Oh, cool, I like threads like these. Bit of an issue on my end though- I don't so much have a "favorite character" as much as I do a spectrum of stuff I liked about some of my past characters. I'm not gonna say all of them were ace-in-the-holes, though- while I don't tend to forget anything I've made, I'd be lying if I said I actively thought about most of them. Still, there's some I regularly come back to think about, both that I've mentioned in previous discussion threads and not, so why don't I discuss each of them here? I'll even link to their sheets, despite my better judgement. I'm not exactly proud of... any... of my past writing, but at least people get something to dunk on while also understanding the context a little better.


[hider=Tamatsu Eimin]
I'm starting off with the big one. [url=https://www.roleplayerguild.com/posts/4498710](link)[/url]

It's entirely possible nobody ever pays attention to me, but on the off-chance someone has, then that hypothetical person probably saw me mention this character before. If they're really attentive, they'll even notice I can't seem to shut up about her. There's a reason for that- it's because I still consider this the biggest waste of a character I've ever had- and not only that, some of my most interesting creative work to boot!

Now you might not notice it from the sheet, mainly because it's missing half the information, but there was quite a lot going on with Tamatsu and, by extension, Vanth. But in order to explain that, I'll briefly expand on the conceit of the RP. World's end, as I call it, was centered around an original card game the GM was building with the community. Inside of this card game, ancient heroes and villains (and in-between) from an era long, long past got reincarnated. They each attach to a host- our player characters- and worked to some kind of goal I forgot the premise of. All of us were tasked with making our spirits be related to one another, and Vanth was slowly evolving to the nuisance everyone had to deal with at least once. An escaped mage become psychopathic necromancer/lich, he backstabbed everyone until slain by a paladin, to which he said "nope" and sealed himself to resurrect in the distant future.

Why all this backstory? Because now Tamatsu comes into play, that's why. Have this sweet, bit of a distant and quiet girl. She's certainly mousy in character, but she's incredibly kind and curious about the world. Naïve too, though, and a bit clueless all around. Yeah, I admit it, I intended to layer it on a bit thick on how innocent she was to make other people sympathize with her- but there's a reason for that.

She got fukkin' murdered by Vanth.

That's right ladies and gents- half the info that's missing in the sheet is exactly this relationship! The happenstance in which this completely innocent girl, who absolutely does not deserve to be a pawn in the machinations of a madman, got completely caught up in his affairs for the unlucky sin of existing. In fact, because she's a bit unassuming, it makes taking control of her mind and hiding his presence all the easier. And when I say she got murdered, I do mean murdered. Truck slams into her, sending her and a part of the bridge she was standing on flying right into the canal underneath. She drowns to death, but wakes up in the hospital anyway because Vanth's magic has made her a (literal) walking corpse. The moment Vanth goes, she does too, but Vanth's end goal is to take full control over her body in the end and reincarnate into the world. His aim's to live forever, after all.

But wait, there's more! Me and another user (hi feyblue) discovered that we had the same idea. Her character, too, is someone who should've died and then didn't. She's also even less aware of this fact than Tamatsu is, who has a bit of an inkling considering her touch is always cold. This revelation caused us to brainstorm 24/7 and we had all this cool shit we could do with our characters, and the pipe-dream was to have an emotional battle where both of them try to free each-other from their possession, by giving up their own life in the process.

Tamatsu had so much potential to be interesting, as I didn't even mention on how involved I got with other players and built pre-existing relationships for both her and Vanth with everyone. Then the GM nuked the RP before it even got started, and this one-in-a-lifetime character never got a single IC post.

Fucking RIP Tamatsu- the masterpiece that never came to be.[/hider]


[hider=Kyogi Genjitsu]
[url=https://www.roleplayerguild.com/posts/4471164](link)[/url]

Now this one is a bit funny- why in the world would I link to the OOC for my CS and not the CS tab?

Well... Dynamo had a bit of a habit of wanting to post the CS of his accepted players in the CS tab himself. The reason for this, as I found out later, is so he could delete them if the player ever left or got kicked out of the RP- which the latter happened to me. I don't really want to get into that here as it's a lot of drama, a long story and not at all the point of this thread, but I felt it a bit warranted to share that context. Especially as the RP where Tamatsu came from was inspired by the one Kyogi was.

But what about Kyogi himself?

See, Kyogi is a bit of an oddity. I didn't get to play much of him, he's not a particularly interesting sheet and in general, would be a pretty forgettable character by every reasonable metric. Yet, somehow, I can't forget him, because the short while I did spend with him was a lot of genuine fun I've had with roleplaying.

You might be able to tell, but I wanted to try and poke around with the 'super genius' stereotype. I played it pretty straight, all things considered. Now the reason why he stuck by me is because I think this was the first time I'd ever attempted the archetype, and also, the dude was killin' it IC. He's minding his own business when suddenly the teacher pulls him aside into a pocket dimension, tries to kick Kyogi's ass, and then Kyogi hands it back to him on a silver platter. The dude runs off, and in comes another character, where it turned out Kyogi anticipated something like this happening ahead of time and actually planted a spy to observe. The plan from then on was to hoard as much information as he could and essentially big brain himself to be an actual threat to both antagonist and protagonist alike, operating entirely within his own sphere of fuckery.

Hell, the 'spy' is a fellow student of his- an extremely intelligent one at that, and mandatory class rep of the RP. Kyogi was even laying on some mild flirting to keep on her good side, because he knew that she'd be an asset in some way or another. Me and the player for that character were having a blast discussing this stuff over PMs.

Unfortunately drama happened and the RP kinda yeeted itself from the face of the earth, and in hindsight my writing ain't the best. Still, it was a blast to have a literal "all according to keikaku" character, something I've yet to replicate. Most of my more recent work has been either below or on par with the average intellect. Nowhere near the amount of IQ Rick & Morty viewers have, anyway.
[/hider]


[hider=Yasu]
[url=https://www.roleplayerguild.com/posts/4327380](link)[/url]

My reasons for liking Yasu are extremely simple: She is adorable, and also the only character I think I've actually 'shipped' in my life.

Trademark of me at the time, she was a bit of a naïve and simple soul. Monster-human hybrids are extremely discriminated against in the setting she's from, so as a harpy, it's not exactly the safest thing for her to travel the world- much less with a Colosseum troupe. She had an objective though- fight racism, essentially, because the one human she's ever seen pass her village was a nice guy. It's a simple but effective motivation, and even better was that she was a non-combatant, instead taking on the role of doctor. Someone who can work natural herbs into remedies is an asset for sure.

Now this all is decently compelling as is, but the reason I liked her so much was because of what wound up unfolding in the IC. (In re-reading, I really layered on the stutter too think holy shi-) Yasu needed a place to rest, and being a harpy, she kinda flew up to the attic of the manor which she needed to be the following day. There was a hole in the roof- couldn't hurt, right? There she met the little sister of the central character of the RP and played with her for a while, and it was cute. Very cute. Then she ran away when realising "oh shit, right, need to tell the lord why I'm here"

What follows is her meeting that lord, and when she heard she could tag along as a doctor, she was so elated she hugged the lord without thinking, throwing off the cloak she'd been wearing to hide her wings in the process. Now she'd fucked up double time- not only did she act much more familiar than what is socially acceptable by any metric, but also, she revealed she was a monster. The lord, understandably, starts grilling her because he thinks she's hella suspicious now. Cue the little sister barging in when she sees the harpy from before, gives said harpy a big 'ol hug, and this stint is what wins over the lord's trust in the end.

"What about the shipping part?" you may ask. Honestly- I just thought the above interactions were super cute. Also, with a big deal being made about "racism bad guys let's accept monster folk" I thought it'd be neat if the prince wound up marrying to Yasu as a monster queen, thus unifying the folk. I kept it to myself, though- despite the RP dying not long after, if it had gone on longer I would've wanted to see if this relationship could grow into that organically or if it wouldn't have worked out at all. I'm very fond of the RP in general though- I think it had a really good group with cool characters and it's a shame it fell through.

Harper best boy.
[/hider]


[hider=Haas Mesman, Ethel Cilente]
[url=https://www.roleplayerguild.com/posts/3188847](link)[/url]

I think it feels right to lump these two together. They come from the same (yu-gi-oh) RP, I like 'em both just as much, my writing was complete trash for the both of them anyway, and also, they're by far the two I got the chance to play the longest while (up to this point in time, anyway).

They come from Duel Tower, my own personal Vietnam. Given my PTSD, you'd expect me to not remember my time there fondly at all- and I don't. However, I'd be remiss to say if it was all bad. Hell, Haas and Ethel are proof enough it wasn't. Let's start with Ethel- she's the first one there, after all.

So a funny story about Ethel- at some point in time, I had the brilliant idea of "hey wouldn't it be funny if I made not!ethel from fairy fencer F" and then I did, not even bothering to change the name or FC and only barely changing the personality. Not my finest moment- she'd eventually grow to be something much more original (and I even had a picture drawn for a redesign as you can see in the sheet) but the sin of the name would stay with me 'till the end of time. I now tend to give people shit for doing the same thing lol. Ever wondered where my icon came from, by the by? Well, this Duel Tower is actually a reboot of the original, and in that original, it became a bit of a joke on how she's best girl (no real competition at the time). Someone made a meme of it, and here we are all these years later. Thanks burger.

What makes me remember her so fondly is both that escapade, and also the fact she's a good case study for me on how to just have fun with a character. She's always been pretty high end of the powerscale in that RP, and the goal was to have her start out strong but have everyone else out-skill her over time. Add to that some taunting from the villains, and she's left feeling inferior and worthless compared to the rest of the cast, like she can't grow beyond her limits. This would send her into a downward spiral of hate, before unlocking her final inner power and using it to lash back out against her friends. She'd become the final villain of the RP- fighting your former ally. Obviously none of this wound up unfolding as I axed the RP before the arc could even remotely kick off. It's still a story that jives with me though, and I remember Ethel fondly for it.

Haas, meanwhile, is just a fun character. He's a complete dork, always optimistic and kinda sucks at dueling. He doesn't let it get to him, though, because I don't think there was a single character in the RP that got as much raw enjoyment from it as he did. Even in a losing position or when taking an L, the dude would laugh it off and be excited for everything the opponent surprised him with. I didn't have some master plan for him like I did with Ethel- at most he just kind of became the de-facto leader of the PC's because he knew and was on good terms with everyone. I did want to write him out of the cast somewhere in a vague middle point of the RP, when I'd gone through an arc of him realising he'll never become a pro duelist like the rest of the cast. He wouldn't mind it though- the experience of him having come to the school, made so many friends and had such awesome duels were worth it on their own, and then he'd retire back to his old home and follow in his family's footsteps of becoming a toy maker. If I'd gotten the chance for things to unfold this way, it could've been a nice and sweet arc.[/hider]


[hider=Shinrei Ikushirou]
[url=https://www.roleplayerguild.com/posts/3211944](link)[/url]

"hey ammokkx what the fuck you just linked to the same RP as above why not talk about it there"

No, you don't understand, this is funny.

Well- I'm not gonna harp on it too much. As a bit of a foreword; I had a lot of drama with the player (and will never not mention she drove me more than a little up the wall at times) but in the end we did part on a somewhat optimistic note, so I hold no ill will towards them. I think they're not a completely unreasonable person.

That said, I fucking love Shinrei because he was [u][i][b]the[/b][/i][/u] meme of the roleplay.

We have this Seto Kaiba expy who's even more of an asshole for even less of a reason, an alleged pro duelist who does anything to protect his equally hilariously dysfunctional sister (who I could write another section about but won't) and acted like such a complete and utter smug snake.

Now why does that make this guy [i][b]the[/b][/i] meme?

He never dueled. Not even once. In a [i]Yu-Gi-Oh[/i] roleplay.

But it gets better. Dueling is the only way to improve your deck, and if you didn't engage in it, you couldn't upgrade your cards. Everyone started on a pretty low-power note on purpose- this was the way to get people to interact and duel each-other (this collapsed in on itself once one guy snowballed out of control but that's for another day). Now, this complete and utter smug bastard, who thought himself so above and beyond the plebs, was ever so slowly falling behind the curve. His boasting became a joke among my players, and a guy had the evil idea of teaming up with the single most powerful player in the RP to utterly wipe the floor with Shinrei- and the madman [i][b]accepts[/b][/i]. I panic and go "wait shit-" and desperately ask the player to let me control him for the duel, because I know the actual RPer behind Shinrei isn't that great at the game. I was still going to be screwed, though.

Then, by some act of god, this is the exact point where the drama reached its peak and the player left the RP. I saw my chance and fucking ran with it. I set up this entire thing with the players, make it look like Shinrei's finally going to take the first turn of the first duel he has in the RP...

...and then he gets a phone call from his company, grabs his sister, and vanishes forever from the RP. Having dueled not even once- a feat not even his sister managed.

Keep in mind- this guy was around for more than half the RP. He's a goddamn legend.

Now my love for him doesn't just stem from the complete and utter meme he wound up becoming. I wouldn't have accepted the character if I didn't see something in him- and I genuinely do still see potential. Being the cause of your own sister's suffering and carrying that guilt around, wanting to give her a chance to connect with people again while putting up a tough façade, is still a pretty compelling character to me. Even moreso when I actually had the cool idea of having the both of them return as villains- with better decks of course- down the line. Shinrei hosts a tournament, at the request of his sister, because she hated everyone at the Duel Tower so much she just wanted a petty chance for revenge.

Shinrei's great, and despite it looking like I absolutely tore into him in this section, know that I've long stopped thinking of the pain associated with these events. It's a fun story to tell, and you've only seen half of it here. It's genuinely one of my best tales, and I'm thankful I got to experience so much pain. That pain turned into plenty of laughter over time.
[/hider]


[hider=Serah Gene]
Before I link it, I'll note that there's both my first version of the sheet, and an updated one in here. The RP actually shut down not too long ago, before the event which would cause me to update the sheet, so I never wound up putting it in in the end. Still, I've included it at the bottom regardless. This way, you can read what the intended direction for this character was- and also see some art I commissioned for her. [url=https://www.roleplayerguild.com/posts/3416049](link)[/url]

I think this is also the most amount of character development I've ever managed to pull off in any RP.

Serah starts off as a deeply traumatized child soldier, as you do. Her life's basically a constant stream of misery with brief moments of hope that get crushed underfoot, so it's not like she's exactly happy with herself. She sure acts happy though- a bit too happy even, as she puts up the act of being a total ditz. It might even get annoying for some people, but I'd like to think in hindsight this is intentional on my end (it's not) because it showcases extremely well just how hard she tries not to be a sad tomato- because trust me, she's a sad tomato. Sad enough to pretty much always cry or want to throw up whenever she's finally alone. She thinks of herself as worthless, but maybe still able to put a smile on other people, so she bases her self worth entirely on that ability to please everyone.

Over the course of the RP, she managed to get a boyfriend in the army who made her feel slightly less extremely horrible about herself. Then again, this is also around the time the only other connection she made- a girl of 14 years old- got mindfucked and became a plant, so it's not like the situation was completely helped. Her problems come to the forefront in a mission where she discovers her childhood friend (like the only reason she was fighting) is fucking dead and that her boyfriend was in the squad that made it happen. Serah kind of has a mental breakdown, causing her mecha to go apeshit on everything in the room (including allies) and she winds up going to space prison for it. Commander's kind of got impossible amounts of sway though, so he manages to get her a laughably trivial sentence which would've made her join the cast again in about what we'd consider half a year's worth of time. In prison, which is something me and the GM almost entirely skipped over, she acts as a beacon of hope to the other prisoners, who in turn brought hope to her.

The tattoo on her new art was the one she got when about to leave prison, now a renewed individual, who's still not over her past, but able to live with it more. She's now able to fight in the war for a few more reasons, and would be a stronger person going forward. 

It's a bit more romanticised than what it really amounts to, but the journey Serah went on is pretty neat to me and I think she's a well-deserved spot in "characters I'm never going to stop thinking about" because it's probably the only one where I actually managed to get a completed arc going.[/hider]

[hider=Sayaka Yuna][url=https://www.rpnation.com/threads/yugioh-numbers-rising-cs.375910/#post-8483161](El finale)[/url]

wtf, rpnation

Yeah, didn't expect that out of the last one in the list, didya? Okay, to be honest, I kind of acted like a backseating numbskull in the RP and I ain't too proud of that OOC behaviour, but live and forget. I'm probably the reason it died though, oh well. More Yu-Gi-Oh by the way, in case you've forgotten how obsessed I am with that.

Sayaka isn't actually [i]that[/i] interesting of a character on her own. I played her pretty straight n'd the RP was nothing special, so why is she here?

Because she's pretty much the only character who I found compelling enough to write an entire conceptual fanfiction (which I will not share) for.

Not an actual fanfic mind you- I'll probably never do that anyway. But Sayaka had a lot of potential in the RP. She was juxtaposed with a big-time villain (both in card choice and personality), had a pretty decent first duel with another character, and started to form a decently compelling bond with a boy in the RP. Nothing about this is special within the context of the RP, but I saw these threads for a plot and was like "man, I could write about this."

So I took those three characters, made Sayaka the MC (because of course I would) and then started to think up a short story on what kind of take I'd give to a story about them. Its not even finished yet- I'm still coming up with new characters, motivations and tweaking the setting and set-up 24/7. Sayaka's character also barely resembles what she was in that RP anymore. Still, if I ever were to write an original fan-work for Yu-Gi-Oh, this is the story I'd want to write. Sayaka is probably the character I think about the single most for that reason. She's not my best, not my favorite, barely original, nor the most compelling...

...and yet, she's the one I keep coming back to.
[/hider]