QUESTIONS MEME

[pit_peach]

I can never resist these. QUESTIONING ME PLEASE.

Just Fallout/Excel for now. Ah, I need to do a SOTU too...

Comments

[pit_peach]

D'awwwww~

Excel herself has fallen into head-over-heels codependence. She was already pretty clingy with the first one, and it makes her feel SO VERY SUPER AWESOME to be able to help Allen out now. She just wants to follow him around and protect him forever, which is a pretty big step for how much she's still kind of a weenie otherwise.

But go on, tell me more. 8U

[performing]

Well, it is like--I chose Allen's starter memory to give him a fairly strong (if kind of incorrect) sense of self to distance him from the first Allen, and Excel was the first in that initial thread to concede calling him "Red" instead of "Winter," which was like IMMEDIATE BONUS POINTS! SOMEONE IS ACTUALLY LISTENING TO ME YESSSSSSSSSSsssssssssss. And she's continued kind of inadvertently topping him in ways that really work with his whole tsun "I don't trust any of you bastards 8|" current worldview, because she's not trying to tell him ~everything is great and wonderful~ but just being helpful and nice and sticking up for him when he had his little freakout. And she's his ALLY against Sion being stupid, and all of it has sort of combo'd into Allen ... not quite being at a point where he's ready or willing to fully open his heart, but sort of reaching a stage where he's willing to admit that he likes her and wants her around, which is a BIG STEP.

So basically Sion's influence is softening him up and Excel's is what's making sure it actually sticks.

ALSO I am totally canonblind for yours except for like three episodes of the anime, WHAT HAVE I BEEN MISSING.

[pit_peach]

The anime doesn't help you, either. The very base premise of "crazy girls trying to conquer world for crazy guy who lives in the sewer" is correct, but it's only very loosely based on the first five volumes of a 27-volume-long series where the plot doesn't quite start until book 12. And Excel herself is a lot smarter and has about a thousand more feelings and is... I hesitate to say capable, but having that Team Rocket competence, where one is good at almost everything but a) succeeding at one's job, b) having money and c) not getting blown up.

It starts out very episodic and silly, with Excel mostly just derping around a lot and failing missions, but the longer it goes the more her self-esteem and good cheer go straight down the crapper. She gets angrier and angrier, and starts wigging out all the time and having stress hallucinations. Eventually she gets abandoned by Il Palazzo and almost killed by a super crazy priest (SMALL JOYS TO LOOK FORWARD TO: EXCEL REMEMBERING HOW MUCH CHRISTIANITY SCARES THE SHIT OUT OF HER). Between the psychotic breakdown and head trauma, she goes into a srs business amnesiac fugue. And stays that way. For almost a fifth of the entire manga.

She gets adopted by this family of perverted but roughly well-meaning mad scientists, where she starts a whole new life of being this timid, reclusive thing that just sits around reading books and doing chores all day. That's where her "Teriha" name comes from, and also most of the memories in her registry, because I thought it was pretty much hilarious to give her the most confusing and misleading set of memories possible.

ANYWAY, she would have stayed as Teriha forever if she hadn't had such a boner for Il Palazzo. But of course she does, so she goes back to being Excel, represses her weenie personality as hard as she can, and spends the rest of the time in the manga (which is currently about a third of the way into the very last volume) obsessively trying to even just see him again, all while ignoring the plot as hard as she possibly can.

And the plot is like... one of those things where it drops cryptic hints from the beginning and desperately hopes they'll make sense in the end. I am not sure I can actually explain the plot because it's about ancient civilizations and robot body-swapping and alien possession and a guy who pretends to be his own dead wife for shits and giggles. But it's also sort of brilliant because even though Rikudou doesn't figure out what pacing is until more than halfway through, he's clearly planned all of the actual plot from the beginning. There are things where like, Excel will pick up superpowers, but then if you look back you'll realize she had them all along, and the only reason they weren't noticeable is because they were played as though they were the natural aspect of a cracky comedy universe. Like how you wouldn't bat an eye at how Excel recovers from all of her many attained injuries between chapters, but after awhile the other characters start actually noticing how weird it is that she'll do things like heal from entire-body-burning, whereas normal people in the series will be hospitalized for weeks or have a broken bone over multiple chapters or even get cancer and die.

... holy balls that got long. Sorry about that. IT'S MY FOREVER MANGA!!!1




What are some things you are looking forward to with Allen and his stupid face?

[labelledamesansmerci]

CRY, A LITTLE BIT OF EVERYTHING! I'd really like to see how his development is changed based on the order of his memories--the only thing I'm going to be putting off for now are the MOST recent things, because DGM is still ongoing and who knows what Hoshino will do next month, lololol. But since Allen is the main character, we've got a pretty good picture of his development in canon, where he went from "Red Arm" to "Allen Walker" and the things that influenced and changed him. And I am super interested in seeing if he ends up paralleling that, or whether he swings into some different direction. (I don't think he'd go too far into like, HATE THE WORLD AND DESTROY IT! territory, but I guess that would depend on how and where he gets the memories back.)

Also, I am interested to see if the CR he has who also knew the previous Allen will start seeing the stronger connection between "Red" and "Winter" as he gets more of himself back. He'd also be more amenable to the suggestion that he is Winter as he starts remembering more and realizes the kind of stupid self-sacrificing hero he can be, but I am curious to see whether he'll be called on it, or whether it'll just be something that slots into DAILY LIFE! as time goes on.

D'you have any goals or thoughts for things you want Excel to do here, versus the other places you've played her, or is it just TAKE IT AS IT COMES \o/?

[pit_peach]

In Sabra she ended up just about as much of a crazy harpy as is possible, so here I'm shooting to see how long I can keep her sane and rational. Though I'm ONLY doing it via memory registry pruning, and she's a very unpredictable character to play in that she's naturally overreactive and kinda volatile. So really, I got no damn clue what I'm gonna do with her before I do it. \o/

Anybody you super want to see apped?