arsarcanum

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if you just want to leave me some general feedback, here's a cute little form to fill out!

AM I FUN TO PLAY WITH?: ■■■■□□□□□□ (what it says on the tin - are my tags easy to respond to? are my attempts at humor legitimate? is my handle on sora/skyler conducive to your overall experience?)
AM I IN CHARACTER?: ■■■■■■■□□□ (has sora/skyler done or said anything that seems inappropriate for where he's at? do our characters have appropriate chemistry? is my grasp on the canon strong, or do i need to brush up?)
HAVE I BEEN EXCELLENT TO YOU ON AN OOC BASIS?: ■■□□□□□□□□ (are there any arguments or disagreements that i've left unresolved between us? does it seem like i bleed too much of myself into my ic play? are there any triggers that you'd like me to avoid while playing with you?)
ANYTHING ELSE?: anything that doesn't fit into the above!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

thanks for being so thorough! i wanted to wait and reread it a few times just so i could be sure i was following everything haha! the background info is really helpful, in terms of trying to figure out how much of him is... sora? even if not not actually sure yet how much that is or how that would even be measured.

i think i was mostly asking though because i was trying to figure out hmmm how do i ask

your threads with hana for example, don't really touch a lot on the physical things that would make him stand out? so if i didn't look into it very much, i wouldn't necessarily know that your sora was as different as he is. whereas your thread with riku talks a whole lot about what the differences are. so i guess i was trying to figure out if that inconsistency was on purpose? though maybe i'm missing something. again all the stuff you told me is really helpful for me to help make sense of, i think i'm just a little confused because his tags can be really different depending on who he's tagging with. does that make any sense?

Don't worry, I think I got you! If I'm missing your point, please let me know, but I think I understand where you're coming from. Here we go!

To answer the question of how much he has upstairs, I say it’s 60-70% because I do dice rolls to see what he remembers! I have some links here and here with specific dice rolls, some math, and a list of what he remembers that I update whenever I can (sorry, the sections are a little messy because I haven’t had the time to properly format them, but the info should all be there.) The rationale behind why I do this is here in his app for ITN under the CRAU and Ability sections, but if you just want me to summarize the info, let me know!

I know that isn’t your main concern, but I wanted to bring that up! Although there are several moments where I, while playing Sora, don’t know what he remembers, I can and do find out during play. There are a few more mechanics going on here, but they involve explaining how STE works and that's a little outside of the scope of your concern.

If there is a specific memory or ability or character trait or anything you want me to roll for, please don’t hesitate to ask! I’ll tell you if he has it or do a roll to see if he has it. Otherwise, I think it’s fair for characters to be sad, confused, frustrated, upset, amused, disgusted, and so on about the things he can’t remember! It comes with the territory of finding a familiar face only for them to not remember things the way you do. It's something I accepted could happen coming in and so far it has indeed panned out that way. And that's okay! I also know that the unpredictability of this mechanic can turn people off, so that's why I want to be really open to conversation about this. If you need me to do something for you to make their CR more planned or certain, please let me know! I will be happy to throw down some foundations with you.

As for the differences between the two threads, that’s actually a personal play choice! For characters like Hana, Bucky, and Jason, I chose to lean back on describing his differences because, for all they as characters would know, Sora looks completely normal back in his world. I especially don't want to go on and on about it for a character like Hana who works with robots and cyborgs on a regular basis back in her world - what's the point of pointing out slight cybernetic differences when she's surrounded by Omnics?

When I do have Sora encounter a character who isn't a part of the KH crew but had CR with Sora, just like Daylight and Maes, I do my best to emphasize the difference in the tags following with the information that would be available to the characters so the mun is up to speed and can tag accordingly. This has backfired on me before! I didn’t warn Aziraphale’s mun in time and really had to backpedal to make sure they were caught up (I am very very much not proud of how I handled this tag and will not be phrasing it like this again.)

However, even if I do have my reasons for withholding that information, I think that this lack of transparency is a sensible thing to point out? I was trying not to be too obnoxious about Sora’s physical differences because 1. this is a game where we all have to read quite a bit and I didn’t want to tag into a bunch of new threads pointing out that Sora has weird keyhole eyes if that wasn’t the focus of the prompt, and 2. I personally think that his eyes have less to do with who he is as a person than other things we could be focusing on in the conversation. If they don’t end up coming up at all, I don’t consider it a great loss. HOWEVER, I hear you, and having you point out the inconsistency is really valuable to me! After all, I had no idea that it wasn't enough engagement for an outsider to follow what he looks like - I have no idea how much I've been confusing my fellow players, especially since Sora's a very identifiable character and people tend to have a picture of him in their heads, even if they've never played the games before. I’ll definitely make more of an effort to link his visual profile when encountering new CR from now on.

When it comes to my fellow KH players, though, my approach is a little different. I feel like when I tag my castmates, I do have to make more of a concerted effort to point out the differences between what they expect of Sora and the Sora I play. I try to get a handle on the energy in their tags and reflect it back in what I give them. Riku’s tags were more focused on how much Sora’s reappearance as someone who doesn’t look like Sora affected him as someone going through an intense grieving process, so I aimed to reflect that wariness and discomfort back in my own tags - Sora could tell Riku saw him as a stranger, and his feelings about how strange and out of place he felt followed suit. Vanitas’ tags are more wary and careful about this stranger with Sora’s face who knows who he is but wants to avoid him, so I aimed to reflect that wariness back while pointing out things Vanitas would definitely have caught.

These are dynamics that I worked out with both muns beforehand. Riku's mun especially wanted to warn me that Riku would probably want nothing to do with my Sora and would probably end up thinking of him as a different person, and for me, that’s fine! I’m very adaptable and have no personal qualms about playing a dynamic in one direction or another. There were IC consequences, but I’m taking them as they come because I find the unpredictability and tension fun. I do love playing fluff and dynamics where people love each other and have fun in each others' company, but I like negative CR as well! I find it equally as interesting as the nice stuff.

If you’d like to talk out a specific dynamic that you’d want to try (or avoid) with Sora, I’d be happy to talk here or your preferred plotting medium. (I have Discord and Plurk available - just ask!) I ended up talking to both Riku’s and Vanitas’ mun before I apped in so we could get this all straight, and being on the same page definitely made me feel better about the dynamics we were getting into, especially since they knew what to expect of me and Sora in the future. I know my Sora is an extremely weird case and I want to make sure we’re on the same page before anything goes down. I want you to feel like you know what you're getting into if you do end up apping in!

TLDR: I do dice rolls like DND to randomize what Sora has to work with, which is how I got the 60-70% number - probability! The inconsistencies when I describe his appearance have to do with which character I'm tagging him with and their established dynamics - when I don't describe him, he should still look like Sora with weird eyes. However, you've pointed out that's confusing, so I'll make an additional effort in the future to make his current appearance obvious!

Again, thank you for your questions! I'll keep answering them for as long as you have them. d(ouo )

HMD

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