Wow! I must say, this got a lot more responses a lot more quickly than I had expected -- especially considering most of you are people I haven't actually RP'd with before and/or other such friends I dragged kicking and screaming into my madness. :P

At any rate, seems we've got almost equal preference for both of the two group-oriented ideas and about the maximum number of people I'd be confident running this sort of thing for anyway, so... hm.

To be honest, I didn't expect this even a split between ideas, so I'm not actually sure what to do here. XD It does seem like more people have specifically said they want to do Saintess than the the Knight RP, but on the other hand it seems like more people overall have some fun ideas for Knights, too, so I'm not sure if I want to commit to the other one right off the bat.

That being said, maybe we should start off by saying really briefly what sort of character setup we'd want to play for each idea? Give us a better idea of what sort of dynamics we could make, and help settle on which one seems like we'd have more fun with.

[hider=Saintess Character Concept]To begin with, my character for Saintess would... I guess I'd probably lean towards a prince-type role -- maybe somebody torn between his responsibilities and his sympathy, knowing he needs to make use of her power for the good of his country but also unable to overlook the stuff that's happening to her. Not really tsundere in the traditional sense, but... something sort of like it, I guess? Maybe also start out assuming she's like the rest of her family so it's alright to be cold towards her and view her as nothing more than an obligation, and slowly begin drowning in guilt when he realizes how wrong he was. A defrosting icy prince with a warm and caring center.[/hider]

[hider=Knights Character Concepts]As for Knights, I'd lean towards a weird sort of character who's had a rough life that's somehow pushed her into this whole wacky plan to masquerade as a boy and become a knight to seize control of her own destiny, but still acts like a wacky goofball with little to no common sense due to a sheltered -- or rather, sequestered upbringing. Used to being ignored and treated as a pariah, so she'd be a little awkward at first, but then pleasantly surprised to fit in -- so as to basically come out of her shell and end up as a really clingy kouhai who bluntly and openly admires her seniors and is always tagging along to see what cool new stuff they do, so as to make the threat of having her secret uncovered a very real one -- after all, this is her home now, and she doesn't want people to treat her differently or leave her behind. Just the right mix of an undercurrent of sadness with a bright smile and a firm resolve to keep on moving forward at her own pace -- that sort of plucky heroine. I'd probably scrap the idea if I didn't have anybody for her to suitably fluster with that sort of behavior, though -- clingy kouhai is no fun when there's not a teaseable, straight-laced senpai to confuse the heck out of, after all.

If that didn't work, then I guess I'd have to make that sort of straight-laced senpai myself, and instead be a huge dork from some noble family raised from childhood to master the blade, but with absolutely no social skills or experience with women. Go from the mysterious prodigy swordsman everyone admires to desperately not trying to turn into a tomato once he realizes he's dealing with a girl in disguise.[/hider]

I guess maybe that sort of clarifies what I mean? Like, certain things I, at least, want to do would require the existence of other sorts of characters, so I guess having a general idea what people are going for could help us settle on which plot would give us the most interesting interactions. I dunno. I just figure that's probably a safer bet than just saying "Alright, we're doing this one" and leaving half the people who've so kindly expressed interest high and dry.