#( i love their entire dynamic because regis thinks the world of luna

[sylleblosscm]

This meme but it’s Luna learning to swear by listening to Clarus, and Regis being absolutely, utterly a f f r o n t e d.

[secret-engima]

*kicks down door* WHO WANTS TO READ ME RAMBLE/RANT ABOUT THE GRALEA LEVEL IN FFXV AND WHY IT ACTUALLY WAS A GOOD LEVEL AND EVERYONE SHOULD PLAY THE NOCTIS ROUTE AT LEAST ONCE RATHER THAN THE GLADIO ROUTE EVEN THOUGH IT’S TERRIFYING AND FRUSTRATING.

No one?

WELL TOO BAD.

(Unless you haven’t played or watched the game yet and don’t want spoilers in which case TURN AWAY NOW).

...Ahem. *deep breath* Okay so I will forever stand by my opinion that chapter 13 of the game (the one that takes place on the train and then in Gralea) is Good™ and does exactly what it's supposed to in the narrative. That is not to say I don't hate it with a passion and didn't cheer when they added the Gladiolus route for those of us (like me) who didn't want to replay the Noctis route again, but I will stubbornly insist to anyone that wants to listen that the chapter's difficulty and wildly different tone and pacing was THE POINT of the darn thing and deserves some respect for it.

See, the game up to that point is, if not always lighthearted (because it's not), has still been something of an Adventure Story™. Yes there's horrible tragic things like Insomnia falling and Regis dying, but for the most part the gameplay is exploration and cool combat mechanics and the relationship between the four brothers. It's ... happy for a good chunk of it. There's this light at the end of the tunnel, this comfy assurance that there can be a happy ending, that this can all be fixed and tied up in a neat little bow somehow.

Then Altissia happens. Luna dies, Ignis is blinded, and the game puts you on literal rails, forcing you to go hurtling toward A Different Tone. Everyone is stressed, everyone is scared or angry. You’d THINK that this is the lowest point of the story and that surely there’s going to be an emotional reconciliation between Noctis and Gladio and then we’ll get back to exploring and saving the world and all that jazz.

Except we don’t.

The train scene with Ardyn and Shiva happens, and the entire heartbreak with Prompto happens, and that’s when things start to seriously crack. You lose all access to your magic while stuck in this narrow train, then you lose the Regalia, your symbol of freedom, your main way to travel through the game (even when you fast travel, the animation of arrival shows you getting out of the Regalia). You are now trapped in Gralea. In dark, hostile territory with one of your party missing, one of them blind, the other angry at you, and still no magic. Then a few minutes later you are forcibly separated from the rest of your party, the characters you’ve spent all game getting attached to, and leaning on, and laughing with. They are your last anchor points to the brother dynamic that has kept the whole game on a lighter note and now they are GONE. You have none of your weapons or skills, you have no idea where the others are (first time playing the game without spoilers anyway), you have NOTHING. No hope. No backup. No distractions from the fact that, oh yeah, this is a story where the Bad. Guys. Win. Are winning, have won, and all Noctis (all you) can do is take out the Ring that slowly killed Regis, that Luna died for, the thing that represents everything going wrong and all NOCTIS must do to fix it even when he is painfully, woefully unprepared ... and finally put it on. 

Noctis (and by extension you, the player) MUST shoulder the responsibility of being the king of a lost kingdom, of acknowledging that he IS the king, his dad was MURDERED, and Luna was killed for the thing you are now wearing and everything it means. It’s your only option until you eventually find the dead Ravus and take back Regis’s sword toward the middle/end of the level, which you can’t use recklessly because every swing drains your very life-force, forcing the Ring to still be your “best” option in many cases.

Most of that level is spent running, and hiding, and praying that the MT Units on the floor don’t leap up and try to murder you, or that the daemons don’t notice you, or that the teleporting daemon doesn’t find you, or that Ardyn will just SHUT UP because his taunts are really unhelpful right now.

The only hope you have left in this level is to grit your teeth and get through it with the Ring until you can reunite with your brothers and get magic back and go get the Crystal, the mcguffin of this whole game, and put the game back on the normal track of brotherly dynamics and fun quests. Just get to the Crystal, and everything will somehow start going back to normal.

And then that turns out to be a trap too.

Welcome to the final act of a tragedy, and your character is the one living through it. There will be no restoration of the norm until you’ve seen this to its final conclusion. There will be no light save for the one Noctis dies for.

Even when I first played that level (vanilla, not even a day one patch version btw because I was an idiot like that) and hated it because it was terrifying, I never thought it didn't belong in the story like ... quite a few comments I saw on the internet later insisted it didn’t. This is Noctis's story. This is Noctis's tragedy. THIS is the level that strips every last distraction and security blanket and shelter away from him and makes him put on the Ring and thus shoulder everything it represents. There is- terror here, there is trauma, there is GRIEF. This is practically Noctis's headspace without his brothers, because let's not forget that while we the players are having fun fishing and catching frogs for a silly scientist lady, Noctis is a refugee from an empire that MURDERED HIS FATHER and the FATHER OF HIS SHIELD-BROTHER, destroyed his HOME and then, right before Gralea, murdered Luna, the girl who he's known and talked to and confided in via letter for twelve years. This is a world falling into literal darkness (and if the player hadn’t noticed how the daytime cycle in the game kept getting shorter and shorter before this point YOU CERTAINLY NOTICE NOW) and it's up to Noctis- JUST Noctis, ONLY NOCTIS thanks to a Prophecy made long before he was ever born, to somehow Fix It™.

One person. Just one.

And he has to fix ... all of this.

How?

He doesn’t know. During the Gralea level he DOESN’T KNOW. All he (all we) know is that the Crystal is the key, but since the Crystal only answers to Lucis Caelums, that means Noctis is the key, and Noctis (and you the player) is painfully aware of how Not Ready he is.

And the weight of that is enough to render you helpless in the face of it. The fear of that is a maze. The terror of it is a monster following you down the halls that you cannot escape from and cannot kill while it laughs at your misery.

All of that is GRALEA. The capital city of the people who overthrew his home, killed his father, killed his fiancé, and isolated him from the last safety nets he had.

The entirety of chapter 13 isn’t meant to be enjoyed. It’s meant to make you scared. It’s meant to frustrate you and make you feel helpless. It’s meant to make you feel sick when you learn what the daemons and MTs you’ve been killing really are. It’s meant to make you RAGE against Ardyn, and the Empire, and this entire situation because you’re one person and you’re not prepared for this and it’s NOT FAIR and you just want things to go BACK TO THE WAY IT WAS AND ALL OF THIS SUCKS.

Yeah. It does.

And who else do you think feels like that?

Noctis.

Chapter 13 isn’t meant to be fun. It’s meant to make you feel like Noctis does.

And what emotions would you expect from someone who has just lost everything and is expected to fix everything for everyone else, and now has no distractions or shields between him and his grief?

I remember reading an article about “why this chapter failed” and it was basically to the order of “this game is about a fun road trip with your bros and reuniting with your fiancé and chapter 13 breaks away from that too hard” and I respectfully have to disagree.

This story isn’t about a “fun road trip” and it isn’t just about “reuniting with your fiancé”. From the very first cutscene we are told that it’s not in Regis’s desperate (and soon revealed as last) words to his son about setting forth on a journey and not being able to go back. We are told it’s not in the first hour or so when Insomnia burns and Noctis cries and Cor tells us that “in his last moments together he didn’t want to be your king, he wanted to be your father”. How is that a “fun story about a road trip?”. Yes the road trip IS fun for us, and it IS about the brother relationship, but in a large, LARGE part-

Final Fantasy XV is about a young man setting out into the world and facing the hardships of it. It’s about loss. It’s about regrets. It’s about how no matter how much you want them to, some things can never go back to the way they were yet you must keep going anyway. It’s about how the darkness of the world will just keep taking-taking-taking until someone is willing to pay the price to make it stop, and that sometimes a happy ending for the people you love most means giving up your own personal happy ending on their behalf.

Final Fantasy XV never really hid the fact that it was a tragic, bittersweet story.

But it’s in chapter 13 that the story refuses to let you mistake it for anything else any longer.

Could the chapter have been structured a little better so that the gameplay itself wasn’t so frustrating? Probably. I know almost nothing about game design so that’s not really my call. But does the chapter, for all its frustration and anger-inducing inversion of pacing and tone, brutally get the point across?

Maybe it’s just my opinion, but I’d say yes. Yes it does. Because this video game was the one that fully 100% convinced me, in a way that no other video game had before, that the platform could tell heart wrenching stories, could give me characters I would care for, cry over, rage on the behalf of.

And a big part of that clicked for me at the ending, but it likely wouldn’t have if I hadn’t first struggled my way through chapter 13 and all the emotions it causes and represents just like Noctis did.

...

There. I’m done. Thanks for reading my long-suppressed rant on the most hated chapter of FFXV.

[joeyisaprincess]

Things to think about

-Imagine Ravus in a motorcycle driving around town with Loqi attached to a lil sidecar beside him. The world 11 theme from super mario 3D world is playing in the background.

-Ravus has hemorrhoids

-Caligo is lactose intolerant but loves ice cream

-Biggs has the bluest most white dad looking jeans and he wears them whenever he doesn’t have to wear his uniform. Everyone wonders if that’s the only pair of pants he has

-Ardyn has his daemons fill an entire empty room with as much shaving cream as possible so he can roll around on the floor naked and slide around. He claims it’s enjoyable.

-Aranea makes beats on every surface she touches. She hardly notices she does it.

-Luna and Gentiana go sledding when it snows

-Luna also has an office chair in her room that she rolls around in like no tomorrow. He floors are hard and smooth so it’s wonderful. From outside her room you hear wheels rolling, bare feet slappin on the floor, laughing, and occasional screams followed by a crash.

-To get himself pumped for the day, Ravus stands in the mirror shirtless and slaps his tiddies to the beat of “i like to move it move it”

-Wedge taped scissors to his chest once

-Ignis pats his own bum gently sometimes to help himself fall asleep

-prompto manages to get water inside his butt canal or whatever it’s called whenever he showers

-Prompto and Noctis rub their backs together sometimes because it feels like a weird massage and it eases tension

-Ravus microwaves his ice cream for a few seconds so he can drink it with a straw.

-Luna drinks pickle juice.

-“I will fart on everything you’ve ever loved” is a commonly used comeback of Gladio’s

-Regis decided to get into memes to better connect with the youth. He doesn’t really understand them, but he made a tumblr and tries to fit in by adding “bold of you to assume i have blood” to every single post he comes across…. regardless of what the post is even about.

-Prompto decided to randomly turn to Noctis and say “Teeth.” and provide no explanation or commentary. He did this for about a month to see if it would change the dynamic of their friendship. It didnt.

-When Noctis was in elementary school, he would place all of his pencils side by side on his desk and pretend they were sitting at a dinner table. And then he would cut up an eraser into thin slices, and hand them out to his pencils like they were having a ham dinner.

-One of Noctis’s dreams is to rip a live salmon from a river with his bare hands and bite right into it

-Prompto calls pizza hut “Butt Hutt”. It’s not an insult, he loves pizza hut he just calls it that.

-Wiz spends his free time selling his belly button lint on craigslist

-Noctis and Gladio skinny dipped together in the Alstor Slough and a fish tried to swim between Noctis’s butt cheeks

-Cid leaned in close to whisper something in Cor’s ear, and then just swallowed

~ravioli noxioli

[nyxulricdeleted]

SLAM DUNKS MY URL HELLO

Send me your URL and I’ll tell you [NO longer accepting]

My Opinion on;

Character in general: God, thank you for allowing me to ramble about Regis, cause I ABSOLUTELY ADORE THIS MAN OKAY? I remember when they first showed Regis back in FF13 Versus and I thought he was going to be those typical angry, hardass, cold and cynical mafia type leaders of a father...and then I saw the scene where Noctis and Regis were eating at the dinner table and I almost teared up because of how beautiful it was. Here was a man struggling with a shit load of problems, the entire world on his shoulders and he still made time for his son, treated him like a child and not just the heir to the throne and was a goof ball despite his internal afflictions. I gained so much love and respect for him there. Fast forward to the movie - I love how disciplined, fearless, strong and composed he is in front of everyone and then when he sees Luna he melts into who he truly is - a big hearted man. He was like a very loving father when he spoke to her, formalities aside and I really love that dynamic. There is so much more to him than the crown and his duty to it. They made him very human, something that not many characters of royalty depict. When he died I fucking cried. I knew it was going to happen but he faced it with such valor that I was pleading that somehow he would survive. The trailer of him holding baby Noctis and weeping is my absolute favorite and I get so emotional watching it because...I could NEVER imagine the turmoil he felt knowing damn well that he would be the one to put an end his beloved son’s life. Noctis and Luna may have suffered greatly but I think after them it would be Regis because he had to carry the weight of that for Noctis’ entire life and then also had to go through with it and like...can you imagine killing your own son for the sake of the world? The ending where it shows him standing there as everyone else cut into Noctis really made me emotional too, he couldn’t bear to look and I can’t even ponder what he was feeling. REGIS JUST MAKES ME EMOTIONAL OKAY? lol

How they play them: Ah crap, here goes another rant. The mun plays them with utter perfection. I hate throwing that term around so freely but I truly mean it when I say that I hear Regis in their writing. They play him with a grace that is only matched with his ferocity and does so very realistically and implements all of the dynamics of Regis I listed above. I rambled on how much I love Regis so when I say they are true to his character, I genuinely mean that! Their beautiful way with words captures Regis’ level of intellect, discipline and strength. I LOVE LOVE LOVE HOW THEY PORTRAY HIM.

The Mun: I LOVE THEM. Seriously, the mun is an absolute sweetheart, a true treasure to be kept. They inspire me alone with their writing but then leaves comments here and there about me and my writing that just astounds me and makes me so happy like honestly what did I do to deserve them? They take such care in their writing and I truly appreciate that - honestly it’s rare to find such dedication. 

Do I:

RP with them:  YesWant to RP with them:  ALWAYS

What is my;

Overall Opinion: Follow the King, you won’t regret it. I am honestly so grateful I followed them and even more that they followed me. My experience here on Nyx has been so fulfilling and worthwhile with them here .

**Note: Mun’s answer are all to be completely honest. Don’t send url if you don’t want brutal honesty

@regisinfernus

[sylleblosscm]

@inimiicus​:

character meme: ardyn jazz hands

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Opinions

First impression • I have to level with you guys, as one of those bi of sexuals you’ll hear a lot about this month, I just. When it comes to the over-the-top, super camp, sassy villain who is also genuinely scary, my response is automatic. I see, I love. He was already great. Aspirational. Iconic. An absolute treasure to behold. A gift to my eyeballs. Ardyn didn’t need to be more than that for me to appreciate him, and at first, I didn’t think he would be.

Impression now • Like the great philosopher Cloud once said: hoo boy. You know when a property fucks up a character so severely that they’re kind of obligated to give them a redemption story down the line, and it’s so obviously hamfisted that people respond with, “wOw, tHaT FixEd eVerYtHiNg!”? That, but unironically for Episode Ardyn. Not that Ardyn was especially broken to begin with, it was just frustrating that we never got a full grasp on his motivations or place in the narrative. While giving the villain a Tragic Backstory™©® in order to make them sympathetic is a hamfisted and annoying move most of the time, XV really pulled it off for me. After learning the kind of person he used to be, what was done to him, and the existence he’s been forced into, he doesn’t really come off so bad anymore. Especially if you reject Bahamut at first, and witness the cruel and inhumane lengths he’s willing to go to, to see his own will done. Much like with Regis, I’m left wondering what I’m supposed to be angry about. He’s up against a literal god. And clearly XV isn’t interested in being that kind of jrpg (though it really should have been, salt, salt). Not only do we have context to his behaviour, but it actually shifts the dynamic of the entire cast, world, and story, because the villain no longer seems villainous, and the hero doesn’t feel quite so much like a hero, as much as he does a helpless pawn. (But that’s an entire other rant I may go into someday.) I suppose in the end, all I really want for Ardyn is justice for his character. Not to harp on Dawn or anything, but I really liked that ending for him. He found peace in death or whatever; more important is that he did it on his own terms, regaining his agency in his final moments. He chose how to go, was able to reconcile with his brother, and take his justice from a cruel and unforgiving god that was willing to raise 114 generations of his own blood to slaughter. Honestly, call me captain of the Ardyn Defence Squad, because I’d go to war for this greasy weirdo, Man Of Every Consequence.

Favorite moment • It’s a tie. “For what sins must I atone??” SAY IT AGAIN FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK. But also, probably the entire talk with Bahamut, because again, that’s the thing that shifts his character from Sassy Villain to genuinely devastating. You really get an image of just how helpless and powerless this seemingly all-powerful man is in the face of his destiny. And it’s all capped off by knowing that he became this way because he wanted so desperately to help others. I just can’t fault him for that. And finally, the moment he kills Luna. I hate that for Luna a lot, but I love how she reaches out and tries to offer her help. You see this perfect, unbreakable facade of carelessness crack, and it elicits one of the few honest-to-goodness reactions we ever see from him. He’s disgusted, afraid, and a little hopeful all at once. All because someone was kind to him for the first time in a couple thousand years. 

Idea for a story • I’m still hung up on anything that lets him and Luna be besties. He needs a friend. I’d also like to see a deviation in canon where he instantly regrets harming Luna and manages to help her somehow, sparing her life and forcing him to reconsider his actions and accept her help.

Unpopular opinion • Honestly, if what I’ve already said thus far isn’t too unpopular, then there’s nothing I can add that would be so. Ardyn began as a great villain and ended as something between that and a sympathetic antihero. I just want more for him. 

Favorite relationship • I really, really wanted to see more of his relationship with Somnus. It was intriguing and nuanced, with neither side wholly in the right or wrong, and their rivalry stoked by forces well beyond them. I like that Dawn gave Somnus the chance to truly apologise, and I like to think that, in kinder circumstances, they could have been an amazing team. 

Favorite headcanon • That, after daylight returns, Ardyn’s rightful place in Lucian history is cemented; not just as the Accursed, but as the man who was almost King, but for his boundless compassion, and willingness to put himself in harm’s way to save others. It’s what he deserves.