#glitterblob writing

[whatsthisascianbullshit]

Junelezen 2025 Day 4 - ORDER -

Pashtarot’s eyes burned red behind the glyph before her, “Oh my, Emet-Selch, don’t tell me that you missed me?”

“As charming as ever I see.” he offered his hand to help her as she stepped over the unmoving bodies that littered the room. Blood seeping into the carved and gold-painted grooves, “And as...thorough.”

She smiled, “I do so hate loose ends, it leaves a project unfinished.” she ran her free hand across the wall, streaking blood from one of the cat-like familiars across it to turn the star motifs into the falling skies of her memories. She raised her eyebrow as the crystal pulsed beneath the blood.

“You’ll not succeed.” the darker haired cat-like familiar choked out a wet voice, it had a curious alteration compared to the lighter haired ones; limbs that matched the crystal of the room. Suddenly the reason she was awake and not any of her compatriots made a lot more sense.

“This body has not been prepared for the augmenting matrix, you should have told me you needed that one.”

“In my defence you hardly gave me opportunity, besides,” his grin turned dark, unfamiliar and wrong on his face, “that body is capable of a more permanent augmentation, we just need to make this pitiful creature a little less corporeal.”

With a snap of his fingers the crystal familiar burst into aether which flowed into her body. As her awareness expanded as usual she found she could feel the room around her, the corridors and stairs outside, a hidden room behind Emet-Selch – a whole tower beyond. The entire thing thrumming with power and a peculiar yet familiar aetheric pattern deep in the lower levels of it.

“Oh this is a gift.”

“It is a tool. One which I hope you can appreciate –” she ignored him as he continued on his monologue about proper etiquette and all the important work he’s been doing in the several hundred years since she last bothered to show up.

It was indeed a gift. Power unlike what she could have imagined before when they built Zodiark. For all the trouble Venat had put them through with her sundering plot, these little familiars of hers had invented something remarkable. Something that could move between reflections as they could. A shining crystal needle with which she could stitch the world back together again.

Muireann shot up gasping as the thick evening air pressed in around her.

“Oh Muireann, it’s not your shift yet, you can go back to sleep!” Wuk Lamat’s cheerful greeting was punctuated with stifled yawns.

“Bad dream, I’ll join you for your last stretch – not like I’ll get any more sleep now.” Muireann settled into her watch, nestled against a boulder and tried to ignore the fact that the dappled shadows on her sleeping party looked like blood.

Pashtarot, the preserver of discipline and order. The title her ancient self was going to take. Muireann shuddered, finding out that she had been so close to being a Convocation member made her grimoire feel heavy on her hip. What were her stratagems if not a method to force order onto the chaos that is a battlefield?

[whatsthisascianbullshit]

WIP Wednesday

Tagged by @hanseelie and tagging @yloiseconeillants @lilbittymonster @airis-ray @accidentaloracle (with absolutely no pressure if you don't want to)

It's my birthday month so happy Muireann and Hien being Completely Useless (they literally get their shit mostly together approximately half an hour after this but there must be one more Misunderstanding first. for my health) It's something I've been picking at for forever but hasn't made its way on here yet

--

Every small movement he made to avoid her was a needle prick on her heart and she held fast to them. All the better to put these feelings to rest. It was clear that they were not a good fit despite the ache in her chest. Even if they were, duty had them bound to opposite sides of the star.

When she had exhausted all other avenues of delaying the inevitable task of tending to his face her hands shook while folding the cloth to be more manageable. She felt ridiculous. She had flirted with countless people and cleaned the face of many that she cared about. And this, this was not flirting. She was not flirting with Lord Hien crown prince soon to be king of Doma. She was wiping the less heroic parts of battle from his face so that the people looking to him for confidence and hope saw just that. As she had done many a time for her fellow adventurers and Scions alike. She knew he had the strength he was grasping for, twas just a matter of making sure he felt that same strength.

And in this instance, it required touching his face.

Twelve preserve her foolish heart.

She tilted his face up towards her, her right thumb brushing over the beard on his chin a fraction of an ilm before she stopped it.

She felt his breath catch as he finally met her gaze. She couldn’t say how long they stayed like that. Locked in place with a great big invisible something between them. Unsure whether it was tempered desire or discomfort, she was content to live in the charged uncertainty. To indulge the hope, if even for a moment.

The happy yells of a family reunited across the Enclave broke her bubble of hope as Hien adverted his eyes again, though his head stayed in place – chin resting on her curled fingers. A dangerous memory that would haunt her she was sure.

“…I’ve run out of places that aren’t your face.”

“I – ahem – it is very much in your capable hands.”

[whatsthisascianbullshit]

Writing game: post the last sentence you wrote and tag a person for each word.

I was tagged by @lilbittymonster @azure-dragonsinger and @yloiseconeillants

I think that this is the last thing I wrote full sentences for rather than getting down bullet points. Most of my writing has been re-reading WIPs and not actually adding to it lmao

His great hunt turned into a choreographed dance that would end with him backed into a corner.

Tagging with 0 pressure: @anneapocalypse @starrysnowdrop @galadae @pumpkinmagekupo @airis-ray

[whatsthisascianbullshit]

when it takes you 4.5 expansions to actually get together for realsies this time (I NEED to know more about this one!)

Thank you @starrysnowdrop it's Muireann and Y'shtola finally Finally FINALLY getting together at the literal end of the world after their sort-of-dating-but-also-not in ARR to the just mess of HW through to Shb and the majority of EW. The inn-room cutscene was the final moment that was needed to solidify the witchy girlfriends :3

I did manage to finish a fic that would be a sequel to this one here (Muireann's aetheric armour is one of my favourite things where I took one comment and fucking Ran with it lol)

--

Muireann watched Y’shtola turn to leave, evidently satisfied that she was hale. She should let her leave. They had both changed since the budding relationship had been cut short after Titan and it was long past time Muireann put her lingering feelings to rest.

“Shtola!” Muireann’s body made the decision for her, moving almost of its own accord as she stepped out to the hall. Y’shtola’s tail stuttered a moment before it resumed a practiced, steady pace.

“Was there aught else?”

“S-stay? Please.”

“And for what reason would you have me stay?” Y’shtola did not turn more than to look over her shoulder, evoking the excuses they could claim to spend more time alone together.

Fear and hope thrummed in Muireann’s chest so loud she was certain anyone on the corridor could hear it, “Well uhm you seem concerned for my health and the warmth of the room so let’s go with that? I…I mostly would just like your company.”

Y’shtola turned, her face softening with what Muireann hoped was relief

[whatsthisascianbullshit]

What does safety mean to your OC? Is it emotional or financial security? Or protection from physical harm? Is safety something for which they aim - either for themselves or others? For Muireann

Thank you @lilbittymonster ^^

So there isn't really a clear-cut answer unfortunately ^^;; For Muireann there are a lot of things that contribute to a feeling of safety that would be expected; the location, her health, her friends and family, and whether or not the end of the world is imminent for example.

If she's out travelling she will generally feel safer staying in an inn rather than making camp, but that is also impacted by who she is travelling with. There are people she has more confidence in either their fighting capabilities or awareness (oftentimes both) where she would feel safer camping with them rather than staying at an inn (where they can potentially be isolated into separate rooms).

If she's sick or has recently overextended herself it doesn't matter where she's at or who she's with she will be a little nervous until she is at least able to call on Selene.

There is also the issue of her reputation - since everything that goes down at The Banquet, she is acutely aware that everything that gives her the greatest sense of safety can be ripped away from her. She's got an underlying hum of nervousness about her when she arrives in Tural because while she is completely thrilled to be essentially just a random adventurer again, her usual titles and reputation don't carry the same weight (well queen/future queen of Doma would carry some weight but would also open a whole different can of worms lmao). She doesn't expect Wuk Lamat to turn against her and her friends, but that doesn't mean she's not considering it being a possible outcome.

She does at least have her birth/retirement name to fall back on should the name Muireann Uais become too dangerous to use, but most of her friends don't have that same escape plan built in.

Scents of Samhain ask list

[whatsthisascianbullshit]

Best laid plans

Caliban Esh Ahm looked back over his shoulder before slinking into the carefully curated wilderness.

-bzzzt-

Antonio reached up to fix his hair and the metallic sheen of what could only be dragon scales on the small exposed area of neck glinted in the mirror reflection as his other hand toyed with the distinctly Meracydian style hilt of a short blade.

-bzzzt-

Medusa walks into one of the miniscule blind spots of Azys Lla’s security nodes. A tail flicks right at the edge of the monitor as she seemingly vanishes into the gardens.

-bzzzt-

Alexandrite smirks knowingly at their conversation partner before locking eyes with the security node and activating a water feature. The rest of the recording is rendered useless with both audio and visuals obfuscated, but the metallic green sheen refracted in the water is unique to the poisonous snake of the clone-Xande’s court.

-bzzzt-

Amon was shooing another of the clone-court’s courtiers as he tried to finalise plans for his clone-Emperor to tour the new museum. A monument to all of Allag’s progress ready for judgment from a figure of its past.

Pandora sat back, a slow smile building on her face. Having to acquiesce to Amon’s interfering with her research facility was bad enough, having to sit through the insult of a rehydrated relic of Allag’s history passing judgment of the present day – of the work she was doing to foster Allag’s future – was more than she could even conceive of enduring.

Now she may have enough pieces of a puzzle to both avoid that entire situation, and to cut the pretender-Xande’s reign short before he destroyed all the progress that had been made in the ages since drew his last true-breath.

And thanks to the timely escape of Allag’s most wanted Meracydian boogeyman, she had an alibi to be far, far from the vent that was conveniently in a blind spot. Oh how terrible would it be if someone, say a bioweapons expert who seems to be somewhat involved with the boogeyman, were to find the one vent that was the source of all fresh air in the new facility.

It would be a tragic loss of life. But Amon had set the bar for just how replaceable scientists can be. And clones have been dropping like flies if the gossip from the Crystal Tower was to be believed. Would it really be so surprising that Xande’s clone fell to the same fate? Being that it was an earlier model and obviously had faults.

Of course, such an egregious oversight would cost her her position. Or rather it would, were she not already patching these shoddy holes left in Amon’s security.

She entered a passkey, scanned her biometrics, and opened her security terminal feeds. Recordings of Medusa and Antonio letting Caliban escape. Compiled overlays of each ilm of dragon scale covered skin that Antonio let slip in sight of her nodes.

Amon and Alexandrite were frustratingly more difficult to pin down, but she had enough hushed whispers between Amon and a select few courtiers to at least cast suspicion on whether or not he still believed in the ancient relic he dug up and animated.

Alexandrite would endure as they always had. The others…well it depended entirely on the public reaction to a clone dying. Which, considering that they barely counted as people by many accounts – and certainly not proper citizens – she wasn’t too concerned.

--

Caliban @azure-dragonsinger / Antonio @hermits-hovel / Medusa @yloiseconeillants / Alexandrite @lilbittymonster

[whatsthisascianbullshit]

I wanna hear more about the pirate AU pretty please!

Thaank @lilbittymonster - this is one that's been sitting untouched for a while because it requires a level of worldbuilding I just haven't had the energy for and Muireann & Haurchefant's "doomed even if the narrative didn't beat them to the punch" canon relationship had taken a considerable amount of brain space ^^;;

It spawned from the period of pirates and mermaids AUs and the fact that Elizabeth Swann is big sexy. Ralenne Canaux is the only child of one of the Shroud's newer money families, she gets an arranged marriage to the bastard son of Count Fortemps of Ishgard. She is completely enamoured with the idea of being able to travel wherever you want and being free from the watchful gaze of her parents who are entirely too protective of her, particularly given her ill health.

As in her canon, Ralenne adopts the name Muireann Uais though here it's to protect her family's reputation. Muireann and Haurchefant eventually do run away to be pirates but that part is still mostly just bullet points.

--

Ralenne creeped behind the planter to peer down at the door, shuffle crawling on the thick blanket that softened the stabbing pressure on her knees and wrists.

“We’re honored you made the trip, my lord. Please, come in come in!” her mama welcomed in the imposing but kindly figure of Count Edmont de Fortemps, a small group of attendants and knights, and a smartly dressed young man followed them. Not dressed in the full family colours, the black and red motifs settled into broaches rather than embroidery and his silver blue hair was a stark contrast against the rest of them.

So this was the bastard son she would be marrying. She adjusted the weight on her hands and his eyes darted up at the landing locking with her obviously snooping ones as the rest of the party began to look around to take in the decor and architectural features mama was discussing.

“My lord, my lady, I would be most eager to see the rest of this delightful stonework and I imagine there is more stunning examples – ”

“Oh of course, please, if you’ll follow me. Silvaire was just finishing stabling the chocobos, our Ralenne’s Scamallach is a marvelous example of a show bird.” Ralenne’s mother jumped on the polite nudge and the wandering attention that had started to make its way towards her own hiding place was quickly diverted in towards the rest of the house.

Her betrothed flashed a conspiratorial smile at her and followed the rest of the group. They had not even officially met and he had already saved her some embarrassment, perhaps this could be an amenable arrangement after all.

-

“How is your back, my darling?” Haurchefant, as ever, took checking in on her pain as an excuse to pepper her face with kisses.

“I am fine in that regard though I would like to rest in a moment? Whether it was the road or the carriage, something was fiercely uncomfortable about the trip. I’m inclined to think that papa is selecting the routes to purposefully scupper your chances at evading our light supervision.”

“You sully my character! I believe that someone had insisted on my accompanying you on your trip to the seaside for your health – what else am I to assume but that I should be tending to your every need and desire?”

[whatsthisascianbullshit]

WIP Game

Rules: In a new post, list the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them and then post a little snippet of it or tell them something about it! And then tag as many people as you have WIPs.

Tagged a bit ago by @lilbittymonster who has finally pushed me to sort out the mess that was the fic folder (singular, everything lived in there, it was bad) so that there are now folders for notions/bullet points only, actual WIPs, and things that are mostly finished but I need to fuss over them first lol

Tagging (with absolute no pressure): @anneapocalypse @starrysnowdrop @galadae @pumpkinmagekupo @airis-ray @yloiseconeillants

Blorboverse Shb vibes

GET YOUR HOT CHOCOLATE (big ass)

HW road trip (big ass)

Magic Science Snapshots

Pandora wakes up

pirate AU wolchefant meet cute

Sami and Selch Shb pain

ultima thule emotions4 (big ass)

Ultima Weapon ARR drabbly bits

when it takes you 4.5 expansions to actually get together for realsies this time

zenosfucking i guess

[whatsthisascianbullshit]

dancing around with each other (give me that brainrot)

Thank you @sasslett for the prompt and apologies it's been languishing in the inbox for so long - this is almost definitely a different ship than the one I was brain-rotting over but the "what if we made an attempt at some sort of QPR to deal with the loss of getting soul-snatched" Shadowbringers situation is everything to me with the wolparty work wives

Shin Bokairo, beloved work wife is @accidentaloracle

---

It wasn’t much, but it was far enough away from the Crystarium that they could avoid seeing it entirely and remove one of the many needles pricking at their hearts. If you squinted your eyes you could probably pretend that castle on the lake was Ishgard the way it shone like a beacon against the returned night sky. That and ignore the spectral wings of course.

The rolling fields reminded Muireann of Coerthas before the Calamity – or what she had seen of it around Starlight at least. She wondered if Aymeric had said anything about what everything had been like before Dalamud fell, if she could help fill in some of those gaps on his behalf, if it was even her place to do so. If it would just be yet another verbal knife she cut into his back.

“Should we carry each other over the threshold or something?” Shin’s voice felt far off, whether it was the amount of light that she had taken on or she was feeling the distance from home Muireann couldn’t say.

“Hm?”

“Isn’t that something newlyweds do?”

Muireann tried to form a laugh but couldn’t, “We’re hardly newly wed – actually I don’t know whether the Twelve are even known here, certainly not moogles at any rate.”

“Mm.” Shin’s gaze drifted towards the castle, reflecting the deep blue of the lake in her eyes. A mournful gaze Muireann knew well, and the type of thing getting a place away from the Crystarium was supposed to help them with.

With a deep ache in her chest, Muireann thought of Hien and how he would pull her out of her own spiralling thoughts. She focused on the sliver of Bahamut slumbering under a blanket of light and called on her inner beast to make this a bit easier. With perhaps a more enthusiastic burst of strength than she was anticipating she scooped Shin up in her arms.

“Me first then!” she gently nuzzled her nose against Shin’s horn and spun them both into the very empty room. It filled with a somewhat forced laughter, both going through the paces of relaxing as they weighed their respective losses silently.

As the practised giggles died they stood in the middle of the room. Both glad for the company while wishing it was someone else.

“There was going to be a ball.” Shin’s voice was uncharacteristically devoid of snark. Just a quiet lonely loss that Muireann felt all too keenly.

“And we’ll get you back for it. It’s probably not even been a week yet back home.”

While her voice had softened with just the two of them, Shin’s unimpressed and disbelieving face said “If it was that easy they would have already done it” loud enough that words themselves weren’t necessary.

Muireann chuckled, “Ahh but brilliant an’ all as Y’shtola is, she’s not the Allagan specialist here. All I need is but a single drop of that stupid shithead’s blood – knock him out for good measure to stop any interfering maybe – and that tower is mine.”

“You’re pretty sure of yourself for someone down all but two of her primals.”

“There’s no choice but to be,” Muireann shrugged, “I – we have people to get back to. And you have a ball to attend.”

“Assuming I am invited…”

“If he doesn’t I’ll add the Lord Commander to the list of Ishgardian officials I’ll be beating over the head for being both blind and a fool riiight after the esteemed Azure Dragoon. The silver haired one anyway."

That at least earned an actual laugh. Not much more than a snuffed out chuckle, but it was nice to have a spark of hope again, delusional as it may have felt in the moment.

“And to ensure that you are well prepared to dance at said ball, we had better make sure you’re not working with two left feet.”

And that earned a raised eyebrow, “You know how to dance for an Ishgardian ball?”

“I’ve a notion – Haurchefant taught me some steps and I reckon I can reverse engineer it.”

It was an awkward start but the two started to dance to the sound of their own footfalls, the occasional instructions, and eventually – eventually – real laughter as they both guarded their glimmer of unrealistic hope in the moonlight they had returned to the First.