#gposes under the cut if you're interested

[starrysnowdrop]

Okay like...I'm not a huge Hermes fan because of what happens later with him but..I can tell you are very excited about him and your stuff involving him and you're afraid no one will like or ask about it. I like to encourage people to chase what they love and inspires them so...

I am asking. Lay it on me! Give me all the Hermes stuff that makes you excited! (If you're comfortable doing it.) Headcannons, thoughts, um..I don't AO3 but if you have links to stories with him...whatever you want to share! Go for it!

First of all, can I give you the biggest virtual hug?!?

Thank you so much @pinxli for your kindness, your encouragement, and your support for us all here!! You are an amazing friend and I’m so grateful. 🥹💖

Onto your actual ask, which is just a chance for me to blab about Hermes for a bit, which I know will end up way too long, so I’ll put it under a cut.

So, I want to start by saying that you are absolutely right Inxli-mun in that it’s been difficult for me to talk about Hermes, for multiple reasons, but a big one is that so many in the fandom seem to hate him. I mean he is the one that is easy to point to and say that he caused the final days in the first place and that he’s to blame for literally everything that happened afterwards. So I get it, I really do. But it also means that it makes me really anxious about even talking about him, let alone gpose or write about him. So hopefully this will help me in doing so in the future.

Here’s the thing. From the beginning, I was in the “love to hate him” camp about Fandaniel. I was intrigued with his character and wanted to know more, but I wasn’t exactly excited about his total nihilism, especially in the Pre-EW patches when we first got a taste of him. He got a bit more interesting after the Amon reveal right before Tower of Zot. As a fan of Allag stuff, I liked the reveal and all, but I still didn’t know at all what to expect next. When we got to Fandaniel’s death when he became the heart of Zodiark, I felt like he was an interesting villain, but not my favorite in FFXIV, and I thought that was that. I didn’t think we’d get anything more about Fandaniel, let alone his Unsundered self.

Then came Elpis, and the more I heard and saw, the more I realized that I was going to fall in love with this character, or should I say the Unsundered Fandaniel anyway. The reveal that his name was Hermes got me so damn giddy already because I have always loved Hermes from Greek Mythology. Then when Hermes first spoke in Elpis, I recognized Jeremy Ang Jones’ voice, as he was clearly Amon/Fandaniel, but he spoke so softly and it just hit me with the feels instantly. I have no idea why, but I find a great voice to be a huge turn on, and Hermes just did it for me. His beautiful green eyes also greatly help in the sexiness department for me.

Seriously though, the more I learned of Hermes, the more I felt for him. His caring nature and compassion for all of the creations, his devotion and fatherly love for Meteion, and his kindness towards the WoL just made me love him so deeply. And he was so unique amongst the Ancients, with his love for all creatures, not just his fellow people, and not to mention that I saw a lot of myself in him with his depression, as I myself have chronic depression and anxiety. It all spoke to me, and way after I had finished 6.0, I still couldn’t shake him from my mind. Though I had no intention on shipping with him for the longest time, since it took me nearly 2 years to do so, he had stolen my heart, just as Aymeric, G’raha, Cid, etc. had done before.

So I don’t want this to turn into a full blown essay on him, even though I have already written so much already, but I wanted to talk a bit about why I love him, and that my love is very much for Hermes, and not as much for Fandaniel as the sundered ascian. I very much see Hermes, Amon, and Ascian Fandaniel as all separate characters, even though they all share the same soul whose trauma can be first attributed to the suffering that Hermes experienced.

Though I am still figuring out not only a canon timeline, especially with the newest short story coming in and wrecking a few things that I had planned, but I also have a few headcanons for the Modern AU with Urania x Hermes, and I also I do want to do a Happy Ending AU for Hermes, but I am not entirely certain if I could pull that last one off. So for now, I���ll give you a handful of headcanons for the Modern AU.

Hermes is a single father who adopted Meteion when she was a few months old, and she is obviously not a familiar in this modern setting but a little girl who wants her papa to find love. He is in graduate school working towards his master’s and eventually his PhD in Astronomy, but he still doesn’t earn enough to support himself and his daughter, so he is a barista at the local coffee shop. It is at the coffee shop where he meets Urania, who is a regular customer. They then bump into each other at the university and realize that they are in the same Astronomy graduate program. Some other hobbies that Hermes has is bird watching and cooking, along with spending his free time with Meteion as much as he can. I’m still figuring out how I want the romance to develop, but I’m very excited about this AU because it can just be a sweet love story and no big bad stuff happening like the Final Days.

With that, I think I’ll shut up for now. But thank you so much for this ask Inxli-mun!! I very much appreciate the opportunity to blab about this man who I adore very much. 🥰💖