#they need to take some notes from Final Fantasy XV | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

itsgeecheebitch · 2 years ago

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TITLE: Until Darkness Descends

CHAPTER: 6

SERIES: The Fall Part 1 of 4

FANDOM: Final Fantasy XV

PAIRING: Ardyn Izunia x reader

RATING: Mature

AUTHOR'S NOTE: this chapter was originally almost 5,000 words, which is way longer than my usual chapters. So I'm just going to release this scene in bite sized chunks. It's much easier to edit and proofread 1,200-2,000 words versus 5,000. Hopefully me separating the scene this way wont cause any confusion. The scene starts in the present before going into the past. The next chapter will pick up in the past before returning to the present.

The world swished by him at a rapid speed, causing the naked arid landscape to careen past his car. The warm afternoon wind felt good as it combed through his auburn hair and kissed his cheeks. It was going to be a long drive to Insomnia but Ardyn didn’t mind. Usually his preferred mode of travel was teleportation, but there was a sort of mundane charm to driving. It gave Ardyn the time to think and he had much to think about.

Eight years have passed since your arrival to Insomnia and you are now 18 years old. He failed to visit you on birthday last week but it couldn’t be helped. There was only but so many times he could forsake his duties as chancellor before the bill came due. He had to spend the last six weeks catching up on paperwork, attending tedious court meetings, and voting on frivolous empire laws and legislation he had little care or interest in.

He hoped you didn’t miss him too much but Ardyn supposed you were used to his unannounced disappearances by now. Sometimes he would disappear for months before showing himself again. He still had plans to execute and events to set into motion after all. Whenever he would return he would always come bearing gifts.

At first, the gifts were a means to placate you, to keep you from asking too many questions or bemoan his long absence. After a while, Ardyn started to look forward to the way your face would light up whenever you were presented with a gift.

Ardyn looked over at the glossy pink box that was tied in a perfect bow in his passenger seat. This time he splurged a little and got you something better than a trinket. A necklace with a delicate silver chain and red ruby in its heart shaped center. The perimeter of the heart was bedazzled in tiny diamonds, as were the heart shaped earrings that came with it. A smile graced his face at the thought of seeing your eyes brighten in delight.

The moment the smile registered in his mind, he immediately pulled it down into a scowl. He was not enchanted by you by any means. Your smile did not cause his heart to stutter, or his cheeks to hum with a foreign warmth. It most certainly did not make his skin itch with the need to be near you.

The gifts, like everything else he did for you, was just another means to an end. Another method that would bear fruit in the end the moment it came time to usher in phase two of his plans for you. For some reason the reminder of his plans brought a foul taste to his mouth but he ignored it.

He continued to drive down the lonely meandering road with nothing but his thoughts to keep his boredom at bay. As fate would have it you remained in Insomnia and adjusted to your new life as the prince’s personal healer. Your shoulders seemed lighter every time he came to see you, and you smiled more freely.

You spent less and less time around your parents and more and more time at the citadel. But your busy schedule wasn’t enough to completely free you from their cruel clutches. Ardyn had to do that himself. It was four years ago. He came to see you a little after your 14th birthday and planned to take you to see the circus. It had been a few years since you last beseeched Ardyn to spirit you away, although your desire to see your circus family never wavered. In order to keep you happy, Ardyn started to take you to see them a couple of times a year.

At first, the idea went smoothly. Ardyn would take you to see them every couple of months and the same song and dance would commence at every visit. They would greet you, exchange heartfelt hugs, give Ardyn a questioning, wary look, and then ignore him for the rest of the night in favor of talking to you. For years nothing came of those visits, until it did.

He remembered teleporting into your bedroom. Being a member of the court had been kind to you, bestowing you with riches that washed away your old life. Your room was as pristine and luxurious as the last time he saw it.

A plush pink and white rug laid underneath his boot clad feet and was swallowed by the presence of an enormous queen sized bed. Translucent pink curtains tumbled around the bed from the canopy, giving the room a true princess feel. And no opulent bedroom is complete without a chandelier.

It dangled above the bed and shed soft white light upon the vanity table. Ardyn walked over to the table, his curiosity piqued at the array of makeup and perfume bottles that littered the table’s surface. That’s when he heard it, the sharp piercing sound of skin hitting skin, followed by a cry and the loud crash of someone hitting the ground.

Anticipation was hot on his heels as he stormed towards your bedroom door. He didn’t even need to press his ear against the wood in order to hear her venomous voice stab through the wood.

“How is it my fault?!” Came the shrill voice of your mother.

“How is it not your fault?!” What Ardyn assumed was your father, replied.

He heard your mother scoff. “You honestly think it's my fault that she’s out there chasing after older men? You’re more stupid than I already thought you were.” That made Ardyn pause. They weren’t talking about you, were they? You weren’t the type to entertain the lecherous whims of men. And besides, you were still just a child. What gave them the impression you were seducing older men?

Venom dripped from your father’s words when he replied, “you watch your fucking mouth.

“Please, just stop already-”. Came your mousey plea. Your voice sounded wobbly and stripped bare as though you were fighting a losing battle with your emotions.

“Did I tell you you could speak?”

“No, let her talk.” Your mother’s voice bled through the door. “Let her tell you all about why she has a taste for older men. Who knows? You just might learn a thing or two about yourself.”

There came another loud smack followed by your rushed desperate words. “Please just stop! I’m not doing any of those things, Ardyn is my friend”. Oh, so this was about him. Ardyn remembered feeling confused. How did your parents know about him? They never saw him. To his knowledge you never spoke a word about his existence to them so how?

Your father gave you a humorless chuckle, “I’m s’pposed to believe in that crap?”

“It's true!” You cried. “He is my friend and we never did any of those things. He’s not like that”.

“Why do you think a grown man would wanna hang around a little ass girl like you? So you could braid each other’s hair and go shopping? Is that what you believe? Huh? You’re as dimwitted as your mother.” Ardyn remembered hearing your father snarl. He learned a lot about your parentage over the years, some from your tales of woe, and others from his own research and observation. It turned out their marriage wasn’t one born out of romance and desire, but out of responsibility and duty.

Your mother was a prostitute whose services were highly favored by your father, a lonely circus performer. He used her services for a few months before she fell pregnant with his child, you. After that they eloped. The house of cards that was their situation collapsed the moment they said ‘I do’. Since then they were at constant war with each other, yelling, slapping, biting, and fighting one another. So much so that they relied upon their circus friends, your beloved ‘aunt’ and ‘uncle’ to raise you during the first few years of your childhood.

As repulsed as they were by one another, it didn’t stop them from constantly fucking like rabbits. Perhaps that was what kept them off the brink of divorce for all these years, that and the profit they leeched from your talents.

Your mother’s voice was the next one he heard. “I ain’t the one who gave her daddy issues, hun. This is all on you. As for you,” thwack! There was a familiar feminine cry, yours. She raised her hand at you. Blistering hot rage scorched the inside of his body. It snarled and seethed like a rabid beast out for blood. The grip he had on your doorknob was white knuckle tight. He remembered seeing black veins branch over the surface of his skin like webs, threatening to conquer his already fracturing mind.

Ardyn inhaled deeply and washed away the rage with his breath. The action only took some of the edge off but at least the black web was gone and he no longer felt the scourge wiggle and squirm inside of him. He didn't have time to question his reason for getting angry on your behalf since your mother began to speak again.

“Did you think we really wouldn’t find out?” Your mother continued.

“I wasn’t keeping him a secret!” You said, your voice heavy with tears.

“Oh so sneaking behind our backs to go visit the circus with him for all these years was just your way of introducing him to us? You’re fucking him?” So that’s how they found out about him. Your dear old auntie Maggie and uncle Renji spilled the beans. He had a feeling they would eventually notify your parents of his involvement in your life but he wasn’t sure. There had been radio silence between them and your parents for years, so Ardyn had no reason to suspect they would break the silence over this.

“For the last time, no!” You said.

“Honestly, I don’t really give a shit what you do but you better not fuck this up for us.” Your mother replied. Her apathetic words, coupled with the arctic chill in her voice, only excited Ardyn’s anger even more. “You really think King Regis would let you continue to play healer with his son while knowing you spread your legs for older men? Gods forbid you end up pregnant. So you’re going to stop seeing this man. You’re going to keep your legs close and not give king Regis any reason to toss you out of his court. Do you understand?”

“B-but I’m not-”

“Do you fucking understand?” Your mother shouted. Darkness branched across Ardyn’s vision. The acidic taste of anger soured his tongue and vibrated in his molars. The hand that wasn’t holding your doorknob twitched. It suddenly became harder to ignore that insufferable itch, the bloodlust that came with being a daemon. The urge existed just underneath his skin, kept under control by spreading the scourge. As he witnessed the healthy hue of his skin melt away from his limbs, he knew the itch would require way more than a simple spread of the disease to quench it. He needed blood and it was your parents' blood that filled his nostrils with the phantom scent of iron.

“Yes!” You cried.

That seemed to satisfy your mother, but your father’s disgruntled voice suggested otherwise for him. “That ain’t fucking good enough” He snarled.

An exhausted sigh seeped through the door and into Ardyn’s ears. “You brought this onto yourself.” Your mother said. Ardyn heard the soft jingle of metal, followed by the soft clap of leather.

“Come here.” Came your father’s voice.

“But daddy-”.

“Don’t make me repeat myself.”

Ardyn remembered hearing your broken sob. Your soft footsteps whispered across the floor before they stopped and were replaced by the thwack of leather hitting skin. Your cries were nearly drowned out by the thunderous strikes. They were hitting you, beating you. He balled his hand into a tight fist. He could kill them. That was all Ardyn could think about at that moment, how sweet their blood would taste on his tongue, how beautifully they would decorate his palms.

If you weren’t in the house, Ardyn would’ve thrown the door open by now and slaughtered them. But he didn’t want you to witness their demise. Seeing Ardyn hurt someone could ruin the relationship he carefully cultivated between you. He needed it to remain strong. That meant he had to wait a while. Fortunately for Ardyn, he was a master at waiting.

He remembered waiting for about a month before an opportunity presented itself.

#fanfiction #fanfic #a03 fanfic #ardyn lucis caelum #ffxv ardyn #ffxv fanfic #ffxv #ffxv fic #ardyn x reader #ardyn izunia x reader #ardyn izunia #ff15 ardyn

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smokeybrand · 2 years ago

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My Reunion

I shill hard for Final Fantasy. That series is riddled with masterpiece titles. Final Fantasy VI, IX, XII, XIV, XV, and XVI are some of my all-time favorite games, not to mention the pure quality of their spin-offs. Say what you will about Kingdom Hearts but those games revolutionized the entire JRPG industry, for better or worse, with their battle system and Final Fantasy Tactics is just pure brilliance. For me, however, Final Fantasy VII stands alone. This game is arguably my all-time favorite and I've been on that Compilation train since it set sail some two decades ago. I've been yearning for a remake since the original dropped so, when FFVIIR finally released, i was all over that thing. Imagine my surprise when it wasn't a remake but a reimagining. This wasn't the game i remember. This wasn't the title i wanted. I was glad to have it but all i actually wanted was the original game, with the original battle system, updated to modern specs. That's all. Then Square dropped news of Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis. That game was everything i wanted Remake to be and more. I needed it in my life immediately. Well, it finally released earlier this month and I've been neck deep into ever since. Let me say, this thing turned out to be much, much, better than i expected.

Mobile origins aside, Ever Crisis is a through-and-through Final Fantasy title. It plays like a proper RPG. It has that familiar turn based system that i missed so much but with a more kinetic, more fluid, presentation. It doesn't feel as stiff as the original title but, at the same time, plays almost exactly like it. The updated graphics and detail go a long way to feeding my excitement but why wouldn't it? Squenix has had almost thirty years to figure out how to improve this specific title since it's initial release, and they've been taking notes. Models, lighting, camera work, sound; They all pop on my phone. No exaggeration, Ever Crisis is the most gorgeous thing I've ever played on my mobile device and that's saying a lot because, i mean, this thing is a goddamn phone! For these cats to produce something so polished for my goddamn telephone is a borderline miracle. More than that, this sh*t is fun to play. If you're an RPG guy like me, the grind to max out everything is definitely there. I've been on this thing for for weeks and my three primary characters, my Wrecking Crew, have all leveled to forty-five of a fifty cap. Tifa, Cloud, and Zack are monstrously overpowered but that doesn't mean i left the rest of my squad in the dust. Every character on your roster gets a percentage of your experience. Obviously, the ones who do the fighting directly get the most but those in reserve also benefit. I think the lowest level characters i have at the moment are Barrett and Aerith, both of whom are sitting at a comfortable forty. That's enough to beat most of the initial story missions with ease but you know me; I'm about domination. I want all the power. I want all the strength. So i grind like a madman, doing everything in my power, to increase my power, and that's where the uniqueness of the mobile nature pops in.

Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis is, for sure, a mobile title. You have a daily stamina count which restricts you from doing anything in excess outside of first run Story missions, but that's okay because the drops are both plentiful and generous. I have so many stamina boosts, it's absurd. When i run out, i just re-up to some absurd number and keep grinding out. You have designated Enhancement options ranging from pure experience, Weapon material, Synthesis material, and apparently Premium Quests which, when unlocked, go a LONG way to maxing out your characters through the Growth Trees. As long as you have Stamina, you can run at this stuff all day. Obviously, that's what the f*ck I've been doing. A lot of your more powerful Limit Breaks are located on this tree but it also boosts your stats. I cannot stress enough how much i enjoy the option of just being able to GO to a place and get what i need to power up my character. More games not bound to my phone or some ridiculous monetary system, should implement this sh*t. And that brings me to the borderline frustrating aspect of Ever Crisis; It's a goddamn mobile game.

I'm a vet of the Gacha game system. Been playing Fate/Brand Order and Azur Lane for years. I've dabbled in other titles and realize that some gachas are fair while others are horrifying. FGO is definitely the latter but EC is, for sure, the former. I don't know if it's because we're still within the launch window but i find the Banners in this game to be relatively reasonable. They don't cost an exorbitant amount of in-game currency (you actually get a ton of it as you make your way through the title) and i was able to cash out some strong, six star, weaponry early on. Like, i naturally rolled Cloud's strongest weapon three days in and have already leveled that bad boy up to fifty. The flip side is that it took forever to pop a five star anything for Lucia or Barrett. I'm talking this week, forever. Fortunately, it was Barrett's ultimate weapon, twice, and Luchia's penultimate so i'm good. Kind of. It sucks because there is a noticeable difference in the absence of that one star. Seriously, i do work with these gold weapons but the purple ones? It's rough, I'll just say that. Don't even bother with the blue stuff. It's all joke. All in all, the gacha, itself, is fair. I've never felt like i "needed" to pay for crystals but the option is there if you choose to do so. I have no idea how this is going to go after the game has been out for a while and the luster dims a bit but, as of right now, I'm good with the drop rate.

Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis is the remake of FFVII i wanted in the first place. It plays like a proper RPG and is easily my favorite mobile game to date. The gacha isn't an asshole and progress is plentiful as long as you actually play the game. I don't see myself getting frustrated by all the mobile game-isms like battle power caps and the incessant grind because, so far, it's all relatively pleasurable. Progress hasn't fallen off a cliff like it does in Genshin Impact and it's not taxing my pockets like FGO. Before anything, this is a game you actually play and it is more than enjoyable, especially if you're an older fan like myself. I never feel like it's a situation where i just set it and forget it, though, that's kind of the goal. I want to max out my guys so the grind can just be automatic in preparation for the later levels. I've always been hesitant when it comes to mobile titles because most of them feel like cash grabs or shovelware. Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis does not. This feels like a worthy entry into the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII and i cannot wait to see where Square Enix takes us next.

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empress-hancock · 2 years ago

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Capcom is… not great at aging up their characters…

#jill and claire don’t look that much older than the younger versions of them #despite them being around 40 in the new movie #leon is a totally different dude #he’s got an entirely different face shape (longer chin. thinner jaw. thicker nose) and like. no lines or wrinkles or anything #despite being almost 40 #it’s like they thought making his hair a bit longer. giving him facial hair. and making his face shaped completely differently would pass #as making him look older #he’s older sure but not as old as she should look and not an older version of the correct guy #he’s like 30 and an entirely different man #chris is okay but that’s probably just b/c they got so much shit for RE7 Chris #idk why no one is as mad abt Leon tho! RE7 chris got shit for looking like a different dude #movie leon looks like a different dude but no one cares #that is not the same man #re6 leon is better than the movie ones #they could have kept his design mostly the same but just… made his jaw thicker and his chin shorter #like that’s it. that would fix it #the lower half of his face is just a different guy #they need to take some notes from Final Fantasy XV

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radiowrites · 2 years ago

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I posted 2,064 times in 2022

14 posts created (1%)

2,050 posts reblogged (99%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@goneahead

@talesofsorrowandofruin

@distance-does-not-matter

@smittenbypoetry

@writerscreed

I tagged 2,057 of my posts in 2022

#writing - 1,290 posts

#lmao - 473 posts

#art - 211 posts

#fanfiction - 206 posts

#ghost hunt - 122 posts

#eye candy - 104 posts

#kpop - 85 posts

#fanart - 83 posts

#fma - 40 posts

#music - 35 posts

Longest Tag: 114 characters

#yeah i’ve learned if i want english language fanfic for a korean drama i’m probably going to have to write it haha

My Top Posts in 2022:

Ten Random Lines

Rules: Pick any ten of your fics, scroll to the midpoint, pick a line (or three) and share it. Then tag ten people.

I was tagged by @radio-chatter! Thanks so much. This one looks fun!

Tagging: @writercorianarose @thedemoninthecorner @dreams-of-kalopsia @shesailsships @eyeliner-vampire @alonelyturtle @goneahead @csakuras and anyone else with fanfics they want to play this game with!

Ah, nothing like finding an error in a years old fic when doing a tag game...

Anyway, on to the lines. I jumped all around with the ages of the fics, and tried to do so with the fandoms, but if you are familiar with my works, you know that Ghost Hunt will dominate the list.

House of Memories / Fandom: Memorist (k-drama)

We’re not that close, she had told him, even if it had been slightly in jest. She had no right to watch over his restless slumber.

2. Day One / Fandom: Ghost Hunt (manga)

Only Mai could recognize the slight hitch of emotion in his voice.

3. Fix Me / Fandom: Ghost Hunt (manga)

“What do I need to do? Give over some blood, recite some spells?”

4. Unchained Melody / Fandom: Tale of the Nine Tailed (k-drama)

The moment broke when the music on her phone changed to something harsh and jarring.

5. The Last of the Real Ones / Fandom: Ghost Hunt (manga)

Luella told Eugene she believed him, of course. Mainly because she knew Oliver wouldn’t mess up his room for a prank. But no, she had not felt it.

6. Rebel Just For Kicks / Fandom: Final Fantasy XV (game)

Noctis pulled the truck to the side and went around the car. Ignis could see the fear-stricken faces of the passengers within.

7. A Noble Vow / Fandom: Pandora Hearts (manga)

She didn’t want to fall into another stupor and risk saying something stupid again.

8. Lost in the Echo / Fandom: Ghost Hunt (manga)

He dropped her off about a block from her home, and they never saw each other again.

See the full post

8 notes - Posted December 11, 2022

2021 Fic in Review

Tagged by @radio-chatter! Thank you! ^^

Hi, I’m RaisedonRadio & FortressofmyPast on AO3 and FF.net. This is a tradition going on for years! Check out my prior year end posts: 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015.

Total Number Of Completed Works: 2

Total Word Count: 4729

Fandoms I’ve Written In: Ghost Hunt (Japanese anime/manga), Memorist (Korean drama).

Looking Back, Did You Write More Fic Than You Thought You Would This Year, Less, Or About What You’d Expected?

Less. This past week I had hoped to finish another WIP, but instead I took the time to digitize a bunch of writing that had been trapped in notebooks. It was actually a lot of fun, there were so many stories I had forgotten about. But, do you know what this means? I ADDED SO MANY WIPs. -_-;; XD

What’s Your Own Favorite Story Of The Year?

I like them both for vastly different reasons.

Did You Take Any Writing Risks This Year?

I wrote for a fandom that only had two other fics in it - one in a language I don’t speak and one a crossover. It was fun because I had to know I was going into it with no anticipation of reader interaction. Truly had to write it because I wanted to.

Do You Have Any Fanfic Or Profic Goals For The New Year?

I’d definitely like to write more. Finish a few of these WIPs hanging around.

Most Popular Story Of The Year?

It’s not right to pit these two fics against each other, they are for very different fandoms, and I literally published the one on December 27th, so…

But I do like to compare the stats for AO3 and FF.net: Call You Mine had 6 reviews/29 favs on FF.net, and 6 comments/34 kudos/9 bookmarks on AO3. That’s a big deal, in the past years Ghost Hunt fics would get much more interaction on FF.net, now AO3 is breaking even.

Story Of Mine Most Under-Appreciated By The Universe, In My Opinion:

I appreciate every comment, kudo, and fav. I know I say this every year, but it’s true. I write for relatively small fandoms and whenever a reader takes the time to say hi, my heart glows.

Most Fun Story To Write:

Call You Mine. I went into it with the desire to make something incredibly fluffy as a birthday gift and I think I succeeded.

See the full post

10 notes - Posted December 31, 2021

First Lines Tag

Thanks for the tag, @talesofsorrowandofruin!

Rules: List the first lines of your last 20 stories (if you have less than 20, just list them all). See if there are any patterns. Choose your favorite opening line, then tag some of your fellow authors!

I did a similar game to this a long time ago! It’ll be interesting to see if my opening style has changed any.

These are all fanfictions that can be found on my AO3. They were written from 2021 to 2017 are listed starting with the newest.

Some observations I found:

16 of the 20 are under 15 words long.

1 out of the 20 is in first person (but 3 of them could be, if just from the opening line.)

17 of the 20 introduce a character by name.

3 of the 20 open with dialogue.

My favorite? Probably from Rebel Just for Kicks.

Tagging!

@writercorianarose @thedemoninthecorner @dreams-of-kalopsia @radio-chatter @csakuras @scribblesandsorcery and anyone else that has first lines they want to share! Tag me!

At first, Seon Mi didn’t give the last words of Jin Jae Gyu any weight.

- House of Memories, Memorist

It was the weekend.

- Call You Mine, Ghost Hunt

Masako Hara paused at the street corner.

- Waste It On Me, Ghost Hunt

See the full post

12 notes - Posted January 21, 2022

I think I made like one post about Nanowrimo this month, but just wanted to say whoa! I hit 50k words! I had no idea what to expect going in when I had decided to start barely two weeks before November.

I definitely challenged my perfectionism when it comes to writing first drafts and just getting the words down, and that was my goal.

I’m ready to leave these characters alone for a bit and go dust off a few fanfictions starting in December, ha!

13 notes - Posted November 28, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love 💖

Oh interesting, I've never done this before!

Since 31 of my 45 fics are from the manga/anime Ghost Hunt, that's going to dominate the list, but I'll stick in one different fandom just to prove I do write occasionally for others!

Hello everyone, I am RaisedonRadio & FortressofmyPast on AO3 and FF.net. Here is five of my favorite works by yours truly.

Lin's List

A list of 25 things for Lin to refrain from - and keep Oliver from doing - during their stay in Japan. As suggested by Madoka Mori.

A humorous little oneshot under 1000 words. An oldie that has aged well.

The Last of the Real Ones

Being determined to expose them all as frauds might mean losing a piece of himself along the way.

I will admit, I am a oneshot writer. So here is one of like, two chaptered works in my portfolio (not including oneshot collections).

A piece that focuses on a young Oliver when his paranormal skills start to take over his life.

Same Old Lang Syne

Should old acquaintances be forgotten, and never brought to mind?

A post-series look at if the gang drifted apart. Yes, it's based after the Dan Fogelberg song.

Lost in the Echo

Can you call it a reunion if you’ve never met before?

A look into one of Ghost Hunt's biggest mysteries - the death of Eugene Davis.

And the honorary mention fandom, for a kdrama titled Tale of the Nine Tailed:

Unchained Melody

He’s teaching her to drive, why can’t he teach her to dance, too?

I don't normally fall for non canon couples, but I fell hard for Rang and Yu Ri.

Thanks for reading!

14 notes - Posted May 22, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review #radiowrites #raisedonradio

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thegreatklaid · 1 year ago

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Fourteen hours and like 3 days of playing later I am done. I'm not all that sure why I rushed it in all honesty. Was it because I was enjoying myself? Maybe. Was I ready to be done with it? Certainly.

So for being the only one I've only beaten once, I really didn't remember much of this game. I was even kind of surprised how many bits and parts I had to do that I had no memory of being in the game. Mostly the middle. There was a bit in the game where I just had zero clue what to do, which was weird as I played a lot of this and the first game almost on muscle memory.

Well most of the two games were on muscle memory...

So, on that note, I really liked the Keyword system this game adds. In that earlier screenshot, you see a word highlighted from the rest. And some conversations you need to present these words to proceed, or even to learn what to do. In practice it was kind of superficial, but I think it did avoid a lot of the game feeling super flaggy. Even if admittedly, the game was still pretty flaggy. Keywords that characters gave you, just prompt blank looks when you ask them later.

I don't know if I actually really hated anything. Although this game does have some real balls encounter designs. Way, way too many enemies just take no damage except from a certain magic spell. And without a scan spell, that's just mean.

Also, the remaster did make trap rooms far less bullshit, they still put you in the middle of the room. But they didn't crank up the encounter rate to 100%. However as you can see in this screenshot. It gave you four doors. Guess which door goes through to that little indent on the other side, because if you think it's the one directly across, congrats, you're wrong. The other three doors just lead to nothing. Besides random encounters and wasting your time.

Ultimately, that's the problem with the game. It feels like it's just wasting your time. Somehow even more than a video game really does. While the levelling system is slightly more fun than I remembered it being, it also didn't really add much. You're doing the same stuff at the start you are at the end. It's not like III or V where you get to add more fun stuff to your toolbox. Or hell even the whole series really. Even IV rotating its characters means you see new abilities every so often. And all II does is just make the numbers bigger. And it can't even give you cool new enemies. This game feels like its somehow heavier on palette swaps than even it's big brother.

So in the end II isn't the worst JRPG I've ever played. Not by a mile. It might still be the worst Final Fantasy, but I'm actually keeping myself optimistic that XIII or XV wind up being worse.

So, as some of you may be aware, I am on @hardcore-gaming-101's podcast. And so I've gotten used to very pointless rankings. So for funsies, we are gonna rank these as I go. XIV is already on the list, and it will move eventually, when we beat XIII I'll talk about it but as of right now, it's my middle game.

And it probably comes as no surprise that II is my bottom of the list. But what I'm curious about it, is where III will wind up. So I think it's time we start the journey of some orphans falling down a hole. And what the hell *is* an Onion Knight?

Shadows of Provoking My Ire

If you get that reference hoooo boy, that's a doozy lemme tell you.

Well so now we begin with my biggest obstacle whether I wanted to commit to this stupid idea in the first place. Good ol' Final Fantasy II.

If you know, you know. If you don't, good news I'm gonna tell you. FFII adds a ton to what made the series. Chocobos and Cid finally appear here. Yeah, there isn't actually a Cid in I. That's revisionist bullshit in later versions. This is the first game with Cid. I forget if this one has rows. I don't think that's until III though.

No, what this game does is it gets rid of XP in favor of, well people now know it as the SaGa system. The more you attack you get more strength. Get hit more, you get more HP. That kinda thing. This game is the infamous Kawazu's debut. This is where that system comes from, albeit taken from TTRPGs, sooooort of.

So, as it might seem, my memories of this game is pretty poor. I don't like this game. And it's not solely on the levelling system. This game has some brutal bosses and dungeons. Especially the trap rooms. Which, the first two games only ever had treasures in sectioned off rooms. FFI had plenty of empty rooms that you had to walk a few steps in to see if they had treasure on the back walls. FFII has those except the door warps you to the back of the room and you have to walk out and every step is an encounter. Because I just kind of hate Kawazu. As you'll learn in 10 more games.

So that's what I remember. What do I hope to accomplish this run? Nothing. I'm gonna beat this stupid game. Get it out of the way. In fact I'm excited that I get to play this game knowing how to use the Blood Sword. Because the first time I played this I kept the stupid thing in my off hand, because it said it had a really low attack stat. So I just kept it for the drain. Turns out, it uses a whole different formula and it just gibs bosses. However, I promise a lot of my runs from here on are going to be way less cheese than I normally play these with. But this game we are cranking up the cheese. No apologies.

As it is now very obvious, I don't expect to really like this game anymore than the others in the series, but I am curious if I'll like it more in the grand scheme of things. Almost 20 years later, I have played way more games than I did when I was 12. ugh. So maybe FFII will become a blemish on the series instead of that weird time Square almost pissed away the best thing they ever had.

See you guys in a few days when I get through this thing! Or maybe I'll come by every now and then to give you guys some updates. We'll see. It took me about 5 days of playing FFI to beat that one. I might rush this one...

#final fantasy 2 #final fantasy #rpgs #jrpgs #roleplaying games

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guerilla935 · 5 years ago

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My Favorite Fishing in Video Games Where Fishing is Not Core Game Play

A really awesome surprise for me is always to boot up a game that is full of action and suspense to be introduced to a fishing side activity. I have toiled away at fishing in games for hundreds of hours at least. It has gotten so bad in some instances that my friends have asked me why I haven’t just taken the plunge into real fishing. It’s definitely because that is a lot of work and in real life I don’t catch a fish every 30 seconds. They have also wondered why I don’t just play a fishing simulator like Planet Fishing (Shout out to Planet Fishing that’s a great game). And that’s where I have to think for a while. Fishing while you have better things to do like save the world is very special. You aren’t fishing because it’s the objective of the game or because that’s why you are there, you are fishing because it’s fun and maybe you need a break to swing a fishing rod instead of a sword. And then you can stop, and get back to fighting or whatever the rest of the game entails. Below are games that have fishing in them for mostly no reason at all. I have shamelessly spent way to long with my bait in these waters and absolutely loved every second of it and I hope that you (the reader) can find a lot of relaxation in these waters as well.

Pokemon Series

Since the very first Pokemon game there has been fishing. You get the old rod from some guy and then you are free to fish up as many goldfishes that you want hoping that one of them will grow up to be a 21 foot tall dragon. Pokemon has combined their fishing with their main game play and makes you at least start a battle with the fish you drag onto shore. Now fishing in Pokemon is pretty subpar mainly because a single Pokemon game hasn’t really been known to have more than a handful of Pokemon that you can fish for. Also if you are looking for a strong water type Pokemon you could do a lot better than fishing for it. Typically a Pokemon player will fish about 5-10 times total. And although fishing for Pokemon isn’t all that great it has been in every game for over 20 years and that is pretty impressive. It’s a small detail that makes the world of Pokemon feel like a real world of wild creatures.

Sonic Adventure DX

In Sonic Adventure DX you are given the choice to play as a lot of different characters, one of which is named Big the Cat. Most of the characters are combat characters that rely on speed and attacks to get through levels, some even wielding rocket launchers and extremely oversized hammers. However when you start the story of Big the Cat you are thrown in a completely opposite direction. Big the Cat is a giant purple cat who lives in the jungle with his best friend Froggy. Froggy accidentally swallows one of the most powerful objects in the Sonic universe and Big the Cat must chase him all over the world trying to fish him out of where he is hiding so that he can eject the Chaos Emerald out of him and they can return to their life in the jungle. The fishing mechanics in this game actually are really good and this is probably because Sega had just put out a series of mildly successful Bass fishing games before releasing this game. Either way its absolutely hilarious that Big the Cat gets to defeat Chaos 6 right before Super Sonic has his showdown with Chaos Perfect.

Final Fantasy XV

In Final Fantasy XV you play as Noctis and his favorite hobby is fishing. When I first played this game I sped through it and never fished once and reached the end of the game never indulging Noctis in his hobby. When I replayed Final Fantasy XV I fished for 50 hours and then ejected the disc from my console. The fishing in Final Fantasy XV is surprisingly deep with a lot of the vendors supporting what you could call a fishing road trip. In the game it is extremely dangerous to be out at night so I would plan day trips to lakes to maximize the amount of fishing I would get to do. I would prepare days in advance to make sure I could afford the trip and that I had enough supplies to both protect myself at the lake and have enough supplies to last the whole day. Final Fantasy XV really is a game about getting really distracted and fishing is probably its best distraction. My days on the lake were the perfect balance of peaceful and rewarding, this game offers an awesome reward of well planned trips and a good haul of fish.

Final Fantasy XIV Online

Final Fantasy XIV is the only game I have ever played where the fishing played exactly like its combat. When you are fighting enemies in a dungeon in FFXIV you are constantly adding buffs, landing hits, using consumables, and managing resource bars. When you are fishing in FFXIV you are constantly adding buffs, landing hits, using consumables, and managing resource bars. Note you are doing so at a much more leisurely and less life threatening pace but you are still doing it. I never maxed out the fisher class but I got it into the expansion content which was a really long and relaxing experience. Yet another Final Fantasy title where the real meat of the game is in getting distracted. When you fish you also sell on a player market that fluctuates based on market price just like real fish. You get the relaxing fishing side of the game and also an aggressive economic number crunching side as well. I spent way too long with a real pen and paper deciding how much I should sell for on any particular day and bossing around my two cat girl employees.The MMO aspect of the game adds so much to what you would expect to be a very solitary experience.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

Have you ever gone fishing for hours to receive an empty bottle? That is exactly what kick started my addiction to fishing in Twilight Princess. An empty bottle in Twilight Princess means another way to heal yourself, another way to add oil to a lantern, another way to carry useless water around. The only way to get the 4th bottle in the game is to go to a dedicated fishing spot and fish until you pulled it out of the pond. The actual fishing is pretty weird, it involves motion controls which I still am not entirely sure what they do or how to properly use them but it is really fun to hold the pole in gyroscope and set the lure in the water waiting for fish to come get a nibble. Although the physics with the water make it difficult to see if you have actually gotten a bite or not it still is enjoyable the other 85% of the time it works.

Stardew Valley

So this one is at the top of every other “fishing in games” list and there is a big reason for that. It’s really good. I think in my first Stardew Valley farm I gave up farming entirely and fished all day every day and stopped to buy food to replenish my energy and go back at it. I really didn’t care about getting rich or making enough money to expand the farm or get to know everyone I actually spent about 50 hours just fishing. The fishing takes some skill and a pretty keen eye but the random jerks of the fish and the rhythm of the game play are so fun to try to master. It’s a part of Stardew Valley that I felt like I was continuously improving on as time went on and it was really fun. I mean I don’t recommend it because you’ll end up moderately poor but it was really fun.

Fantasy Life

Fantasy Life offers you 12 potential jobs, you could be a brilliant blacksmith or a devious potions maker, a lumberjack or a knight, a hunter or a seamstress. However your inner dad is calling and you decide you want to play through a fantasy RPG as a fisherman, hell yeah. the story is relatively short so you can quickly unlock a lot of locales to fish at and there is a manageable economy system that lets you deal in fish in advantageous ways. You can even pick up cooking on the side and make fancy dinners and sell the fish for higher you can do that as well. Fantasy Life is like a clever mix between Animal Crossing and Final Fantasy XIV and it kind of succeeds and falls short of it. The fishing also takes a good amount of skill and rhythmic approach to master so it doesn’t get boring almost at all until you have cleared the game.

Maple Story 2

Maple Story 2 is one of the most expressive and cutest games that I have ever played. And the fishing is no different, its all about style. The fishing in Maple Story 2 is monotonous and can get old but you do it for the chibi clout. Because much like the rest of the game you can look however you want and do whatever you want and sometimes you just feel like kicking back and throwing lure in the water at the beach. I never got super into the fishing in this game but it won me over with its adorable design and stylish atmosphere.

Animal Crossing Series

Of course I had to include the most popular game right now. Animal Crossing has become something of a connection between people when we can’t leave the house. A thing we all have in common on social media and with our friends. My first experience with Animal Crossing really starts with New Horizons and I was completely blown away. The fishing isn’t super complex or difficult but the range of what you can pull out of the water and what you can do with it is absolutely breathtaking. For a game about cartoon people living with humanoid cartoon animals the fish looking photo realistic. And the museum where they can be kept is stunning. The museum looks like it was designed to capture the feel of being in a museum and matches the design of all the great real life aquariums and observatories. Although it is a bit frustrating when your rod breaks it is easy enough to make one (or worst case buy one) to get your bait back in the water.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

Tell me I’m wrong, you can’t. Isabelle getting added to Smash brought a very powerful fishing move that isn’t practical all the time but is really funny. Wouldn’t recommend this game if you are looking to relax and fish but I do recommend hooking your friend with a fish hook and send them flying off screen if you had to.

Minecraft

I have a very special role in Minecraft when I join a friends server. A role that I assign to myself. While everyone is off getting awesome swords, spelunking for diamonds, and exploring the infinite landscape, I build a small wooden shack and I set up a farm with an irrigation canal and start fishing. A steady supply of food is necessary and while I’m hanging out with my friends in a server I’m happy to be the one to provide it. The fishing in this game is probably the slowest of all the ones on this list but is the most useful. just throwing the fish in the oven creates food that can help keep you and your companions alive for a long time. I think I definitely have my limits with Minecraft fishing and I couldn’t do it for hours on end it is rewarding to set up shop and find a nice place to settle down for a few hours to fish.

Fire Emblem: Three Houses

This is the only Tactical RPG in this post. Fire Emblem: Three Houses has sections between combat where you can go and talk to your students and do other activities. We aren’t here to discuss other activities though we are here for the fishing. The fishing allows you to catch fish for some reason that I’m sure is good but never intrigued me enough to learn. All I know about the fishing in Fire Emblem: Three Houses is that it’s fun. I started to bust through combat just so that I could get back to fishing. The funniest part about this one is that the fish has a health bar. Pressing the A button at the exact moment finds a way to become easier and still find ways to mess you up. Either way, I’m not that interested in tactical RPGs but I heard there was fishing in this game so I had to play it and it was worth it.

Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy

In Jak & Daxter, Daxter gets turned into a small animal by dark eco while exploring a dangerous island off the shore of his home with his best friend Jak. To get back to the island to investigate, the pair have to borrow a boat owned by a fisherman who is troubled by an invasive species of poisonous eel that is ruining his haul. He asks Jak to catch fish for him without catching any eels. This fishing mini game can only be done once but it is going to either be something you think is very unique or a huge waste of time. All I’ll say is that the sound that the fish makes when it goes into the net is absolutely a reward in itself it is so satisfying. But anyways, more intense than some other options here but get it done so you can get back to absorbing eco powers and jumping on stuff.

Shovel Knight

Shovel Knight is a 2D action platformer but you can also fish. And you fish for the best kind of fish, money. You can get some other stuff too like health pickups and magic replenishers but we know what you want. You see that little glint and you pop out the fishing rod and pull out those money bags. If you are devoted enough you can even get a surprise from the Troupple King (long live his highness) if you fish out the right stuff. I don’t even know if I fished all that much when I played Shovel Knight but it’s hilarious that you can.

NieR: Automata

I did not play a lot of NieR and that’s because I was fishing. I don’t know why all I did was fish but you throw your little robot in the pond and you lean on a magical stool so honestly it was good enough for me.

Club Penguin

If you know then you know. In hind sight there really wasn’t a whole lot to do in Club Penguin but this mini game really messed me up. You basically get to move up and down, catching fish and avoiding trash and other hazards. Basically trying to do this and catch as much fish as possible to avoid having to ask your parents for real money to pay for snacks to feed a virtual ball of fluff with eyeballs. I don’t really remember how challenging it really was but I remember getting decently high scores to about like 100 fish per round so I guess it was pretty easy if I could do that at age 10.

Rune Factory 4

I’m gonna be very honest about this one and say that the fishing in Rune Factory 4 is basically just Animal Crossing fishing but more anime. The fish react to the pole the same, the fish almost look the same, and the buttons to respond are the same. What makes this one special is where you can take it. You can fish in the little moat in town, in the lake, in a dungeon full of monsters, in a lake that is eternally the season fall, anywhere. You are constricted by the boundaries of Stardew Valley and that is how much energy you have and how much time you have in the day. It’s still fun to fish but I wish that they had used their fun fantasy setting to give the ability to fish up some cool made up fish instead of strictly things that exist in real life.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2

Ok, diving, fishing, same thing. Diving in Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is just fishing with your whole body. It works a lot in the same way as Pokemon where you fish up monsters to fight and get the rewards from them. It is a completely optional activity however if you decide to undertake the grind of scavenging in Xenoblade Chronicles 2 then you will never hurt for money ever again. It makes my wonder why Rex stopped being a salvager to do odd jobs because this was PROFITABLE. The main incentive is that there are spots that spawn a certain enemy that drop cores. Cores are like gacha or loot boxes that contain new anime girl partners that deal huge damage in fights. They even have their own side quests and story lines. I spent maybe 30 hours grinding before giving up on this game and while it does become tiresome I really enjoyed the random rewards of possibly getting a new companion or a really cool weapon.

It’s been tossed around that every great RPG has fishing in it. I won’t argue that point but a lot of great RPGs certainly do have fishing in them. Everyone needs a break sometimes and fishing is the perfect activity to remind us to stop and take that break. Even games can get long and without these distractions it might be so much harder to complete these harrowing tasks. Don’t forget to take breaks and just enjoy the sound of the water every once in a while because there’s no rush playing video games.

Honorable Mentions:

Kingdom Hearts: Sora fishing with his bare hands on Destiny Island

Persona 4: Weird aqueduct fishing

Persona 5: Marina fishing life

Sea of Thieves: A pirates life for me

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a-blue-secret · 4 years ago

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CHAPTER XIV

BACK TO MASTERLIST

Chapter XIII | Chapter XIV | Chapter XV

GENRES: royal au; fantasy au; magic au; friends-to-enemies-to-lovers; king!beomgyu, vizier!taehyun

PAIRING: taegyu

WARNINGS: swearing

WORD COUNT: 4.7k+

AN: So CoL has a taglist now! There's an 'Interact to be Added' post going around somewhere, so interact there if you'd like to be added :)

SUMMARY: Best friends turned enemies, Kang Taehyun has managed to trick Choi Beomgyu into his service, and to rule for a year and a day, until his youngest brother would be old enough to take the throne. Choi Beomgyu has no intention of being obedient however, and tries to thwart Taehyun’s orders at every turn. With a growing amount of distrust and lies within the court, will Taehyun manage to keep the kingdom of Gojongja from falling apart?

Throughout that whole time, Taehyun didn’t say a word once. Beomgyu, confused by the vizier’s silence, looked up, and all the colour drained out of his face. “Oh my god, Taehyun!”

.・゜-: ✧ :-　　

In the mere minutes Beomgyu had been talking, Taehyun’s face had become a pale, sickly colour. There was a hint of blue around his lips and around his eyes, and said eyes had a distinct glassiness to them. All of this shocked and scared Beomgyu, but what terrified him the most was when Taehyun swayed suddenly, and keeled over. He would have fallen onto the floor if it weren’t for Beomgyu suddenly leaping out of his chair to catch him.

“Taehyun? Oh my god, wake up!” Beomgyu shook Taehyun frantically, but the vizier’s eyes closed and his head fell limply against Beomgyu’s shoulder. Beomgyu cursed. “What am I supposed to do?” He lifted Taehyun up and carried him out of the room, where he met Chan.

“What do I do? He fainted! Do I take him to the nurse? The doctor? Back to his room? Chan help me!”

The guard looked a little lost as to what to do himself. This sort of thing rarely ever happened. “Uh, give him to me, we’ll take him to the physician.”

Beomgyu anxiously followed behind as Chan carried Taehyun down the corridors. Taehyun’s skin was distinctly sickly pale, and his fingertips had even begun to turn blue. “What the fuck…” Beomgyu whispered to himself.

While on their way, they ran into Yeonjun. The Aruyeonan’s eyes widened as he saw Taehyun unconscious. “Is– is Taehyun okay?”

“Can’t talk, Yeonjun!” Beomgyu said hurriedly. “Taehyun fainted. I don’t know what happened.”

“Wait, stop! Can I see him?” Yeonjun asked. Chan stopped and brought Taehyun back. Yeonjun quickly scanned the vizier’s limp frame, and let out a small gasp. “Give him to me. Now.”

“Sir, it would be best to take him to the Royal Physician-” Chan started.

“No. Give me Taehyun. They can’t help him.”

Beomgyu frowned. “Come on, Yeonjun, how can they not help him? They’re literally professional exp-”

“Listen, I know they can’t help him! Just, give! I need to take him to my room!” Yeonjun said, frustrated. “He’s getting worse by the second.” He held out his arms towards Chan. “Please believe me.”

Chan looked to Beomgyu helplessly. Beomgyu didn’t say anything, conflicted. “Fine,” he conceded. “Chan.”

The unconscious Taehyun was transferred into Yeonjun’s arms. Staggering at the sudden weight, Yeonjun adjusted Taehyun and began to hurry down the hall. Beomgyu attempted to follow after, but Yeonjun stopped him. “No, don’t come. It… it won’t be a pretty sight.”

Beomgyu hesitated. “I’m trusting you with a life, Yeonjun,” he said finally. “Don’t do anything… wrong to Taehyun.”

“I won’t,” Yeonjun promised, and practically sprinted back to his room. He received many scandalised and suspicious glances from the people he passed, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was getting Taehyun into his room… to Hueningkai.

.・゜-: ✧ :-　　

“Hueningkai, help me!” was the first thing Yeonjun said when he burst into his chambers. Hueningkai stood up in alarm, and gasped when he saw Taehyun lying limp in Yeonjun’s arms.

“Yeonjun! Did you kill him?”

“What? No! Look at his fingers! This is a type of poisoning, right?” Yeonjun lifted Taehyun’s fingers to show Hueningkai the purple-blue stains around his fingertips. Hueningkai paled.

“Get him to the bed, quick. We’ve caught him in time. His fingers haven’t turned black yet, which is good.” Hueningkai immediately rushed to his giant marble ball, pulling out a mortar and pestle, a vial and a vial stand, and a bottle full of clear liquid. “I’m so glad there are so many minerals within this castle.”

“Huh?” Yeonjun looked at Hueningkai, confused, as the younger began to retreat into the hole behind the tapestry. “What?”

“The minerals, in the walls. I can extract them to help make the healing ailment. I’ll be right back!” With those words, Hueningkai disappeared, leaving Yeonjun with Taehyun. Yeonjun looked down at the pale vizier.

“Wait, where are you going? Don’t leave me here alone! I don’t know what I’m doing!”

Hueningkai popped his head up again. “I need to extract the minerals from inside the alcove I made in the palace. I’ll be back in a bit!” Then, Hueningkai disappeared again, leaving Yeonjun stuttering helplessly. The elder sighed, looking down at the unconscious vizier. Reaching for his hand, he hissed when he felt how cold Taehyun’s hands were.

“What…?” he whispered to himself. “Why is he freezing?”

“I’m back, I’m back!” Hueningkai announced. “How is he?”

“I- I don’t know. He’s really cold.”

Hueningkai walked over. “What do you mean?” He placed a hand over Taehyun’s forehead before retracting it quickly, hissing. “What the hell?”

“I don’t know. Suddenly, he started becoming really cold.”

“This is not normal…” Hueningkai whispered. “What is this?” He strode over to the desk beside the bed and began taking out more things from his glass ball. “Okay, change of plans. I thought this was a poison, but it looks like it’s something else.”

“What is it?” Yeonjun asked worriedly.

Hueningkai looked at him with panicked eyes. “I have no idea. Which is the most terrifying part.”

Yeonjun cursed.

“I’m going to have to improvise,” Hueningkai said, spreading his things out on the table. “Just keep Taehyun as warm as possible while I work.”

While Yeonjun busied himself piling blanket upon blanket over Taehyun, Hueningkai worked quickly, extracting oils from herbs and grinding and melting different minerals. Occasionally, he would walk over to Taehyun to look at his fingers or feel his temperature and once, even extract some of his blood.

“Is everything okay?” Yeonjun asked, rubbing Taehyun’s hand between his own.

Hueningkai only hummed in response, quickly mixing two liquids together. “Please, until I say, don’t utter a word. Since this is something I’ve never seen before, I’m improvising an ailment. If even the slightest thing goes wrong, I can potentially end up poisoning him further.” Hueningkai looked up, staring Yeonjun in the eye. “So please, no talking.”

Yeonjun noted the complete seriousness in Hueningkai’s tone, and nodded mutely. Hueningkai gave a nod in acknowledgement, and turned back to his work. The minutes ticked by, and Yeonjun held Taehyun’s freezing hand in his own, not uttering a single word.

.・゜-: ✧ :-　　

“Okay, I think- I think this should work.”

After a tense half an hour, Hueningkai finally spoke, holding up a steaming vial of clear liquid. “It’s a rejuvenator. That’s all I could think of right now.” He stirred it with a glass rod, watching it carefully. “I put in more herbs than normal, so it’s like a super strong rejuvenator. With any luck, if this works, he’ll heal to be even stronger than he was before.”

Hueningkai came and sat down carefully on the bed beside Taehyun’s head. But just as he was going to give it to Taehyun, he hesitated, looking up at Yeonjun. The elder smiled encouragingly.

“Trust in yourself, Kai. I’m sure it works."

Hueningkai smiled back, taking a deep breath. “Yeonjun, lift his head up. Make sure he swallows.” Carefully, Hueningkai poured the potion down Taehyun’s throat, making sure he drank all of the liquid. Setting the empty vial onto the drawers next to the bed, Hueningkai gnawed at his fingernails worriedly. The change was almost instant. The yellowness faded from Taehyun’s complexion, quickly being replaced with a healthy rosy colour. Hueningkai gave a sigh of relief. “Oh good, the colour’s returning to his face.” He lifted his fingers. “Hm… the blue might take a while to fade, but it probably will with time.”

Yeonjun felt Taehyun’s forehead. “He’s no longer freezing, either.” He smiled at the younger. “Good job, Hueningkai.”

Hueningkai gave a small smile. He placed a hand over his heart. “You have no idea how hard my heart was racing. I was so terrified that I’d accidentally made it worse.”

Yeonjun patted Hueningkai’s shoulder. “But you didn’t, which is all that matters. That was really quick thinking.”

“Thanks,” Hueningkai said. He felt Taehyun’s wrist for his pulse, watching with a relieved face as the colour steadily came back to the vizier’s cheeks. “But what could that have been? I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“What was the poison you mistook it for?”

“Aconitum,” Hueningkai responded. “But Aconitum makes your temperature go up, not down. No poison makes your temperature go down.”

Yeonjun rubbed his chin worriedly. “But at least we’ve found something that cures it, right? As long as we have a cure, it doesn’t matter.”

“I suppose…”

“How long will it take him to recover?”

“Hm, maybe about four or five days. A week, tops.”

Yeonjun nodded. “Okay. I’ll go tell Beomgyu that.”

“Beomgyu?”

“He’s the one who witnessed Taehyun fainting. He’s really worried about Taehyun’s condition.”

“Ah, right. Okay, you go do that. I’ll take care of Taehyun.”

With a nod of his head, Yeonjun opened the door, and slipped down the hallway.

.・゜-: ✧ :-　　

“A few days?!” Beomgyu repeated. “What??”

“It’s lucky we– I mean, it’s lucky he was able to heal at all,” Yeonjun replied. “If I’d seen him just a few minutes later, he might have died.”

Beomgyu ran a hand through his hair. “What- what was it? Do you know?”

Yeonjun hesitated. “I’ve… I’ve seen something similar to it before,” he said slowly. “He’s definitely healing. But it’ll take a while for him to be able to move properly again.”

“Alright. Is… is there any chance that I can see him?”

“No,” Yeonjun said hurriedly. “I mean, he’s sleeping right now, but I’ll let you know when he’s awake.”

Beomgyu nodded. “Okay, thank you. I better get going and do some… Kingly stuff.” Beomgyu began to walk away, muttering to himself. “What the hell do I do? I don’t know how to run a Kingdom. Fuck, Taehyun please get better quick; I don’t want Gojongja to die in my hands.”

.・゜-: ✧ :-　　

Pain. An all-body, mind-numbing pain. That was all Taehyun could feel in that moment. But then, as his consciousness slowly returned to him, he forced open his heavy eyes, trying to take in his surroundings.

“Oh, you’re awake,” a voice said. “You certainly woke fast.”

At the unfamiliar voice, Taehyun suddenly shot upright, causing his head to spin.

“No no, lie down, lie down,” the voice said hurriedly, gently pushing Taehyun back down. Taehyun registered the softness of the surface he was lying on, and determined that he was in a bed. As his vision cleared, he blinked blearily up at the face that he saw.

“Who- who are you?”

“It’s me, Hueningkai,” the person explained patiently. “I am Yeonjun’s adoptive brother.”

Taehyun widened his eyes. “You- you’re the spies!” He tried to get up again, but was firmly held down by Hueningkai. He squirmed under the Aruyeonan’s grip. “Hey! Get off me!”

“Taehyun, please stay still. Lie down. Your body is still recovering from the massive shock it has received. You need to rest.”

“What shock?” Taehyun demanded. “What did you do to me?”

“I healed you.”

Taehyun was about to say that he was completely fine and didn’t need healing, when he registered the ache that was still settled within his bones, and the unexplainable tiredness he felt throughout his body. At that moment, he remembered what happened, and his eyes widened. “You… One minute I was with Beomgyu, the next I was knocked unconscious and woke here. You said– you said you healed me?”

“You missed out quite a few details, but yeah. That’s basically it.” Hueningkai leaned forward, feeling Taehyun’s forehead. He frowned. “You’re not cold anymore, but your temperature is now rising. Don’t go anywhere, wait here.” As Hueningkai rushed away from the bed to retrieve something, Taehyun couldn’t refrain from rolling his eyes. He wouldn’t be able to go anywhere, considering the vast amount of blankets cocooning him. The young Aruyeonan came back with a damp cloth, and placed it on Taehyun’s forehead.

“What’s your ability again?” he asked Hueningkai.

“I… my true one is alchemy. I healed you with a potion drink thing.”

Taehyun nodded. “Ah, that’s right. You’re a Westerner, right?”

Hueningkai flinched slightly, but nodded his head. Taehyun picked up on the tiny action, and mentally scolded himself. He’d forgotten that Yeonjun had said Hueningkai had been picked on for being Western.

“I– I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to be rude.”

“It’s fine,” Hueningkai assured him, giving a small smile. “Really. Ever since we became spies, I haven’t had any nasty encounters. I don’t know why I still flinch. But I’m okay now, truly.”

Taehyun looked up at him, and noticed how youthful Hueningkai was. Really noticed. He was still young- maybe Taehyun’s age, maybe even younger. And yet, while his face was youthful, his eyes told a different story. His eyes told tales on how he’d had to grow up so fast, to be able to survive in a court where there were few people to look out for him. His eyes spoke volumes about how he’d had to do things that were scary, and unheard of for someone his age. His eyes painted pictures of the innocent, naive boy who had morphed into the mature adult in front of him. But with a single blink, the stories had gone, and instead were replaced with a sparkling brightness which rivalled even that of Beomgyu’s.

“If you don’t mind me asking, how old are you?”

“Twenty four, just like you,” Hueningkai said with smiling eyes.

“Wow. You look… so much younger.”

Hueningkai smiled. “That’s what Yeonjun always says. He says I still look like a baby.” He tilted his head in a child-like way. “I don’t know if it’s a compliment or an insult…”

Taehyun laughed, but a sharpness pierced his head and he had to stop. Hueningkai looked down at him worriedly.

“You seem to have suffered a lot. Tell me, is there any unusual pain? Are you suffering from memory loss? Any blank spots in your memory?”

Taehyun furrowed his brows. “Uh… My whole body hurts, if that counts? And… I don’t think I’m suffering from memory loss?”

“What happened just before you fainted?”

“I was talking with Beomgyu. Well, he was talking. He was talking, but then suddenly everything just faded away.”

Hueningkai frowned. “Hm… that’s odd. Beomgyu is a wind manipulator, isn’t he? He has no connections to potions…?”

“No, he doesn’t,” Taehyun replied, watching Hueningkai. “Why?”

“It’s just… even though I managed to heal you, I have no idea what it was.”

“What what was?”

“What was the thing that made you into this state.”

“Oh.”

Hueningkai suddenly widened his eyes, and got up to bow on the floor. Taehyun, startled by the sudden action, leaned over to see what the Aruyeonan was doing, almost falling out of the bed.

“Wh– what are you doing?”

“Please forgive us for initially being spies against you,” Hueningkai said, still on the floor. “We don’t want to oppose you anymore. We just want to be on the same side as you. Will you believe in us, and trust us enough to do that?”

Taehyun blinked. He’d completely forgotten about that. Truth be told, he wasn’t sure. At first, he’d been shocked. And betrayed. His first instinct had been to imprison them. But now… Hueningkai had just saved his life. And before that, by accompanying him in the gymnasium late at night, Yeonjun had also saved his sanity.

Now he thought about it, he had a lot to thank the Aruyeonans for. They may be spies, but they were good-hearted. He knew that now. He could trust them, just like how they had trusted him.

Plus, both Yeonjun and Hueningkai had such clear, pure eyes. Who could have such sparkling eyes and be a murderous backstabber at the same time, anyway? It just wasn’t possible.

Taehyun took a deep breath. “I– yeah, I guess. Yeah, I trust you.”

He ruffled Hueningkai’s hair, and lifted the Aruyeonan’s head to look at him in the eyes, giving the younger a smile. “I trust you.”

The uncertainty on Hueningkai’s face was replaced with a large grin as he processed Taehyun’s words. “Wow. That’s really great. Um… wow. If you weren’t in such a weak state, I’d totally hug you right now. I mean– that’s really…” Hueningkai stopped his rambling, grinning widely. “Thank you for trusting us.”

Taehyun smiled, and held his arms up. “Come on, I may be bedridden right now but I still want that hug.” The vizier let out a small ‘oof’ at the weight of the twenty four year old who, in his eagerness, had just thrown himself onto Taehyun. He chuckled, patting the Aruyeonan’s back.

“I’m so glad! I really want to be friends with you–”

The door was thrown open, and Hueningkai suddenly ducked under the bed.

“I talked to Beomgyu. He’ll want to see Taehyun at some point, so you’ll probably have to disappear for a few hours at some point, Hueningkai. Wait– Hueningkai? Where are you?”

Hueningkai popped his head up from under the bed, glaring at Yeonjun. “Seriously? You had to go slamming open the door?”

“Ah, whoops,” Yeonjun said sheepishly, closing the door with his foot. “Anyway Taehyun! How are you doing?”

“Not very well. My head hurts.”

“Hueningkai! Have you been rambling to him?” Yeonjun tsked disapprovingly. “Talking his ear off won’t help him recover, you know.”

Hueningkai rolled his eyes. “I only ramble when I’m alone. It gets lonely being the behind-the-scenes spy.”

At the mention of the word ‘spy’, Yeonjun jumped, and looked cautiously over at Taehyun. “Speaking of spies… are you– are you okay with us being, you know… spies?”

“He said he is!” Hueningkai beamed. “He said he trusts us!”

Yeonjun’s eyes widened, and he looked at Taehyun. “Really?”

Taehyun gave a small smile. “Yeah.”

Yeonjun stood there for a moment, when an overjoyed grin lit up his face. He bounded across the room, and bent down to give Taehyun a tight hug. “Thank you for believing in us.”

“Thank you for waiting for me to believe you,” Taehyun said. He spotted Hueningkai standing to the side, and beckoned for the younger Aruyeonan to come over. Hueningkai’s face lit up and he immediately joined the hug.

“Let’s all be friends, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Taehyun said, smiling. “Friends.”

.・゜-: ✧ :-　　

And so, Taehyun became friends with two spies. Sure, it was a little weird to say aloud, but their friendship was anything but awkward.

“Stop, Yeonjun,” Taehyun huffed. “I feel fine. No– no more! I’m not a sick child!”

“You still need to regain your strength,” Yeonjun berated. He held up a spoon. “Come on. Open up.”

“I can feed myself! I’m a grown– mmmffph!” Taehyun glared at Yeonjun, cheeks full of rice. Yeonjun laughed, picking some rice grains off the corners of the vizier’s mouth. Taehyun slapped his hand away, swiping away the rice himself. “You didn’t have to shove the whole thing in my mouth,” he said through a mouthful of rice. He held up his hands in a strangling motion. “I’m gonna kill you!”

“Try,” Yeonjun said, putting down the empty bowl. “You can’t even get out of bed. I’d like to see you try.”

Taehyun grumbled, sinking back into the cushions. He knew Yeonjun was right.

It had been two days since the whole incident. Taehyun’s strength was returning, little by little.

“When you get fully better, you’ll be even healthier than what you were before!” Hueningkai had chirped. “The ailment I gave you is like a super duper strong rejuvenator!”

What bothered Taehyun, though, was that it would apparently take a while for him to recover. And he didn’t have a lot of time. Who knows what had happened to Gojongja while he’d been ill? For all he knew, the people could be running rampant and the Lords could have already taken over. He needed to get back to his work as soon as possible.

.・゜-: ✧ :-　　

“Don’t you even try,” Yeonjun said. “If you fall to the floor like you did last time, I’m not gonna pick you up. You’re going to be left there.”

Taehyun gaped. He thought Yeonjun was sleeping! Yeonjun removed the cowboy hat from his face, looking at Taehyun.

“I’m a spy, Taehyun. Do you really think I’d fall asleep while I’m meant to be chaperoning you?”

“I don’t need chaperoning,” Taehyun huffed, blankets half-removed.

“In that state, you do,” Yeonjun responded. He rose from the chair he’d been sitting in, and crossed the room to tuck Taehyun more firmly into the bed. “Stay.”

Taehyun scowled in annoyance, but stayed where he was.

“Good afternoon Taehyun, Yeonjun,” a voice said brightly, and Hueningkai emerged from behind the tapestry.

“Afternoon, Hueningkai. Everything going okay?” Yeonjun asked.

“Yup! I was running out of glass marbles, but I’ve restocked them all now!”

“That’s good. What are you gonna put in them?”

“Hm, I don’t know yet.” Hueningkai walked over to the desk in the corner of the room, which was full of vials of liquid and little dishes of chemicals. “Maybe more of the flash grenades, I don’t have a lot of them.”

“M’kay.” Yeonjun sat back down in the armchair, putting the hat over his face again. Hueningkai sat down at the desk and began to quietly make the explosives.

Taehyun stared at the ceiling, bored. He had an annoying itch on the sole of his foot, but unfortunately, since he was swathed in blankets, he wasn’t able to reach it. He turned his head and watched as Hueningkai went about his work while Yeonjun napped rested. It was almost… peaceful. Calm. The two spies were so familiar with each other, so used to their routine, that they almost unconsciously settled into this tranquil atmosphere. It was rather soothing to watch. Eventually, feeling the itch go away, Taehyun settled more comfortably into the bed, for now content with watching the peaceful scene before him.

.・゜-: ✧ :-　　

“Yeonjun? Hueningkai?”

Yeonjun raised his head, and Hueningkai turned around from the desk.

“You okay, Taehyun?” Hueningkai asked.

“The two of you have been really honest with me, by telling me you’re spies, so I thought I’d be honest with you.”

Hueningkai tilted his head. “You don’t have to, if you don’t want to. It’s fine.”

Taehyun shook his head. “No, no. I want to. To tell the truth, I’m still a bit reluctant about saying this, but… you’ve done so much to prove I can trust you, so there’s really no excuse for me to hide these sorts of things.” Taehyun took a deep breath, and looked at Yeonjun. “Yeonjun… ages ago, the first time you had dinner with me and Beomgyu – well, just me since Beomgyu wasn’t there – the thing you said about the Crown Handing? About it looking planned? The reason it looked like that was because… it was. It was all planned.”

Hueningkai set the wooden spoon down on the table, turning in his chair to look at Taehyun fully. Yeonjun pushed his hat further up from his face to see Taehyun better.

“The truth is, I knew Father would give the crown to Junghoon. Jiwon was too reckless, my sisters too ‘weak’... there’s no way he’d choose them. Junghoon would be too young, too naive to rule, but he'd be the only one he could choose. I knew that. The downside of this decision was that Lords and generals would immediately scheme to become his regent, and rule in his place. I couldn’t let that happen. And so, I turned to Beomgyu.”

“Woah woah woah, hold up,” Yeonjun interrupted. “Why not you?”

Taehyun bit his lip. “I’m not a Kang. I was adopted from the Jeo clan. I can’t rule.”

Hueningkai and Yeonjun exchanged sympathetic glances, and looked at Taehyun consolingly. “Oh, that must suck for you,” Hueningkai said.

“No, no. I’m actually pretty cool about it,” Taehyun said. He shrugged casually. “These past few months, I’ve seen what ruling is like, and I’m not sure I would have wanted to do it alone. If I’d been a Kang, I’m pretty sure I would have been the next King, and that would have been too stressful. Kang or not, it doesn’t really matter to me anymore.”

Yeonjun tapped his chin thoughtfully. “Wow. I’d have never guessed that. You behave like a true Jinju Kang. What’s your true ability then?”

“Foreign exchange,” Taehyun said. “I have no idea what the hell it means, but yeah.”

“Have you figured out how to use it yet?”

“I have no idea what it means, let alone how to use it,” Taehyun pointed out.

Yeonjun nodded. “Touché. Kinda sucks that it means you can’t rule, though.”

Hueningkai scoffed, crossing his arms. “The one good thing about Aruyeo is we don’t have a crown determining whose blood is ‘royal’ enough to rule. If the previous monarch deems them fit, then the predecessor can rule, regardless of status or royal blood.”

Taehyun gave a small smile. “I suppose…”

“But anyway, on with your story.”

“Right. So, Beomgyu. I decided he’d be my best bet if I wanted to protect the throne for Junghoon. He has faintly royal blood; he’d be able to handle the crown. The only thing is, he didn’t know he was becoming King. I… I tricked him. Because he hated me, and hated the court, there was no way he’d do it willingly, so I tricked him.”

“He hates you?” Yeonjun repeated.

Taehyun nodded miserably. “Yeah, he does. It’s understandable, too. I’ve hurt him a lot…” He lifted his head. “But anyway... I guess that’s it. He thought all he had to do was crown Junghoon. If he crowned Junghoon, then no Lord or general could technically become his regent, since with Junghoon officially crowned they couldn’t become King in his place. Though, they could become regent by force, but yeah. He thought that was what he’d do, and even signed a magical contract which bound him to me for a year and a day. Only, he became King instead.”

Taehyun cringed as he remembered Beomgyu’s furious eyes. “He was so mad. So, so mad. And so, in retaliation, he made me his vizier. The short and long of it was that I’d actually be the one to rule and take care of the goings-on while he acted as the image of a King. It was kind of his revenge. Though, I understand that too. I broke his trust in me.”

Yeonjun stared at him, open mouthed. “I… wow. I never would have guessed that. I assumed there was a little tension between you two, but never hate. When he talks about you… sure, he’s a little closed off about it, but he always starts with a bright smile on his face.”

Taehyun winced, filled with guilt. “He and I used to be best friends. Until something happened and… and we became enemies.”

Yeonjun didn’t say anything, too shocked by the sudden revealing from Taehyun. Hueningkai smiled at the vizier. “Thank you for telling us, Taehyun,” he said. “It means a lot to know you trust us enough to say this. Thank you.” He walked over, and patted Taehyun’s hand. “You know? I could help you figure out how to tap into your true ability, if you’d like?”

“I would. Thank you, Hueningkai.”

“Of course.”

.・゜-: ✧ :-　　

A knock came on the door, and the three of them all looked at each other, confused. Suddenly, Yeonjun jumped out of his seat.

“Shit! Beomgyu said he was coming today to see Taehyun! Come on, Hueningkai, we need to go!”

Hueningkai stared at Yeonjun with wide eyes, then with a sudden sweep of his arms he swept everything off the desk into his big marble ball. Taehyun winced, expecting the big shattering of glass, but none sounded.

“Stay there!” Hueningkai said to Taehyun. “If Beomgyu asks, we’re not here. We’ll be going into my room for a few hours. Knock on the wall three times and we’ll come back, okay?”

With a confused nod of his head, Taehyun watched Hueningkai hustle Yeonjun through a hole in the wall.

“Bye!” Yeonjun’s head disappeared, leaving the tapestry to flutter down and cover the wall.

The knock came again.

“Come in!” Taehyun called.

#court of lies #taegyu #txt taegyu #txt #txt beomgyu #beomgyu #txt taehyun #taehyun #txt fanfic #txt fluff #txt angst #txt imagine #txt imagines #tomorrow by together #tomorrow x together

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countingpaperstars · 5 years ago

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Chapter: 26/38? Rating: Mature Fandom: Final Fantasy XV Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Gladiolus Amicitia/Prompto Argentum/Noctis Lucis Caelum/Ignis Scientia, One-Sided Prompto Argentum/Ardyn Izunia, Past Prompto Argentum/Original Character Additional Tags: Fix-It, I literally rewrote the entire fucking game everyone, Prince!Prompto, MT!Prompto, based on pigeon princess’ au!, Arranged Marriage, Eventual Smut, Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Eventual Happy Ending, Slow Burn, like really fucking slow burn, Guaranteed happy ending, OT4, Established OT3, Polyamory, polyship roadtrip, Canon-Typical Violence, so some blood and injuries but nothing graphic, Spoilers, Minor Character Death, Alternate Canon, in this house we love and appreciate strong and capable prompto, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Near Death Experiences, Anxiety, Self Confidence Issues, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, lore and worldbuilding are tweaked, everyone’s 2/3 years older than canon, prom’s a damsel-he’s in distress-he can handle it

Chapter Summary:

It’s strange being back here; acknowledging all the time that’s passed, all the years and events. He’s not the same person he was, young and injured and in need of tender care. Now, he stands tall in the mirror and faces his reflection head on.

They arrive in Tenebrae, reconnect with old friends, and take space to rest.

Notes:

Heyo, long time no see! Happy belated Halloween! I hope you all have been doing well. In exciting news, Divenire turned three this past July! I can't believe how long it's been :') This story has grown so much and we're scooting right along! Can't wait to show y'all what's in store. Thank you, as always, to @pigeon-princess, Tera, and Juli for everything. Literally everything.

Chapter's title comes from Dandelions by Ruth B. which you can check out on the playlist.

Enjoy~

(Please support by reblogging <3)

#prince prompto #final fantasy xv #polyship roadtrip #promptis #promnis #promptio #ignoct #gladnoct #gladnis #ffxv #divenire #my writing

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averyscarlet-blog · 4 years ago

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Project Clypse

Hello there stranger! If you don’t know who I am, or you’re too lazy to read my name, I’m AveryScarlet! You can simply call me Avery or Av. And if you know me on fanfiction.net, mostly through my works Mercury Alchemist or Final Fantasy Versus XV, welcome! Now, for a while now, I’ve been wanting to write up my own original story. Issue with me, thanks to college in the past, I haven’t properly developed the mindset to write a full-blown novel. I’ve gotten so used to typing up a chapter or two in a month before publishing them that I can’t properly focus as an actual writer should.

As much as I want to focus on writing some of my fanfiction, I can’t because I’m focusing on studying for NCLEX. So if you’re waiting for the next chapter for FF Versus XV... It’s almost done! It’s just gonna take a while. But as you can see below, I’ve been working on something else. I’m sure you’re confused as to who these characters are in the chat and why I’m pushing so many out. Well. I’ll tell you. This is my way of practicing for a story I’ve been... REALLY wanting to write for a long time. It doesn’t have a definite name, so I’m calling it Project Clypse. Which partially comes from the group my main characters are in.

Now, I thought of writing up their character bio’s but..... I’m not really that good at it as I used to be. I used to for when I was active in RP’s but I’m so rusty that I doubt I can keep up with whomever I’m chatting with. So, I’m just summarizing certain details you need to know about them! Not all of it because that'd be spoiling the story of every character. Now, with all that’s said and done, let me start explaining key points of Project Clypse.

Premise/Background

The story is centered on a world called Avarus, which you can say is sort of like Earth, except it was made with someone else's version of life. Or, it used to be. Avarus is one of the few remaining worlds that has an active patron God, who has chosen to go under the alias Belial. The world was originally created and governed by another, Belial’s younger sister, Soleil. After Avarus’ creation, and the birth of man, she was killed by an unknown assailant. But before she died, she was cursed to experience an endless cycle of death and rebirth into various random worlds. She will live a short mortal life, then die from either natural or unnatural causes.

According to Belial, this curse is bestowed only to Celetials who have performed a dire sin. While there is no definite way to lift the curse, Belial hopes that by locating and retrieving her while she's still alive, or at the very least obtain her soul, then he could find the proper means to spare his sister of her cursed fate and return Avarus's true patron Goddess. Because of her demise, life on the planet started to decay. To prevent its destruction, Belial forced the planet to stop rotating, hoping to delay it long enough for him to find Soleil.

However, there were dire consequences to this act. His actions indirectly causing the world to cease rotating; time became non-existent as a result. This, inevitably, killed off most of the remaining life in the world due to the imbalance of the ecosystem as one half of the planet became stuck in perpetual darkness, and the other being dried up caused prolonged exposure to the sun's light.

The only life that Belial was able to salvage was her sisters creation; humanity. Those that survived after the planet ceased its rotation found themselves unable to age. They can still die, but their bodies will no longer decay. During the first Century since Soleil’s death, the God went through various countermeasures to keep the world and the life still inhabits it safe until he can find his sister.

However, a strange plague began to manifest. Soon, it began to devour most of the remaining populace, creating a dark entity in the process; the Astrals (will explain in a different section).

While Belial was successful in wiping out the infected, the God realized that he cannot keep the last remnants of humanity safe. Not while there are still Astrals lurking about. So he put them to sleep, sealed them in a place that only he knows. However, because of the sudden absence of time and life, the world began to deconstruct itself each time he departed in search for her in other worlds. Realizing he cannot manage Avarus and search for his sister at the same time, he found an alternative. Since his conception, he had noticed a peculiar type of living being popping up now and then in a variety of sentient species. So he sought them out.

Eventually, gathered enough to temporarily replace humanity and trick the world itself into thinking life still exists. At first, he gathered adults since he knew nothing can grow in Avarus once they’ve lived in the world for a certain period of time, but because of their attachments to the worlds they originated from, it was difficult to convince them to remain. Then he thought up of another solution, one which he knew his sister would frown upon. Children. With their young minds, they’ll easily forget their place of origin and can be easily trained in the necessary skill in traversing through different worlds. And, after learning that the Astrals have branched out to those said worlds, learn how to handle their sudden enemy.

Their goal is simple; to locate and, if possible, retrieve Soleil and eradicate the Astrals.

Main Characters

Note: Just in case you did not know... I. Cannot. Draw. As much as it pains me to do this, but I need you guys to have some sort of idea on how they look like. I cannot find the original artists of the artworks; mostly because google imaging is shit and Pinterest tends to... Send you elsewhere. So of you know the artist, please PM me so I can give them credit. If you know they don't want their works republished, I'll remove it and try to figure something out. I take no credit whatsoever on the art! I merely scoured the internet for any references I could use. If you're wondering why I'm not.using actual people... You know how awkward that is?

Anyway, much of these are concepts so expect changes in the future. I tried to discuss as little as possible about each character. And let me tell ya.... That was a lot I had to cut off, so if the explanation is a bit messy, that was from me trying to select what to remove to avoid revealing too much.

. . .

Sound

‘I have to be better. I have to be a better leader. I have to be a better lover. I have to be a better sibling. If I don’t... then I’ll lose everything again. If I must, I’ll sacrifice my identity for a third time if it means protecting them.’

Credits to: T0Q00(?) - Okay, on Pinterest it has the person’s name AND link to their twitter account. The thing is... it’s empty. Their entire page is empty. At least I found the artist’s name?

Also known as the Glutton King, Sound is one of the leaders of his faction, Tunera Clypse and a member of Mythral. He is a first generation Nors. While not as lazy as Noise, he’s not really a fan of getting involved in fights with people. When it comes to killing Astrals; that’s an entirely different story.

Outwardly, he displays laid back, playful, and very concerning outlandish behavior. And by outlandish, I mean his... eating habits. Sound likes to experiment with his stomach. He’ll do absolutely ANYTHING to eat whatever he deems as edible. He also - absolutely - lacks any sense of shame (ex. walking out of the shower and to his room without a towel, slapping Noise’s butt). Although limited to communicate via writing, he makes sure that every single thing he writes is worth reading. Many are even surprised at just how fast he writes his messages. Then again, after years of practice, it’s expected he’d adapt.

Sound is self-aware of the fact that he’s a fictional character and will randomly break the fourth wall, causing much confusion to his friends several times. While not as dark as his previous self, Fell, he maintains some of his views towards life and tends to be as vocal - via writing - of his previous self's beliefs.

As a Cursed Blood, his curse forces him to conceal his face behind a customized Fox Mask. Depending on the amount of facial skin that was exposed, a person can live up to several minutes to several hours before inflicted with sudden death. If a person were to see the entirety of his face, they will die on the spot from unknown causes. He has a Physical Curse as well, which causes him to inflict a certain degree bad-luck to whoever hears his voice. While it’s rarely anything life-threatening, Sound is forced to become selectively mute. Although he tries his best to remain silent, he tends to accidentally let it a few words or sounds slip. Which usually occurs when he sneezes, and when he does, it is immediately advised by his friends to duck and cover.

After undergoing the Ascension Ceremony, he joined the faction Tunera Clypse and then gave up his original name, becoming the next Sound. Unbeknownst to him, his actions later in life has caused him to unknowingly become the Vessel of Gluttony. It is unknown if his eating habits is the reason he became the vessel or it’s the other way around. Either way, he has shown to be fully capable of controlling the abilities that comes with being a Vessel. Sound merely chooses not to use them.

. . .

Ayane Koronashi

“If my brother had left the orphanage that day without me, I would simply smile. If Ulric presented me his latest girlfriend, I’d smile. Smiling is all I can ever do without being a nuisance. I could never show them my pain. I want to cry but my curse renders me incapable of doing so. But now it’s better. I’m better.”

Also known as the Black Fox. Ayane is the younger twin sister of Sound. Like her twin, she is also a member of Tunera Clypse and Mythral; as well as a first generation Nors. Despite being an active member, unless accompanied by her brother, Ayane is rarely allowed to participate in any scouting or combat-related missions. The main reason for this is her curse. While also a Cursed Blood like her brother and some of their friends, the unnatural causes that led to sudden conversion to a cursed blood caused her condition to be unstable. At the beginning, she was unable to retain her original form and would take the shape of a fox.

After some time and practice, she has learned to maintain most of her former human appearance, leaving only a pair of fox ears to replace her human ears and a tail (not by choice) as an extra ligament. Not only that, some of her internal organs remain similar to that of a fox. Because of this, she is unable to eat certain foods that are potentially poisonous to her (or generally unhealthy). She was told that eventually, if nothing is done, she will permanently take the complete form of a fox. She cannot surgically remove the fox parts as they will simply grow back.

Side-note: No, they did not try or plan to remove her fox ears. The curse replaced her human ears so they cannot remove them without indirectly making her deaf.

Her personality is the somewhat similar to Sound’s, but is far more excitable and outgoing than her brother. Just like a fox, she is clever and witty, which she demonstrates many times during combat. She has a tendencyto steal things without her knowledge. While this isn’t necessarily kleptomania, as objects appear in her hands at random, she still tries get over her childhood habit. She does have a tendency to be reckless, though this is stems from her need to be useful as her curse leaves her unable to perform all of the necessary abilities that is required of a Nors.

Another thing to know is her intense hatred towards cats. Which will be explored at a later time.

As a Cursed Blood, she can take the form of a fox. While the size varies, depending on her emotional state, she is commonly seen to change into the size similar to an elephant. If she performs multiple transformations, she will regress to a regular sized fox and sleep for an extensive period of time. She has been recommended to avoid constantly rely on her full fox form as it will hasten the progression of her curse.

After undergoing the Ascension Ceremony, she followed her brother and joined the same faction as him, but unlike him, did not join as a core member so she did not have to give up her original name. Because of the current state of her body caused by her Cursed Blood, her emotions has unknowingly lead her to become thenext Vessel of Envy.

. . .

Reihana Toelle Ur Kamaria

“Why was I born like this... what did I deserve to be cursed like this!? All I want is to hold someone without fearing I’ll crush them. I can’t be the receiver forever!”

Or Rei for short. Is a member of Mythral and is a second generation Nors. As a floater, Rei rotates between the three factions, but she usually works with Tunera Clypse. Known for her terrifying brute strength, Rei is feared by many and is challenged on a near daily basis. Because of her strength and seemingly indestructible nature, she is (much to her annoyance) sometimes used as a human shield. While she is able to take on an army by herself, Rei tries not to go all out in fear of accidentally killing her allies in the crossfire. In terms of mental maturity, aside from Xavier, she is slightly more competent and is level-headed enough to not participate in childish activities. Most of the time.

Rei prefers to ‘punch first, talk later’ when confronted, though the talking never happens as her opponents is either obliterated or immediately knocked out after one hit. While she can be aggressive at times, she merely acts out on this person's due to the rumors that were spread when word of her curse began to circulate. Those closest to her have witnessed her carefree and adventurous nature. She is also cautious and careful of her surroundings, becoming more thoughtful in the usage of her strength as a result.

As much as she loves the thrill and adrenaline that comes from combat, she prefers not to fight too often. Mostly because it usually leads to unnecessary mass destruction. She craves for proper physical contact, but due to her curse, she forces herself to avoid it as much as possible.

Being the physically oldest, next to Percy, she tends to act like the big sister of the group, which Rei has admitted she finds embarrassing. Still, she works hard in trying to act as moral support for her friends. That doesn’t stop her from losing her temper when a certain line is crossed.

As a Cursed Blood, she is cursed with immeasurable strength. Her strength doubles based on who or whatever is the strongest in a world that she sets foot in. That, of course, excludes Celestial’s as the strength of the divinity is almost non-existent. By default, back in Avarus, her usual strength is enough to crumble an entire building. In other worlds, it depends. To help control and regulate her strength during combat, she uses a large amount of Astral Dust to create form-fitting gauntlets around her lower arm. She was meant to become the Vessel of Wrath but was instead changed to be the candidate for the Vessel of Pride.

. . .

Perseus Vlahos

"I used to believe that being a hero will allow you to cement your place in history. But over time, I learned that the farther in time your name is shared in time, you become nothing more than a mere legend. Or worse, a myth. Stories can be altered, changed. If that’s the case, I’d rather not be remembered at all. I didn’t work this hard just to be written off as a bedtime story.”

Christened under the name ‘Percy the Naive’ by his best friend, later life-long rival, Wilhelm, he is the current wielder of the legendary sword; Excalibur, and member of Infernum Poncitator. Grandson of Rayner, Percy is one of the few third generation Nors in Avarus. He is a kind young man and is respected amongst his peers (well, most of them) and superiors, so much so that he has been offered the position of leader of the faction. Percy refuses as not only deems himself unworthy, but out of respect for those that have lived in Avarus longer.

He displays many the ideal traits of a knight, eventually becoming viewed as an ideal knight by others. However, deep down, Percy perceives himself as the opposite. He feels he is a dishonorable fraud and is not proud of his status as Excalibur's chosen wielder. If he was given a chance to do it over again, Percy would immediately abandon his decision never search and locate the sword.

After joining Avarus, in a short span of time, Percy was able to easily establish himself as a sort of leader figure within his faction. While serious most of the time, especially during missions, due to his time with other Nors, has displayed a degree of patience and tolerance towards whoever he is assigned. Still, he never forgets their main objective and takes charge if he deems the assigned leader incompetent. Which happens more times than he refuses to count. He tries to maintain a cool head, but will severely reprimand others if the situation calls for it.

Proficient in the ways of the sword, he garnered the attention of (the then Mongrel) Mitchell. He was very reluctant in taking in a squire. But eventually, Percy relented after the younger boy attempted to fight against an Astral and nearly lost his life. He plans to one day pass down Excalibur to Mitchell once he gains the strength to surpass Percy.

At the moment, Percy is the current Vessel of Wrath.

. . .

Noise (***** Rallus)

“I tried all of my life to give my dad a reason why he shouldn't be treating his body the way he did. I tried all of my life to keep my friend in line so I'd never have to be the one to discipline him. And yet... If only I didn't try so hard, they'd still be alive.”

Author’s Note: Yeah I... legit do not know who this belongs to. There’s the artist’s signature so that’s the good thing. Problem is....

After escaping from the confines of his original world, Eingesperrt City, and, with the help Sound, joined Avarus and assumed the title of Noise. Unlike others that were gathered in the past, Noise is a regular human being. Something only Sound knows. Regardless of the danger, he became one of the leaders for Tunera Clypse, later joining Mythral after adapting to his new lifestyle.

He wears one of the Artifacts in order to copy and use only one ability of his choosing. As long as a piece of original user is within the Artifact, Noise can use it for as long as he wants. However, if its been removed and replaced with something else, the previous copied ability cannot be used ever again.

Since his recruitment, Noise adopted an extremely lazy personality. He’s so lazy that somehow even snoring consumes too much energy. To make sure he’s awake most of the time, Sound forced Noise to set up a sleep schedule, so that when he’s ready, he has enough energy to do SOMETHING. However, no matter where he is, he’ll take every opportunity to take a nap. He doesn’t care. As long as he gets to close his eyes, Noise is fine to sleep wherever, even if it involves napping righ at the edge of a volcano.

He’ll get annoyed if anyone that dares try to wake him up and he’ll be in a fowl mood for the rest of the day. The only exception is the fox girl and his lover. Despite this, he displays a certain degree of kindness. It’s just really hard to tell if what he’s doing is truly an act of kindness or he’s just too lazy to do things such as delivering a ‘motivational speech’. He can be blunt when he has to be, and he tends to come off as a jackass rude because of his personality. However, this is his way of showing he cares. Noise will flat out tell you if he dislikes you.

Another thing to know about him is his crude sense of humor. Combined with his blunt and rude nature towards people, mostly acquaintances and strangers, it always leads to various... Misunderstandings. Worst case scenario? A fight. He'd improve if he could, but he won't.

Look, if you haven't figure out that he's lazy after reading all this, gooood luck.

For reasons unknown, despite becoming the next Vessel of Sloth, it remains dormant within him. They thought of extracting it to learn the causes that led up to its current dormant state, but Sound intervened in time as he knew that extracting it by force will kill the the vessel.

. . .

Michael/Raphael/Gabriel/Uriel/Saraqael/Raguel/Remiel/etc

‘Dragons are raised under the false pretense that they are the supreme species above all others. But that merely obscures the truth; the truth that we’re just as vulnerable as anyone else. There are various ways to kill aside from piercing our hearts with a spear.”

Author’s Note: Just so you know, HE’S BLONDE and has green eyes! This was the only option I have that closely resembles how I envisioned him! There was another because he gives off the same atmosphere when you look at him but... he’s from an otome game. And I only learned that recently so, if the same goes for this one? WELP. Oh and he has patches of dark brown scales on part of his skin.

Neither a Quietus Nors nor a resident of Avarus, Michael is a dragon. His version of his race if capable of transformation, but can only change into the form of the last creature they devoured. Whole. Rather than his true form, in order to remain working in Avarus, chose to work in the form of the former Prince of Edrakon, a world where dragons were enslaved and cruelly treated as mere objects. Despite his appearance not being his own, he maintains an intimidating and powerful aura, which is easily distinguishable even within a large crowd.

Due to the high esteem he holds towards his race and his pride as a Dragon, he can come off as domineering, even becoming critical towards other versions of his race if he finds something illogical or nonsensical in their appearance and their abilities. While he does act this way, he finds it absolutely disgusting to find dragons place themselves in a position of power and abuses their power in controlling another species. Another aspect of him is that he looks down on dragons with physical defects, which is mostly directly aimed as himself due to his extremely poor eyesight. Thus, forcing him to rely on his human form to watch glasses. He also has a very confusing naming system; where he changes his name based on the date, time and temperature.

Micheal held the potential required to become a Nors, but because of his age, he was unable to undergo the necessary steps to fully integrate into Avarus. While others are reluctant to have him join their ranks, several others, for different reasons, allowed him to remain. This eventually allowed others to accept his addition to the organization.

As the one in charge of organizing and handling most of Avarus’ internal affairs, a job the Nors, even the Ex-Anima/Animus, are reluctant in taking up such an important position; he takes his job very seriously. Although he does express some contempt towards humans, this does not extend to the people he works with. He cares about them to a certain degree, which is shown by he constantly reprimands whoever acts risky during a mission.

He is the current Vessel of Pride, something he only learns of later on. Despite the fact Micheal is a vessel, Belial believes this is only temporary. He isn’t particularly close with Belial, but he respects the God enough to follow his orders.

. . .

Ulric Soknawo

'In my tribe, I was considered an outcast. You can thank the unnatural union that birthed me. Now? It hasn’t changed much, but at least I’m no longer considered the runt of the pack.’

Whose other name is Kuckunniwi, is a former member of the Aniwaya Tribe. In their world, his people are Natives who worshipped a guardian Wolf Spirit. According to them, in return for their unyielding loyalty and devoted nature, it granted the people with the power to take the form of the spirit they have worshipped for many generations. So long as they use that power to protect the forest, it shall provide them protection. Ulric is the third, second youngest, illegitamate son of the Tribal chief Tamaska and grandson of Wolfram.

As per tradition, all tribesmen are given two names, one for their human form while the other is for their inner wolf. Despite being allowed to use either name like others of his tribe, he refuses to be use his wolf name due to the meaning behind it. After being discovered by Ayane, she brought and recruited him to Avarus. Ulric is considered to be a Third Generation Nors due the fact his father was (oddly) not born a Nors, or had to potential to be converted into one.

Ulric tends to act like the stereotypical lone-wolf, choosing to remain in solitude and observe from a distance. He likes to spend his quiet time alone, though he does allow others to sit next to him when asked. Many have pointed out that he never smiles, but, as much as he hates to quote Noise, states that if there is no reason to smile, there is no reason to put so much effort in abusing his facial muscles.

As much as he loves being a wolf, he finds certain aspects of his second nature to be... aggravating. Depending on the season and the weather, it deals a the effects his wolf instincts on his human nature. Because of the two separate natures continually clashing, he tends to act irritable and his temper worsens, especially during the night. Ulric holds a strong belief that one’s nature, regardless of your race, should never control a one's personal feelings.

He holds an unyielding loyalty to his loved ones, almost to the point of willing to kill for them if the situation calls for it, but his actions are subtle and tends to be the exact opposite of how he truly feels. Only two people in his life have been able to decipher his behavior, and he cherishes them for it. Ulric has a bit of a temper as well but is able to keep it in check. His temper, however, is what led him to becoming a Cursed Blood. His curse forces him to foresee the deaths of whomever he romantically falls in love (or at least feel an interest) with.

Any attempts at interfering will only hasten their death.

. . .

Xavier Wozwald Hawthorne

'Murderers are dumbasses, always killing because of their unchecked emotions and pented up desires. Hence why most of them clumsily try to hide their crime. Serial killers are more... sofisticated with their craft, but their ego always gets in the way. If they weren’t complete dumbasses, they would have lived a long comfortable life. I should know.’

Note: Yes, this is obviously Vflower. Did I know that before? No. Do I plan to change the art reference? Yes, but only when I find one that’s not a god dang real-life person’s online avatar. XD Seriously, each time I thought I found one... it’s an utaite or vtuber.

Is a member of Mythral and a First Generation Nors. Like Rei, he is a Floater, which allows him to particiate in mission for all three factions. However, he prefers to work with those in Tunera Clypse as, since they mostly handle scouting and recruiting missions. As long as he doesn’t remain in Avarus for too long, he's fine with accepting any mission related to Tunera. Xavier will still accept missions from other factions, but that's merely to fill up his quota.

Despite appearing around the age 12-14; which was not by choice, Xavier is in fact mentally older than most of his fellow Nors. Known for his sharp tongue, Xavier is one of the few known Nors to have been granted permission to travel outworld immediately after undergoing the Ascenscion Ceremony.

Due to the experiences his past life went through, Xavier has a very grim outlook of the world and displays little to no respect towards authority figures. And that includes his current patron God; Belial, which only worsens after being told by the God that he is unable to help Xavier grow into the appropriate intended size. Unlike most Nors, he displays a high degree of critical thinking and intelligent. He is, if not more, level-headed than one of his friends; Percy. Though that doesn’t stop the teasing. While confident in his abilities in terms of combat, Xavier knows the limits of his current smaller body.

In order to compensate, he creates an excessively large scythe as compensation, but he's too proud to admit this.

Because of his level of maturity, he has been labeled as a 'Midget Grandpa'. Which he fails at trying to prove otherwise by collecting certain tthings that are considered out of date by their standards. Eventually, it became a soft of hobby for him to collect such things.

Xavier tends to display a sadistic nature while in combat, choosing to taunt his opponent by constantly pointing our their obvious flaws deficits and toy with them until the last minute. Most times, he will use his child-like appearance to his advantage to further torment his opponent/victim. Comically enough, if his opponent is a cold-blooded criminal, Xavier will compliment and , depending on their actions, congratulate them; much to the annoyance of those involved.

Like Sound, he has both a Physical and Blood-based Curse, but unlike the latter, Xavier was born with both. His Physical Curse has caused severe permanent scarring on his right arm, making it appear similar to third degree burns. If freed from any type of coverage, such as bandages, his arm will painfully be set a blazed, forcing him to conceal his arm at all times. As a Cursed Blood, Xavier has a similar effect of a Siren, except his hypnotic singing forces someone to commit suicide. Every time he uses this curse, he temporarily falls into a coma.

. . .

Succu(bus) Kilmer

Like her name suggests, Succu is a succubus, but belongs to a different version of her species. Due to being a demon, she is forbidden to reveal her true name. Succu is neither a Nors nor a Cursed Blood. She’s more of an illegal immigrant after sneaking her way into a group of Nors when they were scouting for potential recruits. There have been many attempts in trying to relocate her back to her original world, but she is able to seduce her attackers and slip away. Eventually, Belial declared that she will be allowed to remain as a resident, so long as she contributes in their mission to locate Soleil.

While they do seduce those of the opposite sex, her source of food is not as grotesque as several others. She does seduce her victim, but moves her body in a way that her victims find alluring. Succu will then massage certain parts of their body as a means to relax them. To assure that they will not attempt to escape, she will release pheremones that nulls the victims senses. What she devours isn’t the flesh of her victim nor does she devour their soul, she merely devours the emotions she was able to invoke until her hunger is quenched.

Succu is flirtaceous and very... very.... VERY- Well, you get the point. While she doesn’t flaunt her beauty, she does know how to use it to her advantage. However, despite many approaching her, Succu has only eyes for one, and is willing to wait as long as possible for that person to reciprocate her feelings. Succu, although assertive and open with her feelings, is not the type to force them onto someone.

She does like to express herself by getting physical - very physical. Not the way that you’re thinking, you perverts. She finds it more convenient to allow her actions to talk rather than saying things verbally. Since she’s an outsider, she notices several things that not even Pery or Ulric have noticed, and both are outsiders as well considering the fact they grew up outworld before being recruited. Regardless, she remains silent for the sake of remaining by her beloved’s side.

Succu is often mistaken as the Vessel of Lust due to her nature, and, on her part, finds it’s tiresome to prove that she is not.

Side Characters

Tank Mortem

A former member of Tunera Clypse and Mythral, Tank has been assigned to act as one of the engineers in maintaining the Infernian Generator due to his body’s condition and the issues of his mental state. He seldom participates in missions but, despite being given strict orders not to, joins in anyway. Due to the limits of his mental capacity, Tank has difficulty interacting with others. Quite literally.

Beatrix Staccato

Is a researcher and inventor in charge of the tools and weaponry utilized by most Nors and Ex-Animus. Having taken over most of the unfinished projects since the passing of his master, Beatrix has dedicated all of his time in improving the welfare of the world and its inhabitants. However, most of his experiments tend to be a bit... over the top. If he’s not thinking of new potential products that may benefits the Nors, he’ll make whatever comes at the top of his head, and most of the time it’ll lead him to make the most outrageous and unnecessary items. Beatrix prefers to remain in his lab/home at all times, rendering his social interactions with the three factions to be limited via holographic meetings.

‘Nyx’ Pierrot

Leader of Vanidicus Persona, she is one of the oldest Nors - next to Constantine - making her the default leader of her faction. Much about her is a mystery. Even her behavior can be viewed as... questionable. Not outlandish, that’s Sound’s department. Her behavior is so odd that it’s enough to baffle even Belial. She takes her leadership over her faction very seriously, however, as part of her nature, the requirements in joining and maintaining your membership vastly deviates from the original. However, looks can be deceiving. Aside from her seniority, there is a reason why she was given the position of leader.

Mitchell Pierrot

He prefers to be called as ‘Mitch’ after being told, and proven, by his sister how much of a tongue twister his name is if repeated constantly in a single conversation. While he is the younger brother of Nyx, Mitch opted to become a submember of Tunera Clypse upon undergoing the Ascension Ceremony to be in the same faction as his mentor, Perseus Vlahos. Compared to the Nors in his batch, he is viewed as weak by many as he is unable to perform the abilities that is expected of him to develop after becoming a Nors.

Constantine L. Refrain

Nothing is truly known about him except that he’s a chronic smoker. Nobody truly knows who he is, no one even knows which faction he belongs to. It’s nearly impossible to question these things as he is constantly surrounded by a shroud of - barely tolerable - smoke. All that is known is that he’s been around longer than most of the Ex-Animus. Constantine usually frequints the Silent Siren Bar, staying there for hours until he’s either drunk or needs to receive another pack of cigarretes from Beatrix. He says they’re for medicinal purposes buuuuut...

I’m pretty sure black smoke isn’t normal.

Stefan Mal Sorcier

Is Percy’s second pupil. Although, it was more like Percy was forced into taking in another after his continual refusal to become leader of Infernum Poncitator. Outwardly, he is aloof and always appears smiling, which unsettles Mitchell even when they’re alone. His politeness is found unusual by many and causes others to feel wary around him. Even the dragon finds himself is unable to remain in the same vicinity as the young man. Despite being full of many secrets, Percy accepts him as is and tries his best to teach him all he can, which Stefan appreciates.

Kyline Necro

Considered as the mascot ambassador of Avarus, like the soul that was fused with her upon birth, she mostly lounges around and has little participation in any missions in and out of Avarus. This has caused her to be disliked by many, most especially Ayane. The only person Kyline has gotten close to is Noise; mostly because they share the same favored sleeping spot. On a side, she acts a physician, or surgeon if you like to get technical. She has a strange fondness of picking apart and replacing specific limbs with doll parts.

Yu-Yan Chi Ryou

Was once one of the strongest Nors from Xavier’s batch until he was inflicted by an unknown disease during one of his missions. While there is no name for the disease, it has caused much of his bones to undergo crystallization; rendering him immobile due to the pain that comes from even the smallest of movements. Since he is incapable in participating in any activities, Yu-Yan has since been forced to be confined to a wheel chair for the rest of his life.

Anita Eine Kleine

Is the fighting instructor of the Mongrels and a member of Infernum Poncitator. Anita is a highly-skilled caster, able to conjure and manipulate various elements. She absolutely hates the term ‘witch’, even going as far as to cast a minor curse in making a person temporarily mute if they refer to her as one. Which Sound found rather offensive when he found out about the curse, something she deeply apologized for. She participates in some Scouting Missions but only if personally requested by someone from Tunera Clypse.

Victor Stein

Is Beatrix’s (only living) research assistant. He is the sole survivor of the Night of the Black Moon. Although having physically recovered, the damage to his mental state has left a deep scar on his psyche. He fears yet obsesses over the sensation of pain. There is not one instance where he isn’t found sowing over his own intact skin. While Victor knows his addiction found uncomfortable by others, he finds it extremely difficult to control his urges.

Wolfram

Grandfather of Ulric and most of his siblings, he is an Ex-Anima (or retired Nors) and a former member of the original Mythral. As the more experienced and one of the longest surviving resident of Avarus, he acts as a mentor to those who seek his guidance. However, in terms of combat, his skills are very limited as he has become permanently stuck in his wolf form. The only grandchildren he's ever personally met are Ulric and Seeing, who have both ironically became his favorite. While acting as a mentor, he is rather strict, constantly parting lessons in order to make sure none make the same mistakes he committed when he was younger, many of which he refuses to share.

Diantha Anemone

Despite being still a Liberi, Dia still participates in many activities meant to be done only by Nors. She originally wanted to become a part of Tunera Clypse due to the many adventures imparted by Sound. But after having a first hand experience in one, it traumatized her to the point where she wants to merely work as a Librarian, a position many people avoid.

Echo & Yell

Fellow teammates of Sound and Noise. As part of the four heads leaders that overwatch many of Tunera Clypse's activities, both in and out of Avarus. They mostly take charge of delegating the members while the other two take an active role in leading many scouting missions off-world. Contradicting her name, like Sound and Noise, her personality is the completely opposite. Due to her sociophobia, she is extremely shy and is unable to speak when talked to, only whispering her sentences as she talks. Yell, however, is the only one whose personality fits the mantle she inherited. Due to her curse, she has to raise her voice after every two hours. If not, she will fall into a coma, and she can only be awaken by *************.

Important Figures

Belial

Credits to: @airtrees0507 (Again, another artist who... disappeared from the internet. How do I keep finding refrences where the artist is just gone?)

Is a Celestial and the younger brother of Soleil. However, despite his godly status, he does not have any of the expected gifts. Neither a god of creation, life, or death, he has been given the title God of Void by his peers. Because of this, he is incapable of maintaining Avarus by himself, forcing him to use alternative (and questionable) means in preserving the world his sister created. Like his title, Belial is unable to express emotions, giving blank demeanor. He does, however, hold some semblence of emotions within him. Yet despite this, he has little to no understanding of life, death and emotions. Even after centuries since he over his sister’s role as Patron God, he still has no understanding to all living things, almost to the point of coming off as insensitive and heartless.

Belial has a deep devotion to his sister, having gone through great lengths to make sure to maintain her world and willingly sacrifice the lives of many. Despite knowing her distaste towards such acts, he holds onto the hope of one day finding her.

Soleil

Credits: Um... Lucare Eu??? Sorry, I’m just basing it off the signature. Once again, can’t find the artist themself so...

The true patron goddess of Avarus and the older sister of Belial. Aside from her status as the original creator and caretaker of her world and the life that once flourished within it, not much is known about her. While her exact cause of death is unknown, she was cursed to live an endless cycle of death and rebirth in various worlds. In order to restore the world she created and loved dearly, Belial dedicated his life in searching for her soul and freeing her of her curse. As a Celestial, she was said to have chosen to take the form of her first ever creation and first mortal friend.

It is said that, despite having blessed with the gift of creation, she was known to be a lonely goddess. Those that new her describe as someone that’s physically there but is spiritually detached.

The Oracle

Is a title given to those with the ability to commune and guide the spirits to the Empyrean Plain, more specifically Avarus’ residences due to the absence of Soleil. The Oracle acts as the divine anchor on the world to aid Belial in prolonging the world’s existence. They are also the main source of Belial’s divine power; both of which are maintained through her prayers. The gender and species of the Oracle is non-specific, but it if preferred by Belial if they are humanoid and have the ability of speech for the sake of communication.

The current Oracle is Aniela Fischl, who, unlike her predecessors, is able to foresee various futures. She does so by carefully peeking through the leylines and selects various possibilities that solely benefit Avarus. No one is allowed to meet her except Belial and her assigned Seekers.

The Seekers

The guardians, caretaker, and acting medians between the Oracle and the residents of Avarus. Their duty is to ensure that the chosen Oracle remains within the Spiral Tower and that he/she fulfills their duty, even going as far as to grant their wish regardless of the consequenses. Each Seeker has only one desire, and that’s to protect the Oracle at all times.

Races

Liberi

Age Range: Birth or 5 to 10 years

Although that is the official term, ‘Mongrel’ is what they are commonly referred as. It is the used for the for the children taken to or born in Avarus. Mongrels spend most of their young lives training within the safe walls of the Aldebaran Academy. They are forbidden from leaving as, according to Belial, they are the extremely fragile during this point of their lives. Regardless of their age, depending on how well they’ve performed in training, they will be given the right of undergoing the Ascension Ceremony. Those who fail are xxxxxxxx xx.

Due to their young age, their behavior is more sporadic than that of a normal child. Their reflexes are enhanced, almost to the point where it becomes difficult to contain them. Mongrels lack common sense so they tend to act out without fully understanding the impact their actions have. While childish and friendly by nature, Travellers are advised to approach with caution. Those who act beyond the expected norm are called Prodigies.

Quietus Nors

Age Range: (Physically) 14-19, (Mentally) 10 or above

Or simply called, Nors. After their graduation, every Nors is immediately sent to work. Depending on the final results of their training prior to undergoing the ceremony/procedure, each is individually assigned into one of the three factions ; Infernum Poncitator, Vanidicus Persona, and lastly, Tunera Clypse (formerly called Tunera). Those that are assigned to neither of the factions are assigned to more menial jobs alongside the Ex-Animus,

Despite their young minds, they have quickly adapted into their new forms. Due to time becoming almost non-existant in Avarus, Nors age at a rapidly slow rate. Though known to be childish by nature due to the gap of their young minds to their bodies, they dangerously lack empathy and display little to no compassion and remorse towards others. In worst cases, some act selfishly on their own accord. On a positive note, they lack any emotions that may hinder their mission in locating Soleil; such as fear.

Only two of the three current generations of Nors differ greatly from the first:

First Generation Nors - Are those converted or directly born within Avarus with the blood of two Nors. Those born in the first generation share two specific physical characteristics; raven black hair and golden eyes. They all share the same abilities upon conversion/birth, but it depends on the individual which ones they should master. Unless they happen to be a Cursed Blood, they are unable to obtain different abilities to call their own. They are required to undergo the Ascension Ceremony.

Second Generation Nors - In terms of personality, they are considered half as bad as those in the first gen. Unlike the previous, second generation Nors are considered slightly weaker, however, they have a better chance of obtaining other abilities outside of Avarus. Their hair is slightly lighter shade of black but their eyes remain the same. They too are required to undergo the Ascension Ceremony.

Third Generation Nors - While rare, they do tend to appear once in a while. It’s not exact how one falls into this category. The closest is being the grandchild or who has an anscestor that was a Nors. Because of their circumstances, these Nors are far weaker as they cannot use any of the standard abilities. Third Generation Nors are far difficult to locate as their potential doesn’t surface until they are of a much later age, rendering them incapable of taking necessary training to hone their abilities and undergoing the Ascension Ceremony. They do not share the common personality or physical traits of a Nors. One thing every Nors in this generation share are sky blue eyes, which emit a faint glow when in the dark.

Ex-Animus (or Anima for singular)

Age Range: (Physically) 30 to 40, rarely appears in their early 20′s

Are individuals who are retired from their duties as a Nors. Although Nors generally age at an excessively slow rate (due to the effects of Avarus), after a number of cycles (which refers to the number of batches that underwent the Ascension Ceremony), they will be given the order to retire. Regardless whether they are willing to or not, there is nothing they can do once the order has been issued. Once one becomes an Ex-Anima, they are completely cut off from their original faction and are unable to leave Avarus for the rest of their life.

Not only that, they are unable to defend themselves like they used to as they can no longer control Astral Dust and use the abilities from their time as a Nors,Basically. Basically, Ex-Animus’ are left to fend for themselves.

Factions

Every Nors is allowed to join any of the three factions; Infernum Poncitator, Vanidicus Persona , and Tunera Clypse. There is an option to not join any of the factions; they are called ‘Floaters’.

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cyanoscarlet · 4 years ago

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2020 writing review

Thanks for the tag, @gladiowrites! (I know it’s not a tag, but this is fun to do lol)

I.. honestly wrote a lot this 2020. No kidding. Quarantine productivity was real, but so is residency languishing by the wayside while everyone was busy surviving and adjusting. I highly doubt 2021 will be the same, but I’ll always cherish 2020 just because of the writing and nothing else.

This is gonna be long.

FIRST CREATION + MOST RECENT CREATION OF 2020

8:15 am - Final Fantasy XV. Lunafreya. February 2020. - First piece ever written for the year. - Intended to be a Luna-centric AU, in which the Nox Fleurets were deposed and she’s now a regular teacher. Never managed to write anything beyond that, though, because residency. (Back then, I didn’t know it was gonna be the beginning of the end, so I had hopes. Oh well.)

irresistible!, or the summer ramblings of nene yashiro and everything that followed - Toilet-Bound Hanako-Kun. Nene, Hanako. March 2020. - First one published on AO3 for 2020 (yes, there’s a distinction). - If you think the title sounds familiar, you’re right.

versus

first yuletide - Final Fantasy XV. Nyx. December 2020. - Written for the FFXV Secret Santa event on Twitter. - Before y’all object and say what unwinding is, that’s an old fic uploaded late.

ONE OF YOUR FAVORITE CREATIONS FROM 2020

Do I seriously have to choose? Omg.

take heart - Bungou Stray Dogs. Dazai/Chuuya. Gods/Humans AU. - Discovered so much about myself writing this. Also (hopefully) I managed to get into Dazai’s headspace correctly. He’s an extremely difficult character to write, so finishing this brought so much gratification.

you don’t raise heroes, you raise sons - Final Fantasy VIII. Laguna, Squall. Post-canon. - Probably my most heartfelt work of the year- scratch that, ever. Also happy with how I just let myself go writing this and didn’t need to think twice.

A CREATION YOU’RE REALLY PROUD OF

oneiric moments (or, five nights with you) - Bungou Stray Dogs. Dazai/Chuuya. - Written for the SKK Fic Exchange for Summer 2020. - Five interconnected fics. 18,985 words. - Might not be a big deal for others, but this was taxing because I don’t usually write long, multichaptered stuff. I got carried away, though. It ain’t as well-polished as my more recent stuff, but I’m proud of myself for pulling this off.

A NEW STYLE YOU TRIED THIS YEAR & A FIC THAT USES IT

I... don’t think I have tried anything of the sort. My repertoire is sorely limited compared to others, I’m afraid. I’d probably have an answer for “explored new themes,” but again, I’ve a limited arsenal, too, in that regard.

A CREATION THAT TOOK YOU FOREVER

all in a day’s work - Bungou Stray Dogs. Atsushi, Akutagawa. Cells at Work AU. - It’s still being written, with a lot of side stories planned but never drafted. - I fell out of love with BSD, recovered from that, then got busy with residency.

YOUR CREATION FROM 2020 THAT RECEIVED THE MOST NOTES KUDOS

Also take heart. While I am proud of it, I guess it hit the right spot for mainstream shippers, too, somewhat? My feelings about mainstream things have changed a lot because of things, but I am still happy.

A CREATION YOU THINK DESERVED MORE NOTES KUDOS

amīcitia - Bungou Stray Dogs. Dazai, Chuuya. Final Fantasy XV AU. - Petty indignancy for my self-indulgent baby aside, I’m also proud of how I wrote Dazai in this one, similar to take heart. the fun they had - Bungou Stray Dogs. Kajii, Port Mafia Ensemble. - ... Guys. Please notice genfics.

A NEW FANDOM YOU JOINED AND A CREATION YOU MADE FOR IT

Everything I wrote for Bungou Stray Dogs. (I kid you not.)

If you want a single answer anyway:

on the flaming mountains - act-age. Chiyoko, Kei. Princess Iron Fan Arc. - arc words: “what shall i do with this ire?” - I wouldn’t really say I “left” the fandom, more like it fizzled out after Matsuki-sensei got arrested.

A CREATION YOU MADE THAT BREAKS YOUR HEART

a cycle of; - Bungou Stray Dogs. Dazai/Chuuya. Medico-legal AU. - Written out of much anger and frustration over things. Also because this in itself was frustrating to write.

Also you don’t raise heroes, you raise sons. Because no matter how much I hate my family at so many points in my life, I know I can’t truly hate them from the bottom of my heart. This fic is a reminder of that.

A SIMPLE CREATION THAT YOU REALLY LOVE

express delivery for love - Bungou Stray Dogs. Dazai/Chuuya. Real World Quarantine AU. - It’s funny. It’s orthodox. It’s sweet. I don’t think it can get any better than that.

A CREATION THAT WAS INSPIRED BY ANOTHER ONE

rather be - Bungou Stray Dogs. Yosano. Pre-canon. - Inspired by yesterday is another world by @wctercress - The whole of primum non nocere, actually, but specifically this one, and the rest followed. - This is also my first BSD fic. Ever.

A FAVORITE CREATION CREATED BY SOMEONE ELSE

... You sure? There’s a lot, and this is just on the surface. (unleashes the proverbial waterfall)

The aforementioned yesterday is another world by @wctercress

silencer and snow white days by EKmisao - Bungou Stray Dogs. Dazai, Chuuya. Dead Apple canon-divergent. - The aftermath of Dead Apple, in which one of two goes wrong. - They’re unrelated, I know. But they’re both sisters! Just trust me on this. - The proper entry for this would be silencer, but I can’t very well mention one without the other, so have both anyway. I read both only this year, after all. Waiting for Godot by @eternal-aegis - Bungou Stray Dogs. Dazai, Fyodor, Chuuya. Canon-divergent. - Amazing theme, amazing philosophy, amazing writing. It makes you think. It makes you analyze and explore. This writer definitely knows her stuff, and it shows. Catharsis by @gladiowrites - Final Fantasy VIII. Rinoa, Gen. Caraway. Post-canon. - The denouement to the Caraway family drama we all deserve. I love how Rinoa is presented in this fic. She’s a normal person who makes mistakes and learns her lessons. So is Fury. Burned bridges don’t always have to stay down, and this fic illustrates that wonderfully.

Culmination by @gladiowrites - Final Fantasy VIII. Squall, Rinoa. Post-canon. - We can’t all have happy endings. This fic also illustrates that very well. While I, a Squinoa fan, personally ascribe to the happy ending Squall and Rinoa must have had after the events of FF8, this fic is so compelling and grounded and reflective and I totally buy this.

Here Without You by @muselover1901 - Akagami no Shirayuki-hime. Zen/Shirayuki. Real world quarantine AU. - One of the sweetest stories I’ve ever read this year. I can definitely relate to a lot of things in this fic. I’ve been rereading all of Muse’s ANS stuff whenever I feel down, and they all hit the spot.

Savor The Moment by @joeys-piano - Bungou Stray Dogs. Oda. Pre-canon. - Yes, yes, YES. One of the best stories I’ve ever read this year, ever. (And I mean stories, not fanfics.) Great character study about a man named Oda and a day in his life and a page (or three) out of his book of relationships. The love poured into this is simply overflowing and precious. I’ve been following Joey since this fic was being written, and I’m so proud of him.

False Equivalences by @slowquotesquill - Dai Gyakuten Saiban. Asougi, Ryuunosuke. Fullmetal Alchemist AU. - This fic also! Oh, My Heart. The cynicism of a state alchemist and the optimism of a foreign doctor. It perfectly hits the spot for everything FMA, and we all know that SQQ’s Asouryuu fics are always to die for. It’s the ultimate combo.

The whole Promptober Leo/Will/Despair series by @eternal-aegis - Kekkai Sensen. Various themes, many of which are dark/mature. - I’ve said this with Waiting for Godot, and I’ll say it again: Aegis knows her stuff. This is her exploring further in that direction, and you can feel the improvement with every fic in the series. I really love how adventurous these stories are, and how much depth you can go with every one. Her characterization is layered and exquisite, and the underlying lore is well-thought-out. - tl;dr: B3 Goddess.

Predestined by Galkimasera - Final Fantasy VIII. Rinoa, Squall. Reverse/Fateswap AU. - A very well-written reverse AU! The circumstances of Squall and Rinoa in this ‘verse fit so well and are so well thought out. I love this AU so much, you don’t even know. It also fills my nostalgic shipper’s heart with much joy at seeing quality content in this Year of our Lord 2020.

For auld lang syne, my dear by @by-nina - Fullmetal Alchemist. Roy, Riza. Canon-compliant + post-canon. - Holiday feels, snapshots through time, and all over showing Roy and Riza’s budding relationship over the years. And it does remind me of a lot of the SKK fics I’ve written (thematic-wise). This was such a treat to read and to follow. All her FMA fics are. She does Royai so much justice. Am not yet finished reading smoke without fire, but I’ll get to that, too!

SOME OF YOUR FAVORITE CONTENT CREATORS FROM THIS YEAR

Everyone in the answer above. There’s honestly a whole boatload of more, but this is getting too long already lololol

(might edit this when I feel like it, tho!)

#cyanospeaks #dani has been tagged #2020 in review

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mamthew · 5 years ago

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A Final Fantasy Ranking

Over the course of the quarantine, and because I had such a good time with the Final Fantasy VII Remake, I've ended up blazing through a ton of Final Fantasy games. Since April, I've played IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XII, and XIII. 6, 7, 9, and 10 I'd beaten before. 4, 12, and 13 I'd played to some capacity before. 5 and 8 were completely new experiences. I had no interest in going further back than IV, since it was the first one to really put any effort into character work, and I didn't play either MMO because MMOs don't really appeal to me (I'm planning to try XIV whenever this new update drops that makes the story mode more accessible, but it keeps getting pushed back so oh well). I also didn't replay XV because I've played XV three times and watched other people play it in its entirety twice, so I have a much better handle on it than any other game in the series.

Anyway, I didn't really have any plans for what I'd do with this, besides get a better understanding of the series as a whole, but I was kinda inspired to do my own Final Fantasy ranking. I'll probably be a bit more detailed than I should be because I tend to overanalyze my media and end up having too much to say. I’m actually not placing VII Remake in this ranking half because I regard it as a spinoff and half because it’s not yet a complete story, even though Part 1 is unquestionably a complete game. If I were to put it somewhere, it would probably be close to the top, possibly even in second place. Also worth noting that this is gonna have SPOILERS for every game I discuss here. I really just wanna use this as a place to nail down some of my thoughts on these games, so they’re pretty stream of consciousness and I didn’t bother avoiding any details from the plots.

10: Final Fantasy VIII.

I don’t think there’s another game in the series with a more obvious corporate hand in it than VIII. It’s kinda the Fant4stic of FF games; there are the bones of a substantive game in there somewhere, but every aspect of the game is such a bald attempt at checking off a 1999 list of “things gamers want” that the whole affair feels hollow and sickening. A major trend I’ve noticed throughout this series is the extent to which FFVII’s success pushed the architects of almost every subsequent game to try to recapture whatever it was that worked about VII, and VIII got the worst of it. It’s got the sullen guy with a special sword. It’s got the sci-fi. It’s got the terrorists with hearts of gold fighting against an oppressive state. It’s got the train scenes. It’s got the case(s) of amnesia that hides the true premise of the story. It’s got the ability to give any character any loadout.

Besides that, they kinda crammed in just a bunch of stuff popular with kids at the time. Jurassic Park? It’s in there. Beauty and the Beast? Here’s the ballroom scene. Hunchback of Notre Dame? Here’s that carnival. Alien? Now you’re alone on a spaceship running away from a horror monster. Saving Private Ryan? The party shares brains with war veterans and dreams of their experiences at war I guess. Half of anime? It’s all about a high school for mercenaries and the party is trying to get back in time for the school festival. Fandom culture? Zines are a collectible item, and each one you find adds an update to Selphie's Geocities page. It also has astronauts, and transformers, and a haunted castle, and a prison break, and Rome, and Alpine Wakanda, and war crimes, and lion cubs that have attained enlightenment, and there’s almost no connective tissue from one idea to the next.

Also the junction system is convoluted and terrible, using magic makes your stats worse, all enemies level up every time you do, and I couldn’t tell you which character excelled in what stats. The characters were all very flat, and the first time I felt like I was seeing the characters interact in ways that helped me to understand them was in the cutscene that plays during the end credits.

Also the female lead’s role in the story changes entirely with no warning every five hours or so. She’s a terrorist, oh no she’s aristocracy in the country she’s terroristing against, oh no she’s jealous of the others because they grew up together and she didn’t, oh no she’s Sandra Bullock in Gravity, oh no she’s the villain and it’s too dangerous to let her out, oh no it’s actually fine and they were bad for locking her up.

It’s an absolute disaster of a game. However, the music and background art is absolutely beautiful. Maybe they never gave me a good enough reason to be in an evil time traveling haunted castle, but damn is it a gorgeous rendering of an evil time traveling haunted castle.

9: Final Fantasy XII.

I’ve known for years that FFXII had issues in development. The writers came up with a story for it, and execs got scared because there were no young characters and they’d convinced themselves that young protagonists are what makes games sell. So two more characters - Vaan and Penelo - were added, one was framed as the protagonist of the story, and the entire story was rewritten so it could feasibly be from his perspective.

While the two characters they added are egregiously tangential to the plot, XII honestly has no protagonist. The writers originally wanted Basch to be the protagonist, but his entire arc is really just following Ashe around and being sad about his evil twin. Ashe is probably the most important to the story, but doesn’t have much presence for a good chunk of the story, and makes her most character-defining choice offscreen before having it stolen from her by a side character. Balthier has the largest presence in the story, and is most closely related to most of the events of the story, but has pretty much no role in the ending.

Honestly, if I were writing FFXII and told it needed a young protagonist, I would have aged up and expanded the role of Larsa, the brother of the main villain, who shows up as a temporary party member from time to time. The entire game is about family ties, and a journey spotlighting Larsa could have involved his learning about Ashe, Basch, Balthier and Fran’s family situations and using their experiences to grapple with his own. Damn, now I’m sitting here thinking about how good that could have been.

As it is, the game feels disjointed and aimless, and the ending is so bad it’s farcical. When I reached the ending, I watched Basch and Ashe forgive Basch’s evil twin for his villainy rampage, harking back to the moment earlier in the game when Ashe turned down the chance to gain powers that would have allowed her to avenge her country because she realized that those powers could also drive her to hurt innocents in the crossfire. In this moment, I realized how Vaan fit in as the protagonist of the game. “Oh, he’s going to realize that violence begets violence, and that he must break the cycle by forgiving Vayne for the death of his brother. He’s going to let go of that hatred he’s been trying to push onto someone for so long, and it’ll finally allow him to heal.” I realized that even though the road to this point was rocky, the writers had managed to craft a satisfying ending from the seemingly disparate pieces of this uneven plot.

And then Vaan picked up a sword and screamed AAAAAAAAAAA and charged Vayne down and stabbed him, and Vayne turned into a shrapnel robot dragon and exploded all the star wars ships and I threw my controller aside and laughed uncontrollably while my characters beat him up and completed the game on their own without any further input from me.

Oh yeah, the battle system is also incredibly boring. Instead of battling, the player writes up an AI script for each character, then lets them act based on those scripts. I would straight up put the controller down and watch youtube videos whenever a group of enemies showed up. I was pretty excited about the job system, but then there didn’t really feel like much of a difference between jobs, and my characters all behaved pretty much the same as each other.

The hands-off battle system, unfocused story, lethargic voice acting, and tuneless music all left me pretty uninvested in the whole affair. The art style and locations are beautiful, though, and it did make me want to eventually check out some of the Tactics games, which take place in the same universe but are supposed to have excellent stories and gameplay.

8: Final Fantasy XIII.

I’m not sure I’ve ever had two such opposing opinions of a game’s story vs. its gameplay. This game is the only one that plays with a bunch of story elements from FFIX, which did a lot to endear it to me. It’s sort of a game in which the protagonists are Kuja, the villain of IX. Like Kuja, they are created as tools by an uncaring god for the purpose of fighting against one world on behalf of another world, and are subsequently forced to grapple with the horrors of having an artificially shortened lifespan.

The story actually has a lot of Leftist themes, too. The gods of that universe spread ideology among the populace, and the people unquestioningly believe these false stories, as the gods have provided for them for as long as there has been written history. Much of the character arcs center on the characters being forcibly removed from their places within those ideological frameworks and having to unlearn what they’d always believed to be objectively true about the world.

So the story actually is pretty good, but it’s held back by some really clumsy storytelling; it constantly uses undefined jargon, has almost no side characters with which it might flesh out the world, actively fights against players trying to glean information from environmental details, and maintains (at least for me) a weird disconnect between the characters in the gameplay and the characters in the cutscenes. I think this partly stems from Square’s original failed plan for FFXIII to be the first game in a much larger series of games sharing themes and major story details. Despite these issues, however, the characters are all likeable and (mostly) believable, and their interactions are grounded in real emotional weight even while their universe feels intangible.

This all got dragged down by the gameplay, which is total dogshit. It’s got the worst battle system I think I’ve seen in an RPG. The game only stops being doggedly, unflinchingly linear about thirty hours in, the whole game took me about fifty hours, and I spent the last fifteen hours beating my head against each individual battle, waiting until the system hiccuped long enough to accidentally slide me a win. That meant I had about a five hour window of euphoric play, convinced that I actually loved this game, thrilled with every new experience it gave me, and excited to see what would happen next. I guess those five hours are what pushed this game over XII in my ranking.

7: Final Fantasy V.

Until FFXV, this game was the last of the “Warriors of Light” games, in which the game follows a party of four set characters for its entirety. To this day, it’s the last of the “Warriors of Light” games to let the player customize which character holds which roles through the job system.

FFV’s job system is the reason to play the game. Its story is mediocre, and its characters are all fairly flat, but there’s something viscerally satisfying about building party members up in jobs that might enhance the role they ultimately will fill. For my mage character, I maxed out Black Mage, Blue Mage, Mystic Knight, Summoner, and Geomancer. Then at the end, I switched her to a Freelancer with Black Magic and Summoning, and she kept all the passive skills for those jobs and also the highest stats across those jobs.

It was super fun and kind of a shift of focus for me, since I tend to place story above anything else in games. Despite the story not being special, though, the game’s writing is actually a ton of fun. It’s definitely got the most comic relief in the series, and I came away loving Gilgamesh as much as everyone else does.

And while it’s nothing special graphically, it does have some really cool enemy designs, and the final boss design is one of the most memorable ones they’ve ever done. Which is impressive because I keep having to look up Exdeath’s name because the character himself is super forgettable.

6: Final Fantasy IV.

This wasn’t the first game in the series to feature actual characters with names and depth, but I have no interest in playing FFII, so it might as well be. I actually played the DS Remake for this game, so it definitely had some quality of life improvements, like full 3d characters and maps, voice acting, an updated script, the ability to actually see the ATB gauge, and the ability to switch to other characters whose turns are ready without using a turn.

Apparently one thing the remake didn’t do was rebalance the difficulty for more modern sensibilities. Instead, this remake is...harder? It requires more grinding than the original? Why??

Either way, though, the story is actually solid! The game opens on its protagonist, Cecil, committing a war crime on the orders of his king, who raised him as a child. The first ten hours of so of the game follows Cecil as he tries to understand why he was ordered to kill so many innocents, turns his back on his country, and works to redeem himself.

This arc is reinforced by the game mechanics, too, which is super clever. His redemption is marked by a change in job from a Dark Knight to a Paladin, which also resets his level. For a time, his life is considerably harder because he’s finding his footing as a new person, which is marked by battles which had been easy becoming much harder for the player for a time.

This game places storytelling over gameplay more than I think any other game in the series. Each character is locked into a job, which I much prefer in my RPGs to games where characters function pretty much interchangeably. I dunno if it’s because I cut my RPG teeth on Tales, but it really bugs me when I can give Tifa the exact same loadout as Barret. I want the lives of the characters to bleed into their functions as gameplay devices.

However, the developers clearly had a ton of different jobs they wanted to add to their game, but hadn’t figured out how to allow for the player to switch in and out party members in standby. To fix this, they increased the in-battle party to five characters rather than or four (or the later constantly frustrating three), rotated the roster a ton, and had a ton of characters who straight up leave permanently. One character dies and never comes back. Two characters die and only are revived after it’s too late to rejoin the party. Four characters end up too injured to continue traveling.

This let the developers make a ton of jobs, but it doesn’t let the player exploit these jobs to their fullest. Characters’ stats reflect their role in the story, as well. One character is quickly aging out of adventuring, so his magic stats increase on levels, but his attack and defense stats actually decrease, signifying his failing body. Another character has already achieved some form of enlightenment, so he gains no stats when he levels up at all. The purpose of IV is the story, over any other aspect of the game, which makes it even more mindboggling that the remake would have increased the difficulty.

Besides that, the biggest issue I had with this game was the overbearing constant drama of it. While there were a few more lighthearted parts, they were mostly relegated to NPC dialogue and sidequests. The characters in this game don’t become friends so much as they become companions who bonded over shared tragedies, and this makes for quite a few scenes of every character separately wallowing in their own immeasurable sadness. I played FFV directly after this game and the light story and jokey dialogue was a much-needed palette cleanser.

5: Final Fantasy VI.

Before the unexpected success of FFVII irreparably changed the franchise, Square constantly mixed up the story formula for the series. IV, V and VI all handled their stories really differently from each other, and what I remember of III also felt fairly different from the games that came after.

Every game from VII on had a very clear protagonist (except XII, whose botched protagonist was still clearly marketed as the protagonist). The concept of the Dissidia crossover series is built on the idea that every FF has a protagonist at the center of its story. FFVI’s Dissidia character is Terra, but Terra is not the protagonist of FFVI.

Apparently while developing FFVI, the directors decided they didn’t want the game to have a clear protagonist, so they asked the staff to staff to submit concepts for characters, and they’d use as many as they could. This game has fourteen characters, each with their own fun gameplay gimmick in battles. Three of the characters are secret, and one can permanently die halfway through if the player takes the wrong actions. Of these fourteen characters, the main story heavily revolves around 3-6 of them, while five more have substantial character arcs.

There’s kind of a schism in the fandom over whether this game or VII is the best one in the series, and I can see why; this game is absolutely fascinating. No other game in the series has done what this game did, which means it’s one of the two FF games I really want to see remade after they complete this VII remake.

The first half is very linear. It breaks the beginning party into three pieces, then sends each character to a different continent, where they meet more characters and build their own parties before everyone reunites. Once the story has taken the player everywhere in the world, the apocalypse hits. The villain’s evil plan succeeds and tears the entire world apart.

The second half of the game picks up a year later with one character finally getting a raft and escaping the island on which she’s been marooned. In this half, the player navigates the world, which has all the same locations, but in completely different parts of the map. The driving factor for much of the second half is to learn from incidental dialogue where each party member has gone in this new world, to track them down, and to try to fix some of the bad that’s been done to the world before finally stopping the villain who destroyed it.

It’s unique and clever and occasionally legitimately tugs at the heartstrings some, which is impressive for a poorly translated SNES game. The final dungeon is a masterpiece all on its own. It requires the player to make three parties of up to four characters, then send them in and switch between them as new roads open. This way, the game manages to feel like an ensemble piece up to the very end.

4: Final Fantasy VII.

As I previously mentioned, there’s kind of a schism in the fandom over whether FFVI or FFVII is the best game in the series. Neither is the best game in the series. FFVII is better than FFVI. Oops.

When I was first drafting up this list, it was before I’d reached my replays of VI or VII, and I tentatively placed them next to each other, with the strong assumption that I’d end up placing VI a bit higher than VII, since it has so many strongly differentiated characters with solid story arcs, beautiful artwork, great music, etc. etc. Then I reached FFVII and not even four hours in, I realized it would have to be higher on my list than VI.

VI has a better battle system, its characters are much more differentiated by their gameplay, its character sprites have aged much better than VII’s character models, and it has four party members in battles instead of three. But I couldn’t overlook VII’s gorgeous artwork, sharp character work, and character-driven story. In the end, I had to give it the edge.

VII is a strange beast. It simultaneously really holds up and has aged horribly. The story is excellent and I love the characters, but the actual line-to-line writing is pretty bad, making the whole experience of the game a bit like swimming upstream; you’re getting somewhere good, but the age of the game is still pushing you back the best it can. Similarly, the background artwork is fantastic and gives the game locations a sense of place incomparable to anything that had come before it, but the character models are so low-poly that the two are constantly at odds with each other.

Still, the game is more a good game than it is an old one. I think it’s managed to duck the absurd level of hype around it by actually being very different from what the most popular images of it make it out to be, if that makes sense. The super futuristic techno-dystopia city only makes up a very small portion of the larger game, and most newcomers to the game won’t have seen Junon, or Corel, or Cosmo Canyon. Heck, I didn’t know Cait Sith or Red XIII were characters before I played the game for the first time. One of the many reasons I’m excited for the rest of this remake is to see newcomers to the story learning just how much variety there is to the world, events, and characters of this game.

FFVII also began (and pulled off really well) a number of storytelling trends that continued in subsequent games in the series. Obviously, almost every game since this one has a clear protagonist with a cool sword for cosplayers to recreate, and an androgynous villain whose story is closely linked to the protagonist (or one villain who is linked to the protagonist and a second one whose purpose is to look like Sephiroth), but it’s started broader, more quality shifts, too.

FFVII is the first game in the series to try to give all its characters arcs based on a similar theme, for example, a trend that has helped give it and future games a sense of thematic unity, especially in IX, X, and XV. Heck, that trend was why I almost came around on XII before they nuked it. It was also the first game in the series to have a real ending, rather than closing out with essentially a curtain call featuring all the party members, like they did in IV through VI (and I assume earlier).

Another common feature of FF games that it didn’t start with VII but certainly was canonized with it was the mid-game plot twist tying the protagonist to both the villain and the larger story. FFIV had this as well, of course, but I feel like the orphanage twist in VIII, the Zanarkand dream twist in X, and the time skip twist in XV were all meant to recall VII’s twist of Cloud’s…very complex existence (IX’s two worlds twist actually is a clear homage to IV, but it’d be hard to argue that Zidane’s connection to Kuja - and the character of Kuja generally - weren’t more influenced by VII).

2: Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy XV.

Sorry, this one is a two-fer. I’m not gonna spend too much time on why I placed these two together in the #2 spot (I wrote a long thing on it here, if you’re interested). In summary, the games kinda mirror each other, in story and design. Each game can be seen in the negative space of what the other game leaves out, and at the end, the characters react to similar situations in completely opposite ways. For this reason, and that they’re of comparable quality, I think they’re best viewed as companion pieces.

FFX was the first mainline Final Fantasy game I ever completed, six years late. It was the first FF game with voice acting and many fully modeled locations. It also kinda marks the beginning of the series’ constant changes to the battle system.

That’s not to say the previous games’ battle systems didn’t also differ from each other, but they all had the same setup, with levels and an ATB gauge. This was the first game since III not to have any real-time element to its battle system, nor numbered levels gained through experience points. Since X, no two FF battle systems have been remotely comparable, which is cool and innovative and keeps things fresh, but also means I’ve been starved for just a regular ATB FF game for too long.

In many ways, FFX feels like a bridge between the PS1 games and the later games. It feels much more streamlined than VII, VIII, or IX, in terms of both storytelling and design. The game is very linear, pushing the player from one area to the next and not allowing much backtracking until the very end. It also loses the aging look of the PS1 games’ menus and UI, finally updating the classic font and the blue menus with white borders to fully modernized and sleek graphics.

However, movement still feels very similar to movement in VIII and IX, the music definitely evokes the PS1 games more than the later games, and most locations are portrayed with beautifully painted backgrounds, rather than modeled in (which I actually prefer, and I was glad to see that VII Remake has gone back to that in some places).

Voice acting in this game is phenomenal for 2001, and honestly on par with many contemporary games. I can’t think of a voice actor for the main cast who didn’t do a great job. Tidus’s narration, especially, is emotional and evocative in all the right ways. Grounding the plot in a very personal story about Tidus’s difficulty coming to terms with and proving himself to his abusive father keeps the story relatable and real.

Something interesting about my experience with X is that because it was my first Final Fantasy game, I thought for a very long time that the series was about organized religion, and the ways it is used to justify evil acts. This might be the only game of the ones I’ve played that is about organized religion, or even prominently features a religious doctrine, which really sets it apart from the rest of the series.

The game’s thematic unity is on point, even if there is a scene where they state the central themes a bit too plainly. Every character, and even the entire universe of the story, is held back by the past, and every subplot and the main plot revolves around finding ways to move forward and leave the past behind.

I love FFXV. It feels like a return to form after XII and XIII. It’s also probably the furthest any game in the series has strayed from the original formula. Battles are entirely real-time, and the game is a straightforward action game. There is very little time spent with menus, and even the leveling system has been stripped down to a few skill trees. It’s immediately obvious that the game was originally created to be a spinoff, not a main title.

FFXV is also probably too much a product of the current era of microtransactions and payment plans. The full story is spread out across *deep breath* a feature film, an anime series, an anime OVA, a standalone demo, two console games, four DLC story chapters, a multiplayer side game, a VR fishing game, four phone games (though really three phone games because A New Empire straight up isn't in that universe and also is terrible), an expansion including several entirely new dungeons, and finally a novel set to release sometime this year. That’s a whole lot of story. I’ve not played the phone games or the VR fishing game, or read the novel yet, but I’ve experienced all the rest.

But I also played FFXV when it first released, before any patches, before I knew there was a film, just the game all on its own. So you can believe me when I say that without any supplementary material, the game is still great.

It goes back to the FFI, II, III, V “Warriors of Light” system, where the party has four characters who do not change at all throughout the game. While this bugged me at first, I soon came to appreciate having a story where almost all character interactions involved these four characters. It meant I came to understand them well enough to feel like they were my friends, too. Most characterization in this game is understated, presented through small shared moments, dialogue, and body language as they travel the world together. Much like X, the overarching story might be expansive and far-reaching, but the real show is in the personal journeys the friends have.

Much of the first half of the game is spent exploring an open world, driving along the road and getting out of the car for pit stops or to explore the forests nearby. This is one of the very few games where I don’t mind just exploring an area without the promise of an upgrade or a new scene, just to see what’s around the corner, or to hear whatever banter the characters might engage in next.

The entire world of this game is gorgeous, and the orchestrated music is some of the best they’ve ever done. The main plot is beautiful, too. It’s bittersweet and emotional, with a charismatic villain and a twist that blew me away the first time I reached it.

The supplementary material is also mostly really quality. I’d recommend the Royal Edition over the original edition for sure, and to watch Kingsglaive as well. The anime series is quick and fairly fun, and Comrades expands on the universe in some great ways, but neither has as much bearing on the overall plot as the DLC chapters and Kingsglaive. I’m so in love with the DLC chapters, actually, that two years ago I wrote a piece just on how much Episode Ignis affected me (here if you care).

This is definitely getting long, so I guess I’ll move on after saying I’m upset that they patched Chapter 13 to make it easier, and I’m angry at everyone who complained that Chapter 13 was too hard. It was a brilliant piece of storytelling through game mechanics, and it’s mostly been stripped of all that, now.

1: Final Fantasy IX.

It’s IX. It was always IX. I actually did come into this with an open mind, wondering if one of the new games I’d experience (IV, V, VIII, XII, XIII) might end up hitting me harder than Final Fantasy IX, but as I replayed my favorite game in the series I quickly realized that wouldn’t be happening.

There are only a handful of games that make me cry. IX is one of two without voice acting. There are several songs from IX that make me tear up just when I hear them.

The story of the black mages gaining sentience, learning that they can die, and trying to force themselves back into being puppets just to lose that knowledge really moves me. The same goes for the story of Dagger no longer recognizing her mother, setting out to find a place to belong, learning that her birth family is long dead, then watching her mother return to her old self a moment before losing her forever. And Zidane’s story, where he has nowhere to call home, finally discovers the circumstances of his birth, and realizes that had he stayed in his birthplace, he would have become a much worse person than he ultimately did.

More than any other, though, Vivi’s story will always stick with me. He was found as a soulless husk by Quan, a creature with the intention of fattening him up and eating him, but each of them awoke something in the other, and Quan ended up raising Vivi as his grandson. When Quan passed, a rudderless Vivi went to the city to find a new home, and eventually learned he was created as a weapon. Other weapons had also gained sentience, but none had the worldliness that Vivi had gained from his loving relationship with Quan. When Vivi discovers that most weapons like him die after only a few months, he grapples with the possibility that he may die at any time, and eventually decides that he can only take control of what life he has by living each moment to the fullest. He ends up becoming an example for the other weapons to follow.

FFIX is a game about belonging: both yearning to have somewhere to belong and learning that the place where you think you belong is actually toxic and harmful to you. Even the menu theme is a tune called “A Place to Call Home.”

IX ran counter to the trends of the series in a number of ways. It was a return to high fantasy after the more sci-fi VII and VIII, and was also much more lighthearted than those games, while still being heartfelt and occasionally bittersweet. Gameplay-wise, it locked each of its characters into a single job, gave them designs based on their jobs, brought back four-character parties, and introduced a skill system in which characters learn skills from equipment. It also had a much softer, less realistic art style, and mostly avoided the attempts to recapture VII that have plagued most other subsequent titles (besides Kuja’s design, I guess).

The story is also structured so well. It regularly shifts perspective for the first thirty hours, allowing the player to spend ample time with each of the party members, and shaking up character combinations for fun new interactions. It introduced a system similar to the skits from Tales games, showing the player often humorous vignettes of what’s happening to other characters at the time. Once the characters have all come together in one party, the game has earned the sense that all of them (except for the criminally underexplored Amarant) have become a family.

The supporting cast are a blast as well. Zidane’s thief troupe (who double as a theater troupe) are likeable and fun. Kuja’s villain arc allows him to be sympathetic without losing his edge. The black mages are tragic without being overdone.

The development team for this game put so much more work into this game than they had to. The background artwork was all made in such high-definition resolutions that the act of downscaling them to fit in the game removed details. Uematsu traveled to Europe to make sure he’d get the feel of the soundtrack right, and has said it’s his favorite score he’s ever done. Sakaguchi, the creator of Final Fantasy, says IX is his favorite game in the series.

FFIX is one of the two games I would like them to remake after they finish the VII Remake, but I’m terrified they’ll mess it up in some way. Honestly, the game’s only flaws (which I do desperately want them to fix) are a lack of voice acting, the underdeveloped party member Amarant (and to a lesser extent Freya), the dissonance of Beatrix never getting punished in any way for her hand in a genocide, and the fact that very few of the sidequests are story-related because so many of the smaller story details that would normally be relegated to sidequests are covered in the main plot.

Despite the danger, though, I think revisiting IX is absolutely essential moving forward. It represents so much of what made older games like IV and VI great, and its story is much more grounded in real emotion than many current Square stories tend to be. Remaking VII will be good for getting VII out of Square’s system. Remaking IX would be good for putting IX back into Square’s system.

Here’s a IX song as a reward for getting this far. I’m gonna go listen to it and tear up again.

#final fantasy #final fantasy iv #final fantasy v #final fantasy vi #final fantasy vii #final fantasy vii remake #final fantasy viii #final fantasy ix #final fantasy x #final fantasy xii #final fantasy xiii #final fantasy xv

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rentfreecat · 5 years ago

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Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts Fanfic Recs

so yeah I figured I should get around to making a list of some of my faves to promote them, I’ve got a big enough collection of bookmarks now. in no particular order. not all of them are necessarily complete or alive

Final Fantasy VII

The Gold Saucer’s Golden Arches by belderiver

Before he doomed the world to ash and ruin, Sephiroth wanted a burger.

note: Sephiroth + sudden hunger pang = mcgold

Meetings by Yinza

Aeris reflects on her few encounters with Sephiroth over the years since her escape from the lab.

note: Aerith having known Sephiroth before is just one of my favorite headcanons

lather, rinse, repeat by annperkinsface

She knows she shouldn't confuse this act of kindness for anything else, but it's hard, when Aerith is draping a towel over her shoulders, when Aerith is warm at her back, humming as she works a thick lather across her hands.

note: adorable Aerti. Aerith being a weirdo. Tifa blushing and being kinda horny. perfect. in case you couldn’t tell I ship it.

In Circles by Larissa

Tifa hates Midgar, and yet she stays, and she stays, and she stays.

Character study/pre-game gap-filler. Written for the Tifa Zine.

note: beautiful mood piece

the nodding golden tansy by Kieron_ODuibhir

“You think this troubles me?”

“Yes,” said Cloud, without looking up from his tea.

note: one of my fave takes on Seph and Cloud’s relationship. wonderfully quiet and melancholy.

not one before another by Kieron_ODuibhir

1) Sephiroth almost corrected the first person who called Aerith his sister, a woman they’d met before they were even out of Midgar’s slums complimenting him on taking such good care of her, while their mother shopped.

2) The other half of Project S took after their father.

3) Blue eyes contemplated him narrowly for several seconds, and then Genesis’ smirk came back, lying on his face more easily, somehow. “So brothers-in-arms to the skirmish shall we hence?”

4) It felt wrong to be relying on anybody but Mother, but Mother…only cared about Sephiroth, and it wasn’t fair. Loz sniffled. “Will she take care of Yazoo, too?”

5) “I’m glad he’ll have a big brother,” she said, as Sephiroth crossed the room. “Little ones always need someone looking out for them.”

Sephiroth nodded, and bent forward, and peered at the squashed little pink thing until it stirred, objecting probably to cool air on its face. “What’s his name?”

“Cloud."

(Five times in five worlds where Sephiroth was somebody's brother, and one where he wasn't anymore.)

note: exactly what it sounds like. personal fave is 4.

Angels Still Have Faces by Kieron_ODuibhir

On the fourth day, Sephiroth looked out a window and spotted his two friends together on one of the outdoor training fields, once again exchanging harsh words, only for Angeal to wheel around and storm off at the end.

note: fics where someone other than the main character time-travels are amazing and this is that and also outsider pov mother bear Sephiroth who doesn’t know what pizza is

Final Fantasy IX

puppet play by zalzaires

starting a drabble collection for ffix. i mostly just write about kuja so hence the name.

note: my personal fave is "curtains, bookends, stars of the show” because Kuja is such so... Kuja in there

Final Fantasy XV

ffucc the wedding by Givethemtriumphnow

Gift for Victortor, inspired by their fabulous ffucc Universe.

Noctis and Luna are the same person, one soul split into two bodies.

In a world where everyone lives and nothing hurts, the wedding is still a symbol of the peace, and the show must go on. Noct and Luna just can’t wait for what comes afterwards: the Big Reveal.

note: I just really like the one person two body trope okay? pretty entertaining read!

Poor Wayfaring Stranger by lithos_saeculum

Out on a mission, Cor Leonis finds a teenager, lost and sick and partway to becoming an MT. Against the advice of all and sundry, he brings him back to Insomnia. There's not a lot of love lost for MTs in the Citadel, but some of its inhabitants may still be young enough to put aside their prejudices.

note: also on my list of likes is MT Prompto trope, and honestly fuck canon that’s just there for inspiration. TW for implied pedophilia and stranger danger in one of the later chapters.

Will You Be There, Standing at the End of the War by Adel Mortescryche (Mortescryche)

When they're attacked by the Imperial Forces at Tenebrae, Regis wasn't prepared to be rescued alongside Noctis, Lunafreya and Ravus by the Commanding General of the enemy forces. Not after the man already cut Sylva down before them.

He was even less prepared for the face lying in wait behind the mask.

He dropped down to one knee, and rather pointedly cupped the left side of Drautos’ head, delicate, making no move to actually hide the fury raging through him.

“Talk, Titus.” Regis whispered. “Before I take this airship down from the sky.”

note: Drautos time-travels and is an absolute bastard. I like seeing his and Regis’s exchanges!

For Want of a Flan by magicgenetek

For want of some patience, Ifrit never freed Ardyn from Angelgard to rebel against the Astrals.

For want of Ardyn, Nifleheim never invented MT Troopers.

For want of MT Troopers, Lunafreya and Ravus were able to escape with Regis, and Nifleheim never cornered Lucis in their war.

For want of a kidnapping, Luna, Noctis and Prompto were able to work together to get ready for the prophecy, and Ravus is ready to suplex an Astral to make sure someone survives the prophecy.

For want of separation, the four of them go to Angelgard to figure out what secrets lay there, and accidentally adopt Ardyn into their plans to save the world.

For want of 2000 years’ prep time, Ardyn’s going to have to get up to speed on the modern world fast if he wants revenge or to fulfill his half of the prophecy.

note: has a good deal of worldbuilding and linguistics nerdery. I like that. I also like the recovery element of Ardyn’s arc.

A Little More Time by Asidian

The sun is brilliant overhead – set in a blue sky dotted with clouds that float like wisps of spun sugar through the high arc of the heavens.

It's more than lovely. It's entrancing, and Noctis takes one long, final look before he turns his gaze back earthward. His vision dances with sunspots for a moment, afterimages from the blinding light – but when it clears, Noctis sees a small black dog there, patient and watchful as always.

Umbra has been waiting.

"Alright," Noctis says. "We're ready to go back."

note: short, punchy, and absolutely chilling

Eschaton by nirejseki

Sure, it's the end of the world, but that just means someone's got to fix it.

And then the world found its somebodies.

(aka, with Noctis gone into the Crystal and no one sure when he'll be back, Ignis, Gladio, and Prompto end up saving the world one piece at a time)

note: I like worldbuilding and MTs alright? and schoolteacher Gladio will never not be funny/great

Astra Inclinant by thekindmagic

“Look,” Aranea laughs, shaking her head. “I’m not trying to shit on your destiny. But the way I see it? A lot of the time, there’s no big mystery. You either keep going, or you don’t.”

note: how could I not rec femslash? beautiful melancholy mood. I’m so sad for Luna

Starlight and Shadow by ohmyfae

While Noctis and his friends are setting up camp, Ardyn Izunia happens to accidentally stumble onto the runes of their haven. The magic of the haven pulls him into two halves; One is Ardyn, a small child with a bit of an ego and a limited knowledge of the world at large, and the other is the Scourge, shambling and groundless, determined to seek out its former host and consume the light it finds there.

note: fun read!

On the Care and Keeping of Prompto by ohmyfae

Congratulations! You have been chosen to ensure the well-being of PROMPTO, who is: 1. An absolute darling. 2. Of more intrinsic value than you, your significant other, your ancestors, and the world at large. 3. Two years and four months old 3a. This is very important to remember 4. Behind you.

note: also a very fun and fluffy read! also the fic that introduced me to the amazing crackship of Ardyn and Cor, and I say crackship but... I want more of it

Kingdom Hearts

The Price of Melodrama by LawnNinja

Xemnas never imagined that one of the hardest parts of his plan would be the stupid names.

note: deny it all you wish but you know this happened. also XULORD

(i don’t need you to) Worry for Me by Cygna_hime

In a fit of defiance and desperation, Vanitas disobeys his Master's orders and goes looking for the missing half of his heart. He finds it, and something else as well, something he never expected to find anywhere...

note: I absolutely love this I’ve read this like... 3 or 4 times? go read it now

Bleeding Heart by keelahselai

Xemnas was fundamentally a bad person. Born from the fracture of Xehanort's heart, he had only caused pain to those he banded together with under the promise of finding a way to return all their hearts. He shattered the Organization he'd founded for his own gain, and he understood this with cool indifference. But beneath everything, carefully kept folded away and hidden from Xigbar's prying eye, he was also made from the other inhabitant of Apprentice Xehanort's body. And as troubling as it could be to their plan, he kept it hidden from all.

(Or, how Terra managed to keep his head above the water for thirteen years)

note: I absolutely love the.. I don’t know what it’s called, but let’s say Terramas even though that sounds like a ship name... I absolutely love that trope. this one has such just a great mood y’know?

By Choice or Chance by Six_Piece_Chicken_McNobody

Lazy afternoons are a universal phenomenon.

note: I just love Xehaqus’s tragedy. this is nice, fluffy, and one of them is going to murder the other in his own selfish lust for power. (I know III said Xehanort had other motivations but I just love the “he’s such an utter bastard that all his relationships are going to end disastrously” interpretation)

Whatever Will Be by NanakiBH

Once I tell you the words I've been unable to say, it will be goodbye.

note: more explicitly melancholy mood than last one, still great.

#fanfic recs #final fantasy vii #final fantasy ix #final fantasy xv #kingdom hearts

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transgamerthoughts · 5 years ago

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Final Fantasy 7 Remake: Thoughts and Ramblings

Surprised to dust this off but I want to collect my thoughts quickly now that credits are rolling on Remake:

In general, I enjoyed it quite a lot. As one of many players with a unique relationship to the original (I first “played” it watching a childhood friend over the course of several sleepovers before playing on my own and occasionally returning to it) I was skeptical. I’ve express some of that skepticism at Kotaku , a website I write at. Remakes and remasters sometimes fall short or deviate in strange ways. Remake forges its own path and I’m grateful for it.

SPOILERS AHEAD KIDDOS

So! Here’s some scattered thoughts. Maybe they end up on Kotaku, maybe not. And while I’m loathe to immediately rush to create content on a Sunday night, this game has my mind spinning. Here we go.

The characterizations in this game are very strong, perhaps stronger than the original’s Midgar section. Some of that is owed to a very bad localization in ‘97 (you can get insight into that from my former colleague Tim Rogers’ series here) but Remake takes a lot of effort to allow the cast to breathe. That can come from the ways in which Cloud alters his way of taking with Tifa, and it can come in the moment where Barrett is more explicitly an ideologue. It’s quite good even if the script has a flaw that we’ll talk about in a second.

That flaw is, frankly, that if you’ve not played the original then Remake is going to end up impenetrable in the final hours. This is particularly true once characters like Zack are brought into the fold and the visuals begin to mirror the original. (See: the hard cuts before Sephiroth and Clouds final duel mirroring the Omnislash moment from ‘97.) I don’t think that diminishes the character work here but I think that the more interesting meta-narrative stuff *so* damn crucial to this game that I can’t imagine what a newcomer will think.

Connected to this, I’ve seen folks disappointed that this is not a perfect remake but in this instance, I think that sentiment is misplaced. Valid, but shortsighted? You can’t make Final Fantasy VII today. Not in the way it existed in ‘97. Which isn’t to say the visuals or script but the context cannot be reproduced. New hardware, FMVs taking a forefront, an advertising campaign that positioned the game in competition with movies, and a cultural splash that the series hasn’t ever quite replicated. Because the weight of expectation hovers over Remake—folks have been obsessed with a new version since the PS3 tech demo stirred imagination at E3 2020—the game *needs* to be about that. To be a game about this moment, the moment gamers have waited decades for, Remake needs to be about itself in a very explicit way.

I can’t not see the Whispers and Arbiters of Fate as anything other than stand-ins for gamers, fans, and the culture as a whole. That’s an obvious reading but an undeniable one. The core question of Remake doesn’t really have much to do with the fictional stakes. It’s this: who owns Final Fantasy VII, and who owns the Remake? Is it the story tellers or the players? I have a cheat answer: it belongs to the characters. In unbinding themselves from player expectation, they claim ownership over the narrative now.

Aeris just flat out knows she’s in a sequel/alt-timeline thing. Her final line is about missing the surety of something as presumably ever present at the metal sky of Midgar’s plates.

I like the combat here more than FFXV, which isn’t saying a lot but worth saying. There’s more participation from the player. That’s it. I don’t think *more* active choice inherently makes a combat system better but it is the key reason this works better than XV.

Character swapping breaks things somewhat since enemy aggro is (save for using the provoke materia) focused on the player. Wish the combat design took this into consideration a bit more. It’s the one glaring flaw in the system.

Tifa is the most fun to play as in this game. It’s not even a contest. Starshower is overpowered as hell and Chi Trap rules. Love using her to increase the potency of the stagger meter when the time comes.

Fights do get occasionally Too Busy. Airbuster is a big culprit here. Too many phases for what was essentially a jobber of a boss in the original game.

Train Graveyard section is an atrocious pace killer as well. Again: “too many notes.”

I never found the Nail Bat and that was a bit of a bummer.

I tweeted out a quote from Barrett this weekend and it made the rounds. In general, for this game, Barrett works best in this revolutionary mode even if certain scenes (Shinra middle manager for instance) deploy visual language that’s dated. Of any character, he has the highest highs and lowest lows. Not surprising.

re: that tweet some folks kinda lost their shit about it(?) but I think the quote still holds. Remake does a good job of showing *individuals* within Shinra but Barrett does rightly note they are complicit to an extent in Shinra’s crimes. You can disagree with what Barrett does about it but that’s 100% true. Sorry, not sorry. (The discourse today was just a hassle frankly. Multiple things can be true at once, but I don’t think Twitter is a place where that’s ever acknowledged.) Whatever eventual regrets he might feel about methodology in ‘97′s script, he’s not wrong on this individual point. I’m interested to see where he goes as a character when it comes to all this.

Kinda related to the above, Remake arguably does a better job than ‘97 showing the alternative to Shinra. It’s the communal nature of the individual sectors. It’s the Neighborhood Watch and local leaders in Sector 7, the trio in Wall Market. Remake rejects Shinra’s autocracy and favors the various slums communes. This is made ever more clear by how little of Reeve we see in this script. Who are the leaders shaping life into a passable experience in Midgar? It’s not the Urban Planning guy with the cat robot.

Also: hey, is that Cait Sith in the plate drop cutscene? Yep! Hope you played the original or there’s just this sad cat that shows up for 4 four seconds.

Is he a Chad? Well, he’s Chad-ley...

Not sure what to think of the Wutai stuff being more explicit but it feels right for 2020 for a variety of reasons. I’ve never been too interested in FF7′s realpolitik tho. It’s not really much of an expansion so much as a background element but one that’s deployed a bit lazily.

Roche owns in a way I was not expecting. He’s a balls to the wall anime motherfucker and I kinda love him? I’m really, really surprised that (as far as I could tell) he didn’t even come back for the final bike sequence tho.

I don’t really have the energy to litigate or talk about Wall Market much. I think it’s better than the original but pandering in the sense that it’s a very safe and commodified version of queerness. I appreciate that Nomura and folks looked at the original and were like “well, we can’t do *that*” but it doesn’t quite land for me.

That said: “yes, I know, nailed it,” is a fantastic line with a fantastic read from Cloud’s English VA.

Hell House announcers rule. Hell House fight? Kinda terrible actually.

Nice shout out to Kunsel in Shinra Tower. Crisis Core is a messy game but I like Tabata’s work a lot. Even the messy stuff, which is most of it. That game’s story is bonkers but I like Zack and I actually like the idea of the Digital Mind Wave as a mechanic. If nothing else, Squeenix lost a pretty exciting designer when he left.

Less nice? This game’s tendency to pad out dungeons. The whole approach to the Sector 5 reactor comes to mind. Train fight then tunnels then sun lamps then reactor. It’s a lot. Also: all of the extra Hojo stuff. I know we’re padding out like 5 hours but some of the sections could have been abbreviated. Probably would have made the game better.

Even less nice? Zack’s English voice actor. Maybe the only voice actor I didn’t like. Really miss Rick Gomez on this one.

Conversely, Red XIII? They nailed it. 11/10. Nanaki, I love you so much.

Counterstance is an amazing move and I can’t want to carry that over into Hard Mode.

The Jenova fight fuckin’ ripped. I was a bit huffy when I learned through leaks that there was a Jenova fight (since the first fight in the original is on the boat to Costa Del Sol) but this was a great set piece. One of the moments where everything worked.

Also good: Rufus fight. Bad: losing Rufus’ speech to the party.

Not a ton more thoughts right now? Sephiroth fight was good although for all his presence in the story I think we suffer without the full Nibelheim flashback to round things out. In all really liked it. Want to play again pretty much immediately. Will write something more cogent for the site I guess? Got a few ideas. But yeah! entered as skeptic and left mostly a believer on this one.

#final fantasy vii remake #spoilers

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a-blue-secret · 4 years ago

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CHAPTER XV

BACK TO MASTERLIST

Chapter XIV | Chapter XV | Chapter XVI

GENRES: royal au; fantasy au; magic au; friends-to-enemies-to-lovers; king!beomgyu, vizier!taehyun

PAIRING: taegyu

WARNINGS: swearing, slight suggestive content (it's like 3 words)

WORD COUNT: 4.1k+

The knock came again.

“Come in!” Taehyun called.

.・゜-: ✧ :-

The door creaked open, and Beomgyu peered into the room. When he spotted Taehyun, his face immediately lit up and he rushed up to him, speaking a mile a minute.

“Are you okay, Taehyun? Oh my god when you suddenly passed out I was so worried because one minute you were fine but before I knew it you were swaying queasily and suddenly toppled over and I swear I’ve never felt more terrified than in that moment because Taehyun I literally thought you were going to die like your skin was so pale and then when the blueness started to form under your fingertips I became even more scared because even though you hate me and betray me like every week I don’t want you to die because you were my friend, my best friend and how am I supposed to run Gojongja without you? So when Yeonjun said that he’d be able to take care of you I was still terrified for your life and then when he said you were fine you have no idea how relieved I was because I literally thought you were going to die but I’m so glad you didn’t and that you’re alive and well– I mean, you’re alive but not exactly well because Taehyun, no offence but you look like shit.”

Finally Beomgyu stopped rambling, taking a deep breath in after his panicked monologue. “So how are you?”

Taehyun couldn’t help but smile. “I’m fine. But yeah, I feel like shit.”

Beomgyu brought up a stool to sit by Taehyun. “Did I mention you look like shit? Because you do.”

“Gee thanks, Beomgyu,” Taehyun said, rolling his eyes.

“Your welcome,” Beomgyu grinned. He reached forward and ruffled Taehyun’s hair. “Gosh, it’s not often I see you in such a vulnerable position. You look almost cute.”

Taehyun scowled, pushing away Beomgyu’s hand. “I can literally break your wrist with one squeeze of my hand.”

“Aw, don’t be so mean,” Beomgyu said teasingly. “My wrists are too pretty for you to break!”

“Uh huh.”

“But on a more serious note, why did you pass out? Was it the cakes?”

“Cakes?” Taehyun repeated, confused. Then his eyes widened. “Oh, those cakes.” He frowned. “I dunno. They didn’t taste off or anything. They certainly didn’t smell off. I don’t know.”

Beomgyu tapped his chin. “What did you eat before that?”

“Nothing,” Taehyun said. “I hadn’t eaten anything for two days.”

“Two days?” Beomgyu repeated, shocked. “Why not? You need to eat to sustain yourself! Otherwise you’ll fall sick?”

“Like you care,” Taehyun retorted. “Besides, it’s no big deal. I’ve gone a week without food before. Doing a vizier’s and a King’s work is hard, okay?” he said when Beomgyu continued to stare at him, aghast. “Anyway, I think it must have been the cakes. Where did you get it from?”

“Lord Soobin,” Beomgyu replied. “They were infused with the essence of his flowers, and he gave them to me but I gave them to you as an apology because you were mad at me.”

“Lord Soobin? Oh, no, he’s a good person. He can’t have hurt me intentionally,” Taehyun dismissed.

“He did say they were his own flowers he’d made… maybe he didn’t know they would react that way when cooked?” Beomgyu said.

“That has to be it,” Taehyun said. “He’s good. He just made a mistake, that’s all.”

Beomgyu nodded his head. “I have to agree. He was really kind, there’s no way he’d do that on purpose.”

“How’s Gojongja doing right now?” Taehyun asked.

“Not in flames, thankfully,” Beomgyu said. “You have no idea how stressful these last few days have been. People have been pestering me on your whereabouts. Because you disappeared so suddenly, it was obvious something was wrong and they’re all curious if you’d dropped dead or something.” He sighed. “Fending off the Lords is hard mentally, too. They’re just so thick it’s ridiculous.”

Taehyun gave a humourless laugh. “Tell me about it.”

“I don’t know how you do it, Taehyun. I thought that I was smart, but these past few days I’ve begun to question my own intelligence. There are so many little excuses I’ve told to quash any rumours from arising, and I barely remember half of them. This whole King business is harder than I thought. You’re amazing, Taehyun, you really are.”

Taehyun gave a sarcastic smile. “Duh. Did you not know?”

Beomgyu playfully rolled his eyes. “Course I did. That’s why you’re my vizier.” He paused. “Amongst other reasons. But anyway,” he carried on swiftly, “the Lords are being so annoying. They haven’t done anything big, but they’re just like pesky flies which keep buzzing around my ears. Honestly, wherever I go there’s one of them tailing me.”

Taehyun frowned. “That’s not good.”

“Don’t worry, though,” Beomgyu assured him. “I always remind them of the rule that they must stay at least fifteen feet away from the King and his vizier, so they shouldn’t give us any more trouble.”

Taehyun raised an eyebrow. “Is that an actual rule?”

“Yup,” Beomgyu said. “From a thousand years ago. In the time when Emperors ruled. A rule that was never revoked. So technically, it’s still in place.” He sighed, giving a sad pout. “But still, it’s so hard,” he whined, pout prominent in his voice. “You need to come back quick, Taehyun, okay? I can’t do this on my own. Why, just on the way here I was bombarded with servants telling me about some crystals you ordered for our chandeliers. I didn’t know what to tell them, and just told them to put it all in the ballroom, if that’s okay. I had no idea of how much you do for our court until I was doing it myself…”

At some point, Taehyun seemed to have zoned out. He was just staring absent-mindedly at Beomgyu’s lips as the other continued ranting, noticing how they were still so soft and pink despite how much he talked. And when they formed a pout… for some strange reason, he was mesmerised by them. They were the most convenient place for him to lay his eyes on, they were what stood out the most. Whatever it was, Taehyun’s eyes landed on them first and he hadn’t been able to take his eyes off them ever since. How had he never noticed their delicate shape, and the way they moved as Beomgyu pronounced each word? He’d been staring to the point it would be painfully obvious, but Beomgyu seemed oblivious to it. He just lamented to Taehyun about everything that had happened those past days, and if he noticed that Taehyun hadn’t been focused at all, he gave none of it away.

“–but you know, I tried my best. And hey, the kingdom’s still in one piece! I count that as a success.”

“You talk so much… why aren’t your lips dry and cracked?” Taehyun murmured. “They’re so pretty and perfect.”

Beomgyu blinked. “What did you say?”

Taehyun quickly snapped himself back to reality, shaking his head a little. “Nothing, nothing. I was just talking to myself.”

Beomgyu gave a confused smile, but didn’t question it. He glanced at the clock in the corner of the room, and jumped. “Oh, I need to go!” Taehyun looked up at him, confused, as Beomgyu stood up.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m going to take a look at the marble quarry that’s malfunctioned,” Beomgyu explained. “I thought I’d be able to do something about it.”

“You’re a wind manipulator, though? How are you going to help against radioactivity?” Taehyun grabbed Beomgyu’s sleeve. “Don’t go, it can be dangerous.”

“Wow, are you worried about me?”

At Taehyun’s annoyed glare, the teasing smirk on Beomgyu’s face melted into a gentle smile. He patted Taehyun’s hand which was still gripping onto his sleeve.

“Don't worry. I’m just going to talk to the supervisor. I’ll be fine. Don’t die while I’m gone, okay?” he called as he exited the room.

“I’ll try my best not to!” Taehyun called back. The last thing he saw was Beomgyu’s smiling face, before the door closed shut. He gnawed his bottom lip worriedly, frowning. Beomgyu must be doing a lot, it seemed, if he’d organised a trip to the malfunctioning rock quarry. At least Gojongja didn’t seem to be in danger of becoming out of control… but would Beomgyu be okay? His frown deepened as he remembered what had just happened. What was that, anyway? It wasn’t like him to zone out, and even less so to suddenly blurt out something random. Like that comment about Beomgyu’s lips… weird.

He snapped out of his reverie, and knocked three times on the wall beside the bed. A few minutes later, Hueningkai and Yeonjun appeared.

“Beomgyu was here for only an hour,” Hueningkai commented. “Did he need to go somewhere?”

“Yeah. He’s gone to look at a rock quarry to the east of Gojongja, where the palace gets most of its marble from. There’s been some abnormal radioactive instances lately, causing them to shut it down and he’s seeing why it happened. We need the marble to be able to replace our ballroom floor.” Taehyun smoothed out the bed sheets. “I’m kind of worried, because he’s going there without my guidance. What if he gets hurt?”

“Beomgyu has like a million guards,” Yeonjun reassured him. “I’m sure he’ll be fine.”

“Hmm. I hope so.” Taehyun suddenly whined, hitting the blankets in annoyance. “It’s so annoying being bedridden! Hueningkai, when can I get up again?”

Hueningkai felt his forehead, and checked his pulse. “You seem fine,” he said. “Because I’ve never seen the thing you had before, it’s a little hard to determine if you’ve healed. But, you look healthy, and sound healthy so… this afternoon, you might be able to walk around the room.”

“Oh, finally!” Taehyun gave a small whoop. Yeonjun laughed.

“You want to be able to walk that badly, huh?”

“Duh! I want to get up as soon as possible before something bad happens to Gojongja.”

Hueningkai grinned. “Alright then. We’ll check your condition in the afternoon.”

.・゜-: ✧ :-

“No, don’t get up too quickly– aaaand there he goes. Yeonjun, catch him!”

Taehyun, after having the many blankets removed from him, had sprung out of the bed faster than his brain was ready for, and with a dizzy head, had almost fallen over.

“Taehyun,” Yeonjun tutted. “You should know better than that. After lying down for four days, you need to get up slowly for your body to adjust to the changes!”

“Stop scolding me,” Taehyun muttered, clutching his spinning head. “It already hurts.”

“Maybe we should get you to lie down again,” Hueningkai suggested worriedly. “If it’s too much, we shouldn’t push–”

“No, no, I’m fine.” Taehyun pushed away Yeonjun’s hand, staggering onto his own feet. “Woah.” He held onto the drawers for balance. “Did the world always spin like this? No, no– I got this.” He held up a hand to Hueningkai, stopping the younger from approaching him. “There. There we go.” Taehyun closed his eyes tightly and opened them again, and the world ceased its queasy movement. “That’s better.”

Yeonjun and Hueningkai watched as Taehyun began to determinedly hobble around the room, his steps becoming more stable and confident with each passing second. Soon enough, he was walking normally, and strode back up to them with a grin.

“See? I’m perfectly fine.” He spread his arms wide and gave a little spin.

“You look fine too,” Hueningkai said. “You’re practically glowing with health.” He crossed his arms proudly. “I told you it was a super rejuvenator.”

“Thank you, Hueningkai,” Taehyun said. “And you too, Yeonjun, for taking care of me.”

“It was no problem,” Yeonjun replied easily. “You’re our friend now.”

Taehyun gave a delighted whoop, leaping around the room. “Oh, it feels so nice to be out of bed! This is like the best I’ve ever felt! I feel like I could do cartwheels and double backflips and all sorts!”

As Taehyun continued to excitedly run around, jumping off random bits of furniture and doing the odd flip now and then, Yeonjun and Hueningkai watched with smiles on their faces.

“Why does he look so much younger right now?” Yeonjun asked, smiling fondly.

“Because he looks happy,” Hueningkai responded. “Happiness does wonders for your complexion.”

When Taehyun almost knocked over the grandfather clock in his excited state, Yeonjun winced.

“But you can become giddy with too much happiness,” he said. “Should we stop him before he breaks something?”

“Oh, don’t worry about it.” Hueningkai went back over to the desk where all his equipment was. “Because he hasn’t gotten out of bed in ages, he’ll tire out quickly. Just you wait. In a few hours, he’ll be passed out on the bed again.”

.・゜-: ✧ :-

“Why am I… so… tired?” Taehyun mindlessly curled his fingers around the silk sheets, face pressed against the mattress. “It’s only been two hours.”

“It’s what happens when you use up all your energy doing backflips and handstands,” Yeonjun said, preoccupied with making some books fly around the room like birds. When they were flying in a consistent pattern, he laughed delightedly. “Doesn’t that look cool?”

Taehyun wearily lifted his head to see. He watched as the books fluttered around, pages open like the wings of birds. “Eh. Cool enough.”

The books flew around for a few more seconds, before Yeonjun’s concentration dropped and they fell to the floor. “Why is it that when we’re emotionally heightened it’s easier to use our abilities?” he sighed. “It’s so annoying when objects suddenly hit me when I’m nervous.”

Taehyun lifted his head curiously at that. “Oh. Aruyeonan abilities work differently, right?”

“That’s right.” Hueningkai put down his goggles, looking at Taehyun. “Aruyeonans are already born with the knowledge on how to use their ability. It’s not something they learn, like here in Gojongja. And when they’re emotional, their abilities are more prone to getting out of control.” Hueningkai snickered. “I remember, the night before his first mission while Yeonjun was going over his plan-”

“We don’t talk about that,” Yeonjun interrupted. “We don’t talk about that, do we, Hueningkai?”

“Why, why? What happened?” Taehyun asked.

Yeonjun glared. “Don’t you dare tell him.”

Hueningkai gave a mischievous grin. “The curtains kept slapping his ass as he paced the room, the candles would randomly come to hit him on the head, and at one point his whip wrapped itself around his feet and tripped him over. You should have seen his face!”

Taehyun suppressed a laugh at the thought. Yeonjun leapt out of the chair and mimed strangling Hueningkai. “You little-” He sighed, dropping back into the chair. He covered his face with his hand, embarrassed. “...Curtains still get really touchy with me when I’m nervous.”

At that, Taehyun burst out laughing. Yeonjun only brought his other hand up to his face, trying to cover up the heavy blush.

“It’s so annoying too! When I’m pacing the room, they’ll stretch out to trip me up or wrap around my ankles or do some other weird stuff, and it just never stops! They turn into little whips and hit my ass all the time, and I just don’t know why.”

“Maybe they really like your ass,” Hueningkai said, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively. Yeonjun groaned and threw a pillow in the younger Aruyeonan’s direction. Hueningkai ducked it, laughing. “What? Maybe it just reflects what you like in real life.”

Yeonjun groaned louder, throwing a book at Hueningkai. Hueningkai caught it in one hand, putting it down on the desk.

“Shut your pansexual ass.”

Hueningkai gasped. “You like my ass??”

“I said shut it!”

Hueningkai laughed as Yeonjun leapt out of the chair holding a pillow, and stalked up to the younger, repeatedly hitting him with the cushion. Taehyun watched them all, amused. When Hueningkai surrendered, Yeonjun retreated, patting the cushion nicely before putting it back onto the armchair.

“Sorry about that,” Yeonjun said. “Hueningkai needed a little discipline .”

Taehyun grinned. “It’s fine. I’m assuming he’s the pansexual friend you told me about before?”

“Yup.” Yeonjun propped his feet up on a small table, picking up his book.

Taehyun rubbed his nose, thinking about the things Hueningkai had just said. “Then you… you’re homosexual?”

Yeonjun watched him over the top of his book, amber eyes glowing. “Indeed I am. Would you… would you happen to have a problem with that?”

Taehyun didn’t say anything for a few moments. He frowned, thinking back to what Yeonjun had once said.

“If they leave, it’s a sign they don’t want to have anything to do with you, and sort of… neglect you, after you admit who you are. If they leave you, they can’t be that much of a good person, anyway. What kind of asshole wouldn’t accept you just because of your sexuality?”

Taehyun took a deep breath, and smiled. “Not really. I’m trying to be more accepting, and cut out the homophobic beliefs that Gojongja have drilled into my brain.”

Yeonjun stared at him, expressionless, before giving a tiny smile. He nodded approvingly, and went back to reading his book. “That’s good.”

Hueningkai tilted his head, a little confused about what was going on. “So… you used to be homophobic?”

“I had an… acquaintance,” Taehyun said. “He came out to me, and I reacted in a way that I can now see was wrong.” He nodded his head towards Yeonjun. “Yeonjun helped me see that. So now, I’m trying to be a little different in my approach towards these sorts of things, and be more careful about how I react.”

Hueningkai gave a smile. “I guess that must be hard, huh? As the prince, they’d probably ingrain their teachings into you harder than anyone else.”

“It’s hard,” Taehyun admitted. “My mind keeps telling me to walk away, to get away in case I get ‘contaminated’... but I’m trying to separate myself from those thoughts and try to form opinions of my own. It may be difficult, but I want to be able to do it. And maybe… maybe even eventually apologise to the first person who came out to me.”

“That’s good.” Hueningkai and Taehyun looked over to see Yeonjun smiling widely, a look of fond pride on his face. “This person: it’s Beomgyu right?”

Taehyun nodded mutely, looking a little ashamed. “I’ve done loads of thinking about it. And I can’t believe I acted that way. It makes me feel so bad.”

Yeonjun only smiled wider. “The fact that your opinions have changed drastically in only a short while is amazing. I think that when you first told me about it, you still thought that the way you acted had been right, but now… look at you.” His eyes shone brightly. “You’ve changed so much in, what? Three weeks?” He leaned back, still grinning. “I’m ridiculously proud.”

Taehyun stared at him, before giving a wide smile of his own. Leaning back against the headboard of the bed, he closed his eyes. He’d done a lot of thinking about why he’d reacted the way he did, when Beomgyu came out to him. The most obvious reason, of course, was because of Gojongja’s beliefs, and how ingrained they were in him. But Taehyun thought it was deeper than that. He could feel that it was deeper than that. Eyes still closed, he frowned, thinking. Even though Taehyun knew there was a deeper, more meaningful reason he’d acted the way he did, he still couldn't figure out just what that reason was...

.・゜-: ✧ :-

Taehyun hummed to himself, staring at the ceiling. He’d just run another lap around the room and was resting.

“Hey,” he said, and both spies looked up.

“You okay, Taehyun?” Yeonjun asked.

“You’re spies, right? What exactly do you do?”

Yeonjun coughed, setting down his book. “Well, uh… I, well, spy on the other Kingdoms. Queen Erajin would send me to other places as a representative, and I’d stay in that court, gathering the information she required until she thought she’d had enough, at which point I’d leave.” He nodded his head towards Hueningkai. “Hyuka, though, he has a different job.”

“I’m the chemical user,” Hueningkai said. “I make poisons and antidotes and explosives for Her Supremeness to use as she sees fit. Sometimes they’ll be given to Yeonjun to place in the court he’s going to. Like… like that marble.”

“Right, I’ve been meaning to ask. What was that marble? The one I found in the Discussion and Tactics room?”

“It’s one of my few hybrid marbles,” Hueningkai explained. “It’s a, uh, eavesdropper and data collector. It listens to conversations and records them, and also can scan the area at a fifteen metre radius around it, to collect data.”

Taehyun nodded thoughtfully. “When did you put it there, Yeonjun?”

“About a day or two before we met in the room,” Yeonjun admitted. “We used it to record you agreeing to the alliance, and any other important discussions that would happen in that room. But, since I wasn’t able to get it back, that data is lost.”

“Alright.” Suddenly, Taehyun gasped. “Wait, does that mean someone else can have access to it?”

“No, no,” Hueningkai reassured him hurriedly. “No. That’s what the trinitrotoluene is for.”

“There’s trinitrotoluene in there?” Taehyun asked, surprised. “Really?”

Hueningkai nodded. “Even though you can’t see its yellowness, it’s definitely there,” he said. “If someone tries to break through the glass, it’ll explode. The only one who would know how to open it properly would be me.”

Taehyun breathed a sigh of relief. “That’s good. I’m still upset you’d do something like that to us though.”

“It was our job, Taehyun,” Hueningkai sighed. “Even if we didn’t like it, we had to do it to survive.”

“Though we’ve never disobeyed her orders, I can only imagine the severity of the punishments if we didn’t carry out our missions,” Yeonjun said gravely. “That’s what people told us.”

“Oh, that reminds me,” Taehyun said, sitting up. “Who is Lord Hyunjin and what is his relation with you?”

Yeonjun blinked, and chuckled a little. “You and your formal way of speaking,” he said, smiling. “But, um, Hyunjin is the only Lord in Aruyeo who knows about Hueningkai and I being spies. I guess he was telling you to warn you.” He ruffled his hair. “He and I aren’t enemies, though. We were friends, and even stayed friends after Kai and I became spies.”

“He was like the only person who never bullied me,” Hueningkai added. “I like him. He’s nice.”

“I talked with Hyunjin a couple of days ago,” Yeonjun said, rubbing his neck. “He said the reason he told you about it was because, since we’re spies, it would be a bad idea for you to trust us. Plus, he said there’s something wrong with Queen Erajin, and he didn’t want you to give any information away that could be passed to her.”

“Come to think of it, everyone is telling us something is wrong in Aruyeo,” Hueningkai commented, frowning. “You and I seem to be the last ones to figure it out.”

“It looks like it, doesn’t it?” Yeonjun said, sighing. Suddenly, there was a knock at the door and Hueningkai dove under the bed. Yeonjun blinked, looking down at the young Aruyeonan.

“Hurry up and get the door!” Hueningkai whisper-yelled. Yeonjun’s lips twitched, looking at Hueningkai’s odd position, but strode to the door and opened it.

“It is my understanding that Sir Taehyun is resting in your room,” Heesung said. “I have been ordered to tell him that King Beomgyu will be returning to Gojongja in three days.”

Yeonjun looked at Taehyun who was sitting on the bed, before turning to Heesung again. “Thank you. I’ll tell him that.” He bowed to the guard, and closed the door.

“So, Beomgyu’s coming back?” Taehyun asked.

“Yep. There was no need for you to worry so much, was there? Sounds like he’s still alive.”

“I don’t want him to get potentially hurt,” Taehyun said, shrugging. When he caught Yeonjun wiggling his eyebrows at him, he tilted his head. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Nothing,” Yeonjun said, grinning. “It’s nothing.”

Hueningkai crawled out from under the bed, stretching his limbs uncomfortably. “Ugh, I hate when people come knocking without any warning,” he grumbled. “I have to constantly hide under the bed to not be seen, and I’m not exactly the most flexible person ever…”

Yeonjun snorted. “Oh yeah, I remember. You can’t even touch your toes can you?”

Hueningkai narrowed his eyes at Yeonjun. “One more word,” he warned. “One more word, and I’ll make you only able to speak Spanish for a whole month.”

“Come on!” Yeonjun groaned. “Last time it was a week! Why is it now a month?”

“Because you’re telling Taehyun! Not Hyunjin!”

“How does that make any difference??”

Taehyun chuckled, watching the two Aruyeonans bicker. He gave a sigh, leaning back against the headboard of the bed, stretching contentedly. Beomgyu was coming back. He was fully healed. Time to run Gojongja again.

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