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your home for the next year

"What are we? We are Dominants. That is our fate."

EIGHT EIKONS FOR EIGHT ELEMENTS: Fire Unforgiving (Phoenix & The Twin Flame, Ifrit) / Ice Unfeeling (Shiva) / Levin Untamed (Ramuh) / Gales Unrelenting (Garuda) / Earth Unyielding (Titan) / Light Undying (Bahamut) / Darkness Unending (Odin) + Leviathan the Lost (part i)

A phoenixflare idea I may or may not explore in fic at some point: Joshua falls first.

By, oh, give or take 20 years or so.

It’s hero-worship when they meet as children. Joshua is painfully aware that Clive is the one the Phoenix should have chosen, while he’s a frail pile of embers terrified he can’t live up to expectations. Dion, meanwhile, is the strong, brave, perfect heir, who bears Bahamut’s strength so easily, so chivalrous and noble. Everything Clive should have had, everything Joshua wishes he could be - and yet beneath it all, the compelling hint of a loneliness and uncertainty Joshua knows well.

Then, Phoenix Gate. Joshua loses everything. He spends his adolescence being raised in secret and shuffled around by a cult that worships him as something close to a god. Even his closest companion cannot treat him as an equal. I’m sure he’s lonely, and as he learns more of Ultima, I’m sure he longs for someone else to share the burden.

Imagine Joshua drinking in every story he hears of Dion the Bold. Maybe he daydreams about the handsome prince sweeping in to take him away from this stressful, secretive life. Maybe he imagines them joining forces to save the world. Maybe as he gets older, other thoughts creep in, fuelled by everything he hears about how handsome Prince Dion is as an adult.

(Maybe he hears rumours that the prince does not care for women, and maybe it makes his heart flutter with ridiculous hope.)

(Maybe he also has some fairly intense thoughts about what a man with a body like Dion’s could do to him in, on, or anywhere near a bed, but let’s keep this relatively PG.)

Imagine Joshua nursing this crush for years, for more than a decade. Clinging to it like a long-lost keepsake, finding it changes with him as he grows: from something innocent to something heated to something complicated and deep.

Because when he’s old enough and strong enough to travel on his own, of course his ears still prick up at every mention of Dion’s name. The battles he’s fought for the Empire. The orders he’s been given, sometimes less than honourable. The Empire’s growing greed, first glimpsed in the treachery at Phoenix Gate, now writ large in its annexation of Rosaria - then later in the invasion of the Crystalline Dominion. The people all say Dion is a good man, a thoughtful leader, a true prince. Is he uneasy with the change in his country and his father? Does he see the shadows lengthening too? Or is he complicit, no longer the shining idol of Joshua’s youth?

And Joshua is smart enough to doubt his own motives. He wants to approach Dion as a potential ally, but can he trust his own judgement? Does he really believe, in objective terms, that Dion will help him - or is he still in love with the stories he told himself all those years?

(And can he bear it, if it turns out Dion isn’t who Joshua wants him to be?)

So he hesitates. He waits. He waits until events make it clear that the Emperor intends to pass over Dion in favour of Olivier. Joshua knows then that whatever else, Dion is not a part of his father’s scheming. Approaching him is a risk worth taking now, as long as Joshua can put aside his childish daydreams and unrequited longing, meet the man as he truly is, see past the fantasy.

No wonder he’s tight as a wire when he steps into that tent. No wonder he keeps his hands gripped out of sight behind his back. No wonder he moves like every step, every breath, every word, is one he considered beforehand. No wonder he buys himself a few seconds picking up the fallen flower, restoring it, keeping his eyes off Dion as he fights his pounding heart.

And no wonder Joshua blames himself, after the fall of Drake’s Tail, that he didn’t go to Dion sooner.

summer dreams

i rewatched yuri on ice and to break my art block i redrew a very old drawing! don't look for it!

"In the following years, the nobles of Faerghus were changed drastically as they rebuilt their home.

But some things, never change."

Bonus! (they all had to go to a meeting too RIP)

@townslore you gave me the idea and it would not leave my brain, sorry 😮‍💨

“When I open up, he meets me halfway.”

as priv oomf said "akira saw goro's merch collection of red hawk and took take personally"

present day

if every day will be like this from now on, i'll look forward to every single one.

ok. Sits down. help meeee i tried using csp's comic tools for once (and also gradient maps + coloring w monochrome) to save time bUT I ENDED UP SPENDING THE USUAL AMT ANYWAY SO. . erm. WELL IT WAS FUN ANYWAYS

hiiiiiiiii i wrote this script 4 months ago nd finally did it (had this on the backburner for 20 million yrs bc i wanted to get out other angst bullshit first)

the parallels of goro's back (x3) on the first 2 pgs are kinda not 1:1 as i'd like but REGARDLESS i still like them. goro, who had utmost control over his life, running it like a machine, regardless of how he feels or if he's tired or if he wants to give up.......he was in control. knowing, of course, that his life is on the line at every waking moment, but since he was always on edge, always alert, he was still in control.

but now, surviving the long winter and coming out to the other side, he's lost that control AND that edge. now what is he left with? what is there left?

very speficially in the 2nd page.... i think its so <3 YAY <3 that goro, now, doesn't feel the need to take such spic-and-span clean-cut care of his appearance.., guy who rolls out of bed and throws on a shirt to go hangout w akira and sumire. he decides to tie up his hair and forgoes his gloves... feels more "comfortable" to change his apperance, to let down his guard a little. <- was the rough symbolism JKDSHKFS

sumire getting the choco croissant but letting goro have the first bite YEAHHHH WHATEVER

4th page symbolism is also rough i didnt think abt it too hard LMAO. 3rdsem goro watching his detective prince self leave. he knows acutely well that chapter of his life is over - whether he survives the long winter or dies in it. all that he knew - even though it was miserable and awful and frustrating and dangerous - is gone.

and now there's just this: the present day. whatever that means.

i think something important to me abt royal trio is just the idea of Learning To Just Exist: no need for a "purpose" or a "calling" or some overarching "goal". they just learn to exist.

and of course none of them really have a benchmark for "wow i like this i want to live like this" so they just roll with the punches, as they always have, but yknow. finally getting to live their honest student life as they always deserved

edit: and most importantly for goro, i think, is learning to cut himself some slack. "despite everything" he says, despite all the shit he's endured AND all the shit he's done, he feels like this is "right." whatever that means, he's ready to take it day by day to figure it out. AND THATS THE WHOLE THING Punches wall really hard

edit: I ALSO FORGOT. i think the sentiment of "being waited for" for goro means a lot. since he had to do everything by himself, fight for himself, decide everything for himself frm such a young age, the idea of akira and sumire waiting for him, inviting him out simply for him to be there -> is really meaningful to him, more than they could know.

edit AGAIN: also goro sleeping in means a lot to me. i imagine that guy has pretty terrible insomnia. ALSO HE HAS A BEDFRAME! i like the thought of his apartment being so /r/malelivingspaces throughout the game. he doesn’t deserve a bedframe. BUT HE HAS ONE NOW!

goros expressions in the last page gve me a hard time. sparkly....

also im SO freaking sorry if his voice isnt too well-written... i had a crisis over the wording while draiwng htis so much DSKHASKDASJK AND THE PANELING AND WHATEVERRR IDEK WHAT IM DOINGGG but it was fun!!!! exploratory..... regardless i will keep workign to do him and royaltrio justice. THUMBSUP EMOJI.