[color=0076a3]I have always wondered that about myself. Like, why do I roleplay? Do I do it to escape reality? Do I do it to further expand my imagination? Do I do it just to create a world? I've never thought about it seriously...until now.

To answer this question, I had to scale back to exactly why I started roleplaying in the first place, and to do that, I have to think back to 2008 when I joined my first official forum. It was a Kingdom Hearts Fansite by the name of Khinsider. It's rping section is pretty much dead now, so I have long since given up on it, but at the time that I joined it(early 08'), Rping wasn't the main reason. I joined it originally for something on there called the RPG Inferno. I guess in a way it was a roleplaying experience, but it was, on its core, a browser game. A lot of people played it and there were frequent pvp moments. I don't know how it happened, but one day I found myself going through KHI's roleplaying section, and I became interested. Now, mind you, I was really noobish then, so I had no idea what I was doing. However, what I didn't know at the time, that one decision to venture into roleplaying would change my life forever. Okay, I get that sounded really cheesy and corny, but it's the truth.

As I joined more rps as the months went on, I soon found myself becoming so immersed into the lives of my characters. Eventually, my own self was integrating into them and I found that creating these stories with friends and fellow roleplayers was something I enjoyed doing quite a bit. It even got to the point where I would venture into the territory of making my own rp. When I think back, the first couple of tries were failures. I guess that's to be expected considering not all great stories are successful on the first try. One has to go through several tries before one finally sticks and after the fifth one, I found success...for a while, that is.

Outside the initial interest of creating a story and the characters in it, Roleplaying for me was an escape. You see, my life wasn't what one would call glamorous. Actually, it was pretty shitty and writing with like-minded individuals brought me a certain amount of comfort and acceptance that I couldn't get in my real life. From that shared interest, I found myself making some of the best friends I have ever had in my entire life -- online or otherwise. I went on to creating stories and writing them out with them and only them. I guess in a clique of sorts. Never thought I would have one of those, but here it is.

I guess at the end of the day, Roleplaying has become a mix of exploring my imagination, creating worlds, expanding my writing capabiltiies, and escaping real life. I still find joy in doing all of those things. I'm even finding new ways to further my imagination by joining more and more rps. I think I'll probably keep on doing it as long as I can. Either until I start my career as a writer -- yes, I plan on doing that -- or I die. Probably the former when you consider realism lol.[/color]