Question for the Iwaku Roleplayers!

[Pachamac]

1. When did you first get in to roleplaying?

I think I first started back in 2004 or so?

2. What was your first forum or chat roleplay experience like?
3. Tell us about your very first roleplay community!

Kind of... interesting. I didn't really know what I was doing and jumped into the deep end by trying to run a group rp by myself, which... wasn't as successful as I'd have originally hoped. Only got one other player, but I think a 1x1 is a good starting experience compared to a group rp, actually. Managed to learn a lot from that and had a lot of great creative fun with it. From there it expanded into joining a lot of great, long lasting rps with various levels of success, although sadly none reached a satisfactory end. The forum's roleplaying community was only a small section of the overall forum, so it had a small, close knit group of players. It was fun, but by a certain point the rest of the main site was dying and I was craving a bigger, more dedicated site to roleplay with, so on I moved.

4. What made you pick Iwaku?

I've not fully moved to here just yet, amd still very much in the transitioning stage, but will be doing so very soon though when the latest chapter of my rp reaches its conclusion on my previous rp, but it's for a number of reasons along the exact same lines as @Brovo, @Tempest, @Jorick, @Dervish, @Beatrix and @Genghismike along with some 40 other plus members (wtf Brovo). A growing sickening and dissapointment in a failed site and the promise of a new site with a great, welcoming community, solid list of features and admins that care. This is a site that seems to be ran by people who truly care about roleplaying, and as a person who's passionate about the hobby too... honestly that's extremely important and reassuring. I look forward to fully settling down here in the near future and bringing my group's players with me.

5. Why do you roleplay? What are you looking to get out of it?

Fun and good stories plus characters. I'm very attached to my current rp, its group and the fantastic batch of friends I have with it. It's a very personal and rewarding hobby, and I love being able to bring out the ideas I have brewing inside of my imagination and making them come to life. I love entertaining and being entertained by my friends, to make them laugh and feel excited by our adventures. To give inspiration and be inspired back. To make something that I'll look back on one day and be proud of.

 

[Cpt Toellner]

When did you first get in to roleplaying?
-I had an intrest in roleplaying since 2nd grade really, where me and my best friend would make up stories and talk about sci-fi armies and dragon slaying. In 2003 I started play-by-post role-playing, but only occasionally due to my family not having a computer until I was a freshman (2005).

What was your first forum or chat roleplay experience like?
I first started on the roleplay sub-forum of Earth-2025, a text-based nation game. The community was fairly active but I was a pretty stupid kid, I made alot of dumb posts OOC, but my roleplaying was always pretty solid. It was a sci-fi with fairly undefined boundaries, and it was short, but I made a positive impact on the story.

Tell us about your very first roleplay community!
Alright, now it's time for the story.

After leaving 2025 due to lack of computer access, I stayed out of internet communities until late 2006. I bumped around Halopedia (now Halo Nation), but left due to misgivings with the site's administrator. I met up with another group of Halo fans at a small site called 'Elitepedia'. As a new member I made some serious waves and helped quell a group of vandals. I quickly became a mod, then an admin, and helped make the little site actually mean somthing.

In 2007 I googled "roleplay websites" and came to something called "The RPG Classics Augora" or something like that. It turned out to be devoted to JRPGS, but the actual roleplay section of the site was decent. I made a few good characters there and had an overall positive time there despite the activity being slow as molasses. I left that site and Elitepedia in 2009 for the army.

Coming back early 2010, I decided to turn things up a notch, I joined the Roleplayer's Guild and remained until a week ago. I started a solid career of roleplaying there, but was eventually seduced by the OOC section of the site. I made a few attempts to get back into rolplaying, but have been unable to balance some life issues in the process.

What made you pick Iwaku?
You may have heard of something called the "Great Migration", I don't need to get into the details unless you want me to, but let's just say that RPG has lost it's allure, and I was eager to start anew.

Why do you roleplay? What are you looking to get out of it?
This is one hell of a question, but I like being part of a story, I like leaving a legacy, so I rp in hopes of doing that.

 

[CoffeeCake]

Since everyone is running around having fun with questions this week, why not some really good ones! 8D

Coolness, but I'm just gonna answer the one that really matters--the only one anyone here has any possibility of remotely caring about if even.

[*]Why do you roleplay? What are you looking to get out of it?

I like playing with ideas and sharing them. I like sharing stories. I like coming up with things that give me a similar feeling to professional works that I like. And I like seeing when others do it too whether they realize it or not.

I like to try to entertain others with a hopeful intersection of things that appeal to me and my audience. And I like it when they do the same.

Also, when I'm too lazy or busy to practice visual art, I sometimes try to awkwardly shoehorn the mental imagery into RP. :P

 

[Drakel]

1. When did you first get in to roleplaying?
   14
2. What was your first forum or chat roleplay experience like?
   I was an ignorant, over-sheltered, angsty 14 year old... Went better than it really should have.
3. Tell us about your very first roleplay community!
   They were very mature and expected nothing but perfect RP posts and like me they liked dragons. We debated and focused our attention to biology, chemistry and physics, as did we focus on enhancing our debating, vocabulary and writing skills in general.
4. What made you pick Iwaku?
   Curiosity and being asked to join added with the fact that RPG kinda died on me and has lost many great things that gave it a special allure. Sadly it's not what it used to be and I don't see it becoming something more anymore. Losing hope really does hurt but I suppose I can deal and start anew here... Nothing like a bigger, better, brighter future.
5. Why do you roleplay? What are you looking to get out of it?
   I don't. I used to and then the whole RPing experience became nothing but a chore and dull. Hopefully I can get back into it like my good old days.

 

[Genghismike]

1. Hopefully I can get back into it like my good old days.

Get on it. I'm expecting you in the Caerulus Astrum RP

 

[Hellis]

#1: When did you first get in to roleplaying?

When I was 10ish I began with DnD. Me and my only real friend bought all the books we could find with money we had saved. We nerded for a solid 5 years before we went seperate ways. I was stuck, i continued to rp. I met my first GF trough rping. In fact, without RPing I would likely be a entirely different person!

#2: What was your first forum or chat roleplay experience like?

A swedish, shitty ANime forum. IT was educational, got me hooked on Freeform. I found a kingdom hearts site and stuck to it for a while before a series of migration moves eventually landed me on RPG. And when that went to shit I ended up here.

#3: Tell us about your very first roleplay community!

Anime.se

Swedish anime site. So niched as fuck. I made a rp thread out of the blue, thinking I just invented forum rping (I was 12 at the the time). It was pretty bad really. Less said, less suffered.

#4: What made you pick Iwaku?

Nice community. Lax and chill atmosphere. WORKING BBS.

#5: Why do you roleplay? What are you looking to get out of it?

I love stories. I love improvisation. I love charachters. I write Adventure Modules for a Tabletop company, and I have more ideas then I know what to do with. SO Naturally I want to test ideas and settings out. See what people do with them.

 

[ouc]

1. When did you first get in to roleplaying?

Around the summer of 2003? Yeah, that's about right.

1. What was your first forum or chat roleplay experience like?

Oh man, this is a tough one. Technically my first ever roleplay experience was had through sharing a journal. In real life.
Yes, I was one of those kids. My best friend at the time was into writing, just like I was, so we wrote and 'roleplayed' often
through a shared journal. My first forum experience was had ooon Gaiaonline? At least from what I can remember, it was Gaia.

1. Tell us about your very first roleplay community!

My first community was on Gametalk, now known as Gtx0. There was a small roleplay section on the site, and I was hooked instantly. I admit, I was a pretty crappy roleplayer back then, but who wasn't when they were a kid? It was fun though, I made a lot of good friends and built a small online life there.

1. What made you pick Iwaku?

No special reason really. I decided I was tired of roleplaying on Tumblr, so I googled a few forums and Iwaku looked the most active. Not to mention I really like the sites design, and functions. Having blogs are so useful!

1. Why do you roleplay? What are you looking to get out of it?

I roleplay because I love writing. I love creating something of my own, and sharing it, and watching it grow. I am very passionate about literature, and I suppose its only natural that I'm passionate about roleplaying as well. What am I looking to get out of it? Maybe friendship? Maybe inspiration for my next manuscript, or book of poetry? Mostly just looking to keep my mind busy with all of this downtime I have at work!

 

[fatalrendezvous]

Oh let's do this, I love these.

1. When did you first get in to roleplaying?
2. What was your first forum or chat roleplay experience like?
3. Tell us about your very first roleplay community!
4. What made you pick Iwaku?
5. Why do you roleplay? What are you looking to get out of it?

1. When did you first get in to roleplaying?
It was in the 90s. I love to tell this story and will tell it until I die, that I used to roleplay in AOL chatrooms over 28.8kbps dial-up modems. Back in the days when AOL was still relevant and you had to listen to your modem make future sex love sounds with other modems. Back in those days, we had to pay for internet by the minute.

Can you imagine that shit?

BY THE MINUTE. If we still charged for internet by the minute, people would be broke fucks.

2. What was your first forum or chat roleplay experience like?
I don't remember, to be honest. It was so long ago that it's hard for me to pinpoint the exact "first time" I roleplayed. The earliest time I can remember, I got in an RP fight and was one of those stupid godmodding powergaming kids that everyone hates. Then again, I was like 11, so can you really blame me? ;_;

3. Tell us about your very first roleplay community!
Most of the time I was roleplaying as Sailor Moon characters or other anime and videogame characters. I was on-and-off with a small Sailor Moon chat community and hung out with them for a while. They were cool folks, but there was a lot of unnecessary drama there because some people couldn't discern the difference between roleplay and real life. Eventually the community kind of fell apart. I did enjoy it while it lasted, but after that I was pretty much exclusively RPing on Yahoo! Chat.

4. What made you pick Iwaku?
Luck of the draw, or good search engine optimization on Google. A while ago, Yahoo Chat was removed entirely (first they got rid of user-created rooms, which was bad enough - then a while later the chat service shut down altogether). After that, I mostly just did RPs over Yahoo Messenger with friends I'd made during that time, but after a while the list of active friends really started to dwindle. Without many other options, I just kind of gave up on RP altogether and focused on school and work.

I couldn't fight the urge to RP forever, though, so eventually I started looking for a forum-based roleplay community, and Iwaku was at (or near) the top of the list. I remember looking through a few different ones before eventually settling here, and I'm glad I did. ^^

5. Why do you roleplay? What are you looking to get out of it?
I've always had what I feel is a pretty vivid imagination, and I enjoy having an outlet to express that. I love a good story, and I love a good community. Iwaku has been awesome enough to provide me with both.

Thanks to my experiences on Iwaku, I am considering (HEAVY EMPHASIS ON CONSIDERING) starting a side-project and writing a piece of fiction to see if I can get it published.

 

[Hellis]

"Then again, I was like 11, so can you really blame me? ;_;"

You have no idea the spite that 11 year old me caused trying to GM.

 

[Nat]

1. When did you first get in to roleplaying? 2011 or 2012, a little bit unsure, but one of the two.
2. What was your first forum or chat roleplay experience like? My first forum experience was scary, because i wasn't used to it. And i accidentally stumbled into a scary page where people were all elite type. So no fun.
3. Tell us about your very first roleplay community! It was on fb actually, where a bunch of pottermore roleplayers had gathered because the commente on pottermore were too short to write enough in, and they sensored too much, and then now we have like 200 different rp's going on in the community and we travel around to meet each other.
4. What made you pick Iwaku? I was looking for a forum page to play on and iwaku fulfilled the things i were looking for.
5. Why do you roleplay? What are you looking to get out of it? Creativity, joy, humor, writing. I rp because i love writing with others. It's a joy to not know what next will happen.

 

[Lady B]

• When did you first get in to roleplaying?

• What was your first forum or chat roleplay experience like?

• Tell us about your very first roleplay community!

• What made you pick Iwaku?

• Why do you roleplay? What are you looking to get out of it?

1) I first tried roleplaying in 2012, I think. But even though it wasn't that long ago, I sucked horribly at it, so I quit for a while.

2) I don't remember. Though I do remember being denied joining an RP on the basis that I hadn't been on the site for long enough, ha ha.

3) My first roleplay community is Iwaku!

4) My friend who used to roleplay a while ago said it was a cool place, and when I checked it out it seemed much more professional, well organized, and diverse than the other sites.

5) I'm just looking to share some good stories and have fun. As a kid I often used to play my favourite series like Pokémon, Digimon, and Sailor Moon with myself, coming up with new stories and plots. So roleplaying is also kind of a way for me to live out and share the stories I kept to myself as a child.

 

[Sarre]

1. When did you first get in to roleplaying?
2. What was your first forum or chat roleplay experience like?
3. Tell us about your very first roleplay community!
4. What made you pick Iwaku?
5. Why do you roleplay? What are you looking to get out of it?

1 - Five years ago
2/3 - HORRIBLE. Not only did I have no idea what I was doing; when I figured it out, I realised that most of the people there had no idea what they were doing! D: Plus, it took 1 - 4 hours after you enter for the playing to actually start. (It wasn't an rp site; it was something else that people would rp on.)
4 - I picked it out of a random top list (avoided #1 vote because it seemed too big). Wasn't sure if I was gonna stay but I did!
5 - I can escape from the world and hurt people write tragedies. It makes me feel things. 8)

 

[Fox of Spades]

1. When did you get into Roleplaying

Probably around 2009 or 2010, I don't really remember xD

2. What was your first forum or chat roleplay experience like?

It was a lot of fun, though now that I look back, haha, well... most of the characters were either mary sues or gary sues. Still, my friends and I had a blast :D. It was a zombie RP that focused on a group of 10-16 year old kids. They were at school when Z day happened and they managed to survive with sports equipment and things from the cafeteria. One of the kids had a frying pan and the other one a baseball bat. It's pretty hazy but I remember they found dead soldiers and stole their weapons xD haha they also drove jeeps and motorbikes and eventually went to a research facility where they discovered the cure.

*Hides under a rock* Please don't shoot me.

It lasted around 5-6-ish months and had three parts. It eventually died during the third installment. I still RP with one of the friends I did this RP with, so no regrets! <3

3. Tell us about your very first roleplay community!

It was a fun place called Tinierme :D! It wasn't dedicated to roleplaying but it did have a roleplay section. Unfortunately, the site went bankrupt and had to shut down, but I met a couple of awesome people there.

@Cephalagod and Warden

4. What made you pick Iwaku?

After Tinerme shut down, a couple of friends and I moved to RPG. Unfortunately around December 2013 the site crashed and all the data was erased. New Guild happened but it wasn't the same and recently people started leaving v.v. A few friends decided to move to Iwaku and I decided to follow them in search of greener pastures :D. Everything looks super swell and I'll be moving my RP here soon-ish. ♥

[rainbow]Plus, coding is glorious,[/rainbow] and the admins really care about the site <33

Why do you roleplay? What are you looking to get out of it?

It's an enjoyable activity :)! I love writing and by RPing with others, I'll get the chance to practice and improve. Plus, making stories with other people and bringing worlds and characters to life can be a magical thing.

 

[Adelaide]

When did you first get in to roleplaying?

I played table-top for many years (D&D, most of the World of Darkness settings) but life happened and my group disbanded. Having always loved writing (I used to keep journals of my Pen and Paper character's adventures) I was pointed towards forum RPing. I love it even more that tabletop, it is so much easier to fit into pockets of free time. That was about 5 or so years ago.

What was your first forum or chat roleplay experience like?

It was pretty wonderful all in all. I jumped right in, made only one little boo-boo; I used someone's NPC brother without permission and they were pretty great about it. The RP didn't last long but it was lots of fun, a western and I remember the bawdy talk in the OOC was eye-opening.

Tell us about your very first roleplay community!

My first RP community is dying a slow death, sadly. I am weaning myself off of there slowly and it saddens me but I go where the RP is.

What made you pick Iwaku?

A friend from the old site came here during the down-time my site had last year and it was in my bookmarks. So when I realized things were not going to get better there I looked into here and liked what I saw. It reminded me of the vitality of the old site in its heyday, only better.


Why do you roleplay? What are you looking to get out of it?

I RP because I love to write. I RP because I don't really enjoy passive entertainment (I don't watch much/any TV and Movies are a rare thing). I like the interaction with characters and my fellow RP enthusiasts in our OOC conversations. I've made some good RP friends that have translated into good RL friends and I hope to continue to do so. Plus, I never really gave up playing make-believe.

 

[penguin055]

1. I first got into roleplaying with a RP server on Starbound.
2. If that server counts, my first experience was awesome and fun. If not, then my first forum RP was just started like yesterday and it's also quite fun,
3. Iwaku is basically my first RP community. I like it.
4. It looked like it had a lot of active members and it was the first to come up on google.
5. I roleplay for fun. I really want to be part of some epic RP and maybe polish my writing skills.

 

[Crescent]

1. When did you first get in to roleplaying?
I got into online roleplaying a little less than 2 years ago, but I suppose I first started roleplaying years before that. I was an avid LARPer when I was a kid.

2. What was your first forum or chat roleplay experience like?
My first chat roleplay was with a friend I met on a chat site. I've been writing small stories for as long as I can remember, but I did find the roleplay new and unusual at first. My first character was a gothic vampiress, whom I stubbornly described in a poetic and dramatic way. x)

And my first forum roleplay...I remember being awfully nervous about it. I lurked around the site until I found a roleplay I felt I could join without any hassle. I was so worried that my writing skills wouldn't be any good and that my partners would get annoyed with me. It quickly turned out that all my worries were unnecessary. I absolutely loved that roleplay, and I was so sad when it died.

3. Tell us about your very first roleplay community!
Elite Skills was the first community I joined. It had lots of fandoms, demon roleplays, Pokemon roleplays and slice of life stuff [but nowadays, Harry Potter seems to be the thing on there]. It's a nice place to start out on. Any person new to roleplaying will be able to learn a few things from there, but if you want something more serious...you're probably better off somewhere else. The regular roleplayer on Elite Skills is a worshipper of "Literacy", and the wrong kind of literacy too.

4. What made you pick Iwaku?
The dark color scheme was pleasant to my eyes. I also chose it because the community seemed to be nice. Turns out I was right about that part. This has to be the friendliest forum I have ever joined and I am amazed by how much the admins care about the community.

5. Why do you roleplay? What are you looking to get out of it?
Oh, I have lots of reasons. I roleplay because I love to write. It's a way for me to delve into the world hiding in my mind, as well as to improve my writing skills. I occasionally meet people who may turn out to be friends and I learn from them. And then there's also the characters. I love characters and how they interact with each other, always growing and changing. Their emotions, relationships and struggles are a few of my favorite things in roleplays, and without all of this, a story would be incredibly empty to me.

Who knows? One day I might write a story of my own and publish it. :)

 

[Nemopedia]

• When did you first get in to roleplaying?
  About six years ago? I was thirteen back then, barely knew English and just joined something at random that seemed interesting after watching everyone having fun in the forums. It was also a selfish desire because my English teacher had a burn out and my class and I were behind on our English lessons and it seemed like a good way to practice to me.
  
  
• What was your first forum or chat roleplay experience like?
  I got ignored. I was young had signed up with a character that was flatter than flat and it was this 'pair up' role play. I just happened to be that one role player that comes in when everyone already had a partner. Alas, later on someone was so nice to make an extra character for me, but since the role play was very basic and with many one liners I was drowned out pretty fast by the 'more' experienced players back then. Death by one liners.
  
  
• Tell us about your very first roleplay community!
  The first community that I got really involved with and that I joined was Otakuzone. A site that locked due to the company abandoning the site for not making money, some strangers buying it and asking more money for it than it was worth. It was a nice place to start as it kind of grew as I grew as a role player? When I started the role play forum there was littered with role plays that died out fast and consisted out of mainly one liners. As we grew up over the years we also tried to put more quality into our works, slowly growing our posts and also tending to concentrate on better writing. I feel like that as the community grew and matured there that I did as well as a role player, but that doesn't mean that the one liners disappeared. These kept forever and eventually grew worse as the site glitched and the clubs went down, causing a big migration of club role players to the forums.
  
  All in all, I enjoyed my time there, but that is all. If given the chance I wouldn't go back, neither do I wish for it to come back. Too disorganised as everything was literally thrown into one long list that you had to scroll through at. No separate forums for sign ups and In Character threads, no little folders to indicate the genre of the role play, except from 1x1's, because they would faithfully put them behind the thread topic. Good times.

• What made you pick Iwaku?
  I was in a certain role play that migrated from another site to this place and voilà, here I'm. I won't mention the previous site I was at, but it wasn't much of a good experience. Biased moderators, an admin without a backbone, more blah and the site was in ruins. Not to mention that the site was supposed to focus on role play, but paid more attention to fancy codes that crashed my laptop as well as my android. All that I know now of the site is that their host disappeared and someone else took over. In any case, we got tired by the multiple threats of closing down our precious rp for cursing or kissing and since no one liked my nuns and monks idea (including me) we moved here. Ever since then we've been treated much more sensible and have a greater time as well. All what we had to sacrifice were our multiple threads though, but that was worth making as we wouldn't have lasted for long there.
  
  
• Why do you roleplay? What are you looking to get out of it?
  At first it was just my goal to improve my English to that certain level so that I could pass my exams as a junior high school student who is stuck with a teacher that never showed up. However, I've long since graduated and even before that I actually had three years of proper English classes in high school, so I could have stopped a long time ago. I did stop for a while though, when we got a different teacher who actually taught us something, but after three months it started to irk again. I initially tried to reject that feeling of wanting to write or to role play, (because I'm this serious kid who wants to focus on studies alone) but I found myself soon enough behind the screen again. Did try to stop a few more times, but as you all can see that failed.
  
  Now I just do it for the fun and giggles, a way to relax and to pass time with. I love the kick I feel when characters are growing and developing themselves, dealing with issues we all had to deal with and slowly giving them a path to follow and a character to form. I've still a long way to go when it comes down to learning English and a greater way as a writer, but I enjoy it, greatly. Besides, I've met some of the most wonderful (and inspiring) people through role playing that I otherwise wouldn't bother myself with in real life~

 

[Lawkheart]

When did you first get in to roleplaying?

I was about 11 or 12 when I first got into roleplaying. So 2003.

What was your first forum or chat roleplay experience like?

I can honestly say it wasn't a very welcoming. A lot of the members bashed me for small typos or grammatical errors that would now be considered typos. It was hard putting up with it, but I needed a place to vent out my emotions and so I continued to use the site(s).

Tell us about your very first roleplay community!

It was Allpoetry, Storywrite and Chatwrite, all of them sister sites. I remember being asked to join a group based around on Harry Potter. But I had no idea what Harry Potter was, so I left it for another group that was about government experiments that escaped captivity. Allpoetry was geared more towards poetry. I got to roleplay the most on Chatwrite. It was very fun, but I've come a very long way from how I used to write then to how I write now.

What made you pick Iwaku?

Chatwrite had been shut down so I and many of my roleplay partners had to move to Storywrite, but they merged Storywrite with Allpoetry and they had changed the format of the site in a way that resembled facebook only it was less clean. The fonts were all oddly sized and the site just hurt to look at, so I went on google and searched 'top ten sites to write on' and Iwaku was on a bloggers list of favorite places to roleplay so I decided to give it a look and I fell in love. Then I sent the link to all of my roleplaying partners and most of them signed up. And Iwaku became our new home.

Why do you roleplay? What are you looking to get out of it?

My reason for roleplaying... I do it because it is the only thing that keeps me from loosing my mind. It is my form of therapy and if I don't write for long periods of time I get physically ill, I stop talking in real life and I will sleep for 20 hours of the day. Writing is my way of keeping my mind off of the real life bullshit going on all around me. I used to be able to read and write and be able to be okay with either or both, but now not even reading can ease my mind. Writing is how I open myself up and make connections with people, because if any of you met me in real life before Iwaku, you would just see a depressed little kid sitting in a corner, staring off into space.

It's odd that creating fictional worlds or characters helps me be my true self. And I've noticed, the more I write, my panic and anxiety attacks last minutes instead of hours. My constant migraine gets pushed to the back of my mind and I can look up at the sky during the day without crying out from the pain of the light in my eyes and I can focus on other things. And I can open my mouth and talk, laugh and hold a conversation with my family and friends.

So I'm not really looking for anything out of Roleplaying... since I've already found it thanks to all of you wonderful people. I was able to find a home and a place I can go to and know, without a doubt, that I will feel better afterwards ^_^

 

[Cosmic Fey]

When did you first get in to roleplaying?
Oh, I don't remember. Both my parents were/are into D&D and I grew up watching a lot of the games. I never understood a lot of what was going on in them, but I did like a lot of the stories even if I couldn't follow along very well. As a kid, I made up a lot of games with lots of characters and adventures for my best friend and I to play whenever we were together. We both had active imaginations so it was always fun and exiting and ever changing. And had a lot of dragons. Bless him for always going along with me when I had an idea.

What was your first forum or chat roleplay experience like?
Well, growing up I didn't always have access to a computer with internet and then when I did, my father and his girlfriend decided to put ridiculous restrictions on my computer use - even for school work - for really convoluted reasons. (Something about me being addicted or developing a blood clot in my legs after sitting for only an hour (ignoring the fact that I spent most of my time in a wheelchair anyway). It was seriously weird.) I had to do about ten different chores and take about fifteen laps around the living room before they even thought about me using the computer for even just an hour at a time.

Anyway, for a few years, a friend of mine and I had this notebook we would write bits of our RP's in and we traded it back and forth. Looking back on it, they were kind of awful and very mary-sue-ish, but they were a learning experience and helped our writing quality over all. Eventually, I was able to use the computer more often and moved to chat RPing but I was a slow typer and that annoyed my partners. It always ended up turning extremely sexual since the mods never seemed to care or pay attention to what was going on, and it made me extremely uncomfortable, so I stopped and quickly started looking for a forum, hoping that would be a better fit.

Tell us about your very first roleplay community!
I tried out a couple of Harry Potter RP sites and other sites that had you create one character and then you would play as that character in any RP's you were in. The people in the communities also seemed to be really elitist and it was really intimidating and felt closed off to me. After a couple weeks, I gave up and left.

What made you pick Iwaku?
I had a lot of ideas and I missed roleplaying. One night, bored and unable to shut off my brain and sleep, I typed "Good Roleplay Sites" into Google and this was the first or second result on the page. I clicked it. I liked the look so I explored a bit and liked the open, friendly feel of the site, so I signed up. And I haven't left since.

Why do you roleplay? What are you looking to get out of it?
I have a vivid imagination and a lot of ideas and needed an outlet. I like creating things and sharing them and getting feedback and inspired. As to what I want out of it, mostly fun and good community where I can meet people and make friends. Iwaku has been awesome on all accounts. :)

 

[honeybush]

1. When did you first get in to roleplaying?
   Late '97 when I was in the fourth grade, although it was more story writing and fanfiction than anything else. (All the Sues that dominated my sketch book, man, all of the Sues.)
   
   
2. What was your first forum or chat roleplay experience like?
   Hectic, crazy, absolutely annoying in retrospect. I was too excited and got involved in everything, and it took me a while to learn that "levitation" =/= "Leviathan."
   
   
3. Tell us about your very first roleplay community!
   The very first community I remember was the Digimon group on Yahoo! chat, in the Arts and Entertainment chat rooms back in 2000, which ran relatively strong until 2004. At first it was mostly people role-playing canon characters (I made an excellent Digimon Kaizer, thankyouverymuch /sarcasm), then it became a sea of original characters when the clans and cliques started surfacing. There was one for the Dark Masters that sprung up, and they were all fantastic people; the group I lead, well, we were all about the sugar, caffeine, and hyperactive insanity, and that was fun while it lasted, albeit to the annoyance and short-lived patience of everyone else.
   
   I did eventually move on to write for different series (anime, and video games), migrating from Yahoo! chat to deviantART, then from there to a few Ragnarok Online servers. Shounen-ai and yaoi were huge for me everywhere I went, and it wasn't until I was about 2008 that I explored all the other wonderful options of role-playing. (On the flip side, I started a lot of tabletop gaming when I got into high school, in the form of Dungeons and Dragons several nights a week. I think that's when I started to transition from my internet addiction into being around people more.)

1. What made you pick Iwaku?
   For a while I had been role-playing on an adult writing forum, and the bulk of the things I was involved it had solely been that; tired of it, I ventured to Google, slammed a search in for a role-play forum, and bam!, Iwaku! I checked it out, hopped on board, and I've been active on-and-off for the past year and a half.
   
   
2. Why do you roleplay? What are you looking to get out of it?
   It used to be my door out of reality, and I clung to it for years. It took a lot to separate real life from in character, but once I did, role-playing became this wholly new experience. It was about the mischief that could be managed, the inspiration that could surface, and the friendships that could build between writers. When I role-play, I want to whisper in hushed conspiring voices about the story, about the characters, about how to ruin them and make them whole again.
   
   (In the end, role-play becomes a field in which to fight my own inhibitions and anxieties as I try to overcome the gulp-your-soul terror that comes when meeting and writing with new people, and doubly find worth in my own abilities as a writer.)