unconvinced i'll ever find "the vitamin" that makes me all better so i can get real work done but i do expect they'll elucidate whatever my deal was post-mortem, after which what i did manage to accomplish with my life will be regarded on the level of Beethoven composing despite being deaf or Gordon Ramsay cooking despite being british
i desperately need the tourists in this city to gain some awareness of their and my inevitable mortality and the fact we actually don’t get endless time on this earth. walk fasterrrrr
people foolishly dismiss desserts and treats as having no nutritional value when they actually are necessary for refilling your sanity stat. to prove my point please observe the emotional stability of the next person you meet who doesnt let themselves ever eat any form of dessert
okay i am setting a goal to finish and publish at least one (1) fic before the ffxivwrite aka by the end of this month. this really should not be a difficult goal i have so many things that are in a state of half-completion i just need to deal with them...
And I've got a big question for y'all. I'm told that, due to timezone differences, our friends in the Europe struggle with the usual 12:00 pm PST prompt drop.
In order to accommodate...
Should the prompt drop time change to 9:00 am PST?
Sure!
No, thank you - keep it 12:00 pm PST
Remaining time: 5 days 8 hours
The 24-hour time limit for prize eligibility would still apply. So, as an example, for PST folks, the 24-hour window would shift to 9:00 am 9/1 - 8:59 9/2 on prompt #1, and so on.
9:00 am PST is the only option on the table for a potential prompt drop time adjustment. Please understand that there is no prompt drop time of day that will work perfectly for everyone. Adjusting to a 9:00 am PST start would allow a fair range of writing times for a broader majority.
So, please vote! Share this post with your FFxivWrite participating friends so that they can vote as well.
In 1 week I'll check back on the poll, and I'll take the results into serious consideration as I prep for September 1st, 2026! The final prompt drop time will be announced in the official rules post that will go out roughly 2 weeks before the challenge begins.
so cool how advanced the algorithm has become, it literally only takes like a decade or more of spying on all my internet activity and then it can expertly curate a selection of 15-20 youtube videos that i don't really want to watch, and then keep showing me those videos over and over again for a week so i can scroll past them again. the future is now
I got hired to do a stand-up comedy set at the trope villain convention. It was a great gig. Really appreciative crowd. They were absolutely cackling the whole time. It was a little weird at the end though when all of them stood up and started clapping very slowly, before saying, in unison, "Well done, my friend. Well done."
the thing about the interphos trial is that the cutscene and second half of it really is unforgivably bad, particularly in contrast to the first half which is one of the best normal trial experiences in the game. but as with many dawntrail related things you can’t actually bring this up ever without the most annoying people on the planet screeching unfunny memes at you and refusing to actually discuss or analyse anything further than that
sorry @maeljade i started replying and then it became too much of an essay so i'm making this its own reblog. i need to spit out some too-long dawntrail critique every 6 months or so or black goo starts to fill up my lungs
my issue with phase 2 of interphos isn't the concept of a cinematic triumphant phase in itself - it's absolutely a trend at this point and there's maybe something to be said for it becoming too formulaic, but it's a trend because it's generally an EFFECTIVE formula. fun battle time, everything looks like it's doomed, then you're pulled back to the brink by friendship and manage to beat the bad guy, awesome music plays, bish bash bosh, all very satisfying.
interphos nearly does this very well. i genuinely think the first half of the fight is some of the best battle design ffxiv has in its normal raids: the stage gets changed up multiple times, the way they visually indicate the attack choreography is fresh and fun but never feels unfair, and i love how much they throw at you with absolute authority! i think it's especially fun that absolute authority is timed so that you can usually do a healer limit break if everything goes to hell, but then you see a SECOND absolute authority and you're like oh noooo. really good at getting most players to that 'oh fuck' moment where you don't think you're going to make it without making it feel scripted
but then the cutscene comes in and it all sort of falls apart. the voice acting in the cutscene is now MILES better after it got re-recorded, but also i get bothered every time i hear the new one because for some reason during the re-record they also changed the very first line from:
"is this... a rift in reality? has she lost control of the power!?"
to
"there! a rift in her reality! she is losing control of the power!"
both of these are bad lines, but the new one sounds ESPECIALLY awkward, and it's your opening line, so we're off to a bad start. sena bryer tries her damn best, but there's only so much you can do with this writing (and lack of voice direction in the first cut)
but anyway the actual scene, line-to-line writing aside, annoys most people first and foremost because of wuk lamat jumping in here and immediately taking the spotlight. people will mock like, 'oh boo hoo your magical special baby wol isn't in the spotlight for one second and you whine', but
it's not just a case of the focus not being on your wol for 1 minute - this scene happens at the end dawntrail, when the wol has been a supporting character (at best) for the ENTIRE EXPANSION until this point, nearly always deferring to wuk lamat for everything. i know for me personally i really liked wuk lamat at the start of dawntrail, but by solution 9 i was real weary of her being around all the time, and by the time this trial came it was a case of the straw that broke the camel's back
i'm also gonna be real bold and say i don't really care if people want their player character who they've become attached to over 6 expansions to be the main character and do cool stuff sometimes. i'm sorry i don't play video games so i can clap at NPCs doing everything while i win the Worlds Humblest Player award. sue me
i think it's also frustrating because it's not just that wuk lamat jumps in - plenty of other characters have done that before for the final phase - but because she makes the wol feel like an awkward third wheel rather than someone she actually had to work with or rely on at any point. she floats in the middle of the stage and out-dpses literally everyone in one hit. we could essentially walk out at this point with literally nothing changing in the fight or the story, vs. other fights where the wol is at least somewhat acknowledged or the character(s) joining us fight WITH us
(also why does wuk lamat manage to break through 'the rift in her reality' but not g'raha?? because she has a closer connection to sphene maybe i guess? always felt a bit bizarre)
anyway THEN we go into the actual final battle phase. and listen.
this music in isolation? awesome. i love it.
but oh my god it feels so incredibly out of place in this scene. the major key feels jubilant, triumphant, when i feel like it should be... a least a little regretful? i do not feel happy to be fighting sphene. i don't really want to have to 'kill' her or the endless after we did the whole lap around living memory trying to humanise everyone there. as wuk lamat herself acknowledges, they are both just rulers trying to do the best for their people. they could have been friends. but the situation with the endless is untenable, and sphene won't back down, so here we are. this is a pretty tragic setting - not woo yay fanfare trumpet vibes
side note this truly is just a me issue but this one specific line always makes me so mad
if i were sphene this would piss me right off. there's nothing like objectively wrong with saying this, i understand what wuk's going for, but if i was literally being slashed in the face with an axe by a girl who said 'i feel your pain! as if it were my own!' i'd start absolute authority-ing everyone and everything forever
uhhh i feel like i had another point what was it. OH yeah the phase 2 mechanics are nonexistent. i'm not really as offended by this as some people are, i think an 'easy' victory lap can work fine, but in combination with all the other insults in this fight, you just sort of stepping left and right and in and out while wuk lamat goes wild up at the front of the stage did feel particularly lame
okay i'm done now i think my lungs are clear. everyone's safe for another few months maybe probably
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