#ithums

This one was actually super fun to do, thanks you! I’m so hungry now...

more hiding places for a catte to nap in?

Replies under the read more! (sorry it got a little lengthy)

but bird what’s your favorite planet

yes but i will still fite you

so it’s like this--

SB as a whole (ala mhigo and the far east) have a marked dearth of elezen characters (which i think is partly due to out-of-universe reasons; the previous expansion was All Elfs All The Time and xiv players who don’t have elfs as their faves deserve to have Nice Things Too); it being “just a rando elezen dude” isn’t as plausible as it’d be if this shit was going down in ishgard or gridania or wherever, because this region’s randos are usually highlanders, hellsguards, or cattes.

(now, a lot of imperial garlean mobs have been using elezen models in gyr abanian regions, and i expect that in the event this bodysnatched elf IS a rando, that’s the explanation there).

and of the known elezen men who’ve been in ala mhigo, estinien is the only one where if he just fucking VANISHED for months with no explanation, his absence wouldn’t be noticed for a long time because he’s a known disaster who just DOES this shit on his own. if it was almost anyone else, we’d know they were gone because it’d be a big deal.

also, and most importantly

zenos became shinryu, the two became one--and shinryu came into being from nidhogg’s eyeballs, and the last person to have been in contact with the eyeballs was estinien, when he popped ‘em in the epilogue of SB. and considering how much of a big deal it was made out of how zenos Very Definitely Killed Himself/His Body during the end of 4.3, i’m not sure where else there coulda been a bit of zenos lurking in this mortal plane in search of a body to snatch (see: through the maelstrom, the bodyhopping sahagin). so yeah, i think estinien was the most likely candidate for being bodysnatched by the soul or whatever of zenos (bold to assume zenos even HAS one a thems). and yeah, i know zenos!elf doesn’t have esty’s face, but i think that was primarily an out-of-universe choice, so that we’d read his scene as “omigawd this mystery elf must somehow be zenos!!” rather than “estinien, have you lost your GODDAMN mind?!”

finally:

TELL US ANYWAY

i think the funny part of this has to be put under a read more