So tell me, friendslist

[arkster]

What's the first time you ever killed off a character?

One of yours, I mean, one you'd petted and fed and watered and seen grow. One who'd surprised you, multiple times. One you'd grown to love and see yourself in, and - more gratifyingly - see all the ways you're different and always will be. One you'd enjoyed knowing, in all his or her or its imperfect rambling ways.

I'm two martinis in and I don't know how to feel.

Comments

[soysauce.livejournal.com]

UM. That'd have to be Zuko from the ATLA. Azula killed him... and it was dramatic and hilarious.

[arks.livejournal.com]

Ouch. Did either party, at any time, make a Your Mom joke?

[soysauce.livejournal.com]

I... CAN'T REMEMBER. But the break was nice. TWO WEEKS AHH

[hezul.livejournal.com]

I killed off one of my OCs in a game in....crap, must've been in 2006? He was one of my favorites, had ranked pretty high in a gamewide poll of favorites, I loved playing him and I'd had him since the day after the game started (we'd been going for about nine months when I offed him, IIRC).

It was a pretty dark game, lots of epic battles and characters killing each other off, and he was by no means the first one to go. But I very deliberately gave him a stupid pointless death instead of an awesome epic one; he figured out the mind game another character was pulling on his team, so the other character (who...actually had fighting skills; my guy was pretty much his team's smart guy but crap in a fight) just killed him in his own apartment when nobody was else there. He never got a chance to get any kind of word out about what he'd figured out.

I cried when we wrote the log and a lot of the other players were like DAMN YOU SAM ;_: when we posted it, and while some characters just kind of died and never got mentioned again, he kept coming up and his teammates really did a lot with it, which made me feel amazingly warm and fuzzy even though I felt like a total jerk for killing him off.

I still miss playing him even today, not gonna lie.

[arks.livejournal.com]

This was your X/1999 spinoff, yes? I loved watching bits and pieces of that.

[hezul.livejournal.com]

Yes. I killed off a lot of characters in that, but some of them stood out waaaaay more to me than others, naturally.

[rawri.livejournal.com]

Ah, man, so long ago. In the distant past. Kazu from AG got meat-chopped into a box by X. Left... some very nice, long-lasting trauma, if I remember right. Though the very very first time a character of mine ever perished was all the way back in Furcadia, when I was a wee twelve-year-old, messing with bad lion OCs and big old college kids who put me back in my place.

What about you, Lina?

[boojums-snark.livejournal.com]

I don't think I ever have, if I'm honest o.0

And I don't think I could either. Not even knowing that in Paradisa he could come back 2 weeks later. I'd be heartbroken...and honestly, wouldn't want to put his cast-mates through that.

BACK OFF DAN DIDIO B|

[bamboozle.livejournal.com]

... You know, I don't think I ever--

Oh. When I dropped Kiba I put him off for killing. I kind of regretted it afterward, too, since it didn't really serve any purpose other than deathfodder for the killers in Rive, and I dropped him when I was feeling down, so the prospect of bringing him back was then like "ahhh but he'd have to be restarted," which was sort of a bummer.

Goodness, that was a bit anticlimactic. Who did you kill off?

[pimpstergust.livejournal.com]

I play tabletop. I have my characters killed for me. There are a couple I am still not sure I am cool with them dying, even years later. Most are fine, but there are one or two...

[rizumcbutt.livejournal.com]

I killed Jan off at another game once. He'd been there 9 months, and had lost... well, less friends than he's lost at Riv now, but the death toll was climbing. He grabbed the one person left he liked, carefully put her down (her player was dropping too), and then went on a delighted NPC killing spree in the cafeteria so the heroes would gang up and kill him. It was bittersweet, but I had no regrets right up until I started the log and his new roommate was like WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?? DDD: and tried to protect him, and then I felt not a little bad.

There's an end to every story, right? Unless, of course, said character pops up again in private musebox adventures involving the Totally Awesome Boat Team Justice Group...

[arks.livejournal.com]

We're still not calling it that, Bart.

[arks.livejournal.com]

That is a sword that cuts both ways, isn't it, when you lose that autonomy. Must make the plot roll better, though. No pun intended.

Sometimes I think a great failing of LJRP is the authorial power over every affect on one's own character. Death is a conscious choice, carelessly made or not - it's nearly never, on the meta level, an accident.

[arks.livejournal.com]

It feels a bit like I've killed Roy. I deliberately gave him a comic-book, never-saw-the-body ending, but... all the same. He's gone now.

[arks.livejournal.com]

... I remember that, actually. The edges of the trauma, anyway, were brushed up against.

If you want me to be really honest I wonder if what I did to Tim in CW was like killing his character. The Robin in him was totally gone, in the end.

Otherwise yeah, dropped a game yesterday by ending both characters' stories. One more final than the other.

[rawri.livejournal.com]

Yeah. He had some sparks that appeared time-to-time. Since it was... never properly addressed, it really ate at him.

That counts, I think. Though was it a progressive thing.

Aaah. Your first, really? o:

[arks.livejournal.com]

Ugh, I'm glad. Dick dying is a horrifying thought. Nevermind the 2 week "break", it's still, well. DEATH. I actually think a resurrection window would make me less likely to consider killing a character; it seems a way to get a lot of grief and then sort of string it out like a shadow over the rest of that character's time there.

[arks.livejournal.com]

But you knew going in that all or most of your pups were going to die, right? Did that help, or make it worse?

[arks.livejournal.com]

... well, Roy got caught up in a magical tornado and sucked away. It's only just been pointed out to me that if he only thinks to click his red heels a few times before he passes out, it will all end in happy tears.

:>

[rawri.livejournal.com]

.... p-pffff. well. did he make sure to wear his shoes?

[arks.livejournal.com]

That icon always brings a little nugget of joy to the table.

I am sure he never forgets. it was raining at the time after all.

[boojums-snark.livejournal.com]

TELL A LIE. I did kill one of my characters off, back in Rive, YONKS ago. He contracted TB in his canon and slowly, slowly deteriorated in-game. That, however, was not what killed him. He was a happy-go-lucky Shinsengumi, and his housemate was a stoic samurai. After coming to such a point where he wasn't really living anymore, they came to a HEARTBREAKING understanding that would give him an honourable death ;;

We never shipped them IC, but OOC? omg, it remains one of my OTPs.

And yeah. In comparison to Para's two week 'lol, not-dead' clause, I know in comic-book/sci-fi-land NO ONE IS EVER REALLY DEAD once they're gone, but... I'd like to keep my superhero defying the odds for a few more decades, thanks.

[rawri.livejournal.com]

It's about the most precious thing I have.

Happy tears for all, then.

[bamboozle.livejournal.com]

Baaaaaaaw D: Roy was like an institution at Rive.

Maybe he'll accidentally wind up in Dalmasca. Shenanigans for all, I dare say.

[speedintraining.livejournal.com]

But -- but --

[bratwonder.livejournal.com]

No. Come on. At least make it the Justice Pirates or something that doesn't take sixteen seconds to yell in a fight.

[arks.livejournal.com]

I- I've actually had flights of fancy about that.

Archer Roy in the Dalmascan resistance, I mean. Mostly thanks to you and Basch and the rapport they seemed to grow like a second skin.

Shenanigans inDEED.

[speedintraining.livejournal.com]

Just because you can't yell it in a fight doesn't mean everyone can't.

[bratwonder.livejournal.com]

And there's no point in you yelling it if it's too fast for anybody to hear.

I vote we let Ofelia do it. She's creative.

[speedintraining.livejournal.com]

But what if she doesn't come up with something cool enough? It has to be cool.

[bratwonder.livejournal.com]

It'll still be better than yours.

[bamboozle.livejournal.com]

They were amazing friends. I think Roy,Tifa and Jan (and Ashelia, of course) were the CR I missed most for Basch in Rive when I dropped. I might... someday write silly fic involving Rive people in Ivalice, just for fun.

Roy's archer ability just make him especially well suited to it.