Author Archives: Illinia

Reason to Live

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My old Shakarian fic was feeling a bit outdated, a bit juvenile, especially considering I never actually bothered to title it… So after playing the trilogy again earlier this year, I felt the urge to write a new one. I don’t feel it quite gets across how fascinating turians are, how the whole idea of ‘alien’ is alluring (Mass Effect does not really do a great job of expressing alien cultures in a culturally alien way, though I will grant that’s not the point of a swashbuckling space adventure), but it certainly feels a bit more in-character than the old one to me.

It doesn’t have every bit of detail in, as it’s only really supposed to replace the whole “reach and flexibility” conversation and still leave space for the “interspecies awkwardness thing” conversations that come after.

 

Reason to Live

Shepard took a moment to sigh to herself before she reached out and tapped on the Normandy’s main battery door. It had been an intense day, and she still wasn’t sure if she’d given him enough time to sort through it all. Continue reading →

Professor Minke Nagel

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Professor Minke Nagel is a professor of History at the University of Kinleith. Her father’s father was a human from Waterstraeten (hence her Dutch names) and her mother’s father is an elf from the north of Tyriodh (hence her pointy ears). At work, she wears university robes, which used to draw some attention as there weren’t any other beautiful young-looking women with tenure (and those robes are supposed to be masculine) but most people have gotten used to it after 30 years (she’s 75).

She’s annoyingly optimistic and energetic, and while she can act prim and proper when necessary, she has a devious streak and a knack for getting around rules in her way. Most at the university are very friendly with her, as she is with them… except maybe for those who like rules more than teaching.

At this point she’s recently wrangled a lanky, suspicious redhead (who can pack away a surprising amount of food surprisingly quickly) into studying history, not officially under her tutelage, but if he’s reading nearby while she’s marking papers, there’s no harm in him asking questions, right? ; )

Tragically, she died a bit more than a year after this, which is why her theme song as regards Reid’s journey is Hold On To Memories.

Inspiration was drawn from Henrietta from Log Horizon.

The Devourer’s Claw

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Raïsa, the Dragoon of Death, who is the Claw of the Devourer as Reid is the Eye of the Devourer. She’s not normally so covered in fire, so she must be really pissed about something. I just wanted to paint her with maximum sparkly drama. She wields a rapier of pure shadow, and the raven skull on her chestplate is actually part of a necklace she wears when out of dragoon form.

The DM specifically requested I paint this major NPC, and he’s really happy with the picture. Heavily influenced by Rose from Legend of Dragoon (especially head and boots), but with other visual inspirations as well – Dark Souls for the torso armour, Kerrigan for the arms, and I forget what else I stole from.

Dark Dragoon of Ruin

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Behold, the Dark Dragoon, the One Who Has Gone Super-Saiyan In An Edgy Way.

This is what happened to my character last couple sessions: due to drama overload, his patron finally took control of his orb artifact, which turned out not to be a plain gemstone but actually an eyeball, lodged it in his forehead, and gave him some temporary upgrades to fight the boss on better terms (I don’t know exactly what they are, because the DM hasn’t worked it out yet, I just know it’s going to be once per day) (also he didn’t get wings on the first transform, that’s going to come after the upcoming training montage). While Reid’s angry and frightened at having some of his agency taken from him, by a mysterious unknown entity, he’s not exactly loathe to have this new power at his disposal. Especially after they went to go find the witch-who-knows-things in the swamp, and she explained that they share a master, a cosmic manifestation of The End of All Things called The Devourer (among many many other titles, that one’s just my favourite). Reid recklessly accepts her offer of training as he’s already permanently bound to this patron, and it would be foolish not to know how to use it. Just have to push away the nagging voice that asks if he’s one of the bad guys now.

The title is what Raïsa called him as she flew in to save the day. It’s cheesy AF and I love it. Continue reading →

Rave in the Catacombs

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Once upon a time there was a bard, a half-elven outcast named Artem who roamed the town of Kayerpol with his little brother. The two of them, with some other ne’er-do-well friends, were hired by the beautiful alchemist Nadezhda to go into her ancestor’s tomb and retrieve the urn in its depths. Unfortunately, when Artem touched the urn, its curse was awoken, transforming him and two of his friends into undead. His brother Ruvrik fled into the night in fear and grief, but what’s a bard to do when he finds himself newly undead?

Put on a rocking concert with his new skeletal back-up band, of course!

Until Ruvrik came back with these jokers and ruined all the fun. But it was epic while it lasted.

An illustration of one of our recent boss fights. I just wanted to draw Artem being cool, because sassy undead half-elven bards are hard to beat!

FFXIV: Hurry Up and Wait

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Okay so I was like “I’m just going to put enough of the DRK quests that people understand the DRK quests are happening, like I’ve been doing with the other class quests” and then I rewatched them and was like “I have to put them all in because I love them so much”. (Thank you Natsuko Ishikawa!!!) So… hope you like DRK quests because more are coming! XD

It’s time to proclaim that I think Heart of Steel by Beast in Black is an excellent theme song for Sid! I used it for the second fight. (Also I looked up ‘tramontane’, it’s a northern wind.) For the first fight, I used Nail of the Heavens, which might have been Vivienne’s in-game theme-song if not for the fact that everyone associates it with BLU now. (I don’t remember Vivienne’s exact glam, but I think it’s something like the Omicron fending top and gloves, the Abyss pants and boots, and the Chaos helm (the Abyss helm is more stylish, but it clashes with the Omicron top)) (also I’m not sure what sword she has right now, because as soon as she gets Cronus Lux she never uses anything else, but the Baldur Blade is pretty close in shape so let’s go with that) (who else misses Dark Arts?)

Also it’s terribly annoying to me that Alphinaud has finally deigned to reveal when Elezen get their second growth spurt, because it’s thrown off my own plans to LET MY CHILDREN GROW. (I haven’t played since 5.0 so no spoilers please but one of my friends told me the news.) Sooo while I was planning to have the twins full height by SB, and started dropping hints about it already, I have changed that to reflect my new knowledge.

Chapter 25: Hraesvelgr

 

Chapter 26: Hurry Up and Wait

Estinien had remained behind to stand lonely watch over Nidhogg’s lair, while the Warriors of Light and Alphinaud returned to Ishgard to find if Cid Garlond were in the neighbourhood. While the others scattered across the city, some to the Jeweled Crozier, others to the chocobo stables, Achiyo, Alphinaud, and R’nyath went to the manor – for as Honoroit said archly, “When it comes to – ahem – exchanging information of uncertain origin, Lord Emmanellain is something of a prodigy.” R’nyath had winked at the boy. He knew exactly what that meant. Continue reading →

FFXIV: Hraesvelgr

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Hey, I’m keeping a steady pace with these chapters. Maybe I’ll be done HW before EW comes out? (probably not, it’s longer than it looks)

I went and rewatched Castle in the Sky for the little bit of vocabulary in the middle.

Chapter 24: Primal Alliance

 

Chapter 25: Hraesvelgr

Achiyo had seen many incredible things in her life, especially after she’d come to Eorzea and found it safe to look outside herself, but the summit of Sohm Al had to be among the more amazing places she’d been. The floating mountain peak, glowing from below, was awe-inspiring from afar. She could not wait to ascend it and see what waited beyond. Continue reading →

FFXIV: Primal Alliance

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Was going to try to get all the way to Hraesvelgr in one go but decided to split it in half to reduce my (completely irrational) word-count anxiety. Which turned out to be an excellent plan.

Hey, if Ysayle knows that Hraesvelgr ate Shiva so their souls would be “entwined forever”, how come she thinks she’s Shiva reborn??? (Still, having a primal inside you and the Echo at the same time must really mess with your head. I feel bad for her. And then they fridged her. Not as fast as Moenbryda, but still! Ugh.)

I actually used Footsteps in the Snow to write the boss fight, because I like it better than Ravana’s themes.

Chapter 23: Loneliness

 

Chapter 24: Primal Alliance

Achiyo hurried through the streets back to the manor with Tataru’s anxious voice ringing in her horns through her linkpearl. All about her the streets were buzzing with urgency, which she feared stemmed from the same source – but she would know soon enough. Continue reading →

Fanservice Day 2021: Reid

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So it’s April 1st which traditionally (in my part of the Internet, thanks to Aja of True Magic) means fanservice… But I’ve been so busy with the music Festival that I haven’t had much thought for drawing. (Still writing, but drawing is less my thing these days, you know?)

So I threw together a picture of Reid, my fantasy-Scottish DnD warlock, in his tartan. Looks a bit better than 9 STR, right? Maybe he leveled up and didn’t use STR for a dump stat, even though that would be illogical. (referenced some shirtless dude from a stock image site; he’s super buff because honestly I didn’t know who I was drawing until I was 75% through sketching the outline.) And I listened to some Big Country because they’re Scottish.

FFXIV: Loneliness

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So pretty much nothing happens this chapter except class quests! Figured that since I was always planning to add the DRK quests, I may as well add some of the others, as many as work with the characters, and then I figured I’d put them here before the momentum builds to the point where I can’t pause to throw in this sort of thing. Also can I say that the PLD quests are so bizarre that the NPCs are questioning it??? What is this paladin dominance thing??? I dislike. Achiyo doesn’t have anything to do with the Sultansworn anyway, so I wasn’t planning to include those particular quests in the first place. But I love Constaint so he’ll show up somewhere else eventually. My favourite class quests are DRK, BRD, and WHM, though I also like a bunch of the others as well, just not as much.

Again R’nyath references a song from the choral side of my career, Soldier Won’t You Marry Me by Paul Halley.

Vivienne’s quest was heavily influenced by the Japanese dialogue as translated by Haillenarte on tumblr – doesn’t it make so much more sense? I think the localization team were kind of trying to set up the next level 50 quest (the first of the 50-60 quests) with the whole “Temple Knights asking after you” thing, but… no. Get that irrelevant nonsense out of here. Give me sad yandere Fray. (still not entirely happy with it, may edit over the next couple days, but I also want to move on.)

I made some small edits to Chapter 7, as I never liked Chuchupa’s hinted backstory and I wanted to add more for Vivienne now that I know her better.

I promise we’ll go on a road trip next chapter!

Non-story news: I finally bought a doll to be Achiyo to the doll I bought to be Aymeric. (Aymeric is played by the BTS j-hope Barbie, and Achiyo is played by Basketball Stacie – I intend to rehair/repaint them a little like some of the YouTube channels out there, except I’m going to use mini paints instead of pencils because miniature painting is what I know.)

Also I’m impressed I managed to write this while work was in high gear; I’ve been so busy omg. Continue reading →