Revenge of the NUMBAHZ!
Yanagi Renji -- 3,756 (09/10/2005 - 06/25/2006) 12%
Sha Gojyo -- 16,968 (10/20/2005) 54%
Amelia Wil Tesla Saillune -- 753 (11/11/2005 - 02/22/2006) 2%
Hara Akiha -- 7,101 (01/31/2006) 22%
Tokitoh Minoru -- 1,786 (05/22/2006) 6%
Nuriko -- 1,198 (07/13/2006) 4%
Total Comments: 31,562
Days Played: 383
Average Comments Per Day: 82
Conclusion: I still fail at balance, but my spam-fu is getting slightly better. And the last time I did this (back in June) Akiha had only 2,695 comments. SO HAY YES, HE'S BEEN GETTING MORE ATTENTION THAN GOJYO LATELY. Wowz.
SO. Nishi's poll the other day got me thinking about what it takes to get one character settled in, whatever it is that makes you go "OH AWESOME, I'M NEVER DROPPING THIS BABY" (even if only for a couple of months). And I haven't been able to come up with a definite answer, of course, because there are a lot of factors that come into play here, but I want to ramble about my personal experience with my different characters, anyway.
Renji was my first character ever, he was apped on a whim and even though the app was written while the window was open (without reviewing much canon, or anything) he's the one who keeps winning for best IN percentage. Anyway, he had a good start and I was very happy with his interactions both with canon mates and other characters. Thing is, Renji is a ZOMG SERIOUS characters, his threads were never really long and sometimes bringing him out was very difficult, so I figured "HAY, BANDWAGONING COULD HELP WITH THIS." Which it did, except I was a n00b and kept running out of ideas for stuff for him to do, so I bandwagoned him a lot for the first... what? 4-5 months? By that time I had already gotten other characters in, other characters who I rarely bandwagoned because it felt wrong and because they didn't seem to 'need' it. That made me look back on Renji and feel all sorts of guilt and failure there, because even with all that stuff and the fact that he'd been longer in camp, I still couldn't bring myself to play him as much as the others. And yes, it was around that time that I started contemplating dropping him (never mind that it took me like another 3 months to actually do that because I didn't want to let go ;;).
As for his voice, I had... two main issues with it, mostly: The first one, is that it usually took me 5-7 minutes to reply to a comment and near the end, I always found myself dropping threads because I couldn't think of things to say/ways to phrase it, l-lolz. Second one, is I did all sorts of wacky things with honorifics for him (because he wouldn't freaking drop them) and I ended up mixing -san's with -kun's more than once (lack of play didn't help there >_>;). Also, fun fact! At the beginning, he actually used contractions and... um, not-big words. But after the first post, I decided to go with Inui's speech style because a) It made sense, and b) It actually gave him a more distinct voice! And... now that I think of it, Renji did use to drop the formal talk every now and then, but I'm pretty sure it was only in super-comfy/super-serious moments with Inui and/or when he was deaged.
Gojyo was the character I wanted to app since the beginning, but couldn't because technically he wasn't camper age. Blah blah, you all know this story. I got him approximately a month and a half after first getting Renji in and... well, he was a blast since the first post. Of course, it helped a lot that Sanzo and Goku were already here, but the more I played him, the more I came to realize that, yes, it was totally possible to have long threads with people you'd just met, and... yeah. As of this day, I have never once considered dropping him, and even though Akiha has been stealing his main character spot lately, I doubt I ever will. MY FLOOR MINE MINE MINE. D:
Voice-wise... I think I've somewhat successfully managed to keep him consistent. This is the part where I admit that I've never ever read the TP translations of Saiyuki, but I'm actually happy with the voice I've given him. He uses contractions, he swears, he utterly fails at using/understanding big words, he never uses honorifics unless he's poking fun at someone (or talking to certain girls) and... yeah, his voice is probably not as distinct as other characters' here, but I think it works for him and I've never received a complaint about it, so! |D
Amelia was half a whim, half not!peer-pressure by Sousuke-mun (who had gotten Xelloss in during the counselor round and was apping Naga, then. Another app that was written while the window was open and that did surprisingly well. I think my main issue with Amelia, was that I apped her too soon after Gojyo... and Gojyo was an attention whore, so even though she had a considerable amount of canon mates, I kept neglecting her in favour of the kappa. And, because of that same reason, I think she never managed to settle in, which is a shame, because I adored the relationships she had with Ash, and Tomo, and other people. :( I've actually considered reapping her more than once, because she's one of my favorite characters ever, but then other potential app ideas jump at me and, lulz.
As for her voice, I never eally had much issues with is. She was generally very polite, she used big words every now and then and... pretty much everyone was a -san. Yet, for these same reasons, I ended up staring at the screen for more than five minutes every now and then, PHRASING THINGS LIKE A PRETTY PRINCESS IS DIFFICULT, OKAY. D:
Akiha took a considerable while to settle in. Umeda was already in camp when he arrived, which was a HUGE help, but for some reason, even though he had a couple of close friends and everything, he just wouldn't settle in. I never really considered dropping him, either, but coming up with posts or excuses for him to interact with other people was really hard for the first four months or so. I like to blame this on IC issues, just because that's around the time the wishing well thing happened and... ironically enough, that helped Akiha to finally suck up and cope with camp. And around that same time he started talking more to Ayame, and stalking the Host Club people... so, heh. I'm really glad I kept working on him, because right now I love him like I'm blind and I can play him on auto-pilot 90% of the time, so victoleee~
And with the voice, we have another case of never having read the official translation. The HanaKimi scanlations you find floating around the web were done by many different people, and like half of them went from Japanese > Chinese > English, so you can imagine how messy they are. However, listening to the drama tracks helped me a lot to get a better idea of what his voice was like and all in all, I don't think I've done a bad job with it. Akiha is friendly-yet-formal, and he abuses tildes when he's in a good mood, or simply being playful. As for the honorifics, he only uses them with Japanese people, because I figured that having travelled so much, he has a good idea of how languages work in other places. And even so, if your character is Japanese and asks him to change or just plainly drop the honorific, he'll do so, because he's easy like that.
Tokitoh settled in way faster than I originally expected him to. I figured he'd take lots of work because of his "RAR HISS GO AWAY D<" nature, but people kept being nice to him, and, with Kubota here, he felt very safe and comfortable. He rarely posts (I think he's only posted twice or thrice since he got in, uhhh), but he can keep long threads when he ninjas and I can throw him pretty much anywhere, which is why I feel so guilty whenever I look at his comment count, because GAWD. He's not difficult to play, he's lots of fun, and I have zero intentions of dropping him, so wtf is wrong with me? Yeah, faaaaiiil at balance, but I'm working on it. And if Akiha's anything to go by, in a month or two, Tokitoh will be a spamwhore like the others... I hope, anyway.
As for Tokitoh's voice... oh man, THIS IS WHERE I HAVE ISSHUS. Not because it's difficult, but because there's no official translation for WA/EC yet (I think TP is releasing it in February?) and all I have to go by are scanlations/translations/subs, which don't particularly give him a distinctive voice. In this case, listening to the dramas helped a lot too, but I keep being paranoid about it, because I'm not sure having him use so many contractions/abbreviations sounds right. I see Tokitoh as half a kid, half an adult (or an adult who didn't have much of a childhood) and that's why I chose to have him talk like that, when in serious conversations his tone/speech patterns change actually change, but... yes. I keep dreading the moment TP's translation is released, because I bet his voice will be nothing like the one I've given him and only god knows what will happen then... I'll either have to re-adjust his voice or just go "screw you TokyoPop!" and... well, neither of those options make me particularly happy. DDD: (Also, haha, there's the eternal wangst of me not being a native speaker and going all "oh man, I can't do this, I bet I'm screwing up, asdghkgh").
And last, but not least... Nuriko, who's been in camp for like three months now and keeps failing at settling in. He has relationships, and he doesn't mind camp that much, so WHAT IS THE BIG ISSUE HERE? I could say it's because he's missing his canon mates, but that would be a big fat lie. I think it's mostly that, on a subconscious level, I keep forgetting that I have him and I rarely throw him into posts or anything. And then, hours or days later, I will be all "OH DAMN, WHY DIDN'T I HAVE HIM COMMENT ON THAT?!", hahaha fail. Right now, he's the only one of my current charas that I'd drop, but I want to give him another month or two to see if the situation improves or if it is a complete lost cause.
And, hah, his voice is something I keep struggling with and I guess this is another one of the reasons why he hasn't settled in yet. Usually, he sounds a lot like Akiha, cheerful, polite, tildes and stuff, and I'm like "waahhh, what am I doing why did I app another character with such a similar voice wrrryyyy." Then he starts being bitchy and yelling at people in size 8 font and everything gets better, but not everyone manages to make him lose his cool, so then I fall back into "wrrryyyy" and... yeah. I'm planning to rewatch canon and see if this can be fixed somehow, but I guess only time will tell.
And, yeah! BET YOU ALL WERE DYING TO KNOW THAT, HUH? Yay for random not-essays that splurt out of nowhere. 8Db
Sha Gojyo -- 16,968 (10/20/2005) 54%
Amelia Wil Tesla Saillune -- 753 (11/11/2005 - 02/22/2006) 2%
Hara Akiha -- 7,101 (01/31/2006) 22%
Tokitoh Minoru -- 1,786 (05/22/2006) 6%
Nuriko -- 1,198 (07/13/2006) 4%
Total Comments: 31,562
Days Played: 383
Average Comments Per Day: 82
Conclusion: I still fail at balance, but my spam-fu is getting slightly better. And the last time I did this (back in June) Akiha had only 2,695 comments. SO HAY YES, HE'S BEEN GETTING MORE ATTENTION THAN GOJYO LATELY. Wowz.
SO. Nishi's poll the other day got me thinking about what it takes to get one character settled in, whatever it is that makes you go "OH AWESOME, I'M NEVER DROPPING THIS BABY" (even if only for a couple of months). And I haven't been able to come up with a definite answer, of course, because there are a lot of factors that come into play here, but I want to ramble about my personal experience with my different characters, anyway.
Renji was my first character ever, he was apped on a whim and even though the app was written while the window was open (without reviewing much canon, or anything) he's the one who keeps winning for best IN percentage. Anyway, he had a good start and I was very happy with his interactions both with canon mates and other characters. Thing is, Renji is a ZOMG SERIOUS characters, his threads were never really long and sometimes bringing him out was very difficult, so I figured "HAY, BANDWAGONING COULD HELP WITH THIS." Which it did, except I was a n00b and kept running out of ideas for stuff for him to do, so I bandwagoned him a lot for the first... what? 4-5 months? By that time I had already gotten other characters in, other characters who I rarely bandwagoned because it felt wrong and because they didn't seem to 'need' it. That made me look back on Renji and feel all sorts of guilt and failure there, because even with all that stuff and the fact that he'd been longer in camp, I still couldn't bring myself to play him as much as the others. And yes, it was around that time that I started contemplating dropping him (never mind that it took me like another 3 months to actually do that because I didn't want to let go ;;).
As for his voice, I had... two main issues with it, mostly: The first one, is that it usually took me 5-7 minutes to reply to a comment and near the end, I always found myself dropping threads because I couldn't think of things to say/ways to phrase it, l-lolz. Second one, is I did all sorts of wacky things with honorifics for him (because he wouldn't freaking drop them) and I ended up mixing -san's with -kun's more than once (lack of play didn't help there >_>;). Also, fun fact! At the beginning, he actually used contractions and... um, not-big words. But after the first post, I decided to go with Inui's speech style because a) It made sense, and b) It actually gave him a more distinct voice! And... now that I think of it, Renji did use to drop the formal talk every now and then, but I'm pretty sure it was only in super-comfy/super-serious moments with Inui and/or when he was deaged.
Gojyo was the character I wanted to app since the beginning, but couldn't because technically he wasn't camper age. Blah blah, you all know this story. I got him approximately a month and a half after first getting Renji in and... well, he was a blast since the first post. Of course, it helped a lot that Sanzo and Goku were already here, but the more I played him, the more I came to realize that, yes, it was totally possible to have long threads with people you'd just met, and... yeah. As of this day, I have never once considered dropping him, and even though Akiha has been stealing his main character spot lately, I doubt I ever will. MY FLOOR MINE MINE MINE. D:
Voice-wise... I think I've somewhat successfully managed to keep him consistent. This is the part where I admit that I've never ever read the TP translations of Saiyuki, but I'm actually happy with the voice I've given him. He uses contractions, he swears, he utterly fails at using/understanding big words, he never uses honorifics unless he's poking fun at someone (or talking to certain girls) and... yeah, his voice is probably not as distinct as other characters' here, but I think it works for him and I've never received a complaint about it, so! |D
Amelia was half a whim, half not!peer-pressure by Sousuke-mun (who had gotten Xelloss in during the counselor round and was apping Naga, then. Another app that was written while the window was open and that did surprisingly well. I think my main issue with Amelia, was that I apped her too soon after Gojyo... and Gojyo was an attention whore, so even though she had a considerable amount of canon mates, I kept neglecting her in favour of the kappa. And, because of that same reason, I think she never managed to settle in, which is a shame, because I adored the relationships she had with Ash, and Tomo, and other people. :( I've actually considered reapping her more than once, because she's one of my favorite characters ever, but then other potential app ideas jump at me and, lulz.
As for her voice, I never eally had much issues with is. She was generally very polite, she used big words every now and then and... pretty much everyone was a -san. Yet, for these same reasons, I ended up staring at the screen for more than five minutes every now and then, PHRASING THINGS LIKE A PRETTY PRINCESS IS DIFFICULT, OKAY. D:
Akiha took a considerable while to settle in. Umeda was already in camp when he arrived, which was a HUGE help, but for some reason, even though he had a couple of close friends and everything, he just wouldn't settle in. I never really considered dropping him, either, but coming up with posts or excuses for him to interact with other people was really hard for the first four months or so. I like to blame this on IC issues, just because that's around the time the wishing well thing happened and... ironically enough, that helped Akiha to finally suck up and cope with camp. And around that same time he started talking more to Ayame, and stalking the Host Club people... so, heh. I'm really glad I kept working on him, because right now I love him like I'm blind and I can play him on auto-pilot 90% of the time, so victoleee~
And with the voice, we have another case of never having read the official translation. The HanaKimi scanlations you find floating around the web were done by many different people, and like half of them went from Japanese > Chinese > English, so you can imagine how messy they are. However, listening to the drama tracks helped me a lot to get a better idea of what his voice was like and all in all, I don't think I've done a bad job with it. Akiha is friendly-yet-formal, and he abuses tildes when he's in a good mood, or simply being playful. As for the honorifics, he only uses them with Japanese people, because I figured that having travelled so much, he has a good idea of how languages work in other places. And even so, if your character is Japanese and asks him to change or just plainly drop the honorific, he'll do so, because he's easy like that.
Tokitoh settled in way faster than I originally expected him to. I figured he'd take lots of work because of his "RAR HISS GO AWAY D<" nature, but people kept being nice to him, and, with Kubota here, he felt very safe and comfortable. He rarely posts (I think he's only posted twice or thrice since he got in, uhhh), but he can keep long threads when he ninjas and I can throw him pretty much anywhere, which is why I feel so guilty whenever I look at his comment count, because GAWD. He's not difficult to play, he's lots of fun, and I have zero intentions of dropping him, so wtf is wrong with me? Yeah, faaaaiiil at balance, but I'm working on it. And if Akiha's anything to go by, in a month or two, Tokitoh will be a spamwhore like the others... I hope, anyway.
As for Tokitoh's voice... oh man, THIS IS WHERE I HAVE ISSHUS. Not because it's difficult, but because there's no official translation for WA/EC yet (I think TP is releasing it in February?) and all I have to go by are scanlations/translations/subs, which don't particularly give him a distinctive voice. In this case, listening to the dramas helped a lot too, but I keep being paranoid about it, because I'm not sure having him use so many contractions/abbreviations sounds right. I see Tokitoh as half a kid, half an adult (or an adult who didn't have much of a childhood) and that's why I chose to have him talk like that, when in serious conversations his tone/speech patterns change actually change, but... yes. I keep dreading the moment TP's translation is released, because I bet his voice will be nothing like the one I've given him and only god knows what will happen then... I'll either have to re-adjust his voice or just go "screw you TokyoPop!" and... well, neither of those options make me particularly happy. DDD: (Also, haha, there's the eternal wangst of me not being a native speaker and going all "oh man, I can't do this, I bet I'm screwing up, asdghkgh").
And last, but not least... Nuriko, who's been in camp for like three months now and keeps failing at settling in. He has relationships, and he doesn't mind camp that much, so WHAT IS THE BIG ISSUE HERE? I could say it's because he's missing his canon mates, but that would be a big fat lie. I think it's mostly that, on a subconscious level, I keep forgetting that I have him and I rarely throw him into posts or anything. And then, hours or days later, I will be all "OH DAMN, WHY DIDN'T I HAVE HIM COMMENT ON THAT?!", hahaha fail. Right now, he's the only one of my current charas that I'd drop, but I want to give him another month or two to see if the situation improves or if it is a complete lost cause.
And, hah, his voice is something I keep struggling with and I guess this is another one of the reasons why he hasn't settled in yet. Usually, he sounds a lot like Akiha, cheerful, polite, tildes and stuff, and I'm like "waahhh, what am I doing why did I app another character with such a similar voice wrrryyyy." Then he starts being bitchy and yelling at people in size 8 font and everything gets better, but not everyone manages to make him lose his cool, so then I fall back into "wrrryyyy" and... yeah. I'm planning to rewatch canon and see if this can be fixed somehow, but I guess only time will tell.
And, yeah! BET YOU ALL WERE DYING TO KNOW THAT, HUH? Yay for random not-essays that splurt out of nowhere. 8Db