#jail for everybody involved in creating this imo

[hamethyst]

Thoughts about FFXVI now that I’ve finally played it (was patiently waiting for that price to drop and my salt to dilute):

Pros:

- Pretty game. Big, pretty fights with attacks and cinema that made you feel like a god amongst men. Which you kind of were, at least by the end.

- The voice acting was top notch. Not a weak one to be found, imo, from major characters to minor. They all did a pretty phenomenal job.

- Music was also pretty darn good. Not my favorite soundtrack by any stretch, but it had some bangers, and the music contributed well to the overall mood of the world.

- There actually were brown people. Were any of them main characters? No, but they did exist, and some of them were even semi-important in side quests, which was a better state of the world than I thought. So a kudos there, I guess.

- The story on its own was decently satisfying, but the world-building was really where the game shined (along with the big, bombastic fights). You can tell they put a lot of time and care into developing the lore of Valisthea, from the monsters to the items to the politics of the involved nations. They had a couple characters that basically acted as encyclopedias for lore and in-depth details about characters, concepts, and events, and I genuinely enjoyed making use of them.

- I liked the older ages of the characters, pretty much everybody was in their 30s and older. Much as I love my FF teens and early twenty-something’s, it was very refreshing dealing with grown folks in a story about grown folks.

- From his hair to his face to his voice to his cleavage to his unnecessarily tight leather trousers to the cutscene of his bare naked ass literally chained to a jail cell wall, Clive was the eye candy of this game. He provided more smut material than the actual sex workers that existed in this world. Also his character was nice. He was a good FF protagonist. Also ridiculously gorgeous. God bless.

Cons:

- While there were brown characters, again none of them were main characters. At least give us our token darkie, Squeenix.

- The locations, while pretty cuz pretty graphics, were lackluster. There was one (1) notable exception, and that was (ironically) the place with all the brown folks lol. It was basically a desert oasis-turned-town, and it was legitimately beautiful to behold. But for the vast majority of traversable terrain, even for dark fantasy medieval Europe, it’s like there wasn’t even an attempt to try and create environs that were imaginative or particularly interesting to run/ride through (and it got worse when, about 75% into the story, literally everything became shrouded under dreary cloud cover). Like they could’ve given us a glowing forest or treetop town or something.

- Related to that point, exploration of said environs was equally uninspired. Not just because the locations quickly lost their hold on me, but because there were absolutely no worthwhile rewards for going out of my way to wander any given map area. Practically every chest or shiny bauble was a random assortment of a laughably low amount of gil or the same monster materials I absolutely did not need to go looking for as they were so abundant just throughout the course of the main story and a few side quests. And no secrets; there were no mysteries, no serendipitous little discoveries that would have added to the richness of the world. Halfway through the game, I’d already given up exploring any environment in full, and simply traversed from point A to B for the next cutscene (the only exceptions being populated towns and villages cuz at least there was ambient NPC dialogue), and that was so disappointing. I normally love exploration, even in non-open world games, but XVI simply didn’t incentivize me to pursue it, neither by way of rewards nor simple appreciation of the world.

- Not a big fan of the summon designs. Well, some of them. Phoenix was good, Garuda and Titan and Odin were good, and Ifrit was fine but also coulda been more than a burnt big-horned dog thing, but I was not a fan at all of Shiva and Bahamut. I talked about Shiva when the very first big trailer for XVI came out, and I stand by my statement then that she looks like a woman doing a pretty but boring cosplay. And Bahamut was just a big gray lizard with weird proportions. Not a fan.

- The main big bad was underwhelming and utterly unnecessary. We didn’t need to fight god (again). I’m tired of fighting god, I don’t care how classic a trope it is. All the political machinations the devs had going on (and clearly put so much time and effort into) were more than enough for a compelling, refreshingly grounded story. We didn’t need some random god creature to come in and pose a bigger, higher-than-the-sky threat. Also they were annoying.

- By god, why wasn’t there a fleshed-out party system. Not even necessarily for gameplay reasons, I was (mostly) fine with the action-based gameplay, I don’t necessarily need my FF’s to be strictly traditional turned-based RPGs. What had me wishing most for more RPG-“ness” was the lack of banter, the lack of character/relationship-building conversations out in the field. The only time you got those was at the homebase or during plot-heavy segments. Side quests and world exploration were the worst; even when another person was in your “party,” it was rare for Clive or even the game itself to acknowledge them or their presence (with the exception of Cid. And Torgal. You know, the dog). I missed banter, I missed commentary. I’m not saying I needed a 12-person ensemble cast, but wandering the pretty but repetitive wilderness would have been nicer if Clive had had someone to chat with. It would’ve made the journey a little less lonely, a little less monotonous, and a little less, frankly, immersion-breaking. And it also would’ve helped to flesh out the other, non-Clive main characters, given them the flavor text they needed to really come to life as believably human characters I could care about, rather than just vehicles for lore and story progression. For everyone except Clive and a couple others, that was sorely missing.

- Partially continuing from above: Jill was the greatest victim of this. She was criminally underutilized. She and Clive were cute (30+-year-old traumatized virgin battle couple locked in a decades-long slow burn, sign me up), but they - and, more importantly, she - could’ve been so much better. And one of the reasons they weren’t and she wasn’t was because they chose not to flesh Jill out despite all the ways they could’ve. The nuggets of gold were there; in the story, in the lore, and they did little to nothing with them, and essentially consigned her to the role of Clive’s favorite cheerleader (who gets left behind right before the climax and replaced with a character with less than half the screen time, sorry Dion). It’s especially frustrating seeing as she was the only female member of the main hero cast. Can you tell I’m mad about it. It might honestly be my biggest criticism of the game. She’s not the only victim, as I stated, but her treatment is the most egregious given that she should be, for all intents and purposes, the third most important character in the game. (Also, on a shallower note, her design could’ve been better, more striking. She seemed to literally kinda fade into the background, especially in direct comparison to other characters. I understand the ice theme they were going for, but she really could’ve benefited from some coloration outside of “pale” and “gray.” Lowkey bothered me to the point that I started redesigning (and just full-on reimagining) her as I played lol).

- Also related to the above points: despite XVI being categorized as an action RPG, the RPG elements were extremely barebones, so much they might as well not have bothered including them. And it’s even more glaring an issue because, in my humble opinion, the parts by which the game suffered most (lack of worthwhile exploration, lack of a stimulating party system, lack of quest variety, lack of significant supporting character development) wouldn’t have been issues if those RPG elements had been given more attention and care.

Idk it’s…frustrating, like Squeenix was so dead-set on making XVI so far removed from the traditional FF formula, that they forgot (or ignored) the roots that made their previous games so iconic. I’m all for innovation and experimentation, but it’s gotta be guided, and it’s gotta make sense. And XVI just felt aimless in that respect, like it didn’t know entirely what it wanted to be or what it wanted to do. Couldn’t fully commit to the bit of being a gameplay-focused action extravaganza, but lacked the development and depth to be a truly satisfying, story- and character-focused RPG. And, to me, it showed.

Overall, I’d rate the whole experience a 7/10. Passable, entertaining enough, but sorely lacking in too many other areas, and all areas that I’ve always personally loved in a Final Fantasy game or general RPG. It’s like using a ton of admittedly very pretty glitter to cover up a concrete slab. Fun and exciting at a glance (and again, very pretty), but ultimately little more than camouflage for a solid but shamefully underutilized foundation.

[pathfinderofandromeda]

jerin in the glass trap instead of jamie and kate…

this prompt is undeniably evil, but i might have enjoyed writing it?

they're going through the absolute most, except i can promise that within ten minutes, jamie throws du’met off the roof, and he doesn’t get up this time :)

i hope you'll forgive me...and my embellishment of the amount of time they have before du'met comes back.

you can check out my other work on AO3...username: skyllianspectre

(trigger warning for the DIM glass trap and all that entails, as well as heavy angst and asthma/panic attacks)

Despite Jamie’s best efforts to avoid it, they end up getting separated.

It’s difficult to keep an eye out for moving walls while running, as it turns out, and now they’re here, in this fucking trap, and Jamie swears she’s gonna kill that son of a bitch.

“Try to stay calm.” She tells Erin, but then the wall starts moving. 

She tries to break the glass on her own with no success, then tries the screwdriver.

It’s a useless pursuit, and that’s when she sees the button.

The reverse symbol above makes the function obvious, and Du’Met must really be crazy if he thinks she’d even consider hurting Erin, let alone go through with it.

She’s already carrying the weight of Charlie’s apparent death on her shoulders, whether she could’ve done anything more or not, and she won’t - no, can’t - carry another.

Especially not her.

Fuck that button.

She won’t even stand near it.

“J - Jamie?” Erin asks, incredibly fearful. “What is that for?”

“Some shit I’m not doing.” Jamie answers resolutely, shaking her head.

She knows she can stand here and scheme for as much time as they have, but it’s pretty clear that they’re not going to think their way out of this. 

Somebody is dying here, and Erin seems to have realized that it’s not going to be her.

“Jamie. No. You can’t.” 

“This is exactly what he wants.” Jamie says, ignoring her implication and trying to keep it together. “You know I won’t hurt you. You’re not changing my mind.”

Erin can’t even look at her.

Her crying is uncontrollable, and she feels like she’s going to pass out.

Even if Jamie lets her live, who’s to say she’ll make it?

She’s done nothing but hinder the crew, and she can’t fathom the idea of going on without her, especially if she feels responsible.

“The others...they need you.” She insists, and Jamie looks almost offended.

Erin isn’t a burden, and the fact that she thinks she is is nauseating.

“Listen. Please.” Jamie pleads, voice trailing off into nothing, and Erin is completely devastated by the sound. “This isn't your fault. Understand?” 

Erin sputters to say something, anything, but it won’t come out.

The sight makes Jamie pause for a second, then completely break. 

“I love you.” She admits, glass closing in, and Erin looks at her like she’s committed a crime. “Just...don’t watch, okay?” 

She turns away as told, knowing from the way Jamie’s said it that it’s sacred, and now it’s going to haunt her.

Jamie loves her too, and the sound of her scream is deafening.

---

It’s the longest collection of seconds in Erin’s life before she hears glass shattering, a thud, and then, unbelievably, Jamie’s voice.

“Erin.”

It’s hoarse and shaky, but when Erin forces herself to turn back around, expecting some sort of auditory hallucination, she finds it undeniably real.

Jamie is on the floor a few feet away, talking, and breathing and alive.

She drops to her side almost immediately and helps her sit up, backing against the wall, but when she opens her mouth to speak, there’s no air left in her lungs.

“Hey...Hey, your inhaler.” Jamie murmurs, tapping Erin’s hand lightly, and she appreciates the reminder even though she’s sure Jamie’s gone mad.

There’s no way in hell she should be doing the care-taking right now, but it’s her, so of course she is.

Erin fishes into her pocket with shaky hands and sits next to her, taking a puff and exhaling painfully with the sound of “I love you” bouncing around her head like a pinball.

She gasps her way through several breathing cycles, Jamie’s hand sitting atop hers, and finally, mercifully, there’s some sense of control.

“Okay?” Jamie asks, only realizing how stupid it sounds once she’s said it, and Erin could almost laugh.

Jamie has no idea how good she is.

“You’re insane.” Erin responds, and then she’s kissing Jamie hard.

It’s messy and more than a little desperate, but Jamie only lets herself kiss back for a moment before breaking it. 

They’re both incredibly vulnerable, tears still streaming down Erin’s face, and Jamie isn’t about to take advantage.

Instead, she pulls Erin into her arms, letting her bury her face in her neck while she rubs at the small of her back.

There’s some comfort in the way their heartbeats synchronize, but it doesn’t last for long.

Du’Met’s gonna be pissed, and Jamie’s brain is already trying to figure out what’s next to protect them.

No time to process.

“You shouldn’t have done that.”

Erin eventually whispers between sobs, starting to quiet down just a little, and Jamie has no idea what to say so she jokes.

“I mean it worked out - ”

Erin squeezes her tightly to cut her off. “Jamie...I thought...”

“I know.” She replies, a jagged breath ripping through her entire body with the weight of it all. “Me too.”

---

After what feels like an eternity, the door in front of Kate creaks open.

Her heart drops in her chest when neither of them appear, and upon stepping closer, she hears crying.

It’s Erin, and Kate's thoughts start to race.

Jamie.

Shit.

Her hand flies to the amethyst crystal in her pocket, taking a deep breath as her stomach twists violently.

They need to keep going, but she can barely steel herself for what she’s about to see.

Upon entering the room however, there is no massacre.

Kate finds them both sitting against the wall, seemingly un-injured, and her relief is palpable.

Jamie acknowledges Kate with her eyes, holding Erin close and repeating something inaudible to her under her breath, and Kate can’t help but feel like she’s intruding on them.

She stares for a long second, unable to speak, and then she hears Jamie tell Erin that she’s here.

Her voice is completely wrecked, and it makes a cold, horrible feeling seep through Kate’s bones.

Something terrible happened here.

“Are you guys okay?” She finally manages to get out, and Jamie nods slowly, looking unsure.

“Yeah...yes...we are.”

The way it hangs is uncomfortable and Kate tries her best to focus. “He’s not far. We should - ”

“Yeah.” Jamie agrees, urging Erin gently that they need to go, and only then does Erin move, separating herself.

Her eyes are bloodshot and puffy, and it makes Kate’s heart ache.

“Let me help.” Kate offers, holding her hand out to Jamie, and she takes it to get to her feet.

She’s clearly trying to reset, to put this away to worry about later, and Kate has no idea how she does it.

She turns back and grabs her screwdriver from the floor, then reaches for Erin.

“C’mere.” She breathes, and Erin does, taking her hand and standing up beside her, a bit wobbly. 

Kate glances between them, but then there’s shuffling in the hallway.

God damn it.

“Come on.” She says anxiously, leading the way out of the room, and then Du’Met is there, staring them down.

“Stay close to me.” Jamie tells Erin, making sure she’s in front of her before they turn to run, and Erin clings to the words.

She’s not letting Jamie out of her sight.

[roominthecastle]

duality in the Red/Liz dynamic filtered through James’ own words

∎ “If I’m choosing a project on content, it’s through a prism of sexuality, in the oddest corners of someone’s life. I’m not someone so much interested in exploring a slice of life unless that is down the corridor, around the corner, up the alley and down the rabbit hole. That I like.” [x]

∎ “I really think it’s safe to say that you don’t really know what the nature of the relationships are going to be, and also what the future holds for each and every one of the individual cast members. […] For me the [Blacklist] is what I had hoped for when I first read the pilot. It has a broad landscape in every aspect - in terms of tone, storyline, the development of characters, and the development of the relationship between different characters.”

⇢ excerpts from the pilot script (establishing sexual attraction from Red’s side, i.e. “a prism of sexuality”):

On top of instant physical attraction that is clearly indicated in the script, romantic attraction also seems to be in play but this develops slower, is guarded, and lives on a predominantly subtextual level.

∎ “To figure out a character, I try to look for something that’s not in the screenplay - a little secret they carry around with them. Sometimes it’s allowed to show itself, sometimes it isn’t, yet it’s always there.”

∎ “[ Red ] clearly has strong feelings for [ Liz ].” [x]

∎  “The challenge in playing [Red] is really the diligence in trying to strike a balance between what to tell and what not to tell - or to tell something in a way that you are not aware that it’s being told. To let the viewer in on something in a way that you are not telling them something. You’re letting them feel it and see it. Something that is new. Or something that is surprising. Or something that adds just another layer of complexity.”

But sometimes the secret “is allowed to show itself”.

for example, compare James’ personal experience of romantic love

∎ “When you’re in love, you can’t control it. It’s when you can’t take charge of what you feel, when you are completely powerless in the face of the emotion. When it happens, it happens in spite of you.” [x]

with

⇢ Red to Liz in 208, The Decembrist: “When you love someone, you have no control. That's what love is. Being powerless.”

 ⇢ J. Eisendrath in Behind the Blacklist S2: “Red is an incredibly powerful person but the only person who renders him powerless is Liz.”

⇢ Red about Liz in 319, Cape May: “There was a woman I loved. She was my life. My heart.”

There are moments where Red’s attraction - both physical and romantic - clearly surfaces in the text - in dialogue and behavior. This attraction was 100% absent in the past and it sparked in spite of the role Red assigned himself earlier (a protector, nothing more), which is why it must feel like “a kick in the head” when he meets her after decades as an adult.

It is something new, surprising, and complicates things for both of them - especially for Red because it conflicts with the original concept (of the past) he held of her in his mind: the helpless child he saved and felt obligated to protect from afar vs the new concept (the now) which is of the attractive adult woman who is perfectly capable of taking care of herself and demands to be treated as such. He has been struggling with this conflict, trying to come to terms with it, with his feelings, and the colliding concepts that pit his “duty” as a platonic protector with the present attraction he feels as a man (a conflict he projects on Tom’s behavior, as well).

⇢ Red to Kate in 421, Mr. Kaplan: “She's not Masha anymore. With little to none of my presence or influence through the years, she has grown up to be Special Agent Elizabeth Keen.”

⇢ Red to Liz in 611, Bastien Moreau: “All those years spent worrying about you, fancying myself your guardian angel. [My mother] would've taken one look at you and known you'd be fine.”

He is both distancing himself from her past image here and emphasizing the lack of actual contact during her childhood, which makes sense if he is indeed experiencing new, different feelings for her now. He re-affirms that his contribution was in the form of money, which also parallels Liz’s guilt-fueled way of trying to anonymously “compensate” the daughter of a man who got murdered as a result of a situation she was partially responsible for creating. Neither Red’s not Liz’s contribution can be characterized as actual parenting, but they were both trying to be “pseudo providers” in place of parents who - due to crossing paths with them - were no longer around to do so.

In Cape May, Red’s past and present traumas wash together in an opium-induced mind trip. Liz first gets referred to as “a child” he wanted to provide for to balance some cosmic scale but later she becomes “a woman” he loved.

There has been only one 4th wall breakage in the entire show but it is unmistakable and speaks clearly to this “conflict of concepts”:

⇢ Mr. Solomon in 305, Arioch Cain: “What is the deal with you two anyways? It's what everybody wants to know. Some say it's a daddy/daughter thing. Others swear it's May-September. I prefer to believe... it's a little of both.”

This dual approach is also echoed in Eisendrath’s off-screen “twisted paternal” label or his more recent remark about Red’s “Liz fetish”, and Bokenkamp’s interesting take on how there's conflict in Red’s reaction to Liz’s faked death: the parent figure part should forgive, the romantic partner side struggles [x].

James appears to be in agreement:

∎ “It’s a very, very complicated relationship between the two of them. As much as she doesn’t know the true nature of their relationship, I think it’s quite equitable for Reddington, as well, because I think he is trying to grasp a hold of what the true nature of their relationship is now. Forget the past, regardless of what that the past represents. What is the nature of their relationship now and what are even the possibilities of a relationship with her.” [x]

∎ “The most compelling relationship is, in fact, what it’s turning into. What the nature of that relationship is now and what it will be building over the next few years. We’ve already seen them very fractured at times and yet there’s some sort of compulsion that they have for one another. And not just Reddington’s feelings for her but also her feelings for him. And to me that’s one of the most fascinating things besides the fun to be had on the show. In terms of the emotional center of the show.” SDCC ‘14

Based on these bits and pieces (coupled with on-screen interaction), I think it’s safe to conclude that Red and Liz’s present dynamic is in flux and carries conflicting elements. Both James off-screen and Red on-screen emphasize the ultimate importance of their present over their past, though: “Forget what the past represents.” & “She is not Masha anymore.” While this instantly rules out any biological connection, their past still exerts its influence (manifesting in guilt and fueling uncertainty) and it will continue to do so until it is sorted. So it is not surprising (imo) that Liz wants to keep Red both near but also at an arm’s length, repeatedly needing a buffer zone whenever things flare up btw them, be it physical distance (e.g. putting him in jail) or another man (getting involved w/ someone else). He is a question mark still, confused himself, and she faces that wall of puzzling, magnetic intensity that has the very real capacity to consume her (she has been warned of this before by other women, too).

They love each other, that much has been firmly established, but the precise nature of that intense (compulsive) feeling is still under negotiation, so to speak. They may never have an overt romantic-sexual relationship but the seeds are there, they have been since the pilot, and they still have at least one and a half seasons to map the possibilities and figure out the best way to be together.