#i need to get back into ff14 ugh

[inviouswriting]

Creator things

Dunno, but I feel this is a good platform, I also generally don’t care if people leave after any of my vents, but more to that thing about the leaks.

I am still in Lesson 22. If that says anything. I am technically still learning alot about each of the characters, their personalities, and what they bring for the story itself.

I know enough about certain points IN the story, but I am not “THERE” yet. I can know an outcome, but for me it is always the “getting there” that matters most to me. What choices do I make regarding an interaction with a character and how it might reflect later means alot to me in a sense.

I like stories that have different ways to get to their endings, but what matters is my initial choice in that moment. I’ll go back and see another option, but for me, my main choices I make are what are solid for me.

So... I really hate leaks. I hate unofficial notifications on stuff, or basically spoilers. I HATE them. I have to avoid spoilers for two games now because I don’t like second hand knowledge on them because I want to experience them. Like.. for ff14 I’ll be making tags specifically to block spoilers but for an expansion it kind of is what it is, some are gonna power through the entirety of the game, while others like me will take their time leveling and enjoying the story.

For spoilers I am reminded of when 5.3 was released and how one person I use to follow, the patch wasn’t LIVE yet for NA server and ugh... I had critical game changing things spoiled for me before I had a chance to play it myself.

I unfollowed this person, they used a unique tag, and they did it for clout. So that person is permanently blocked because of that.

So easy to say I really hate spoilers of any kind. They go against alot for creators who learn things in order to create story content for what we write of a series.

It’s like taking everything that someone has been waiting for, for months and then ruining it. Like you know the old leaks regarding HP and a pivotal point of that story arc.

Some people want to experience the stories as they’re released, and not have everything spoiled off the bat when information passes through their hands. Don’t do that... 

There are a few people for Obey Me! who post without fail any new leak or content that they manage to get their hands on. And alot of it untagged so those who wish to avoid the spoilers can’t. The same way there are still people who wish to see the anime without spoiled content because the developers and creators work hard on the series to bring it to us for all of us at the same time. 

My blogs are spoiler free except for some of the devilgrams I hint to. I do try to be vague as possible and not talk directly about them or write about them. Because there are those who don’t have them. But for the most part, everything else you read on my writing blog here is 100% original concepts I come up with. I don’t get inspired much from other people, if I do, I will always highlight my inspiration. 

I might take back what I said about one side of content I won’t write on, and touch a request sent to me because I feel comfortable to touch it now. Or I might do one better and forward it to another writer who might be able to write it and do it justice.

Just I always feel a little skeptic on my ability to write religious concepts because I’m Pagan... and I left that side a long time ago. But anyway.

My blogs, both of them, are spoiler free from actual story content.

Everything I bring and create is usually all my own. I will relate what is shadowbringer content and endwalker content. for my ff14 content... but for the most part in ff14 it’s all been my angel Kivera. She’s spoiler free unless you follow her actual lore. (I need to actually write her stories. But she rarely gets notice.)

I won’t share unofficial knowledge, and I hope many who follow me will respect those feelings too. I won’t discuss official names, images, leaks at all until they’ve been officially released. 

But this might make the developers tweak some things last minute too.

So for obey me, please respect the developers and creators in not sharing that information on the new characters. Otherwise I might ban/block people from viewing this blog for sharing that stuff.

[moon-lily]

November/FF14 Writing Prompt #24

~ Puddles ~

(The great Warrior of Darkness is challenged to compete in a puddle-splashing contest.)

The laughter and yells of children permeated the air of the Exedra, many of them outside after some heavy rain in the Crystarium. They’d jump in the largest puddles they could find, as if trying to see who can make the biggest splash of them all.

“Haaa they’re so cute,” Amaris fawned, watching them with her hands on her cheeks. “Right, Sariel? You have to admit that that is the epitome of adorable!”

“Yes, it’s very cute,” Sariel replied blankly, not raising her gaze from her book as they waited near the Dossal Gate.

“Wha- you didn’t even look!”

Sariel would lower her book, gaze and blink at a group of children that ran passed them, and then return her attention back to her book. “Yes, it’s very cute,” she repeated, Amaris sighing out of exasperation. She stopped when she noticed Lilith approaching them at long last, dressed in her black anemos jacket with matching skirt and boots. Amaris waved at her from her spot, only to stop when one young Elezen (elf?) boy jumped into a puddle near Lilith, splashing her with the water that wet her skirt. 

“Ah! Y-you’re... the Warrior of Darkness,” he stammered as he soon realized what he did. “I-I’m sorry! Believe me, it was an accident! Had I known-”

“Oho, what’s this? Have I been challenged into a duel of whom can make the biggest splash,” asked Lilith with a smirk, gesturing to herself with her hand. “Admittedly, I’m out of practice when it comes to the art of puddle splashing, but I shall accept this challenge!”

“O-oh... Then anyone here has a chance of beating you,” said the boy, face beaming with relief and delight. “But I’ll take you on!”

Nearly all of the children within earshot gathered around, Lilith gazing down at the boy with encouragement. “I’ll let you go first. I need to warm up and see what I’m up against.”

The boy nodded and ran forward, kids cheering him on as he jumped into a large puddle with both feet to make a splash that reached up to his waist. “Go, Lilith, you can do it,” cheered Amaris, having joined the crowd of children. The Au Ra nodded and got into a runner’s position, sprinting toward the very same puddle. This was, of course, all in good fun but she still wanted to try her best at this. Or that was her plan until her boot slipped against the ground right before the puddle, the Au Ra faceplanting instead into the puddle and even sliding a bit into it.

There was a stunned silence among the children, Amaris staring wide eyed as Lilith pushed herself to get up, her hand on her forehead. A jovial laugh cut through the silence, Amaris looking over to see Sariel had seen that happen and was pretty much laughing her head off. In fact, the Viera was laughing so hard, she was doubling over with her arms over her stomach.

“Okay, you win. I admit defeat,” Lilith muttered, a little dazed from basically smacking her face against the pavement. Her hand lowered from her forehead to her nose, rubbing it as her eyes watered slightly. Setting her hand down quickly after, she reached for the boy’s hand and held it up as she motioned to him for the others to see.

“The victor,” she announced, grinning as the boy followed her lead and grinned proudly, the crowd of children cheering as the ran over to swarm the two.

About half an hour later...

“Care to explain how exactly this transpired,” the Exarch asked, crystallized hand hovering over Lilith’s head as he used some healing magic on her. His ruby red eyes looked down at her as she averted her own away from meeting his.

“I slipped on water and smacked my face against the floor,” Lilith replied in a low voice. “The pain in my nose was becoming too much to tolerate.”

“Yes, of course... I witnessed it through my mirror. Tis a pleasure, nonetheless, to hear you admit to it.”

“Ugh, you...!” She stopped before turning her head toward the doorway instead eyes narrowed out of annoyance. “Sariel, I can hear you snickering over there! It’s not that funny!”

“You must admit that it is,” the Exarch remarked, his normal hand coming up to hide his amused smile as he finished healing her. 

“I know it is,” Lilith agreed with a hushed voice. “But if I tell Sariel it isn’t, it would make her want to laugh even more. She could do that more often.”

[starcrossed-sky]

ugh, i just read a thing by... someone who is fairly well known in the community and I’m sure everyone will know who I’m talking about, but anyway, it was a dark knight thing

and they referred to (English, specifically) Fray as a generic bloodthirsty edgelord

and I’m??? really upset about it

because I honestly find Fray to be one of the least generic characters in the game, not just among sidequest NPCs or anything but straight up, one of the least generic characters

and maybe it’s partially projecting, but... Fray feels extremely real, to me, as a bitter poor kid who took up arms.

(And yes this is technically based off the dialogue you get from Fray/Esteem in drk 30-50 but, I am tending to assume that a significant portion of that entity’s personality is based off the real Fray’s memories, due to the way SE has to keep the WoL, including the expression of their anger and issues, fairly blank-slate)

like... I’m sure everyone’s encountered at least once in their lives, a sort of blue-collar genius type. The one who didn’t go to college for whatever reason (usually money), but actually considers and thinks deeply about things that are usually kept in academia. The car mechanic who talks about philosophy sort of deal.

Fray feels intensely like that to me - the balance of practical, pragmatic skills, and weird esoteric knowledge he presents as your DRK mentor is just. It feels extremely real and worldly. He’s bitter and angry and violent (and the fact that he is honestly is a refreshing change, but - more below), but he’s also, in his own way, very studied. He has put a lot of thought into being a dark knight, and having him described as just generically bloodthirsty... cheapens that to me a lot.

And that’s the other thing - yes, Fray is very bloodthirsty. In the first level 30 instance especially, he’s kind of a showboat with his dialogue about how he’ll kill every knight and then their wives and children if they talk - but it feels very different from the bloodthirst displayed by a lot of the other NPCs in the game. Most of the bloodthirst we see is either straight up villainous (either by proper antagonists, or just by douchebags who make you want to punch them), or it’s... apologized for and regretted. Fray is one of the only allied NPCs that is straight up bloodthirsty and doesn’t apologize or try to pamper the player’s feelings about it (Sid is another, and writing about how you can tell they were brought up together is a whole other essay). 

He’s considered his reasons for what he does, and - nope, sorry, not going to feel bad about fighting back against bastards like this. Dark knights do right violently, in a way that seems extreme to outsiders who don’t understand that level of anger and bitterness. But for me, and presumably other people who do - you can tell the difference between Fray’s sort of violence and the other sort. (There’s another essay here about why seeing that is satisfying, but this is my Fray Characterization Yell.)

And also, Fray is bitter - and compared to the rest of FF14, extremely plainspoken. There’s still some bits of the Ye Olde Englishe going on, but far less of it than in other characters’ dialogue. Fray sounds like a poor kid, straight up - I was utterly unsurprised to find out that he was, in fact, a Brume orphan, because I pinned him as a Brume kid from the very beginning. It’s a specific kind of bitterness that’s easy to miss if you haven’t been poor yourself, but it’s just intense with Fray.

And I just... Maybe if you don’t understand that anger, Fray feels generic? Maybe if you’re less poor than I am, if you don’t look at some of the things he says from that perspective, he feels generic? But I really don’t understand how anyone can look at Fray, and everything we do know about him, and reduce him to some bloodthirsty edgelord trope. Like, three more things that make Fray compelling and the full opposite of a generic edgelord before I go -

-> He gave his life so that a little girl would live. Sure he probably wasn’t intending to die that day, but he had to know it was a possibility, especially with the Tribunal and a trial by combat involved. And still he thought Rielle (who he probably didn’t know much of anything about, considering that she doesn’t really open up until midway through 50-60) was important enough to take that risk on, just because she was a girl who needed help.

-> He’s friends with Sid, presumably since childhood - not to get into shippy shit here, but in Ishgard, for a native Ishgardian, to be willing to give an au ra orphan a chance? The story underplays it, but I honestly can’t imagine that Sid is entirely a loner by choice; you look at his face and he’s got “heretic” written all over it. Fray, at some point, decided to stop caring, in spite of all the social pressures that would have been working against him.

-> He still makes it a point to tell you, when he introduces himself, that he’s not actually a heretic. This implies that even with everything, with as much as he hates the Temple Knights, he cares about the distinction. It is, probably, not much a part of his world and his battle, as much as that’s possible for anyone living in Ishgard - but he does still care about it, enough that his soulstone-impression immediately corrects the matter to the player, who is a foreigner (probably, depending on your exact WoL) and likely wouldn’t particularly care anyway.

[of-another-broken-heart]

Today: 

I woke up early (like... uh... fuck I don’t remember, somewhere between 5 and 7, lil sis was awake and doing a full face of makeup so she could sweat it off during her moving-up ceremony rehearsal I guess)

I made myself a bagel (onion), toasted, with cream cheese. I ate it. 

I played FF14 some more (OH!! There was more maintenance and I remember it was done at 5:40 and I was awake then SOOOO I got up around 5/5:30 this morning)

I dropped Jenny off for her annual inspection. The original 30-minute time I was told on Monday ended up being an hour instead. Still better than the “I’ll get to it when I can, you’ll probably have it back by the end of the day” bullshit I dealt with previously.

I walked across town and had Starbucks (too much tbh but I got one of those star challenges so WHOOPS I did all 3 items in one visit), then walked back exactly in time. Inspection passed, no issues to report, no idle chatter bullshit, no getting ignored - good shit! 

Zippity zoomed back home - or tried to. Some fucking rich city-dwelling asshole with a new boat decided to park both his overcompensating big pick-up AND the boat trailer (complete with boat) IN THE FUCKING ROAD. There is no “side” of the road for most of the residential streets, it’s just two fairly narrow lanes and this fuck decided to claim half of the whole street for himself because apparently he didn’t think about how to FIT his fucking BOAT on his property before hauling it out to his ~hampton vacation home~ ugh. 

I peeled off my old registration sticker but overestimated my skill at doing it cleanly. So I gotta get out there with some glass cleaner and/or a window scraper to get the residual bits off before I put the new registration on. And I have to do that before I go out tomorrow because that’s kinda required to legally operate a vehicle fuuUUUCCK I DIDN’T THINK THAT THROUGH. 

Anyway I’m home now and I’ve shed the hoodie I wore (both because of Insecurity(TM) and the good good convenience of that big front pocket) and changed into some shorts. 

I kinda need a shower but I don’t want to suffer in the Claustrophobia Closet. 

I’ve had some work emails come in, but still no sign of supporting docs. So that’s annoying. 

I should probably get my own doc in order for tomorrow’s testing appointment. Get that outta the way so it’s one less thing to stress tomorrow. 

[n3phen]

Whats new?

Hmmmmm.

Scale broke, thanks to the new kitty, so I haven’t gotten an accurate weigh in for a few weeks, which I’m worried about cuz soda....Bleh.

Got roped into finally starting Final Fantasy 14, it’s fun and I love my character. I boosted her job cuz it fits her theme and I started so I could play with my friends, but apparently there is still... 30+(I’ve heard 60) hours of pure story grinding just so you can get to current content. One thing I’m super happy that WoW did for new players is that you get a free level boost when you get a new xpac so you can play new content right away. No catches, just jump right in (after an intro to whatever class you choose) Speaking of, I cancelled my WoW subscription. Wasn’t doing much with it and I have people to actually talk to on FF14 Got yugioh cards, a Magician Girl deck specifically. I don’t regret it, but I haven’t gotten to use them much yet.  Stumbled onto a Rick and Morty tabletop game, it’s pretty good but I don’t think the group of friends I was playing with was the best for it. They were being silly to be silly as opposed to being silly in the way the game would have you. It was still fun, but not as much as it could have been. Work is still hell. For whatever reason I have to deal with this... girl. I say it that way because it’s the kindest way I can think of to address her. She’s terrible at her job and def shouldn’t be on overnights. She has done them before, while myself and the other full time overnight person went on vacation. She was terrible then and our manager was told such. Even still. Here she is. The girl fucking fell asleep last night. I gave her a lsit of things to do and she did 2 of them, complained she was cold and tired, and sat at the desk until she passed out. THen, when I woke her up she had the nerve to say she wasnt asleep that she just had a headache. Right. When I call your name 5 times and you don’t respond, you’re fucking asleep. She doesn’t even do her job right during the day, she can’t follow instructions to get stuff done at night. She needs to go back to dish room where she was. She did ok there, mostly because she couldn’t leave until she finished. Here, she gets to leave when the next shift shows up, so all she does is drag ass and slack off. She’s worked there longer than I have and still can’t make coffee/tea right. UGH. I digress. I finally came up with a solid plan to save and get myself a damn car instead of just... hoping one falls into my lap. My friend says he’ll sell me his but it’s been over a month now with hardly any word.

I’m getting a lootcrate soon, with stuff from a bunch of my favorite anime that I’m pretty excited about. Would you like to see what stuff I get?

This Sarahah thing is neat.. Apparently a few people have crushes? I wish I knew who they were. I’m... I dunno. Attention hungry? Not that I don’t get any, I just feel like most of it is...obligatory. It’s likely just anxiety or some such nonsense mucking with my head, but I really don’t think many WANT to socialize with me, they just do it to be nice. I’d say I’d rather they say so or tell me I’m bothering them so I don’t make things worse.

There’s a bunch more I want to vent about, but I don’t feel I can. Just enough followers (or at least certain ones) that would worry about me, and I’d rather not do that to them.  At least I think they would. maybe

Idk. People have their own priorities, and mine is to not be a nuisance, but I suck ass at that. So. Whatever. SPEAKING OF NUISANCES I’M OUT OF DAMN SHAVING CREAM. This stubble is fucking killing me dudes :C