#solus sos galvus

[fatedroses]

Jullus???

[aethris-art]

I saw one of those "draw your comfort characters like this" posts on twitter, and decided to draw 3 dudes who all make me uncomfortable for different reasons. Original image under the cut

[koukouture]

Hey chat

Do you think Emet Selch's first son Lucius reminded him of Azem? Lucius means "light" and yk Azem is represented by the sun... and Emet couldn't help but have a little hope when he looked at Lucius... yah. That's it. Lucius having some of Azem's traits.

[akirakirxaa]

𝑷𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒅 𝒐𝒇 𝒎𝒆 𝑻𝒉𝒂𝒕'𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒐𝒏𝒍𝒚 𝒘𝒂𝒚 𝑰 𝒘𝒂𝒏𝒕 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒕𝒐 𝒃𝒆 𝑳𝒐𝒐𝒌 𝒂𝒕 𝒎𝒆 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆 𝒘𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒔𝒆𝒆

[mimiyanna]

Oh man. THAT’s what his voice sounds like???

[hythlofixation]

i forgot this account isnt just for reblogs i can post my emet selch barbie meme here too

[veliatra]

Dear Reader,

My new goal is to produce as many unhinged Zenos kid and Galvus family sheninigans as much as I AM ABLE.

Please harass me everyday to do it, because I'll forget to draw the moment I post this.

Fair waters to you, my dear

Sincerely

Your local simp for all the Galvus (Titus side included)

Ps.

Ideas are appriciated.

[storms-path]

Wheels of Thunder: Eorzean GP: Chapter 37 - Nostalgia

New chapter time! Memory lane beckons us again, but the present has some pressing questions of its own.

[picaroroboto]

Point #1: The first thing we learn about Emet-Selch, even before we learn that Solus zos Galvus is Emet-Selch, is that Solus loved theatre.

Point #2: Emet-Selch plays the villain with mannerisms so over-the-top you'd think he's about to burst into a disney villain-style song and dance number at almost any moment.

Point #3: He's self-aware enough to recognize that he is a villain in your story but a hero to his own people, and that whoever wins the battle will write history to declare the loser the villain.

Point #4: The Tempest, the zone where Amaurot is located, is named for the Shakespeare play of the same name, with other landmarks named after characters from the play. The BGM "Full Fathom Five" is also named for an iconic line.

Point #5: Amaurot feels so empty because it is, in essence, a set for a stage play. After the play is preformed it has no purpose.

Back to Point #1: Emet-Selch really loved theatre.

[fatedroses]

The chaos of god uncle atticus, young zenos, and solus trying to keep them in line.

[voidsentprinces]

Look companies may of been hamstrung by COVID but they've never been SO hamstrung they stapled two Ramuh beards to Varis, gave him a cane and then called him "Solus zos Galvus" before putting him at far enough a distance to make him a fever dream.

[elizabethrobertajones]

that post about how buttcheeks are essential to our persistence predator nature makes me realize that perhaps THAT is the reason stormblood zenos was so caked up. ultimate persistence predator life form

Solus zos Galvus in his evil science lab whipping up the formula to make his Royal lineage hulking beasts: "and of course the most important ingredient following the Ancient Creation adage... Ass for days."

[koukouture]

Script for a comic I don't think I'll ever make LMAO

Context: This is sort of Emet Selch's monologue about Azem during Shadowbringers. Yeah. That's all you need to know.

"You don't know me at all. So shut up" that's what you said.

You were dying. I could see it- the light infecting you, seeping into your head, heart and very soul. You were no longer a distant star but a blinding supernova. Hot to the touch, dangerous, dying, faded- but in a way- beautiful.

You always did shine brighter than the rest.

So how dare you say I don't know you?

Know you?

You are my other half; I am nothing without you. You are all I know.

I knew you across thousands of years, across hundreds of incarnations, across a dozen and some worlds.

Know you?

I am you.

Everything that I am now is because of you. All of it! I traveled far and wide and every single time I cannot stray from your light. Every single road I took went back to you. Every single path, alleyway, staircase every labyrinth- you were at the end of all of them.

Sometimes we are lovers, sometimes we are friends, allies, enemies... sometimes we are strangers.

Do not accuse me of ignorance. I am under no delusion that I know you- I know you better than anyone.

And you know me too.

Don't you?

Azem

Lucifer

You know me... right?

You can feel it surely- this is fate! You know me! I'm your soulmate! Can't you feel it!? Can't you feel me!?

WHY WON'T YOU LOOK AT ME!?

okay i think that's it lolol. bye

[syngigeim]

Day 6 - Halcyon

In his ‘old age’, Emet-Selch made sure that no one would ever see Solus zos Galvus smile. He had to admit that playing the role of bitter old fool was not such a hard act anymore. Certainly felt more natural than the youth with ambition and grand ideas, though, of course, he still had memories to guide his acting. And besides, he was still the Architect.

He settled into his chair, in his private box within the Majestic Imperial Theater Company’s airship theater. There were benefits to given such an esteemed troupe the glorious patronage as an airship. One being that he could request they dock at his palace whenever he wished to see a performance. Though, this being after the masses were let in via their usual dock. Let them get as close to their magnificent Emperor as they can.

Indeed, merely making his appearance brought the masses to rapturous applause. The Emperor must be given his due. He closed his eyes. He could tell that this body didn’t have much time left. He didn’t need to pretend to care.

The applause died down, and so did the lights. The curtains would rise soon. “Leave me,” he said to his attendants. “I would enjoy this in my solitude.”

“Your Radiance,” they simply said as they saluted and left. They would stand by the door, where they would only hear muffled noises from the stage and the applause. No connection to the art, only their duty remained.

The play begun. It was a tragic tale of how three friends from Corvos were soon to have their lives upended by the upcoming invasion of Garlemald. Their days of peace and plenty would soon end. One would die, one would be blinded and abandoned and the last, to become the first non-Garlean to obtain the title of sas, the highest honor a ‘savage’ could have.

Emet-Selch leaned forward, drinking in every detail. The grand opening of peaceful days, the whispers of something dangerous to the North, all ignored and cast aside. He might have smiled at the excellent practical effects of the first bits of Magitek, now gracing the stage. They were so deserving of his patronage.

One character declared his intent to resist the Empire, to the bitter end. He would be the one to die, heroically. But oh, his monologues to his friends, how to never give up in the face of grand odds. It was all worthless in the end.

Something pricked at Emet-Selch’s mind. What would they have thought of this? His closest and most cherished friends? His heart twisted at the thought of them. He tried to shove the memories aside He would bear no more of them. And yet, they kept coming to his mind as the play went on and on…

This was to be the last performance the Emperor ever attended in his life. The masses noted a rare sight. The Emperor was moved to tears at this performance. Did he know his end was near, and felt moved as he witnessed the sorrow upon the stage? All would speculate, but none would know the Emperor’s true feelings deep within.

[autumnslance]

FFXIV Write 2024: 9 Lend an Ear

The Emperor of Garlemald was meant to be the most powerful man in the world.

It was instead poor comedy, of the kind his grandfather used to watch with such glee—the more subversive and borderline treasonous, the better.

Now Varis understood why.

His very much alive—for some meaning of the word—grandfather swanned around the palace now, stepping out of the shadows to taunt and lecture Varis. He never thought he would prefer the days when the old man ignored him, trying to deny his existence because he was no more than a memory of his dead father.

Another eldritch manipulator wore the body of Varis’s son. The monster’s death was no real loss, and Varis acknowledged the role he had played in Zenos’s development—but that boy had been wrong from the start. Perhaps due to the tainted influence of their bloodline.

And where did that leave Varis?

A pawn who had been made aware of his nature by ancient beings who used his name, his throne, his people, in their games.

There had to be something he could do. He was the Emperor. He had fought tooth and nail, wresting the crown from his uncle and cousin in order to continue the path to glory and greatness, to conquer those realms that had eluded his grandfather’s grasp and bring the light of civilization to the savages who had defied them.

He had wanted to prove himself better, prove that Solus had been wrong about Varis. But Solus zos Galvus had been a mirage, and Emet-Selch’s plans for Garlemald were far more insidious.

Every servant was a potential spy. Every soldier and guard as well. The walls had ears and eyes, and a hundred masters to report to. These had been facts of life for as long as Varis could remember, but now the webs were not obstacles to be navigated, weapons to command.

They were cocoons, and he the fly caught in the spider’s web. The more he struggled, the tighter the binding.

Gaius was gone; he had been Solus’s loyal hound, but the man’s honor and dedication to the role of Emperor itself, the mentorship he had granted Varis years ago, might have made him an ally, had his own ambition not been tangled in Ascian schemes and lost to the Eorzean Champion’s hand.

Regula...that loss still stung. He had fought beside the Black Wolf’s killer, sacrificing himself in favor of an Echo-bearer and his soldiers. Damn the honorable fool. Varis had been aware of Regula’s carefully-concealed sentimentality, his morals and honor, his drive to prove himself as much as Varis—it was a reason they had become true friends as young men, despite the disparity of their births.

He walked across grand courtyards, along ostentatious promenades, to the severe edifice of the family mausoleum. The people whispered of their Emperor’s respectful devotion due to the frequency of the visits.

It was where he went to get away from his shadowy puppet masters.

He ignored the grand central chamber, the crypt where his grandparents’ bodies were entombed. It was difficult to dismiss the idle thread of thought about the real Solus Galvus. Had he been dead when Emet-Selch occupied his form? Had he been alive but buried beneath the Ascian’s persona?

(Would he have loved Varis as a grandfather should?)

He shoved the speculation aside as always, continuing along the chambers shaped like the omnipresent chain links to where his parents and wife lay. He barely remembered his father, but his mother had always stood with him, even arguing with his grandfather on Varis’s behalf, and aiding him in his bid for the throne until the day she died.

She had found and arranged his marriage to Carosa. The demands of royalty, and their son’s...behavior had strained the relationship, but they had persevered, and her loss was one of the few times in his adulthood that he had allowed himself tears. His mother’s death had been another.

He stood in the chill of the mausoleum and imagined their faces, warmer than the stone likenesses, ever willing to listen and then aid in planning a course of action. So many of the servants within the palace and among the high houses had been their spies, and he had lost those networks on losing them.

Gaius. Regula. Mother. Carosa. The few he could have relied upon, could have trusted. All gone.

He said nothing of his troubles and frustration. The dead could not hear, while even these walls might, and he still had to maintain the charade of implacable Emperor. But allowing his roiling thoughts to run rampant here, in sight of their memorials, was soothing in a way he could not justify. It simply was.

He turned to begin his slow return to the palace. He stopped. Someone else had entered the mausoleum, intruded upon his solitude. Varis strode into the central chamber. If it was one of the Ascians daring to infringe upon this space—well, he could inconvenience them with a bullet again.

He stopped short as the lightly armored figure turned to regard him. Brunette instead of blond, but the features were similar enough to his own, and as strained as ever. “Forgive me for the intrusion, Your Radiance,” Nerva said, bowing low. “I was hoping to find you here.”

“What do you want?”

His cousin straightened. “To serve my Emperor, for the glory of Garlemald, as ever.”

Varis snorted derisively. If only Nerva had an inkling of how hollow that “glory” was.

“I know,” Nerva said, hands raised in supplication, misunderstanding Varis’s reaction. “My father fought you for the crown. But you won, and he lies dying for his trouble. We can, and should, put that behind us, for the good of our people.”

“Why should I trust you?”

“A fair question. Mayhap you shouldn’t, given Father’s scheming. But,” Nerva let out a breath, and with a slight shift, the demeanor of the Senator was gone. “Cousin, there are strange rumors about. And some lick of fondness from our childhoods remains enough that I am...concerned.”

Varis glowered.

Nerva shook his head, smiling thinly. “Of course, you can take care of yourself, and always have but...The things being said about your son. Some rather ridiculous ones about Grandfather’s shade haunting the palace. All while provinces secede unhindered and many of our troops stand stalled on Eorzea’s benighted doorstep. Varis—”

“None of it is your concern.” He walked forward again, tromping past Nerva. Who grabbed his arm.

Soldier’s instinct had him grip the offending limb, twist, spin, and Nerva grunted as he hit the wall, pinned by Varis. “You arrogant arse,” Nerva gasped. “I’m offering my aid—”

“It is none of your concern,” Varis growled. “The throne is mine, its troubles are mine.” He then looked Nerva in the eye. “You should leave,” he said, softly. “Take your father, your household, your loyal arms, and go.”

Nerva stared at him, then narrowed his own eyes. “You know I cannot do that. No more than you could. We are of House Galvus, and have our duty.”

If only Nerva knew what that truly meant. For a wild moment, Varis entertained the idea of telling him the truth, of confiding in his cousin, and urging him again to leave. Or keeping him as an ally.

Neither outcome was likely, and the second...Once, it might have been reasonable. But not since the civil war.

Varis shoved away from Nerva, turned, and walked out. As much as he wanted an ear to hear his troubles, to offer advice and aid, he couldn’t trust his cousin—nor did Varis want him entangled in the Ascian schemes. Nerva and Titus had managed to escape the worst by failing to win the throne. This was the closest he could come to protecting what remained of their family.

The confidantes Varis wished for were long gone. This was his burden, and the price of his victory.

[lightparty-fullparty]

Can't possibly be me Zenosposting again - what is this a day ending in Y?

Anyway, I've been thinking about the murder boy again. This has mostly spawned from my replaying of the Stormblood patches and seeing Amnesiac Yotsuyu, which sparked a bit of a Nature vs Nuture debate between me and my friends.

Basically, my question for this post is "How much of Zenos' whole deal is Nature (aka He was just born like that) and how much of it is Nuture (aka the enviornment he grew up). Some of you might content to say Nature and leave it at that, which is a completely valid outlook to have. But for me there's just one... teeny... tiny... little detail that has sent me on a wild consipriacy theory of a ride that's resulted in this post. Emet-FUCKING-Selch.

Listen to me, listen okay? I cannot, CANNOT ignore the fact that this absoulete motherfucker (affectionate) is Zenos's cannonical Great Grandfather. Who was very much alive and kicking during his childhood. Emet-Selch or Solus zos Galvus whatever moniker you wanna give the man, is an Ascian. One of THE Ascians. Not only that, he's 'The Architect" the guy who's job it is to design and engineer the calamities meant to rejoin the Shards of the World back together again. What does he do to achieve this? He builds empires, he starts wars, manipulates people and situations to result in untold elemental chaos. Iirc correctly he's responsible for causing all eight calamities that have occured so far in FFXIV. (Eight got undone but I'm still counting it).

Now for this post I'm going to be focusing mainly on the Seventh, Eighth, and Fourth Umbral Calamities. (Which are the ones coincidentally we're told the most about in game). This Calamities all involved Empires. The Allagan and the Garlean, both of which Emet-Selch was responsible for creating. From the Allagans we have the creation of Dalamud, Cyrus Tower, and the Ultima Weapon. As well as an extensive history of biological research. Cloning, Gene Splicing, Mutation and so on. (A sundered mortal's attempts at creation magjicks perhaps?) The Garleans too, have a notible history of biological research, they draw a lot of their modern technology from Allagan design. No coincidence there given Emet-Selch's involvement. But we've seen them use genetic mutation, cyber augmentation, and cloning (Emet-Selch's shadow the hedgehog ass clone bodies because he refuses to look like anyone other than his unsundered self). The also so a lot of research into the Echo. Hydalyn's mark for her champions, and soul maipulation. (Ala Mihgo Dungeon and In From the Cold Duty both points of note for examples of the Soul being manipulated here - physically torn out of the body).

"Now Gengar " - I hear you ask - "What does this have to do with Nature vs Nuture or Zenos?" Well, I tell you, everything really. Hear me out. Emet-Selch designed the Garlean Empire to be the perfect chaos causing conquest force. They have no ability to use either, making them initially vulnerable as a people to the rest of the races. Building up a tasty, tasty resentment and need to feel superior. He sent them marching to 'reclaim their home' and then to 'unify the three contents under their superior peaceful, organised leadership'. The 'Savage Races' summon evil primals and weild evil distructive magjiks. He gave them a perfect cause and reason to hate everyone else. He gave them magitech to level the field and make them supieror at combat. Garlemald as a nation is the perfect war machine. Allagan 2.0 if you would. And Zenos is the perfect 'Champion' to lead that nation into battle. To spark that next Calamity. Look at the guy. Garleans might be on the taller side (depending on the character. Cid is a shorty), but Varis and Zenos are HUGE. Emet-Selch isn't nearly as tall as either of them despite being a blood relation. Which makes me think there was some of that Allagan/Garlean/Ancient playing with genetics and form at work. Make them bigger, more durable, stronger, more intelligent.

It's like Captian America. You want the perfect solider. And a perfect solider for Emet-Selch would also need to be cold, ruthless, manipulative.

There was a post I saw a while again about Mecha Pilots. And OP pondered on the idea of physcially having your brain and body contiditoned to love battle. To love destruction and killing and fighting.

Do you see where I am going with this?

You want someone bloodthirsty enough to cause a Calamity for you, you need them to feel nothing for their fellow man. (Insects all of them. Disappointing. Found Wanting.) You need them to find such overwhelming joy in battle that no other earthely pleasure can compare to it. (Brilliant. Blinding. Trandsenant Moment.)

No attatchments. No emotions, Just violence. I offer to you dear readers, that Emet-Selch carefully modified Zenos' litterally brain chemistry. Making him predisposed to a lack of empathy and his brain releasing those pesky joyous chemicals during battle. Inflicitng and feeling pain. I offer the theory that Zenos has literally been built for combat. If you cut him open, his bones and muscles and organs would be so alienly perfect. Denser, perfectly optimised. Exceedingly perfect. His brain remapped for pattern recognistion and quick skill building, Easy to train in the art of slaughter and tactics. Unable to forge the emotional connections that would only serve to hinder him. (To isolate him from family).

What evidence to I have? Outside of Emet-Selch's known history of building Empires? Easy. I already know he's done this kind of thing before.

Vauthry. The baby Emet-Selch mutated into half a Lightwarden. Able to command the Sin Eaters and ensured would be raised into a tyranically, childish, king. To keep the First from Uniting. To ensure the Eighth Umbral Calamity would continue along it's march to completion.

Why wouldn't Emet-Selch have done as much to Zenos too?