#also emet-selch's final words

[cosmodynes]

i tell you someone will remember us in the future

POEMS OF SAPPHO TRANSLATED BY JULIA DUBNOFF

[voidsentprinces]

One of my favorite details about Warrior of Light is how side character will see us fight a Primal and be both awe struck and terrified of us. Like they can't tell which one of us is the real monster out there on the battlefield. The Warrior of Light keeps Lolorito up at night, the Holy See would rather open its gate to the exiled Scions than to spurn the Warrior of Light, better to keep them clearly in direct line of vision and then send them out on a suicide mission to parley with Dragons than let them stay cooped up in Ishgard and constantly a threat, Ysayle is genuinely at lost for words after we fight Ravana saying she hasn't seen us fight like that since she and her fought and despite just being defeated by Ravana, she seems more afraid of us than she is of still being in ambush distance of the One Mind, Elidibus doesn't truly comprehend our power and after we activate the Crystal of Azem, he genuinely falters and asks who we are, Thordan sees us as a terror beyond terrors, his death not being a peaceful one as we are warped from his perspective, Fandaniel chooses Zenos and us to antagonize genuinely because we are literally the only thing on Eitheirys that could guarantee that Zodiark was vanquished and the Final Days unleashed, Ryne is drawn to us for a reason beyond any sense she knows at first much like her she can sense the powerful light like that of Warden and needs to know more of it, and the only ones who outgambit us (Ilberd, Fandaniel, Emet-Selch and Zenos) are not in their right mind to begin with in dealing with us. And then again, all they can really do is STALL us as we are a single person siege engine cutting through waves of soldiers, the Garleans despise us and yet also respect us for what we did in the Praetorium, Zenos is truly in awe of us and calls us Champion of the Savages in reverence. Very few who meet us at first are gladened by our arrival, some are genuinely nervous and unsure when they meet us for the first time. If they do not hear tales of our gentler side from those who know us best.

The Warrior of Light is a beacon of hope but also a power not to be trifled with lightly and its kind of amazing how they write us.

[waterloggedsoliloquy]

mutual 1: sorry the update for my webcomic this week is a bit late! i really had to rush it so it prolly looks really sloppy lol [some of the most sophisticated comic art ive ever seen]

mutual 2: call me uterine lining the way astarions cervix got me bleeding profusely

mutual 3: do you think nanowrimo will give me a posthumous pity publishing deal if i mention it in my suicide note

mutual 4: okay fine i finally started revolutionary girl utena

mutual 5: does columbo know the service he did for butch lesbians. for all of us

mutual 6: wish you were here [blurry picture set of conifer woods in early autumn evening, taken as if frantically running down a winding trail]

mutual 4: im pretty hardy i dont need the trigger list but thanks for looking out for me guys

mutual 7: good morning lovelies another day the wizard tried to best me and another day i successfully locked him in the spare bathroom lol hope u like drinking shampoo fucker

mutual 8: here is a zip of every yuri manga scan i have and here is a backup in case i get dcma'd. the himejoshi lifestyle will never die

mutual 9: i wish i could go back in time to the shinzo abe assassination and ask to hold the doohickey

mutual 10: here's my essay on how wanting to be loved is the same as wanting to be eaten. three paragraphs in you'll find out that this is 100% tied to an obscure beauty and the beast manga i've been reading lately and how much i want to fuck the beast

mutual 4: oh thats why there was the trigger list.

mutual 11: YOU CAN'T LOCK ME IN THIS BATHROOM FOREVER

mutual 12: why do i have to defend my thesis to people i dont even respect. im not dickriding you just give me the degree

mutual 13: its just me and this scab ive picked into my scalp against the world

mutual 14: my little dragon got glazed and is ready to go into the kiln! everyone wish him good luck!

mutual 3: nvm i am a beautiful genius. perhaps the most beautiful genius of all

mutual 15: i think we should give david lynch rpgmaker and whatever happens happens

mutual 16: kpeyboaatrds brpokem gpuys

mutual 17: also heres my work in progress glossary of mixtec words! i still have a long way to go but i love being able to preserve my roots even in this small way

mutual 4: i just finished the black rose arc. question: what

mutual 18: i need emet-selch to be my wife

mutual 19: i need glados to be my husband

mutual 20: visited the ocean today!!! <3 beach pics!!! there is a darkness growing within me

mutual 21: the forms for my legal name change came in. pls vote in this poll of what my middle name should be: Dill Pickle (Dickle for short), Optimus Prime, Tumblr User Gorgonicteratologist, Smeve

mutual 22: just finished my 100th book of the year! this weeks read was the uses of enchantment by the psychologist bruno bettelheim,

mutual 23: reeses penis butter cups lol

mutual 4: i need to hunt akio for sport

mutual 24: oouugghhrgh. hot. dog.

mutual 25: your favorite character or fictional other would want you to brush your teeth and wash your face so you're well rested and wake up feeling refreshed! make them proud!

mutual 26: being a delivery driver isnt the worst job ive ever had but i do keep wondering what itd be like to drive off into the wild blue yonder one day and not come back

mutual 27: weird dog? [phone picture of critically endangered stork]

mutual 28: i think the two phone line polls in front of my house are having a lovers tryst. no way to prove it tho

mutual 4: WHAT

mutual 29: while you bitches are balduring your gates or finalling those fantasies im doing what a REAL gamer does. playing a b tier rpg that came out in 2004 for the 18th time

mutual 30: ^ real. hamtaro ham ham heartbreak is a masterpiece of interactive art. im not even going to call it a video game at this point

mutual 4: THAT'S HOW IT ENDS?! ANTHY?

mutual 31: can you help me pick which drawing looks better: 34% overlay or 36% soft light?

mutual 32: new video essay out. its called disability in video game narratives: final fantasy 14's most reliable fault. i churned the script out over an all-nighter and my mic crapped out halfway through but by god i did it

mutual 33: my new zine bundle is out! if you buy it you also get a discount on all my game jam games! i really cant wait for you to play them!

mutual 4: yall should watch revolutionary girl utena

[misedejem]

I hope the game continues to deny Emet-Selch his rest after he died because something new keeps cropping up every time he tries, I think that would be quite funny

Like

You’re one of the last surviving members of your people, and for 12000 years you and the other survivors have been trying to bring them all back. It has been so long and you have considered giving up more than you care to admit. One of the three survivors has died, another has lost himself, and you’re so exhausted. And what is left of one of the people you loved more than anything has just killed you. Your soul returns to the Sea, and you think 'at least now I can rest’.

But no, suddenly you remember all the things from your life you had forgotten, because the aetherial sea really is like that, and you realise that awful work trip you had completely forgotten about? Turns out the memories you lost then told you exactly how the apocalypse that destroyed your people happened and also how to stop it (you couldn’t).

So you can’t rest because you’re processing that, and you should also be on standby because it looks like the Emissary is making his last stand, and you know it’s futile and you’ve lost, so by now you just want his suffering to end. You gain brief respite when he has been defeated, but the person you kind of abandoned as a Sin Eater for a century has now returned to the Sea and likely has a few choice words for you.

Then the last person in existence that you could possibly want to talk to at that point turns up and tells you to join Her on an inter-shard trip back to the Source, and you know you can’t refuse, because those memories you regained told you that you couldn’t. You know what happens for a while from here, and you know there is no point in resting now, so you resign yourself to watching the person who killed you and hoping their journey will be short. 

At which point, your coworker - who you now know kind of caused the apocalypse because of those regained memories of the terrible work trip - kills your God.

And you cannot rest, because killing your God did free the souls who were sacrificed to summon Him, and they are returning to the Star. Coworkers, relatives, acquaintences, all joining you in the Sea. Among them is the other person you love more than anything, and this reunion is more important than any rest you could ever want. But you also know that person was very good at denying you sleep when you were alive, and he surely has not changed so much that he will not do the same now that you are dead. 

You watch the destruction that befell your home so long ago devastate the Source, and the Warrior of Light returns to the First to make a journey you know will lead them to your younger self twelve millenia in the past, bringing the events you recalled full circle. You think, perhaps, you may finally be able to get some sleep. But this tale has not ended yet, and the Warrior of Light is now in the aetherial sea, making a lot of noise in heated battle with their God, and you and your beloved can do nothing else but watch your dear friend’s soul forge ahead to the end of their journey. 

At which point they drag you both out of the aetherial sea to the edge of the bloody universe to help them. And you do, because deep down you know you wouldn’t have it any other way, and you make a very immutable point of saying goodbye because surely, surely this is the end of your role in their story. You will wait and sleep in the aetherial sea until their soul joins you, and the three of you will return to the Star together. Surely this annoyingly undefeatable force of nature won’t die for some time yet, and you’ll have a good few decades of rest. 

And for a time, you do get that. A few months, a year maybe, of nothing of note happening that would concern you beyond perhaps some idle curiosities that Hythlodaeus insists you should see. And you think this is how it will be from now on.

Until the Ancient’s Extremely Dangerous and Fucked Up Monster Facility that should have been destroyed twelve thousand years ago appears on the Dead Person equivalent of your back doorstep, and you realise your suffering is never actually going to end

[autumnslance]

LynMars's FFXIV Write 2024 Master Post

We're back again! The list and links for all of my completed prompts for this year's FFXIV Write. Stats and ramblings about writing will go under the Read More cut. Eventually these will be revised in some manner and tossed onto Ao3.

Asterisks again mean there's wolship nonsense happening.

01. Steer - Vignettes of less sociable times over Aeryn's life. 02. Horizon - WoL at the end of Ultima Thule, EW 6.0. 03. Tempest - WoL returns to Amaurot to contemplate, EW 6.4. 04. Reticent - C'oretta & Dark Autumn have a chat. Sort of. 05. Stamp - Aeryn finds a memento while cleaning, post-EW 6.0 06. Halcyon - Tanzel, Emelia, & understanding grief. Backstory. 07. Morsel - Zenos heading to Camp Broken Glass, EW 6.0. 08. Free Day! 09. Lend an Ear - Emperor Varis is very much alone. StB patches. 10. Stable - Hydaelyn as the avatar of Light. Endwalker. 11. Surrogate - Weird West AU. Unexpected new roles for the Strikers. 12. Quarry* - Dominants AU. Thavnair comes to Tural's aid. DT 7.0. 13. Butte - Dark Autumn versus seedkin in Xak Tural. DT 7.0. 14. Telling - WoL reflects on Emet-Selch's expected reaction. EW 6.0. 15. Free Day! 16. Third-Rate - Aeryn's annoyed by the Unbound. DT Role Quests. 17. Sally - Dark pays a final visit to a traitor, post-StB 4.1. 18. Hackneyed* - Aeryn, Thancred, & terrible literature. 19. Taken - A young wood warder tries to save his sibling. Backstory. 20. Duel - Wuk Lamat's challenge does not go as expected. DT 7.0. 21. Shade - WoL ruminates on some of their ghosts. Thru DT 7.0. 22. Free Day! 23. On Cloud Nine - A chocobo & her Warrior of Light. End ShB 5.0. 24. Bar - 2 different adventurers starting out. Legacy & ARR. 25. Perpetuity - Aeryn, Deryk, & questions of faith. EW 24man raid. 26. Zip - C'oretta helping out Hamon at the Coliseum. Technically DT. 27. Memory - In a future, music makes Iyna remember. EW Patches. 28. Deleterious - Aeryn & Shale discuss regulators & history. DT 7.0. 29. (Free) Deleterious 2* - Thancred & self-recrimination. ShB 5.0. 30. Two Heads are Better than One - Gulool Ja Ja muses. DT 7.0.

Previous years: 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023

Ended up a touch Aeryn-heavy this year, though Generic WoL, various NPCs, the other OCs, forays in the FC's AUs, and some supporting family cast members make appearances. There's even a callback to a previous FFXIV Write entry. Lots of Endwalker and Dawntrail due to recency bias, but it manages to span the spectrum from backstories through various expansions.

I only did 1 Free Day, due to having 2 solid ideas I ended up writing for that prompt. It was right at the end of my annual birthday vacation week, so I was pretty rested (may also be why they're among the longer entries!). Unusually, the rest of that week's works are not any longer than the others.

I'm also still working on some original writing, though, so that did cut into fanfiction time.

Below 500 words: #2 Horizon (347), #3 Tempest (415), #7 Morsel (499), #10 Stable (400), #13 Butte (477), #14 Telling (355), #17 Sally (464), #20 Duel (499), #24 Bar (462).

500 - 1,000 words: #1 Steer (944), #4 Reticent (581), #5 Stamp (588), #11 Surrogate (964), #12 Quarry (844), #16 Third-Rate (564), #18 Hackneyed (577), #19 Taken (915), #21 Shade (764), #23 On Cloud Nine (728), #25 Perpetuity (958), #26 Zip (592), #27 Memory (810), #30 Two Heads are Better than One (500).

Over 1,000 words: #6 Halcyon (2,479), #9 Lend an Ear (1,326), #28 Deleterious (1,099), #29 Deleterious 2 (1,231).

Shortest: #2 Horizon Longest: #6 Halcyon

Total: 20,382 words. Not my shortest but far from my longest. Comparing with the previous years, I can see a clear improvement in my grasp of both NPC and OC voices, and more confidence in general.

Even so, "Butte", "Sally", "Bar", and "Zip" were the hardest for me this year, and I may need to warm up to them. I love "Halcyon" for a lot of reasons, and am also fond of the lighter offerings in "Duel" and "On Cloud Nine." I like a lot of the others, particularly when trying to get into NPC heads (even if they're really weird places to be ffs, Zenos).

Not too many shippy entries this year, one of them for one of the AUs, one mostly talking about it rather than seeing it, but I like "Hackneyed" a lot as it's been awhile since I've written about Aeryn & Thancred's literary tastes (and opposite ways of treating their books).

These will eventually be revised and added to Ao3, and then we await next year!

[stormbabylore]

Glamtober | Day 1-ish: On the Road

I'm being a tiny bit sneaky for the last night of October and cycling back to the Day 1 challenge I missed! Lots of rambling about this one (along with some Endwalker spoilers) behind the cut!

I hadn't started Endwalker, yet, when the Dawntrail benchmark dropped, and in fact had been willfully putting it off to enjoy at a later time. But I was incredibly disillusioned by how different Aeryn looked in the benchmark, so much so I became determined to both start and finish Endwalker before the graphic update changed her. My playthrough left me feeling consistently morose, not only because of the story's sad and difficult themes, but also because I was bitter about my self-inflicted compulsion to rush through something I'd previously been anticipating. But Aeryn still looked "wrong" to me even in the second benchmark, so much so I felt certain I wouldn't want to continue playing her—that Endwalker and whatever finale it offered would be the swan song for my beloved first MMO character.

Then I reached that final meeting with Emet-Selch. His parting words to the WoL, challenging them to explore everything the wide world has to offer, really sucker-punched me in the feels. It was so exquisitely bittersweet that he, of all people (who in my lore was responsible for both Aeryn's death and the destruction of her star), should be the one to offer her a reason to live on after everything. I thought, "Okay. Okay, her story can end without ending. She just goes off to explore the world, not as an adventurer or a Warrior of Light, but as herself, having finally accepted her own distinct individuality independent of any history or past she's spent the entire game seeking."

(I got pretty emotional about it, haha.)

It's part of the reason that now, even though I am slowly becoming more accustomed to her new appearance, I'm still not sure if I'll venture into post-Endwalker or Dawntrail content with Aeryn. (Don't at me about picto.) But that's all beside the point, because all of this was just preamble to say:

I tweaked her long-time botanist glam to inspire this look representing the moment she steps out the door, as herself and nothing more, to go and see the world with eyes looking forward instead of back.

(╥_╥)♡

[aethercurrent]

If you've been around, I just finished Time Travel AU. If you're from AO3, you know what this post is and you can skip further down to read more. If you don't know what Time Travel AU is, it's a long FFXIV fanfic I've been working on for the better part of six years. Five and a half of which it's been online to read.

This post is to document some of the early plotting that I never talked about written down into a coherent-ish(?) post. Mostly to get it out of my system and to hopefully stave off the absolute breakdown I'll have once that "it's finished after six years" thing settles in.

Let's start this off with something funnier, because this a looooooooong post: the name.

(That isn't a word, for the record. I just mashed two nouns together to be funny.)

And then, finally, being a class clown at heart, I follow that up with:

It wasn't too long, and that joke that took me half a minute to come up with stuck around. It still makes me chuckle.

But, I suppose now we go back to a couple months before that conversation took place.

~

The first idea for the AU started rotating in my head a few days after finishing Shadowbringers. I’m kind of a sucker for time travel of any sort (a good chunk of my favourite media of all time includes it somehow!), and another thing I enjoy is enemies to “unfortunately, we’re on the same side for a while”.

So, as one does after a game thoroughly rearranges their brain, I started throwing darts at random points and saw what started sticking.

The first major things decided for the fic at that early conception stage were the following points:

the time travellers are WOL, Exarch, Ryne, Elidibus

the Final Days were caused by the star itself

Hythlodaeus (shade or real deal) is involved (maybe as 14th?)

Hydaelyn and Zodiark are non-violently undone by the end

it ends with a city by the Crystal Tower on the Source

I started drafting a few ideas for it over a couple weeks while waiting for 5.1.

Initially I genuinely wasn’t sure if the WOL in the story was going to be Meteor or my own WOL (every iteration of her has been in this fic, but when it started she was actually still a male Seeker… he’s the jumpy conjurer tagging along in the Praetorium; and the Dunesfolk, Highlander, and the Hrothgar are all obvious or hidden in the background, too). It took me a while before I settled on Meteor, mostly because I don’t want to ship her with NPCs, really. Also, Catboy Lahen was extremely jumpy and wouldn’t have been able to keep him being a time traveller and an Ascian secret for long. I needed someone made of sterner stuff, sorry Catboy Lahen.

The party was a proper light party at that stage, too, even before I settled on Meteor (Meteor / Ryne as tank, Exarch as healer, Ryne / Lahen and Elidibus as DPS)… and then dropped that once I started getting into the more detailed part of plotting.

By the time 5.1 rolled around I begrudgingly accepted that the WOL was going to be the 14th member of the Convocation, but I’ll be the first to admit that I didn’t like that. I still don’t like it, actually. I would’ve liked the WOL being a genuine random soul choosing the road and becoming modern day Azem just as Venat and her successor were before them, instead of having it just be Venat’s successor 2 electric boogaloo.

I also finally accepted the clown’s nose and admitted that my favourite Ascian was Lahabrea because he was a good villain back when I started in the last couple days of 2014. I was disappointed that after how much Emet-Selch and Elidibus got and were getting throughout the end of Stormblood and Shadowbringers, Lahabrea still hadn’t gotten much of anything else. Yes. The first time I met one of my now better friends, she joined call for Endwalker fanfest and the first thing she ever heard from me was me straight up bursting into tears over FFIV references and Pandaemonium.

A few more plot points were also starting to come together:

I wanted Emet-Selch and Lahabrea as POV characters

Hythlodaeus definitely was going to be one as well

he was going to have sat by and watched all of history

he was going to be tempered by Hydaelyn and Zodiark

Unukalhai, if not a POV character, was going to be somewhat important

the party was going to try saving some NPCs who died (success rate varying)

Meteor’s characterisation started to crystallise a bit more

because of that, they were going to try and substantially alter the Steppe section

Lahabrea would be explosive early on, leading to him being taken out of 2.55

Minfilia vanished before she could catch on to Ascian shenanigans

Ysayle would catch on to that, though

It’s glossed over in the finished fic because it’s mostly irrelevant, but as I worked on on the plot draft more and more, I noticed that the party accidentally fit into the elemental chart rather neatly:

Lahabrea as lightning; most volatile and destructive party member

Emet-Selch as fire; also fairly temperamental and not easy to work with

Elidibus as wind; easier to handle but still fairly dangerous

Meteor as earth; unmoving object that can bury a lot of things if they want to

Exarch as water; that one was mostly a “river of time” joke, I won’t lie

Ryne as ice; it’s the closest to light and once she’s determined she’s unyielding

Hythlodaeus as light; absolute stasis due to his circumstances

Unukalhai as darkness; always on the move and always thinking

A lot of the character dynamic comes from that! Emet-Selch and Lahabrea don’t get along, Elidibus manages to get along with both of them. Ryne as the most interesting mortal out of the bunch as far as Emet-Selch is concerned stems from a fire and ice joke that ran away with me; him and the Exarch butting heads is a water and fire joke. The reason why Ryne was the one to surprise Elidibus comes from the fact that she’s a solid ice wall to his wind, and so on and so forth.

That’s also why Unukalhai remains closer to the Ascians to some degree, while Hythlodaeus has absolutely no qualms whatsoever interacting with mortals as long as his restrictions are adhered to even if he doesn’t like them in the end.

It became extremely less relevant as time went on, but a lot of the early fic can be traced to that elemental balance.

Along with the elemental balance of the team, I started working on the magic system for the Ancients. I was extremely stuck on the sidequests in Amaurot and how two of them dealt with the WOL not being able to use creation magicks. I thought it was interesting that it seemed as if the one making clothes didn’t use a concept crystal, while in one you were handed one to summon those funny slimes.

The final point was that you had to catch a cubus for one while you didn’t for the other.

So, eventually I came to the magic system in the fic. Three classes of magicks (body, soul, environment), and differing levels of innate ability and trained skill. Ironically, the three antagonist Unsundered all fit into three out of four extremes of that latter scale…

Then there was the question of what was considered “dark arts” before the Sundering. It wasn’t necessary, none of the main characters would be students of the dark arts, but it was a fun thought experiment. Eventually I came up with the idea to animate something inanimate with malicious intent. Living weapons, defensive automatons, sentient traps, and so on and so forth.

I started applying that to all of the relevant Ancients, and it was a lot more fun than I want to admit here.

Essentially what the concept crystals thing came down to in the end was a certain level of intricate casting and preservation. Lahabrea can create a flock of his birds effortlessly because he knows the concept inside out with all its details and intricacies, while someone trying to summon it themselves would have to use a crystal to get the details right. That’s also why most of the time the Ascians don’t seem to be using concept crystals—they aren’t creating much, and when they are it’s things they already know how to make.

Actually, I dug out the notes on the innate/trained scale. There’s a lot of things that are irrelevant for the fic on that, but let me write down the most relevant ones:

Emet-Selch: soul; high innate/low trained

Lahabrea: body; high innate/high trained

Elidibus: environment; low innate/high trained

Hythlodaeus: soul; high innate/not trained

Alexis (Meteor’s ancient): environment/dark arts; low innate/medium trained

Igeyorhm: body; medium innate/high trained

Minfilia: body; low innate/low trained

Venat: environment; medium innate/high trained

Rafael (previous Elidibus): soul; low innate/high trained

There was also the question of what to do with Ancients in general. True, we had the shades in Amaurot as a general idea, but just like with Azem above, I wasn’t a fan of the featureless or just “human” thing. I still am not, for the record. I think it’s goofy to have everyone be proto-Hyurs and then post-Sundering we suddenly have Hydaelyn give some people a goddess-assigned fursona. And that’s coming from someone who previously played a Hyur, for the record!

But just like how magic focused on the elements specifically instead of the broader strokes, I decided that in ancient times there would be one term for the different tribes. I tried to handwave the shades away with making the region around Amaurot the ancestral home of proto-Hyurs… and then only had one of them in the party. Oops!

Overall, my thought process was to address the weird lore bit that apparently interracial relationships are frowned upon in Eorzea. I mostly wanted to… not… have that apply for ancient times because it’s fucking weird. Not gonna call it anything other than that.

From there, it was as simple as… naming everything and everyone, giving them a place they come from, and… oh god I wrote so much stuff that never came up just so it stayed internally consistent y’all, I almost don’t want to talk about it.

The main notes on that are in Astral Scions, Umbral Sinners I, but to recap:

Hyurs were Amaurotines

Elezen were Atlanteans

Miqo’te were Children of Sirius

Lalafell were Saronian Marchers (Saro)

Roegadyn were the Galg

Viera were Lunarians

Hrothgar were the Watchers

Au Ra were white-scaled Steelhearts and black-scaled Flareseekers; formerly the Volcana

Specifically the Au Ra have a lot of background history that gets mentioned due to Lahabrea being a Flareseeker. Long story. Too long for this already long post.

Speaking of Lahabrea, though; there was rhyme and reason behind why the Ascians were what they were.

Lahabrea (Flareseeker+Amaurotine) is a renowned scholar who also is something of a social outcast both in Amaurot due to his Flareseeker heritage and in Bodhum due to his Amaurotine heritage, which leads to him being quite hard to deal with thanks to bad experiences way in the past

Elidibus (Child of Sirius+Saronian Marcher) is both very quiet and observant and still relies on company if not community and is rather lost without the support of those he deems his family

Emet-Selch (Amaurotine) is the one who misses home the fiercest out of all of them because that’s where his family and he always belonged, that’s where everyone he ever loved was

Hythlodaeus (Atlantean+Amaurotine-Lunarian) feels all over the place and cuts out his paternal home under the waves and his maternal home high above ground to find his own home

Venat (Amaurotine+Lunarian) grew up on her father’s stories about how the star looks from the Floating City of Babil and wanted the more grounded people of her home to see that as well

Another fun thing about ancient times was the fact that I could do whatever I want. It’s not that glaringly obvious with their names, but when it comes to their cities and settlements in general, I got to go a bit wild with it.

And with “wild” I mean I had some fun picking settlement names across the Final Fantasy series. I hope people who know the series a bit outside of XIV itself had some fun with the interludes; I know I had a lot of fun with it. I think if I had to pick a favourite it’d be the Floating City of Babil, the underground city Insomnia, and Archades on the mountains by the sea.

Again, I think having everything, apparently, be Ancient Greek Mythology is… stifling. I admit that even in my more canon-compliant other works I struggle with it. There’s a lot of myths to draw inspiration from; I for one would’ve loved Hermes to deal with a mfing Wolpertinger. Creature of all time.

But… at that point I was writing two different drafts. One where Unukalhai joined shortly before Hythlodaeus as POV character (which also was a joke about the darkness-aligned character joining before the light-aligned one because darkness is active), and one where he remained a non-POV but important character. Kind of similar to what Minfilia became after she was saved! It was the same for both of them up until he joined the party for good.

If I had gone with 7 POV characters instead of my full party set-up, there was a bit of an act dedicated to unravelling his feelings on this nonsense. Specifically a non-POV Unukalhai wouldn’t have spent as much time with everyone else and would have gone down a different mental rabbit hole of eventually struggling with not being able to get his revenge on Igeyorhm while also starting to feel like a replacement heist from an alternate timeline self is extremely creepy considering how the “heroes” of the Void all changed until they were effectively replaced by alternate versions of themselves. He’d have tagged along for Meteor’s Regula mission and would have gotten to hear their version of the replacement heist after they escape from Garlemald together. (Meteor taking over this timeline’s version of themself grew much less important overall as the drafting continued, so it never really came up again beyond Titan where the alternate self died during Living Dead).

After that Unukalhai would have mellowed out a bit until he would join the Ascians and Cylva on the First to deal with the Flood of Light. That would’ve been the last of him until the part where Meteor and G’raha come to the Empty.

Overall, a non-POV Unukalhai would have been less gloomy but also would have been a completely different beast. He remains fairly introspective and reclusive across both drafts, but the reclusion gets the better of him as non-POV character.

The setting itself was also becoming rather rigid—part of having so many things set in stone while adding more and more. It would be extraordinarily hard to integrate whatever canon proceeded with. I couldn’t add or remove characters because that led to a ripple effect throughout the whole plot, and the ending was admittedly the first thing I decided on after I got the idea for the premise. It was the only thing I couldn’t negotiate myself out of.

I can work with that! I’ve worked with that before!

But unlike previous longfics, something about TTAU felt daunting in ways I couldn’t articulate at any point. Still can’t. I guess I just really wanted it to be everything I’d want to read at any given time, and I really am my own harshest critic. Great going, Ms aethercurrent née vanitaslaughing, now you’ve made yourself anxious about disappointing the target audience (yourself).

I also struggled with not only making it fun for me but also for readers; I wouldn’t have posted it if I didn’t want to share it with people. I hope I did a good job in the end, but really I can only speak for myself here. If you read it, even partially, I hope you at least had some measure of fun before you dropped that absolute behemoth of a fic, and if you finished it entirely there are no words in either language I speak to convey how happy I am that my silly big baby entertained you to stick through with it until the end.

I eventually reached a point where more and more details were starting to form that were needed to keep things straight while probably never coming up.

Every member of the Convocation before the Sundering has a name and was assigned a race. Most of them are mentioned in an Interlude, but in most cases there’s some sort of underlying joke to them. Similarly all of them received titles similar to Speaker, Emissary, Architect, Seer; I attempted to keep it somewhat balanced and/or in line with a fantasy government. Messenger Mitron and Listener Loghrif sound a bit redundant with the Emissary Elidibus around, but those two specifically mostly stick to Amaurot and the more immediate surrounding settlements—specifically calling back to that one city mentioned in the sidequests in Amaurot where you deal with the debating shades. Something akin to a national relations minister, an international relations minister, and one specifically for the neighbouring countries.

At around that time the Twelve were also decided to be actual genuine deities of the star. A bit of inspiration comes from Sailor Moon (nothing concretely 100% similar, but the Twelve are effectively the star’s Sailor Scouts who also have the ability to become a new small system if they decide to leave), but I mostly just wanted them to be, y’know. Gods. Coming back to the issue I have with canon going “everything’s Amaurot”, I can’t say I love how the Twelve are in canon but I do adore them as characters. It made me choosing Menphina as the one to speak with the group all the more sweeter since I think out of all of them she’s my favourite design-wise.

There was also the thing with the Seer position that needed to be tackled at this point. I’m morbidly fascinated by characters who know the story they’re in but can’t do much to influence it because they can only tell what path they’re on depending on the ending.

I think the biggest struggle especially towards the end was the fact that I often drafted at least two possible POVs for a chapter. I often went in expecting to write one POV, got stuck irreversibly on it somehow, steamrolled the whole thing, and wrote out the other draft. I’ve cannibalised previous drafts into complete rewrites of the same POV a lot more than you’d think I have. And I only save a copy of a chapter that reached a certain word threshold or if there’s something integral written to a degree I like.

One of the worst offenders of the bunch was Chapter 78… which became Chapter 79 when I posted it. Yeah. It got so bad and frustrating that I had to make dealing with Hythlodaeus future me’s problem. Thankfully it didn’t cut too much into the pacing thanks to Act XI being extremely slow due to how introspective it was.

In the earlier days one of the other struggles was formatting. Something about my documents went haywire when pasted, leading to endless strings of completely superfluous <spans> that added strange spacing issues between all that mess. It was something that my older works struggled with too, which became a non-issue over the years (thankfully. I shudder thinking about possibly having to deal with that issue while already spending 48 hours formatting Eden Rewrite correctly).

The documents just eventually started to bug out because they were so damned long. I never expected them to be in one, but I have five documents holding all of this fic. It’s rather funny to see four chilling and the fifth on top with a 00 as its first characters in the document title so I see it first.

It's... really bittersweet to remove that 00 and seeing them all together now.

That's... about it for the fic as it was posted there. Whether you read the fic or just read this post, once again: thank you.

Thank you for sticking with me for six years, or for reading about the earliest of these six years!

~

For those who remember at a certain point I was considering overhauling the fic and implementing canon from Endwalker at that time, there's a bit more post to go specifically relating to that idea!

You’d think I’d struggle with keeping the canon characters and the fanfiction versions apart as someone who prefers staying canon compliant, but over the years those guys became their own beasts. Ophion could never have been Themis, but why would I want them to be the same? I needed Ophion for this fic to work, after all.

A lot, and I mean a metric shitton of stuff, breaks and changes there. It’s been a fun thought experiment at the very least. I’ll be the first one to admit that I don’t like the Warrior of Light being a reincarnation of Azem’s sundered soul; I just like them being a nobody with no preconceived notion that they’re bound to adventure no matter what because that’s what their soul always did… but Hythlodaeus likewise can’t replace them in that case.

The solution to that first massive hurdle? I suck up the Azem thing, and instead of an Unsundered Hythlodaeus, the one that joins the party is the Shade. His plot stays surprisingly intact through all of that, but instead of dealing with forced indecisiveness it becomes more of a plot about identity and what to do when you’re a creation on the path to freeing the real deal you were based on.

Out of all of them, Lahabrea changes surprisingly little—I wrote him like a stern father to Igeyorhm in this, and you can mostly mix and match a lot of that onto Erichthonios. Instead of dealing with her ascensions and the fact that she needed to be taken out, Lahabrea gets to see his son reincarnate and die over and over again.

Honestly? I could even keep the dual Elidibus approach. Instead of Ophion (the previous one’s student) and Rafael (the Zodiark sacrifice), it would be Elidibus (the Heart of Zodiark) and Themis (the rest of the Heart still remaining with Zodiark). There would be a lot of overlap with the Shade here but in the end the Shade and Hythlodaeus would exist independently from one another while the Heart of Zodiark reunites and becomes Themis again.

I think the parts where I would have to genuinely start rewriting it entirely is where to integrate canon Venat over TTAU Venat and the Endsinger. TTAU Venat is a lot more mellow than canon Venat—a shitty mother but an excellent politician versus canon’s all-loving hero with an understanding of but no love lost for politics. The Meteia as a villain are a lot less vague and distant than the Star Itself. Instead of a journey to the innermost reaches it’s to the edge of the universe. Doable, yes, but marginally harder to do. Honestly, thinking about it as I’m writing this, I think I would have to do an arc where at least Meteor if not all Sundered go to Elpis in the past to learn something while the Unsundered+Shade remain in the present to deal with the Final Days…?

Actually, let’s tackle the characters one by one in a canon-adjusted remake.

This would be assuming that there is inter-shard travel so the starting group would still be Meteor, Ryne, and G’raha. The one major major change would be that instead of Elidibus the “Ancient” to go with them would be the Shade.

Meteor would change the least. They don’t care about being Alexis, they don’t care about being Azem either. They’re one of a handful children of a farmer family in La Noscea, not some sort of government freak from ancient times long before they were ever born. They didn’t start travelling because their soul told them to after they got the Echo, they started travelling because they damn well wanted to after seeing the Calamity, get outta here with that “Azem” nonsense.

In an Elpis episode they would do the opening section for the most part. Not much else to say here.

G’raha would be a lot more cheerful once the initial horror stage of travelling through time to prevent the end of the world again faded. He’d still have his struggles with the idea of possibly letting down the future Ironworks and being arguably the least experienced in the adventuring department.

In an Elpis episode, G’raha would likely be the one to deal with Venat overall. She’d be the perfect foil to him; an experienced traveller to his inexperienced adventurer. They’re both old but he’s barely a blip on her lifespan. They’re both incredibly determined to find the reason for why this is happening.

Ryne would feel a bit more resentment towards Ascians in general at that point. Other than that, her struggle was always being the odd one out amongst the Sundered, about being face to face with the woman she was named after and seeing why that woman was so beloved. About finding her own niche and staying there, no matter the people she loses.

I think out of all of the Sundered in a possible back-in-time-again Elpis episode, she would be the one to sympathise the most with Hermes despite also possibly interacting with him the least; she would likely lead the charge right before Ktisis Hyperboreia and her plot in Elpis would mostly be about travelling treacherous foreign terrain just the way Thancred taught her.

Unukalhai’s a bit of an odd case. After all there’s still two drafts, one where he joins the party as main POV character, and one where he becomes something along the lines of TTAU Minfilia. In a rework of that, I’d have to apply a lot of the Void lore since revealed to him, which makes him go from an odd case to an even odder case. He’d… either possibly involuntarily make Azdaja’s predicament worse, or free her before Endwalker happens but she loses her memories and becomes his cool new partner in crime until a completely flabbergasted Vrtra has to drop the facade immediately because no one told him a thrice-damned Warrior of Light had his sister tagging along what the fuck.

The hypothetical Elpis Episode would have a POV Unukalhai likely be the one to help Meteion get a gift for Hermes. His already intense internal hatred coming to the surface to turn a flower from bright white to darkest shadow, mirroring what happened with Hermes and the flowers in the past? Yeah. That’s the good shit.

In a non-POV case he’d stick with the Scions to help deal with the Final Days and his section of the story most likely would have gone to Ryne.

Ophion would likely still be a soul in Zodiark. Other than that, he’s not relevant.

Themis or the Heart of Zodiark… wouldn’t necessarily be the first one to join them. Actually, I think he’d be the last one. Immovable object without memories meets unstoppable force that draws in his allies. Overall he would be a lot colder on account of having no memories, and be rather fiercely protective of the other Unsundered for reasons he cannot recall. He’d make for an excellent diplomat, but it would likewise lead straight into his greatest vice: vague, foggy memories of something other other that might float up to the surface on occasion. Claudien would be an extremely weak spot for him, except unlike Lahabrea in the same position, Themis cannot tell how or why he’s reacting like that.

While the Sundered are off for their Episode Elpis, Themis would likely scour through the Crystal Tower to find a way to interact with the him from the timeline the others came from.

Emet-Selch would be the first legitimate Ascian to “join” their cause.

Mostly out of morbid curiosity, partially because he wants to figure out how in the name of all good graces a recreation of Hythlodaeus with sentience so advanced it can be deadpan sarcastic and have an identity crisis is with there, and it’s driving him just a bit insane. He’d actually be a lot more antagonistic as a result, and he’d be the one mostly bemoaning the Sundered and how Meteor is a disgrace to Azem early on until they have enough of his nonsense and beat him up. That would serve the purpose of actually confirming that they have the strength to kill an alternate timeline version of Emet-Selch and he mellows out a bit. Not much. Just a bit.

Overall he’d be a lot more prickly—which makes for an interesting switch when during the Final Days on the Source he very swiftly drops the antagonism. It’s a bit of a “been there, done that” attitude but since the star itself is in danger he has surprisingly few qualms about saving a few Sundered while he’s at it.

Lahabrea wouldn’t change much like I said, though there would be a lot more ruthlessness behind anything and everything he does. He’s willing to walk over corpses no matter what instead of calming down a little on that once he’s been thoroughly humbled (and untempered).

He’d also be a bit more strangely sentimental internally around Minfilia specifically; he already compares her to Igeyorhm a few times in TTAU proper but in a canon-compliant rewrite the comparison point would be Erichthonios. No matter how ruthless he is, at the end of Pandæmonium he and Erichthonios started the long journey of making up, and Minfilia reminds him of Erichthonios’s best qualities in a quite haunting way. They’re both tenacious and care about everything and everyone from the bystander to the one causing the mess… except Minfilia is a bit more spicy and willing to speak her mind. He wouldn’t be as fond of her by the end, but he’d still accept her terms and teach her.

Lahabrea during the Final Days would likely be recruited by Urianger and the Loporrits as additional quality control.

I’ve gone over the Hyth Shade, but the endgame there would be essentially affirming that he is as much a person as the Sundered are. Sure, he may have been someone else’s creation but that doesn’t make him any less a person on this star, not to mention he was one of the time travellers.

The real Hythlodaeus also would’ve been rather delighted to have an identical twin, and one who’s fighting against the Final Days no less.

Can’t go into too much detail otherwise, since this canon compliant version never quite left the drafting phases for obvious reasons. He’s the one character who more reacted to the plot than being the one to move it along, and without the plot there isn’t much to say.

He’d have stayed behind to deal with the Final Days, and he’d likely have been one of the first to go to Garlemald when news of the skies changing there broke.

The one major departure from canon would be that Zodiark and Hydaelyn aren’t fully slain—Zodiark specifically it put under a complete stasis spell in the middle of unravelling, but that breaks the protective shroud He has over Etheirys and the Final Days start happening again. Hydaelyn created meticulous seals and mechanisms to ensure that despite being bound the protective shroud remains, but under full stasis and while the whole thing is falling apart…

(Hyth Shade was the one to suggest it to the Watcher, Elidibus, and Emet-Selch as an absolute last resort. None of them really wanted Zodiark to suffer; the main goal still remains to bring back those Ancients should it prove possible).

All issues with how wonky and not finished that is aside, I’d also get a lot of extremely fun things to explore. Jullus already is one of my favourite characters introduced in Endwalker, but having him tell his story to Emet-Selch would be super interesting. There’s knowing what you’re doing, and there’s coming face to face with it, and that would genuinely be super cool to do.

Then there’d be the whole Heart of Sabik business—I’d unironically love for that whole mess to unfold with the real Lahabrea and Elidibus there while there’s memory-creations Erichthonios and Themis there as well. That would be absolutely chaotic on top of Athena also being there. Atrocious vibes, ten out of ten.

Likewise, Ryne and Vrtra would also be an interesting pair of characters to interact; they’re both the youngest siblings (of a sort in Ryne’s case), they’re both intensely protective of the people they care about, and they couldn’t bring themselves to hurt those they love even if it were absolutely necessary until someone else confirmed that this was the only way. There’s also that loss of family (Azdaja missing, Ratatoskr/Bahamut/Nidhogg dead; the whole abandoned timeline) that would have them interact in a neat way too, they’re quite similar to each other.

Unukalhai and Zero. She’s effectively everything he was said to be and they both failed. There’d be an interesting dynamic between them because of that—even if getting Zero in on the plot would be rather hard. Unukalhai would definitely try and sympathise with Zenos’s voidsent and maybe try to get them to abandon their master, and through that realise that she might not be there entirely willingly.

But overall, the hardest character to implement would be the Meteia. There’s eight main characters and there’s eight different opinions on this mess, ranging from intensely sympathetic and willing to rebuild burnt bridges (Ryne, Meteor, Hyth Shade, Elidibus if he regains his memories before Ultima Thule), apathetic despite how high the stakes are (Unukalhai, Elidibus if he doesn’t regain his memories), different levels of less sympathetic (Lahabrea, Emet-Selch), and the option where G’raha has such intense issues with being not overly sympathetic and having no sympathy at all that his understanding of the situation is wildly out of control until the very end.

Having worked with them as both individuals and as a hivemind in a couple writing exercises, I honestly would have had a Meteion for every main character, and give all eight of them a proper story on top of what’s already going on there. Narrative foils that lead both parties to Ultima Thule.

Putting that one lightly: that would’ve been a goddamn motherfucking nightmare to write. Fun, but a nightmare.

And that's a lot coming out of Ms Almost Half a Million Words Across Six Years.

[hythlodaeus-mynewoldfriend]

Mayncient Day 23: Dearest

Get Along Without You

Had the first part in my wips for ages and had sudden inspiration for this day so here it is for you all! no warnings. word count 1.4k

They’re both lucky enough to have a full moon that casts enough light in the darkest parts of the city to allow them to walk in peace. Lucky enough that when they do finally come to a spot in the empty park there’s just enough shadow to allow for their masks to be removed.

Conner sits closer to the path, letting his height add protection to Elidibus’ identity despite it being well into the hours that any sane person would be in bed. Even with the white mask and black robes the Emissary still fears the potential backlash should he be found with Conner, a sentiment that he understands. Yet in this moonlit spot Conner can see the man relax as if they were behind closed doors, a smile playing on his lips as he watches Elidibus look up at the stars. “It’s quiet tonight,” he says, his white hair blowing gently in the small breeze, “something I wouldn’t expect of this place. Always noise. People, kids, and little animals during the day.”

“It's nice.” Conner inhales deeply, smiling and looking up at the sky also, “This has become my favorite time of day now.”

Elidibus frowns, “It used to be dawn.”

Conner shrugs, “It's still the early morning technically. Besides, a person’s favorite time of day can change or also just have multiple favorites.”

“Not with you Conner. You were-.”

“You’re not going to change my mind on being with you Elidibus,” he assures, “I know back then it felt like there were no consequences because it was just sex, but I still could have left when this became a lot more than that. I know what air we must put on when the white robes are on and we are at work keeping a little closer to the shadows, a small price to pay to have the times like this where you are better dressed for the shadows and yet do everything except stay in them.”

“If only we never had to in the first place. Do you not wish to be more open at work? Among friends?”

“I think in all cases there is a certain kind of secrecy when in a working environment out of professionalism so not much would change on that front really. As for friends, well,” Conner chuckles, shaking his head, “we already are, as they know not to ask too many questions. You remember how Hythlodaeus’ partner was when we happened to cross paths as the two were making their way home?”

The memory brings a small smile back to Elidibus’ face, “I do not believe I had ever seen Anthea more authoritative than in that moment.” He sighs, shoulders relaxing as he leans against Conner, fingers becoming entwined with his, “I just wish that I, as Themis, can be enough for you as Elidibus certainly cannot be.”

Conner tilts his head upward, caressing his jawline to let his hand become loosely entangled in the long white hair. He brings his lips down softly to his, the chill of the night air disappearing in an instant even as Conner pulls away just far enough to whisper, “It will never matter to me who you are. You are by my side right now and that is enough.”

It isn’t enough in this time of calamity when Elidibus recalls that moment as the skies darken and people flee below the earth. Things are going to plan as he can feel that starting fusion of worlds, of another piece of Zodiark stitched by his brethren, and of the decimation of a world he never cared to know. He stopped trying to get to know the people of those broken worlds after they were successful in rejoining the first piece to Him. What was the point when they weren’t supposed to exist to begin with? He’d stick to those that would become whole once again.

It was a third attempt to see if there was something more to it all, if The Shepherd on the moon was right to have abandoned them all those years ago like Emet-Selch had said. Three attempts and this would be the last. He can already see how this one ends, can already feel the slow crawl of grief that’s never sat nicely since the world he knew fell apart, can see this version doing what Elidibus can only assume happened the first time. 

These people don’t have magic yet that doesn’t stop this incarnation of Conner weaving through destruction getting as many as he can underground. He’s had several close calls with the smoke engulfing him and lightning starting to rain down and still it does not deter the man….and each time it causes a panic to rise in Elidibus briefly. Each time he wonders if this will be the moment he witnesses the death of his dearest and so he intervenes in ways imperceptible to those of this era. His brethren would scoff at the intervention, and he can’t blame them, this is only one man and what was a single man compared to the many they were working on bringing back? The preservation of this one man is not worth the whole of the star. 

Yet how would they know that this one man, his soul on its first journey in this new world, was the only reasoning he could find to let them continue with what they were doing. That maybe, just maybe, he could have the power to bring him back, get back that little piece of his heart that was given in exchange for the hopes of many. To see those blue eyes framed by ebony hair once again, to hear his laughter when they tried to dance and Elidibus couldn’t help but try to take the lead which had their legs tangled as they fell to the ground, to feel his own heart race when their eyes would meet in the Convocation building knowing what could come next. To experience the smell of the various herbs and plants he kept just for the joy of it once more, and to taste the cool moonlight on Conner’s lips as the sun rose to remind them of duty that always won. This one man was a reminder of what he sacrificed…. 

And what a mistake it was to have indulged in this fantasy.

Their time together was bliss. The way they met almost like the first time, but it wasn’t uncertainty about his new appointment that kept him silent, but the instant recognition of his eyes among features that were nothing like Conner. Elidibus didn’t need to check the color of his soul to know it was him, though he did anyway, it was enough to have those soulful eyes look at him once more. Enough to bring him back to this incarnation and strike up conversation after conversation in an openness Elidibus hadn’t known when the world was whole. To create a fleeting life within that freedom and to fall once more for someone that was a close approximation to the man he lost. Yet fleeting is all this ever was, even if he was to live to be old and grey a few decades is nothing in the centuries Elidibus has lived. He knows this and still it hurts. Still it hurts to see them all leave in ways that feel unnatural, after centuries of witnessing and being the cause of millions of deaths he still cannot stop the torturous pain from enveloping him. He wants to be free of this cycle….

So this will be the last time he lives among them. The last time he will go searching for those he once knew. The last time he will let himself be distracted by the doubts that plague his mind. The last time he will let himself recall or create memories to hold onto. After this Calamity he will once again put duty above all else. 

But first he will get this incarnation of Conner to the fleeting safety of the ground. Will stay with him for the last two months he has before returning to the sea to begin once again. Will hold him during his last breaths and mourn with the others before disappearing into the shadows, where he will stay dressed in white to perform his duty like he did so long ago. All the while holding onto the fact that he for just a moment had Conner right by his side….

….and it wasn’t enough….

[feralkwe]

I don't fic rec often, not nearly as often as I should, but I'd be remiss not to share this fic from my BF5. I have longed for an Emet-Selch/WoL fic that hit all my specific buttons. Lovingly and thoughtfully crafted from first word to last with careful attention to lore, it's heartbreaking in exactly the right way. Yes, I'm biased, but I am also correct.

Highly recommend this one if it's your jam.

Well done, @yamisnuffles. Thank you for writing the exact story I wanted to read, but could never have done myself.

[ectojyunk]

For that ask game - how does Hydaelyn feel about Aro? Like... Venat met this guy once for a few days in the past and decided to hang everything on him being her hero. And then Hydaelyn actually finally gets to that point, and maybe he's not what she actually expected, or something. You know?

Venat reveals herself one last time as a hazy projection during Aro's sojourn in Garlemald. Emet-Selch is not the only one with memories about Azem's past. (Snippet below)

"And… have fun on your hunt."

Aro froze in place and turned back to face the figure of Venat. The wind howled outside the crumbling cabin- a snowstorm was coming. But never mind that, why would she say such a thing?

"What do mean by 'my hunt'?"

The Lady of Light tilted her head questioningly, "Is that not what the game is called? Between you and the Prince?"

Aro furrowed his brows, it wasn't surprising that Hydaelyn knew a lot about him and the world… but something about her words and the way she said them didn't feel right with him.

"I think you are mistaken. It is not a game I partake in- not anymore, anyway," he said with his voice becoming low near the end.

"It is not?" Venat put a hand to her chin, closing her eyes in thought, "That is… surprising."

After an moment which seemed like a year to Aro, she spoke up again. "It is a shame then, that you will not take joy in the challenge I set up for you. But do not worry, the aether I imbued in that child will return to me when you strike him down. And I will usher his soul to the Sea as gently as I did with the others."

The wind, the creaking of the walls and floorboard of the cabin seemed to stop for Aro. It was if time stood still when he understood what Venat was talking about.

"Y-you… made him like that?" he asked, his voice quivering for the first time in years.

"No. He was to be a vessel for the light, like Minfillia was," Hydaelyn turned her gaze towards the window, watching the first bits of snow fall outside, "Alas, Emet-Selch noticed my involvement and my plan was stopped short before I could fully establish a connection between him and the Mothercrystal…"

Aro felt a dark pit in his stomach forming, something was deeply wrong. Yes, Hydaelyn's words made sense, but if what she said was true… if her hold on Zenos had failed, what was the "challenge" all about?

"It worked out in the end," Venat turned back to Aro, "He has provided you a suitable challenge. Ones you oh so love to solve… Or you did, as I knew you… as did your many incarnations on this world. This… is the first time you seem dissatisfied with my work. I fear that maybe, I do not know your heart any longer."

A dark and irrespirable feeling clawed at Aro; his mind pleaded him to run and stop questioning Venat. He didn't want to hear her any longer. But he had to. He had to.

As if she read his mind, she took a step forward and ever so slightly leaned down, "If you do not wish for it is this lifetime my child, I will stop my gifts for now, or indefinitely, if that is the course your soul takes." She seemed… sad. "But it is a shame. For I cannot take my biggest gift back. This world. It was to save our people, yes… But it was also my gift to you."

Aro slumped forward and put a hand on the beam next to him to steady himself- it let out a silent crack drowned out by the raging storm outside. "What on earth are you saying… That this world, the entire Star, was a gift from you? For what? You thought I'd- that Azem would want…"

Venat straightened, her voice taking on a more neutral tone, "I realize that you sympathize with Emet-Selch's views and world. Our old world. But the you I knew, the you that I have seen reborn over millenia had one strong desire. I never would've imagined you straying from that desire…"

"What desire!?" Aro spat. "What desire could I have possibly had to warrant such a wretched gift!"

The howling got louder, the storm almost felt like it would tear the house and everything in it into shreds. Neither of the occupants cared.

"Why, it is the desire to serve your Seat. The seat of Azem. I have ever guided you to fulfill that role," Venat circled around the shaking room, her words somehow overtaking the screams of the wind, "And what better gift could I give you as a mentor, than a world of suffering, of mire, of plague, of war and countless problems… all for you to solve. A never-ending journey for my most diligent and beloved pupil."

Her smile. It was sickening.

"You. You're not. You're not Venat. You are but- It. Hydaelyn— You have become this. You must have. A primal- as a primal you… you took her wishes and. Like all over other primals…" Aro stammered, the mess of babbling words did not reach Hydaelyn, whether because of the storm or that she simply ignored him, he did not know.

"The Seat of Azem became less and less active over the course of our history, for it was our duty to teach our people how to solve their problems on their lonesome. Hypnos came to realize that one day, our Seat would not be needed. Oh… I could tell how sad you felt when you shared the news with me, despite saying how happy you were for our people-"

"Stop talking. Stop. Stop!"

Aro put his hands over his ears as they folded against his head. He went low on his knees, seeking to almost disappear from existence somehow.

Hydaelyn bent down to her knees, waiting for Aro to lift his face. Hesitantly- Aro looked up and his eyes widened. He was mortified.

It was not the smile that disturbed him this time, but the reflection in her eyes.

"I hope… In time you realize how much this gift meant to us, to all life on Eitherys as well," she said, but he wasn't listening.

He saw himself as Azem reflected in her eyes. His lips quivered as he spoke "What did you do…"

Venat did not answer, Azem did not answer and Aro… had no answers as to how the three of them had become humanities greatest saviours, and its greatest villains.

[meatball-headache]

Future speculation.

So, this lowercase-kay "key" is the key to the next major story arc, obviously. This thing can enable cross-shard travel in ways that Syrcus Tower could only dream of.

Let's review what we know: the key appeared in our world when it was given to Gulool Ja Ja along with baby Krile; it was used by the Lalafell of the lightning dimension to escape an ice-based calamity in their own dimension. Aha! Paving the way for future ice dimension expacs, right? Well, no, because you and I both know the clarifications we received in Living Memory: the tropical paradise the lalafell once lived in and the ice calamity that ruined it, their use of arcane magic, and the timing all matches the Aloalo civilization in our own world. So the key actually came from the Source, not one of the shards. (Why do I think the word is "shard," by the way? The game exclusively uses "reflection.")

So, who made it? Not the Allagans; it far exceeds what they could only barely manage with the entire Crystal Tower. And, we get a very clear sign: when you use the Azem crystal at the final battle, Azem's symbol lights up on the key. And this makes sense, because with the infinite power of creation magic, surely they could whip up something like this...

...only, wasn't Azem sundered along with everyone but Lahabrea, Elidibus, and Emet-Selch? A sundered person couldn't possibly hope to have this kind of power. In fact, at the beginning of Shadowbringers, Emet-Selch seemed impressed that the Allagans had the ability to do it at all. Emet-Selch himself had to orchestrate these massive calamities to get worlds' aether to spill into one another on their own. And here's a key that can just fuse worlds at the push of a button! The Alexandrians somehow have the power to just get a rejoining on demand.

With the power of the key being so extreme, it seems unlikely that a sundered person could do it. It seems almost to be beyond the ability of the Ascians themselves. But, we've been surprised by dynamis, so, perhaps there's some still-greater magic at play.

But, with Azem's symbol on it, there seems to be little doubt who could have had a hand in it. Pre-sundering, Azem would have no reason to build this thing; post-sundering, Azem would have no power to build it.

Maybe it wasn't made by Azem; maybe it was made by Hydaelyn or even Zodiark, or one of the other Ascians? Perhaps it just showed Azem's symbol because it was reacting to Azem's crystal being used; it would show whatever symbol for whatever crystal was used nearby.

Now, I'm pretty dumb, so speculating never gets me anywhere. But, the whole game is full of dramatic twists. No one was playing in Garlemald in Endwalker and thinking, "I bet we'll go back in time to the age of the ancients, and find out that the original Fandaniel used a secret emotion-based magic to create an envoy to other worlds, which got so sad when it found them all in a state of strife that it decided to end our world, too, and that's what caused the Final Days. Also he wiped everyone's memories once he sent the envoys." Certainly while playing Dawntrail I wasn't thinking, "I bet inside the bubble is a fused world made from another shard that has the technology to cross the rift at will, and also all the people are immortal and powered by other peoples' souls, and later I get to be in a play with the captain of the knights."

But, I reiterate: when we go to the water dimension, I want blitzball, I want a /blitzball emote, and I want to fight Sin. Hymn of the Fayth orchestrion roll? Al Bhed raid weapons? If they make the Calm Lands a zone I will die instantly. After what they've done for FFIV and FFIX, it's not out of the question!

[kannedia]

end — for the single-word drive!

As promised, I remembered

In which Asel deals with the worst 'audiobook'.

[A theoretical take on the Gem of Azem as written by someone slowly working through the Shadowbringers patches.]

Asel tightened her grip on the small orange gem, sighed, and flipped it in her hand again. Its sigil gleamed faintly in the light of the lamp on her desk.

It had happened again. Azem's memories had interfered with her dreams yet again.

It had started just after she had returned to the Source with the Scions. A gentle trickle at first, soft voices whispered in her mind as she slept. Distant bird song and laughter rang in her horns in places where neither would naturally exist. Her heart felt peculiar twinges of nostalgia for scents she had never encountered before and doubted she ever would in the waking world.

Then there was the morning she woke with the taste of what she believed to be grapes on her tongue. Asel wasn't exactly fond of grapes. She doubted she ever would be as that was when she began to understand the voices. And Emet-selch was among them.

"Despite my repeated protestations, you went ahead with nary a care or concern."

Which, Asel sighed, was just her luck. She couldn't help but wonder if G'raha was dealing with something similar. Just not narrated by an Ascian. Hopefully.

It wasn't just him though. There was a woman as well. Her voice was kind but her tone held a slight authority. Asel wanted to respect her even though if she were accurate in her guesswork, she had only seen a recording of her once in another world.

"Things went well in your travels, I trust. Come, share with me what you saw."

Visions joined the voices soon after this.

Emet-selch had not been inaccurate in his recreation of Amaurot. His memories of the city, of the cities of the ancients, were just more rose-colored than she had originally guessed.

Their people were just people. No different from those found on the Source or the First. A notion that felt obvious from the second she first thought it.

All of which she saw with eyes that were not her own and heard with ears equally foreign to her.

These were not her memories. She could barely see them as Azem's memories given the narrator's tendency for dramatics.

Asel flipped the memory gem in her hand again eyeing it with suspicion. She probably should have told her fellow Scions about what had happened a while ago. Though she doubted they could help her much, she imagined they would like to hear about it.

She also hoped she wouldn't need to worry about it. The dreams were likely over. The Conviction had begun planning ways to avert the Final Days. Azem was planning their departure in search of another solution.

With luck and time, the only thing she would be left with would be Emet-selch's final words.

"At duties end we will meet again, I'm certain of it."

Asel gritted her teeth and ran her hand through her hair in frustration.

'What makes you think I want to meet you again you smug self-righteous dastard?!'

[tideswept]

⛵️ Five Fandoms, Five Ships ⛵

Get to know the blogger, via five different ships from five different fandoms!

I was tagged by @dark--whisperings and @kingdomvel! (and possibly someone else, sorry if I missed you!)

[I will also not be including Obikin because C'MON]

IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER:

Sarah Williams/Jareth (Labyrinth)

One of these days I'm going to disappear. Nobody will know where I went. Seasons will pass. My name will become a dusty thought you think of occasionally, but not often.

THEN ONE DAY, I WILL RETURN. I'll be emaciated and weak. I'll be dragging a 500,000 word fanfic (in a USB, I'm not a monster) and I will press it into your hand, and I will say, "It was... my seven year old self... she finally broke lose.... held me prisoner.... forced me to write this... " and then I will close my eyes.

You'll think I'm dead. Turns out I'm just sleeping and incredibly dramatic about it. And it'll be the most indulgent fic in the world, filled with glitter EVERYWHERE.

2. Dom Toretto/Brian O'Connor (Fast & Furious)

SOON. I WILL WRITE THIS SOON, I SWEAR TO GOD. It needs to be soon. I'm ready. My heart has healed from the loss of Paul.

tbh I'm always a bit shocked at how this series blew up. I'm not mad, though. It got me more movies with them getting to be them.

3. Harry Hart/Eggsy Unwin (Kingsman)

My beloved. Let me cradle you close and weep over what that terrible sequel did. I really wish I'd been here when the fandom for it was alive--alas, I am left to wander through the great architecture that was left behind, peer into the empty homes, and listen to the echoes of a thousand voices laughing, crying, chatting.

4. Wriothesley/Neuvilette (Genshin Impact)

I really didn't expect to like these two together as much as I ended up. But dang it, they're so funny together. Wriothesley is one of the people who most gets Neuvilette... and yet he's still clearly baffled by him constantly, in the most "oh God, you're so weird and silly and so dead serious about it" kind of way.

5. Emet-Selch/Azem(/Hythlodaeus) (Final Fantasy XIV)

I can't really say anything about this ship that wouldn't be spoiler-y as all get out, (even including a gif would be iffy!) so all I'll say is... my god, the pain. The tragedy. The ever-lasting flame of hope, the desperation, the endless, endless loneliness and longing.

It won't be forgotten.

TAGGING @ragnarlothcat @sky-kenobye @olivejuice96 @dream-about-dancing @usakostar

[dysansohmin]

(May or may not keep this. Elidibus dementia angst, Paragon triad melancholy, Emet-Selch playing The Sims. Generic mature content warning, misgendering, abuse. AU plot context: Elidibus was in on the Sundering, not that he remembers. Emet-Selch plans to give the WoL Azem's memories and sic him on Elidibus. That's not how things are going to work out for him.)

So much work to do! They would need a place to keep her where Elidibus would not tread, where they could lie in wait for the ambush. The city would do nicely. There were some facades he had not bothered to finish, which he attended to as he waited. He wondered what he ought to do with the simulation in the Capitol, a pet project within a hobby, vessel for his brooding—gauntlet of terror for would-be heroes. He supposed it may help her, if she would like to see it. The freshest memories in that stone, the rawest, they were of these streets aflame, and those godless beasts, and the bodies, and the smoke— At the bottom of the ocean, close as he could be to his Underworld, Emet-Selch’s Amaurot did not burn. No smoke billowed from broken windows, or wafted woodsmoke sticky on the breeze, or belched into the sky from ceruleum engine. The world was cool, and dark, and blue.

It was quiet, too. The shades did not bother to speak, content to wander in their tendency-routines until their visitors arrived. They had done well at minding Elidibus, they should have no issue providing directions to the Warrior of Light. It’d taken a frightful lot of experimentation to conjure one with even rudimentary intelligence in these conditions. On his good days, Elidibus derided his Amaurot. He found it tacky, wasteful. Masturbatory was a word he had used. Much as Emet-Selch hated to admit, he still liked the memory of that word from his lips. It had not started indulgently. At this depth, this was the most impressively intact of Amaurot’s fragments. He’d set about restoring a street here, a building there—bits at a time. He examined the rubble, reverse-engineering what materials he did not already know how to conjure. He patched some buildings, raised others beside them. He plumbed the depths of his Chronicle for the shapes of the sculpture, the patterned-grooves in the sidewalk. He wanted a record, and it would be practice for their final rebuilding— You know this star will be rejoined? Lahabrea would tease. And Emet-Selch would nod, and continue meditating upon the color-temperature of the streetlights. He’d gone overboard. He had rebuilt far more that was necessary, he had certainly furnished far more than was necessary. But what he did in his free time was not their business. He was allowed something for himself, whether it be model-kit or masturbation. Rest is paramount to function, as Lahabrea also used to say, back when he tended to say such things… And then Elidibus visited Amaurot on a bad day, Lahabrea in tow. The Emissary was possessed of uncharacteristic awe, turning to take in the height of their surrounds, squinting into windows, halting. Have we done it? he asked. His voice wavered. Is it finished? It was… Done what? Emet-Selch asked. Our world made whole. And Lahabrea laughed, and Emet-Selch grew quiet. We were not meant to succeed, Elidibus mumbled, and began to weep. Lahabrea held him. Emet-Selch conjured the shades shortly thereafter, period-actors to suggest this Amaurot had still yet to see its Final Days. And then the First saw its flood, and the Emissary began to deteriorate all the more. He spent more time here. The shades could care for him, Emet-Selch thought. Distract him, at the least. Offer some comfort. Not meant to. Emet-Selch tried very hard to forget those words, and very hard not to think about what they meant. He was intent upon furnishing her apartment. He did not need his chronicle to find the memories. Black and gold, the knotwork and the beads. He did not recreate it so faithfully, for fear it would be uncanny. But he furnished it to his liking, and left a cookset in the kitchen, and linens and towels. He set out soap, and tried to remember how a refrigerator worked, so that Azem would not have to crow like a chick for his conjury every time she was hungry… Not meant to, not meant to.

[voidsentprinces]

I enjoy Jullus. Here is a character who joined the Garlean Military to protect his lands from what he was taught was the "Savages" coming to drag his friends and families away. He stuck to his guns and stood fast against rumors of Zenos's death and being possessed by the Ascians. He keeps to his values even though they are clearly flawed because that is what his family needs. And then, Zenos kills the Emperor and the Capital is razed with his family inside it. He is drenched in the colour palette of the expansion, despair. But, there is a sliver of hope, word has it the Emperor's voice can still be heard on the radiowaves. There is something still worth fighting for, he can fight against the monsters who are overrunning the capital, he can serve Garlemald and the memory of his family against the invading Savages who have finally arrived on his doorstep.

He pushes himself in the roll of a soldier, who is ignorant of the Eorzeans. But Alisaie and Alphinaud both show us how greatly they've grown. By trying to break through his indoctronation. They are the perfect candidates to break through to Jullus but they are not just bright and kind individuals. But they might also been the same age as his siblings were before their untimely demise. They carry with them, a want to aid and a hope that someday they'll break through. And slowly, overtime, going to do chore after chore. We slowly learn of Jullus and what he had gone through.

We are the Warrior of Light, the daemon who wiped out the Praetorium and many Castrums, the nightmare that haunts his fellow soldiers. But still, he sees how the people in other provinces gather around us as a legend of hope and light through the dark. And dark through radiant blight. He confides in us, warms to us, gets to know us and the twins. But he still clings harshly to his sunk cost fallacy. He still wants to do right by his nation and his family's memory. So he reluctantly arms the Twins collars and prepares for a suicidal attack on Camp Broken Glass. Only to learn that no reinforcement is coming. There is no one else to defend the nation of Garlemald. Just his skeleton crew of the remaining 1st Legion. And so, he surrenders as his own Legatus uses his blood to strengthen the remaining chain of what remains of Garlemald.

He comes face to face with Zenos and fosters his grief and rage at the Prince who caused him so much pain and suffering. And in return, he is met by apathy and indifference and a question, that had Zenos had a good reason for throwing Jullus' and so many others' lives in turmoil, if it would of justified it all? Jullus is confronted by this and sees that the atrocities were without purpose only the boredom of a man seeking to reach the Warrior of Light for a duel. It is absurd and yet it clears Jullus's mind, his last act as a soldier for the Empire is to exile the prince and denounce the Royal Family more or less. He then follows Alphinaud and Alisaie's example and turns his focus to build a brighter future for Garlemald. Welcoming their help and our aid in the coming conflict. And when we bring another exile who is closed off from the world in Zero who is beginning to open up, he offers her the same kindness and understanding as the Twins gave him. He then continues their mission by trying to convince the old rigid remaining Garlean council to see that they cannot remain closed off from the world. Something that Vrtra rekindles by opening trade with the fallen Empire now budding independent nation.

I look forward to see what they so with Garlemald. This Empire founded to sow misery and chaos by Emet-Selch's design. Now having to bear responsibility for the past sins while kindling good alliances where they can to make what little amends they can. Since they're now burnt to the wick.

Side observation: In a way, Haurchefant's hot chocolate gesture is repeated throughout the MSQ. First the cup of cocoa is given to us, then Alphinaud picks up the torch in finding a way to use it to look forward to the conflict with Nidhogg and Estinien, then we give the Garleans a cup of warm soup and a hearty song, and then Jullus offers up Buuz to Zero. Zero then offers her own power to Golbez to turn the Thirteenth around and return it to as it was before.

[starlit-seadragon]

Day 6 - Halcyon

So. I could have finished this. But I think it's funnier if I just submit it in exceedingly rough draft form like this. In the spirit of the challenge.

Spoilers for Shadowbringers, Endwalker, and post-Endwalker maybe. I forget.

Please enjoy this crackfic. :)

In the halcyon days of the world before, Emet-Selch chances to cross paths with Azem and their most recent creation.

It is... disconcerting.

My FFXIV Write Masterpost here.

The moment Emet-Selch saw Azem, he knew there would be trouble.

Not the sort of trouble that had any serious repercussions -- not if he became involved with it, at least -- but the sort of trouble that would make his forehead ache, with teeth clenched so hard he thought he'd grind them down to paste.

They seemed preoccupied, deep in an explanation to another individual--

Emet-Selch stopped dead in his tracks. Elidibus was in rapt attention, asking questions and occasionally looking down at something out of sight.

Emet-Selch made to turn around, to change course before they spotted him.

"Emet, is that you?" Azem gasped.

Damn. He'd been caught. Better to get it over with. It was far less exhausting to follow Azem's flow than to kick against it.

He approached the pair with the sternest look he could muster.

"Azem. I didn't see you there."

Azem smiled and winked. "Liar."

"'Tis good you are here, Emet-Selch. Azem was just [showing me] a concept of their creation."

"I call it a 'cubus,'" declared Azem proudly.

[He looks at the thing. It's horrible. It has an awful smell. The texture is. Upsetting. Why would Azem make that. What could possibly be the purpose.]

"...it bears no resemblance to a cube," was all he could manage.

"Precisely what I said!" [verbed] an enthusiastic Elidibus."

"To which I responded, '[lol I know right]'"

Emet-Selch [considered/tasted] several words before he finally [settled on], "So what is its purpose?"

"You can eat it." Azem beamed.

Emet-Selch [staggered, blinked. He feels the headache coming on.]

"Would you care to repeat that? I thought I heard you say it was edible."

Azem nodded. "You heard correctly."

A familiar ache in his molars began.

"[What the fuck]"

"It's exceedingly aetherially conductive," Azem explained, looking a touch more serious. "The shape, or rather, shapelessness, allows it to [do something important. Maybe it's good in certain areas that have a lack of resources. Mountains, islands, sea floors.] It also allows the safe consumption of historically-inedible matter and material, like lava, or a rainbow."

"What?"

"Emet-Selch," they began with mock horror, "Do you mean to tell me you've never wondered what a rainbow tastes like?"

"As it happens, I have not," he ground out.

"Well," Azem sniffed. "Far be it from me to spoil your ignorance then."

[Azem's a genius. But also batshit insane.]

"Why," is all he can manage. "Why this?"

He gestured to the cubus, oozing contentedly on the ground.

"It's kind of cute, don't you think?" Azem smiled, patted it on the head, and then licked the slime off their fingers. "Ooh, that's a strange one."

"Might I try a sample?" Elidibus asked.

[Emet's jaw is on the floor, so to speak. He was wrong after all. There is no interaction with Azem that does not exhaust. ]

"Oh, damn." Azem snapped their fingers. "I forgot to account for their tendency to accumulate detritus as they move. Back to the drawing board, I guess."

They held a hand out, [slurped up] the cubus's aether, and sighed.

Emet-Selch walked away without another word.