State of the Union stuff!

[areplicatedhope]

 
IN CHARACTER: Aurica is actually really happy about camp! Sure, Mir (who now calls herself Jacqli, which Aurica finds equal parts hilarious and weird) is in camp, but Aurica had mostly come to terms with the way that she had been used in canon anyway, so it's not as big a problem as it might have been if I had taken her from earlier on in canon. BUT I DIGRESS. Anyway, Aurica likes camp. There are other musicians around who genuinely like what they're doing - which inspires her to try it herself because why not! She can try and do it! This is what they are trying to do, create a world where humans, Teru and Reyvateil can live together in peace, and that means that Reyvateil are allowed to sing what they want and when, not just for combat when their human partner tells them to. It's a little scary at times, she finds, being confronted by all this freedom of choice, but she's working on it. She's also kind of confused at the people who don't treat her as weird and listen to her. She knows she's weird and gloomy sometimes (though she is really trying to work on that!) so she's really grateful that people don't shun her for it. Also, Lyner is in camp, and it's hard for her to feel bad about Lyner being in camp … though she does wish that he wasn't so close to Luca and Chroche. :|!!
OUT OF CHARACTER: I HAVE TO CANON REVIEW! Other than that, Aurica doesn't get out as much as I would like but I'm sort of … stuck with what to do with her. I like her, and I like her canon, problematic as it can certainly be at times, but I get to the posting and make faces. Aurica is a fairly complicated character with all kinds of intimacy issues and dependency issues, so I feel kind of … bad sometimes inflicting her on people. Also yes, she is awkward, yes she is kind of a creeper when it comes to music people, and yes, she is kind of passive-aggressive when you piss her off … which is surprisingly easy. She's fairly easy to play, but I feel kind of awkward and bad doing it sometimes. GO FIGURE. I also need to replay Ar Tonelico: Melody of Elemia and actually play all of Ar Tonelico: Melody of Metafalica, especially in time for Ar Tonelico Qoga coming out!

DESIRE TO PLAY: 7/10
ODDS OF DROPPING: 4/10
AURICA NESTMILE;
Ar Tonelico: Melody of Elemia

hymnandmusicbox


IN CHARACTER: Colette is pretty chill in camp! There's not really a lot bothering her - to be fair, it's really hard to upset Colette now! But she's happy! Sure, it's kind of bad that Lloyd is in camp because Lloyd doesn't' really take well to being stuck in any one place for very long, but she is happy that they're starting to get everyone back together again. She would rather be outside camp and back in Aselia, fixing their troubles there, but she's okay with waiting for all of them to come into camp in their own time and then as a group leaving to FIX THEIR WORLD!! and somehow bring Mithos along as an only occasional potted plant, and Ratatosk and Richter out of the Ginnungagap. She's kind of chill because clearly they do something right, as Arche is around, is a half-elf and isn't all "I CRAWL IN MY SKIN ABOUT MY HALF-ELF NATURE". So something must go right, and they just have to work together towards it and make it EVEN MORE AWESOME.
OUT OF CHARACTER: I don't feel half as awesome with Colette as I would like. Colette is a really interesting, compelling character and while it's easy to play her as a bubbly airhead (…which to be fair, she really is…) there's a lot more to Colette and I'm not sure if I'm getting that out or getting it out organically. I don't get her out half as much as I should, and I also need to canon review with her to remember all the awesome badass things that Colette does. Right now I feel like I'm simplifying her to make her easier to play? idk. BASICALLY TELL ME I AM AWESOME!!

DESIRE TO PLAY: 6/10
ODDS OF DROPPING: 4/10
COLETTE BRUNEL;
Tales of Symphonia 1/2

divinefailure


IN CHARACTER: Elliot is fairly convinced that he has gone completely off the deep end, and is hallucinating a great swathe of everything in camp … if not everything… People keep telling him about things he never did do or doesn't remember doing, every time he tries to remember he gets a splitting headache and his chest hurts (so he knows something is up, if not necessary what), he did things that he doesn't understand … it's really disturbing! And he's not about to tell anyone in camp, because a) either they are his hallucinations and therefore that's somewhat crazy or they're not and he'll look pretty crazy. So Elliot's kind of testy and irritable. He is also love goo'd and he finds that irritating as well. He likes Alice a lot, but he has no idea how this happened and doesn't really … find it reasonable or logical for him. So he keeps poking at it, which causes the headaches and chest pains and all that, because Elliot is nothing if not silly. He really misses Leo, if only to tell him that no, he's not hallucinating all of this and to be Leo. (He is sure not telling Oz. Oz will be all Oz-like and he refuses. REFUSES.)
OUT OF CHARACTER: SO GUESS WHO GOT JOSSED IN A BIG WAY. I aped Elliot in December during the middle of an arc focused on him - I figured that the arc was closing fairly soon and that with eight volumes of canon behind me, it's not like the mangaka could possibly spoil me this badly … oh how wrong I was. I had a few weeks of utter horror as I had to try and decide how much of what Elliot recounts is actually real and how much is just his fabrication and, more importantly, how much of Elliot is real and how much is a fabrication. Eventually I sucked it up and played, and then the latest chapter pretty much confirmed that Elliot is Elliot, he just has some memories missing. There's still the option of Elliot being absolutely batshit crazy (…well crazier than "someone who goes into fugue states and kills people"), but I feel more confident that the character I apped is the character I am playing. I need to get Elliot out more, even if he is a bit … Elliot-y and kind of difficult with social interaction. He is entirely capable of having normal, sensible conversations with people, he's just easily angered. Also, I can't lie, the lovegoo with Alice is hilarious and I regret nothing. Well. I do regret that a dinosaur wasn't an option, but much of a muchness, really.

DESIRE TO PLAY: 8/10
ODDS OF DROPPING: 1/10
ELLIOT NIGHTLAY;
Pandora Hearts

kepthishead


IN CHARACTER: Emil feels kind of strange! He knows he's changed, but he's not quite sure how or why, and whether it's a good thing. He's not crushing half as hard on Richter as he was at the end of the game (which was nothing like in the middle, hilariously), because he's kind of … of the opinion he can't help Richter that way. Richter is more broken than he knows how to deal with, so he wants to help him as his friend, but he's … not totally wanting to bone him any more. Lloyd in camp is a weird experience too, because it means that he can ask him questions without it being directly related to his massive identity crisis; in part because he's already resolved it for the most part, and because that's not what they're in camp for. In any case, he misses Tenebrae and Marta, if only to talk this stuff out and find out what it is he wants and who he wants to be.

Ratatosk hates camp. Hates it utterly with everything he can hate with. He's not half as powerful as he should be, in part because part of his power is being siphoned off to keep himself and Richter out, and part because camp fucks with his powers. He misses Marta, though he'd be loathe to admit it to anyone who wasn't Marta - and even then it would be a hard thing! While he doesn't dislike the ToS cast, he doesn't really like them overly much? They're Emil's friends, not his, and he doesn't really want a whole lot to do with them outside of the whole "protect Marta" thing. He also still thinks that Richter is a douche.
OUT OF CHARACTER: Emil is the character I currently feel the most shaky on. I haven't played his game in a while, and I don't feel like I have his voice at all. It doesn't help that Emil goes through a lot of changes in what is a very short game, to the point where his speech patterns actually change halfway through! I thought I had a handle on them, but lately it seems like I'm not really getting him right at all. That said, I do dearly love my DID squirrel summon spirit, I just need to canon review and take notes. I have the PAL release now, which means that I get all sorts of hilarious bonuses, so I'm going to get hold of a cable that allows me to play it through my computer, so that I can make new icons for him as well. I think he's next on my list for canon review because I really do feel kind of … sloppy with him.

DESIRE TO PLAY: 7/10
ODDS OF DROPPING: 3/10
EMIL CASTAGNIER;
Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World

nut_timesharing


IN CHARACTER: Hope is super disturbed by camp, but is kind of sublimating it as best he can until Light and Snow get here, where he can dump on them his concerns. Cocoon is gone out of the sky, which is disturbing him more than he can say. It's nice to be able to walk around and interact with people without them going "l'Cie!!" and trying to kill him, and it's really nice to be able to see Vanille again. He really likes seeing Vanille, because the last he saw of her, he wasn't ... expecting to see her ever again. So spending more time with her isn't a bad thing. That said, he's not really sure what to do in camp. He doesn't have a Focus anymore, he isn't running for his life and really while he wouldn't mind not all this, there's this nagging feeling that he should be doing something. He's just not sure what. He needs Light to give him his new focus so that he can motivate the others to follow it, and Light's not here! Total tragedy! So instead he's going to fuss over Vanille instead and make sure she doesn't do too many stupid things.
OUT OF CHARACTER: Hope still isn't cemented in my head yet as to who he is. I have a general idea, but I'm not as strong on him as I'd like. To be honest, I'm not as worried about that as perhaps I could be, because it took me a while to warm to a few characters, and they stuck around for a fair amount of time. I am excited about the sequel because apparently we are going to get some answers for the questions they raised and ... never answered. I mean, right now, I know I am handwaving Hope's powers still being present in camp because I simply don't know what they're going to do in the sequel. (I personally am going with "camp did it and Hope wouldn't know any better") If I had to drop him, I could, but right now he's a lot of fun. I'm going to replay the game on youtube because I am too damn lazy to replay it on my PS3 in the near future and take so many notes, because he was not the character I was expecting to app. (For those following at home, it was Snow. Yeah. YEAH.)

DESIRE TO PLAY: 8/10
ODDS OF DROPPING: 2/10
HOPE ESTHEIM;
Final Fantasy XIII

actualizedname


IN CHARACTER: Julian feels trapped in camp. To be fair, Julian feels trapped in canon as well, so that's not a surprise. He both does want friends (because Julian is actually a fairly gregarious and charismatic person when he isn't being miserable) and wants everyone to leave him alone to sulk. Except that he also knows that if he sulks forever he will never stop sulking. He knows that he's miserable and lashing out and being generally kind of ridiculously unpleasant to know, and sometimes he wants to change that. Other times he's just too tired and unhappy to do anything about it and figures that anyone who thinks it's annoying can sit on it and spin. Laura leaving both was a relief and wasn't - he wants her to be happy, but he doesn't think that anyone can be happy where they are right now, and he thinks that using her in X-Force was a horrific thing to do. Screw you, Doucheclops. So right now he's kind of alone and he thinks he likes it that way, except that he's self-aware enough to know that he doesn't. Really, Julian is very confused and angry that he is confused, and is kind of annoyed at the expectation people have that he act like a reasonable human being. God! Who expects that!
OUT OF CHARACTER: I feel kind of bad sometimes that the character I apped is not really the character I am playing at the moment. When I picked Julian up, he had just appeared in the first issue of Laura's ongoing, and I figured that this was the new direction for him - still irritable, but mostly over his issues. Then he started appearing in Legacy and while on the one hand I ... do appreciate that he has gone through a lot of trauma and that it would be reasonable for him to be suffering from it (and thus am ... somewhat grateful to Carey for it), I feel that his handling of it is ham-fisted and rather contradictory to Julian in a lot of ways. So I ... tend to take from a variety of sources and synthesise it into what I think that Julian would be in this situation - I take a lot from the stuff that Yost wrote for Julian, the greater control in his TK from Laura's ongoing and the PTSD from Legacy. I'm more confident with what I'm doing now than I was a few months ago. A few months ago I was considering dropping him. Now I'm not. I do feel bad inflicting him on people (and at times it is inflicting), and feel like I should maybe do an opt-in post for people who want to try and jesus him or whatever. It is my intention to rehabilitate Julian enough so that he isn't constantly making scathing comments about himself and everyone around him. I just need a bit of help getting there!

...also, if his username offends, by all means tell me! I understand it is pretty much in bad taste, and if it does offend, I am more than happy to change it. Please, let me know! Also, Julian and I am not the same person at all, and while Julian goes off on some pretty ableist tirades at times (...ironic given that he's fairly disabled himself), I understand entirely that they might upset or offend.

DESIRE TO PLAY: 8/10
ODDS OF DROPPING: 3/10
JULIAN KELLER/HELLION;
Marvel Universe

needsahandjob


IN CHARACTER: Luke ... still feels kind of bad about the whole lying to people about whether he's alive or not. He's upset that he never got to tell Tear the truth before she left, but he's ... okay with her leaving. She's supposed to live her life and be happy and change their world, not worry about a dead replica. It's much the same with Guy; Luke is sad that he won't get to see him again, but he's adamant that Guy needs to be out in Auldrant, changing their world and not worrying about him. Now, if only he could convince everyone else of this... That said, Luke is still chilling around, palling around with Aradia and is super excited that now that she's alive, she's a lot happier, palling around with Machika and wondering if they could team up to tease Rain some more, or whether that would bring up traumatic Jade things. Also, Jade and Peony are never allowed to deage again jfc, though Asch saying that he and Luke would both look after them made him warm and happy in his squishy place. Really, Luke is kind of settling in for the long haul, accepting that while he's here, he's alive and he has a responsibility to everyone to try and make their lives better, not just for Akzeriuth, but because doing good things feels good. It took him a while to realise that he's allowed to feel good about helping people, but now he's got that under control, he's going to seize it with both hands.
OUT OF CHARACTER: I HAVE BEEN REPLAYING TALES OF THE ABYSS AND LUKE IS ADORABLE. For a while I was uncertain about him, but I think I have a better command over who he is and where he is going. Though I expect my cast to beat me if I do not. But I love how Luke can be angry, he can be short-tempered and he can be easily riled by people ... but on the other hand he genuinely loves everyone and wants them to live happy lives. I love playing Luke :(.

DESIRE TO PLAY: 10/10
ODDS OF DROPPING: 0/10
LUKE FON FABRE;
Tales of the Abyss

areplicatedhope


IN CHARACTER: So, Ronan is doing dumb things. He's sorting out the fact that he ... seems to be the wizard on call for a Species Choice for the trolls, and he finds that alarming to say the least because he knows that a) he is a fairly terrible role model and b) he is also kind of a terrible advocate at times. That said, he is trying, to varying degrees of success. He got goaded into trying to take down the barrier, despite knowing it would fail, because if he succeeded, then the place would suck less (...except he failed :(). For a while, he felt kind of homesick and drawn out too far, because of his determination to help as many people as he can, and having been on errantry for years is a draining thing. However, now that he has done some dumb things and is building a truly horrible weapon of mass destruction in his cabin, things are better. God only knows what Kurt and Jaime think of Ronan's penchant for mass destruction.
OUT OF CHARACTER: I WAS GOING TO DROP HIM UNTIL I CHANGED MY ICONS ngl. I was getting pretty tired of the meta jokes, and how they never seemed to stop. But now he has a new PB and it's someone who makes hilarious faces. I go back and skim read over Ronan's dialogue in A Wizard of Mars fairly regularly, so that I remember how he turns a phrase. DD has also announced that she is in the process of rewriting Ronan's first appearance to make it more congruous with what has happened in Ireland since 1993 - I am not sure how this will work and how it will change Ronan because Ronan's whole ... attitude was strongly shaped by the Troubles. Oh well, we'll see when she releases the book!

DESIRE TO PLAY: 10/10
ODDS OF DROPPING: 0/10
RONAN NOLAN JR;
Young Wizards

tobethemiracle


IN CHARACTER: Steph thinks that camp is super weird. She kind of likes patrol at the moment because it is really easy; no psychopaths in clown costumes or anything like that, just zombies, gorillas and toucans, and those she can take down without any trouble at all. She feels a little like she's falling into a rut, but then she tries something different like doing it with her eyes closed or with a hand behind her back just to see if she can. She hasn't gotten up to trying with a big ball yet, but it is coming. Really, Steph is just treating camp as a working vacation.
OUT OF CHARACTER: Steph's canon is amazing and I wish I was half as good as her writer at writing her being amazing. I don't play her half as much as I should for either personality, and that's a shame because Steph is amazing. I'm hoping that someone apps Cass Cain in the near future so that she can be ~inspired~ some more and spar with her. Or makeouts. Either or. I'm easy like that.

DESIRE TO PLAY: 7/10
ODDS OF DROPPING: 3/10
STEPHANIE BROWN/BATGIRL;
DC Universe

comesinfourth


IN CHARACTER: Traci is pretty chill with camp. She goes out and investigates ruins around the place, and finds it bizarrely charming that camp creates them just for her to explore and then gets rid of them afterwards. She found out that Jaime is acting as a babysitter for one of the trolls and finds that hilarious. She's also just kind of tooling around, asking kind of meta questions and hoping that no-one realises how much she is leaning on that fourth wall.
OUT OF CHARACTER: Traci was an impulse app and god, does it show. I kind of play her when I feel like it, and don't when I don't. This is probably a bad attitude to have, because Traci is easily my least played character, but everyone needs a backburner! Or so I tell myself. If I had to drop her, I could do it easy. I know that at some point I will have to start dropping characters to get myself to a manageable total. We'll see how Traci goes when that comes up.

DESIRE TO PLAY: 4.5/10
ODDS OF DROPPING: 5/10
TRACI THIRTEEN;
DC Universe

acitygirl