One day in 2013 I came up with the idea of roleplaying a gothic-type character. From this idea, Viola was born. She began life as Violet, an OC inspired by the MySims character of the same name, but with a different design and a giant scorpion familiar. While I would eventually select DJ Candy to represent my interest in MySims, Violet lost that aspect of her character and became Viola when I played Pokemon Y and discovered the redesigned Hex Maniac trainer class, and the scorpion familiar was swapped out for Pokemon. I thought the design of the Hex Maniacs was pretty great, and apparently a lot of people agree as Hex Maniac appears to now be far and away the most popular generic Trainer type in Pokemon - a big change from the class's original overlooked Hoenn appearance.
I waffled a bit when trying to decide whether Viola had legitimate supernatural powers or was just a huge dork, at one point even considering revealing her to be a ghost. Ultimately I went the dork route - she has a very strong interest in the paranormal but possesses no paranormal qualities herself. Her personality has also shifted a lot - initially more of a snarky, anti-establishment goth chick, Viola was much quieter and more mysterious in her first few appearances on the blog and at the very beginning of the season, and soon after she was introduced a side of her that had been hinted at previously - a deep-seated, enduring fear of socializing and bullying - came to the fore as Viola's Achilles heel and the cornerstone of her character.
Viola is quiet and withdrawn. Many of her attempts at making friends ended in failure before ZFRP. She was bullied for most of her life, and has spent many a night wishing for strength and confidence that she doesn't possess. With the help of ZFRP, she has improved noticeably, but remains an awkward introvert that has difficulties understanding the complicated ins and outs of friendship. And she's a lesbian, and we can all be thankful the bullies never found that out.
But the real reason you're reading this post is to hear me talk about Tenshi. Like so many things in ZFRP, it was an accident. Viola wandered into a conversation between Tenshi and Richard initially just to make a joke about the portal that connected Sheryl's Diner and The Drunken Gryphon, but Tenshi stuck around and kept saying all the wrong (or right) things, making Viola more and more interested in her. The stalking phase was brief but memorable (Viola pretending to be Myriam to get photos of Tenshi is one of the times I've laughed at my own RP) and the comedy gave way to feels when Tenshi, Apollo, and Myriam broke open Viola's Psyche-Lock. Like Lily taking interest in Sonia, I found there was a surprising amount of evidence to point to that showed the pairing was a valid idea, and so Viola and Tenshi began influencing each other and causing character development.
Late in 2014 I realized that Viola had become too attached to Tenshi - she almost never did anything that wasn't Tenshi-related, and rarely interacted with other characters. As fitting as that is for an antisocial introvert with a grand total of like three friends, I didn't want to pigeonhole her as a Tenshi satellite character, so I plan for Viola to do more things that don't involve Tenshi in the future.
Viola will return in Season 5 - she has a plot hook already set in the form of Clair, and despite what I said in the above paragraph this particular subplot is custom-made for Tenshi to get involved. Will they ever be more than just friends? You can never say anything for sure in RP, but I think you can count on something changing there one way or another...
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