zottower - Tumblr blog

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pov edge's lunar trial

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FFIV-

Cecil Harvey: Oh cool! The ancient prophecy with cool dragon imagery also somehow referred to me! Neat!

Kain Highwind, captain of the dragon-knights, in draconic cosplay armor, and having spent years wrestling with the sin of envy: i think my hair is falling out

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some miscellaneous pretty kains

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Okay, now someone write the fic where Cecil makes the "how to slay goblins in three easy steps" video tutorial, the haul video where they comment the items they purchased for each other in Baron and the video where they show what they eat at the inn.

I can only take this image from the ffiv novel half seriously bc to me it looks like cecil and kain are about to start their vlog tour of baron

"greetings everyone welcome back to our youtube channel"

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About the "I've changed the sheets" poll.

So many people gave an answer to this silly silly poll, it made me want to paint a little thankful Cecil.

Some answers were detailed and interesting, and I learned some things, it helped me put my thoughts in order ! I also could witness the might of the RoCeKain fanbase. Wow, it's something ...

But yes, it's mainly an idea that Cecil lives like a prince, with the comfort and disadvantages it implies. Maybe seeing a metaphor into this is too much, but I realized that it was just an other scripted moment at the begining of the story, just before you can go out of the castle to really play the game and before Cecil's life begin to go off track. Also, in some medieval times, I remembered that families used to sleep in the same bed. In ff4 case, there wouldn't be a story, because Cagnazzo would have crushed Cecil and Kain under the weight of his turtle shell while sleeping. =D

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i am so lost in the final fantasy iv sauce that i made an escutcheon-house-banner-symbol-thingy for cecil for when he becomes king, and i never make An Art. i am actually a little proud of the little lunar whale considering it's microsoft paint on a canvas about four pixels wide. please feel free to make fun of anything else. image description: a four-part shield design of the lunar whale, the two moons, a caduceus medicine staff, and mt. ordeals. other possible ideas included the sword somewhere or a dragon's maw symbolism with the lunar whale. but cecil is maybe trying not to have military symbols or step on the dragoon's toes. the exception is him cheekily deciding to put red wings on the caduceus staff to show the red wings' purpose has changed

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Bored at work so I drew the crew

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Replaying ff4 btw and I feel

This game is very obviously cut down harshly for cartridge space but they do it in a way that constantly gives you very emotionally heavy information with little clarification about the exact mechanics of what's happening and the result is 1. it feels like theater to me and that's great, 2. you are invited to draw conclusions on your own and reinterpret them all the time, having been a big fat nerd since before fandom was mainstream the way it is now this is extremely fun for me

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Rosa calling Cecil “my moonlight” as a pet name send tweet

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The Baron trio, but they are stuck in an old anime. I needed to try this. I played with Cecil's hair. I don't know, it's funny, but I wouldn't reuse this method of coloring "iridescent". It's still not him, I have to continue to draw the shiny paladin. Not like it's a chore. =D

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25 Years of Rosa

I've been doing this character appreciation series for a while now, and it's about time we got to a very special character – the first character from the first JRPG I ever played that I first really fangirled over – the first character that was my Number One Favorite Video Game Character – Rosa Farrell from Final Fantasy 4.

June 1999

We are going so far back that I have no idea what my first Rosa fan art was. It's not this – but I wanted to highlight it because I was incredibly proud of myself. Rosa, all sad and anguished because she's missing Cecil.

But let's talk some about her, the good and the -- maybe? -- bad.

October 1999

I first played FF4 in May 1999, on a rickety and unreliable Super Nintendo. The cartridge was prone to failure and wiped out my first save once I'd gotten the team underground. But by then, I was invested, too invested to give up and play Chrono Trigger or something. I had to find out what happened to Cecil and Rosa and everyone, so I slammed that cartridge right back in and started up a new game. Fortunately, that one lasted all the way through.

January 2000

As I said, it was my first JRPG, and I adored the medium, especially the story. Along with having a rickety SNES, I also had a house with a not-great internet connection, and this was long before you could easily look up Let's Plays and videos of your favorite scenes. Convinced in my young mind that the game might never properly work for me again and would never, I don't know, be republished, I immediately sat down and wrote a detailed, dramatized summary of the whole thing just so I wouldn't forget it.

April 2000

And my favorite element of the story was Rosa, the healer, the archer, the female lead. Maybe it's just that FF4 was my first game, but I like to think there's a special spark to Rosa that makes her stand out.

June 2000

I was bubbling over with enthusiasm and, along with writing out a detailed summary, I subjected my patient and obliging mother to endless dissertations on the characters and story. I specifically remember talking to her about Rosa, and her commenting that Rosa was a traditionally “feminine” character, even “passive” – a healer, a love interest, needing to be rescued not once, but twice.

November 2000

And I think that's worth exploring – as neutrally as possible. On one hand, in fiction we do have a very long history of imperiled, secondary, predominantly supportive heroines, and the fact that so many had to be written that way reflects something bad in the real world. On the other hand, I really do believe that most tropes are just tropes, and even if they've been overused, often badly used, that doesn't mean they can't be used.

August 2001

In a lot of ways, Rosa is a very safe character. Though she's a studied mage and master archer, that's not why she's in the story. Her main involvement is as a love interest, both to the hero Cecil and his rival/best friend Kain.

November 2001

Rosa's reason for joining the adventure comes down to her love for Cecil. She isn't seeking her own quest. She never states a goal that isn't Cecil's. In fairness, the game is very stripped down, and none of the characters voice very complex motives. You could just as easily say Cecil is Cid's reason for joining the adventure.

November 2002

But Rosa's story beats all come down to Cecil and Kain. Surely, on such an adventure, Rosa would grow and discover things about herself, but you never hear about it. What you hear about is her worrying about Cecil, worrying about the fate of the world, taking care of others, and of course getting kidnapped. All very safe, non-disruptive things for a female character.

June 2004

There are even moments where the game leans into a slight but still apparent sexism. At the siege of Fabul, despite Rydia and Rosa being practiced fighters and valuable mages, they're sent to tend to the injured while the men go off to fight.

June 2005

This is echoed at the end of the game when Cecil himself, who knows full well how powerful Rosa and Rydia are, still forbids them to join him in the ending level. There's some brief resistance, but then the girls, in all apparent obedience, quietly leave while the men remain to save the world.

September 2005

Part of it may be that Rosa comes from a very early video game, but if we look at sci-fi/fantasy itself as a genre, we had more boundary-pushing heroines long before the early 1990s, at least in the West. By then, we already had Princess Leia, Red Sonja, Alanna the Lioness, and others.

April 2006

Rosa is brave, talented, and loyal, but is she ultimately a regressive character?

October 2007

I don't know if I have a perfect answer to that. What I do know is that one of the things I've always loved most about Rosa is that she knows her own mind. Yeah, she'll support you. Yeah, she'll cast Protect and Haste on you, and then she'll Cure you when Bahamut takes your HP down to 1. But she does not do it meekly.

2008

One of her first scenes is her comforting Cecil as he deals with his thorny ethical angst. But she quickly stops murmuring kindly to him and tells him he can't just mope and complain about things. He has to take a stand. He has to own his actions – change himself, one of the themes of the game. She sees it long before he does, and she isn't exactly tender as she tells him.

July 2009

She joins the adventure for Cecil, but she doesn't join with him. He leaves without her (she doesn't beg to come with him, she has things to do) and when he goes missing, she sets off on her own in search of him, going faster and getting farther than he did before desert sickness stops her cold.

March 2010

And at the end of the game when this selfsame Cecil, this guy who grew up with her and is in a relationship with her and knows her so well, tells her to go home and be safe while he and the guys save the world, she does meekly turn around and leave. But she doesn't go far. She and Rydia stow aboard his spaceship and travel with him and the men to the moon. Whereupon she tells Cecil, with no ambiguity, that he cannot keep her from coming.

October 2011

Which is a good thing, because I have beaten FF4 many times, and let me tell you, you are not surviving the ending boss without Rosa Curing you, Protecting you, and probably Lifing you more than once.

February 2013

So have I exonerated Rosa? I've shown how assertive she really is. Have I proved she's not regressive?

October (?) 2018

Honestly, I'm not a big fan of the assertive woman = automatically good female character theory. A woman can be physically weak, even psychologically timid, and still be an incredibly interesting, complex, and strong character. And another can be bold and brave and badass and still remain uninteresting and shallow.

2020

But I think I've shown that, whatever Rosa is, she's not passive.

August 2021

Being a back-row archer isn't a problem, being a healer isn't a problem, being conventionally feminine isn't a problem. Even, at the end of the day, being a “safe” character isn't actually a problem. It comes down to how well the character's written – and, even more subjectively, how they connect with the audience.

May 2024

Rosa connected powerfully with me. Since then, other characters have come and eclipsed her number one spot in my heart. But I still love her a lot, and I don't want to see her dismissed.

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" I've changed the sheets. " I never know exactly what to think of this line in the game ... What do you think ?

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" I've changed the sheets. " I never know exactly what to think of this line in the game ... What do you think ?

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Asking fellow ffiv-er... was there ever any clue that Golbez was aware of who Zemus was before Fusoya revealed everything ?

Otherwise which one do you think was happening ?

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I made some joking comment without really thinking about it about Cecil's hair being maybe iridescent based on his overworld snes sprite (light purple hair with yellow lighting) but now i actually kind of like this somewhat headcanon! Like

You know. Also if you think about it it looks like the halo you can see around the moon some nights

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This is cool that we see that Cecil's appearance changed with time, his lunarian being shown more obviously in the sequels and Dissidia. Thank you for the pictures, @li-binauje-artisse I agree with @wordlesslyjenneh : adventure doesn't leave much time to think about identity crisis. There's a character that is certainly a nod to Cecil : it's Zidane from FF9. Their stories have things in common and he doesn't know who he is, just like Cecil is blind to who he is and what he has to do at the begining of the story. But even if Zidane thought about it when he was young, very concrete life reminded him (Bach with his fists) that there was no time to maunder about it. There are so many things to do (adventure, friends, girls, cards, ...) He finally finds the truth travelling with others. And when he learns about his identity, the optimistic and ever happy little thief experiences a huge moment of crisis. At the beginning there was a hint about him being different : he has a monkey tail. But in a world full of furries, hippo-, rat-, fish-, people, he blends so well ... There is also a hint about Cecil in his character description : he is said to be "strange". Now it can open a possibility : if we assume that he looks strange, when the King made him a dark knight, maybe it was also a way to protect him, to hide his strange look and make him strong so he can defend himself. Because it is said that he is a dark knight for some time, and at the same time, he says the King is a good man ... This would be for the happy version of "everyone is nice in the world, except the evil guys". lol

It's pretty much canon that Cecil is having a.... complicated emotional moment near the end of the game (with the big brother golbez revelation and all, i don't remember his internal dialogue in the DS version because it's been a while and i am not there yet on my new game but he probably was stewing on that when there was no monster on sight on their way to Zeromus)

But i kind of wonder how he feels about the "btw you're half alien, i am your uncle!" revelation. He does not have much to say about it...at least not out aloud but i can guess that he had complicated feelings on that too.

I like to imagine that it was a sore topic for a while, with, idk Edge pestering him a little and then getting the hint that it was a little too soon.

In the Snes version, if you ignore the amano style white/purple hair he does not really have that etheral aspect in later depictions. His skin color is the same as anyone else and Rydia and Edge also have green and white hair so he is not really out of the pond even if that's far from common. But in the DS version he has the blue lips (and like, a nice cyan blue too, not a purple-ish hue)

He does not have a nearly ghost white skin either in the DS version (not in comparison to Rosa and Rydia behind him at least, and not on the 3D model in game either)

(do you know how hard it was to catch a good moment without too much blur? Sorry Kain.)

(Side note, i like that DS version paladin armor. The Dissidia version is a little awkward? Idk.)

But yeah there is still that otherwordly aspect. Or maybe it is actually lipstick? It's never addressed. I can accept that Cecil just likes makeup too but i like to see it as a hint about his heritage

It's also interesting that, if you read their inner thoughts on the DS version, the first time you land on the moon and go through the caves Cecil is like "huh, i feel something..." and Rosa is like "Cecil looks very at ease/nervous there..." i dont remember which one (i don't remember the actual monologues but the point is : Cecil feels something about the moon. That's before meeting Fu-So-Ya)

Like i wonder if people really noticed odd things about him growing up, does he have insecurities?

Like i wonder if his mind was just on pause when and after meeting with Fu-So-Ya and then it all came back when Golbez turns out to be is brother. To say nothing of the voice on Mt Ordeals calling him his son. Especially to say nothing about how his father figure (king Baron) being dead for a while. Never really had a chance to talk about it apparently.

It's half backed thoughts but i wonder if when he turned into a Paladin he kind of... put even more of a lid on his feelings than usual because he is kind of afraid of being negative right now (kind of interpreted the "look forward don't let worries slow you down" too litteraly maybe?) but the death of king Baron ("How long time has it even been? Was it him giving me the dark sword? Holy crap he is dead"), then him finding relatives on the moon and also "you're half moon man Cecil" and then Golbez and it all come back at once and i can believe that he was a bit like "don't talk to me right now :)" for a moment

Even if he has some visible anger moment in some parts (when the twin sacrify themselve for exemple)

(I precise that it is mainly my own interpretation and also half backed thoughts)

What i am saying is *slap car* this bad boy can fit so much angst potential in it

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