#there is a version of this post where i rant about hydaelyn saving beef's life | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

isayoldbean · 1 year

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today is part 2 of the @woltourney beefaganda loredrop! in truth i meant to post the full thing yesterday but i was exhausted and my whole body threatened to beat me with sticks if i didn't go to sleep when i did, so. i will finish today!

when we left off yesterday, beef had decided to run away from her grief by committing atrocities and working her way up the most wanted list instead of going to therapy like a normal person.

unfortunately for everyone--including herself--she was incredibly good at it, experiencing a meteoric rise to infamy over the next few years. and while she did retain her own sort of moral code, the amount of blood on her hands could not be justified or rationalized away. she had to be stopped.

and so an ambush was laid. many had been attempted before, but this one was different--during the fighting, she received what should have been a mortal blow and was swept overboard into the sea. a brief search for her body yielded no results, but based on the damage she had taken and the amount of time she had been submerged, she was presumed dead and the mission deemed a success.

what they did not factor into the equation was hydaelyn. who would? the thought that the will of the star would intercede on the behalf of somebody like her would never have entered anyone's mind. and yet...

this was her chosen champion. although she could barely recognize her from her villainous behavior, there was no doubt in her mind that this was the warrior she had been waiting for. and so she reached out, expending as much aether as she dared to ensure her champion could continue on to fulfill her destiny.

and so the unconscious form of the roegadyn we now know as huge beef washed up on a distant shore, altered from the deluge of aether she had been subjected to in ways both perceivable and unknown, where she was found by a young raen woman who brought her home and nursed her back to health.

when she came to consciousness, her mind was a blank slate. the amount of aether her mind had been bathed in to keep her alive had the unfortunate side effect of aetherblasting her brain into something of a factory default. and yet even though she could not remember, she felt--a violent snarl of anger in her chest, urging her to lash out at somebody, anybody; a heavy cloud of grief she couldn't place that nonetheless haunted her like a shroud; a potent cocktail of abject misery that she had no reason to be feeling, and yet it refused to leave.

she was grateful nonetheless to the woman who had helped her, and offered to stay and help in any way she could. however, this was occupied garlean territory--somebody with her penchant for violence offering to 'help' could bring more danger than anything. and so the woman arranged to sneak her onto a ship headed for eorzea, where she could start anew.

when she arrived, she learned that eorzea was starving for adventurers. she could be as violent as she liked, and as long as she directed those impulses towards monsters, garleans, or other acceptable targets, she would earn praise, money, and glory instead of infamy and scorn. with an offer like that, how could she refuse? and so she set forth to make a name for herself.

eventually she was discovered by y'shtola, who despite her reservations about her character (as she was such a hot mess at this point), offered her the opportunity to join the scions and use her gift of the echo for a noble purpose. beef didn't see much of a reason to refuse, so she headed to thanalan to investigate.

at first, she saw the scions merely as the means to an end--all she wanted to do was fight stuff to appease the ever present roiling anger within her, but doing it for an allegedly noble cause would get her better benefits in the long run, and the scions had agreed to help her try to find out about her missing past as well. but as she continued to work with them, something strange began to happen: the anger and grief within her started to ebb away, and a strange warmth and peace took its place. she began to heal. from what, she didn't know. perhaps one day, she would remember.

aaaand that's beef's story through arr, roughly! obviously there were many more Horrors awaiting her as msq progressed but that's the basic backstory. if you read all this, consider voting for her in her upcoming @woltourney poll!

#there is a version of this post where i rant about hydaelyn saving beef's life #so that beef had a chance to become the sort of person she would need to be in order to save venat's in endwalker #but i don't know if everyone following the woltourney is caught up to msq and i don't want to spoil anyone with details #but suffice it to say it is there and it makes me want to eat drywall #Final Fantasy #Final Fantasy XIV #ff14 #WoL #Huge Beef

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