Over the Years

Almost a year ago I decided I wanted to write the story of how Shin'nen and Asque first met up after realizing that the two seemed to have absolutely nothing in common and, in fact, had such contrasting personalities that I couldn't fathom why they got along. Shin'nen is my oldest continual character, surviving even a genre switch and a few random time periods, but I don't remember her starting out much differently than the character she's come to recently be. Certainly, she's grown older--she was my age in junior high, and in recent years has become a few years my senior. With age, she's grown more confident and stable, and perhaps a little more solid as a character, but overall I see her as a friend I've known closely for years; her changes have come gradually, and I'm far too close to her to see them clearly.

Asque, though . . . Oh, Asque.

Asque appeared as a doodle during the summer of my sophmore year of high school (had to double-check the dates on that--somehow I thought he'd been with me longer!) while visting Washington, D.C. and entirely enamored with the concept of a paranormal detective agency. I knew Shin'nen would be involved, and Ann added her own character, Danya, but a random male character was sketched in for some variety. Ann named him, and thus Asque came into existance.

Ann and I never got very far into our roleplay, but another friend of mine, Sara, and I soon began what has now become our longest-running roleplay yet. I'm not quite sure what happened to Asque over that span of time, but recent searches through my roleplay file archives show that he changed drastically to become the stoic, boring wizard with a pechant for scowling. I noted in one of my more recent roleplays that Asque didn't smile--possibly had never smiled, and I had apparently forgotten about this incident back in late 2003:

"Mmm, let's see . . . " He pretends to ponder for a moment. "Ride in a potentially cooler car, yet risk some sort of high-speed chase, or play it safe while risking being seen in a 'cute car' . . ." He grins. "Sorry, Shin'nen--I'm going with Rei."

So it seems that Asque was originally a character much like Shin'nen herself, or (at least, as Shin'nen would say, like an actual person and not, for example, a robot). I'm beginning to suspect that Asque gained his personality by losing it, and I must say I like him much more as he is than I do this weird joking character. Of course, it's obvious to me now why Shin'nen and Asque originally became friends--originally, Asque was a much different person. But now that he's who he is, I need to figure that all out again. Huzzah!

On a side note, Samiel's personality has changed a bit, too, since I first implimented him, but he settled much more quickly into his present personality. Oddly, he started with a formalness that could be mistaken for Asque's current tendencies, but it didn't take him long to become the casual, obnoxious dragon I know and love.