Chitchat What got you into writing/roleplaying?

[Metryxin]

I found that people did it on IMVU and I tried to tag along, then I began writing books/stories, then I got back into it on Virtual Space Amino.

 

[RunawayGirl]

It's an odd story. I got into roleplaying by a stranger in an app called Doodle Club. I was 13, a online drawing app where users could compete every month for Doodle of the month. You could get quite good. They also had chats and since. Lot of fanart was made and based off some popular DevianArt accounts for marvel, etc. Often people would reach out for Roleplays and i had no idea what it was and thought it was really stupid. But, then one day I was bored in the chat, someone asked for marvel Roleplay, and here i am now six, almost seven years later.

 

[melz]

i've always really liked writing and people have told me i'm good at it. it's the one hobby i have that i'm actually pretty confident in. i got into roleplaying once i joined a virtual pet site that had roleplaying forums, and being both bored and interested in the concept, i ended up spending a lot of time on those boards. i've since stopped really visiting that site quite as much for other reasons, but my enjoyment of roleplaying has stuck around.​

 

[Cinereous]

Yugioh.

You see, I started off on a Yugioh forum. Not as a writer or roleplayer, but as a theorycrafter. This was back when the original Yugioh! 4kids dub was still airing, so the meta wasn't completely foreign to any kid with a good sense for basic mathematics and enough time on their hands. Anyway, that site had a fanfiction and general writing section that I had friends in. I mostly reviewed their material and tossed ideas back and forth, but then I started writing material of my own after people thought I should.

At around the same time, an older friend of mine in real life bought a Dungeons and Dragons 3.5e box set. I played a Cleric in an after-school campaign, and then started joining summer campaigns at the local game store with people around ten years my senior. Fortunately they liked the cut of my jib, so I was allowed to keep playing.

Then I moved to a different country and never touched a character sheet until middle school.

I started my return to the practice through play by post roleplay at the aforementioned Yugioh site. I ended up in the roleplaying section by being an absolute genius and connecting the dots of "roleplaying game" and "roleplaying subforum". Unfortunately nobody wanted to run tabletop RPs there, so instead of DnD I was doing mid-2000s classics like Academy and Supernatural (not that Supernatural) RPs with some truly saucy freeform RP OCs.

Some bad experiences, some good experiences, and many dedicated roleplaying forums later, I find myself here.

 

[Dreawin]

Myspace

 

[GhostDash]

For as long as I can remember I've been creating characters and stories--even wrote a "book" at 7 or 8--and after getting into anime, I started RPing with a friend, then migrated to Myspace for a little while. RP itself has been stop-and-go through the years, but any opportunity I get to write something, I take it. Creativity is just in my blood and breath.

 

[BrandedAFreak]

AOL, around '97 or '98.

This was when I was first getting online, too. I played in a lot of things, from Dragonball Z to Fushigi Yuugi to Sailor Moon to (sadly) wrestling. I also had characters that I created for original stories that I worked out with other people. It took a lot of trial and error to settle into what I liked and I enjoyed it a lot. I made friends (and lost them, too) but it just pushed me towards my own writing and creating my own stories. As it stands right now, I'm working out a couple different stories that I hope to get published in the future. Even if I don't, it's something that I've enjoyed and I tend to get frustrated when I can't get something written.

 

[delted]

Finding people to write with is hard, especially when you want to write about certain things that are important to you. When I found roleplaying, I was skeptical, but I knew that I wanted to find a way to get involved. I started roleplaying online in 2016, and I have been doing it ever since. It is a nice way to escape reality, to share your ideas, to make amazing work with others, and to create bonds with people. My one issue is that I haven't been able to find that one site that I want to stick with, so lets hope this is the one!

 

[Jello]

I've always been an avid reader. I've been writing stories since I was a child. However, it was purely coincidence that I started roleplaying. When I was much younger I read the Warriors books religiously. Around the same time I started playing on the website Foopets. I found their forums, many of which were Warriors roleplays, and I was hooked. I only got on that website to roleplay after that. It's embarrassing now because my interests and writing style has changed so drastically, but I'll never forget where I came from. They took away the roleplay forums on that site years ago, but I'll always have a soft spot for the website that started it all for me.

 

[BasiliskVeranda]

I was always a writer. In college, I was going through some rough waters, and rejoined a site I had played on as a kid: Gaia Online. It seemed there were roleplaying games going on. I was crap at it. Cringe-level edgelord crap. But as time went on, I got better.

It was an escape, and it still is, in many regards. But I also fundamentally know I got into roleplaying because the stories I want to read, the shows I want to see, the movies I want to watch, the characters I want to learn about and the journeys I want to follow...just don't exist.

So I had to make my own. Because I just can't find what I want to, out here. That sounds weird, but I hope y'all understand.

 

[MysticWitch]

I think for me it came about from a few different things: because I was often alone as a child, I read a lot. It was a escape from reality and from the troubles I was dealing with. Then I found a few TV shows that I loved and kept me from falling into deep depression. I wrote fanfiction for the tv shows then came across a few old Yahoo boards and met a few people that shared a love of the shows that I loved and we just started Rping from there. For me, I don't think I would be who I am without RPing. It did help me because I was always awkward talking to people. I was so shy and withdrawn. But it helped form a bond with strangers. I'm still pretty awkward but I think I have gotten much better.

 

[Parallax]

I believe that I first fell in love with writing when I was in the 2nd grade.
The English teacher was having us take turns reading a segment of the story.
It was a basic story, meant to teach proper grammar and spelling.

When it came to my turn, I was bored. I wasn't listening.
She told me to pick up where my classmate had left off.
After struggling to find it, I finally picked up his place.
It spoke of a young boy who was trying to sleep in his bunk bed, speaking to his brother.

I remember faltering when I got to the line, "I flipped my pillow over to the cool side."
It stunned me.
Something so simple, but it resonated with me.

Writing became something I could feel.
Something I could understand.
Something that I could carry out any way I wanted.
I could put in any detail.
Put in any feeling.
And if I illustrated it properly, it would come alive.​

 

[Renia]

For me, it was back when the book Eragon had just been released. I remember wanting to look up when the next book was coming out (I really loved the first book, though I didn't like the second and I don't think I even finished the third..) Anyway, I stumbled upon a roleplay site for Eragon and was completely hooked. Soon after I lost interest in the series, but I was able to create my own forum for fantasy roleplay and had a lot of success with it. I've been roleplaying ever since, really. Though now I know I'd rather join a forum than lead one, haha. I really wish I could have roleplayed Deltora Quest, though, I loved both the books and the animated series.. that would have been a fun one to play with!

 

[Kon]

Funny enough Roblox got me into rping like 4 years ago. I went to some anime rp servers and met chill people I became friends with for a long time.

 

[Ishtarran]

I started RPing, get this... 11 years ago. 8 years old. I was browsing around the AllPoetry network and found a quaint little site called ChatAct, which unfortunately no longer exists, but an RP community still exists on its remaining sister sites. Still have an online friend from back then. Doubt she frequents this site, though.

 

[Goinggoinggone]

I'd like to say that I have some really interesting reason, but honestly it was low self-esteem? Didn't have a lot of friends, the isolation was kinda difficult- I actually picked up RP on the National Novel Writing Month site. It kinda blew but everyone there was really young, I guess no one cared. Certainly helped me learn about well-balanced characters oml

 

[h2h0e]

As depressing and sad as it may be, I kind of have a turbulent home life, and when I was younger, I had always wanted to be an author (I still have some of the rough drafts of random writings that I did cx). One day I went to the library and searched something random and the link to this site was the first thing that showed up. Me being curious as to what roleplay was, I red a few forums and was intrigued. When things would get bad at home, I would roleplay, and I would feel better. Even though the dream of being an author has morphed itself into the dream of creating an all new kids show that will change the way the younger generation sees controversial subjects (thanks, Steven), I still use roleplay as sort of an escape/coping mechanism. I think part of it has to do with getting into a plotline and the characters involved that appealed to me so much. But yeah, there's my story.

 

[scorpiodragon]

I am not entirely sure what got me into writing. I have been doing it since I was a kid and tend to work on a lot of fan fiction, which I have not updated in a while, most being around Harry Potter. It really became a thing for me when I turned 9.

As for rp’ing, I did not know it existed until my mid to late 20s. I didn’t get actively staryed in it until probably 2014-2015. I find I don’t have much luck rping, most stuff I join tends to die after a while or the people lose interest. So I just focus on my hosted project now and my discord rp between me and another player.

I d not have any real life friends due to anxiety/PTSD so online is where I get social interaction. It’s somewhat easier to talk to someone on the net hen in real life for me.

 

[AGent87]

So, I'd been making up stories in my head since I was very little, at least kindergarten. For some reason, though, I never thought to put it onto paper. Then this genius fella walks up to me in church one day when I was fifteen and says, "You should start writing your stories out on paper." I have no idea why that had never occurred to me before lol. It was the single most important thing I feel like I have ever been told. I've never roleplayed (yet), but writing? Who doesn't like to become someone else for while? Lol

 

[Yunalescaa]

My cousin started roleplaying before me. We were kinda young on Neopets (#throwback) and she IM'ed me saying "You should check out the roleplay board! You get to pretend to be a character and write about them." I thought it was sooooo cool so naturally I did exactly what she told me. I started off roleplaying the Warriors series. Like, the one about the cats. I think I was only like, 10 at the time? I kept it up because it was just so much fun.

 

[Dmaster]

I actually started roleplaying and improving myself as a writer when I stumbled across Garry's Mod 'Serious Roleplay' which was really just a distinction to show that it wasn't something on the lighter side like DarkRP. Much standing about and typing away large textboxes and /me's and arguing in OOC over silly, petty things. But between becoming a member of the upper administration in a popular community, scrutinizing lore-breaking character backstories, and crafting some genuinely cool stories and memories... I miss it.

 

[ctm]

I role play to escape my life and become someone else, even if just for a few minutes a day.

 

[atomic]

I’ve always written, though once upon a time whilst looking for a good conversation about Harry Potter with people on Omegle, people kept sending these annoying prompts. I skipped and skipped until finally asking wtf is this? And they just typed... “reply as Remus”. So I replied as Remus and it was the angstiest shit my twelve year old ass had ever written. Omegle one on ones led to hp group chatzy rps. I started doing OC’s in the hp universe on chatzy. I did my first forum rp on Chicken Smoothie (warriors). Then moved back original human plots. Ten years later I’m on RPN only doing 1x1s, rping m// with a handful of gem rp partners.