So when I was an egg in high school, I created a self-insert OC named Yar Kramer. I used him for a bunch of RPs, and several works of fiction, only one of which I actually completed. There were like two sprite comics and one thing I made that was literally just "sprites + dialogue and descriptions of the action", plus an unpublished and incomplete novel.
RP
The original original roleplay was on a Hitchhiker's Guide website called the H2G2, created by Douglas Adams as an attempt at realizing the eponymous Guide (which has been largely supplanted by Wikipedia). My username was originally "Adolescent White American [wronggender] Who Likes 47" (I liked the number 47 to its frequency in Star Trek); people shortened this to "Yankee Kid, likes 47" and subsequently "YK-47" and just "YK", which I backronym'd to "Yaradovich Kramer"[sic], after Yaridovich from Super Mario RPG and Cid Kramer from Final Fantasy 8. He was originally a coolkid Jedi in a red jacket, but at some point I retconned it to generic "psychic powers."
I also roleplayed him on a few RP MUDs, but I don't really remember any details there.
The "Original" Story
The novel was going to be called "Red Jacket", I think. "Yar Kramer" was a witness-protection alias, and his original name was Daniel Lancaster (hmmmm, someone's primary identity doesn't match their birth name!); he and his family had been forced to work for an evil organization called Project Robinson, which intended to create genetically-engineered espers for reasons I'm not sure about now. Project Robinson was led by an evil scientist called Dr. Krause and a computer named Mother Brain; I justified stealing the name "Mother Brain" because there were three unrelated video games which featured a character by that name (Metroid, Phantasy Star II on the Genesis, and Chrono Trigger).
The Grim Reaper was a woman who talked in underlined dialogue, and whacked people over the head with her scythe rather than actually reaping. She'd changed her form in the 1960s because she found the whole "skeleton" deal to be depressing. She had a black motorcycle with a flame pattern and the text "Pale Horse", and the souls she collected traveled in a pink sidecar which said "Binky" on the side in Comic Sans (where "Binky" is obviously a Discworld reference). When I created this in the 00's, there was totally nothing significant about a character who'd clearly changed her gender, nuh-uh.
Yar's love interest was Mackenzie Robinson, one of Project Robinson's creation. Despite the fact that the gummint had an active hand in extracting Yar's family from Project Robinson, there was some FBI/CIA spook called Agent Pinkerton who hounded Mackenzie like Inspector Javert. I know he had a classmate named Eckhart, who was this ratty-faced jerk with a heart of gold, who was inspired by one of my RL classmates.
I also found a half-written script for a comic, which gets as far as a prologue, followed by a scene which estalishes the witness protection business. Yar jokingly introduces himself Trigun-style as "Yaradovich Halvorsen Thompson-Stryfe-Gainsborough Donatello Leonard Raphael Michelangelo Farnsworth Anderson-Smith Jean-Luc Jones Solo Pepper Tibloxley Amelia Fayette-Mahoney Kierkegaard Williamtonshireworth Melora Kramer I." Wow. Let's see, "Halvorsen" and "Kierkegaard Williamtonshireworth Melora" are clearly made from whol cloth, and I'm not sure where "Jones" came from, but other than that, I can see in order ... Trigun (Thompson and Stryfe), Final Fantasy VII (Strife and Gainsborough), all four Ninja Turtles, Futurama, The Matrix, Star Trek, Star Wars, Cowboy Bebop (re-engrished "Pepelu Tivruski"), and Slayers. Again, wow.
First Reality
The "main" sprite comic, which was a sort of Final Fantasy parody made mostly in RPG Maker, and which ran from 2001 to 2004 on Keenspace. Yar Kramer was a "Neo-Samurai" (basically a ripoff of SeeD from Final Fantasy 8), fighting alongside a dude named Shigeru 'Gary' Oak (Gary Oak except as an adult, with a gunblade and dressed as Seifer Almasy, with no sign of any pokemon), and Tina Branford (Terra Branford without her tragic backstory).
The setting was incomprehensible if you didn't have detailed knowledge of Final Fantasy 6, 7, 8, and also Mega Man X; nearly every single place name was named after something from Final Fantasy except for Death Mountain, where they went to in order to get the Triforce (long story). A pink-haired goofy-and-hyperactive Celes Chere was the princess of Mysidia, and was a FF8-Sorceress; she frequently went in disguise as a thief named Fobby, and used a Reploid named Dancer as a body-double.
The main villain was named Darklumen, and his evil plan was to destroy the world by weakening the fabric of existence by leveraging sprite comic cliches, thus demonstrating that I have always been Like That. (The fact that I had a direct author avatar called the "Ultimate Guardian Force" with semi-omnipotent powers over the comic isn't even worth dwelling on, because omnipotent "author" characters are par for the course with sprite comics.)
The other party members: Kefka Palazzo, who was the court jester for Mysidia; Enerion Imusen, a half-Esper who was invented from whole cloth, who overcame his hangups about being half-esper with Tina's help before he got killed off by the bad guy; and "Rock Light" (because one of the reality-damaging sprite comic cliches was "Mega Man is present"), who was actually the Great Guardian Force Yu-Yevon in disguise for convoluted reasons.
In the ending, it's mentioned that Gary marries Princess Celes, and sort of vaguely implies that Yar ends up with Tina. (Tina made actual romantic overtures to Yar halfway through the comic, but they were interrupted by shallow comedy.)
I absolutely refused to let go of a running gag in which a male character would say something that broke the fourth wall, and at least one female character would immediately yell at him for doing so.
... I actually found some MIDI songs in the First Reality files which I personally composed. Well ... I say "composed", but the Darklumen final boss music was clearly based on the Super Smash Bros 1's Final Destination music with techno-twittering from All Your Base, one was based on a boss theme from Final Fantasy X combined with anime music, and Yar Kramer's personal themesong was chiefly based on Glyde's theme from The Misadventures of Tron Bonne.
YaraY
The other sprite comic, hosted on a subdirectory of First Reality's site. The name came from Yar's evil twin, Ray Remark ("Yar" and "Kramer" spelled backwards), and also from the Japanese expression "yare yare" (translated in JJBA "good grief").
It was a shallow Bob and George-esque thing with Mega Man sprites, and invovled Yar's shenanigans opposite Ray Remark; a straightlaced roommate with blue hair named Elbert Ssab (I don't know where I got "Elbert" from, but I came up with "Ssab" after noticing that "Elbert" backwards is "Treble"); a Reploid named Jive who was an orange recolor of Zero from Mega Man Zero; and a girl in a pink shirt named Kira, whose character concept began and ended with "hyperactive blonde girl." At one point, there was a comic which depicted First Reality as an actual console RPG being played by Kira; this comic was then ported directly to First Reality.
I abruptly stopped updating it in the middle of a story arc in which Jive went off with a group Maverick Hunters which inexplicably included Zio from Phantasy Star 4, who was just there to be generically evil rather than actually pursuing any of his canonical goals.
Super Adventure Yar
And finally, the "sprites plus dialogue" thing. It used whatever anime, video game, and internet characters I was interested in at any given moment, and there were inserts from several people I knew online. All of whom were basically overpowered in some respect, i.e. one of the friend-inserts was literally just a redheaded Goku in a trench coat, except his Saiyan name was "Suckarot". It was the most absurd and ridiculous of these things.
Yar was your basic inexplicably-overpowered action-shounen protagonist, and people kept going "What!? Why is he so powerful!?" (If there was going to be an explanation, I never got a chance to give it and I don't remember what it was, but I doubt there was anything reasonable.) Of course, this was also true of pretty much every protagonist.
His fighting style involved throwing energy blasts, and his signature move was named "Island King Kamehameha", because I knew the etymology of the Dragonball attack, but the kind of creative person I was at the time was that nuance, self-awareness, and "general understanding of what I was putting into my stories" were something that happened to other people.
Mayl Sakurai was impulsively violent with a squeaky-mallet.
At one point, while the protagonists were discussing a plot point which Mayl wasn't present for, she said, "What the hell are you talking about?" and then tossed an entire burger into her mouth.
Cut Man's NetNavi was FishMan.exe.
Yar bought Chii Chobits from Strong Bad, who ran an unbelievably shady second-hand electronics store; Chii's copycat tendencies extended to copying other peoples' magic and superpowers.
He also bought a generic NetNavi and expressed the intention to customize it, but all sign of NetNavis were dropped after a few episodes.
The "ageless faceless gender-neutral culturally-ambiguous adventuring person" (AFGNCAAP) from Zork/Enchanter was one of the main characters. They frequently used spells from Enchanter such as "gaspar" ("provide for your own resurrection" -- basically like a Final Fantasy "Auto-Life" spell, but AFGNCAAP was also able to use it on others), "vaxum" ("make hostile creature friendly", and every single target which it actually worked on promised to kill them after it wore off), "krebf" ("repair willful damage"), and "talcor" (healing; this seems to be something I made up myself, because I can't find any references to it in Enchanter canon).
I insisted on using "he/she" and the like instead of just the singular "they", wow I was deep in the egg in 2004. But they did say "I don't have a gender" at one point!
Magus/Janus from Chrono Trigger was trying to take over the world using robotic Sinistars. His minions were "the Terrible Trio", which consisted of Onslaught from Marvel vs. Capcom 1, Dalton from Chrono Trigger, and Dynamo from Mega Man X.
I stole the "now I'm wet and on fire!" joke from the webcomic Adventurers! during a fight between Dalton and AFGNCAAP.
Magus got a Vegeta-style "suddenly I happen to be on the same side of the heroes" redemption with the sudden arrival of, um, the Saiyans. Starting with Raditz as just a retread of Dragonball Z.
After Raditz was beaten, he sent a message to Vegeta and "Zappa", who was just Nappa but with a terrible wig and an atrocious southern accent; I have no idea what I was going for there.
The planet Arlia from Dragonball Z was populated by clones of Alia from Mega Man X5. It had the same fate as in the show, namely that Vegeta and Zappa just casually blew it up after going on a rescue-a-princess quest.
There was an "It's a gundam!" joke there.
The Goku-expy friend-insert taught Yar how to fly Hitchhiker's Guide-style ("throw yourself at the ground and miss"), and how to use bullet-time.
Mayl trained under Magus. At one point, while she was fighting a friend-insert with a sniper rifle (who'd previously stolen everyone's wallets for no apparent reason), Magus remarked that she had "hidden potential" and noted that in her hands, her squeaky mallet was just as powerful as the sniper rifle.
Vash the Stampede showed up, and the plot promptly started getting derailed as everyone around him dropped everything to try to claim his $60 billion bounty (Onslaught, to Dalton and Dynamo: "We'll split it 50-50-50!").
At one point, Vash ran off with Chii for reasons that only slightly made sense in context, and Yar chased them to a town called Las Eisley.
The three of them got into a bar fight at a "restaulant"[sic] (I thiiiink this was originally actual engrish from Trigun itself?) which completely wrecked the building.
After the bar fight, Yar called up AFGNCAAP to make repairs using the krebf spell; AFGNCAAP asked, "Was all the damage willful?" and Yar replied, "Well, I definitely proceeded in the full knowledge that massive destruction would occur." Due to the rules of sprite-comic comedy, this was enough for krebf to work.
There was a "Dear Strong Bad, how do you type with boxing gloves on?" joke.
In the middle of everything else, I started writing an episode introducing Valkyries and Loki -- which displayed a surprisingly deep knowledge of Norse mythology on 18-year-old-me's part -- but I never finished it and my files don't even have the sprites for the main Valkyrie character, who was another friend-insert.
... All of these continuities just feel amazing to me in retrospect, because this is the kind of thing that can only happen in fanfiction. Only something using existing characters, our existing associations with these characters, can possibly reach this level of ridiculousness.
Which isn't to say it's all fun and games, though. I was a particularly un-woke Rotten Egg, which meant that there was rampant sexism, and lowkey fanservice. The concept might look fun, but the execution was invariably "the worst parts of the sprite comic fandom."
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P5R liveblog (8/?)
(Makoto arc end)
[[MORE]]
Oh, hey, Chihaya.
Idk if I'm remembering the timing right, but it looks like they took out Ryuji's interaction with those two entirely. I told him to wait outside bc of his uniform and he said he'd kill some time somewhere until I was done
It really does seem kind of awful of us to volunteer Mishima for this, especially without him knowing.
OH HERE THEY ARE
Oh, hey, they think he's interested in drag bc of how he was looking into Crossroads. They want to help him out. Still sucks that this supposed to be something funny, and that they're dragging him off without his wanting to, but it is better than it was.
UGHHHH MISHIMA IM SORRY
Oh, this translation seems different. A bit more natural, I think. Still really harsh, though. Sae...
Makoto...
FUCKING PRIESTESS LISTEN TO YOUR INNER SELF THIS IS JUST DOING SOMETHING FOR THE SAKE OF DOING ANYTHING PLEASE PULL BACK AND THINK STRATEGICALLY INSTEAD IF GOING ABOUT THIS SO EMOTIONALLY
Honestly her charm stat is in the pits. It's kind of hilarious since you need high (max? Idr) charm to progress past rank 5 with her.
Huh, if she had social stats... High knowledge, low charm, good guts, not totally sure about proficiency & kindness but I'm leaning towards okay-low proficiency and middling-decent kindness.
Now, the others...
Ryuji would have low knowledge, good guts,
Listen, I'm having trouble with quantifying their kindness. Because, they all have differing levels of what I consider personal-kindness and general-kindness
Wait. Do I really want to get on this tangent right now? ...Not really. Hold that thought. Back to the game.
GOD this was so dangerous I am honestly amazed that she got out of this okay.
GOD THAT IS SO DANGEROUS I AM HONESTLY AMAZED THAT HE GOT OUT OF THAT OKAY
Honestly I'm kind of surprised Kaneshiro doesn't have a doorman or anything.
Jeez, Kaneshiro's face looks off compared to everyone else. Like, on its own, it's a decent face, but it looks like it doesn't belong with the rest.
Huh, I wonder how many of them actually have mommies and daddies to beg money from. Let's see... Makoto is being raised by her prosecutor sister. Parents dead. Ryuji is being raised by a single mom. Dad left a long time ago. Canonically poor. Yusuke was being raised by Madarame. Mom dead. Dad out of the picture, idr how. Canonically poor, with poor money sense. Ann has parents. Successful fashion designers that she doesn't see half the year. And the protag has an ambiguous family situation. Of course, I have my headcanons, but that's nothing. Anyway, if we were going about this the way Kaneshiro wanted us to, Ann would probably be able to provide the most, followed by Makoto. (Again, leaving Ren out of this).
Guh, thinking about it like that feels shitty.
...can you even imagine an ATM with Ann's pigtails though? I mean I know the other ATMs don't have any distinguishing features but still
Anyway
Godddd, I really love when people are given reaction shots when something another character is saying is resonating or otherwise meaningful to them
Makoto: "A lot happened after we lost her father three years ago, so it's just us living together... But I'm still a child, so all I am is a burden to her..."
Yusuke: *cut-in* "......"
Me: *chef's kiss*
...it happens at other times in this game (and other stuff), too, but I just wanted to point it out. Especially bc you kind of have to infer a lot of the time when it comes to Yusuke.
OHHHDJDJSJDJJDS HE LOOKED SO SAD WHEN MAKOTO CALLED HIM A CANINE
"IT'S FOX" HE SAYS
Both Makoto and Ann called him specifically a monster cat. I wonder if the Japanese calls him a cat ayakashi or something.
What property damage did any of us cause?
Why is Shadow Kaneshiro purple anyway?
JOHANNA IS SO FUCKING COOL GODDAMN
I love Makoto's awakening ngl
But honestly, is there a /bad/ awakening in the bunch? They really killed it with the game aesthetics, you know?
"No weaknesses. Our only chance is to make them confused" or whatever she just said about confusing them. Idk if I just tune her out or if that's a new thing
Didn't Makoto have Flash Bomb or whatever that multi-phys + chance of Dizzy skill was called? Maybe she gets that at a higher level
*heavy sigh* Okay, Makoto
"I will crush him like a fly" I see what you did there
It really is nice that they're bringing up the advisor thing instead of just her doing it herself. I still feel like there should have been a little more talk about it amongst the 5 of them instead of just the 3 human-shaped guys but w/e
The references to English songs and memes is a little jarring, ngl
Man, Sae's gonna flip her shit when she hears what Makoto did to get here.
Awww Ann & Makoto are bonding
*sigh* listen, I like Makoto, I even dated her in my first playthrough of vanilla p5, but I really dislike how they just keep shilling her around this time. It's a little off-putting. I think it's a thing Atlus likes to do.
Hmm? Is the man getting joint pain on rainy days going to affect his Mementos fight?? Interesting.
Ughhhhhh Queen choosing her name and then the """strategy""" thing is exactly the same. Like her being there even changes anything about how we go about things. And we do think about what we're doing, actually! Well, mostly Morgana bc Phantom thievery is his whole schtick. But like, outside our usual plans, we successfully pulled off the heist in the Madarame Palace, for example. We also opened the locked door and dealt with that. We go about the palaces with intent! Blugh.
"it's my role to be the brain of this team and give out orders" BLUGH
And then Ryuji & Mona are into it... -_-+
I hate this part. It's awkward and dumb. There are better ways to make her their advisor, Atlus
Also someone mention that I am field leader pls. I know you did in vanilla p5 do it now as well
I wonder if they've changed her s.link abilities? They at least have to have given her 1 more thing due to the baton pass thing
I WONDER IF EIKO WILL HAVE A SPRITE NOW?!?!? I hope so ^u^
GUH I love Makoto's Queen outfit.
Oh, whoops, I forgot about that conversation. Maybe I should have put Morgana in my party.
But heck yeah, let's do a finisher! I wonder how to get these for people.
RYUJI WANTS TO DO A SHOWTIME WITH FOX "We could call it Art Run or something" I LOVE HIM
SHIT WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME I SAVED
Ugh, it's really frustrating that they're trying to get me to showtime w Ann & Morgana when all the enemies here are weak to Zio & Bufu (with a little bit of Psi & Gun thrown in for good measure).
Okay, have reorganized my party so I don't have to use an Agi-weak persona to go after enemy weaknesses. That was so embarrassing.
Oh, neat! My sleuthing instinct kicked in! ... Makoto's abilities have to have changed.
YOU MEAN SHOWTIME CAN KICK IN EVEN WHEN ONE OF THE MEMBERS IS NOT IN THE PARTY?!?!?! AHHHH
Maybe even both, idk. Morgana seemed like the best choice to heal/lucky punch so he's in my party rn but maybe when he gets swapped out later I'll find the answer to that
...this is being surprisingly easy. But I don't think I'm overleveled... Jeez, I haven't bought weapons since Kamoshida's Palace. And they give you so many clothes in this game... And accessories! Really!
But yeah, I finished that security guy in 3 moves. Morgana - Garu (absorbed), Yusuke - Bufu (inflicting Freeze), Ryuji - Headbutt (Technical) -> All-Out Attack. I remember it being a lot harder in the original. Idk.
Okay, the next one was slightly harder. It took two All-out-attacks to beat it. But hmm.
Maybe I am overleveled, though. Apparently that miniboss (??) Was only level 21, and I am 23.
Oh, I'm getting Sigma feelings. Ann's counting down for opening the vault-like door.
I don't think I've ever noticed before how neat Kaneshiro's palace music is. Well, at least the Laundering Office, anyway. What is this, exactly? It's some version of Price - that's the same melody line, but the instrumentation is all different. That's not to say that Price isn't good; it's just that I'm weak for strings & orchestra instruments in non- orchestral songs. It sounds darker and more intense. I love it
Oho? That gold vault door seems new.
Or maybe I just don't remember it.
Anyway. I really do appreciate that Morgana mentions Shadow personalities in negotiations. Like, I read the tutorial on it, but it's nice to have him like "what's this one so happy about? Well, guess we'll play long for now" or whatever he says for an upbeat shadow. It's pretty neat.
"I wonder what it'd be like if we had Palaces instead of Personas." SAME, RYUJI, SAME 👀👀👀👀👀
Hmm, I know Joker Palace has some fics, and I think I remember seeing a Crow Palace fic, but I wonder about the others...? Hmm 👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀
I don't want to accidentally spoil myself, though. I'll go through the archive after I finish this.
"Your Palace would definitely be a beef bowl shop." ANN OMG
"Why'd you gotta give a straight answer right off the bat? I can't argue with that!" Ryuji pls ;u;
Why do Will Seeds all look like that? I know there are those death things with the hollow eyes like that, but is that what it is? It just seems so out of place in this technical setting. I'm kind of surprised they don't change appearances to suit their Palace. Tbh, it doesn't really look like anything that comes from Mementos, either. But I suppose it must...
WHOA, why did the Velvet Room door turn red? "I have an uneasy feeling" Same, protag, same
WHY IS THE VELVET ROOM ON HIGH ALERT
A fusion alarm? OH COME ON IT HASNT BEEN THAT LONG SINCE I FUSED ANYONE
Is this because I still have Jack Frost with me? But come onnnn I already had most of this palace's inhabitants alreadyyyy
By /fusing/ them
Could this have come at any time? Or was this scripted for now? Oh, wait, I overreacted, this says that my Personas will be stronger if I do it during a fusion alarm. Kind of incentivizes him to slack off, though, doesn't it? Lol
Oh, interesting. Look at all those accident possibilities. Nvm.
Orpheus... ;-;
Huh, I didn't realize the Picaro versions also were not just dlc
"You would like me to become your mask? Well then, let us search for the answers of life together."
*lie down* *try not to cry* *cry a lot*
Anyway.
I need to go to Mementos and find an Eligor. Gotta get that Flauros.
YES FINALLY MY GUTS INCREASED
Aww, the newspaper club girl is rooting for the phantom thieves. She's so angry at akechi rn
Oh, speaking of! Hello, Akechi!
AHHH RYUJI AND MAKOTO TEAM UP IM SO PSYCHED
Oh man it's bc of the motorcycle ISNT IT, RYUJI : DDDDDD
JDSKSKXNXJKS
The voice acting there was. Wonderful. Omfg
Actually, now that I think about it, it makes a lot of sense that Ryuji's tried to suggest team ups twice now, ever as soon as he learned they were a thing. He was on the track team, and the team aspect of that was very important to him. He likes cheering others on and being cheered on by others. Specifically by training and sweating and testing limits together - by fighting together. Of course ryuji is interested. Of course he is.
Man, I wish I had better context for the "you filthy fly on dirty money" line - I mean, obviously he's Beelzebub, who is apparently in charge of gluttony, but like, is that a phrase? Is this just a Beelzebub reference or is there more to it bc it feels like there's more to it and I don't understand bc cultural reasons
Blegh I don't want to give up my expensive items...guess I'll do this the tedious way.
Ah, here we go. Let's see how these hired guns are. Hopefully I can see the Makoto & Ryuji showtime? :3 ?
Wait, Bael? Not Beelzebub? Really? Huh?
YES IT'S SHOWTIME
HOLY SHIT I LOVE IT
I wonder why that briefcase was related to his distorted desires. We really know so little about Kaneshiro, relatively
Yusuke's kinda on the ball today.
...*snerk*
Wow, damn, Akechi was potentially onto us since the Kaneshiro calling card? He gave a list of potential candidates, maybe we were on it...
Makoto, really, it was unfair of everyone to put the burden of resolving the Kaneshiro issue on you. You really can't be blamed. you know that, right?
Oh, hey look, it's 'Gaudy Student' there in the background
Hhhhhhhhhhh there are so many choices I have 5 potential social links to do tonight. I could start Kawakami, Ohya, Chihaya, or Hifumi, or I could level up Yoshida since it's Sunday
AHH KASUMI IS SO CUTE. FUCK!
BWAHAHAHAHA justice rank 3 is. Amazing.
"I've seen everything. A vision of you groveling on the ground..." IS THIS THE THING IN DECEMBER SHES TALKING ABOUT
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