#i'm gonna make a photoset of the frog joke someday

[blackestnight]

hewwo could i get uhhh hanaymeric 9/31/34, elysaddie 4/12/26/36, harudewah 2/8/26 and ten piece chicken nuggets?

oh...my god. thank you for the food.

hanami/aymeric

9. - Do they discuss big issues? Religion? Marriage? Children? Death?

religion is kind of a loaded subject, considering aymeric is stuck in the unenviable position of trying to stay true to his faith while also trying to untangle the ways in which it has been used to perpetuate state-sanctioned lies and a cycle of war and death for several centuries. pretty much all hanami can do is shrug and offer a shoulder to have the occasional breakdown on, because she’s never been religious at all and the closest thing to a personal understanding of halonic faith that she has is like, the emotional version of walking around in booty shorts with “FUCK YOU TOO, GOD” printed on the ass. at least aymeric isn’t the only one having a crisis of faith right now; most of ishgard is slogging through it with him, so i imagine the church is offering lots of discussion groups and religious literacy courses and such.

the topic of marriage is not something they actually discussed so much as they tripped and fell face-first into, and i have a wip relating to it but the short version is that they might as well, because even if hanami is not terribly enthused by the concept of weddings she is very enthused by the concept of aymeric having a physical, legal tie to her family, who pretty much adopted him on sight. and aymeric has always kind of viewed marriage as an eventual obligation that he’s been putting off, so finding someone he would enjoy marrying is a pleasant surprise.

death is kind of an inevitable talking point when you’re both a) career warriors and b) survivors of at least one assassination attempt each. it’s not fun, but it’s something they have talked about, usually on a walk around some far-flung corner of the city so they don’t stink up the house with emotional sludge.

the serious answer re: children is that yes, they have talked about it; hanami loves kids (and...kind of legally already has at least one, if you close one eye and tilt your head at the ramifications of the drk 60 quest) and aymeric is open to the idea, ignoring his emotional hangups courtesy of thordan, but...not right now. kids are something that neither of them could handle at the moment, considering their respective obligations and the uncertainty of the immediate future, so: maybe someday, not now, but hanami will keep spoiling the shit out of mune and rielle and ryne and aymeric is getting used to the idea of being a cool uncle.

the joke answer, which you absolutely brought upon yourself, is that hanami is the mom friend of balefire and the first time lunya crashed into the congregation and yelled “MOOOM! DAAAAAD! SATINA’S TRYING TO MAKE ME EAT A FROG AGAIN” they both did a mental blue screen of death, but the fifteenth time it happened they didn’t even look up from their afternoon tea and hanami told sati to go to her room.

31. - Do they finish each other’s sentences? Pick up any phrases or habits from each other? Know when the other is hiding something?

yes to all! they’re very good at reading each other. aymeric in particular finishes a lot of hanami’s sentences--she tries very hard to speak either eorzean or ishgardian despite echo interference, but her vocabulary is sort of limited, so if she “loses” a word she tends to trail off mid-sentence, and aymeric has gotten good at figuring out what she was trying to say and reminding her. (aymeric has been trying to learn doman, but his issue is usually with syntax, which the echo auto-corrects when hanami hears it, so she’s no help.) 

34. - Do they have any pets?

yes! aymeric has an extraordinarily cantankerous old cat named mandragora, who the lady borel brought in when he was a teenager and who has been the uncontested queen of the manor ever since. (i like to imagine she’s some kind of cross between a ragdoll and a himalayan--very fluffy, white and gray fur, big yellow eyes, general appearance of an old soldier who’s telling you the same story about her war days for the tenth time while smoking a pipe and glaring into the middle distance.) hanami has a “pet” panther named katsu, who is really more of a hunting companion and who lives in raincatcher gully where she can terrorize the local beastkin. she has also recently acquired a “hunting” dog named kira, who is a black shiba inu she rescued as a puppy while in yanxia and who, like katsu, just wouldn’t leave her alone. kira lives in the manor, slobbers everywhere, plays happy victim to mandragora’s tormenting, and is completely useless for hunting because she gets too excited by Being With Her People And Having Walkies.

elysa/addie

4. - First impression of each other? Was it love at first sight?

they met so long ago they don’t really remember it--addie was barely a toddler and elysa couldn’t even walk yet. it definitely wasn’t love at first sight. it was love at four in the morning, when they were having their five hundredth sleepover, and elysa was thinking about how she and addie had been playing with their dolls and pretending they were having a wedding and had made little dresses out of an old pillowcase, and she thought “addie and i should do that for real someday” and then promptly rolled over and fell asleep, because four am is kinda of late for a ten-year-old.

12. - Is there a wedding? What was the proposal like? Any kind of honeymoon?

there is a wedding. it’s a mess, and they actually just get married by a resistance officer so they can have the paper. the proposal goes something like: “hey, we should get married.” “...why?” “why not? let’s do it now.” “why?” “do you have anything better to do?” and they don’t have a honeymoon, although they’ve been living in a perpetual “honeymoon stage” since they got together after the liberation, but when they did go back to visit elysa’s parents for winter’s knell and said “by the way, we’re married now” all seven hells broke loose.

26. - How do their friends feel about their relationship? Their families?

supportive. very supportive. thank fuck, you finally did it supportive. being around these two pining for like a solid decade was EXHAUSTING.

36. - What’s their greatest strength as a couple? Their weakness?

their greatest strength is their trust! they didn’t lose faith in each others’ dedication or friendship even when they were separated for years. addie has always trusted elysa to be her closest, most reliable friend, and to care for her like no one else would; elysa trusts addie to be her rock and her good sense, and to be a voice of reason and understanding when her world gets repeatedly rocked.

their big weakness is confrontation. they’re bad at it. please don’t ask them to talk any more about what happened when elysa left for limsa, they’ll both cry.

haruki/a’dewah

2. - How’s their team work? Do they share well?

their teamwork...has its shaky moments (goddammit dewah quit running away from your feelings--) but overall they’re solid; if not even the garlean empire and an entire calamity could drive them apart, nothing is going to, at this point. they share everyday responsibility pretty well; haruki doesn’t slack off when it comes to housework or helping out audeo, so he and dewah both pull their weight.

combat-wise, they’re a dream team. heavy-hitting dps and pocket healer? both blessed by ancient auspices who have known each other since the mountains were young? hell yeah. haruki will be the first to admit that he’s not up to scratch by warrior of light standards, but he does his best and between the two of him, he and dewah are a formidable team.

8. - What do the like best about their partner?

haruki loves a’dewah’s bravery. he literally put himself on the line for the sake of his siblings and tsukiko for years; that takes courage and dedication the likes of which haruki has never seen. not only that, but he had the strength to leave, even when he was risking reprisals just by sneaking out to play at night, never mind running away for good.

also: he’s fun-size. perfect for scooping into his lap for flustering and cuddle purposes.

26. - How do their friends feel about their relationship? Their families?

generally supportive! haruki’s family has known about a’dewah since before he left yanxia (his moms were appropriately cautious about haruki running around so close to a castrum, but proud of him for looking out for his new friend; akinaga was mostly worried-by-way-of-disapproval; hanami didn’t trust a’dewah as far as she could throw him; the twins were mostly ambivalent so long as haruki didn’t try to do anything stupid with his catboy that would piss off the soldiers). 

hanami still didn’t trust dewah when they met again in eorzea--not because of anything relating to haruki, which she had forgotten about (thanks crystal mom), but because she knew he was lying about not having met her before and she couldn’t figure out why. it only went downhill once the raid on baelsar’s wall happened and dewah’s old commander recognized him, but the longer she spent with him traveling through yanxia and seeing him really earnestly trying to undo the harm the empire did the more she eased up on him, and once she saw how happy haruki was to have him back and how easily mune took to him she just kind of gave up and accepted it. she still won’t admit to liking him--he’s stupid and avoidant and exasperating--but he’s family, so she loves him anyway. even if it’s hilarious watching him get scared shitless when she walks in the room.

and, of course, shomi and maki have adopted him. he’s their son now. no take-backsies. the twins still don’t like him, but that’s because of haruki, not anything to do with dewah himself. and mune adores his uncle dewah.