Aside from some of my more obvious issues, schizophrenia of characterization is something that I struggle with. Part of the problem is that I have a writer's brain. I am forever coming up with new storybook situations, new scenes out of seemingly random occurences, new characters to interact in them. Part of it is that I have the attention span of a paramecium. Most of it is that I just can't (won't) stop. This explains my total obsession with roleplaying games.

I started roleplaying when I was eleven. Wait, twelve. No... thirt--I was way too young to be roleplaying, is what I was. I never learned in the lap of family or friends like our Melbonia. Being somewhat of a geek even back then, I spent too much time on the computer playing quality games and fell into an online freeform roleplaying chronicle at a place called "The Chathouse", somewhere in the Flip Side. I began life as a lowly peasant selkie -- what? like you've never! -- whose name was directly ripped off of the first single-title romance book I ever read. Again, I repeat, like you've never! Within the space of five years' dedicated roleplay, I'd been blood-bound to a High Queen, made her Regent, cast as the Archmage of Healing in a Wizard's Tower, turned down a King (laughed in his face, actually), lost two lovers, gone mad with grief and become the crazy witch on the deserted island, found and returned again, and was the friend and "mother" to two beautiful dragons.

I was sixteen, if my math-to-school-grade is right, when the whole story ended -- as it always does -- in a cacophany of drama and out of character mayhem.Some people become brilliant doctors by this age. I had a complete, if imaginary, life wrapped up in the space of five years. And they ask if roleplaying is addicting?

I still remember a time when my mother and I shared a bedroom in a rented floor of a Virginia house. I had a habit of operating on precious little sleep -- I'd kill for that ability now -- and I would stay up late, clickety-clacking on the keys as mom tried to slip a few feet away. During one particular eventful night, I warned my mother ahead of time (quite seriously!) that there was a war brewing between kingdoms, and I had to be at the council to make sure it didn't happen. She laughed, but she let me stay up with no argument that time. It was about 3:30 in the morning that my clattering woke her up, and as she rolled over with a muttered curse/question, I cheerfully whispered, "It's okay, mom, I saved the kingdom from war!"

She mumbled something about, "Oh, that's good," before zonking out again, while I tried to make sure not to wake her again.

This fever in me has never really died. It's abated, with time and life, and it has occasionally gone dormant.  The older I've gotten, the more jaded I've become, until I forget sometimes that a real story is told by many people, and there are never really winners in a game of fantasy. Characters have sprung up, sometimes fully formed from the head of some muse-like goddess, and sometimes only half a thought waiting patiently for flesh and bone.

I branched out from freeform (and shudder, now, to think that I spent so long doing it), and attempted high school Dungeons and Dragons. At this point, I think they were still calling themselves "Advanced". I had no idea at the time that this was an indication of where my math skills needed to be.  From these fledgling table-top days (I played a half-elf bard because who hasn't?), I started forum-RPing again (because I'm an effing glutton for it, and to make it even more hilarious, it was fan-fiction), and then moved into MU*ing on ASCII text-based games. My husband and I have fond memories of sharing our single 1-gig computer, me curled up on the chair and him perched on the back behind it. We'd alt-tab between screens, and I'd write what he said for his character. It was an innocent, fresh enjoyment kind of time. From MU*s, to LARPing, and from LARPing to MMORPGs. Not necessarily in this specific order.

For that matter, I still maintain the latter two, which doesn't help my multiple-character disorder, either.

To date, I maintain five characters, one of which hasn't started yet. This is extremely paired down from the scads and scads I had going on any number of games and events. There was a point in my life when I had two forum/mailing list roleplay games, three characters on a single MU*, one on another, staffed all of the above, two LARP characters (depending on what was running at the local U.), and whatever MMO I was playing at the time, with however many character slots they give you.

Un. Healthy.

I'm proud of myself for paring down, even if I swap them out for new faces more times than anybody really likes. But I also can't help but wonder what it is about making characters that seems so much more interesting than long-term playing. I haven't managed to play a single character for longer than six months since my MU* days. Costuming, decriptive writing, finding new quirks, new thoughts, new dreams, is just as fascinating, if not more so, and may explain why I keep trying to be a writer. Call me legion, says the title of this post, for we are many, and it has nothing to do with the Biblical reference. Except, uh, it's a quote. But I'm not talking about the demons in my head -- those have their own place to frolic. This is character, pure and simple, and I'll wager a plate of my killer french toast that The Girls know exactly what I'm talking about.

Doncha, girls?

(An incidental note: I just checked up on my ol' friend The Chathouse, and wouldn't you know it? Half of it is still there. The Flip Side is as empty as the ghost town I know it is, but I stare at that god-awful screen and see the lists filled to the brim. Edain, my Ard Rhigan, wherever you are, this one's for you.)