Seeing as its that time of year again for the AMA. Well I figured I'd go ahead and talk about myself and what roleplay did for me.
Not many people know this and some do but I had started roleplaying when I was around twelve years of age...Now seeing me at Thirty-Four its quiet shocking I'm still addicted to it. But I digress and have gotten off story.
So not many people know about this but I was home schooled from first grade onto my last four years of high school where I attended an adult high school due to needing lab credits to get my high school diploma. Now mind you being home schooled back when I was a kid in the early ninety's was frowned upon for most depending on which state you live in, in the united states. It was a tough and lonely road for me and making friends was hard because many believed I was stupid because most homeschoolers in my time were not being taught and were just allowed to do whatever they wanted. Luckily for me I had parents who believed in a education and one I thrived on to the point where I could outdo most public school kids.
During this time though I was alone most of the time locked in my room due to the bullying I received worried my parents knew I loved games and found of course you guessed it...Dungeons and Dragons thinking it would be fun for me to learn and do...It was and as the internet community began to grow as some of us know (Old AOL User, Old MSN gaming zone if ya all remember those days...) Roleplay began to grow via online communities...The first real roleplaying I did was on MSN Gaming Zone under the game Dark forces 2 Jedi knight..Which as the time had an amazing Real time Roleplaying. Nothing like starting on a newly made map and writing out a story with your clan. If anyone remembers the Dark Jedi or DJ Hey its ness! lol.
I played on there for a few years and my love of creating new characters, growing new stories and worlds began to bloom. But that didn't go well in the real world...The branding of nerd, loser, geek...Scared me and well honestly took away chance's to date, make friends, among other things considering the community I grew up in was well...RP devoid of life...Okay lets face it I was living on RP Mars for all we could say being the only Roleplayer in the area...
Soon Chatango came out and I began doing Live chat roleplays that way...The amazing fun rooms and other things began to help this roleplayer blossom more and let his creativity flow...It was fun at the time until I was in my last year of high school..to be exact my last day of high school at my graduation when a long time friend whom had been my longest roleplaying partner at the time back stabbed me...Shoving a knife so deep into my back I lost all trust in people....I locked myself away at that time for years just working on characters, story ideas, sadly roleplaying by myself using my characters as I could not even trust my online friends...I developed an unhealthy distrust for those around me waiting for the knife to come out but...
three years later a friend pulled me out of darkness and reintroduced me to forum roleplay. It was amazing letting my classic characters like Arcodos, Sisko Freeman, Lucas Davenport, and an army of characters go and meet other creators. It was pure heaven pure bliss to feel happy again and laugh..To make the most outrageous scenarios go and just let myself go..let my characters actually have fun...It was wonderful...But like life...it came crashing down.
At that time I was around twenty, twenty one at the time and the current job I was working at I had a work related accident...Which in turn put me on medications that played tricks with my mind, I began to lose sight on reality and began to go down a dark rabbit hole towards near ending of things...During this time...I was alone..or so I thought...Sitting in a corner a notebook near me Slowly opening it I saw my characters...My creations...and I was reminded It wasn't my time..I still had to finish making my ideas making my creations and giving them a shot at life in the written word.
Overcoming my disabilities at the time I learned to crawl then walk then finally run and become whole once more... It was then I found a truly wonderful place which opened the world to me...Opened up every possibility to explore and grow...to make friends far and wide and truly share amazing memories. It was all because of a simple book, a creative mind, and the RP community I was able to see the world for what it was for what it is...A melting pot of amazing potential...Where a Talking toaster could fall in love with a spoon to the greatest ever human mage with demonic origins who found a young child and brought her into his home and learned what a fathers love truly meant to a cold distant heart...To the firefighter whom saved a bar maid and started an epic family line...All the way to A elf lord whom truly found his happiness among a dragoness....And finally a sad lonely Mechanic who found love during one break down...
The future is still looking bright...and there are still many stories that have yet to be told...And it was all thanks to this wonderful community that and other communities that allowed us to all go the distance...
Not many people know this and some do but I had started roleplaying when I was around twelve years of age...Now seeing me at Thirty-Four its quiet shocking I'm still addicted to it. But I digress and have gotten off story.
So not many people know about this but I was home schooled from first grade onto my last four years of high school where I attended an adult high school due to needing lab credits to get my high school diploma. Now mind you being home schooled back when I was a kid in the early ninety's was frowned upon for most depending on which state you live in, in the united states. It was a tough and lonely road for me and making friends was hard because many believed I was stupid because most homeschoolers in my time were not being taught and were just allowed to do whatever they wanted. Luckily for me I had parents who believed in a education and one I thrived on to the point where I could outdo most public school kids.
During this time though I was alone most of the time locked in my room due to the bullying I received worried my parents knew I loved games and found of course you guessed it...Dungeons and Dragons thinking it would be fun for me to learn and do...It was and as the internet community began to grow as some of us know (Old AOL User, Old MSN gaming zone if ya all remember those days...) Roleplay began to grow via online communities...The first real roleplaying I did was on MSN Gaming Zone under the game Dark forces 2 Jedi knight..Which as the time had an amazing Real time Roleplaying. Nothing like starting on a newly made map and writing out a story with your clan. If anyone remembers the Dark Jedi or DJ Hey its ness! lol.
I played on there for a few years and my love of creating new characters, growing new stories and worlds began to bloom. But that didn't go well in the real world...The branding of nerd, loser, geek...Scared me and well honestly took away chance's to date, make friends, among other things considering the community I grew up in was well...RP devoid of life...Okay lets face it I was living on RP Mars for all we could say being the only Roleplayer in the area...
Soon Chatango came out and I began doing Live chat roleplays that way...The amazing fun rooms and other things began to help this roleplayer blossom more and let his creativity flow...It was fun at the time until I was in my last year of high school..to be exact my last day of high school at my graduation when a long time friend whom had been my longest roleplaying partner at the time back stabbed me...Shoving a knife so deep into my back I lost all trust in people....I locked myself away at that time for years just working on characters, story ideas, sadly roleplaying by myself using my characters as I could not even trust my online friends...I developed an unhealthy distrust for those around me waiting for the knife to come out but...
three years later a friend pulled me out of darkness and reintroduced me to forum roleplay. It was amazing letting my classic characters like Arcodos, Sisko Freeman, Lucas Davenport, and an army of characters go and meet other creators. It was pure heaven pure bliss to feel happy again and laugh..To make the most outrageous scenarios go and just let myself go..let my characters actually have fun...It was wonderful...But like life...it came crashing down.
At that time I was around twenty, twenty one at the time and the current job I was working at I had a work related accident...Which in turn put me on medications that played tricks with my mind, I began to lose sight on reality and began to go down a dark rabbit hole towards near ending of things...During this time...I was alone..or so I thought...Sitting in a corner a notebook near me Slowly opening it I saw my characters...My creations...and I was reminded It wasn't my time..I still had to finish making my ideas making my creations and giving them a shot at life in the written word.
Overcoming my disabilities at the time I learned to crawl then walk then finally run and become whole once more... It was then I found a truly wonderful place which opened the world to me...Opened up every possibility to explore and grow...to make friends far and wide and truly share amazing memories. It was all because of a simple book, a creative mind, and the RP community I was able to see the world for what it was for what it is...A melting pot of amazing potential...Where a Talking toaster could fall in love with a spoon to the greatest ever human mage with demonic origins who found a young child and brought her into his home and learned what a fathers love truly meant to a cold distant heart...To the firefighter whom saved a bar maid and started an epic family line...All the way to A elf lord whom truly found his happiness among a dragoness....And finally a sad lonely Mechanic who found love during one break down...
The future is still looking bright...and there are still many stories that have yet to be told...And it was all thanks to this wonderful community that and other communities that allowed us to all go the distance...
This is powerful my friend. I to thought I would have moved on from this years ago. 42 now lol. I recognize the feeling of having those images and worlds in your heads and needing to express them. I think creativity gets that way when the outside word is rather intense.
My dear friend I realize I did this wrong and did not give you a question. (blame pre coffee me) since you been Roleplaying so long how to you tell everyday people about your text rp hobby? or you do not talk about it with non rp people?
Hmm thats a tough question right there. I tell friends but mostly if I mention Roleplay most people go to the gutter sadly haha....But If I say Cooperative story writing it seems to be more easily understandable to those who do not understand the rp universe. The best way I can describe it to others who aren't in our field is that we make two characters then take turns writing to each other making an amazing story together to see how the characters handle situations or how they might live their lives in general in the world we created.
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