It's not often that I brag about my own accomplishments.[sup][sup]low self esteem gang what up[/sup][/sup]But I'm gonna break character here and say that [url=https://www.roleplayerguild.com/posts/5063706]Gharekh[/url], in just three posts (long ones, but still), is already the cruelest, most insidious, just, source of pure fuckin' evil that I've written to date. Dunno how long it'll last because being an asshole in RP is hard for anybody in the long-term, and because full-blooded sociopaths make for lame rp, but I just finished his "prologue" of sorts and I can't believe how conniving he turned out to be when he's playing with his food.

Please read the posts, I'm gonna be so proud of them for about two more weeks before I go back to hating myself and everything I produce

OK, with that outta the way another person's character who instantly came to mind for me is a peasant girl named Robyn, who was played waaaaaay back in the days of World 41 on RuneScape actually having players, including roleplayers. She's significant to me because I was roleplaying as a warlord/emperor at the time, and my most trustworthy buddy was roleplaying as my spymaster, and my [i]other[/i] buddy was rping a bodyguard, and there were tons of knights/sergeants-at-arms, and an incredibly wealthy arms merchant, and my [i]other[/i] character was one of the world's most notorious mercenary captains (think Gotz von Berlichingen) and ... in walks this absolute nobody peasant girl, signing up to be a scullery maid in the castle kitchens.

What the fuck was she thinking? That she could be [i]near[/i] the story without actually involving herself in it? That's what I thought at first, accepting her purely for the novelty factor, with maybe a good splash of pity thrown in. Not like she could hurt the rp by being so insignificant, so may as well hand out an easy acceptance so everyone feels better, right?

This in itself is already hugely significant for me. In retrospect she had the balls to compete with all these big names and pretty faces in this dynamic story about childish medieval politicking and backstabbing ... as a maid. She had the sheer [i]bravado[/i], swinging between her lady legs, to walk in there and think that her character could compete with ours for spotlight time. And she was also

dead.

Fucking.

Right.

She handled other characters' abuse (often not even intended, they just got arrogant af when the fictional power went to their heads) ultra gracefully as a player, writing out Robyn's little frustrations, her unfulfilled fantasies of revenge, her rivalries with older castle ladies envious of her youth and vitality. She got into horribly awkward shenanigans when she got pressured into agreeing to help babysit a brat prince or two. Through sheer fucking wisdom and force of personality, she became confidant to king and queen and actually mediated their fucking marriage once or twice, and not ONCE did it feel hamfisted or cringey the way someone like Marisha on Critical Role feels cringey when she's obviously trying way too hard to be deep. Robyn hinted to a mercenary in my crew that she wouldn't mind being swept off her feet and going on adventures with him, because kitchen life absolutely blew chunks and she wasn't moving up the ladder like she had hoped, only to have to roleplay having her heart being broken when he either didn't get the hints or didn't reciprocate, fucking [i]somehow[/i]. Robyn actively deserved something good to happen to her for making the story objectively better and being a nice person IC but it never happened for purely organic reasons. (Not at all like when a character is specifically [i]designed[/i] to be betrayed, shafted, mocked, hurt, and otherwise dumped on, which is when their misfortune feels forced and lazy.) Robyn eventually got framed for something that objectively wasn't really her fault, too. It was a complete accident and she's the one who ended up taking the fall, and the player FUCKING ACCEPTED IT. I was so mad. I was basically kicking out the best roleplayer in the rp for entirely IC reasons. But none of us with a modicum of talent were interested in metagaming. Robyn wouldn't have felt good being saved by a meta anyway, I'm sure.

Also in retrospect, she could be one of the direct inspirations for my writing style today, because I too have gravitated more toward "plain," unimportant, unspecial characters over the years, wanting them to shine for their writing, not for how uber ultra cool and powerful they are. Robyn was whistling that tune before the germ of the kernel of the idea was even planted in my head.

So she never owned land, she never made it rich, and she ultimately walked out of the story with a completely undeserved reputation (IC) as a jealous bimbo, a furious temper, and a criminal. But she's one of the brief presences in one of my earliest decent-ish RP experiences that I will absolutely never forget. And I probably owe her a lot.