#restoration of ishgard

[aroseyetbloomedwrites]

The Ishgardian Restoration - A Community in the works!

Good Morning, tumblr and friends!

Francy here, or, Francel Mun.

As some of you may be idly aware, I have been slowly making my way through the Firmament grind, steadily on the way to the Pteranodon mount. However, the Diadem slog is long, lonely, and tedious, and in terms of Skyward point allotment, somewhat unrewarding. The Expert crafts are more bearable, but it is still a lonesome endeavor.

In that vein, I had an idea that perhaps it would be nice to build a community centered around Crafting and Gathering, and, while specifically having the Restoration in mind, it need not entirely be just that. So, I have organized, and, am in the process of growing a discord community specific to the Diadem, and Firmament crafting with a social nature in mind. Whether you want to commiserate, level, or mentor and assist, there are roles to choose from, and friends to make. Or, even if you should just like to quietly lurk, and read, and see what is contributed in the social channels, this is alright, as well!

The discord is not limited to just those present on the Crystal data center, as parallel crafting and gathering is possible, and DC travel is achieved. It is possible to be from different DCs and enter the Diadem (but not the Firmament).

If you would like to discuss joining, please feel free to send me a private message. In order to negate the possibility of bots joining, I will not be linking the discord in this post.

Reblogs and sharing this post in some manner would be greatly appreciated! Supporting those going for this achievement is my goal, and hopefully, even after we reach our goals, we can keep this community alive to help others walking the path, later. Whether you are just starting, have been slowly working on it when you can, or, really putting the pedal to metal, we would love to have you!

Thank you for your time, and consideration!

-Francy

[impossible-rat-babies]

/showleft anyway it’s all of eyrie’s children !

from L to R: aoife, sver, ol’ver, bijou, bisha and halvi

[sexybritishllama]

help i picked the second option because it was funny but his response made me feel so bad i abandoned the quest so i could pick it up again and change my answer

francel i am so sorry i do not deserve you

[tovaicas]

anyways my friends activated my conlang brain and I've made smth insane as usual

red is influences, blue is Elezen-family languages, green is like a mix bc I see the Alliance cities as having a trade language (that critically is limited to them).

I see Duskwight as a separate language from Black Shroud Elezen (but sharing a lot - easy enough to learn for those speakers). Coerthan and all its derivatives are a whole different language under the Elezen umbrella and isn't mutually intelligible with BSE. Because they split so early, they probably don't share much more than root words and etymologies; within the same family so not difficult to learn for other speakers of Elezen languages, but very distinctly different.

(also I'm not listing them but the branches extend to include other diaspora Elezen languages)

[kukurubean]

I was leon as a crafting glamour during ishgard restoration but I never took real pics besides nonsense on twitter 😔 it would be so fun to do horror themed set tho hmmmnn

[wavetomuse]

“you knew him best”

plus a lighthearted ghostchefant (when ur best friends don’t know how to cope w/ grief properly)

[dragons-bones]

so I got really lazy during 6.4 about keeping up with my Splendorous Tools and then when I wasn't doing prog with the static I was off playing Palia, but then the crafting hyperfixation hit me yesterday, so.

gonna be busy until Dawntrail.

(final Splendorous Tools quests at least cute as fuck, Grenoldt/Mowen 4eva)

[myrfing]

cotanks. dance partners. the astro giving you cards. the long lost art of the melee giving you goad. cohealers that are actually tracking each other’s cds. all this pales in comparison to the sexual tension between you and the other top dps in an alliance raid while everyone else is like what is up with those two tryhards.

[mimble-sparklepudding]

Send 🍾 to see them doing or wearing something associated with celebration or success.

I do like me a good celebration!

(I'm not sure that Humble's koala feels the same, possibly the people in animal costumes scared him?)

[placesyoucallhome]

I wish you'd hold me when I turn my back The less I give the more I get back Ooh, your hands can heal, your hands can bruise I don't have a choice, but I still choose you

[aroseyetbloomedwrites]

[[ Picture by my friend, permission to upload was granted. ]]

[thecarlinecanopy]

I'm glad that I'm taking the time to level up Kehda's alt jobs, even ones I have no plans on using in dungeons/trials/raids with real people, because I keep finding ones that I keep asking myself, "Why didn't I choose this to be my main job?"

Of course, I know the reasons why I didn't choose them (couldn't remember which red mage spells gave what kind of mana, didn't want to wait on the MSQ to catch summoner up, felt uncomfortable bringing melee jobs into dungeons with real people until leveling two jobs with MSQ only became too tedious, etc.) but I'm still kicking myself for not giving them more of a chance, especially since I'm turning out not to like the job I'd started as and had put so much effort into keeping the same level as the MSQ without bringing it into dungeons.

I guess that's what alt characters are for, I guess. The only problem will be choosing which job will be my main for that character.

[alicelufenia]

Much like "Gaius has a point!" comments from ARR, I always get uncomfortable when people get excited about Varis clowning on the Eorzean rulers in that scene.

Like no they don't have a point it's just fascism it's ALL FASCISM

You do Not, under ANY circumstances, "have to hand it" to FASCISTS

How is this so hard!

Which is why I love Nanoha's comeback here when she remembered they're speaking to Garlean Hitler.

This was such a great moment for her and single-handidly redeems her Stormblood character* and sets up the follow through with the alliances with the various tribes in Shadowbringers very well.

*Yeah sorry I'm a hater of the 4.1 storyline where her "growth" as a leader is shown by her granting Ul'dah oligarchs a monopoly on Ala Mhigo's primary export, to a man who gloats to her face about how much he's going to exploit them no less. Biggest L in the whole game imo. The Garlean restoration arcs in 6.X are almost as bad, but not as overtly imperialist as at the start of Stormblood patches. The latter just has my WoL standing in the background shouting "Why aren't we kicking these royalist sympathizers out and making representative government spear-headed by the non-Garlean citizens priority ONE"

*ahem* damn this footnote got a lot bigger huh

one thing I think ffxiv nails about its depiction of fascism that other works of fiction tend to miss is how fucking patronizing it is

take the negotiation scene with varis at the end of stormblood for example. every single person in that room (except alisaie) is a whole-ass adult, yet varis spends the entire meeting talking to them like they're children who couldn't possibly manage their own shit without him to tell them what to do. it's extremely insulting and very much on point

[fleurarmor]

Skybuilders Sounds: Ambient Noise to Relax, Study and Sleep to

No talk, only soup (for the soup primal), mining and chill. Because legit sometimes I miss the old days of spending every waking moment in either the Firmament or Diadem and want that aesthetic ambient noise.

3 Hours of Diadem Mining Ambient Noise/Music

30 Minutes of Chill Daytime Crafting Ambient Noise/Music

30 Minutes of Chill Nighttime Crafting Ambient Noise/Music

30 Minutes of Bustling Crafting Ambient Noise/Music

Ishgard Restoration Fate Crafting Ambient Noise/Music

Like ambient crafting in Eorzea audio? Feel free to request locations using the Ask feature here on Tumblr. :)

[nagunkgunk]

Honestly the whole dragon thing in ffxiv becomes so much more ridiculous when you learn that dragons technically aren’t native to Etheirys, they’re straight up aliens from the literal dragon planet.

yknow when its revealed midgardsormr brought 7 eggs to the star/hydaelyn i thought "oh! they're from another dimension! the dragon dimension <3" since its alrdy established that the void is a different plane etc. and the dragonstar is probably just some magical/important constellation thing for dragons :3

but. no. he flew through space from The Dragonstar. he's an alien. dragon blood turns you into a dragonmutant. (which miiiight be corporeal aether corruption BUT ALSO MAYBE JUST A DRAGON THING?????)

and then their growth/adaptivity is so funny. ehll tou is in ishgard for idk a month half a year however long the ishgard restoration is and grows like 10 times the size and develops DRAGONTHUMBS bc she was hanging around with doh/dol types. she did more growing than a regular dragonet does in a century all because she was friends with nondragons and crafting stuff? leucrotta the azys lla s rank is a "coeurl dragon"? coeurl dragons ditched their wings and just copied coeurls to hunt better in meracydia????

god i love ffxiv dwagons

[autumnslance]

The worst part too about the Paladin quests is it's Heavensward that's most egregious. It honestly feels like someone had no idea what was going on, or didn't care, or left, and their colleagues left holding the bag with this mess of a story had no idea what to do with it.

ARR Gladiator quests are fine! They're along the lines of the other Class quests, intro you to the job and a complicated character dynamic, and it's a decent time.

The ARR Paladin quests...are just boring. They aren't actually even that bad, they're just...utterly predictable, bog-standard tropes and plot line where you can see everything coming malms away. But they have an internal logic to them that builds on the politics and scheming in Ul'dah. Jenlyns realizes he's an unwitting pawn of the Syndicate, and he was literally chosen for the job cuz he could be easily duped and controlled. He doesn't even get to have imposter syndrome, he's actually unfit for the job (and then strives to do better, leveraging support from Papashan and Mylla to shore up his own weaknesses, which is admirable!).

...Nevermind that traditional Paladins in general are a bad fit for Ul'dah. The heavily armored Sultansworn makes no sense in that desert environment, and looking at a world map we can even see that Southern Thanalan seems to be on the equator. Like it's not even a case of "it's cooler than it seems cuz they're further north." Because they're not. And I know the devs wanted to have Ishgard perhaps be a starter city but that was scrapped due to time and resources, fine but um.

Dragoons are still trained in Coerthas, by Coerthans. Why didn't they just...do that with Paladins? Keep Gladiator in Ul'dah, where it makes sense as presented. But then have to work with Temple Knights to get the Job. Especially since after Ul'dah's intro, the game just forgets the Sultansworn exist and they have no bearing on the MSQ the way the other factions in Ul'dah do. Not even in the finale of ARR's arc where it would make sense. Gladiators are a constant in other side quests and MSQ both.

Stormblood Paladin is also fine--because it goes back to those Gladiators, and we interact with Paladins and Knights across the realm, and deal with those complicated relationships between the Gladiator guild core members. It's internally logical in its drama about finally restoring Aldis's reputation and place in Ul'dah, against the backdrop of the tournament.

Heavensward Paladin straight up makes no sense. Solkzaygl's actions are entirely contradictory to his character and arc from ARR. There's no way for some of the actions to occur without him working with the outlaws in some way. Instead of teaching Constaint, he sends him on a merry chase across Coerthas to learn on his own, and it's only the WoL's aid that sees the boy live, let alone make progress. A random man dies, guilt-ridden, due to Solk's scheming and lies he confided to this poor guy.

And then Highlander-esque "there can be only one" nonsense. Even as a Highlander fangirl in my youth, it was insulting and awful. Papashan, Jenlyns, and Constaint all call out how nonsense, illogical, unlikely, and stupid this whole story is...all to make a sword shine.

Because there's no internal logic to events, let alone the reason for the string of happenstance that leads to the finale.

And we know it's possible; HW Blacksmith gives us a fantastic paladin story! One that fits Ishgard's storyline and HW's themes. HW Dark Knight is also a good paladin story, actually, as they are meant to be another angle on the concept of dedicated knight defenders. Samurai for the Eastern equivalent, and the concepts and tropes present in those quest chains.

But the job actually bearing the name "Paladin" is left in the dirt. As a fan of the concept across various games (video and TTRPGs both), it's quite frustrating how the devs had no idea what to do with this job, despite other members of the writing and scenario team presenting stories that would have fit perfectly well within the framework. Only some of it is misplacing where Paladins originate in the setting; the rest is not taking advantage of the themes and setting of the expansions, and just not caring enough about the characters and story to even try, compared to the rest. Or worse, they did try, and meant for more, but whatever intrigue and complex plot they wanted to create was too much for 5 quests and no guarantee the arc would continue in the future, even if it had landed perfectly.