Saying Goodbye To Sarah: The Story Behind SarahPlot

Took me long enough to write this, didn't it? But hey, now that the busiest part of the offseason - the holidays - is over, and we enter the long stretch of peace between now and May 1, I figured it was high time I finally get around to talking about my third and final plot of the 2016 RP season - SarahPlot.

This one's gonna be different from my usual plot aftermath posts, working a bit more stream-of-consciousness than a format of characters then events.
  
THE INITIAL IDEA
With my roster enormous going into Season 6, it was high time I do some wrapping up of major characters to make room for others to have their own time in the sun. One character chosen for retirement was Sarah Triden. She's had an incredible run in RP. She was one of the driving forces behind the initial "RP Explosion", and had gotten in on the ground floor for RP's ascendance to being a serious, plot-driven Thing instead of just "a bunch of weirdos talk about ZooFights". She was instrumental in the stories of many characters, whether it was by befriending them or saving their lives, or in one case falling in love. She came back for a second season, then faded into the background before coming back with a vengeance halfway through Season 4, then remained major the next year. As much as I love the little marshmallow, I knew I was running low on stories to tell with her, and her role could be filled by other characters. Helios and the rest of the hospital crew have slowly usurped Sarah's role as the primary healers of the Kobbers, and I've got no shortage of cute, bubbly characters that could be used instead of Sarah for casual bar chat and making friends. But with a character this important to RP, who's been around this long, you don't just snuff out their light and move on. Sarah needed a proper finale, one that built on her history.