First, I'm sorry for the delay on responding Erin. Secondly...I kind of don't exactly have a favorite fighter per se. I know that sounds like a cop-out but its true. However, I do have two that really have influence me:

Street Fighter III 3rd Strike: I remember reading so much about SFIII but never seeing it live in Arcades. When I did play it, via the SF Anniversary Collection for PS2, it reshaped my mind. Just the music, the UI, stages... I've never been touched in my soul by a fighting game like that (except for the other game below). As my pinned tweet stated, SF has been in my life since I was like three. So, this was the first SF that it just clicked with. Shame that I couldn't really play it until years later. This year, when I was in the G-Pool SF3 V-tuber tourny, I felt like that started to slowly come full circle. I'm still in shocked that I made it to the top 8 in that tourny. It feel so unreal.

Guilty Gear XX for PS2/' #Reload for Xbox 2001 - I can't believe I am saying the following but I'd wouldn't have given this game a shot if I didn't see an Xplay review, praising this game. Yeah. Things are weird but man. Another fighting game that touched my soul. Like the UI (like having tiny sprites of the character by the life bars doing the attacks!). GGXX OST has changed my soul and opened me up to more music I'd probably had shelved because I though Black people shouldn't be listening to. GGXX, much like 3rd, is the first fighting game I practice to do specials, supers, and in GG's case Instant Kills. Somehow on the XB version of mission mode, I even completed the last mission once, randomly and got like Gold Colored Sol and Ky. GG is sort of a open would because I still like Arc Fighters but for whatever reason, I don't find myself staying with them, and its nothing against the quality of them.

These were really long and I'm still loopy from sleep meds so I'm sorry if that doesn't answer your question.