Edward Elric

[Locked. pre-drop thread]

Sat, 18 Apr 2009 02:07:01 GMT

*In the Amestris dorms, at night, Ed abruptly blinks and sits up in bed, wide awake, looking kind of surprised*

What the-- Now?

*rubs at the side of his head, then slowly smirks*

Shit... it's about time.

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 01:00:15 GMT

SO YOU KNOW HOW SOMETIMES YOU FIND AN AWESOME GAME AND IT EATS YOUR SOUL AND FOR ABOUT A WEEK YOU FORGET ANYTHING ELSE EXISTS? YEAH.

I HAVE ALL OF THE TABS OF THREADS I PLAN TO CONTINUE OPEN SO I CAN GET TO THEM WHEN I RETURN TO CAMP. IF YOU NO LONGER WANT TO CONTINUE THE THREAD BY THEN, THAT'S COOL. IF YOU DO, ALSO COOL. BUT I'M ON SUDDEN GAMER HIATUS AND WON'T BE DOING MUCH OF ANYTHING CAMPWISE FOR A WEEK OR SO PROBABLY.

YES KAZA THAT INCLUDES YOU.

MISTLETOE CONTINUATIONS AND OTHER

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 01:35:40 GMT

A) Perhaps you just got, or will be getting a comment from Aviy for a thread dropped over the past week. THIS IS BECAUSE I WANTED TO CONTINUE, REALLY, I'M JUST VERY DISTRACTABLE. You aren't obligated to pick up and I will continue to be distractable but you may if you like o/

B) A LOT OF MISTLETOE THREADS GOT DROPPED mostly in the chaos of me trying to play seven characters in mistletoe at once over three different posts. I AM UP FOR CONTINUING ANY/ALL OF THEM AT YOUR LEISURE. Just poke me here, possibly link me to the thread.

I'M TOTALLY GOING TO REPLY TO THAT OTHER RELATIONSHIP MEME

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 06:29:22 GMT

But between now and then. This one requires less thought |D

STOLEN FROM ZAZZLE

THE HACK RELATIONSHIP METER THING.In terms of progression, it goes red --> blue --> yellow --> pink, with 1-5 dots signifying how close you are to moving to the next level. The base color varies depending on the character. For example! Almost everybody starts off with a blue with ~~Allen~~ Luke. 8D Higher if they're a ~~cute~~ well endowed girl. Whereas, with ~~Miharu~~ Viral, most people would be red. IT'S SUBJECTIVE and pretty. And if you get anything in the pink range, chances are, they either love you madly, or want in your pants. Or both. :(

MY CHARACTERS ARE: Argilla, Ed, Jacuzzi, Kaworu, Kira, Luke, Reborn, Ticky, Vash, Viral, Zack

LIST THE SPECIFIC RELATIONSHIPS YOU WANT. Name as many as you like, just. Spell it out for me I play 11 people I forget things.

I FEEL LIKE OFFERING A BRIEF GUIDE AS TO HOW THIS WORKS WITH MY CHARACTERS. SO LET ME SHOW YOU THEIR BASELINE COLORS AND DO A BIT OF EXPLANATION.

Argilla- Technically baselines at RED. But it's very easy to get a BLUE baseline if you present yourself to her as NOT AN ASSHOLE. YELLOW is for people she's genuinely fond of, with the higher numbers being reserved for comrads and PINK is pretty much just comrades but the ones she's especially fond of (read: Not Heat).

Ed- Much like Argilla, baselines at BLUE for Not Assholes and RED for assholes. If you're a character he YELLS AT A LOT chances are you moved up from red at some point (or are still in it). That said. It's fairly easy to get into the YELLOW with Ed if you talk with him regularly. He likes most people. PINK is PRETTY HARD though since he doesn't bond that closely with people.

Jacuzzi- BLUE baseline for PRETTY MUCH EVERYONE. The only way to get into the RED is to hurt his friends. Even Rail Tracer is in the blue. YELLOW is for friends. This is very easy to get. Just. Like him. Or be liked by him. SOMETIMES YOU CAN'T HELP IT. PINK is for active friends! People who treat him like they care about him and who he feels loyal to. ALL OF HIS GANG IS IN THE PINK.

Kaworu- RED is pretty much non existant. BLUE is baseline. ALL HUMANS GO HERE EVEN IF YOU'RE AN ASSHOLE. YELLOW for friends! PINK is for close friends |D HE'S VERY EASY.

Kira- RED is his baseline. It's pretty easy to get out of if you're human and hard to get out of if you're an angel or demon who. Acts like an angel or demon. BLUE is for people who are interesting or entertaining in some way! This is pretty easy to get. YELLOW is for people who. Some part of him genuinely cares about. MOST PEOPLE WILL CAP AT FIVE BLUES. Meanwhile Kira's EMOTIONAL CAP FOR EVERYTHING is five yellows. It's literally impossible to get PINK unless you are Setsuna, Alexiel, Sakuya or his dad.

Luke- Is very easy. Baseline at BLUE. I'm... honestly not sure you CAN score in the RED with him. YELLOW is for people he likes in some way and PINK is for friends.

Reborn- kinda similar to Kira but without the I'M NOT HUMAN AND DON'T CARE ABOUT PEOPLE restrictions. RED baseline. BLUE for entertaining. For family or special interest. PINK for people he's genuinely fond of in his black tiny heart.

Ticky- lol. THIS IS SORT OF A CASE BY CASE BASIS. RED COULD indicate dislike, annoyance or disinterest. Or exorcist/angel. BLUE is the baseline for people he doesn't find ACTIVELY DISINTERESTING. YELLOW is for especially interest/fun people who he talks to regularly and enjoys the company of! PINK is for FRIENDS. Regardless of. Whether or not they want his friendship. Family scores are not influanced by being family and can score anywhere.

Vash- JESUS. YELLOW is pretty much the baseline. In order to score in the BLUE he'd have to take you REALLY SERIOUSLY which he doesn't for anyone at camp. RED is not something anyone can achieve. PINK is for friends who aren't dangerous!

Viral- baselines RED for everyone equally. From there BLUE is "tolerable" and YELLOW is "reasonably fond/respectful" and PINK is "topped".

Zack- RED is pretty much a negative trait for him. You get there by pissing him off. BLUE is baseline. YELLOW is friends/awesome people. PINK is GOOD friends/REALLY awesome people. Zack is not complicated..

.....subject goes here

Mon, 19 May 2008 15:17:49 GMT

Hi kids.

So between naked day and a new character and...not sleeping and reading a lot of BL manga and did i mention not sleeping? And having like. Nine different characters out. I........lost about a million threads I totally actually intended to pick up.

So IF YOU ARE STILL INTERESTED IN CONTINUING A THREAD WITH ME FROM THE PAST...WHENEVER. Plz give me a link and I'm all over it |D

Also if you wanted to play with my characters consider this a general spot where you can leave me with a link and I'll jump you.

NOW PLAYING: Argilla, Ed, Kaworu, Kira, Jacuzzi, Luke, Reborn, Ticky, Vash, Viral, Zack

QUESTIONS MEME

Mon, 05 May 2008 15:39:01 GMT

It goes LIKE SO. You comment here and ASK A QUESTION it can be anything CFUD related, OOC, IC, Relationship, psychology, thoughts, whatever. I.E. My character's opinion of your character or maybe what you have been wondering about this behavior or that, or general thoughts on my characters or canons or what, who I might consider raping you into apping, etc.

WHEN I REPLY I will also ask you a question in turn!

In this way we talk at each other, which is fun.

Icon Guide III

Mon, 05 May 2008 02:28:54 GMT

Okay! Time for another icon guide. 1 Was Here. 2 Was There.

You may be thinking "God, Aviy, you did two already. What more could you possibly have to say about Photoshop?". Well, thankfully, in this case I don't really. This isn't a photoshop tutorial and I probably won't be talking about tools or such so much as just a quick and dirty "how I did that" with the various styles of icons I've done, as well as some talk about the values of color and contrast and such. Hopefully the information herein will inspire you for your own icons! Similarly if you want to steal the methods to make your own I certainly don't mind, and I'll be including the hexadecimal color codes I use for each icon type if you want to mimic it for your use. HERE WE GO.

Ticky Mikk - New Set vs Old

This change was made after an extensive conversation with my wife about how the first set was too dark! It took me a while to grasp the problem, since on my monitor at least they are in no way hard to see, though the brown is certainly MUCH DARKER than, you know, white! It's still much lighter than black. But I couldn't deny that I had been unhappy with my Ticky icon set for a while (ever since I'd started working on Allen's) and couldn't figure out why exactly it was that Ticky (who is IN MY HUMBLE OPINION the prettiest man in the manga) would have the least pretty icon set.

So there was about three hours of going through my other icon sets and locating successful and unsuccessful ones and figuring out why this works and that doesn't. In fact it comes down to almost an equation.

A) Contrast Attracts The Eye - This is why black and white is simple and yet still so pretty. Black on white is just easy to see and it gives you probably the best appreciation for simply the lines of the art. For a long time I refused to colorize my icons at ALL because WHEN YOU DO THAT you are losing definition in the linework and shifting the way you see it. BUT that doesn't really mean colorizing icons is WORSE, BECAUSE:

B) Color Attracts The Eye - So while you inherently lose contrast anytime you colorize an icon, you gain Hue! Vivid colors especially will draw attention and make something striking, so while some lines might be a bit harder to see clearly the overall picture has this COLOR an that appeals to us.

Thus, colorizing with brighter colors works better because even if it lowers the contrast on a technical level it still makes up for it by drawing the eye. This is why Devit icons, which aren't technically that much lighter than the original Ticky set work well, when Ticky's don't. They aren't LIGHTER but they are BRIGHTER. The blue is very vivid! Infact it's so vivid I have to make all of his backgrounds muted in some way, or else the bright blue/green will draw more attention than the slightly desaturated Noah up front.

Ticky's older set tho, was brown. Brown is not a very vivid or eye drawing color. Brown on Black is less so. So not only was a drastically reducing the contrast, I wasn't making up for it with anything.

The new set still isn't my absolute favorite (Allen's will probably always be so). But we make sacrifices for character. Red would fit Ticky's crazy spells well enough, but is too passionate a color for the 85% of the time where he's reasonably sane. Blue is too mellow and cool. Brown is, to me! This simple and smooth, undramatic and warm color that fits him well, and then for crazy moments? The art carries that Just Fine.

And that's it for the LECTURE PORTION of our guide, the rest of it will be pretty much images showing what layers and colors I use to achieve this effect or that.

Here is the settings of those layers:

1) Canvas!

2) Background Layer. The bits of pattern I use for the background. Set to Multiply.

3) Brightness/Contrast Layer. Check 'Use Legacy' and then Brightness is +12 and Contrast is -8. This makes the whites sliiightly not white and the Blacks sliiightly not black. KEEP IN MIND that whenever you lighten your blacks like this the gray you create will probably not be even and I suggest going over it with the burn tool to make sure they are as dark as they will get.

4) Color Balance Layer. Check 'Preserve Luminosity'. The 'Shadows' are set to +70 Cyan/Red and -70 Yellow/Blue. Like so:

What this is doing is basically saturating most of my image but keeping the contrast because it's only effecting the darks.

5) Color Fill 1. The color being used is #BAB4A6. The layer is set to Multiply. This effects Shadows, Midtones and Highlights equally.

6) Color Fill 2. The color here is just white. The layer is set to Linear Dodge and the Fill is at 25%. Linear Dodge basically Brightens but doesn't darken (much like the Dodge Tool) but will do so with a Hue if you have a color. If you use just white it brightens the fuck out of everything (and I think sliiightly desaturates). You can get a very similar effect with another Brightness/Contrast Layer.

7) Eye Layer. I'm using a bright orange for his eyes #F26522 that looks yellow thanks to the brown of the surrounding color and the layer effects. The layer is set to Hard Light with 70% Fill.

8) Clothing Layer. Using white I color in the clothing. The layer is set to Hard Mix at 7% Fill. Hard Mix is basically A REALLY HARD MIX. I. Don't even know what it does technically but if you use white set to Hard Mix and then have a reaaaally low Fill it's like a more dramatic Linear Dodge.In this case it basically gives me WHITE (when the lightest color in Ticky's icons is otherwise the same really soft brown as his tongue there) and then will brighten the linework too.

Rhode Camelot

Rhode's icons are made very similarly to Ticky's. Or rather, Ticky's icons were copied almost identically from Rhode's. I basically did his like I did hers (which took me AGES to figure out the first time) and changed the hues around.

1) Canvas.

2) Background Layer. Set to Multiply. In this image the Fill is at 88% to make the Background a bit lighter.

3) Brightness/Contrast Layer. Select 'Use Legacy'. Brightness is at +22 and Contrast is at -27.

4) Color Balance. Select 'Preserve Luminosity'. Shadows are set to -56 Magenta/Green, +30 Yellow/Blue.

5) Color Fill 1. Using a very light purple #DBD3E0 set to Multiply.

6) Background Lighten Layer. A duplicate of the Background layer set to Screen. This makes the whites you see in the background whiter without darkening the darks.

7) Color Fill 2. White, set to Linear Dodge and 25% Fill.

Devit

I'M FOND OF DEVIT'S ICONS as I really like that shade of blue and the fact that completely saturated it's more of a sea foam green. So when I don't tone things down with grays at all it stands out that way. They're also a very successful set despite not having any blacks or whites. Since it's SO COLORFUL I used gray as the offset color, along with the usual Noah gold for the eyes.

1) Canvas.

2) Background. Set to multiply.

3) Brightness/Contrast Layer. Select 'Use Legacy'. Brightness +22, Contrast -27.

4) Color Balance Layer. Select 'Preserve Luminosity'. Highlights with Yellow/Blue at +46.

5) Color Fill 1. Using color #9EE2DE. Set to Multiply, 78% Fill.

6) Kick Layer. White used on a layer set to Hard Mix at 29% Fill. This is what is making the flash of his kick really bright.

7) Fluff Layer. A gray (#CCCCCC) used on a layer set to Saturation at 45% Fill.

8) Eye Layer. Didn't actually color in his eyes on this one, but if I had, the layer is set to Color, 90% Fill. The eye color is #E4AC19.

Allen Walker

Allen's set! By far my favorite. The gold/yellow and silver and blue just work so well together plus Allen is a VERY PRETTY BOY especially lately and. Yes. )= I love this set with all of my soul and it pains me that it makes Allen prettier than Ticky BUT WHAT CAN YOU DO. This set is the result of an epiphany I had while driving that basically went "wow gold allen icon set would be GORGEOUS" and behold it was. Uhuhuhu.

1) Canvas.

2) Color Fill 1. Set to Color. The color being used is #FFD303.

3) Hair Layer. The same gray I use with Devit #CCCCCC and the layer set to Hue and 65% Fill. This makes the hair gray but not really SILVER and if you can look you can see the bit of yellow coming through.

4) Blood Layer. For his scuffs and cuts, a dark red #5A0D0E, layer set to Vivid Light with 58% Fill. I usually just color in the scrapes wherever they are on the art and then lower the Fill until it looks the way I want it.

5) Eye and Earing Layer. Set to Color and 100% Fill. The earing is the same gray as before, only now without any lessening of the color. The eyes are a bright blue #ABEDF5.

General Cross Marian

Oh Cross. So pretty. Sob. I would let it hit me like a mack truck. I MEAN. Ahem.

Cross's icon set has a LOT OF GIVE AND TAKE involved in it and I wasn't sure I liked them until the general consensus from people I showed them to seemed to be that they were hot. The 'problem' is that the yellow/red lines give a lot of flavor and personality and vivacity! But they also lose a lot of detail! REFER TO WHAT I SAID ABOUT IT BASICALLY BEING AN EQUATION. Let's compare, shall we?

I LIKE BLACK AND WHITE. Simple, pretty, smooth lines! Hoshino's line work is sooooo pretty. In this case I would probably thicken the hair lines on the black and white piece (Duplicate the layer, set top layer to multiply, lower the fill to where you want it) but there is nothing simple or smooth about the colored version. However! the colors involved are YELLOW and RED and they really jump out at you even if they're a bit grittier. Plus, the overall composition is much more solid, because there's like this big chick of red hair and black cloak drawing your attention with little touch ups of yellow and silver. So while a part of me inside is a little )= about roughening the line work so much, I do think this set works very well for it's overall effect!

1) Canvas.

2) Color Fill 1. The pretty pretty yellow. The layer is simply set to Color at 100% Fill. The yellow I'm using is #F6E38A.

3) Color Fill 2. PINK bet you didn't expect to see that. Frankly I'm not sure how it happened either. Anyway the color is #F68A8A and the layer is set to Color Burn at 100% Fill. This is basically giving the yellow a yellow-to-red gradient. It's not effecting the red of his hair at ALL, just the yellow/red linework.

4) Hair Layer. This is the same dark red I use for... all my dark red needs! Which is mostly blood and Cross' hair. #5A0D0E. The layer is set to Hard Light at 100% Fill. Then I just color it in.

5) Brightness/Contrast Layer. Select 'Use Legacy'. Brightness is set to +25 and Contrast is -22. This is basically just softening the contrast juuuust a tad, since White, Black, Yellow and Red all at once is like, a lot of fucking contrast. It makes it just a bit easier on the eye.

6) Eye Layer. You can't even really see it in this icon, but I use a really dark reddish brown #370505 on a layer set to Linear Light at 75% Fill to do Cross's eyes. It's mostly just to fill in the eye than anything, since there's nothing interesting to the color to contribute to the composition.

7) Mask Layer. The same gray I've used everywhere else #CCCCCC on a layer set to Color with 85% for the lines of Cross' mask.

NOW. WHILE I'M HERE, LET'S TALK HOW TO DO TWO CHARACTERS IN ONE ICON. Which I only recently got around to figuring out and frankly it's just. A new project every time I have to do it.

Okay, most of what you need to know you can figure out by looking back at the Allen and Cross icon portions. So for this one I'll be focusing on a different thing. NAMELY. How to get two different color schemes working together!

1) Canvas!

2 and 3) These are the Cross coloring layers, the yellow and the pink, remember? Now look at the black and white boxes NEXT to the pink and yellow boxes! On Color Fill Layers (and Brightness/Contrast layers and other such effect layers) you can only draw on them in blacks, whites or grays. Basically. Where it is Black that layer has no effect, where it is White it does have an effect, and where it is gray it has SOME effect depending on how dark or light the gray is. In this cause I went through with black and colored on both of those layers to block out Allen, this keeps Cross' colors from effecting Allen's lines.

4) Cross' Hair Layer.

5) Allen's Coloring Layer. The yellow I use for Allen now. Similarly I just went through with Black and blocked out where Cross is!

6) Brightness/Contrast Layer. Now here is where you START MAKING COMPROMISES. Basically, Allen's icons don't have the same softening of the Blacks and Whites I use on Cross. But if I were to make that Brightness/Contrast Layer effect ONLY Cross it would LOOK WEIRD. LET'S SEE:

Used a different icon cuz the other one doesn't have a lot of blacks for Allen in it. Anyway! OBSERVE HOW IT DRAWS ALL YOUR ATTENTION TO ALLEN. It makes it look like we're trying to wash Cross into the background. It's also overall uneven.

Now, we COULD just leave the Brightness/Contrast Layer off entirely and the overall icon would look fine! But keep in mind we're doing the same thing to ALL OF OUR ICONS for a reason, and when you drastically change the contrast for just one it also LOOKS WEIRD.

THUS. For Allen's version of this icon, the Brightness/Contrast is off, and for Cross' it is on.

And ignore the Rinali icon right NEXT to that, this is a good example of what I mean by "every time you do it it's a different situation". The purple is really blaring and backgrounding it with the yellow didn't work. I'll. Get back to it later. Thankfully Allen and Cross' colors complement each other.

Anyway! After that:

7) and 8) are Allen's Hair and Eye layers and they go on as normal.

Rinali Li

Rinali's set! I am... ambivalent about. I think they look very pretty! But there's nothing about them that really grabs me, aside from the middle one above. I wish I had more cause to use red like that in her icons )= But like Ticky I think even if the scheme isn't as mm... dramatic as Allen or Cross' it does SUIT her and it's one of those sacrifices you make for characterization. The overall effect WORKS it's just not one I'm in love with.

Rinali's set is very simple!

1) Canvas!

2) Background Layer. Set to Multiply, in this case the Fill is at 100% but I used the Levels option to lighten the darks.

3) Color Fill 1. Using a very pretty dark Blue here #160443. The layer is set to Color with 75% Fill to keep it desaturated.

4) Brightness/Contrast Layer. Select 'Use Legacy' and the Brightness is +22 with the Contrast -27.

5) Eye Layer. Rinali's eyes are #310202, a dark brown, with the layer set to Hard Light at 25% Fill.

Rabi

Rabi's icons are another set I have mixed feelings on leaning toward ambivalent. He was very difficult to figure out something that would work for him, since Red is just. Not Really It. But he has such pretty red hair and green eyes, which is a combo I love. But I couldn't color his hair like I did with Cross' because A) it tends to employ gray tones and B) it runs off into his bandanna a lot and would not really give that whole...LARGE CHUNK OF COLOR effect that Cross' hair gets. Anyway! I'm happy with how it ended up, and feel it fits the character, but it's again not a scheme I'm in love with. Wife doesn't like the green, but I hate NOT having an off set color as it might look fine on a few icons but when you have 100 they'd all sort of run together. Though I probably could have desaturated it a tad. Anyway! Rabi's icons are also simple.

1) Canvas!

2) Color Fill Layer. The red being used is #5A0D0E. The Layer is set to Linear Dodge at 100%.

3) Color Balance Layer. Color Balance, if you haven't noticed yet, is an EXCELLENT TRICKSY THING to get a gradient to kind of... skew slightly when it ranges from dark to light. Basically, without this layer Rabi's icons are actually pinkish, and the 'Darks' are much, much lighter.

Select 'Preserve Luminosity'. And then go to 'Shadows'. The Magenta/Green is at +44 and the Yellow/Blue is at -42. Basically, more green/less magenta and More yellow/less blue effectinly MOSTLY the shadows, though it will carry somewhat to the midtones and sliiightly to the lights. So you can see if you look at Rabi's icons that the lights are sort of peachy where as the darks are more brownish and red. That's what we're doing here.

I.E. These two icons:

These are the natural effects of just that layer! But you probably wouldn't guess that peach on the right came from a lighter version of the brown on the left.

4) Eye Layer. Rabi's eye color is #51C051. The layer is set to Hard Light at 70% Fill. His scarf is usually more like 20-30% Fill, but the eyes get brighter since you want more attention there.

Nagisa Kaworu, Ayanami Rei, Ikari Shinji, Edward Elric

While I really like how they look, there is nothing special about any of these sets. They are done by a simple technique that I'm quite fond of, and though it doesn't work with all art styles or characters, when it does it provides a nice fun color gradient that negates the need for backgrounds to spice things up. I'm Very Fond of Ed's set in particular, since his automail and eyes allow for a little bit of pick up without any drastic changes.

I'm getting tired so I'm only going to show you how to do this with Ed's, if you've been paying attention the others shouldn't be hard to figure out, but if you want the exact colors and layer settings I've used for the others just poke me and I'll fill you in.

1) Canvas!

2) Color Fill 1. The color is #520303, a dark red. The layer is set to Color, with 50% Fill. How high the Fill is changes with each character. Shinji's is a purple with about 20%, Kaworu's is a little higher, but the color being used is lighter, so on and so forth. I don't ever have it at 100% because then it's just over saturated.

3) Color Fill 2. The color is #2C2C4B, a dark blue! The layer is set to Lighter Color. What Lighter Color does is it will apply the colors on that layer only if they are lighter than the layers below. This is why on Ed's icons (And all of the others of this type) the blacks have been replaced with Dark blue (or Dark red or dark brown). It's still a DARK COLOR but it's lighter than BLACK which is what would be there otherwise.

4) Ed's Automail Layer. The color is a blue that is a bit more grayish and greenish than the one being used on the previous layer #394662. It's a bit more greenish because it's overlaying on red, and if I used straight up blue then his automail looks sort of purpley (Red + Blue) instead of steel blue (BlueGreen + Red = Red and Green gray each other out leaving BlueGray). The layer is set to Color at 50% Fill.

5) Eye Layer. I use the same yellow/orange I use for the Noah eyes, #E4AC19. The layer is set to Vivid Light at 48% Fill. I tend to color in his eye with it at 100% Fill and then just lower it until it's as saturated as I want it to be.

The other characters listed are pretty much done this way, with variations in color and how saturated the layers are. Though Kaworu and Shinji's eye layers are set to Color and Rey's eye layer is set to Lighter Color. Kaworu's icons sometimes have a brightness/contrast layer applied to lighten his shading a bit as he's not really a very dark character.

And that's it for now! I'm working on YET ANOTHER Ticky set for when I inevitably de-Noah him, but nothing about that is settled so I'm not showing how it works yet. Suffice to say the POSSIBILITIES ARE ENDLESS and hopefully this gave you tips, inspiration or understanding to help you in your ICON VENTURES OF THE FUTURE.

If you have any questions, by all means, poke me.

Permissions Meme

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 01:04:46 GMT

Since it's uh BEEN A WHILE and some things have changed.

EDWARD ELRIC

Age: Eighteen, but appears fifteen once again courtesy of camp.
Height: H-he's probably, just under five feet. But he wears boots that give him like four inches.
Medical Info: Missing a couple of limbs, but his body is in better condition than it's been in years thanks to Ine. Also, finally confirmed to be completely human, thx canon!
Eyes: Gold
Hair: Blond. Hair is probably a bit shorter than it's been recently thanks to camp deaging him.
Physical traits: Automail arm and leg are sort of THE BIG THINGS. Well, that and being tiny. He doesn't make any effort to hide his automail, though he generally wears long pants so you might not see he leg, but feel free to assume his arm is visible at any given time. He also has a scar on his forehead over his right eyebrow, you can see it in this icon. And then his torso has... a fuck ton of scaring (hilariously more thanks to canon than camp).

What's Okay To Mention Around Him/Her: Anything. He's read his own canon (though I had him forget bits of it). But be warned finding people who have read abou this life makes him tetchy.

Abilities: Ed is a grade A fighter with hand to hand or a bladed weapon. But he's from a series which has at least mostly logical physics to deal with so while he's one of the fastest people in his canon he's not SO FAST YOU CAN'T SEE HIM and not SO STRONG YOU FLY THROUGH TREES. He's a very monkey-like fighter and uses jumps and rolls and flips and uses his feet as much as his fists. He also has alchemy where he can transmutate some very creative things mid-battle. This is a fairly fast technique but not IMPOSSIBLY fast, so attacking him constantly will generally keep his transmutating down. He also has a philosopher's stone only he can use, which makes his attacks pretty epic, but he's only used it battle once two years ago and I don't really see it coming up again. Aaand finally he's taken up A-T in camp, he's never used them in a fight but if he has them on him at the time they make him pretty fucking fast and agile, but he doesn't have any CRAZY OH!GREAT PSUEDO-SCIENCE attacks.

Notes for the Psychics: No mental barriers! Also it's uncessary. He says whatever he's thinking at any given time. On a deeper level he has a lot of self worth issues and concerns and is mainly going kind of stir crazy but just repressing VERY WELL but.

Can I shapeshift/bodyswap/spit at/step on/etc?: ask/ask/yes/yes

Maim/Murder/Death: Death is no, murder is no, but maim is ALWAYS YES. I love hospitalizing Ed. If you want to hurt him comedically or seriously go for it. Realize he'll do his damn best to hurt you back.

Hugs/Kissing/Non-violent contact: ALSO YES. I love Ed getting molested, comedically or otherwise. He's especially boob-phobic.

Cooking: Well enough to survive, but nothing that makes you really, you know, go HEY I WANT ED TO COOK FOR ME.

THE END OF AN ERA

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 19:08:50 GMT

So as much as it saddens me to destroy the threads of the past two and a half years, Ed is getting COMPLETELY icon rehauled, booth in actual icons and keywords, and basically every single one of my old threads will be broken =D Shed not a tear for me, because in exchange I get a pretty and cohesive icon set that appeals to my hoity-toity aesthetics.

Very Long Apping Guide Part 2

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 15:30:02 GMT

Link to Part 1

Writing - The Canon

Finally! On to the actual writing of the app. If you are new to the apping process, or have had difficulty with apping in camp before. Please read this part and the following section as well. This will contain pretty much everything I try to hit on when I beta people.

The canon is not particularly tricky. There are things you can do to it to MAKE it tricky for yourself. My wife is notorious for spending hours constructing a good canon, but that's because she's anal about throwing jokes in and conveying as much of the character as possible. The canon does not have to be hilarious on its own, though keeping it reasonably lighthearted tends to be a good idea. If you can't do that? Just make sure it has all the important information and is succinct. Don't get distracted with unimportant details, or rattle on about things that don't matter for the app.

In general, you can construct your canon however you want provided it can be read and comprehended easily. In order to best do this I tend to suggest dividing it into two paragraphs, each with a specific purpose.

Paragraph One - General- What might be 'general' depends on who you are apping. In most cases this means an overall look at the series. If you are apping a little known series or a very oddball one that requires some explanation, you'll want to mention that. People apping from Air Gear, for example, pretty much always need to explain that A-T is short for Air Treck, and that Air Treck are crazy futuristic roller blades. If they are part of the main cast, they may need to mention what Stormriders are (delinquent punks that ride A-T like gang members) and that Kogarasumaru is the team of Stormriders the story follows. Or else perhaps they need to mention what a "King" is in the context of the story. Or if they are from Behemoth, need to mention that Behemoth was a gigantic Stormrider group that once opposed Kogarasumaru. Basically? WHAT YOU HAVE TO SAY depends ENTIRELY on two points: A) Who you are apping and B) What the voters need to know to understand your character and follow your app.

For example! When I apped Kira Sakuya I didn't mention in his canon that he is Lucifer, the Lord of Hell. This is a very important thing to his character! But it isn't relevant to his app or understanding his character immediately, because frankly Kira doesn't act on that information very often. I did mention, however, that he is an evil sprit trapped in a sword, and that he is thousands of years old, and that he is fond of humans despite being 'evil', and that he obsessively protects a single angel throughout millennia . This is because that disassociation from humanity would be obvious in his app, his age is semi-apparent in the way he looks at the world, and the reason he came to camp was to follow a particular human, and on the way he makes comments to suggest that the Director herself is fond of the humans she has trapped. Thus every bit of information I included is relevant to not only the character himself, but what he says in the app.

Basically, build the first paragraph to be information that is not so much on the character's personality, or on specific traits, but about their world, their situation, their past, their friends, whatever is relevant to who they are, or else something that will be appearing in the app and may need explanation.

Paragraph Two - Personality and Specific Traits- Paragraph two is where you get into the more technical things that define your character. What sort of person are they? How do they treat others? How do they talk? Do they have any hobbies or bad habits? Fears? Dreams? What things are EXTREMELY IMPORTANT to make sure that character is perceived as they are? In Kira's app I mention like, four times in the second paragraph that he is a jerk who abuses his friends and everyone else but deep down is the type who loves his friends and looks out for them at any cost to himself. I said this in a VARIETY OF WAYS and at different levels, but said it a LOT because that is... basically everything Kira is. It's so important to his character that it is worth reiterating. Second to that are details like the fact that he smokes, considers himself a monster, and is a delinquent.

A couple of points that you ALWAYS want to hit in this paragraph is how does your character act or treat others. Are they nice? Abusive? Loud? Insecure? Do they have any speech traits like stuttering or sing-songing? Your app consists of your character TALKING for several hundred words, so the canon should give us an idea of what to expect, and something to match the app up to.

Additions- Other things that may get added into your app are notes such as spoilers. I recommend against having spoilers in your app if you can in any way avoid it, but if you can't, you want a separate sentence at the top warning if the canon or app or both contain spoilers.

Another note would be things such as where you are taking your character from in canon. If your character undergoes a large personality change, if they die, if someone close to them dies, people familiar with the canon may want to know if you are taking the character from before or after that point. A note at the end such as "Soandso is taken from after volume 7." will do. People who aren't familiar with the canon don't really need to know what happens in volume seven.

Another thing would be if you had to get permission for something in the app, such as referencing a character that isn't yours. "All characters in this app mentioned with their player's permission." is common.

Final Look- Finally! One whole canon. It isn't as much work as it might sound here, but telling people to rewrite their canons is frequent, so keep these things in mind to save yourself time. Overall you want your canon to be quick, to the point, ideally under 300 words, and never more than 350. It needs to follow along a logical train of thought, and not simply be a lot of random facts that in no way fit together. "Along with Lisa’s love for animals, she is also always the kind and caring type toward anyone she meets." is much better than "Lisa has fifteen pets and smiles a lot at strangers."

Writing - The App

So, finally! The big part. The sample part of your app, The App, the bringer of angst and confusion and fear. This is the main part that is going to be judged by your peers and man does that suck!

Before I go on to the actual writing of, some points to keep in mind!

Most People Hate Apping- there are a SELECT FEW that love it. But personally I have apped 20 times and I still hate sitting down to do it. We hate it for various reasons. Some fear rejection! Others don't like doing the work, there are those who disagree with the app process, or have been burnt in the past and have difficulty facing that again. As much as CFUD is JUST A GAME, people do get invested in it, and it can hurt. But, KEEP IN MIND:

Lots Of People Go Out- Not every single player who has been around for a while is good at apping. Getting in once or twice or five times does not guarantee you will get in the next time. It is ALWAYS work. I think those who don't play in camp may get the impression that camp is elitist because the apping process is so hard. But it is hard for everyone. No one is being specifically kept out. We very much LOVE getting new blood, and yes, the apping process is among the most difficult in RPs out there. But that's because people who in play camp want to be able to enjoyably play with anyone without worrying about playing with someone who represents their character badly. Thus the apping process is a bit demanding but it is equally demanding for everyone. There are no short cuts or easy-in's for people who have been here a long time, beyond simply that of experience.

Reapping Is Good- I think reapps tend to get judged a little lighter than first time apps. Obviously the reapp still needs to... be a better app than the one that went out! But a LOT of people claim they will reapp and never do. Most voters do in fact appreciate seeing people try again. If the app shows signs of taking into consideration things that were mentioned during the first app round, you will likely do better.

Okay? Basically, YES it can be stressful. If you want an easy in, look for a different RP. I don't mean to be brutal, but that's just how it is. There are lots and lots of RPs where you only need an app to pass the approval of two or three people, or where you don't need to apply at all. If you want to play in a place as massive as Camp, there is probably something that really attracted you to it. And for many? It's the quality of the players. And the reason we have so many quality players is because yes, apping is something of a bitch. But! Not the impossible to overcome sort of bitch many seem to fear it is. Apping is very much a process, which is what my entire point of this guide has been. Seeing how it works, why things are the way they are, and how to work with it.

So with all of that in mind! Let's write the app.

The Start-

Your Process- There isn't really a 1-2-3 step for writing the app itself. Different things work for different people. I write one sentence at a time, over the space of several hours, and tend to do very little rewriting. If I do need to rewrite I probably trash the entire thing and start all over again. Some people write in ideas and go and fill in the voice later, or leave open blocks for "joke here" and "somethingsomething here". Some people come up with the jokes first, or the punchline first and just write to those points. Basically, write in whatever way works for you.

App Formulas- there are many many app formulas, any and all of which you are welcome to use or discard as they suit you. I cannot tell you about all of them here simply because they tend to change depending on the person writing them. I have tried to provide as much information as I can toward what does and doesn't work in apps, what common approaches are, and what you should try to accomplish in your app. Hopefully with this you can begin to build your own style and approach toward writing your app. But when in doubt, the '3 idea/joke' formula is perhaps the one I see referred to the most.

3 Idea Formula- Exactly what it sounds like. Basically, having an app that centers entirely on one concept is risky. Most people have three paragraphs revolving around three ideas. Three jokes if they decided to go that route. This could be something such as A) zomibes B) lake C) mess hall, and just have your character address each of these points in an interesting and humorous way unique to their character. Or perhaps it something more fluid such as A) Character arrives B) Character examines the area C) Character devises plan for escape. Really, WHAT the three things are doesn't matter nearly so much as what your character has to say about them.

The problem with the 3 Idea Formula is that it is likely to lead to choppy apps. Keep in mind your app needs to read as a smooth thought process of your character, so we can see easily how they get from point A to B to C. Choose your three ideas to fit this, or write your app so that it works believably. Don't just have the character jump from one idea to another with no discernible connection. Even hyperactive ADD characters change topics because something was there to catch their interest.

If you want to see the 3 Ideas Formula in action, just go to any early app round (which is where the strongest apps tend to be found) and read the apps there. Force yourself to study what was written. What does each paragraph do? What is the subject that the character is discussing first? Second? How does the character move from the first subject to the second? In a good app, where subject A ends and B starts you wouldn't even notice it if you weren't looking for it, because it was just such a logical process for the character that it feels like a whole.

Finally! Calling it the '3 Ideas Formula' does not mean you can only have three ideas. If your app is short, throw in a fourth. As long as it all follows fluidly, you shouldn't have a problem. If it doesn't, your app may seem too busy and over worked by throwing in too many different types of content.

First Draft- I suggest doing your first draft all at once. Some people tweak an app over the course of weeks, this may work for you, you may have weeks. But chances are your first draft will be the hardest and will need a lot of work. They tend to be better just... gotten out. Accept that it will not perfect and beautiful and that no one but you need look at it. Chances are while you are forcing yourself against your will to just DO THIS you will stumble across some good ideas, good lines, and a start to what will be your final draft.

Second Draft- By the time you are done with your first draft, you will probably know a lot of what is wrong with it. The really obvious problems tend to be really obvious. Stuff like character voice feeling off, or large gaps where they should maybe be a joke that you can't quite place your finger on, or the fact that none of the ideas or paragraphs fit together. Rework it until you feel like the app is comprehensive, and where it is 'finished' in the sense that it is a single and complete app. Once you have that, it's probably time for betas.

Getting Beta'd-

The Ideal Beta- is someone who likes you enough to look at your app quickly and is close enough with you to be honest if your app sucks. Unless you are kerbox, I am not your ideal beta. Most people aren't. A lot of betas either won't get to you quickly, or will be too nice. Those people are for later. When you are on your second draft what you basically need is someone to tell you if this thing sucks and needs to be started over or not. Tweaking your grammar and word use is useless if the app itself is just really boring, or impossible to follow, or has too much canon reliance. What you want is to be able to show your draft to someone and have them look it over quickly and give you a solid opinion on whether or not this can be fixed up to be a shining wonderful app or if it needs to be started over or heavily reworked. This person does not need to be a player, and can be canon blind or not, but should probably be someone who has experience with roleplay and has a decent idea of What Camp Is Like.

If this person looks at your app and thinks it still needs A Lot Of Work, find out why it isn't working for them, and go back to the drawing board. If they think it is workable, find out what problems they DO have with it, fix them, look it over yourself again, figure out how you feel, tweak it more, THEN send it away to other betas.

Rewriting- Learn to suck it up and rewrite your app. This is a key point in any form of writing and it applies to apping as well. If you do not completely put away what you have already done and start from a blank slate, you will suffer from looking at what you already have, and will try to rearrange it like puzzle pieces, rather than simply painting a new and better picture.

Rewriting is not the end of the world, and your work will almost always be better for it. What you wrote before is not lost, nor was it a waste of time. From the first draft you gained knowledge, practice, experience. But sometimes your original idea is not salvageable. Sometimes all of those paragraphs you wrote really DO suck, and you aren't going to fix them just by going in and editing a sentence here or there. I'm glad you put hours of work into that draft! I really am! But if it is just bad (and sometimes things are just bad!), if this draft will not get you in and if there is nothing more from it worth keeping than a few lines here or there? Redo it. Open a new text file and start ALL OVER. After you have a completely new draft you can go back to the old one and see what you can save. IT'S COOL. I think one of the main reasons I've gotten a rep as a mildly terrifying beta is because I'm one of the few people to come out and say that this app will not get in, it has all of these problems, I suggest you start all over keeping this and this and that in mind. But you know what? You have to make your own choice to rewrite. If you just don't feel that this app is a good representation of your character, if your beta's don't seem to think it will do well? Accept the fact that maybe you should just start over. Don't be discouraged. Just do it.

That said!

Rewriting Is Not Always Necessary- Try and look at your work objectively. Is the voice good? Does it read fluidly? Pay attention to that nagging SENSE in the back of your mind that this isn't REALLY how that character sounds. Show it to your betas. Learn to feel them out. If they are just suggesting you tweak parts of your app that aren't that funny or don't read well, don't freak out and redo the whole thing and give them a new first draft. Tweaking is OKAY if the overall subject matter/voice/jokes/whatever of your app are good. Or perhaps you only need to rewrite one paragraph. If you have a decent portion of your app that people seem to think is good, or that you feel especially confident about? Keep it! Apps are... a build. Most people won't write a good draft all at once, and will go back over it several times, cutting it up, rearranging, rewording. Learn to do what is necessary. If you need to rewrite, then rewrite. If you just need to fix this ONE thing, then just fix that ONE thing.

More Betas!- Once you are past the second draft stage, and have probably reworked it several times, you are likely approaching the polishing stage. Now is the time to send your app out to all of those people who gave you their email addresses in the Beta Offers post. Keep in mind that many betas will take a while to get back to you, perhaps even until the last day or so (I am one of these!). This is why it's important to do the brunt of your work yourself, with a friend or two who you can get feedback from quickly. These later stage betas are primarily going to help you spot problems with your app, things that might not go well in a CFUD app, voice issues, or inconsistencies between the canon and the app, or flow trouble. Etc. The type of stuff you can typically fix with a bit of tweaking. If a final stage beta is telling you to rewrite your app, that tends to suck a little more.

How many betas is too much? How many or few you want to use is up to you. When I'm nervous of an app I've been known to show mine up to five or so people. If I'm confident I won't show it to anyone other than my wife. Keep in mind that everyone is reading your app from a different place. They have different understanding, senses of humor, pet peeves and opinions. You can't and won't please everyone. One person may love a joke another just doesn’t get. It's cool. Make your own choices, you aren't going to hurt anyone's feelings. In the end it's your character and your app. Things to keep an eye out for are when people tell you the character feels inconsistent in some way, either in voice, or between the app and the canon, or if someone who has read your series feels you are being OOC in some way. Those are the types of things you probably want to be clear with everyone before submitting.

Finally!

So your app has cleared however many betas it needs to for you to feel it has a good chance. What does it look like?

Ideally it will be a show of who your character is, how they are, what they do, why they do it. It should be voicey, IC, humorous, easily readable. The character you describe in the canon should match the one you show in the app. It is probably somewhere between 500 and 700 words all together, and is not noticeably weighed down with emphatic formattings. You feel this is a good representation of the character, that these are all things he or she would say and do in this situation, and that it is interesting to you and hopefully has been to your betas as well. It is, if not hilarious, definitely geared in the direction of funny, and fits well as an app for a zombie camp crack RP.

Wait until the app window opens and send it in. Put your app in a text file and attach it to the email. Copying it directly into the email content tends to mess with the formatting when the mods post it.

Up to Vote

So your app is up to vote! Now what?

Well, if it is doing well, you sit around and wait. You are probably going to be refreshing the page obsessively. Most of us do. Keep an eye on the comments, people will often offer critique of your app, both to say what they liked or didn't like. Take everything with a grain of salt, like all critique. Don't discard it irrationally or obsess over it.

If your app isn't doing well and it looks like you may go out, pay more attention to those comments. It may grate to take advice from the people shooting down all your hard work, but most of our voters have valuable info on how to do better, or at least can tell you what they personally felt about the app, which gives you further information in how to do better next time (whether reapping this character or trying for another).

You are invited to comment anonymously to the voters. Many who vote out and don't give reasons right away will offer to give reasons if they are requested. And if people don't offer to give reasons it generally doesn't hurt to ask anyway, so long as you are polite about it. Identify which app is yours and ask for any concrit they may have for you.

Be obsessively polite. When you are anonymous normal courtesy doesn't cut it, because there is this huge internet phenomena with people being assholes as soon as they don't have to rest their reputation on their words. As such, anonymous comments can easily be read as insulting or defensive or arrogant. Do non-anonymous people sometimes jump on a perfectly polite mouse due to these issues? Yes, it happens. But you can only account for yourself, not for anyone else. Thus do your best to thank people for their help, listen to their suggestions, and if you disagree with a point don't make it an argument, just show your point of view if it is really necessary. Take the information you are given, do what you will with it, but don't complain, insult, fight, defend, or anything else. Your app should be able to stand on it's own, that is what everyone faces. People who are giving you concrit are doing it so that your app can stand on its own better next time.

Periodically what you say may result in a vote or two switching, which may make a difference in the long run, but only if you were borderline to begin with. Additionally, some voters will vote out or abstain early on, but may mention that if you are borderline to poke them and they will reread your app and reconsider. Since they have offered that, feel free to take them up on it, but don't go around asking the same of other voters.

Keep in mind that the people who vote on you now are the ones you will be playing with later. Honestly, the relationship between voters and appers is certainly not always perfect, but do your best to be reasonable and respectful of those on the other side, since it is a game and voting is a stupid thing to judge people on or make enemies over.

Once You're In-

Make your journal if you haven't, upload your icons if you haven't. Set up your journal in general. People like to place their app in their journal so it can be found later, others do a stats and permissions meme that gives people a general idea of your character's traits. Have your character join campersfuckoff and campfuckudie, and introduce yourself OOCly and your character ICly. Have fun! You won the game!

Tips and Tricks and Helpful Links

The Tips and Tricks-

These are actually mostly things I use for creative writing, but they apply well to ICly playing a character and writing an app.

Listen to the Voice- If your character has a voice actor, really LISTEN to them, pay attention to where inflections are, how they sound words, what sounds they make, where they pause and when they speak quickly. Pay attention, and then hear it when you write your app. If you can't hear them saying something, you may have a problem.

Transcribe Dialog- If you are finding a character particularly tricky to write, write out their dialog. I don't mean reread it from the book or manga. I mean sit down and put everything they say on paper or in text, like a script. Look at how they structure their sentences, what exclamations they use, do they talk in long paragraphs or short dialogs? Do they use conjunctions or not? Do they frequently say names, or leave out subjects? Do they use adjectives often or not? I did this when I was apping Ticky and found that despite his fancy appearance, Ticky sticks to simple and direct sentences and uses middle level words instead of high, and frequently drops into something less refined and slangy when surprised or annoyed.

Create a Canon Dump- This can be anything from taking extensive notes of your canon, or compiling a list of YouTube links, or pulling out manga pages that your character is present in. Basically create something that you can go to at any time to find information on your character. If you are losing their voice, you don't have to reread the entire manga, just reread their pages out of context and pay attention to what they say and how they say it and what they look like as they are saying it. Small doses like this can give you more insightful looks at character, along with being short enough to refresh you on their voice and personality.

Fangirl With People- Find someone who loves your canon and talk to them about it a lot! This is fun and encountering other people's opinions on your character will likely help you formulate many of your own, and think about things you've never thought about before. It will also likely keep you ENERGIZED if you are having trouble with the process, and losing the sense of fun the middle of the work of trying to put together a good app.

The Helpful Links-

General-
Camp Fuck You Die's User Info - The Go To Place for all of the rules, along with application dates, general information, contact info for the mods, lists of taken characters, and links to spin off communities.
Campers Fuck Off - CFUD's OOC journal. By going to the tags list you can find announced app dates and beta offers posts, you can also post here even if you aren't a member of camp and need help with something camp related.
CFUD Network's Friends Page - A complete friends list of every character in camp and every journal related to camp. Also keeps track of every character ever in camp for any canon.

Apps-
Camp Fuck You Vote - Where all the voting rounds are placed.
CFUD App Archive" - Every voting round ever, with links to each batch, a list of the character and series and the percentage the vote got, all tagged by series. Excellent for app research.
CFAppritry - An in progress archive of all apps organized by series and character.

Icons-
Iconing in Photoshop Guide - A guide to making icons in photoshop, covers everything from how to crop an image to how to run automated batch files on all of your icons.
Cleaning Icons in Photoshop - A guide to cleaning icons in photoshop, as well as some pattern use.
Colored Icons in Photoshop - A guide to making that colorized icons using layers that you will see used fairly frequently in CFUD.
Colored Icons with Backgrounds and Layering for Effects in Photoshop - An extensive guide on how I made andredallover's icons, covering colored layers, using patterns for backgrounds, and additional layers to create nifty effects.

The End

That's it! So it was really long, for which I apologize. But the idea was that I wanted a completely comprehensive app guide. Lately I hear we are elitist, and there are complaints that apping is too hard, but honestly? I want new people in camp. I want them to feel welcome and like this is possible, like you don't have to have been in game two years already to come play now, and like you don't need to be personal friends with a player to have a chance of apping effectively, and this was the best way I knew how to approach that. This is everything I know of apping, this is everything I look at when I beta people, this is the very best information I can think to offer and I hope the fact that it's insanely long doesn't stop anyone interested in joining from using this information to the best of their ability.

Please feel free to point anyone you think may want to app in this direction, if it might be useful to them.

Regardless if whether you are looking to join camp for the first time, or are apping your ninth character, I wish you luck, and hope this has helped o/

Very Long Apping Guide Part 1

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 15:28:08 GMT

This is a Very Very Long Guide directed at people wising to app into CFUD (so long it is in two parts) It is primarily geared toward new blood, but hopefully it has some information that can be useful to everyone. I am putting it both here, in Ed's journal, and it was posted in CFO the other day.

General Overview - The Process

The way apping for camp works is like this!

Application Dates Will be Announced!
-Camper apps open once a month
-Counselor apps are every six months (Generally end of June/beginning of July, and near the end/start of the year)
-Camper apps are always open for twelve hours from 6pm EST to 6am EST
-Counselor apps are generally open for two hours from 6pm EST to 8pm EST
-With both Camper and Counselor applications, you are welcome to have someone else send in your application for you if you can't be at your computer at the scheduled times, (make sure they include YOUR email address and name when they send them in!) but applications after the deadline will not be accepted
-Getting your app in immediately after the application window opens up does not guarantee you will be in an early batch. The mods place the apps at their discretion, and certain characters (such as ones the mods have reason to believe may be a double or triple app) definitely don't go up until the window is closed. Basically, you have no control over when your app goes up. The mods almost never completely miss an app, and don't weed often at all. If you aren't seeing yours go up, wait until after the last batch is up to ask them about what happened to your app.

Beta Offers Will Go Up!
-In these posts, you anonymously say which character you are apping, and request betas that you can contact to take a look at your app
-People who offer up their beta services usually classify themselves as Canon Blind if they haven't read your canon. Canonblind betas are GOOD and I suggest having one for every app. They can tell you if your character appears interesting to someone who knows nothing of the canon.
-IMPORTANT: If you are new or think your app may need a lot of work, PLEASE don't wait until the day before apps to send in your app for betaing. Most people are betaing several people in a round and don't want to do it all in the last twenty-four hours. You also don't want to find yourself blocked if you have to rewrite the entire thing. Giving your betas a week? A good idea.

You write your app and submit it to lolcampappslol at gmail dot com within the appropriate app window. Not before. Not after.
-READ THE RULES They are helpful.
-Send your app as a *.txt file with all of the html code done
-Put the name of the character you are apping in the subject line

You WAIT. Everyone waits, everyone gets antsy. It's okay! Don't bother the mods about when your app will go up, it makes Juri hurt things.

Your app goes up! If it receives more than 70% IN votes, you are in! If not, please try again!

Getting Ready - Picking the Character

I'm not going to discuss if you REALLY want to app that character or not here. It used to seem like Certain Characters just would not work in camp. But I've literally seen every class of character, from amazingly cracky to outstandingly evil, played well in camp. You want to app them? GO FOR IT. Use your own self knowledge to determine if you will have fun, play them well, or drop them after a month. If you do end up wanting to drop after a month? It's not the end of the world. You took a shot at it. Use what knowledge you've gained to pick a different character better suited to you. We don't slaughter people for dropping characters, nor expect that apping someone means you keep them until your dying days.

But there are technical things to apping characters you need to know. Namely! Are they valid? Here are all of the current rules for what characters you may or may not app that I can think of:

Camp accepts published characters from works of fiction. This can be anything from web comics to video games to TV shows and of course, manga and anime. Real historic characters are only accepted as they are represented by a fictional work (I.E. Pocahontas from the Disney movie is appable, Pocahontas from your history text book is not).
Characters 21 and younger are Campers

Characters 22 and older are Counselors

When in question, characters ages are determined by physical appearance. Not Earth Years or Mental Age. A 300 year old loli vampire is a Camper. A clone of a 30 year old man who has only been alive for two years is a Counselor.
-If you are unsure of a character's age and the physical appearance is borderline, ask the mods about it before hand to get approval for Camper or Counselor apps

Once upon a time, characters only alive in flash backs were not appable, this is now handled on a case-by-case basis because most only-alive-in-flashbacks types don't have enough canon. However, you want to app such a character, e-mail the mods about it to verify.

"Younger" versions of older characters (Young!Snape!) are not appable from flashbacks unless there is substantial canon for playing them at that age. (I.E. We did have a younger Riddle in camp). Ask the mods for permission for this sort of character if you are unsure.

If the character only has a tiny bit canon you may encounter difficulty both while writing your app, and from voters who personally feel that character does not have enough canon to be apped effectively. However there is no concrete rule of how much or how little canon must have to app.

Characters that aren't sentient and/or can in no way talk probably aren't appable, regardless of their amount of canon. (I.E. The Black Stallion is not appable. Nor is Gurren Lagann's Boota. However, a human who is simply mute would be, albeit a difficult app).

Characters are not restricted by gender, race, species, alignment or anything else. Basically. Rapists, murderers, crack godmoders, srs godmoders, jesii, traumababies etc are all equally welcome. As are... talking trees and magical housecats and disney animals. HOWEVER keep in mind the setting you will be playing them in, and the people you will be playing with. Playing a serial rapist does not give you the okay to badtouch characters without the permission of their players. And overall CFUD is meant to be humorous, if there is just nothing funny about your character in this setting, you might find them difficult to get in and difficult to play.

All in all, camp really has very few restrictions to keep characters out. The only big one is the age thing, and counselors can still get in twice a year and there isn't as much pressure on those as there used to be (there used to be a limit of how many counselors could get in, and weeding was quite heavy). As it is, my youngest character is 2, my oldest has been around since the start of creation. I play a character who removes people's organs FOR FUN, and then Vash the Stampede. Your apping range is as wide as you want it to be.

Getting Ready - Things to Think About

Aside from writing the app itself (we're getting to that) there are a few other things to keep in mind for your character.

Icons-
A fairly big one for many people. The majority of the characters in camp are played with the 100 icon maximum that Live Journal allows (and we pray on a daily basis that it will be increased). If you have never roleplayed before, or haven't in a large community, this may seem like ridiculous overkill. Hell. MAYBE IT IS. None-the-less we willingly shuck out 7 bucks every two months per journal to keep our icons up. This is NOT REQUIRED in any way! However it is recommended. Icons are a large part of the roleplay experience and which one you use when you comment tends to vastly change the implications of the words. Since we are not a prose RP, we use icons to convey everything from rage to apathy, humor to fear, and as you work with your character you are likely to find they have far more than 15 expressions (far more than 100, really).

As far as GETTING ICONS, that is up to you. If you are apping from a visual medium of some kind, where to get them is fairly obvious. You're going to need to screencap and crop anime or movies, or crop and clean up manga. It isn't uncommon for players to spend an absurd amount of time on their character's icons *cough* but how much work you do or don't want to put into it is of course up to you.

If you are apping from a non-visual medium, such as a novel, you will likely want to look for model or actor who suitably fits the description of your character and use them to make icons from. There are livejournal communities dedicated to this sort of thing. If you are the artistic sort, people have been known to draw their own icons as well.

Journal Name-
You'll be needing a livejournal user name! Some people consider it a jinx to decide these things, or to create the journal before receiving the character. Either way it is something to think about while you are working toward apping.

What Is An App? - The Basics

For the bare bones of it, here is what you do.

In more detail, this is your app, which will slave over until it can reach a 70% IN.

Character: Your character's full name.
Series: The series the character is from, if there are multiple versions of the canon, be specific (I.E. Fullmetal Alchemist (manga)) Some people like to supply a wikipedia link to the canon for people who may want to find more information.
Character Age: If the physical and actual ages differ, include both if it is relevant. (I.E. 300 years old, but permanently stuck at age 12).
Canon: Canon is deeply important and I will be covering it at more length later. But basically, this is where you describe the character as they appear in their canon, and the series itself if it is important. You want to give an interesting and understandable impression of WHO THE CHARACTER IS, primarily as they relate to themselves. If your canon is flooded with things like "Miaka is the true love of Tamahome and she spends a lot of time staring deeply into his eyes and he would do absolutely anything for her like that one time joined the enemy to protect her." etc then... your canon isn't really about Miaka, it's about Miaka and Tamahome's relationship. We want to hear about the character's strengths, weaknesses, and personality. How he or she talks, interacts with people, and important bits of their history or abilities, as well as an idea of their function in their series. It's perfectly fine to describe the hero as being the hero of the story, just go into more depth than that. Also, the single most important thing is that the canon reflect the sample app, if your character is usually SUPER PERKY but gets desperately terrified around zombies, and then you fail to mention that, but write her as being desperately terrified throughout the sample app, your canon and app do not match and you will be voted out by people who don't know you canon and can't recognize the character.

Canon is typically between 200 words and 300. 350 at the absolute max.

Sample Post: There are a lot of do's and don't's here, which will also be covered in more detail later. But basically, there is where the app itself goes. This is to be written in the first person present voice of your character. Technically, it is to be written as a journal entry, however most apps do not have the feel of being written on a computer, nor do they need to. The idea is that it is the character speaking. It is not prose, it is not a mental monologue. Unless your character is the type to monologue out loud, with no one within ear shot, it is expected that it be written for an audience of some sort. Whether that audience be the whole of camp or just that toucan over there.

Apps tend to be between 300 words and 400. 500 at absolute max. Generally speaking, you want the app to be about 100 words longer than the canon, in order to have proportions that don't make your canon look super long or you app look super short.

CFUD Specific - Do's and Don’ts for Your App

aka If you only read one part of this guide, read this!

Basically, the hardest part about apping to most people is always in the little things. Because you can have a good voice and a decent canon and you simply won't go in if you Do It Wrong. This is harsh! And probably the most unfair part of the application process. But simply due to the nature of the community, how things are Usually Done and Shall Continue To Be Done is what you Want To Do, you can either surpass it or... quit! Obviously I'm aiming this at the former, because I certainly don't want these little details to keep awesome and IC people out of the game, but if you try to fight it you're honestly just wasting your breath. Everyone deals with these every time they app. You must too.

And tragically, there are only so many ways to overcome these nuances. If you are lucky, you have a natural feel for how to app CFUD and don't need anything explained to you. 95% of people don't fit into that category (this includes people already in camp! Which is why I'm famous for telling people to rewrite their apps). Otherwise you have been in camp a long time and have learned what to do and not do, seen what works and what doesn't. Or else you have a beta who can find these things for you and help you fix them. I am going to do my best to explain every one of these points I can remember, explain why they don't work, and recommend how to fix them. This list may be a bit messy but I will order it the best I can.

First, there are some very basic overall rules that apply no matter what.

First Person Present Tense- MUST. All of camp is written from this point of view. This doesn't mean your character can't say "I was in the woods." But the implication is "I am here right now telling you about how I was in the woods." And at some point the app will catch up to "Hello camp, I wish all of you a good day." and not "I said hello to camp and wished them all a good day". Okay? Think journal entry. "I did this and that and then this and now I feel this and that and one of those."

Camp is NOT a prose style RP, and prose is never acceptable in applications unless you have a very unique situation, such as apping a character who is an author and frequently monologues in prose. And even then you wouldn't want to do that for the entire app.

The App Is Pure Monologue- One person talking. Possible and very rare exceptions to this is having one character with multiple personalities, in which case it might be considered a dialog if the personalities speak to each other. However, having a zombie talk as in "Hello, Mr. Zombie!" "Braaains" is not acceptable. What IS okay is "Hello, Mr. Zombie! How are you? 'Braaaaains' you say? How nice!"

*Actions* Are Bad- In ye olde camp days, you could get away with one action such as a *BANG* sfx or something in the app if the rest of your app was really strong and the action noticeably contributed to the app. Those days are almost entirely gone and putting *ACTIONS* in your app will severely weaken it. I won’t say it will absolutely never work, but I strongly suggest not trying it.

Spelling Is Good- Grammar is subject to character voice, and provided you don't abuse the hell out of commas, or just throw in quotation marks at random, you won't get burned too hard. Spelling can get you in trouble. One mistake here or there isn't a big deal and will often be completely missed, but if you aren't good at spelling and obviously haven't used a spellcheck, people WILL vote you out. Spellcheck your final app and proofread it carefully for left out misused words.

Over Formatting Is Bad- By formatting I mean! Italics, bold face, underlines, ~~strikeouts~~, smallfont and largefont. I also throw into this things that aren't actually formatting but are noticeable due to not being a regular part of speech, such as tildes ~ and ellipses ... and heartmarks ♥. All of these things are acceptable in moderation, but the overall look of your app IS important, and basically you want people to look at your app and see the paragraph as a whole. It should look like a normal paragraph: a block of words. If instead of seeing A Paragraph they see font that shifts in size and shape constantly. Or just sentences interspaced frequently with ~'s, it's going to look bad.

There are no exact numbers for this. It depends on the character you are apping, how they speak and such. Fay uses ~ a hell of a lot more than Zack does, and how much you use them changes the voice. But then again Earl of the Millennium heartmarks after 90% of his sentences, and if you did that in app it would just look bad. If you need a rough idea, I'd say no more than three to four alterations/oddities to each medium-large paragraph. But things like italics are less obvious than smallfont, and you can get away with more.

That's pretty much it for every situation rules. Next, to start broadly:

App Formats-

By this I mean the... way the character is presented in your app, there are two basic styles to write an app that are considered widely most acceptable. I won't say these are the only two possibilities, but they're the only ones I can think of, and make up probably 98% of the winning apps we see in camp.

Interaction Apps- This is a popular style of app that revolves around the character interacting with things and the app consisting of what the character says during this interaction. An example would be:

"My, I've never seen such a pretty toucan! You have a big beak don't you? Such a big bea--EEK! MY EYE YOU BITCH THAT WAS MY FUCKING EYE"

Even though we don't have anything like "And then the toucan poked Betty's eye out", the monologue is written in such a way that we can discern what is happening by what is said. Apps written in this style tend to be 'journey' apps, and will move the character through a series of interactions, either with one camp creature or a group of them. Zombies are especially popular for these apps because they are humanoid and can 'do' virtually anything you need them to do for the purpose of the app, from attacking your character to inviting them to a party.

Pros to this style of app:
-Offers a variety of things which can happen to your character, and thus forcing them to react in ways that may be humorous or interesting for voters.
-Many characters will not easily monologue at length, forcing them into one end of a conversation with something that cannot speak is often useful in such cases.
-Often makes it easier to fit in jokes, especially ones that might be particular to the character (I.E. Having something call Ed a 'bean').

Cons to this style of app:
-Tends to have weaker character voice. Because the character is only reacting or 'commenting' on things most likely very out of the ordinary, it's harder to get a general sense for how they speak and act with regards to camp itself, rather than Zombie_A who is Doing This.
-Can easily get gimmicky. Since the app relies on things happening off screen, appers often feel what is happening offscreen needs to be funny in its own right. However, a character talking to a zombie trying to eat his head tends to be far more interesting (and gives a better sense of the character himself) than a character watching a toucan cancan line. The 'funny' offscreen thing distracts from character’s actions and voice, and honestly, those things probably aren't funny anymore, nor have they been in two years.
-Can easily get busy. Since 'reactions' are typically short, such apps will keep up a series of events happening to the character until the app is long enough, this leads to a string of odd things, none of which are interesting in of themselves (though the character's reactions might be), but can give an overall feel that too much action has taken place in the app.
-Frequently leads to exposition dialog. Exposition dialog is saying something that one would not normally say in order to convey what is happening. To use my above example with the toucan and the eye it would be more like: "-EEK! HOW DARE YOU FLY DOWN AND POKE OUT MY LEFT EYE". Another more frequent use of exposition dialog is the character repeating whatever is said or done offscreen. "'Brains', you say?" is a classic.

Directed Monologue Apps- this is the second style of apping. A directed monologue app tends to be more like an actual journal entry, though the character can be 'talking' or 'writing', the idea is that they are doing it all at once, without stopping to interact with whatever along the way. These apps can be anything from the character writing a letter home to mom, and relaying events of camp, or the character speaking in an 'open letter' to the Director about what she or he THINKS of this damn place, or the character introducing his or herself to the camp and campers as a whole, and explaining the trials they've been through to get here.

To continue with my earlier example, in this style of app it would go:

"Owwwww--fuck! This hurts! So on my way here I saw this fucking toucan and I just wanted to pet it a little and can you BELIEVE the bastard took my goddamn eye out? Who the hell here is a healer? God I hate losing eyes. Such a bitch."

Pros to this style of app:
-Tends to have stronger voice impact, because it is entirely the character's own priorities, words and thought process.
-Is the best way to 'prove' the apper's ability to play the character, since if you can get a character to ICly monologue for 400 words you're doing pretty good with them.
-Less need for camp interaction, or to come up with 'creative' or 'interesting' camp things. Simply mentioning the character's opinions on zombies is often enough to get the ball rolling.

Cons to this style of app:
-Because MOST CHARACTERS don't monologue at length, and their canons consist of them playing off of something else, this style of app tends to be much more difficult
-Can easily get monotonous, even if you can get a character to monologue they may very well be very boring about it
-Often requires a greater grasp of voice and more extrapolation on the character and how they talk, due to not being a reaction type app.

Mixing!- Obviously you don't have to do all of one or the other. It's quite common to start with an Interaction app and move into a Directed Monologue, or visa versa. I wouldn't say mixing it up guarantees the best of both worlds, but it may help you in your app writing process to try it.

Personal Thoughts- Now that I tried SO HARD to keep my bias out of that, let me say that I have a giant pet peeve toward Interaction apps, and unless they are done really strongly will almost always suggest people rewrite them with less interaction reliance. I don't mind some, but if an entire app is a series of Stuff Happening To Character and Character Reacting the app is almost always weak on voice and characterization. I wouldn't say never use Interaction style! Just be aware that moderation is good. Also the more reliance on something happening off screen, the weaker it is. Interacting with a group of zombies gesturing at the character isn't as bad as having an entire conversation with a zombie that we only see one half of. Having an entire conversation AT a zombie is better, because the implication is nothing is being said offscreen that needs to be relayed back to us.

I tend to aim for Directed Monologues, and in the case that you have such a character that just would never monologue at length, FIND a reason to make them do so. I always use Kira's app as an example of this, simply because it's when I figured it out for myself. Kira is not a character who talks at length, but with the proper motivation, he certainly CAN. As can most characters, if you figure out why they would. And working from that angle of what makes them talk at length also adds to characterization on its own.

Either way, be aware of what you are doing, what you are aiming for, and what is well received. While I don't favor Interaction Apps, you can certainly do that, just be aware of the weaknesses, and if you want to go for a Directed Monologue, but aware of THOSE weaknesses. Don't try to break the box and do something completely new and amazing! Because honestly, the tried and true is far more likely to pull you through.

App Content-

What you talk about in your app! 'Content' generally means there has to be something of substance. An idea, an encounter, it can be just about anything but will basically act as a fixed point for the text to revolve around. For example, Character A gets bit by a zombie. If Character A is neurotic, you may then have an entire paragraph of them worrying about infection. If Character A is a horror flick junkie, it may be an entire paragraph of worrying about becoming a zombie themselves. The same situation can result in two entirely different app directions for two different characters.

For this reason, in general what you choose to talk about in your app is pretty much up to you. People say that talking about zombies gets boring, but the vast majority of apps have some sort of basic zombie commentary or interaction. It might not SEEM entertaining, but apps get in despite it. Why? Because what we care about is how they react to the zombies; that shows characterization. Apps which rely on New And Amazing Things, like pokadotted zombie lemurs hosting a formal ball and you are invited, tend to get lost in all of the New And Amazing Stuff which... does nothing to show characterization! Why interact with a polkadotted zombie lemur at a ball if you can show just as much characterization by interacting with a zombie? Don't spend so much time creating Amazing Camp Creatures that you outshine the personality and actions of your character with them.

But outside of that warning? What you can do is pretty much limitless. Camp is that sort of place. Just make sure that what you choose to use as content has a purpose to it.

As for what you CAN'T do, there are a few content subjects you want to avoid. They are:

Canon Reliance- This can be one of the hardest ones for many characters. You are apping a character with a great deal of reliance on others in their canon, and so it's only natural to have the character talk about THEM instead of about him or herself. Tragically that is not really an option. People should not need to know your character's relationships in their canon to follow your app. This means if you're apping Pinky, you don't spend your entire app going on about what The Brain might think. By rule of thumb, you can have roughly a half a paragraph to a paragraph of content that focuses on ONE (1!) Canon Thing. This means one paragraph about the Brain. Not one paragraph about The Brain, the Lab Back Home, And Those Four Times We Almost Took Over The World.

This is for several reasons. First, you want your app to be easily followed and understood by people who don't know your canon. If you have a lot of canon references, you are likely to make people feel like they being left out of the loop somehow. Additionally, the Point Of The App is to prove you are capable of handling the character. You need to show voice, understanding, and that you can play your character WITHOUT relying on their cast, world, plot, etc. Camp is all about taking the character out of their element, and you need to show you can do that in the app, and still play them ICly. You aren't doing that effectively if your character arrives in zombie camp and can only talk about the people back home.

Camper References- This is when references are made to people who are already in camp. Typically speaking, people will only do this if they are apping their canonmates. For example, a Tear apper might mention that she came to camp to fetch Luke. This is generally acceptable as your one bit of Canon Reliance. But it also counts towards Camper References. Because long in the past there were issues with people indiscriminately referencing characters in their app that they don't play, it's now common courtesy to ask the players of said characters if they mind being referenced in your app. Then usually to mention in the Canon section that you received permission for this reference. In such cases it's important to make sure you don't misrepresent the character you are mentioning (I.E. Tear calling Luke a useless failure), as doing so will make people mad at you.

App Construction-

How your app is put together! Basically, flow and structure. I can't really give you a list of don't for this, because it's just too subjective to character and situation. However, if you lurk on campfuckuvote at all you may notice apps tend to have a certain look to them.

Roughly, an app is going to be anywhere from three to seven paragraphs, at least three of those paragraph will typically be a good length (eight to twelve sentences). You may have a few very short paragraphs thrown in for punchlines or reading flow. Apps will typically NOT be a long series of one to three sentence paragraphs, nor will it usually be one single block of text.

But none of these are really Don'ts. I've seen all of these done effectively before; just make sure it fits your character. Above all, make sure it reads well. The reader should not get lost in a slew of words, but it should maintain their attention. If the character never spends more than one sentence on any given subject, that damn well be an important character trait, because jumping around that much for no reason will drive readers crazy.

Basically, you CAN structure your app anyway you want. But avoid going outside the standard set up unless you have a good reason for it. Wanting to be 'different' isn't a good reason. Having a character who simply ABSOLUTELY WOULD DO IT THIS WAY is a good reason, and keep in mind even if that is How They Would Totally Do This, you still have to ICly and convincingly represent it.

Another important thing to watch for is paragraph flow. Apps tend to discuss a different content subject with each paragraph. People often construct their apps aiming for 'three jokes', and they write three separate jokes very well, but can't string them together comprehensively and the app looks disjointed. The entire app should not only read easily but should flow together as a comprehensive thought process, from beginning to end.

Pet Peeves-

That's pretty much it for the app building Do's and Don’ts. These are just things that people tend to throw in or leave out of their apps or canons that may cost them votes.

As a disclaimer, the reason pet peeves are listed as pet peeves and not overall rules, is because you CAN make it work. It has been done in the past, will be done in the future. A strong app will almost always overcome a pet peeve, especially if it uses that peeve in an effective way to make the app stronger. Additionally, pet peeves only apply to some players, and not all players will vote out on just one, and generally speaking the inclusion of a single pet peeve will not throw you out of the running completely. Losing three or four votes will just bring your percentage down. If the rest of the app is good you will almost always still go in. But in order to avoid accidentally doing many of these and lowering your chances, here are the ones I can think of.

Image Links in the Canon or App- Once upon a time it was popular to put image links into the canon or app, usually for purposes of humor. These were often drawing or photoshopped images. It was funny for a little while, then quickly got old, and at this point is generally recommended against unless you have a very IC reason for it or a very OOC need for it.

I.E. Namine is a character who canonically draws cute pictures of things, and through them can shape memory. Having one of Namine's drawings within the app would not be a horrible idea if done well.

I.E. When I apped Argilla I included a link to a picture of her demon form in the canon, because I wasn't sure how to effectively make sure people would understand that she has mouths in her breasts without just showing it.

However, these are rare circumstances. Pictures are generally not a good idea if it's just because "this is a canon image that is funny" or "here is a grate photoshop I made in lieu of a punchline". Unless your character canonically photoshops the hell out of things. And even then? In most places you can use a picture, you can probably use words just as effectively.

Accents- A lot of characters canonically speak with a heavy accent. If you mention in the canon section that yes, their accent is truly this over the top, people who have difficulty with the accent will usually abstain rather than vote out based on it. However, make sure you if you have a character with really unusual written speech patterns that you clarify in the canon that this IS how they speak.

Suffixes and Random Japanese- CFUD has a lot of people formerly guilty of speaking fangirl japanese, or who have simply been around that sort of person enough that now that we are older and wiser as a whole we tend to avoid it as much as possible. Using Japanese suffixes at all is pretty much only acceptable if your character is japanese, using them excessively is only okay if they are the type of character to do that. If your character is from an anime or manga, but in their canon they themselves are not Japanese, you generally want to translate the suffixes into something suitable for that region. For example, an american highschooler might call a classmate Jo-san in the anime, but in America, highschoolers don't call classmates Miss Jo.

Additionally, camp tends to be fully translated outside of periodic character quirks (I.E. Mitsuru canonically throws french into her sentences at random) so if your character screams KAWAII!! In their canon, that would still be Cute!! to us, unless your character is an american anime fan who screams in random japanese all the time.

Other Quirky Character Talking Things- Chichiri's 'no da', Pyon's 'pyon~', Colonello's tendency to say "Hey" all the freaking time, the Earl's constant ♥'s are all things that might, in canon, be used every damn sentence, but in reading 350 words will get tiresome fast. You usually want to space these things out, use them enough that it's obviously frequent but not so much that your reader wants to cut you over it.

Humor vs Voice-

And last but not least, the age old discussion over How Funny Do You Have To Be, Really?

Final answer? Honestly you don't really need to be.

In ye olde days, the focus on apps was humor. But in ye olde days, there were still things that hadn't been done before. Zombies doing the limbo was still a funny and unique and hilarious idea. Camp humor has mostly moved on from that, and when done tends to be more centered on in-jokes. But in-jokes can be hard if you... aren't in camp! Unless you are an audience that lurks a lot you may not know all the things about camp that the campers like to laugh at. Since we have a lot of 4channers, 4chan memes are often synonymous with camp in-jokes. But does that mean you HAVE to have these things to be funny? No, not at all. Old fashioned humor that simply fits your character and the situation well is the best stand by. But chances are those won't be AS hilarious, especially if the person reading it doesn't know your canon.

None-the-less a lot of people still fixate on humor for camp apps. For good reason! Angsty apps that aren't angsty in a funny way simply won't get in. While camp has its fair share of drama, we certainly don't want to see all of it in your app. At heart we like humor and crack, laughing is fun. But this doesn't mean your app has to fixate on the 'three jokes' rule. You will not fail out if you don't have three concise, unique and funny punchlines delivered throughout the app.

You do want a humorous overtone, but don't punch yourself if you can't think of something that is going to make everyone lol. Humor as it is related to the character tends to do better, because if written ICly, with a good canon section to back it up, we can tell it's funny for THEM.

In the end, voice currently counts for a lot in apps. Funny is still good, but the reality is that most characters just wouldn't say in-jokes easily. If you CAN make it work in a way that is IC for the character, go for it! (Meru Otonashi's app is an excellent example of this) But if you can't, don't make your character act OOC to gain humor points. Make them as amazingly IC as you can be. Use whatever makes them a unique character to show how interesting and awesome they are. You have four hundred words to make us LIKE this character, and you don't necessarily have to use jokes to do that.

Punchlines? I honestly can't remember the last time I wrote a punchline. If I have a character I can be humorous with, the final paragraph will be a reasonably amusing one. But I pretty much never end with that 'punchline' effect. I know several people who will write an entire app around their punchline. Of course everyone should do whatever works for them (and gets them in!) and this is not a process which fails. I'm not at ALL trying to say "jokes are bad", but a lot of people have trouble with jokes. "It's not funny enough!" is one of the great stress points of writing apps. I'm just trying to point out that rather than the app being 'funny enough' you should worry about it being 'interesting enough'. If you can create interest with something other than jokes because you have an AWESOME CHARACTER HERE LET ME SHOW YOU IT? Do it.

Punchlines, thus, don't have to be the closing of a joke. It can be something sincere and honest and so brutally IC that just sells the app. I do this all the time and it has never failed me once. It also fits my style better because I basically fail at humor. But the end fact is, if it's good people will like it.

Link to Part 2

Offscreen Meme

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 22:09:04 GMT

That off screen meme thing late to the bandwagon yay. COMMENT HERE if you want to work out IC offscreen interactions etc o/

Argilla- explores camp, hangs out at the Embryon base, or sits outside the library reading philosphical or religious texts.

Ed- trains physically every day, running, weight lifting etc. He also sekretly practices A-T out in the woods, atm I'm assuming only Kazu, Aeon and Ine know about this. Otherwise he goes to all meals at the mess hall and wanders around camp at random.

Kaito- takes walks around camp but mostly hangs out in his RV. Akira brings him food from the messhall and he r not social being.

Kira- hangs out in boy's 10, in or outside of the library, or on random fences around camp. He mostly reads or interacts with people he knows, if he gets really bored he kills zombies.

Luke- does sidequests/mini games for Cloud, and has an impressive collection of base materia he hasn't bothered learning how to use yet (note, give to Jade), or else he talks to people he knows. Makes a point to visit most of his friends at least every other day so even if we haven't played in a bit assume he's seen you.

Reborn- hangs out in the mafia cave, or around camp, and can only be found precisely when you don't want to see him.

Ticky(Black)- hangs out at the pimp cabin or the graveyard, wanders around. Doesn't make point to talk or not talk to anyone really. Raises his Tease on zombies.

Ticky(White)- he's in this form more and more often of late. Does hobo things like sit in the shade of buildings, harass passers-by, sleep anywhere, eat whenever there is food being served, sneaking to Ayame's store at night and sleeps on the pillows.

Vash- trains in his room for several hours each morning, then showers, goes to breakfast, takes most meals the messhall and otherwise attends his garden or just wanders around camp.

Viral- hunts out in the woods, and stays in his cave, probably trains the Anima+ shouta? Periodically takes a walk through camp and usually makes a point to see Himawari semi-frequently.

Zack- works at Ciel's for a certain portion of every day, also helps in the chocobo stables, and then wanders off into the woods to train against monsters for a while. Keeps himself fairly busy, when he has free he'll use it to exhaust himself, and once he's quite tired he'll use it to nap.

Relationship Lists

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 17:39:26 GMT

Stolen from Kaza, IF YOU THINK I FORGOT YOU, I PROBABLY DID. POKE ME. IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY YOU'RE IN THAT COLUMN, POKE ME.

Trusts	Likes (openly)	Dislikes (openly) but Likes (sekretly)	Dislikes/Distrusts
Al Izumi Tomo	Ogiue Yuusuke Kazu Claire Ine Luke Ari Ash Bart Buffy Yamamoto Chao Chisame Chizuru	Spitfire Aeon Sano Reborn Russel

[ITP: Rape and Voyeurism]

Sat, 16 Feb 2008 21:07:01 GMT

*Location! Hospital: Ine's office. Probably not a great combination*

Aren't you done yet?

Attraction Meme

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 18:27:22 GMT

SO AS I'M MAKING MY WAY, DOING MY HOT OR NOT MEME (Yes I'm still working on it, ssh) I'm noticing how different my characters feel/react toward attractions. SOME THOUGHTS:

Ed- isn't very special. He has a straightforward way of seeing things. Girls tend to score higher on average (Ed is straighter now than I've ever played him in my LIFE this can only go down) but don't hit his pings really hard so no girls score like a 9/10 when periodically men do. He has a strong morality so sometimes things are just NO. He will literally feel NO ATTRACTION to some friends, despite them being perfectly good looking. He's very typically boyish in this way. Similarly he tends to be REALLY ATTRACTED to people he would REALLY RATHER NOT BE. This mostly results in punching.

Kaito- has very specific... levels that things must fall within. He likes sex and is a sexual person, but not to the point where it gets in his way or hinders his judgement at all. Children are no. There is no 'age' for which applies to children, it's more maturity and how you look. He won't have sex with a woman, but if a woman is EXCEPTIONALLY AWESOME she'll score a few points anyway. Young men he can judge casually as 'might be worth it in a few years'. He also very much has certain types he likes and certain types he doesn't. He doesn't like to be challenged. So if you're going to stand up to him you better fucking well be able to top him COMPLETELY or you're going to die. He also doesn't like crazy people. (Sora was commenting on how Jiz is a real! masochist! but Kaito wouldn't touch Jiz with a ten foot pole.) He likes normal people who happen to be okay with/turned on by being abused. As far as appearances, it's difficult for me to label his idea of what is hot. It's less... masculinity and appearance and more... definition? Looks are great but he appreciates people with sharper and interesting personalities. "Sharper" and "interesting" as they pertain to Kaito are not necessarily the same as they would be to most people.

Kira- likes sex and has very little sex drive. He likes it from a 'hormonal teenage boy' standpoint and doesn't care from a 'I'm an immortal sword and in love with someone I can never have' stand point. A 5 with Kira is like a 9 with someone else, because it means he'd do you in an instant if the chance came up, but he's not really going to pursue it. 6 (I don't know if he's scored anyone that high yet) means he would actually make an effort to get you into bed even if you didn't appear interesting. 10 is Setsuna and Alexiel. Katou is Kira's main fuck and he's only a 4 at best. He just doesn't feel a lot of sexual attraction. 2 or 3 is a perfectly respectable number from him. 0 means he'd never touch you.

Luke- is dumb. I mean. ....no yes. SO LIKE. Luke has plenty of hormones and likes people and he especially likes girls but he doesn't really CONNECT THE TWO very often. He doesn't feel a lot of sexual attraction. If you have giant tatas you will score higher because he LIKES THOSE but he still doesn't really... carry it over to sex in his head. EVERY NUMBER HE HAS GIVEN ANYONE IS PLATONIC AND/OR THEORETICAL. He feels no current impulses to do anyone. He also doesn't really judge people by looks unless you are REALLY AMAZINGLY GORGEOUS. Pretty much everyone is reasonably attractive in his eyes. So everyone scores a 5 and then goes up or down depending on various factors. Down is if there is something unignorable unattractive about you, or if there is some reason he just. Can't feel attraction (Dist would be under a 5 not because of how he looks but because he's DIST). Up is if you have either larger than normal breasts, or if you're a girl who tops him in some way, or a closer male friend. Pretty much anyone who has positive experience with Luke can get a 6. A 9 implies he cares a LOT. 10 means you hit one of his horrible pings like being topped by older badass smarter respectable awesome men. Both Van and Garlock get 10s for similar awesome/unattainable reasons.

Reborn- feels attracted to people he likes. Looks don't really have anything to do with it. He tends to like people who A) live honestly being themselves or B) are hilarious in some way. Characters like Hibari, Yamamoto, Maman and Colonello all score high for this reason. Not how they look or what they do with their lives or what they believe or what they are capable of but because they are all very honest about who they are, whether that is air headed mother or crazed commando baby. He also appreciates certain rarely seen types of badass (Mitsuru goes here. Hot chick who kicks ass and believes firmly in the power of a good education, lolo) and tends to score women overall slightly higher. People who don't really ping him end up in the 3-4 section usually based on potential or looks, but he probably wouldn't have sex with anyone below a 6 or 7. 0

Ticky- would rather kill you than fuck you, and as such only scores people higher than a 3 or 4 if he has some sort of contact with them that makes him think they'd be an entertaining fuck. If it's just looks or he's never met you, 0's are common, 2's or 3's if he can say you're attractive but doesn't really care. Some people, despite having a sort of attraction for, the desire to kill still waaay out weighs the desire to fuck (See: Rabi, Abel).

Vash- it's actually easier to do actual attraction than spiritual beauty points. I just DON'T KNOW ENOUGH ABOUT THE CHARACTERS ANYMORE. Anyway. He DOES have a few hormones, and more over is capable of attraction that isn't entirely sexual. That said, most men won't ping him at all (hence the 'PASS') and when he rates women he means it is a platonic sort of way. All ratings are entirely theoretical since Vash wouldn't have sex with anyone in camp even if the rule was broken, but it's sort of "well if I wasn't a PLANT and my body wasn't HORRIBLY SCARRED then..." yeah.

Viral- doesn't ping on most humans. This is as gross to him as furries would be to you. But he is the sort to be overwhelmed by certain points. He pings HARD on jesus girls, and pretty well on Gar boys. And then there are the ones who just GIVE HIM NO SAY AND RAPE HIM and he... 'like' isn't the right word, but he knows his place in life )= He doesn't really ping people in a sexual way at this point, but more in a "topped by" way. And even when he does get used to humans he still doesn't have a lot of hormones running around.

Zack- KIND OF A WEIRD ONE FOR ME. Zack is the type of guy who can appreciate most people! But when it comes to actually finding someone attractive/feeling attracted to them he is one of my overall lowest scorers. He likes Jesus types somewhere between their mid-teens and mid-twenties (He's not a PEDO he just SPEND FIVE YEARS IN A TUBE and it sort of off set his sense of his age in proportion to others). Particularly quite or particularly playful types are good. He very honestly LIKES THE GOOD QUALITIES IN PEOPLE. He doesn't have any issue with disliking people for being jerks on any level and it's a very simple equation of asshole != sexy to him. He can score people semi-high (5) for being just REALLY HOT, and higher for not being particularly attractive but for hitting his jesus pings (6). But most people rank around 3 in that "well you look good but I probably won't hit on you" sense. Also, as a work around to the asshole != sexy issue, topping him is the only way to score REALLY HIGH POINTS and you can do this if you're a good or bad person )= But it's a lot trickier if you're bad, if you're good he will HAPPILY LET YOU TOP HIM ALL OVER THE PLACE. oh zack.

Sob aviy's soul sob AKA "What Couples Are To Blame For My Kinks"

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 17:58:27 GMT

Okay I've. Been meaning to do this for a few weeks now.

Aviy likes boy porn. You might have noticed this. In the past uh... eight years that I've been into yaoi my qualms regarding WHAT IS OKAY have each been slowly and steadily knocked down and buried by new fandoms or couplings. Here, thus, is a list of which couplings I can blame my questionable morality on.

Light Bondage/domination/anime rape - Horo/Ren OLD SCHOOL RP. I was fourteen and innocent okay.
Mild bloodplay - Buffyverse.
Incest - Matt/Jeff Hardy. WWE for the win okay.
Shouta/Large Age Gap/Amputee kink - Roy/Ed. BECAUSE WAY. WAY BACK WHEN. ED WAS CONSIDERED SHOUTA IN FANDOM. TRUFAX. I bet only like five of you remember that. Then people realized he was too badass for that. Anyway I initially had BIG PROBLEMS with Roy/Ed cuz Ed was a year younger than me at the time and I was like WHAT IS THIS INSANITY THAT'S HORRIBLE. ...then I realized I would totally do Roy, and Ed is way more mature and tough than me. So I got over it.
Lesbians - My HiME. I never really had an ISSUE with lesbians, but this was the first anime where I really supported the girl shippings.
Tentacle Porn/demons/aliens/whatever probably was never meant to Go There - I actually blame a website for this. It has a lot of story archieves of girls being molested by tentacle monsters and aliens and the like. ssh.
Sex toys - various hentai manga.
Twincest, heavy bloodplay - Dante/Vergil.
Prison sex - Under Grand Hotel /o/
Gun kink - reason number seventy million to read Stephen King's The Stand: The Trashcan Man gets anally raped with a gun.
Polygamy - Kairi/Sora/Riku.
Necrophilia - I don't count vampires, so I'd probably have to put this one to original writing; the Necromancer city, Eda Anund, and the zombie manga.
Pedophilia - Lolita.
Drug use - Kira/Katou. orz. NOT THAT I REALLY HAD AN ISSUE WITH THIS ONE it just. Never came up. Cuz you don't have a lot of druggies in anime.
Xeno/bestiality - ciceqi writing it )=
Vore - DDS. Before I even played it, but I always liked the cannibal concept.
Furries - whoever/Viral. Beastmen in general like, ruined all my furry issues.
Whips - Kaito/Dino. NEVER ACTUALLY HAPPENED but Dino-mun and I talked about it a lot while I was waiting to app Kaito.
Threesomes - Reborn/Colonello/Viper
Hermaphrodites - I should really put Wraeththu here, but I honestly never cared a lot for their design. Digital Devil Saga wins this one. Because Angel is fucking hot. And Seraph is. Well. Something.
Cosplay and roleplay - Reborn/Colonello. soooooooob.
Asphyxiation, Actual Hate Sex - ...Kaito/Sora. AND WHO KNOWS WHAT ELSE WILL BE ADDED.
...organ touching (it's so new and horrible I don't think there's a kink name for it) - Jiz/Ticky. orzzzzz

I'm ALSO CHILL WITH Sadomasochism and actual rape (...in fiction), but I can't really attribute those to any specific coupling so much as a general saturation of the concept.

And I'm probably like, forgetting more. Orz.

STUFF I NEVER REALLY JIVED WITH:

Shouta w/ shouta - because if they are both young and adorable and underdeveloped I just don't really see the point.
Anything involving defecation or urine - continues to be ew.
Parent/child incest - doesn't ALWAYS bother me, but it's a hard sell for me.

....and that's it that I can think of.

So, in closing, if you ever worried about squicking Aviy? You. Probably don't have to.

CAMP ID CARD

Sat, 26 Jan 2008 02:16:09 GMT

Hot Or Not Meme V. whatever

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 00:17:05 GMT

IN THE CONTINUING EPIC TALES OF AVIY WHORING EVERY MEME SHE CAN TO HAVE WORK DISTRACTIONS!

HOT OR NOT

For! Ed, Kaito, Kira, Luke, Reborn, Ticky, Vash, Viral, and Zack.

Viral and Vash will be exempt whenever I feel like it.

And as a disclaimer, Luke gives everyone a five unless he finds you unattractive in some way. This doesn't mean he actually wants to touch you. The rest of my characters operate normally (0 = no attraction, 1 = mild, 10 = DO ME NOW)

ETA: MUST LEAVE SEXY ICONS OR I DON'T KNOW WHO YOU PLAY OR WHAT THEY LOOK LIKE.

Apping thing with tables

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 15:45:22 GMT

COMMENT COUNTS PERCENTAGES ARE TAKING FROM LAST CRUNCHING MEME which was at the beginning of December. Actual comment counts are recent. I imagine the percentages have not changed dramatically.

Dib Membrane from "Invader Zim" (seeitoldyouso)

App Percentage: 96%
Played From: 05/07/05 to 07/23/05
That's How Long? Two and half months, ish.
Total Comments: 1,039
Overall Percentage: 1.46%
Reason For Dropping: Two months seemed like a REALLY LONG TIME at the time and I was concerned Dib was getting too much character development. He had FRIENDS. This was very strange to me. If I had less characters I would probably reapp him, just for giggles. But he doesn't ping me with that I MUST HAVE HIM AND MAKE HIM MINE urge I sort of need to have for characters now.
Select Option 3? Dib did a bunch of new and awesome things back when every aspect of camp was still new and awesome. He got kidnapped by a flying flaming tomato spaceship, and solved the horrible atomic warhead riddle and got a glock out of it, got saved by the original Raphael ninja turtle. I liked all of these things. Also think he was fabulous with Zim.

Midou Ban from "GetBackers" (almight_uni)

App Percentage: 73.7%
Played From: 6/9/05 to September '05
That's How Long? 3 months?
Total Comments: 2,055
Overall Percentage: 2.89%
Reason For Dropping: I BEGAN TO SENSE MY FAILURE. There were other issues but I think I started losing Ban's character early on and I still sort of headdesk over this. Have never seriously considered reapping him, though for a while I was debating apping Ginji.
Select Option 3? I still liked Ban's interactions with the DeathNote kids, though I think I pushed it too much.

Dante from "Devil May Cry" (devilneverdie)

App Percentage: 86.2%
Played From: 7/26/05 to 5/14/06
That's How Long? Almost ten months.
Total Comments: 2,855 (total)
Overall Percentage: 4.02%
Reason For Dropping: BELIEVE IT OR NOT. ONCE UPON A TIME AVIY HAD GIGANTIC CONFIDENCE ISSUES. Dante was simply TOO SEXY and TOO CONFIDENT and TOO AWESOME for me. I couldn't do his voice in a way I felt comfortable with to save my life, and subsequently barely played him.
Select Option 3? Dante is how I met my wife =D Dante and Snake had innuendo sex over rocketlaunchers. It was pretty awesome.

Edward Elric from "Fullmetal Alchemist" (fullmetalbean)

App Percentage: 80%
Played From: 08/03/05 to Current
That's How Long? too fucking long. Uh. Two years, five months and some change. orz.
Total Comments: 30,267
Overall Percentage: 42.43%
Reason For Apping: The other Ed dropped and as soon as I knew about it I HAD TO HAVE HIM. This was the first time ever I apped within the open apping window. Anyway. Ed is my favorite shounen hero ever, matched perhaps only by my love for Luke. And yeah. I dunno. I can't fathom not having him.
Select Option 3? IT'S BEEN TOO LONG. I WOULD HAVE NO IDEA WHAT TO PUT HERE. But you can pry him from my cold dead hands.

Riza Hawkeye from "Fullmetal Alchemist" (deft_bullets)

App Percentage: 92.2%
Played From: 10/18/05 to 2/3/06
That's How Long? Four monthsish
Total Comments: 1,391
Overall Percentage: 42.43%
Reason For Dropping: WAS CONSTANTLY SURE I WAS DOING HORRIBLE AND COULD NOT REPRESENT HER AWESOME. See: Dante.
Select Option 3? I still ship Mal/Riza )=

Killua Zoldyck from "Hunter x Hunter" (ofzenandyoyos)

App Percentage: 76.9%
Played From: 2/22/06 to September '06
That's How Long? Seven months. orz.
Total Comments: 804
Overall Percentage: 1.55% <--this is a lie for reasons I won't explain
Reason For Dropping: ......i had him for seven months and never topped one thousand comment WHAT DO YOU THINK )=
Select Option 3? I still adore Killua and I'm not allowed to reapp him ever.

Riku from "Kingdom Hearts" (dressindarkness)

App Percentage: 88.1%
Played From: 5/23/06 to 7/29/06
That's How Long? t-two months
Total Comments: 3,499 (total)
Overall Percentage: 4.81%
Reason For Dropping: STUFF. I really dropped him too soon though. I loved his first month of play and never managed to get that back.
Select Option 3? Hilariously I think his relationship with Tamaki has been my favorite thing. Favorite non-canon related thing anyway /o/

Lina Inverse from "Slayers" (bombdibandit)

App Percentage: 92.9%
Played From: 6/18/06 to 12/30/06
That's How Long? Six months =\
Total Comments: 1,508
Overall Percentage: 2.91%
Reason For Dropping: LINA IS FINAL PROOF I CAN NEVER PLAY A FEMALE CHARACTER. SHE WAS PERFECT FOR ME IN EVERY WAY AND I BLEW IT.
Select Option 3? I ADORED her relationship with Kanda tho )=

Vash the Stampede from "Trigun Maximum" (angels_wear_red)

App Percentage: 79.2%
Played From: 7/2/06 to Current!
That's How Long? 1.5 yearsish.
Total Comments: 5,832
Overall Percentage: 8.11%
Reason For Apping: I suck at these 'reasons' things I LOVED HIM AND SAID I WOULD AND DID AND WAS GLAD the end.
Select Option 3? I wish I'd kept him up with the twins better, or Abel. I need to get him out to establish new relationships. )=

Dante from "Devil May Cry" (devilneverdie)

App Percentage: 96%
Played From: 9/8/06 to 5/3/07
That's How Long? eight months
Total Comments: 2,855 (total)
Overall Percentage: 4.02%
Reason For Dropping: LESSON ONE IN WHY AVIY IS NOT ALLOWED TO REAPP PEOPLE. I still love Dante. A LOT. I ADORE HIM. There is just. Something that keeps me from playing him a lot though. It's not even voice or confidence issues either. It's just. He is not for me )=
Select Option 3? Uwaaah. Snaaaaaaaaaaaaake.

Riku from "Kingdom Hearts" (dressindarkness)

App Percentage: 85.7% in the Pentabattle, then 87.3% in the dup-off.
Played From: 12/04/06 to Current but he's going away shortly.
That's How Long? one year almost two months.
Total Comments: 3,499 (total)
Overall Percentage: 4.81%
Reason For Dropping: LESSON TWO IN WHY AVIY IS NOT ALLOWED TO REAPP CHARACTERS. I really really wanted to recapture the strength I initially recaptured him with. And just. Never did /o/ also everyone in my canon knows the games better than me which makes for interesting conversations but bad roleplay. KNOW YOUR CANONS KIDS.
Select Option 3? I like pretty much all of his threads with the fake )=

Ticky Mikk from "D. Gray-man" (andredallover)

App Percentage: 70.2%
Played From: 12/30/06 to Current
That's How Long? One year one month-ish!
Total Comments: 8,375 <---one thousand of these are Shigure's
Overall Percentage: 9.90% <---this is off because of Shigure
Reason For Apping: he's sexy. I wanted someone sexy. I am yet to find anyone sexier. also I adore him and he's fucking nuts and that's always good.
Select Option 3? I like most of Ticky's everything. I'm currently particularly fond of his abusive relationship toward Shigure and Abel. However, I think nearly killing Mika was fabulous.

Luke fon Fabre from "Tales of the Abyss" (soundslikepi)

App Percentage: 88.9%
Played From: 1/27/07 to Current
That's How Long? Uwah. almost a year \o/
Total Comments: 8,125
Overall Percentage: 10.10%
Reason For Apping: I LOVE HIM OBSESSIVELY AND HE HAS LIMITLESS POTENTIAL FOR CHARACTER DEVELOPEMENT BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT HE DOES AND YOU CAN NEVER TAKE HIM FROM ME.
Select Option 3? Mukuro/Luke future AU homo antics.

Raphael from "TMNT" (redmeansgotime)

App Percentage: 100%
Played From: 3/26/07 to ...IT WASN'T LONG.
That's How Long? I think I had him less than 2 months. orz.
Total Comments: 169
Overall Percentage: .003%
Reason For Dropping: CAN WE NOT TALK ABOUT THIS ONE? I KNEW IN MY SOUL IT WASN'T GOING TO WORK. BUT. NINJA TURTLES.
Select Option 3? and hay I got my first 100% |D

Kira Sakuya from "Angel Sanctuary" (originalsinner)

App Percentage: 94.7%
Played From: 06/05/07 to Current!
That's How Long? Uhm. math. math. seveeeen months?
Total Comments: 2,982
Overall Percentage: 4.02%
Reason For Apping: BECAUSE I CAN SAY I PLAY LUCIFER. also i wanted to fuck katou.
Select Option 3? I think harassing the shit out of Katou on an anonymous meme that one time was my favorite thread ever. But I also liked harassing Koizumi. And Haurhi. And homosword-kun. ......I play Kira when I want to be a bitch to people.

Zack Fair from "Final Fantasy VII" (oftenduplicated)

App Percentage: 94.6%
Played From: 06/30/07 to Current!
That's How Long? Sevenish months.
Total Comments: 1,050 FINALLY TOPPED 1K /o/ THO THOSE AREN'T ALL MINE. BUT WHATEVER.
Overall Percentage: 1.20%
Reason For Apping: WANTED TO BE GAY WITH WIFE + ADORE ZACK = MUST BE AN AWESOME IDEA. I still adore Zack and I still want to be gay with wife and I no longer have giant confidence issues with playing him but I do admit I've sort of hit a gutter with him and I need to roll on out.
Select Option 3? Aeris )))= I LOVE THEIR THREADS THEY ARE ADORABLE.

Viral from "Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann" (whodoyouyiff)

App Percentage: 90.7%
Played From: 08/18/07 to Current
That's How Long? Five months!
Total Comments: 1,244
Overall Percentage: 1.54%
Reason For Apping: Juri told me to )= ..........also I fucking adore him and Simon was taken. BUT YOU KNOW.
Select Option 3? I LOVE VIRAL'S EVERYTHING. I NEVER HAVE A DISAPPOINTING THREAD WITH HIM. it helps that I bring him out selectively.

Reborn from "Katekyoshi Hitman Reborn" (its_awwwright)

App Percentage: 100%
Played From: 10/13/07 to Current
That's How Long? Three months and some change.
Total Comments: 1,047
Overall Percentage: 1.33%
Reason For Apping: This baby was made for me.
Select Option 3? I also love Reborn's everything. I feel RIDICULOUSLY CONFIDENT with him. Concrit could probably not even dent me at this point. I think what I LOVE THE MOST is the baby ot3. And I want Skull to get more canon so I can make someone app him and make it an ot4 )=

Wanijima Kaito from "Air Gear" (no_safe_word)

App Percentage: 93.2%
Played From: 12/15/07 to Current
That's How Long? a month and some change
Total Comments: 353
Overall Percentage: something really small
Reason For Apping: HE'S A TERRIFYING PSYCHOTIC SADISTIC GAY COP. HE USES A WHIP. ON A-TARDS. Nishi plays Agito/Akito. He makes sexy faces. He's drawn by Oh!Great. I MUST HAVE HIM.
Select Option 3? So far establishing a horrible OTP with Sora is my favorite thing ever.

I've played here HOW long? ....2 years, eight months. ish. ................... 973 days )=
Overall Comment Count: 72,595
Average Comments Per Day: Approximately 75.
Shortest Kept: Raphael (less than two months)
Longest Kept: E-Ed.
Most Played: Ed. IS THERE ANY COMPARING? Tho in the last year Luke gets out way more.
Least Played: Raph!
App Percentage in Order
Reborn (100%)
Raphael (100%)
Dante II (96%)
Dib (96%)
Kira (94.7%)
Zack (94.6%)
Kaito (93.2%)
Lina (92.9%)
Riza (92.2%)
Viral (90.7%)
Luke (88.9%)
Riku I (88.1%)
Riku II (87.3%)
Dante I (86.2%)
Edward (80%)
Vash (79.2%)
Killua (76.9%)
Ban (73.7%)
Ticky (70.2%)

Comment Count in Order
Edward (30,267)
Ticky (8,375)
Luke (8,125)
Vash (5,832)
Riku (3,499)
Kira (2,982)
Dante (2,855)
Ban (2,055)
Lina (1,508)
Riza (1,391)
Viral (1,244)
Zack (1,050)
Reborn (1,047)
Dib (1,039)
Killua (804)
Kaito (353)
Raphael (169)

BOOOOOOORED

Thu, 17 Jan 2008 02:54:47 GMT

I am tired and bored and not up to doing a whole lot of roleplay but STILL IN NEED OF THINGS TO FILL MY NEXT FEW HOURS.

Ask me something.

Anything.

Relationships, essays, hot or not, the fuckallever IF YOU LOVE ME YOU WILL GIVE ME SOMTHING TO DO.

♥ ?

Dropping Essay Meme

Sun, 30 Dec 2007 00:59:33 GMT

SO. I FELT LIKE DOING ONE OF THESE. AND NOW I'M GOING TO. BECAUSE I CAN. Consider this less a dropping meme and more an exercise on why too much confidence is a bad thing.

Edward Elric - fullmetalbean
Date created: 2005-08-03 16:26:24
Journal entries: 110
Comments: Posted: 30,157 - Received: 3,092

Oh. Oh Ed.

I've had Ed for over two years now and I've just sort of accepted that I don't know if I could ever really get rid of him. I admit, I was thinking about it for a while. Ed is so much about ACCOMPLISHMENT and MOVEMENT he's very stressful to play without that. Yet at the same time he isn't the sort of make the conscious CHOICE to redirect his energies to something worthwhile. Ed just... does things as they come along and he doesn't think very seriously about how it effects him.

But! Playing him easy. Like. Really easy. Like I haven't reread his canon in over a year and sometimes I worry about that and DON'T WORRY IT'S MY NEXT PROJECT I want to redo all of his icons anyway because Ed is sexy and my icons don't reflect this. ANYWAY. Ed getting into A-T, as much as I don't really LIKE characters picking up the abilities of other universes, has really been helpful as far as playing him goes. He has SOMETHING TO WORK AT NOW and he'll never really be an A-T fighter (IT'S DUMB) but he'll enjoy himself anyway and GOD HE HAS A HOBBY. which. makes him playable again. And I will basically keep Ed forever and just keep finding new ways to keep him distracted )= PS APP WINRY

Vash the Stampede - angels_wear_red
Date created: 2006-07-02 21:21:48
Journal entries: 20
Comments: Posted: 5,803 - Received: 223

I admit I think about dropping Vash now and then. I don't feel COMPELLED to, as I genuinely enjoy playing him and I don't really lack confidence in how I play him. But he never really developed as many relationships as he should have, and that means that he just doesn't get out as much as my others. TYPICALLY when I play I'm jumping someone my characters like to interact with. So... Vash doesn't. Have any many people to jump and that's why he's been on the back burner the past couple of months.

I will admit I never really settled into a voice for Vash. Or... no that's not true. I have a voice for Vash that I like JUST FINE. But I'm not sure it's actually VASH'S VOICE because. In the manga he has no canon voice really. He has VASH LIKE ACTIONS but a VOICE? It's. Terribly inconsistent. It's not even just normal, like Luke, who has a very distinctive if rather boring way of speaking. It's just. *throws hands up* and I don't know if I should blame Nightow for failing at everything ever or just translations for that. REGARDLESS THOUGH it's not a big issue for me. I'm honestly perfectly confident playing him, but he has the least amount of ties. THIS WOULD CHANGE IF I GOT HIM OUT MORE but I'm honestly. Kind of afraid of it changing! THE THEME OF THIS DROPPING ESSAY MEME? I DON'T ACTUALLY WANT TO DROP ANYONE BUT I HAVE TEN CHARACTERS. O SHIT.

Riku - dressindarkness
Date created: 2006-05-23 08:12:06
Journal entries: 16
Comments: Posted: 3,492 - Received: 378

I'M DROPPING RIKU NEXT TIME I APP BECAUSE I DON'T WANT ELEVEN CHARACTERS there I said it.

Uhhdkjf;asdfa Riku. Oh Riku. Sob. Riku is such a. A THING for me I really don't. Even know where to start. He doesn't get out much! AT ALL! I realize I'm sort of a living example of What Not To Do here. But ironically? I'm just fine with him. Seriously. I used to angst a lot about how not getting out much, but since I finally got confident in HOW I play him WHEN I do? I'm pretty zen about it. I do wish he talked to certain canonmates more, that is a failure. He should have kept up better with a few of his in camp friends. But hnnn. I dunno. When I get him out I have fun, and I don't really feel inclined to do it a whole lot. But I remember most of his threads, they are enjoyable to me, and I like how they go.

I don't know if I can really say if I love Riku anymore. I haven't played KH in so long. And I want to replay but I have SUCH A LINE OF CANONS TO REVIEW (TRU FAX, I HAVE TEN CANONS =D not to mention the things I want to do WITHOUT apping from them sob) and video games TAKE SO MUCH TIME I just don't think I can delude myself into saying it's going to happen. And! That's! Pretty sad. But still, I don't so much WANT to drop him is I think I've run out of the ability to hold onto him. I'm... perfectly fine with how I play him, and more fine than I should be with how MUCH I play him. But I'm sort of outside the norm there.

And then of course, he's not really easy to play, per se. When I do get him out I like what happens, but he takes a lot of thought and energy for being a relatively mellow guy. And is my first to drop out of threads when I'm getting tired toward the end of the night, my hardest to pick up with. And when you have NINE OTHER CHARACTERS THAT ARE PERFECTLY EASY TO PLAY. Well.

Ticky Mikk - andredallover
Date created: 2006-12-14 20:19:07
Journal entries: 37
Comments: Posted: 8,184 - Received: 1,678

Wow Ticky is a dick, I mean. Yes.

I've recently realized that Ticky's only real friend in camp is Mika and I should work on this.

Anyway! For a LONG LONG TIME Ticky was my baby. I still adore him but Luke is pretty firmly in the 'my baby' seat now. Ticky's difficulty to play ranges from really easy to quite hard, depending. White mode is harder than Black. Black mode is easy 90% of the time and really only isn't when he's doing basic things like making small talk. WHICH HE DOES A LOT. Re: Rufus and Shigure. But I'm horrible at these things and am always like WOW WHAT DO WE TALK ABOUT NOW TO NOT TALK ABOUT THE PINK ELEPHANT and yeah.

I could never drop Ticky. He is mine )= He is FIRMLY MINE and I don't like how anyone else plays him that I've seen and rah D< But he's been in camp for a year or so and been on fairly good behavior and I REALLY WISH CANON WOULD GET TO A PLACE I CAN UPDATE TO BECAUSE I WANT HIM TO SNAP AND KILL A LOT OF PEOPLE AND GET BEATEN DOWN BY ALL OF THE HEAVENLY BEINGS IN CAMP because I think he would feel a lot better afterward. Right now NOT KILLING THINGS is really getting to be a sort of trial for him. And it makes him harder to play. Fucking with Shigure was some temporary stress relieving fun )=

But no I could never drop him nor do I ever think about it. He just sits on the backburner sometimes.

Luke fon Fabre - soundslikepi
Date created: 2007-01-27 17:48:57
Journal entries: 35
Comments: Posted: 7,498 - Received: 395

Luuuuke |D I LOVE LUKE FOREVER YOU CAN PRY HIM FROM MY COLD DEAD HANDS.

When I first got Luke I played him like. OBSESSIVELY. Because I LOVED HIM SO MUCH AND I WANTED OTHER PEOPLE TO LOVE HIM AND IF HE DIDN'T DEVELOP RELATIONSHIPS I WAS JUST GOING TO DIIIIE and. I think I probably annoyed people. Lolo whups. )= But NO ONE KNEW MY GAME and a year later PEOPLE ARE PLAYING MY GAME AND I HAVE A LOT OF CAST AND CLEARLY THIS IS SUCCESS!!!

It took me a while to zen with the fact that Luke is... not dynamic. At all. I mean. I could play TICKY who is SITTING HERE FANTASIZING ABOUT RIPPING YOUR SPLEEN OUT AS WE SPEAK and then I could play Luke. Who is. Not terribly bright. who needs to have A LOT OF STUFF EXPLAINED TO HIM. Who obsessively relates new things back to the few old things he's familiar with (since he's so very YOUNG and has limited experiences) and who doesn't talk weird or think weird or do really strange things. And he just. Seemed very boring to me. He doesn't break down people's walls, he doesn't intentionally worm his way into your heart, he doesn't talk about himself at all and he doesn't talk about you (much) if you don't want to. And he's just! Bland! And this was SO WEIRD and I thought I must be boring everyone to death.

But somewhere along the line he made good friends and I'm pretty cool with the fact that he's still probably boring. And I love him forever and I love him meeting people and I love his cast being here and yes if I think about dropping him I START CRYING so he's probably safe PS APP GUY.

Kira Sakuya - originalsinner
Date created: 2007-06-05 00:26:49
Journal entries: 19
Comments: Posted: 2,888 - Received: 421

THOSE LESS THAN 3K COMMENTS FEEL LIKE EIGHT MILLION. Despite getting off to a bit of a slow start with Kira, I was DETERMINED TO PLAY HIM A LOT RIGHT OFF THE BAT SO I WOULDN'T HAVE THE CHANCE TO FALL INTO A RUT and this worked amazingly. After a couple of weeks I loosened up on his voice a bit and developed what I suppose is my own style for him and I'm very happy )= I want him to meet MORE PEOPLE but he actually has quite a few relationships I'm very fond of. I can't imagine ever dropping Kira, but if I ever DID it would be the one time I refuse to have a nice quiet drop. If Kira drops he's borrowing his body (Nanatsusaya) and going out to the forest to kill himself the right way so that Lucifer can go back to his job.

LUCKILY FOR MY CAST I adore Kira completely and won't drop him until I drop CFUD for good )=

Zack Fair - oftenduplicated
Date created: 2006-06-04 21:05:09
Journal entries: 7
Comments: Posted: 1,018 - Received: 30

Those numbers all full of lies )=

SO THE STORY WITH ZACK IS. Despite my HEATED CLAIMS TO THE CONTRARY and the DEEP HOPE that if I bullshat enough I could play him confidently with a minimal amount of canon the truth is that I am a LYING LIAR and just. Not that awesome. So my first five months with Zack were completely a wash, i admit it. IN MY DEFENSE. FFVII:CC was supposed to come out A MONTH AFTER APPS so I figured, at worst! A month in I would have sufficient canon and not have anything to worry about.

FOUR MONTHS LATER my canon. Actually came out. fuck you too, japan.

Anyway, despite this I never really considered dropping Zack. I always knew I was waiting to get something more. And... I'm glad I got it! Because getting his canon changed how I play him completely and I'm actually pretty glad I didn't get too settled in with one voice to find it COMPLETELY WRONG. (Fandom is great, kids, but don't let it steer your characters!) I now play Zack as a healthy mix of the two (I DO think DYING AND LIVING IN THE LIFESTREAM kind of helped him grow up) and I'm happy with it. No thoughts of dropping him and he will finally be OUT IN FULL. when. I have a computer back /o/ Zack is another one you can pry from my COLD DEAD HANDS because FFVII makes me sad and I must fix it all in camp )= OT4 AND HAPPY ENDING HERE WE GO.

Viral - whodoyouyiff (now formerly phwack-a-furry)
Date created: 2007-08-18 20:16:16
Journal entries: 9
Comments: Posted: 1,181 - Received: 452

~~One day I will rename his journal to whodoyouyiff.~~ GOD YOU PEOPLE

ANYWAY. Viral is. Not out as much as I originally expected him to be, hilariously. I'm... okay with this? I would like him to hang out with the +Anima kids more, and Ritsuka. And get beat up by Hibari )= But he gets out ENOUGH that he meeds requirements without effort and I like all of his threads. I genuinely have a LOT of fun with Viral, he... develops a little bit more every day. At first I wasn't sure about playing his 'younger' self, but now I'm really glad I made that choice (even without the hot icons and the gay-for-simonness). Older!Viral would be better for general interaction, but it's REALLY AWESOME for me to play through his changes and progression in character development that we never get to see in canon. I imagine one day he will GET out more, it's just that right now he's REALLY NOT SO HOT ON HUMANITY and very... uncomfortable with where he is in life. He's making his decisions but at a slow and constant pace, and it just feels more right for him to be a backburner character. At some point he'll find what he's looking for and probably be seen in camp more regularly.

NEVER DROPPING VIRAL. EVEEER. Even if you MIGHT THINK OTHERWISE BECAUSE HE'S NOT AS ACTIVE AS SOME. I love him with every corner of my soul, I'm just. letting him take his time )=

Reborn - its_awwwright
Date created: 2007-10-13 20:44:50
Journal entries: 10
Comments: Posted: 988 - Received: 86

I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO CONCERNS WITH REBORN'S ACTIVITY (tho do you notice that all my dropping concerns are about activity and not whether or not I play them well? lololo sob, seeeeelf). Since Reborn's function in life is to appear randomly, do something horrible, and go away again. Having extended conversations with him actually sort of hurts me, and if they go on too long I usually just have him fall asleep.

I LOVE MY BABY NO ONE ELSE CAN HAVE HIM. Reborn resonated with my soul from the first time I picked up the manga and I can't believe it took me three months to NEED TO APP HIM. But let me tell you I willing to stab any potential competition IN THE FUCKING FACE by the time I got him |D

Anyway yes. never dropping baby. can't. too many people to rape.

Wanijima Kaito - no_safe_word
Date created: 2007-12-15 04:16:55
Journal entries: 6
Comments: Posted: 176 - Received: 20

Kaito is actually one of the few characters I can see myself dropping (after Riku and Vash if you're KEEPING SCORE). NOT because he's hard to play. Granted I haven't played him enough to be ABSOLUTELY SURE yet. But? His intro? Some of the most fun I've had in a LONG TIME. I was literally squeeing at my wife all night about how awesome Kaito is aksjdf;asfja I LOVE HIM and yes. He has a LOT of dynamic. Certain things I'm not sure how to respond to. And will settle in with time. But for the most part? I... sync with him far too well sob.

BUT because Kaito is one of those characters WITH A PURPOSE. I don't foresee him getting terribly attached to anyone outside his canon in camp,and... even if he did he still WOULDN'T BE. Kaito is just. The kind of guy who can leave EVERYTHING BEHIND in the amount of time it takes him to smoke a cigarette. That's just HOW HE ROLES. So if it ever did come around to dropping him, my only issue would be to STOP PLAYING HIM instead of with most of my characters who have people or players dependent on them in some way.

That said I SEEM TO ADORE PLAYING HIM and I expect to keep him for at least a year or so....why do I think of RPing in terms of years. orz.

Anyway. )= Now you know why Aviy has ten characters. Sob.

CHRISTMAS PRESENT THREADS GO HERE

Wed, 26 Dec 2007 19:27:30 GMT

SO. I really did want to play out some of my christmas gift threads, but I MOSTLY MISSED THAT POST and now even if it wasn't full I'd still barely be able to load it.

IF YOU WANTED TO PLAY OUT GIVING ME A GIFT OR RECEIVING ONE FROM ONE OF MY CHARACTERS. Comment here and I will happily play with you. I would especially like resume the threads I HAD managed to start and not get through (Setsuna, Lancia! I'm looking at you) but anyone at all is welcome to drop in. If you got a present that wasn't labeled (none of Ticky's, one of Kira's) and want to take a stab at anyway, that's fine with me.

Characters and LISTS: Ed, Kaito, Kira, Luke (gave no gifts but will give you something if you give him something), Reborn, Riku, Ticky, Vash, Viral (gave no gifts), Zack (gave no gifts because he fails at finding out about local holidays)

Tarot Meme Aviy Is Obsessive Style

Wed, 26 Dec 2007 10:16:11 GMT

Okay so I took that Tarot card meme and SHUNNED IT and I have this fabulous tarot deck that I love, and it came with a handy dandy section explaining possible meanings of each card and what they represent, both normally and in reverse. I FOUND ONE FOR EACH OF MY CHARACTERS.

BUT FIRST! The deck I am using is the Revelations (Adflatus) Tarot by Zack Wong it's absolutely gorgeous and every card, including all the minor arcana, have a unique imagine for both normal and reverse readings. The quotes herein are from a book included with the deck, which has a description of the possible meanings of the card (for self, another individual and a situation) also both right-side up and in reverse, and then another section detailing the symbolism within the images on the card. It's an amazing steal at $26.95 retail, and if you're into this sort of thing I suggest you pick it up.

	Reborn - The Magician He brings together all elements as he is the catalyst of all. He is the energy that drives; the one who sparks interest. He is charming, he is witting, and he is at home with the world around him. The Magician represents a witty individual who is at home with his or her surrounds. It highlights the characteristics of intelligence, leadership, self-management, and understanding of oneself. The Magician embodies the individual who begins all projects. He or she is often the manager of a group or a person in a similar role who leads people and brings elements together to give birth to a new project. This person can have many roles, such as organizer, administrator, or even teacher, all to aid the project. In situations, this card represents the positive beginning of new ventures. This card also represents the presence of an individual who may act as a catalyst for new things to come. In relationships, this card gives the go-ahead to start afresh and begin something new with someone you may have had an eye on.
	Riku - The Hierophant Reversed He is unorthodox. He marches to a different tune. He guides the way, but by an unconventional path. He is at one with his surroundings. The reverse of this card represents the urge to fight against the establishment. There is a need within yourself to question the structures set up around you and to seek out new and different ways to break past the rigidity of life. Rules and regulations are the bane of your existence and you turn your back on any of the conventional lessons you have learned in your past. In an individual, this card represents a person who would be viewed as eccentric and unorthodox. This person gives very little care to the ways of society and cares only for the rules he or she makes for him- or herself. This individual can often be difficult to interact with, but can often provide an alternative route to a solution for a task or situation. This person's beauty lies in the different way that he or she perceives the world. In a situation, this card warns against accepting the conventional as the norm. It suggests exploring a second option or an alternative route before reaching a decision. Within a relationship, this card advises entertaining nonconventional ideas and paths for further enrichment.
	Zack Fair - The Chariot He wins the race after traveling far and wide to achieve his goals. The crowd behind him roars as the scale of his accomplishment reaches new heights. Self-discipline and willpower have brought you to your final victory. This card represents the drive and determination you have to win the race. Even though the victory may feel sudden or effortless to others, you know within yourself the time and energy you invested to achieve your goals. As an individual, this card represents a friend or a person who fights to the very end. This person can serve as a positive role model and inspire you to persevere through difficult times. In the case of his or her own race or journey, success will be within his or her grasp. In terms of a situation, this card is a vehicle for good news from distant places and friends. It represents support that can come in many forms, including verb, physical, and spiritual, all of which guide you on the path to victory and celebration. This card also heralds a positive outcome through a current struggle or difficulty.
	Wanijima Kaito - The Chariot Reversed His focus and drive has taken him to the state of uncontrollable obsession. His ambition has driven him to rage and to abuse his position and power. He only sees the finish line and will stop at nothing till he gets there. Self control is lost along your destructive path to achieving your goals at any cost. The drive to reach your final goals may blind you to the fact that others may be cast aside in the wake of your path. Your overambitious nature may in the end get the better of you, leaving you with a failed or hollow victory. In an individual, this card represents a person who cares little for those who may have helped him or her achieve success. This person is self-centered and blindly driven, and becomes self-destructive and hurts those around him or her. This person may also have difficulty facing the reality of his or her actions and drown his or her sorrows in forms of addiction such as drugs or alcohol. In a situation, this card warns of compromising the ethics, morality, or integrity of a project/situation for the sake of completion or profit.
	Edward Elric - Strength She is calm in knowing that it is her courage and gentle nature that will overrule the ferocity of the lion. From within her comes the strength that will triumph over all. Strength comes from within oneself when this card is drawn. Here it is the courage that is experience when faced with danger or the ability to stand up to whatever the universe throws in your direction. It is driven by the power of your personal convictions and faith. Strength comes embodied in those that help you along the way, fueling your own need to be bigger than is expected of you. They can be generous and giving individuals and may also be there to help fight on your behalf and by your side. In a situation, the Strength card indicates that issues of unpleasant natures should be confronted, arguments are to be settled, and antagonism should be addressed. It advises drawing from within the strength and experience to deal with and overcome these situations. In terms of relationships, this card summons patience and understanding to allow for any difficulties to be addressed.
	Kira Sakuya - The Hermit He resides in the darkness of solitude. He finds comfort in his reflection. The only light, which duides his path, is the brilliance of his lantern. When representing the self, this card highlights the need to become reclusive. It signifies time needed to be spent by yourself to reflect, contemplate, and understand. This card suggests a path toward the understanding that comes from spiritual doctrines, philosophy, and meditation. This will be a period of peace and with little to no interruptions. When representing an individual, this card often signifies a teacher, someone wiser, or an old soul who can point you in the right direction. Often only advice is given by this person, as wisdom is acquired through experience. In a situation, this card acts as a warning for careless and thoughtless actions. It recommends wisdom and forethought before making a decision. As much time as is needed is to be taken to see the situation from every angle and to fully understand the scope of things.
	Vash the Stampede - The Wheel of Fortune Reversed The universe hands you a dish of bad luck. Be careful not to ask for seconds. When the reverse is drawn for this card, your luck has unfortunately run out. Projects will be difficult to initiate, relationships will prove difficult to sustain, gambling will be met with great losses. Luck will have abandoned you at every path that required a choice but which you left to chance. In the case of an individual, this card may represent someone who is either a victim of the cruel fate of bad fortune or someone who is on a destructive path of loss. He or she may be a gambling addict with no self control, hoping for a lucky break and never acknowledging that in the end "the house will always win". In terms of a situation, this card signifies delays that arise from the ether. Roadblocks, restrictions, and bad weather will all work their way into every situation to slow down the process to fruition. However, much like the turning of the wheel, it will only be a matter of time before good luck will come back into play.
	Ticky Mikk - The Devil Material things, pleasures, lust, and desire drive him. This card embodies the need for material well-being. Surrounding you are ambitious thoughts of having more: more wealth, more pleasure, more physical satisfaction. This card grounds itself to the earth, fueling lust and desires that can only be satisfied by the flesh. These will be a need for clothes of rich texture, items of social value, and exuberant flourishes all around you. This card warns of the dangers of money overtaking your life and blinding you to the path of true fulfillment. Here the desire to surround yourself with wealth may flirt dangerously with crossing the line of obsession. In terms of an individual, this card symbolizes the obsessed soul who surrounds him- or herself wit items of glamor and material wealth. This person cares for nothing more than the satisfaction that money can bring him or her, whether it be from the things he or she can buy or the people he or she can entice with it. In situations, this card warns of being too driven by the ultimate goal of profit in terms of wealth or stature. In relationships, it indicates that the passion experienced is deeply rooted in sensual pleasures and is not of a romantic nature. It also warns of an overwhelming sexual attraction to another, which may transform desire into obsession.
	Luke fon Fabre - The Star She oozes with inner and outer hope and balance. She embodies the giver of hope in our lives. When this card is drawn, it is implied that there is hope in your life. Hope can come from within you to drive you further in life and down your chosen path, and it can also help inspire others around you to achieve their goals or to carry on. In terms of an individual, this card may symbolize a person who cares deeply for you and helps you along the way. In effect, this person can give you hope directly or indirectly in your dire times of need. He or she also can be an inspiration to people who go out of their way to help others, such as actives, humanitarians, or volunteers for aid organizations. In situations, this card reflects favorably on any outcome. It also asks to keep hope alive in tougher situations and not to lose faith in any struggle. In relationships, this card implies a positive and balanced ideal relationship between partners.
	Viral - Judgement Hear the trumpets calling; heed the blaring sounds. Answer the call of the awakening sounds of the universe. Decisions are made when this card is drawn. The right decision will become apparent within yourself if you listen to your inner voice. Sometimes the answers are obvious, but we fail to hear them for distractions and background noise. When the decision is reached, you will feel at ease with yourself because the hardest part will be over. The awakening within oneself can also mean a confidence has been regained. When this card represents an individual, the person acts as a sigh or a giver of advice that only reaffirms what you have always known within you. In a situation, this card calls for a decision to be made to resolve any issues. It is more important to consider what lies ahead of your decision than to waste any more time in making it. Much like the Death card, the call of Judgment means a closure to the end of a journey, and it is now time to decide on which path to travel. You may consider a new job, a new career, a new relationship, or even a whole new environment.

SOME OTHER ONES I STUMBLED UPON AS I WAS DOING THIS:

Hermit Reversed - Katou Yue
Temperance Reversed - Sawada Tsunayoshi
The Moon Reversed - Rhode Camelot
The Emperor - Roy Mustang
The Emperor Reversed - King Bradley
The Hanged Man - Ted (Suikoden)
The Sun - Yamamoto Takeshi
The Fool Reversed - The Riku Replica

Christmas Presents

Mon, 24 Dec 2007 19:00:52 GMT

Presents from Ed

Al - ...hard to explain. it's sort of like A CLOSET FOR CATS. Only it's carpetted and comfortable. Like one of those CAT TREES only it has a door and goes into it's own space and has enough room for ALL OF THEM and please god let them sleep in there at night sob.

Claire - some gold hoop earings. A flat strip that spirals and then makes a hoop.

Ogiue - A nice set of colored pencils

Kazubastard - a rape whistle. Summons one of my counselors at random (Vash, Zack, Kaito, Ticky or Reborn)

Ari - a nice sheath for his sword, lightweight, leather, durable, studded with some polished stones.

Ash - booster packs for the pokemon card games >D

Izumi - a photo of him and Al in a nice silver frame )=

**ED HAS BEEN HERE A LONG TIME AND I CAN'T REMEMBER EVERYONE HE LOVES ENOUGH TO GET A GIFT FOR if he you think you apply and I forgot you poke me.

music angst

Wed, 19 Dec 2007 15:33:36 GMT

Halp.

Okay with my computer dead I have NO MUSIC. Because I am a fool who owns no CDs. I have a few burned! Most of them varities of my car cds which usually only have minor changes and get a complete overhall and every now and then. And then I have a My Chemical Romance CD and a Korn CD at work that I've listened to several times a day EVERY DAY for the past week and a half and I sort of would rather stab myself in the ears than play them again.

SO. MAKE ME FSTS. OR JUST. UPLOAD MUSIC. GIVE ME SOMETHING PLEASE. You don't have to worry about if I like the type of music or have it already or whatever. TRUST ME ANY MUSIC IS FABULOUS WHEN YOU ARE TYPING UP METAL DETECTOR MANUALS FOR HOURS ON END. sob.

ETA: AT WORK no time to reply individually but THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO HAS CONTRIBUTED SO FAR and keep it coming ♥