AU in which Noctis decides Prompto needs a new dad since his parents suck. Unfortunately, despite being The Real Actual Prince, he is still not legally allowed to keep Prompto. Which just means he's got to find one himself!

(He's now taking interviews.)

(The Citadel lives in fear of the most motivated Prince Noctis anyone has ever seen)

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being in love with a fictional character will make u produce art u didnt know u were capable of

[takes a long drink from my Arizona iced tea] so like one of the central themes for FFXV is like, growing up, sure. You know that, I know that, whatever. Coming of age, coming into your own, taking the mantle of king, whatever you wanna call it. Cool, awesome, we love a good coming of age story!

But I find the sub theme of that one to be probably the most fascinating? By and large, all the chocobros have to deal with the fallout of being lied to by the adult figures in their lives, and it's the most prevalent with Noctis and Gladio. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of it in Ignis and Prompto too, but the particularly insidious way that Noctis and especially Gladio were lied to sometimes gets me.

See I don't even really think it was actually all that intentional. Not really a conscious act by Regis and Clarus, or the society around them? More like... I dunno, the lies that you get told by your parents as a little kid and you grow up to realize that the world is a lot different than you thought.

That being said, Noctis was absolutely lied to by his father; both about the nature of the King of Light and the idea that he'd succeed Regis as reigning monarch. Regis did it out of love, knowing that Noctis would die young, and reasoned that Noctis should get to have a relatively normal life, but it was still a lie. Gladio, likewise, was lied to by his father and Regis, told that he would be the next monarch's Shield, that he would fulfill a role that's got a pretty set expectation in their society.

See, Gladio expects Noctis to act a certain way, to act as King, and he gets increasingly frustrated when Noctis doesn't, or can't live up to that. He's not precisely wrong to expect it either, given their roles and their statues, and knowing that they're taking the throne during a full blown war. The problem is that Noctis was never taught how to be the thing that Gladio was told Noctis was going to be? And that's what causes friction with them all the time. It's fascinating, watching it play out and realizing the underlying issues with their relationships actually have very little to do with them as people and instead because of what they were told to expect from each other.

Gladio is also his own kettle of fish that I don't think the narrative is quite self aware enough to articulate properly, or even get into. Gladio falls into the trap of toxic masculinity very often -- struggling to articulate his feelings, expressing most of his feelings as anger, picking fights rather than talking about what's going on, using his strength as both a character aspect and bonus, etc. The list goes on. There's also the fact that he's sort of portrayed as a bit of a womanizer and the masculine ideal; tall, rugged, strong, etc which plays into all of that. XV plays him very straight (and straight) with these concepts, and just sort of ... expects it to be fine? Which is at odds with how the other three bros interact and are more emotionally available towards each other, leaving Gladio as one of the weaker bros in canon.

It kind of sucks too, because like, there's so much to unpack with him? His DLC is about wanting to have the strength to protect Noctis on the surface, but really when you look at it... you could also argue that the DLC is about Gladio's fears that he'll end up as dead as his dad did (ha, try that for alliteration) and the crushing weight of failure. Gladio has every right to fear his mortality, fear the fact that he is, nominally, the first in line on the battlefield and the the last defense for Noctis. If Noctis is to die, they will go through him first, and that's! Scary! But the game doesn't really get into that, hardly at all, and it makes picking up the pieces for Gladio kind of frustrating. Out of all the bros, he's the one I have to dig the most to find any kind of depth despite being prime real estate for it.

Anyways Gladio and Noctis' dynamic is fascinating if you actually start to unpack it, especially because it's built on the lies that their fathers fed them as children (that they themselves also bought into). I'd go so far to argue that between the two pairs, Noct/Gladio is in much more of a dire need to sit down and actually hash out what they are to each other, outside of their king/shield dynamic. Noct/Iggy certainly has shades of that, but Ignis has decided that they are friends and that he will defy fate if he must, let the world burn if he must, to save Noct's life. That has some depth beyond king/retainer that they're presented as. Noct/Gladio are sort of just... falling into the king/shield dynamic because they're expected to, and it sort of hampers their relationship and their communication.

I'm gonna scramble them both like eggs, probably into an omelette. They make me Think you know

My coffee got cold reading this. Worth it.

it’s hard to describe the way it feels core to prompto’s character to me that he’s a survivor. and specifically in this way where it’s essentially an expression of devotion - as long as he is needed, as long as he is wanted, he’ll persevere. he will always stand by noctis’s side, whether he has to kill his clone father or withstand torture to do it, bc he loves noctis and he loves his friends and they matter to him more than any suffering ever could. like idk to me prompto is basically a cockroach fueled by the power of friendship, and he will outlive all of them bc he refuses to let there be a day where one of his friends need him and he isn’t there. he’s here to support them, to be their backup and their reminder to take a break and their reminder that they’re human and they love each other, and he takes that role more seriously than he takes death.

Victory!

I figured out why I was having formatting problems with my story collection (it was a printer setting) so I did a test print today and look look look!

It looks like what the inside of a proper book should look like!! I’m thrilled! Now I just need to get it all stitched up and fitted with a proper case and it will be a book!

If you, too, would like your own copy of this little illustrated collection, I will be making the PDF available to download FOR FREE from my ko-fi profile! That should be ready as soon as I get the assembly instructions typed out. Watch here for more information!

(It’s formatted for 8.5x11; I’ll try to get an A4 version ready, too, but I’ll have to do it blind with no test prints, because I don’t have any A4 paper rn.)

other thing about ffxv: it really does capture that vibe of how like. you grow up, and you start to participate in and become aware of the wider world around you in a way you couldn’t have when you were younger, and you start to realize that things are going horribly awfully wrong. the whole world as you knew it is falling apart around your ears, and it feels like something very immediate and sudden - something you could stop if you just act fast enough. but the truth of the matter is that things have been going wrong for a very long time, before you were even born, and short of a miracle there is nothing you can really do about it.

through noctis’s perspective, this isn’t immediately obvious, but the world outside of insomnia is nearly post apocalyptic in the scale of the damage that has been done. entire settlements have been reduced to ruins within living memory. and so for all that the events of the game may feel like this abrupt boiling over that noctis must deal with Now lest more irreversible damage be done, the fact is that the sacking of insomnia was an inevitable conclusion they had been building towards for decades. and all the adults they grew up with knew this and didn’t tell them bc what could they have done about it at 12 years old? there’s something about it that just felt very emotionally resonant to me idk

Such a great take on this amazing game

Chocobro memes I made because I’m reverting back to my 2018 interests

i love Ignis i want to draw him and only him all day long for the rest of my life

this time he has freckles

My favorite disaster game is FFXV which is probably all you need to ever know about me.

It actually approaches disasterpiece levels. What if we had a boyband road trip, but it’s actually a royal convoy, but it also makes zero sense as a royal convoy cuz the convoy is an idiot boyband. What if you spend the entire game rolling around a dying world with these idiots, and you get really attached to them in spite of yourself because you spend all your time fishing and camping like normal people. What if the game was just an ad for Coleman. What if you stay up all night fishing while the demons swarm you while your Coleman camping gear is safely enshrined in holy light. What if there’s a resort that’s also the only port in a bajillion miles, and that’s apparently normal and also it’s always busy but nobody uses it. What if the villain isn’t a villain at all but just the broken half of your savior narrative because the villains are the gods actually and you’re going to act out their fucked up sacrificial narrative no matter what. What if there’s a train to nowhere and everything is demons. What if the heroine is the most important character and we don’t even make her a character. What if we don’t even put the story in the base game at all.

Oh and the combat is a frustrating mix between hold-button simulator and a genuinely innovative and fun teleportation magic system. Good luck.

I love this stupid game.

Perfect description❤️

this is maybe the stupidest bit ive ever done. chromatic aberrations your boyfriends

So I saw this art from @mysteriousbean5 and then I, too, wanted to draw Noct and Prompto gaming. Also happy late 8th birthday to FFXV :)

OMG😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍

I love this so much you are my hero❤️ I love how you draw them and the coloring is so soft and beautiful!