[quote=@ERode]
[hider=Knight Bros: The Moonkissed Prince]Probably gonna have an elegant, sorta airheaded prince of the royal family, but one who is suitably removed from the line of succession due to being born to a third or fourth wife, and only as the second or third son. With nothing to inherit, he was yeeted into knights training, so that he could at least manage a keep or something on the frontier once he grew older. Despite his imperial mannerisms, he's the sorta person to screw around while possessing such mannerisms, making for a noble delinquent-type, preferring to paint rather than practice his swordsmanship. He doesn't get mad, and practically laughs off any insult or injury tossed in his direction, as pitiful and pathetic as that may be. It is better to bend than to snap, after all.

If we go into deep lore, he'd perhaps be touched by the God of Wisdom as an infant, and his artistry is very much impressionistic rather than realistic. And he's SUPER PRETTY![/hider]

[hider=Saint Sucks: The Barbarian Bastard]A big savage fellow, probably with big hair too. Your archetypical barbarian monster hunter, who was perhaps hired to be part of the Saintess's entourage for his expertise in handling beasts infected by miasma. I'd imagine that he'd be a wise brute sorta character, the one that supports the Saintess herself and cuts through the bullshit of religion and society, in exchange for not having any real political influence or power. Rough around the edges, with the sorta independent streak that makes him too stubborn to accept healing. Loud and prideful as hell, but since violence is his trade, he doesn't wield it for free or for personal reasons, making him weirdly restrained.

If we go into deep lore, he'd perhaps be part of the many outcasts pushed out to the boundaries of the kingdom to serve as essential meatbags to stem the flow of miasma coming from the outside. That'd give him many bones to pick indeed.[/hider]
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Oh man, I LOVE both of these concepts. Feels like they'd have really interesting potential dynamics with what I was going for, regardless of what option we went with. If I went plucky girl kouhai, she could potentially end up poking at your prince dude and giving him somebody who thinks he's cool, maybe giving him encouragement to believe in himself by proxy. And, if I went with a doofus prodigy, we'd be natural foils -- both demanded to be knights without any real say in the matter, but one of whom discarded that and decided to do his own thing, and the other of whom doesn't really know how to do anything else -- a socially skilled lazy type and a tryhard with absolutely no experience interacting with others. Would definitely get on each other's nerves, and/or somehow end up as best friends without even realizing it.

And for the Saintess one, your dude isn't tied down by political bullshit or "The good of the many," and could call my character out on basically [i]all[/i] his insecurities. Would be hella dramatic.

Looking over the others now...

Hammer's Saintess ideas seem really fun too. If she's super cheerful to hide how much she's struggling, it'd throw my guy for a loop since she'd be different from what he expected, but also he wouldn't realize the truth just looking in from outside. Whereas if she's just, like, completely hopeless and emotionally repressed, he'd almost immediately realize [i]something[/i] was wrong, but have no idea how to help or what have you.

Izu's noble also seems neat, and could be an interesting contrast to other characters doing the same thing in spite of gender norms, whereas he's doing it precisely [i]because[/i] of those norms and wanting to be more masculine.

...Though, I guess my main worry with the Knights concept is that, even if the meme of "everybody's actually in disguise and thinks they're the only one" is pretty funny, there might be a bit too much character overlap for comfort. Gotta have some people who are entirely out of the loop and are just doing normal stuff to have a baseline for contrast's sake, and all. Even so, it does seem like a lotta people are on board with it, so I'm definitely not opposed to the idea!