I'll keep mine fairly short and simple: Being an only child and creating your own imaginary games with yourself, thus generating many personalities for the characters you are acting out in your toys. Then we just continued onward.
So longer story -
As a little girl, I would take the My Little Petshop figures, they each had names-- and the store owner, this barbie doll, would always get kidnapped by the Evil Dino King (which was one of those T-Rex toy figures), and they'd have to go save her.
My mom was convinced when I was a kid, that I had friends over that she peek in and just see me-- and I was creating all those voices. Yeah, this would be the first signs of roleplay.
In Elementary, I was the kid on the Playground everyone went to, to come up with ideas and typically-- I would base my ideas off of like Movies or video games (aka Star Fox or Sonic) and everyone had a role they would play as that character or you know, enemy.
We continue forward a bit more...
When I was probably around 10, we moved from Texas to Arizona. I had no friends, knew no one, and was home-schooled. Once again, Only Child with no one but myself. However, my new tool of interaction was the internet. I discovered a thing called Chatboards (which were our chatrooms before the days where they would automatically refresh themselves, so you had to click a refresh button to get updates).
The place I went to was an s8 chatboard that was around Transformer and I created my first Original Character for Transformers named Neva. She was a 1995 I believe, Pontiac TransAm. Hunter Green.
I also roleplayed Optimus Prime himself, cause I always admired him growing up. This lead me also to a Gargoyles Chatboard, cause Gargoyles was in like the end of season 1 or 2, somewhere in there I think? Might have been on re-runs? Hard to remember exactly, but anyway, I created my first Gargoyle character named Celine, who was a Raptor-goyle.
The Gargoyles place was also my first introduction into more serious roleplay... and also my first introduction into why it is so important to separate self from a character. I hurt a really good person, because I got to close. A gal who played a male Raptor-goyle, my little young heart didn't understand this concept... I learned this concept, but accidentally destroyed our friendship.
This eventually lead me to trying to understand why a girl would rp a guy.... and I quickly came to understand why. It was a challenge. It was fun. I am now one of those women who did what they did, but I also tread careful. Cause like her-- jump ahead to now a MUD called Aetolia... I didn't check to make sure someone understood the 4th wall, I assumed, like they did with me, that this person who was falling in love with my character... wasn't keeping themselves separate.
They got hurt, like I got hurt so long ago, but instead of it being a 10 year old, this was someone in their teens and they took it far worse than I did when I learned.
However, it never stopped me, I kept on rping, and I'll admit. I'm addicted to roleplaying! I love it. I love drawing my characters and creating more and more personalities, trying to push the limits of what I can play and solving where my limits are of what I /can/ play well.
It never gets old, though I have learned with a busier life I now have however, that I have to reframe from alt-crazy behavior in both 14 (cause I've been at this since 2010, so I burnout easy), but also on a MUSH I play on.
Roleplay is fun, its enjoyable, it can be addictive, but like all things. One has to be careful when they been at it for a long time, to not burn themselves out.
So longer story -
As a little girl, I would take the My Little Petshop figures, they each had names-- and the store owner, this barbie doll, would always get kidnapped by the Evil Dino King (which was one of those T-Rex toy figures), and they'd have to go save her.
My mom was convinced when I was a kid, that I had friends over that she peek in and just see me-- and I was creating all those voices. Yeah, this would be the first signs of roleplay.
In Elementary, I was the kid on the Playground everyone went to, to come up with ideas and typically-- I would base my ideas off of like Movies or video games (aka Star Fox or Sonic) and everyone had a role they would play as that character or you know, enemy.
We continue forward a bit more...
When I was probably around 10, we moved from Texas to Arizona. I had no friends, knew no one, and was home-schooled. Once again, Only Child with no one but myself. However, my new tool of interaction was the internet. I discovered a thing called Chatboards (which were our chatrooms before the days where they would automatically refresh themselves, so you had to click a refresh button to get updates).
The place I went to was an s8 chatboard that was around Transformer and I created my first Original Character for Transformers named Neva. She was a 1995 I believe, Pontiac TransAm. Hunter Green.
I also roleplayed Optimus Prime himself, cause I always admired him growing up. This lead me also to a Gargoyles Chatboard, cause Gargoyles was in like the end of season 1 or 2, somewhere in there I think? Might have been on re-runs? Hard to remember exactly, but anyway, I created my first Gargoyle character named Celine, who was a Raptor-goyle.
The Gargoyles place was also my first introduction into more serious roleplay... and also my first introduction into why it is so important to separate self from a character. I hurt a really good person, because I got to close. A gal who played a male Raptor-goyle, my little young heart didn't understand this concept... I learned this concept, but accidentally destroyed our friendship.
This eventually lead me to trying to understand why a girl would rp a guy.... and I quickly came to understand why. It was a challenge. It was fun. I am now one of those women who did what they did, but I also tread careful. Cause like her-- jump ahead to now a MUD called Aetolia... I didn't check to make sure someone understood the 4th wall, I assumed, like they did with me, that this person who was falling in love with my character... wasn't keeping themselves separate.
They got hurt, like I got hurt so long ago, but instead of it being a 10 year old, this was someone in their teens and they took it far worse than I did when I learned.
However, it never stopped me, I kept on rping, and I'll admit. I'm addicted to roleplaying! I love it. I love drawing my characters and creating more and more personalities, trying to push the limits of what I can play and solving where my limits are of what I /can/ play well.
It never gets old, though I have learned with a busier life I now have however, that I have to reframe from alt-crazy behavior in both 14 (cause I've been at this since 2010, so I burnout easy), but also on a MUSH I play on.
Roleplay is fun, its enjoyable, it can be addictive, but like all things. One has to be careful when they been at it for a long time, to not burn themselves out.
