Incoherent ramblings, part 2

Hey, I hope you guys have been doing well. I’ve decided to spend the last few days taking a break from writing, following about two days straight of just gushing about Battle Sisters on paper and fighting with WordPress’ WYSIWYG editor. I’ve been filling the time with a bunch of other things, most of which aren’t really worth an entire article dedicated to them… yet.

Anyway, here’s what’s happening:

Battle Sisters, Waiting for Dispatch Edition

I try my best to provide sources for art, though Google often fails me. This is one of those times.

I basically just knocked out a metric ton of fluff for my Sisters last week. I think most of what I want is already written down, though there are some elements that are missing and I do want to iron out a few issues with theming– right now there’s a bunch of ideas and not much glue holding them all together. I won’t go into the details too much, but there’s still plenty of work to do. I might even have to break it apart into a few more pieces in order to do my girls justice. Who knows?

I’m not complaining, though. I’m having a blast writing for them.

As for the paint: GW is taking its time dispatching my order, which is typical at this point. Call me a dumbass, but I learned that resellers are a thing not too long ago, so I’ll be looking into buying from those in order to save precious delivery time (Lower prices are a benefit too, but honestly I’ve just accepted that I’ll shell out mad amounts of dough on this hobby regardless of the choices I make anyway). I’ve been pretty anxious to start painting, not because it’d be a fun time but because there’s a more than likely chance I’ll accidentally end up with a squad of chaos spawns.

Or worse. Duncan preserve us.

Soon enough I’ll be able to give you guys something more substantial. Until then…

Shenanigans in Final Fantasy XIV

This is my character. Her name is Neiko and she is currently in her natural state.

I did mention I was getting back into Final Fantasy, I might as well talk a little about what I’m actually doing in it.

I’m grinding. A lot. I’ve mostly been working on getting a healer and DPS class leveled, since I primarily play a tank and I’m not too fond of the idea that I’m hogging that role from my friends. I’m pretty glad that I still mostly remember how to play my classes, since this game’s hotbars are more bloated than World of Warcraft’s by several orders of magnitude. Leveling is honestly pretty dull, consisting mostly of just spamming the game’s dungeon finder for hours (or worse, doing any of the deep dungeons), but I don’t typically play healers, so hopefully the stress of keeping a party alive will keep me awake enough to see it through.

In other news, I got this pleasant surprise in the mail:

I actually waited until writing this post to open this thing. That’s how much I like you guys.

This is the Bringer Arts Y’shtola figure, something I pre-ordered a really, really long time ago and got just this week. For those of you not in the know, Y’shtola is major supporting character in Final Fantasy XIV’s main story. She’s gone through a few wardrobe changes over time; this is her appearance in the game’s latest expansion to date, Shadowbringers.

She’s also a catgirl.

Let’s unbox her, shall we?

Not pictured: Me, giddy with excitement.

I’ve taken the liberty of freeing our honoured guest from her plastic prison. Anyone caught up with the game will probably realize this is the third time we’ve fished her out of deep shit. She comes with a few replaceable parts (i.e. her hands) as well as a helpful stand because good luck getting her to balance with all those resin dress bits.

Also, I’m doing this on my hobby table because I’m pretty sure it’s the only source of white light in this entire house. Incredibly useful for taking photos.

I’d have Y’shtola in a nicer pose but her joints don’t give her many options. This is the best I could do.

Assembling her was mostly painless, with one exception: I don’t know if it’s the resin cast or if I’m missing some sort of pushing technique, but her tail is impossible to put in. I spent about 40 minutes trying to get the part to snap in (it’s a ball-and-socket type deal, like Bionicles or something along those lines) and at that point I was pretty sure if I continued I would have broken something sooner or later (I fought very hard against the urge to whip out my trusty hobby knife for this). I’m cutting my losses; sorry Y’shtola, but you’re gonna have to deal with having no tail.

Other than that, she’s just as pretty as I was hoping for and I’m proud to own her. I don’t think I’ll pre-order another one of these, though…

And everything else…

I’m tinkering with a Minecraft server. It’s actually surprisingly easy to run one, especially if you have an existing server that runs Docker. I did, however, have to buy additional RAM for the thing to stop self-destructing every ten minutes. This is going to be a project for a friend and myself to play on (and before you say anything, no, it’s not a Minecraft date.)

I’ve also got another project on the backburner, not related to anything I’ve mentioned above. It’s a fictional setting related to a dream journal that I’ve been keeping (albeit half-heartedly), partially inspired by the old PlayStation game LSD Dream Emulator, though I don’t think I’ll ever match something so surreal. My dreams have been total batshit since the pandemic started and I figured that I could do something with them. Maybe I’ll share one day.

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That’s all I’ve got right about now. As always, thanks for reading and I hope to see you again soon.