#it's words for me

[asoeiki]

Fav Excerpts (FFXV fanfics AO3)

I just wanted to share with everyone some of my favourite passages from the fanfics that I had read, I had more actually but I managed to narrow down some of these that I thought was pretty neat with the way they write the scenes! Writers, ya'll are amazing with the way you write stuff, blows my mind every time TwT!

Out Here with the Daemons by Lagerstatte (Graphic violence)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/11188884

It’s the worst barricade in the world. Bullets will punch right through it, Prompto has time to think. It never occurred to him before that this is how he’d end up dying. He doesn’t want to die. Does he want it less than he wants to kill people? Surely there’s another way out. He’s still trembling.

‘Don’t look,’ Ignis says, very softly, before leaving them there.

Noct grips Prompto’s arm, tight enough to hurt.

Prompto has a split-second to realise that even if he doesn’t look around the table, he can still see in the room’s reflection in the window.

He’s just in time to see the first of Ignis’ knives leave his hand and slice open a man’s throat. The flesh splits open neatly and blood sprays out; Prompto’s eyes snap shut. It doesn’t block the bubbling sound of wet gagging, somehow audible over the screams, shouting, and gunfire. Prompto hears something like that one time he’d blocked the kitchen sink and let it overflow, and it takes a few seconds to realise it’s not water he’s hearing splattering onto the wood flooring.

For Hearth and Home (Incomplete) by Viviena

https://archiveofourown.org/works/7954894/chapters/21589655#workskin

“I was planning to go back because I was no longer needed here. Thanks to you it’s all mute point now. I have my new goals and you can bet I’m not letting you get anywhere near them.”

“And by those you mean…”

Nyx hesitated for a moment but it was so obvious, there was no point in pretending it to be a secret.

“Protecting lady Lunafreya and king Noctis.”

“Of course,” Drautos asserted slowly and looked to the side, seemingly deep in thought. He nodded slightly to himself and looked back up with clearly contemplating expression.

Nyx pointed a finger at him.

“No.”

Commander Drautos seemed completely unfazed by it. So Nyx repeated with more intent.

"No!"

That got him an exasperated eye roll.

First Bloom by Sekiei

https://archiveofourown.org/works/11951613

During the next four months, they renovate the house, change every piece of wood. They raise the floor a couple of feet off the ground, double the walls and insulate them with earth and dry vegetation, pierce a few more windows. By the time they’re done, the cabin looks like a house, small and amateurish, but a house not a shack. They even have steps leading to the front door that Gladiolus is unreasonably proud of and Ebony loves to lounge on.

They kept the house the same size. One room. The kitchen left of the entrance, a couple of armchairs and a new plush carpet to the right in front of the fireplace. They could have made it bigger, but they didn’t. Gladiolus likes what they’ve found. It’s enough. After all they’ve been through, they’re not greedy; having a peaceful place to call their own is enough. He suspects Ignis feels the same way, but he doesn’t ask.

They eat the occasional fish and dry, thin bread Ignis makes with water and the powdered white flesh of roots he has an uncanny sense for finding deep in the ground even in the middle of the ghost forest. Gladiolus wonders how he learnt this, what happened to him all those years they were apart. Gladio mostly protected civilians and their settlements, ate cans of beans well past their sell-by date, dusty noodles on good days; on special occasions, chocobo greens and mushrooms grown under electrical floodlights. But the few times he saw Ignis, he was always out and about hunting, more often than not on his own. He hadn’t thought about what he had to do, to learn, in order to survive that lifestyle back then. But he doesn’t ask this either. There are topics that are best left alone.

Preventing General Glauca (Incomplete) by MeinNameIstJette

https://archiveofourown.org/works/16147616/chapters/46799737

Titus stands near the edge of the dock, certain now, that he wasn’t going to make it out alive. There were too many enemies to cut down and he was on his very last leg of energy. If lucky, he’d cut down two maybe three, but that would be the end. He doesn’t want the defeat to show on his face but he’s sure that his stance is evidence enough to the Niffs that they had this in the bag.

That is.

Until Titus can feel a shift in the wind. He swallows, rather tries to swallow even though he’s parched, and straightens, as best as he can. He can hear something. He’s not sure what it is but it’s a faint and distinct sound. A part of him feels as if that’s the sound of death but then the unthinkable occurs.

The whistling becomes louder, distracting the enemy even as weapons rip through them almost as if they were made out of paper. Titus’ stance falters as he watches something unbelievable occur before his eyes. He doesn’t recognize any of these weapons and he certainly knows of no one in Sennheim who is able to do this and yet it is happening.

Knife Skills by SensationalSunburst (Graphic violence)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/10983987/chapters/24461079

The cashier stood, glancing down the aisle at them, expression twisted into something between annoyed and concerned.

“Glad-” Ignis began, one hand reaching out blindly to grab the shield’s attention, but everything promptly exploded into the sound of shattering glass and gunfire. The van had violently reversed into the parking lot, the back doors flying open and a hail of gunfire sent the cashier crashing to the floor behind the counter. A man dressed all in black flew from the back of the van, rushed through the shot out door and began firing the second his boots hit the earth. Ignis snatched Noctis on instinct and spun to hurl him to the ground behind him as bullets riddled the display he’d just been looking at. He followed Noctis down, cushioning his head before it could bounce against the linoleum and muffling the startled cry that tore itself from Noct's lips. The gunfire that had followed them down the aisle ceased, and Ignis was immediately on his feet. Gladio had already grabbed Noctis, who was clawing against the iron bar of his arm across his chest to grab at Ignis.

“Ignis, stay down!” Gladio snarled.

“Iggy! Ignis!” Noctis pleaded, breath coming in short, panicked gasps. “Come back!”

“Ignis, dammit!” Gladio shifted as if to get up and Ignis turned on him with a snarl.

“Sword,” He snapped, pointing a blessedly steady finger roughly at himself then Gladio, “Shield. Do you duty and get him out of here.”  Ignis turned his back as Noctis’s shouting went up in pitch. He felt the telltale tug of magic in chest as Gladio pulled a shield from the armiger and took a single, calming breath.

Unlike Gladio, who would reach into that strange, supernatural space between worlds as easy as breathing, Ignis hadn’t been able to pull weapons from the armiger outside of training. For him, it took minutes of strenuous, sometimes painful, meditation before he could pull a blade from the armory. He could hold it in his palm just long enough to recognize the intricate patterns etched into the handles before the connection was lost; the snapback of magic enough to knock his balance loose and sending him stumbling to the mats.

But as he drew himself up in the bullet ridden remains of the store, fueled by magma scorching its way through his veins, he felt his rage solidify against his palms. The dagger sailed from his hand and thunked solidly into the shoulder of the would-be-assassin, it was off target, but the second struck true, cutting off the scream as the blade lodged itself in his heart.

Road Trip - Shattered by Sekiei

https://archiveofourown.org/works/8848198

The first few days after he’d been injured, Ignis had kept it together when talking to Noct, but had been almost shell-shocked when it’d come to moving around. Gladiolus had been shadowing his every step then, a hand to the small of his back, to support and to guide him. He had been careful, considerate. Focusing on Ignis had helped him overcome the maelstrom of emotions and pain in his mind. For a time. But less than a week had passed before Ignis’d asked for a cane and made clear that he would ask to hold onto one of them if he wanted guidance, but he refused to be lead around any longer. He would decide for himself when and who to follow and just how far. In a way, seeing that fiery independence survive the ordeal had been a blessing. Ignis was hurt but he wasn’t broken. Yet, silently and despite being aware of his own selfishness, Gladiolus had wished he could have been relied on a while longer.

Ignis’ hand closed around his elbow with a natural that hurt him. It had only been three weeks. This shouldn’t have been so easy for them, so rehearsed. Gladiolus dropped words then and there, on their way to the end of the platform, at first to guide, then just to fill the silence. Stairs, three steps. The rails are on our right, two and half meters away. It’s a pretty steep drop, don’t go close. Have they told you… there’re mountains all around us, most are bare sand and rock, but there’s snow in the distance. It’s glowing through the nightfall. He was babbling but it kept his mind off what was coming.

He stopped far enough down the platform that they were out of earshot but still within the safety of the lights and turned towards Ignis. He steeled himself, taking a deep breath, trying for a composure he already knew he wouldn’t be able to sustain. Ignis seemed content to wait for him to talk, a sure sign that the argument was unavoidable.

‘Look, if you’re going to run through your tirade from the mine again save your breath. I get it. His Highness can do no wrong and he needs to be coddled to greatness. I just hope you’re volunteering for the job because I won’t be bowing to his whims any longer. I’ll respect my King when he starts behaving like a king and he needed to know that. Also I think you coming to Gralea with us is a stupid idea and you won’t change my mind on that one either.’ ‘Anything else?’ ‘Depends on what you say next. I am in no mood for a lecture, not even from you.’ ‘Could have fooled me.’ ‘Bite me. Are we done?’ ‘Oh, I haven’t even started. I’ve listened to you, now kindly shut up and give me the same courtesy.’

Carry Me Back Home by Moon_Raccoon_exe

https://archiveofourown.org/works/12947106

I bawled my eyes out again when I read this fic = w=;

And there you lie, my dear soul, on gladioli and irises, and a few sylleblossoms, on the altar of the temple for everyone to admire and bid goodbye before cremation.

It is a Lucian tradition, unlike Niflheim; we incinerate as the usual method and we bury as the unusual one. Our ashes ascend to the skies and it frees our souls from the body, and the smoke helps them to become ethereal and cross to the other side and the whatever exists after death. I do have to admit that, as much as I believed it a beautifully tragic process, only now I feel a little sad in a fully egocentric way that I will have no physical something to cry to, other than a golden plate with your name on it. A plate I can’t even see, with letters I can’t even read.

long way home by ninemoons42

https://archiveofourown.org/works/14403639/chapters/33263658

The cat is not a threat. He tells himself that. The cat is not a bomb and not an enemy and not a threat.

But those claws are real, and he’ll end up needing to mend his clothes, if Noct keeps going.

He’s loathe to push Noct’s presence away and that leaves him with only one thing to do -- the unlikely thing to do.

He passes a hand over Noct’s head, down that powerful curve of backbone, all the way to the twitching tail, and asks, “What do you want from me?”

In response -- the cat kicks him, lightly, with its powerful hind legs -- kicks him and then leaps, and the force of that leap is more than enough to take it across the room. Noct is now standing right opposite the window.

And Noct meows, once.

There’s something oddly compelling about that sound that he doesn’t often hear out of his cat, anyway: Noct prefers to communicate in pointed looks, in the flick of tail, in the twitch of ears.

The ears that twitch at him now, oversized triangles that are still startlingly soft to the touch, twitching and twitching as he pulls on the previous day’s shirt and trousers and shoes.

At the last moment, he huddles into his oldest coat -- strange to find it still in the depths of his closet, still hanging neat and pristine from clothespins and a sturdy hanger. The coat is his last reminder of the ceremonial of the military, the rites and the parades and the inspections. Ghostly shapes on collar and sleeve, where his rank insignia and unit patches used to be, and the outlines are all that’s left. The coat is made of thick black material, mostly water-repellent. Silver-braid edges and trim, and domed buttons to match, scuffed now, but still anchored down the torso in parallel lines, framing the center closure and its hidden clasps.

[kochei0]

I turn to Ares.

Thanks to Tyler Miles Lockett who allowed me to draw inspiration from his ARES piece for page 2! Look at his etsy page it's SICK

⚔️ If you want to read some queer retelling of arturian legends have a look at my webtoon

[butchfalin]

the funniest meltdown ive ever had was in college when i got so overstimulated that i could Not speak, including over text. one of my friends was trying to talk me through it but i was solely using emojis because they were easier than trying to come up with words so he started using primarily emojis as well just to make things feel balanced. this was not the Most effective strategy... until. he tried to ask me "you okay?" but the way he chose to do that was by sending "👉🏼👌🏼❓" and i was so shocked by suddenly being asked if i was dtf that i was like WHAT???? WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?????????? and thus was verbal again

[knockknockwhosthereartistism]

The worst trauma comes from those who you love

[mournfulroses]

Trista Mateer, from "Aphrodite Made Me Do It," originally published in 2019

[runawaymarbles]

The midjourney stuff just reminds of when we were trying to find a new platform to host the ao3 donation form, and companies kept trying to tell me about all their "ai" features that would track donor engagement, and figure out the optimal pattern to email individual donors asking for follow up donations, and all the ways they suggest we manipulate people into staying on our websites. It was a great way to filter out who either wasn't listening to us when we described our ethics and donor base, or just didn't believe us.

Now granted ao3 is a unique case based on a) the amount of page views we get in any given time period and b) the fact that most donors absolutely do Not want to be identified as such anywhere, (the default "list of recent donors" module got nuked Immediately) but it surprised me some that the concept of "donors who value their privacy and would be furious at even the whiff of AI" is unique. Some of us really are just existing in different worlds.

[lazylittledragon]

can't believe we're all adults being forced into the club penguin level of censorship in 2024

[valtsv]

anyone who thinks dostoevsky's writing is dry and humourless is missing out on passages like this

[inkskinned]

she's singing in another room and my dog is asleep at my feet. my grandma asked me why i haven't found a man yet and i laughed. oh, you know. i like my house clean.

my girlfriend is also my man is also "my partner" if i'm in a professional setting. yesterday we went to a ren faire and a man mimed at me - you're together? and at my delighted nod, his baffled, you're gay? made me laugh. a woman with rainbow hair said i love the two of you together. you're both so beautiful it's absurd.

my dad introduced my partner as my "..... friend. or whatever" the other day. he knows we're dating. in the same way, i was never able to get my sister's husband to stop saying that's gay like it's 2008. he still uses the word fa***t, and my sister's defense of him has always been well, he's just kidding.

my lover and i dance to old music in a tiny kitchen. we judge new music together and take food critique very seriously. we watch love is blind before we fall asleep and agree that if they had a queer season, it would be bloody but also make for excellent tv. of fucking course queer people would know someone for only 2 weeks and agree to get married. what are you saying.

at a bar with friends, a man puts his hand on my wrist. got a boyfriend? and yes, i do have a boyfriend, she's amazing. i am texting her while i wander around a gas station named after geese. i am visiting a swing state for a wedding. in the candy aisle i overhear: she's actually like a lesbian it's disgusting. two teenage girls with packaged sandwiches in their hands, giggling. no literally, like. i'm not, like. okay with her being there while we're all, like, naked and changing.

my girlfriend and i tailgate, drink gin and cider out of cups. from the frat group beside us, a man corrects himself with one of his friends: bro, i mean, nonbinary entity, and it makes everyone around him laugh, myself included. he razzes his friend the same way i would have killed for at 19 years old - like nothing happened, he continues: you apply sunscreen like an alien. he does a little sassy (and fairly accurate) dance interpretation of the motion. his friend is laughing so hard they're crying.

i am lucky, i live in a safe neighborhood in a safe state. my masc passenger princess comes up from DC. i drive her for an hour to where all the leaves are a violent arrangement of color. we walk along the trails, letting autumn into our blood. in this part of the state, there's a lot of pickup trucks and trump signs. when we chastely kiss before getting into the car, i accidentally make eye contact with a woman holding her child's wrist. she looks disgusted. she looks fucking pissed.

two hours later my girl and i are eating dinner on a patio, soaking in the last warmth of new england sun before the chill of winter sets in. we are giggling and trying to talk through plastic vampire teeth. at another table, i see a young woman sit up straighter. i watch her watch us. she blushes and takes her partner's hand from across the table. shy, like the taste of evening has just become something deeper.

it's worth it for this moment, i think. my lover is still humming the same song she's been singing for four days straight and i don't want to kill her for it. her guitar is beside my bed. her toothbrush is in my bathroom. in a few moments i will make us lunch. we are lucky enough to have found each other. it is lucky enough to be in love.

[sycamorality]

moodboard for when you are fatigued, tired, sick or not doing well and you are dead

[marypsue]

One of the worst feelings in the world: when you are just desperate, like claw-your-own-skin-off desperate, to create, but the only thing that even vaguely appeals to you to work on is a nebulous half-feeling that might be dreamily related to some half-formed notion of a concept. I must! Make! No thing! Only make!

[emilnikos]

I need non autistic people to realise meltdowns are a real debilitating thing that has a serious effect on your mental and physical health NOWWWWW!!! The way its been trivialized and lessened pisses me the fuck off. It's not a tantrum and it doesn't come from "being too weak-willed" it's painful and it's embarrassing AND MOST OF ALL IT'S INVOLUNTARY!! Don't claim to be an ally to autistic or disabled people and then make fun of people who have meltdowns. Literally get the hell out of my sight

[fairydrowning]

– Noor Unnahar, Instagram account "noor_unnahar"

[TEXT ID: / [Lemons] / My father's mother loved lemons. Years after her passing, / we run out of everything, but never / lemons. / Nothing else shelters grief / better than memory. / It's my father way of saying, / even in your absence, you will be / cared by me. / END ID]

[lesbian-disaster-academic]

i used to be so good at writing strong, thoroughly-researched, thoroughly-edited essays.

as a kid in hs, my teacher literally came up to me, holding my 40 page essay on the intersection of the European witch hunts and capitalism/exploitation/gender roles (it was supposed to be 7 pages...whoops) and went like "this is literally a master's-degree level thesis. what are you doing?? you could literally use this as your final dissertation in a master's program, what the fuck."

NOW??? NOW?? you'd think I'd be oh so skilled. but alas. i can barely piece together two ideas. adhd skill-regression is so so real. im SOBBING

[fiddlingford]

Guys

GUYS

GUYSSS!!!!!

Climb him like a tree amirit

[kurgy]

miku expo 2024 is the dashcon of vocaloid concerts. the projectors were replaced with LEDs and organizers told no one, still charged ppl for the projectors. someone stole the Miku canada cut out. vocaloid producers are really mad that attendees are mad that they got scammed because nothing comes before Product. the event banned glowsticks and upcharged the sale of their own, under the excuse that average glowsticks would interfere with the projectors, that the organizers knew they did not have. someone pissed on the floor. car crash outside the venue in san jose