#this is gonna get updated when Dawntrail comes out

[candycryptids]

Full name: The one written in Tataru’s logs says “Tangy Tangeroos-Qesh” with the Qesh being added in a different hand that struggled greatly to fit the size and legibility of the rest of it.

Nickname: N/A (but she’s not opposed)

Jobs: Monk (self-styled), Paladin (HW), Warrior (Dawntrail)

Gender: No matter her outward appearance, ‘Girl’ (She/Her)

Echo: Insists she doesn’t have one, but seems to have the blessing of light regardless. Remarkable constitution.

Race: Miqo’te -> Hrothgar [Through external influence and mishap]

Age: 20

Origin: Gyr Abania

Religion: Rhalgr

Relationships: Grey Aro/Ace, Part of the Scions. Feelings for Minfilia (unacted upon; wasn’t sure what to do with them then, and really isn’t sure now that she’s gone) Adopted by Velivet post-calamity, but has since left. Still sends him and his kids money.

Unique Physical Traits: small scar on cheek, striped fur/markings, brown paw pads…

Likes: Food (noodles especially)🤤🥰, All of the Scions, training/sparring with others, the smell of leather, Lily of the valley, carnations, the color pink, group hugs, meals together, kids, painting (by no means some kinda master at the craft; it’s very simple-hobby levels. Makes an attempt to paint Minfilia from memory once. Doesn’t go great.)

Dislikes: Ascians. Math (especially under pressure), Ul’Dahn Syndicate, Garlemald (opinion shifts somewhat during EW), Sharlay (…. Opinion does NOT shift.), when a friend is sad and there’s nothing she can punch to fix it.

Can Often Be Found: during ARR; in the Waking Sands. Afterwards; Rising Stones, or trailing after Tataru like a guard dog when she travels. Stays in Revenants Toll when Tataru makes the business move to Sharlay

Character Tags: #ffxiv Tangy #Tangy Tangeroos

Playlist: [Inside an Orange Cats Head] [Orange Jams]

[emcapi-gaming]

Spent the evening fiddling with my mods for Ardwin to try and get her to a body type that actually comes across as, like, healthy, instead of running on nothing but stress. I partly wanted to do this because I wasn't happy with my current mod setup, but also as a character development thing for her.

Her personal timeline for MSQ, from ARR through the end of 6.0, was something along the lines of 2 years. She has not had a chance to actually, properly rest. Post-Endwalker, heading into Dawntrail, is really the first time she gets to relax for more than 5 minutes. And also deal with the unholy amount of emotional baggage she has been repressing in order to function this entire time, especially through ShB/EW, which resulted in at least 3 distinct mental breakdowns between the end of 6.0 through 6.1 (one of which was The Entire Dark Knight Questline). 6.2 onwards has very much been about recovery for her, which I think is gonna be a process that continues forward into summer vacation in Tural.

Without further ado, I give you:

Before...

...and after.

(mod list for "after" pic under cut)

Base textures: Bibo+ ("buff & smooth" texture)

Body: rue+ (buff small chest, small skullcrusher legs)

Scaling tweaks: DIY set of Customize+ scalers - if anyone's interested in a copy, let me know and I'll figure out how to export them

Smallclothes: Yet Another Sporty+

Skin details: All-Gen Body Freckles, Rough Travels (scars)

Compatibility: Atramentum Luminis

Face details: Proper Freckles (medium), Hair Defined, Everyone Bites, Eyeworks (looking forward to the graphics update when hopefully I won't need as many of these lol)

[xivrefsheets]

Dawntrail Updates!

Figured I may as well toss a post to the void with DT rapidly approaching. Ahem. Hello! First of all...

Wow... thanks a bunch! I'm happy this little project has proven to be so helpful for so many folks out there! I figured once I stopped updating that this blog was gonna fizzle out into obscurity but I'm still getting quite a bit of interaction despite the inactivity (I really do miss Tumblr sometimes...)

Anyway, wanted to put an update out here on things going forward after DT drops and knowing how rambly and Autistic™ I tend to get, I'll just put that in a cut.

So as I've mentioned in passing in the tags of a random ask, I'm sort of considering opening comms for ref sheets again due to really Really Spicy money-related happenings in my personal life. However, there's a few steps along the way before I make this a reality and this isn't even a full guarantee it'll happen as I'll also be opening art commissions in the near future and those will take more time and priority over ref sheets PLUS there's the factors that led me to closing in the first place.

I'm trying to steer away from using Anamnesis going forward for a number of reasons (some borderline petty, I admit) but I've been introduced to some nifty new plugins that are slowly taking the program's place that make posing infinitely easier and also fix the primary issue I had with Ana which was.... not allowing unique NPC faces to show in gpose anymore. (Yes I'm aware that they still worked for carbuncles and the like but that was just enough of a hassle for my posing needs that it made the sheets Not worth making anymore since I was already dealing with other stress on the side at the time as well). I'm still learning how to effectively utilize said plugins and once I've gotten better and mastered them that'll be the end of step 1.

Step 2 is gonna be... well... waiting for DT to drop. As we all know, a massive graphics overhaul is coming, so there's very little point in opening requests for new characters now when the models are about to be more detailed and will very likely be tweaked along the way if player feedback affects NPCs down the line.

Step 3... that I dread... revamping my studio yet again. Mostly just gonna be taking out some of the extra light sources since those tend to get in the way when the model is really tall and also researching more setups. May also see about utilizing chromakey as well. Idk idk. I doubt I'll have the energy to make the sheets super pretty like some folks do, but taking transparent shots will cut out a lot of distracting factors and make the finished sheets look a bit better I think.

Then after that, I'll probably do some practice rounds and re-work sheets for popular characters as well as fixing the old, shitty sheets from when I first started that were Way Too Yellow that I've been meaning to fix for literal years now (so sorry to all my fellow color-picking artists friends out there I'm sorry that's so annoying... TTATT) and from there I'll see if it's something I still want to pursue and open comms for.

I'll shoot for maybeeeee mid-August or so for the next update. Obviously, I still have a job and I'll be enjoying DT with the rest of you guys so it'll be some time before I even think of doing ref sheets again, but I at least wanted to throw out there that this is still something I think about, but a number of factors made me stop to begin with. One factor being...

...pricing! If/when I open again, it'll likely be a proper commission post on ko-fi and I'm thinking of starting at $10 with tipping enabled. In the beginning, I was allowing requests for the barest minimum of a donation and the constant $3 for characters with a ton of details to cover was getting a bit demotivating after a while, so I'm sorry if this puts off past and future clients, but I am doing all of this in my free time, so... ;w;

ANYWAY! If anyone read all this... thank you! I know it's a Lot and I'm sorry. Been a minute since I've had to do some sort of official addressing like this... haha.

Feel free to follow my ko-fi for updates regarding ref sheet commissions, art commissions, and whatever new art I post (if you're into that) and maybe toss a dollar or two my way since, yanno, I'm Quite broke rn and have an unpaid vacation coming up... 👉👈 or if you just wanna support a fellow queer this June.

and if y'all don't hear from me in a few months just assume I lied LOL!

[zwierzodudle]

i finished dawntrail last night so i'm gonna release some thoughts out of me

overall i would still say i enjoyed myself. admittedly i mostly went in with the plan to just enjoy watching my lizard in the cutscenes, so. not the highest of standards.*

the first half aka the main scenario you expect to happen was honestly perfectly fine. nothing special, but light and enjoyable. you go around helping your new pal with various tasks, shenanigans happen,and there were a lot of sweet moments between various characters. like i don't really have a lot of complaints for that part, it's about what i expected.

the only things that i found kinda meh at that point is that at times the writing felt like they were writing for a kids cartoon instead (but it was easy to ignore for this part), and zoraal ja's motivation was just kinda silly? and maybe a few weird moments where they didn't seem to decide if they want the tone to be serious or comedic.

post-coronation when shit hits the fan tho. they had this really good existential horror setup (and they clearly knew about it, what with the dramatic camera angles and all) but then they kept pulling it back in a weird way?

in the same dialogue the same character just a few sentences apart says this:

and from then on it's like they couldn't let any characters call the soul devices anything negative without also adding something along the lines of 'but it's their culture'. it's genuinely bizzare. it get's incredibly tiring with just how often everyone says it too. culture has nothing to do with this? the characters are allowed to think the delete-the-memories-of-your-loved-ones-and-use-their-souls-as-a-currency machine is scary without a disclaimer every time? i'm not sure if it was meant to help humanize alexandrians or something but it really wasn't necessary? that kinda infantilizing writing really ddidn't mesh with the subject at hand here and felt a little condescending to the players.

this part really suffers for it beause there's a lot of interesting ideas they introduce and then just push to the side in order to show you how alexandrians live. by the time they're done with that the last few quests just rush by. the last zone gets turned into rubble after a few dialogues, krile gets barely any time to get her quest's resolution, no time for questioning anyone about the shard travel.

sphene is an interesting villain but even with her right at the end they throw another 'well i know you have your own beliefs-'. my brother in hydaelyn she's forced by her programming to kill people for souls to power an unsustainable artificial afterlife. just let that go okay.

so. yeah.

i still had fun with various character moments (i know people hate on wuk lamat but i had no problem with her), the new dungeons and trials are fun, the new areas are honestly gorgeous. it's just kinda disappointing how many times they fumble the writing itself.

*that one post-endwalker update where you go into a garlean bunker because their officer doesnt want their feral robots killed? and you find out they've been taking stuff that was meant for their citizens for themselves and yet it never comes up again? or how the refinery guys who hated garleans who enslaved them clap and smile at the officer who now will totally be better because he was almost killed by the feral robots? the way they wrote everyone in it made me stop playing ffxiv for like half a year. so i kinda expected bullshit and tbh nothing in dawntrail was as bad as that.

[bladeshowers]

I did update my rules. It's something I meant to put in awhile ago back when all the shared verses were going around/were popular before the fandom died down with the content lull. No one's really done it yet, as far as I'm aware, I'm just putting it there just in case and for the inevitable revival when Dawntrail releases.

Since I'm coming back I also wanted to put a feeler out for plots/new threads. It's been months and while I'm trying to get through all my drafts I realize other people might not be interested in them anymore. So feel free to poke me on this post, via im's, or via discord if you have it if you'd like to start new things!

I also am gonna have verses for 16 & baldur's gate available once I finish those games. I do have vague ideas for amara & evan for 16 so feel free to inquire about those since they're partially written up already. I just wanted to see the ending to verify something before I actually publish them & link them on their character bios.

[yakdeculture]

Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker Review

The 4th expansion to A Realm Reborn and a culmination to the story up to that point. Y’all ff14 don’t play about spoilers so I’m not even gonna say what’s goin on in there but some crazy shit is going down and its up to you to solve it.

Do you like my character? That;s Spice World on Famfrit you can add me if you want I mostly play Dancer but I also like astrologian dragoon and pictomancer I’m gonna level samurai and reaper too though. Anyways so I first started playing ff14 like right after high school so like probably right after Stromblood came out maybe what would that be like 4.1? Something like that? Anyways that’s when I started played and I played pretty consistently up through the patch before Endwalker I think by then I was already pretty burnt out and wasn’t logging in that much but like I hadn’t even finished the last like few quests in post Shadowbringers when I quit. I had logged in like a few times when there was like free time or whatever since then and now but literally the only thing I did was visit my friends little animal crossing island. But with Dawntrail coming out a lot of people on the TL were getting back into it so I said fuck it why not. A lot of the things I don’t like about this game/don’t really appeal to me is still true I’m not a fan of the postgame content structure in the sense that like I frankly just don’t care about raiding and like unlocking extreme trials I just don’t care. I don’t see the appeal of doing just a Fight You Already Did But Watch Out Because Some of These AOEs are Crazier. And I think it can take up too much time of like your social life this is true of all MMOS but this is like the only one most sane people would even think to care about. But like its a similar deal to gatcha games but if instead there being like 15 minutes worth of dailies there are like up to 4 hours worth of dailies depending on how invested you are in the game and thats just insane to me and I’m the kind of person who would do MSQ roulette back when that shit took like 30 to 40 minutes every time before the ARR update.

Anyways let me actually talk about the Endwalker MSQ this review only covers up to the actual end of the MSQ I haven’t started the real postgame yet. THERE ARE SPOILERS OF ENDWALKER AFTER THIS POINT if you are like me and stopped playing or are newer to the game or something. So personally honestly up until like level 83 and you go to the moon and do the trial and shit the story really just feels like more postgame patch stuff where its like sure you are progressing the story and you even visit new places but you don’t really do anything there and you leave before anything interesting can happen and garlemald is basically empty (fine I guess kind of funny though) but like I think around 65 after the dungeon it starts picking up again and then you go to Elpis and then after that its basically all peak I think Shadowbringers story is more consistent but Endwalker peaks higher. Also I should say I like Heavensward significantly less than most people I just do not fuck with most of the characters (Harchefant) and I think its annoying how like most of the story is everyone telling Ysayle hows shes a fucking idiot stupid loser and shes wrong and bad and then it turns out she was was more right then everybody else and then she kills herself so a guy who hasn’t taken a shower in his entire life can join the main cast. And then when Vrtra comes out to people at Radz at Han they have the fucking gall to be like [flashback of Ysyals] we did it buddy! Y’ALL WERE NOT HER FRIEND Y’ALL TREATED HER LIKE SHIT. But I have to give them serious credit because in Shadowbringers I thought the Armout shit and like Emet’s whole deal was fucking stupid granted this is because I already did not like the Ascains up to that point so it just kind of felt like they were like were just pivoting and making them something they weren’t but ultimately they really fleshed it out in Endwalker and like it really did tie it all together I do have to give them credit for that. It’s funny bc I forgot Hydoleathaeus (not checking how to spell his name) was a character you met multiple times so the time in the section I was is it gonna be like some twist like this fucking twink was actually somebody else the whole time but no he was just the friendly guy you met a couple of times. Zenos is also really funny in this expac its hilarious they brought him back and then it was like barely for any reason at all other than to have a few epics moments and then kill him again in a way thats like okay try bringing this mf back again I dare you to find a way. The ending was very Marcoss 7 so I appreciated that. Honestly I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed the story especially because of how it started out. Not to be thing Japan but I played every other expac on English voices but I just can’t listen to the british shit again so I switched to JP and it was so good.

postpatch review

If this was any other set of post game patches I wouldn’t do a review for them because usually frankly pretty much all the post expansion story before this point goes like this

X.1: Filler

X.2: Filler but then something happens in the last quest

X.3 actual story

X.4: Filler but you notice they keep bringing up some location name constantly

X.5: Somee boss fight that makes the scions decide they gotta go take a trip to the next expac location

This time they decided to actually have a real story that actually had time to develop. I enjoyed this one a lot but also part of that is because Zero was so hot that I could ignore the fact that they had like 50 different scenes where someone explained like the concept of trust or friendship or hanging out or whatever to her and she did her stupid fucking fedora thing and went … like look I get it and I like it but its like obnoxious at this point. We all get we get what you are doing you don’t have to do this same thing over and over again. I understand most ff14 players struggle to interpret information beyond going in and then out to dodge aoes and are not equipped to handle actual character writing but they will never grow or improve their literacy rates if you don’t give them the chance.

But genuinely this was like the first time I enjoyed reading or doing post game stuff since like. The Yotsuyu stuff in Stormblood. Probably won’t start Dawntrail for a while (my sub ran out and down feel like renewing) but it seems cool from the little story preview I like that Wuk Lamat’s introducing is like patting Graha’s back and since he’s a weak little beta chud he almost breaks all his bones in his body recoiling from her powerful aura and then he immediately annnounces he will not be going on the adventure with us like thank fucking god get this catboy FREAK out of my sight.

[kesakeshi]

Okay, lets talk Dawntrail

Gonna get this out the way..don't care for the "new" race, moving on:

A lot of... Neo city/cyberpunk themes in this expansion. Actually, it seems to be a trend in gaming recently. I don't care too much for this aesthetic and fail to see how this will fit with FF14, but we'll see..

(I know Garlemald was sorta similar but this is just straight up futuristic)

(blurry quality sorr) But I LOVE the MCH outfit. I'm a sucker for ties/suits on women and I know my cat girl will look lovely in this top. I wonder what the new traits/actions are gonna be...?

sigh, this graphical update makes me want to change to one of these male races when 7.0 comes out. They just look so damn PRETTY. Imagine what G'raha Tia's, Estinien's, and Aymeric's new models are gonna look like ❤❤❤ AH I'm so excited!

Krile fighting with us aside (she's okay, I don't care much),

PICTOMANCER!!!

This looks like a super fun job that I'm excited to play when it comes out. I've tried Magical-Ranged DPS before and didn't care for it, but the artsy/disney aesthetic is super cute to me. It's giving Astrologian in terms of quirkiness and I'm all here for it.

NEW CAT BOY?! G'RAHA HAS COMPETITION????

I doubt it, but :) Out of every new character announced (so far) cat boy here peaks my interest the most. Excited to see what he'll bring to the table.

Speaking of catboy,

This'll never get old. G'raha eating taco will forever be burned into my mind, my heart. I just really love this guy.

also love that he's such a foodie I find that very adorable.

Lastly, Alphinaud:

Is it just me, or did he seem to look...different? I think this is the same for Alisaie too, their faces seem less baby then their Endwalker CGI models...hm...I think they're finally growing up y'all 🥺

Anyway I need to hurry up and finish the recent patches before the new one comes out-

[linelpisffxiv]

So, my official Keynote thoughts

I am... cautiously optimistic about this expac. Of the three big options, it's the least bad for me.

Like, I have no doubt that the people groups introduced in a Decolonization/Southern Ilsabard expac would be done well, but the writers always fail to get me to see what they are trying to when it comes to the Empire and that would just be a drag to me.

I have severe doubts on how well they'll handle the claimed diversity of Tural, but I'll take an expac that borrows from a myth created by conquistadors out of greed over the above.

That said, of the three big options, I have minimal interest in any of them being told. Like I said, least bad. And so far, it looks like there's an attempt at doing the mesoamerican/south american indigenous peoples right. Doubt it's more than that, but yeah.

I like the name Dawntrail.

I like how happy Meteor looks in the trailer.

I like the theme is "Discovery"/"Adventure",

More interested in the system updates, tho.

Basically, this is an expac that seems like it can be better than the idea has any right to be, but I'm keeping my concerns close as well, because there's a lot that can go wrong too.

Either way, I think it's gonna be the last one I play on release.