I recently got into fighting games w/ p4u & bbcp, & I'm interested in maining kokonoe. I really like her playstyle & am not planning to switch, but I don't wanna be just another kokonoe in the crowd. have you ever been discouraged from playing someone you like & if so how've you dealt w/ it?

There's a plague occurring around this subject and it's good to get to the end of it now rather than later. So many people, for whatever reason, have decided that fighting games are a story written with the low tier characters as the protagonists - suffering under the unfair and brainless top tier characters which rule their world. But they're not. In a fighting game, the best characters in the game are the characters that see the most match ups, the most tournament play time, and typically the highest possible level of play. There are exceptions, but call those the plot twists/heros. No one aiming to win tournaments is going to look down on someone for picking a strong character. You almost never see people who place highly in multiple games picking bad characters. And this is totally fine - the match ups for top tier characters usually see many even match ups - sure, they might destroy the bad characters assuming even skill, but among the best characters in the game it's entirely up to you to outplay human opponents (which is the entire point of a fighting game) So no, I've never been discouraged from playing whatever character I enjoy. In fact, I decided to take FGs seriously when my hobby character Bang in BB got buffed to S tier in CS1 from bottom 2 in CT because I'm highly realistic - I knew just how difficult it is to outplay living breathing opponents, and I didn't want any 'tool' to hold me back. Akihiko was a different spectrum, his play style meshed with me and I had a ton of fun with it if not the best results. Eltnum in UNIEL is my first pick with competitivity strictly in mind; well rounded, no significant weaknesses and great stability. All that to say, whatever reason you have to pick a character, -just fucking pick it-

Who cares what the peanut gallery has to say?