Credits

“I told you. You are no longer alone, Rose.”

Special thanks to Samantha for encouraging me, many Amassment members for their support, and Emrys, because without the BAB Challenge, I may never have seriously considered making this shrine.

For the revamp, thank you so much, dubiousdisc, for capturing Rose so perfectly; without you, this shrine would never have received a new layout, let alone such a thorough revamp. And a hearty thank you to Larissa for pretty much daily cheerleading over the course of three weeks, for all the valuable input, design and otherwise, for the active navigation code snippet, and for being such an inspiration when it comes to going the extra mile, as she has demonstrated on her video game shrines many times before (cue site map, active navigation, game introduction, accessibility)!! Without your trailblazing, this shrine would not have realized its full potential. ❤

Influences

As a long-time visitor of shrines, I had always dreamt of making a shrine about a video game character, most of all because there are elements you only explore or write about on video game shrines specifically, as opposed to, say, anime/manga shrines. The following is a nod to select video game shrines, more afterthoughts than sources consciously referenced during the creation of this shrine (with one exception). I’m sure that these creations, representative of many others, must have influenced me in some way. Perhaps you’d like to pay them a visit? ❤

• Trust Your Heart, Aeryvae’s (archived) shrine to Terra Branford of Final Fantasy VI, has always impressed me with its strong integration of the game’s world, going as far as including informative pages that don’t specifically mention the shrined character because they serve to flesh out the context of the character’s story.
• Somewhere Only We Know, Todd’s (archived) shrine to Sabin Figaro of Final Fantasy VI, perhaps more so than any other video game character shrine, has made me think about the structure of these shrines. Rather than splitting the informative sections into a character development and a gameplay section (as is the case with most shrines of this category), Todd has a very clear idea how to introduce visitors — and those unfamiliar with the material above all — to the subject, so the split instead occurs between introductory and in-depth sections, neither of which are confined solely to character development or gameplay. His attention to the question of how to structure shrines spoiler-wise has led me to refine my spoiler warnings with more consideration for visitors. More specifically, I’m not sure I would have come up with the beginning parts of this shrine had it not been for this.
• Wishing Star, Ava’s shrine to Rinoa Heartilly of Final Fantasy VIII, Roses Have Thorns, her shrine to Lightning Farron of Final Fantasy XIII, and Stormfall, Samantha’s shrine to Aqua of Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, all make very fun and highly interesting reads due to their many original analysis pages. The two of them address the respective character’s roles, tropes, design and their conception or status as leading female video game characters, which extends to topics beyond the specific games the characters are featured in.
• Sheila Knight’s shrine to Rinoa Heartilly of Final Fantasy VIII, Rebelling Princess, contains several pages on the presentation and characterization of video game characters specifically. Most of all, I love the page on Rinoa’s body language during battles and the way she is characterized through lines by other characters in the early-game. I’d love to see more of this on video game shrines, especially with regard to optional dialogue.