That essay that Aeon has been bugging me about for weeks. [*spoilers*]
In the serious poll about apping, I mentioned my mysterious and whimsical ways.
Let me show you them.
Thinking about it, there are some factors that I do consider each time I go to app seriously. I really try to get a good spread of characters, particularly since I do tend to app along a pretty strict pattern (arrogant, jackass, verbally abusive, male -- exception proves the rule -- supporting characters who are failed heroes with troublesome connections to the past, serious fixation problems and difficulty relating to other people). So, idealistic and severe French revolutionary... witty vampire soldier in recovery... dead gay bitchy Japanese secretary who fights crime... and now, a sociopathic shounen-retard street-punk testtube baby on rollerblades. How, oh, how did it ever come to this.
As a side note, when I was little kid, I wanted to be a spy when I grew up. CFUD allows me to live my fantasies in more ways than one.
Moving on.
The First Rule of Ninja Apping: Do Not Talk About Ninja Apping
I AM TOTALLY BREAKING THE FIRST RULE HERE. But given what I pulled this time, it's pretty damn unlikely that I'll ever be able to ninja like that again, so I might as well pass on the tale to the masses.
First of all, it is helpful to locate yourself in a hilltop secret base deep within the wilds of the forest.
If it is within your means, employ guards. Know your minions well.
And be sure that they are fearsome.
Failing that, there are still some basic steps that anyone that can take.
I don't app regularly, and I also never tell anyone when I'm apping (and if you ask me, I might tell the truth and I might lie, for either a yes or a no), so I've always kept a low profile that way. And in the months leading up to, er, the months that led up to apping Sora, I repeatedly mentioned how satisfied I was with three characters, how well everything was going with them. Which was true. (And it also meant that I probably needed someone new sometime soon, because I prefer having a challenge to overcome.)
Also, just as a habit, I tend not to advertise what I'm currently reading or watching. Generally, this is because I am not currently reading or watching anything, but it's also just good business practice. With older canons, this is something of a problem -- some suspected my Tatsumi app because, well, I had Tatsumi's handsome face plastered on my LJ's user info -- but I've already apped from my big two (Les Mis, which didn't count as I actually was a newbie when I apped that, and Yami). And at this point, I tend to know that I'm interested in apping someone fairly quickly -- that is, before I would normally have the chance to talk to anyone about it, anyways. So it's no big chore to keep the relevant cards close to the chest, so to speak. THE NINJA MUST HAVE CONTROL. Which is to say, "develop a built in delayed-reaction to canon spazzing."
...as for Air Gear.
Way back on May 20, Box made a super-sexy Air Gear pimping post. Knowing that I would be losing my lovely, lovely high-speed internet when I graduated, I downloaded the first six volumes, which were linked there. In addition to my just downloading things as a matter of principle, that rapist guy seemed pretty hilarious and the girls were hot.
Then it just sat on my computer while I continued dying- I mean, graduating and moving back home for the next month or so.
It didn't really cross my mind again until "Which of your characters is the hottest" serious poll on August 22. It was then that I noticed that Kazu and Spitfire were very hot. Then, I actually paid attention to how old Kazu was, and was, like, "...lol wut." In any case, I liked the art style and all of the chatter about it in chan (...mainly about Aeon being a rapist and Kazu being the bottomiest bottom who ever bottomed) was piquing my curiosity, so I began stalking Spitfire and Aeon, because the two of them are really gay. And it was good.
So when I found myself sitting around the house one early September afternoon and feeling like reading something, I though, "Hey, I have those first six volumes of Air Gear that I downloaded back in May and never read."
So I read through them that afternoon.
...and needed to find out what happened next.
It was during this period of time that you might remember me struggling with running posts and threading in general due to my connection being a bitch. This was actually due to the fact that I was frantically downloading Air Gear the entire time, some of which I could only find downloadable as entire volumes. (Ninja Tip: search out your own sources, don't ask anyone for links.)
My big softspot was for the flamers -- Spitfire, Kazu and Aeon -- and all of them were taken, so I had no fear of wanting to app them. Besides, while I loved the characters and, had they not been already taken, might have considered apping them, it's unlikely that I would have actually done it.
As for Sora, he was all right, in that Obligatory Cool Mentor Figure sort of way. Sure, he was cool! But he wasn't very interesting to me. Besides, I wasn't all that taken with the series as a whole. All of the fan service was a turn-off for me, and I wasn't a big fan of the moral compass that the series seemed to be developing. Shounen retard hero clawing his way to the top, with the ultimate moral justifier being victory? It was growing both boring and unappealing.
...then we got past the Kansai arc. And little bits began popping up that hinted that Sora actually hadn't come to terms with what had happened to him. And that he wasn't as pure and Obi-Wan Kenobi-y as he'd seemed in his first appearance -- not as far as things like general behavior went, of course, because, yeah, PERVERT but in the sense of there being some real resentment and jealousy bubbling under the surface. And I began paying more attention to him and thinking, "....hmmm. Maybe... just maybe... I might want to..."
THEN CAME THE THROW-DOWN WITH THE FLAMETARDS. And I just loved that the series' biggest villain was also a shounen retard, one with a lot of similarities to the hero, and the way that drove Ikki onto a different course (with some help from Spitfire, of course). And I just had to... admire how skillfully Sora had pulled that all off. Sure, he's evil, but damn, he's good at it.
And I thought, "...do want."
But! While Sora would have been interesting and fun to play just before the big reveal, that particular plot twist presented some problems. Big problems. And I thought, "Well, that would have been great, but they couldn't possibly want him in camp, could they? It would be like getting a fucking Muraki!" So I went and checked all relevant pimping posts and serious polls. Sora was mentioned in the original pimping post! But that was made before the big plot twist had happened, I despaired, so they didn't really know what they were asking for. So I found a "characters you REALLY DON'T WANT IN CAMP" serious poll, and found that Sora wasn't mentioned! But then, I thought, you really couldn't mention Sora in that, because that alone would be leading right into what was, at that point, the biggest spoiler in the series.
So I told myself that it was impossible and that I would just have to quietly fangirl him in isolation. Maybe write some fic or something. Stalk camp's entire Air Gear cast, which I did, indeed, begin doing.
...but they didn't stop. The thoughts. Of what could happen. Of how cool it would all be. Of how I knew that I would be able to pull it off. There are maybe some personality-related reasons as to why I like Sora so much.
And sometimes, there just comes that moment in a person's life when he or she takes a good look at him or herself and realizes, sweet mother of Jesus, I'm a rat bastard on rollerblades.
While the above photograph is, of course, staged, it recreates an actual moment in my life.
Let us move on from that.
The Second Rule of Ninja Apping: Do Not Appear to Be a Ninja
I honestly do prefer to remain as anonymous as possible during the apping process. I like to make a lack of personal bias as easy to achieve as possible, and as far as beta-ing goes, I feel that it makes it easier not to inadvertantly make any assumptions. And in this case, well...
"Hi, there! I've killed/severely traumatized over half of your cast. Love me? :D"
...I wanted to make it as easy as possible for anyone in the cast to say that they didn't want me to app Sora.
After nearly a week's worth of agonizing, it had gotten to the point where my first conscious thought upon waking in the morning would be something related to apping Sora, so I finally sucked it up and sent my first e-mail to Ikki on September 24.
Ninja, take note! In an effort not to inadvertantly fuck-up one's future efforts, one must be cautious and remember to act in full accordance with the way of the ninja every step of the way, even if one does not know how far one plans to take the ninjaing. So from that very first e-mail, I constructed an identity of someone with nothing to hide. An unfamiliar but fairly normal-sounding e-mail address with a complete name attached to it, the most open tone possible in the e-mail itself. AND NO OUTRIGHT LIES.
The name used for the e-mail account was my legal birth name, and nothing in the e-mail was untrue, though it was all very misleading. The impression of it being from a new person was entirely deliberate -- I didn't use any camp-related slang, nicknames or references until they were used on me first, and the grammatical construction in general was a little stilted, just to give an overall sense of unfamiliarity. I also approached it as if I didn't know any of you personally, and, thus, wouldn't be as familiar with your alt-characters, personal preferences, schedules, etc.. My basic rule of thumb was that I couldn't reference or take into consideration anything that someone entirely unfamiliar with camp wouldn't know without first looking it up and fact-checking it, and that I then had to use that information in the most objective manner possible. Also, I avoided my personal written-conversation quirks: lots of dashes (I used ellipses instead), an abundance of commas (though I did use Oxford commas, which I usually avoid), hedging phrases (e.g. "that was sort of the best thing ever") and my typical laugh (variations of "ahaha" were replaces with variations of "eheheh"). As far as that "no outright lies" thing went, noncommital statements of fact were my best friends. Basically, everything that was stated outright was true; almost everything that was implied was false.
In any case, I received a favorable reply from Ikki!
I then contacted everyone the next night and contact with the rest of the cast was set into motion. The basic guidelines that I stated in that big paragraph up there remained in place, in addition to varying my e-mailing habits as far as they related to my being signed into IRC or being otherwise visible online.
As I began receiving replies from more people, I realized that I didn't want to be lame and bother everyone so far ahead of time and then not have anything to show them for it, so I figured that I should probably begin putting that app together sometime soon.
With that in mind, for the period of October 7-9, I went and crashed Buffy's room with Rikuou and Bart. And it was there that the first words of the app were put to paper, as I wrote the first draft of my canon section in the room with all of them there. While listening to my Sora playlist on my iPod.
To be a ninja, one must be bold and shameless.
By the time I got back, I had heard from most of the Air Gear cast and hadn't gotten any refusals yet. So I put together a Comprehensive Apping Plan. It was while writing that essay that I broke for the first time and PMed Watari, saying that I wanted to app a character who had significant OOC coordination issues and I was writing a plan of action for the camp's current cast and oh god why was it so long. But I finally finished it and got it sent on October 14.
Then Akira wanted into my pants.
I took this as a good sign.
November 10, the first draft of the app was sent.
...November 18, the first draft of a second version of the app, which would be the one that eventually made its way to voting, was sent. If you heard Aeon talking about long apps at any point, yes, this was the one with the 1011-word long sample entry. Voice-based humor is easiest for me, as opposed to joke-based humor, and I don't find Sora's voice to be particularly distinctive or funny, so my poor betas were forced to sit through me throwing every possible joke I could possibly think of at them in order to see which ones worked best and would make the cut. (THE WEAK WERE DISCARDED.)
We were well on our way.
The Third Rule of Ninja Apping: Perseverance (See First Rule)
In between the writing of the Comprehensive Apping Plan and working on the apps, I was idly contemplating revealing my identity to the cast. After all, the main reason for my anonymity was, as I mentioned before, was that I wanted to make it as easy as possible for people to tell me "no go." But again, there is my general desire for anonymity. Additionally, by now, it was becoming... more involved. For instance, during the vampire incident before Halloween, I received a PM from Ikki. And I just froze. And went through a few other comments before clicking on that chat window.
...it was, naturally, about the thread we were working on with Ikki and Maladict.
That incident led to a couple of things. First of all, it started me on a path to the true realization of the Second Rule of Ninja Apping by reminding me that as long as I didn't give anything away, no one had any reason to believe that I was up to all of this. Second of all, it caused be to wonder, "Wow, I wonder how you live with paranoia like this all the time?" Which got me to thinking about what Sora had pulled off in canon.
Now, it was a matter of proving myself to myself. I had been working hard to prove to the Air Gear cast that I was worthy of their acceptance. Now, it was time for me to prove to myself that I was worthy of this character. 'YOU THINK YOU CAN HANDLE SORA?' I demanded of myself. 'HOW CAN YOU HANDLE SORA IF YOU CAN'T HANDLE THIS?' And so my journey transcended the practical, becoming a bonding experience for me and the character.
Plus, I figured that it would be worth the wait in order to get everyone's reactions. ♥
All of that, plus sheer pig-headedness, was what kept my mouth shut for three months. Because damn, it was hard sometimes! People would be mentioning things in chan or in their journals, but not explaining them completely because they'd already talked about them together, leaving me to wait and wonder what the hell they could possibly mean (e.g. Kazu being lube) and then hoping that I was alone in the house when I finally did get to it so that I wouldn't embarrass myself to squealing outloud to no one in particular. And then, me not commenting on harukami's sexy, sexy fics or not publicly gleeing over my sexy new helmet (because I didn't even want to bring up my rollerblading ways) or not doing fandom memes that were swamping my regular f-list because I didn't want to lie.
Eventually, I did let myself begin poking at some Air Gear characters with my other characters -- it would seem equally suspicious, I decided, if I seemed to be avoiding Air Gear for some reason, and I also wanted to have at least some acquaintances there so that I'd have a built in potentially cockblock of sorts if I got Sora and he decided to be troublesome. And while I still wanted to avoid talking about reading Air Gear, I did find myself with a convenient smoke screen -- I had begun reading Reborn, so I talked to people about reading that instead!
And so, I made it through the three months, only breaking when I sent my app to Watari for a non-canon beta a week before the app opening. Finally having someone who knew the truth, I snapped completely and rambled endlessly to her about Air Gear, despite the fact that she couldn't care less for the series.
Bless her soul.
The Fourth Rule of Ninja Apping: Perfecting the Dodge (Or, Sometimes I Do Top Rikuou)
It was during November that the near misses began. I had my own stuff pretty well under control, so I volunteered myself to do a bunch of betas for both the November camper round and the upcoming counselor round. After sending back a few of my betas, though, I realized that, since I have a very set way of organizing things, I was using the exact same format for the file names of the apps I was sending to betas and the beta'd apps I was sending back to other appers. If I unknowingly did a beta for an anon who was actually one of my betas, this could have been problematic! But luckily, I caught myself after only a couple of my own beta-ing efforts, both of which were for people whose identities I knew and who were not part of the Air Gear cast.
And early in November, Dust had made a post in her regular journal about some yaoi pairings, and I couldn't resist poking at aviy's comment about the way that Oh Great! handled homosexual character in Air Gear. It was true that this intrigued me! And then I was almost backed into a corner when she outright asked me if I'd read Air Gear. I was able to give the truthful answer of "Some!", given that I was a few chapters behind (thus meaning that I had not read ALL of Air Gear, hence the use of "some"), and followed that with the non-sequitor of how I had downloaded the first few volumes from the pimping post way back (also true -- I'd just also downloaded a lot of it since then). I'd say that was my closest call, but I came out of that incident feeling STRONGER.
Then, during mid-November, Rikuou's apping serious poll took place, and when we were chatting afterward, she asked about what my other apps had been. So I told her -- and actually asked her about my ninja skills, since I'd had a rather extensive conversation with her in a voting post as an anon. A potentially perilous conversation! But I was curious to know, so that I could maybe judge how sufficient my current level was. Apparently, it was sufficient! And that gave me a confidence boost.
By the beginning of December, a few things were happening. First of all, I was growing ever more bold, mainly because I was going insane due to having been keeping this up for nearly three months at that point. Second, what with having been concentrating on Sora so hard for so long , I was beginning to have some voice problems with my others. I complained about this to Rikuou.
[Maladict] Ahaha, I've been sort of going back to... a character that I don't even play in CFUD. Which has been WEIRD. And his voice is closest to Mal's, so there's the whole DANGER DANGER VOICE SMUSHING thing.
In fact, I even noted my little problem in the concrit comm.
Overall, I was being incredibly, remarkably honest. Because I had truly embraced the Second Rule of Ninja Apping.
Then, the week of apps, I took off for New York City to meet with Emiri and the Kentity. It was during that trip that Rikuou asked me if I was apping and I responded, "Ha ha ha, I could never have gotten an app done this week!", that I replied to a beta e-mail from Dust while in the Apple store with Emiri and Pell (which made me happy, given that I had said that I was on hiatus due to predicted lack of computer access, creating YET ANOTHER LAYER OF DISGUISE), and that I had a bunch of people gathered in my hotel room and showed them only some of the books that I had bought at Book Stop because the volumes of Air Gear that I had bought the other day were buried in my suitcase.
And the night of the app window, December 14, had another very near miss, this time in chan.
[Filif] I suppose I should sleep eventually, but I want to be here when the serious flailing starts.
* Vic has quit IRC (Quit: _)
[Filif] Bye Vic!
[Filif] ... drat.
[Homestar] swing and a miss
* Tomo has joined #campfuckudie
* ChanServ sets mode: +o Tomo
[Belldandy] one hour until apps close
[Belldandy] ding ding ding
[Belldandy] omgtomo
* NinjaMcZzzster is now known as Ashyboy
[Filif] Tomoooo~
[Aerrow] ...
[Aerrow] Ash~
[Tomo] omghi1
[Etna] GOOD LUCK APPERS o/
[Homestar] YAY
[Tatsumi] Same here, Filif. XD
[Homestar] ....hey does CFUD have any uhh camping songs
[Filif] you're not apping either, tats? xD
* Shigure|nap has joined #campfuckudie
[Shinn[MMMMACANDCHEESE]] So apps close in an hour?
[Aerrow] Homestar, we have Biz's CFUD apping song?
[Death] apps? What apps? ;)
[Homestar] What's that?
[Aerrow] thaaaaaaaaaaat's about it I think
[Aerrow] it's a song Biz sang a while back
[Tatsumi] ...except, you know. Further back in time than you. So my staying awake isn't as EXTREME.
[Aerrow] about apping
[Biz[homework]] ... what did I do.
[Aerrow] I still have it
[Aerrow] XD
[Filif] ... pfft xD
...apparently, my continuation of my first statement worked in lieu of me actually answering the question. Which I never did.
Remember: one can find cover in large crowds, such as the main chan during an app window.
The time, however, was coming to a close. Because of work -- and also because was seriously about to explode through my skull -- I was hoping to end up in either the first or second voting batch. Lucky for me, it was batch number two.
In the interest of this post not exceeding character limits, I'll put the log of the reveal in a separate post as an epilogue of sorts. But watch Aeon from chan to chan. It's pretty hilarious.
During the fray of that reveal, Ikki claimed that she was going to rape me at the next given opportunity. To which I can only respond...
...bring it, punk.
I love you all.
Now complete with IRC logs.
Let me show you them.
Thinking about it, there are some factors that I do consider each time I go to app seriously. I really try to get a good spread of characters, particularly since I do tend to app along a pretty strict pattern (arrogant, jackass, verbally abusive, male -- exception proves the rule -- supporting characters who are failed heroes with troublesome connections to the past, serious fixation problems and difficulty relating to other people). So, idealistic and severe French revolutionary... witty vampire soldier in recovery... dead gay bitchy Japanese secretary who fights crime... and now, a sociopathic shounen-retard street-punk testtube baby on rollerblades. How, oh, how did it ever come to this.
As a side note, when I was little kid, I wanted to be a spy when I grew up. CFUD allows me to live my fantasies in more ways than one.
Moving on.
The First Rule of Ninja Apping: Do Not Talk About Ninja Apping
I AM TOTALLY BREAKING THE FIRST RULE HERE. But given what I pulled this time, it's pretty damn unlikely that I'll ever be able to ninja like that again, so I might as well pass on the tale to the masses.
First of all, it is helpful to locate yourself in a hilltop secret base deep within the wilds of the forest.
If it is within your means, employ guards. Know your minions well.
And be sure that they are fearsome.
Failing that, there are still some basic steps that anyone that can take.
I don't app regularly, and I also never tell anyone when I'm apping (and if you ask me, I might tell the truth and I might lie, for either a yes or a no), so I've always kept a low profile that way. And in the months leading up to, er, the months that led up to apping Sora, I repeatedly mentioned how satisfied I was with three characters, how well everything was going with them. Which was true. (And it also meant that I probably needed someone new sometime soon, because I prefer having a challenge to overcome.)
Also, just as a habit, I tend not to advertise what I'm currently reading or watching. Generally, this is because I am not currently reading or watching anything, but it's also just good business practice. With older canons, this is something of a problem -- some suspected my Tatsumi app because, well, I had Tatsumi's handsome face plastered on my LJ's user info -- but I've already apped from my big two (Les Mis, which didn't count as I actually was a newbie when I apped that, and Yami). And at this point, I tend to know that I'm interested in apping someone fairly quickly -- that is, before I would normally have the chance to talk to anyone about it, anyways. So it's no big chore to keep the relevant cards close to the chest, so to speak. THE NINJA MUST HAVE CONTROL. Which is to say, "develop a built in delayed-reaction to canon spazzing."
...as for Air Gear.
Way back on May 20, Box made a super-sexy Air Gear pimping post. Knowing that I would be losing my lovely, lovely high-speed internet when I graduated, I downloaded the first six volumes, which were linked there. In addition to my just downloading things as a matter of principle, that rapist guy seemed pretty hilarious and the girls were hot.
Then it just sat on my computer while I continued dying- I mean, graduating and moving back home for the next month or so.
It didn't really cross my mind again until "Which of your characters is the hottest" serious poll on August 22. It was then that I noticed that Kazu and Spitfire were very hot. Then, I actually paid attention to how old Kazu was, and was, like, "...lol wut." In any case, I liked the art style and all of the chatter about it in chan (...mainly about Aeon being a rapist and Kazu being the bottomiest bottom who ever bottomed) was piquing my curiosity, so I began stalking Spitfire and Aeon, because the two of them are really gay. And it was good.
So when I found myself sitting around the house one early September afternoon and feeling like reading something, I though, "Hey, I have those first six volumes of Air Gear that I downloaded back in May and never read."
So I read through them that afternoon.
...and needed to find out what happened next.
It was during this period of time that you might remember me struggling with running posts and threading in general due to my connection being a bitch. This was actually due to the fact that I was frantically downloading Air Gear the entire time, some of which I could only find downloadable as entire volumes. (Ninja Tip: search out your own sources, don't ask anyone for links.)
My big softspot was for the flamers -- Spitfire, Kazu and Aeon -- and all of them were taken, so I had no fear of wanting to app them. Besides, while I loved the characters and, had they not been already taken, might have considered apping them, it's unlikely that I would have actually done it.
As for Sora, he was all right, in that Obligatory Cool Mentor Figure sort of way. Sure, he was cool! But he wasn't very interesting to me. Besides, I wasn't all that taken with the series as a whole. All of the fan service was a turn-off for me, and I wasn't a big fan of the moral compass that the series seemed to be developing. Shounen retard hero clawing his way to the top, with the ultimate moral justifier being victory? It was growing both boring and unappealing.
...then we got past the Kansai arc. And little bits began popping up that hinted that Sora actually hadn't come to terms with what had happened to him. And that he wasn't as pure and Obi-Wan Kenobi-y as he'd seemed in his first appearance -- not as far as things like general behavior went, of course, because, yeah, PERVERT but in the sense of there being some real resentment and jealousy bubbling under the surface. And I began paying more attention to him and thinking, "....hmmm. Maybe... just maybe... I might want to..."
THEN CAME THE THROW-DOWN WITH THE FLAMETARDS. And I just loved that the series' biggest villain was also a shounen retard, one with a lot of similarities to the hero, and the way that drove Ikki onto a different course (with some help from Spitfire, of course). And I just had to... admire how skillfully Sora had pulled that all off. Sure, he's evil, but damn, he's good at it.
And I thought, "...do want."
But! While Sora would have been interesting and fun to play just before the big reveal, that particular plot twist presented some problems. Big problems. And I thought, "Well, that would have been great, but they couldn't possibly want him in camp, could they? It would be like getting a fucking Muraki!" So I went and checked all relevant pimping posts and serious polls. Sora was mentioned in the original pimping post! But that was made before the big plot twist had happened, I despaired, so they didn't really know what they were asking for. So I found a "characters you REALLY DON'T WANT IN CAMP" serious poll, and found that Sora wasn't mentioned! But then, I thought, you really couldn't mention Sora in that, because that alone would be leading right into what was, at that point, the biggest spoiler in the series.
So I told myself that it was impossible and that I would just have to quietly fangirl him in isolation. Maybe write some fic or something. Stalk camp's entire Air Gear cast, which I did, indeed, begin doing.
...but they didn't stop. The thoughts. Of what could happen. Of how cool it would all be. Of how I knew that I would be able to pull it off. There are maybe some personality-related reasons as to why I like Sora so much.
And sometimes, there just comes that moment in a person's life when he or she takes a good look at him or herself and realizes, sweet mother of Jesus, I'm a rat bastard on rollerblades.
While the above photograph is, of course, staged, it recreates an actual moment in my life.
Let us move on from that.
The Second Rule of Ninja Apping: Do Not Appear to Be a Ninja
I honestly do prefer to remain as anonymous as possible during the apping process. I like to make a lack of personal bias as easy to achieve as possible, and as far as beta-ing goes, I feel that it makes it easier not to inadvertantly make any assumptions. And in this case, well...
"Hi, there! I've killed/severely traumatized over half of your cast. Love me? :D"
...I wanted to make it as easy as possible for anyone in the cast to say that they didn't want me to app Sora.
After nearly a week's worth of agonizing, it had gotten to the point where my first conscious thought upon waking in the morning would be something related to apping Sora, so I finally sucked it up and sent my first e-mail to Ikki on September 24.
Ninja, take note! In an effort not to inadvertantly fuck-up one's future efforts, one must be cautious and remember to act in full accordance with the way of the ninja every step of the way, even if one does not know how far one plans to take the ninjaing. So from that very first e-mail, I constructed an identity of someone with nothing to hide. An unfamiliar but fairly normal-sounding e-mail address with a complete name attached to it, the most open tone possible in the e-mail itself. AND NO OUTRIGHT LIES.
The name used for the e-mail account was my legal birth name, and nothing in the e-mail was untrue, though it was all very misleading. The impression of it being from a new person was entirely deliberate -- I didn't use any camp-related slang, nicknames or references until they were used on me first, and the grammatical construction in general was a little stilted, just to give an overall sense of unfamiliarity. I also approached it as if I didn't know any of you personally, and, thus, wouldn't be as familiar with your alt-characters, personal preferences, schedules, etc.. My basic rule of thumb was that I couldn't reference or take into consideration anything that someone entirely unfamiliar with camp wouldn't know without first looking it up and fact-checking it, and that I then had to use that information in the most objective manner possible. Also, I avoided my personal written-conversation quirks: lots of dashes (I used ellipses instead), an abundance of commas (though I did use Oxford commas, which I usually avoid), hedging phrases (e.g. "that was sort of the best thing ever") and my typical laugh (variations of "ahaha" were replaces with variations of "eheheh"). As far as that "no outright lies" thing went, noncommital statements of fact were my best friends. Basically, everything that was stated outright was true; almost everything that was implied was false.
In any case, I received a favorable reply from Ikki!
I then contacted everyone the next night and contact with the rest of the cast was set into motion. The basic guidelines that I stated in that big paragraph up there remained in place, in addition to varying my e-mailing habits as far as they related to my being signed into IRC or being otherwise visible online.
As I began receiving replies from more people, I realized that I didn't want to be lame and bother everyone so far ahead of time and then not have anything to show them for it, so I figured that I should probably begin putting that app together sometime soon.
With that in mind, for the period of October 7-9, I went and crashed Buffy's room with Rikuou and Bart. And it was there that the first words of the app were put to paper, as I wrote the first draft of my canon section in the room with all of them there. While listening to my Sora playlist on my iPod.
To be a ninja, one must be bold and shameless.
By the time I got back, I had heard from most of the Air Gear cast and hadn't gotten any refusals yet. So I put together a Comprehensive Apping Plan. It was while writing that essay that I broke for the first time and PMed Watari, saying that I wanted to app a character who had significant OOC coordination issues and I was writing a plan of action for the camp's current cast and oh god why was it so long. But I finally finished it and got it sent on October 14.
Then Akira wanted into my pants.
I took this as a good sign.
November 10, the first draft of the app was sent.
...November 18, the first draft of a second version of the app, which would be the one that eventually made its way to voting, was sent. If you heard Aeon talking about long apps at any point, yes, this was the one with the 1011-word long sample entry. Voice-based humor is easiest for me, as opposed to joke-based humor, and I don't find Sora's voice to be particularly distinctive or funny, so my poor betas were forced to sit through me throwing every possible joke I could possibly think of at them in order to see which ones worked best and would make the cut. (THE WEAK WERE DISCARDED.)
We were well on our way.
The Third Rule of Ninja Apping: Perseverance (See First Rule)
In between the writing of the Comprehensive Apping Plan and working on the apps, I was idly contemplating revealing my identity to the cast. After all, the main reason for my anonymity was, as I mentioned before, was that I wanted to make it as easy as possible for people to tell me "no go." But again, there is my general desire for anonymity. Additionally, by now, it was becoming... more involved. For instance, during the vampire incident before Halloween, I received a PM from Ikki. And I just froze. And went through a few other comments before clicking on that chat window.
...it was, naturally, about the thread we were working on with Ikki and Maladict.
That incident led to a couple of things. First of all, it started me on a path to the true realization of the Second Rule of Ninja Apping by reminding me that as long as I didn't give anything away, no one had any reason to believe that I was up to all of this. Second of all, it caused be to wonder, "Wow, I wonder how you live with paranoia like this all the time?" Which got me to thinking about what Sora had pulled off in canon.
Now, it was a matter of proving myself to myself. I had been working hard to prove to the Air Gear cast that I was worthy of their acceptance. Now, it was time for me to prove to myself that I was worthy of this character. 'YOU THINK YOU CAN HANDLE SORA?' I demanded of myself. 'HOW CAN YOU HANDLE SORA IF YOU CAN'T HANDLE THIS?' And so my journey transcended the practical, becoming a bonding experience for me and the character.
Plus, I figured that it would be worth the wait in order to get everyone's reactions. ♥
All of that, plus sheer pig-headedness, was what kept my mouth shut for three months. Because damn, it was hard sometimes! People would be mentioning things in chan or in their journals, but not explaining them completely because they'd already talked about them together, leaving me to wait and wonder what the hell they could possibly mean (e.g. Kazu being lube) and then hoping that I was alone in the house when I finally did get to it so that I wouldn't embarrass myself to squealing outloud to no one in particular. And then, me not commenting on harukami's sexy, sexy fics or not publicly gleeing over my sexy new helmet (because I didn't even want to bring up my rollerblading ways) or not doing fandom memes that were swamping my regular f-list because I didn't want to lie.
Eventually, I did let myself begin poking at some Air Gear characters with my other characters -- it would seem equally suspicious, I decided, if I seemed to be avoiding Air Gear for some reason, and I also wanted to have at least some acquaintances there so that I'd have a built in potentially cockblock of sorts if I got Sora and he decided to be troublesome. And while I still wanted to avoid talking about reading Air Gear, I did find myself with a convenient smoke screen -- I had begun reading Reborn, so I talked to people about reading that instead!
And so, I made it through the three months, only breaking when I sent my app to Watari for a non-canon beta a week before the app opening. Finally having someone who knew the truth, I snapped completely and rambled endlessly to her about Air Gear, despite the fact that she couldn't care less for the series.
Bless her soul.
The Fourth Rule of Ninja Apping: Perfecting the Dodge (Or, Sometimes I Do Top Rikuou)
It was during November that the near misses began. I had my own stuff pretty well under control, so I volunteered myself to do a bunch of betas for both the November camper round and the upcoming counselor round. After sending back a few of my betas, though, I realized that, since I have a very set way of organizing things, I was using the exact same format for the file names of the apps I was sending to betas and the beta'd apps I was sending back to other appers. If I unknowingly did a beta for an anon who was actually one of my betas, this could have been problematic! But luckily, I caught myself after only a couple of my own beta-ing efforts, both of which were for people whose identities I knew and who were not part of the Air Gear cast.
And early in November, Dust had made a post in her regular journal about some yaoi pairings, and I couldn't resist poking at aviy's comment about the way that Oh Great! handled homosexual character in Air Gear. It was true that this intrigued me! And then I was almost backed into a corner when she outright asked me if I'd read Air Gear. I was able to give the truthful answer of "Some!", given that I was a few chapters behind (thus meaning that I had not read ALL of Air Gear, hence the use of "some"), and followed that with the non-sequitor of how I had downloaded the first few volumes from the pimping post way back (also true -- I'd just also downloaded a lot of it since then). I'd say that was my closest call, but I came out of that incident feeling STRONGER.
Then, during mid-November, Rikuou's apping serious poll took place, and when we were chatting afterward, she asked about what my other apps had been. So I told her -- and actually asked her about my ninja skills, since I'd had a rather extensive conversation with her in a voting post as an anon. A potentially perilous conversation! But I was curious to know, so that I could maybe judge how sufficient my current level was. Apparently, it was sufficient! And that gave me a confidence boost.
By the beginning of December, a few things were happening. First of all, I was growing ever more bold, mainly because I was going insane due to having been keeping this up for nearly three months at that point. Second, what with having been concentrating on Sora so hard for so long , I was beginning to have some voice problems with my others. I complained about this to Rikuou.
[Maladict] Ahaha, I've been sort of going back to... a character that I don't even play in CFUD. Which has been WEIRD. And his voice is closest to Mal's, so there's the whole DANGER DANGER VOICE SMUSHING thing.
In fact, I even noted my little problem in the concrit comm.
Overall, I was being incredibly, remarkably honest. Because I had truly embraced the Second Rule of Ninja Apping.
Then, the week of apps, I took off for New York City to meet with Emiri and the Kentity. It was during that trip that Rikuou asked me if I was apping and I responded, "Ha ha ha, I could never have gotten an app done this week!", that I replied to a beta e-mail from Dust while in the Apple store with Emiri and Pell (which made me happy, given that I had said that I was on hiatus due to predicted lack of computer access, creating YET ANOTHER LAYER OF DISGUISE), and that I had a bunch of people gathered in my hotel room and showed them only some of the books that I had bought at Book Stop because the volumes of Air Gear that I had bought the other day were buried in my suitcase.
And the night of the app window, December 14, had another very near miss, this time in chan.
[Filif] I suppose I should sleep eventually, but I want to be here when the serious flailing starts.
* Vic has quit IRC (Quit: _)
[Filif] Bye Vic!
[Filif] ... drat.
[Homestar] swing and a miss
* Tomo has joined #campfuckudie
* ChanServ sets mode: +o Tomo
[Belldandy] one hour until apps close
[Belldandy] ding ding ding
[Belldandy] omgtomo
* NinjaMcZzzster is now known as Ashyboy
[Filif] Tomoooo~
[Aerrow] ...
[Aerrow] Ash~
[Tomo] omghi1
[Etna] GOOD LUCK APPERS o/
[Homestar] YAY
[Tatsumi] Same here, Filif. XD
[Homestar] ....hey does CFUD have any uhh camping songs
[Filif] you're not apping either, tats? xD
* Shigure|nap has joined #campfuckudie
[Shinn[MMMMACANDCHEESE]] So apps close in an hour?
[Aerrow] Homestar, we have Biz's CFUD apping song?
[Death] apps? What apps? ;)
[Homestar] What's that?
[Aerrow] thaaaaaaaaaaat's about it I think
[Aerrow] it's a song Biz sang a while back
[Tatsumi] ...except, you know. Further back in time than you. So my staying awake isn't as EXTREME.
[Aerrow] about apping
[Biz[homework]] ... what did I do.
[Aerrow] I still have it
[Aerrow] XD
[Filif] ... pfft xD
...apparently, my continuation of my first statement worked in lieu of me actually answering the question. Which I never did.
Remember: one can find cover in large crowds, such as the main chan during an app window.
The time, however, was coming to a close. Because of work -- and also because was seriously about to explode through my skull -- I was hoping to end up in either the first or second voting batch. Lucky for me, it was batch number two.
In the interest of this post not exceeding character limits, I'll put the log of the reveal in a separate post as an epilogue of sorts. But watch Aeon from chan to chan. It's pretty hilarious.
During the fray of that reveal, Ikki claimed that she was going to rape me at the next given opportunity. To which I can only respond...
...bring it, punk.
I love you all.
Now complete with IRC logs.