hello there! you can call me raph, i’m 22, and i’m in the pacific timezone. i’m a full - time student in a four year university working towards my fa so my activity will be fairly sporadic. my usual formatting is double spacing and small text. this simply makes it easier for me to read. however, i will more than likely copy your formatting style when we write together if i don’t know you’re fine with that formatting.
you can read my rules and about over on my google doc (here).
you can find my detailed rules on my rules pages but there’ s some things i’d like to note real quick:
some notes about my portrayal of seteth:
MY MAIN VERSE WILL BE THE CHURCH OF SEIROS ROUTE as it has the most… i wouldn’t say character development, but seteth plays a bigger role in it.
I portray Seteth as a trans man and uninterested in women, Flayn is his biological daughter (still), the only difference being that his wife was a she/her gay. I will be happy to talk about it!
I also portray Seteth being the fodlan equivalent of jewish. I myself am not jewish, so I will be relying on information found both on the internet and given by close friends.
Sothis is not Seteth’s mom. Contrary to popular fanon, he’s not her literal son.
i don’t want anyone who rps/supports these things following me, out of both comfort for myself and the comfort of certain mutuals:
a.ttack on t.itan, h.etalia, k.illing s.talking, fictional nazis (h.ydra agents, f.irst order) anything from jk rowling’s writings, genderbends, rape, actual nazis, pedophilia, glorification of abuse, a/b/o, or i.ncest
and then of course naturally: racism, sexism, antisemitism, islamophobia, or any variation of queerphobia.
— “ I AM A HUNDRED SHARDS OF MYSELF. shimmering, broken in free fall, glimpsing my own infinite reflections. Some shine gold—some burn sickly green—and some fade as soon as they are witnessed. I cannot guess which one is real. ”
OSIRIS from DESTINY / indie / mutuals only / penned by raphael
byleth grunts at the question but doesn’t say anything, simply stares while seteth seems to think it over. his eyes flick over his face. it’s still hard to read other people, even after this long, but even he can see the uncertainty playing over seteth’s features. was it lingering loyalty to the church that made him hold his tongue ?? or something else ??
the name makes something kick in his chest. he can’t hear sothis anymore, not after their souls merged into one, but sometimes he thinks he can still feel her. the impression of her emotions, thoughts, memories. he takes a small step forward, body language opening into something almost eager even as his face remains impassive. sothism. sothism.
« why ?? » the gesture is sharp. « why did they want it gone ?? » ‘they’ not ‘you’. it’s a curious slip.
seteth is silent. he does not meet byleth’s eyes. he’s well aware that he’s just as culpable as rhea was with the censoring of information, if not more so. he feels guilt over it, more than anything. he knows he should be held accountable for it, yet . . . he sighs, brows knit tight. he closes his eyes for but a moment.
“ it’s not simple . . . ” lips purse as he considers telling them. byleth saw what rhea was, he know the truth of fodlan’s history, to a degree . . . he fused with the goddess. his progenitor god. “ it was supposed to be fore our protection. but rhea took it too far . . . i took it too far. i am just as culpable of it as rhea was suppressing such things. ”
another pause. “ she started censoring it because it revealed too much of fodlan’s true history. it revealed . . . it reveals what she was . . . it reveals what i am. the church’s continued existence hinged on the supposed fact that crests are a gift from the goddess. sothism says that as not the case. it encourages self fulfillment outside of crests, and that our duty is to the world, not only the progenitor god. such values could not coexist with the church’s hold on fodlan. ”
“ it was censored because it reveals there is no such thing as divinity through crests and that rhea had no greater purpose than any other person. ”
♜ ❝ as heavy as a history book can be i will carry it with me ❞ (white clouds.)
♜ ❝ betrayal and sacrilege go hand in hand on this path ❞ (crimson flower.)
♜ ❝ loyal to the end of all things ❞ (silver snow.)
♜ ❝ i’ll take the lie ❞ (azure moon.)
♜ ❝ if you can let it go ❞ (verdant wind.)
♜ ❝ i will never stop complaining and that is a promise ❞ (ooc.)
green eyes flick up to seteth and the pinched look on his face eases somewhat. if anyone was to know more about the church, about its history, about the religions that preceded it, it would be seteth. though, if he’s honest with himself, byleth isn’t sure how much he should trust the other man. he was steadfast at rhea’s side before all of this, after all, even if he did defect in the end. how many secrets would he actually be willing to share ?? lips twitch down back into a tight line, just a flicker of an expression.
a soft huff escapes him and he offers seteth the book he had tucked under one arm. it’s old and worn, parts are hardly legible and those that are legible are written in such archaic language that byleth finds himself struggling to parse it. dug up from the depths of abyss in one of his hunts for more knowledge. ‘a treatise on religion’. one of the few tomes he’d found on anything other than the church of serios.
he flips it open to a spot marked by a bit of paper stuffed between the pages. most of the words are smudged away by time but it seems to speak of a religion that predates the church of seiros. one that feels achingly familiar.
Seteth furrows his brows as he stares at the book in hand. He recognizes this one. Most of the important ones he stored in his own room, private and secret and most importantly safe. Others that were unsalvagable he left in the abyss; such as this one. A part of him is surprised that it survived.
Anxiety wells in the pit of his stomach. ❝ Where did you get this? ❞ Better to act none the wiser. There are so many secrets he holds close to his heart, none of which he is even certain would be safe for others to know. Even with — and especially because of — the dissolution of the Church he and Flayn are unsafe.
But...
This is Byleth. Certainly he would not turn his back on him solely because of this information. Seteth pauses to mull it over. Hesitant and uncertain. He lets out a breath. ❝ Sothism... It’s called Sothism. The Church all but eradicated it after the War of Heroes — something I was never happy about. I saved what I could but... ❞
