Emet Selch - Tumblr Posts
• AMAUROT •
An assignment I handed in at the beginning of the year, just me playing my usual game of "how many references and fanarts can I show before someone tells me to stop?"
.
.
.
[DO NOT REPOST/REUPLOAD, MODIFY/EDIT, OR USE MY ART WITHOUT MY PERMISSION]
(IG and TW: @neneeroo - you can also find them in my bio!)
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
NEIR: Reincarnation - Record: Vestiges of Paradise FFXIV Crossover
another unfinished wip from my "everyone's a rat now sorry" sketch dump
what are they talking about? Who tf knows
A bit older, but one of my tributes to Shadowbringers.
FFXIV Vinyl LP Covers
When I first saw this question popping up on my dash, I really wanted to answer it. I love AU ideas, and it really got me thinking about the what-ifs to my muses if their circumstances had been different. Fast forward, this post had been sitting in my draft folder for weeks—that was when the realization finally hit me.
My blorbos are probably far more complicated than I thought they'd be. (Yiuno, especially.)
Anyroad, after going through all the NPCs I can think of, here are the results!
Sora — Alisaie, Zenos.
FOR BETTER: Sora and Alisaie get along very well—they share a lot of similarities, such as their temperamental personality, and their eagerness to take active actions. If circumstances had been better, Sora could've been living a relatively comfortable life—guided by wise and caring mentors, surrounded by friends and comrades sharing the same cause. While Alisaie did go through some hardships (mainly in Shadowbringers and Endwalker MSQ), she's still better off than Sora in many aspects.
Sora, on the other hand, is a remnant of an ancient civilization, who is neither here nor there as she has no recollection of her past, struggling to come to terms with the present (and later on, her destiny as the Warrior of Darkness). Her mentor and guardian isn't someone you'd consider a role model—Yiuno is a manipulative liar, he assassinates people for a living, and he's a selfish bastard. Speaking of which...
FOR WORSE: Sora and Zenos are frenemies, in a way (Zenos would probably consider her a "friend" in a similar fashion like his relationship with WoL, but Sora absolutely hates him). Both of them crave for strong opponents to sate their bloodlust; they also have no qualms to destroy anything and everything in their way to relieve their urge for a good fight.
The only saving grace, I'd say, is Yiuno effectively having Sora on a leash and preventing her from going completely out of control. As much as Sora is a chaotic mess when left to her own devices, at least she still listens to her one and only "family".
Yiuno — Thancred, Hades/Emet-Selch.
I really mean it whenever I say that Yiuno is a complex character—he isn't someone I can simply shove into a handful of TV tropes and call it a day. After pondering really hard for weeks, these two picks are probably the best I could go with.
FOR BETTER: Both Yiuno and Thancred have many aspects in common. They are adult figures to a younger charge under their wing (Yiuno to Sora, Thancred to Ryne). They both struggled to make peace with losing someone dear to them (Yiuno to his twin sister, Yiuna, Thancred to his "sister", Minfilia). They are also resourceful and well-versed in reconnaissance, with a dark past they aren't proud of.
Though they are guided by well-known figures that changed their respective lives forever, that's where I draw the line on the similarities between them. When Thancred attempted to pickpocket Louisoix and was caught red-handed, the latter offered him the opportunity to hone his skills in survival and intelligence-gathering techniques. Thancred then became an Archon and joined the Circle of Knowing, later also as a member of the Scions, to aid WoL in saving the world from another calamity.
As for Yiuno, his relationship with Shatotto isn't as idealistic as Thancred with Louisoix. Towards the end of the Fifth Astral Era, Yiuno and his sister, Yiuna, were part of a neutral faction (similar to the Scions) aiming to stop the Magi War; Yiuna was dispatched to join the White Mages of Amdapor, while Yiuno was sent to spy on Mhach. Shatotto, who had been skeptical of the void mages and their over-reliance on voidsents, was developing her own brand of magick (later known as black magic); she immediately recognized the hidden potential within Yiuno. She pretty much forced him to become her disciple, and used him to refine and complete her research. While Yiuno did become her greatest successor, that came at a terrible price—for Yiuno's raw power far exceeded Shatotto's expectations and almost destroyed the nation they were supposed to protect. Shatotto took upon herself to shoulder the crime, and erased Yiuno's existence from historical records.
In a way, both Louisoix and Shatotto recruited their respective students to aid in their personal agendas, but I guess things might have turned out differently if Yiuno's talents were actually used for the greater good rather than... as a weapon of destruction in warfare.
FOR WORSE: This is a tough and ironic choice for many reasons, but Hades/Emet-Selch is just a stone throw away from what Yiuno could've become. Both of them have lived a very long life; they have seen enough horrors to crack their minds so hard that they are literally eddying in despair. Further, as revealed in the previous section, Yiuno had a hand in a genocide that shouldn't have happened. Would he blow up the world if his loved ones are killed? Absolutely.
In fact, Yiuno is still relatively sane for the time being only because the people he truly cares about—Sora, Y'shtola, and (fingers crossed) Yiuna—are still alive and well. For now. Also, as I've briefly discussed about the differences between Yiuno and Emet in this post, it'd take a lot more to compel Yiuno to take extreme actions like Emet did.
As for the irony I've mentioned in the beginning... due to the Flow spell mishap in post-ARR (he used it to save both himself and Sora from the Ul'dah coup), Yiuno's body is housing both a fragment of his Ancient self, Chronos, and another Ancient fragment—one of the triplets and Chrono's sister, Persephone. The latter is, of course, the wife of Emet. Just imagine how the meeting would've unfolded when Emet's shade saw Yiuno (who was shepherding Sora to her final showdown with Meteia and Zenos) in Ultima Thule.
Little WoL / non-WoL character question.
Is there a non-player character or NPC that reflects how your OC might have turned out if circumstances had been only slightly different? For better or worse.
If your OC is aware of this, then does it make them more sympathetic to that character? Or more jealous of them? Or simply fill them with an intense visceral hatred?
Men knew peace and contentment, and with our adamant souls, we could live for an age.
Venat and Emet-Selch were both justified in their own way. They both seeked the survival of their races, both sacrificied themselves for their goals, paid the prices and consequences.
Not Hermes. Hermes created the problem. His choice were not motivated by anything but himself. Putting his own feeling and beliefs above anyone else. Everything he did was wrong. The mission was failed from the very beginning, the very moment Meteion was to be the observator, thus directly influencing the situation and data. And in impredictible way too, so you can't even "correct" it so it would be useable. He took a snap decision of killing everyone, without even reviewing the data in-depth. You just started the job. You can just start to formulate a hypothesis, and you go to the conclusion with immediate action? You would need complementary study, where you choose select racr and see how it evolves. Hell, the ancient could have helped the different race to solve the despair. Helping the dragons to rebuild their homeworld would have been pretty easy, with all the Elpis research and creation magic they have access to, and would also have helped the ascians too with feeling like stagnation.
In conclusion, Hermes was a very bad scientist. Also, very selfish. How did a dude like this manage to get at teh top of what is effectively a eco-biological research facility?
what will you say? >they were all justified in their own way >none of them were.
Blue, are you alright?
Also, yeah, I would leave the parrots alone. But I'm told my way of thinking about death and changes is weird. I can somewhat apprehend why grief would make someone kill the parrots but also can't really relate. Dead is dead, and soul get recycled. From death, Life.
If your friend who would have lived 100 years got divided into thirteen parrots who would only live 3 years, and you knew that by killing those parrots, you'd get your friend back, would you kill the parrots?
Or does the fact that the parrots, though their abilities cannot be compared to your own, are able to speak and reason and love in their own way mean they deserve to have their own lives, and you need to accept your friend is dead?
Your best friend? Your child? Your lover?
The friend who asked you to save them, before they vanished?
Your entire community? Your whole family?? What if there were only three humans left alive in the whole world, and you'd promised the rest that you would find a way to rescue them?
To me it's perhaps MORE impressive that Emet Selch and Elidibus ultimately side with the parrots.
Hydaelyn in Endwalker
At the risk of looking stupid online I'm going to field my perplexions about Hydaelyn that've been bothering me for months lol This post is... a little Hydaelyn critical. But I do offer that in good faith, I LOVE the character and I'm not trying to just trash her, I'm genuinely interested to hear other perspectives about it. (But please be nice, everyone is entitled to their own take)
Also this is not in response to anyone else's post. I haven't even seen any Hydaelyn posts circulating lately. I'm not vagueing anyone or trying to start drama. Just trying to sort out my own feelings about this character.
So my main takeaway from MSQ was that love is, ultimately, what saves you. That humans (including Ancients!) aren't perfect, and cannot love perfectly, but the shared love of you and others is still what saves you.
And, also, that grief is a part of life. Mistakes are a part of life. Conflict and loss happen, but they need not destroy you. Stand for doing right as best that you can, forgive yourself and keep trying, keep loving - both yourself and others.
There was an incredible amount of emphasis on not judging or hating one's enemies, about accepting the humanity in all of us and coming together, which I really loved.
There was also, of course, a huge rejection of self-sacrifice and martyrdom.
I saw all those themes in the Dark Knight quests a LOT (especially before the English translation changed so many scenes), and I assume Ishikawa was continuing that theme from Shadowbringers onward.
So again! I don't hate Hydaelyn!
But I feel like... at least in the English translation, she is still treated with excessive reverence, like a goddess, by the Scions - even ones it didn't really make sense to after her origin came out, like Y'sthola.
And at least on my first playthrough, while I like Venat a lot and love the drama of the Final Days pushing everyone into points of desperation, to their breaking points, and her decision to sunder the world definitely did ultimately help (help!) make it possible for us to defeat the Endsinger... I dunno.
To me she was still subject to the same arrogance as the rest of the Ancients. Whether her decision paid off or not, she still took into her hands the fate of the entire Star, she still made a decision that would result in millions of deaths.
And if we're going by Hydaelyn's own assertion, that each reincarnation is their own person, not just a missing piece of a whole... then to achieve her goal of a better world, she killed all the remaining Ancients except those three.
She chose to create a world where death and trauma would affect generation after generation - and she can say that it was for the greater good, for the world to survive. But that was essentially the Convocation’s justification too, in creating Zodiark and orchestrating the Rejoinings. Committing genocide to prove that genocide is wrong… is not noble.
The cutscene with her sundering the world, where the people insist they'll return to a world free of sorrow underneath a burning sky, could also NOT be how it actually happened. It had to be representational of her feelings and conclusion. Becoming Hydaelyn took coordination with her followers and planning.
At least in English, idk about the original Japanese, Hythlodaeus's shade describes the time of the Sundering as if the world wasn't in utter ruin at that point. It was beginning to heal, they had restored some natural systems, but the Ancients were short in numbers. At that point, they were done sacrificing their own people, in time they were going to sacrifice other life - plants and animals, to restore those lost brethren.
At the very least, Hythlodaeus's completely different account shows that the two sects of people post-Zodiark were viewing their sacrifice and end goal in completely different ways. Ethics aside, whether the competing goal was achievable or not… we will never know, because Venat stopped it from happening.
But I don't think either recounting has a monopoly on the truth. There was no One Truth, there were just competing needs and perspectives. And though Venat insists that unity is necessary to avert the Endsinger - she perpetuates this division. Azem refused her followers call to help summon Hydaelyn, and I think that's significant.
But I'll also acknowledge that Azem didn't manage to save the Ancients, either.
And you could argue that the Ancients were their own worst enemy. They kind of were.
Hermes was a really, really great caricature of severe, untreated Depression. And he had the powers of a god. His creations were sent to find a specific answer in the world beyond, and like their creator, they didn't have the tools to process hearing an answer other than what they were expecting. They were trapped in their own perspective. He was looking for answers in the stars, instead of in himself. Their own pain and inability to engage with emotion in a healthy way overwhelmed every encounter they had and created the very reality he so feared.
He did not use the proper channels for peer review before sending them out on their mission. Those rules, those checks and balances, that community approach to design, existed to protect the Ancients from their own power, and he deliberately acted in secret. He isolated himself from society, convinced himself his pain was something nobody could understand, made an island of himself and doubled down on his own jaded beliefs.
I don't know what kind of mental health facilities were available to the Ancients - we just don't have that information. But I do know that he was treated with patience and forgiveness by a significant number of colleagues, and his quirks weren't held against him. People did try to help and accommodate him, even if they didn't always understand. He had been promoted to a powerful position. I don't know if it's fair to blame anyone in particular, or even their society, for what happened. Because again... everyone was doing the best they could with what they had.
If anything, the problem was that literally any Ancient could have made a similar mistake in the right situation. They were ALL that powerful. Eventually chaos would happen. Sundered souls can certainly create destruction, but not on the same scale.
I don't personally agree with Hydaelyn's decision not to reach out to the Convocation. I understand being careful, and thinking through what the next step should be before acting. But there's a LOT of "maybes" in this argument:
And ultimately, it's her doing the same thing as Hermes, putting the power of judgement over an entire people in her own hands. She's assuming that she is in a unique position to decide the fate of the entire Star. It's not evil. But it's arrogant. She wasn't special among the Ancients, gifted with some unique wisdom. She was doing the best she could from her own perspective.
Plus... if half your population, and then another half again are about to sacrifice themselves... what have you got to lose by outing Hermes and/or trying to work with the Convocation to avert that loss of life? We don't have all the details, I'm willing to accept that there were circumstances that made it impossible, or at least made Venat decide against trying it. But even so. What did you have to lose leading up to the summoning of Zodiark? There was already panic and destruction at that point.
Hydaelyn sacrificed a lot of people to accomplish her goals. She made a goddess of herself and manipulated people like Minfilia on that basis. She killed so many children and stole so many lives even just by reincarnating Minfilia over and over on the First. She misrepresents the nature of the Ascians to the WoL, keeps secrets, and essentially charges you with being a crusader in her Holy War.
It's Emet- Selch who tries to bridge the gap. Not Hydaelyn. It's him who's willing to consider trying to achieve his goals without bloodshed, if you, the WoL, are strong enough. He says this to himself, out of anyone else's hearing. There's no reason for it to be a lie.
And just before Mt. Gulg, you can see Emet starting to question his beliefs about humanity because of the WoL's accomplishments. Hydaelyn has nothing to do with that. It's all you. And Emet succumbs to his own weaknesses too, so we never get to know what that might have happened if you'd had more time with him. He's not better than her.
But I think it's significant that he's the one who reaches out. Who's willing to consider a compromise at all.
In war you make sacrifices, I get that. But she was not more heroic, somehow, than the Ascians. Both sides were doing terrible things and denying the agency of mortals in order to achieve their ideal world.
So to me... she was not a benevolent incomprehensibly wise mother figure. Much like in real life we go from being kids who trust our moms implicitly, to adults who realize our mother was human and made mistakes, I think we’re supposed to recognize that Hydaelyn didn't do everything right and its our job to carry the future forward for subsequent generations, to learn from what came before, and hope that our own children do the same and forgive us for our own mistakes.
I think its very important to note that the WoL is just as much the Convocation's creation as Hydaelyn's. Without being rejoined as many times as they were, the WoL wouldn’t have survived. She saves you from the Ultima Weapon, Emet-Selch saves you from Elidibus, and its their powers combined that save you and your friends from the Endsinger. You are the legacy of each side’s imperfect love, equally.
WHICH brings me to my point of perplexion. Hydaelyn continues to be venerated. NPCs who know what happened continue to emphasize her side of things. I feel I must be missing something, because to me, the finale of Endwalker essentially shattered any idea that this was a Light vs Dark kind of story. People made choices. People made mistakes. It wasn't good or evil. It was human. We survived in spite of our mistakes because love was more powerful than our imperfections.
The Scions sacrificed themselves one by one just like the Ancients. And got brought back using energy from the Star... not all that different than what the Ascians had planned to do with their own brethren. I just don't see much functional difference there in the sentiments between either side.
I don't think we're supposed to hate Hydaelyn. I don't think she was evil. But I don't think she was better than the Ascians.
So while I don't expect, or want, characters to be condemning her left and right in the narrative, it's still baffling to me that there's such consistent, explicit reverence for her.
ffxiv would be a perfect game if Varis was a milf, just saying
Endwalker gposes hit different
shoutout to that time our twitch chat requested Emet-Selch, and for some reason we ended up with this.
the convocation of fourteen (fears)