[@Denalz] I did rp on Neopets, over a decade ago.  I think my first was a Dragonriders of Pern thread, since I adored the books.  I'd written before then, and done some in-person stuff (tabletop and collaborative storytelling), but forum-based rp was entirely new.  Then again, Neopets was also my first real venture into the online world.  I learned about it from my best friend.  Up until that point I was primarily a bookworm.  Didn't play video games, for the most part (there were some exceptions for certain computer games, but not very many, and certainly not many popular ones), and I watched a couple TV shows, but...that was pretty much it.  Since then I've come to adore writing with other people online.  I quite literally can't imagine going without.

[@Shoryu Magami] You didn't strike me as the type to play Neopets, though I would quickly fix my opinion if contradicting information was revealed.  I can't remember if I was one of the ones that mentioned Neo to you.  I was fairly certain your name is not related, as it's not spelled the same as the pet (shoyrus are my favorite!)  Ironically, my username /does/ come from shoyrus~  I had this thing where I'd use the starting sound of the species to name the pet, and my shoyrus were shylarah and shylena.  Shylena never developed beyond a very flat (and usually dead) character, but shylarah became a favorite for my solo writing, and when my family got internet at home, I used the name for my aol screenname.  It's since become mine, enough so that I have no problems responding to it irl (though in most cases these people met me online first), and actually will use it interchangeably with my real name when talking to myself.  ^.^  Funny how this sort of thing happens.

Nice new avatar, by the way.

[@Tsar Gatto] I follow you to a thread and I find someone else I know!  *amused*  Yeah, Neopets had a pretty big rp community, though of course the increasingly strict filters and oppressive rules have killed a lot of it off.  I'm over on subeta now, which I lovingly describe as Neopets for adults.  I actually heard about it...I think before I stopped using Neopets, but I didn't get into it until a couple years after.  Eventually I got sick of going over my posts with a fine-toothed comb to find out which innocently-used word tripped their filters /this/ time around -- an even harder task back then because I knew far less of the...more risque slang, let's call it.  And with the inability to move things to a different venue, I'd had enough.  Far too much frustration, and not enough benefit.  Jumped over to Subeta, and never looked back.  We still get a lot of Neorefugees, including the occasional mass exodus.  When the filter failed over one weekend...last year?  two years ago?  -- and the forums /imploded/, we got a huge wave.  Oddly enough, their rp forums aren't too active (though there's a couple threads that pop up now and again, including some yearly ones) but it's really the community that keeps me there.  <3