Your Career

[Ten]

...your role playing career, that is.

Where did you first hear about role playing? Who was your first character? Where have you role played? Have you ever tried to create your own forum? How has your style changed?

I don't know about y'all, but for me there was a lot of stuff that led up to Starless, a lot of stuff that I tend to forget about. I'm not sure why, but I'm compelled to write it all down now. So, this is my story. Note that it's set over the course of several years, so some of my memories are fuzzy and the chronology may be... off.

I played my first computer game when I was about four.

My family set up internet for the computer in my room a few years after that, and my first day of surfing the web felt magical.

I don't know how I first came across the idea of virtual pet games (Horseland? ...or was that later?), but I became engrossed with trying to find a great one. At some point, I discovered Neopets, and I asked myself why in the world I hadn't found that place earlier.

I made a neo account, hatched a shoyru, played a few games, and forgot about the account.

I came back to neo, made a new account along with a kougra and a uni, and started looking at other folk's pets. I still played games and fed my pets and tried to win neopoints, but my true focus there became looking at petpages. I'm not sure if any of you know about the way people used to make actual custom petpages for each actual pet, rather than leave it as default or use it as a page for something else like guild info, so I'll tell you about it.

These pages had gorgeous custom layouts with beautiful digital drawings that blew me away, and most of them had a little section on the pet's stats, story, likes/dislikes, friends, family, petpet, adoptables, awards, and buttons for other pet's sites as well as a button code for that pet's site. I didn't really know it at the time, but these pages were for information on not just a pet but a role playing character, for there really was a time when a lot of people role played neopets. I never saw any of this role playing myself, not having neomail or neoboard privileges, but it's safe to assume.

Of course, most of these characters had a lot of things in common and used a lot of hackneyed cliches and some of it was just stupid, but they all had unique designs and I liked looking at the pretty pictures. I'm sad to say that I can't find one of these old pages that still has its pictures up.

But anyway, my first role play character was not a neopet. Somehow, I found a dead wolf role play forum. It had a black background and red font, and that's about the extent of its skin. I thought it was brilliant.

So I joined and created a character named Raven, a black wolf with green eyes. And that's about as far as I went in developing her.

Oh, and by the way, my role play style at that time was like this:

*drinks from river* *walks around* Hello? Is anyone here? *howls at moon*

Yeah.

So I posted on a few threads. Nobody was replying, so I made a new thread where I said something about Raven looking for a new mate because all her past mates had abandoned her (wtk?). For some odd reason, somebody else had joined this forum, and this kid's username was Antarctica. Antarctica posted on my thread, and what happened was sort of like this:

*a black wolf with green eyes sits on the ground, thinking about all her past mates who've abandoned her*

*walks up*

*looks at the new wolf* Hello. *is cautious* Who are you?

Antarctica.

I decided this was boring. Sometime after that I think I found Wolf Mountain (back when its layout wasn't like this) and it was big and intimidating so I didn't join, but I did learn a little more about role playing from reading the rules and such.

Like I said, I didn't join and try to hone my feeble skills there. Instead, I tried to create my own wolf role play forum with a black background and red text. It was called Wind Runners or something. It was dumb. Nobody came.

Sometime after this, when I was in middle school, my sister found the Warriors books, and I was always trying to steal and read her copy of Into the Wild. I got really into it. During the first week of one school year, we were supposed to bring some objects that represented us and talk about ourselves in front of the class. Among other things, I brought Warriors books. I tried to explain the concept of Warriors to the class, and one guy, hoping to clarify what I meant when I said that the cats fought each other, asked if they did little karate moves (which he then modeled with an appropriate HEEYAAAAA!). I now find it ironic that I said no.

When I made a new account on neo and took the daring plunge of visiting the neoboards (it was a big deal for me o.O), my first enterprises were horse role plays, stable role plays, and wolf role plays.

Mind you, before I ever tried role playing on neo, I made sure to do as much research as a little kid could manage, to learn basic role play terms and rules. This is one reason that it annoys me when people just show up on the boards without bothering to study up on how things work and then expect other people to drop what they're doing and bend over backwards to lend them an undeserved hand and just ffff.

But anyway.

Some of my first characters were Shorty Calhoun (human/stable), Benny Jo Calhoun (human/stable), Riiah (horse), and Pepper (coyote/used for wolf rps). However, I had seen some Warriors boards and was interested in trying a new genre.

Then I met a couple of warriors role players who were starting a forum and I offered to help out (I knew a little bit of html by this time, but warriors rp was new to me). We came up with a plot based on a division between a StarClan-faithful Clan and group/tribe who'd broken off due to disbelief. Some of it didn't make sense, but we thought it was great. The forum never really got off the ground. It only had one role play post, and that was mine.

My first character was a medicine cat named Mudface. Yes, Mudface. Yes, he rubs his face in the mud. Nowadays, I would frown on a lot of the reasoning I used for his name and his character, but at least he had mud-colored tabby fur.

Ah, Mudface... He was entertaining for a time, a bumbling little medicine cat, a non-believer in StarClan but very sweet and well-meaning, even if something of a moron. And he had a messy pelt with which he collected all sorts of dirt and twigs.

I came up with one of those centered-around-one-character plots for him: the medicine cat has told the leader that he does not believe in StarClan! Gasp! Whenever I used that on the neoboards, though, it never got very far.

Then I wrote another plot: apprentices (only apprentices) from a bunch of different Clans meet one another. Each Clan had never had contact with any other Clan, so they were supposed to be shocked to see cats they didn't recognize and all that comes with that. Despite how dull and simple that sounds, some worthwhile stuff came out of it, and some characters even figured they'd been ordained by StarClan to start a new Clan of their own.

For this plot, I did use Mudpaw a few times, but I also created big-eared Batpaw -- a character whom, upon looking back on, I now realize was a precursor to both Grimykit and Shortwhisker. He made no secret of his disbelief in StarClan and he was puny and blind, so he was paranoid that everybody was going to try to hurt him. His... prickly personality didn't help matters. He was so much fun, though. In people's reply posts, their characters would say things such as, "ARGH! Batpaw, you're such a fool! I hope you die!" and then in ooc they'd say, "aww he's so cute".

Over time I created some more lame plots and a couple of other characters. Bignose, a ticked tabby, was my sole she-cat and underwent a lot of name changes (I think she started as Sageflower) but I didn't really care for her. Twigtail was my last serious made-for-neo cat. He was a tall brown tabby, a sycophant with an ambitious streak a mile wide. I didn't end up using him much, though if I ever find myself role playing on neo again I just might use him.

There was a brief amount of time where I considered myself a "literate" role player just because the "semi-lits" on neo were so bad it was ridiculous, but then I saw what actual literates are like and realized I'm just semi-lit. However, were I to make a board entitled "semi-lit warriors role play", a bunch of chicks with crappy writing skills would flock there, and even the "literate" boards could be pretty bad. Frustrated, I came up with a parody plot and several mock warrior names. In fact, I actually used Clockface and Tar&feather to mess with other role players.

Tar&feather, a tuxedo cat, fancied himself a suave womanizer, but Clockface was my favorite -- he would always grumble about the whippersnappers waking him up from his nap, ask where his coffee was, yell at cats to get off his lawn, and attack someone for being "disrespectful" (usually the leader).

Crashing can be fun sometimes, and I'm not opposed to doing it again, but after a while I devised my... questioning methods, which I saw as more helpful and sometimes a whole lot funnier. Buuuut this isn't about that.

People's stupid little "plots" were really getting on my nerves, and I started making threads complaining about all the overused crap that had never been good, not the first time and not the thousandth. There's the "cats are sick!" situation, the "prey is low!" situation, the "weather is bad!" situation, the "cats are missing!" situation, the "other Clan/badgers/foxes/rogues/rouges are invading for no real reason!" situation, the "only the prophecized cat(s) can save the Clan!" situation, and so on and so forth.

And so one day, while listening to the soundtrack to the Prince of Egypt, I wrote a new plot, the kind of plot that works for multiple role players (not a book-style plot that can't function as a role play). A new plot, one that would eliminate the possibility of certain annoying names such as Leafcloud and Songfire and Moonfeather, with only the creation of the setting. One that would eliminate all those pesky Clan territory borders that prevent perfectly good character interaction from happening. One that would eliminate any rogue or loner or medicine cat heritage. One that would eliminate StarClan.

Did I mention I don't like StarClan?

I don't mean to be bragging on my own writing -- the whole concept is kind of silly and emo-sounding, but it has all sorts of positive effects on the role play and provides for some wonderful conflicts, some of which I never anticipated. I'm so glad I've found people to use this plot with. Thanks, you guys, for contributing to and helping me in the best part of my role playing career yet.

So what about y'all? Where have you come from? Where have you been? Even if you didn't really want to read all or any of my story, I'd like to know yours.

[Cloud]

Haha. This all reminds me of my story. Which is boring and often stupid, but I'll put it here anyway.

It also brings up very bad memories. If you read this, you may hate me a lot more by the end of it. Just saying. I did a lot of really horrible things that to this day tear my eyes in shame.

So, once upon a time, long, long ago...

Wait, wrong story.

Roughly three years ago, I read the warriors series. Read all of the first and second series from the library. Ate it up. Couldn't get enough of it.

The foolishness of the young, no?

Well, the real foolishness was BUYING them. But I promised Ten I wouldn't do that anymore, and it's an easy promise to keep.

So I began to make up names and imagine Clans and whatnot. Eventually, May (the Site Stalker) and I made our own little fail site together. We were the only ones who actually used it. And various so-so rps took place. Well, chatplay rps.

They were extremely fun at the time.

If ridiculous and stupid.

But that's another story, which includes a cat who was gold with a black face, tail, paws, and underbelly named Brightshadow and cat named Emberstar who was red and black and whenever she received prophecies her eyes glowed.

Yes.

I also chatplayed on this site called Kugyay, which was stupid in the extreme. One roleplay that was my favorite was so dumb it's hard to describe. My cat was named Embersmoke. x.x

Anyway, I eventually joined my first site, FoF. Which stands for Forest of Fate. It's up there with Starless in epicness terms, let me tell you.

But when I first talked to people...oog.

Suffice to say I was rude, whiny, annoying, and an all-around traditionalist-hating BRAT in capital letters.

Not hard to believe, I'm sure.

Couldn't stand criticism, my cats read minds, they were genetically impossible...

It's not a pretty story.

And then I met Ten, one day so long ago.

Memories of exactly how horrible I was still haunt me. Some days I wonder why Ten ever forgave me. I was mean, mean as the terrible, stupid people on warriors wish. If not worse.

Luckily, I eventually read Ten's journals and that's when I decided Ten was awesome. I also realized that though I was angry at the warriors wish people who were mean to her, I was no better than them. I decided to change that.

Amen.

I gradually got better on FoF, much to my relief.

And eventually, one day right after I'd moved to my new apartment...I joined Starless.

The rest, with no pun intended, is history.

[Thistle]

I've always wanted to do this.
Oh, and excuse any typos/grammar mistakes I made while writing this out. ^^;;

I can't really remember when I started avidly using the computer. Anyway, my siblings and I would always fight over who would use the 'kids' computer. My mom's computer was off-limits and the three others didn't exactly work. I guess when my friends all got webkinz (these little plush animals) I desperately wanted one too. (this was in kindergarten or first grade) The big deal with webkinz was that there was a code attached to each stuffed animal and you could use them to play with a virtual pet on the webkinz site. It was really fun and I had about ten webkinz in total. I started to play a lot, and then my brother started to play a lot of games on the internet. Once he stumbled upon neopets, and I thought it looked really fun except it was all in korean, which was because my dang computer was korean. I laugh whenever I remember how it took me weeks to find the language button and switch it to english. Once I did that and made an account, I was totally hooked.

I fed my pets daily, played a lot of games, and joined this paintbrush guild. I didn't realize how much I was missing out on until I decided to click the 'Neoboards' button and saw that I wasn't allowed to go on because I was underage. So I begged my parents to fax that form with their signature and all that good stuff. They eventually relented.

I forgot how I found the roleplaying board. But anyway, I was so interested that I started lurking on all the wolf roleplay boards I could find. It was only the wolf roleplays 'cause I was the kind of kid who would run around at recess barking and pretending to be a wolf. :3 I caught on pretty quickly and joined a roleplay with a person called jellyguy2 or something. My first roleplay character was this beautiful pure white she-wolf who's name was Moonbeam. I think. It could've been Skyriver. Anyway, there wasn't really a personality made up for Moonbeam, but she was close to being a perfect angel. Jellyguy2 was at the same level as I was, with posts like this:

Moonbeam was a pure white wolf so she blended in with the snow. She looked at the sky and howled.

Jellyguy2's wolf was named Fang and they ended up falling in love with each other. A male wolf joined later on and Fang and he fought over Moonbeam. Fang won. Then a she-wolf joined and she made a paragraph intro. I didn't get it. I told her to make an intro and she said that this was her introduction. So that was when I realized that not all people made lists. I had to leave the next minute, though, so the roleplay pretty much stopped. And that basically makes up my first wolf roleplay on neo.

I became so addicted to roleplaying that I quit webkinz and quit the paintbrush guild to make a wolf roleplay guild of my own. Of course, it was made out of complete phayl. Later I deleted it and found a wolf roleplay guild called Wolves of the Denali Moon. It was fairly active and although they called themselves semi-literate, they were quite good and I envied their long, beautiful posts. The guild's still around although everyone's inactive. ;_; So I made a she-wolf loner named Skyriver who's personality was playful, caring, friendly, but was quiet around strangers. I had a lot of fun at that guild although I was extremely shy and I would think for an hour before deciding how to (ooc) reply to a member because... I have no idea.

I improved, my one-liner replies turning into small paragraphs, but they were still short and stupid. I also used the internet more. I made an email account in the beginning of 3rd grade and found photobucket and freewebs and other such sites. I was fascinated by how people made pet pages for their characters and so tried to learn HTML and CSS on my own. It literally took weeks for me to find out how to put an image on a blank petpage. And when I did, that just meant one barrier down, several more to go.

And during the the summer where I hung between 3rd grade and 4th, I found Midnight on a library shelf, thanks to a korean friend who took me there. That was when I became more outgoing and explored the 'outside' world of malls and libraries all by myself. But that's another story. So anyway, because I had seen a lot of warrior roleplays on neopets and was curious to know what everyone was talking about there, I picked it up and started reading.

I LOVED IT. at that time.
I spent practically all my money on the series, not knowing that this was the second series until I finished the books. So basically, because of my new-found addiction to warriors, I made up a character called Moonsong. Why? I thought it was the most pretty-ish name ever. >> I was such an idiot back then. Later on, the amazing Ten went on one of the roleplay boards I was on and she saw the whole list of pathetic names I had on my userlookup. It was embarrassing. .-. She got me thinking about traditional names and stuff, and while lurking on the boards one day, I found her advertisement for Starless.

Joining Starless probably changed my life, since through Starless I found FoF and numerous other sites. (dæmonpage, Encroach, et cetera) My roleplaying improved for the better, with the help of my guild, some other sites, and of course Starless. ilu all ~

lulz, Ten might vaguely remember the little n00b with two huge lists of warrior cat names that I never really used. I believe I had a Jayflutter and a Maplethroat and all that bad stuff. x3

[Rebecca]

Aha, well, where do I begin? At my school, probably when I was in second or third grade, those little Tomagachi characters were the love of all the children. They were these little hand held videogames with pets inside that you were supposed to feed and play with, and they'd grow and somehow this would fulfill your life. I was on Tomagachi.com, and saw the add for neopets. Drawn by the anime-like figures of pets and having just discovered the wonders of tv shows like Tokyo Mew Mew and Naruto, I fell in love.
I was a very, very different ten year-old. ._________.

I signed up with neopets in no time, played games, and had my mom sign in the parental permission slip only after a few months. It took me a few... years to actually click on the Role Play Board. I vaguely remember going there, role playing on a neopets board, power playing, and the OP telling me off for it. I really didn't know know what I was doing. I was so offened by the OP's "Hey, powerplaying isn't allowed" that I took my leave of the role play boards for quite some time. I was a real n00b.

I joined random guilds that had colorful layouts, not doing much. At this time I was twelve and had just discovered the Warriors series. I was in fifth grade. In between guilds I thought, hey, why not join one about Warriors ommgggg??/?
So I searched "Warriors" in the little bar, looked for a long time, and low and behold a guild called Venomclan came up in the result. I joined the large throng of thirty or so members who used names like Islanshope and Autumnleaf, instantly hooked. I found a few old character pages we had. I was Sweetlysweetgirl at the time.
StarClan Cats | Clan Cats

Everyone in that guild was so nice and funny that I got more and more into the role playing. I knew no bounds when it came to naming. I had Jadepetal, Heatherstream, Silenthorror, Onyxmoon, Foreverdeath...
Yes, I did indeed have a Foreverdeath.

My first role play character in Warriors and in role playing was a cat named Nightpetal. She had black fur and silver eyes, a brother named Onyxmoon, and a father Foreverdeath. Apparently she had run away from one Clan to join another to escape from Foreverdeath, who had gained a mafia-like control of her old Clan. Onyxmoon soon joined her and there were always these big battles involving Foreverdeath and T.E.C. (The EarthClan Crew), which later involved into "RougeClan".
By the time I actually learned how to spell "rogue", it was too late.

Anyways, I was an avid Warriors role player who threw caution to the wind when it came to names and pretty much everything else. I really don't know when or why I decided to switch to traditional names, it just happened. Eventually VenomClan fell and I, missing everything, made a new guild: MarshClan. This time MarshClan was supposed to be a literate and advanced role play guild with traditional-everything, much to the distaste of the VenomClanners who joined me there.
VenomClan had lasted for two years.

One day I decided to make something called Enclosed, which Ten probably remembers. Enclosed was supposed to be a private role playing group that role played on the boards and blahblahblah. There was a member list and a "hate list", I guess you could say. (Enclosed page)
At this point I started to crash.

Enclosed fell, MarshClan was starting to go inactive, and so I decided to make my own forum. I had joined Starless earlier, but still wasn't sure of how to work it properly. Thankfully I had four other people, the remnants of MarshClan, to help me. And so my site Somewhere in the Night was created, and that is where I shall forever reside.

Recently I've also become a crasher, a member of two crashergroups: The Ninas and The Boondocks. The Boondocks aren't really supposed to be a crasher group, but...
^^;

[duckyaisha]

I have loved reading, and books, since the age of three, when I first learned. I can't remember how much my parents taught me and how much I figured out on my own, but once I got into the idea of books, I could never let go of it. This is actually important to the story, because when I was a young'un (like maybe kindergarten) I would think about my favorite books and wonder about what would happen if I changed the ending. Of course, being so young, I didn't really know how to write stories yet, so I decided it was against the rules to change a book's ending and left it at that.

Finally, in third grade, I wrote the first 'paper' that was actually good, about my stuffed dinosaur, my favorite toy. I poured my heart and soul into that thing, and my teacher pronounced it excellent. Though it wasn't a fictional story, this would lead to that later on. In fourth grade, we all had to take a state writing test. My teacher was charged with the job of making sure we all got the highest grades possible, even though most of us hadn't written very many narratives before. I learned about writing fiction, and loved the concept.

Writing was like a new toy for me. When I was in school I always focused intently on the teacher, trying to improve my writing. I loved the Animorphs series at the time, and laugh though you might, it changed my life forever. When i read the first or second animorphs book in third grade a year before, it described in detail (well, detail for me at the time) what it was like to fly. I became so jealous that I spent my days wishing I could be a bird so I, too, could fly. I soon became obsessed with the idea of birds and flight (I still am now 0_o) and decided to get a bird in the summer after 3rd grade. Because of animorphs, my career ideas changed dramatically, going from 'maybe a paleontologist' to 'most definitely working with birds.' So even though I can look back on it and realize that it sucked, in third and fourth grade I thought it was the best series ever written. And it was probably more important in my life than any other book series ever. Fail, or win?

This, too, is actually relevant to the story, because Animorphs inspired me to start writing about birds, and I did. I wrote about how jealous I was of their ability to fly, I wrote about how graceful and beautiful birds were in flight, and I wrote about my bird. With all this passion in my writing, my teacher could see that it was basically my mind written down on paper and said it was excellent. I continued trying to improve, and when the time came to take that test, I had a pressure-induced mental breakdown, but still got the highest grade possible on the written portion of the exam.

Next year, I couldn't wait to learn more about writing and improve even more. In my classes, a mix of the elementary schools, I had no one I knew well except K, my friend from third grade who wouldn't appreciate me telling you her real name over the internet so you can stalk her. >_> However, K knew this girl who (when we became friends) eventually gained the nickname Bagel. Bagel had a friend named E, and were a group of four. Soon after we all became friends, I learned about the Warriors series (starting with the second series for some reason). Turns out E had known about it for years and soon we taught the rest of the group. Here were our first cats' names.
Me- Icewing, RiverClan
E- Stormwrath, ThunderClan
Bagel- Healingwind, Changed between Thunder- and WindClan
K- Dawncloud, ShadowClan

I chose RiverClan for a reason. Still being obsessed with the idea of birds and flight, etc. me and my sister would spend hours jumping off the doghouse trying to fly (not even kidding) or playing live-action RPs that we called simply ‘Games.’ I decided that even if it took me years to be able to fly, I should get better at swimming since I could somewhat experience the feeling of flight underwater. (or at least the moving-in-3-dimensions part)

For this, and a few other reasons, I joined a year-round swim team, having been on summer leagues for years. I picked RiverClan because, of course, they could swim, seeing as it was the next best thing to flight in my opinion.

Me and my friends would do many live-action roleplays with our Warriors characters, and I grew very attached to mine. That’s when I met another new friend. Her screen name being Oni, that’s what I’m going to call her. I was in the YMCA after-school program, which meant that after school I hung around the building with some counselors from the Y. It was a lot better than the old daycare I went to. One day I was reading Warriors and Oni strikes up a conversation about the books with me.

Eventually we got to the subject of Neopets. I had had a Neopets account since I was 8 or 9. The first one, Duckysaura, I forgot the password to, so I made a new one, Duckyaisha. I was a casual player, using the boards only for shop advertisement (my parents had sent in the form so I could use them) and quest help. I wanted a faerie pteri and aisha, among other goals. Oni introduced me to the concept of roleplaying online, and asked that I join her guild, Rainclan.
I had been writing for a while now. My friend K even gave me the idea to write an actual book, but after 7 chapters, even I as a 5th grader realized how much it sucked and threw it in the closet never to be seen again. I was intrigued by the idea of roleplaying, and immediately began roleplaying on Neopets.

I wanted to join the guild with Icewing, but there was already a cat with Ice- and a cat with Snow- as their prefixes. So, for some unknown reason, I chose Sky as her prefix. The members were all very friendly and helped me out with things when I needed it.

I also did roleplays on the boards. I had known about Mary-sues for a while and began to learn more about them while on the boards. I mostly did Wolf roleplays and Warriors roleplays, and a few injected roleplays. I always made sure to give my character at least one flaw, for example, my fast wolf character was not very strong.

I did Warriors name rating too. Back then, I rated based on if the name flowed well and if the prefix was not a human object. That was the only restriction I put on prefixes- would a cat know about this object? If so, it’s a good name, if not, you fail.

I created two more cats in my guild besides the now-warrior Skycloud. Their names were Dovekit and Crowkit, and Crowkit really wanted to be medicine cat. So I basically had him stalk the current med cat because I had no idea how else to do it.

A year or two went by and I kept roleplaying, kept going on my guild, etc. It was in the summer before 7th grade that things began to change, because I had my first encounter with Ten. I gave her some of my names to rate and she immediately shot them down with logic. At first I was shocked. No one had ever done this to my names before. Then we started talking about exactly why it was that my names failed, she linked me to a name guide, (not hers, a different one) and I learned the ways of the Warrior names.

On my guild, in the beginning of 7th grade, I created a new character, shrimpy Shrikepaw with self-esteem issues. I loved using bird names, so here was yet another one. I also created stranger-shy Heronstep, a precursor to Rainstripe. The guild was still going strong, but things were changing. No longer did I see the others on my guild as roleplaying gods. I was at or above their level now and I began to notice their mistakes.

The same was happening in the boards. As my skill level rose, my standards did too, and most of the roleplays became not literate enough for me. I couldn’t stand Mary-sues, which were common as nitrogen in Injected roleplays, and fantasy wolf roleplays had the same problem. I often went on rants about the lack of good roleplays, and talked about all the things that bugged me.

Meanwhile, my guild was becoming more unstable. There was me, Oni, my other friend Lu, Stormy (the leader) and some others. Two other people, Moonlight and Snowfur, were the source of most of the trouble. They were incredibly sensitive, touchy, overdramatic, and exploded at the smallest thing. I critiqued a name- they got mad at me. I asked about one of their DA drawings- they got mad at me. I was getting quite annoyed.

I had been following THEM for a while, since the provided entertainment on every name-rating board they went to, and one day I saw Ten’s advertisement for Starless. I joined with Rainstripe, and the rest is history. Eventually the lack of good roleplays on Neo and the inactivity of my guild drove me to quit both.

[Paije]

Wow...this is surprising. I never thought I'd ever talk about when I started role playing. I'm still humiliated by it. >.>

I never used to pay attention to the internet or computer--until I was about 7 years old. It was a trend in my school--anyone who was anyone made a neopets account. I made an account, and raised a uni and some other neopets and stuff, but at my school if you did something cool on neopets you were officially the coolest person. I only joined neopets when I was little to gain some acceptance within my peers. Then I remember I left for awhile--but after that when I was 8 and 9 years old, another friend of mine showed me Runescape. I was a foolish little girl on there. I always tried to show off there and be mature. Until I got into a fight then was cussed out by some girl because my avatar on there was a black girl.

Then I remember amazon--I joined it in hopes of role playing; but I thought role playing was called "story-making". Role playing was non-exsistant on there because it caused wars between people. And I was brave enough to start my own Warriors role play-- FrostClan. That's where I first got Redstar. My role playing skills were awful and went something like this:

*redstar looked around* is ne 1 there? *she mewed and padded around*

I started to get better after awhile--after a month chat speak was out of my vocabulary and I was an idol on there. My moments of fame were cut short and I got a huge ego. And then I was hacked on there by my cousin--who decided to make me look like a huge a**hole and get chased off the forum. I was constantly haunted by that.

Then I re-joined neopets to role play again; and someone -- a girl named Lighty invited me to join a literate Warriors role play named Forgotten Pawsteps. The names there are unique. And I shame myself to say that I used to have cats on there like Blacktear, Obeliskpaw and so much more. But then on neopets I found myself becoming friends with people that bashed names like that, and others who just questioned them. Soon enough I met THEM on neopets; and I watched them around on neopets and even had my own forum-- Darkened Hearts. I admit that website was a mistake. I had names on there like Vilestar, Silentscream, oh god let's stop there. And with THEM and FPians I felt torn in between them. Because mainly I was friends with both sides and both tried to convince me to join their side and I couldn't help it but was both in FP but hung out with THEM. When I met Ten at first, I was intimidated by her intelligence and questions. But then later on, I was getting to know her and I thought "she's really nice--why do people on neopets and FP get so offended by her simple questions and want to start a war with her?" But then eventually I joined FoF--then here now. And I also find Ten to be a good lady to go to if you need advice. She also helps me a lot with my characters. >w> Just sayin.

Now I feel bad for sharing. ;c

[Gosh]

Ooh. This brings back memories.

I've been playing computer games since I was 4 (somewhat complex ones, but that's not the point). I think I was on the internet not long after that, but for the life of me I can't remember anything I did on the internet until around fourth grade. I'm going to assume that I did Google searches and surfed Wikipedia and played some flash games. Anyhow. Fourth grade. My friend Clare introduced me to this game called Club Penguin. It was my first real site that I just kept going back to, and I made some good friends there. One of the things we chatted about was Warriors, as by that point I was an avid reader and had read several Warriors books. After that was Webkinz (still fourth grade - all my friends had 'em), and then in the summer after fourth grade, Clare introduced me to Neopets.

Clare, at that point, was a roleplayer. So she went ahead and introduced me to the roleplaying boards (she had forced me to put in my age as like, 21, or something. I never told my parents, or ever asked to get the form sent in after my account got de-over 13'ified after I blurted out that I was under 13 in some thread.) Sorry for the de-railing. Anyways. Fourth grade had also been a year that the school put heavy emphasis on writing skills and grammar. So first I roleplayed things like vampires or gifted. Actually, let me rephrase: I roleplayed vampires or gifted, and that was it. Sometimes I roleplayed both. My main characters were Shade, a vampire, and her twin brother Orion, a human, which I used all the time. Orion would usually have the 'gift' of being able to speak any language, including cat and bush and, I'm assuming, air and sky. There was also a third addition, a werewolf named December. The three were probably Sue-ish, but I assure you that, if nothing else, the first Neo roleplays I took part in felt brilliant.

Eventually, I started getting interested in Warriors roleplays. I joined a Warriors guild called LionClan (actually, I think there were some manner of stars and other such things in the guild name, but that's beside the point.) My first cat was Silverfire, but I quickly followed with a multitude of others. Well. Actually, it didn't happen that quickly. I remember only having Silverfire, Badgerheart, and Viperclaw for some time. But then there were more, a lot more, each of them with a mate, and they all usually ended up having kits - but only once, since except with a few special ones, they got forgotten about and we moved on to the next generation. I kept a document saved with various prophecies and who all my cats were and their mates (or intended mates.) I just counted; I had 91 living cats. And 9 dead ones. I'm not going to bore you with all the ridiculous prophecies and plots we had, but at the end, there were vampire and werewolf cats, and our leader stated, quite reasonably, that we should start over. I quit the guild and kinda stopped roleplaying for a while. I might have returned to the board roleplays, but every time I tried to, I seemed to get suspended. That's probably exaggerating, but still, I was cautious.

Having read Ducky's post, I remembered how my sister and I also played some live-action roleplays, and had done so for some time, sometimes with stuffed animals or other toys and sometimes with just us. Cats. Wolves. Horses. Dragons, especially. When I was feeling lazy, I might decide to be a panda so that I'd have an excuse to lie around. In fourth grade (again) my friends and I did our own version of that, in which we were faeries with magical powers; but I didn't really have the concept of us being really different characters. Sure, our names were different - mine was Nire, which is my own name backwards - but, especially as my power was technology, it didn't feel like a different person. This was before I learned to roleplay; after I did so, I introduced two of my friends (one of whom was in the aforementioned faerie group) to Neo and roleplaying. They had read Warriors, and so both at recess and online, the three of us would roleplay. We still do that sometimes. But I've gotten off track here, as I had to interject this in after I thought I was done and finished reading everyone else's posts.

I became obsessed with gaining avatars and became an AC'er (Avatar Chatter, on the Avatars/Neosignatures board - even now I feel shamed for typing that instead of AC) but it didn't take too long for Neo to lose its lure. I sometimes found myself lurking on roleplay boards, because I found myself with nothing better to do and nowhere to go (a couple months later I would find some art sites, and another pet one, but anyways) and that, my friends, is how I found Starless. Ten had been advertising on a board. I complimented her on the plot; she directed me to the site.

And so I joined Starless on October 10, 2008 and haven't participated in another Neopets roleplay since. That is, excepting the ones in the numerous guilds (and later, forums) my friend would start and then abandon once they failed. But here, on Starless, my roleplaying capacity - or at least capacity for not having to have a million plus one prophecies - has grown past this:

Cheetahkit blinked open his eyes. Slowly he sat up and looked around. Then he fell to the ground again as images flashed by so fast he could only barely see them.
A crow and a flash of amber, intertwining more and more-and suddenly he could not see the images, they were flashing by so rapidly-until suddenly he saw a queen, nursing five she-kits. One black, one grey, one white, one brown, and another a greenish-grey. Each kit, but not their mother, was surrounded by stars...
Breathing heavily, he opened his eyes again to see his mother looking at him with concern.

That was one of nine prophecies given to that one cat, Cheetahkit (who eventually became Cheetahpaw and Cheetahrush). I saved most of them, as well as the explanation of one of our arguably longest-running plots. Perhaps I'll share them someday so that we can all ridicule.

[riro44]

Let's see, these past memories are a bit hazy, and I guess I am itching to write them down.

When I was about seven or eight, Webkinz were a really big thing. Some of my friends had them, and I couldn't resist. My sister and I (who is two years younger than me) each bought ourselves a webkinz with our own money and it was a REALLY BIG DEAL. I played the game on my dad's laptop, AND THE GAME WAS AMAZING. I had a panda bear that I named Koko, I loved him, made his room everything bamboo decorated, gave him a million rooms (including a toy room) and let him play, cook, and watch TV. I went on every day. So, I have this rich cousin, everytime I went over her house, she gave me a webkinz. I ended up having about 22. Then the craze sort of died, and I never went on again. But it lasted for a whole, solid year.

Then my mom gave me her old computer, big an bulky, horrible internet, and terribly slow. But to me, it was awesome. But I never went on it. And when I say never, I mean NEVER. A year passed and the thing collected dust. My friend told me to go on the computer all the time and check my e-mail (because I was the only other friend who actually had an e-mail). I never did. To me computers and internet and e-mails were just so boring. I spent the whole summer on my couch devouring books.

Then, after a while, I went on, and became hooked on virtual pet games, although I have no idea how I found them. I think neopets was first, but I created an acount and never went on. Later, I remembered neopets, went on, and played for a long time. Then, I became obsessed with online breeding games. I played Pure Felinity for a while (it was my first breeding game and the thing was fantastic), but after a while, the thing was to hard. I spent my time looking for more. But every day I would find one, join, play, and never come back again. I wanted something hard (not where you could birth five animals on your first 5 minutes there, or buy 20 animals with the money they gave you to start off) and more fun.

I searched the site for virtual animal games, and came across a roleplaying site, Flaming Passions (I think it is still alive today). I had no idea how to play and it looked really boring (just a bunch of forums) and I quickly disregarded it.

After time, I have no idea when, I joined like 10 absolutely dead roleplaying sites. I created a character and replyed to some threads, but no one every spoke to me. I soon learned what the word 'dead' really ment. One of the sites lead me to a low activity site. It was an owl one. There I truely learned how to roleplay, my style was about one short paragraph. For my first roleplaying site ever, it was pretty good. But also for my first roleplaying site, the limit was 250 words, and I couldn't keep up. It soon died, and I left.

I think then I actually joined some active sites, and became really engrossed. I watched all of them die. Every passing site, I got better and better, I think the one that helped me the most would be Unbridled. I stayed there for two years, where I got amazing at roleplaying, and then left (even though the site is still active today). Another site that I had joined before and stayed a while at was Paradise Island, though when they moved, I moved on.

I had tried reading the Warriors series a few times (I owned Into the Wild), but I hated them, they were so confusing. Then, I don't know what did it for me, I read it one mre time and loved it. I read the whole series and then all of them after that (right now I am on Omen of the Stars #2). I joined Warrior cat roleplay sites. I loved the old forest, the original series, and Riverclan the best. My favorite characters were Firestar (but I liked him better when he was Firepaw), Graystripe, Bluestar (I cried so much when she died), Yellowfang (again cried), Cloudtail, and Cinderpelt. And you know what I almost gave up on the series because I hated Hollyleaf, Jayfeather, and Lionblaze. But I was glad when Dovepaw came along.

Then, at Christmas, I got a laptop that I use and love so much today. The day after Christmas, I started creating a Warriors roleplaying site, and it actually got off the ground. I was so excited. I had tried creating sites before and they never had worked. The site was based off the original clans and the old forest. I was the leader of Riverclan. I loved every moment of the site and went on all the time. Unfortunately, it died.

By then my roleplay was where it is today. I took a hiatus from roleplaying, instead only playing on Chickensmoothie, which I found boring. I wanted roleplaying back. Starless is the first roleplaying site I have joined since my hiatus, and I am glad that it is such a good one.