FFXIVWrite 2023 #1: Envoy

(FFXIV-Write info here)

Her skin prickled even beneath the long fabric - it was made to breathe, after all, in the heat of the day... but as the sun set on a blushing horizon over the desert surrounding the city, the change in temperature was a swift one.

The savory aroma of miq'abobs for sale at the vendor below was hard to ignore - and this fellow had innovated, to offer the sweet-doughed honey fritters local to the area on a stick, as well... all the easier to eat on the go after a busy day - and that much harder to say no to, as the sweet-and-savory scents mingled on an evening breeze to accompany you the whole way down this particular stretch of street... it was a prime location to make quick gil near the end of the day.

But Jak preferred the advantage that height gave - attribute it to the 'Little Robin', or maybe the 'Dragon' that she fancies herself... but she felt safer up high. Less like she was smaller than the rest of the world around her - and more like the higher being she was. It wasn't as though she fancied herself a Shepherd - but the Sheep sure as hell weren't smart enough to keep an eye out for themselves. Wolves walked among them in plain sight - many and more guised as the Sheep-dogs, even; and little was more despicable to the young woman than the thought of those posing as protectors to take advantage of those in need. Wearing the uniform, going to muster, shining their boots... strong-arming refugees, bullying the homeless.

Ul'dah was supposed to be the city that would open its arms to her - and her twin - when they'd been on the run from Garlemald... instead, it was the place where hope had well and truly died in the streets like a dog; the place where the bloated corpse of that self-same hope was kicked on a daily basis, spit on by the very people who were supposed to help.

She asked herself, as she had so many times before - what was her place in this world, now? Where did she fit in? Who were these people to her? She'd fought and struggled for her people - but the family she'd known was long since dead... and the Garleans still paid for that loss.

But what now?

She half-hopped, half-slid from the roof's overhang, to drop in an alley and make her way around - slipping the vendor a few gil extra for a savory 'qa'bob. She was all that remained of the J Tribe - of her branch of it, at least. There were other branches that had split, and wandered afar... but the Jackal was hers. The sands of Gyr Abania were its home, and hers - and while the Jackal prized survival? It protected its pack... all those struggling to survive. All those who would do what it takes to get by - all those clever and savage enough to do so.

And if she was past the point of merely surviving - was it her duty to follow yet further in the Jackal's footsteps? Were these people, barely hanging on, in need of the Jackal? That was the easier question to answer; because of course they were. These were the very people the Jackal guarded, rather than preying on - the rest of the world would gladly underestimate and devour them, and so the Jackal would give them the strength and the wit to fight back.

It was exhausting to even have to contemplate - she didn't even like people, broadly speaking. But who fought for them? Did they have something like the Jackal, to give them the will to be strong enough, like she'd had? Was it her job to give them that? Being a hero didn't appeal - it had lost her people everything, once, in merely trying to fight back.

The Shadow of her Beast half-stalked, half-oozed along the wall beside her in this new turn of alleyway, shadows dripping from its maw, only to rejoin with its somewhat-canine-form at large, as they 'fell' near its viscous, inky paws... those jaws with far, far too many razor-teeth slavering at the mere thought.

If the Wolves have it coming, then what does it matter what the Sheep consider us? The Sheep will bleat, regardless - may as well give them something to bleat about. Hate, or love, those who deserve retribution will have it - if for no other reason than because they took away our last chance at innocence.

FFXIVWrite 2023 #2: Bark

The hawking in the streets of Ul'dah had always struck a chord with the young woman - she'd come from a tribe of merchants, craftsmen, and dealmakers of all stripes, and every stop at a trading post or village had come with the barking of the salesmen and the jackals alike.

Perhaps that's why it stung even more than the rejection from the Shroud had - sure, she'd still be glad to burn the damned place down, but at least she could agree with their 'mystical forest spirits' - she didn't belong there, hemmed in by trees on all sides.

The hot, open air of the desert, and the sticky press of skin-and-fabric in the markets - the ebb and flow of civilization; beaches weren't the only place you could watch tides. She may not be Ul'dahn born, but she was merchant-borne, and Jak could watch the crowds swell and recede - and the day's ebb and flow of gil, consequently. As a child, what else had there been to do, but watch? Before things had gotten bloody, this din had been the sort of thing that spoke to new opportunities, new experiences... wondrous wares, if only you've got the gil.

Perhaps that's why this place had called to her - perhaps that was why it was easier to walk the streets of Ul'dah, than the streets of Ala Mhigo, or the deserts of Gyr Abania. It was familiar - but it wasn't quite home. It didn't cut to the quick in the same way that going home would.

And far too many Mhigans had ended up here, in just as shitty a position as she'd been in - so who would she be, then, if she just left them here - how she'd been left by her own twin? Hadn't it struck her deeply just to see war orphans struggling on the streets of Kugane? How could she turn her gaze from those so like her, here in this place where she knew exactly how they felt? - how they struggled.

FFXIV Write 2023 #5: Barbarous

(( Hey there! You might want to check the tags for trigger warnings - I rarely go too in-depth on triggering topics, but I do briefly mention uncomfortable stuff!))

I think about it endlessly, in the days that follow - I force myself to look at my own point of view as if it were another's, I try to step away from my own past, my own hurt; but that's like asking someone to step out of their own skin - I simply cannot.

Every night I fall asleep, and I see their broken bodies. I hear their screams - I feel the boots in my ribs, the hands grabbing, the chemicals burning under my skin; among other things that I can't even speak the words for, things that no person should ever endure, or even have to witness. I can't even blame the survivors who eventually went on to take their own lives, despite attaining freedom in the end - the things done to us, to dehumanize us... they're hard to live with every single day.

And in fairness, I even tried. I tried once, by my own hand - and many, many more times have I chased Death, snapping at its heels, hungry for something that could conquer me. Take me down. Something powerful enough to make it all stop.

I excel at surviving, however - unwilling to truly give up the ghost - and now here I am, still surviving in a world in which Garlemald has fallen, and I am told that this land of hateful bigots has innocent people in it... but I cannot find them. I don't know how else to tell him that I've walked their wastes, when I still cannot bring myself to walk the sands of my own homeland. I walked among them.

I let them prove to me what they are - their rhetoric about us hasn't changed, despite the loss of all that matters to them. Even as they starve, and freeze, they are full of hate for that which is different than them -

"Beast."

"Savage."

"Beastman."

WRT the Garlemald portion of EW: I'm sure that for a lot of FFXIV's history players have been wondering what it would be like to reach Garlemald proper in-game, and daydreaming of epic battles, maybe a sense of "conquering the conquerers"

And it is so, so genius of EW to not give you that.

You don't get any glory or revenge in defeating the evil empire, they already self-destructed on their own. You can't really revel in it. If you're feeling particularly vindictive you might look at the rubble and silently think "Serves you right!" or "Good riddance to bad rubbish." but no matter how much you may have hated the Empire in the past it's hard not to pity what's left.

See, the thing about Garlemald is that in their prejudice and conquest they treated everyone who isn't them as subhuman. But in the end you are all human beings, and so are they. The Empire isn't a nameless, faceless evil, it's a war machine created by the beliefs of humans who saw other humans as inhuman. By helping the survivors you are not only doing the right thing, the human thing to do, you are also disproving their prejudice in the process by reminding them that you're all human. (I'm using the word "human" in abstract sense here, not to refer just to the Hyuran race of FFXIV, but all the races of sentient beings, all deserving of rights, respect, etc.)

I'm trying to shine a light on the significance of this part of the story because it seems like some people have conflicted feelings about helping citizens of a facist former empire, but it would be sheer Reading Comprehension Stat: None to assume that that means FFXIV is condoning their ideology. In fact, it would be antithetical to FFXIV's optimistic, pro-humanity, love-and-peace, a-better-world-is-possible -type philosophy if we instead left the survivors to starve.

Maybe I'm alone in not pitying fascist bigots who dug the grave they now have to lie in. I was raised by racist bigots, in a part of the U.S. where lots of people are still those things; where being in the military/being a cop means you're basically a superhero to the civilian public.

But then I got out of that home, and learned that the things I saw, grew up around, and was taught... were skewed. My government and my culture celebrated things that seemed antithetical to human nature - skin color doesn't matter, and serving in the military/police force isn't actually honorable or anything to celebrate. And I figured this all out while I was attending the military college that fired the opening shots of the Civil War - they even had a mural of the cadets firing those first shots in the campus library. I get it, I know what its like to grow up in a place that still thinks certain types of people are subhuman - young men at my college tried to run out the women attending there, and I matriculated 10 years after the school started accepting women as cadets. Think about that - this school didn't allow black men, or women... and they let black men in years ago... but in 2006, women had only been allowed to attend for 10 years, and were still held to unfairly high standards compared to the men. Did no Garleans ever do the same - become young adults and question what the hell was going on around them?

No matter how much brainwashing their country was doing, you know deep down that some things are just wrong. I always felt uncomfortable when racist jokes were made around me growing up, despite the casual nature of racism still prevalent in the U.S. south in many places.

So all that said? Yeah, I spent my whole time in Garlemald thinking "serves you bastards right," and being disgusted that Ala Mhigan refugees, run out of their homes by these very people... were asked to sew tents and send them to the Garlean refugees. Think about that if it happened in the real world - imagine a country committing genocide/unthinkable war crimes (not hard to do at present), but they collapse in on themselves one day, and their people are starving... would you ask the survivors of that genocide to help them? The very people who violated their women, murdered children, burned down homes and hospitals... you want them to make homes for those hateful people now? It felt like a slap in the face to me and my Ala Mhigan oc. Maybe literally anyone else should have been tasked with that relief effort.

Sure, we're all human - and maybe the dregs of their fascist state (most of whom still openly regard you as filth, even as they starve) will have their eyes opened by kindness, but we see that even that is spit on because "needing help is weak," and we basically have to do the trick you pull with giving a dog medicine by hiding it in cheese/meat - you trick them into a trade deal with the one nation they didn't genocide, just to get them to accept aid they desperately need, but would rather die cold and alone in a cave than accept.

It absolutely tracks that XIV storytelling will have us all hold hands in the end - but it's all a little too sugar-coated for me. I write a character who suffered terribly at Garlean hands, and I have been deeply immersed in the details of the various kinds of heinous war crimes they've committed - one that stands out to me is a man at his mother's and sister's graves, telling you that after what the Garleans did to them, they killed themselves - and that death was a mercy after what they endured. When you know the nitty gritty, (let's not forget the horror that is the Weapon questline either) instead of just standing back and talking about a bad, faceless empire... they're almost impossible to forgive, or want to help in any way.

I don't pity fallen, genocidal fascists - I spit on their graves, and hope that the hateful people they left behind don't sprout a new empire of hate... after all, many children of high ranking Nazis went on to firmly believe in what they were taught growing up. Not all, but many still espoused the disgusting beliefs of 'the Third Reich'... giving some soup and blankets to Garleans won't change what's molded them their entire lives, either. It's pretty obvious that the WoL befriends the very few moderate Garleans there are - all the other NPCs still had rather hateful, bigoted dialogue.

So yes, the story tracks for how SE writes XIV stories - hell, it even aligns with Christian philosophy, that says to love all men... especially your enemies! But I'm only human, and I couldn't drum up any pity for those who made the bed they now lie in. Not with the lines that they crossed, and the beliefs they kept espousing even after being shown how wrong they were. But it tracks for the story SE is telling - because even in Dawntrail, we're told that it's possible to become friends with someone you once thought you hated... and it is a beautiful sentiment! I wish more people were willing to give second chances, and work through miscommunications, and move forward with a better understanding of each other. It's not a bad message - I just can't pity unrepentant fascists who celebrated war crimes, and still hold fast to those beliefs.

there's this specific kind of "bad"/unsympathetic victim narrative that i'm obsessed with when it's executed well, where someone's trauma response is to become increasingly destructive and selfish, at first in the hope that there will be consequences - that someone will follow the broken, bloody trail they're leaving behind them and try to stop them - because that will mean that they've been seen. that someone has finally noticed them, acknowledged their pain, and done something about it. but then, when those consequences never arrive, or are too easily brushed aside, they realise that they're enjoying being in control (or the illusion of control) for once far too much to stop, and start to buy into this delusion they've begun to construct for themselves, where what they're doing is Justified, Actually, because of what they've endured to reach this point. they've long since crossed sunk cost fallacy event horizon. to look back now would be unbearable. which is, of course, when the consequences they cannot so easily ignore arrive, and they're forced to reckon with the fact that they've mistaken the grave they've been digging for a great and gleaming tower, the crumbling walls of which are now starting to collapse inwards on them. it's such an inevitable but compelling tragic route to go down.

Not me eyeing Jak cutting a swath through the remains of Garlemald's people for this exact reason; she calls it anger, vengeance, justice... but it's pain. It's a scream of agony that rebounds off the icy plains of Garlemald right back at her - no amount of fear instilled, no amount of blood, no amount of fury can bring back the dead. What's lost is lost. The relief of vengeance is brief, a bitter pill; an eye for an eye, but you'll never get that vision back... no matter how many more you remove. She knows she has become like those who destroyed all those she loved - she does enjoy the control - the control they took from her for so long. They claimed that 'might made right,' and so she clutches this phrase to her chest as tightly as the memories of her family. Now she has the might, and so doesn't that grant her the right to exact a price for her pain? For the pain of the lives Garlemald stole?

The gunfire wracks her dreams, the artillery startles her awake - years after she has escaped the genocide of her people. The pain strikes when she least expects it... so she does, too. She strikes back, an animal blind with fury in its pain and fear - it's the only thing she knows to do: flash her fangs, and lash out.

I watched an excellent synopsis of The Babadook (by Horror History, on Youtube) recently, and it made me think of Jak - how she, like the mother in the movie, won't face her grief - so it continues to consume her. It manifests for Jak, however, in her Dark Knight powers as her Fray... as a twisted version of a thing meant to bring justice... but what does justice look like to someone stuck in the grief loop, never making it to acceptance? There is only pain, bargaining, denial, anger - all folding in on themselves time and again, festering as any untreated wound does.

She is alone, rooted so deep in her pain that the world around her has become a twisted, warped reflection of her own pain. What else can she be, when she can't see an end to the pain/grief?

FFXIV Write 2023 #5: Barbarous

(( Hey there! You might want to check the tags for trigger warnings - I rarely go too in-depth on triggering topics, but I do briefly mention uncomfortable stuff!))

I think about it endlessly, in the days that follow - I force myself to look at my own point of view as if it were another's, I try to step away from my own past, my own hurt; but that's like asking someone to step out of their own skin - I simply cannot.

Every night I fall asleep, and I see their broken bodies. I hear their screams - I feel the boots in my ribs, the hands grabbing, the chemicals burning under my skin; among other things that I can't even speak the words for, things that no person should ever endure, or even have to witness. I can't even blame the survivors who eventually went on to take their own lives, despite attaining freedom in the end - the things done to us, to dehumanize us... they're hard to live with every single day.

And in fairness, I even tried. I tried once, by my own hand - and many, many more times have I chased Death, snapping at its heels, hungry for something that could conquer me. Take me down. Something powerful enough to make it all stop.

I excel at surviving, however - unwilling to truly give up the ghost - and now here I am, still surviving in a world in which Garlemald has fallen, and I am told that this land of hateful bigots has innocent people in it... but I cannot find them. I don't know how else to tell him that I've walked their wastes, when I still cannot bring myself to walk the sands of my own homeland. I walked among them.

I let them prove to me what they are - their rhetoric about us hasn't changed, despite the loss of all that matters to them. Even as they starve, and freeze, they are full of hate for that which is different than them -

"Beast."

"Savage."

"Beastman."

Bitter Pill

The music here is too peppy. The decorations, too gaudy - flashy, blinding you to the sickening cycle of consumption within these gilded walls.

I haven’t been here in a long while, but the Gold Saucer’s shitty wine is still familiarly sour on my tongue.

I have a few too many glasses of it, anyways. 

Instead of heading to the Southern Front personally, I had some field notes brought to me. I’m glad I had the foresight to research, and not just…show up. The collected information leaves me…dazed, furious, and teetering perilously close to a place I’d rather keep avoiding. 

Genetic testing. Chemical experiments. People, and creatures twisted into things that shouldn’t exist. Things biological and mechanical alike, fused in ways that make my stomach lurch, even now. Though, that could be the wine.

I remember when I was as addicted to this shitty casino as the somnus - anything to chase out the demons of Garlemald. There’s a familiarity, and a forced sort of cheer, here, that combines with my rancid disgust for those around me that…briefly distracts from the horrible truth of me.

What all did they do to me? Am I a shitty person because of who I am, or because of them? The anger that threatens to devour me day in and day out - is that me, or them? How much of who I am is me? 

All of it now. It’s all that’s left. What I became under the pressure.

It’s hard not to get lost in that place again. It’s hard to look at myself in the mirror, and see spotless skin where scars should be…hard not to feel disgusted with myself for the blemish-less flesh…now scarred by other hands, though it will never bear the scars of the sins put upon me in years past; the weight of what I carry remains an invisible burden. A life sentence as surely as if I were still in a cage.

Everyone is gone, thanks to ‘testing’ like this, and I have nothing to show for my suffering - just one scar, on my nose, to remind me that I lost that first day. Their healing concoctions were rough on the body, even if they seemingly got the job done; it’s led me to worry, that - like my Wolf - I likely shouldn’t test the theory of how well my body will hold up under extreme duress. Too many times broken - and then mended by their ‘miracle drug’ in testing…a thing then still too volatile to use reliably on soldiers, or anyone that wasn’t a savage, or a ‘beastman’. 

There’s no way to know what the long-term effects are, or how it’s changed me - I wasn’t supposed to live, ultimately. Or not for terribly long, at least.

Sour grapes bite back - at the tip of my tongue, spreading to tingle at the sides of as much, before it’s all washed down to join the rest.

I don’t think I do want to go to the Southern Front, anymore; it’s not a fear I can look in the face, at present - not a demon I can face down, in my current state. In fact, I should probably attempt to teleport across the world, and drink some tea that keeps the nightmares concerning as much at bay.

I finish the wine that no one should ever be asked to pay their own gil for, first.

If anyone ever wonders why Jak is the way she is, here’s some Ala Mhigans talking about life under Imperial rule. She was not spared tragedy, or pain, or humiliation. Indeed, death would have been a mercy.

Remember how it felt when they ran you down under the hot sun.

Remember the terror of gunshots and war machina. -Of bodies larger, and stronger than your own.

Remember their hands on your body.

Remember the beatings. The experiments. The helplessness.

Remember when they called your people 'beastmen'.

Remember the family whose blood stains the hands of every living, breathing Garlean who supported the mass murder in Ala Mhigo.

A Jackal always collects its due.

Become the Beast: A Hannibal Fan Song - Karliene

Justice

is footprints cracking in the snow

Justice

is licking bloodied fangs clean

Justice

can only be but visceral -

hungry, determined, and mean.

-Excerpt from Cold Comfort, my writing.

‪#WOLpromptAday‬

‪May 19, 2024‬

‪How does your WOL feel about family? (Blood or otherwise) Are they a benefit or a burden? Openly celebrated or kept a secret? What might happen if someone threatens WOLs blood family? What about found family? ‬

The funny thing about Jak is - she is who she is (this hardened, cynical person)... because of just how important family is/was to her. Her tribe meant everything to her - with a canine totem animal in the Jackal, one might not be surprised to learn that 'the pack' - or the tribe - was paramount. You're only as strong as the next member of the tribe, and the tribe only functions well when all members are contributing - you're a hunter, or a gatherer, or a craftsman or a merchant, or a cook, or a blacksmith, etc. Every person has a role, and they're all equally important. A hunter isn't any more important than the people back at camp who cook the hunters' kills. Disabled in some way? There's some way in which you can be just as helpful as anyone else. Everyone is important, and vital. Survival is paramount in the desert, and you prioritize your tribe - without them, you are nothing.

In light of such emphasis put on the tribe/family - being The One Who Survived is excruciating. Her twin brother survived too... but he ended up chasing boys, and betraying his bond with Jak to put his various relationships before her. She's... utterly alone. Her branch of the J Tribe is gone, and it haunts her. Ghosts dog her every step - she has night terrors about not just what the Garleans did to her, but to her loved ones. How they were hunted like dogs, experimented on like rats. Without the 'pack', without her tribe... who, and what is she?

She's fallen into a state of nihilism in which she pushes herself to ever greater heights in unhealthy ways - if everyone is gone but her, doesn't she owe it to the dead to be someone worthwhile? If she's the one who lived, she carries the burden of all their hopes and dreams; the entirety of the Jackal's legacy rests on her scarred little shoulders... and it's heavy. It's even heavier knowing that all of that legacy dies with her.

The Jackal was, first and foremost, a guardian and guide to the dead - and in a way, she feels almost like a vessel for, or avatar of the Jackal in that way. It's as though all the spirits of her people follow her, and she must embody something worthwhile - she is the guardian of the dead... because she's the only one left. She keeps the legacy/their memories alive. The Jackal also serves as a beacon and guardian to all those who would survive, no matter the cost - the weary traveler, the cut-throat thief, the savvy merchant... and so despite a death-wish she once chased? She's come to realize that throwing away her life would be akin to throwing away the lives of all those who perished... she has to live, and make the most of it... for them.

But when you are so dedicated to family, and tribe - who do you become when not only have you lost all of your family, but you have also had to compromise on who you are, to survive? Who are you, when you've suffered beyond measure, and debased yourself in the extreme, just to live another day? She survived - but at what cost? The family-oriented, empathetic, and out-going girl from the J Tribe died alongside everyone else she loved... a twisted shadow clawing its way from the ruin of her former life, uneasy in the world of 'normalcy' that has now settled over the land in the wake of Garlemald's defeat.

She changed, to survive and fight in a world that doesn't exist, any longer. The threat is vanquished, but who does that make her in a world with no enemy, and no family? Just one more forgotten Garlean experiment? A broken weapon, with no war to fight? Where does all the anger and hurt go, when peace returns to the land?

Remember how it felt when they ran you down under the hot sun.

Remember the terror of gunshots and war machina. -Of bodies larger, and stronger than your own.

Remember their hands on your body.

Remember the beatings. The experiments. The helplessness.

Remember when they called your people 'beastmen'.

Remember the family whose blood stains the hands of every living, breathing Garlean who supported the mass murder in Ala Mhigo.

A Jackal always collects its due.

If anyone ever wonders why Jak is the way she is, here’s some Ala Mhigans talking about life under Imperial rule. She was not spared tragedy, or pain, or humiliation. Indeed, death would have been a mercy.