#ffxiv emet-selch

[xer0art]

woohoo! buckled down and rendered the rough sketch - really happy with how this turned out

i have way too many sketches of emet-selch, considering i am only in heavensward lol

[riceballgremlin]

[bespectacledpaladin]

Azem’s favourite hobby; bothering her perpetually grumpy husband

[dirty-ffxiv-confessions]

Confession: I need to be the filling in a hythlodaeus emet-selch sandwich

[angorwhosebabyisthis]

had the thought 'thank goodness you're here but it's pre-sundering emet-selch getting roped into quests around etheirys' and i fucking s c r e a m e d

[risualto]

What does Emet-Selch think about Inky?

Thanks for this ask <3 I feel like Emet-Selch is a character who's still a little above my writing skill level, but I tried my best. Especially because his relationship with Inky (and most WoLs tbh) is so interesting and fun.

A thousand, thousand years ago, with a few lifetimes thrown in like change, there was a love story. A comedy, by all rights, in which the roles were quite straightforward. There was the gifted, esoteric scholar-mage; the charmer whose smiles masked deep insecurity; and the force of nature who captured both their hearts. If the audience could see them properly, surely they would find it hilarious, to watch the mummers chase and be chased, so frantically they never connected.

Yes, quite. The audience would laugh so raucously they could only leave the theatre in tears.

Emet-Selch, for his part, had not thought of that story in...oh, ages. Not really. Certainly, there was a passing resemblance between this Warrior of Darkness's soul and a light breeze, but it was nothing consequential enough to have jogged his memory.

Now, however, there is this:

The vain struggle of life against a world it was never meant to inherit, and the part of Emet-Selch himself that is so, so tired. Tired enough to question whether, perhaps, one more test is in order. If there might be one more opportunity to lay down the burden and rest. (He will meet no one in the Underworld, and such is a terribly unsatisfying ending, but only children and fools believe in promises, anymore.) Despite the test being far more fair than these facsimiles deserve, he does not think they will succeed. Not really. But, ah...the drama.

He watches as the star scholar's eyes flick away from their notes, and towards the exhausted protector, who looms like a shadow over his charge. He watches the little wind-wisp hero march over and take the hand of that tragic, doomed prophecy of a girl and pull her into one of the sun-pools that defies the greatwood canopy. (He hears the snap-crick-cracking of flint sparks as this tiny, sundered girl stands up to a boy who will not see past his grief, and wants to laugh. This weak little breath could not hope but to be scattered against the sea cliff the boy wears as his mask.)

And there sits the mage, watching the object of his...

(the word catches like a rusty nail)

...lust, try and fail to untangle his heart. They see the match that could be, and Emet-Selch thinks, well, at least the scholar is always smart enough to see the end well before the audience is meant to. It is petty, and shallow, and the kind of distraction that these new actors allow to consume every part of their characters instead of giving a damn for the broader plot. But, then again, they are so small, these pieces of what was.

It is impossible that the little squall of a champion can ever truly know what she is. That there is no such thing as an independent gust in the air of Etheirys, only a part of a greater whole, and that she is as much herself as she could be everything. Perhaps her physical aether is only enough to fill a divot in the crater of a legacy left to her, but the storm in her soul knows no such bounds. A true force of nature would know this. Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, she did.

Now, she does not. She lets herself be carried away and breathed in, out, recycled, by asides and petty squabbles.

And still--unerringly alive, despite it all--Hades's heart remembers how to pang in sympathy.

[xii-ember]

Emet smiling & breaking my heart 😭

[hydaelynsgallery]

Someone on my other blog @finalfantasyxivwritings asked about Hades' height and how he compared to an average Amaurotian as well as the wol, so I got some pictures for comparison's sake!

The heights are as follows in centimeters, inches, and 'scale' against my wol:

Samilen (min height male viera): 172 cm / 67.7 in / 1.0 scale

Amaurotian: 430 cm / 169.3 in / 2.5 scale

Hades (1st form): 619.2 cm / 243.7 in / 3.5 scale

Hades (2nd form): 774 cm / 304.7 in / 4.6 scale

And in case any of you are absolute thirsty heathens like me have some extra measurements under the cut:

The Extra™ measurements are as follows:

Samilen (min height male viera): 12.9 cm / 5.1 in

Amaurotian: 32.3 cm / 12.7 in

Hades (1st form): 46.4 cm / 18.3 in

Hades (2nd form): 58.1 cm / 22.9 in