TAR T A U T U M N 2 0 2 3 • I S S U E 5
C O N T E N TS WELCOME TO ISSUE FIVE PA G E 5 Tea Drinkingway MINION SUDOKU PA G E 25,27 Tea Drinkingway H e c a t e A s t e r i a @ffxiv_minion_snaps & Tea Drinkingway INTERVIEW WITH FFXIV MINION SNAPS PA G E 12- 13 Tea Drinkingway & Niftji Art POSTERS PA G E 14, 18,24 VALENTIONE'S MARKETS & GAMESHOW PA G E 8- 1 0 Tea Drinkingway PLAYLISTS FOR THE MELEE DPS PA G E 19-23 Tea Drinkingway TAMSINS GLAM JAM PA G E 1 1 Tamsin Chalahko & Tea Drinkingway Tamsin Chalahko DEAR SCHOLAR PA G E 15 Kasumi Okumura TAROT SPOTLIGHT: TAROTVERSARY PA G E 16- 17 Tea Drinkingway EORZEA'S WORST ART PARTY HIGHLIGHTS PA G E 6-7
WE LC OME T O ISS U E F IVE Tea Drinkingway Tea Drinkingway T h e T a r o t S t a ti c Welcome to issue five! Our first issue for 2023 also marks our one year anniversary of Tarot! I hope that 2023 has been treating you well so far and that you're ready for another year filled with excitement and adventure with Tarot! As we embark on this new year together, we're excited to continue bringing you all of the latest glam trends, tips, and inspiration to help you live your best life in Etheirys. We hope that this issue will be just the beginning of a year filled with success, happiness, and fun. Happy reading!
Eorzea's Worst Strawberry by Midi Dera by Barb Midi by Strawberry Potatobuster by Beb Dwarf by Temmie Sammy by Kasumi ART PARTY Highlights
Dia by Tea Thane by Lys Lys by Sammy Sabotender by Strawberry Tea by Dia Tea by Dera Barb by Tea Sammy by Ren Kasumi by Tamsin
Valentione ' s The biggest highlight from Valentione's Day, aside from the new glamour items... was Tarot's Valentine's Day markets! Whether looking for a romantic outing or a fun day out with friends, the Valentione's Day markets had something for everyone, from handcrafted gifts to delectable treats, there were plenty of ways to show your love and appreciation to the ones you care about. The markets were the best place to find the perfect gift for that special someone or simply enjoy the festive atmosphere. T A R O T M A R K E T S Sammy and Lysandrae were pitted against Gabi and Midi in a Valentione's themed game show!! The duo's knowledge of FFXIV and their humour was challenged, with Round 1: Speed Date dedicated to the fastest correct answer, and Round 2: Most Loved decided audience votes. Lysandrae and Sammy came first place, winning with 16 points to Gabi and Midi's 10 points. Make sure to pick up your copy of the romance novels “In her radiance” and “100 Recipes of Graha Tia” at the next Tarot market! G A M E S H O W
A Valentione's themed photo booth was set up in the free company house for seasonal gposes! The photobooth was complete with heart mobiles, red roses, cake and a chocolate fountain. It was a great way to capture the moment with loved ones, or to take a new Party Grinder profile picture. Unfortunately the edible treats on display did have to be replaced several times due to some unsupervised minions. P H O T O B O O T H
Blood is red, Bruises are blue. A test of your reflexes, Now I have you!
TAMSI N 'S Tams G in Chal L a L hko A ran a M glamour co J mpe A t A ition in M which all contestants were provided with a pagos bolero, and had to make it work or make it worse! Tamsin and Mirri had the very difficult task of choosing the best glamours. We saw some recurring themes such as scholars and cowboys. It turns out that the pagos bolero is a surprisingly versatile glamour piece, who knew? All contestants and judges Judge Mirri Judge Tamsin Gabi Strawberry Lysandrae Sammy 1st Place 2nd Place 3rd Place 1st Place
First off, thank you for agreeing to interview! Can you tell us a bit about yourself, and your playstyle? Thank you so much for asking me - I’m truly flattered! I’ve been a huge fan of the FF series since 2000 and started FFXIV in 2014 or so. I’m from the UK and play on the Chaos DC. I’m very casual, very solitary - perhaps because of my completionist playstyle. I spend most of my time on crafting and fishing logs when I’m not gposing minions. How long have you been gposing for, approximately? Did something in particular kick off your interest in gposing? I started using gpose in 2019 not long after the release of Shadowbringers. I remember seeing Il Mheg for the first time feeling completely wowed and I found myself constantly tapping the screenshot button. Not long after, I discovered - albeit accidently and yes, very late - how to go into first person view. As this was before SE implemented the ability to hide your character in gpose, this was the game changer for me! No longer would my character ruin my scenic pics! I remember your instagram account used to focus on FFXIV scenery. What was your favourite thing about taking shots of locations in the game? As mentioned previously, Il Mheg kickstarted my interest in the scenery of FFXIV. Before Explorer Mode was a thing, I would revisit dungeons solo and spend time noticing and capturing all the little details that I had so easily missed during regular runs. I wanted to showcase how beautiful these dungeons actually are without the UI and overhead view of mobs. It made me appreciate them so much more. Even Aurum Vale. Was there anything in particular that inspired you to focus on minion snaps? I was starting to feel a little burned out from scenery shots as I think I had covered pretty much all of Eorzea and the First at this point. I wanted to not just try something different for myself, but offer something completely new for the gpose community, too. I was very apprehensive about the prospect of a sudden, drastic shift to my account however the response to my first minion snap - I believe was the Fledgling Dodo - was thankfully really positive despite it not being very good in hindsight haha! Minions are cute. Everyone has a favourite minion. I felt this was something that could appeal to everyone. And because of the ever growing number of possibilities, I had plenty to work with going forward. They’re simultaneously challenging and fun. a n i n t e r v i e w w i t h . . . Can you tell us a bit about your favourite gpose? II like to create and recreate scenes and locations for each minion that makes sense to the player, using nothing but pure in-game resources - absolutely no cheating! With this being said, while it’s not my favourite aesthetically, I’m particularly fond of the Raubahn and Nanamo duo snap simply because I’d managed to pull off recreating the “arm sitting” pose using positioning and my friend’s Lala-head (he is using the /grovel emote while Nanamo sits on his head, then hidden using the Character Display Settings) - an idea which I didn’t think would actually work! Luckily Raubahn has the perfect ‘chest-beat’ emote which is what inspired the idea in the first place.
I've noticed that you tend to use a lot of Ninja abilities for backdrop effects on your minion snaps. Do you find Ninja is the best class for these kind of effects, in your opinion? I’ve found Dancer and Reaper to be pretty handy, myself. This completely contradicts my “completionist playstyle” mentioned earlier, but it’s because I’ve only levelled five DoW/DoM classes, one of which being NIN haha! Ideally I should level more jobs so I have a wider range of particle effects at my disposal. I would say BLU has the best variety of effects, many of which thankfully can be used without the need of a target, so can also be used in my little housing “studio” where some snaps have been created. I do have DNC levelled to 90 and very much plan to use some effects in future snaps! What is one thing you wish you knew about gposing when you started? I wish I properly understood how the spotlights worked for my very early minion snaps! I would literally just blast a Type 3 white light from the default camera position and think that looked good! You learn as you go! So I’ll end up redoing most of my earlier ones. Do you have any other tips or advice you would like to share? Enjoy what you’re doing! Don’t force content for content sake. If you feel like you’re running dry on ideas or the ideas you do have aren’t quite working out as you want, take a break and come back to it later with a fresh head. Also, utilise the Save and Load settings! Anything else you’d like to add? I really hope the devs revert the change they recently made to the Character Display Settings which now also hides any particle effects when you hide yourself. /cry f f x i v _ m i n i o n _ s n a p s Can you tell us a bit about your gposing process? Are there any particular steps you always do? Each snap is very much trial and error. I do tend to take a hefty number of screenshots per minion even if I’m relatively pleased with how it looks - pausing at different points of their animations, trying different lighting intensities and positionings, even playing with the Limb Darkening feature - just to see if there’re ways they could look even better. If I am working with particle effects, I quite literally smash the PrtSc button dozens of times then choose the best one. Do you tend to plan ahead of your gposes, wing it, or a bit of both? Bit of both, but I’ll mainly plan ahead. I spend a lot of time scouting locations, previewing furnishings, looking at particle effects from weaponskills and even those miscellany confetti items for some idea inspirations. Even the time of day and weather needs to be considered as this affects the lighting and shadow positioning. Sometimes I’ll spend hours on a preplanned idea and it just doesn’t work out. Other times in between fishing I’ll casually stop by the Tempest with my Ancient One, for example, and finish a snap in minutes.
DRESS UP AND SHOW UP COSPLAY contest PRIZES RAVANA MATERIA DC MAY2023 KNEECAP MANOR
Dear Scholar, I’ve been an adventurer for a long time now and have found that lately I have less and less motivation to, well, adventure. I really do love helping my friends and I feel like I’m letting them down when I don’t want to go punch Ifrit in the face for what feels like the 100th time. What can I do to get that fire back? Yours sincerely, Weary Adventurer. Q Dear Weary Adventurer, It sounds to me like you are suffering from ‘job burnout’. Job burnout happens when you’ve done something so long that it's comfortably familiar, but it’s also become mundane and routine. So instead of lifting your sword high and charging in to battle, you kinda just shrug and saunter into the fray. So what do you do? You do something else. Literally anything else. Believe it or not, dear reader, I have not always been the wise and worldly scholar you see before you (slides nouliths under her chair and out of sight). In fact before I started, I was the one axing questions as a marauder. I’ve taken a break to lift a gunblade, and have given primals one hell of a paladin. Healing of course is a truly tankless job (if you do it wrong), but is incredibly satisfying when you yank someone back from the jaws of death (or, give them a slight shove over the edge, no judgement). You could also try one of the myriad dps classes. Red mage will have you seeing red as you constantly wonder whether you’re actually a caster or a healer. Are your friends always dragooning you into joining their parties? Become an actual dragoon. Bow to peer pressure and sing your heart out as a Bard (unless you get stage fright, in which case this job may not be for you). Bad puns aside, Eorzea is a place full of a multitude of possibilities and opportunities. It could also be worth setting aside the weapons for a while and picking up tools. You haven’t experienced Eorzea if you haven’t gotten a splinter from every type of tree that grows here, or sweated under the sun in the Sagoli desert looking for mythril ore. Pick up a hammer, a frypan or a saw and try your hand at crafting. Not only is it deeply satisfying to create something yourself, but it can also be a tidy way to pocket a little extra gil as all the guilds are constantly looking for skilled workers (I have a note from the alchemist’s guild stating that their high turnover rate is in no way linked to ‘freak accidents’). I know it can be scary to leave that comfort zone, but sometimes that is the only way for us to continue growing, after all a plant in a pot can only grow so big before it destroys the pot entirely. Sounds like it’s time for you to find a new pot so you can sink those roots deeper and start growing and blooming again. Best of luck Weary Adventurer! A D EAR SCH O LAR …SASS Y A N SWE R S F O R AL L TH O SE B U R N I N G Q U EST I O N S
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MINION SUDOKU Each row across and column down needs one of each image. There can't be more than one image in any row across or column down. Cut the pictures and paste them to complete Sudoku.
SUDOKU SOLUTIONS Each row across and column down needs one of each image. There can't be more than one image in any row across or column down. Cut the pictures and paste them to complete Sudoku.
TAR T A U T U M N 2 0 2 3 • I S S U E 5 AB O U T U S The Major Arcana《Tarot》 is a small and friendly Free Company based on Ravana, Materia Datacentre. Our goal is to provide and cultivate a successful and welcoming community. We want to clear content and have fun doing it! C O N T R IB U T O R S EDITOR IN CHIEF Tea Drinkingway WRITERS Tamsin Chalahko Kasumi Okumura @ffxiv_minion_snaps ARTISTS Niftji Art BenZaiCs https://themajorarcana.carrd.co/ https://discord.gg/BffWJ4yN42/