Voidsent Speculation (Spoilers for All Saint's 2024 and MSQ to current 7.0)

I'll keep this short and sweet:

In the MSQ we meet Zero, who has little to no real emotions or strong senses- indeed her favorite food is that crazy-spicy curry that she just -starts- to notice taste in. We do know that food supplies her with Aether.

In the current All Saint's Wake, we meet Philcox and (re)meet Papa Gruff.
These two voidsent appear to have remained on the Source for a significant amount of time (Papa Gruff at least 3-4 Festivals worth of time, whatever that means timewise), and have the ability to "consume" aether in ways atypical of voidsent. It's basically Monster's Inc (happy feelings/appreciation feed them).

Specifically, Philcox eats a pumpkin cookie and remarks how "scrumptious" it is. He could be commenting on the actual taste, the aether absorbed, or the quality of "thanks aether" from the mother/daughter.


Anyway.
Speculation: Given time, Voidsent on the Source will regain their "humanity"; so emotions, senses of taste/smell and potentially alternative means of aether.

Possibly, the "human form" of Philcox/Gruff are their actual-real forms, pre "voidsent-ification".

It depends on the personality.

Also, Zero is an exception, since she is only half voidsent.

I imagine it'll always be a case-by-case basis to a degree (just to keep the writing options open) - much like people, you can never really be totally sure what they'll do in the end.

But we've seen a share of voidsent - especially ones like imps - not being terribly malicious, and we've seen a share of voidsent - especially ones worthy a combat sequence - stick to their guns about the whole killing and chaos and eating aether thing.

Imagine, though, a timeline where Cloud of Darkness made it here...and then had a change of heart about her "consume everything" plan. :thinking:

I think some people have a reflexive desire to assume some elements of Zero are magical, when the actual root is a psychological response to the magical context.

That is to say, Zero isn't emotionally and sensationally deadened because 'that's just what the Thirteenth does', but that living in the Thirteenth as it is now for ten thousand years causes some... emotional effects. Some people (probably a lot of people, really) went kinda insane in there, but it seems like Zero's survival mechanism was mostly emotional and sensational deadening; to tune out the constant background noise until it's just nothing, like if you live next to a busy road you eventually stop noticing the sound of traffic. But unfortunately in this metaphor the Thirteenth is just a worldwide neverending freeway, so she tuned out most of the world, and her responses to it, until she was suddenly in a place safe enough to not do that.

I feel that it has been a long time since any voidsent has eaten anything else that wasn't another voidsent's aether or those who have found their way to the source regular person's aether that they've forgotten what things taste like. As Papa Gruff ate a cookie a year or two back and had a similar reaction to it. I don't think it is a reaction to any aether that might have come from the mother and daughter in the way of being thankful. Though Zero does mention that other voidsent have said different aether sources have different taste. I see it more of the voidsent not being used to getting any kind of aether that wasn't taken by force (mostly) or a deal that it throws them off. That it's shocking to receive something that wasn't produced from fear or one of their own. Or that it doesn't have to come from a person. Along with the fact their taste buds have been dulled for who knows how long.

lvl 20 guildleave "Mortal Munchies" says: A supply party has come under imp attack and its precious cargo of food stolen.

lvl 11 fate "Now I See Bees I Won" says: Honey-seeking imps are killing off peaceful bees, and if the malevolent monsters are not stopped soon, honey production in the Twelveswood could suffer a serious blow.

It is not like it has been particularly denied that voidsent can eat. It simply seems to be no common knowledge among Eorzeans.

At this point if Dawntrail says anything about the direction of the game, anything can happen and you shouldn't take whatever lore we got previously too seriously.

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Originally Posted by Sinstrel

At this point if Dawntrail says anything about the direction of the game, anything can happen and you shouldn't take whatever lore we got previously too seriously.

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Literally nothing in this thread is talking about Dawntrail. Papa Gruff was from earlier events and has been around for a fair while, Philcox is just an extension of his whole bit.

I know you just want to throw stones and scream 'Dawntrail Bad' in a way that's both completely uninteresting and not even all that accurate, but you're not even throwing stones at the right house, Zero and Gruff are Endwalker creations.

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Originally Posted by yesnt

lvl 20 guildleave "Mortal Munchies" says: A supply party has come under imp attack and its precious cargo of food stolen.

lvl 11 fate "Now I See Bees I Won" says: Honey-seeking imps are killing off peaceful bees, and if the malevolent monsters are not stopped soon, honey production in the Twelveswood could suffer a serious blow.

It is not like it has been particularly denied that voidsent can eat. It simply seems to be no common knowledge among Eorzeans.

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I don't think that Eorzeans don't know that voidsent can eat. As until recently they have been solely been known to eat aether that would kill more often than not the person. And that it was mostly people. Either in a I'll possess you and drain people's aether by force or killing someone and then draining the body of its aether. The whole them eating apples or in the case of Papa Gruff and Philcox (which I guess is just an alias) eating what I'm going to assume are some kind of sugar cookies is a newer thing. It would be akin to running into a vampire that only get their blood from robbing blood banks. Sure, they're still drinking blood just in a form that won't presumably end up with a dead body.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

Literally nothing in this thread is talking about Dawntrail. Papa Gruff was from earlier events and has been around for a fair while, Philcox is just an extension of his whole bit.

I know you just want to throw stones and scream 'Dawntrail Bad' in a way that's both completely uninteresting and not even all that accurate, but you're not even throwing stones at the right house, Zero and Gruff are Endwalker creations.

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.........?

Not really much to add, just wanted to say I learned a lot here- I didn't realize there were so many references to Voidsent eating food;

Perhaps Zero's journey is kind of what most voidsent just..adjust to in order to survive on the source (assuming they can't consume actual people)

I had always kinda thought "fresh" voidsent were kind of aetheric vampires in how they feed, but as some comments above point out, 1) there are a lot of fates etc that show different and 2) Yeah, Zero is just Zero, and not necessarily indicative of what all voidsent are like.

Thanks!

Ah, also if anyone knows, is there concrete statement about the voidsent in Gold Saucer? Like are they doing a Monsters Inc thing too (fueled by the happy feels of guests)? I'm assuming yes.

Also keep in mind, that the voidsent we see living full-time on the Source tend to form familial bonds and relationships. The Gruff family, "Philcox"'s friendly rivalry with Papa Gruff, Ultros and Typhon's friendship (and if you believe Eorzean naturalists, gaelicat clowders), etc. Basically, once removed from the environment of the Thirteenth, where everything's aether is quickened to such a degree that nothing is stable, voidset don't have to keep to their more "mischievous" ways. Of course, by their nature of aether-starved creatures aspected that heavily to Astral Darkness they would require more aether intake than the peoples of the Source. Basically they would be constantly starving, but given the world itself isn't also heavily aspected towards Dark, they might "bleed" aether less quickly than when in the void.