Fanservice Day 2021: Reid

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

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

FFXIV: Guide Us to Victory

I wanted to write in something resembling the big battle at the end of the trailer, because Heavensward’s trailer is one of my favourite trailers of all time, and that fight is exciting! My interpretation was also helped by listening to The Last Stand by Sabaton, which is about a different group of courageous-unto-death religious guys. Unlike those guys, the Ishgardians do survive though. It also gave me opportunity to insert shipping! Please let me know what you think!

I noticed when writing this chapter that my Miqo’te characters are overachievers compared to the others with the number of classes they’ve got. Oops!

Chapter 21: Brothers In Arms

 

Chapter 22: Guide Us to Victory

The tall grey halls of the throne room rose about Achiyo, austere and imposing. They were more austere – older, perhaps? – than the glimpse she had gotten of a vast cathedral filled with golden light higher up in the Vault. Cold light streamed down from pale arched windows, illuminating the venerable bearded man in his throne upon the dais. He was flanked by soldiers, a Heavens’ Ward knight, and Lord Commander Aymeric, but all of them stood upon the lower ground. She found the effect… lonely. Sultana Nanamo had never had so much separation between her people and her self. Continue reading

FFXIV: Brothers in Arms

I WROTE

A CHAPTER

(how has it been a year and a half since I updated this)

So… I was going to try and use Nanowrimo for visual art purposes this year, because I couldn’t settle on a fanfic to work on and I have a huge backlog of visual art to get done. As you can see, I finished Caoilfhionn’s story. And then I made the mistake of listening to some Beast in Black as a break from all the lovely K-pop/Aviators mix that I was using for plant boys.

Vivienne: I HAVE BEEN SUMMONED

So apparently I’d rather do anything but draw… And then it took me another 3 months to finish the chapter even after I started. I can’t seem to get traction with this one again. Though now that I’ve semi-committed, I’d like to keep going. Part of it is probably that it’s a bit more difficult to get immersed when I’m not subbed (I haven’t been subbed since 5.0, and have avoided spoilers since. Not sure when I’m returning still, but does it really matter when the fanfic is so far behind? D: ) The quality might be a bit lower than usual. I’ll work on it in the future for sure. Continue reading

The Necromancer and the Orchid Prince: Part 12

IT’S DONE AT LONG LAST

This set of chapters is less polished than the others, but the inspiration that I had in the middle of summer dried up unfortunately. It’s really a pain about the [HoT spoilers] because I really just don’t have any interest in the game anymore after they did that. The story’s not bad in LW4, I’m just… there’s no point for me. If I had more inspiration, there would be more proper build-up for several of these plot points, particularly Trahearne’s progression between his different stages. It was already a delicate balance to try to strike with being true to his personality and to achieve the sort of alteration that I was looking for, without also bringing gradual changes into it as well. Though he’s probably going to go Reaver now; I know that him using a greatsword before wasn’t a preview of Reaver, since OG Caladbolg had its own moveset, but when you get Caladbolg Orchida you get to use your regular moveset. And the Reaver moves just sound cool.

This image was really cool, but obviously I didn’t go with that idea for this fic. Super epic, though.

I used Roar of Dominion for the Balthazar fight scene! Trahearne’s still listening to Aviators a lot – but I also dipped into the Necrodancer OST for his second fight and returned to Let There Be Fire for his third fight. When I needed to write Faren, I borrowed Incandescent (although Solaire is better at being a hero than Faren, he’s more humble. But I think Faren would like to be like Solaire if he could). Then I used God-Shattering Star for the Joko fight, because that seems like his kind of drama. : P And most importantly, Dive from Mystic Pop-up Bar is Caoilfhionn’s final reunion song – and kind of the theme for this whole story! It just fits so well! I didn’t plan it that way! Trahearne’s reunion song, by contrast, is Love Resembles Memories! Couple songs that didn’t really get used for anything specific would be the male version of Magnet (for the boys together) and Mark Knopfler’s Irish Boy (for Caoilfhionn).

I know Faren doesn’t have an official first name yet, and might never. If he gets one I’ll edit. He was also frustrating to write until I realized he’s Sain from FE7 lol.

Chapter contents:
1: On the Rocks
2: The Hero of Amnoon
3: The Necromancer’s Destiny
4: Mistakes Have Been Made
5: Faren’s Moment
6: Who We Are

Part 11: Cracks

 

1: On the Rocks

Caoilfhionn and the other members present of Dragon’s Watch – Rhyoll, Annhilda, Damara, and Rytlock – were returning to the Temple of Kormir a few days after they’d saved it from the Herald of Balthazar. While Caoilfhionn would have eagerly gone after the Herald, to track down Balthazar and Vlast right away, the Temple was still in danger and so they’d delayed a little to clear out some Forged camps. It served a dual purpose; while these people deserved to feel safe, it was also important to secure friendly territory for Amnoon. Continue reading

Eldritch Blast

Do you like irritable Scottish warlocks? I like irritable Scottish warlocks! (also, boy, check out the difference between minimum effort and maximum effort lol) Given that I’ve run out of words to write on my Nanowrimo (Caoilfhionn will be finished, but I have to play more of the game and that’s a pain) I decided to use this time to try and check off things on my art to-do list, which is very long, and I started by drawing something that wasn’t even on the list. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ That’s pretty typical, isn’t it. I made my own reference picture for this, which is why the hands turned out so well. Basically everything except his hair? I’ve forgotten how to paint hair. Here’s to him figuring out what the deal is with his arcane focus in the near future! And here’s to me actually drawing something on my list next. XD Continue reading