#wol/wod

[smolljester]

is this worth anything?

[ravenswcrn]

This is the dynamic between Just and Lore.

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

oh emet-selch did nnnnNOT just passive-aggressively tell the exarch to try taking a nap

[draconicheir]

My ffxiv guys need backstories, so I started with the fella i probably play as the most: Riku!

He’s one of the few surviving members of Bahamut & Tiamat’s brood, and originally encounters Sora (@/nightmaresplit’s wol) before the fall of dalamud, trying to warn them of the monstrous incarnation of his father’s wrath inside the moon. Though he meets Sora for only a short window of time, he grows extremely attached to him and is absolutely devastated when none can find him after the Calamity rocks the land. He is utterly crushed at the loss, and much like his uncle, secludes himself in his grief for 10 years. Unbeknownst to him, Sora was simply plucked from the world by Hydaelyn and spirited away, then dropped back in Eorzea 10 years after Louisoix saved him from Bahamut’s wrath. During the events of Heavensward, Sora encounters Rikuraskath’a again - and even with his hazy memory, recognises him. Overjoyed at the return of his beloved friend, he vows to stay by his side through his adventures, and changes his form to an Au Ra to make travel easier. The pair of them make a terrifying team in combat, and are able to fight even the most dangerous foes as a pair. Often times, during the worst of the combat, Riku sheds his Au Ra form and enacts his full power upon anything threatening his beloved companion. They get married before Dawntrail btw ✨

[xxdemonboixx]

A few pics I’ve taken while I’ve been playing FFXIV- I’ve had so much fun while I’ve played through the story and I’ve cried so much too, such an emotional roller coaster. I love it.

I started to play FFXIV for the first time in 2017 with my friend, but that wasn’t long lived. After that came the free trial with ARR all the way to last quest in post-Stormblood with LV70 level cap, I started that in early 2021 before duty support was a thing.. got stuck on the very first dungeon because I couldn’t get a party for myself. Had to stop playing again, even tho it made me sad, since waiting for hours for a party to form came with no results.

During the time that I didn’t play this game, I missed it dearly. Until the day I got sick for a week and decided to try again, wait for the duty finder even if it took hours. But wait.. what is that? A duty support? I can go to the dungeon with a party of NPC’s?! LET’S GO!!

Been playing daily since then, it’s been around.. two months now? And I’m almost caught up with the story, I just have few more MSQ in Endwalker and then the post-Endwalker stuff. I’ve been loving this all the way through and I have been trying to scout more people to play with me. I did succeed in it, got my twin sister to start playing it with me, my little ankle biter that keeps slapping me every chance she gets..

But at least we have fun! Teaching her about the mechanics and how everything works, teaching her tips and tricks, about her skills and how to use them. While at the same time having to tell her to stop and attune to the big ass crystals she seems to not see.

Can’t wait for Dawntrail!!

[moment-live]

Whether you bring shadow or light you can now take your WOL on your travels with these ffxiv themed photocard holders!

[sezja]

If you talk to Thaffe after the events of Mount Gulg, he says, "Thancred told us what happened. Are you all right?" and I just........

[heartinhands]

it would have been kind of poggers if xiv had a like. vs ardbert fight in the style of sora vs roxas in the dive to the heart

[vixlenxe]

This is a random thought, but if Tiff got sick, how many people you think are gonna trip over themselves to take care of her while she's down?

[cherrymangos]

Wanted a rendering of my boy for reference when drawing, so here he is! I will be making more in the future because even though this was tedious as hell, it was very fun! :)

[wildstar25]

probably not what you're looking for but I do have one hyperspecific wolship au where G'raha is a DRK and he looked so cool with a big sword....10/10 would recommend

Thinking about DRK Emet..... DRK Raha would be so cool too.......

[plounce]

rob plounce's ffxiv fic reclist

this will update as i continue to find stuff i enjoy. (it also exists as a page on my desktop blog!)

disclaimer: this is just stuff i’ve read that i’ve enjoyed! i have my own favorite characters and pairings, so my reclist skews heavily towards those. i’m not super into in wolshipping, so there won’t be much of that, sorry! i have not read everything in every pairing and character tag, so don’t take this as a comprehensive guide. these are just things that i liked and think are worth reading.

fics are noted with wordcount, pairing (or as gen), and rating (e = explicit). * means it's been recently added to the list.

spoilers ahoy!

scions

flight of an anorak (17k+, G) gen - urianger childhood backstory fic with transfem urianger! incredibly well-characterized urianger narration. breaks my heart (due to Baby Sadness) and brings a smile to my face (due to Baby Joy) with every update.

lost and found (8.8k, T). gen, light moenuri - you know how moenbryda’s parents basically adopted urianger after they basically abandoned him? this fic is about that. also urianger autism :)

while eating (2.2k, G) gen - more baby autistic urianger with bastard parents. sob. at least moenbryda’s parents are there.

foster (1k, G) gen - pre-canon, thancred overhears fourchenault and louisoix talking about him.

second impression (4.8k, T) gen - fourchenault is a bit more of a classist bastard than in canon and is a dick to thancred, but gets past it. mostly. thancred does his best.

the stars in their abundance (2.7k, T) gen - pre-canon from the perspective of g'raha’s mom in corvos!

cross (1.1k, G) gen - minfilia and thancred clean up the mess of thancred’s possession.

your song, carried onwards (4.9k, G) gen - thancred’s rescue of alisaie from the WoD in the hvw patches.

a stranger in the woods (4.3k, E) thancred/marcechamp - you know, the guy from tailfeather in heavensward? they hook up. thancred gets taken care of.

dust in your eyes (8.8k, T). background ships include wolchefant, wolcred, and haurchefant/urianger, but is mostly about thancred being a sad bastard who is always too slow, too late, and trying to be his best self but not totally succeeding. and haurchefant being a great guy. good character stuff.

how massive is the spirit in us (2.2k, G) gen - ryne character introspection… makes my heart hurt.

testing the waters (1.8k, G) gen - thancred teaches ryne to swim.

the shimmering light (2k, G) gen, light thanuri - urianger settling into the bookman’s shelves. fun il mheg worldbuilding.

almost crystal, almost ascian (10k, T) gen - minfilia and the exarch meet up a few times over the course of a century. their parallelisms. the horror of being “minfilia.”

off the hook, provisionally (974, G) gen - y'shtola talks to the exarch in the wake of 5.0 about his deception.

among the shelves (5k, G). gen - the twins and ryne hang out and talk about the other scions.

portentous news (842, G) gen - urianger’s first morning on the moon in the middle of endwalker.

adventures in unlikely friendship (23k, T) gen - wol+cred friendship! i really like these. the bozja one is delightful. passively-suicidal bestiessss

void parsley sojourn (4k, T) gen, light thanuri - urianger hotboxes the rising stones. very charming depiction of urianger as a weed nerd. makes me laugh and smile every time i read it!

there is (maybe) an ascian among us (11k, T) gen, minor side pairings - post-endwalker, the scions try to get to the bottom of a conspiracy about thancred, who just wants to grill for gods sake! comedy.

two scions walks into a bar… (26k, T) gen, but eventually thanuri - a series where the author intended to just analyze and write about thancred & urianger’s relationship as gen, but then slid into shipping lmao. covers ARR-early STB with a bit of post-SHB. great character work for both of them!

respite, despite (25k, T) thanuri - urianger pining from pre-5.0 to the close of endwalker… good pining, good urianger misery, good romance. wagh!

erasing all the lines in the sand (30k, E) thanuri - mutual pining, miscommunication, coparenting! bookman’s shelves fic.

(in parantheses) (9.9k, M) thanuri - thancred's rescuing of minfilia, time in the first, and the mental stress that emet-selch gives him due to ascian trauma during shadowbringers. also getting together with urianger.

sleepy-eyed soldier (4.6k, M) thanuri - elidibus puppetting ardbert's body brings thancred’s ptsd over having his body used by lahabrea roaring back to the surface in the form of nightmares and hypervigilance. (mind the CWs)

trouble in paradise (2.3k, E) thanuri - transfem urianger!!!! :D :D :D great kind-of-an-asshole thancred character work. hurting each other but trying to fix it.

sole conundrum (412, G) thanuri - pre-edw garlemald scouting mission. urianger autism :D

three of swords reversed (3.2k, T) thanuri, moenuri - urianger dealing with grief over moenbryda and thancred in the later half of endwalker.

another sunrise (5.8k, T) thanuri - post-edw wanderings - urianger deals with a mystery, sudden solitude, and a crisis of doubt! ends happily.

take root in this barren soil (and grow back stronger) (7.4k, E) thanuri - thancred shares what the training regimen of a sharlayan spy entails, not expecting urianger to react so strongly.

to wander is a dream (46k, M) thanuri - post-edw. i don’t tend to enjoy hanahaki fics but this fic is so so so good. thancred being an emotionally stunted asshole, urianger being the world’s most beautiful martyr (for better or for worse), lots of fae stuff, both of them struggling to not be repressed.

why do we forbear? (9.3k, E) thanuri - modern au fake dating, which would usually not appeal to me but this one’s real cute. (currently unfinished)

to care for those we love (11k, T) ryne and her parents, thanuri - ryne drags thancred to the bookman’s shelves and does her best to administer first aid in urianger’s absence. each chapter is from one of the trio’s pov - i’m usually not super into 1st person, but this fic uses it really effectively in imparting each character’s mindset. it’s very sweet!

*to care for those we love (11k, T) waters family, thanuri - ryne drags thancred to the bookman’s shelves and does her best to administer first aid in urianger’s absence. each chapter is from one of the trio’s pov - i’m usually not super into 1st person, but this fic uses it really effectively in imparting each character’s mindset. it’s very sweet!

*an ordeal, shared (6.1k, T) waters family + minor rynegaia & thanuri - canon divergent au where FRU happened and ryne was possessed by mitron. ryne deals with the psychological aftereffects of possession, and she and thancred go on a camping trip.

*waters of thanalan (78k, M) wolcred + thanuri + wolgraha - thancred accompanies a miqo wol back home to visit his family after endwalker. probably THE BEST thancred characterization ive ever read, bar none. just a great perspective on his neuroses and flaws and how unreliable a narrator he can be. great seeker worldbuilding as well. (also, transfem urianger!!)

ancients

on call (2.5k, T) hythades - emet-selch goes out of town, and hyth is asked to step in for a soul-seeing duty. and he futzes with emet-selch’s office.

mail run (840, G) hythades - “A young archival intern keeps finding completely legitimate reasons to do all the deliveries to a very specific Bureau of the Architect clerk. For no reason at all.” young love!

as stars to a sky (1.8k, T) hythades - little vignettes about life in the pre-sundered world.

the seat of destruction (13k, M) hythades - canon-divergent au where hythlodaeus is the one to take the seat of emet-selch, and the sundering still happens. my favorite ascian!hyth work.

affective memory (9.3k, T) hythades - pov from the shade of hythlodaeus as he wanders around emet-selch’s reconstructed amaurot.

for good health and opportunity (14k, T) pre-emetexarch - emet-selch visits the crystal exarch numerous times over the course of a century. frenemies!

*sonnet 116 (6.3k, T/M) hythazem + hythades + venazem - dysfunction junction in the ancient world. divorce abounds. kind of gave me emet-selch advanced misogyny brainworms. transfem hyth!

other characters

“nero tol scaeva did nothing wrong”… (5k, G) gen - a bunch of job npcs try to arrest nero for driving without a license. goes about as well as you might think.

biohazard (1.1k, G) gen - nero hates valens’ ass. not because he has “morals” or anything he just thinks valens is a dogshit project manager.

left in the dust (3.9k, T?) cidnero - ARR nero finds amnesiac marques working in the lichyard. miserable little man.

adrift in memory’s fog (16k, T) cidnero - cid’s frequent bouts of amnesia have led to a patchy memory - enough where he forgets that he and nero were betrothed as teenagers. (trans cid!)

the troubled envoy (1.3k, T) gen - maxima’s diary entries during the stormblood patches, including his thoughts on his weird boss.

the last abandonment (1.9k, M) gen - maxima wanders the ruins of garlemald and reflects on his time in the garlean left. by the same author as above - i really rec all their maxima fics.

this cathedral where your face stains the windows (2k, G) ysayle/igeyrohm - “Someone had to teach Ysayle summoning.” great ysayle heresy stuff + toxic yuri.

this blessed day (80k, M) gen - lucia’s journey from a captured garlean spy to aymeric’s right hand. lucia��…

cadavre exquis (6.4k, T) gen - emmanellain helps pack up haurchefant’s things at camp dragonhead ft ishgardian homophobia and an underground queer zine scene.

the lantern jar (19k, T) cirisadu - OH MY GODDDDDDDDDDD. this fic is so good. cirina and sadu growing close. lots of development of steppe spiritual traditions and beliefs.

duet (13k, T) estivrtra - estinien encourages vrtra to live more fully as a dragon. cool dragon stuff.

a view of you (14k, M) estivrtra - estinien gets fatally wounded, and vrtra keeps him alive via a great sacrifice (sadly unfinished, but what’s there is a great read)

veteran advisor (15k, E) vrtra/estinien/gaius - really great gaius character work here where he and allie are on vacation in radz-at-han, and the impact that has on both of them. but also? it's mostly about big!varshahn getting railed. good for him!

this home wrested forth (2.5k, T) gen - sidurgu from DRK quests and alaqa from WHM quests meet up and deal with some gridanian wrongdoing.

a fervent desire (111k+, E) sanson/guydelot - an incredibly in-depth retelling of the BRD quests. great work developing these characters and giving them really in-depth motivations!

and love you shall find (9.8k, E) sanson/guydelot - BRD quests, but what if sanson journals as an accommodation for short-term memory loss?

there are also... my own ffxiv fics. if you so choose to peruse.

[foxflightstudios]

New foil charm versions of the WOL/WOD charms are in the shop which is open post my move 🫡

[trashasaurusrex]

Shadowbringers Lineup Part 1/???

(Featuring my WoL/WoD, Lindsey <3)

[squirrelwrangler]

Recent Ardbert thoughts that really aren't that recent-

he gets forgotten behind Emet and Exarch in Shadowbringers but he's central to that narrative, and for all that the consensus is that ShB is when the WoL is the main character finally, they are sharing protagonist duties with Ardbert. Not only is Ardbert the cautionary tale of what fate might await the WoL, and character that is not only narrating each new location and interacting the most with the WoL in heart-to-heart private scenes, he has his own narrative arc. His shame of having damned the world to destruction inadvertently when going around saving it and showing mercy and that he was the one left behind when his friends sacrificed themselves to start the process of undoing the disastrous unintended consequences. He's not the only one struggling with survivor's guilt in ShB. Reason his scene is paired with Lyna - but he’s healthier about it than the lowest bar that is Emet. But he's a ghost that only the WoL can see, so his struggles through ShB with his inability to take action to save others- leading up to his railing against his own enforced passivity, still trying and failing and then reassured that the WoL is there to take over. Which, not the only ShB character embodying that central theme of bequeathing legacy and planting trees whose shade only your future generations will enjoy. But Ardbert encourages the WoL and unlike the previous co-protagonist characters of expansions, does join in on contributing to the finale by powering up the WoL to defeat Emet, the necessary encouragement boast and literal power boost. There's a reason Ardbert's axe is the blow that kills Emet. And the Azem stuff only works because Ardbert is in the story - not just the idea of a past counterpart but one we interacted with as their own person with their own friends and world that they care about but one that failed.

And looking at what the Exarch does in ShB's story, it's funny how much could easily be rewritten to be given to Ardbert. G'raha as the emissary of the Bad Future 8th Umbral Source, looking to overwrite and thus sacrifice his (assumed unsalvageable) world by saving the First and the current Source? Ardbert is the survivor of the Pre-Flood First. The time travel element to ShB's story -which is the least popular and the exception to bootstrap paradox that the rest of the game uses- is there to counter Emet. It has two purposes: first to be something that the Sundered accomplished that the UnSundered thought impossible, thus refuting his bigotry. And his assertion that the UnSundered sacrificing half they numbers twice to save their world from dying (ignoring that the step he's on is making unwilling sacrifices of all the Sundered to return the dead and the world he lost) is too altruistic for the Sundered to do. Which is patiently false in the micro-scale of "legacy and planting trees for future generations" but also that the 8th (or at least an implied portion) sends G'raha back in time knowingly.

So, back to Ardbert. In HW, Ardbert and the WoD crew were introduced having been coned into following Elibidus's plan. The First can't be saved, so the only part salvagable is the aether of their souls which via Calamity can be poured into the Source. This, ironically, matches most closely the action of Hydaelyn that Elidibus and the Ascians are trying to undo - the Sundering. UnSundered World is dying and the feeding of souls to Zodiark is not going to restore it or actually stop the Endsinger. Sunder the remaining souls, make them mortal, split the world into many weaker new worlds that have the capacity to grow into something that defeat the Endsinger.

Which is why, aside from the ubermensch power fantasy and buying into the utopian claims of the UnSundered Past in Elpis, people could be understandably looking for a magical third option at the end of that Elpis trip to break the time travel paradox loop and give them a third option that wouldn't require the Sundering to happen. Because at the end of the HW arc involving the WoD, Urianger convinces the WoD to trust his new plan instead of Elidibus - to enlist the Minfilia as Word of the Mother to go back to the First and hold off Eden's Flood of Darkness. That the First as a world itself isn't completely unsalvagable. Yes, the deep irony of having a proxy of Hydaelyn go over to do a mini-version of Zodiark and reject Elidibus's plan (aka avatar of Zodiark) to do a mini-version of Sundering. Key difference is that Ardbert and WoD know that they can't undo the Flood of Light and restore all their dead and return their world to how it was pre-Flood. Which means that they have greater emotional maturity than Emet and the rest of the Ascians.

And in a rewrite, there would need to be a classic Devil’s Offer to Ardbert of his friends returned (Lakshmi callback) for Ardbert to reject.

But it does point out the key difference in comparing the Endsinger versus Eden. Both are corrupted beings sending out the Floods to warp and destroy the world, temporarily stopped and later the Wol confronts and kills. Eden was caused by Ardbert killing Mitron but screwing up because too much Light power, and that overbalance was engineered by the Ascians using Cylva. Ardbert, in his act of mercy and love towards his friend Cylva, is strongly implied to be what tips the Light power into being stronger than the Ascians planned it to be - they still wanted the Flood of Light. Just not Mitron turning into Eden and the Flood being so fast and strong. The Endsinger was caused by Hermes sending Meteion into space looking for a better answer to the purpose of life than the singular one he got in the UnSundered World's 'utopia'. And people who pin all the blame on Hermes with his clinical depression are refusing to admit that the UnSundered World isn't a utopia and that it's the systematic -no, foundational- flaw of the UnSundered World that causes its destruction, the Endsinger being only one option. By blaming it on Hermes as this aberration instead of the product of the UnSundered, Ancient fans are making him into the Ascians who plotted to create Floods and accidentally made Eden. But despite the hidden Cylva questline element - and she's only on the First because she's doing the bidding of the Ascians- Eden was outside forces. Endsinger, despite some fans upset that she wasn't a Jenova/Lavos type Big Bad, isn't.

No surprise that Elidibus later uses Ardbert's body and pretends to be him in the follow-up arc that finally explains Elidibus and shows off his survivor's guilt, amnesia, hero-complex when the WoL defeats him.

Back to the Exarch- functionally for gameplay he's the plot device by which the Scions and then the WoL are transported to the First for the plot of ShB, the one to give them the goal of hunting down the Lightwardens, and city state leader and eventual ally leader. The later leadership role makes him a counterpart of Nanamo from ARR (and the other city state leaders). It's the Crystal Tower power usage to answer magical macguffin plot needs that, when you really examine it, make him the wizard equivalent of Cid and the Ironworks back on the Source. Now one of the initial problems for why Ardbert gets overshadowed and how easy it would be to tweak ShB's story to make his as central to ShB's plot as Wuk Lamat is to DT (or Lyse to SB) is his passivity due to amnesia at the start of ShB and that the Exarch instigates the plot by yanking over the Scions and WoL to use them in a plot that will ultimately end, he hopes, in a secret self-sacrifice. In similar invention for plot requirements that said 'bad future cobbles together Omega and Alexander raids dimension and time travel and uses Crystal Tower raid as vehicle', make Ardbert more proactive as the one, not the Exarch alone, to do the cross-dimensional yanking. What's required is that he not fade completely into almost full formless amnesia during that 100 years before ShB starts and at least one other person on the First able to hear him. And his connection via Azem soul to the WoL and that he's missing his boon companions and wishing for them returned to his side because he wasn't a solo adventurer - that is a much stronger reason for the Scions to be gacha-pulled one by one before the WoL is grabbed. Then it becomes Ardbert as the plotter and task-giver in concert with Exarch reduced to a role more in size and line with other city-state leaders or Cid.

Ardbert's former party members probably become a little more prominent in this AU draft version instead of their adventurers shunted off into the Role Quests. Ardbert is the only planning to "betray" the WoL by grabbing all the Light poisoning the WoL from each Lightwarden defeat.

That an early draft of ShB had Eden instead of Hades as the final boss of 5.0... yeah, I bet you it's a version closer to the one that I'm outlining.

Now the Exarch plotline of ShB does elegantly tie in three optional major side stories of CT, Alex, and Omega. And with original G'raha inheriting the Exarch's memories after he dies, it becomes another situation of pondering the self in the vein of Ryne versus Minfilia and Gaia. Which, frankly, I always held would have been stronger had the Exarch not been the same G'raha that sealed himself in the Crystal Tower, but a clone with the inherited memories of OG G'raha. But also I firmly fall into "a clone (which reincarnation is also) is always a distinct person to the original" no matter the media. Aka the point of Ryne's plotline. Why the fans insisting Gaia be Loghrif instead of the Gaia that chose Ryne is annoying (and homophobic). And why so many Azem takes make me snarl.

[arkinfluffsonxiv]

If posted a rope bondage fic about my WoL/G'raha, would people be into it?

I have 2 chapters written already (I just really want to explore rope and also I don't see too many stories out there with top!Exarch which I wanted to take a hand at characterizing!) Here's a lil excerpt (from just before WoD):

--

Gathering courage, G’raha leans in, brushing fingertips across the strands running across Arkin’s front. The Warrior’s eyes widen, ears twitching. 

“Is it the tightness of it…?” G’raha murmurs. 

“Mm.” G’raha feels the response more than hears it and his tail swishes in response. “I like the feeling of being confined, aye. It’s…” He pauses, considering. “I have a lot on my shoulders. The fate of our world, if Rammbroes is to be believed, no?” G’raha feels Arkin’s warm hand cover his as their gazes meet. “Even I can’t take all that, sometimes. This helps, a little.” 

Something in G’raha stirs. He wants to hook his fingers under that knot and pull, see the Warrior’s eyes slide shut and his mouth open. He wants to erase this awful weight; wants the only fate Arkin feels the tug of to be the one right before them, narrowed to this moment. But– 

G’raha lets his hand drop. The dizzying desire passes. Arkin smiles again, a wry twist of his mouth. It hits G’raha like a bucket of ice.