#Varian Ironcrow

[jakey-beefed-it]

You know how some trendy restaurants will have photos of celebrities who've visited there up on the walls?

You know how some convenience stores will have photos of people who've bounced checks up near the cash register?

This is both.

[jakey-beefed-it]

So as many of you may recall, I got a house in FFXIV earlier this week, and it's a lovely house on the beach and everything. I've been decorating it like a madman ever since, and it's almost entirely done, absent like three major items.

The theme of the place is that it's a residence and business both, where Varian operates "The Ironcrow Agency," selling his services as a bounty hunter for those who can't or won't go to the authorities. With Varian being a brown-skinned cowboy gaijin ruffian living in the residential district of Kugane, I made the house predominantly western (as in Eorzean/European) in design, and as Western (as in cowboy) as I could make it.

The orchestrion inside is always playing the daytime music from Shaaloani- some cowboy blues guitar sound.

Now I know not everyone is gonna give a shit, but hey, some of you might, so under a cut, I am gonna post pictures of it and do a lil tour.

First up you have the front gate, with lots of lovely trees, a streetlight, and stepping stones leading up to the stone and wood house.

There are also stepping stones leading to the shaded deck overlooking the beach

And one of the trees has a treehouse in it, which Varian absolutely would have built for the twins without stopping to think they're like, late teens even though they look like 13. They're baby. They're HIS babies.

Coming in the front door, you can immediately see the reception desk thing on the left, and the open plan living room and study (left to right).

The living room is pretty cozy, the only things it's lacking at this point are the behemoth trophy to be mounted on the wall and a bearskin rug to go in front of the fire

Beside that is the little study area/den, with a display cabinet full of plushes and toys that the twins are far too old for (but maybe they cuddle one or two of the plushes sometimes)

The kitchen and dining room are to the right as you enter. I still need an icebox for the kitchen (note the milk sitting out on the counter, going bad) but otherwise it's done.

Though not quite so far to the right as the little nook beside the stairs to the top floor, which has a little desk for any business that can get knocked out in a hurry. And fishing poles right by the door for when Varian wants to go fishin'.

Heading upstairs, the first thing you'd see are my portraits of all the available field Scions, adults to the left

and babies to the right

The first door on the left is the bathroom, complete with a nice hot tub and a phasmascape depicting the royal menagerie of Ala Mhigo, which is where Varian was born (though he was a refugee from the age of 8 and finished growing up in Ul'dah) (the door on the right leads to Varian's room)

Turning around, here's the sink, some towels, the toilet i cobbled together out of 3 different decorations, and the moogle bathmat/rug.

From the hallway, the second door on the left is Varian's room. In this picture you can see his desk, somewhat cluttered with: some private correspondence and/or sensitive documents squirreled away in his room a takeout bag because he can't be bothered to actually cook for just himself the burritos he took from said takeout bag and/or had as leftovers from a meal he DID make for his friends a mug of coffee a cigar (because they don't allow cigarettes but cigars are apparently fine)

Turning around you can see the lovely fireplace, wardrobe, artwork, and sad bachelor* laundry pile overflowing the basket

Directly across the hall from Varian's room is the 'guest' bedroom, with room to sleep up to two guests! The two guests he is always hoping for are the twins, of course, but theoretically if Thancred or Estinien or someone wanted to crash that's also fine as long as they don't touch Alphy's artwork

Heading down to the basement, you have the 'business' space, where Varian operates his 'bounty hunting' side hustle- the main impetus behind which is the corruption of law enforcement in... literally every city in any of the 3 continents of Aldenard, but specifically the Sekisegumi in Kugane where this house is. There's the desk and records and a little waiting area.

To the left of that are a pair of small jail cells- sometimes you want to bring someone in alive, and sometimes you just need a place to stuff someone for a night until they sober up and can be cut loose again.

Other adventurers/bounty hunters and contacts coming by pretty often could use a meal and a rest, and of course you've got to feed any guests or prisoners passing through, so there's a fair bit of food available.

And of course, no cowboy bounty hunter hideout is complete without a saloon, albeit a small one that shows off some of Varian's more impressive fishing catches. To the left there, behind the screens, is another door leading to a very very small room full of disguise stuff (all the 'mummer's' items from the fashion report boutique), a bunk bed that can sleep two, and two chests- one full of weapons and one full of cash. That's the little safehouse the Sekiseigumi absolutely does not know about. I'd post pictures of it, too, but it's so cramped that it's genuinely hard to get any decent pictures. And it's funnier this way tbh; 'no you can't see the secret hideout it's SECRET'.

Anyhow yeah, it's mostly done! I really enjoy this stupid little fake house for my stupid little made up video game hero and his stupid prominent NPC kids. I hope you found this amusing if you read the whole damn thing.

*Varian's not actually a bachelor in that he absolutely got together with Lyse over the course of Stormblood, but she's been largely offscreen and busy being a world leader since so he's functionally a bachelor because he probably doesn't see her very often and instead is on his lonesome. So yeah- ordering takeout instead of using his big lovely kitchen, letting the laundry slide for a week, and taking off for fishing trips when the house feels too big -he's living the sad parts of the bachelor life without any of the supposed 'fun' parts :V

[jakey-beefed-it]

Got Viper to 90 mostly through FATEs and Khloe's Journal, and am starting to maybe kinda get the hang of it. Thus I rewarded myself with a chainsword glam.

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I more or less finished my FFXIV house, absent a few more wall decorations and incidentals as I think of them, up to and including the mounted behemoth head in the living room and some staff to actually manage such a big place and the business side of things.

The main steward lady and the chef are locals (his house is in Shirogane) while the ones involved with the shadier bounty hunting business are Eorzeans he brought in.

Varian would 100% be on a first-name basis with his staff, because he literally doesn't remember their surnames (keeper of the sun miqo'te excepted given the naming conventions).

"This here's Azumi. She runs the whole staff, and the house, and probably a few other things besides. I stay out of her way as best I can. She's pretty much the only reason the place ain't halfway to condemned."

"Daisuke's the chef, and I ain't never eaten so good. [aside] I'm not sure we need to spend as much as he's budgeted for sushi, but either it's for him to eat or resell, in which case, good on him, or it's for some kinda charity, in which case he could let me know and I'd save him a step, but he's a good enough cook I wouldn't care if he kicked me in the shins."

"Emma here manages the records and the books for the bounty hunting business. I made a crack one time about budgeting more for 'incidentals' and she told me I could get piss drunk on my own dime. That's when I knew she was right for the job."

"U'lemri runs the bar and the short orders down in the basement. She's generous on the pour but quick to cut folks off if they're makin' trouble. And she makes a mean chili if you're tired of eatin' fancy."

[jakey-beefed-it]

Dawntrail spoilers below the cut, but again, mostly so I can make a dumb joke.

G'raha enthusiasts rejoice! Romantic gondola boat ride be upon ye.

Like this is "there is no heterosexual explanation for this" levels of "It's just two guys bein' bros!" but the first thing I thought of was that old vine albeit adjusted from 'hot tub' to 'gondola'

"Two guys sittin' in a gondola, sittin' six feet apart 'cause they're NOT GAY"

Varian, at least, is bi, and I'll eat my hat if Raha isn't also bi, but the joke is funny so shh.

[jakey-beefed-it]

Finished the melee dps role quest just so I could dye the Viper job gear coat before finishing MSQ, so that I could get screenshots of this outfit. You can trade the guns for chainswords, but the cowboy aesthetic abides.

Bonus Palico wandered into frame just to show his butt in true cat fashion

[jakey-beefed-it]

Varian, git yer filthy boots off the bed, ya goddamn hooligan

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Varian in early Dawntrail photodump. Having Latino and indigenous backgrounds for my mestizo cowboy gun(blade)slinger is pretty cool, I gotta admit.

[jakey-beefed-it]

Varian still looks pretty good after the graphics update. I might want to go in and see if I can tweak a couple things but he still looks like himself, which was the big concern. He lost a couple of bishonen points but he's still good-looking, just more square-jawed and rugged than he was.

His nose is bigger and a bit more bent, but that's actually a change closer in line to how I imagine him so it's a good thing. I do like how his scars look a little gnarlier, that's cool.

Also the dark circles under his eyes are MORE pronounced, which, post Endwalker, MAKES FUCKING SENSE

[jakey-beefed-it]

Did just enough pvp to unlock the coat and gunblade I wanted for Varian, and now I never have to do it again :V

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Varian strolling into Shaaloani with a gunblade on his back and spurs on his dusty old boots like

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My new Machinist outfit is finally cowboy enough for Varian

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"Gun? Check. Blades? Check. Gunblade? You bet your ass that's a check."

I could go into more detail but I think this about sums it up tbh

[jakey-beefed-it]

In the process of trying to grind to series rank 15 for the pet coyote, I did enough PvP to unlock the 'volcanic' portrait flair and the GNB custom background and accent so Varian's portrait gets a glow-up.

[jakey-beefed-it]

Dawntrail spoilers under the cut; unless you're halfway through the last zone, don't click the read more

So I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about Varian, who has struggled with his identity as the Warrior of Light meaning one thing to his allies (hero, comrade) and another entirely to himself (world champion of murder), who did the Omicron quests in Ultima Thule and agreed with its thesis that recreated memories or no, those beings are *alive* and deserving of the same respect as anyone, hearing from Estinien as he walks through the gate to the Golden City "do what you do best" and immediately understanding that he can only mean Murder (takes a killer to know a killer, he and Estinien have that understanding), then going forth to deliberately erase countless stored memories, thereby committing essentially genocide against the Endless.

He's killed before. He's killed a lot. To paraphrase from some western or another he's "killed damn near everything that walks, crawls, swims, or flies."

He's never killed innocents before. Definitely never children.

This is gonna FUCK him UP for a WHILE. Fishing therapy isn't gonna cut it, especially as the narrative doesn't seem to give it the same weight as he does. Even your allies are like, "It's... sad, but they're not really alive, right?" And Varian would have to be like "Right. Of course not," just so THEY could live with themselves, even though he knows better.

Immediately after finishing the last trial, because I'd done it in a group with my sister and we were standing around the same spot as the story spat us out, I jokingly turned around without a word, hit / to RP walk, and walked Varian directly into the ocean. It was a joke, but like, he's definitely thinkin' about it. He won't, because he's a) not gonna do that to his loved ones and b) too ornery to die to anything short of Black Rose in an alternate future.

Alright, that's enough heavy stuff for now, here's picture evidence that in Varian's canon, at least, Ser Otis is totally a shard of Azem, based on the 'sometimes there's a resemblance' tidbits you get about Ardbert and Default WoL.

[jakey-beefed-it]

3/4 of the way through the final zone of Dawntrail, but it's nearly 6 am and I haven't slept so probably. Probably I should get some sleep.

Tomorrow I will wake up.