sakura_no_miko

Rating: PG-13

Pairing: non, gen

Warnings: spoilers for the end of the game, canon-typical violence, dehumanization issues (relating to cyborgs), mild body horror (also cyborgs), prejudice

Other notes: post-apocalypse, survival, worldbuilding, disabled character, non-human/cyborg characters, ghosts, religion/mythology, canon divergence, fix-it fic, character study

Length: 60k

Summary:

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)

First off, this story is full of spoilers. Like, it takes place before the final act of the game. So, uh…not a fic to read if you are still hoping to play the game. Also, I might mention some spoilers for Final Fantasy VI and Persona 3, because of some thematic similarities between these games. Actually, possibly add spoilers for Game of Thrones and Avengers: Endgame as well. More thematic similarities. I’ll try and be vague.

Actually, wait: completely spoiler free review of this fic: this is an excellent gen fic about people trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic world where the sun is dying, and all the organizing and experimenting and social issues that crop up as the situation gets worse. If that sort of thing interests you, read this fic.

Now, back to my usual musings.

Man, I didn’t play Final Fantasy XV. I was really happy with the Final Fantasy series as a teenager. I think I played everything between 5 and 10, about half of 12, and then…I didn’t have a PS3 or PS4. So, assuming I wouldn’t be able to play, I looked up the story summary, and — well. Suffice to say, I’m still a bit traumatized from the original ending of Persona 3, and Final Fantasy XV has something similar happen, so I’m not sure my heart could take it. Perhaps I’ll eventually watch one of the Youtube “movie” compilations of the game.

I actually knew this author from the Arrowverse/DC tv shows on The CW, which is why I ended up reading this fic. Going off what she writes in her author’s notes, and the story summary on Wikipedia, I’m actually kind of surprised a fic like this needs to exist. I mean, it isn’t unusual to see games or tv shows or whatnot where some big, world-shattering event happens, but, like, the actual stuff you see on screen doesn’t change much. A lot of times the creators may not have the time or budget to really think through the effects of, say, a natural disaster or war or whatnot. It’s something fun you can explore better in novels or fic.

But.

This is a Final Fantasy game, and you can’t ignore that one of the most famous games in this series, Final Fantasy VI, also has a world-destroying event, a time skip, and a very, very well-developed post-apocalyptic world. So it’s really sad that XV doesn’t develop this as well. That’s just fangirl grumbling, tho.

It’s kind of fascinating I remembered this fic. I was reading The Last Poem of Jedha, which is about surviving in an occupied state, and for some reason this fic popped into my head. Yet, as of the time I’m writing this, Game of Thrones just ended its tv run, and with it, the last vague ideas of seeing what “The Long Winter” might have entailed. And Avengers: Endgame has been in theaters for a few weeks, giving us a brief glimpse into a world where half the population was wiped out and the rest are struggling to survive.

Which happens to be exactly what this fic is about.

I must admit, I’m not much of a survivalist. If some apocalypse did happen, I would be shit out of luck. Unless I could rob a library. I can read. I’m reasonably good at putting theory into practice. But, being realistic, I only have vague memories of my grandma’s garden, I can sew well enough for something to stay together, and I’ve never actually changed the tires on my car.

This is kind of a tangent, but there was this one deadbeat guy I knew growing up. Self-professed petty criminal and…ah…I feel like using “ghetto” the way I used to use it when I was younger will come off as classist and/or racist nowadays. But, for the most part, when he would tell me about the various stupid shit he got into, I mostly thought, I really don’t need to know about your criminal activity, bro. But, thinking on it now, he would probably make it out better than me, since, from stories he’s told me, he’s survived being homeless, done a good number of illegal things himself and picked up even more tips from his prison stints. Yeah, knowing how to shoplift and siphon gas from a car and fight dirty would get you through a lot more life situations than me and my books.

This fic is stunningly painful from the get-go. We start at three months, and — well, if you know the game, you already know it’s going to go on longer, much longer. Man, it’s overwhelming even trying to organize my thoughts for this rec, because there is so much worldbuilding going on here. Reconstruction, fighting the daemons, trying to figure out a completely new way of coping without sunlight, taking in a massive number of brainwashed cyborgs — I’m getting secondhand stress from reading this fic, ach.

And yet — there is so much hope here. So much grief, so much terror, and so much hope. The character development is just fascinating — that shy Prompto becomes a confident general, and starts coming to terms with his origin as a MT-to-be. Gladio, who threw his entire life into fighting without end, founds a school and falls in love with all the children. Ignis — well, to be fair, Ignis was already running thing from the shadows, and he just got pushed into openly being the leader.

And then, at the end of chapter 3, Noctis comes back. And — well, I already yelled about spoilers, but, in canon, Noctis come back for, like, a few days, has a last night together with his comrades, and then he dies saving the world. I mean, they say he’s happy in the afterlife, but…as they say a few times, fuck the Six, making a man come back just to say goodbye again. I’m almost glad I didn’t play this, because if that had happened to me without any knowledge it was coming, I… I get way overly emotionally invested in video games, and I couldn’t stand to live, and fall in love, and die saving the world again. Cannot. Cannot play another game where my player dies.

So here we get to see Noctis, and him being the King of a world he knows nothing about. Which could go all sorts of terrible ways, but thankfully Noctis has friends to guide him into the new world, and the strength of character to know that he needs to change himself too.

Actually, there is another fix-it fic where Noctis wakes up, Night at the Leville, that I enjoyed. It’s more shippy than this fic, with a lovely dollop of angsty hurt/comfort.

Again, ah, the worldbuilding here. I thought the story of the MTs in chapter 1 would be the highlight for me, personally — because I always enjoy stories about finding identity and creating a place in the world for yourself. (Still very bitter over the utter lack of Stormtrooper development after The Force Awakens, in fact. If Finn has a personality, how come no one else does???) But chapter 4 surprised me. The last thing I expected was a mini-treatise on the nature of faith and organized religion. I mean, damn. I don’t even know how you deal with religion when there are literal gods running around. I’m a wishy-washy agnostic, you see. My sole comfort in life is that there’s not way to prove things either way, so I don’t have to think about it.

(Though admittedly Silence is the Speech of Love is a fascinating fic that takes place in a world with literal gods running around, and I love that fic.)

But literally being able to confront the Gods, to demand to know why they thought it was fine and dandy to sacrifice your life, man. This is a fic where the world is rebuilt — through sacrifice and strategy, tearing down old prejudices and the old faith. That’s not even a metaphor — they literally save the world through human technology, and magic dies out and…this is probably a good thing. Which is a fascinating idea. I feel like I still mostly see sci-fi where we fear for the future. We fear the changes technology can bring. Maybe we just wish for whatever it is we don’t have — we write stories about magic and tradition because it seems so different from the modern world. We wish for magic to come back

Aw, man, this is another review where I feel like I’m not quite explaining just how much this fic works for me. Ah, it all works for me.

Even at the very outset:

Ignis immediately gave one to Cindy and Cid, with the request that they supply Lestallum's central office with as many of duplicates as possible to make with the machine parts they had to spare, and installed the other in his office at once. Honestly, given the utility of communicating by text in the dark, he's thinking of insisting that everyone learn to read the blind-language. Hunters are already picking it up at speed, following Cor’s example; he loudly announced his intention to learn the language alongside Ignis in order to ensure that messages could be passed secretly between hunters when trying to sneak through the darkened towns outside Lestallum, but with the engineers warning that even the power plant would need to go through occasional black-out periods for maintenance and repairs, it isn’t necessarily a bad idea to suggest something like that universally.

The author takes Ignis being blinded and goes with it. No falling into despair, no magical healing — Ignis immediately takes to learning a new language, and has the foresight to realize that, with an eternal night coming, him being blind could offer some advantages that he can share with everyone else. The Long Night itself is just brilliantly dealt with — dealing with the immediate health issues of missing vitamin D, reconfiguring how to farm without natural sunlight, building generators to keep some semblance of light available.

Which then gets echoed again in chapter 4:

Noctis asks about armor.
Prompto finds him the old Crownsguard armor that belonged to King Regis, once upon a time, and then stored in a Hammerhead closet by Cid, and with it the golden leg brace that Noctis takes with a sigh of relief.
They wear Crownsguard uniforms themselves, heavy fabric forming protective coats, uniforms they wore in his honor during the Long Night and gladly wear now, the symbols of their roles as royal retainers.
And yet –
Something more.
Ignis’ coat is studded, a feature of dual usage: the studs hook together a tough leather underlayer for additional protection, while the studs themselves form formulae and weaknesses of various daemons written out in the blind-language in the event he would like to double-check a reference.
Gladio’s coat is dark, but not dark enough to fully hide the checkered effect given by the writing – hundreds, thousands of signatures, all his students adult and child, signing their names or designations in a massive effort to wish him good luck and safety on his journeys.
And Prompto –
His coat is the simple black of the Crownsguard. Only on the breast does it differ from the traditional: an intricately embroidered design in reflective light, mimicking the glittering stars of the constellations that form the insignias of the Army of Night. But Prompto, their beloved General, favors no squad or wing and bears upon his chest no constellation but rather a face, a breastplate in the fashion of the dreaded Medusa, and the face picked out in stars is the traditional helmet-mask of the MTs.

Just, like — damn. Like I said, I love the character development here, and each person literally wears their achievements on their clothing. They still love Noctis, and the honor of being the Kingsguard, but they embrace the people they’ve gown into as well. Again, this attention to detail — that Noctis, newly woken up, immediately needs his leg brace back. That Ignis uses Braille to inscribe notes into his clothing. Gladio keeps all of his children’s names on himself, on the coat that protects him. That Prompto, who was so very scared of his past being discovered, wields the symbol of his fear like a protective charm and a weapon all in one.

Anyway, this fic. Damn, it is good. Love every moment.

I haven’t done really extensive reading in Final Fantasy XV, but as far as more post-apocalyptic worldbuilding goes, The Price is an Avengers: Endgame AU that focuses on the post-Infinity War era.

And, recently I read Of Hair Colors and Gossip, which is part of a long everyone lives AU, and it tells a story through fashion, which is something I hadn’t seen before. I also enjoyed feathers and fleece, where Prompto ends up texting Noctis’ father a lot.

Oh, and, as I mentioned, I’ve read this author’s Flash and Legends of Tomorrow fic. I’m rather fond of Unexpected Development, which is a crack-y WIP that, among other things, features a criminal uncovering a superhero’s identity because he recognizes dat ass. Which I find hilarious for some reason.

(Looking for more fic recs?)
Crossposted to pillowfort