I thought it would be good to give a brief update to my adventures (spurred on by the fact I was chatting with a friend about the situation, and just saw Trekkie's reply!)
I did end up making a second character, who was figured out near instantly as being my character based on my RP style. The good news is that this character is akin to Napoleon Dynamite in that people either instantly love or hate Character 2(tm). I have introduced a new, terrible subculture to the server revolving around aspects such as selling essential oils, horoscopes, and so on. Justifiably, Character 2 only has two ic friends and most people want to kill them.
I have not had any issues with complete randoms trying to rally around this character either, which has been fantastic. I still play Character 1, and the community still makes a ton of art of Character 1 (I swear on Affected that there may actually be more Character 1 than Peppermint art now), but now it seems as though things have shifted community wise. I'm well liked as a player, and my identity is no longer seen as 1:1 Me : Character 1, which I think has certainly helped to resolve the issue.
Character 2 has gotten a lot of antag RP as well, from ckeys that are brand new, or just wholly unrecognizable, that are players I do not interact with in any fashion. Things have turned out very well!
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As always, much love for the Para community, and I hope you are all well! :)