Meme: How did you pick your characters?

[living_endless]

From something futuresmuggler posted way back in May 2008:

Why did you pick the characters you play?

Be it because you they're just your favorite, or you thought they'd be a challenge, or someone dared you or something, go ahead and tell us what made you want to bring them to the game. La.

Comments

[sensethevisions]

Phoebe Halliwell: She was always my favorite character from Charmed... until the end of S4. I was writing her at a prompt community where I was pretending that anything after S4 didn't exist. :) When apocalypsos was floating the idea for the game, I wanted to play Phoebe because I thought it would be fun to play her as a teenager and have her get her powers in game. I also thought it would be a great way to rewrite everything that the writers failed at with her as the show wound down.

Gwynn Hood: I wanted to play a character with no powers and who was not the usual character I played. I was watching "Princess of Thieves" and was talking in a chat to some friends who encouraged me to app Gwynn because she really was someone I loved but a character type that I had never played. They kept telling me to try new things... and there she was. There was a time last year that I almost dropped her, but I'm really glad I didn't because she really is my cracky non-emo character and some of the things that have happened with her have been so fun.

Savannah Levine: I really loved Kelley Armstrong's Women of the Otherworld books and when I wanted a new character, I wanted to play a character that I had never played before. Savannah's character just reached out and moved into my head immediately. Savannah struck me as being a fun character to play because she was so young -- but already had so much going on with and around her. She's got a lot of trauma and enemies, but she is still a devil may care girl. I loved the idea of her guardian sending her to boarding school in an attempt to give her a normal life away from magic and danger... and her ending up in Fandom. She's become a character that is very dear to my heart and I've loved watching her grow and adapt.

Annja Creed: When I decided that it was time to add a different and new character to my line-up, I wanted someone that had already seen some really weird stuff and wouldn't be that traumatized by Fandom. I had read the first six Rogue Angel books and I loved Annja because of her focus on being an Archaeologist dealing with the fact that she now had this magic sword that was originally Joan of Arc's. Add to it a sort of mentor who had been alive and served Joan and it was just the kind of character that I decided would be fun to play at Fandom. I forget who gave me the idea of her being sent to Fandom because the sword had suddenly de-aged her body, but it's been fun to play with.

Chloe Saunders: Chloe was one of those characters that I read the first book she was in and I immediately knew I wanted to play her. It was weird because I'm not someone who reads the first book out of a series and says "This. I want to play her." After reading the first book in the series the day it came out, I just really wanted to play her somewhere. She was a completely different character for me. She's painfully shy, wants to be a movie director and has powers that she doesn't understand and which scare the hell out of her. When the second book came out, the end of it gave me a perfect place in canon to pull her from and after some encouragement, I went ahead and apped her.

[bitchprince]

Arthur: So I started watching this series called Merlin the day after it aired, because people on my flist were massively enthusiastic about it. I thought it was kind of fun, and kept watching in an idle kind of way, catching episodes because I didn't have anything to do.

Then Episode Five came up, this scene happened, and I physically hurled myself at the computer, paused it, and sent an email to at least three people going for the love of God please don't let me app King Arthur of all people. And it worked. For once, asking someone not to enable me worked!

Of course, Arthur had to continue on being callous, secretly a bleeding heart, snarky, mercurial, duty-torn (because I don't have a thing about duty issues at all) and bitchy for many episodes, one fit about the fandom got bigdamndestiny into it, and I was lost.

Lost, I say.

Now the bastard owns my brain. Sigh.

Although I guess the main thing that really drew me to him, if I have to put a name to it, is that I play a lot of characters who seem pleasant, normal, or at least kind or nice at first glance, but are utter and true bastards at heart. Which is difficult to play, emotionally, sometimes. And here's a character who appears to be an utter dick who doesn't have much of a care in the universe - but who's actually kind, noble, and all that jazz at heart, who won't turn his back, who'll give you a shot, and whose entire reason for pretending he doesn't care comes down to caring too much (about his dad, his people, about all the roles he has to play, and so forth) and having kind of sekritly some self-esteem issues shhhhh.

Ahem. That got lyrical.

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

Katchoo: She was one I had in mind forever, but for a long time wasn't sure I could play. I got into Strangers in Paradise some twelve years ago, I think, so it's one of my more loved fandoms. Sure, there were phases where I took breaks from it, because a book released on a 6-8 week schedule gets frustrating after a bit, and I'd just walk away and come back a year later and catch up.

I don't remember how it started or anything, but I think way way way back, like three plus years ago, I mentioned something offhand about wishing Fandom had a Darcy Parker but that I'd never be able to pull off playing her long-term because woman is insane and intense and would kill me. thatsamilkshake was all "*perks up!* SiP?" And I always did want to play Chewie. We kicked the idea back and forth a few times, IIRC, and then last summer I got this email (never trust an innocent email subject header from her, I swear) with a link to about 160 Katchoo icons and was like OMG OKAY I GET THE HINT. XD I'll be honest, Katchoo is the character of mine I see parts of myself in most, only nowhere near to the scale that she embodies them.

Tahiri: . . . straight up trickster_twin's fault, for bringing Jaina in in the first place and making me want to go reread all of SW: The New Jedi Order. And then for making me dork about it in OOC threads until I said I'd been thinking about apping from SW, and then for enabling me in any way from pestering to finding PBs until I put the app together. Even though I was very, very flaily about it, going, "OMG y'all are way more hardcore SW fans than me, I can't live up to that."

I knew I wanted an EU character, and one from the post-movie era because that's what I'm most familiar with, and had narrowed it down to either Tahiri or Wedge's kid Myri Antilles. (Who, yes, is named after Mirax.) Ultimately there just wasn't enough source material for a teenaged Myri for me to feel comfortable with it, and Tahiri's always been my favorite of the NJO kids. Because I shipped her and Anakin Solo since Junior Jedi Knights, for serious. And duality always fascinates me, so the Tahiri/Riina situation was a big part of the appeal.

. . . and the character assassination job they did on her in Legacy of the Force pissed me off to the literal throwing-books point (Revelation, I AM LOOKING AT YOU) and I had to do something about that because omfgno. That series made me hate one of my favorite characters and that ain't right. (Luckily, Fate of the Jedi is fixing that quite nicely so far. :D)

Gabrielle: . . . honestly, 3/4 of the reason I brought her in was because I looked at Katchoo and Tahiri and went "Oh god, am I developing a type? Tiny green-eyed smartass blondes with issues? Hey, Gabrielle doesn't have issues. I could -- yeah!" She's also one of those characters I've loved forever.

Although divinesurfchick is still kinda mad at me because she wanted to bring Gabrielle in as a teacher, I think. ;) This is what she gets for waiting forever to app even though I've been poking her forever, I say.

Lacey: Totally longislandiceme's fault, for IMing me with random Corner Gas quotes until I went "I must check this show out, dammit," and mainlined the first two seasons in two days. At the time I'd been getting burned out on Yitzhak, who was running Luke's, and Lacey was just perfect as a replacement. I can't believe she's been around for so long already.

[longislandiceme]

Totally longislandiceme's fault, for IMing me with random Corner Gas quotes until I went "I must check this show out, dammit,"

Ahaha. I'm DEVIOUS like that. *keeps doing so with new shows*

[thatsamilkshake]

Xander: faaaaavorite. Despite certain self-involved-dickish tendencies in canon that I have a hard time playing out and thus tend to engineer events to not put him in the positions that cause said tendencies to come out. It's cheating, but there's stuff Joss Whedon did to his characters that would bring me no enjoyment to play through, so.

Francine: I have loved Strangers in Paradise since I was in college. When I started out I was more of a Katchoo fangirl, because she's very brightly-colored and expressive and was the more openly queer of the two. Fifteen years later I was way more appreciative of taking on the shy, passive character whose struggles are mostly internal, because er. Yes. And so I enabled thismaskiwear by making 5 billion Katchoo icons because Francine doesn't work without Katchoo, that's half the moral of the series.

Illyria: Oh, maaaaan. Early days of FH - right before Xander found himself some friends, basically -- I was frustrated with my own inability to keep up or do much with Xander that wasn't jokey small-talk. Doing his voice wasn't a challenge; he'd been one of my two main fic POV characters for years.

I'd been writing (or re-writing) a lot of Illyria dialogue for the Angel virtual season that repeterpetrelli was heading up, and she really grabbed me as a character I'd like to play at FH. The idea of bringing in this creature who was completely alien but not because she had a dead girl in the back of her head, really appealed, as something that would force me to get out there and interact in a less laid-back way than I do with Xander. She had different speech patterns, she was a straight-up fighter and not support. She was a girl (sort of) which would have been a new thing for me at the time.

Buuuut the second term at FH, we were still figuring out size limits and what the game could handle, so new characters were restricted to new players (or players who'd never had a student before). And once apps were open again, we had such a glut of Buffyverse characters that it was on the restricted list for quite a while. Various other things made me leery of apping her over the years and I started to suspect that I might never.

And then -- partly spurred by digging up her writing sample for the Post Your Sample meme -- I found myself babbling about her this summer to the Ears and the Prat when I should have been re-watching the last season of canon for the boy I was planning to app, and I took that as a sign, yo. And here she is.

[unborn-renegade.livejournal.com]

Jak:

Jak & Daxter has been one of my favorite videogame franchises since time immemorial (OKAY, I AM NOT THAT OLD, BUT STILL). I've missed playing videogame characters since Kerrigan left; when puppy_fair apped Zack, I was pretty much pushed over the edge.

Which meant it was going to be a tie between this one, or a Legacy of Kain character - which would have been extremely difficult. Anyway, I got the idea in my head, wound up getting a new Playstation 2 for my birthday a few weeks later (life was hinting at me) with a copy of the third game. Aaaand then I went out, bought the other two games (I don't count Jak X, here) and played them all the way through.

I'm a sucker for Massive Issues. Everyone knows this. J&D does some magnificent things with the storyline after its simple beginning (and of course I've apped Jak from before these happened, prompting furious_maximus to sigh at me that he much prefers Jak 2 and beyond Jak. I AM GOING TO GET THERE) partly courtesy of the twisty brain of Amy Hennig (also responsible for Legacy of Kain, funnily enough) that I'm intensely eager to mess with in an RPG context.

And really, I could do having a sane (well, debatably so), cheerful character to break my mold for a little while before we get to the storyline bits (which I will not spoil publically, dammit). So Jak it was, after about two terms worth of back and forth.

[puppy_fair]

\o/ VICTORY!

(Dun dundundun dunnn dunnn DUNDUNDUNNNNN!)

[shiroi_tiger]

ENABLERS.

Er, I mean.

Algren: I was actually completely terrified to app Algren because of Tom Cruise, yes. I waffled on him for semesters on end before up and deciding, heck, why not? I'd like a teacher, and he'd be excellent for an angry, bitter history class. And also, I love issues. And Japan. And such.

He grabbed me, damn him. Him and all of his anti-Cruiseness.

Reno: He is about 500% the fault of the_merriest and us geeking about sexy Final Fantasy boys for months on end, leading up to roleplays over AIM where Reno and Rikku hashed out their issues at one another in sexy ways, leading from there to us going, 'this has to be FH canon, y/n?' 'YYYYYYYYYYYYYYY.'

Zack: Reno had graduated! I had just finished playing Crisis Core for about the eleven millionth time and I wanted a newbie who was likely to throw himself into the public eye as much as Reno did. Final Fantasy VII just made sense to app from at the time, because it was about the only canon I'd even gone near in months, and in a wibbly contest with myself over whether I wanted to app Zack or Tseng, the puppy won. I will never regret that. *snuggles him*

Tybalt: Nemesis island! withoutverona had asked me if I'd bring a Tybalt onto Fandom island for the Nemesis event, and I agreed, and it was full of snark and exploding brain-meat because of all of that Shakespeare babble, and Tybalt copped an attitude that I couldn't resist. And so, with more enabling down the road from, like, everyone in the posse and beyond, here he is.

Jono: OhMyGoshGuysHeIsOnFire. And emo! And a freak! My "Obvious Freak" streak was broken when I apped Reno, and I had to make up for lost time after being without characters like Lumiere and Michelangelo and Valentine for so long. Trufax.

Plus, I fell in love with the Marvelverse all over again and there are enablers among you. And I have a rubber arm.

[the_merriest]

The amusing thing -- YES, I switched logins just for this! -- was how, you know, it was just OOC dicking around, on AIM, watching Reno and Rikku flirt with each other and be snarky, and it was very "oh, cool, they have neat chemistry." And then, his job came up, and her response was very "... You kill people for the government? I can't believe I slept with you. Get out."

That kicked off a huge, sprawling, messy, fucked-up argument about his past and her past and all of their issues came out in full force and it was ugly and weird and raw and so complicated, and in the middle of all of it, I noted, ".... so help me, this makes me ship them more." Which got a response of "YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY." And we desperately wanted to bring him in, hook them up, and then have that complicated, wretched, ugly fight, and watch them both deal with the fallout.

Maybe we're masochists? ;)

[icecoldfrost]

Emma Frost is totally and completely the fault of mouthy_merc, who talked me into turning Anemone into the Emma for her Scott one AU weekend. I got oodles of positive feedback from people I'd never even talked to before, and then the voice would not get out of my head.

Still, I had another app ready to go, except SOME people are dirty dirty enablers, and after a run on Launchpad, I ended up submitting Emma instead.

Which is fine, because dirty enabling is the only way to go.

[famous-gut.livejournal.com]

I'll be poking along on this meme throughout the day because of typing from a cell phone is slow and I'll probably get tl;dr.

First up is Gibbs. He came about from mainlining NCIS on USA for about two weeks and then finding this journal name in the middle of a "show us your journals" meme. Then I started reading every transcript for the show and then thought of a good entrance point for him and that was pretty much it.
It wasn't after watching the season finale of season three and writing his writing sample that I finally felt like I got a grip on his character and I'd have to say he's my favorite one of the bunch

[cutsthestrings.livejournal.com]

Liir is a pup deeply close to my heart and I'd had him out of milliways_bar for a while, since his story there had most certainly ended. I was looking around for somewhere to put him when Ava (who used to play Michael from Roswell) asked if I was interested in bringing someone to FH. I considered, unsure where to put him, and finally decided it might be fun to play a version of Liir who got picked up before the military utterly mucked up his life. And there he was. Why I picked him in the first place is, well... there's a lot about him that I love, a lot about him that I find interesting, and I love the world that Maguire made in all it's existential, occasionlly-low-on-details, not-quite-sure-which-version-of-Oz-it's-working-from glory.

Geoffrey comes straight from my love of early modern literature, my love of Paul Gross, and the awesomeness that is Slings & Arrows. I had apped him in milliways_bar as well, but found that he didn't work without a play to work on and hence the idea to start doing the plays was born.

Abby Irene came next, mostly because I absolutely loved her canon and I thought that a slightly older magical detective type who used the kind of old school thaumaturgy/magick/ritual type stuff was really awesome.

Rimmer was totally the result of needing to play out a class or two's worth of ideas. Also, I feel sorry for the smegging bastard, oddly enough.

Morgan is totally the result of Azy apping Reid. Literally. I didn't have this pup in my head until she said she was bringing Reid to teach and then Morgan just reared up in my brain and said 'oh HELL no are we sending him off to someplace with mutant alligators without backup.' And he hasn't left since, all 200-something pounds of overprotective awesomeness.

Fiona was the funniest thing. I wanted a female character. I wanted someone who could actually fight (since Liir is, um, NO). I wanted someone with a different social take than Liir. And I wanted someone who'd have no interest in cooking (you can only take so much kitchen in one brain). And then I missed the opportunity to get Mortal Coils at NYCC. I picked it up later, read it, and as I was reading the twins slipped in (father included) but I said 'oh, please let the ending be such that I can't figure out a way to app them anywhere'. ...when Mr. Nylund was a bastard and decided to send them off to school at the end of the book? Decision pretty much made. Also... yo yo, man. YO YO.

[notsobadatall.livejournal.com]

Nick gets his own entry, because... dude. It's Nick.

Forever Knight was my first fandom; it was the first television show I actually had any real interest in. I taped it at my dad's house, I slipped out of my room late at night to watch it on TV, and when the internet happened for me (somewhere around 94-95) I found other people who liked it too. And thus, FK was my very first fandom.

Trying to describe FK fandom is... very hard. For one, you have to take all the wanky nonsense from most fandoms and throw it out the window. Oh, we've had kerfuffles, but they're relatively far and in between and quickly sorted out by the folks who run the lists and comms. Then there's the factions. And with the factions (http://fkfaction.hellish-alchemy.org), there's the Wars (http://fanlore.org/wiki/Forever_Knight/Wars). It's INSANE and AWESOME.

So when I joined my first LJ game, Nick was my first choice. I was, in fact, startled and amazed that milliways_bar didn't have one. So I entered him, somewhere around the second month of the bar's existence, and... wow, three years or so of having him in there before his story ended. Because of some wankiness, unfortunately, he was kind of burned out of my brain by the whole thing. But slowly, carefully, because of that History, he inched his way back to where I could play him again.

Then I found out that there were FK fans here at FH and the idea niggled. And niggled. And niggled until I realized I had no teachers left. And then it niggled some more until I mentioned it and then there were ENABLERS. And I gotta say, playing Nick? Gives me a singular joy part because I love the show and the fandom and the character but also just because I got him back. So... yeah. *stops being a drama queen*

[endsthegame]

Ender: Started with a conversation between me and noearsyet many moons ago, about which Wiggin we'd be able to play. I'm a huge sci-fi nerd and Ender's Game is one of my favorite books of all time. The idea of playing the titular Wiggin kept sticking with me, I reread the book about ten times, got my hands on a copy of Ender's Shadow, and...

The issues. Oh god. The issues - which never occurred to me when I read the books when I was younger - sang to me. I had to app the guy. It didn't help that I had no 'normal' students at the time (just Jeff, who I love, but who is insanity personalified at the best of times) and I wanted one that would actually interact, albeit not so intensely I'd lose entire days of play. (Sigh, Arthur, I'm looking at you)

So I waited, and waited, and waited until it was the right moment, and I was sure I could handle it, put in an app, and got him! And... am now in that weird place where I'm trying to convince myself that no, apping Peter after Ender graduates probably isn't the best idea. Probably.

(Finally, the idea of apping Ender Wiggin as a high school freshman was just too ironic to deny. Mmm)

[living_endless]

And... am now in that weird place where I'm trying to convince myself that no, apping Peter after Ender graduates probably isn't the best idea.

You might have my experience and, some day, three years down the line, start thinking about the canon again and go "... now I must do this crazy play-a-relative thing."

(Though my Didi isn't my original Dream's sister. I did too much weird crossover stuff back then, and trying to make it fit with current FH rules and such is just painful.)

[not_tylerdurden]

Calvin: was actually a character I thought would be well suited for the game for a while. His outlook on life is already strange enough that the most surprising thing would be other people actually noticing the weirdness from time to time.

Of course, I figured on him being played by someone else. Clearly my master plan went wrong somewhere.

[decoder-rings.livejournal.com]

John Crichton is and probably always will be my favorite fictional character of all time. I snagged him up early because I wanted to try his voice out and it just came so so naturally that I have never once regretted the decision. He was a great first character because he's friendly, outgoing, intelligent and fun so I was able to adapt to the game and adapt to him pretty quickly.

Benton Fraser was the direct result of the school needed some head of security. When I was asked, I originally batted around cracky ideas like Jim Dangle and Clancy Wiggum before deciding on Fraser. I'd just finished watching all of dS and thought he'd be the perfect combination of cracky and serious for the school. His voice is a precise one though so I had to really focus but, now, it comes easily since I've been playing him for so long.

Gavin Darklighter was me wanting to try something different. trickster_twin and sith_happened getting me interested in some of the EU books. I picked up some of the Rogue Squadron books and found myself enjoying all the characters but Gavin in particular, even if he was a minor character in those books. He was just the sort of fish out of water, from a desert planet but still with some wear and tear that I wanted to try. And I loved getting to have some timeline hijinxs with him once he met Jaina, Luke and Ben!

Lee Adama is one of the voices that had been in the back of my head from the get go. He was originally played by someone awesome and, once he'd been away from FH long enough, I decided to bring him back. I was worried about his overwhelming emo but bringing him precanon solved that. I wanted another guy with some wear and tear and some issues to boot. Removing him from something he knows so well and sticking him at FH continues to be a good decision because I love how he's grown.

Ned was because I'd just fallen in love with Pushing Daisies and Ned's tall, adorable, emo self. I was a little worried at first how he'd work in an environment away from Chuck and Emerson and Olive but, after rewatching the canon and discovering there had to be a time where he wasn't with them, I wanted to give it a try. Taking him from the canon point I did meant he was still discovering his powers and still so very emo so I was able to experiment with that. I do love that, while he grew some during his time at FH, he really couldn't leave his issues behind because that's just how canon went too. He learned how to adapt but the boy never really changed from the insecure, emo, just wants to be loved kid he was. Also, Lee Pace is fricking adorable.

Loki was a spur of the moment app. I wanted a townie because I'd never really had one before and I wanted someone with powers, as I'd never really had that before. Enter the angel and his loud mouth. Once I started writing him, his voice came naturally despite the last minute status of the app. He's been so much fun to write because he's so different for me. He's one of my go to characters for crack. Of course, that means I have to drama him up soon.

Hannibal King was a journal I've had for ages and, to be honest, I had just because Ryan Reynolds is pretty. I never actually knew if he had enough canon to make a passable app of but I had to try. He's one of the easiest characters I've ever played though. His voice is so natural and so fun and I just love writing him. With his lack of canon, it gives me some freedoms to enjoy making shit up (not too much) and not getting Jossed.

[living_endless]

I have decided my "type" is characters who die at the end in canon or don't use their birth names. When I'm really lucky, I get someone who does both. (I know, spoilers, but all my canons are like ten years old anyhow.) So it's possible I'm just filtering every canon I come across for that.

Not an answer? All right. (And I'll be posting mine one at a time for now. Icons are pretty and I can spam myself if I want to.)

Didi: Death is almost too cool for me to play, really. But I've always offhandedly thought that if there was going to be another Endless in Fandom, it should be Death-as-Didi, because she's so flexible and so calm and such a positive, soothing presence -- but also very much a teenage girl in a couple ways. And then this app cycle came around. I wasn't going to send a student in -- I have someone who's on ice until January for plotty reasons -- but come the very last weekend, I found myself going "... y'know, I could handle a third student. And I'd like someone a little less cynical than Jack, and a little more social than Tara. And I've been rereading Sandman for the thousandth time. ... and I just made a Didi journal because the screenname suddenly came to me and I couldn't believe no one had claimed it ... and everyone I've ever mentioned Didi to has told me to apply her."

In other words, there were 500 little things pointing me at apping Didi. I tend to trust 500 little things when they all point the same direction. And after I IMed a couple people asking them to tell me not to do it and they all said "dooooo iiiiiiit, " I wrote up the app and sent it in.

The biggest surprise so far is that no one has told her "no, you aren't death, that's crazy talk," because it's such an important part of canon that someone does. But I suspect it's inevitable.

[cutsthestrings.livejournal.com]

It could be "You aren't death. That's my MOM." if you like ^_^;

[life_inshadow]

Tara: This sounds cold, but she was a pragmatic pick in some ways. Magic Reserves had me very aware of all the witchy types on the island, and I've been saying I need a student with powers for years and years and years. I always really liked Tara on Buffy, and, after taking some time to review canon, I realized I could write her here even though she was always a difficult voice for me in fic.

I love the shy thing, I love that she has ethics about using magic (and her powers have limits), and -- I'll admit this -- I like rescuing characters. thatsamilkshake was incredibly helpful in enabling me on her application, too, so shout-out to her.

[brat_inslayage]

I'm all in favor of character rescue. Especially Tara. And you write her really well.

[bitten_notshy]

Jack: Oh, Jack. He was the strongest single impulse I have ever had about a character. The story is as follows: Literally the day after Tyler got assigned Abby Irene as a teaching buddy last summer, I went to the library and saw "New Amsterdam" on the new arrivals shelf. I decided this was a sign (yes, I like those, shut up) and took it home and fell in love with the whole world, but especially this pragmatic, snarky, utterly devoted brat of a supporting character.

... and then I finished the book. Cried my eyes out. And went online to make the freaking journal, because I could rescue him, dammit.

He had to wait an entire school year because I knew if I had him and Romeo on-island at the same time, they'd get in each other's way in my head -- not because they have much in common, because they're totally different personality types, but just because the diction and how they come across on the surface level is similar. And, honestly, there is a limit on how many pretty blond boys I can play at once.

[notqueenyet.livejournal.com]

Rory Gilmore was, to be perfectly honest, just the first character who popped into my head when prompted with "QUICK, SIGN UP FOR A HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT!" At the time, Gilmore Girls was (and will always be) one of my favorite, favorite fandoms, and Rory's voice came so naturally. And she was a perfect first character because while she's not exactly the most outgoing person, she's friendly and adapts to her environment ridiculously easily.

Aravis was a sort of last-minute app; I'd been toying with the idea for awhile, and in the last week of apps, I spent an afternoon with once_a_king and once_a_traitor going "How about her? Okay, how about her? She has to have the right clothes! How about her?" and so on. When we found Eva Green on a fanlisting and I had a PB, I couldn't resist anymore. The app pretty much wrote itself.

Robin was the direct result of my mainlining the first two seasons of HIMYM and then heading to work bored one day. I was emailing with people and going "You know, I have space for a townie. And Robin works the best, considering we have a Barney [whose fault this is entirely], and Robin's KIND OF THE BEST." The fact that she has a really yankable point at the end of season 2 sealed it, and the app went in like, that NIGHT.

Kaylee was someone who I kind of instantly fell in love with. My exposure to Firefly/Serenity came a little later than most fans, but as soon as I watched the first episode, I was sitting there going, "She would be PERFECT at FH." We'd actually had a Kaylee who'd left a term or two before, so there was a gap in time, and I apped her as soon as I got an apprpriate, username-length-appropriate variation on my favorite quote. :D

Sookie was kind of another obvious one for me. When I became obsessed with True Blood last year and mainlined the books over my fall break, the whole time I was thinking, "Here's a girl who'd be awesome at FH." Particularly because she hasn't met Bill yet, and thus hasn't become part of the World's Most Annoying Couple. But that's just my bias talking. :D

Kelly was someone whose journal I made as a joke, initially. And then she stole a boat as a teenager in canon and I had to actually consider playing her. It's terrifying how easy those long, long blocks of text about nothing come to me, guys. But she's always been one of my Office favorites, and consistently so, unlike other characters I could mention.

Remus is one whose journal I've been kicking around forever. When I wrote HP fic, back in the day, it was always Marauders era because I've always loved them the best, and Remus was my favorite. I kept thinking about bringing him in as a student, but with Thewlis and his tiny moustache were going to necessitate the acquisition of a teenage PB for that. I mentioned that to someone -- I wanna say it actually was siriuslyscarred -- and the topic of him teaching came up, naturally. And since my availability is generally crazy, I shot that down, only to get "Well, there could be team-teaching." Damn enablers.

[pastmewrong.livejournal.com]

Angela: SUCH a last minute choice. I mainlined the first season of Bones (don't think I'd even got through the whole thing), it just happened to be app season, and I got her voice stuck in my head so easily that I threw together an app and mailed it in all the same day.

I'd always had sort of marginal characters, who were fairly quiet in their way, and having someone cheerful and flirty who would throw herself into anything and everything sounded like a really fun prospect.

Effy: One of the few of mine that wasn't a spur of the moment decision. I'd considered her before, and even played her as a guest character for a weekend on another game (this was at the point when canon had given her all of two lines over an entire season of appearances) and had far too much fun with her laconic bad girl attitude.

Then, season two and three came along and she started ACTUALLY TALKING, showed some weak spots, and I finally felt like I might be able to keep her up long-term.

She's a complete change from any character I've done before, and gave me an awesome contrast to play with. She may be difficult and complicated, but I love her, I dooo.

Chuck: Was another not-so-last-minute choice. People in chat were talking who we could bring in to even up the boy/girl balance around here and I'd considered Chuck before, but until... A month or so ago? Had been playing him somewhere else and didn't want to double up.

Things changed, and the first thing I did was hit up awesomebigsis to ask if she'd want me to bring in Ellie's Chuck. I love his flaily adorable self so hard, and I had a weeks holiday to rewatch his canon, throw together a writing sample and get hooked on the idea. Aww, Chuck.

[chosehumanity]

Mitchell:

So wantstobehuman pings me and goes, 'You should see this show! It is totally up your alley!' and I go 'I've heard of it, but eh' and he goes 'HERE HAVE SOME CLIPS' and I go '...*sigh*' and he goes 'You'll like Mitchell! And it's just an awesome show, period.' and I go '...damn you, I do like Mitchell, and the rest of this show,' and he goes 'I'M APPING GEORGE.' and I go '...sigh.'

In a nutshell.

Honestly, I should do more with Mitchell - I haven't found his IG niche yet - but I love the way the show mucks around with the traditional archetypes and makes them into something new, how Mitchell is in some ways the broody contemplative vampire and in other ways a creature of Id and, come on, he organised tea parties to try and fit in with humanity. ("And this is Anne! Anne has only one kidney. Nothing happened, she was just born that way. Nobody knows why. Heeee.") And his smugness ("Why does everyone keep thinking we're a gay couple?" "I don't know, George. For one, I'm way out of your league.") and all the ways his pieces don't quite fit together just yet.

He's a hundred years old, and he still hasn't fully figured out what to be or who to be. And then there's the way the show handles the keeping-off-the-blood thing, without any shortcuts, which I find fascinating. I dunno. You just have to appreciate something put together that well, and I couldn't resist the opportunity to play it.

[mouthy-merc.livejournal.com]

Deadpool

Ah, the slow descent into madness. Or I was already there before. I dunno.

I picked him because, honestly, I just freakin' loved the character. I mainlined his solo series and the Cable & Deadpool up to that point and went 'Hey, this might be fun!' Because. if you've met me IRL, you usually notice I have veeeeery similar sense of humor. I'm a dork like that, bbs.

Tony Stark

So, I was watching the movie for the first time in theaters and, in the scene where Pepper threatens to quit because he's all out of control and drunk on heroism, it was the first time I actually got why he did what he did in Marvel 616 Civil War. Doesn't make it right, but I understood it then.

Which meant he was in my freakin' head. Bastard.

[longislandiceme]

Bobby: Oh Bobby, Bobby, Bobby. *raaaambles* He's one of those characters that I've loved since before I could remember, thanks to growing up as part of a geeky family. I was strongly discouraged from watching the 90s X-Men cartoon as a kid, actually, because Iceman was not in it (there were similar complaints from famille de Kimera when the X-Men movie casts were released).

I'd never really toyed with the idea of apping him, however, until this summer. It was some time before apps for the second summer session would open, I was already working on one for another character, I got partway through and... I just froze (har). I'd just finished a re-read of Ultimate X-Men, and then I found some insane person actually went through and arranged digital versions of mainstream X-books in chronological order (I swear, I actually do buy comics. Sometimes. When I have money.) and my piratey little heart grew three sizes with glee, and I was like "You know, Bobby would be REALLY fun to play". I bounced back and forth between original-flavour and Ultimate Bobby for a while, but the choice in the end was obvious. I wrote the app and writing sample in about ten minutes, and then it sat on my hard drive waiting so that I could fire it off the minute apps opened. THE END. Wow, I ramble.

[makesfaces.livejournal.com]

As somebody who was hopelessly addicted to the Spider-Friends since before I can remember, I'm so happy you not only brought in Bobby, but you did it in the original flavor. He is love.

[fratboybitch.livejournal.com]

Alex Karev is another one of those journals I'd had for awhile. His handle actually went through several changes (he was originally going to be dr_jackass) and, during those changes, I kind of started to hate the show which meant his potential got solved. Eventually, I started catching up with the show and, even through the GRATING Meredith/Derek stuff, I found I still did love Alex and everything about him.

He was sort of a hesitant app though because he's not a nice guy and I'm used to having super nice guys or, at least, civil guys! He's not so I worried and hemmed and hawed that I'd piss someone off if he was mean to them but I had to get over it and trust everyone else to know it was IC not OOC. I still get a little nervous when he starts getting mean but I've never gotten anyone thinking it was OOC so I cheer for that!

He's also just fun to play because he's not that nice of a guy. He can sulk and brood and stalk around and that's all him. He's such a bastard and I love it.

[tyler_gone]

Tyler: Heh. So I took the novel of Fight Club with me on an airplane ride back in spring 2006, and somehow over the course of the flight it went from "oh, I'd forgotten how good the book was" to "someone should app him, but not me, I don't write boys*" to "I should app him. Yesterday."

I may have a wee bit of an affinity for difficult characters.

I think what I like about Fight Club -- yes, besides that it's funny, and amazing visually, and the actors played the shit out of it, and David Fincher is a genius -- is that the Narrator has such a detailed, philosophical point of view. He's wrong about a lot of the specifics, but it's his and he lives it. And I like that he has this dual nature -- on the surface, he's about the dryest person ever, but his inner voice is this "chaos is beauty" maniac.

He left as a student because I felt like I wasn't doing him justice. In hindsight, he was fine; my head was just in the wrong place. I started wanting him back, oh, about 30 seconds after I got back into the game full-time. Because he left the way he did, and because I'd really made him too young to start with, I wasn't interested in redoing him as a student. The concept of aging him up and making him a teacher came to me, and I couldn't shake it at all.

So now he's here and never going anywhere again if I have anything to say about it.

* This was true back then. I swear.

[findingelena.livejournal.com]

I have the no-writing-boys issue myself. I have been telling myself strictly that I need to shake it, that I need to app someone male and get into his head and challenge myself, but no one has grabbed me with MUST APP (NAME) yet.

But you're giving me hope that it's breakable ...

[dojima-hime.livejournal.com]

Dōjima Yurika:I knew I wanted a second student character, and had a list. A fairly large list.

Dōjima was nowhere on this list. At all

But I had just rewatched her canon recently, and was up late on WoW one night when iTunes kicked up When Gods Do (http://www.last.fm/music/Thea+Gilmore/_/Even+Gods+Do") from Where's Neil When You Need Him? (Best CD ever. Go get a copy).

When she comes / With the ghost of a smile
And she runs / Through his eyes for a while
Days turn / There’s empty ground somewhere
Bring the gods / Line them up one by one
Turn the coin / Sound the fife and the drum
Wreck it down / Till kingdom comes back here...

I knew right then that I was going to be playing Dōjima. I logged out of WoW, and wrote her application and sample in about 20 min. She was ditzy, bubbly, a diva, perky, a flirt, tactless, and outwardly the complete opposite of my other two girls. However, she's got a nasty ruthless streak, and manages to go almost the entire series lying to her friends and coworkers in the name of her mission. How could I resist?

[findingelena.livejournal.com]

I fell in love with Doji so, so early on. Namine was her big sib, and was holding a sign for her, and Doji snagged it and scratched out the "Yurika" and drew a happy face over "Dojima" and I died giggling.

[death-of-hope.livejournal.com]

Anemone: I'd been lurking and reading FH for about six months when one of my roommates found out and told me to apply. I had never done an RP before in my life, unless you count cracked out IC/OOC babblings in MMOs, but she would just keep asking, "You turned in your app yet?"

I do not argue with Eury. She's scary.

At the time, I had just finished watching Eureka SeveN, and was deeply unsatisfied with the ending. All we see of Anemone one year later is her camping out on Dominic's motorbike? You don't go from being an asocial sociopath to being in a functioning relationship in a year without help of a drastic type. Despite the fact I had also been considering Ray Beams or Talho Yuki, in that moment, I knew where Anemone had been in the last year. Clearly, she had been in Fandom.

[wantstocheer.livejournal.com]

So I think the obvious question here is: why isn't your roommate playing too?

[atreideslioness]

Ghanima Atreides: ALL IRULAN-MUN's FAULT. Seriously.

I played the Reverend Mother for her during Parent Weekend, and we were goofing off over IM, and somehow we got into a "Don't call me Stepmother!" argument between a young Irulan and an adult Ghanima.

Then we lost a few teachers, and I gave in and brought Ghani in to take over the Career Choices class. I figured it would be a good way to decide if I liked teaching.

Now she just won't leave.

[irulan-atreides.livejournal.com]

OMG. I remember this! Now, I wish Irulan returned as a student just for the 'Don't call me Stepmother!' thing!