Thoughtlets: Final Fantasy IV's Rydia Characterization and Narrative

(Commenting on this video)

I think that Rydia's character is actually handled rather well. She's always been my favorite Final Fantasy character from the first time I played Final Fantasy IV.

Her actions in the beginning of the game echo when she returns. At the start she's a child running away from a scary man in black armor. She's lost her entire world. Her mother is gone, her town is gone, she's in the company of the man responsible for her mother's death.

Her entire world is gone. She has nothing left. For all she knows her traumatic summoning of Titan killed everyone left in the town. She very well might have killed people, in the original Mist goes from being 2 tiles wide to 1 tile wide. She literally destroyed half of her already bomb-scarred town.

The General tells Cecil to stand aside, but rather than do so and let Rydia be killed, he defends her, putting himself in danger on her behalf.

He didn't mean to kill her mother, he doesn't want forgiveness, he just wants to make things better.

So that's what Rydia does, that's who she patterns herself after. She wants to be like Cecil to defend people.

Thoughtlets: Making an Effective End Times Cultist

Response to this reddit post.

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I personally would take out pages from my own life experience, as while not one myself, I have relatives who are members of one of those "We are living in the last days" Christian churches.

This whole thing rather amuses me as Groteus has the "Look absolutely loony to most people," "THE END TIMES ARE UPON US, REPENT SINNERS," and "BLOOD MOONS" aspects that my own family members sport.

So with my observations I would suggest the following:

Atrocity Rose

Ah, beloved, the hour grows late, and you grow weary. Do not deny it, dearest, for my eyes are keen and can see each and every one of your mortal frailties. If it pleases you, I shall tell you of what you ask. But remember there are things that are better off being unknown. There are things out there in the planes. Monstrous things beyond the likes of which the common tongue's vocabulary can describe.

I would share the experience with you, beloved. You know that I can open my mind to yours, to let you browse the width and breadth of all I am like an open book. I can, but I plead with you to not ask this of me. There lies within me a fragment of a greater creature, a mere shadow of a reflection of a mote of her majesty. She has no name, dearest, for where she dwells she is everything. She is the beginning, she is the end, and whatever is not of her is consumed and devoured until it is. Like I was.

After the War Session 1 Highlights

DM: So you've been hiding in a ruined fort for a week or two, hiding from the Angelic and Draconic forces fighting out on the plain.

VK: Plain as in grasslands or plane as in sliver of another dimension.

DM: Ah, the grasslands.

Danish Orc Sorc (DOS): It could also be an airplane.

DM: I should've been more specific. Curse you english language. You're on the elemental plane of plain planes. There's nothing to eat but airline food.

VK: (Vader NOOOOOOO!)

DOS: That idea was going to go into DnD, but it didn't make it off the runway.

DM: It really crashed and burned. It's actually a grassland, and I'll try to be more specific about that in the future.

VK: You've had a concussion and have been up all night, you're on autopilot.

(The deluge of plane puns continues for a minute)

DM: Anyway, you're all holed up in a fort on the edge of the plain...

VK: Like on the wing? (Shatner) There's.... some... THING... onthewing!

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(DOS has snuck past the planned monster encounters with a natural 20, so has Undead in Denial Catgirl, meanwhile VK is not stealthy)

DM: You encounter a nasty frog looking thing, roll Knwoledge to identify!

DOS: rolls awfully

UDC: I have no knowledge skills.

VK: I have all the knowledge skills, but am a massive robot snake who is not in the least biut stealthy! It's like the Gift of the Magi all over again!

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(DOS has snuck up to the surface to look at the battlefield, there is a dead corpse the size of a mountain range in golden armor, the plains have flooded, and there's a second moon in the sky.)

DOS: I take a deep breath to smell if the water is slat water, so like if it's from an ocean.

DM: You smell rotting corpses.

DOS: I regret everything.

DM: Roll for Regret.

DOS: What's a Regret roll?

VK: It's like a Will save, but you add your Emoness stat instead of Wisdom.

DOS: Excellent. I'm an evil orcish sorcerer, I have a massive emo stat. rolls

DM: You deeply regreat inhaling.

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(DOS returns to the part)

DOS: So uh... guys, how many moons do we have?

Kobold Re-animated Mad Scientist (KREMS): Just the one!

VK: Well, TECHNICALLY we have six moons, as they're considered orbital bodies, but five are not visible to the naked eye and are incredibly miniscule!

DOS: No, you can see this one.

VK: Awww! Our moon made a friend!

DM: It's got a big gash down the middle of it, it looks wartorn and tattered.

VK: Our moon made a LADY friend!

KREMS: Maybe the second moon is affecting the tides and that's why the place is flooding?

VK: COVER YOUR LADYPARTS, IMMODEST HARLOT MOON!

Pathfinder: Lydia Fallon, Weird Rubato Bard

http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=1032311

Uses the Weird Musician and Rubato archetypes.

-o-

You don't want to hear about me. I'm not very interesting. I can do interesting things and say interesting things, but listening to me talk about me isn't very interesting. The interesting person you want to hear about is my mother.

You may know here. Well, not personally. But you might know her name. Amelia Grace, the Lady Scarlet, singer, mage, musician, magician, muse-gician. One of the most sought after performers in… in… I'm not sure. I don't do well with names and places. Some big, important… thingy.

Maybe the city. Maybe an empire. It's hard to remember, as I was very small at the time, so I would be unlikely to fully recall even if I hadn't had my head cut apart and put back together two or three or twenty five times.

It's very tingly. Kind of refreshing to feel the fresh air blowing over your thoughts.