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duplicity | application
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Name: Eric Age: 32 Contact: kokichi @ plurk, rideaux#7246 @ discord Timezone: EST Other Character(s): n/a |
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Name: Rideaux Zek Rugievit Door: TDM door pass - submissive Canon: Tales of Xillia 2 Canon Point: After losing to Ludger in chapter 14 Age: 29 Appearance: Link History: Rideaux was born into a very poor family. As a young child he suffered from debilitating illnesses and had no hope of leading any kind of normal life until undergoing a procedure where his faulty organs were replaced with an experimental technology at the age of six. This corrected his original physical ailments, but would have left him in constant pain; and all the medical bills he had already racked up prior to his surgery put his family in deep enough debt that the strain of it tore them apart and he ended up on his own. Most of this information comes from the Perfect Guide, which is vague about exactly what he did in the years following that, but basically he was living on the street and presumably trying to work off the debt that was attached to his name however he could. Eventually, when he was twelve, the president of the Spirius Corporation became aware of him and took him on at the company after learning he had a chromatus watch. As uniquely talented and essential members of the Department of Dimensional Affairs at Spirius Corp, from the time they were teenagers, Rideaux and the president's son Julius were tasked with traveling to and destroying fractured dimensions, and they developed a complicated rivalry with each other. While there was genuine enjoyment of the competition and trying to one-up each other -- they made a game out of seeing who could destroy more dimensions -- it was also a survival of the fittest issue: someone with Kresnik blood and a powerful chromatus would eventually have to be sacrificed in order for Bisley Bakur to carry out his plans, and that meant one of them. As a result, both were in a constant struggle to prove their superior worth so that the other would be the one to be sacrificed. In addition to these missions, Rideaux underwent medical training and became highly skilled in Elympion medical technology, and started inventing his own techniques and medicines, sometimes basing theories on ideas that were unique to the fractured dimensions he visited. He also made surgical spyrix modifications to his own body to overcome its weaknesses and give him much greater physical abilities than an average person. When the game starts, he's Vice Director of the DODA, and is the doctor who treats Ludger and his party (in a bar...) after a terrorist attack. Following Bisley's instructions, Rideaux charges an exorbitant fee for his services to get Ludger stuck with a huge debt. Later on, after it's clear Julius has defected, Rideaux gets to take over his position as Director. Throughout the rest of the story, the party fights him several times, once optionally (when you can choose whether you want to follow his orders or side with Julius) and two more times after that. In the second fight, he's responsible for setting up the death of the Milla from a fractured dimension and the subsequent return of the original one, as her presence in the Dimensional Abyss was causing problems for the DODA. After his loss in his final battle, he's captured on Bisley's orders and killed so that he can serve as his soul bridge to enter the land of Canaan. Personality: The single biggest driving factor in shaping Rideaux's personality is his intense resentment (-), both of other people and of the circumstances of his life. He was born poor and with illnesses that were considered incurable by normal medical means. A radical procedure by Dr. Derrick Mathis ended up saving his life, but by that point years of crushing medical debt had built up and tore apart his family, eventually leaving him alone on the street struggling for survival for several years. (He notably never uses his last name in the game, and it's only even given in one out of the several supplemental publications, as part of his signature on an official report; he's apparently not too eager to associate himself with his family.) Eventually Bisley Bakur found him and recognized that he had the power of the chromatus, so he took him in and gave him a position in the Department of Dimensional Affairs at Spirius Corporation so that he could make use of that power. From the beginning, though, Rideaux would have known that he had been taken in solely so that his ability could be used; and once he became aware of the "soul bridge" rumor two years later, he'd have known that he'd likely be forced to give up his life to serve that role for Bisley when the time came. It's not clear what his personality may have been like before all of this, but the life he's had has clearly not given him a sterling opinion of humanity, and he doesn't care much at all for other people. He doesn't appear to have any sense of honor or ethics (-), and on top of the obvious things like killing innocent people and destroying fractured dimensions, he also has no problem with charging people exorbitant fees for the medical care he provides for them -- saddling them with the same kind of medical debt that ruined his own family -- or doing physical harm to children. As someone who spent much of his own youth struggling to make enough money to survive without anyone else's support, it might be expected that he would be more sympathetic to people in similar plights and would want to help make things easier for them than they were for him now that he has plenty of money and resources at his disposal. It's just the opposite though; rather, he thinks that if he had to live that kind of life, anyone else can damn well do the same. Rideaux is an incredibly resilient person who has always fought back against a world that's been trying to wring the life out of him since the day he was born, and anyone who doesn't have the strength to do the same doesn't deserve a place in that world alongside him. While the enormous debt in which he traps Ludger and his party is by Bisley's orders and not necessarily entirely his own choice, the first moment of genuine anger he shows in the game is in response to eight year old Elle saying she's just a kid with no way to pay off a bill like that -- his expression goes from mild amusement to anger in a split second, and he grabs her roughly by the arm. Even a kid can make money if they work for it. On the other hand, he can appreciate people who do work hard for themselves, and don't have things handed to them. As condescending as he generally is toward Ludger, Rideaux does tell him in one sidequest scene that he respects him for working hard to pay off a seemingly insurmountable debt and to destroy the fractured dimensions. Even though his tone is questionably sarcastic as usual, he likely does mean it. The flashy, glamorous image he's created for himself is highly important to him. People would have looked down on him for being poor and dirty and ragged before, but now his perfectly maintained appearance and his high-ranking position at Spirius get him lots of admirers -- including himself. While other characters have pictures of their cats or friends or normal stock images as their phone wallpapers, his is a picture of himself surrounded by stars and winking at the camera. Others have things they love that make them happy, but what he finds pleasure in is his own carefully constructed image. Notably, though, his past isn't entirely a secret; it seems to be common knowledge at least among the members of his squad that he originally came from a life of poverty. By letting the world know that, he manages to make himself look even more admirable by making everyone think he rose from nothing purely by his own talent and hard work. Even if that isn't completely true, though, he has worked hard, and has proven himself to be highly intelligent and inventive (+), incorporating what he finds during his missions in fractured dimensions into developing new medical treatments and techniques in the prime dimension. This is likely more for the prestige of being a pioneer in medical technology and for the sake of treating his own problems than for some genuine desire to help improve the lives of others, but it doesn't make his genius in this area any less real. Given his background, he was likely at an extreme educational disadvantage when he first began at Spirius, and probably had to teach himself basics that all of his peers already knew, making his accomplishments that much more impressive. Because his image and position are so important to who he is, he's sensitive to any defects in them (-) (though not necessarily to the potential consequences of his reactions) -- he wears a pair of oversized designer sunglasses for a while to hide some bruises on his face after an altercation with Julius -- and to any perceived slight against him or challenge to his authority. On more than one occasion in the game, when someone who's acted in opposition to him is on the ground in front of him, he steps on them and digs in his heel while taunting or insulting them. When Ludger is given a position above him at Spirius -- beaten out by a Kresnik again -- Rideaux is visibly displeased by it, and his tone when speaking with Ludger becomes even more bitingly sarcastic than before. He can't stand being looked down on, fuming that Ludger looked at him with "the same contemptuous look as his bastard brother" when he left him beaten on the ground after their last fight. He can often get carried away with these kinds of reactions, and can do things that are pretty out of line and probably a headache for Spirius to smooth over. While it was important to their plans that the fractured version of Milla be sacrificed so that the prime one could return, the company probably really didn't want that to be accomplished by having one of their top agents get involved in the terrorist hijacking of a ship, and they almost definitely didn't want that agent holding the world's political leaders hostage and being physically aggressive with them. He can also say some pretty lewd and skeevy things at times; he's perfectly aware that it's inappropriate, but he really doesn't care. It might be a little counterintuitive, but part of why he feels so inclined to do his own thing and operate as a loose cannon is that he's still very much tied down by the circumstances of his life. In one minor sidequest in which you deliver an item he requested for use in making medicine, he explains that even though it's a natural poison, it can be used as a treatment as well, specifically for the side effects of aspyrixis. As it's later revealed that several of his faulty organs were replaced with aspyrixis as a child, it's heavily implied here that he's using this medicine himself to deal with the incapacitating pain of it. During this same conversation, his laughter quickly turns into a horrible coughing fit that leaves him doubled over and breathing heavily, eliciting concern from Ludger and Alvin. "Sometimes, to keep your place in life, you have to be willing to fight for it," he says in response, "And sometimes that means using any means necessary. Remember that." He also says later on that he's made his own improvements to his body since his initial procedure to give him extraordinary strength and acuity, even though he knows it can't handle the strain in the long run. In order to keep his position and his life (and likely to spite everyone else while doing it), he's ironically destroying his body and shortening the very life he's fighting for. Rideaux clearly dislikes Bisley, and even as he works to stay in his good favor, there's no attachment or even a true sense of obligation. Once it's obvious to him that Ludger is the president's new favorite and that he's not going to have a chance at coming out on top himself, he starts spilling more information about Bisley's plans; and he's also willing to fight against being used as a part of those plans in the end. When the party beats him for the final time, despite how desperately he's been fighting for his life all these years, he seems content with the idea of being killed there, because he knows what's waiting for him afterward if he isn't. He goes out of his way to try to goad Ludger into killing him and is infuriated when he fails and is left alive. Even if he had ended up a soul bridge for Ludger instead, at least it wouldn't be for Bisley, and he wouldn't be losing to Julius. It's complicated, because as vain as Rideaux is about his appearance and his position at Spirius and in society, as much as he thinks he's every bit as good as Julius and Ludger and Bisley himself, he knows that Bisley is the only reason he has any of that, and he's "indebted" to him (or at least Bisley would believe he is) in a way the others aren't. If Bisley hadn't learned of his power and brought him into Spirius, Rideaux would still be some filthy wretch in a back alley, if he was still alive at all. It's not that he feels like he owes him anything; Bisley saved him from one kind of hell only to throw him into another, and Rideaux has done a hell of a lot of hard work to get to where he is and keep his place there. But he's always conscious of the fact that he didn't get there entirely on his own, and that much of what he has can easily be taken away again if he doesn't serve him adequately. His relationship with Julius is only slightly touched on in the game, and is elaborated on a little more in the guidebooks, but it's probably even more complicated than his relationship with Bisley. The two of them were almost the same age, had the same rare special ability, and took on the same missions. Knowing that one of them would end up being sacrificed to serve as Bisley's soul bridge one day, the rivalry between them would have been deep and vicious, with each one's literal survival depending on his proving himself more capable and useful than the other. Both of them surviving was never an option. This was probably particularly vexing to Rideaux because Julius was Bisley's son, and he would have believed that Julius would have inherently had the upper hand -- if both of their performances were exactly equal, Rideaux would almost certainly have been the one to lose, and thus would have felt the need to work even harder. At the same time, while they've always been rivals and to some extent adversaries by necessity, they also would have been closer to each other than they were to almost anyone else. They were the only ones in their position, and often would have only had each other for company as literally the only two people from their dimension while on a mission in a fractured one. Even if they hated each other, they shared the same bleak future and the same sense of desperation that no one else could have understood. Notably, Rideaux seems to know a lot more about Julius and Ludger's past than anyone else, including Bisley; and even though he could have used that information to his advantage by divulging it to Bisley sooner, he didn't. The fact that they did share some level of closeness at some point has to have played a part in making their current relationship as bitter as it is. Everything they say to each other on screen during the game is biting, and they both do physical violence to each other. With all that said, while he's undoubtedly a bitter person with a short fuse, he's definitely not incapable of finding amusement in things, and can be pretty playful in the way he interacts with people. Of course, practically all of his interactions in-game are with people he has some kind of grudge against, so that playfulness mostly comes across as mean-spirited and smarmy, but he's popular with enough people in his world (one NPC makes a reference to Rideaux's fans, and another says how much she looks up to Rideaux and wants to be like him) that presumably he's not always completely unpleasant to be around. When he's not at Spirius, he's usually found relaxing at a somewhat shady bar with a glass of wine. The picture of himself that he uses as his GHS wallpaper is in a style reminiscent of what you'd get from a purikura booth, so he can probably have some fun with that kind of thing as well. With as much miserable bullshit as he has to worry about in his life, getting away from it sometimes -- both physically and mentally -- is something he has to value. Powers and Abilities: - He's a skilled doctor well acquainted with emergency medicine. - He's renowned for advancements he's made in medical technologies and drugs. - Chromatus power linked to his pocketwatch comes with a powered-up transformation and weird time-space effects that let him travel to other dimensions and destroy them. - Even without that, he's still pretty strong with sharp reflexes -- in part due to technological improvements he's made to his own body. He's particularly good at knife throwing and kicking people in the face. Inventory: - Pocketwatch - A meticulously polished bronze pocketwatch with an image of gears etched into the cover. - GHS - A red flip phone with a winking picture of Rideaux surrounded by cute star stamps as its wallpaper. - Sunglasses - A pair of black exposed-lens designer shades with a brand logo on the temples. Samples: 1 - TDM again 2 - this one is really old but I still like it a lot SO.... |
