Application - Karteria

[unsundered]

OOC INFORMATION

Name: Siren
Are you over 18?: Y
Contact: PM
Other characters: N/A
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IC INFORMATION

Name: Emet-Selch (Hades)
Canon: Final Fantasy XIV
Age: well in excess of 12,000
Gender: Male
Species: Amaurotine (humanoid in appearance, apart from being exceptionally tall; main distinction is an exceptionally large soul and magical potential)
Appearance: here
Canon point: Post-6.0 Endwalker

History: Here
CRAU details: from aefenglom + jikan_rpg
Emet-Selch was in Aefenglom for close to two years, and from the start he very much did not want to be there. He was considered a witch in the setting, which meant that while he lost all of his native powers and aspects, he was capable of learning that world's (lesser) magic, which he very grudgingly did. Though he was later canon-updated to his death, he arrived before reaching that point, and had to deal with learning about it second-hand from canonmates. While trying (and not particularly succeeding) to come to terms with his likely powerlessness to change his fate, he also had to live with quite literal powerlessness (in comparison to his native state), with any moment being the one where he was sent back to his world without choice or warning. But what was the point of going home if it was to die? How could he not wish to return anyway, on some chance he could avert fate and still save his people? Falling in genuine love with someone from a wholly foreign star further complicated the issue, as when either of them disappeared from Aefenglom... not even their memory of one another would endure, their meeting having the same impact as having never happened at all.

• Emet-Selch never did find an 'answer' to these problems. At best, he eventually gained some fragile acceptance that there was no answer, that all he could do was live in the present day. After he was updated to his death (though this was before Endwalker's release so he still didn't 'remember' everything thanks canon for making this harder than it needed to be), he had fewer directions to be torn in, having nothing more to 'live' for- but still had the fear of being separated from his selfish, romantic love. Which didn't stop him from getting married- one more to his pile of thousands, but for the first time it was as himself, for the sake of genuine attachment.


• As Emet-Selch encountered no fewer than four versions of the protagonist of FFXIV, with none of them being the one he knew personally, he was introduced to incontrovertible proof of alternate realities. In all of them he died. It didn't do much for his morale.


• He also learned of the strange precedence of mortal humans in most realities, or other worlds. Rather than the unfortunate, broken outlier of his own, humans seem to be the default, which is a bizarre thing to consider. Though he's less judgmental these days when it comes to them (are they alive? inconclusive), he still doesn't view mortals with anything approaching the same respect as his own people.

He wasn't in Jikan for very long, but it's included for completeness' sake, and for the added experience of being shunted around different settings outside of his control. All of his old magic was there at least! And while he came in without memories of his prior game (including that of his husband, who he re-met there), they returned over time. He was very briefly part of a god(!), and also briefly replaced with a younger, alternate version of himself from before the Final Days occurred. Inheriting those memories, on top of being drawn to the impossible-possibility of his husband's potential for godhood if he claimed his soul- Emet-Selch's acceptance to his world's fate, given over to the guardianship of the younger races... became something less accepting. If given the chance to save his people after all- how could he not yearn to take it?

Unfortunately that opportunity will have to wait. Not being in full command of his powers and (temporarily) missing a chunk of his memories will not be a new thing, but will leave him upset once he realizes the pattern.


Personality answers:
Explain which event in canon is most pivotal to your character's development, and who they are today.
Without question, this would be the Final Days and the resulting sundering of his world. For reasons unknown to him at the time (or rather, he knew the underlying cause but was forced to forget), Etheirys began to decay. His people's magic ran rampant, creating monstrous horrors based on their fears, all while fire rained down from the sky. At first a localized occurrence, it became a disaster that spread until it engulfed the entire star and brought it to the brink of complete extinction. Only by the willing sacrifice of more than half of his people, did he and the rest of the Convocation (the governing body of Amaurot, the home of his people) create a god capable of holding their frayed star together, and restoring it to a place capable of holding life once more.

From there, the plan became to foster life on Etheirys' surface, and eventually sacrifice some portion of it back to their god, Zodiark, so that he could then revive all of those Amaurotine whose sacrifice originally comprised his power. This was not to be, as a faction opposed to his existence created their own goddess- and Hydaelyn struck Zodiark down and Etheirys with it, tearing everything down into fourteen separate worlds. This included the remaining Amaurotine population, who were rendered down into twisted, frail, mortal fragments of who they had once been. Only Emet-Selch and two others of the Convocation were spared this fate, and became the only three left who remembered what had once been. Refusing to let go of their duty, of their responsibility towards their people, they set about the bleak work of rejoining the sundered fragments of their world, and returning everything to the paradise it had once been.

Over the ensuing millennia, of living thousands upon thousands of mortal lives, this absolutely broke him.

Your character must live with only one sense for a year. They are allowed to choose. What do they pick?
Sight. Assuming this also includes his soul sight, which is considered exceptional by the standards of his people. Even when it served as a reminder as to the ruined nature of humanity as he lived among them, their souls fractured and miserable things to look on- it remained an important part of him, moreso than any other sense.

Besides, going deaf means he'd no longer have to listen to any friends, colleagues, or other nuisances. He could nap uninterrupted.

What is your character most afraid of?
Prior to his death, and subsequent understanding of it all, the failure to revive his people and return his home world of Etheirys to its complete state. The failure to serve, his duty gone unfulfilled no matter the millennia of suffering he'd endured for it, the thousands and thousands of lives he'd gone through... all of it for nothing. The guilt would be unbearable, nearly as unbearable as the task itself, for all that he would never think of letting go of it. Considering that this was his condition for nigh-eternity, and not something that's easily shrugged off simply by his lack of life, it still feels relevant.

Presently: solitude. It lies behind all of his other fears, and is something he's been living with ever since his world was sundered. Without his people he had nothing, was nothing. He watched his two surviving intact compatriots only grow less like themselves as the years passed, transforming into unrecognizable echoes of themselves, leaving himself completely and utterly alone. And now, in a post-death-but-forced-to-be-alive-again + CRAU scenario, resuming a new perpetual state of solitude would be his worst fear.

What is your character's biggest ambition at their current canon point? To what lengths would they go to see it to fruition?
From a canon perspective... well, he's done. He's accepted his death, and played his small part in seeing the universe saved. The Etheirys of the present day is not the same as the world he loved, but it endures. Seeing some echo of his old friend survive, and that fragmented star left in good hands... it helps. To the end, Emet-Selch did not regret what he'd done, nor what he'd been through- as it was for the sake of his people, who he would do anything for. But with their restoration impossible, his duty is finally at its end- and so he could commit himself to his end, and his soul's rebirth.

...Apart from being snatched before that final sleep, experiencing the purgatory of CRAU life. As noted in his overall CRAU experience, he fell in love and married for the last time a man from another world. And in Mettaton's company, he briefly experienced a glimpse of what it was like to be a god- and one whose powers went far beyond anything Zodiark could do. If they chose to ascend together again, could Amaurot be saved in truth, the Final Days prevented? All that acceptance of his death is a shaky thing now, as another possibility is dangled before him. And for that, once again, he would sacrifice anything, survive as long as he had to, no matter how much further it ruined him.


Inventory:

• An awfully large portrait of Solus zos Galvus. (It's him, wearing his last human guise.)


• Two wedding rings.
  
  1. One is red-gold, with a few small in-set diamonds.
  
  
  2. The other is a bit more showy, with a gem made of some impossible material, and in a not-quite-lavender hue.
  
  While neither confers any sort of magic, the latter was literally made by a god (that god, specifically, was Mettaton using Emet-Selch's soul as a catalyst).


• A diamond-studded cock ring. Apart from being flashy, it has no extra abilities.

Powers/Abilities:

• Immortality. Of the "won't die unless killed" variety.


• Possession. As a spirit, can take over the bodies of others. Can also change those bodies to look different from what they were (which he has done in the past to make them look somewhat like himself).


• Creation. Can create next to anything, from the scale of small objects, to an entire city. Semi-living beings are included, animals and magical constructs, but nothing with a soul.


• Teleportation.


• Dark magic/general offensive magic. Very very very much a mage, with use of all elements, though a preference for the dark. No healing abilities, however.


• Transformation. Has two other forms. Apart from being very large, they also allow him to use much more powerful spells and attacks that are along similar lines as his usual magic. Just... more.


• Soul sight. Can see the size/color/characteristics of the souls of others.


• Can see the memories of others.

Samples: Here & Here
Goals: emetta fuck

More specifically, to see how he deals with having to be alive again, except this time his soul is getting fucked with. And not in a cool way like with Zodiark, but fucked up by a bird. Will this stick, if he returns to permanent death?

can he go a villain route once again, i want to see it
Soul Choice: Aves, specifically a rook.