(no subject)
Fiyero (Wicked) - March 27 2006, 88.5% in.
My prince~ Originally, Fiyero was going to be from musicalverse. Anyone who knows Wicked knows that musicalverse!Fiyero =/= bookverse!Fiyero, and so when I sent my first app draft to Elphie to look at, she went '...uh.' And since he was being apped for Elphaba, it seemed like a good idea to maybe try to match canon.
I read the entire book in twenty-four hours and spent the next three days writing and rewriting and rerewriting his app. Over and over and over. Now I hate it, but it got him in, and that's what mattered.
Something about Fiyero appeals to me, in both his canons. He seems like a simple character - in musicalverse, he's a brainless rich popular kid who in a SHOCKING TURN OF EVENTS becomes the love interest for the adorable misunderstood nerd; in bookverse, he's the love interest whose role is basically to die. Either way, Fiyero turns up, looks cute, dies horribly, and sets off Elphaba's descent into emo and wickedness. But he's more than that. At first glance his part of canon is basically politics and porn, but there's actually a lot more in there. He's gentle, compassionate, kind, thoughtful, loving, a warrior prince who's easily frightened and tends to blush and burst into tears...uh.
Not that I realized that. He just seemed like he'd be interesting to play at camp. And he is. He's almost been dropped...countless times. Seriously countless. Even now I know exactly how I would drop him, almost down to the precise words. He's the character I've headdesked, emoed, ranted, raged and cried over. He's also the character with the strongest hold in camp, the most friends, and apparently endless ways to do something new and interesting. He's friendly and he likes discussing stuff, which means that while he's not my spamwhore, I never run out of things to say and do with him. Oh Fiyero, my hero, I love you so.
Reginald Shoe (Discworld series) - May 6 2006, 93.6% in. Dropped...not long after he arrived.
My zombie! Reg was an impulse app. I wrote it in about twenty minutes, going 'haha, this is fun but I'm so not apping him', went '...well maybe I should get it betaed anyway', sent it to a couple people and got enabled so. hard. So I sent it.
In retrospect, this was a grievous mistake. Reg is a fantastic character in canon, especially as young!Reg, but his driving force - what literally animates him - is revolution. And you can't really revolt properly in camp. And people kept tearing down his barricades. >:
He was incredibly fun to play, but completely unsustainable. There is only so much to do with such a single-minded character.
Glinda of the Arduennas (Wicked) - May 22 2006, 80.7% in.
My witch ♥.
Glinda was damage control. During the first Audience Appreciation Weekend, Swift requested Elphaba/Glinda with a bit of Fiyero, and I wrote a couple drabbles and realized simultaneously that 1) Glinda was the obvious next likely character to be apped from Wicked, 2) Glinda could really fuck Fiyero up if she tried and he was already very shaky, 3) Glinda's voice was incredibly easy for me even though I hated her character. Ugh, fluffy pink blonde bimbo. So I wrote an app for her, thinking that at least if I didn't get in, other appers might be discouraged by someone who was already trying.
It took, oh, about two comments for me to realize that her voice was still easy to play, and I was kind of enjoying the sheer brainless twittering. A few weeks later, she was seeming less annoying and more cute. Now I'm absolutely smitten with her.
Glinda is my spamwhore. She will come into almost any post; she always has a reason to talk to someone. She is highly sociable and her voice is practically instinctive. If I'm tired but want to play, I log into Glinda's journal, disengage my brain, and start typing. When I'm exhausted, she slides easily into autowitter mode and just keeps talking with no apparent thought process behind it. She's my most emotionally and physically vulnerable character and the only one I didn't app for anyone except myself. In both musicalverse and bookverse she, like Fiyero, appears to be a simple character, but there's a lot of depth there. I can just keep exploring Glinda's character, thoughts, reactions, feeling...everything about her, and be endlessly fascinated by who she is.
I have seriously considered dropping Glinda, too, but when it came down to it I couldn't. I don't think I ever can. Glinda will most likely be the last character I'm left with, and is the reigning queen of all my crew. Because she's just that special.
Rumpleteazer (Cats) - July 10 2006, 82.4% in. Dropped eleven weeks after her brother idled.
My kitten.
So our long-gone Carrot-mun and I were in IRC, one day, going 'hee hee, I wonder what the weirdest characters ever apped have been' and somehow the conversation drifted onto Cats and we realized that there were kittens and that we both loved Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer. And then we went and bothered the poor mods until they told us that any young character with a voice was appable.
Rumpleteazer was the first character I ever fangirled. When I was perhaps five I discovered Cats and immediately adored her. She was the most obvious choice of character for me, and apping her and getting in was incredible. Her voice was easy, instinctive, fun, even though she was a massive energy drain. She got into the best mischief, she made wonderful friends, I enjoyed every single thread she was ever in. Especial love to Ahiru and Harley, who made my kitten a joy to play off.
When Mungojerrie idled, it became very hard. Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer are a unit. They are never ever ever apart. It was only a matter of time until Rumpleteazer noticed her brother was gone, and once she realized he wasn't coming back, she couldn't stay. She would have lost all will to live, and I couldn't do that to my kitten.
So I dropped her, and it was the hardest thing I've done in the game. I did not want to. My heart broke during her drop post; there were a lot of tears. But it was still better than trying to play her without Mungojerrie, and I do not regret letting her go. They had to be together.
I still miss her.
Haruno Sakura (Naruto) - September 9 2006, 74.5% in.
My ninja! Sakura had been apped twice before, and she came from a canon with some awesome characters in camp, and most of all I loved Lee. After Fiyero's drama and emo, I was pretty confident of my ability to hang onto a character come hell or high water, which meant something would have to go horrendously wrong before I dropped her. Like going completely OOC - but I didn't think I'd do that.
I knew then that a lot of people thought I would drop her pretty quickly. For a while, I thought I would too, because her voice was - and still often is - incredibly difficult for me, and the apparent lack of confidence in my ability made me very shaky and nervous. Many of her cast and the mods, bless them all, encouraged me when I felt like I was failing so hard people were going to have to invent a new word to describe exactly how much I failed, and sheer stubbornness took care of the rest. Think I'll drop her, do you? Well I'll show you >|
She's not as active as she could be, and maybe should be. She's very hard for me to play - I wonder, often, whether it was the same for the two previous appers, because my gods, never has there been such a tricky character for me - so she doesn't get out and get active as much as the easier characters. Still, her activity is pretty solid, and the more she ninjas about in the background, the more confident I become. Work in progress that may never be completed, but...I enjoy her. She's a challenge, and challenges can be a whole lot of fun.
Pamela Isley/Poison Ivy (Batman: The Animated Series) - December 30 2006, 95.6% in.
My supervillain. Oh, Ivy. I apped her for Harley, because I had so much fun playing off Harley with Rumpleteazer, and because I already had a basic knowledge of Batman. The other option that I briefly considered was Catwoman (SOMEONE APP HER), but Harley'n'Ivy go together and Harley is, as I may have mentioned, awesome. Also it is impossible to pass up the chance to make terrible, horrible puns and attempt to seduce superheroes and then kill them.
Writing her app was so much fun. Her punning is so much fun. I kind of fail quietly with her because it's hard, with a character like Ivy, not to get into a massive fight with everyone she sees. Especially all the hero-types. Unlike Harley, she's actually a dangerous character, and has no qualms about making elaborate plans to destroy all humans. I'd rather not - and the players would rather not - let Ivy kill any superheroes, not least because that would cause Armageddon when the vengeance attacks began. Nor can she seduce all of camp, because that almost inevitably leads to death or near-fatal poisoning unless you're Batman or Harley.
But she can badtouch you all with vines, damnit. And you'll like it. And so will I, because Ivy's brand of crack is addictive.
Abdel Adrian (Baldur's Gate) - February 25 2007, 89.5% in.
My hero.
By this point, my apping pattern should be clear. I app for other people. Elphaba, Mungojerrie, Lee, Harley...Imoen. I got the games and started playing them, not to app Abdel, but because I thought I should know Glinda's girlfriend's canon. Clearly if a character like Imoen can come out of a canon, it's worth some serious investigation, because omg Imoen ♥. Then I was linked to the Baldur's Gate Wikiquote page, saw the Protagonist's lines, and went '...I need to play this character. I need to.'
Imoen's pimping post had made me think about in the first place, but this solidified it. He clearly had a voice and a personality. He had fabulous lines. His canon had lines like 'You are amusing, in a "what the hell is wrong with you" kind of way.' and 'One has lots of time for reflection while waiting for the ENDLESS WAVES OF BAD DOGGIE WEREWOLF MONSTERS THAT CHEW YOUR TOES WHILE YOU SLEEP!!' and and a-and oh Baldur's Gate. Plus, hero character to balance out the supervillain. Bonus points!
Abdel got seriously handicapped by my job utterly destroying most of my play time at hours when people aside from Australasians are awake, and thus is quiet. But man, I adore him, and I want to explore his character so much more than I've been able to thus far.
In short: I heart my characters.