05-16-2016, 06:36 PM
I'm actually kinda surprised I haven't done something for this thread yet. Now I shall!
Ballad was something I've had cooked up in my head for well over a few years. Since I was, like, eight or something. I had first gotten my taste of what I would assume at that age to be "mature" media, aka Inuyasha. Naturally, my eight year old couldn't quite get what was going on, just that the blood and monster fights were the coolest thing ever.
Eventually, however, something happened during one episode. Something so undeniably mature and unusual and foreign to my little child mind that it has left a permanent scar on my view on anime ever since. I will not spoil it, but I think, at that moment, my mind needed a way to cope with it. A way to "remove" this pesky plot point and rid myself of this unusual maturity. This, I believe, is how Ballad was first made: My self-insert into whatever fictional verse I was interested in; my tool to remove these "plot points," and for a way to shine light and praise onto him. In a sense, he kinda WAS me for a long while, and I wouldn't be surprised if a part of me is still in him. Never quite got away, did he?
Ballad never stayed the same throughout my childhood and into teenage hood. Hell, I was STILL working through all the details of him during my first foray into this site, only stopping with The Gunsmith's Gamble thread where I solidified his character to the point where there is no other version out there that I think is "right." But before all of that, he had changed a lot. He was an anti-hero just like this Inuyasha, about as much of a jerk, but wielded a sniper rifle in a totally anachronistic manner. Then I turned "Ballad" into a four man team, none of whom had developed personalities and were named after various video game characters before he finally became a loner again. His appearance also changed for the most part, with regular looking eyes, feathers on his back and sticking up on his head, and the complete lack of winter clothing.
Naturally, all that changed when I found this site. I figured, since this was a site I could use for OCs, I could finally create the character I always wanted to make! So I did.
Granted, though, making a Gary Stu Self Insert into a fully functional character with his own flaws, ambitions, backstory, and personality wasn't the easiest thing in the world. I resorted to just basing his overall personality on that of Ross Scott's Gordon Freeman ala Freeman's Mind (I even have him quote a line from it in his Camelot Portal thread.) I also thought it would have been fun to play the world's biggest asshole (it still is,) mostly because of Ross Scott's Gordon Freeman as well. He really wasn't much more than that: an asshole with a gun.
His rage thing was something I hadn't thought about until after Ballad lost the Tournament, in which I was standing there, soaking in the criticism that I had received, and trying to think about how I would apply it to my writing. I had then settled on him completely hulking out and trying to escape, which set the course for the road for what I would call the "Definitive Ballad" you would see in the Gunsmith's Gamble.
Fast Forward, and during this time, I was rather enjoying the site. It was fun to write and talk with friends, and I think I had gotten into a Mock Fight as Ballad during this time. Regardless, I was thinking about what to have Ballad do next, since Adam Gaite had not taken the bait for him to all into Ballad's trap.
That's how I came up with The Gunsmith's Gamble, my personal Magnum Opus here on this site.
So that's what I did. I concocted a story for Ballad, turned it into a thread, and the rest is history.
Some other stuff around Ballad is as follows. I also originally created Ballad as a way to comment on my viewpoints on religious extremism, which eventually turned to extremism in general. I also wanted to bring up a few points about the nature of guns and their usage. In a sense, he still does have a part of me in him.
-------------------------------------
Sans was more or less someone I had wanted to play as as soon as I had gotten my hands on Undertale. The dude is just so good of a character that it was impossible to turn him down.
Really, the only thing about Sans that had me stuck in a rut was what to do with him. I had originally thought I would put him towards a similar path as Ballad did (homicidal maniac, ya know?) I was actually on the second post of that overall plot when I had him meet up with Raal and Alice, which is a good thing, because what I was planning on, in hindsight, would have been SEVERELY Out of Character regardless of what reasons I came up with. Since then, I've gotten a firmer grasp on his character, so I think I know better than to try something like that again.
Ballad was something I've had cooked up in my head for well over a few years. Since I was, like, eight or something. I had first gotten my taste of what I would assume at that age to be "mature" media, aka Inuyasha. Naturally, my eight year old couldn't quite get what was going on, just that the blood and monster fights were the coolest thing ever.
Eventually, however, something happened during one episode. Something so undeniably mature and unusual and foreign to my little child mind that it has left a permanent scar on my view on anime ever since. I will not spoil it, but I think, at that moment, my mind needed a way to cope with it. A way to "remove" this pesky plot point and rid myself of this unusual maturity. This, I believe, is how Ballad was first made: My self-insert into whatever fictional verse I was interested in; my tool to remove these "plot points," and for a way to shine light and praise onto him. In a sense, he kinda WAS me for a long while, and I wouldn't be surprised if a part of me is still in him. Never quite got away, did he?
Ballad never stayed the same throughout my childhood and into teenage hood. Hell, I was STILL working through all the details of him during my first foray into this site, only stopping with The Gunsmith's Gamble thread where I solidified his character to the point where there is no other version out there that I think is "right." But before all of that, he had changed a lot. He was an anti-hero just like this Inuyasha, about as much of a jerk, but wielded a sniper rifle in a totally anachronistic manner. Then I turned "Ballad" into a four man team, none of whom had developed personalities and were named after various video game characters before he finally became a loner again. His appearance also changed for the most part, with regular looking eyes, feathers on his back and sticking up on his head, and the complete lack of winter clothing.
Naturally, all that changed when I found this site. I figured, since this was a site I could use for OCs, I could finally create the character I always wanted to make! So I did.
Granted, though, making a Gary Stu Self Insert into a fully functional character with his own flaws, ambitions, backstory, and personality wasn't the easiest thing in the world. I resorted to just basing his overall personality on that of Ross Scott's Gordon Freeman ala Freeman's Mind (I even have him quote a line from it in his Camelot Portal thread.) I also thought it would have been fun to play the world's biggest asshole (it still is,) mostly because of Ross Scott's Gordon Freeman as well. He really wasn't much more than that: an asshole with a gun.
His rage thing was something I hadn't thought about until after Ballad lost the Tournament, in which I was standing there, soaking in the criticism that I had received, and trying to think about how I would apply it to my writing. I had then settled on him completely hulking out and trying to escape, which set the course for the road for what I would call the "Definitive Ballad" you would see in the Gunsmith's Gamble.
Fast Forward, and during this time, I was rather enjoying the site. It was fun to write and talk with friends, and I think I had gotten into a Mock Fight as Ballad during this time. Regardless, I was thinking about what to have Ballad do next, since Adam Gaite had not taken the bait for him to all into Ballad's trap.
That's how I came up with The Gunsmith's Gamble, my personal Magnum Opus here on this site.
So that's what I did. I concocted a story for Ballad, turned it into a thread, and the rest is history.
Some other stuff around Ballad is as follows. I also originally created Ballad as a way to comment on my viewpoints on religious extremism, which eventually turned to extremism in general. I also wanted to bring up a few points about the nature of guns and their usage. In a sense, he still does have a part of me in him.
-------------------------------------
Sans was more or less someone I had wanted to play as as soon as I had gotten my hands on Undertale. The dude is just so good of a character that it was impossible to turn him down.
Really, the only thing about Sans that had me stuck in a rut was what to do with him. I had originally thought I would put him towards a similar path as Ballad did (homicidal maniac, ya know?) I was actually on the second post of that overall plot when I had him meet up with Raal and Alice, which is a good thing, because what I was planning on, in hindsight, would have been SEVERELY Out of Character regardless of what reasons I came up with. Since then, I've gotten a firmer grasp on his character, so I think I know better than to try something like that again.
![[Image: sanssig.png]](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/369919416432984079/371386052931485708/sanssig.png)
i may be all alone
but i'm here to tell ya honey
that i'm bad to the bone
B-B-B-Bad to the bone
New to the Omniverse? Need a question answered? Want a C&C of your work? Send a PM to me and I will assist you in any way I can!