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i'm getting desperate

Question of the Day!

Author/character dynamics aside, would you and your WoL get along?

(submitted by anonymous)

Aigead Siorc is pretty heavily based on me so I'd like to think we'd get along.

Something that I like to do for FFXIVWrite is take screenshots to accompany the fics I write. Usually I try to depict a moment from the fic itself if possible, or at the very least something that gives you an idea of what to expect from the fic (by capturing the vibes, y'dig).

Something I thought would be fun* (*expensive) to do this year is to have Aigead look how she did during the events portrayed. I have, thankfully, taken a LOT of screenshots during my time playing this game, so I end up with a LOT of material to reference exactly what she had for outfits and hairstyles at the time. This does mean spending a minimum of 4k on the Aesthetician in most cases just for the purposes of a single screenshot.

These are posted alongside the fic going up on Twitter, but here on Cohost I tend to just update my archival chost with links, so as Cohost only lets me upload four images per post, here's the first four screenshots of FFXIVWrite! Looking forward to doing more!

Check out what I've done for FFXIVWrite 2023 so far here!

Eight days in means four more screenshots taken to accompany my FFXIVWrite fics! Slightly less hassle on this group considering I didn't need to bother with the aesthetician for two of them and of the remaining screenshots, I only needed to change Aigead's highlight color for one of them.

I remember when Endwalker was on the horizon, I made it my mission to get the entire Edenmete fending set since I thought it looked really cool and I really wanted to play through (most of) Endwalker with it, at least as a glam. I ended up doing the Shadowkeeper fight so much that I could pretty reliably MT it. Now there's a Shadowkeeper mount on the cash shop!! It's a shame I don't have the money for it, I feel like I deserve it at this point.

Thanks to everyone so far who has read and enjoyed these continuing adventures, escapades, and, dare I say, shenanigans of Gentlewoman Adventurer Aigead Siorc. It's been a lot of fun getting to stretch my writing muscles a bit more and explore different aspects of the character!

Four more days means four more screenshots! Generally when I take these to post alongside fics, I try to just take them Raw from the game itself. Yeah, I'll mess with color filters, lighting, etc in gpose, but I don't usually try to do anything too Fancy™.

This time around, however, we've got a couple that I've edited together in order to better represent the fic. The first is for day 9, "Fair," which is a story in which Aigead takes a below-the-belt hit during a sparring match, and I couldn't think of any better way to express That Particular Experience than "superimposed screaming bnuuy." Speaking of which, do you know how nice it is to have the Frighten emote for that eye glow? Before the best thing I had was the animation for the Great Vessel of Ronka and that one, like. Kind of sucks in comparison.

Anyways, the second edited fic thumbnail we've got is for day 12, "Dowdy." You'd think a prompt with Fashion™ connotations would be a slam-dunk for Aigead, but truth is I had a fair bit of problems figuring out what I wanted to do with this one.

I've done a decent job getting these in on time this month, but I'm not sure there's any among them just yet that I feel especially proud of. I wonder if maybe I'm limiting myself somehow from doing anything particularly ambitious; last year, for example, I'd have to say the standouts for me were Somewhere In Chaos, We All Find Ourselves and Lead Me to Somewhere Far Away (neither of which I'd recommend reading if you haven't gotten up through the end of Endwalker, at least). This isn't a commentary on the prompts for this year, more on my own output.

But that's sort of how it goes, isn't it! The aim isn't to write masterpieces, it's just to Write. And boy howdy have I been Writing.

Four more days, four more screenshots!

I feel like I might be hitting something of a stride, and I believe it's entirely to do with me being more willing to write shorter stories for this batch. Take the Pleasure with the Pain, The Fire in You Never Dies, and Light the Fuse all clock in at, at most, just over a page in length, though I still found myself pretty satisfied with what I'd written in terms of subject and execution.

And on that note, remember when I mentioned above that I hadn't written anything I could say I was proud of yet? Well that actually changed with this group! I honestly think that Who Knows What of Our Future might be my favorite of this month's pieces so far, which I in part attribute to it being something of a spiritual sequel to one of the earliest fics I wrote for Aigead, Eorzea Unsolved. It was a lot of fun to work with a similar kind of story but include new elements to give it its own personality.

One has to wonder how many more Ishgardian nobles with strange facial hair Aigead will run into in her life.

On a more structural note, part of the shift to shorter stories likely has to do with my return to streaming. Right now, as part of an effort to showcase more games and raise money to help with various expenses and bills, I currently stream quite a bit during my off days and have less time to commit to writing, which usually results in me needing to write either later at night or the next morning. As much of an issue as this is, it has helped me accept the smaller works a little bit easier.

As always, thank you for enjoying the continuing adventures of Aigead Siorc!

good lord has it been four more days already

This group of fics includes a few stories that I had been eager to tell. "Aigead trying to think up dramatic names to give herself" was a concept I tried to keep in my back pocket until a good prompt came along, but in the end I used it for one of the Free Choice days. Here's Hoping I Don't Regret That. The events taking place after Castrum Fluminis is something I've always wanted to commit to writing, especially since Yotsuyu is by far one of my favorite antagonists. And what cosmic synergy there was in that she was also the subject of today's "XIVdays" drawing prompt, meaning a bunch of artist put out some fantastic pieces of her. Not only that, but my copy of Eorzea Academy (in which she and, unfortunately, Asahi are featured fairly prominently) also came in! The stars aligned for this story it seems.

Lastly, Aigead's discovery in the Sil'dihn Subterrane was something I came up with almost immediately upon discovering the particular route you find the room described in the story on. It honestly just seemed too perfect, as if it was made specifically for me to assimilate into Aigead's canon. Thanks, Yoshi-P!

Day 18's prompt, "A Fish Out of Water," ended up being a bit more difficult for me to come up with an idea for. My immediate thought was that, well, Aigead's always been a fish out of water since like. The day she realized she was a living being. So I thought, what if that's what the story's about? How she copes with that? And thus we have her introspection.

Oh! And since I promised I'd talk about the thumbnail for that one, I've put some more stuff under the cut. Thanks for keeping up so far!

sweet beans the month is nearly over. regardless, here's four more screenshots!

I'm gonna be real with ya: This batch of stories might be my best yet. I don't think there's a single one here I'm not immensely proud of, whether they're depicting more lighthearted or serious moments in Aigead's life. Let's take a look, shall we?

Days 21 and 22 ended up focusing on Hildibrand stuff! The Hildibrand questline has always been a major part of Aigead's canon, in part because They Are Quite Simply Some Of The Best Sidequests In The Game. However, as much as I like to put Aigead in comedic situations, she is not always a comedic character, and thus some things that are played for laughs in-game are unfortunately no laughing matter for her. As such, when certain characters very suddenly go missing, it can be a very serious moment for her, which is where Day 21's fic comes from. Day 22's fic is probably the earliest singular depicted moment I have specifically from Heavensward's story save a scene in The Drake and the Dragoon. It was actually somewhat difficult finding a spot to put this scene in, but thankfully with a splash of uncomfortable social interactions I managed to find something.

Day 23 gave me the chance for a fun, lighthearted scene about Aigead trying on clothes, which is always a fun topic to play around with. I always relish getting to write dialogue between Aigead and Maya. My wife actually got a little cross with me because she had been planning to write a suit-fitting story before she saw that I had done so. Whoops! (What she did write for that prompt is still excellent though)

Which brings us to Day 24. The events of In From the Cold and their effect on Aigead in the long term is something I've touched upon before, back in It's Not That Deep. This is obviously not the first time Zenos has popped up in FFXIVWrite this month and may not be the last; that I chose this particular scene to write out in Aigead's story is in part because I hope to also write out a later encounter as well and felt having this scene established to show exactly how Aigead feels about the crown prince would be important. Much like It's Not That Deep, however, I do worry that maybe I go a little too hard trying to get the emotion across, it's not something I'm super good at so I'm not necessarily good at balancing it out.

As I said, I'm actually pretty genuinely proud of this batch and think the screenshots I took for it are similarly solid in terms of capturing the scene or vibes! Thanks again to everyone who's been keeping up, I hope you've enjoyed this month so far!

FOUR. MORE. DAYS. by the way this part of the post is being written at nearly 2 AM the night before, future Gage don't forget to add descriptions to each screenshot and talk about your hopes for the final two days of FFXIVWrite

wow, thanks for the reminder, me from last night. This group of fics were much more casual in their tone, mostly focusing on conversations between characters. This is, in part, for practical reasons: my wife's birthday was this week and my parents are visiting for it, so my mind is mostly occupied by that. Not a lot of time for planning out anything particularly elaborate or pouring over cutscenes to adapt them to Aigead's story.

I think I've talked about this before but stories not based around specific events in-game are always a bit more difficult to place, in my mind. The fic for day 27, "Sole," is actually a sequel of sorts to a pair of fics from last year, It's Not That Deep and Somewhere in Chaos, We All Find Ourselves (if you assume the latter is the story Aigead tells at the end of the former, which is how I planned them). Since those take place after a specific event in 6.2, the new one is easy to place. Day 28's fic for "Blunt" similarly has a clear point of reference in the form of the 5.5 dungeon.

For something like Day 26's fic for "Last," technically I could have set it anywhere within the timeline. The fact that I chose to place it in Endwalker's aftermath is a symptom of me keeping up with Endwalker as it comes out so in my mind Aigead ends up with a lot of time between patches, whereas I finished everything up through ShB in the span of a few weeks so if I didn't think otherwise I'd be inclined to call it "the wildest month of Aigead Siorc's life."

With two days left in FFXIVWrite, I find myself with certain hopes for these last couple days: I think it would be Really Neat if one of the last two prompts gave me a good idea for another fic of Aigead and Maya exploring more haunted shit. The "Star Haunters" bit was one of my favorites I conceived last year and I'd love to continue it. I also hope one of them gives me an idea for writing about Aigead and Zenos' last battle, as I feel like one recurring element of this year's batch was me fleshing out that conflict.

See y'all at the finish line!

THE FINAL TWO

hey remember a couple days ago when i said i hoped there would be prompts good for either a Star Haunters bit or for one about the final battle with Zenos? guess what bitch got all their wishes granted (me, i'm that bitch in this scenario).

A bit of background: the Star Haunters fics are based on me and my wife @GhostieNaps watching clips of Shane Madej and Ryan Bergara and commenting on how their rapport is just Aigead and Maya, respectively, especially when it comes to spirits. Maya would be the one who would want to be entirely respectful while Aigead would be picking fights. Thus did I begin to conceive scenarios with which they would come up against ghosts and how I could work that as something that exists within the realm of Eorzea. With the advent of the Endwalker Hildibrand quests, the Thavnairian Truth would probably have been the more logical rag for Aigead to send her recordings into, but I like to think she's friendly with just enough staff writers for The Mythril Eye that she manages to get things published there.

Y'know, I actually had trouble picking the setting for this one. I considered the graveyard outside Camp Drybone, but I feel like going there would be a step too far beyond the realm of good taste for Aigead. Then I remembered the tombs in Gyr Abania! From there the rest fell into place.

Now, as for "WHAT I'M MADE OF," this year saw me touching upon Aigead's "relationship" with Zenos and how she reacts to him a lot, actually. It seemed fitting that one of my fics should, shall we say, close the book on that by showing their final battle. Doing fics of events that actually happen in canon is always a double-edged sword; on the one hand, a lot of the dialogue is already there, I just need to transcribe it. On the other, it can be a chore to try and work out how to make these scenes more "personal," rather than just transcripts of what happens in-game. I also found myself writing a fight scene again! I think I did a pretty good job hitting all the major points, though I could have used a few more "A TEST OF YOUR REFLEXES"s.

Truth be told, I actually wanted to expand more on the clash between Aigead's Esteem and Zenos's avatar, something in the form of like a full-on JoJo Stand battle. Alas, the deadline loomed and I did not get the chance to expand upon the scene in the way I wished. Even so, I'm particularly proud of that fic, and think it was a phenomenal way to close out the month.

I'm pleased to have gone blow-for-blow with every prompt this month, closing it out with a full 30 days worth of entries. And every single goddamned one was titled after a Sonic the Hedgehog lyric. So, y'know, W's all around for me.

Excited because today's FFXIVWrite presents an excellent opportunity for more supernatural fun.