#also: if you're on twitter i post WIPs over there occasionally

[blackbirdffxiv]

A bit about the creator:

I prefer to go by they/them pronouns.

I am over 21 years old and expect my followers to be at least 18 years old or older; minors will be blocked on sight. This is not only for my comfort but your safety.

I make cosmetic mods and port hair! You can find my mod repos below

Things to know:

IRL/my own ADHD brain sometimes get in the way which means I can be slow to respond to a lot of things due to distractions. Please try not to take this as a personal slight, life just happens to me sometimes.

I do a lot of aesthetic/stylized gposes mixed in with canon/game/lore-friendly gposes.

Some of my tags:

ffxiv mods: I use this for my mod releases.

Mun's Adventures in Modding: This is for my WiPs and progress updates.

Mun Ramblings: This is my OOC tag when I am just kinda going on about things that may not be related to XIV, sometimes it is. It can literally be about anything. This is also coupled with a generic OOC tag.

Reminders of You: My "IC" aesthetic tag, primarily about my main as my main is who I like to focus on for things like aesthetic posts, RP, In-Character, etc.

Spicy Gposes: This is my NSFW gpose tag. None of my NSFW content posted here will be explicit. The only lewd content I post here are tasteful nudes. They are also accompanied by a Mature/Sexual Content filter.

What I am okay with:

WCIF (Where Can I Find) questions, whether in DMs, ask inbox, etc. It can be about gear, my filters, etc.

Questions about any of my characters.

Questions regarding mods I've already created and released.

Requesting tips/advice when it comes to gposing, RP, etc. I'd like to think I'm well-versed in both and would gladly give my own advice to new people who are getting their foot in the door, or simply just want some tips from someone with experience.

What I am not okay with:

Witchhunting - (aka don't message me "warning" about someone else unless you have the solid proof to back it up, and if it's severe enough to warrant it; I have no interest in getting mixed up in back and forths between individuals)

Spamming of "can you make this mod/port this" in my inbox and DMs - I mod 98% of the time for hobby, and my inbox is not the place to hound me for mods.

Lore policing - I am a firm believer in "bend the lore all you want so long as you can logically explain it". Translation: don't police what I do, you're not going to get anywhere with it.

General jackassery - Just don't be a douche, it's not that hard.

Modding Repositories & Other Social Media:

Below are the current repositories I post my mods at; all my current mods are free and public to use. Any paid mods I create are always released two-three months off it's early access period. I never plan nor will I ever perma-vault a mod (and even then I make a paid mod maybe once every few months)

XIV Mod Archive (Free)

Ko-Fi (Free + Early Access)

Twitter / "X" (For all my content + explicit/NSFW content)

Gpose Commission Carrd - I do take the occasional gpose commission; feel free to take a look.

[kidnickgames]

KID NICK UPDATE I have recently been pretty silent about my games, both new and existing, even though my life has been substantially less busy over the last few months. I feel like I've been neglecting being "in the TTRPG community" to the small extent I already was, but I'm also happier and saner than I was when I was regularly checking in and occasionally commenting on TTRPG Twitter. Which is a trade-off I'll make any day!

NEW GAMES

I know it's an internet creator cliche, but I have several WIPs that I'm really excited about, and they're all at different levels of completion. It's Time is a GM-led dungeon crawl through an infinitely tall tower. It's my first game that really feels like it's about something and it's designed to make you feel certain ways and it's basically done save for some actual dungeon content. That'll probably stay as a digital-only game but should release soon! Card Hearts is a GM-led card-batting TTRPG set in a world where all conflict is resolved through trading card game battles. Players use playing card decks with cards that awaken into powerful unique trading cards at moments of tension and desperation. I've designed the card battling game, all ~200 cards for it, and have a framework of the rules, but I want this game to have stellar art and it's going to require a lot of it. Expect an artless "demo" version of this sometime in the next few months, maybe? It's the project I'm most excited about but it's daunting.

You Teach Me is a GM-less game for 2 players exploring the power dynamics and odd friendship of a trademark-agnostic master tamer and their battling monster. One player is the tamer, a human who issues battle commands to their best friend. The other player is the intelligent but speechless monster, who does the battling and receives that injuries but isn't the one who calls the shots. I have the framework for this one but need to fill it in- it'll incorporate some co-op strategy, as well. I'd like to have a physical release of this. Finally, while I do have other TTRPG projects that with some level of development behind them, I'm also working on a video game with a friend. It's in super early stages, but it is taking up a big chunk of my time. More on that to come, hopefully? EXISTING GAMES Did you know I put out a new game earlier this year? Probably not, because I put it out under a pen name for brand and vulnerability reasons. Well, to hell with that; please go check out Tabletop Foreplaying Game! Hometown Holiday and The NPC Phonebook are both available as physical zines through Indie Press Revolution! If you're going to Gen Con (like me! I'll be there!), you can go to the IPR booth and buy Hometown Holiday in person! And finally, all my games are available digitally, including the tumblr post-inspired, played-in-Smash-Bros TTRPG smallroom shorttimer bigquestions ultimate and the free Gawrsh Quest! Fun fact about Gawrsh Quest- I met Bill Farmer, voice of Goofy, at Gen Con last year and told him I made a horror game where everyone is a different version of Goofy. He seemed legitimately delighted to hear about it! STREAMING

Idk I miss streaming but my internet has just gotten worse and worse and it just hasn't been sustainable. Maybe one day soon I'll try again.

Thanks for reading this life and project update! Do me a favor and hold me to this- let me know if any of these projects excite you!

[amtrak12]

I crossposted the Elemental Writer Asks to my Lucifer Twitter so this question is from over there.

Summer: How do you know when you need a break from writing?

THIS IS SUCH A GOOD QUESTION! Because it can be hard to tell the difference between needing a break and just needing to push through with a bunch of crappy writing to get through a block.

So, I guess to start, here are some reasons I, personally, might need a break from writing.

I'm sleepy

I'm distracted by a different fixation

My day job has been too demanding/busy/etc

Other real life stuff is going on

I've been writing too much

Now with outside stress, it is what it is. I either write what I can or I just let myself relax with video games or a TV marathon or whatever. And being sleepy only really has one solution too: go to bed lol

For being distracted: Unless I have an external deadline (like I signed up for a fic exchange), I just give into the distraction now. Sure, go play Sims for a couple of days because I can't stop thinking about raising horses. Yeah burn through the entire Shadow and Bone series in a week. It's fine. Even if I don't need a break from writing at that moment, the break is still a good mental refresh.

And now for the difficult-to-define problem of 'writing too much'. What is too much and how can you tell if you're at that limit?

For me, too much is anything at NanoWrimo pace (1667 words/day or 50,000 words in 30 days) or greater. That's total writing, not just how many words I publish. Now, I can handle 20-40k words per month for months on end with the occasional 50k spike. But that's only after writing the same WIP for a year and a half which has given me a lot of practice at writing consistently.

Factors that will decrease how much I writing I can do:

Editing

Brainstorming new story ideas

Free-writing and basic rough drafts are the easiest and fastest things for me to write because quality doesn't matter. But generating new ideas or editing existing writing both take a lot more brain power. At any point in time, I'm doing a mix of brainstorming, drafting, and editing. But I'm (slowly) learning I need to pay attention to which I'm doing more of in any given week, because that will influence how soon I'll need a break.

This week, for example, I posted a new Can We Keep Her chapter last Friday and a one shot on Monday. I've also written and submitted 3 drabbles for a fic exchange that won't get revealed until this coming weekend. Now, I've gotten better this year about forcing myself to take a day off of writing when I publish a new WIP chapter. Partly to celebrate and partly because I've learned I WILL burnout if I immediately jump into the next chapter. This WIP is monstrously long, and no amount of 'pushing it' is going to get it done faster.

But I definitely haven't been taking breaks after my shorter one-shots. �� And here I am on Thursday when I've scheduled myself to resume Chapter 20's draft and I just… don't want to. I'm feeling super unmotivated today even though I know exactly what I need to write. I thought I was disappointed by getting no comments on my one-shot -- and I am, sure -- but uh… after typing all of this out, I'm going to guess that I've expended more brain power writing and editing those drabbles than I thought. And that uh, maybe just maybe, I might need to spend tonight reading or playing video games instead of writing.

LOL I have no idea why that wasn't clear to me before. I just published FIVE different fics in a week. Seems pretty obvious that I should take a break 😜

So, I guess my advice for how to tell if you also need a break or are simply stuck on a writing problem that you need to push through:

Take note of how much you've written lately (this week/this month)

Compare that to how much you typically write in the same time period

Remember what else is going on in your life that's been demanding your energy.

If your response to any of those categories equals A Lot, you probably need a break from writing. Find the method that refreshes you, and go do that instead for a day or two (or longer, even) 💜 My favorites are fiber crafts, scripted television, and reading.

[mappinglasirena]

Mappening is Happening

I thought I’d give you all a little (hah!) update of what has been going on in the background of the mapping blog recently. I haven’t finished anything in a long while and I always feel a little weird throwing WIPs on here without the commentary I feel they deserve (that’s what twitter is for 🙈). But I’m trying to get better about that.

So, here is a ton of my work literally in progress. I hope you enjoy looking at a whole lot of very similar deck plans 😋

---

I have an idea for a new mapping project for periods when I don’t have the time or energy to write long things. But it requires me having a usable map of the upper and lower deck of La Sirena.

My first idea was “eh, I’m going to take the set plans we got from the blu-rays and just clean them up a little, make sure all the markings are in the right place, add a few things that are missing, and re-do the labels. That won’t take too long, surely?”

“Yeah, that’s serviceable!”

But then I started working on the lower deck. Looking at the original plans, the first one is too warped and out of focus to use as a basis, but there’s a bunch of stuff missing in the second one (most obviously, the front of the mess with the stairs to the bridge).

“So. If I want to have a map of the lower deck in its entirety, I need to add the front of the ship and a bunch of stairs, make adjustments to the glass-plates - not to mention clean up the graininess from rescaling it to fit with the upper deck...... Okay, fine, I’m just going to retrace the entire lower deck, make it as clean, and as screen-accurate as I can get it, and add all the missing stairs and things.”

It helped that I already had a redrawn version of sickbay, because I’ve been adding furniture to that, too:

(Still missing a few things, like the shelves on the support beams, not to mention labels for the furniture. But it’s getting there!)

"Using that and the old plans, it won’t be too hard getting the entire lower deck redrawn, right?”

“Yeah, that’s good. That’s a good update!”

But to get there, I had to do a ton of work on the two sets of stairs to the upper deck to get them accurate. And it’s silly to only do half the stairs, so obviously I did the top half as well. But that, in turn, necessitated getting the railing around the stairs in the back and around the drop to the lower deck in the front right, so I knew how and where the stairs attached. “And while I’m at it, might as well do the railing around the panorama windows as well.”

“Also, I got some things wrong about the holodeck in my first redraw. For one, I’m fairly sure there aren’t actually any support beams sticking up straight through the middle of it, so those need to go. And I can get it cleaner, too.

“Also also: I already have outlines of the captain’s quarters and Raffi’s quarters, because I did versions of those with furniture!”

(Rios’s quarters)

(Raffi’s quarters with a marker for the skylight.)

“And I started on doing the same with the bridge. Didn’t get super far, but I have the floor structures down. So might as well add all that to the upper deck as well!”

“Yeah, okay, that’s kinda neat.”

Then there was a brief interlude where my brain got completely obsessed with the floor plates. I don’t really know what kicked me down that particular rabbit hole. Maybe it was just that the next step for the upper deck would have been deciding whether to do a full retrace, or whether to keep the cleaned-up version of the original plans, add the new things I had drawn, and leave it at that. It was probably also something about the set plan not being 100% symmetrical (it’s off by one pixel if you use a 1 pixel wide centre line) and the width of the beams and spaces between them not being 100% accurate. So I was curios whether I could get the floor plans to fit (and whether my estimation about their size was off, perhaps).

Either way, I spent two days completely obsessing over floor plates, and ended up with this:

(I was kinda tired when I did this and there are some very glaring mistakes that a very kind person on twitter pointed out to me. But it’s part of this odyssey, so I felt I should include it 😋)

“Okay. So I have an idea for the floor plates. Nice. But now I need to figure out a way to make the walls of the upper deck be above the floor plates, without getting interference from the markings on the floor and.... I’m gonna do a full retrace of all the walls and beams on the upper deck after all, aren’t I? WELP!”

And because my deck plan file already consists of 94 layers and I love it being so modular and able to show and explain a bunch of different things around the ship, might as well make the underlying structure of the upper deck as bare-bones as possible. That way, I can add and move things much more freely.

So, here is the skeleton of the upper deck. Maybe this is an approximation of what the ship looked like at its inception/before Rios added the Starfleet containers with quarters, holodeck, etc.

(I still need to decide what to do with the back of the ship and access to the engine room, since those sets don’t actually exist and nothing official has been said about it yet...)

After getting to the point pictured above, I spent the second half of my Saturday fixing my floor plate mix ups and adding in some new information. Unless I’ve overlooked something, any plates that still look flipped at this point are screen-accurate.

Clearly, there were some incidents near the bridge and at the back of the captain’s quarters that required floor plates to be switched out at some point - and it had to be done quickly, so there was no time to get them all perfect. Or possibly Rios was drunk and/or one of the holos was having a laugh. Any explanations are welcome ;)

(The plan above is not set-accurate, btw. If you look closely, you’ll notice that this is the extended version of the upper deck, with Rios’s cabin the size we see on screen, not the size built on the set.)

I’m going to have to do a massive write-up of this when the plans are done. Explain things like “screen-accurate but not set-accurate” (check the pinned masterpost for info about the captain’s quarters if you’re interested), point out all the things I’ve done to these plans to get them where they are, note all my observations and measurements, and provide evidence for some of my decisions regarding floor plate placement etc.

But for now, here is what I’ve been up to the last three-ish weeks, in case anyone was wondering ;)

[captainkurosolaire]

Things I Like RP Partners to Know

I like to be called: Captain, Kuro, Zach, Degenerate, w/e. I'm typically not nerved by really anything, mostly chill. (Went in-depth and tagged below cut)

One thing you should know about me: I really just write for passion anymore, I don't care about this whole Post+ stuff, it won't play a factor in me. Tumblr has really everything that allows me to write and further myself. However, it ever goes away, even if becomes Myspace 2.0, I'll probably still maintain writing here off and on in spurts. --Now if they shut-down, I might convert over somewhere that's identical, cause Twitter couldn't handle my girth. I'm mildly autistic and suffer from a few other conflicting health aliments, writing is my obsessiveness and remedy. Used to be gaming, but I became less of a gamer, and replaced it more for writing cause It's a place where I can contain and throw all my thought's to usage. My mind overlaps with so much thing's at once, I get side-tracked, misplacement, my concentration shifts horribly, before I know it, I haven't slept for twenty-four hours or more. Lot of stuff is just me being redundant by fault. Or I become overwhelmed with a story ideas, that impulsively takes me, but majority of my best thing's are sudden. Not the one's that are ever planned. But I don't live to make excuses never care to be defined, by one thing, or person. I don't aim to attain much of anything in life but be a better me, until my end. And by analyzing your mind, you can do or achieve a lot I've discovered. So I repetitively no matter what jog down my WIP's and unleash, or my errors, I put them all on badges displays, then I go back and repeat until I show progress. That's how I have to learn. But passion is a candle, so when it burn's out I lose a lot of what I learned, it's natural after that to be discouraged, but instead, for me, that gets me going again. Cause mean's I can come at thing's with a whole new mental perspective and different flow, then compare, and again, adapt and improve. One thing you should know about RPing with my character(s): Everything is a factor and story with me. Losses, they matter. My character originally was highly killable almost every session, but advanced due to the actions of others, because of them, he found the value of his own life, and that's how I like to do my characters. Even the win's my character gets from stories, will most likely have a 'bad ending' occasionally or result into something new sprouting from it eventually, however that doesn't define at-all how permanently it effects them. But seasonally they go through their struggle. Life for real, is up and down's, these are the component's I factor in. Realistically, sure we fall. We never truly decline unless we allow it. Our character's philosophies, their mental judgement, dislikes, etc, all these thing's become ingrained they decide how much they want too fight and live, they step to improve or sometimes stumble under roadblocks, but not truly devolve. So the more people he interacts with or meets and encounters in RP, they are factors, they're meaningful to meet again, or live, their short teachings are insightful. No matter how small or large or incomplete stories went or passed-by. I created a character who was filled in by others initially. Even one-shot smuts, they're important experiences. Lot more to appreciate when your character learns on their own how to surpass their weaknesses and suffering organically. Still do RP with others but typically I do collaborations, or pre-established or short things, or Discord, one-shot in-game stuff, screenshot things that can convey RP. Want to build this Crew as their own functioning characters, not so much minor throwaways, but shippable, and highly in-depth. Essentially building an optional anime for my partner's, one-day. Long-term with me right now just isn't something I'd ever ask or expect from me. I'm too jumbled and a mess. But it's not a never, I do have two people who are among all my stuff and involved. I'd include anyone in my stories too if they wanted partaken. First language: Gibberish / English. Age range: under 13  | ��14–17 | 18–22 | 23–25 | 26–29 | 30+ | 40+ | 70+ Am I okay with NSFW?: yes |

no | some nsfw I came solely off that, my reputation, was known as 'That ERP guy' on Balmung OG day's, I'm one of the degen's from that era. But character's evolve and adapt as do their people, they become more, but maintain their origins to degree. Those perspective's and things learned from NSFW are very paramount to a lot of SFW too. My favorite/most common thing to RP is: angst | fluff | smut | crack | action | plots | AUs are fine | Violence | Darker themes |  I dunno. * I'm pretty open-ended in all things. It's all fascinating for me to attempt at improving. Reason finally pulled the trigger and made a diverse Crew for Captain was give off different interactions and also more reason's to write beyond my usual trends. I'll tackle eventually every genre... now doesn't mean I'll excel in those fields more than my specialties, but I'll do it. Canon Character RP Friendly?: yes | no | depends * I stick with the sandbox but I'll stretch out all the space and limits of it. Building skyscrapers and UFO's with that sand, just happens that this Universe has magic, science, alchemy, holograms, all-around unlimited absurd possibilities, more than even D&D, which makes this game the best to RP within. When comes to interacting with anything Canon base, It'll always dwarf me though. Most likely I'll write my own legit WoL's, thinking of making an 'antagonist' one, but more 'protagonist too' (maybe hunk viera male?) I like making construed lines between characters, that's really complex, it's avidly up to a reader to decide who's in the right or wrong or if they're rooting for the villain or good-guy. I see most lore characters as Celebrities which my character would be rightfully cultured in, and they're untouchable, least for my characters. To me the source of what, who, or with you're writing is what determines a lot. But yeah RPing with anything Canon related, I switch to being a just minor gnat. And there's going to be a lot of consequences, that come if there's anything that does effect something that matters in the Universe. Just cause my pirate is causing havoc and having fun for now, doesn't mean law's don't catch-up or something else doesn't. Cause and effect always. RP blog: does contain ooc posts | doesn’t contain ooc posts | occasionally contains ooc* I would do more OOC if did asks, or inbox related things and was wanted, but outside occasional updates, I stick to my role. That's just write stories and screenshots and practice everything. I'm thankful for anyone who does enjoy anything I share or supports me, It's what brings me back faster and I do always think of you too when I want to get better, it's uplifting and inspiring, alongside boosting. If I do bring any motivation to anything, I do. Then that's the best payment I could get. I like seeing others thrive, or soar higher than me, and unleash their creativity. Tagged by:@spotofmummery (Thank ye my treasured friend!) Tagging anyone/everyone: @roguestly @scholarlybreadbun @under-the-blood-moonlight @lettersnorth @violet-warder @lukawarrioroflight @eligos-venator @corpse-dancer @silvernsteel @silvertail-ffxiv @roxinova @lavender-hemlock @fracturedfantasia @zhauric @fair-fae @avwalya @yuki-yukichan @crow-iv @cadrenebula @spellsandtales @casualcatte @seascrapes @mishivymendi @thorcat @aqueerfishtheyis @ljoturyalre @seabound-dragoon @scornedjustice @laylahcousland @layla-grey @moonstruck-ffxiv @snow-covered-moon (Apologies if missed anyone. If there's more who'd like to be tagged again on all these type of things, let me know.)

[hyannah]

Sorry if I sound rude, but I truly wish the best for you! You're such an amazing person and it would be a true honor to see and hear more from you. Not to mention, I believe TBoA might become a sensation due to its uniqueness. After all, who needs fairy tales nowadays? Well, I guess there are still some people left. And I believe your story might just be what it's need to turn the spark into a flame. Anyway, take care of yourself first and thanks in advance for reading this message! Bye! (2/2)

This means more to me than I can ever say, and to say that I appreciate it would be an understatement. I’ve been thinking a lot about how I would “break my silence”, so to speak. Especially this last month or so. Those of you that follow me on my twitter know that I’m occasionally active over there for brief episodes, maybe because my following isn’t quite as big so I don’t feel the same performance anxiety that I do on here or my YouTube channel. I keep telling myself that I should return with a bang or roar but I think it just puts even more pressure on the situation.

TBoA is my everything. This project is more important to me than anything else I’ve created, so to everyone who has messaged me with concerns that my absence means the cancellation of the story, rest assured! I honestly don’t think hell nor high waters could stop me from working on this project. Even if - God forbid - something were to happen to me personally, I’d find a way to make sure the story is told in the end. I would also like to post more work unrelated to TBoA as well. Fanart, gifts, standalone work, etc.

But that aside, I want to thank you all so very much for your patience. I am often brought to tears by how understanding the vast majority of you all have been, how kind your messages are, and how supportive my friends have remained. It has been a very difficult few years and I believe that I lost myself somewhere in the struggle. Things that once came easily to me - my thoughts, my art, my convictions - are now harder to grasp. I have more recovering to do and a lot more lost confidence to build, but I will get there. I’d like to start posting more again but this is a very big leap for me since not many others besides my close friends have seen my art in quite some time, so I hope you all will enjoy my sketches, wips, and experimental work while I recover. It makes me nervous to show “rough” work since I’m such a perfectionist, but that very trait is one of many that ended up crippling me for as long as it did so I simply must overcome it and make peace with myself and what I, as one person, can reasonably produce.

Thank you all for your support! 🐺🌹⚕️🐍