Journey to Iwaku

[Winter]

Ooof, I'll need to really go back in my exceptionally awful memory to remember how I got here. With what I can remember, it started back when I was around twelve years old on a website called Neoseeker. They had an RP sub forum there dedicated to RP and I think it's safe to say it was there I got the RP bug. Let me tell you now, I.... was.... AWFUL... like, I might as well had beat my keyboard with a sock full of oranges because that's the kind of word vomit I was spilling out onto the internet. I spent a good few years there and got used to a very tiny group of people who used to write together in a regular bases, to the point where RP's would finish and we'd go onto the next thread which would likely be a sequel to the last thread we'd all been playing in. It was actually really fun and I learned a good bit as I grew up a bit there.

So, one day... I had probably turned fifteen (Probably talking absolute shit, I have no idea how old I was but I was young). I looked up RP sites on google to see what else was out there and stumbled into a website I'm sure some of you are familiar with, called RolePlayerGuild, or RPG for short. I spent the rest of my time up until 2014 there, but.... BUUUUT! my first thread there had me in an Elder Scrolls RP where I played an Argonian and if you don't know what that is, think of a bipedal lizard person and you're pretty much there. Well anyway, I lasted all of about three posts before the GM messaged me and very kindly told me my writing wasn't good enough for the sort of thing they were looking for. Holy shit was I bad.... anyway, so I spent a good many years there and over some time I grew and got better.

I used to play a LOT of villains for a time and enjoyed writing situations where I could terrorize the main cast of characters and probably get my butt kicked, if not have them do a redemption story of some kind of change of heart thing. It was good fun, but difficult since not everyone want's their main villain to be a playable character. So I started playing good guys too (*Gasp!*) and picked up new tricks as the years went on. Eventually at the end of my last year at RPG, I joined an RP called Pirate Age, which the very awesome @Capt. Blu created. The RP was fantastic and I think it was something like, a year strong before she decided to move Pirate Age over to here! and me along with the rest of us in the RP followed, I mean... Iwaku seemed like a cool enough place.

So that's how I made it here. Pirate Age is still currently active... meaning I think we've been writing in it for like, five years now.... which is amazing. Unless my memory really does have the wet consistency of a tuna fish and I'm totally wrong on the numbers (entirely likely). After my first-ish year I signed up as a CV and later joined Staff and met some extraordinary people throughout my time here. And to this day, it's been one if not my favorite and most frequented space on the internet. Who knows, the journey might not have ended for me, maybe in a few years Iwaku will be another part of a bigger story.... that's a crazy thought. By the way if you've made it this far, I suggest you take a break and come to terms with the minutes of your life that you'll never get back, however well done! and thanks for reading :D

 

[Starlighter]

My first introduction to roleplaying was on the NaNoWriMo YWP, from which I eventually graduated to their main website when I turned 13. I was on there for a season or so, but the rules and environment of the site didn't really support the tastes that I was developing. I'm not sure what I was doing at the time, but somehow I stumbled across an old, misplaced thread way at the back of the forum that someone had created asking for suggestions of good roleplaying sites. Iwaku was the only one anyone had recommended, so out of curiosity I looked it up and browsed through a few of the forums.

At the time I wasn't confident enough to branch out and join a new site where I didn't know anyone, so for a good long while I simply gave up on roleplaying altogether. I think it was about a year or two before I came to a point where I felt like I would survive the signup process, and now here we are :D

 

[Quetzal]

I started roleplaying on a forum called Gundam Portal. It's where I learned to roleplay from a guide the forum admin had put up. Despite it being my first post. I received many words of encouragement. Mostly due to the fact other people they got were considerably worse. I would continue to RP on the site until it inevitably became inactive. I still chat and RP with people from that site. We stayed in touch through an AIM blaze chat that I created for us. And we recently moved on to Discord, much to the chagrin of one of our members lol.

While I continued to RP Gundam. I started to RP in AOL chatrooms. Back in the hey day of those. And it was a lot of fun. It's where I met my first RP partner. Despite a lot of fun though we went our separate ways. And of course AOL died the death it deserved for being so over priced and shitty about people canceling. I went on to RP on Gaia. I met my longest term partner to date. They too moved on with their life, no longer able to continue RPing.

It was a rough couple of years where I stopped Roleplaying. Depression and my social anxiety were suffocating me. I desperately went looking for new places to RP. I stumbled onto Iwaku. The background, white lettering, and nice layout appealed to me. And so I started looking through the partner section. Found a partner. It was great. Had like 9 pages within a few days. Then I ruined it because social anxiety and depression are bad bed fellows. After adjusting my expectations I started making new partners and enjoying RPing on the regular again.

I especially like the Iwaku runs well on my work's old Internet explorer. ;3

 

[Dahrinn (Groucho)]

A younger, smaller Dahrinn felt like writing some stuff, but felt like it was pointless if there was nobody to share it with. I thought role-play would be a suitable solution, and this site was organized in a way I found agreeable. I made an account the next day.

 

[esoteric]

*cringe* I started my roleplaying adventures in the forums of Mangafox. I actually really adored the set-up for the site but the weeaboo factor was strong. 90% of the rps were Anime High School/University/Camp themed. There were a few really stand-out ones that I still remember ten years later though. Eventually the more advanced players started to leave and I followed in their steps. From there I moved onto Tumblr (which sucked), to email (very difficult), to a couple sites I can't even remember the names of because my experiences were so terrible.

Then (praise Lady Luck) I found Iwaku through that rp-rating site. I am so very pleased with the web design, members, staff, and much more; now I can't imagine using any other site.

 

[Blind Hemingway]

I was sent a PM on Megatokyo back in 2006. Then made a mod like a month because apparently I have leadership skills, and back in ancient era of Iwaku it was mostly shit post central and not really "standardized" as it is now. A year later, the current admin went bonkers and thus became one of two admins. That set up worked well until proboards went on a rampage against dark themes and then added Diana to help us transition to this forum. And then did admin things for about a decade. Nothing that interesting or profound, sadly.