Duty Commenced
Quick update today. I’d like to work on posting shorter and more frequent things, even if the longer ones are sometimes useful for things that matter too much or require extra explanation.
The release date for FFXIV patch 5.3 has been officially announced. I’ll have until August 11th to finish the tasks ahead of me, which I’m hopeful will be a reasonable amount of time. I may not get through all of Raph’s backstory, but everything else should be great.
Last weekend, Raph and his beloved G’raha clone went to the big player-hosted Pride event on Jenova server. It was a great time with a ton of great folks of all stripes, colors, and preferences! At the very end, knowing full well that his real proposal was still very much in the works, Raph decided to bite the bullet and hand over his promise wristlet (this is the Eorzean equivalent of a ring, used to start the special marriage quest chain in which you do actually get a ring later.)
I’ll just say this: I knew the proposal process must have been terrifying for John all those years ago, and I’ve had the utmost respect for people of either gender taking on the job, but holy NERVES Batman! I didn’t even intend to roleplay or make this serious at all since this was only to hand over the item, but just hitting the confirm button was the anxiety equivalent of nearly getting in a car accident! I… am humbled. Truly. Poor Raph is handling his/my nerves about as well as a cat being forcibly hauled into a closed bathroom with a full bathtub in sight. He’s 500% sure about this, but he still never thought he’d be here at all.
John and I have been recording the amazing quest chain that you get for doing this, for our own posterity and for sharing later, so if you’re curious, stay tuned. Our next step is to confirm the final style of the ceremony (seriously, there are so many customization options, this is SO COOL and so much better than I’d even hoped, and I’ve wanted to do this as a player ever since FFXIV started) and then pick a date for the big day.
In the meantime, I’ll be writing. August 11th is simultaneously so far away, and closer than Raph or I are ready for it to be.
Also a quick word on my work: John is still in the process of moving my fanfiction from Wattpad to AO3. It’s a joint effort since a lot of the summaries and author notes and such need to be written by me and that holds things up — just posting them is less of an undertaking! I’ll let you all know when things are settled and you can read what I’ve been up to without pesky signups and accounts.
As a word of early caution: AO3 is known for hosting fanfiction of all kinds, including some VERY NSFW stuff that well exceeds anything I’ve produced and ever plan to produce at this time in my career. If you do choose to read my work there and you’re not familiar with the site or comfortable with adult content, please use caution clicking on anything that is not a link directly from Ink Raindrops. I can’t promise what you’ll find!
—DterminD