𝔤𝔩𝔬𝔯𝔦𝔞 𝔞𝔢𝔱𝔢𝔯𝔫𝔞

A roleplay account dedicated to the Emperor of Garlemald, Solus zos Galvus. A great deal of triggering content will be contained within, some please cultivate your dash accordingly. Tended to by Felicia. Mun and muse are well over 18 years of age. Layout art is by Nipuni.

[solorum]

solus zos galvus

biography / visage / meta + headcanons / guising (solus) / aesthetic / quotes

beloved

tba.

upkeep

inbox: 2 / drafts: — / answered / psa / ooc (tbd) / salome / personal

CONTENT WARNING.

Whilst Final Fantasy XVI's writing tends to meander its way through The Horrors by either ignoring them outright or capsulizing them within a well-timed witticism or guffaw? I don't, won't, and never will. Emet-Selch is a reprehensible creature.

THEMES.

Genocide/omnicide, eugenics, cultural imperialism, land annexation, ethnic/racial nationalism, war, intergenerational trauma, romantic fanaticism, unresolved grief, the perversion and degradation of memory, madness, being a living witness, and so much more.

TRIGGERS?

Reach out to me if I’ve posted something that triggers you and you need it tagged. Please do not assume I will be able remember every minutiae from your about page, my memory is absolute garbage due to seizures. Tagging things for you is no problem, I just need to know what it is!

SHIPPING NOTES.

Unless you and I are good friends and I know your characters well? Absolutely not. Azem is dead, and your WOL is not them, no matter how many shards of them are rejoined.

1. No minors. If I discover that you are under the age of 18, you will be immediately blocked. Ideally, I would prefer to be writing with partners 25+ on this account given just how weighty many of the frequently broached topics are.

2. Mutuals only. I will likely be fairly shy about whom I follow on Emet's blog, but despite how strictly written my rules seem? I am little more than baby. Furthermore, whilst we're here, I write in novella format almost exclusively. And sometimes, if I cannot think of an answer to an ask/meme, I will reach out and let you know before moving on.

3. I am often on my dash, but actual writing is slow. Between having ADHD (and subsequent choice paralysis), I was born with a severely disabling genetic disease and there are days where getting out of bed becomes nigh impossible. Please be gentle with me.

4. I actively cultivate a safe dash space. I used to have a rule for years that said I didn't tolerate bigotry in any form, and while it is still very true, at this point I reserve the right to yeet anyone off my dash who has opinions they sourced out of the Op-Ed section of the Trash Times. I refuse to tolerate lazy praxis despite social media killing all sense of nuance and neither should you.

If you soft block me, I will likely assume it is an an error and either reach out or refollow you. Uncomfortable with this? Hard block me. I won't be upset.

5. Replies are not done in the order they are received, but as inspiration hits me with them. If it's been several weeks and I haven't gotten to you? Reach out. The thread could have slipped through the cracks.

[sfaradi]

just as an fyi, i’m kind of taking a (admittedly self-indulgent) down day to recoup in the wake of everything that happened yesterday. everything feels so overwhelming, still. i’m checking individual accounts here and there but no dash overall. i’ll be back tomorrow morning.

keep south minneapolis in your prayers, but especially the families of harper moyski and fletcher merkel. they should be here. they deserve to be here. but the world has been denied two bright stars because some chud decided “to do something [they] had always wanted to” and aimed a rifle at praying elementary age kids.

Donate to Lifting up the Moyskis on Harper’s Angel Wings, organized by Steve Imhoff

On August 27th, 2025, at the first mass of the school year, we lost our sw… Steve Imhoff needs your support for Lifting up the Moyskis on Ha

Donate for Victor's Ongoing Medical Care, organized by Mike Kelly

On 8/27 hundreds of students were impacted by a horrific shooting at Annunciation … Mike Kelly needs your support for Donate for Victor's On

Donate to Support Vivi and her family, organized by Sam Low

On August 27, 2025, tragedy struck at Annunciation Catholic School when a school shooting left sev… Sam Low needs your support for Support V

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Dear friends, family and kind-hearted strangers, Yesterday, our family… natalie Davis needs your support for Stand with Endre: Overcomin

[solorum]

I was going to sit down and write this morning and get everything out to y’all, but a mass shooting happened at a school in the Minneapolis neighborhood I live in and I’m kind of emotionally reeling but need to keep it together enough to make sure all my friends and their kids are alright. I’ll see where I’m at later, but right now I’m gonna hunker down and see where my community needs me to be.

Back later. ❤️

[solorum]

I am so fucking angry. Two kids under the age of ten are dead and seventeen more — at least right now — are seriously injured. Fuck guns.

[solorum]

I was going to sit down and write this morning and get everything out to y’all, but a mass shooting happened at a school in the Minneapolis neighborhood I live in and I’m kind of emotionally reeling but need to keep it together enough to make sure all my friends and their kids are alright. I’ll see where I’m at later, but right now I’m gonna hunker down and see where my community needs me to be.

Back later. ❤️

[solorum]

Why do people assume that the entire mercantile-oriented class of Garlemald has to be poor? The bas/cen titles are clearly analogous to the [petite] bourgeoisie.

They’re not the aristocracy, which would be filled primarily by the military, medical, and engineering set, but they’re likely to be the most dominant of the social classes and that carries a fairly significant amount of power with it. The distinction between cen and bas being, I suspect, simple ownership of capital (e.g. land) or not. Hell, everything we have romanticized about the “Victorian” (read: actually Edwardian) period are almost exclusively expressions of the petite bourgeoisie class and their newfound ability to showcase discretionary wealth through the innovations of the Industrial Revolution. Luxury goods, ornate wallpapers, the gaslights; each and every one of these being installed and displayed prominently in their homes as a means to showcase increased wealth and their increasing distance from the proletariat (which would take the form of the Garlean aan).

Most of these terms have been subjected to enshittification in recent decades, where they have been reduced to being increasingly obfuscated buzzwords with little to no connection to their original meaning, but they still carry actual sociological and strategic weight within their original contexts. A perfect example being the differences that arose between the Kulak and Krestyane in nineteenth century, serf-emancipated Russian empire.

Futhermore, I would not be surprised in the least to learn that a significant amount of women carried mercantile-based peerage. While social stratification in Garlemald does not seem to be gendered in any meaningful way outside of perhaps the royals, the artisan and mercantile trades were historically dominated by women, even well through the process of industrialization and into the modern age. A fact that sounds counterintuitive to history as we're commonly told it, but these employed women were in these roles entirely \ due to their skillsets being commercially desirable (often as sumptuary goods for the higher classes). Those funds then being funneled back into higher education, usually for a male peer, who could thus navigate easier into the aristocracy (as marriages between class-stratified women were much more difficult to obtain, if not outright illegal, etc.)

[solorum]

I feel like there’s a strong dichotomy between the role the Emperor and the Empress play in Garlemald. This is not as evident with regard to actual power, but rather the presentation of it. And how language has likely evolved around it.

[ This is going to be a meander. Deal with me here. ]

So, a perfect example of just how complicated linguistics can be around this subject alone, is found in Poland’s way of describing its own nationalist and ethnic identities. Language has evolved to describe it as a Fatherland, but the term for father (ojczyzna) is used in the feminine. This engenders the country with both elements of nationhood.

If you’re confused by what I’m referring to, countries have long and traditionally been referred to in a gendered capacity. Even when they are not personified in their entirety. Father Germany, Mother Russia; these are terms we often hear in localized senses. Hell, even America has its own, fully realized personifications as both Columbia and Uncle Sam.

This isn’t a new concept. It didn’t pop up two hundred odd years ago apropos of nothing. It has existed for most of history, and you can see it in examples all the way back to the Early Roman period. Neither does the choice of what a society picks ultimately live in a vacuum.

Countries described as a mother tend to be one of two distinctive types. One is tied to someone’s personal attachment to their country of birth. It is a country that shapes you, your morals, and many times your ethnic identity. The second instance is more amorphous and difficult to define, but it best compared to the state acting as a mother hen parenting her colonial chicks.

On the reverse, countries defined by being a father? Were tied heavily to expansionist empires. They often have, or historically had, a heavy hand and militaristic society. It is the Fatherland that seeks to reclaim what was once their land, for it is their right by blood. It is him that seeks to conquer and make right by might.

Let’s veer off to the left for a bit. I want to make a larger point about Garlemald, the roles everyone plays, and propaganda, but I need to expand outward from here to do it.

It doesn’t come as a surprise to most people if I say that I’m deeply intrigued by propaganda and how images and words can manipulate minds simply by hitting on just the right values for that individual.

Most propaganda we are exposed to — knowing exactly what it is due to either hindsight or a lack of a desire to obscure — are in the realm of war. It is loud, and it is extremely apparent, but that is because we live in a time where we have the benefit of a century or more of posturing to source from. We are harder-pressed to pin down what a more subtle source of influence looks in the digital age due to the rapid erasure of nuance with the rise of social media. But I think a great example of the former, is the Holocaust Memorial Museum's specialized exhibit about the subtleties of persuasive communication and imagery.

Garlemald is superficially based on Byzantine Rome, yes, but it is a modern country. It is an advanced empire full of technology, mass production possibilities, and clearly has a hierarchy of power that puts it, structurally speaking, closer to twentieth century powerhouses like the Soviet Union versus anything Roman (despite what the adoption of its language may suggest.) Yes, there is a Senate and the leader (Titus, according to one of the many side stories) seeks to, passively, pull the sway of power from a deified leader and place it back into something resembling a Republic, but that is an exercise in failure at best when the Garlean Senate is already functioning far more similarly to a gutted, late stage Weimar Reichstag or Soviet Politburo. It can meet, create and pass novel laws, and give an appearance of collaborative government, but it cannot enact actual change. A power reserved solely for its Head of State.

All of this is so incredibly important because it is Emet who holds that seat. Someone who has thousands of lifetimes worth of wisdom about people and their psychology. He has seen what works and what does not, and has structured Garlemald to be a puppet state evocative of entirely off of societal wins. The upper classes — always content to collectively chase money and power — can contentedly sacrifice themselves to climb a ladder that leads to nothing but folly while being none the wiser of the futility. A sacrifice that Emet, too, willingly plays to by allowing his second son to participate. Instead of a choice between monarch or elected representation, Garleans are gifted the illusion thus, and Emet is allowed to play King for a few decades while the country tears itself apart over a false choice that leads to the same outcome.

Which brings me around to that elusive point I was trying to make earlier.

While the upper classes fuel their own discontentment through power and politik, this opens Emet up to focus his attentions on the petite bourgeoisie. We don’t see him do this directly, no. It’s mostly theatrics and banter at the expense of Varis’ remaining sanity, or side mentions. However, we can still extract just how important propaganda is in Garlemald by completing the Return to Ivalice quest chains and seeing how both “Solus” and Varis approach being patrons of the arts.

To say, the former lavishes support, titles, and wealth upon acting troupe who are highly critical of the fanatical nationalism of Garlemald. And then, the moment he’s dead, his replacement strips them of everything including their citizenships, and leaves them as refugees. Strangers in a once known land.

This is a story of how one understands that government-sanctioned criticism can both reenforce power and funnel criticism and chaos. That art is an asset of power, and not a frivolous expression of it. The other one does not. Emet-Selch finances the arts not solely out of love for it, but because it allows the petite bourgeoisie of Garlemald dream. Of what power they could have. It's an action akin to watching crumbs make their way through an ant colony. And all the while we have the military, composing the majority of the upper class/haute bourgeoisie in Garlemald, fretting over the zeitgeist forming. Their always tenuous hold on power. An emotion that finally manifests in stamping out creative expression and the unrest they perceive it grants the average civilian. And once it is taboo? The lower classes of the country will be drawn to it like a moth to a flame. Either because a taboo is always delicious to indulge, or because the lure of social stratification never wavers.

( There was a whole subplot about the Populares in Stormblood that was clearly meant to play with these ideas and then it just up and died like every other take that required nuance in the game. I am quite saddened by that. )

How does my first point merge with my second one? Good question, I’m glad you asked. The short answer is propaganda, again, and we can cycle back to beginning.

There’s a lot unsaid and undone with the royal family of Garlemald, but part of the reason I think we see so little of the Empresses in particular? Is due the role that this sort of society assigns to them. They are absent because the role assigned to them is superfluous within the nature of narrative, especially within the narrow range of succession and even daily life. A colonial mother figure is not important within the heart of the empire where everyone already believes in the grand design, and in the same breath we never see a truly functioning colonial outpost for Garlemald, either. It is either fully in, or fully out.

In turn, we see so much of Emet’s influence because he is meant to encompass Garlemald’s ancestral identity. The Conqueror. The Fatherland: expanding the borders outward until they can set foot in the land that is indigenous to them, now returned to them. It is an easy dream to believe in, and to focus upon. Emet knows this, and he thrives when embodying the voracious empire, desperate for its past and willing to destroy anything in its path. That's a sentiment he doesn't even have to wear a mask for.

Empresses, on the other hand, are meant to be a reflection of good intent. A mother’s doting hand guiding them down a path in a manner that begets Garlemald's intent, but still loves every one of her children. A figure akin to someone like Eva Perón, who, despite being an expression of fascism, still retains a folk identity amongst the people as something aside. Incorruptible. A mother. An entity that is delivered onto the people who are already primed to receive her as a saint despite the truth of the matter. A figure of domesticity and poise, but perceived with no real power besides, tricking the peoples of the expanding empire into docility. That they need to play their role, too.

I actually have more to say about the topic, but considering this has already hit a whopping 21 paragraphs? You deserve to be spared lol.

[sfaradi]

I was trying to do a fate chain down in the Tempest, but it kept resetting so I’m taking a break for a bit to see if it fixes its shit. But whenever I’m down there, it fascinates me just how much of the visual storytelling around Emet is cued specifically to blindness.

The most obvious of this is that, well, Amaurot. A city named for a form of asymptomatic blindness. There’s a hysterical component from here — talk about fanaticism that leads to visual impairment — but it’s more common form is akin to what happens when a brain injury of any type extends into the parts that control and code our visual understanding of the world. If you’ve ever read Oliver Sacks’ The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, you are familiar with the agnosia in which I’m speaking.

I’ve never seen anyone point out they the ecosystem surrounding Amaurot is full of bleached “coral” that resemble less of a biological colony than diseased and anemic optic nerves and cerebral neurons. The very things that would lead to a diagnosis of Amaurosis Fugax in the first place. The side quest I was undertaking this morning only hammers that visual in more when you’re sent out to collect “sanguine” coral.

That the black beast that haunts the Tempest and Emet’s memory is attracted to that “coral.” Craves and perhaps even needs it, in spades. An apt way of characterizing a voiceless, clotted vessel brought to life. More so when you remember that Amaurosis is rarely a singular event, but several, all as those pathways are lost to time, disease, or inflammatory immune response. Scotoma in your line of vision are also generally black if they aren’t almost invisible, as well.

It’s incredibly subtle imagery.

( A secondary point, is that amaurosis was a historical byword for hemlock poisoning. Which, I think, immensely matters but I may make that a point for another day. )

What is of note, however, is that Amaurosis isn’t not seeing. It is seeing black. The darkness. This is not how vision loss tends to present in most, and I strongly suspect it’s meant to be a nod to Emet’s vision being obscured by his tempering to Zodiark, even when he is attempting to tell a semblance of truth.

But there’s a lot of references to this in the game, too, in actuality. From him mentioning that he doesn’t like “bright” areas in the First to calling his fleeting glimpse of Azem a “trick of the light.” These are all stupidly important.

Hemeralopia is a disease — caused by many of the same factors that lead to Amaurosis also — that leads to blindness in high light conditions but not low ones. Hallucinations are also commonplace in the visually impaired, usually taking the form of distorted duplications of what is in front of them. And, due to our associations of hallucinations to madness in the modern day, it can be extremely distressing to experience when you’re not expecting it.

There’s a great deal I could posit on this, and it opens up the whole book on whether or not Emet has active issues with confabulation (which, I mean, yes… but more than just the obvious.)

This is the time where I tell you I went out and bought the third volume of the stupid Eorzea Encyclopedia to see if I can get crumbs to work back from.

[punchelf]

If you see that change.org petition about changing squeenix's mod policy, NO YOU DID NOT.

[rose-from-ashes]

Square Enix is a Japanese company. Modding is illegal in Japan. TOS will not change. Wait for a secure Mare fork.

[solorum]

If you’re ever presented with an opportunity to take Rifampin for any reason short of dying of Tuberculosis, don’t.

[sfaradi]

why do any of you write with me again??

[solorum]

love that as i’m setting up emet’s blog, my ambient background music is whoever the fuck has been shooting a gun off for the last forty-five minutes.

[stardustprompts]

the empire of gold   (  the daevabad trilogy book 3 )  part 2  -   s. a. chakraborty change tenses/pronouns as needed !!  some lines have been edited for clarity / length / ease of roleplaying  /  part one found  here. tw ;  death , war ,  violence

‘you are an exceedingly frustrating person to talk to.’

‘she scared me, and I am not a woman who frightens easily.’

‘it’s supposed to be the mark of a wise leader, right? the willingness to make sacrifices for a greater good? but nobody ever asks those ‘sacrifices’ if they’re willing— they get no say in whether or not their kids die for some supposed greater good.’

‘we die, and we bleed, and it’s a debt that the powerful never repay. I don’t want to be part of that.’

‘I have made my loyalty clear.’

‘I find I can get a more accurate measure of a man when he’s not aware he’s being appraised.’

‘you have a very long way to go to earn my trust.’

‘i’m not tossing away (name’s) legacy. i’m completing it.’

‘it feels like you’re keeping all these secrets, like you still don’t trust me.’

‘oh, (name). what have you done?’

‘you court death with far too much persistence.’

‘I do not wish to leave. I am very content here with you.’

‘I want you dead and I want your city destroyed.’

‘the ___ do not deserve your loyalty. no one in the world does.’

‘they are poisoned. they are infected. and you are the disease.’

‘I need to go. there is no other way.’

‘I won’t lose you. not again.’

‘you and I are not the worst of our ancestors. they don’t own us. they don’t own our heritage.’

‘it’s a shame you hate politics. you’d be a very good queen.’

‘do you want me to stop?’

‘it’s like you’re in a competition with yourself over picking the worst time to say something.’

‘look me in the eye and tell me the truth. you promised no more lies.’

‘if saving ___ had meant likely killing me, would you have done it?’

‘so you plan to mock me as I bleed to death? that sounds like terrible bedside manner.’

‘don’t be stupid or reckless or proud. give her what she wants and come back to me.’

‘promise me. promise me you’ll come back.’

‘i’m not here to stop you. everything in my blood screams at me to, but I know I can’t.’

‘there is nothing I wouldn’t give for you.’

‘I am so sorry for the words I spoke before, but I won’t burden you with my regrets or my grief.’

‘I was starting to believe in you, in all these things you’ve been saying about a new ___ and equality for my people.’

‘you made me think it might be possible. that if I ever went home, it’d be as some kind of hero, and maybe all the other things I’ve done wouldn’t matter.’

‘i’m helping you. the right fucking thing to do and all that.’

‘there’s no helping me. i’m not getting out of this. all you’ll do is get yourself killed.’

‘I didn’t ask your permission. and I’m not doing this for you.’

‘(name) said you were coming in peace. the face you are making does not indicate peace.’

‘do you not understand? you have lost. save yourself and what is left of your people before their blood is on your hands.’

‘you’ve gone too far, and I’m trying to bring you back!’

‘you keep doing that. making that face like I’m an enemy you have to guard yourself against. i’m not.’

‘you’re not the only one whose had to pretend to be different. whose had to smile politely when people with power insult the parts of you that you never get to wear openly.’

‘I wish you had trusted me. but more than that, I wish I had behaved in a way that would have encouraged you to trust me.’

‘do you have to do that? sound all reasonable and kind?’

‘I have a lot of experience in loving frustrating people.’

‘if you make me cry, I’m going to stab you.’

‘we need to be able to trust each other if we’re going to fight back.’

‘it was the worst thing I’ve ever done in my life, and I didn’t blink an eye.’

‘I know how hard it is to think clearly when someone you love is in danger.’

‘I feared even thinking about the things that would make me happy would destroy them. and it does.’

‘we do not interfere. we seek to avert the greatest harm, to listen to the warnings of the heavens when it’s laws are about to be broken.’

‘you said your people had a proposal for me. so why don’t you state it? clearly, if that’s even possible for you.’

‘let’s not pretend you care about justice when it comes to the internecine squabbles of my people.’

‘please understand. i’ve lost everyone I’ve dared to love. I can’t lose you. not you.’

‘you’re not alone anymore. you don’t have to do this all by yourself!’

‘we can do this together. I don’t need you to save me!’

‘I am not a good man. I am a weapon.’

‘was any of it ever real between us?’

‘I hate you. I hate that I ever had feelings for you.’

‘I offered you mercy once, and you threw it in my face. don’t make that mistake again.’

‘i’m not looking for your mercy. i’m here to save our people.’

‘do you hear yourself? do you have any idea how naïve you sound?’

‘you think I had a choice? I had no one and nothing!’

‘I did not want this violence. it will haunt me to the end of my days, but I will be damned if it was for nothing.’

‘surrender. you cannot defeat her. it will be easier.’

‘oh, (name). you always did underestimate me.’

‘i’m sorry you and I didn’t grow up in a time of peace, where we could have lived happily together.’

‘I mourn, truly, the kind of relationship we could have had.’

(name) didn’t break me. you won’t either.’

(name) didn’t break me. you won’t either. I will never surrender to you.’

‘you have your mother’s/father’s spirit. it got her/him killed too.’

‘i’m not going to hurt you. I would never hurt you.’

‘you have hurt me. you left me.’

‘my entire life is a lie.’

‘you were all I wanted. I dreamed of seeing you again every night.’

‘I do not believe you. because I know you. and you are a liar. a thief.’

‘talk to me. tell me how to fix you.’

‘if you are looking for absolution, you won’t find it from me.’

‘I genuinely believe she wanted better for her people and her city. she just got very, very lost.’

‘I wish I had more time with her. I had so much I wanted to say.’

‘you may have to battle with words and with your very beliefs. but it it worth it. your life is worth it.’

‘your life is worth it. don’t let it be made into fodder for those who will never be in the trenches.’

‘you rip me apart. I was ready to kill you. and then you had to go and do the right thing.’

‘if I could go back … it breaks my heart to think of the different path we might have taken.’

‘you have earned your happy ending. let me do the same.’

‘you don’t get to make me laugh while you’re breaking my heart.’

‘find your happiness. steal it and do not ever let it go.’

‘I am sorry to be such a disappointment.’

‘you say you trust me. so trust me.’