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[Ayallah]

Hello space friends, I would like to know more about how my character is seen and interpreted in new Eden.

http://backstage.eve-inspiracy.com/index.php?topic=4869.0 is her 'bio' page for some background. 

Ayallah is a character who is currently between two opposing points, she is very hard to get down as to where exactly her loyalties lie and up to this point this has been intentional.  Her main conflict for the last 2.5 years has been her loyalties to god, empire, her people, the tribes etc.

From this point on, it will not be.  Ayallah has always been closet-loyal to the faith but obviously has questionable and possibly heretical permutations she picked up in the years since the Minmatar picked her up on Mekhios.  They tortured her, tried to break her.  She persevered and kept her faith if it was warped beyond recognition still has yet to be fully explored IC. Her vocal support of Shakor and the Tribal government has always been contrasted with how she is herself an outsider, she has been unable to fit in with the Matari or see eye to eye with almost any of them.   Her insane pursuit of god has  been hidden behind a wall she does not talk about. 

I keep Ayallah's story in my mind all the time, I know just where the woman and Kameira are, how everything effects her actions and I know her backstory.  But no one else does, and it is time to change that.  Time to move her forward.

I keep these things behind the scenes but if needed to, in this thread I will answer all concerns and questions.  This is a chance for you to voice them and have me give you honest OOC answers to IC questions that she has notoriously never told a straight answer to.

I know that a lot of the contention not dealing with the character specifically is instead in the plausibility of her background.  Please feel free to bring up any of those concerns, playing realistically and in accordance with PF is very important to me!

Overall this is an effort to move the character forward.  To that end, I am going to give a long-winded bit of background so you can understand how she has developed so far:

I started Ayallah having no intention to RP at all, I didn't even know RP was a thing! I used to trade out reapers for imperators and my first losses in combat are to sansha rats with a coercer.  I saved up all my isk to buy a maller and dreamed of one day buying a harbinger.  I saved every mineral I owned to make an abaddon (never got enough).  I picked the coolest looking ships and I loved them.  This was before I was pointed to the summit. at my brother's suggestion, after my frustration with eve in the small mining corp he ran.

He suggested also that I join FW.  A veteran of the sansha live events and a old player he pointed me to the summit as the best way to join a FW corporation. (he told stories of the days of PIE and UK).  I RP'd some in the summit then, mostly I got ignored until I joined Pyre.  There in contact with veteran RPers and now understanding that no, not all of FW is RP and that there is a very distinct art to portraying characters.  It was at this time I started to like the idea of a slave bred only for fighting, my reasoning was very shakey but when I mentioned it to those Pyre people all that time ago they said 'oh like a kamiera?' I found the chron and the in-game item.  I loved Amarr ships and it turned out eve online already had exactly what I was looking for and had given it a name even!

That is how Ayallah was born. 

I gave into pressure from the then active minmatar RP group and did the crazy thing, letting my RP take me where it would I was soon all alone in TLF.  I tried to make Ayallah a Amarr loyalist several times but ofc PIE wanted nothing to do with her.  At the time she was nothing but a violent and confused woman and was not speaking like an Amarrian should.  They played their part perfectly, Pyre played their part perfectly and Ava played her part perfectly.  At the time didn't understand why, it meant that her character could no longer develop, I felt stonewalled. I left TLF very soon after joining, I was trying to solo pvp with minmatar frigate 3 and meta guns, no support skills.  I was trying to RP a very difficult character with almost no knowledge of prime fiction.  I burned out quickly and went to nullsec to taste some of eve war. 

Those who RP'd with me back then will remember a lot of conflict, IC and OOC arguments about whether or not I could/should/even was; ...Kameira.  IC and OOC conflicts stemming from my personality (I am a very blunt and aggressive person).  I almost quit RP more times than I can remember back then.  I am not a person to back down though and I certainly gave as good as I got.  I went overboard more than a few times IC and OOC in these arguments but could never understand why I was unwelcome from the get go.  I got meaner and so did Ayallah, I defended my character until I was bitter beyond my years.  I argued IC until eventually people stopped trying to tell her she wasn't a kameira.  I never understood why.

I got daily flak for being a flip flopper, it never made sense to me, I was just a new player trying to find my place in eve.  It made no sense to my character, she was just pursuing bigger and better now that she had her freedom., seems like everyone wanted me to quit Rping.  And I just could not figure out why.

But I got it eventually,  Dame death hung over my RP like a shadow and I wouldn't ever be free of that comparison.  As soon as he came back to the game it was like a light bulb of why everyone treated my how they did.  It was much easier for me after I saw dame for myself to be a better RPer both IC and OOC.  Slowly, my improvements started to do their work and my overall RP quality improved drastically.  Now Ayallah is something of her own I think, people know me.  And either from long arguments taking away people's taste for the subject or fear I will back up my claims in space, the protests have finally stopped.  I finally feel like I am finally free to play my character how I choose.

Knowing how people saw me helped me change what I was doing, to be the player and character I wanted to be.

This is where Ayallah's character development has been paused for almost two and a half years now.  She still is a demon in her own right, but not an animal who no one wants to play with.  She is still a Kameira, she plays things very quiet now though ...experience has taught her to not talk about herself or her past.  She knows quite a bit about the republic (reflection of my IRL lore digestion), She is very well versed on how it works.  But she still has no voluval and still isn't welcome in the republic.  She has always followed Jamyl but was content with keeping the religion to herself and doing what she wanted.  She has been openly supportive both of Tribal government and against slavery while still defending the Amarr faith and her idol Jamyl.  She lives in the contradiction, saying almost nothing about herself when she speaks about either.  All of this stems from the response I got initially, Ayallah wasn't going to be tied to anything anymore.  My gameplay was better, Ayallah was easier to play but she still was in 'phase 2' of my character development plan.  Two and a half years after I had planned to move her forward.

Until the death of Jamyl.

Now I am as certain of my character as I ever have been, I have not retconned or changed anything about her backstory still, but a lot of it remains still completely unexplored.  The whole mountain of her character development is in front of her and I have been stuck in a three foot hole for two years right in front of it.  She still sits on that fence, the Amarrians and Minmatar both wondering on which side she really is.  Her still going right for the throat of anyone who suggests a single thing about her she doesn't want spoken.

Please tell me what your characters think of Ayallah, tell me what your impression of her backstory as you/your character knows it.  Tell me what I can do better to RP a Kameira and RP better.  I aim for realism within the eve universe and trying to play something deep and high-quality.  I am interested in if who she is comes across in how I portray her.  Both IC and OOC.  Critical responses are welcome, I am looking to improve both as a RPer and actor and also looking to improve Ayallah, make who she is more clear.  I know this is a bag of worms to open but do not worry about hurting my feelings!  I know I have been a massive asshole IRL before I know that Ayallah can be a bitch.  If you feel that is the main failings of the character or my portrayal go ahead and let me know.  Again, I not going have hurt feelings or lash out cause you thought the biggest block in RPing with Aya was me IRL or something.  I want the truth.

I do promise that I am going to read all your feedback and try my very best to better portray Ayallah and facilitate good RP.  There is feedback in the character thread as well and it is welcome there also, but please keep it more about how I can improve her background in that thread.  This one is more about how I can improve how she talks, walks and acts.  Also please let me know if she has improved or worsened in the 3 years or so I have been playing her and how, I want to know if I am going in the right direction.  I want to play her like she and new eden are real and I want to everyone to feel that same way as well. 

So begins the long planned 'phase 3,' my Nyx is packed and ready.  ..But I need a compass to see how far off course I may have come, to see just who Ayallah is through everyone else's eyes.  hopefully you guys can be that compass.  Good bad and ugly I love every single RPer and what they add to the tapestry of new eden, even the napulius and diana kims.  I love just how much of my gameplay, my character has developed from the influence of others.  I wouldn't change a single thing about everything we have all gone through together.  Just look at where we are now!


I have a real live kameira and her name is Ayallah, ...what do you think of her?

[Havohej]

[admin]Increased size of text in quote blocks across the forum via css in order to make easier to read.  Never noticed how small the text inside a quote was since quotes boxes are usually brief snippets.  Leaving quotes-within-quotes smaller to help differentiate nested quotes.[/admin]

OOC, I like Ayallah.  I think we chatted briefly about this a few weeks ago, when I was saying how I can see the changes in the approach and the character feels less 1-dimensional recently (by recently I mean like, the last 2 years or so, not like this just happened).  A part of my perception of her as 1-d before had to do with what came out of your feeling embattled OOC, it effected your approach both IC and OOC - naturally.  The other part of it was just from being on complete opposite ends of New Eden both physically and politically ICly, which means I just didn't directly interact with the character very much, and I hate The Summit so I rarely saw/spoke to Ayallah there, either.  If you recall, I also told you at some other time how I thought you had some OOC think against me, for a long time.  Understanding better how you came into the RP scene, I think that we probably just spoke for the first time in OOC channel right after you got done arguing with someone or someones about stuff and we got off on the wrong OOC foot.  Which is unfortunate.

I say it's unfortunate because Ayallah is, based on what I've seen revealed of her backstory, and I admit that I have not read the bio in full yet but I've done more than skim it, she is so much like Havohej.  I look at her and I think, "What if I'd played Havo as being religious from the beginning instead of trying to figure metaphysical shit out later."

IC, Havo sees her as the same kind of monster he is, in a more specific way than he'd say that about all capsuleers.  He sees her hardness and ruthlessness, and he believes that she holds onto religion as a way to try and temper that ruthlessness, a way to outline for herself what is or isn't "acceptable", to hold herself back from the brink of being just like him.  Think of Tony Montana in Scarface, Havo sees Ayallah at a restaurant and being drunk and weary he goes on a rant:

What you lookin' at? You all a bunch of fuckin' assholes. You know why? You don't have the guts to be what you wanna be? You need people like me. You need people like me so you can point your fuckin' fingers and say, "That's the bad guy." So... what that make you? Good? You're not good. You just know how to hide, how to lie. Me, I don't have that problem. Me, I always tell the truth. Even when I lie. So say good night to the bad guy! Come on. The last time you gonna see a bad guy like this again, let me tell you. Come on. Make way for the bad guy. There's a bad guy comin' through! Better get outta his way!

OOC, I think Ayallah's out of her mind, but I think she knows it enough to avoid actually being anywhere near as despicable as a Havohej or a Nauplius.  It is difficult to see whether you intend for the character to be heroic or villainous, but you seem to lean more toward heroic of thought and speech but villainous of action.  Whenever I've seen the topic come up, whether I'm participating or not (usually not), of NPC crew on ships, Ayallah weighs in to the effect of "You don't care at all that you killed thousands of people with that ship?  You horrible s.o.b.!"  but there always seems to be an undercurrent of guilt.  If that's an accurate perception, then the question is whether that guilt is about her own killing, or if that guilt is about not being guilty about her own killing when her faith tells her that she should.

That's how I perceive a character that I don't interact with nearly as much as I'd like to.  Perhaps Charlinda Akheteru will offer those avenues, but Havohej and Ayallah's immediately hostile interactions are nice too <3

[Pieter Tuulinen]

Pieter was a recruiter when he met Ayallah. Pyre was by Caldari and for Caldari at the time and there was still an attempt to be purist when it came to customs within the Corp. When you joined Pyre you were joining a Caldari Corp and expected to try and fit in a little.

Ayallah did.

Pieter saw a warrior but he thought that her sharp edge was also brittle and that she was likely to break herself if she insisted on staying as she was. Nonetheless she grew into a reasonably proficient pilot by Pyre standards and he wasn't surprised by her decision to move on when it came - even if he wouldn't agree with her opinion that she'd learned all there was to learn in FW.

To a greater extent that ended his day-to-day involvement with her. He understood her attempt to conform - very similar to his own upbringing although she wasn't as successful at it as he was - but with a Caldari cop's nose for non-conformity he was grimly sure she would never succeed in her quest to be accepted on the Tribe's terms. Still, there is something strong at the core of her that he respects and he has somewhat fond memories of the time they spent as kirjuun - as he tends to with most of Pyre's ex-members that left on good terms.

On the last few times he met with her, he felt that she was no longer attempting to squish all her experiences and opinions into the mould of a perfect Brutor Tribeswoman, that maybe she had found something out on the periphery of space that was 'her' and was becoming more comfortable within herself. He noticed her public statements speaking out in favour of the Amarrian god more often but was still surprised to see her helping officiate in the recently broadcast baptism event.

He's still not sure she identifies strictly as Amarrian, just that she seems to be taking her Faith seriously these days.

[The Scythian]

I

I think the feedback I gave you is that you seem to be a character with two feet planted firmly on two boats (Amarr and Matari). I think the word 'caricature' has a bad connotation, but a memorable character should strive to be a caricature in some respects. Attempting the total pragmatic route also tends to wash away character.

• they should be inflexible, in certain regards.
• they should have some irrational fears
• biases, prejudices, etc.

As a Kameira, maybe Ayallah should inherently be "bad" at interacting with other Matari. Maybe there are Matari who understand her limitations, or hate her for what she is.

If she is discovering her Faith, then she should stumble in some respects. She is a Kameira. She should not be easily swayed, or conquered (the Reclaiming is a spiritual conquering, after all).

II

She is a warrior. It breaks my immersion to see her engage in small talk, or taking subservient poses. Her conversation should always be on her terms.. polishing a weapon, or fitting her personal pistol, or nursing her scars, regaling her victories, and so on.

It's very easy to paint yourself into a corner this way (like Diana Kim), and I'm not sure I would recommend that, but Aya could stand to do a better job "emanating" the Kameira spirit in her interactions.

~~~

I'll disclaimer this whole thing by saying that these are just my opinions, and I don't believe I know a whole lot about RP that people like Pieter and Samira do.. so take what I say with a grain of salt.

♥

[Calliste Dauvienne]

From a character perspective, Ayallah was probably one of the few characters Veikitamo reserved little contempt for (She was still Minmatar and thus still seen as generally racially and culturally inferior) because she didn't engage in what was considered by her as prosaic propaganda or the usual drama slap-fighting. Veikitamo would only ever really respect people who she saw as having her own qualities: aggression, arrogance, determination, and displayed martial skill engaged with on a deeply intimate, personal level -- a love and joy for combat itself.

Then again Veik was always a high-functioning corporate psychopath who was bred and indoctrinated to just kill everyone in a room and then go home to have beers and a bag of chips, so take that with a grain of salt I guess.

As a player, I've always felt Ayallah as a pretty cool character with a lot of internal complexity under the surface. I think at core I've always thought of her struggling not only with her own personal identity and faith having been a Kameiras; but also as someone who seeks some kind of connection with other people but also finds it difficult because she keeps her walls up at all times in a sense.