avalaughs | who dares question me

QUESTION FOR A QUESTION MEME

We all like hearing about each other's characters! We all like talking about our own characters! With this groundbreaking new meme, now you can finally do both, for the very first time in DWRP history!

The Guidelines:

Post a toplevel listing the characters you play! If you have any boundaries you want to set re: questions you might receive (e.g. "No NSFW questions for this character"), do that here too.
Tag other people asking them questions about their characters. What kinds of questions? Up to you! Canon questions, headcanon questions, meta questions, some random thing you've wondered since that thread you had two months ago, it's all fair game.
Need ideas? I was passed this excellent gallery of various questions memes, so feel free to crib from these or just use them as inspiration.
Answer the questions you receive, and, once you've done that, hit the person back with a question of your own about their character(s) too!
You can end it there, or continue to go back and forth asking questions until you're out.

Now get to askin'!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Emet-Selch | Final Fantasy XIV |

emet_sulk

(Go wild, ask me anything)

Edited 2021-08-06 15:27 (UTC)

IVE BEEN wanting to know, since I wasnt around too when you apped him. What canon point did you take him from? What are his feelings on being 'trapped' or 'brought' here beyond his will in avalon? Does he want to go back/intend?

This is going to be a long answer as it needs context explained.

When I apped to Avalon it was as a CRAU from Duplicity. His canon point for Duplicity was right before the final blow in 5.0 (since they don't accept fully dead characters, it had to be right before he actually died). As such, he spent a great deal of his time in that game rather resigned to living on and was mostly going through the motions of living without really caring to live. He didn't want to go back because he'd...not really accepted his loss, but accepted that the other side had won and that they would decide the fate of the world from thereon.

Duplicity is a smut game, so initially he used the forced sexual encounters as a (terrible) coping mechanism. But eventually he did grow closer to the three Warriors of Light who were there in the game with him, and because he didn't want to be alone again, he tried to trap them there with him by making a deal with the NPC who was responsible for bringing people into the setting. That obviously did not go down well with them but the WoLs found a way to get the Creator to remove that restriction - although said Creator continued to let Emet believe it was still in place.

Not long after that, Emet went a bit...unhinged in his despair, and tried to provoke one of the WoLs into killing him again with the shards of auracite that had come with him to the game. They refused and instead used the auracite to remove Zodiark's tempering completely (player-contrived, this was before patch 5.4). It was a difficult, painful process and it destroyed his trust in someone he had begun to grow close to (they were contracted partners).

The weeks after that involved him recovering and coming to terms with being his own person again, as well as rebuilding trust in the one who removed his tempering. And that's the state of mind with which he arrived in Avalon.

So to answer your question: he initially felt further depression at realising he still hasn't died yet. He had no will at all to save his own world (it was agreed with the other WoL players they came from separate, parallel ones). But because his friend, Hythlodaeus, showed up, he's become possessed by a small glimmer of hope that he can at least save Hythlodaeus' world - i.e. prevent Amaurot's fall. Thus he has thrown himself into that belief and will do anything to save that one, whilst not really caring for the rest. He won't hinder anyone else's attempts to save their world but he won't help them either. All he wants is one world where his people live on.

But as for going back? No. He doesn't believe he can ever go back. He's dead. Hythlodaeus has said that he wants Emet to go back with him, but he doesn't truly believe that will be possible. Even if it is, he knows he has changed far, far too much to be accepted by a society which has only ever known peace.

cluthces my heart, oh no emet...

WAIT DOES THIS MEAN?? HES NOT TEMPERED??? IN AVALON TOOO? I presume as much from what you said, SORRY IM SURPRISED! Thats kind of exciting and overall I imagine, extremely fun to write for you? What differences do you focus on as a writer from him being tempered to him not being?

Now that he has obvious motivations especially one tied to his care for Hythlodaeus, do you see him changing or growing more as time goes on? I saw the plot you are doing and am reading here and there - really excited to see what happens with the participants who are getting involved. Is there any direction you intend to take, or is this all apart of the mystery yet to unfold! I guess I Should wait and not ask yet.

Yep, he's no longer tempered. It makes some things easier, but it makes others more difficult. He's no longer walking about being a drama queen, for example, and not spewing all his condescension towards mortals to every person he meets. The trade-off is he tends to keep to himself more now and be sour at every new person he meets. With certain cast members (before they dropped anyway...) he actually went out of his way to try and act the same around them so they wouldn't notice anything different about him. But to all those from other canons? He's actually begun to revert to what I headcanon to be his "original personality": tired, grumpy, but grudgingly kind.

To me, Zodiark's tempering has been the key driving force keeping Emet going through the ages. With it gone, I believed he would actually have a very serious underlying desire to commit suicide as a means of escaping his guilt and as atonement (I didn't push that angle too hard for obvious reasons). The tempering had been his crutch for so long that he struggled to live on his own terms for the first couple of weeks in Avalon. Some of Avalon's events (like the Pure of Heart earlier this year) also really drove home how he can't keep averting his eyes from all the deaths he's wrought. Honestly, he still can't fully acknowledge it. The weight would simply crush him. It nearly DID crush him during that test.

I like characters to slowly transition from one state to the next. With the lack of tempering plus Hythlodaeus around, he has zero reason to continue acting the way the player-character has seen him throughout Shadowbringers. There's reason to believe a lot of the dramatic gestures is actually from Hythlodaeus himself, adopted by Emet as some small way to cope/remember him by in the centuries since the Sundering, so I've been bouncing that off them and it's influenced how I write Emet currently.

On top of that, Hythlodaeus...currently functions as something of a brake on Emet's more nihilistic impulses. Emet is making the effort to return to the person he once was back in ancient times - if not for his own sake then because he doesn't want Hythlodaeus to see the man he became over some twelve thousand years of genocide. So I do see him (hopefully!) growing a bit kinder, or at least less prone to resorting to murder as his first option.

What's more, the punishment planned for him for committing the recent murders is that he has to look after the old man Morganna tried poisoning way back. It's something of a throwback to what Emet's former job seemed to entail: the peaceful send-off of souls to their final rest. My plan is for this to remind Emet of the person he used to be well before his world literally fell apart. Hopefully he grows into a better person afterwards.

' There's reason to believe a lot of the dramatic gestures is actually from Hythlodaeus himself, adopted by Emet as some small way to cope/remember him'

Ahhhh I am tender!! I like this headcanon of yours.

' It's something of a throwback to what Emet's former job seemed to entail: the peaceful send-off of souls to their final rest. My plan is for this to remind Emet of the person he used to be well before his world literally fell apart. Hopefully he grows into a better person afterwards.'

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA I LOVE THIS SO MUCHHH!!!! God this is why I poke and ask people questions there is so much story and lore with purpose going on in the background one person doesnt always notice or see. THIS MADE ME SO HAPPY to learn and give context to things going on! Youre a fantastic writer, and I love the work! Your portrayal of Emet is amazing and I hope you continue to enjoy your time in avalon!

/)(\ You're too kind. I'm extremely looking forward to how his various threads are going to pan out and how they'll affect him in their own small ways. I hope you continue to enjoy how they develop!

Speaking of which, I went back to check whether I'd missed a tag from you on Emet and Mona's thread on the network and it's currently your turn! Although if you've been busy then don't feel in a rush to get to it. o/

I willll for sure! Dwrp is new to me, but i really LOVEEEE how accessible it is to read other peoples roleplays. Forum rp was kinda like that, but a bit overwhelming for my adhd. Depending on how sites used their html, often it would make it harder. Dreamwidth is simple to read, etc!

♥ AND YES! I was taking a small break from rp to do some irl, actually pm just caught up today. I am excited its on my todo list first this weekend! See you in rp landdd

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