Tag Archives: Vivienne Urselmert

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 →

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 →

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 →

FFXIV: Ishgardian Intermission

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If you haven’t seen The Echoes of Achiyo Kensaki yet, it’s been posted!

Omg I rewrote the garden scene like 5 times before I found the right soundtrack to help me though (it’s Joe Hisaishi). Very self-indulgent again but I regret nothing.

I used The Dreamers from Tsubasa Chronicle OST as music inspo for the sparring scene. : )

I’m not really sure about this chapter, but there’s only so long I can bang away on it so here it is for better or worse. It may be a while before the next one is out as I’m quite tired in general and trying to take it easy even for fiction writing. And I’m playing FF3! Look at all these names I remember from Crystal Tower raids! Noah, Xande, Unei… (and I renamed Ingram to Corey because when Drak was just starting to post NEST videos, he used Ingram-as-Warrior for Corey’s sprite and that’s all I think of now. I did not rename the others though I could have hahaha. I do like their default names – Luneth is such a nice name!)

Chapter 65: Dust Settles

 

Chapter 66: Ishgardian Intermission

Achiyo walked the small garden of Fortemps Manor, thinking intently. The sun was soft and warm, and within the walls of the manor there was no snow; in fact, there were flowers blooming. On the first few days that had been a delight to her, to see flowers in Ishgard, but now she did not take notice of them, or even the world around her. Continue reading →

FFXIV: Dust Settles

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64: For Ala Mhigo

 

65: Dust Settles

Nidhogg bared his teeth – and Achiyo lunged forwards. “For Ishgard,” was all she said, and then she had stabbed forward right through Nidhogg’s teeth into the roof of his mouth. Her sword snapped.

The jaws clamped shut on her head.

Aymeric snapped awake. Not with a scream, or sitting up abruptly, or even opening his eyes, but his mind had recoiled from the vision so violently it had clawed its way out of unconsciousness to get away. He opened his eyes into the darkness of his tent. Continue reading →

FFXIV: For Ala Mhigo

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Oops, extra long chapter! Well, it’s the season finale. I adjusted the gatecracker battle, because the Garleans would be rank fools not to put cannons on top of their walls, just letting the Alliance waltz up unopposed except for a paltry handful of flying machines. (I’m sure part of that is game render limitations, so I’m just breaking the limit.)

Tidbit that didn’t make it into the story: I headcanon the Temple Knights were training with the Immortal Flames in Thanalan for a few months to acclimatize to the arid environment. Also they’re on double water rations so no one sweats to death. Even if Coerthas used to be warmer, it’s not like it was hot. It’s like Scandinavians going to the Mediterranean – you can’t just throw them in there and expect them to operate as normal.

For Zenos fight I had to rely on an old standby boss-fight-inspo song: Blue Skies and a Battle from FE3H (which I haven’t played because I don’t want to play such a sad game).

I would really love for Ala Mhigo to have a hub city zone (like Ul’dah or Kugane) using the dungeon tileset, those textures are PRETTY.

Chapter 63: Reunion

 

Chapter 64: For Ala Mhigo

Tam tried to take stock of the last hour. Fordola was in Alliance custody. Krile was safely behind friendly lines, with Urianger. Urianger speculated that Fordola had been given an artificial Echo through those experiments on Krile, and his device, inspired by Alisaie’s testimony, had been to disrupt it. Rinala had arrived and Raubahn sent her to give his sword Tizona to Pipin, and Tam had gone along to hang out. Now how did Tam get from Pipin to… wolfmen, again? Continue reading →

FFXIV: Reunion

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Yesssssss the return of the king, as the memes say!

I’d kind of hoped to put in Raubahn’s flashbacks in the previous chapter, to pair up his memories of Lyse’s father with Achiyo’s last Echo involving her ‘father’, but eh the pacing ended up not really working out.

Thancred’s line about leather waistcoats… research tells me is a Monkey Island reference (to go with the ridiculous breath holding). (I’ve played several of the Monkey Island games, but it’s been quite a while. That sort of puzzle game isn’t really my cup of tea.)

Chapter 62: Legacies

 

Chapter 63: Reunion

The first thing to do was to warn the army of the experiments they’d encountered. The Empire did like building sinister laboratories everywhere they could – they’d built one beneath Doma Castle, for kami’s sake – and if they were creating machines that were part-beast, or worse, part-Spoken in one place, they could be creating them elsewhere. Or who knew which of their experiments had been approved and put into production. Their very horror would grant them an edge, let alone their combat capabilities. Everyone needed to know. Continue reading →

FFXIV: Legacies

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I forgot how long the Radiata bit was, and I couldn’t figure out how to abridge the WHM quest, so this is likely the third-last chapter of 4.0.

TIL that ‘cermet‘ is a real thing?? Man I know a little bit about a lot of things but I didn’t know that. I thought FFXIV made it up for the Garleans to use.

Estinien’s cannon-slaying is probably the best moment in all of Stormblood. He’s the Azure Dragoon, after all. (Jocat guitar sting)

Chapter 61: Bitter Dreams

 

Chapter 62: Legacies

Rinala walked through the forest of the Fringes, head down, tail low, lost in thought. Trying to figure out how her life had fallen down around her. How she had lost herself to the point that she couldn’t do her job anymore. That the Scions didn’t want her around anymore. Continue reading →