heart- and hearth-soul shield us all

Thought a pinned post for this blog wouldn't go amiss - welcome to my Final Fantasy XIV sideblog and the tumblr homebase for my Hearth-Kin AU!

A quick introduction, for starters:

Me: You can call me Cobalt!

Current MSQ status (first-ever playthrough): STARTING ENDWALKER!!!

My Warrior of Light: Indigo Vespertine, Keeper of the Moon Miqo'te and former wandering adventurer/musician before WoL duties took precedence:

In regards to asks: Feel free to ask about anything I'm working on, or my characters, or even just random questions! Just as long as you're polite and respectful, I'll usually answer it.

Important tags:

#reblogs - this is anything I've reblogged from someone else, whether or not I've added anything to said reblog.

#indigo vespertine - this is anything featuring my boy, including screenshots, thoughts on how he would react to gameplay, answers to WoL questions, and anything Hearth-Kin related that he's in! I also have an #other people's wols tag as part of my reblogs, for anything featuring other people's cool Warriors of Light.

#au: hearth-kin - speaking of the AU, here's the main tag for it! this includes planning, rambling, and any random questions, so anything directly related to occurrences in the actual series on AO3 will also fall under #series: hearth-kin and home-roads. there will be specific "fic:" tags as well, for anything relating to a particular fic in that series.

Characters as a rule will be tagged underneath their full name, if they have one, e.g. "#alphinaud leveilleur", "#alisaie leveilleur", "#midgardsormr", "#tataru taru", etc.

i wonder where you are i wanted you to show me the way around these city walls the way on through ~ City Walls, Twenty One Pilots

Sooooo, guess I'm softlaunching the mutually-unspoken 4+ year quietly-yearning slowburn just added to the Hearth-Kin AU with a seven-page screenshots edit?

... honestly, that's pretty par for the course for me, whatever. Indigo/Estinien is a go!!

~ On Sidequesting in the Greatwood

Alphinaud who has so many stories of Alisaie hanging out with their grandfather, and people who seem to have been pretty integral to at least some of their childhood like Urianger - but doesn't really seem to tell any about himself doing the same.

Alphinaud who wanted so badly to be like his grandfather without truly understanding the underlying motivation; whose plans fell down around him so badly his entire personality shifted - as if it had been at least partially a construction in the first place.

Alphinaud with whom lot of people who knew him back in Sharlayan, including his sister, often mention he was popular; but he never mentions any actual friends before he starts calling you and the other Scions that as you move through Heavensward.

Alphinaud who was years younger than his peers at the Studium, whose time there we are only told in stories of him trying to impress others and speaking in grand designs, all between age eleven to age sixteen.

Alphinaud who, even after Heavensward, sometimes still carries himself at an odd distance from other people, as if there's some kind of need for him to keep things professional or as if he isn't quite sure how to process difficult emotions without at least partly locking them away.

Alphinaud who stays collected and careful so often but stores so much fear and grief and anger from all that's happened that sometimes it all breaks through and forces him to pull it all back in to get things done.

Alphinaud who very quickly latches onto mentor and older-sibling figures in his life, and calls back to their words and actions often in both direct and indirect ways - Haurchefant, Ysayle, Estinien, Arenvald, the Warrior of Light, all just to name the most obvious.

Alphinaud who writes letters to his mother back home but rarely speaks of either of his parents, or Sharlayan, unless it's relevant.

Alphinaud who is surrounded by people who care for him, and for whom he cares deeply - but is constantly berating himself for his mistakes and his perceived failures alike, and wishing he could do better than he already has despite doing more than most people his age have ever done.

Alphinaud whose response to caring about people is to place all the weight of their wellbeing onto his own shoulders, as if it's an ingrained habit to carry so very much.

At the very least, a multiversal mix-up gives you more potential solutions for avoiding pixie pranks, if you put all your heads together. ~ the Crystal Exarch, probably

A Warrior, a Red Mage, an Arcanist who needs to pick up a job stone already, and the soon-to-be-Clan Vesper trio - who have far too many jobs between them as it is - walk into Lydha Lran... I realised Far Too Late after making the Indigo-and-V'yyksi GPose for @warrior-of-fight-or-flight that I should have added at least one set of twins; so my solution was to just do a second Goofy Goobers shot with both sets included - both V'yyksi's closer-to-canon twinsies (though I could not figure out how to give them the Big Ol' Ears, sadly :(( ), and my own extended-timeline-with-added-blorbo-torture-nexus ones who were allowed one (1) growth spurt during the second half of Hearth-Kin AU's Stormblood, making them just about Indigo-height.

Also, a bonus non-Everlasting Light version, for a better, less-shadowed look at everyone's cute faces: