR REAL FUCKING DYING RIGHT NOW I AM LOSING MY FUCKING MIND

I”M FOIGN IDI” I”M CRYING AHAHAHAHAA THEY HAVE NEW OUTFITS I AM DIYGOLINSDKFSDKLFJLKSDJFL:KSDJFI:LOJSDLK:FGJSDL:KFJDSLK:FJSDLKFJildsf

I CANNOT FUCKING DLBNELKJSDKFJDF

THGIUS IS MORE THAN I COULD HAVE EVER ASKEDDDD

IF THEY DON’T LET ME HAVE GTHAT PROAISLDFJDFJD SFI”MG OING FDSL:K

NEW PICTURE TO ADD TO MY WALLET

waiting for the sun to rise so I can take better gposes… simmering in this feeling……….. letting it wash over me………… I’m guessing we will not get this portrait as our reward but I am so happy it happened all the same. Family picture real………………………………………………..

THEY????????? DID THEY GIVE IT TO ME????????????falskdfjl;kasjdfkl;jasdlfkjasdf

TGHEY DIDDLFDKSJFLKJDS AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I am in disbelief……………..

WAIT HOLD ON I FORGOT TO GO BACK AND LOOK AT IF THEY HAVE NEW FLAVOR TEXT AND--------

GAIUS IS SITTING ON THE BENCH I ALWAYS GPOSE THEM ON AND HAVE LORE FOR I"MF LSKJDFLKSJDFKLJSDFKLJSDKLFJKLSAJFKLDSJFKLJSAKLJDFSDKF AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Allie's overlooking the sea...

FINALLY SEV AND VALD!! They even have new flavor text!

i am so happy........t his is more than i could have dreamed

feel free to talk to me about this on twt in dms! i don't have much to say except keyboard smash.

[the-rogue-mockingjay]

9, 15, 21 + o’ravi for the pre-DT questions? 💚

ty dani!! i'm gonna answer these out of order because the answer for 9, what's in wol's bag, got really fucking long 😂 (there is a gpose in there 👀 and a lot of Ravi lore)

15. what would your wol be if they weren't the wol? what would they do as a job or career? would they be happier?

O'ravi would've just kept doing the stuff she was doing pre-ARR- namely, traveling the realm as a minstrel, and supplementing that with her skills as a huntress if she didn't make enough gil with music. She would've been SO much happier with that, but it wouldn't have filled the hole in her chest that longed for purpose and deeper meaning. (Obviously, the pursuit of art and sharing it with others does have meaning, but she still wanted more, if that makes sense.) She would never in a million years have been a Scion- as it is, she very nearly turned tail and ran after first meeting them ldfkjghdjgh. (She felt very small and stupid around them in ARR, and she felt like an outcast among them up until the end of base ShB.)

21. what does your wol do to unwind? any hobbies? reading? sewing? croquet? sitting in a dark room in complete silence?

Laying on the floor in a dark room is how she calms down when she's overstimulated/having a panic attack FDLKGDLHGJKH

To unwind, she always goes somewhere very quiet, maybe wraps herself up in a big soft blanket if temperature allows. She'll read letters, perhaps write some letters, do some embroidery or make a tiny stuffed animal, or literally just sit there doing nothing and maybe doze off lmao. She used to refuse to do any weaving as a "fuck you" to what her tribe/family expected of her, but she takes it up again post-ENW now that she doesn't have to worry about her work being compared to her mother's masterworks. She also likes to people-watch from rooftops or balconies or wherever else people are unlikely to notice her.

As far as hobbies go, perhaps her favorite is music. She plays the lute, the harp, violin, and later, the piano. The piano and harp are the most calming for her to play.

Other hobbies are:

collecting flowers during her travels and pressing them in journals

collecting mammets (specifically, the wind-up little guys you get in-game; she has probably a dozen different wind-up O'ravis at this point, as well as minions of her friends, enemies, allies, the entire First Brood, and random others)

collecting plushies (her collection includes the stuffed Estinien and Hraesvelgr, as well as every single adorable little thing on the market!! tonberries, chocobos, baby dragons, sheep!!)

drawing her favorite locations (she is bad at it. this does not stop her)

collecting orchestrion rolls and sheet music, as well as a small collection of musical instruments which are of a dramatically nicer quality than the ones she started out with FDLKHGKJH

gardening and tending to animals

riding chocobos (she's a horse girl without the horses LOL)

Now, lore time!!

9. what's in your wol's travel bag? any trinkets? any vital items they can't go without? do they travel light and figure stuff out on the fly, or do they bring way too much with them?

Hmm....a good question....well for starters,

she NEVER goes without her purple lipstick (she has a few different shades, and the worse she's doing mentally the darker the color she uses- for the record she doesn't do that on purpose lmao)

she also has a small array of jewelry that she pretty much always keeps with her. For practicality's sake, I like to think there's enchantments on them that prevent them getting lost or broken lkjfghdkgjh. She decides which things to wear based on either aesthetics, or which memories she wants to keep closest to her today

In ARR, she was always wearing a pair of fluorite earrings, which was the first thing she bought as soon as she had the money; in Heavensward, she had a set of opal jewelry Haurchefant commissioned for her; from the HW patches on, she always wears at least one piece of Fortemps jewelry, usually the earrings + choker; after ShB, she started wearing Amaurotine and Crystarium rings; and post-ENW, she has rings from Asphodelos and also her wedding rings! 💞

She also has the Dravanian earrings of aiming, which I like to think are shards of Shiva's ice (pretend they glow lol). The Orthodox ring that I think drops from the Aery is what I use for a wedding ring in-game lol- I like to think that she bought it from some random jeweler because it reminds her of Aymeric :> She also has Zenos's ENW necklace. Probably.

As far as more practical travel items are concerned:

she buys paper and ink just about every chance she gets, so she can write letters to people back home; she also has a journal that she keeps notes in. They're extremely disorganized

obviously, she has all her job stones; from the Zenos assassination attempt in Doma onwards, she fights the same way Meteor does in the ShB trailer, switching between classes mid-battle (in rapid succession, once she gets really good at it). The gear she's not currently using gets stored in the job stones, and she switches between classes by slightly shifting her aetheric attunement to the stones so that one takes priority over the others. This is all headcanoned bullshit based on my very limited understanding of how aether works, the gear set system, and the ShB trailer LMAO

whatever the Eorzean equivalent of ibuprofen is 🥴 probably some Thavnairian potions lmao

bandages and shit for cleaning wounds. She is very particular about not letting any of her injuries, no matter how minor, get infected!!

SOAP. for being an adventurer she actually hates being covered in blood, dirt, and sand so fucking much she cannot STAND it. Begone, damned texture!!!!!!

comb. She hates it when her hair gets matted (if her hair's a mess, that's a sign that things are Very Bad)

glamor prisms :> she will not prioritize fashion over comfort, so if she really wants to wear a pretty shirt/dress/whatever but it has a bad texture or something, she'll just glam it over something more comfortable. It also means she can shake up her accessories without needing to take the time to actually switch something out

Azem's crystal is with her at all times, no exceptions. She also has some other similar crystals that she's experimenting with (with the help of Y'shtola, G'raha, Urianger, Professor Claudien, and some folks back in Elpis who don't know the full scope of her project), with three main goals: enshrining all her knowledge and memories in them so that people who don't have the Echo can see her memories as if they did; preserving her history and journeys so that future generations will have access to the facts, no matter how warped the stories get; and tying these crystals as well as Azem's to her soul so that when she dies, her reborn soul will have a means of learning their past, if they so choose. Taking a page out of Erichthonios's book for that idea lol

if she anticipates an arduous trip or incredibly difficult fight, she brings a cane. Such things take a lot out of her post-ENW and she finds herself in need of a mobility aid at times. I think she also has a variety of potions and tonics to help manage her conditions, courtesy of Nidhana, probably.

In general, she's pretty meticulous about packing things ahead of time, and ends up bringing a whole ton of shit rdlkfjghfdgj. But she just gets anxious thinking about "I probably don't need to bring this but what if x ridiculous scenario happens and I do?". Pre-ARR she just grabbed a few things and made shit up as she went.

[ooc-miqojak]

I started with no Reshade/Gshade, and no posing tools, and did just fine - and you can/are as well! Just combine various expressions with various emotes and pause them at just the right time! (It's a lot of mashing the 1 button to catch the perfect moment...lol) Use the in-game color filters to make them pop! Find areas with cool lighting! Find photography studios in various houses or apartments (I just found one in my alt's apartment building on accident a couple days ago - someone has already done the work for you in that case!).

You don't need flashy bokeh or whatever - lots of cool effects already exist in game in the environment around you! The Sights of Eorzea Discord has lots of resources on taking good pictures, and also has a nice compendium of cool locations in the world to utilize for interesting shots! If you can't use all the wacky tools others have, you can still take cool shots! You can even edit them in another program afterwards to brighten or darken or add effects, and it doesn't require any photoshop knowledge or the like, unless you want to learn more about those programs - I just usually use my built-in Windows photo editor, or the one on my phone! Never feel limited by what you have access to, or your technical knowledge.

Besides, we all start somewhere, after all! No one was perfect from their very first Gpose shot they ever took... I've surreptitiously gone back and deleted many of my early gpose shots, even, because I looked back and was like "Wow my understanding of lighting was real bad" and I cringe... but like Jake says in Adventure Time:

I'm flipping through el tumbles, and I'm seeing everyone's WoLs, and I am like demn these are some cool Warriors of Light. And I see them with perfect lighting and excellent posing and the colours and I am like I am in love your WoL needs to be loved. I see a picture of a Warrior of Light with perfect bokeh, seeing them just pop out in a field of tasteful blur, and I am like nice. I see another one with just the freshest glam and I'm like what a cool character. I see an image with someone shrouded in darkness and smoke with reds and purples and I am like whew that is sick.

And then there's this.