Why Haruko in Arcana doesn't quite work

[grysar]

I was going to make a long comment over on the Arcana TV tropes page and decided to make it into its own post.

Anyways, Haruko is my Arcana character. I do rather like her, but she never quite found her niche in the party. There's a few contradictions at work in her character that keep her from fully clicking. This post is my analysis in why that is.

Tropes that work:

• Wrench Wench
  
• Bottle Fairy
  
• Odd friendship (Katie; see Staff Chick)
  
• Class Cat Burglar (borderline/wannabe)
  
• Plucky girl (Good catch Rowyn)

These are all fairly straightforward. The Wrench Wench was their from the start and the Bottle Fairy and Odd Friendship developed more over time. I tend to have a good deal of fun/satisfaction with these. Not sure if they work as well for everyone else, but they're distinctively Haruko.

I think she almost pulls off a minimal level of the class cat burglar bit. But she's not quite effective as a thief and it's often not that useful in Arcana-verse. If she was more competent overall I don't think it would be a problem.

Annoying Tropes or badly implemented/setting inappropriate tropes:

• Technical Pacifist
  
• Genre Savvy (wannabe)
  
• The Empath
  
• Genius Ditz (mechanically oriented; effectively a more concentrated version of Wrench Wench)

Her technical pacifism was always a bit too technical. The defect locked this in a bit, I think it would have worked best without the defect as either I'd have dropped it or worked out a logical basis. Also we've had that conversation too dang many times. As for genre savvy, I can pull it off elsewhere but it's too hard in Arcana (pentagrams aside). Similarly, mechanical skill isn't that useful in Arcana. It could have worked if I really invested in her driving, but I was too low on CP because I spread her powers too thin.

The empath thing never worked because people in Arcana are really screwed up and she's way too confident and assertive. I think I may have been able to pull off the technical aspects of being an empath, but it would have met a much quieter character that didn't try to take the lead regularly. While some may prefer this, that's not my style.

Problematic tropes:

• Staff Chick (other blunt objects count)
  
• Genius Ditz (again)
  
• Healing Hands (this is trivially true, so I won't discuss it)
  
• The Empath (again)

These are all a bit problematic from a feminist perspective. Anyways, in past discussions with Nic and ardweden we decided that Haruko is my anima. Essentially she has most of my stereotypically female traits, magnified. As a result, she's got a lot of problematic classic girl trops. Anyways, on the ditz front, I definitely recognize a trope discussed in Pandagon: Most of her humor tends to be at her expense, for example by being clumsy or ditzy. Being a healer, into emotions, and a would be empath (albeit a bad one) are all fairly classical lame supporting powers. All of them work together to create a classical supporting character rather than a main character. But classically who wants to be or to play a supporting character? I know it's not my thing. So, I tried to have her transcend them. However, at least half the time I failed and she ended up being annoying and bossy rather than cool and confident (or shark like).

I'd tried to transcend these traits by making her self-confident, popular within a certain social circle, fairly sexually aggressive, and with a certain never say die cheeriness. The confidence and popularity don't really work because she hasn't earned them on screen. Her failure as an empath actively undermine both. Her genius often isn't useful so she's more ditz than genius. Haruko can work as a bossy egoist, but that's falling into another classical female character rut, not transcending it. Being sexually aggressive actually does work out alright, but the selection of Arcana men is incredibly lame and I'm doing my best to avoid having her be bi and fall into another cliche.

The one aspect of Haruko that really transcends and is earned is her never say die attitude. She can also be a tad fatalistic but I think that can actually work with never-say-die. She may be dead, but she won't be broken dang it. It's actually perfectly captured in a short ardweden did ages ago. If Arcana doesn't end, that's the ending I'll use in my mind. It's her Day after Tomorrow fic called the End.

I think the class cat burglar take is sufficiently different from the default trope that it isn't problematic. Haruko is aggressive but not a femme fatale by any means. However, it's not quite good enough or useful enough to really make her into a competent character.

So how would I rebuild Haruko?

Mechanically: Prune her peripheral water powers. Switch her liquid form to being powered by magic, possibly with some ritual elements to make it cheaper. Then drop some of the defects that just got in the way. Downplay the fire stuff, start it out at level 1, she doesn't really need PTSD on top of everything else. Put remainder ability points into better driving and thieving. As much as I love the rain power I may end up having to drop that or keep it to a minimum. Also, give her a useful non-violent attack, maybe an energy drain.

Personality: Drop the empathy aspect [mostly]. Drop the technical pacifist and just go with not liking violence. Drop her popularity/fan boys. She should do alright but find that most of these are really shallow if pressed. That can be a surprise to her. [Essentially she'd still try and be bad at some of the empath and understanding stuff. But she'd be willing to give up battles but not the war. That should skip some boring bits and make her less annoying] Keep confidence but limit it to the areas where she is really good. Keep the ditziness but give her more self-deprecating and genre aware humor. She'd still in some ways be an awkward fit for Arcana-verse, but then, who isn't? Arcana-verse is not healthy for children and other living things.

Maybe I'll try her for my DnD 4th edition character.

[Update: Rewrote to fix impact of prior to publications rewrites]
[Update 2: Added link and made bulleted lists]
[Update 3: Some typos fixed, some list items struck, and a few additions.

Comments

[ardweden.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I could just imagine making a pile of Arcana PCs in 4th ed. There's a bad end. Also, Katie does have PTSD on top of everything else, but she earned that PTSD... and the everything else... over the course of the game.

If you were to make all of those changes to Haruko, she'd be a pretty different character. More thoughts on such later if/when I have time, either in comments or over AIM/IRC.

The fic you're referring to is here: The End. It's not the best thing I've ever written, by any means, but I just reread it and I'm still pleased enough. It's also pretty easy to see when I wrote it; a number of things would have to be changed in order to make it fit with how characters have developed since then. I'm still very happy with my portrayal of all of the PCs, though. :)

(It's also the end of the world in Arcanaverse proper, and things are being handled quite a bit differently!)

[ardweden.livejournal.com]

Continued, since I thought of more to say (quickishly):

I'm especially pleased with my portrayal of Satoshi, given the difficulties concerning him after you took over. ;P I do think that I did a good job with Haruko, and Kaede's dead on. I swear, he must have used some of those lines since I wrote it. Taki's so different now than how she used to be that it's hard for me to get a solid bead on if I did a good job with her. But Gryph didn't complain at the time (that I remember), so I assume I did.

You might want to link your post to the Arcana lj so everyone will see it, even if they might not follow your journal closely.

[grysar.livejournal.com]

I love your Haruko. It gets to the best of her. ^_^ And will do re the Arcana LJ.

[rdmgryphon.livejournal.com]

Wow, Taki the relentless optimist, I remember those days. Pity she couldn't keep it up. "If you try hard enough you can change anything, including yourself." That didn't survive first contact with !Katie, but at the time it was written, yeah that's IC for Taki.

[ardweden.livejournal.com]

The problem with Taki trying hard enough is that she *didn't* try hard enough. She never reached the core of her personality and really tried to change that; instead, she fooled around with the superficial stuff that other people could see. So that change was too little, and deeper changes were too late. Par for the course for Taki.

[rdmgryphon.livejournal.com]

Too true. She just tried to ignore the core of her personality and pretend it was something else.

[grysar.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link!

True enough about her being fairly different. I've changed a lot in how I design my characters, although I do still have the occasional miss. The point of that rewrite was basically figuring out what parts of her were most fun and how to play those up while dropping or better integrating the parts that didn't work.

[kamalloy.livejournal.com]

I really love that story. ^^ I think you managed to get the essence of all the characters as they were at the time. Inerestingly enough, I think Satoshi and Haruko *weren't* quite as good friends at that point game as they seemed to be in the story (although I think by then he'd managed to stop being afraid of her), so you foreshadowed that happening. He is still wise not to trust her with his keys, though.

And oh, how I miss Satoshi and Katie's old relationship. But there's his problem: when he's not sure what to do, he won't do anything. While things couldn't have been the same for them after her kidnapping, they could at least have been better. Same goes for him and Taki later on, although there was less to build on in that one. (Sorry, RDM, but it's true. For a while, Satoshi and Katie could talk about almost anything, and he never had that level of comfort with Taki.)

Ironically enough, towards the end of my time playing, I think Satoshi was the most comfortable around Haruko. They got along well, and he didn't really worry too much about how she perceived him.

[ardweden.livejournal.com]

The story really was a story-for-the-time, yeah. I figured, at the time, that Satoshi and Haruko would pretty much work out their differences, but that they wouldn't be Best Friends Ever (and I think that that shows pretty well in there).

Thinking about Satoshi and Katie's completely deteriorated relationship always makes me a little sad. They used to have a solid friendship going. I remember the mini where Katie said that Satoshi and Kaede were her two favorite guys (aw, warm and fuzzy!) and a few other minis where they'd talk candidly about problems one or the other would be having, but after the closet thing, it started to go downhill (and it *really* went downhill after Tenjirou and Ryo kidnapped her). I agree that it's because Satoshi was afraid or worried but didn't know what to do, like you said.

At this point, really, I'd say that the only person Katie actually feels close to and safe with is Kyon. Kaede's easily her second best friend, despite her being vaguely convinced that he'll try to kill her someday. Haruko, Taki, and Satoshi, while she'll still call them friends, just feel too distant. They don't understand her. So Satoshi's not alone. ;P

[kamalloy.livejournal.com]

It's one of those things that I regret happening. Not that it's unrealistic - in fact, it's quite realistic - but it's sad, particularly when going back and looking at earlier sessions.

[rowyn2001.livejournal.com]

The problem with having a Shoot the Dog character being your friend when you're paranoid is that you'll always have this vague suspicion that you might become the dog.

[grysar.livejournal.com]

Well said.

[capfox.livejournal.com]

I don't know; I think in the end, you have to accept the problematic parts of the personality as just being there. Characters just don't map out the way you expect them to, no matter how hard you try. That's what happens when things are unscripted and unplanned, I think.

It took me a long time to accept that Kyon wasn't playing as much of a bastard as I'd intended him to be at the beginning. Part of that was a loss of opportunities to do so, between lower NPC contact and a need to not alienate all the allies. But I think he ended up being softer underneath than I'd really intended. Before the game, I thought dealing with Souichirou would be a lot harder than it ended up, and that's because of all the changes in the meantime.

Saying what your ideal version of the character would be is interesting, but I think that your reworking would still probably end up surprising you. It's probably the most fun part of this sort of acting, I think.

[grysar.livejournal.com]

Well, adjusting the mechanical part is actually reasonably straightforward. Trying to do too many things is a classical mistake. Similarly she just has too dang many defect points.

But you're right of course, the process is not deterministic. My main mistake was really trying to make her cool via things she had not earned in character nor were a direct result of her abilities. That said technical pacifist probably could have stayed so long as she didn't have the defect to complicate things.

The other thing is that I just know more about my range as a roleplayer at this point. I can't pull off empathy as well as I thought I could. Since that in good part depends on my abilities, I'm just ill advised to have a character do it unless there's a mechanical implementation.

Anyways, if I take her into 4th ed, it'll be an older wiser version (with a DnD adapted background). Most of these changes would fit with that anyways. She'll doubtless still surprise me.

[rowyn2001.livejournal.com]

I agree. Kaede's definitely been worked over a couple of times since he's played in the game. Characters in isolation rarely meet characters in reality. He's still aloof and generally detesting of the world enough to still be Kaede but you people and you NPCs have changed him.

[rowyn2001.livejournal.com]

Just found this one this morning.

Soap Box Sadie

Considering the discussion we had last night about the bossiness nature especially around the pacifism thing, I'm wondering if this fits too. Throwing it out there.

[grysar.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it probably fits. She doesn't pick up a lot of causes, but violence is pretty prominent.

[kagami.livejournal.com]

but the selection of Arcana men is incredibly lame

Ouch, man.

[grysar.livejournal.com]

I think the female selection is pretty good. There's a fair number of pretty sane, powerful, and interesting females non counting the major hitters. Off the top of my head: Akemi, Sumire, Soliel, and Eriko for the girls.

But for the guys? Haruko likes Ryuji and she legitimately blew it with him. She could deal with what's his name, the real Ace of Cups, Masaru(?), although he seems kinda a-sexual. Toshiki's actually a fine choice but Haruko's not into fighting. Takeo maybe but he hasn't really had much screen time and is now taken (which to be fair also reduces the female pool by a good contender). Matthias seems pretty dang asexual. Haruko also flirted with his rival gang leader, the dead one (Akito?), but he's, y'know, dead off screen and pretty unresponsive. So he's out. Shun is actually a workable choice. Ken's fine. And as you make pretty clear, Norishige was never really intended as a dating option.

I'm excluding non-Arcana for this as they're likely to just get killed.

So, Arcana men I'd count as in the dating pool;
Fairly straightforward: Ryuji, Takeo (mostly absent; girlfriend in a coma), Reiji (absent then crazy).
A-sexual: Matthias, Akito, Norishigi, Computer club president.
Niche: Ken, Toshiki, Masaru, Shika's brother.
Shallow end of the dating pool: Hirokazu.

So, Haruko legitimately blew it with Ryuji. That was definitely a good plot line and I appreciate it. She may actually have a go at Masaru come to think of it. Ken's swallowed up by the Katie love field, which is fine, but he's a bit too niche to be worth fighting for. The various a-sexual ones may actually be legit options, but I figure you have to unlock them first with a fair amount of work.

[grysar.livejournal.com]

Okay, so Eriko's not an Arcana, but still really cool. And add Shun to the niche list.

[kagami.livejournal.com]

Yeah, gotta unlock them first. You can't date them til you beat the game.

[grysar.livejournal.com]

Heh. That actually happens in Fallout 2. There's someone who tells you to buzz off until you save the world. You can actually come back afterwards and go on a date. :P

Although there's no new game+ version of Fallout 2. Somehow, I'm guessing Arcana isn't going to have a new game+ either despite my thinking about Haruko reboots. ^_~

[kagami.livejournal.com]

Maybe someday.

[kamalloy.livejournal.com]

Condsidering your feelings on running games, I'd advise you to think long and hard about that.

[kagami.livejournal.com]

I didn't say it'd be any time soon. Feelings change over time.

[kamalloy.livejournal.com]

It varies from person to person, but from my own experience, I find it hard to start making additional regularly-scheduled commitments once I have been free of them for a while.

[kamalloy.livejournal.com]

Your italics tags need closing. ^^;

I think I've told you the story of how when Moti mentioned one of his friends was going to be joining Arcana, I was kinda worried about how an "outsider" would mesh with the group. ^_~ (Although you might have written a SC part by then. I'm not sure.)

But yeah, the empathy didn't work out quite so well. I kinda remember a discussion with Ard about how the Arcana were gradually losing some of their cards' defining characteristics - Haruko's empathy being one of them. Still, that's partly a function of characters changing within the game.

No character ever turns out quite as planned. Satoshi and Chie, for example, started diverging from their initial concepts almost immediately. (Particularly Chie, who instantly hit it off with Rei, thus altering several aspects of her personality. However, she'd argue that I just read her wrong before I got to know her.) And while Arcana's always been a dark game, it's undergone quite a few significant increases in severity. (Darkness darkness darkness darkness!)

I think if I were reworking Satoshi, I'd tighten his powerset as well. He was my first RP character as well as my first BESM character, so a lot of his initial design was, "Hey, this sounds cool!" It led to problems later when I had CP but didn't have something to really focus it on.

As for his personality... he was supposed to be a lot more proactive, really. But part of it came from just being overwhelmed by his situation, and eventually, part of it came from the feeling that he'd fallen into a hole and I couldn't find a good way out of it. (And then I stopped caring altogether, which didn't help.) It's not quite Flanderization, but it was on its way there. He did still have his moments of snarky humor, though. I think every Arcana PC needs them.

I still like Haruko. I think she's a fun character, although I admit to laughing at her as well as laughing with her. I'm also curious about how a reworked version would go.

[grysar.livejournal.com]

Yup, divergence from initial concept isn't really a problem. I'd just prefer to avoid movement towards incompetent and annoying.

Anyways, she's still fun, but she definitely doesn't rise to cool or above supporting status.

What powers do you think you'd drop?

[kamalloy.livejournal.com]

Talked about this with you last night, but I figured I'd post a comment here as well so other folks can see.

Satoshi's powers fall into two distinct categories: physical and mental. They also seem to correspond to his two aspects: himself and Judgement.

Of the mental powers, I'd definitely keep the telepathy, and maybe try to play around with it a bit, like the communications hub idea we'd discussed. (Satoshi's brain is a telephone switchboard! ;p)

I'd also probably stick with the field sensing, as it's useful, although there are ways to get around it. I was a bit surprised that no one else had that ability, but you don't really need more than one person with field-sensing in the group.

The physical powers I'd definitely condense/trim. I'd keep the strength. It's a part of his character. But I'd drop some things, like the jumping. It doesn't serve that much of a purpose. Also, his fighting skills probably could have used some tweaking.

I think I waited too long to introduce some of his powers in-game. Some of the reveals were fun (like the telepathy) but I could have been using them in the meantime.

[ardweden.livejournal.com]

I want to know! How did Chie hitting it off with Rei alter her personality? I never got that story.

Snarky humor is the only way the Arcana PCs have survived thus far.

[kamalloy.livejournal.com]

My original vision of Chie had her as bitchier and more standoffish, and possibly a bit more defensive about her various strangenesses. But then Rei showed up and Chie couldn't help but take an instant liking to her, which caused her to open up a lot faster than I'd anticipated. I think the change in her theme song from "Beautiful Like You" to "Walk the Walk" (which you found for me) reflects that.

[rowyn2001.livejournal.com]

Hey, I was a total outsider to the group too. I never even visited #besm once before Arcana. Just knew Ard.

I realize this is Haruko's specific thread, but just sayin'...

[kamalloy.livejournal.com]

I think after having one new person join and be fairly successful after about a month or so of playing, I was less wary about other new people.

Besides, considering how things ended up, me being not so sure about this guy Moti was bringing in (though I had met him a couple times) is pretty funny. ^_~

[grysar.livejournal.com]

I forget if I've heard this story, but how did you know Ard?

[rowyn2001.livejournal.com]

It's the same story that made her my other self but basically we met each other on an online game called the Realm. There was a channel 0 that was the "Newbies" channel, but so many of us were eternal newbies because the General channel SUCKED with stuck-up jerks. I think by the end I was a level 520 Newbie (Second highest baldrick you could get was at level 500, highest was 1000).

From there, we just got to be good friends. Went onto the ICQ thing, and she's been there for me through a lot. Then she told me since I liked RPing and stuff and was looking for RP that a game was looking for a new character but I had to download mIRC to play it. I had no clue what it was and was skeptical but knew she was a good enough RPer to trust her judgement....

And the rest went from there. ^^

[kamalloy.livejournal.com]

And despite all the reasons she doesn't work, you're still happy to have her back, right?

[grysar.livejournal.com]

Yup. ^_^ I definitely enjoy Arcana much more when she's around.