he rarely ever goes out, and one of the few times he did, he ended up falling for you. was it your laugh that caught his attention? or your striking personality that stood out to him. maybe it was the way you had your hair that way or the color of the ensemble you had on, but he quickly took an interest in you. he still stayed locked up in his towering work place, but you intrigued him. the thought of you distracted him from his work, and soon poems and drawings of you littered his desk. unsent letters piled up by his door. if only he was courageous enough to send them.
the peasant
you caught his eye the very first time he saw you. he absolutely loved every part of you. the way your hair slightly rustled in the breeze, or how your eyes dazzled when they hit the sunlight. the poor boy was love struck. he always made an effort to see you once a day, and tried his best to strike up a conversation, though he ended up a stuttering and blushing mess by the end of it. even though he had close to nothing, he would do his best to give you anything and everything if it put a smile on your face.
the prince
you had always seemed like a pain in his side. you always announced your idea before he had a chance. you beat him in combat training. you impressed the king, his own father, much more than he did for goodness sake! you were a nuisance. everyday he looked forward to besting you in whatever he could. he wanted to get the upper hand at strategy, intellect, brawn, anything. he enjoyed seeing the little face you made whenever he 'won' a part of your game. he awaited your small petty quarrels each day. you occupied each thought in his head, and one he realized his feelings toward you, he knew it was over for him.
the jester
the jester's job is just to entertain, and thats what he did. he liked his job too, unlike most in his profession. he loved watching people smile and laugh at his jokes, and you were no exception. in fact, after he saw you, you became his main focus. he spends hours coming up with jokes he thinks would entertain you. he loves seeing the way your face lights up and the way your laugh fills up the room. he loves making you happy, and hopes maybe one day he can make you smile without even having to say anything.
Tagged by: @themckaytriarchy
Tagging: If ya wanna do it, feel free, just tag me in it so I can take a gander
*NOTE: these headcanons are highly canon-based, but 100% subject to alteration depending on the headcanons of any Ardyn/Aera/Gilgamesh rpers writing with him. These work in tandem with my Gilgamesh portrayal. Regardless, don’t be afraid to ask for adjustments!
History:
Lucis’ Founder King came from humble origins, son of a winemaker and one of the greater warlords who controlled a large part of Cavaugh. He wanted for nothing growing up alongside his older brother Ardyn under the watch of their bodyguard, Gilgamesh.
When both he and Ardyn manifested magic early on, he was constantly at his brother’s side; they learned elemancy together, taking to different elements and complementing each other time and again as they grew old enough to be swordsmen. They learned to warp and they learned the armiger and when daemons began to manifest across Eos they were ready to fight side by side as they had done all things before.
Then Ardyn discovered he could heal. It was the first divide, as they were taken down very different paths. Despite being what Somnus would affectionately call ‘an absolute menace with a blade’ Ardyn walked the path of a healer now, and with him went Gilgamesh on a journey around the continent to heal those afflicted with the scourge.
Somnus, on the other hand, joined the ranks of his father’s warriors and quickly rose through them to his father’s side. And there were many throughout the Lucis Caelum lands, too, afflicted with the scourge.
Ardyn was not there to heal them, nowhere near close enough to even send word for.
Under his father’s guidance, Somnus learned the very limited options existed for the rest of the world: you either let the infected suffer and become a daemon, a threat to everyone around them and able to pass the plague on, or… you put them out of their misery, as soon as they showed definite signs of the scourge.
He learned to be gentle with his mercy killings, using the poisons his father had developed to send them to sleep on their way to a permanent rest, and the bodies were burned because a daemon might return from a corpse but nothing came from ashes.
He tried not to resent that his brother wasn’t there, that he had no other options. That the gods had not favored him with the gifts of healing. And mostly he succeeded. Trying not to be jealous of the starry-eyed, reverent regard that others had for Ardyn, though… that was harder.
The situation continued to get worse despite their efforts, and Somnus tried again and again to lure his brother home, where he could take care of their own people instead of this foolish attempt to save the world - a trial that he logistically couldn’t complete, even with the newly-arrived Oracle at his side.
An Oracle who declared that a king would come of their lineage, to rule over Cavaugh with the strength of a powerful magical artifact. Somnus rightfully assumed it would be him, the one of them who was standing his ground and putting in the work. Their father was getting older, and as the kingdom he had been slowly fostering began to come together, it was under Somnus’ banner. It hadn’t been easy, it hadn’t even been originally wanted, but now this was his kingdom, full of blood sweat and tears. It was a given it would remain so. Maybe then, with the blessings of the gods, his brother would come home to stay.
They gathered around the Crystal, Somnus and his men and Ardyn flanked by Gilgamesh and Aera, and prepared for Somnus’ appointment as king.
And then Aera - in truth or in the bias of her love for Ardyn - declared him king.
There was a beat of silence, disbelief on Ardyn’s face and horror running through Somnus. He loved his brother, of course he did, but the thought of him as king, fumbling through a task he knew nothing of, the price their people would inevitably pay to say nothing of the price Ardyn would pay from a job that would eat him alive --
No.
No this could not stand.
Both brothers rushed towards the Crystal and Ardyn reached it first, laying a palm on its surface before abruptly if flared to life with energy and rebuffed him.
And in the purity of its light, his brother’s skillful illusions were torn away, revealing the price for all his healings, a man who should be dead a thousand times over for the scourge he carried. In that moment, his eyes were gold instead of blue, and black ichor dripped down his face in a mockery of tears.
Unclean.
The voice of the gods spoke in his ear and he froze, sucking in a breath.
This cannot stand. His words? Theirs? It blurred.
Everything blurred. There was a lot of screaming, much of it his, and when he came back to himself… they were dead.
Gilgamesh dead and his corpse left in the Tempering Grounds.
Ardyn dead and his corpse locked away in Angelgard.
Aera dead, returned to her family - the only one laid to rest, and they did not thank him for it. In fact, it was only when he tried to reach out to them about that blasted Crystal that they laid the cruel truth at his feet. A ring was thrust onto his hand and a prophecy given for generations of agony and suffering for what he had done - or, at least, what he had not been strong enough to resist. A prophecy that would see his blood pit yet again against his brother (not dead, no, nothing so kind; he had been damned to thousands of years suffering) before the world would ever truly be free of the scourge.
Somnus would spend the rest of his life searching for a means to avert the prophecy. For a cure to the scourge, for his people and - selfishly, perhaps - moreso for his brother. These efforts gained him nothing but the title of The Mystic and a remaining lifetime of pain, regrets, and disdain for the gods that had used him.
Description:
Somnus comes in at 6’0, with short black hair and bright blue eyes. His clothing of choice was a linen toga with a blue sash and crimson belting as a boy, though he would grow into wearing leather armor as a teenager and adult when traveling. When he was in a situation where he didn’t need to fight, he had a long blue robe and black cape.
thanks for defend somnus, i feel weird with how much they pandered to #OuchPoorArdyn oficially or blatanly say they changed his personality to justify ardyn's hate, i mean what the actual fuck?
You’re welcome :)
Episode Ardyn is Ardyn’s point of view, and they told everything from Ardyn’s side of things and Ardyn sees his brother as dick. So I get why you’d feel weird about it, it also changes pretty much everything about Noctis and his family.
Yes of course Somnus would feel jealous, Ardyn has the girl, Ardyn has the power to save people, everyone loves Ardyn, but with the scourge it was a life or death situation.
Ardyn focused on the present, the who he can save next until he couldn’t save anymore. Also if you really look at things, Ardyn was sort of cherry picking who he would save from the scourge as he travelled around, he couldn’t save those that were too far gone/already turned into a daemon. Yet Ardyn didn’t think of the future, which is what Somnus did think about. Ardyn believed that if he continued “curing” people of the scourge things would work out, all would be fine like the dreamer that he is described as by the devs.
Somnus thought ahead as a leader of his people, as a leader of a group of people it was his duty to protect his people, ALL his people. If Ardyn was gone who could save his people? Medicine didn’t work, so in the end to prevent the spread of the scourge that was turning people into daemons he had to kill those that were infected.
Somnus clearly says at the end of Episode Ardyn, to Ardyn: “What I did to you was unforgivable, but I did it for the future of our kingdom of our people”
Ardyn focused on his own pain belittles Somnus’s sentiments.
Somnus is clearly sorry and tries to reason with an unreasonable Ardyn (selfish bastard imo not forgetting the things Ardyn does to Noctis & Co and destroying pretty much all of Eos because he wasn’t chosen by a rock, the crystal literally went “lol, no bitch.” when Ardyn tried to approach it in the anime). You can see how sorry Somnus is, on his face. Somnus says: “I dare not ask your forgiveness, but I do ask your understanding.”
To put it in plain English, Somnus is saying, “I’m sorry for what I did to you but please understand WHY I did it.”
Sorry this response turned longer than I wanted. I’m just sad at how some people treat Somnus when he was just trying to do the best he could in the circumstances he was in.
If protecting your people for the greater good means that you’re a dick then going by that mindset of Ardyn’s, sacrificing yourself to save the world makes Noctis an asshole?
If you don't mind me asking, what are your thoughts on Somnus?
I totally don’t mind! :) We don’t know much about Somnus so to be honest it’s hard to say.
What we got so far in game is that one line he says (as himself not as a possessed version that Ardyn brought back to fight you): “Go forth, Restore the Light…and free my brother from his curse.”
I personally think this line is quite telling of Somnus’s thoughts on Ardyn. Especially of the Japanese version of this line, there’s a bit of sadness and a plea in his tone of voice to save Ardyn because he couldn’t.
In the teaser trailer for the Episode Ardyn DLC, we hear Somnus call out to Ardyn, “Brother”. It’s not obvious in the English translation, but in Japanese, Somnus addresses Ardyn in a very respectful version of ‘Older Brother’ as a voice over…it doesn’t match up with the visuals we see of Somnus walking towards us sort of cocky like, but Ardyn responds back angrily, “Somnus”. Again it’s telling that Somnus clearly respects and loves his older brother but the feelings aren’t mutual on Ardyn’s end.
We see in the teaser trailers as the early rulers of Lucis they don’t wear black…I think Somnus was who started the current trend that black is a Royal colour for Lucis. Once Somnus resumed the throne, to protect the people he locked up his brother on Angelgard (maybe, it looks that way to me from the DLC trailer) and erased Ardyn from history, and he constantly wore black as a sign of mourning for Ardyn, this tradition was passed down and the origins were lost to Noctis’s generation but they still wore black to this day.
Like the line that Ignis says to Noctis, “One cannot lead by standing still. A king pushes onward always, accepting the consequences and never looking back.” Somnus knew the consequences of keeping Ardyn locked up versus allowing him to roam free, he had to make that hard choice, spare the life of one to save them all, and it was especially hard for him because the life he has to spare is his older brother’s.
TL;DR: I think Somnus is a good guy with unfortunate circumstances that he had to make to protect the people of his land considering the evidence we have from Square Enix.
@themckaytriarchy asked: lilac : what was your muse’s childhood like ?how has their upbringing affected them as they’ve aged ? [Somnus, a tricky one!]
Botanical HCs
Accepting
Dang Cereal I always love it when ya give me a challenge. His childhood I’ll admit I haven’t gotten to just yet. But I have what i have been working on below a read more. I’m working backwards.
I’ve been working on answering that question, researching how specific countries, Italy & Canada the most, treated gays in the 1940s-1960s. I’m guessing he was in his mid-twenties when he met Daken at least, considering mutants weren’t known to the public & Ted Carter didn’t know until about 1962 I don’t think he hid that out of fear.
I think him being gay during his time was something more commonly talked about... well the response to gays wasn’t all that great in many countries during that time. Not going to go into detail about it but I feel Somnus knew from a young age. & had to do research on other forms to figure out about his powers. It might have even taken him a few experiences to even realize he’s even a mutant.
So as he grew up, as the oldest child (i think his siblings were born later in his parents life considering he raised them after his tryst with Akihiro.), I believe it was a happy childhood. But I get the feeling he was never truly open about himself with his family from Aki’s narrative. Gives me the impression that he possible never truly felt that he belongs & in a lot of ways it didn’t matter. He took the moments he could within dreams for himself & within the living world he spent it with his family. Focusing on raising his family when he was awake, sending them through collage, watching them grow & living with them in a way that they would flourish & during his first lifetime it was enough.
As for specific childhood events, I’m still figuring that out like a writer nibbling the back of a pen.
Me: Figures Somnus could be a therapist in the 1960s & decides to look up what that’s like.
Also me: No wonder he didn't come out.
Also me: How were gays treated in italy then?
Also me: -Looks it up-
Also also me: -_-
Also also me: -looks it up for Canada-
Me: -_-
