Oooh boy. Yeah, I actively hid it for _years_. I've been playing tabletop since I was eight (brother's bullied me into playing the cleric), my folks were okay with that, but they would have flipped if they had known the extent of my roleplaying on the internet. I started in MSN Groups, couldn't have been older than 10, I was big in the Yu-Gi-Oh!, Sailor Moon and Digimon scenes. Moved to the officia Harry Potter Dialogue Center shortly afterwards, stayed until they shut down a couple of years ago.


The one time I told school friends, they all called me a freak. My mum once found an app I'd submitted to a Sailor Moon game and freaked out because my character had a male name. Learned quick that it was weird.


It actually became an issue in my marriage, hilariously enough! I was too embarrassed to tell my husband, and we spent the first two years of our marriage apart (dual military, he was on deployment when I got out), but when we started living together he found out. At first he thought it was all weird and sexual (which, I can understand, I was hiding it), but I eventually explained it to him. It felt like such a relief! I've made such incredible friends in the past decade plus of roleplaying and I can finally talk about this part of my life with someone. We actually talk a lot about it now, and I've talked to some IRL mates who've been really interested. It's weird, but in a good way.

I am not a clever woman.