#Ardyn can't tell the little guy no

[marmolita]

Lita's Kinktober/Promptober 2024!!

Okay let's do this thing!! I haven't found any official kinktober prompts list so I'm making up my own. I will provide three choices of prompt for each day (2 kinks + 1 trope), and if you want me to write a ficlet for you, please send me an ask with the day, prompt, and ship that you'd like it for and I'll put it on the list!

At this time, I'm open to writing fic only for the fandoms/ships/characters listed below. If I change my mind and add more fandoms I'll update this post. If you think you know me well enough to convince me to write something else you're welcome to come talk to me about it!

Who can send requests?

Literally anyone, anon is turned on as well. I would ask that you only send 1-2 requests to start, then if I don't get very many I'll take additional requests!

What info goes in my request?

Please include the day you want, the kink or prompt you want from that day's options (there are three choices for each day), and the fandom/ship you want. It's fair game to say "any prompt for XYZ ship" or "any fandom for XYZ prompt" or the like, but please give me a little bit of direction instead of just "idk any day any prompt any fandom" because the whole reason I'm doing this is that I can't think of stuff on my own. 😅 If you would like the work to be gifted to you on AO3, please give me your username. I'll tag you on tumblr when I post it as well, unless you specifically tell me you don't want to be tagged.

How do I send a request?

Put it in my ask box please! If you don't have a tumblr account you can also find me on discord and DM me there (marmolita), or go old school and email me, marmolita42 at gmail.

What fandoms and ships can I request?

Note: in all of these, "Other" means an OC that I invent to match the type of person/thing of your choice (e.g. "hunter" or "diner patron" or "Galbadian army soldiers" or "mindflayer" or something like that). I will not write reader insert fic or fic for OCs of other people's creation.

For prompts that aren't sex-related (like "office AU" or whatever) you don't necessarily have to provide a ship, just some characters.

FFVIII: Seifer/Squall, Seifer/Squall/Rinoa, Squall solo, Laguna solo, Seifer solo, Seifer/Ultimecia (including Ultimecia possessing others), Seifer/Other, Squall/Other, Laguna/Other

FFXV: Noctis/Prompto, Noctis/Gladio, Noctis/Luna, Noctis solo, Noctis/Gladio/Ignis/Prompto, Noctis/Other. I may be open to other Noctis ships as well, except not Ignis, Ardyn, or any Kingsglaive characters.

FFVIII/FFXV Crossover: Any combination involving Squall, Seifer, Laguna, Noctis. I could be talked into other characters if you have a really good idea.

Dune (Villeneuve): Paul/Duncan, Paul solo, Paul/Bene Gesserit, and I could be talked into something involving Chani or Stilgar, possibly. Keep in mind I have not read the books.

Scholomance: Orion solo, Orion/El, Orion/mals

Supernatural: Dean/Castiel, Dean/Benny, Dean/Jack, Dean/Claire, Dean/Mary but only for "something made them do it" type prompts, Dean/Amara, Dean/Other, Dean solo

Marmalade Boy: Yuu/Satoshi, Yuu solo, Satoshi solo (yes I realize this is a very random fandom to include but hey if I'm willing to write it I thought I should put it in here lol)

Prompts

I'll cross these off as they get requested.

UPDATE: all have been claimed, thanks everyone!

1. Orgasm delay/edging, Fisting, Sex pollen

2. Electrostimulation, Vore, Omegaverse

3. Exhibitionism, Impact play, Arranged marriage

4. Voyeurism, Uniform kink, BDSM AU

5. Omorashi, Mind control, Enemies to lovers

6. Train molestation, Tentacles, Dubcon

7. Royalty/nobility kink, Intercrural, Magic made them do it

8. Sex work, Bondage, Bad guys made them do it

9. Bruises, Collaring, First time

10. Knifeplay, Sex toys, Oh no they're hot

11. Gunplay, Face sitting, Friends with benefits

12. S&M, Overstimulation, Unwilling attraction

13. Voice kink, Body worship, Truth serum

14. Competence kink, Incest, Guilty attraction

15. Leather/Latex, Breathplay/choking, Trapped together

16. Pegging, Free use, Captured by the enemy

17. Bukkake, Dirty talk, Sex as part of job duties

18. Rimming, Object insertion, Enemies with benefits

19. Frottage, Anonymous sex, Undercover as lovers

20. Waxplay, Begging, Fake Dating

21. Glory hole, Chastity, Amnesia

22. Fucking machine, Clothed sex, Tabloids/gossip

23. Praise kink, Mirror sex, Office AU

24. Humiliation, Sex tapes, Hate doing the thing but have to do it to save someone

25. Sensory deprivation, Manhandling/Rough sex, Child soldiers

26. Cloning/selfcest, Size kink, Power imbalance

27. Noncon, Dehumanization, Seduced by the villain

28. Double penetration, Slut praising, Horrifying revelation

29. Gags, Virginity kink, Under the influence

30. Threesome, Face fucking, Normally reserved character gets to be sexy/horny

31. Orgy, Public/semi-public sex, Fighting as foreplay

(if you want to steal my prompt list for your own October fest go for it!)

[bonjovian]

Never Let Me Go: Chapter Thirty

Masterlist Chapter Twenty-Nine

Word Count: 1,367

Tag List: @arrthurpendragon @seankayser

Noctis is separated from Gaia and the others, much to the group's worry and annoyance. Without fail, Ardyn showed up to "help" them, returning their ability to access the armiger. Now it is time for Gaia, Ignis, and Gladio to enter Zegnautus Keep. Both Prompto and Noctis are now waiting for them...

"I'm loath to trust him," Ignis spoke up. 

Gladio nodded slightly. "Same, but at this point, we need all the help we can get." 

We made our way off the train. With our weapons back, we could now proceed into Zegnautus Keep. 

"I ought to have been more cautious. If anything were to happen to Noct, I..." Ignis mumbled. 

"Can't move forward if you're always looking backward. Quit thinking about what you could've done and start thinking about what you can do now," Gladio stated. 

"Yeah, what Gladio said," I smiled slightly. "We're going to get to Noctis. That's what we need to focus on." 

"You're right," Ignis sighed. "What's done is done." 

A staircase led up to what I could only guess was an entrance to Zegnautus. "Careful," I warned. "The stairs are pretty slick."

"So if we can conjure our weapons again, does that mean Noct can, too?" Gladio asked as we made our way forward. 

"I have a feeling the chancellor isn't so generous," Ignis responded. 

"Yeah," I sighed. "I swear, that creep has it out for him the most." 

"He may have feigned friendship, but he's proven a foe before. We'd best be careful." 

The area we entered was dilapidated, with trash scattered everywhere. There were only a few goblins in the area, which was surprising. 

It didn't take long to take them out, leaving us to figure out how we would enter the keep itself. The only thing breaking the silence was a radio playing an emergency broadcast warning civilians to evacuate. 

Eventually, we came across a rusted-looking elevator. "Looks like the only way from here is up," I spoke. 

Despite how abandoned the place seemed, the elevator took us to the keep rather quickly. "It's dead silent," Ignis whispered as we stepped out of the elevator and into the cramped hallway. 

"More like undead silent," Gladio scoffed. "Place is probably crawling with daemons." 

We walked in silence, our footsteps echoing in the seemingly abandoned facility. It almost seemed like everyone who was in the keep suddenly vanished. I kept my axe gripped tightly in my hand. "I don't like this," I whispered. 

"Right this way, lady and gentlemen," a voice broke the silence, causing me to jump with a startled yelp. It was Ardyn's voice. He was watching us go through the keep.

"Proceed with caution," Ignis warned. We had no choice but to go where he was telling us to. I kept glancing behind us. This whole area was making me paranoid. Other than Ardyn, there seemed to be no sign of anyone. Noctis, I swear to the Six, you better be in here, I thought to myself.

"Keep going, just a little closer," Ardyn seemed to taunt us. Gladio stopped in front of a wall that seemed... off. "Yes, that's a good boy," the chancellor spoke again. It was clear he was enjoying our annoyance.

The wall wasn't a wall at all, but a hidden door. It slid to the side, allowing us entry into something new: an actual room. Gladio held out his hand. "Hold up," he muttered.

"What is it?" Ignis asked.

"Some sort of secret passage," I responded. "Gladio, do you want to lead?"

"Long as it's a step in the right direction," Gladio put his hands on his hips, looking down the room in front of us.

We cautiously made our way in. The room's size was only helped by how empty it was. Other than a few boxes, shelves, and oil drums, there was nothing of note. It was too quiet. We exited back into more cramped hallways. The scraping of metal drew my attention. "Guys," I whispered. "Something's here."

We made our way to an intersection, but before we could move forward, something lunged out and grabbed me with the ever-familiar and ever-haunting metallic screech. A dilapidated axeman. I screamed and instinctively punched it with my free hand. "Gaia!" Gladio yelled, shoving the magitek away with the swing of his sword. "Did those things go haywire or something?"

I nodded, trying to calm my breathing. "They must have. If I had to guess something corrupted them," I stammered as I looked down at the magitek. It had definitely seen better days. The faceplate that would usually be on the MT was broken, leaving a clear view of its metal skull. "That's not usually how an axeman is programmed to fight."

I looked back up at Gladio. "Thank you," I laughed softly. "I'm sure once I got over the panic of being grabbed, I could have handled it myself, but thank you."

"Just doing what I need to do," Gladio responded. "Come on, let's go." 

We continued on our way through more small rooms and empty hallways, the malfunctioning axemen scaring me every time they reared their heads. 

"Ignis, you doing alright?" I asked, looking back at him.

"None the worse for wear," he responded. We finally reached a new room, this one full of monitors and other devices.

"Hey Iggy," Gladio spoke. "Think we might have found the control room. Got lots of... monitors and stuff."

"Which may help us monitor the rest of the keep," Ignis responded. "Does anything look operable?"

I looked up at the screens. Half of them were turned off, and the other half showed nothing but empty rooms. "There has to be a way to operate them," I mumbled.

"Hold on, I found something," Gladio drew our attention. "I'm more of a low-tech guy, but I'll see what I can do." He messed with some of the switches and buttons for a little bit before smirking a bit. "What have we here?"

Another moment and he scoffed. "Looks like they wiped everything."

I rolled my eyes. "Let me look," I walked over to him. We both continued messing with the controls until something caught our eye.

"We've got something. One surveillance tape they forgot to erase," Gladio chuckled.

"They wanted us to see it. Ardyn wants us to see it," I added. "There's no way they would accidentally forget about a file."

"We'd best have a look," Ignis spoke up. "Whatever's on that tape may help us locate Noct and Prompto."

Gladio and I nodded, and he started up the one remaining tape.

The camera seemed to be recording in a throne room. Emperor Aldercapt was here?

Before I could mention how strange it was that he was there, another person in the video caught my eye.

"Ravus!" I smiled. There he was, and it looked like he wasn't having it with Aldercapt.

We watched their interaction. My happiness quickly turned to anxiety as three liches appeared and attacked Ravus. He stood his ground the best he could, using the royal arm that belonged to Noctis's father.

But then he got knocked off the ledge surrounding the little throne area. I couldn't look away.

The recording switched to that of another camera; one on one of the lowest floors. Ravus had survived the fall but was far from unharmed. He could barely stand, instead managing to hold himself up by using a railing and the sword as a crutch.

Noctis approached him. We remained silent, just continuing to watch the footage left for us.

Ravus offered Noctis the sword, but instead of taking it... Noctis attacked. A scream caught in my throat. With one swift swing of the engine blade, Noctis had cut through Ravus's prosthetic.

Noctis spoke after planting the sword on the floor next to Ravus's motionless body. It was then we truly understood. That wasn't Noctis. It was Ardyn.

I summoned my axe and slammed it into the control panel. I refused to see any more. Tears stung my eyes as I returned my axe to the armiger. "Damn that bastard," I mumbled.

"Gaia," Ignis said softly, his tone both worried and reassuring.

"Ardyn probably wanted that reaction out of you," Gladio added. "Though I have to admit, I thought Ravus was stronger than that."

I spun to face Gladio. I raised a shaking fist, my vision blurring from the tears, and swung. My fist landed weakly on his chest as I broke down.

Ravus and I were supposed to be happy. We were supposed to raise our kid together...

[followthestars]

I have had this idea for a while, but am not sure it’s gonna go anywhere.

Noctis as a baby, was kidnapped by a Niflheim spy and brought to the empire.

They planned to use him to make MTs with magic, perhaps even turn him into one later.

Ardyn, curious, goes to see the baby, knows this is the chosen king.

Noctis is a cute baby. A cute baby that’s looking up at him with sleepy eyes and making grabby hands. A baby that is smiling at him.

He’s a bit reminded of when his brother was an innocent baby.

Ardyn is in a daze as he picks up the tiny prince, who happily cuddles into his chest and goes straight to sleep.

Well, he’s lost, the baby has won him over.

Besithia makes a comment of him to please stop messing with his experiments.

We now have a dead scientist.

Ardyn decides, he’ll just get the little one back to Lucis, as he’s tearing apart the entire laboratory and picking up a second baby.

He’s walking right past Cor, armiger circling when he pauses, goes back to the shell shocked man, and hands over the second baby he picked up, then goes back on his merry way.

He’s in Tenebrae when he realizes he just openly defected from the empire. He forgot about Cor, and the second baby.

Regis is informed of Ardyn having magic, so there’s a discreet search being started to find this previously unknown LC that the Niffs had.

Sylva is now sure how to handle the Accursed in her city, with a baby.

Where did he even get a baby?

Ardyn, as a joke, is calling Noctis Somnus for now, just until he finds a way to sneak the child back into the Citadel.

He is very attached to the little one by now though.

Sylva is curious on if she can remove the scourge from Ardyn herself. She has to stop after a short while, he carries too much to remove.

Ardyn did warn her.

He ends up wandering to Accordo before Cor and some glaives arrive looking for Noctis.

Sylva realizes that the baby Ardyn has was Noctis and tells them as such. Sadly he hadn’t told her where he was going.

Ardyn is having a nice train ride though, Noctis seems to like staring out the window or napping when not needing a diaper change or bottle.

Anyone that asks for Noctis’ name is given the name Somnus.

He enjoys his little joke of using his little brother’s name to keep the prince hidden from anyone that might take him back to Niflheim.

He discovers Noctis is oddly obsessed with fish in Altissia. His armiger now has a lot of stuffed animals shaped like different fish to entertain the little one.

He eventually heads to Galdin, and gets an idea.

Screw the Prophecy, he’ll just stop spreading scourge and raise a little prince. It’ll be fun to spit in Bahamut’s face doing this.

Plus Noctis is an adorable baby that isn’t scared of him.

He finds a nice place to live in Galdin and just works as a hunter. He can’t let his skills with weapons get rusty, and he will need to train Noctis in the future.

He needs a new name, Somnus was funny, but he’s not going to raise a baby using his brother’s name.

He doesn’t want to make it obvious he’s got the prince... Sol is a good name. No one will realize a child named Sol was Noctis!

Ardyn isn’t really thinking things through in this, but going with his first impulse. He really needs someone to be his impulse control.

[pinnochiro]

pinn reviews - final fantasy xv

a long ramble about final fantasy fifteen that sort of looks like a review, as written by someone who finished the game fifteen minutes ago and needs to get these words out of his head. spoilers inbound.

i'm a pretty big fan of video games. i don't know what my first was, but it was probably either banjo and kazooie or mario kart 64, at my cousin's house when i was very small. i think that video games as a medium are so interesting, since the fact that video games are inherently interactive changes the way that they tell any story. it's a shame that despite loving video games so much, i'm absolutely terrible at them.

i'm absolute dogshit at video games. whenever i boot up something new, i always play on easy mode because. i'm that bad. unfortunately, this means that a lot of video games are simply. impossible for me to beat. that's fine, as at the moment i live with my good friend lizz, who is certifiably Good at Video Games, and so we've been playing video games together for a little bit now. typically this means that she will actually play the majority of the game while i sit with her and watch, but occasionally i'll have a go, but she'll end up with the controller as soon as a boss fight or puzzle or a mechanic i just can't seem to grasp shows up. we recently played through the entirety of the kingdom hearts series together, and this was an absolute blast of a time. i'm glad to say that i adore kingdom hearts now, and it's become one of my hyperfixations, which you might be able to tell from my icon. but we'd finished the kingdom hearts series, and we were left to move onto something else. we'd also played final fantasy 7 remake, so in my wisdom, i suggested that we play another final fantasy game.

we looked through the ff games that were already purchased on our consoles thanks to lizz's uncle, and eventually, we decided that we should play. all of them. however to start, we were going to play final fantasy xv, 15, and work our way backwards through the mainline, single-player games.

i'd heard that xv wasn't very good, but honestly, i was still quite curious. one person who i'd been following on twitter for years was pretty obsessed with the main party members, to the point where i knew their names and what-not even though i didn't have much of an idea what the game itself was about. i remember watching a video by supereyepatchwolf a few years ago about how the game sucked, but i couldn't remember much of the details, and i knew, based on my obsession with kingdom hearts, that xv had started as a different game called final fantasy versus xiiv. i don't know all the details about versus thirteen, but i do know that it was originally helmed by the creator of my beloved kingdom hearts, mr tetsuya nomura, and that after many years, the vast majority of the game was thrown out, nomura wasn't in charge any more, and the whole thing was rewritten and reworked, which sounds like a fairly rough development cycle. but so what, i don't care about gameplay. i want to play the video game with those cute guys that i see fanart of on twitter, and lizz seemed happy enough to play through it with me.

and so we started final fantasy xv. i've been told that since the game was practically dead on arrival, they threw in a bunch of new content and reworked a lot of the early game before i got my hands on it. so my gameplay started with a scene of the four guys fighting some demon dude on fire and they're all old and grotty. whatever, that cutscene ends and we're put into a combat tutorial. that's over and we're on the road in what looks to be central america, pushing a car.

our four leading lads are noctis, the prince of the lucis empire, his best friend prompto, his bodyguard, gladio, and his chef and other things, ignis. i do quite like the main four members of the party in xv. prompto is quite easily my favourite, voiced by robbie daymond of goro akechi fame and with a bunch of fun little animations and quips that make him very likeable. he gets extremely excited at the idea of riding chocobos and has what i considered the best scene of the game, where he and noctis meet on a motel rooftop and discuss prompto's imposter syndrome, since he's only part of noctis' official retinue as his best friend. noctis is a fairly typical main protagonist, he's in love with a woman he hasn't seen in eight years and needs to go marry her or something, i don't care. gladio is a tough macho man with a mullet who wears leather jackets and wields a greatsword, and is apparently only 22, which is at least 10 years younger than i assumed. ignis is a strategist and chef, who takes on the most authoritative role and constantly tells noctis to not drive his car at night. i was not a fan of ignis at the start, but he grew on me, especially with how hard the game hit me with his personal arc. the four boys are off, driving to noctis' wedding in a different country across the desert when their car breaks down. we then run into the first issue of the game.

cindy is a mechanic. she also has her ass and tits out constantly, like your sleazy uncle's shirt with a naked woman was instead semi-alive as a video game person. she fixes your car and acts fairly sexual and it's just like. why do we have to do this. aren't we over overtly sexualised women in video games who have no reason for the way they dress other than the character designer was horny? whatever, i like women as much as the next guy, but cindy's design just. makes me feel so uncomfortable.

anyways you get to do a little driving around with the boys, until you stay the night before catching the boat to your fiance. overnight, you find out that noctis' kingdom has been basically destroyed by an invading empire called niflheim, and practically everyone noctis knows, including his father, are dead. you learn that noctis and his bride to be are also assumed dead, with noctis hearing his own death announcement on the radio. the game has a bunch of added cutscenes that are actually footage from the three-hour-long prequel movie that came out after the game, are extremely hard to follow and honestly i had no idea what i was looking at. anyways, noctis' family is dead, so it's time to do some hunting sidequests.

that brings us to the combat, i suppose. rather than the turn-based or even active turn-based combat that the series is known for, xv opts for more modern action rpg-styled combat. i was, naturally, terrible at this, but i managed to get around it with the fact that. it is almost impossible to die in this video game, provided you have enough items. the game allows you so much time to heal yourself that there's practically no way to have your entire party wipe unless you're doing absolutely terrible, and even then, your party members will probably try and heal you themselves before that happens. lizz tells me that the combat is boring, you just push the same button over and over and then you win. i do appreciate that, for someone like me who is terrible at reading enemy movements, there is a giant button that pops up on screen that tells you when to push the block button, but even then i was prone to fucking it up. whether that's the bad game design or my terrible gaming abilities is up to you to decide. anyways, the game is fairly easy but has annoying combat, your teammates limit breaks will only land about 50% of the time (or never, if you are gladio) and i was still bad at it, so i didn't have all that much fun.

instead of an active levelling system, the game will only tally your character's level ups when you either make camp or visit a hotel. camping is, in my opinion, the only saving grace of this game. each time you make camp, you get to see the characters doing fun little camping activities together and just hanging out, ignis will cook up a new meal in a dramatic fashion and everyone will compliment him and eat it off their coleman's branded plates, it's just very fun. you also get to see what pictures prompto has taken, which is one of my favourite gameplay features. prompto's passion is photography, and while i support him in this wholeheartedly, his picture taking skills are, quite frankly, awful. the game will randomly take shots while you're on the move, which leaves you with a delightful selection of awkward poses, characters hidden behind bushes, pictures taken while someone is half-dead in combat, and snaps where the natural lighting absolutely makes it impossible to tell what's going on. it's hilarious and going through prompto's collection of photos each night is honestly the best part of the game. we managed to wind up with a few shots that, even despite being scripted events, turned out absolutely terrible, and i will cherish those forever.

anyways, since noctis' father and fiance are dead, that leaves him the king of lucis. the only important person to make it out of the capital alive tells you to drive to the middle of nowhere, where he randomly springs on you. hey. go into a bunch of these dungeons and absorb a bunch of swords, this is your destiny as king and how you will defeat the empire. noctis goes, uh, alright i guess, and you're set loose again to wander around for a bit collecting the 'royal arms'. this plot point wasn't explained well but hey, whatever, we're collecting the glowy swords and that's fine.

you're introduced at some point to ardyn, the main antagonist. he's old, kind of groady and wears a fedora. he's a dick to you and talks about his automobeeel. apparently my friend miri thinks he's hot, she is wrong.

i can't remember what happens specifically but you're told that your fiance is still alive and in fantasy venice, and she's talking to the gods on your behalf to borrow their powers. there's a mission where you follow some purple trees that are electric, and you do that i guess. i enjoyed riding the chocobos around, but couldn't care much for the plot at this point. ardyn leads you to a volcano, where you fight a giant lava god. he tries to step on you and i, a denizen of the internet and with an active fear of foot fetishists, was extremely uncomfortable. noctis becomes friends with foot man and a lightning god who lived in those trees, and ardyn steals your car.

very upset by this, noctis and his gang risk everything to sneak into a military base and steal it back. because this is a video game, this works out fine.

there's a little mining city which is all about Girl Power, because all the Women run the Mining Industry like Girl Bosses, and you hang around there for a bit. because all the women are so Empowered, they wear bikinis all the time with overalls over the top. gladio decides he needs to fuck off for a bit, i have no idea what he does since i haven't played the dlc, and then he comes back with another scar. you hang out with his sixteen year old sister, who has a crush on the engaged and 20-year old noctis, and then you drive her to a lighthouse. when she's in your party, she can't really fight, but she gets a pink chocobo and i thought that was very cute. we turned out own chocobo white and lizz named him 'jones' after a mount she has in ffxiv.

eventually, you have a long boat ride over to fantasy venice. this is the part where the game stops being 'fun with a few issues in combat and a rushed and poorly told story.' the open world, which was a main feature with a bunch of little areas to find where noctis can fish, little hunting sidequests and random photo spots where prompto takes touristy photos, is now gone, and it will not return for the entire rest of the game. you can 'go back in time', but the open world was the most enjoyable part of the game, and it kind of really sucks that the main story doesn't let you have any more freedom like that.

after arriving in fantasy venice, you have a talk with fantasy hillary clinton and beg her to let your girlfriend summon a god into the middle of her city. hillary agrees, and you don't get to meet up with your fiance, because even if the game is constantly telling you how much noctis loves her, there is. barely any interactions between the two in the entire game. from what i can tell, they met when noctis was a child and they haven't seen each other in ten years but are still fantasy dog pen-pals. noctis marrying her was supposed to make an alliance or something like that, but her brother has betrayed her to the army. noctis' girlfriend is also an oracle, which means she can heal people, i guess? everyone talks about how important she is and she's constantly telling people that she needs to use her powers to help noctis but she's practically a non-entity.

as can be expected of most female love interests in a game primarily focused on men, noctis' fiance is killed while summoning a god for noctis to befriend. noct gets very mad about this, and turns super saiyan and kills the god back, but his girlfriend is dead and that's super sad you guys. there's a beautiful prerendered cutscene where she says goodbye to noctis but since we barely know her, and we've only been told over and over that they're in love without anything to actually well, show this, it didn't have much of an impact. fantasy venice is destroyed, and ignis is blinded while trying to help calm the giant raging god.

iggy's blindness and how the game makes you account for this and grow to care for him was one of the highlights, in my opinion, as well as crushingly depressing. while i'm not disabled and have no right to say if this was 'good disabled representation' or anything like that, i believe that the game handles it decently enough. the group falls apart as noctis is upset about his girlfriend, gladio is extremely mad that noctis won't care for ignis, and prompto just wants everyone to get along. there's a mission where gladio constantly yells at you passive aggressive things to noctis about how he's a cunt for running, which is obnoxious, but the character arc itself is fairly strong. when you make camp, ignis can't cook anymore, so everyone eats cup noodles in a depressing ass cutscene. ignis remains in your party for the rest of the game despite his disability, and he doesn't magically regain his sight like other fantasy media would do, which at the very least i think is good. i'm not sure what the opinion of actual disabled people is of the character, considering how often disabled characters are either turned into misery porn to make the abled audience be glad that isn't them and if ignis' arc falls into this trap, but i hope that it wasn't handled too poorly, as that would just be another terrible mark in this game's list of bad moves.

the characters eventually make it to the evil empire's capital, which is abandoned and filled with daemons. the characters learn that ardyn is super evil and taught the king of the empire how to turn humans into daemons, which has now happened to the entire city. the 'magitek suits', presumed to be enchanted armour that fights as the empire's infantry, actually house the souls of the human-turned daemons. honestly i like this as a plot point but the game handles it pretty terribly. there could have been more lead up to this, the explanation is pretty lacking, and prompto's Big Plot Twist is. terribly handled. turns out that prompto was born in the empire and was going to be one of those empty soldier daemons, but he was rescued by people belonging to noctis' empire. not that the game tells you that. instead, prompto goes 'turns out i'm one of ... them' and Does Not Elaborate. The game doesn't tell you shit, not about prompto's past, not about how he feels about this, not about how anyone else feels about this either because the other party members just go 'oh that sucks, good thing you're not evil' and the scene ends. robbie daymond tries so hard to sell these terrible, terrible lines, and it almost entirely fails, i'm so sorry prompto. fortunately because i'm a nosy ass, i read prompto's wikia page and knew the plot twist ahead of time, because i don't think i would have even registered it if i didn't.

anyways everyone in the evil empire is dead and ardyn starts talking about how he's immortal and an ancient king of noctis' country but the gods thought he sucked because he's too evil. i missed most of this because the cats got the zoomies and were dashing across the couch right in the middle of his speech so i can't tell you anything else. noctis tries to get a big magic crystal to fight him and instead. gets schlorped inside.

TEN YEARS LATER

yes then ten years actually pass while noctis is asleep. the game shows this by switching the head on noctis' character model to have a beard, but that's it, no changes in animations or whatever. the sky is permanently night and only one human civilisation remains, the rest destroyed by daemons. as a plot point, this ends up feeling. extremely worthless. why was noctis asleep for ten whole goddamn years? so we can wake up and go 'damn it sucks out here'. but it's barely even a like, incentive to fix everything, because you have a long talk with a former child you were friends with where he talks about how humanity is still going fine and everyone's okay and the world has moved on without you. it feels. pointless. when you meet up with your party members, they are exactly as you left them, only with slightly different character models. there is no change in the voice performance, the character's movements or how they talk to show that they've been without you for ten years. they barely mention it. i'm just. so confused as to why they decided that a ten year timeskip was the way to go? since nothing really changes, couldn't you have made it like, two years? one year? six months?? have the characters react a little more? something??? at least if it was only a year or so i wouldn't have to deal with the fact that noctis looks like norman reedus with his shitty facial hair now.

anyways after that there's a bunch of long and boring boss fights. you fight some dead kings for some reason, your party members get a little bit to talk about how cool they are and how much they love noctis, and then you meet up with ardyn. there's another boring boss fight and god this was only a few hours ago but it's already gone from my head. you summon the gods and the old kings to beat the shit out of him after you both go super saiyan again? there's incredible music but it feels barely earned and just kind of eh. anyways, noctis dies, which was the price of using the crystal of light or whatever the fuck. his ghost marries his fiance's ghost finally, and they smile as they look at one of prompto's pictures. you can pick any picture you want to go here, and then the credits roll, showing all of the pictures you saved of prompto's shots. showing me all the pictures at the end is honestly lovely, but it really only served to remind me of how much more fun the game was in the first half. and that's the end, of final fantasy xv.

so what did i think of the story? it's terribly cobbled together and struggles to get you to feel anything and play out all the plot beats. you feel awful for the countless employees who spent years working on the beautiful cutscenes only to have them be in this game, which sucks and the story barely gets through. there were parts that i enjoyed, mostly the thing about the daemons being people, but honestly the rest of it is a mess. it's hard to follow at the best of times and just awkward and terribly written at the worst. the ending is cheap, and it doesn't feel like you've actually accomplished anything. i left that game feeling numb and empty, sad that i'd wasted so much time to end up with such a colossal failure of a conclusion.

i had fun with the game when it was my four little guys running around doing sidequests and camping together. after the midway point of the game, there's none of that, and you're bogged down into a plot that just pushes you from point a to point b and boring overlong bossfight to boring overlong bossfight. the character moments between your party are a lot of fun, but the second you hit fantasy venice, everything is pretty much on rails and you can't do anything except what the game tells you explicitly to do.

should you play this game? no lol. if anything i've mentioned about the story interests you, you'll be better off watching a lore video or reading the wiki. if you do want to play it after all that, just don't proceed after the myrthril refining quest, it's pretty much all downhill from there. will i play the dlc? unlikely, i think lizz and i will just watch a cutscene movie of those.

this game left me feeling empty and numb and not in a fun way. i wanted, so, so hard to like this game, and it all crashed around me in a beautifully overproduced and confusingly written cascade. i love you prompto, but even your cute little freckly face and terrible photography can't save this trainwreck of a game.

tl;dr - final fantasy xv sucks. i hope that 13, our next ff game, will be better.