#i think we all can agree on urianger and thancred being the dads of the team right?

[diamondangelkitten]

Vierapril Day 28: Present

Alira puts a cup of tea in front of each of the girls as they meet to discuss the current state of affairs. “So, Wuk Lamat is wanting us to go to Tural and we’re currently able to tag along without agreeing to actually be on her side?”

Aurora nods, “Erenville is being quite mum on the topic. He seems to want to talk about it, but I really don’t think he’s allowed to say anything.”

“I’m surprised you’ve had much time to talk about it at all,” Alira quips with a wink.

Aurora narrows her eyes, but doesn’t comment. Annabeth sits back, crossing her arms, “We also need to talk about the other person who’s been following us.”

Alinea shakes her head, “I’m positive she’s following Wuk Lamat, but I don’t think she’s a threat at all.”

Alira thinks, “From what I briefly saw of her, she seems to be tailing Wuk Lamat. Maybe she’s a guard? She seemed tense when the rest of y’all were fighting the bird on the Isle of Haam.”

Aurora hums, “I can ask Erenville about that. I did forget to ask him about it prior,” she blushes.

Alinea smiles, “No harm done. I’ve asked Estinien to go on ahead. See if he can’t also scout out what Thancred and Urianger are up to. But, that does leave an open question.” Her voice drifts off, and Alira raises her head to see all three girls looking at her. “Oh no, what now?”

Annabeth takes a breath, before stating their request, “Won’t you consider coming with us? Sibbie, Sid, and Rielle are welcome to come too! Please reconsider.”

Alira is stunned. “You want me to bring my 4 year old with us? We fight monsters and gods!? I’d be worried about her all the time. It’s not safe. We know nothing about Tural or what we’re walking in to.”

Annabeth nods, “I know, but I promise we’ve thought this out. Aurora already has Erenville who’s giving her as honest as he can view of what’s going on. Alinea has Estinien on the ground, plus, Gaius and Allie are even coming along this time.”

“What?”

Aurora chimes in before Annabeth can respond, “Yea! It turns out Rex and the others have taken jobs in the New World, so they can also provide us a real local’s perspective. Allie wants to see them again and it’s not like a lot of people in the New World would know what Gaius looks like directly.”

Annabeth nods at Aurora, before continuing, “Aurora’s right. So Allie would love to help Rielle take care of Sibbie. Plus having Sid as another fighter could always come in handy, and Aurora’s dad is the one taking us to Tural, so she’ll be safe on the journey over too.”

Alira puts her face in her hands, elbows on the kitchen table, sighing. “Alinea, you agree with this?”

“I do.”

Alira sighs, looking up at them. At that time, Rielle comes running into the house with Sibbie on her hip who seems to be laughing. “What’s wrong?” Alira asks, picking Sibbie up and inspecting her.

“Well, one, the whole of Ishgard already seems to know where you’re going on your next adventure. Two, I’m pretty sure Sibbie can cast magic already.”

All the girls turn to look at Rielle. “Are you sure?” Alinea asks.

“Well, we’ll be finding out soon. Aymeric’s on his way here.” All four girls tense, before hustling and bustling to try and clean up Alira’s house a bit.

Alira answers the door before Aymeric’s second knock. He enters with Handeloup and settles in. “My apologies for the intrusion, but I stopped by the Fortemps Manor where Lord Charlemend and Captain Carvallain were there conversing with Edmont Fortemps. I happened to overhear that you all, apart from maybe Alira, may be heading to the New World soon?”

Rielle looks at the girls and she can see how ramrod straight Alira’s back is. She knows that none of the girls particularly care for politics and know that this is a very difficult situation to be in. Alinea decides to answer, “We cannot say anything yet for certain. But we have been sent a request and we are in the process of determining if we will be addressing it.”

“It would be wonderful to have an envoy of Ishgard for the meeting there, but alas, there was also much talk of the Scions disbanding. Reports around the city states seems to indicate that you are maybe handling this request as a group.”

Aurora gasps, but before anyone can ask her why, a small fire starts on the hem of Lord Aymeric’s cloak. He jumps, before he and Handeloup try and contain the fire. “Whatever was the meaning of that?” He doesn’t sound upset, but extremely confused.

Alira shakes her head, “I have no idea.”

Aurora, however, tilts her head, “I think I know.” She looks to Sibbie in Alira’s arms, “I do believe your daughter can cast magic and is very prone to the emotions of others.”

Alira looks to Rielle, before looking to the girls, “I’m very sorry Lord Commander, but now is not a good time. Please call again tomorrow and we’ll have more answers for you.” He starts to protest, but before he can there’s another draft of smoke from the hem of the cloak, and he takes the hint, with Handeloup close at his heels.

As soon as they depart, Alira turns to the girls, “So, we’re joining you as a family. Help me pack up. We’re leaving now for Sharlyan.”

#ffxiv #vierapril #alira thorne #annabeth rose #alinea skylark #aurora calypso #first mention of my hrothgal <3 #So excited to introduce you to them!

[telamons]

Thancred, the Father bird 🌸

#final fantasy #ffxiv #final fantasy xiv #ffedit #ffxivedit #thancred waters #urianger augurelt #sorry for the cursor on the gifs it wasn't planned ;-; #thancred openly admitting he considers ryne as his own daughter warms my heart so much #mine #he deserves love and all happiness in the world #also when i started the eden verse quests i didn't bother watching the cutscenes bc it was very long #BUT THANK GOD I THOUGHT OF WATCHING THEM IN MY ROOM #I WOULD HAVE MISSED THIS #it's not in the gifs but thancred always referring to himself as an old man kills me #you're only 32 you're not old *sobs* #and (i will end here) #i think we all can agree on urianger and thancred being the dads of the team right? #xiv

[autumnslance]

Enablers.

The bullet points of very general ideas I noodled with for wolkids AU (along with a tad bit of pregnancy choices talk) and maybe some screenshots below the cut.

Aeryn very much has never wanted to be pregnant. She's not afraid of it, just no desire to ever go through it. So when she finds out there's serious consideration of not going through with it. Adopting infants, small kids, pre-teens, adolescents, she's more than happy to do! But carrying? Hrm...

(And an adoption of one or two will happen anyway over time once Domesticity settles in.)

Thancred is...not happy that's an option she's considering; he's terrified but also excited by the idea of fatherhood, of family (especially after all his screw ups with Ryne, but also how they were able to fix much of that in the end). He'd rather keep it, but it's Aeryn's choice and he respects that. Still, it's a friction point for them.

Aeryn, being Aeryn, needs time to think about it and consider those options, especially since her partner's on a different page. After all she's got a bit of time to decide, right?

Doing everyday things together, things are a bit tense, and then Aeryn's like "Theoretically, if we were to have a baby, where would we want to raise them?" And they end up debating the merits and issues in the various regions of Eorzea.

(Aeryn vetoes Coerthas immediately. They think about the other city-states, but also the Politics given who they are; Mor Dhona's outside all of that but a rough frontier still. Thancred champions Sharlayan for educational opportunities, the space program, and how it's opened up to the outside since the Final Days and Aeryn agrees that'd be all right but you do realize Ameliance would decide she's Auntie, Thancred says it works cuz Fourchenault's kinda of like a dickish older brother, anyway.)

"Theoretical" what-if conversations keep happening as Aeryn "is still thinking about it" as days turn to weeks. By the time they get to discussing Names, Thancred's pretty sure she's made up her mind and just hasn't admitted it to herself yet.

(She insists they use the name Waters. Hers has too much weight, and she saw what a legacy-heavy name did the Leveilleur twins when they were young. Any kid of Thancred and Aeryn will have enough Issues to deal with. Besides, who cares about the "legacy" of her family name when they can create something new using the one Thancred was gifted?)

(They also eventually settle on a couple simpler Thavnairian names that wouldn't be out of place in Eorzea)

And then yeah, it's too late so oh well guess this is happening!

She's really irked with him though when it's twins.

("My understanding is it's usually the mother's side where such...right, I'm going to go crash on Urianger's couch.")

"Definitely not doing this again."

Fraternal boy & girl pairing cuz I'm a sucker for tropes like that. They don't look so alike as certain other twins though.

The boy looks a lot like his dad but with tanner skin, a bit blonder hair, and his mama's eyes. Also is taller than his dad; not quite max midlander, but slider's at 80. Striker height. Thancred's average adult man height leaves him comparatively short once more.

The girl looks a lot like her mom, but slightly lighter skin, her daddy's eyes, and a bit of his nose, too. Tall (for a midlander) like her mom.

(Auntie Rashae: "Gods Aer, they're too skinny" "I KNOW!")

They end up adventurers of course (not sure what disciplines), alongside their adopted siblings and other Scion kid "cousins", sometimes running into people who knew their parents but they got their own things to deal with and their own names to make, it's fine. Really. Honestly.

(is there anyone in the realm Mom doesn't know?! And why are half the older women in Thanalan so irked by mention of Dad...?)

Not sure what's up with all the fairies and dragons, though. May ask Mom later.

Anyway that's what I've got. And some fiddling in Benchmark CharGen cuz it was maintenance and I was bored.

Mostly took Thancred's chardata and adjusted a couple things, then took Aeryn and adjusted a couple other things.

#Final Fantasy XiV #forbidden wolkids au #Lyn Meta #silliness #boredom #blogging #shippy nonsense #Thancred x WoL #wolcred #Thancred Waters #Aeryn Striker #haven't 100% figured out names cuz it's a forbidden future AU

[fandom-geek]

spoilers for the entirety of the current eden’s gate content and the 5th role quest (which i haven’t played but going off other ppl’s descriptions)

so first of all - holy shit those raids. they were incredibly fun and, with the exception of the first group i was with, all super nice and non-toxic. the fourth was particularly chaotic in a ridiculously fun way and i loved it

and on the story side of things - this felt like a family trip, and thancred and urianger’s absolutely adorable conversation abt what ryne got from each of them (i know!!! i wasn’t expecting that either!!!) was beyond sweet. you can tell thancred and ryne’s relationship is still changing, too, because he’s gone from “ryne no” in a very rude way to going “ok how are we going to do that” and it’s just wonderful

sidenote: the fact that neither thancred, ryne, nor urianger wanted to involve the wol unless it was absolutely necessary because the wol nearly died recently and they wanted to give them a break was also so sweet as well. that being said, istg if ryne’s picked up on the wol’s habit of overworking themselves i think there’s going to be a scion-wide intervention for both of them. also urianger mentioning moenbryda to ryne ripped my heart out, as did their entire discussion abt the fact that they will inevitably have to leave ryne behind

(which. i’m not too sold on that tbh, because if g’raha could summon us from the source, body and all, and he can create a portal to send us back to the source from the first.... he can probably find something for ryne, right? like atm he couldn’t come with us because he’s part of the tower, but ryne doesn’t have that limitation and i really don’t want to watch her be ripped away from both her parental figures, even if g’raha has done that before with lyna and could potentially step up in that role with ryne too, because ryne absolutely deserves to have a happy family with her dads)

i’m pretty interested in seeing where the story goes with this mysterious girl. first we have urianger’s vague “she might be in thrall to zodiark” when ryne says she reminds her of emet-selch, and then that crasher of a final scene

which is to say when urianger first said “don’t tell anyone abt this”, i was going “urianger istf” and rolling my eyes because if between the warriors of darkness, and both the wol and g’raha tia nearly dying bc of urianger being excessively secretive hasn’t convinced him to not be, then idk what will. not that i actually blame urianger for either of those events, but it’s pretty clear urianger does blame himself so just *shrugs* i kinda want give him a helpful throttle or smth

and in hindsight, that should have made him staying behind with thancred while ryne and the wol go ahead a real big red flag, but no. apparently the mysterious girl is the oracle of darkness (and damn do i have questions abt what exactly that means), which urianger presumably knows from his prior dealings with elidibus and unukalhai? and thancred is meant to keep this a secret from both ryne and the wol, which he agrees to (thancred why). and aside from thancred having a weird penchant for somehow ending up protecting various oracles or oracles to be, i still have questions.

namely, thancred’s the only one who’s seen her without her helmet - and she’s around the same age as ryne. so ignoring the part where we beat up a kid for one of the raids, that makes me wonder whether she knows unukalhai and cyvele (i think that’s how it’s spelt?). and since i went back to talk to unukalhai after i finished that raid (no new dialogue for him since 4.56 btw), he mentioned even the servants of darkness couldn’t stop the flood of darkness. which presumably refers to the ascians and this oracle of darkness?

and just, boy do i have questions abt the ascians’ involvement in this. the assumption from urianger that she reminds ryne of emet-selch bc zodiark’s tempering... doesn’t quite feel right to me. i mean, it might well be part of it, but i don’t think that’s the entirety of it. and the fact we could mention emet-selch in one of our dialogue choices, specifically regretting that we didn’t persuade him to at least lay down arms..... which aside from being very interesting since urianger in particular was determined to get emet-selch to stop fighting them

and tbh urianger’s empathy and connections to the asicans are something i’m always intrigued by, simply because we always see the end results but we don’t really know why he’s so focused on them in particular. maybe this raid series or the wider 5.x msq will give us some answers, since it does seem to be shaping up to focus on the void and the ascians. it’ll be interesting, to say the least

#5.0 spoilers #shb spoilers #eden raid spoilers #ffxiv spoilers

[tuwasduwillst]

Shadowbringers (pt 4/end)

This just has spoilers for everything, basically. :U I finished it and don’t feel like splitting stuff up because I have over 1k screenshots to go through...

Katana-bearing Centurion: Besides, there is but one hand that can make me whole again. My enemy... my friend...

He probably just says “friend” there in Japanese, but I don’t have my whole game switched, so I don’t get to know for sure. Good to know you’re still being weird, Zenos.

Don’t you smirk at me like that, mister.

Here’s Urianger being handsome, as usual

I hated fighting this old dude as Thancred.

1) I still can’t believe he can easily take out the WoL like he did

2) Stop making me be sword dudes!!

3) I get why they wanted people to see the dialogue here, but it was so slooooow and I died once near the end and had to do it all over again and ughhh, just go away

Ryne looks cute with her new hair and eyes, at least. :) Thancred is still a bad dad, but at least he’s doing better now... I guess.

Also, Urianger’s reaction to finding out that Thancred was paying attention to some of his talks about pixies was really good, haha.

...I wanna listen to Urianger give a pixie lecture...

Wow

This was something the game threw together when I asked it to pick recommended gear. It’s... some kind of look.

The Exarch/G’raha Tia is a qt. Y’know, I figured it was probably G’raha Tia, but I didn’t remember him being so short... and the lack of cat ears also made me doubt myself, haha.

I’m really glad I did the Crystal Tower stuff, though, because otherwise I’d... well, I’d still think that G’raha Tia/the Exarch is cute and like him a lot, but it wouldn’t have had the same impact.

I took a bunch of screenshots of Mikh’a. :U

& Emet-Selch, ofc

that one old dude: If you would pass me, you must endure all that I have learned on the battlefield... For I am a weapon forged in the fires of war!

~*oooh, I’m so scared of you and your tiny amount of health left*~

My MP doesn’t even have a dent in it, really. This is why I had such a hard time believing this dude could take out the WoL!! Even the first time we fought, I had tons of MP available to me and could’ve made a full recovery from being brought down to 1 HP. (...well, I have Benediction which is kind of cheating, but still.)

At least this was the last time I had to deal with him. He’s probably the worst thing about the expansion, which I guess I can deal with since the rest of it was so good.

Lots of really pretty screenshot opportunities in this expansion. c:

Mt. Gulg is something I thought was common to a bunch of FF games for some reason, but apparently it was in the original Final Fantasy, FFIX, and some random spin-off games. Weird.

How did Mikh’a hear him talking from that far away??

Emet-Selch has such a good design and you can tell that a lot of work was put into him. The expressions he makes, the way he stands and walks--it’s all unique to him and it makes him stand out a lot.

Even after everything that happened in the expansion, I’m really fond of him. They made the right move in having him kind of forge a more personal relationship with you/the WoL, because if he hadn’t been obnoxious in the background throughout most of the expansion it wouldn’t have been anywhere near as interesting/good as it ended up being.

I obviously chose to say that they were all Alphinaud’s assistants. :P

This little scene was so cute... lali-hos for everyone...

Crystal Exarch: Ugh! I would thank you not to shoot me!

I’m sorryyyyyy ; ~; You were there and I wanted to see what would happen!!!

Crystal Exarch: Ah heh... It may interest you to know that Mikh’a is a great hero in the land whence he hails. Some would say the greatest.

This little venture made me feel like I’d suddenly gotten married and adopted a child

(Which I’d be totally fine with, tbh.)

I loved this thing, actually!! I got to heal G’raha Tia, he healed me, we both healed our new tiny dwarf child, it was great.

c:

I’m still using the Mogrod. I’m never going to stop using it. Give me another thing that has a flower and swirly rainbows all over and maybe I’ll switch weapons, but until then? No.

...unless there’s, like... a really, really pretty plant weapon, especially if it matches Mikh’a’s outfit... but I don’t think there is.

I got to put my bubble on them. :D

He’s so cuuuuuute. And Mikh’a clearly agrees with my thoughts on him, considering the expression on his face when he looks at him.

One of the reasons I keep Mikh’a wearing the WHM gear is because I really like the contrast I get--a lot of the major characters wear black, so it looks nice when they stand next to each other. :D

Katana-bearing Centurion: The whereabouts of my one true friend, however--they interest me greatly. I but hope the beasts of this “First” are providing him proper sport.

Zenos is so funny to me. He just pops up like “did someone mention my friend” while his dad and Elidibus are having a serious conversation.

Innocence has beautiful hair and if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes I’d never believe that he was Vauthry.

You can kind of see @tarifu in this screenshot! :D

You can definitely see her here--wait... why is half the party wearing dwarf beard outfits...

This is probably weird to say, but I genuinely like when characters I play in games like this suffer/are in pain. Not, like... constantly. I just like it when NPCs get to express concern and you aren’t some kind of unbreakable hero 24/7. >_>

Obviously I was going to say his name, who wouldn’t.

This made me cry!! I thought he was dead. :C

But thankfully Emet-Selch didn’t want him dead, so he did not die.

...why’d he even need a gun? Has he always had a gun?

I wish I could just float off into the sky after ruining everything and being a big jerk

sad kitty

I died when I came here with Jack and Mari because I didn’t realize I was being targeted by the boss until it was too late. :,)

I got to practice using my shield, though!! I’m not used to having one so I’m not super great at remembering it exists and using it; the tether thing is a good visual for “this specific person is going to be damaged soon and a shield would be Good”. ...unless everyone’s bunched up and I can’t tell who has it until it’s too late, I guess.

I know I’m level 80 now, but there’s still a lot I haven’t done and I’m still trying to figure out what the best way to do things is sometimes... I still need to mess with my hotbars and stuff, actually. I think I might switch some things around more than I already have, because some useful things aren’t as easy to use as they could/should be and I’ve been wanting to mess around with stuff for a while. The Trust dungeons should be a really good opportunity to test new configurations! Or the squad dungeons, I guess. :/a

I’m still not Ardbert’s biggest fan, but I don’t dislike him.

Poor Urianger, getting stuck with the role of the only other person to know the Exarch’s plans. :(

& then everyone died going to the bottom of the sea and the game ended

I got to help put dwarf helmets on sineaters :U

I also remembered that I have fancy wings now, wheee

I got a nice new outfit after doing my last Healer role quest! :D I like it a lot~ The whites are brighter than the last outfit, and the bit in back accommodates his tail much better than the corset did.

I might play around with mixing and matching some pieces once I get newer stuff, but for now this is what I’ve got! c:

...and I refuse to wear the hat. 100%. I’m not making Mikh’a look like a weird nun. :|

Amaurot was really good, even if being there mostly just made me sad. >_> The not-people were so cute and nice, though...

Big

The WoL hanging out on this giant bench is so cute.

I liked getting to talk to Emet-Selch’s friend. c: Well... kind of, anyway. Since it’s not really his friend...

tiny

Emet-Selch: I have broken bread with you, fought with you, grown ill, grown old! Sired children and yes, welcomed death’s sweet embrace.

I still don’t 100% understand how Ascians work, but I guess it’s canon that Emet-Selch fucks :/a

I regret typing that, I think, but it is apparently true

i think your fireplace has something wrong with it

Really though, this dungeon was excellent.

Alisaie decided that she wanted to LB right as one of the bosses was doing one of those “hide behind a rock Or You Will Die” things so she died & I accidentally walked right off the edge near the end of the last boss fight (oops), but other than that things went okay!

D:

ardbert could you please clean your axe somehow before you point it at me like that. tia

This was a really neat moment :U

I’m not calling Emet-Selch Hades ever. Sorry, Emet-Selch.

I was kind of afraid to do this trial and almost waited until someone would be able to do it with me, but it really wasn’t that bad in the end!

...except for when I died five times to the same attack... orz It was that arm-sweeping one, too, so it’s not like it’s not obvious that it’s coming. My problem was that I kept getting Raised in bad places right before it happened, so he basically just kept smacking me down over and over again.

(Which was partially my fault, because I should’ve waited to accept the Raise until I knew it was safe to be alive, but... I don’t like leaving the other healer alone and I don’t want to just be lying there uselessly if I can avoid it.)

Fortunately(?) the party wiped due to something completely unrelated (a failed mechanic I had nothing to do with) and I didn’t die at all the second time around! So at least there was that.

I liked this bit in the dark. c:

I also liked when I got trapped in the bubble and didn’t have to do anything. Thanks, Emet-Selch!

Genuinely though, it was a nice little chance for me to calm the hell down because my anxiety was getting real bad before/during this fight. >_>

Poor dude. :c Obviously he’s responsible for some absolutely terrible things and I’m not going to try to deny that or anything, but he’s lived for so long and he’s had to deal with the loss of basically everyone he ever cared about for that whole time. He recreated that entire city and all of its people, that’s how much he cared.

Still no excuse for basically trying to kill all of the people he didn’t consider “real”! But also still sad, IMO.

This made me go “awww” out loud and start to tear up, haha...

I didn’t want to leave him ; ~;

Estinien said a full sentence here about how these guards were dead, too (in a way that implied he assumed that’s what they’d find), and the localization translated it as “hmph”. Kind of a weird choice there, but okay.

Zenos basically went Full Yandere since he killed his father just because he could potentially get in the way of his thing with the WoL, so... that’s something that’s going to have to be dealt with at some point.

I’m interested in seeing how things go, but I’m also a wee bit concerned that other people might get caught up in whatever this obsession is. I don’t want anyone to get hurt or killed because of Zenos’s yandere tendencies. :(

Elidibus is being Boring on the moon.

But who cares about that! I got to lead a Girl Scout meeting for my level 80 WHM quest.

Oh! Almost forgot about the story I got to tell the girls: “The tale of a man who crossed time and space to save the world... and me.”

I think the second one is about (original) Minfilia, maybe? :/a I wanted to tell them about G’raha Tia, though.

Aaaand that’s all I’ve done! \o/ I unlocked a new dungeon and I know there’s more than one post-80 dungeon, so I’ll probably check those out when I get a chance... but I finished the main stuff.

Which is kinda weird, because now I’m done again, haha... but I’ve got plenty of stuff to do before the next new stuff comes out. Especially since I discovered that Vamo alla Flamenco is the “dancer’s theme”, apparently. Need to dance ASAP >:O

#game: ffxiv

[autumnslance]

Tell me more about your thoughts on the goodest dads — Thancred and Urianger.

I have sat on this one for a bit because maaaaaaaan…

You asked for it, under the cut.

All the way back in ARR, we have glimpses of Thancred poking at Urianger at times; over the linkpearl when Urianger is left to flustering ask what a woman looks like has to do with anything, and of course the scene when Moenbryda comes in and the teasing our fave librarian gets then.

On the more serious side, it’s Thancred who is certain to draw Urianger out and have him rejoin the group in the wake of event of “Soul Surrender.”

I have a fic series on Thancred’s friendship with Y’shtola, but now I wish I’d focused more on Thancred’s broship with Urianger (though I started following a really good series on Ao3 that is just that).

One of the things I adore about Shadowbringers is its focus on the Scions, particularly some of their interpersonal relationships. The Leveilleurs are at Peak Sibling Antics, and I would argue so are Thancred and Urianger, if in a different way than their younger colleagues.

Mileage may vary of course, and I encourage all those wearing shipper goggles–and have seen far more of what used to be a rarepair in fics in general. But I tend to read things platonically between the older Scions, for the most part (I ship Papalymo and Original Yda, cuz gods know that man’s head wasn’t on straight when he took over looking after Lyse and agreed to her own grief-stricken plan, but his relationship with her was very much taking care of a younger sister).

We know Thancred and Ryne visited Urianger often during the three years since Urianger got to the First and Thancred rescued kiddo from Eulmore. We know Urianger dotes on Ryne, giving her books and magical tutoring–and the comfort he wished Thancred would show the girl, when she needed it.

For the record, I don’t think Thancred was a terrible guardian–he’s the one she begs to stop Vauthry when that wrongness upsets all her senses, and Thancred’s still the person Ryne is most concerned about after the sin eater attack on Lakeland, and her major conflict the entire time is that she doesn’t know how he feels about her, sending her mixed signals where he approves of her (”that’s my girl” with headpat) and other times being upset–honestly, while his scolding her post-rescue was harsh, it came from an understandable place of upset on his part, too; she was almost taken back to Eulmore and he couldn’t have gotten her out again, and now Ran’jit was on their trail. Because she had a childish impulse fed by his own indecision.

But if he were actually cruel or abusive–and that’s not at all in Thancred’s nature–the more confident Ryne of post-MSQ wouldn’t put up with him. She also might have confided more to the WoL and other Scions–or Urianger would have picked it up. And likely, he nudged Thancred more than a few times over the last couple years, knowing exactly in what ways and how far he could push his friend.

Also, Thancred being a responsible guardian for Ryne gives Urianger room to be the teaser now, and I have loved every moment of him poking Thancred back, after years of putting up with rogue antics. It really felt good-natured-brotherly, the kind of teasing one can only do with a best friend one loves like a sibling. Y’shtola can be just a touch too sharp, and the twins are too young to really be on the same wavelengths–and have each other besides–so the older trio of Archons, who’ve known one another for well over 20 years now (since Urianger was a kid, really, and Y’shtola and Thancred teens themselves) have their own dynamic. But lemme tell ya, I have been the friend who remembers all the crap a buddy did while drunk, and Urianger’s ability to pinpoint specific names and moments to make Thancred squirm and cringe made me giggle. Because that is a thing best friends do outta love and a healthy amount of criticism without censoring.

Thancred obviously loved Ryne the entire time–even if Emet-Selch, ironically, was the only one to call it out. If Thancred could have kept both Minfilia and Ryne he would in a heartbeat, but his trepidation came from influencing Ryne the “wrong way”, and part of him maybe hoping for a miracle. Urianger, meanwhile, was plagued by guilt, being the instigator of Minfilia’s horrible predicament, as well as having to keep certain truths from his dearest friends for years on end. Part of his doting on Ryne may be finding ways to make up for what “he did” to Minfilia and how the child’s future might turn out.

There’s probably more but this ramble is already long and I should just write more fics about it, honestly.

I am looking forward to the next tier Eden for more exchanges like the one we got at the end of the last tier, where they compared what traits Ryne picked up from each of them over time–though in acknowledgment they may have to leave her behind when they go back to the Source.

My solution, of course, is to bring her along, but hey.

#Final Fantasy XIV #Shadowbringers #Thancred Waters #Urianger Augurelt #5.0 Spoilers #scholarlostintime #Ryne Waters