Episode LVI..? – H-hold on a mome–… hmm… T-this week’s regularly scheduled Fashion Report Adventure is interrupted by the cousins it would seem. W-when one is a damsel, but not in distress, and comes prepared for anything that is thrown at them – in Lizicus’ case that might as well mean literally with her trident at the ready.
Kosmikros Sisters
The Desk
If anyone has ever visited EOCA HQ, they’ll more than likely run across this large and messy desk just past the lounge area. My old map making desk, still covered in old scrolls, notes, drawings, and just rather unkempt all this time. However, there’s a few mementos and memories placed on here that I cherish very fondly with priceless sentimental value.
1 – Star Globe.
This is a double-edged reason for being here. The first being that no cartographer’s desk should be without some sort of globe on it, and the other being that I’ve personally had a globe on my desk ever since I was a very young bun. My Dad got me a globe when I was either 3 or 4, and it’s so old that it still has USSR along with East & West Germany on it. Certainly had a lot of love, and a lot of solar bleaching happen to it over the years.
2 – Azelma’s Flowers.
Back when EOCA hit Rank 30, which as of this writing is the max rank for a Free Company, I was gifted these flowers from our dear friend Azelma in congrats of achieving the feat. This is something that we honestly thought would have taken a lot longer to accomplish, but with perseverance we managed to do so well before the end of Endwalker. I made sure to give them a place on the desk as a memory.
3 – Kibby’s Flowers.
During my more active tenure with The Burgundy Room, I would assist with staff and handling tips at the end of the shows. One show, once it was all concluded, I was gifted these lovely red flowers from Kibby who was performing at the show that evening.
4 – Burgundy Flowers.
These flowers I can’t remember who personally gave them to me, but given the red ribbon I dyed on it, someone from Burgundy during the earlier years did so during the end of a performance. I have been gifted several other flowers, including one from Sirena, but those have been placed in my apartment instead. Sirena’s in particular has a pink ribbon on it.
5 – Coffee Mug.
There’s a lot of these around HQ, and certainly my desk is no unfamiliar place for a nice hot mug. Representing a lot of aspects of my life, but also when I would work on maps, there usually would be some coffee in close proximity!
6 – Winery.
This one not many folks would probably know the story behind it. Years, and years ago when the Aether Event Center was around (it’s been gone a long while now), and I was just starting out before EOCA was established, I was making the maps for the Aether Event Center and working/participating in events they hosted. It was a very fun and wild time, but once the AEC’s mansion was acquired/established, I was surprise gifted my own desk within it! The desk was so gorgeous, and it had these bottles of wine and glass on top of it. I wanted to keep those early days’ memory close.
7 – Carbuncle Lamp.
Kind of part of the above, one of these was on my desk as a nod to Aikirees’ love of Carbuncles during the AEC’s tenure. It has since been placed down on my desk for that reason, and I think Aikirees appreciates one just being there to help illuminate the desk overall.
8 – Envelopes.
Kind of a self-jab with how I tended to organize requests, and other items that came across my inbox. Rest assured, everything was done and addressed in a timely manner, but was just not well organized for the longest time.
9 – Notes, schematics, old drawings, etc.
Another self-jab: my catch-all of everything that is not sprawled out all messy-like on the desk. Various things piled within these mountains of paper. The rest of them have made it with moderate success into The Archives proper.
I think that coves the basis of that desk. The walls have maps and schematics on it, along with a bunch on the desk too. It’s a chaotic mess for certain, but the memories it holds are priceless and timeless to me and I wouldn’t want to change it for anything.
Sharlayan Northern Lights
It’s not often I get to catch this phenomenon while traveling around, but happened to be in Old Sharlayan at the right time to catch the Aurora Borealis over the city. I’ve only been able to see it here a handful of times, but it’s always so pretty to see those auras just dance across the clear night sky.
Heavensturn 2025
Last week, we got around to enjoying this year’s Heavensturn event. It was a little different with trivia questions, but was enjoyable, and enlightening. It’s not a very long event overall, but still fun! The fortune draw came back once again this year as well, and we all pulled to see our annual fortune.
Most of us faired rather well, except for Aikirees.
What’s good even with the misfortune ones is they give advice on what to do to turn the fortunes around, so it’s not necessarily an ‘ominously bad’ fortune to get.
Hope everyone who went forth to get a fortune got what they hoped for! Just remember, even ones like Aikirees can be spun around to become great ones too!
New Year – New Project(s) Planning
Now with the holidays passed us, it’s time to take on the first full week of the year! Past weekend was more the usual, but still tinkering with the train scape as that has moved to a full blown project now. It’s had some ups and a lot of downs, but with each down is another thing learned about it all. Ms. Frizzle always did say ‘make mistakes!’ and they have certainly taught me a bit about what the hoobers I am trying to accomplish with this!
The train’s first phase of the project should conclude in a week or so, mail deliveries withholding, and then it’ll be off to plan the remaining phases between everything else going on this year. It’s not as bonkers as the last couple of years with me trying to slow down on working on projects (sans the aforementioned and one other), which will be a nice change of pace.
More of the normal things with regards to Final Fantasy XIV, and still moving along slowly with both Horizon Zero Dawn and Sea of Stars; not much else right now beyond those three things. It will be nice to get back into the usual routine of things and hopefully slow down enough to relax like it used to be a while back.
Happy Monday y’all! Let’s kick some tail!
Happy New Year 2025!
Here we are, 2025! The year of 2024 has passed, and we’re now heading forwards into the new one.
Personally, it was a pretty good year – multiple unique weather scenarios aside (*glares meanly at Milton*). It’s still been an insane perpetuation of busy that doesn’t seem to want to end, but we made it through. I know folks have had a year of varying journeys, but tails were still kicked and have gotten through it as well.
I truly hope that everyone has a very amazing year ahead filled with all the best moments with the most wonderful journeys throughout. I realize it’s not always the smoothest paths while out there adventuring, but even the trials we have to climb over make us ever the more stronger afterwards. Every single one of y’all is strong, and will kick so much tail. Y’all got this, we got this, and we’ll show the year what we’re made of!
To a wonderful 2025, and beyond! Let it be ‘zee awesome’sies!’
Merry Christmas & Happy Starlight!
Merry Christmas & Happy Starlight Celebration y’all! Here’s to best wishes on a wonderfully Happy Holidays, and conclusion to 2024! From all of us to y’all, we really and truly hope it’s been a wonderful one!
Let the countdown to 2025 begin, as we keep kicking tails into the new year!
The Final Full Week
Hard to believe this is the full final week of the year! Past weekend was brisk, but went well. The model trains scape is finally back up and running with a few minor adjustments to be made, but for now it runs well thankfully.
Finished Doctor Who’s latest season, and caught up with Star Trek: Lower Decks as well, along with clearing out a few lingering RL items that were in dire need of being addressed. So now it’s just cruising to the holidays and seeing family with a nice dose of rest.
Not much else; Sea of Stars is moving along, as is the usual Final Fantasy XIV tasks for now. Patch 7.15 comes out tomorrow, which I feel is a smidgen early, but that’s alright. Looking forward to it, but will probably be over the weekend instead of during the week itself as this is to be expected to be a very arduous week ahead. This will impact posts unfortunately.
HQ itself is festive for the Starlight Celebration that started today, and always love to see the decorations for that up around the city-states as well. Apparently even Jeuno has some festiveness happening, and I suspect I know what that all entails – Aikirees and I will pay a visit there during the event and see for ourselves too.
That’s it for this one, y’all have a wonderful Monday and week ahead! Kick tails, and y’all got this!
Abrupt Interruption
I had some ideal concept planned for today, and I don’t think it’ll be ready for tomorrow either. I might squish in a Fashion Report adventure from last week for tomorrow, but due to primarily some RL mechanical interruptions (there’s the usual RL things too in there), will have to postpone a smidgen.
I still got a handful of longer story-styled posts to get up here eventually, but need a good amount of ‘quiet time’ to do so, and it’s just not really happened yet, but it will soon enough.
Y’all have a wonderful Thursday! Y’all got this!
All Through the House
Not a creature was stirring, not even a… Hrothgar?
… w-wait, that’s not how that’s supposed to go! W-well, I guess it’s better she decided to sleep under the tree rather than try to get into it. I.. really don’t want to find out exactly how sturdy that base is versus her. I know it’s capable of holding its own against Miqo’te as in prior years it has certainly attracted the HQ’s residents towards it, including a Cabbit who to this day doesn’t understand exactly why.
In the meantime, we all can enjoy it’s lovely warmly presence; whether it’s around, under, or.. as very close as possible to the Starlight Tree.
Under the Starry Night
During our gathering and crafting adventures over the weekend, Aikirees and I decided to sit down under the beautiful starry night in Lakeland. She got a nice warm fire going while I churned out some bolts of cloth we were needing to get some items all sewn up right.
I feel like some moons ago, I did something similar for her when it was heavily snowing out closer to home.
Determination & Year of 10’s.
This weekend was pretty good. Got a bit of tasks done that I’ve been wanting to address; still a lot remain, but good to see movement. The model train project I decided to move into a smaller-long term project and work on that on and off a lot more than I have the past few years, even with having both engines dead in the water.
Yesterday was the 10th anniversary of by beloved cat, Vladimir, having crossed the Rainbow Bridge. I had my sad moments, but I know Vlad would not want that, so I just pushed through with things that needed to be addressed. Lit the rosemary candle for him that I got from the vet where he was cremated for the last time – I wanted it to last the first 10 years, and it successfully did as it burned out last night.
There’s a lot of ’10th’s’ coming up, and I feel they’re going to affect me more so than usual – a lot happened back then and a lot has happened since. Lots of retrospectives I suppose.
Sea of Stars is progressing well, but I suspect I’m still fairly early into the game; very much love it though. Finally got around to taking on a bit of the crafting back log around HQ over the weekend as well; still a smidgen of a stockpile, but seeing a dent in it helps tremendously.
One week at a time, and we got this. Y’all have a wonderful Monday!
Her Past
There we were… just standing there, in Lower Jeuno. It was rather jarring for me, but I suspect for Aikirees, it was a far different feeling. A feeling that I could only ever imagine, and one do I not suspect many if anyone around her could. The stories she told ‘Tess’ and I growing up, all those years ago, we thought they were just that.
Aikirees told many stories about Vana’diel when we were all very young, still living in southern Othard. She told the tales of how she grew up in a placed called The Republic of Bastok, before traveling to a Gustaberg, highlands named Konschtat, sandy dunes of Vulkurm. Adventuring through those places and seeing a Kingdom of Sand.. Sand’Oria I believe she called it, Federation of Windurst, and of course Grand Duchy of Jeuno.
Vana’diel to her was far more that just stories she kept telling us, with tales talking about the the aforementioned, but so many more places in such detail as well! Aikirees would insistingly keep telling ‘Tess’ and I that this was all real and she had been there. We would usually just dryly humor her in agreement in fear of getting mother’s wrath upon us for teasing Aikirees. I think she knew we were doing so, but looking back, I wish I had listened and believed her more…
Somehow, in some way however, mother seemed to always know she was right. ‘Tess’ and I never really did understand what mother meant, but it seemed to resonate with Aikirees, and it made her happy. Even after we fled our village to start anew in Kugane years later, she still would tell the tales from Vana’diel, even if she told the same one multiple times – she certainly had her favorites!
Even with us being older, and I still just thought they were fiction, she found comfort in telling them and I began to take a similar sensation in hearing what she told to the point where I’d engage back asking about specifics. She always knew what to say as well!
Once she grew into her Summoner role in Eorzea, she picked the outfit she wears to this day claiming it was the one she wore in Vana’diel. While initially I thought it was a rather… unique combination, I can understand why she adores it so much – even more so now witnessing what I have.
I looked over at her, grabbed her paw and gave it a gently squeeze. She didn’t really react, just kept looking over Lower Jeuno. Knowing she knew everything about this place and how much it meant to her made me want to hug her so badly, but I resisted the temptation.
“I’m sorry… So sorry for how we treated you all those years ago. This was your home at one point, in another life, wasn’t it? We’ll set this right, we’ll fix this just like we always do – together.” A faint smile appeared on Aikirees’s face, nearly invisible to see unless one was around her as long as I have been. Still not reacting, aside from a gently squeeze back to my hand in return.
~For Vana’diel, ‘Little’ One~
The Trail Has Been Dawned 7.1
Alright, let’s talk about the Main Scenario Quest in 7.1. Major Spoilers for MSQ 7.1 upon clicking ‘Continue Reading!’
Happy Starlight & Holidays 2024
Happy Starlight Season to everyone! May it be an absolutely wonderful holiday season for everyone out there!
Aikirees and I got the tree up in HQ for the season’s festivities along with putting our outfits together. I’m… probably not going to wear the reindeer antlers the entire season, but I am happy that I’m now able to with my glasses.
Let’s make the last month of 2024 stellar!
Rest and Sideways Progress
Hope everyone had a very wonderful and relaxing Thanksgiving holiday this past week/weekend. I got much needed rest and made some headway on tasks that I was starting to get concerned about. There’s still things to be done, but the focus is starting to funnel a specific direction instead of being colandered different ways.
Might have mentioned this last week, but started Sea of Stars last week as well, and fell in love with it nearly immediately. After spending a few hours with it, I really want to see where this goes. The battles are not quick, but intuitive and being turn-based gives me time to process them instead of panicking to react quickly. It’s a nice change of pace and pretty fair with it so far. Shelved Portrait of Ruin right now, as I need some time to think about tasks in it now.
Started the newest season of Doctor Who, and… so far don’t really like it honestly. There’s fun parts for certain, but the overall tone of it just isn’t working for me. That’s just me though and it is fun mostly, so someone else’s mileage will vary. I don’t know if I’ll continue this season or not though as I’m starting to feel that my time could be better utilized elsewhere – being as busy as I’ve been and all.
Weekly Final Fantasy XIV is still looking pretty much the same with with Jeuno: The First Walk being newly added as a weekly task for goodies. That will last about 13 weeks and then stop until 7.2 where it all changes again then. Just have two classes left to level and all of the ones we play will be taken care of again!
The 7.1 Main Scenario post will be up in the next day or so, but the Vana’Diel one will take more time as that’s just so much to talk about. There’s probably going to be a snapshot or so adjacently related to that being put up this week too, but it’s not really a spoiler in relation to it (nor will I post anything about the raid itself without a warning).
There’s still a lot of other little things to work on when time too, crafting keeps coming to mind near immediately. Just been a slew of RL tasks/issues/projects that just won’t. stop. coming. up. Hopefully soon, and I know I keep saying that, but a breather would be nice in the near future.
Did pull out of storage an on & off hobby of mine, a small model train set I’ve been working on over the years. After some attempts to fix one and clean up another locomotive engine, I was left with just the one, and as of last night, none due to I’m not even sure what happened. I got some items on order to hopefully get it up and running, otherwise I’m down two engines and the time/expense towards it all. If it is really a bust then I’ll more than likely put this hobby on hold indefinitely as it just feels like a perpetual problem every single time I want to work on it.
Kind of a messy recap, and I won’t dwell on a lot of this. There’s a lot of crazier/darker/sadder things happening out there right now, and so much very much to be thankful for currently. Be wonderful y’all, and kick lots of tail! Happy first week of December!
We got this!
More Progress. Yearning for Rest.
Here we are, the first holiday week. Last week ended on a near 12 hour day after perpetual 10-11 hour ones. Not a great way to end it, but not necessarily upset about it; just really and truly would like things to re-balance out again. As for the weekend itself, it was pretty decent in terms of getting things done, but nowhere near where I need to be, so hoping this longer weekend will help with that. It was potentially on the chopping block due to the office wanting to stay open on Friday, but I’m putting my paw down in that regards.
Audio Project is heading into the next major phase; the reorganizing part has gone pretty well so far. The whole library is merged once again, so now it’s just cleaning up some of the album’s naming and the artwork, then off to getting all of it on the network for playing. That’s going to be so exciting when it’s done!
Dabbled in a little bit of Portrait of Ruin still, but kind of stuck now looking for the last little goodies that I’m missing (PoR didn’t do a great job with this), so will have to reference some maps and quests notes to finish it all up and then move on to Dawn of Sorrow. Parallel to that, finally started Sea of Stars and I am already looking forward to playing a lot more of that!
Final Fantasy XIV posts are coming, but will need some breather time to work on them. Patch 7.11 is tomorrow and that’s going to fix a bunch of things including the PS4 controller issue, so looking very much forward to that. Mostly progressing through the new Jeuno Raid and typical weeklies, and that’s not going to change very much for the foreseeable future. Really do just want to have a night of chatting again, but pinning it down right now is just so difficult.
The Talk of Skies of Blue
I’ll preface this with the internet is becoming so negative, that being on here in regards to any social media is wading through a lot of backhanded, passive aggressive, angry, hateful, and generally just negative remarks. The last time I was on Mastodon, it was 2/3rd’s something related to the above and 1/3rd genuinely positive or something of that regard (artwork, photos, life update, etc.). It’s exhausting to try and keep up to even weed it all out, to feel almost like a full time job in itself. I have way, way, waaay, too much going on right now to do this.
This leads me to hearing whispers on Mastodon and elsewhere about Bluesky. As of this writing, Bluesky has been the upcoming ‘successor’ to Classic Twitter well before Elon Musk took over. The reason I love Mastodon is it/was very interactive and literally everyone I met on there we had lovely chats with (aside from one person), and because of this, I made a lot of good friends there, we created the Frendedex for making events and hanging out, and even why I have three amazing friends in EOCA now. Classic Twitter (circa 2009-2012) was more like this, and back then I made a few wonderful friends too. Sadly, just due to time & life, I lost contact with them. I just hope to this day I hope they’re still doing well.
Bluesky has what more modern Twitter’s issue has – followers & numbers. I’d rather have 10 or so followers that I interact with on the daily than 1,000+ that I never do. Back in those early years, that’s what it was and it was wonderful. Mastodon is, and still mostly is, like this – sans the aforementioned negativity. Making another social media account to just start over and ‘work’ at makes no sense to me; I have my career job that I work hard in and I enjoy dearly, with EOCA being the other (albeit more hobby-style focus) that I have worked so hard to maintain and I love how it has evolved.
Being with all of this said, I will reiterate from the friends I have made, social media does have good and can be helpful for seeing what people are up to, but right now, everyone just needs to stop being so angry about everything (I understand why to a degree, but it’s not going to solve anything yelling into the void). Maybe at that point, if it ever does happen, I’ll return.
In the meantime, I’ll keep checking in over there when I can periodically, but I will very much not likely be seeing what Bluesky has to offer because I do not care one bit about all the stuff that comes with it.
I think that’s all I have for this one. Oh, decided to see if my trains worked again. After some tinkering, they seem to be okayish, but I’ll have to research how to clean them up a bit better.
Y’all have a wonderful finale to November. Y’all got this! Keep being wonderful!
The Week Before
…Well as expected yesterday was nightmarish levels of busy to the point of getting settled in for the evening at home was around 22:00 comparing that being up and running yesterday morning around 07:00. This week isn’t looking much better, at least right now, so it’s probably going to be a bit scarce here unfortunately.
However, with it being this turbulent this week, next week (and thereafter until close to December holidays), it should begin to return to some sort of normalcy – hopefully.
Kick tails y’all, have a wonderful Tuesday!
Catching Up & Moving Forward
Most of this weekend was catching up from the chaos that was last week, and this included everything we put off due to Patch 7.1’s launch. We did hear back in regards to the PS4 controllers not working via Bluetooth and it’s apparently due to not using the official PS4 USB receiver that I, and probably most folks, have forgotten was a thing. The next patch, 7.11, that’s to be fixed to allow for a bypass that if it’s not using said adapter, it will work like it used to prior to 7.1.
Personally, that’s all I wanted. Apparently there’s some fancier features the game utilizes if one uses the official adapter instead of just any old Bluetooth connection. I just want to use the controller again, not really concerned with any additional bells & whistles it could potentially do with the official adapter.
Anyway, aside from that, there’s still more RL tasks to address, but those will have to wait till this upcoming weekend or the holiday one after that. Some of it is kind of getting critical, while others are just nice to try and get it all done sooner than later – one being the audio project, which that has reached organization mode now as all of the legwork has been taken care of. Portrait of Ruin is reaching the climax as well, and decided to watch Wolverine & Deadpool too. Wolverine & Deadpool was alright, but I think even Ryan Reynolds can’t fix what Marvel Cinema/Disney has already done, so I think for now I’m staying away from any/all superhero movies.
I’m going to hopefully have at the very least the MSQ recap up this week. Echoes of Vana’diel recap may not be up this week as there’s a lot more to discuss in that regards. I will say I loved the first raid for this series and want to see more of where that goes. The MSQ… well, not so much right now, and that’s fine. I’m glad to be experiencing it, but it’s a far cry from the 6.x series or the 5.x series to me thus so far.
That’s all I got for this one. Happy Monday y’all! Let’s make the week before Thanksgiving an absolutely wonderful one! Kick lot’s of tail!
Sisters’ Fashion Report Adventure LV
Episode LV! – When one wants to relax, be lazy, and lounge around in comfy clothes, but also have to be an void entity from the Thirteenth stuck in a mansion. I’m fairly certain a couple of denizens from there would look at us in bewilderment.