Whooo okay, I had a busy weekend and couldn't really think of how to start up this ongoing series, but when I was talking about it to my boyfriend he said, "Wouldn't it make sense for the first character you talk about to be THE first?" So, that's what this is. Kind of.




(How the hell do images even work on Dreamwidth send help)

I'm not sure if I can say for certain Renée was my first ever OC. I first got into fandom when I was 8, when I wasn't actually IN fandom, but I was doing fanart and fanfic at that time without even knowing those words, and of course my single-digit fanart days are a faraway blur to me.
But Renée has always been a constant. If she isn't my oldest, then she has most definitely won the title of longest surviving OC. If memory serves correct she was originally called Renée Nightingale, and then down the line it changed over and over again until I finally landed on Sevard, but her design has stayed pretty much the same throughout that, always with that signature long scarlett hair.

She's also never really jumped fandoms. I was introduced to Zoids by my dad, and Zoids: Chaotic Century was on an obscure cartoon channel we had at like 6:30am every morning, running through all of Chaotic Century and Guardian Force twice over until it, quite sadly, disappeared. It was in this haze of being 9 or 10 years old, and getting up even before my parents, getting my cereal, and nestling on the sofa with my blanket to watch some Zoids, that I started writing regularly. Once they caught onto my love for the anime, most of my Christmases and Birthdays would involve at least one Zoids model kits. Making those kits, and acting out stories with them with my father, creating our own wacky 'episodes' of the anime, is a very strong and happy childhood memory for me. Renée ended up getting created as my own character for those 'episodes', and not long after that I started writing my own fanfic about her. Given how much Zoids meant to me and how long this love for it lasted, Renée not only became my first proper fanfic character, but had the time to become a solid part of that world. She BELONGS with Zoids, that's her home, and it feels wrong to remove her from it.

I have a lot to thank Renée for, she's taught me a lot. Not just about writing fanfic, but about growing as a person. She's changed a lot in terms of character over the years, in a way her ups and downs have mirrored my own. I've managed to get a good hold on her character very recently, though. I introduced my boyfriend to Zoids while we were talking about childhood a few years back, and now he loves it almost as much as I do. It truly revitalised my love for this character, and I found myself missing her, so I came back. Updated her look, her name, her story. But I still haven't shared it yet. For one the Zoids scene is pretty quiet these days, even with the new anime knocking about (which I still haven't looked at) but more than that... it's extremely personal to me. Despite how many characters and stories I have in my head, I wouln't consider a lot of it personal. Close to my heart, yes, but Renée and the story that's happened around her is a VERY personal thing. In a way, she's the culmination of my 14 years of writing, and she very much feels like a part of me.

So, thank you, Renée Sevard. For making me love writing. For helping me become the person I am today.

(Bonus; I recently made her in my modded Fallout 4 and she came out looking perfect.)