But first, Tea.

As someone who was born, raised, currently lives, and will die at the equator, spring will always be a foreign concept. Spring was something I read in Enid Blyton books, of hours-long showers where children stayed home, looking forward to frolicking in flowers after. The Lunar New Year celebrates the transition of seasons I do not experience firsthand.

When the grass is always green, when the rain stops after a brief but violent storm only to start again tomorrow, when fruits follow some vague idea of a 'season' but can be bought almost anytime, the idea of looking forward to a single season for rebirth is absurd. Every day the land grows. I live in a state of perpetuity.

Perhaps that is my message: Don't look forward to a single time frame when hope is eternal. Wishes need not be fresh. Take as long as you need and want. It is forever.

Don't even wait for the rain to stop. You are fire and you will burn stronger than any attempt to extinguish it. I think...everyone here knows this.

Blaze your trail, leave your mark. The wind will carry your ashes.

My plan is to work backwards (I started on the EW dungeons today) and get all the dungeons and trials safer. The norm and alliance raids are gonna take A While, mostly because I have to run them with people instead of the trust and there's so many more effects to sort through.

In the meantime, if you didn't know, EasyEyes is a plugin for Dalamud (ie it's a mod). You can import presets into it to block all the vfx in the preset without having to run the duty and manually block everything yourself. That's obviously not safe, hence me doing it. You can find it on xma (Safer DT Dungeons and Trials). It's a zip folder with each dungeon and trial labelled as individual presets. You just have to hit import and pick them, super easy.

Please be aware that it's super difficult to turn off vfx in the background, and I left a lot of small vfx untouched for aesthetic, but I very much took out everything glaringly obvious, or that my sister explicitly complained about, and more. Some of the vfx turned off are going to make it harder for you to position yourself to avoid attacks, so please keep that in mind, but safety trumps a healer's feelings!

hello, world [ 01 ] julezen

Plus if the transition or passage of time isn't interesting to write.. it's probably not going to be interesting to read either. Just skip it.

"My name is [low guttural sound] but I don't want to hear you butcher it. So you may call me She Who Arises With The Cold Mountain Sun."

"...Is that what your name really means? All that in just one word?"

"Yes. If you stress the wrong syllable it comes out as 'She Who Coldly Wakes Up The Mountain Sun', or 'The Cold Woman Who Wakes The Mountain Sun', and you will not call me that."

"Oh, huh. Could we just call you Mountain Sun, for short?"

Painting this dark terrifies me.

It’s this new painting approach I’m still trying to experiment with toward something that feels dreamy and moody. Watercolor isn’t’ the most forgiving when painting this dark, but maaaan it turned out pretty dope in the end!

#brbchasingdreams

Practice your Eorzean!

Saw this post and thought hey! Now that's a great idea! So I did it. On the left is the in game font, and on the right is what I'm calling "Simplified Eorzean", where I took the same theory as when you're teaching a kid how to write. My goal was to simplify the shapes and strokes as much as possible, while still making it the same letter. This way it (should) be easier to practice disregarding the rules and making it in your own handwriting! Under the cut I've placed a stroke/letter guide, and also a blank sheet(With some optional prompts) for practice. Happy writing!

EDIT: Was brought to my attention this is difficult for some people to read- Thank you! So I've added some (hopefully) more accessible versions of every image under the cut as well. Please let me know if you have trouble/what ways I can make it more readable!