The big one: Character discussions!

[Anastasia]

And when I said out of character, I meant his normal character. If someone is customarily impassive, and they turn emotional, it's out of character. Not completely, but to a certain extent.

Oh, okay. I get what you're gettingat now.

As a side thought, If Nior wasn't so old, Makoto would have practically thrown herself at him. >_> Like I said in the Taka replies...Someone like Uncle Taka is who she's looking for in a boyfriend, and Nior definitely fits the bill. I'm not 100% certain it would work out perfectly, but the feelings would be there initially...Actually, it's funny, but I recall that 'Reini' omake where a 'Balder-Hotaru-Makoto' arrangement is hinted at...Swap out Balder for a young Noir, and Makoto would be a very happy camper. Anything she could possibly want romantically is there.

Obligatory snicker goes here.

That said, I get what you're saying. Not to mention both are, ah, oversized as far as it goes. That would be an interesting dynamic to get into, it's a shame you caught Nior at the end portion of his very long life, you know? Besides, would Makoto want to marry a widower?

[Bean Bandit]

That said, I get what you're saying. Not to mention both are, ah, oversized as far as it goes. That would be an interesting dynamic to get into, it's a shame you caught Nior at the end portion of his very long life, you know? Besides, would Makoto want to marry a widower?

I don't think she'd care, really...Makoto's straightforward seeming, but in reality, she's pretty openminded. She doesn't take part in the 'Lily' sniping because she can easily see why a girl might want to get romantically involved with another girl, though it hasn't occured to her to look that way...yet. >_>

Nior might be hard to get to open up, but with him and Hotaru both sharing Makoto's bed, Emotionally and physically, Makoto would be completely and utterly satisfied.

[Anastasia]

That said, I get what you're saying. Not to mention both are, ah, oversized as far as it goes. That would be an interesting dynamic to get into, it's a shame you caught Nior at the end portion of his very long life, you know? Besides, would Makoto want to marry a widower?

I don't think she'd care, really...Makoto's straightforward seeming, but in reality, she's pretty openminded. She doesn't take part in the 'Lily' sniping because she can easily see why a girl might want to get romantically involved with another girl, though it hasn't occured to her to look that way...yet. >_>

Nior might be hard to get to open up, but with him and Hotaru both sharing Makoto's bed, Emotionally and physically, Makoto would be completely and utterly satisfied.

Interesting. Before I say anything else, however?

O_O

Sorry, that comment produced some hellacious mental images! Anyway, that is interesting. Mildly disturbing and amusing, but interesting.  I'm curious - if the notion ever came to Makoto, would she make a play for Nior as he stands? Don't read into this, I'm just curious.

---

As far as the Lily stuff, that explains a few things. The perspective in the light of actions is quite interesting.

[Bean Bandit]

Sorry, that comment produced some hellacious mental images! Anyway, that is interesting. Mildly disturbing and amusing, but interesting. I'm curious - if the notion ever came to Makoto, would she make a play for Nior as he stands? Don't read into this, I'm just curious.

Why disturbing?

And no, Makoto wouldn't. There are firm and clear lines drawn between father figures and romantic interests in her head. That said, if Nior was actually interested, she would think about it long and hard...Much harder than she had to think about Balder.

[Anastasia]

Sorry, that comment produced some hellacious mental images! Anyway, that is interesting. Mildly disturbing and amusing, but interesting. I'm curious - if the notion ever came to Makoto, would she make a play for Nior as he stands? Don't read into this, I'm just curious.

Why disturbing?

And no, Makoto wouldn't. There are firm and clear lines drawn between father figures and romantic interests in her head. That said, if Nior was actually interested, she would think about it long and hard...Much harder than she had to think about Balder.

Makoto, Hotaru and Nior in the same bed, Makoto-chan. Just imagine that long and hard - allt hree of them naked.

[Anastasia]

Character Entry #25

Arieta

Source Material(s): Growlanser 2 for the name of Arieta. Past that she was mostly whole cloth.

General: Arieta is rather simple - reverse a lot of Nior and add in a lot of Jadeite. She was cold, cruel, vain and loud. I don't need to draw a lot of connections as far as that goes, so I'll leave that on face value and instead talk about other aspects of her character.

Nior ultimately rejected Jadeite, Arieta embraced him. Male and female, two sides of a coin. While dislike in many ways, they were inexorably linked together thematically, often alternating apperances to keep the Sailor Senshi off guard. One had redeeming qualities, while the other was a brash monster. A contrast of sorts about Gaia - some resist, some embrace what Jadeite is bringing, but in the end? By themselves they can't stand up to him. No matter what, they sink deeper into despair and his darkness, until another force comes to break the cycle, Usagi in this case.

Arieta couldn't - and just like she treated her youma, she was slain herself.

Her final cameo as beast food doesn't tie directly into this, at least not planning wise. Sure, I could say it tied into being freed in the end and blah blah blah, but it was more a convient vehicle to use for the Beast Lord.

Notes: Honestly, not that many. She was very circumspect and complete. There's not much to say about Arieta, she was what you saw.

[Ebiris]

So no hidden depths within Arieta like there were within Kensuke? Ah, well - considering she's the only member of the Jade Legion to execute her subordinates (not counting Jadeite), having her around might have scared off the likes of Janna.

Still might've been interesting, though.

Anyway, yeah. Arieta was pretty simple, and way more bluntly evil than Kensuke. It was only her horrific fate worse than death that managed to inspire any sympathy towards her. Good thing she never got a cameo when we killed Beastie, though...

[Anastasia]

So no hidden depths within Arieta like there were within Kensuke? Ah, well - considering she's the only member of the Jade Legion to execute her subordinates (not counting Jadeite), having her around might have scared off the likes of Janna.

Still might've been interesting, though.

Anyway, yeah. Arieta was pretty simple, and way more bluntly evil than Kensuke. It was only her horrific fate worse than death that managed to inspire any sympathy towards her. Good thing she never got a cameo when we killed Beastie, though...

There weren't. She was meant to contrast with everything Nior was - and that meant for her to be cold, heartless and cruel. She worked for exactly what she was and what she needed to be at the time. I do like that she got a shred of sympathy at the end, but I'm of the opinion she got mostly sent off with Usagi's magic at the time.

It's no big deal either way. I'm inclined to let her rest after the fact.

[Anastasia]

Character Entery #26

Janna

Source Material(s): Apperance was inspired by Nabiki from Ranma 1/2. To focus, imagine an adult Nabiki with a -2 mod to her charisma and we're on the same boat. Another element flared up at times - she's a bit of a rich girl, even if resourceful.

General: Janna was a sketch I had for a good long time. I knew there were good odds a mere foot soldier would be saved sooner or later, so this begged a setup. At heart, Janna is a very normal person. Quirky for better RPing, but fundamentally just a normal girl just out of college.

I played this for broke, usually netting mild rewards from it. There were some good laughs when she dug up gawd awful furniture as well as cut corners with what little money they had.  The image of her cooking over a Hibatchi grill and lamenting her situation is one that always makes me smile. This was a doubly nice play off of her Nabiki inspired apperance.

She also served to put a far more human face on many of Jadeite's servants and to Gaia in general. She wasn't the most attention getting or show stealing NPC, but Janna is a total success for what she is. Bravo.

Notes: Janna has family on Gaia. I expected they may have been tapped as an emergency hideout if circumstances required it. This never happened, a pity there. I'll get into the guts of that in a what if post a little later since it was going to be a small plotline.

I vaguely toyed around with making her bicurious for amusing RP. I never went through with it, however. Janna was a litlte uneven with the whole ecchi advice thing - that was more circumstance and situation than anything else. Oh well. I'm still not sure how Hotaru managed to make out the best there. Janna would've been quite willing to do something foolishly brave if the situation had called for it. She'd grown attached to the cause, and had stuck around Nior a little too long. I could so see her taking a hit to save someone if it had gone down like that.

Sailor Gaia, anyone?

[Anastasia]

Character Entery #27

The Triplets(Eliza, Juli, Kiko)

Source Material(s): The very seed idea came from a movie I saw ages ago. I forget the name and the plot, but I remember three buxom blonde triplet badgirls in it. The idea came from that. Insert your favorite blonde triplet fantasy here. The names came from the following: Eliza Maza from Gargolyes, Juli from Street Fighter Alpha 3, and Kiko from Kiko's Delivery service. These are entirely random homages and reflect nothing on the actual demeanors of the girls.

General: Heh, this is where I make a confession. The triplets were meant to be a gimmick battle and fight - while they showed regret, the situation was most likely going to make a fight unavoidable. When circumstances hosed that, I had to work on the fly. I'll freely admit they're interchangeable with one small exception - this is to keep me sane and play off the fact that they're triplets. The three are a bit noisy, good workers and fairly normal past inter family drama. Eliza has a bit of a nasty side if you piss her off which the other two tend to lack.

I ran them off those basic principals. I had an NPC glut so I didn't need to get too deep into them.

Notes: I'm amazed there hasn't been a 'Hotaru goes to make the blonde threesome her own' omake. I used them to help pry open parts of Janna that she doesn't normally show.

They're not gay or into tripletcest. Pervs.

[Bean Bandit]

Makoto loves Janna. She's smart, independant and spirited, though she can be a touch spoiled, though after exposure to Rei, Makoto barely notices Janna's 'rich girl' leanings.

The part she DOES notice is that when the chips were down, Janna, clearly used to better things perservered and struggled through things, and Beck wallowed in his own self pity.

Janna's a good, strong girl, and Makoto respects her immensely, even if the age thing is a slight barrier. But back when Makoto was planning for her own death in the line of duty (It's not morbid, dammit!) Janna would have been her first and only choice for replacement.

Makoto is slightly mystified by her prudishness-though Makoto's POV there is slightly biased, to the amusement of the triplets. >_>;

I would have liked to have Makoto spend more time with Janna. In much the same way Kotono latched onto Makoto, I could easily see Makoto adopting Janna as an Oneesama.

[Ebiris]

Janna Stuff

Janna was so cool she made me feel twice as bad about every dead youma...

I agree that she didn't really steal the show or anything, but she was by far the most human of the former Jade Legionairres - Balder and Nior were both a bit larger than life, and of course remained actual combatants. Janna was a regular girl after she was purified (it helped that we barely even saw her youma form for two seconds, and didn't get the slightest glimpse at her powers - which does make me idly curious as to what they were), which made it far easier to group her in with our 'innocent' friends and family.

It was also refreshing to see her consistently bolt for safety at the first singn of trouble.

I had considered us making use of her family as a hideout on Gaia, although I felt it might have been too dangerous - no telling how loyal they might be to the Agency, and even if they did help us I'd feel bad for putting them at risk - I'd also feel like a bit of a heel to take advantage of their generosity after we put Janna up in that dirty hovel...

Triplets Stuff

While I never really saw the triplets as fanservicey as in your first paragraph (they never got the glowing physical descriptions Rei is so often lavished with), the rest sounds about right. Juli and Kiko were effectively interchangable, while Eliza was a bit more forthright than the other two.

They were fun to play around with, and it was nice to have a few more 'youma survivors'. Having them around probably made things far more pleasant for Janna, at least.

[Anastasia]

Character post #28

Miro

Source Material(s): None. He came into birth to be a minor support NPC and was forged from scratch.

General: I've said before that Miro's roll was somewhat altered due to Nior's absence for the majority of the Gaian arc.  There was meant to be some plot that finally got into Nior's family life and added some clarity to many of his statements - the man's older than most quite literally and yet only looks middle aged, and has a painful past he's only briefly alluded to under duress.

Well, that sure got shot in the ass! <_< This made Miro pretty much a one dimensional plot push. I at least played up his situation for flavor, this was the least I could do.

Notes: Miro really carries around a lot of guilt for what happened to Nior all those years ago. Old men that can't quite let go of the past, even as the future threatens to rot away any chance for the next generation to live. Most of this ended up happening off camera after you girls left Gaia. Oh well.

[Anastasia]

Makoto loves Janna. She's smart, independant and spirited, though she can be a touch spoiled, though after exposure to Rei, Makoto barely notices Janna's 'rich girl' leanings.

The part she DOES notice is that when the chips were down, Janna, clearly used to better things perservered and struggled through things, and Beck wallowed in his own self pity.

Exactly. That's a bit of why Janna really doesn't like Beck. A small part of her wonders why that if she can be brave, why can't Mr. Big Badass Rebel get his shit together.

Janna's a good, strong girl, and Makoto respects her immensely, even if the age thing is a slight barrier. But back when Makoto was planning for her own death in the line of duty (It's not morbid, dammit!) Janna would have been her first and only choice for replacement.

Really? Now that's interesting - want to elaborate on that a little, Mako-chan?

Makoto is slightly mystified by her prudishness-though Makoto's POV there is slightly biased, to the amusement of the triplets. >_>;

I would have liked to have Makoto spend more time with Janna. In much the same way Kotono latched onto Makoto, I could easily see Makoto adopting Janna as an Oneesama.

The prudishness was a lot of just being oddly off guard on those thing. Cognitive Dissonance and all that, you know? But agreed there - Janna's one of the main NPCs I want to go back to Gaia for, and I'm half tempted to drag her to Earth. (Moreso if Jun ends up stuck on Gaia.)

[Ebiris]

Miro Stuff

While Miro was a nice guy, and a tremendous help, I almost couldn't stand talking to him. Just his laboured form of speech, even in text form makes me tired and cranky... I kept wishing Hotaru would heal him so we could have a normal conversation!