Old Characters

The RP is over. It's story has finished or unfortunately fallen short of that Mark. Now, what do you do with the character you just invested time and emotion in. Do you just let them sink into the 'void of forgotten characters? Or do you stick their SU somewhere safe so you always have it? Maybe you do something else entirely?



I myself tend to keep a backlog, to learn from the old characters as well as to be able to reuse any as I see fit (normally only ones from insta-die RPs)

What do you do with them?

I reuse them! Whether the rp is dead, on going, ended, or whatever, I recycle my ocs quite frequently, since I like seeing their differences when they're placed in different settings. I only stop using a character when they get involved in a ship because I feel like it's weird to have a character that's already so concretely tied down elsewhere.

I can't bring myself to create the exact same character twice.

One exception, well, not super exactly the same, but it's Aberdeen. He was originally from, hmm... Let's see. echo; A KANTO JOURNEY. Which was basically the prototype of Crossroads; A Johto Story. I used him in Crossroads as well, with the same starting appearance and also a grass pokémon, but changed his background around. I won't ditch Aberdeen now, he's dear to me. I'll keep working on that fanfic, which would be a sort of prequel and middle chapter to Crossroads at the same time.

Most old characters though, actually fade. Or stay as vague memories from which I fetch things I'd like to re-use. Partially.

As you can guess, Nerites the ocean goddess from Titans is my only defunct character that I really miss and will use again the first chance I get. Most other characters, while I've liked them, haven't been as fun as her and I'm unlikely to reuse/revisit.

I'll recycle the base of a character, but never the character itself. If I played a barbarian in a short-lifed RP and I enjoyed that, I'll make a barbarian if a new RP shows up in which such a character'll fit. I wouldn't recycle a character if I got the chance to play them, though.

I do keep SUs around, but I hoard RP posts. I've saved every one I've made so far, so those SUs do stay with me.

I'm not one for reusing characters. I sometimes use the framework of an older character to build the new one (Like my Unova character, who is a recycled, and I feel an improved version of my old Stars of Sinnoh character). I suppose I've done it with both As the Dust Settles and the Venice reincarnation, but both of those were remade as NPCs, so I see it as slightly different.

Yeah, I don't like to recycle characters. The only time I have is Adalina, who I used in the first Venice and brought back for the new Venice.

I keep them in a list. I try not to reuse characters, but will if the RP I made them for dies an early death and I find another RP I think they'd be good for. I've only done this for two characters (Anselme Ducreux from Apollo and Begin Again, and Domingo Hernandez from Vale and the reboot of Vale), both of whom did better in their second iterations. Though I don't think I'd use a character more than twice.

Something I do much more frequently is use older characters as inspiration for newer ones. Sometimes the new character ends up very similar to the original, such as when I used Yuri Welkin of Celestial League from make John Doe from Pokemon Fallout. Sometimes they're completely different from each other, such as when I used Sofiya Sokolova from Connections to make Cordelia Davies from Crossroads Act II. Regardless, there's always at least a little bit of the old character sitting in the new one.

Let them sink into the void of forgotten characters. If enough time passes between my posts I start to lose the initial spark and all the ideas I had for the character. So trying to get back into it when the rp comes back around or is revived after a few months just feels weird and I really have to force it. So nah, I don't reuse characters. I was going to reuse my brothers for venice, but after really thinking about it decided I'd be better off to just not.

Well, I haven't been used to playing any character for a long while before I get attached them. There are few which I remember and look back fondly, but there is no one yet as of now that I'm willing to use. Of course, they could probably be prototypes for future characters but no duplicates.

except of course when Tales of Altaria comes back, Willard Welm will rise again

I find that my characters usually end up fading away into the dark abyss as I prefer not to reuse characters for another RP. Though I may end up recycling some traits through my characters, they all end up being unique in their makeup of traits, appearance, backstory, family etc... The fun part of doing an RP, to me, is the time spent thinking up your character and making them their own person, not a carbon copy of a previous character or even the exact same one.

I used to keep a list of characters I worked hard on and would recycle them sometimes. But generally I just take aspects of characters I liked in the past and re-use that. Overall I switch up and don't re-use exact characters, but maybe portions or traits of them.

I always try to come up with new and original ideas for characters, and rarely tend to reuse them. I actually reuse names quite a bit, I have a handful that I like, but in terms of characters I usually try to differentiate them somehow so that each one is original. That being said, I am a terrible hoarder when it comes to SUs and posts, and I save absolutely anything, regardless of whether I even ended up posting it or not.

I really don't like to recycle characters, something about that bugs me. Whether or not their story finished in terms of the RP I feel it's best to allow their story to stay there. Even if it's a sequel RP I tend to want to make a new character instead of an old one. My old character's story was told and it's time to begin a new one.

I wouldn't say they are forgotten, all the stories I came up with in my head are still rattling around in their for each and every character, and at this point there have been quite a few... but I wouldn't want to scrap the stories they made in an unfinished roleplay either. I want to get the stories out there, but i'm too lazy to just make fanfic. Its quite the dilemma actually.

When I used to RP on other forum boards, reusing a character or two wasn't out of the question since some of the roleplays I was involved in had continuities. But there have been cases where I've recycled the general concept of the character, then changed the direction of their character development and personality. I usually make new characters for every RP, though, unless it's a sequel or set within the same universe as another. Either way, very few of mine were forgotten or completely dropped unless I felt as though they just didn't turn out the way I'd hoped; I even still have the SU sheets from some of my very first - and more extensive - Pokemon characters.

I only save my application of a character in a word processor in case I want to tweak something or I don't want to lose it as I'm writing up the post. I don't delete that document afterwards though. Otherwise, I don't fuss about my characters. Each character I make for a role-play, I spend time in the process. I feel like that's memorable enough. I'm content from that point on, no matter what happens.

In the end, they're another fond memory that I can look back on one day, find the thread on the site they were posted, and re-read my character's unique excerpts. The internet is our archive, after all: long-lasting, and yet, selectively impermanent.

Ice said:

I'll recycle the base of a character, but never the character itself. If I played a barbarian in a short-lifed RP and I enjoyed that, I'll make a barbarian if a new RP shows up in which such a character'll fit. I wouldn't recycle a character if I got the chance to play them, though.

I do keep SUs around, but I hoard RP posts. I've saved every one I've made so far, so those SUs do stay with me.

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I find this really interesting. Why do you save your RP posts? To see how you improved? Reminisce on the past?

As for me, I only reuse characters that had a lot of potential, but their RPs died off before they could even be used. Otherwise, if I used a character extensively for an RP I let them stay in that story. Putting them in other places is kind of AU-like. If the RP has a remake, however (like the Atlantises) I don't reuse the same character. If the thread is refreshed then so am I! :)