[color=bdbdbd]Kind of a two-part story about how I discovered Roleplay that leads into why I went looking and eventually found RPG. Roleplay for me started in a very odd place during a very odd part of my life a little over a decade ago. I was in high school. Wasn't terribly popular. Just your average teen trying to side step [i]every[/i] social pitfall in life and maintain what few connections I had with what friends I could keep. It was a struggle on account of having a rather overbearing stepmom. Do we have any Asian kiddies in the house.. or Disney princesses? Do parents still think your shirt being tucked out qualifies you as being in a gang? Does an -A and an F still look exactly the same? Have you mopped the floors yet? I was allowed a phone for emergencies and a laptop... for... homework of course. Being the good child that I was, I used it mostly for [color=ffffff]Myspace[/color] (remember that?) and one other social [s]netorking[/s] site known as [color=ffffff]IMVU[/color]. Introduced to me by my sister, IMVU was (still is) a silly virtual chat client that allowed you to customize an avatar and place them around a 3D space on predetermined nodes, posing yourself in various ways from the rather normal to the obscene. In this way, you could be anyone, be anywhere and more importantly, do anything. A perfect tool for the RPer at heart... and there were plenty to be had there. My first exposure to actual Roleplay was a conversation I had with a friend of mine. I'll spare the finer details, but she was involved in a particular activity that any normal person, according to my limited perspective on the world at the time, would have rather avoided. I asked why she couldn't just click the 'red X' in the corner of the window and nope out of there. She proceeded to explain to me that she was in fact playing a role and that closing the window wasn't an option. She didn't want to leave because that was exactly where she wanted to be. So... [u]Roleplay[/u]. It goes without saying that I was confused. Heavily. but more importantly, I was also intrigued... and curious enough to want to see this for myself. She agreed to share and thus, pulled me through a door and into the first fantasy world I'd ever explored where a new RPer was born. IMVU allowed you to make your own 'rooms' and this particular room was populated by other players in your usual fantasy getup. Heavy armor. Bladed weapons at the hip. Tails and horns and... oh? Is that an over-sexualized genie? I created my first character there, the core of which I've kept alive today, got involved with their overarching plots and the drama therein and immediately became addicted to the hobby. What brought me to [color=ffffff]RPG[/color] was the particular style of roleplay. IMVU's client being nothing more than an overly robust messenger, everything was done in real time and although I could keep up, that was [i]all[/i] I could do. Additionally, I was stuck "self inserting" myself in the game. It was easier to play as a more fantasized version of me than it was to create and play out a entirely new character I was unfamiliar with. I wanted to explore, but I wanted to do it at a comfortable pace. One that gave me time to think about what I wanted to do, where I wanted to drive a particular story, and really give me a chance to flex my creative muscles. Enter play-by-post. My particular wheelhouse and first discovered perusing the forums on the same site. I quickly fell in love. However, the design of each thread wasn't entirely conducive for RP (IC and OOC were kept in the same place) and after taking part in more failed games than I care to accurately recall, I took to the internet to find a new home. RPG at the time was still the [color=ffffff]'OldGuild'[/color]. I want to say a couple years old? Maybe more. Still growing but always remaining for the most part [i]simple[/i] in it's design. That's what really drew me in. Easy to navigate. Easy to understand. Easy to find a game at my particular level of writing and jump in. I signed up then as [color=ffffff]Exitthisway[/color] and joined my first 'Free' RP involving your standard band of adventurers on a shared quest. [i]The King's Daughter[/i] it was titled. If I could go back in time and find that GM and thank him, I would. Every RP since I've joined has been a lesson in writing, his being the most important. In short, he hated me because I was the obvious Gary Stu. In preparation for his world, I'd done nothing more than press two of my favorite characters from other cannons into one and during the game, had gone so far as to play out a scene depicted in a movie, shot by shot. There was no real creativity involved. No real direction I was trying to take my character. I wasn't yet there for the right reason. It was the first and only time I've ever felt the need to kill my character off as I had written myself into a corner. [color=ffffff]My character was trying to be perfect... and nobody likes that.[/color] Fast forward ten years and here I am today, having explored more worlds than I can remember and even dabbled in a bit of GMing myself. I'm not the most well known name around the guild but I've done my time. My take away? The experiences I've shared with a lot of the writers here. The lesson's I've learned and the adventures we've gone on. I can't really put into words what kind of impact it has had on my life but I know I don't regret falling into this... and that's thanks in large part to the Guild and the people I've met here. That's not exclusive to those I've spoken too either. You see examples of great people from all walks of life making time to weave together narratives for the benefit of others. Established GMs who've dedicated years to their games and managed to keep their story alive. OOC they're good people as well and it's inspiring. It's the parts of the community like them that drive me to do better. I was and still am a terrible writer but I'm ever working to improve. I'm also not as active as I once was. Nowadays, I mostly conceptualize for future projects I plan to start when I have the time and share what new music I've stumbled across that I'm really enjoying. I only ever join a game when if I know I have the time to commit and if the story is intriguing enough and lately, I've had none of the former. I do hope to return and remain active and give back in some way and it's things like the Writing Contest and the revival of our Guild News that help.[/color]