#Iyna Cauld

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Added my ladies to page 6, post#56, on this feedback thread on the NA forums cuz the lack of darker-skinned examples in the graphics and model updates discussions is...concerning to many people.

My example images come from the Dark Knight lvl 50 "Our Answer" cutscene 2, the ARR story climax for that job. The lighting does change a little depending on if doing it during the day or at night.

C'oretta and Dark, for instance, I replayed the scene at night.

For Aeryn and Iyna, I tried during the day.

I only cropped, no other post-processing, and only a barely-there gameplay shader (removes the "gray" and gauss blur effects).

Also for reference: here's my characters' skintone selections, lightest to darkest: C'oretta, Aeryn, Dark, Iyna--who is similar in tone to Erenville, set to be a major figure in Dawntrail, and who wouldn't be the first important NPC to be badly lit and nearly invisible in dark rooms and nighttime scenes.

Not to mention all the roes, elezen, miqos, and auri who have not only dark but fantasy skintones a variety of colors and how obvious it is, from shadowed to washed out, that the game's environmental colors and lighting are NOT tested on anyone but pale-skinned base races.

So give feedback, politely, on the graphics changes you want to see, and those you don't, on the forums.

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Aeryn is in her early 30s at this point. Dark is mid-30s-ish. C'oretta might be getting into mid-20s-ish. Iyna's in her 80s.

Whether the first 3 outlive their loved ones? Eh, who knows? Story will determine that. I do know though that Iyna definitely outlives the others, despite her own expectations, and ends up an elderly viera watching all the changes good and bad come over the world, while keeping her heroic friends' memories alive and fighting to keep their light shining until the end.

What age is your WoL, if they know it? Will they outlive their loved ones?

[driftward]

💭💭💭💭

Zoissette on Aeryn .oO ( I should speak with her once we are done in Omphalos. Oh, and I need to ask her for advice... again. I hope she does not mind. ) Zoissette on Dark .oO ( She has not lambasted me over the investigation fiasco yet... and signed off on my sabbatical. I owe her one. ) Zoissette on C'oretta .oO ( I really do hope she and Reinhardt are keeping each other out of trouble more than they are getting into it. WHY DO I KEEP THINKING ABOUT THIS. )

Zoissette on Iyna .oO ( Ever quiet and competent. I hope she is not put out too badly about the investigation. )

Nyx on Aeryn { It has been a while since she has done something entertaining. I should watch her for a bit. } Nyx on Dark { Mission report completed and turned in. She has been one of my better commanders. } Nyx on C'oretta { I should proposition her. To see what happens. } Nyx on Iyna { Excellent friend. }

[barnaby-wyznfarr]

Commission for @autumnslance of their viera, Iyna Cauld! Thank you for commissioning me! ^.^

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It's been awhile since I did nice pics of Iyna. The new depth of field in gpose is nice.

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Aeryn: Born in Coerthas (Eastern Lowlands, now the Shatter frontline), but spent ages 5-24 in Thavnair (which...how is that not on this list? Aside from tumblr limits)

Dark: Gridanian, born and raised in the East Shroud.

C'oretta: Born and raised in Ul'dah.

Iyna: Born somewhere in Ilsabard, but she was very young when it was taken by Garlemald, and she was shipped to an orphanage/military school to be turned into a good little civilized Garlean citizen (it didn't work very well).

Please feel free to elaborate in the tags!

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GAMMA SLIDER

0, 50, 100 on the Benchmark's Gamma slider in the "Display" tab in Settings. Messing with this can adjust how much light comes through your screen; it's pretty simplified from the in game setting.

If you're experiencing some character color washout even after checking other settings, give this a try. Then make any potential color adjusts in chargen.

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Dark Autumn has a hard time with magic. She technically cannot go above level 10 in any magic-based job. She relies more on dynamis and actual archery for Bard, and is only a Lancer, not a Dragoon.

I've leveled all the jobs on my Roe, but for caster images, it's actually Felina of the Night's Blessed, Dark's lookalike shard in the First.

Iyna's magic use is extremely intuitive, so Arcanima makes her go cross-eyed. Math makes sense in engineering, whatever those mages are doing with it isn't the same.

C'oretta cannot cook. Singing Willow has tried and actually given up even getting the girl to make a decent slice of toast. Do not let PunchyCat use a stove. Or oven. She lives on street vendors, restaurants, friends, and now the vending machines in Solution Nine what a great idea.

Aeryn is barred from the Triple Triad tables in the Gold Saucer. Julyan thought it was too embarrassing. No cardsharp or gambler titles for Miss Striker.

(Aeryn used to have difficulty with magic too - then the 7th Umbral Calamity happened, she went to Eorzea, and now she tries not to think too hard about the implications. Especially since she only picked up Fishing after Ardbert.)

4/7/25

What is a job your wol(oc) wont/cant learn? why?

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FFXIV Write 2024: 19 Taken

(Violence, fantasy racism, kidnapping, death)

His side twinged, but he winced and kept tracking his quarry. It was not difficult, given their vehicles and the way they marched the troops and their prisoners.

A surge of anger rolled through him and he pressed on, the pain in his side forgotten. It had been his own fault, when his mentor had pushed him out of the way of the attacking soldiers. It had saved his life, but his mentor’s had been lost.

Along with most of the village they protected; the warders had failed. His shame in surviving could only be alleviated by finding the children that had been taken.

In the smoldering wreckage he had found his dying mother. She had weakly cried out for his sibling, using their diminutive nickname for the child—Ijna. When he made his occasional visits to the village—as a young man, he made more frequent trips than his elders tended to—he would be sure to visit his mother, and had been fond of Ijna, with skin as coal-dark as Mother’s. Their dark hair had turquoise streaks to match their bright eyes. A small, slight child, but he had once been, too, and had often assured the little one that someday they would grow as large and strong as himself—perhaps moreso, if they were a girl.

His sibling was among those stolen.

His nose caught the stench of ceruleum. His lips twisted in a snarl and he took to the tree branches.

The chief had defied the imperial officers who came to make demands, and the warders had harried them. They thought they had made the Garleans leave their valley. They had been terribly wrong, as the invaders had returned in force.

He did not know what he would do, when he rescued the children. He would figure that out once safely away from the camp.

They had stopped for the night, a pavilion set up for the officers to dine and sleep in. Troops who were not attending to their superiors patrolled the perimeter, or guarded the vehicle where the children huddled. They had been allowed to relieve themselves in a trench, and given some rations to eat the same as the soldiers. Then returned to the bed of the truck, where they huddled together for comfort and warmth under not enough thin blankets.

“Wretched little beasts,” one of the soldiers under his chosen branch said to a fellow. “And the Praefectus thinks they can be citizens?”

The other shrugged. “That’s the Emperor’s idea. If they will not submit, make them wish they had, as one way or another, they will be civilized. These brats shouldn’t be as feral as the adults, and there’s a school where they’ll be tamed of their savage ways.”

The first made another derogatory sound. “Even so, no one will mistake them for anything but beasts with those ears.” The two laughed and continued on their patrols.

He grit his teeth and waited.

Eventually the camp settled in for the night. There were soldiers taking their turn at patrol, at guarding the children. They were more lax than they could have been, thinking they had dealt with all of the village’s adults.

He handled the wandering patrols first, with careful, silent arrows for the first, and a dagger across the throat of the second. The high collars of their lightly armored uniforms, in addition to the rounded helms they wore, made it difficult, but there was hardly any sound, and no one came to investigate. He deposited the bodies in the woodline and crept toward the truck.

The children heard him coming, even if their Garlean guard did not. He gestured for them to keep quiet, uncertain if they could see him in the dark. Even silent, their stirring and looking around put their guard on alert. He would have to be swift. He drew his bow and—

A light snapped on, blinding him as he was exposed. “I knew it!” one of the officers growled. “Kill him, and search for more! He may be a scout for a war band!”

They were already firing their weapons as he dashed into the woods. The children screamed and shouted, their guards yelling at them. His ears picked up Ijna’s particular keening cry before it was cut off, the child struck by a guard.

A bullet hit his calf, another his bicep, and one tore a long graze along his side. He cried out as pain erupted through him and he fell, tumbling down a bank, bruised and cut from the fall. The soldiers were above him, he had to move but gods help him everything not bruised was on fire, and his older injury had reopened.

“Been awhile since I’ve been on a rabbit hunt,” a distant voice said, cruel laughter answering.

He tried to crawl forward, into the thorny bramble and the swift stream he heard on its other side. He had to get away, had to heal, had to pick up the trail later and find the children. He owed it to his mentor, he had promised his mother…

More gunshots, more fiery pain blooming across his body. His blood flowed freely, pooling around him, his leathers and green clothes stained. He couldn’t move, no matter how he wanted to.

He had failed.

Boots tromped close. His vision faded.

“Ijna, I’m sorry,” he tried to say, hardly enough breath for it.

“Damned savages,” a soldier said, pressing the muzzle of a weapon against his head.

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FF14 Picrew Generator!

Ladies only, can't seem to get highlights. But there are submenu options when you see a number on a selection, so you can get your correct horns or the placement of the earrings and so on! There are an impressive number of hair options, and recognizable glamours too.

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It's Autumn, time for some cozy fall fashion!

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Dark, C'oretta, & Iyna: Yes; they have no mercy, absolutely do everything they can to win. Aeryn, it depends.

Dark is straightforward; she's ridiculously tall and strong.

C'oretta mostly straightforward but also using applied science and also being as annoying as possible cuz she's known Thancred since she was a teenager and he was in his smarmy playboy demeanor so he gets hassled like she imagines an older brother would.

Iyna cheats, in various ways, rarely the same twice cuz it's Thancred, so has become its own game between them.

With Aeryn, like in all their bouts, spars, practices, and competitions, it depends on the day. Sometimes she wins, sometimes he does. Sometimes it's straightforward, sometimes one distracts and teases the other. Sometimes there's mitigating factors, like still recovering from injuries or whatnot. So depends.

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FFXIV Write 2024: 27 Memory

(Hey it's the practically tradition, annual future fic! Spoilers for Endwalker's patch storyline.)

“Did you want the radio on this morning?” Tillie asked as she set out breakfast.

“Please,” Iyna answered, easing herself into her chair. Her right leg was stiff and aching this morning thanks to a shift in the weather. Even Viera grew old eventually, though she had never expected to be one of them with all the adventures and danger she had been through in her long life.

Tillie turned on the radio, the morning host going over said weather report while Iyna ate. There were also the morning’s newspapers to peruse. She liked to keep a few subscriptions rotating, to see where the biases were and who she had to write stern letters to.

Well, dictate to her assistant. Her handwriting was still shite, and her typing skills weren’t as good as they used to be. Her wrists and fingers ached too easily these days.

The weather report ended, with a brief word from the morning’s sponsor—some chocolatey beverage powder—and the next forty-five minutes of music began before general news. There was a brief identification of the song title and singer if it had lyrics, but otherwise the announcer remained silent.

Iyna was chewing on jam-covered toast when notes she had not heard in decades struck her ears. They had none of the magic of the old minstrel’s performances—regulations wouldn’t allow it for many good reasons—and there was a modern stylizing, but the song was unmistakably one of his, commemorating and embellishing on one of the Warrior of Light’s victories.

She closed her eyes and leaned back in her chair. It had all begun with a map they hadn’t been sure was real. They had found the treasure—and a gateway to the Thirteenth, and thus had begun a new adventure: to search the Void to find the lost Great Wyrm Azdaja, sister to Vrtra, the Satrap of Radz-at-Han.

They had not expected the twists and turns along the way. Had not expected Zero, or the Fiends, or Golbez. None of them had expected Zeromus, and the dive into Golbez’s domain on the moon’s reflection to fight the draconic voidsent.

Iyna remembered how close it was; the cracks in reality between the Thirteenth and the Source, the creature’s rage as it hammered them again and again with draconic void magics. Lotus draped over C’oretta’s head as she flopped to the ground. Dark had her axe that day, standing before the others, heaving and snarling as the darkness attempted to reconstitute. Aeryn straightening, rapier ready, about to rush in again. Zero’s hopeful light, able to pierce the deepest darkness. Vrtra’s call. The simulacra falling as a small dragonet manifested with the help of her brother’s Eye.

The song was coming to an end. “Who was the artist?” Iyna asked. “I missed it.”

“I don’t think they said yet,” Tillie replied. “Probably after, before they introduce the next one.”

Iyna nodded, and listened for the announcer. She smiled as he identified the modern artist as Nadim Ranaz, commemorating the two hundredth anniversary of Lady Azdaja’s return with a new rendition of the classic ballad. Ranaz was also a distant blood relation to the Warrior of Light, and his musical interests included rediscovering and modernizing the songs and ballads of his many-times-removed cousin, to spread and preserve them in the current era.

“It’s been some time since I’ve visited Thavnair,” Iyna mused. “Tillie, would you—”

“On it,” her assistant replied, pulling up contact information and beginning arrangements.

Two hundred years. Azdaja no longer needed her brother’s Eye, her own aether replenished, though she still had plenty of regrowing to do to reach her full power again. It would be nice to visit the dragons, to speak of old times, of old friends, and reminisce about that wild era before seeing the fruits of their labor in the peace and prosperity of modern Thavnair.

Iyna would also have to make a visit to Ranaz, sharing her carefully kept copies of the old minstrel’s songs—most of them from Aeryn’s own extensive collection.

Both of her old friends would like that. That wandering minstrel had only ever wanted to share his stories with the world, and Aeryn’s own bardic nature, so oft at war with her tendency to demure her heroics, would appreciate the songs being passed to a new generation.

After all, Iyna’s own self-appointed task as keeper of her friends’ legacies meant keeping those tales and their truths circulating for as long as she was able. To keep their memories alive in not only her heart but the rest of the world’s.

She wasn’t out of the fight yet.

She also was not at all the singer that Dark or Aeryn had been, but hummed a few bars anyway as she left the kitchen to prepare for her next adventure.

“Tales of loss and fire and faith...”

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LynMars's FFXIV Write 2024 Master Post

We're back again! The list and links for all of my completed prompts for this year's FFXIV Write. Stats and ramblings about writing will go under the Read More cut. Eventually these will be revised in some manner and tossed onto Ao3.

Asterisks again mean there's wolship nonsense happening.

01. Steer - Vignettes of less sociable times over Aeryn's life. 02. Horizon - WoL at the end of Ultima Thule, EW 6.0. 03. Tempest - WoL returns to Amaurot to contemplate, EW 6.4. 04. Reticent - C'oretta & Dark Autumn have a chat. Sort of. 05. Stamp - Aeryn finds a memento while cleaning, post-EW 6.0 06. Halcyon - Tanzel, Emelia, & understanding grief. Backstory. 07. Morsel - Zenos heading to Camp Broken Glass, EW 6.0. 08. Free Day! 09. Lend an Ear - Emperor Varis is very much alone. StB patches. 10. Stable - Hydaelyn as the avatar of Light. Endwalker. 11. Surrogate - Weird West AU. Unexpected new roles for the Strikers. 12. Quarry* - Dominants AU. Thavnair comes to Tural's aid. DT 7.0. 13. Butte - Dark Autumn versus seedkin in Xak Tural. DT 7.0. 14. Telling - WoL reflects on Emet-Selch's expected reaction. EW 6.0. 15. Free Day! 16. Third-Rate - Aeryn's annoyed by the Unbound. DT Role Quests. 17. Sally - Dark pays a final visit to a traitor, post-StB 4.1. 18. Hackneyed* - Aeryn, Thancred, & terrible literature. 19. Taken - A young wood warder tries to save his sibling. Backstory. 20. Duel - Wuk Lamat's challenge does not go as expected. DT 7.0. 21. Shade - WoL ruminates on some of their ghosts. Thru DT 7.0. 22. Free Day! 23. On Cloud Nine - A chocobo & her Warrior of Light. End ShB 5.0. 24. Bar - 2 different adventurers starting out. Legacy & ARR. 25. Perpetuity - Aeryn, Deryk, & questions of faith. EW 24man raid. 26. Zip - C'oretta helping out Hamon at the Coliseum. Technically DT. 27. Memory - In a future, music makes Iyna remember. EW Patches. 28. Deleterious - Aeryn & Shale discuss regulators & history. DT 7.0. 29. (Free) Deleterious 2* - Thancred & self-recrimination. ShB 5.0. 30. Two Heads are Better than One - Gulool Ja Ja muses. DT 7.0.

Previous years: 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023

Ended up a touch Aeryn-heavy this year, though Generic WoL, various NPCs, the other OCs, forays in the FC's AUs, and some supporting family cast members make appearances. There's even a callback to a previous FFXIV Write entry. Lots of Endwalker and Dawntrail due to recency bias, but it manages to span the spectrum from backstories through various expansions.

I only did 1 Free Day, due to having 2 solid ideas I ended up writing for that prompt. It was right at the end of my annual birthday vacation week, so I was pretty rested (may also be why they're among the longer entries!). Unusually, the rest of that week's works are not any longer than the others.

I'm also still working on some original writing, though, so that did cut into fanfiction time.

Below 500 words: #2 Horizon (347), #3 Tempest (415), #7 Morsel (499), #10 Stable (400), #13 Butte (477), #14 Telling (355), #17 Sally (464), #20 Duel (499), #24 Bar (462).

500 - 1,000 words: #1 Steer (944), #4 Reticent (581), #5 Stamp (588), #11 Surrogate (964), #12 Quarry (844), #16 Third-Rate (564), #18 Hackneyed (577), #19 Taken (915), #21 Shade (764), #23 On Cloud Nine (728), #25 Perpetuity (958), #26 Zip (592), #27 Memory (810), #30 Two Heads are Better than One (500).

Over 1,000 words: #6 Halcyon (2,479), #9 Lend an Ear (1,326), #28 Deleterious (1,099), #29 Deleterious 2 (1,231).

Shortest: #2 Horizon Longest: #6 Halcyon

Total: 20,382 words. Not my shortest but far from my longest. Comparing with the previous years, I can see a clear improvement in my grasp of both NPC and OC voices, and more confidence in general.

Even so, "Butte", "Sally", "Bar", and "Zip" were the hardest for me this year, and I may need to warm up to them. I love "Halcyon" for a lot of reasons, and am also fond of the lighter offerings in "Duel" and "On Cloud Nine." I like a lot of the others, particularly when trying to get into NPC heads (even if they're really weird places to be ffs, Zenos).

Not too many shippy entries this year, one of them for one of the AUs, one mostly talking about it rather than seeing it, but I like "Hackneyed" a lot as it's been awhile since I've written about Aeryn & Thancred's literary tastes (and opposite ways of treating their books).

These will eventually be revised and added to Ao3, and then we await next year!

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No gpose lights, this is just the Gridania inn room now. So I took pics of Iyna's face cuz just lookit her.

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Banger choices. I think "Rabbit Heart" works for mainline Iyna, too.

Kitter's very good at this. 💖

Give me a 📯 and I'll give you a song that reminds me of one of your character(s) - Any of my FF14 ladies. Or even Zaine.

Zaine (Maybe Aeryn too) - Top of the World by The Chicks

C'oretta - Hunger by Florence and the Machine

Iyna - Rabbit Heart (But more of the FFXVI AU Iyna maybe?)

@autumnslance