Lots of new people around, and I’ve not done one of these yet for myself for whatever reason, but, tis something I’ve needed to.
I’m Karo (the mun), started here Sept of 2019 as a way to finally be able to react to FC and other friends writing and such--and as a place to finally start stretching my *own* writing legs and post some of the screenshots I so loved taking somewhere a little more staying than a Discord server. There’s occasionally some spicy writing or art, but I do my best to tag absolutely everything appropriately--so please watch for that!
I do a lot of reblogging, and try to remember to post some of my own stuff scattered in, but I’m forever in awe of my friend’s works and those that I’ve started following in the past few years. I don’t reblog as much as I probably should, and have been going through spurts of putting tons of stuff in my drafts to tag and queue up in batches. That said, I’m still shocked about how many people have followed my little space here on the internet. <3 Thank you all.
This is my main Tumblr, and the one that gets updated with just about everything. I mainly post about Karoiseka, my FFXIV OC, but my others will make appearances as well. Kar’azem is my Azem, and I’m currently replaying the game on a Hythlodaeus bunny alt. I may eventually make a second one for Kar’a, but as of right now, she’s just tied in here for better or worse.
I do have a secondary aesthetics page for Karo @bardicsapphiredreams so if you want to give that a go, it’s also there for general reference.
AO3 also has a page by me found here, of which is mostly just my FFXIVWrite events--but also a Wondrous Tails prompt list and my (currently) one stand-alone fic for the trio.
I currently also have a Twitter, but we shall see what happens with that, but not going to drop it until ::vague hand waving::
I’ll do a couple of introductions of my OCs under the cut, but thank you again for stopping by and taking a peek around! My ask box is always open, and even though it might take me a while, I do try to get to all of them!
Karoiseka O’dayla
((art below by @lightsintheskye))
Warrior of Light, Bard, Miqo’te, mischief maker, and in a triad with G’raha and Thancred as of 5.3 MSQ. She grew up near the Twelveswood with her Da and Pa, and lost all her personal memories during the 7th Calamity. Setting off on her own 5 years later, she starts off a the Archer’s guild, and... well... read the rest! Her story is scattered and a quite a bit out of order, but a lot is currently written in the four years of FFXIVWrite prompts!
Kar’azem Vandor
Kar’azem, formally Ikaus, is Azem. She grew up knowing Hades, and was approached by Hythlodaeus, the two becoming quite the chaotic duo before taking the Convocation seat. She has no qualms that Hyth has two hands and became quite smitten with Hades, and is happy he has someone in the city while she goes exploring and adventuring all over the star. The seat of Azem suits her well, never wanting to sit still for long!
Hythlodaeus Pensaer
Not much to say, but if you see him running around, give a wave!
I also have 2 other alts (Rynera O’dayla and a Wind-up Karo) that are currently only being brought out at holiday events, but at some point Rynera may get a story-overhaul. ^_^ Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you around!
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A few people have shown interest in replicating the pride backlighting I did, so hey, here’s a quick tutorial below the cut.
Enjoy, and happy Pride Month. 🏳️🌈
STEP 1 — SETUP
First thing you’ll want to do is find a suitably dark background to bounce the light off of. I use the White Screen housing item dyed Soot Black, available from the Housing Merchant or Apartment Merchant in any of the housing zones for 3000 gil.
I line up 2-3 of them for coverage, but one will do if you're trying to be frugal.
If you don’t have an apartment or an FC room to use, try asking friends, FC mates, or even folks you share a Discord server with. You might even find someone who already has a studio space set up and is willing to let you use it!
Lighting in your studio space should be 0 (though you might have success at 1 as well), so make sure to adjust that or ask the studio owner if they can make that change before you start posing.
STEP 2 — GPOSE
Position your character(s) just a little ways back from the edge of the screen. You want some space between them and the screen so that the lighting can float there without casting a weird circle on the wall.
Hop into /gpose and bump up the “Manual brightness adjustment” to about 120 or whatever level allows you to see your character well enough to pose them. Pose to your heart's content.
STEP 3 — LIGHTS
Here’s the fun part. In the Light tab of the Gpose menu, switch all of your Light sources to Type 1, which has the shortest falloff radius (meaning it doesn't reach as far as Type 2 or 3). I also set all of my lights to one strong color to differentiate them while I worked on lighting—red, green, and blue, all maxed out at 255 (for now).
Swing your camera (still on all default settings) around to your character’s back and up above their head a little ways. This is where Light 1 (red) will go.
Now pan your camera down at about mid-back height and set Light 2 (green) there.
Pan your camera down one last time until you have a nice shot of your character’s butt and set Light 3 (blue).
If you have "circles" that appear on the background behind your character, your lights are little too close to the backdrop. Pull your camera in towards your character just a bit more to reposition your lights. I recommend doing this at a Camera Position setting of 100 so that your sense of "close" and "far" aren't skewed by extreme Field of View (FOV). You can adjust that once you're happy with light positions.
Spin your camera back around and enjoy this nice little macaw-colored gradient.
STEP 4 — CAMERA
Set your camera angle.
The way FFIXV’s lighting works is partially dependent on how much light is in a shot. It will adjust a lot like your eyes do when you’re entering a dark room from a bright room, or vice versa. Your zoom level and camera angle are going to directly affect the lighting, so set this before you start messing with light strength and color. Sometimes this means weaker lighting will actually light your character better.
I ended up bringing my lights down to around ~160 and boosted the "Manual brightness adjustment" up quite a bit to get lighting I was happier with.
For a straightforward vertical shot, I like to have my Camera Position/FOV at 200 and of course my rotation is set to 90. Zoom in or out as needed. Remember to save your camera angle if you plan to pan around and fix things!
STEP 5 — COLOR
Make it ~queer~.
Take your flag of choice and pick out 2-3 “main” hues. Generally these will be the strongest hues in the flag, if not the only ones. Some flags, like the Pride/Progress/Intersex-Inclusive flag itself, are difficult to replicate for the sheer number of colors that are in it. You can loosely represent a rainbow with some adjustment to the RGB colors, if you’re determined to have a whole rainbow in there.
Shader Note: I recommend picking a shader preset that doesn’t mess too much with color so that colors are represented correctly. You may need to adjust light strength and “Manual brightness adjustment” to be compatible with your preset of choice. Bloom will also heavily affect the way your colors are showing up, so you may need to tone down the bloom FX or toggle it off entirely. This all depends on your preset, however.
If you’re not into RGB math, here are some cheat sheets! Not every flag is represented here of course, but I tried to cover as many colors as I could so that you could grab a color from another flag as needed! Please note that colors will need some adjustment for your own screenshot, presets, and preferences.
And that’s it, y’all! 🏳️🌈
(Open this image up in a new tab for more detail.)
These were taken using a heavily customized shader for that nice glowy effect.
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Another lovely summer is upon us, and that means it's time to celebrate with yet another xiv event!!
Since the plan is to stretch it throughout summer, I’m doing a longer “deadline” for each prompt + an opening and closing day. This way, we can star/end together but still have our own pace in betweens <3
MAKE SURE TO USE: #XIV HEATWAVE FESTIVAL
As always with my prompts: you will get a theme + a specific prompt + a quote. This time, since it's weekly prompts, you can use any of the 3 prompts any time during that week. Be it just one or multiple posts per week, mix and match some of them, skip others entirely - you do you!
— GUIDELINES:
this list is intended for every medium! I once again made sure to add quote prompts to make it easier for writers, but feel free to pick and choose whatever you want: gpose, art, gifs, writing, anything goes!
none of the prompts are mandatory, specially not this time. you have 3 prompts every week to use them as you please!
NSFT works are welcome. You know me by now and know some of those are purposefully suggestive, but feel free to go crazy with any of them! just remember to tag and label them accordingly to those who don't wish to see this type of content.
It starts in JULY, so we have a month to prepare + during the weeks.
Still, if you can't make it on those dates, trust me, there's no real deadline. This is intended for all summer but if you ever feel like following it later, feel free to join!!
Make sure to use and lurk the hashtag: #XIV HEATWAVE FESTIVAL to support your fellow creators and DRINK WATER!
— WRITTEN PROMPT LIST:
JULY 01: heatwave, melting, “it's too hot...”
JULY 02 - 05: water, swimming, “come on.”
JULY 06 - 12: fun, competition, “there are no rules.”
JULY 13 - 19: sunkissed, golden hour, “look at you.”
JULY 20 - 26: beach, bonfire, “don't touch that-”
JULY 27 - AUGUST 02: wander, drifting, “where are we/you?”
AUGUST 03 - 09: fresh, camping/hiking, “try some!”
AUGUST 10 - 16: sweat, bathing, “turn around.”
AUGUST 17 - 22: glow, stargazing, “what was that?”
((Text is all copy-paste form the original found HERE! This is from almost exactly 5 years ago and a G'raha week--one right before I decided to have the trio be a trio. 5.4? 5.5? spoilers (I think 5.5...) but with slightly better pics! I played with lighting for the first time for these and I'm really happy with how they came out! Esp the middle one! The background still caused me issues, but, imagination, yes!))
Karo couldn’t help but to draw parallels to the situation she found herself in now compared to the one only a scant year ago by Source reckoning. To her it felt almost twice as long due to her time on the First, yet, it wasn’t all that long ago when all was said and done. Again she was tucked away in a small apartment in Ala Mhigo, high above the city with one she loved after a confrontation in the Palace Gardens. Her companion though was seeing the city for the first time, standing by the window to take in the outline of the palace on the horizon and the different sounds and smells coming from the city proper. Crisp salt air, quite unlike the cooler air off the lakes of Silvertear or the Source in Lakeland. Spectacular sunsets that took the breath away in their splendor. Stonework steeped in history and blood. The past year had seen the city settle into new patterns, still learning about itself without Imperial rule. Instead of celebration though in the tiny corner they had claimed, the mood was much more somber, retrospective and in Karo’s case a bit angry.
“Just… let me see,” her voice cracked a bit as G’raha turned back to the window to look out onto the city with a shake of his head. It was all her fault they were hurt–that he was hurt. If she had brought her shield instead of her bow, been able to call upon the aether that sang in her veins fast enough to shield them–
“Gods dammit Raha, what good was all this training for if you won’t let me use it?” the oath so spoken softly, as an apology as she reached out, her hand hovering over his left shoulder. Centering herself she pulled on the aether and sent it in a whirlwind seeking the wounds he had hidden from her. They weren’t as bad as she feared, yet the guilt of the entire encounter with Fandanial and Lunar Bahaumt ate at her conscious. The gardens were burning, and maybe–just maybe–if she hadn’t taunted the ascian they wouldn’t be, a dozen people wouldn’t be injured, and they’d have a better idea of where their enemy was and what to do next. Or if she had been prepared for the encounter instead of enamored with the freedom of being home and with her friends once more, instead of treating the situation as dire as it needed to be.
The sensation was new to Karo, despite having as many bonds to various people and entities as she did. Hydaelyn, Feo Ul, Midgardstormmer, Fray, Ardbert, all precious and different. Abandoning caution, she dove into the feeling of him–letting her aether continue to examine him for hurts and heal them–seeping into the sore muscle below to bring relief and deeper healing, even as she felt him doing the same to her. He was a cool spring in the middle of the forest, a warm playful breeze disturbing the surface hiding the depths below. The hair of the back of her neck prickled as he found a particularly heated sore spot and chilled it despite the warmth of the room. His worry, his concern, his love for her in every flickering touch settled her fiery anger and she knew he could feel her emotions as well, their hearts beating together as the aether flowed as one in a healing wind around them.
As the pain receded from both of them, the urgency of the aether wind settled into a teasing breeze, making her crystal hair tassels chime together and his scarf tangle.. They hadn’t moved from the position they started in, yet were closer than ever before; each breath shared, hearts racing as one, skin tingling where hurt phantom lingered after the balm-she could feel where his every injury had lay now soothed. Emotions shared the words they didn’t say aloud–there was no need tied as they were in the moment.
I’m sorry–I shouldn’t have yelled.
I shouldn’t have hid–I’m sorry
Opening her eyes, she could see G’raha doing the same as they blinked slowly at each other, tails whipping around their knees. A different type of heat was building as they met half-way to each other, lips crashing together, fingers digging into hair becoming messy. She could feel their individual desires blurring into one as the day’s trial faded into the background as the hear and now took precedence. Tomorrow would bring its own challenges and trials, but for now, the aether drove them away from the window, hands and mouths seeking the other, gasping at the new sensations as they found each other anew once more.
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