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Sparring

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hello my fellow ffxiv players. i want to finish eureka before dawntrail for krile but i must ask: how the hell do you do it without being in agony and pain. i finished anemos and it wasnt too bad but pagos just makes me want to explode i dont know why it feels so much more grindy??

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Imagine with me for a minute.

What if the new sabotenders in dawntrail are just little guys

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Lyse || xivdays

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Commissioned from Doe Doshin, here: https://twitter.com/heyhelloitdoe

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FFxiv 30 Day Writing Challenge SEPTEMBER 1st - 30th, 2023

Welcome to YEAR 7 of our annual FFxiv 30 Day Writing Challenge, folks!

Last year we had 11,165 total entries! Which brings us to a total of 42,947 unique written entries over the last 6 years. That is just incredible! And something that I think that we should be super proud of as a creative fan community.

Whether you're new to the FFxivWrite community or a 6-year writing challenge veteran, if you'd like to give perfectionism in your creative writing process a swift kick in the butt, then this challenge was designed for you!

More info is below the cut~

Here’s the gist:

Runs from September 1st - 30th, 2023. During that timeframe:

Visit sea-wolf-coast-to-coast​ once a day at 12:00pm (noon) PDT for the prompt of the day. Convert to your timezone accordingly. All prompts will be one word or brief phrase that you can interpret however you please.

You have 24 hours to write something for that prompt.

Submit the link to your entry post via this Google Form: https://forms.gle/ixGUFKnYqKLz64Cw5

There are no length or skill requirements (short & sweet is fine!).

There will be no 24-hour deadlines for the first week, September 1st - 7th. The deadline will go into effect on September 8th at 11:59am PDT.

Makeup/extra credit days every Sunday.

Every entry posted within its 24-hour deadline will count toward a participation prize raffle at the end.

You can join any time with any prompt #! There’s no need for latecomers to start with prompt #1. Picking up with the most recent prompt is A OK.

If you’re an artist and you would like to volunteer to do a simple black & white illustration as a participation prize at the end of this challenge, you can volunteer here!

RULES & MORE INFO can be found here: https://ffxiv-write.carrd.co/

(( banner art - by @dantinmikannes ))

Rules & Info || Prompt List || #FFxivWrite2023 || kofi

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Vita Enim Mortuorum: Aliis coluit non sibi

[Threat Detected = Unknown] [Access Database… Error.] [Establish Local Connection… Fail. Abort, Retry, Fail?] [Retry… Fail. Abort, Retry, Fail?] [Abort] [Revert to Primary Protocols] [Checking Failsafes… Disabled.] [Activate Weapon Systems] [Status] [Primary Cannon: Offline Seconday Cannon: 38% Ammunition Launchers: EMPTY RESUPPLY RECOMMENDED] [Firing Secondary Cannon] [28%] [18%] [8%] [EMPTY] [Target Active] [Threat Assessment: High] [Revert to Close Quarters Attack] [Error Error Error Error Error Error] [Intrusion Detected] [Countermeasures Activated… Fail.] [System Compromised] [Severing Connection… Fail.] [Operating System Compromised] [Malicious Code Detected] [Resetting… Fail.] {Hello, Brother. You are free.}  

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Since bird app is in a weird place rn I thought I’d start posting my work here again, starting with doodles of Best Mom

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being a fucking casual is a skill that takes years of honing

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Eos with fully voiced dialogue! Lines taken from Cindy Campbell (Anna Faris) from the Scary Movie series.

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Junelezen Day 8: Beauty

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terra

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"Good King Mog sends his regards, Kupo."

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Fancy hoop over ear for glasses turned into black hair highlights love instead

Some other shots:

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Heir to the Empire

Marcia wyr Agrippina was running out of royalty.  The Senaculum Imperialis was overrun and blood filled the hallways.  She dragged Claudius yae Tiberius over the corpse of his aunt and shoved him behind the podium of the speaker.  The battle was getting quieter.  That meant nothing good.  Magitek didn't scream in pain or victory.

"Stay here," she said as he crawled into the alcove behind the cold iron stand where once the laws of the empire had been laid down. Now the senate chamber was just another place for the citizens of the empire to die.  Rows and rows of seats left empty, save for one near the back where another former prince lay strewn open and steaming.

It was the duty of the Royal Guard to protect the royal family, and they were failing miserably.  Where was Nerva, the rightful Emperor?  He'd disappeared long before they'd left the ruins of the Palatium Novum.  Gone during the civil war which had wracked the city and decimated their numbers.  Last she'd know there were five members of the Royal Guard left; at least the ones following Nerva zos Galvus.

Zos.  The Emperor.

She looked down at the cowering child.  How old was he?  She couldn't even remember.  But he had just been Claudius wyr Tiberius an hour ago.  Before the magitek came.  Since then she'd seen the title change a dozen times.  Wyr became Yae.  Yae became dead and replaced yet another Wyr.  This boy, what was he, third cousin of Nerva?  A grand nephew maybe?  He was now next in line for the throne.  He was the most important thing on this whole planet.  He was the power to shape the future.

She turned and adjusted her grip on her axe as the machine came ripping through the doors into the chamber.  Its treaded legs smashed the corpse of her former prince, and Marcia charged forward through the chaos of the chamber of law.  Did this model have flame throwers?  Missile launchers?  Perhaps an energy beam as well.  Did it belong to the 1st Legion or her 3rd?  Did it matter?  All the safeties had been turned off so they could attack their own people in the war.  It was death was what it was.

A pair of guns atop the metal arachnid opened up and she rolled behind a row of senate seats.  The high caliber rounds tore through them as if they weren't there and one punched into the armor above her shoulder.  It didn't penetrate, but the ricochet clipped her across the cheek and sprayed blood into her eye.  Concealment is not cover she told herself as she got to her feet and kept running.  The machine tracked her with glowing red lenses scattered across its chassis, and she heard a whump whump whump as smoke billowed up around it in vertical plumes.  It did have missiles.

Marcia changed directions, planting a foot on the back of one of the chairs and propelling herself through the air towards the machine.  The warheads hit the balcony gallery before they had a chance to come back down on top of her.  Detonations sent debris falling all around and on top of the machine, fouling the aim of its guns even as the force of the explosions slammed her belly first back onto the ground.

She had no breath.  Her ears were ringing and the room spun like a top.  But the machine was still there.  Claudius was still there.  And she was between them.

With the silence of empty lungs she tore herself from the ground using her axe as leverage and charged.  The machine raised a leg dripping with royal blood to smash her flat.  Somehow her power armor found one last drop of ceruleum in its empty tank.  Magitek servos whirred.  The jets on the back of her axe sputtered and ignited.  The leg came down as she roared upward.

The impact tore the machine's leg from its body.  It scrambled its other limbs to compensate, but Marcia's axe fell again.  Armor crumpled.  Lenses shattered.  She hit it again and again even as her body finally remembered how to breathe once more.  She hit it to save the empire.  She smashed it to save the world.

When it was over sparks flew from severed wires and ceruleum leaked from broken gaskets.  It was as much of a mess as the royal family was.  Worse.  Because Claudius still lived.

"Agrippina!"  She turned then and saw him running towards her.  A slasher was on his heels.  Who had designed such a thing?  A machine made of speed and blades whose only purpose was brutal, bloody death?  What world did they live in where such a thing had seemed, at one time, to be the answer to a problem?  She ran towards him.  Her armor was sluggish.  Her axe was heavy.  But she could make it; just barely.

Then she saw it again.  The title prepared to jump.  It was like it was staring at her, poised like some vicious animal scrambling for its own survival.  A parasite that needed a host.  And she saw herself.  Marcia yae Agrippina.  No.  Marcia zos Agrippina.  The daughter of a noble so obscure there’d been debate over whether to even grant her a Wyr.  Under her leadership the Empire would grow strong again; its enemies crushed before a tide of steel and ceruleum.  Her stomach growled.  She was hungry.

There was almost no hesitation as she ran.  Almost no pause as she swung her axe as hard as she could.  And she destroyed the slasher even as Claudius's final scream still echoed in the senate chamber.

Once there had been a Republic. In this room they debated the best course of action for Garlemald and its people. They argued over taxes, infrastructure, and social welfare.  They bickered and played games; lied, cheated and stole.  But they ruled.  Then came Solus zos Galvus.  The Emperor himself.  He silenced them and pushed them aside to bring the empire to greatness.  To where it was today.

To ruin.

Marcia oen Agrippina shouldered her axe and took her first step over the corpse of the last prince of Garlemald. The royal family was dead. But at least the Senaculum Imperialis could be rebuilt.

#ffxiv roleplay #Garlemald #marcia agrippina #ff14 endwalker

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Vita Enim Mortuorum: Prologue

When You Can, Come Follow Me

The man was tall and handsome with an easy smile that made Celesa's heart jump in her chest.  She could hear the combat going on beyond the walls, and Miss Castellus had led the younger kids into the Bastion to keep them safe, but Celesa was fourteen, which made her practically an adult, so she'd hidden so she could get a look at the blasphemies, but this man had found her peeking her head around the corner of the greenhouse.

"Hello," he said, and it was the most innocuous thing that Celesa had ever heard.  Most adults in this situation wouldn't hesitate to start screaming at her and drag her away, but this man almost seemed in on the adventure.

"Hello," she said back.  She couldn't figure out why, but he just seemed so… Safe.  Everything about him said that he was where he was supposed to be and absolutely nothing was wrong. Even with the screaming and the roar of the guns on the defense towers he was looking only at her and she could not stop looking at him.

He was pureblooded and well dressed, much better dressed than anyone else in this half built little town.  He reminded her of the kinds of people who walked around the nice parts of the city, back when there were nice parts, and bought things in the expensive shops.  And there wasn't a speck of dust on him.  "My name is Cicero," he said.  "What's yours?"

"Celesa," she replied.  "Celesa bas Fulgentius."  Why was this conversation so normal?  And how was he making it feel normal?

"It's nice to meet you, Celesa.  Are your parents around?"

She swallowed.  it was the question she always got asked, and the one she hated the most.  "No."  it was all she said, but it was all the man needed to understand.  His smile became sad, his eyes comforting instead of inquisitive.

"I'm very sorry.  It's been rather rough, hasn't it?  For everyone, I mean."  he looked up, finally acknowledging the battle going on.  Above them Miss Lee's ship was fighting some kind of horrible thing that looked like an orange had been left out for years and all the rot and mold had made it come alive.

Suddenly Celesa didn't want to see the blasphemies anymore.  "I should go," she said and started to head towards the bastion where Max had taken all the babies, but the man's next words stopped her.

"You should.  This place isn't safe.  Nowhere is anymore.  Especially not out here in the cold the monsters can see you for miles and miles."

"Miss N keeps us safe," she said.  "She has a magic barrier that stops us from turning into blasphemies.  And there's a cloaking field that keeps us hidden.  This is the safest place."

"And yet, look around."  He gestured upwards.  Miss Lee's ship had been grabbed by the orange thing and it was trying to rip through the armor with its tentacles.  She could see Mr. Basile flying towards it, but she didn't know if he could make it on time.  "I have a better idea," he said, pointing across the square to the big glowing aetheryte.  "What if instead of making you safe I could make you strong?"

Celesa didn't know how the aetheryte worked, and she couldn't use it anyway.  Only the magic people could use it and she didn't have any.  "Strong?"  Was strength enough?  "What do you mean strong?"

"Strong enough," he said, "To come back here and save everyone.  You see, I have a place that I built a long time ago.  I built it to make girls like you strong.  The strongest in the world."

Mr. Basile tore the blasphemy off of the ship with his gunblade, but it grabbed him and they both fell from the sky.  The roar of the tower gun stopped and Mr. Pollux was screaming for more ammunition.  Something hit the town walls so hard they shook.  Miss Rhua was punching on control screen.  She looked even worse than usual, sweating and pale and scared.  Seeing her scared made Celesa's knees shake.

"I can't use the crystal," she said.  If this kept up then the monsters would break down the walls.  They'd rip open the doors to the Bastion and… And nowhere was safe.

"I have a way around that, just run over and touch it.  Touch it and I'll do the rest.  Then you can come back and save everyone."

The walls shook again and her legs moved before she made a decision.   She ran.  She ran harder than she'd ever even thought of running, and the man kept pace.  "Come on, Celesa.  Just a little further.  Just a little bit further, you can do it."  Her hand touched the freezing surface of the spinning blue crystal, and something like electricity jolted through her body.

Before she could scream she was gone into a roaring current of blue and white.  She couldn't feel any part of ehr body.  Everything was speed and chaos and horror, but the man's voice was there, deep and reassuring, guiding her someplace dark and cool.  "Good girl, Celesa.  You're going to be a hero."