#Garleans

[finalfantabee]

This is basically what happened in Garlemald, right?

[autumnslance]

FFXIV Write 2024: 19 Taken

(Violence, fantasy racism, kidnapping, death)

His side twinged, but he winced and kept tracking his quarry. It was not difficult, given their vehicles and the way they marched the troops and their prisoners.

A surge of anger rolled through him and he pressed on, the pain in his side forgotten. It had been his own fault, when his mentor had pushed him out of the way of the attacking soldiers. It had saved his life, but his mentor’s had been lost.

Along with most of the village they protected; the warders had failed. His shame in surviving could only be alleviated by finding the children that had been taken.

In the smoldering wreckage he had found his dying mother. She had weakly cried out for his sibling, using their diminutive nickname for the child—Ijna. When he made his occasional visits to the village—as a young man, he made more frequent trips than his elders tended to—he would be sure to visit his mother, and had been fond of Ijna, with skin as coal-dark as Mother’s. Their dark hair had turquoise streaks to match their bright eyes. A small, slight child, but he had once been, too, and had often assured the little one that someday they would grow as large and strong as himself—perhaps moreso, if they were a girl.

His sibling was among those stolen.

His nose caught the stench of ceruleum. His lips twisted in a snarl and he took to the tree branches.

The chief had defied the imperial officers who came to make demands, and the warders had harried them. They thought they had made the Garleans leave their valley. They had been terribly wrong, as the invaders had returned in force.

He did not know what he would do, when he rescued the children. He would figure that out once safely away from the camp.

They had stopped for the night, a pavilion set up for the officers to dine and sleep in. Troops who were not attending to their superiors patrolled the perimeter, or guarded the vehicle where the children huddled. They had been allowed to relieve themselves in a trench, and given some rations to eat the same as the soldiers. Then returned to the bed of the truck, where they huddled together for comfort and warmth under not enough thin blankets.

“Wretched little beasts,” one of the soldiers under his chosen branch said to a fellow. “And the Praefectus thinks they can be citizens?”

The other shrugged. “That’s the Emperor’s idea. If they will not submit, make them wish they had, as one way or another, they will be civilized. These brats shouldn’t be as feral as the adults, and there’s a school where they’ll be tamed of their savage ways.”

The first made another derogatory sound. “Even so, no one will mistake them for anything but beasts with those ears.” The two laughed and continued on their patrols.

He grit his teeth and waited.

Eventually the camp settled in for the night. There were soldiers taking their turn at patrol, at guarding the children. They were more lax than they could have been, thinking they had dealt with all of the village’s adults.

He handled the wandering patrols first, with careful, silent arrows for the first, and a dagger across the throat of the second. The high collars of their lightly armored uniforms, in addition to the rounded helms they wore, made it difficult, but there was hardly any sound, and no one came to investigate. He deposited the bodies in the woodline and crept toward the truck.

The children heard him coming, even if their Garlean guard did not. He gestured for them to keep quiet, uncertain if they could see him in the dark. Even silent, their stirring and looking around put their guard on alert. He would have to be swift. He drew his bow and—

A light snapped on, blinding him as he was exposed. “I knew it!” one of the officers growled. “Kill him, and search for more! He may be a scout for a war band!”

They were already firing their weapons as he dashed into the woods. The children screamed and shouted, their guards yelling at them. His ears picked up Ijna’s particular keening cry before it was cut off, the child struck by a guard.

A bullet hit his calf, another his bicep, and one tore a long graze along his side. He cried out as pain erupted through him and he fell, tumbling down a bank, bruised and cut from the fall. The soldiers were above him, he had to move but gods help him everything not bruised was on fire, and his older injury had reopened.

“Been awhile since I’ve been on a rabbit hunt,” a distant voice said, cruel laughter answering.

He tried to crawl forward, into the thorny bramble and the swift stream he heard on its other side. He had to get away, had to heal, had to pick up the trail later and find the children. He owed it to his mentor, he had promised his mother…

More gunshots, more fiery pain blooming across his body. His blood flowed freely, pooling around him, his leathers and green clothes stained. He couldn’t move, no matter how he wanted to.

He had failed.

Boots tromped close. His vision faded.

“Ijna, I’m sorry,” he tried to say, hardly enough breath for it.

“Damned savages,” a soldier said, pressing the muzzle of a weapon against his head.

[lichdandy]

Garlean propaganda via public baths. Varis zos Galvus time.

[14kuponuts]

Almost all the alliance raids info from way back in the days - Encyclopedia Eorzea III

[sforzie]

Even more of Maggy and Estinien memeing their way through life

[the-imperial-nuisance]

A Garlean WoL -or Lucia, perhaps- translating Edmont's Heavensward into Garlean so that the people of Garlemald can read about their exploits, should they wish to.

[mostfuckableffvillain]

[voidtekarc]

"The dream changes every time I have it. Ever so slowly does it feel like it's edging towards something. It's the same place that I feel like I've been here before but It's impossible that I have. The thoughts are hazy, feeling as if they belong to me and do not at the same time as if I'm living in my own mind and someone else's. I always feel some presence hovering over me, watching me as I wander through these visions, stalking me." "Wherever it leads me, I need to see it to it's end."

[konaharts]

Some sticky notes I wanted to make for myself, of some of my favorite characters and places in Endwalker.

Heavily discounted misprints of these are purchasable here, I'm still trying to find a good place to reprint them. Any reccs for printers would be nice, preferably one I can correspond with a lot to make sure the colors come out better this time around. :')

[villainousintent]

Seeing folks arguing about Sorrows of Werlyt on multiple platforms refuse to engage with it critically outside of what does/doesn't make sense in-universe. Like the FFXIV writing team has a habit of writing these righteous fascist characters. Despite being villainous and antagonistic they share traits with the heroes; i.e. they are loyal, dedicated and even virtuous. Gaius is like this from ARR, we're told by one of his commanding officers he doesn't discriminate unlike the other Garleans and uplifts any worthy fighter in his ranks. That dumb ass moment with Regula van Hydrus when he dies and the Scions along with the WoL mourn him. There's many more moments that go beyond just humanizing the Garleans.

This game spends so much time trying to make you sympathize with the Garlean conquerors while placing them alongside their atrocities and xenophobic language. They talk about racial/national purity and denounce everyone else as "savages." Like someone wrote all of this shit. Endwalker, especially irks me.

What baffles me is folks talking about how Werlyt deconstructs Garlean ideology like what is there to deconstruct, it's Nazi shit. You need to spell out why it's bad?? Lmao. Had to put a cartoon villain next to an even more cartoon villain and leverage children to purify his character through the narrative. He is redeemed as far as the narrative (and the fans) is concerned, it just took murdering a half-dozen children to do it.

And like that's all well and good or whatever, but this stuff doesn't arrive fully formed from the aether as it were. It's written by people. It's seen by many eyes. It's shaped by the culture of its writers. Japan is a former imperialist nation surrounded by country's it's terrorized. Those scars run deep. So maybe don't like snap at folks from say South Korea who show displeasure at the news cuz they don't "get" Sorrows of Werlyt.

[apocalypsegay]

you know, i wouldn’t mind if ff14 wanted to give sympathy to garlean civilians. People aren’t a Government, after all!!! garlemald would’ve hurt civilians pretty badly too (THEY HAVE HORRIFYING MONSTERS ACTING AS TRAFFIC CONTROL?) especially those who are deemed second class citizens even if they’re living in the Glory of The Capital

what’s fucking atrocious about the garlemald storyline is

how that comic said: the refusal to have characters point out “yeah this is what your armies have been doing to the rest of the world”

the focus on Aristocratic Garleans and THEIR pain instead of the, uh, slaves and conscripts who were dragged from their homelands to serve Garlemald

where are the working class garleans, too??

nobody calls out the garleans who insist they’d rather die than have “inferior races” rule them. ik we want to respect garlean sovereignty to prevent future wars but these people are just racist and you’re validating them. shut up.

the fact that the writing sees The Garlean Government as also fucking victims. that’s what’s most disgusting of it all. the fact that Zenos is seen as a Corruption of garlean leadership and not The Logical Fucking Conclusion of a fascist line of succession. the fact that the writers INSIST that Varis and Nerva and Gaius and Quintus ~were misguided visionaries who wanted the best for their people~ instead of power-hungry monsters manipulating entire populations for their own goals is a fucking atrocity both writing and morality-wise and not so much a misunderstanding of fascism so much as a willful denial

[lichdandy]

Quick Leyendecker study/warmup. Excellent excuse for a Varis instead of the og model.

[gileam-v]

As if this picture doesn’t just sum these two up perfectly.

[14kuponuts]

Without them, things can’t be done~

HES SO RIDICULOUS

KEIAN WILL DO ANYTHING

[akirakirxaa]

I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream I know you, that look in your eyes is so familiar a gleam

[the-imperial-nuisance]

I wonder what the Garlean equivalent to the lowrider community looks like because you know some Garleans would be into things like that