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Character: Ashton Anchors
Age: 20
Sex/Gender: Male
Canon Role: HOMO SIDE CHARACTER ACCORDING TO SOME PEOPLE. COUGHJANSENCOUGH.
"Real" Name: Paul Pritchett
History:
This poses a bit of a problem, as Ashton is the only character in the entirety of Star Ocean 2 without a trace of a back story besides ‘wandering swordsman.’ He doesn’t even have a hometown as every single other character in the game does, and when Shit Goes Down later in the game, he's the only Expellian character in the party not to expressly worry about specific loved ones back on Expel. Therefore, I'm forced to fall back on educated (and well-considered) guesses, up until the party meets him in game.
Ashton was born twenty years ago (but far in the future nonetheless, when Earth begins to colonize other planets; the date is SD 366) somewhere on planet Expel, a planet with a 'fantasy setting' in the Theta Sector, which makes it relatively close to Earth. He likely had caring, proper, normal parents who brought him up to be reasonably polite, as Ashton has pretty decent manners.
A possibility is that Ashton’s parents were fine jewelers. During his journey with Claude and Rena’s party, he demonstrates a great knowledge and affinity for jewels and jewelry, which opens the speculation that either his parents taught him about jewels or he self-taught. He had a silver necklace engraved with his name on it at some point, possibly as a gift from his family.
While growing up, Ashton also became intensely interested in barrels and other means of storage. During times when the party splits in game, he can be seen around barrels and urns in every town, contemplating their origin and craftsmanship.
As a teenager, he trained his body as well as his mind, becoming ambidextrous and eventually adopting as his signature weapon a set of twin swords. (The game hints at his family also teaching him his moves: one of Precis' moves, created from observing Ashton, mentions 'the special arts mastered by generations of Anchorses.' Though this could just be a little joke? I don't know.) Something unknown drove him to set out as an adventurer/mercenary/treasure-
hunter. Ashton never mentions his motive in striking out on his own.
The most important theme in Ashton’s life has been unluckiness, up to and including his first run-in with the party. During his life, things around him have broken inadvertently. He generally gets attacked more often, he breaks more bones, and he causes more accidents than he probably should, through very little or no fault of his own. (In game, his “Luck” statistic is permanently at 18 without modification, whereas other characters have luck stats 100 points higher.)
Ashton, while traveling and looking for work, eventually made his way to the rural mining town of Salva. Rumored to hold a legendary treasure, the two-headed dragon was said to live deep in the Salva mine, maiming or killing any witnesses to its awesome power.
Here, he saw his chance. If he stood up and fought, and if he were to slay the dastardly dragon of Salva, he would likely find two of his favorite things - barrels and jewelry. Possibly barrels of jewelry, which would be pretty awesome.
(Here’s where he’s first seen in game, by the way. All story after this is actual canon instead of partial speculation.)
Unaware that three people were following him into the mine, he started in. Winding his way through the labyrinthine mining shafts, he spotted his target in a narrow passage and leapt in headlong, starting the fight. Again and again he was pushed back, but he kept attacking until he heard voices behind him, cheering him on.
Ashton wished these distracting intruders would be quiet. If they weren’t going to help, and obviously they couldn’t - the shaft was too narrow to fit more than one fighter and a dragon with two long necks - then they could at least be quiet about it, right?!
Ashton turned around and politely asked the onlookers if they would keep the noise down. He was obviously trying to fight here.
Then there was a flash of light. Always good when that happens, right?
Where were the dragons? They'd disappeared. He turned around again.. and again. He could only figure out what had happened by the horrified faces of his ‘cheerleaders.’
The dragons had relocated to his back. He was a man possessed.
Ashton briskly invited himself into the ragtag team of three, blaming them for his possession. Kindly, and kind of exasperatedly, they took him along, and they all decided to figure out how to rid him of his dragon friends.
As they left Salva, one of the cheerleaders, Rena, declared that the dragons were cute and that they ought to have names. Naming the red one with the bugged eyes “Creepy” and the blue one with the sad eyes “Weepy,” Rena gave a little bit of humanity to the beasts. Ashton, Rena, Claude, and Celine then set out on their grand journey for information.
These were his first friends. He was not used to being possessed, but he also wasn't used to traveling with people who seemed to accept him for who he was.
An ancient tome within the shelves of a small library instructed the team on how to exorcise, and effectively kill the dragons without harming Ashton himself. The party was to go on a long, drawn-out quest - the problem was that the dragons would vanish from the world with screams of agony. They set out anyway.
During the quest, which I'm going to say took about a month, Ashton became very used to having the dragons on his back and slowly grew to think of them as friends. With every step, Ashton had someone new to talk to - new thoughts to listen to, new stances on previously held beliefs. He slowly came to terms with his new self, and accepted his fate as a trinity. Creepy was always hotheaded and wanted to charge. Weepy, cold and calculating, was less likely to fly headfirst into battle but still loved a fight. And both of them influenced Ashton.
When the party reached the top of a quest-specific mountain, a giant bird alighted on a ruined pillar and began to speak to the dragons in an ethereal voice.
That’s when Ashton lost consciousness. Creepy and Weepy temporarily took full control of his body, using him as a speaking vessel. The dragons and the giant bird, Zinae, had a nice conversation. Zinae criticized Creepy and Weepy for stooping low enough to possess a human upon defeat instead of choosing death. The dragons replied that Zinae was far too inflexible, and he should get with the times if he wanted to survive.
And then they fought. Defeated, Zinae soared into the air, shedding jewel-like tears, which just happened to be what they needed for the exorcism. And then Ashton came to. He had no recollection of what had happened, but now the quest was almost completed! Pretty cool!
After traveling back to the point of possession, Ashton lifted the cup to his mouth, then lowered it without taking a drink, and admitted that he couldn't get rid of them after all. The other party members gawked at him, but he explained that Creepy and Weepy were part of him now, and he had come to terms with it - through no little guilting and browbeating on the rest of the party's part. But he certainly didn’t want to kill them! By now, they had so psychologically changed him - or possibly manipulated him into wanting them on his back.
And, possibly more importantly, he was afraid that now that his quest was over, his new friends would leave him alone. Part of the reason he had gone along with them was because he'd never had friends and partners before, and he'd grown accustomed to this happiness.
So then he begged them to let him join the party for good, having feared that they'd only taken him along to fulfill their responsibility for his possession. He learned that his new friends were on an expedition to this thing called the Sorcery Globe, so he decided to come along. Hey, if everything went right, he might find a way to exorcise the dragons without killing them.
(The rest of the game is not Ashton-specific at all. However, I’m going to give a basic rundown of the plot from here out; it's kind of bare-bones to keep the load off of you guys, but I don't believe I've left out any detail that's too terribly important to Ashton.)
The party moves to the next continent, views the annual Armory Contest (in which Ashton does not participate, but instead watches Claude get his ass whooooped) and makes its way forward. Later, a horde of winged demons is pushed back by a giant Heraldic weapon, and the ship meant to take the party to the northern continent is wrecked by a demon.
They finally make it to the Sorcery Globe - that big evil meteor that fell. Then a group of weirdos with pointy ears laugh at them and kick them around, and then, basically, the world is destroyed.
So it turns out that instead of being destroyed along with the world, Ashton and company are whisked away to another, more futuristic civilization, a giant body of energy called Energy Nede - although they later learn of Expel's fate. (Ashton does not get as up in arms about this as everyone else does, but he obviously still wants to help out.) The real enemy finally reveals itself to be a group of ancient criminals named the Ten Wise Men.
The party fights quite a bit more. Typical RPG fare, for the most part. Claude's daddy kicks the bucket. Rena turns out to be a bazillion years old. Eventually they make it to the final dungeon, and each of the Wise Men is killed in succession, leaving Gabriel, the mastermind, to answer for his crimes.
Just before Gabriel is defeated, however, he invokes a Symbological Crest called the Crest of Annihilation, designed to destroy the universe. The party ‘rewrites’ the Crest with a patch of sorts provided by some important NPCs. So instead of the universe being destroyed, the spell's damage gets focused inward on Energy Nede itself, which is annihilated. Claude's party is transported back to a now-restored Expel. Everything has reverted back to normal. HURRAY. Everyone is happy... and then they all split up and drift apart.
By the end of the journey, Ashton is a much more well-adjusted character, though he still has his nervous, flaily moments. He seems to be a much happier guy overall, and I think he's a lot less insecure. Unfortunately, we don't see a lot of him in the plot post-sidequest, so these are just extrapolations from the Private Actions we get to see of him in Nede as opposed to on Expel.
(During the game, there are choices of whether or not to recruit certain characters. I have chosen in this instance of the game to recruit Claude, Rena, Celine, Ashton, Welch, Precis, Leon, and Chisato. The game also allows for individual character endings with each other character. I'm taking Ashton from an ending with Celine, which means the two of them hang out a lot together and shop a lot. I heavily doubt the two of them are romantically involved, considering her canon tastes in men stray far from Ashton's sort, but she seems to trust his fashion judgment quite a bit in the ending, so I assume they're bffs.)
What point in time are you taking your character from when he/she appears at Landel's and why?:
Adding to the last paragraph of the history, I'm specifically taking Ashton from post-game, a Celine ending, maybe a month or two after they're all settled down on Expel. Ashton will go to bed after a night of shopping with Celine, and then wake up in Landel's.
I'm taking him from this point basically in order to change the way I'm playing him from the way I played him during his original sojourn in Landel's. He still has some unfinished issues to push through, since Star Ocean does a terrible idea at resolving its characters' issues, but his new situation (being taken from a Claude game in which he doesn't know certain characters, and the only one from the new rerelease) will make things new and exciting.
Personality:
Ashton is, in a word, odd. He’s always been, and it’s more than likely he always will be. His tastes and idiosyncrasies tend towards the effeminate, and he’s always on hand to help with any fashion or jewelry choice, though on occasions he has been known to err on the side of flashiness. (In game, he has a piece of failed armor unique to him called Flashy Armor.)
He's a pessimist through and through. Things never seem to go right for him, and he can really wallow in his situation if it gets too bad. Being around sunny-dispositioned people can really help the mild depression he can sink into, though.
He tends to get nervous very easily when faced with embarrassing situations, or when people call him out on something he's said. He can stammer, but he's a strong fighter at heart. He's a man, with manly thoughts! He kills people with his swords! It's just that... he also cares a great deal.
Speaking of caring a great deal, there’s a side event in game that involves Ashton and an ill little girl named Eleanor, and he’s fast to become her ‘big brother' and even goes as far as picking special herbs from the tops of dangerous mountains to try to cure her. He really does enjoy the company of children, though he can get quite nervous when they crowd him. (Though I've decided not to go through with the Eleanor sidequest in this particular Ashton's story - it's only available in a game with Rena as the main character, and this Ashton is from a Claude game.)
He’s quick to accept a friend, probably because he hasn't had many friends in the past. He's also prone to crushes (his Romance Points for Claude fluctuate as much as any of the girls', which is somewhat unique among the men in SO2) and, oddly enough, he's not averse to asking someone on a date.
Instead of throwing his possessions away, Ashton prefers to leave them in places where they might be discovered, such as in the jewelry box of another party member. He’s very interested in keeping things useful, and he sees merit where others might not. Case in point: barrels. Ashton has a near-obsessive romance with barrels and urns, and can constantly be found ogling such innocuous objects. Perhaps, before his possession, he felt similar to a barrel: the oft-overlooked, plain object in the corner, slightly too shy to enjoy being the center of attention, yet occasionally colorful and exciting.
Ashton is always in favor of bettering himself - trying harder and learning to understand, and doin' his best. When prompted to publish a book in the game, he most commonly writes a self-help book called “Men Who Can Say No” which encourages the reader to be able to state clearly one’s likes and dislikes, and likely also to be able to disagree - but politely. Ashton’s always been one for politesse... Until he forces his way into your party, but that's all about taking responsibility, which is the polite thing to do, right? His ideals can be your ideals, too!
He likes to shift the blame off of his friends. If one of them fails at something themselves, he tends to call them 'unlucky' - proof of his obsession with luck, good and bad - but he'll congratulate them based on their own merit if they succeed. His terrible luck has brought him more pain than he occasionally feels he deserves, and so conversely I doubt he feels like his friends deserve the bad things that happen to them.
He’s readily adaptable to new situations. Being possessed threw him off track temporarily, but he grew to love and trust his companions, including them in his sense of identity.
And, of course, he’s somewhat reticent about his past, though occasionally he might brood over what’s happened to him. If he wasn’t so closed-mouthed sometimes, we’d know more about him from his interactions in game. Maybe he just concentrates the hardest on the present.
Finally, I'd like to mention that he's got a kind of marked duality to him - besides wielding two swords and having two dragons, he's pessimistic about himself and optimistic about his friends, he's strong in battle but kinda fail socially, he's excellent at focusing yet has nervous breakdowns occasionally, he's nervous when it comes to dates but goes on them anyway, he's really into kicking ass but also more feminine stuff like pretty necklaces... THE LIST GOES ON AND ON, WHEEEE. And I think that the game likes to kind of bring that out.
Normally, Ashton has two big honkin' dragon necks sprouting from his shoulder blades. One is red and one is blue. They breathe fire and ice, respectively. Obviously, he won't have them anymore in Landel's.
He's got green eyes and brown hair, which he keeps kinda messy. His chin curves gently - no manly jawlines here, sorry. He stands at 5'11” and weighs 176 pounds, making him a pretty muscular fellow, especially when it comes to his back. Muscles tend to get a workout holding up dragons all day. It's probably kind of sexy. He holds himself straight and tall usually, but his shoulders might tend to slump without him recognizing it. It's all due to his pessimism. :(
--Also, Ashton received M-U during his previous time in Landel's, and so he'll have a pretty nasty I-shaped scar on the back of his head from where the scalpel went in, and there should have about two weeks' worth of hair growth on top of that, so I imagine they'll let him go without bandaging, since his hair will kinda cover it.
What kinds of otherwordly abilities does your character have, if any?:
He's a swordfighting character, which means he's got a lot of sword swingy skills. Most of them are pretty normal sorts of attacks - basically twirling the swords around a lot and doing a bunch of quick slashes. (His best one is just that, actually.) There are, however, exceptions:
-Leaf Slash, in which he temporarily disappears amidst a bunch of leaves, and reappears to home in on the enemy.
-Northern Cross. He creates ice.
-Hurricane Slash. He creates wind that lifts enemies into the air.
-Dead Triangle. There are three of him that surround the enemy.
-Dragon Breath. Creepy and Weepy grow huge and breathe at the enemy.
-Tri-Ace. A huge sword sweeps across the battlefield.
Besides the dragons themselves being otherworldly, of course.
If present, how do you plan to tweak these powers to make your character appropriately hindered in the setting of Landel's?:
He'll still know how to swing swords around, but all that supernatural stuff is completely gone. Is that easy or what :)!
-However, the benefit of Ashton's CM-US trial was to give him a sixth sense of sorts; he gets a weird, bad sort of intuitive feeling when someone important to him is in danger. The downside to all this was a bad headache that happens every IC day.
Does your character have any non-otherworldly abilities/training that surpass the norm?:
-He can fiiiight! Really well! Like, probably about as well as the rest of the sword-wielding RPG characters here, haha - Dias and Claude included.
-He's a good cook. (Second-highest percentage of starting with and acquiring Sense of Taste skill, after Rena. Also, Cooking Master competition - this Ashton will have competed and won, since.. it's what I do in my game, lol.)
-He's also particularly dexterous with his hands. Ambidexterity isn't common, but it's necessary for a dual wielder, and considering Ashton's general duality, it fits.
-The whole party is also pretty good at compounding, which is combining herbs to make herbal medicines that do pretty cool stuff. He knows his way around a smithery, and
-He's great at examining gems and barrels.
-Love of animals?
What do you see your character doing in the scope of the game and how do you plan to use the setting of Landel's Institute to develop your character and affect their psychology in a unique, interesting way?:
Well, initially, he’ll feel very lonely. He had, of course, grown close to Creepy and Weepy and realized his life would never be the same again. This will throw him for a huge loop.
When he arrives, he's going to make sure that his canonmates are okay, and in the beginning he'll definitely concern himself with whatever they are doing. However, the more he learns about his previous time in Landel's, the more he'll forge his own path, meeting up with friends he doesn't remember he had, and certainly making new friends as well. He'll probably also try to uncover the mysteries behind the CM-US experimental trials, especially after he learns about his own past surgery.
Most importantly, when it comes to psychological development, I want Ashton to develop his own dragonless identity - back on Expel and Nede, he used his dragons as a way to discover his own originality. I think now that they're gone, he'll really be able to use this setting to look inside himself as a human being, and decide on the things that are most important to him. The dragons are like training wheels - Ashton needs to realize that he's more than just a wallflower or 'that guy with the dragons.' He can make friends without them, and he can keep them, too.
Landel's as a center for empowerment = weird, right? But it's gonna happen. He's going to feel comfortable in himself again, and he's going to re-make all the friends he had, and more. And maybe, after a while, he won't feel so alone. Of course he'll want to go back home to Expel, but... even though his friends are there, he doesn't really have a good, solid place in the world. If he can convince himself that his dragons are actually alive still - he probably won't need proof, just conviction - it's entirely possible that he might want to forge some sort of new destiny, one … maybe somewhere else entirely.
Age: 20
Sex/Gender: Male
Canon Role: HOMO SIDE CHARACTER ACCORDING TO SOME PEOPLE. COUGHJANSENCOUGH.
"Real" Name: Paul Pritchett
History:
This poses a bit of a problem, as Ashton is the only character in the entirety of Star Ocean 2 without a trace of a back story besides ‘wandering swordsman.’ He doesn’t even have a hometown as every single other character in the game does, and when Shit Goes Down later in the game, he's the only Expellian character in the party not to expressly worry about specific loved ones back on Expel. Therefore, I'm forced to fall back on educated (and well-considered) guesses, up until the party meets him in game.
Ashton was born twenty years ago (but far in the future nonetheless, when Earth begins to colonize other planets; the date is SD 366) somewhere on planet Expel, a planet with a 'fantasy setting' in the Theta Sector, which makes it relatively close to Earth. He likely had caring, proper, normal parents who brought him up to be reasonably polite, as Ashton has pretty decent manners.
A possibility is that Ashton’s parents were fine jewelers. During his journey with Claude and Rena’s party, he demonstrates a great knowledge and affinity for jewels and jewelry, which opens the speculation that either his parents taught him about jewels or he self-taught. He had a silver necklace engraved with his name on it at some point, possibly as a gift from his family.
While growing up, Ashton also became intensely interested in barrels and other means of storage. During times when the party splits in game, he can be seen around barrels and urns in every town, contemplating their origin and craftsmanship.
As a teenager, he trained his body as well as his mind, becoming ambidextrous and eventually adopting as his signature weapon a set of twin swords. (The game hints at his family also teaching him his moves: one of Precis' moves, created from observing Ashton, mentions 'the special arts mastered by generations of Anchorses.' Though this could just be a little joke? I don't know.) Something unknown drove him to set out as an adventurer/mercenary/treasure-
hunter. Ashton never mentions his motive in striking out on his own.
The most important theme in Ashton’s life has been unluckiness, up to and including his first run-in with the party. During his life, things around him have broken inadvertently. He generally gets attacked more often, he breaks more bones, and he causes more accidents than he probably should, through very little or no fault of his own. (In game, his “Luck” statistic is permanently at 18 without modification, whereas other characters have luck stats 100 points higher.)
Ashton, while traveling and looking for work, eventually made his way to the rural mining town of Salva. Rumored to hold a legendary treasure, the two-headed dragon was said to live deep in the Salva mine, maiming or killing any witnesses to its awesome power.
Here, he saw his chance. If he stood up and fought, and if he were to slay the dastardly dragon of Salva, he would likely find two of his favorite things - barrels and jewelry. Possibly barrels of jewelry, which would be pretty awesome.
(Here’s where he’s first seen in game, by the way. All story after this is actual canon instead of partial speculation.)
Unaware that three people were following him into the mine, he started in. Winding his way through the labyrinthine mining shafts, he spotted his target in a narrow passage and leapt in headlong, starting the fight. Again and again he was pushed back, but he kept attacking until he heard voices behind him, cheering him on.
Ashton wished these distracting intruders would be quiet. If they weren’t going to help, and obviously they couldn’t - the shaft was too narrow to fit more than one fighter and a dragon with two long necks - then they could at least be quiet about it, right?!
Ashton turned around and politely asked the onlookers if they would keep the noise down. He was obviously trying to fight here.
Then there was a flash of light. Always good when that happens, right?
Where were the dragons? They'd disappeared. He turned around again.. and again. He could only figure out what had happened by the horrified faces of his ‘cheerleaders.’
The dragons had relocated to his back. He was a man possessed.
Ashton briskly invited himself into the ragtag team of three, blaming them for his possession. Kindly, and kind of exasperatedly, they took him along, and they all decided to figure out how to rid him of his dragon friends.
As they left Salva, one of the cheerleaders, Rena, declared that the dragons were cute and that they ought to have names. Naming the red one with the bugged eyes “Creepy” and the blue one with the sad eyes “Weepy,” Rena gave a little bit of humanity to the beasts. Ashton, Rena, Claude, and Celine then set out on their grand journey for information.
These were his first friends. He was not used to being possessed, but he also wasn't used to traveling with people who seemed to accept him for who he was.
An ancient tome within the shelves of a small library instructed the team on how to exorcise, and effectively kill the dragons without harming Ashton himself. The party was to go on a long, drawn-out quest - the problem was that the dragons would vanish from the world with screams of agony. They set out anyway.
During the quest, which I'm going to say took about a month, Ashton became very used to having the dragons on his back and slowly grew to think of them as friends. With every step, Ashton had someone new to talk to - new thoughts to listen to, new stances on previously held beliefs. He slowly came to terms with his new self, and accepted his fate as a trinity. Creepy was always hotheaded and wanted to charge. Weepy, cold and calculating, was less likely to fly headfirst into battle but still loved a fight. And both of them influenced Ashton.
When the party reached the top of a quest-specific mountain, a giant bird alighted on a ruined pillar and began to speak to the dragons in an ethereal voice.
That’s when Ashton lost consciousness. Creepy and Weepy temporarily took full control of his body, using him as a speaking vessel. The dragons and the giant bird, Zinae, had a nice conversation. Zinae criticized Creepy and Weepy for stooping low enough to possess a human upon defeat instead of choosing death. The dragons replied that Zinae was far too inflexible, and he should get with the times if he wanted to survive.
And then they fought. Defeated, Zinae soared into the air, shedding jewel-like tears, which just happened to be what they needed for the exorcism. And then Ashton came to. He had no recollection of what had happened, but now the quest was almost completed! Pretty cool!
After traveling back to the point of possession, Ashton lifted the cup to his mouth, then lowered it without taking a drink, and admitted that he couldn't get rid of them after all. The other party members gawked at him, but he explained that Creepy and Weepy were part of him now, and he had come to terms with it - through no little guilting and browbeating on the rest of the party's part. But he certainly didn’t want to kill them! By now, they had so psychologically changed him - or possibly manipulated him into wanting them on his back.
And, possibly more importantly, he was afraid that now that his quest was over, his new friends would leave him alone. Part of the reason he had gone along with them was because he'd never had friends and partners before, and he'd grown accustomed to this happiness.
So then he begged them to let him join the party for good, having feared that they'd only taken him along to fulfill their responsibility for his possession. He learned that his new friends were on an expedition to this thing called the Sorcery Globe, so he decided to come along. Hey, if everything went right, he might find a way to exorcise the dragons without killing them.
(The rest of the game is not Ashton-specific at all. However, I’m going to give a basic rundown of the plot from here out; it's kind of bare-bones to keep the load off of you guys, but I don't believe I've left out any detail that's too terribly important to Ashton.)
The party moves to the next continent, views the annual Armory Contest (in which Ashton does not participate, but instead watches Claude get his ass whooooped) and makes its way forward. Later, a horde of winged demons is pushed back by a giant Heraldic weapon, and the ship meant to take the party to the northern continent is wrecked by a demon.
They finally make it to the Sorcery Globe - that big evil meteor that fell. Then a group of weirdos with pointy ears laugh at them and kick them around, and then, basically, the world is destroyed.
So it turns out that instead of being destroyed along with the world, Ashton and company are whisked away to another, more futuristic civilization, a giant body of energy called Energy Nede - although they later learn of Expel's fate. (Ashton does not get as up in arms about this as everyone else does, but he obviously still wants to help out.) The real enemy finally reveals itself to be a group of ancient criminals named the Ten Wise Men.
The party fights quite a bit more. Typical RPG fare, for the most part. Claude's daddy kicks the bucket. Rena turns out to be a bazillion years old. Eventually they make it to the final dungeon, and each of the Wise Men is killed in succession, leaving Gabriel, the mastermind, to answer for his crimes.
Just before Gabriel is defeated, however, he invokes a Symbological Crest called the Crest of Annihilation, designed to destroy the universe. The party ‘rewrites’ the Crest with a patch of sorts provided by some important NPCs. So instead of the universe being destroyed, the spell's damage gets focused inward on Energy Nede itself, which is annihilated. Claude's party is transported back to a now-restored Expel. Everything has reverted back to normal. HURRAY. Everyone is happy... and then they all split up and drift apart.
By the end of the journey, Ashton is a much more well-adjusted character, though he still has his nervous, flaily moments. He seems to be a much happier guy overall, and I think he's a lot less insecure. Unfortunately, we don't see a lot of him in the plot post-sidequest, so these are just extrapolations from the Private Actions we get to see of him in Nede as opposed to on Expel.
(During the game, there are choices of whether or not to recruit certain characters. I have chosen in this instance of the game to recruit Claude, Rena, Celine, Ashton, Welch, Precis, Leon, and Chisato. The game also allows for individual character endings with each other character. I'm taking Ashton from an ending with Celine, which means the two of them hang out a lot together and shop a lot. I heavily doubt the two of them are romantically involved, considering her canon tastes in men stray far from Ashton's sort, but she seems to trust his fashion judgment quite a bit in the ending, so I assume they're bffs.)
What point in time are you taking your character from when he/she appears at Landel's and why?:
Adding to the last paragraph of the history, I'm specifically taking Ashton from post-game, a Celine ending, maybe a month or two after they're all settled down on Expel. Ashton will go to bed after a night of shopping with Celine, and then wake up in Landel's.
I'm taking him from this point basically in order to change the way I'm playing him from the way I played him during his original sojourn in Landel's. He still has some unfinished issues to push through, since Star Ocean does a terrible idea at resolving its characters' issues, but his new situation (being taken from a Claude game in which he doesn't know certain characters, and the only one from the new rerelease) will make things new and exciting.
Personality:
Ashton is, in a word, odd. He’s always been, and it’s more than likely he always will be. His tastes and idiosyncrasies tend towards the effeminate, and he’s always on hand to help with any fashion or jewelry choice, though on occasions he has been known to err on the side of flashiness. (In game, he has a piece of failed armor unique to him called Flashy Armor.)
He's a pessimist through and through. Things never seem to go right for him, and he can really wallow in his situation if it gets too bad. Being around sunny-dispositioned people can really help the mild depression he can sink into, though.
He tends to get nervous very easily when faced with embarrassing situations, or when people call him out on something he's said. He can stammer, but he's a strong fighter at heart. He's a man, with manly thoughts! He kills people with his swords! It's just that... he also cares a great deal.
Speaking of caring a great deal, there’s a side event in game that involves Ashton and an ill little girl named Eleanor, and he’s fast to become her ‘big brother' and even goes as far as picking special herbs from the tops of dangerous mountains to try to cure her. He really does enjoy the company of children, though he can get quite nervous when they crowd him. (Though I've decided not to go through with the Eleanor sidequest in this particular Ashton's story - it's only available in a game with Rena as the main character, and this Ashton is from a Claude game.)
He’s quick to accept a friend, probably because he hasn't had many friends in the past. He's also prone to crushes (his Romance Points for Claude fluctuate as much as any of the girls', which is somewhat unique among the men in SO2) and, oddly enough, he's not averse to asking someone on a date.
Instead of throwing his possessions away, Ashton prefers to leave them in places where they might be discovered, such as in the jewelry box of another party member. He’s very interested in keeping things useful, and he sees merit where others might not. Case in point: barrels. Ashton has a near-obsessive romance with barrels and urns, and can constantly be found ogling such innocuous objects. Perhaps, before his possession, he felt similar to a barrel: the oft-overlooked, plain object in the corner, slightly too shy to enjoy being the center of attention, yet occasionally colorful and exciting.
Ashton is always in favor of bettering himself - trying harder and learning to understand, and doin' his best. When prompted to publish a book in the game, he most commonly writes a self-help book called “Men Who Can Say No” which encourages the reader to be able to state clearly one’s likes and dislikes, and likely also to be able to disagree - but politely. Ashton’s always been one for politesse... Until he forces his way into your party, but that's all about taking responsibility, which is the polite thing to do, right? His ideals can be your ideals, too!
He likes to shift the blame off of his friends. If one of them fails at something themselves, he tends to call them 'unlucky' - proof of his obsession with luck, good and bad - but he'll congratulate them based on their own merit if they succeed. His terrible luck has brought him more pain than he occasionally feels he deserves, and so conversely I doubt he feels like his friends deserve the bad things that happen to them.
He’s readily adaptable to new situations. Being possessed threw him off track temporarily, but he grew to love and trust his companions, including them in his sense of identity.
And, of course, he’s somewhat reticent about his past, though occasionally he might brood over what’s happened to him. If he wasn’t so closed-mouthed sometimes, we’d know more about him from his interactions in game. Maybe he just concentrates the hardest on the present.
Finally, I'd like to mention that he's got a kind of marked duality to him - besides wielding two swords and having two dragons, he's pessimistic about himself and optimistic about his friends, he's strong in battle but kinda fail socially, he's excellent at focusing yet has nervous breakdowns occasionally, he's nervous when it comes to dates but goes on them anyway, he's really into kicking ass but also more feminine stuff like pretty necklaces... THE LIST GOES ON AND ON, WHEEEE. And I think that the game likes to kind of bring that out.
Normally, Ashton has two big honkin' dragon necks sprouting from his shoulder blades. One is red and one is blue. They breathe fire and ice, respectively. Obviously, he won't have them anymore in Landel's.
He's got green eyes and brown hair, which he keeps kinda messy. His chin curves gently - no manly jawlines here, sorry. He stands at 5'11” and weighs 176 pounds, making him a pretty muscular fellow, especially when it comes to his back. Muscles tend to get a workout holding up dragons all day. It's probably kind of sexy. He holds himself straight and tall usually, but his shoulders might tend to slump without him recognizing it. It's all due to his pessimism. :(
--Also, Ashton received M-U during his previous time in Landel's, and so he'll have a pretty nasty I-shaped scar on the back of his head from where the scalpel went in, and there should have about two weeks' worth of hair growth on top of that, so I imagine they'll let him go without bandaging, since his hair will kinda cover it.
What kinds of otherwordly abilities does your character have, if any?:
He's a swordfighting character, which means he's got a lot of sword swingy skills. Most of them are pretty normal sorts of attacks - basically twirling the swords around a lot and doing a bunch of quick slashes. (His best one is just that, actually.) There are, however, exceptions:
-Leaf Slash, in which he temporarily disappears amidst a bunch of leaves, and reappears to home in on the enemy.
-Northern Cross. He creates ice.
-Hurricane Slash. He creates wind that lifts enemies into the air.
-Dead Triangle. There are three of him that surround the enemy.
-Dragon Breath. Creepy and Weepy grow huge and breathe at the enemy.
-Tri-Ace. A huge sword sweeps across the battlefield.
Besides the dragons themselves being otherworldly, of course.
If present, how do you plan to tweak these powers to make your character appropriately hindered in the setting of Landel's?:
He'll still know how to swing swords around, but all that supernatural stuff is completely gone. Is that easy or what :)!
-However, the benefit of Ashton's CM-US trial was to give him a sixth sense of sorts; he gets a weird, bad sort of intuitive feeling when someone important to him is in danger. The downside to all this was a bad headache that happens every IC day.
Does your character have any non-otherworldly abilities/training that surpass the norm?:
-He can fiiiight! Really well! Like, probably about as well as the rest of the sword-wielding RPG characters here, haha - Dias and Claude included.
-He's a good cook. (Second-highest percentage of starting with and acquiring Sense of Taste skill, after Rena. Also, Cooking Master competition - this Ashton will have competed and won, since.. it's what I do in my game, lol.)
-He's also particularly dexterous with his hands. Ambidexterity isn't common, but it's necessary for a dual wielder, and considering Ashton's general duality, it fits.
-The whole party is also pretty good at compounding, which is combining herbs to make herbal medicines that do pretty cool stuff. He knows his way around a smithery, and
-He's great at examining gems and barrels.
-Love of animals?
What do you see your character doing in the scope of the game and how do you plan to use the setting of Landel's Institute to develop your character and affect their psychology in a unique, interesting way?:
Well, initially, he’ll feel very lonely. He had, of course, grown close to Creepy and Weepy and realized his life would never be the same again. This will throw him for a huge loop.
When he arrives, he's going to make sure that his canonmates are okay, and in the beginning he'll definitely concern himself with whatever they are doing. However, the more he learns about his previous time in Landel's, the more he'll forge his own path, meeting up with friends he doesn't remember he had, and certainly making new friends as well. He'll probably also try to uncover the mysteries behind the CM-US experimental trials, especially after he learns about his own past surgery.
Most importantly, when it comes to psychological development, I want Ashton to develop his own dragonless identity - back on Expel and Nede, he used his dragons as a way to discover his own originality. I think now that they're gone, he'll really be able to use this setting to look inside himself as a human being, and decide on the things that are most important to him. The dragons are like training wheels - Ashton needs to realize that he's more than just a wallflower or 'that guy with the dragons.' He can make friends without them, and he can keep them, too.
Landel's as a center for empowerment = weird, right? But it's gonna happen. He's going to feel comfortable in himself again, and he's going to re-make all the friends he had, and more. And maybe, after a while, he won't feel so alone. Of course he'll want to go back home to Expel, but... even though his friends are there, he doesn't really have a good, solid place in the world. If he can convince himself that his dragons are actually alive still - he probably won't need proof, just conviction - it's entirely possible that he might want to forge some sort of new destiny, one … maybe somewhere else entirely.