Dimona

This song is a perfect theme song for Dimona. "Bombs Away!" E-SeaCZE2TM

Lightning/Thunder for Dimona! There is a sort of calm ominousness to her, a sort of build-up of pressure, and then a sudden strike that just might illuminate the sky for malms and malms around!

My friend Eva from Crystalline told me about a bunch of artists she's worked with and I had a few commissions done for Dimmy. A couple are still in progress but Zolaida (DeviantArt Link: http://zolaida.deviantart.com/ ) was very pleasant to work with but had to close her commissions due to so much interest but might open them again soon. I have a couple others in various stages of progress as well so I'm sure I'll be back here to post that too! A few colored bust sketches of Dimmy:

Dimona here. I need to take more/better screenies. Kat Dennings. The Max character from 2 Broke Girls has been a huge inspiration in many ways and not just physical appearance! It is that tv show that I hate that I love it!

If it makes you feel any better, I am a writer (and editor) by profession. I try very hard to put out of mind what other players think about my character. I think she's the right blend of what I'm going for, and that's really what matters most! I have fun! If other characters think she's bitchy or crude or fun or opinionated or whatever, that's great! Other people, just like other characters, are different. Everyone's going to have differences of opinion. So to simplify things a little bit, maybe the question you should be asking in improving your character isn't what would make other people like your character more, but what would make it more enjoyable for you to continue role-playing him or her. I have had a lot of fun with Dimmy by letting her get swept up in a lot of different sorts of things. I had something in mind for her early on since she had experience from her backstory as a bartender, but that very quickly got sidelined as she got yanked into some other storyline happenings and it has been a lot of fun ever since! Having a plan is wonderful and gives a good place for a character to land their feet when those sort of winds die down, but having that willingness to allow the character to get swept up into others' adventures and happenings is what really has brought a lot of joy to my experience in Final Fantasy. I hope this helps a little.

I believe that the most compelling characters for the sake of role-play experiences are those that fit most naturally in the given setting. Any character with her own strengths and weaknesses can be both compelling and interesting so long as those strengths and weaknesses fall in line with what is normal for the Universe. I find myself okay with a certain amount of distance from the game's lore, but some liberties bug me when they go too far. Sue behavior is real. There seem to be some role-players in every community who forget that they are but one of many and view themselves as the all-important, all-powerful center of the Universe. That just makes me roll my eyes and I often do what I can to keep clear of such people. They usually make it pretty easy to handwave in-character anyway. If I have to vote for one, I prefer underpowered to overpowered, but to be curt, I prefer average. Taking average characters into big adventures is a lot more interesting and exciting to me than taking larger-than-life characters.

I always wondered with those mounts if there was some etiquette about who rode in the front and who in the back. Not that Dimmy would much care about such things and would probably want to be up front at the reins no matter what. But is it like a motorcycle where you often see the girl on the back with her arms around her man? Or would "ladies first" apply here, and the gentleman rides behind since there may be a greater chance of falling. I would think the front seat would be safer. Someone told me recently that gentlemen walk on the side closer to traffic historically to catch any dirt or mud that horse-drawn carts or carriages or vehicles instead of their ladies. And that they opened doors for ladies because when outdoors ladies often had to use their hands to hold up their skirts lest they be dragged through dirt or mud. I doubt Dimmy would care, but I think about stuff like this too sometimes, okay??? :lol:

Is there a pool? I'd chip in! Put me down for May 12th. :cactuar:

I think if you're worried or thinking you might be pushy with your character, you are probably fine. Some people I don't think are even cognizent of this.

Something I have seen happen in other role-play experiences but not in ARR yet anyways, is where one or two role-players will constantly and continually kind of overshadow others. I don't think this is intentional when it happens, but it seems like these people are so focused on the storytelling aspect of things that they lose sight of the fact that there are several others who are also trying to tell a story as well. These players' characters often exhibit Sue-like tendencies and have a very hard time "letting things play out" without in some way having to involve their character. There is maybe some argument to be made for characters having to "sit on the bench" during some things and some players, and arguably some characters, don't like this. I see this as different from that character archetype "captain of the table" where a self-important character exerts that sort of arrogance in-character. That can still happen while other characters' stories play out normally. What I'm speaking to is the character who involves himself (or herself) in everything, and the role-play effectively drowns out other peoples' stories. I think a good role-player and storyteller realizes that his or her character may be a compelling force in their own story arcs, but also serves as secondary/supporting or backup character in others' story arcs and owns this. One of my biggest grievances with the Internet in general is that it has almost become a cacophany of people talking, complaining, voicing thoughts and opinions and concerns and making "noise" but too little actual reading, analyzing, and appreciating of the words written. That was the biggest put-off in other role-play communities: too much "memememememe!" and not enough "wow you're awesome too!!!" I am happy to say that I haven't seen much of that mentality on Balmung or the HRPC. You folks are great!

To clarify my earlier situation, it was Wanderer's Palace HM - there was no risk of death. I'm a NIN, the other DPS was BRD. I understand WoD last fight is weird because people do fluky things. I knew going into the Mamool Ja boss fight that, unless there was some sort of weirdness... I was going to be the one kicking off the LB when it popped. I just don't need some healer or tank spamming the chat the moment LB2 pops and getting irate because I'm dodging telegraphs. It literally took about 6 seconds after the LB2 popped and I swear this SCH was having a fit that I didn't do it like, immediately. I'm all for communication and that, but when it's clear-cut what my responsibility is... I don't mind the friendly nudge after a few seconds have passed. Sure, maybe I was busy doing my DPS things and didn't see the bar... I get it. And maybe he go out of some runs where lame DPS didn't even use LB or such... But there was just a spammy rudeness to this jerk-wad that was really not needed and it bugs me anyway when people say to melee LB like... really? You want me to hurt the boss?! Naw!!! The past couple days have made me a little spiteful about some things. Next rant: the next time a white mage thinks they're helping things by using that water spell to fling a [full HP] mob [that the tank clearly has hate on] a mile backwards away from the rest of the action... As a lowly DPS I've learned to just keep my mouth shut about it because I am obviously far less important and more expendable. I just rant to my friends and come and post here.

Very brief and generic rant incoming: I get that maybe your last DPS were made of derp. I've seen them too... BUT FOR CRYING OUT LOUD... IF YOU ARE A TANK OR A HEALER AND DEMANDING THAT I USE THE LIMIT BREAK, GIVE ME A SECOND OR TWO TO MAKE SURE I'M CLEAR OF AOE SHIT FIRST!! Trust me when I say I want it dead as much as you do, bubba... This is a sin on par with those jackasses who sit behind you at the traffic light and beep at you the exact moment the light turns green. Wait a few seconds FFS... and if the DPS haven't limit breaked by then, feel free to nudge them. I don't tell healers when to cast spells or tanks how to do their thing... not unsolicited, and not unless there is some very solid reason for doing so (protect would be nice, do you know what Overpower is, etc.) Shut up and let me do my job. (I had a very annoying scholar in my roulette before).

I fall into this camp a lot. Dimmy can be really brusque and lacks a lot of basic manners and when someone does take notice of her IC her gut reaction is suspicion and her words are often defensive and she very readily shoots from the hip. She also frowns on certain behaviors that are pretty common amongst many RPers as well. Not to say she doesn't warm up to people slowly over a span of time, but with some people I do find myself sending a little OOC whisper to say I'm really a nice person and that Dimmy is just being Dimmy and maybe one day she'll learn to be a little more polite. I wage that little battle with not wanting to break anyone's sense of immersion and wanting to be perfectly clear that it's the character who is socially and intellectually inept, and not me as the player!

Dignified Pauper

I've only been around for a few months, but there have been a few months worth of adventures, explorations, odd jobs, meeting new people, etc. Things seem to flow at a normal day-to-day pace so I think when her nameday comes around I will age her up from 21 to 22! The 1:1 time relationship seems to work pretty well for me anyway.

That wish fulfillment thing has been such a huge problem from some experiences I've had with role-play in other games. So far my experiences in Final Fantasy XIV role-play have been very positive. Previous to this game, much less so.. In other games I have run into problems with that sort of obsessive behavior which transitioned from a cute relationship to something where it became apparent that it was much more meaningful to my "RP partner." I was followed to another server, then followed to another game (even using a totally different character name). Cutting off ties was more difficult, but the real friends I made understood why I left, and I kept away from pretty much all kinds of role-play for almost three years. I was very nervous even about coming back last year. I don't talk much about this because I don't know where he has gone, if he still role-plays, or is in ARR at all. He was pretty consistent about a name he used and after searching the HRPC before joining I'm convinced he's gone and found some other rock to hide under. I have totally reinvented myself in that space in-between, and I like to think that I am a little older and a little wiser and definitely a lot more guarded. I do think relationships make the role-play experience more fun and enriching, but I do not invest myself to that degree, and have gone so far as to give my character reasons to be guarded, and while I think she is a beautiful character in a lot of ways, I still remember how "cute" became "awkward", then "uncomfortable", then "obsessive" before finally spiraling into something that made me simply not ever want to log in anymore. Now I go to certain lengths to keep my "character life" apart from "real life." The people with whom I role-play have been very understanding and I don't feel a lot of pressure to talk about real life stuff more than I want. I just play and enjoy the storytelling aspects of it and it helps fuel my own personal writing ambitions so I am really glad I came back, and grateful to the other role-players around here! I think Dimona could one day have a [serious] boyfriend but there would be a lengthy screening process of the complimentary role-player and I would want to make sure that we were both invested in the telling of the story and not misusing the relationship to fill some other vacancy of life. It's not something I'm looking for. Her story is still unfolding and I have enjoyed watching her adapt to her environment as it changes around her. She is a lot more than arm candy anyway and I would never want to discredit her like that. It does amaze me just how many "couples" there are in RP, and at times I wonder/worry if anyone else is enduring what I had to suffer through, but I feel like coming back to role-play has empowered me. My character name and the type of character I used to RP is totally different from Dimona and exploring a lot of the differences in this character has really helped me to partake in a totally different sort of role-play than what I was accustomed to. For a long time I thought if I ever did come back it was going to have to be as a character who was ugly, unattractive, or just crazy. I'm happy to be able to role-play a character who is still beautiful, a totally different kind of beautiful than that groove I fell into so many years ago. She is bold and confident and fun and I have been enjoying role-play so much more lately than I think I ever did back in those days! So the story has a happy ending. But like so many others said, this line between what is reality and what is fantasy is soooooooooooooooo important. And if it ever seems like it's getting fuzzy for someone it is very important to communicate, like so many of the posts above have stated. And if that communication isn't being met in a receptive and positive way, than it is best to get out quickly and move on. Invest in the STORYTELLING.

Thanks! I agree, and time-management has always been my strong suit. I have suffered through bad runs before, or really good runs that just take awhile because some people are new or inexperienced. I'm not generalizing. Today was just two painfully long back-to-back roulettes and hindsight being 20/20 I should have called it quits after Ramuh without even queueing for the other roulette. Que sera. If it's really important to me to get both done before work I will start waking up earlier. I also agree on the other point. I was role-playing with Flora one night last week and didn't realize that it had gotten to be after 3am!! I didn't care though. Awesome RP is totally worth being a lil groggy and having to pay for extra turbo shots in my coffee the next morning!!

I know I'm in the wrong for this but I'm venting anyway..... I was late to work today. It was my own fault and I own that responsibility and that is not where my gripe lies. Woke up early with the intent of getting my EX and Trials roulettes done before the day change. I've done this before several times, usually with time to spare. Sat in queue for Trials first - 9 minutes and did a little running around and crafting stuff while waiting. Ramuh HM where the majority of the group hadn't done it before - okay fine. The 2-3 of us that had done it explained the fight and we wiped the first time and got it the second. But that fight seems so long. One of the people that had completed it was being extremely rude at the first wipe too and just may have been in a greater hurry than I was based on some of his unkind words - but that's another vent. After Ramuh was done I had the little angel-on-one-shoulder-devil-on-the-other debate about whether I had time for EX roulette and devil ultimately won. So I waited... and was about to cancel at the 15-minute mark and just go get ready for work when it popped. So devil won again. Sastasha HM. My least favorite of the 3 newest zones. But alright let's do this. Tank was new. Other DPS (SMN) had never DPS'd this dungeon. Healer was a know-it-all and somewhat condescending. Pulls were slow, scorpion was easy enough even though the healer died. I bit my tongue through most of the run because I always get peeved when people rush runs, but I was regretting undertaking this with my now-diminished time limit and probably should have dropped. So of course I pressed on. People can never seem to agree how to handle the Lamias. We wiped once there. Wiped once on the Captain Madison fight right near the end. Kraken took forever but we got through it without a wipe. Total time to clear Sastasha HM was probably something like 65 minutes (best guess). Got cleaned up and dressed like a madwoman on crack and skipped breakfast and morning coffee on my way in. I have a strong work ethic so my tardiness today was barely a thing, but I will either be rising earlier or dropping the party in the future under such circumstances. Moral of the story - An hour before work is usually more than enough time to clear Trial and EX Roulettes, but this is never a guarantee.

Another thing I've seen once or twice is where a white mage will spam Holy and just... phase out and forget that they're supposed to be healing the tank too. I've seen that happen two or three times lately and my thinking is that it's great that they're helping with DPS but.. not at the cost of their primary function to the party! I know once he said something like, "I was about to use benediction but you died. lol" (yes the "lol" was there :roll: ) I'm usually pretty polite in DF/PF settings, but my thought was, "Yeah, whose fault was that??" :dodgy:

Quick response! I know it's not targeted at me, but as a DPS I know I pull enmity on a single target occasionally and try to make it a point to self-mitigate any damage that may occur and keep that mob in place. I'm not doing this to flex my muscles or piss the tank off or anything like that, I'm just trying to get on with the dungeon as quickly as possible. If I can't handle it, I'm not going to go crazy. I just know sometimes it happens and I have some tools available to handle that. I have a lot of respect for tanks and healers because neither is a job I can do, and neither is a job I would enjoy. First boss on Pharos Sirius is a pet-peeve of mine too. As I understand it, adds spawn based on the boss's HP%. Maybe in some groups he can be burned down and the adds just kited or whatever, but I have seen so many wipes when other DPS keep on wailing on him instead of taking out the dogs. I have really grown to hate that fight for that reason. Roc isn't quite so bad. Like Nebbs said above, if people weren't always in such a hurry and paced themselves a little they might take a few extra seconds to do things that might salvage the run minutes wasted by wipes in the longrun.

I'm not sure what AOL stands for here as you are using it. From context I'm assuming mob selection priority. I think that's only really a problem when all the monsters are at low HP. I should probably talk to a black mage in more length about how best to compliment that style. I have been working on assumptions made, but haven't taken into account that spells might be negated mid-cast if the high HP mob winds up dying. I seem to get paired up with black mages a lot, and roulettes usually go by quickly and painlessly so I think I'm doing something right. I just think last night's roulette was goofy with the tank getting upset by that. I'm not certain I took hate. I do occasionally from lesser-geared/skilled tanks where I'm focusing down a trash mob, but they die quickly and Perfect Dodge and stun and Second Wind are good for survival. This seldom happens when I'm dancing between the monsters though so I'm still unclear what he was upset about and why and never really had a chance to explain myself after the run was over. It wasn't a bad experience. Just a head-scratching one. :dazed:

^ ^ ^ ^ SO MUCH OF THIS ^ ^ ^ ^ I ran Qarn HM last night and the tank asked me why I kept switching mobs. I'm a Ninja. It's my only job and I like to think I'm pretty good at it. When I'm paired with black mages (particularly those who happily spam their AoE abilities) I like to distribute my damage evenly on the mobs. This means AoE's sometimes myself, and other times it means if one mob has more HP I'm usually targeting that one to bring it down rather than killing off the low-HP mobs. I assume the black mage appreciates this since his AoE is hitting more marks and things are collectively dying faster - the caveat may be that they're living longer and collectively damaging the tank more requiring more healing, but I tend to think this is offset by the fights being shorter overall. Maybe I am in the wrong though. I never really gave it a lot of thought. I just wanted things to die as efficiently as possible. When I'm paired up with a DRG or MNK I tend to focus more on taking down the monsters one at a time. I try to adapt to whatever makes the other DPS shine more. For some reason this really upset a tank in my EX roulette last night, and he was asking why I kept switching mobs. He said I was taking hate (what???) and I don't like trying to explain things WHILE I'm in the middle of DPSing, so I just quickly said that it was so that the BLM AoE could be more effective. He said this didn't make sense. I got two commendations after the run, so I guess it made sense to the black mage and healer. :dodgy: On the scorpion in Sastasha HM if nobody communicates to me otherwise, I'm going to try and stun Tail Screw. Don't get mad at me for it. Half the time the tank is stunned anyway from that tethery move and I look to it as my responsibility. I think it's goofy when a tank tries to push the tether onto me too, but I've only seen that once or twice. I think it's goofy when someone gets pissed at me for building its resistance to stun too. I don't like it when people don't say "hello" at the start or "thanks" at the end of runs too. Teamwork! Politeness! Manners! We're gonna get through this together!!!

This is great!! I had not thought about the possibility of starting a linkshell for something like this. I'm not sure that Dimona would be the best for something like that since she is a bit impetuous and I'm not sure she would be interested in it, but something to "keep in touch with home" when she is spending time in Ul'dah or elsewhere could be fun and real. I am still trying to find a niche and looking at other guilds but I'll think about it. I'm not sure I will be around enough to suitably lead anything like that but wouldn't mind if someone else wanted to and would happily join! Or if nobody else is interested in it I guess I could as long as nobody is bothered by my busy RL work schedule and erratic login times. I would love to have the two of you for cousins too! We should talk later on and figure out a little family tree stuff. I don't know that it makes sense that Dimona was also raised by "Uncle Klaus and Aunt Anneliese" but maybe it's a large family and there are a number of aunts and uncles. This way we don't have to know every little detail about each others' characters because that might be tricky and overwhelming, but there can still be a sort of closeness. And the grandmother character can be shared since she is sort of simple anyway and doesn't talk or anything. Different grandchildren and uncles/aunts can look in on her at different times and stuff. It conveys that whole family community coming together to help each other out sort of thing. To Sounsyy it seems like our characters may be too young to really remember that, however if she goes back periodically it may be that she is recognized that way. Or maybe she would have known some of us from when we were babies. "I remember when you were THIS tall!" Apart from adopted brother Evandrus, is everyone else a highlander hyur?

Dimona doesn't like vanity or arrogance or people who flaunt themselves. She is a pretty girl though (large boobs, hourglass-shaped, fair complexion, smooth skin, pretty face, etc.) but constantly says she wants to be valued for more than her appearance. Her secret is that her beauty is really important to her and she is afraid of getting old and losing that.

I received a PM last night from another character (going to send a reply soon Flora but wanted to make this thread first!!) with close ties to Little Ala Mhigo and it got me to thinking that it's not a very huge settlement so other characters that call it home, or who come from there, or have close ties to it may know each other. I think it would be a bit larger than what we see there in game, with more residents not pictured and stuff. So it may be possible for characters to live there and still not know each other very well. I had to do a little homework on the fall of Ala Mhigo and how Dimona came to reside there. If there is anything here that would work well with other characters please let me know. I'm still new and figuring things out a little bit. Nothing is carved in stone. Yet. lol If the current year is 1578 or so and Dimona is 21 years old, she would have been born in 1557 which is the same year that Ala Mhigo fell to the Garlean Empire. Since she is an orphan I've figured that her father either died or was brainwashed by Garleans and her pregnant mother fled with other family, ultimately ending up in Little Ala Mhigo. I think the mother will have died in childbirth since that seems to make sense after all the exertion of fleeing their home and losing her husband. Her grandmother is alive though, and I think some of her aunts and uncles survived too. She has mentioned her cousins teasing her in some roleplay that has already happened, so she does have living family and may have been raised in Little Ala Mhigo by this family or friends of the family. I'm not really looking for it to be too tragic but more "this is why she is the way that she is" to explain her sense of independence and stuff. I don't think she has any vendetta or anything. She was too young. So Bruce Wayne she is not! Dimona still lives in Little Ala Mhigo now but travels back and forth between Ul'dah a lot. She is trying to find her place in life. She has tried a few things already and some don't sit well with her, and others do. She is kind of a "jane of all trades" but I am focusing very heavily on the ROG/NIN job. This said I think she will be more of a blade wielder than any sort of actual ninja. I'm sure everyone is doing that now anyway and I want to kind of go the "rogue" instead of "ninja" route anyway. So what I guess I'm looking for is if there are any other characters who are linked to Little Ala Mhigo, or who would like to tie together some back history. Maybe a cousin even or uncle/aunt (if much older). The only other NPC character I have given much detail for is Dimona's grandmother who is bedridden and unresponsive. The reasons for this are so far unexplained but I think she may just be shell shocked from all that happened with the Garlean occupation of Gyr Abania. Or maybe she's just senile. I haven't really figured it all out just yet and there's still a lot of wiggle room for me to change things if anyone wants to be involved with it. Thanks!! :chocobo::chocobo::chocobo::chocobo::chocobo: