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Many Alts! Handle It!
Here's my current roster! All links go to the character’s tag.
For posts about all/most of my characters that may not be tagged individually, see #all the characters.
Note: At the time of this writing (July 2023), I only have in-game access to my Balmung alts plus Strammund due to my current FFXIV subscription type. I'll still take asks for any of them, though!
~ Stela of the Gatekeeper Maati.
Period: First Intermediate Period, 11th Dynasty; reign of Mentuhotep II (early)
Date: ca. 2051–2030 B.C.
Place of origin: Egypt, Upper Egypt, Thebes; Probably from Tarif
Medium: Limestone
THE MA'ATI
A drawing I did of Aset and Nebt-het as the Ma'ati, the double truth
If you use the image, please credit
Retainer Relationships
Apparently a lot of my characters have Zhah'ra as a retainer. Go figure.
My first response when I saw this tweet was "oh god! too many to list!"
...but then I listed them anyway. 😅
One of Zhah'ra's retainers is Iris, his coworker/friend from when he was working at a bathhouse in Ul'dah (also an alt)
Renan's retainers are their component selves (back before they got chimera'd together) and also their old colleagues and comrades from the Nymian armed forces.
Silver Sage's retainers are all (very vaguely) members of his village back home, including his protege.
One of Maati's is her black sheep cousin (also an alt)
Ryoku's retainers are the lord he serves, his little sister Aiko, and a few of his fellow retainer-soldiers.
Danyell has his older sister Danicka and a few other members of the heretic band he was part of for a while in Coerthas.
Raranen's retainers include his mother Fafala and several people who work for his chocobo breeding stable, including his jockey, Marshall.
Iris has Zhah'ra (former coworker and friend) and Dee (reluctant acquaintance) in retainer form.
Mama Dee's retainers include Zhah'ra, who used to be in her dance troupe; Daisy, the dancer who took over the troupe when Dee retired; her husband, T'arik; and Amande and Lumien, her husband's two IC retainers.
Maparhi has her Hearer mentor, her mother Aynur, Zhah'ra (her cousin), and a few acquaintances from the Shroud as her retainers.
Surprisingly, only 10 out of 18 alts with retainers have story-significant ones - fewer than I expected!
I actually have a habit of generating retainers kind of in a hurry and then accidentally making them into NPCs - or sometimes full alts! - a long time after the fact, lol, but sometimes it goes the other way around, where a "failed" alt will be repurposed as a retainer.
∞ (1/3 - I want three songs from ya! But I don't wanna make you make a block of a post lol so here's the first!)
Put a “∞” in my ask box and I’ll shuffle my music player combined character/RP playlists and give you my favorite lyric from the song that comes up.
So we're there, now it's real Now that you have me, do you want me still? My kisses are history, they go back a long time And I'm tired of loving somebody that's not mine
So many mornings I woke up confused In my dreams, I do anything I want to you My emotions are naked, they're taking me out of my mind
— Shameless by Camila Cabello (full lyrics)
Ooh, this is a fun one. This song is from my Poppies and Oleander playlist, for Maati and Amosis!
With its dark, almost desperate tone, I feel like this song speaks very well to the frankly absurd tension simmering between the two of them - particularly from Amosis' point of view.
Really, I could paste MOST of the lyrics in and they'd all fit...
Thank you for the ask, @thevoilinauttheory!
(⬇ Video embed below ⬇)
🌸 you know I gotta send one in for Maati to Amosis :)c
Send 🌸 for three things my muse likes about yours.
🍎 “He listens, and moreover, he seeks understanding. As I said once a long time ago: he is interested, and interesting.”
🌿 “He apologizes when he realizes he has made a mistake - and then he does his best to make it right. A rarer quality than you might expect.”
🌼 “He still baffles and infuriates me. Maybe that’s a strange thing to say you like about someone, but he is like a riddle that unfolds into a new configuration with each proposed solution: a source of fascination as well as frustration.”
Prompts for Maati? Then have some 💗💗💗💗💗s for Amosis! :D Gotta see that updated response lol
Prompt 24: Beam
Who: Mamaati Maati, her former mentor Sususe Suse (NPC); mentions of Amosis ( @thevoilinauttheory ) and Negevs Ha’dov ( @negevshadov )
What: Maati is distracted.... again.
Where: Sususe’s office in a back corner of Milvaneth Sacrarium, Ul’dah
When: In the past moon or so (slightly timey-wimey)
Content notes: Discussion/implication of sexuality, brief description of injury
"...Mamaati?"
Maati jerked her attention away from the -- what was she staring at? Her mentor's chaotic bookcase, stacked with books and papers and knicknacks, the disorder making the cramped office feel even smaller. She forced herself to meet the gaze of the woman sitting across the desk from her.
"My apologies, Sususe." Maati shifted in her chair, suppressing a shiver. Her shoulder burned each time she moved, hot under the bandage -- a heat that trickled down through her chest to pool in her abdomen.
Sususe folded her hands together, thin cheeks creasing with an amused smile. "If I didn't know better, my dear Mamaati, I would suspect you'd found yourself a beau. It's not like you to be so... unfocused. Or..." She tilted her silvered head. "...are you focused, but elsewhere?"
Maati offered a soft laugh. "I... suffered an unfortunate injury a number of suns ago, and it is proving most persistent." She raised a hand to forestall the expected concern. "Worry not -- I'll take myself to the chirurgeons if it does not resolve soon," she fibbed. The thought of explaining the pair of scabbed-over crescents on her shoulder to a physicker was mortifying beyond all contemplation.
"Ah." Sususe gave a knowing nod, and Maati felt her cheeks flush. "Sleeping in an unfamiliar bed can disrupt one's rest---"
Maati was unable to smother the squawk of objection before it flew from her lips. "Sususe!"
"What, Mamaati? Surely you didn't think no one would notice that you have only returned to your quarters early in the morning for a sennight -- or more?" There was no judgment in Sususe's tone -- rather, Maati thought with some embarrassment, she sounded almost approving. "Though the young man who has been bringing you lunch does seem to have a certain reputation. Rumor only, of course. Ah, but you are no wide-eyed initiate. A grown woman may keep what company she pleases, and" -- Sususe leaned forward, voice dropping to a stage whisper -- "hang what those gossips in the Sacrarium say about it!"
Sususe sat back again, wearing a shrewd grin. "Though if you ask me, that roegadyn man -- the one you try not to snog in the library -- might make you a better match. He asks very good questions at seminars."
Maati reached up to rub at the bridge of her nose, though she quickly regretted it as the motion tugged at her shoulder. "Negevs is a... a good friend and conversational partner."
"And what of Amosis? What are your intentions with him?" Sususe's eyes twinkled. "I don't suppose you have them both engaged in... conversation?"
Maati closed her mouth as anger flared in her chest. She knew a baited trap when she saw one.
Sighing, Sususe gave Maati a long, considering look. "I know you hardly need an old woman to tell you this, Mamaati, but... I hope you will be careful. You've been increasingly distracted, and while gods know there's much to be said for a fallow period, word is beginning to spread. I had dismissed it as so much tripe until I saw it in you myself, just now." Maati looked away, feeling her jaw tighten as Sususe continued: "Just be sure it is the good kind of distraction, yes?"
And then, mercifully, Sususe changed the subject. As she launched into a discussion of a recently-published treatise, Maati's gaze drifted to the bookshelf again. A tiny model of Nald'thal's scales sat on one of the shelves, its beam tilted sharply to one side. The flame was missing, leaving the pan beneath the Jewel of Prosperity lying on the shelf, its chains limp. A not-terribly-subtle commentary on Sususe's part, perhaps -- or perhaps simply an accidental metaphor, uncalculated and yet apt. Avarice without the counterweight of wisdom.
But before she could chase that idea any further, her shoulder twinged, dragging her thoughts away -- and she again fought back a shiver, darting a glance at the chronometer.
Perhaps Sususe was right, Maati mused as she tried for the twentieth time to corral her straying thoughts. Perhaps she could put in for a sabbatical, get herself back on track.
...perhaps if she finally indulged this unseemly fixation to its limit, she might rid herself of it once and for all.
-----
Written to a whole dang playlist which I will share with more detail elsewhere.
Actual meme format under the cut!
-----
Still
Who: Mamaati Maati; Fafala Fala (NPC)
What: One of many fittings goes by in a blur.
Where: Sapphire Lane, Ul’dah
When: When Maati was ten years old.
Content notes: Sensory issues, minor angst.
Written for MAHI prompt words: APPOINTMENT, WEAVERS’ GUILD, and UMBRAL if you squint.
"Did you hear what I just told you, Mamaati?"
Her aunt's face gazed up at her from the three panes of the mirror, mouth bristling with pins as she marked the hem of a new dress -- the height of the latest style, all eyelet lace, with a frilled bodice that tickled against the back of Maati's neck. Maati felt her stomach drop as she recognized the look her aunt wore -- one that meant she had almost certainly repeated herself twice.
Her aunt hated repeating herself.
Maati's heart thudded in her chest. In one ear and out the other, she heard in her mother's voice.
"Yes, Aunt Fafala," Maati lied. This earned her a flat look, and Maati winced inwardly.
"Turn."
As Maati complied, the pins holding the hem in place pricked at her legs.
When Aunt Fafala spoke again, her words were cool with barely-concealed disappointment. "You didn't hear a word, did you?" Her sky-blue eyes flicked upward, appraising. Accusing. "How will you ever manage in life if you don't listen, girl?"
Maati swallowed and trained her gaze on one of the mannequins in the window, the intricate trim and embroidery on its garments growing blurry behind a haze of tears. Another pin pierced through the fabric, holding it in place.
Don't cry. She did not dare sniffle, and tilting her head up was not an option, either -- her aunt's wrath at a hem cut askew was enough to give even her mother pause.
"There's a good girl," Fafala mumbled through her mouthful of pins. "Hold still."
Those words were familiar enough to pick out, and Maati grasped them tight, a balm against the buzzing growing between her stiff shoulder blades, the crackling scrape of the lace across her skin.
She willed herself into the stillness of a reflecting pool: calm, so you could see right to the bottom. Composed, to invite a passerby to toss in his coin, if only to see the ripples it would create.
She could be good. So little was asked of her, and so much given in return.
She had only to hold still, and listen, and obey.
