#tag for ascians

[chiclet-go-boom]

On The Nature Of My Blorbo, or: Things That Make Me Squint My Eyes Which Is Not A Good Look On Me

Look.

Emet-Selch has been alive (for some value of 'alive' and 'aware') for millennia.

It always grabs me, when I see other takes on the character, that nobody really seems to have thought about what that means.

Hades was alive for an unknown amount of time. That amount of time would not have been small, considering his people had eradicated death as an inevitability and kept it only as an option for the end of a life well lived and thoroughly loved. He was appointed as one of only fourteen voices that guided his superlative civilization, one which we could easily describe as angels in their heaven; a Seat which would not have gone to someone unqualified or untried for lack of any other option. Its very possible that Hades already had millennia under his belt before the events of the Final Days occured.

Then half his people gave themselves up to prevent calamity.

Then half the remainder gave themselves up again to bring life back to the world, to heal the devastation left behind.

Then an unknown number again sacrificed themselves to raise up a primal and broke what was left of his beloved star into bleeding fragments. And in that shattering Hades lost what little was left - including his physical existence and the very last of his people. None but two others remain. He lives now only as the irreducible essence of himself, forced to ride the flesh of lesser creatures if he wishes embodiment, to be a presence that can touch and be touched back on a mortal level.

For thirteen thousand years, Emet-Selch has eaten worlds with his two remaining brothers, using and discarding the shambling revenants of his former kin to further his goals. While it is not explicitly said, it is strongly hinted that Emet-Selch is behind every major rise to power, every "imperially inclined nation" looking to conquer and spread and subsume their rivals. He took Solus Galvus as a young man and rode him mercilessly til death, created an empire with him, sired a dynasty with him, raised up Garlemald the Oppressed into Garlemald the Oppressor and then timed the empire's destruction to an exquisite nuance.

This man who can see every unique soul, in all their colors. Who can look and know who are you are and who you were, can pick your singular essence out of the streaming chaos of millions of others as easily as breathing - and chooses over and over and over again to shove his people back into the death they'd thought they'd discarded.

He fosters conflict. He fosters outright war. He whispers to the greed for power and leads men who lead whole peoples to their doom. Wholesale slaughter on a level that is impossibly hard to grasp in its magnitude, for when the conditions are aligned just so he can strip an entire world of life in one great surge of power. He can and he does.

Hades may have been kind. Emet-Selch may not be cruel. But he is not uncertain of his purpose and he's not thinking in a human timescale. If he loses a skirmish, if his plans are thwarted or blunted as they have been time and time again for he is not unopposed, he simply steps back and sets up the pieces again. The orchestrated fall, over and over again - inevitable and implacable and relentless.

(The losses mean nothing, mere stumbling blocks to the eventual resolution. Seven times Rejoined and the Eighth a mere breath away, each time easier as experience makes for quicker work and his opponent weaker each time.)

Solus zos Galvus does not actually exist. Emet-Selch made his choice nearly a double handful of aeons ago and he has not looked back to question it since. This is how it needs to work and this is how it will be. Garlemald was raised because he needed it to fall. Allag, marvel of the Third Age, reaching heights of technology never equalled before or after, was raised because he wanted it to fall. He builds towering edifices of power and might and greed and corruption and then rot and decay because the bigger he creates, the more he wipes out in the collapse.

Do not, for the love of little green apples, tell me that Emet-Selch is second guessing himself. At all. Ever. This man is standing on a bedrock of belief that has not shifted even as the stars around him have.

You think sunk cost fallacy is a problem for you? This is the only way this works. This is how it has to be, how Hydaelyn's will can be reversed, even as he no doubt curses Venat's name for making this so difficult and tediously long to put back together.

He will bring back the world as it was, whatever it takes, regardless of how brutal and sickening it appears to be from any other perspective than his own. He will restore what was lost to us all because we are mangled and horrific in his superlative sight, crawling in our own filth comprised of fear and spite and hatred and bigotry. The clear vision of Hades that sees every injury that has ever been inflicted on our souls.

Because even now after all this time, the Final Days still calls out to all of us.

We do not know what we remember, but remember we do. Thirteen thousand years and only three remain - one lost to violence, one lost to memory and one that still holds all of it in a grip that will never let go.

------------- This post brought to you by the vague feeling of incensed outrage when I read takes on Emet-Selch that paint the guy as if he's in his early thirties second-guessing his career choice in middle management and whether hawaiian shirts are still acceptable weekend wear now that he's out of college. It drives me to the grump. The dude fucking naps for centuries because he gets bored when there's nothing to do for awhile, because civilization needs time to crawl out from under the nuke he just dropped.

Extrapolate, people! He’s spending a pile of time as a drifting consciousness in a void between worlds, held together out of literal will and an incomprehensibly deep well of magic. Emet-Selch is not out there wringing his hands in remorse, ffs. He incites individual people to a righteousness that betrays them, he leads nations to wars they will not win, he's always three layers deep into his fail-safes and he is certainly not flagellating himself at the end of every day about it.

ffs.

[starshucker]

did somebody order CONVOCATION GLYPHS 🗣️💯

[birues]

He takes a step. 

He stops dead on his heels. 

A feeling, a sweep of deluge he has not felt since– No. No. This can’t be right. 

His gaze alters to soul sight, fervently searching for its source, half-praying that he is dreaming.

But he is not. He is not and there it is–That familiar hue, that beautiful euphonism of golds, ambers, and blues he’s been deprived of.

Twelve thousand years. He hasn’t seen a speck of Azem’s soul for twelve thousand years.  

[kicktwine]

hey fandaniel it is ugly asf in here

[yloiseconeillants]

JUNELEZEN - Day 13 :: Ancient Times

all.is.right.in.creation

[etheirys]

in zodiark's name.

[queenofnohr]

Another sketchpage by @/temporoyales on twitter!

Love love LOVE how this one shows Arvelle’s whole fall to darkness 😔

[miqoting]

Icarus, the Hungerer

[stxrmnight]

Wolshipweek Day 3 - Alternate Universe

Hey, you can't quit the Seat of Pashtarot, can you?

Cat belongs to @marshberriess

[asleepinawell]

“emet selch like hey guys watch this (makes an entire forest the same purple as his boyfriend's hair and then lays face down)“ - @sntoot

based on a crack theory that the first time emet selch went to the first he took one look at the area that would become lakeland and was like you know what would make this better? Depression Trees

[ahollowgrave]

Thinking about Odette's WoL AU and Prudence's Scion AU and I'm just --

They meet each other for the first time in Ishgard, ofc, when Odette as the Warrior of Light arrives.

Torn between Prudence inserting herself in the storyline from the start as a very obvious spy (for hilda though she's not named until much later). OR!! They don't meet until the Vault, when Prudence joins the group leading the charge there per Hilda's request.

Regardless of how they are introduced it does not go well. Prudence is Like That and Odette is too worried about Minfilia and the others to really care or stand up to her. Not to mention Odette very much meets people were they are -- which isn't to say she should let Prudence bully her, but it's complicated and she knows a wall when she sees one. Either way, Prudence is injured in a bad way at the Vault. As Odette finishes out Heavensward Prudence recovers. She decides she needs out of the city, out of Ishgard ASAP. Basically forces Odette to let her join up. If not as a Scion official, as Odette's retainer. Odette is a known grumpy person lover so I think she would eventually win Prudence over, but it is an uphill battle. I think the thing that helps the most is Alisaie's mutual friendship with both. They form a pretty tight knit little gang with three of them. Sometimes Lyse, sometimes Y'shtola, sometimes all of them causing mayhem (moving Urianger's bookmarks, stealing Thancred's shoelaces, going on missions together where nothing goes to plan but it somehow works out. normal stuff!) But the main trio is Odette/Pru/Alisaie post HW. Stormblood is hard for Odette AND Prudence. Odette, hit with the heavy loss of her first true love in Minfilia, knowing there is no real blame except on the Ascian's which is a convenient foe to hate through Stormblood. Prudence, meanwhile, is struggling to adjust to a new life and a suddenly MUCH BIGGER world while also coping with the constant reminder that she is but a mortal soul in a fragile body of flesh and bone. Odette has 100% given her a safe sex talk (probably while blushing furiously but sex health is important) and buys Prudence a costco sized container of dental dams and condoms, I'm certain. Anytime Odette tries to give Prudence the safe combat talk it goes poorly, though. And the build up to Shadowbringers!? Which sparked this whole thing!? Alisaie begging Odette and Prudence not to leave her too! Her soul getting hoovered up at the end of the ghimlyt dark, reaching desperately for Odette!!!! AHHHHHHH the way pru and Odette can but look at each other over her fallen form. Winners of the day but with only the recent losses on their minds. And then the voice comes again and Prudence drops too.

[chiclet-go-boom]

reading some fic on Ao3 and came across the tag “No Beta We Die Like Ascians”

muahah! what, pierced right through and then jammed into a crystal whether we fit or not? niiiice.

[brineffxiv]

Uh oh. What happened while we were gone?

Everyone wants to resign at once to go become adventurers? Sorry, "heroes"?

What am I to say to this? They want to help people. To do what I did. How can I we say no when they have only the best of intentions, and what they do will be for good?

Oh no. What's happening now?

Uhhh... Wasn't Y'shtola just talking to me about the connection between seeing a meteor shower and the Echo awakening? A memory of the Final Days?

Oh shit oh shit! They can hear Hydaelyn now?! Their Echo awakened!

You.

You did this somehow. What are you planning!?

...it just stopped. Was it even real!? How did you make them hear Hydaelyn? Also, like, how dare you just tell all these people they're Warriors of Light now?! You're going to get them killed! I have a dangerous life! Not that you care about any of that...

Good questions Alphinaud, but Elidibus is not Emet; he's not just going to tell us what he's up to.

HAH!

You bastard. Stop making me laugh.

So you confirm it's true? The Echo was a power of the ancients and triggering the memory of the Final Days in our souls will awaken it in those susceptible?

...yeah, the more I learn about Hydaelyn the less charitably I see Her. Two sides of the same coin, each inclined to use the people bound to them for Their own purposes with little regard to those peoples' well being.

It's sure seeming that way, isn't it?

Damn, so She doesn't even personally choose Her champions?

Excellent question!

...

I've got a baaaad feeling about this.

.

.

.

I get to pick who came to visit me?!

Cyella. It's totally Cyella. I want to know what she thinks of all this.

You're not going to like what I'm about to tell you, but you should know the truth...

Yeah, Elidibus might not have known it, but by taking Ardbert's body he has made this personal.

I will. I promise you that I will. Elidibus will die by my hand and Ardbert will have his rest.

They're still hard at work.

That's his blue arm, is there something wrong with it.

No you absolutely aren't. I know how this goes. Something bad is happening and you're going to pretend it's not until it gets too bad to ignore. Don't be so stubborn!

What the fuck. How is Zenos in Amaurot?? Ooo new outfit. Nice.

Oh. He was sleeping.

...Asahi? But you're dea-

Ascian.

But if two of the big three are dead and Elidibus is currently walking around in Ardbert's body, then who are you, pray tell? One of the sundered for certain... I wonder how many Ascians are left?

Huh. Zenos has recurring dreams of the Final Days. That can't have helped with his ...everything he's got going on.

Found a way to what?

You are... entirely too happy talking about the Final Days. It's the great tragedy of your people, and yet you smile like a madman when speaking of it.

[birues]

Well... 🧍‍♀️

[myreia]

Aur and Laha

facing off in Prae

F-E-U-D-I-N-G

first comes heat

then comes fire

then comes a blazing desire 😇

Thanks, Rolo. 🔥🔥🔥

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

thinking abt that silly ffxiv au again. this time it's also very self indulgent bc i'm imagining emmet as hydaelyn