Emotional Suite: Saying Good-Bye

[Darren Onyx]

As a writer I find it hard to say good-bye to a character. I don't mean the ending where the character hangs up their sword and you speculate what happens next. I'm talking about the death of the character- the literal end of their journey.

When I write something in this nature I find it very hard. The two main reasons are because writing something that will connect with other people is hard. The second, and more major reason, is because I love my characters. We all love our characters and we love developing their stories. So how does it feel when you reach the end?

That's my question. What do you think and feel when you finally reach the end of your characters story and they die?

 

[Soliath Devin Talith]

 

[Darth Voracitos]

Gratified by their massive achievement of actually pulling through and dying any death at all, and not simply fading away and then being forgotten.

I thought my death was the end, though I prepared for the possibility I would come back, and I did. But the visions I have in my head now for the future... The End, not just death, will be of epic proportions. It shall be the greatest thing I have ever written, and it will be positively The End. Once the roleplay of indeterminable time from now starts, it WILL be the last as Voracitos, even if I remain here as a writer. No revives. Nothing. The end of Big V's road is Oblivion of his spirit... after tearing out a burning path of the universe.

Also, funny you should ask, I was going to make this question into a game.

 

[Darth Ferus]

I've had a lot of issues with this in the past on my other characters. And there's really no easy way to do it. All the time and effort you put in to make the character who they are, the connections you form both IC and OOC with other players and writers, and even just the lols you get when your character does something silly.

But there's something I learned a while back now that helps with it. Don't look at the death of your character as the death end. Look at it as the focal point. All those connections you've made ICly will factor in. Your characters death will affect many others, it may even push their rp to something new. Something more then if your character had a close call. As a writer I don't rp for myself. I rp to tell a story, and death has always been a part of it. So when I remember why my character died, either to save someone else, to fall in a duel, or even to slip off of a cliff, I remind myself that it was to push others forward in their rp, and I smile.

 

[Siobhan Kerrigan]

I know I don't love or even particularly like Siobhan. Quite the opposite most of the time. I guess @[member="Tamara"] can confirm that! Though killing her off would mean no I would longer be able to deprive her of limbs or mock her.

Have not actually killed a char yet (except for another incarnation of Sio way back - and I was unsentimental about that, but then I did not like her). Well, another incarnation of Moira got brutally tortured to a point where I guess she would have preferred being dead. I have at various points in time pondered killing a number of them. All things end at some point. In the end I'm writing a character after all - and there cannot always be a grand victory or a 'heroic last minute' escape. Sometimes the door closes.

 

[Darren Onyx]

I was going to make this question into a game.

What? Say how the character above you should die?

@[member="Darth Voracitos"]

 

[Aeda Shaytari]

@[member="Siobhan Kerrigan"] the evil cow killed me.

This naturally displeased me.

 

[Eruna Delmarra]

While not on this site I have had those moments where a character reaches their end. Sometimes they die or other times they simply move on and live out the rest of their lives away from the conflict. But either way it is hard sometimes, especially when you've been through so much with a character. You've established their past and helped forge their future, making them into the person they wind up being by the time it's all over. Good or bad they did have a life that you wrote and it feels so great to know you've done that. But when you have to let go it is rough, almost like giving up on a pet or even a child in some cases. In the end it's all a matter of knowing that, while the world may not know about them, you'll always have that character kept somewhere in your mind to hopefully use in some other fashion in the future. Characters never die as long as there is imagination.

 

[Alexandra Feanor]

=

 

[Edric Vanyan]

In my years of Roleplaying, especially during my WoW Private server phase that i enjoyed because large amounts of RP could be done fast, i have lost so many characters that i cant even remember. I believe my all time high number was... 18 characters in 3 months on one server and honestly, i was proud of losing the characters. I find losing a character to mean the ultimate way of Roleplaying realistically. In star wars, WoW, and all that similar stuff there is one underlining fact, we are not gods and that is why i have never attempted to be such. I mean sure, you could do something massive, achieve great lengths, but you do it through surviving for so long on a character that it just feels redundant. Heck, had there not been the ask someone before you kill their char rule, Alexandra would have probably died in the very thread that she was introduced. And Yusan, dead in the Senate building attack thread. It wasnt their time yet as they were new, which is why that protection was nice to have, but now, they are coming on being 6 month old characters and if someone takes the realistic attempt at their lives, ill merely nod and give them a proper bow for their Roleplay, thank them for sending out my characters, and make new ones.

Perhaps those years ago, when i made my first characters, started RPing, i made that connection to them that many perceive as angst when they die, but it is long past that time. Roleplayers mature, the time spent on their character remembered, and a new journey is started and that is what is important about Roleplay anyways, creating not one but many stories that you can look back on and be proud of. So when my characters die i sit back and think on all the past characters ive lost, from Star Wars, to WoW, to TES, and so on. And when i do, i remember all the stories and good times spent on them and i make my next character anew.

 

[Loki Heidrun]

Good. Epic. Not like I'm constantly cheating death with my characters for the sake of comfort. I also feel it allows me to develop other characters further and not be chained to one creative outlit.

 

[Darth Voracitos]

@[member="Darth Onyx"], no, how your envision your character dying... so perhaps it wouldn't exactly be a game then...

 

[Kira Talith]

Hmm i had my fair share of char deaths.

But in my monster heart, I still want Tici to die via imperial firing squad.

I'm evil.

 

[Nikolas Faselli]

I'd... die with them. None of my other characters have to die besides Jasmine and Lilith. Since they are my favourite characters and their story is basically the best one I have ever made, I'd have RL depression because of their deaths.

 

[Darren Onyx]

I find it hard because I put a little bit of me in each character. Onyx is my stubbornness/determination.

Other characters in the past have been based on or around my: Good vs Evil struggle, slight insanity, humor, fear/hates, and many other things.