Post by Yeligar Maelstrom on Sept 19, 2012 22:27:14 GMT -5
Michael Fri, also known as Mike, is one of the oldest Crepusculum Regnum RPers. He is a co-admin, player to famous characters, and an Arc Master. I sat down with him to have an interview with him.
Hello Michael, How are you doing today?
Michael: I am doing well thank you.
That's good to hear. So, Let gets to business. How did you get into Forum RP?
Michael: Got into forum rp from a friend, started at Justice for All, made a real big mess out of everything. But I learned from that and got better.
Alright, we all makes mistakes and learn from them. Now I have known you for a while, and you have been on a lot of RP forums. Is there a certain style or theme that you like for an RP forum?
Michael: I like mild description when I type, I don't like to be too heavy handed in detail but not too light as to starve the reader of it.
In terms of story I like character driven stories with twists
Speaking of characters, you have been on Crepusculum Regnum since the beginning since January of 2009, and since that time you have made a lot of characters for Crepusculum Regnum, Do you have a favorite character that you RP as?
Michael: I would definitely say Andy, I have been with him the longest and he is the most devolped. Though my second favorite is Tidus due to the friendship between him and Volkmar.
Ok, let’s talk about them. Andy first, what inspired you to make Andy Jammer, a character who is a cornerstone of CR?
Michael: Ichigo was the initial insperation, I moved him away from that now to be more of a simlar character type rather than Ichigo himself. Though I think in the beginning what was different was Andy was slightly more eager to battle than Ichigo was, I leaned on that part and used it to seperate him from Ichigo.
In the end though, what defined him is his relationship with Jasmine Loque
Jasmine Loque was in CR early like Andy. Was the relationship planned out early for the two, or was it something that came out later?
It's something that happened naturally, actually I can recall my thought process trying to avoid getting into a relatioship with Jasmine just because I didn't want to lock my character down so early. My fear and a common occurance I see in forums is the Quick Romance - or the Twilight Effect. Within oh....two or three threads a character is suddenly in a relationship with each other, with no real reason other than a few threads that were showing their romantic potential. I did not want that, I grew to despise the quick fix, it was unrealistic and lets face it: you get them together and...then what?
You have nothing left. No we kept the process slow, and natural, Jasmine's player Jess really caught onto what I was doing fast and we both played off it - using a romantic tension that was earnest and not overplayed. We let them develop, evolve, even get into arguments from time to time just because they got along together too well sometimes. We kept it natural all the way until the right time came.
Ok, Now let's talk about another hero you RP as. Tidus, you brought him from Final Fantasy X to Allorum. What was your reason behind that?
Michael: I had several reasons, I like the character personally, one of my favorite heroes from the Final Fantasy saga. I was also going through a particular phase at the time, a group of friends have this big other FF project going on and they did some things with Tidus that I did not approve of - kind of sucks watching your favorite character get pushed to a sideline. So I brought him in as a way to stick it to them - at the time anyway.
Like with Andy though, Tidus got developed through his friendship with Volkmar. Which is an exaggerated version of the real life friendship I have, it became a sort of not so cheesy buddy story for them.
Ok, so we have heard about some of your heroes, now let's talk about the darkside.
You have created some villains, and including a head villain for you arc, Dark side of the Moon Arc. Are there any of them that were your favorite?
Michael: The Shade was probably my favorite because I got to be dastardly, I got type casted for a long time in being a hero so I could finally show the people I could do a villain that was just as evil as anyone else. I played other villains before, Zelos went to good, the first incarnation of Everto was decent but nothing special about him. My other villains followed a certain line, some were evil, some were misunderstood. Shadesecond version of Everto was different from the rest of my villains.
Alright, let's talk about Shade/Everto. Why do you describe him a bit? Why did you make him so different that the first version of Everto?
Michael : The whole idea was to create a villain was a connection to the others, but disguise him so no one could guess who he was. If I did him with exactly Everto's first personality, people would have been guessing by the second thread. No I changed him up to throw people off, and it did work in fact most people thought it was Kain - no one suspected Everto till the reveal.
Interesting. I mentioned before about the Darkside of the Moon Arc, why don't you tell the readers more about the arc?
Michael : The arc originally started off as a story about Volkmar, which was intended to be his story but I got...encouraged to move away from that and either make the story to fit everyone or make an original character. I chose the latter, Eli Ventus. The choice to have this connect to the Saints Arc was my own choice, I was hoping some of he mysterious charm of that arc would rub off on it and it seemed to work. I decided to involve villains who wanted to rebuild their lost race, it was misguided, but a reason for them to take on everyone.
Yes, very interesting. Now what made you interesting in making an arc for CR?
Michael: I was inspired enough, and never really made a story for the site before, the main writers have been Volk and Mark got to step in for an arc that blew everyone's minds. I wanted to play a more active story based role than just playing the characters.
Ah yes. Now for the future,do you have many plans for your character for future arcs, or possible a second arc?
Michael: It's very funny, because right after I did the arc I kind of got 'contracted' to help with two more arcs. Mark was impressed enough with what I did that he wanted me to be the second guy running the arc with him, so I am now co-writer of his upcoming sequel arc.
I also got to be second running man for another arc which I cannot name at this time, I get to do it with my best friend though and it's a perfect dynamic. We each have a strength that balances the other so when that arc comes around it should show nothing but our best.
Alright, that sounds good. Thank you and you have a good day.
Michael :You as well.
Hello Michael, How are you doing today?
Michael: I am doing well thank you.
That's good to hear. So, Let gets to business. How did you get into Forum RP?
Michael: Got into forum rp from a friend, started at Justice for All, made a real big mess out of everything. But I learned from that and got better.
Alright, we all makes mistakes and learn from them. Now I have known you for a while, and you have been on a lot of RP forums. Is there a certain style or theme that you like for an RP forum?
Michael: I like mild description when I type, I don't like to be too heavy handed in detail but not too light as to starve the reader of it.
In terms of story I like character driven stories with twists
Speaking of characters, you have been on Crepusculum Regnum since the beginning since January of 2009, and since that time you have made a lot of characters for Crepusculum Regnum, Do you have a favorite character that you RP as?
Michael: I would definitely say Andy, I have been with him the longest and he is the most devolped. Though my second favorite is Tidus due to the friendship between him and Volkmar.
Ok, let’s talk about them. Andy first, what inspired you to make Andy Jammer, a character who is a cornerstone of CR?
Michael: Ichigo was the initial insperation, I moved him away from that now to be more of a simlar character type rather than Ichigo himself. Though I think in the beginning what was different was Andy was slightly more eager to battle than Ichigo was, I leaned on that part and used it to seperate him from Ichigo.
In the end though, what defined him is his relationship with Jasmine Loque
Jasmine Loque was in CR early like Andy. Was the relationship planned out early for the two, or was it something that came out later?
It's something that happened naturally, actually I can recall my thought process trying to avoid getting into a relatioship with Jasmine just because I didn't want to lock my character down so early. My fear and a common occurance I see in forums is the Quick Romance - or the Twilight Effect. Within oh....two or three threads a character is suddenly in a relationship with each other, with no real reason other than a few threads that were showing their romantic potential. I did not want that, I grew to despise the quick fix, it was unrealistic and lets face it: you get them together and...then what?
You have nothing left. No we kept the process slow, and natural, Jasmine's player Jess really caught onto what I was doing fast and we both played off it - using a romantic tension that was earnest and not overplayed. We let them develop, evolve, even get into arguments from time to time just because they got along together too well sometimes. We kept it natural all the way until the right time came.
Ok, Now let's talk about another hero you RP as. Tidus, you brought him from Final Fantasy X to Allorum. What was your reason behind that?
Michael: I had several reasons, I like the character personally, one of my favorite heroes from the Final Fantasy saga. I was also going through a particular phase at the time, a group of friends have this big other FF project going on and they did some things with Tidus that I did not approve of - kind of sucks watching your favorite character get pushed to a sideline. So I brought him in as a way to stick it to them - at the time anyway.
Like with Andy though, Tidus got developed through his friendship with Volkmar. Which is an exaggerated version of the real life friendship I have, it became a sort of not so cheesy buddy story for them.
Ok, so we have heard about some of your heroes, now let's talk about the darkside.
You have created some villains, and including a head villain for you arc, Dark side of the Moon Arc. Are there any of them that were your favorite?
Michael: The Shade was probably my favorite because I got to be dastardly, I got type casted for a long time in being a hero so I could finally show the people I could do a villain that was just as evil as anyone else. I played other villains before, Zelos went to good, the first incarnation of Everto was decent but nothing special about him. My other villains followed a certain line, some were evil, some were misunderstood. Shadesecond version of Everto was different from the rest of my villains.
Alright, let's talk about Shade/Everto. Why do you describe him a bit? Why did you make him so different that the first version of Everto?
Michael : The whole idea was to create a villain was a connection to the others, but disguise him so no one could guess who he was. If I did him with exactly Everto's first personality, people would have been guessing by the second thread. No I changed him up to throw people off, and it did work in fact most people thought it was Kain - no one suspected Everto till the reveal.
Interesting. I mentioned before about the Darkside of the Moon Arc, why don't you tell the readers more about the arc?
Michael : The arc originally started off as a story about Volkmar, which was intended to be his story but I got...encouraged to move away from that and either make the story to fit everyone or make an original character. I chose the latter, Eli Ventus. The choice to have this connect to the Saints Arc was my own choice, I was hoping some of he mysterious charm of that arc would rub off on it and it seemed to work. I decided to involve villains who wanted to rebuild their lost race, it was misguided, but a reason for them to take on everyone.
Yes, very interesting. Now what made you interesting in making an arc for CR?
Michael: I was inspired enough, and never really made a story for the site before, the main writers have been Volk and Mark got to step in for an arc that blew everyone's minds. I wanted to play a more active story based role than just playing the characters.
Ah yes. Now for the future,do you have many plans for your character for future arcs, or possible a second arc?
Michael: It's very funny, because right after I did the arc I kind of got 'contracted' to help with two more arcs. Mark was impressed enough with what I did that he wanted me to be the second guy running the arc with him, so I am now co-writer of his upcoming sequel arc.
I also got to be second running man for another arc which I cannot name at this time, I get to do it with my best friend though and it's a perfect dynamic. We each have a strength that balances the other so when that arc comes around it should show nothing but our best.
Alright, that sounds good. Thank you and you have a good day.
Michael :You as well.
