in search of purpose

isola radiale affiliated Hermes from Final Fantasy XIV | Housing: Townhouse 218 | Abilities:  Creation Magic to create up to five regular objects per day no larger than the size of a baseball | Items: Meteion Plush

[miracleworks]

HERMES from FINAL FANTASY XIV

**ENDWALKER SPOILERS WILL BE TAGGED AS #endwalker spoilers**

a gentle soul who loves animals and is just trying to battle the ever growing nihilism that comes with living baybee

in all seriousness he’s deeply depressed canonically and wishes to find purpose in life and why people do the things they do and act the way they act, for better or worse

i usually make way more jokes but i just love Hermes so much and i want him to be able to live a good life for the moment

u kno, before there are certain...memories that appear : )

i don’t want to include too many spoilers in this intro for the moment, but he loves and cherishes his precious kiddo Meteion

creation magic is fun and basically limitless its so much, he specializes in winged beings including transformation magic to turn into a winged being himself

he’s extremely intelligent and sympathetic to the beings around him, whether others consider them “living” or no

also he loves candied apples...

[miracleworks]

heart3yed​:

@heart3yed​

💛 💜 ❤️ || she well and TRULY dislikes this whole ordeal. even though satori bore no ill intent towards her double, or anyone from the other city, really, she’s a young woman of stability. her pets were quite frankly TROUBLE enough to last multiple lifetimes, and while she misses their brand of chaos, she would not say the same about this nonsense if they all SURVIVE this come morning. 

in the end, satori is THANKFUL to find someone else, someone truly alive and not a corrupted mess of a creature. not exactly who she’s looking for ( and who would that be BESIDES her alternate self? ) but satori is more than willing to take this. 

but the OOZE that follows! she could DEFINITELY do without that.

❝ah, i would HATE for our meeting to be interrupted by this mess. terribly rude, it won’t even wait for proper INTRODUCTIONS.❞ she can’t blame the stranger for this, not with the ooze that all but has a VORACIOUS appetite. ❝follow me. we can have a nice chit-chat after finding HIGHER ground.❞ 

her hand waves him to follow, slipping through a NARROW alley. ❝if only i was bulkier, i could have FLOWN you up …❞

He listens, not knowing this place very well despite the entire island’s familiarity. He had never tended to venture into the city proper, and when he did, he had always stuck to main streets. So he slips into the narrow alleyway, grateful for her giving him instructions, and he continued forward until he found a ladder leading up the side of the building.

“Flown? You could have...” That was right, some of these others had abilities, “Oh, so you’re not one of the...Well, you’re not where I am from. Oh-” The ooze was coming, and he started climbing up the ladder, turning back down to her and saying loudly; “R-right, introductions later - apologies.” And even that apology ate up precious seconds that the both of them needed to get out of here, so he quickly climbed up the ladder and to the roof of the building.

It was a dilapidated mess up here - whether from time or the current catastrophe, he couldn’t say, but he was well and fully winded from his exertion.

“This place...has truly experienced something terrible.” He muttered to himself, before turning and offering a hand to the other who had so kindly given him instructions.

[miracleworks]

cataclysmal​:

SOOT CLINGS TO HER DRESS, akin to a charred fruit which has been cast aside amidst the chaos. where once crimson soaked the sky in a sea of flames, meteors crashing downward upon the land, now seems something far more at peace. curiouser and curiouser, everything unfolding as if she’s fallen through a rabbit hole into another, more safe if one could call it so, dimension. no longer beneath the glow of doomed skies, her red eyes gleam across the setting, finally understanding where she had been placed: a park, veered off from the main streets. taking one step forward, she hardly gets far before another who recognizes her waves her down, closing the distance between them, all before she takes note of his face.

ah, this was the man she’d crossed paths with in that garden…

only what he says is not quite what it seems, something foreign to her as her expression remains flat. it takes only a few more words before it clicks in her mind what’s happening, the diffidence in their interaction despite the general knowing of each other, down to the concern he displays, puzzling commentary aside. so, she responds with relative ease to his statements.

❝ Girls? I don’t have anything like that. As for my attire, this is how I’ve always dressed. ❞ curtly spoken, there’s no bite to her words in this regard, merely talking as if it were fact. ❝ But now that you say it, there’s a lot amiss. You, for starters… you’re not that guy I ran into before, are you? ❞ a pause, turning to face him entirely now. ❝ And I’m not the Lacie you’re acquainted with, either. Then that means… ❞

“Ah, you...” She explains, and he can feel his heart drop in his chest. He knew. He knew it would happen again. Paranoia had gripped his consciousness, for he knew he must have a double somewhere, and with how some of the others spoke of the phenomena, he knew quite well that this could be a precarious situation. Her response is curt. She is not unlike his Lacie - ah, but he shouldn’t call her that, of course - but she is, at the same time, so unlike the mother of two that he had come to know.

“I knew...That there could be no way I did not have a double. And yet I feared there had been some reason...” His voice is nearly a whisper as he looks at her, speaking to her and yet partly to himself.

“But, yes, you have a double here. Older than you are, although she does not look too different, of course. She and daughters are friends of myself and my own daughter. Given the happenings when those from your island last arrived, I cannot help but feel...Apprehensive. And concerned for their well-being.” But the soot on her clothes bespoke other such hardships, and whilst she was not the Lacie he knew, she was still Lacie. Right?

“But you...Must have suffered some terrible event to come here. What...Happened?”

[miracleworks]

He couldn’t help but hold some measure of concern, that terror gripping his chest as he hid from the others. That masked version of himself, the tall one - it had to be himself some giant version of himself, so he had a double after all, and why wouldn’t he, for he had met Lacie’s double as well - was nowhere to be found. And, if he were to be frank, there were very few people he felt he could trust here.

And he couldn’t find Meteion anywhere - not his Meteion, nor her supposed double. And he prayed that she had found her own double, who must simply be the same sweet girl he had raised.

The black ooze was coming further and further down the street, and he was struggling to find a way up. And yet he clung desperately to the weapon in his hands - should he fight, was he supposed to?

Seeing the short girl with the purple hair, he walked up to her - “It’s dangerous to be around here, ah-” Hands started to claw their way up from the ooze.

“And I do hate to ask- but do you know your way around this part of the island? We should get to higher ground...”

@heart3yed​

[miracleworks]

“Oh, you’re-” They had met, but, no, he wasn’t quite the same, was it? Something about his aether - not quite right at the time, was it? Or, rather, it wasn’t quite right in the sense that it was particularly off compared to others here, who were all quite off compared to the people back home. A swift nod, and a small, awkward smile.

“So, L’uca, but the ‘L’uca’ from that other world, right?”

He could feel a shudder as he considered the state of both worlds, and looked up at the sky of perpetual night.

“This one’s a mess, but yours isn’t faring much better.” He turns back to ‘Luca’ - no, it wasn’t quite fair to think of him as another - even his own self wasn’t entirely ‘another’. Plagued by his same consternation as he was.

“My apologies, I met the version of you from this island - briefly, but we met before, well, this.”

@bloodspillers​

[miracleworks]

“Look out-”

A hand is outreached, and a series of window-like structures form, sending a blast of wind at the group of CPNs that had started to emerge from the sludge. Transformation may be unseemly, but if the others weren’t around to see, then perhaps he wouldn’t be in trouble. Still, he knew his large form was a bit disconcerting, so he transformed from his larger, flying self once the danger seemed dissipate. To be polite.

“Oh, good- You seem unharmed. Although I can imagine you could get away yourself, of course.” He adjusts his mask awkwardly, before turning to where the sludge is encroaching and creating a small wall to dam it. For now, at least.

“Although we should look back there to see if anyone is back there. If you...Don’t mind flying, that is?”

@doublejolt​

[miracleworks]

a bit late on the uptake, but here’s a starter call for subsistence! (part 1 and part 2). Hermes’ subverted self information can be found here, and i’ll be capping this at 3 with castmates exempt!

[miracleworks]

He knew he was paranoid, but he also knew he couldn’t allow that to keep his daughter from living as fulfilling a life as possible. It was a difficult thing to balance - work, his own sanity, and his daughter’s well-being.

The park, at least, had been calm, and there hadn’t been aught amiss for nearly a decade. Still, you would never know it from his office. A mass of strings and papers and enough that he knew it made Meteion concerned. But he had to be prepared. He just knew he had to be.

Without knowing how right he was, he saw her - the woman with the red eyes. Beautiful, a mother herself, and her children had grown up playing with her children. They were cordial, friendly - he and his mysterious woman he had now known for years, but had never broached much more than that.

But today she was dressed in a particular way - she always dressed in a particular way, different, but today was, well, different - and he waved her down. It wasn’t until she arrived that he saw anything amiss.

“Ah, are you going somewhere special? Although your dress is, aha,” a bit charred. He gestured to it casually. Or well, as casually as he could.

“Is aught amiss? Are the girls with you?”

@cataclysmal​

[miracleworks]

a bit late on the uptake, but here’s a starter call for subsistence! (part 1 and part 2). Hermes’ subverted self information can be found here, and i’ll be capping this at 3 with castmates exempt!

[miracleworks]

Hey all! Just posting to let everyone know due to some confusion (on my part too) that Fandaniel can be applied as a canon character! He’s not considered to be a canon double to Hermes under canon double guidelines for Isola.

Since there was some confusion, however, the moderation team has asked me to post as though I were opening canon doubles. So this is an official post to say Fandaniel is available as a character as of 24 hours from now in accordance with the rules.

[miracleworks]

HERMES | SUBVERSION

Lives a peaceful life being a wildlife researcher and preservationist, ranging from flora to fauna. He’s absolutely passionate about it all, and if you get him talking about it he’ll continue talking about it for a long, long time.

Has a daughter who he loves and cares for and carries so many pictures of and also don’t get him started talking about his daughter either.

He won’t stop – until he realizes he’s rambling, and then will become completely embarrassed about the rambling.

Has an odd friendship with the single mother down the road, but their kids get along, so he certainly could never flirt with her…

TIMESKIP

While he had not encountered his alternate self, the entire event shook him to his very core.

He delved into research on the matter. While he did not neglect his own work, that spark seemed to be lost. The ideas of copies of the self seemed to…Disconcert him.

He continues, even over the past decade, to conduct investigations into those who had and had not encountered their doubles during this event. The research itself consumes him, and those closest to him likely have noticed a bit of a personality change.

[cataclysmal]

ASHFALL FLOATS DOWN EVER GENTLY, dusting the caverns in a coat of what one could mistake as freshly powdered snow, were it not for the heat that embraces them. winter was no longer here on this island, but that means relatively little to the woman who finds herself seated to the side of the pathway with an empty basket beside her, crimson resting upon the stretch of what so many locals call the garden of ash. after all, it wasn’t so far-fetched to simply imagine yourself amid a blanket of snow, even when it was from a source far beyond winter’s calling. so she remains quietly, almost a little contented at the scene of it all.

until she decides to speak, no less to a bystander who has found himself drawn to the area, too. ❝ Did you know that a lot of flowers have a symbolism behind them? At least back where I’m from. It’s a little funny to me… I’m not quite sure where it started; whether if it was because someone wanted them to from the start or just got embarrassed being turned down, so they scrambled to save face, ❞ she muses, a hand reaching beyond to cup a rose’s petals as if it were a fragile wine glass. ❝ But I don’t know a lot of these flowers growing here. They say they’re native to other places where we come from and not just this island. Isn’t it kind of exciting? ❞ that, even now, they can still flourish despite being plucked so far from the home they prosper in.

❝ I wonder if any of them were given a meaning where they come from, too. ❞

@miracleworks

[miracleworks]

Hermes turns to his fellow visitor, having only caught a flake of fallen ash in his hands moments before. While fascinated by the flora here (and wondering if their unique qualities were due to the unique qualities of the ash, although that, he thought, was nearly certain due to the trace elements in ash being readily absorbed by soil), the everfalling ash would certainly be of some unique quality.

But meaning in flowers...Surely, there was purpose in certain flora, meaningful flora, but... “I wonder...Surely, I suppose, it would depend on who has curated them to ascribe them meaning...?” Although flowers as a gift was certainly something he was familiar with, he was uncertain about them being ascribed meaning due to some social mishap.

“I...Do imagine so. Simply given the breadth of experience here - so many worlds, so many people - there must be those who looks at a certain type of purple flower, and think to themselves, ‘ah, yes, that is a flower which means...’“ He fades off, looking at the flowers himself.

“Perhaps it is a flower that is toxic, but only during certain parts of the day. Or perhaps it can read the ambient emotion around us. Or perhaps it is simply a flower.” Luckily, he had not seen any of the second type of flower he had mentioned. “I suppose, truly, it would depend. Time, place, space, and person...”

Letting the ash fall from his hands, he looks up at her fully. “But I think it would be far more meaningful if flowers were to carry meaning on their own, rather than being prescribed them by those around them. Don’t you...?” Realizing he had allowed his own thoughts to run away once more, he is ever thankful he remembered to keep his mask on.

[joyejoyu]

Hermes

[miracleworks]

“Oh-” He didn’t meant to speak aloud, but both the familiarity of the aether, but the corruption of it. It took him off-guard, and when he drew attention to himself, he couldn’t help but become incredibly bashful at it all.

“My apologies, your aether caught me a bit...Off.” He looked down at the other, hoping his apologies made it through his mask. Once may think that he would grow more comfortable, considering how many of those around him were maskless in this place, but Elpis itself was a place where masks were removed, and even still, he felt more comfortable hiding some measure of his expression.

“Honestly, I am a bit less taken aback these days, if only because so many individuals here have smaller amounts of aether, if none at all. And as far as I can tell, they are...Well, whole beings. Not weakened nor...Aha...” Oh, goodness, he had been rambling.

“Forgive my ramblings, there is still much and more to learn here, and were it true many are from myriad worlds, well, that only creates more...”

@bloodspillers​

[miracleworks]

How odd. He wasn’t adept at seeing souls, but there were certain others who had such a sliver of aether that he found it difficult not to believe there was a connection. For aetheric beings, there were certainly...Patterns. Type, density, amount...

But then again, there were so many myriad beings here, and, well. “None of them have agreed to the assessment that they were a familiar...” He muttered to himself, hand on his chin as his gaze was hidden beneath his mask. A useful thing for the curious, really, he found. And in a new place, for someone who worked with all sorts of created beings, such a curious person could get in trouble.

As with the look being given by the very person he had been observing. Likely because he spoke aloud - although he had been certain he hadn’t...- wait, had he?

“Ah-” Perhaps he had. “Apologies, it’s simply that...There are certain similarities between some beings - people, really - across this place. It really is quite odd, you know. Not that I am particularly adept at such things, simply that there is such a myriad of people here, and it really is quite different-...” He trailed off, stumbling over his words. There were times where he simply wished he wasn’t so noticeable, as short as everyone else was.

@lightblume​

[miracleworks]

It was quite rare, he could not help but think, to encounter a being taller than he was. And not only that, a being so completely - well perhaps not completely - outside of his own personal perspective on the forms that beings could take. Then again, there were such myriad beings in this place, that he found it difficult to be overly surprised anymore, even if this one were not as cute as the small furry creatures or flying ones he had seen.

“It is quite rare to see an individual taller than myself, here.” And even then, when he finally found something to measure himself with, he was decidedly shorter than he normally would be. “At least for the moment.”

“One would hope you capable of shapeshifting, as uncouth as it may be, for this island has not been outfitted for my current size, nevermind yours.” In truth, while he knew shapeshifting to be...Unbecoming, since he was so used to helping the beings he took care of, he didn’t personally find it to be much of a bother.

So long as certain members of the Convocation did not see him, surely he would be fine.

@whohassummonedme​

[temporoyales]

[endwalker spoilers]

hermes and meteion