#Nox verse

[a-world-in-grey]

You might not need another au but do you want it?

Think of how much fun it would be, Sola and Ardyn snarking at each other in the middle of the throne room and before the entire court.

The resemblance is uncanny.

You can track which of the nobles noticed it by how much they pale, their polite masks turning a little bit tense.

You. Are an enabling gremlin.

Plopping this in the Combined Retinue Nox/Sola au, because this is what my brain finally decided to spit out at 2 in the morning.

@secret-engima have an early Christmas present, I guess?

.

“If I have to dress up, Uncle,” his niece tells him fiercely, “then so do you.”

Ardyn raises a brow from the bench he’s languidly lounging on, watching his Tailor circle Sola with sharp eyes as she tugs on the black fabric of the dress she’s wrangled Sola into wearing for her upcoming Coming of Age, unfazed by the equally black scowl on the princess’ face.

Beside him, Nox is firmly pretending to nap on his Shield’s shoulder. Axis has his gaze glued to the book in his hand.

It seems he’ll have no allies from that quarter.

Admittedly, Ardyn had perhaps been enjoying Sola’s irritation too much, and hadn’t bothered to smother his growing amusement with every dark mutter Sola had made about protocol and where the court could shove said protocol.

He gives Sola an indulgent smirk. “I highly doubt I’m on the guest list, my dear. Given the current state of international politics.”

Not that he’d let the lack of an invitation stop him from attending his niece and nephew’s birthday party.

From the glare Sola levels at the mirror, and the minute stiffening of Nox’s spine, Ardyn has the feeling his niblings will ensure he is invited, regardless of anyone else’s feelings on the matter.

Nox’s eyes actually open a sliver when Sola’s magic abruptly curls, all mischievous glee with an edge of bared teeth. His nephew warily eyes his twin and the grin growing on her face.

Ardyn does not share Nox’s apprehension. He rather thinks his niece should smile like that more often.

“A suit for your Uncle, then?” Penelopeia asks archly.

“If you would be so kind.” Sola replies before Ardyn can protest. Sola’s blue eyes narrow on him through the mirror. “Black for the shirt, instead of the suit, I think. Gold as an accent color, but otherwise I have full faith in your judgment.”

To Penelopeia’s credit, his Tailor pauses for but a moment. “Of course, Your Highness.”

Ardyn gives Sola a long look. His niece knows very well protocol prohibits him from wearing black. He is neither a (known) member of the royal family nor in sworn service to them. Sola cares little for protocol and tradition, especially when it gets in her way, but even she can’t get away with flouting such an old and respected tradition. Not like this. “Niece.” He warns.

Sola raises her chin, defiant. “Do you trust me?”

Ardyn sighs. Smiles reassuringly at the fierce girl who’s been Nox and Ardyn’s staunchest supporter these past near three years. “Yes.”

Sola nods, and that is that.

.

Copia Egestas adores her Queen.

Sola’s last minute changes to the twins’ Coming of Age gave her a solid week of extra work to do - with help from Ignis, who volunteered on account of her being nearly six months pregnant - hunting through the Archives and preparing her arguments before she and Sola sat down in front of the King and finally told him exactly who would be presenting his daughter at her Coming of Age. Presenting both his children, in fact.

Unsurprisingly, Regis was not pleased. But between Sola’s staunch refusal to change her mind and Copia’s presented precedents, he reluctantly conceded.

Now, eyeing everyone as they wait to enter the ballroom, Copia can only feel a vicious anticipation.

Nox and Sola make a striking pair in black and gold. Both of them have their hair carefully pulled back, decorated further with gold. Nox still wears his usual earrings, the only silver on him as he’d declined the offer for golden versions, and Sola has mirrored him with a set of earrings arranged in the opposite ears. Not the same earrings, but the studs and climber are similar enough in shape to achieve the desired effect.

Copia’s sleeveless black dress is cut to flatter her pregnant figure, a gold shawl for her shoulders because six months pregnant and she gets uncomfortably warm now that the summer months are upon them, which also why she’s elected for an updo instead of letting her thick curls tumble loose. Unlike Sola, Copia is in comfortable flats instead of heels, again on account of being pregnant.

Axis is in a black suit jacket with gold details, and his Clan’s purple and green tartan. His hair’s been styled back from his face, but otherwise remains free.

Axis isn’t the only one wearing purple and green. Nox has the shifting purple-green galahdite in his ears, hair, and decorating his cufflinks. Sola’s chosen a selection of amethysts and emeralds to decorate her gold jewelry, while Copia had been gifted a pair of ebony hair sticks topped with amethyst and emerald carved cabochons.

(Copia knows just enough about Galahdian culture to know to tell Penny the goal, and follow the woman’s instructions on how to support Axis without overstepping cultural boundaries. The result, she is told, is a careful blend of Lucian and Galahdian color codes, but Copia has never seen Axis struck speechless before so she makes a mental note to commend Penny and her recommended jewelers for their hard work.)

With Ardyn, however, Penny has evidently decided to take refuge in audacity.

The suit is a lovely shade of dark purple, decorated with an intricate pattern of - much to Copia’s amusement - peacock feathers. At a glance they could be mistaken for phoenix feathers, certainly, but Copia knows her birds, and those feathers belong to the phoenix’s non-magical dramatic cousins. Studded at the eye of each feather are small galahdite stones to match Nox and Axis.

Under the suit, Ardyn’s shirt is black, which will no doubt give the Court conniptions and the press a field day, despite them following protocol to a T. Instead of a traditional tie, Ardyn’s kept his usual scarf, but in a rich green. How it doesn’t clash with the purple, Copia doesn’t know, but she knows Ardyn’s vest is a matching shade of green. Ardyn has a gold and galahdite lapel pin, linked by a fine gold chain to a paired piece on the front of his breast pocket.

The master of ceremonies glances over at them, expression half-expectant, half-despairing.

It turns to resignation when Ardyn and Sola gift him identical smirks.

Nox sighs.

Copia hides a grin behind her hand. Oh yes, tonight is going to be so very entertaining, with uncle and niece actively working together.

She wonders how many people will notice the family resemblance before the end of the night?

[secret-engima]

I recently found this one soulmate fic where every time you loose something, it ends up with your soulmate.

Now please imagine how Interesting this might get in Nox verse, considering that both Nox and Ardyn have propensity for displacing their cell phones.

(Drautos tries to call Ardyn to report something important that he just learned in Niflheim. Except Ardyn is Not Answering for the longest time. After twenty minutes he finally gets through and opens with very cranky "How difficult it is to answer your phone, you bloody idiot?".

". . . Drautos?" says a Very Confused Cor who just found this random cell in his sock drawer.)

*wheezes*

That would be honestly so funny, especially if it happens with platonic soulmates and not just romantic ones.

Nox at least is *decentish* about not losing his stuff because he has armiger but that also means whenever he finds a Random Item in his camp he just assumes it's his somehow and tucks it away into armiger and forgets it exists so it is a VERY one-sided exchange most of the time when it comes to losing stuff.

He does wonder the first time he realizes some of the products he is finding in his possession are noticeably Feminine Oriented. And then depending on whether he knows soulmates are a thing or not this could lead to some very distressed shenanigans on his part.

Meanwhile Nyx is always kind of ecstatic when she finds something that isn't hers in the apartment because FINALLY. How organized IS her soulmate that he never loses anything ever?

Nox: *walking disaster vibes only staved off by his magic mary poppins level handbag*

I have no idea if you intended Cor and Ardyn to be romantic soulmates or platonic but I think platonic is WAY funnier so Cor just- finding a very battered unknown cellphone in his drawer and answering it and being- Drautos? Who are you calling?

Drautos: *internal screaming intensifies*

[noxs-mun]

STATUS UPDATE:

So I'm finally working on the spirits from Nox's universe again.

Had unfortunately lost a lot of stuff I was working on as it was being transferred via a hdd that is now malfunctioning.

That and the fact I've been dealing with some health issues I've not been the most productive and honestly upset at how much i keep sleeping due to fatigue.

I have added some things to the known vampire clans mainly their various means of propagation. (for now) and have some basic groundwork for the Werecreatures and thier clans/packs.

One example being that any were wolves live in forests that share their pack's namesake.

I also eventually have plans for various fae creatures and have something up my sleeves lore wise for how they relate to the changelings we all know. (known as equus changelings in Nox's universe)

In additional news I do have an art tablet thanks to @duran301 and a new computer via a late christmas gift from some of my friends and after I get a hdmi adapter I can finally throw myself at digital art!

Though I am used to drawing traditional and mostly free hand as I always have struggled with not DRAWING SO DAMN HARD to be able to erase any kind of guidelines.

It has been both frustrating and super satisfying when I manage to get a drawing made since I was forced to do it I one go and very little room for messing up.

Am hoping having the ability to undo mistakes without worrying about whether or not the paper will withstand the erasing will help me not be so hard on myself and have more fun drawing again!

Though I know transitioning to digital is most likely gonna be somewhat overwhelming at first.

[spitzobsessed]

[mushroomsie224]

Tangled is an oc x canon character canon-rewrite fic.

[deva-arts]

Does Noctis actually enjoy violence? is he a sadist? 🥸

He's a born assassin. That comes with its fair share of violence! He's not a good person at all.

Even then he doesn't revel in bloodshed. It's just work where he's great at acting unabashedly heartless. As an Umbra, he still needs to do their work if he wants to keep his tenebrous freedoms. That means a lot of mass murder, betrayal, deceit, manipulation, coercion, and a lot more machiavellian deeds in the name of the shadows. He's an enforcer of their will. As such he gets free reign...

If it were up to him, he'd rather avoid going through all of these missions and spend his life with women, luxury, liquor, parties, picked fights, mental abuse, toying with people, playing dirty, and a healthy heaping helping of Halcyon. Those are actually fun. Plus they make him feel.

When the party dies down though, and the high fades, the women leave and the pranks lose their humor... The same, clawing, aching soullessness returns, only ever lacquered over with shallow distractions. And he is alone, with only his thoughts and the red on his hands. He'll soon find that one can only last so far in this line of work before the weight of their actions makes life insufferable. No rest for the wicked, right?

[secret-engima]

*slaps table* YES IT THEM.

Loafing around

[lancelot-sharpkeen]

[ long overdue spiderverse hc dump ]

Spiderman of Earth-1995, where most supervillains are considered "monsters" and superheroes "Hunters" with not many superpowers but united under a "Guild" that give them weapons, gadget and resources

His Earth has a 90s cartoons and comics aesthetic, with bright, saturated colors and pure black outlines and shadows; his version of New York seems stuck in the 90s as well, with a hint of slightly futuristic technology here and there, like old-school looking computers and phones with more modern apps

Nicknamed "Spider Hunter", bitten by a radioactive Huntsman Spider - his powers include spider-senses, above average strenght and a super-vision. See it as the ability to "zoom" at will, which give him a particularly good aim

Has guns that shoot webs and can climb thanks to special gloves and boots.

His identity is known by his family and the other Hunters

He's not afraid to kill if necessary; his version of Kingpin was shot in the fucking face during the whole Alchemax situation; that event actually made him come in contact with the Spider-Society

Dislikes heavily the idea of canon events and younger Spider-people. They should be at the club not worrying about their dead uncles!!!!!!!!!!

He already lost his uncle and the police chief he was close to, and left the Society specifically because hes afraid his sister, whos second name is Gwendolyn, could also end up killed

"You cant save everyone" / "I have to try" kind of deal

This said he still has his bracelet thingie bc he still wants to keep an eye on the newcomers so sometimes he's just dragged back at the Society kicking and screaming

Not present during Spiderverse 2, busy beating the fuck out of his Venom

[abandonededen]

@baby-royalty didn't ask for a thing but gets one anyways 💙

why does her mouth sound like that, though ?? nox is CONCERNED.

[a-world-in-grey]

I think I'm gonna need a list of Sola's relationship status in different verses because I'm lost.

Nox!Sola gets married at 20 and has three kids by the time canon rolls around.

Dyn!Sola is married but has only the one kid when she's 27.

Hanahaki!Sola is dating but not married?

And I have no idea what the rest of them are doing.

No problem!

In Shadows of Heaven's Light, Sola starts dating Libertus at 20, marries at 24, and they adopt their first kid during the Long Night when Sola is 27-28 (exact timeline on that is still TBD). For reference, Libertus is 5 years older than Sola.

For aus or crossovers where Sola and Libertus don't time travel, they end up adopting another four kids. Sola dies in her sixties from the strain using so much magic over the years had on her body, while Libertus lives into his eighties and gets to meet the first of his great-grandkids.

Take My Breath au (Hanahaki!Sola), Libertus and Sola don't start dating until she's 25 at the earliest, but I may push that back to when she's 26-27 depending what I plan to do with the plot. So she and Libertus are dating but not married by the time canon starts.

Sunshine Never Stops au (Nif!Sola), Sola doesn't meet Libertus until she's 19-20 years old, and while she does get a crush on him, she hasn't at all considered the idea of dating anyone while she's so focused on curing the Starscourge.

Nox!Sola starts dating Libertus when she's 20, like in SoHL, but she and Libertus have a whoops pregnancy when she's 21, resulting in twins when she's 21-22. Sola and Libertus marry Galahdian-style shortly after Sola finds out she's pregnant, but they don't have a Lucian wedding until after the twins are born. Then, during the Roadtrip Nox and Sola take Noctis on when Nox and Sola are about 24, Sola finds out part way through that she's pregnant again, resulting in kid #3 by the time she's 25. Which is all I've got so far for that.

Dyn!Sola again started dating Libertus at 20, only for Noctis to disappear a year later. Sola and Libertus married shortly before Noctis came home with Dyn, and Sola got pregnant about three months before Noctis' Coming of Age, shortly before she turned 25, so she'll give birth in the coming spring, a couple months before she turns 26. As for how many kids that'll be... I think I'll keep that under my hat for now. >:)

But general rule of thumb: if Sola's younger than 20, she hasn't started dating Libertus, and barring a whoops baby or other unusual circumstance, Libertus and Sola date for four years (traditional in Lucian culture) before getting married. And, barring extenuating circumstances such as time travel, Libertus and Sola eventually end up with a bunch of kids, biological and/or adopted.

Hope this helps!

[secret-engima]

I recently stumbled across your ffxv time travel verses and absolutely fell in love with all of them but especially the bby!nox ones, though i wondered if you ever considered instead of coming back older or younger than noctis if nox came back at the same age, and after being discovered if everyone thinks aulea had twins and one was kidnapped from the hospital after birth

I have not considered that one as I find it too implausible for them to be passed off as twins, for the simple reasoning that the royal couple would 100% have gotten ultrasounds during the pregnancy, to check on the bby, which means Regis would know that Aulea only had one, and Regis wouldn't have had an affair while married to Aulea, which means Nox would have no convenient, non-cloning or time travel excuse for existing. :)

Unless I went the incredibly angsty route of saying Noctis did have a twin and never knew because the twin died like- in the hospital. But that is wayyyyy too angsty to contemplate for me so no.

[velvet-vox]

Random status update

So, the Rebecca analysis is slowly turning into The Epic Of Gilgamesh, therefore it's probably not going to be released by the ending of the "Second pipeline of future ideas" survey; to compensate, I've updated some of the entries inside of "My top 10 favourite male villains of all time", in particular, I've added more text to number 8, 7, 6, 4, 3, 2, and I've scratched the entirety of the description of the number 1 spot since it didn't do him any justice. It was pretty late when I was about to finish that project, so I just spit out anything that came to mind without actually thinking how the readers would react to such an underwhelming finale.

I may also touch upon number 10 and 9 if there's something more that I want to add, and I could still write a little extra for the aforementioned entries.

I'm never going to touch number 5.

Number 5 was perfect.

I was perfect while writing number 5.

I was in the perfect mood, emotional state, and investment level to make number 5 as good as it was.

I also didn't really explain why some of the entries were higher than others, and it must have been especially aggravating in the case of number 2 being ranked higher than 3 and 4; my lack of foresight made it look like a joke list, when I was actually dead serious.

Mistakes that I'll possibly avoid when discussing the evil ladies.

Also, completely unrelated, but I might have watched the entire of The Great Potato War by Technoblade in preparation for the Rebecca discussion post.

Do with this information what you want.

[nxchht]

@two-thrones

continued from here

Caia's eyes narrowed upon the man, who didn't seem all that intimidated by the fact that she had a gun expertly trained between his eyes. In fact, he didn't have an inch of fear on him, seemingly. Or did he just hide it that well? How interesting. Something about this brushed against that part of her brain that encouraged her to seek out further information about this so-called pacifist.

"You ask me not to mind; you broke into my house, helped yourself to my booze, and now, instead of begging for your life like a good little scumbag, you have the audacity to actually assume that I'll just automatically hear you out and eagerly accept your offer without having the slightest inclination about shooting you dead the minute you open your smug hole again? You don't look like the usual trash bags on the street; what makes you so sure you're such an exception to the rule?"

It was true; besides his obvious posture of confidence, he was an exception. Most of the local variety of vagrants and outliers (including one in particular) had no prior knowledge as to the location of her dwelling, and yet here he was. She certainly wasn't followed..So, was he somehow affiliated with The Agency? Another district, perhaps?

[psycadenza]

@novaragno : starter call / spiderverse .

" AGH - "

the crash of falling into a dumpster was ALMOST as loud as the static that was in his brain moments prior . constant noise in his brain was bad enough, but man did dimension hopping hurt MORE than usual . no wonder he's ended up decidedly not in his destination .

crawling out of the ( heavily dented ) dumpster and resting on the edge, tristan yanked off his mask and pushed down his hood in one quick motion . " okay, okay, okay ... " right . he could FIX this . at least nobody saw him wipe out, right ? just had to readjust his watch, and -

there's a sudden wave in his mind, like cold water has been dumped on him .

yeah, nevermind . someone's definitely there . he grabs the edge once more and swifly lands behind it to try and hide .

" uh ... don't mind me ! just ... night-cosplaying ? " it came out as more of a question than a convincing excuse .

[cfgodsandmonsters]

{ @were-jer liked for a Nox starter! }

“So, like, not to make this weird or anything --” he cut off, pausing to rake his teeth over the inside of his lower lip, as his gaze shifted to...anywhere that wasn't Jeremy, really. Shit. He was gonna make this weird, wasn't he? He really hadn't known what to expect from Jeremy's home town -- it was still a little crazy to him that he was here at all, honestly -- but what he hadn't expected was for the whole to bear the lingering scent of predators.

He couldn't imagine Jeremy didn't know. There was no way he didn't know, right? He really didn't need to say anything...except what if he didn't know? They'd never really directly talked about...that sort of thing while at school. Maybe this was a new thing since he'd been away? In the end, Nox couldn't find a good enough excuse to keep quiet. Sure, it might make things weird if he did know... but if he didn't and Nox didn't say anything... yeah, no, it wasn't worth the risk. Finally, he looked back to Jeremy, and finished speaking. “--- you know there are like, a LOT of vampires in this town, right?”