My first few years RPing, I feel that I definitely did my best to create a character that I thought would be well-liked and temperate. Unfortunately, that pushed me further and further down the Mary-Sue road, and caused me more stress than it should have. After Elise graduated, I told myself that some serious reallignments needed to be done.

I resorted and created my first Hufflepuff character, Brian Woods -- who is so much me that it hurts sometimes to RP him. I learned over time that the best way to shape your characters is to carve out a part of your soul to give them, so they all have some of my interests now.

I also wrote much shorter posts before -- they're longer now, but I hope to keep improving on that front and adding more introspection and responding to other people and their reactions. There's never going to be a time when I think "this is it, i've mastered writing", and you all as RPers inspire and motivate me always and forever