poker_face | Meme

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Gosh, I'm behind on memories and skills... But I kind of want to ramble a bit about Judith. Fair warning, I suck at character essays, but I'm going to try!

Now, I had a sort of approach that I decided I wanted to take with Judith when I first got her, and that was a very blank slate approach. It's why I chose the memory for her I did-- because it had both sides of her in it, and that is the side that honestly enjoys people and their company, and the side that is a lying liar who lies about lying. Judith's development in Aather, with the memories that she got back at first, very heavily favored her towards her latter side.

Which was interesting, because Judith purported to be very proud of Sapphire! And the weird part is, she is proud of Sapphire. She really, honestly, wouldn't want to be on any other team. But there are times, including now, where she wishes she was given the option to not be on a team without being a knight. Judith, for the most part, dislikes the games on principle, though she never really expresses that.

And then there is the problem that when Excel first started attacking her for Judith's preference in dress, that kind of put a wedge between her and Sapphire at large? She doesn't like being restricted in any way, and this kind of drove home for her that Sapphire is a sort of restriction. One she ignores sometimes, and one she loves at other times. But that put that into her mind, and it's around then that she stopped making quite as exerted an effort to get to know her team? :'D WHICH WAS A HORRIBLE IDEA.

Because the only person who bridged that gap for her was Mal. And she really liked Mal, enough so that she was willing to forget the restrictions that Aather placed on them, and was willing to try a situation she really was having a hard time dealing with, due to her... love-hate relationship with Mitchell. And. yes.

Then Mal left, and she had a pretty. Eventful talk with Jaina, especially after the Twins' wager, where she and Mitchell slept together, which she now views as a mistake. Funny enough, though, the idea that it was a mistake is only really recent? Well. I should say, if not for her talk with Jaina, where she got the impression that pretty much the entire blame for what happened was being placed on her. And Jaina revealed some pretty nasty thoughts she had about Judith's personality. So, it was after that it became an active mistake, versus a thing that happened that was kind of fun but she wouldn't do it again.

WHICH PUTS HER IN HER CURRENT MINDFRAME. Poker face, poker face, poker face. Judith was legitimately bothered by the things Jaina said, which were pretty damn similar to the things Excel would say. And so now she feels a wedge between her and Aather. Which leads to extremely distant conversations, and a slight inability to deal because of her memories, where she knows she has the tools to cope with these things, but she doesn't know where she got them. And even as she distances herself, she can't help but feel awful and helpless. And that bugs her as much as her own wounds to her pride.

Basically, Judith is not in a good place right now. :|a And isn't really telling anyone about every part of it.

So, I will finish this off with a Question Meme! Since I haven't done one in 2 months on the dot.

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I want a relationship! And particularly what Judith thought of that last thread. :'D

OH GOSH, Judith loves Raven. She is kind of aware that he's not dealing well, but she doesn't know how to get through to him? So she wants to ask Raven what's wrong, but that leads to the potential of Raven turning around and asking her what's wrong, and she knows that would shut down the entire discussion. BUT SHE WORRIES ABOUT HIM, and it's not really helped by her current frame of mine.

I am not sure if the guild had been as fully formed when I last did this, but she is pretty damn grateful for Raven for giving her that option. Because it's something she can choose, aside from being forced into. So, she considers him close-- and she honestly understands the fondness she has of him in her memories. It just differs slightly than canon, because he is sort of the leader? Even though she doesn't actively view him as the leader of the guild, at least not like she views Yuri as the leader of the party. And she's fairly certain Raven wouldn't appreciate being made the leader, even though the guild was his idea.

She also is quietly amused by Yuri and Raven. Which is also something she won't ever say out loud, just occasionally imply.

AS FOR LAST THREAD, She honestly was, for a moment, "What do I do?" She wasn't expecting that, and it wasn't something she thought she would hear so... earnestly? from Raven. And because she's still stinging from Mal leaving, she wasn't really able to approach it like she normally would. She couldn't bring herself to play along that much, and instead focused on changing the conversation and getting him some water. She probably won't bring it up directly with him again-- as she assumes it wasn't, you know, honesty, versus Raven's coping mechanisms gone to extremes under the influence of alcohol. And because she herself isn't able to deal well right now either.

SO, REVERSE!

sob why don't we have any of the Vesperia party that doesn't suck at feelings.

Regardless RAVEN LOVES JUDITH. She is really important to him, and remains a comforting presence to have around when she's there. But he still sort of assumes that she... has her own stuff going on that he's not part of, and that she has more or less under control. BECAUSE SHE'S AN IMPRESSIVE LADY and that his his default assumption, and she hasn't done anything exceptionally dumb like get her eyes ripped out, cough Yuri cough.

He really, really appreciates having her in the guild, too. There is no way in hell he would have tried to set up something like it on her own, so he is grateful to have her around, even if it just means being able to say "go talk to Judith about it" instead of making hard decisions. |D

IN THAT THREAD HE WAS REALLY... okay a lot of it was coping mechanism. For the whole game he was pretty much reacting to all his feelings for Yuri for the past day by going GOD YURI IS NOT STANDING AROUND OBSESSED WITH ONLY ME, I WILL GO FLIRT WITH ALL THE WOMEN, IT WILL BE COOL. But also... it is not like that is completely shallow, he cares a lot about most of the women he was flirting with, and of course Judith isn't an exception! He does love Judith, and of course thinks she's really attractive. And he does genuinely want to see Judith happy. And in normal circumstances he wouldn't think that him making out with her would have that effect, but fortunately the alcohol was helping with that. :'D

DO YOU HAVE ANY GUILD THINGS YOU WANT TO DO, Raven has been slacking on it, which is fortunate because I have been OOCly slacking on it as well.

I THINK WE SHOULD HAVE ANOTHER MEETING. So everyone could get involved, and decide how the guild operates, say, during games or times of crisis. Might be relevant for the next few weeks.

What is Raven's love life looking like overall right now?

LIKE A MESS. LIKE IT USUALLY DOES. APPARENTLY.

He still has a thing for Misato! And she loves him too but has decided that since she's dead she shouldn't be with anyone because it won't last, or something like that. /o\ So currently they are just friends.

He made out with Spitfire more or less voluntarily as a casual friendly thing, but hated himself enough for it that I think he's not letting it happen again at least until he feels like he knows Spitfire a little better? IDK.

He still owes Inara a date but probably that's thoroughly platonic at this point. :|a

I don't... know what's going on with Beatrice?? But that's definitely a thing. Of some kind. He offered to let her hurt him if she wanted to the other day! And just in general he flirts with her a lot, and she is probably actually the person he's had the most fun with lately? And somehow they actually talk about stuff too.

AND OF COURSE HE'S HAVING SEX WITH YURI. They haven't actually worked out anything like all of their issues. But it's possible they are... chipping at them? Slowly? At the moment it might still be a pretty questionable decision though because he keeps having emotional crises every time they thread.

How did Judith get attached to Mal? I did not stalk much of their early threads.

Oh gosh. She became fond of Mal through trolling him, constantly. Which she only really started doing after Narcissus' prettiest person poll. And Mal got drunk later, admitted to Mau that he thought Judith was one of the hottest people in Aather, and Mau told Judith. Who, in turn, just started trolling Mal as much as possible. Because before that, she really didn't honestly troll people much with her looks.

And the trolling got a little less trolling and a little more flirting as time went on, because they had so much interaction together. But finally, Judith got her memory of the war and just-- left Sapphire? And Mal followed. And then let her beat the crap out of him, before he pulled her into a hug. Which was kind of exactly what she needed at that point.

And so she kissed him, and the rest kind of flowed from there.

Does Raven have any goals in Aather?

Relationshipppp?

GOSH, LLOYD, YOU ARE LIKE. One of her favorite knights right now. Judy loev Lloyd, and the last game only further cemented it for her. Because she really did like him as a kid, and she's glad to see that he really hasn't changed. And that's something that really set her at ease, without her ever having to really acknowledge that she wasn't at ease? Which means a lot to her right now, because she's determined to pretend that wedge I mentioned doesn't exist until she figures out what to do about it. And then, you know, just their past interactions.

She has seen Lloyd in a ton of different scenarios, and she is honestly pretty weak to Tales of Protag-jesus powers, so she feels at ease with him in a lot of different contexts. I mean, she'd drink with him. She'd kiss him for a quest (hell, he may even be one of her top choices for something like that), and she would definitely feel comfortable joking with him, without her usual reservations. So, this is a lot! She trusts him, and if he said that something needed to be done, she'd probably agree on the basis she knows that he is a good person and would only say that if it was important/actually needed to be done.

So, while she's distant from a lot of different people... She's far less likely to be distant from Lloyd. And far more willing to trust him than like. 99% of Aather.

Reverse?

W-whoops. Anything I can do to help patch up the damage Jaina's done? XD

I THINK JAINA NEEDED TO GET ALL THAT OUT, it was just horrible timing. Judith will probably speak to her when she's feeling more on balance, or she may just brush it under the rug. It depends on the impetus for her getting over it. If she's forced to, she'll be more likely to talk to Jaina. If she's given time to do it on her own terms, it's likely it'll be something she remembers, but ignores in favor of the present? Judith isn't as much on grudges.

SO I DON'T... THINK THERE IS ANYTHING JAINA CAN ACTIVELY DO? Besides maybe I could stop giving Jaina a reason to be angry at Judith. Doot doot doot.

Anyway, relationship?

Finally seeing beyond Judy's poker face has kind of broken Jaina's view of her. As she recently indicated -- Jaina is making a conscious effort not to make any more assumptions about Judy these days. She's still feeling a little petty about Judy and Mitchell, but she's moving on. Like you said, that thread was really good for Jaina's mental health. XD Some catharsis, if not exactly what she'd been planning.

Right now, mainly, getting that empathic sense and all, she's seeing Judy in the frame of a woman who is trying to deal with a loss, and possibly not able to really stop to deal with it because with Mal gone who's there to be responsible for Sapphire? Jaina assumes it's Judith because Judith is the one she sees doing things like look out for the impression they make in front of the team newbie, or make sure the incest farm makes it through the setting shift all right.

That she can identify with -- even if it's not a role that will ever be possible for her on Iolite, she knows a lot about having to troop on from her memories, and that's only going to increase.

So that's what's motivated her attitude for the last few interactions, trying to actively offer her skills and so on.

Reverse?

Judith is really shaky on her impression with Jaina at the moment! Like, kind of all over the place. She was fine enough with her to be willing to share Mal. In fact, the only thing that made her nervous was the chance of Mitchell joining in at that time, since he was her least favorite person in Aather. And while she was sort of aware of the rivalry Jaina seemed to think they had going, she was willing to ignore it. (She honestly didn't fully realize it til the poker game anyway...)

But then Mal vanished, and she had slept with Mitchell, and a lot came crashing down between them at once. Judith doesn't really blame Jaina for saying the things she did. In fact, she expected an earful from her. But that conversation turned out to be a lot more than Judith was expecting, with regards to just exactly what Jaina thought of her. And she really is nursing all the things that were said, which has put her in a sort of crisis.

I mean, she was stable enough to let Jaina know that what she said wasn't right. But there is a worry now that that is the impression she gives to people she loves, which is only exacerbated by EVERYTHING that has happened in the past few days. Too much at once, and so Judith is just. Soldiering on, but as a consequence, it's making her a little reluctant to actively seek Jaina out to talk. Especially since she's in, "Must avoid." mode.

So, COMPLICATED. She likes Jaina well enough, but Jaina hurt her feelings essentially, on top of everything else. She's kind of wavering right now between that, with a little anger added into the mix.

So, Judith comes back for that fight they postponed... Would Jaina take it?

In a heartbeat. Jaina's an Action Girl, and if Judith comes back for the fight, she'd rather do something with it, even if that just means them beating each other senseless. She does believe that it could help air out their issues.

All things considered, I was curious about Judith's amusement by the kiss in the game, and her inclusion of Jaina in a hot or not list. XD Some insight into Judith's thoughts there?

Judith doesn't attach much feeling to things like a hot or not list? She's basically always compiling one in her head, and doesn't care much about how she feels personally about someone. She's definitely willing to admit when someone is hot, or not. As for the kiss, it was more of an amusement that Jaina had likely done that in retaliation for her dancing with her boyfriend.

And again, because it just wasn't one of those moments Judith would automatically assign value to an action. So, it was easy to be amused rather than annoyed or something.

I'm surprised Jaina was willing to kiss Judith! Her thoughts on that?

Yeah, Jaina was hoping for a little petty retaliation. There are also some factors of...blind spots in Jaina's shame and simply being willing to play dirty to win things (Long story short, she's a Solo and she takes after her dad).

Beyond the "you're dancing with my boyfriend, what can I do" thing, Jaina actually was just analytically thinking. Okay. Kissing Mitchell is a sure thing, I can probably get the romantic kiss task out of him. If I also man up and kiss someone I'm mad at, I can also get a second point toward winning, easy as that. (Analytical thinking is just part of how she rolls in win or lose situations sometimes; we even see her mentally stepping back in the middle of a life-or-death lightsaber duel with the boy she wants to be her boyfriend to think about how she can fix him as if poke here and prod there and everything will be fixed, as with fixing an engine)

And it's a lot easier to suck it up and go kiss someone she's mad at in light of recently being hit with remembering deciding that she has to kill someone she loves.

Finally, Judith was one of the better choices for who was at the party that she really didn't want to kiss. XD

One of my favorite questions, anything you'd like to see our characters do in the near future?

Edited 2011-11-11 04:37 (UTC)

Relationship!!

GUY'S RELATIONSHIP IS PRETTY MUCH THE LAST THING JUDY EXPECTED TO HAPPEN. Like, her first impressions of him consisted of, "Cute. Oh, and he's easy to troll." And that was it! He really only made an impression on her because of both of those things combined. And none of their other conversations really cemented anything else for awhile, beyond, "Oh, he's actually nice too. Some poor girl is going to get her heart broken." So, while he was all these things, Judith didn't really consider him a knight that she was super close to! I think for a long time, she considered herself closer to Zack.

But then Guy actually bothered to talk to her when she was upset after the meeting. And he understood where she was coming from, when up to that point, she was feeling a little irrational for being so angry at Mitchell for daring to bring up his bloodlust at the meeting. And Guy, for all intents and purposes, talked her down from the angry cliff. And that was really the point in time where Judith's thoughts about Guy switched from "Oh, he's fun to troll" to more along the lines of actively seeking him out and enjoying his conversation?

She still, of course, loves to troll him, and loves to comment on how he's going to break some girl's heart some day, obviously, but she's kind of starting to go, "Oh, no. I wonder if that poor girl I was pitying this whole time could possibly be me?" Because now it has reached the point where she is okay with letting her poker face fade around him, and she is okay with him seeing completely through it more than she would be for a large majority of people within Aather. Which is some pretty serious stuff for a girl like Judith.

And then, just how her one point of happiness over the past few days was when he almost reached out and touched her. So, it's like, "... Well." Basically, Judy loev Guy and will continue trolling him as necessary. |Db

Reverse?

GUY REALLY CARES FOR JUDY... He wasn't particularly close to her, but liked her -- assertive cool lady, very beautiful to look at :B, sorta trolly but I guess that's guy's type. Then that incident with Mitchell and Mal happened, and he really did understand Judy's feelings then, and didn't want her to leave angry and alone when her team was the victim there. It was a really shitty situation in general and he just wanted to hhhelp in some way.

Then they really did start to talk, and he found himself comfortable enough with her to discuss little yet important things like their respective princesses, their angers and prejudices, their wishes to move forward and/or deal with those prejudices. So they seem to REALLY BE ON THE SAME WAVELENGTH PRETTY OFTEN... that was about when he started to actually trust her. And he really doesn't trust easy! Yet the particular topics of conversation, and the situations they've been in, have lent themselves to it.

He still pretty much says and does what comes immediately to mind, so that occasionally gets him into a corner with Judy :x because in the end she is a girl and if she gets too close he flips out. But that's such an accepted handicap on his part that he just continues to want to know her more and spend more time with her. He relaxes more around her, and when last they talked he didn't bother putting any walls up '-' WHICH, FOR GUY... he is changing a lot to make it more common, but it's still with a handful of people only and Judy is one of them most recently.

HE IS STARTING TO HAVE A LEGITIMATE CRUSH ON HER, biggest crush on a girl in aather, but he just stifles it because to him it's impossible. It doesn't stop him from blurt-flirting cuz he just DOES THAT, of course he'll tell judy she's beautiful when she's beautiful :T He's been made aware of it though because that ONE TIME KNIFE HELD HIS HAND AND HE WAS SUDDENLY ABLE TO BE CALM AROUND WOMEN, and Judy was there, he was immediately hit with the whole realm of possibility of NOT AFRAID OF JUDY... and it passed before he could really hang onto it. But it was a nice thought for a moment =(

Still wanna troll thread later? :O

ABSOLUTELY.

Natsume's thoughts after the lust thread?

YOU CAN TAG IN THAT POST OR WE MAKE A NEW THREAD IF YOU WANT :O

And gosh, JUDITH IS PRETTY. :| I mean it's not that he didn't think about it BEFORE, but now that he had seen it through LUST VISION, he can actual recognize how pretty she is beyond just the whole COMPLIMENT PRETTY anyway. I mean, it's not like he thinks of her as GOSH I WANNA DO HER mind you. It's more like he can now understand physical attraction at a different level and can see it with Judith. :U

WHAT ABOUT JUDITH. :O

Reeelationship?

JUDITH TRULY CARES FOR MAU. He squeaked in before she really started being ambivalent about a lot of things about Aather, so she really cares about him. And it honestly bugs her to see him hurt or upset. And she is, legitimately, honestly, happy that he was concerned enough about her to seek her out and to try and cheer her up. It's just-- unfortunately, her need for privacy outweighs her need for hugs right at the moment?

But she will probably seek him out later to thank him for that, because she considers him close.

Other than that, there really aren't many changes!

Reverse?

Relationship /o/

HAHA, MITCHELL IS ONE OF MY FAVORITE PEOPLE TO THREAD WITH BECAUSE JUDITH HAS SUCH COMPLEX FEELINGS ABOUT HIM.

Mitchell, you are in a new category for Judith. Only you inhabit that space. Because she is still very distrustful of him in general, though she's starting to let go of the anger that she had for him over killing Mal. Which was helped by her heart game, in large part. And that kind of gave her a drive to try and-- forgive him? Which was kind of hard at first. But he seemed somewhat receptive, and then he followed that up by asking her to join the guild.

Which, she honestly wasn't sure, and was kind of uncomfortable with being the sole decider for that question. But he didn't seem malicious to her, and more like he was actually curious? And she said yes, even though that is one of the things that she considers herself properly belonging to. It was a leap of faith, basically! And it's because of that, she didn't really have so much of a problem, when it came time for the lust potion, with having slept with Mitchell.

Judith didn't think of it as that important, really. Just a thing that happened, until Jaina came to her, and she realized that all the blame was being placed on her for what happened! (Or that is how Jaina made it seem), and she assumed Mitchell had done/said something to make it look like it was all her fault. And that made her want to, honestly, suckerpunch him. Which. She's still trying to decide if she should do. Because it's like, suddenly this was important enough to make her the bad guy, and that thing that happened became an active mistake.

So, she is pretty angry at him, and hiding it. But he is also important to her as a guildmate.

BASICALLY, I LOOK FORWARD TO THEIR THREADS WITH LOTS AND LOTS OF POPCORN.GIF.

Reverse?

Ahjsldfsd sob Mitchell spent his whole thread about it with Jaina going IT'S NOT JUST HER FAULT IT'S MY FAULT TOO DON'T JUST BE ANGRY AT HER!!

Mitchell doesn't really get the whole guild thing, he just wants to be in it because it's an In Group and he doesn't want to be excluded, and becasue it's important to King and he really wants to improve his relationship with King. So it doesn't affect his feelings on Judith one way or the other :|a sleeping with her also didn't really except that he took it as a sign that she really is willing to turn over a new leaf with him like she said. He also only sees it as a mistake to the extent that it upset Jaina, like he said if she didn't mind he'd do it again happily. He sees her as a bit prickly and volatile which makes him a little bit uncertain around her, but things do seem to be going well with her so he's not too worried about it. She's interesting and a bit mysterious and he's always liked her as a person, it's just been a matter of how awkward circumstances have made things between them. He doesn't really do complicated thoughts about people! As a note, he had/has absolutely no idea that she wanted to dance with him as the person she dislikes, if he had to guess one of them he'd have guessed it was as the 'get to know better' person.

What does Judith think of Mitchell and Jaina's relationship?

Well, now that she doesn't have to factor in Mal and herself? She really doesn't mind their relationship. It has no bearing on her all on its own.

What did Mitchell think of the whole thing with-- the fffffffive of them?

It was pretty simple for him! He just wants to be with Jaina. If Jaina also wants to be with someone else that's fine with him and if that someone else is trying to choose between two girls that's not Mitchell's problem either. He didn't see sleeping with Judith as affecting anything per se and was pretty surprised that Jaina thought he was suddenly going to run off with her or something. But yeah basically he only cared about it in terms of caring about Jaina and wanting her to be happy.

What does Judith think of teams as a thing in Aather?

Relationship me :)

Gosh, Judy really likes Spitfire so far. She started to pay more attention to him after she learned that Raven had asked him to be in the guild? And so far, all her interactions with him have been positive in general, from him talking about his... skating thing... to the poker game when she was doing her quest.

So, she just generally thinks pretty highly of him. LET'S TALK MORE ABOUT HOME, OR ABOUT HOW DUMB RAVEN CAN BE, I don't think she's aware of Spitfire's admiration/crush on Raven.

Reverse?

I want a relationship too even if it's just first impressions and gurrrrl do you need a hug. We can have a team cuddlepile in my hair it will be awesome and full of good feelings and bonding.

First impressions: So much hair! And she takes such good care of it too... She's also really energetic and sweet.

Basically, Judith really likes Rapunzel, if only because she let her play with her hair, and she was a total sweetheart. It was enough that Judith couldn't find herself getting really upset that she had replaced Mal? Judith would definitely protect the new girl if needed!

And yes, hugs are always nice. |D

REVERSE?

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