#AND JUST THINKING ABOUT WOL'S TRAUMA LIKE

[catgirlcrisis]

its actually so crazy how the writing team was like “lets make grief and loss important themes for alisaie as a character” so in BCOB she learns about making peace with her grandfather’s death to live life on her own terms, for her own sake. she goes out herself to explore eorzea. and then emery dies while shes powerless to do anything about it. and then she almost dies believing that urianger was going to betray her and the scions. and then she watches the same tower her brother was supposed to be in get bombed not knowing if he escaped in time. and then she watches the people she loves be picked off one by one, physically present but spiritually gone, while being powerless to help them. and then she loses contact with alphinaud (again) not knowing if he’s okay. if he’s safe. and then the next time she sees him immediately its his limp body being carried by a stranger. and then she begs the warrior of light to not leave her alone. and then she watches tesleen die powerless to do anything about it. and then she watches the warrior of light nearly succumb to becoming a sin-eater, risking dooming not only the fate of the first, but the source. and then she finds the cold bodies of licinia and her sister, ultimately more victims of their despair than anything else, people who she’d been trying to help. and then s

#why do they keep DOING THIS TO HER #does anyone else obsessively think about this or am i just fucking crazy #her begging the wol to not leave her alone and then later on in ew again going to the wol and being like #'so hey things are crazy right now but please dont do some stupid self-sacrifice thing' #like basically 'dont kill yourself. stay alive please' #i just think a lot about how like #not in an infantilizing way #but the twins start the story at 16 #and are like 17-18 throughout the end #id say shb/ew #and its like. Wow you guys really are going through it huh #to be fair im also the same age learning that this is just what being 16-17-18 is like #but . jesus #NOT TO UNDERMINE ALPHINAUD EITHER #its just crazy how both of the twins are like #so committed to their goals and their ideals #and they keep being like kicked down #and in alisaies case shes like No fuck off I love everyone #and alphinaud is also like beat with the trauma stick 26787422 times #but is like 'that sucked but i still believe the world has a lot of good in it' #like FUCK YES LITTLE GUYS!!!!!!!!!!!!! SCREAMS #ffxiv #endwalker spoilers #shadowbringers spoilers #idk what else to spoiler tag uhm #stormblood spoilers #in case anyone needs that. i guess

[foamofthe-sea]

Found some questions rummaging through the xiv tags while I wait for this social event to start so send a number and I'll answer it? Feel free to reblog and do the same.

1. Where were they during the Calamity? 

2. How did they acquire their Echo? 

3. Does their Echo function like it does in the MSQ? Or is there a twist to it? 

4. Do they have a canon mount or minion? What's its name(s)? 

5. Where are they from? What was their childhood like?

6. How did they deal with the massacre on the Waking Sands?  

7. How did they deal with Haurchefant's death? 

8. How did they feel about the liberation of Ala Mhigo? Do they feel it could have been handled differently? Where they at all bothered by how they were involved? 

9. How do they feel about Zenos? 

10. How do they feel about their relationship with Hydaelyn? Midgarsormr?

11. Were they more sympathetic to the dragons, Ishgardians, neither or both? 

12. How has their job affected whatever headcanon version is of the MSQ if any? 

13. Are they close with any of the other Scions? Who do they get along with the best? 

14. Of the Scions, who are they most worried for? 

15. Is your WoL promiscuous? Celibate? Or just waiting for the right person? 

16. What does your WoL do to relax? What sorts of distractions do they seek? Do they foster any bad habits as a result?

17. Who is their favorite Alliance leader? Who do they get along with the best out of them? 

18. Does your WoL fully embrace their role as the WoL or do they try to remain humble? 

19. What do they think of the Heaven's Ward? 

20. Of all the places they've been to, which is their favorite? Do they like to go back there? 

21. Are there any raid storylines (Ivalice, Coil of Bahamut, Werlyt, etc.) you consider to be canon for your WoL? Which ones don't you consider canon? 

22. Do you  have a unique tale for their job class or is it pretty much like what it is in the game?

23. Are there any side quest storylines that you're particularly fond of or think of as being canon to your WoL's experiences? 

24. Does your WoL have any phobias? 

25. Do they have any habits or rituals that they do to soothe themselves? I.e. Playing with their hair, chewing their lip, fidgeting, etc. 

26. Do they suffer any traumas from any of their adventures? How do you foresee this affecting them going forward? 

27. How did the events of Shadowbringers impact them? 

28. Were they suspicious or open to Emet-Selch's presence when he first appeared? 

29. Did your WoL suspect anything was amiss with Urianger or the Crystal Exarch? Did they feel betrayed? Upset? When the truth finally emerged? 

30. What was their highest point in Shadowbringers? Their lowest? What caused it? 

31. What were their first impressions of Hien? 

32. Did they trust Asahi right away? Why or why not? 

33. How did they feel about what happened with Yotsuyu? Did they feel like she was justified in her actions?

34. Would you say your WoL is fundamentally a good person? Or are they a bad person that's been persuaded to do the right things? 

35. How do they feel about the fact that they've killed a lot of people and/or things?

#wolqotd #wol questions #ffxiv writing #ffxiv questions

[catholic-character-tournament]

Round 1 - Side A

Propaganda below ⬇️

Kawabuchi

Sentarou was bullied and ostracized as a child for having an American military man as a father. Despite being angry with his father and his heritage, he finds comfort and purpose with his faith, even though it contributes to his appearance as an outsider. He's also the character in the "that slutty catholic boy" popular tumblr post from many years ago ;D

Wolfwood

I love him. Man who has no faith in himself or humanity or god with so much blood on his hands, fighting for something he knows he can never see come to fruition in person. He carries his own literal cross and grave marker on his back. Just… he’s so iconic to me.

I'm sure I'm not the first to submit him. But I did it anyway. I hope he wins and I'll do anything in my power to make sure he does

Dude is literally a priest who carries around a giant cross. Yes he uses the cross to murder people but that is besides the point. Also he has a mini church he carries around for on-the-go confession services.

hes literally a priest(hes not a priest in the reboot but he is in the original and thats what matters to Me). he carries around a cross that is actually secretly a gun with guns inside that gun. he runs a church/orphanage. he carries around a portable confession booth and charges people money for it because he is broke as fuck. he dies bleeding out over an alter begging to god for forgiveness he doesnt think he deserves. he is everything to me.

look at this man he's a priest with a cross shaped gun that (spoilers) dies against the side of a church while waxing poetic about life and redemption (/spoilers), this is the Catholic ever.

Wolfwood is liiiiiterally Judas coded in the text. AND his weapon is a massive cross that turns into a machine gun and a LASER. Not to mention his religious trauma. Oh baby. The religious trauma.

Homeboy literally walks around with a giantass 300lb machine gun shaped like a cross called the Punisher. Hes a priest/undertaker depending on what version of trigun you reference. Grew up in a church orphanage. Also literally walks around with a portable confessional box for people to pay to confess to him. Need i say more.

HE IS LITERALLY JUDAS. he is literally leading the jesus allegory to his doom. hes also in love with the jesus allegory (vash). he is also carrying arouns a giant cross rhat is also a gun. hes literally catholic and judas and his tits are perfect. in one piece of official art he's wearing a cross choker. also the catholicism on gunsmoke is about making vash submit. wolfwood looking at that pathetic wet mess of a man oh i can make him submit easily.

He literally carries around a giant cross and is referred to as a priest by multiple characters. also he offers people confessionals

He carries a huge machine gun that is in the shape of a cross that is really heavy (he is strong) and his boobs are huge. So you know hes serving cunt in a god honoring way. Also in trigun 1998 he brings around a small chapel that he uses as a portable confessional and in trigun stampede he holds funeral services as an undertaker which are way overly priced. Also he dies very gayly (basicly confessing his love to his best boy friend forever)

Nick's funny bc he's probably the least Christian acting guy but is literally a preacher. There's a running gag with Vash asking some variation of "what the hell kinda churchman are you?" His gun is a gigantic cross. He rides a shitty motorcycle in the middle of the desert.

ok so thematically the main conflict in trigun is about peace vs violence and its represented by the characters vash and knives respectively. the two aren't /technically/ angels but thematically and through imagery they are and are comparable to michael and lucifer specifically. ANYWAYS. vash and knives are the characters who are constantly pushing and pulling at wolfwood's morality, sort of like a "the devil and god are raging inside of me" kinda deal. his grappling with his morality and faith is a big factor in his character. also he has a giant fucking gun shaped like a cross. and he dies in a church while praying.

Bros an orphan who grew up at a Catholic orphanage and taken away to be trained and genetically changed into a supercharged assassin for interworldly beings that have lots of angel imagery attached. Guy thought he was just going to be taken to become a missonary...instead he got 6 years of religious trauma. He still wears a cross necklace and holds it often. His gun is a literal cross "full of mercy" (its a missile launcher). He never really believed fully in the faith or anything, but the way he interacts with it is FASCINATING. He's jaded by the planet he lives on and his upbringing, and makes him say his most iconic quote: "We're nothing like God. Not only do we have limited powers, but sometimes we're driven to become the devil himself." He prays to a God he doesn't know if he actually believes in, asking for another day— for hope for the human race. The organization hes part of (The Eye of Michael) works for an interdimensional otherworldly being that has an incredible amount of angelic metaphor and imagery attached who intends to purge the planet of humans... and ends up siding with that guy's twin brother who is so Jesus coded it's insane. They are best friends even as Wolfwood is acting under instructions to babysit and watch him for his twin brother. He dies after facing down against his old mentor (named Chapel) and his pseudo brother from the orphanage who was taken into the Eye as well and his Jesus bestie buries him and sticks his cross-gun in the ground after losing his shit crazy style and using his pseudo alien angel Jesus powers to lash out at his brother for being the cause of Wolfwood's death. Rest in peace king

#Kawabuchi Sentarou #kids on the slope #nicholas d. wolfwood #trigun #cct polls #tumblr tournament #tumblr bracket #tumblr polls

[dainesanddaffodils]

okay so I think I have maybe like 2 mutuals who are ffxiv enthusiasts, but I gotta yell into the void about my warrior of light and the fact that, in true oc fashion, she went and did her own thing without my consent and now I gotta deal with all the feelings it is giving me

so, my partner finished endwalker last year and Had Many Emotions about it and afterword I said, sure, put me in Character Creation For Fun I Won't Do Anything About It

but then I made a cute little Au Ra and named her Cimorene to reference my fav childhood book series and I was like, oh no I love her I guess I'll have to put her through The Trauma that is this whole game

(I know there is much trauma, again, because I witnessed my partner finishing endwalker and she also would tell me things about what was going on, vague enough - and long ago enough - that I'm not like SUPER spoiled on what I have ahead of me, but like, enough that I know shit is Sad)

but ANYWAY I was still pretty casual about this because, friends, I am not a Gamer. The last game I played, that wasn't a Mariokart/Mario Party/Smash that I've played at a friend's house, was like... on my family game cube 15+ years ago. I want to be a gamer but my brain can't find time for it... until now

so I'm casually trucking along through a realm reborn doin my little white mage quests and meeting the characters my partner has cried about, especially this one guy called thancred - of whom I had heard quite a lot about and my brain had already decided, I want that one.

(he's voiced by Taliesin Jaffe at first, he's a pretty white haired anime boy with trauma, he's got horrible coping mechanisms, what was I supposed to do? to quote Richard Gansey, "Crushed and Broken, just the way women like 'em")

so that was like in the back of my mind because obviously my little baby wol has to go through a lot and he has to go through a lot (most of which I am well aware of) before that's going to take off and even then I already imagine it's going to be a sort of background tension they refuse to actually speak on but both just Know for like, ever (yes my favorite ship is Roy and Riza from FMA why do you ask)

but then I'm like a little over halfway through this first installment and a bunch of awful things happen to my baby for the first time and I'm kinda invested in how she's having a kind of terrible time and the first group of people she'd felt some kind of belonging with are in danger and she feels lost and helpless -

and my partner is sitting next to me watching me play and starts getting excited about the fact that I'm close to meeting another character

that character is haurchefant

and I had never heard them talk about him before so I didn't really know who he was, but he's the first person to be genuinely kind to my warrior after several very bad days. they're in a fortress in an eternal winter and he's still the warmest person she's met in a very long time...

and I thought, oh that's so nice I'm glad she got someone in her corner now after all that shit, anyway moving on

but then, like for the following few days I kept. thinking about it. about how much that would have meant to her, about how lonely she had been feeling before meeting him and how, now that she's found that, she kind of just, wants to be around him

and it hit me that, without my own consent on it, Cimorene had said, I want that one.

so now I have to deal with my baby's first love (which, judging by my partner and her friends reactions when I told all of this to them, is going to be a fucking tragic first love) when I hadn't expected to deal with that at all and now I'm like really really invested in this dumb game

(this got way longer than expected, I just had to Yell. also this is probably a precursor for things to come. I may be reblogging Final Fantasies up in here before long)

#ffxiv #final fantasy 14 #a realm reborn #haurchefant #anyway I hate this I want to write fucking FANFIC #and I'm not even in heavensward yet I have So Much to go through lmao

[starrysnowdrop]

Okay like...I'm not a huge Hermes fan because of what happens later with him but..I can tell you are very excited about him and your stuff involving him and you're afraid no one will like or ask about it. I like to encourage people to chase what they love and inspires them so...

I am asking. Lay it on me! Give me all the Hermes stuff that makes you excited! (If you're comfortable doing it.) Headcannons, thoughts, um..I don't AO3 but if you have links to stories with him...whatever you want to share! Go for it!

First of all, can I give you the biggest virtual hug?!?

Thank you so much @pinxli for your kindness, your encouragement, and your support for us all here!! You are an amazing friend and I’m so grateful. 🥹💖

Onto your actual ask, which is just a chance for me to blab about Hermes for a bit, which I know will end up way too long, so I’ll put it under a cut.

So, I want to start by saying that you are absolutely right Inxli-mun in that it’s been difficult for me to talk about Hermes, for multiple reasons, but a big one is that so many in the fandom seem to hate him. I mean he is the one that is easy to point to and say that he caused the final days in the first place and that he’s to blame for literally everything that happened afterwards. So I get it, I really do. But it also means that it makes me really anxious about even talking about him, let alone gpose or write about him. So hopefully this will help me in doing so in the future.

Here’s the thing. From the beginning, I was in the “love to hate him” camp about Fandaniel. I was intrigued with his character and wanted to know more, but I wasn’t exactly excited about his total nihilism, especially in the Pre-EW patches when we first got a taste of him. He got a bit more interesting after the Amon reveal right before Tower of Zot. As a fan of Allag stuff, I liked the reveal and all, but I still didn’t know at all what to expect next. When we got to Fandaniel’s death when he became the heart of Zodiark, I felt like he was an interesting villain, but not my favorite in FFXIV, and I thought that was that. I didn’t think we’d get anything more about Fandaniel, let alone his Unsundered self.

Then came Elpis, and the more I heard and saw, the more I realized that I was going to fall in love with this character, or should I say the Unsundered Fandaniel anyway. The reveal that his name was Hermes got me so damn giddy already because I have always loved Hermes from Greek Mythology. Then when Hermes first spoke in Elpis, I recognized Jeremy Ang Jones’ voice, as he was clearly Amon/Fandaniel, but he spoke so softly and it just hit me with the feels instantly. I have no idea why, but I find a great voice to be a huge turn on, and Hermes just did it for me. His beautiful green eyes also greatly help in the sexiness department for me.

Seriously though, the more I learned of Hermes, the more I felt for him. His caring nature and compassion for all of the creations, his devotion and fatherly love for Meteion, and his kindness towards the WoL just made me love him so deeply. And he was so unique amongst the Ancients, with his love for all creatures, not just his fellow people, and not to mention that I saw a lot of myself in him with his depression, as I myself have chronic depression and anxiety. It all spoke to me, and way after I had finished 6.0, I still couldn’t shake him from my mind. Though I had no intention on shipping with him for the longest time, since it took me nearly 2 years to do so, he had stolen my heart, just as Aymeric, G’raha, Cid, etc. had done before.

So I don’t want this to turn into a full blown essay on him, even though I have already written so much already, but I wanted to talk a bit about why I love him, and that my love is very much for Hermes, and not as much for Fandaniel as the sundered ascian. I very much see Hermes, Amon, and Ascian Fandaniel as all separate characters, even though they all share the same soul whose trauma can be first attributed to the suffering that Hermes experienced.

Though I am still figuring out not only a canon timeline, especially with the newest short story coming in and wrecking a few things that I had planned, but I also have a few headcanons for the Modern AU with Urania x Hermes, and I also I do want to do a Happy Ending AU for Hermes, but I am not entirely certain if I could pull that last one off. So for now, I’ll give you a handful of headcanons for the Modern AU.

Hermes is a single father who adopted Meteion when she was a few months old, and she is obviously not a familiar in this modern setting but a little girl who wants her papa to find love. He is in graduate school working towards his master’s and eventually his PhD in Astronomy, but he still doesn’t earn enough to support himself and his daughter, so he is a barista at the local coffee shop. It is at the coffee shop where he meets Urania, who is a regular customer. They then bump into each other at the university and realize that they are in the same Astronomy graduate program. Some other hobbies that Hermes has is bird watching and cooking, along with spending his free time with Meteion as much as he can. I’m still figuring out how I want the romance to develop, but I’m very excited about this AU because it can just be a sweet love story and no big bad stuff happening like the Final Days.

With that, I think I’ll shut up for now. But thank you so much for this ask Inxli-mun!! I very much appreciate the opportunity to blab about this man who I adore very much. 🥰💖

#asks and replies #endwalker spoilers #ffxiv hermes #fandaniel #urania x hermes #ship: think of me #don’t worry I’m never abandoning Hali x Aymeric #Aymeric is still my number one man #but Hermes is really special to me as well

[myechoecho]

Tae Ha keeps on trying to draw a line with Yeon Woo, but he is unable to keep his distance. Him thinking about the kiss all day, when she does even remember was funny to me.

Tae Ha has some sort of trauma. Is is evil mom not his mom but step mom??? Who was dying and he was locked into a room with her? He still has a heart condition which might be getting worse. I do love how Yeon Woo comforted him.

Just who is Cheonmyeong and what does she have to do with Yeon Woo? Also, who is that following Yeon Woo in the woods and what is them meaning of the grave marker that Yeon Woo found - Faithful Wife?

When time froze, did Tae Ha see all the flashbacks? He was already beginning to believe her but does he now know how they are tied?

I am so happy that Yeon Woo found Sa Wol. And like Yeon Woo, she has adapted relatively quickly to the new world she has found herself in and has a good grasp on who she can trust. Love the two of them.

#the story of park's marriage contract #kdrama

[autumnslance]

Does the new EE volume cover any of the job abilities or artifact gears we've gotten since ShB? Really curious about things like Xenoglossy and the afflatus spells

The only jobs with abilities and artifact gear it goes into are those introduced in Shadowbringers and Endwalker; Gunbreaker, Dancer, Reaper, Sage, and Blue Mage get write ups. There’s a 2 page spread of some Machinist weapons, but otherwise the previous jobs are not touched on again.

The book is very focused on the ancient world and set up for the Zodiark/Hydaelyn conflict leading to the plot, the First, the new regions in EW, Ardbert & crew’s journey and explaining the details of Shadowkeeper’s villainy (and why she’s so guilt-ridden over it all now cuz wow), and all the people, places, storylines, side content, holidays, and creatures we’ve encountered the last 2 expacs, up to the end of 6.0 (So there's no patch information). All of the 24 man raids from ARR through Stormblood, Bozja, and the 4 man dungeons of Shadowbringers and 6.0 are detailed.

But Not YoRHa: Dark Apocalypse. The NieR raids are entirely missing from the lorebook. Anogg and Konogg get short entries in the section with the other dwarves, but the last quarter of Anogg’s entry is blotted out (one of three entries in the book that are redacted; the Beavers and Other Ones in Ultima Thule are the others). I expect the raid series' lore is being folded in NieR's own, as is per usual with extra-game material for that series.

Also there's more than a little gender muckery going on; an unseen leader with no one sure what they look like or what gender they are. Giott from the ShB Role Quests being referred to as "they." Nutsy, of Clan Nutsy hunts, is suddenly using she/her (kinda sure it was he/him in game?? Have to check if they ever mentioned Nutsy's pronouns/gender before). The Loporrits have no biological gender, they pick pronouns cuz they think the people of Etheirys doing so is a cute "quirk." They stuck with the lore of Viera/Viis children not having visible biological sex traits until puberty (and then most of them present as female). This on top of what we got about dragons in the patch content (we knew about the asexual reproduction, but it's confirmed they really don't care about gender and also choose it out of a hat), and is emphasized in Vrtra's simulacra being of various ages and genders over time; Varshan's just the latest random model.

They also seem to emphasize even more that this book is written as if in universe, even with several of the secrets it does spill, noting the Scions' reports and information, and how much of it is trustworthy or not, and what the Scions themselves did not report on or redacted, which is really things like not talking publicly about exactly what happened to them--nor the details of the WoL's battles--in Ultima Thule. So it seems primarily to preserve some MSQ specific events for playthrough, and also to not simply blow-by-blow retell said MSQ. It also says where their accounts have been corroborated by other sources, such as when they note the Sharlayan Forum unanimously backing the Scions' records without caveats.

This also indicates the Scions are understandably not publicly sharing all the Traumas MSQ has put them through, nor some of the truly dangerous or simply sensitive information the main party is privy to. And adds a neat little twist on how some folks may be skeptical of the Scions actions, methods, and motivations for their heroics and what that looks like to the general public from the outside, and the people who have to collect and record these histories and observations, even if the evidence speaks for itself.

The devs do this "in universe" storytelling often, because doing so gives the writers wiggle room to make changes/retcons, as the IC writers of these framing devices and lore info dumps can be mistaken, lying, biased, or otherwise writing to their own agenda even while purporting to be as objectively honest as possible. It allows for flexibility in the lore for them, and makes space for plenty of headcanons for us.

I'll probably do a post on the Vrandtic language and alphabet, and Faerie runes, at some point as that's of interest for me in specific. For now, let's just say they took the easy-ish way despite going into detail on the development and proliferation of Eorzean Common in a previous EE.

In fact, here's the Table of Content for the Lorebook, transcript under the cut, mistakes probably mine, etc:

THE INVENTORY OR INDEX

CONTAINING THE CONTENT OF VII BOOKS SEEKING TRUTHS ACROSS AND BEYOND OUR STAR

The First Book: Etheirys 005

The Ancient World - 006

The Beginning of the Final Days - 014

Norvrandt and the First - 024

The History of Norvrandt - 026

The Warriors of Light - 032

The Flood of Light -040

A Century of Vrandtic History - 043

The Language of Norvrandt - 052

Eorzean Holiday Traditions - 054

The Second Book: Children of the Cosmos 065

The Hrothgar - 066

The Viera - 068

The Arkasodara - 070

The Loporrits - 072

Races from Distant Stars - 074

Peoples of the First - 082

The Pixies - 086

The Nu Mou - 088

The Fuath - 090

The Tupaq Amaro - 091

The Qitarri - 092

The Hobgoblin - 094

The Third Book: Distant Lands 095

The Crystarium - 096

Lakeland - 104

Eulmore - 106

Kholusia - 110

Amh Araeng - 112

Il Mheg - 114

The Rak'tika Greatwood - 116

The Tempest - 118

Werlyt - 120

Bozja - 122

Old Sharlayan - 124

Labyrinthos - 130

Radz-at-Han - 132

Thavnair - 140

Garlemald - 142

Mare Lamentorum - 144

Elpis - 146

Ultima Thule - 148

The Fourth Book: Servants of Fate 151

Faces of the Crystarium - 152

Vanquishers of Virtue - 154

Makers of the Mean - 156

Faces of Lakeland - 158

Faces of Kholusia - 159

Faces of Eulmore - 161

Faces o Amh Araeng - 163

Away with the Fae - 165

Keepers o the Rak'tika Greatwood - 166

Faces of the Tempest - 168

Faces of Werlyt - 169

The Bozjan Resistance - 171

The IVth Legion - 172

Faces of the Firmament - 173

Faces of Sharlayan - 174

Scholars of the Studium - 175

Faces of Labyrinthos - 177

Faces of Thavnair - 178

Faces of Garlemald - 180

Faces of Mare Lamentorum - 182

Faces of Elpis - 183

Echoes of Ultima Thule - 185

Faces from Journeys Past - 186

The Fifth Book: Journeys Traced 189

The Unending Journey - 190

The Labyrinth of the Ancients - 192

Syrcus Tower - 193

The World of Darkness - 194

The Void Ark - 195

The Weeping City of Mhach - 196

Dun Scaith - 197

The Royal City of Rabanaste - 198

The Ridorana Lighthouse - 199

The Orbonne Monastery - 200

The Bozjan Southern Front - 201

Castrum Lacus Litore - 202

Delubrum Reginae - 203

Zadnor - 204

The Burn - 206

The Ghimlyt Dark - 207

Holminster Switch - 208

Dohn Mheg - 209

The Qitana Ravel - 210

Malikah's Well - 211

Mt. Gulg - 212

Amaurot - 213

The Twinning - 214

Akademia Anyder - 215

The Grand Cosmos - 216

Anamnesis Anyder - 215

The Heroes' Gauntlet - 218

Matoya's Relict - 219

Paglth'an - 220

The Tower of Zot - 221

The Tower of Babil - 222

Vanaspati - 223

Ktisis Hyperborea - 224

The Aitiascope - 225

The Dead Ends - 226

The Stigma Dreamscape - 227

Smileton - 228

The Sixth Book: Inventive Designs 229

Gunbreaker - 230

Dancer - 232

Reaper - 234

Sage - 236

Blue Mage - 238

The Gunblade - 240

Throwing Weapons - 242

The Scythe - 244

Nouliths - 246

Machinist Kit - 248

A Gunbreaker's Panoply - 250

A Dancer's Panoply - 251

A Reaper's Panoply - 252

A Sage's Panoply - 253

A Blue Mage's Panoply - 254

The Seventh Book: Curious Creatures 255

A Broader Bestiary - 256

Beastkin - 258

Seedkin - 260

Wavekin - 261

Cloudkin - 262

Scalekin - 263

Forgekin - 264

Ashkin & Voidsent - 268

Soulkin - 269

Transfigured - 271

Extrastellar Life - 273

Creations - 275

Eden Primals - 278

Beasts of the Final Days - 282

The Ultima Weapon Projects - 286

Elite Clan Nutsy Marks - 292

Lakeland - 292

Kholusia - 293

Amh Araeng - 294

Il Mheg - 295

The Rak'tika Greatwood - 296

The Tempest - 297

Elite Marks of the Gleaners' Guildship - 298

Labyrinthos - 298

Thavnair - 299

Garlenald - 300

Mare Lamentorum - 301

Elpis - 302

Ultima Thule - 303

Supplements

Solidarity Through Celebration - 064

Protectors of the Realm - 150

#final fantasy xiv #encyclopaedia eorzea #lore #lorebook #table of contents #content

[plounce]

i havent talked about my wol on here in a hot minute but ummm her lore has developed a lot :) she's co-wols with my friend hawke's wol and she has terminal tank disease and of course it goes without saying that she's hopelessly dependent on the catboy bestfriend. she's selectively mute (silent player character = autism legend) and mikh'a, because he has the echo, can understand the sign she uses (which is half cobbled out of sign languages from the shroud but also from around eorzea and half her own creation) without many wrinkles and also he's just very nice and shortly before she met him she got ejected from her family group so she was like YOU'RE MY PERSON NOW and imprinted. also in ARR she was deeply uncomfortable with any social stuff and so mikh'a handled a lot of it for her. it was a very vulnerable time in her life and she will always feel deeply grateful to him for that. but then we get to hvw and mikh'a (that's the other wol) was engaged to haurchefant before That Happened and it destroys him and he's basically out of the game for the rest of hvw msq from the debilitating grief. so that's the real genesis of her life attitude being "i have to take care of everything and shoulder all of the burdens and duties so that mikh'a has room for HIS burdens". also she has that autism feeling of like "i don't feel as much / as strongly as other people" (yknow) and it's something she really admires about mikh'a, how strongly he feels things (even as the trauma starts to make him an asshole), so. yes. he's the face and she's the shield. due to her terminal tank syndrome. anyway in shadowbringers she gets brought over to the first right before mikh'a does, like 6 months in first time, and the way that their deal works out is that mikh'a is the one who is able to channel the light into tomte so she contains it, leaving her with light poisoning and him with the light aether scraped out of him, so that she's gradually growing more and more blank and stoic and unfeeling while he gets more volatile and emotional (light = stasis, dark = change). anyway tomte decides to go off the empty alone because she's operating on her most basic MO of "other people cannot handle this burden, but i can, i must, i will" and just wakes up, has a very one-sided argument with mikh'a, and then teleports away without telling anyone her plans. and then has an even bigger fight with mikh'a in the tempest as all the scions watch in distress and discomfort and then ryne manages to get through to her and tomte like. cries. and that's a big deal. we've rp'd much of this and more.

hawke (my friend if you forgot) has been ensorcelled by bg3 so he has not played past 5.1 so my further building of tomte's co-WoL story lore canon is sort of on pause right now but i think the end of shadowbringers really freaked her out and she stops tanking because she couldn't handle it. she wasn't able to. it didn't work out and it wouldn't have worked out, and she realizes, when the light is no longer poisoning her brain, that she probably would have doomed everybody if she had gone through with her plan and walked into emet-selch's lair alone. she needed her loved ones to hold her back. and in endwalker i switched to samurai because i capped on warrior so im imagining that in endwalker she also puts down the axe and takes up a sword. still throwing herself into the middle of things, but uncertain about taking responsibility. i think this general level of uncertainty and anxiety is compounded by the fact that she's the WoL zenos is fixated on - she's the muscle, she's been the one really taking on most of the primals and lightwardens. so it's like arrrghhh everything is my fault and my arrogance and my hubris (which is so sad because she is so quiet and humble). anyway. idk how we're gonna do the azem of it all (i have numerous ideas and possibilities in my brain - maybe emet tried to resurrect azem at some point and botched it, leading to the rejoined souls splitting from the source soul, and tomte is the rejoined souls and mikh'a is the core source souls? maybe it's a 3 and 4 split? maybe tomte is a different person altogether? i just know that mikh'a should definitely be azem since his themes and story of destructive grief align really well with emet)

anyway. that's a glimpse of the evolving tomte lore. click and post

#chirps #ffxiv

[msviolacea]

A not-so-short word vomit on a complaint I saw about 6.3. It was just a couple of people, so this is definitely not a “why is fandom like this” sort of thing, but the conversation I saw just made me think and I don’t have the time or energy to engage in a direct back and forth on Discord right now. So, I word vomit here, as one does.

I saw a thing the other day (here? Twitter? who knows, time is an illusion and brain cells are in short supply) that asked if you’re the kind of person who came to FFXIV from Dragon Age versus ... somewhere else. I am obviously from the Dragon Age side of things. And if there’s one thing DA fandom taught me, it’s that a game suffers when all players are expected to know what happens in ancillary non-video game materials in order to fully appreciate the story. Thus, I come down hard on the side of “what the game itself says is exactly what the characters should be expected to know and reference.” 

And the FFXIV spoilers begin below. Assume spoilers for everything through 6.3 here. 

So 6.3 - and 6.2 to a lesser extent, thanks to Zero - is full of references to Zenos and, quite frankly, what a terrible person he was. And that’s perfectly understandable, given what everyone knows about him in game. (And even what we know about him out of game, but more on the nuance of that later.) Yes, our WoL knows that he made one big gesture at the end of his life that helped us save the world. That’s great! But after that, he immediately challenged us to a fight and very nearly killed us - would have killed us if not for semi-divine intervention. Because in the end, he didn’t come to the end of the universe because he’d discovered a conscience. He came because he was a deeply selfish man who only cared about getting One Perfect Fight, and Alisaie’s words stuck in his head only to the point of “well if I do a thing for them, they’ll do a thing for me.” He only progressed to the point of understanding equivalent exchange in a similar way to the voidsent of the 13th.

That may have been vaguely fine for a character in another position, but he was supposedly running a country. Whether he wanted that is something else entirely, and we’ll get to a bit of Emet Selch and his crimes in a bit, but regardless of what he wanted, he had an obligation, and he failed it entirely - he refused to even consider it. And an entire nation suffered for his lack of care. That was one of the points of this patch. We met Zero in 6.2, learned that she’d been attached to Zenos against her will. That was mostly background to the rest of the dragon and void stuff in that patch, but in this patch, we bring her to Garlemald, where she sees more of the consequences of Zenos’s selfishness, outside of her own situation. And after observing us, our friends, and the people of Garlemald trying their best to survive together, she shows that she can choose something different - that despite the many, many years of darkness and selfishness she’s had to survive in the 13th, she has the capacity to desire something different. 

Maybe Zenos would have displayed that same capacity if he’d had more time. But that wasn’t the story this game was telling. Not every character is going to get the same opportunities. 

Not every villain gets to be redeemed. 

I understand that we have a relatively robust history of redeemed villains in this game, compared to others of its kind. But that’s been a mixed bag. Emet Selch is one of the best examples of villains in general in the video game genre - the game itself showed exactly why he was the way he was, without excusing the atrocities that he committed along the way. (Fandom is a different story on the excusing - I am deeply uncomfortable with the “but he didn’t see humans as equals” argument being used in earnest - but that’s a different post.) And then they gave us an opportunity to see who he was before the sundering, before the trauma, and that once his full memory was restored and he had the opportunity to understand the full scope of what happened, he would gladly (though with characteristic grumbling) help us put the world to rights before his truly final curtain call. 

Zenos did not have the same narrative opportunities. If that disappoints you, I understand. But it’s not a failure of the game, it’s just a narrative decision. 

(Briefly - Gaius is a very, VERY different story, and one that I think is actually a failure of the game’s narrative. Gaius Baelsar should have remained dead, and the person we met in the Burn should have been an entirely different Garlean leader who defected and decided to help us. That one change would have saved that entire storyline.)

But, Zenos. We, as players, have the opportunity to read some ancillary materials to understand more about him. Side stories, lore books - we find he was neglected as a child, raised by narcissists and molded to be the person he was, to a certain extent. We can sympathize, we can understand the narrative threads that denied him a real chance at being a good person. But do not confuse what we the players know - or even the space the game writers give us to play with our headcanons - with the knowledge and opinions the characters should reasonably be expected to express in in-game dialogue. 

What does the Warrior of Light know about Zenos in game, through actual in-game sources? He’s the great-grandson of Solus/Emet, his father was a xenophobic zealot, he gave zero shits about anything other than fighting and let a lot of really shitty people do his governing for him, he killed a ton of people and threatened many, many more, the Ascians brought him back to life and as soon as he got his body back, he allied with Fandaniel and let a civil war turn Garlemald into a smoking crater just so they could get to Zodiark, and when Fandaniel used Zodiark for his own purposes, he just shrugged and went wandering on his own because nothing in Garlemald was any use to him anymore. That’s pretty much it. Yes, he came to our aid at the moment we needed it most, but he did so for his own ends, and we gave him what he wanted. You can headcanon the reason why your WoL did so, but that doesn’t change the basic facts we know from in-game sources. 

Your WoL doesn’t canonically know anything about his childhood. And, quite frankly, even if they did, do you think it would be reasonable to “well actually” Zero and the Garleans in dialogue at this point? 

Zenos is a tragedy. Zenos also caused tragedy, and those two concepts can coexist in our minds as players. But in-game characters can’t be expected to view Zenos in a sympathetic light, not even our WoL. External lore sources are not in-game lore. Our headcanons are not in-game lore. The writers cannot avoid every single instance of our dialogue possibly deviating from our headcanons, not without eliminating dialogue entirely. 

(There’s an ancillary topic here, about how the current shape of the world makes it very inadvisable for writers who give a shit about society to gloss over atrocities committed by a rich ogliarch in their narrative, no matter what players headcanon about that character, but that’s an aside to the points I’m making. But while I’m all in for villain-fucking and blorbo-appreciation in a fannish space, fandom is a totally different space than canon.) 

In the end, Zenos died a villain. A complicated, interesting one who made a fascinating decision at the end of his life, but a villain nonetheless. We can do whatever we want with him in fandom - that’s what fanworks are for. And we can be disappointed that the canon narrative doesn’t share our points of view. But we should also understand that there are very good reasons for those POVs, and that not sharing our POV is not a failure of the narrative. 

#jaime plays ffxiv #ffxiv #ffxiv spoilers #6.3 spoilers #that's a lot of words #but they were in my head #and needed to get out #i am a big proponent of divorcing your own feelings about a character #from what is good or expected from the narrative that's being told

[starswornoaths]

Deliquesce - Commission!

Commissioned by a dear friend @eremiss! Thank you for your trade, darling! :D

cw: feat. canon-compliant character death, grief, panic attack, general trauma.

platonic! wol and Aymeric

Gwen has been burying all her problems in the snow, content to leave her pain where it is numb and can't hurt her. But she's not the only one that's been adding to that proverbial corpse pile. An unexpected but most welcome kinship among proverbial gravediggers forms on a particularly cold night over a lovely cup of tea.

word count: 10,239

~*~

Gwen had trudged through hip-deep grief for so long by the time she had been ushered through the Arc of the Worthy that she had almost acclimated to the slow creep of its rising tide. The journey to Ishgard had been so fraught with loss and betrayal and blood by that point, she could practically picture herself chin-deep in ghosts and guilt.

Foolishly, she had hoped for respite. Just enough to start dragging herself out of it before she would be dragged down by it all, at least.

Then her constitution, battered and threadbare as it was, became buried beneath bureaucracy and blizzards. By the time the truth of the Dragonsong War came to light, it felt like Gwen was barely treading above it all. Like it was all she could do to keep from being entombed in the avalanche.

There were many logs in her proverbial hearth to keep out the chill, at least; what had remained of her Scions were a comfort, and she had begun to rebuild a circle of friends to wall herself in from the cold.

Not replacements. Never. But more who could stand with her as she searched. Those who could help her remember to hope, and introduced to her Scions, to be welcomed among them when they returned. 

If, hissed a voice in the back of her head.

Her whorling thoughts sent her out of bed and pacing her room, though she had only managed fitful tossing and turning before giving in to the buzzing beneath her skin. There was a war of attrition in her mind against her thoughts, and they were intent on starving her out of reprieve.

At least it was in Fortemps Manor rather than the Forgotten Knight that she paced; this way, there were fewer people she could wake with her mumbling and pacing.

Alas, she would have to fend for herself if she wished to avail herself of the kitchens. But then, even stepping out of this room ran the risk of being perceived.

The walls were red—too red. They looked painted in fresh blood. Everywhere in the house, everything was too red. She couldn’t remember if she felt that before they had gone to the Vault but it was all she could think of in that moment.

Were the walls always this red, or had her hands painted them darker? Did she cast the shadow of death in this place, and that was why there was any blood spilled at all? Was she the only one that had noticed, had felt this, this all consuming guilt?

But Gwen had been in this position before. She would be here again, in this familiar place of burden and guilt and strife. While those who lived here and welcomed her as family would disagree with her, her mind would not loosen its claws from the circling drain it had latched onto: that everything that had happened left her unworthy of the bed she was given in this home, having been there and unable to heal the son they had lost because of her.

And that was how Gwen found herself throwing on the previous day’s crumpled clothes, jamming her feet into her boots, and stepping out of Fortemps Manor.

The knight standing guard at the door gave her a respectful nod as she came down the few steps to the street.

“Lady Ashe,” he greeted politely, the same as every knight and noble in this city had since her arrival.

Another handful of snow around her neck. Words formed a tangled knot in Gwen’s throat, and she could do little more than give a tight nod as she hurried past him. 

The Last Vigil was occupied only by the night watch that milled about on patrol, be it at the door of a High House, or marching along the street. They all greeted her the same: “Lade Ashe.”

Gwen pressed her lips together so tightly that they lost feeling but for the pinch of skin beneath her teeth. It was getting harder to breathe.

Desperate for reprieve, she skipped bolting down the walkways to Foundation, and instead made for the nearest aethernet shard to whisk herself away to the aetheryte plaza.

Somehow even more bereft of life than the Pillars, there was but a solitary knight standing watch, who gave but a silent nod as she scurried past. At least the knights and passerby here gave her a wide berth and a quieter sort of reverence; she was more accustomed to ignoring the holes burned in the back of her skull from the eyes of others watching her.

Nowadays, it was out of some misplaced sense of awe, at least, rather than the suspicious eye of one watching a street urchin scuttling around the waste bins. At least the stares burned differently now.

Without consciously giving it much thought, Gwen had begun to make her way to the Congregation, though once she realized what direction her boots were taking her, she let them do as they wished; it was such habit to report in from the aetheryte, little wonder she had done it without choosing to.

Just the thought of looking for more work exhausted her, but the Forgotten Knight was only catter-corner to the Congregation itself, conveniently enough. It was hardly slumming it, but the slight scratch of sheets made thin from years of hard soap would be a damn sight more comfortable to her than lying on sheets with a higher thread count than she could recall ever touching before. It would help her remember being Gwen.

The ale in the Forgotten Knight was just mild enough to handle but full bodied enough to be a cheap and cheerful thrill. Their beds, while not the lap of luxury like that found in her room in Fortemps Manor, were deceptively comfortable given the circumstances. Gwen suspected that Hilda’s myriad donations had something to do with the quality of its upkeep, though knew better than to pry. 

A room could be available, but she had caught the dead hours between supper and breakfast, so she would go to bed on an empty stomach, should she duck in from the cold. It was far from ideal, and her heart wasn’t even half in it, but it was preferable to either looking for work so late or winding her way back up to the Pillars.

As she ascended the last of the stairs, her boots kicked into an unexpected pool of honeyed light that spilled onto the street. It drew her eye toward the second story window that it poured from, solitary in its luminescence. 

Gwen paused in the street, a thoughtful frown marring her brow. Realizing through what window that golden hearthlight was spilling from, she couldn’t help but let out a frustrated but fond huff as she jammed her hands in her pockets as she started walking again. 

What’s he doing up at this hour? she wondered, and picked up the pace across the courtyard to the massive wooden doors to the Congregation, her initial plan of ale and accommodation set aside in favor of instead sating her curiosity.

The graveyard shift found within was so barebones at that hour there was hardly anyone there to greet her—which was why the solitary knight fidgeting by the door to the lift all but confirmed Gwen’s suspicions: her friend was one of the only ones still awake this godsforsaken early.

The attending lift guard looked about ready to fall asleep upright when she came in, and only jolted awake at the clack of her footfalls approaching. 

“O-oh, Ser Ashe,” he greeted her.

That title settled a little easier on her mind—or at least, easy enough to keep the nausea at bay. However informally, it was only a rank. It was something so many other people had that any significance the word had was lost. She was but another knight, same as any other wearing chainmail around her. It was fine.

“Is the Lord Commander in?” she asked once she had exchanged enough pleasantries for three bells past midnight.

“Aye, ma’am—I await his relief, point of fact.” he admitted, visibly uncomfortable at the thought of going up to ask his commanding officer if he might go home. “I, err, I can’t go home until either he does, or my relief shift comes in a few hours. Whichever happens first.”

Well. If Aymeric didn’t realize that his habits were hurting others already, then Gwen would beat him over the head with every new revelation she could until he did.

“May I head up to speak with him?” she asked, and at his hesitation, she added, “he needs a reminder of what the chirurgeon’s orders are.”

While it wasn’t technically a lie, Gwen knew about as much of Aymeric’s medical release as he pretended he didn’t. The man could do with a reminder to rest—or at least, that his subordinate needed one.

Blessedly, either her excuse was good enough or the guard was so sleep deprived that it didn’t matter, as he waved her through to the lift with a jaw-popping yawn and barely another glance.

Gwen spent the lift ride up convincing herself that it was the knight’s exhaustion that let her slip by with little incident. It was a brief enough trip that she at least didn’t have too long to fail in doing so. It eased the sting of it as she stepped out into the Seat of the Lord Commander.

It wasn’t a surprise to see Aymeric at his desk, hunched over an unfurled scroll and only looking up at her intrusion. What caught her off guard was that his armor was haphazardly draped about a spare chair beside the desk, leaving him in a simple gray shirt and dark pants. 

To her, it looked as though he had all but grown roots for how settled into that seat he looked, like a puppet gone slack from severed strings. At the sight of a wincing twitch in his neck, she idly wondered if he had moved at all in hours.

“My friend,” Aymeric greeted her, warm as ever even through the surprise that colored his tone.

After a moment, she clocked the way his shoulders pulled taut—he was trying to stand as straight as his wounds would allow, she realized when he flinched back into a slight slouch. 

Sighing, he chanced speaking after a moment’s pause, “I confess, you have me at a disadvantage. Is aught amiss…?”

The tentativeness behind his inquiry betrayed how much tension he was attempting to hide from her in the asking. In all likelihood, he assumed she wasn’t here for a social visit. Not that she could blame him, for how little they had interacted beyond work—

“Well, I saw your light on,” Gwen said conversationally, gesturing toward the windows behind him. “Still on, actually. Weren’t you supposed to be in bed by now?”

Another wince crossed Aymeric’s face for the briefest of moments but almost as quickly as it came the moment passed, and he was once more all pleasant impassiveness.

“I was just on my way,” he lied—and poorly at that, “I will be but a few moments more, I assure you.”

“Assure your door guard, not me.” Gwen shrugged. “He can’t go home until you do.”

That struck Aymeric right where she had hoped it would hurt the most: that painfully Ishgardian sense of duty. He couldn’t even hide the way he flinched bodily at the pointed comment, and though he straightened from behind his desk entirely, he had the look of a man fighting every urge to curl into an ashamed ball. 

“Y-yes, well—” he stammered in a moment of uncharacteristic gracelessness.

In a way, it was a reminder to Gwen that he was human, too; they were both infallible by demand of their duties and their positions. Even in the face of martyrdom, it was expected—demanded— of them not to falter. 

But they had. They had. And they would again.

Aymeric searched her eyes for a long moment, as if debating with himself. Gwen met his gaze evenly, though she couldn’t help but wonder if he were staring straight through to something—or someone—that she wouldn’t recognize as herself.

Admittedly, she didn’t know him well enough to parse which it was. 

When he let out a sigh so heavy that his posture slumped, she was pulled out of her reverie. Her eyes refocused in time to clock that the rattling of his armor was him pulling his posture straight on his next inhale.

“I know a lost battle when I see one.” he conceded with his hands up, “Pray, at least tell me what you are doing up at this hour on our way, then? Perhaps a walk will do us both some good.”

Though the suggestion caught Gwen off guard, she found it preferable to watered down ale and an empty belly at the Forgotten Knight. Walking would at least keep her occupied—and walking beside Aymeric would at least guarantee that any attention and deference would be directed his way.

It was easy to all but slip into the shadow of his silhouette looming at her side as they made their way out into the night. Easier still to hide in the broad shadow he cast even in a simple winter coat. It was easy, and not a little comforting, to have a friend that mattered enough that she could be paid no mind by comparison. 

Even the thought was enough to inspire a pang of guilt in her chest. Was their friendship one of convenience? Had that been what she had with Haurchefant, too? Was that the sort of friendship he had died for?

Of course not—Gwen knew that. Of course he hadn’t died for that. Of course their friendship had mattered. Still mattered.

Prior to his rescue from the Vault, Aymeric had occupied a space in Gwen’s general social sphere that settled somewhere between “friend” and “work colleague,” where she had mostly thought of him in the same circle of friends, but not necessarily her friend. The same place she had put Estinien, really, though goodness knew where the Dragoon had gone off to in order to mourn in his own way. Quietly, she promised to all three of them, those both here and gone, that she would try to reach out further. Try to show that it mattered.

The walk took them to the Pillars, though Gwen found she minded less with Aymeric to buffer her against howling wind and piercing gazes alike. She had almost missed it happening entirely until it registered that they were halfway up the staircase from Foundation, and the surprise tensed her shoulders despite her best efforts.

If Aymeric noticed the shift in her at his side, he didn’t directly comment, instead saying, “I confess, I would ordinarily sleep in my quarters at the Congregation after dismissing the lift guard, but I do not imagine you would trust me to rest.”

Gwen recognized his tone as intently conversational; he was trying to open a neutral dialogue with her. If she were honest, it was that extra degree of decorum that made her feel set apart from him. 

In a way, it felt like he always, deliberately, said something other than what he truly wanted to, even around those in his social circle. It gave him an air of deceptiveness that she couldn’t shake, despite knowing that he wasn’t actively trying to lie to anyone. 

But Aymeric had spoken and was plainly expecting a response, however politely. Though it hadn’t have been longer than the span of a few breaths, it was just long enough that his expression had taken on a concerned edge to it.

“My friend, are you quite well?” he asked, not unkindly.

“Yeah,” she lied, “but anyroad: no, I wouldn’t trust you would actually rest so much as I could throw you in yalms.”

His laugh was warm enough to chase away the numbness in her bones, though it returned in a howling rush when that laugh tapered into a pained grunt and a hand pressed at his side. That he waved her off with his free hand did nothing to make that spark of reprieve return.

“‘Tis nothing,” he lied. “‘Tis nothing.”

They walked in silence until they crested the staircase. That quiet existed in a liminal space between companionable and impenetrable. The sort of silence that was heavy with the want to talk and a lack of knowing what to say in that moment.

At the top of the stairs, Aymeric finally found the words he was looking for, and tentatively suggested, “as it is plain we are both in need of some succor, I would invite you in for tea, if you would accept it.”

The offer made Gwen’s steps falter so horribly that he shot out an arm to help her right her footing. As he attempted to smother another flinch at moving too quickly for his wounds, she took a moment to wrangle her thoughts before they got away from her.

An initial reaction was to recoil away from the offer—almost physically, had she not caught herself. It was less that she didn’t feel safe with him—she did—it was more that the thought of being somewhere private with anyone struck her at her spine with a spear of ice.

When had it ever gone well when she had let herself be brought into someone’s fold? Nanamo had nearly paid for that mistake the last time. Other people—good people, people Gwen had personally recruited into the Crystal Braves—had picked up the tab in either a partial or whole capacity. Her path to Ishgard was easily traced; having marched out of a river of blood, her footprints were stark in the snow.

And her hands had been far from clean even before then—

But Aymeric was offering little else but food and friendship. Nothing about the offer struck her as diplicitous or insidious; he had no further motive than ushering them both in from the cold.

In the time leading up to discovering the truth of the Dragonsong War, Gwen had pushed Haurchefant away in fear of letting him in too close, in making his friendship matter too much, and all it had amounted to in the end was letting him die not knowing how much his friendship had mattered. That he mattered.

And here she was, presented with another opportunity to shun another friend. Another fork of diverging paths stood before her. A new spot in the road with the same decisions.

All this mental spiraling over tea, she thought derisively to herself. As if she were some noble. As if she were Lady Ashe. In that moment, she felt deeply and forcibly removed from everything she recognized as herself. 

Ignorant of her mental turmoil, her stomach announced its emptiness. The silence that had ensconced them made the growling all the more pronounced, and when Aymeric’s eyes narrowed as he peered worriedly, Gwen felt red-hot humiliation burn her cheeks.

“And a late dinner?” he sweetened the pot with a sympathetic smile. “I have not eaten recently either—doubtless mine own stomach will begin to harmonize shortly.”

It was only then that he chuckled—an invitation to laugh along, rather than being made the joke, she realized. She chose to take it, and was startled at how good it was to laugh, even a little. The imperfection of it made it feel a little more real. Made her feel a little more real.

Laughing suddenly made the thought of being friends less scary. Just a little. Just enough for that reactionary knot in the pit of her stomach unfurl gently. 

Just enough for her to say, “you had best lead on then, lest we perish from hunger.”

Another, easier laugh trailed them as they gamely made their way up the street to Borel Manor.

Gwen had to put effort into not letting her speculation run wild as to what his home could possibly look like; he was the Lord Commander of Ishgard and a noble besides, surely his estate was buried somewhere deep and towering in the spires of the Holy See, she’d reasoned. 

So it surprised her enough that she almost barreled into Aymeric’s back when he came to a stop at the house neighboring the Atheneum Astrologicum, and realized that he had begun to fumble in his pocket for a set of keys. It was only the credit of her reflexes that let her stop so sharply.

The Manor was modestly grand, if ghostly—she had walked past this home dozens of times before now, and she had thought it a storage building or at least abandoned for how uninhabited it always seemed no matter the time of day. With the crates filling what was once a chocobo stable and no other visible homes facing it on any side of the street, she hadn’t even clocked it for a home despite its structure and style.

 Somehow, everything and nothing about this home fit with the man that now stepped up to its door: grand, but only just. Standing tall in the shadow of the city with its back turned. Looking at it that way, Gwen almost couldn’t fathom Aymeric living anywhere else in the city.

What she didn’t miss, though, is the way he had to wrestle his house key into the lock. The hinges, too, resisted yielding to pressure with the telltale creaking groan of rust and misuse. 

It was almost as if Aymeric were as much a stranger in his own home as she was. 

At the loud thunk of the door reconnecting to the frame and the heavy clang of the lock bolts fitting back into place the light of lanterns and stars was banished, and they were ensconced in shadowy pitch almost instantly. In the darkness, Gwen could hear a few moments of blind fingers scrabbling along a wall in search of a light switch.

It seemed as if that the rest of the manor began to stir with startled signs of life coming from deeper in the home; within moments, a soft but crisp click rang out from the foyer beyond the mudroom they were standing in, and a graceful but aged man appeared from around the corner as light spilled in with a flickering start behind him.

“Master Aymeric!” gasped the man. “We were not expecting you home this evening—do forgive me, I did not prepare any—”

From the moment the gentleman emerged, draped his sleep clothes and house slippers, Aymeric immediately pivoted his focus. Gwen watched with mild fascination as he almost turned into a completely different person in the time it took him to turn around. 

“Lumeaux, pray do not feel you must oblige us at so late an hour!” Aymeric insisted through an easy laugh, hands making a soothing motion in the space between them. “Nennanne would lose what little respect she had for me if I couldn’t handle myself in the kitchens.”

“B-but—!” the servant protested, his eyes flitting to meet Gwen’s for a moment.

But Aymeric was already taking her coat for her and ushering her warmly inside with a sweep of his arm, his attention split between welcoming her and explaining themselves to his staff.

“My friend and I are merely availing ourselves of the fire—which you have perfectly banked that I might stoke anew! Now do take the rest of the evening off, my good man, and please accept my apologies for us disturbing your sleep so.” 

It felt almost painfully Ishgardian to witness, but it did warm her to see her friend in such an informal light. In a way, he felt more human for it. Their words fell away into a familial droning murmur hovering in the periphery of her focus. It was enough to ease away the most immediate tension that had clenched her whole body tight.

That was, at least, until she nearly leapt out of her skin at a warm weight unexpectedly pushing itself against her calf. It was only years of training herself not to impulsively react to things around her feet in case of traps that kept her from leaping back with a winding kick. 

Fortunate that Gwen had such restraint, for when she looked down at the source of this intrusion she was met with the telltale wide, slowly blinking eyes of a housecat. The cat blinked again, slow and sleepy, and let out a wheezy meow.

The noise was loud in the soft din of the foyer—loud enough that it immediately drew the attention of Aymeric and Lumeaux, who ended their conversation so promptly and in sync that it nearly startled Gwen as much as the cat’s appearance had.

An elderly and cantankerous tuxedo cat, she looked up at Aymeric and, upon realizing who it was, practically stepped on Gwen’s feet to cross over and greet her master. 

“I gather the little lady has been most comfortable?” he asked Lumeaux as he watched the cat rear up on her hind legs and put her front paws out to beg him.

Instantly, he bent and gingerly scooped her into his arms. 

“Yes, my lord,” supplied Lumeaux, “though one would be forgiven for presuming neglect for her forlorn wailing as she searches the halls for her master.”

That comment had Gwen looking up in surprise, her eyes settling on Aymeric to gauge his reaction before she could even think on the action.

His flinch was only subdued for the “little lady” fussing in his arms, but Gwen couldn’t help wondering if there was a story there.

“Would that work permitted me to visit more.” he mumbled, stubbornly not looking up from raining attention on his cat. “Alas.”

Prior to their departure to treat with Ysayle, Gwen recalled Estinien mentioning something about Aymeric being a poor liar. At the time, the comment had struck her as odd; as a politician, surely lying is part and parcel of his job?

So it was something of a dawning realization to see Aymeric lying in motion; a cracked mask, averted eyes, a faint flush that dusted his ears: nervousness.

Without looking up from scritching under the cat’s chin, he said, “pray take the rest of the night off as intended, Lumeaux. Amelia is well in hand, and I will see my guest tended to.”

The attendant spared Gwen a meaningful, sidelong glance before he bowed gracefully and excused himself. Though she hardly knew the man for more than a few minutes, she knew someone’s pleading look when she saw it; doubtless, he was just as desperate for Aymeric to rest as everyone else around him. 

Fortunately, she was of like mind. But this exchange left her with more questions than answers.

If Aymeric had seen the look he gave it no reaction, instead carefully walking in a gliding march step toward a plush cushion on a well-loved armchair and laid the little lady carefully upon it as though it were her throne. In all likelihood, she had seized it in a bloodless coup against the master of the House in retaliation for his absence, and it had become just that.

Which only left her to contemplate this unexpected state of affairs she found her friend living in.

“Now, then!” he chirped suddenly once his cat had fully insinuated herself into the armchair cushion. “Pray make yourself at home. I’ll be but a moment.”

At the quizzical tilt of her head, he laughed and explained, “I’ll just nip down to the kitchens for light refreshment. We could both do with something, I think.”

And just like that, the reticence that she had thought a part of the man before her instead settled over him again, any trace of the ease he’d shown gone once more. 

As she watched him step out and disappear into the darkened kitchen and fumble for the light, Gwen couldn’t help but ponder this change, this lack of familiarity despite all they had gone through together. It struck her how familiar this felt—how this must be what it felt to be her friend, in this strange world where she couldn’t anchor herself to her Scions.

Had she earned such reticence, then, with how reserved she had been? Were that his reasoning for his reluctance, she found she couldn’t entirely fault him; it made sense, in a way. It contextualized their standoff in a way that wore down the worst of the edges to it; neither of them could wholly help it, though nor could either of them be the first to entirely unwind that tension.

But then, the man himself had hardly seemed to be open to even those immediately closest to him, only just letting himself be familiar with the man he paid to be there. Was he missed when he was away?

You’ve got a well-run home to come back to and a cat that you adore, but you avoid it all if you can help it. You choose that. Why? Gwen pondered while waiting for Aymeric to emerge with their tea.

At his reappearance, tray in hand and smile on his face, she felt those questions press her tongue to her teeth with their sudden weight rushing to spill from her. Biting them back, she returned his smile with one of her own.

“For fear of further disrupting the staff, I kept to what I could find already made in the larder,” explained Aymeric as he stepped into the foyer, “admittedly, ‘tis more odds and ends than a meal, but—”

“That’s alright,” Gwen said without even looking at what he had brought, hands motioning in a placating manner, “please, sit down.”

There was only a moment where his mask slipped—a wince he smoothed back almost quicker than she could perceive it happening in the first place.

“Of course.” he said tightly.

At first, Gwen thought she might have erred enough to cause offense, but the strain in Aymeric’s jaw as he bent a few ilms more to set the tray down on the table gave away the root cause of his consternation.  

“Your wounds…they’re getting worse, aren’t they?” she guessed.

Blessedly, Aymeric shook his head and said, “Not worse, though certainly not better. Nor fewer in their number.” 

After a moment, he finally huffed a sigh and gestured toward a plush armchair, insisting “Pray sit down. You are worrying me, my friend.”

It wasn’t until he had said something that she realized that she had denied his request to make herself comfortable twice before he had even gone to get them tea. It would certainly explain the pinch in his good cheer; he was likely unsure of how to be denied the ability to be a good host.

“Sorry—you just worry me, too.” she slumped into an overstuffed armchair with a huff. “You could at least sit down yourself, you know.”

Aymeric startled in a way that suggested to Gwen that it had not occurred to him to also take a seat until she had mentioned it. After a few moments of contemplation, hands frozen mid-reach for the teapot, he gave a decisive, singular nod.

“I will, yes—once I have your tea poured—”

He looked so tired all of a sudden. The war had pulled at all of their exhaustion, though she hadn’t realized quite how it had aged any of them so much as she did in that moment.

When he twisted at the waist to lift the pot of tea and fill her cup, Aymeric flinched badly enough he had to set it back down again for a moment and press at his abdomen. In an instant, the color had drained from his face as he clenched his jaw and took a sharp, shuddering inhale through his nose.

“I’m fine.” he said—and there was more of a tremble in his voice than she had ever heard from him.

Gwen hadn’t realized he had said something in response to her until she noted that she had half risen from her seat before he’d uttered a single word but the realization made her freeze on the spot, peering up at him in alarm.

He had never sounded more honest than in that moment of choosing to lie, with all decorum and poise gone from him. He had never seemed more real to her than in that moment, looking at someone battered and broken and still trying to serve.

Gwen saw Aymeric, for just a moment, free of his trappings and station. She saw her friend—or at least, the man that she could befriend. 

“Easy now, take your time.” she said, even knowing that it likely didn’t make sense to.

She watched him nod and take a slower breath. His eyes slipped shut as let out a breath through parted lips. She watched him catch his breath for a few horribly tense moments as she sat frozen and half risen from the sofa, caught between the want to help and the fear that it wouldn’t.  

After a long moment that seemed to stretch for eternity, he made to reach for the teapot again.

“I am well,” he promised her again, “if reminded of my limitations more often than I would like of late.”

“I take it your wounds aren’t healing so well?” she chanced, still not sitting fully back down.

To his credit, Aymeric didn’t hide the way he winced that time. “Progress is rarely so linear a thing.” he argued, however weakly. “Less so, when there are…aggravating complications.”

A delicate way to sidestep being stabbed, but then neither of them seemed keen to revisit that. Neither of them seemed keen on revisiting much of their history tonight—shared or otherwise.

Before she could think better of it, she had stood fully from her seat and reached for his hand as he made to lift the teapot again. It had been an automatic reaction: to reach, to help.

“Here, I can—”

Aether hummed at her fingertips. Just under the skin in the palm of her hand it prickled like static electricity, waiting to flood out of her in a rush of healing magic. Every part of her wanted to ease the discomfort of her friend in that moment. 

She knew how to do it. All she had to do was push it out of herself—

—and the blood would be staunched. All she had to do was keep pushing, keep digging for more, more aether to knit flesh and weld bone. 

There are eyes on her. They feel…hopeful. Expectant. Breaths held in a prayer circle around and overhead of her. Bathed in the golden light of evening and radiant from her power blooming out from her hands, they watch as waves of healing magic roll off of the bloodied, blazing hole in his chest like smoke off the surface of a lake.

All she had to do was keep giving everything she had, and it would eventually be enough.

If she tells herself this fervently enough, it will eventually be so. She doesn’t know what else to believe in this moment. With her aether, she pushes further to try and sense where his pain is at its worst.

When there is no guidance from her aether, no direction to point where the pain is on her patient, her threadbare faith is shattered and scorched. There is no guidance to the pain because he felt none. 

The only blood she sees is the dribble that runs down his chin as he gurgles on it. He is shifted by hands that are not hers, to make him more comfortable. There should be more blood, but there is only light: from his chest, from her hands, there was only light.

Everything in her years of trials, training, and tribulations tells her that she has never seen a chest wound half a severe as this turn out to be anything less than fatal. Her magic has accepted what is about to happen long before she ever could. She isn’t sure she ever can.

It was only a testament to the knight’s strength that he was able to drag ragged breaths through his sundered lungs. Through the glowing iridescent light that turned what was left of his ribcage in to a lantern of holy light, she knows the extent to which his battered body has been rent asunder. 

She persists anyway. She does not believe it. She can’t.

There is only light, and she pushes out more of it from her hands. When that isn’t enough for her magic to find purchase, she lets it bleed out of her fingertips, from her heart. The aether glows with a brightness that rivals the sunset on the horizon. 

She can’t see him anymore. She can’t see any of them anymore. Still, she pushes.

As the light brightens, blooms, swells, she feels a coldness creep down her fingers, through her veins, up her arms. It feels as if she is pouring every onze of aether, spilling every drop of blood in her body, all for the hope that the thread of her magic could catch in his flesh and begin to sew him back together like a patchwork mammet.

But a burning crater cannot be cauterized. There is no floor to the yawning chasm of that wound. Her aether, her tears, her friend, it all falls, falls, falls…

“Gwen!”

It was far from a shout—a call would be more appropriate, given its soft but strained urgency—but it was loud enough to snap her focus to the present. It was enough for her to remember that while that nightmare had happened recently enough that their wounds had not even scarred over yet, it was only a memory now. 

Coming back to her body after an Echo was always disorienting, but she was glad for Aymeric’s presence in that moment: as she began to test her limbs, she realized, belatedly, that he had maneuvered her back into her chair.

“Easy now,” he said, and there was a softness to his voice that she had not thought he could manage. “Easy. I know not the specifics, but I know shock when I see it.”

Limbs leaden and head filled with cotton bolls, Gwen watched in a daze as Aymeric began to fuss as much as his wounds would permit. His hands were a blur across the serving tray as he set about arranging things for her. Eventually, she had to close her eyes and stop watching to minimize the nausea.

“Here,” he said after a moment, and she felt the rush of warmth of a steaming cup of tea being hovered over her nose. “Drink.”

Moving her arms made her hands shake. When he noticed this, Aymeric frowned and gently bat her hands away.

“I can hold it—you are trembling,” he said softly. 

When she realized he was holding the cup for her to drink from and she tried to feebly protest, he shook his head and insisted, “It is no burden—every knight has been here at one point or another. Drink,” he repeated the gentle command, “Small sips, now. There we are.”

Heat bloomed on her face hotter than the tea could account for. All the same, she tipped her head forward just enough to drink—and found herself grateful that he knew how to angle the cup so as to prevent it dribbling down her chin. The way in which he does so tells her in a way that he does not elaborate on with words that he had done this before.

The tea was strong but well brewed, heady and robust on her tongue as she sipped. After a few moments of the caffeine working its way through her system Gwen sat up straighter and took the cup from Aymeric with steadier hands, and he gladly ceded the cup to her.

With his hands freed from serving her tea, he began to move back to the tray—and with eyes less hazy she could watch him break apart little biscuits and pieces of cheese, some almonds, and soft baked bread, tearing them into little pieces and putting them on a small plate before her.

“Nibbles,” he said aloud when he noticed her staring. “Easier to keep down, less work to chew.”

His selection looked deliberate, nothing with too much of a scent to upset her stomach but still offering her enough to be substantive. After seeing his work done to his satisfaction, he took a hunk of bread and a few biscuits for himself with less care and attention paid to the plating.

Gwen continued to drink deeply from her teacup to avoid speaking in this moment, overwhelmed by care she felt both unworthy of and unaccustomed to. Her head still felt foggy, though the cobwebs that filled her mind after such a harrowing recollection had begun to knock themselves loose, aided by the tea.

Aymeric waited until she set her cup down and refilled her cup while she busied herself with a bite of biscuit. Ginger, bright and sweet, burst on her tongue with the soft chew of what she realized was a molasses cookie. 

Gwen thanked him quietly for topping off her cup. He murmured a vague nicety in that near-automatic way he always did with effortless earnestness. Something to the effect of “‘Not at all,” but she was more focused on the way his eyes darted everywhere but her as he set the teapot back down on its cozy.

A palor hung over the parlor as they settled back into their seats. Wounds both emotional and physical unintentionally reopened, they both felt flayed open and raw for how they had dragged themselves through the last several days.

Longer, really. Gwen wondered how long it had been for Aymeric. In a sleep deprived sort of way, she wondered how long it had truly been for herself while she was as it. 

“I’m sorry,” she blurted out in the heavy quiet.

Aymeric looked up at her in surprise, but she had already felt the momentum of her rambling picking up; borne of a need to fix this heavy silence, her mind was already scrambling against the rubble of her focus to find something to distract them with.

“You have naught to be sorry for.” he replied, surprise still writ plain in his features.

She would beg to differ, but that was a whole other story entirely. All she had were stories, after all. All she had was what she was capable of—what she had been kept around for, in most situations, she guessed. 

For a time, she had thought that Aymeric had also seen her that way. Maybe he even had, before they had known each other. 

Perhaps his still did—

“Here I am dwelling, when I could be telling you one of my exploits!” she chirped so sharply her voice cracked.

“Wh-what?” he sputtered.

Gwen’s outburst had caught him so thoroughly off guard that he hadn’t had time to hide the shock and confusion on his face.

Already in verbal freefall, she couldn’t stop herself from continuing, even as she had seen his expression, babbling, “Ah, ah, which one should I…? How about my fight with Leviathan? Well, you probably heard it before we met, right? But I could tell you—”

Under the pressure of performing, her voice splintered again. Nevertheless, she tried to push through. To distract. To fix. To run. She wasn’t even sure anymore—

“Gwen.” Aymeric interrupted her gently. 

Her voice had squeaked on the start of her half-formed tale—it had made it all the easier to let her words die on her tongue. It seemed to be enough to help Aymeric decide something, as he reached across the settee to lay his hand over hers. 

She startled at the contact—his hand was warmed from the teacup, but his touch was faint. It didn’t trap her; it would be easy to slide her hand away from his. Recognizing it for the offer of comfort that it was, she made no move to pull away, but looked at him ponderously.

His expression was patient, if a touch sad.

“You need not entertain anyone with your dossier—least of all me, my friend,” he insisted, “even had I not read them already, I would not ask of you what would not bring you joy to share.”

“Then my stories would bore you, I fear. My favorite parts are rarely the things that make it into songs, Aymeric.”

“Then I have never heard them before—thus, they cannot possibly bore me,” he insisted with a gentle sweep of his hand on its way to plucking his teacup from its saucer again, “and you will recall I have traveled no further out of Coerthas than Dravania—and even that grew infrequent as my knighthood progressed. Ul’Dah was but a singular building for how little time I was permitted there.”

Gwen recognized the subtle shift in topic for what it was: an out. She gladly took it, half from eagerness to shift focus but also because she was deeply curious.

“Leadership needing to be held back to see the whole of the battlefield and all that?” she guessed—it had been the primary tactic she had learned through the Grand Companies. 

At that, Aymeric snorted uncharacteristically. “Not at first. Captains are always on the front line—when you’ve been an archer for the last five years before that promotion, ‘tis quite the adjustment to be your squadron’s first and last line of defense.”

“You weren’t always a swordsman?” Gwen asked, surprised. 

“Of a certainty, I received the training, same as any other knight. ‘Twas not my preference, however.” he admitted. “But it is the weapon of leaders—they are the shield for all to stand behind. They trust that they have led their team such that they need not look behind them to know their back is covered in kind.”

His smile thinned. “As recent events have shown, I have not always had the luxury of the latter.”

“That does not make you a bad leader,” she countered gently.

“It made me a bad leader to them. And when theirs are the blade at your back, their assessment is all that matters.” he parried, his tone as swift and soft as it was tired. “But we have both dwelled over long on such miseries tonight, I should think. Unless you would like to speak of them to let them go—in which case, I shall gladly listen.”

The most wounded corner of Gwen’s heart howled the question of why. Was it born of a kinship he wanted to foster, or out of a need to keep her in his pocket for her abilities? The scar tissue on her heart still ached with the rawness of a bleeding wound.

“You don’t have to.” she said. “Ishgard still needs me whether we’re friends or not.”

Wounds inflicted on Aymeric’s person had drawn out winces and hisses of pain as he had recovered. Before he had even received medical attention, he had refused to acquiese to the pain, to show that he was hurt at all unless the pain overwhelmed him in brief moments of weakness. 

So the expressions that rippled over his face in the immediate moments after the utterance were completely new to Gwen. She had never seen him look truly hurt before that moment. Not in a way that seemed to matter to him. She had not realized he could be that hurt.

“I—” he stumbled for words a moment, teacup nearly dropping from his grasp in his shock before he had to set it down and wiping his hands on his pants legs. “If I have ever given the impression that my concern was aught less than sincere—”

Now well and truly caught in the tangle of emotions that pulled her heartstrings taut, Gwen chose to disentangle this one particular knot in her throat.

“You’ve always been polite and respectful. Beyond reproach, really.” she said slowly, carefully watching his face for reactions to her words to gauge how they landed. “You also haven’t given much of an impression, if I’m being honest—you hold yourself at a distance from everything. Until—until fairly recently, I viewed you as more of my friend’s friend. Colleagues, really, for how much we know of each other.”

Peculiarly, it was Gwen’s turn to feel an unexpected ache in her chest when Aymeric averted his gaze but otherwise looked unsurprised. Like this wasn’t the first time he had been told he was too reclusive before.

She opened her mouth to try and say something even before she had words to grasp at but he held up a hand before she could speak.

“You have the right of it.” he said softly.

It was only then that he looked up at her and continued, “I have been…reticent, in expressing my joy and gladness for the friendships that I have. So it has been for almost as long as I can remember.”

“But why? Surely it wasn’t hard for a charmer like you to make friends—”

“Alas, rumours of my lineage existed for longer than I had the speech to refute them,” Aymeric explained, “and most of the children my age at the time had heard the rumours from their parents long before they had even met me.” 

At that, he paused and angled his head in thought, and haltingly added, “I am…not used to people not knowing that, I suppose.”

“Ishgard isn’t exactly a small city-state,” Gwen blurted in surprise, “was there no one who didn’t know?”

In his lap, his hands twitched. After a moment, he reached for his teacup again.

Half into his tea, he answered, “In all my years living here I have met only two individuals who did not already know of me, and both of them only after I had grown.”

“...Lucia?” she guessed.

Aymeric nodded. “And Estinien,” he added. “I am accustomed to keeping myself…apart from the whole, when not in political social circles. It has kept me safe and let me observe who I might trust. I will not pretend it has made me terribly popular, but it spared me the mockery when I did make the attempt.”

“Why on earth would someone mock you for trying to make friends?” Gwen frowned deeply as she pondered aloud.

“I have come to understand that it was my method that left me open to such japes at my expense: I used to take my pocket money and buy out all the misshapen macaron from the local patisserie, and I would offer them to the children in exchange for letting me play with them.”

There was something sweet about imagine a little boy version of Aymeric toddling over with a box of sweets trying to make friends but knowing how it played out made her heart twist to picture it.

“But why would any kid turn down such a simple offer?” Gwen asked.

Nothing about that made sense to her; knowing how hungry she had been as a child, how she had needed to make do with the taste of flowers in the best of times and refuse in the worst of times, she could not fathom a world where she would turn down such a bargain.

Innocent as the question had been, it still inspired a flinch out of Aymeric before he answered, “Those children in the noble houses turned their noses up at the offer; even those who had not been adequately warned of me thought the offerings unacceptable because they were the discarded macaron that weren’t good enough. The children of the Brume did not believe my offer was so straightforward—many had been told never to trust a noble. Often, I had been accused of trying to buy their favor.” 

After a moment of contemplation, he mused, “In a way, I suppose I was. I had wanted to be friends.”

“That seems cruel.” Gwen said before she could think better on it.

“Children are no more immune to the harshness born from the world’s cruelties than men—merely less restrained in its use but more confined by their own lack of power.” he shrugged. “But so, too, are they capable of unmitigated kindness born of joy that exceeds what they should be capable of. Such is the way of it, where growing minds are concerned.

What I’ve never told anyone—few save Estinien would even know of it—is that I continue to buy out the remaining stock of malformed macaron boxes from that bakery, and I just…forget them, all about the Brume, where the children are most oft seen congregating.”

“Why? You’ve grown now.” Gwen asked, curious.

“And the children of the Brume continue to go hungry.” Aymeric said plainly, shrugging. “Let them keep their pocket money and have something to enjoy to boot—it was a small kindness I could not be accused of heresy for committing, so chose I commit it. Every day.”

“Wouldn’t something useful be a better kindness? Like a blanket or something?” Gwen asked before she could stop herself.

Wincing, she attempted to try and soften the question but he nodded before she could find the words. “Aye, that it would,” he agreed. “Would that doing so would not be taken as a slight against the Church’s inability to provide—which would be paramount to heresy in itself. Although…”

It was only then that Aymeric averted his eyes as he pondered something to himself. After a moment’s debate, he admitted, “I suppose that was but one facet of my reasoning at the time— in a way, I had put some distance between myself and the truth that they are starving. It was easier to believe that it was just a nicety to top off a fed child than to admit that necessities are a luxury for most.”

There was that pesky rain cloud hanging over the room again, just when they had started to lighten the mood. Just when he had started opening up.

“I’m sure they appreciate it, even if they can’t articulate that.” Gwen said before thinking better of it. 

When he looked up, she felt strangely cornered by her own admission, and honesty compelled her to explain, however vaguely, “No one is born the Warrior of Light.”

“Nor the Lord Commander, and yet I did not know such hunger. You need not—”

“Everyone has struggles,” she said, shrugging, “just not always the same ones.”

Gwen held her breath and waited for the pressing. The questions. Fingers fidgeted with the hem of her shirt for want of something to occupy them as she waited.

Her discomfort must have been apparent; Aymeric merely nodded.

“Just so.” he agreed softly.

It was her turn to flinch. “I don’t think you’re doing a bad thing—”

“You need not coddle me over my privilege, my friend. I assure you, the lesson is an important one. I thank you for reminding me of it.” after a moment of consideration, he added, “though I suppose I can afford more than just one thing to forget about the Brume—really, the macarons are very cheap. Blankets were an excellent suggestion!”

“It’s a bit harder to pretend to forget to leave a blanket somewhere, Aymeric.” Gwen said flatly even as she couldn’t help the smile. 

“...Perhaps Hilda can aid in passing blankets out.” he amended sheepishly after a moment of catching himself.

They both dissolved out of laughter, more giddy with relief than humor.

Even as their ruckus died down, her smile turned apologetic. “I wish it had been easier for you to make friends.”

Gwen looked down into her own tea to avoid watching the way his expression clouded again at that.

“Such as it is for many who dwell here. I was not spared that challenge, even if that trial manifested differently for me than others.” 

Aymeric shrugged uncharacteristically. “When someone assumes they know who you are, they never become curious as to whether they are right. Often, I would have to find out after the fact that someone was trying to get close to me in some hope they could avail themselves of some advantage they thought I had. Those friendships would end when they realized that association with me yielded them naught but scorn.”

“Scorn?” Gwen balked, looking back up on reflex in her indignation. 

“In the eyes of many in Ishgard, I am the walking indiscretion of the Archbishop. I am the embodiment of his moment of weakness that had the audacity to continue to live.”

His frown deepened enough to crease the spot between his brows as he added, “Truly, the social ostracization, I could handle—it was lonely, and I am hard pressed for friends in the city that I can rely on in the even of an emergency, but I could handle it, had it only stopped there. But the Inquisitors…”

At that, he trailed off for a moment. In that brief silence Gwen couldn’t help but draw conclusions of her own.

Conclusions he all but confirmed when he finished with a shrug and said, “The Inquisitors would make demons out of the most innocent of souls—and as far as they were concerned, those born of the deepest sin must also bear the sin of their fathers. It was less that people thought associating with me would be gauche and more that they might wind up dead.”

Further elaboration was unnecessary; she saw how thoroughly ruled by fear the populace had become through the wrath of the Inquisitors long before she had ever set foot in the city proper. She was only sorry that he had not been spared from their unwavering gaze.

“You deserved better friends. More of them, too.” she muttered, anger that had already been a banked fire in her chest stoked with this newest agitation.

He seemed mildly surprised at that, regarding her from over the rim of his cup. 

“Everyone deserves true friends. Would that we all had the opportunity to find them,” he said, and after a long moment of hesitation, he added slowly, “and though I have been…quiet, on matters of friendship, I do consider you a dear friend. I have for some time now. Please know that any attempt at closeness on my part is genuine, if fumbling.”

With a sigh, he set his cup down. He waited until he looked back up at her to add, “I will do better. I want to be a better friend to you and others in my life. I have been forcibly reminded of how fragile such things can be.”

“Friends?”

“That, too.”

After a moment of letting the weight of what was not said settle, he refilled their cups again. 

“We should be better friends to each other,” Gwen sighed as she reached for another choice bite of food. “Make the effort to check in more regularly. It’s too easy to lose track of one another in the chaos.”

Aymeric offered her weak but genuine smile with a gesture around the foyer as he said, “I am trying. I promise that I will continue to try.”

“We both will.” she promised him. “It’s a choice, after all. I’m happy to make that choice with you.”

“Friends, then.” he said, and for the first time, she got to see an uncomplicated, beaming smile from him as he did. “And as your friend, I must admit to some curiosity: I know little and less of your time before becoming the Warrior of Light. Might I prevail upon you to indulge in some of my questions?”

When she bristled in a way she couldn’t bite back he held up his hands placatingly and reassured her, “only what you would want to tell me. I only want to know what you want me to know.”

The tension that had begun to build between her shoulders eased, though after a moment to dwell on it, she mused aloud, “I can’t imagine anything personal about me would be interesting.”

“My friend.” Aymeric blanched, visibly putting in effort to keep his expression flat. “I just regaled you with a tale about middling quality confectionaries. You cannot possibly out-bore me.”

At that, Gwen laughed almost too loud for the hour of night. Her chest felt lighter, even if it had not yet healed.

Nothing had been fixed, nor found. Nothing had fully resolved. Ultimately, when the dawn came they would still have their respective tasks to attend to, and an entire realm to balance.

But that was not tonight. Tonight, she began to heal with her friend—with her friend, who she chose to be friends with, to become better friends with.

“I like a challenge!” Gwen said around a cat-like grin beginning to form on her lips.

A grin that Aymeric eagerly met with one of his own. Whatever playful, competitive edge that had compelled her to regale him with a new but safe tale from the road had given way to genuine excitement when she realized that he listened with as much rapt interest as he might when hearing of a great and terrible battle she endured. Somehow, knowing that he wanted to know, well and truly, all the uninteresting parts of her, too made it easier to keep telling him more.

Well into the night, they exchanged stories with one another over a pot of tea and rapidly dwindling finger food. Each story was more mundane than the last, each a new perspective in the lives of one another. Guarded in the shadow of the moon, a friendship was formed in earnest.

#wounds cw #blood cw #ffxiv #aymeric de borel #gwen ashe #eremiss #friend oc #writing commission #thank you again for working with me! it's always a joy to write Gwen ;3;

[otherworldseekers]

6.x msq thoughts

I've seen a lot of negativity about the 6.x msq series. So let me just say to begin with that I've really loved it. No, it's no ShB or even EW. It's not supposed to be. It's an interlude between stories (a filler arc one could say, but I would insist not in a negative sense) and as such it perfectly serves its purpose.

We'd dealt with the situation on the First. For balance, it was important to deal with the situation on the Thirteenth as well. A true resolution to the Ascian plot required we do something about it. Not to mention that the game has been trickling details about the Void throughout the story since the beginning of ARR (at least, I never played 1.0) and there are a lot of fans with a keen interest in it.

And the story was beautifully written to flow naturally from the themes of Endwalker. Not only did it give us some needed insight into the mind of Zenos through Zero but using Zenos' avatar to go on a journey from deepest despair to burgeoning hope makes Zenos' fate even more poignant.

Perhaps some might feel that the story of finding hope from despair to be repetitive after EW, but that wasn't my experience. Because EW is the journey of our WoL finding that light in the darkness, but 6.x was Zero's story. Personally, I adore Zero. She is both like and unlike my WoL. Severia also began her story from a place of despair and eventually found hope and happiness through the people who believe in her. But this time she gets to help someone else through that journey, someone completely void of hope. And I felt that it was a very positive and affirming experience for my WoL. And in general I think that the message that there is always hope even in the blackest darkness is one that can't be repeated too often.

Another thing that I think was extremely well done, was the consideration the story showed for the victims of trauma due to the game's story. This is something stories with large world-altering events often seem to overlook. That survival isn't the end. That the people who experienced the wars and the Final Days and other dramatic events have to live with not just the physical fallout, but the mental health repercussions as well. And the heroes can't just go around doing whatever they want without considering the ramifications on regular people and still be heroes. Obviously the game hasn't always been good at this. But these patches and the way they considered even the trauma of the Garlean survivors really gives me hope for the future storytelling of the game.

The worldbuilding done with the Void itself has been really fascinating as well. The realization that the cycle of life and death is completely broken there paints such an interesting picture. And of course allows us to get to know someone who was there thousands of years ago when the world fell to darkness. As usual, I could have done with 10 times the amount of information we got, but I realize they need to balance the story for people who aren't lore fanatics as well. I would love to know absolutely everything about the Contramemoria. In particular, the dungeon this patch gave us such a tantalizing view of what things were like back then. I really loved it.

About Golbez. I think that his arc was, overall, worth it. To be fair, I think it could have been paced better. It really only came to fruition in this patch, but I enjoyed the result. I will never not get emotional over stories of failed heroes. People who tried so hard and did everything right but still failed. It's different than Ardbert's because Ardbert never actually was a villain the way Golbez is. It may have been corny, but I really liked how Zero extended her hand in friendship and was able at last to convince Golbez to try again together. Golbez (Durante) went wrong when he lost his friend, his support. None of us can be our best selves without the support of people who believe in us. Friendship is magic and the older I get the more I like seeing stories where friendship changes people and makes the world better.

As for the implication that Golbez (the real one) was an Azem shard... I think it was purposefully left vague so that we can still interpret it how we want to. Durante sees Golbez in the WoL, but there could be other reasons for that. You don't have to make it canon for your OC.

I also think it's ok that we didn't save the Thirteenth during these patches. Zero and Golbez deserve the chance to right their failures and bring hope and light to the shard themselves. I really, really hope the story will check in on them in the future and we'll see the the Void become full of life again. But I wouldn't be surprised if it takes a long time.

Overall, I found the story to be both compelling and satisfying as an in between tale. Am I excited to move on to bigger things? Absolutely. But I have been entertained and Zero is a character I won't soon forget.

#Patch 6.5 #6.5 spoilers #Endwalker spoilers #msq thoughts

[riftdancing]

Just some Sasavi tidbits...

Because I have absolute dragon brain rot right now.

First and foremost, since Mihli's story originates in FFXI loreverse, I'll be delving into a little bit of that game's lore and history. I love that in both XI and XIV's universe there exists within each dragon the capacity for good and evil or light and darkness.

San d'Oria (one of XI's three starter city states) and Ishgard share a lot of similarities. San d'Oria has had a long and often violent history with dragons, a conflict between the Elvaan (Elezen) and the wyrms much the same as Ishgard's Dragonsong War. However, being a deeply religious nation at heart (again, much like Ishgard) a group of brave knights took the words of their goddess, Altana, to heart and sought to find the light in Dragons.

These knights did not seek to indiscriminately slay dragons like so many others before them but instead opted to forge spiritual pacts with the younger dragons so that they may both better develop along side each other. These knights became Vana'diel's first Dragoons.

Its important to note that these dragons would only typically form a connection with the righteous and not with those who merely sought power for their own sake. Even despite this bond being made pure in the start, they are capable just like any other of being corrupted by evil or darkness. While Mihli was never typically a member of San d'Orian society, nor a proper dragoon in her own right... she and Sasavi still share a very interesting history and further more, the spirit pact. Mihli found Sasavi moments after she'd been orphaned. It was the cat's unprejudiced care, concern, and love shown for the small dragon which forged the pact between them. And from that day forward Mihli has cared for her like she would her own child. From day day forward, Sasavi became Mihli's daughter.

The trauma of what occurred before Mihli arrived to swoop in and care for Sasavi has left the small dragon mostly non-verbal. Savi is a mute. Though she has her own ways of communicating, mostly through clicks, chirps, and churrs (like Miqo'te are capable of), or through her own body language. She is also capable of some doodles when supplied with the right mediums to work with.

All in all, Sasavi is definitely a good aligned and light bound dragon. A major part of their storyline for the better part of the last 20 IRL years has been geared towards educating other player characters about both the light and darkness dragons are capable of. That not all dragons are bad and that many are capable of a great deal of good and wonderful things, just like any Hyur, Miqo'te, Elezen... ect.

Since this is starting to get a little long... ask me about how the two pair in battle sometime if you're interested. I have some really interesting head canons about a dragon pact boosted dancer class. Think of it as a neat combination between dragoon and dancer. 's essentially Mihli's job/class. It's also why Mihli's dancer aesthetics are all dragon themed, such as her chakrams and other items being shaped to look like dragons.

Bonus Head Canon:

Since learning the origin of Dragons while adventuring with the WoL, Mihli quickly adopted 'my little star' into her booklet of endearment terms for Sasavi.

A lot of my information on XI's dragons is referenced from this video and also my own experiences playing FFXI! If the topic interests you, you should definitely give the video a watch!

#riftdancing - screenshots #character - mihli mihgo #character - sasavi #riftdancing - roleplay #riftdancing - writing

[likemosaic]

yotsuyu & canon interactions with zenos re: generally and what squeenix gives us. mentions of sex trafficking, suicide, and stormblood spoilers.

yotsuyu's experiences with men have all been capital b Bad. her parents died, her adoptive father was awful and sold her into sexual slavery, her brother tormented her seemingly for pure pleasure, and even men who promised to love her and take care of her and take her away from the brothel only wanted to use her--and yotsuyu knew it, so she took advantage of their kindness the same way they took advantage of her. being born beautiful was the worst thing in yotsuyu's life and after so many years of that being her only trait, yotsuyu doesn't know how to interact with a man outside of: 1) fawn on someone more powerful than her (zenos) or 2) torture someone weaker than her (doman citizens). it's why hien puts her into such a spitting rage: not only has his life seemingly been perfect and beautiful from her pov, but she's viscerally reminded that if she's not the viceroy and zenos has disavowed her, hien becomes above her, so to speak--and she's forced back into the fawning, simpering charade of ineptitude. and as evidenced by doma castle's destruction, yotsuyu would rather die than have that happen again.

by the time of stormblood, zenos is the only man yotsuyu has to "perform" this submissive fawning doman stereotype thing for as we briefly see in their cutscenes together, and even then...depending on the zenos i'm writing alongside, it really doesn't make a difference in his treatment of her. and canonly, in the end, he still discarded her without a second thought like an old toy once the WOL comes around. he was never really...dishonest with her? like he never promised her anything, and in a way, that was kinder than lying about affection or anything else. cruel to be kind etc.

but despite his flat out bluntness with her, she doesn't know how else to approach him, other than trying to manipulate him again and again! because powerful man trauma! and i don't think she can really process someone who doesn't fall into the "above me" or "beneath me" category. they seem like they would have a "powerful man and his beautiful mistress" dynamic and that's what yotsuyu expects and dreads....and then their dynamic DOESNT fit into that archetype, which perplexes her. it's actually incredibly kind of zenos to essentially let yotsuyu run amok in doma and get her vengeance without him breathing down her neck, even if its for a deeper more manipulative purpose.

so in the tsukiyomi trial, of course it makes sense that zenos comes to her at the final stage of "her life"; in the end, he was never really her lover, or even her friend or equal, but a means to an end: once for power, and in the tsukiyomi trial, as a means for suicide. and gosetsu following him immediately is really symbolic, because here's a man who didn't use her for ANYTHING, not for sex, not for doman oppression to find his perfect prey, he just wanted to be good to her and care for her...the first time anyone has ever done that for yotsuyu, ever. it shows that even zenos' "kindness" pales in comparison to someone who genuinely cares for her, and then that plays into his character in endwalker.....but that's a whole 'nother meta.

#ffxiv spoilers #stormblood spoilers #file : yotsuyu brutus. #headcanon : yotsuyu brutus. #i got told to meta so i wrote fucking gone with the wind sorry #i love her #i wish we'd had more screentime of fordola & zenos & yotsuyu because that dynamic is so fascinating to me?

[fooltofancy]

14 & 34 for ilya? 👀

14. of the scions, who are they the most worried for?

he's gonna wake up in a cold sweat having dreamt alphinaud into increasingly unfortunate situations 'til he dies due to residual dragonsong trauma, but all things considered it's probably thancred. that man's like 37 coping mechanisms in a liar suit and if ilya knows anything about anything it's about being 37 coping mechanisms in a liar suit.

34. would you say your wol is fundamentally a good person? or are they a bad person that's been persuaded to do the right thing?

i would say i don't believe in fundamentally good people and that's probably? hopefully? abundantly clear through the lens of my characters, lmao. HOWEVER, for the sake of the question i'd say ilya is a fundamentally young person. he's frankly still learning what he thinks good means, and a lot of that learning is happening in insanely high-risk situations where the risk is. like. everything. how is a person supposed to process concepts like right and wrong and bad and good when the stakes are that fucking high and everything's riding on your shoulders? it's not fair and it's not right but it is what it is and he's doing... idk, the best he can. sometimes his best is selfishly selfless and i don't know that that's any better than sacrifice for the right reasons.

he's just some guy who should probably be living his days out stabbing himself recklessly with embroidery needles, but instead he's got more blood on his hands and his heart than he's ever gonna know what to do with, and almost none of it felt like the right thing to do. like at the heart of it i don't think if you asked him he'd say he's a good person. i don't think he has the space to believe that, but like. you make sacrifices. you get by, and everyone and everything you care about gets to go on.

(ffxiv prompt list)

#THAT'S THE THING I'M THE MOST SENSITIVE ABOUT #lmao ty azia #i'm go wail now #baby mode blogging #need a baby mode lore tag

[myrfing]

GIMME A G, GIMME AN O, GIMME A U, GIMME AN R, GIMME A D, GIMME 30 AND 26 FOR G O U R D

gawrsh som you spoil me…THANK you

30. What was their highest point in Shadowbringers? Their lowest? What caused it?

He has 2 really similarily high points! my cheating ass. but first was when he first split the light over lakeland and saw the wonder in Lyna’s expression. very something CAN give moment and he really likes to be like I can fix that for people he likes. The second is typical but it’s after the dying gasp and he sees g’raha is alive and they won. indescribable joy and relief for everything and everything having been worth it.

His lowest point is also preddy usual, post-crown of the immaculate when norvrandt is closed forever because the wol frew up and graha was hostage somewhere and it’s all gone to shitttt. He hated a lot of things about it, hated how big of a fuss everyone made over him, hated how he’d hesitated to push graha for answers, hated e-s’ strange fixation on him so that nobody else was a part of the scales, and he very much thought it’d be an option to steal g’raha’s idea and re-eat the light, and throw himself in the rift to explode. he hated not knowing what to do for a second there.

26. Do they suffer any traumas from any of their adventures? How do you foresee this affecting them going forward?

OK that boy USUALLY wicks off most trauma like water on a duck he does not think his adventuring or being the wol as a burden or hardship at all. he mostly thinks it’s just living and he has fun most of the time. and when he wasn’t having fun his denial-of-self-frozen-in-time-alienated-from-life thing did actually shield him from absorbing a lot of shocks, and then generally just having confidence in himself and others and constant curiosity parried the rest. He kills with little remorse, takes very little personally, and needs to run something through the world’s most secret mental maze to feel guilt. He doesn’t have the tendency to turn helplessness into self-loathing because he frankly thinks and feels it’s not his business to do so. things like: finding the waking sands massacred, having to kill edda, the bloody banquet, haurchefant and ysayle dying, seeing the mass of bodies in the garlean labs in ala mhigo, etc. that have made him colder and more ruthless in some contexts and changed his approach to some things (like becoming less passive), or temporarily made him lose direction (i.e. waking sands massacre) but it honestly hasn’t affected him nor his disposition in a traumatic sense that much. He’s largely remained the same at the core and doesn’t jump at shadows, hasn’t grown to distrust, still rarely gets angry, and isn’t prone to getting vortexed into his own thoughts.

He also is somewhat self-conscious about being au ra, because he didn’t like standing out and people do have prejudices. That’s a sort of trauma? He doesn’t hate himself or his body by any means, but he doesn’t like people’s perceptions of him.

The most traumatic thing that happened really was zenos bodyjacking him. the violation and loss of autonomy was pretty sickening to him and from someone he still ESSENTIALLY considered a stranger. He has little experience with things fucking with him to that extent as the sword swings the other way for once, so he has not dealt with it. he was like I’m good 👍 *throws up* I’m good 👍 Aether sickness (wants to disintegrate his own flesh for the next few days) (regresses completely on the progress he’s made over the years wrt nonsexual physical intimacy and vulnerability)

#THANK YOU sound of the sommar #the epic highs and lows of high school adventureball