⏰ Timing gives that extra pizazz a live performance. Pairing with your character’s motions, you’ll no doubt do awesome on that stage!
⚠Disclaimer: This is not in any way a rule of thumb. Nor does anyone have to do these. Some of the listed below may be done a different way. This is only meant as tips or tricks. In the end this should be about the player having fun and expressing their own styles. ⚠ ✔ Timing Google spreadsheets are honestly the best place to store and time out your songs. It also saves as you work too! You can also make rows and columns for each performer. There are other programs such as word docs or note pads to use. Just keep in mind things like quote marks do not transfer over very well for actions from those.
There are a few versions of an already set up timing spreadsheet going around in the performing community that can help with timers. It does all the math for you when you plug in the lyrics. This post will not be linking it as the original creator should get the credit for making it. There are a great deal of those in the performing community on Balmung that may be able to link their version to you or you may make your own. (Sorry for the tease of information there.)
✔ It is better to time songs out in cytu as it may be off a few seconds if timed through another music service due to their commercials or ads.
✔ When venues bring traffic to a song on Youtube it brings attention to it. If it is not an official video it may be taken down with copyright issues. So choose your link wisely! Or make sure to have another version handy.
✔ There are sites out there that can give you the Lyrics and a starting place. You can google ‘lyrics, song name, by who’ to find them. Such as ‘genius’ or another site. More Lyric tips to come in another post!
Start your music. ✔ When the lyrics start, that is your #1 macro. Example: The singer starts singing at 0:06 in the song for the first line. The next line of words start at 0:08. That would mean that there was a count of two between the lines. So a <wait.2> would go after the first line before sending the next line out. /y ♪ ”Singing.” <wait.2> /y ♪ ”More singing.”
✔ /wait # or <wait.#> You can place a pause between lines with a ‘/wait #’ when they send out. You can also use <waits.#> at the end of any speech or /emote motion to save line space in a macro. /y ♪ ”Singing.” /wait 2 /songbird /y ♪ ”More singing.” Or /y ♪ ”Singing.” <wait.2> /songbird /y ♪ ”More singing.”
✔ The lowest and safest wait is a <wait.2>. You can do half sec counts, such as <wait.1.5>, however keep in mind that the game has its own ticks that factor in loading what is the area. So it will sometimes round up or down on your half waits. You also have to look at your connection and how it lags. Anything below a wait of 1.5 also has a chance of not going off at all if it’s the same type. The game will consider it as spam if it executes too fast. There is a way around that, which is alternating between the type of msg a macro sends out. Many songs using a <wait.1> have been done, but alternating between /yell between more than one singer or alternating with /yell and /say.
✔ Placing wait timers after some /emote motions, speech lines, or actions can also interact differently on where they are placed. If you divide the waits up between lyric lines, motions or actions, (Yes, doing math.) you can add seamless visuals in your movements. This is so your character is not standing still in your performance and smoothly moves into the next motion or macro instead of snapping. (Example note: A <wait.4> is half of a /tdance, <wait.8> is the whole /tdance motion.)
✔ On the last line of each macro, you want to take out the <wait> timer. This can sometimes clip into the next macro and not allow it to go off right.
Cool Downs ✔ /cd 5 <wait.6> or /cooldown 5 <wait.6> Cool down timers are the best way to get more than one performer on the same page. We do not all have the same connections. The PC or console you are on, the game, your internet or location can give lag. So using this as an alarm for the next macro helps. If you get distracted easily or space out enjoying your own song, it can keep you on track for solos too.
Always add on one more <wait> count than what the CD is, as ‘start’ is one count. Five is the lowest you can go, but you can go higher! So the five would have a <wait.6>, a six would be <wait.7> and so forth. When the ‘cha-ching!’ in the start lock sounds off, press the next macro.
Stay Lucky! We hope this is helpful and adds to your fun! There are other posts about getting your character ready to perform, picking music, macros, timing, lyrics, and motions. There is so much more things to share!
Getting your FFXIV character ready in game for macro performing can be a great deal of help in how your over all presentation comes forth to your audience.
⚠ Disclaimer: This is not in any way a rule of thumb, nor does anyone have to do these. They may even be done a different way! This is only meant as tips or tricks added info. In the end this should be about the player having fun and expressing their own styles. ⚠
Start with setting your character up with: System > Character Configuration > Control Settings > Character Settings tab
✔ Uncheck Display main and off hand gear when sheathed. (This shows/unshows the weapon on your character’s back or sides. You can also do this in each gearset saved by clicking the icons at the bottom of your character display.)
✔ Check Auto-sheath weapon when not in battle. (When a performer wishes for a fancy weapon to be show in a part of the song, this can affect that. On your keyboard you can use the ‘z’ button as a toggle. For macroed lines type ’/BM on’ or ’/BM off’ to show or unshow your weapons.)
✔ Slide the Auto-sheath Delay setting down to the lowest possible setting. (So your character puts the weapon away faster for timed macro lines.)
✔ Slide the Idle Animation Delay setting down to the lowest possible setting. (So your character sits or settles faster for timed macro lines.)
✔ Uncheck the Randomize idle animation setting. (So it doesn’t interrupt your performance or emote movements.)
✔ In the Battle Effects Settings section, show all of your own effects and others to better view performances effects when using battle actions. (If you have lag unshowing them can help buffer your screen. You just will not see the fancy light show!)
➕ Extra Stuff
The less you have on your screen, the less the game has to load which in turn can lag your macros. Most venues ask minions be dismissed. They count as a unit inside housing and loading times. Take into consideration unshowing character titles or minion names. Any of that extra stuff. Again, personal choice.
✔ Tiny white arrows begone! Character config> Display name settings> NPCs> Housing Furniture> Never (Housing has white arrows inside houses to interact with stuff. You can turn them off to clean up your screen! They will still be there to click, just not show on screen. Just less things to look at on your screen while performing.)
✔ /hou (Shows or hides the housing menu. This makes it quicker to ‘return to the front door’ for a disappearing act in your song! or if you get glitched inside something.) (Also, if you have house edit rights you can lower the lights down from 5. Check your lighting that you use, some are wise to only go down to 2 or 3. Anyone using a dark game gamma won’t see much on setting 1.)
✔ Scroll Lock on keyboard (On PC this hides your HUD set up for quick screens to use ‘print screen’ and not /gpose, if you wish to. It’s a toggle, simply press it again to return to normal. A quick way to take a screen while performing.)
Stay Lucky!
We hope this is helpful and adds to your fun! We’ll post about macros, emotes, wait timers, music players and more in an upcoming post. There is so much more things to share!
Reread your old writing, especially those scenes you’re most proud of
Write something silly. It doesn’t need to be logical, consistent or included in your story. Write something dumb
Compare your old writing to your new writing. Seeing how much you’ve improved can be very motivating
Explore different storylines, those type of storylines that would never make it into your story, but you’d still like to play around with
Choose one of your least favorite scenes and rewrite it
Read old comments from people praising your work
Create a playlist that reminds you of your wip
Draw your ocs
Don’t push yourself to get back into writing the thing that made you stop writing in the first place. Write something else
Write what you wanna write, no matter how cliché it might be. It doesn’t matter, if you want to write it, write it
Take a break, focus on another hobby of yours. Consume other pieces of media, take a walk to clear your head
You don’t have to write in chronological order from the very beginning if it isn’t working for you! Sometimes a scene you aren’t interested in writing can become interesting after you’ve explored other scenes that is connected to that one
Read one star reviews of “awful” books. You’ll unlock a new sort of appreciation for your own writing
Create a new storyline, or a new character! Anything that helps bring something fresh into your story. Could even be a completely new wip!
Not writing everyday doesn’t make you a bad writer. Take a break if you feel like you need one
Remind yourself to have fun. Start writing and don’t focus all your attention on following “the rules.” You can get into the nitty-gritty when you’ve familiarized yourself with writing as an art. Or don’t. It’s fiction, you make your own rules
Go to sleep, or take a nap. Sleep deprivation and writing does not go hand in hand (trust me)
Listen to music that reminds you of your characters/wip
Remember why you started. Know that you deserve to tell the story you want to tell regardless of the skill you possess
Whole-heartedly BEGGING writers to unlearn everything schools taught you about how long a paragraph is. If theres a new subject, INCLUDING ACTIONS, theres a new paragraph. A paragraph can be a single word too btw stop making things unreadable
Ok So I’m getting more notes than I thought quicker than I expected! So I’m gonna elaborate bc I want to.
I get it, when you’re someone who writes a lot and talks a lot, it’s hard to keep things readable, but it’s not as much about cutting out the fat(that can be a problem) so much as a formatting issue.
You are also actively NERFING yourself by not formatting it correctly, it can make impactful scenes feel so, so much better. Compare this,
To THIS.
Easier to read, and hits harder.
No more over-saturated paragraphs. Space things out.
@s1ld3n4f1l WAIT WAIT WAIT SO TRUE LITERALLY LITERALLY
Hi! I have a very short attention span, and I rarely find it in me to enjoy using only one resource to learn a language, so I often rely on immersion and actively using the language right from the beginning to learn languages. I’ve done this with pretty much all my languages, and it has worked out pretty well for me so far, especially with French! This is heavily inspired by this article on the medium, which changed my whole outlook on languages. I hope I can offer some helpful advice!
Starting off (A0 –> A2)
First of all, you’re going to have to set your goals in the language. What do you want to do in your target language? Do you want to be conversational or fully fluent? Do you want to focus on all the skills (reading, listening, writing, speaking), or only a couple? Which accent/dialect do you want to choose? Set your goals, and give yourself some habits to start sticking to.
In most cases, I would advice learning the alphabet and the pronunciation at first. For the alphabet, find a guide online and learn the stroke order. Keep on writing it over and over again. For languages like Mandarin Chinese or Japanese, where you have to memorise characters, try and memorise the most common characters. Also, find a pronunciation guide on YouTube or somewhere online, and immediately start working on it. Once you have a general idea of what the sounds are, start speaking and try to shadow natives (i.e. repeat what they say after them with the same intonation - you can do this with YouTube videos, or beginners exercises online). To practice both of these at the same time, you can try reading out loud, and maybe try dictating what you hear sometimes.
Start listening to the language a lot. Try and listen to YouTube videos and podcasts, and get used to the sound of the language. You might even want to watch a TV show or anime in your target language with English subtitles. I’d also recommend reading and listening at the same time, so if you have subtitles in your target language, then that could be great too. The more exposed you are to the natural use of your target language, the less unintelligible they will seem.
Memorise some basic vocabulary and phrases. There are loads of articles online that have basic vocabulary lists and phrases in different languages (there are even some on this website). Try memorising a few of them. In terms of what exactly you should learn vocab for, I would recommend learning vocab lists for these: numbers, subject pronouns, common greetings, the most common verbs (the first 100 should do) and their most common conjugations, days of the week, months, seasons, years, how to tell the time, how to talk about the weather, family, colours, house vocab, food, money and shopping phrases, common adjectives, common places, adverbs, parts of the body and medical vocabulary (I got all of this from this post). It’s a lot, but it will give you a strong foundation. You can then start learning vocabulary for your interests specifically. You can do this using multiple methods. First, you could use flashcards, like anki, memrise and Quizlet. You could also play around with apps like Duolingo or Lingodeer. Also, you could write them down, and keep testing yourself on them until you have them memorised (both target language to english, and english to target language). Make sure that you have audio, and that you know how the word/phrase sounds, and the pronunciation.
Start speaking with someone online. I recommend apps like Tandem and HiNative. Start trying to have conversations of basic topics straight away, and make sure you get corrections. Look up the words as you go.
Memorise a few basic grammar structures. This is especially important for languages like Korean or Japanese, which have extremely different grammar structures to English. Learn basic present, past and future tenses, along with basic articles and determiners, agreement, reflexive verbs, basic particles, negation and gender.
Immerse. I would recommend starting off with posts and videos that offer advice about things, since the language used in these tend to be simplistic, but topic specific. You can also use apps like LingQ. When practicing listening and reading, you can use the advice in these two posts (listening,reading). Don’t memorise every word you come across, and slowly try to ease yourself in.
Making the leap to the intermediate stage (A2 –> B1)
Vocabulary: I’ve already talked about methods of memorising vocabulary earlier, so I won’t talk about it again. As for what you should be memorising, I would suggest basing it on your interests and topical issues. When you immerse, and come across certain interesting words, then memorise them. You can also explore the tag for your target language on tumblr, and try and memorise some of the in depth vocabulary lists on here.
Grammar: I would suggest finding a specification, or list of grammar structures for the intermediate level, and learn all of them using articles and youtube videos. Then, try and use the rules regularly in your speaking and writing and receive corrections. Also, do practice questions.
Listening:I have gone in depth on how to practice listening in the post I mentioned earlier, so I won’t elaborate too much. Overall, I’d say that it is better to make sure that you are listening to the language a lot, and that what you are listening to is comprehensible input.
Reading: Find some learners exercises online, and keep doing them. You can also just generally try to read more, based on your interests. I would also suggest to apply the methods from the post I mentioned earlier.
Writing: Try and write a few sentences every now and then, and use your new grammar structures and vocabulary as much as possible. Make sure that you receive corrections. I have gone in depth on this subject in thispost.
Speaking:Find a speaking buddy online, and try and organise meetings, where you just try and practice speaking. Look up words you don’t know, and be brave: most people are kind, and won’t mind if you make mistakes, so keep trying to move forward.
Going from intermediate to conversational (B1 –> B2)
Vocabulary: Focus on your interests, and areas that will be useful to you. Make sure that you actually use the words that you are memorising while writing and speaking.
Grammar: I think the same advice as the beginner to intermediate stage is applicable here.
Listening: Listen to both intermediate podcasts and YouTube videos in the target language (innovative languages, iyagi, dreaming spanish, a piece of french, InnerFrench etc.), and also to native material (youtube videos, films, TV shows, vines, tiktoks etc.) that you find interesting. Use transcripts or subtitles (in the target language) to memorise new vocabulary, and then keep repeating the audio until you understand everything.
Reading: Read whatever you can get your hands on, as long as it is reasonably simple enough. I would recommend kids books, and also translations of books that you have already read in your target language.
Writing:Try starting a journal in your target language, and also try writing letters/e-mails to people, and maybe write some essays on topical issues. Once again, make sure that you get corrections.
Speaking:Continue having conversations with people in your target language. Let yourself make mistakes and be corrected, because that is the only way to improve. For your accent and pronunciation, shadow native material (I use Easy Languages for this).
This is as far as I have gotten in terms of my self-study journey, so I’m afraid I won’t be able to offer much more advice. When I eventually reach an advanced C1 level in a language, then I’ll definitely make a post about that. Thank you for reading this post! I hope it was useful to you!
make oc playlists. spend hours on moodboards that have no purpose. write self-indulgent fluff that’s never going to be published. scribble three lines of poetry in the back of your history notebook. draw fanart of your own characters. write stupid dialogue that your publishers might hate. start new wips that you might never finish but write those three chapters that make you happy because if you don’t write them, who else will?
writing shouldn’t always be about “will publishers like this” or “i have to reach this word count” or “how do i get the most likes”.
lovely new fandom folks, if i may give you some unsolicited advice to help save you a lot of heartache and stress down the line:
please please please keep your personal beef, whatever it may be, to private dm discussions. do your utmost not to have these conversations on your public fandom socmed pages
we’ve all had falling outs with friends. we’ve all had people in the fandom who rub us the wrong way. we’ve all disagreed with the way a particular fan creator has characterizes our fave. hell, we’ve all had thoughts and feelings and opinions that are just plain petty & mean.
there’s nothing wrong with any of that–it’s an inherent part of being in a large community with a lot of different people. but please keep those discussions–whether it’s an argument or a vent session or a negative opinion of another member of the fandom–to a private venue, because i have never seen a public argument or falling out that hasn’t resulted in a colossal amount of drama & hurt for everyone involved
the key to avoiding large scale drama isn’t never having a disagreement or negative opinion–it’s knowing when & where to express those things
