Author Archives: Illinia

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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Christmas in Central Canada 2025 – Montreal

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My best friend is going to spend next summer sailing, so we decided to spend winter break on vacation together instead of next summer. This was again going to be a challenge weather-wise, but in the opposite way of the summer.

My mom took me to MEC (now Canadian-owned again!) and they had the exact kind of sweater I had been looking for – black, full-length front zipper, no hood, pockets – to replace the Norwegian-style knit sweater I’d used until it wore holes in both elbows, so I bought that, and my mom bought me a puffy down vest identical to one that she wears every day. I also bought reusable chemical hand warmers on a different trip.

And I got me some new hiking boots, because someone else on the Internet was like “I went on vacation in Montreal with just hiking boots and double wool socks instead of buying winter boots that I’ll never use again”, and I had given away my previous hiking boots some time ago because my feet changed shape or something and they were no longer comfortable. My new boots are not as cute as my old boots, but once they were broken in (a task I foolishly did not do beforehand) they did keep my feet warm and dry more or less, with the help of double-layering socks, and the tread had pretty good grip on the ice we encountered. I could go on for several paragraphs about socks and my quiet-but-strong preferences thereof (neurodivergence yay?) and how many I’ve acquired this year and why, but that’s probably not interesting to most people, with the exception that someone from one of my choirs also gave me a lovely pair of hand-knit socks, in festive red and green, which was very nice! Continue reading →

FFXIV: Hinganisme

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R’nyath and Chuchupa: Nice.

Chapter 68: Raubahn’s Return

 

Chapter 69: Hinganisme

Achiyo took Chuchupa and Tam, and set out to track down Yllamse to invite her to join the Scions. “She is a flighty wanderer, is she not?” Achiyo said to Tam, who almost certainly knew her best.

“Yes, but less so than you might think,” Tam said. “The first place to ask is Ala Mhigo.”

Achiyo blinked at him even as he began a group Teleport. “Do you not have her linkpearl?”

“No,” Tam said, and the Teleport went off. Continue reading →

FFXIV: Raubahn’s Return

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The poem Achiyo recites part of is (called in this English translation) “Looking at the Moon and Thinking of One Far Away” by Zhang Jiuling, which I found on this page.

Yllamse’s player (also named Yllamse) was recently really inspired by my personal FFXIV world, and is writing a fic about her character in my world?! This feels like fanfic for me teehee. It’s pretty helpful for me in writing her character, too!

I still feel kinda bad for the time I was in voice chat with some FC members and 4.1 had just dropped and I was grumbling about, idk, crafting or something and one of the other members was getting sniffly over Nanamo and Raubahn saying goodbye. I didn’t realize she was at the emotional part or I would have shut up. D:

Chapter 67: Salt and Suffering

 

Chapter 68: Raubahn’s Return

“And this is my new boyfriend, Oremont,” R’lhifre said, gesturing at the gangly, awkward-looking light-pink-haired Elezen trailing behind her. Either he was short for an Elezen, or he hadn’t finished his growth spurt yet – he was just taller than R’mon Nunh. Probably about the same age as R’lhifre. “He’ll be staying for dinner.” Continue reading →

FFXIV: Salt and Suffering

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Can I say I’m disappointed that in Drowned City of Skalla, you no longer get to turn into fluffy ghosts to cross the chasms?

Still throwing class quests at the characters before they get back on MSQ’s Wild Ride.

Chapter 66: Ishgardian Intermission

 

Chapter 67: Salt and Suffering

R’nyath looked around in wonder, flicking salt-water from his tail. Finally his gossiping in every tavern in the city, under the not-actually-a-pretext that he was a bard and wanted to hear new tales – because that was totally true too – had paid off, and brought enough indirect clues about treasure to point them to the ancient city of Skalla. Which was mostly figured out by Alphinaud, of course.

Alphinaud was actually quite excited to be involved in something less realm-shaking for once. “The news of Doma and Ala Mhigo’s liberation has kindled the flames of revolution in every corner of the Empire. I hear the province of Dalmasca has already risen up in rebellion… Which means the Garleans must surely have their hands full. What better time than now to indulge in this treasure hunt?” Continue reading →

Haarlem

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Previous – Archeon

The morning of my last day, we went back into downtown Amsterdam: I had a mission. We were up kind of early because I really wanted to go to Fantasy Shop Chimera, a goth/witchy shop that I’d learned about a few years ago. It is a very big shop, two stories tall, and filled with many things. I didn’t really walk in with a specific desire in mind, I just wanted to look at everything. They had hundreds of statuettes of different themes – Norse gods, Egyptian gods, fairies, dragons, unicorns, mermaids, elves, if it was fantasy-themed they had some. Of course they had incense and gemstones, notebooks and tote bags and little signs that said “Frog Parking Only – All Others Will Be Toad”.

The clothing in general appealed to me less than I thought, even though I had vaguely hoped to get some really cool clothes completely different from clothes I already had. Getting a graphic T-shirt like with a unicorn or a dragon on it kind of appealed to me, but I already have plenty of T-shirts (and if I got one with a hot fairy then I would just look less hot in comparison, wouldn’t I?). The goth/rave stuff had a pre-distressed look that doesn’t really appeal to me. But eventually I found a cobalt blue handkerchief-hem dress that looked an awful lot like the “pirate princess” dress I bought at a summer festival in my last place of residence many years ago and wore until the skirt started falling apart at the seams (which wasn’t that hard, really, it was not the best-made thing). This one looks a bit better made. Cost $100CAD, but honestly for something hand-made from natural fibres that’s way too cheap. Although the shop lady asked if I’d tried it on, and I said no, because it was a “one-size-only” deal, and she reminded me that there were no returns on clothes, and I said I was going back to Canada tomorrow, and she said that if it didn’t fit I could always gift it or something. Which… I was over the weight I want to be, but I wasn’t that big!! What the hecc!? It actually fits perfectly so I don’t know what she was worried about. It has a lace-up top so when I lose the weight I want to, it will still fit fine.

Anyway, Betameche also bought a little owl figurine and named it Ada as a gift for a friend. : ) Continue reading →

Archeon

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Previous – The Dunes

Last couple days of my trip were upon us, and at some point we decided to take the second-last day and go to an outdoor historic theme park called Archeon. It’s kind of geared towards kids, but Tharash was like “you’ve got a lot of inner kid” and I acceded to his assertion.

The park is built on the outside of Alphen aan den Rijn, a bit southwest of Amsterdam, and one reason we decided this would be a good activity was because our friend Betameche was coming to visit from Belgium, and this would be less far to travel than all the way to Amsterdam. Tharash met him while sailing last year, and invited him to join our D&D group, and he’s a fun guy to play with… if somewhat chaotic as a gamer. When we met him at the train station, he was wearing a nerd shirt that said “Woke-on-LAN”, which he explained to me: “Wake-on-LAN” is when you wake up a computer from sleep mode via a LAN connection, but his shirt showed a computer port and a rainbow. Continue reading →

The Dunes

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Previous – Valkenburg

Tharash still had blister band-aids from the last time I was in Europe (my feet are not tough at all) and it worked like magic – today we did a 10k round trip through the coastal dunes to the beach and back.

I’d made a request to come here after he posted a picture of a big fat snail from this area in one of his personal Google photo albums, because these snails are pretty neat: they use calcium from the sand in the dunes to build their shells. Here’s the Wikipedia article, though it doesn’t mention about the calcium. Continue reading →