(( APP ESSAY MEME, PART ONE ))
THE APPING STORIES MEME. . . . Oh god you guys this is gonna be painful for y'all to read through. XD NEVAR APPING AGAIN I SWEARZ. T-this will be the first half of it; the rest will come later when I'm conscious and have a few more hours to kill.
1. Hasegawa Chisame. May 2005, 93.8% (30-2).
The TALE OF CHISAME! I discovered CFUD in May 2005 after someone linked it on Journalfen. I linked my girlfriend and the two of us spent an hour or so glancing through it, laughing at it, boggling at how insane it looked, reading old apps. I-I lost interest pretty quickly XD The truth of the matter is that, shamefully, I have NEVER actually been Audience. I read maybe two entire posts before I got in, and I never commented to one until I had.
I don't remember how I ended up deciding to app. It was the summer and I was bored, I think! And I started thinking, this place is insane, maybe I can kill a couple months and then move on. And I wanted to see if I could get in, I admit it.
I started considering characters who would be funny. My first instinct was to app Suu from Love Hina, but I decided she was too energetic and too intelligent for me to maintain. HAHAHAHAH. So I settled on apping from Negima, because it was my huge fandom obsession at the time (and still is!). . . . Wow, I've been into Negima for about two and a half years. . . . ANYWAY. I asked my friends who I should app, and every single one of them said to app Evangeline, because I had an Evangeline obsession. And I told them fuck no. XD CFUD was pretty much my first RP. I'd dicked around in a couple previous RPs but they all died quickly and I never posted more than once or twice. SO I wasn't at all confident in my skills to play a godmoder, which Eva is. And she's snarky and evil (kinda), and a sexualized child at that, and HUGELY POWERFUL, and I didn't want to step on any toes in this game, since I knew absolutely no one coming into it. Also, I wanted someone who would be vulnerable to things like the zombies and other campers, not someone who would brush it all off and bitch about bad coffee. XD
I really, REALLY wanted to app Asuna. But I couldn't think of an app at all--I wracked my brain and there was just no hook there for me to grab onto. I considered Ayaka next, but even though I had my hook, I couldn't think of good jokes or anything to flesh them out with. So I thought about it . . . I thought, "I need a character I like and can maintain, with an easy voice, who has an easy apping hook which hasn't been used before. Someone I can get in with." And it was pretty clear that Chisame was that person. She wasn't and never has been my favorite in the series, but she's always been in the top 5 or so, and she was a minor character so I didn't have much canon to review, and I KNEW people would find her cosplay thing funny.
I wrote Chisame's app about a week before apps opened (this was before people used betas lol) and throughout that week I would open it like once a day and reread it and see if I still liked it. I'd usually end up changing one or two lines, closing it again, and looking at it the next day. XD But after that initial draft, I only changed small things, and I sent it in, and got in! Hooo!
Chisame's CFUD ride has been long and rocky. She's been almost-dropped three times: a month after I apped her, in January 2006 when I knew either she or Asuna had to go, and then early this year, when I just didn't know how the hell to fix her. XD She's . . . she was my primary for like 8 months, she spammed a lot, and she's the kind of character who changes a lot, even in canon. And she didn't HAVE much canon when I apped her, and then suddenly she showed up again, and kept showing up. So I had to deal with how camp had changed her DRASTICALLY, and canon was suddenly making her a main character and the two visions kinda matched but kinda didn't.
I've had other issues with her too. I've made a lot of mistakes with her, and I think there's a danger with any primary character of softening the blows to help keep them playable--both the hits they deal out and the hits they take. I did that with her and she ended up doing a lot of things in her relationships that I HATE. XD But then earlier this year I started catching up on Negima canon again, and seeing what was happening to her, and thinking about her character. And I decided that while I didn't like playing my Chisame anymore, canon!Chisame was someone I would LOVE to play. The only option was to fix her, because memory-wiping and dropping/reapping never really work for resetting a character.
So, yes. I think in that time, I've done--all right, hopefully! |D I gave her a canon update and tried and am trying to slap her back IC, and at this point I'd like to think she's back to being IC. She's definitely more fun to play, because she's become the Chisame I love in canon, with a few camp-related differences. And it's fun to play with that, and I can't wait to see where canon takes her.
She has been here a long time and sometimes I almost feel guilty about that, like I should apologize to her. XD I'M SORRY, CHISAME. AND THANK YOU.
2. Sasaki Makie. June 2005, 89.7% (26-3).
Wow, app rounds went by quickly in those days. I find it funny that not only have I never been audience, but in all my two years at CFUD, I've only ever been a one-character player for two weeks. XD
I got Chisame in and I was having a blast, and so I started considering apping someone else. There were issues with Chisame that I was stuck on, being a new RPer, such as the fact that at that point in canon she hates everyone and everything. I was also dealing with some bad decisions I made with her RLY EARLY IN THE GAME. I didn't know how to get her out and doing things while remaining IC. So I decided I needed someone sociable and stupid and happy, to offset Chisame's bitter crankiness.
I was still like OMG NEGIMAAAAA and at that time I was really thrilled with Makie, after volume 7 happened and she got some great development. I wasn't sure at first how to app an ordinary girl, but apps were easier back then (Makie's app would be voted down SO HARD today) and I decided that I should just play off of her overly-friendly badtouchy ways and the fact that she's an idiot. I came up with an idea, wrote it, sent it, and got in on my birthday! |D
It's hard to believe I only played Makie two months, because I spammed the hell out of her in that time. In that time she got more comments than Asuna #2 has right now, and I've had Asuna twice as long, and she's currently my most active character after Tomo. XD In two months she formed a ton of relationships and bounced around a lot and had a lot of fun!
I think I can say that if Makie were my fourth or fifth character instead of my second, I'd have had her for a year or more, and might even still have her. But she wasn't . . . I got Makie when I was really, really new to RP. And I fell into a rut with her that lasted about two weeks, and I decided to drop her instead of giving her a chance, because I didn't have the CFUD experience (or OOC support, at that time) to give her another try. I think the final nail in the coffin was when I vampirized her for a day, and I had so much fun with it that I started considering playing Eva, and . . . but that's a story for app #4! 8D
Sometimes I still miss Makie and I do consider reapping her. She was fun while she lasted and I've wondered if I couldn't make an actual go of it this time around. But then I remember what happened to Mutsumi, and I think of how long she's been away, and--mostly, I get distracted by other characters. >D
3. Sohma Shigure #1. July 2005, 92.5% (49-4).
The less said about Shigure, the better. Ack. D: Counselors were opening and I was reading Furuba at the time, and was obsessed with it. I wanted to app Yuki, but we had a Yuki. XD And we had a great Furuba cast and I wanted to be a part of it, and Shigure was a favorite character of mine! And I figured he'd be an easy app to write, and lo and behold, he was. I had the idea right away, wrote it up with relative ease, and it did well.
He's a character I apped without really understanding him. The manga was still in progress and his motives were still really unclear--at that point we couldn't even tell wtf he was DOING. Not only that, but I hadn't actually read up to that point in the manga yet. I apped him from the early manga, and I'd read all the spoilers I could get my hands on and talked to the cast and all, and IT WAS NOT ENOUGH. N-never think it is, guys. XD So yeah, I hadn't put enough thought into his character and how devious and fucked up he really is. I KNEW that about him--I wasn't totally ignorant of his true nature. But I hadn't thought through how to play that in camp.
And of course he got in and was enormously popular, and I didn't have time to stop and think about these issues. Eventually I got paralyzed by self-crit--I'd be threading and I'd be like "Okay, everyone knows and loves this character. Am I doing him justice? Does this comment fully convey both sides of who he is? Is it silly and fun while also hinting at his TRUE NATURE?" and so on. It wasn't any fun, and it would take me like 10 minutes to even THINK of one of his comments. Sometimes you just don't click with a mindset or a voice, and that's what happened to me--he didn't come naturally to me, so his relationships were confusing for me to navigate, and I really had no other choice but to get the fuck out of Dodge. XD
I'm so glad we have an AWESOME SHIGURE now. Prz to forget I ever played him.
4. Evangeline A.K. McDowell. August 2005, 90% (45-5).
I LIKE HOW I USED TO APP EVERY SINGLE MONTH
As I mentioned, I had vetoed the idea of Eva for my first app because I wasn't comfortable playing that kind of character. Then, about a week before I dropped Makie, I vampirized her, and she went all evil and dommy. And man, I had a blast with that. XD It was basically playing Eva! But it didn't renew my interest in Makie, and I was considering dropping her to app Negi himself (at that time the character limit was 3 lol lol) and then suddenly one day--I can even remember WHERE I WAS (in my grandmother's kitchen!)--I was like "You know . . . maybe I COULD app Eva." And as soon as I thought that I was like "OH MY GOD. OMG I HAVE TO DO IT!!!" I-I actually don't think I've ever been that excited about an app again, with the possible exceptions of Tomo, Asuna #2 and Chao #2.
Her app was another that came easily to me, because she's intrinsically funny. I mean, loli vampire, yo. So I didn't bother with a hook--I just wrote what her natural reaction to camp would be, tweaked it a little here and there, and sent it. I was so, so damn happy when it got in, especially when I started playing her and realized I COULD do it after all and ackpbt. ♥
I think Eva helped me a lot as an RPer at a time when 1. Chisame was in a fucking weird spot, 2. Makie had failed, and 3. Shigure was causing me pain. Eva was never a spammer, and she's not the kind of character who should be, but just having her around was a godsend, because she was fun and fresh and she was a challenge, but never the kind of challenge that felt like WORK. And there was a lot she could do here that I hadn't been able to do before. I also don't think I ever made a major misstep in characterization with Eva, and that makes me happy, seeing as I had her a year and she got a TON more canon in that time. I would love a new Eva someday, and I want things to be nice and easy for them. |D
Eva I just kind of . . . lost interest in eventually, which was sad. I hadn't been playing her much and she hadn't gotten new canon in awhile, and it had been a year and I just didn't feel like commenting with her anymore. She took more thought than my easier characters, and I had Greed to worry about when I dropped her, and he also took a lot of thought and I didn't want to drop HIM. So I decided to let her go quietly, because she had had a good run.
Eva's another character I miss sometimes. In fact, I came veeeeery close to reapping Eva this round instead of Chao. XD At one point, I was basically resolved to do so. A few things changed my mind, the most important of which was that I decided that I'd already played her for a year and since I was taking an 8th, I wanted it to be someone new, not someone old. (Chao counts as new stfu.)
Overall, I didn't play her as much, but I always really liked Eva and I'm pretty proud of some of what she did here. I never felt stressed over her ICness or whether or not she was interesting. I'm glad I got the chance to play her for so long, but now it's someone else's turn. |D
5. Kagurazaka Asuna #1. September 2005, 94.1% (48-3).
Like I said before, Asuna is the character that I Always Wanted to Play. Every once in awhile between May and September I'd think to myself "Okay, can I think of an app for her?" And I just never could. Asuna's a fascinating character, but one of the things about her is that despite everything, she's very everygirl. She's a tempermental teenage girl who works hard and gets annoyed easily and likes cute clothes and has a paper route and worries about her grades. My mind was a total blank every time I tried to think of a way to app her. I KNEW she'd be great in camp and I KNEW I could play her . . . I just didn't know how to get her in.
One day I was rereading the manga and I got to the scene where she's forcibly bathing Negi and bitching at him about his hair, and I randomly thought to myself, forcible bathing. I finally had ONE joke to use in an Asuna app--and somehow that just opened the floodgates, and I was like "Yes, all right, I can write an Asuna app now." That joke wasn't even the focus of the app, so I have no idea why it cured my writer's block. XD It was just one of those things where finally getting SOMETHING down set me free to write what I wanted.
This was also the app where I figured out my apping method, which is basically to build the app around one or more things that actually already happened to the character in canon, but to twist them for the purposes of camp. I've done this in every app since then except for I think Greed's.
Playing Asuna . . . I always had a lot of fun, and I always felt IC. I loved her and I loved her voice, and I was happy. But. I had this problem where I never, ever played her. XD Chisame was my main character at the time, and canon still hadn't told us much about Chisame's thought processes in detail, so going off of how they reacted to posts and situations . . . it was the same. They're both tempermental, long-suffering "normal" girls. Chisame is intelligent and anti-social while Asuna is dumb and charismatic, but they both reacted to things with irritation and violence and confusion and common sense more often than not. Because Chisame was my main character and had a fuckton of relationships, she would reply to EVERYTHING, and Asuna would get no play.
Eventually I knew one of them had to go. My impulse was actually to drop Chisame; I like Asuna better as a character (she's actually my favorite fictional character in uh, anything. Ever). But dropping Chisame would have fucked over a lot of people, and dropping Asuna only affected two or three, and I felt awful about it but I decided I had to do it because she was never going to get more play.
Dropping Asuna was a mistake, but it all worked out for the best in the end. >D
6. Otohime Mutsumi. November 2005, 96% (48-2).
So I have this pattern. One thing I do a LOT is that I'll go into the app week stretch planning on apping a certain character, and then I'll change my mind at the last minute and app someone else. Mutsumi was the first time this happened to me. I'd decided I wanted to app from Love Hina, and I'd decided on Shinobu, because Akamatsu writes really damn awesome shy girl characters. I love Shinobu so much. :( And then--I'm not sure what happened. I looked at why I was apping Shinobu, other than loving the character, and I realized that it was because I wanted a nice sweet girl who would play with the characters I had lost contact with when I dropped Makie (like Ari and Momoko). So I decided it would make more sense to app a character with a disposition like Makie's! I also wanted someone older and ditzier. So I looked at Love Hina again--this was I think two nights before apps opened--and I decided that Mutsumi would be fun to play, so I wrote an app for her. Mutsumi's voice was very easy for me, and she's not a deep character, and I'd already been reviewing the canon! And she's another intrinsically funny character. So as with Eva, I just wrote about her reaction to camp. I did the whole thing in about half an hour and never touched it again, and got my highest in percentage for the next year and a half. :Dd
Unfortunately, Mutsumi was INCREDIBLY hard to maintain, which shocked me. Her voice came so naturally to me that I didn't foresee any problems, but . . . she bored me. In canon, Mutsumi is largely a plot device. She's very opaque, being one of maybe two or three characters in the series who never gets a single thought bubble (this is a device Akamatsu uses on some characters, to great effect). We get a lot of canon info about her, but not a lot of depth, and she reacts the same way to absolutely everything. Basically, she's HILARIOUS to watch, and she's still one of my favorite characters . . . but she sucked to play. XD She was, if there is such a thing, too easy. She's just such a brick wall when it comes to getting her to react.
I burned out on Mutsumi quickly and made the decision to drop her. I love her, and I didn't hate playing her, and I liked some of what she did. But eventually I just never wanted to pull her out, because it was so hard to keep threads going or think of a response that wasn't just repeating her last response.
7. Takino Tomo. January 2006, 89.3% (50-6).
. . . lol
Tomo was like, the second character I ever considered apping, or something. When I was apping the very first time, I considered Suu from Love Hina, and was like "No. Too much energy." When I was apping Makie, I briefly considered Tomo as well, and was like "HAHAH NO. WAYYYYY too much energy. I could NEVER maintain that." This might be surprising, but I'm not actually an energetic person. XD
At one point--I forget when, I think it was between apping Shigure and Eva--I actually wrote an app for Tomo. It was fun to write and I liked it, but again I looked at it and decided that because IRL I'm lethargic and hold back everything I say, I didn't have it in me to play someone who is absolutely fucking everywhere and holds back NOTHING. Then in late December we got a new computer, and the old Tomo app died with my old hard drive--I had never deleted it.
Cut to January! I knew I was dropping Asuna, and I was wanting to app again, and I wanted to app someone different. Someone not from a harem series. XD I'd just rewatched Utena, and I decided to app from it, because Utena is AWESOME. I decided I wanted a character who was deeply fucked up, basically. XD Someone with like . . . ISSUES. And EMO. And TWISTED MOTIVES. So I settled on either Kozue or Shiori.
I agonized for like two fucking weeks over those apps. I rewatched all their eps again, and took notes on their characters. I couldn't decide between them, so I endlessly analyzed what they would do in camp, who I wanted them to play with, how I would deal with xyz. I wrote an app for Kozue, eventually. It was okay, but not great . . . I think it would have gotten in then, but probably in the 70s (which uh, okay, I might be something of an app perfectionist, a-ahaha). I wasn't confident in it, really. So I decided to do Shiori's and see if it was any better, wrote a canon section, and then just beat my head against the wall trying to think of a way to make Shiori funny. AUGH.
TWO WEEKS I SPENT ON THOSE APPS. ;; And then the night before, I was still trying to do Shiori's and was almost in tears, and I was like FUCK THIS. XD The apps weren't fun, either of them. I'd been stressing over them so long that I wanted to claw my eyes out. So I decided that just to unwind, I would rewrite that old Tomo app, because I knew it would be mindless and fun. I didn't have to review canon (AzuDai is short and I've read it many, many times) and I wouldn't have to worry about depth or emo issues or whatever. I still didn't think I was going to APP Tomo at this point, mind you. I just wanted to unwind and smile for a change, so I decided to write something that would make me do that, and instead of a drabble or something I . . . wrote an app.
So I started writing it, and it was pretty similar to the original, with some rewording and additions. And while I was writing it, I was like "Oh god, this is like . . . not work at all. Why is it that I think I can't maintain Tomo when I can bust out an app for her in 15 minutes without thinking, while these other two characters have taken two weeks and extensive notes?" I also kept cracking up at myself while I was writing it, though that may have been the app stress talking. XD When that happened, I said fuck it--I was sending it in. And if I couldn't maintain her, well, I was just going to have to be AWESOME while she lasted and have fun and then go out with a bang. I didn't care anymore, I just wanted to do something cracky!
I've apped 15 times now--lol plz kill me. Out of those 15 apps, I've only KNOWN I was going to get in twice, and the first time that happened was with Tomo. XD Maybe it's just because I love Tomo so much and she's so clearly my kind of humor. But I remember rereading it and going "WHY WOULD ANYONE VOTE TOMO OUT EVER, SHE IS AWESOMESAUCE." It went up to vote and I was honestly shocked it scored as low as it did. As a disclaimer, I do in fact realize that I should be violated horribly and then shot dead for referring to 89% as "low," but Tomo's app was my lowest score ever at that time and is my third-lowest ever, and I honestly thought the app was much funnier than Mutsumi's. It's still probably one of my three favorites. She still got in just swimmingly, and I was like "Okay, now let's see if I actually have the energy for this character."
. . .
. . . I . . . did? 8D;
I do think Tomo's first couple posts were slightly off, and I know I've misstepped with her once in awhile, but she's the character I kick myself over the hardest to keep her IC, because she's my baby. I can't see anyone ever usurping her Main Character status; in fact, this is a SECRET, but I actually tend to feel guilty when another character gets as much play as she does for a stretch of a few days. XD; MY SPAMMINATOR, MY FAVORITEST. ♥ I hope you all enjoy her as much as I do, because I can't imagine not playing her. Me and Tomo, we're like this.
Uh okay so that was apps . . . 1-7. I-I'll have to do 8-15 tomorrow. Sob. I'm so tired I'm going to DIE.
1. Hasegawa Chisame. May 2005, 93.8% (30-2).
The TALE OF CHISAME! I discovered CFUD in May 2005 after someone linked it on Journalfen. I linked my girlfriend and the two of us spent an hour or so glancing through it, laughing at it, boggling at how insane it looked, reading old apps. I-I lost interest pretty quickly XD The truth of the matter is that, shamefully, I have NEVER actually been Audience. I read maybe two entire posts before I got in, and I never commented to one until I had.
I don't remember how I ended up deciding to app. It was the summer and I was bored, I think! And I started thinking, this place is insane, maybe I can kill a couple months and then move on. And I wanted to see if I could get in, I admit it.
I started considering characters who would be funny. My first instinct was to app Suu from Love Hina, but I decided she was too energetic and too intelligent for me to maintain. HAHAHAHAH. So I settled on apping from Negima, because it was my huge fandom obsession at the time (and still is!). . . . Wow, I've been into Negima for about two and a half years. . . . ANYWAY. I asked my friends who I should app, and every single one of them said to app Evangeline, because I had an Evangeline obsession. And I told them fuck no. XD CFUD was pretty much my first RP. I'd dicked around in a couple previous RPs but they all died quickly and I never posted more than once or twice. SO I wasn't at all confident in my skills to play a godmoder, which Eva is. And she's snarky and evil (kinda), and a sexualized child at that, and HUGELY POWERFUL, and I didn't want to step on any toes in this game, since I knew absolutely no one coming into it. Also, I wanted someone who would be vulnerable to things like the zombies and other campers, not someone who would brush it all off and bitch about bad coffee. XD
I really, REALLY wanted to app Asuna. But I couldn't think of an app at all--I wracked my brain and there was just no hook there for me to grab onto. I considered Ayaka next, but even though I had my hook, I couldn't think of good jokes or anything to flesh them out with. So I thought about it . . . I thought, "I need a character I like and can maintain, with an easy voice, who has an easy apping hook which hasn't been used before. Someone I can get in with." And it was pretty clear that Chisame was that person. She wasn't and never has been my favorite in the series, but she's always been in the top 5 or so, and she was a minor character so I didn't have much canon to review, and I KNEW people would find her cosplay thing funny.
I wrote Chisame's app about a week before apps opened (this was before people used betas lol) and throughout that week I would open it like once a day and reread it and see if I still liked it. I'd usually end up changing one or two lines, closing it again, and looking at it the next day. XD But after that initial draft, I only changed small things, and I sent it in, and got in! Hooo!
Chisame's CFUD ride has been long and rocky. She's been almost-dropped three times: a month after I apped her, in January 2006 when I knew either she or Asuna had to go, and then early this year, when I just didn't know how the hell to fix her. XD She's . . . she was my primary for like 8 months, she spammed a lot, and she's the kind of character who changes a lot, even in canon. And she didn't HAVE much canon when I apped her, and then suddenly she showed up again, and kept showing up. So I had to deal with how camp had changed her DRASTICALLY, and canon was suddenly making her a main character and the two visions kinda matched but kinda didn't.
I've had other issues with her too. I've made a lot of mistakes with her, and I think there's a danger with any primary character of softening the blows to help keep them playable--both the hits they deal out and the hits they take. I did that with her and she ended up doing a lot of things in her relationships that I HATE. XD But then earlier this year I started catching up on Negima canon again, and seeing what was happening to her, and thinking about her character. And I decided that while I didn't like playing my Chisame anymore, canon!Chisame was someone I would LOVE to play. The only option was to fix her, because memory-wiping and dropping/reapping never really work for resetting a character.
So, yes. I think in that time, I've done--all right, hopefully! |D I gave her a canon update and tried and am trying to slap her back IC, and at this point I'd like to think she's back to being IC. She's definitely more fun to play, because she's become the Chisame I love in canon, with a few camp-related differences. And it's fun to play with that, and I can't wait to see where canon takes her.
She has been here a long time and sometimes I almost feel guilty about that, like I should apologize to her. XD I'M SORRY, CHISAME. AND THANK YOU.
2. Sasaki Makie. June 2005, 89.7% (26-3).
Wow, app rounds went by quickly in those days. I find it funny that not only have I never been audience, but in all my two years at CFUD, I've only ever been a one-character player for two weeks. XD
I got Chisame in and I was having a blast, and so I started considering apping someone else. There were issues with Chisame that I was stuck on, being a new RPer, such as the fact that at that point in canon she hates everyone and everything. I was also dealing with some bad decisions I made with her RLY EARLY IN THE GAME. I didn't know how to get her out and doing things while remaining IC. So I decided I needed someone sociable and stupid and happy, to offset Chisame's bitter crankiness.
I was still like OMG NEGIMAAAAA and at that time I was really thrilled with Makie, after volume 7 happened and she got some great development. I wasn't sure at first how to app an ordinary girl, but apps were easier back then (Makie's app would be voted down SO HARD today) and I decided that I should just play off of her overly-friendly badtouchy ways and the fact that she's an idiot. I came up with an idea, wrote it, sent it, and got in on my birthday! |D
It's hard to believe I only played Makie two months, because I spammed the hell out of her in that time. In that time she got more comments than Asuna #2 has right now, and I've had Asuna twice as long, and she's currently my most active character after Tomo. XD In two months she formed a ton of relationships and bounced around a lot and had a lot of fun!
I think I can say that if Makie were my fourth or fifth character instead of my second, I'd have had her for a year or more, and might even still have her. But she wasn't . . . I got Makie when I was really, really new to RP. And I fell into a rut with her that lasted about two weeks, and I decided to drop her instead of giving her a chance, because I didn't have the CFUD experience (or OOC support, at that time) to give her another try. I think the final nail in the coffin was when I vampirized her for a day, and I had so much fun with it that I started considering playing Eva, and . . . but that's a story for app #4! 8D
Sometimes I still miss Makie and I do consider reapping her. She was fun while she lasted and I've wondered if I couldn't make an actual go of it this time around. But then I remember what happened to Mutsumi, and I think of how long she's been away, and--mostly, I get distracted by other characters. >D
3. Sohma Shigure #1. July 2005, 92.5% (49-4).
The less said about Shigure, the better. Ack. D: Counselors were opening and I was reading Furuba at the time, and was obsessed with it. I wanted to app Yuki, but we had a Yuki. XD And we had a great Furuba cast and I wanted to be a part of it, and Shigure was a favorite character of mine! And I figured he'd be an easy app to write, and lo and behold, he was. I had the idea right away, wrote it up with relative ease, and it did well.
He's a character I apped without really understanding him. The manga was still in progress and his motives were still really unclear--at that point we couldn't even tell wtf he was DOING. Not only that, but I hadn't actually read up to that point in the manga yet. I apped him from the early manga, and I'd read all the spoilers I could get my hands on and talked to the cast and all, and IT WAS NOT ENOUGH. N-never think it is, guys. XD So yeah, I hadn't put enough thought into his character and how devious and fucked up he really is. I KNEW that about him--I wasn't totally ignorant of his true nature. But I hadn't thought through how to play that in camp.
And of course he got in and was enormously popular, and I didn't have time to stop and think about these issues. Eventually I got paralyzed by self-crit--I'd be threading and I'd be like "Okay, everyone knows and loves this character. Am I doing him justice? Does this comment fully convey both sides of who he is? Is it silly and fun while also hinting at his TRUE NATURE?" and so on. It wasn't any fun, and it would take me like 10 minutes to even THINK of one of his comments. Sometimes you just don't click with a mindset or a voice, and that's what happened to me--he didn't come naturally to me, so his relationships were confusing for me to navigate, and I really had no other choice but to get the fuck out of Dodge. XD
I'm so glad we have an AWESOME SHIGURE now. Prz to forget I ever played him.
4. Evangeline A.K. McDowell. August 2005, 90% (45-5).
I LIKE HOW I USED TO APP EVERY SINGLE MONTH
As I mentioned, I had vetoed the idea of Eva for my first app because I wasn't comfortable playing that kind of character. Then, about a week before I dropped Makie, I vampirized her, and she went all evil and dommy. And man, I had a blast with that. XD It was basically playing Eva! But it didn't renew my interest in Makie, and I was considering dropping her to app Negi himself (at that time the character limit was 3 lol lol) and then suddenly one day--I can even remember WHERE I WAS (in my grandmother's kitchen!)--I was like "You know . . . maybe I COULD app Eva." And as soon as I thought that I was like "OH MY GOD. OMG I HAVE TO DO IT!!!" I-I actually don't think I've ever been that excited about an app again, with the possible exceptions of Tomo, Asuna #2 and Chao #2.
Her app was another that came easily to me, because she's intrinsically funny. I mean, loli vampire, yo. So I didn't bother with a hook--I just wrote what her natural reaction to camp would be, tweaked it a little here and there, and sent it. I was so, so damn happy when it got in, especially when I started playing her and realized I COULD do it after all and ackpbt. ♥
I think Eva helped me a lot as an RPer at a time when 1. Chisame was in a fucking weird spot, 2. Makie had failed, and 3. Shigure was causing me pain. Eva was never a spammer, and she's not the kind of character who should be, but just having her around was a godsend, because she was fun and fresh and she was a challenge, but never the kind of challenge that felt like WORK. And there was a lot she could do here that I hadn't been able to do before. I also don't think I ever made a major misstep in characterization with Eva, and that makes me happy, seeing as I had her a year and she got a TON more canon in that time. I would love a new Eva someday, and I want things to be nice and easy for them. |D
Eva I just kind of . . . lost interest in eventually, which was sad. I hadn't been playing her much and she hadn't gotten new canon in awhile, and it had been a year and I just didn't feel like commenting with her anymore. She took more thought than my easier characters, and I had Greed to worry about when I dropped her, and he also took a lot of thought and I didn't want to drop HIM. So I decided to let her go quietly, because she had had a good run.
Eva's another character I miss sometimes. In fact, I came veeeeery close to reapping Eva this round instead of Chao. XD At one point, I was basically resolved to do so. A few things changed my mind, the most important of which was that I decided that I'd already played her for a year and since I was taking an 8th, I wanted it to be someone new, not someone old. (Chao counts as new stfu.)
Overall, I didn't play her as much, but I always really liked Eva and I'm pretty proud of some of what she did here. I never felt stressed over her ICness or whether or not she was interesting. I'm glad I got the chance to play her for so long, but now it's someone else's turn. |D
5. Kagurazaka Asuna #1. September 2005, 94.1% (48-3).
Like I said before, Asuna is the character that I Always Wanted to Play. Every once in awhile between May and September I'd think to myself "Okay, can I think of an app for her?" And I just never could. Asuna's a fascinating character, but one of the things about her is that despite everything, she's very everygirl. She's a tempermental teenage girl who works hard and gets annoyed easily and likes cute clothes and has a paper route and worries about her grades. My mind was a total blank every time I tried to think of a way to app her. I KNEW she'd be great in camp and I KNEW I could play her . . . I just didn't know how to get her in.
One day I was rereading the manga and I got to the scene where she's forcibly bathing Negi and bitching at him about his hair, and I randomly thought to myself, forcible bathing. I finally had ONE joke to use in an Asuna app--and somehow that just opened the floodgates, and I was like "Yes, all right, I can write an Asuna app now." That joke wasn't even the focus of the app, so I have no idea why it cured my writer's block. XD It was just one of those things where finally getting SOMETHING down set me free to write what I wanted.
This was also the app where I figured out my apping method, which is basically to build the app around one or more things that actually already happened to the character in canon, but to twist them for the purposes of camp. I've done this in every app since then except for I think Greed's.
Playing Asuna . . . I always had a lot of fun, and I always felt IC. I loved her and I loved her voice, and I was happy. But. I had this problem where I never, ever played her. XD Chisame was my main character at the time, and canon still hadn't told us much about Chisame's thought processes in detail, so going off of how they reacted to posts and situations . . . it was the same. They're both tempermental, long-suffering "normal" girls. Chisame is intelligent and anti-social while Asuna is dumb and charismatic, but they both reacted to things with irritation and violence and confusion and common sense more often than not. Because Chisame was my main character and had a fuckton of relationships, she would reply to EVERYTHING, and Asuna would get no play.
Eventually I knew one of them had to go. My impulse was actually to drop Chisame; I like Asuna better as a character (she's actually my favorite fictional character in uh, anything. Ever). But dropping Chisame would have fucked over a lot of people, and dropping Asuna only affected two or three, and I felt awful about it but I decided I had to do it because she was never going to get more play.
Dropping Asuna was a mistake, but it all worked out for the best in the end. >D
6. Otohime Mutsumi. November 2005, 96% (48-2).
So I have this pattern. One thing I do a LOT is that I'll go into the app week stretch planning on apping a certain character, and then I'll change my mind at the last minute and app someone else. Mutsumi was the first time this happened to me. I'd decided I wanted to app from Love Hina, and I'd decided on Shinobu, because Akamatsu writes really damn awesome shy girl characters. I love Shinobu so much. :( And then--I'm not sure what happened. I looked at why I was apping Shinobu, other than loving the character, and I realized that it was because I wanted a nice sweet girl who would play with the characters I had lost contact with when I dropped Makie (like Ari and Momoko). So I decided it would make more sense to app a character with a disposition like Makie's! I also wanted someone older and ditzier. So I looked at Love Hina again--this was I think two nights before apps opened--and I decided that Mutsumi would be fun to play, so I wrote an app for her. Mutsumi's voice was very easy for me, and she's not a deep character, and I'd already been reviewing the canon! And she's another intrinsically funny character. So as with Eva, I just wrote about her reaction to camp. I did the whole thing in about half an hour and never touched it again, and got my highest in percentage for the next year and a half. :Dd
Unfortunately, Mutsumi was INCREDIBLY hard to maintain, which shocked me. Her voice came so naturally to me that I didn't foresee any problems, but . . . she bored me. In canon, Mutsumi is largely a plot device. She's very opaque, being one of maybe two or three characters in the series who never gets a single thought bubble (this is a device Akamatsu uses on some characters, to great effect). We get a lot of canon info about her, but not a lot of depth, and she reacts the same way to absolutely everything. Basically, she's HILARIOUS to watch, and she's still one of my favorite characters . . . but she sucked to play. XD She was, if there is such a thing, too easy. She's just such a brick wall when it comes to getting her to react.
I burned out on Mutsumi quickly and made the decision to drop her. I love her, and I didn't hate playing her, and I liked some of what she did. But eventually I just never wanted to pull her out, because it was so hard to keep threads going or think of a response that wasn't just repeating her last response.
7. Takino Tomo. January 2006, 89.3% (50-6).
. . . lol
Tomo was like, the second character I ever considered apping, or something. When I was apping the very first time, I considered Suu from Love Hina, and was like "No. Too much energy." When I was apping Makie, I briefly considered Tomo as well, and was like "HAHAH NO. WAYYYYY too much energy. I could NEVER maintain that." This might be surprising, but I'm not actually an energetic person. XD
At one point--I forget when, I think it was between apping Shigure and Eva--I actually wrote an app for Tomo. It was fun to write and I liked it, but again I looked at it and decided that because IRL I'm lethargic and hold back everything I say, I didn't have it in me to play someone who is absolutely fucking everywhere and holds back NOTHING. Then in late December we got a new computer, and the old Tomo app died with my old hard drive--I had never deleted it.
Cut to January! I knew I was dropping Asuna, and I was wanting to app again, and I wanted to app someone different. Someone not from a harem series. XD I'd just rewatched Utena, and I decided to app from it, because Utena is AWESOME. I decided I wanted a character who was deeply fucked up, basically. XD Someone with like . . . ISSUES. And EMO. And TWISTED MOTIVES. So I settled on either Kozue or Shiori.
I agonized for like two fucking weeks over those apps. I rewatched all their eps again, and took notes on their characters. I couldn't decide between them, so I endlessly analyzed what they would do in camp, who I wanted them to play with, how I would deal with xyz. I wrote an app for Kozue, eventually. It was okay, but not great . . . I think it would have gotten in then, but probably in the 70s (which uh, okay, I might be something of an app perfectionist, a-ahaha). I wasn't confident in it, really. So I decided to do Shiori's and see if it was any better, wrote a canon section, and then just beat my head against the wall trying to think of a way to make Shiori funny. AUGH.
TWO WEEKS I SPENT ON THOSE APPS. ;; And then the night before, I was still trying to do Shiori's and was almost in tears, and I was like FUCK THIS. XD The apps weren't fun, either of them. I'd been stressing over them so long that I wanted to claw my eyes out. So I decided that just to unwind, I would rewrite that old Tomo app, because I knew it would be mindless and fun. I didn't have to review canon (AzuDai is short and I've read it many, many times) and I wouldn't have to worry about depth or emo issues or whatever. I still didn't think I was going to APP Tomo at this point, mind you. I just wanted to unwind and smile for a change, so I decided to write something that would make me do that, and instead of a drabble or something I . . . wrote an app.
So I started writing it, and it was pretty similar to the original, with some rewording and additions. And while I was writing it, I was like "Oh god, this is like . . . not work at all. Why is it that I think I can't maintain Tomo when I can bust out an app for her in 15 minutes without thinking, while these other two characters have taken two weeks and extensive notes?" I also kept cracking up at myself while I was writing it, though that may have been the app stress talking. XD When that happened, I said fuck it--I was sending it in. And if I couldn't maintain her, well, I was just going to have to be AWESOME while she lasted and have fun and then go out with a bang. I didn't care anymore, I just wanted to do something cracky!
I've apped 15 times now--lol plz kill me. Out of those 15 apps, I've only KNOWN I was going to get in twice, and the first time that happened was with Tomo. XD Maybe it's just because I love Tomo so much and she's so clearly my kind of humor. But I remember rereading it and going "WHY WOULD ANYONE VOTE TOMO OUT EVER, SHE IS AWESOMESAUCE." It went up to vote and I was honestly shocked it scored as low as it did. As a disclaimer, I do in fact realize that I should be violated horribly and then shot dead for referring to 89% as "low," but Tomo's app was my lowest score ever at that time and is my third-lowest ever, and I honestly thought the app was much funnier than Mutsumi's. It's still probably one of my three favorites. She still got in just swimmingly, and I was like "Okay, now let's see if I actually have the energy for this character."
. . .
. . . I . . . did? 8D;
I do think Tomo's first couple posts were slightly off, and I know I've misstepped with her once in awhile, but she's the character I kick myself over the hardest to keep her IC, because she's my baby. I can't see anyone ever usurping her Main Character status; in fact, this is a SECRET, but I actually tend to feel guilty when another character gets as much play as she does for a stretch of a few days. XD; MY SPAMMINATOR, MY FAVORITEST. ♥ I hope you all enjoy her as much as I do, because I can't imagine not playing her. Me and Tomo, we're like this.
Uh okay so that was apps . . . 1-7. I-I'll have to do 8-15 tomorrow. Sob. I'm so tired I'm going to DIE.