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Description
My longest-running character (with Nova coming in as a close second)!
I have had Kaiva for longer than I've had any character, including Emil
The first picture you can find in my gallery as of January 2020 on here is of him!
But i chose one i made of his original version instead to better show his progress

2013 - The NarutOC Era
Haha terrible title.
In 2013, in response to seeing Sai in Naruto, I created a member of the Foundation named Yasashii Nara, the fictional younger brother to Shikamaru. He was more of a self-insert than Emil was, in hindsight, as he was a funnel for my inferiority complexes and desire to be a smarter person (before I realized being dumb is a lot of fun). He was mostly just the tsundere member of his team meant to act as a background character at best. My pseudo Sasuke, essentially. He was 13, too. Wow.
He was an edgy assassin character who used puppetry because that's cool as heck.

2014 - The Break-out Era
I started adapting my Naruto OCs into their own stories when I couldn't think of any characters to create, and Kaiva was one I enjoyed because of his calmer disposition. During this phase I really started smoothing him out to be more cool-headed than a lazy jerk. He was still sort of a basic stoic guy at this stage.
I gave him the name Kaiva because I liked the name, thinking the B in Kaiba's name (from YugiOh) was pronounced as a V. At this point I decided he was fully Japanese, but then I also wanted him to be English because for some reason I was equating my characters with Hetalia characters (it was a weird phase, dude), and I liked how Noriyaki Sugiyama's voice sounded for him.
He kept his original powers and role as an assassin, but now had a new family and was a rich kid, and his design became more stylish. I also aged him up to 17.
I moved him to the role of Emil's Deuteragonist and love interest

2015 - The Smooth Era
Kaiva got a lot more cluttered with stuff like being a trained assassin AND using puppetry AND being a rockstar AND being a feminine pretty boy AND being a nice nice person. Kaiva became pretty boring as a character because I didn't realize that good character dynamics include interesting character conflicts, and that characters who get along all the time forever are a bit boring in an action story. I also had a weird subplot with him wearing brown contacts to hide his red eyes based on something I saw in Misao? It was a thing, I guess.
He was mostly the character I imagined in those music videos people think when listening to music on car rides.
Not much to say about him at this stage.

2017 - The Revival Era
I revisited Kaiva and decided to give him a last name that wasn't just a word I made up. Everglade was a random last name, though, not gonna lie.
I started changing him to be a bit more stand-offish and sarcastic, mellowing out the group while also adding a bit of a fun edge. His eye color officially changed to being constantly red. I scrapped his assassination angle and decided to lean in t technology, as I was super into inventors and such. I also moved him from the deuteragonist role into the tritagonist/support role. Because of my comfort with creating LGBTQ characters, I also decided to make him Aromantic/Asexual. He and Emil simply didn't have any chemistry in my mind anymore. However, like with Emil, I didn't fully commit to his ethnicity and just made him ethnically ambiguous. His design and personality humbled him, and I parted his bangs down the side to differentiate him from Emil further, though I kept his rich kid backstory to create a vague complexity with his family that was actually not complex at all. I also aged him up to 22 years old.
He was sort of rounding out to become a classic "Genius Asshole", unfortunately.

2020 - The Shitheel Era
Gintama once again showed me the way.
I revisited Kaiva and realized I had the right idea in 2013, but now had a better understanding of narrative conventions and techniques.
So I made him awful. Just a huge jerk -- dismissive and openly rude to others, lazy and catty. However, I also gave him reasons for it and a clearer path for improvement. Think Gintoki except he's wickedly smart, sucks at fighting, and isn't a pseudo father for two equally terrible children.
Granted, Kaiva isn't sexist or racist or anything - he's not that kind of jerk. That would require him to pick favourites, and he dislikes most people equally.
Because he's terrible at socializing and knows it, but decides to actively and knowingly lie to himself that he's not the one at fault for having shit social skillsdespite knowing that is blatantly untrue and a little bit stupid.
He became a bit more childish, and also got more quirks like being a movie-lover and making half-assed machines. He's aslo stupidly self aware and it actualyl causes him a lot of pain, but he decides to give up instead of try.
I also touched on the Genius Asshole tropes and decided to make confronting that trope a little sub-arc with him to poke fun at people who equate intelligence with being cynical jerks.
I went back to his ambiguous ethnicity, and decided I could make him Spanish, though it doesn't really effect his character. Knowing it though, it's better than just making him a vague ethnicity and not committing, instead reveling in the appearance of making a PoC character rather than a character who is actually from somewhere in the world.
I also completely scrapped his combat abilities and made him 100% support in battle, working mostly with robots and traps. He lost all muscularity and physical fitness. His backstory also became more fleshed out, and his relationships with his family actually became complex and grew to have a bearing on the plot and how he interacts with other characters. His relationship with his twin brother especially, who was constantly trying to win the approval of their emotionally distant father while Kaiva drifted away and stopped trying because he found it fruitless and pointless, started to round out as they began to dislike each other due to how it affected their performance and treatment by their parents.
I also aged him up to 24.
As I developed him and fleshed out his backstory and his role in the story, I realized he and Emil complemented and contrasted each other in interesting ways, and they suddenly had more chemistry because of it. So Kaiva slid back into the deuteragonist slot, this time as Emil's best friend (but not a fan of her at first).

Kaiva taught me that sometimes characters who suck are a lot of fun.
Also flawed jerk characters are compelling if you handle them right.
It's crazy how far Kaiva's come in all these years. I'm 21 now and I still have him and actively use him.
Oh my God he sucks I love him.

Description
My longest-running character (with Nova coming in as a close second)!
I have had Kaiva for longer than I've had any character, including Emil
The first picture you can find in my gallery as of January 2020 on here is of him!
But i chose one i made of his original version instead to better show his progress

2013 - The NarutOC Era
Haha terrible title.
In 2013, in response to seeing Sai in Naruto, I created a member of the Foundation named Yasashii Nara, the fictional younger brother to Shikamaru. He was more of a self-insert than Emil was, in hindsight, as he was a funnel for my inferiority complexes and desire to be a smarter person (before I realized being dumb is a lot of fun). He was mostly just the tsundere member of his team meant to act as a background character at best. My pseudo Sasuke, essentially. He was 13, too. Wow.
He was an edgy assassin character who used puppetry because that's cool as heck.

2014 - The Break-out Era
I started adapting my Naruto OCs into their own stories when I couldn't think of any characters to create, and Kaiva was one I enjoyed because of his calmer disposition. During this phase I really started smoothing him out to be more cool-headed than a lazy jerk. He was still sort of a basic stoic guy at this stage.
I gave him the name Kaiva because I liked the name, thinking the B in Kaiba's name (from YugiOh) was pronounced as a V. At this point I decided he was fully Japanese, but then I also wanted him to be English because for some reason I was equating my characters with Hetalia characters (it was a weird phase, dude), and I liked how Noriyaki Sugiyama's voice sounded for him.
He kept his original powers and role as an assassin, but now had a new family and was a rich kid, and his design became more stylish. I also aged him up to 17.
I moved him to the role of Emil's Deuteragonist and love interest

2015 - The Smooth Era
Kaiva got a lot more cluttered with stuff like being a trained assassin AND using puppetry AND being a rockstar AND being a feminine pretty boy AND being a nice nice person. Kaiva became pretty boring as a character because I didn't realize that good character dynamics include interesting character conflicts, and that characters who get along all the time forever are a bit boring in an action story. I also had a weird subplot with him wearing brown contacts to hide his red eyes based on something I saw in Misao? It was a thing, I guess.
He was mostly the character I imagined in those music videos people think when listening to music on car rides.
Not much to say about him at this stage.

2017 - The Revival Era
I revisited Kaiva and decided to give him a last name that wasn't just a word I made up. Everglade was a random last name, though, not gonna lie.
I started changing him to be a bit more stand-offish and sarcastic, mellowing out the group while also adding a bit of a fun edge. His eye color officially changed to being constantly red. I scrapped his assassination angle and decided to lean in t technology, as I was super into inventors and such. I also moved him from the deuteragonist role into the tritagonist/support role. Because of my comfort with creating LGBTQ characters, I also decided to make him Aromantic/Asexual. He and Emil simply didn't have any chemistry in my mind anymore. However, like with Emil, I didn't fully commit to his ethnicity and just made him ethnically ambiguous. His design and personality humbled him, and I parted his bangs down the side to differentiate him from Emil further, though I kept his rich kid backstory to create a vague complexity with his family that was actually not complex at all. I also aged him up to 22 years old.
He was sort of rounding out to become a classic "Genius Asshole", unfortunately.

2020 - The Shitheel Era
Gintama once again showed me the way.
I revisited Kaiva and realized I had the right idea in 2013, but now had a better understanding of narrative conventions and techniques.
So I made him awful. Just a huge jerk -- dismissive and openly rude to others, lazy and catty. However, I also gave him reasons for it and a clearer path for improvement. Think Gintoki except he's wickedly smart, sucks at fighting, and isn't a pseudo father for two equally terrible children.
Granted, Kaiva isn't sexist or racist or anything - he's not that kind of jerk. That would require him to pick favourites, and he dislikes most people equally.
Because he's terrible at socializing and knows it, but decides to actively and knowingly lie to himself that he's not the one at fault for having shit social skillsdespite knowing that is blatantly untrue and a little bit stupid.
He became a bit more childish, and also got more quirks like being a movie-lover and making half-assed machines. He's aslo stupidly self aware and it actualyl causes him a lot of pain, but he decides to give up instead of try.
I also touched on the Genius Asshole tropes and decided to make confronting that trope a little sub-arc with him to poke fun at people who equate intelligence with being cynical jerks.
I went back to his ambiguous ethnicity, and decided I could make him Spanish, though it doesn't really effect his character. Knowing it though, it's better than just making him a vague ethnicity and not committing, instead reveling in the appearance of making a PoC character rather than a character who is actually from somewhere in the world.
I also completely scrapped his combat abilities and made him 100% support in battle, working mostly with robots and traps. He lost all muscularity and physical fitness. His backstory also became more fleshed out, and his relationships with his family actually became complex and grew to have a bearing on the plot and how he interacts with other characters. His relationship with his twin brother especially, who was constantly trying to win the approval of their emotionally distant father while Kaiva drifted away and stopped trying because he found it fruitless and pointless, started to round out as they began to dislike each other due to how it affected their performance and treatment by their parents.
I also aged him up to 24.
As I developed him and fleshed out his backstory and his role in the story, I realized he and Emil complemented and contrasted each other in interesting ways, and they suddenly had more chemistry because of it. So Kaiva slid back into the deuteragonist slot, this time as Emil's best friend (but not a fan of her at first).

Kaiva taught me that sometimes characters who suck are a lot of fun.
Also flawed jerk characters are compelling if you handle them right.
It's crazy how far Kaiva's come in all these years. I'm 21 now and I still have him and actively use him.
Oh my God he sucks I love him.