Zero - R.A. Young - June 11, 2024
Zero
I’m currently progressing through the post-Endwalker patch content of Final Fantasy 14 in preparation for the release of the Dawntrail expansion. It’s really fucking good and you should play it (all of FF14, that is). But as I continue to brainstorm for my book, one character in particular has stood out. Her name is Zero.
Let me just warn everyone I’ll be getting into some spoilers for post-Endwalker here. Zero is a character players meet early on in patch 6.1. She’s a Voidsent, a denizen of the Thirteenth, which is a planet that succumbed to darkness along with all of its peoples. She sees everything in terms of what can be taken or traded for, is driven by a hunger for aether like every Voidborn, and is otherwise emotionless. Through interaction with the player and his friends, however, Zero begins to question her nature and grow.
I absolutely live for this kind of shit. Zero isn’t an evil character. She’s a damned angel compared to other Voidsnet. Most interestingly, at least for me, she’s someone who has lived a life incomparable to anything we as players or the writers at Square Enix will have personally experienced. It’s an opportunity to flex creatively. Zero could just as easily go insane experiencing the culture and values of the Source as otherwise. She doesn’t, of course. She learns what trust and friendship are. It’s actually a very mundane (though heartfelt) result, but it’s made compelling in a way it may otherwise have been rote by having that intangible element.
Hardly a profound thought, but part of what I love so much about fantasy and science-fiction as genres is that distance between myself and the characters within. It’s what people that live in different worlds think and feel, what they’re capable of. It’s what their thoughts and actions mean to us, the readers, through the lens of our personal values. While it’s much easier to empathize with a nonfictional character, to a degree, characters in fantasy and sci-fi challenge us in ways not only that we don’t expect but that we may be unable to conceive. And that pushes us to stretch our empathy into circumstances we wouldn’t have otherwise. It makes us more compassionate people, or at least I like to think it did for myself. I hope I can put that into my writing.
E3
E3 is dead, long live E3. This past week has seen the coming and going of many different online video game showcases, including the annual entries of Geoff Keighley’s Summer Game Fest and the Xbox Games Showcase. Intermixed were events for indie games, PC games, wholesome games, women-led games, Latin American games, and more. It’s a smorgasbord of teasers, trailers, and announcements, and I still like to call it E3. Most of all, though, it’s exhausting.
I’ve covered E3 live multiple years as a video game journalist and it doesn’t matter whether it’s in-person or at home, it’s exhausting. Even as a massive fan of games, there’s only so much media one can consume before it becomes a gruel of flavorless mush. The games start blurring together. The excitement sputters out. There isn’t enough coffee in the world to reignite it after it’s gone. I’m no longer a game journalist, but even watching as a fan was too much.
What I do enjoy about E3 now that I’m not working it is sharing the experience with friends. Sharing thoughts on what’s interesting and what isn’t, sending trailers for games to friends who may have missed them, and laughing at all manner of ridiculousness makes for a special occasion. E3 may be exhausting, but it’s still a special occasion and well worth celebrating. Even if E3 is dead.
(Here’s a quick list of games I’m especially excited for: Dragon Age: The Veilguard, Star Wars: Outlaws, The Rise of the Golden Idol, Flintlock, Demonschool, Citizen Sleeper 2, Fable, Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred, Sonokuni, Tenjutsu, While Waiting, Petal Runner, Cairn, Monster Hunter Wilds, Hyper Light Breaker, Kunitsu-Gami, Mecha Break, Tears of Metal, Metaphor: ReFantazio, Neva, Civilization 7, Dynasty Warriors Origins, and Concord.)
Lightning Round
Here’s a quick selection of thingies I want to talk about but don’t deserve a massive block of text:
AFK Journey — It’s the news that you’ve been waiting for. I’ve quit AFK Journey. In fact, I uninstalled while writing the last newsletter, but wanted to make sure it stuck. It stuck. I’m free!
SKALD: Against the Black Priory — This is a top-down grid-based retro fantasy RPG that I’ve recently fallen in love with. It’s polished off a lot of the rough edges one would expect from a retro RPG, speeding up the action significantly. It’s got a rich story about a dark threat, a big overworld to explore, and a metric shitton of pixel art. It’s scrumptious.
Getting Older — I’ve had to stop running over the past week after I woke up with extreme pain in my neck. I’m sure now it was just a strained muscle, but it was frightening there for a bit. It happened in my sleep! I’ve started running again now that I can move my neck and it’s like starting from nothing all over again. My lungs burn, my feet swell, my ankle’s strained, and that’s to say nothing of Phoenix’s 80+ degree heat at 6:00am.
AEW Woes — In 2023, for the first time since I started watching wrestling again in 2019, I got tired of it. The wrestling and storytelling had both fallen off significantly. It got better! But now it’s falling off again. I don’t feel like watching, but also it’s a really important way for me to spend time with friends. Kenny Omega, we need you!
Ice Cream — I’ve been eating ice cream lately. English Toffee Caramel. It’s a cheap brand, but man it’s so good. It’s an endless craving. Do y’all have an ice cream flavor like that?
As ever, thanks for checking out my newsletter. It means a lot that you’re willing to give up some of your time to check in on me. This week’s newsletter is a bit of a wash, but I very much want to keep this a weekly thing. This is the price! It hurts me more than you! See ya next time. -Rory