faesphere | State of the Muses: November 2012

character: Billy Kaplan / Wiccan (

selfhelp)
series: Marvel Comics: Young Avengers
tagging priority: ■■■■■: Billy always gets tags done. Even on my worst, most lazy days, I will do some Billy tags. I just enjoy them more for some reason.
muse strength: ■■■■■: He won't shut up omg even when I've just posted he's like "HEY I CAN TAG THIS LET'S TAG THIS" and I always have like 20 tags for him...
cast strength: ■■■□□: I have my most important CR with Teddy and Tommy, really, and the extended Marvel cast is fucking glorious, so I can't complain. And there's always room for more.
plotting capabilities: ■■■■■: He's all over the map- between is magic, his general personality, his age... it just works perfectly for me.
general fun level: ■■■■■: Yeah he's fine. More than fine. Jesus.
likelihood of drop: □□□□□: Pfffffft no.

Other Thoughts: Still stoked that I play him, still stoked that he worked out. I have so much fun with his magic, and his backstory, and oh god the fanboying. His canon still being active means I have a lot to be excited/nervous about, and I think he's developing nicely without changing too much, so that's a plus. I love how he's gathering a nice, varied circle of friends, not just within his cast but outside it a bit, even if the majority of people he knows are adults. Technically, that's true to canon anyway; besides the other Young Avengers, Billy kind of bums around the Avengers (because they like getting into trouble and he's a damsel idek). So he's pretty comfortable with adults as long as they're not trying to make him stop heroing.

Still really excited about the idea of doing the House of M plot, especially now that he's started to use his magic more bit by bit, and is getting lessons with Loki (another can of delicious conflict-creating worms). I think the slow build towards it will make it that much more awesome, so I hope our cast sticks around for it |D; We're doing so well though hrngh. I love you guys ;~;

character: Edward Elric (

automailed)
series: Fullmetal Alchemist
tagging priority: ■■■■□: Been kind of slow with him lately. Same as last time, I still blame Billy for eating me up.
muse strength: ■■■■□: When I get around to his tags, they're still pretty easy. I'm really due for a re-read though, and I keep putting it off. Watching Brotherhood is easier but it's not the same.
cast strength: ■■■□□: Aaahhh, we got hit hard ;~; But we're okay. We're all active enough; honestly I think it's me who's slacking, hahaha. I hope we get that Hohenheim, though, that would be so boss.
plotting capabilities: ■■■■□: I thought making him post-canon-ish would make it easier to get him involved in stuff, but lately I've been too busy to balance it properly, so I've just kept him occupied with canonmates and small stuff. It's been tricky, and I'm not sure how to fix it. I do need to expand his social circle somehow, and get him more involved with his alchemy stuff. I think not having Al around and no real goal is making it hard to motivate him.
general fun level: ■■■■□: Sometimes his tags are tedious, but that's because it's really hard to sound smart when you know shit about the stuff you're saying 8|; I do so much googling with Ed and Billy tags, ahaha...
likelihood of drop: □□□□□: Even if he's taken some hits, I'm not worried about actually dropping him.

Other Thoughts: He's on my list of "I should post for him but idk what". This list is starting to become "anyone not Billy". THIS IS A BAD THING. I work best when I have people to talk to regularly about the canon, our characters, what's going on, etc. And I think I'm feeling unintentionally disconnected from that? Like, Ed was really active and everywhere because I was always blathering about FMA and Ed and Al with Shikki, but after she dropped Al, I tried to keep up on my own and floundered. I am just terrible at coming up with ideas on my own, so having a bouncing board for canon gushing makes me better. I bet Billy wouldn't be nearly as active as he is right now if Kukki and I weren't constantly talking about Teddy and Billy and YA in general. The same thing happened with TotA/Asch when Eggy and I used to talk about the canon all the time. For the sort of character he is, Asch was pretty active.

So basically I need a fellow FMA gusher once in a while or something? Or maybe I need a good fandom resource. Or start over-analyzing the characters who are falling behind. I dunno, it's really tough to decide.

character: Asch the Bloody (

dissonates)
series: Tales of the Abyss
tagging priority: ■■■□□: Asch and Ed tussle for second place a lot. Who wins varies from day to day.
muse strength: ■■■■□: Still feeling good. He's tricky to keep active and throw around at people, but I still love his CR.
cast strength: ■■■■□: I think we're doing fine? I'm kind of disconnected from most of the cast for IC reasons (since Asch doesn't talk to most of them regularly) but I'm still a spazz about him even having people to live with, so ffff.
plotting capabilities: ■■■□□: His death penalty is gone, so he's free, easy, and 100% open again. Just need to start getting him back out there. He was kind of quiet on the draft, which is sad because I really wanted him to get back into the groove, but stuff with Billy kept me preoccupied and I didn't get as much done. /FULL OF REGRET??
general fun level: ■■■■□: He's still fun for me! I just sometimes forget he exists lol.
likelihood of drop: □□□□□: Nope, he's okay.

Other Thoughts: With Eggy bringing in her Guy, Asch has gone from neutral territory to conflicted again, lol. And since Guy isn't the most active ever I... am not sure where they stand right now. But otherwise, Asch is pretty okay? His current threads are pretty mild, as far as his attitude goes- getting his sight back kind of cheered him up, which is super weird for him, though I highly doubt that'll last long. He's just been so weirdly mellow, like he's discovered fucking Zen or something and he's finally growing up. I'm kind of proud of him! I just need to find a balance so he doesn't end up totally different from who Asch is, because then he'd be OOC and the backlash of that is never fun to deal with. It's been more than four years in Luceti now, though, so I at least have an excuse to make him grow; Nik's Guy really brutalized all the progress he'd made so he reverted for a while, and it's only now that he's finally starting to build himself back up. It's been a really interesting journey, and one of the reasons I'm 100% not dropping him is how fascinating I find his development.

tl;dr I really like playing Asch okay

character: Zack Fair (

wingenvy)
series: Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core
tagging priority: ■□□□□: ...Yeah I'm slacking. His tags are either last or I force myself to do them first because they're old.
muse strength: ■■□□□: Struggling. Details will be below.
cast strength: □□□□□: ...Um. Yeah, not so great here. He has Light in his extended FF cast, but otherwise...
plotting capabilities: ■■□□□: The potential is there, it's... just a matter of actually pushing myself to plot and get with the program. But I end up having more fun when I plot with my other characters, so Zack gets left in the dust. I don't think I've done anything with him in events for months. Certainly hasn't been out on a draft in a long time, either.
general fun level: ■■□□□: Been kind of tedious. I haven't played Crisis Core for a long time, either. Didn't even make it all the way through my last playthrough.
likelihood of drop: ■■■□□: Sigh.

Other Thoughts: To echo last time, Zack should be that "omg he's everywhere" character, but... he's really not. At all. When I have threads and they're fairly easygoing, I'll do them and not fuss about it,

I think half the reason I'm keeping him is because I love what he has established in the game. I love running the bar. I love being part of Brave Vesperia. I love his CR, even though he's not that close to people in general. The bar is my biggest hold-up. I spent so much fucking time on the infodump and designing all those drinks with Loupe, I don't want to lose that level of contribution to the game. It genuinely upsets me, especially with my other characters less likely to get involved. Technically I could get Asch to work there, since he has in the past, but that would take some IC organizing, so I flail about it because omg my precious barrrrr. ...Actually, Asch joining the staff would kind of solve my problems, assuming things are okay enough between he and Guy to work together. Edward being involved in Brave Vesperia as a consultant-alchemy-slave-sort-of takes care of the other issue, too.

Honestly, it comes down to the fact that when December rolls around, I will have been playing Zack almost constantly (hiatuses and breaks between games) for ten fucking years. No lie. I first started playing him at the end of 2002, and I really have not stopped since. Crisis Core didn't even cause a speed bump in the process- between games I was museboxing anyway. It's been a really long, really fun run with him, but... I don't know. It feels like I'm just going through the motions with him now, and that's no way to play a character. It's not fair to people who might want CR with, or the people waiting on my tags, or even to myself. I dunno, I wanted to wait until December at the very least, but with Yuri being dropped soon anyway, maybe I should just let Zack go first and give Yuri a chance to fill in a new second in command so Brave Vesperia isn't left floundering when they're both gone.

And so Sokka doesn't rename to the Build Guild.

:|

Possible Apps
...this section is still a formality, kind of a "just in case I do drop Zack and still feel that itch. So...

[■■■□□] Rui Yamase (Lux-Pain)
[■■■■■/□□□□□] A GIRL (ANY CANON WITH GIRLS)

Okay this is basically 100% shameless, but... fff. Okay 1) I keep missing Rui. She was cute and tsun but shy and unsure and had Issues but she fit in nicely. It was a good mesh all around. She had stuff to do and she did like, yoga and knew some self defense so she was active and strong but not a combatant and I really kind of hate fight scenes. It just so happens that I click with characters who like fighting. So it's kind of frustrating. And 2) I really miss having a girl character. That was one of my biggest hang-ups, my major reason for holding on to Suki for as long as I did, even after the muse started to fizzle on me- I like having a girl on my roster, even if they don't always stick around that long. I just really want to have a vaguely social, single female to toss at stuff like Masaomi's posts or the girls posts talking about guys or weddings or- idk, I just like having gender variety, omg. It's a stupid, shallow reason to want to app a character, and the only reason I'm considering it is because Rui is a character I think about fairly often, and miss both because I still enjoy her character a lot and because I really slacked off with her potential. I only dropped her because I had too many... if I let one go, three wouldn't be an issue, so apping someone new would be fine.

Something to consider, anyway. Her journal's been imported, anyway, so it's not like it would be a lot of work to bring her over.

WANNA DO IT?

Code courtesy of

saltprince