Eorzean Sister Crew

FFXIV blog for @reflectionsofacreator Crystal data center, alts ahoy

[thecat-inthehat]

thecat-inthehat’s masterpost

About me

Hello! I’m known as Neeb, Creator, or Azlykumos, and my main blog is over at @reflectionsofacreator​, so likes/follows will come from there. 

This blog was originally created for My Girls, Nive, Shining, and Hel, so they get the lion’s share of attention around this place. In addition to my own bullshit, I have several long running msq RPs with various partners, and will occasionally talk about them here. I’ve been playing XIV since September of 2015, as I left Star Wars: The Old Republic and was looking for another MMO to play. I found two very lovely FCs, and the rest is history.

My favorite expansion is Stormblood, while Heavensward remains my least after multiple playthroughs. While I don’t bash the expansion (or any expansion), sometimes I do talk about things that frustrate me about XIV from narrative structure, pacing, and underutilized characters. My favorite characters from XIV are Arbert and Zenos, so you can expect to find a lot of them here.

Characters

Nivelth Ajuyn - my primary main. A half hrothgar, half miqo’te Summoner and Allagan researcher, and has revitalized the art long dead. An avid lover of tea, she also dabbles in her mother’s family art of Astromancy, though with limited success. She’s something of a thrillseeker, and is quick to get into trouble, usually by sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong. Practical and inquisitive to a fault, she can often talk her way out of people (her sisters) yelling at her for getting into said trouble. Rarely seen without her signature Saint Valentione’s red feathered hat, or her coeurl Mila.

Shining Comet - a paladin songstress primarily based in Ul’dah, who often sells her skills as a bodyguard or an entertainer.  Fun loving and easy going, tends not to care much for politics or intrigue, save for what she can find at the Quicksand. She’s quick to flirt with pretty girls and go for a drink, and she treats most people that come across her as new friends. She has massive scarring on her left side, from crown to calf, and a tattoo over her left cheek to try and cover up some of it. With scarring that extensive, it’s a bit of a mystery as to how she didn’t lose an eye or loss of motor functions -- and she won’t tell, either. Many people have claimed to have seen her out and about, and she’s wanted for questioning involving several crimes, the most notable being a massacre a Rabanastern night lounge, some three years after the 7th Umbral Calamity. 

Helisent Wynter - A wind-aspected conjurer affected by wanderlust, traveling the world and offering up her services in return for a safe haven for the night. Quick witted and playful, she sometimes doesn’t think before she opens her mouth. Her signature spell is “float”, and oftentimes you can see her simply drifting along, or seated in a cushion of air. She can fly for brief periods, and is working on lengthening the time she can soar in the clouds. Born Ala Mhigan but raised in Gridania, she knew little of her heritage before she set out to help with the Liberation, and struggles with the facets of her identity that seem so at odds with one another. In an effort to be closer to her homeland she learned the teachings of the Monks of Rhalgr, and practices her new discipline as much as she can.

Karla Oandore -  After losing her betrothed in the 7th Umbral Calamity, Karla spent five years attempting to regain a sense of normalcy amidst a realm that was frantically trying to do the same. A chance meeting with a hyur-raised Xaela named Caliban Abyra on a carriage into Gridania led to an unlikely alliance, and the two struggled to find their place in a world that needed them. Over the course of their adventures, Karla learned that she was a Warrior of Light of the Magi era, now reborn to fight once more. Several ghosts, both real and imagined, linger and follow her around while she attempts to remember her old life. This causes her to really wrestle with the question of if she should be beholden to her past, or attempt to live her life as it is now, oftentimes with no clear answer.

Strikefire Oandore - A royal Mhachi Black Mage with tattoos all over her body, Strikey has spent the last 1600 years waiting for her lover to be reborn after the disastrous last battle that lead to the 6th Umbral Calamity. A letter from her friend, E-Sumi-Yan, brought her back to Eorzea five years after the 7th Calamity, where she managed to make acquaintances with Suna’ya Molkoh, a miqo’te man with uncommonly powerful empathy, and Emmanellain de Fortemps, freshly run away from his home in Ishgard. The trio become an unlikely party as they journey across Eorzea, and realize with some horror, oh no, Eorzea calls them the Warriors of Light.

Koru Sai’nalia - The last prince of Mhach sought to become a god for his people, on a man in a white robe’s suggestion. He succeeded. Thanatos, the Lord of Ruin, flew aloft and turned the tide against Amdapor in a devastating offensive with his lover, Diablos. Desperate measures forced the Amdapori to capture them both, and bound Thanatos in an undying body of clay with an enchanted blade driven through his chest. Some 1600 years later, a man with strange tattoos is found in Snakemolt by Scions Yda and Papalymo, and wakes to having no memory of his past or why he shows such a strange affinity for thamaturgy.

Aiden Ravensblade - the twin brother of Hilda Ware, known in the Burme as “The Raven” due to how his voice would croak on the rare occasions that he spoke aloud. He hates to be touched, and has more knives than the Inquisitors know what to do with. If Hilda is the face of the Burme, Aiden is the ear in the dark-- he gathered up information and distributed supplies to the disenfranchised. This lead to him being charged with false accusations of being a Heretic, and he was forced to flee Ishgard lest it come back to Hilda. When he arrived in Limsa Lominsa, the Rogue’s Guild quickly recruited him to their cause, which led to him thwarting an attack on Swiftperch by a man in a black robe. Now having caught the attention of the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, he has to decide if helping them is worth the possibility of putting his sister in danger.

Links

ao3 | creator writes - not all things are crossposted FFXIVWrite 2020 | FFXIVWrite 2021 | FFXIVWrite 2022 | FFXIVWrite 2024

vg caps - no edits, but sometimes uses gshade/mods

edits - screencaps that I’ve edited for more than basic color correction

ultrawide series - I got gifted a massive gaming monitor and now I have to retake all my scenery photos for backgrounds. Have some of the better ones!

musings - somewhat catch all tag for meta or random long posts of mine

tags for specific continuities 

[yyymmmrrr]

finished endwalker. i am very normal about him

[itsmeishmi]

Shinryu (part of a Commission from Patreon!)

[floodwatersblog]

let's take ibuprofen fight to the death together

[ffxivxd]

While the gaps in an arcanists' clothing do reduce overall defense, it is said that those who dedicate to harnessing Primal's power for their own are not innately inclined to an excess of caution

[jabberwockprince]

the dynamic between guydelot and sanson is unrivaled because its the drunk flirty sassy asshole bard elf who does whatever he wants and no one can tell him otherwise & the frowny strict no bullshit allowed john hyur guy who is kind of anal about doing the right thing and/or doing things right

so you think ah! this is a classic trope! this is one of the big hits of the summer! flirty x serious! in which sanson will always get bothered by guydelot pushing his buttons! and guydelot will always stirr shit between them while secretly pining for the guy! and sansol will always hide or deny his feelings!

and then you play the bard questline and find out that their entire dynamic is "sanson gets an idea and is so earnest, honest, impulsive and stubborn about it that guydelot has to stop his mandatory brooding session bc he has to figure out how to make shit work for sanson before he gets himself hurt". and you're there to either third wheel or join the polycule

[ixxyart]

Let's return to the way Etheirys once was, hundreds of millions of years past.

To a quiet and peaceful time, long before the light of mankind was kindled.

[ravendas]

Beyond the Horizon Café

Been working on the interior all day and finally got the downstairs mostly done. *playdead*

Sanji's almost ready to start serving up the best coffee, tea, and baked goods on Etheirys!

[mightier]

vendetta Reap what blood has sown and fill the belly of the beast.

[thecat-inthehat]

You know, one thing I don’t think I’ve seen almost anyone talk about is Fordola’s narrative role as the representation of Ala Mhigo’s stolen and indoctrinated youth.

This isn’t really a dissertation, or a hard thesis with cited sources, more just … some musings. Garlemald is a near-textbook fascist nation (by design) that constantly expands itself via colonization and occupation. Expansionist fascist nations need more soldiers to do this, so they indoctrinate the youth of the nation to serve their own ends and dismantle the rebellion before it even really starts. Youth are promised the world if only they’ll believe everything they’re told, and fight for the overlords when needed and pulled away from their roots. Garlemald is, like most fascist nations, enthralling and able to pull people in and keep them in. There’s a strong sense of purpose, a chance to feel as though conscripts are making “a real difference”, and a charismatic leader at it’s head.

The most overt of this is the Crania Lupi, made by van Balesar – a regimen filled with Ala Mhigan youth who are bitter and resentful that they’re still seen as “savages” and are willing to do anything to get the respect of the Garleans. They’re used as enforcers and rebellion-quellers, often by beating up their own kinsmen, who then ostracize them for their actions. It’s the perfect set up to drive a wedge between the younger and elder generations, and weaken any sort of uprising that might be brewing.

Fordola, being the commander of this unit, is more the symbol of what Gaius was trying to achieve than anyone else. She’s given enough power to feel important, but knows it comes with a cost, and dire consequences if she fails, much like her peers. She keeps digging herself (and the Lupi) deeper and deeper in a way to try and meet the moving goalposts, and hates herself and what she’s doing every step of the way. She knows that she’s betraying her people, her heritage, but she doesn’t see any other way out because she’s so thoroughly been pulled into this whirlpool of fascist ideology. Even her name is so overt about this – it’s a Garlean last name: Lupis.

In terms of her character, she’s extremely unlikable. She’s angry, she’s brash, she pushes people away and tries to goad them into hating her, much like how she hates herself. She hates the world for putting her in the position she’s in, but also she hates the powers that left her where she is, and has no frame of reference to move past it beyond simply following Garlemald’s orders. She isn’t nice. At all. She’s marginalized and oppressed, but given just enough power (with very specific rules on who she can use that power on) to leave her unwilling to completely leave the place she’s built up.

The most recent short story highlights how she doesn’t feel Ala Mhigan or Garlean, and also how she knows she’ll have to sign up as a Garlean soldier in order to allay suspicion on her friends or her family. She’s being looked down upon by her elders for going along with the Garleans, but then also looked down on by the Garleans for being “barely better than a savage”. She’s desperate for a place to call her own, to be accepted, wanted, relied upon, like so many of her peers.

She’s only nineteen, and has been coerced and reeled in by the people above her into this horrible meat-grinder of a system. Of course she won’t be easily likable or understood, or even a good person. There is so much that she, and by extension her generation, have to unlearn and relearn. At the end of the day, yes, she’s responsible for her own choices and the places that she’s landed herself in. I’m not denying that. But the level of which she, and by extension her generation, have been taught to follow Garlemald’s footsteps is … staggering. In a way, we never really need to see who her friends are, because she so thoroughly represents her entire generation of Ala Mhigan youth that never had the chance to leave, like Arenvald.

I’m not saying you have to like her. There’s plenty of reasons why not to do so. But… I dunno. It draws a little too close to home for me to just write her off as irredeemable or a complete failure of a person, because that’s essentially condemning an entire generation to doom and robbing Ala Mhigo of their future. The whole point of the Crania Lupi arc is that the kids that were supposed to be the future were stolen and pitted against their own people, and that means that they’re going to come out traumatized and ugly in how they react to things, which Fordola isn’t shy about showing.

[myrfing]

everyone’s always like if you engage with the story it pays off in shb and ew but it imho it pays off in a much more tangible way far earlier in sb if you gaf about Arenvald (him talking to A’aba and Aulie while everyone else is congratulating you is one of my favorite parts of the game), if Gallien saying you might not remember him but he remembers you means anything before the summoning of shinryu (he’s also a oft-unmentioned part of the drk quests), if doing the For Wilred questline and walking back with Bertliana to Ala Mhigo means anything to you. and to possibly do that you gotta engage a little with the world beyond the parts that boost your wol’s personal angst portfolio

[julmakooo]

three entire thancreds

[kaelhasturn]

[vogelspinne]

Lady Iceheart ❄

[ageha-sds]

Garlean Week - Gaius van Baelsar, Legatus of the XIVth Legion

notably not in charge of the Death Guard

[nanndana]

[spiribia]

well come and well met, my brave little spark