[Talk] Important Moments

So... this thread shall be about some of your roleplay stage posts, or tabletop roleplay sessions that really stand out to you! And yes, I mean single posts that, for example... 1, took you a long time or effort to write, 2, are about a very important moment in a character's development or have them face a big decision, 3 mark a big moment in the progression of a roleplay's own plot, or just... 4, you like a lot and are very proud of putting out there!

The same can be said about roleplay sessions of course. Is there a particular session of a campaign that you remember fondly? What happened during that session? Was there a lot of planning involved or not? And, did you perhaps have some crazy luck (good or bad) that made everything even more interesting?

So! Do you have any such examples? Would you share some "behind-the-scenes" action on how those posts or those sessions came to be? Why do those moments in particular stand out to you, ultimately?

Let's go!

Will link posts later probably bc im on mobile rn and can't bother to browse through 2 different rps this way.

Pretty much every single Gym Battle of Jo in HS1 is worth mention here. I still think I peaked at part 1 of vs. Brawly, but I had a lot of fun writing Jo vs. Wally too. As for moments that have marked their character's progression, I think the aftermath of vs. Brawly is the most important one so far; and while not particularly brilliant, imo, the one before Jo's battle against Wally is important too. Their conversation with Wally after their battle is also important for the decisions they will make later on.

For Miranda hmmmm... does she have a bad post? I think she's the character that's learned the most of what I've written so far. She either learns to battle, or learns that she has to take the first step to solve her own problems, and when she's not learning anything, she's yelling about Detective Greedent and Alolan Sandslash and it's amazing.

And lastly, Bruno. I think what has marked him the most, and it probably has to do with how I wasn't on hiatus with him by then, is the entirety of the Cerulean arc. Starting, of course with his encounter with Casey and battle against Deborah, but most importantly, the battle against the masked guy's Shiftry and the posts that I made afterwards were the ones that represented his character the most.

I'll just link one post for now, the one that comes up the most often every time I have to name one post I'm proud of: Hikaru's backstory from Hoenn Square 1! This is just a self-reflection post, really, and it's only meant to expand a bit on the story of this character who, ironically, is currently just a supporting NPC. And still, it deals with their journey of self-discovery and teenage life in a way that I kinda like, and lays it all out for you. I wrote this when I believed Hikaru's identity to be rather close to my own, which turned out to be totally wrong... but that really only makes this post more special to me because it represents that moment in my life pretty well.

Hopefully I can come up with more examples later

hmmm i think in arcs more than posts tbh so this is difficult to pinpoint

casey vs grimmsnarl was a very, very good battle imo and definitely stepped him forward in terms of dealing with his ghost-phobia. i dont know if its true to say he works better under pressure but he's certainly forced to make decisions he wouldn't otherwise make! also im rlly proud of the art that went along with it ehehe. i think the initial plan for going into the area was to actually have him battle a mimikyu, but a shaky alliance was much more interesting :) and i know im going into arc territory but the battle vs gwen and the aftermath of it all were important too- casey showing just how strong he actually is, yeah, but also the argument he has with gwen is i think the first time he really explains his philosophy behind training pokémon, and then later his ability to compartmentalize with "just because i'm mad at you and don't want to hang out with you right now doesn't mean we're not friends." surprising amount of insight into him there :)

I think the most important moment that has stuck with me until now is the Prim + Faye vs. Veechar battle in Guilds of Atria. They fought together against a powerful wizard and while they were losing at first, they turned the tide of the battle when Faye lost control of herself.

It was an important moment for both characters as prior to the battle, Prim found out that Faye was a touched (someone who was magically altered because of a certain area in the RP except that Faye was born as one and Prim became one) and hid it from everyone else. They had a talk about it which was fairly important to the both of them. The battle itself was important because Faye was always depicted as someone who could not control her magic and therefor it was partly useless to her in battle. She uses her daggers to fight with instead and enhanced her daggers with her magic up until that moment. Prim was overall a good fighter but she too needed a... more "able" companion to stand a chance against the powerful spirit caster Veechar. The battle was disadvantageous for them and they weren't able to get any good hits in. They eventually got poisoned and were slowly petrifying. Faye who is usually stoic and doesn't show much emotion saw her friend losing because of her and got visibly angry. This anger was what allowed her to tap into her own magic more and while she lost control, she also turned partly insane and terrifying. Faye was able to use her magic to a point that she was fighting on par with this powerful wizard which allowed Prim to get a few powerful hits in as well. Since Faye lost control of her own magic, this unfortunately meant that the friend she tried to protect earlier was also getting caught up in her own magic. Luckily Prim is a good fighter and could overcome that and eventually she was able to stop Faye from nearly killing the wizard.

It was a good moment for the both of them as I think this solidified their friendship and also solidified that Faye holds a terrifying power that she cannot keep in control in the state that she is now. She had only been shown as a weak wizard up till that point. A good martial art fighter but a very weak wizard.

I was originally going to just do one giant post, but I think instead I'll just come back here a lot lmao.

Firstly, going to second Prim and Faye vs Veechar from Guilds of Atria. That was a really major character-defining post for both of them and it was both the culmination of a lot of lead up as well as perfect set-up that both solidified their friendship and helped establish more for them to explore in the future. There's a lot of parallels or reflections between the two of them that are really interesting to explore and fighting a character who hates their kind, together right off of an argument about Faye keeping her Touched nature a secret was just the perfect peak to what ultimately is just the beginning of the exploration of all those parallels/reflections.

Prim is Touched, but in the face of discrimination and hatred became defiant. She refuses to hide who she is as a matter of principal even though she very easily could - she has no recognisable Touched features. Faye on the other had chose to hide who she is even though she actively has to work to conceal her horns and scales. But part of that is that Prim's family were wealthy and their business could afford to take the hits her refusal to hide inflicted whilst Faye's family did not have that luxury, so part of why she learned to hide was to protect her family. Then you add on to that the combat reflections too? Prim is extremely confident in her combat abilities and has loads of raw power, but needs to learn she isn't as strong as she thinks she is. Faye isn't confident at all and needs to learn she's way more powerful than she thinks she is. There's more layers to it all but I don't want to type out a full dissertation on something Sapphy already talked about lmao. It was just a lot of fun to explore all of that through the lens of that fight and set up so much more in the process.

Speaking of setting up future arcs, I'm going to move over to talking about Spear instead. Specifically, Catherine vs Kabu. Up to that point, Catherine had not once expressed any interest in actually being a competitive trainer and taking on the gym challenge. She actively resented that she had been "forced" into doing so to begin with. On top of that, while she had reached a point in her development where she was actively trying to embody her own idealism, she had never really expressed a desire to actually do anything about the world at large, a world that was fundamentally broken in her eyes.

Enter Kabu, who not only has a reputation for just ending people's journeys because he's such a huge obstacle for trainers to face early on, but he's also - especially in Spear - characterised as someone who pushes people to be their best and likes to impart a little bit of fire-themed sage advice. Catherine had been winning all of her battles at that point with pure strategy, she very rarely trained or battled outside of moments it was absolutely necessary, so aside from any natural talents they had, her team were actually pretty underpowered compared to most. That was not going to be enough to beat Kabu though. He was pushing Indra, her Poliwag, to his limits and then some - all the while poking and prodding at Catherine about her lack of enthusiasm. Eventually, that came to a head when Catherine finally lost her cool and started ranting and raving about how terrible everything was in her eyes. But he didn't let up, he started pushing her to do something about it. In the end, she kind of half-snapped and half-had a sudden moment of character growth. She publicly declared, on live TV, that she would beat Kabu - and every other gym leader and challenger she had to - make it to the league tournament and become champion and use the power and socio-political clout of the position to make Galar into a better place.

Indra, was still outclassed by Centiskorch though... but in what is easily in competition for best evolution scene I have ever written, he displayed his complete faith in Catherine and his desire to make her goals a reality by evolving mid-battle and continuing to fight even though he was well-beyond his limits at that point. In the end, Indra fought the battle to a tie and Kabu decided to give Catherine her badge - declaring that he couldn't approve of her attitude (fair), but that she had proven she had the spirit to be a real trainer and to pursue such a lofty goal, largely thanks to Indra's dedication and performance.

She didn't technically win in the end, but it was a major character-defining moment for Catherine that dramatically altered her trajectory. She had a real goal suddenly - a noble one even - and had announced it to the world (and started developing a small following who resonated with what she said in her outburst). Now, she's suddenly pursuing the championship with an almost scary level of single-minded determination, quickly moving up in the ranks and working her ass off to the point it's probably not very good for her health. Even when her team are resting, she's studying and scheming.

Honestly, Prim and Catherine are two of the best characters I've written and are easily two of my favourites too. Very proud of how they've developed as characters. I'll be back with more later - for them and for other characters too. I have a lot to talk about in a thread like this lol.