meme: how did you pick your characters?

[throughaphase]

A meme has been requested, and so I go into my small archive of things we haven't done in forever. Like this one, which seems to have been last posted in September 2009.


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.

Comments

[unlimitedgoals.livejournal.com]

And I shall do this in order of newness. Yes.

Joan was the direct result of my dropping Robin, missing having a bombshell female townie, and mainlining the first season of Mad Men. I bought the remaining three on Black Friday (seven bucks each at Target, guys, LIKE SERIOUSLY) and while season one had provided me with the perfect entrance point for Joan, it took until season four before I decided I kind of had to have her. She's just my favorite. I wanna grow up and be as sharp as Joan. Sadly I don't think it's to be, but this is the next best thing.

Dany was a tough one for me, because I read Game of Thrones just before the show premiered, watched the first season, started on Clash of Kings and went, "Wait a second, this girl's only like, fourteen. And there's no one like her at FH. And so of course I mainlined the other two books before apping, but the whole time I was sitting there thinking, "Okay, I'd have to handle this REALLY DELICATELY, but she'd be amazing to bring in." And here we are now. I seriously think her app was looked over by more people than anyone else I've ever applied, because I wanted to make sure I got the insanely complicated backstory correct, and bringing her in after Drogo and the baby was SO tricky and painful -- the last thing I wanted was to tread on any toes.

Also, not going to lie, I wanted baby dragons.

Belle was easy; we needed a new librarian, she was always my favorite Disney princess, and it was a simple matter of a rewatch and finding icons before I apped her. I'm totally going to go see it in 3D this week omg.

Ramona was another interesting one for me; I read the comics right before the movie came out (I feel like this is a trend with me) and while willbethenight had been pimping them for years, apparently it takes Mary Elizabeth Winstead in a wig and Michael Cera being Michael Cera to make me look at comics, sometimes. But I fell in love with how complicated and messed up Ramona was, and decided it'd be a fun challenge to play someone who was like, a mean bitch. Usually I just have antisocial bitches. Which brings me to....

Katniss. Oh, Katniss. I read The Hunger Games a solid six months before I apped her, because I wanted to see what Mockingjay was going to do before I committed to anything. And because apparently I can't do things the easy way, I had always imagined I'd bring her in from between The Hunger Games and Catching Fire. I loved Katniss the entire time I was reading, but I initially thought about apping Peeta instead. My ability to play boys isn't great, though, and Katniss was so prickly and complicated and broken that I wanted to see how well I could pull it off. And plus I love me some epic plot. When I'm not moving in the middle of it and having the summer from hell, though.

[unlimitedgoals.livejournal.com]

Puck was back when I actually loved Glee and thought it would be, you know, quality for awhile. I think I came up with the idea for apping him while sitting in my college student center and watching the "Sweet Caroline" performance on repeat. Because at that point, we had like two super-cocky male characters, and I was sitting there watching him going, "You know, I could do that. I could totally play someone with a nipple ring." And he's still my only male character and by far not my strongest, but I have had such a good time turning him from being a tool into being...well, less of a tool, anyway. And I like to think I did it more coherently than canon, because that is not hard.

Sookie was kind of another obvious one for me. When I became obsessed with True Blood out of the blue and read all...however many books there were at that time over my Christmas break, I got to about book 5 before I went, "You know, I've never had anyone with powers, and she'd be great at FH." And the rest is kind of history. It helps that since she's pre-canon I really only have to deal with Bill on a rare basis.

And finally, Rory 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. And now she's pregnant with her second child by her Star Wars husband and dear god I love this game.

(HOW DID I FILL UP TWO COMMENTS? WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?)

[zetabetabrat.livejournal.com]

ALRIGHT. My stories are all pretty boring and not even really stories, per se, but:

Wesley was my first choice because I was, I think, like two episodes away from finishing Angel, and Wes was so fucked up and such a mess and then I was at a friend's house and watching Logo and one of his episodes from Buffy season three came on. And he was all stuffy and prissy and from that moment on I just could not get him out of my head, because he just changed so much and I couldn't stop thinking about how freaking awesome that was. And then I sort of devolved into reading all the fanfiction about him I could get my hands on, which led to me finding this game, and I went through the list of the Buffyverse characters that were already around and he was free! So naturally I immediately decided that I absolutely had to app prissy, stuffy, Buffy-era Wes, and somehow get him to that fucked-up point of Angel season five. Had to.

And then I sent in my app and watched the final two episodes as a personal reward for my hard work, even though I'd been deliberately spacing them out, and I'm pretty sure I punched a wall. Whatever, no regrets, I still heart him.

Topher came out of me writing this one Wes thread where he was just being so earnest and nice, and I think I was in a bit of a mood, and I just decided, "I need a jackass." And not just any jackass -- I needed a jackass who was also kind of a woobie. Because Complicated! And I'd thought about Topher for a while before then, but had come to this firm decision of not actually apping him because he was way too smart for me. But then I rewatched the Dollhouse episode "Haunted," in which he programs someone to be his friend for the day because it's his birthday and has no friends, and somewhere in the middle of bawling (as I always do when I rewatch that one) I wrote up an app.

Also I liked the idea of having my two favorite Whedonverse martyrs and getting to torture the crap out of them, no lie.

Miley came out of me just loving the hell out of her, her PB, and every single thing about that ridiculous show. Also, my boys are so painfully normal sometimes with their frankness and the entire lack of secrets that I wanted someone who had something going on that she wasn't telling people about. And she was bubbly and sort of a deadpan snarker at the same time (and I sort of heart me some deadpan snarkers), so I mainlined season four and wrote up an app. La.

And Rebecca was a lot of things. She's super unpopular in the Greek fandom, mainly because she's a bitch and apparently calls attention away from the dumb romantic plots that I've never paid a single scrap of attention to, but I sort of loved her for being the one to call people out on their stupid crap. Plus she was confident and sure of herself and spoiled as hell and actually had a crap-ton of sex (I know you're all shocked), and that's a combination of traits I hadn't gotten to play before. So I wrote up an app and sort of squeed the whole time of how she would be banging EVERYONE and just being a bitch all over the place, and... ta-da.

[endsthegame]

One: I find it terribly amusing that life_inshadow was all 'one day, you might wake up and think that that playing siblings thing is a good idea!' way back in the 2009 meme. Ahem. :P

Anyway. Ender is, as previously documented, what happened when one day I was babbling to noearsyet about my love of stoic military characters, and the words, 'I think you could pull off Ender Wiggin' were uttered. I took it as a challenge and reread the books, with which I've had a torrid love affair since I was ten, and found out I still loved him, the extremely issuey little bastard.

Anyway, that's a story I've already elaborated on at length before, so I'll keep it short. Me loving stoic, issuey characters with layers I can play with at my leisure is... well, it's a thing. And I love Ender for it.

Meanwhile, Peter is, in my opinion, the one thing the Shadow books did right. They took the caricature of the first book and turned him into a real, living, breathing person in his own right - not a bad guy, but an extremely ambitious opportunist who managed to recognise that sociopathy was not a desirable trait in a world leader and genuinely went to great lengths to learn to control his violent, abusive tendencies so he could get where he wanted to be - the ultimate example of 'the ends justify the means' actually being an attitude that can lead someone to the proverbial light side of the Force.

Anyway.

I've posted the scene that made me fall in love with Peter before: it's from Shadow Puppets, shortly after he's been forced to abandon his own Hegemony compound and go on the run, because his parents have uncovered evidence that a captive of his named Achilles is about to try and kill him. It's morning, he can't get out of bed, he just lies there thinking about committing suicide and trying to make it look like murder, or something, because his pride has been mortally wounded and it's all THE END OF THE WORLD and god, someone just send death ninjas or something...

Note that at this point, Peter is Hegemon of the world, a rather more symbolic position than it used to be, but he's worked hard to make it mean something.

In order to get him out of bed, his parents show up, he still refuses to get out of bed, they pull him out, he mentally whines about how 'Ow' would be an ignominious last word for certain, cracks a terrible incest joke at his mother, and gets ice water dumped on him.

He storms out and slams the door... goes to his press conference, and promptly pulls a brilliant speech out of his ass that salvages an unsalvageable situation.

Guh.

Then several dozen pages later he breaks into his own compound, noting that these are his people being held captive and he'd better damn well be a part of saving them - a far cry from young sociopath!Peter.

Or as glacial_witch put it, "...Did he just manage to be a condescending asshole about putting himself in danger?"

There but for the grace of God goes Peter Wiggin - with his head held high and a 'I know better than you' in his pocket.

...So yeah. Basically, I've wanted to app Peter since I started reading up for Ender's Shadow Puppets plot a millenium ago and I love him so, so much. Guh. I'm a sucker for his kind of dichotomy. (I also decided he had to get at least a year with Ender for character development issues, because interesting, dammit, even if it means a lot of slogging through pinging off myself.)

[badnewsandwit.livejournal.com]

Alistair: Look, if you can play through Dragon Age without falling just a little bit in love with Alistair, you have no soul. I liked him because in some ways he is my type - soldier, layers like an onion, in possession of many a self-defense mechanism - and in some ways he really isn't - he's the Fool, his defense mechanism is wisecracks, he can get a bit emo, is absolutely terrified of leading anything, and he's a total romantic.

I hadn't had a fool or a knight since Arthur, so I was kind of eager to get into it again, and Alistair seemed like a great choice. Then it turned out ofthe_wilds was considering apping Morrigan, Alistair's foil from the game (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=os_amyaSaSg), and, well. How could I not?

Jeff came back because multi_madrox mailed me every term since Jamie's return going, Jeff and Jamie teaching a class together! Come on! Best thing ever!. Which... well, it was. I just didn't have a slot open for a while, but I kept it in the back of my head the whole time. Then when it was Mitchell's time to leave, I mailed multi_madrox back and said, Let's do this!

His reply came down to Really?.

Dolf is... well, honestly, I've wanted to app a character from a Dutch canon in game since forever, since they are by and large the characters I grew up with. I just didn't know which one, until I found out that there had been an English movie of Kruistocht in Spijkerbroek, one of my favorite books as a child.

Which I took as a sign. Time to spread the joy of Dutch children's books to the general populace! Joy full of child death, illness, and graphic depictions of lynching!

... if it hadn't been for the movie, I would've probably wound up apping from my #1 favorite Dutch children's book, which is about pirates and features medieval waterboarding, a graphic depiction of a hanging, and gonorrhea.

[trickydemigod.livejournal.com]

Are you:

- blonde*
- male
- prone to making bad decisions

Well then I'll app you. I used to have more variety but, eh, I'll stick to what I'm good at.

* Brunettes may apply if they wear bowties

[nonelikemesince.livejournal.com]

Like Erin, I shall do this in reverse order, skipping characters I've dropped.

Anakin Solo is the first male character I've apped in years. I'd been thinking about playing him for quite a while, but it was pretty intimidating; he's one of the big, iconic characters of the post-movie EU and it was really a pretty scary prospect. But solo_sword and sith_happened got all 'eeeeeeeeeee' every time I mentioned thinking about it, and it really did sound fun. And then in the end I realized that he wasn't always the big, noble hero figure he became after his death -- he was a kid who made mistakes and got in trouble and just kept being lucky enough to escape until one day he wasn't any more, and the idea of playing that, especially after Tahiri used to talk him up as the big awesome hero guy, was way too compelling to pass up in the end.

Stephanie Brown is a character I just absolutely fell in love with when I started reading her Batgirl run. I always thought she was interesting as Spoiler and then as Robin and then as Spoiler again, but it was Batgirl!Steph who really got to me and made me adore her, thus the Batgirl-era username batwaffles. I ended up deciding to bring her in as Robin because . . . okay, it was sort of a reactionary thing. There's always been a big fight in the fandom about whether she was ever "really" Robin or not, and a lot of (mostly male) fans like to deny it. In canon her run as Robin is really, really brief: three issues of the Robin book, one issue of Detective Comics, one issue of Batgirl volume 2, and one issue of Teen Titans. And that argument usually goes "Oh, she wasn't really Robin, she was just a stand-in plot device until Tim Drake got his head out of his ass and came back because he was the real Robin." Which annoyed me and hit my tendency-toward-character-rescue buttons, so. Stephanie as Robin, because at that point in time she's got such daddy issues and a desperate need for approval/self-validation that I thought would be really interesting to play.

Kennedy is the direct result of a week of insomnia when my partner was out of town, and my ill-advised decision, at 2 in the morning, to pop in my Buffy season 4 DVDs and watch "Hush." Yeah. Alone in the house at 2 AM with the Gentlemen on my screen. OBVIOUSLY sleep was not going to be happening, so I just kept mainlining the episodes from that point on. Okay, so I got to "Tabula Rasa" in S6 and went AHAHAHAHA NO I AM NOT WATCHING THE REST OF THIS SEASON, and moved on to S7. I'd always loved her character (oh, does it show?), but in that particular rewatch I got to "Bring on the Night" and went, "Oh my god, I forgot just HOW MUCH I loved her." And was late to work the next day because I literally watched all the way through to the end of the series from that point on. And totally pulled an Andrew and kept rewinding some scenes. Basically by the next morning I was very "oh my god, yeah, I have to app her. HAVE TO. Because she is made of totally underappreciated awesome." Shut up I have issues. Plus the idea of Kennedy being as annoying as she is in canon because she'd been in Fandom and was all "dude, I am totally a badass, I've been fighting baddies for years already" hit my aforementioned character-rescue button. So, obviously, I did.

Gabrielle has been one of my favorite TV characters for a long time, and definitely the one from my first major, online-involved fandom. I think this was also the result of a random decision to marathon a bunch of stuff off my Xena DVDs (except it was random selected episodes, not the whole thing), remembering how much I love her as a character, then getting to the series finale (most fans hate it, I love it a ridiculous amount) and realizing what an epic character-growth arc she had. It seemed like it would be fun to put her through a couple of years in Fandom, send her through canon on the side, and see how the changes she went through because of her canon experiences affected the way she saw Fandom. Plus by that point I'd already gotten into the habit of watching stuff and going "I wonder how that would play out in Fandom?" So. Yes.

[nonelikemesince.livejournal.com]

Tahiri Veila was the result of solo_sword and sith_happened poking me to app a SW character. I said "fine, I'll reread some stuff and see what appeals to me," which happened to be while the Legacy of the Force series was winding down. Tahiri had always been my favorite secondary character in New Jedi Order, and you know that character-rescue button I keep mentioning? LotF dropped an anvil on that button and just kept mashing it, because I was SO FURIOUS about what they did to her in that series that -- solo_sword can attest to this, because she did too -- I started hating her. Which pissed me off, because WOW, WAY TO RUIN MY FAVORITE KID, EU AUTHORS. That ended up being my driving motivation: I didn't want to hate one of my favorite characters any more, so I had to do something to fix that. In terms of character traits that appealed to me as a player, her dual-personality thing was a huge factor, as was the idea of having her heal emotionally from Anakin's death in a way that wouldn't turn her into what she became in LotF. (Though they're sort of forgiven now on account of the pure unadulterated awesome that she is in Fate of the Jedi so far.)

Katina Choovanski was a character I'd been contemplating playing for a long, long time: like, since the beginning of the game. I think the first time I mentioned anything SiP-related was when I made an offhanded comment about wanting a short-term villain in game in the form of Katchoo's white-collar-criminal ex-lover Darcy Parker; thatsamilkshake perked up all "!!!!!" when I did. I mean, this was way, way back. The game had to have been less than a year old at that point. I love that little messed-up ball of rage and all her issues and the contrast between the front she puts up for people and everything she's got going on inside. She's so freaking broken, and trying not to be; I always thought it was awesome how she tries to cope and frequently fails but keeps going on anyway despite all her emotional damage. Then thatsamilkshake sent me about five billion (okay, 150-ish) icons of her, and really, how was I going to resist after that?

Jennifer Scotts was just me wanting to play another Power Rangers character, really. Out of all the female characters on the various PR shows she's my favorite, and Time Force is my favorite PR series. There . . . wasn't a whole lot more serious thought that went into it. I guess I love Jen largely because most of the female Rangers are such girly-girls and she's just not.

Samuel Anders -- man, no thought went into that app. Also there was no app, because I've had him since the game was a "make a journal, jump on in" free-for-all. My best friend, who no longer plays but was the one who roped me into it, said "You should play." And I said "Okay. But who?" She said "Anders." I said "Okay." Because he was pretty and also a lot of fans hated him at the time and I'm contrary that way. That was that. Seriously.

[fates_jaye]

We are going to do one per comment cuz I know I can get away with that at work, la!

Jaye Tyler- So a long time ago, at the very beginning of the game, I threw Aeryn in the game thinking I'd drop it pretty quick, whatever. Then I figured out that this was actually pretty fun and I needed another character who was totally unlike Aeryn.

I don't know why I picked Jaye. Wonderfalls had been off the air for over a year, it wasn't out on DVD yet, and there was NO REASON for me to go "Who can I play? I KNOW, JAYE" and yet I did. I like her for being a snarky bitch who gets into weird situations and can be easily made to play with anyone, and then when I started playing her she took on a life of her own, becoming this person who could and would say the most inappropriate thing about anyone because it's what popped into her head, and I had some of the most fun with her.

Then a couple years ago I was going through a really bad time and dropped all but one character, and when I was starting to rebuild my characters Jaye kept popping into my head, because seriously, she could and would teach movie class. And for years I'd get people out of the blue telling me things like "If there was one character you should ever bring back..." So by the time I was planning to Nothing her, she was so clear in my head that I ended up submitting an app for her before she even got played again.

[childhood-taunt.livejournal.com]

Bruce Banner: My love for the Hulk started when I was wee and watching the re-runs of the Incredible Hulk TV show with Bill Bixby/Lou Ferrigno as the roles of David Banner/Hulk. Then one day in college I was playing a role in a student run play and one of the fellow cast members brought in the entire run of PAD written Hulk comics and spent my entire time backstage reading them. (I only had two lines so it was time well spent)

And then I was sorting laundry a few months ago and found the old TV Show on Netflix, which lead to me watching the movie with Ed Norton and yadda yadda yadda I wrote an app.

Matt Murdock: Waaaay back when I was still collecting comics, I had Daredevil on my pull list because I just liked the character. Later on I came up with the user name as a lark in case I ever wanted to play him but I was daunted by trying to bring him in from the comics universe. Lainey had originally played him as a townie from the movie-verse and I originally thought of taking him from there but... well, honestly I didn't like the movie. Then one day I came across the Frank Miller mini-series which did Matt's origin and thought: "Hey! If I use this I can take him from when he was wee and say it's from 616!"

And that's how I apped Matt.

Also at one point I was going to use Ben Affleck icons for Matt but just looking at the icons from the movie made my eyes bleed. I found this PB at Hollow Art and decided he was perfect but now I have virtually no other icons from him other than one movie he did in New Zealand. If anyone has access to the TV Show from "This is not my life" from New Zealand I will give you my soul for screencaps.

K: So a ways back I needed to take a hiatus from the game to deal with some personal stuff and finally after getting a lot of that settled, I decided I'd like to come back to the game. I was going to app a student but didn't feel quite up to it yet so I went with a townie. K was easy for me to tap into and it only took a couple of hours to refresh me with his canon and I was good to go with an app.

Jack Carter: I had actually written my application for Jack before I even wrote my app for K. I originally thought of him as a character when the first episode of Eureka appeared but forgot about it and never followed up on the show. Then one day I was looking through Netflix and saw they had the first three seasons available. A few weeks later I had watched all the episodes and started watching the current season at the time and knew that if I were ever to go back to FH I had to play Jack.

And if I had never looked at Netflix? I probably wouldn't be back in the game. So thank or blame Eureka for that people.

[childhood-taunt.livejournal.com]

Oh. And Jamie.

Why did I app him as a teacher?

Well some students had come back in the past couple of sessions as teachers in the game and I started to wonder if there was any of my old characters I could bring back.

I toyed with Marty and Worf for a bit and then thought: "What would Jamie teach if he came back to Fandom?"

And then I started laughing hysterically just at the thought of it and knew I had to app him.

Plus I knew Anakin, Zoe and Steve Rogers would lose their shit at the thought of him teaching.

[longislandiceme]

Bridge was one of those "quick, pick a character and comment to claim them!" apps. Power Rangers SPD was the current series at the time, and Bridge was my favourite. Pretty simple, that one. Fun fact: he's also the game's longest-running active character (although Anakin's got the record for longest-running on-island character). So uh. Yay accomplishment? Or something?

Firekeeper came about because I'd always been kind of fascinated by feral-child stories, and so when I found her books I essentially mainlined them and then realised... here's a really unique sort of voice that Fandom hasn't seen anything like. She's so different from my usual character type, too, that I couldn't resist the challenge.

Bobby has always been my favourite X-Man, but I'd never really considered apping him... until I was partway through another app, stopped, and realised I really did want to play him. There was some waffling between Ultimate and original-flavour Bobby for a bit, but once I made my decision I wrote the app and writing sample in about ten minutes. When a voice comes that easily I figure I DEFINITELY had to app him, so that other app got pushed to the backburner... and in fact I don't think it's ever come off. Clearly I made the right choice.

Jake - I'll be honest here, I first fell in love with Jake 'cause of the accent and the setting. And then I got to know him more and loved him for his ridiculous impulsiveness, terrible relationship skills, and the fact that he actually is really good at what he does despite all that. The reason I apped him, though, was because I really wanted a townie, and while I had plenty of potential characters in mind, Jake was the only one who I wanted to play more as an adult than a teenager.

William came about because the canon is hilariously anachronistic, and his character is constantly inventing steampunk versions of modern technology. I think it was maybe by episode five or six that I really went "oh my god, he would adore Fandom." I wanted to see how someone who was fairly progressive- socially as well as technology wise- would deal with actually being in modern times. So far it's worked out really well.

Toby's canon I stumbled across almost by accident. Someone on my flist mentioned the show had been renewed for a second season, and I was like "why have I never heard of this?". Turns out because it was originally a US/Canada co-production and NBC dropped out during the first season, so fast forward a year and a half and they've finally managed to more or less reboot the show produce a second season. Anyway, I mainlined S1, and by the time the first couple eps of S2 had aired I knew I had it bad. I loved that he was this character who had something of a rough childhood, made some bad decisions, but ended up a paramedic and later "confidential informant" to the police because he just wanted to help people. Unlike some of my more hero-y characters, though, he didn't do it in that big flashy wearing spandex kind of way. The telepathy itself was another thing- minus the Jedi, Fandom's got no male telepaths. So clearly I had to fix that ;)

Um. You may have noticed I have a bit of a thing for Canadian crime-dramas -_-

[taseredagod.livejournal.com]

So I had long, complicated reasons for appoint all my old charas, but then life got a little too busy as I did a two year grad program in nine months and sleeping had become a fantasy and anyway, everyone got dropped and I left.

Fast forward to this summer when I realized I missed playing and missed y'all. So I began to ponder who would be a good, stress free, fun character to play. And I had just seen Thor, and there was this tiny, completely normal girl who I saw a very easy way to bring in. And then the infamous Coconut linked me to an epic Darcy fic that somehow ended up cementing my choice in my head.

And so, Darcy! Who is one of the most fun charas I have played. (Minus the vending machine. Sorry, the vending machine was epic.)

[brat_inslayage]

I miss the vending machine.

[halfman-lion.livejournal.com]

One at a time because work hates me today:

Tyrion Lannister was because of his first real conversation with Jon Snow, the one that ends "Never forget what you are. The rest of the world will not. Wear it like armor, and it can never be used to hurt you." As soon as I heard it, I knew he had to give that speech at Fandom. The rest of the series, including slapping Joffrey, was just a detail.

Most people who know the series love Tyrion, and I don’t think my reasons for loving him are especially unique. I like his cynicism, his bluntness, the fact he’s a thinker born into a world and family that fails to appreciate that. Even his flaws – his need for attention, his coarseness and tendency towards self-pity – struck me as fun to play with.

I was nervous about applying him both because fantasy isn’t usually my thing and because I knew I wouldn’t have time to finish all the books before the app cycle hit – and, with my reading speed, if I waited until I’d finished the books we’d be looking at a Fall 2013 application. I did a lot of discussing the concept with people who knew the books, and, luckily, they were all encouraging.

And so here he is.

[chief-cheerio.livejournal.com]

Quinn Fabray goes back to her performance of "You Keep Me Hangin' On," way back during the episode Throwdown. Something about how desperately she was trying to hold together when the pregnancy meant her life was completely falling apart around her struck a chord with me. As the season went on, my appreciation for the grace, intelligence and heart she hid under that bitchy exterior kept me interested in the character. Plus, Dianna Agron is freaking gorgeous and seems very cool, and I am shallow.

The show has not served Quinn well in terms of character growth or consistency since the first season; I have a whole rant on that, but this really isn't the time. I'm more than a little glad I get to keep my Quinn as a reasonable extrapolation of the girl she was back then.

As for why I didn't do the baby stuff ... I played out an unplanned pregnancy once. In retrospect it was a mistake. Going there again -- especially without firm canon guidance on how my character would handle it -- sounded like the opposite of fun.

[solo_sword]

Jaina Solo- I actually wanted to app her at the very beginning of the game, but I knew she was too similar to and would run in the same circles as Aeryn, so I waited till she graduated.

Basically Jaina wasn't my favorite SW character at the time (she is now, for she got awesome), but I started reading the books when I was 14 and those books were the ones set when she was 14, and we sort of grew up at the same pace so I've always had an easy time relating to her because of that. Plus she's just fun because she's bluntly honest and a pragmatist and one of the strongest characters I read nowadays (especially now that they've stopped jacking around with her love life). Plus, you know, messing with timelines is fun.

[annieadderall.livejournal.com]

Annie Edison- I think I originally made this journal early on, thinking she could be fun, but I didn't seriously think about it till season two. By that point canon was putting her in all these situations (hi, zombie episode) that made me think she'd adapt to Fandom pretty well. So when Jaina was leaving and I needed to app someone, I went for the one who I knew could easily take over my brain and get played. I am soooo glad I did omg.

[brat_inslayage]

And then you got me hooked on the show. I HOPE YOU'RE HAPPY.

[inaskinnyway.livejournal.com]

Susan Sto Helit- I actually had Susan at the veeeery beginning of the game, for such a short time I don't list her in "who'd you play?" stuff. I originally wanted four very different characters and ended up with Aeryn, Jaye, Quinn Morgendorffer and Susan, but then Jaye and Aeryn got all the play and I realized Susan was a bitch to socialize. So she went up for adoption pretty quickly and the next person dropped her pretty quickly too.

And then I created another journal for her, because I adore this character. Terry Pratchett is incapable of writing girls that don't kick ass (or at least prod buttock), and the personality traits that attracted me to Jaina did the same for Susan here. I love that she's no-nonsense and practical, but Susan knows she's not a nice person, she hates that she's dependable and reliable and other things that end in 'able' and the whole thing where till Thief of Time there's no one else out there like her would be fun to play with.

So then I made the journal and kept putting her off to app other characters, which was actually good because if I'd apped her when my head wasn't in it she'd be dropped already. By fall I was more confident in my playing and thought I could work at the socialization problem (which is still hard sometimes but I'm managing) and it was just the right time finally.

(And because I've been asked this before, no, I didn't app because of the BDE. That was just a bizarre accident of wonderful timing.)

[withasword.livejournal.com]

I had to go back and check my Amazon orders for this one. Turns out I read the original Kate Daniels book back in 2008. I remember liking it, vaguely, but that's about it. Then two years later I clearly found it in a pile, re-read and was like 'oh, I wonder if there's more of these now'. Turns out THERE WAS. Somehow I ended up addicted to this author and her cracky little series' and more importantly KATE.

Who doesn't love a badass heroine with a smart mouth and a boatload of issues?

I think I read it not too long after Twilight, and there was a parallel moment when Kate found out her love interest watched her sleep without her permission. Except she called him a creepy perv and tossed him out of her apartment with a knife at his throat. It made me happy.

It's the little things.

[cant-be-helped.livejournal.com]

I will follow the same trend as many others!

Dorothy came about because I realized I was about one semester away from losing my one female student, and I wanted to play a character that was innocent but not totally naieve. Dorothy has a nice blend of wide-eyed wonder and drive, and Return to Oz was, like, one of the touchstones of my childhood, so this seemed a good blend. Also, apping someone who killed a version of one of my other characters amused the heck out of me.

Hayley came back for completely different reasons. Playing her around the Nothing plot reminded me how much I loved her mind, the whole psychology of her, the mood swings, the darker urges. She'd originally only been dropped because I ran out of ideas for her, alumni-wise. And now I have plans, oh do I have plans. Muhuahahahaha.

Oh, and partially because I missed having an excuse to make Agyness Deyn icons. That woman is so gorgeous that I sometimes wish I could be her.

Freddie Benson came about because I had managed to hook hurtingzeebo on iCarly and she had been overcome with the urge to app Sam. As I was a proper enabler, I offered to app someone alongside her, and apping Freddie seemed a better fit for me than Carly. His geekiness, friendliness, and amiable nature were all aspects that I liked and thought I could play.

Oh, and the whole Seddie-in-canon thing happened after we apped our characters, true fact. It amusingly works better in game than it did on the show.

Hercules... Oh, Herc. He's a derp, a loyal friend, a hero, a frat boy, a horndog, a valiant defender of what's right, all this in one muscled, manly package. When I started reading Incredible Hercules, he quickly became my favorite male Marvel character, and he's been so since. It seemed only a matter of time until I brought him into the game, and ta-da, he finally arrived to bring his special brand of ridiculous humor.

Elphaba Thropp was apped... a month after I saw Wicked for the first time? She hit so many of my buttons: the social outcast, the rebel with a good cause, the misunderstood 'villain', all of it. In fact, a former player had joked that she was going to be surprised if I didn't walk out of the musical wanting to RP Elphie. And she was right.

She's been one of the biggest challenges I've had in RP, but always a rewarding one. Of course, as she gets more social, she's almost gone from the game, so there's that. Argh. But yes, those are the reasons I apped her.

[nothornlessrose.livejournal.com]

As I was a proper evil enabler

Fixed that for you. :D

[also-audrey.livejournal.com]

Audrey Parker- One of my friends came to stay with me before SDCC, and she happened to bring DVD's of this show she'd gotten totally hooked on. And then not only did I get hooked, but the show was about this woman who goes to a small town full of people with powers, basically. So when I kinda fell in love with Audrey and her story, of course I started writing an app in my head, intending to age her down for a student in the fall.

And then I saw the season one finale.

And then I had to see the rest of season two, so the app got put off.

And then season two happened and I wasn't sure I could app her at all, but I decided to suck it up and app her as a townie, fully knowing that I could be in for a jossing of the Anders/Jack Harkness variety.

And of course she's where my socialization problem comes in, sigh.

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

There's going to be a fun theme running through most of these.

Scott has pretty much always been my favorite X-Man and I've been thinking of apping himself years. But the comic version has too much going on, and I wasn't ready for another student so Evolution Scott didn't work for me now. So the laughably flawed movie version was the best play. Especially since he's broken enough that I can get away with him putting around as a teacher for a semester. Oh, also, I just wanted a new teacher this semester. 

Dave is another one I've talked about since way back at the beginning of the game because I figured he was a really good comedic straight man for this game. Silly enough on his own, but pair him with crazy people and events and he's REALLY fun. For timing, I was ready to have a second student again and I needed someone as different from Bruce as possible, almost certainly one with a comedic bent. Dave ended up being perfect. 

Bruce was someone I'd played several times as a guest character and had talked about apping in the past and... Um... You know, I don't really remember why I ended up actually apping him. I'm pretty sure Steve talked me into it or inspired it or something. But c'mon. He's Batman. Batman's awesome, of course I wanted to play him. And it had to the DCAU version because he's the best. 

Zayne is just a character I loved from the first issue of his comic. There's just something about this well meaning, pacifistic, purely good screw up who finds himself being a vital cog in this era of Star Wars through sheer bad luck, but becomes a hero because of it that screams "Play me!" And now I'm in the really fun part with Zayne. I apped him as a student knowing full well that I'd spend a year on canon and then bring him back when he is that fully formed heroic character, because I just couldn't wait the couple years it would have take the comics to get me there on their own. 

Zayne is the one guy I currently play who I didn't think about apping for a long time before jumping in. But he's also the one guy for whom the first few years was me getting started. So he's a little different. 

[zetabetabrat.livejournal.com]

WELL DAVE DOESN'T KNOW ANY CRAZY PEOPLE. NOPE. NONE AT ALL.

[life_inshadow]

Tara Maclay: Okay, so as some of you remember and some of you actually don't, there was a really deeply terrible interpretation of Tara in fall 2006 who has since passed into the legend of the game. It left a bad enough taste in a lot of people's mouths that the character was off the table as a possibility for, like, years.

But, well, time passes. And come summer of 2009, I was looking for a female student to app, and it had to be someone with a very different kind of personality than Jack Priest for the sake of character balance. I'd also been periodically whining for about two years by that point about how I never had anybody with fun powers, so I wanted a girl with them.

I'd been rewatching Buffy (as one does) and realized how delightful Tara was. She was one of my favorites during her seasons, and she seemed like such a natural fit for my open slot that I couldn't imagine it had taken me that long to figure out the idea. She was a pragmatic pick, but one with a lot of love mixed in.

I've never had someone for three school years before. It's been fascinating watching her slowly develop.

[throughaphase]

Kitty Pryde- Kitty is by far my favorite X-Man. Always has been, probably always will be. (Joss says she was part of his inspiration for Buffy. That should be a clue.) So I got it in my head that I wanted to play her, but Marvel comics canon terrifies me because there's so much of it and I haven't read it all and I was so intimidated. So I apped from X-Men Evolution because it was a standalone cartoon and therefore easier. And then Kitty got dropped in the Great Character Drop of 2010, which I regretted because I didn't play her well enough when I had her, wah wah wah.

Last fall I was bemoaning not having anywhere to play at night because Caritas and the Devil's Nest were both understaffed at the time, so I think willbethenight got sick of the whining and linked me to Wikipedia's list of fictional bartenders. And there was Kitty. Which meant I was going to have to brave Marvel canon after all to do it, which is still intimidating (If I take a while to ping back when canon comes up with Marvel characters, it's because I'm checking all references and probably emailing Nick to be triple sure I'm not screwing up) but omgchancetoplayKittyagain. I think I had the app in two days after getting that Wiki link.

[longislandiceme]

SPEAKING OF MARVEL CHARACTERS. I definitely still need to have Bobby run in to her, damnit.

[nothornlessrose.livejournal.com]

Phoebe was a no-brainer. I had been playing her at a prompt community and when the game opened, she was immediately the first character I wanted to play. The fact that I was going to have two awesome canonmates and we would be able to rewrite canon made it that much better.

Gwynn was because I wanted a character that was completely opposite of Phoebe. I've always loved the Robin Hood legends and when I was given the DVD of Princess of Thieves, I just knew I had to app her. She was this kickass girl who people kept trying to hold back because she was a girl -- and then she went on to save the day. I wasn't sure how well she'd go over in game, so I apped a second character at the same time. I am so very glad that it was Gwynn who was approved.

Savannah. Oh Savannah. I love Kelley Armstrong's Women of the Otherworld series and I had been playing her as a college student at another game. After re-reading Dime Store Magic, I had this perfect canon point that I could bring her in from. My roommate at the time kept encouraging me to do it and I finally did.

Annja. Female archaeologist who finds out she's the spiritual descendant of Joan of Arc and is a reporter on a show called Chasing History's Monsters? And she gets into all of this weird stuff because of the sword and ends up having to find and protect all of these different historical or mythological treasures? The history buff in me could not pass that up. Again, encouraged by roommate, I apped her. I had no idea I was going to get so attached to her and that I would end up having her as a teacher.

Chloe was because Phoebe had graduated and my other characters were near graduation and I hadn't apped anyone in awhile. Chloe seemed like a good fit for the weirdness of Fandom at the time.

Cassidy. All of my students had graduated and I was struggling with Chloe. The Black Jewels was my second favorite series of books, but the character I played everywhere else was too powerful for FH and I didn't want to step on glacial_witch's toes. Then I read Shadow Queen and fell in absolute love with Cassidy. Even though I realized that having her in Fandom meant that a lot of the things that happened to her in canon would never happen, I was encouraged to app her. She's been even more fun to play than I expected.

[hurtingzeebo]

So, I have a tendency to take in pretty much any media these days through "who can I play in an RP?" glasses (next up, Sybil Grantham! Or not), so a lot of these stem from that, but there's still specifics as to why I picked them specifically out of that giant pool of characters. So, in order:

My reasons for apping Priestly were entirely shallow. I had just finished up playing Dean Winchester in another game, and I wanted another Jensen Ackles character.

Also, mohawk.

Claudia Donovan was probably the easiest character choice, ever. I knew I wanted to play her the minute she showed up on my screen for the first time. Considering that I was watching the show entirely because of a half-second bit of her on one commercial. . . . Well, it was love at first sight.

Picking Sam Puckett is kind of a funny story. I had the app nearly ready to go for an entirely different Sam (who still might show up this summer, after Claudia leaves, depending on whether or not I decide I can pull off two very different characters with the same name) and randomspanish was babbling about iCarly again, and I was all "I guess I should totally watch that, huh?"

Two days later, I was all "Okay, so apparently I'm going to app a different Sam." Because Sam Puckett is awesome.

I've been talking about playing Vincent pretty much since I started watching Eureka, but we were kind of full up on restaurants and diners in town. I think I mentioned playing him in a meme somewhere, and laceycantlie emailed offering up Luke's and, well. There wasn't going to be a better time to pick him up!

Pinkie Pie is all answertobeheard's fault. I don't remember the context, but there was discussion of the awesomeness of MLP:FiM, and I was all "eh, I guess I'll check it out" and two days later (I watch shows really fast, yo), I was debating which pony was the best pony and then I realized that I could totally pull off Pinkie Pie, and here we are.

I hope you all like Pinkie, because she is NEVER GOING AWAY. She's somehow managed to turn out to be the easiest character I've written in aaaaaaaages. We . . . have similar cracky tendencies.

And latest but not least, Zinzi December. I've had this . . . hankering to play a darker, more serious character for awhile. Also, a character with powers. Two of my top possible future students at the moment include an assassin and a guy who literally thinks he's had a psychotic break. Even I can't be all crack all the time. Anyway, so I read Zoo City and by about halfway through, I was totally in love with Zinzi. She was the perfect dark character, with a touch of humor and more than a touch of weird about her to appeal to me (AND A SLOTH). She was going to be a student for awhile, but, uh. I'm impatient? And rather than try to de-age her or play her precanon (SLOTH!), I figured she'd work better as a townie.

And now that we're no longer drowning in budget at work, I might even manage to get her out a bit more. Yay!

[sexonyoursheets.livejournal.com]

DON'T YOU JOKE ABOUT APPING SYBIL AND NOT DO IT. DON'T TEASE ME LIKE THAT. I LOVE YOU FOREVER LADY SYBIL.

Besides, then we could have Cousin Matthew visit, and um, duh.

[bitten_notshy]

I told this in the last edition of the meme, but I love the story, so you're stuck with it again.

Tyler Durden got Lady Abigail Irene Garrett as his teaching buddy, way back in summer '08. The next week, I was in the library and New Amsterdam was there on the new arrivals shelf, pretty much begging me to read it.

So I did.

And Jack ... honestly, I can take or leave a lot of the characters and a lot of the worldbuilding, but Jack is a singular character: bratty, devoted, competent, sharp, only obnoxious when he wants to be.

I fell in love.

And, y'know, the book killed him, so clearly I had to fix that. I made the account about 15 minutes after I finished reading. He couldn't come in until Romeo graduated because they would have overlapped too much. Since then he's been stuck to my brainmeats -- and to the game.

The one thing that makes me sadface is that the second book he's in -- including a lengthy flashback to him at 16 -- was only reissued as an eBook (and thus became accessible) last year. If I'd had the backstory before I apped him, I could have played him as a sophomore and wouldn't have had to graduate him so quickly.

But so it goes.

[ihavediabetes.livejournal.com]

Another reason to do these all in separate comments: DAMN but I get wordy.

Stacey McGill- I, like most girls I knew, was obsessed with the BSC as a kid. Except I think I maybe overdosed on it in my formative years because I remember a terrifying number of details (such as the Pikes' ages in order, Dawn's middle name, and boredom at work proved to me that I can still imitate Stacey's handwriting. Seriously). If you could clear this crap out of my head you might find a cure for cancer in there somewhere. Stacey was always my favorite because she was one of the cool ones and her books tended to be my favorites, so I think it was around the time we had a Claudia IG I made a different Stacey journal kind of randomly.

Then I started reading bsc_snark more. They rag on the books and the characters, but it's also done with some nostalgia mixed in there. So the more I read the comm and saw the criticisms of the characters, the more Stacey seemed like a real character with flaws that I didn't see when I was 7-13 years old. Add to this the fact that whenever the BSC came up in conversation (a surprising lot, btw), it'd end in things like "You know this person's going to end up doing this" and I got this more fleshed out idea of what Stacey would be like in high school after the BSC.

Then one night after talking about how I didn't have a ho anymore, Stacey came up again. (Because seriously. 20something guys dated in two years.) And suddenly it all clicked together and tah dah.

[vanillajello]

Man, I wrote all these on the train and then the train wifi died. So now I'm spamming.

Kate Gregson, as documented in the previous meme, pretty much came down to me needing a character. Preferably from an obscure-ish canon, and of snarky disposition because those felt like qualities I could play with and feel comfortable. I circled through some other choices I honesty don't even recall anymore before coming back to her, a decision which I have not regretted. Season one had finished some months before I apped her, so I had no idea of the directions canon might take her – and let's face it, I didn't know if I'd last in the game until new canon came, anyway.

But seasons two and three were amazing, and I keep on having a good time here, so win!