#Esti Kyton

[thefreelanceangel]

#Esti Kyton #FFXIV #You know... I think I see why Dayar's willing to put himself out a bit to satisfy her #'cause jfc Esti... hOO #Screenshots

[thefreelanceangel]

#Esti Kyton #Dayar Qerel #Third Time's the Charm #FFXIV #Screenshots #The Queue Works Day Shift

[thefreelanceangel]

#Esti Kyton #FFXIV #Screenshots #I got the new emote for a low effort cute picture because THE GERMS ARE MASSING

[thefreelanceangel]

#Esti Kyton #The smile she greets Dayar with in the mornings #FFXIV #Screenshots

[thefreelanceangel]

FFXIV Vanilla GPose: #7 (Companion)

#okay technically I rotated the image in the Windows Photo Editor #but you can take the portrait-style screenshots in GPose so I didn't cheat #Esti Kyton #FFXIV #VanillaGPose24 #Screenshots

[thefreelanceangel]

#Esti Kyton #FFXIV #Screenshots

[thefreelanceangel]

#Esti Kyton #Dayar Qerel #Third Time's the Charm #FFXIV #Screenshots

[thefreelanceangel]

#Esti Kyton #Dayar Qerel #Third Time's the Charm #FFXIV #Screenshots

[thefreelanceangel]

#Esti Kyton #Dayar Qerel #Third Time's the Charm #FFXIV #Screenshots

[thefreelanceangel]

Tagged: Character Arc

(No one is surprised by this.)

(She really really hopes this is true.)

Tagged by: @the-white-snake

Quiz HERE.

Tagging: @mirugaidoesthings; @rylen-ashworth; @luck-and-larceny; @dumb-hat; @argentrenard

@kestrelvylbrand; @kuroyagi-ffxiv; @shroudkeeper; @chainsofaether; @gatheredfates

@riftdancing; @azems-familiar; @sjofn-lofnsdottr; @feralkwe

#Tagged #FFXIV #Annalei d'Latu #(No one is surprised by her result) #BitchBunny #Esti Kyton

[thefreelanceangel]

#Esti Kyton #FFXIV #Screenshots #because she's gorgeous that's why

[thefreelanceangel]

Luck let a gentleman see How nice a dame you can be

#Esti Kyton #FFXIV #Screenshots #if she ends up moving to Ul'dah because of Dayar #She's getting a part time job at the Gold Saucer

[thefreelanceangel]

Has your OC had to unlearn any cultural or societal messages about love and relationships as they have got older? Was this difficult for them?

Oh yeah.

Esti grew up on the fringes of the Kyho tribe, a sprawling Seeker family that is largely polyamorous. It's more common than not for any one person in the Kyho tribe to have two or more partners, because it greatly helps to raise large numbers of children with multiple adult parents.

This didn't particularly sit well with Esti, possibly because of her "acknowledged but not accepted" position in the tribe. (She is the result of a one-night fling between C'kyho and her mother which did not, much to her mother's eternal fury, result in her mother becoming one of his mates.) And when Esti finally left, she still felt... a bit off about romance in general.

Her first relationship with an abusive, exploitative man didn't help. He used her familial upbringing as a defense of his infidelity, pressuring Esti into just accepting it because "all of you slit-eyed cats are the same like this."

And when she fell in love with her half-sister's then-boyfriend Zale, Esti just... couldn't demand he drop his established partners (C'allie and L'upus) for her. She did ask, for a time, that he not seek out new partners while dating her, but after less than a year, it obviously wasn't working well. And so she walked back her request, giving Zale the freedom to pursue the relationships that came naturally to him.

But not to her.

Between Esti's very, very shaky self-esteem, her family issues, and her insecurity in being worthy of love, she just did not have the stability to handle a polyamorous relationship. It took considerable (and painful) effort for her to finally face that and end the relationship with Zale.

In the year or so after the split, Esti listened to her best friend's lectures (often followed by his husband's further lectures) about self-worth and sloughing familial identity in favor of her own. And it's slowly begun to seep in.

At least enough that when Dayar Qerel told her that no, he wasn't eyeing the pretty elezen behind her but ogling Esti herself, she managed to tell him that she couldn't share him. (A bit premature there, Esti, y'all still aren't even dating yet but...) Much to her shock, Dayar didn't seem at all upset by that fact and took it in stride.

She'd like to think that means she's come a long way, but it remains to be seen if she'd stand by her words if Dayar did want to pursue a relationship in tandem with the one they're building together.

#Esti Kyton #FFXIV #Prompts

[thefreelanceangel]

FFXIVWrite2023 (#1 - Envoy)

"A letter for you, kupo!"

Esti fumbled the letter, fingers abruptly nerveless. She fumbled the thank you to the moogle, busily readjusting their hat before flitting away, unbalanced by the heavy bag hanging from their shoulder. She fumbled even the act of sitting on the broad stone steps leading up to the aetheryte plaza.

For a moment, she sat, the letter resting on her knee, and focused her gaze on the harbor. Esti didn't need to look at it to know who'd written to her. The smooth, heavy parchment gave it away, long before she'd even glanced at the particular wax seal, the sweep of script that spelled out her name.

C'esti Kyho

Her mother never did use the name she'd chosen. S'vita Kyho, with no claim to the surname that she aggressively used, would not honor her daughter's desire to separate from the family that'd never fully welcomed her.

Esti sat quietly, the letter haunting her peripheral vision, and listened to the distant call of sailors, the chatter from the Last Stand, the spike in volume from a particularly aggressive academic discussion. In the months she'd lived in Sharlayan, she'd come to love the hum of the city, the abrupt and unpredictable weather, the cool, sea-inspired colors that formed the city's beautiful landscape.

Here she'd gotten a third chance at happiness, one she clung to with both hands, one she prayed earnestly to not lose while, in the same breath, fully expecting to.

One of the reasons for her dire outlook sat on her knee, undoubtedly clamouring for her to return, demanding more funds, more filial duty, more effort made on behalf of one woman's spiteful refusal to just let. go.

Esti drew a slow breath, straightening her back, and picked the letter up to look at the name she tried to distance herself from written in her mother's sprawling handwriting. One nail slid beneath the wax seal, flecking her grey leggings with dull green, and Esti paused, frowning.

She knew the contents of the letter. They never changed. Her mother's demands never changed.

Her mother never changed.

And yet... Hadn't she changed? Her physical self, her desires, her dreams, even the thoughts that came unbidden to her now... So little of the girl her mother knew remained, and that little had never been nurtured by S'vita. What right had the woman to make such demands on her? To force her only child--who could claim only paternity and the barest acceptance into a tribe--to act as some desperate envoy on S'vita's behalf?

The wax seal peeled away when Esti flexed her finger, and then she paused again. Now she recalled the pride, the warmth in Dayar's voice when he'd told her of his daughter. Shouldn't that be the feelings displayed for a child? Warmth, protectiveness, love? He would never dream of using his daughter as a tool to pursue a selfish desire of his own.

Looking at the letter in her hands, Esti rose to her feet, pausing only to catch the circle of wax before it hit the paving stones. Head up, ears back, she strode for the public wastebasket near the stone bridge.

And with only a flicker of hesitation, a moment to recall Dayar's voice when he'd denounced Moran for his actions in a tone which he'd surely use when she told him of her mother's actions, Esti finally threw a letter from her mother away, unread.

#FFXIVWrite2023 #Esti Kyton #FFXIV #fucking finally Esti omg girl about DAMN TIME

[thefreelanceangel]

#Esti Kyton #Dayar Qerel #FFXIV #Screenshots #Third Time's the Charm #One day I'll take pictures that don't involve Esti being acrobatic but uh... not today

[thefreelanceangel]

guilt: What is your OC guilty about? How do they handle their guilt? Do they try to avoid guilt, or do they accept it?

She could have stayed in Ishgard. She could have kept the café in the Lavender Beds. She could have sucked it up, been a Big Girl and dealt with living around her ex, Zale. Yes, it hurt to see him. It hurt badly knowing he'd married her half-sister, sired a child on another half-sister, and not even given her the collar she'd asked for.

It hurt so badly that she ran from it, ran straight to Michael and leaned heavily on him to help her pick up the pieces of her life.

Yes, that is what friends are for.

And yet...

Esti's seen Philippe's impatient looks, heard his irritated sighs when Michael mentions asking her if she has plans before going out with his husband for the evening. She knows that she's in Old Sharlayan largely on the good will of her best friend and his husband.

She also knows that her presence is beginning to strain their marriage.

Esti is working towards moving out of their flat, towards getting on her own two feet and pulling further away to give them room to breathe. Although Michael doesn't say anything to her about placating his husband, his encouragement gets more forceful by the month.

She knows Philippe dislikes the living reminder she is of Michael's late husband, Rhaya. And that he doesn't wholly understand why Michael's so tolerant of her.

And so she's working as hard as she can to get away from the only person she has to support her. If things go sour with Dayar (as she believes they will eventually,) Esti won't be able to run back to Michael for soothing and help.

...but even if she's alone, she won't be drowning in guilt over ruining her best friend's life.

#Esti Kyton #Prompts #FFXIV