Since we've been talking about demon!Eobard and exorcist!Barry and Jay... He shouldn't have left the boy--oh, he's a man, a brave and intelligent one at that, but to Garrick he's just a kid still and too innocent for this work--to wander off. But Barry had said he wanted to check something, and Jay hadn't seen any harm in it. The shouts and cries he hears from across the house bring Jay as quickly as his feet can carry him, but it seems it's over before he bursts through the door. Barry's on his knees, expression shocked, and Jay sags against the doorframe in relief, knuckles white as he sends up a prayer of thanks when those blue eyes focus on him with a blink. Allen's lips slowly form a grin, elated, and Jay can't help but chuckle when he lets out a breathless laugh, clutching at his chest like he can't quite credit that he came through the encounter intact. Garrick feels like the crushing hug he gathers the smaller man into is more than earned, it's needed. He needs to affirm to himself that he's unharmed and safe. Barry melts into the hug, and Jay's feels pride and affection like a pressure in his chest. They conclude their investigation of the home--no sign of the entity that they'd come to oust--and the two pack up as the light starts to turn golden. Sitting behind the wheel of the rickety old truck he's called his for decades, the older of the two priests glances Barry's way where he sits, leaning an elbow on the window sill of the passenger seat. His grip tightens on the steering wheel, knuckles white as his heart suddenly pounds in his chest.

Barry's eyes are blue, like a clear sky in autumn.

Just now, Jay could swear he caught a glint of red.

ODHSKFJSK

I know nothing about priests and this is definitely not the fic I should be writing BUT HERE HAVE A DRABBLE ANYWAY--

There was nothing wrong with that house, Jay is convinced of it. With that entire neighbourhood even, despite the many reports of strange happenings going around in the past few months. It's more likely that some kids were pulling a prank on their seniors because the telltale signs of a Presence were just not there.

Birds behaved normally, no cats hissing at apparently nothing, no dogs scared to walk into a particular room or a lane. No sigils, no symbols. Truly the only odd occurrence that had been lamented where the lights - like a storm was brewing but with flashes of blood red instead of white, seen by four different people at the same hour of different nights. That and mirrors breaking by themselves in two separate occasions.

Jay has seen many little communities susceptible to the suggestion of paranormal, and in fact many people are just bored with the mundane, cling to the hope that something more hides behind a nightmare or a perfectly explainable "odd experience", or in case of elderlies, their own deteriorating minds. Barry was the one who insisted to go give it a look. If anything, it was going to be a trip to a quaint little village, and it had been just that after all, both the young man and his older mentor enjoying their time together just like father and son.

Then why after almost three months from said trip, is Jay still thinking about it.

Not just thinking, that would be reductive. He's going over everything that happened in details, especially the moment he heard Barry's scared cry from another room... Nothing was happening in that room, right? Barry had just dropped something. A mirror. There were glass shards on the floor when Jay had gotten there and Barry was kneeling in the middle of them, luckily unscathed. Jay remembers being worried for him, hurrying to pull him into a hug. He remembers Barry's laugh, everything was alright.

Definitely nothing was happening in that room.

A letter arrives, and it thanks Garrick and his former apprentice for the help, saying that ever since their visit, all the disturbances stopped. No more mirrors shattering, no more strange lights. Maybe the kids pulling a prank got scared of seeing two priests and decided to call it quits. Maybe the people who convinced themselves that they were seeing things, also convinced themselves that whatever entity they thought there was, it had been successfully ousted. Regardless, it's not like Jay and Barry had actually done anything about it. They had just taken a look, and the most notable incident was Barry accidentally breaking that mirror. Was it...?

Jay goes check their equipment, it's still in the back of the truck. They prepared for an ousting but why, there was never any need for it. Among the other things there's a shard of glass in the bag, some drops of crusted blood still on it. It makes no sense, Barry never got cut with that broken mirror, where does that blood come from?

He decides to visit Barry. It's been too long for any cut to be still on him but he might as well ask. Jay can't remember for the love of him that the young man got cut, but Barry most likely does. And maybe he also remembers what exactly happened in that room.

He's pulling up in the driveway of Barry's apartment, the truck's engine wheezing to a halt. Jay grabs the key to pull it out of the ignition.

The man in the passenger seat smiles at him from the rearview mirror, and Jay turns to face red eyes on a friendly face.

"Nothing happened in that room," the smiling man says as he looks back at Jay. "And Barry is alright. You don't need to see him now."

Jay nods. It's entirely true, nothing happened in that room. They went to that place solely to take a trip, maybe have a look around. Barry never got cut anywhere, what a silly thought... And surely Jay doesn't need to bother him with this now.

He still has his hand on the key. The engine rumbles back to life as Jay turns it, then drives away from Barry's home.

Final Fantasy 15 Thoughts (Spoilers!)

So, I just finished playing Final Fantasy 15 Royal Edition and I have many feelings about it. As I understand it, I have avoided many of the basic gameplay and story problems by buying the Royal Edition, which has all of the patches, dlc's, and fixes many of the bugs encountered when FFXV first came out. Oh, and I have watched the brotherhood anime and the Kingsglaive movie. Overall, my first experience with FFXV is much more complete than it was when the game was initially released (that is my understanding anyways). To be clear, I enjoyed playing FFXV (at least a good portion of it), but I have many issues with it too. One of my main issues with FFXV is the plot, especially the plot following the rite in Altissia. I have read many complaints about how dark FFXV gets after this point and how it becomes a very narrow, plot driven narrative as opposed to its earlier more easygoing and open world setting. To some extent, I agree with these complaints. This change in the game feels very sudden and forced to some degree. However, I personally tend to play heavily narrative games because I like deep, complex plotlines. This turn into a plot driven narrative is not my main issue, though it was, in my opinion, too abrupt a change in the game. My main issue following the events in Altissia, simply, is that the game wasn't as much fun to play after that point. For a game promoting the concept of brotherhood and comradery, that pretty much disappeared after the events in Altissia. Don't get me wrong, I understand the events in Altissia were traumatic for all of the characters and that caused most of the tension, but it was like we were playing with a different group of characters than we started with. All of the comradery seen previously in the game, from the pep talks, to characters interactions, to the short quips in battle (My fav was between Noctis and Ignis, the "You got my back" and "Always" in reply) had created this atmosphere of a team, of a brotherhood that was connected not just by duty, but by genuine friendship. 

But then Altissia happens, and the group just...completely falls apart. There is such an emotional whiplash between the first part of the game and the second part of the game, and its jarring. I honestly felt uncomfortable playing the game after the events in Altissia because the atmosphere was tense and strained, and the comradery present in the first half of the game became nearly nonexistent. Frankly, the game never recovers from this mood shift, and the rest of the game has a sort of sullen, discomforting feel to it. And I know people would argue that the brotherhood comes back together at the end of the game, but I would argue that true reconciliation never happens between the characters, instead making their comradery at the end a byproduct of their circumstances. They never truly deal with the problems created by the events in Altissia and afterwards. They just push them aside because they need to do so in order to work as a team and save the world. Now, is it possible that the remaining trio living in darkness may have dealt with their issues and figured things out, but we wouldn't actually know because we aren't privy to anything that happens during those 10 years. Maybe the game wanted you to understand Noctis's perspective in this way (though they don't really touch on how incredibly disorienting that time skip must have been for Noctis). However, the point stands that there was never really time at any point in the rest of the game following Altissia for the group to reconcile and come back together as a cohesive unit.

That leads me to another huge issue I take with the plot of this game. The ending. I know, already, there are people who will comment and say that "Not everything has a happy ending" and "The sacrifice was necessary to save the world", and so on and so forth. My issue with the ending comes back to the question of why. Especially after having watched Episode Ardyn, I just don't feel that the game gives us a clear cut reason as to why any of the ending needs to happen the way it does. Ok, so the sun goes down and doesn't come up after Noctis is pulled into the Crystal, which means demons have pretty much free reign and everything is much more dangerous. Got it. But why did the sun disappear? I know the game explains that there are organisms infected with the Starscourge that release a light-absorbing miasma, which are the cause of the lengthening nights (though you need to be fairly thorough in your examination of items to learn this). It also mentions the idea that the Oracle dying is related to the longer nights and the disappearing sun, though it never really explains why besides the fact that the Oracle can heal the Starscourge. While I understand that her healing those with Starscourge helps to limit the amount of miasma being put into the world, it seems rather unlikely that one person can ever hope to keep up with that demand. Also, we only ever saw Luna heal people who had not fully turned into demons yet, and I would assume that those people aren't giving off the same level of miasma as fully turned demons. And, we know those fully turned demons exist, in the form of demons the party runs into and the MT's that the empire uses. I'm just not sure it is believable that the Oracle, by themselves, is actually healing enough people to actually prevent the endless night in the first place. As for the other part of the explanation, how did those organisms proliferate to the point where it caused an endless night? Based on what we hear from characters in FFXV and read in the research notes, the appearance of the longer nights was incredibly rapid, which begs the question of why those organisms suddenly started infecting creatures and producing this miasma so quickly in comparison to any other time in the history of this world (as far as we know). All in all, I can't think of a solid reason given in the game as to why the endless night even happens, or perhaps, why it hasn't happened already. 

Moving on, after Noctis is absorbed into the Crystal, we do a ten year time skip. Back to my question of why, why did Noctis have to be in the Crystal for 10 years? I know he went in to gain the power of providence, but 10 years seems a bit excessive. Maybe that’s just me. Ignoring the fact that almost all of the living things in the world would have died without 10 years of sunlight, the fact remains that, in all likelihood, most of the creatures living in that world would have perished, either by being killed by demons or due to a lack of resources. In all honesty, there probably aren't many people alive by the time Noctis returns, and it’s hard to say if a civilization would actually be able to recover from that kind of devastation. Anyways, let's move on to what is my biggest contention with the plot. The prophecy. I have to say, I really, really dislike this plot point in the game. For one, it makes no sense. The true king, in this story, exists to purge their star of the darkness. Ok, cool, love the vague terms. But again, why? The darkness, which basically refers to the Starscourge, has existed for at least 2000 years at this point in the world. If the gods were so invested in this issue, why didn't they address it earlier? Why wait for a so called chosen king after at least 2000 years of this darkness ravaging their world? And what makes Noctis the chosen king? Simply because the gods said so? If that is the case, why didn't they choose a chosen king earlier? I know, after watching Episode Ardyn, that Ardyn was also a chosen king with the ability to absorb Starscourge from other people into himself. An ability, I might add, granted to him by the gods. But when Ardyn tries to ascend to become a king, the Crystal, where Bahamut resides, suddenly rejects him because of his ability (which, again, was given to him by the gods), and so he is rejected basically by the gods via the gift they gave him. Which makes no sense. As we know, this action leads to the circumstances we see in the game. 

To me, at this point, it seems that the gods on Eos are incompetent and create this prophecy in order to fix the problem they created. This seems to become more glaringly obvious when Bahamut tells Ardyn (in Episode Ardyn) that he literally is a pawn in their game to fix the problem they created. At its core, that is what makes me so very frustrated with this prophecy plot line. It seems that the characters in this game are no more than pawns being made to do what the gods tell them to do, and that everything in this world is preordained. Not only does that rake against my own beliefs as an individual, but it ruins the purpose of the game for me. If everything is preordained, then what is the point? It also hurts my perception of the characters as well because the characters, except for Ardyn maybe, never think to go against the determinations made by the gods, they just go along with it. They never stop to consider trying to find another way and instead simply accept their fates as is. I understand there is something inherently powerful and moving in sacrificing yourself to save others, but making it fate instead of an active choice lessens the impact. Noctis doesn't choose to sacrifice himself to save Eos, it is forced upon him. There is no sense of choice here, merely one of acceptance. The cruelty of Noctis' preordained fate disturbs me. Not only is Noctis just randomly chosen to die to save the world, but the gods see fit to inform his father of that when Noctis is 5. I cannot truly imagine the depth of sorrow and helplessness probably felt by Regis in being told that his son is basically a sacrifice. Undoubtedly, knowing that weighed heavily on Regis and I'm sure at times that knowledge put a dour edge on his time with Noctis. One of the saddest things about Noctis' fate is how little time he actually gets to live. I know he is technically 30 at the time of his death, but he really only lived 20 years. Not only is his life cut short, but he actually loses a third of it in the process of becoming the ideal sacrifice for the gods. To me, Noctis' fate is just unbearably cruel. And don't misunderstand, I actually like games that have darker themes and angst in them, but I think there is a balance in crafting stories and this story didn't quite find a balance. And the thing is, I think the creators of the game have acknowledged that too, as they have now created 2 alternative storylines where Noctis doesn't die and his fate is subverted in some way. Personally, I prefer the message given in the Final Fantasy 7 remake where the characters actively fight against a pre-determined destiny, instead of simply accepting their destiny as is. I have more thoughts on the subject of Final Fantasy 15, but for the moment I will end my writing here.