#minfilia WILL come back

[stubbornyucca]

I suppose the time has come to suffer...

[fheythfully]

6.3.24 NG+

[charulein]

Ough, I need to do a write up of how meeting Venat changed Stubborn,,,,,

[sheeshiki]

if anything is going to happen to her i'll kill everyone in my party and then myself

[thefinalwitness]

"it does not... make you sad?"

"should it? rain is rather sparse back home. yet it is as a lifeblood. a gift. i should want to accept it with gratitude."

"..."

#minfilia #meteion

[drkcatt]

hmmm... wouldnt krile be at minfilias funeral?? or not??

(side note: anon is so excited that krile is important for dt, shes anons fav msq char)

the honest explanation is that i just wanted to keep it as a scene between a'vaya and f'lhaminn. the lore explanation is that i think f'lhaminn specifically asked a'vaya because she knew that a'vaya needed to see the burial the most out of everyone due to how she mourned minfilia, and she probably wouldn't have said anything if it was a big event. i think the scions had plans to do a greater ceremony but um... SOMEONE threw a wrench in that by COMING BACK TO LIFE

don't worry though, krile is important in this au im not brushing her off! im really excited to see her get a spotlight in dawntrail !!! beloved krill :)

[wintersneg]

what the fuck did minfilia, the most woman ever, just fucking die???????? this is so fucked up wtf ????? why would they do this to me?? girl please say sike this is so fucked up this is so upsetting i need a lobotomy

[thefinalwitness]

:)

Has your WoL ever been in love?

[impossible-rat-babies]

tossing around Several Thoughts:

—charon is an old soul. returned to the star only a handful of times, and she as herself has been around for A Very Long Time. it’s a funny thing about her soul, the desire for longevity. her dominion over fate and ushering the dead means she rarely crosses the boundary herself. and when she does cross, it often comes with periods of stagnation; few people feel the urge to return to the star when there is no longer the warden to shepherd them. This part of her soul carries on in 1.0, and her place as the Caretaker of the mother. eyrie takes after more of her adventure and dominion over fate (in an abstract sense of the word) while 1.0 takes after the ushering the dead in a literal sense. Two sides of the same coin. funny how part of charon ended up in the longest lived humanoid race on the star.

—her current reincarnation is much younger—more “fresh” lol she’s close to elidibus’s age. Her memories and dense soul very much persist. however this is her first time being in the position of Azem.

—eyrie’s echo was sparked by hydaelyn, yes, and much of how it manifested is eyrie seeing not only the past and living it, but the compulsion of love; the love they feel is intense and as abiding as hydaelyn’s love for people and the world. the thing is that much of that was shaped by eyrie themselves; they love deeply and without reserve, albeit it’s quiet. it’s a whisper and a gesture, but always abiding. their echo merely built upon the core of their being.

[tsunael]

wolcred week |  1. 'the first.'

They all knew it was coming. Either their brightest star would claim the last of the Light, or the Light would claim her.

What were they to do but careen to their inevitable deaths? He had sacrificed one lamb for another, and now a third was to be laid upon the butcher's block. How many must die so that another might live?

He would not forget the sight of the woman before him, holding her outstretched hands aloft as the curtain of Light parted one last time to reveal the night sky in all her glory. Menphina smiled down in a smirk of a crescent for their efforts, and just as she had appeared, was the curtain drawn once again.

He didn’t need an aetherometer to see that Tsuna was suffused– the aether was thick, cloying enough to be seen. The ewer of her body failed to contain it, finally splitting at the seams for a means of escape.

Their ascian friend dealt the final blow. The Exarch, in his well-meaning duplicity, left for dead. And then Tsuna slumped to the ground, just as lifeless.

He ought to be angry– furious– for Urianger’s joint deception, for his own empty hands, or for the cards Sister Fate had dealt them time and time again, but the queer feeling roiling within him was not one of anger, but of fear. He stood there, powerless, shaking to his core whilst the twins rushed to Tsuna’s aid alongside Ryne.

Even Minfilia could not wholly extinguish the Light– she could only freeze it in time– and as Ryne sank to her knees beside the supine woman in hopes of doing the same, he could only watch in abject horror.

“Give her room,” he barked, though the twins were undeserving of his ire as he approached. They still took a collective step back.

Brilliant white blood readily trickled from Tsuna’s nose, and by way of her laboured breathing it was evident that she was being torn apart by a force of which a layman could not hope to see. Something within Tsuna was stirring, whether it was brought about by her own will, or by Ryne’s suppression, he couldn’t know.

It began first in her hands as they twitched and grasped for purchase, then her spine as it coiled. Her eyes snapped open, hungry and searching, as she lunged for the Oracle’s throat in hopes of supping upon the wellspring.

Thancred fell to his knees, wrestling the woman onto her back as an inhuman screech tore from her throat. “Don't stop!”  he cried out, harsh with concerted effort. There was an unnatural strength burgeoning within her tiny frame that even as a man grown he struggled to contend with, and if Ryne did not finish the ritual, it would swallow them whole.

Ryne was shaken, but nothing if not determined. The power flowed through her once more, and Tsuna’s struggles came to a head. She thrashed upon the ground against his weight, spitting blood, and gnashing teeth. She would bite her tongue if it kept up-- he could barely hold her steady long enough for Ryne to work in her magicks. 

“In our lifetime, please!” 

"I'm trying!" "Ryne made a frustrated growl of effort as a bead of sweat rolled down her cheek. The very aether about them seemed to compress, tangible enough that even he could feel it become leaden as it coalesced.

Tsuna cried out one last time, waning to a whine as she pushed wildly against his arms, seizing. Her legs writhed as if a sudden, great pain knifed through her. And then all was silent. 

Ryne immediately flagged, catching herself on the marble. Her power had all but been exhausted whilst he held the aftermath limp in his arms. Y’shtola and Urianger had begun to crowd about, to inquire, to plan, to move, but all he could do was hold the small woman in his arms, and pray to the Twelve, unseen, that the Light did not break through once again whilst their last bastion was too weak to hold.

“Ryne,” he called, softly, intently. Apology was writ together in his tone. “Are you all right?”

She nodded, though he knew she waned, looking close to tears from it all.

He swallowed thickly, realising he shared in the sentiment. 

Adjusting Tsuna’s body in his arms, he felt just how cold she had grown. They needed a chirurgeon's assistance, and to get off this Godsforsaken rock, but more than that they needed a miracle. His hands would not stop trembling.

“Ryne, you know that I would not deign to ask a favour of you.” He breathed for a long moment, hanging his head low in penance. “Gods–” He swore. “You have to help her. I– We can’t lose her to this.”

Ryne stared back at him, having caught her breath, eyes wide, and glassy. She was searching him for something he couldn't know.

She opened her mouth, before aborting the question. Finally, she pursed her lips, looking uneasy in a way that only managed to make him feel worse. 

“I’ll do what I can,” she whispered, and he had no choice but to believe.

[wind-up-thancred]

bit of thancred character musing under the cut that im gonna try to approximate from a 6am discord rambling into something i can actually post. both SHB and EW spoilers included

i saw some folks talking on twt about how guilt seems to be a very important factor in his life and i agree. i think a lot of major parts of his character and arcs have been due to guilt over something he did (or didnt even really do, re: the whole goobue rampage situation). it's driven him to work his ass off after louisoix which lead to him getting possessed... but its probably also what motivated him to do better for ryne after being forced to look his fuckups directly in the eye instead of just wallowing about them. but i think, at the same time, he doesnt really seem to, like... actually be proud of himself for a lot of the stuff he's done in order to work off that guilt? the biggest giveaway for that being the line in endwalker on the ragnarok where he talks about his "good deeds" cynically and seems to insist that they were never really that impactful in the first place. that they'll just go to dust when he dies.

in shb, during the ahm areng segment, not only does he talk down on himself in general, but also puts down his attempts to help OG minfilia back in the pre-ARR days... when i'm pretty sure she never even blamed him for the goobue rampage in the first place.

it's all a little bit sad to me, tbh. i've seen some people reason that, because he was only able to escape poverty due to louisoix seeing potential in his thieving skills, he's essentially internalized the idea that he's only really worth keeping around by ANYONE if he's actively being productive, either helping others or trying to fix whatever fuckups he feels he's made. i think that would explain a lot of this

note the "few positive traits" line, which to me comes across as "i was only picked up out of childhood poverty because he thought my skills were useful." though i don't really know how much of that mentality he's managed to work past by post endwalker. he IS able to go off on his own, and mentions that he trusts the scions to keep themselves safe now... but as i ranted about before, the short story points out that he's only really content to rest briefly before he feels obligated again to seek out unrest to try and help, specifically mentioning minfilia again. also, a couple times during the story, notably post ARR after his possession, mid SHB after he's wounded in a fight with sineaters, and post SHB after he passes out due to the weakening soul-body bond, he seems to dislike even having to rest for medical reasons

it's a pretty interesting part of his character to me. idk if the writers specifically had his rigorous upbringing in mind when they wrote these parts of his character, but to me it would make a lot of sense as an explanation for why he's so averse to rest and why he carries so much guilt and why he's so passionate about keeping the folks around him safe. that's kinda been his whole reason for life since he was a kid-- using his skills for the benefit of others. to him, doing anything other than that would be a waste, it seems.

idk. funny guy makes my heart hurt. yes i had all these dialogue screencaps saved and on hand. yes i am a little insane. what of it

[anneapocalypse]

As I've been putting together a timeline for fic purposes I have been going back over dialogue and cutscenes for a LOT of old quests--all of ARR especially kind of blurs together in my head so I've needed a refresher to remember the order things happened in, and something jumps out at me

and that's that Urianger getting drawn in by Elidibus and deciding to act alone without telling any of the Scions what he's doing, in addition to coming not long after Moenbryda's death, also corresponds pretty directly to Minfilia not being around to check in with him anymore.

I think it's evident in ARR how much Urianger looks to Minfilia, how much he respects her and how much trust he places in her as a leader. As the Antecedent she is in many ways Louisoix's successor; she's the glue that's holding together these two groups with aligned goals but pretty different reasons for being there, Louisoix's archon book club and Minfilia's echo support group. After the Scions move to the Rising Stones and Urianger stays at the Waking Sands as its caretaker, more than ever it's probably Minfilia who is keeping him in the loop.

And then one day she's just gone. And Urianger is still in touch with the Warrior of Light and Alphinaud and Tataru as he aids in the search for the missing Scions... but his anchor is missing. The one person he might have turned to is now beyond his reach. And in a way, he still does turn to her; it is Minfilia on whom his plan ultimately hinges, once he knows she has been chosen as Hydaelyn's intermediary. But any chance to consult with her before he undertakes all his shadowy maneuvering is denied him.

I just wonder how differently things would have gone for him, had he not lost her too.

[charulein]

Not me writing something that will tear me asunder emotionally once I've progressed with shb lmao

[plounce]

WIP whenever!

thanks @anneapocalypse for the tag :~) your little snippet was extremely sweet and seasonal heheh

scraping through my memory and tagging @ostentenacity , @transgenderlestat , @faelithurgy , @nongunktional , @peepooworld , aaaaaaaand @lesbianmarrow . but only if you want to. AND @ecosystem-administrator i KNEW i was forgetting someone

i do have something that i'm finishing up that will be posted very soon, but this isn't that. it's an ancestor to jerkwol, but instead with generic meteor man being a more masc jerk than the mviera i eventually created for that line of thought. still bad news for thancred though. i wrote this in june 2023 and have not worked on it since. be free, abandoned wip!

(CWs for some drinking and a general sense of uneasiness and discomfort about a man. this was meant to be the start of a downhill slide to realizing your godkilling hero is actually a total douchebag)

It had started after Operation Archon. Perhaps not started - begun. It had begun then, even though he didn't know it yet.

There had been parties all over the place to celebrate the Garleans being driven from Eorzea, and the Waking Sands was no exception. The halls were bright and loud, ringing with drinking songs, excited conversation, and cheers for the man of the hour. Meteor had made his rounds through the crowd, handsome grin on his face as he received compliment after compliment. He shook hands, gave hugs, and was overall the very picture of a hero.

Thancred was doing his best to sketch a picture of who he usually was, but he knew he was failing. He just didn't have it in him. The joy pervading the room was only so infectious when one was recovering from being puppeted around by a villainous madman, and he had been nursing his first drink of the night - maybe the alcohol would soothe him and allow him to enjoy the festivities, but every time he went to down it, he remembered that night in that inn in east Thanalan, and he found himself nauseous.

For the majority of the evening, he'd stationed himself next to Urianger, the elezen's notoriously reclusive personality and unfashionable appearance enough to ward off most of those who sought to approach Thancred in an attempt to comfort him ("glad you're doing alright" he's not; "it's not your fault" it is). Urianger hated drinking with strangers, and could easily be prodded into rambling about any given book on the surrounding shelves. His low, steady voice was soothing, and trying to keep up with his vocabulary kept Thancred's mind occupied enough.

Minfilia was the center of the crowd, radiating warmth, light, and joy like the sun. He couldn't bear to speak with her. Not after he'd failed her yet again. She'd told him that she didn't blame him, that she was simply glad they'd managed to get him back, but her forgiveness (as ever) was too much for him to comprehend, much less accept.

The evening wore on. Urianger excused himself to take Louisoix's grandson to bed, and predictably took that as a way to escape the party himself. Thancred wished he could do the same, but his exhaustion was outweighed by the bone-deep need to keep Minfilia in sight when there was drink flowing in a packed room, and she didn't look like she was going to leave anytime soon.

"Quite a looker, isn't she?"

Thancred didn't jump (that had been trained out of him long ago), but he did tense. Meteor had somehow teleported from the other side of the room, holding two drinks.

At Thancred's silence, he added, "Minfilia, I mean." He nodded towards her.

Thancred swirled his own drink, watching the undoubtedly lukewarm liquid slosh in the mug. "Aye, she's grown up well." He'd dealt with this conversation before - other men who took his own philandering as permission to bawdily discuss Minfilia's looks with him. It ranged from uncomfortable to infuriating, and a few broken noses had come of it. He didn't know Meteor as well as some of the others did, and this had the potential to be a poor start to their working relationship, especially since Thancred already owed him an unpayable debt for saving him from Lahabrea.

Meteor looked at him consideringly for a long moment. Thancred shifted, suddenly uncomfortable. He lifted his drink to his mouth, and actually drained the mug. Old habits die hard.

As soon as he set the mug down on Urianger's worktable, he found another being crowded into his hand. "Er, sorry, but I–"

"I actually got this for you," Meteor said, nudging it into his palm until he gave up and took it. "You looked lonely over here, and having Urianger as company couldn't have made for the best party experience."

Thancred's eyes narrowed, but he made himself chuckle. "Well, when you've known him for as long as I have, you get used to him."

"If you say so," Meteor laughed, and took a swig of his drink. Thancred copied him. Maybe he would drink a little. Anything to make this conversation with his savior less awkward.

They continued to talk and drink – well, Meteor did most of the talking, sharing anecdotes from his journey up to this point, and chatting with people who stopped by to congratulate and thank him. Thancred mostly nodded and hummed, working on his drink. He'd planned to have that be his last one, but Meteor grabbed him another one, and it was decent ale tonight, and Thancred couldn't stand it when the others came by and joined them because he had nothing to add but his poor mood, so he drank to cover it up. It was fine. He knew his limits. He did. Maybe they weren't as good as he thought they were before all this, but he'd learned his lesson.

[dualcastimpact]

Just went through the confrontation with Nabriales and Moenbryda's sacrifice (again) and out of all the major deaths that the story keeps coming back to, Moenbryda and Papalymo's feel the least organic, at least in terms of building up that emotional rapport with the Warrior of Light and/or player enough for the Warrior of Light and/or player to be impacted by their passing. Haurchefant interacts prominently with the Warrior of Light and is a reoccurring character all the way from ARR and halfway into Heavensward. We get a whole expansion with Ysayle. We get a whole expansion with Ardbert. Emet-Selch gets TWO expansions, and even Venat and Hythlodaeus get two whole dedicated levels for us to hang out with. You can't argue the same for Moenbryda and Papalymo, who barely interact with the Warrior of Light and in fact never seem to have any significant one-to-one moments with them.

You could argue that Moenbryda's and Papalymo's deaths don't in fact affect the Warrior of Light all too badly like the others' deaths do—and you'd be right! Moenbryda's death is Urianger's grief. Papalymo's death is Lyse's grief. The Warrior of Light doesn't grieve them the way they grieve Haurchefant or Ysayle, or Ardbert, or the Ancients they meet in Elpis, and that's not the issue. The issue is that the game, especially with Moenbryda, tries to make the player feel something for their deaths when they've not allowed the player to engage with the characters enough for us to feel anything for their passing. I'd argue I feel worse about Wilred dying than I did for Moenbryda and Papalymo, and that's because we see so much more of him with the Little Ala Mhigo sequence and his interactions with us while he was in the Crystal Braves; we see him grow as a character, however brief and unrelated to us it was, and we don't get that with Moenbryda and Papalymo.

To make matters worse, Moenbryda's and Papalymo's deaths were driven by their connection to Louisoix: Moenbryda in wishing to understand his motivations for leaving her behind and sacrificing himself for the sake of some no-name place called Eorzea, and Papalymo in wishing to prove himself Louisoix's finest pupil, following his master's footsteps in sacrificing himself to temporarily seal the dread primal Shinryu. Again, that's not the issue—the issue is that ARR only gives us crumbs about Louisoix and the Circle of Knowing, crumbs that are nowhere near enough to make us care about him! Oh, Moenbryda and Papalymo are both paying homage to Louisoix through their sacrifice? Oh well, nothing to do with me! I don't know anything about Louisoix to warrant my caring!

It wouldn't be such an aggravation if the story doesn't insist on making the player care. You have a sequence with Moenbryda's parents comforting Urianger in Endwalker, and there's a sidequest involving Papalymo's father as well—their deaths are not forgotten! They're hearkened back to! They're even included in this image of the fallen made floating in the aetherial sea!

Clearly their sacrifice is considered as major as Minfilia's and Haurchefant's and Ysayle's, which would make sense if the game bothered to put in the effort to make us care about Moenbryda and Papalymo in the first place!

Okay. Rant over. I initially wanted to write about how Raginmar very likely called Kirika to help heal Moenbryda before he went after Nabriales and Minfilia—in-game it makes sense for the Warrior of Light to not be able to call anyone, but by post-ARR Raginmar's adventuring party is pretty established; they're all connected by linkpearls and can contact each other in an emergency, and Moenbryda getting blasted in the stomach by a column of dark aether very much counts as an emergency. There's one issue with that scenario, however:

Papalymo: "She was counting on the theory that a soul's aether burns brightest at the moment of its passing. A scholar until the very end..."

Moenbryda was dying when she gave up her life to temper the aetherial blade. That was the theory she was counting on: that her soul's aether, near its end, would burn brightest at the second of her death and be enough to augment the aetherial blade.

Thancred: "She gave her life to temper the blade of Light? I...I have no words."

If Raginmar was able to get Kirika to come and try to heal Moenbryda, that makes this plot point implausible. She wouldn't have been near death if a healer was at hand. A solution to that problem would be Kirika actually failing to heal Moenbryda and managing to only staunch the wound instead of healing it, but that's additional trauma for Kirika that I have to think about and work on, and I do not have the time for that— oh no— I can feel the brainworms coming—

[drkcatt]

anon just saw your comic and h o l y shit, they love it

(but why wasnt thancred at the funeral??)

THANK YOU!!

okay so here's the thing. i didnt do this quest for a really long time (fake minfilia fan, i know) and i didnt realize that it was from 5.1 and not 5.3, so the whole time i was like "wow thancred really could have come to her funeral and he DIDN'T? typical" (HE WAS IN ANOTHER WORLD.) and i went with that for my canon because of my misconception. i've actually written a pretty large script of how my au goes up to the beginning of 5.4, and I DID address why he wasn't there!

i'll hopefully make that comic another day, but the basis of it is that a'vaya and thancred have a historically rocky relationship, especially when it comes to minfilia. even though they've gotten back on the same page by the end of 5.0 and then even more with eden, they still give each other a really wide berth when it comes to her. Thancred has buried minfilia in his own way internally, so he decided that the one who should bury the cat's eye with f'lhaminn should be a'vaya. he does regret not going, a'vaya regrets not telling him to come directly. these two have a lot of regrets always. they never talk about how they feel it's horrible. and, haha, i will always bring this up,

(from One Name, One Promise - Tales from the Shadows)

that last line! "he had seen the girl safely home" he saw ryne "home," helping her live in a better world, he saw minfilia home, letting her finally rest. but welcoming her back and putting her to rest with f'lhaminn? that's not for him. that's for a'vaya.

TL;DR, he did want to go but he psyched himself out into thinking he wasn't welcome. his presence was missed.