#endwalker silliness for the shared au

[abyssalmermaiden]

Not that he could (unless she let him)

[shroudkeeper]

I was tagged in WIP Wednesday last week.. But I'll share now what I'm working on since it's now weds!

Remember my doomed love post? It's surrounding mostly an AU that I'm privately working on that is inspired heavily by City of Angels ( movie from the late 90's ) which is beautiful and heartbreaking at the same time. My favorite theme. 😭

I'm also starting to shift the gpose storytelling I usually post here to preparing Kikyo and Hancock for the potential to sail to the New World, which would be both for financial purposes (for our silly white boy) and a chance for Kikyo to experience a new culture and add another wonderful experience to her short life.

To add to this, he will actually be the key to connect her with one of the new classes which were introduced at fanfest, so that will be an exciting change for her and myself.

Considering this may be perhaps my final expansion that I'll be actively playing in, I'll be working more on Rivienne as well, which I'm not sure if new followers know of her since she's been retired since Endwalker concluded. I've considered bringing her back for one more bit of writing so I'm hoping to share that with folks soon too!

Thank you so much for the tag @chadhunkler I appreciate it!

If anyone has a wip they'd like to share, please consider yourself tagged here!

[lilbittymonster]

How important is your OCs relationship(s) to their story? Would it still make sense without it? Or is their connection to this other character integral to their development?

It is absolutely essential to their story.

Aymeric is integral to Kitali's character development just as Kitali is integral to Aymeric's character development. They're a binary star system slowly pulling each other from the extremes of the selfless/selfish spectrum towards the middle into something resembling healthy. I joke a lot that they Uhauled it after the first instance of dealing with Omega, but it really truly is the best outcome for both of them. Without him, Kitali would still be a thrice hard-hearted mercenary, especially after losing Haurchefant, and without her Aymeric would have been completely subsumed by the weight of the mantles of Lord Commander and Lord Speaker. If you've done the EW caster quests then you know how that would have ended for him.

While it takes almost until the end of Endwalker for Kitali and Estinien's relationship to become romantic, the seeds of it were sown all the way back in Heavensward. They have run through every angle of "whatever souls are made of, his and mine are the same". They both keep each other in check and enable each other's more somewhat destructive tendencies. But throughout Heavensward they reached a sort of equilibrium and I don't think either of them would have survived without the other.

For the shared canon universe, I tried bouncing the idea around of Kitali and Aymeric still having a fling, but not getting nearly as involved with each other. Which lasted for about maybe 6 months before I realised that no, Kitali was yoinked to the First while on the transport to Ishgard. He would have caught her as she fell. And he would have kept her at Borel Manor rather than risk injury transporting her to Mor Dhona. There is no way in hell that they wouldn't still be completely head over heels for each other, silly me.

And in the modern AU, I rearranged the order of operations a bit so that it was Estinien who ended up dating Kitali before Aymeric, and she wound up being Aymeric's bisexual awakening, and then the polycule got even more complicated (there are Charts for this bc it got so tangled).

I really don't think any of them can be complete without the others. They cover each other's weak spots and keep a good balance. And even if they technically could, I don't know that it would be nearly as interesting.

Thanks for the ask @sasslett

OC Relationship Building Asks

[autumnslance]

Zaine Striker - AU Adventures

Seems a shame not to share more pics of the boy since I set up a few in the April YOTP prompt for the canon divergence/AU I ended up writing. In this AU, Zaine lives, and answered the Exarch's Call during the battle with Elidibus, in the First six months before Aeryn finally gets there. While he can and does still swing an axe as needed, he's also a Machinist since Heavensward, and makes use of both his primary jobs in Norvrandt.

Using the lvl 81 crafted/vendored lookalikes for the Alliance set; Aiming top, Scouting bottoms, Fending gauntlets and boots, with a Crystarium gun. At some point I determined Hunter Green was a color Zaine often uses.

This big brother's ensemble isn't complete without his gremlin little sister backpack. Don't believe her though when she claims they're the same age now, since he skipped the five years between the Calamity and ARR.

Zaine uses the same model as Ardbert, with darker skin and hair, and gray eyes. Corran Striker, the siblings' bio-dad, also uses Ardbert's model, but is taller, changes hairstyle, adds a mustache, and has gray eyes as well.

Shadowbringers and Endwalker took my silly meta, since I decided to base my OCs on the default Meteor and unused lady Midlander CG models, and really turned some things around on me.

I have an entire outline for Zaine living to be a Co-WoL with Aeryn from ARR, up through EW 6.1. Right now it's just in a Google Doc, but I may drop it in an actual blog post if folks are interested.

[sarenhale]

I have a (probably silly) question! In your ships, is it that they're all separate, or do some of them happen at the same time? I think you talked about it with Aydee but I dunno if you did for Arihel... ? And then, you know, also: do the other people date each other (like is it an ot3 sort of situation where everyone is dating each other) or is it separate? like. are Thancred and Urianger dating?

That's a great question 🤔

Aydee's main romances are Estinien (canon) and Zenos (Modern AU and separate AU where she leaves the Scions and goes to do her own thing because that's the only way I see a Zenos/Aydee couple thing happening all things considered).

Arihel's main romances are Urianger and Thancred.

I think that the way I see it it's that Urianger/Arihel is the main canon ship, like the endgame romance I see him having in his storyline.

I do also enjoy the Urianger/Thancred couple and think Arihel and Thancred have great chemistry with eachother since they're very similar in personality and share a lot of trauma and history that made them closer through the years. So I do like them all together as an ot3! I have drawn all the 3 together and joked about how this thing is their 'just dudes being guys' LMAO

I think that all the three alternatives work very good with eachother, all the three characters have a lot of chemistry and possibilities with eachother, and also together as an ot3. The only thing I try to consider when I think about them together is that I don't really see Thancred being in the headspace for being in a commited relationship with anyone after the events of ARR and Shadowbringers. We see him getting over his trauma a bit in Endwalker (which was lovely to see) but I still think that I wouldn't be able to visualize him in a 'defined' thing with Arihel?

So I like to imagine the ot3 together but in a kind of alternate possibility, and Urianger and Arihel being the main couple in the end. In my head, I think Thancred loves the other two but in the end wants to do his own thing and has Ryne to take care of and if focused on that.

As for the other connections, I do think Urianger and Thancred definitely 'dated' (is dating normally even a thing when you're a Scion living on a world that is always on the brink of descruction?? lol) and were together at some point, more as a random 'no definition' thing than anything else. There was some weird unresolved tension between Arihel and Thancred, especially during Stormblood considering all the shit with Zenos and Nergaal happening for Arihel (and Thancred's general... troubles during that time), so they definitely banged at some point (sorry if it's not very romantic... these two are very dumb and don't know what they fuck they are doing....) but theirs in the end is more of a 'sometimes romantic friendship', considering that despite the tensions and angst they had sometimes they care about eachother a lot. Even if Thanc is not in the main relationship in the end, I do think they remain pretty close and intimate with eachother anyways, kind in a platonic way? They all love eachother anyway so there's no jealousy around it from any points, it's just that in my headcanon Arihel and Urianger are the ones more ready and okay with committing and putting down definitions for a relationship while Thancred isn't.

And, well, Urianger and Arihel got closer during Shadowbringers and ended up being together during their time on the First, decided to continue it when they went back on the Source, saw that they were happy and it worked despite all the problems around them and then it just became a pretty solid relationship! So yeah, for Arihel is a bit different from Aydee because I don't see any ot3 happening with her, but with Arihel is works pretty well because I can see the three characters working well with eachother! So it's both the canon Urianger/Arihel main couple and also the ot3 in another universe/possibility. I'm not that strict with their definitions though because I just enjoy drawing all kinds of romance and interactions with Arihel and the others! For some reason I think Arihel just meshes well with different possibilities of relationships. It might be because he's also a pretty open person in terms of love and being with people in different ways.

A lot of it it's my own headcanon on how npcs would react and act in a relationship/romantic situation so it's my personal ideas that I shape around the personality of my characters as well.

I also enjoy writing/imagining 'realistic' relationships where people have multiple partners, experiences, differences in love and affection, so it's almost never a 'this character ONLY dates this person for the whole story and they never leave eachother or try something with anyone else'. That's why multiple couples are a thing, random hookups and stuff too, or even couples that change/etc.

I hope this wasn't confusing, I ended up rambling a lot but I wondered about this question myself sometimes so it helped me brainstorm x) Thank you for asking!! I love discussing these things :)