#forsook my bedtime to make this

[barebevil]

All HER candy necklaces

Inspired by LDR image under the cut

[sam-glade]

Happy WBW! One of your OCs is tasked with telling bedtime stories for some children tonight. What story do they tell? Where did that story come from?

Thank you💜 This is an amazing ask, and very relevant to my main setting. This world is built on stories.

The tale of the Four Cloaks is one of the best-known ones:

A poor seamstress wanted to sell a cloak. To make it more appealing, she promised to imbue it with the power of a word of the customer’s choice, which she intended to embroider onto the fabric. A young rich man who collected such curiosities bought the cloak with the word ‘beauty’. Within days he gathered many admirers and false friends, while the true ones forsook him. He grew arrogant and faded away out of loneliness. 

A thief plundering his house found the cloak and a short note about its origin. They traced it back to the seamstress and demanded a cloak with the word ‘shadow’. It gave them opportunities no one else had dreamt of, and they became the legendary merchant of whispers, who is said to operate still in the City of Light, although other versions say that they were killed by a stray bullet in a duel they'd arranged. 

A scholar investigated the legend of the Shadow and found out about the cloak and the seamstress. She requested a cloak with the word ‘silence’, so that she might listen and learn, rather than talk over people. She was the author of countless texts and treatises that shaped the understanding of the world around us. Yet she didn't speak, and her work was discovered only after her passing.

Finally a young apprentice who tidied her study found the cloak and wanted to see how the seamstress was doing. When he found her, she was old, with arthritic hands and faltering sight. However, she offered to make one last cloak as a thanks for his concern. He chose the word ‘goodness’, but there was no symbol for it, no ideograph in the alphabet. There was ‘kindness’, ‘charity’, and ‘good will’, but no symbol for the general concept. The apprentice told her to stitch a rough picture of open hands, and she warned him that it won’t have the same power as the other cloaks. It didn’t matter to him. He didn’t want to be forced to do good, but only to be reminded of what’s right and wrong.

It is said that this young apprentice was later crowned as the Sun King.

'Real' version below the cut:

[As told by the White Dragon, Prince Anthea's predecessor and her grandfather, who effectively created this state from nothing. So you know, not exactly impartial ;) ]

“I know that the Weaveress made it. I also suspect that the fairy tale isn’t true,” Erya said hesitantly.

“No, it is not entirely true. Allow me to tell you what really happened. I assure you, it is relevant.” Erya acknowledged. “My wife was among other things an Elemental Dancer, favoured by Matter. We knew each other before the Battle of the Burning Banners, and the ‘clients’ from the story were all trusted friends of ours. They were some of the wisest, most virtuous people I have ever known. However, only one of them could be the King to unite the people under a single rule. The choice was not easy, and the Cloaks helped us decide. There were six of them, not four: Charity, Wisdom - although a King should rely on their own wisdom, and the person who chose it soon realised it - Patience, Perseverance, the Open Hands, which yes, was the one worn by the Sun King, and finally the Shadow. We had concerns about this choice, but the person explained that they did not want to stand above other people and wished to remain humble, so they wanted to walk among their subjects as one of them. All of these cloaks, except the Open Hands as the story says, were imbued with my wife’s power… and had certain properties which we did not reveal to the wearers.”

Prince Atterius paused, clearly enjoying Erya’s stunned expression. She closed her mouth, but still stared.

“The Cloaks give power to the people wearing them, and the power corrupts, making the people crave it and be unwilling to part with it. We had to make sure that the King would not be corrupted. The people wearing Charity, Patience, and Perseverance realised what was going on, took off the Cloaks as quickly as they could, and admitted that they were not suitable to hold this much power. The Shadow was corrupted and disappeared.”

“The King’s Cloak didn’t have any power,” Erya pointed out weakly.

“No, it did not. After five attempts, we were running out of time, and He was the first one not tempted by the advantages a Cloak could give.”

[siren-dragon]

FFXV Observation -- Episode Ardyn *Spoilers!*

Hello Everyone!

With the release of Episode Ardyn and the official completion of content for FFXV, I wanted to write my thoughts about the dlc down. And since the episode only came out today, there will be spoilers and everything will be beyond the cut.

Now be warned: this is just my personal thoughts and opinions of the new DLC content. If you don’t agree with it, that is fine; I only ask that you be respectful in your comments. Now then, let’s get started!

First of all, I just want to say that this Episode was beautiful and tragic, and I really loved it. While I didn’t get as much lore as I wanted (and I wanted the dlc to be WAY longer!) I did appreciate what we got. I have to say though, two really big highlights in Episode Ardyn has to be the music and the fact that we get to see a shirtless Ardyn. However, there were a few things with the story I found interesting and that was what I wanted to talk about.

Somnus Lucis Caelum:

Yes, the first thing I wanted to talk about was Ardyn’s “dear” younger brother; but please hear me out. In complete honesty, I really dislike this blatant hatred for Somnus. Don’t get me wrong, he did a lot of bad things- but we also have to look at it from his perspective too. In the Ep. Ardyn, Somnus actually tells Ardyn that he was jealous of him which is quite a feat for a prideful person. Now, as someone who has three siblings, I can kinda understand where Somnus is coming from. Even now, I sometimes feel pouts of jealous from my siblings despite us all being older. I can’t imagine how inferior Somnus felt when his older brother was literally the golden child of a entire nation.

However, this does not excuse his actions in regard to his treatment of Ardyn; what he did was cruel. What I do think is that Somnus did not know the the true burden of being king really meant. I feel like he wanted to have a chance to shine and show his people that he too wanted to protect them, even if it was in an extreme manner (*cough burning people alive *cough). But when Aera said that Ardyn was chosen to be king, I think that was the final push that sent Somnus over the edge. Even though they were meant to rule together (as talked about in the Datalog about the two blades being used together to symbolize their combined rule), Somnus finally had enough.

Yet when he was finally bestowed the Crystal and Ring, Somnus then understood the extent of what the calling of the king was and what Ardyn was meant to truly be. Somnus realized that he was never going to be the “True King” as that calling was for Noctis, and instead he pushed the only family he had left and was left with nothing but the guilt of what he did for 2000 years as his soul resided within the Ring of the Lucii. I’m not saying that Somnus was a good person and that he didn’t do bad things; he even says that he doesn’t expect Ardyn to forgive him as he knows he did terrible things. But let’s not forget that the two were once brothers and that once upon a time, they did not hate each other.

       2. Aera Mils Fleuret:

Now then...let’s talk about Aera. Okay, so here’s the thing: I’m kinda on the fence about her. She is a very cute character and it is sweet that she loved Ardyn, but I don’t think she is as perfect as some make her out to be. To be fair, no one in this game is perfect and everyone has their faults, some bigger than others, but there is some information about Aera that I wanted make known. First of all, Aera is the Oracle- the First Oracle; who was chosen by Bahamut himself to represent the will of the gods on Eos. The actual quote from the Cosmogony is this: “In the distant past, Bahamut, the Draconian, descended to the mortal realm and graced the people of Tenebrae. From among them, he handpicked a pious maiden and bestowed upon her the power of the Stars and his trident. Using these gifts for the good of all, she became the first Oracle—she who joins heaven and earth”

I don’t doubt that Aera loved Ardyn, but that is the key word there. I think that she loved him, which is evident by when she died to save him- but I believe that when Ardyn became recognized as the Adagium, she put her love for him aside. She betrayed Ardyn and told Somnus information that was, for lack of better term, meant to be classified in regards to the prophecy and who was too be king. Granted, she felt guilt for that, but Somnus did not manipulate her into to telling him- she did it of her own free will. Also, we need to take into account Aera’s own calling as well: she is the Oracle and is known to be a pious maiden. What’s interesting there is that pious actually means to not only be “devoutly religious”, but it also means “making a hypocritical display of virtue”, or to be self-righteous. In the more archaic definition, it means to be dutiful or loyal, in this case; Aera’s loyalty to her calling as the Oracle and to the Astrals. She actually forsakes her love for Ardyn and regards him only as the Adagium and that he will never escape his fate. She puts the needs of others before that of the one she loves most in the world, which is brave of her to have done but also a horrid betrayal to Ardyn too.

While I truly wish we got to see more of Aera’s relationship with Ardyn and how they grew to love each other, she is not perfect. She choose her duty over the love of her life and forsook him when he became a “monster”. Now, that is a difficult choice and I commend her for choosing it to do what is right for the world, but I don’t believe Ardyn will ever fully love her again after that (based on that ending where he kills her and Somnus)- her actions put in motion events that had damaged A LOT of people’s lives just as badly as Somnus did. I understand that she was called to be the Oracle, but she still made a choice and has to live with it too.

        3. Bahamut and the Astrals

Firstly, that title I just wrote sounds like a band name and it’s kinda of funny. But for heaven’s sake Bahamut, what the hell man? I admit, the dragon is a kind of a dick in the game, and that Ardyn definitely gets the short end of the stick with this. However, I can see some of where Bahamut is coming from.

They had a unknown illness that was ravaging the entire planet and the Astral’s didn’t know what to do and didn’t have the power to deal with it. And the Astral’s are sworn to defend the star at any cost, even if they must fight each other. So, I can see why they choose mortals to do their bidding for them, because humans are far stronger than we’re given credit for. Yet Bahamut’s folly was in not telling Ardyn that he had been chosen to bear the burden of darkness just as Noctis was meant to bear the burden of light. Ardyn simply wanted to help people, but Bahamut doesn’t explain that by containing the scourge within himself, he will eventually help the entire planet. Instead, he expects Ardyn to just suck it up and deal with what’s happened because that’s just the way it is.

I definitely think Bahamut is being very cold to Ardyn about everything, but you have to understand that what he says is that “so it has been ordained” meaning he too has no control over this. Bahamut even feels some pity for Ardyn too when he calls him a “pitiful creature” and I believe he knew that he was once a good man. But sometimes we have to do things that are unsavory because there is no other option- and Bahamut likely had no other option. It’s true that Ardyn was put through literal hell due to the calling he was given, but the Draconian actually compromises and allows Ardyn not only his revenge upon the royal family, but the reprieve of death too. He even warns Ardyn that if Noctis doesn’t kill him, he will just suffer forever in darkness and shadow; unable to die. If he truly didn’t care, Bahamut would have allowed the royal family to continue their existence and just have Noctis vanquish Ardyn with no consequences.

         4. King Regis and the Crownsguard

So, one bit of information I found interesting in the game was that the royal family actually knew of Ardyn’s existence. Which mean’s he wasn’t entirely forgotten, just locked away like some weird national security secret. The fact that there is a unit of Crownsguard that is entrusted to respond at a moment’s notice if Ardyn should be released from his prison is interesting. Which means that Somnus actually put in safety measures to ensure Ardyn didn’t escape. Also, the fact that Ardyn doesn’t know what “Adagium” means or is when he first awakens probably means his name was replaced with that word and over time it became a legend- like a bedtime story you told misbehaving children. “You better be careful or the Adagium will get you,” seems like a fairy tale that would stay in Lucian history.

Now, I have to say that after the fight with King Regis, I believe that he was one of the strongest kings Lucis ever had. First of all, Regis is able to physically manifest multiple weapons at once from his Armiger, which you don’t even see Noctis do when he activates his Armiger (they’re all spectral weapons). Secondly, Regis was actually brave enough and strong enough to fight off against Ardyn by himself in order to defend his people which was really cool to see. All in all, it was great to see Regis in his prime and engage in full-blown combat (no matter how short lived it was).

          5. Ardyn Lucis Caelum

I still have so many thoughts about this DLC, but I’m going to have to end it early and I saved the best for last. I have to say it was so much fun to play a Final Fantasy game from the villain's perspective. Ardyn is a wonderfully written character and I am going to miss seeing more of him; Darin de Paul did a magnificent job on this and he has truly managed to bring an amazing character to life. Now then, let’s talk about Ardyn’s story.

While I do feel sympathy for Ardyn, a lot of people have to understand that he is the villain and would likely never get a canon happy ending: which I am actually a bit pleased about. Happily, ever after endings are often unrealistic and it wouldn’t really fit with Ardyn’s character to have a happily ever after (that’s not to say one shouldn’t write fanfiction about it ;) After all that Ardyn experienced, it would be incredibly difficult for him to simply let things go and I think that is his main folly. He actually discards his humanity and basically goes “to hell with them” which is why I love him as a villain. Usually it is the hero that fights destiny, so I loved seeing Ardyn fight his fate while Noctis humbly accepts his.

Another thing I enjoyed seeing was the extent of Ardyn’s powers. Granted, we could have used that in the main game (maybe they’ll do a patch update) but it was a lot of fun to see all of his abilities. I honestly believe even Ardyn himself does not know all that he is capable of doing and is constantly evolving and discovering new techniques for him to preform. But it seems like there are abilities that are unique only to him as a Lucis Caelum; such as the way his armiger functions, the way he slows time as he “warps” or “shadow steps”, and even his illusions. Though ultimately, I liked that he was able to showcase all of these abilities without doing some extreme final-form transformation. 

Overall, this DLC has made me love my favorite character even more- even though it does not excuse his actions in the main game. He experienced so many horrors but that does not condone his actions. Despite how he was in the past, Ardyn is a final fantasy villain; and one of the best ones.

I am certainly gonna miss seeing more FFXV content, but all good things do come to an end. Now it’s time to go and write fanfiction about the new content. ^_^