#ahru things

Dinner - (she grins) “Candlelit?”

Sky - “Freedom.”

Trip - “Fall?”

Season - “Hah. Winter.”

Sleep - “Fine.”

Comfort - “Home.”

Family - “Them.”

Black - “Wolf.”

Fight - “Win.”

Restaurant - “Maybe.”

Home - “Him.”

Power - “...Mine.”

Steal - (she laughs) “More kisses.”

Ocean - “...Dread.”

Drink - “Coffee.”

For Ahru, probably her more intellectual side. …(lmao cuz even for me, calling her an ‘intellectual’ is… kind of a stretch.) She sure doesn’t think of herself in any grand capacity, or as any sort of authority figure on any particular subject, but good god is she a huge bookworm who loves studying and soaking in any new interests. The void, magitech, history, the nature of the world - these are things that she’s spent loads of her free time (and gil) researching - mostly as a hobby, but obviously, in her line of work it does come of use, and the mess of books she’s accrued in her travels is fairly impressive.

But she usually defers (and is happy to do so!) to others such as Alphinaud, Urianger, Cid or Y’shtola when the situation arises. 

@alun-ura who also asked this - but I’mma def go ahead and list two more in addition to this one here!

Ahru’s actually pretty crafty - with alchemy, leatherworking, and culinary arts being her main forte’s. (But I was slipping and that’s on me because crafting makes ME cry.) 

Some of these things she had basic skills in that were clan, or just survival-related, but getting into them further (especially alchemy, magitech tinkering [plz SE give us some sort of magitech crafting class] and later weaving) were distractions for her during her down time when she needed something to preoccupy her hands and mind, and books weren’t cutting it. 

Another is probably her talents as a bard. She was pretty rough around the edges when Thancred and G’raha first started teaching her this and that back in the day, but she’s really grown and blossomed into it. One of her small pleasures is just performing for small crowds or remote taverns where no one knows her name or recognizes her (or sometimes she’ll wear attire to help conceal her identity). 

In part with this, she’s also gotten fairly good at acting, you won’t find her on the Prima Vista’s stage, absolutely not, but her charisma stat is passing decent enough to get her through some sticky situations.

Get in your muse’s headspace!  For each of the words below, add the first word that would come to your character’s mind!

Dinner - “When?”

Sky - “Flight.”

Trip - “Adventure!”

Season - “Winter.”

Sleep - “Please.”

Comfort - “Him.”

Family - “Scions.”

Black - “Familiar.”

Fight - “Fate.”

Restaurant - “No.”

Home - “Heartache.”

Power - “Terrifying.” (She frowns, pauses, and quietly adds; “Necessary.”)

Steal - “Kisses.”

Ocean - “Fish.”

Drink - “Water.”

After you’ve answered these for your character, feel free to send this on to other friends and hear from theirs, use the same words, use different words, use the words you came up with for association!  Just pass the idea along.

Tagged by: @the-ruby-rogue​ - this was fun, thank you so much!

ok so sorta in addition to this one (as a note to everyone: Alphinaud is ALWAYS #1) I’mma aim at the “newer/less prominent” Scions!

RIOL. He has been a long-time fav NPC of mine, I mean, since the Titan quests, and seeing him in the Crystal Braves was SO good and had a lot of significance to Ahru who also had really Bad Feelings around that time (but opted to trust Alphinaud’s and others’ judgments - no shade) [they’re bffs and drinking buddies] 

A’aba, Aulie & Arenvald - the latter especially should get his own slot but they definitely need mention together. Back in early 2.0 I was very big into immersing myself in the story and really making it feel like Ahru was the main character of this game - it was how I really fell in love with the story and XIV as a whole. One part of that, however small, was how much I loved coming back to, or just hanging out at the Waking Sands and thinking up one-shots I’d never actually write about Ahru’s relationships and shenanigans, and a number of these involved these three. You can imagine mine and Ahru’s devastation after Titan.

Arenvald!!!! He gets his own mention cuz he is a SON and I LOVE HIM and want to see him grow up STRONG AND HEALTHY AND HAPPY. 

Alianne & Isildaure - These two having come back around after meeting them so long ago was such a treat, I love their dynamic, and the little bit of livelihood they add to the Rising Stones. Be it Isildaure’s lamenting his age or Alianne’s slight but gentle mother-henning.

:3c Friend. Thank you. Def obviously going with a hard-romantic/intimate lean here.

Gaius - Obvious, of course, but man lemme tell you it blindsided and really took the cake. This ship has just inspired and made me happier than I could have ever imagined. To be really overdramatic about it while I love all my ships a lot of them pale next to just how much fun I’ve had with this one.

Estinien - I’m not gonna lie, I never really thought about this one a lot! Which kind of keeps in line with the ship itself, tbh. I’ve personally always loved Estinien, but it wasn’t actually until, idk, some time late last year? It just suddenly smacked me in the face as a ship like… Oh wait, wow that’s… Pretty Fucking Good. But because I was tits deep in Gaius-loving land, it was p much impossible for me to wrap my head around for a long time still and get any real juice going for it. But as you can see from it’s placing on this list, that got turned around REAL fast as second only to Gaius in terms of just how much I love it. 

Thancred - This was it, ya’ll. This was The Original Ship. Thancred was one of the main reasons I got into the game, and just… had such a huge impact on my first run-through of ARR and Ahru’s growth and… everything. It’s honestly a bit hard to come to terms with the fact the ship has “fallen so low”, but ICly it’s so far pretty slim and rare that their relationship continues/grows deeper - even though they are extremely close friends. But who the heck knows Shadowbringers is likely gonna hit me up with a LOT of Thancred feels and honestly I can not fucking wait.

Arshadaya/K’jhir - I’m bundling these two together cuz they come separate and as a pair (that OT3 goodness). The three of them have kind of gone their separate ways in some regards/various AU’s/are in storytelling limbo, but I love them and their stories so much, it’s all so dear to my heart and Ahru wouldn’t be who she is today without the two of them, either romantically or platonically. ; w ;