"if you can't tell your dreams from your reality, maybe this is your dream"
So, I've still got a few things that need to be wrapped up via e-mail, but otherwise I've got a couple of weeks of vacation now. And it is glorious. ...Though I didn't have a heart to tell someone who is basically my mentor/father-figure at work when he asked that I am going to celebrate getting some vacation time by trying to come up with a witty word or phrase less than 15 letters (a username) and pretend to be someone else on the Internet. While trying to get back into the swing of that place where I pretend to be a girl.
Yeah. RP is hard to describe, especially to someone who doesn't have English as a first language and I believe is a little hard-of-hearing.
So, yes! It may take me a bit, but I hope to spend the next couple of weeks actually, you know, EXISTING. This is a fairly dramatic change from the past few months, I wager. If there's anything I've missed that I should have commented on, please let me know. I've read most of the entries since I started being even more scarce than usual, except for some long ones, but my ability to comment was even worse than usual and I can no longer remember which ones I had meant to comment on.
Another thing I'm behind on: memes! This one was stolen from daathic and I think maybe a couple of other people.
List any characters that you have considered roleplaying, but never have. Explain why you like the character, then explain what it is that keeps you from playing them, be it a lack of canon knowledge, lack of confidence, or too many people playing that character!
Chloe Valens of Tales of Legendia
Why: So, as you can probably tell from this, I'm treating this as "never have in an official RP" since I played her a lot over one summer in talesofdressing. I'm doing this because...well, because I like to hear myself talk watch myself type, and my journey to finally apping for Luceti begins here.
So, as I've probably mentioned several times by now, I was inspired to pick up Chloe by the great and remarkably strong Tales of Legendia group that we had back in ToDR in...wow, I guess that's 2008 by now. I had been earlier remarkably slow at playing through Tales of Legendia because I like to play my games with a second person. Without the usual two-player option of the other Tales games I've played, Legendia's rather long dungeons were probably fairly boring for the second person, especially compared to the other games I had picked up around the same time which were at least partially multiplayer. So I had never gotten into it that much, what with only playing it now and then. However, since I believe that Legendia really shines through in its characters, seeing so many of the characters RPed was great for catching my interest, since it was like having cutscenes without having to wait to get through the dungeons. (This is also where I first noticed Luceti, as it had a strong Legendia cast--still does, though it's smaller nowadays.)
However, though Shin had a great little c, and even a big little c, the game lacked a canon adult Chloe. There were even a few Wills passing by, even though few people RPed him, either, but no big C. So, once I finished Chloe's character quest, I threw her in. (I don't think I ever said this before, but I read maybe a week or two before I sent Chloe in that someone had mentioned offhand about bringing Chloe in. So I, uh, sort of went twice as fast towards finishing Chloe's quest in terms of playing more often than I would have so that I would be the first one outside of the person who posted once on the first day and never again. Yes, I can be a bit petty at times, but I like being the first person playing a specific character in a game. The fairly normal reason is because I like being the only one until I get comfortable with a character. I like to put my own stamp on the way I play a character and develop their personality in different ways than canon, while remaining recognizable as the same character. When I encounter another version of the same character, I get nervous, retreat into sticking firmly to canon, and I fear to contradict the other mun. Of course, once I get comfortable, I feel more comfortable about interacting with them and I enjoy seeing other versions around so that I can watch them interact with other people. ...But the particularly selfish and petty reason for trying to be first is because I can make a bigger impact by virtue of being the first without having to put in more effort. I try not to let this impact my decisions too much, but I do sometimes keep this in mind.)
So that was a lot of fun and I made a lot of friends. But one thing I didn't end up doing was apping at Luceti like a lot of people wanted me to do. I felt and still, to some extent, feel bad about how I handled the enabling, as I never gave a firm answer and basically strung people's hopes along. And then in the winter, I more-or-less disappeared from the world of RP with her. Which was unfortunate, because I enjoyed playing her--for all that she was quite serious a lot of the time, she could be entertaining or cute. (Much of my RPing nowadays is motivated by cuteness.)
Why not: So, I never mentioned this to anyone, I'm pretty sure, but as that winter went along, I started to think about reintroducing her by sending her to Luceti. I even considered tossing her in when I had a short break in February, even though I knew things would be pretty busy after that. I even started to write up an app, but then I decided that it'd be pretty mean to her to introduce her during the love event with Senel and Stella being so lovey-dovey and, really, it'd be better to wait until my most busy times passed.
So, I was pretty behind on what was going on with people on my friends list, but I knew two things: Tardy was working on a Chloe muse, and Tardy was sending someone to Luceti. Somehow, these two facts NEVER CONNECTED IN MY MIND (granted, this was probably because I knew that she was apping Rodyle and didn't realize she'd app multiple people). Yup, I came very close to accidentally and without knowing it sniping Tardy's app. Thankfully, I decided to aim for April or May, but still. Whoooops.
I was a bit disappointed at the time, but it turned out better in the end. I could have, and probably still could, revive Chloe at a few days notice with a little canon review and I quite enjoyed playing her. But I explored her quite a bit already and I want to explore other characters now. And I wouldn't really do well in Luceti with her--I've been ducking the villain plots because I'm not a fast/active enough player to give them the attention they deserve and I'm currently not interested in them as a player (though I like them as a stalker). With Chloe, I couldn't really do that without being OOC, since she sticks her nose into everything. And she would be outclassed by at least half the villains there even if Legendia's two sections' end bosses are...well, if you've played, you know what I refer to, which could end up frustrating.
However, at the same time, I still wanted to eventually jump into Luceti, so it started off ten months of considering various characters to get apped in. No, I'm not a very fast apper, am I? Which is basically what the rest of this meme will be on.
Curtis of Tales of Legendia
Why: So, after Chloe, I started to consider other Legendia characters to app in Luceti, because it was the only thing I was majorly interested in RPing from at that time since I had been too busy to pick up new fandoms. Also because most of my friends in Luceti at the time were in Tales or interacted with the Tales cast fairly regularly.
And, yes, the first character I considered was Curtis. I even was considering asking the mods whether I could app privately, though I expected the answer would be no. The reason I wanted to app privately was so that then people wouldn't know he was coming. Then I could contact a couple of people and ask whether they could RP their characters sparring in the village. Then the music would start. Looking up, they would see Curtis, in New Feather pants, standing on someone's rooftop. He would jump down and then start singing "Hey, yo, you there causing trouble: do you know the rules of this town?" And drag in random bypassers to sing the backup parts.
It wasn't a very practical plan, given that it would confuse most people and would cause alarm for thinking "hey, this guy's not a part of Luceti!" But it would be hilarious for those in the know.
Why not: Because I wanted to play a character with deep emotions for me to explore. I believe I could expand Curtis's personality and make him into a reasonably serious character, especially since Musette was around at the time, I believe (though there would be plenty of crack, especially when he started recruiting replacement Bantam Bouncers). But it would be a lot more work to keep him from being someone to just pick up and drop a couple of months later than taking a less comedic-relief-y character, so I didn't want to bother going through with it.
Harriet Campbell of Tales of Legendia
Why: Since I didn't really feel like picking up any of the main characters of Legendia, especially since I had gotten used to other people's versions of most of them and I didn't particularly feel like picking up the also serious Will after Chloe even though so few Wills lasted very long, I started going through the minor characters. Harriet was the first one to call out to me, as I think I was replaying the game at the time and I came across the scene where she and Senel talked in the graveyard, which included the lines "It's sad when you lose someone you care about. I was really sad, too, when my mom died. It felt like there was a hole in my heart." It struck me, then, that there was a lot that one could do with Harriet. She's a deeper character than you might expect from a girl her age.
Also the Harriet player who showed up every now and then in Tales of Dressing was amazing and came up with some really entertaining stuff, so I wanted to emulate them.
Why not: Because someone apped Will.
...Wait, what? Shouldn't that be the perfect time to play Harriet? Okay, so the main reason was because there was someone else planning on apping Harriet at the time. Not wanting to step on any toes, I backed off on the idea. But I actually wouldn't have wanted to RP Harriet with Will the first month. In the game, a lot of the minor characters in Tales of Legendia are, in my point of view, fairly dependant on one of the main characters. The biggest case of this would be Elsa, whose scenes were almost always with Chloe and they were almost always revolving around Chloe. But a lot of the others are the same way to a greater or lesser extent (Musette probably escapes this trap). I have to admit that in the game, Fenimore is fairly dependant on Shirley for her characterization: though she gets the advantage of talking with Senel almost as often as with Shirley, nearly all of her motivations could be expressed in terms of Shirley.
For Harriet, this dependence was on Will. Some things, like the graveyard scene, give her some time on her own, but usually her actions revolve around Will. I felt that, unless I had some time to play Harriet without Will and to develop some CR outside of that, I would always play Harriet as an extension of Will rather than her own character with motivations outside of him.
Would this have caused me to not go through with Harriet when Will was around? Probably not, but it slowed me down. So when someone else expressed an interest in Harriet, I dropped the idea of playing Harriet entirely and moved on to the next.
This was Fenimore, and the time was back in late April. I had intended, actually, to have apped Fenimore back in May's cycle. But it never panned out, because I got busy with work again and never got around to it. The next section in my saga of "characters that might have gotten apped at Luceti" is fairly fuzzy in my memories. There was a time in, I don't know, late summer and early fall? where pretty much every time I read something new or played a new video game, some part of me would sort through the characters and consider which one I'd app for if I apped from that fandom. But some that I can recall are:
Pazu from Laputa: Castle in the Sky
Why: (I'm pretty sure it was earlier than this when I thought of it, because I don't think the barrier had expanded by this point, but I'll place it here for lack of a better idea.) After watching Miyazaki's movies, I'm usually tempted to RP one of the characters. In the case of Laputa, it was Pazu.
Why? Because early-movie Pazu is a dork. Early-movie Pazu is adorable. Later in the movie, Pazu is rather more focused and he's already accomplished his dream, which was disappointing, because Pazu's work on building an aircraft in order to seek out Laputa is so endearing. I wanted to have Pazu enthusiastically work on trying to build an airplane with steam power with the aim of eventually flying out of Luceti to freedom.
Why not: ...Lost interest, I guess. I'd have to also get an easier way to canon review than renting it a million times.
Kyon from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
Why: So I read through an online translation of the first few books of Haruhi and, well, I was just really entertained by Kyon. The running commentary would be fun to keep up, especially since I tend to run at the mouth in my tags anyway. He's also quite interesting, and it'd be fun to throw him in Luceti since he has experience with both alternate universes and getting trapped in ski lodges places with no visible means of escape.
Why not: Because he'd be too much work to keep up consistently with my schedule, which is the main reason. Because, despite doing worse in high school than I ever did, he's too smart for me and much of what happens in the books went over my head, which is most of the rest of the reason. And...well, because of shipping, to some extent, silly of a reason as it is. See, while I'm fine with Haruhi in the parts taking place later in the chronology (in the earlier segments, like the first book, I actually was of the opinion that she had been written for the reader to not like her), I just don't like the pairing between them. However, I get the impression from the book and from fandom that Kyon is supposed some feelings for her that he's just in denial over. If it is true, though, I don't know if I could play that convincingly. I could be wrong, though, since if Kyon does have feelings for Haruhi, he's pretty good at denying it. Even then, I'm not sure if I would be happy letting some things slide that Kyon lets slide--mainly the abuse Mitsuru suffers at Haruhi's hands. And Kyon's semi-worship of Mitsuru's appearance is somewhat entertaining and probably pretty realistic to read about, but I think I'd be rolling my eyes the entire time RPing that. The other intra-Brigade Kyon ships appear to me to be less required of Kyon's characterization, though ironically I'm probably least reluctant about them. For Itsuki, I get the impression from fandom that he's supposed to act fantastically gay towards Kyon, but I...never noticed it at all and thus am pretty much neutral to the pairing. For Yuki, I can see where people would ship them and am pretty okay with it, but it seems the least likely to be canon from what I read despite it being by process of elimination my favoured intra-Brigade Kyon ship and I prefer to see it as being a stronger loyalty between the two than between most random pair-ups in the Brigade.
...Also I never finished reading the books available online anyway, so this concern over fandom opinions is quite futile.
Ayame Sohma of Fruits Basket
Why: I am not going to lie. I thought that it'd be fun to play him after watching the episode with his shop basically because he would probably join Shiki's shop and act like he owned it without thinking. Shiki would probably call him out on this eventually and he'd back down, but until then he'd probably accidentally take it over.
Why not: Because I didn't really feel like doing more than that with him, so it wasn't nearly enough reason to drop him in there.
There were at least a couple of others I'm forgetting, but by November I had settled on Fenimore. ...But there are a few others who tempted me to some extent, a couple of whom had journals made at one point but didn't really get much in the way of RPing done.
Arietta the Wild of Tales of the Abyss
Why: So over the past year I replayed Tales of the Abyss, finishing up early this year. While playing through the endgame, Arietta called out to me. I have to admit that with all of the Ion stuff happening at the end of the game, I actually felt notably more sorry for Arietta than for Anise. For the most part, she wasn't a bad person: it's true she killed Jade's soldiers and attacked the port, but it wasn't done out of malice. It was mostly that she had fallen in with bad company and, well, it's not like Tales heroes haven't done similar things to soldiers opposing them. Not to say it wasn't something bad she had done and she did seem too willing to kill people sometimes, but she didn't seem to be overall a bad person.
When it came down to the final battle with Arietta, it rubbed me the wrong way that the reasoning behind fighting her to the death seemed at least partially because the party felt that it was better to, well, put her down due to her dependencies on Ion and Van. I couldn't really think of a better way to deal with it, but I wished there was. So, combined with my sympathy for her earlier on, I thought that I would like to RP her. I even vaguely considered trying her out at Luceti. I thought it'd be fun to bounce her off the Abyss crowd and, as someone raised by forest creatures but living among humans, to bounce her off Moro and San. It'd also be fun to spread around rumours about how Anise had killed "Mommy" (and Ion, if I took her from that point in time), and see whether anyone got a bad impression of the Abyss party because of it.
Why not: Because I can't play a second character. But even if I could, there are two major issues with Arietta. One is to not have her go off the deep end over Ion's death and/or try to fight Anise to the death in a place where death isn't permanent. Second is because it's never really expanded on what Arietta thinks about humans compared to monsters, and this would be a big issue when talking to Moro and San, since Arietta seems fine with humans despite also liking monsters. I'd worry too much that I was picking the wrong interpretation.
Gaston from Beauty and the Beast
Why him?: Because it'd be funny. And, while by the end of the movie he'd earned the title of villain with his attempt to blackmail Belle into marrying him, he didn't start off as a villain. He just started off as a jerk, and I don't mind jerks as characters. And, again, Moro would be fun to bounce off of: I could totally have Gaston do the whole mob song schtick in the village square and see what people's reactions were.
And, yes, song. It would be extra awesome to play Gaston as though people randomly bursting into chorus were normal in his world. ...Though I guess this isn't as new an idea now that we have Simba about, though I did think of this separately. I feel like Leibniz.
My eventual goal would probably be to bounce him around until he improved to be someone people could possibly stand and just had a high view of "manliness." So he could set up a school of manliness and name it something like the Youth's Manliness Correction Association. Sure, no one would go, but it would be worth it for Gaston to sing a song advertising the YMCA.
Why not: Because I can't play a second character. But more that no one would ever talk to him. In his probable time period, when his views on women were probably fairly common, early movie Gaston was probably just a big jerk. To the generally more egalitarian worlds that everyone else comes from, he probably is upgraded to a douchebag. Granted, I'm not a stranger to playing douches and it would certainly not be impossible to get him CR, but it would take a lot of patience to keep going with it when I have another, more likeable character.
The biggest problem, though, aside from my tendency to fail at more than one character, is that once Gaston encountered Moro...I can't figure out how he would stop dying. See, he'd be inclined to go hunting. So Moro'd probably eat him, or at least give the impression that this is her favoured position. A week later, convinced of the dangerous beast in the woods, he'd try to raise a mob to kill Moro. So San would stab him. And then Gaston would try to kill Moro again. And die pitifully. And...well, I can't see anyone managing to convince Gaston that Moro wasn't a danger to the village to be killed and I really can't see anyone liking Gaston enough to even try convincing Moro he wasn't a moron who deserved to die, because the former part is true even if killing him is possibly excessive. The first time would be okay. Possibly even morbidly funny. I can even think of a good death penalty: forgetting Belle, so then he can fixate on whoever he chooses as the most beautiful unmarried girl in the village instead and drive her up the wall. But eventually it would get a bit...unplayable. So instead I will eventually toss him someplace like a dressing room for laughs, possibly.
Ashitaka from Princess Mononoke
Why: Ashitaka was not the person I had suddenly clung to when it came to first watching this movie. Strangely enough, if I had been inclined to RP anyone, it was Jigo. But I had the passing thought of RPing him because he's pretty cool. And being able to play against a Moro and a San would be pretty amazing.
Why not: Because I can't play a second character. Also because playing against a Moro and a San would be amazing, but even more amazingly hard. He's also kind of boring in some ways, to be perfectly honest.
Several people from Pokémon Adventures/Special (This is where I suspect Kyo is screaming in frustration, should he read this.)
Why: Back when Kyo was gunning to develop a great Pokésupe cast at Luceti, I thought it might be interesting to take part, though I had intended to at least wait until May. I started reading the manga, which I had only read a very brief amount when I was younger and the first few volumes were at my library, and I kept an eye out for possible characters.
Why not: I briefly toyed with the idea of playing Crystal, since Kyo was sad that there were so few Crystals out there. I wasn't entirely sold on it, even if I knew I could probably play her, but I did think about derping about dear_mun for a bit sometime, just to try. Then I read the Ruby/Sapphire arc and Ruby stole my heart. I decided that I'd wait to see if he didn't find anyone by May and then think on it if he were still available. When someone reserved him and even made a journal, I snuck around to see whether they seemed reasonably likely to go through with it. When it looked like they would, I shrugged and moved on. I briefly considered playing Jasmine as a hybrid of manga canon with backup from game canon, because she is moe and I like cute things, but that didn't last long because she doesn't really have a big role in the manga. Later, I did take some time to consider "Missy" Berlitz, but since the translation ran out at a fairly important moment and she still was keeping some secrets that would likely be important to her characterization, I shrugged and moved on.
So the main reason is that "I can't play a second character" but also due to some bad luck and the closure of apps.
And, with probably some missing, are the characters I considered over the past year. Thankfully, my will is pretty strong, or else you can see I would have dropped a lot of characters over the past while. But I'm pretty satisfied with Fenimore, not least because I don't worry so much that I'm character-squatting on such an uncommon character since I fail in activity so much.
...Yeah, over 8 pages. Pretty long.
Yeah. RP is hard to describe, especially to someone who doesn't have English as a first language and I believe is a little hard-of-hearing.
So, yes! It may take me a bit, but I hope to spend the next couple of weeks actually, you know, EXISTING. This is a fairly dramatic change from the past few months, I wager. If there's anything I've missed that I should have commented on, please let me know. I've read most of the entries since I started being even more scarce than usual, except for some long ones, but my ability to comment was even worse than usual and I can no longer remember which ones I had meant to comment on.
Another thing I'm behind on: memes! This one was stolen from daathic and I think maybe a couple of other people.
List any characters that you have considered roleplaying, but never have. Explain why you like the character, then explain what it is that keeps you from playing them, be it a lack of canon knowledge, lack of confidence, or too many people playing that character!
Chloe Valens of Tales of Legendia
Why: So, as you can probably tell from this, I'm treating this as "never have in an official RP" since I played her a lot over one summer in talesofdressing. I'm doing this because...well, because I like to hear myself talk watch myself type, and my journey to finally apping for Luceti begins here.
So, as I've probably mentioned several times by now, I was inspired to pick up Chloe by the great and remarkably strong Tales of Legendia group that we had back in ToDR in...wow, I guess that's 2008 by now. I had been earlier remarkably slow at playing through Tales of Legendia because I like to play my games with a second person. Without the usual two-player option of the other Tales games I've played, Legendia's rather long dungeons were probably fairly boring for the second person, especially compared to the other games I had picked up around the same time which were at least partially multiplayer. So I had never gotten into it that much, what with only playing it now and then. However, since I believe that Legendia really shines through in its characters, seeing so many of the characters RPed was great for catching my interest, since it was like having cutscenes without having to wait to get through the dungeons. (This is also where I first noticed Luceti, as it had a strong Legendia cast--still does, though it's smaller nowadays.)
However, though Shin had a great little c, and even a big little c, the game lacked a canon adult Chloe. There were even a few Wills passing by, even though few people RPed him, either, but no big C. So, once I finished Chloe's character quest, I threw her in. (I don't think I ever said this before, but I read maybe a week or two before I sent Chloe in that someone had mentioned offhand about bringing Chloe in. So I, uh, sort of went twice as fast towards finishing Chloe's quest in terms of playing more often than I would have so that I would be the first one outside of the person who posted once on the first day and never again. Yes, I can be a bit petty at times, but I like being the first person playing a specific character in a game. The fairly normal reason is because I like being the only one until I get comfortable with a character. I like to put my own stamp on the way I play a character and develop their personality in different ways than canon, while remaining recognizable as the same character. When I encounter another version of the same character, I get nervous, retreat into sticking firmly to canon, and I fear to contradict the other mun. Of course, once I get comfortable, I feel more comfortable about interacting with them and I enjoy seeing other versions around so that I can watch them interact with other people. ...But the particularly selfish and petty reason for trying to be first is because I can make a bigger impact by virtue of being the first without having to put in more effort. I try not to let this impact my decisions too much, but I do sometimes keep this in mind.)
So that was a lot of fun and I made a lot of friends. But one thing I didn't end up doing was apping at Luceti like a lot of people wanted me to do. I felt and still, to some extent, feel bad about how I handled the enabling, as I never gave a firm answer and basically strung people's hopes along. And then in the winter, I more-or-less disappeared from the world of RP with her. Which was unfortunate, because I enjoyed playing her--for all that she was quite serious a lot of the time, she could be entertaining or cute. (Much of my RPing nowadays is motivated by cuteness.)
Why not: So, I never mentioned this to anyone, I'm pretty sure, but as that winter went along, I started to think about reintroducing her by sending her to Luceti. I even considered tossing her in when I had a short break in February, even though I knew things would be pretty busy after that. I even started to write up an app, but then I decided that it'd be pretty mean to her to introduce her during the love event with Senel and Stella being so lovey-dovey and, really, it'd be better to wait until my most busy times passed.
So, I was pretty behind on what was going on with people on my friends list, but I knew two things: Tardy was working on a Chloe muse, and Tardy was sending someone to Luceti. Somehow, these two facts NEVER CONNECTED IN MY MIND (granted, this was probably because I knew that she was apping Rodyle and didn't realize she'd app multiple people). Yup, I came very close to accidentally and without knowing it sniping Tardy's app. Thankfully, I decided to aim for April or May, but still. Whoooops.
I was a bit disappointed at the time, but it turned out better in the end. I could have, and probably still could, revive Chloe at a few days notice with a little canon review and I quite enjoyed playing her. But I explored her quite a bit already and I want to explore other characters now. And I wouldn't really do well in Luceti with her--I've been ducking the villain plots because I'm not a fast/active enough player to give them the attention they deserve and I'm currently not interested in them as a player (though I like them as a stalker). With Chloe, I couldn't really do that without being OOC, since she sticks her nose into everything. And she would be outclassed by at least half the villains there even if Legendia's two sections' end bosses are...well, if you've played, you know what I refer to, which could end up frustrating.
However, at the same time, I still wanted to eventually jump into Luceti, so it started off ten months of considering various characters to get apped in. No, I'm not a very fast apper, am I? Which is basically what the rest of this meme will be on.
Curtis of Tales of Legendia
Why: So, after Chloe, I started to consider other Legendia characters to app in Luceti, because it was the only thing I was majorly interested in RPing from at that time since I had been too busy to pick up new fandoms. Also because most of my friends in Luceti at the time were in Tales or interacted with the Tales cast fairly regularly.
And, yes, the first character I considered was Curtis. I even was considering asking the mods whether I could app privately, though I expected the answer would be no. The reason I wanted to app privately was so that then people wouldn't know he was coming. Then I could contact a couple of people and ask whether they could RP their characters sparring in the village. Then the music would start. Looking up, they would see Curtis, in New Feather pants, standing on someone's rooftop. He would jump down and then start singing "Hey, yo, you there causing trouble: do you know the rules of this town?" And drag in random bypassers to sing the backup parts.
It wasn't a very practical plan, given that it would confuse most people and would cause alarm for thinking "hey, this guy's not a part of Luceti!" But it would be hilarious for those in the know.
Why not: Because I wanted to play a character with deep emotions for me to explore. I believe I could expand Curtis's personality and make him into a reasonably serious character, especially since Musette was around at the time, I believe (though there would be plenty of crack, especially when he started recruiting replacement Bantam Bouncers). But it would be a lot more work to keep him from being someone to just pick up and drop a couple of months later than taking a less comedic-relief-y character, so I didn't want to bother going through with it.
Harriet Campbell of Tales of Legendia
Why: Since I didn't really feel like picking up any of the main characters of Legendia, especially since I had gotten used to other people's versions of most of them and I didn't particularly feel like picking up the also serious Will after Chloe even though so few Wills lasted very long, I started going through the minor characters. Harriet was the first one to call out to me, as I think I was replaying the game at the time and I came across the scene where she and Senel talked in the graveyard, which included the lines "It's sad when you lose someone you care about. I was really sad, too, when my mom died. It felt like there was a hole in my heart." It struck me, then, that there was a lot that one could do with Harriet. She's a deeper character than you might expect from a girl her age.
Also the Harriet player who showed up every now and then in Tales of Dressing was amazing and came up with some really entertaining stuff, so I wanted to emulate them.
Why not: Because someone apped Will.
...Wait, what? Shouldn't that be the perfect time to play Harriet? Okay, so the main reason was because there was someone else planning on apping Harriet at the time. Not wanting to step on any toes, I backed off on the idea. But I actually wouldn't have wanted to RP Harriet with Will the first month. In the game, a lot of the minor characters in Tales of Legendia are, in my point of view, fairly dependant on one of the main characters. The biggest case of this would be Elsa, whose scenes were almost always with Chloe and they were almost always revolving around Chloe. But a lot of the others are the same way to a greater or lesser extent (Musette probably escapes this trap). I have to admit that in the game, Fenimore is fairly dependant on Shirley for her characterization: though she gets the advantage of talking with Senel almost as often as with Shirley, nearly all of her motivations could be expressed in terms of Shirley.
For Harriet, this dependence was on Will. Some things, like the graveyard scene, give her some time on her own, but usually her actions revolve around Will. I felt that, unless I had some time to play Harriet without Will and to develop some CR outside of that, I would always play Harriet as an extension of Will rather than her own character with motivations outside of him.
Would this have caused me to not go through with Harriet when Will was around? Probably not, but it slowed me down. So when someone else expressed an interest in Harriet, I dropped the idea of playing Harriet entirely and moved on to the next.
This was Fenimore, and the time was back in late April. I had intended, actually, to have apped Fenimore back in May's cycle. But it never panned out, because I got busy with work again and never got around to it. The next section in my saga of "characters that might have gotten apped at Luceti" is fairly fuzzy in my memories. There was a time in, I don't know, late summer and early fall? where pretty much every time I read something new or played a new video game, some part of me would sort through the characters and consider which one I'd app for if I apped from that fandom. But some that I can recall are:
Pazu from Laputa: Castle in the Sky
Why: (I'm pretty sure it was earlier than this when I thought of it, because I don't think the barrier had expanded by this point, but I'll place it here for lack of a better idea.) After watching Miyazaki's movies, I'm usually tempted to RP one of the characters. In the case of Laputa, it was Pazu.
Why? Because early-movie Pazu is a dork. Early-movie Pazu is adorable. Later in the movie, Pazu is rather more focused and he's already accomplished his dream, which was disappointing, because Pazu's work on building an aircraft in order to seek out Laputa is so endearing. I wanted to have Pazu enthusiastically work on trying to build an airplane with steam power with the aim of eventually flying out of Luceti to freedom.
Why not: ...Lost interest, I guess. I'd have to also get an easier way to canon review than renting it a million times.
Kyon from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
Why: So I read through an online translation of the first few books of Haruhi and, well, I was just really entertained by Kyon. The running commentary would be fun to keep up, especially since I tend to run at the mouth in my tags anyway. He's also quite interesting, and it'd be fun to throw him in Luceti since he has experience with both alternate universes and getting trapped in ski lodges places with no visible means of escape.
Why not: Because he'd be too much work to keep up consistently with my schedule, which is the main reason. Because, despite doing worse in high school than I ever did, he's too smart for me and much of what happens in the books went over my head, which is most of the rest of the reason. And...well, because of shipping, to some extent, silly of a reason as it is. See, while I'm fine with Haruhi in the parts taking place later in the chronology (in the earlier segments, like the first book, I actually was of the opinion that she had been written for the reader to not like her), I just don't like the pairing between them. However, I get the impression from the book and from fandom that Kyon is supposed some feelings for her that he's just in denial over. If it is true, though, I don't know if I could play that convincingly. I could be wrong, though, since if Kyon does have feelings for Haruhi, he's pretty good at denying it. Even then, I'm not sure if I would be happy letting some things slide that Kyon lets slide--mainly the abuse Mitsuru suffers at Haruhi's hands. And Kyon's semi-worship of Mitsuru's appearance is somewhat entertaining and probably pretty realistic to read about, but I think I'd be rolling my eyes the entire time RPing that. The other intra-Brigade Kyon ships appear to me to be less required of Kyon's characterization, though ironically I'm probably least reluctant about them. For Itsuki, I get the impression from fandom that he's supposed to act fantastically gay towards Kyon, but I...never noticed it at all and thus am pretty much neutral to the pairing. For Yuki, I can see where people would ship them and am pretty okay with it, but it seems the least likely to be canon from what I read despite it being by process of elimination my favoured intra-Brigade Kyon ship and I prefer to see it as being a stronger loyalty between the two than between most random pair-ups in the Brigade.
...Also I never finished reading the books available online anyway, so this concern over fandom opinions is quite futile.
Ayame Sohma of Fruits Basket
Why: I am not going to lie. I thought that it'd be fun to play him after watching the episode with his shop basically because he would probably join Shiki's shop and act like he owned it without thinking. Shiki would probably call him out on this eventually and he'd back down, but until then he'd probably accidentally take it over.
Why not: Because I didn't really feel like doing more than that with him, so it wasn't nearly enough reason to drop him in there.
There were at least a couple of others I'm forgetting, but by November I had settled on Fenimore. ...But there are a few others who tempted me to some extent, a couple of whom had journals made at one point but didn't really get much in the way of RPing done.
Arietta the Wild of Tales of the Abyss
Why: So over the past year I replayed Tales of the Abyss, finishing up early this year. While playing through the endgame, Arietta called out to me. I have to admit that with all of the Ion stuff happening at the end of the game, I actually felt notably more sorry for Arietta than for Anise. For the most part, she wasn't a bad person: it's true she killed Jade's soldiers and attacked the port, but it wasn't done out of malice. It was mostly that she had fallen in with bad company and, well, it's not like Tales heroes haven't done similar things to soldiers opposing them. Not to say it wasn't something bad she had done and she did seem too willing to kill people sometimes, but she didn't seem to be overall a bad person.
When it came down to the final battle with Arietta, it rubbed me the wrong way that the reasoning behind fighting her to the death seemed at least partially because the party felt that it was better to, well, put her down due to her dependencies on Ion and Van. I couldn't really think of a better way to deal with it, but I wished there was. So, combined with my sympathy for her earlier on, I thought that I would like to RP her. I even vaguely considered trying her out at Luceti. I thought it'd be fun to bounce her off the Abyss crowd and, as someone raised by forest creatures but living among humans, to bounce her off Moro and San. It'd also be fun to spread around rumours about how Anise had killed "Mommy" (and Ion, if I took her from that point in time), and see whether anyone got a bad impression of the Abyss party because of it.
Why not: Because I can't play a second character. But even if I could, there are two major issues with Arietta. One is to not have her go off the deep end over Ion's death and/or try to fight Anise to the death in a place where death isn't permanent. Second is because it's never really expanded on what Arietta thinks about humans compared to monsters, and this would be a big issue when talking to Moro and San, since Arietta seems fine with humans despite also liking monsters. I'd worry too much that I was picking the wrong interpretation.
Gaston from Beauty and the Beast
Why him?: Because it'd be funny. And, while by the end of the movie he'd earned the title of villain with his attempt to blackmail Belle into marrying him, he didn't start off as a villain. He just started off as a jerk, and I don't mind jerks as characters. And, again, Moro would be fun to bounce off of: I could totally have Gaston do the whole mob song schtick in the village square and see what people's reactions were.
And, yes, song. It would be extra awesome to play Gaston as though people randomly bursting into chorus were normal in his world. ...Though I guess this isn't as new an idea now that we have Simba about, though I did think of this separately. I feel like Leibniz.
My eventual goal would probably be to bounce him around until he improved to be someone people could possibly stand and just had a high view of "manliness." So he could set up a school of manliness and name it something like the Youth's Manliness Correction Association. Sure, no one would go, but it would be worth it for Gaston to sing a song advertising the YMCA.
Why not: Because I can't play a second character. But more that no one would ever talk to him. In his probable time period, when his views on women were probably fairly common, early movie Gaston was probably just a big jerk. To the generally more egalitarian worlds that everyone else comes from, he probably is upgraded to a douchebag. Granted, I'm not a stranger to playing douches and it would certainly not be impossible to get him CR, but it would take a lot of patience to keep going with it when I have another, more likeable character.
The biggest problem, though, aside from my tendency to fail at more than one character, is that once Gaston encountered Moro...I can't figure out how he would stop dying. See, he'd be inclined to go hunting. So Moro'd probably eat him, or at least give the impression that this is her favoured position. A week later, convinced of the dangerous beast in the woods, he'd try to raise a mob to kill Moro. So San would stab him. And then Gaston would try to kill Moro again. And die pitifully. And...well, I can't see anyone managing to convince Gaston that Moro wasn't a danger to the village to be killed and I really can't see anyone liking Gaston enough to even try convincing Moro he wasn't a moron who deserved to die, because the former part is true even if killing him is possibly excessive. The first time would be okay. Possibly even morbidly funny. I can even think of a good death penalty: forgetting Belle, so then he can fixate on whoever he chooses as the most beautiful unmarried girl in the village instead and drive her up the wall. But eventually it would get a bit...unplayable. So instead I will eventually toss him someplace like a dressing room for laughs, possibly.
Ashitaka from Princess Mononoke
Why: Ashitaka was not the person I had suddenly clung to when it came to first watching this movie. Strangely enough, if I had been inclined to RP anyone, it was Jigo. But I had the passing thought of RPing him because he's pretty cool. And being able to play against a Moro and a San would be pretty amazing.
Why not: Because I can't play a second character. Also because playing against a Moro and a San would be amazing, but even more amazingly hard. He's also kind of boring in some ways, to be perfectly honest.
Several people from Pokémon Adventures/Special (This is where I suspect Kyo is screaming in frustration, should he read this.)
Why: Back when Kyo was gunning to develop a great Pokésupe cast at Luceti, I thought it might be interesting to take part, though I had intended to at least wait until May. I started reading the manga, which I had only read a very brief amount when I was younger and the first few volumes were at my library, and I kept an eye out for possible characters.
Why not: I briefly toyed with the idea of playing Crystal, since Kyo was sad that there were so few Crystals out there. I wasn't entirely sold on it, even if I knew I could probably play her, but I did think about derping about dear_mun for a bit sometime, just to try. Then I read the Ruby/Sapphire arc and Ruby stole my heart. I decided that I'd wait to see if he didn't find anyone by May and then think on it if he were still available. When someone reserved him and even made a journal, I snuck around to see whether they seemed reasonably likely to go through with it. When it looked like they would, I shrugged and moved on. I briefly considered playing Jasmine as a hybrid of manga canon with backup from game canon, because she is moe and I like cute things, but that didn't last long because she doesn't really have a big role in the manga. Later, I did take some time to consider "Missy" Berlitz, but since the translation ran out at a fairly important moment and she still was keeping some secrets that would likely be important to her characterization, I shrugged and moved on.
So the main reason is that "I can't play a second character" but also due to some bad luck and the closure of apps.
And, with probably some missing, are the characters I considered over the past year. Thankfully, my will is pretty strong, or else you can see I would have dropped a lot of characters over the past while. But I'm pretty satisfied with Fenimore, not least because I don't worry so much that I'm character-squatting on such an uncommon character since I fail in activity so much.
...Yeah, over 8 pages. Pretty long.