I got second place!! Not bad at all! I didn’t think I would do that well and was very surprised to see so many votes for my entry. I just got my prize in the mail and it’s quite nice. The prize consisted of three things: Life in Vana’diel (book), the FFXI OST, and a white mage’s testimony. Each item came in a separate package and two of the packages had my address written in calligraphy!

Life in Vana’diel

This is a nifty book that is entirely in Japanese so I can’t understand it, but it seems like it goes over the backgrounds of NPCs and zones of the four main cities (San d’Oria, Bastok, Windurst, and Jeuno). This entire section is almost all hand drawn. In the middle it goes over the beastmen and their respective zones and following it is the Artifact section which has awesome drawings of folks in AF. At the end is the History section with timelines and maps and stuff. It also comes with a DVD that talks about the history or geography or something of Vana’diel; it’s long and also in Japanese.

Final Fantasy XI OST

This package came with a little card that says “From L [LordWafik’s symbol] with love”.

White Mage’s Testimony

The green package the testimony came in says “Rare Ex” like the real deal! Each winner received one of these testimonies hand written in calligraphy that states their name and job of choosing. Unfortunately I can’t find the exact translation because it seems like BG forums were reset, but I imagine it’s what’s on the testimony in game.

“The bearer of this document has proven excellence in the ways of the white mage.”

I’ve gone into sheer panic/anxiety mode. I want to look at the poll results so far, but at the same time I don’t want to see them. I really want to win this contest and I worked for several weeks - since the contest was announced - on my entry. The voting doesn’t end til June 3; surely I will have a heart attack from anticipation! Anyway there’s two polls for the contest because they couldn’t fit all the results into one poll: here and here.

I think I will try to distract myself by doodling or SCH or something _-_

I finally did a half-ass update on my art site and added two mithra sketches@Good Morning! and made a layout for catatouille’s main page. go check them out if you feel like it.

Lately I’ve been really getting into Pankration with Hakkuro! We’ve been running around Vana’diel trying to take sexy sexy photos of monsters, begging them to smile while we steal their souls. Hakkuro knows a lot about Pankration and is able to read Japanese sites for further info as English sites are a bit lacking in data.

Hakkuro has made a powerful magic princess Soulflayer named The Prinzessin. To start out with I too used a Soulflayer named Radiant Butcher (inspired by the butcher from the movie Delicatessen) to earn jettons. However I have no real plans for him and do not intend to make him my “main” pet.

Before I was a bard or a white mage I was a thief! I did all sorts of thiefy things and that included picking coffers for cash and fun. But I was only level 60… which meant a lot of mimics. These terrifying creatures have kicked my ass numerous times when I was unable to insta-warp fast enough. That gave me the idea to create the ultimate pet, the monster under the bed, “The Monster”. And truly he is not a creature to be taken lightly. He won his first two fights at level 6 while Monsieur Boucher had only won one and he’s level 31!

Mai is making me post and suggested I write something about playing white mage :\ My thoughts are kind of disorganized so this may or may not make sense. This is NOT a comprehensive guide on how to play Whm. You can find that on the allakhazam White Mage forums.

Playing a “fast” Whm is actually pretty easy… The trick is to know what you’re up against so you can prepare your macro/casting before the tank is dead/there are negative status effects.

Just know what the monster’s scary moves are beforehand. It’s easy to look it up on http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org ; take note of any peculiarities that the monster has for example Ultima has Wire Cutter so be prepared for a quick Cure V when you see it, keep yourself hasted throughout the fight because he uses Chemical Bomb and the tank will have a powerful Slow and Elegy on him so he needs double Erase, etc.

Also, know who your tank is! Is it a Thf with lots of Magic Defense Bonus (hereon known as MDB)? a Paladin with none?

Here is a “know your tank” scenario with J-Lo:

J-Lo casts devastating -ga III spells and single-target IV spells and various other things and changes elements when he farts. Ideally he does no physical attacks.

For example, our main tanks for J-Lo are Mr. Pink and Mr. Blonde. Mr. Pink comes as Rdm/Nin and Mr. Blonde comes as Nin/Drk. Mr. Pink is RDM so he can Haste, Refresh, and Bar- himself so it’s unnecessary to do any of that for him and he also has a crapload of MDB gear. Mr. Blonde has less MDB and needs all the buffs from a mage.

The only thing you have to really watch out for is J-Lo’s -ga III spells because the AOE will eat up the tanks’ Utsusemi. It will only hit one tank at a time so use your /assist < stnpc> (most likely you will have to target J-Lo manually then use the macro) macro to see who the hate is on. If it’s Mr. Pink, the RDM, you only need to Cure III because of his MDB and stronger Barspell, if it’s Mr. Blonde get ready to Cure V that sucka!

The same technique applies to casting Erase and -na spells. Which brings me to the prioritizing of what spells you cast. This is more concerned with MP conservation because I am a mithra and my gear isn’t all that great (and I’m /blm only lol). This varies from person to person, but for me it’s usually Cure->Silena->Paralyna->Haste (on a tank).

Once you have taken care of the tank, take a look at who else might need healing and use your judgement as to what spell is needed e.g. a Mnk/War does not need Silena or Viruna so don’t waste your MP on that.

Sidenote: I hate casting Blindna unless the person important to the fight. Blindna has an unnecessarily long cast and recast time, time that can be used for more important status ailments/cures or resting.

I guess that’s all I can think of for now.

things I want to do/should do:

1. Exp Brd/merit Whm
2. Level Sch
3. Level Blm
4. Farm
5. Watch YouTube/drink tea/JC
6. Have a nap
7. Work on .dats

What I end up doing: 5, 6. My FFXI workload is piling up D: *sips tea*

Wednesday, I got a rogetsureiengiwneren (however you spell it) for my BLU from that Benedjwhejgie Vwhekr guy, but I’ve yet to use it. I think I have 10 ranged weapons/ammo things now not including instruments. I’ve been too tired to do anything especially productive in FFXI except for duckie events which are always fun/interesting/leave me po’. Jarjar today went smoothly and it was pretty hilarious watching people run around like chickens with their heads cut off (the boss had no hate table).

A couple people have asked me about me being Tarutaru (it’s just more fun sometimes!) well here’s a link to the program I use: click me! It has its issues but it makes it really easy to change equips/race; easier than PlasticSurgeon in my opinion (although PS is “better” in that you don’t “blink” when you change equips/zone/talk to NPC, etc.)

I’ve finally got my hands on the XP Japanese language pack and Metasequoia opens for me now! Hopefully this will fix my issues in VRS as well. Expect some more dat mods from in the future I have a “more feminine” version of Mithra 8A/B in the works, but I’m too lazy to take screenshots so I guess I’ll post it later. I also plan on changing the stupid default WordPress faces.

And now for some random images + mini-aene sketch I’d like to color at some point: Read the rest of this entry »

Tonight’s big event was Proto-Omega! I bought some expensive food because I thought it was going to be some hard fight but it took like ten minutes and no one died. I was so disappointed. But we did get some lovely items (I think): hands, body, head. I forgot to take a screenshot. Oh well

Then we headed over to sky and killed some stuff and got some other stuff blahblah. Farming is pretty boring :< so here’s some random images of sky instead.

P.S. I couldn’t help but make a new 404 page! Those tarus are damn happy that the file’s not found.

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Trying to get different layouts to work was a pain, but I think I finally managed to get what I wanted~ I don’t know who created the top image, but credit goes to whoever did it;

I recently joined Timeless for Dynamis and DuckHUNT for everything else. DH is chill and has a set schedule with fun events (and no HNM!) so I finally have a chance to explore “end game” without any elitist pressure or whatever. I’ve been doing lots of random stuff lately and I don’t feel like going over it all in detail! so here’s a little collage of a lot of “firsts”.
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