#Hw spoilers

[theninthlaw]

ODE TO FINAL FANTASY XIV

[xpiester333x]

Losing Haurchefant was really so sad for your WoL.

Like, you come off the boat (or cart) a fresh-faced adventurer and by the time you've finished Copperbell Mines you've met 2 parties of adventurers just like you who die in those dungeons.

And then when Ifrit tempers an entire group of your allies you have to fine out they are all put to death because they were tempered and somehow you just magically walked out of that unscathed. I even did a sahagain quest today that made you "rescue" some Maelstrom soldiers, who have actually all been tempered so you're tasked with killing them by your own hand.

And all of the rough shit culminates into getting framed for regicide and having all of the people you've given so much for turn against you. And you lose so many friends in the process (you get Y'shtola and Thancred back eventually, but you have no way of knowing that), you're separated from all of your allies and the only surviving ally you have left (that you're aware of) is sinking into a deep depression because he carries the fault for what happened.

And then there's Haurchefant, pressing a mug of hot chocolate into your hands and assuring you everything is going to be alright. Encouraging you to smile even through all the hardship. You're still a hero in his mind. None of your perceived failures or shortcomings have done anything to discourage him from seeing you in the best light. He vouches for you personally, welcomes you into his home, introduces you to his family and gets you back on your feet for more adventuring.

And then he dies. Protecting you. He's always been your shield, from harsh realities and blades alike. But this time it was too much, and he's going to die. But even still, he tells you to smile, because that's what he's always wanted for you, because that's what he's always strived to achieve for you.

That's fucking devastating tbh.

[faragonart]

"...They declaired you a heretic, too, haven't they?"

headcanon below (HW spoilers)

In the game where the WoL finds Ysayle in the heretic hideout, my headcanon had Ridel chased down by suspect Ishgardian soldiers while on his mission to seek out her hideaway. They were no sooner laid low by his "Moonshadow"- something he had yet to understand or control... and Ysayle had come upon the aftermath...

(It also was the reason why he, Alphinaud and Tataru were tried for herecy upon his return...)

[bakuzen-xiv]

Francel, we know you still want to be close to Haurchefant but you should really go home....

[devilmented]

Always, always ✨🤍

[haellen-o]

there's a very good chance i posted this (because i think i took it for junelezen) but i just stumbled upon it again and dealt my self psychic damage so here it is

[3starart]

Heavensward is the experience ever (ft. @diardri, who is great at consoling people)

[karagna]

A comic made for my part in @drkzine last year!! It was an honor to be able to create something for it.

Featuring my roe drk Thundering Blade and an old friend :']

[3stargins]

beat the vault yesterday (ft. @diardri, who told me i "deserved what was about to happen" when i compared the first room to the sans undertale room)

[landshorizon]

(Count)Down to Dawntrail // Day Two - Heavensward

"I... I couldn't save him. Why couldn't I save him?"

Edvard fell to the floor, onto his knees, his sollerets scraping against the marble flooring of the Chancel.

"Why..."

His stomach lurched as he brought up the contents of it. He could smell Haurchefant's blood still on his gauntlets, and sprayed up the front of his curiass, along with the scent of incense and something like ozone.

It was overwhelming in the worst of ways.

The delayed shock of Haurchefant's passing hadn't come with a bang, but with a whimper. Ed didn't know if he wanted to continue to fight. He'd lost two lovers. Two. In the space of a scant year, two lovers lost to the lifestream...

First it had been G'raha, and his immense self-sacrifice at the Crystal Tower, sealing himself away. And now Haurchefant...

He should've been able to save him.

He should have seen it coming, should've been the one to take the bolt through his stomach. It should be Haurchefant there, still; grieving maybe, for the loss of Edvard, but hale and hearty and breathing.

Eddie had kept waiting for Haurchefant to breathe. Even as he lay unmoving, Ed had summoned magics just barely within reach to try and save him, pouring what little knowledge of Conjury he had into spell after spell after spell, Cure after Cure after Cure.

Futile. It was all futile.

He had known such deep, profound loss already on this path... Couldn't the universe have given him a happy-ever-after, when the battles were over with? Couldn't Hydaelyn have given him this mercy?

Ed spat onto the floor and rose to his feet, shaky, barely able to stand. The lone Warrior of Light. Destined to be alone forever, he felt...

Everything and everyone he touched crumbled and fell away, after all.

[paintedscales]

Prompt: Covering someone's mouth to muffle any cries/screams they make because they're trying to hide from something/someone.

For the FFXIV Swap Discord. I wasn't initially going to do this prompt, but this scenario wouldn't leave my head.

"Fascinating... Fascinating!" Alphinaud muttered to himself, reading the print of the books that had long since been abandoned and left to their fate in the Great Gubal Library. Though they had their mission before them, what other opportunity would have the young prodigy had after this to find some of these tomes in the future?

"We haven't all day..." Nomin sighed, a frown upon her lips.

"Indeed," Y'shtola chimed in. Her ears were pert as she forced herself not to show her own disappointment. Her thirst for knowledge was just as unable to have been slaked, if not more so, than Alphinaud's.

Alphinaud, however, was lost in his own world for the time being. There was a particular tome that caught his interest, The Bitter Movement of Garlemald. Nomin was not quite interested herself. Being surrounded by so many books was fascinating, but not enough to stop herself from thinking of why they were even allowed within in the first place.

Danger.

The feeling of being alert flit through Nomin, making the scales and hairs at the back of her neck flare slightly before settling back. She pulled out her bow, her other hand bringing an arrow so that it was nocked. She maneuvered so that her back was against the pillar nearby.

This was not missed by Y'shtola, whose clouded eyes flicked in Nomin's direction. Her brow furrowed, and her lips were set into a hardened purse. Like Nomin, Y'shtola armed herself with her staff, staying close should they be ambushed or be the ones who did the ambushing.

Pero Roggo hopped up, his feet finding purchase upon the muttering Alphinaud's shoulders. The sudden shift in weight and arrival of the poroggo nearly made Alphinaud yelp with surprise, though Pero Roggo had been quick about touching his staff to the young elezen's lips. Where a yelp would have sounded, nothing came about.

Thankfully Pero Roggo acted when he did. As silence settled around the party, they heard it.

Shhclack. Shhclack. Shhclack.

Talons scraped across the floors in a rhythm. Something was on its way. Judging by all that they had encountered thus far, it was not like to be anything friendly.

[heirbane]

Okay, since I'm afoot, here's a tl;dr of Gaius's journey post ARR:

- HW: recuperating for the majority of Heavensward. if you want a specific time frame, I'd say his recovery took him close to a year with the spotty medical treatment he received. Unbeknownst to him, he was barely out of Eorzea, let alone far removed from the rubble of Praetorium for many of those weeks until he was stable enough to move around.

After that, Valdeaulin took him to the outskirts of Ala Mhigo, holing him up within one of the territories that Valdeaulin believed Gaius had released Black Rose upon. He fully intended to make the man suffer and rot there, to make him see the results of his actions, but soon found out that Gaius had not been the one to unleash the Black Rose - and had actually fought the Empire's use of it.

STB: from the edges of Ala Mhigo, Gaius and Valdeaulin meandered to Werlyt. They picked up Severa along the way, fleeing a platoon of soldiers that were stationed in Terncliff. Valdeaulin catches Gaius skulking about one night and threatens to disembowel him, as he thinks Gaius is attempting to escape his shackles. It is only then that Valdeaulin - and, as an extension, Severa - learn of the man's many children, all of them native to Terncliff. He had hoped to gather information about the occupation and the state of his children, as he assumed they were still stationed within Werlyt.

After Gaius's honesty, Severa is more forthcoming herself, and explains her own platoon had just come to replace those who had been ferried back to Garlemald to continue the Weapons project. Gaius's children, likely. While his loyalty to the Empire had been shaken by Ascian involvement, he still had hope that his brethren - when not under mind control or having their bodies puppeteered - would treat his family with respect.

In the mean time, he learned from Severa that the Garleans had furthered their expansion into Doma, and that she believed another shadow worked behind the scenes. They traveled abroad, visiting villages and townships while avoiding Kugane all together, given the presence of the Garlean Embassy. It is on the Steppe, in the desert lands that ripped away from their grasslands after the fall of Dalamud, that they track down an of Ascians and kill them.

SHB: the Ascian let slip their intent, as is their common folly: to rid the world of it's aether, in the hope that it would be a sizable offering for their God on the moon. They had another area they had been investigating, dubbed the Burn, and a second shadow remained there. Gaius and co traversed to the Burn, taking in it's horrific lack of anything living, and from there, ran into Alphinaud and the Scions once again. He learns of Zenos's death, of the liberation of Ala Mhigo and Doma.

It is during his confrontation with the Scions and the Alliance that he gets further information about the reality of the Weapons project. Maxima, a Garlean who had defected, spoke of the man now at the helm of the issue: Valens van Varro. Furthermore, steps were being taken to reignite the Black Rose, and whispers among the highest ranking soldiers said that Zenos's body had been puppeteered by another Ascian. He pairs up with Estinien to infiltrate the Capitol of Garlemald, lay waste to their Black Rose reserves, and find out the fate of his godson after all.

After they laid waste in the Capitol and Gaius hears the horror that Estinien had faced, Gaius is more certain than ever that his children are in danger under the Weapons project. However, Valdeaulin has only proffered him time away with Estinien: should the dragoon return to him without the Garlean, Valdeaulin would follow him to the ends of the earth until he is able to kill the man. It is with great trepidation that he returns, holding his worry and fears close to his vest... until the Warrior of Light returns to the Source, and he rallies his pride to ask of them a favor.

[faragonart]

"Alas... I can no longer walk this path with you... so promise me this. Tell me you will live your life, make friends anew, share your heart with someone special...

...for this is only the beginning of your long, long road..."

[keykidpilipili]

Heavensward and Stormblood truly made the interesting decision of putting non mandatory dungeon along the msq. Steel Vigil and Shisui of the Violet tides you are truly there.

Steel Vigil is baffling cause they could have placed the heretics and scene with Ysayle there. Instead of following an enemy npc for five miles from the river to the farm. She doesn't even fight the wol for murdering all her coworkers.

Shisui could have had the empire trying to gain access to the Shisui dungeon for treasture under the pretense of cleaning the place of monsters and "tempered". It would be a nice parallel to how Ala Mhigo was conquered. Surely Garlemald has some submarines! The wol is hired to free the ruby princess from her possession before the Garleans kill her.

[emet-selch-apologism]

[ostentenacity]

ty for tagging me @plounce!!

at first i thought i didn't have any non-abandoned wips (i did a big finishing-and-posting spree recently) but then i stumbled across this one and wow i forgot how far i got into it! so maybe ill finish it eventually. it's a pre-canon lucia character piece about her disillusionment and eventual defection from you-know-where.

tagging @vesperaevis and @isi7140 (idk if either of you are into these sorts of tag memes, no worries if you don't wanna!)

“And remember,” says Lucia’s instructor, the day she graduates from training and receives her first assignment, “Frumentarium sees all.”

---

Ishgard both is and isn’t what Lucia had been expecting. 

She’d been warned in training that she would find Eorzea strange and primitive, and while she had prepared in the abstract, coming face-to-face with the reality of it is something else. The Ishgardians stand on ceremony to the point of stupidity, and they revere their warrior and priest classes while frequently snubbing those who pass for scientists in their benighted realm. They drive chocobo carts through the city streets instead of automobiles, for His Radiance’s sake! The annexation can’t come soon enough; these people are practically crying out for the benevolent hand of true civilization. 

Slow and steady, Lucia reminds herself. Allag was not built in a day.