#but despite playing the most convoluted game possible‚ they both chose to trust

[hojiteaversion]

We're definitely two birds of a feather, players and strategists...

[lunafrey]

WHAT FFXV GOT RIGHT - A CELEBRATORY ANNIVERSARY POST!

Final Fantasy XV has been out for a full year now, and it has brought me so much happiness that I feel like I owe it to the game to write about what it did right. We can talk about what this game got wrong all day – and people have done so. If you’re trying to decide if this is the game for you, or if you love Final Fantasy XV like I do, then buckle in and keep on reading!

As a disclaimer, I would like to make it clear that I have nothing against any of the ships that exist in this fandom. Although I don’t seriously ship any of the characters with one another, I do respect that other people do. I’m making this disclaimer because I sincerely think that the one thing that Square did one hundred percent correctly was how they wrote the boys and the platonic relationships they have with one another. Regardless of what we like to imagine and write about, Square intended for the dynamic between the four main characters to be completely platonic – and that isn’t such a bad thing, really.

Video games have, for as long as I can remember, mostly subscribed to one definition of masculinity. This is probably to appeal to male consumers of video games, who are attracted to your classic male power fantasy. Square, despite their sometimes convoluted plotlines, has often presented us with emotional, well-developed male characters. Tidus from Final Fantasy X immediately comes to mind. This trend did not begin with Final Fantasy XV, but it definitely reached its peak during the course of the game. I know more than a few of us – myself included – were wary when Square announced that Final Fantasy XV would have a male-only main party. But, in my opinion, it was one of the best things they could have done.

A few weeks ago, I was discussing Final Fantasy XV with a friend who had recently completed it. She isn’t a big fan of Prompto (for shame!) but she did tell me that she felt that Prompto cares a bit too much about Noctis – possibly bordering on genuinely being in love with him. Which is actually really, really great, especially considering that Square wrote the relationship between them as platonic. Prompto is a very anxious, nervous character, who overcompensates with his cheerful personality because he doesn’t feel like he is able to contribute anything else to the party. And in addition to all of this, he is incredibly emotional. There is absolutely no doubt that he loves his friends – and he never holds back. Prompto doesn’t need to directly tell his friends how much he loves them, because the way in which he chooses to share his feelings with them establishes it. And it’s wonderful that he loves with his whole entire heart – even more wonderful is that he doesn’t feel the need to conceal it. It’s easy to see that Prompto fears that he comes on too strong, especially as he blinks back tears and tells the others, ‘You guys are like the only friends I’ve ever known.’ Overcome with emotion and visibly terrified of what the others are thinking, he is unable to express how much that means to him. But he continues to speak, and shares his hopes with them. Prompto tries to be a lot of things – useful, good for morale – but he never feels the need to come off as strong or brave or unaffected by emotions. He lets things just spill out – fear, love, appreciation, anger. He doesn’t hesitate to touch his friends either – whether it’s a playful swat at Noctis, or his gentle handling of Ignis, Prompto is always ready to reach out to his friends both emotionally and physically. None of these things are exclusive to non-platonic relationships and, as a matter of fact, they shouldn’t be. It’s lovely that Prompto so clearly loves his friends. Lovely, and incredibly refreshing.

Noctis, unfortunately, will always be seen as whiny or overemotional by some people. Which is just tragic, because he deserves credit for not falling into the trap of masculinity that male characters do. Noctis, despite always making an effort to be cool, is just as emotional as Prompto is. That is why they connect with one another, and why they love each other. In real life, boys are constantly told to man up and to be strong. Society constantly makes attempts to stifle emotional outbursts from boys and men. They’re expected to respond to that – and I am sure that some of them do. But what’s interesting about Noctis is that he doesn’t. Gladio (who I will discuss in a bit), tends to try to deal with Noctis in this way. He tells him to man up, and to stop being a coward. Noctis doesn’t respond to any of this – in fact, it clearly makes him feel worse. Noctis’ emotions cannot be pushed away just so that he can be a better man and king – they are a very important part of who he is. He allows himself to grieve when he has to, regardless of what Gladio says or thinks. He never tries to put on a brave face, because he trusts his friends enough to show them how he’s really feeling. And, at the end of the day, when Noctis really does need a push, he only responds to Ignis. This isn’t because he prefers Ignis to Gladio, but because Ignis chooses to speak to him gently and with care. And speaking of Ignis…

Ignis really comes into his own in the swampy depths of Fodina Caestino, and it’s because of the way he chooses to speak to Noctis. Noctis, at this point in the game, genuinely needs a push. It cannot come from Gladio, for obvious reasons, and it doesn’t come from Prompto, because Prompto prefers to stand by his friends and let them navigate their issues in their own time. Ignis, who I see as the unofficial leader of the party, is able to reach Noctis with his words because he makes it known that it’s okay to feel. It’s okay for Noctis to be stuck, and it’s okay for him to grieve and to be hesitant about taking his rightful place. Ignis very firmly tells Gladio that Noctis will take his rightful place – but only when he is ready to. The implication is that Ignis recognizes that Noctis needs time to marinate in his own emotions, to cry and yell if he needs to – as long as he is able to pick up at some point and fulfill his duty. Aside from the events of Cartanica, it is easy to see why Ignis is such a successful character. Like the incredibly emotional Prompto, and the struggling Noctis, Ignis does not fit into the cookie cutter world of male video game characters. He is incredibly graceful and tidy, but his most dominant trait is his silent way of taking care of the others. Ignis cooks, and it is implied that he mends clothing and basically does everything that needs doing. He is what society considers to be maternal – caring, and supportive. Amazingly, none of the others ever joke about how Ignis chooses to care for them. It is simply accepted, and Ignis doesn’t have any shame in his role as primary caretaker. Although he is stoic, the way in which he behaves around the others implies a very strong emotional attachment. Even in the field, he is programmed to rush over to a low HP Noctis – not to heal him, necessarily, but simply to shield him and to be there.

Gladio, perhaps, is Square’s only failure when it comes to writing emotional male characters. He is very clearly written to appeal to male gamers – even his design suggests that Square took inspiration from Western games, where muscles are a necessity to character design. Gladio has a temper, and genuinely believes that manning up is the best solution to an emotional situation.  He sees things in black and white – this is very apparent when he ignores Ignis’ contribution to the Malboro fight, and is only able to focus on how Ignis might hold them back. But there is a possibility that Gladio was written in this way because it amplifies the emotional nature of the other boys. His DLC suggests that he is afraid of failure, and I think any gamer can sense that he is nervous about being shield to a king who isn’t worth protecting. But Square fails to delve deeper into this, making Gladio the party’s weak link.

Separately, the boys are written well. Together, they shine. There is a reason that people are so attached to these characters in particular – it’s because they make a successful and cohesive party. You genuinely feel the love and respect they have for one another, and they never shy away from supporting each other through tough times. They laugh, they cry, they yell, and Square never attempts to make them appear weak because of it. Platonic male relationships are very often written the same way – casual, with all the emotions and physicality left to relationships between girls. But Square ignores gender roles in Final Fantasy XV, and lets the boys interact with one another however they need to. There is no fear that they might seem too emotional or too affectionate, because it is absolutely okay for boys to be that way with one another. It’s more than okay. Giving us an all-male party who are so emotionally dependent and loving with one another is the best thing about Final Fantasy XV. Despite its murky storyline, it still remains a game worth playing because of what Square chose to very casually do. They let themselves write platonic relationships based on love, trust, emotions, and support – and then took that a step further and wrote those relationships as being between boys. And that is what makes Final Fantasy XV successful, and a worthy addition to the franchise.

[lewishamledger]

An alternative future

A project to self-build 33 sustainable homes in Ladywell is the antithesis of the large, impersonal developments that are commonplace in the capital, finds our write

WORDS BY ROSIE PARKYN

A housing crisis that sees pristine new apartments left empty for months on end while homelessness soars is such a trope of London life that we forget alternatives may exist. And yet across the city a quiet housing revolution is taking root, a gentle but determined riposte to waves of large-scale, imposed and impersonal developments that fuel a buy-to-let boom but leave home ownership and the ability to build long-term social ties out of reach for many Londoners.

Community-led housebuilding may well be the disruption so urgently needed, and yet it reflects old ideas that should not be radical or controversial. Put simply, it involves groups of people getting together to build their own homes.

At Church Grove in Ladywell, a team of local residents are waiting to start constructing the mixed-tenure affordable housing scheme in which they will eventually live. They were previously unknown to one another, and most come with limited experience of building. It might sound like the premise of a Channel 4 reality TV show, but this is the next stage of a real project that is years in the making.

Those poised to take up tools were selected by a lottery entered by 150 individuals and families, and will work to a plan they have co-designed and helped raise money to realise. A professional contractor will do the heavy lifting on the £8.6 million project, creating a waterproof shell into which the homes will be slotted.

Future residents will be trained to deliver packages of carpentry, plumbing and electrics across each other’s homes. This so-called “sweat equity” keeps costs down, but also develops skills and engenders a community spirit.

The resulting scheme will provide 33 sustainable homes, of which five will be for social rent to families on the council’s housing list. The rest will be a mix of share equity, shared ownership and affordable rent. Crucially, their market value will not rise exponentially in line with land prices in years to come: the site is held in a community land trust and has been leased by Lewisham Council for 250 years at a peppercorn rent.

The project is led by RUSS, a 900-strong volunteer-led community land trust founded by Kareem Dayes, who grew up on Walters Way – a self-build scheme created in SE23 in the 1980s. Despite its success, it didn’t spark a groundswell of similar initiatives, remaining a rare exemplar of community-led housebuilding for a couple of decades.

Perhaps in light of this, RUSS makes explicit its aim to both deliver this scheme and to grow and scale the community-led self-build model and the sustainable way of life that goes with it, including increased food security, reduced dependence on fossil fuels and protection of biodiversity.

These are increasingly mainstream concerns, and one of RUSS’s most appealing aspects is that it got on and built a prototype to address them. But it has taken graft and nerve to reach this point.

Trustee Ted Stevens identifies the moment they secured the land as key. While they were obliged to compete in a convoluted procurement process, the council saw the value of their proposal and chose them even though they didn’t come with cash incentives.

Since then, RUSS has been on a perpetual fundraising drive, progressing through the costs of planning permission and survey work on a combination of grants, loans and crowdfunding initiatives. Once the scheme is complete and rents begin to flow, RUSS hopes to build a war chest to fund future projects. But it’s a hair-raising balancing act at each stage.

Ted says that homes are designed with the occupier in mind. “It is the opposite of everything else. With nearly every form of new housing, they’re built and then they find people to go into them. Community-led housing does it the other way round: let’s bring the people together so they can have the homes they need.”

Budget considerations predominate, but the group also discuss how much space they need to grow food or dedicate to play, and how far they want to take on aspects of managing the scheme, such as repairs.

At this point, the site is mostly bare. Yet tucked away to the right is a beautiful, newly completed timber building constructed by volunteers using materials left over from commercial developments.

This community hub is a home for RUSS and a training space that passes on members’ skills to other would-be self-builders, but it will also serve as a vital reminder of what lies in reach as the group traverse the inevitable highs and lows of the build itself.

I’m shown around the hub by RUSS member Gordon O’Connor-Read, who worked on it every weekend for months. With a background in construction, he may be better acquainted with the tasks and territory that lie ahead, but is no less enthusiastic for that familiarity.

The team will spend an average of 20 hours a week on the residential build in addition to their day jobs, but there is more in it for Gordon than a home. “This is not just about Church Grove,” he says. “This is about promoting community-led housing.”

The group have gotten to know each other through fundraising for and building the hub, but admit that “building can be incredibly tense and there are a lot of pressures. Relationships will be tested.”

It feels as if RUSS will be ready for that though. This is a rather special brand of idealism – grown up and practical. All building projects carry significant financial and safety risks without the additional complexity of volunteer involvement. Yet despite the deep responsibility and detailed work involved in managing these risks, the project still manages to convey hope, imagination and possibility.

It helps that local government is getting the message. Lewisham Council recently granted the London Community Land Trust a site in Brasted Close in Sydenham without the complex procurement process that RUSS underwent.

And across London, 30 such projects have emerged, including Older Women’s Co-Housing, a group of women looking for friendly, helpful neighbours in old age. Others come together because they need affordable housing and want to generate the lowest possible carbon footprint.

It’s hard to predict exactly how the scheme will fare in the long term. A lot could go wrong during the build, and recent history recounts numerous housing schemes that went awry despite noble intentions. But few were designed and managed with this level of participation, and future residents have serious skin in the game.

People who build their own homes live in them for an average of 25 years, which has important benefits for the wider community. More than this, though, RUSS’s efforts to spread the word and reduce the learning curve for others are already paying off. Ted would like to see 20,000 homes a year built like this by 2040, and who could argue?