#nif fandom is golden

[abadpoetwithdreams]

NIF Episode 8 Fandom Talk

@thesilentdarkangel THANK YOU SO MUCH I'm glad you continue to enjoy my work as I enjoy this show, and also I am seriously having Wang Kai withdrawals #teameyebrows (I think this makes Crown Prince #teammoustache and Yu #teamforehead)

@orangememory ohhhhhh, your explanation about Pugilist Dad makes so much sense! I mean, I want to shake him and be like "nnnooooooo that isn't how this works" but it makes sense: he thinks he is doing good by honoring his duties to both family and government, and thereby does evil. And thus our poor Jing Rui sunshine boy is doubly-trapped I HATE EVERYTHING T_T (oh and I BET the fandom went wild for that line. As soon as that joke was made in the show I could just SENSE the fic) (also thank you for giving me Meng's actor's ACTUAL name, the only sources I could find just had his English name and English names for successful Chinese actors always just feel weird to me idk it's like the press calling Zhao Wei Vicky Zhao it's just WEIRD)

@star-shadows ahhhAHHHHH I FORGOT ABOUT THAT SCENE IN THE NOVEL. I stopped reading the novel only a chapter or two after that, since storylines were progressing at different rates and some were veering dangerously close to spoiler territory. But when you mentioned it, YES I remember him and the super-dramatic red bow, and that amazing shot ahhhhhHHHHHHH I reread the whole thing and now I'm having Lin Shu emotions again aaaaaghhh (also that's really cool about the dialogue matching so closely!) and THE SNOW SCENE REENACTMENT IM SOBBING THIS IS THE GREATEST THING

[lightpollution]

Hello! Hope you are well. Can I ask, how did you end up getting involved with Nirvana in Fire? Have you watched the whole show or read the book?

-Mao Yin Court Maiden

I'm doing great, it's so nice to meet you! I've only read the book fully, and I loved it to pieces so I've read it multiple times. I get distracted watching shows (even shows as pretty as NiF!) so I started but never finished. I've watched certain select scenes too, based on what was recommended to me. As for how I got into NiF... honestly I can't remember! I know I came by way of MXTX to C-novels, around late 2018, then I think it was Golden Stage and a few others... and probably some blessed person suggested the the Langya List? I tried snooping on my internet history, but couldn't glean much. I do know that I read it for the first time through novelupdates.... oh! I remember that when I caught up to the TLs, the last chapter hadn't been put up yet? But I needed it so badly that I had to do a terrible google translate on it and try to figure out what happened there. XD Thank you so much for meeting me this way, I'd love to know how you ended up in the NiF fandom, too!

[xadoheandterra]

Series: The Burning of Solheim Title: The Path Untrodden Fandom: Final Fantasy XV Chapters: I | II | III | IV | V | VI | VII | VIII | IX | X | XI | XII | XIII Characters: Ardyn Izunia, Prompto Argentum, Ignis Scientia, Noctis Lucis Caelum, Aranea Highwind Tags: Time-Travel, Prompted-fic, time travel induced age difference Summary: Solheim was the height of civilization long enough that their ruins were ruins over 2000 years ago, and still had the power to function in the time of the King of Light. They should've realized something was very wrong the minute Prompto remarked on the lights being on, and yet no one was home.

Ignis parked the car as close as he could get it, with another broken down stranger directly in their path. Prompto wanted to groan in dismay as he stretched—the Vesperpool was hot and muggy and just from the few minutes of walking they’d done earlier to get a nice group photo, Prompto was fairly certain his nice boots were covered in marsh muck. From the car Noctis didn’t bother to withhold his groan of complaint and, sluggishly, climbed his way out.

“Your certain we can find Mythril here, Iggy?” Prompto asked as he watched how Noctis brushed at his clothes and smacked at the bugs that tried to get in his face.

“If Talcott is to be believed, yes,” Ignis murmured. He shoved up glasses from across a sweat-soaked nose and Prompto nodded in understanding. “Come, Noct! We best get a move on.”

Noctis waved a hand with a tiredly muttered, “Coming!” and in quick succession their party of three formed up. Prompto eyed the way his best friend rubbed at his back with a faint grimace and not for the first time he wondered just where Gladio ran off to and why.

Noctis slapped a hand to Prompto’s shoulder with a grimace of a grin and said lightly, “Hey, he’ll be back before you know it,” as if Prompto or Ignis could tell how much the big guy’s absence really hurt the young King.

Prompto stumbled out a, “Y-Yeah!” and they marched onward. The walk only enforced the heat of the days sun as it bore down upon them. Their clothes were ill-fit for the weather, Crownsguard fatigues were meant for the cool breeze of Insomnia, not the oppressive natures of the world outside the Wall. Leide and Lestallum both ran hotter than Prompto, Ignis, or Noctis were used to, and Vesperpool was even worse. They’d only been in the area for thirty minutes and already Prompto’s clothes were soaked through.

With a grimace Prompto tugged off his jacket and dismissed it into the armiger. Ignis refused to dress down even when Prompto could see the heat was slowly getting to him as well, and Noctis just tugged his jacket off and tied it around his waist by the sleeves instead of outright dumping it into their weird pocket dimension of magic.

“Keep your eyes peeled,” Ignis said to the group, upright and face stern although he gave them each a bit of a grin that Prompto returned. They wandered through the bush for a while, the muck and mud of the swamp stuck to their boots, but every few minutes Prompto saw something to catch his eye and he’d pull his camera up and out and snap a few quick photographs.

“Think Gladio will like these?” Prompto asked. He nudged Noctis in the shoulder and showed him the viewscreen of his camera. His thumb swiped through a few of the more recent shots to which Noctis let out a faint laugh, especially of the shot of Ignis’ sweat-soaked clothes as he moved ahead.

“Yeah, think he’ll love these, Prom,” Noctis shoved Prompto back and they grinned at one another as they moved forward.

They passed from brush and plants and swamp to something far more ruins like that reminded Prompto eerily of broken structures they passed by as they drove around Cleigne. Built up towers of stone-carved brick that stood the tests of time better than a lot of the cement structures had in a few of the more remote places of the lands outside of Insomnia.

“Wow,” Prompto murmured and snapped a few shots of the structures that poked up out of the swamp. “Wonder how old this is?”

“Old,” Ignis said shortly, and then sighed at Prompto’s pleading look. “If records are to be believed these structures are from the time of Solheim, most likely, although there isn’t much left that dates back that far to tell us more. Any scientific undertakings into the nature of these ruins or who built them have long been put on hold, what with the war with Niffelheim and all.”

“So,” Prompto muttered as he snagged a few more shots. “Really old, then?”

“Quite.”

Noctis noticed the car first, out of all of them. Prompto noticed it within short order, but only because of how Noctis suddenly went stiff in the photo Prompto had badgered him into posing for. They’d only wandered a small ways away from Ignis, so the soft and nervous, “Uh, Iggy?” was rather quickly responded to.

“Yes, Prompto?”

“We’ve got company.”

Ignis rounded around the wall he’d been inspecting and then shoved up his glasses when he saw what Prompto and Noctis both already caught sight of. The old red convertible with a racing stripe along the side was familiar in a way that gave Prompto a sinking feel in his stomach. He glanced over to Ignis who frowned and pressed his glasses further up his face from where they slipped down.

“Stay close to me,” Ignis eventually said, and the two men nodded and quickly formed around the royal retainer.

“You really think he’s here, Iggy?” Prompto asked, almost nervously.

“I’d certainly think so,” Ignis murmured. “Are you alright, Noct?”

Next to them Noctis clenched and unclenched his fists and Prompto could understand why. Days back, before they knew that the weird hobo-man was actually Chancellor Izunia from Niffelheim, Noctis had confided in them that Ardyn made him feel weird. He already gave off this horrible creepy vibe as it was to Prompto, but Prompto didn’t have the inherent magical gifts of the Lucis Caelum line. None of them did.

Noctis once described being around Ardyn being like near a light socket that felt on the edge of being burnt out. It was this static in the air that raised the hair on Noctis’ arms. It left a sort of coppery taste in his mouth, and he said it felt like he needed to warp except—he couldn’t. Prompto didn’t get it, but he knew creepy when he saw it and Ardyn Izunia practically bled creepy. It made Prompto wonder if all Nif’s were just outright disturbing to be around, or if the Chancellor was a special brand of fuckery.

“I’m fine,” Noctis said eventually. “Let’s just find the entrance to this place and get out of here, alright?”

“Yes, let’s,” Ignis deferred and Prompto shivered.

They moved closer to the car which was parked right in front of what looked like the start of the ruins going deeper and Prompto resisted the urge to pull out Quicksilver from the armiger.

“What is he even doing here?” Prompto muttered.

“Who knows,” Ignis said back under his breath. As a group they approached the columns and found themselves forced to pause as the man himself slipped around one and right into their field of view.

It was the first time Prompto had ever seen the man without his hat actually on his head. The wine-red coloring of his hair actually looked really nice in this lighting and for a second Prompto wondered if he could ask for a photograph because—well, the shadows did something for the rugged homeless look of the Chancellor, he guessed.

Ardyn was polite when he addressed them, as he always was. His words always felt so odd to hear, though, and Prompto was about ninety-percent sure not even Gladio’s dad talked like Ardyn did, but whatever. At least he wasn’t doing anything except being creepy and hiding and maybe stalking their little group. What a great time for Gladio to take a holiday.

Ignis handled the conversation, mostly because Prompto didn’t know what to say to someone like Ardyn without putting his foot in his mouth, and Noctis kept on pressing his fingers into his arms. Prompto nudged the darker haired man in the shoulder and pressed close as, upon Ignis ground out grumble of, “Oh, splendid,” did they start to follow the man.

“This feels like a trap, Iggy,” Noctis muttered as Prompto slung an arm around his shoulder.

“Well there’s nothing for it,” Ignis muttered back. “Just be prepared.”

They each dipped mental fingers into the armiger as they followed after the Chancellor. He led them right into the thick of the water—which, gross, Prompto fought off a grimace of disgust at the feel of swamp water as it seeped into his boots—but Ardyn kept talking and it dragged all of Prompto’s attention off of Noctis.

“Do keep up,” Ardyn said. He walked with a sort of listless fervor in front of them; Prompto watched how the man drifted to the side, and then course corrected and drifted back. Had he always had such a strange gait or was it the swamp water that made the carefully constructed movements of the man seem so upended, Prompto wondered.

Ardyn tilted his head down and gave their trio a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. Prompto glanced to Noctis and then Ignis and drifted closer Ardyn at Ignis’ subtle tilt of his head. They made a bit of a train, with Prompto edged closer to Ardyn’s side and Ignis keep a subtle closeness to Noctis just in case something was to go wrong.

The walk wasn’t quiet, even if Ignis, Noctis, and Prompto didn’t want to converse with this man. He kept up a steady stream of conversation—probably liked to hear his own voice, Prompto thought—and while Ardyn kept his words polite and kind, there was a sharpness underlaid in them that raised the hairs of the back of Prompto’s neck.

Prompto also didn’t like the way those golden eyes pierced down at him as he moved on the man’s left, his hands itched to drag Quicksilver out of the armiger even if he had to play nice. The curl of Ardyn’s lips as he spoke in that ostentatious, verbose manner left Prompto—scared, for lack of a better term. He had this unerring feeling that they were walking right into whatever plans Ardyn had. This polite interruption and steady knowledge of their own actions and reasons to be here in the Vesperpool really made Prompto uncomfortable.

A nagging thought struck the blond; could Ardyn have Gladio?

There was power here and even Prompto could feel it. He wondered how Noctis felt in this place, where the lights were scarily still on for being something ancient and old. They’d already found themselves forced to cut through a large group of daemons that haunted the place, and the words of Aranea Highwind gave Prompto the chills.

He didn’t understand what the Empire wanted with this place—why were they hunting down the daemons? Aranea kept quiet for the reasons, refused to answer when questioned, but Prompto had a bad feeling about all of it. The small, strange circular indentations periodically placed in the floor gave off some sort of hum similar but completely not to the lights.

The ground felt like it vibrated with something being barely held back. Prompto toed himself around another one of the circular shapes and then sucked in a large breath when they stepped through the door. The sight in front of them was utterly breathtaking, the shimmer from the water’s surface and the way the light refracted down around them. It felt almost like looking into a pool in reverse.

Prompto jogged right up to the edge of the railing and pulled out his camera to grab a few snapshots with an almost awed sort of laugh.

“It’s breathtaking,” Noctis said as Prompto dismissed the camera back into the armiger.

“Yeah,” Prompto murmured.

“Is that the water’s surface, all the way up there?” Aranea questioned and it hit Prompto that they were under water.

How cool was that? Also, utterly terrifying and with a squeak Prompto scuttered backward because, hah, that shouldn’t have been possible, right? To be under the water looking up and yet not be in the water at all? What kind of madness did Solheim get up to? Maybe that was why it felt like magic. Prompto shivered and inched along the wall for a moment and then glanced to Noctis who started to move forward with purpose.

“Are you alright?” Ignis questioned from Prompto’s side, and Prompto nodded sharply.

“Y-Yeah, fine,” Prompto said and tightened his grip on Quicksilver. “Let’s go catch up.” He moved to jog back up to Noctis with a nod to Ignis who smiled back.

Prompto didn’t notice his foot press down upon one of the circles, but he did feel the flare underneath his boot and the surprised yelp as the world lit up red around him. He had a second to shout, “Uh, guys?!” before the world tilted sideways.

“Prompto!” Ignis shouted back, but then everything shattered not unlike the few times when Noctis decided to drag Prompto off in a warp in the past.

A second later Prompto stumbled forward with a weak laugh at the sight of the ruins still in front of him. He was fine, he was okay, right? Prompto patted down his shirt and let out a sigh of relief. Yeah, he was fine, still hot and sweaty and stinky from fighting daemons, but fine otherwise.

“I’m okay, guys! Nothing happened!” Prompto laughed giddily and stepped forward except—he frowned. He couldn’t see Ignis. Or Noctis. Or even Aranea. “Uh, guys?” Prompto glanced around, and then looked up—the water reflected light like prisms into the area but aside from it all around him was darkness. He could hear the sound of rocks being pushed about, the telltale groan of daemons as they worked to pull themselves out of the shadows.

Prompto was alone, in Steyliff, with daemons around every corner. His hand tightened on Quicksilver and he counted the magazine in it—fifteen bullets. He needed to reload if the sounds around him were any indication. Prompto grit his teeth and reached for the armiger—he’d have words with everyone about just leaving him behind. So not cool, guys, really—Prompto froze again when he realized the familiar, cold-warmth of Noctis’ magic at the center of his chest wasn’t there.

The armiger—Prompto didn’t have access to the armiger. Or his bullets. His clothes—food—and that shouldn’t be possible unless Noctis—unless Noct was—the first of the Goblins materialized and Prompto fired one bullet straight into its face before he took off running. He needed to find Noctis, to find Ignis—Prompto refused to believe that they were dead without proof. This was a cruel joke of some sort, it had to be.

With a yelp Prompto ducked under the swipe of a scythe, and with wide and terrified eyes he booked it back for the entrance. Either they were further in and left him—and not possible, Prompto grit his teeth and fought down tears, because that wasn’t possible. No, he’d meet them at the front and give them a few words of discontent because it wasn’t funny and Prompto refused to entertain the thought that Noct was dead.

[abadpoetwithdreams]

Omg but that is why I hesitate to write ANYTHING that's actual quotations because Mandarin is terrifying. Fan translators are actual gods. Also that sceeeeeene *cries forever*

So if I were hypothetically to buy a shirt solely for the hypothetical purpose of turning it into a Nirvana in Fire shirt what should I hypothetically write on it because I hypothetically have too many ideas