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canadiandiamondSo, I had a notion to make a post every day this week for the whole Speak Out With Your Geek Out event, today until Friday. I had some ideas but I'm off to a slow, slow start today with a busy work day that saw me in the city way longer than anticipated, but I'm going to give it a shot anyway.
For Day 1, the first thing I want to talk about is the very first thing that comes to mind when I think of my geekdom: RP.
First, a general guideline can be found here, which is an almost exhaustive list of characters I've rp'd with in the past. I say almost exhaustive because right now I'm involved with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
x_project here on LJ with two characters, Sarah Vale (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
x_network) and Sam Guthrie (x_cannonball), but they're not on the list and I don't plan on updating it. As I see it now, it's more of an archive or historical monument to the characters I used to play, and I don't want to disturb it. Also, pretty much all of those characters were on the now-defunct Greatest Journal and Insane Journal sites, the former which are sadly no longer accessible (aside from archives I've saved on my HDD), and the latter which mainly were purged due to non-usage awhile back.
How did I start to RP, you might ask? Or you might not, but I'm going to tell you anyway. It started out of simple curiosity at first, more or less. I'm no longer sure how I came across the website in the first place - I believe this old website is theirs, perhaps - but I stumbled across the Alliance Simulation Group (ASG) somewhere in cyberspace. They ran a lot of Star Trek related sims that, while they didn't really interest me, opened my mind to the possibility of what rp's offered and how much fun they could be.
ASG also had other branches, and I found my niche in its X-World division, where all things X-Men/superhero related could be found. The sims were run in IRC chatrooms and you had to be accepted as a recruit, more or less, and prove yourself in a minimum of four training sims (under #Academy) until you were deemed ready to be a member. Ahh, the memories of IRC chatting. How I longed to one day have an @ before my name - and in time I did, running a Generation X sim there for a short while, haha. I went by the handle Diamond there, which incidentally is where Canadian Diamond came up for my LJ username (as Diamond had long been taken).
Joining X-World lead to me making many awesome friends, too few of whom I really stay in contact with these days, sadly, but there are still some that I talk to once in awhile. I can't remember when I started playing there, exactly, but I think it was somewhere around 1999 or thereabouts. I do know I was playing there regularly before graduating from MUN, which was in 2000, and I recall trying to get some friends from residence to try it (it didn't take for them, sadly). I mainly recall the original characters I made back then, many of which I tucked away and would later reinvent/tweak for journal RP, but that came much later. Hell, I think I still have many, many old IRC chatlogs kicking around my PC - I'm somewhat of a packrat, both digitally and in real life - and I may have to dig those out later on, if anyone's interested.
Eventually, journal rp became more and more prevalent, and many of my IRC friends started preferring that to our IRC sessions. I remember being hesitant at first, especially at the notion of having to use played-bys (PBs) for your characters. I couldn't understand why you'd want to attach someone else's face to your character (or a canon character), but I've long since overcome that, haha. I never was and still am not big on real person rp but that's just a case of some things not being for everyone, I suppose.
I jumped ship and joined my friends in time, tentatively trying out journal RP by tweaking an old IRC character and translating him into this strange new universe. And it was amazing. Thanks to joining a game (run byshinyandnat), which was also populated by a good number of my IRC buddies, I managed to make the transition in a more or less painless fashion - the first character I played was so self-insert looking back that it hurts, haha. But I was sold then, hook, line, and sinker.
I played in many, many more games after that - see the above link to my IJ for a near exhaustive list - and, oh my. The times I had. I managed to save a good chunk of it by backing up all of my GJ journals and most of the communities before it went belly up, and likewise with what's on IJ, though sadly I lost a lot of journals on the latter site through sheer stupidity and shortsightedness. Thankfully, I suppose, the vast majority of my rp - and my favourite moments - were on GJ and are safely stored on here.
So many of the characters I made stick out to me, and always will, not to mention the friends I made (which I'm saving for another day this week). There was Paul Hemingway (god, even the name is an insert, using the name of one of my favourite authors for pete's sake, and his pb was Nicholas Brendon / Xander, my favourite character from my favourite show at the time, aldsjkasoikdas how anyone could even stand me I'll never know XD), the first foray into LJ, my first attempts at canon with Scott Summers in The Gifted, my many various Iceman characters in all shapes and sizes (like so many popsicles!), too many to name.
The ones that stick out the most, though, were the original characters (OCs). Paul Hemingway, even though the name still makes me cringe, was the first of those as well, but so many more followed. Of particular note were Caleb Parks and Sara McKenzie, from the same game, where I believe I wrote the most in the shortest amount of time ever. And, it's worth noting, that game saw me play my first ever female character, something I've done many times since and have grown to love, and still do to this day. I've also written more fic/ficlets/what have you with Sara McKenzie (and her friend/significant other, depending on the universe, Ruby Ryan, created by my darling wifebelieveitup), including an entire NaNo feature them and other characters, some of which can be found in my memories here.
Gosh, I could go on and on, the IRC/ASG stuff I've dug up while writing this post alone are bringing back so many fond memories, but this entry is already getting unwieldy and it's after midnight so I should wrap it up. But yes, me and RP, it's been such a huge part of my life and I'm so, so grateful for it. And I know it's been big in a lot of my friend's lives, too, and I made so many of them through it that I'm proud to call myself an rp'r. Roleplayer? However you want to spell/abbreviate it. :D
[eta] Forgot to link my old log stats from most of my characters. The links are now defunct and it's dated (Jan '08 was the last time it was updated) but it fits in with the theme and all. :)
For Day 1, the first thing I want to talk about is the very first thing that comes to mind when I think of my geekdom: RP.
First, a general guideline can be found here, which is an almost exhaustive list of characters I've rp'd with in the past. I say almost exhaustive because right now I'm involved with
x_project here on LJ with two characters, Sarah Vale (x_network) and Sam Guthrie (x_cannonball), but they're not on the list and I don't plan on updating it. As I see it now, it's more of an archive or historical monument to the characters I used to play, and I don't want to disturb it. Also, pretty much all of those characters were on the now-defunct Greatest Journal and Insane Journal sites, the former which are sadly no longer accessible (aside from archives I've saved on my HDD), and the latter which mainly were purged due to non-usage awhile back.How did I start to RP, you might ask? Or you might not, but I'm going to tell you anyway. It started out of simple curiosity at first, more or less. I'm no longer sure how I came across the website in the first place - I believe this old website is theirs, perhaps - but I stumbled across the Alliance Simulation Group (ASG) somewhere in cyberspace. They ran a lot of Star Trek related sims that, while they didn't really interest me, opened my mind to the possibility of what rp's offered and how much fun they could be.
ASG also had other branches, and I found my niche in its X-World division, where all things X-Men/superhero related could be found. The sims were run in IRC chatrooms and you had to be accepted as a recruit, more or less, and prove yourself in a minimum of four training sims (under #Academy) until you were deemed ready to be a member. Ahh, the memories of IRC chatting. How I longed to one day have an @ before my name - and in time I did, running a Generation X sim there for a short while, haha. I went by the handle Diamond there, which incidentally is where Canadian Diamond came up for my LJ username (as Diamond had long been taken).
Joining X-World lead to me making many awesome friends, too few of whom I really stay in contact with these days, sadly, but there are still some that I talk to once in awhile. I can't remember when I started playing there, exactly, but I think it was somewhere around 1999 or thereabouts. I do know I was playing there regularly before graduating from MUN, which was in 2000, and I recall trying to get some friends from residence to try it (it didn't take for them, sadly). I mainly recall the original characters I made back then, many of which I tucked away and would later reinvent/tweak for journal RP, but that came much later. Hell, I think I still have many, many old IRC chatlogs kicking around my PC - I'm somewhat of a packrat, both digitally and in real life - and I may have to dig those out later on, if anyone's interested.
Eventually, journal rp became more and more prevalent, and many of my IRC friends started preferring that to our IRC sessions. I remember being hesitant at first, especially at the notion of having to use played-bys (PBs) for your characters. I couldn't understand why you'd want to attach someone else's face to your character (or a canon character), but I've long since overcome that, haha. I never was and still am not big on real person rp but that's just a case of some things not being for everyone, I suppose.
I jumped ship and joined my friends in time, tentatively trying out journal RP by tweaking an old IRC character and translating him into this strange new universe. And it was amazing. Thanks to joining a game (run by
shinyandnat), which was also populated by a good number of my IRC buddies, I managed to make the transition in a more or less painless fashion - the first character I played was so self-insert looking back that it hurts, haha. But I was sold then, hook, line, and sinker.I played in many, many more games after that - see the above link to my IJ for a near exhaustive list - and, oh my. The times I had. I managed to save a good chunk of it by backing up all of my GJ journals and most of the communities before it went belly up, and likewise with what's on IJ, though sadly I lost a lot of journals on the latter site through sheer stupidity and shortsightedness. Thankfully, I suppose, the vast majority of my rp - and my favourite moments - were on GJ and are safely stored on here.
So many of the characters I made stick out to me, and always will, not to mention the friends I made (which I'm saving for another day this week). There was Paul Hemingway (god, even the name is an insert, using the name of one of my favourite authors for pete's sake, and his pb was Nicholas Brendon / Xander, my favourite character from my favourite show at the time, aldsjkasoikdas how anyone could even stand me I'll never know XD), the first foray into LJ, my first attempts at canon with Scott Summers in The Gifted, my many various Iceman characters in all shapes and sizes (like so many popsicles!), too many to name.
The ones that stick out the most, though, were the original characters (OCs). Paul Hemingway, even though the name still makes me cringe, was the first of those as well, but so many more followed. Of particular note were Caleb Parks and Sara McKenzie, from the same game, where I believe I wrote the most in the shortest amount of time ever. And, it's worth noting, that game saw me play my first ever female character, something I've done many times since and have grown to love, and still do to this day. I've also written more fic/ficlets/what have you with Sara McKenzie (and her friend/significant other, depending on the universe, Ruby Ryan, created by my darling wife
believeitup), including an entire NaNo feature them and other characters, some of which can be found in my memories here.Gosh, I could go on and on, the IRC/ASG stuff I've dug up while writing this post alone are bringing back so many fond memories, but this entry is already getting unwieldy and it's after midnight so I should wrap it up. But yes, me and RP, it's been such a huge part of my life and I'm so, so grateful for it. And I know it's been big in a lot of my friend's lives, too, and I made so many of them through it that I'm proud to call myself an rp'r. Roleplayer? However you want to spell/abbreviate it. :D
[eta] Forgot to link my old log stats from most of my characters. The links are now defunct and it's dated (Jan '08 was the last time it was updated) but it fits in with the theme and all. :)
