worldformula

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save me, brave hero.

#ffxiv #final fantasy 14 #final fantasy xiv #ff14 #fandaniel #hermes ffxiv #warrior of light #(through visible tears) this transfem hermeswol shit easy #i never shouldve made that alt

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hades laid his hands on you and gave you everlasting life.

#ffxiv #final fantasy 14 #final fantasy xiv #ff14 #fandaniel #emet selch #medical horror tw #eye horror tw #its just one of those days

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your grandsire was a brute.

#ffxiv #final fantasy 14 #final fantasy xiv #fandaniel #emet selch #ff14 #tryphophobia tw #body horror tw #Been really into drawing yucky holes holes lately (not sexy)

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god’s got it out for you!

#ffxiv #final fantasy 14 #final fantasy xiv #hermes ffxiv #venat #ff14

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you don’t know what you’re asking for.

#ffxiv #final fantasy 14 #final fantasy xiv #hermes ffxiv #emet selch #fandaniel #ff14 #Finally my last comic of the year #Been obsessed w like 30 different concepts lately so I crammed 5 of them into this cheers #Also to that sweet anon in my ask box I shall post what you seek I prommy ❤️ #This is a long ass post but like look upon my metaphors boy #endwalker spoilers

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your desperate search for answers must start again.

#ffxiv #final fantasy xiv #final fantasy 14 #hermes ffxiv #fandaniel #ff14 #endwalker spoilers #im thinking i should probably tag for that

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you can't survive on mercy forever, idiot.

#ffxiv #final fantasy xiv #final fantasy 14 #hermes ffxiv #fandaniel #venat #the timeless apple motif #endwalker spoilers

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all the power in the world and this is the best you can do.

#ffxiv #final fantasy 14 #final fantasy xiv #hermes ffxiv #emet selch #hades ffxiv #sorry i killed your wife are you mad at me #endwalker spoilers

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Ok you mentioned utushama having a complicated relationship with aymeric and now im curious. Also how does he feel about characters like fraye (how did the whole drk questline affect him), or emet-selch/venat?

Aymeric answer here!

I often draw Utushama as a dark knight in Shadowbringers related works but truthfully it’s more for function than “canon” to me. During ShB, he was some unique job mashup that might’ve been distracting from the theme of things I was trying to convey, so I defaulted to drawing him as DRK. He never actually learns it in his canon (though he’d benefit GREATLY from it) — Inanna is the one who mains DRK, his main tank job is PLD. So he doesn’t actually go through that story or meet Fray, which is a shame because it’s got the best job quests for a reason :( I fear he might be allergic to things that are good for him; he’s attracted to things that make him look good like the PLD’s knight-in-shining armor visual. It’s a fun bit of meta though, that his sister has the strongest shield of all the tanks (one that’s invoked with the power of love, no less) but he’d rather Cover and take damage on someone else’s behalf.

And as for the others…

Spoilers for Shadowbringers and Endwalker, as per usual!

As for Emet-Selch, I really love his character, but he served a greater function in the overall theme/narrative/whatever you’d call it rather than having any particularly unique one-on-one relationship with Utushama, often as a sort of foil or stand-in for the father who Utushama resented. He’d never really known said father but he had an image of him based on Echoes he experienced from dragons who remembered him, and said Echoes often recalled him as a two-faced, manipulative, sarcastic, and deeply cruel person who would justify any act for his own gains. And Emet-Selch in Shadowbringers came across this way to him, which is why it was so alarming and disorienting for him whenever Emet praised him or spoke with sympathy / understanding. Utushama had had most of his black-and-white moral worldviews validated thus far by unrepentantly evil people and he did not like that the new villain in his story kept comparing himself to him or being genuinely vulnerable with him. Utushama himself isn’t fully conscious of the way Emet-Selch reminds him of his father and Emet-Selch doesn’t consider that to be any more important to him than what Utushama already represents to him (Azem’s mangled form, a pesky Warrior of Light, etc). There was also an extra bit where Emet mocks Utushama for ending up in the same position as said father (as in, a naive hero tricked by an Ascian into becoming something that would destroy the Shard). And Emet-Selch was one of many stepping stones that eventually lead to Utushama sympathizing with the dad he was really intent on making out to be a pure villain, so he’s a heavyweight as a symbol but not much more on a personal level beyond what the WoL has with him in the text. They have that layer, but I don’t think it’s more interesting than what canon already gives me so it doesn’t change or enhance it in any way, thereby making it just a fun lenses for me to read the characters’ relationship. In Endwalker, Utushama is almost baffled by how strangely “normal wife guy with a desk job” he is and it’s brilliant and hilarious to me because Emet-Selch and Hythlodaeus are so much like his parents but he has no way of knowing that and neither do Hyth/Hades.

Venat is also a fascinating character and I revel in gazing upon her from different angles. Which is why it’s so funny to me that Emet-Selch was Utushama’s shithead dad stand-in on a meta level because Venat is his very nice other parental figure stand-in. So again, there’s nothing that changes the canon relationship between Venat and the WoL despite this extra layer, but it’s just a fun fact for me. That being said, they meet just as Utushama’s starting to realize that his well-meaning parent is someone he actually resents more on a personal level (he was in denial about this this entire time). It’s difficult for him to differentiate between her and Hydaelyn and the Elpis arc comes right on the heels of the lowest of his lows. So he’s feeling very frustrated and miserable and pained and he’s also coming to realize that the parent he had idolized had actually disappointed him greatly in his unintentional absence and now here comes the woman who would become Hydaelyn, who despite choosing him as Her champion, appears to never come to his aid in his hour of need. And she makes it even more difficult by making it hard to be mad at her! She’s considerate and kindly and genuinely wants to know about his journey, just as his parent would ask if he could be there. Overall he has very mixed feelings because he is slightly projecting and doesn’t realize, but he’s able to let it go by the Aitiascope dungeon. And on Venat’s end, she regards him like a child of her own because Azem was someone she had a very complicated but deeply personal relationship with, and therefore sees him (both on Elpis as a “familiar” and on Etheirys as a “shard”) as something like a child / product of Azem to be cherished.

I think overall within the canon, we get very few opportunities to interact with these characters so I’ve got a limited set of time and subject matter for the three of them to be dealing with. Which is a shame because I fully believe Emet-Selch is like an old queen who is very unimpressed by this fresh new young gay man but in my perfect sitcom universe he’d be disgusted and entranced by the sort of absurd shenanigans Utushama gets up to, if not for the fact that, y’know, the First is about to explode and take the Source out with it. And y’know, he and Venat have to deal with the Song of Oblivion or whatever instead of getting into a cartoonish argument about fatherless behavior. But ultimately he just accepts them entirely in the end and regards their memories with a strange fondness/somberness despite them (inadvertently or purposefully) psychologically pulling him apart like a twizzler for the last two expansions.

#ask #anonymous #ffxiv #the ancients in general I feel are a very powerful ingredient #and Utushama is a strong flavor in his own right outside of them so I have trouble mixing them without ruining the soup #but tldr they’re like his parents (derogatory) #YIPPEE!!!!!!!! hooray!!!!!!!

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complicated relationship with Aymeric you say 👀 I would love to hear about it

also do you have a blank version or link to the blank version of that “characters who are just like my WOL fr” chart it intrigues ms greatly. I love that it’s specific about what exactly the inspiration from the characters is.

Here’s a link to the .psd because the framing layers makes it a bit hard to use as a regular png. Go nuts!

As for Aymeric…

Long story short, they never fostered an actual real relationship before just getting in the nitty gritty of intimacy because it is my religious belief that Aymeric is deeply repressed like a Catholic maiden and Utushama kept just leaving for MSQ immediately the day after they’d fool around. Utushama assumed they were on the same page (this wouldn’t work because they have conflicting responsibilities) (this is also kind of an excuse, he’s starting to develop a pattern of starting something, ditching ASAP, and then using MSQ as a noble excuse) but they weren’t really. I love to pretend Lucia is mad at him for this because it made Endwalker kind of funny. Usual spoiler warning for everything ahead!

Short story long, after the Dragonsong War’s end, they kept things entirely professional including their dinner and dealing w the aftermath of it all but were slowly (and I mean SLOWLY) building a tension between them like it was a Victorian period drama. Like, a show of ankle would give Aymeric a heart attack at this point. So they had two days of building up to this that no one in the world could’ve possibly guessed was any kind of build up to anything followed by one night of Halone-dishonoring acts (initiated by Utushama because why not. Why not hit and run the beautiful President of Dragon Catholics City after you saved them all. Especially after increasingly escalating moments of barely repressed interest). And immediately after, without explanation or any warning, Utushama left for MSQ, with the assumption that they were both in agreement that they couldn’t have an actual relationship because one of them loves their country more than anything else in the world and the other is a traveling adventurer. He didn’t say this because it was so obvious to him but Aymeric was obviously left a little confused and feeling slightly abandoned but bigger things at stake, y’know.

And then they meet again when Ala Mhigo is liberated because all the Eorzean Alliance leaders are there and Utushama is feeling very disoriented and bad because Zenos just killed himself in front of him, denying him of any closure to the distress he’s been feeling for all of Stormblood. And they are once again very professional as if they hadn’t explored each other’s bodies that one time. Aymeric invites him to dinner again and when the subject of trying to define their relationship is brought up, Utushama deflects by hitting him point-blank with the “ok, do you want to do that again” and Aymeric is flustered enough by this that despite being a very savvy politician, the Catholic maiden part of him overrides the many slightly orange flags. Once again, Utushama slips away without warning immediately after.

They don’t speak again until right after the Ghimlyt Dark, wherein canon provided me a lovely moment of quiet between the two of them. Utushama, being injured, is then unable to escape from this conversation that Aymeric begins, wherein Aymeric himself first confesses to hoping to be something more serious, to which Utushama answers in a manner that is between bafflement and regret that they weren’t ever going to be a thing (because again, he thought they were on the same page about this). Aymeric is sad but can see the logic in this and admits that Utushama deserves someone who cares more about him than their political responsibilities, who could and would follow him to the ends of the earth. (There is no reason for him to be so self-deprecating on the matter because it’s not as if he were the one at fault for this, but Utushama just has a way of making people feel bad for wanting reasonable things from him. It’s kind of cruel of him but he also is entirely unaware that he’s doing this.) This is a fun bit of foreshadowing for me personally because this could mean anyone but should the monkey’s paw curl, that sure does describe a certain horrible prince he despises. But after accidentally doing all that to Aymeric, maybe he does deserve to be tormented. Just a little. I’ve been following a sort of narrative path wherein anyone who likes Utushama for being a hero figure can’t actually get with him for good because they’re enabling his bad habits and it’s going to end badly.

Anyway, all this made the Endwalker casting quests very fun because they just kind of josh around lightly and even reference their old fling without it being a whole thing and it feels like the weight of whatever they were doing is off Aymeric now so he’s able to be confident and normal again. If they ever fool around again post-Endwalker, it’s noticeably different because Aymeric has moved past the whole blushing maiden for the hero role. Utushama is admittedly kind of. Strangely sad to see him move past him but by then knows that it was probably for the best. It’s just hard for him to even metaphorically feel like he’s the one being left behind. And Lucia is no longer mad at him but it’s really funny to let him keep thinking she is!

So yeah, his relationship with Aymeric is kind of tangled and convoluted and despite indulging once or twice, he doesn’t actually seem to like talking about it beyond whatever’s professional because he’s just very private. I’ve no idea what the general consensus is on Aymeric and Estinien’s relationship but I imagine it was much more straightforward than this. Utushama inadvertently projects and assumes it was just as complicated based on the way Estinien talks about Aymeric in MSQ tidbits but I think it’s funnier if it was actually relatively tame and Estinien is just being dramatic.

#ask #anonymous #ffxiv #I am constantly fighting for my life between ‘I ❤️ scumbag princely heroes’ and ‘hh;e DI;dn’t mmean to’ #one thing I can always promise you is this: when it comes to my wol love will always lose #I had a dream I answered this ask with just an image of Aymeric as a soy marinated chicken? #anyway thank you ❤️ YAYYY

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Another anon here. Reading that post and going "oh wow op didn't joke about him being an asshole" at the Thancred and G'raha points andkfkf. Crafting a character with organic persistent flaws isn't easy though. That's super neat!!!

Thanks so much! I love him greatly I know he sucks but he really doesn’t mean to 💔 My roommate read the post and went “so do you think that the G’raha answer made him look… good?”

#ask #anonymous #ffxiv #got a beautiful evil chuckle from this one

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How would you describe utushamas relationships with the scions (or any major characters like zenos)

Oh that’s a fun question! Here are my short and sweet answers. Spoilers for everything, of course!

Minfilia - I take his relationship with her at face value as what is given in game! He appreciated her and her support during his early days as an adventurer because the consistency and kindness was really valuable to him during ARR when he was feeling extremely out of place, disoriented, and slightly paranoid. But his relationship with her wasn’t very deep, something he comes to regret when he later hears of Ryne’s dilemmas, because he didn’t know her well enough to understand what either she or Ryne might’ve really wanted.

Alphinaud - Another relationship that doesn’t deviate that greatly from what was given in game. He did think of him as a bit of a know-it-all kid in ARR but the problem is that he was also that way to Inanna when they were younger so he didn’t mind. To be honest, I think Utushama feels more strongly and has a more complicated opinion of his parents than Alphinaud himself.

Alisaie - Same as Alphinaud, their relationship isn’t all that complicated or different from what’s presented in game. He’s very fond of her because she reminds him a lot of Inanna. He respects her as a red mage because it’s one of the few magic-based classes that he’s not very good with (he has trouble with limiting his aether to himself as a source because he started with the styles of whm / blm). Once again, his opinion of her parents are more complicated than how he feels about her. The twins are his little buddies and accidentally foils to himself and Inanna.

Y’shtola - They are deceptively close friends. During ARR, Utushama came to her often because he had trouble finding resources and reading at a certain level in general (he was “homeschooled”) and Y’shtola immediately identified the things he was looking for to be related to black magic (very illegal). And being the sort of person she is, she immediately wanted in on whatever he was up to. Their studies together lead to Utushama’s success in black magic and her reclassification into her unique Sorceress job later on. When Urianger apologized to Utushama for “deceiving” him by withholding information regarding to the Exarch’s plans in Shadowbringers, he was actually more betrayed by Y’shtola than Urianger, because he had overheard them talking about the light aether that was overtaking him and had trusted her to tell him if she thought something was really that concerning. She is likely the first to understand his actual character rather than what he presents, based on the sort of things he is interested and his reasoning for said interest. You wouldn’t be able to tell that they were friends at first glance, because they talk to each other in a way that appears curt and disinterested, but is actually filled with their own meaning.

Thancred - They had an amicable relationship in ARR, wherein Thancred was his usual flirty self and Utushama was flattered by the attention (but by then knew better than to get carried away). The incident with Lahabrea unfortunately made Utushama very wary of him in a way where he knew it hadn’t been Thancred’s fault, but he also couldn’t help his reaction. They never really talked about this and he came off as kind of judgmental, so Thancred was always under the assumption that Utushama disliked him. Come Shadowbringers, their relationship implodes for a variety of reasons. He has many difficult feelings with regards to Ryne and Minfilia, Utushama had made him feel as though Lahabrea’s possession of his body had been a matter of weakness, and Utushama himself had been rather blasé about Minfilia’s death. These resentments pile and overflow when he appears and creates circumstances that result in the need for the Oracle’s power, although Thancred knows it is not logically his fault. They reconcile by the end of Shadowbringers, especially after Utushama experiences the horrors of having one’s body used for a means of destruction. Thancred now has an infinite pass to poke fun at him.

Urianger - Another relationship that is pretty much what is given in canon. Utushama went to Urianger as well when he was learning black magic, but Urianger simply didn’t think very hard about the sort of things Utushama was asking for, gave him exactly what he could offer, and moved on while Y’shtola was nosy enough that they fostered a good relationship as a result. Despite his holier-than-thou attitude regarding lying and deception, he is never really mad at Urianger for “deceiving” everyone because it often appears to be for a greater good.

Lyse / Yda - Same as canon. Though this is more of my fault than his; I don’t think very much about her because I didn’t consider her writing in Stormblood to be very interesting. There are some interesting overlaps but any spark I had for exploring what kind of relationship they might have had quickly died so my brain turned off.

Papalymo - Same as canon. And this is because I often forget Papalymo was even a Scion. Sorry.

Estinien - They are like two guys sitting silently on a porch drinking beers for two hours. They have a lot of interesting similarities (vengeance as a destructive motivator, draconic natures, their respective complicated relationships with Aymeric, etc) but they hardly actually talk about it. Estinien comes off to me as someone who you can only be friends with if you are persistent and Utushama has a lot on his plate so he doesn’t interact much with him outside of official duties. Estinien doesn’t take it personally and Utushama isn’t purposefully avoiding him so it’s all very neutral. The two times they really have time together is the Heavensward road trip and the Endwalker Thavnair Boy’s Trip, so Estinien has a very clear view of Utushama’s “before” and “after”, so he recognizes that he’s gotten worse but beyond giving him the ominous warning about the importance of improving as a person, he doesn’t interfere greatly. Despite the fact that they don’t interact deeply, they have a strangely significant understanding of one another.

G’raha - Ok this one was a mess I can’t even lie. Very long story short, they had something quite nice while G’raha was the Exarch but Utushama couldn’t overcome the hurdle of having seen the Exarch “die” and therefore couldn’t accept G’raha to be the same person as the Exarch. Alongside that, Utushama behaved as if whatever relationship they had on the First didn’t exist on the Source. All of this was obviously very hurtful to G’raha and it contributed greatly to his identity issues. After one too many disappointments, G’raha eventually became disillusioned with him and fell out of love. However, he still regards him positively as a fellow Scion and is comfortable calling for Utushama’s aid because he decided to move on and enjoy his life outside of the Warrior of Light. It’s honestly better for them both if they weren’t a thing. I will say though, I do enjoy my running joke that any time G’raha is mentioned in MSQ, Utushama thinks he’s mad at him.

Zenos - Ok you can’t get mad at me because you asked for this guy specifically. They are doing this social-role themed nightmare dance about righteousness and violence and gender and heroism. Zenos fixates on Utushama for what he identifies as a natural talent for destruction (something Utushama is deeply unhappy about having), sees in him a penchant for cruelty and rage (something he has been trying very hard to suppress), and is immediately able to look past his phony prince act (a skill he finds deeply unsettling). Zenos keeps trying to cultivate this in him during Stormblood for the purpose of having his grand perfect battle, and the attention on him is something Utushama is both furious and freaked out by. Later in Endwalker, Zenos is doing his thing of constantly chasing the WoL down, but Utushama is so disinterested in what he wants that the tables finally turn and Zenos is the one who is left constantly confused and upset. He is desperate for Utushama’s attention and Utushama, while mostly ignoring him because Endwalker is happening, quietly and coldly revels in his ability to disorient the man who tortured him so badly during Stormblood. They’re essentially constantly going back and forth hitting each other with sticks and power playing by demoralizing / condescending each other until Utushama finally accepts that he might actually be somewhat of a bad person and they throw each other off the edge of the universe.

#ask #anonymous #ffxiv #here are my short and sweet answers (posts the Iliad) #there’s a lot of characters so I tried to be concise </3 #I get indulgent with my wol relationships but what can I say I love to play toys #thank u for indulging me further :D

[worldformula]

Im so curious about ur wol...do u have a doc for his backstory/willing to talk about him?

i would love nothing more than to talk about my specialest little princess. you can't get mad at me though!!!

tl;dr, here is his chart of characters he is most like. please trust me.

his moral compass is a roulette wheel.

don't want to put too much here so here's a really condensed version of his backstory and personality!

(tbh he was a riff off of a shared set of ocs that my friend jay and i made! because they're basically fire emblem ocs forced in xiv, their backstories are slightly more convoluted than if he had just been made for xiv in the first place)

utushama is the younger twin to his sister inanna and she reminds him every day of his life. they were actually born right before the third umbral calamity and transported into the future by their father, who was tricked by an ascian into causing said calamity. he doesn't actually remember that time and mistake their memory of it as the seventh calamity (though the body keeps the score, as he and inanna have pyrophobia for reasons they can't fully explain). they grew up very isolated in the dravanian woods and were raised by their other parent, who was unfortunately not super present in their lives bc they were basically working around the world as a mercenary to feed them. eventually dragons came to rock their shit and burn their house down because of the dragons' lingering resentment of their father, who hunted them for their eyes. they ran off to the abandoned saint mocianne's arboretum to wait for their parent who never returned. so they finally left dravania, albeit with different intentions -- inanna wanted to find their parent while utushama was convinced that their father was still out there and the cause of their parent's disappearance. so after a huge argument about this, inanna went to gridania to start her search while utushama went to ul'dah to avenge his parent.

compared to inanna, who's much more rough around the edges with a soft heart, utushama seems gentle, guiding, and easy to become friends with, only for prospective friends and partners to find themselves stonewalled by his emotional unavailability. he is very approachable and sweet, but often justifies his (not purposeful) cruelty and callousness by using his grand quests as an excuse, as he really falls into his role as a prince-like hero, often to his detriment. though he's got a pleasant personality, he can also be judgmental, stubborn, petty, and brutally unforgiving. he can't forgive deceit or injustice, though his extremities in black-and-white thinking eventually grey out over time. he wants to be a good person most of all, but unfortunately confuses being great for being good :( his character arc is mostly about him realizing the impossibility of being a perfect hero archetype in a world that is convoluted, nuanced, and contradictory. as a result, his story is pretty gendered despite his preference for androgynous clothing/decor.

he is an all-rounder with a focus on magic over physical strength: paladin (tank), black mage/dragoon (dps fusion), and i still can't decide on a healing class for him. mostly because he hasn't focused on healing since childhood. i main sage and i prefer healing above all else though :}

#ask #anonymous #ffxiv #warrior of light #aheem heem.. whimper.... #i looooove to talk YAYYY #thank you for giving me the excuse :D

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the folly of orpheus 

#ffxiv #shadowbringers #graha tia #emet selch #warrior of light #final fantasy xiv #final fantasy 14 #ff14 #i love a thought exercise

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misery go round and round

#rgu #revolutionary girl utena #utena #utena tenjou #anthy himemiya #sku #shoujo kakumei utena

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new sun

#ffxiv #final fantasy xiv #final fantasy 14 #ff14 #warrior of light

[worldformula]

I’ll do everything right!

#ffxiv #final fantasy xiv #final fantasy 14 #ff14 #warrior of light #im losing my mind