Crystal North American Data Center
Mateus Roleplay Community
The Heralds of Jijivisa
It has no translation in the Eorzean language, but the Thavnairians call It Jijivisa (pronounced gg-vee-shaa), a word they tell us stands for "feelings of optimism" or "hope for life." It is a Noun that is an Action that is performed by a thinking, feeling Being—jijivisa!—who loves Life and seeks to live It to the fullest, come what may.That is Jijivisa. We are Its Heralds—Its shields and Its swords. We live and we die by It. We give ourselves freely to It.May It live long enough to see Its Light go out last.
The Heralds of Jijivisa
Welcome, Visitors!
The Heralds of Jijivisa, a private security free company based in Gridania that serves the peoples of Eorzea with the support of its nation-states. The Heralds are uniquely qualified individuals—fighters, researchers, specialists, philanthropists, etc.—with the will and the strength to be the heroes that our star needs them to be.Our mission is to defend all life, whether manifested upon this star or as a citizen of the greater cosmos, and to live among it until our gaze at last falls dark.
Informed and Consentual
The Cerulean Code
We have high expectations of ourselves, and we spend a great deal of time considering our behavior both in- and out-of-character. This is why our code of conduct is not designed simply. It is an ambiguous code for adults with moral agency and healthy ethical principles. These are the kinds of people we want to be around, and this is the sort of community that we want to foster—one that values human beings over rules and justice over nepotism. One where leaders are expected to model best practices for other members, where leaders are held the most accountable.The Cerulean Code can be a useful guide to understanding not only what expectations we have but also why we have them and, not the least important, how to meet them. You may find them an unusual set of rules, and that's OK...but it's also not really all that important.
Weaving Narratives Cursed with Knowledge
Oh, Lore Galore
The roleplaying community on FFXIV is vast, but Mateus is our home, and so our home server's RP culture must needs be our RP culture. Guidance for beginners can be hard to come by, and confirmation from the writers on how day-to-day issues ought to work for Eorzeans are difficult to find.Fret no more, for here we are to guide you in a few ways:
• By providing you with a list of links to RP guides written by and for the Mateus RP community at large.
• By affirming, once and for all, the truth about the arrow of time vis-à-vis FFXIV's lore (or at least the way we address it).
• By including any and all information regarding augmented lore: lore that we have contributed to the FFXIV canon during our roleplay events, the contents of which are neither present in the MSQ nor supported in any way by official FFXIV sources or representatives.
A Poem by Joan A. Stormwolf
"What We Are"
We are the citizens of a silent cosmos
We are the children of a tumultuous star
We are wanderers trembling on a teacup rose
The whimper of a spark whose terror is bizarreA breath so short that it wonders at its taking
ought not to fear its own end.
A Neverending Sci-fi/Fantasy Adventure Epic
Tales of Jijivisa
A description goes here.
Things to Do Next
How to Apply
A description goes here.
We Are a Sensitive People and Wont to Cry
Contact Our Leaders
A description goes here.
Chat, Voice, and Other introvert torture implements
Join Our Discord
A description goes here.
What Will This Page Be?
A description goes here.
The Cerulean Code
The Rules that Have Always Been and Will Always Be but Only Kinda and Not Always
OOC Guidelines
1 – On Being Kind
(α) Be kind to everyone that you meet in the free company, its Discord server, or its events.
(β) Most of all be kind to yourself.If you ever feel the need to be unkind to someone, ask yourself why that might be the case. Find a therapist to talk through some of the issues that you're having if they're serious enough to compromise your behavior. In the short-term, if you're concerned that you'll struggle to manage this behavior given your personal history or recent events, talk to an officer prior to engaging in said behavior, and we will work towards finding solutions or strategies to help you address the issue in a constructive manner.Any member or representative of the free company who presents unkindly to another person, member or no, becomes someone whose behavior our team will be required to address rather than someone our team will be happy to empathize with. With that in mind, find an officer before problems arise whenever possible.
2 – On the Human Condition
An extension of our faith in the power of kindness is our faith in one another. Because we believe so strongly in one another, we believe that this second guideline will serve only to emphasize the first and to consider more serious any offense that violates the second guideline and its spirit. (α) Zero instances of harassment—whether using culturally appropriate or inappropriate remarks, strategies, or content (including the use of more contemporary forms of harassment, such as "trolling" and its like)—shall ever be tolerated by the officers and members of this free company for any reason whatsoever, whether within the free company's sphere of influence
(β) or anywhere in the entire breadth of the FFXIV RP community.
(γ) Beyond this last boundary as well, if that should ever become necessary.Please avoid using words common within the FFXIV RP community that do not represent the values of our free company. Examples of such words include slurs for trans women such as
3 – On the Silencing of Politics and Religion
Nearly every Discord server that I have ever come across has the same rule, worded almost verbatim, among their many chosen pathways towards beneficent community behavior. It's almost as if the rule had already arrived at an axiom-like status, its very truth as intertwined with the American mainstream culture's lifesblood as the high school prom or the Super Bowl.This enigmatic yet ubiquitous rule usually goes something like this: "Thou shant discuss politics or religion, lest thy sophistic murmuring summon dæmons."Maybe my nature is obstinate, rebellious, and argumentative, but I don't think so. Politics is, by definition, the series of "activities associated with the governance of a country or other area, especially the debate or conflict among individuals or parties having or hoping to achieve power" (Oxford, 2023). It's rare that one hears every major subplot of the FFXIV main story summarized so succintly all at once, let alone the main arc of the Stormblood expansion.Moreover, different groups draw their demarkation lines around the definition of politics quoted above so diversely that what one group believes is the construct they call "politics" could very well be mutually exclusive with what another imagines their version of "politics" looks like. This can create a problematic situation for those of us who share membership in underprivileged groups with other minorities and those growing millions of "miscellaneous" persons, threatening the very fragile fabric of our society with their belligerent ambiguity.No, given the world that we live in, it's very obviously the failure of our society to teach us to discuss political matters in meaningful and constructive ways that we ought to address, not the discussion of politics generally. And it hardly seems like silencing entire volumes of necessary conversations is the way to address anything at all. And all this same bullshit applies to religion, too. (α) Meaningful and constructive discussions of politics and religion are permitted in all of the free company's linkshells and Discord server channels. Meaningful and constructive discussions of politics and religion focus on facts, avoid speculation without self-awareness, reject pseudoscientific claims, and treat the limitations of human intelligence and the incomprehensible vastness of all that we will never know with the respect that these deserve.
(β) Individuals who have demonstrated a series of beliefs consistent with a historically accurate and generally accepted definition of fascism are to be considered unsafe by all officers and members of this free company now and for the foreseeable future. Their presence among our number should be addressed and processed as early as humanly possible. No meaningful or constructive conversation about politics or religion is possible with a fascist, and attempts to have such a conversation should be protected against at any cost.
4 – On the Laws of Mortals
All members and friends of the free company are actively discouraged from discussing illegal activities in this free company's linkshells and Discord server channels at any time for any reason whatsoever.This isn't because we're snitches. We just, literally, cannot guarantee the security of any chat-capable platform that we do not control, and we do not presently control Square Enix or Discord. Perhaps one day!Moreover, whether or not we want to be snitches is a moot point. Some of us have sacrificed many, many years of blood, sweat, and toil to earn careers that make us mandated reporters for one thing or another. No matter how much we may like you as a person, if you confess to something we're mandated to report about, there are very few of us who will willingly sacrifice our lifelong career for a friend. Even after a decades-long friendship.And a good friend would never ask for that.
5 – On Trust and Trauma
(α) If you need personal assistance from other officers, fill out a ticket to speak to an officer directly. If you need personal assistance from officers and members alike, tag folks as needed and ask for help from the relevant groups using a public channel such as #👣 | the-first-step. Do not ask individuals for help directly via unsolicited DMs or any related means, as this could be considered soliciting and a form of harassment.We all go through times when we need help from others, and asking for help from your fellow free company members and friends of the free company is encouraged. But it can be important to learn to draw the line between telling someone your situation as it is and trauma dumping. Trauma dumping seems to be a lot like talking about your situation, but it includes unnecessary and often gratuitous detail. In general, trauma dumping is an act of desperation and a failure to trust in the empathy of a peer or authority figure. Given the society that we live in, such behaviors can be seen as justifiable in many unfortunate cases.But while you are among the Heralds of Jijivisa, we ask you to trust us at least enough to know that we will validate your emotional pain without your having to play it out for us with high-definition audio and video. In general, when it comes to discussing details of a traumatic event, ask for consent to share before you share. Where possible it can also be kind to give a content warning for those who will be listening to your narrative. And never share such content publicly in the free company's linkshells or Discord server chat channels, even if all individuals present consent. After all, this doesn't mean some future person who can read our chat history must now consent by attrition. (β) We do not consider it helpful to you, as the speaker, to find yourself oversharing your personal information publicly online, and we strongly advise against engaging in such behavior. Sharing the most visceral details of a traumatic experience can serve to harm others and must be taken as seriously as we take the mental health of any of our friends.Instead, we recommend sharing only as much as is absolutely necessary to find the help that you need to move ahead of this obstacle. (γ) If you would like to share more personal details about a given traumatic event with an individual or a smaller group (such as a group chat or a voice call), please ask for consent from all individuals present before proceeding to share your narrative. This recommendation can never apply to public chats of any kind.
The Sacred Laws of the Sci-Fi/Fantasy World
IC Guidelines
1 – On the Velocity of Blood
Bleeding is said to occur when an emotion and its associated behavioral response "blinks" across a sort of psychological fourth wall, either from physically extant player to original fictional character or vice versa. The transferred emotion is experienced in the same way that an emotion resulting from transference may be experienced in a psychotherapeutic setting. The reasons that player and character may give to rationalize their behavior are rarely the same, but they correspond to remarkably similar behavior when they are both carried out together in both the real world and in FFXIV RP.