reviving this old thread because i don't want to think about the fact i'm doing overtime rn at 1:30am, that said i've reskinned a number of old characters when i think i miss them, never got closure with them, or think they could fit the themes of a site, but i've never reskinned / attempted to remake a character as much as i have my Son, My Boy, My Twerp, My Babygirl,
ryota goddamn saito (or saito ryota if you go by proper japanese naming conventions). buckle up, this is gonna be a long one.
had this kid since, like... 2014? whenever the assassination classroom anime dropped, as he was initially an oc for a beloved friend of mine's assassination classroom forum in ffn. the forum didn't last (we got bored with it), but i liked him well enough that when me and my closest and oldest rp circle decided to revive an old sao rp we had with a "new generation" of young japanese high schoolers dealing with a new vrmmo threat years after the events of sao (and our initial rp), i
jumped at the chance to use him. this was from 2016-2017 (maybe 2018?). which is relevant.
so his very very initial incarnation (the assassination classroom one) was unironically just a rehash of jd from heathers the musical: a snarky introverted young male teenager with a questionable moral compass, a fondness for western thrillers and mysteries, and a knack for inventing. he was a transfer student due to his kinda deadbeat uncle (and guardian, parents weren't in the picture) being a freelance journalist who traveled a lot, so ryota would never stayed in the same place for long. also he wore a trenchcoat everywhere, this was like his
definitive character trait. but since this rp only lasted like 3 weeks tops, i don't consider it his main incarnation versus...
the sao private rp, which was a doozy and then some. need to preface, i do think i ended up getting
very attached to him during this time as he was 17 around the time i was 16 going 17, and 17, and i projected a lot of my high school experiences, dynamics, and learnings about the lives of my classmates and friends + how we all worked into him & the other characters i had for that rp. but i do consider him + my characters in this rp to unironically be the ones closest to my heart. in this rp, i kept a fair bit of his assassination classroom variant, but ended up, like, humanizing him a lot? in the ac rp he was comedically sociopathic (again, rehash of jd from heathers); in this one, he was... significantly not that LOL. instead, i wrote him as a brooding introvert with a fondness for western thrillers and mysteries, was socially awkward as all hell (but this came across more as "stoic, deadpan, sarcastic"), EXTREMELY ambitious and highly intelligent (i'm talking this kid was class valedictorian, straight-A, cared so much about his work ethic and grades, etc), while being ride-or-die for his best friend (platonic soulmate i love them sm) who was sunshine in a bottle with her own demons. heavily distant with 90% of people and didn't really attach, was just the tagalong most of the time to his best friend, and he seemed happy this way. i made him biromantic asexual too, as i was coming to terms with my own sexuality (ended up shipping him with a lot of different characters that tbh these days i consider him just bi, my boy had so many bi crushes it was so funny), ended up falling hilariously attached to a ship between him and a male npc i didn't really expect to like so much. still miss that ship to this day.
anyway the narrative plot of that rp was essentially "let's traumatize this cute friend group and break them apart completely and utterly while a massive corporate conspiracy was unfurling in the background that could kill like thousands of players from their vrmmo". his part of that plotline was realizing how much he actually cared about that friendgroup as they all fell apart, and get over himself enough to bring everyone back together. i sprinkled a lot of YA coming of age stuff in his narrative too (coming to terms with his family, both the trauma that came with and what he'd been taking for granted there; learning a bit more re: his sexuality and his true feelings for an ex-friend he envied quite a bit; having to confront his ambition and why it mattered so much to him; letting go of cynicality, etc).
the problem is that our group are hilariously bad at finishing rp plots as a whole, and this was around the time when two of us were graduating hs, one of us was in his starting years of uni and dropping out, and the other was coming to terms with her rl and gender, so we never got around to finishing this rp. that said, most of us are p much in agreement that these were the best characters we've written and best friendgroup dynamic we've made. i think about ryota a lot still, which leads to me trying to recreate him in a lot of rps (it's easy to find out which cel character is a ryota expy tbh: look for the brooding overly rational and stoic male character who has more heart than he means to give / show, is a big overachiever at his own expense, and/or is completely ride-or-die for someone conventionally more palatable than him). i do think those expies don't hold a candle to the original/sao incarnation though, as a lot of Why(TM) that character worked was because of his specific dynamics, plotlines, setting, and friendgroups. (like, he was a huge DORK who played rock-paper-scissors with his best friend to pass time, would 100% steal a guard dog while
kidnapping rescuing a rich friend for a night who was trapped in an abusive household, would play harmless pranks, liberally use finger guns, debate in depth the existence of a robot-dinosaur conspiracy being funded by the japanese government, say a cheesy one-liner after suddenly getting kissed by his situationship boyfriend, talk smugly about himself after getting knocked to the ground because the aforementioned rich friend jumped off a window to escape and used him as a landing cushion, what have you. i love him so much.) i think he and his friendgroup struck the perfect balance of "being compelling characters with a lot of internal shit to sort through, while still being Very Clearly Nerdy Stupid Teenagers Who Literally Schedule MMO Raids Together"
that said i think one of the funniest thing about him is his fc. he came from ffn rp, then discord private server rp, so he never really had a solid fc and i just rotated different anime boys with messy black hair and brown eyes who looked conventionally attractive, but guarded and distant.
until honkai star rail dropped last april 2023, and it was legitimately terrifying / concerning how perfect dan heng fit him. like, to quote said private server's chat:
