#trash elezen bloggin

[ronsenboobi]

so, update, i've not only returned to ffxiv, but i also have a proper sub (rather than hopping in for a free login period and fucking immediately off again) for the first time since 2016 thanks to a dear friend! i've also completed heavensward and moved on to stormblood, which i'm very excited about 💪

so, if anyone's interested in hearing more about sairsel arroway's adventures in eorzea, it's all contained in this nifty twitter thread!

[ronsenboobi]

everyone on xiv twitter and tumblr is making those cute edits of their characters when they started playing and i love it but all my old screenshots of sairsel are on an external hard drive and i'm mobile so here is my tribute in text, which is what i do best anyway

sairsel in 2015: a dumbass

sairsel in 2018: an even bigger dumbass

[ronsenboobi]

@zodiac-rave replied to your post: “i miss sairsel :(((”

let me bother tree man

@crimson-bull replied to your post: “i miss sairsel :(((”

come home soon Tree Man, Papa Bull misses you

here he is

[ronsenboobi]

Hilda: [shows up in MSQ for 20 seconds of non-cutscene dialogue and stand in an uncharacteristic classic anime pose] me: I Have Never Felt More Alive

[ronsenboobi]

april 2018: eorzea sairsel, the resistance, and a conversation. 929 words.

“Boy.”

Sairsel only stopped because he felt the old bear’s eyes on him. That was the weight he had on all of them—but Sairsel couldn’t tell whether it was heavier for the kids who’d grown up around him, or for some forestborn mutt who was only here because his mother had bled for the Resistance time and time again. Either way, he listened; they all did. In this, at least, he wasn’t making himself stand out, whether by trying or no.

“Sit down.”

I will if you tell me what my name is and the answer doesn’t include the words “Morgana” or “son,” he thought. Being around his cynical, sharp-tongued, vitriolic mother was training him in arrogance almost just as much as sword-skill, but he wasn’t yet brazen enough to mouth off at the old bear, of all people. He sat without protest opposite him, watching as the old bear broke off a chunk of bread and ate; had he not called for him in the first place, Sairsel would have thought that he was ignoring him.

“Why are you here?”

Sairsel had expected a lot of things, but not that. “I—to fight for Ala Mhigo. So you can all go home.”

“See, that’s a decent enough answer. I’m not asking my people to be philosophers; I ask them to have heart and loyalty and to be fearless and strike true, together. Any of the kids your age would say the same. They’ve seen Ala Mhigo no more than you—you’ve lived closer to Baelsar’s Wall than any of them have, in fact. And yet, they’re more Ala Mhigan than you’ll ever be. Do you know why that is?”

“Because of the ears? The tattoos?”

“That’s what you think,” said the old bear, and met Sairsel’s gaze with that unfaltering, daunting steadiness that made him everything he was. With the flames of the nearby torches dancing in his eyes, he looked utterly timeless. “But you’re wrong. The answer to that question is in what you just said.”

Sairsel frowned. “I don’t follow.”

“No, you don’t. ‘So you can all go home’—‘you,’ Arroway. Not ‘we.’ The other kids your age may not have seen Ala Mhigo in all their lifetimes, but they’ve never had anywhere else to call home. I won’t lay out all the hardships they’ve known and that you haven’t; that’s pointless. You’ve already heard enough from your mother and Riot and that Garin boy, and nothing I can say would make you understand anymore than that because you haven’t known it.”

“That doesn’t mean it doesn’t eat at me,” Sairsel said, voice thick. “Or that I don’t—”

“I know, boy. I don’t mean to scold you. You’re a useful agent and I can’t afford to turn away someone useful if they want to fight and they’re not a nuisance, but I want you to be honest with me and with yourself as to why you’re here.”

Sairsel dropped his gaze to his hands, running the pad of a finger along the inside of the fabric wrapped around his palms, and said, “Morgana.”

“And if she weren’t fighting, you wouldn’t be. Maybe you’d still care, but you wouldn’t put your life on the line,” the old bear said. He took another bite, his thick white mustache quivering as he chewed. “It’s honourable, what you’re doing—and surprisingly Mhigan of you, I’d say. You only have one mother, no matter how hard she is, and I know Arroway counts herself lucky every day that you’re here in the first place. Many wouldn’t be.”

“Why are you telling me this, sir?” Sairsel asked gently, afraid to overstep his bounds. That was how it was half the time, here; the other half was spent clinging to what made him different, perhaps irreverently so, because it was still a part of who he was and what he’d always been. As much as the last few months blurred together in his memories, a big part of what he took away from it was that struggle between keeping what he had before his mother and taking what she now brought into his life.

The old bear wouldn’t have had to answer; Sairsel understood that this was exactly why he was telling him all of that. Because his struggle was personal, not the Resistance’s.

“I need you focused, boy. I need to know that when the time comes, you’ll bleed—not just for your mother, not just for the Resistance, but for Ala Mhigo. In my experience, when it’s for anything less, they always end up faltering when they start to see their own blood.”

“I’m here, sir,” Sairsel said, setting his jaw. He wanted to show no arrogance; only his resolve. “I think anyone who knows me would say that it’s half a miracle I’m staying in one place. That’s my focus.”

Whether or not that was a good answer, the old bear wouldn’t let show; he simply nodded and went back to his food, sparing him little more attention. “Go on, then. As I understand it, you need a lot more sword-skill training to be anything close to doing your mother proud.”

“Aye, sir,” Sairsel said. Instead of saying the Resistance had been glad enough for his bow so far, he just stood and dusted his trousers off, then made to turn. At this point, he was just short of saluting, but he was as unlikely to ever do it as the old man was to positively receive it.

“And, Arroway—save the visits to Riot’s little bar in the Goblet for after we’ve freed Ala Mhigo.”

[ronsenboobi]

i still have WAY too much mommy issues for you to be calling me your son hydaelyn (the sequel to this)

[ronsenboobi]

@therealmtraversed is a wise sage

[ronsenboobi]

sairsel: im love u

hilda: mmmmmmmmlucia

[ronsenboobi]

“sairsel: i’ve only known khloe for a day and a half but if anything happened to her i would kill everyone in idyllshire and then myself” - @onwesterlywinds

[ronsenboobi]

as i’ve mentioned before, warrior of light!sairsel isn’t canon, but this closing scene is so in character for him and it gave me a bit of a feel

[ronsenboobi]

aaaaa

[ronsenboobi]

handsome

[ronsenboobi]

sairsel loves ishgardians

[ronsenboobi]

artoirel: blah blah blah ishgard stuff blah blah am i not perpertuating this injustice?

sairsel: idk man i live in a tree

[ronsenboobi]

logged tf in

[ronsenboobi]

sairsel loves the scholasticate because he knows he could beat up every single one of these nerds