Author Archives: Illinia

FFXIV: My Girl

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R’nyath’s been listening to Cidergirl again (I bought the rest of their Soda Pop Fanclub albums; he’s singing a loose translation of Umbrella). Achiyo’s been listening to Parting Ways. (ugh I’m so bad at romcom content)

Oops I almost finished this chapter and then I fell down a Resident Evil-shaped hole. Never played or watched the series before so I started from the very beginning and I’m watching everything in order. I’m up to RE4 at the moment (I’ve watched RE1R, RE2R, RE3, RE3R, RE4R, RE0, and RECV). I love all the characters and I might write some minor, incidental fanfic for some of them. (the other reason this chapter took a while is that it’s been my busy season)

I’ve also gone back to Windows(10). I couldn’t hack it on Linux, it wouldn’t talk to my Nvidia graphics card at all so I couldn’t play games, and a lot of the other things that I want to do on a computer it wouldn’t do either. I am regretful, I really wanted Linux to work, to get away from corporate tyranny. I’m still trying to figure out where to go from here, in both hardware and software, because this is probably not a viable longterm solution, but the upshot for the fic at this exact moment is that I can play FFXIV again. (I’m playing on Achiyo, who is currently up to about Chapter 25 fic-wise. I’ve decided to take her all the way to Endwalker. I was holding off on her because I wanted to make an Achiymeric AMV, but NG+ means I won’t miss out on anything.) (Did the level 60 PLD quests and thinking I’d like to write an Achiyo-training-Constaint sidefic now.)

(also Heated Rivalry is surprisingly mid, and Akatsuki no Yona is fantastic)

Chapter 72: The Ambassador

 

Chapter 73: My Girl

The Scions looked at Achiyo, standing pale and still where Asahi had left her. “Are you quite well?” Alphinaud inquired, coming over to her. “You looked as if you were about to faint in the ambassador’s arms for a moment there.”

“Please don’t joke about that,” Achiyo whispered, still wildly unsettled. She could not think of another time she’d had so much concentrated, venomous hatred directed at her, for any reason, not even in Ishgard when they thought she was a spy… It must be for Zenos’ death, of course it was for Zenos’ death, the Echo told her he hero-worshipped Zenos if indeed he was not completely in love with him. Continue reading →

Christmas in Central Canada 2025 – All the Rest

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Previous – Les Aventures Ligouriennes

Jan 3 – Today was going to be our last proper tourist day, and unintentionally we made it count. We started off by going to Dorwin Falls Park, and walking along the river there. It’s smaller and narrower than Montmorency Falls, but no less turbulent. Or less adept at covering the surroundings in ice spray.

An interesting sculpture near the entrance to the park. The sign says (paraphrasing) that the human silhouette made of bark should suggest that a common energy unites humans and trees, “as if there were a unifying force for the universe of life”. The Gothic arch symbolizes “the sacred passage towards a perpetual cycle”.

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Christmas in Central Canada 2025 – Les Aventures Ligouriennes

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Previous – Québec City 2

Sunrise. Photo by MH

The eating area/lounge in morning light. Photo by MH

Jan 2 – We had a chill morning, before going out and grabbing a quick lunch at a small Tim Hortons. Then we went to the dog sledding place. This was kind of our big tourist event for the trip. I’ve certainly never been dog sledding, and it’s not really a thing in Europe. The receptionist lady was from France, which was cool. She helped us get the right gear, snow pants and outer snow boots as well as a helmet/goggles and also snow gloves for me. Putting on the pants and boots felt like putting on a space suit. :3 Continue reading →

RE2R: the day after

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With all the hype around RE9 going around, I suddenly decided to get into the RE series. I’m not much of a horror gamer, but the protagonists in these games are so hot I’ll risk it. XD (Jill is very high on my “I’m not really gay, buuut-” list). I finished watching RE2R a couple weeks ago and immediately needed to write this hurt/comfort fic. At the end of one of the playthrough videos I watched, there was an episode of Umbrella Chronicles showing how Ada got out of RC which began with a cutscene explaining that Claire went on looking for Chris, and Leon and Sherry got picked up by the government… but maybe that could be like a day later? And first they can have a rest in a hotel? They deserve it. I don’t think I’ve quite got the characters right, but here is my fluffy offering for the fandom anyway.

Funnily enough, I ship almost everything shippable in the RE series, except no Wesker ships. I’ve watched RE1R, RE2R, RE3, RE3R, RE4R, RE0, and RECV. I did not like RE0, but I would be interested in a CVR; Steve looks like a short un-Scottish version of Reid.

Rated T/M-ish for language and compromising positions. (This isn’t even the spicy version tho)

Eventually they’d been picked up by someone in a pick-up truck who took them to the nearest town, which was a godsend. Claire had had a couple granola bars left in her pockets, and Leon had half a bottle of bottled water, but all three of them were starving and thirsty, walking along that desolate rural road. The car driver looked in amazement at their worn-out state, Leon’s bloodied bandage, Leon and Claire smelling like the sewers, and all three of them covered in dirt and sweat and grime, and said they could ride in the back of his pick-up. Continue reading →

FFXIV: The Ambassador

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My family got me cat-shaped fidget squishies for my birthday and they’re the greatest thing ever

Chapter 71: Blackest Night

 

Chapter 72: The Ambassador

Achiyo disembarked from the ship into the Doman Enclave and looked around in amazement. It had changed greatly since she had left so abruptly on the eve of Doma’s liberation. Within the low protective walls there now rose a multitude of new buildings, and she could hear the sounds of yet more construction – sawing, hammering, foremen giving orders. A few fishers sat on the docks, though their efforts were in idle pleasure – further down the dock was an actual fishing boat unloading its silvery cargo.

The Garlean ambassadors had made pleasant remarks along the entire trip, praising the architecture, and the industriousness of the people, and lamenting the destruction of war that the industriousness sought to mend. They seemed genuine enough, especially the third-eyed Garlean with the glasses, who nearly fell out of the skiff at one point peering at a distant manor on the shore. Young Asahi frowned at him, and the Garlean – Maxima, he introduced himself – stayed put after that. Continue reading →

FFXIV: Blackest Night

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I love the DRK 70 quest so much. 

The concert went well! I made an annoying audible mistake in Zanarkand, but everything else went pretty good (and the audience was making noise anyway so fingers crossed they missed it). And then I wiped out from concentrating so hard. Took a very rare extra day off this week and finished this chapter with it. Was hoping to get further into 4.2, but at least we’re moving.

Chapter 70: The Sword of Tamehiro

 

Chapter 71: Blackest Night

It had been three days since Vivienne had returned Myste-less from Gyr Abania, and she was practically prowling the street below the Forgotten Knight while Sidurgu and Rielle watched her. “…Godsdammit, Myste. Does he want me to track him down, or what?”

“He needs to return the remainder of the aether he stole from you, if nothing else,” Sidurgu said. “He said that when this was finished, naught would remain of him? Bloody vague and ominous, to say the least… We’ll just have to press him for answers when we find him.” Continue reading →

Christmas in Central Canada 2025 – Québec City 2

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Previous – Québec City 1

Dec 29 – I slept a bit better that night. The sick people were gone for one thing (though the damage had been done). We had grocery store bagels for breakfast with red pepper hummus and havarti cheese and cucumber. The toaster had one slot broken so Tharash nearly set one half of his bagel on fire. The weather wasn’t that bad, so we went to the lower old town, stopping in on the way at Notre-Dame.

The seminary attached to Notre-Dame; Google tells me it’s now a University School of Architecture. Photo by MH

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Christmas in Central Canada 2025 – Québec City 1

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Previous – Ottawa

Dec 28 – This day was going to have the nicest weather of our stay in Québec City, so we decided to go to Montmorency Falls first. I was a bit miserable after such bad sleep the night before, so Tharash went out to a little bakery and got me a chocolate croissant, himself an almond croissant, and a cappuccino to split between both of us.

But we went to the train station to buy bus tickets, and I nearly managed to order them in French and understand the lady, but then she asked a question that was a bit confusing even when she switched to English (basically the number of fares we needed – four in total, for two people to go there and back).

Copper roof! Photo by MH

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FFXIV: The Sword of Tamehiro

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Sorry fic readers that I was gone so long! You know, holidays, vacation, and I found myself struggling to find the spark of inspiration I originally had for the first half of the chapter. But fun news, I’m going to be playing in a FF concert next weekend! A big, official, orchestral one! Boy the ticket prices are exorbitantly nerd-taxed (average of $100, which is rather ridiculous – you can see world famous superstar violinist Ray Chen for less than that). I’m really excited, though I’ve been practicing like mad – the arrangement of Aerith’s Theme, for instance, is quite tricky (many ripply arpeggios), and they only gave me 10 days to learn the music. (now I wanna play FFVII… we’ll see if it works on my PC, I’ve been struggling to game ever since I switched to Linux)

If you haven’t seen the Trash Taste podcast interview with Koji, I recommend it – Koji goes into quite a bit of detail on the localization process and it’s very interesting. The guidelines they set for language use for tone and consistency are just as strict as I thought they might be, and then some! (Though not without perhaps some missteps – nobody wants to translate Urianger, lol!)

Chapter 69: Hinganisme

 

Chapter 70: The Sword of Tamehiro

“Okay, so you said this is perfectly safe,” R’nyath said to Tam, as they collected in the aetheryte plaza of Revenant’s Toll.

“I mean, ‘e survived t’other way, so how bad can it be?” Chuchupa said.

Tam grinned. “Just group up with me and we’ll get there.” Continue reading →

Christmas in Central Canada 2025 – Ottawa

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Previous – Montreal

Dec 22 – Transit day! We took the metro to the central train station. The train was half an hour late. Between that and all the hassle of lining up and getting bags weighed and tickets checked 3 times, Tharash will never complain about NS again lol. I think probably VIARail is more comparable to the InterCity trains, but again – nobody queues for those like there’s only one door to the train. Can we go to where our traincar will be before it arrives, for greater efficiency? What is a platform for if not for waiting on??? This sounds like a philosophical question but it is not.

Anyway we began seeing more snow towards Ottawa and by the time we arrived I think it was actually snowing a bit. This is what we signed up for, so we were happy to see it. My Uncle M, who we were staying with, picked us up and took us to the house to put down our bags. They had just finished renovating the dining room the day before and only just cleaned up stuff temporarily stored in the spare rooms that morning. And my Aunt B and some other family were in Toronto for a funeral. Busy time! This post is all about my family, sorry haha I have a lot of family in Ottawa.

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