I grew up really liking Scorpion and Sub-Zero. Loved Scorpion in
Mortal Kombat (1992) as he was simply a guy mourning for his family. The fact that he was a dead guy out for revenge made it all that much cooler.
I gravitated more to Sub-Zero in
Mortal Kombat II since he made amends with Scorpion and wasn't as ruthless as Bi-Han was (of course we didn't know their names yet).
These days, my favourite characters and mains are Mileena/Kitana.
With
Mortal Kombat (2011) I started with Scorpion but found I was Scorpion-ed out, and I wasn't keen on how Sub-Zero played in the game. I switched to Mileena as she was widely considered the best character in
Mortal Kombat II, and had a fast and aggressive play style. After watching what
@16 Bit was doing with Kitana in tournaments, I decided to pick her up and try to learn her, and really enjoyed myself even though I never got close to high level play.
Grinding Kitana kombos and such in Practice actually helped me focus as I was battling my chronic illness at the time; served as a good distraction/focal point, so the character has come to represent resilience to me.