What was to be Done

Laureine looking up at me while I look over my messy desk at Eorzea Cartographer's HQ.

I kind of just got lost in time, standing there in the entryway to the office, staring at it all. Still piles of papers, letters, and notes all strewn across it. Flowers frozen in time and so many coffee mugs. It was always a mess, but it was my mess that I carried with me across three desks all the way starting back when I was still housed within the Aether Event Center’s manor.

Now it’s… all over, just a bunch of mostly fond memories. Ending the entirety of the map program was just simply bittersweet that had and continues to have even afterwards, unwavering support from a lot of the folks I’ve met over its 5 year run. I’d have never of guessed going to the Aether Event Center’s manor for that first big event would have led all the way to this moment, and here it is. It’s simply just over.

I really don’t know how long I stood there before I felt the brush of a horn on my arm. Had I not only not heard Miss Laureine’s approach and greeting, it wasn’t until she got my attention that it snapped me back into reality. I think she knew what had happened not even hearing the news directly. She knew I finally did it, and it was all from the way she interacted with me in that entryway. She gave me a side hug and really said nothing – a silent grieving moment between us within HQ. Aikirees was out and about and Lizz was fast asleep on the couch on the first floor (because of course), so it was really just us in that moment.

“…Thank you.” I finally said acknowledging Miss Laureine’s presence. This certainly wasn’t planned, and I really didn’t expect to linger there as long as I did. She nodded and turned to slowly head back upstairs to her tasks unknown to me. It sure was something, but now it all can rest, and I can adventure forward knowing for a time I was ‘uniting Eorzea, one map at a time.’

Leaving Holiday Mode

Aikirees drinking a tea sitting next to me, while reading a book glancing at her with the caption 'Monday Morning Weekend Recap' off to the left.

So there are holiday photos and posts incoming, but I’m still in the midst of trying to catch up on projects that have been weaved in where I can. Overall it’s been a really nice holiday and New Years, albeit incredibly busy – far more than years prior.

Finished season 5 of Strange Things, and cried something fierce: both because I’ve been watching it since it first came out when I moved to Florida and it was just a really good ending. Off to Season 2 of Fallout this coming weekend after another big project Saturday. Once these projects are all smoothed back out, then daily posts will return and I’ve missed them dearly.

Might be a really quiet week overall, but soon (if so) that should change.

Y’all have a wonderful first full week of 2026! Kick tails!

Entering Holiday Mode

Aikirees drinking a tea sitting next to me, while reading a book glancing at her with the caption 'Monday Morning Weekend Recap' off to the left.

Happy Monday y’all! The weekend was good overall, but just felt.. sped up? Like, almost everything that was planned on getting done, did get done, but in such a turnkey it didn’t feel good. As predicted as well, the new Arcadian matches are delayed probably for another week with it all.

Going into the holiday weeks, it’s looking pretty good. I have a couple of items to get this evening to finish it all up, and then I can just worry about finishing up work before the holidays. What’s a little bit annoying is the fact that both Christmas and New Years are on Thursdays, the office is pulling a technicality and not closing on either Friday – for the last seven years I’ve been trying my darndest to explain the importance of R&R, but it’s becoming an over exhaustive fleeting battle at this point.

Sans the new Arcadian, we did do the new Starlight festive event, and place some ‘classic’ festive music on at HQ, but right now is just trying to keep up with weeklies/dailies and the daily DDoS attacks, for in which I cannot understand how/why these are so severe for a game this big. Like… even World of Warcraft during Wrath of the Lich King I can’t remember ever being knocked off due to such a thing. Guild Wars 1 or 2 neither had this, and the other handful of online games from both Blizzard and elsewhere in the past I just can’t recall this ever happening. Supposedly it did in WoW early on, but was squelched pretty quickly.

Just… *sigh* maybe we’ll hear something eventually explaining the situation. Would at least help explain why it’s so bad. I guess just in the meantime it’s one more thing I need to schedule into the evening routines until it finally ends. It makes me wonder how 8.0 and beyond will go with this. Getting kicked off only to come back to a 3K+ queue due to one of these is not going to make for an enjoyable time…

I know, shouldn’t end on a downer, just something that’s been growing into a major bother with everything else happening. It’ll be a good and fun week ahead, and I hope y’all have a wonderful one as well! Kick lots of tails and lots of love.

The Trail has been Dawned 7.4

Me smiling while looking down with a lightning storm in the background.

Aikirees and I blew through the entirety of the Main Scenario Quest last night. Overall this was a solid patch and hasn’t wavered in that regard (yet). The last set of Arcadian still needs to be tackled, but due to holiday scheduling, that might be delayed out a bit further than typical.

I doubt I’ll do or mention much in regards to the actual story progression at this point, but possible in 7.5 or 7.55; just depends on how I feel about all of the post patches as a whole once it gets closer to 8.0. it is better, but we’ll see. I am looking forward to Arcadian once we all get around to it, and there’s that Monster Hunter Trial we’ve yet to even unlock.

More adventures await~!

The Trail is Dawning 7.4

Aikirees and I leaning against a chalkboard with 'Blog Stuffs' written on it.

The cousins, even with some valiant efforts, did not fully Dawn the 7.4 Trail in one evening. It’s rare as the last time this happened was 6.3(ish), but got far enough at the very least. This is just a quick general thought in regards to the pacing and content – not the story.

I’ve disliked a large portion of Dawntrail after Shaaloani (even two things prior regarding the dungeons), and have my criticisms of 7.1 and 7.2 for one or more reasons, but starting with 7.3 and now with 7.4, this is starting to feel right again. I’m not talking story (as that’s a whole different container to talk about), but just the actual content: the new dungeon and trial in particular. These both are just a lot of enjoyable fun and not a lot of overcomplications that I haven’t seen really since Endwalker. 7.3 did address a bit of this, but this patch nailed it.

I’m not sure what the new Heavyweight fights are going to be like (probably bonkers like the last set in a good way – mostly), but in terms of the MSQ content, this is finally fun and enjoyable again. Now if only we can get the playerbase’s overall empathy back to where it once was.

The Last Hurrah

Aikirees drinking a tea sitting next to me, while reading a book glancing at her with the caption 'Monday Morning Weekend Recap' off to the left.

The last full week of the year is upon us. The weekend was productive, and non-breaking of things; it didn’t go as planned per se however. The original plan was to just rest up a smidgen and get a little bit more 7.4 preparations in, but what happened instead was more catching up on tasks in the home office and holiday planning. So, good things still, but the catch-up is very real still. Lacking a solid day of writing isn’t helping things here either.

Next weekend is my big holiday one before the actual holiday, and with 7.4 coming out on Tuesday, will have to address some things prior that have come up. I got thrown a fairly odd curve-ball in relation to work that I’m still having to consider as I suspect it’s going to come up before the end of the year (or the department review) which could affect the future of just about everything I do. Not that’s necessarily supposed to sound ominous by any means, but there’s some weight to this decision making that echoes my first tenure in this industry, and was ultimately one of the biggest reasons I left initially.

Best not to dwell all that much on it right now, however – I’ve got a lot more experience and journeys under the ears at this point, so the outcome shouldn’t be the same again. Regardless of that, let’s make the last full week before the holidays and end of the year be stellar.

Happy Monday y’all! Kick tails! Here we go!

Family Weekend & Breaking Things

Aikirees drinking a tea sitting next to me, while reading a book glancing at her with the caption 'Monday Morning Weekend Recap' off to the left.

Last week went off the rails again, and still perpetually behind on planning practically anything for the foreseeable future. However, this past weekend was nice; the folks visiting Saturday evening – it was shorter than usual but nice nonetheless. The next time I’ll see them is Christmas and then New Years right thereafter.

Aside from the visit – most of the weekend was in a perpetual state of chasing catch-ups and not succeeding as well as needed. In the process, breaking another Linux system (albeit temporarily) once again. As much as I like Mint, the sheer amount of research required to do some of the more technical things is incredibly exhausting sometimes. I’ve been leaving myself a lot of text documents on the NAS though for when/if I need to reference these hurdles again in the future.

Last full week before Patch 7.4, and we’re basically ready for it, but just concerned with the amount of work hours how the first week is going to go. Ideally we’ll finish the MSQ the night it comes out and then plan getting to the new Arcadion (it’s going to conflict with the traditional holiday Rum Cakes baking). I know we have an ample amount of time to do these until 7.5, and this is the last tier of tomestones until 8.0, but would rather see the story sooner than later to avoid any unintentional spoilers.

Once I stop have self-inflicted technical issues (getting there!), planning out more story-driven posts will come back once again, and I am so looking forward to it.

Y’all have a wonderful Monday and week ahead! Kick some tails!

The Long Run

Lizicus looking out across the Azem Steppe during a sandstorm.

I hadn’t been planning on being absent for this long. It’s been a bit too overwhelming, even for me. The major issues that I was discussing back in August got addressed: new roof, all of the Windows 10 to 11 or Linux has been dealt with too. The bigger problem was hitting 6 days a week of work to deal with a large project that wasn’t planned or laid out well enough. This on its own caused a nasty bottleneck for everything else, for in which now we’re dealing with that fallout. By the end of this year, either this will be addressed fully or I’m arbitrarily taking back my personal time. I didn’t return to this industry for a 3rd time to do what I did in the 1st tenure that caused me to leave in the first place.

That being said, and with all of that happening, I did finish Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3, Hazbin Hotel Season 2, and all of Helluva Boss. These were all great seasons, and I do recommend them. Wicked Part 1 was superb of a watch too. The audio server project is still making additional progress by the week, and my skills using Linux have increased (even with breaking a couple of systems in the process – oops). So it’s not all been a whirlwind of insanity, but I do miss sleep. Office got a nice small overhaul as well when the new systems went in, and it’s a lot more cozy in there too.

I’d like to get back to posting daily here, and I got enough to do so, but I still haven’t had enough time to sit down and plan getting back into that just yet. The little blurbs I was doing are probably manageable right now, but I need a few hours over a weekend to sort everything else out.

Aikirees looking out over the Fringes.

Eorzea-wise. I just announced the dissolution of EOCA’s discord at the end of the year. It’s a really somber feeling, but it’s way overdue. The FC will continue onwards, but my retirement of doing cartography for Final Fantasy XIV is all but done. The fact that I was part of the community for so long and with so many warm regards was such a honor and a privilege. It would never have lasted as long without so many wonderful folks and friends who supported me through it all. One of these moons, I’ll finish up the story about EOCA, but that rough draft is pretty… rough to say the least, and some things have changed since then.

Aside from that, barely keeping it together with such a loss of personal time. Aikirees and I are hanging in there, as are the cousins but it’s really been dialed back (Miss Lizz is happy about the extra nap time, however). Hopefully soon we’ll be able to get back to taking care of more side things as opposed to just weekly tasks. Doing some of those weekly tasks is getting harder as it feels the community in certain parts is feeling far more cold than it ever has, even so now looking back on almost 7 years of playing.

Aikirees and I examining the submarine's progress in EOCA HQ's workshop.
This will be fully completed by 2030.

Let’s see, Horizon: Forbidden West is still moving along as well, 50% completion according to the in-game statistics, with 70 hours invested. I’ve been having a blast but certainly taking it really slowly. Started Sea of Stars again on PS5 as well – it’s just too good and definitely a recommend for a great story RPG with minimal grinding. That might be it for this long post for now; still have lots to thimble through and organize here. The Vieras’ adventures still continue in the background with Reinylla slowly approaching Heavensward now.

I’ll wrap it up there before I ramble on forever. Y’all have a really wonderful Monday and week ahead. Only 31 days left of the year now, let’s make them absolutely stellar!

Rained Out

Aikirees drinking a tea sitting next to me, while reading a book glancing at her with the caption 'Monday Morning Weekend Recap' off to the left.

The rough was dealing with another roof leak, which was found & plugged as best as possible during a rain storm, and then losing nearly all of my work time in the process.

The good was just about everything else. Family evening was really wonderful, and getting everything else done went fairly well but just not a lot of downtime – just consistently moving between tasks. Some server work got done, but still have to add a few more that I queued up over last week, but that I can worry about this weekend.

It’s going to be a very long week ahead. Y’all kick tails and have a wonderful Monday & week!

Good Riddance

Aikirees and I leaning against a chalkboard with 'Blog Stuffs' written on it.

I’m going to open with this article from the wonderful folks over at MassivelyOP and my only remark to it (and for anyone, and I mean anyone) who knows me is this, and forgive my vulgarity: Good. Fucking. Riddance. I have been very loud about how I absolutely loathe the modding community in Final Fantasy XIV, and seeing this coming to an end is nice to hear. Not Sorry.

With that rather out of characteristic vulgar quick-rant out of the way – it’s still pretty chaotic on the RL side, with me certainly bringing more work home for the weekend. Not as much, however, so I’ll hopefully be able to dedicate a little bit more to relaxing – there will be some server work too, which is always fun to do. Biggest hurdle now will be addressing what needs to be done, and very quickly, soon thereafter we get over a machine being down.

Hopefully everyone’s Friday goes wonderfully, and y’all have a weekend to match!

Bleeding the Midnight Oil

Aikirees and I leaning against a chalkboard with 'Blog Stuffs' written on it.

My concern about how this week kind of ballooned overnight with the project escalating into something far more obscene. My bigger concern is if any of this will overtake part of this upcoming weekend, which already has plans involving family. The work/life is really starting to kilt to levels where I left the industry the first time and that’s not good.

Hoping to swerve the course at least a bit today and tomorrow in hopes of it being a bit better. Ended up pulling yet another skilled injury the other day (if you know me, this is par for the course) which has made things a little bit more comically slower, but it is recovering just fine. Hoping dearly that this will all come to some sort of head right before Labor Day Weekend.

As for Labor Day Weekend itself, I might have mentioned visiting ‘home’ where Aiki and I started out in our adventures through Eorzea, but that might just depend on how things are going. The Rising Event comes back the 27th, which means the long ‘lost’ Aryiah will be visiting after being absent for almost a year. It would be nice to hang out at the Moonfire cruise ship sometime over this upcoming weekend (or Monday) with some/all of EOCA, but realistically I keep seeing that idea fleeting with everything upcoming.

Hopefully I’m incorrect to some capacity, but just have to see. There is a level of guilt that I’m continued to be reminded about throughout – it’s been linger a long time now, which hasn’t helped things, but not anything I have time to really address (or even explain) at the moment. Just have to keep moving forward.

Anyrate, y’all have a wonderful Friday Eve! Y’all got this!

Inquiries

Elizara watching attentively as Laureine crafts on an anvil.

It was a later part of the evening, near nightfall. Just about everyone had retired at this point to their respective quarters, homes, and couch in Lizicus’ case. Just the faint dim light and sound emitting from HQ’s workshop could be seen and heard.

Miss Laureine taking a little moment to finalize reports on the airships from their previous journeys through the Sea of Clouds, along with some minor repair work. While doing so, the sound of her hammer hitting the anvil to create the repair parts attracted only one person getting ready to head back to the familiar place Reinylla was sleeping: Elizara.

Laureine deep in thoughts & focus on her work hadn’t noticed Elizara enter the workshop, nor did she say anything to Laureine to let her presence be known. Instead, she cautiously walked close by and sat down beside her and just watched as Laureine toiled over the anvil. Once Laureine noticed Elizara sit down, she gave her a warm smile of acknowledgement before returning to her work. Elizara just continued to watch with sharp focus as she continued to finish up the repair parts.

Once she was all done, a small silence filled the workshop, with only the low humming of the navigation panel and project in progress’ HUDs making any sort of noise.

“Hey, uh–“

Elizara began to say while still sitting on the floor.

“Hmm, yes, Mistress?”

At this point Laureine had already gotten up to examine the airship console to oversee repairs.

“…what’s it like to have those horns and a tail?”
Laureine paused completely on her task to think a moment, but soon thereafter let out a soft humored sigh before finishing up right-quick. Without saying anything, she walks back over to where Elizara was still sitting; the look on her face was both curious and worried as she might have asked something overly offensive.

Instead, Laureine squats down, smiles, and curls her tail in front of the both of them.

“Here, Mistress.”

She holds the end of her tail out as an offering to Elizara. Reluctantly, Elizara holds it gently, feeling the warm scales across her fingers. She lets out a quick quiet laugh flashing a smile across her face, and then releases Laureine’s tail.

“I-it’s not what I expected, but thank you.”

“You’re very welcome, Mistress.”

Elizara excited fires off a handful of questions towards Laureine, and as best as she can answer them. They spend a bell or so doing this just sitting in the Workshop before the both of them retire for the evening. Elizara manages to safely make it back to where Reinylla is resting, as does Laureine to the quietness of her chambers.

It seemed to have been a good evening to help Elizara feel more more comfortable than she has been prior, and hopefully with that a good night’s rest alongside Reinylla.

Happy Moonfire Faire 2025!

Aikirees and I at the Moonfire Faire for 2025 with fireworks in the background.

Happy Moonfire Faire y’all! May y’all have an absolutely wonderful one this year!!

I think this year’s might be one of my favorites thus so far. The new ship combines almost all of the assortments of entertainment that Moonfire is known for and adds upon it! It kind of reminds me of the really fun and scenic All Saints’ Wake’s Sneaky Hollow they added a few years back but with the jumping puzzle included. The music on the boat changes at night time also to give it that nightly concert vibe; it’s really something to behold.

The event quest itself is pretty short, which seems to be the par for the course with all of the recent ones. There’s some folks who don’t tend to like this, but I’ve never really minded it being on the shorter side to be honest, and with a place to simply just hang out after the fact has far more weight to it personally. The outfit this year is basically a wetsuit with a hoodie and sandals, and it dyes really well – it’s really nice!

Moonfire Faire in general has always had a special place in my heart, and it was also when ‘Totally Not a Gazebo Day’ event happened, which that in itself was such a fun time. I digress, however, and I wish y’all the very best Moonfire Faire season, and certainly head on out to Limsa Lominsa/Costa del Sol to enjoy all of the festivities that the event has to offer!

Hoping to see this make a return for a few years if not more thereafter, as it is really fun nice place to vibe for the season.

Work Bleed Over

Aikirees drinking a tea sitting next to me, while reading a book glancing at her with the caption 'Monday Morning Weekend Recap' off to the left.

While not necessarily a negative, but there has been some work ‘bleed over’ into the weekends due to an overwhelming amount of work going on. It wasn’t overburdening, but just part of the weekend ordeal.

Overall, it was a pretty decent one – got some tasks taken care of while dealing with the usual weekend routines and maintenance. The NAS has been cleaned up and reorganized as well – including remote access, which has helped in regards to getting into it from work.

Started to watch the new season of Wednesday since I caught up for now on Strange New Worlds. I think this part of Wednesday is fairly short, so once that’s done, I’ll head back into Strange New Worlds. Some media server work in there for good measure and a little bit more crafting progress around Eorzea. With Moonfire Faire happening, it’s taken a little bit of all our time up.

The next couple of weeks are probably going to be absolutely chaotic, working on a semi-big project, but hopefully won’t take away too much from here, or personal life – we’ll see.

Happy Monday y’all! Kick tails! Y’all got this!!

Sisters’ Fashion Report Adventure LXI

Aikirees and I wearing long green tailcoats, with fancy top hats and Aikirees posing for the photo.

Episode LXI! – We now have hats, and I… think she thinks she’s the Cat in the Hat at the moment? I-I’m really not certain, but then again, there are times I’m really not exactly sure what (or where!) my sister is thinking about.

Summer Vibes

Me wearing beach attire with a large wide-brimmed straw hat sitting in shallow beach water.

I’ve had this Moonfire Faire outfit for five years now – it came out during the 2020 season’s. At the time, and up until this latest patch, was unable to wear the hat that came with it. After all of this time, I’m finally able to dawn the dearly missed wide-brimmed straw hat to complete my summer vibing.

Right in time for this year’s Moonfire Faire no less, so I’m certain it’ll get a bit of use in coinciding with my usual hair ribbon too.

Oops

Me sitting in HQ's lounge with a cup of coffee looking over things on my tomestone device.

I.. uhh.. Sorry y’all, kind of been distracted and pretty busy. Everything is well, and the past weekend was good. Patch 7.3 was cleared in its entirety at this point in time and was a pretty enjoyable experience overall with really only one semi-sour spot happening. So all in all, I’d give this Patch start the best of Dawntrail thus so far.

Got to get back to it, but happy Wednesday! Halfway there now, and y’all enjoy the Moonfire Faire! It looks really fun (I mean, it always is) so head on out to Costa del Sol for some fireworks, new party barge and goodies alike! We’ll check it out over the weekend.

Kick tails!

Dawning the Trail 7.3

Aikirees and I leaning against a chalkboard with 'Blog Stuffs' written on it.

Midweek and I am so behind on rest; very much no rest for this Viera.

Just more long days, but the cousins got their chance to head into Patch 7.3’s MSQ last night and thankfully finish it. That’s not to be taken as it was disliked, quite the contrary, just due to weekly planning it would have off-kilted the rest of the week.

Aiki and I are up tonight to blaze the Trail of 7.3, which then just leaves the new raid for the tail end of the week. Weekend then will just be clearing up all of the items we normally do, but missed throughout the week. As for the weekend, probably a nice and actually for once, relaxing one.

Happy Midweek y’all! Kick tails!

Success

Aikirees drinking a tea sitting next to me, while reading a book glancing at her with the caption 'Monday Morning Weekend Recap' off to the left.

Kind of a quick one, but this past weekend was a really good success. The system upgrade/change to Linux went almost near darn perfectly, so now it’s just refining settings and learning a lot more about it now. Even got a few Windows games to run within it just like they would normally do so under Windows itself.

Watched more Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, and kind of just meandered around Eorzea, so it was a pretty good balance of productivity and relaxing. Not as much sleep as I would have liked, but the accomplishments with the system more than makes up for it.

Happy Patch 7.3 Eve y’all and Happy Monday! Kick lots of tails this week! Y’all got this!!

A Friday and a Farewell

Aikirees and I leaning against a chalkboard with 'Blog Stuffs' written on it.

Happy Friday y’all! Almost the end of another long and weary week. Hopefully everyone’s has been going well!

Usual weekend routine coming up, but along with that going forward with another system overhaul (hence the farewell notion). These usually are kind of a bittersweet process, and this one is not different as this system in particular has been running pretty much the original of itself since I built it right after my life’s hard reset over 10 years ago.

So, even with it being a good transition to continue operating, it is kind of also sad to see it’s current form go. Depending on who’s reading this, that might either sound silly or relatable – guess it just depends on how it’s looked at, and either way it’s fine. Ideally done to a point before dinner Saturday as well, and that should be doable.

Not much else really planned but being around Eorzea a bit more, possibly some Forbidding the West time depending on how I feel. The big 7.3 patch next week (and it looks CHONK) should be good, as long as I can keep my frustrations with the player-base down to a minimal that is.

Kick tails today, and have a wonderful weekend y’all!